We’re reminded again of just how amazing the Airport Express is after setting one up last night. from the setup to using it could not be simpler. naming the network was a longer discussion then actually configuring it including turning on internet, music and printing features.

after it was working with the internet we plugged the printer into the USB port on the Express. and about a minute later it was printing from two Macs after adding the printer from the Bonjour list. printing to it appeared no different in performance then when it was directly connected. allowing a Windows machine needed Bonjour for Windows to work. printing commenced after installing it. here’s the directions for adding a printer to XP for an Airport Express.

last we plugged a long cable running to the main stereo into the 3.5mm jack. the demo for that was this:

Open iTunes on your computer.
Okay.
Down on the lower right side there’s a thing that says “computer” click on that.
It’s says “Lily” and “Computer”
Right. That’s your network. Select “Lily” and then play something.
[music plays from main stereo]
DUDE! that’s my music!
ROCK!
ROCK indeed…

one thing that I hadn’t noticed before is a feature called “Global Bonjour” which allows to anyone print to your printer anywhere on the internet if they know the address. must learn more about this potentially way awesome feature.

airport express

NOTE: an alternate version of the show has been created that fixes some of the audio problem towards the end of the show. thanks camuel! click to download or listen.

Back to My Mac either just magically works or it doesn’t at all. There are several reasons why it doesn’t just work:

Older Router
Configured incorrectly
Double Router 
Weird wired or plugged into the wrong connection.
ISP or BOFH blocking ports.

Back to My Mac users guide.

The secret to getting it to work is to use an Apple router like a Airport Extreme or a Airport Express. However, other routers work just fine. here is a list of compatible routers listed by Apple. just because your router is not on the list doesn’t mean that it won’t work.

A case for not using Back to my Mac and more thoughts on that. and here’s redux.

Apple article on Back to My Mac security. A list of all the ports in use or might be in use on a Mac.

Back to my Mac ports include UDP port 4500 & 5900 and TCP port 443. [one missing port goes here]

general steps:
some gateways are dumb as rocks and just pass on all requests. others are full on firewalls that may or may not allow you to configure them. sometimes there will be nothing you can do and your only options is to upgrade to a new gateway.

if you have a single router connected to your gateway or your gateway is also the router:
Turn on UPnP.

if that doesn’t work
some internet gateways are actually routers. some of them don’t allow you to poke holes in them. they might also be very old and don’t support UPnP. in that case you may need a newer router. but before you do that: upgrade the firmware on your router and or upgrade the firmware on your wireless router.

manually configuring your router:
the documentation for your router will give you the steps you need to enable specific ports. you can always find it online.

other problems
double routers
cable plugged into WAN side on the second router.
one router that doesn’t have UPnP turned on
firewall turned-on without specifying the BtmM ports.
some internet service providers block ports automatically to prevent “server like things” from being run. check your TOS, EULA or tech notes. calling or emailing support might be a good idea as well.

when all is lost
bribe your BOFH with his favorite beverage.

[more notes go here]

programmersatwork.wordpress.com/

note from Ben: “it looks like a bad cut and paste job.”

G4 NAS drive part 2
getting Back to my Mac to actually work
Print to the Internet
ZFS one year later
and more coding, server and hacking stuff.

With the WWDC just a month away we’ll also start planning the who where for pinning down experts that might be attending the week of geek. anyway don’t hold your breath. it won’t be until the middle of the week at least until there’s a new conversation. in the mean time make a back up of your doorbell (aka phone) or learn to sync it so it’s done automagically.

see you on the other side… OWT!

Making a business around Macintosh can be fun and profitable. Just because Apple as a store doesn’t mean that you can’t make Mac the center of your business. There are many ways that you can can make money from Macs: support, training, service, or making things with your Mac.

Remember, don’t quit your day jorb.

Every business needs a phone number. If you already have a cell phone that can be a place to start. Google “Grand Central” offers a phone number and voice mail system that is very powerful. This service is in beta so you need an invitation to sign up for it. If you don’t mind a number that isn’t in your “area” there’s K7.net which offers a free voice mail and fax service. Anyone that calls the number can leave a message which is delivered to you email as a WAV file and includes the number that called.

