Use the pmset command to manipulate power management settings on a hackintosh

pmset -g displays the current settings

Sometimes a simple piece of code can surprise you.

The purpose of the following piece of code was to generate a randomn number between 1 and 10, 10 times.

int i ;
int r;

for ( i =0; i<10; i++)
{
r = arc4random() ;
NSlog(@”%s \t%d \t%d  \t%d”, i, r, r %10) ;
} ;
assert(0) ;

The number 10 will never be generated. The modulo operator will never be 0.

arc4random gives a result that is an unsigned integer. When an unsigned integer is cast to an int (signed integer) the initial bit will be interpreted as a sign.

unsigned  i ;
unsigned r ;

for ( i =0; i < 10; i++)
{
r = arc4random() ;
NSlog(@”%s \t%d \t%d  \t%d”, i, r, r %10) ;
} ;
assert(0) ;

This thread is not a guide, it’s purpose is to gather information for reverse-engineering ATI cards. It’s not complete and if you can fill any of the holes, it’s very welcome. Email me here, johndavidson@gmail.com.

Support for ATI cards is provided by 2 kexts and a plug-in. The kexts are ATINDRV.kext and  an acceleration kext.

Each adapter has an associated frame-buffer driver to provide 2D support including resolution change, video-head handling, and refresh rate.

In OSX selecting the proper frame-buffer is handled by ATINDRV.kext. You need to edit a couole of string in this injector kext to specify which driver will be selected from a plugin directory located in /System/Library/Extensions/ATINDRV.kext/Contents/PlugIns/ATY_Somefile.kext

The acceleration driver is located in /System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonXXXX.kext
This driver provides hardware acceleration allowing use of QE (Quartz Exterme) and usually CI (Core Image) on more advanced adapters.

I’m currently reverse-engineering a Toshiba Satellite P200-BW1 laptop that comes with an ATI Mobility HD2600 Pro video adapter.  System Profiler shows a Vendor ID ATI 0×1002 Device ID 0×9581. This is also known as RV630 or M76.  If anyone has this driver working with OSX Leopard 10.5.7 or above, I’d love to hear from you and get a copy of the two kext files.

My best guess is to use the a standard ATINDRV.kext (from OSX Leopard 10.5.7) modified to point to the ATY_Hypoprion frame-buffer with the R2000.kext (OSX Leopard 10.5.7).

 
0×5B60 1002 = RV370 [Radeon X300/X550/X1050 Series]
0×5B62 1002 = RV380 [Radeon X600 Series]
0×5B64 1002 = RV370 [FireGL V3100]
0×9506 1002 = M88 [Mobility Radeon HD 3850 X2
0x9507 1002 = RV670 [Radeon HD 3830]
0×9540 1002 = RV710 [Radeon HD 4550]
0×9541 1002 = RV710 
0×954E 1002 = RV710
0×954F 1002 = RV710 [Radeon HD 4350]
0×9552 1002 = M92 [Mobility Radeon HD 4300 Series]
0×9553 1002 = M92 [Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series]
0×9581 1002 = RV630 [Mobility Radeon HD 2600]
0×9583 1002 = RV630 [Mobility Radeon HD 2600XT] iMac 20\\\”
0×9588 1002 = RV630 [Radeon HD 2600 XT] Mac pro
0×9591 1002 = M86 [Mobility Radeon HD 3650]
0×9593 1002 = M86 [Mobility Radeon HD 3670]
0×9598 1002 = RV630 [Radeon HD 4570]
0×9599 1002 = RV635 [Radeon HD 3600 Series]

****************************************************************

List of the available framebuffers :

QUOTE

ATY_Wormy : RV530 on X1600, some X1650 and some X1300
Used on 1st gen macbook pro and 1st gen iMac
head 1 : LVDS
head 2 : DVI+VGA

ATY_Alopias : RV580 on X1900 XT, known to work with GPU RV520 on X1800 and X1850
Used on mac pro
head 1 : DVI+VGA
head 2 : DVI+VGA

ATY_Sphyrna : RV516 on some X1300, and some X1550
Used on Xserve.
head 1 : disabled
head 2 : DVI+VGA

ATY_lago : RV610, HD2400XT / HD2400 (M74)
Used on iMac
head 1 : LVDS
head 2 : DVI+VGA

ATY_Hypoprion : RV630, HD2600Pro (M76)
Used on iMac
head 1 : LVDS
head 2 : DVI+VGA

ATY_Lamna : RV630, HD2600XT (known to work with RV670)
Used on mac pro
head 1 : DVI+VGA
head 2 : DVI+VGA

ATY_Franklin : R600, HD2900
mac model : ?
head 1 : ?
head 1 : ?

ATY_Megalodon : RV670 XT [ATI Radeon HD 3870] (known to work with RV630)
Used on mac pro, sold by AMD in PC/Mac version
head 1 : DVI+VGA
head 2 : DVI+VGA

ATY_Triakis : RV670

ATY_Prionace : ?

ATY_Caretta : ?

ATY_Motmot : RV770 [Radeon 4870]
Used on mac pro
head 1 : DVI+VGA
head 2 : DVI+VGA

ATY_Quail : M98, [Mobility Radeon 4850]
Used on iMac
head 1 : DVI
head 2 : DVI (VGA too ?)

ATY_Raven : ?
Head 1 : DVI (VGA ?)
Head 2 : DVI (VGA ?)

ATY_Cardinal : ? Card not released yet
Head 1 : ?
Head 2 : ?

ATY,Shrike
?

ATY,Peregrine
?

ATY,Flicker
?

ATY,Kakapo
?

ATY,Uakari
?

ATY,Zonalis
?

ATY,Vervet
?

ATY,Alouatta
?

ATY,Colobus
?

ATY,Baboon
?

ATY,Galago
?

ATY,Douc
?

The framebuffer controls the basic functions like resolution, refresh rate, and output type.
Each framebuffer is designed to run on a particular model of mac, and only supports the features it\\\’s designed for.
examples :
-The Sphyrna framebuffer is designed for Xserve which has no primary output, but only an external one, as secondary. As a consequence, this driver may be used to run a board with RV516 or close GPU, but will never be able to output something on the primary output.
-The Iago framebuffer is designed for iMacs with RV610 GPUs with an internal display using LVDS signal. It\\\’s then impossible to use a DVI or VGA display on the primary output. However the secondary output supports DVI + VGA, since the iMac have an external output that supports this kind of displays.
The 1st wave of framebuffer codenames are sharks (Alopias, Sphyrna, Iago, Hyproprion, Lamna, Megalodon, Triakis, Prionace, Caretta) later are birds (Franklin, Motmot, Quail, Raven).

To choose your framebuffer, you have to modify a key inside your injecter :

QUOTE

<key>@0,name</key>
<string>ATY,Wormy</string>

and

<key>@1,name</key>
<string>ATY,Wormy</string>

Replace with the codename that you want to try.

****************************************************************

List of the available acceleration kexts :

QUOTE

ATIRadeon7500.kext (tiger only) = R100 family (7000 to 7500)
ATIRadeon8500.kext (tiger only) = R200 family (8500 to 9250)
ATIRadeon9700.kext (tiger only) = R300 + R400 family (R300 = 9400 to 9800 + X300 to X600 + X1050 / R400 = X700 to X850)
ATIRadeonX1000.kext = R500 family (X950 + X1300 to X1950)
ATIRadeonX2000.kext = R600 family

The advantage of this file is that it\\\’s generic and supports the whole family at once. No need to have a specific file for each card.
Eg : ATIRadeonX1000.kext will work fine with any X1000 series (the card still has to be a \\\”real\\\” X1000 and not an older revamped model, see note below).

