I have moved back and forth between wanting to sell my original an iPhone and upgrade to a 3G, and just wanting to stay where I am.

Originally, Rogers data prices in Canada were too high, so I was going to stay put. Then they announced good pricing, so I listed my iPhone on eBay — it ended at $330, which is almost as much as I paid for it new. But the guy never sent the money… and then Pwnage 2.0 came out.

Now I’ve decided I really am satisfied with my first gen for another year. See Pwnage can jailbreak both the 3G and the original iPhone, but it can only unlock the original iPhone. The 3G remains carrier locked — which means a 3-year contract with Rogers if I want one. No thanks!

So now I have somewhere between the best of both worlds. I’m on a local carrier, but with no lock, and complete freedom to go elsewhere (although, there’s no in-country competition right now.) Location services suck on the original iPhone, due to the lack of real GPS, but everything else is pretty much the same now that I have the 2.0 firmware. And boy, am I glad I have it.

• If you haven’t jailbroken yet, its pretty easy (although not as easy as 1.1.4) and totally worth it — especially for first gen iPhones. Check out Lifehacker’s Pwnage links and tips here.

The AppStore is awesome. Its truly great. I thought they’d have a hard time showing up Installer.app and the jailbreak community’s efforts, but I was wrong. There’s a ton of fantastic content on the App Store (and some crappy stuff.) Each unique little App I get makes my iPhone that much more delightful — and I haven’t even downloaded any of the non-free apps (although there are a few I’ve got my eye on.) Here are a few of my favourites:

• WordPress is great. Buggy, and low on features, but a solid first release. I love that I can blog pictures from my phone now!
• Remote is SO cool. I can’t wait until some more AppleTV 2.1 hacks are done, so that I can upgrade that and control it from my phone!
• The Google app has some very neat interaction with Location Services.
• Singing that song you can’t think of the name to on your iPhone and having Midomi find it for you is really cool.
• LifeChurch’s YouVersion Bible contains not only multiple versions of the Bible, but it lets you see other people’s thoughts on different verses and makes for a pretty neat experience.
• And Bubbles and PhoneSaber keep our 1.5 year old son entertained for minutes! That’s pretty amazing, given his attention span.

I really think Apple has something here. Its always been obvious that the iPhone would revolutionize handsets, and even push stubborn carriers into the future a little bit (visit ruinediphone.com to see how the backlash forced even Rogers to grow up a bit). But this application delivery model is very solid, despite the iPhone’s flaws, and I think RIM and Microsoft (never mind Palm) will be hard pressed to follow suit.

• Configure Apache to run PHP on your Mac (these instructions are for Leopard, but similar ones are out there for Tiger)
• Configure Apache to run as your own user, instead of the WWW user — a serious security risk. Only do this on an internal network! The WWW user won’t have adequate permissions to do what we need to.
• Put this .php page in your /Library/WebServer/Documents/ folder as RestartMedia.php — you’ll need to supply your own image file in the same path as well.
• Visit http://yourcomputer.local/RestartMedia.php from a browser. Clicking on the text or image will execute a shell script located at: /Applications/Automation/RebootMediaServers.sh

Obviously you can customize this at will, including file locations. This was just a quick hack that does the job for me — and the webpage is optimized for Mobile Safari.

Both my media serving devices (a NAS, and a Mac Mini) are using TwonkyVision Media Server to share media using uPnP. It works great, but as I mentioned earlier, I needed a script to make it start back up in the morning.

Unfortunately, I’ve found that my AppleTV freaks out a bit when this happens, and as a result, needs its own reboot. Restarting the Finder helps, but streaming still gets weird, so a full, daily reboot is in order. Using the same iCal-alarm-firing-an-AppleScript trick, I updated my Twonky restart script to also tell the AppleTV to restart. But it wasn’t that easy.

• First of all, you need to exchange keypairs with the AppleTV so that you can login over ssh without a password. However, the process is a little different, since the AppleTV only supports ssh1. This wiki page explains the process, and the slight tweak to it for ssh1.

