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Option-Click AirPort Menu for Network Details

If you hold down the Option key while clicking the AirPort menu in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, you'll see not just the names of nearby Wi-Fi networks, but additional details about the selected network. Details include the MAC address of the network, the channel used by the base station, the signal strength (a negative number; the closer to zero it is, the stronger the signal), and the transmit rate in megabits per second showing actual network throughput. If you hover the cursor over the name of a network to which you're not connected, a little yellow pop-up shows the signal strength and type of encryption.

 

 

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Netscape Communicator 4.6 Available

Netscape Communicator 4.6 Available -- Netscape Communications has released the English language edition of Netscape Communicator 4.6 for Mac OS. This new release contains unspecified fixes for Netscape Communicator's security and functionality, updated online help, AOL Instant Messenger 2.0, and RealPlayer 5.0.2, but doesn't offer significant feature improvements compared to Netscape Communicator 4.5, nor does it ship with the recently released RealPlayer G2 for Macintosh. (See "Driving the 4.5 Web Browsers" in TidBITS-465 for an overview of the Web browsing features in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.5 and Netscape Communicator 4.5.)

<ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/communicator/4.6/ english/mac/>
<http://www.real.com/products/player/index.html? src=productsmain>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/05255>

Netscape Communicator 4.6 requires a PowerPC-based Mac running Mac OS 7.6.1 or later with at least 24 MB of RAM; it's a 13.6 MB download from Netscape's FTP servers. Residents of the U.S. and Canada should be able to download a version with 128-bit encryption from Netscape's Web servers shortly. [GD]

<http://home.netscape.com/download/>

 

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