WiFi Connection Issues: MacBook Pro to dlink router

After I upgraded from an iBook G4 running Tiger to a MacBook Pro running Leopard, I could not access the WiFi at my mom's house. I assumed the OS upgrade was to blame; not so. The problem was with the dlink router (USR8054). The solution? To upgrade the firmware. This is how I did it:

Step 1: Connect to the internet/router via ethernet cable.

Step 2: Locate the firmware for your specific router on the USRobotics Support site. Here are the options for USR8054 router: http://www.usr.com/support/product-template.asp?prod=8054

Step 3: Download the latest version's corresponding zip file to your computer.

Step 4: Unzip the file (by double clicking it) to reveal the .bin file.

Step 5: Access your router via: http://192.168.123.254/
*The default username is "admin". Leave the password field blank.

Step 6: Navigate to the Wireless > Firmware page. Press the "Browse" button and locate the .bin file on your computer to upload it.

Your router will restart automatically and everything should be up and running for you again! Good luck! (P.S. It took me more than a year to figure this out!)

The SST-PR-1 Mystery Solved

Last week, I noticed that a "Device" had suddenly appeared in my Airport menu: SST-PR-1 (encrypted). I'd never seen it before so I Googled around and discovered that the mysterious appearance (and disappearance) of said device is the subject of many conspiracy theorists.

Some believe it's some sort of Secret Service surveillance unit and others are convinced it is simply an indication that a Sears truck is in the area.

I am happy to report that it is indeed a Sears vehicle -- a van, to be precise. Today (only a few minutes ago) I looked out my office window to see a Sears van parked at the end a neighbo(u)rs driveway. The driver, presumably, waiting for his GPS to point him in the right direction. On a hunch, I clicked on my Airport menu and, after a few scans, the SST-PR-1 device appeared. I am but 2 feet away from my digital camera and desperately wanted to snap a picture of the device in the Airport menu with the van in the background, but alas, just yesterday, the batteries died.

Regardless of my lack of photographic evidence, since I definitely saw it, I am 110% convinced that SST-PR-1 is indeed, a Sears vehicle.

SST: Sears Service Team, perhaps?...

Don't F*ck With Terminal

Long story short, I was attempting to gain permissions to a DVD, which my computer recognizes as a "volume". (Nothing, illegal, btw.) I read up a bit (a very, little bit) on Terminal, and thought I'd try a few commands. Not only did I not gain access to this volume, but I accidentally permanently muted my system volume.

Fortunately, an hour of Googling lead me to a help discussion which suggested I re-set or zap the PRAM. Thankfully this worked, and I have vowed never to open the Terminal app again! (At least not until I educate myself on Unix commands.)

Consider yourself warned!!

Password Protect Files and Folders

DH recently told me he had text file that contained all of his passwords for every site he visits, including his banking and financial institutions. If ever his MacBook Pro was lost, stolen or hacked into, someone would have access to all of this personal information and it could devastate him. So I told him to take these 5 quick steps to password protect it:

1. Open "Disk Utility"
2. Click on the "New Image" icon and choose where you want to save it.
3. Select the size you'd like and set encryption to AES-128 (leave the format at read/write).
4. Click create and enter a password.
*Note: Be sure to uncheck the box below it so the password is not saved in the keychain. There would be no point in doing this if the password was saved in the keychain for anyone to use. There is no backdoor workaround for this, so be sure to remember your password!!
5. Launch the Disk Image you created and drag your personal/private files/folders into the image. When your done, eject the image. From that point forward, you will require the password to open it.

ACK! Adware/Spyware!!

About a year ago - after owning my MAC for over a year - just for fun, I decided to run an adware/spyware/tracking cookie scan on my iBook. And to my pleasure, nothing came up.

But, for the last couple of days, I've been automatically, and seemingly randomly redirected to a site trying to sell me ErrorSafe software. PC users are probably more than familiar with this uber nuisance, but I had been blissfully oblivious... until now. This kind of thing used to happen all the time on my PC, but I'd *never* experienced anything like this on my MAC. I decided to use (the free demo of) MacScan once again, only this time, it found 32 instances of spyware. From 0-32 in a year!