• Second, you need to set the AppleTV up to allow you to sudo without a password. This is harder than it sounds, and requires modifying the /etc/sudoers file on the AppleTV. The only way I found to do that was to sudo cat > ~/sudoers the file (which dumps the contents of one file to another, which you can access more easily), copy it over to my Mac, edit it, copy it back, set the permissions, and sudo mv it back over-top the original. You’ll need to add this line to the bottom of the sudoers file:
frontrow ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
• Make sure you change the permissions (0440) and ownership (root:wheel) on your new sudoers before you replace the original, or you’ll screw yourself out of sudo!

To test those things, you could go to Terminal on your Mac and try something like:
ssh -1 frontrow@appletv.local 'sudo ls-l'
If you’ve setup everything right, you shouldn’t get prompted for a password to login OR to get a directory listing. Once that works, the AppleScript is easy and looks like this:

do shell script "ssh -1 frontrow@appletv.local 'sudo reboot' &> /dev/null &"

At some point, I’m also going to attach this to a PHP script (somehow) so I can use Safari on my iPhone to do a reboot from the couch if needed. I’ve only found two other ways to reboot the AppleTV — yanking the power cord, or using the remote to put it in recovery mode. Neither seems as elegant as my solution.

Sometimes (most of the time) the limited configuration for TwonkyVision that the MiniNAS config pages gives you isn’t enough. Trying to go to http://yournas:9000 results in the red error page. Apparently LaCie thinks they know better than their users.

To enable TwonkyVision config, upload this signed patch file (mirrored here, in case the original source goes away) in the Configuration page of the MiniNAS config, as an update.

Tested with 1.1.2.1 of the MiniNAS firmware.

This morning, they released the AppleTV 2.1 Update.

I did manage to get Nito TV’s Smart Installer and Turbo’s Kext Loader running in 2.0.2, but the result was a system so jam packed with stuff it wasn’t supposed to do that video play-back suffered badly. Here’s the steps I took, in case anyone else wants to try it:

• Do a clean restore on your AppleTV. Any previous failed hacking attempts will confuse the installer.
• Patchstick
• Copy over the Nito TV Installer and run it
• sudo bash then mount -uw / to get write access
• Run Nito TVs Fix Permissions script: sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns/nitoTV.frappliance/Contents/Resources/fixPerm
• Make a directory called Documents in ~/
• Copy the 10.4.9 Combo Update into that folder
• Install Turbo’s Kext Loader via the Nito TV UI on your AppleTV
• Run the Smart Installer
• Assuming it succeeds, now download and run this guy’s script to fix AFP
• You’ll probably also need to fix permissions on the AppleShare stuff
• Then try a manual mount: mount_afp -i afp://user:password@192.168.1.110/media /Users/frontrow/Movies/
• If that works, you’re in business! Reboot to clear that mount, and check out Sapphire to load content from your mounted folders.
• Finally, install the MPlayer Codecs from the NitoTV UI

Also, I do not recommend installing Perian via the Nito TV menu (its irreparably screwed up playback on me every time, and I’ve had to restore and start over!) Copy over your codecs from an Intel Mac if you can — including Flip4Mac, DivX Import, AC3 Import and the AC52 Audio Component.

Now about 2.1…

Running the 2.1 update did clean-out my hacks. I was hoping it was an install-in-place sort of deal, and it wouldn’t mess with anything it didn’t need… too bad. Here’s what I tried:

• Re-run the Patchstick: Success!
• Install Nito TV: Fail — puts the Finder in an endless start-up loop
• Restore to 2.0.2 re-run the Patchstick, run the update to 2.1: Success
• Install Home MediaCloud: Partial Success… the Finder menu item shows up, but accessing it causes a Finder reboot.

So, for now at least, I’ll have to wait for 2.1 update (and the ability to control my AppleTV with my iPhone) but I guess that’s alright.

Update on 2.1

• Still no luck with Home MediaCloud, and no luck contacting its author. However, NitoTV is updated and working in conjunction with Sapphire Browser. Its cludgey, compared to the uPnP approach, but I’m working on how to refine it.

TwonkyMedia server, which is delivering our non-iTunes content onto the AppleTV (via the MediaCloud uPnP client) has a problem with this. It doesn’t recover well from sleep.

