HeySage

When apple announced and released the TV several years ago it was thought that this would be the solution to the problem of managing and distributing media throughout the home. And although the TV is an awesome device and fills its niche, the product leaves something left to be desired. Is it the OS? Is it the hardware itself? Does it really matter? I argue no, as the mac mini can be easily configured to operate as the ultimate home media server.

The following is a discussion of the way I have implemented the Mac mini into my home. The specifics of my setup may be overkill for some but after reading other articles on the topic I felt as though the true power of the device has not been adequately described.

Lets start with the basics, how I have everything hooked up. Our home is wired with Cat 5e (ethernet cable). This allows every networkable device in the house to have a static connection to our network. Our cable modem is in the closet can. In the can there is an Airport Extreme Base Station which broadcasts Wifi and routes our LAN traffic. From here Cat 5e is distributed throughout the house with Gigabit Ethernet switches where necessary.

There are three Pioneer displays in our house. One in the bedroom, one in the bonus room/office and the other resides in the family room. This is where the Mac mini home media server lives. The Mac mini is connected directly to a 60″ pioneer display via a minidisplay port to HDMI cable. It is also connected to a Denon AVR-3808 receiver via a TOS Link cable. The receiver distributes audio from the Mac mini to each of two zones that the receiver powers (zone 1 -surround speakers in the family room and zone 2 - the speakers located in each room of the house and in the backyard). With this setup I can watch movies or TV in iTunes in the family room with surround sound. I can push the TV audio in stereo through the rest of the house and backyard if I would like. I can listen to playlists from iTunes throughout the house while watching Magnetosphere on the display or looking at my most resent photos as a screensaver. As you can see the possibilities are limitless. Especially since the Mac mini home media server is just another device on the network. As such, any other computer or device (TV) in the house can share the iTunes library on the Mac mini.

The Mac mini can be controlled using a good old fashioned keyboard and mouse, the Remote application on an iPhone, or even via an RF remote control (I like the Logitech 1100). It can also be controlled using another computer locally or remotely using [Screen Sharing.app][12] (the VNC client built into OS X since Leopard). It is amazing the think that I can control what is playing on my TV at home from work (or any other place on earth for that matter) using Screen Sharing.app.

I think that you are probably beginning to see how powerful this really can be.

Now that we have covered the basics lets discuss the specifics of how I have setup the Mac mini including software, hardware, and controls.

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I had been using a script in TextExpander for some time now to shorten URLs utilizing tinyurl. But with every character being so important in this day of the 140 character limit I went perusing for an applescript that utilizes bit.ly to shorten URLs. Luckily I found one at Snippler. Here are the steps to get things working

1. Copy the script
2. Paste it into script editor (any text editor will work)
3. Add your username and API Key to the script
4. Copy the revised script
5. Create a new TextExpander Snippet (in TextExpander command-N)
6. Set the content as AppleScipt
7. Paste the revised script in TextExpander
8. Choose and abbreviation (I chose bbit)

This really expedites the URL shortening process and I encourage anybody to give it a try. Email any questions or comments.

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