****************************************************************

List of the officially supported cards, following the list of present device IDs in the kexts :

ATIRadeon8500.kext from 10.4.7 :

QUOTE

0×4C66 1002 = RV280 M9 [Mobility Radeon 9200]
0×4966 1002 = RV250 [Radeon 9000/9000 Pro]
0×4967 1002 = RV250 [Radeon 9000]
0×514C 1002 = R200 [Radeon 8500 / 8500LE]
0×516C 1002 = R200 [Radeon 8500 / 8500LE]
0×5960 1002 = RV250 [Radeon 9200 Pro]
0×5961 1002 = RV280 [Radeon 9200 SE AGP]
0×5962 1002 = RV280 [Radeon 9200]
0×5963 1002 = RV280 [ATI Radeon 9200 AGP]
0×5C63 1002 = RV280 M9+ [Mobility Radeon 9200]

ATIRadeon9700.kext from 10.4.7 :

QUOTE

0×3E50 1002 = RV380 [Radeon X600]
0×3E54 1002 = RV380 [FireGL V3200]
0×4144 1002 = R300 [Radeon 9500 Series]
0×4148 1002 = R350 [Radeon 9800 SE]
0×4150 1002 = RV350 [Radeon 9600]
0×4152 1002 = RV360 [Radeon 9600 XT]
0×4A48 1002 = R420 [Radeon X800 Series]
0×4A49 1002 = R420 [Radeon X800 GT]
0×4A4A 1002 = R420 [Radeon X800 Series]
0×4A4B 1002 = R420 [Radeon X800 XT]
0×4A4C 1002 = R420 [Radeon X800 Series]
0×4A4D 1002 = R420 [FireGL X3-256]
0×4A4E 1002 = M18 [Mobility Radeon 9800]
0×4E44 1002 = R300 [Radeon 9700/9500 Series]
0×4E48 1002 = R350 [Radeon 9800 Pro]
0×4E50 1002 = M10 [Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro]
0×4E54 1002 = M10 [Mobility FireGL T2/T2e]
0×4E56 1002 = M12 [Mobility Radeon 9550 

ATIRadeonX1000.kext from 10.4.11 :

QUOTE

0x7109 1002 = R520 [Radeon X1800] (Primary)
0×7142 1002 = RV515 PRO [Radeon X1300/X1550 Series] (Primary)
0×7146 1002 = RV515 [Radeon X1300] (Primary)
0×71C5 1002 = M56P [Radeon Mobility X1600] (
0×71C0 1002 = RV530 [Radeon X1600] (Primary) (iMac)
0×7240 1002 = R580 [Radeon X1900] (Primary)
0×7249 1002 = R580 [Radeon X1900 XT] (Primary)

ATIRadeonX1000.kext from 10.5.7 :

QUOTE

0×7109 1002 = R520 [Radeon X1800]
0×7142 1002 = RV515 PRO [Radeon X1300/X1550 Series]
0×7146 1002 = RV515 [Radeon X1300]
0×7187 1002 = ? [Radeon X1300]
0×71C0 1002 = RV530 [Radeon X1600] (Primary) (iMac)
0×71C5 1002 = RV530 (M56P) [Radeon Mobility X1600] (mac book pro)
0×71DE 1002 = RV535 [Radeon X2500]
0×7210 1002 = RV550 [Mobility Radeon HD 2300]
0×7240 1002 = R580 [Radeon X1900] (Primary) (mac pro)
0×7249 1002 = R580 [Radeon X1900 XT] (Primary)
0×7291 1002 = RV560 [Radeon X1650]

ATIRadeonX2000.kext from 10.5.7 :

QUOTE

0×9400 1002 R600 XT [Radeon HD 2900 XT]
0×9400 1002 = R600 [Radeon HD 2900 XT]
0×9401 1002 = R600 XT [Radeon HD 2900 XT]
0×9402 1002 = R600 XT [Radeon HD 2900 XT]
0×9403 1002 = R600 XT [Radeon HD 2900 Pro] iMac 24\\\”
0×9440 1002 = RV770 [Radeon HD 4870]
0×9442 1002 = RV770 [Radeon HD 4800 Series]
0×944A 1002 = M98 [Mobility Radeon HD 4850]
0×9456 1002 = RV770 [ATI FirePro V8700]
0×945A 1002 = M98 [Mobility Radeon HD 4870]
0×9480 1002 = M96 [Mobility Radeon HD 4650]
0×9488 1002 = RV730 [Radeon HD 4650]
0×9490 1002 = RV730 [Radeon HD 4670]
0×949E 1002 = RV730 [FirePro V5700]
0×94c8 1002 = RV610 [Mobility Radeon HD 2400 XT] iMac 20\\\”
0×94c9 1002 = RV610 [Mobility Radeon HD 2400]
0×9500 1002 = ?
0×9501 1002 = RV670 XT [Radeon HD 3870]
0×9504 1002 = RV670 [Mobility Radeon HD 3850]
0×9505 1002 = RV670 [Radeon HD 3850] 

ATIRadeonX2000.kext from 10.6.3 :

QUOTE

0×9400 1002 R600 XT [Radeon HD 2900 XT]
0×9400 1002 = R600 [Radeon HD 2900 XT]
0×9401 1002 = R600 XT [Radeon HD 2900 XT]
0×9402 1002 = R600 XT [Radeon HD 2900 XT]
0×9403 1002 = R600 XT [Radeon HD 2900 Pro] iMac 24\\\”
0×9440 1002 = RV770 [Radeon HD 4870]
0×9442 1002 = RV770 [Radeon HD 4800 Series]
0×944A 1002 = M98 [Mobility Radeon HD 4850]
0×9456 1002 = RV770 [ATI FirePro V8700]
0×945A 1002 = M98 [Mobility Radeon HD 4870]
0×9480 1002 = M96 [Mobility Radeon HD 4650]
0×9488 1002 = RV730 [Radeon HD 4650]
0×9490 1002 = RV730 [Radeon HD 4670]
0×949E 1002 = RV730 [FirePro V5700]
0×94c8 1002 = RV610 [Mobility Radeon HD 2400 XT] iMac 20\\\”
0×94c9 1002 = RV610 [Mobility Radeon HD 2400]
0×94a0 1002 = M97 [Mobility Radeon HD 4830]
0×9500 1002 = ?
0×9501 1002 = RV670 XT [Radeon HD 3870]
0×9504 1002 = M88 [Mobility Radeon HD 3850]
0×9505 1002 = RV670 [Radeon HD 3850] 
0×9506 1002 = M88 [Mobility Radeon HD 3850 X2
0x9507 1002 = RV670 [Radeon HD 3830]
0×9540 1002 = RV710 [Radeon HD 4550]
0×9541 1002 = RV710 
0×954E 1002 = RV710
0×954F 1002 = RV710 [Radeon HD 4350]
0×9552 1002 = M92 [Mobility Radeon HD 4300 Series]
0×9553 1002 = M92 [Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series]
0×9581 1002 = RV630 [Mobility Radeon HD 2600]
0×9583 1002 = RV630 [Mobility Radeon HD 2600XT] iMac 20\\\”
0×9588 1002 = RV630 [Radeon HD 2600 XT] Mac pro
0×9591 1002 = M86 [Mobility Radeon HD 3650]
0×9593 1002 = M86 [Mobility Radeon HD 3670]
0×9598 1002 = RV630 [Radeon HD 4570]
0×9599 1002 = RV635 [Radeon HD 3600 Series]

That means if you have one of the boards above, it should be supported, however that support will be limited by the outputs that the framebuffer is designed to support.
To enable the use of a kext for your card, you have to insert your dev ID inside the plist of the chosen kext, if it\\\’s not already there.
GPUs prior to R500 are only supported up to Tiger 10.4.7 with OpenGL.framework from the same version (support has been dropped with later versions). No way to get one of those working with Leopard. You still could load the kexts but the framework would panic. Those GPUs also never got any intel framebuffer.

Note about board numbers and generations :
Better rely on the GPU model than the board name, those are confusing and don\\\’t really mean a thing, ATI do what they want with them. Two cards with a very close number, can be very different, and on the opposite, two cards with a very different number can be very close if not identical.
Example : there are three X1300 models, different enough to use different kexts, and be supported or not.
A marketing trick consists in rebranding some models that use chips from older generation with up to date names so that they don\\\’t feel old.
This is the case of the X2500 which is actually a X1000 series card, hence its support by the X1000 kext, instead of the X2000 one, as the card name would suggest. Same with X1050, it\\\’s not a X1000 but would use the 9700 kext.
To get a detailed list of board names and their GPUs, you can check this database.

Missing so far :
- Some framebuffers missing/unknown.
- Some device IDs unkown.

PS : This thread is not for support. People seeking for help about their card will have their post deleted.

Based on an Article from Gerald Naveen in India

VLC can be used as a streaming media player.  And by enabling one of its various input interfaces, it’s even possible to stream a webcam using just VLC.

To stream a webcam:

Here’s a quick tip. If you find yourself needing to access hidden files on your Macintosh, run this from the terminal. Please note that the inverse of the first command will restore your default settings.

Display Hidden Files

# defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

# KillAll Finder

These are some notes from trouble-shooting the Buffalo Wifi  WLI-UC-GN USB dongle on OS X.

I’m using an older Linksys BEFW1154 802.11 B wireless router as my test access point. I wasted a day trouble-shooting my airport because I plugged the cable modem into a LAN port rather than the WAN port. When I scanned for the router it showed up as an access point with 98% signal strength, but I couldn’t connect to it. I wasted most of a day trying to trouble-shoot the connection and finally reinstalled the Buffalo WLI-UC-GN before discovering my mistake.

In OSX the internal ethernet adapter is usually configured as en0 while the airport adapter is configured as en1, Use the ifconfig command to view the configuration of the ports.

ifconfig

Once you’ve verified the interface is correctly set up, you might also want to check the routing table.

netstat  -rn    ; display routing table

ping 255.255.255.255   ; broadcasr ping to all possible ip addresses to fill the arp table.

arp -a

BOOTP protocol

RAlink Utility and activate the AGRO profile

Agro Cafe 192.168.0.1 at 0:1b:11:4a:25:ab on en1 [ethernet]

Insanely Mac Forum Thread

Here’s what I did to get the Buffalo WLI-UC-GN Wireless N USB dongle working with OSX 10.5.8, Darwin kernel 9.8.0.

