Ars Technica: Portable headphone roundup - Page 6 - (2/2004)

Ars Technica: Portable headphone roundup - Page 6 - (2/2004)

Sennheiser PXC250 (US$130): Sound = 7 / Value = 7 / Overall = 7

As the only set of headphones with active noise cancellation in this comparison, the PXC250 was at a bit of a disadvantage — generally active noise-reduction headphones show a significant price premium over their counterparts (The PXC250 is based off of the PX200, which is significantly cheaper). While the PXC250's sound was not terrific, they were at worst entirely inoffensive, and at best quite balanced and pleasing. Neither Jeff nor Matt had any major complaints about the sound. We would definitely recommend these to anyone that travels on planes a lot, works in a server room, or perhaps someone with a rather loud computer that they do not want to hear, but wants to hear other ambient sound. Just as the other Sennheiser PX series headphones were, the PXC250 is also very light and comfortable. The bottom line is that some people would get a lot of good use out of the PXC250s, but they are probably not worth it for people that do not need the active noise cancellation — better sounding headphones without noise cancellation can be had.

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I bought some reconditioned AIWA noise cancelling headphones for $17, but these sound interesting ....

Panther Kernel crashes and BSOD - networks, sleep and location changes

MacFixIt - Troubleshooting Solution for the Macintosh

Mac OS X 10.3.x: Kernel panics upon location change
Yesterday we covered a reader report from Rob Tillyard that his PowerBook G4 has recently been experiencing kernel panics when switching between Network Locations (via the Locations submenu of the Apple Menu or the Network pane of System Preferences). Since then we've received corroborating reports of this issue from many MacFixIt readers.

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I see this. No clear workaround except for Apple to fix the problem.

Smaller Panther PDFs - Colorsync option allows Quartz Shrinking (JPEG Compression)

Mac OS X Panther (10.3.2)

Dan Frakes Benjamin Drew wrote: 'How come the PDF's made in Panther are so large?...'

You could use any of a number of PDF 'shrinking' utilities, or even Acrobat. However, Panther has a built-in feature that can significantly reduce the size of Panther-generated PDF files during the creation process:

1. Access the Print dialog normally, but don't use the 'Save as PDF' command yet.
2. From the options pop-up menu in the Print dialog (the one that normally says Copies & Pages by default), choose ColorSync.
3. From the Quartz Filter pop-up menu that appears, choose Reduce File Size.
4. *Then* use the 'Save as PDF' command to create your PDF. (If you plan on using this option often, you may want to first create a new preset using the Presets pop-up menu in the Print dialog; this will allow you to create PDF files using this option in the future by simply selecting the preset before you create the PDF.)

This option won't reduce the size of PDF files as much as some of the third-party utilities on the market, but in some cases it works wonders... and it's free.

Report Google Link Spam

Report a Spam Result

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Report sites that game google. When what you see isn't what you expected, copy here.

Apple Software Restore: How to install or reinstall parts without erasing

Apple Software Restore: How to install or reinstall parts without erasing

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Working around Apple's own mistakes.

smugmug - now if they'd only add preconfigured user print accounts

smugmug - easy photo sharing with the world's best online photo albums

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Here's what I wrote them:

Smugmug looks extremely interesting. Maybe you'll do what I've been writing shutterfly and others about for about a year.

I want to create special prefunded preconfigured accounts for specific users to order prints with. Mother, aunt, grandmother, baby sitter, etc.

I would enter mailing addresses, username, password, default print size, and print budget when I set up their accounts.

They would login to my smugmug page and choose their name from a list. They would be asked a password.

Then they would see a simple app for specifying images to print. Then click done. They see a confirmatory screen and confirm.

That's IT. They don't enter credit card info, uname, pword, address, ANYTHING. They only click, enter password, select print, confirm. Prints get mailed to them.

When my account runs low I'm notified to add more money.

HUGE time saver for me. I don't have to worry about shipping, selecting, anything.

Include a special account without an address. That's to give to parents at a party, so they can get prints.

Do this and you'll be drowning in print orders. Money, money, money.

If you weren't already planning to do this, you can give me 10 free prints as a gesture of your eternal gratitude.

Google Viewer and Safari quick keys

Google Viewer

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Google viewer is a google experiment -- it generates a slideshow view. I put in on my Safari toolbar, then I (re)discovered that the Cmd-Number keys map to toobar items.

So cmd-1 brings up BlogThis!, cmd-2 TinyUrl, cmd-3 Google Viewer, etc. It's actually FASTER to use this technique for googling than to use the google search field in Safari. In one keystroke I can enter my search term rather than clicking and entering ...

macosxhints - Turn off auto-deletion of 'internet-enabled' disk images

macosxhints - Stop special treatment of 'internet-enabled' disk images: "defaults write com.apple.frameworks.diskimages skip-idme true"

Another replies: "A much simpler way is just to option-click the link. It downloads to your default location, but doesn't open."

