Mikegyver

The iPad – After working with it for half a month…

admin — Wed, 12 May 2010 04:54:56 +0000

When Steve Jobs first introduced the iPad in January, I was on the fence on getting this device. I wasn’t convinced that this device was “magical and revolutionary”. But after seeing the iPad in action during a early sneak peek preview on TWIT with Andy Ihnatko, I decided that I should give it a try. Even if i didn’t like it, I could sell it as the iPad was not out in Canada when this post was written..

So, I got someone to get me one when they were in the states. That was in late April… Its now been half a month since then.. the verdict.. I love this device. As Steve said, You need to use it to see how fast and functional this device is.

Since there are many reviews out there that talk about every aspect of the iPad, I am going to talk about the main points that I feel that makes this device well worth it, especially in IT.

Applications on this device is getting better and better day by day. The built in apps like Safari, Mail, and Calandar work well due to the larger size of the screen.

With Safari, you can now see whole websites without having to zoom in/out and/or scrolling. All sites seem to render fine with no hiccups. Pages “scrolls like butter” and the zoom feature is extremely quick.

Mail is just awesome to use. With a preview of the email on the right side of the screen and a list of your folders and messages on the left, it makes it easy to read and write messages. The on screen keyboard is not bad to use especially in landscape mode. I wouldn’t use it to type lengthy emails but its enough to get you by. I use Exchange Activesync for my mail system and it connects to it without a problem.

Calendar is really nice to use because of the book style interface. Its very functional once again due to the screen size. Viewing and booking appointments is a breeze.

The iPod interface just looks like iTunes on a Mac. I like now that I can edit my playlist order on the device now rather then having to resync up with iTunes. You can also view your music list in many ways like by Album Art, or by Genre.

As mentioned before, the third party applications are getting better day by day as more apps are coming out for iPad. However, I don’t like the fact that some companies have decided to charge full price for specific iPad versions of their Apps. There is a option to make a universal version that works in both iPhone/iPad which I think is the better solution.

So far the main apps I use day to day are:

iTap RDP – I tried many remote desktop apps that came out but this one works very well. It is very responsive and the gestures makes the mouse interaction and clicking functional. Because of this App, doing IT work in a windows world is doable.

Pages and Numbers – An alternative to a word processor. It gets the job done. It does convert to Microsoft format but of course further formatting would have to be done in Word or Excel if required.

Simplenote – I really like this app. It allows you to write notes and have them sync between your Mac and iPhone. I can now write my notes on my iPad and if I need to review them, I can look them up on my iPhone.

Skype – Even though its a iPhone app, Skype works very well on the iPad. With the built in Mic or by using the Apple headphones with mic/remote, You practically have a portable VOIP device.

SlingPlayer – Once again a iPhone app, putting it in 2X mode makes my iPad into a live tv viewer. I really hope Sling updates this app (for free) to native iPad mode.

AirVideo – I used to use Orb for streaming video files from my computer, but once i heard AirVideo had a native iPad app, I had to try it out. The quality of the video is way better and it doesn’t freeze as much as Orb.

I can go on with other apps, but I leave it to these for now..

Battery life of this device is another key feature why I like this device. I can pretty much use the iPad the whole day without thinking of finding a usb port to charge it up. The lowest amount of power I got the iPad to get was 10% and that was about 8-9 hours of use. The downside of the nice battery life however is the weight of the device. 1.5 lbs may sound light, but after holding the device for a long period of time like reading can be a bit annoying.

So enough of the good sides of the iPad, here are some of the downsides of the iPad…

The whole ordeal with Flash support. We know that it will most likely never be supported due to Steve’s strong negative opinions about flash. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of sites that still use flash. It is manageable to live with it, but its just annoying to find a site you go to that doesn’t work because it uses flash.

The lack of File Management is a bit cumbersome. It would be nice if you just plug in your iPad and able to see some sort of hard disk on the PC to transfer files back and forth. App support could be done via seeing what extensions the files are. This would be nice too if I wanted to copy a file from a PC quickly and then view it on the iPad.

The weight of the iPad is a tad heavy especially if you are going to use it a ebook reader. When using the iPad for long periods of time, I tend to want to rest it on a table. I know this is unavoidable due the nature of current battery technology… Less batteries equals less weight which also decreases battery life.

