InterNetWorkingSolutions Support Site blogs

Troubleshooting OSX Kernel Panics - Part 1

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:32:11 -0700

If you see the following on your Macintosh you are having a serious problem caused by a problem with your hardware and/or software.

You should follow these steps to troubleshoot the problem:

Go to the Finder, then to Applications, then to Utilities.
Double click on Terminal.app
Type in the following without the quotes "open -a /Applications/TextEdit.app /Library/Logs/panic.log"

This is your starting point for seeing what has been happening. In many cases this will tell you what is causing the kernel panic.

The second part of this tutorial will address hardware and software troubleshooting.

Sending mail from Outlook using your Gmail account

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 16:18:09 -0700

This tutorial will show you how to use a gmail account as the outgoing email server from Outlook. This is most useful for situations when your ISP filters or blocks outgoing email. Verizon will not allow any emails that do not contain an @verizon.com email address to originate from their network. Another use for this is for people with laptops who need to send email from multiple locations and hence ISPs.

Here are the steps you should follow:

Your first step is to go to Gmail. After you are click on the sign up for gmail link.
2 Fill in all of the required information including your cell phone number. At the present time this is a gmail requirement. Now enter the code that you will receive on your mobile phone.
You will be presented with another form. Fill it out. Remember that you need to use your everyday email in the secondary email field. The other fields are up to you.
Great you have successfully setup your account. Click on the "I'm ready - show me my account" link.
You are presented with another page showing a summary of what you can do. Click on the "Sweet! Go to my inbox" link.
Phew! You have made it to the main gmail account page. Please click on the Settings link in the top right section of your page.
Click on the Accounts Tab. Now click on the "Add another email address" link.
Enter in your real email address here. Gmail will send a confirmation email to you. Please go to Outlook and check your email. Click on the link in that email which will take you to a gmail confirmation webpage. From there go back to gmail by clicking here.
Click on Settings once again then go to Accounts. Your last step is to click on the "make default" link to the right of your real email address. The reason that you do all of this is so that people see your real email address in the sender and reply to fields. If you did not do this when users replied to your email they would send it to this new gmail account.
In Outlook go to the tools menu then E-Mail Accounts. Select the account that you want to change and then click here.

Configuring Outlook 2003 for your Google Gmail Account

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 15:31:00 -0700

Configuring Outlook 2003 for your Google Gmail

Click the Tools menu, and select E-mail Accounts...
Select Add a new e-mail account, and click Next.
Choose POP3 as your server type by clicking the radio button, and click Next.
Fill in all necessary fields to include the following information:

User Information
Your Name: Enter your name as you would like it to appear in the From: field of outgoing messages.
Email Address: Enter your full Gmail email address (username@gmail.com)
Server Information
Incoming mail server (POP3): pop.gmail.com
Outgoing mail server (SMTP): smtp.gmail.com

Macintosh vs. Windows Comparison

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 08:48:56 -0700

This is the beginning of a series comparing the Macintosh and Windows operating systems.

See what Computer World has to say.

Reading RSS Feeds with Firefox

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 14:58:06 -0700

RSS which is Really Simple Syndication is a way to have information come to you automatically and easilly.
RSS is commonly used to subscribe to news sites, podcasts, video casts, and on search engines, and portals such as Yahoo which collect information from multiple sources in a single place. Following is an explanation showing you how to use the power of this with the popular and secure Firefox webbrowser. Firefox calls RSS Live Bookmarks and describes them as

Installing Asterisk on Fedora Core 5

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 18:03:13 -0600

This is a modification of the instructions found at http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/ATrpms

rpm --import http://ATrpms.net/RPM-GPG-KEY.atrpms
Add the following to /etc/yum.conf

[atrpms]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - ATrpms
baseurl=http://dl.atrpms.net/fc5-i386/atrpms/stable
gpgkey=http://ATrpms.net/RPM-GPG-KEY.atrpms
gpgcheck=1

run these commands

yum install zaptel zaptel-kmdl-`uname -r`
yum install asterisk asterisk-devel asterisk-sounds asterisk-addons libpri spandsp

Run modified instructions found here

Run the following commands to backup your current/sample configurations:

mv /etc/asterisk/iax.conf /etc/asterisk/iax.backup
mv /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf /etc/asterisk/extensions.backup

Run the following commands to download VoicePulse sample configurations:

cd /etc/asterisk
wget http://connect.voicepulse.com/samples/iax.sample
wget http://connect.voicepulse.com/samples/extensions.sample
mv /etc/asterisk/iax.sample /etc/asterisk/iax.conf
mv /etc/asterisk/extensions.sample /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf

Edit the VoicePulse Asterisk configurations:

cd /etc/asterisk
pico iax.conf

Note device login and device password on credentials page

Replace MY_DEVICE_LOGIN with your device login
Replace MY_DEVICE_PASSWORD with your device password
uncomment auth=rsa

Apple Laptop Battery Recall

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 01:20:43 -0600

Just saw this over at Small Dog. Its pretty important to check your laptop.

