One of the big, new features of the iPhone is its ability to tether. BlackBerrys have had this ability for a while, so below I have outlined how to tether your BlackBerry with your Mac to use your Internet connection to browse the web with your computer.

Some Things to Note

• This tutorial is for Leopard.
• I have successfully tested this with a BlackBerry Bold and a BlackBerry Curve 8900 using the 8800 modem drivers, but it should also work with the BlackBerry 8100, 8700 and 8800.
• Some service providers have a special tethering plan that you may need to add to your cell phone. (It will work without the tethering packing, but you might get slammed with overage charges if they catch you.)

Configure Your BlackBerry

1. Open “Manage Connections.”
2. Click the checkbox next to “Bluetooth” to turn Bluetooth on.
3. Scroll down to “Set up Bluetooth.”
4. A pop-up will come up to name your device; name it.
5. An “Add Device” pop up will come up; click “Cancel.”
6. Click the BlackBerry menu; select “Options.”
7. Set Discoverable to “Yes.”
8. Save changes.

Configure Your Mac

1. Download & Install BlackBerry modem scripts for OS X.
2. Go to System Preferences → Bluetooth.
3. Check “Show Bluetooth status in the menu bar.”
4. Click on the menu bar item and select “Set up Bluetooth Device.”
   
5. A pop-up will appear; click “Continue.”
6. Select “Mobile phone” as the type of device.
7. When the computer finds your phone, select it and click “Continue.”
8. You’ll be given a passkey. Enter the passkey into your BlackBerry.
9. After successfully pairing your computer with your BlackBerry, you will get a pop-up that asks, “Accept connection request from (your computer)?” Click the checkbox “Don’t ask again” and select “Yes.”
10. Your computer will now ask, “Access the Internet with your phone’s data connection?” Click the check box, and select “Continue.”
    
11. Enter the following information into the appropriate boxes. (This is for AT&T. Do a Google search for other vendors.):
    • Username: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
    • Password: CINGULAR1
    • Phone Number: wap.cingular
12. Save and close.
13. Now open up network preferences: Applications → System preferences → Network
14. Click the Plus Button.
    • Interface: Bluetooth
    • Service Name: Whatever you want, I named it “Tethered BB”
      
15. Enter in all the information again:
    • Username: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
    • Password: CINGULAR1
    • Phone Number: wap.cingular

    

16. Click “Advanced:”
    • Vendor: Research In Motion
    • Model: BlackBerry 8800
    • Dial mode: Ignore dial tone when dialing

    

17. Save Settings.

Connect to the Internet

Make sure Bluetooth is enabled on both you phone and your computer!

1. Click the Dialer icon in your menu bar.
2. Select Connect Tethered BB (or whatever you named your connection in step 14 of setting up your computer) from the drop-down menu.
3. After a few seconds you should be connected!

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• Mobile Q4: All Eyes Were on Android, 4G and the Rising Tablet Tide
• Mobile Overview, Q2 2010

1. Type in and perform your search
2. On the results page click the “show options…” button in the blue bar
3. A sidebar will pop out, select “recent results”

Here’s a quick screencast video showing it in action:

WWD Screencast: Google Search Based on Time from WebWorkerDaily on Vimeo.

Another alternative to search news via Google is Google Blog Search. It specifically searches blog articles for whatever you want. One set back to just searching blogs is that you are not searching forums, and often times forums have more current and (sometimes) accurate information.

Have you been using Google’s time-filtered results? Do you think it is or isn’t an important feature based on your web search habits?

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I recently switched from an iPhone to a BlackBerry. As I mentioned before, one of my BlackBerry dislikes is that it simply does not sync as nicely as the iPhone. Until recently, I thought I could only drag certain songs onto my BlackBerry and that there was no way to sync playlists. Turns out I was wrong, and the solution is provided by BlackBerry itself.

