That Day has come Ric & Co....how to access the internet

[tartansparkle]

Hi,

Well, the day has finally arrived when I want to be able to actually do the things I have been speaking about for months.

The Mac is here in front of me and I have a big fat yellow ethernet cable and ready to get this thing online. Now I have NO idea what to do. I am defo a Mac newbie in the sense that in my ex work it was already done and dusted.

Right now I am on BlueYonder/Telewest Broadband internet. On my PC I have a Blue USB connector to the Motorola 'SURFboard' Cable Modem {SB5101E}. You guys said you would run me through it and I hope its not going to be difficult. I have {rightly or wrongly} been under the skool of thought that my Mac should just be able to access this broadband coming into my room without the need for more telewest software or any such like.

I believe I have already, although feel free to correct me, set the FIREWALL to "on" position. Massive thanks to ALL and ANY feedback.

 

[Ric]

Hi there,

One end in the Mac and one end into the SB5101E...

Firewall on on the Mac, and you should be good to go.

You can't use both USB into the PC and the ethernet into the Mac at the same time (as far as I know !).

I can't remember if you neede the PC still connected or not ?

regards

Ric

 

[tartansparkle]

I have tried both situations, with all PC still hooked up and with just the Mac ethernetted into the SB5101E.

I tried opening up Safari and MSN Messenger but its saying there is no internet connection. When I end up in 'Network Setup Assistant' I come across stuff like

TCP/ID DHCP Client ID
PPPoE and all that kinda stuff which is alien language to me. I have no clue.

 

[tartansparkle]

Here is what I found on setting Mac up to the net; Obviously I notice it says {Panther} but does this fundamentally make a difference? I have done what is below and still no connection...

Operating systems 10.1 – 10.2 & 10.3 Panther
1. Connect the modem to the Ethernet port on your Mac
using the cable provided
2. Click the Apple Icon on the top left of the screen. Go
into System Preferences and click Network
3. Click on the Location drop down menu and choose
New Location. Call this blueyonder and then click OK
4. Now select Built in Ethernet from the Show Menu. Select
the TCP/IP tab and Configure Using DHCP
5. Click Apply Now to save these changes
6. Click on your Internet Browser. You should now be
connected to the Internet

 

[Daydreamer]

It sounds like the mac need the modem to handle the connection itself, acting not only as a modem but also as a so-called router (commonly used in home networks to connect all computers to a single internet connection), while the PC just makes use of the modem part (when it's connected to the USB port, that is. You could just as well hook it up to the ethernet port on the PC and then use the modem like the mac does). Unfortunately I do not know how to set up your modem for the different operating modes (all such modems work differently, I know mine is quite difficult to switch, and no less so for a non-technical user).

One thing I would try though, is connecting the modem to the mac using the ethernet cable, then setting up the built-in ethernet in the macintosh to use PPPoE (most broadband providers use that, though it may vary in your case) like I assume your PC does.
Go to the Network panel in the System Preferences, chose Ethernet (built-in), and click the PPPoE tab, there you can select the checkbox to use PPPoE, and enter whatever user name and password you got from your ISP (you should have that info on some paper somewhere, right?). That setting is easily restored in case it's wrong (just uncheck the same checkbox again), so do not worry.


Though, this tip/advice/thought is based on the assumption that your connection works like I think it does, and may be totally false... such as you perhaps not requiring a username/password to connect, and/or that the entire system is DHCP based instead of PPP(oE) based (you don't need to understand what they mean, I'm just trying to make a point that stuff that may seem very similar may really work in very different ways)... but on the other hand, then it'd probably just work.

 

[tartansparkle]

hey guys, i have managed to find my way online via the MBP. I phoned telewest this morning and asked them to help me and its all good so far, I am even writing this very message to you on it.

I assume then...that with the Firewall switched on that I am good to be free to roam on the net without any major problems? The only thing I would ask for advice on is MSN Messenger, upon starting it up it told me there was a newer Mac version of the Messenger software and if I wanted to download it. I downloaded it and right now it is sitting on my desktop. It won't do anything and a message comes up when I click on the thing that downloaded saying;

the file "messenger.bin"does not appear to be compressed or encoded. It is advised that you obtain further information about the contents of this file from the sender or provider of the fie. {OK}

Please advise what to do with this Messenger.bin file that is lying on the desktop. Thank you for all help and advice so far.

 

[Daydreamer]

I would try to download it again, alternatively download Stuffit Expander if you haven't already and see if it can unpack the file.

