Category: Mac

Apple Rumored to be building Mini into a set-top-box

Think Secret – Road to Expo: Reborn Mac mini set to take over the living room
The living room is HOT!

From the site:
Apple’s Mac mini will be reborn as the digital hub centerpiece it was originally conceived to be, Think Secret sources have disclosed. The new Mac mini project, code-named Kaleidoscope, will feature an Intel processor and include both Front Row 2.0 and TiVo-like DVR functionality.

is Apple’s remote control and television like display functionality that they are currently building into iMac’s.

Understand the iPod iTunesDB

ITunesDB – wikiPodLinux
From the site:
This page details the format of the binary files used on the iPod to keep track of the music it contains as well as its play history. Collectively we refer to these files as the iTunesDB however there are in fact a number of files, each with their own format, that make up this database.

Finally, iSync with my Nokia 7610

Litux Wiki : HowToAddDevicesToTigerIsync
The above URL, while somewhat opaque was the key.
Essentially, iSync wasn’t working with my Nokia 7610 which it is supposed to. I recently upgraded to Mac OS Tiger which is purported to add support for this phone (and many others) but had no luck. iSync was saying that the device is unsupported.

After searching around and finding many blog entries which showed dismay over this vary subject I came upon the above Wiki entry.

Following it’s instructions, I realized the problem, Nokia is identifying the phone as “Nokia 7610b” instead of “Nokia 7610” which is what iSync is expecting.

In order to find this out, I had to download ZTermZTerm (which I haven’t used since 1996). Unfortunately, Z-Term was my last thought, after going through Fink and realizing that minicom just wouldn’t work (actually, wouldn’t install). And after pairing with the phone through the Bluetooth Setup Assistant I was able to connect to it as a modem and run the AT command “AT+CGMM” which returned “Nokia 7610b”.

I then edited the MetaClasses.plist file and changed the identifier for the Nokia 7610 to “Nokia+Nokia 7610b” and viola, everything was peachy.

Finally…! I can carry around my contacts, something I haven’t been able to do since my Palm died 2 years ago. Who would have guessed something so trivial would be so hard. I almost resorted to paper ;-)

Better than AppleScript

I recently had to hack together an AppleScript to batch process a bunch of QuickTime movies. I had quite a bit of difficulty because of my total unfamiliarity with AppleScript syntax.

Doing some searching I came across the following OSA (Open Scripting Architecture – the meat and potatoes behind AppleScript) components for languages that I know and like:

Perl: Mac::OSA

JavaScript: JavaScript for the Macintosh

O’Reilly Network: JavaScript and Mac OS

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