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That title might be slightly misleading if you think “mods” are hardware changes. None of the changes I discuss in this article have to do with modifying the hardware of the Apple TV. But many of the changes to the software go beyond simple hacks. They change the behavior of the device. So, I went with “Hacks and Mods.” You can gripe in the comment section all you want.

Okay.

The Stage

Allow me to briefly expound on my network and devices. My Internet connection is from Comcast cable with advertised speeds of 5Mbps/1.5Mbps. Lately, I have seen much faster speeds at fairly regular intervals, something I am not complaining about. Perhaps one hidden feature of the Apple TV is a handshake with the ISP that gets a hot connection for all those savvy HD downloads. Or not.

From the cable modem, I run into a Linksys WRT54G wireless router. The firmware is stock Linksys, last updated sometime last year, so likely up-to-date (haven’t checked though.) I use DHCP to dynamically assign local IP addresses to all devices except my main PC which takes the static local IP address of 10.10.10.100. If you see instances of a local IP addresses in any of the tutorials or articles linked here, be aware that you will need to modify that to reflect your own local network setup. Using hostnames for devices on the network seems to work without any problem on the Apple TV, even when connecting to a Windows PC using the local hostname. At least, it has been no trouble for me.

My main machine on the network is fairly modern, home-built PC running Windows XP Professional SP2. We have another PC and an old iBook G3 on the network as well, but all the hacks and mods done to the Apple TV were successfully achieved with the main PC. There are a couple of hacks that require frameworks and plugins from a machine running OS X 10.4. For those, I consulted friends who delivered the necessary files. I also had an install disc for OS X 10.4 that came with my wife’s iBook. I used that disc on one occasion. The hacks that require files directly from an OS X install disc or machine have to do with installing Flash, Quicktime and other rich media plugins in CouchSurfer, a WebKit-based web browser for Apple TV. We’ll get into specifics on that in a moment, but if you are not really interested in having Flash in a browser (you can still have the browser!) then you really don’t have to worry about having access to OS X as mentioned above.

Source

None of the hacks or mods that I used on my Apple TV were discovered or created by me. There is a fantastic community of folks who work really hard to make this magic happen. Up front, I’d like to give full credit to the folks in the Apple TV community who have made these things possible. Hat tip.

The majority of my information came from ATV4Windows and the ATV4Windows wiki, a site based on hacking the Apple TV using a Windows machine as the main rig. Much of the information compiled there has come from other popular Apple TV resources, like iClarified, AwkwardTV and others. As of yesterday, ATV4Windows has moved to a subscriber model. I wish the developer there lots of luck making money off of Apple TV hacks, but I prefer free information so I’ll try to disclose as much as I possibly can right here. However, I do plan on linking you up with many of the same tutorials I followed. I won’t reinvent the wheel. Unless that wheel now costs $15. If you do have a Mac that you’ll be manipulating your Apple TV with, no worries. There is a ton of information and iClarified currently seems to be one of the better resources. AwkwardTV is similarly geared toward Mac enthusiasts.

Enough yammering. Let’s do this.

The “Patchstick”

The patchstick is simple really, it’s a disk image that fits on any 1-4GB USB flash drive. When connected to the USB port on the Apple TV, the patchstick will install a few basic applications to help get you rolling with hacks and mods. The main thing you’ll need is SSH support. That’s the primary goal you should have at the onset. Get SSH up and connect to your Apple TV from another machine on the network. If you get there, the sky is the limit.

I used the Patchstick that is freely available from ATV4Windows. Since the author has chosen to hold the new version ransom, the older version of the Patchstick will have to do. Honestly, you only need SSH anyway. As of a few weeks ago, the tutorial he gives on the Patchstick page was accurate. I followed his steps verbatim. The new Patchstick he has made does install a lot of nice software, but at this point, it seems to be stuff you can do on your own (and for free). More than anything, I like the idea of having a more controlled install. Get what you want and only that. For another option, you can use this tutorial.

So I hope you have been able to get SSH installed on your Apple TV. Once you have that, connect to it using PuTTY (Win) or Terminal (OSX). Use the IP address of the Apple TV or the hostname, AppleTV.local. The username and password are both frontrow. You’ll have that memorized in no time. Trust me.

