Hans Technology Center |
Stuff tried and tested by Hans Styrnell! |
There are two photos above! The first is a close up of the Drobo and the Mac Mini. The second is of the entire entertainment center.
See also previous post: http://hansstyrnell.posterous.com/got-the-drobo-working-with-my-mac-mini-media
I decided to try the fairly new Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix, mainly as an experiment and to see if an operating system that used less recourses would make the Asus 1008HA even more pleasant to use.
What you see here is my notes from the installation and it will give you an "idea" about how to do it and what to expect! It is not intended as full description for how to install Ubuntu at all! Here is the link to the Ubuntu Netbook Remix: http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download-netbook. Download and follow the instructions on the page. The file is an iso file and you will have to make a live USB stick to install from! When you have your Ubuntu Bootable USB stick ready:
You should now have a fully working and updated Ubuntu on your Asus 1008HA.
There seem to be another issue that the Wifi signal is a little weak and it loses the connection once in while, this seem to happen when starting up from sleep. This is a problem I'm still trying to find a solution for.
Ubuntu comes with so much software pre-installed and it has kept me busy for a while. The interface is good, (could be better), but it does not take long to get used to. I have played with Ubuntu for a few days and I am actually very happy with it.....
I am basically only using Firefox or Chrome (http://www.google.com/chrome/) with cloud based stuff such as Google docs, Google reader, Google mail, Google calendar, Facebook, Twitter, Google wave etc... it is perfect for that but I'm sure it can do a lot more!
When I write this it is Snowing heavily here in London! Fantastic!
After re-assembling, then the big moment came to turn it back on! I pressed the on switch and the LED in the switch lit up blue, but the screen remained black... Slight panic.... Waited for a few minutes.... Turned it off and on again and this time it worked perfectly.
The Asus 1008HA will mainly be used for browsing the Internet, my mail, updating my calendar, writing text files for my blog, reading RSS feeds, twitter and Facebook, etc.. So all of this will be done using a browser, it will be used around the house, "the pub" and when travelling.
My main machine is a 15" MacBook Pro which is used for all other work related things, but I do not really want to travel with it. The Asus 1008HA is a very good alternative when on the road! Try it out!
Dead Apple Time Capsule had to replaced and I choose to buy a Drobo (http://bit.ly/4zadRU) with 4 Sata hard drive slots. The idea with the Drobo is that it protects data against a hard disk crash. As long as you have more than a single disk in Drobo, all data on Drobo is safe no matter which hard disk fails.
I filled it with 4 Western Digital WD10EADS 1Tb hard drives. It was all bought from Amazon and I paid £58 for each Hard disk and £304 for the Drobo, in total £536. The idea is to replace the 1Tb drives in the future with larger drives, when it is full and when the larger drives have become less expensive. The Drobo can handle 16Tb as disk size increases. It is connected to the Mac Mini via Firewire 800. There is a Dashboard that needs to be installed on the Mac in order to set up the Drobo. The installation and set up was straight forward once I followed the onscreen instructions properly... I choose to have one partition of 4Tb and after installation there where 2.7Tb available for my data, the rest is used for the data protection. It was now time to take the hard drive out of the Apple Time Capsule. You do that by removing the rubber padding at the bottom. The padding is glued on and you have to remove it carefully and slowly to avoid ripping it. Then unscrew the large number of tiny screws around its edges and remove the plastic top. The hard drive can now be removed. I then used a Sata USB kit to connect it to the Mac Mini and transfered about 800Gb of Movies over to the Drobo. I had another 400Gb of TV Shows and my Music is about 200Gb (Apple lossless encoding) on two other Hard drives that was moved to the Drobo as well. So it is now safe and secure on one device. It appears to take about an hour per 100Gb. I then added the movies, TV Shows and Music to the iTunes Library. All Movies and TV-Shows had to be retagged again in iTunes in order for them to turn up properly under Front Row. There is obviously an issue here and I'm still trying to figure this out! A quick solution for this issue, is to create an alias for the Drobo "Movies folder" and put this in your Movies Folder on your Mac. Then Front row looks in this folder and they turn up under the Movies Folder heading in Front Row when selecting Movies, then Movies Folder and then Movies Alias. The Movies are now listed as their file names only. It works very well now! Will give you more of my experience with the Mac Mini & Drobo Media Center in the near future!See also a few Photos posted in February 2010: http://hansstyrnell.posterous.com/mac-mini-and-drobo
Went to Sweden for a few weeks a while ago and when I got back my AppleTV did not work at all.
