I couldn’t install anything “modern” on it. Funny how I take for granted the Intel chip in the newer one… so it then became a project for what I could actually use it for. First thing’s first – I had to update the OS. As it’s a PowerPC processor, there’s no way snow leopard would go on and I didn’t want to fork out for more memory (it only has 512mb) to run Leopard. So I bought Tiger OS. (10.4 I think). Once updated, it was time to install something… anything.

Sabnzbd – download slave

Sabnzbd is the be-all-and-end-all of usenet downloader applications. I’ve used a whole host of packages to download usenet files before and always struggled with unpacking or fixing etc. This does everything for you. It will even connect to the nzbmatrix and newzbin API for quick bookmarking.

You either use the web interface to add an NZB or bookmark it (on Newzbin or NZBMatrix) for sabnzbd to pick up automatically. It goes away and does it’s thing – unpacking & repairing (if need be). You are left with the finished article. It also allows you to run shell scripts on completion – so you can move the file to your network drive for example. Or, in my case, move to the external drive and add music to iTunes. (I’ll post a script for that later).

Sabnzbd is available for Mac OSX, Windows and Linux from www.sabnzbd.org

iTunes – music slave

I have a few Veho wireless speakers dotted around the house and it’s always frustrated me having to turn on a mac to play iTunes so I can have a listen. Queue the always on mac mini music slave! The Veho speakers have a USB transmitter which each of the speakers automatically connect to.

Using the iPhone or my iPad as a remote control allows me to connect any time to the “music slave”. Switching the speakers on and bang – always on music! If you’re not happy with the sound produced by these Veho speakers, check out my post on modifying them. I hacked it up to work with my Bose speakers. Works a treat!

Other options

Although this isn’t running on my ancient mac mini, I do use Plex on my newer Intel Mac Mini. It’s an amazing bit of kit. If you have at least 1GB ram, you could run this on your “always on” mac mini to watch movies on your iPhone or iPad. Of course, you can always hook it up to your TV as we have done with the newer one. www.plexapp.com

Using Mame OSX (http://mameosx.sourceforge.net) you can turn your old mac mini in to an arcade machine. Play all the old classics (Track & Field is still my favourite). Check out http://mamedev.org for more information and how to download some ROMs (games) to play on it.

Put the mac mini in your car or campervan! Check out http://www.macvroom.com for more information and project ideas.

Any other ideas?

I’m keen to try other ideas so please post and let me know!

If anything goes wrong, you can always just do a factory restore through itunes.

Why should I jailbreak my iPhone?

This is the leading question I was asking myself. Why did I need to do this? Simple answer is, I didn’t. I just wanted to. Having read about so many little tweaks for the iPhone which are available only after Jailbreaking, I thought I’d give it a whirl. In a nutshell, the answer to this question is the same I gave to my wife, “It lets you do all the things the iPhone SHOULD be able to do… plus a little extra”.

What version should I use?

I used iOS 4.2.1 (I think!). There apparently is a version ready for iOS 4.3 – so it *might* be worth holding out for that one. But I believe it’s unteathered (this means you’d have to load the hack each time you boot the phone). I’ve done mine however and plan to leave it this way – unless 4.3 offers something 4.2.1 does!

How do I go about doing this?

First you’ll need your iPhone. You should do a sync or take a backup through iTunes. This way you can always restore it if need be. There are a few different ways to jailbreak (I think)… but the one I used which worked first time (and the instructions were very clear) can be found over at the LifeHacker Jailbreak page: http://lifehacker.com/#!5771943/the-always-up+to+date-guide-to-jailbreaking-your-ios-device

OK, I’ve jailbroken my iPhone – now what?

So after I completed the jailbreak, I was expecting to see something different. Simply, you don’t. Everything is now accessed through the Cydia app which you should see on your screen. It’s effectively like an app store and management console all rolled in to one.

I should mention here that once I loaded Cydia for the first time, it tried to update the “core files” which were out of date. I kept getting error messages as it tried to download them saying “Error, size mismatch” or “Hash tag mismatch”. I spent hours trying to resolve this, only to find that they actually worked fine later on! I think maybe the repository where the updates were stored couldn’t be accessed or something. Please, someone correct me if that’s wrong!

So, now you will be wanting to grab the tweaks and apps which drove you to do this in the first place. There are hundreds (if not thousands?) of apps and tweaks out there. You can add any number of repositories to download these from. Some are free, others cost a few dollars.

My Favourites

I didn’t want to Jailbreak my iPhone to access any illegal or dodgy free apps. I simply wanted to improve the functionality and access features which the iPhone SHOULD be able to do out of the box. I’ll still be using the main Apple App store for most of my apps.

