Category Archives: Call Me a Geek

The things I do and think about computers.

Computer Woes

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My Dual G5 Becomes Comatose

My Dual G5 has been acting up for a few months now. It started when the Firewire ports caused system crashes and iPod errors when both were in use. The iPod’s dock is plugged into the rear Firewire port; my iSight camera is normally plugged into the front Firewire port (so I can move it around easily). I had all kinds of problems when they were both plugged in and working at the same time.

Doctor, it hurts when I do this.

Then don’t do it.

So I stopped using them both at the same time, figuring it was a system software problem that would iron itself out in a future update. After all, the sleep/power problem I had on my PowerBook went away when I upgraded from Mac OS X 10.3.8 to 10.4.

Then came the startup problems. The problem: it wouldn’t start up. The power would go through it — I could hear all four fans running in there — but no startup tone, no video, no nothing else. Except a condition I call “hyperventilation.” It’s when the computer’s fans rev up to high speed, as if I’ve just put the computer out in the sun in the parking lot in front of my building on a July afternoon. (I truly believe I could fry an egg out there.) But pulling the power cord and letting it sit for a while usually cleared things up. Which was a good thing, because I had to finish a book before I went away and I needed that computer to get the job done.

When I got back from Howard Mesa for a week in civilization (or Wickenburg’s version of civilization, which misses the mark by a wide margin), I went to my office to take care of some accounting stuff and write an article for Informit. I pushed the computer’s power button. Power but no startup. Fans but no video. And no amount of power cord deprivation could bring it back to life.

I had a problem.

Although there’s a guy in Wickenburg who claims to fix Macs, I’d worked with him a bit on a networking puzzle and the solution he came up with was not workable. And although I was perfectly willing to pay him to come to my office to work on the problem, he insisted on working with me via telephone and e-mail. Which got me thinking: why wasn’t this guy willing to make house calls? Was it because he really didn’t know what he was doing? Or maybe he’s just really ugly and doesn’t like to go out?

Hell, I used to get $80/hour to make consulting house calls. Maybe that’s the problem. No one else in Wickenburg is willing to pay decent money for a decent computer consultant.

Of course, there is a great resource for Macintosh problem solving: the Genius Bar at any Apple Store. So I unplugged all the wires from the G5 and lugged it out to my car. My Jeep is at Howard Mesa, so I’m “stuck” with the Honda S2000. Not a bad thing to be stuck with, but the trunk was too small for the computer. I had to lay a blanket out on the leather seat and set the computer on that. And on the way down to Phoenix, every time I made a turn, I had to hold onto the computer so it wouldn’t fall over and either bash its way through the door or knock me senseless. (Okay, so it isn’t that big or heavy, but it sure seems like it when you’re lugging it down a flight of stairs.)

I went to the Biltmore Apple store. I waited about 30 minutes for a genius. She listened to the symptoms, then plugged it in and tried powering it up. I did the same thing for her as it had done for me: just about nothing.

“Power supply or logic board,” she announced. “Probably logic board.”

I wasn’t too stupid to know that the logic board for a dual processor computer was probably a cost-intensive item. I was right. It would cost about $700, plus labor. Ouch.

I started wondering whether I’d be better off just buying a new computer. The G5 was already a year and a half old (out of warranty, of course). But I usually buy a new desktop machine once every 2 to 3 years. It wasn’t time for a new one. And besides, perhaps I should hold off until Apple starts using those new-fangled Intel chips it plans to use. Just in case that change resulted in a major change to the operating system. I have to write about this stuff, you know. To do it, I have to have a computer that runs the stuff I write about. And I’m not interested in buying a new computer every year.

Instead of leaving it at the Biltmore store, I decided to get a second opinion. One of the Apple Store guys lugged the computer back out to the car and I drove down to Chandler. I was now about 80 miles from home. It was lunch time and I hadn’t eaten. I got a hand truck from the Chandler Apple Store guys and went back out to the car to bring in the patient. There were already 2 G5s sitting there on the counter. I wondered whether there was some kind of epidemic that was affecting G5s.

I waited a long time. I sat at the bar, using my laptop to check my e-mail and surf the Web. The good thing about Apple Stores is that they’re wireless hot spots. I got a lot done while I waited.

I finally got to speak to the Genius and, unfortunately, he had the same diagnosis. But the Chandler Store guys know me from my appearances there and my book. They were willing to eat the labor cost. All I’d have to do was pay for the logic board.

