Going Mobile With a Mac
September 12th, 2006 (11:00pm) Om Malik 26 Comments
By Jonathan Hirshon
Is Apple the perfect mobile computer? Sometimes I have asked myself that question, and have used some puissant tools available under OS X to bring it as close to perfection. I am a public relations and marketing professional who also happens to be a card-carrying member of the IEEE as well as a pro-bono Mac evangelist for the last 20 years. As such, I’m in a (hopefully) unique position to be able to offer you a clear and concise series of recommendations based on both personal experience and technical superiority. Now, let’s dive in:
For those unfamiliar with it, the VNC (Virtual Network Computing) protocol enables you to unleash your Jedi mindtricks from afar, enabling you to take over and control any receptive computer remotely. Chicken of the VNC - a more mellifluous name is seldom conjured from the vapour of creative thought - is an excellent OS X program that makes VNC…
Wait for it…
…as easy as crossing the road.
Chicken is optimized for the glory that is OS X, including keychain integration for easy password access. It also has such niceties as automatic server discovery via Rendezvous(TM); listen mode for navigating through firewalls; an auto-scrolling full-screen mode; CPU performance throttling; lots of supported transfer encodings including Tight and ZLib and customizable connection profiles.
While Chicken is dandy, sometimes you need real VPN (Virtual Private Network) access via SSH to comply with corporate IT policy.
Or do you?
AlmostVPN is an SSH tunnel manager for Mac OS X that is packaged as Preference Panel, so you do not have to use yet another application to configure your tunnels. According to the developer, it uses creative network configuration techniques to provide ‘almost VPN like’ access to remote services. This means you can keep using real IP addresses and port numbers while accessing service on the other side of your tunnels.
Translation: you can mount remote volumes and access your iTunes collection of sweet, sweet music. Of course, you can also do mundane work tasks that pay those pesky bills such as upload/download/execute files (with support for both console and X11 based applications) and use remote printers all via your favorite remote access application. For me, that is Chicken of the VNC, but you can use your favorite program of choice - or even a shell prompt for you uber-hackers).
AlmostVPN is also scriptable and imports tunnel defs from most every major SSH program.
Allow me to now wax both eloquent and rhapsodic about the joys of properly-implemented VoiP (Voice Over IP). With my new VoIP-prioritized 6 Mbps DSL connection from Speakeasy, I can now freely share my melodious voice and sanguine perspectives with editors all over the world. All this at virtually no cost and with crystal-clear sound - whether using Gizmo Project for open SIP functionality or Skype to please the proprietary overlords of eBay, you can’t go wrong with a good VoIP connection. For those of you who remember the movie ‘Airplane’ - remember what happened every time Robert Hayes started talking to another passenger? Let us hope my adoption of VoiP does not engender a similar mass exodus from this mortal coil by my friends in the media…
Instant messaging has become an important, if not mandatory tool for real-time communications. On the Mac, Adium is the premier open-source solution for online chat to any major network. Use it, love it, be one with it. For those times you need a real videoconference, as opposed to gtg, ttyl and other mnemonic shortcuts for the nimble-fingered, iChat rocks my world with great video and audio quality (but it only works between Mac users). Alternatively, Skype also has both instant message and video conference capabilities, if you don’t mind saturating your broadband connection with its unholy hunger for bandwidth.
As a professional communicator, writing for me is a hallowed and hushed endeavour, replete with subtlety and nuance. Using Word to write is akin to driving a Hummer - it’ll get you there, but it’s a beast that is overkill for 95% of my daily tasks (short of the occasional jaunt to the Extreme car crushing event). I prefer the ‘Lotus’ approach to writing - stripped-down, the minimum interface and speed speed speed. I want to focus on my words, not the minion of Satan that is ‘Clippy’ or anything else Micro$oft chooses to throw into its kitchen sink interface.
I will date myself - my first word processor was WordStar, and then I fell in love with XyWrite, the lightning-fast word processor favored by many old-school professional writers. WriteRoom has recreated that old-school word processor experience - just a blank screen, you and your text. It goes full screen to blat out all the distractions of the world and let me focus on my writing. Once I’m done, I can copy the text over to Word and share it with my co-workers and revel in the freedom of an unfettered, distraction-free writing experience. Show your true writing chops - go old-school, go with WriteRoom.
It would be absolutely wrong to even consider using a program like KisMAC to crack a protected WEP network. It would violate every principle of integrity and decency to even suggest that such a program could be incredibly valuable to a road warrior seeking any WiFi connection in a storm. Far be it from me to tout its gloriously Mac interface, its Growl integration for alerts, its seamless Google(R) Earth(R) export capabilities and more.
I feel better for having not enlightened you to such a forbidden and morally bankrupt concept - I hope you do too.
I also hope that you found this a worthwhile primer - feel free to pester Om if you’d like to see me as a regular here talking about mobile work flow solutions. Cheers!
26 Comments Post your own comment
Kamen says: September 13th, 2006 4:05am
Hmmm… WordStar… XyWrite… I see that, like me, you’re a “lean & mean” word-processor kind of guy…
And WriteRoom is excellent, despite the slew of recent “fullscreen modes” being cello-taped onto many apps.
I only wish I could have a “vi-mode” for WriteRoom. That would make it the ultimate writing tool for me.
Ever tried vi?
Jonathan Hirshon says: September 13th, 2006 7:37am
vi is also excellent, but going to the command line is something i typically only do for Terminal. That said, vi is a great option as well. :)
cheers, JH
Corey says: September 13th, 2006 7:47am
I also really like iChat. To be fair, you can mix both .mac and AOL Instant Messenger users in the same buddy list. You can also login into multiple accounts simultaneously. iChat supports any IM server that uses the Jabber protocol, including Gmail/Google Talk.
Jonathan Hirshon says: September 13th, 2006 8:02am
vi is a great word processor, the progenitor of ‘lean and mean’ - and it’s great for Terminal jockeys who prefer a *NIX environment. You might want to join the forums for WriteRoom and request this feature, the developer is always open to new ideas. :)
cheers, JH
MikeInAZ says: September 13th, 2006 8:08am
No list is complete without mentioning QuickSilver for os x. More than just a program launcher…
http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/
Jonathan Hirshon says: September 13th, 2006 8:11am
Corey - point well taken, I tend to jump from Adium to iChat as the mood strikes for that additional UI polish as well. In fact, I find myself gravitating more and more to iChat, but for the purpose of reaching those laggards on MSN (blech) or Yahoo (lesser blech), Adium is still the only game in town.
Jonathan Hirshon says: September 13th, 2006 8:13am
Mike, QuickSilver is also a great program, but I had to stop after 5 or so, and for the purposes of Web Workers, I decided to let that one go for this article and focus on more Telco-oriented items. I did talk about WriteRoom, true - but for this ADD-bedeviled writer, it’s a necessity, not an option. :)
cheers, JH
mikeinmanila says: September 13th, 2006 11:01am
Hi there-
I feel almost unworthy to post… since I come from the proletain sphere of old laptop running XP ProSP2 - but my question - using VPN as you mentioned - is this i use FTP to trasfer video.
I was woderig if I do someday - am able to afford a Mac Notebook- would ‘AlmostVPN ‘ be the way to go instead of FTP transfer for sending out my stores in WIFI areas? I know you can FPC forward feature - to send video to another collaborator on a video project.
What if you didn’t want to do it that way? Or clients were on another NLE software system?
Whats a good suggestion for a Freelance Journo on the go always to send video files of his or her reports over WIFI or 3G WCDMA networks?
thanks
mere mortal on Xp….
showngo says: September 13th, 2006 12:02pm
great post, thanks for that. I have just started using Writeroom. I find room for both Adium and iChat on my system, i find iChat much faster for file transfers than Adium.
Jonathan Hirshon says: September 13th, 2006 12:52pm
SHOWNGO, thanks for the kind words. I also use both Adium and iChat for different applications. Mike, I’m checking with a friend who is a true Mac Jedi Master (and possible Lord of the Sith) to get the best possible answer for your question, hang tight!
ayazmahmood says: September 13th, 2006 10:59pm
Great post…Thanks.
Pakcar
GTD Power Links 09-13-06 « GGTD-Geeks Guide To Getting Things Done says: September 14th, 2006 12:48am
[...] So you wanna go mobile with a Mac? Is Apple the perfect mobile computer? Sometimes I have asked myself that question, and have used some puissant tools available under OS X to bring it as close to perfection. I am a public relations and marketing professional who also happens to be a card-carrying member of the IEEE as well as a pro-bono Mac evangelist for the last 20 years. As such, I’m in a (hopefully) unique position to be able to offer you a clear and concise series of recommendations based on both personal experience and technical superiority. Now, let’s dive in: [...]
Jonathan Hirshon says: September 14th, 2006 8:47am
Ayazmahmood - thanks! :)
Mikeinmanila - after checking in with my friend, the ultimate Mac Jedi, I am told that if you are asking whether an SSH port forwarded tunnel is better than using FTP to publish content, here is the answer. It’s pretty simple, and boils down to privacy - if the content is private, or doesn’t need security, then FTP is fine - otherwise SSH would be best.
cheers, JH
Benoit Chesneau says: September 14th, 2006 10:30am
It would be interresting to have any feedback abouty going bedoin under linux. Which tools and so on :) The way to have complete freedom?
mikeinmanila says: September 14th, 2006 2:32pm
thank you sensi! your humble student has learned much from this most excelent teaching. Now on the last part about 3g WDCMA/GPRS/EDGE or wifii as data transmission platform?
Mostly we usie a SEW+DISH uplink or Scotti 256kbps ISDN uplink at non-celluar and non - wifi remote areas to get back to my VPN for which ever clients http://FTP.
I was wondering if there was a platform using next generation celluar networks HSD networks are alternative in 3G EDGE/GPRS enabled areas for video?
My next computer - some thoughts « Searching for the Moon says: September 14th, 2006 5:06pm
[...] On Web Worker Daily today there is a great discussion about some of the tools available for a Mac that help make it a great (from a software perspective) platform for mobile workers. [...]
Tamir says: September 15th, 2006 12:41pm
For Mac based video conf. that works with commercial codeds (I tested it with Tandberg 990 and Polycom) checkout this project http://xmeeting.sourceforge.net/pages/index.php
Rahmin Sarabi says: September 15th, 2006 8:18pm
Has anyone found a way to get evdo on a mac laptop. I’ve read of this usb evdo card. Anyone seen it out in the wild?
Jonathan Hirshon says: September 16th, 2006 7:52am
Rahmin, if you have a MacBook Pro, try this solution:
http://gearlog.com/blogs/gearlog/archive/2006/08/10/18025.aspx
cheers, JH
Jonathan Hirshon says: September 16th, 2006 4:24pm
My friends - allow me to share another freeware gem I just discovered:
http://coconut-flavour.com/coconutwifi/index.html
I *LOVE* this gem… :)
cheers, JH
alexking.org: Blog > Around the web says: September 17th, 2006 10:56am
[...] Web Worker Daily - Going Mobile With a Mac [...]
howard silverman says: September 18th, 2006 7:52am
puissant ??? give me a break….. speak english will ya!! (ya=you for the elitist crowd)
Jonathan Hirshon says: September 18th, 2006 8:29am
Hey - old-school is as old-school does, and a good vocabulary meets all the criteria of today’s techno-elite.
It’s viral (you learn and spread it) and it separates the real elite from the noobie scamming pr0n. :D
cheers, JH
Chris Benoit says: February 26th, 2007 12:03pm
Chris Benoit
Just Who Has Strong Heart Can Enter This Wonderful Site…WWERAW
Web Worker Daily » Archive Mac Sales Gain Momentum « says: December 9th, 2007 12:16pm
[...] or current Mac owner, should it matter to web workers? Of course we’ve noted before that the Mac makes an excellent platform for mobile workers, and in communities from graphics design to Rails software development [...]
KaoS Kontrol KaoS » Blog Archive » WriteRoom says: December 12th, 2007 4:21am
[...] for an occasional writer such as myself I found WriteRoom making big difference. No wonder that pros go for it. Putting WriteRoom on top of my must-have pieces of software to [...]