Mac Must Knows

If you don't know what that means, here's a definition:

"Port forwarding (sometimes referred to as tunneling) is the act of forwarding a network port from one network node to another. This technique can allow an external user to reach a port on a private IP address (inside a LAN) from the outside via a NAT-enabled router."

I'm sure port forwarding has many uses, but the main one I know is for BitTorrent. Configuring your router for Bittorent will make your downloads go much faster. I've seen guides on how to do this for every router imaginable at http://portforward.com/ but it doesn't say how to configure an Apple Time Capsule.

So here it is:

How To Port Forward: Time Capsule

Before doing anything, make sure you are connected to your Time Capsule's network.

Step #1: Find out your IP

Open: System Preferences > Network

There you will see how you are connected to the internet. Under "Status" it will say the network and the IP address. Write down the IP.

Step #2: Choose a port to forward and enter it in

The best ones are 49152–65534 but any will work. Once you've got one open up your Bittorent client and enter it in. I'm using Azureus and Transmission.

In Azureus it's done by clicking: Vuze > Preferences > Connection. Enter it in where it says "Incoming TCP / UDP listen port".

In Transmission it's done by clicking: Transmission > Preferences > Network. Enter it in where it says "Incoming TCP port".

Step #3: Open AirPort Utility

It's in Applications > Utilities > AirPort Utility

Step #4: Enable NAT Port Mapping Protocol

When you open AirPort Utility you get a window that shows all the different things your connected to. Double-Click the Time Capsule one you want to configure.

This will open a window that gives you access to all the Time Capsule's settings.

Click the "Internet" tab and make sure the checkbox "Enable NAT Port Mapping Protocol" is selected.

Step #5: Configure Port Mappings

Click the button right under "Enable NAT Port Mapping Protocol" that says "Configure Port Mappings".

This will take you to a screen that is accessible under: Advanced > Port Mapping.

Here it shows an "Allowed" list. We want to add the port you chose to it. Click the + sign under the list.

Ignore the part that says "Service". The 4 private and public port boxes enter the port you chose. In the "Private IP Address" box put the IP you wrote down earlier.

When your done click continue.

The next part isn't too important. Name it whatever you want in the Description box (I did the name of the bittorent client) and click "Done".

Step #6: Update Time Capsule

Once you click done you may be asked if you want to update the changes. Click yes. Your Time Capsule will restart and save the changes.

Step #7: Enjoy!

Now that your time capsule is configured properly you should notice faster download speeds. Enjoy!

Having the same picture for your background gets boring. I prefer a new one each time I log in, something cool I found out you can do on your mac.

To start, make a folder with all your desired background images. Call it something like "Backgrounds" and put it in your picture folder. This is going to be where you can put pictures you want to have as a background.

Now we can set up the background settings.

1. Open up "System Preferences" > Desktop & Screen Saver.
   
2. Make sure your in the "Desktop" section.
   
3. Add your "Backgrounds" folder by clicking the + button.
   
4. Click the "Change Picture" checkbox and choose how often you want your background to alternate.
   

And your done!

You can also select "Random Order" if you want as well as change how the picture is shown (such as "Fill Screen", "Tile", "Center", etc.).

Enjoy giving your computer a new look each time you login.

Games are a great for when you get bored. I like to have a few on my computer for whenever I need to kill some time. Here are my 5 favorites that are fun...and free!

1. Sauerbraten:
   Proof that not all free games are simple and boring. Sauerbraten is a great 1st Person shooter game. Your can play it by yourself but when you get bored of that you can also play online. With tons of different levels and the ability to make your own, Sauerbraten is definitely one of my most favorite free games.
   Click Here for more information.
   
   
2. Quinn:
   Want something more classic and simple? Try Quinn!
   I would have to say it's the nicest free Tetris I've ever played. You can play on the same computer with your friend, or over the internet as well. The entire game graphics are customizable so you can even make it look just how you like. Fans of Tetris definitely need to check this game out.
   Click Here for more information.
   
   
3. Stepmania:
   Dance Dance Revolution is definitely one of the coolest games I know. It's not as good on a computer, but it's still a party to play. Stepmania is a free DDR type game for mac. Great fun!
   Click Here for more information.
   
   
4. Pac The Man X:
   Once again another classic game for the mac. Pac Man. Pac the Man X has the classic feel and at the same time a newer sort of look. You can play with 1 or 2 players at a time, on over 130 levels. Not enough? You can even make your own. Another really nice classic game.
   Click Here for more information.
   
