Tag Archives: Apple

[Tip of the day] Super fast Wi-Fi using 802.11n on 5GHz

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Here’s a little tip I’d like to share with you. If you live in a city and use Wi-Fi at home, you will probably encounter interference from a lot of neighbors’ Wi-Fi networks. The intereference can have a significant effect on the performance of your network, slowing down the speeds at which you send files around (internally among various devices in your house or office), or download/upload files on the Internet.

If you upgrade your Wi-Fi access point to one that uses 802.11n and upgrade your computer and other devices to ones that have 802.11n (or at least get an 802.11n adapter card for older devices), then set your new 802.11n base station to use the 5GHz frequency, you will find that your network’s performance will improve because there’s very little interference on that frequency. Most people do not have 802.11n yet.

My setup: I bought an Apple Airport Extreme base station (with 802.11n) two weeks ago. The Mac Book Pro that I bought last June already has 802.11n built in, so all I had to do was to set the base station to send and receive at 5GHz. The network is now very fast because there’s no interference from my neighbors who are all using 2.4 GHz.

Glenn Fleishman, who wrote the book Take Control of your 802.11n Airport Extreme Network, says he is still waiting for inexpensive 802.11n adapters for the older devices (laptops, etc.) in his house so he can have all of them use 5GHz. I’m waiting, too.

My experience upgrading to Leopard and the Apple Airport Extreme 802.11n base station

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A few days ago I broke down and bought Apple’s latest operating system, Leopard, and the new Airport Extreme 802.11n base station. I’ve been thinking about upgrading for several months but reports of problems experienced by other users who upgraded, scared me into sitting on the sidelines. I have been fortunate in that I experienced no problems doing the upgrade. Indeed, my Mac Book Pro (purchased in June 2007) is running all applications, especially Mail, much faster. What I like most about Leopard is the Quick Look feature which allows me to see what’s inside a file (document, video, slides) without having to open an application.

quicklook.jpg

Faster wireless networking with 802.11n

Because I am in the center of Amsterdam where a lot of people have wireless networks, there’s a lot of interference which noticeably slowed down my network. Hence, I set the Airport Extreme 802.11n base station to use 5 GHz, instead of 2.4 GHz. Since my Mac Book Pro has 802.11n built in, no problem sending and receiving over 5 GHz. Moving files around the network is so much faster! Of course, all the other computers in the house are still on 802.11b or g, so I hooked up the old Airport base station to provide them with wireless access.

Setting up the base station and the network were very easy using Glenn Fleishman’s excellent guide, Take Control of Your 802.11n Airport Extreme Network.

Apple rumor site Think Secret shuts down

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Think Secret, the popular Apple rumor site that once ruined Steve Jobs Mac Mini surprise, is shutting down after coming to a settlement with the company. Apple claims Think Secret violated Apple’s trade secrets by leaking out news of upcoming products and sadly, a judge agreed with Apple two years ago when the ompany sued Nick Ciarelli, who runs Think Secret. Ciarelli says that under the settlement, *at least* he does not have to divulge his sources. At least. Yeah, at least he isn’t in prison getting his fingernails pulled out.

Apparently, bloggers like Ciarelli are not entitled to the same protection that journalists have under the California reporter’s shield law (which says journalists do not have to divulge their sources).

What does this mean for bloggers who do investigative reporting on corporate fraud or dangerous materials in the things that corporations sell, the environmental damage they do?

It’s a tragic day for freedom of the press and investigative reporting, but will anyone in Mac-obsessed Silicon Valley even notice?

iPhone has 0.09 percent of Web usage within 6 months of launch

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Stats: iPhone has 0.09 percent of Web usage — yes, that’s a lot: In this post Valleywag points out that iPhone users tend to use the Web more than non-iPhone users. Excerpt:

Windows CE, which encompasses every Windows Mobile device shipped, holds a 0.06 percent share; Danger Research’s Sidekick product family holds a tiny 0.02 percent share; and the Symbian S60 smartphone platform, favored by Nokia, has 0.01 percent.

My take is that it has everything to do with the user interface and how easy it is to visit sites, check maps, look for information online. A lot of phones are clunky (terrible design) with the typical phone dialing pads or have ugly, impossibly small screens. Who would want to browse a website on that?

Macs are really cheaper than PCs, resale value higher

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Farhad Manjoo, Salon’s tech columnist, did quite a bit of research and showed that Macs are indeed cheaper than PCs. Moreover, their eBay resale value is higher:

Even for computers, brand matters. This week I compared prices of several machines from Dell, Gateway and other PC vendors against Apple’s lineup of Macs. In most cases comparable Macs sold for within $100 more than the PCs. But the Apples had something extra: that logo, the design, the history . . .

I switched to the Mac in 2002 and I don’t understand why people still use Windows PCs.