There are about 900 different options available to automatically back up your Mac, none of which I have been in love with until now.

If you’ve been reading my blog for more than three minutes, you’ve probably come across a post where I strongly recommend (okay, balls-out lecture, harp, nag and preach) that you should back your shit up. For web developers or site owners, that means your web servers, for “normal” people that means, at the very least, your computer.

Apple gives you a reasonably good way of automating your backups, by way of Time Machine. This is made even more effortless if you use Time Capsule, a dedicated network drive that integrates with Time Machine. Thing is, I have never wanted to pony up the cash for a Time Capsule, which starts at $299. Add to that the fact that I spend half my time working from home, half my time at the office, half my time commuting. (I’m very busy, you know.) So a networked drive is a nice enough solution, but backing things up in multiple locations can be a pain in the ass, especially when I’m not always near either of my primary locations. Relying on just one hard drive is scary, since eventually, all hard drives fail, and with my luck, mine will fail at the exact same moment that my Macbook Pro catches on fire, falls out a window into the ocean and is eaten by giant space pandas that can breathe underwater. (What? It happens!)

I had been using Jungledisk, but it’s slow as hell and they charge you a monthly fee for the privilege of using it (plus the AS3 charges). Granted, the $2 a month won’t put me in the poorhouse, but the speed issue has always been frustrating, and it’s always acted a little buggy for me. One of the features Jungledisk boasts is that you can sync multiple computers “effortlessly”. I don’t know if I’d agree with the effortless part, but nowadays, I use my laptop as my primary computer for both work and personal, so syncing is of little importance to me.

Enter Arq. I ran across this little gem in my RSS feed reader, thanks to a post on AppStorm.

According to app author Stefan, “the overhead of S3 PUT requests becomes a big performance problem when uploading many small files, so Arq combines small files together into ‘pack files’ to dramatically improve network performance”, which is why it kicks Jungledisk’s ass when it comes to speediness. (I added that last bit.)

I already have an AS3 account, since I helped out during the Iran elections and set up a proxy server using AS3 to enable the citizens of Iran to continue to communicate with the outside world after the government started shutting off their access to web services. I kept the account to use the fabulous Automatic WordPress Backup plugin, which backs up my (numerous and largely inane) blogs every night.

Simply put, this app couldn’t be more simple. It took me as long to install it and set it up as it did for me to download (it’s less than 4MB).

It comes pre-set to exclude trash, logs and caches, but you can add additional rules for exclusion as well.

By default, it will back up your ~user directory (excluding the aforementioned trash, logs and caches), but you can easily add additional directories as well. Drag and drop a folder into Arq to add it for automatic backup (including network drives). Drag and drop from a backup to immediately start restoring. It really is that easy.

Following the initial backup, Arq automatically makes incremental backups every hour, every day, uploading just the files that have changed since your last backup. Arq keeps hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month.

If you’re worried about getting hit with a huge AS3 account bill, don’t sweat that either. Arq lets you set a maximum budget for backups based on AS3 pricing. Arq also de-dupes your files, so you’re never storing the same files twice. It automatically drops the oldest backups to keep within the budget and keeps backup history for as long as you want.

Arq costs $29, and comes with a free 30-day fully functioning trial. Check it out for yourself by downloading it at the Haystack Software website, or hit them up with questions on their Twitter account.

Sure, one could argue that the AS3 monthly fees would add up to a $299 Time Capsule soon enough – but the ability to access and backup from anywhere is a big plus for me, not to mention the encryption, redundancy, privacy and speed of AS3. Amazon does charge an additional fee for upload/download, but they just extended their free upload pricing until November 1, 2010, so go ahead and give it a try.

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I posted about the gorgeous BookBook laptop case for the 15″ Macbook Pro back in January on TehAwesome.Net, and have been impatiently waiting for a 17″ model. They’re finally available (first come, first serve!), and I received mine today.

The BookBook is a hand-crafted leather laptop case that when closed, looks like an antique leatherbound book. I doubt very much it would contribute to the security of carrying your Macbook, since I’d be just as likely to steal a sexy awesome leatherbound book as I would a sexy laptop, but it’s sure pretty to look at, and one of the most unique laptop cases I’ve seen. Others include the Newspaper laptop sleeve from MiteMite, and the Shuky sleeve that looks like a manilla envelope.

