Apple Newbie

Apple’s iBook and iMac ranges do not support screen spanning by default although it comes with a graphics chipset (ATI Radeon Mobility) that supports the feature. What’s screen spanning? It’s something like an extended desktop where your desktop area stretches across two monitors instead of both monitors displaying the same thing. They say once you’re used to dual displays you won’t go back. iBook and iMac users can actually experience this, with a tool called the Screen Spanning Doctor.

It involves hacking the Open Firmware to enable screen spanning support, a feature available on PowerMacs and PowerBooks.

BTW please don’t try this on notebooks that run other chipsets like the older ATI Rage, as it will screw up your hardware! The list of officially supported machines and machines that are not supported are available here.

Download the Screen Spanning Doctor by Rute Moeller

Apple has a built in Firewall for Mac OS X, but it’s kind of catered to the newbie, very simplified like most Apple user interfaces are.

For something more advanced, try Flying Buttress, formerly known as BrickHouse. Flying Buttress has some funky features like filtering by host/network address, protocols other than TCP/UDP, the whole range of ipfw options, per-filter logging, graphical log viewer, NAT port forwarding, different filters for different network interfaces, and so on. It basically is a configuration tool for OS X’s built in firewalling system, instead of replacing the firewalling system altogether.

It won the Best System Utility Award at the 17th Annual MacWorld Editor’s Choice Awards and Gold Award, Firewall Protection for the MacFixit 2001 Toolbox Awards.

Technically, it’s not free - the shareware costs USD$25 per machine. But you can use the “unregistered” version for as long as you want, and pay someday when you feel it’s worth it and can afford it.

Check out Flying Buttress.