Below I have outlined how to transfer your iTunes playlists to your BlackBerry. This method also allows you to easily send podcasts to your phone, and the software described even has the “Automatically fill free space” option that was originally seen on the iPod shuffle.

1. Download and Install BlackBerry Media Sync for Mac
2. Fire up BlackBerry Media Sync
3. Select the playlists you would like on your BlackBerry
4. Click “Sync Device”

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Some Things to Note

• This tutorial assumes you’re using a Mac on your home network with screen-sharing turned on, that it’s powered on most of the time, and that it has a static IP address (the tutorial explains how to do each of these things).
• You must have an external static IP address (my broadband Internet came with that).

Determine your External IP Address

We’re going to be referring back to this number a lot. Make sure you write it down.

1. Go to What is My IP Address?
2. Write down the number next to “Your IP Address is”
   

Set Your Computer to a Static IP Address

1. Launch System Preferences: Applications → System Preferences
2. Under the “Internet & Network” section, click on the “Network” icon
3. In the left hand menu, select the “Ethernet” or “Airport” device. (Select whichever one you are using to connect to your network, it will have a green ball next to it and say “Connected.”)
4. Click “Advanced”
   
5. Click the “TCIP/IP” tab
6. Write down the number next to “IPV4 Address” (from now on we’ll refer to this as your “Internal IP Address”)
   
7. In the “Configure IPV4″ pull down menu, select “Using DHCP with Manual address”
8. The box next to “IPV4 Address” will default to all zeros. Type in the number we wrote down in step 6 (your internal IP Address)
   
9. Close System Preferences

Set Up Screen-sharing on Your Computer

1. Launch System Preferences: Applications → System Preferences
2. Under the “Internet & Network” section, click on the “Sharing” icon
3. Select the checkbox next to “Remote Management”
4. A pop up will come up with a ton of checkboxes asking you what you would like to do when remotely managing. I checked everything and clicked “OK.”
   
5. Select the “Computer Settings” button
6. Check the box next to “VNC users may control screen with password” and enter a password in the text box next door. Click “OK” after you’ve entered a password.
   
7. Close System Preferences

Forward Port 5900

Port 5900 is the Apple VNC port. We need to forward from our external IP address to the computer that’s sharing files on our internal network.

Every router is different, so below I’ve outlined the basic steps. You’re going to have to consult your router’s documentation for exact instructions. Portfoward.com has documentation for a lot of routers and I also wrote an article for the Airport Extreme.

1. Log into your router. If you’ve left the router with the default configuration, launch a web browser and enter “192.168.1.1″ (most routers default to this IP). If this doesn’t work, consult your router’s manual for directions on how to get to the configuration panel.
2. Once you’re logged into your router, find the port forwarding section (mine was under the “Applications and Gaming” tab).
3. Forward both the TCP and UDP ports from the router to your file sharing computer’s IP Address.

Connect to your Computer Over the Internet

Now comes the fun part: connecting to our computer over the Internet.

1. Head over to SourceForge and download/install the latest version of Chicken of the VNC
2. Launch Chicken of the VNC. If you are currently on your home network (the network with the computer that has the screen we want to control) and did everything correctly by default, you should see the name of the computer you are trying to connect. All you have to do is type in the password we set earlier and click “Connect.”
3. To add a new location, click the small plus arrow in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.
4. A pop-up window will ask you to name the location. Name it whatever you like.
5. In the “Host” box, replace the phrase “localhost” with the external IP address we determined earlier
6. In the “Password” box, type in the password we set earlier and select the “Remember Password” checkbox.
   
7. Click “Connect.” If you did everything correctly, you should be able to control your computer.

Optional Step: Forward a Domain Name to Your External IP Address

Remembering a domain name is much easier than remembering an IP address, so for this optional step we’re going to forward a domain name to our External IP address that we wrote down earlier. Then when we go to the “Connect to Server,” you can enter in the domain name instead of the IP address.

This guide is for GoDaddy, but the same basic procedure should apply for other domain registrars.

