Interrupt19

Dealing with Microsoft Access Files and OS X

David Balogh — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:00:58 +0000

Photo courtesy of Kjarrett

Recently, someone asked me how to use Microsoft Access files with OS X. Like Visio, Publisher, Project and to some extent, Outlook, Microsoft Office for Mac isn’t 100% the same as Office for Windows.

Since officially Access is not part of Office 2008 (or 2004), what should someone do when they need to access something in Microsoft Access with OS X?

The Four Options:

To use Microsoft Access with OS X, there’s three options. A read-only driver, a third party solution, virtualization or converting the Access database to a more cross-platform friendly solution such as MySQL.

Option One – The Read Only Driver:

Actual Technologies has written their Actual ODBC driver for Microsoft Access that will directly connect to an Access database to retrieve your data. However well this driver works, it’s read-only. This basically means that you can pull data from an Access file but you can’t edit, change, update or add any data to it. If all you need to do is read from an Access database, this is a good option for you.

Option Two – The Third Party Solution:

RazorSQL is a database browser, SQL editor, query tool, and database administration tool. It has Windows, OS X, Linux and Solaris versions. RazorSQL also works with many other databases besides Microsoft Access and will let you read, edit, change and write to the database.

Option Three – Virtualization:

What do you do when something Windows-only just won’t work with OS X? Load up Parallels, VMWare Fusion or boot into Boot Camp and run it from there. The downside is that Boot Camp requires that OS X is completely shut down and Fusion / Parallels takes up resources if you have a lower spec machine. It may not be optimal but it works.

Option Four – Conversion:

If you’re going to be moving to a Mac or heavily working with Windows Machines and Macs together, you may want to consider the better long-term solution – Converting your Access Database into something more cross-platform friendly such as MySQL. This eliminates the Access problem rather than working around it.

To do this, load up your MS Access database within Windows (either from an actual PC or Fusion / Parallels) and export the data via SQL Dump or CSV. Then import it into either Excel or MySQL.

You can also convert the database to Filemaker if that’s what you use, however Filemaker is a proprietary format (like Access) and you could run into the conversion issue again sometime in the future.

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Reading eBooks with an iPhone / iPod Touch – Update

David Balogh — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:00:36 +0000

Photo courtesy of Jblyberg

One of the iPhone / iPod Touch’s strongest features is the ability to use it as a PDF / eBook reader. Its nice to read something of your own if you’re in a waiting room instead of a three month old Sports Illustrated or any issue of People Magazine.

Almost a year ago, I wrote an article on the various reader apps for the iPhone / iPod Touch. Since then, there have been quite a few different apps released, free and paid, that change the PDF reading landscape.

The Hundred or So PDF Readers:

Searching the AppStore for “PDF” returns at least a hundred PDF readers, free and paid. About a year ago, there was Readdle Docs, Air Sharing and Text Guru. Now there’s over a hundred apps that fall into one of two types.

The Two Types of PDF Reading App:

I’ve noticed that the PDF reading iPhone apps pretty much fall into two different categories. There’s the reader apps which function like an actual PDF reader – allowing you to bookmark, search, and skip around. They’re what you would think of as a PDF reading app.

The other category is the reader / transfer app. These apps are primarily apps for file transferring and sharing between your iPhone / iPod Touch and your Mac (or other iPhones). In addition to transferring files and acting like an “Air Disk”, they read PDF, .Doc, .Txt, Excel, .Rtf and other files.

Which category you prefer depends on your use of your iPhone and your preferences. I encourage you to download the free “Lite” versions to see how you like the apps. Since there are so many, I’m not going to review them all – just a few of the more popular “reader” ones.

iPhone / iPod Touch PDF Reader Apps:

Readdle Docs - Readdle Docs has been a favorite of mine for a while now. With full screen viewing, landscape mode and bookmarking, it works well. Unfortunately it’s also a bit expensive, and for $6.99 they really should include a “Go To Page..” feature. Since my last review, Readdle Docs has made huge improvements in getting documents onto you iPhone. You can use WebDav transferring, the Readdle Storage Account, MobileMe’s iDisk, Downloading from Mobile Safari and saving email attachments. It will also read Word Documents, Excel Spreadsheets, iWork documents and a few other eBook formats (.pdb, and .fb2). Readdle Docs is expensive and won’t “Go To” but it’s still easy to use and works extremely well.

PDF Expert - Readdle pretty much answers all the shortcomings of their other PDF offering with PDF Expert. Go To Page: Check. Password Protected Documents: Check. Wifi upload: Check. Better Price: Check. In fact, while looking at both feature sets, its a bit tricky to figure out what exactly the difference is between the two. I’d go with PDF Expert because it’s $2 cheaper and includes the Go To Page feature. Using it is a breeze and compared to Readdle Docs, I like PDF Expert better.

PDF Reader Pro - YUYAO Mobile Software’s PDF Reader Pro is simple and surprisingly a decent reader. It has the Wifi Sharing for uploading documents, “Jump to” page, Zoom, Landscape and Bookmarking. It’s a very simple app with a straightforward UI, no nested menus to get lost in, and it works well.