First things first, the quality of design and craftsmanship is outstanding. Everything from the distressed leather to the stitching is perfect, and it feels incredibly sturdy – more so than I would have imagined. The zipper doesn’t seem at all flimsy, and the leather that attaches it to the main body of the case is thick, and reinforced with suede on the inside. (The BookBook comes in classic black and red. I ordered the red, although both are beautiful.)

It’s a little larger than I expected, sticking out about an 3/4 from the top of the screen, and 3/4 of an inch beyond the bottom of the laptop, but I suppose that’s to be expected so that it will fit properly when the case is closed. I’m more used to the Case-Mate hard leather case that I have had since I bought my laptop, which solves this issue by way of a flexible gusset at the hinge.

Side note: I love the Case-Mate hard leather cases. I was only lured away from them by the sheer coolness of the BookBook, but I’d still strongly recommend them any day. I am pretty rough on my laptop, commuting with it through New York City for 4.5 hours a day when i go to the office, and I’ve had the same Case-Mate case for years, with almost no sign of wear and tear. Those things are tough!

The issue I have with the BookBook is actually with the straps. Here’s a short (< 2 minute) video of how the straps work. Sorry for the shakiness, I was rushing to get this done in between conference calls. Also, don’t mind teh kitteh. Or the mess.

As you can see in this video, I suck at taking video and I desperately need to re-paint my nails. Oh, also, you can see what I mean about the straps.

I sent an email to TwelveSouth, the manufacturer, asking about the straps:

Hi there – I received my 17″ BookBook case, and it’s just as beautiful as I thought it would be. I have a few questions/concerns though….

Is there no strap for the bottom to hold the case onto the bottom part of the computer? I admit I’m a little surprised that the straps that hold the case onto the top piece are black and actually cover the top left and right of the screen. This is such a beautiful cover, it seems impossible to me that the attachment mechanism would be so ugly and intrusive. Even my hard leather case that I have used for years includes clear straps that do not obstruct any part of the screen.

This is disappointing to the point where I may actually return it, which saddens me, as I have been waiting for a 17″ BookBook since I first saw the 15″ model months ago.

Andrew from TwelveSouth immediately replied to me, (really, 45 minutes later, and it probably took him at least 20 to write the email) with an explanation that makes perfect sense, but still bums me out:

Hey Snipe,

Thanks for the email and comments. My name is Andrew and I designed the BookBook. Just wanted to explain our thinking on the case and it’s features. If it doesn’t meet your needs – by all means return it. 99 dollars is way to much to pay for something and not absolutely ‘love’ it. That said, here’s what we had in mind for those straps.

The primary reason for the straps at the top only is to allow the BookBook case to close – and also open the MacBook lid itself (unibody only – the silver key version requires that release button on the front). Using it like this, the BookBook can stay basically ‘attached’ to the MB. When opened past 90 degrees for use, the corner straps should just clear the screen corners too. If it’s close, you could push back the screen angle a little bit – or slide the MB more towards you. Either one of these adjustments should clear the corner straps from the corners of the screen.

That said – the overall design of the case was to use it more like a notebook sleeve – slipping it in and out for use – and also possibly carrying it in an additional bag or backpack – was what we had in mind. We never really intended to ‘strap it in’ – we wanted it to slip in-and-out – just like a neoprene sleeve – only better, cooler and more protective once inside. The two straps just added the easy option to use it while still partially contained. (Actually – my favorite way to use it is to use the BookBook as a riser of sorts. I take My MB out and set it directly on top of my BookBook. It adds a little height and angle to the keyboard).

Sorry for the rambling email. I hope our intentions for the BookBook are at least a little clearer now. And again – if it doesn’t completely meet your expectations, please don’t hesitate to contact us again to request a refund. We really do want you to not just like your BookBook – we want you to love it.

Thanks again for your feedback and email,

Andrew

So as you can see, they did have a reason for the decisions they made regarding the straps. Major, major props to TwelveSouth for being so quick to reply to me, and to explain their decision in such detail. It didn’t come across to me as rambling – it came across as a passionate explanation from someone who loves the product they sell – and that’s awesome.