1. Purchase a domain at Godaddy.com.
2. Log into your Account Manager.
3. In the My Products section, click Domain Manager.
4. Click the domain name for which you want to create an A record.
5. In the Total DNS section, click Total DNS Control and MX Records.
6. Click Add New A Record.
7. Complete the following:

   Host Name: The host name the A record links to. You can enter @ to map the record directly to your domain.

   Points to IP Address: The external IP address that we wrote down earlier.

   TTL: The time increment for which the server should cache the information.

8. Click OK.

UPDATE: As some users have commented, opening ports on your firewall can pose a security risk. Always exercise extreme caution when opening ports and never give out your external IP address.

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1. Log into Gmail in any web browser
2. Click the “Details” button. It is located next to “Last Account Activity” below your Inbox (below your current mailbox usage info).



3. A pop up window will come up. Click the “Sign out of all other sessions” button.

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Here are the aliases I use, together with the labels I have set up:

• “cl” applies the label “craiglist”
• “rec” applies the label “recipe”
• “p” applies the label “pics”
• “bb” applies the label “blackberry”

To create filters to auto-apply your labels:

1. Click Settings->Filters
2. Scroll down to the very bottom and select “Create a new filter”
3. Enter your filter criteria (so in the case of my craigslist filter,  I would put “myemail +cl@gmail.com” in the “To” box)
   
4. Click “Next Step”
5. Click the checkbox next to “Apply the Label” and select the label you would like to apply from the pulldown (if the label does not exist already, select “new label”)
   This is also the step where you can forward, trash, etc. all emails from that address.
6. I always check the box next to “Also apply filter to x conversations below” and then select “Create Filter”

Bonus Tip:
This is for people who don’t have phones with email. You can use this method to create a rule that auto-forwards emails to your cell phone via text message (useful for emailing yourself directions, grocery lists, etc):

1. Click Settings->Filters.
2. Scroll down to the very bottom and select “Create a new filter”.
3. Enter your filter criteria: “myemail+m@gmail.com” in the “To” box.
4. Click “Next Step”.
5. Click the checkbox next to “Forward it to” and enter in your phone’s SMS-to-email address. Below is a list of the most popular carriers and how to figure out your phone’s SMS-to-email address:
   • T-Mobile: phonenumber@tmomail.net
   • Virgin Mobile: phonenumber@vmobl.com
   • ATT: phonenumber@txt.att.net
   • Sprint: phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
   • Verizon: phonenumber@vtext.com
   • Nextel: phonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
6. Select “Create Filter”.

How do you use aliases?

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I recently switched from my iPhone to a BlackBerry. A few weeks after the transition, I have discovered my likes and dislikes between phones, and by far the most frustrating difference is the “syncing with computer” feature. An iPhone is literally plug and play, whereas a BlackBerry requires tons of configuration, even for the simplest tasks.

Below I have roughly outlined how to send files between your BlackBerry and computer via Bluetooth.

Pair BlackBerry to your computer

1. On your BlackBerry, turn on Bluetooth.
2. From your manage connections menu on your BlackBerry select “Set up Bluetooth.”
3. Click the menu button and select “Options.”
4. Next to discoverable, select “Yes.”
5. On your Mac, launch System Preferences (Applications → System Preferences).
6. Under the “Hardware” section click on the “Bluetooth” icon.
7. Make sure Bluetooth is turned on. Click the “Set up New Device” icon in the middle of the Bluetooth window. (If you already have a device set up, click the plus arrow in the device column.)
8. The setup wizard will pop up. Click “Continue” on the first pop-up window.
9. On the “Select Device Type” window select “Mobile Phone.”
10. Select your phone from the next screen and click continue.
11. Your computer will prompt you with a PIN to enter into your BlackBerry. Enter the PIN into the BlackBerry device.
12. If you entered the PIN correctly, your devices will be paired.
13. Uncheck the “Access the Internet with your phone’s data connection” box.
14. Your phone is now paired with your computer.

