Wednesday February 07, 2007 Alan Perry's Blog
Wednesday February 07, 2007 Look for me at the OpenSolaris Developers Conference
Just a heads up. I will be at the OpenSolaris Developers Conference in Berlin, Germany on 2 Mar, 2007. I will be presenting on my work Porting MythTV to OpenSolaris and the Mac Mini.
This is actually a personal project that I have been working on in my spare time. I wanted to put together a set-top box type system based on OpenSolaris. I used to work on set-top box software and the systems that I was building my code on top of weren't that reliable or that nice to program for. I figured that OpenSolaris would be an improvement and started the project to see if it would work.
I ended up picking the Apple Mac Mini as the set-top box hardware (yeah, I know, it is a computer, but it is a small form factor box and it has a DVD slot as well as an IR remote) and MythTV as the application (so I wouldn't have to start from scratch on the PVR, DVD, OSD, et. al. code). To find out more, come see me in Berlin. I can't wait to see how it works out!
Anyway, I submitted the idea for a paper on the project on a whim to the OpenSolaris Developers Conference after the conference asked me, as lead for the Seattle OpenSolaris User Group, to post the Call-For-Papers to my user group's mailing list. To my surprise, they accepted it. So, now I am spending lots and lots of time trying to get the project in a state that is suitable to present.
One thing that came out of this work is the complicated process that I came up with for installing OpenSolaris on a Mac Mini so you can still multiboot into MacOS to play Backgammon or something. I'll be blogging about that soon.
After the Developers Conference, watch this space for an announcement for a community project to finish off my MythTV port.
That's it and I hope to see you in Berlin.
( Feb 07 2007, 04:41:52 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [1]
I guess I discovered this back in November, but it didn't sink in until yesterday when a friend asked me if I had one to sell. Apple has silently discontinued the Apple iSight external firewire camera. They continue to brand the USB-based cameras that are integrated into the MacBook laptops and iMac as iSight, but if you want a camera for your Mac Mini or Mac Pro, you can't buy one from Apple anymore. USB alternatives that just plug-and-play with MacOS are available or will be soon, I guess. The story in the Apple Discussions area is that the iSight was discontinued because it contained too much hazardous material (hmmm, don't recall seeing a Proposition 65 notice on the box).
As far as I know, the iSight was the last consumer grade IIDC camera available on the market. The professional grade cameras like the Point Grey Research Dragonfly are still available, so IIDC isn't dead. This is just bad for people who wanted a high-quality, inexpensive IIDC camera. There are obviously unhappy people posting their displeasure in the Apple iSight Discussions area.
This is great for the folks who own iSights, but weren't using them because the cameras are now selling for more than when they were new on eBay. It is not great news for the folks who wanted one and didn't realize that Apple was discontinuing the model. I am sure if you continue to wait, prices will come back down to something sane in short order.
Ironically, I was finally getting around to implementing support for the iSight in the Solaris IIDC camera driver (dcam1394). Good thing for iSight fans that I didn't start implementing it sooner.
( Feb 07 2007, 04:06:46 AM PST ) Permalink
