How to support Chinese in XBMC on ATV2

XBMC has built-in multi-lingral support.  However, the font that shipped with it is not unicode and not support all the languages. 
In order to view Chinese character, you need to download arialudi.ttf true type font from the web (just google it).
After downlad the font to your local drive.  You need to copy it to ATV2 box.
Assuming your font file is named arialuni.ttf and stored in your local folder named Downloads.
Coping files through ssh need to done by scp command.  So open your terminal and key in the following commands:

There are 2 locations you need to copy the fonts to:
1. ATV system fonts location, enter the following command in terminal
>scp Downloads/arialuni.ttf root@<your ATV2 ip address>:/Applications/XBMC.frappliance/XBMCData/XBMCHome/media/Fonts

2. Skin font location (Confluence)
>scp Downloads/ARIALUNI.TTF root@<your ATV2 ip address>:/Applications/XBMC.frappliance/XBMCData/XBMCHome/addons/skin.confluence/fonts

After copying the font over to both locations, ssh to ATV and issue the following commands:

>cd /
>cd Applications/XBMC.frappliance/XBMCData/XBMCHome/addons/skin.confluence/fonts
>mv DejaVuSans.ttf backup_original.font (Backup your original font)
>mv arialuni.ttf DejaVuSans.ttf (override the default Confluence font)

Now go to XBMC menu --> Settings --> International
> Change language to Chinese if you want the menu to be in Chinese, otherwise leave it as English (simple or traditional)
> Change character-set to GBK or Big-5, this is important to view Chinese characters
> Then go to XBMC menu --> settings --> skin
> Change skin language to Arial Based
> Finally, go to Setting --> Video --> Subtitle
> Change language to Chinese and font to arialuni.ttf

Done.  Now the XBMC should be in Chinese:

How to install XBMC on Apple TV 2

To install the popular XBMC media center on Apple TV 2 (ATV2), you first need to jailbreak it then install the xbmc remotely using ssh.

1. Jailbreak ATV2
    SeasOnPass is a Mac application that allows you to easily jailbreak ATV2.
    Just follow the step on this page.

2. Install XBMC
On XBMC offical site, there are steps to install XBMC. I extracted as below:

$ ssh root@<your ATV2 IP address> 

(The password should be "alpine" if you haven't changed it)

$ apt-get install wget

$ wget -O- http://apt.awkwardtv.org/awkwardtv.pub | apt-key add -

$ echo "deb http://apt.awkwardtv.org/ stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/awkwardtv.list

$ echo "deb http://mirrors.xbmc.org/apt/atv2 ./" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xbmc.list

$ apt-get update

$ apt-get install org.xbmc.xbmc-atv2 

3. Verify that your ATV2 now have XBMC on the menu

Avatar 3D - IMAX Experience

I wasn't aware of Avatar until friends around me all keep pushing me to watch it, watch it in 3D, and watch in IMAX 3D! It turns out to be a truly amazed experience. The movie is a master piece of perfect combination of human imagination and computer graphics. The dream like Pandora world and exotic creatures keep refreshing my eyes and taking me to one and another exciting advantures.
If you haven't watch it, GO WATCH IT NOW! Especially, do not miss the IMAX experience while it's still available. We bought the ticket two days before the showtime, and lined up outside the theater in cold winter for more than 15 minutes to get into the theater. As soon as the gate opened, the crow flood it and raced towards the second line up for the box office then the third line up for the cinema entrance.... I was shocked by the crazyness but didn't slow down my feet. We got a perfect spot (center at the last row) to enjoy this superb movie.
Click here to watch the trialer!

African Lion Safari

We visited the African Lion Safari this Saturday. The weather was hot but we, especially Rita, enjoyed the summer day.
She was so excited to be such closed to the wild animals that she didn't even take any afternoon snap and ran around tirelessly.



While we had the chance to drive our own car into the wild zoo, we choose the ride the tour bus because we were afraid that the monkey might scratch our car surface. It turnned out that the monkey is quite harmless (to the car of course..) and the lions are sleeping... The tour bus is spacious and has A/C. The draw back is that we don't have the choice to where to stop or how long we wanna stay at particular location. Next time when we visit again, I'm sure I will drive my car instead of taking the bus. :)

We had hot pot dinner at friends place and headed back home at night.