Turn on Bluetooth file-sharing on your Mac

1. Launch System Preferences (Applications → System Preferences).
2. Under the “Internet & Network” section, click on the “Sharing” icon.
3. In the “Services” column, select the checkbox next to “Bluetooth Sharing.”
   
4. Leave everything as default. (You can change the preferences if you want, but I just left as the default.)
5. Close System Preferences.

Send a file from your BlackBerry to your Mac

1. Browse your BlackBerry’s media and find the file that you want to transfer.
2. With the file selected, pull up your BlackBerry menu and select “Sending Using Bluetooth” from the BlackBerry menu.
3. A pop-up will come up on your BlackBerry asking you to select a device. Select the paired computer you want to transfer the file to.
4. A pop-up window will appear on your computer asking what you want to do. Accept the transfer, and the file will start transferring.

Send a file from your Mac to your BlackBerry

1. Pull up your BlackBerry media browser on your device.
2. Open the menu and select “Receive Using Bluetooth.”
3. On your Mac, find the file you want to transfer and right-click on it.
4. From the pop-up menu, select “More → Send [...] to Bluetooth Device” and select your phone from the pop out menu.
   
5. Make sure you BlackBerry isn’t asleep. If you make a successful connection, you will get a pop-up on your BlackBerry asking what to do with the file. Select the location you want the file to save and and click “Save.” The file will begin to transfer. NOTE: I’ve had this fail a few times, but when I hit send again from my Mac computer it works; seems like second time is the charm. Making sure your BlackBerry is not asleep is also crucial.

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While rehearsing the presentation, however, it became apparent that we were going to need to reorder and remove pages from the document. Turns out this is a very easy procedure in Leopard.

Here’s how to edit PDFs using Preview (Preview is built into Leopard):

1. Open your PDF with Preview. (It should default to open with Preview, but if not, right-click on the file and select Open With → Preview)
   
2. You should now have a little drawer on the side of your PDF.
   
   To manipulate the document:
   • Delete a page: Command + Delete
   • Move a page: Click and hold on the page and drag to reorder
   • Add another PDF: Drag the PDF into the sidebar
3. When you’re done, make sure you save the document. File → Save As

A Third-Party (slightly more robust) Solution

Before I discovered this method I was using third-party software called Combine PDFs. Combine PDFs let me remove & reorder pages as well as combine multiple PDFs just like Preview, but it also let me add a simple password to protect my PDF files and apply different filters, including one that reduced the PDF size. Combine PDFs is free for the casual user; a license is only required if you use it regularly. Combine PDFs will allow you to test the functionality with processing up to 1,000 PDF pages, which should be fine for most users.

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I must admit, getting an iPhone has changed my media consumption habits a great deal. Pre-iPhone I would always have my iPod with me to listen to music, but that is all I would do. Now that I have my iPhone, I still listen to music from the iPod feature and stream music, but I also actually watch movies. Even though I had an iPod video before my iPhone I never watched videos on it; the screen was simply too small.

I am always on the hunt for software that makes my life easier, and I have finally found the holy grail of simple video conversion: Evom.

Before I found Evom, I was using HandBrake. HandBrake is “an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.” I will be the first to admit that HandBrake can handle pretty much any video thrown out it (and it’s free!), but it is definitely not “drag and drop.” I am sure a lot of users love the ability to tweak every little video setting, but I simply do not care. I want to drag a video into the program and completely forget about it. Enter Evom.

Converting a video is a two-step process: Select or drag movies, folders, or links into Evom, and then select your destination. If your destination is your iPod, Evom will automatically import the video into your iTunes library. Next time I sync my iPhone, my files are already there waiting for me, which is great because I usually load my iPhone with videos the night before traveling while I am trying to pack, so having my videos ready to go is a great time saver.

Another cool feature of Evom is the browser bookmarklet. Add the Evom bookmarklet to your browser, and you get one-click-downloading on flash video sites like YouTube.