To be fair, I do recall receiving an ErrorSafe pop-up that asked if I wanted to download the software. I didn't click "No" (thinking that was most certainly a trick), but instead hit the "x" to close the window altogether. This is, apparently, how it gets you. I may as well have just clicked "Yes".

If you see this ErrorSafe pop-up/window, immediately hit cmd+Q to close your browser; it's the only way to prevent this thing from getting on your system.

I have read that this annoying ad is just that for MAC users; an annoying ad, and does not pose any sort of threat to my system, but still; finding 32 tracking cookies was not what I had expected.

Fortunately, MacScan seemed to do the trick. I have since gone into my Firefox privacy settings and I am now only accepting session cookies from trusted sites. Phew!

Reset OSX Admin Password without the Tiger CD

My husband gave my dad his old G4 desktop a few months ago. When we went to change the administrator password, something happened (perhaps the consequences of one person manning the keyboard and the other manning the mouse?...) and, for whatever reason, the password was accidentally reset to something-ruther, with no way to find out what it was. After reading several articles, we thought the only way to reset the admin password was to reinstall Tiger via the bootable CD... only the Tiger CD was in NY, and we were in Toronto.

We thought we were screwed until we discovered a set of commands that esentially allows you to reinstall Tiger without the CD (thus allowing you to recreate the administrator account). This info can come in handy if, say for instance, you purchase a used MAC and the seller disappears before giving you the admin password.

Some don't think this info should be public, but let's face it -- if someone gets a hold of your computer, unless your files are encrypted, your info/privacy is compromised.

From what I've read (I don't know this for sure), this method should work with 10.3.9 and 10.4 versions of Tiger. My dad's running 10.4.9 and it worked beautifully. Good luck!:

1. Make sure your MAC is off.

2. Turn on your MAC...

2A. When you hear the “chime", press and hold the Apple/command key and the letter 's', until you see a (scary!) black and white screen. (You are now in "Single User Mode".)

3. Type the following and be sure to include the spaces, as indicated:

/sbin/mount -uw /

PRESS ENTER/RETURN

rm /var/db/.applesetupdone

PRESS ENTER/RETURN

reboot

PRESS ENTER/RETURN

Your MAC will restart (this could take several minutes) and take you to the Tiger installation wizard (where you will be prompted to create a new administrator account and password).

If Nerds Could Wish...

Wish #1:

Dear Flickr,

I'm in love with you. I would marry you and have ten thousand of your babies if it weren't for the fact that you do not allow me to re-order the pictures in my Photostream. Please make it so that I can do this.

Thank you,
The (hopeful) Future Mrs. Flickr

Wish #2:

Dear Firefox,

I'm in love with you. But I'm also in love with photography. But you and photography don't get along. Here, lemme show you what I mean.

This is you:

Photo as viewed in
Firefox v2.0.0.1

And this safari:

Photo as viewed in
Safari v2.0.4

See the difference? Of course you do; it's UNMISTAKABLE. Please, Firefox. As soon as possible, could you figure out how to read ICC profiles? I don't want to have to open Safari every time I go to Flickr.

Thank you Kindly,
Em

¿Dónde está more hard drive space?

Want to add an extra GB (or more) of available space to your hard drive? Got 15 minutes?

Then download Monolingual:

(From their site:)

"Monolingual is a program for removing unnecessary language resources from Mac OS X, in order to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space."

When you launch Monolingual, you can choose which languages you want to keep and which ones you want to ditch. Watch in amazement as it quickly runs through every installed application, library and system file removing thousands of MBs worth of useless files.

I just finished running it and I went from 6.42 (available) GBs to...

... :: drumroll :: ...

... 8.17!! That's a grand total of 1.75 extra GBs!

Important!: The ReadMe document (easily accessed via the Help menu), contains the following bit of pertinent information regarding Adobe applications. They really should have made this a default function (who reads those "ReadMe" files, anyway?), but, nevertheless, please complete this step before proceeding:

"Adobe's newer applications have a self-heal feature which checks for the existence of certain files and refuses to launch the application if one of those files is missing. This feature does not distinguish between files that are critical components of the program and those files which are not needed, e.g. localization files. Therefore, you should exclude Adobe's (applications) from being processed by Monolingual. Open Monolingual's preferences window, add "/Applications/Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional" (for example) and deselect the checkbox next to the item."