AppleMacGeniusVille

I usually hold off from doing reviews on hardware, but the Samsung SCX-4500 Laser Printer and Scanner is a pretty elegant looking device. That said this is more of a “how do I scan on the Mac” helpful hint since Samsung says it is not supported on Mac OS X.

Once you install the CD that came with the SCX-4500 you set up the printer. All this is in the directions, well kind of.

Step 1: In the menu bar, click on the AirPort

Step 2: go to System Preferences and enter the following in the IP Address: 192.0.0.50. The printer has it’s own IP address and this will make it so your computer will see it.

Step 3: If you haven’t already, open Safari and go to the following URL: file:///Library/Printers/Samsung/SCX-4500W/SetIP/SetIPApplet.html

Actual setting here are not what you will see.

Step 4: click on
Step 5: This will bring you to the Samsung Service page. Once there, click on “Network Settings” Tab and “Wireless” on the left side. Click on “Wizard” and the “Next” button.

This will setup the printer to be on your network. Once you are done with the wizard, you will need to switch to your wireless network. Now all you do is go to System Preferences and setup your printer.

Now for the hard and weird part. You would think that once the software is installed it puts a scan icon on the menu bar. This is how you control printing and scanning. Well, printing works, but scanning does not work at all. So you have to do it the Mac OS X way. Using Image Capture. Bet you haven’t heard about this program in a long time. Image Capture will basically setup the SCX-4500 to b seen by Preview. Here is the steps.

Step 1: Open Image Capture
Step 2: In the menu bar go to Device->Browse Device

Step 3: A window will appear with all devices drivers installed, connected to the network or computer.

Step 4: As you can see there is 2 Samsung SCX-4500. 2 will only appear after you select the Bonjour device.
Step 5: Now you could scan from Image Capture, but now open Preview.
Step 6: Go to File Import Image…

Step 7: You will get your scanner dialog box

November 2009 Update: Samsung now has Snow Leopard (10.6x) drivers on their site.  You can download them here. You will need to install all three.  I did this the other day and the printer now works without any issues.

written by admin \\ tags: Image Capture, Mac OS X, Preview, Printing, Samsung

Mac OS X 10.5 has a lot of built in features that a lot of novice users are not aware of.  One in particular is creating a encrypted sparse bundle.  Before I get to the creation of a sparse bundle, you might be asking yourself what is a encrypted sparse bundle.  On the Macintosh operating system a bundle or image is like a container, a representation of a virtual storage hard drive.  In the Macintosh Finder it appears as a file usually with the naming convention, “file.img” or if it’s a sparse bundle image one that grows in size as needed it will be named with a “.sparsebundle” at the end.  Once you double click on it it mounts what looks like a hard drive icon on your desktop.  A lot of times you may see this when installing a program such as firefox.  You download firefox and it has the name “firefox.img” you double click on the file and it mounts a hard drive on your desktop.  you open this virtual hard drive and you have the program inside.  This is only one example and you can download firefox if you want to see how this works.  But what if you want to create your own image or sparse bundle.  Apple makes it real easy to do this.  Here is how.  

Step 3: in Disk Utility go to File->Blank Disk Image…
                    

Step 4: in “Save As” name your disk image

Step 5: you can also name your volume, this name will be used when the virtual disk is mounted.  Pick a Volume size and what format you want it to be.
 

**Step 5.5: If you are happy with the setting hit save and a disk image will be created.
 

But that last step will give you a image and not a Encrypted Sparse Bundle.  An encrypted Sparse Bundle is important to keep secure documents secured and to grow in size as needed.  If your laptop got stolen, no one would be able to get in to your image unless they had the password you set for the sparsebundle and it being encrypted gives it extra protection.  Let continue our steps…
 

Step 6: select “128-bit AES encryption or if you want to be extra secure, 256-bit AES encryption would work as well.
 
Step 7: also select what format you want.  Pick “sparse bundle disk Image”.  This will actually grow in size as needed. (you really only have to select this if you want it to grow.)
                    

Step 7.5: Click Save

Step 8: you will be asked to provide a password.  Make sure when deciding on a password you pick a strong password, numbers, letters, symbols, etc… It will actually tell you if your password is strong enough.                    

Weak password Example

knox-basics

Strong password Example

 Step 9: Now you can quit Disk Utility and you should see a virtual disk on your desktop. 
 
Every time you double click on the “.sparsebundle” or “.dmg” it will expand and ask you for your password. 

 

Here is another helpful hint.  Lets say you want to automate this.  There is a company that makes a product that does this.  The website is www.knoxformac.com.  They make a product called knox.  It gives you an interface to create encrypted sparse bundles and even organize them.  I highly recommend this product.  I use this daily.  I have included a short video of their product demo.  

 

October 3, 2008

I came across another really nice program called Espionage.  This program does the same thing but seems to be a little more seamless in it’s approach.  Instead of a menu bar icon it basically integrates in to the actual Mac OS.  It still uses the “Disk Image” technology but it hides it to the novice user and you never know you are using it.  You can go to www.taoeffect.com/espionage to check it out.  Click on the link below to see a video of the product.
 

written by AppleMacGenius \\ tags: Disk Utility, encrypt, Mac OS X, secure, sparse bundle

More times then not, there is a real concern with email security.  There are so many different free email providers.  There is gmail, hotmail, yahooMail, and MobileMe to name a few.  Most of the time we do not think about email security.  Having dealt with DOD, I have come to realize how important it is for my personal email to be secured.  I will go over how to easily secure your gmail, since this is what I use on a daily bases.   

**If you would like to add how to secure other free email in the comment field, please do.   

 

As you may or may not know google is a web-based email.  A lot of time you can easily do what is called “packet sniffing”.  Packet sniffing is a way to view the data that is being transmitted on the local network.  believe it or not I can use free programs like “Ethereal” which is a free open source distribution; to view an entire website someone is actually viewing and even collect data that user is entering and submitting on that site.   One thing that you can do with gmail is use what is called IMAP.  IMAP is a protocol that is used with a stand-a-lone email application, such as Mail.app, Entourage or even Outlook.  Google does support IMAP and also POP (POP is widely used) besides the obvious browser base application.  Well, lets say you only use a browser.  Whether that browser is Safari, Firefox, IE or even Google’s Chrome by default your email is not secured.  So the question come down to, “how do I secure my mail” in this case gmail? More importantly, how do I do this across the board with out changing any system setting on my Mac or PC.  The answer is easy and google has made it easy.  Here are the steps.

   

Step 1:  logon to your gMail account

Step 2: At the top next to your email address click “Settings“

Step 3: Scroll to the bottom of the Setting page to the section that says “Browser Connection“

Step 4: Click the button that says “Always use https“

Step 5: Click “save settings“

That’s it.  Now no matter what browser you use or on what computer, gMail will always to https://mail.google.com/.  How do you know it’s secure.  On Safari you will see 2 things.  For one you will see the “https” at the beginning of the URL.  The second is a “Lock” symbol at the top right of the browser window.

If you click on the lock you will see the CA or Signing Certificate.

written by AppleMacGenius \\ tags: Apple, email, gmail, safari, Security