Once you’ve connected, you are ready to start hacking it up. What I did is not necessarily what you might do. Please browse the documentation at AwkwardTV and the other fine resources for Apple TV hacks. It’s only by knowing what is available to you that you can really make a decision about what you would like to achieve with your Apple TV. My goals once seemed radical, but as I studied I realized they could be rather easily accomplished:

• Have root control over Apple TV.
• Copy files to the Apple TV outside of iTunes “syncing”.
• Play media files encoded with alternative codecs, like DivX and Xvid.
• Play media files that use different file formats, like Quicktime, MPEG-4, AVI and WMV.
• Stream files directly from my PC to the Apple TV.
• Browse the web with a Flash-enabled browser (on the “bonus” list).

SSH

With SSH access to Apple TV, you have all the the root you can handle. All your base are belong to us. Again, this is a rather fundamental step in the process. For me, I was really quite excited just to get here. It was even more fun to connect to the Apple TV using WinSCP and browse the root files and folders. The main access point for the Apple TV seems to be in the frontrow directory:

/mnt/Scratch/Users/frontrow

You’ll become comfortable with the structure of the files and folders in the Apple TV fairly quickly. You’ll find it is mostly simple, although there are a couple of tricky folders with the same names under different paths. Just check the paths carefully when performing any modifications. Don’t just haphazardly hunt for folders to dump stuff in. You might dump something in the wrong place, which could lead to some frustration and troubleshooting.

ATV Files

This application allows you to add folders and files to the /frontrow directory and have direct access to these files from the Apple TV main menu. ATV Files will also play media files using the native Apple TV player, provided the proper codecs are installed. For that, we look at Perian.

Perian

Perian is really quite wonderful. I’ve used it on OS X since day one. It really is a Swiss Army knife for playing media in Quicktime on OS X. It works just as well on Apple TV. With Perian installed on Apple TV, you can really open up the device to become a more true “media center”.

CouchSurfer

If it’s sounds like a web browser, it probably is. And that’s exactly what CouchSurfer sounds like. Formerly known as SafariHD, CouchSurfer is a WebKit-based browser that will allow you to load and view web pages right on your television through Apple TV. The experience is nifty, but not really amazing. You’ll find yourself wanting a keyboard and mouse. Interacting with websites with the Apple remote and scrolling around the silly alphanumeric table quickly becomes rather mundane. There is a workaround that will apparently bring support for simple peripherals to the Apple TV, but I’ve yet to give it a shot.

I did manage to get the Flash plugin working with CouchSurfer. It was a pain to get there, because of the need for some proprietary Apple frameworks from the very specific OS X version 10.4. But I did finally accomplish it. It’s not exactly the experience I expected. I loaded up the fun hulu.com to try it out. Two problems emerged: 10 frames-per-second (at my visual estimation) and no full screen. I’m not sure if either of those problems will be repaired in later releases of CouchSurfer, or if there is just some weird bug with Flash in this environment, but it seems hardly worth my time to try and enjoy the tiny frame that most streams appear in or the sluggish frame rate.

It’s still cool! It just might not be quite the experience you thought you’d have.

Shared Network Drives

This one is amazing. Using the tutorial at ATV4Windows, I managed to get some of my media in shared folders accessible by the Apple TV! This means I can stream files right across the network from the original folders in which they reside without having to copy them to the Apple TV! I bet you can sense my excitement over this, and truly it is a notable accomplishment for several reasons.

1. You do not have to worry about the remaining space on the Apple TV’s native hard drive. Let’s face it, even 160GB can be used fairly quickly when it comes to media. I probably have half of that in photographs alone! And my music database isn’t far behind that. That’s not even counting the heaviest of all files, video.
2. You can maintain your current file and folder organization structure without concern for re-adapting it the Apple TV or having iTunes import and “manage” it all. Essentially, it all works right where it already resides.

The one problem with streaming from shared files across a network, particularly mine, is the latency that can often occur with slower networks. I’m on wireless-G here which both the Apple TV and my main PC use (my PC being wireless is a long story for another day.) So without having a hard cable in the house, other than from the modem to router, my network speeds are fairly slow compared to a nice 10/100/1000 wired network.

Streaming media to the Apple TV doesn’t always deliver smooth playback. I will experiment with some options (including getting everything hardwired—which for me means a visit from a cable technician to fix a few coax outlets) but until then, I have opted to copy over media with higher total bitrates directly to the Apple TV. They stream from that disk flawlessly!

That said, the option of playing back media on the Apple TV directly from a shared file or folder over a network connection is absolutely terrific.

