AllThingsD » router

Dear Amazon: Somebody Wants to Buy a Brazilian Honey Wax. But Not Me.

Peter Kafka — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:54:46 +0000

Dear Amazon:

I like you. Actually, I think you’re pretty great. We’ve known each other for a long time, and I really appreciate that you understand me so well by now.

You know, for instance, that I’ve thought about buying the newish Beastie Boys album. And that I was recently in the market for a new router. And you told me about this cool Madison Smartt Bell book I didn’t know about (I bought that one — sent it straight into the Kindle).

So I’m always happy to hear from you.

But lately you’ve been acting … weird. Like you don’t really know me anymore.

You’ve started sending me these notes about something called “AmazonLocal.” Apparently, they are daily deals that LivingSocial buys, then hands off to you to distribute. Because I’m not the only person you know well — you know lots and lots of people.

That’s cool. But these “AmazonLocal” thingies — they’re not for me.

You’ve sent me five so far. One of them was for a restaurant, which is fine, I guess. But I have a long list of restaurants I want to go to before I start going to random ones I’ve never heard of.

The other ones, though? I think maybe you thought they were going to somebody else. There was one for something called a “Brazilian Blowout.” And one for Pilates classes. And one for sewing classes. And today I got one for two “Brazilian Honey Waxes,” which I think do something different than a Brazilian Blowout. But I’m not sure.

And look. I’m secure in my manhood, and I’m not offended. And it will be easy for me to unsubscribe to these things, and I’ll do that just as soon as I’m done typing this.

I guess I’m just not sure why you sent me these in the first place. Why go ahead and make me feel just a tiny bit less good about our relationship? You certainly don’t need the money — you see $9 billion of that every three months. And if you did want to send me this stuff, all you’d have to do is ask.

But you didn’t.

And while I’m certainly going to keep buying lots and lots and lots of stuff from you, I might think twice before I open another one of your emails. What a bummer.

P.S.: If you do have leads on affordable three-bedroom apartments with outdoor space in a leafy block in Brooklyn, please holler, ASAP.

—-

Unrelated: One of my all-time favorite advertising videos. May not be safe for work, but you should watch it anyway:

——–
Also unrelated: Happy Birthday, Ben!

Freedom Box Needs a Good User Interface

Michael Hickins — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:22:02 +0000

Eben Moglen, a professor at Columbia Law School, is working to propagate a matchbox-sized device in homes around the world that will serve as a private and independent route to the Internet, free from prying eyes, Internet kill switches, and the whims of private conglomerates like Facebook.

The technology already exists to make this happen, he says; the problem will be in making it simple enough for ordinary people to get the most out of the product.

The device, which he has dubbed the Freedom Box, will be a combination data storage device, wireless Internet router and communications platform–all of it encrypted, so that only its owner and authorized recipients could read the data it contained or transmitted. Users will typically plug it into a simple wall socket, but it could also run on two double-A sized batteries, meaning it could be used even during a blackout.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Internet Access in Hotel Rooms

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 02:00:15 +0000

I have a 3GS iPhone. Is there a way to connect it to the Internet cable found in hotel and motel rooms?

Not that I know of. But you can do this indirectly by creating your own Wi-Fi network from the wired connection in the room. There are two ways to do this.

One possibility is to carry a small portable router. These are small devices that plug into the wired connection and propagate a Wi-Fi signal in the hotel room that the iPhone (or other devices, like laptops and tablets) can use. A second option is to plug a laptop into the physical connection and use it as a Wi-Fi base station by setting up what’s called an “ad hoc” or computer-to-computer Wi-Fi connection. Steps for doing this, which can be a bit techie, differ depending on whether you use a PC or Mac.

I have been struggling with a hard drive space shortage for at least a year. I have deleted duplicate emails. I have deleted videos and word files and put them on a stand alone hard drive. Do you have any other suggestions?

If you don’t want to, or can’t, replace your laptop, and don’t want to be tethered to your external hard disk, you might look into buying a new, larger, internal hard disk.

Many stores and consultants can sell and install larger hard disks, and even transfer the data from your old one.

I have thousands of photos on my computer and external hard drives. I’m in the process of trying to organize them on one hard drive and noticed that there are many duplicates between the different devices. Is there one program that you recommend that reliably detects and allows the removal of duplicate files?

You might try using Google’s Picasa to sweep the drives, locate the photos, and display them.

The program has a feature that can avoid importing duplicates. Once imported, if there are still duplicates, Picasa offers methods to hide or actually delete them from your disk. Information on this is at http://bit.ly/8YKTzy.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital website, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Second-Edition iPad–Worth the Wait?

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 22:36:42 +0000

I am considering buying an iPad, but am wondering if I should wait for the second edition which is rumored to be coming soon. What do you advise?

I regard the current, original iPad as an excellent product, and can’t say you’d go wrong with it. But while Apple is famously secretive, I’d be surprised if there isn’t a new model announced in the next few months that will have added or improved features. There’s wide speculation, for instance, it will gain a camera or two. The company has a long history of improving its products, and, in the case of the iPad, must keep making it better to deal with a host of coming tablet rivals. So, if you can wait a few months, I’d do so.

I see that many of the newer wireless routers with attractive features do not support printer sharing. Does that mean you cannot connect a printer via Ethernet cable to the router and be able to access that printer through the wireless network? Why do so many of the newer routers not support printer sharing?

In the context you seem to be using it, the term “printer sharing” referred to plugging in an otherwise non-networkable printer via USB to a router, which would then make the printer usable over the network. I presume that this feature has declined in popularity as more home printers now have wired or wireless networking built in, and the latest Windows and Mac operating systems make it much easier to share even a printer without its own network features through the computer’s connection to the network. If the printer has wired networking built in, you should be able to plug it into one of the Ethernet jacks on most wireless routers and make it usable on your wireless network.

I have an almost two-year-old MacBook Pro. The hard drive is nearly full, and I wondered if you knew of any tricks to free up some space. I’m particularly interested in cost-effective fixes.

One useful free utility for freeing up space on a Mac is called Monolingual, and is available at http://bit.ly/dqTCSC. This little utility allows you to remove all the obscure files on a Mac that allow the computer to operate in languages you can’t read or don’t use. For instance, if you only speak and read English, you can erase the files that enable the computer to run in, say, Albanian and Portuguese. Its maker says this can free up hundreds of megabytes of space. I have tried it and it works. Of course, whether you have a Windows PC or a Mac, you can free up space in many other ways, such as by deleting files and programs you don’t use, archiving or deleting old email, and removing temporary browser files.

Email mossberg@wsj.com.

No Signal: Homes Often Baffle Wi-Fi From Routers

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:55:59 +0000

Technology companies are touting wireless homes, where we can download a book in the tub and beam a movie from a tablet to the television set. But too often, that potential doesn’t live up to the reality of sluggish and flaky wireless networks.

My apartment has more than a dozen devices that feed off the network: two laptops, a printer, an e-reader, wireless speakers, two smartphones, an iPad and more. Yet getting gadgets to connect to my two-year-old wireless router is a dark art. I can surf the Web on the street in front of my house, yet can’t get a signal sitting in bed. In desperation, I even tried dangling a router—the equipment that takes your Internet connection and shares it with the devices in your home—from the ceiling in an effort to distance it from interfering walls.

Surely, covering a whole apartment is a problem that the decade-old Wi-Fi industry can solve. So I tested four top-of-the-line home wireless routers, each of which features the latest generation dual-band “wireless N” technology designed to increase performance.

The result was disappointing. None of the routers could deliver a 100% consistent wireless experience that could take advantage of the latest technology, like Apple’s AirPlay media-streaming service.

One came close, thanks to a controversial signal-boosting feature that could potentially interrupt my neighbors’ networks: the Netgear WNDR3700, which retails for $169.99. Another, the $179.99 Cisco Linksys E3000, was runner-up in some tests, but still sometimes dropped out when streaming music.

My tests weren’t scientific studies of signal strength and speed. Every home is a different combination of size, building materials and potential competition for precious wireless bandwidth, such as other Wi-Fi networks and cordless phones. Even pets can obstruct signals. Because of that, router manufacturers won’t even offer estimates on the range their devices can serve.

I conducted real-world torture tests designed to see how the routers might perform in challenging scenarios at completing tasks like streaming media to iPhones and moving large files between computers. I didn’t test devices known as repeaters, which extend the range of an existing network, because I wanted to see how far I could push the routers on their own.

My 100-year-old apartment building features materials that act like kryptonite to Wi-Fi signals, such as metal mesh in plaster. Worse, my urban San Francisco building is surrounded by apartments with their own Wi-Fi networks—25, at last count.