Less awesome is the fact that I thought I was buying a case, not a sleeve. My work environment may not be typical, but it suits me well. Two days a week, I work from home, the other 3 days, I commute to the city. On the days I work from home, my “office” is usually the couch, using the armrest of the couch as my laptop desk. Because there is a fair amount of jostling (and the constant threat of me or one of my spastic pets) knocking it over, something that actually attaches to my laptop is arguably critical.

At this point, my only suggestions to TwelveSouth would be to either re-label the item on their website that so that it’s more clear that this is meant to be a sleeve, not a case – or make a second model that is meant to be be a true case.

If you’re looking for an extremely sexy (if a little spendy) laptop sleeve that will definitely turn heads, BookBook is an excellent choice. If you’re looking for a case for your laptop to basically live in 24/7, this might not be the best choice. I haven’t decided if I’m going to try to jerry rig some straps, or if I’ll return it, but it’s undeniably a work of art regardless.

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Mac users love their Macs for lots of different reasons – the interface is pretty and (generally) stable, things just “work”, and for the command-line junkies, there’s nothing you can’t do by command line that you can do through the GUI. In fact, there’s some stuff you can’t do with the GUI, but a quick terminal command can bang it out in a jiffy.

I’ll preface this post by saying that I am not a Mac expert by any means. I’ve only been using one on a regular basis since May 2008 (I have had one for much longer, but it’s used solely for video editing), and have only owned one that I use every day for a few months. Fortunately, Mac OS X is based on the Mach kernel and is derived from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), and as a Linux user, I’m pretty comfy on the command line.

If you’re brand-spankin’ new to the command line, this isn’t the place to start. Instead, check out The Mac Terminal: An Introduction by Alex Galonsky of MacApper, and then come back here.

I had the idea to write this post, to help other people – and to keep track of the bits I had picked up over time – so I did some research, and reached out to a few friends who are far more Mac-savvy than I.

Web Development & Browsing

Clear your Mac’s DNS Cache
If you’re a web developer on a Mac and have made a DNS switch, you may need to clear the DNS cache on your machine in order for the web address in question to correctly resolve to the new host after propagation. This command will flush your DNS cache. (Bear in mind that your ISP may have DNS cached as well, so this trick won’t always work, but its always worth a shot.)

dscacheutil -flushcache

(Note: For Tiger users, type: lookupd -flushcache)

Turn on Debugging/Developer Mode in Safari (via Vidyut Luther)
Make sure you restart Safari after entering this in Terminal. On the top right of the menu bar there will appear a new menu item titled “Debug” that will let you do a host of new things.

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

Force All Links in Safari to Open in New Tabs Instead of New Windows
If you can’t stand it when links create a new browser window and prefer them to always open in a new tab, type:

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool TRUE

File Utilities

Eject a Stubborn CD
I’ve run into this a few times, where a CD is in the CD drive, but Finder isn’t, well, finding it. Since I can’t see it, I can’t eject it or drag it to the trash. I can press the eject button on my keyboard until my fingers bleed, but no joy. This command uses the Disk Arbitration Command Tool. Type disktool to see all the options. The -e flag tells disktool to eject:

disktool -e disk

Turn Off the Stupid Time Machine Query (via Brian Little)
Time Machine tries to be “helpful” by asking you if you want to use the external disk drive you’ve just attached as a backup. Every. Single. Time. This little command tells Time Machine to STFU about it.

defaults write com.apple.TimeMachine DoNotOfferNewDisksForBackup -bool YES

Re-Index Spotlight to Fix WonkyResults (via Brian Little)
If your Spotlights results don’t seem to add up, try these two commands to re-index the drive.

sudo mdutil -E /

and then

sudo mdutil -i on /

Show Hidden Files
I switch back and forth for this one. In general, I prefer to leave hidden files hidden, but if I’m developing a site locally and uploading to the FTP location, the default Mac settings will hide my .htaccess file, so I can’t upload them. On the other hand, if I’m uploading whole directories, leaving hidden files visible will cause all of the .DS_STORE files to be uploaded as well. They won’t hurt anything, but my OCD won’t allow that sort of thing, so I toggle this on and off depending on what I’m doing. Be sure to restart Finder after you type this:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