I got the idea for the fix from ayenon . The site is in Japanese, but you can get the main idea by looking at the screen print.

I chose the Buffalo Wireless N USB dongle WLI-UC-GN because it uses the Ralink chipset which is well supported on Macs. And it was on sale for about $40 at NCIX in Vancouver.

I installed the driver, rebooted and plugged the dongle in. The dongle showed up in System Profiler, but the blue activity light on the USB dongle stayed on constantly. On a properly installed dongle the activity light should be flashing. I also got a “No Device” status when I opened the Ralink Utility. The problem boiled down to an incorrect product id in the info.plist file for the device’s driver.

The Buffalo USB dongle uses the Ralink 2870 chipset. (Google “Buffalo WLI-UC-GN chipset”

1. Download the Macintosh drivers version 2.0.1.0 from RAlink Macintosh Drivers. The drivers for for Buffalo WLI-UC-GN are labelled USB(RT2870 /RT2770 /RT307X /RT2070 /RT3572).

2. Plug in the Wifi dongle and verify it is showing up in System Profiler.
Click Apple =>About this Mac => More Info => USB => 802.11n WLAN

Verify that the device is being recognized and has enough current:

Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 450

3. Write down the Product ID and Device ID for the WLI-UC-GN, This should be the same for everybody.

Click Apple =>About this Mac => More Info => USB => 802.11n WLAN
The Product ID 0×014f or 335 in decimal
The Device ID 0×0411 or 1041 in decimal

4, Open up /System/Library/Extensions/RT2870USBWirelessDriver.kext/Contents/Info.plist using nano and scroll down until you reach the information related to Buffalo.

There are 3 entries 2870-1, 2870-2 and 2870-3.

The Product ID in the third entry needs to be changed from 336 to 335 to match the settings from system profiler above.

Write the file out.
Exit

4. Delete /System/Library/Extensions.mkext

cd /System/Library
sudo rm -R Extensions.mkext

5. Reboot (You should see a message {”Updating Boot Caches”)

6. Remember to boot with the -f parameter.

Important! While the system is loading the blue activity light on the WLI-UC-GN should start flashing. If the light on the dongle stays blue constantly it is not installed correctly.

If the blue light on the dongle is flashing you can go on to the next step.

7. Go into System Preferences and add another device for the USB Wifi dongle.

Apple => System Preferences => Network
Click on the + sign in the lower left. An additional drop down menu entry will appear in the list for “Ethernet”. Highlight it and click create. Click Apply.

8. Go into the Applications => RAlink utility => Site Survey and you should see the Wireless access points.

9. Add a profile for your wireless access point.

10. Open terminal and delete /System/Library/Extensions.mkext again. Reboot again. When the system starts the USB dongle light should be flashing. Open the Ralink Utility and verify that you’re connected. Check the link status. Open Firefox. Enter the URL google.com and verify that you are connected.

Done!

When upgrading always try to upgrade to a new volume ideally on a separate partition. That way if anything goes wrong you still can boot into the old working volume.

I upgraded a client’s laptop from OS X 10.5.2 tp 10.5.8 in order to run the iPhone Software Development Kit. Unfortunately after the upgrade there were a number of problems.

Fixing the Master Boot Record:
(HFS+ partition error message fix)

sudo fdisk -u /dev/rdisk0

Showing the OS X hidden files:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

KillAll Finder

Laptop Keyboard and Trackpad not recognized:

On OS X 10.5.8, the internal keyboard and trackpad need 2 driver files in /System/Library/Extensions

AppleACPIPlatform.kext
ApplePS2Controller.kext

If you do a kextstat on a working OS X 10.5.8 Mac you’ll see the following drivers loaded.

sudo -s ; switch to superuser
kextstat | grep PS2

39 0 0×34ee6000 0×2000 0×1000 org.tgwbd.driver.ACPIPS2Nub (1.0.0d1) <19 18 12>
40 2 0×34eed000 0×5000 0×4000 com.apple.driver.ApplePS2Controller (1.1.0) <12>
41 0 0×35119000 0×3000 0×2000 com.apple.driver.ApplePS2Keyboard (1.1.0) <40 27 12>
77 0 0×3d539000 0×4000 0×3000 com.apple.driver.ApplePS2Trackpad (1.1.0) <40 27 12>

Since I hadn’t deleted my old volume, I was just able to copy the drivers from the old working volume.

1. Put Disc in drive

2. Startup PC

3. Let the PC run into the CD

4. Choose the Recovery Console

5. Type you admin username

6. Type your admin password

7. Type fixmbr

8. Type exit

9. Eject Disc

10. Load windows !

11. Enjoy !

All of Apple’s laptops come with a built-in wireless adapter.Why would you need a wireless N USB adapter?

There are a lot of reasons…. Perhaps the wireless asapter on your laptop is broken. Often when you buy an old used laptop the previous owner has scrounged and sold the wireless adapter. And if you have an older laptop, it’s nice to upgrade from a wireless G adapter to a wireless N adapter for improved reception. If you are building a hackintosh laptop often OS X won’t recognize the built in adapter on you laptop for example the Intel 4965 adapter which is often found on Toshiba laptops. The only solution then is to buy another adapter.

After checking out Simply Computing, WestWorld and Mac Market I came up dry trying to find a Wireless N USB adapter for my Hackintosh laptop. No one even wanted to talk about using a USB wireless adapter on a Mac laptop. Impossible!

Well they’re wrong. RAlink for example develops drivers for all their wireless chipsets that work with Windows, Linux and Mac. These chipsets are used by a variety of manufactures to build Wireless N USB adapters. The one I’m using is the Buffalo WLI-UC-GN that I bought at NCIX on Broadway near Burrard for around $35.

These are some brief notes about things I’ve learned building Hackintosh computers.

OS X 10.5 Leopard distributions I’ve worked with

OS X Kalyway 10.5.2
iDeneb Version 1.4 10.5.6
iDeneb Version 1.6 10.5.8 Light

I recommend iDeneb 1.6 because you’ll end up with the most up-to-date version of OS X Leopard 10.5.8 (released in August of 2009). You’ll also be able to use Apple Software Update directly to install the latest updates from Apple.

Processor
Apple OS X Leopard is only supported on Intel and Power PC processors. iLife 2009 requires a dual core processor. With Snow Leopard 10.6 only Intel processors are supported. So you want to have at least a dual core Intel processor.

Video Cards:
The OS X graphical interface relies on the video card to provide accelerated graphics. Only a limited number of video cards have OS X drivers so it’s very important to ensure your graphics adapter is supported.

ATI Video Cards:
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT works well (Used in the Mac Pro G5)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 (Used in MacBook Pro 17 inch)

Avoid ATI HD Mobility Pro 2600 video adapter (found in many Toshiba laptops) especially, If you are stuck with this adapter just delete all the ATI driver kexts in /System/Library/Extensions and use the default VESA 3.0 driver. You won’t have video acceleration or Quartz, but it’s the best you’re going to do.

Intel GMA 950, GMA X3100 and GMA 4500 are all good choices.

The Intel GMA 950 is the video card used in the Mac mini. The limitation is that it uses shared memory with the processor.

Nvidia GeForce 7300 LE, GeForce 7300 GT (Mac Pro), nVidia GeForce GT 120 (Mac Pro), NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT, nVidia GeForce 9400M (Mac Mini) video cards work well.

Audio Cards: Intel High Definition Audio works well with VoodooHDA driver kext.

Fixing Common Minor Issues

• It’s common for the system not to boot after the installation.
Press F8 at Darwin boot prompt and type: -v –s (hit enter). The -v option boots you in verbose mode to allow you to see any error messages during the boot. The -s option boots you into single user terminal mode instead of the OS X graphical interface.

• After you see ‘root#’, type ‘/sbin/fsck –fy’ and hit ‘Enter’. This will correct any corrupt files on the installation partition.

Type “/sbin/mount -uw /” and hit “Enter” again. This will mount the installation partition.

• Type “touch /var/db/.AppleSetupDone” and hit “Enter”. This will allpw you to enter the user customization necessary before the first boot.

• You will need to set up a password for “root”, type: “passwd” (yes, passwd without the “or”) and hit “Enter”;

choose your password.

Note: when you log in for the first time, your user name will be “root” and the password is the one you just set up.

• Now, after you log in, set up your personal account. (It’s not recommended to use ‘Root Account’) Under Settings  User Account, you will have an option of creating an account, do that.

• If you want to set Darwin boot options permanently edit /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist.

Open it with BBEdit or nano.

