Monthly Archives: December 2007

Free Upgrade to 802.11n With OS X 10.5 Leopard

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So I’m listening to my usual group of podcasts this morning, and I hear something mentioned about Apple including an upgrade to 802.11n in OS X 10.5 Leopard for machines that have the hardware in them. “Naaah!” I think. I couldn’t be that fortunate. I mean after all, I just bought an Airport Extreme last Saturday and, while I admit my connection was pretty much flying from the time I installed my Airport Extreme, that would just be too cool. Then I head to work.

As you can imagine, I’m thinking about it all day long.

I get home, greet Da Minx, and head to my MacBook Pro. I take the necessary steps:

  1. Select the Finder’s Go menu, select Utilities (or you can go to Applications, then Utilities in Finder)
  2. Open up Network Utility
  3. Select the Info tab
  4. Select the Network Interface (en1) from the scroll down arrow
  5. Where you see Model: Wireless Network Adapter is where you find your answer. If it reads 802.11 a/b/g/n, then you’re in there. If you only see 802.11 a/b/g then you’re not 802.11n enabled

Here’s what I found:

802.11n Surprise

As you can imagine, I was pretty pleased.

Thanks Apple. ;)

Target: Apple Computers

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It shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone that Macs are increasingly becoming popular hacking targets for some. After all, attracting attention inevitably includes bad attention as well. While I’m sure there are some who love being part of the niche crowd of Mac users that stay relatively safe, I believe those days are coming to an end.

The word is out. Macs are more than just good looking machines, they’re powerful computers that are much more fun, easier to use, and more intuitive than a Windows PC. That makes them pretty desirable in our age of technology. It will be very interesting to see how well they sell this Christmas season. There’s little doubt they’re more secure overall than Windows machines as well, but I’m not one to deny part of ther security is in their obscurity.

A new challenge seems to be on the horizon for Apple; the challenge of going from a hacker target to possibly the hacker target. I have faith in the Curpertino crowd for now. As coders go, and let me clear in stating that I am not one, they appear to be some of the best in the world.

Despite what some like to think, there are advantages to producing a proprietary product. Apple should, in theory, be able to lock things up tighter than Microsoft. They definitely proved this when some iPhone owners, to their chagrin, discovered their phones were nothing more than bricks after they had unlocked them, added 3rd party goodies, and updated them with a software update from Apple. As crazy as it sounds, I never have, and probably never will blame Apple for that incident. If anything, they made a point they’ll be able to easily refer to in the future. If, or more likely when a virus starts taking down Macs through a third party piece of software they will be able to rightly point out it wasn’t their fault. Will they scream it from the rooftops? I don’t think so. That doesn’t seem to be the Apple way, thankfully. They didn’t do that regarding some of the claims against Unsanity’s APE (application enhancer) . They will likely quietly push out an update press on.

All that said, the challenges are there. Nevertheless, I remain confident in the Cupertino crowd. ;)

Laterz.

A Hearty Welcome To the New Mac Users I Know (Part 2-Recommended Apps)

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All right. I’ve already told you about my favorite podcasts, and I hope you’ve been giving them a listen. If you have, then I know you’ve been learning some cool stuff about your Macs, and that’s always nice. Nevertheless, it’s time for me to give you a list of recommended apps for your Mac. Out of the nine apps I list, seven of them are free, and the ones that aren’t are so reasonable I don’t think you’ll have a problem buying them if they tickle your fancy.

Enough small talk! Let me get to that list for you.

Adium – I’ve been chatting online since way back with my first PC (a Gateway 2000 386DX/33 Mhz, for the curious). It was a blast with IRC and got even better with CompuServe and the GUI it offered. But that was some time ago. Like a lot of folks, I’ve gone through the gamut of chat and now IM clients from AOL, to MSN, Yahoo, iChat, and Google Talk. And I still use them all. That being the case, I was pleased as could be when I was tipped off about Adium. Adium allows me to sign in to all of the IM chat servers I mentioned above simultaneously. As far as I’m concerned, it’s pretty much the mother of all IM clients. It’s a free (that’s a nice word!), open-source, and user-friendly IM client packed with plenty of goodies, and can be tailored to your liking in many ways. If you haven’t checked it out yet you probably should take five minutes to give it a peek.

VLC Media Player – As with the chat clients, I’ve used a couple of media players in my day as well. Real Player, WinAmp, Windows Media Player… You name it, I’ve, more than likely, given it a shot. And I’ve also experienced the occasional headache of double-clicking on a file only to find a particular media player won’t play the format of that file. Not fun. VLC was the aspirin of the media player world I was looking for. I have yet to come across a media format this cross platform player can’t handle. I used it back in my Windows days, so I was more than happy to see a Mac OS X version waiting for me when I made the switch. I’m glad to tell you VLC is also free. :)

Skype – By now, if you don’t know what Skype is, you’re one of a very few people. Especially in the western world. How does one describe Skype..? Wow. It’s not easy folks. I use it for chatting, sending SMS messages to mobile phones, for video conferencing, for making and receiving regular phone calls (national and international), as well as voice mail. Skype also allows me to have a phone number in the U.S. that forwards calls to my mobile phone number here in Sweden. This, as you can imagine, saves my family and friends in the U.S. a dime or two when they call. ;) Skype costs nothing to install, just as the phone calls and video conferencing to other Skype users cost nothing. I like that a lot!