The solution is to run an AppleScript every morning at 8:01 to re-start TwonkyMedia. This little AppleScript will access Twonky’s built-in shell script to shut down any running instances, and start-up a fresh one:

do shell script "/Applications/MediaServer.app/Contents/MacOS/twonkymedia.sh &> /dev/null &"

The “&> /dev/null &” sends the shell script’s output to oblivion so that AppleScript doesn’t hang waiting for the server to start-up.

The only annoying part about this is that every time TwonkyMedia starts up, it wants to take you to its home page in your browser. Follow these directions to make TwonkyMedia start-up silently (last post on the page.)

OS/2 was supposed to be the next DOS, developed in co-operation between Microsoft and IBM. Microsoft dropped their end of the deal when Windows 3.0 gained popularity. For awhile, and because they’d shared APIs, IBM was able to run Windows apps within OS/2 Warp, but the compatibility plan wasn’t really in their best interests.
IBM did go on to continue to improve on OS/2 with Warp coming out in 1994 — before Windows 95 was out, adding pre-emptive multi-tasking, improved memory management, and a solid networking stack. But by then Microsoft’s FUD was in effect, and most consumers waited for the next version of Windows.
OS/2 did hold a fair bit of ground in banking and in embedded systems (like ATMs) and although its no longer supported by IBM, a product called eCommstation continues its development and technologies.

Alas, it does not work in VMWare, as they long ago decided support wasn’t worth it. Works fine in VirtualPC, however. This guy has some tips, and you can copy the floppy images right off the CD and use them (without conversion) in VirtualPC.
Once I gave up on VMWare (won’t boot past the second floppy, no matter how I configured the VM) this was one of the easier virtual machines I’ve built. Video was decent at SVGA, sound worked pretty well (the installer likes making funky noises.) Still messing with networking.

Hit the jump for some screen shots…

The Floppy part of the install requires 3 disks that you can make (or copy) from the CD.

Once you’re in the GUI, you can set-up your hardware.

The installer takes a few minutes, and makes random happy sounds while doing it.

The Warp Guide annoyingly tells you about every part of every dialog. You can turn this off!

The OS/2 Warp Menu. Look familiar, maybe?

Click for a bigger picture.

In fact, the technology is so close that I used a tutorial for developing a sample Mac app, to develop a sample NextStep app. The notion of “FAT Binaries” that work on multiple hardware architectures came from NeXT as well, since it ran on any number of platforms by the end.

When Steve Jobs was ousted from Apple, he set out to create a new company that would deliver elite hardware, and a revolutionary operating system. NeXT was started to build powerful hardware and software that would leapfrog the Mac (and everyone else on the market.) They eventually had to kill off the hardware line (after making some very nice, uber-high-end machines) but the software they made changed the industry. It was on a NextStation computer, using the NextStep OS that Tim Berners Lee would invent the World Wide Web, and its the true Object Oriented approach of the OS that many companies have imitated or borrowed.

By the mid-90s Apple was in truly rough shape. Their archaic OS, once the greatest thing on the market, was showing its age, and Apple had tried, and failed (mostly due to mismanagement) to replace it. It was determined that they should buy an existing next-gen OS, and re-build on top of it. After flirting with IBM and BeOS, they settled on a deal with NeXT. A deal that grew until Apple acquired the company, re-acquiring Steve Jobs in the process. He became the iCEO (interim CEO) and the de-facto leader of the company. Existing ideas were rapidly brought over from the Mac onto NextStep/OpenStep, layered on top of its rock-solid BSD Mach microkernel, Object Oriented underpinnings, and a re-vamped version of its graphics layer, was a new Interface, and a Classic emulator to allow old Mac apps to run.

The end product, after many variations, pre-releases, betas, and one or two fairly ugly general releases, was what we know today as Mac OS X. Much of NextStep is still intact, including low-level OS APIs, visual and development concepts, and culture.

If you’re interested in getting NextStep up and running in VMWare (I’m using a Windows Vista 64-Bit Host OS, but these steps should work with most versions of VMWare — including Fusion) you’ll need to find an ISO of the NextStep OS somewhere, and maybe these steps will help you…

Configuring VMWare

After much frustration, I finally got past the initial hurdle of configuring it so the installer would run off a CD image. Here’s what I had to do:

Get the NextStep 3.3 floppy disc images from this great resource site, nextstepcomputers.org. It has pretty much everything you need, plus some forums that you may or may not find helpful. You’re going to need at least:
- Boot Disk
- Beta Drivers
- Core Drivers

Configure a new VM, and tell VMWare that the Guest OS will be BSD.

