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<div class="center_top">Thoughtful, detailed coverage of the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, plus the best-selling <a href="http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/?pt=TB-TAGLINE" style="color:yellow">Take Control</a> ebooks.</div>
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<h5>Author Biography</h5>
<p class="tearoffbox_text"><a href="http://www.tidbits.com/adam/">Adam C. Engst</a> is the publisher of TidBITS and Take Control Books. He has written numerous books, including the best-selling Internet Starter Kit series, and many magazine articles - thanks to Contributing Editor positions at MacUser, MacWEEK, and now Macworld. His innovations include the creation of the first advertising program to support an Internet publication in 1992, the first flat-rate accounts for graphical Internet access in 1993, and the Take Control electronic book series. His awards include the MDJ Power 25 ranking as the most influential person in the Macintosh industry outside of Apple every year since 2000, inclusion on the MacTech 25 list of influential people in the Macintosh technical community, and being named one of MacDirectory's top ten visionaries. And yes, he has been turned into an action figure.
Want more? <a href="http://twitter.com/adamengst">Follow Adam on Twitter</a> for 140-character musings on a variety of topics.</p><p class="tearoffbox_text_email"><span class="shift_down"><img src="/images/gettb_button_email.gif" height="12" width="12" border="0" alt="Send Email to Author"></span> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="document.check_human_6.submit_type.value='email'; document.check_human_6.author_id.value='6'; ShowTipBox('hc_6', 'hc_recaptcha_6', 'cb_item_add')">Email the author</a></p>
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<h6>Option-Click AirPort Menu for Network Details</h6>
<p>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.</p>
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<div style="padding-bottom:35px"><div class="tip_display" style="float:left"><p><br><a href="/tipbits/83">Link to this tip</a></p></div><div class="tip_display" style="float:right; width:150px">
<p class="credit">Written by<br><a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a></p></div></div>
<a href="/article/2454"onMouseOver="blurb_slide('2454', 'show')">Too much of a good thing</a></h4>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2454" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2454">Too much of a good thing -- We've heard a number of complaints that indicate you can overtrain a MessagePad to your handwriting. Too much training may confuse the poor little thing, causing recognition to decrease after significant usage</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 16 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2455" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2455">The Quadra 840AV surprisingly does not come with a cable for Apple's new AudioVision Monitor. This in itself would be understandable if the monitor came with a working cable, but the cable doesn't plug into any of the 840's ports</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 16 Aug 1993</div></div>
<a href="/article/2456"onMouseOver="blurb_slide('2456', 'show')">Putting printers to sleep.</a></h4>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2456" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2456">Putting printers to sleep. We've recently caught wind of a useful and politically correct freeware program released by Apple's Energy Star group. The program lets a LaserWriter Pro go to sleep after a specified amount of inactivity to save energy</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 16 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2457" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2457">Prodigy/Internet email details are still fuzzy, but Jeff Needleman said that the software for Macs to receive Internet email works fine, but the software for sending only works for DOS machines</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 16 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2462" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2462">Macworld Boston is over, and only two of the four days were utterly hot and uncomfortable. Boston drivers were, well, indescribable, and the city itself continues to bears less and less resemblance to the published maps</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 09 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2463" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2463">Newton Rollout -- One caveat to all the Newton comments you hear in TidBITS and other publications. It appears that although the Newton was introduced at Macworld Boston, the official rollout will take place in about two weeks</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 09 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2466" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2466">At every good Macworld Expo, people talk about the one hot arrival, an arrival that overshadows everything else, no matter how cool. This year the debutante was Apple's Newton MessagePad</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 09 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2468" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2468">I'll be making the semi-annual pilgrimage to Macworld Boston as you read this. Although I will be ably accompanied by Sally, our PowerBook 100, I won't read email except on CompuServe until 11-Aug-93</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 02 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2469" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2469">Header Quibble - I've noticed a bunch of failures from the fileserver recently, and in most cases, the failure stems from a strange header, most commonly the information in the From: line</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 02 Aug 1993</div></div>