As you can probably tell, I love the simplicity of Evom and am very excited for the final version to be released; however, Evom is currently in beta. There is no price listed on Evom’s web site, but after poking around in the preferences of the current version, it is clearly going to be a paid application. Unfortunately, when I clicked the “Buy a License” button in the preferences section of Evom I was brought to a broken URL, so I have no actual evidence of what the application will cost when the developers take the software out of beta.

It should be noted that a single user license of iPod Rip, the software that lets you copy music and movies off your iPod onto your computer that was developed by the same company, costs $19.95, so I would guess that Evom would be priced similarly.

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As a general rule, you should calibrate your battery every month or two to keep it running in top form.

To calibrate your laptop’s battery:

1. Plug your laptop in and let it charge completely (your battery icon in the menu bar will be completely full and the charger’s connector light turns green).
2. Keep the laptop plugged in for another two hours (after it is fully charged).
3. Disconnect your laptop from power. Use it until it falls asleep from low battery.
4. Turn off the laptop and let it “rest” for about five hours.
5. Plug your laptop back in and let it fully charge.

It is completely fine to use your laptop during all of these steps (except, of course, when the computer is asleep).

Calibrating your laptop battery every few months is a great way to ensure you get the longest life out of it. If you’ve had your laptop for a little while and want to know the current maximum capacity of your battery, you can use the free coconutBattery utility.

coconutBattery isn’t just a tool which shows you only the current charge of your battery – it also shows you the current maximum capacity of it in relation to the original capacity your battery had as it left the factory. You also get information about the battery-loadcycles (how often did you fully load your battery), the current charger (coconutBattery even warns you if you plugged in a wrong charger for your Notebook) and last but not least information about the age of your Mac.

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I had a chance to review the newest version, but first let’s see what’s new:

• Field-specific cleaning: TuneUp will now allow users to set which metadata it saves by default. This is also available on a per-album basis, which is great for mixtapes where you want to save artist/track name, but keep the original album title.
• A greatest hits toggle: TuneUp will allow users to avoid compilations when matching songs to albums. This feature makes it easier for users to keep songs organized by the album on which they originally appear.
• Playlists on Mac: Mac users can now choose whether they’d like TuneUp to create playlists of dirty/cleaned songs.

TuneUp Reviewed

I was very excited to give TuneUp a try. I love music and have a large iTunes library, so any help managing it is very welcome. I tried out the four basic features of TuneUp, and my experience with each is outlined below.

Clean is a two-step process. First, you drag-and-drop one or more songs from iTunes to TuneUp. Then, you verify the results and click Save. TuneUp identifies tracks by taking an audio fingerprint of each one and sending them to an online reference database.

Right away, I was disappointed that you can only clean 500 songs at a time. When I first read about the software, I assumed you could do your entire library at once. I have around 12,000 songs in my library, so if I wanted to clean my entire collection it would take me a minimum of 24 “cleans.” Luckily, most of music is tagged correctly, so I anticipate only having to clean about 5 percent of it, but if I were super-neurotic and wanted the whole thing done, I would have a lot of work on my hands.

Since I knew doing my whole library in one evening was not a realistic goal, I started by cleaning songs and albums that I knew for certain were incorrect. I scrolled down, found an album, and then simply “dragged and dropped” it into TuneUp and let it work its magic. Although it took quite awhile, I was very, very happy with the results; every song I dropped in was found and properly tagged.

Cover Art scans through your collection, identifies songs that are missing art, and then searches various web sources for artwork which you can save back to iTunes.

When I had an iPod video, I didn’t care about cover art; I just thought it was a waste of space. With the iPhone, my views on cover art completely changed. The iPod app on the iPhone displays music in such a way that the artwork is actually important.

I am happy to report that the cover art feature worked very well and even scanned my entire library at once, unlike Clean. I clicked once to start the scanning process and walked away. When it was done scanning, I clicked the “Save All” button and walked away again. I will admit that it took a long time to both scan my library and save the artwork, but I didn’t care because I didn’t have to be present while it was working.

