Adding Windows Shared Printers on Mac Using Hidden Advanced Options

Today I’ve discovered two ways to add shared Windows printers using unordinary ways. One is by accessing CUPS thru http://localhost:631 which I won’t explain in detail. Another is by accessing the hidden Advanced options when adding printers.

To access this hidden option, first go to Print & Fax in System Preferences, click the + sign at the bottom left, right click the toolbar right on top and you should see something like this:

Drag the Advanced icon to your toolbar and voila, there you go. Now you can almost any shared printers under the sky using this option. This is extremely useful when your Windows shared printer doesn’t appear when you try adding them.

To add a Windows shared printer, enter smb://IP.Address.Of.PC.Sharing.Printer/PrinterShareName as the URL and make sure Type is Windows.

One thing I note about this is it might take up to 10 seconds for the fields to un-gray so be patient. Got any questions? Feel free to post in comments.

Till the next tech tip, hope you found much use with this one!

Mac OS X 10.5.3 Update Has Been Released

That’s right folks. Hit up Software Update on your Apple menu. More info about this update on this page

Downloading the update as I type this.

Latest Growl Beta Fixes Many Things, Brings Back GrowlMail

If you’ve been itching to use GrowlMail in Leopard, then look no further than the latest Growl beta, 1.1.3 Beta 4.

If you don’t know what Growl is, you’re missing out on an awesome Mac app. It is basically a system-wide notification app. It is highly customizable and supported by a lot of Mac apps out there. If you own a Mac, you got to have this.

Growl Beta download page here

UPnP: Port Forwarding that’s Fool Proof

UPnP. You probably heard about it or seen it lurking in your router settings, or while you fiddle around Windows‘ built-in firewall. So what the hell is it?

I myself didn’t bother to look up on it as it didn’t sound appealing to me compared to lamb curry. Not until I read about Port Map. Port Map is basically a Mac app that allows easy port forwarding WITHOUT accessing your router. Now now before you stop reading on thinking this is some shitty Mac praising post, don’t regret if I tell you how this will actually let you play C&C3 online without opening 80% of all available ports from 1 to 65535.

So I was thinking, What the f**k? How is it possible to port forward without actually setting it up in the router? Wouldn’t it be a (local) security issue? After a little googling, turns out that UPnP has been around long before I even graduated from high school.

UPnP is basically a technology that allows devices (such as your computer) to tell the router it needs to allow connection thru a certain port number so that it can communicate properly with the other internet client. Some of the most popular software I could think of that could utilize UPnP is Skype and uTorrent. For the past few years, I have been wondering why in the f**k uTorrent has an option to RANDOMIZE your port number each time it starts? Wouldn’t that mean you have to port forward all over again? Now I know. It’s UPnP that’s allows such voodoo to exist.

So how can you get this voodoo to work? First of all, you need to access your router (just this once to set it up). Every router setup differs so you may have to read your manual to find out how to enable UPnP. Some routers that are too old might not even have UPnP. Also, I notice that some Belkin routers do not have UPnP as well.

For the purpose of introducing UPnP, I’ll use screenshots from popular BitTorrent programs for example.

Notice there are options to allow these programs to utilise UPnP. And that’s it, enjoy UPnP.

Few things to note: If you have multiple routers on the same internet connection, make sure the ‘parent router’ forwards ALL ports to the next router. UPnP doesn’t communicate router to router unfortunately (at least this is the case for home routers, correct me if I’m wrong).

Also, I have the feeling that enabling UPnP might cause potential security dangers especially to Windows machines. Make sure you have anti-virus/spyware installed before you utilize UPnP.

Hope you enjoy this tech tip, because I have. For the first time since C&C3 launch I could finally play it online, just to get owned by someone who claims to be a noob.

Office 2008 SP1 Released with Infinite Looping Setup Assistant

Service Pack 1 for Office 2008 was just released recently. However, many people (including me) have experienced the infinite looping setup assistant problem. Basically, you can’t get any of the Office Apps working. If you try launching any of the Office apps, it would bug you with the Setup Assistant over and over again.

So here’s how to fix it:

Make sure you have your CD Key ready.

Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008 (you can use the Finder’s Go => Go To Folder… feature, just cut and paste this into the box)

Delete Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist

then Navigate to /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/

delete OfficePID.plist

You will be asked for the CD Key the next time you launch any of the Office apps. But that’s about it, it should fix the “Setup assistant loop” problem. ;)