For balance, I also tested the same four routers on my friend Mark’s suburban house, which competes with fewer neighboring Wi-Fi networks, but is larger. In our suburban tests, the routers performed in largely the way they did in the urban environment, though in that setting both the Netgear and Cisco performed admirably. A third model, the $109.99 Belkin Play N600HD, performed adequately.

All the routers I tested, which included the $179 Apple Airport Extreme, feature a technology called simultaneous dual band. This means they really run two networks. Devices that need to receive a lot of data, like video, can use the digital equivalent of a carpool lane, while the rest of your data take the regular highway.

That seems like a good idea, but the technology made little impact in my tests, because many devices don’t yet support the new frequency, 5 GHz. The iPad does, but the iPhone 4 does not, and nor did my older H-P laptop. Moreover, 5 GHz comes with a drawback: its signals usually can’t travel as far through walls as the older technology, transmitting at 2.4 GHz.

Rather than overall speed, the biggest Wi-Fi problem I encountered was getting the network to reach the nooks and crannies of the house. To test that, I compared the ability of each router to stream media to a device like my iPhone in trouble spots, such as my dining room or Mark’s patio.

The results were often stark. To Mark’s upstairs bedroom, the Netgear and Cisco routers could stream a video with ease, but the Apple would sometimes slow to a crawl. When I sent a file over the network to that same spot, the Apple router was sometimes one-tenth the speed of the Netgear and Cisco.

In my urban apartment, only the Netgear router was able without interruption to stream music from an iMac to speakers about 50 feet and five walls away. The music would conk out occasionally with the Cisco router, and quite often with the Belkin and Apple.

And even the Netgear would stumble when I tried the latest feature for the iPhone called AirTunes, which lets you stream media from an iPhone or iPad to the Apple AirPort Express or Apple TV. That technology requires the data to take a longer round trip to its final destination, stressing the network further.

With the Netgear router, I experimented with a setting called “performance mode.” Using it significantly improved the reliability of the network in some parts of my apartment, and put Netgear into a higher class.

But that option, which is sometimes called “channel bonding” or “20/40″ mode, is controversial because it essentially pushes signals from your neighbors’ Wi-Fi networks out of the way.

The Wi-Fi Alliance, which certifies Wi-Fi equipment, said it now requires routers to switch to a neighbor-friendly mode if other networks are around—but this Netgear router was certified prior to that rule. The other router makers say they either don’t offer the option, or automatically downscale when there are neighboring networks.

Wi-Fi technology shouldn’t make me have to choose between my neighbors and my network. A Netgear spokesman told me that in my situation, neighbors aren’t likely to feel an impact, because my impenetrable walls keep the signal from traveling very far anyway.

Being a good neighbor aside, I’d recommend either the Netgear or Cisco routers for users looking to cover a tough space—and hope that the networking industry can come up with even better technology soon. In the meantime, moving a router away from objects that can degrade the signal, like mirrors and refrigerators can help. And the desperate can fall back on a wireless repeater.

Apple Airport Extreme, $179
The most pleasing to look at and simple to install, but suffered from slow transfer speeds and frequently struggled to stream music to difficult locations.

Belkin Play N600HD, $109.99
Acceptable and sometimes impressive file transfer speeds, but often dropped the connection while streaming music.

Netgear WNDR3700, $169.99
The least pretty, but most reliable, especially when using the potentially neighbor-unfriendly ‘performance mode.’

Cisco Linksys E3000, $179.99
Fast in most tests, but sometimes cut out when streaming music. A good option for the less technically inclined

Walter S. Mossberg returns next week.

Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com

IPads Perform Better on Wi-Fi Than 4G?

John Paczkowski — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 12:30:07 +0000

IPad owners living in a Clearwire 4G wireless zone and considering purchasing one of the company’s new iSpot base stations to enhance the device’s connectivity may want to hold off. Because according to a new report from BTIG Research analyst Walter Piecyk, the iPad doesn’t perform as well on Clearwire’s 4G iSpots as it does on typical Wi-Fi access points. In fact, in Piecyk’s tests, the iPad’s average download speed using an iSpot was 2.5 Mbps–about half the download speed he experienced using a Windows laptop.

“[The] iPad consistently produced lower download speeds than Windows based laptops,” Piecyk wrote today. “This appears to be an issue with the iPad and hot spots and not Wi-Fi in general since our iPad speeds on our home Wi-Fi were equivalent to other devices. When we tested the iPad on our FiOS powered Wi-Fi connection, we received the full 25 Mbps of available download speed on every test.” (Click image below to enlarge.)

Odd, particularly since iSpot was specifically engineered to work with Apple devices.

“There appears to be something going on in how Apple’s Wi-Fi implementation is working with wireless hotspots,” Piecyk concludes. “Once again, all we can refer to is a company’s relative expertise in RF engineering. Our home Wi-Fi router does not have to deal with incoming 4G signal or a need to preserve battery life like a hotspot does. We suspect we will be getting a lot of feedback on this topic in the coming weeks as we dive deeper into the issue.”

A safe bet. I’ve reached out to Apple and ClearWire both and will update here if I hear back.

Cisco's Fourth Quarter Expected to Be Pretty, Oh So Pretty!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:15:41 +0000

Cisco Systems is expected to report strong fourth-quarter earnings later today after the markets close, which should be another boost to the tech market.

The Internet computer-networking equipment maker is being buoyed by a return to spending by customers eager to upgrade after recession pullbacks.

Wall Street expects San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco (CSCO) to earn 42 cents per share with $10.9 billion in revenue. In the same quarter a year ago, its net income was 19 cents per share–adjusted earnings were 31 cents–on $8.5 billion in sales.

Either way, that’s a big improvement.

But analysts also expect Cisco to have an even better outlook for 2011, as spending on Internet infrastructure grows. That includes everything from data centers, to routers and switches, to all kinds of networking equipment.

In other words, CEO John Chambers gets to crow a little bit.

Cisco stock, which has been slightly down recently, closed at $24.31, down 1.9 percent, or 46 cents, yesterday.

iPad Wi-Fi Woes?

John Paczkowski — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:56:13 +0000

Though a marvel of design and engineering, Apple’s iPad, like most first-generation devices, is not without flaws. Just two days at market and already some new iPad owners are flocking to Apple’s support forums, complaining about temperamental Wi-Fi connectivity.

“I have…noticed very weak wifi signal in my 16GB iPad,” one post to Apple’s iPad support discussions reads. “Even when standing in front of the wlan router the signal fluctuates from strong to very weak. The router has very strong signals as every other computer here has full signal strength, even 20-30 meters from the router. So there is definitely a wifi signal issue here with the iPad.”

“I’m having the same problem,” reads another. “iMac, Macbook, Macbook Pro and iPhone all work great 3 rooms from my house (all connecting through an airport). My iPad is only getting 1/3 on Wifi and frequently dropped the connection.”

This is obviously a supremely annoying problem since Wi-Fi is the iPad’s only means of connecting to the Internet.

It is not yet clear how widespread this issue is. As I write, there are several iPad Wi-Fi-related discussions on Apple’s support forums, the largest of which hosts about six pages of comments.

That said, I have not had any problem with my iPad–moments ago, I streamed a Netflix (NFLX) movie to it from the sidewalk in front of my house–and my informal poll of friends and colleagues who own the device turned up no reports of weak or temperamental Wi-Fi connections. Which is not to say they don’t exist or that they’re the result of user error, just that they appear to be fairly limited in scope at this point.

In any event, Apple (AAPL) has posted two support documents (1, 2) for iPad owners to troubleshoot ornery Wi-Fi connections.

UPDATE: A commenter below points out a list of potential fixes.

Feeling at Home With a Router

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:02:29 +0000

Like a hornets’ nest, the home router sits undisturbed by those who know better than to touch it. This antenna-enhanced box sends data to and from desktops, laptops, smart phones and TiVos (TIVO) throughout the house. Its indicator lights glow, signaling all is well with the network.

[ See post to watch video ]

But setting it up can be a major ordeal. People beg their techie friends for help. Some sit for hours on the phone with customer support. A few brave souls muddle through a sea of acronyms and secure codes in an attempt to install the router. Once it is set up, many are afraid to change its settings for fear of disrupting it and losing Internet connectivity.

Enter Valet (TheValet.com), a new wireless router designed for people who are tired of being intimidated by a blinking box. Valet is designed by the people who brought us the Flip video camcorders, the ultra simple handhelds with ultra simple software that just work. And it comes from Cisco (CSCO), which also owns Linksys—a router brand that people know and trust.

