Until recently I have had a switch feeding my Windows computer and Aastra VoIP phone into the back of my iMac, which would then send the data to my router over the 802.11n connection. This was a really bad way of doing things, since my Trixbox server (running on the Windows computer) lost all connections when my iMac went to sleep.

Why was I doing it this way? Because my router is on the other side of the apartment by my cable modem, and there is no cable connection in my office area. I could have run an ugly wire over to the router, but I wasn’t really interested in a blue wire going across the apartment.

Now I have had other choices to create an 802.11g connection using what companies call a “Gaming Bridge” which allows you to link two ethernet ports over a wireless connection, but I have had bad luck with those in the past and I really wanted to stay on my primary 802.11n connection.

A few days ago Apple answered my request. They have released an 802.11n version of the AirPort Express and it works just like their original 802.11g device did (before it burnt out on me in a puff of smoke). All I had to do was tell the device to connect to my .11n network and allow computers to use the connection over the built in ethernet port. I then hooked that ethernet port into a switch that feeds my Windows box and Aastra phone. That’s all it took to get them on the network!

So if you’re running an 802.11n network in the 5GHz range and want to provide network access to a room without running a bunch of wires through walls (or can’t because you’re in an apartment like me), this is a logical choice at a price of $99.

However if you are not keen on Apple products, Netgear also has a product that can perform similar actions for a slightly higher cost. The one drawback with the Netgear product is that you won’t get the same additional features (like AirTunes and USB Printer Sharing) as you will get with the AirPort Express.

Today I looked at the new iPhone features built into Dashcode, Apple’s development environment that was originally created for Dashboard Widgets. Upon loading the application, I was presented with three new iPhone development options: Custom, Browser, and RSS.

Development

While Custom is going to give you a blank template to work with and Browser gives you a basic list view for you to fill in with your own content, the RSS template provides you a pre-coded environment to add your RSS feed and publish to your website. Today I decided to make my own iPhone version of this website.

Just like creating a Dashboard widget, you have the ability to change fonts, colors, image, and much more. Using the predefined template, I modifed the colors and background to match the look and feel of the full site you’re probably viewing this on right now. Having only used Dashcode once before to create a Podcast widget for OS X, I found no issues creating a mobile website for the iPhone. All the menus and toolbars are the same, though the library of items you can add to your mobile site are different (for good reason, of course).

As you develop your iPhone mobile RSS page, you can test it inside of the Aspen Simulator — an iPhone running on your computer (I mentioned this in the last entry). Each time I made a major change to the operation of the mobile page, I would click on the Run button, view it inside the Simulator, and operate it just like it’s on my mobile phone.

Deployment

Once I was satisfied with my changes, I went to the file menu inside Dashcode and clicked on the Deploy option. I then chose to save it to my desktop where I would be able to take it and upload it to my website.

After upload it to the labs.blackice912.net site, I decided to launch it on my actual iPhone to see the results. It turns out the results were pretty bad. No news loaded at all. I then tested it inside the Simulator and got the same results. Why was it working on my computer but not once I published it to the internet?

Well after activating the debug mode inside of Mobile Safari, I found out why. As I should have remembered, you cannot have JavaScript on one site grab data from another site. It is cross site scripting and can be considered dangerous. Realizing this, I moved the code over to blackice912.net and launched it with success.

So are there ways to use a RSS feed that is hosted on another site and use it? With the addition of PHP, yes you could do this and not run into that issue.

Conclusion

Apple has really done a lot of things right with this new SDK. While I still need to do some more investigation into the native application side of it, I am impressed with what I have seen today. You can really create a powerful web application with the SDK today and an even better one once the 2.0 firmware hits phones in June.

If you’re interested in seeing the mobile site I created, visit blackice912.net/mobile on your iPhone/iTouch or in Safari. It will not load properly in any other browser!

Today Apple released the iPhone SDK, which will allow developers such as myself to program native applications for the iPhone. What wasn’t given a lot of attention during the keynote held this morning was all the new opportunities for web developers.

I’ve only had the chance to watch a 20 minute video on the subject, but the new iPhone firmware upgrade coming in July will bring support for additional WebKit features like animation and iPhone specific functions like gestures

I hope on doing some more research into this tomorrow using the published SDK’s Simulator and publishing sample projects to the labs site.

As both a Mac and PC user, I need a way to quickly jump between both systems on my monitor which has multiple inputs. Since Multiplicity still hasn’t crossed the pond, I’m left with limited options.

Enter Synergy - A system to share your keyboard, mouse, and clipboard between multiple computers.

Synergy is a great tool, but isn’t the most user friendly when it comes to configuration.

1.  section: screens
2.    applecomputer.local:
3.    windowsxp-e2m9su4nlc:
4.  end
5.
6.  section: links
7.    applecomputer.local:
8.     left = windowsxp-e2m9su4nlc
9.    windowsxp-e2m9su4nlc:
10.    right = applecomputer.local
11. end
12.
13. section: options
14.    relativeMouseMoves = true
15.    keystroke(control+f1) = ; lockCursorToScreen(toggle)
16. end

Above is my configuration file for Synergy (computer names changed to protect the innocent). It’s fairly simple. The top section (section: screens) identifies the computers in our setup (lines 2 and 3). We have both an Apple Mac and Windows XP computer.

The next section (section: links) tells us how the two screens link together. Line 7 tells us the computer name and line 8 tells Synergy that when our mouse hits the left side of the screen, jump over to the Windows XP machine. Lines 9 and 10 tell Synergy that moving the mouse to the right side of the screen on our Windows XP computer will take us back to our Mac.

Lines 1 through 11 is all you really need to get it working. You could leave it with those lines and be content with the functionality. At least until you try and play certain full screen games.

You see, some PC games move you around the level based on the acceleration of the mouse and the direction it is accelerating in. While using Synergy, your mouse is told what X and Y coordinates it should be at on your screen. This really messes up games such as Half Life 2. You will literally find your character in a spasm of sorts.

To fix such an annoying issue, you have to tell Synergy to lock down the mouse. What this lock down will do is both prevent the mouse from exiting to your Mac screen and enable relative moves (the acceleration we were talking about earlier). To do this, we have to add a new section (section: options) and tell it to enable relative moving (line 14) and assign a hotkey to enable or disable this (line 15). In the example above, I am using CTRL+F1. If you are using a Mac as your Synergy server, you will most likely have to use CTRL+FN+F1 to activate the hotkey, as F1 on my keyboard is brightness control which is overridden by the FN key.

With this basic setup you are ready to have the best of both worlds. Well, maybe.

You see, Synergy is not without faults. Quite often I will be in Windows XP playing a full screen game with my mouse locked down to that screen when my Mac will pop up an alert that requires my input (such as a firewall request). When this happens, Synergy likes to give keyboard control back to the Mac — essentially creating a really hard time to get keyboard control back to the Windows XP computer. The only solutions I have found so far is exiting my PC game with the mouse and closing Synergy’s tray icon or unplugging the network cable on either of the computers, thus disrupting the Synergy connection between the two.

Even with it’s faults, it is still one of the only options for cross-platform control without opening the second computer in a VNC connection of some sort. It is also decently feature filled as well. If you have a chance, check out the configuration guide on Synergy.