Airport Extreme 802.11n range: better at 2.4 than 5

The last time I messed with my home wireless network I jumped through hoops to connect an old 802.11b iBook (yes, the computer, not the app) to an early 2009 Time Machine. A few weeks after I bought that Time Machine Apple revved the line.

Now that I've replaced the Airport Express that now powers my mother's iPad with a new one, I'm sure Apple will rev it along with the upcoming iTV.

In the meantime, I've made one new discovery. In my home, 802.11N 2.4 GHz has significantly greater range than 802.11N 5 GHz. Apparently this is not uncommon.

When I configured the Express to WDS Extend it worked well in our dining room, but it couldn't connect in the living room. I brought it back to the dining room and manually switched the WDS setting from the original 5GHz network I'd selected to the standard 802.11N network [2]. (Time Machine broadcasts both plus 802.11G and 802.11B.) It then connected from the dining room. I repeated this to confirm it wasn't a chance glitch.

So our current (all wireless [1]) home network looks like this:

• Time Machine: 802.11 n/g/b with 802.11n 5GHz and 2.4Ghz
• Airport Express: Extends Time Machine, WDS connection is 802.11n 2.4 GHz
• iMac i5: 802.11n 5 GHz (it's about 10 feet directly below the Time Machine)
• iMac G5: 802.11g
• MacBook Intel: 802.11n 5GHz at the moment, but I bet I have to switch it back to 802.11N 2.4 GHz to get more range
• iPhone 4: 802.11n 2.4 GHz
• iPhone 3G and 3GS: 802.11g
• iPhone 3 (used as iTouch): 802.11g
• iBook: would be 802.11b but I've retired it. It wasn't getting any use in the iPhone era.

Note Apples says the Airport Express will connect up to 10 clients, and the Airport Extreme will connect up to 50 users (I'm not sure where my older Time Machine sits). With our iPhones and guest devices it's not hard to get near to the Express limits.

See also:

• Airport Extreme: Firmware update, Time Capsule bugs, tips and fixes
• Fixing a broken WDS wired to wireless bridge on an Apple Airport Express

[1] I thought the "all wireless" setup would be temporary following some home reconfiguration, but it's worked so well I've stayed with it. I'm surprised.
[2] From Airport Utility select Airport Express. Choose Manual setup, then Wireless. Select the non-5GHz or 5GHz through Wireless Network Name.

--My Google Reader Shared items (feed)

The hidden ever growing iTunes photo cache bug

There's a design flaw/bug in iTunes. When it syncs photos to an iPod or iOS device it creates a photo cache folder. That folder never shrinks, it only grows.

That's merely annoying on the desktop, but it does the same thing in iPhoto. To purge the cache you have to delete it, which requires opening the iPhoto image Package..;

iTunes: Photo sync creates iPod Photo Cache folder

... Control-click the iPhoto Library file and choose Show Package Contents from the shortcut menu.

In the iPhoto Library window, locate the iPod Photo Cache folder and drag it to the Trash...

My hidden iPhoto cache was 1.5 GB.

How exceedingly annoying. 

iPhone for kids: The Achilles Heel

For one brief shining moment I thought Apple had a good kid platform ....

Gordon's Tech: The kid's iPhone - configuration and AT&T

...As a computer, his iPhone has one large advantage over his desktop accounts. On the desktop Apple and Google together have totally broken OS X Parental Controls (MobileMe is the worst). On the iPhone, once you remove Safari and YouTube, you have Wikipanion and and Wolfram Alpha and Google Earth and Public Radio.app and New York Times.app...

That was before my intrepid 13 year old tutored me.

The problem is that a lot of iPhone apps use WebKit, and blocking Safari doesn't block WebKit.

So Google Earth has a Wikipedia layer. Click on the W icons, and it launches WebKit. Click around a while, and eventually you get to places I don't want my kid to go.

Scratch Google Earth.

