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Setting up an Apple Airport Extreme & Express Networks

thomastate — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:44:38 +0000

I just moved in to a new apartment. It’s beautiful and I’m lucky to live where I do but there is one thing that sucks about it.

My wireless signal won’t go through my walls.

Now this wouldn’t be a problem in a new house with an open floor plan. I’ve lived in houses where I get signal out on the street sitting in my car and that was running of a 802.11 G router 5 years ago, so I understand my situation is unique.

Here is my current setup.

Airport Extreme 802.11N – Main Router
Airport Express 802.11N – Extender
Airport Express 802.11G – Extender w/ USB Printer

My current wireless clients are as follows

Macbook Pro 802.11G (2007)
Macbook Pro 802.11G (2006)
iphone 3G
iphone 3Gs
PC Server 802.11N

So I toiled and strained for days trying to get the mixture right. And because I’ve got different classes working with each other it was truly a matter of getting the right device to initialize in the correct sequence. So know this Paduan. If you too are trying to setup a new wireless network, using your Airport Expresses as Wireless Extenders, do the following.

Reset everything and unplug everything. Start in sequence.

Plug in your Modem (Cable/DSL)
Attach your main wireless router (Airport Extreme 802.11N) to your modem via ethernet.
Register to the Airport Extreme 802.11N’s network on your main client laptop.
Open Airport Utility on your laptop.
Run through the assisted setup.
Make sure to check the box that reads Allow this network to be extended
Once this is completed and the router has reset to a solid green state, plug in the wireless device (in my case, an Airport Express 802.11N)
Using the same laptop, you should now see the second device show up in the Airport Utility window.
Select the device and run through it’s setup. (it will ask you to “switch” networks)
You are setting up the Airport Express to join the existing network and “extend” it’s range. Any other setup will screw everything up so make sure to check the box when you’re asked.
Once you’ve got the green status light a glowing on the second Airport Express, you can check on your overall network health under the Advanced > Statistics Tab in the Airport Utility application.
At the bottom of the window you’ll see a Logs and Statistics button. Select that to bring up a real time graph of all the wireless traffic on your network.

The most important thing to remember is to reset EVERYTHING FIRST and work in sequence to make it perfect. If you skip a step or get a little lazy, I swear to you you’ll end up spending days trying to get the mixture right.

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freecreditreport.com – It’s really free… really.

thomastate — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:13:50 +0000

This is simple. If you want to live credit free you basically have to walk around with a gigantic bag of cash 24/7 no ifs ands or butts.
But if you want to lease a car, house, phone or buy a plane ticket. You’re gonna need a credit card. And you’re gonna need a credit score. And a good one.
But what is your credit score? Well it’s a number in the range of 0 – 800 that tells the creditors what kind of a “risk you are. A score of 700 – 800 is considered “low risk. A score of 0 – 500 is all in the “high risk” area and you can pretty much kiss any chance of purchasing using credit goodbye.

But how do you find out what your credit score is?
There are three major services that collect and provide this information based on your total financial profile. Generally mapped through your Social Security Number. They are Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax.
But to retrieve your score from any of their websites costs money. So what do you do if you want it for free?

Go to freecreditreport.com. You know the commercial. The long haired loser friends singing stories of how their credit got screwed up so they went to freecreditreport.com to find out what their score was?

So I signed up today, and within 10 minutes had a beautifully layed out presentation of all my credit history, accounts, lease holdings and investments. Pretty scary but there I was, ink on paper.

Yes you have to give them your credit card, but here’s the trick. You call them immediately (within 7-9 days) and tell the CS Rep you want to cancel your membership. Yes you want to cancel. No you don’t want the extra service or discounted rate, you just want to cancel. They put you on hold for 2 minutes and then come back with those lovely words, “you are all set Mr. Schweinhowzer. Your membership has been cancelled. You are free to go.”

Nice.

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OS X Permissions! Don’t bother asking politely…

thomastate — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:58:08 +0000

With OS X Permissions in Leopard and in Tiger you gotta show them who is boss. I just ran into the problem with permissions when I was having a tonne of issues with logging in and my user account with ADMIN priviledges, spontaneously forgetting my password, telling me I was wrong when I entered it correctly a billion times and then having the nerve to give me the hint that I created for the password it was rejecting.

