Factoids
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Four things you might not have expected to find on Apple TV
Apple TV is proving to be a hacker's delight, a kind of subMini with a complete (if variant) OS X operating system, wireless networking, and many other useful features. It also has a lot of legacy associated with it. Here are a few things you can find on Apple TV that you might not have expected: Internet Explorer favorites. Dating back to 2003, you can find a list of Apple-related sites in /Users/frontrow/Library/Preferences/Explorer Perl. Apple TV ships with a full 5.8.6 Perl installation for your scripting pleasure. Screen capture. You'll find the utility screencapture in /usr/sbin. It works perfectly, allowing you to snap pictures from your Apple TV and store them in the frontrow account. e.g. /usr/sbin/screencapture -tjpeg ~/applelogo.jpg Sounds. All your standard sounds (Basso, Frog, Pop, Sosumi, etc) are located in /System/Library/Sounds. If you so hack your system, you can play them in VLC or QuickTime Player and they sound exactly the way you expect. However you have to bring over a copy of System Preferences if you want to assign them to your non-existent Apple TV alerts.
Top ten things you may not have known about the Wii
If you've been paying attention to every bit of Wii news and trivia over the past months, you might know all of the following facts about Nintendo's newest system. For those of you not so in the know, here are some factoids we picked up on while tinkering this weekend. It doesn't play CDs, but it plays AVIs off your digital camera's SD card. The flaps that protect the Gamecube controllers and memory card slots are removable. Wii Sports includes training and workout modes. You can let one remote control all four players in Wii Sports: Tennis. It takes five pieces of heart to make a heart container in Zelda: Twilight Princess The box includes two clear plastic holders: one for the sensor bar and another that acts as a stabilizer for the thick, gray console stand When used as a pointer, the Wii detects how far the remote is from the sensor bar. The system keeps track of your cumulative play time for all games, and logs it on your Wii's daily message board. The standard A/V cables that have worked on every Nintendo system since the SNES do not work on the Wii (the system-side input is different) The system doubles as a great whiteboard.
