Apple

How To: Fix iPad loosing wireless network

Posted by Rick on in Apple, Technology How To's 0 Comment

How To: Fix iPad loosing wireless network

One of the issues being reported with the Apple iPad is that it looses it’s wireless network connection and then has a very hard time reconnecting.

I ran across this bug in the field where I had 6 iPads scattered around a football field, and two (or more) Apple Airport Extremes connected in WDS mode. The issue seems to popup usually when there are either a large number of people in between the Airport Base Station and the iPad, OR when the iPad was too far from one or the other Airports. Weirdly, the Wireless Connection icon in the upper left hand of the screen would have full bars, but still couldn’t get to any network devices or to the Internet.

From the iPad’s main screen, choose “Settings” then tap “Wi-Fi” locations. Choose the default Wireless Network, then tap the right arrow. Scroll down to “HTTP Proxy” and then tap on “Manual.” Back out of these screens and test the wireless out. If it still fails, go back and choose “Auto” instead of “Manual.” Note that there is no need to enter any information in the “Server,” “Port,” or “Authentication” fields. Unless your specific wireless network needs those.

This is reported to also work with iPods and possibly iPhones so the problem seems to be in IOS itself, and not with the hardware. Hopefully a future update will fix this issue.

Other Suggestions:
-Update Firmware on Wireless Access Point
-Turn off the 802.11n mode
-Temporarily disable security measures. If this seems to solve, set router to WPA2
-Disable 40mhz or 20mhz under 802.11n settings – especially in crowded wireless environments
-Set the iPad to get a static IP (only reported to work in one case, so very low on the list)
-Apple’s KB has a few other suggestions: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1398

How To: Tweak OS X “Spaces”

Posted by Rick on in Apple, OSX, Technology How To's 0 Comment

How To: Tweak OS X “Spaces”

Spaces is OSX’s cool virtual window program that allows “multiple” desktops to be setup. The thought is that it allows you to group programs together by task and thereby increasing your workflow productivity.

Apple has a great tutorial on how to really maximize it’s usefulness.

But some of us want to tweak it’s usability. For instance to disable the “teleport to another space feature” in terminal (as root)

defaults write com.apple.Dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool NO

killall Dock

To switch back:

defaults write com.apple.Dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool YES

killall Dock

To remove the animation between spaces:

defaults write com.apple.Dock workspaces-swoosh-animation-off -bool YES

killall Dock

Please comment and add any other tricks you have.

How To: Disable MacDefender and MacProtector

Posted by Rick on in Apple, Technology How To's, virus 0 Comment

How To: Disable MacDefender and MacProtector

MacDefender and MacProtector are the latest in “anti-virus” protections that are actually malicious themselves. These are targeted towards Macs specifically, but are NOT virus. These are trojans, and can be picked up by visiting malicious sites.

To disable:
As an admin user (most are by default)
Open up Terminal and type: sudo killall MacDefender
Substitute MacProtector if that’s the version affecting your computer.

The password will be your login password.

Then type: sudo -u $username> defaults write com.apple.Safari AutoOpenSafeDownloads -bool false

Replace the word username with your login name; or if you don’t know it, look to the left in terminal.

Hit enter, it should not ask for a password for the second time. This will keep the application from downloading again.

Once that has happened, be sure to visit http://adobe.com/flash and update your Flash software to help block these.

The last step is to use Spotlight to search your computer for the bad app. Once you find it, be sure to throw it into the Trash, then Empty the Trash.

Updating /etc/hosts on OS X

Posted by Rick on in Apple, Command Line, OSX, Technology How To's, Unix 0 Comment

Updating /etc/hosts on OS X

Sometimes you need to have a static IP address configured to a specific domain name on OS X. For instance, locally testing a web server is a great reason to do this. Doing so is fairly easy to setup, but does take a bit of command line work.

First, edit /etc/hosts with your favorite text editor.

the default looks something like this:

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting. Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1 localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost

Edit the file, add in the IP address under the 255.255.255.255 address, then put in the hostname with spaces over under “localhost.”

Then you have to reload the hosts file.

OS X 10.4 type:

sudo niload -v -m hosts . < /etc/hosts

on OS X 10.5 and 10.6
lookupd -flushcache
dscacheutil -flushcache

Then simply ping the new domain name and check that is resolves to the correct IP address. (assuming the other computer is setup to respond correctly)