However, when my old standard-definition TV was dying, I wanted to upgrade to a new, shiny LCD TV, and so I did. Back then, it didn’t matter as much, as HD content really wasn’t that popular yet, and the display of SD content on the TV was rather acceptable.

Now, some years later, I recently had a small batch of money, and therefore decided to retire the, now old, LG 32″ TV, and get a brand-sparkling-new 47″ LED version instead. Now doing that was one thing, but I really wanted to upgrade my mediacenter as well. My initial thought, being the Apple-fanboy that I am, was to get a Mac Mini, and hack that like a madman. However, I knew that the advancements within “nettops” (Small desktop computers based on the lowpower netbook cpu’s) meant that you could get a similar sized PC at half the price of the Mini (And using less power too, something quite important in these global warming times ;) ).

Anyway, these were the primary requirements for my new system:

Should be able to handle most formats
Should be able to handle full-HD playback
Should be able to stream from the NAS in the home office without lag
Should be easy to manage

So, I ended up getting a AsRock ION 330HT , a model very popular among XBMC fans. It’s small, uses the Nvidia ION platform (capable of running full-HD without straining the CPU), has HDMI out, has eSATA, 6 USB ports and even a VGA port if you’re using an old screen for the initial setup. Oh, and it has built-in IR-receiver and a remote to go along with it, so you don’t need an external (read: Ugly) receiver!

There’s a lot of different setups outthere, and other producers are becoming as popular as the AsRock. Shuttle has new models coming out at the moment, Acer etc. are also in the race for the living room with smaller, more friendly devices (No more large PC enclosures in the living room, along with fan noise, woohoo!), so better alternatives might already be available. I just suggest having a look at the XBMC Forum before buying anything.

The initial setup

This took me some trial and error, but it will be worth it in the end, as the final system works excellently. Don’t expect everything to work after 5 mins. though, so if you have no patience, or dislike reading and/or troubleshooting, doing this setup may not be for you.

Anyway: First up, get a minimal version of Ubuntu 32 or 64 bit. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD should provide you with download links. You’d want Karmic Koala, as that’s suggested as the most stable atm, when running XBMC. To not have to use a CD for the minimal install (It’s only 12MB), I use UNetbootin to create a bootable USB drive.

Now boot the machine from the USB key, and run through the Ubuntu install. You’d probably want to partition your main drive with one of the default setups, that create 3 partitions (root, home and swap). This is an advantage, as it allows you to store all your media within /home and not have it deleted if/when you reinstall your HTPC.
Furthermore, when the installer asks you to select packages to install, you’d want to select the “Basic Ubuntu Server” and “OpenSSH Server”, to install only the basics, and allow for SSH access to the machine later on (Makes maintenance somewhat easier when the machine is finally located below your TV).
Finally, create a user named “xbmc”. This user will run the actual software, own all the mediafiles etc.

Installing the basics

Assuming you’ve finished the Ubuntu setup, log on as root (using the password you setup in the initial install), and do the following:

[shell]visudo[/shell]

Now after the line containing “root”, add the following:

[shell]xbmc ALL=(ALL) ALL[/shell]

This allows the xbmc user to use the sudo command for all commands. Now logout of the root account, and log in as xbmc. Here’s the fun part: A couple of XBMC users has decided to gather all of the guides, howtos etc. in one simple installer, that simply allows you to run their installer instead of having to install XBMC, graphic drivers etc. manually.

I use this to setup my AsRock box, as it’s able to fix graphic drivers and HD acceleration, setup my remote, setup audio over HDMI, setup XBMC and make everything boot up when starting the machine, without having to manually change anything. Simply put, when the basic system is installed and this script is run, XBMC should just be ready to take on everything you throw at it.

Anyway, to run the installer, type the following as the xbmc user:

[shell]wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/xci/files/Release/xci.sh/download
chmod +x xci.sh; sudo ./xci.sh[/shell]

And follow the onscreen instructions, to install XBMC stable and whatever you may need. Now you should be done! To get mediafiles onto your new mediacenter, try SFTP’ing a couple of files over to test. In the longer run you may want to setup Samba shares or setup NFS on the machine, to make it easier, but that’s a story for another day ;)

I usually spend 20-30% of my day in Terminal, doing administrative tasks, ssh’ing to the servers I use for development and for my work, watching logs, debugging etc. This might not be typical behaviour for an OS X user (Which is good, as I think Terminal should be an addition for those who wants the power of it, and not a necessity for “regular” users) , but I find working directly with Terminal to improve my workflow when it comes to the previously mentioned tasks.

