With the rumored Apple TV-minus-the-box-plus-the-TV unit days from being announced, I wanted to add one more set of thoughts to his before any such unveiling.

Mike was one of the folks behind Yahoo! Mash, a testbed for some of Yahoo!’s social efforts soon to be released. In my mind, Mash’s key feature was the ability for anyone to create a profile for someone who hadn’t yet joined the service. The thinking was that some folks just don’t want to spend the time setting things up… but if someone already did all the work, why not? (And, as someone who has had to setup innumerable electronics and computer purchases for others, I can attest to the success of such efforts; knock out most of the setup hassles, and you’ve got a happy user you’d otherwise have never had.)

In a similar vein, why not offer the ability for users to setup and customize software profiles for others on the Apple TV? There’s a reason people still joke about how hard it is for their parents to setup a VCR: configuring home electronics is never as easy as you’d like. Mac users are generally well known for their evangelization of the Apple platform; why not give them an opportunity to prove it?

My thinking is this: Apple should provide a Mac andWindows application (or Web app) that allows a user to specify the following settings:

• WiFi settings
• iTunes Library pairing
• Television model (with supported resolutions)
• Cable provider and channel lineup (Apple TV doesn’t use this now, but if they ever want to tackle PVR, this would be good info to get)
• YouTube username
• Flickr username (and usernames of Contacts to track)
• MobileMe username
• Slideshow settings
• Podcast subscriptions

Once entered, the application can generate a patchstick disc image and load it directly onto a USB thumb drive, much in the same way that Boxee’s and XBMC’s patchstick is created. With this USB drive, a user could then plug it into their Apple TV, restart the unit, and have their settings injected in a matter of minutes. Even if this were just for individuals to do for themselves (i.e. not to help setup someone else’s Apple TV), the time (and frustration) savings would be considerable.

With that simple application, Apple could take the hassle out of an already-somewhat-hassle-free, living room electronics experience. And, with that, take on a bigger home entertainment marketshare.

Fortunately, no one waited for Apple to create the Boxee patchstick to extend the Apple TV. For those capable, why not create a patchstick creator to do just this?

Luckily, Yahoo! Developer Network co-worker JR Conlin stepped up and helped me fill in a couple blanks. As such, I present my revision to the O’Reilly Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) for JavaScript Developers Pocket Guide (by Mike Chambers, Daniel Dura, & Kevin Hoyt)… particularly pages 27 and 28, Setting Up the AIR SDK and Command-LineTools:

There are a number of ways to add the path to the AIR SDK to your system path, depending on which shell you are using, and how you specify user environment variables.

The instructions below show how to modify your path environment variable if you are using the bash shell.

1. Open the Terminal program (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal)
2. Make sure you’re in your home directory by typing

   cd

   and pressing enter.

3. We need to check to see if one of two files are present. Run the following command

   ls -la

4. Look for a file named either.profile or.bashrc.
5. If you have neither the .profile or .bashrc file, then create the .profile file with the following command:
   touch .profile
6. Open the .profile or .bashrc file with a text editor.
7. Look for a line that looks similar to this:

   export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin

8. Add the path to the /bindirectory to the end of this line. For example, if /bin is at /airsdk/bin, the export path should look something like this:

   export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin;/airsdk/bin

   making sure to separate the entries with a colon.

9. If the file is empty, add the following line:

   export PATH=$PATH:/airsdk/bin

10. Save and close the file.

Insert: Quit Terminal (and other applications), and restart your Mac. (If you don’t restart your Mac, your Terminal application won’t recognize the changes.)

11. Run the following command to load the new settings source,

    .profile

    (or

    .bashrc

    , if that is the file you edited).

Revise item #11: Run the following command to load the new settings source,

. .profile

(or

. .bashrc

, if that is the file you edited).

12. You can confirm that the new settings have taken effect by typing

    echo $PATH

    and pressing Enter. Make sure that the

    /bin

    path is included in the output.

13. In order to test the installation, open a Terminal window and type

    adt

    .
    
    You should see output similar this:

    Too few arguments.
    Usage: adt -package air_file app_xml [ file_or_dir | -C dir file_or_dir ... ] ... 

    meaning that the tools are configured correctly.

If you get an error that the file cannot be found, then check the following things:

• Make sure the bin and runtime directories are included in the

  directory.

• Make sure you included the path to

  /bin

  correctly in the PATH environment variable.

• Make sure you either opened a new Terminal window, or ran source on your configuration file.

If this works for you, too (or, if it does not), drop me a line in the Comments section. I will try to keep this updated as I hear from folks. Having recently spoke at the Atlanta stop of the OnAir tour, I can attest that developers are building exciting things with AIR… hopefully this will help a few others join those legions.