Internet Explorer web browser use drops below 60%

Now remember, that these aren't specifically browsers, these are representations of rendering engines.  IE's rendering engine is called Trident, Firefox's is called Gecko, etc.  So it's interesting that IE is falling, yes it's still built into every Windows Machine, but the alternative browsers are gaining market in there as well.  Look at Firefox, it's up a bit, but the one that is the biggest uptick is Webkit.  Webkit is the rendering engine behind Safari (Mac's browser), Chrome (Google's browser), Android's browser, the iPhone browser, and the iPad browser.

Now, I don't know if they counted mobile browsers in this mix (iPhone, iPod, and iPad) but it's an interesting graph none-the-less.

AppleInsider | Internet Explorer web browser use drops below 60%.

Will Hack For SUSHI » MiFi Config Hack

Will Hack For SUSHI » MiFi Config Hack.

A post by friend and collegue at SANS Joshua Wright.  Joshua is one of the guys I know that is really proficient at hacking wireless.  Bluetooth, wifi, etc.  He does some really wonderful work at that, and he's fantastic at it.

This post is about him hacking his Mifi (Verizon).  He has two posts on the subject you should check out if you have a Mifi.

The other post is here.

Instapaper is so great

I am not sure if Instapaper has apps for anything other than the iPhone, and I kind of doubt, if that exclusivity exists, that it will last any amount of time.

Instapaper is one of those new 2.0 companies that is web/app based. They provide you a free log in to their website, which by the way, by default, had no password. Past this login you get a bookmarklet, similar to the "readbility" bookmarklet I talked about earlier, which, upon use, allows you to turn any article you are reading into a saved article of sorts.

For example, earlier today I was reading an entry on a blog, it was rather long, and I wasn't going to have time to finish reading it as I was about to head out to go to the dentist.

So, with this combination of app/website, I tapped my instapaper bookmarklet, which takes whatever you are reading, and puts it up in the "cloud". Which, provided you then have the Instapaper app on your iPhone, can sync this content down to your mobile device.

Now, whatever article I was reading, just by tapping one button, is now formatted in nice big text on my iPhone, and I can take with me.

I don't know the size limitation of the file you can put on instapaper, I don't know, for instance if you can put a whole book up there or something, but for now, while I am in the dentists waiting room, I have articles to read instead of the weeks old copies of  "Newsweek".

Why don't I use something like Google reader? Well I can, except for those websites that shorten their rss feeds to force clickthroughs. It's another couple steps, who knows how it is going to be formatted, and who knows what kind of connectivity you are going to have.

Which, also by the way, is why I removed the "shortened rss" clickthrough thing for my blog. It annoyed me, so I figured it was probably annoying you.

Apple and the Google Voice app, surprise in store?

Awhile back Apple decided it was going to reject the native (as in "non-web-app") app for Google Voice from Google, citing that it "duplicated functionality the iPhone already had". Which, by the way, is against the developers terms of service for developing iPhone apps. Now, I have heard a bunch of blowback against Apple about this, and I'd like to throw my conspiracy theory into it. I'm also writing this in hopes, that basically Leo Laporte from TWiT and MacBreak Weekly see it, and Kevin and Alex from Diggnation see it. As these podcasts have just been going at it saying how Apple is an evil empire. My point is, maybe everything isn't as it seems. (as well as all the other podcasts that have been lambasting Apple since the rejection).

First, if you haven't heard of Google Voice, Google Voice allows you to have one phone number that you give to people and that phone number can be assigned "Back-end" phone numbers that the Google Voice (GV from now on) phone number calls. So, for example, if you call my GV number, it will, depending on who you are, call my home phone, my cell phone, and Gizmo (VOIP Program) all at the same time and I can pick up any one of the three. Furthermore, if you leave a voicemail on my GV number, your voicemail goes through voice to text transcription and gets SMSed and Emailed to me. I use GV for several reasons.

One, I can give it to ANYONE and I can assign what phone number you ring when you call me.

Second, I can give the number to anyone, and I can change my backend phone numbers as well. One phone number for the rest of my life basically. I give you my GV number, and you don't have to worry about what my current cell number is. It's on ME to change it on the backend of GV.

Third, People don't know my actual cell phone number. But there really is no advantage to that.

