I just got a Tungsten T with built-in Bluetooth and the D-Link DBT-120 Bluetooth USB adapter, and I wanted to do my Hotsync over Bluetooth rather than via the cradle. It turns out that the setup is rather non-obvious, and you can feel like you configured it right when you didn't. There isn't currently a hint on MacOSXHints about it, so here you go.
If you search on the Palm web site, you will see this Knowledge Base Entry that tells you how to do it. The key thing that you may not figure out on your own is that you need to change HotSync mode to "LANSync" using the LANSync Prefs menu item in the HotSync manager on your Palm. Once I did that (I had already figured out the other things), the HotSync started working.
One of the problems with the Address Book's Bluetooth phone connection functionality is that usually it only stays active for about 10 minutes, meaning that its caller ID capabilities are diminished since you have to manually reconnect the phone. I've figured out what appears to be a solution while investigating a way to share my highspeed internet connection over Bluetooth to my Nokia 3650 phone.
In that process, I found that part of the SyncServices included with the new version of iSync is a command line mRouter application. Assuming you have iSync 1.1 installed, run the mRouter command -- it's part of the Symbian conduit that's installed in /System -> Library -> SyncServices -> SymbianConduit.bundle -> Contents -> Resources. From the Terminal type (shown on two lines; enter as one with no spaces at all):
and you'll get the possible command line options. If you run (on the same path) mRouter -a, followed by your phone's MAC address (which you can find in the Bluetooth Preference pane), a PPP session will be created, displaying something like this:
Mon Jun 16 18:21:00 2003 : Using interface ppp0
Mon Jun 16 18:21:00 2003 : Connect: ppp0 /dev/tty.mRouter
Mon Jun 16 18:21:08 2003 : local IP address 169.254.1.68
Mon Jun 16 18:21:08 2003 : remote IP address 169.254.1.5
Once that's done, your BlueTooth connection will now be alive and persistent. You can hit Control-Z to suspend the active application, or Control-C to kill it (you don't want to do that, though, because it will obviously disconnect you). I guess you could make a duplicate of the mRouter file and run it from wherever you'd like, but I've not tried that yet.
Now go over to the Address Book and click the Bluetooth icon; you'll notice that it turns on immediately since the connection is already established. I've kept the connection alive for quite a while now without a hitch. Pretty cool.
Now, if some of the more network savvy users out there (like the ones who figured out how to share your Mac's internet connection to a Palm device) could come up with something similar to share over this PPP connection, I'd be eternally grateful. This would be useful to Nokia 3650/7650 and Sony Ericsson P800 users particularly.
There may be times you want to temporarily turn off your Internet connection: for example (long reason short), some HTML-based spam messages can be used to verify your e-mail address just by viewing the images contained therein.
If you're using AirPort, the answer is simple: turn off the AirPort connection, which is normally what I do. However, with my G4 tower at work, which uses a wired ethernet connection, I couldn't do that.
So, what you can do instead is to create a new network location (I called mine "No Access") and enter in bad or garbled information. Or, in my case where at work I have a static IP, I made the new location try to use DHCP (which would fail). Then, when you want to turn off your network connection, just go to the Apple menu, Locations menu, and select No Access, and you're kicked offline until you want to go back.
Under iTunes 4.0, a lot of people started using music sharing to access the music on their home computers from work. Sadly, iTunes 4.0.1 removed this feature due to piracy concerns. Fortunately, you can re-enable iTunes sharing across subnets with the freeware Rendezvous Beacon.
After downloading and launching Rendezvous Beacon, create a new Beacon with the following values:
Beacon Enabled: (checked)
Service Name: (descriptive name)
Service Type: _daap._tcp.
Port Number: 3689
Text Record: (empty)
Enable Host Proxy: (checked)
Host Name: (rendezvous name of your home computer)
IP Address: (ip address of home computer)
Now you'll be able to access the iTunes shared music on your home computer through your work computer's iTunes as if they were both on the same subnet.
Note 1: I feel that iTunes, because of its five-connection limit and the need to authorize computers to play purchased music, is a very weak platform for pirating music. This hint is intended simply for restoring a very useful feature that was removed by iTunes 4.0.1 because of Apple's fears of music pirating. Please don't ruin this for the rest of us by trying to iTunes for pirating.
Note 2: With Rendezvous Beacon you can use a similar process to publish services via Rendezvous that are served up by non Rendezvous enabled servers. This is potentially very useful for a net admin.
[robg adds: Unlike hints on defeating copy protected songs, which clearly violate the infamous DMCA, I don't believe there's anything inherently illegal about accessing your own music from another location. However, if I'm wrong, I guess this article (but hopefully not the site) will soon vanish in a puff of legal smoke.