Why couldn’t I pay for the labor and let them eat the logic board?

Did you know that the logic board for a G5 is blue? I’m so accustomed to seeing green ones. And if you’ve never opened the side of a G5 dual, you owe it to yourself to do so. The darn thing is absolutely beautiful inside. It’s made of shiny aircraft-grade metal (whatever that means) and, when its new and clean, it’s a piece of artwork. “Sexy” is the word one of the Apple guys used. I have to agree. After all, if a car can be considered sexy, why can’t the inside of a computer?

So I left the computer there. Hopefully, it’ll be done this week. I still have letters to write and accounting records to play with. Sales tax payments — ugh!

The only good thing about driving the 80 miles back to Wickenburg is that I had my iPod to listen to in the car. And, of course, I didn’t have to worry about a G5 in the passenger seat falling over on me.

On Old GPSes and New Activities

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I discover geocaching and plan to take it to the extreme.

Years ago — I really don’t know how long — I bought a Garmin GPS 12Map. At this time, it was hot stuff. It was one of the first 12-channel receivers, which means it acquired satellites quickly and managed to hold enough of them in transit to be useful. It had a grayscale screen with a moving map. It had about 1.4 MB of memory, which you use to store detailed maps, so that detail would be available when you were using it. Although it didn’t talk to my Mac, it did talk to my PC. I downloaded Garmin maps into and uploaded waypoints and routes from it to another, more detailed software package.

I used it a lot. This was before I seriously got into flying and I had my Jeep, which we used to take on back roads once in a while. We’d load up the maps for where were were going and take a drive. We always knew exactly where we were and could consult the map to find our way in or out of a location. We also knew the names of all the land forms and other named places we passed.

I also used it for horseback riding. The GPS had an automatic tracking feature. I’d start it up, clear the track log, and attach it to my saddle, antenna side up. It would faithfully record every twist and turn in the trail. When I got to a gate, I’d mark it as a waypoint. Then, when I got back to my office, I’d upload the route information to the mapping software and display the horse trail on a topographic map. Do that a few times on all different trails and, before you know it, you’ve mapped all the trails on a topo map. Cool.

Although I stopped using the GPS regularly, I never really stopped using it. (Not like I stopped using my Palm or my Newton. But let’s not go there, huh?) Most recently, back in September, I pulled it out, loaded a few topo maps into it, and took it on a driving trip on the north side of the Grand Canyon. (I’m pretty sure I wrote about that trip in these blogs somewhere, probably in the “Travels with Maria” category.) Basically, any time I plan to take the Jeep off pavement, I bring the GPS, loaded with appropriate topo maps, with me. I have mounting hardware in the Jeep and a cable that provides power to the GPS. So as long as the engine’s running, I don’t have to worry about batteries.

For the record, I don’t use the GPS to drive from point A to point B on paved roads. If you need a GPS to do highway or city driving (“Turn left here.”), you really shouldn’t be driving. Take a cab or hire a chauffeur. Or ride Greyhound, and leave the driving to them. Or learn how to read a damn map!

Now, five or more years later, my GPS is outdated. Sure, it still does what it always did, but there are so many more GPSes out there with so many more features and so much more power. Color screens, more than 50 MB of memory, more waypoints, etc. For the past year or so — actually, every time I take out the GPS and use it — I think about how nice it would be to store 100 topo maps instead of just 4 or 5. That would certainly save a lot of trips to the PC in my office, just to load up maps. I could load all the maps I normally need and have that detail every time I went out.

But I don’t use it all that much and I can’t really justify the expenditure of $400 to $500 for the latest version of a “toy” I already have. (Hey, at least I could write paying articles about the iPod Photo.) So I haven’t replaced it.

Then I discovered geocaching. Wow, what a silly sport. Person A takes a weatherproof container that can be as small as a film canister or as large as an ammo can and fills it with trinkets like tiny stuffed animals, keychains, stickers, and beads, adds a small notepad with a pencil, marks it as a geocache, and hides it somewhere. He then takes the GPS coordinates (several times, to make sure they’re right) and publishes them on a Web site like www.geocaching.com, along with a name for the cache and a description or hints. Person B, having nothing better to do with his time, gets those GPS coordinates off the Web site and looks for the cache. When he finds it, he removes one relatively worthless item — perhaps the keychain — and replaces it with another relatively worthless item — perhaps a pin-on button. He also makes a note or two in on the notepad and then, when he’s back in front of his computer, he logs his find.

