a day in the life of wayne ward….

Ive been setting up a vpn for a client and wanted to do some testing on my mac so poked around at mac osx vpn gui and found a handful – tested them all and basically only got vpn tracker to work easy – i probably could get the others to work with some hacking around but i like things to be easy nowadays! anyway vpn tracker is like a hundred quid for one licence which is expensive. Im sat there thinking macs are to cool and must have this buit in so i googled to connect to a draytek 2820 from mac osx and yes it was under my nose – changed a few settings on the router and added a new vpn which was easy following some easy instructions – see below 
Once i made the vpn I had enabled remote desktops on the server so used the mac os remote desktop gui RDC 2.01 and put in the ip of the server i want to have remote desktop to and viola it works i get full access – also in the preferences you can share local printers and folders to the remote machine which works great!
a mac – a vpn – remote desktop and your away!! awsome – check this howto

Setting up VPN, consists of 2 main operations – configuring the router to accept VPN connections, and setting the computer up to connect via VPN.

Setting up the Draytek router
In the new page that opens, configure the IPSec Setup as follows:
IKE Authentication Method
IPSec Security Method

In the “VPN & Remote Access” tab in the left menu, select “Remote Dial-in User”.Select an index position from the list of users, by clicking on a number (1 for example)
In the new user page that opens, configure the user as follows:
User Account & Authentication
Allowed Dial-in Type
Username & Password

Setting up a PPTP VPN connection in OSX
At this point, you should see the VPN icon appear in the menu bar. If all has gone according to plan, it will begin with “Connecting” being displayed, followed by “Authenticating”, and then should start a timer, indicating the duration that the VPN connection has been up.

“macs kick ass”

Well a month into my lion install on my macbook and i have to say yes there has been a few problems were some programs are buggy with it but they all seem to be catching up and releasing the updates not apples fault i guess more down do the people who create the applications have to be fast and update to the new standards.

I had to downgrade one macbook to snow leopard to make auto cad work right but now auto cad 2012 is available which is built to support lion! Plus we are waiting for announcement for solid works for mac osx !! hopefully next year……

I have to to say the new finger gestures are kind of happy, i love mission control and air drop is damn handy – launchpad mmm i don’t see the point and don’t like it but i suppose its going to blossom into something great!!!

I love the idea of when you download lion it ships with the latest update at that time so at this current time you will get 10.7.1 so comes with the 1st major update built in! certainly kicks the arse out of windows.

Im not sure if i like the new feature were it opens all my apps after a reboot or update, suppose some people like that i just don’t. I see they have added the full screen feature which I’ve used once and is something yes you don’t use all the time but when you do want to focus on a certain you can if its supports the full green focus, for instance i just updated firefox to the latest version and it hasn’t got the full screen capability yet……….

I like the new mail layout and wasn’t sure about the new look of the address book looking like a address book but its grown on me!!

the upgrade wrks well but i did clean installs anyway and left some disk space for time machine and configured just to back up my desktop and documents which has been working well for a incremental back up. The machine has been very responsive and i have had no crashing – lock ups or any problems at all. So far i give it my 100% – ten out of ten, there is no doubt in my mind the mac operating system is probably the most solid robust operating system around alongside linux.

Get a mac with lion on it don’t look back.

Im just testing daylite for mac osx again – quiet a nice system that can be run on a single machine or networked and accessed from external devices such as iphones and ipod touch..

The daylite ystem keeps all your contacts – tasks – projects – opportunities – calendar notes and reminders all in one neat package on the mac. Its very geared towards corporates and it is a very rich bit of kit! The install and setup i must say was a breeze! I downloaded the server package and the daylite install dmgs – you only need the daylite install dmg for a single machine and install the server if you plan to network or connect over the internet with your iphone..

Anyway I started bt installing the server on my mac server took like half a minute then i installed the main daylite package.