The other reason that I feel OK about publishing this one is that there are a ton of other ways to do the same thing. For instance, search macosxhints for "streaming," and you can read several hints on how to set up your own streaming server to send your music to another location. Also, an anonymous hinster pointed out a command line program called mDNSResponder that does the same thing.
People that are truly interested in pirating music are going to use one of the P2P applications, not a measly little iTunes five-connection-limited application that requires an additional third-party application with which to actually steal the music...]
I was researching the issue of using PowerPrint for Networks on OS X for a while, and found the answer on allosx.com. Since I looked for so long, I thought I'd post this here. Credit goes to Rob Crestani as shown on the original page. Essentially it boils down to this:
Install GIMPPrint
Select Option -> Add in Print Center.
Select Advanced.
Device: AppleTalkPAP
Device-URL should be:
pap://*/[AppleTalk Printer Name]/Printer_Adapter
Where [AppleTalk Printer Name] is the name that appears under the Chooser in OS 9 when the PowerPrint device driver is selected (don't enter the brackets). The crucial part is Printer_Adapter, which selects the PowerPrint device.
Printer model: my printer does HP LaserJet Emulation. This very common. Your mileage may vary.
When I was reconfiguring the IP address on my OS X box to move from one network to another, I noticed that my netmask was 255.255.255.1 instead of 255.255.255.0. I hadn't noticed any problems before. But every time I tried to change it to 255.255.255.0, it would go back to 255.255.255.1 when I hit the Apply button. Everything seems to work still, except I couldn't log into my .1 router even though I can ping it.
To my surprise, when I changed the netmask to 255.255.254.0, the Mac accepted the change. And now when I changed it to the correct 255.255.255.0 netmask, it stayed!
This was one of the more bizarre network strangeness I've seen. Hopefully, the hint will save some headaches out there. Note: I'm running OS X Server 10.2.6. Don't know if the anomaly has been seen elsewhere.
[robg adds: If anyone has any thoughts on what might cause this problem, please post them!]
The Cocoa framework indeed has a lot of peculiar features. For example, you don't have to write IP addresses like everyone else does. Every segment of an IP address is a number between 0 and 255. (You could also say that they are a byte each). This can be translated into a number. So if you take the IP address of macosxhints.com, 207.44.210.206, and do this calculation:
207*256*256*256
+ 44*256*256
+ 210*256
+ 206
You get 3,475,821,262. Now if you enter that number (without the commas -- 3475821262) into a Cocoa based browser (Firebird and Safari will do, Internet Explorer won't as it's a Carbon app), you will be at the macosxhints.com homepage. It seems to work in Cocoa based apps. I tried it with Safari, Firebird, and several CLI apps like traceroute, ping, telnet and ftp.
Practical? Maybe, but mostly as a gimmick. Of course, it can save you some typing. Anyone have any ideas for optimum usage?
We use LinkSys BEFSX41 router / gateway / firewall / VPN appliances to interconnect the LANs at three sites via VPN. Since two of the sites have DHCP-supplied WAN IP addresses, we needed a way to notify the other sites when the LinkSys' WAN IP address changes. This is required so the Remote Security Gateway's IP address for the VPN tunnel can be updated.
Since the addresses don't change that often, I wrote a script to detect any change and send email to the interested parties. If you are interested, that script is available for download (download 2KB script), and usage is explained in the script comments.
I wound up making this process harder than it actually is, so this hint is to help y'all from making the same mistakes I made. Here's the deal ... you're not at home, but need info on your Mac that is subnetted to an AirPort Base Station that has a (static) IP address.
What you'll need to know: The usual IP address the Base Station assigns to your machine (ie 10.0.1.2), which is easily found in the network system prefs. Using the AirPort Admin Utility, log into your Base Station and "Show All Settings." Click on the "Port Mapping" tab, then click "Add."
For Public and Private port, put 22 (the standard SSH port number), and for "Private Address," put in the usual IP address (ie 10.0.1.2) assigned to your machine. Click on "Update" in the lower right corner, and wait while your Base Station reboots.
Once it does (I had problems doing this remotely from a friend's Mac, so you might want to do this at home), you'll be able to log into your subnetted machine by doing the following:
ssh username@basestation_ip_address
Once you give your password, you're in! Using the -p command line option of ssh, and modifying the port mapping in the AirPort Admin Utility, you should be able to get access to all your wireless machines. Hope this is helpful!
[robg adds: I haven't tested this myself, though I should as it could be quite useful at times.]
Basically, this is a very easy little hint, but it saves me some time over a network here at home. If you're on a network, simply disable View -> Show Icons while in column mode. Browsing network-mounted volumes will now be much quicker.
I didn't see this listed anywhere ... but it's kind of useful for me anyways.
