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Peel the Apple
by Magnus
Q: I am really confused. Please help me out, I don’t know what I should do with my networking - get the Airport Extreme and the Express? Or only the Aiport Extreme and use the range expander I got (I have a Linksys WRT54GR)? Should I call Etisalat to put another line downstairs and use the expander upstairs? But I am scared that if the line will be downstairs the signal wont be strong because of the thick walls. A: To start of with, calling Etisalat and have them install another line is of course one possible solution but not a very good one. You end up paying extra for the additional line and there may be problems with com puters connecting to either access point and it may be tough getting them to talk to one another. In the case of your range extender I doubt it works with either the Airport Express or Extreme. My suggestion would be to get an Aiport Extreme (the new 802.11N model preferably) and connect it to whatever broadband modem you have. Then you can choose between Express or Extreme to extend the network. Airport Express is cheaper and smaller and you can always take one with you when you travel if you need to. The issue with using an Express to extend the network is of course that it is 802.11G so you will not get the higher speed and range of the Airport Extreme’s 802.11N network. But that may or may not be an issue. If you have Macs or other devices on the network that are not N-compatible, then you get the lower speeds anyway. The Airport Extreme’s higher speed and range may mean that you can get away with just one Extreme base station to cover most if not all of your house.
Q: I don’t have a Dot Mac account, can I still use iChat to chat with my friends?
A: No problem. If you have an AIM account (get one at www.aim.com) you can use it instead of a Dot Mac account. If you have a GMail account (gmail.com) you can also use it. If you want to use GMail you set it up as a Jabber account. From the iChat menu, select Preferences, then the Accounts tab, click the plus sign, select Jabber Account for Account Type. The server you will use is talk.google.com.
Q: Apple just increased the Dot Mac space for customers to 10GB but I only see 5GB on my iDisk. Where’s my othe 5GB?
A: It’s most likely due to your sharing preferences in Dot Mac. You can control how that 10GB is divided between your iDisk and email storage. Log in to your Dot Mac account, go to the Dot Mac homepage, click on your username at the top right of the page, click Storage Settings. In the drop-down menus select how you want to divide your space between email and iDisk. Remember that if you do set it to 10GB and you have synchronization turned on, your iDisk will take up 10GB of your hard drive’s space.
Q: I have a MacBook. I bought it when they first came out. It’s still fast enough for what I do but I would like to play some 3D games and for that it’s not enough. Can I upgrade
the memory on the MacBook’s graphics card or even upgrade the whole card?
A: The answer to both questions is simple and short, no you can’t. Let’s elaborate on that a bit. The MacBook has what’s called integrated graphics. Its graphics card is really a part of the motherboard, the main circuitboard driving the machine. The graphics in the MacBook has been ridiculed by many as being slow and weak. And it’s true it’s not the fastest graphics card around but it’s also true it’s fast enough for most average users. The memory on the Intel integrated graphics in the MacBook is a part of the main system memory. 64MB of whatever amount of RAM you have installed is used for graphics.
Send your Apple tech support questions to techsupport@emiratesmac.com. Your questions are answered by Magnus Nystedt, a Certified Apple Help Desk Specialist, with experience of Macs going back to the Mac Plus. Also with over ten years of teaching IT at college and university, he’s in a perfect position to help you sort out your problems. You can reach Magnus at magnus@nystedt.org or at www.nystedt.org.
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