GV works like this, (well at least on mine), if I get a phone call to my GV number, it rings through to the backend phones. Using minutes. It's not like Skype or Gizmo or anything like that. It's an actual phone call. It's using AT&T's minutes.

When someone sends an SMS to my Google Voice number, it gets sent to my cell phone. Just as if you were sending a text message directly to my cell phone. It costs the same.

There are a lot of conspiracy theorists out there on the internet that think that you can make calls for free, therefore AT&T is preventing the app from getting on the app store. The only reason that I could see AT&T bitching about this is that it would be easier for people to give out the Google Voice number, so at some point users who would switch off of AT&T, since changing the GV number on the backend is trivial, they'd be able to just switch numbers and not take their cell phone number with them. But this argument doesn't even make any sense. Actually it's hard for me to articulate what I am trying to explain as it doesn't make any sense. Since taking your phone number with you to a different carrier is a trivial exercise.

Now, all that being said, I think I've said what everyone on blogs that I read and podcasts that I listen to are saying, so here's my take:

Apple turned the GV app down because it "duplicated iPhone functionality". Which, as I said earlier, is against iPhone Dev agreement. What people aren't remembering is that awhile ago Apple did the same exact thing. Remember?

It was a podcast application. Podcaster. Podcaster was also rejected because it duplicated functionality on the iPhone. (or in iTunes depending upon which article you read). What happened to that application? Well, it disappeared into the sunset, because later, if you remember, Apple gave you the ability to download and play podcasts directly from the iTunes store on the iPhone itself. Yes, AFTER. So Apple has pulled this trick before. Most likely because the functionality to download podcasts via the native iTunes store on the iPhone itself was already in development at the time of the rejection of the app.

So, here's my thought.

If Apple did the same thing to Podcaster that it's doing to Google Voice, then that tells me that in a future release of the iPhone software, the Google Voice functionality will be native. NATIVE. Like, built into the iPhone.

For this to happen, Google and Apple would have to partner up. Much like they did for Google Maps. The team that would develop the iPhone app and the the team on the Google Voice side, quite possibly be on different teams, aside from that, the people involved with working with Apple on the "native" Google Voice functionality would probably be under a very strict NDA. Which is why the developers of the "current" GV wouldn't know that it was being worked on for native functionality inclusion. Apple is famous for it's secrecy. This isn't a stretch of the imagination by any sense of the word.

I have no insider knowledge of the iPhone division of Apple, so I can't verify this.

Imagine this, go to Preferences on the iPhone you log into Google Voice through a Preference, and then, you have a slider. Left for Native iPhone phone number, Right for Google Voice Number. The Google Voice number, of course, acts a little differently as the call has to be sent up to GV for GV to initiate the call and call both parties back. (There are apps that did this in the past, GVMobile is one, which I was smart enough to get a hold of before Apple pulled it from the store.) But what if the iPhone could work it so that you never knew about the "call back" from GV. What if it just looked like a native phone call, it just took a bit longer to connect, and the iPhone just background-auto-accepted the call. You'd never know it. It would act and look like a phone call from the native iPhone number.

SMS would be routed through GV's special SMS connectors so that they would appear to come from you GV number. All the while, you are still being charged "standard text messaging rates" and cell phone minutes from your calls. The only difference in the user experience is, people are seeing your GV number on their caller ID's and that's it.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this one. Please leave comments below.

Apple and the Google Voice app, surprise in store?

Awhile back Apple decided it was going to reject the native (as in "non-web-app") app for Google Voice from Google, citing that it "duplicated functionality the iPhone already had". Which, by the way, is against the developers terms of service for developing iPhone apps. Now, I have heard a bunch of blowback against Apple about this, and I'd like to throw my conspiracy theory into it. I'm also writing this in hopes, that basically Leo Laporte from TWiT and MacBreak Weekly see it, and Kevin and Alex from Diggnation see it. As these podcasts have just been going at it saying how Apple is an evil empire. My point is, maybe everything isn't as it seems. (as well as all the other podcasts that have been lambasting Apple since the rejection).