Chmox CHM Viewer – During your transition to Mac, you may come across a moment when you to need to read a help file that’s written in CHM (Compiled HTML). Chmox will come in handy then. As with everything else I’ve written about so far, Chmox is free.

Firefox Web Browser – Yeah. I know about Safari, and I think it’s an okay web browswer. However, the way it stands now, Firefox is the choice of web browser for my Mac. I say this after coming off of a self-inflicted, two weeks, Safari-only diet so I that I could write this with a clear conscience to not lose any sleep. As I said, Safari is okay. However, I want my web browser to be more than okay. I want boatloads of themes to choose from, and add-ons as far as the eye can see. When I log on to my Mac and fire up my browser I want it to scream, “Harlem’s here!” Aaaaaaand, I’ve noticed Safari can be just a teeny bit buggy when I use Gmail. As a hardcore Gmail user, that’s a no-can-do. And, of course, it’ free.

NeoOffice – Okay. Continuing with our theme of free, NeoOffice is just that, and that’s not too shabby for an office suite. What’s more, it’s a very good office suite. If you’re not ready to shell out $400 for MS Office for Mac, or $79 for iWork ’08 this is the office suite for you. Every time I fire it up, I’m rather amazed it’s free. Try it out and judge for yourself. After all, it doesn’t cost you a things.

Cyberduck FTP Client – Yep. This is my last free one. Cyberduck is an easy to use FTP client that is FTP, FTP/TLS (FTP over secured over SSL/TLS), and SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer) capable, allows bookmarking, and a whole slew of other options that should more than handle your file transferring needs. Okay. I also thought the duck was cute as well.

Here is where we leave the land of free and journey to the land of not-that-expensive-at-all. That’s something I’d like to point about switching to Mac: software is pretty darn inexpensive! So inexpensive you often find yourself spending more than you planned just because you want to see what else your Mac can do. Anyway, let me get to the point and show you what I mean:

O2M – If you’re an Outlook user in need moving your info to Apple Mail, here’s a pretty good solution. In my experience, O2M was definitely worth the $10. And when it was time for my wife to move her info from Outlook to her MacBook, there was nothing to think about. This handy-dandy little app turned it into a 5 minute job.

Little Snitch – Here’s where I remind you all of realities of the net. Granted, making the leap from the Windows environment to the definitely-more-secure world of Mac OS X improved your security situation quite a bit. Nevertheless, there’s no need to go around thinking your absolutely bullet-proof. I know Mac OS X has a great firewall that should definitely help you keep things from coming in, but how do you check and make sure your valuable information isn’t going out when you don’t want it to? Little Snitch is your answer. For the reasonable cost of $24.95, Little Snitch will let you know when a program is attempting to access the internet and prevent that connection if you didn’t want to grant it. This semi-paranoid person definitely appreciates that capability.

That’s all for now.

(Next up, Part 3-Recommended web sites to keep an eye on)

Glad Wii Bought Ours Already

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You have to pardon the corny play on words in the title, but I really have to admit I’m happy my wife and I did not wait until Christmas to buy our agreed upon family Christmas present, our Nintendo Wii (pronounced “wee”). Apparently they’re now literally selling faster than Nintendo can make them! That’s great news if you’re a Nintendo shareholder, but can’t you just see the horror stories of a couple of parents getting physically violent over that last Nintendo Wii in a toy store somewhere?

In any case, if somehow lately you’ve been so busy you actually don’t know what a Nintendo Wii is, let me just tell you that I think it’s, bar none, the most exciting game console I’ve ever played with up to now. A well made video game can make any game console nice to own. After all, I owned a Nintendo Game Cube up to this point, and if you know anything about game consoles you know that wasn’t the most pimped out game console on the block. I got it in a trade for an extra American specs DVD player that I bought brand new, still originally boxed for about 100 Swedish Crowns ($15.65 at today’s rate). I didn’t need two DVD players, and I had two goals in mind for the Game Cube: Madden NFL (an American football game for my curious European readers), and Call of Duty. I have no regrets, and I still have the Game Cube (don’t ask me why though).

Moving on, the Wii combines wireless technology, and motion detection in three dimensions. In plain speak, when I’m holding a remote and, for instance, playing tennis, I swing the remote as if I’m swinging a real tennis racket to have my player on the screen hit the ball. I can choose to use a forehand or backhand. I can even apply a fair amount of top spin if I choose, or a soft touch. The motion detector is that good.

Tennis is one of the four games that come with the Wii. There’s also bowling, golf, and boxing. All four games are great fun, and, what’s even better, they’re great fun for more than one person. It’s definitely a the-more-the-merrier kind of game.

One of the most memorable experiences I’ve had with the Wii was at a moving-in business party. A Wii was set up with four remotes, which allowed four people to play tennis. It was fantastic fun, with more laughs than anyone could’ve expected. To see business folks, from their mid-20′s to their mid-50′s, some in business attire, playing Wii Tennis and really going for it was beyond description. People got into tennis stances, drinks were accidentally knocked over with I-should’ve-played-at-Wimbledon like forehands, and whole other sides of personalities were revealed. Surprisingly, watching the players without watching what was going on on the screen was even entertaining! It was an experience that any of those folks who took part and were really smart will remember and try to duplicate in some way at their own business parties.

So if you’re planning on getting a Wii for Christmas but haven’t gotten one yet you may want to get busy. And if you think they’re only for kids, then I recommend you take a look at this video clip. You’ll see that there are no age limits to the fun they offers.

PS I’m glad it was decided that Tennis was the choice of game instead of boxing at that business party! :D