i’ve recently bought apple TV & immediately started hacking it . out of the box apple TV let’s you view & listen to all your iTunes content: movies, music and pictures on your iPhoto (with “take 2″ you can also rent movies from iTunes & stream iTunes music to your apple TV via AirTunes). and you can do it all on your beloved HDTV set & your high end HiFi _wirelessly_
once hacked, apple TV is a very cheap solution ($200!) to wirelessly stream all of your movies (divx, mpeg, avi) from your computer to your entertainment system – via apple TV & you can listen to internet radio (via streamer).

hacking of apple TV does not require opening the box any longer. all you need is an USB stick & … unfortunately Mac OS 10.4 running on an intel mac. all you do is: plug the patchstick in the back of appleTV, reboot & vu a la!

if you’re a techie / hacker, simply follow instructions:
- Beginner’s Guide – how to hack ATV 1
- NitoTV | ATVFiles | Sapphire | Perian - plug-ins
[few notes: can't create a patchstick in Windows nor Leopard, NitoTV doesn't appear on ATV Loader no longer (?)]

on the apple TV 2 news front:
- folks at awkwardTV forums are trying to hack via safe update to apple TV 2 …
- [update] jMahn gives us step-by step instructions to modify your patchstick so it works on ATV 2! (he says, once hacked – AirTunes & movie rentals works – at your own risk)
- ps: you CAN upgrade to 2.0 & then restore back to 1.0 in order to play with the new features (in my opinion podcasts are the best addition to appleTV & you can get a lot of HDTV podcast content for FREE)
- AppleTV 2, AirTunes And Airfoil 3 – soon, you’ll be able to stream any of your audio (non iTunes radio, skype, etc) to Apple TV wirelessly … work in progress & it’s ONLY $25!

so i finally jumped on the mac os wagon & got myslef macbook w/ leopard on it …. & yes, i love it!
here’s a list of hacks / best apps, utils i’ve discovered so far:

* best mac apps- courtesy of matthias (thx!)
- perian - play Divx, Xvid, AVI and other movies in quicktime (or via Front Row)
there’s always VLC – bets video player for mac & windows
- sofacontrol - control most of ur mac apps via the remote!
- adiumx.com - chat – all IM mac clients in ONE
- music rescue – ipod recovery
- handbreak / mac the ripper – dvd ripper for mac
- download manager: igetter with flashgot in firefox – avail for windows too

- xslimmer.com - slims down mac os
- Quicksilver - i’m not quite sold on this one yet, but then again haven’t used it yet
- Cocktail / CandyBar - simple mac os tweaks / customize your icons
- genius – helps you remember things
more links: 10mac apps, Top 100 Mac App, 35 Absolutely Essential Mac Apps, The Ultimate Mac Apps List

* hints / shortcuts
- enable right click on the mac mouse! (works on track pad too!) – it _helps_ soooo much if you coming from the PC world
Cool things you can do on a Mac

* beginer’s video guides to mac:
- leopard features video … an impressive newest mac os overview, especially the iChat stuff
- An Orientation to Mac OS X – surprisingly couldn’t’ find intro video tutorial to mac os on the apple website, so found this instead … it’s tiger, but still very informative for those who never used mac os before.

ps: one thing i can’t seem to figure out is how to maximize a window via keyboard shortcuts after you minimize it to the dock …. anyone?

so you want to edit your music / song / mp3 … or need to know
how to create a FREE ring tone from your mp3 song ?

best free program / utility out there to edit mp3 out there is called:
audacity – but as w/ all free programs, you’ll need LAME mp3 encoder, so you can save the mp3 you just edited … in mp3 !

i also recommend downloading LADSPA plugins (over 90 cool mp3 editing plug-ins)

Audacity is extremely easy to use, but here are some tutorials for the mouse challenged.