In conclusion, I am quite happy getting the iPad. With its long battery life, brilliant screen, and decent application selection, it’s a good edition to my portable devices. I have not touched my Macbook Air ever since I got my iPad which is a good sign. I would also have to say that the iPad is not a laptop replacement as I still use my Macbook Pro for Application specific tasks. I think Steve’s is right that there is a spot for the iPad between a Laptop/Desktop and a Smartphone. And me being a road warrior, its works for me.

In depth Technical Portion of the Blog:

For the people that are interested on a more in depth technical details of my iPad and configuration, here it is…. I decided to get the 64GB WiFi model due to fact that I have a mobile stick plan with a Cradlepoint 3G router. Because of this, I can maintain the 10 hours battery life with internet access anywhere i go. I also have a Unlimited North America plan with this stick so that makes things easier when I travel to the states. For a bag, I am using a MEC Small Carry All Shoulder Bag which fits the iPad well. it also gives me a couple extra pockets for my other stuff like my Glasses, USB Charger, and Portable Router. I am waiting to save up for the Freestyle Netbook Messenger Bag from Timbuk2 which fits the iPad well.

At Work i am currently waiting to get the Convertible Book Jacket from incase. The case makes a good stand as well as a protector. In the interm, I am using a cardboard box with cut out notches so that it will stay propped up. For input, i am using a apple wireless keyboard. It links up fine and makes typing up long documents or emails on the iPad easier.

Lack of Updates and comments..

admin — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 19:44:08 +0000

Hey all,

Sorry for the lack of updates…. It was a busy 2009…. but 2010 should be better for this blog as I will probably have more time to start new Homebrew/IT projects. So be prepared for some new posts. I also found out (my stupidity) that comments need to be approved on Wordpress to show up…. So after 1900 comments of russian spam, I have approved the comments that were real (that i found).

Anywoo, The next couple of posts will deal with celluar/wireless internet. The first one will be about my trip to Japan and the hoops I had to go through to get cell service locally there. The second post which I wanted to talk about for quite a while is my wireless mobile hotspot setup.

If you want to be notified on these and/or future posts, or want to see what i’m doing, follow me on twitter @mhchan.

Mike

iPhone and IOS Routers

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 09:30:40 +0000

I recently decided to tackle setting up my Cisco 2600 router to connect with the Cisco VPN client mainly because i wanted to accomplish two things:

a) Able to connect back to my home network without the hassle of NAT networks… PPTP just didn’t cut it..

b) Able to use my sip phone anywhere including the one on my iPhone 3G.

So, because the iPhone’s only IPSEC vpn client is from Cisco, i decided to venture on figuring this setup.

So to start off I started reading this:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk583/tk372/technologies_configuration_example09186a0080094685.shtml

This page told me how to get my router to still talk to my friends peer vpn connection, and still have the capability of using the Cisco VPN client. I got it to work after morphing it to my current config. I tested the Cisco VPN client on my Mac and it worked like a charm…

So, I should just be able copy the settings from my Mac to my iPhone and everything should go well… NOPE!

When i started a connection with the iPhone, all I could get from it was a “Starting…” prompt and nothing more. So, I google it to find out why this was happening…

I find out that so many people were having the same frustrations of getting this to work, I came accross this page:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/vpn_client/cisco_vpn_client/iPhone/2.0/connectivity/guide/iphone.html

It states that:

“Which Cisco platforms work with the Cisco VPN Client on the iPhone?

Cisco ASA 5500 Security Appliances and PIX Firewalls. We highly recommend the latest 8.0.x software release (or greater), but you can also use 7.2.x software.

Neither Cisco IOS VPN routers nor the VPN 3000 Series Concentrators support the iPhone VPN capabilities.”

Miffed about that comment, I ignored it and continued googling to find a solution, even though Cisco said it wouldn’t work. Most people were stating in that document, they were mentioning about v2.0 and not v2.1+ of the iPhone which enabled the Cisco IOS compatibility.