I’ve been using Valet for the past week, but it took me only 10 minutes, from start to finish, to get it going, thanks to a simple USB key that plugs into the computer and sets everything up in the background in less than five minutes. I tried it on a Windows 7 PC running and on an iMac, as well as on mobile devices, including a BlackBerry, Palm (PALM) Pre and the HTC HD2. The Valet is available Wednesday for $100 on Amazon.com (AMZN), TheValet.com and Staples (SPLS) stores. Over the next two weeks, it will be sold at Best Buy (BBY), Target (TGT) and Wal-Mart (WMT). There’s also the $150 Valet Plus, with a Wi-Fi range about 20% greater than the Valet.

I ran into a bug while trying to install the Valet software on a Mac: I plugged in the USB key but its built-in software didn’t install and I got a message telling me that Valet wasn’t able to set up on my computer. A Cisco representative said this was a rare Mac bug that will be fixed over this week and next week.

Along with its simple setup, Valet automatically creates a guest network to go with the main network so visitors can log onto a household’s Wi-Fi—either with or without a password, depending on settings—and not gain access to files shared within that network. The Valet software has parental controls that make it a cinch to set up restrictions like blocking certain Web sites or cutting off Internet access after a certain time on school nights or weekends.

The Valet isn’t the first router to enable parental controls and guest-network access. Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) $179 AirPort Extreme Base Station allows users to set up guest networks. Likewise, Netgear’s (NTGR) six most recently introduced routers, priced from $70 to $190, offer guest networks and parental controls. But just as the Flip camera’s built-in software simplified the process of editing, uploading and sharing home videos, the Valet’s software makes networking approachable for anyone—regardless of technical skill.

The Valet comes in a box with a USB Easy Setup Key, wireless router, Ethernet cable and power adapter (the last two are hidden under the box’s interior packaging). Instructions on the box told me to plug the USB key into a PC or Mac. Then on-screen directions popped up, instructing me to plug the Valet router into the wall with the power adapter and then into my home’s modem using the Ethernet cable. I selected the “connect” option on the computer screen, and four minutes later, the network was set up.

The device’s software, called Cisco Connect, is divided into four categories: Computers & Devices, Parental Controls, Guest Access and Settings. With these, I could quickly see how many devices were connected to my network and learn the name and password for the guest network if I forgot it. (Valet networks have pre-set, randomly selected names and passwords that people can easily change. My network’s default name was RubyPanda and its password was mango62—both simple word/number combinations that are easy to remember.) If the guest network is password-protected, guests have to enter that password on a Web browser page, like at a hotel. This could be confusing for people used to entering network passwords at the operating-system level, right as they select the Wi-Fi network. A Cisco representative said using a Web browser page is a more consistent way of entering passwords and it saves people from having to answer questions they may not be able to answer if they’re logging onto the main network, like the name of the “WPA key.”

If people get stuck during setup, which happened with me when I ran into the Mac bug, a screen immediately displays a customer-service number for Valet that’s available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I spoke to a woman who tried several troubleshooting methods, but she didn’t know about Valet’s rare Mac bug. Once a computer is set up with the Valet network, the USB key can be taken to other computers to update them with the same network passwords and settings.

Using the parental controls couldn’t have been easier. After a password is set up, Web content can be blocked at a teen or child level on some or all devices. Specific sites can be blocked, and when I blocked Facebook on a connected Mac, it wouldn’t open on that computer without the parent password. Time restrictions on Internet usage can be set up here, with different settings for school nights and weekends.

Though the $100 Cisco Valet is more than twice as expensive as some wireless routers, its built-in software puts great emphasis on simplicity and ease of use, and turns setting up and using a a home network into an unusually pleasant experience.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

What Is Cisco Announcing This Morning to "Forever Change the Internet"? A Foursquare-Enabled Jet Pack?

Kara Swisher — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:15:53 +0000

Bright and early this morning at 8 am PT, BoomTown will be jacked into the matrix for an invitation-only media and analyst briefing to hear exactly what the heck Cisco (CSCO) has been yammering on about of late.

Last month, the networking giant said in a mysterioso email that it would be making “a significant announcement that will forever change the Internet and its impact on consumers, businesses and governments.”

Significant? Forever? It had better be good.

Like a jet pack from which you can communicate your Foursquare location (“I’m Mayor of the Clouds!”).

Or perhaps a chip you can implant in your head that will give you live updates of every single Apple (AAPL) iPad rumor.

Or a cogent explanation of how to extricate yourself from Google Buzz.

Or, at long last, maybe Cisco has figured out a way to fix the dropped calls crisis on the AT&T (T) mobile network–a tech solution I would nominate for a Nobel Prize if it ever came to pass.

In all seriousness, due to the speculation around what Cisco will unveil, its stock hit a 52-week high yesterday–up 92 cents, or 3.7 percent, to $26.13–and analysts were speculating on what the company will say.

The consensus: A new router to improve–please, oh Lord, please–wireless transmission of Web video and heavy data that often slow mobile and ISP networks.

It’s part of a new focus on the ever-growing but ever-slowing wireless data networks.

Google (GOOG) said recently that it was planning to build a superspeedy broadband service. In addition, the Federal Communications Commission is set to unveil its own ambitious plan to improve high-speed Internet access across the United States.

Well, it’ll be good, since the consumption of video online is growing like crazy and a constant bottleneck is likely without some relief.

Cisco has gotten deep into video of late, both in pushing networking gear and in acquiring video device maker like Pure Digital, the company behind my beloved Flip digital camera.

It is also working on innovative holographic and television-based home telepresence technologies.

So, is it too much to ask Cisco for a simple jet pack that works? I think not!

Upgrading to Windows 7 From Vista

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:56:02 +0000

There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

I have a PC with Windows XP, which I bought because my computer guru said to stay away from Vista. I read your column saying upgrading from XP to the new Windows 7 will be much more cumbersome than doing so from Windows Vista. So, what should I do now? Upgrade to Vista for a while so I can then move more smoothly to 7? Or wait, buy a separate Windows 7 computer in the fall, and just transfer my files and applications from the XP computer?

Putting budget considerations aside, I think the latter course would make more sense. The new machine with Windows 7 preloaded will probably give you smoother performance than one you upgraded twice to new operating systems in a matter of months. But, bear in mind that you will have to reinstall all your applications on the new Windows 7 computer, and that, depending on the terms of the applications’ licenses, you might even have to buy new copies. On the other hand, if you do the chain of upgrades, and don’t buy a new machine, you may be able to avoid this application problem, or at least much of it.

I appreciated your review of the Clickfree automatic backup drive. Does the backup it creates include the various folders and subfolders for data such as photos, or does it just create a huge single list?

The Clickfree software is primarily designed to back up, display and restore your files by their types — photos, music, text, email, spreadsheets, etc. Once it has performed a backup it lets you view and restore your files by these types. However, it will display the tree of all your folders and allow you to specify where it should search for these files. It also allows you to back up and restore entire folders, such as your My Documents folder, regardless of their contents. Detailed information, including a downloadable user manual, is available in the Support section of clickfree.com.

I am planning to buy one of the products you recently reviewed — a Western Digital My Book — and attach it directly to a port on my Internet router. Can I install antispyware and antivirus programs on the drive? If not, how will the data on this drive be protected?

Nothing is perfectly secure. The bad guys are clever, and you never say never. However, since this product isn’t an actual PC running Windows, viruses and spyware programs can’t likely run directly on it. Still, if one of your computers contains malicious software, and it can see the contents of the network drive, then the data on the drive could be endangered. I know of no way to install or run security programs on the drive. But the security software on your PC may protect the drive, if it is able to handle external drives across a network. Also, the firewall built into your network router will help. The product has some security measures built in, such as encrypting files when you use the optional feature that allows you to access the drive’s contents across the Internet.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Network Hard Disk by Western Digital Offers Easy Backup

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:02:04 +0000

External hard disks that can be attached directly to a home network for use by multiple computers have been around for a few years now. They’re valuable tools, making it likelier that all your files on every machine will be backed up, and allowing music, photos, videos and other files to be accessible all over the house.

But, unlike external drives that just plug into a single PC, these stand-alone, networked hard disks have tended to be techie products. Too often, they require a deeper familiarity with networking and file-sharing procedures than most folks possess. And some are aimed only at Windows or only at Macs, leaving out mixed-machine households.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now, there’s a new networkable hard disk that, in my tests, proved so simple that anyone who can plug in a cable can use it, with no setup or knowledge, provided your computers have the most current operating systems. It works concurrently and seamlessly with both Windows PCs and Macs, and can even stream music to Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes program installed on either platform.

In addition, it can stream music, photos and videos to a TV, if you have a compatible add-on box attached, such as an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. Its contents also can be accessed over the Internet from any major Web browser.

The product is the My Book World Edition, from Western Digital (WDC). This second version of the World Edition sells for $230 for a model with a capacity of one terabyte (roughly 1,000 gigabytes) and $450 for two terabytes. It’s available from various retailers, or at westerndigital.com.