Good Reader - Good Reader is the one PDF reader out there that specifically handles larger PDFs. Anyone who’s tried to open a textbook PDF, Computer eBook or just something monstrous, can tell you that after a certain PDF size, other PDF readers either crash, get freakishly slow and / or become unstable. In addition to handling larger PDFs, it has important features such as Go To Page, Bookmarking, and best of all, uploading documents to your iPhone / iPod Touch is easy, straightforward and painless. The interface is easy to use although when in full screen mode, getting the menu to reappear sometimes is a bit tricky. There’s extensive Hints and Info pages and Good Reader is well documented.

Aji Reader - Aji LLC’s Aji Reader is free and has all the decent features like go to page, landscape mode, zoom and bookmarking. However a huge disappointment is that documents can only be downloaded from the web or fetched from “Aji Server”. Unless you’re technically inclined and want to use Disk Aid, skip this one. Other that that, Aji Reader isn’t bad.

LookSee - Kristof Kowalski’s free LookSee reader had me pleasantly surprised. For a free app, it has many of the features of the paid apps out there. Features include Wifi sharing, go to page, bookmarking, landscape mode, password protection and will let you disable the screen sleep while you’re reading. The only downside is that it’s slow to load pages, even with flipping back and forth there’s considerable lag before the text appears. Hopefully this will be fixed in a future version.

Which to Choose?

This time around, its actually a bit tough to decide. All the readers do what they are supposed to and do it well. They address navigation, stability, price and uploading issues that plagued the field a year ago when landscape mode was a luxury.

While PDF Expert, LookSee and Good Reader were all my clear favorites, I have to recommend Good Reader because its well written, fast, has the important features and was specifically made for large PDFs. If you’re reading 700 page manuals, textbooks, technical books or any other larger size PDF, this is the app for you. However, PDF Expert is also a great reader app that’s well worth it.

If you’re only interested in free readers, Aji Reader is good but you’ll need to either jailbreak or use Disk Aid to get documents onto it. LookSee is also good but its performance issues will become annoying with regular use.

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Moving iTunes From One Mac / PC to Another

David Balogh — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:00:10 +0000

Photo courtesy of OS X

Our music collections outlast both our Macs and our iPods. As we upgrade or they break, at some point we’ll have to migrate our iTunes library from one Mac to another.

You may think that moving your iTunes Library from one Mac to another (or from a PC to a Mac) is tricky but actually it’s an easy process. To ensure everything goes well, you’ll want to follow each step carefully.

There’s a few ways we can go about doing this move. You can use the Migration Assistant for an easy automated transfer (Mac to Mac only). You can use an external hard drive or you can put your old Mac into Target Disk Mode. If your old Mac is shot, pulling out the hard drive and putting it into an enclosure is also an option. You can also use an iPod in Disk Mode, Flash Drive / Memory Card (Over 2 GB) or other high capacity device as well.

If your Original Mac is broken / unbootable and you are pulling from Target Mode or using an Enclosure, skip to step 10.

Moving your iTunes from one Mac / PC to another Mac (or PC):

1. Open iTunes on the old Mac / PC.

2. Click File from the iTunes Menu Bar, choose Library and then “Organize Library”.

3. Check the “Consolidate Files” box and hit OK.

4. Decide on your method of transfer.

If you choose Migration Assistant – Recommended for those with Technical Issues, follow the prompts. The Migration Assistant is located in the Utilities folder (inside the Applications folder) – Mac to Mac only.

If you choose Target mode, external hard disk, iPod, Memory Card, Flash Drive or the enclosure method, read on.

5. Locate your iTunes folder on your old Mac / PC.
- On the Mac, it is usually in your Home Folder, inside the Music folder, and appropriately called “iTunes”.
- On the PC, it’s usually in your “My Documents” folder inside the “My Music” folder.

Note: If you’ve manually changed it’s location, locate it by choosing Preferences and looking under Advanced.

6. Select your iTunes folder on your old Mac / PC.

7. Click File on the Menu Bar and choose “Get Info” to see how large your library is. If you’re on a PC, right click and choose Properties.

8. Copy this folder to:

- Your iPod in Disk Mode.
- Your Flash Drive / Memory Card, or external Hard Drive.

Note: iTunes libraries can get pretty large. Especially if you have purchased Movies and TV Shows. If your library is larger than the Memory Card / Flash Drive, you’ll have to transfer in parts. For large libraries (over 10GB), I recommend using an external drive or Target Mode (Mac only).

9. Be patient, a large iTunes library can take a long time to copy.

Those using Target Mode or with unbootable Macs / PCs using an enclosure can start here:

10. Locate the iTunes folder on the New Mac / PC if it exists.

11. Delete the iTunes folder on the New Mac / PC.

Note: Make sure there’s nothing inside it before you delete.

