by WebKeyDesign | Aug 20, 2012 | Apple, Mac OS X, Safari
After upgrading to Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, I started to experience problems with Safari 6 and some HTTPS connections. For example I could no longer log into Amazon or even browse forums who used SSL connections. Ironically, I found a post on Apple’s forums that described some of my symptoms, but since the support forums are HTTPS, I could not use Safari. Luckily Firefox still worked. The problem on Apple’s forum went on about SSL Certificate issues and the solution is described on this blog posting, but this problem was specific to Mac OS X 10.7.4 Lion. There is also a bug that has to do with specifying a proxy in Mountain Lion. This seemed more plausible to me, since I use pfSense with Squid Proxy in transparent mode at home, however this also would not explain why only SSL connections had issues and regular HTTP sites worked fine.
Solution
After much research, it seems the simplest solutions work best. I had to manually specify my MTU setting from 1500 to 1492 in System Preferences – Network – Advanced… – Hardware – MTU. This immediately resolved my Amazon logging in issue.
by WebKeyDesign | Aug 13, 2012 | Networking
Over the years, my home office has become a museum of sorts for wireless routers. There on a shelf sits my old reliable Linksys WRT54GS with upgraded antennas, next to it is a Linksys WRT350N, and lastly a Netgear WNR3500L. My current router sits in the office as well, that is a Netgear WNDR3800. The WNDR3800 is less than a year old and performs quite well, but then Western Digital announced they were getting into the wireless router business and announced the My Net N900, which is interesting since it includes 7 Gigabit Ethernet ports! But alas, I could not justify upgrading to a new wireless router in less than a year. With each router upgrade I have looked at three features: speed of actual CPU, internal memory, and DD-WRT compatibility. Home routers are essentially computers that route network traffic. The faster their CPU and more memory they have the faster they can operate. On slower ISP connections, you do not notice it as much, but once you upgrade your internet connection and add more devices to your home network, the more your router’s performance becomes impacted. Hence the WNDR3800 works better than the slower WNR3500L it replaced. I am mostly talking about the wired connections, since wireless speeds can vary and I tend to prefer wired connections. The more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that I was really trying to upgrade the CPU and memory in my router; the wireless radio was adequate and the built-in 4-port switch was already being supplanted by a dedicated 8-port switch. In general wireless routers are a good value. They combine a wireless radio, a network switch, and routing capabilities for around $150 or less. The WD N900 looks like an even better value, given the 7-ports, but in my case, I wanted to separate the three main functions. Hence my search for the perfect home router began. (more…)
by WebKeyDesign | Aug 1, 2012 | Apple, Mac OS X, Safari
With the release of Safari 6, the default font settings preferences have been removed. If you still want to set default fonts without using a custom style sheet you can still use Terminal commands to set them. Another workaround is to use the Quickstyle Safari Extension.
Below are some example commands for Terminal:
Proportional Font:
defaults write com.apple.Safari com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2StandardFontFamily 'Lucida Grande'
defaults write com.apple.Safari com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2DefaultFontSize 16
Fixed Width Font:
defaults write com.apple.Safari com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2FixedFontFamily Monaco
defaults write com.apple.Safari com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2DefaultFixedFontSize 12
by WebKeyDesign | Jul 30, 2012 | Microsoft, Windows
After working in Information Technology for several years, you come to a certain understanding about the balance between work and personal time. For many people starting out in IT, the temptation to dedicate yourself 24/7 to work is hard to resist. There always seems to be a pending disaster or a deadline that must be met. With some experience you eventually learn that the world is always coming to an end. It has been that way since the beginning of time itself. Dedicating yourself fully to work is not going to change that! Once you figure out for yourself, where and when to draw the line and give yourself some time back, you end up tackling another dilemma, which I call the “Fix My PC” dilemma. When you are computer proficient, it is not just work that wants your skills, it is also friends and family. You end up being asked many times to fix people’s laptops or desktops. Since you are a nice guy, you have a hard time turning these people down, especially when they are your friends and family. However, just like work, you need to set some limits, since this is still taking away from your personal time.
Rule 1: It’s Not Always Free
It is a bad idea to let people think your skills have no value. In my case, I charge a modest fee to look at people’s computer problems outside of work. My time is valuable to me, and so charging a fee makes me feel better and I can invest the money back into my technology interests. It always amazes me when people balk at me charging them. It must be that they do not recognize the value of my work or they simply want something for free.
Rule 2: I’m Doing You A Favor
If you agree to look at someone’s computer, make sure that they understand you are doing them a favor. They have to make it convenient for you. The last thing you want to do is agree to something and then find out you have to drive to someone’s house at an inconvenient time for you.
Rule 3: Identify and Diagnose Their Problem
There are very few times that I have been asked to look at Macintosh. Almost always the computer is a Windows machine. After spending years working with Windows, there are multiple tweaks, fixes, and customizations that can be done to make Windows machines work better. You could dedicate multiple days to just tweaking Windows. Remember, you do not have the time and energy to fix every problem, just concentrate on the problem that they asked you to look at. Most often people tend to not communicate well, and so I have had many people tell me that they wanted their computer to run faster and then find out that they really wanted something else entirely. Once you find out what it is they want you to fix, tell them how it can be fixed and let them decide what they want to do. Many times you find that there is a component failure and there really is nothing for you to fix; they will have to spend money on replacing the component or buying a new computer.
Rule 4: Know When To Walk Away
Do not spend you time installing Windows Updates, running malware or anti-virus checks! These chores are something the user needs to do. If you can avoid these time consuming tasks do so. Where ever possible configure these things to run on their own; Microsoft and other software vendors provide schedule features in most of their software. If you cannot schedule these tasks, educate the user to do them on their own.
Final Thoughts
These days I devote most of my time to building my own computers, instead of fixing other people’s stuff. Every now and then I will do someone a favor and fix their Windows problem, but I resign myself to not having to fix every problem. Life is too short to spend countless hours in front of a keyboard.
by WebKeyDesign | Jun 27, 2011 | Apache
In my never ending quest to get more use of my computer equipment, I embarked on a new project last month. The problem, namely internet bandwidth. The home network just seems to be growing and growing with no end in sight. Between gaming systems and media servers, bandwidth is a big problem for most home networks. In my case, I already have a nice Windows Home Server 2011 box that is really not doing much, so I started thinking about what other uses this computer can do for the home network and a caching proxy made absolute sense.
Apache on Windows?
When most of us think Apache Web Server, we think Linux, but in reality Apache runs on Windows as well. The best resource out there for running Apache on Windows is the ApacheLounge; here you can find customized builds and forums with helpful information. For this scenario, I wanted a 64-bit version of Apache for Windows. This posed a problem, since Apache does not build a 64-bit version for Windows and the ApacheLounge did not have either. At this point you would need to compile it, or download an unofficial build from Blackdot.be. Since the goal is a caching proxy, I do not need to worry about 64-bit PHP or MySQL; those components are a non factor. At the time of this writing, I installed Apache 2.2.19 64-bit. I won’t detail the actual Apache installation since this is covered very well on other websites. (more…)
