Saturday 6 November 2010

Apple Remote and Presentations


A few days ago, we had our final presentations for the Cardiff Airport project in University and we accommodated quite a few guests from the industry. Mike Smith from Elmwood, London came to Cardiff, the majority of our mentors were there such as Burning Red, StazikerJones, Hoffi, Design Wales and Elfen - last but not least, Cardiff Airport was represented by one of their Managers.
Anyway, Just before the presentations started, I was tying to make the apple remote work with another MacBook. Baring in mind, the lecture theatre was full of creative people from the industry, students, professionals, academics and business managers - nobody knew how to set up the remote to a MacBook.

In the end, we just left it and had to use the arrow keys on the keyboard to navigate through our presentations.
So I thought I'm gonna blog how to link an Apple Remote to your MacBook, iMac, etc. here you go:



Hold the remote about 3-4 inches in front of the computer
Point the remote at the IR receiver
behind the Apple logo on iMacs
on the front right on MacBooks
to the left of the latch on MacBook Pros
to the right of the optical drive for Mac minis
the top left of iPod Hi-Fis
the center of iPod Universal Docks
Click and hold the Menu and Next/Fast-forward buttons for 5 seconds
For computers, an image of the remote and a linked chain will flash on the screen indicating that the remote has been paired with the computer. Only that remote can control the computer, and vice versa. There is no visual feedback for iPod Hi-Fi or the iPod Universal Dock

To unpair the computer, open the Security pane in System Preferences and Click Unpair (near the bottom right corner of the window).

For further protection, check Disable remote control infrared receiver in the Security pane. This will lock out any remote (if you are worried about malicious folks in the coffee shop).

ONE MORE (FUN) THING
You can verify that your Apple Remote is working by using the built in iSight camera on your iMac or MacBook Pro. Open Photo Booth and point the remote at the iSight. Click the Play button and you should see a faint blinking light coming from the end of the remote. If you do, the remote is working. If not, you may need to change the battery.

AND HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR REMOTE
Click any button on the remote to wake your Mac from Sleep
Control the volume of your Mac with the +/- buttons
Control your QuickTime Movies, including Play, Pause, Fast Forward, Rewind, and Skip to the Beginning; Pause the movie and click the Next button to step through the movie frame by frame
Control DVD playback
Use the Next and Previous buttons to control presentations slides in Keynote
Use the Next and Previous buttons to move between songs in iTunes; Play and Pause songs with the Play button
Next and Previous buttons move you through the Source pane in iPhoto.
Click the Play button to start a slide show using that source; click again to pause the slide show, and the Next and Previous buttons will move to the next or previous slide; Click the Menu button to exit the slide show
Click and hold the Play button and a “snoring” image of the remote will appear on screen. Continue holding the Play button and your Mac will go to sleep
If you have multiple remotes or devices that use remotes (in a classroom setting with multiple iMacs, for example), you can pair a specific remote to a specific computer.


For all those who wonder why I did blog this - I know - you cannot use the remote for PDF presentations but there's a nice little app that does the job for you and converts PDFs into Keynote presentations - and you'll be able to use your IR Remote with Keynote.

If you want to spend some money on it, and you've got an iPod Touch or IPhone, get the 'Remote' app from the iTunes App Store, that will let you navigate presentations too with more advanced tools.

This blog was mainly sourced from GNUHAUS. Thanks.

Monday 1 November 2010

Europe at the crossroads


Nice poster-design from quite a nice website I stumbled upon,
check it out it's Moo-moo! Haha.

Have a nice day, I'm off. x