12. Attach the external drive, flash media, Target mode Mac, enclosure drive to the new Mac.

13. Copy / Transfer the old iTunes folder onto the new Mac / PC.

Note: Be sure to put it in the proper location. Mac is inside the “Music” folder that’s in your Home folder. PC is in the “My Music” folder inside your “My Documents” folder.

14. Once you’re done transferring, open iTunes on the new Mac / PC.

15. Click on “Store” from the iTunes Menu Bar.

16. Choose “Authorize Computer”.

17. Enter your Password and choose Authorize.

18. Go back to iTunes on the old Mac / PC.

19. Click on “Store” from the iTunes Menu Bar.

20. Choose “Deauthorize Computer”.

21. Enter your Password and choose Deauthorize.

Note: The iTunes store only lets you authorize 5 machines per account. If you skip this, the old computer won’t go away in Apple’s records and this can come back to haunt you.

Using CDs / DVDs:

Apple also allows iTunes to create backups of it’s library using CDs or DVDs. Now, this probably was a good idea about 5 years ago but now, with iTunes libraries in the 10-60 GB range, using this method is tedious, time consuming and is not recommended. (Unless your entire iTunes library will fit on one DVD – a little over 4 GB).

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How To Spellcheck in Another Language with Word, Pages, and OS X

David Balogh — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:00:34 +0000

Photo courtesy of RuTemple
Spelling and grammatical errors aren’t limited to English. Both OS X and Microsoft Office have their own spelling/grammar check systems, each supporting foreign languages. A common question for students, international business workers, bilingual people, or anyone needing to type documents in a foreign language is “How do I set the spellcheck for Spanish, French, German, Dutch, etc in Microsoft Word or Pages?”

Spellchecking Foreign Languages in Microsoft Word 2008:

With Microsoft Word, there’s two ways you can spellcheck another language. The method you choose depends on your document. You can either spellcheck a section or the whole document using an alternate language or just change the default language.

Note: Not every language is supports the spelling / grammar check. See below for the list of supported languages.

Spellchecking via Alternate Languages with Microsoft Word 2008:

If it’s a small section in another language or it contains more than one language, you’ll want to spellcheck via an alternate language.

1. Highlight / Select the text (or entire document) that’s in another language.

2. Choose Tools from the Menu Bar and select Language…

3. Select the language you wish to correct.

4. Word is now set for the other language – only where you selected.

5. Run the spellcheck.

Note: Word will only spell / grammar check in the alternate language for the parts you’ve selected and told it what language it is. Otherwise, it will run spell / grammar check in the default language.

To Change the Default Language in Microsoft Word 2008:

Now, let’s say you permanently want to use Word 2008 in French, German, Spanish or any of the other supported languages. Selecting text and switching languages can get tedious. What you will want to do in this case is change Word’s default languages.

1. Choose Tools from the Menu Bar and select Language…

2. Select the language you want.

3. Click Default.

Note: Switching the default language will affect other settings such as date, number and currency formats.

Languages supported by Microsoft Word 2008:

Finally, you’ll need to know which languages are spelling and grammar check supported with Word 2008.

- Danish
- Dutch
- English (AUS, UK, US)
- Finnish
- French (And Canadian)
- German (and Swiss)
- Italian
- Norwegian
- Portuguese (and Brazil)
- Spanish
- Swedish

Spellchecking in Different Languages with Pages or OS X:

iWork’s Pages also spellchecks in multiple languages using OS X’s built-in spellcheck. To run spellcheck in different languages with Pages (and within any supported OS X application, like TextEdit):

1. Highlight the specific text or the entire document.

2. Click View from the Menu Bar and choose “Show Inspector”.

3. In the Inspector pane, Click the T for text at the top, then click the “More” tab.

4. Choose your language.

Note: When using Spellcheck in TextEdit, you can just go right to the next step to choose your language..

5. Click Edit on the Menu Bar and choose Spelling, then “Spelling…”.

6. Pages will now spellcheck your document in the alternate language.

Languages supported in OS X and Pages:

Here is the list of languages supported by OS X / Pages for spell checking.

- Danish
- Dutch
- English (AUS, UK, US)
- French
- German
- Italian
- Portuguese (and Brazil)
- Russian
- Spanish
- Swedish

IMPORTANT – Spellcheck Accuracy in Pages or OS X:

As you may notice in my images, OS X’s Spanish spellcheck is correctly flagging my “senor” as wrong. However, it does not have the correct spelling – “señor” in it’s dictionary. Therefore, there’s no guarantee that the spellcheck is accurate in Pages and OS X. However, Microsoft Word 2008 properly corrected my spelling mistake. This is a pretty big oversight in my opinion as the Spanish word for “Mister” isn’t exactly a rare one.

I recommend you manually read your document before sending it to avoid any other simple spelling or grammar mistakes.

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Essential System Recovery Items and Why You Need Them

David Balogh — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:00:52 +0000

Photo courtesy of Johndan
Macs are like all other systems, OS X and your data can succumb to a corrupt hard drive. When this happens, your data is at risk. Apple Repair will only replace the drive, and won’t give you the faulty one with your files on it.