I opened up daylite and ran through the wizard asked me my name address etc and a username and password then aked me to pick for a selection of industries or just a blank template database – so opions being photography or real estate – i picked general and then it logged in cool up and running!! – i went into my ical and created three calendars for it to sync with for now work / band / personal – then i went into preferences in daylite and picked sharing and indicated i wanted it to sync with them calendars and that i wanted to create a group in my mac address book called daylite were i can choose who i want to sync entries in my addressbook to be added to daylite and not the whole lot of my address book because believe me some of my mates i would never think twice of doing business with!!!  Bingo add a entry into either daylite or my ical or address book they appear in each program!!

Next i went into the server database admin program and turned told it which database to share on the network and turned on sharing with the big share button ! easy – (this part is for external iphone connection!) then went to network and put in my external ip address and told it to route the ports for me which is does using upnp!! so no port forwarding in the firewall – but one thing you have to keep the server admin program open if you dont forward the ports manually so i will port the ports – it tells you the three ports to forward in so make sure your box has a fixed ip to make it more reliable!! pull across the big button saying share again and hey presto !! shared on the network and to the internet !!! easy done in like 5 mins!! also inside the server admin you add licences for addons and setup periodic back ups for the database!!! awsome..

So i next installed the daylite install on my laptop and connected straight in after i dropped the firewall so will have to add rules for my local connections to be allowed straight on – all the data shared no problems!!

Next went to the iphone installed the ap through app store – started it up  – put in my ip address and username and password – it downloaded the data and im in!!! I can see all the data in need to in daylite plus i can add data and sync with the main database!!! works a treat!! £35 for the year for the iphone app!!! not bad really!!

Its looking like £839 for 5 users and about £130 for one user which is very good really – if your a one man band with a mac daylite + server + the iphone app is like £165 and your away!! great value – i notice they have cut down version for £99 which doesnt have the mail intergration etc – its worth a look

My only problem ….   all my calendars and contacts are synced with google so nowadays the contacts aint a problem as the mac syncs contacts with google out of the box!!.. now my calendars in ical just connect to google but will daylite see the data on the google calendars?? nope! is the answer – there is no way around this im afraid at the monment apart from one i downloaded spanning sync which let me create a standard ical calendar and then get that to sync with google calendar!! easy install quick setup and about £35 out of my back pocket! plus it does other syncing which i havent used just the calendar stuff which works a treat as its syncing every 15 mins in the background no problem!!!!

Also if you look at the marketcirle site for this app take a look at billings for the mac for £30 nice easy billings program very easy to setup and use and ties into your address book etc and makes very pro looking invoices!!

Check out the website

Recently my SEO work has overtaken my computer consulting which I cant really grumble about considering I dont have to leave my chair to work!! Yes I do have some techniques i dont want to give away to some of my blog followers but I dont mind sharing my reporting software!! I use a website ranking software called Advanced Web Ranking which is top notch for reporting and is cross platform which is awesome – so you can setup this software on your apple mac – linux box or windows platform and your away!! I have installed this on a linux box and on a apple mac and it was a breeze – applied for a trial licence which i got back the key prompt I then added my first site and got the software to import my keywords in from the site so i didnt have to type it all again which is very handy!! I then moved on to pick which search engines i wanted it to test my keywords on, you can update the search engines every now and then but i know which search engines im interested in so i picked for a quick report google UK, yahoo UK, msn UK for a fast report – on bigger reports i selected ask UK and a few other big UK search angines AOL etc..  just go make yourself a nice cup of coffee ..

The software then looks at the search engines you picked and submits the keywords you have in your site or what keywords you specify the process can take up to a hour deending on internet speed and keywords and search engines you picked. I think its better to pick the UK sites if you are interested in the UK audience and US if you want to extend to .com. After the campaign finishes you can get the software to make specific reports which can be set in the software it will give you your positions for the keywords in the specific search engines. One of my keyword searches was lancaster computers which i was happy to see i am number one in google Uk and google.com, some my other keywords which are not so hot I can work on and then wait till my report re-generates next month to see if my technique has moved up the search engine.

One of the handy things about the software for my company is that my SEO is always ongoing so im always working on search engines and source code for the different sites – the reporting software is just so easy – you can set it up so automatically run at a certain time of day / month etc and then you can get the software to automatically send the reports by email to the client with a specific set of rules on the report also a big bonus it will attach your company logo just giving it that finishing touch !

