Mac Geekery

Recently I acquired a 17” iMac G4. Wanting to be able to control both it and my 15” Titanium PowerBook G4 I discovered “Synergy.” (http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/)

Synergy allows one keyboard and mouse to control multiple machines through software. (Even machines running different OSes.) A simple configuration file defines the involved systems and there spatial relationship to each other. Starting a synergy client on each machine to be controlled, and the synergy server on the host machine (the one with the keyboard and mouse) is all there is to it.

Since both the iMac and PowerBook have dedicated LCD displays, with no ability to accept input from an outside source this software solution was the best (only?) solution I could find.

Mac OS X has buried in its basement a history calendar. In order to make daily use of this easier and more fun here are the steps I've taken. 1. Create a link in your home folder to the calendar location:

eeyore:~ $ ln -s /usr/share/calendar calendar

2. Next create a calendar of your very own. I copied the calendar.world and renamed it calendar.mark:

eeyore:~ $ cd calendar
eeyore:~/calendar $cp calendar.world calendar.mark

3. Now edit your calendar, making sure to change all references to calendar.world to the name you chose. You can also add or subtract calendars that are included in the query. Here is mine, as an example: There's more »

If you are like me, and you take your laptop (a Powerbook of course) with you everywhere you go, you find yourself connecting to the Internet over WiFi hotspots or through corporate networks. Everything works smoothly and seamlessly, until you try to send email only to find SMTP traffic is blocked; or you want to surf the web only to find a restrictive firewall limits your access. Using ssh you can tunnel through the local firewall and connect to a server under your control and regain not only fuller access to the Internet, but add a layer of protection to your activities through encryption. There's more »