Macminicolo Blog

A month ago I asked whether anyone had found a laptop bag that would hold a MacBook Air and an iPad in separate pockets. Up until now, I had been using the Nylon Sling Sleeve but I had two problems with it. First, it is a hold over from when I had a 13in laptop, but now I have an 11in MacBook Air so when it’s in the bag it goes swimming around. Second, I also carry an iPad with me and putting them both in the pocket made for some scratching. (I tried to remember to have the iPad’s smart cover in between them but there was so much room in there and they weren’t always synchronized in their swimming.)

So when I asked, there were a lot of recommendations (a few of them: 1, 2, 3, 4) but I ended up going with the Taipan slim S from Booq. I thought I’d give a quick report:

It’s a good looking black bag and a nice “super soft plush interior.” I like that all of the pockets are lined with this material, not just the one where the laptop is supposed to go. 

And of course it’s great that the laptop is compatible with Macs. Phew. I won’t have to deal with updating drivers or anything. 

It’s about the same thickness as the bag I am replacing:

But I like that the handles can easily be hidden in the bag in case you’re opting for the shoulder strap:

Speaking of the shoulder strap, it feels and looks like a seatbelt. Is suppose that makes it strong, but I don’t love it. That’s alright since I rarely have the shoulder strap attached:

The bag is made for a 13in laptop, but because the pockets are so slim, it keeps an 11in MacBook Air pretty tight. (I’m glad I have the option for 13in in case I change in the future.)  And when an iPad is concurrently in the second pocket, the two are quite snug. 

When you look down into the bag, you’ll see a padded lip just below the zippers. That’s a nice addition because when you have the laptop shut, those padded lips keep the zipper from rubbing against the laptop. Keeps clean edges:

As for cons, I don’t love the seatbelt/shoulder strap. And I don’t like the metal logo that was sewn onto the front of the bag. I think I’ll remove it before it starts snagging things as I walk around:

Overall, I like the new bag. It matches my criteria of of being slim, but also two separate pockets for a laptop and iPad. The bag is $70 from their site, or $73 if you want to grab it from Amazon because you like the Prime Shipping and easy checkout like me. 

A couple weeks ago, Apple introduced iPhoto for the iPad and iPhone. It’s a great application that makes it real fun to work with photos on the new iPad. One of the limitations mentioned is that it can handle up to 19 megapixel photos. This spec covers most consumers and even prosumer cameras.  But I wondered how it would handle the 22MP photos from the new Canon 5D Mark iii. Now that I finally have all three components in the same place, I thought I’d share my findings. 

I went outside to the street and took a very boring photo set at the full 22 megapixels:

I then used the iPad camera connection kit to import this photo to the new iPad. 

Now that the photo was imported into the Photos app, here are the scenarios you may be interested in:

First, if you connect your iPad to your Mac and import into iPhoto, the photo will come over in full 22 mexapixel resolution. Of course, this is a great way to backup all your photos while on a trip or photo shoot. If you absolutely had to, you could sync to your iPad and erase your memory card for more photos. When you get home, you’ll be able to bring everything over from your iPad. 

Second, I tried the option to share the photo from the “Photos” app. When you do that, the photo is sent in it’s full 22MP resolution. I tried it on both wifi and LTE and it was sent the same either way. 

The third option is to open up the recently imported photo in iPhoto for iOS. iPhoto has direct access to the photos in the camera and imports so that part is easy enough. However, since iPhoto won’t open photos higher than 19 megapixels, it actually make a duplicate photo at 5.5 megapixels:

The photo still looks fine of course, but it does cut the resolution quite a bit. 

At this point, you can work with your photo and do the edits you’d like to do. When you are done, it’s time to share. Here is where it gets interesting. 

If you use the built in “Share” menu, you have a few options. If you decide to email it, the photo is scaled all the way down to 2880x1920 (from the original 5760x3850). The size drops down to 319KB from 3.5MB. No doubt this is to make for a smaller attachment. The photo still looks decent, but you are losing quite a bit of the photo data.