So I found the only way to correct the issue was to boot from the Install DVD. Create a new ADMIN user account and get rid of the old one.

Only problem was, when you delete a user account that has created all your folders and files, unless you create a user account with the same shortname, you will be kicked to the curb with nothing on but a pair of socks and your files laughing at you from the upstairs window. This has never happened to me in real life but I imagine it’s tantamount to the same thing… Ahem.

Here’s what you do to fix it. Change file Permissions.

2 ways you can do this. The beaatch way, which would be go to every single Get Info window and change them one by one, deleting the offending _unknown user and installing your own account with read & write permissions or, get a bazooka and do the lot all at once.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going for the bazooka every time. My bazooka? FileXaminer. First time I’ve danced with this lovely lady and we’ll see how many times she steps on my toes.

Well that was breathtaking! What would have taken me probably the rest of the weekend one by one took me about 2 minutes to complete. And that was lagging. If I had to “do it again”, 30 seconds max to change the User & Group Permissions & the Owner, Creation Date, Preview Icon… the lot. Amazing piece of software and as your Bazooka salesman, I highly recommend this fantastic piece of software which you can download from the lovely people over at Gideon Software. Or just click http://www.gideonsoftworks.com/releases/fex-leopard.dmg to download the software right away.

So now my permissions are all fixed. Hope you find this useful.

_theSheik

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IMAP messages in Outlook: How to delete the buggers!

thomastate — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:44:47 +0000

This article is specifically for Outlook 2003 but it may be relevant for Outlook 2007. I haven’t checked so don’t ask me “why doesn’t this work in Outlook 2007?”.

When you delete an email from your mailing account using Outlook and IMAP, it still displays the message but puts a line through it. These messages live on the server until they are “purged,” taking up space and viewable in other clients (such as webmail).

How to fix?

Go to Edit > Purge Deleted Messages.

To make this step easier you can add the Purge Deleted Messages button to your Outlook toolbar.

Go to View > Toolbars > Customize…
Click the second tab for Commands and click on Edit in the left column.
Scroll down to the bottom of the commands list and select Purge Deleted Messages
Drag the “Purge Deleted Messages” button up to the toolbar at the top of the screen and drop it next to the Delete button

If you just can’t stand the site of the email with a line through it, never fear. It is possible to hide those bastards. To do this do this…

Go to View > Arrange By > Current View > Hide Messages Marked For Deletion

But remember, you still need to purge them to remove them permanently.

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Creating a Scheduled Automator Workflow

thomastate — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:37:57 +0000

Automator is awesome. It’s like your own personal WALL•E, running all those mind numbing, repetitive, time consuming tasks you no longer have the time or inclination to perform yourself.

But it’s setup to run only when you tell it to. Crap right? What’s the point of having an awesome personal robot doing stuff for me if I have to tell it to do the stuff in the first place.

Here’s the fix. Get iCal to tell it for you. By setting up each Automator task as an iCal Alarm Plug-in… Let’s get to it.

Launch Automator, located in the Applications folder, and create a new workflow window.
Select the iCal category, located in the Library list in Automator. Select the Get Specified iCal Items action in the Action list and drag it into the workflow area on the right side of the Automator window. Click the + or Add button to specify the calendar or calendars from which you would like to retrieve events.
Add whatever cool task you want Automator to run below the iCal task in the daisy chain.
Select Save as Plug-in… from the File menu in Automator.
Name the plug-in something awesome like “WALL•E Clean Up My Open Applications”
Choose iCal Alarm from the Plug-in for popup
Click the Save button
iCal will be brought to the front, and a new event will be created for the workflow. Set the start time for the new event to whatever time you want. Configure the event to repeat every weekday.
Once the event has been configured, the workflow will run every time that calendar event tells it to. How AWESOME IS THAT!!!

_theSheik

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Blackberry Browser Broken – This is a WiFi Service. What?

thomastate — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:24:04 +0000

I have a Blackberry 8320 and it freaks out every now and then. Basically because I install every new fangled app that comes down the pike. Including the betas and the alphas and the ones that should just end up in the round file. That includes the OS. Not that any of this activity is the culprit for my particular nightmare these past 2 days but with all the downloading and uploading and backing up and restoring, its not surprising to me that something crazy would jump out of the blue. That crazy thing? My Browser stopped working. I could only surf the web when I was near a WiFi connection but the moment I turned off the WiFi connection the browser was done.

