d00dism

Maybe I’m just behind the times or didn’t read the news stories about the dual core G5s intently enough. Apple is using combination Airport Express/Bluetooth 2.0 cards in G5s now instead of the Airport Express cards used in all other Macs.

From the Apple KB:

Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) computers are designed to work with a combination AirPort Extreme with Bluetooth 2.0+EDR card, which combines AirPort and Bluetooth wireless technologies on one card. Please note that other versions of AirPort cards cannot be used with Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) computers. Although the connector on the computer’s logic board will fit an AirPort Extreme card, it is meant for the AirPort Extreme with Bluetooth 2.0+EDR card only. Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) computers will not recognize an AirPort Extreme card if you attempt to install one.

The antennas in the Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) also differ from previous Power Mac G5 models, which had an external antenna that attached to the back of the computer. All Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) computers have internal wireless antennas that come preinstalled, regardless of whether or not the computer has an AirPort Extreme with Bluetooth 2.0+EDR card installed.

The AirPort Extreme with Bluetooth 2.0+EDR card is available either as a factory-installed option at the time you purchase your Power Mac G5 (Late 2005), or you can add wireless capability post purchase(1) by having an Apple Authorized Service Provider or a retail Apple Store install the AirPort Extreme with Bluetooth 2.0+EDR card for you. The AirPort Extreme with Bluetooth 2.0+EDR card is not a DIY (do-it-yourself) part.

1. The AirPort Extreme with Bluetooth 2.0+EDR card is now available from service providers for installation.

While this is a good idea, especially considering Bluetooth post sale was a band-aid USB solution, it’s made things more complicated for the consumer, which isn’t positive in the short term.

I’ve been trying to get keychain syncing to work between my two Macs. You’d think that the login keychains would sync (especially since .Mac syncing is supposedly enabled), but they don’t. I decided to make a new keychain and try to get it to work.

I start using the Reset function to try to force synchronization. And for those interested, no, I still haven’t had any success getting keychain syncing to work. It’s way too hard to get working.

I digress. Suddenly, clocking the Reset Sync Data… button did nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. It did output something to the console log every time I clicked it.

2005-12-04 16:44:54.451 System Preferences[501] *** Assertion failure in -[NSMenuItem initWithTitle:action:keyEquivalent:], Menus.subproj/NSMenuItem.m:140

2005-12-04 16:44:54.455 System Preferences[501] Invalid parameter not satisfying: aString != nil

Awesome. System Preferences swallows up this error, leaving the user sitting there endlessly, futilely clicking the button, wondering why they aren’t being asked what to reset. Obviously, some preference or cache was all screwed up. Which one though?

Well, caches are easy. Just nuke them all. Naturally, that didn’t help. Next on the chopping block were Sync Services and System Preference preferences. No dice. I had to delete “com.apple.DotMacSync.plist” in Home/Library/Preferences and Home/Library/Safe Preferences. I’m fairly certain I’d already deleted the former, making me conclude that “Safe Preferences” is worthless. It’s just another place to delete preferences from. In this case, the problem seemed to be the fact that Transmit Bookmarks were in that p-list, but they weren’t in the syncing list anymore. I have no idea why, but there it is.

Ever since Woot sent me a Motorola WA840G by mistake, it’s been augmenting my parent’s wired network as a wireless access point. It’s been working great for their needs (connecting my old Pismo via its Airport card).

When I got home today for a Thanksgiving stay, I decided I’d update the firmware on all their network devices. The old Linksys router’s firmware hasn’t been updated in quite a while. That’s fine because the thing is rock solid. The Motorola access point had a new version with many new features, so I updated it.

Other than having to configure everything again, it all looked good. That is until my brother told me that my old Powerbook couldn’t connect. I tried turning the card off and on again and restarting. No dice. I decided to turn everything off and then on again. Of course, that’s when Charter decided to have some issues.

Regardless of those issues, I should still have been able to connect to the access point with the old Powerbook. I couldn’t. I thought maybe I had turned off 802.11b compatibility (the Pismo has regular Airport while my current Powerbook has Airport Express). Visiting the WA840G’s configuration page showed that it was set for “compatibility” but the other options were “performance”, “LRS”, and “802.11b only”. I’ll be damned if I could figure out what “LRS” stood for, but it afforded extra compatibility for 802.11b clients according the description.