If you want a third party data recovery company to get back your pictures, movies, music, and documents, it’s extremely expensive. So, how do you get your system back?

With the following three items, you’ll have a good chance at self recovery.

Faulty or Corrupt Hard Drive Symptoms:

Corrupt or failed drives usually manifest themselves in the following ways:

- Flashing Folder / Question Mark at boot.
- Heavy, Heavy, almost constant Beachball activity.
- The “(Filename) could not be read or written” popup after a long wait.
- Strange system activity / hanging on boot.

If these begin to occur, with no obvious explanation – Like you just wiped your system or forced the machine off during a system update. Immediately run a backup.

Note: Use Time Machine.

Before I go any further, I have to remind you that the easiest and least painless way to recover from a corrupt or failed hard drive is to have a current backup. Time Machine makes backing up your system really easy. Use it, at least once a week, unless you are doing critical work – then daily or twice daily depending on your needs.

If you still run Tiger, I’d recommend using either SuperDuper! or arRsync for automating a backup. But even manually copying files to an external drive or burning them to DVD is a good strategy.

System Recovery Item #1 – The OS X Install DVD:

Never lose that gray Install DVD that ships with your Mac. It is important in so many ways. In addition to troubleshooting problems, you’ll need this DVD for two reasons when your Hard Drive goes south:

1. To reinstall OS X when you get a new drive. That new HD doesn’t come with OS X pre-installed if you buy it on your own. Also, if Apple replaces your drive and reinstalls OS X for you, it doesn’t include iLife (GarageBand, iPhoto, iWeb, etc). Even though its bundled with a new Mac, Apple considers this to be a separate application.

2. To restore your system from a Time Machine backup. Time Machine has the ability to completely recover your system back to it’s latest backup. However, It needs the Install DVD to activate the restore process.

System Recovery Item #2 – An External Hard Drive:

Of course, an external hard drive is essential to put backups on. But if you didn’t, an external Hard Drive is essential for:

1. Copying your files from the Bad Hard Drive onto it. Many times when a drive goes bad, there’s still sections of it that are still good. This means if you can access them, you can copy them off and salvage them. You’ll need an external drive for this.

2. You’ll need a working OS X system to boot your computer from if it’s not starting up properly. If you set your external drive to be bootable via SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner, you can boot your system up through the external drive and bypass the corrupt drive. Then once you’re in a working state, you can copy files from the bad drive onto the external drive.

System Recovery Item #3 – Data Rescue II:

Alright, so what happens when you’ve tried everything and nothing works? OS X sees your faulty drive and tells you it’s either unreadable or not formatted. Warning: Do not let OS X format it!

As long as the drive will spin up and it physically works, ProSoft’s Data Rescue II has been known to work miracles.

A few notes about using Data Rescue II,

1. You’ll need an external drive to recover files to.

2. Recovery can take days or weeks if your drive is in bad shape. Data Rescue II will go into a very low level scan that can take an extremely long time if it needs to. The good side of this is that if it can, it will recover the data even if it takes weeks.

3. If Data Rescue II can’t see the drive, it can’t recover anything. Unfortunately, sometimes drives are physically broken. Either they don’t power up or the read-heads are damaged. In this case, it’s still possible to recover, but you’ll need a third party recovery service like Drive Savers and they’re not cheap.

Repairing your Failed Hard Drive:

Now, once you’re recovered your data, you can either have Apple repair it for you or you can do it yourself. With MacBooks and Newer MacBook Pro’s I recommend doing it yourself. Its so easy that even Apple won’t void your warranty.

Just buy a good drive from a reputable company like this one from Western Digital and install it yourself. If you have a Unibody Mac, Here’s your instructions.

If you want Apple to repair it for you, that’s OK. Just remember to do your data recovery before you repair it. Apple has a policy of not recovering data and not giving you back the bad drive. Once you give them the bad drive, it’s gone.

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10 reasons why OS X is still better than Windows 7

David Balogh — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:00:20 +0000

Photo courtesy of Don.Carey

Windows 7 is a huge improvement for Microsoft but they aren’t quite there yet. According to various analysts, its release will have no effect on Apple’s sales. I tend to agree with this statement. Despite all the new features and performance improvements over Vista, here’s 10 reasons why OS X Snow Leopard is still better than Windows 7.

1. Create and Mount ISO Images:

New to Windows 7 is the ability to burn a CD or DVD from and ISO image. Unfortunately you still can’t mount an ISO or create one without a third party tool. OS X has been doing this for years now.

2. Native Support for common technologies:

Speaking of ISO image support, OS X also supports out of the box the following commonly used technologies: Cisco VPN, Exchange, Printer Drivers and their updates, PDF reading and printing, Image capture from Digital Cameras, Scanning, File Sharing via AFP, Samba (Windows), and FTP, VNC Screensharing, Bluetooth, AIM / AOL / Jabber, SSH and Telnet, and much more. Also, QuickLook can open up and display Word Documents and Excel Spreadsheets without Office being installed. New for Windows 7 is the striking ability to natively play DVDs.