 

[tartansparkle]

I have got Stuffit Expander on here and I have dragged this '.bin' file into it and the same message comes up. Being new to this whole game I don't even know what a .bin file is.

My ex-boss was always telling me he would stay away from Messenger on Mac like nothing on earth and I always did wonder why. Perhaps its all good and I am just letting stupid thoughts get the better of me? I'd like to get messenger running on this thing.

 

[tartansparkle]

I ditched the messenger.bin file and just attempted to download messenger from the MSN website. It took me to Mactopia thing and bing, bam, boom...its up and running!

I deleted the Messenger that came with the MS Office 2004 and hopefully that's that.

 

[Daydreamer]

A .bin file (on the mac) is a macbinary file, basically a mac file packed together to be handled well by all other systems out there on the internet. Many mac files are made up of two parts; a data part and a resource part. The mac, of course, keeps them together whenever you copy or move the file, but other systems don't know about this relationship between them and just moves the data part without ever knowing about the resource part (which may be quite important, I've seen programs that solely concisted of a resource part). A macbinary is thus both those parts packed together to a single file, and needs to be unpacked to be a normal macintosh file again.

On Windows and possibly Unix/Linux, the .bin extension has other meanings and is not related to macbinary.

 

[Ric]

Hi tartansparkle,

how are you getting on ?

Sorry it was a bit busy around here lately...

Hope you like your new Mac.

regards

Ric

 

[tartansparkle]

Hey,

I have gotten on much better since I got the internet going. It wasn't really going to get much use other than doing university work unless it was online*. I use MSN Messenger a lot to talk to my friends all over the world, so its great that I can do it here.

I had a major heartattack on the second day when after people had been touching the screen with their paws and I tried to wipe it clean. I used these anti-static monitor wipes that my dad had bought for the PC...BIG MISTAKE!!! You should have seen the smudge and mark it left behind. I was in tears, I thought I had ruined my precious toy in a single day of having it.

I phoned an Apple reseller close to me and they said get it wiped with a damp cloth and that would remove the smudge. Luckily it removed the mark with no trace and its a sure bet those wipes are in da bin where they belong!!!

Of course I have to say that the best thing so far is the showing off of the toy. Nothing makes me feel better than showing its powers off to the PC Windows crew who shunned my telling them of my Apple purchase! Most have dropped their jaws on the floor on seeing how sleek, powerful and awesome it is. I have to laugh and wonder how anyone could think a windows laptop can compare.

The only thing that has bugged me so far {and I use the term lightly} is the "skill" of the light sensor for the backlit keyboard. It doesn't seem to be very good at coming on at full strength when all the lights go out in my room. Is it that the brightness of the screen is causing it to think there is enough light near the keyboard that it doesn't need to come on full? I hate having to turn it up when its dark and also, it seems to pick and choose when it comes on and goes off. Is there a way to tell it to just stay on when I want it on?

I am happy though. And any children around me are very easily amused with PhotoBooth which is great to keep them happy!! Let the fun continue.

* {I'm just really looking forward to using it for any design work I have to do. I am waiting for the native Adobe CS3 to come in March/April time. Then I should really use the guts of this thing}

 

[tartansparkle]

Isn't it sods law.

I have just posted my story of how I am loving my Mac and no serious problems when something happened. To be fair, it happened a couple of nights ago but I just assumed it was something I did and carried on. It just happened to me again about 5 minutes ago and now I know there is something no quite right about it. I was just using the thing like normal, its not doing any major tasks, using iTunes, Firefox and Preview was open when it just goes dead.

The battery was at 53% and it just died on me. I had to put the power adapter in and press the power button to get it going again to wake it from what seems like a 'deep sleep'. Pressing any other buttons to wake it from sleep doesn't work so I had to use the power button. When the power goes back in, the percentage of battery is starting from 0% as if I had let it go down that far. How can it instantly go from 53% and working fine to dying and being at 0% with no indication?

This has not happened in the first week of having it, but has now happened twice since I calibrated the battery on Sunday. I have just taken the power out to see if it would go off (it had gotten back up to 19%) and when I plugged it back in it shot up to 64%. This is quite a worry now that it seems to be jumping from one thing to another without logic.

I just noticed that when I click on the battery in the top bar it was at 'Custom'...I have just moved it down to 'Normal'. Will this be any form of answer to my issue?

 

[tartansparkle]

hey,

since writing the last few messages, it is now abundantly clear that the battery percentage icon in the top tool bar is jumping randomly between all different numbers. Perhaps this is why it cuts off...it doesn't "know" where it is at in terms of battery left?

Have I broken my MBP ?

 

[zeyhra]

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