April 7, 2010 --
Although the details and solutions remain unclear, some people are having Wi-Fi connection problems with their iPads. You can read Glenn's take on the problem so far, along with links to ideas for fixes and interesting commentary from readers in Glenn's TidBITS article, Some Users Have Wi-Fi Woes.
—Tonya Engst
March 19, 2010 --
A recent TidBITS article, Time Capsule Failures: When They Happen and What to Do, discusses a spate of Time Capsule failures, possibly due to overheating. The article makes suggestions for avoiding this problem, and it describes how to best address the problem if it happens. Unfortunately, if your Time Capsule does go belly up, you'll ideally have another backup of your Time Capsule drive, so if you haven't looked into setting one up, this article should give you additional incentive.
—Tonya Engst
November 2, 2009 --
Apple has publicly acknowledged a rare but nasty data-destroying bug related to using the Guest account in Snow Leopard. The bug appears to be associated with having a Guest account already set up before you upgrade to Snow Leopard. While there is currently no fix available, we hope to see one in 10.6.2. To learn more, check out my TidBITS article, Apple Acknowledges Guest Account Data Loss Bug. [This bug was fixed in 10.6.2.]
—Doug McLean
September 8, 2009 --
Glenn Fleishman is known for his infectious enthusiasm for all things AirPort, and he certainly lived up to that reputation with his speedy work updating his popular ebook Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Network to cover Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. The ebook still covers Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and it still has notes about older versions of Mac OS X (and Windows XP and Vista) where appropriate, such as when describing how to connect to an AirPort-attached USB printer. The 265-page ebook remains priced at $15.
This update cleans up a few loose ends, such as the fact that the Time Capsule no longer has a 500 GB model and instead comes in 1 TB and 2 TB sizes. The main point of the update, however, is to add Snow Leopard information. This involved a number of small wording changes, some new screenshots, and a major revision of the text that discusses the AirPort menu in the menu bar. That's key because Snow Leopard makes a few subtle changes, and Option-clicking to open the menu in Snow Leopard reveals much more useful information about nearby networks than was present in Leopard.
If you already own version 1.x of Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Network, you can get a free update; open your PDF to page 1 and click Check for Updates. If you own one of Glenn's previous AirPort ebooks, you can access a discounted update via Check for Updates.
—Tonya Engst
August 7, 2009 --
The IEEE, the engineering group that develops and shepherds the 802.11 family of specifications, has moved the 802.11n standard out of lower-level committees. The standard, started several years ago, and called Draft N since the standard wasn't precisely finished even though details were fundamentally finalized, will be fully ratified later this year.
—Glenn Fleishman
June 12, 2009 --
One of the interesting things about Apple's AirPort networking hardware is that it often evolves in subtle ways that Apple doesn't call out, making books like Glenn Fleishman's Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Network all the more useful. Plus, since many of us add newer AirPort devices to networks that already rely on older AirPort hardware, our wireless networks are becoming all the more complex, even as setting up a very simple one becomes easier. That's the theme of this MacVoices podcast discussion with host Chuck Joiner, so if you're interested in learning about the new features Glenn explains in Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Network and the ways that Glenn and Take Control publisher Adam Engst revised their Take Control of Your Wi-Fi Security, listen to this podcast.
—Adam C. Engst
by Glenn Fleishman
Glenn Fleishman is a technology journalist based in Seattle, where he lives with his wife and two sons, both of whom are adept at accidentally pressing the Power button on his laptop.
He’s a contributing editor at