This scanning of my entire library approach was how I envisioned the cleaning process would work, and if it did, the software would be perfect. You could “set it and forget it.”

Tuniverse (formerly the “now playing”) tab shows information about the current track including live videos, artist news, and merch.

The section reminds me of Last.fm, but is poorly executed. It has tons of subsections, including videos, bios, concert notifications, album recommendations, song recommendations, Google news, tickets and merch, all of which makes it a bit too busy and not nearly as polished as the rest of the UI. I understand what they were going for when they included this extra information in Tuniverse, but ultimately it feels unnecessary, and I think TuneUp would actually benefit from ditching it altogether.

Concerts alerts based on your collection.  Never miss another show.

This tab was a total surprise and is awesome. It goes through your music library, looking at all of your artists, and then lists concerts in your area (in my case, NYC — which it automatically detected) in chronological order. I love going to see live music, and if I have the artist in my iTunes library, I am interested in seeing them in concert, but rarely check to see what shows are coming up (this is just me being lazy). This tab makes finding concerts and purchasing tickets almost too easy!

Overall Verdict:

TuneUp is a great piece of software that does exactly what it claims to, but at the cost of being somewhat time-intensive. I highly recommend TuneUp to anyone looking to clean up their library, but offer the warning that it isn’t as simple as dragging all your music in and walking away for a few hours. If it were,  it would truly be the “magic pill” of music organization.

I look forward to future updates where TuneUp becomes faster, more accurate, and ideally becomes a one-click solution, but even in its current state, I will gladly use and recommend it.

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Having Twitter inside Gmail is awesome. It’s a simple text box that sits in the lower left-hand corner of my Gmail window. I keep Gmail open in a tab all day, so whenever I want to tweet something, I simply pop over to my Gmail tab, scroll down and type in my message. I end up using other computers a lot, and it’s much easier to log into just one account, Gmail, instead of two separate accounts, Gmail and Twitter.

I also have a URL-shortening gadget installed in my Gmail that resides directly above my Twitter gadget, which makes tweeting even more dreamy. I can shorten a link and post it without ever navigating to a new window.

The gadget’s feature set is everything you need (from its site):

• OAuth authentication, your Twitter account password is not required.
• Supports multiple Twitter accounts*
• Mark all as read (like Google Reader)*
• Automatically refresh
• Reply, Re-tweet inline
• View reply to inline
• Gmail look and feel
• SSL support*
• Share tweets with your friends(your Gmail friends group’ contacts)*
• Twitter Search

(*These features are awesome!)

To install the Twitter Gmail Gadget:

1. Navigate to the “Settings” section of your Gmail
2. Click the “Labs” tab
3. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to the “Add any gadget by URL” and click the “Enable” radio button
4. Click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page
5. In the “Settings” of your Gmail you should now have a “Gadget” tab. Click on it.
6. In the “Add Gadgets by URL” box paste: “http://twittergadget.appspot.com/gadget-gmail.xml” and then click the “Add” button.
7. You should now have a Twitter gadget on the left-hand side of your Gmail.  Enter your Twitter username and password, let it authenticate, and you’re good to go.

What Gmail gadgets do you use?

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After a few minutes of of shopping, I had found a 2TB USB hard drive and had the Pogoplug in my cart, but then saw I was going to spend about three hundred bucks. I then started thinking that I already had a Time Capsule 1TB hard drive with all my media on it, and that there must be a way to mount my Time Capsule over the Internet just like the Pogoplug. Unfortunately, there is really no documentation on how to mount the Time Capsule over the Internet, but after a few minutes, I ended up figuring it out myself. I can now have my files wherever I am!

Some Things to Note

• This tutorial assumes you are using your Time Capsule as an NAS, not as the router. It’s possible it would work when in use as a router, but I didn’t give that a try.
• Wherever your Time Capsule is must have a static IP address. (My broadband Internet came with that.)