Western Digital’s new My Book World Edition

The My Book World Edition isn’t flawless. Its Internet remote-access feature isn’t great, and it’s more complicated to use on computers running older operating systems, like Windows XP or Apple’s Tiger. It’s also sluggish with older PC hardware. But for its basic functions — backup, centralized file storage and sharing, streaming of music and other media — the My Book World Edition is simple and speedy on relatively new computers with current operating systems.

I tested the My Book on my home network, using several Macs running Apple’s Leopard operating system, as well as Windows PCs from Dell (DELL), Sony (SNE) and Lenovo. Some of the latter were running Vista, some XP and one was using the prerelease version of the new Windows 7 operating system. I also tested it with an Xbox 360.

To start, I just plugged the My Book into an electrical outlet and connected it to my home network’s router with a standard networking (Ethernet) cable. Almost immediately, all of the Macs, and all of the Windows PCs running Vista or Windows 7, displayed an icon called MyBookWorld, making it appear like a regular hard disk on the computer.

Opening the icon revealed two folders, one called Download and one called Public. The latter folder contained three subfolders: Shared Music, Shared Pictures and Shared Videos.

Without installing drivers or any other software, I could copy files onto the My Book from the Windows PCs and Macs. I copied some Microsoft Word and PDF documents, plus several hundred songs, photos and videos. This copying process went quickly, almost as quickly as with a directly connected hard disk. And I was able to open, display or play the files on the My Book on all of my test machines, Mac and Windows.

Then, I opened Apple’s iTunes on all my test machines, and discovered a MyBookWorld entry on the left-hand side, from which I could play the songs on the shared drive. In the case of songs from the iTunes store, however, the machine had to be registered to my iTunes account.

Next, I installed Western Digital’s backup program on several of the computers. It comes in Windows and Mac versions, works automatically, and allows you, via a simple interface, to select which folders or which types of files you want backed up automatically. It worked fine.

For my tests, I then hooked up an Xbox to my TV set, navigated to the media section of the Xbox, selected My Book from a list as my media source, and was able to play on the TV all music, display all photos and watch any videos that were compatible with the Xbox.

I also tried accessing my files over the Internet from remote PCs and Macs, using a free service Western Digital offers called MioNet that merely requires a Web browser. It worked on Windows and Mac, but it was so slow as to be painful, so I would only count on it in emergencies.

I also don’t recommend buying the My Book for use with older PCs running Windows XP. With XP, the shared drive isn’t immediately visible; you have to install the included software to get it to show up. That’s not a big deal on a newer XP computer, but on an older XP laptop I tried, that installation was painfully slow, and so was using the My Book.

When used with modern operating systems, though, the My Book World Edition is the simplest, speediest networkable hard disk I’ve tried.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Microsoft's Economic Stimulus Plan

John Paczkowski — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:40:36 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Google to WSJ: I Got Yer Dumb Pipes Right Here…

John Paczkowski — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:02:52 +0000

Ironic, isn’t it, that Google, one of Net neutrality’s staunchest advocates, has been approaching major cable and phone companies with a proposal that appears to violate the very tenets of that principle? How could a company that has argued tirelessly that all Internet traffic should be treated equally suddenly reverse course and seek preferential treatment for its own traffic?

How could a company whose Chief Internet Evangelist, Vint Cerf, once told the Senate Commerce Committee that allowing “broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success,” approach those carriers with a proposal that would seemingly do just that?

There’s a very simple answer to that question: Google is not doing that, and reports suggesting that is are misguided. Yes, Google (GOOG) “has approached major cable and phone companies” with a plan to “place Google servers directly within the network of the service providers.” Yes, this plan would improve content delivery speeds.

And, no, doing so does not violate the concept of network neutrality. If it did, companies like Akamai and Limelight, which also have servers hosted at broadband provider facilities, would long ago have been tarred as anti-Net neutrality villains. Colocating caching servers is a common practice that improves bandwidth usage by bringing data closer to the end user. And while it will certainly make Google’s services faster and more responsive, it won’t do so at the expense of non-Google services. That would be a violation of Net neutrality.

“Some critics have questioned whether improving Web performance through edge caching–temporary storage of frequently accessed data on servers that are located close to end users–violates the concept of network neutrality,” Richard Whitt, Google’s Washington telecom and media counsel explains. “As I said last summer, this myth–which unfortunately underlies a confused story in Monday’s Wall Street Journal–is based on a misunderstanding of the way in which the open Internet works…. All of Google’s colocation agreements with ISPs–which we’ve done through projects called OpenEdge and Google Global Cache–are non-exclusive, meaning any other entity could employ similar arrangements. Also, none of them require (or encourage) that Google traffic be treated with higher priority than other traffic.”

So Google is not negotiating exclusive deals for privileged access. It is not proposing “a fast lane for its own content.” It is not seeking to prioritize its traffic in violation of the Net neutrality principles it espouses. Frankly, this story has little to do with Net neutrality at all. “Network neutrality is about the routing of packets,” Tech Liberation Front’s Tim Lee explained earlier this year when Akamai was accused of violating Net neutrality. “A network is neutral if it faithfully transmits information from one end of the network to the other and doesn’t discriminate among packets based on their contents. Neutrality is, in other words, about the behavior of the routers that move packets around the network. It has nothing to do with the behavior of servers at the edges of the network because they don’t route anyone’s packets.”

Wi-Fi on Wheels Is Steady, but Has a Speed Bump

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:04:05 +0000

Wi-Fi wireless Internet connectivity has become nearly ubiquitous. Whether you’re at home, in a coffee shop, or even on some commercial airliners, you can get online with a Wi-Fi-equipped laptop, smart phone or portable game machine.

Now, Wi-Fi is making its way into your car. A small California company, Autonet Mobile, has teamed up with Chrysler and others to sell a service that floods any brand or model of car or truck with Wi-Fi Internet connectivity that can be used by multiple passengers and devices simultaneously. It’s a dealer-installed option on Chrysler vehicles, but Chrysler dealers, and some independent auto electronic shops, will install it on any brand of car for a fee.

[ See post to watch video ]

The system works via a special wireless router, mounted in the trunk or rear cargo area, that draws Internet connectivity from cellphone towers and then converts it into an in-car Wi-Fi signal with a range of 100 feet. This router looks like a military device, because it is ruggedized to survive jolts and vibrations, and is shielded to avoid interference with the car’s electronics or with cellphone calls.

As long as they have built-in Wi-Fi, the laptops and smart phones used in the car don’t need any add-on hardware or software to use Autonet. To them, it looks like any other Wi-Fi signal. And no special car antenna is needed; the router uses its own large antennas.

I’ve been testing Autonet Mobile in a rented Saturn Vue SUV in Washington, D.C., and its suburbs, and found it worked well for most basic Internet tasks like email and Web surfing. The router turns on when the car does, and the Wi-Fi signal shows up about 30 seconds later. However, Autonet is relatively pokey. It’s too slow to be reliable for streaming video longer than brief YouTube clips, or for smooth video chatting.

Perhaps the biggest downside of in-car Wi-Fi is that it provides one more potential distraction for drivers. The company says the service is only for passengers, not drivers, but there’s no technical barrier to a driver using it.

The Autonet Mobile router

Of course, drivers already can court danger this way by using cellphone wireless connectivity on a laptop, iPhone, BlackBerry or other connected device. And that raises another question: Since you can already connect to the Internet from a car with a smart phone or a cellular data card for a laptop, why would you want Autonet?

There are three reasons. First, cellular Internet access is typically tied to a single device at a time. But Autonet’s Wi-Fi service works just like Wi-Fi in your house: Multiple people with multiple devices can use it at the same time. In fact, the company envisions that the service’s primary use will be to allow children in the back seat to use laptops for social networking, online games or homework; and multiple adult passengers to conduct online business or research routes and destinations.

Second, the monthly fees can be lower, at least for laptops. A typical cellular data card for a single laptop costs $60 a month. But Autonet’s service starts at $29 a month for the entire car, regardless of how many devices are being used. A premium plan costs $59. The plans differ by how much data you are allowed to consume monthly. And Autonet requires no special laptop cards or software.

Lastly, the company claims that it has invented a technology that keeps the connection steadier while moving than the typical direct cellular connection. Although some videos froze on me, I never lost Autonet’s Internet connection, whether moving slowly through downtown D.C. or moving faster on suburban highways and streets.

In my tests, with a laptop and an iPhone, Autonet’s speeds ranged from around 100 kilobits per second to around 500 kbps — far slower than a typical cable Internet service in a home. My average speed was between 400 kbps and 450 kbps.

There are some other drawbacks. First, the router costs $499, though that will soon drop to $399 in a holiday price promotion. Second, you have to sign at least a one-year contract, even if you pay monthly. Third, your Internet usage is limited. The $29 plan gets you just 1 gigabyte of data a month, while the $59 plan gets you 5 gigabytes. That should be plenty for most typical users, but not for those with large appetites for data.