<a href="/article/2470"onMouseOver="blurb_slide('2470', 'show')">Subscribing to TidBITS</a></h4>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2470" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2470">Subscribing to TidBITS -- Recently more personal subscription requests have come in as well, so I guess it's time to publish the instructions for subscribing automatically again</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 02 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2471" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2471">Legal Queries -- TidBITS is in the process of researching an article on software licensing with a view toward the actual law, standard agreements, nonstandard agreements, what happens if you break the agreement, and how it all applies to shareware/freeware</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 02 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2472" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2472">We received a number of well thought-out comments abut Roy McDonald's article on software acceleration in TidBITS #186. Although we don't have room for all of them, here are a few notes:Larry Rosenstein and several others disagreed with Roy's statement that "OOP is an obvious formula for inefficient code." Larry felt that this is a myth, pointing at the fact that the System 7 Finder is a new program that hasn't been optimized, in contrast to the System 6 Finder, which had gone through several iterations that would help speed it up</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 02 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2473" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2473">This information will end up in my book, but it's worth mentioning, since it may be of use to you now.AOL now splits long Internet email messages. In the past the America Online gateway software truncated incoming files at 27K, which put a damper on receiving long text files like TidBITS and BinHexed programs</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 02 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2474" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2474">We've come across an intriguing rumor. It might or might not be true, as with all rumors, and I'm sure Claris reserves the right to deny everything or to change its mind, but it appears that all of Claris's major products are doomed in favor of ClarisWorks.That sounds radical and rash, since even the slick ClarisWorks 2.0 doesn't boast anywhere near the stand-alone power of MacWrite Pro, FileMaker Pro, Resolve, or MacDraw Pro</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 02 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2475" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2475">Anyone who runs an unattended server Mac will appreciate a little-known feature of MacsBug 6.2.2. You can define a FirstTime/EveryTime macro that automatically restarts the Mac if it crashes into MacsBug, rather than sitting with an error message on its screen</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 02 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2476" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2476">By the time you read this, Apple will have released the Newton, in the form of the MessagePad, which we talked about in TidBITS #185. Several thousand units will be for sale at the Macworld Expo in Boston, although unless the price to the press is lower than for normal folks, I'm not coming home with one</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 02 Aug 1993</div></div>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2478" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2478">I need to issue a correction and an apology. There is no way Jesse Helms could be involved with the House of Representatives' pilot project because he is a Senator, not a Representative</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 26 Jul 1993</div></div>
<a href="/article/2479"onMouseOver="blurb_slide('2479', 'show')">The Macintosh LC 520</a></h4>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2479" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2479">The Macintosh LC 520 is sold in Canada, or so writes to tell us. Unlike in the U.S., where Apple currently sells the LC 520 only to the education market, normal people can buy the LC 520 in Canada</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 26 Jul 1993</div></div>
<a href="/article/2480"onMouseOver="blurb_slide('2480', 'show')">Bite the Purple Bullet</a></h4>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2480" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2480">Bite the Purple Bullet and buy yourself a bigger PowerBook drive. Along with the cases that various hard drive vendors sell, you can now buy a $99 NuBus card from ETC Peripherals that will accept your 2.5" hard drive (or a 3.5" low-power drive if you buy an optional Purple Bullet Expander)</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 26 Jul 1993</div></div>
<a href="/article/2481"onMouseOver="blurb_slide('2481', 'show')">In the unconfirmed news department</a></h4>
<div class="article_preview" id="blurb_2481" style="display:none"><div id="popup_inner_2481">In the unconfirmed news department, I hear that Apple has finished the Macintosh Hardware System Update 2.0, but that the update is not yet generally available</div><!-- blurb inner --></div><!-- blurb outer -->
<div class="featured_meta"><a href="/index.cgi?tbcat=" class="category"></a> | by <a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a> | 26 Jul 1993</div></div>
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