It may sound easy, but it isn’t. I went in search of one yesterday, just to see if I could find it. Named “Airport,” it was on the side of the road, not far from Wickenburg Airport. We zeroed in within 40 feet, stopped the Jeep, and got out to look. Unfortunately, our wet winter had resulted in tall grass and weeds that are now dead and likely hiding places for snakes. We arrived not long after sunset, while it was still dark, and cautiously searched the brush. At one point, my GPS told me I was within 4 feet. But I just couldn’t find it and I wasn’t prepared to push aside dead grass to look harder for it. So we let it go. I’ll try again another day, when I’m better prepared with a stick, a gun full of snake shot, boots, and gloves.

What I like about the idea of geocaching is the challenge of it and the fact that it forces you to go outdoors and explore off pavement. This alone is a good reason for people to do it. Think of all those mall walkers, trying to get exercise by walking in the mall. Now take off their walking shoes and replace them with hiking shoes, give them a GPS, and tell them to find a cache. They’re still getting exercise, but they’re breathing fresh air. They’re also seeing trees and bushes and grass and sky and maybe a few animals rather than whatever’s playing in mall shop windows. And there’s no Starbucks to lure them in for a mochachino. The terrain may be a bit more rugged and not suitable for some of the less steady folks, but I think it could work for lots of people. And even if they don’t find it, they’ll still probably have some fun.

I can imagine it now: five women and a man aged 60 to 75, out in the desert on a trail. They’re wearing sweatsuits that they bought in Wal-Mart, one of them has a sweatband around her head, and another has a walking stick she bought at the Grand Canyon. One woman, the tallest, is holding the GPS up, looking at it through the lenses of her half-frame glasses. (She got the GPS away from the man early on, when it was clear to her that he couldn’t program it.) “It’s this way,” she announces, pointing to her left. The group starts walking.

But seriously, it seems like an interesting activity and a great excuse to get outdoors.

Of course, I’ve started thinking of making it really challenging, not by hiding the cache in tall, potentially snake-filled weeds at the side of the road, but by placing it in a location that’s difficult to get to. A location with no roads or trails. A location that — you guessed it — is accessible by helicopter.

I call it extreme geocaching and it’s for people who need an excuse to go beyond the boundaries of civilization, to places no one ever goes.

All the cache locations would be within a mile of a Jeep-accessible road, but there may not be trails to get to them. It would take real skill and determination to reach them. But it would be worth it, not only for achieving a difficult goal, but for the destination itself. You see, the GPS coordinates wouldn’t take you to a bush or hollow tree. They’d take you to an interesting site with ruins, abandoned buildings, swimming holes, or hot springs. Someplace to explore. And you wouldn’t find dime-store novelties in the caches — there would be stuff with value, like current maps, books, flashlights, CDs, and gift certificates.

There would, of course, be a safe helicopter landing zone within a quarter mile of each of the caches. That would make extreme geocaching the perfect helicopter sport.

Of course, I feel pretty silly talking about extreme geocaching when I can’t even find a metal container on the side of route 60 just outside of Wickenburg.

Anyway, if you have an interest in geocaching, visit the Geocaching Web site. You can enter a zip code near the top of the Home page window to search for caches near you. I was amazed to find that there are about 6 of them within half a mile from my house. (We’ll take the horses out to find them when the weather cools down a bit.)

And if you live in Arizona and want a real challenge, keep checking in here. I expect to establish my first extreme geocache later this month. Use the comments link for this entry if you have any suggestions for what the cache should include. Keep in mind that my budget is $100.

iTalk

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But you knew that…

I was down at the Biltmore Apple Store today. I did a presentation about Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger in the theater there. It was a small crowd, but half the people there bought books — even though I swear I wasn’t pushing very hard — so I consider it a success. Too bad there hadn’t been 50 people.

Anyway, while I was there, I went through the “fire sale” bin. Evidently, Apple marks down reconditioned merchandise for quick sale. There’s nothing wrong with the stuff and it’s still covered under warranty. So it was worth a look.

About 75% of the stuff in the bins were iPod related. There were reconditioned iPods, including iPod Photos, iPod Shuffles, and iPod Minis. There were all kinds of headphones and earbuds, including a Sony noise canceling set and a Bang and Olufsen pair. There were wetsuits and leather jackets and sweaters for iPods. (Well, not really, but they’re so like those items that they may as well call them that.) Some speakers, too. But the thing that suckered me in was the iTalk. This is a recording device, from Griffin Technology, that attaches to the top of a 3rd or 4th Generation iPod or iPod Photo. (I have the iPod Photo.) You can then use it to record voice notes right on your iPod.

iTalkThe darn thing, which is smaller than a ChapStick, retails for $39.95. It was in the bin marked down to $29.95. So I bought it.

