Mac NTU

NTU Mac Users Group

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 01:14:12 +0800

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?

BattleMinute has an update to address issues regarding login...

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 02:04:00 +0800

BattleMinute has an update to address issues regarding login credentials with weird characters as well as a faulty button that doesn’t seem to sign you in.

Click the Check for updates button and on completion of installation, restart the app by either clicking the cancel button if you are the login stage or just letting the app do its thing.

Back with another useful app for Mac users in NTU. BattleMinute...

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:24:46 +0800

Back with another useful app for Mac users in NTU. BattleMinute logs in to your NTU network account, takes your timetable and puts it nicely in iCal. It will try its best to autodetect relevant dates.

Download it here.

Traversity has been sent to Apple for review. Get updates.

Thu, 06 May 2010 12:58:21 +0800

Traversity has been sent to Apple for review. Get updates.

Work in progress. ;)

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 23:53:22 +0800

Work in progress. ;)

Exchange 2007 Nirvana

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:05:00 +0800

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

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:31:06 +0800

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.

Settings.app > General > Network > VPN > Add VPN Configuration
Tap the PPTP tab
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
Tap Save.

And you’re done!

Configuration Instructions for Live@edu for the iPhone

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:17:25 +0800

Configuration Instructions for Live@edu for the iPhone:

NTU has started transitioning student and alumni email accounts to Microsoft’s Live@edu. Instructions to configure the iPhone for Push ActiveSync with the service is detailed here. Will investigate further if Mail.app works with the service.

This should be interesting

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:11:00 +0800

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.

Facebook Page for NTU Mac users

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:52:51 +0800

Facebook Page for NTU Mac users:

We’re on Facebook as well!

Cleaned up the UI for edventurous. Refactored to target 10.5....

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 02:40:33 +0800

Cleaned up the UI for edventurous. Refactored to target 10.5. Hit me up if you wanna test.

So we all know NTU’s video lecture implementation for the...

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:50:00 +0800

So we all know NTU’s video lecture implementation for the Mac sucks. The slides don’t work and sometimes the video doesn’t even appear. I’ve been working on an app to help mitigate the problem.

edventurous is a pretty wrapper that takes the URL of the video lecture, parse it and dump the URL into a QuickTime movie player for viewing. You will need WMV Flip4Mac components to be able to actually view the video.

Will be releasing the app here in time to come when I’ve finished polishing the UI.

iPhone configuration for NTU Mail

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:52:00 +0800

In case there are those that wish to configure their iPhone for NTU mail manually, the settings are as follows,

Email: (your email)
Server: webmail.ntu.edu.sg
Domain: student
Username (your username)
Password: (your password)
Use SSL: YES

Remember to select Exchange as the account type.

Apps apps apps

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:16:58 +0800

Have some ideas for Apps that will run on the Mac to make life easier for NTU students. Ping me if you have ideas.

Will keep you guys updated.

No Exchange 2007 Support

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:11:00 +0800

So I met up with CITS. Snow Leopard’s Mail won’t be seeing NTU’s mail servers for students as the servers are still currently at Exchange 2003.

Suffice to say, Mail will not work with your NTU mail.

However, CITS did mention that they are exploring some cloud hosted solutions that might get you IMAP access, but I suppose that’s something that hasn’t been firmed out yet.

For now, Entourage or Outlook Web Access is your only hope amongst other things.

SL Exchange support update

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:21:37 +0800

Have an appointment with CITS this coming monday to help them test their implementation of Exchange 2007 to get it working with Snow Leopard.

Snow Leopard Exchange 2007 support

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:15:07 +0800

Did my bid for the Mac community (if there is even one). Wrote in to helpdesk to volunteer my services to ensure their Exchange servers work well with Snow Leopard.

Remember. Its LEAP authentication for NTUSECURE.

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:25:13 +0800

Remember. Its LEAP authentication for NTUSECURE.

Heading to WWDC this June. Can’t wait. Networking with other people from SMU reveals that...

Thu, 07 May 2009 02:56:04 +0800

Heading to WWDC this June. Can’t wait. Networking with other people from SMU reveals that there is a way to keep getting the WWDC scholarship every year that I am in school.

NTUSECURE for the iPhone

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:48:25 +0800

NTU iPhone users might also want to connect to the NTUSECURE WiFi network for better security or just the connivence of not having to log on all the time. Prior to iPhone OS 3.0, there wasn’t any option to add a WPA Enterprise network.

In order to get NTUSECURE running, you will have to create one in the iPhone Configuration Utility. I’ve created the file to get you on. Just run it or email it to yourself to get started.

Remember to enter your username as “domain\username” and then your password when prompted.

» NTUSECURE.mobileconfig for just WiFi Configuration

» NTU.mobileconfig for everything else.