Useful terminal commands:

sudo -s ; switch to superuser, all termainal commands after this are executed as superuser

lspci package used to show manufacturer and device id

uname -a ; show the kernel version

OS X kext files (Driver files):

kext files are like dynamically linked library files in Windows or modules in Linux
kext files are dynalically linked files used to extend the Operating system to handle drivers

http://www.kexts.com ; growing library of OS X kext files

sudo kextstat ; show all the currently loaded kext files
sudo kextload ; manually load a kext file
sudo kextload -t ; manually load a kext with diagnostic messages
sudo kextunload ; unload a dynamically loaded kext file

kext files need to have root:wheel ownership before they can be loaded

you also need to clear the kext cache and reboot before the driver will be loaded.

Useful websites:

http://www.kexts.com
http://www.ihackintosh.com
http://www.insanelymac.com

These are the additional applications I recommend installing after a fresh Windows install. All the software below is available free at Filehippo except Tunelier available in Downloads.

AVG anti-virus (always install first)
Firefox web browser (a much better browser than Internet Explorer)
CCleaner (Crap Cleaner)
Winzip (for handling zip files)
Flashplayer (for Youtube and Hulu videos)
VLC media-player (plays almost all media formats)
*Skype and Gizmo (if the customer uses IP telephony)
OpenOffice (Word-processing, SpreadSheets, Presentations)
If I’m going to be using the machine for web administration, I also install:

Tunnelier (SSH client)
Filezilla (FTP client)
utorrent (Bit torrent client)
Hamachi (Virtual Private Network)
EasyBCD (BootLoader Editor)
RealVNC (Remote Desktop Software)
VMware (Virtual Machine)
Microsoft Visual Studio

Important the install only works with MBR partition scheme with OS X loaded in the primary partition rdisk0s1!!

need to boot with -x -f after the initial install.

Getting the Intel High Definition Sound working:

verify Darwin kernel 9.6.0
download Voodoohda.kext from sourceforge.net
kextload -t VoodooHDA.kext
Apple=>System Preferences=>Sound to control preferences

use the directory utility to enable root user
Finder => Go => Utilities => directory utility => Edit => enable root user

add mobility HD2400 driver to boot plist using EFIstudio

Finder => Applications => iDeneb applications => EFIStudio => Display

download Firefox using the Safari browser and install del.icio.us buttons

Apple => Software Update => All updates except the combo update

I have a Toshiba Satellite P200-BW1 laptop that triple boots into Windows 7, OS X or Ubuntu Linux, so I have a good feel for the most popular operating systems. Apple’s OS X is the best operating system out there in my opinion.

I do have several issues running OS X on my Toshiba Satellite A200; ATI HD 2600 PRO Mobility won’t run in accelerated graphics mode, the Intel 4965 AGN wireless adapter isn’t recognized and only one of the dual core processors is recognized. Even with all these problems I still prefer to run OS X if possible. I just get more done when I’m running OS X.

I often like to work in coffee shops so I absolutely need to have wireless working so the problem with OS X not using my wireless adapter meant I couldn’t use OS X while working away from my home network.

I’m running Kalyway OS X 10.5.2 on my desktop. The three issues I have with the desktop are:

Only one CPU recognized Fix

During boot hit the F8 key to allow boot up configuration and enter:
rd=disk0s3 cpus=2

This tells the system to boot from the 4th partition (partitions are numbered starting from 0) and the the first SATA drive (drives are numbered starting at 0)
I needed to find a USB wireless N adapter that works with OS X. Fortunalely RALink writes drivers for their chipsets that work with Windows, Linux and OS X. Here’s a link to the driver RAlink’s driver page.

RALink drivers for Macintosh

The hardest part is finding out the chipset the wireless adapter uses. I found a Buffalo WLI-UC-GNUSB wireless N adapter on sale for 29.99 at NCIX near Broadway and Burrard in Vancouver. To find out the chip set Buffalo uses, do a Google search for

Buffalo WLI-UC-GN chipset

Sometimes clients unplug or power down a printer in the middle of printing a document. This can leave a document in the print queue that is impossible to delete or finish printing. Often the printer icon will have a yellow exclamation mark indicating an error on the device. Trying to delete or cancel the document from the print queue just gives an error message.

1. Turn the printer off for 5 minutes, turn it back on and then try to delete the document from the print queue .

If that doesn’t work try …

2. Unplug the printer from it’s original USB port and plug it into a different USB port. Wait for the printer driver to be installed on the new USB port. Try printing the document using this printer. If printer works delete the original printer driver.

If that dowan’t work …

3. Reinstall the printer
a. Start => Devices and Printers
b. Right click on the printer that’s giving the trouble => Remove device
c. Unplug the printer
d. Power doen the computer/Wait 5 minutes/Power on the computer
e. Plug the printer back in
f. Wait for the driver to be reinstalled
g. Reprint the document

Would you like to be able to monitor your home, pet or child from anywhere on the internet. Or maybe you’d like to monitor the weather or watch a birdhouse online. This project provides an automatically updating image on the free webspace that comes with Shaw Broadband internet access.

Project Hardware:

A USB webcam – almost any Microsoft or Logitech webcam
A USB extension cable to reach from the webcam to your computer
A camera tripod (or the webcam can be duct-taped into position)

High-speed internet access.

Software

Windows XP, Vista or 7 + Tincam

OS X + Evocam

Filezilla to view your files on the free shaw hosting space.

Tincam and Evocam are both simple webcam servers that use ftp to update a webpage with an image from your webcam.

Both packages lets you specify how often to update the image; from every so many seconds to minutes. Seconds works well for rapidly changing scenes like a birdwatcher webcam. Every 5 minutes works well for something like a weather webcam. If you update the image more than once every 5 minutes be sure to check that your internet connection is fast enough to finish uploading the image before the next picture needs to be sent.

Hosting and internet access
ftp server        ftp.shaw.ca
username        shaw_email_username      (your shaw email username)
password        your_shae_email_password

After starting the capture, you can view your image at

http://members.shaw.ca/yourusername/webcam.html

Tincam costs $19, but a free 30 day evaluation copy can be downloaded from their website.

Tincam software download.

After you have the camera set-up. You can buy a domain name from GoDaddy and forward the name to your free Shaw hosting webspace.

A business phone line from TELUS will set you back about $60 a month. There is a much cheaper alternative that uses the internet to transport your calls rather than the familiar wired phone network.

Most business people have heard of Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP. It’s an alternative to using the regular phone network also known as the the Public Switched Phone Network or PSTN for short.

The VoIP network uses a protocol called Session Initiation Protocol or SIP for the call set up and RTP for the voice data path. The PSTN network uses separate paths for call set up and data. Signalling System 7 is used for call set up.

There are companies that provide gateways between the SIP and PSTN networks.

I purchased a 604 DID from Gizmo. Another source for DIDs is voip.ms

A local alternative for 604 DIDs is People Line, based here in Vancouver. People Line let’s you port your regular 604 number to VoIP. People line charges $10/month or $100/year.

A little more technical detail:

When someone phones my 604 DID, Gizmo (or People Line) acts as a call termination service for the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) DID and also as a gateway to the voice over internet protocol (VoIP) network.This service is known as PSTN (Public Switch Telephone Network) call termination.

I use Gizmo for dialing out to the PSTN. This is know as PSTN call origination. Gizmo’s rate is much more reasonable than a cell phone; about 2 cents a minute anywhere in North America.

For some reason I have problems with Gizmo’s voicemail so I use Voxalot which has a full-featured voicemail service.

I’m often switching between Windows, OS X and Linux (flavor of Unix). Windows and OS X use a graphical user interface (GUI) for just about everything, but Linux often requires me to use terminal commands. These are some cheat codes to help me remember my Unix.

Grub menu.lst file
=================================
title Ubuntu 8.04.3 LTS, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=d4a5f333-2120-467a-adc6-64b33c6e0182 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04.3 LTS, memtest86+
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Other operating systems:
root

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title Windows Vista/Longhorn (loader)
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

# This entry is to boot Mac OS X
#

title Mac OS X 10.5.6
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/boot

==============================================================

Vi editor

“Esc” “Shift” “Colon” => Enter command mode
In command mode, navigate to the character you want to delete and press d
:set number
:set ruler

^ begining of line
$ end of line

~/.vimrc startup file for vi

Bash
/etc/initab #default runlevel
tail -f /var/log.messages
ps axf |
lsmod
lsusb
lsof #list open files
kill -9 “lsof -t /memstick”
mkboot # create a grub boot disk
window managers xdm gdm kdm
dpkg –purge –force-depend xserver-xorg

/etc/init.d/sshd start
/etc/init.d/sshd stop
Remote ssh client needs the public key

tsock firefox

Notes to myself for penetration testing using Ubuntu Hardy Heron with Toshiba Satellite P200-BW1 (built-in Intel 4965AGN wirless card)

1. Check to ensure the Intel 4965AGN driver module is installed

lsmod | grep iwl

2. Put the wireless card into monitor mode

ifconfig wlan0 down
iwconfig wlan0 mode monitor
ifconfig wlan0 up

3. Edit the kismet.conf in /etc/kismet/ to add the source interface

source=iwl4965,wlan0,test

4. sudo kismet

5. sudo wireshark -i wlan0 ; allows you to choose the interface you want to monitor after loading

I use SIPphone to register clients Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones. These are some notes to myself to use when trouble-shooting VoIP.

