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Filed under: Odds and ends, Apple TV

Four things you might not have expected to find on Apple TV

Apple TV is proving to be a hacker's delight, a kind of subMini with a complete (if variant) OS X operating system, wireless networking, and many other useful features. It also has a lot of legacy associated with it. Here are a few things you can find on Apple TV that you might not have expected:

  • Internet Explorer favorites. Dating back to 2003, you can find a list of Apple-related sites in /Users/frontrow/Library/Preferences/Explorer
  • Perl. Apple TV ships with a full 5.8.6 Perl installation for your scripting pleasure.
  • Screen capture. You'll find the utility screencapture in /usr/sbin. It works perfectly, allowing you to snap pictures from your Apple TV and store them in the frontrow account. e.g. /usr/sbin/screencapture -tjpeg ~/applelogo.jpg
  • Sounds. All your standard sounds (Basso, Frog, Pop, Sosumi, etc) are located in /System/Library/Sounds. If you so hack your system, you can play them in VLC or QuickTime Player and they sound exactly the way you expect. However you have to bring over a copy of System Preferences if you want to assign them to your non-existent Apple TV alerts.

Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family, Odds and ends

Cuddle up to your iPod Pillow--and listen

ThinkGeek.com, vendor of things freaky, strange and just cool, has a huggable, squeezable, squishy iPod-shaped pillow for sale for twenty bucks--or at least it will as soon as they restock. Before you run away, saying to yourself that you have enough huggable squeezable squishy iPod-shaped pillows in your life, consider the fact that this pillow can actually play music from its internal speaker. Hook it up to your iPod (or other portable media player) or play back the built-in FM radio. (FM Radio!? It's like having your own Zune!!)

What's more, the large, plush buttons on the pillow actually work. Which brings the pillow to a new level of just plain weird. If there exists a subtribe of the infamous Furries that specialize in technology, this would make the perfect holiday present.

As for me, I'm trying to convince myself to pick one up because I know my three-year-old would just go wild about it.

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