Mac NTU

NTU Mac Users Group

The powers that be has asked me to start a Mac Users Group in NTU. While this is cool and all I do not think I can do this without any input from the community at large.

The idea of a Mac Users Group has existed for various reasons. SMU and NUS both have their own equivalent with the latter having a membership of close to a thousand. SMU’s helps out their members by providing tech support which surprisingly is lacking for Mac users.

So what do we have at NTU? I honestly wouldn’t know. In fact, I’m contented to just do what I’m doing and keep at it. But I suppose it would still be cool to meet like minded people.

I’ve had time to pen down my thoughts and this is what I think.

I want a group that is cool and smart.

It should cater to Mac and iPhone users. The people who subscribe to the great Apple at Cupertino. But it should also be a place where people can hang out without worry that not having an Apple branded hardware would be frowned upon.

It should be open to anyone, not just students. Faculty are most welcome. In fact, faculty would help to enrich the group.

This group would consist of members who can share in their respective knowledge domains. Some areas of interest would be Photography, Video, Development, Mobile Devices and Design.

For the developers, it would also include encouragement of open source development instead of talking about it.

Being an Apple group would not be cool without special privileges. As such there should be sessions with Apple personnel as well as “celebrities” in that world.

For school, the group should strive to build a knowledge base that pertains to Mac users in NTU and provide help and technical support. Building an alliance of Mac users’ group amongst the academic institutions would be a cool afterthought.

Last but not least, how about a blog with current up to date information that can serve as a newsletter. Couple that with an iPhone app to have a connected community would make everything cooler.

What say you? Interested?

Exchange 2007 Nirvana

So by now, most students would have known that NTU is moving to Live@Edu for all school related emails. Bad news is that its Microsoft, good news is that it supports Exchange 2007.

This means you can add your Live@Edu account to Mail.app, Address Book and iCal.

For those who are lazy to read through the configuration guide, here is a quickstart.

1. Check that you are running Snow Leopard (10.6). Remember, this only works if you are using Snow Leopard.
2. Open Mail.app
3. Go to Preferences. (Cmd + ,)
4. Make sure you are in the Accounts tab.
5. Click the + button
6. Fill in the details as follows,
Full Name: «Your Full Name or whatever Name you want»
Email Address: «username»@e.ntu.edu.sg
Password: «Live@Edu Password»
7. Click Next and let them do their autodetection thing.
8. Agree to having Mail setup Address Book and iCal too.
9. Done!

NTU VPN Configuration for the iPhone

Some of you guys have asked about configuring the iPhone to use NTU’s VPN, so here it is. Please ensure you are using iPhone OS 3.x and above if you want to do this.

1. Settings.app > General > Network > VPN > Add VPN Configuration
2. Tap the PPTP tab
3. Description: NTU VPN
   Server: vpngate.ntu.edu.sg
   Account: student<user id>
   RSA SecurID: OFF
   Password: <your password>
   Encryption Level: Auto
   Send All Traffic: Off
4. Tap Save.

And you’re done!

This should be interesting

Just got an email saying that the Director of Education Development wants to meet up with me to discuss the silly little app I made called edveNTUrous.

This should be interesting.

Incidentally, the app can be found here.