Here’s the testing protocol I use to ensure that VoIP number is properly set-up on the SIPphone server-side.

Using SIPbroker Vancouver Public Switched Telephone Number (PSTN) Gateway to ensure VoIP client is properly set-up.

1) Dial SIPbroker Vancouver PSTN Gateway 604.630.9700, wait for greeting (”SIPbroker PSTN gateway please enter the number you wish to connect to now!”)

2)Connect to number “*747 **” to ensure SIPphone proxy is running

You can also connect to the following numbers
*747-1-800-555-TELL weather, news, technology, sports (open)
*747-1-222-XXX-XXXX create your own conference room by choosing any 7-digit number (open)

3) Connect to the SIPphone echotest server *747-1-747-474-ECHO (3246)

Note there is about a 10 second delay between entering the sip phone number and connecting with the number (longer than with a conventional phone)

4) Use the open port tester at yougetsignal to ensure ports 5004, 5005, 5006 and 64064 are open.

5)Now you can download the GIZMO softphone and install it on your client’s computer.

I only spend $4/month for a 604.xxx.xxxx Vancouver phone line.

The reason my phone line is so much cheaper than a Telus phone line is that I use my broadband internet connection for making and receiving voice calls instead of the conventional public phone system. And my phone is a software phone called GIZMO that I downloaded free from the internet. I use my computer speakers and a microphone instead of a conventional handset.

Phone calls over the internet use a protocol called Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), so I’ll call an internet phone call a SIP call to distinguish it from a plain old telephone (POTS) call. SIP calls use the IP network while POTS calls use the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)

My SIP phone number, sip:7470078316@proxy001.sipphone.com, looks more like an email address than a conventional phone number. How is my sister on the public phone system with a regular telephone going to phone this strange looking number?

There are a couple of ways. The first method uses a gateway server that has both POTS connections and SIP connections. My sister phones the local gateway using her POTS phone and waits for the greeting. The phone number for the PSTN gateway in Vancouver is 604.630.9700 and greets her with “Welcome to the SIPbroker PTSN public gateway”. Now she has to enter my sip phone number. A conventional phone doesn’t have alphabetic keys for the @proxy001.sipphone.com part. Instead she uses *747 which is shorthand for use the sipphone proxy, followed by my sip number;

*747 1 747 007 8316 #

And we’re connected!

The second method needs more setup, but makes it a lot easier for people to reach you. You buy a DID (Direct Inward Dialing) number from sipphone, sipbroker or one of the many other companies out there. A DID is a 604.464.1346 or 778.464.1346 number. With Sipphone this is called a CALL IN number and costs $12 for 3 months.

When you buy the DID, the company who sold it to you creates an entry is a database called ENUM. The ENUM database contains a mapping between your DID number and your SIP number.

In the second method my sister just dials 604.464.1346. When the number arrives at the telephone company switch it recognizes the number as a DId and forwards it to the gateway server at SIPphone using the PSTN. The server has to decide how to terminate the call. It looks in the ENUM database for the number 604.464.1346, finds your SIP address and forwards the data to the softphone on my computer.

A local alternative for 604 DIDs is People Line, based here in Vancouver. People Line let’s you port your 604 PSTN number to VoIP. People line charges $10/month or $100/year.

A little more technical detail:

When someone phones the DID, SIPphone acts as a call termination service for the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) DID and a SIP gateway. This service is known as PSTN (Public Switch Telephone Network) call termination.

Signaling System 7 the backbone of both the mobile and Public Switched Phone Networks used two separate channels; a control channel for setting up and controlling the calls and a data channel, The traditional port for the control channel is port 64064, An unencrypted call uses port 5004 while port 5005 is reserved for encrypted calls.

I use Gizmo for dialing out to the PSTN. This is know as call origination. Gizmo’s rate is much more reasonable than a cell phone; about 2 cents a minute anywhere in North America.

For voicemail I use Voxalot which has a full-featured voicemail service.

City: Local Phone Number: Sponsor:

Abbotsford +1-604-755-3458 Link2VoIP
Calgary +1-403-775-2208 LES.NET
Edmonton +1-780-628-3504 LES.NET
Fort Mcmurray +1-780-747-2065 Link2VoIP
Grand Prairie +1-780-833-2565 Link2VoIP
Halifax +1-902-482-3738 LES.NET
Hamilton +1-905-390-1547 Link2VoIP
Kelowna +1-250-469-9037 Link2VoIP
Kingston +1-613-887-2383 Link2VoIP
Kitchener +1-519-957-1904 LES.NET
Lethbridge +1-403-388-3611 Link2VoIP
London +1-519-937-1450 Link2VoIP
Medicine Hat +1-403-488-3600 Link2VoIP
Montreal +1-514-908-9707 Link2VoIP
Oshawa +1-905-674-6127 Link2VoIP
Oshawa +1-289-222-FREE Voice Network Inc
Ottawa +1-613-686-1602 LES.NET
Quebec City +1-418-948-3307 LES.NET
Red Deer +1-403-755-8510 Link2VoIP
Sherbrooke +1-819-780-2742 Link2VoIP
St. Catherines +1-905-378-2953 Link2VoIP
Toronto +1-647-476-FREE Voice Network Inc
Trois Rivieres +1-819-840-5332 Link2VoIP
Vancouver +1-604-628-4266 LES.NET
Vancouver +1-604-630-9700 Link2VoIP
Victoria +1-250-412-6019 Link2VoIP
Waterloo +1-519-772-5767 Link2VoIP
Whistler +1-604-966-2036 Link2VoIP
Windsor +1-519-968-2444 Link2VoIP
Winnipeg +1-204-480-4085 LES.NET

Blue Host offers an excellent value website hosting package at the best price I can find. What truly sets them apart from all the other shared hosting companies is the special software they have developed to overcome the weakness of a traditional shared host.

The problem with traditional shared hosting has always been that since you are sharing one server with dozens or hundreds of other sites performance can be erratic. Depending on how busy the other sites are on the server your pages might load lightening fast, slow or time-out. Greedy Gus’ websites running on the same server could be feasting on the server horsepower while your site was starving on the leftovers.

Bluehost’s software gaurantees that each account on the server gets the same portion of the server’s processing. This gaurantees that your site will have stable performance independent of how busy the other sites on the same server get! Basically you get the stable performance of a private server at the price of a shared host.

You can read more details about what sets Bluehost apart on Matt Heaton’s (the CEO of Bluehost) blog.

Here are some reasons I like Bluehost. #1 the stable performance like I mentioned earlier. Second is the front-end for managing your sites. They use cPanel which is generally recognized as the best application for managing your hosts. cPanel is an intuitive, easy-to-use graphical application that automates most everything you need to manage your website.

One thing that almost turned me off Bluehost is they go overboard with their marketing. Maybe it’s the skeptic in me but the offers of UNLIMITED hosting space, file transfer and domains hosting set alarm bells off in my head. Don’t let the hyperbole turn you off.

Here’s another thing I like. One Free Domain Forever!. Forget about remembering to pay that annual fee to renew your domain name.

And they also offer

SSH (Secure Shell) access, SSL, FTP, Stats
CGI, Ruby (RoR), Perl, PHP, MySQL
2000/2002 Front Page Extensions

They have a support forum and fast turnaround on customer service.

All this for $ 6.99 per month.

Its been 14 months since I purchased my hosting and I’ve only had a couple of minor issues that were quickly resolved. One tip, that is true with any hosting service, is be sure to do regular backups. Bluehost does backups, but it can take a bit of time for customer support to find and restore your files.

If you want to buy a shared hosting, Bluehost is highly recommended. I do make an affiliate fee if you sign up with Bluehost.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Bluehost, click on the link.

Shared hosting packages are cheap. But often hundreds of sites are running on one server which means slow response times for your site.

You can view the names of other sites being run on the same shared host by entering the name of a site into find shared host neighbours.

How it works:

Usually all the hosts on a shared server share the same ip address. You can find the domainnames of all the sites on a shared ip address by doing a reverse ip lookup.

You can use this information to assess whether a prospective or current host is cramming too many sites onto one server.

One tip, though — if you’re trying to assess a prospective web host, like hostgator.com or godaddy.com, you need to type in the address of one of its client sites, and not the web host’s site itself.

Web hosts have been know to host their own website on a different, more reliable server in order to make themselves out to be better than they really are.

Choosing a Domain name registrars

by John Davidson

You won’t need much support from a domain name registrar so why pay $35 if you can get away with only $10?