In Conclusion

Like I said at the beginning of this now-lengthy article, I chose the hacks and mods that would give me the most value and that achieved the goals I set out to accomplish with my Apple TV. I just wanted to get a “media center” experience out of the device and I believe I have. I realize there are quite a few details missing from this article. I do have step-by-step instructions on each hack. If you have the slightest difficulty in tracking down a solid tutorial on any of the hacks I’ve outlined, please let me know. I can publish details about each. Obviously, this article’s length is well beyond the typical blog entry here and so I wanted to abbreviate it somewhat. It’s most important that you realize how potent the Apple TV really is under the hood. Yes, it takes a little time and energy to pull the greatness out of it, but once you do you will really be amazed at what you can accomplish with this tiny box!

Good luck with yours.

• Awkward TV

Technorati Tags: apple, tv, hacks, mods, modifications, software, SSH, WinSCP, Windows, OS X, Mac, media, Perian, codecs, CouchSurfer, WebKit, ATV Files

Last month, I received some disposable income for getting older. I had really become interested in doing something to make my digital media more accessible on the traditional medium of our living room television. While I really enjoy working on the computer all day long, sitting at a desk to watch podcasts and movies is really not a great experience.

So I started researching a few of my options. I really like the idea of a Sony PlayStation 3 and started to just save up for one. Then I thought about Apple TV. It’s moderately priced, would likely handle the “iTunes” side of things in a cinch, would certainly have good hardware and likely good software. I’m no Apple fanboy. I like the diversity of operating systems and believe each serves well in unique ways. But I do love iTunes and the way it handles media (generally speaking). And once I looked at what the Take2 upgrade to Apple TV enabled the device to do, I was sold.

Using craigslist, I managed to locate a 160GB model at a decent price ($250, new-in-the-box condition). Once I arrived home, I noticed the factory restore the seller had initiated put the firmware back to the original version, Take 1 so to speak, so I started the upgrade option immediately. Once it was all patched up and rebooted, I toured the menu, set up access to my wireless network and shared iTunes resources from my main PC. Then I perused the features, watched a couple of YouTube videos and linked up my Flickr account.

Take 2: YouTube and Flickr

I am really impressed with both the YouTube and Flickr features. While it is not very efficient to have to “type” in searches using the tiny remote to scroll around a few rows of alphanumeric characters, once you are in, each experience is really great. For what they are, YouTube videos generally look great and even the sound seems improved. But the real winner here is Flickr. Wow! This experience is stunning. The speed at which they are able to grab really great looking images for viewing on the TV is impressive. Though it has a few imperfections, like a bad habit of cropping the top and bottom from photos, overall it really makes the Flickr experience even better. It’s so handy when family is over to start up a slideshow to view Andrew’s latest antics or talk about an event I shot. When Apple TV goes idle, it goes into a screen saver mode with a cascade of my photostream! So even when we aren’t using the Apple TV, it becomes a part of our lives just like the pictures in frames strewn around our rooms. That is such a nice touch and though seemingly insignificant, it really adds value to the experience for us.

iTunes Integration

Smooth as silk. Yes. It was just so easy. All my tunes, videos, and podcasts synced to the Apple TV in just a few minutes. The iTunes Store is there too, albeit in quite a unique form. The UI is really slick and geared toward simple manipulation with the remote. I can rent movies, even in HD, right from the store and begin watching within just a few moments. The picture quality of an HD movie is quite stunning on my Samsung 32″ 1080i HDTV. In fact, I’m probably more impressed by how Apple gets the image to look so good and still stream to me so quickly and with zero buffer! It’s hot. A couple of small gripes are the way movies are displayed in the store. Essentially they show the cover art as a thumbnail for each flick. It can be a little hard to read the titles of each movie. Once you hover the cursor over one, a plain text title appears as a caption, but you must hover over it. So I generally find myself hovering over each cover to see what the title is, as opposed to scanning the screen for what I want. Perhaps on a larger screen, this problem is less noticeable.

Podcasts are really well done on the Apple TV. I love browsing the store and grabbing at some of the top podcasts and just sitting back and seeing what happens or throwing on my personal favorites to listen or view. There really is some fantastic content in the podcast space. Apple TV makes accessing that content fairly simple.

Conclusion

Apple TV is okay. Apple TV Take 2 is quite good. I have extended my Apple TV to make it great and I’ll cover some of those modifications in another article. Stay tuned.

