In order to get Google Sync to get your calendar and contact information synchronised with phone, you need to get that data into Google, and keep that data synchronised from your Mac. This is how to do that if you’re using the inbuilt Address Book and iCal apps on OSX 10.5.x

Address Book

Setting up Address Book is straightforward. Go into its preferences. On the General pane, right at the bottom, is “Synchronize with Google”. Press the button and add the google account and password with which you want to synchronise. Tick the box, and that’s it.

I’ve had problems where Google changes details on one or two of my cards. No data loss – just duplication of address details. I’ve not sorted out why this occurs but since it’s just duplication all I’ve done is deleted the extra address.

iCal

iCal is more complicated. Unfortunately there’s no way to synchronise an existing calendar with Google Calendar. So you will need to add a calendar from your Google account to iCal, then move or copy data from your existing calendar to it.

To set up Google Calendars in iCal, first download Google’s Calendar set-up tool. Sign in with your Google account and password. The tool will show a list of calendars to which you have access. Select the ones you wish to add to iCal and press “Add to iCal” to add them.

This shows my Google Calendar added to iCal.

Now sync to your phone

Now you have your address book and calendar ready for synching, you’ll need to set up your phone to use Google Sync.

That should be it! Back up often – both your Mac and your phone – Google Sync is in beta.

Posted: February 10th, 2009 under Tips.
Comments: none

I run OSX Server on a Mac mini here. It runs this blog, a few other websites and accepts mail for my family. I think it’s a great solution – easy to set up and configure and requires almost no attention. Just the sort of thing you could use at the end of your broadband connection (assuming your terms and conditions allow it).

A few days ago, however, I added another blog to the server (It’s my personal blog). Almost as soon as I did this, I started to notice things slowing down and timing out. As if my server was overloaded. Which it definitely wasn’t – load averages were trivial, there was nothing in the logs, no stray processes. Yet I’d keep getting DNS failures and various timeouts.

Suspecting something else, I took a look at my router’s logs. There was one message in particular that drew my attention. It was repeated time and time again:

10.123.4.1 exceeds the max. number of session per host!

A little bit of searching found the answer. The new blog had pushed my server beyond the default number of open NAT connections my router allowed. Setting this higher has fixed all the intermittent connection problems.

Details for Zyxel routers below the cut.
Read more »

Posted: January 27th, 2009 under Tips.
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In OSX Server, in the log file for imapd, you will see a log entry along the lines of:

imapd TLS server engine: No CA file specified. Client side certs may not work

several times per hour. This happens for all versions of OSX Server up to and including 10.5.5.

Firstly, it’s not an important error. It’s a warning. What it is saying is that IMAP authentication using client-side certificates over SSL will not work. That’s OK, you have plenty of other ways to authenticate to IMAP. However, it’s annoying (to me, at least) that this warning clutters up the logs.

The way to remove this is to to add a new line into /etc/imapd.conf – one that actually specifies a root certificate for client-side certificates. Do this by adding the line to /etc/imapd.conf:

tls_ca_file: /etc/certificates/Default.crt

And stop and restart the mail services.

This assumes you haven’t changed the name or location of the default certificate OSX Server generates. Change the certificate you choose to use if so.

This will stop the warning being written to the logs, and won’t cause any problems: people won’t be able to log in based on this because you won’t have generated any user certificates off the default certificate. However, if you’re feeling particularly paranoid, generate a fresh certificate using Server Manager, and use that.

Technorati Tags:
OSX, TLS, imap, imapd, certificate

Posted: September 30th, 2008 under Tips.
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These little wireless broadband adaptors are very common in the UK right now. Several of the mobile phone carriers – Three and Vodaphone at least – use them. The trouble is, the supplied application crashes out under the current Leopard build, 10.5.3, when trying to make a connection.

There is a trick to get it working, though. Do the following:

Firstly, run the “Mobile Connect” Make sure under “settings” there is a profile: I called mine “3 USB Modem”, with Access Point name of 3internet and Telephone number of *99#. You only need to do this once.

Secondly, go into System Preferences. In the Network pane, select the HUAWEI mobile device in the left pane. Now, in the right pane, under Configuration, select “Add Configuration”. I caled mine “Three”. Add *99# as the telephone number, make sure “Show modem status in menu bar” is ticked (for convenience) and you’re all set.

Each time you need to make a connection, firstly run the mobile connect application from the usb modem key. I don’t get reliable connections unless I do this. Then go to your menu bar, locate the little phone icon, and choose “Connect HUAWEI mobile.”

That’s it. That will make a connection to your wireless broadband service provider.

Huawei have recognised the problem and are expected to bring out a replacement application soon, but this will keep you working until they do so. I’d keep an eye on their forums for the announcement of the new app.

Technorati Tags:
leopard, Huawei, E169G, 10.5.3

Posted: June 20th, 2008 under Stuff We Use, Tips.
Comments: none

Clearing your DNS cache is a trick you need to know, especially because OSX has a slightly annoying habit of caching negative results. That is, if for some reason you get a “not known” result back from a DNS server, OSX will hold onto it for some time, unless you clear the cache.

Irritatingly the way to do this has changed between OSX 10.4 and 10.5. In OSX 10.4 Tiger, you type in a terminal window:

lookupd -flushcache

Whereas in OSX 10.5 Leopard the command is now:

dscacheutil -flushcache

Posted: December 31st, 2007 under Tips.
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