Turns out it was an easy fix.

Go to Options > Advanced Options > Browser
Select Internet Browser as the Default browser configuration. It’s most likely Hotspot Browser if you’re having the same problem. Mine was.
Escape out. Save changes.
You’re done.
If it still gives you problems you can always do a battery pull restart to solidify the changes but I doubt you’ll need to.

And that’s it folks. You are back up and running on the lame ass EDGE network whenever you want. Bring on 3G PLEASE!!!!

_theSheik

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How to Close Apps on a Mac

thomastate — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:15:12 +0000

So you’re a Windows person right? And the way you are used to closing an application is by clicking that X in the top right hand corner, correct?

Well on a Mac it’s kind of different. The application itself is seperate from the windows, so you can have multiple windows open related to the application, close any one of them, and still have the application running in the background. Before the creation of “spaces” and even the utilization of window minizing, this was a nice way to close windows yet still have the benefit of the app running in the background. Take Mail for instance, You don’t necessarily need it up and in your face all the time, so by closing the window but keeping the app running, you still get to keep your mail coming in, but save the space. There are many more complicated benefits and uses for this technique which I won’t go into here, but you’ll get the hang of it once you tool around.

The best way to quit a Mac application is by using 1 of 2 different techniques.

1st Option – Using the Mouse

Go to the Menu Bar at the top of the screen
Select the Application Name in Bold ie: Mail or Firefox
Scroll down the menu to Quit “Application Name” at the very bottom, ie: Quit Mail
Apple does the rest.
If you have any open documents, web pages, or emails, Most applications will ask you if you wish to save the document for later use.

2nd Option – Keyboard Shortcut

Hit this keyboard combination Apple Key ( ⌘) + Q
Apple does the rest.
If you have any open documents, web pages, or emails, Most applications will ask you if you wish to save the document for later use.

Now… for those of you wonder why your beautiful Mac is running slow, I have a nifty trick you can add to the toolbox. Maybe it’s because you’ve got all those applications running in the background?

Check out my next article on creating an iCal Alarm to close those pesky brain drainers here.

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How to Automatically Close Applications on your Mac

thomastate — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:13:24 +0000

So here’s the backstory.

My dad is really, really good at email… and streaming public radio via iTunes… and using Voice Recording Software… and Skype, he’s really good at Skype… and leaving absolutely EVERYTHING OPEN. He never closes anything. He has had a computer since 1994 and yet for some odd reason, he never learned to Quit out of an open application. Now this is not exactly a skill I would put at the top of the must learn pile, but if you have a slow computer, and you have 25 OPEN APPLICATIONS, you might want to look into it. I’m just saying.

So here is an awesomely simple way to solve this age old issue.

First up, get a Mac.
Open Automator
Select Library in the left column
Select Calendar or iCal in the left column
Drag Get Specified iCal Items to the Main Window
Click the Add or + Button in the “Get Specified iCal Items” Window
Choose which Calendar you want to control your Techy Events. I created a new calendar called Tech Support, I think if you leave it blank Automator will create one for you called… Automator.
Now select Utilities in the far left column of Automator
2nd column, scroll down to the Q’s and drag “Quit All Applications” over to the Main Window.
In the Main Window make sure Ask to save changes is checked.
In the Do not quit: window you can select applications you would like to leave open no matter what. I have selected my Mail, Firefox, Quicksilver, iCal & Skype. A quick way to get this combination right is to open all the Applications you love, close all the Applications you don’t and then select the Add current applications button
Select File > Save as Plug-in…
Give it a relevant name. I called my Quit All Applications. 10 points for originality.
Select iCal Alarm in the drop down menu.
Click Save.
Automator now opens iCal if it isn’t already open and adds a new event on the current date and time.
Double click the event to edit it’s guts.
Make it repeat however often you wish. For my father I selected it to run Every day at 9am. That way he starts fresh every morning. Set yours to whatever frequency you wish.
Click Done and you are away.