However, here are the apps / tweaks I have installed so far.

App: SBSettings (free)

I love this app. It’s so handy! It adds a drop down toolbar with icons to disable or enable services (eg: 3G, Airplane mode etc) on the iPhone quickly. You access this by swiping across the top status bar. You can also specify what should appear in the menu too.

Add-on: iSmart Dialer ($3.99)

This I am still testing, but so far it looks amazing. It’s an add on to your existing phone keypad. When you’re dialling a number it can auto lookup contacts which match that number. It’s difficult to explain, so check out the video on their site: http://ismartdialer.com/features.html

App: Winterboard (free)

Winterboard is an all round visual tweaking app. It allows you to control elements in the user interface, such as hiding the bottom shelf image. You can use this to load other people’s themes. I currently use the Suave theme (as above)

App: ScummVM (free)

A application which allows you to play old DOS games on your iPhone. I’ve just put Day of the Tentacle on there and its absolutely amazing. Takes me right back! See their website for more information: http://www.scummvm.org/

Tweak: PlayAwake ($1.99)

This again transforms the iPhone for me. My biggest gripe with the iPhone is it’s alarm. You cannot set your own MP3 or control if it wakes you up gradually. I’d been using 3rd party alarm apps which did this, but you had to leave them on charge all night. NOT ideal really. PlayAwake tweaks your alarm screen and allows you to select a song of your choice. You can also set the snooze time along with a Yes/No to bring the alarm in gradually. PERFECT.

Tweak: MobileNotifier (free)

This is brilliant. From the description: “iOS Notifications. Done right”. It groups notifications in an unobstrusive manner and allows you to save for later / delete or action immediately. You can reply directly to an SMS message from within the notitification.

Tweak: FastSnap ($0.99)

Possibly my most favourite tweak yet. This allows you to use the phone’s volume button as the shutter switch for the camera. It’s the ONE thing I hated and was amazed apple didn’t let camera apps do. It makes taking photos so much easier! (Especially if you need the classic Facebook pose of you and a friend….)

Tweak: Five Icon Dock (free)

This allows you to have 5 icons in the bottom dock instead of the usual 4. I have installed it, but didn’t actually like it as the icons looked too squashed in. However, this does look nice if you have a theme which uses small icons!

Tweak: CyDelete (free)

This tweak allows you to delete any apps which you install through Cydia as if they were normal apps. By default, to remove an app, you’ll need to load the Cydia app and remove through there. This will simply let you delete it through the normal user interface.

Tweak: TV Tube Sleep ($0.99)

Only a bit of fun this, but so neat! When you put your iPhone in to standby mode it animates the screen as if it were an old TV – flickers and minimises to a little white dot. It’s got to be seen to be appreciated – try it, I love it!

GroupSMS (free)

Allows you to create groups of contacts so you can send one text message (SMS) to many people at once.

Others?

If you have any apps which you think others could benefit from, please post them!

• Cat5 network around the house
• Wireless available around the house
• NAS drive with music (UPNP enabled)

So – how to be in any room and listen to the music. I’ve looked at several options, but all require fairly significant investment. The response to all these is, “for the next house…”. So for this house, we need a temporary / cheapish solution.

Netgear MP101

I had one of these for a while and it worked nicely. It’s wireless, but way too slow for my liking and (as I remember) you had to have some media server running on a PC for it to work. Even when on the wired network it wasn’t terribly fast.

Browsing for artists and albums wasn’t great either. It was clunky and the response time from the remote was too slow.

So it was ebayed. Pretty sure I got a good price for it!

The current solution

I bought a few Veho wireless speakers. These are truly brilliant and are reasonably cheap (around £45 for a speaker with transmitter and £30 per speaker thereafter).

You plug the USB transmitter in to the PC/Mac you want to broadcast the music from (in my case it’s running my jukebox), then simply turn on as many speakers as you want. They connect and play the music. Each speaker has it’s own power source (rechargeable batter) and volume control.

The only downside is the actual quality of the sound. They are fine for background sound, but they have no life when turned right up, producing a rather tinny sound.

It got me thinking…. surely the internal parts can be ripped out and I can hook up to bigger speakers? The simple answer is YES. It does work. I wrote it up on my other site: http://www.touchscreenjukeboxes.co.uk/modified-veho-wireless-speakers

The future

I’d love to have speakers wired to the Cat5 sockets which can be controlled BY room. Ideally controlled by iPhone or iPad. I’d like click on a room then select which music I want to listen to in that room. I know there are solutions out there which do this…. I just need to save the cash!!