 If you want all the resolution and file size differences, you can download the zip folder here or just see a screenshot of the “Get Info” differences here.

One final option to consider, if you want to edit in iPhoto but still send the 5.5MP image, you can save it to the camera roll and email it from there. (As opposed to emailing directly from iPhoto.)

Overall, Apple probably made the right call with all of these options. In any scenario, the image looks good and is prepared well for the intended use. I’m just glad to finally know how it works…I hope you are too.

Along with Mountain Lion comes Messages, a replacement for iChat. You can download Messages now. When I installed the Messages app, I noticed right away that it would no longer accept text invitations automatically. In other words, when I get a chat I first have to accept it and then I can respond. 

Luckily, when iChat was replaced, it didn’t wipe out the Scripts folder. So, you can still use the iChat script in Messages. 

Here is the setup:

First you need to go to the “Alerts” pane in the Messages Preferences. There you will change the drop down list to “Text Invivitation” and choose to “Run an Applescript script”. (I like that sentence. It’s like it’s from the office of redundancy office.)

Anyway, when you choose that you’ll need to find the script at /Library/Scripts/iChat/ and apply the Auto Accept one. (You may need to hit Command+Shift+G to open that location)

When you do this, it will also create a new folder and move that script to a new location at ~/Library/Scripts/Messages/. 

Glad to have that back.

Apple introduced their next operating system, OS X Mountain Lion. For the most part, it’s a better unification of Lion and iOS. But, for the overall look, I refer you to other great posts like this one. Since we host Mac mini servers, I wanted to take a look at what Mountain Lion means as a server. They released the Server preview today as well, but it is very much a preview. For instance, it doesn’t provide the ability to upgrade from Snow Leopard Server. Also, you can’t backup and restore using Time Machine with this seed. I’m sure both of these options will come later. 

You still upgrade a a regular version of Mountain Lion with the Server app from the Mac App Store. In other words, you upgrade “OS X” to “OS X Server” by installing the app just like Lion. And from a first look, it seems you’ll have to do that for one of the most basic things. For the first time that I can remember, the “Sharing” pane in OS X System Preferences no longer has “Web Sharing.” 

You used to enable Web Sharing to make your Mac run a website with apache. The option is no longer there in OS X. Though Apache is still installed and you can start it at the terminal. My guess is that the “Web Sharing” was confusing for the majority of users. 

When Lion introduced Server.app, there was still Server Admin that you could download from the Apple website and use for some of the advanced services. I can’t say this with 100% certainty, but it looks like Server Admin won’t be there for Mountain Lion. I guess we’ll see on that front.

So, once you have the Server app downloaded, you can start it up for the install process. I did find that the admin is required to have and input the password. (in other words, the password field can’t be left blank.) It asks just a few basic questions (company name, support email, etc) and it checks that your reverse DNS is setup correctly. (Sidenote: Reverse DNS is so often overlooked by first time Server users. Getting that right can save so many issues down the road.)

A few screenshots of the process:

Once you have it installed, you’ll see the services that are available. Here are a few I’d like to highlight:

There is a hardware overview page:

The web service has a default site, and also custom sites. You can set this in the “Web” service:

As you can see in that last screenshot, the file path is pretty clear on where the sites should be stored. When you install the Server app, it creates that /Library/Server folder with all of the info there:

VPN remains a two edged sword. You have to love the simplicity in setting it up, but you wish there was just one more option. That is, to set the range of IP addresses. By default, it takes from the backend of the subnet that your Mac server is using. This causes an issue when you have a static wan IP address. It’d be great if you could assign a LAN range like 10.0.1.xxx to VPN clients. (There is a reason that our Lion Server VPN tutorial is one of the most popular pages on our site. 

The Mail service continues to be so, so simple. Just enable the service and adjust the filtering. This is great because a Mac mini mail server has been a popular request now that Google has been changing it’s privacy terms. We’re seeing a lot of transitions by business from Google mail to mail servers of their own. 