Be wary of the sites that offer $2.99 names though. They lure you in with a cheap price for the first year like $2.99, but then soak you each year after when you need to renew your name. Since transferring registrars is generally a pain-free process, don’t hesitate to transfer the name to a cheaper registrar. Do not leave the transfer to the last minute before the name expires! Give the registrar at least 30 days notice.

I register all my domain names with GoDaddy because they’re reasonably priced and have never let me down. .COM domain names are generally about $10. To save a few dollars, type “godaddy” into Google and click on the resulting “sponsored link” and you can usually score a promotion code. RetailMeNot is another good source for the latest GoDaddy coupon codes.

One thing to watch out for with GoDaddy. During the registration process they ruthlessly try to upsell you additional domain names, hosting and other add-ons. Be sure to double-check what you’re buying and the final price before checking out.

West 4 Communications can handle the domain name registration process for you. Please contact us for further details.

by John Davidson

There are a few annoying security holes with GoDaddy shared hosting that can be easily fixed. The first annoyance is the default GoDaddy login page does not use https:// (secure encrypted login) but instead ordinary http:// which transmits your username and password in plain text.

On the GoDaddy home page leave the username/customer# and password boxes empty and hit the GO button. This will bring up a secure login page.

The second annoyance relates to the default way to transfer files to a shared GoDaddy hosting account is using File Tranfer Protocol (FTP). The problem with FTP is that it transfers your data in plain text including your username and password.

A much better way to connect is using Secure Shell Protocol (SSH). GoDaddy now allows you to enable SSH on your shared hosting accounts. You can check out the details at Enabling SSH on Your GoDaddy Linux Shared Hosting Account.

There is one important caveat. If you have databases on your account you cannot enable SSH. The work-around is to backup your databases, delete the databases, and then enable SSH. After SSH is enabled, you can restore your databases.

To avoid this minor head-ache be sure to enable SSH access before setting up any databases.

The third annoyance is the default GoDaddy database setup has only one user with global read/write permissions to all your databases. In the event an intruder gains access to one user account, he has access to all your databases including possibly customer records. To limit the risk each database should have a unique user with the minimum privileges for that database.

West 4 Communications can secure and maintain your hosting accounts for you while you concentrate on your business. Please contact us for more details.

What is an IP address?

by John Davidson

Every telephone needs to have a phone number to be able to use the public phone network. Similarly every device connected to the public Internet needs a unique number known as an Internet Protocol (IP) address. IP addresses consist of four numbers separated by periods and look something like 72.14.190.50. Each digit can be between 0 and 255.

Geocoding

When you look at a phone number like 1 604 783 4950, the first digit is the country code (1 means North America) and the next 3 digits give the area in North America (604 – means the Greater Vancouver Area). Similarly your computer’s IP address can be used to determine your general location.

Click on the link to see your general location.

West 4 Communications can cloak your location so you appear to be located anywhere in the world. Please contact us if you would like further details.

Are you still curious about IP addresses. Let me tell you a little more about the secret world of IP numbers.

Generally people can remember a maximum of about 7 numbers, so IP numbers are tedious for humans to deal with. This is why we generally use Host Names instead of IP addresses; names are so much easier for humans to remember.

The Internet uses unique names like west4.ca and google.com but in the background these names are translated into IP addresses. Computers don’t have the limitations with numbers that humans do. In the background all the networking is being done using ip addresses. It’s only when the computer needs to present or accept informatino from humans that the digits are translated to a name.

Because there is only a limited number of possible IP addresses, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) differentiate between 2 kinds of IP addresses. Servers that always need to have the same IP address are given a static IP address that never changes. Clients who only need a temporary IP addresss are given an IP addresses from a pool of IP addresses that are recycled over and over. These are referred to as dynamic IP addresses.

It is difficult to host websites, mail servers, ftp servers, etc if you have a dynamic IP address because your IP address can change and then you have to tell everyone your computer is serving the new IP address.

Each carrier assigns static and dynamic IP addresses in certain ranges based on geographical location. This is the foundation of how you can be traced using your IP address.

Create your own virtual private network with Hamachi

You can do things between computers on your home or office network you can’t do securely on a public WiFi network like listen to a shared iTunes library, access files in shared folders and corroborate on shared projects. But using the free virtual private network application Hamachi, you and your buddies can access your computers from anywhere on the internet anywhere on the planet as if you were all connected on your own private local network. This is called a Virtual Private Network.

Today we’ll use Hamachi to create a virtual private network between a PC, Mac and Ubuntu Linux box and listen to a shared iTunes library over the internet.

First what’s Hamachi VPN?

Hamachi is a free desktop application and gives you a secure, zero-configuration LAN over the internet. Any application that works over a local network can be used with Hamachi over the internet, like Windows file sharing, iTunes, Remote Desktop, FTP, VNC and gaming. All of Hamachi’s connections are secure, encrypted, authenticated and peer-to-peer. Though Hamachi acts as a mediator between your computers and creates the tunnels for their communication, Hamachi’s servers don’t listen in on or log your activity.

Here are some situations where you might use Hamachi:

Your company has a team of salesmen on the road with laptops and they want secure access to office network, printers. applications and files.

Your office or dorm room computer is behind a restrictive firewall that doesn’t let you reach it from the internet.

You want to add encryption to insecure network protocols like VNC.

You want to set up a shared folder of files for friends and family to access.

Sound useful? Let’s get started.

Set up Hamachi

1. Download and install Hamachi. For the most part, the Windows installation is the usual “just click next” routine, except for two notes: Hamachi will attempt to install a virtual network adapter which Windows XP says is not supported. – just hit the “Continue Anyway” button at that point. Also, if you have Windows Firewall enabled (or any firewall, for that matter), it will ask if you want to allow traffic to and from the Hamachi client. You do. Click the “Unblock” button to allow Hamachi traffic through your firewall, as shown.

For Mac and Ubuntu Linux users, the Hamachi installation is a bit more complicated. Even more disappointing, the application itself is command line, not point and click. (Warning: comfort in the Terminal required. UPDATE: HamachiX is a free GUI Hamachi client for the Mac.

2. Create your Hamachi network. Once Hamachi’s installed it will walk you through a quick tutorial to get you started. Read it – it’s worth it. Then, hit the network button (bottom right hand corner, second button to the left) and choose “Create new network” from the menu. Give your network a name (mine was “vancouverwest4″) and a password. Click the Create button.

Now your computer will be a member of the new network, and get its own Hamachi IP address (in addition to its regular IP address). It will also have a nickname that will identify it on your network. Mine was “socrates-pc.”

3. Join your Hamachi network. At this point you can tell your friends or co-workers your Hamachi network’s name and password so they too can join it with the Hamachi client installed. To connect my Mac to my new network, I issued a hamachi join gtrap-home command after setting my nickname to “powerbook.” Once my Mac was on the network.

4. Network away! Now you’re ready to share files or stream your iTunes library to other computers in your Hamachi virtual home network anywhere in the world the internet reaches. Within iTunes on my PC I turned sharing on and tried to listen on my Mac. At first the sharing didn’t work because Windows Firewall wasn’t allowing it. Once I opened up port 3689 (iTunes sharing port) within Windows Firewall, I was all set.

Then, I could see and play tunes in my PC’s shared library within iTunes on my Mac. (Be sure to check off “Look for shared libraries” in iTunes’ Preferences Sharing panel.)

Finally, you can manage your Hamachi networks and clients through a web interface as well. Register for a free account at My Hamachi and enter your client’s Hamachi IP. Once you grant the web site access to your network information, view all your networks and clients on the web site, like this (click to enlarge):

Streaming music (and, uh, copying uncopyrighted songs from others’ shared iTunes libraries) is only one example of what can be done with your virtual home network. Browse shared Windows folders, remote control your PC, access an FTP or web server (over Hamachi’s encrypted connection). Anything you can do locally you can do over the ‘net with Hamachi.

Are you a die-hard VPN/Hamachi user? Got questions or tips? Drop me an email or comment.

West 4 Communications can set up a secure Virtual Private Network for your force of global road warriors.

Create a secure tunnel using SSH

by John Davidson

In part 1, we learned that using Wi-fi in public hotspots can be dangerous because of packet sniffers which can view and log all unencrypted network data. You need to protect yourself by encoding both what you are sending and receiving over by using https:// (note the “s” for secure) connections whenever possible to connect securely to sites.

But some site don’t offer any kind of secure login. i’ll show you how to roll your own using SSH to create a secure tunnel connection from you remote laptop to a trusted home or office computer running an SSH server. All your network traffic will be sagely protected using encryption.

Laptop – Client Side Software: SSH Client
* Windows – PuTTY (I’m currently using Release 0.60)
* Linux/OSX – SSH from the command line

Server – Either at home or trusted remote web host with SSH access
* Windows – SSH server
* Linux/OSX – SSH server daemon

If you have trouble connecting to port 22 on your web host, double-check the port address. Some web hosts use oddball ports for SSH. My current web host uses port 2222 instead of 22.

