TW Blog :: Entries for OSX

Invalid DHCP Lease on Leopard 10.5.7

This post does not relate to any other topics

Quite frustrating having finally converted a client to Mac computers to then suddenly see their wireless network broken after upgrading the MacBook Pros to Leopard 10.5.7.

In short the MBP fails to connect with the hub (in this instance a BT Home Hub and BT Office Hub) when renewing the DHCP lease and thus reverts to using the internal value - 169.254.x.x. I have seen this problem before on my own networks and occasionally connecting an iPod Touch via WiFi. The solution would normally be to assign a static IP address on the local network for the network interface. But this time a static address did not work.

The solution is instead to change the security settings of the hub for the wireless network. I experienced this issue with the BT Home Hub and Windows Vista once so it is hardly unique to Mac OS X. But it is frustrating that these different platforms cannot standardise their protocols. For a brief moment my client feared they would have to roll back their OS with a clean install thanks to the inability of the BT Hub to communicate with OS X Leopard 10.5.7. I cannot recommend which wireless security to use, but the chances are setting a custom key (which should of course be changed regularly anyway) and choosing a different standard is as good a place as any to start in diagnosing your wireless connection issues.

Posted on Jun 16, 2009 at 14:47:58.

Quicksilver Tips 1. Screen Grab and Email

Also relates to Software

A bit to much grumbling recently - especially when today is my smile a while day! So time to get back to some informative blogging. When I was blogging first time round, a popular topic of conversation was choosing Firefox extensions and my favourite Firefox extensions but I think this particular topic has been well and truly saturated now. So instead over the next few weeks I will discuss a number of productivity tools I use on a day by day basis to help me get things done.

Where better to start than one of the stalwarts of any developer's arsenal on the OS X platform - Quicksilver (the art of acting without doing). I have a pretty exhaustive set of Quicksilver plugins installed on my all conquering iMac 3 gigabyte machine. Some of these rarely see the light of day, others I use on a regular basis - without thinking twice. One of Quicksilver's greatest strengths is it's ability to adapt to any task I wish to accomplish. One thing I do regularly is send visual scamps to collaborators during the CSS build stage of a job. Thanks to the Apple Mail Module and Screen Capture Actions I can complete this in three simple steps.

1. Fire up Quicksilver (I use Option + Space) and call up the Capture options (typing CAP is normally adequate but I have set Capture Window as the default for C to bring it up by default)
2. I choose Capture Window and then click the little camera on the window I want to grab.
3. Voila! The captured image appears in the first pane with focus on the second pane where I type E to bring up Email to…, hit TAB and start typing the name of the collaborator the scamp is going to. When their name appears hit ENTER and the the an e-mail will be prepared with the scamp in ready to go.

Of course, this can be extended further using the comma trick to add additional collaborators' addresses to the e-mail.

And since the captures are saved to the desktop could even capture a selection of screens and add them all to the same message using the comma trick. I guess I could take this one step further by introducing a trigger for step 1 but I actually find trigger overload weighs heavy on my short-term memory so avoid assigning too many short cut keys.

So that is my first little Quicksilver tip. More to follow…

Posted on Oct 04, 2007 at 19:04:09.