Remember, there is a considerable amount of geek in me and it’s nearly impossible for me to pass up a good deal on a new geeky toy, especially one that can fit in my purse.

I didn’t bring my iPod down to the Biltmore store with me, so I had to wait to get home to try it. It worked just as I expected. You plug it in and your iPod automatically realizes that a recording device is attached. (Apple products are so damn smart.) It brings up a menu that enables you to record a note or cancel. If you record a note, the menu changes so you can pause or save it. If you save it, it’s saved with the current date and time.

What I didn’t realize is that the iTalk is also a speaker. Okay, so it’s tiny and the sound quality pretty much stinks, but it’s certainly good enough to listen to those notes without plugging in your earbuds. And it’ll play music, too, but you’re probably better off listening to an old AM radio with a weak battery. Still, it’s a feature I didn’t know I’d bought.

Evidently, notes I record will automatically be copied from the iPod to iTunes when I Sync. This is A GOOD THING. It would be a pain to be stuck with notes in just one place. I haven’t tried this feature yet because although my PowerBook is home with me (I’m typing on it right now), I don’t sync that iPod with the PowerBook. I sync with my G5 back at the office. So I’ll have to wait until Tuesday to try that out.

In the meantime, I’ll see if I can get Alex the Bird to talk into this thing. I’d like to turn him into a geek, too.

Print From Any Room

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I can’t pass up a deal on a cheap laser printer.

Earlier this week, I was having serious, frustrating problems with my old LaserJet 2100TN printer.

The 2100TN is the third laser printer I’ve owned since jumping into the world of computers back in 1989. The first was an Apple LaserWriter IISC. The SC evidently stood for SCSI, which is how the printer connected to my computer. To my knowledge, it was the only SCSI printer in the world. It was also very expensive — at about $2,000, it was the cheapest laser printer available, with the alternative being dot matrix (inkjet had not yet been invented) — with toner cartridges costing about $110 apiece. Ouch. It wasn’t PostScript-compatible — a big deal in those days — and there were a few tricks you had to know to get it to print good quality text. I learned the tricks and used the printer for years. Then I found myself needing grayscale printing (oh, I didn’t mention that the printer was simple black and white?) and I had to buy a new printer.

The HP LaserJet 4MP came next. It was networkable, via AppleShare (using PhoneNet connectors), and I had a real use for that when I began writing and realized I needed a dedicated computer to run the software I wrote about. The 4MP was smaller and cheaper — I think I “only” spent about $1,000 on it. It lasted for years but, after a while, I started producing documents that were just too darn complex for it. To print these documents I had to save them as PostScript files and then download the files to the printer. It took 1-5 minutes to print each page. (Fortunately, simpler documents, like the ones that came from Word, printed the usual way and a normal print rate.) Around this time, my husband needed a decent printer, so I passed it on to him. He’s still using it and it prints fine. (He doesn’t print from PageMaker like I was doing back then.)

I replaced it with the LaserJet 2100TN I have now. This printer has a network card, so I could plug it into my Ethernet network. (I’d used an adapter to get the old 4MP on Ethernet when I abandoned AppleShare.) I didn’t realize how long I’d had it until I called HP for help the other day. My one-year warranty had run out in 2000. Not bad, considering this was the first real problem I’d had with the printer in all those years.

The problem was ghosting. I’d print a document, perhaps one with the Flying M logo on it. When the document came out, the logo would be at the top of the page, right where I’d put it, but it would be repeated 3-3/4 inches further down the page as a pale ghostly image. Of course, it wasn’t just the logo being repeated. It was everything on the page. The result: the page looked downright dirty.

I used HP’s Web site to look up support documents. The problem wasn’t really addressed much. I pressed magic key combinations to use built-in utilities to clean various parts of the printer. I ran print jobs with lower resolution (600 and 300 dpi vs. 1200) and with the HP resolution feature turned on and off. Nothing helped.

Now I use my printer for correspondence as well as to print off the occasional e-mail or PDF. I have nice, watermarked bond paper with my company logo and contact information in raised red lettering at the top of the page. (Evidently raised lettering is losing popularity on a daily basis, as people go for cheaper printed letterheads.) I have matching envelopes and business cards. What good is having all this nice paper for correspondence when the contents of the letter looks like crap?