Show Full File Path in Finder Windows
On a PC or a Mac, the first thing I always do is enable the display of the full file path in the Explorer/Finder window, so I can always see exactly where the file or directory I’m looking at lives. To always display the full path to any file or folder in the Finder window, type (remember to restart Finder for this to take effect):

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

Screen Captures

Macs make it easy to capture and save screenshots using your command key

Change The Default Screen Capture Image Format (via Brian Little)
By default, Mac will save screen captures in .png format. If you prefer to default to a different file format, type:

com.apple.screencapture type image_format

where image_format is the new file format you want to use. The image_format can be BMP, GIF, JPEG-2000, JPEG, PDF, PICT, PNG, PSD, SGI, TGA or TIFF.

Then type:

killall SystemUIServer

Save Your Screenshots Somewhere Other Than Your Desktop
If you are as neurotic as I am about desktop clutter, you can change the default location where screenshots are saved, by typing:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location "/Users/yourusername/screenshots" 

Everything else

Enable half-star ratings in iTunes (via Lifehacker)
If you’re a music buff who uses iTunes, and the five-star rating system isn’t quite granular enough for you (“do I really like it, or do I really, really REALLY like it?”), this handy command will enable half-star ratings in iTunes.

To set this up, just type:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes allow-half-stars -bool TRUE

Drag Widgets Out Of Dashboard Onto Desktop
I love the widgets in the Dashboard, but being a former Windows user, I always forget they’re there. It never even occurs to me to click on my dashboard. To keep important widgets handy, drag widgets from your dashboard onto your desktop. You need to re-launch the dock for this to take effect by typing “killall Dock” and hitting enter. If you click and hold onto a widget in the dashboard and then press F12 to return to the desktop, the widget won’t disappear with the rest.

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES

type this to reverse it:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode NO

Remember to type killall dock to restart your dock before the changes will take effect.

Add Spaces to Your Dock

If you’re like me and constantly mis-click and launch the wrong application (xchat instead of terminal, since they have similar icons and because I am dumb), adding spacers into your dock to visually separate the icons can be a big help. By adding spaces, you can group related icons together for ease of use, but have just enough of a visual difference to prevent you from spastically clicking on the wrong ones (like I do). For example,my dock looks something like this:

In your Terminal prompt, type:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'

When your dock restarts, you’ll see a spacer in the right-side. You can click and drag this spacer to wherever you need, and you can re-run that command in your Terminal window to create as many spacers as you want. And just like any other dock icon, you can right+click and remove, or just drag it off the dock to get rid of it.

Remember to type killall Dock to restart your dock before the changes will take effect.

Useful Links

For more great command line tips and tricks, check out the following:

• Art of Geek – Useful Mac OSX Terminal Commands
• Mac | Life – 25 Terminal Tips Every Mac User Should Know
• Hidden Gems Inside Mac OSX Terminal
• Secrets: A database of hidden settings for Mac OSX (thanks, @brandonsavage!)
• UsingMac – Tips and tricks

Are you a Mac cli wizard? What are your favorite terminal commands? Let us know in the comments.

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Ever since buying a new 17″ Macbook Pro, I have been having consistent problems with keeping a wifi connection in my house. I know this is an Apple issue, not a router issue, as I can sit in the exact same spot in the house with Dell and get a strong signal that never drops off. Being incredibly frustrated by this problem, I have done a lot of research, and it seems I’m not the only one having issues. If you’re here, chances are you’re having them too.

I am not sure that my problem is actually solved, but With some help from someone suffering a similar problem, my issue was finally solved, but since there are so many things that work for some people and not others, I thought it would be helpful if I compiled a list of options that have been shown to work for some people, so you don’t have to dig quite as far as I had to. Right now, finding these solutions involves reading literally hundreds of forum and blog posts, so hopefully having them organized in one place will be helpful to someone.

First I’ll give you a little more detail on what I’m running and what I’ve learned:

I have a 17″ Intel-based dual core 2.5 Ghz  Macbook Pro, only about two months old, running Leopard 10.5.6. My router is an Airport Extreme Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.10.38.24), however I was running into this problem with my old Linksys G router as well. In fact, I ended up shelling out $180 for the new Airport Extreme specifically in an effort to fix this wifi issue. I had realized this wasn’t necessarily a router issue, but figured the extra antenna in the Airport Extreme N router might help. It didn’t.