If you are in the market for a $300 media center, I’d definitely encourage trying out the Apple TV if you have a store nearby. You probably will not be disappointed. Are there better media players out there? Well, given the recent developments on the PS3 front and given some really interesting things I’ve seen done with a Mac Mini and given the impressive abilities of a Linux box running MythTV, I’d say there probably are better setups. But each has it’s own price, either in cold cash or in an investment of labor. I feel like the Apple TV is a shortcut on both fronts, time and money, but has a significant ROI. I’m happy. When I explain the mods, you’ll learn why I am ecstatic.

• Apple TV

Technorati Tags: Apple TV, Apple, take 2, media, itunes, PC, Mac, upgrade, center, TV, television, technology, podcast, movie

Breaking Update: Looks like Blockbuster might be trying to weave into the Apple TV space. (Article)

I’ve been a long time fan of Mozilla’s award-winning browser Firefox. I’ve heralded the glory of safe browsing and championed the cause of FOSS.

I do still love Firefox. But lately, I’ve been troubled by a single problem: Firefox eats alive my available RAM, occasionally to the point that my machine slows to an unbearable crawl. I’ve researched the problem extensively only to come up with many dead ends on options to repair this. Apparently, many people (and seemingly Mozilla) touts this problem as a “feature” in that it is caused by caching history of the open tabs. If I have 10 tabs open at one, Firefox stands at the ready for any one of those tabs to be selected and will allow faster access if I navigate forward or backward to recently browsed pages.

Of course, the idea is fantastic. But the price to pay for such a feature is costly, especially on my home machine where available RAM is 1 GB.

After trying several modifications to Firefox, none which were successful, I decided to start casually browsing using Opera. The reason I looked to Opera was because of one particularly bad experience with Firefox. Quite by chance one day, I was using Firefox with about eight tabs open. Suddenly, my computer started acting up and I checked the system. Firefox was hogging a tremendous 610MB of my available 1,024. Yikes! I really needed to get to what I was working on faster than it would take to clear the issue by rebooting Firefox, so I pulled up my Program List, opened Opera and within seconds was browsing through the information I needed. Firefox whirred away in the background, trying to figure where to get more RAM to do its deed.

While browsing with Opera, I noticed how responsive the application seemed. In fact, web pages loaded faster. At first, I thought it just seemed that way as I was miffed at Firefox for going 20 mph in the fast lane of I-95. But indeed, even over time, Opera responded well. I opened the same tabs in Opera, navigated around for an hour or two and checked the system status. Opera was using a mere 59MB of RAM while Firefox still hogged over 300MB. I was impressed with Opera.

Today, I dual-wield the browsers. I still use Firefox daily. I cannot live without it for web development. In fact, I recently commented to a friend that if I was left with the option of a single browser and three plugins, I’d choose Firefox and the Web Developer Toolbar, Firebug and the HTML Tidy Validator. Together, they are a brilliant development platform. But for casual browsing, I’ve started turning very often to Opera. It’s fast, light and gets the job done. The UI takes some getting used to, but I’ve found everything I need.

If you battle the Firefox “memory leak”, I’d encourage a visit to opera.com. The browser is free and it’s a great alternative to Firefox. Opera also comes in tiny packages for your mobile device. And Opera Mini is a great product for accessing the web using more traditional mobile phones.

Technorati Tags: opera, mozilla, firefox, browser, slow, speed, switch

The service at Speedtest.net is excellent. The application is really slick and seems to provide reliable results of connection tests. It is a hybrid solution of Flash and Ajax and the UI is quite nice. (Ads are about the only negative aspect of the site, but they pay bills just like us and I appreciate that the service is free.)

If you are into speed or need a solid way to make sure your ISP is giving you what you pay for, hit Speedtest.net.

Here are some results from my latest speed test:

Technorati Tags: speed, test, bandwidth, connection, Internet, Flash, Ajax, speedtest.net

Mere hours after I posted the entry on Monday evening, the Newshutch team announced that they were pulling the plug. Stangely, I did not see the announcement until this morning when I pulled up Newshutch to delete all my feeds. Instead of my feeds, there was a message informing me that Newshutch was no more. There was a single option: export feeds into OPML. Well, I had done that on Monday to begin loading feeds into potential candidates. So Newshutch is done. I’m really sorry to see it go. It was the best web-based feed reader in the world. I hope the developers consider releasing the source as open, or at least packaging things up to sell.

