One of the benefits of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is that you don’t have to stand in line to buy it or order the software online. Instead you just click over to the Mac App Store and hit “download.” While that’s awfully convenient for many of us, what about those who don’t have a consistently decent Internet connection? Or the ability to get online at all?

Well, Apple isn’t about to miss out on those sales. The company is going to put its brand-new operating system on a USB stick and sell it for $69. That is quite a bit more than the $29 it costs to download the application. Alternatively, Apple is also offering the option to go into an Apple Store and download Lion to your computer.

This should make the transition to Lion easier in emerging markets that have less-than-reliable web infrastructure. Those are markets in which Apple is starting to find some traction, as Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer explained on Tuesday during the company’s third-quarter 2011 earnings report. He noted that the surge in Mac and iPhone sales during the quarter were boosted by new Apple customers in China, other Asia Pacific region countries, the Middle East and Brazil.

Sales of the new Lion-on-a-stick will come some time around the end of August, though no specific release date has been announced.

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1. Watch your bandwidth usage at least once a week and plan accordingly.

AT&T has promised accurate and easy to use bandwidth monitors, and it’s up to the customer to check their usage. In our tech-crazy household, we checked our old cable ISP’s meter once a day, but most users can probably get by with once a week. Watch for Internet spikes and, if you see one, use these tips to figure out what’s up and prevent an overage for that month.

Unlike AT&T mobile voice plans, any unused bandwidth doesn’t carry over month-to-month. That means that if you haven’t used all your bandwidth by the end of the month, it’s time to go use it. Unfortunately, everyone else has the same idea at the end of the month, so often, you’ll notice a slowdown as traffic usage increases.

2. Turn off software auto-updates.

Software updates are handy and often increase reliability of your system, but with large updates taking up 500 MB or more, it’s time to be careful. In a household with a large number of systems, one major release can take many gigabytes. Turn off auto-updates by going to the Apple Menu, then System Preferences, and then un-check “Check for Updates”.

If you want an update right away, instead of using Apple’s built-in updater, go to http://support.apple.com/downloads/ and download the updates manually on just one system and then copy them to all the necessary computers in your household.

While iOS apps are relatively small, updates in the App Store for OS X are not. Be careful of these updates and only do necessary ones mid-month. Wait until the end of the month, and use your leftover bandwidth for the month, if you have any.

3. Avoid a lot of HD videos

Whether it’s YouTube, Netflix, Hulu or even iTunes, most video providers give you the option of HD picture quality while viewing. Before caps, you would choose the highest definition your connection could handle. No more. While a few videos won’t make a difference, when the entire household watches everything at 720p, you start reaching your cap quickly. Carefully consider each video and determine whether you truly need top quality and advise everyone in the household to do the same.

4. Beware file synchronization software.

As a big fan of DropBox, I love being able to sync files between computers both in my house and between home and office. Whenever you use DropBox, SugarSync, iDisk or other services, anytime a file is changed the bandwidth meter is running. That presentation you are working on might only be 20 MB, but each time you save the file, that 20 MB is uploaded and steals bandwidth. If you’re good and save every five minutes, within an hour, you’ll have used 240 MB of bandwidth. Four hours of work, and you’re reaching a gig. Ouch.

Instead of working on a live document within a sync folder, consider saving it to your documents folder and copying it to your sync folder only upon the completion of work. You’ll still have the benefits of the file being stored up in the cloud, but not in an instantaneous (and bandwidth sucking) way.

5. Seriously reconsider your online backup strategy

I’ve written about various online backup services, but whichever one you choose, that first backup you do is a large one! Because the caps consider both download and upload, a moderate backup could quickly fill your bandwidth allocation.

When I started with online backup, I specified smaller folders and a slow upload speed until close to the end of the month. Once I knew how much bandwidth I had left, I added folders and increased the backup speed until the first of the new month, and then began the cycle over again. Sure it took quite a few months, but it also meant I didn’t get dinged with overage charges.

Starting over, I probably would have taken up CrashPlan’s option to send them a copy of my hard drive to do the initial backup. Those who already did an initial backup with an online service should be fine unless they add or change a large amount of data. These people will have to accept additional bandwidth charges each month if they keep using AT&T.

6. Scale down your usage of VoIP and webcams.

These services can be fun, exciting and really useful for collaborative work efforts. Apple’s heart-tugging commercials using FaceTime to bridge the gap between families costs bandwidth. Consider using text when actually hearing someone’s voice isn’t required and consider using video only when absolutely necessary and for a minimum period of time especially with the HD-quality desktop FaceTime.

When doing a “virtual” visit back home with voice and video, start with a video chat so you get that initial warm and fuzzy and then scale back to voice to continue the conversation. The bandwidth you save may be your own.

7. Watch for bandwidth vampires.

Many devices in your home use your Internet connection, even when you may not be aware. Security systems, DVRs, and Blu-ray players all use data when online, and game systems will use bandwidth while you are playing games online. Some of this use may be minor, but you still need to be careful.

Enough of these devices, combined with a high bandwidth month elsewhere, and a few quirks can push you over the edge. For example, one month, our TiVo was caught in a loop and kept downloading its updates over and over again, and it cost us an extra $20 from our local cable ISP. We didn’t even notice the problem right away because the update was at night. That is, we didn’t notice until we got our cable bill! Both TiVo and the cable company were unforgiving.

8. Careful with those torrents.

Torrents are a popular way of quickly downloading large files over the Internet containing both legal and perhaps questionable content. When downloading a file, your system will also upload at the same time. When you have a complete file, you “seed” it to other systems and you act as an ad hoc server for the file. It’s common courtesy to seed for a while so others may download. Reconsider how long you seed. Leaving a torrent open overnight can use a lot of bandwidth. Most torrent clients allow you to slow down or stop your seeds after a period of time. If possible, per tip 1, wait until the end of the month to do your torrenting, and especially seeding.