The Problem:

From the moment I took the Macbook Pro out of the box, I have had terrible issues with dropped wifi connections in my house. My wifi signal shows full strength, and then suddenly dips down but still appears active, although the connectivity itself drops to zero. This can happen several times a day to literally every 10 seconds. (Just upgrading my WordPress software last night took an hour because I couldn’t hold onto a connection long enough for the files to upload, and had to keep restarting.)

When the connection drops, I can sometimes get it back before it completely fails by clicking on the Airport icon and letting it scan. Once the status goes from “scanning” to “on”, the signal comes back. When I do that, the connection recovers fully, but the dropoff can happen again in 5 seconds, so it is clearly not an ideal solution.

A post on InstallingCats summed it up nicely:

After doing some research, I had a theory that AirPort was searching through old wireless connections within /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist constantly looking for a better signal. And whenever the current wireless connection suffered from minor transient interference (say cordless telephones), it would immediately try to connect to another base station or try to switch to a different channel. Have a look at your version of the airport preferences file by navigating to it in Finder, starting with Macintosh HD, then Library, Preferences, and finally within the SystemConfiguration folder. You can simply hit enter with the file highlighted to use Quick Look. You can also use Terminal to quickly print the file to the screen with the following command: cat /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist

Once the AirPort control software in 10.5.2 set about trying to find a better wireless connection, it would never successfully get back your original wireless connection which was really fine. Hence, from time to time, you would see a slight drop in wireless signal strength, then after clicking on the AirPort wireless icon, it would scan for networks for a few seconds, then return to full strength, yet you would have already lost Internet access.

Unfortunately, the fixes offered didn’t work for me, but at least it seems I’m on the right track in my theories. Not that that does me a lot of good…

What I have Learned So Far:

This is NOT an uncommon problem. There are literally thousands of posts, both on Mac discussion sites and on the official Apple discussion boards. Apple is aware of the problem, and they evidently made an effort to address it in the recent OSX upgrades. The upgrade to 10.5.6 has solved the problem for some people – it did not solve the problem for me.

For this specific issue, the router itself is not the issue – Leopard is the problem. If your router is working for everyone in the house except your Macs, it may not be worth it to go out and buy a new router. I dumped my old Linksys G-router for the Apple Airport Extreme N-router and although the signal is much stronger now, there have been no changes in the dropout issues. My router was old, so I don’t regret the upgrade, but if you’re having the problem discussed here, it probably won’t help much.

There is some discussion about how the aluminum body of the Macbook Pros interferes with wifi signal reception. (Older PPC macs often had the antenna in their display frame, but newer Macs have the antenna in the hinge.) While I have experienced a weaker signal with Macbook Pro than I did with my Dell, I do not believe this problem is related, as I have seen people with every imaginable kind of Mac laptop having these wifi issue, regardless of whether the laptop is plastic or aluminum.

Since forcing Airport to scan by clicking on the Airport icon works 99% of the time, this leads me to believe that Airport is either 1) erroneously losing the signal or 2) getting confused and trying to connect to another network, despite already being connected to a preferred network.

Many people report this problem starting with them upgrading to Leopard. Apple has apparently been trying to fix it since 10.5.2, but many users are still having the problem, which they never had before upgrading to Leopard.

Possible Fixes

In my many hours or research, here are some things you can try that have shown some level of success for people encountering this problem. They did not work for me (or at least not entirely, some seemed to improve things temporarily or marginally) but many users reported success with this, so if if saves you some headache, rock on.

Like any other troubleshooting process, you will want to try these one at a time. If you make a bunch of changes at once and something worked, you won’t know which change actually fixed it – and conversely, if you do one thing that fixes it and two other things that break something else, you won’t know you actually found the fix.

If you’re running Leopard, upgrade to 10.5.6. The latest OSX upgrade specifically mentions fixes to some Airport issues, and many users have reported better performance after the update.

If you’re using an Airport Extreme router, make sure your router’s firmware is up to date. You can find the setting to check for updates automatically in: Utilities > Airport Utility > Airport Extreme > Base Station > Options.

