As you can see the whole family of devices needed internet and the only decent solution was a Telstra 4G USB modem. The USB modem works great, really excellent speeds in a great 4g coverage area. I’m talking 22MB+ down and about 14MB up. Sensational really as i’ve only ever experience at best 8MB’s on any wired net connection in any previous office. One downside is the cost, about $100 AUD for 6GB data and the other is sharing the connection across the existing network, WiFi and hardwired.

The solution: OSX Internet Sharing in Snow Leopard 10.6. I am absolutely stunned at how well this works. I fire up the 4G modem and then use internet sharing under preferences to setup the Wifi as a repeater and the Ethernet as shared also. Works great to a point, all my iOS devices worked brilliantly on WiFi and even the PC got internets straight away when connected via cable.

Issues i found: NAS didn’t want to connect.. sad times. So I had to set the IP address of it manually to the same subnet as the Ethernet 169.254.200.88. This worked fine, now my iMac the master sharer could access the NAS.

I found now that the Kindle could not. I read this post thanks to CodeGen which solved the Kindle problems by doing this:

You need to keep to the recommended length of password for WEP keys in your Airport Internet Sharing setup - 5 characters for 40-bit and 13 characters for 128-bit Eg ‘John5′

——————————————
The problem is that the kindle aways uses 0 in the “number of seconds since boot” field of the dhcp request packet, and the mac has a filter of 4. So it ignores the DHCP request from the kindle (and the xbox, and the Nintendo). If you change the filter to 0, then the mac happily hands out the addresses. How to do it:

1. start internet sharing
2. cp /etc/bootpd.plist . ## don’t forget the “.” that means the current directory!!
3. stop internet sharing
4. open bootpd.plist
5. change reply_threshold_seconds to 0
6. sudo cp bootpd.plist /etc
7. start internet sharing

Normally the bootpd.plist is created and destroyed as you start up and stop internet sharing. If the file already exists, it uses the values in it.

Source: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114878
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Kindle problem solved. I still however have the issue that the PC cannot access the NAS due to the IP address set by internet sharing which can be accessed by the above method. I’ll do another post on that soon.

VMWare 3.1 running Windows XP Pro SP3
OSX Internet Sharing 10.6 Snow Leopard

GoPro Hero2

Now that I have my shiny new GoPro Hero2 i’ve been out and about trying Time Lapse shots, some action video, underwater etc. Really good fun.

The issue I have using the housing is a fogging up problem. When using the waterproof housing you can get condensation build up on the inside of the lens.

There are a few solutions. One is to use the genuine GoPro Fog Inserts which retail for around $29 available online from Auski in Australia (Free Shipping) or the GoPro website + several others around the country.

While the inserts are said to work (i haven’t purchased them yet..) I have found another cheap solution when not requiring you going near the water.

I use the LCD Backpack with my GoPro which has various other housings in the box, one being the non-waterproof vented cover. Using this cover allows air to get inside the housing making it NOT fog up. Great cheap fix.

The other solution i have is to simply open up the back cover and keep it slightly open allowing air to flow inside, again not allowing it to fog up. All i did was unlock the black top clip and allow the back housing to rest on the clip.

While the printer used to work on XP no problems with the disc supplied, i had to download a new Windows 7 full package (306meg) from HP and install it that way along with a couple of extra settings.

Turns out the correct Windows 7 software would not pickup the USB printer when it was plugged in (when prompted by the installer software). The install was around 94% and had to cancel and figure out why.

So the steps I used to get the HP CM1312 working with Windows 7 are:

HP CM1312 64bit WIndows 7 Retail install.

1 -  Download: CM1312series-win7-full-solution-AM-EMEA1-v5.1.exe (308 MB)
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=18972&prodSeriesId=3558902&prodNameId=3562006&swEnvOID=4062&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=tw-77243-1

2 - Right-click the file and select “Properties.” Click the “Compatibility” tab at the top of the resulting window.

3 - Check off “Run this program in compatability mode for:” and choose “Windows Vista” from the pop-up menu.

4 - ALSO check “Run this program as administrator” at the bottom of the window.

5 - Press “Apply,” then “OK.”

6 - Now you can double-click the “Setup” file and run the software installer.
* I followed most of these steps to successfully install the printer, but at step 3 the option to change the compatibility mode was greyed out but Vista was selected.

For further information and where i found the fix, see: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproappcompat/thread/e46bf739-3a80-4200-96b9-0312448f9423

After using it for 20mins i noticed condensation covering about 25% or so of the glass screen in the bottom right.

The weather was very humid as this area just had 4 days of rain and the air conditioner was not running.

I used a hair dryer on cool mode in the vents at the rear of the Mac and turned the air conditioner on. The machine had about 15 apps open and was running pretty hot.

Once the humidity came down a bit it took about 45 mins for the condensation to disappear in full.

I read the Apple Support forum on it and others have had the same issue and leaving the unit on for a few hours will fix the problem.

I assume running your machine day to day it wouldn’t occur too often.

To make a bootable USB stick with WIndows 7 on it do the following thanks to www.bootdisk.com.

There are a few methods, but i found method 6 to easy and quick:

Bootable USB guide, here we assume that you are using either Vista or Windows 7 to create a bootable USB.