AppBox Pro has lots of little tools he might like -- but it also includes iGoogle. (Why? Don't ask me.)

Scratch AppBox.

Wolfram Alpha looked good. Math, research, but no web. Oops. Except for the "Search the web" link at the bottom of every page that opens an embedded WebKit page.

Scratch Wolfram Alpha.

Houston, we have a problem.

Update 10/4/10: Google's AdMob ads give YouTube access from Pandora.

Location sharing on iPhone: Latitude, PlaceTrack and Latitudie

The Google-Apple war went public when Apple blocked the release of Latitude.app -- even before they blocked Google Voice.

With iOS4's support for background location sharing, I wondered when we'd see something like Latitude. (MobileMe also enables location tracking, but you can't share that information.)

About two months ago ago PlaceTrack tried to do this. Had it been accepted by Apple it would have updated Google's Latitude service. Unsurprisingly, since it's a Google-related product, it was rejected (limbo technically).

Yes, the Google-Apple war sucks.

Surprisingly, there's another App that updates Latitude - Latitudie. I wonder if it was accepted because it was first submitted internationally. It's $2 and has had mixed reviews. It it had better reviews, or if some geek I trust used it, I'd give it a try.

Gowalla shares locations, but it doesn't integrate with Latitude. It also has an annoying business model.

At the moment I'm most interested in Latitudie. I'm wary of putting it on my phone though -- I'd like to read a review from someone I trust.

Configuring iTunes to reference apps from a shared folder

9/25/10: With the latest release of iTunes it doesn't work any more anyway, you no longer get the prompt to find all your missing apps at once. So never was safe, and now doesn't work at all. Retained for historical purposes, plus it has some interesting links and a FairPlay discussion.
---
Oops. Don't do this, it causes iTunes to put every app on every phone synchronized with the share. Evidently iTunes writes metadata into the app file! I wonder if it's an extended attribute on OS X. A terrible design!
----

Sharing DRMd (FairPlay) material, such as videos and iPhone Apps, in a family is fraught. It's technically complex, and it's commercially complex. Rights holders, for example, probably want a BrainLock implant for every customer, so only one person can ever hear an iTunes song.

Given the commercial issues, Apple's FairPlay licensing is surprisingly generous. Wikipedia has the best (only?) summary, though since they're describing music it's obviously dated (Apple store music is rarely DRMd now) ...

• The track may be copied to any number of iPod portable music players (including the iPhone).^[2] (However, each iPod/iPhone can only have tracks from a maximum of five different iTunes accounts)
• The track may be played on up to five (originally three) authorized computers simultaneously.^[2]
• A particular playlist within iTunes containing a FairPlay-encrypted track can be copied to a CD only up to seven times (originally ten times) before the playlist must be changed.^[3]

Fraser Spiers' iPad educational project shows how this works for apps. He configured five authorized computers and one master iTunes account, so all the apps could be distributed to a large number of iPads. (I assume Fraser compensated the App developers somehow as this is a bit outside the usual scope of distribution.)

FairPlay may be generous, but iTunes really expects a single user. Even if every user on a computer shares a single iTunes account (ex: Dad's account), each has its own content collection. With iTunes 9 Apple enabled a sort of sharing, but it requires physically copying files.  Even in the days of TB drivers this can be wasteful.

When it comes to Mobile Applications (.app) this is particularly annoying. Each user's apps get updated separately for example [1]. So if Emily and I share the 1.5GB NAVIGON.app we each have a copy, and each copy is updated separately.

On the other hand, if you have every device sync to a single iTunes, users can't sync to their individual iCal or Address Book and content ratings and Smart Playlists become a bit of a struggle (ex: "last played" rules assume only one listener!). So in the old days many of us geeks gave each iPhone user in the family their own account. We used tricks like iTunes music 'include by reference' feature and its amazingly versatile drag-and-drop media behavior to sort of work around these limitations.