Apache based alternatives to .Mac: PHPiCalendar and iCal

Greg Westin: Using PHP iCalendar to View iCal Calendars Online
Nice web site on doing things with Apache and open source instead of .Mac.

Slashdot | PC Diagnostic Software Recommendations

Slashdot | Good, Affordable PC Diagnostic Software?
A great Slashdot thread on a topic that audience knows well.

Hushmail Free Encrypted Web-mail: login

Hushmail Free Encrypted Web-mail: login

Hush, like any company or individual, is legally bound to respond to court-issued subpoenas. However, because not even Hush can access the encryption keys of individual users, in the case of a subpoena Hush would only be able to provide the encrypted (coded) version of the transmitted email.

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When someone informed BugTraq of a security exploit they found in the leaked NT source code, they used Hushmail. If an uber-hacker thinks it's good ...

Hushmail was probably inspired, in part, by a desire to protect people from the DMCA. These are folks who fear the US is turning into a police state. (Hah, hah, wherever do they get that silly idea. Not from the Patriot Act, CAPSS II, the DMCA, Patriot II ...)

It has other likely users too. Watch for Patriot III to ban it.

Natural Voice Text to Speech Reader Standard - XP reader

Natural Voice Text to Speech Reader Standard - Download.com - Free downloads, shareware, and more.

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OS X has quite good built-in voices, this provides some similar options for XP. I wonder about using this as part of teaching reading to older readers ...

Getting a PC 802.11b to talk WEP to an Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS)

Google Groups: View Thread "Has ANYONE gotten ANY XP/PC PCMCIA 802.11b card to c..."I've been unable to get a PC Client to connect with WEP enable to my Apple Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS). Apple has been of no help.

Alice Faber answered this one for me in a usenet posting:

If you're connecting through the Windows XP interface, click on the
Advanced tab. In some XP installations, there's a default setting that
will guarantee that you won't connect, hidden on the Advanced tab. I
forget the exact wording of it (I don't have access to an XP box to
check), but it will say something about smart card authentication.

On the main tab, you may have to search out a pulldown menu that will
allow you to selecte Shared authentication also.

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The key phrase is "shared authentication". A google search on this phrase and "airport" brought a lot of hits:

A few key notes:

A. http://www.opentechsupport.net/forums/archive/topic/18986-1.html
Be sure the right XP services are running

1.) Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Performance and Maintenance -> Administrative Tools -> Services.
2.) Scroll down to Wireless Zero Configuration, and double-click Wireless Zero Configuration.
3.) On the General tab, after Startup type, change the startup type to Automatic.
4.) Start the service by clicking Start.

B. http://stevenf.com/mt/archives/000471.php
A few discussions, and an aside that Apple's advanced tech support was clueless.
This is where they point out the need to enable "shared authentication". There's a hint that older 802.11b implementations don't support it.

C. http://wireless-starter-kit.com/airportblog/
Lots of discussions on Airport wireless.

D. http://www.macwireless.com/index.html
Serious Mac wireless vendor.

E. http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?13@83.CGwtaOvycER.930@.688ec533/0

Accessing a Airport Network with a Windows XP PC or laptop (WEP enabled)
http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/1000.html

Patch required if running Windows XP and WPA on an AEBS
http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/2003.html

The three main reasons people have problems are

1. WEP Key in plain text and not HEX

If you enable WEP on the AEBS, you need to note down the Hex Airport Network Password, if you are using 128bit encryption this will be a 26 digit number.

If you open the Airport Admin Utility you should see something like this

http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/images004/ae005.gif

You may need to click a button called Password

Note that I have blanked out my passwords

The Wireless ASCII Equivalent Password is the plain text network password you use to access your Airport network with a Mac.

The Wireless Hex Equivalent Password is the hex version of the plain text, and this is what you would use with your PC.

2.IEEE 802.1x authentication is on
Ensure that the Enable IEEE 802.1x authentication for this network check box is not checked.

3. Authentication Mode is not set to Shared
Ensure Network Authentication (Shared Mode) box is ticked

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On a separate topic, a wireless bridge for 802.11g AEBS networks, I found:

http://www.macwireless.com/html/products/11g/11gEthAdapter.html

and an other great usenet posting sent me to:

http://www.buffalotech.com/wireless/products/airstation/WLAG54C.html

Bottom line: usenet lives.

Buffalo Technology (USA) - 802.11g wirless bridge

Buffalo Technology (USA)

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A usenet poster says this is compatible with an airport extreme base station. They have a similar device with a single ethernet port that looks quite compact:

http://www.buffalotech.com/wireless/products/airstation/WLITX1G54.html

ADS TECH USBX500 - ADS Technologies USB 2-Port Internal PCI Card at circuitcity.com

ADS TECH USBX500 - ADS Technologies USB 2-Port Internal PCI Card at circuitcity.com: "Brand/Model: AS USBX500"

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These are supposed to work quite well with Mac OS classic once you download the USB update for 8.6.