Tutorials

Welcome to the third article in our series on networking. If you're just catching up now, you should probably read the introduction and the move on to TCP/IP before reading this one.

Knowing your IP address from your Gateway is a great foundation for coming to grips with your network and how it can work for you. For our purposes, this is the low-level nuts and bolts of networking. Sitting above this low-level stuff is the “application layer” where all the fun stuff, from our perspective, happens.

(If you’d like to know more about TCP, layers, and how they fit together, you should read up on the OSI Model.)
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Motion has a secret weapon. Yes, you can use it to create awesome animations, but one of its key uses is to create Master Templates for use in Final Cut Pro. If you do it right, you can create a single template and re-use it for every title in your production. Cool, right? So let's take a look at how to do that, and the great ways you can contort text and replicate anything else in Motion.
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(This is the second article in our series, the first is here.)

Imagine a world where everyone speaks the same language, with the same accent and using the same vocabulary. How much easier would it be to communicate?

When you descend into the world of networks and their underlying protocols, you almost reach this nirvana-like state of being. Almost all of the worlds networks now rely on one basic set of protocols to talk to each other.

The rules governing those protocols are widely adopted and well understood. They are undergoing constant revision to remain relevant as our use of networks evolves.

A basic understanding of TCP/IP will help you to navigate your network with fewer headaches.
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This is the first in a seven part series looking at networking technologies and home networking. Upcoming articles will take a look at TCP/IP, Applications, Basic Troubleshooting, Home Networks, Wireless and getting your Mac and PC talking to each other.

This series isn't intended to make you a network engineer. Instead, the idea is to go through some of the theory basics that form the basis of how networks function and then to look at some common home network considerations.

That said, lets get on with it... ...

You wouldn't be a real Apple fan if you didn't know that iOS 4.3 is due to be released shortly along with the new iPad 2. You also wouldn't be a real fan if you hadn't already got your hands on iOS 4.3 Gold Master. Unfortunately what most of the non-developers wouldn't be aware of is that there are some hidden gesture's available in the iOS, probably due to be released in in iOS 4.4 or 5. ...

Before we get any further: Motion is not After Effects. If you're an AE guru trying to use Motion the same way you'd use Adobe's favourite animation tool, you'll quickly become frustrated. While there are decent keyframing tools, keyframes aren't, and shouldn't be, the focus of Motion. Embrace a slightly different workflow, and you just might fall in love with the instant response of this GPU-friendly package from Apple. You'll need Motion to follow along.
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Solid-state drives (SSD) are rapidly becoming the “soup de jour” of today’s tech world. More and more (mobile devices especially) are now being released with SSDs replacing the last of a very small amount of hardware pieces that still contained any moving parts. Their rapid data access times, instantaneous accessibility, physical superiority (no noise, not susceptible to magnetism, shock or vibration) and lower power consumption make them an attractive choice to power your storage needs. The downside of them being their relative high cost to storage ratio, traditional hard drives winning that round hands down. In time this will of course change but if you’re without the five years to wait and would like to take advantage of the speed an SSD can provide you while retaining your original platter/spin hard drive this how-to is for you.

This “dual drive” configuration is nothing new, the idea is that your operating system (OS) and applications are installed on the smaller, faster SSD while your store of media, documents and general files reside upon the larger, space-to-waste, traditional hard disk drive (HDD). In Mac OS X terms you essentially move your Users folder off to the HDD. Sounds relatively straight forward ...

Whilst most Mac users may be aware of this, not everyone is (as can be seen by the blank look on my wife's face when I mentioned it for her overseas trip) so I thought it was time to throw up a basic guide on how to share your Internet connection.

First off, let's look at what we mean by sharing your Internet - By sharing the internet, we're talking about taking an internet connection that you have access to (like a 3G modem) and sharing it to other users nearby using wifi so that you can all access the internet at the same time. ...