We’ve discussed in previous articles about how we wanted a little more from AppleTV and mentioned how to create a more powerful media center. One item that adds some additional enjoyment to your media center is the Nintendo Wii.

We also mentioned ways to sync up your wiimote to your Mac and use it as a mouse. If you combine these two ideas and add in an HDTV you get one impressive media center that you can control with point and click technology. Lets face it, although bigger, the wiimote is just a lot more impressive than the mac remotes.

PREPARING THE MAC FOR YOUR HDTV

While the Macmini is the cheapest Mac you can buy to sync up to your HDTV, any Apple notebook would work great for this situation. I personally hooked up my Macbook Air to my HDTV using the microDV to VGA converter that came with it.

You may need to find a converter from the miniDV or microDV video out from your Mac to what ever video inputs your HDTV receives. I know many will HDTVs have either a VGA in or a DV connector. The Macbook Air comes with converters for both.

After you connect your computer to the TV with the cable and correct converters, just tune your television into that video input and power up your mac.

SETUP YOUR WII

While you don’t have to actually connect your Wii to your TV, be sure to place the IR Sensor bar is above your TV and connected to your Nintendo Wii. The next steps include connected your Wii to your Mac.

To do this you’ll need to download Darwiinremote. Its a free application still in beta that allows you to use your bluetooth technology on your Mac to connect the wiiremote to the computer. After downloading the file to your Mac connected to your HDTV, launch darwiinremote and follow these steps:

1. Be sure that Bluetooth on your Mac is turned on and in discovery mode.
2. Click the Find Wiimote button
3. The system will prompt you to click the 1 & 2 buttons on your wiimote, click them simultaneously.
4. Darwiinremote should find your Wiimote and sync it to your mac.
5. Click the IR Sensor Button
6. Power up your Wii so that the IR bar receives power.
7. Select Mouse Mode On on Darwiinremote
8. Minimize Darwiinremote

USING YOUR MacWiiTV MEDIA CENTER

You should now be able to point your wiimote around the HDTV and the pointer on your Mac will follow your movements. Click the home button to pull up front row and start accessing your media content. Download movies to rent through iTunes or stick in a DVD and enjoy it on your HDTV.

You can customize the various button functions on your wiimote through the preferences on darwiinremote to differen’t mouse clicks, or keyboard shortcuts.

BROWSE THE WEB & MORE

One great advantage of your MacWiiTV is that you can still enjoy all the functionality that you get from a normal Mac computer in addition to custom mouse controls using the Wiimote. If you want to browse the web you can pull up Safari and use a bluetooth keyboard to help navigate to different websites or pull up the onscreen keyboard.

SHOW THE ON SCREEN KEYBOARD ON YOUR MAC

1. Click the apple icon on the menu bar
2. Select System Preferences
3. Select International
4. Click The Input Menu Tab
5. Select Keyboard Viewer
6. Click the Flag on the Menu Bar
7. Click Show Keyboard viewer
8. Click the maximize button to increase the size of the keyboard.

CONCLUSION

The addition of the Wiimote to your new home media center adds some unique ways to interact with your television without the need for a mouse and keyboard. Additionally it allows you to take full advantage of your Mac media center and still use the complete features of OS X while sitting on your couch.

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Apple recently unveiled a software update to Apple TV, calling it Apple TV Take Two. Remember the joke that Microsoft would get it right at version 3 (whatever “right” meant)? Whether that will be true of the Apple TV or not remains to be seen. In the meantime, we can build our own Apple TV Take 3 today with the following recipe.

• Mac Mini
• HDTV (Preferably one with DVI Inputs)
• Elgato Systems Eye TV www.elgato.com
• Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
• External Hard Drive (Optional - But Recommended)

I think you’ll find that the above setup, while more expensive than just an Apple TV, it’s really what people where hoping for when the Apple TV was announced. While the Apple TV is a nice hardware channel to iTunes and its content, the above system is more of a real media center. Not only do you get iTunes, but also Eye TV turns your Mini into a Tivo-like super device for your cable/dish and over the air HD signals. Add to that a mini can play DVD’s you can begin to see the extra value the above recipe brings to the table. By replacing the Apple TV with a Mac Mini, you are able to increase your channel count to not only iTunes, but iTunes, cable/dish, over the air HD signals, your own DVD’s, and all the video content that is available on the web. Much of that content you would be able to store on the Mini or an external drive for later viewing pleasure, or convert it for your iPod/iPhone. Don’t forget though, a Mini can also do everything else a normal can do, and it’s all connected to that big HDTV.

