Using WDS to and OS X connection sharing to post this from my PC

We've moved -- across the alley. So we keep our neighbors and friends, but I've lost my broadband connection -- for at least four days. Qwest can move our phone line instantly (same number), but DSL takes time -- even though our new home had Qwest DSL until 10 days ago.

Fortunately two neighbors have wireless I can leach from momentarily. I couldn't get Jim's to work, but Peter's window is about 70 yards away -- unobstructed site line.

Peter put his Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS) in his window and I put mine in the facing window. Then the fun began. It took some time and some false starts, but I got WDS to work. Part of the problem was I did my configuration purely wirelessly, flipping between my wireless LAN and Peter's. I think Apple's WDS configuration works much better if one is physically connected to the main (host) base station. Doing it wirelessly is like changing wheels on a moving unicycle. It did work though.

This article does provide some useful information: AirPort Extreme and Express: Using WDS to create a network from multiple base stations.

A few notes:

1. Peter was using WPA2 Personal encryption. I used to use very insecure WEP (legacy reasons) but I switched my network encryption to match his (I think this may be necessary for the merger to work). Both AEBS had been flashed to the latest release and all machines were using latest AirPort software.

2. I set my AEBS to "neutral" -- dispense IP addresses, etc.

3. I then took control of Peter's AEBS and followed the WDS directions. I added my AEBS as a client. At first I was asked for the network password, then for the base station (administrative) password. This took a few tries and wasn't at all very smooth. I think I should have been wired into Peter's AEBS to do this. The automatic configuration did work though.

4. When it was done my old network was nowhere to be seen, but now I could join Peter's network directly. (I think part of the problem happens because I was wirelessly on Peter's network, but after my AEBS joined his I had to hop to mine.)

5. I could then use my iMac at the other end of the house -- in the new office. I turned on internet connection sharing and connected the internal ethernet to my switch. My PC then got it's IP address from the iMac.

So, in conclusion, my PC is connecting to the iMac via wired ethernet, then the iMac is acting as a bridge via 802.11g to my AEBS, which is now a mobile base station communicating to Peter's AEBS which has a wired connection to Peter's DSL modem.

And to think only a few years ago I was using Telnet after hours to dial-up to remote BBSs out east ...

Update 8/14/05

Qwest is, of course, beind on my DSL services so I'm still using this kludgy connection. I've learned a few things about Tiger's Internet Connection sharing:

1. The PC gets a 192.168.2.2 address. Oddly enough the iMac's ethernet IP address is quite odd, neither a 10.x or 192.x address but rather 169.x. So the client PC and host Mac are on very different 'networks'. The Mac can't see any shares on the PC, but the PC can see Mac shares. (If I turn off connection sharing and set my PC's IP to match the ethernet IP of the iMac then the network does fine.
2. Retrospect can't find its clients because they're basically in a different network.

Update 8/15/05

I'm making a bit more progress. Now even when I enable Tiger's Internet Connection sharing my PC can be seen by my iMac (the two are connected by wired ethernet) and Retrospect/Windows can "see" the Retrospect client on the Tiger machine. Here's the trick:

1. I noticed when Internet Connection Sharing was enabled, and the PC was set up to use DHCP, it got a 192.168.2.x address (commonly used legal range for internal networks). So I set the PC to manually use 192.168.2.20 as its address and configured the DNS servers to my ISP's servers.
2. I then set the ethernet IP address on the iMac manually to be 192.168.128.200. So it was on the same network.
3. Retrospect/Windows still couldn't see the iMac client, so I turned off Retrospect Client on the iMac, then turned off the AirPort, then turned Retrospect Client on again. I was then able to find it from the PC. I then reenabled AirPort on the iMac and was again able to see Retrospect client. (I knew to try this because I've noticed before that Retrospect Client gets "stuck" on the AirPort irregardless of my OS X network port preference configuration; even when there's a physical link Retrospect ignores it. I have to disable the AirPort to get it to use the wired link. I don't know if this is an OS X or Retrospect bug, but Retrospect is, in general, the crummiest piece of non-Microsoft software I've ever used.
   

PS. Qwest is even further behind on getting my DSL configured.

Update 8/16

I've just discovered that I can't set the AirPort to WPA2 only -- that isn't an option for G3 iBooks. Probably note enough horsepower. Makes me wonder how much of a battery drain WPA is. I've noticed my iBook losing power pretty quickly. I'm going to monitor xBattery with the AirPort on and off ...

Good advice on new iMac purchases: run hardware test immediately

Macintouch: iMac G5 (Part 12)

I'm definitely going to do this:

My advice? If you buy an iMac, get it set up, run Software Update, then run Apple Hardware Test. (Put in the DVD that came with the computer, restart holding down the Option key, click on AHT, click the next arrow.) Run the 'extended test', which will take 30 minutes or so. If it reports any failures, take the computer back to the Apple Store and exchange it for a new one.

Apple probably took a bridge too far when they put the G5 and a modern hard drive in this enclosure.

Update: If you want to run the hardware test repeatedly, type Ctrl-L to switch AHT to loop mode. Also, if you're accustomed to earlier versions of AHT, you may wonder how to get started. The directions are in small print on DVD 1 of the 2 DVD set. It takes a LONG time to go through the AHT selection and startup process; be patient. The machine is not dead, it's just .... thinking. A lot.