Once that was set as the operating mode, the Pismo connected to the access point perfectly. I really wish this was explained better in Motorola’s documentation, but it’s worth noting for those having problems, even if I don’t know why it works.

Technorati Tags: wireless, 802.11b, motorola, airport, lrs

John Gruber recently wrote about why going to a single computer (a Powerbook) is going to work for him in Full Metal Jacket. Naturally, his new philosophy reflects his personal needs. He does take a look at the opposite viewpoint using a single example (Jonathan Rentzsch), but his needs are overly specialized and overly rare. There are many more reasons one would want two machines.

Tether

To start, the big assumption for this article is that the user wants or needs a laptop. The reasons are fairly unimportant. I personally started with a laptop because I wanted mobility.

Being able to sit in bed, watch TV, or even (gasp) go to the bathroom with your computer is liberating. As if being able to move it around weren’t cool enough, I bought my first Powerbook when they first got Airport. I shelled out the big bucks for the card and Airport Base Station ($129 for the card if I remember correctly, $300 for the base station).

I seriously freaked my roommate out in college when I instant messaged him from the toilet for the first time. This is all very gratuitous, but I think it makes the point that laptops are simply cool. You want one.

Gaming

Traditional logic dictates that laptops are poor for games. As Mac game guru Peter Cohen explains, a Powerbook can be sufficient for the large majority of games.

I actually do a lot of my gaming on a PowerBook G4, 17-inch model with 1.5GHz processor, 1GB RAM and Radeon Mobility 9700 graphics (with 64MB VRAM). This is effective enough for a lot of games, although the Radeon Mobility comes up short dealing with games that have really advanced pixel and shading effects or tons and tons of polys.

He then hits on why a Powermac (or desktop) is still essential for gamers that like to live on the edge and play the latest games (as well as have some future life for future games). They simply have power that laptops can’t match. Their future also isn’t so bright.

Expandability

You simply can’t compare a laptop to a desktop when it comes to upgrades. They can’t hold nearly the same amount of RAM (and the RAM for laptops is more expensive). You can’t replace the video card. You can’t put PCI cards in laptops. Heck, you can’t even get big hard drives to put in laptops.

If one wants the ability to add a massive amount of storage or use more interesting hardware peripherals, desktops (and Powermacs) are still where it’s at.

Power

Let’s not mince words or pretend not to notice. The performance gap between Mac Powermacs and Powerbooks is massive. Hell, an iMac G5 will beat the piss out of a Powerbook. Even a Mac mini will give it a run for its money in several areas.

Until the Intel Powerbooks arrive, users with performance concerns need an iMac or Powermac. The Powerbooks may be nothing to sneeze at compared the machines of yesteryear, but they just aren’t that string.

Center of the Universe

I like having a Powermac stationary right on my desk because of the above reasons partly. Another part is that I use El Gato’s EyeTV DVR. I couldn’t use it to do anything but watch live TV or record while I was at the computer and had it tethered to the cable outlet. Again, we’re back to the tethering issue.

I’m actually thinking about getting a Mac mini to leave on all the time and pick up a lot of the Powermac’s responsibility. However, that won’t be enough for me to move to a Powerbook full-time as I’ll want an Intel Powermac to dual boot with Windows.

Your mileage may vary, but there’s still plenty of reason to use a laptop and desktop, at least for the time being.

Technorati Tags: laptops, desktops

There have been times that I wanted to remote control someone’s Mac. In particular, a friend of my brother that went to my school used to need the occasional help. VNC was a huge help in those situations. Unfortunately, getting the VNC server configured was a hassle, required third party software, and ended up taking more time than the actual troubleshooting.

That’s why I was thrilled to find out that there is now a VNC built into Mac OS X. I know it’s in Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), but I’m not sure about earlier versions. You’ll need to poke holes in your firewall if you’re using a router or a software firewall that isn’t the one built into Mac OS X.

First, mosey on over to System Preferences. Go to the Sharing pane. You’ll see something like below.

Enable Apple Remote Desktop. You’ll see the below.

Enable the VNC Viewers option and choose a password. Choose and extremely strong one if your Mac is accessible directly to the net (not behind a firewall or router).

You’re all set. Now just fire up your favorite VNC client (I like Chicken of the VNC). Plug the IP address (or Bon Jour address) of your Mac into it along with the password and fire it up. As a bonus, it even works with multiple displays.

Technorati Tags: vnc, remotecontrol