Is the $39 AT&T HBO/Cable deal worth it?

It appears that there are other fees like a $7/month "Internet Wifi Gateway" that is required and $200 installation. Plus the $39 is only good for a year and then it goes up to $80 + $7 internet gateway + $7 / TV.

So it's:

$39 - base fee
$7 - Internet Gateway
$7 - Additional TV
$16.66 - Installation fee divided by 12 months

That is around $70/month for the first year.

After that it will be:

$80 - base fee
$7 - Internet Gateway
$7 - Additional TV

or $94/month

I don't think it's worth the pain and not to mention the data cap:

AT&T Data & Internet Usage Tools

You'll be charged $10 for every incremental 50 GB of usage beyond 250 GB.

Keyboard for the HTMac

After playing around with the ATI Remote Wonder on the HTMac I decided I was missing part of the advantage of having a computer hooked to the big screen. I really needed a better way to navigate. After searching forums I ran across a cheap RF keyboard that included a trackpad. This sounded like the perfect solution. I ordered it from Provantage on Wednesday and it showed up on Friday. The Logitech PS3 keyboard makes a pretty sweet remote. I'm thinking about getting another one just in case I decide to build the HTPC for the upstairs. for $32+shipping you cannot beat this deal. Plug and play, no drivers required. The trackpad sensitivity seems perfect. The only thing it's missing is the Apple/Windows key but that's not as big of a deal as it seems.

How to use a Netgear WGT614 V7 as a wireless ethernet bridge.

While building my HTMac I decided to try and turn my old Netgear WGT614 V7 into a wireless ethernet bridge. I didn't want to have to pay for the Mini Airport adapter and I couldn't find a suitable USB adapter. After gogling around I finally found a reference that Version 7 of the WGT614 wireless router was very different from the other version. There appears to be no working version of DD-WRT, Tomato, etc.. that works with this version. I hate to give up so I kept googling. It appears that the V7 model use an Atheros chipset. I also found out that the cousin Netgear WGT624 router also usese an Ahteros chipset. So now I googled for WGT624 and client mode and found BeatJunkie's most excellent guide on how to turn a Netgear WGT624 into client, repeater, bridge. I followed his steps and bammo... Now I have a ethernet bridge that cam be used for my HTMac and XBox.

G4 Mac Mini as a HTPC

I pulled my old G4 Mac Mini out of retirement to use as a Home Theater PC (HTPC). Should this really be a Home Theater Mac (HTMac). Oh well, these are some random notes I have to pass on to anyone else that is trying this.

• Use the VGA adapter. DVI to HDMI is broken on the Mini. You will not be able to view the full screen using DVI-HDMI.
• Get at least a 5400rpm hard drive. The 4200 included on my Mini was too slow. You may want to try an external firewire drive.
• Forget USB WIFI. I could not find one that worked reliably. I'm using a Netgear WGT614 V7 wireless router in client mode as a Wireless to Ethernet bridge.
• Use a RF keyboard or VNC client to control the HTMac. I tried to use the ATI remote wonder but it just doen't have the required functionality and I could not make it 100% compatible with Front Row (escape key couldn't be mapped).
• Use Front Row and not one of the 3rd party Front Row replacenemts. I tried them all and went back to 10.5 Front Row.