I took the advice of my friends who commented earlier this week. The was near-vehement support of Google Reader. Everyone tended to agree that Google had really upped the ante on Reader since the early days. I had seen enough of the current version to know that Reader would be robust enough to handle my frantic reading style. There are just two things I don’t like about Google:

1. Their apps really are not beautiful. Functional, yes. Pretty, no. And design does matter. It is one of the reasons Newshutch attracted me.
2. I have know idea what Google is going to do to me once they own my data (essentially, my data is me.) Conspiracy theories aside, it is still a little scary. (You can call me crazy if it makes you feel better about your overt trust in Google.)
3. It takes a long time to initially load my 100 feeds.

But I love:

1. The mobile feature.
2. And the mobile feature.

The other reader mentioned in the comments was Netvibes. (Thanks, David Song.) I ran into them about two years ago. They had a neat start page thing going in the days when start pages were big. (I guess they are still popular, I just haven’t logged into mine in ages. My reader has always been my “anchor” tab—the first tab open in my browser.) Today, Netvibes is extremely mature. I was shocked at the work they have invested and, more importantly, the product they have pushed out. It would not surprise me at all if Netvibes is acquired by one of the larger companies, particularly Yahoo! who seems so fond of trendy web applications.

For me, Netvibes can’t really cut it as a reader. I tried to set it up. And I liked the one “Reader” view (widget) they have. But I couldn’t figure out how to directly mimic the UI of Google and Newshutch where feeds appear on the left and full text entries appear on the right. Netvibes Reader could display one feed like that, but I couldn’t figure out how to list my feeds appropriately. I am sure I am missing something, but no web search could help me find a straight answer.

There was one other mention, Bloglines. Sorry. Bloglines is a piece of crap. It always has been. It might just always be. I do appreciate Aaron chiming in though. My apologies for my opposition to your reader-of-choice.

So for now, I’ll use Google Reader. Luckily, I found a nice theme for their reader. It was designed by the famous Jon Hicks and will vastly improve the UI. We’ll see where it goes from here.

It may sound silly, but a good RSS reader can really make reading feeds delightful. I like good experiences. The most amazing thing about this hunt was how frustrating it was to find so few good web-based readers. Perhaps the team at Newshutch was right when they pointed out the struggle they faced in creating a good reader. Evidently, it is quite a challenge to do this right.

Technorati Tags: rss, feed, reader, newshutch, google, netvibes

Well, my beloved RSS reader, Newshutch, has taken a turn for the worse. I hung in as long as I possibly could, but the service lately has been downright terrible. While Newshutch still manages my feeds excellently, the site has been plagued with very slow response times causing the interface to feel far too sluggish to be usable.

Over the past few months it seems that Newshutch was gripped by overload after a switch to hosting company Joyent. I had fond hopes that the developers would come through on their assurance that service would be restored, but there has been no real resolution. After many weeks of frustration, I’ve decided to look for another RSS reader.

For me, there are a few must-haves:

• Web-based application
• Browser integration
• Simple, usable interface
• Feed Organization (Categories)
• Support for alternative content types (video, audio embeds)

I would also prefer something ad-free, even if there is a small monthly cost on my part to ensure this. I really enjoyed Newshutch’s “flag” as favorite feature. A similar feature would be another bonus.

I’m thinking about evaluating Google Reader again, even though their early iterations were pretty rough. They have brought marked improvements to that product in the last few months. However, I am wide open for suggestions. Anyone found an exceptional web-based feed reader?

Technorati Tags: feeds, rss, reader, web, application, newshutch

I love Mozy. Everyone needs to backup, right? Until recently, most of my backup data was done on my local machine to a second internal hard disk. Works great for stuff that I “sorta” don’t want to lose. But if there was a fire, or strong enough lightning bolt or theft, there isn’t much that can be done to restore the backup. Until recently, I just stored “crucial” information manually out on a web server or DVD. That information was encrypted, so I did not worry about it falling into the wrong hands, but it was a tedious process to remember to save that stuff elsewhere. I needed a solution that got my head out of the game and on to more important things. And I want it fast and cheap.

Then I found Mozy. I first heard of Mozy through Jason Powell on the Church IT Podcast. Since then, we’ve incorporated it for our backup process at NCC so that we now have in-house, zero-second backup to disk plus the offsite daily backup at Mozy. The redundancy of it all makes me feel quite confident in our process.