The email address is setup as part of the new user creation:

I like the new Alerts options. In addition to getting Push Notifications for email,  ”OS X Server can send push notifications to alert you about new Software Updates, unresponsive volumes, hard drives getting full, and users that have exceeded their mail quota.”

Overall, I think OS X Server is going to continue to be great. This has been just a look at the options. I don’t think it’s fair to give it a real thorough testing on it’s first public beta. There will be options changed and stability improvements over the next few months. (If you want to keep updated when we do the real in-depth tests, subscribe to this blog or follow @macminicolo on twitter)

About Macminicolo.net

Macminicolo.net, a Las Vegas colocation company, has been hosting Mac minis since their introduction in January 2005. Low cost. High performance. They are the leaders in this niche market and are known for their personal service. They currently host hundreds of Mac minis for satisfied customers located in 31 different countries around the world. Get more info on our frequently asked questions page.

I was going through a folder of old images and found this one. When we were first starting out 7 years ago, I had built a wall of the Mac mini boxes and took this picture. My wife thought it was fun at first, but as we filled the whole room, she thought it was “less cute.”

You can click on the image to enlarge it. Can anyone name all the boxes? (I imagine that the small black one near the Airport Express may be the hardest to remember.) Take your guess @macminicolo on Twitter.

Today marks seven years of Macminicolo. We’ve been hosting Mac minis here in Las Vegas since 2005 and now we have a high end facility full of Mac minis. How about just a few quick numbers:

We have customers in 47 countries. In other words, one out of every four countries has a Macminicolo customer. Now that’s just neat to think about sometimes. And it’s not just a high quantity of customers, but also high quality customers. Some customers have been here since day one and we really work hard to keep them. 

Second, right now the Macminicolo twitter account has 699 followers. How poetic will it be if we get number 700 on our seventh birthday? You can help if you’d like to Follow @macminicolo

But the most important number is this, 1429%. That is the increase in benchmarks from the first Mac mini to the current generation Mac mini. Maybe a graph will help? The image below marks the benchmarks of each Mac mini release, with the mid-2011 showing both the dual-core and the quad-core options. Benchmarks come from Geekbench at Primate Labs, a great developer we are proud to call a customer.

So here is to seven great years of Macminicolo and the Mac minis themselves. If you’d like to host a Mac mini, you can see the pricing here or ask some more questions at our contact page.

We have a lot of customers who use their Mac mini as a VPN server.This works great when you need an IP address in the US, or a secure internet connection on the road, or a number of other reasons. When Apple released Lion, they changed the setup a bit. By default, Lion Server VPN will distribute IP addresses in the same range the Mac itself uses. This doesn’t work well in a facility like Macminicolo where each Mac mini has a static WAN IP address.

This tutorial will show how to make the Mac mini an internet gateway that assigns a LAN IP range to connected VPN clients. This tutorial was created on Lion 10.7.1, and proven to continue working when upgraded to 10.7.2. Read over the steps below, and then follow each one closely.

Server:

Before we start the process, be sure you have downloaded and installed the Server Admin Tools for Lion. Those can be found on the Apple Support site here.

Open the network settings on the Mac mini and add a virtual interface:

Once the interface is created as “LAN” then set the settings as below (ie, 10.0.0.1):

Open Server Admin and check the following services so they are available. The dots will remain grey as they are not yet active.:

Choose the “NAT” service, be sure you are on the “Overview” tab and click “Gateway Setup Assistant”:

It will warn that you are going to overwrite the DHCP subnets. This is fine:

Select Ethernet for the WAN interface:

Check “LAN” as the LAN Interface (this is the virtual interface you setup earlier):

Next we will enable the VPN server. Your Shared Secret will be shared with any of the clients that you allow to connect:

Next will be a window where you can confirm the settings and continue. When it’s done, it will be reported as complete:

The Gateway Setup should now be done and the four services should be enabled with green dots. First, go to the Firewall setting and be sure your proper ports are open. This would include the ARD ports so you can access the machine remotely and check all the VPN L2TP ports so you can connect to the new VPN server you are setting up. Or, you can choose to allow all traffic. Then Save:

Go to the DNS service in Server Admin and set the Forwarder IP Addresses to the DNS addresses that your Mac mini uses. (For Macminicolo customers, that is 66.209.64.20 and 66.209.64.21):

You can now close Server Admin. Next, open up Server.app and go to the VPN service. The service will be running already but we need to make two changes. First, we will need to change the subnet. It will default to 192.168.1.x, but it must be 192.168.2.x. Next, you can decide the range of IPs that you want to assign. For instance, if you anticipate 50 users, you would use a range of fifty. (ie, 192.168.2.100 - 192.168.2.150) Below are two screenshots of how it will look at first, and then how it will look after you change it.

At this point, disable the VPN Server, wait 20 seconds, and enable it again.

Next, open up terminal so we can we can run one command. You’ll be prompted for your admin password. This is the command:

sudo serveradmin settings vpn:Servers:com.apple.ppp.l2tp:DNS:OfferedServerAddresses:_array_index:0 = “192.168.2.1”

Finally, return to the VPN service, disable it, wait 20 seconds, and enable it again. After that, your VPN server should be active and ready for connections.

If you go back to your network settings, you’ll see that the IP address has changed from what you originally set. Also, you’ll see that it’s 192.168.1.x and not 192.168.2.x. Both of these are correct changes. Don’t alter them.

If it doesn’t connect right away, you may try the Terminal command again, and disabling/enabling the VPN service. Sometimes it takes a couple tries to rewrite the plist.

This tutorial was done on a Mac mini with a clean install of the operating system. As you set it up, be sure it doesn’t conflict with other services you may already have running.

If you try to connect from behing an Apple router (Airport Extreme or Airport Express) it may report that the server is unreachable. I wish I could give you a fix for this, but it looks to be a bug with the way the AE handles NAT, Back to my Mac, VPNs, and the mix of them. Hoping this will be fixed with an AE firmeware update.)

Setting up the client in OS X is just like any other VPN, but here are a couple tips. First, it will be done in the Network Settings. Create a new VPN interface with the “+” button and put in your settings. (this will include your server address and VPN account name:

In Authenication Settings, provide your account password, and the Shared Secret. Hit OK.

Under Advanced, you’ll be able to set for all traffic to be sent thru the VPN. There are other settings as well so you can connect in a way that works best in your situation.

Finally, you just hit connect.

This tutorial got a lot of help from Rusty Ross, a great consultant that works with some customers here at Macminicolo. (Let us know if you’d like to be referred.) If you have questions, you can find us on Twitter @macminicolo. And if you’re looking for somewhere safe and connected to place a VPN server, checkout our prices to host a Mac mini with us.

About Macminicolo.net
Macminicolo.net, a Las Vegas colocation company, has been hosting Mac minis since their introduction in January 2005. They are the leaders in this niche market and are known for their personal service. They currently host hundreds of Mac minis for satisfied customers located in 31 different countries around the world. Get more info on our frequently asked questions page.

Apple has released their next version of OS X called Lion, and with it came some big changes in Screen Sharing. 

Screen Sharing is a service built into OS that allows a Mac to be controlled by another device (a PC, iPhone, iPad, etc.) It was officially introduced in Leopard, though the ability to VNC into a machine goes back long before that. It was Leopard that brought the actual Screen Sharing application. 

Until Lion, you would connect to a Mac and see whatever was on the screen of the Mac. So, if someone else was using the machine, you would see what they were doing and you’d each have the ability to controll the mouse and type keyboard commands. 

Lion introduced Per-User screen sharing. This allows you to “remotely log in to a Mac with any user account on that computer and control it, without interrupting someone else who might be using the computer under a different login.” 