These service fees are all-inclusive. You don’t have to pay anything to any cellphone carrier. But there is also a $35 “activation fee,” whose justification is murky, and installation costs are estimated at $50 to $75.

For security, you can set Autonet up with a password, but it doesn’t yet use the most advanced version of Wi-Fi security. The company says that, while it can track and manage your Internet connection, it cannot determine the content of what you are doing online.

Finally, because the router is hard-mounted, you can’t remove it for use in, say, a hotel room or second car.

If you’re willing to invest in the router and can tolerate the slow speeds, Autonet might be what you want — as long as you can resist using it while driving.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Converting to Digital TV

Walt Mossberg — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:01:00 +0000

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

We are connected to Comcast (CMCSA) cable and use no antennas. Will we need one of the government-subsidized converter boxes next February?

Not if you are using a cable set-top box, like the vast majority of cable customers. If you are one of the minority of cable households whose TVs use an internal cable tuner, you may need a converter box. To be sure, contact your cable company or TV manufacturer.

In your laptop buying guide last week, you recommended buying a machine equipped for the “n” type Wi-Fi of wireless router. I was under the impression that this has not yet been standardized. Is that wrong?

The engineering committee that has been debating the standard for years has not yet completed its work, but the market has simply moved ahead on its own. This new, faster version of Wi-Fi is being built into routers, computers and other devices by nearly every major manufacturer. In my limited tests, I have found no compatibility problems, and it is backwards compatible with the older “g” and “b” standards.

Is the Mac immune to viruses? If not, do you have a recommendation of the type of antivirus software one should procure and load onto a Mac?

No personal computer or personal computer operating system of which I am aware is “immune” to viruses, spyware or other malicious software. That includes Apple’s (AAPL) Macintosh and its operating system, Mac OS X Leopard. Hackers have demonstrated the ability to invade the Mac. However, there are only a handful of viruses or other malicious programs for the Macintosh that have successfully spread beyond the lab. And these have harmed only a small number of actual users.

Of the well over 100,000 known viruses, spyware programs and other malicious software applications that are about in public, all but this handful are written to run on Microsoft (MSFT) Windows, and cannot operate on the Macintosh OS. For that reason, I don’t believe Macintosh owners need security software, unless they install and run Windows on their computers. If they do run Windows, Mac owners are well advised to purchase and install Windows security software to protect the Windows portion of the machine.

Having said that, I do not mean that Mac owners should be blind to security threats that don’t involve viruses or spyware. Just like Windows users, Mac users can succumb to what is called “social engineering” — scams and schemes that operate via email and Web sites that are often authored by crooks but made to look official. So, like Windows users, they must be on their guard.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free at the All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Apple's Time Capsule Gives You Easy Way to Back Up Wirelessly

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:01:00 +0000

With its new Leopard operating system, Apple tried to solve one of the most nagging problems faced by home-computer users: how to regularly back up their computers completely and painlessly. Leopard includes a feature called Time Machine that automatically and continuously backs up a Macintosh computer’s entire hard disk, without requiring the user to do any tedious setup or have any technical knowledge.

Time Machine is a key selling point for Leopard and the Mac. It is more complete, and yet simpler, than the built-in backup feature in Vista Home Premium, the most popular home version of Windows.

[ See post to watch video ]

But Time Machine has a major drawback: It works much better on desktop Macs than on laptop models. That’s because it’s primarily designed to operate with backup hard drives you connect directly to the computer. And it’s a pain to plug a backup drive into a laptop, which can move around the house. While Time Machine will work with a remote hard disk under certain circumstances, that option requires a second Mac running Leopard, a costly condition.

Now, Apple (AAPL) has attempted to fix the problem with an unusual new companion product called Time Capsule. This is a $299 stand-alone networked gadget that packs both a giant hard disk and a speedy Wi-Fi wireless router into one slender case. It just plugs into your existing home network, and any laptop within wireless range can connect to it. It can back up multiple computers.

Time Capsule is designed to seamlessly work with Leopard’s Time Machine. But it can also be used as a wireless Internet connection, and/or a remote hard drive, for manually storing and retrieving files by Windows PCs running either Vista or Windows XP, or by Macs running Apple’s older Tiger operating system. And you can also use it with certain other backup programs, such as the ones built into Windows XP or Tiger.

In my tests over the past week, Time Capsule worked well in all of these scenarios. However, Time Capsule isn’t meant to do as many different tasks as some other networked drives.

Apple stresses that Time Capsule is a limited, targeted device meant primarily for backup — especially with Time Machine — and as a wireless base station. Unlike some other networked storage devices, like Hewlett-Packard’s MediaSmart home server, Time Capsule doesn’t allow users to simultaneously stream music or videos to multiple PCs, to easily access its contents via the Web or to stream videos to TV sets.

The $299 Time Capsule model comes with a 500 gigabyte hard disk inside, and there’s also a $499 model with hard disk that can hold one terabyte of data, or roughly 1,000 gigabytes. Both models use the same “n” class of Wi-Fi, the fastest version with the longest range. Both also work with computers equipped with the older “g” and “b” versions of Wi-Fi.

You can buy networked hard disks in these sizes for less money and simply use them with your existing Wi-Fi router. However, Time Machine won’t work with them, according to Apple. The company says the only standalone networked hard disk Time Machine can use is Time Capsule.

In my tests, Time Capsule performed perfectly with Time Machine. It also was easily recognized by several of my Windows machines running Vista and Windows XP. On all of these machines, I was able to speedily access the Internet via Time Capsule. Time Capsule can be set up to either replace or supplement your existing Wi-Fi router.

All the machines, even the Windows ones, also could recognize the Time Capsule as a remote hard disk, and save files to it and retrieve files from it. For instance, I manually copied a song, a photo and a Word document from a Mac laptop running Leopard onto the Time Capsule. On a Dell running Vista, I then opened the Time Capsule and launched that same Word document in the Windows version of Word, opened the photo in Vista’s Photo Gallery program, and played the song in Windows Media Player. This same process worked in reverse.

Apple doesn’t guarantee that Time Capsule will work with all backup programs. But it says it will work with the backup software built into Tiger and will likely work with some other backup software.

In my tests, the built-in backup program in Windows XP Pro worked fine with Time Capsule. But the built-in backup program in Vista failed. Microsoft said the problem I encountered was due to a new Vista security feature for backups that foils some remote hard disks, not just Apple’s.

Setting up Time Capsule was easy, using a step-by-step utility program that Apple supplies in both Mac and Windows versions. The device has a USB port that can be used to add either an additional hard disk or a networked printer. And it can be connected to a network via a wired connection if you don’t want to use its wireless functionality.

If you use Time Machine on a Mac laptop, then Time Capsule’s $299 price is money well spent. If you don’t, there are cheaper or more versatile solutions to the backup problem.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

T-Mobile Service Ties Cellphones to Home, With Some Sacrifices

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:01:00 +0000

The poor landline home phone is getting less and less respect. Increasing numbers of people don’t even have traditional landline phone service anymore. These folks prefer to rely on their cellphones, which can be cheaper to use and carry a number that travels with a person instead of being locked to a house.

Many others keep their landline-phone service grudgingly, only because it is needed for things like fax machines. But even they often use their cellphones at home, because their friends and family members dial their cellphone number routinely, and their personal phone books are inside their cellphones.

[ See post to watch video ]

But there is a big drawback to using a cellphone at home, especially in a large house: You have to schlep it around with you from room to room. By contrast, landline phone service can be used via either cordless or corded extension phones. Now, T-Mobile, one of the big U.S. cellphone companies, is rolling out a new system that it hopes will make cellphone service at home more convenient and even cheaper to use.

The service, being introduced this month in two test cities, Seattle and Dallas, allows you to use a cellphone account with any corded or cordless home phone, with multiple extensions, for just $10 a month. That very low price gets you unlimited domestic calls.

This new T-Mobile service, tentatively called Talk Forever Home Phone, is likely to be available nationally in a few months. It works via a special Wi-Fi wireless router that you must buy, with a two-year contract, for a one-time charge of $50. The router, which can either replace or supplement your existing wireless router, is essentially a stationary cellphone that marries an in-home Wi-Fi network to the T-Mobile cellphone network.

I have been testing the new system and found that it worked well, and it was extremely simple to set up and use. For my tests, I used a cordless phone supplied by T-Mobile, which included a base station and one extension handset. I was able to make and receive calls all over my home in exactly the same manner, and with exactly the same quality, as I do with my normal cordless landline service.

While T-Mobile is selling this cordless phone as a $60 option, it isn’t necessary for use with the new $10 service. The only new hardware that is required is the special Wi-Fi router.

