Screenshots on Mac OSX

Best resource I found about capturing screenshots on Mac OSX

Looking for VMware on Vista x64? Use VirtualBox!

Well, I had my mind set on installing VMware and configuring a few virtual machines. So, I went ahead and downloaded the latest version of VMware server. After a long wait, to my disappointment, it wouldn't install! It doesn't look like VMWare supports Vista x64 as the host. Oh well, forget it!



After seeing a demo of VirtualBox during the Java Developer Day conference a few days ago, I decided to try it out. If it's as good as they claim, then maybe this could be my answer? And true enough, it supports Vista x64 as a host and it pretty much supports all operating systems as a guest. (Except OSX, I think. Hmm... we'll see about that. *wink*)

So, I suggest you give it a try as an alternative to VMware. It's working well for me so far. Here is the link.

Update 2009-05-22:
Hmm... after giving it a good test, I don't think I'm very happy with VirtualBox. Switching from gui mode to text mode on a Linux guest seems to mess up the mouse pointer. A Vista x64 guest caused it to crash. I had to restart my pc to kill the Virtualbox process. And snapshots are so limited in functionality compared to VMware. I might actually give VMware another try. Perhaps I was just doing it wrong the first time. Oh well...


Enjoy!

Two wireless networks on the same subnet

Somehow, we ended up having two routers at home. The new one was a wireless N, the older one was a wireless G. To keep the speed on the wireless N network as fast as possible, I wanted all older laptops to connect to the wireless G router.

The problem was, with my initial setup, there were connection problems everywhere. Connecting from a laptop on the G network to laptop on N network worked. But not the other way around. Also, apple remote didn't work across the subnets.

I finally figured out how to solve the problem. Put them all on the same subnet! Here's how...



The trick is in the wiring between the two routers. And how DHCP is configured. See below...



Here are some more details, if you're interested:

Router1:
WAN IP: 10.1.1.2 (Depending on what ADSL modem wants you to use.)
WAN Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
LAN IP Address: 192.168.26.1
DHCP: Enabled
DHCP IP Address Range: 192.168.26.100 - 192.168.26.110

Router2:
WAN IP: 192.168.0.1 (Don't care. As long as it's not in the 192.168.26.* subnet)
WAN Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
LAN IP Address: 192.168.26.2
DHCP: Disabled
DHCP IP Address Range: N/A

Laptop on Wireless N:
IP Address: 192.168.26.101
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.26.1

Laptop on Wireless G:
IP Address: 192.168.26.102
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.26.1

I hope this helps. Enjoy!

Control multiple computers with one keyboard and mouse

If you're geekozoid like me, you probably have more then one computer at home. And maybe even have them in a range of different operating systems. How do you control them from one source?

Well, there are plenty of options out there, like VNC, etc. But I just discovered one cool app: Synergy. I works for Windows, linux and mac. And best of all, it's free!

Check out my video below.



References:
* http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
* PC World Magazine August 2008

Enjoy!

How to connect from a mac to a windows vista pc.

It looks like macs are not capable of the new networking protocol used by Windows Vista (smb/cifs). To get them to talk to each other, you will need to downgrade the vista machine to use the old protocol. Here's how to do it:

1) On the vista machine, click Start and type regedit
2) Navigate to \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\
3) Change the property lmcompatibilitylevel from 3 to 1
4) Reboot

You should now be able to connect from your mac to the vista box. Enjoy!