Last week we asked you to share your favorite VPN tool, then we rounded up the top five contenders for a vote. Now we’re back with the results. More »
Blog Archives
Best VPN Tool: OpenVPN [Hive Five Followup]
Posted on March 9, 2010
How-To: Use Time Machine Over a Network
Posted on March 4, 2010
I love Time Machine for its simplicity and the fact that it’s free. Apple did the right thing in creating a backup utility that was integrated into the OS and was actually useful. Anyone who has fought with Windows Backup can tell you, this has been needed for a long time. Apple created a beautiful backup utility and then made money on hardware that seamlessly works with it. For the home user, nothing could be more simple.
In the office environment however, users tend to backup to server shares and not local external drives. So, let’s take a look at how to use Time Machine over a network.
Setting it Up
It’s easy to do this in Leopard Xserve by sharing a backup folder. Under Server Admin, you can check the box “Enable as Time Machine backup destination.”
This worked great in Leopard but in Snow Leopard, Time Machine no longer saw this as an available destination. Luckily, changing a property for System Preferences solves this.
Enter this command in Terminal:
sudo defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
This tells Time Machine to treat network shares as possible backup locations. Now, when I go to select a disk in the Time Machine preferences, I see my mounted AFP share listed.
Restoring
So that’s how you get the Time Machine backup working, but what about restoring. Most people don’t test the restore functionality but it’s the most important thing you can do. To restore a Time Machine backup over an AFP connection, first boot off the Snow Leopard install DVD. Then, Launch Terminal by clicking on the Utilities menu. In the terminal window, type the following commands.
mkdir /Volumes/TimeMachine
mount -t afp user:password@afpserver.local/ShareName /Volumes/TimeMachine
This will mount your AFP share and make it available to restore from. Quit Terminal and then run “Restore from Backup” from the Utilities menu. You will see your backup listed and you should now be able to restore from it.
Time Machine is a very nice utility and if you aren’t using it, you should be. I even have other Xserves backing themselves up to this share using Time Machine. Sure, there are third-party applications out there can do so much more, but I’m for just getting the job done. Integration with the OS is also important to me. It’s the main reasons I use Safari as my main browser. As with all backup solutions though, you need to test the restore functionality once in a while. If anything, you might sleep better at night knowing your data is not only safe but recoverable.
Repair a Broken Ethernet Plug with Zip Ties [Clever Uses]
Posted on December 8, 2009
We’ve all been there at some point, you’ve got a perfectly functional Ethernet cord that somewhere along the line had its tab broken off. Don’t buy a new one or re-terminate the cord. Fix it with zip ties.
While we're no stranger making our own Ethernet cables—you can probably find a few RJ-45 connectors hanging out with the dust bunnies under our work bench—sometimes it's not convenient or you don't have the tools to strip an Ethernet cable, strip and reposition the pairs, and re-terminate it. It's an even bigger annoyance when the only reason you find yourself having to do it is a missing plastic tab on the connector plug.
Over at the ever-growing how-to site Instructables, they have a tutorial on how to fix a broken RJ-45 connector using two zip ties, a razor knife, and a pair of pliers—although if you're going full MacGyver you could skip the pliers. When you're done you'll have a functional tab on your Ethernet cable. Check out full tutorial at the link below and if you have your own clever use for zip ties or other inexpensive tools—duct tape anyone?—we want to hear about it in the comments.
Repair a Broken Ethernet Plug [Instructables]
Create an Ad-Hoc Network Sharing Point from a Windows 7 Netbook [NetBooks]
Posted on December 7, 2009
Windows 7 Starter Edition, the version loaded onto netbooks, isn’t supposed to offer “advanced” features like ad-hoc network sharing. In this one case, however, finding this feature is as simple as typing the right phrase into the Start Menu search.
Rafael Rivera’s Within Windows blog points out that while the dialog that normally starts the ad-hoc networking process in Windows 7 is disabled in Starter Edition, simply searching for adhoc allows you to start it up. That means being able to connect other computers, smartphones, and Wi-Fi-enabled devices to your netbook when it’s got a net connection. It’s not quite as convenient as Virtual Wireless Networking, which you can enable with Connectify, but it does get the job done.
Windows 7 Starter hides but allows ad-hoc networking [Within Windows via PC World]
Wire Your House with Ethernet Cable [Weekend Project]
Posted on November 6, 2009
You’ve ripped a movie on your laptop, and now want it on that fancy new home theater PC next to your TV. If you’ve got the time, wiring your house with Cat-5e cable could make transfer times a distant memory.
Instructables user Rogue Agent gets into the nuts, bolts, studs, and boxes needed to wire a house with omni-present cable in a fairly professional manner. The tutorial is based on setting up an actual cable switching box on a server-type rack. For those who just need to run cable from one room to another, the tips on finding, mounting, and securing cable through the walls, without your home looking like the scene of a sledgehammer party, are just as helpful.
Have you taken the dive into home cable networking? What guides, tutorials, or tips do you wish you’d known from the start? Tell us, and share the links, in the comments.
How to Wire Your House With Cat-5 (or 6) For Ethernet Networking [Instructables]
Wireshark 1.2 Includes 64-Bit Support, Mapping Integration [Networking]
Posted on June 29, 2009
Windows/Mac/Linux: Popular network analyzer Wireshark threw a lot of useful features into its 1.2 update, giving net traffic watchers OpenStreetMap+GeoIP integration, new capture file support, and other updates.
The previously featured utility is just as net-geeky as ever, showing packet movements as they happen along DNS, TCP, UDP, and other protocols and interfaces. On top of that, the app formerly known as Ethereal added a bunch of conveniences and tweaks:
- Display filters now autocomplete.
- A 64-bit Windows (x64) installer is now provided.
- GeoIP database lookups.
- Improved Postscript print output.
- Support for Pcap-ng, the next-generation capture file format.
- Column widths are now saved.
- Capinfos now shows the average packet rate.
Hit up the link below for the full release notes, as well as details on known bugs. Wireshark is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.