I thought that it would be handy to be able to use my iPhone as AirPlay speakers for while im at home and my iPhone is on the speaker dock i have for it. So after some research i figured out how to do it. It isn’t perfect but it works alright.

Things that you will need:

• Jailbroken iPhone
• This File: AirPlay
• OpenSSH from Cydia
• Caffeine 2 from Cydia
• Cyberduck installed on your Mac

The first thing that you have to do is download the AirPlay file and extract it to your computer.

After doing that Copy “airtunesd” to /usr/libexec on your iOS device. Copy “com.apple.airtunesd.plist” to System/Library/LaunchDaemons. You can use Cyberduck for this. In order to transfer files on your iOS device, make sure you’ve installed OpenSSH from Cydia.

The next step is to change the permissions for both files to 755. You can do this using Cyberduck or iFile directly on your device.

After that Reboot your device and if all was done right you should be able to open iTunes and connect to your iPhone as AirPlay speakers.

One of the issues that i ran into on this was when your iPhone would go to sleep the music would become unclear, so if you go to your home screen and activate Caffeine from there it will prevent your iPhone from going to sleep and keep the music playing clear.

A Big thanks goes out to Federico Viticci from Mac Stories for helping figure this out the first time:

MacStories.net Article 

This is a simple project that I threw together in a single night, The idea was i wanted to make out Pumpkin just a little different then the rest in the neighborhood.. but not quite enough to scare away all the kids..

It is a project that even parents can do with their kids, all thats needed is a few parts that are laying around and a little bit of time. In my case i used a old BasicStamp board i had laying around and a few RGB LED’s. The whole goal with this project was to keep it simple. In any case all you need is a simple microcontroller, even and arduino would work perfect and a few spare LED’s. (If you really wanted to get creative you could do it all in digital logic devices)

After this project I got excited with the idea of OpenCV and computer vision for robotics. At this time I am always working on some sort of Computer Vision project on my free time.

Under a new startup company we are currently working on some new ideas of small sized relay boards for home automation projects. If you are interested in getting your hands on one of these boards im sure I can find a few extras laying around, so feel free to just send me an email.

Here is the datasheet for these prototype boards:  SRB1-RevB

If you are like me at all, you may order a lot of stuff online.. even when you are living in Japan. The problem is that you are not always home when they go to deliver it. If you miss a delivery you may see a note in your mailbox that says ‘Undeliverable Item Notice’ I have a picture of one below. if you get one of these, dont worry..  Just follow these directions..

Just a side Note: While writing this I noticed there was a phone number for english deliveries at the bottom of the notice, I have not tried it but here is the number: 0570-0460111

1) The easy way.. Just click this link -> JP Post Redelivery Page

2) Scowl down the page until you see something that looks like this:

• a) In the first box put your zipcode XXX-XXXX
• b) In the second box but the item number ( I wont lie… I dont know what goes here so i always leave blank)
• c) In the third box put the Notice number that was left on the sheet
• d) In the next drop-down box, choose the date that the notice was left
• e) In the next box of buttons, choose the matching kanji for the from the part of the sheet I boxed in blue above
• f) Chose the delivery type, The first one is at home delivery
• g) Hit the button at the center at the bottom of the page to go to the next page

2) Chose the date and delivery time   (指定しない = Anytime       午前中 = Morning Time)

• a) Hit the button towards the right to go to the next page

3) This next page is all the details for your delivery, Follow the picture below then hit the button at the bottom right .

4) This last page is the conformation page, Re-Check everything then hit the button at the bottom right

I am excited to start learning more Japanese and adjust myself to the Japanese Lifestyle..

Inari Shrine