Determine your External IP Address

We’re going to be referring back to this number a lot. Make sure you write it down.

1. Go to What is My IP Address?
2. Write down the number next to “Your IP Address is”
   

Determine your Time Capsule’s IP Address

1. Launch Airport Utility: Applications → Utilities → Airport Utility
2. Find your device in the left-hand column and select it.
3. Copy the number down next to “IP Address” in the right-hand column.
   

Determine Your Time Capsule’s Disk Password

When we try to remotely connect to the Time Capsule, we are going to be prompted for the password for it. To set up a password for the Time Capsule disk:

1. Launch Airport Utility: Applications → Utilities → Airport Utility
2. Find your device in the left-hand column and select it.
3. Click the “Manual Setup” button.
4. Click the “Disks” tab.
5. Click the “File Sharing” tab.
6. Make sure the “Enable File Sharing” box is checked and “With a secure disk password” is selected from the “Secure Shared Disks” drop-down menu.
7. Enter in a password in the “Disk Password” and “Verify Password” boxes.
8. Click the “Update” button.
   

Forward Port 548

Port 548 is the Apple file-sharing port. We need to forward from our external IP address to the Time Capsule on our internal network.

Every router is different, so below I’ve outlined the basic steps. You’re going to have to consult your router’s documentation for exact instructions. Portfoward.com has documentation for a lot of routers, and I also wrote an article for how to do port forwarding with Airport Extremes.

1. Log in to your router. If you have left it as the router as the default configuration, launch a web browser and enter “192.168.1.1″ (most routers default to this IP). If this doesn’t work, consult your router’s manual for directions on how to get to the configuration panel.
2. Once you are logged into your router, find the port forwarding section (mine was under the “Applications and Gaming” tab).
3. Forward both the TCP and UDP ports from the router to your Time Capsule’s IP Address

AppleScript to Mount Drive (For Laptop Users)

We are going to make an application to mount the drive. After you save it in your Applications folder, anytime you are away from home you can simply double click it to mount your Time Capsule.

1. Open Scipt Editor: Applications → AppleScript → Script Editor
2. Paste the following code (be sure to replace Your External IP Address, Your Username, and the Time Capsule Password):
   mount volume ¬
"afp://YOUR EXTERNAL IP ADDRESS" as user name "YOUR USERNAME" with password "TIME CAPSULE PASSWORD"
3. Click File → Save As.
4. Select “Application” from the “File Format” pulldown.
5. Save it to your Applications folder.

Mount Drive From Any Mac Computer

Here is how you mount the drive from any of your friends’ computers. Obviously, you won’t have your application with you. If you’re feeling lazy, you could email it to yourself and store it in your email so you always have it.

1. In the Finder bar at the top of your screen click Go → Connect to Server.
2. In the server address box, enter in your external IP address that we wrote down earlier.
3. Click “Connect.”
4. You will be prompted for a username and password.
   Username: Enter in your computers username. (On your home computer go to System Preferences → Accounts and it’s the name next to “Username”.)
   Password: Enter in your Time Capsule’s Password

Optional Step: Forward a Domain Name to Your External IP Address

Remembering a domain name is much easier than remembering an IP address, so for this optional step we are going to forward a domain name to our External IP address that we wrote down earlier. Then, when we go to the “Connect to Server” you can enter in the domain name instead of the IP address.

This guide is for GoDaddy, but the same basic procedure should apply for other domain registrars.

1. Purchase a domain at Godaddy.com.
2. Log in to your Account Manager.
3. In the My Products section, click Domain Manager.
4. Click the domain name for which you want to create an A record.
5. In the Total DNS section, click Total DNS Control and MX Records.
6. Click Add New A Record.
7. Complete the following:

   Host Name: The host name the A record links to. You can enter @ to map the record directly to your domain.

   Points to IP Address: The external IP address that we wrote down earlier.