That’s all there is to it folks. No more sneaky applications chewing up your memory in the background without your knowledge. And no more excuses for the lazies, or the ones who just don’t know any better.

A final note. Remember to save and save frequently.

_theSheik

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BitTorrents – Downloading Appz, Warez, Filmz, Showz and all things P2P

thomastate — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 21:03:39 +0000

First off, mac users are relatively late the the torrent game. Not that this makes them N00BZ or L00ZRZ or any of the other harsh and foul slanderous calls that get chucked around the forums, but lets face it. Macs were made for making pretty picture books and family slideshow, you know, nice things. They definitely were never made for hacking, slashing, tracking, tripping, warring, or any other Black Hat related activity… or were they?
Here’s to your first lesson in ripping off the man.

TORRENTS
Def: BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) communications protocol. BitTorrent is a method of distributing large amounts of data widely without the original distributor incurring the entire costs of hardware, hosting and bandwidth resources. Instead, when data is distributed using the BitTorrent protocol, each recipient supplies pieces of the data to newer recipients, reducing the cost and burden on any given individual source, providing redundancy against system problems, and reducing dependence on the original distributor.
Basically, if you want to share a movie, you would do better to break it up into little pieces and send them individually through multiple connections, rather than trying to wedge the big sucker through the single pipe. Kind of like putting potato peels into the insinkerator. Better in pieces right?

To get into Torrents your first going to need to know where to find them. Essentialy, the online equivalent of a library. And there are tons of places to go. But as a Mac user, you’ll do best at Mac friendly places, ie: they carry Mac software. I’ve found the best places to start are…

http://isohunt.com/
http://www.mininova.org
http://www.piratebay.org
http://www.bittorrent.com

IsoHunt is by far and away my favorite. It has the largest selection and the most amount of active users.
Now users are important, you want to have a lot of people in the Torrent community because the more people that are maintaining active connections, the faster the file will download and the less time you will have to wait. However let me make this part clear, the Torrent community is a very bitchy place. Don’t expect to just come in and take what you want and leave. By this I mean, users are broken up into two different groups. Seeders & Leechers. Seeders are the users who are providing access to their files. They are the ones who you are downloading that file from. Leechers are those that are doing the downloading. Much better to be an active Seeder/Leecher than solely a LEECH. There’s a reason for the name and people have little tolerance for selfish behavior. So give just as much as you take.

So now that you’ve found the best library selection for you, and you’ve located the file you were looking for, you’ll now need software to help you do all this seeding and leeching. I recommend Azureus by far as the best software available. It’s free and incredibly customizable. You can set your up and download speeds which is critical if you hope to do anything else while you are downloading. You can download a copy for Mac OS X here at www.azureus.com.

So you’ve got the library, you’ve got the software and you are off and running. Enjoy. There’s a whole world of content out there just waiting to be Torrented. Remember to play nicely.

As a sidenote, in no way do I condone the downloading of illegal or copyright protected content. There is plenty of legal content available out there for BitTorrent download.

_The Sheik

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How To Migrate an OsCommerce Store

thomastate — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:45:49 +0000

I recently moved an oscommerce store I host from one server to another. But when I did this I wanted to change some of the core elements, such as making the domain http://www.address.com instead of http://www.address.com/catalog which looks messy.
So after I migrated the site using my favorite FTP program for the Mac, TRANSMIT (Big Up!), I made sure to change all the obvious settings in my admin/includes/configure file as well as my includes/configure.php file.

After a bit more fiddling with porting over the SQL database the store was running great, however the ADMIN section was having heaps of problems, beginning with the images directory. I kept getting the following error.
Error: Catalog images directory does not exist:

Problem: this directory DOES exist.
Fix: change the admin/includes/configure.php file to reflect the following…

old: define(‘DIR_WS_CATALOG_IMAGES’, DIR_WS_CATALOG . ‘images/’);
new: define(‘DIR_WS_CATALOG_IMAGES’, ‘../images/’);
old: define(‘DIR_WS_CATALOG_IMAGES’, DIR_WS_CATALOG . ‘images/’);
new: define(‘DIR_FS_CATALOG_IMAGES’,’../images/’);

reload the admin page and the error will disappear.

_The Sheik

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