The Tech Bench

Looking to setup a link between your office and your home? Trying to use secure file sharing, screen control and printing from home? There’s a few routes you can go down, the most secure and reliable being a site to site VPN option, but this get a little expensive for most people. If you’d like that same functionality with about 1/2 of the setup cost, then try using VPN Tracker to authenticate to your office VPN firewall.

Here’s what you’ll need to get started with a home VPN solution-

1. A static IP address at your office. Get this from your Internet Service Provider. It’s generally a few dollars more per month, but keeps your office internet address permanent. For heavy  or multiple users I’d recommend a synchronous connection such as SDSL, T1 or T3. Cable or ADSL will work with up to 5 users with light file sharing (PDF’s, Word and Excel documents).

2. A VPN firewall such as a Sonicwall TZ180. Check out the Equinux website for a list of hardware compatible with VPN tracker. This generally gets installed in your office. Sonicwall has some great security products included with their firewalls including intrusion detection, content filtering and virus scanning.

3. A license to VPN Tracker. There’s three versions, Player, Personal & Professional. If you are the first to get VPN Tracker in your office, start with the Personal version. It allows you to create and modify connections, export configuration files for user with the Player version, but can’t connect to multiple VPN’s at once. The Play version simply connects using a configuration file exported from Pro or Personal and can’t edit or modify the file. If somebody already has the Personal or Professional version, you can use their exported configuration files.

4. Get everything configured. VPN tracker offers easy configuration files based on the model of your VPN firewall, but manual tweaking is still generally required. Not for the faint of heart, but if you have some basic understanding of public/private networks, subnets and IP addressing, you should be able to set everything up.

5. Once you have everything configured, signing on to your VPN is as simple as the click of your mouse. Once connected, utilize file servers and network printers just as though your were at the office.

[ VPN Tracker ]    [ Sonicwall ]

Love it or hate it, the Apple Mighty Mouse is difficult to clean.

While I happen to like and use this mouse, the scroll ball often gets stuck and won’t scroll properly.

Since you can’t really remove the ball to clean it, Apple recommends the following solution:

Using a slightly damp, lint free cloth, turn the mouse upside down and rub the ball back in forth to break up and remove any dirt (or Cheetos crumbs.)

The upside down part helps. I’ve almost switched mice because of the scroll ball but now it works just like it did on day one.

MultiClutch is a free App for OS X Leopard that allows you to further customize the gesture controls on your Mac’s multi-touch trackpad.

MultiClutch is configured through it’s own preference pane in System Preferences. It allows you to setup global (system wide) or application specific gesture controls. Simply assign a gesture (finger action) to any keyboard shortcut.

For example, you can zoom in (finger pinch) to copy and zoom out to paste text in any app or you can set the three finger swipe to navigate tabs in Firefox.

MultiClutch is a free download and is currently in public beta.

Its hard to find a computer accessory that provides high quality, simple design, and easy setup all for a reasonable price. The Bose Companion 2 speakers are one of these products.

They provide rich full sound without the need for a stand alone bass module, saving space and minimizing cable clutter.

They sound great at low volume (work) and can also fill a room (home) with clean audio.

While they aren’t as small as some more expensive sets, these 2 speakers match the Apple look and don’t try to draw attention. Highly recommended!

Available for $99.95 from the Apple Store.