I’ll use PuTTY on the client site for this walk-through. We will set up port 7000 as the secure channel.

1. Open PuTTY and click on the + sign beside SSH to see the tunneling options. Use the following tunnel settings:

PuTTY SSH Tunnel Configuration

* Source Port: 7000
* Destination: localhost
* Select Dynamic and Auto

2. Click Add. D7000 should show up in the forwarded port box.
3. Select Open and log in using your username and password.

You’re done setting up the secure channel.

4. In Firefox
a. Click Tools->Options->Advanced->Network->Settings
b. Click the “No Proxy” radio button
c. Click OK twice to close the configuration panes
d. Go to URL http://whatismyip.com
e. The ip address displayed is the ip address for the coffee shop

5. Configure Firefox to use the secure channel
a. Click Tools->Options->Advanced->Network->Settings
b. Click the “Manual proxy configuration” radio button.
c. Set SOCKS Host
d. Set SOCKS Port: 7000
e. Click the SOCKSv5 radio button
f. Close the configuration pane
g. Go to URL http://whatismyip.com
h. The ip address displayed should be the ip address for remote trusted computer.

You can also encrypt your BitTorrent traffic or your MSN connection by changing connection/proxy settings in the application connection options to point to localhost port 7000 and SOCKS v4 or v5.

You can use the applicatin proxifier to forward all your connections at once to the remote ip address.

An easy way to switch proxy settings in Firefox is to install the Switchproxy add-on — change proxy settings with just a click.

Enjoy your secure browser session!

Stream Hulu, NBC and Comedy Central to your computer while living or traveling outside the United States.

by John Davidson

Watch full episodes of all the best in US TV programming streamed to your home computer. Are you a fan of Highlander, Family Guy or Heroes? Well you can watch seasons of episodes the whole library of shows is clicks away any time you want! Hulu.com. nbc.com, thedailyshow.com, comedycentral.com are a few of the sites streaming US programming.

But there is a one problem. If you are living or traveling outside the United States, content owners use sophisticated geographical ip filtering to block streaming of the videos. For example, when you try to view hulu.com from Canada, you get the following message, “We’re sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed within the United States.” I’ll describe a way to get around the blocks if you have SSH access to a home computer or server within the United States.

I’ll show you how to forward your ip connection from your home computer located in Canada (or anywhere outside the US) to the US based server using an SSH secure tunnel. The server forwards all the data received back to the client in Canada transparently. This works well because to the US website you are now connecting from a US ip instead of a Canadian ip address.

Here’s the recipe:

Server Side:

1. Verify the bandwdth caps or limitations on your US server. I’m allowed 200 GB of traffic on my account. If I watch a couple of hours of TV on a typical day which works to about a giga-byte of traffic daily or less than 50 giga-bytes a month.

2. Create a new account on the remote server (based in the US).

adduser tunnel_username

SSH allows you to connect securely to the server by creating a secure tunnel from your client computer to the US-based server.

Client running OSX or Ubuntu:

3. Open a terminal window
4. ping yourserver.com ; verify connectivity to the server
5. ssh -D 8080 -p 22 -f -N tunnel_username@yourserver.com ; forward port and then go into background
enter password for tunnel_username when prompted

The ssh command is used to create an encrypted secure connection between a client port and a server port.

The “-D port” option specifies dynamic port forwarding. This works by allocating a socket to listen at a port on the local side. The port can be any number greater than 1024. Whenever a connection is made to this port, the connection is forwarded over the secure channel, and the application protocol is then used to determine where to connect to from the remote machine. Currently the SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 protocols are supported,

The “-p port” option specifies the port to connect to on the remote server. Port 22 is the standard port an SSH server to listen on. If you have troubles connecting, check to ensure the remote server is using the standard port. Sometimes servers use oddball ports – hostgator for example uses port 2222.

The “-f ” option requests ssh to go to background just before command execution. This is useful if ssh is going to ask for passwords or passphrases. After the password is entered SSH goes into the background.

The “-N” option means do not execute a remote command. This is useful for just forwarding ports (SSH version 2 only).

or if the client is running Windows:

3. Download PuTTy from http://www.filehippo.com
4. Open the PuTTy SSH client. Look under Connection -> SSH -> Tunnels.
Add a dynamic port forward, use port 8080 and no need to specify the destination.
5. Click on the open button and enter password when prompted

Now set up Firefox to use the local SOCKS server (localhost:8080).
6. Open up Firefox

7. Verify connectivity
a. go to URL http://whatismyip.com and write down the ip address for your client computer
b. click on the speed test button and write down the upload and download speeds

UPDATE Hulu has updated their geo-blocking use new step 8

OLD STEP 8
Click on Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Network -> Settings
Click the Manual proxy configuration radio button
On the SOCKS option enter localhost and 8080 as the port.

NEW STEP 8
a. Download Proxifier (30 days free trial version) http://www.proxifier.com/download.htm
b. Install and launch proxifier
c. Click option > proxy settings> add
IP address: localhost
Port: 8080
Type: SOCKS5
d. Click OK button

Testing

9. Verify your port is being forwarded.
a. go to URL http://www.whatsmyip.org/ and verify that the ip is different than in step 5a
b. click on the speed test button to confirm you are getting reasonable upload and download speeds

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 1:11 pm and is filed under Technology, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Using Wi-fi in public hotspots can be dangerous with packet sniffers so readily available. You need to protect yourself by encoding both what you are sending and receiving over an unsecured public network.

Even at work if you want to avoid having your activities logged (for whatever reason) you should encrypt your traffic. An excellent way to do this is to set up a secure tunnel using an SSH connection to a trusted computer running a proxy server.

Laptop – Client Side Software: SSH Client
* Windows – PuTTY (I’m currently using Release 0.60)
* Linux/OSX – SSH from the command line

Server – Either at home or trusted remote web host with SSH access
* Windows – SSH server
* Linux/OSX – SSH server daemon

If you have trouble connecting to port 22 on your web host, double-check the port address. Some web hosts use oddball ports for SSH. My current web host uses port 2222 instead of 22.

I’ll use PuTTY on the client site for this walk-through. We will set up port 7000 as the secure channel.

1. Open PuTTY and click on the + sign beside SSH to see the tunneling options. Use the following tunnel settings:

PuTTY SSH Tunnel Configuration

* Source Port: 7000
* Destination: localhost
* Select Dynamic and Auto

2. Click Add. D7000 should show up in the forwarded port box.
3. Select Open and log in using your username and password.

You’re done setting up the secure channel.

Now you need to configure your applications to use the secure channel.

4. In Firefox 3.x go to

Tools->Options->Advanced->Network->Settings and set the following proxy configuration:

* Manual proxy config
* SOCKS Host: localhost
* Port: 7000
* SOCKSv5 (or v4, doesn’t matter)

Then hit OK and you’re done.

To make sure the proxy is working, you can go to a site that will display your IP address or location. You can try this post to see if it displays the city of your proxy correctly (ineffective if your proxy and your current location is the same). You can also encrypt your BitTorrent traffic or your MSN connection by changing connection/proxy settings to point to localhost port 7000 using either SOCKS v4 or v5.

An easy way to switch proxy settings in Firefox is to install the Switchproxy add-on — change proxy settings with just a click. Enjoy your secure browser session!

You want your music, movies and programs now with a minimum of fuss. This article will get the music and movies streaming onto your screen. You promise not to use this knowledge to download anything copyrighted. Read on.

Let’s begin with the grand-daddies of file sharing – Napster, Limewire and Emule. With all these applications you connect with one other person (computer) and download an entire file. Sweet and simple. But here’s the problem, If it’s a popular file, probably there are thousands of other people all trying to download the same file at the same time. The more popular a file is, the slower your download becomes!

A smart guy named Bram Cohen designed a new protocol to overcome the roadblock when a file get popular. The protocol is called Bit-torrent. With Bit-torrent the more popular a file is the faster it downloads. Eureka! There are two kinds of people in torrent land; seeders and leechers. Each file that is going to be shared is divided into 1024 pieces. Just like a puzzle with 1024 pieces. The seeders are the people that have the entire file, all 1024 pieces, The leechers are the people who still haven’t downloaded the entire file; they might have 0 pieces or 1023 pieces.

Bram’s insight was that even though the leechers don’t have the entire file they often have a piece that another leecher needs. So instead of waiting for the seed to share that piece, the leecher downloads it from another leecher. Instead of waiting for the seeder to share all the pieces, leechers share pieces with other leechers as well. Each person (computer) is both downloading and uploading pieces of the file. That’s why you’ll also hear it called peer-to-peer file-sharing, Because you are downloaded from many computers instead of only one, you get your file faster. Yay!

