Alfa antenna not recommended for Mac

I recently purchased an Alfa 1000mW 1W 802.11b/g USB Wireless WiFi Network Adapter from (also known as ASUW036H) from Amazon.  I posted a review there but it has not appeared, and I'm not sure it will, so I'm repeating the main points here.  The bottom line is that while it works, it is not easy to install and it won't work on future versions of the Mac OS.

Recently, the signal from my home wifi antenna has been inadequate for my Mac. Whether the problem is with the Mac AirPort or the Verizon modem is not clear.  With Verizon on strike, I don't think that anyone is going to come out to diagnose that side of the problem, so I bought this antenna.  It works, but installation on Mac OS 10.6 is far from easy.

For the record, there is a video on YouTube, and you can download the driver from the alfa web site (here) but I got the instructions on the CD that came with the antenna.  That was harder than you might think, since the CD was a non-standard size and would not work with the Mac CD slot (I had to use an external CD drive).  The instructions themselves involve the following steps.
1) You have to download the driver, as a rar-encrypted file, from a third-party site (here).  I had to use another computer, since the Mac's internet connection was not working properly.
2) You have to unpack the .rar file.  To do this, I downloaded WinRAR, which came with the StartNow computer virus (see previous post).
3) The package can then be installed on the Mac, but must be activated using line commands entered onto a terminal window.
4) Finally, the RealTek software has to be run.

It works.  The antenna receives enough signal that internet works fine.  This is an important point, and I'm happy for it.

But there are two more negatives.

First, I found that upon restarting, the device is not recognized.  The command

sudo kextutil -t -v /System/Library/Extensions/rtl8187l.kext

has to be repeated each time the computer is rebooted (anyone with a better solution, please comment). 

Second, this device will not work with future versions of the Mac OS.  From the alfa web site:
AWUS036H is not compatible to Mac OS 10.6.7 and later version, due to the chipset manufacture has stopped its driver update for this particular model. In countermeasure, we have verified that our AWUS036NH, AWUS036NEH, AWUS051NH, and AWUS036NHR are compatible to Mac OS 10.6.8.

To be fair, I should point out that this is as much Apple's fault as Alfa's.  There are many other antennas that don't work with the Mac.  I suppose that the best solution is to use a repeater rather than an antenna.

DirectNIC

I have been using DirectNIC for my domain names for a while (see the problems I had in May), and service has been good. Thursday, I discovered that stevemount.org was not getting redirected to www.life.umd.edu/labs/mount/ and discovered the reason. DirectNIC is based in New Orleans. The impressive thing is that they had provided service that long (and it was restored by Saturday morning). So, DirectNIC has done a much better job of pre-storm preparation and post-storm recovery than our government. Their experiences are all described on a blog (The Interdictor) that includes many photographs taken from downtown New Orleans during the storm and since, and a lot of on-the-ground reports that provide a unique perspective. The DirectNIC homepage indicates that they are migrating sites to new servers (presumably not in New Orleans). Their heroic efforts in the meantime have certainly earned my loyalty.

Domain name problems

You might be having trouble with the links on my web pages. Here's why.

Three years ago I purchased SteveMount.org, SteveMount.com and RNAinfo.org through Network Solutions. Each of these domains is redirected to other sites. The idea is that these URLs might be more stable than the URLs on the servers that host them, so I'll be able to move the site later if necessary. I am in the process of moving the "hosting" of these sites to directNIC. I switched because Network Solutions charges three times as much, but the immediate trigger was when the Network Solutions servers went down for a few hours last week. I did a bit of research, and directNIC comes highly recommended. I asked them before switching whether there was any way for redirection to continue uninterrupted, and was given the following reply: "The current hosting settings of the domains will not change as the domains transfer over." This turns out not to be true, so stevemount.com was down for a few hours today, and the others will probably go down soon. I've changed the links on my most active pages, but I can't change them all, so if you are having trouble, here's the key:

stevemount.com currently goes to stevemount.outfoxing.com
stevemount.org currently goes to life.umd.edu/labs/mount
RNAinfo.org currently goes to life.umd.edu/labs/mount/RNAinfo