Download and install AP Grapher, a freeware program for Mac OS X which searches for and displays nearby wireless (AirPort/WiFi) access points along with information about their percent availability, maximum signal strength, and last contact time. At the very worst, the graph visually shows you when your connection is about to crap out – and at the very best, some people have reported this actually helping to prevent the dropoffs, presumably because AP Grapher is constantly pinging the router.

Set up terminal window to ping your router. This is easy to do but is obviously not ideal, as you’ll have to do this every time you connect to your wifi, but it actually seems to have helped for me. If you’re comfortable with setting up Apple Scripts, Jeff over at the forums on Beyond-School.Org shows you a quick way to automate this in his blog comment post.

Check for (and remove) the RealPlayer Downloader login item. I never had RealPlayer installed (yuck), so it wasn’t an issue with me, but a lot of people have reported this as a fix that worked for them.

1. Go to System Preferences
2. In the fourth row, under Systems, click on the Accounts icon
3. In the Accounts screen, click on Login Items
4. Click on RealPlayer Downloader, then remove it from login Items by clicking on the minus sign

Try removing security on your router. I have not tried this myself – its the only one of the options I’ve found that I haven’t tried, as it makes me uncomfortable (which is silly, I know, because wifi networks are SO easily hackable by even the most rudimentary means). Might be worth trying, even if just temporarily to see if it works.

Try manually setting a channel on your router instead of letting it choose automatically. This is a hit or miss process of course, since we can’t see which channel is the best option based on interference, but tweaking the channel seems to have worked for people. A lot of people report 5 being particularly successful, but that seems arbitrary to me. That said, a lot of this stuff seems arbitrary, and if you’re as frustrated as I have been, you’ll probably try it.

Directly in conflict with this advise, according to a post on InstallingCats, “Change wireless channel on your wifi router (e.g. AirPort Extreme base station, NetGear, Linksys) from 6 (the default) to anything from 1-4 or 8 to 11. Please refer to your router’s instruction manual on how to do this. The reason for avoiding channels 5 and 7 is that wifi routers by design will automatically switch to one channel above or below their current channel when wifi signal noise passes a certain value. Thus, if you were having problems on channel 6, your router and AirPort have already tried channels 5 and 7 and you’re still experiencing problems.”

Set Airport to NOT display an icon in the menu bar. You can do this by going to System Preferences > Network, selecting Airport in the left side options and un-checking the “Show Airport status in menu bar” option. I’ve had mixed results with this one. It seems like the dropouts *are* fewer when I do this, but when it does drop, my only way of getting it back before complete disconnection is to force Airport to scan using that icon. So I have the problem less often, but when it happens, I have to go back into System Preferences > Network and recheck the box, then click on the icon to force it to come back. A little time-consuming when you’re in the process of getting your face eaten off by a Fel Reaver while playing World of Warcraft.

Check the “Ask to Join New Networks” option. In System > Network > Airport, there is a checkbox that allows you to toggle whether or not you wish to be asked to join a wireless network that isn’t in your known networks list. Checking this may help some people by telling Airport to not try automatically connecting you to a network that isn’t in your preferred networks list.

Minimize interference from other sources. If possible, use the 5Ghz transmission frequency/band for your wireless router. Most wireless devices (nearly all wireless routers and cordless telephones) in homes use the 2.4Ghz transmission band. Avoiding this band will result in much less radio noise. You would change this configuration option in your router settings, not on your Mac.

Remove the AirPort preferences file. Locate the file named com.apple.airport.preferences.plist, which is stored in the /Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ folder and remove it (after copying to the desktop, just to have a backup). Then reboot the computer and set up the WiFi connection again.

What Finally Worked For Me

Neil deMause, a commenter on BeyondSchool.Org was in a similar situation, having tried all of the above solutions (a great many of which worked for other people, but not for us) to no avail. He was kind enough to post what finally ended up working for him, and it looks like that might have worked for me too. It’s been over 24 hours and I haven’t had a single signal drop yet (knock on wood), so I am feel pretty comfortable that this actually solved it.

Neil writes:

Well, I have a solution, but it was neither cheap nor easy. After a trip to the shop found no problems with the Airport card, I broke down and bought an Airport Extreme router, to see if that would help. Test results showed:

* Airport Extreme set to b/g/n compatible: same problem.