USB Overdrive: a great solution to undersupported or unsupported USB game and other devices with OS X

USB Overdrive

The USB Overdrive X is a driver for Mac OS X (Jaguar, Panther and Tiger) that handles any USB mouse, trackball, joystick and gamepad from any manufacturer and lets you configure them either globally or on a per-application basis. It reads all kinds of wheels, buttons, switches and controls and supports scrolling, keyboard emulation, launching and all the usual stuff like clicking, control-clicking and so forth. The USB Overdrive can easily handle several USB devices at once.

Awakening a home to music - iTunes, Awaken and a stereo

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

If one has a home stereo receiver connected to an Airport Express and controlled by a workstation, then this tool could allow one's home to waken to music. A reason to add wireless speakers to the odl home stereo?

Awaken digital alarm clock utilizes iTunes. Posted Jul 29, 2005, 1:00 PM ET by Dave Caolo

My iMac lives in my bedroom, so it makes sense that I'd want to use it as an alarm clock. I know there are several ways to get this done, and today I discoverd one more: Embraceware's Awaken.

Awaken will wake you up by launching iTunes and playing a user-selected track or playlist at a designated time. Set up recurring alarms or individual, date-specific occurrences. Other features include a sleep timer for drifting off to your favorite music, podcast support (be awakend by your favorite podcast) and a wake-from-sleep feature that rouses your Mac from sleep mode if need be (why should you be the only one inconvenienced?).

Awake requires Mac OS 10.3 or later and iTunes 3.0 or later (note that iTunes v.4.0 or later is required to display album art with alarm notifications). There is a 14 day trial version available, and a single license will run you $8.95US.

QuickTime bug: MakerNote info corruption (also affects iPhoto)

JakeO.com - Exifixer is an EXIF image reader library in PHP

This bug apparently causes massive bloat and slowdown in some iPhoto libraries: "QuickTime (including iPhoto) messes up the MakerNote tag for certain photos (no workaround yet)".

From Macintouch on 7/27:

Eric Lindsay

...This occurs when photographs from certain cameras including some or all Pentax and Nikon are included in your Library. These cameras include in their JPG EXIF information called a MakerNote. For most cameras the MakerNote is a few hundred bytes. In a Pentax Optio, the MakerNote is around 40KB.

iPhoto 4 stores the MakerNote in the Data directory for each day of photos, in a file called *.attr There is one such .attr file for each photo. Because iPhoto 4 has separate files, it does not slow down on closing the way iPhoto 5 does.

iPhoto 5 combines all these .attr files with their large MakerNotes in a file called Library.iPhoto. If you have say 6000 photos, and each has a 40KB MakerNote included, this makes Library.iPhoto expand to over 250MB.

If you have such a bloated Library in iPhoto 5, you can demonstrate this making a new Library from a bunch of photos. Then remove the MakerNote from the same bunch of photos, and import them into another new Library. Compare the size of Library.iPhoto.

There is a Perl script at anders.hultman.nu/data/makernote that can remove MakerNote. You need to amend the first line to point at your copy of Perl, and put the rmmn-100.pl script in your $PATH

So there are perhaps two issues:

1. MakerNote corruption problem (maybe fixed since first noted)?
2. Design issue with how iPhoto 5 consolidates MakerNotes (size not bigger than iPhoto 4 really, but slow shutdown due to how data is managed for users of Nikon cameras).

I use Canon cameras, so I'm not affected. Sounds like it may be a combination of more than one bug and a design decision.

High quality phone headset for Mac

MacInTouch: timely news and tips about the Apple Macintosh

These will be big for making personal voice calls from the cube computer in one's office:

The Sennheiser M145 is a computer and multimedia headset that combines high-fidelity stereo headphones with a hands-free, noise-canceling microphone. The headset includes a dedicated USB adapter with built-in soundcard electronics. Designed to be plug-and-play with any Mac OS up through Mac OS X 10.4, the Sennheiser M145 is $120. (Sennheiser web site not yet updated.)

The best part of OS X 10.4.2? Simple Finder for kids

Apple - Mac OS X - Family

My new machine came with Tiger. So far it's mostly a posterior pain. Old software has to be upgraded, the install is bigger, Spotlight insists on indexing peripheral drives it should ignore, I can't see how to constrain search to a path, and Quartz Extreme is still disabled and Retrospect has no Tiger support in their (orphaned post acquistion?) Windows based Mac backup (you can use the Retrospect/Mac client -- but that's not a licensed use and it's not supported).

There are a lot of nice touches, but I don't see any big advantage in Tiger for me over 10.3.9. Given a choice, I'd still choose LaunchBar over Spotlight, and I had to pay $10 for the new version of Launchbar after I upgraded!

With one exception. In 10.4.2 the 'Simple Finder' (managed user option -- Children) is very nice. It was broken badly in 10.0-10.3, so it's great to see it back. The Simple Finder now supports multiple 'windows' based on the number of icons in a folder, and there's an option (choose from menu) to break out to the full finder. So an administrator can now log in as a child, then configure the system as needed, then return to child!

The kid support is almost worth the upgrade.