It had the amber light on. Tried to fix it, did not have any succes, but was not too worried as I only streamed to it from my hard drives with TV Programs, Movies etc.. Not really worth fixing and I passed it on to a very good friend in the "Pub". This Breakdown happened about four weeks ago and I immediately ordered a new Mac Mini.Over the years I always thought that I should have bought a Mac Mini in the first place. At the particular time of purchase, I just tried to save some money really. However, I must admit I like to try new stuff... The Apple TV was very good for two years, but it had some limitations...
Got the the Mac Mini as you can read in the previous post and it was all working well, and it still is, apart from the Apple Time Machine (1TB) used as a networked hard drive. This morning (Oct 20) everything worked fine when I woke up. Checked my twitter etc, had a break, and got back to read my email and now the Apple Time Machine had stopped working...This is also my main router connected to BT Broadband via a Netgear ADSL router so it was very noticeable. The LED at the front of the Time Machine was now off and the ethernet LED's at the back only flashed quickly when the power cord was plugged in... Dead! The connection to internet is now fixed on an Apple Extreme I had in one of the boxes... at this time I googled "Time Machine dead" and found a surprising number of similar issues mentioned on the web. It appears that some (many) Time Machine just stops working after about 18 months.. http://bit.ly/igmTQ I will continue too look into to this, but it appears that there is a problem here. First the AppleTV and now the Apple Time Machine, both bought at the same time.... I'm still an "Apple Fan Boy" and even more so after todays updates (which is another story), but slightly disappointed right now.[update] The Apple TV has been opened and it is damp and sticky inside and no I did not pour wine into it. It appears to be the power supply that have given up. Hard drive is ok and works fine when removed and connected via USB to the Mac!
The new Mac Mini did arrive on Monday afternoon and was up and working a little later. Unfortunately, Apple did not deliver any rumoured "new" Mac mini, keyboard or mouse. If there is an updated version next week then I'm going to be slightly disappointed. However I am quite sure this will happen as this is my usual luck. So I saved the boxes just in case I can return and replace anything...
It will be used as a Media Server for the TV instead of the AppleTV that suddenly had a breakdown. The Mini is connected to the TV using a mini display to HDMI converter (picture only), and the sound is connected directly to a separate amplifier. The picture quality is excellent on the 40" Sony 1080p LCD TV. The media is stored on an 1GB Apple time machine and is connected to the Mini via Ethernet. Very quick access of anything, maybe only a second or so before a movie starts. All movies are saved as AppleTV MP4. The mini got 5 USB ports so a large number of other Hard Drives can be connected directly later, when I'm ready for that. The daily use of the unit is done with the Apple Remote. I bought the Mini with a wireless keyboard and Mouse, but are not using them very much now when it is all set up. In fact, if I want to do any changes I use the Screen Share on my MacBookPro and connect to the Mini, fantastic! There is also a little App for the IPhone called Air Mouse that can be used as a Mouse and Keyboard for any Mac. However the TV is too far away so it can be difficult to read small text on the screen when sitting in the reclining chair...When I use the Keyboard and mouse, the zoom screen function can be useful if you like me obviously have a bad eyesight.
I have spent hours re-sorting my Movies as Front Row apparently does things differently to AppleTV. The Meta Tag had to be edited for each movie to make them turn up properly under Movies in Front Row. If you have a few movies then this is OK, but I have spent the last few years recording top movies from TV with the Elgato EyeTV and have around 300 of them. Argh! It is not really a major issue, just time consuming. However, no problem at all with the music library.I have also connected an EyeTV DTT stick which will allow me to record TV.
If anyone got questions please let me know!
This is something I did last week using the IMovie on the MacBookPro.
Apple says they will deliver the new Mac Mini I ordered about two weeks ago, tomorrow Monday October 12. Will it be the rumoured updated version?
Hans is the local geek in Brentford, London, does web and graphics design, is an amateur photographer and an Apple Fan boy.
