Way to kick gravity's ass, Professor!
Friday, April 27, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
"Wait for the rerun?"
Not while there's BitTorrent!
I missed King of the Hill and The Simpsons this past Sunday night.
Monday morning, I found the them via a BitTorrent tracker and less than an hour later, there they were on the Desktop of the Mac.
I watched them, and then trashed them. No need to clutter the hard drive with ephemera.
As opposed to "The IT Crowd" and the as yet unaired in the U.S. episodes of Doctor Who.
However, viewing TV episodes on the computer is not the optimum viewing experience.
In a year or so, I think I'll start looking on eBay for used first generation Apple TV units. I should be able to afford one by then. Along with 30 feet of ethernet cable to hook it up to the computer.
I missed King of the Hill and The Simpsons this past Sunday night.
Monday morning, I found the them via a BitTorrent tracker and less than an hour later, there they were on the Desktop of the Mac.
I watched them, and then trashed them. No need to clutter the hard drive with ephemera.
As opposed to "The IT Crowd" and the as yet unaired in the U.S. episodes of Doctor Who.
However, viewing TV episodes on the computer is not the optimum viewing experience.
In a year or so, I think I'll start looking on eBay for used first generation Apple TV units. I should be able to afford one by then. Along with 30 feet of ethernet cable to hook it up to the computer.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Giving Google's AdSense a try
More for the amusement of seeing what Google thinks is appropriate for here than for the money.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
01/31/07: Never Forget!
DIY mini-Ignignokt LED "light board"
The immortal 555 IC is the heart of this project. The PCB schematic and layout is available as a PDF download, as is the parts list.
I emailed the gentleman with some questions, in the hope that he'll read it before he gets hammered by the flood of email he is sure to get from having the above page mentioned on the MAKE blog.
I would love to see a full sized replica of the original 185 LED Ignignokt 'light board'. I hope that this project inspires someone to design one.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
I wish I didn't know this
OK, bear with me. The All In One is a Macintosh that was sold to the educational market. A G3 running anywhere from 233 to 300 Mhz. One of the options was the "Wings" audio/visual card.
Composit video and S-video inputs and outputs. It also handled the interface between the graphics chips on the logic board and the built in monitor.
So, it seems that some of these Wings cards also were made with two extra connectors. These connectors were for the Apple TV or TV/FM Tuner card, and the Infrared remote control interface card. The tuner card was intended for several different Macs, all using essentially the same logic board. These Macs also had the IR remote board installed.
Apple, it seems, may have intended the All In One to be used with these cards and then,late in the game, never produced the All In One intended for the cards.
Now that I know this. I MUST find one of these Wings cards for my All In One! I have a spare TV Tuner card and have a suitable Mac in the closet I can salvage the IR board from.
If I can find a TV/FM Tuner card, so much the better!
Why do I want to do all this to the All In One? Well, why not? If I can find the Wings card cheap enough, this will enhance what the computer can do, and enhancing its resale value, should the need arise to sell it.
Also, honestly, it sounds like a fun hack. Making something do something it couldn't previously do. I also get to figure out where to install the IR sensor, how to mount some of the hardware, all that good stuff.
Composit video and S-video inputs and outputs. It also handled the interface between the graphics chips on the logic board and the built in monitor.
So, it seems that some of these Wings cards also were made with two extra connectors. These connectors were for the Apple TV or TV/FM Tuner card, and the Infrared remote control interface card. The tuner card was intended for several different Macs, all using essentially the same logic board. These Macs also had the IR remote board installed.
Apple, it seems, may have intended the All In One to be used with these cards and then,late in the game, never produced the All In One intended for the cards.
Now that I know this. I MUST find one of these Wings cards for my All In One! I have a spare TV Tuner card and have a suitable Mac in the closet I can salvage the IR board from.
If I can find a TV/FM Tuner card, so much the better!
Why do I want to do all this to the All In One? Well, why not? If I can find the Wings card cheap enough, this will enhance what the computer can do, and enhancing its resale value, should the need arise to sell it.
Also, honestly, it sounds like a fun hack. Making something do something it couldn't previously do. I also get to figure out where to install the IR sensor, how to mount some of the hardware, all that good stuff.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Thursday, April 5, 2007
So much for the stone knives and bear skins!
The "new" Macintosh is here!
Had a modest amount of trouble, vis a vis the master/slave drive settings between the OS X and OS 9 drives. A little googling found the needed jumper settings.
Video files that were unwatchable on the old Mac are now perfectly fine! I missed last night's episode of LOST: No matter, I can watch it via streaming video from abc.com.
I was surprised that it booted off the OS X drive easily. The previous Mac was a G3 running at 450 Mhz. The new Mac is a 1.42 Ghz, G4 dual processor.
So, all that remains is to thank Keith Kahla, an old and dear and generous friend, without whose generosity I'd still be using the ancient Mac All In One, as well as Robert Woodhead, an equally generous friend, who had just the right Mac for just the right price.
Robert is the owner of Animeigo. Go and buy Anime and Japanese films from him! I've seen his products, and they're all first rate.
Lacking permission, I'll not say more about what Keith does, lest his sterling reputation in the salons of NYC be tarnished by association with a grubby geek such as myself.
Had a modest amount of trouble, vis a vis the master/slave drive settings between the OS X and OS 9 drives. A little googling found the needed jumper settings.
Video files that were unwatchable on the old Mac are now perfectly fine! I missed last night's episode of LOST: No matter, I can watch it via streaming video from abc.com.
I was surprised that it booted off the OS X drive easily. The previous Mac was a G3 running at 450 Mhz. The new Mac is a 1.42 Ghz, G4 dual processor.
So, all that remains is to thank Keith Kahla, an old and dear and generous friend, without whose generosity I'd still be using the ancient Mac All In One, as well as Robert Woodhead, an equally generous friend, who had just the right Mac for just the right price.
Robert is the owner of Animeigo. Go and buy Anime and Japanese films from him! I've seen his products, and they're all first rate.
Lacking permission, I'll not say more about what Keith does, lest his sterling reputation in the salons of NYC be tarnished by association with a grubby geek such as myself.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
The long nightmare is nearly over!
The "new" computer arrives Thursday, according to the UPS tracking website.
The DVI to VGA adaptor arrived today.
The Apple Desktop Bus to USB adaptor is scheduled to arrive tomorrow, according to the UPS tracking website. (and thank you Jeebus for that! I was not looking forward to using my iMac keyboard for any length of time. I am completely hooked on using the Apple Extended Keyboard.)
USB hub and memory card reader are en route. I'll be happy when they get here, but they are not critically needed hardware.
If all goes well, sometime Thursday evening, there will be a Macintosh tower under my computer table, and I'll be back online via OS X.
My deepest and most sincere thanks to Keith Kahla and Robert Woodhead! Both of whom made this possible.
The DVI to VGA adaptor arrived today.
The Apple Desktop Bus to USB adaptor is scheduled to arrive tomorrow, according to the UPS tracking website. (and thank you Jeebus for that! I was not looking forward to using my iMac keyboard for any length of time. I am completely hooked on using the Apple Extended Keyboard.)
USB hub and memory card reader are en route. I'll be happy when they get here, but they are not critically needed hardware.
If all goes well, sometime Thursday evening, there will be a Macintosh tower under my computer table, and I'll be back online via OS X.
My deepest and most sincere thanks to Keith Kahla and Robert Woodhead! Both of whom made this possible.
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