Ive tested other reporting software on linux and apple mac’s but this is by far the best software i have found – when i first got the software one of the features I wanted was a submit facility which i noticed this had, when i came to submit i just got a list of search engines to submit to but I expected a auto submit – but this is just lazy and not really a good way of doing the job – I now submit manually using the list in the software which is very good and proved and tested in various industries in the area, some of the industries are computers , home care , security  health , home improvement, plasterers – all these companies are number one in google and other good search engines – they basically have gone from no activity to be very active sites.

10 / 10 for this software i just need to play with the advanced link manager to see what this can do to get even more results!!! I see the software comes in three different price ranges starting at $99 which is a good price for the tool you are getting – Lancaster computers fully recommends you give this a trial if you are serious about web results and getting your sites to the top of the search engines

screen shots

http://wayneward.co.uk/pics/awr_screen_shots/main_window.png

http://wayneward.co.uk/pics/awr_screen_shots/keywords.png

http://wayneward.co.uk/pics/awr_screen_shots/search_engines.png

Some of the other awr features I’m going to look at over the next week which sound cool are the keyword research tool as I’ve been using a few other techniques to carry out this operation which can be a bit painful plus I noticed wordtracker plugin to track keyword relevance which sounds handy and is a free service.. I see the project manager is only available in the pro version which would make the useage of the software easier if you are a bigger outfit. Im also looking at the competing site feature which will be handy to see if any other computer outfits can touch me in the area on the web optimisation side! which i doubt it unless they go sponsored ha ha!! so many other features to get my head around in this software package – what a great bit of kit – just ask any of my clients about my SEO im getting results you wouldnt believe – today i got another call from W & J Plasterers got a massive contract in from liverpool from lancaster computers SEO – Please feel free to contact us if you need your site finding in the search engines – as you can see we use all the finest tools and AWR is one of our gems

http://www.lancastercomputers.co.uk

You can download a 30 days trial of the web site ranking software and get more information about it from their website.

not a lot of time for blogin lately

but hey i see there is a mac update on the G4′s that seems to like kill em – oh fuk! thats very odd? or is it just a freak thing that’s happend to two of my m8′s who have updated there G4′s at the same time?…. we will see – barmy

got some brushing up to do in the 6 string dept – thats goes for bass and guitar! my first gig with a band playing 6 string this week im used to the duo and other bits of guitar work usually but got a gig this sunday playing guitar.. and no im not moving to the dark side im a bass player through and through just lets me unleash my shit – 6 strings – overdrive and my frustation – flows through the guitar easily !!!

this week i unleash the trace elliot 18×10 cab and the big fat 6 string bass ! with promethium at the well awaited rehersal – they will get to experience real 6 string power through my bitch of a setup – its lets say a experience when it moves your insides and makes your bowel move you may even shit your pants when it flaps your pants – nice – it hasnt helped towards the tinnitus

need to get my ass together with the shop and get this shit finished up ASAP – I will be getting my head into it next week get the last two rom finished up so we can get open and trading

got a clamshell G3 to get tiger mac osx on over a firewire connection – should be interesting!!! …. summet to blog about

also had a play with the tunomatic bridge this week on the new epiphone gibson sg400 custom i bought! – I basically got the action pretty shit hot and it was choking so lifted the action a tad and the strings felt tight – so lifted the tunomatic bridge tuned back up – give the truss rod a twist and tuned again and then dropped the action a touch again and it was perfect – > low action – no chokes – strings feel nice and ready for overbends – tunomatic = coooool – just ordered a graph tech nut – then im doing a full wiring kit mod – then we might go on to swapping out the three humbuckers for three fat seymour duncans !…. we will see ill be blogging about my new axe soon..

just reinstelled another windows laptop because it was not genuine but had a serial number on the bottom which was legit!? yes another one which got pro installed but had a serial for home!!! MS suks

dot 4get your only here once so enjoy this shit while you can

Adios

Just testing ecto blog client on the macbook seems to be cool…

ill be posting a good list of mac osx apps this week as i test.