* Airport Extreme set to n only, at 2.4 GHz: same problem.

* Airport Extreme set to n only, at 5 GHz: Blazing fast connection speeds, not a single lost packet, even in rooms of my house where wireless reception was previously only a rumor.

So ultimately, all I did was go into my Airport Extreme settings and change it from b/g/n to n-only. That’s it.

Neil’s setup was a little more complicated than mine. For me, just switching to N-only (on channel 11) seems to have done the trick. Although I have several older Windows-based laptops, I rarely use them anymore, so I didn’t have to deal with getting the older (non-N) Windows boxes to work on the N-only network, but just in case that’s the situation you’re in, here’s what Neil did:

Unfortunately, we also have a Windows laptop in the house that doesn’t have an n wireless card. So until we can buy one, right now I have my old b/g router daisy-chained to my new Airport Extreme, serving up a separate subnet just for the sake of the Windows laptop. My friend who helped me set this up characterized this as insane, but hey, it works.

So, the saga seems to be over, for me and Neil at least. Thank. Freaking. God. Many, many thanks to Neil. I totally owe him a beer.

Still Not Working?

If none of these solutions work, I’d suggest checking out this excellent article on MacFixIt that goes through additional router troubleshooting steps. They may not all apply, since this problem isn’t really a router issue, but you may want to try tweaking some of the settings they mention there to see if anything helps.

For those who are a little more tech savvy and comfortable trying something more advanced, there is a rollback fix posted on Atomic Lemur that basically reverts back to an older, pre-breakage set of settings. This is ambitious for a Mac newbie though, and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re fairly comfortable at the command line.

If I find a fix that really, truly works – or even some more that don’t work for me but work for others, I’ll post them here.

Big thanks to the people at Beyond-School.Org and several other blogs and forums – their thorough discussions are what made this blog post possible.

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Freeware application Lego Digital Designer is a virtual Lego kit for your Windows or Mac desktop. Once installed, you can either use LDD to build your own masterpiece from scratch or—if you’re lacking patience—you can get a head start by using one of their starter models. With over 763 brick types to choose from, your LDD-design will have reached well beyond the limits of your normal lego kit. Once you’ve built the perfect prototype, you can upload the results to the Lego web site to order a custom kit with every brick you’ll need included! Lego Digital Designer is freeware, Windows and Mac only.

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As part of my seemingly never-ending quest to get data synced between multiple computers running different software, I decided to give Plaxo another go. They felt terribly intrusive the last time I tried them, which admittedly was over 5 years ago. The reason I decided to give Plaxo another go is because research was showing me that they were one of the few services that could sync with Thunderbird. Here’s my setup:

• Office: Currently WinXP using MS Office – this will change once I start at the new place though, since they are a mac shop
• Home: Four machines – two Win laptops running Thunderbird, one WinXP desktop running Thunderbird and one mac OSX using mail.app
• Mobile: Windows Mobile on a Treo 750 running Outlook for Windows Mobile

I don’t need my actual email synced, since I use IMAP for just about everything – but contact list syncing was a real priority for me. I was using Memotoo for a little while, since they offer LDAP services for specific addy book groups, which meant I could share my animal welfare contacts with my board members. Problem is, its not a two-way sync, so I would still have to login to Memotoo to make address book updates. Boo. That said, being able to share addresses by LDAP was a bonus, but not a hardcore requirement – so my needs were not being met. Plus, the Thunderbird add-on that synced with Memotoo randomly stopped working one day. So even the bonus wasn’t working anymore.

At first, Plaxo seemed perfect. I imported my contacts into Plaxo using gmail (which meant alot of outdated contacts were pulled in, but oh well.) I synced that up with Outlook and got a merged version of all of my contacts. I de-duped using their shmancy de-duping tool, and spent some time updating information, deleting contacts, and cleaning up data. Synced again with my Treo using their Windows Mobile sync software, and everything worked marvelously. When I got home, I installed their Thunderbird plugin. I deleted my address book, since everything in it was old, and I only wanted the new version that I had spent so long cleaning up. Unfortunately, this time, things went wrong. Rather than using Plaxo as the authoritative source, it used Thunderbird as the authoritative source – effectively deleting all of my contacts. I tried syncing with my Treo to restore the contacts, but this time it did use Plaxo as the authoritative source, and then the contacts disappeared off my Treo. At this point I was pretty pissed.