3. OS X is Multilingual:

OS X can run in 18 different languages and your keyboard can be adjusted to type in any other. It’s also quite easy to switch around. Bidirectional text in languages such as Arabic and Hebrew are no problem. Multi-touch trackpads can be used to input Chinese characters. Spellcheck is also multilingual (supported languages only).

4. QuickTime X:

QuickTime, Apple’s Media Player can do so much more. Broadcasting audio and video, recording from the on board camera / microphone, basic audio / video editing, file format conversion, and the ability to create screencasts are why QuickTime X is a huge addition to Snow Leopard.

5. Image Manipulation with Preview:

Like QuickTime, OS X’s Preview does much more than just show images and PDFs (Did I mention that Windows still won’t support PDF viewing out of the box?) Basic image editing and tweaking, directly importing from scanner, rotation and resizing will ruin your need for Adobe products if you’re just an average user.

6. Find Anything with Spotlight:

Yes, Windows 7 includes a search feature but it’s nowhere near Spotlight. From searching inside PDFs, documents as well as file names, you just type what you want and if it’s on your drive, it appears. Power users can create Smart folders with custom search options. With Spotlight plugins you can expand Spotlight to search inside formats like .DjVu, .MXF, .Tar, .Jar and Python scripts.

7. The Compatibility of Boot Camp:

Boot Camp, the last refuge when something just doesn’t have an OS X version and won’t work virtualized. With OS X and a Windows install DVD, you can run Windows on your Mac. Natively, not virtualized. For free.

8. Productivity with Mail and iCal:

Support for Exchange 2007 – mail, calendars and contacts, included with OS X. In addition, it handles POP3 / IMAP and plays nice with Gmail, AOL and Yahoo. iCal is a powerful calendaring solution that has grown better and better over the years. In addition to Exchange, you can also easily sync with Google Calendar and other CalDAV standard formats.

Yes, there’s Outlook and as wonderful as it is, it comes with Office – not with Windows. Believe it or not, the fact that Office isn’t included is still a surprise to many purchasers of new PCs.

9. 64Bit included, not optional:

It’s true, by default the kernal won’t load 64 Bit by default but that’s a quick change to a preference file or just hold down to 6 and 4 keys at boot. It’s not like you’re forced to install either the 32Bit version OR the 64Bit version….. In Windows 7, they’re even on separate DVDs. At least Windows 7 gives you both DVDs without having to purchase a new 64 Bit license, but you’ll still have to reinstall – it’s only one or the other.

Even running 32Bit kernal, OS X Apps will see your 4+ GB of Ram and take advantage of 64Bit processing. One reason why Apple does this is for driver compatibility. Windows 64Bit users know what its like to have some funky piece of hardware or software that just won’t work in 64 Bit.

10. The Choose Your Version Game:

With Windows, unless you buy “Ultimate”, you’re not getting all the cool features that Microsoft likes to talk about when competing with OS X. As the average Windows 7 user will most likely be using Home Premium, they won’t be getting – Bit Locker encryption, Windows Backup, Multilingual abilities and the Windows XP mode to run old apps that won’t work in 7.

There’s only one version of OS X. No cheap, cut down, crippled “Home Premium”, “Professional, or “Starter” versions. One price gets you everything. Time Machine, FileVault, Multilanguage Support, Active Directory Binding, Boot Camp, and much more.

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Change your Audio / Video Formats with QuickTime

David Balogh — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:00:06 +0000

Photo courtesy of Calu777

OS X is full of little features that are understated, yet extremely useful. Most of them are within less famous applications like Preview, Quicktime Player or Calculator. Sometimes you don’t find out about them until you stumble across them while working on something else.

I inadvertently found another one of these features the other day inside Quicktime Player…

Like it or not, there’s a zillion different file formats for Music, Movies, Text documents and Pictures. Sometimes you come across one that’s not standard like .MP3, .WAV/.AIFF, .JPG/.GIF, etc. In the past, you’d have to find a utility to convert the files from one format to another. You’d also have to hope that it was a Freeware or Open Source application. Luckily QuickTime Player will sort out your Audio / Video conversions needs, for free.

Before you begin:

On my Mac, I see the option for converting “Movie to Ogg”. I also know that Ogg Vorbis isn’t supported by QuickTime by default. This leads me to think that I can do all these cool conversions because I have some special plugins installed.

The first thing you should do, if you haven’t already is:

Download and install Perian and if you want to work with Ogg files, XiphQT.

Changing Audio / Video Formats within QuickTime Player:

- Open the file you wish to convert.

- In the Menu Bar, Click “File” and Choose “Export…”.

- The Save As: box will appear.

- At the Bottom, next to “Export:”, pick the format you’d like to convert to.

- If you need, clicking “Options” will allow you to tweak advanced settings.

