Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Mac Revisited

I feel your pain....the other great thing about Apple products is the tech support is right here in the US; they speak clear English and are knowledgeable. Buying the extra AppleCare plan on top of the included warranty is well worth it IMHO.

Wikipedia's article on the subject is a good place to start. It's correct as far as I can tell. Do some Google searches for "wireless encryption" or "wireless security" too.

When you setup your wireless network, it is usually a good idea to configure it with some type of wireless encryption. There are generally three types of encryption that the average home user cares about, WEP, WPA, and WPA2. WEP is an older standard that has long since been cracked, but just like locking your doors at home, it's better than nothing (i.e. it'll guard against the casual user but not anyone who really wants to get access to your system). WPA is a newer technology that is superior to WEP and is really the minimum one would want to use if security is a concern. There are flaws in WPA however that someone could exploit, but the person has to be a bit more sophisticated than what's needed to crack WEP, and the nature of what they have access to is generally limited (i.e. if someone cracks your WEP password, they can see everything on your network, if someone "cracks" your WPA security, they are still limited in what they can see). WPA2, as you might imagine, is a follow on to WPA. The biggest enhancement to WPA2 (again, as far as the avg home user is concerned) is the addition of what is known as AES encryption. The advantage of AES is that it is a very strong form on encryption (used by the military, govt, etc) and there is no known practical way of cracking it (and you'd have to have some pretty good stuff sitting on your network for anyone to even want to attempt to crack it, it'd be easier to just break into your house and grab your computer).

Soooo, as a general rule, if your hardware supports it (and now days most do), you want to use WPA2. From a user perspective, it's pretty much as simple as setting up WPA or WEP. The only real downside is that it does take some more processing to encrypt those packets so you may see a bit of a performance hit depending on your hardware (typically not enough to make any difference).

Hope that clears things up?

Thanks for the good post, bitWrangler. That sums it up perfectly.

Yes bitWrangler, that clears it up. Thank you so much. Slowly the fog clear for me.

Is there any reason to get a laptop vs. a desktop with Mac, given that I already have 2 laptops?

The 24" screen on the Mac is very appealing. I have always hated desktops, mainly because it's such a hassle to move them around the house when I rearrange my furniture, which I do at least once a month. But with the integrated Mac and wireless, perhaps it doesn't matter.

Well an iMac with bluetooth kb/mouse and wifi is fairly luggable with only 1 cord to mess with (not including any usb/firewire peripherals). If you really like laptops you could always consider simply getting an external monitor so you can have the advantage of the larger screen but with the mobility of a laptop. You would have an additional cord though (from the lappy to the monitor), but then you have a lot of options for monitors (size and price). If you already have an lcd tv at home, then you could also probably use it (esp if it's a 1080p unit). I'm particularly fond of the laptop+monitor due to the flexibility and the fact that when connected, you end up with two displays (laptop lcd + external lcd) and the laptop effectively has a built-in UPS (it's battery).

I use my MacBook Pro with the Apple 24" LED cinema display. That display has power, USB, and Mini Display Port combined into one cord from the back of the display as well as 3 USB 2.0 slots on the back. I plug my Apple USB keyboard into the display. Then I plug my mouse (USB mighty mouse, FWIW) into the right USB on the keyboard and my flash drive that I use for Time Machine backups into the left slot on the keyboard. That way, I can take the computer and leave the rest all set up. Works great! Lots of screen real estate when working on the desk which is nice for Finale 2009.

Another thing is that current MacBooks and MacBook Pros only have Mini Display Port which means you have to buy a DVI adapter to use displays other than Apple displays so equipped. But I don't think it's that expensive.

Be very careful if you decide to go the route of MacBook Pro and an LCD > 24" (> 1920x1200), basically anything that requires a dual link DVI cable. The Mini DisplayPort to Dual Link DVI adapter that Apple sells has some serious issues (check the Apple forums or ping me) that, while not rendering it unusable per se, does make it a major PITA. Again, I can provide more details if anyone is considering going this route (e.g. Dell 30" LCD).

Isn't that some content copy protection garbage? I recall a large uproar over that.

Great ideas.

I can see the value of using the laptop with the big desktop monitor/brain. I have always wanted a really small laptop to carry around (like 12-13") which is the smallest Macbook Pro now, but that would be kind of hard to look at for too long at home, where I do almost all of my computing.

Then again, the 17" Dell and even the 15" Dell are big clunky machines that weigh a ton, so maybe a 15 or 17" Mac woudn't be so bad. I do like to carry really big purses, it's the weight that's the issue.

How fun to have to make these decisions! I'll end up knowing what I want when I go to the Apple store, after 3 or 4 visits.

I believe the 17" MB Pro is rather light for it's size — but you may find the price a bit staggering even from third party resellers like Mac Connection. Which is incidentally where I got my system. The 15" Pro is great for using by itself when you are on the go. The screen is big enough to be usable (not mention all these glossy glass screens look incredible) and the computer is a convenient size and weight (4.5 lbs) for portability's sake. I believe the 17" weights 5.5 lbs.

Alas no, just outright "bugs". Some rumblings of various monitors not exactly matching the DVI spec, who knows, either way it sucks.



The 15" MBP isn't so bad, esp the new unibody models. If you'll be using it with a monitor frequently, I highly recommend the MacBook Air. Even though it's not as teeny as some of the netbooks, there is something about the form factor that really works well as a ultra portable solution. IMHO Apple really hit the ergonomic nail on the head for many folks who are looking for that type of solution. Yes there are compromises, but there have been many times I wish I had my wife's Air. I don't have any personal long term experience with the 17" to have a feel for what it's like to actually live with it on a day to day basis. It always seemed a bit unwieldy to me, but perhaps like the Air, maybe once you start using it, then you realize that it really makes sense?

Fun decisions indeed.

BTW, if you go with the Air, be sure to go ahead and purchase the optical drive (or really any external optical, but you might as well go ahead and get the Apple model). Not an absolute necessity (unless you have no other Mac around) but definitely worth it from a minimal hassle standpoint.

I see. I've heard that the Mini Display Port spec is going to be licensed to other companies which could mean more widespread usage. It's sort of competing with HDMI which is what Dells have right now.

Yup, DisplayPort is supposed to be the "next big thing" and right now is being positioned to compete more with DVI (i.e. computer monitors) and they hope to eventually take over the HDMI market (consumer). While DVI and HDMI are compatible technologies, DisplayPort is completely different and promises to support much higher overall bandwidth in the future. But the tech is still relatively new and as such still needs to go through it's teething pains.

And right now it doesn't carry sound — only video. They will need to remedy that to compete with HDMI.

I your earlier post, you seemed disturbed by the Dell's quality. We've seen two Dell laptops get into trouble within their first three years .. mechanical problems, charger problems, battery problems ... I'm convinced that HP is a better choice.

My "work" laptop is an HP. But it's the commercial series, not the home series ... more money. But still much cheaper than a Mac book.

I've had it for almost two years. No troubles.

I know someone who has lost three hard drives in a relatively new Dell desktop. The first one let go not two weeks after he got the thing.

So what happened to Dell? Dell was the wunderkid and Dells were so highly thought of about 15 years ago. Now they're selling tens of thousands on QVC and outsourcing their customer service.

I had a Toshiba and an HP before this, and although they eventually died, it took a really long time, and there were NO issues until their deaths...I think each of them lasted about 5 years and then it's time to move on anyway.

Oh, my very first computer was an Atari that didn't even have a hard drive!

Each of my Dells has had a complete breakdown about one year after purchase, and neither was a lower end model....about $1700 each and that's a lot for PCs these days.