Now that most of sync to Google Apps via Active Sync rather than directly to our desktop accounts it really makes most sense to sync every device to one account (screw ratings). I'm doing that for the kids, but Emily still has her own account. Thanks to the 'include by reference and media drag and drop' technique we do ok with media, but Mobile Apps don't support include by reference. You have to copy them. So I've been using Apple's Family Sharing for apps only; it monitors additions to the master iTunes Library and copies the apps to her iTunes Library.

This had an annoying side-effect that all of our App updates had to be done twice, but when I bought the 1.5GB NAVIGON turn-by-turn GPS app things got really annoying. For geeks of my generation, 1.5GB is a lot of storage to waste (including backup of course).

I tried various tricks to get her iTunes to reference Mobile Apps stored on a Public Share on the computer that holds both our accounts. I tried Aliases and a I tried Symbolic Links to both apps and to the Mobile Application folder. Nothing worked ... until ... by chance ... I stumbled on what did work.

This is what I do now.

First I install apps to her account normally. Since we have Family Sharing setup anything I add to my account will be added to her account.

Then I did something like this (To be honest, I need to play with this a bit more, but if you're a geek this is all the hints you need. My apps are stored in a shared folder for which she has read/write privileges. If you're not a geek you shouldn't be reading this.):

1. In her account, move her .app files OUT of her iTunes Music:Mobile Applications folder.
2. Start iTunes for her, and right click on any of her App icons in the App view. I choose 'Get Info'. The App gets an exclamation mark next to it and ITunes asks if I want to locate the file. (Maybe I double clicked on the exclamation point?)
3. Choose Show In Finder (or ?). iTunes asked me where the file was. I navigated to the file in the shared folder on MY account and it accepted it. iTunes then asked me if I wanted to use the same path to update all other missing apps

That did it. Emily's iTunes now includes my Apps by reference instead of copying them. I only do one set of updates, and NAVIGON.app appears only once. Please note I'm not getting any extra privileges from doing this, I'm just saving disk space and update time.

All I need to do is periodically clean up her Library, update mine, and repeat this trick.

See also

• Sync iTunes Libraries Between Two Macs
• Working around iTunes lack of multi-user support
• The flaw in iTunes: 2 users, 2 iPods - and our brain locked future
• Tunes and the multi-iPhone family - two approaches

[1] Now that some App updates are iOS 4 specific, this ability to choose when to update may be a feature, but not I'm really getting complicated.

Blogger: a heartfelt cry of anguish about their rich text editor

I know it's pointless, but I had to vent. I posted this in Google's Blogger feedback forum ...

Please fix paragraph definitions. Please, please, please. - Blogger Help 

I've been using Blogger for years. Ever since you moved to using embedded styles in the new editor it's been a misery to use. I won't bother with the details, because if you're not seeing the issues every day you're not bothering to do QA. (If you want to start doing QA, try editing old posts, try using blogthis! on a mac, try editing with Windows Live Writer, etc. Or just hire me to run your QA program.)

It's driving me stark, raving, mad.

Something is really wrong. Something that can't be fixed with a few patches and hacks. You need to drastically rethink your rich text editor strategy, starting with how the editor manages paragraph definitions and then reconsidering the entire approach to style sheets.

For the moment, given where you are in the product life cycle, add a button that removes all styles completely and reformats using only data elements that the rich text editor is able to manipulate.

And, if you have been doing QA, and you don't know about these issues, please fire the SVP for QA.

I need stronger drink.

--My Google Reader Shared items (feed)

Buying a printer for our home - curiously difficult

I've been fond of our giant-sized five year old Brother MFC-7820N black and white laser printer, scanner and fax machine. It was never as rock solid as our LaserWriter Select 360 (20+ year lifespan if you could find cartridges), but by the standards of 2005 it was a gem. The competition was dismal. HP combined hideous hardware with worse software, and the device drivers for Epson and Canon devices were almost as bad.