First, if you haven't heard of Google Voice, Google Voice allows you to have one phone number that you give to people and that phone number can be assigned "Back-end" phone numbers that the Google Voice (GV from now on) phone number calls. So, for example, if you call my GV number, it will, depending on who you are, call my home phone, my cell phone, and Gizmo (VOIP Program) all at the same time and I can pick up any one of the three. Furthermore, if you leave a voicemail on my GV number, your voicemail goes through voice to text transcription and gets SMSed and Emailed to me. I use GV for several reasons.

One, I can give it to ANYONE and I can assign what phone number you ring when you call me.

Second, I can give the number to anyone, and I can change my backend phone numbers as well. One phone number for the rest of my life basically. I give you my GV number, and you don't have to worry about what my current cell number is. It's on ME to change it on the backend of GV.

Third, People don't know my actual cell phone number. But there really is no advantage to that.

GV works like this, (well at least on mine), if I get a phone call to my GV number, it rings through to the backend phones. Using minutes. It's not like Skype or Gizmo or anything like that. It's an actual phone call. It's using AT&T's minutes.

When someone sends an SMS to my Google Voice number, it gets sent to my cell phone. Just as if you were sending a text message directly to my cell phone. It costs the same.

There are a lot of conspiracy theorists out there on the internet that think that you can make calls for free, therefore AT&T is preventing the app from getting on the app store. The only reason that I could see AT&T bitching about this is that it would be easier for people to give out the Google Voice number, so at some point users who would switch off of AT&T, since changing the GV number on the backend is trivial, they'd be able to just switch numbers and not take their cell phone number with them. But this argument doesn't even make any sense. Actually it's hard for me to articulate what I am trying to explain as it doesn't make any sense. Since taking your phone number with you to a different carrier is a trivial exercise.

Now, all that being said, I think I've said what everyone on blogs that I read and podcasts that I listen to are saying, so here's my take:

Apple turned the GV app down because it "duplicated iPhone functionality". Which, as I said earlier, is against iPhone Dev agreement. What people aren't remembering is that awhile ago Apple did the same exact thing. Remember?

It was a podcast application. Podcaster. Podcaster was also rejected because it duplicated functionality on the iPhone. (or in iTunes depending upon which article you read). What happened to that application? Well, it disappeared into the sunset, because later, if you remember, Apple gave you the ability to download and play podcasts directly from the iTunes store on the iPhone itself. Yes, AFTER. So Apple has pulled this trick before. Most likely because the functionality to download podcasts via the native iTunes store on the iPhone itself was already in development at the time of the rejection of the app.

So, here's my thought.

If Apple did the same thing to Podcaster that it's doing to Google Voice, then that tells me that in a future release of the iPhone software, the Google Voice functionality will be native. NATIVE. Like, built into the iPhone.

For this to happen, Google and Apple would have to partner up. Much like they did for Google Maps. The team that would develop the iPhone app and the the team on the Google Voice side, quite possibly be on different teams, aside from that, the people involved with working with Apple on the "native" Google Voice functionality would probably be under a very strict NDA. Which is why the developers of the "current" GV wouldn't know that it was being worked on for native functionality inclusion. Apple is famous for it's secrecy. This isn't a stretch of the imagination by any sense of the word.

I have no insider knowledge of the iPhone division of Apple, so I can't verify this.

Imagine this, go to Preferences on the iPhone you log into Google Voice through a Preference, and then, you have a slider. Left for Native iPhone phone number, Right for Google Voice Number. The Google Voice number, of course, acts a little differently as the call has to be sent up to GV for GV to initiate the call and call both parties back. (There are apps that did this in the past, GVMobile is one, which I was smart enough to get a hold of before Apple pulled it from the store.) But what if the iPhone could work it so that you never knew about the "call back" from GV. What if it just looked like a native phone call, it just took a bit longer to connect, and the iPhone just background-auto-accepted the call. You'd never know it. It would act and look like a phone call from the native iPhone number.

SMS would be routed through GV's special SMS connectors so that they would appear to come from you GV number. All the while, you are still being charged "standard text messaging rates" and cell phone minutes from your calls. The only difference in the user experience is, people are seeing your GV number on their caller ID's and that's it.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this one. Please leave comments below.

APPLE-SA-2008-03-19 AirPort Extreme Base Station Firmware 7.3.1

I just posted this over at the ISC as well, but I thought i'd post it here as well in case people don't read both.