9. Close those remote connections.

Remote connection software like LogMeIn, GotoMyPC, Timbuktu and even Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are handy ways of telecommuting and getting work done. Often we get lazy and leave a connection open because we want to be able to start our work instantly and want to avoid the hassles of authentication and firing up applications. Not only is this insecure, but an “always up” connection can suck your bandwidth if left open 24/7. Always remember to log out when done.

10. Secure your Wi-Fi connection with a good password.

There are so many good reasons to secure Wi-Fi, but it’s more important now than ever before. Neighbors may accidentally connect to your Wi-Fi network, and their use of your connection counts against your cap. A bad neighbor may even choose your network over their own because they want to keep under their own cap!

Yes, these tips are annoying, frustrating and extremely miserly. An average light user of AT&T’s service will most likely be fine, for now, and not need to use all these tips (expect for #1). These tips are for “the rest of us” who live in multi-device and multi-kid households and are used to using technology to the fullest. Without some careful planning, you can go over your bandwidth allocation and scratch your head wondering why.

Hopefully, these restrictions will ultimately be seen as a failed experiment to control consumer behavior and extract revenue. As I mentioned before, Apple needs to come out with a public statement against caps, as they are inconsistent with Apple’s long-term iTunes and cloud business strategies. As a user, you should let AT&T know your opinion as well and ask them to remove these odious restrictions. Until such times, these tips should help you manage your bandwidth budget and keep your bill reasonable. Be sure to leave your own bandwidth management suggestions in the comments.

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While the debate over Mac versus PC will last for eternity, one of the elements that many “diehard” PC users have thrown at Apple fanboys is the ability to really tweak their experience, through application add-ons and plugins.

Mac users who use Firefox have had a little taste of this with Greasemonkey, a Firefox add-on that allows support for on the fly changes to websites. If you haven’t heard of Greasemonkey, this is a must read for you and if your browser of choice isn’t Firefox, we’ll show you how to install its equivalent, GreaseKit with Safari.

What Is Greasemonkey?

Greasemonkey is an add-on for browsers that allow users to install “scripts” that are fine tuned to affect how different websites function. For example, if you’re a person who uses MySpace and really hates how the login page is full of ads, you can install a script that adjusts the display of the page when it loads and gives you a cleaner experience.

Cleaning up MySpace is just the beginning; there are scripts for just about everything. If you’re not a fan of the default Gmail web interface, you can use a script that declutters it.

But it’s not just about changing the look and feel of a website; there are scripts that remove content like ads and scripts that add functionality, like a script that lets you add notes to entries in your Netflix queue.

Installing GreaseKit in Safari

While Greasemonkey is an easy add-on if you use Firefox, you can also use similar add-ons in Safari. For Safari users, begin by downloading SIMBL and install it. Then download GreaseKit and install the bundle file inside to ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins. If this folder doesn’t exist, just add it before dropping the file inside.

Next, relaunch Safari and, provided things worked well, you’ll see a new menu entry for GreaseKit. Now go find some scripts (see below) and click “Install This Script” to copy it into GreaseKit. You’ll see the JavaScript flash on screen and eventually it should be added to your GreaseKit menu.

Getting Scripts

There are a variety of places to find the scripts that integrate with Greasemonkey or GreaseKit. Userscripts.org is perhaps the largest of these and an excellent place to start. I urge caution though as these scripts can become dated when the websites they affect are updated. Also, because you’re not running the scripts in Greasemonkey on Firefox for Windows (where they are usually tested), the add-ons may not function exactly as described. This is likely to happen in Safari if the script is overly complex, requiring additional interfaces to manage it.

Here are the scripts I’ve discussed in this article:

• Netflix Notes
• MySpace Clean Redesigned Login and Logout
• Simplify Gmail

You also might enjoy the Unfriend Finder for Facebook that lets you know when (and who) has unfriended you. This particular script doesn’t work well in Safari, so I recommend using it in Firefox.

Have you found any good scripts? Feel free to use the comments below and let us know what you think.

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It’s always interesting to see how Apple makes use of the layouts of these sites to really make their ads pop. In the case of this particular run of ads on CNN.com, Apple actually created two “dummy” ads for mortgages and flights. Clicking through either of these takes you to Apple’s Why Mac page.

Here are screenshots, as well as a video of the ads in action.

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In both cases, we needed to access the Internet and having a Mac saved the day. It was extremely simple and quick to share my internet connection on my MacBook Pro using built-in features in Mac OS X.

To share an internet connection over Airport, you will need to be connected to the internet by either a wired ethernet connection or by a cellular card. I used a Verizon V740 card to share the internet connection at the convention and hard-wired ethernet connection at the office when our router went out.

So how do you share your Internet connection using Mac OS X? See the tutorial below, or take a look at the video.

Open the preferences pane and click “Sharing”:

Click on the name “Internet Sharing” which will bring up the internet sharing information to the right of the preference pane:

Choose the type of internet you want to share (I have “Built-in Ethernet” selected to share):

in the “To computers using:” section check the box labeled “Airport”:

If you want to name the network, set encryption or a password, click “Airport Options…”:

Once you have configured the settings, check the box next to “Internet Sharing” on the left and you will be prompted with a warning: “Are you sure you want to turn on Internet sharing?” Click Start.

Now your internet connection should be shared. In place of your normal WiFi signal strength indicator you should see the icon on the right.

Also check out the video:

Internet Connection Sharing

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