August 21, 2004
Keyboard potato
The black box sitting on my remote control is a device called a USB-UIRT. What it will allow me to do is send and receive infrared signals (like the ones used to change the channel while sitting on the couch) from my computer. I picked one up because not only have i been known to misplace my remote but also there are sometimes when i'm at my computer and i need to mute my TV so i can hear the sound file i'm working with.
The device will take care of actually sending the signals. To tell it what signals to send you need some software. If you're running Windows, you can use something like Girder. However, there's not really an equivalent software for the Mac. At least my yet. In an effort to learn more about programming for OS X, i'm going to try to create one.
I've picked up a book about Cocoa to help get me started. (Luckily, the book is written for OX 10.2 which i'm still running at home. No Xcode for me yet.) The authors assume some familiarity with the C programming language which, not having a formal programming education, i've not worked with before. So, along the way, i'm trying to learn about C as well. The Apple Developer Connection has some USB samples and utilities to help me in my quest.
This should be a fun project to work on. I'm not sure if i'll ever get it finished but i'm sure to learn a lot in the process.
Posted by Matthew at August 21, 2004 04:14 PM