1. Insert your USB (4GB+ preferable) stick to the system and backup all the data from the USB as we are going to format the USB to make it as bootable.

2. Open elevated Command Prompt. To do this, type in CMD in Start menu search field and hit Ctrl + Shift + Enter. Alternatively, navigate to Start > All programs >Accessories > right click on Command Prompt and select run as administrator.

3. When the Command Prompt opens, enter the following command:

DISKPART and hit enter.

LIST DISK and hit enter.

Once you enter the LIST DISK command, it will show the disk number of your USB drive. In the below image my USB drive disk no is Disk 1.

4. In this step you need to enter all the below commands one by one and hit enter. As these commands are self explanatory, you can easily guess what these commands do.

SELECT DISK 1 (Replace DISK 1 with your disk number)

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS

(Format process may take few seconds)
ASSIGN

EXIT

Don’t close the command prompt as we need to execute one more command at the next step. Just minimize it.

5. Insert your Windows DVD in the optical drive and note down the drive letter of the optical drive and USB media. Here I use “D” as my optical (DVD) drive letter and “H” as my USB drive letter.

6. Go back to command prompt and execute the following commands:

D:CD BOOT and hit enter. Where “D” is your DVD drive letter.

CD BOOT and hit enter to see the below message.
BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 H:

(Where “H” is your USB drive letter)

7. Copy Windows DVD contents to USB.

You are done with your bootable USB. You can now use this bootable USB as bootable DVD on any computer that comes with USB boot feature (most of the current motherboards support this feature).

Note that this bootable USB guide will not work if you are trying to make a bootable USB on XP computer.

Coldfusion will error if you try and pass a variable within the include tag Eg. <cfinclude template=”mypage.cfm?myvariable=1″>

To get around this all you need to do is pass in the variable before the include tag, appended with URL..

Eg.
<cfset URL.myvariable = 1>
<cfinclude template=”mypage.cfm”>

Now mypage.cfm will grab the URL.myvariable and go about business as usual.

Our latest product road test is on the Dexim MHub Dock Station for the iPhone, iPod Touch and Blackberry.

I really was impressed with the value for money you get straight out of the box.

In the box you get the docking station, AC adaptor, a travel bag (handy), a Micro USB cable 1.2m (Blackberry charging), 2 x Mini USB cable 1.2m (connect to Mac) and a USB AC charging cable for the dock.

The dock itself has 2 USB ports in the side, and also the very cool Hi-speed SD (MMC & HCSD compatible) card slot for those Canon cameras which OSX doesn’t seem to like (my Canon Ixus for example).

There are 3 lights on the front of the unit for card reader slot, iPhone/iPod light and a power light.

Pros: Great for travel, Small to pack up in the travel bag and throw in your suitcase. Charges and syncs your phone at the same time. SD card reader slot and 2 extra USB slots. It’s slim and silver in color. There’s a quick adjust lever at the bottom of the cradle to fit all your different models.

It can also charge Blackberry’s too (if you are that way inclined).

Cons: I couldn’t take my iPhone off the dock with 1 hand, as its quite a sturdy connection from iPhone to dock station. There’s possibly too many cables poking out, they could have made the connections at the back so the unit is a little neater, or have 2 options for the Mini USB side and back.

It’s possibly a little uglier than the Apple dock but that’s up to the owner.

Verdict: Great docking station, plenty of features, value for money, heaps of cables, great for travel. Fits in with the rest of gear plugged in at my desk.

The Dexim MHub Dock Station RRP is $149.00. Thanks to iWorld Australia.

The page wouldn’t load at all and 204 errors where appearing.

Turns out its a Firebug and Firefox 3.0.7. issue which can be solved by turning off “Support for JavaScript debugging”

You can read about it here: http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API/browse_thread/thread/68218c6665dd527e

And a further fix for it here: http://code.google.com/p/fbug/issues/detail?id=1580&start=500

Using a MAC for development purposes i noticed i couldn’t resolve any PC names across the network.

This is due to the MAC having no DNS server to tell it the names to resolve to.

After some searching i found you can modify the hosts file on the MAC (i’m using Leopard) to resolve the names you need for development purposes.

The old NetInfo on OS X has gone so you need to either modify the hosts file itself by opening the file or using Terminal to achieve this.

Firstly i tried opening the file but i ran into read-only permission problems when trying to save the file.

NB. The etc/ folder where the hosts file lives is hidden. You can find the etc/ directory (or ANY hidden directory for that matter) using the Finder –> Go –> Go To Folder option.

Anyways, i found a method using Terminal with the following commands.

1. Open Terminal through Applications –> Utilities –> Terminal

2. type in the command line of Terminal the following:

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Terminal will ask you input a password as you have envoked the Super User profile on the system. Nano will now open.

You will see the following come up on your terminal window:

##
# 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
fe80::1%lo0 localhost

3. Move the cursor down the page with arrow keys and type in your desired IP address and tab once then the PC name.

127.0.0.1 localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost
192.168.0.112 YourPCName

You need to save the changes by hitting ctrl+o or ^o.

Hit enter to name it hosts, then hit ^x to exit nano.

Your cache needs to be flushed to see the changes.

There is a new command for this in 10.5 Leopard.

dscacheutil -flushcache

After this is done you should be able to resolve the PC name on your MAC.

Happy Days!