Fresh on the heels of yesterday's huge Apple Security Update 2008-0002, today Apple released 2008-03-19 firmware update for the current (and pre-gigabit) Airport Extreme Base Stations.

AirPort Extreme Base Station with 802.11n*
CVE-ID: CVE-2008-1012
Available for: AirPort Extreme Base Station with 802.11n*
Impact: A maliciously crafted AFP request may lead to a denial of
service
Description: An input validation issue exists in the AirPort Extreme
Base Station's handling of AFP requests, which may cause file sharing
to become unresponsive. This update addresses the issue by performing
additional validation of AFP requests. This issue does not affect
Time Capsule or AirPort Express. The fix for this issue is available
in the following separate updates:
- - AirPort Extreme with 802.11n (Fast Ethernet) 7.3.1
- - AirPort Extreme with 802.11n (Gigabit Ethernet) 7.3.1
Credit to Alex deVries for reporting this issue.

More info here. (Although, I think I posted the whole thing above...)

To update to the newest firmware, open Airport Utility that is in your Utilities Folder in Applications. (If you are using a Mac, if you are using it for Windows, well, I don't know where it's at. ;) It should automatically check for the newest update and prompt you. It's a two click download and update.

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APPLE-SA-2008-03-19 AirPort Extreme Base Station Firmware 7.3.1

I just posted this over at the ISC as well, but I thought i'd post it here as well in case people don't read both.

Fresh on the heels of yesterday's huge Apple Security Update 2008-0002, today Apple released 2008-03-19 firmware update for the current (and pre-gigabit) Airport Extreme Base Stations.

AirPort Extreme Base Station with 802.11n*
CVE-ID: CVE-2008-1012
Available for: AirPort Extreme Base Station with 802.11n*
Impact: A maliciously crafted AFP request may lead to a denial of
service
Description: An input validation issue exists in the AirPort Extreme
Base Station's handling of AFP requests, which may cause file sharing
to become unresponsive. This update addresses the issue by performing
additional validation of AFP requests. This issue does not affect
Time Capsule or AirPort Express. The fix for this issue is available
in the following separate updates:
- - AirPort Extreme with 802.11n (Fast Ethernet) 7.3.1
- - AirPort Extreme with 802.11n (Gigabit Ethernet) 7.3.1
Credit to Alex deVries for reporting this issue.

More info here. (Although, I think I posted the whole thing above...)

To update to the newest firmware, open Airport Utility that is in your Utilities Folder in Applications. (If you are using a Mac, if you are using it for Windows, well, I don't know where it's at. ;) It should automatically check for the newest update and prompt you. It's a two click download and update.

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Apple TV, my personal review

By now, you have probably heard of the Apple TV, a device that is essentially a fancy-pants iPod for your TV.  Allowing you to take your media that is in your iTunes and have it play on or through your TV.

iWanted one when it first came out, but I couldn't bring myself to buy it.  Couldn't justify it.  Hard drive was too small, price point too high.

Then Apple came out with a second version, with way more harddrive space, (160 G's) but the price point was too high for the features that you get.  (You still had to buy movies on your iTunes on your computer, then transfer them over to the AppleTV when it got done downloading.)

Then Steve Jobs came out with the "AppleTV: Take two".  They lowered the price point, and made the ability to rent movies directly from my couch possible.  Excellent.  This is exactly what I was waiting for.  So, being such that it was my birthday, I went down to the local Apple Store and bought one.  The bigger one that was 329.00.  

Brought it home, plugged it in, of course, mine was on the old software revision, so it had to update first, which, after joining it to my Wireless Network, it downloaded the update and updated itself.  (802.11n, so the download was fast.)

Next, my computer that holds all my movies and music (I started ripping my movies from DVD onto my computer using Handbrake a long time ago :) auto-detected the AppleTV, asked me if I wanted to set it up (of course I did!), and it transferred all the media over.  Now, I have about 140 Gigs of media, so I set it to transfer and went to bed.  It was late at night anyway.

When I woke up, everything was synced, and I was good to go with my photos, music, and movies.  (Even though I could have streamed them directly from my machine(s)).  I've rented and watched a few movies.  It's been great.