   
5. SuperTuxKart:
   I think I've covered everything except one other type of game. Racing!
   This game reminds me a lot of mario kart. You can play as a wide range of characters in different game modes. Your friends can also join in because it allows you to play against up to 4 people.
   Click Here for more information.
   

Who ever said you need money to have fun? Try these games, I'm sure you'll be impressed at the quality.

Happy Gaming!

Hotmail is one of the most popular email services out there. Millions of people use it (including me) and its great. But that said I do have one big problem with it...

Hotmail doesn't work with any mail client unless you buy a premium membership!

This means it doesn't work with Mac Mail or any other email applications for mac. But, luckily there's ways to work around this. If you've ever wanted to use your Hotmail, Windows Live or MSN email with Mac Mail this is how to do it.

Solution #1 - Switch Your Email

The best solution is to switch to a service that does work with Mac Mail (I'd suggest Gmail).

You may not want to do this but it's the best in the long run. I'm sure many people won't want to do this if everyone they know sends them info through their Hotmail address. I too didn't feel like telling everyone to switch.

So if that's the case then here it is.

Solution #2 - Download "MacFreePops"

This is best way I know for getting your mail out of hotmail. You may have heard of "httpmail". I've tried it and it failed, so I'll show you how I got it to work with MacFreePops.

1. Download and Install MacFreePops
   Click here to get MacFreePops. Once it's downloaded move it to your application folder.
   
   
2. Open Mac Free Pops
   When you first open it up the window will look something like this.
   
   Before you start, make sure Mac Free Pops is updated. Click where it says "Updates Available" to download all the updates. Do this twice to get everything, after the second time don't worry if it says there are updates.
   Next check all the options you want. I've circled all the ones I have but you can do whatever you like.
   
   
3. Check You Have The Right Settings and Start MacFreePops
   Click "freepopsd service". Make sure that window looks like this. Check that the circled things are set right too. When your all done click "Start freepopsd service".
   
4. Make a New Mail Account
   Open up Mail. Click "File > Add Account...".
   
   Start setting up your new account by entering your Name, Complete email and Email password. Click "Continue" when your done.
   
   Next you're asked to setup your Incoming Mail Server. To do this:
   
   1. Set the account type to POP.
   2. Enter any description you like.
   3. Set "127.0.0.1" as your Incoming Mail Server.
   4. Make sure the user name is your FULL email (includes the @hotmail.com, @live.com, @msn.com, etc.).
   5. Click Continue.

   If you get an error message ignore it and keep going.

   
   
   Ignore "Incoming Mail Security" and keep going to "Outgoing Mail Server". For this:
   

   1. Put in any description you like.
   2. For my outgoing mail server I use "smtp.gmail.com".
      I believe it works without authentication. If not you can set up a gmail account for free and use put in your user name and password for authentication. Try without authentication first and see how it goes. You can keep "Use only this server" checked.
   3. Click Continue.

   
   Mail will then take you to a summary of all your settings. Make sure everything looks right and click "Create".

   

5. Modify Your New Account's Settings

   The last thing you need to do is change a few account settings. Open Mail again and click "Mail > Preferences".

   

   To finish setting up your account:
   

   1. Go to the "Accounts" section.
   2. Choose the account you just created from the left-hand menu.
   3. Go to the "Advanced" section.
   4. Make sure "Enable this account" is checked.
   5. Make sure "Include when automatically checking for new mail" is checked.
   6. I would suggest unchecking "Remove copy from server after retrieving a message:". If you ever need to switch back to using Hotmail the old way, all your e-mails will be gone. Better to just leave them.
   7. Change the port to "2000".

   

   Congratulations, your done!

Now whenever you click "Get Mail", Mac Mail will check your hotmail account for e-mails.
If it doesn't work, you probably have quit MacFreePops. Make sure it is open and that the service is running.
Now checking your email can be a lot quicker. Good Luck!

Have you ever notice how bright your Macs screen is?

Pretty bright. It's set like this mainly because a bright screen is a beautiful screen.

Sure, you want it to have a certain level of brightness, too dark and you can't see what your doing. But do you realize how bright your screen really is? Turn off the lights and i'd not be surprised if the screen lit up the whole room.

If your on a Macbook or Macbook Pro, the screen is a big battery drainer. You can make your computer stay alive longer by dimming the screen to a different level.

Bright screens are also not good for your eyes. Sitting all day, looking at a screen is bad enough, let alone having the screen be as bright as a lightbulb.

