User Maxinc has shared his setup on our forums, and I only have two words, Remarkably Beautiful.

The best part, “Everything is controlled with just 1 remote, thanks to Flirc.”

See the full post here.

We’ve finally finished our API. A special thanks to Eric who has really helped make hard work materialize into a high standard and an acceptable product.

We haven’t released this publicly for general consumption yet, although the plan is definitely to get this out on the open. I’d certainly like to put the project up on Git, which will be our set of libraries and a small example application written in QT.

Please touch base with me if you would like access to this before the public release (probably very early next year).

I will pick up work on the beta releases of the firmware. I strongly believe that the repeat issue is done, and will be working on the waking up a sleeping PC firmware.

I’m extremely pleased how well everything is maturing, and certainly hope that  it shows in nothing but a beautifully simple and easy to use product.

Those of you with Apple style remotes, or remotes that don’t repeat while holding the remote button down, I’ve got a FW beta release you can test.

The changes to the firmware were very minimal, I don’t expect anything can go wrong, so don’t be discouraged to try this if you are experiencing this missing feature.

Please post feedback directly on the forum and not in the comments section below.

Long Key Press Beta Release Forum

Thanks Everyone!

The forums are live, and pretty hot. I should have done this sooner in retrospect, but I don’t think I could have handled the additional work.

I’ve started a forum, you’ll need to register to try this out, but for those who can’t wake up their machine from sleep, this is a fix. It’s not a solution, but a temporary fix.

This temporary fix will allow you to pair a button on your remote with a special command that will tell flirc to send a ‘wake-up’ signal to the computer which is in hibernation or sleeping. This wont be needed in the future, any button will essentially do this.

Here is the link:

Wake-Up Command Beta Release Forum

Please post in the forum with questions/feedback. Don’t use this comment section of the blog.

Happy beta testing!

Flirc forums are live.

I haven’t had much time to play with the forums, but I added some general places for people to start posting. If I missed something and get a lot of spam, I don’t have much time to run through everything again, and will temporarily shut them down. Hopefully this wont be the case.

Don’t mean to be pessimistic, but I have a lot on my plate. While I know this is overdue, I don’t want to have something that sucks my time. Remember, this is just primarily me, and I’m doing my best.

I’m confident that the v1.0 firmware release has fixed the sleep/cold start issue described in the last post. If anyone is still experiencing this after the firmware upgrade, please, say so.

A special thank you to everyone giving me feedback and testing the non public images. I’m forever grateful for you guys, your patience, and understanding.

Here is what’s on the drawing board for the near future. There are two issues outstanding with the firmware, which I have been making slow and steady progress. Check out this page for past fw release notes, and future firmware feature release notes. This page will get updated with tentative release dates.

I will also be putting together forums. This will bring a social advantage for users to share their setups, post problems, request features, and try/discuss beta firmware releases. This has been a long time coming, but with everything quickly stabilizing, a very important necessity.

But before I start publicly releasing firmware images, I’m going to be taking a break to work on finalizing one of the most important aspects of the project, the API. We will be putting together a C API for users to integrate all of the flirc functionality in their own programs. We will also be releasing source code for a QT GUI which act as an example usage program. All in this time, the public GUI will be updated for better stability.

I will post API news and updates via the blog, as well as share when the forum goes up. Beta firmware releases will all be done in parallel, which will be available to anyone who wants to try them, but I don’t expect to integrate them into the GUI until the API and GUI are stable.

Thanks to all the great customers who make every ounce of effort worth all the hard work.

I’m calling out for your help regarding an issue effecting a small amount of users. I have been unable to make any progress on some of the other firmware features because there is one major bug that I can not re-produce, and can not solve. I’m spending all my time on this one, so I’m asking for your help.

When you wake your computer up from sleep, and your flirc no longer works and requires you to unplug/plug, then please leave in the comments section the following:

1. Operating System [Linux/Windows/Mac]

2. Operating System Version [Lion/Snow Leopard/Hardy Heron/Vista/etc] (32/64 bit as well)

3. Your Motherboard Manufacturer (If you don’t know, leave your PC Model)

Even if I have talked to you previously, please post a note in the comments section. I need help narrowing this down and will most likely purchase an identical unit.

For those orders placed in the past week, they will go out this Saturday, Pacific time. I’m so sincerely sorry for the delay, I usually can make every order go out next day, however this week has been extremely stressful and busy. There is no reason they haven’t left (bad parts or firmware or software, everything is fine) other than me being completely and utterly swamped.

There is also a bug in fw v0.8 which will cause a lot of headaches, a key can randomly be deleted. I have fixed this and the fw image will be a part of the next GUI, but for those who want to get it now, please do so here: fw_0.9.bin

The orders that ship out will have this version pre-installed.

The sleep issue that some users experience is still outstanding. I’ve tried about every OS’s on 15 different hardware machines. I can’t reproduce this. Multiple modules and multiple reboots, sleep, and hibernations, and everything on my end is rock solid. A good friend of mine has about 10 machines, I will spend the weekend at his place trying to reproduce the problem. I’m certain, once I can reproduce this, the problem will be resolved rather quickly.

That’s it for now. I’ll try to knock out some of these other promised firmware features soon.

All pre-orders have shipped. Patiently awaiting feedback.

I can’t say it’s a shock, we all knew it was coming, but it’s still a truly sad day. Steve Jobs will forever be known as the world’s greatest CEO, he changed everything.

But what’s truly amazing, was the constant fight and resilliance of an individual that did not ever want to give up. “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO”. I could only imagine how absolutely terrible he must feel physically, and mentally, to have sent that letter which was probably written at another time.

Steve has not been well for a while. When I first saw him a few years ago on stage I knew something was wrong. Call it a survivors intuition. When I go to the hospital for my checkups, I’m surrounded by amazing people, all of which who are fighting for their lives. Steve looks like he has been fighting for his life. Over the last few years, there was sign after sign. The liver transplant was a pretty big one. The livers is a regenerative organ, one which you can cut in half, and it will grow back. People don’t get liver transplants, it’s a hard and dangerous procedure, and when I was diagnosed, I had doctors tell me it wasn’t even an option. (thankfully, my cancer was contained and didn’t spread to anything like the liver).

In his last speech to announce iCloud, it was extremely obvious to me how much his health had declined. Every word was a reach for breath, almost as if he had just gotten out of bed. Then the news came where he pulled in the release of his biography for three months. You don’t authorize a biography in the middle of your privately kept life.

I’ve heard that Steve has been on campus every day, talking with his staff. I can’t imagine how difficult this could be. He’s fighting for his life, which you would think he’d want to be enjoying outside of work. It truly says something about his devotion to his company, and to the people at Apple which he’s always gratefully acknowledged in his keynotes.

From the bottom of my heart, I wish Steve all the best in the world, and hope he wins his fight. Apple, and Steve Jobs, has been the sole reason and motivation for which I’m always striving for perfection.