Create a virtual hard drive no larger than 2GB — and it must be pre-allocated.

64MB of RAM will be more than enough

“Insert” the Boot Disk floppy image (rename the extensions of all the disc images you downloaded to .flp to make VMWare find them easily) and “Insert” the ISO for the Install CD.

Your Hard Drive and CD-ROM should be configured as IDE. The Hard Disk must be configured as IDE 0:0 and the CD-ROM MUST be configured as IDE 1:0 due to the primitive driver support.

Installing NextStep 3.3

Start up the VM, following the prompts until you’re asked for driver discs.

Start with the Core Drivers. It’ll only need that disk for a second to load keyboard support, and other basics.

When asked for SCSI drivers, first use the “3.3 Driver Disk” and tell it to use option 4 — Adaptec 2940. This isn’t really present on your VM (no configuration in VMWare will let you use the SCSI drivers) but we just need to make the installer get past this step.

You’ll be asked a second time for SCSI drivers. I assume the first time is about the CD-ROM, and the second time is about the hard drive. In any case, this is the important driver. Insert the “3.3 Beta Drivers” disc, and press 1 to list its drivers. Press 7 to go to the next page, and press 2 to choose “Dual IDE” option.

Finally press 1 to skip loading any other drivers, and continue…

The installer will ask a whole bunch of times if you really want to wipe out your hard drive (just the hard drive image, don’t worry!) and then it’ll copy the files it needs. When its done, it’ll ask you to remove (disconnect) the floppy and reboot.

The OS will begin to load, and then notice it needs some drivers again. It’ll list the devices it doesn’t know about on its own. Supply the “3.3 Beta Drivers” disc, and then the “3.3 Core Drivers” disc to continue…

Soon you’ll see the Graphical OS Loader kick-in…

It’ll take a few minutes and then it’ll want the “3.3 Beta Drivers” disc again. At this point you should have mouse support, so things get a little nicer. Following that, it’ll want the “3.3 Core Drivers” disc again too.

You’ll see the famous beach ball from OS X (but in grayscale instead of color) and then a Summary of Devices.

Just to start out, I clicked on Monitors and added the Default VGA Adapter. I’ll have to mess with this, and what’s available online. I’ve heard its possible to get a much better resolution than VGA.

The mouse was working, so I didn’t mess with that. Network is another whole ball of wax (apparently DHCP support needs to be hacked in) so I skipped over this for now.

In sound, I added Sound Blaster 16, since that used to be very compatible. I don’t know if it’ll work, but its worth a try. I didn’t touch the SCSI or Hard Drive drivers, since the ones I was using got me this far!

In the next step, I unchecked the languages I didn’t want, and installed everything else so I could play with it. It struck me that much of the terminology used in the installer looked similar to that used in the OS X installer.

When its done copying, remove the floppy (like it tells you to!) and go ahead and reboot.

Pretty soon you’ll be up and running inside NextStep! Check your e-mail — there’s a note there from our old friend Steve!
I have had some mouse problems — it behaves erractically, so I’ll be searching the forums for fixes on that. I found that if I hit “Ctrl + Alt” to release the mouse, then click inside NexStep again to send control back to the Guest OS, that clears up the problem… for a bit. Obviously I’ll be working on display and network drivers, but thats outside of the scope of this article. It’s alive, and that’s all we were after today.

From here I’m going to point you to a couple links that should help you finish up a good install. I’ve also made a drivers ISO that will simplify things greatly.

• More technical information and advice,
• Custom drivers by a guy on the scene that fix things like the mouse (which will get progressively worse with each reboot!)
• Custom NextStep/VMWare video drivers for higher resolutions and color!
• A pre-made disc full of all of these NextStep custom drivers.
• How to copy files onto your NextStep VM (harder than it sounds!)
• How to set-up networking on NextStep (once the custom drivers are installed)

Enjoy your bit of Apple/technology nostalgia…