A Strange Thing

Some time ago, my MacBook decided it couldn't connect to the WiFi router two metres away. My old PC laptop can connect to it, and so can my phone and MamaDuck's netbook and laptop. Not having a WiFi connection didn't bother me too much, apart from the blue cable crawling across the floor, until yesterday when I was in a Skype call with Offspring and wanted to show him something in the kitchen. This required every cable to be disconnected from the MacBook, and so of course we lost the connection.

Anyhoo, I just searched Google for the solution to the problem, and it's so utterly unlikely that I just had to share it with you. Are you ready? Perched eagerly on the edge of your seat? Okay, you have to reset Safari.

'Do what?'

'Reset Safari. That's all. It does the job.'

Apparently, what happens is, well, I can't really explain what happens, but it's something to do with Safari wanting to go through all the bookmarks and stuff in its cache to... no, sorry, doesn't make any sense at all.

So when you reset Safari, it deletes all the history and remembered stuff, and that then enables your WiFi to work. I hate to say this, because I adore my MacBook, and love the way the hardware and OS are integrated, but this Safari thing (Safari is the web browser written by Apple) is complete and utter crap. I don't even use Safari except for testing websites occasionally, and it quite happily went ahead and busted my MacBook.

An Early Christmas Present

I've been using this MacBook for a bit over a year now. I think it's probably the best thing I ever bought, but the one thing I missed after making the transition from frustrated PC user to almost-evangelical Mac-user was the Google Chrome browser. This had been released a few months before I moved to Mac, and I loved it. No worries, though, a Mac version was in the works, and would be released 'shortly'. I've never done any Mac-specific programming, so I don't know how hard or easy it is. I kept checking with the website to see how they were getting on, but it was mostly Geek to me. I signed up to get an email telling me if they ever managed to complete the task.

Yesterday, I got my email: Chrome for Mac has arrived! Like a maniac, I rushed to download it. Easy-peasy, no problem.

Ah.

But there is a problem on this machine. It's only ever been able to run Firefox: it has Opera and Safari installed, but they can never manage to connect to any websites. That never bothered me too much, but now I have Chrome, I really want to be able to use it. Intensive scouring of Teh Interwebz failed 2 giv me haz cheezburger. But I Percy-Vered (good ol' Percy, never lets you down), and came across a reference to having proxy servers set up. Oh my Gawdz: I know all about Poxy Servers as part of the amoral morality police in Dubai. Hmm.

So, I managed to track it down: yes indeed, this machine was set up to use the poxy server of its previous owner at his Uni. Goddam. So I deleted the poxy (the power!), and now all my browsers work, including Chrome. Yeehah!

WiFi Magic

The weather has been pretty fab here in Madrid for about the last week. Our new flat doesn't actually get much in the way of sunshine, although it does get plenty of light because of the big windows. So it's pretty cool, and we're expecting to get through the summer without too much difficulty: the apartment has no A/C, but I don't think we'll need it.

It has become my habit to knock off work at around four or five, and go to a bar across the road for a caña (small beer). We like this bar because the husband and wife who run it have Middle Eastern roots (he's Palestinian, she's Iraqi). Inside, the bar is teeny, but when the sun shines they have a terraza - half a dozen tables out on the pavement. They don't have WiFi, though.

Today, I thought I'd try an experiment. Went to the bar and took my MacBook with me. Left the WiFi switched in the apartment. I think WiFi has a range of about thirty metres, but maybe I'm wrong, or no good at estimating distances. Anyway, I'm sitting outside the bar now, writing this, and connected to the Interwebs.

How cool is that? Very, I reckon.

Update: Just had a Skype call with my son, including video. Awesomely magical!