It’s a Mini Adventure – The Initial Setup
The Mac mini is going to be run like a set-top box, which means no mouse or keyboard. The main interface is going to be from the Apple Remote control, navigating around a TV set. Consequently, there are a few things that need to be done to ensure that this experience is as trouble-free as possible.
To start with, I found it best to connect the Mini to my network via Ethernet, rather than wirelessly. This enables you to wake the Mini from sleep remotely (using the ‘Wake for Ethernet network administrator access option in System Preferences -> Energy Saver ->Options).
The first thing I did once the network was set up (and this did require plugging in a mouse and keyboard) was to make sure that the admin account was set up with a password (ie not a blank password) and that screen sharing and file sharing were switched on (in System Preferences -> Sharing). This meant that I could now administer the Mini from my laptop without needing to have a keyboard or mouse plugged in and without having to squint at the TV screen from the sofa. The password bit is important because Keychain won’t store blank passwords, and Screen Sharing makes you enter the (blank) password twice to make sure you meant to leave it blank.
Next job was to stop it prompting for a mouse on startup. This was fixed by unchecking ‘Open Bluetooth Setup Assistant at startup when no input device is present’ in System Preferences -> Bluetooth -> Advanced.
I then unchecked the automatic Software Update – I figured I would be notified of Software updates when using my laptop and could then run them at my leisure on the Mini. Far preferable to being in the middle of watching something on TV and having the little blue globey thing start bouncing away.
Finally, I used this tip to disable the Crash Reporter dialogues which ask if you want to report when an app Quits Unexpectedly. In the event something crashes, at least this way I should be able to recover without having to go to my laptop and click ‘Don’t Send’ before carrying on.
Next post I’ll go through the software setup
COMMENTS / ONE COMMENT
tismey, Jul 07 09 at 9:43 pmI forgot – the other vitally important thing that I did was install Perian, to expand the video playback capabilities of Quicktime.
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