   TTL: The time increment for which the server should cache the information.

8. Click OK.

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I always upgrade all of my Apple firmware as soon as the updates become available. I’ve never had a problem with any of the new firmwares, and most of the time they improve whatever product I am upgrading. I’ve never had a problem, that is, until I upgraded my Time Capsule to the 7.4.1 firmware.

I use my Time Capsule as a NAS, not a router, so it stores all of my music, movies, documents and photos…all the important stuff. Since my Time Capsule is being used as an external hard drive for all the computers on the network, it is essential to have a fast connection. If you try to stream a movie or even music from a drive that you do not have a good connection to, the media will be choppy and could eventually stop streaming all together.

Quick tip: To ensure the fastest streaming speeds, if you are using your Time Capsule as a NAS, I would recommend connecting it via Ethernet to your router instead of using the wireless. I have found that the wireless connection is not the best method when using it as NAS.

A few weeks ago I upgraded my Time Capsule to the 7.4.1 software and did not really think much of it. A few days later, my roommate told me they were having trouble streaming music. I thought that was weird, but told them to restart the Time Capsule and the router and then try it again. They restarted both items and told me they were still having trouble.

At this point, I didn’t remember that I had recently upgraded the firmware and was thinking, “This is weird, we haven’t changed anything but my roommate is claiming the network is messed up.” Later that day when I got home I investigated, and sure enough, something wasn’t right. After about an hour of poking around on the network, it finally dawned on me that the only change I’d made was upgrading the firmware, so I decided to downgrade to the previous version, and voila, my problems were gone!

To Downgrade Your Time Capsule Firmware:

1. Open Airport Utility: Applications → Utilities → Airport Utility
2. Find your device in the left-hand column and select the “Manual Setup” button
3. In the “Summary” window that pops up click on the word “Version”
4. In the pop up box that comes up next to the “Upload Version” select “7.3.2″
5. Click “OK”
6. Your Time Capsule will restart and be as good as new!

Frankly, I’m shocked that Apple would release a firmware update that would cripple the hardware and am looking forward to the next revision, which will hopefully address this issue.

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Having a laptop battery that drains quickly is one of the most annoying things I can think of. I bought a laptop over a desktop so I could use my computer anywhere and expect the battery to last enough time to get a decent amount of work done. Whenever I find something that can increase my battery life, I get excited. I recently stumbled across a firmware patch for MacBooks that does just that.

The patch was released in March 2009, but I did not find it until just now. According to Apple: “This update improves the ability of MacBook batteries to maintain a charge when the system is shut down and not used for an extended period of time. For more information about this update, please visit this web site: About Battery Update 1.4.”

The products that were affected are as follows: MacBook (13-inch Late 2006), MacBook (13-inch Mid 2007), MacBook (13-inch), MacBook (13-inch Late 2007), MacBook (13-inch, Early 2008), MacBook (13-inch, Late 2008), MacBook (13-inch, Early 2009).

If you own one of the affected models and are interested in giving your MacBook’s battery life a boost, head over to the firmware update page and click the download link.

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Now, I “touch type” when I’m typing. Instead of looking at the letters when I type, I look at where I am typing (exactly like I do on my computer). This method has drastically improved both my typing speed and accuracy. Before I switched to my touch-typing method, I would send SMS messages riddled with mistakes because the iPhone would auto-correct words and often times change the entire meaning of the message. You should definitely give it a whirl; it sounds more difficult than it actually is, your hands just know where the keys are though, and it takes no time to adjust!

Bonus Speed Tip: If you’re trying to type a word that your iPhone does not know, simply type an extra letter on the end of the word and then delete it. So if I was trying to the type the word “Apple” and I knew my iPhone would not recognize it, I would type “Applez” then delete the “z” off the end of it and then can just press spacebar without the phone trying to auto-correct me.

Do you have any tips that help you type faster and more accurately on your iPhone? If so, please post them to the comments!

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