Again, I admit it’s a bit more expensive, but isn’t that what economic stimulous packages are for?

Like many of the previous Macworlds, 2008 was filled with anticipation, excitement, and rumors. But after everything was said and done Apple and Mr. Steve Jobs delivered again on many of our expectations.

Apple announced essentially 2 new products with significant updates to their other product offerings.

THE NEW PRODUCTS

Time Capsule is apples latest addition to Time Machine, the backup software included in OS X 10.5 Leopard. It is a wireless approach to allow multiple computers in a home to backup their data to one location using Time Machine. Time Capsule comes in either 500 gb or 1tb sizes and includes wireless access. The drive is a great compliment to their other new product, the Macbook Air.

Macbook Air is the thinnest notebook ever. It literally fits into the size of a business envelope and supports a 13.3 inch monitor. Its thickness ranges from .16 to .76 inches. Apple requested a custom chip form intel for the notebook and they delivered a 1.6ghz and 1.8ghz Core 2 duo chip that is a bit slower than the Macbook and Macbook Pro notebook lines. Intel integrated graphics provides the video capabilities and with micro-DVI you can connect the notebook to external monitors.

Some things to consider before picking up the Macbook Air for yourself is some of the features it lacks:

1. No optical Drive (But with the Included Remote Disk Software you can access your desktop CD/DVD drive). This may not be the best bet if you’re constantly swapping dvds on your notebook.
2. 1 USB port and No Firewire port. The Macbook Air does include Bluetooth for peripherals devices but don’t plan on connecting a number of USB devices without first picking up a USB hub.
3. Lack of Swappable Battery. Like the iPod and iPhone the Battery is built into the notebook itself. If you feel like you’ll need to use more than 5 hours of battery at a time, this new ultra mobile computer may not be for you.

Despite some of the things the notebook lacks, its seems to be a very impressive mobile computer. I also noticed that it comes with 2gb of RAM standard. Looks like Apple learned from the lack of performance on the standard Macbook line. Great for business travelers or students who plan on using them in their class studies. Priced at $1799. Complete System Specs can be found at the Macbook Air specification site.

PRODUCT UPDATES

Although these products have been part of the Apple line the updates make them feel new again.

iPhone received an update to version 1.1.3. This update includes some added Google Map features, the ability to send one sms messages to multiple people, adjustment of the home page, and clips of webpages you visit. These updates will quickly be used by all individuals already sporting an iPhone

iPod Touch is now literally an iPhone without the phone. Current Touch owners can upgrade to the latest software for $20 while new purchasers will find the software already part of the touch. The $20 to upgrade is pretty weak considering new purchasers won’t have to pay anything extra for the added features. Mail, Maps, and additional widgets will be great compliments to the mobile media player. Additionally it will make each iPod Touch owner that much more comfortable with upgrading their phone to iPhone the next time they plan on picking up a new product.

Apple TV now supports rentals from all major motion picture studios! This is wonderful news for us end users. Not only can you now rent movies through iTunes but you can do it with Apple TV and without the need of downloading it to your computer. I imagined that such an update would be included after the mobile iTunes purchase was so successful for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Additionally, the Apple TV will support HD content, including the new Rental services. Renting a movie will cost between $2.99 and $4.99 depending on how new the movie is and what quality of video and sound you select. It will be interesting to see how Netflix and Blockbuster rental services respond to the new product offering. Movies will be available for 30 days from purchase or 24 hours after you start watching the rental. And like other video content you can take the movies with you on your iPhone or iPod. All these features will be available via a software update to the Apple TV

Overall the Macworld Keynote event was great. It included some great new products and some wonderful updates to the current line of products that we already love. Additionally its positioned the Apple TV to really compete in the living room this year. Check back here at maciverse.com for new tutorials and reviews about these new products.