I finally came accross this page that was getting positive results, though was still pretty vague on what to do:

http://6200networks.com/2008/08/05/iphone-to-isr/

I tried to use his config settings and i was getting close… Phase 1 was now authenticating… But Phase 2 was not…. A comment from Scott stated to set the transform-set to aes and that would fix it … but, that still didn’t give me enough info… So, I decided to go to debug mode on the router…

Siphoning through the debug data, i finally found what was wrong:

—-

003566: *Feb 28 20:41:08.563 MST: ISAKMP (0:2): Input = IKE_MESG_INTERNAL, IKE_PHASE1_COMPLETE
003567: *Feb 28 20:41:08.567 MST: ISAKMP (0:2): Old State = IKE_P1_COMPLETE New State = IKE_P1_COMPLETE

*** So It says here Phase 1 completed fine… Cool That’s what i wanted to see….

003568: *Feb 28 20:41:08.659 MST: ISAKMP (0:2): received packet from 1.2.3.4 dport 4500 sport 13972 Global (R) QM_IDLE
003569: *Feb 28 20:41:08.659 MST: ISAKMP: set new node -278205403 to QM_IDLE
003570: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP (0:2): processing HASH payload. message ID = -278205403
003571: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP (0:2): processing SA payload. message ID = -278205403
003572: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP (0:2): Checking IPSec proposal 1
003573: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP: transform 1, ESP_AES
003574: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP:   attributes in transform:
003575: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP:      SA life type in seconds
003576: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP:      SA life duration (basic) of 3600
003577: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP:      encaps is 3 (Tunnel-UDP)
003578: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP:      key length is 256
003579: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP:      authenticator is HMAC-SHA
003580: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP (0:2): atts are acceptable.
003581: *Feb 28 20:41:08.667 MST: IPSEC(validate_proposal_request): proposal part #1,
(key eng. msg.) INBOUND local= 1.2.3.4, remote= 5.6.7.8,
local_proxy= 10.2.2.0/255.255.255.0/0/0 (type=4),
remote_proxy= 10.0.0.19/255.255.255.255/0/0 (type=1),
protocol= ESP, transform= esp-aes 256 esp-sha-hmac (Tunnel-UDP),
lifedur= 0s and 0kb,
spi= 0×0(0), conn_id= 0, keysize= 256, flags= 0×400
003582: *Feb 28 20:41:08.667 MST: IPSEC(kei_proxy): head = vpn, map->ivrf = , kei->ivrf =
003583: *Feb 28 20:41:08.667 MST: IPSEC(kei_proxy): head = vpn, map->ivrf = , kei->ivrf =
003584: *Feb 28 20:41:08.667 MST: IPSEC(validate_transform_proposal): transform proposal not supported for identity:
{esp-aes 256 esp-sha-hmac }
003585: *Feb 28 20:41:08.667 MST: ISAKMP (0:2): IPSec policy invalidated proposal
003586: *Feb 28 20:41:08.667 MST: ISAKMP (0:2): phase 2 SA policy not acceptable! (local 1.2.3.4 remote 5.6.7.8)

*** Phase 2 fails! Though on the top it states what the iPhone client was expecting….

003573: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP: transform 1, ESP_AES
003574: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP:   attributes in transform:
003575: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP:      SA life type in seconds
003576: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP:      SA life duration (basic) of 3600
003577: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP:      encaps is 3 (Tunnel-UDP)
003578: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP:      key length is 256
003579: *Feb 28 20:41:08.663 MST: ISAKMP:      authenticator is HMAC-SHA

So according to this, the iPhone wants in phase 2:

esp-aes 256bit
hmac-sha
tunnel mode
lifetime 3600

With this new information I changed my transform-set and behold, a connected iPhone!

Below is my config of connecting the iPhone to a IOS Router (Router is a 2651). I use aaa for authentication:

—–

version 12.3
service timestamps debug datetime msec localtime show-timezone
service timestamps log datetime msec localtime show-timezone
service password-encryption
no service dhcp
!
hostname C2651
!
! *** Setup aaa
aaa new-model
aaa authentication login local_auth local
aaa session-id common
!
!
clock timezone MST -7
clock summer-time MDT recurring
ip cef
!
! *** Enter a username and password here
username vpnuser password 7 ********************
!
!
! *** This policy is for phase 1 for the vpn client
crypto isakmp policy 10
encr 3des
authentication pre-share
group 2
lifetime 3600
!
! *** This part sets up the group password (Group Name: VPNCLIENT/Secret: secretkey)
! *** make sure you enter your dns/wins/domain name also
crypto isakmp client configuration group VPNCLIENT
key secretkey
dns 10.2.2.5
wins 10.2.2.5
domain domain.local
pool VPNCLIENT_ADDRESSES
acl 101
! *** we use acl 101 to control what goes in the network..
!
! *** We setup a isakmp (phase 1) profile for the vpnclient
! *** Tell it to use local_auth aaa to get the username/password
crypto isakmp profile vpn-isakmp-profile
match identity group VPNCLIENT
client authentication list local_auth
isakmp authorization list local_auth
client configuration address initiate
client configuration address respond
!
! *** THIS is the part where we specify PHASE 2.
! *** We set the transform to esp-aes 256bit with sha-hmac
crypto ipsec transform-set esp-aes-sha esp-aes 256 esp-sha-hmac
!
! *** we then set up to use that transport-set and the isakmp profile
crypto dynamic-map VPNCLIENT_MAP 1
set transform-set esp-aes-sha
set security-association lifetime seconds 3600
set isakmp-profile vpn-isakmp-profile
reverse-route
! *** lifetime may not show up as 3600 may already be the default
!
! *** We then associate it to the vpn map.
crypto map vpn 4 ipsec-isakmp dynamic VPNCLIENT_MAP
!
! *** Internal NIC
interface FastEthernet0/0
ip address 10.2.2.1 255.255.255.0
no ip proxy-arp
ip nat inside
duplex auto
speed auto
!
! *** External NIC
interface FastEthernet0/1
ip address dhcp
ip nat outside
duplex auto
speed auto
crypto map vpn
! *** We connect the vpn map to the external NIC
!
! *** We specify a dhcp pool address
ip local pool VPNCLIENT_ADDRESSES 10.0.0.1 10.0.0.254
!
! *** we add acl 101 to accept connectivity from 10.0.0.0/24 to the internal network
access-list 101 remark CVPN ACL
access-list 101 permit ip 10.2.2.0 0.0.0.255 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255

—–

On the iPhone side:
Description:
Server: IP or hostname of the router
Account: vpnuser
Password: password
Use Certificate: off
Group Name: VPNCLIENT
Secret: secretkey

I hope this makes sense… to recap:

This config setups:

Cisco VPN Client with AAA authentication.
Tested with CVPN Mac OS X v4.9.01 (0100) and iPhone v2.2

Phase 1: 3DES/SHA Group 2 Lifetime 3600 Seconds
Phase 2: AES256/SHA Lifetime 3600 Seconds Tunnel Mode

Internal: 10.2.2.0/24 VPN IPs: 10.0.0.0/24 WAN: DHCP

So I hope this blog will help any future people that are trying to get their router to work.

If you are still having problems or have any comments, please don’t hesitate to comment.

Thanks goes to Aaron, Scott and the 6200networks for researching on this setup.

Mike

DIY: HomeBrew MagSafe Car Kit

admin — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:20:56 +0000

Mobile power for the road warrior.

Ever wished you could keep your MacBook or MacBook Pro alive on those long road trips? We have the solution! All you need are a few readily available parts, some basic soldering skills and a few hours of time.

Collect The Parts

To complete this project, you will need:

1. Kensington AC/DC Power Adapter

2. MagSafe Power Adapter.

3. Power Jack & Power Plug 5.1mm OD, 2.0mm ID (Radioshack, etc…)
4. Soldering iron, electrical tape, shrink tape, Swiss Army Knife, and common tools.

The Details…

The basic methodology is to splice a connector into the cable of the MagSafe power adapter. The Kensington unit can then be used to provide the proper 16.5V to the MagSafe connector and power the MacBook while on the road.

Once the cable of the MagSafe adapter is cut, the loose end (with the MagSafe connector) will be terminated with the power jack. This will enable the MagSafe connector to be connected to either the original power brick or the new travel power adapter.

The power brick end is connected to the power plug so the two can be paired together yielding a functional (albeit warranty-less) power adapter.

Hold your breath and cut the wires…

Prepare for soldering

Perfect!

Check for polarity…

Don’t forget the heat shrink!

Clean up your solder jobs real nice and test it out.

Finished Product:

Plugs and Tips: