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I’m planning to buy a new laptop (MacBook or MacBook Pro) after the Leopard is released, and have been wondering which one of the new apple laptops provide a better value. Here is a nice break down of different components of MB and MBP.

First of all, both the MacBook and the MacBook Pro come in three models. I’m assuming that for people who are considering both the MB and MBP lines, the $1099 MB model is too underpowered and the $2499 and $2799 MBP models are too expensive, so the models they’ll consider are the $1299 and $1499 MB models and the $1999 MBP model. I’ll ignore the $1499 MB as well as it’s just the $1299 model with a 120 GB hard drive and in black. The bigger drive is a $150 option for the $1299 model.

There’s no doubt that both the MacBook and the MacBook Pro are excellent laptops, but I think I’ll go for MacBook Pro, for it’s bigger screen (just 0.4 pound heavier than MB), faster performance and discrete graphics processor (vista aero compatible). Probably it’s worth the extra money.

It’s an iWorld… and this is iHouse, without Windows!

In an open letter, Apple CEO Steve Jobs urges the recording companies to abandon DRM (Digital Rights Management) technologies. This is quite surprising to everyone because Apple, with it’s ipod and selling songs (with DRM) from iTunes store is clearly the one most benefiting from DRM. But Jobs thinks there’re 3 ways ahead: continue on the current course with DRM; Apple to license its FairPlay DRM technology to current and future competitors; or to abolish DRMs entirely. Apple clearly favors the third option.

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Via: Cnet

Like everyone else I’ve been following the wild iPhone rumors from a long time, and was really happy to see it happen today. Can’t wait to get my hands on it, although they’ll be releasing it in Asia only on 2008. This small device is packed with a lot of amazing features, it’s a:

Widescreen iPod
Revolutionary Phone
Breakthrough Internet Device
High Technology

Everything looks wonderful but I’m just wondering how effective the on-screen keyboard for typing emails and sms would be! Lets wait and see.

Useful links to give you a full dose of iPhone before you can get hold of one:
iPhone (Apple’s official iPhone page)
Watch the iPhone Introduction by Steve Jobs (video on demand, requires QuickTime)
Apple’s new calling: The iPhone (a good article by Time reporter, who got a sneak peak)
TUAW on iPhone (The iPhone category of The Unofficial Apple Weblog)
Engadget on Apple announcement at Macworld 2007
GigaOM on iPhone
Gizmodo on iPhone

This guide describes how to install and configure the OpenVPN Server in Linux and clients in Windows XP and Mac OSX. There are many advanced features in OpenVPN and if you’re interested in those advanced stuff, there’s a more detailed HowTo for you. This guide was created from my successful installation, so it works for me. If you find any problems or have suggestions please leave a comment. I’ll try my best to help. I’m sure, you know that you’re using this at your own risk

In our scenario, a small office network is protected by Linux firewall and we’ll implement the secure OpenVPN to access the internal office network (File Server, Database Server and Desktop PCs) securely from anywhere in the Internet.

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I’m very happy with my Mac and I think there’s no turning back now. The elegance, simplicity, stability and security of OS X can never be compared with Windows. I still have a Windows pc and a notebook with some windows only applications installed. Also one thing to note is that the corporate world is full of windows, so I think a system and network admin cannot completely ignore windows. Anyway, if you’re planning to switch to a Mac, the good news is that there’re enough Mac application for productive system and network administration. Here are the applications I find useful for my daily system and network administration.
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I’m using Synergy to share a single keyboard and mouse between my Mac, Windows and Linux machines. It’s a very useful software I’ve been using for quite some time. There’s a very detailed HOWTO at Engadget, if you want to set it up for yourself.

This is my desk — powered by Synergy

With perfect password manager, I thought I had the complete set of tools in my Mac for getting things done. But today I realized, I’d overlooked ethereal. I use it sometimes and it’s a gem without which it would be very difficult to solve some network problems. Ethereal is a free and open source packet sniffer application, used for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and protocol development, and education. It has all of the standard features of a protocol analyzer.

I was happy to see Ethereal for Mac OS X listed at the top of the download page. But, was confused with the choice I had to make between Fink Project and DarwinPorts. I was not sure what they meant or which one was better. So, after Googling a while and reading the FAQs, I found that the number one goal of both projects were to port open source Linux/Unix softwares to Mac OS X. They just differ in the packaging approach they’ve taken. DarwinPorts was written from scratch to try a different approach to a packaging system, where as Fink Project utilizes robust package management tools dpkg and apt-get from Debian Linux Project . So, I decided to try ethereal with Fink Project and this is how I did it.

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I’ve switched to a Mac and it took quite some time for me to find an ideal password management tool. Of course OS X has an excellent KeyChain Access for password and other confidential information management. Also there are some third party softwares, but most of them are good for personal usage only (by single user). Previously at work we’re using Anypassword in windows for password management. What I needed was a similar tool that stores passwords in an encrypted file (database), so that multiple admins can view/edit it from different platforms (at least from Mac and Windows). In search of this perfect program I’ve tried many password managers available for OS X. So, here they are; some good for single user and some good for system admins, among them I found one perfectly fit for me.
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Apple MacBook and MacBook Pros are so hot that the owners have figured an undocumented use of these laptops. Now they’ve started to use them for frying eggs and bacons, and of course the bonus point is keeping the coffee warm by placing it on top of the MacBook power adapter.