However, there are some significant downsides to the new T-Mobile service that might make people think twice about dumping their landlines. For one thing, it doesn’t work with fax machines, home-security systems and other devices that rely on dial-up modems. Also, unlike landline phones, it doesn’t automatically transmit your home address to 911 emergency centers. You have to manually supply that address to T-Mobile during signup, and the company then sends it to your local emergency center.

Another downside: You must be a T-Mobile cellphone customer to buy and use this $10 monthly home service, and your T-Mobile plan must either be an individual plan costing at least $40 a month or a family plan costing at least $50 a month.

Finally, while you can transfer your current landline phone number to this new service, it cannot share your existing T-Mobile cellphone number. So people who are used to calling you on your cellphone will still do so, and you will still have to race for the cellphone or carry it around to receive those calls. You also can’t transfer your cellphone’s address book to the new home phone.

The special router is made by Linksys and looks very much like a typical Linksys router, except for the fact that it has two standard telephone jacks in the back and slots inside for T-Mobile SIM cards, the same kind that are inside a T-Mobile cellphone.

You can use the special router as a replacement for your current Wi-Fi router, but I just plugged it into an existing port on my old router, inserted the SIM card, and then plugged the cordless-phone base station into one of the phone jacks. It worked immediately, and didn’t affect or degrade my existing Internet service.

In addition to enabling the phone service around my house, the router was also usable by my computers for Internet connectivity, though it doesn’t support the new, fast “n” flavor of Wi-Fi.

This new system is not a so-called voice-over-Internet-protocol phone system, such as Vonage. It doesn’t carry your phone calls wholly over the Internet, but merely uses the Internet to get them to the T-Mobile cellphone network, which then carries the calls as if they had been made on a cellphone.

T-Mobile says the system will work fine even if you don’t have T-Mobile cellphone coverage at your house, because the call doesn’t rely on the cellphone network for its first leg and only is routed to the cell network once it reaches a T-Mobile switching center.

If you are a T-Mobile customer and can live with this system’s drawbacks, the $10 monthly fee may be hard to resist. But this new system is far from a perfect replacement for landline phones.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Here's a Mac FAQ if You're Looking to Buy a Computer

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:01:00 +0000

When I write my computer buyers’ guides, I typically focus on Windows computers, not the Apple Macintosh. That’s because I assumed that buying a Mac required little guidance: It’s sold by only one company and comes in only a few models.

But in recent weeks, I’ve been bombarded by reader emails asking for Mac-buying advice. So, here’s a quick guide — a sort of Mac FAQ — to shopping for a Macintosh. As with my Windows guides, this is aimed at average, mainstream users doing typical tasks, not techies or businesses or hobbyists.

[ See post to watch video ]

Q. Who should consider a Mac?

A. Pretty much every average consumer using a computer should at least look at the Mac. It combines gorgeous hardware with an operating system I consider superior to Windows, with better built-in software. It can even run Windows programs if you buy and install a copy of Windows. And unless you do that, you won’t be vulnerable to the vast array of viruses and spyware that threaten Windows users. Only a handful, so far, have been written to run on the Mac operating system, OS X.

Q. Who shouldn’t consider the Mac?

A. People who spend much of their time playing cutting-edge games should stick to Windows computers, because there are far fewer games written for OS X. Apple doesn’t offer hardware tuned for serious gaming. People looking for the lowest-price PCs should also avoid the Mac, because Apple’s cheapest model, the Mac Mini, costs $599.

Another group that should shun Apple’s computers are people who depend for support on corporate IT departments that are either ignorant about, or hostile to, the Mac. Finally, if you know and like Windows, and expect mainly to use Windows programs, stick with a Windows PC.

Q. Can I run Microsoft Office on a Mac?

A. Yes. Microsoft makes a Mac version of Office, which uses the same file formats that Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Windows have used for years. A new version of Office for the Mac is due in January and it will handle the new file formats Microsoft introduced this year. But the Mac version of Office omits Outlook. It has a similar program called Entourage, but Entourage can’t use Outlook data files. If you want a Mac but must have Outlook, you will have to install Windows.

Q. Can I use all my Windows files on a Mac?

A. Out of the box, Macs can handle all the common file types Windows machines create, including text files, pictures, songs and Adobe PDF files. The Mac even comes with a simple word processor that can open Microsoft Word files.

However, some specialized Windows programs create files that the Mac can’t handle out of the box. And the Mac version of Quicken has a difficult time properly handling Windows Quicken files. If you are a Quicken fan, install Windows and run the Windows version.

Q. Can I mix Macs and Windows on the same home network?

A. Macs can plug and play with most brand-name wired and wireless routers, and can share Internet connections with Windows PCs.

Q. How are Macs at Web surfing?

A. Fine. Apple’s built-in Safari browser is very good and the Mac version of Firefox is essentially identical to the Windows version. However, Macs lack an up-to-date version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, so you will have to install Windows if you need IE.

Q. Can Macs run standard peripheral hardware?

A. Macs can run nearly all keyboards, mice and printers that use USB connections, even ones that don’t explicitly say they run on Macs.

Q. What desktops does Apple offer for consumers?

A. Apple’s main consumer desktop is the one-piece iMac, which I regard as the best consumer desktop on the market. It comes in four models, with built-in 20-inch or 24-inch, flat-panel screens at starting prices ranging from $1,199 to $2,299.

Q. How about Mac laptops?

A. There are two. The entry-level MacBook has a 13-inch screen and a starting price of $1,099. The high-end MacBook Pro comes with either a 15-inch or 17-inch screen and starts at $1,999. Apple currently doesn’t offer a smaller laptop for road warriors, but there are persistent rumors that it will do so soon.

Q. What minimum specs should I look for on a Mac?

A. All Macs come with at least one gigabyte of memory — twice the minimum required for the new version of OS X, called Leopard. If you can, get two gigabytes. Apple charges a lot for extra memory, but you can buy it for less at stores and online providers.

Macs use the same dual-core Intel processors and graphics systems as many mainstream Windows computers; and, as with Windows, I wouldn’t pay extra for greater processor speed.

The iMac comes with at least a 250-gigabyte hard disk, and Mac laptop hard disks start at 80 gigabytes. Mainstream Windows desktops typically start with larger hard disks. But Apple offers much larger disks as options, which you should consider if you store a lot of photos, music and video files.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Leopard: Faster, Easier Than Vista

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 00:01:00 +0000

The Mac is on a roll. Apple Inc.’s perennially praised but slow-selling Macintosh computers have surged in popularity in the past few years, with sales growing much faster than the overall PC market, especially in the U.S. By some measures, Mac laptops are now approaching a 20% share of U.S. noncorporate sales, up from the low single digits where they once seemed stuck.

[ See post to watch video ]

There are several reasons for this, including the security problems in the dominant Windows platform from Microsoft; spillover from Apple’s blistering success with its iPod music players; the fact that Macs can now run Windows programs; and Apple’s highly successful chain of company-owned retail stores.

But another key factor has been the Mac operating system, called OS X, which came out in 2001. It has proved to be as powerful and versatile for mainstream consumers as Windows, yet easier to use and more secure. And Apple has upgraded OS X far more rapidly than Microsoft Inc. has upgraded Windows, bringing out major new releases roughly every 18 months, while Microsoft struggled for more than five years to produce the latest Windows iteration, Vista, which came out in January.

On Friday evening, Apple will release yet another new version of OS X, called Leopard, to replace the current version, known as Tiger. I’ve been testing Leopard, and while it is an evolutionary, not a revolutionary, release, I believe it builds on Apple’s quality advantage over Windows. In my view, Leopard is better and faster than Vista, with a set of new features that make Macs even easier to use.

Leopard will come preinstalled on all new Macs. It can also be purchased for $129 as an upgrade to existing Macs that, depending on configuration, can be as many as six years old. Unlike Vista, which is sold in four noncorporate upgrade versions ranging from a $100 stripped-down “basic” edition to a $259 deluxe “ultimate” edition, there’s only one version of Leopard. It includes all the features, from those aimed at novices to those aimed at power users.

For me, the marquee features in Leopard are a new function called Time Machine that automatically backs up your entire computer in the background; two new methods, called Cover Flow and Quick Look, for rapidly viewing the contents of files without opening any programs; and new techniques that allow you to access the files in, and to remotely control, other computers on your network or connected over the Internet with a few clicks and no technical expertise.

Plus, Apple’s free software for running Windows on a Mac, called Boot Camp, which was formerly an add-on users had to download and install, is now built right into the operating system. And, in my tests, the third-party Fusion program for running Windows and Mac programs simultaneously continued to work fine in Leopard.

