Murphy Mac

Using multiple devices with paid hotel Internet access.

This weekend I used the Internet at a hotel that charged for access. I signed up using my iPod, then later tried to access the service using a laptop. The sign-on page didn’t provide a place to sign in using my name or room number - it seemed like I might be charged again if I went any further. I had never seen the particular service before, so I couldn’t tell what would happen.

I didn’t feel like calling the front desk, and chances are I wouldn’t have had much faith in whatever they told me. Sounds cold, but it’s true. The solution I found was probably faster anyway.

I assumed the hotel tracked my iPod by its MAC address. If you’re not familiar with a MAC address, it’s a unique identifier assigned to network devices like your wired Ethernet port or a wifi card. (MAC addresses are not to be confused with Macs) Some software interfaces provide a simple way to change the MAC address your device presents to the network. I didn’t see a simple way in System Preferences.

A quick Google search landed me at OS X Daily. There you’ll find the exact command to enter in Terminal to change your MAC address. You may have to tweak the command a little if you’re using multiple network interfaces on your Mac, like wired and wireless.

So, I took the MAC address of my iPod and assigned it to the laptop. I didn’t try to use both at once, and both worked just fine. As soon as the MAC was changed on the laptop it was on the Internet, without having to access any special sign-up page for the service.

At some point hotels will probably update their services to help with a situation like this, but in the meantime OS X Daily helped me out in less than two minutes. Nice.

If you use Windows you might not be overly fond of the little bubbles that pop up down on your Task Bar. You know the ones — warnings about your firewall and unused items on your desktop?

A simple registry edit will stop the bubbles, for all applications. You can watch the screencast to see two ways to make the change. You can either make the edit manually using regedit, a registry editor that comes with Windows. Or you can download a file from Murphy and double-click it. The file will make the change.

You don’t have much to worry about. In fact, you can right-click the file (after unzipping it), select Edit, and you’ll see it’s just a couple lines of text. The change is easily undone. Simply delete the entry from your registry.

The balloons will stop appearing for all applications - only for the user you’re logged in as when you make the change. Log out and back in to test your results.

If you’re comfortable in the registry go ahead and make this entry:

Add a DWORD value in the following key, and name it EnableBalloonTips. Set its hex value to zero.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\

CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Not a registry person? Watch the screencast.

I don’t even know if they have bubbles in Vista…

Do you have messages on your phone that you save every time you review your voicemail? A call from your daughter announcing your first grandchild? Mary Pat McBride saying she does love you and she will go to the prom with you after all? Your boss calling - fully intoxicated - and promising you the Penske account?

If you’d like to get these messages off your phone and store them somewhere else Murphy has a solution. Run Audio Hijack while calling your mobile phone via Skype. Save the recording on your computer and you can delete it from your phone.

To call a mobile phone from your Skype account you’ll need Skype credit. Maybe you have a free-of-charge way to call your mobile from your computer. Let us know in the comments.

If you’re not familiar with Audio Hijack you can watch the screencast for details on how to capture your voicemail.

It really works.  Here’s a success story based on the experience of Jean MacDonald from Smile On My Mac.  (textexpander and more)

Related Post: You can make Skype always start in invisible mode. Or whatever mode you choose.

Many PC users are familiar with the idea of a firmware password that needs to be entered before the computer will load the OS. For PC power-users the BIOS or CMOS interface is familiar territory - and it’s the place where they set such a password.

Murphy Mac commenter Brian posted information on something similar for your Mac. Here’s the rundown.

Using the Open Firmware Password utility you can set a password on your Mac that will stop someone from resetting a user account password using the method described in this previous post. Essentially, it prevents unauthorized users from using a disk other than the machine’s internal drive to boot. The utility comes on the install disk that ships with your Mac.

Keep in mind this isn’t much additional security. It might slow down a casual attacker, but a determined foe with physical access to your machine can bypass this security. Your best bet for security that lasts is to encrypt your sensitive files using one of the methods described previously.

If you’re looking for a simple way to wake your Mac up across the Internets try out this website. You’ll need to know two things: the IP address your isp has assigned you and the MAC address of your Mac. What’s the MAC address of your Mac? A MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to your ethernet card by the manufacturer. You’ll find it in System Preferences. Click on Network, click on Advanced, click on Ethernet - like you see below.

Then click on on the Ethernet tab at the top right. The number listed as the Ethernet ID is your MAC address.

The MAC address and the IP address assigned by your ISP are the only two pieces of information you need to wake your Mac using this site: dslreports.com/wakeup

But there’s a catch. Your router needs to let traffic through on UDP port 9. Which brings us to… (more…)