Overall, I like it.  If you have taken the time to convert all your media (CD's, Movies, etc) into digital format and into iTunes, (or would) I highly recommend the AppleTV.  There is nothing like having your entire movie library, music library, and all of your photos at your fingertips able to be watched and loaded at the touch of a button.  Of course, along with the ability to rent movies, this is priceless.

Stamp?  Recommended.

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Apple TV, my personal review

By now, you have probably heard of the Apple TV, a device that is essentially a fancy-pants iPod for your TV.  Allowing you to take your media that is in your iTunes and have it play on or through your TV.

iWanted one when it first came out, but I couldn't bring myself to buy it.  Couldn't justify it.  Hard drive was too small, price point too high.

Then Apple came out with a second version, with way more harddrive space, (160 G's) but the price point was too high for the features that you get.  (You still had to buy movies on your iTunes on your computer, then transfer them over to the AppleTV when it got done downloading.)

Then Steve Jobs came out with the "AppleTV: Take two".  They lowered the price point, and made the ability to rent movies directly from my couch possible.  Excellent.  This is exactly what I was waiting for.  So, being such that it was my birthday, I went down to the local Apple Store and bought one.  The bigger one that was 329.00.  

Brought it home, plugged it in, of course, mine was on the old software revision, so it had to update first, which, after joining it to my Wireless Network, it downloaded the update and updated itself.  (802.11n, so the download was fast.)

Next, my computer that holds all my movies and music (I started ripping my movies from DVD onto my computer using Handbrake a long time ago :) auto-detected the AppleTV, asked me if I wanted to set it up (of course I did!), and it transferred all the media over.  Now, I have about 140 Gigs of media, so I set it to transfer and went to bed.  It was late at night anyway.

When I woke up, everything was synced, and I was good to go with my photos, music, and movies.  (Even though I could have streamed them directly from my machine(s)).  I've rented and watched a few movies.  It's been great.

Overall, I like it.  If you have taken the time to convert all your media (CD's, Movies, etc) into digital format and into iTunes, (or would) I highly recommend the AppleTV.  There is nothing like having your entire movie library, music library, and all of your photos at your fingertips able to be watched and loaded at the touch of a button.  Of course, along with the ability to rent movies, this is priceless.

Stamp?  Recommended.

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New MacBooks and MacBook Pros

In what is basically a simple refresh of the product line, Apple put out new Macbooks and Macbook Pro's this morning, with each one getting new processors.

The MacBook Pros got a multitouch trackpad inherited from the MacBook Air, and instead of having two models of 15" laptop, and one of the 17"...  there is just now one model of the 15, and two of the 17.  So clearly Apple is going towards "bigger is better".  The second 17 offering simply more screen resolution.

Each laptop possess 802.11n capability for the fastest wireless, and of course an ethernet jack as well.

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New MacBooks and MacBook Pros

In what is basically a simple refresh of the product line, Apple put out new Macbooks and Macbook Pro's this morning, with each one getting new processors.

The MacBook Pros got a multitouch trackpad inherited from the MacBook Air, and instead of having two models of 15" laptop, and one of the 17"...  there is just now one model of the 15, and two of the 17.  So clearly Apple is going towards "bigger is better".  The second 17 offering simply more screen resolution.

Each laptop possess 802.11n capability for the fastest wireless, and of course an ethernet jack as well.

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Mossberg previews Lenovo's 'Air-killer' X300

I read this article about Lenovo's (Thinkpad) MacBook Air 'Killer' X300, and kinda threw up in my mouth a little bit.

So let's take a look. This thing has 3 USB ports (as opposed to the MacBook Air's 1), it has a DVD Drive, (Air doesn't), has Wifi, and an optional 3G or GPS receiver, a removable battery (air doesn't -- well, easily) and not one, but TWO mouse pointing devices.

So there are pros and cons.