When I got back to work the next day, I fired up Outlook. The Plaxo plugin in Outlook is at least smart enough to ask before deleting 500 contacts. It asked me if I wanted to delete them all, which would be done if I synced, since once again, Plaxo was being used as the authoritative source. I said no. I synced my Outlook back to my Treo to restore the contacts there and made a backup of my contacts. I synced with Plaxo, my contacts were deleted, and then I imported my backup address book into Outlook and synced. This time Outlook was seen as the authoritative source, and my contacts were back in Plaxo.

The final test – I got home, and decided to try syncing with Plaxo from Thunderbird again. Plaxo does periodic backups of your address book, so if something went wrong, I could always restore from backup using their system. This time, inexplicably, it worked like a charm. My contacts all imported in like buttah. I made a few changes in Plaxo, synced again, and the updates were reflected in Thunderbird. Wewt.

So anyway – it looks like Plaxo will actually be the solution I’m looking for. Not sure what happened the first time with Thunderbird, but it would sure be nice if you had the option of which direction the sync would go, so mishaps don’t happen like that.  But overall, if you’re looking to a solution to having a million address books, all in various stages of disarray, Plaxo may be a good solution for you too.

Interestingly, they’re now jumping on the social networking bandwagon – they used to be just contact management. Their social networking system is called Pulse, and although the last thing I need is another social networking site, they are smart enough to realize that people are probably already using a bunch of them, and so Pulse is specifically set up to be able to pull data in from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, and about 20 other social networks – so it doesn’t really have to be treated as a new social network if you don’t want.

One of the nice things about Plaxo is that (at least before, not sure about now) if your contact signed up for Plaxo, their information was considered authoritative in your addy book – which means your contacts update their own information in your address book – this was a very clever feature for people with a lot of contacts that move or change jobs often.

As an aside, I like the direction many of these social networks are going in – they’re finally all starting to put in the ever-important customizable filters and they’re being a lot better about pulling in data from other sites. I’m sure that felt a lot like sleeping with the enemy for many of them at first (or at least parsing rss feeds with the enemy), but I think they’re finally starting to get the fact that people are not going to stick to just one network (theirs). Rather than trying to fight that, they’re starting to make it easier for people to integrate the systems they like best. People will use the systems they like best for different aspects of their life. I use LJ to blog, since it has the most filter support. I use Facebook to post items of interest, since their browser widget makes it a two-click experience. I use Twitter to post quickies, since Twitterfox and Twitter’s gtalk interface makes it so darned easy. I use Picasa for photo storage because the desktop integration makes it so easy to upload photos. I use MySpace for – well, nothing really, but I do have an account, if for no reason than to redirect people to my Facebook  and LJ accounts. I don’t think Plaxo supports LJ, but it supports just about everything else I’d want, so that’s handy.

Anyway, other than the one glitch – the one that had me pretty pissed, I admit – Plaxo seems to be spot on for what I need. It may be more than many of you need, but it looks perfect for what I need. As an added bonus, it syncs your tasks, calendar and notes (all your standard Office stuff) as well. Unfortunately, Thunderbird doesn’t have good calendar or notes support , so once I’m off using Office, that will be a wasted feature for me.

Something I wish Plaxo supported: the ability to define the groups you invite people under. Currently you can invite people as “Friends”, “Business” or “Family”.  While that probably works for most people, “Business” to me could be a tech contact or an animal welfare contact. Those labels define what content you allow each group to see, so it would be nice if there were a few user-defined groups in there, too – but I can live without it.

Interestingly, I had posted on Twitter how pissed I was when Plaxo first ate my contacts. Less than a few hours later, I got a reply on my Twitter feed from the guy who heads up marketing for Plaxo, asking what was wrong. While part of me was a little creeped out by that – and still another part of me wanted to ask if part of his job as head of marketing is to troll Twitter for references to Plaxo – it certainly is nice that they’re taking a proactive approach to fixing things that customers are having trouble with.

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