<p>NJRes: I feel your pain. Now that I have S2’s laptop AND my desktop connected wirelessly at the same time, I’m terrified to attempt to set up DH’s ancient Mac to wireless as well. That would save us the second internet fee every month, but it would also probably age me 10 years. And take almost that long until it’s working right, as well.</p>
<p>Toblin, I like that – “Plug and pray.”</p>
<p>You pay a second internet fee every month? Set that ancient Mac up right now.</p>
<p>Actually, if it doesn’t run OS X, your internet fee may well be worth the hassle.</p>
<p>Wireless networks are a pain because there are so many pieces involved and everyone making the equipment wants to shave every penny they can from costs including the device, documentation and support.</p>
<p>Wireless routers typically come with wired ethernet ports and my approach was to wire the house before we got a wireless router. It took me several hours to run CAT5 between floors but that was a long time ago so all of the main systems are wired. I sometimes use the wireless network (have gone through several wireless routers) when it is cold in the basement - I just bring up one of my laptops.</p>
<p>When I went to do the wireless upgrades, I bought adapter cards from different vendors to save a few bucks. Unfortunately the interfaces to setup the cards and the routers varied from vendor to vendor including supported security features. So I spent hours and hours trying to get the network to work with adapters from multiple vendors. Windows has gotten better over the years and Mac seems to just work for what the OS supports. I don’t recall any wireless problems for a few years now.</p>
<p>If I do run into wireless problems, I’m going to just get an Apple Airport Extreme. They cost two to three times as much as regular routers but everyone that I know that bought them (because of problems with cheap routers) hasn’t had any problems since.</p>
<p>BTW, we have ten computers that we use regularly and another six that see little use - always good to have a few backups though.</p>
<p>On your original question: how is an ordinary person supposed to do this?</p>
<p>That’s a tough question. I have worked with computers, networks and software since the mid-1970s and have the right degrees but I don’t even think that this is enough. I know which forums to go to, the right people to ask and have a very literate circle of coworkers on technology. And still I can get stumped on problems.</p>
<p>Only recently I realized that my MacBook Pro was taking longer than my Windows 7 laptop to shut down. When I bought the MBP, it took four seconds to shut down. It was taking 40 seconds. I did a little digging and found that the likely cause was software that I installed and then deleted. On Mac, that doesn’t always completely remove the software. So I found a forum where they showed you where the system log was so I opened a terminal window and emacs to look at the system log. From there I was able to diagnose the problem in two or three software products that weren’t completely removed. I downloaded new kits and ran their uninstall procedures and the system shutdown time was back to four seconds.</p>
<p>I’ve had a lot of practice reading system logs from a variety of operating system so that didn’t phase me. I posted my findings on a forum and someone asked me how I knew what was using up the time. The person probably hadn’t read system logs before.</p>
<p>One other helpful thing is to know when you are over your head. We have fulltime IT people at work and I can ask them for help or a favor if they aren’t too busy.</p>
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<p>I need them at home. </p>
<p>Fireshark, DH’s ancient Mac does not run OS X. In fact, it barely runs. We will be replacing it as soon as we can.</p>
<p>But not this Christmas, I’m afraid.</p>
<p>Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope your wireless routers, desk tops, laptops, mouses, speakers and monitors work without any snags during all of 2010!!</p>
<p>Is the plural of <em>mouses</em> still <em>mice?</em> ;)</p>
<p>It’s better than mices.</p>
<p>I find that you have to go on the web often to find out why the thing you are going to do won’t work and gives you the way to do it. I got paid to write software as a HS and college student, so I’m not unfamiliar with software and technology. </p>
<p>I did get the wireless network up and running, but got NetGear equipment that transfers the network via the electric lines in the house. One of these is a wifi repeater so that we get strong wifi signals upstairs (it is an old and big house and the signal just wasn’t making it to all rooms), one enables me to have a hard-wired ethernet connection in my home office, and another allows for wife in my wife’s studio which is a separate building but the wiring of which goes to our house rather than the street. I just coouldn’t get WEP keys and IP addresses to work on my own and needed to bring in the guy who does IT stuff for my house. Similarly, although I had one of the first Macs out (when they gave two to each school), I had to switch to PCs a long time ago. Although I’ve bought Macs for wife and kids and set them up, I just don’t understand how iphoto organizes images and connects to mail and entourage. She has to go to the Apple Genius’s. My wife is an accidental Luddite (early on, she called me at the office to tell me that “Yahoo is not working”) but has gotten much better at it. However, she wants someone to teach her how to do Facebook and both kids would probably clean the floors in the house instead.</p>