Lenovo --
Has more USB, Apple could do with more USB devices.
DVD Drive, I think Apple did the right thing here and killed the DVD drive. In fact, I think that they will kill off the optical drive in all systems and start shipping their software on USB sticks. Think about how much THAT would save in shipping costs.
Removable Battery -- Okay, well, I'd like to have the ability to easily swap out the MacBook Air's battery. So I kinda have to agree with it.
The Lenovo is thicker, uglier, and really Lenovo, wtf is with TWO mice? The red stick and the trackpad? I have never met anyone, ever that likes the red stick. The trackpad has become the standard, please get with the program. I remember seeing a laptop not too long ago that had the stick, the trackpad, AND the damn trackball. 3 mice. Seriously. Knock it off. Go with the trackpad it seems to work.
Has a slot for a 3G card. Now THAT is what the Macbook Air is lacking. They need the express card slot.

MacBook Air --
Sexy. The Lenovo is the typical Thinkpad ugly ass computer.
Simple. It's a damn Mac!
Lacks more USB
Lacks Optical Drive (so what?)
Lacks Removable Battery

Bottom line, it depends on what you are looking for. Personally I'd like the MacBook Air, but there are too many drawbacks. However, I'd buy it simply because it's a Mac and I refuse to use anything else as my desktop (well, I'd use a bsd or a linux distro as well I guess, but given the option, I'd use a Mac 100%). But I have a Macbook pro. I love this computer, I am writing on it right now. I think the MacBook Pro has it going on.

There is a certain demographic that the MacBook Air is aimed towards, and I think it will sell well in that demographic.

In other news, the same website is reporting that Best Buy is out of the 15in MacBook Pro. Which usually means that Apple has a new one right around the corner. Thinner? Sleeker? Better?

AT&T Wireless Data Outage

Originally posted here.

Thanks all of you that have written in. We have seen the articles that say that AT&T is having a wireless data outage.

We have heard from multiple sources on the issue, and it seems to be limited to only certain regions of the US. (Central and South East primarily). I am currently in the NE section of the country, writing this entry on my AT&T 3G Wireless card. So I know it's working here (plus my iPhone and my wife's Blackberry work fine too).

We have also heard that this problem has been resolved. So everything should be back (if not already) to normal soon.

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AT&T Wireless Data Outage

Originally posted here.

Thanks all of you that have written in. We have seen the articles that say that AT&T is having a wireless data outage.

We have heard from multiple sources on the issue, and it seems to be limited to only certain regions of the US. (Central and South East primarily). I am currently in the NE section of the country, writing this entry on my AT&T 3G Wireless card. So I know it's working here (plus my iPhone and my wife's Blackberry work fine too).

We have also heard that this problem has been resolved. So everything should be back (if not already) to normal soon.

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Jobs named "most powerful person in business"

We all know by now that I admire Steve Jobs for his taste and vision.

This morning Fortune published an article (via cnn.com) that named Steve Jobs the most "powerful person in business"

Quote: "That's five industries that Jobs has upended - computers, Hollywood, music, retailing, and wireless phones. At this moment, no one has more influence over a broader swath of business than Jobs. "

Also there's a related article.  Expanding upon the point.

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Jobs named "most powerful person in business"

We all know by now that I admire Steve Jobs for his taste and vision.

This morning Fortune published an article (via cnn.com) that named Steve Jobs the most "powerful person in business"

Quote: "That's five industries that Jobs has upended - computers, Hollywood, music, retailing, and wireless phones. At this moment, no one has more influence over a broader swath of business than Jobs. "

Also there's a related article.  Expanding upon the point.

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Back to my Mac

I've posted on Back to my Mac before.  Basically the theory of "I think this will be cool, and I'll use it".  Turns out after I got it, I couldn't get it to work.  I had a Linksys router, nice one too, one of the top of the line B/G models (well, top of the line when it came out).   After I read lots of forums on Apple.com saying that you need to enable "UPnP" on the router, and this and that, and do you have portmapping for these ports?  Open this.  Poke a hole here.  Yuck.

Well, this past Friday I got rid of the Linksys router.  I called up my ISP, got some directions for how to switch routers (some ISP's basically have the equivalent of port security on, so you can't change your router.  My ISP in Georgia was like this).  Turns out all I had to do was either have them reset my modem on my end, or I could simply unplug the coax for about 10 minutes while the mac addresses cleared.  Faster to have them reset it, so the nice lady did.

I've had my Airport Wireless Extreme Base station for awhile now but only used it for my macs in order to get full speed to each other.  As I said in this post, I got rid of the Linksys as my gateway and just put the Apple Base station there instead.  (Technically the title of that article is wrong, as I didn't get a "new router".  I just moved it.)