- Click “Save” and you’re done.

Missing Formats:

Some common formats are missing with this trick, such as .MP3 and .AAC. To easily convert them in OS X, use iTunes. So, to convert an Ogg file to .mp3, for use in an iPod or other player, use iTunes to do the conversion.

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Backup and Sync Personal Data with Dropbox and Truecrypt

David Balogh — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:00:34 +0000

Photo courtesy of Dropbox

Dropbox is an easy and useful way to sync files across multiple computers. You can even share folders (and photos) with friends, family and co-workers. It’s also great as a simple backup solution for small documents.

As a backup solution, it brings me to ask the question.. What do you do if those documents are sensitive, such as financial records, bank statements, or scans of your passport?

Introducing Dropbox:

Dropbox is a file syncing service, living in “the cloud” (a fancy new name for off-site). What makes Dropbox nice, is that not only are your files stored in Dropbox world, they also reside locally on your computer. You don’t need an internet connection to access them.

With a 2GB limit for free, it’s a pretty nifty service and can easily be used as an offsite solution for backing up important documents.

Why You Need to Encrypt Sensitive Files:

Dropbox’s servers aren’t yours. Even though they encrypt the transfer using SSL, the data itself is not stored in an encrypted format. Now, what happens if a rogue employee decides they want to snoop though your data? What about a hacker breaching their systems? What about if the government decides it wants to vacuum up Dropbox data, a la AT&T?

So, the solution is to use TrueCrypt to create an appropriately encrypted container. Then you put personal data inside the encrypted storage area and send it up to Dropbox.

Creating the Truecrypt volume:

I’ve already written an article on creating an encrypted TrueCrypt volume. But before you read that tutorial and create your volume, we need to talk about how big of a container to create.

Size Concerns and Upload Rate:

When you sync with Dropbox for the first time, you’re going to find it takes a while. In some cases, it could take a long while. See, most internet services give you a large download rate (downstream) and a small upload rate (upstream). This is very common if you have DSL at home.

Cable Internet gives you a much more liberal upload rate but if you abuse it they will cap you and it’s not pretty. This is a very real concern with the future of cloud storage, online backup, video sharing and photo sending. In order to stay in the good graces of your cable provider, I’d recommend throttling your upload speed. But doing so will make your transfers take much longer.

This brings us to my point – you are going to want to create small encrypted volumes within Dropbox. I recommend no more than 256MB, preferably 128MB. If you have a small upload rate (DSL), 64MB may be more manageable for you.

A small sized encrypted volume is also a good idea as you get into adding and changing files inside it. They have to be synchronized and it could take a few minutes for the upload to finish. If you run out of room and need more space, create (or copy) additional volumes.

Working with TrueCrypt and Dropbox:

Now that you have your appropriately size TrueCrypt volume, working with it in Dropbox is easy. Just drop the volume into your Dropbox folder and it will begin to sync. Once it’s synced, open up the volume and put your files inside. When you are finished, eject / dismount the encrypted volume. Now, you’re going to notice something very important… Dropbox isn’t syncing to update your TrueCrypt volume.

This isn’t entirely a bad thing. It’s actually very secure.

With encryption, if someone can get ahold of and record the changes within an encrypted container, over time this may give them an advantage in cracking the encryption. It’s actually a good thing that TrueCrypt’s checksums don’t change that often. Now I have noticed it sync once (the very first time) but was never able to reproduce the sync after many tries.

What to do about TrueCrypt not syncing:

You have basically two options, depending on how much the non-syncing bothers you.

1. Use an encrypted .DMG from OS X instead.
2. Continue to use TrueCrypt but manually push the sync.

First, OS X encrypted volumes will sync as soon as you dismount. It works wonderfully. The downside to using an OS X encrypted volume is that its not cross-platform compatible. If you don’t care about Windows / Linux compatibility, here’s a tutorial on how to create the encrypted volume within OS X. Just be sure to choose AES-256 as your encryption scheme.

Note: You may be able to work in Windows with encrypted .DMGs via Catacombae’s hfsexplorer. However, it’s compatible with AES-128 and doesn’t say anything about AES-256. AES-128 is less secure than AES-256.

If you want true compatibility and much stronger security – I recommend you stick with TrueCrypt. All you’ll need to do is force Dropbox to sync the volume. This is how you do it:

- Close / Dismount / Eject the TrueCrypt volume.

- Drag it out of your Dropbox folder (onto the Desktop).

- Let Dropbox sync to remove the TrueCrypt volume.

- Drag the TrueCrypt volume back into your Dropbox folder.

- Dropbox will sync your TrueCrypt volume.

The only downside is that you’ll have to re-upload the entire volume. Annoying if you’re on a slow connection. Just be sure to allow for this time as with DSL, it could take 20-30 minutes to sync a 64MB file.

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Setting up your Airport Base Station’s Advanced Features

David Balogh — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:00:40 +0000

Photo courtesy of OS X

Apple’s Airport Base Station is much more than just a simple Access Point. In part one of this series we looked at how to connect your Base Station to the internet and secure it. Now, we’re going to explore some of the advanced features of your Base Station and see what makes it so special compared to other Access Points.

