The Tech Loft

Once you’ve jailbroken your Apple TV, you’ll now need to install the XBMC software to your device, which will basically add a new menu option to the native Apple TV functionality. The following instructions will install and block any updates that iOS may try to prompt on the box. If you are using Putty from a Windows computer, type the IP Address under the Hostname field, use “root” as username and “alpine” as password, without quotation marks obviously. In the Terminal window type the following command, pressing enter after: ssh root@[Apple TV IP Address] Example: ssh root@192.168.3.148 When prompted, type “yes” (without quotations) to continue connecting to the device When prompted to enter a password, type the following:  alpine The text will not show up as you type it, this is normal, once you’ve typed the password just press the Enter key to continue. Run the following commands in Terminal by copying and pasting each of the following lines one at a time, it is important to  wait f...

IN THE MARKET FOR AN APPLE MACBOOK? If you’re in the market for a MacBook but feel the price is a little steep for your wallet, you should think about buying a refurbished MacBook from Apple. WHAT EXACTLY IS ‘REFURBISHED’? I’m pretty sure when people find a product with the word ‘refurbished’ printed on it, they’ll tend to stay away from it because they think there’s something wrong with it. If there WAS something wrong with the product, rest assured the problem was found, repaired and tested. In other cases, refurbished could also mean ‘open box’ items. What can happen is if an item gets returned to the store because the purchaser simply wasn’t happy, the item goes back to the manufacturer, tested and once again put back on the market and label as a ‘refurbished’ item. APPLE’S STRINGENT QUALITY PROCESS When discussing Apple refurbished products, some units are returned due to technical issues but all units undergo Apple’s stringent quality refurbishment pr...

First of all, order an Apple TV box, you can get the newest version from Amazon . Jailbreaking your Apple TV2 is very straightforward. Download, run Seas0nPass. Seas0nPass for Mac Seas0nPass for Windows When running Seas0nPass, be sure to begin by selecting ‘Create IPSW’ and follow it’s instruction’s. You’ll know your done when Seas0nPass prompts you it’s completed and iTunes completes restoring the firmware to your Apple TV2 (with the modified firmware complied by Seas0nPass).     Installing XBMC   Step 1: (accessing the Apple TV): In Terminal on your Mac or by using Putty on Windows, enter the following at the prompt: ssh root@AppleTV.local  or  root@ip address (Terminal on Mac or Putty on Windows) or $ ssh root@192.168.1.x if AppleTV.local doesn’t work find your atv IP address in Settings à General à Network Use “ alpine ” as your password if you haven’t changed it already. If you named your Apple TV something other than “AppleTV” then you need to replace the text above. The f...

LOVING MY WESTERN DIGITAL MY BOOK LIVE So I picked up a new Western Digital My Book Live. Enjoying it, still learning how to use it. However I received an error message while using My Live Book. THE REASON FOR THIS POST Error Code -8072. I was prompted with -8072 while trying to delete a few files off the network drive. The reason for the error was not enough permissions. It’s odd that I don’t have enough permissions because I’m the one who uploaded the file to My Book Live originaly. So here’s a way to get around Error Code -8072. Amazon.com Widgets     RESOLVING THE ERROR CODE -8072 Open up Terminal and enter the following: sudo rm -rf (then drag the file.folder you wish to delete into the Terminal window) Press ENTER and the file should be deleted. httpv://youtu.be/8RPMvpeJK_w Hope this short quick post helps!   Please leave comments if this solution works for you.

In two words, “HELL YEAH” Up until a few weeks ago, Apple TV to me was nothing more than a media box to buy, rent and view media from your iTunes software on your computer. If I’ve got it wrong, please feel free to leave me a comment because Apple TV by itself it’s anything to write home about. Out of the box, Apple TV allows viewers to connect to iTunes and rent and buy movies and purchase music. Other options include connecting NetFlix (with subscription), watch YouTube as well as other online video services. Integration with your home media is pretty basic, you’ll need to have iTunes install with Home Sharing turned ON. You’ll then be able to stream media from your iTunes library to your TV. A very cool feature of Apple TV is the ability to PUSH content from iPhone, iPad, and Mac to the Apple TV to display on your TV. Pictures, movies and music can be shared via Apple TV for all to enjoy. So with all these lackluster features, why should one buy an...

After updating to Lion 10.7.2, I immediatly noticed that the icons in my Launchpad had increased in sized…OVER sized actually. To me, the new icon size is just too big and ugly. And what pisses me off is that the icon size cannot be changed! If you don’t like the new icon size, there’s hope for you yet. A small hack, easy and simply can be applied to get your Launchpad icons back to 10.7 size. You’ll need to download the Dock app from 10.7 . After downloading the Dock app to your desktop, run this command in Terminal: cd to the directory where file is located chmod 755 Dock Navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/, rename Dock to ‘Original Dock’, and place Dock in the folder. Open Terminal, run ‘Killall Dock’ which will restart the Dock application….and that’s it! Open Launchpad and check out the smaller icons!

Wow, what a week. Over a week ago I decided to upgrade my hackintosh to Lion 10.7. I downloaded the installer, setup my USB drive and well, got frustrated. I installed Lion 10.7 and wasn’t able to get my Asus nVidia 8400GS 512MB video card back to it’s full resolution. So I decided to start from scratch..pretty much. It’s very important to have a full cloned back up of your hard drive. You can find out here on how to back up your hackintosh hard drive to a bootable disc . So my back up contained Snow Leopard 10.6.3, what meant I had to bring it up to 10.6.8 before going to Lion. Actually, you need to be at 10.6.6 to update, but the 10.6.8 Combo pack is all that’s available to update. So here’s how I did it: Updated my 10.6.3 machine using MacOSXupdCombo10.6.8.dmg DO NOT REBOOT WHEN COMPLETED Run MultiBeast (Snow Leopard Edition); selected EasyBeast and System Utilities Reboot Since I use an Asus nVidia 8400GS 512MB graphics card, I had to add my device ID ...