I was at the end of my rope when I called HP. While on hold, I started browsing HP’s site for a new printer. I learned that they had a trade-in program that would get me $100 back if I sent them my old printer. No problem there; I didn’t want a printer that printed like that. Then I learned that there had been quite a few developments in the world of printing since I’d bought the 2100TN. I could now buy a color laser printer that could automatically print on both sides of a page for less than I’d spent on the 2100TN. Holy cow! Of course, the color cartridges cost more than $100 each and you had to buy four of them. (Ah, consumables!) For less than $500, I could get an excellent black and white printer that did the duplex thing and could attach to my network. I was trying to figure out how one model differed from another when the tech support person answered the phone.

Her name was Lori and she was a Mac person. How nice. We went through some troubleshooting steps that were not on the Web site and, after about 15 minutes, determined that the toner cartridge was to blame. I don’t know why — it had plenty of toner in it — but it had simply gone bad in the middle of its life. I always have a spare toner cartridge on hand — you never know when you’ll need one and it’s not like they sell them here, at the edge of nowhere. I popped it in, printed a test page, and ta-da! The problem was gone.

Best of all, Lori said she’d send me a new toner cartridge. It arrived the next day.

So my 6-year-old printer is working fine again. My call to HP’s technical support had saved me about $500, which is what I would have spent on a replacement printer. And I continue to be sold on HP printer products.

But the idea of a color laser printer had been firmly planted in my brain. I started thinking about getting an inexpensive one that I could use just for color jobs. Heck, it’s not like you’re limited to one printer. My only problem was that I wasn’t prepared to buy a color printer without seeing an example of its output.

On Wednesday, I had to take Zero-Mike-Lima up to Prescott for its 100-hour inspection. (Can you believe I’ve already flown it 98.7 hours since January 6?) My old 1987 Toyota MR-2 lives up in Prescott, at the airport, so when I dropped off the helicopter, I hopped in the car for a day of shopping.

I arrived in Prescott at 7:15 AM and Zero-Mike-Lima wouldn’t be ready until 3 PM at the earliest. That meant I had to kill eight hours.

Sure, I could have driven home. Wickenburg is only 90 minutes away by car. But why waste three hours of my day driving?

I did a lot of shopping that day. Unfortunately, I had the valet key for the Toyota, so I couldn’t open the tiny rear trunk. (The trunk release had broken years ago.) That meant I had to pile all my purchases up on the passenger seat. The car got fuller and fuller as I made my way around Prescott. Home Depot, Office Max, Michael’s, Linens and Things, Pier One, PetSmart — I was a woman on a mission. The mission was to see all I could see and buy whatever I wanted, provided that it that would fit in the car (and later, in the helicopter).

I’ll discuss the concept of information overload and how it applies to people living on the edge of nowhere in another entry.

I wound up hitting the Best Buy store in Prescott, which is pretty new. They put it on a pad outside the Prescott Gateway mall. It’s isn’t a big store — not like the Fry’s down on Thunderbird near I-17 — but it has a nice selection. I browsed the printers. I saw sample output from a color LaserJet. I was relatively impressed. Fortunately, they didn’t have the networkable model in stock.

I also tried three times to get an oil change for my faithful Toyota. It had been about a year and maybe 2,000 miles since I got the oil changed and it was time. But I soon discovered (and was shown) a huge dent in the car’s oil pan. No one wanted to pull the drain plug because they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to get it back in. They let me look at it from the pit where the oil change guys work. I was just amazed that the pan hadn’t burst. I knew the culprit: me, of course, speeding down the roads at Howard Mesa last summer. Oh well. Looks like I’ll be bringing the MR-2 back to Wickenburg after all. My mechanic, Dan, is the only one I trust with that car.

On the way back to the airport, I hit the Staples store near downtown Prescott. I wanted to buy a notebook. I’m picky about notebooks. They need to be spiral bound with the spiral on top and each page has to be perforated so you can tear it off cleanly if you need to. The cover should be plastic (not cardboard).

Staples had printers, too. And that’s when I saw it: a Brother laser printer for only $119 (after rebate). Holy cow! This was a far cry from my first printer, which had cost 16 times as much. The printer had a USB connection and was both Mac and Windows compatible. My brain made a cosmic leap. This would be an excellent printer for the house.