Airport Base Station’s Other Features:

Your Base Station can do more than just connect to the internet. For the regular Home User, you can share an external hard drive, and/or printer. If you want to get into more advanced areas, you can extend your Airport’s range with multiple Base Stations and a Time Capsule. I’ll show you how to do each.

Sharing a USB Printer with your Base Station:

1. Connect your printer to the Base Station.

2. Make sure the printer is powered on.

3. Open Airport Utility. (It’s in the Utilities folder, inside the Applications folder.)

4. Click Manual Setup at the bottom.

5. Click on the Printer Tab and see if your printer is listed.

Note: If you don’t see your printer and it’s powered on and properly connected, quit Airport Utility and reload it.

6. Go to System Preferences and choose “Print & Fax”.

Note: If you’ve used this printer before, you’ll see it in your listing. That is the printer when it’s attached directly to your computer. It is technically not the same printer to your computer. You can verify this by looking at the “Location:” and seeing your computer’s name rather than your Base Station’s name.

7. Click the Plus Sign to add a new printer.

8. Under the “Default” tab, you will see your printer.

9. Click on it and wait for the information to load.

10. Click “Add”.

11. If you’ve used this printer before, you will get a message saying a queue exists.

12. If you get this message, click Cancel.

13. Change the printer’s name to add something like “-Wireless” at the end.

14. Click Add to add the printer. If you get the “Queue exists” message, click Continue.

15. Repeat these steps on the rest of your Macs.

Note: If you want to share this printer with Windows machines, download BonJour for Windows and then add the printer.

One last reminder:

When using your printer wirelessly via your Base Station, you won’t be able to access the printer’s utilities. This connection is for printing only. So, unless your printer’s manufacturer has made accommodations for this, I don’t recommend you share an “all-in-one” printer/scanner/fax machine through a Base Station.

Sharing an external hard drive:

1. Connect your external drive to the Base Station.

Note: The Airport Base Station does not have a FireWire interface. Unfortunately this means USB external drives only.

2. Make sure the hard drive is powered on.

3. Open Airport Utility. (It’s in the Utilities folder, inside the Applications folder.)

4. Click Manual Setup at the bottom.

5. Click on the Disks tab and you should see your drive.

6. To share the drive wirelessly, click the File Sharing tab.

7. Check the “Enable File Sharing” checkbox.

8. You may choose to select the Airport’s password, a separate disk password or by accounts to secure your drive.

9. If you want, you may allow guest access. (Not recommended).

10. You can also share the drive over the internet. (Also not recommended).

Note: If you do share the drive over the internet, make sure to set a strong password. Remember, sharing on the internet means the entire internet could potentially access your drive.

11. Finally, if you need to share the drive with Windows Machines, set the Workgroup at the bottom.

Extending your Base Station’s range (non-802.11n or mixed):

Let’s say you have a huge house or small office and your Base Station’s range doesn’t give you the coverage you need. The solution is to extend it’s range. Obviously, you’ll need additional Base Station(s) to do this. If you are extending 802.11n Base Stations / Time Capsules, skip to the next section – Its much easier.

Apple considers extending the Base Station’s range to be a WDS Network. In a WDS Network, there are three Base Stations. A Main Base Station, a Relay Base Station and Remote Base Stations.

Think of the Remote Base Stations as endpoints and the Relay Base Stations as connectors. For example, if you have to connect a Base Station in an area thats further than the range of your Main Base Station, you will need a Relay Base Station in the middle.

To Extend your Base Station’s Range:

1. Decide which Base Station will be the Main Base Station and which will be the Remote and/or Relay Base Stations.

2. Open Airport Utility and select your Main Base Station.

3. Click Manual Setup.

4. Select the Airport Menu and the Wireless tab.

5. Choose “Participate in a WDS network”.

6. A WDS tab will appear. Click on this tab.

7. If you are setting up the Main Base Station, choose WDS Main.

8. Add the MAC addresses of your Remote Base Stations

9. For the Relay Base Station, choose WDS Relay.

10. Add the MAC address of you Main Base Station.

11. Add the MAC address of your Remote Base Stations.

12. For the Remote Base Stations, choose WDS Remote.

13. Add the MAC address of your Main Base Station.

14. Check the “Allow wireless clients” checkbox.

Note: If you want to allow clients on your Main and Relay base stations, check the “Allow wireless clients” checkbox for them as well.

15. When setting up a WDS network, make sure the Network name and password is the same for every Base Station.

Extending an 802.11n network:

Extending an 802.11n network is much easier than the traditional WDS network.

1. Pick your Base Station that will connect to the internet (your Main Base Station).

Note: Apple recommends that if you have a Time Capsule in your network, that should be the Main Base Station.