<p>This vacation, I’m installing Snow Leopard on the Macs (family pack is a good deal), MacSpeech Dictate on one Mac, setting a LiveScribe pen on another, and re-installing Dragon on my Blackberry (in what seems like an early-ish beta version).</p>
<p>But, I’ve found that there are some things I just need others to do.</p>
<p>The plural of mouse the rodent is mice, but the plural of mouse the cursor controller is mouses.</p>
<p>I believe.</p>
<p>Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls.</p>
<p>Mices comes from “I hate mices to pieces”, a Tom and Jerry knockoff.</p>
<p>"BTW, we have ten computers that we use regularly and another six that see little use - always good to have a few backups though. "
Woah!! 10 computers? Between how people? Why so many?</p>
<p>* Mac, that doesn’t always completely remove the software.*</p>
<p>[AppZapper</a> - The uninstaller Apple forgot.](<a href=“http://www.appzapper.com/]AppZapper”>http://www.appzapper.com/)</p>
<p>I use CleanApp. But I think the price and the application is pretty similar to AppZap.</p>
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<p>I thought this too until I found out that the Preview application in Snow Leopard has the scanning software built in.</p>
<p>S2 finally got around to installing the free upgrade to Windows 7 disk that came when he bought his laptop last summer. The good news is that the install went without a hitch. It was not immediately clear to him, however, what was different. From what I have read, faster boot times appear to be the biggest expected difference. He say he only reboots about once a week, so doesn’t care about that. He did reboot yesterday to test it and said he couldn’t tell a difference in speed, at least on his laptop. I guess it doesn’t hurt anything but I’m not motivated to put it on my computer. Vista seems fine to me.</p>
<p>Does anybody know of some other feature of Windows 7 he should look for? He asked if it affected any of the microsoft office programs like Word and I wasn’t sure but assumed not.</p>
<p>I’m more old-school and just prefer to use a terminal window, grep, ls and emacs to muck around with the operating system when applications behave. I learn a little more about the operating system and it gets me closer to the metal. Last night I got startup time from 53 seconds down to 30 seconds by removing an application from startup. I dont always use the application so it makes better sense to start it up manually.</p>
<p>The benefits of Windows 7 are faster startup and shutdown times. Many laptop users leave their laptops on for long periods of time so that may not be an issue for them. Windows 7 is also much better about asking annoying questions - the operating system is far less intrusive. General system performance is better than Vista. I do find that battery life is not as good with Windows 7 as it is with Vista.</p>
<p>As an operating system, Windows 7 is nicer than XP and Vista. I still prefer Mac OS X but the margin has closed compared to Vista. Part of the Mac preference is the hardware (Apple has a lot of UI patents that they don’t care to license to other hardware makers), part of it is not having to deal with antivirus and antispyware and part of it is that it runs Unix under the hood.</p>
<p>BCEagle, can you come and be my next-door neighbor? Sure seems like it would be handy to have you close by!!</p>
<p>DH decided to use a radical approach to solve the battle of two vistas for our network - he is upgrading to win 7. We’ll see what happens, but one thing is a guarantee - we will not go to bed until 3 am or so :)</p>
<p>Bunsen, how did it work out?? Are you all installed with no hitches?</p>
<p>Hahahaha. Like that’s ever going to happen . . . .</p>
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<p>I have three at work, one runs Linux, one Vista and the other runs real-time stock charts. I don’t like the stock office computer. I have a 17 inch MacBook Pro and a 13 inch Dell XPS M1330. The latter is for when I need something small and light. Kids have a MacBook Pro each. We have three older Dell laptops. My wife has a desktop. The kids have a desktop in the basement for gaming. We have two older Windows computers which haven’t been turned on in over a year and we have a PowerMac that’s useful for stuff that needs to be secure or where we want to use a non-x86 architecture. I probably should ditch the two that haven’t been used in a year.</p>