Unlike many other writers, I don’t work at home. I moved my office out of the house about four years ago and now work out of a condo in downtown Wickenburg. It’s about a five mile drive from my house. Too far to drive if I’ve created a document on my PowerBook and need hard copy. On those occasions, I’d hook up the computer to a phone line and fax the document to the fax machine at the house. Not the best quality, but it did work. Wouldn’t it be nicer to have a laser printer instead?

Of course it would.

I’ll admit it: I’m a laser printer snob. I don’t like inkjet printers. There are two reasons: 1) you usually need special paper to get a good image from an inkjet and 2) the desert environment in which I live is so dry that the inkjets get clogged up if you don’t use the printer every day. (My Epson photo printer has this problem and it requires that I clean the nozzles several times each time I use it. That wastes time and ink.) In addition, the space I wanted to put the printer (on a bookshelf that was already pretty full) had no room for those stupid vertical paper feed trays that inkjet printers seem to like. (Bad enough the fax machine, on the next shelf down, has one.) This Brother printer was very small and would require less than a foot of vertical space.

And the price! Sheesh! It’s a no-brainer.

So that’s how I went into a Staples store for a notebook and emerged with a laser printer. It was the last thing I managed to squeeze into the car. I had to put a few things in the car’s front trunk to make it fit.

I hooked it all up the next day. I was very angry to learn that the printer was preowned — someone had bought it, printed 20 pages, and returned it. Staples sold it to me as new. I had a talk with the store manager about that and was assured that they’d take it back for replacement if anything went wrong with it within the next year. He also said I could bring it back the next time I was in Prescott, but the way I see it is that if it works, there’s no reason to bring it back. It just bugs me that I bought an opened box after being assured by the sales guy that it had not been opened.

I connected it via USB to the Airport Extreme base station I have at home in the room we call the library. (It has a futon, a desk, and a lot of books. Oddly enough, not a single book is mine.) Then I installed the driver on the iBook I keep in the library and, within minutes, was printing a sample page. I installed the driver on my PowerBook, in the kitchen, and printed out an outline I’d been working on. The print quality isn’t as good as my 2100TN, but it’s certainly acceptable. Sure beats faxing it to myself.

And I can print from any room in the house. Or even from outside on the patio, where I’m writing and publishing this.

Isn’t technology great?

AirPort Express with AirTunes

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I buy yet another gadget for my Macs.

I’d just finished writing the Networking chapter of my Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: Visual QuickStart Guide when my editor, Cliff, called me into an iChat chat. Cliff and I often use iChat during the day to ask each other quick questions.

“Why didn’t you include AirPort Express in the book?” he wanted to know.

“I don’t have one of those,” I told him. Or at least I typed at his icon, which was a orange globe that day. “I can’t be expected to buy every piece of Apple hardware,” I added.

This was true. Every year, I invested hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars buying the Apple hardware I needed to write my Mac OS X book. A new desktop Mac every two years. A new laptop every three years. AirPort base stations and cards. iPods. Digital cameras, scanners, color printers. The list went on and on. It was very costly and I had a huge collection of old hardware that I just didn’t have time to put on eBay. Apple might help legitimate authors out with software, but it seldom coughed up hardware for the cause.

“But we should mention it,” he insisted.

“Do people buy it?”

“I’m sure they do.”

I switched over to Safari and surfed on over to the Apple store where I read a description of AirPort Express. Among other things, it enabled you to send iTunes data from an AirPort-equiped Mac to compatible stereo speakers. I thought about Mike and his desire to buy a new receiver. I looked at the price. Oh hell. What was another $129?

So I bought one.

It’s actually a pretty cool little device. It plugs into a wall socket and has three ports: USB, Ethernet, and Audio Out. You plug the Ethernet into a Mac, cable modem or DSL connection, or hub. (Mine isn’t plugged into anything.) You plug the USB into a printer, so the printer is accessible to users on the network. (Mine isn’t plugged into anything.) And you plug the audio out into a pair of stereo speakers or, in our case, a stereo receiver with speakers attached.

Then you configure the whole thing with the AirPort Setup Assistant. You have two options: configure it just so it sends iTunes to the speakers or configure it so it extends an existing AirPort network. I chose the second option. I mean, why not? And the iTunes to stereo thing still works.

It’s kind of cool to control the stereo upstairs with my PowerBook in the kitchen.

I’m impressed. I added a tiny bit of info to the book about it. But I’m also going to write an article about it for InformIt.com. That’s how I pay for this stuff, after all.