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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Consumer Hardware & Components > Using Mac as NAS - Network Attached Storage?

Using Mac as NAS - Network Attached Storage? (Page 2)
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ShortcutToMoncton  (op)
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Jan 10, 2013, 12:58 PM
 
Well for Xmas I got a Rii Touch N7 remote that I'd been looking at - the wife is pretty smart. Wasn't that expensive so if it doesn't work out it won't be too big a deal. So far I'm just trying to get used to how to use the thing, but at the very least it fills in for my inability to pair the Apple Remote with the Mini - so I can use it as a simple Plex remote and don't need an iPad for button control. It's small and light and slightly cheap-feeling, but it does the job so far and the backlit keyboard is nice in the dark. If I can figure out how to start assigning hotkeys then it might end up working pretty well.
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subego
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Jan 11, 2013, 07:39 PM
 
A touchpad remote with a keyboard. What a genius idea.
     
ShortcutToMoncton  (op)
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Jan 14, 2013, 10:21 AM
 
Hahaha yeah. It does not have a Cmd key of course, and MacOS doesn't automatically recognize it as a keyboard (it keeps asking to press the "key next to this Shift key", but since this keyboard is specialized the key it's asking for does not exist). So I've got to figure out how to map one of the keys to Cmd, but I doubt that will be an impossible task. I'll look around and see if there's a program that allows me to do that sort of thing?

Also, the touchpad is not multitouch. Not a surprise - it's not really big enough for more than one finger anyway, that's what she said, bada boom - but you really realize how many gestures you regularly use now that they're not available.

One of which is the zoom feature - I was hoping to be able to simply CTRL-zoom a little whenever I was doing something that required detailed text reading, etc. No such luck yet, although I haven't really looked at whether a hot-key version of zoom is an available workaround. It would be a handy feature in a pinch, and probably a better solution than simply lowering the resolution (given that this won't be a frequent necessity). Other than that, I've got to figure out a hotkey for the application switcher as well, as three-finger swipe obviously doesn't work.

Otherwise, it's starting to look okay. I can simply keep Plex client open and control it with the remote. I use iTunes in the background via Remote on the iPad - it's a much better interface for choosing music, anyway. It actually works pretty well.....I can see me picking up a used iPad mini down the road to use as a hardwired front-end remote for the music system.
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ShortcutToMoncton  (op)
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Jan 15, 2013, 03:39 PM
 
Bah. How do people with non-Mac keyboards account for the Alt and lack of Cmd? There are Keyboard options to have keys mean something else, but they're preset - e.g "Option" can be set to mean "Cmd" or "Ctrl", etc. - but how do you map that to Alt instead?

Similarly, Zoom has some keyboard combos, but they're preset (e.g. Shift-Cmd-Key) - I don't see an option to make your own (simpler) combo.
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Jan 21, 2013, 08:22 AM
 
Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton View Post
Bah. How do people with non-Mac keyboards account for the Alt and lack of Cmd?
If there is a Windows key, that works as Command. If not, I'd probably reconfigure either Control or Caps Lock to work as Command.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
ShortcutToMoncton  (op)
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Jan 25, 2013, 11:34 AM
 
Originally Posted by abbaZaba View Post
pretty sure we've been over this before, in your other thread.

I use Logitech's Touch Mouse but there are a number of other (most likely better) options. I also use Screens on iOS for VNC connections.

if you're going to run it headless, you might want to take a look at this link for a video dongle (to take full advantage of the GPU, if that's a concern):
Macminicolo Blog (Build a Dummy Dongle for a headless Mac mini)

the iPad mini wasn't out when we last discussed remote options but it might be the perfect addition to home theather: lighter, smaller, cheaper but still pretty powerful
Tried the dummy dongle last night - it worked fantastic for headless iTeleport control. Without it, the mouse was always a little jerky and GUI response delayed by a half-second or so, which made iTeleport fairly annoying to use (especially trying to navigate menus etc.) - fixed that problem almost entirely. Great stuff.
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abbaZaba
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Jan 26, 2013, 12:17 AM
 
Glad to know that helped. It was one of the articles that as I read I thought "This is going to come in handy one day"
     
 
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