Business cards are essential. You can easily make your own. Or you can use one of thousands of services. One of the best “card making” tools happens to be Pages. You can have cards ready to go in less then 20 minutes. The guys at Etsy use a Cosco 2000 stamp to make cards. Go to your local paper store, find some interesting card stock, cut it to card size and stamp away. Simple.

If you don’t have a web site you can make one in an hour. While you can use one of the hundreds of “free” services we think that it’s better to have your own domain. Email is the same way. Why advertise somebody else’s service when you get your own for “free” with your domain. If you aren’t sure where to start in all the domain hosts to choose from start here.

The book that we talked about is “Art of the Start” by Guy Kawasaki. If you don’t like reading there’s a video of what amounts to the first 60 pages. Guy says “Think BIG” but we say “think small.” Laziness is a feature not a bug!

Open Sign credit.

[more as we think of it]

Why hack a G4 into a NAS drive. First off, NAS means Network Attached Storage. It’s basically a big hard drive you can use from any of the computers on your network. After years of service the G4 is nearing the end of it’s life. Apple raised the bar with Leopard dead-ending the earliest machines requiring 768Mhz and a modern GPU. With two exceptions (yikes and sawtooth) the G4 line has gigabit ethernet which gives you fast file transfers if you wired network supports this speed. Many commercial NAS products don’t have gigabit ethernet or charge a premium for the faster model.

An old G4 is essentially free. Okay, I paid full price for it in 1999. And I bought a dozen or so more of them over the years. My last G4 was a Mirror Door that got donated to a kid and we skipped the Wind Tunnel because we’d moved on to PowerBooks in my company. But that’s another story. I’ve seen used G4 machines of all sizes and various states for free on Craigslist or on various mailing lists I’m on. If you have to pay for one, don’t pay lots because they are nearly a decade old. Because of the age and the cost this Mac it’s highly hackable.

Most of this era Mac will have seen lots of use making it very dusty inside. Be careful when cleaning. Removing dust can cause static which can zap chips. When taking things apart to clean them go slowly. Make sure you remove every screw. If you have to force something to move it means you haven’t found all the screws. Clean the Mac with a household cleaning product like a blue window cleaner or 409. Don’t spray it directly on the inside of the case instead spray it on your paper towel. Be careful when using isopropyl alcohol to clean a case as diluted isopropyl alcohol can melt plastic. Use it with care.

Dust Off or compressed air can work magic. But it can also put dust every where. Don’t use it until you have clean a majority of dust out first. Static is always a concern. We’ve seen motherboards not work after being gunned with compressed air. When using Dust Off (or other source) use short bursts of air directed at concentrations of dust. Long blasts are wasteful. Use it outside or in your garage. We like to wait for the dust to settle before turing on a blasted Mac.

Choosing drives is a bit of hearsay and voodoo. Everyone has a preference which is based on the brand that has failed them the least. Personally we don’t care so much about brand but other things such as warrantee and power consumption. You might want to consider cost per gigabyte for determining which size to buy. For the G4 NAS talked about in the show 500G drives were the best buy. 6 months from now 1T drives will likely be the way to go.

Because of limitations on the PATA bus we need purchase and install a SATA card. There are a number of them that will work for this job. In Part 1 we choose a dumb as rocks PCI card that controlled two drives. More expensive cards have built-in RAID 0, 1, 5 but we don’t need that feature for this project. Plan to spend around $50.

After you’ve cleaned the case, installed drives, and controller its time to fire up the Mac. Format the drives using Disk Utility. Copy files to them, delete things giving them a good work out. Once you are certain things are working well go back to Disk Utility to format them as a RAID 1. Follow the steps here.

It has been pointed out to use that SoftRAID may be a better product then the RAID built-in OS X.

The Apple RAID software does zero monitoring. It’s a good idea to use a product to tell you the state of your disks like working, failed, about to fail, etc.. Two programs RAID Monitor and RAID Alart will monitor and report the status of your disks.

As my G4 NAS is sitting in the corner next to the phone system I use Chicken of the VNC to control it. You can use built-in Mac remote desktop screen sharing or a VNC Server to accomplish this. I use a VNC server because I wanted to change the default port for sharing. It makes my server just a little more secure.

If you aren’t using OS X Server there isn’t much control over what is shared and to whom. Normal user permissions, frankly, allow too much access. Use Share Points or Shift Share to give you absolute control over who gets access to what.