I did notice a few drawbacks, but they were minor. The menu bar is now translucent, which can make it hard to see the items it contains if your desktop picture has dark areas at the top. The new folder icons are dull and flat and less attractive than Vista’s or their predecessors on the Mac. While Time Machine can perform backups over a network, the backup destination can only be a hard disk connected to a Mac running Leopard. And, on the Web, I ran into one site where the fonts on part of the page were illegible, a problem Apple says is known and rare and that I expect it will fix.

While Apple claims the new system includes more than 300 new features, there is nothing on the list that could be considered startling or a major breakthrough. Some of Leopard’s features are unique, but many others — such as backing up data and quickly viewing files — have been available on both Windows and the Mac via third-party programs or hard-to-find geeky methods buried in the operating systems. Leopard has made them easy to find and use.

When I upgraded my personal iMac desktop to Leopard, it took less than an hour, and after the process was complete, all my programs, including the Mac version of Microsoft Office, the Firefox Web browser and Adobe Reader, worked rapidly and fine. I was still able to run Windows XP via Fusion. And my previous installation of Boot Camp, which turns the iMac into a speedy, full-fledged Vista machine after a reboot, worked perfectly. All my Vista programs and files continued to function properly.

With Cover Flow, users get a visual preview of a computer’s files without having to open programs.

In fact, every piece of software and hardware I tried on two Leopard-equipped Macs — a loaned laptop from Apple and my own upgraded iMac — worked fine, exhibiting none of the compatibility problems that continue to plague Vista. My old Hewlett-Packard inkjet printer, for which Vista lacks the proper software, worked instantly in Leopard, even over the network. And, unlike with Vista, it was able to print on both sides of the page. I popped my old Verizon cellphone modem card into the test Leopard laptop and it worked, too, with no software installation or tweaking.

Leopard felt about as fast as Tiger, and it started up much faster than Vista in my tests. I compared a MacBook Pro laptop with Leopard preinstalled to a Sony Vaio laptop with Vista preinstalled. Even though I had cleared out all of the useless trial software Sony had placed on the Vaio, it still started up painfully slowly compared with the Leopard laptop.

It took the Vista machine nearly two minutes to perform a cold start and be ready to run, including connecting to my wireless network. The Leopard laptop was up, running and connected to the network in 38 seconds. In a test of restarting the two laptops after they had been running an email program, a Web browser and a word processor, the Sony with Vista took three minutes and 29 seconds, while the Apple running Leopard took one minute and five seconds.

Here’s a rundown of some of Leopard’s key features. Much more detailed information is available at apple.com/macosx.

File management: Apple’s Finder, the equivalent of Explorer in Windows, now offers two new ways to quickly see what your files contain. You can still view them as icons or lists. But you can also use Cover Flow, the same system Apple uses in iTunes and on the iPhone to display album covers for music. In Leopard, a large preview of each file you select appears above the list of files in a folder, and you can rapidly scroll through these icons. These previews are live, and their contents can be viewed without opening the program that is normally needed to display them.

Time Machine backs up files.

For instance, if the file is a video, you can just click on it, and it will play. If it’s a multipage PDF file, you can click on it, and arrows will appear allowing you to flip through the pages.

An even better and deeper look can be obtained using a feature called Quick Look. Just hit the space bar or click on a toolbar icon, and a preview of any selected file zooms out. You can even view multiple sheets in an Excel file via Quick Look without launching Excel.

Another quick new way to see your files is available in the Dock, the Mac’s equivalent of the Windows Task Bar. Here, any folder you place on the right side of the dock will display its contents, after a single click, either as a grid of icons displaying miniversions of the file or as a “fan,” or arc, of such icons. These special Dock folders are called “Stacks.” Leopard includes one by default that is the destination for everything you download from the Internet, so your desktop will no longer get cluttered with downloads,

Time Machine: This built-in feature will continuously back up all of the contents of your Mac to either an external hard drive directly connected to the computer, or to a hard disk connected to another Mac running Leopard that’s on your network. The initial backup, in my tests, took all night, but after that, the system updates the backups hourly and I didn’t notice any slowdown during the process.

To recover any file you deleted, you simply click on the Time Machine icon, and you are taken to a view that shows file folders — or your email or address book or photo collection — in a stack of windows that appear to go on infinitely. You click on an arrow and the stack of windows zooms until you arrive at the last view in which the missing file existed. Then, you click “restore,” and the file is recovered in your normal desktop view. You can also restore whole folders, groups of files, or even an entire hard disk.

Shared computers: In Leopard, any computer that has been set to be shared on your network shows up on the left side of every Finder window. Click on it, and you can access whatever folders have been shared on those machines. Depending on the remote computer’s security settings, you may first have to enter a user name and password. It’s the simplest method I’ve ever seen for accessing other computers on a network. And it works with Windows PCs as well as Macs. When I first turned on the Leopard laptop in my office, it immediately found a shared folder on my colleague’s old Dell running Windows XP. She hadn’t even remembered sharing the folder, which contained files from 2003.

You can copy or move files to and from these shared computers, or view their contents with Cover Flow and Quick Look, or open them in programs on your own computer.

If you are a member of Apple’s optional .Mac service, which costs $100 a year, you can use a feature called “Back to My Mac,” which can access your Macs from thousands of miles away over the Internet. However, this feature works only over certain kinds of routers (not all of them Apple’s) and, as my router didn’t qualify, I couldn’t test it.

Remote control: For any Mac in your shared-computers list for which you have permission, you can take over the screen by simply clicking on a button called “Share Screen.” You can also remotely control distant Macs over the Internet using Apple’s built-in iChat instant messaging program, as long as you have permission and the Macs are running Leopard.

Stacks displays the files in folders in the dock.

iChat: Apple now allows you to use its instant messaging program with Google Talk as well as AOL’s AIM service, and you can set up a video chat in which you can present a slide show or display a document. You can also add special backgrounds that can make it look as though you’re someplace else, like Paris. In my tests, this even worked with someone on the other end using a Windows XP computer running the latest version of AIM.

Spaces: In order to cut down desktop clutter, Leopard lets you set up as many as 16 different desktops that can run simultaneously, with different programs open in each. You switch among these desktops by using keyboard commands or a menu.

For instance, you might have your iPhoto and iTunes running in one “space,” or desktop, your Web browser and email program in another, and Windows XP in another.

Leopard isn’t a must-have for current Mac owners, but it adds a lot of value. For new Mac buyers, it makes switching even more attractive.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online free at the new All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Huawei! Huawei! We Own a Minority Stake in 3Com!

John Paczkowski — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:41:20 +0000

Looks like the leveraged-buyout market isn’t as lousy as you’d think. This morning 3Com agreed to be acquired by private-equity firm Bain Capital Partners LLC for about $2.2 billion in cash. As part of the deal, which is to close in the first quarter, Chinese networking giant Huawei Technologies will take a minority stake of 10% in 3Com. “The 3Com board of directors and senior management team have thoroughly reviewed our strategic alternatives and have determined that the agreement with Bain Capital provides the best value for 3Com shareholders,” said Edgar Masri, 3Com’s chief executive officer. “We believe that this agreement better positions 3Com to establish itself as a global networking leader, which will benefit our employees, our customers and our partners.”

Don’t forget shareholders. 3Com’s stock spiked on news of the deal, sending it upward 36%, or $1.33, to $5.01, in morning trading.

For 3Com, the deal is another turn in its byzantine relationship with Huawei. In November 2003, the two companies allied to found router and switch manufacturer Huawei-3Com. Then, in March of this year, 3Com paid $882 million to buy Huawei out of the joint venture. Now Huawei’s got a minority stake in 3Com that may well increase over time. Could end up that China’s fast-growing networking-equipment vendor will end up controlling 3Com after all …

Making iTunes Music Purchases Available to Multiple Computers

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:01:00 +0000

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about iTunes copy-protection rules and iPods, making a printer available to multiple computers wirelessly, and surfing the Web from a car.

With the new iPods coming out, how do you deactivate an old one? I think Apple only allows a certain number to be used with an account.

You don’t have to deactivate an iPod if you replace it. The copy-protection rules imposed on Apple by the entertainment companies allow for copy-protected music and videos purchased from the iTunes Music Store to be stored and played on an unlimited number of iPods.

The only “deactivation” iTunes users have to perform is on a computer — Windows or Mac — because the copy-protection rules allow purchased, copy-protected songs and videos to be played on no more than five computers at a time. So, before you replace a computer on which you are storing such purchased, protected iTunes material, you should deauthorize the machine by going to the “Store” menu in iTunes and selecting “Deauthorize Computer…”.

Of course, if you aren’t at or near the five-computer limit, this issue may not matter. It’s also irrelevant if none of the music or videos you play from within iTunes is copy-protected material purchased from the iTunes store. You can happily use iTunes and iPods without buying any copy-protected stuff from Apple. You can restrict your music and videos to those you copy from legally obtained CDs, those you create yourself, or those you buy in unprotected formats from iTunes, or other sites, like eMusic.