As some Mac-users will know, OS X currently comes with bash as the standard shell. Even though bash is often perceived as one of the best shells available in the Unix-community, quite a lot of other shells exist, all with different features, and approaches to shell-work. A couple of years ago I decided to try out Z Shell, also known as zsh, and I’ve never regretted this.

Why run zsh ?

To begin with, it’s not even a big deal switching or trying zsh out. If you are currently using bash, you’ll feel right at home. Zsh uses a lot of the same shortcuts, has support for most of the features bash uses, and this means the only thing you’ll actually notice, is how the extra features just make things easier. Some of the key features for zsh are:

• Nice autocompletion for commands, aliases etc. Zsh allows you to tab through completions if there are multiple possibilities, showing possible completions in a nice grid, browsable even by arrow keys, to make it simple and fast to find exactly the completion you want.
• Autocompletion for remote files. If you are using scp to transfer a file to a remote server, zsh will figure out what you are doing, so if you try to autocomplete while typing the remote part, it will try to connect via ssh and actually perform autocompletion on the remote side.
• Functions in addition to aliases. It’s possible to create entire routines as zsh functions with arguments, allowing for complex functionality for running multiple commands in succession easily.
• Share history across sessions. When running multiple instances of zsh at the same time, the instances are able to share a common history, rather than being limited to only each its own. One of the most frustrating things to a bash user is typing in a long command, then searching for it again the next day via Ctrl+r, only to find it nowhere in the history.

Ok, so how do I change my shell to zsh ?

Enabling zsh in OS X Leopard is really easy. Previously, you had to install zsh from MacPorts, but in Leopard it’s part of the base install, and as such is easily accessed. try writing “zsh” in your bash, and bang! You’re running zsh! To set zsh as your default shell in OS X, and make it run every time you start Terminal, load up Terminal’s settings, and set your default theme to run the command “zsh” on startup.

To change it in older OS X versions, you should be able to use the chsh command. But there are other suggestions as well.

But, but, it’s not working like you promised ?

You’ll need a .zshrc file to take full advantage of zsh. The .zshrc is zsh’s configuration file, and will setup most of the features I’ve mentioned earlier. There’s a couple of ways of getting hold of a .zshrc. You could google for it, and you’ll find a bunch of examples. Another way is to take a look at my sample file . This is not an exact copy of my running .zshrc, but it has a bunch of the most common setups.

To make it work, you have to save the file as .zshrc in your home directory.

Be aware that zsh holds a bunch of more features than I’ve talked about here, and there’s much to explore. Feel free to use my sample file as a starting point, and do change it anyway you’d like. If you find any other useful features in zsh, please let me know, and I’ll make some notes about it here.

Further reading

If you want to know more about the glorious world of zsh, try checking out the official zsh website, containing documentation, the manual as well as some pointers to getting started with scripting in zsh.

Zsh homepage

My sample .zshrc

Zsh Wiki

Back in 1999, I purchased my very first domain. It was called highonpixels.dk , and acted as my personal playground at the time. During the first couple of years, I focused a lot on webdesign and usability, and the website was my first adventures into creating webpages. Alot has happened since then, I’ve matured, gotten a couple of different jobs, and over the years my website faded into the background.

I rarely had the time to update the site, my friends started poking me for more content and new layouts etc., but in the end I just didn’t have the drive for updating a website anymore. Working as a webdeveloper on a fulltime-basis for clients will do that to you, trust me ;)

So what changed ? Well, during the last year or so, I’ve regained a lot of the enthusiasm regarding the web, and the technologies surrounding it. Another thing that has happened, is that I just recently acquired this domain. For the last couple of years it’s been occupied by another danish guy with the same name, and I’ve tried to capture it a couple of times without success. However, in December 2008, magic happened. The domain was released, and I put a couple of hosting-companies on the case of capturing it for me, which happened around Christmas (yay, best christmaspresent for myself ever!).

One of the things I’ve had a lot of advantages from online, has been technical guides. Everything from setting up virtualhosts on a Mac, over learning BASH-scripting to hacking my Xbox to allow it to be a multimedia-player. All of these experiences has helped me a lot, but sometimes I see myself googling for the same themes over and over again. And everytime I need a guide I have to find it again, and hope the site I’m looking for is still available. Initially I thought about running my own Wiki for the guides that I need, but I figure someone else could probably benefit from my mistakes and experiences.

So I’ve decided to launch a blog-like site with those exact subjects. The site will contain guides for most of everything I come into contact with. Expect guides involving Linux/Unix/Mac maintenance, Javascript, MySQL, PHP architecture and development patterns, as well as my personal thoughts, ideas and tips.

Anyway, welcome once more, I will try to make your stay as pleasant as possible.