As I was signing up for MozyPro at the office, I noticed MozyHome. With all the photographs I’m taking, I have been itching to discover something reliable and simple for offsite backup. MozyHome is perfect for that! For $5 USD per month, I have unlimited disk space on Mozy’s servers to backup my precious data. All the transfers to their servers are encrypted and my data is encrypted as it rests on their drives. Nice! And the best part of all of this is how darn simple it is to setup and yet how flexible it is to suit my needs. Select the folders to backup, set the bandwidth throttle or schedule the upload, and let it go. Easy.

It does take a few days (for me, weeks) to get all this data gradually uploaded to their servers. In my case, I am backing up 96.4 GB (currently) and it is estimating between two and three weeks to complete at my current average upload rate of 1.0 Mb/s. Of course, when the data is there, Mozy will just scan for the incremental changes that happen daily and re-adjust their image of my data as necessary. Once the big push is out of the way, the real efficiency begins.

Everyone needs to backup. Mozy does it well. Go do it now!

Technorati Tags: mozy, backup, data, server, offsite, encrypt, storage

I just returned from Penn Camera with a sweet new lens. It’s the Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF. What a lens! I’ve only had time to snap a few frames with it, but I already love it.

The power of that wide aperture is astonishing, especially since the majority of my experience in photography has been with the stock Nikon 18-55mm lens (f/3.5-5.6) and the Nikon 55-200mm lens (f/4-5.6)—neither of which have very wide apertures, though they are great lenses. So far, I’ve had to really learn how to supplement the lighting in certain situations. That’s been great because it has forced me to study supplemental lighting techniques, like using strobes. Now, with this 50mm lens, I can open up that wide aperture and shoot most situations using only the available ambient light. (Of course, I’m still studying light—I will always study creative ways to light scenes and subjects. This lens simply prepares me for shooting in diverse situations where supplemental lighting isn’t possible.)

This is also my first experience with a prime lens. Prime (or “fixed”) lenses have only one focal length and do not offer the option to zoom to another focal length. It will be an adjustment to not rely on the zoom option. I’ll have to be even more active when composing. But I’ve already learned to compose shots first using a carefully selected focal length—and then use zoom for subtle framing adjustments. A large part of photographic composition is determining what type of perspective you want to create and using the focal length of the lens to adjust the angle. One would assume that with a fixed lens, the perspective is locked to a single variable. While I would say this is probably technically true, I already see differences in the way this lens shoots based on a number of other variables involved in photographic composition, such as subject distance, focus and, of course, aperture. I think the 50mm lens is actually quite dynamic.

Bottom line: This lens is well worth the small price tag. I say with certainty that the 50mm wide-aperture lens should be in every photographer’s bag. It’s versatile and fast.

Here are a two photographs taken with the 50mm lens. Thanks to bicycle and to Jeremy for being great subjects. If you aren’t tracking along on my photostream at Flickr, you should be.

Technorati Tags: photography, gear, nikon, 50mm, f/1.8, lens, review

Two packages are arriving soon. FedEx is helping me track it.

Everyone except Dave Clark is welcome to an educated guess based on all present clues.

Technorati Tags: fedex, track, package, guess

Recently, I grabbed a sweet new NZXT Lexa case from NewEgg, using a gift cert from my parents. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) After all the rebates, the total cost is $110 on it including shipping. The first machine I ever owned was purchased in 1999 for college. The old case was the only remaining original part on my machine. Over the years, I’ve upgraded every other component, some multiple times, but I always decided on moving up the chain technologically, never aesthetically.

Not that my machine is at the top tier of tech specs today, but I finally decided to get rid of the 7-year-old case in favor of something more pleasing to the eye. What I found is that cases have changed a lot over the years! My new case, the NZXT Lexa, is beautiful! The case is definitely edgy, but it has subtle elegance. It’s also more quiet, has larger capacity and makes hardware upgrades simple through screwless PCI mounts and drive rails.

I decided to snag a few before-and-after images of the hardware exchange. I’ve had a few other parts from previous upgrades stored away and I found that with my old case, I now have enough parts to build a second box using all the old gear. That machine will now be running Ubuntu Server and used as a project box for me to toy with various systems and applications, like Asterisk, Smoothwall and a plethora of fun web applications.

View all the images in the Flickr set.

Before:

After:

NZXT Lexa
NewEgg

Technorati Tags: case, upgrade, nzxt, lexa, newegg