I have a printer hard-wired to a desktop computer, but would like it to be available to my laptop wirelessly over my home network. How can I do this?

There are two main methods, assuming the printer doesn’t have a built-in networking port or Wi-Fi transmitter. One method is to buy a small box called a print server and plug it into your router. Then, you plug the printer into the print server, and, with the right software and settings, it will appear on your network and be available to any computer on the network, wired or wireless.

The same companies that make routers, such as Linksys and Belkin, also often make these print servers. The other method is to buy a wireless router that has such a print-server function built-in, with a USB port for connecting a printer.

If I have a laptop with Wi-Fi capability, does that mean I can surf the Web while sitting in a car?

Yes, but only if the car is in range of a Wi-Fi network that is either open (not password-protected) or for which you know the password. And it would only be practical if the car was stopped or parked, since a car moving at normal speed would very quickly drive out of range of any networks you encountered.

A better option, which works even when a car is moving, is to purchase a high-speed cellular wireless modem for your laptop, or buy a laptop with such a modem built-in. These modems, which get you on the Internet via citywide cellular-data networks instead of Wi-Fi, can remain in range for miles. But they require hefty fees, typically $60 a month. And, of course, you should only be surfing the net in a moving car if you are a passenger in that car, not the driver.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Buy a Smart Phone Now, or Wait for iPhone?

Walt Mossberg — Thu, 17 May 2007 00:01:00 +0000

There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about whether to buy a smart phone now or wait for the iPhone, boosting the range of a wireless connection, and removing junk programs that come with a new computer.

I am in the market for a new smart phone. Should I wait for the Apple iPhone? When will it be available and when will you review it?

Apple says the iPhone is on track to go on sale in “late June,” and I expect to be able to test it and publish a review around that time. There will also be many other reviews around then that you can consult.

I stand by my earlier advice, which is that people shopping for a smart phone, who can wait until then, and who could imagine shelling out $499–the iPhone’s base price–should wait to read the reviews of Apple’s first phone and take a look at it before making a decision. However, if you need a smart phone now, or can’t imagine spending that much, then you can ignore the hype and buy a BlackBerry, or a Treo, or another competitor.

Three other key factors could also make you reasonably ignore the iPhone. It will lack a physical keyboard, relying on virtual keys that appear on the screen, so if you prefer a real keyboard, the iPhone would be a nonstarter for you. Also, it will only work on the AT&T wireless network (formerly Cingular) in the U.S. So, if you prefer another wireless carrier, forget the iPhone. Finally, it will only operate on a relatively slow network technology, called EDGE, so if you want a smart phone that operates on the fastest cellular networks, the iPhone is the wrong choice, even though it will also include Wi-Fi wireless networking.

The wireless connection to my wife’s Windows XP computer keeps going down. The computer is about 75 feet (but through three walls) from my Dell Truemobile 2300 router. Should I assume I need a better, more powerful router? And, finally, will it also connect to my MacBook Pro laptop?

A more powerful router might help, but wireless reception varies greatly depending on home construction and layout. You might look for a new router that features a technology called MIMO, which I have found in my tests can improve both speed and range. Even with a new router, you might also have to move its location. There are also various boosters and repeaters that can be used, though some of these require more technical expertise to install than most folks have.

One good method for extending the range of a wireless connection is to buy a set of so-called powerline adapters. These carry your network signal over plain old electrical lines, and some models allow you to create a wireless network by plugging a wireless router into such an adapter in a distant room. I described these adapters in more detail in a column you can find at: ptech.allthingsd.com/20060817/powerline-adapters-access.

In my own home, I have used both MIMO routers, and powerline adapters, successfully with mixtures of Windows and Apple Macintosh computers, including the MacBook Pro, and various Dell, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard laptops.

Can I remove the junk programs that came with my new computer–the ones you call “craplets”–by using the “Add or Remove Programs” control panel in Windows?

Yes, but that is a tedious manual process and may not get them all. Also, in Windows Vista, that control panel has been renamed and is now called “Programs and Features.”

Instead, I would suggest first downloading and running a free program specifically designed to eliminate craplets, the crippled trial programs and advertising come-ons that are now packed into so many new Windows PCs. This program is called “The PC Decrapifier” and can be found at pcdecrapifier.com. If this program misses a few of the junk items you want gone, you can then use the manual method.

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Because of the volume of email I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by email, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Securing a Wireless Network

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:01:40 +0000

There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions securing a wireless network, adapters that play the music stored on a PC through a stereo and voice-recognition software.

Last week you advised readers that, in order to stop people from piggybacking on a wireless network using a Linksys router, they should simply set up a password and keep it private. But don’t they need to enable an “encryption key?”

Yes. Most nontechnical folks would consider an encryption key as a kind of password, and that’s the word I used because I always try to write my columns in plain, conversational English. In this case, however, my use of the term may have caused confusion, because there are, in effect, two kinds of passwords on Linksys routers and most other brands of routers. One just prevents strangers from changing the router’s settings. The other — the one to which I was referring — is required to actually access the wireless network. That’s the one that’s technically called a “key.”

To enable the encryption key, use the router’s setup software to turn on security. On newer models, the strongest security system is called WPA, and on older models, it’s called WEP. Once it’s enabled, only people who know the key can get onto your network. There are further steps you can take, like hiding your network’s name (called an SSID) from others, or even restricting access to the network to specific computers with specific identification codes (called MAC addresses, a term that has nothing to do with Apple’s brand of computers.)

For more details, go to Linksys.com, select “Learning Center” at the top of the page, and click on “Network Security” from the menu that appears. And then click on the link called “How to Secure Your Network.”

Is there a stereo that I can buy that can wirelessly connect to my computer and play the same music I play with Apple’s iTunes on that computer?

Yes. If you literally mean a stereo, rather than an adapter for a stereo, the best I know of is called Sonos ZonePlayer 100. It involves a module you connect to your computer that links wirelessly to stereo units with built-in amps in remote rooms of your house. It has a beautiful remote control with a color screen and many other great features.

But it’s expensive — about $1,200 for the starter package, without speakers — and can’t play copy-protected music you buy from iTunes, only music you import from your CDs or other unprotected files. Information is at sonos.com. For much less money, you can also buy adapters that can play the music on a PC, or an iPod, through an existing stereo.

I have been keeping a journal or diary. It is hand written but I would like to make the journal more readable by others. Is there voice-recognition software that you would recommend, so I can dictate the entries?

It has been years since I reviewed voice-recognition software, but Dragon Naturally Speaking, a Windows program, works well. For more information, see nuance.com. And Microsoft’s new Vista operating system has a decent built-in voice recognition system. If you are using a Macintosh, one widely known speech-recognition program is called iListen, but I haven’t tested it. Information is at macspeech.com.

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Because of the volume of e-mail I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by e-mail, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Using Quicken in Vista

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 00:01:58 +0000

There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about using Quicken in Vista, blocking people from piggybacking on your wireless router signal and waiting for Mac’s Leopard operating system.

We waited to purchase our new computer until Windows Vista was released. We now have a new HP Pavilion 9000 and were trudging along the learning curve when we came to a complete halt — there is no version of Quicken available for Vista. Since we use Quicken extensively, we are stuck using our old computer. When can we expect to be able to use Quicken on Vista?

I haven’t tested Quicken in Vista, but Quicken’s maker says it works fine in Vista, though you may have to download and install a free update. According to Intuit, the manufacturer, “Quicken 2007 has been tested with Microsoft Windows Vista, and no known issues exist in the most current release.” The current release of Quicken 2007 is called “Release 4 (R4).” If your release is R3 or below, you will have to download and install a patch. You can find more information by going to quicken.custhelp.com and typing “Vista” into the search box.

I use a Linksys Wi-Fi router in my home. How can I make sure that no one else is piggybacking on my signal?

It’s pretty simple. Turn on the password feature in your router, and don’t tell anyone the password. You’ll usually find the password setting in the installation software that came with the router.

I’m thinking of buying a new iMac, but should I wait until Apple releases its new Leopard operating system? When will that be?

Apple is saying that Leopard, the coming version of its Mac OS X operating system, will be released this spring. Based on past experience, any Mac you buy now should be able to run Leopard fine. In recent years, Apple’s operating-system upgrades have been much smoother than Microsoft’s. So, if you really need the new Mac now, I wouldn’t worry about Leopard.

However, if you can wait a few months, and buy your iMac with Leopard preinstalled, I suggest doing so. For one thing, you’ll save some money, since Apple usually charges $129 for new operating systems. For another, it’s possible that Apple will also improve the iMac hardware, though I stress that I know of no such plan.

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Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com