Apple Battery Recall - EXPANDED INFORMATION
Posted 2006-08-25 17:44 in Apple-News by Ed Shepard

Apple has determined that certain lithium-ion batteries containing cells manufactured by Sony Corporation of Japan pose a safety risk that may result in overheating under rare circumstances.

The affected batteries were sold worldwide from October 2003 through August 2006 for use with the following notebook computers: 12-inch iBook G4, 12-inch PowerBook G4 and 15-inch PowerBook G4.

1.8 million lithium-ion notebook batteries will be recalled.

This is the second-biggest computer battery recall in U.S. history, after Dell’s recall of 4.1 million lithium-ion batteries. Both companies use batteries made by Sony Corp..

You can read all the information by clicking here.

You can also call 800-275-2273, 8:00 am to 8:00 pm, CDT everyday.

The recall is for batteries manufactured from October 2003 through May 2006.

Funny Videos From The Big Boys

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 00:53:10 -0600

IBM Mainframe Training Video

Microsoft Spoof

The Wall Street Journal Reports that Macintoshes are Taking Over the Business World!

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 13:18:24 -0600

Believe it or not the Wall Street Journal has reported that Macintoshes are replacing Windows at a major Japanese banks for multiple reasons including security. See the article here.

Tabbed Browsing in iChat is Here!!

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 11:13:03 -0600

You use tabs in Safari. You use tabs Firefox. Have you been itching to have them in iChat. Well wait no more. A donationware application called Chax has been released. If you want to see the full list of features head on over to their website. If you cannot wait download it here

Dual Booting Apple Computers with Bootcamp

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 15:41:18 -0600

Have you ever wanted to be able to run Windows on your Mac? In the near past that would have been an unspeakable question for the Macintosh faithful. Today you can go over to Apple Computer and download software called Boot Camp that allows multiple operating systems including Windows XP and Linux on your computer as well as Apple's OSX. The caveot is that you will need one of the new Intel Based Macintoshes and your own copy of Windows. Now there is nothing stopping you from running Windows programs if you desire but switching back to the Macintosh is as easy as a reboot.

Firefox Password Security Issue

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 13:12:06 -0700

Many of you have wisely switched to the significantly more secure Firefox browser, especially if you had been using Microsoft's Internet Explorer running on the Windows operating system. Kudos for your wise choice.

Many of you also take advantage of Firefox's password storage for website passwords. A minor security problem exists that allows other users on your computer to see these passwords. From within Firefox if you go to Tools >Options > Privacy and click on the "View Saved Passwords" button and then "Show Passwords" your passwords can be displayed.

Creating an Email Autoresponder with Webmin's Usermin

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 10:15:01 -0700

So you have been given the go ahead for that delightful vacation in the caribbean. You have made the plane reservations, packed, have all of the arrangements for the kids, but wait!!!!! What about my email while I'm gone. Don't let this ruin your vacation. Since you use the webmin management program you are ready to go. Following is a step by step tutorial on how to setup an email auto-responder in under 5 minutes.

The standard location to access webmin is http://www.yourdomainname.com:20000. Lets go there.

Drupal Crash Course

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 07:20:34 -0700

Welcome to the Drupal CMS install crash course, and remember your helmet.

Drupal is a powerful, extensible Content Management System that provides non technical users with the ability to instantly and easilly add content to your website. With this power comes a bit of complexity. Following is a crash course in using the system. It is assumed that you have already setup a working install. We have added a couple of modules as well including the image and rich text editors which allow you to create a page with formatting and multimedia directly within the Drupal environment. Lets get our hands dirty.

Basic Computer Security

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 14:06:37 -0700

The internet is plagued with viruses, spyware, and trojans that at best are highly annoying and at worse can compromise confidential information such as your finances. There is a lot of debate about which systems are more secure. Macintosh computers are not beset with the volume of exploits that exist for Windows computers and are generally acknowledged to be significantly more secure out of the box. Regardless of of the computer that you use, failing to use some basic protection and common sense is simply asking for trouble. It has been estimated that an unprotected Windows computer on the internet will be infected in less than 30 minutes. Being safe is relatively easy and affordable.