Apple's Airport Series: A Router Worth Having

In my opinion, having one of these routers in your home is pretty much, if not definitely a necessary requirement. They make things oh-so-easy, and in true Apple style, clean, easy to use and wildly efficient.

Link: http://www.apple.com/au/compare-wifi-models/

Part of my job is to provide advice or make recommendations to my clients on new hardware or software to purchase when faced with a problem  that needs resolving, and usually needs resolving fast and permanent. I don't believe in a bandaid fix in my work, as it usually results in repeat work, and generally an unhappy customer.

Today I had a customer who was in dire need of a new internal network for his office. His modem/router/gateway device, whilst performing efficiently for at least the modem component is very dated and aged, and was starting to have DHCP and routing issues, as well as the wireless signal kept dropping out and was weak rendering it basically unusable. However, having had some experience with the AirPort line of products, I recommended he invest $119 in a small, simple and non-obtrusive device into his network, which would solve a lot of the routing issues, as well as enable easy shared printing.

I gotta tell you, it was great. Not only is the range on this little tiny device excellent, but the built in bonjour services as well as the static allocations for the various devices works excellently. I set the router up to be the PPP dialler also, meaning it handles the internet connection, all the modem needs to do now is keep doing what it does best, handle the data link between it and the DSLAM in the telephone exchange. The best part about this entire setup is that I configured the whole thing (except for the static allocations) without having to plug in a cable.

The AirPort family come in three different flavours currently. The baby of the group (the one I set up today) is the express model, which has a gateway ethernet port (to connect your modem to) and one ethernet port. You can either plug one device into this, such as a network printer, or computer that doesn't have a wireless connection. It has one USB port for either attaching a printer or a storage device, and apart from having the inbuilt wireless, it also has a jack to connect speakers to. Whilst the speaker jack is probably not so effective in an office environment, and probably aimed at the home user, it is great to have. Any Apple device can play music wirelessly through AirPlay to the speakers attached to the AirPort.

The bigger brothers of the AirPort express are the "extreme" models. You can either get one with a hard drive built into it for storing data or making easy backups, or you can get one without the internal storage. The extreme models also have a new technology built into them referred to wireless beaming as well as supporting the 802.11ac wireless standard. If you're streaming HD content, or need the extra range on wireless, this would be a better option over the express version. There are two extra ethernet ports (bringing the total to four, including one gateway port), and the speed of these ports on the extreme models is bumped up to 1gigabit up from 100megabit in the express model).

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"Documents.library-ms" is no longer working, error in Windows 8

"Documents.library-ms" is no longer working. This library can be safely deleted from your computer. Folders that have been included will not be affected.

I've you've got this error, it just means that the link to the folders that Windows is currently using broke, and just needs to be repaired.

Most users won't create new libraries and will just use the default ones included in the system. If this is you, all you need to do is delete them and re-add them.

To do this, open any explorer window, and go to the Libraries option just underneath your favourite links.

Open the Libraries folder and delete the files. Then in the left hand column right click the Libraries and choose restore defaults.

Fixed!

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iOS 7: Coming next week. Why should you update.

Apple's new mobile operating system, iOS is coming next week, and is set to bring about the biggest facelift and change to the operating system since it's introduction back in 2007. As with most updates to the iOS system, Apple has promised over 200 features and new additions to the system.

Many of the applications have been given a flatter perspective and the overall skeuomorphic designs from all of the inbuilt applications has been removed. A whole new pallet of colours have been introduced as well as the obvious facelift throughout the entire system.

From the lock screen there are a number of things that can be done, you can see your notifications, your view of "Today" which is a summary of things that might be relevant to you and your day (more on this in a moment).

There is a new control centre which is also accessible from this screen. The control centre provides you quick access to change some system settings, such as turning off or on:

• Airplane mode
• Bluetooth
• WiFi
• Do Not Disturb mode
• Screen rotation lock

In addition, you can also reach other features such as screen brightness, music controls, the all new AirDrop feature, airplay, as well as the camera, calculator, torch (turn the LED flash on), and compass.

Control centre is available from any screen you are viewing as well as the lock screen. Given that control centre links to applications which are not personally identifiable, this option is available from the lock screen and is on by default. However, you can remove it from the lock screen if you don't wish to have it left there for any reason.




The Today section of notification centre gives you a heads up on what's on your day. It gives you a quick overview of the weather - eg, showers with a high of 18, or sunny with a high of 30. Depending on the time of day it might give you the overnight low. In addition it will let you know if it's anyone's birthday, how long it will take for you to get to common destinations that you travel to such as work, gym, friends house, pub... Below this information will show you your calendar for the next few hours of the day, any stocks your following, and how they've changed throughout the day, and if you get right to the bottom it will even give you a heads up on the next day. Such as, you have an early start tomorrow with your first appointment at 6am.

Multitasking has been given a number of really excellent updates too, and not only aesthetically. For starters switching between apps is simple, easy and straight forward. In a similar fashion to what is currently the process, double clicking the home button will show your open apps, with a screen preview of what it looks like. You can then tap that screen preview to go straight back to where you were or you can swipe the screen away to close the application. There's also a number of stuff going on behind the scenes too for multitasking. From Apple's website:

Multitasking has always been a smart way to switch between apps. Now it’s even smarter. Because iOS 7 learns when you like to use your apps and can update your content before you launch them. So if you tend to check your favourite social app at 9:00 am every day, your feed will be ready and waiting for you. That’s multitasking in iOS 7. It knows what you want to do before you do.

Photos have also been improved, with a number of live filters you can set when taking a shot, and the way that the photos you have in your library are organised. iOS 7 automatically sorts your pictures into events or collections related to a holiday or a day trip you took somewhere. You can zoom all the way out too to get a year's glance at all your photos you have taken.

The last feature I'll mention here is the Air Drop feature. If you want to send a file or link or picture, or.. pretty much anything, you can with Air Drop. iOS 7 recognizes other devices around you and shows that persons face or name as a person you can send a file to. According to Apple:

Sending a photo or a document to someone via text or email is fine. But if that someone is right next to you, a text or an email suddenly feels like too many steps. Enter AirDrop for iOS. It lets you quickly and easily share photos, videos, contacts — and anything else from any app with a Share button. Just tap Share, then select the person you want to share with. AirDrop does the rest using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. No setup required. And transfers are encrypted, so what you share is highly secure.

There are many, many more features coming with iOS 7 next week, and these are just a few. If you want to see more, check out Apple's website which will have more info on iOS and you can see all the features there too.
http://www.apple.com/au/ios/ios7/



iOS 7 Promo video, from Apple:

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How to tether your iPhone with your computer

This is one I get asked a lot.

I have an iPhone/tablet/iPad and I want to share the Internet connection it has with my laptop when I'm on the road. How do I set it up?

Luckily, this is an easy one!

From your iDevice, hit the settings icon

Then choose the personal hotspot menu option (usually 3rd or 4th option)

Then slide the switch on the following page to "on".

After this is done, go to your laptop, and search for available wireless networks. Your iPhone's name should be in the list, and all you need to do is enter the password on your iPhones screen. Mine in this case is cheese47

Once connected on your laptop you should be able to get online and browse the Internet.

Note that this also works for any other devices you need to connect to the Internet that have a wifi connection, but no 3G or 4G or LTE access.

Hope this helped!

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