Lion’s FileVault 2 and disk restore: caveat encryptor
When Mac OS X 10.7 Lion introduced full disk encryption, called FileVault 2, it was a huge improvement over the original FileVault, which only encrypts a user's home folder. And because of the "creative" way FileVault was implem...
Hands on: five podcast apps that improve on iOS functionality
When I first heard about podcasting, I didn't get it. Why would I want to download MP3 files of people talking? But then former Apple CEO Steve Jobs demonstrated the usefulness of podcasts when he introduced podcast support for...
Comcast begins limited IPv6 rollout to home customers
On Wednesday, Comcast announced that it has started an IPv6 market deployment pilot in the town of Pleasanton, California. Comcast Xfinity Internet subscribers in Pleasanton who have an IPv6-capable DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem can au...
Feature: Cutting the cord: how the world’s engineers built Wi-Fi
In the 1980s, even before connectivity to the Internet became commonplace, people realized that connecting a group of computers together in a local area network (LAN) made those computers much more useful. Any user could...
In wake of World IPv6 Day, browsers resist IPv6 brokenness—but should they?
At a plenary session during the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) meeting in Quebec City, Canada two weeks ago, World IPv6 Day was rehashed at some length. It took place on June 8 this...
Feature: Thunder in the Air: Ars reviews the mid-2011 MacBook Air
In preparation for this review, I read back over Jacqui Cheng's review of the original MacBook Air, released in January 2008. In hindsight, it's obvious that making a fully functional laptop light, ultra-thin, and op...
Six weeks after World IPv6 Day, what have we learned?
Last month's World IPv6 Day created some excitement about IPv6. Once it was over, however, everyone went back to work—which for most people doesn't include anything IPv6-related.The idea behind World IPv6 Day on the ......
Feature: Speed matters: how Ethernet went from 3Mbps to 100Gbps… and beyond
Although watching TV shows from the 1970s suggests otherwise, the era wasn't completely devoid of all things resembling modern communication systems. Sure, the 50Kbps modems that the ARPANET ran on were the size of refrige......
Feature: Yes to Lion, no to cruft: get a clean start with manual Mac migration
I got my first Mac, an iBook, in 2002. It ran Mac OS 10.2 Jaguar. Since then, I've migrated my electronic life to new hardware three times and to a new OS version four times....
World IPv6 Day went mostly smoothly, with a few surprises
Tuesday evening, hundreds of Web destinations, including the four most popular ones worldwide, showed up on the IPv6 Internet. IPv6 traffic went up a lot in relative terms, but still barely registered as a blip...
Feature: World IPv6 Day looms: what might break (and how to fix it)
When the clock hits midnight on Wednesday, June 8 UTC, World IPv6 day begins. Many Web destinations—including the four most popular (Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Yahoo)—will become reachable over IPv6 for 24 hou...
Feature: Meet DOCSIS, Part 2: the jump from 2.0 to 3.0
In Part 1 of this series, we covered DOCSIS 2.0. Now, DOCSIS 2.0 is no slouch, but with the hot breath of fiber-to-the-home, WiMax, and LTE on its neck, it was clear to cable providers early on that DOCSIS...