The 7820N has come to the end of days though. It jams easily if the paper tray is less than half-full, and the web-based diagnostics [1] tells me the internal print engine is nearing end-of-life. It needs to be replaced. That turns out to be trickier than one would imagine.

It's tricky for several reasons. Printers have been clobbered by ink jet technology churn [1], premature maturation and commoditization [2], brand loss [3], and technology transition (more on that). OS X users have the further problem of very poor device driver support -- you don't want to use anything that doesn't ship with OS X [4].

The technology transition is having a strong impact now. Apple doesn't sell black and white or color laser printers any more and iOS devices like the iPad and iPhone, the future of personal computing, don't print at all. Google's ChromeBooks to come are struggling to print.

Looking at this marketplace in transition it's clear that I need to go as simple as possible. That means black and white (grayscale really) laserwriter with a good record of reliable cartridge availability, long product life cycles, and OS X 10.5 "native" device drivers [5]. That will probably be another Brother printer. I'll also be looking for quiet operation and compact size.

For now I'll put our old MFC into the basement and use it as a standalone fax machine [6] and photocopier. If we keep the paper tray full it should work for years like that, and the occasional jam will be tolerable.

The upside of this transition is I can finally attack the scanning problem with a machine that's designed for producing B&W PDFs off a paper feed. The MFC vendors were never going to provide a good solution for a market as small as this one.

I'll update this post with what I choose, but it's probably going to be the Brother 2170W or  Brother HL-5370DW. Size, cartridge cost and availability, and native OS X support will probably be the determinant (price is almost irrelevant really) - so I'm betting on the 2170W or non-networked equivalent. Given issues with wireless security and peripherals I suspect it will end up being connected to a USB port on a Mac or AirPort Express/Extreme (back to the future!) but it may be useful to have other options.

Note that all laser printers come with "starter cartridges", so after initial testing you need to order a cartridge separately.

Update: I ordered the $80 Brother 2140, the same device I bought for my mother last year. It was $50 less than the 2170W. I used the money I save to order an Airport Express (I gave my old AE to my mother). So for $40 more than the 2170W I get to extend my LAN coverage and I get optional AirTunes support. It uses the very standard and widely available TN360 cartridge and has had native OS X driver support for many years.

Update 8/18/10: Installed the 2140. I didn't bother with Brother's software except to copy the manual to my "reference" folder. I ended up just attaching it to a G5 iMac which is now a print server; the Airport Express wasn't necessary. My 10.5 and 10.6 machines used native drivers. Painless - as expected.
-- 

[1] A miserable technology. It has never worked reliably, and a dying HP trapped the industry into a disposable printer and costly cartridge hidden-price business model.
[2] There's no real reason to go beyond 300 dpi, and that was achieved fifteen years ago. Color would be nice, but we still can't do it well at consumer price points -- and the market has lost interest. In a high tech industry reaching this kind of peak is a problem.
[3] Brands became meaningless and quality plummeted. This afflicted all parts of the computer industry from 1998 to 2008 with one notorious exception.
[4] See my links below on why device drivers are so bad everywhere. In OS X the small market and Apple's complete disinterest made things worse. I think with 10.6 bundled device drivers are tolerable, but you don't want to depend on a manufacturer for drivers.
[5] We still print from a 10.5 machine.
[6] The zombie technology that won't die. Sort of like Adobe Flash but worse.

See also:

Other stuff

• TidBITS Business Apps: ScanSnap S1300 vs. Doxie: Two Portable Document Scanners
• Apple: Mac OS X v10.6: Printer and scanner software (native drivers)

My stuff

• Why device driver software is so bloody awful ... (2004)
• The sorry state of OS X device drivers (2009)
• Epson vs. Canon scanners: who has better OS X support (2007)
• My MacBook fan was roaring. Why? (2008 - Canon)
• Canon's CanoScan drivers: the horror and the Vuescan alternative
• Obnoxious old Epson Scan bug: EPSON Scan cannot be started