Solution?

1. Go to System Preferences > Displays and check "Automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes".
This will make the screen automatically adjust to the correct brightness level.

2. Download ScreenShade. It's a free application that let's you further adjust your screen brightness. Even the lowest brightness level is too bright in some places, screen shade let's you go even lower to get the perfect setting.

Your eyes will thank you and your computer will run longer.

Ever tried to run a game or application only to have the computer tell you "Please insert CD".

Well what if you lost it, can't find it or lent it to a friend. Well I have a solution.

As long as you have a Disk Image file (.dmg) you can mount it so the computer thinks there's a CD. Click here to see how to make a .dmg file for your CD.

What you use is something called "Toast Titanium".

You may have heard of it before, it's fairly popular. I thought it was stupid till I tried it. Toast Titanium can do tons of cool stuff but that's a different topic.

Right-Click the .Dmg > Open With > Toast Titanium.

This opens toast. In the window that this opens, somewhere it says "Mount". Click it.

This mounts the .DMG file so that the computer actually thinks you've inserted a CD.

I find this really helpful for games because it says me having to look for the disk.

Enjoy!

Having a stack of CDs for different programs and games is fine, but what if you could put them all on your computer...

Wouldn't you rather just double-click a file instead of looking for a CD then putting it in?

It's actually quite easy to put all your CDs onto your computer. The information is saved in a .DMG (Disk Image) file which is like a virtual CD.

To do this all you have to do is:

1. Put the CD into the disk drive.
2. Open up Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility).
3. Select the CD you inserted in the right-hand menu.
4. Click New Image.

And your done. The CD is converted to a .DMG file and saved on your computer.

Now whenever you want to run that CD you just click on the file.

Easy!

There are many tools out there for optimizing your Mac.

If you look you'll find ones like Cocktail, Mac Janitor and TinkerTools. They are all very popular and great but my favorite is Onyx.

Onyx lets you do a variety of "Cleaning" and "Repair" tasks that will clear your Mac of all it's crap. It has been debated how effective this is, but I find it does the trick.

In Onyx there is a long list of things you can clean. You get to choose what options to run. When choosing make sure you know what your doing so you don't have any problems.

Something about Mac OSX is that, the more free space you have on your hard drive, the faster your computer runs.

Cleaning out your hard drive is a great way to speed things up.

Go through your folders and look for things to delete. Stuff like...

• Movies you don't watch.
• Music you don't listen to.
• Files you no longer need.
• Pictures you don't really need (Things off the internet).
• Applications you no longer use.
• Duplicate Files.

And so on...

There are a few programs that can help you do this. They can tell you where the most space is being taken, what duplicate files you have and other things to help you clean things up.

I'll go over them in a different post.

The more free space you have the better.

Programs can also be guilty of sucking up the power.

How can you find out which ones?

With Activity Monitor. It comes with Mac and can tell you everything you need to know about the applications running.

Activity Monitor says how much CPU, RAM and Virtual Memory your applications are using and more. You can use it to see which programs are slowing things down.

Checking activity monitor every once and a while can give you insight into which applications are holding back your computer.

Dashboard is great. Tons of cool widgets that let you do almost anything.

But having all these widgets does affect your computer.

Each widget needs a bit of memory to run. Some more then others.

Certain widgets need so much space they will slow down your computer. The ones that keep updating to show new info are probably the worst.

Don't feel like you can't have these widgets. I use them, they're great.

But if you want to give your computer a little boost just open dashboard and remove the widgets you don't need/use. Doing this will help take some strain off your computer.

If you don't use dashboard, why not disable it? This too will save you some energy.

The easiest way to disable dashboard is with Onyx. It's under: Parameters ---> Expose and Dashboard.

If you don't want to download Onyx you can turn it off with Terminal... it's more technical but you can do it.

This guide will tell you how to do it: http://www.macworld.com/article/46236/2005/08/disabledashboard.html

Good Luck!

Did you know that you can run Leopard in tons of different languages? And not only leopard, most of your applications probably have a few language translations.

All this language support takes up space though. And more then a few megabytes. Getting rid of the language files you don't need could easily scrape 5gb off your hard drive.

So how do you choose the ones you want and get rid of the ones you need?

It can be done with a program called "Monolingual". It let's you choose the language files you want to use and get rid of the ones you don't.

Start by opening it up.

In the languages section check all the languages you aren't going to use and uncheck the ones you will.

Next simply click remove and your done!

You'll be amazed at how much space this saves.