Well, today, being my first day back to work, and more importantly the first time I thought about testing Back to my Mac from an external connection before.  Guess what.  

Plugged in my AT&T 3G wireless cell card today into my laptop when I got to work, and lo and behold -- Back to my Mac worked!  There were all my computers I have here at the house right on my "Sources" list in Finder.  I could connect to them remotely, get files off the disks, use Spotlight on their drives, and even grab ahold of the screen using "Share Screen" and control my Mac's remotely just as advertised!

The best part?  It was actually fast.  I did notice a bit of latency here and there, especially with complex animations (the dock magnification and such).  But otherwise the refresh and display of the apps remotely was fast, and even better, it was useable!

So, for those of you that have problems getting Back to My Mac to work, when it comes to 3rd party routers, I have no advice for you.  But my advice officially is... Buy an Apple Base Station to use as your gateway.   Better yet, wait for Time Capsule to come out that way you have a backup drive on your network.  Good luck!

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Back to my Mac

I've posted on Back to my Mac before.  Basically the theory of "I think this will be cool, and I'll use it".  Turns out after I got it, I couldn't get it to work.  I had a Linksys router, nice one too, one of the top of the line B/G models (well, top of the line when it came out).   After I read lots of forums on Apple.com saying that you need to enable "UPnP" on the router, and this and that, and do you have portmapping for these ports?  Open this.  Poke a hole here.  Yuck.

Well, this past Friday I got rid of the Linksys router.  I called up my ISP, got some directions for how to switch routers (some ISP's basically have the equivalent of port security on, so you can't change your router.  My ISP in Georgia was like this).  Turns out all I had to do was either have them reset my modem on my end, or I could simply unplug the coax for about 10 minutes while the mac addresses cleared.  Faster to have them reset it, so the nice lady did.

I've had my Airport Wireless Extreme Base station for awhile now but only used it for my macs in order to get full speed to each other.  As I said in this post, I got rid of the Linksys as my gateway and just put the Apple Base station there instead.  (Technically the title of that article is wrong, as I didn't get a "new router".  I just moved it.)

Well, today, being my first day back to work, and more importantly the first time I thought about testing Back to my Mac from an external connection before.  Guess what.  

Plugged in my AT&T 3G wireless cell card today into my laptop when I got to work, and lo and behold -- Back to my Mac worked!  There were all my computers I have here at the house right on my "Sources" list in Finder.  I could connect to them remotely, get files off the disks, use Spotlight on their drives, and even grab ahold of the screen using "Share Screen" and control my Mac's remotely just as advertised!

The best part?  It was actually fast.  I did notice a bit of latency here and there, especially with complex animations (the dock magnification and such).  But otherwise the refresh and display of the apps remotely was fast, and even better, it was useable!

So, for those of you that have problems getting Back to My Mac to work, when it comes to 3rd party routers, I have no advice for you.  But my advice officially is... Buy an Apple Base Station to use as your gateway.   Better yet, wait for Time Capsule to come out that way you have a backup drive on your network.  Good luck!

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New Router

In my network I've had two routers.  Linksys was my gateway, and hooked to that was a gigabit switch, which all the machines in my network were connected to.  Also attached to that switch was an Apple Airport Extreme which all my Apple wireless computers were connected to, to take advantage of the 802.11n features.

Today I just eliminated the Linksys router and am now letting the Airport Extreme manage the gateway and the network (the switch is still there).  My network is not only faster, (like I can download at ungodly rates and network transfers are actually as fast as they are supposed to be) but more reliable.

I had no idea that just that small of a change could make such a big difference.

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New Router

In my network I've had two routers.  Linksys was my gateway, and hooked to that was a gigabit switch, which all the machines in my network were connected to.  Also attached to that switch was an Apple Airport Extreme which all my Apple wireless computers were connected to, to take advantage of the 802.11n features.

Today I just eliminated the Linksys router and am now letting the Airport Extreme manage the gateway and the network (the switch is still there).  My network is not only faster, (like I can download at ungodly rates and network transfers are actually as fast as they are supposed to be) but more reliable.

I had no idea that just that small of a change could make such a big difference.

 Subscribe in a reader