Hey guys.

I've updated our software for the Apple Remote, mira. I've also done a lot of small changes to the site here and there creating a bunch of new content and styles to fit it all together.

This new release brings what a bunch of people asked me about early on: support for all Macs with USB. This can be done with our own Manta TR1 IR Transceiver (also just released) as well as any eHome 2005/Windows MCE receiver.

I'm hoping to try and source some Apple Remotes so I can sell those on the site as well (keeping everything in one place), but that won't come through for at least another few weeks.

Someone's already dugg the release: http://digg.com/apple/Use_the_Apple_Remote_on_older_machines so if anyone has an account I'd really appreciate some diggs to help boost attention.

Link to the site is in my sig. Enjoy!

Dugg. Now I just need a Mac to use the software!

You've just ended up on the front page of the news on macnn.com as well.

It's on the digg front page now better get that keyspan receiver working

I'll probably wait until we have full stock of our own receiver before releasing the keyspan support. The receivers should be available for sale in two weeks and then ship 3 weeks after that (Apple-style)

It's also on Engadget now:

http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/21/mira-software-lets-all-macs-use-apple-remote/

Though they claim it isn't a perfect solution since you need an external IR reciever. I guess they expected your software to include nanobots sent through the tubes to build an internal IR reciever into the Mac. Can we expect that in 2.0?

in 2.0 I'm including a ball-peen hammer to knock clueless commenters in the forehead. My favorite are the comments like "oh, this other software here...." Wow, way to schill. And no, the "other software" doesn't let you do jack with an Apple remote on any other machines.

Ok, on another topic... I need a new web host. Dreamhost's mail servers are dropping the ball on me here like crazy. So far I think we've only received over 3000 unique visitors today and some 9000 total visits (multiple pages, coming back same day etc..) And my Mint installation is having trouble, even though the responsiveness to serving HTML seems ok.

Instead of the reciever you need to make a clone of the apple remote that uses wifi.

Looks like we're shipping the Manta hardware right on schedule, but unfortunately we didn't start taking orders on it three weeks ago as planned. Instead we only took down addresses for a mass-mail announcement.

And that's because back in September I thought we'd just use a pre-existing shopping cart until i discovered they all pretty much stink and are a nightmare to configure/modify to what any individual site might need. So the past couple of weeks I've written most of a cart myself with some help from a friend on the back-end sql stuff and some borrowed bits and pieces here and there for session management and some other stuff.

Now comes the drudgery of packing up all these little bits to mail out.... Fun.

A brief article about mira on the Australian Personal Computer website.

They seem to like it.