2. Open Airport Utility, pick the Main Base Station and choose Manual Setup.

3. Click the Airport selection on top and the Wireless tab.

4. Choose “Create a wireless network” at the top.

5. Check the “Allow this network to be extended” checkbox.

6. If you haven’t already, set up this Main Base Station’s wireless network and connect to the internet.

7. Save your settings and connect Airport Utility to your other Base Station(s).

8. Choose Manual setup, click Airport at the top and the Wireless tab.

9. Select “Extend a wireless network” and choose the Wireless network’s name.

10. Check the “Allow wireless clients” checkbox.

11. Enter any passwords if necessary.

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Setting up and securing your Airport Base Station

David Balogh — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:00:17 +0000

Photo courtesy of OS X

As Macintosh popularity grows, so does the use of Apple accessories. One such accessory is the Airport Base Station.

Now, you don’t need an Apple Airport Base Station to connect wirelessly – Macs connect to any 802.11a/b/g/n network that their network cards support. One reason why the Base Station is useful though is the built-in USB port for attaching a printer, Time Capsule or external Hard Drives.

You may think these extras would be difficult to configure, but don’t worry about that. In part one of this two part series, I’ll show you that setting up and securing your Airport Base Station is easy. Here’s all you need to do:

Discovering Apple’s Airport Utility:

If you’re familiar with wireless routers and AP’s, you know that most of them require you to go to a special web page to set them up. With a Base Station, you don’t do that. What you will do is use Apple’s special configuration utility – “Airport Utility”. So, once you’ve powered your Base Station on and connected the cables properly, you’ll want to open Airport Utility to begin setting it up.

To find Airport Utility, you will need to go into your Applications folder and open up the Utilities folder. Once opened, Airport Utility will attempt to find your Base Station through BonJour. Once it does, click on the Base Station to connect to it. If this is the first time you’ve connected and it’s never been set up, it will have an unfamiliar name beginning with the word Apple.

Note: If you’re in a crowded area such as a city, and there’s a few of them, shut yours off and note which one disappears. Try not to configure your neighbor’s wireless…

Basic Setup – Getting on the Internet:

Most Internet connections now are really easy to set up and don’t require any special settings. This is a big help from 7 years ago when a DSL user had to “dial-in” to start the connection. With that in mind, lets connect the Base Station to the internet.

Note: There is a automatic, menu driven setup wizard that walks you through connecting. Its really easy to use if you’re not technically inclined but we’re going to use the manual setup for this article.

Also Note: This article assumes that you already have a working internet connection.

1. Click Manual Setup at the bottom of the screen.

2. You will now see a Summary screen.

3. Click on the Internet tab.

4. Click the “Internet Connection” tab.

5. After “Connect Using:”, select Ethernet.

6. After “Configure IPv4:”, choose Using DHCP.

7. Optionally, change your DNS Servers to 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 if you prefer to use OpenDNS.

8. If the IP and Router addresses set themselves and the light on the front turns green, you are all set.

Setting up the Wireless:

Now that your Base Station is connected to the internet, nothing says “Free WiFi for everyone” better than an open network. Additionally, nothing says “Hack me” better than one with the default ID and no password or the default factory password. Let’s change that and secure your connection.

1. In Airport Utility, click on Airport at the top.

2. Within the Airport dialogue, click on the Base Station tab.

3. Give your Base Station a name.

4. Secure your configuration by giving it a password.

Note: This password will protect your configuration from someone messing with it. It is not the password to connect to the network.

5. Make sure the “Set time automatically” box is checked.

6. You can use Apple’s timeserver if you like. (time.apple.com)

7. Set the appropriate Time Zone.

8. DO NOT check the “Allow setup over WAN” box.

9. Click on the Wireless tab.

10. Give your network a name.

11. Select “802.11n (802.11b/g compatible)” so all your devices can connect.

12. I’d recommend changing the channel. 6 is the default on many devices but it’s up to you.

13. Choose “WPA/WPA2 Personal” for Wireless Security.

14. Set your wireless password.

Note: This is the password you will use to connect.

Additional Security Notes:

Now, many people use “MAC Filtering” but really that doesn’t secure anything. Especially if it’s an unencrypted network. It’s trivial to sniff out a packet and grab a working MAC address. IP restrictions are similarly useless. Not broadcasting the SSID isn’t secure either as many OS’s now show “Hidden Network” instead of the name.

What is going to secure your wireless are two things: WPA2 with AES encryption and a good strong password. An open network is obviously a free-for-all. WEP encryption can be easily broken in about 5 or 10 minutes. WPA with TKIP used to be solid but within the past few years, a way to break WPA has come out and its as easy to crack as WEP now.

Until WPA2/AES is cracked, it’s the only secure option. Use only WPA2 with AES. And obviously, don’t use a password that a third grader can guess within two tries. If you need help creating a strong password, click on the little key picture next to the password prompt.

Other Features:

The Airport Base Station has a ton of other features to it besides just connecting to the internet. In part two of this series, we’ll look at all the other cool features your Base Station can do as well as some more advanced features you may want to play with.

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