But wait! How do you find out which files are available in torrent land and who the seeders are? That’s where sites like thepiratebay.com, mininova.com and isohunt.com come in. They are known as torrent tracker sites. Try the thepiratebay.org first and search for your desired content. If they don’t give up. Google is your friend; try doing a normal search for the file, but add the keyword torrent. Follow the links and start your download.

Enough of the background. On to the recipe.

First things first. You need a Bit-torrent client. For Windows users, I recommend utorrent. OS X users try transmission. Both applications are free,

Second you need a torrent website. Check out thepiratebay.com, mininova.com, sumotorrents.com and btjunkie.com. Next search for the uncopyrighted material that you want. Try to find one with a high number of seeders (these are people who are uploading the album) and a low number of leechers (these are other people who are downloading the album). If you can find one with a good ratio (seeders/leechers) then it will download much faster. Once you’ve found the album you want, click download file.

“Whoa! How did that file download in 2 seconds?” Well you have just downloaded the .torrent file itself (remember it only has the address of the seeders for the file). Now open utorrent or transmission. Drag the .torrent file you just downloaded into it. And start your download.

Remember to keep the torrent client running so now you can seed the file to other people.

This month 7-11 Speakout is offering a free Nokia cell phone when you buy $100 of airtime!

Buying a cell phone can be overwhelming if you’ve never had one before. It’s easy to get lost in the wide choice of features and end up with less phone or more phone than you need. So here’s a quick primer.

If you’ve never had a cell phone, it’s tempting to just sign up for a 2 or 3 year plan especially with Telus and Roger’s reps dangling a flashy free phone in your face. Do not sign up for any long term contracts yet! You don’t know what kind of usage you’re going to need. You don’t want to be locked into paying $30 or $40 every month for 2 or 3 years (that’s between $720 and $1440 plus taxes and other fees) on a plan that is way more than you need or end up paying extra charges each month because you have committed to less airtime than you need.  A prepaid plan like 7-11 Speakout let’s you get started for as little as $100. Once you’ve used a cell phone for a few months you’ll be better able to decide whether locking into a long-term contract makes sense for you.

In Canada, 7-11 offers the cheapest prepaid plan I could find. They also offer a few reasonably priced handsets chosen to meet the needs of 90% of the users out there. There’s a no frills basic phone for $60. A mid-market model for $100. And for $140 you can get the Nokia 5130 with a 2 megapixel camera and mp3 player built-in. All the phones are GSM handsets (the phones have a chip inside that lets you easily transfer your personal info between phones). 7-11 Speakout uses the same network as Rogers and FIDO so it’s reliable and has wide coverage in Canada. I suggest getting the basic Nokia model if it’s your first cell phone.

The feature I like best about Speakout is that unused airtime is valid a year. In my case $100 of airtimes lasts me a whole year. With prepaid plans from the other Canadian carriers you have to refill your account monthly or any unused airtime expires. It’s a nuisance having to remember to go out, buy more airtime and then refill the account each month.

If you do decide to join the 7-11 Speakout prepaid phone be sure to keep track of how much you use the phone. After a few months you;ll be able to decide whether it’s cheaper to continue using Speakout prepaid or switch to a long-term contract. If you do decide to switch it’s easy to transfer the phone number and all your personal info to the new phone.

To sum up, avoid locking into a long-term contract until you have an good idea of your needs. Be sure to check out the handsets and plans at 7-11 Speakout. The phones make a great gift.

My own experience with 7-11 Speakout:

I got my first 7-11 Speakout phone, a Nokia 5200 slide-phone. in July 2008. I’ve been very happy with the phone and Speakout prepaid in general. My only disappointment with the Nokia 5200 is the built-in camera has only VGA resolution which gives less detail than I want in my photos. I just purchased a 2nd Speakout cell phone, the Nokia 5130 which has a 2 megapixel camera built in. Both phones have mp-3 players, blue-tooth and accept micro SD memory cards (unfortunately they only accept 1 or 2 GB micro SD cards).

What’s your experience like with 7-11 Speakout? Do you know of a better Canadian prepaid plan? Leave a comment or shoot me an email.

There are lots of coffee shops in Vancouver that offer free wireless. It’s common to meet clients, surf the net, work on projects, read email, shop and do banking all while sipping on a latte and gorging on the free bandwidth. In this post I’ll tell you how to work more securely over an insecure public network like you find in coffee shops and libraries. But first why worry about security?

From my experience, the security at coffee-shops is minimal; a password to log on to the network at most. About a quarter of the time the coffee shop router still has the default password. I’m not knocking the shop owners.  They make money selling drinks and food. The wireless is a freebie to get people in the door. They want to minimize their head-aches from customers saying why doesn’t this or that work. So they leave the network as open as possible to minimize complaints about things not working. The lack of security is aggravated by the fact that most shops never change the password to access the wireless network. This makes a great opportunity for anyone parked close by or living nearby to eavesdrop on your unencrypted data and passwords as they whip past on the air-waves.

The security at the coffee shops is similar to a gated libertarian community where everyone trusts each other. Once you get in the gate (know the password) you’re a trusted member of the network. And responsible for your own security. If you don’t lock you bedroom door, don’t be surprised to find someone in there with a camera or thumbing through your bank account.

The first tip is to use encrypted connections as much as possible. Whenever the URL for a site begins with “https://” (notice the “s” for secure),  it’s an encrypted connection. When the internet was in it’s youth it was common to assume everyone could be trusted so it was rare to see secure https:// connections, but they’re becoming very common. Sometimes the default  logon page is an unencrypted connection, but there is also a secure logon available.   If the URL for a page is “http:” (without an “s”), look for an option on the home page that says something like connect securely. For example:

use https://gmail.google.com instead of http://gmail.com to access your gmail google account

use https://www.godaddy.com instead of http://www.godaddy.com to access your godaddy account

An even better approach is to set up a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or secure tunnel between your laptop and a trusted computer at your home or office.  You create an encrypted virtual network or tunnel on  top of the insecure public network.

Look at my future postings for more details.

Did you know that the cell phone company can determine your exact location to within 25 to 100 metres anytime your cell phone is turned on? Though this technology has saved lives, there are many unresolved privacy issues around it’s use.

In this post I’ll explain briefly about how a person can be tracked using their cell phone and then explain how to avoid this. A cell phone has two addresses associated with it. The first is the phone number we are all familiar with (Public Switched Telephone Network or PSTN) number and the second is the media access control (MAC) address. When you sign up for a cell phone plan with a national carrier like Rogers, Bell, or Telus you are required to provide a lot of personal information. All that personal data is then stored in a database where it’s linked to your phone number and the MAC address of the new phone. You are traceable.

Using the MAC address, the cell phone company measures the signal strength  from the 3 closest cell phone towers (at a minimum) to your phone. It’s then basic geometry (triangulation)  to work out your exact location. Which is good if you’re hiking and get lost. But what if you don’t want to be found?

Cell Phone Triangulation

Fortunately, 7-11 has entered the pre-paid cell phone market. And buying a phone there is as easy as buying a bag of chips. You don’t have to provide any personal data. Go in and buy a cell phone and some air-time with cash. They range in price from about $60 to $14o in the Vancouver market.  You do  need to activate the phone by phoning the Speakout activation centre. It would be prudent to phone from a public phone rather than your home phone.

You now have an anonymous cell phone – a phone with no associated personal data. The longer you use the phone, talking to friends, the more likely the phone and indirectly your position will be compromised. .So if you’re concerned about anonymity, you should change the cell phone every few months.

This is a little off-topic, but several clients have asked me about how to make secure payments on-line without the risk of exposing their personal credit card data. If you have a card with a high credit limit like a gold or platinum card definitely  avoid using it for online payments. There are also privacy issues related to using a regular credit card since your location can be traced using the transaction details/personal information associated with the card number.

I suggest buying a prepaid credit card instead. They can be purchased in amounts from $100 to $500. Using the card limits your maximum exposure to the credit balance you have on the card.  Plus there is no risk of exposing any personal data.

Here in Vancouver, both Citizen Bank and Vancity Credit Union offer  an anonymous prepaid VISA credit card. Technically it’s actually a VISA gift card. Unlike store gift cards, it can be used anywhere that VISA cards are accepted. I have used the card online for a couple of different transactions without any problems. I also returned an item I bought to a store easily. I phoned VISA to check out their customer service with regard to the refund. It was excellent and the agent promptly confirmed the refund amount had been credited to the card.

There’s more. You can access the balance remaining and view transactions on-line. You can also associate a shipping address if you are purchasing physical goods online at sites like Amazon.com.

If you’re thinking of buying a store gift card for someone on your shopping list, the VISA gift card is  a lot more flexible since you can use it at so many more stores. It’s also a good option for people who have trouble getting credit cards. Since it’s prepaid there is no credit check required to obtain the card.

There is a $2 overhead charge to purchase the card. The balance on the card expires in one calendar year and it can’t be refilled.

Overall using a prepaid VISA gift card makes a lot of sense to provide anonymity and reduce your risk when shopping online.