This change is incredibly useful but there is a slight limitation. As found by AFP548.com in the Lion Eula:

Section 2,H. Remote Desktop Connections.  Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, when remotely connecting from another computer or electronic device (each a “Device”) to an Apple-branded computer that is running the Apple Software (for purposes of this Section, such Apple-branded computer is referred to as the “Home Mac”), whether through the Screen Sharing feature or through any other means:

(i) only one (1) Device may remotely connect at any one time, whether directly or indirectly, to control the graphical desktop session of the Apple Software that is running and being displayed on the Home Mac; and

(ii) a reasonable number of Devices may remotely connect at the same time for the sole purpose of simultaneously observing the same graphical desktop session of the Apple Software that is running and being displayed on the Home Mac, as long as they do not control the Apple Software in any way; but

(iii) only one (1) Apple-branded Device may remotely connect at any one time, whether directly or indirectly, to control a separate graphical desktop session of the Apple Software that is different from the one running and being displayed on the Home Mac, and such connection may only be made through the Screen Sharing feature of the Apple Software.

Except as expressly permitted in this Section 2H, or except as otherwise licensed by Apple, you agree not to use the Apple Software in connection with service bureau, time-sharing, terminal sharing or other similar types of services. You also agree not to use or offer the Apple Software, or any of its functionality, to provide service bureau, time-sharing, terminal sharing or other similar types of services to third parties.

Or in other words, if  someone else needs to control the same Mac that you are using then only one device can do it at a time. That’s a letdown but I can understand that it is a move to preserve Mac sales. 

Now that the use limitations are clear, what is the actual process of Screen Sharing?

First, be sure to enable Screen Sharing on the server. It is found in System Preferences -> Sharing

Now from the client end,  just use the Finder menubar Go -> Connect to Server (or Command+K)

Then type:

vnc://ip_address

or

vnc://domain.com

When Screen Sharing finds the server, you’ll enter the user login for the remote Mac and then you’ll see the screen as if it’s sitting in front of you. The screen you see will depend on what authentication you use to connect. 

The actual Screen Sharing app is also improved. It now offers ” a new toolbar that provides access to useful tools and settings such as screen resolution, Clipboard access, and screen capture.” (For a tip, the first time you connect with Screen Sharing, right-click the app in your dock and choose to “Keep In Dock.” With it there, you can click on it much quicker without the “Go To Server”)

Lion brought great news for iPhone screen sharing clients because you no longer have to enable the “VNC” option in Screen Sharing.  And even better, you’ll be able to log right into your user account (instead of first seeing the OS X login screen which happened with VNC.)

Two of my favorite screen sharing apps are Screens and iTeleport. Both of them have been updated to work with Lion. 

When you setup a new machine in either of these apps. You’ll be asked the regular information (machine name, address, etc). Then, as part of the authentication you can choose the new option “Mac” and enter your OS X user and password. This will bring you right to your desktop. 

So in summary, the Screen Sharing to Lion has been vastly improved. It’s easier to connect from both iOS devices and Macs…even though you can only connect from one at a time. (At least according to the EULA)

Recently, Apple gave a preview of their two upcoming operating systems Lion and iOS 5. They both look great. Along with Lion, they also gave more info on Lion Server. I’ve noticed a good number of questions about Lion Server, and considering my day job, I thought I’d dig in and get familiar with it. Now that I have installed and cloned and downgraded and cloned for a few hours, I’ll share my findings here. I’ll answer some questions I’ve been sent about upgrading, pricing, and the operating system in general. (Though, we can’t view it as an “operating system” anymore. More on that later.)

Two things to keep in mind before we start:

1. Whether a Macminicolo customer or not, please don’t consider this official and absolute advice. This is still beta software and some of it may change before Lion is officially released. For the MMC customers, we’ll be sending out an email as we get closer. 
2. This isn’t a tutorial on how to setup Lion Server. We’ll be providing that a little later and will make that available free. (Follow @macminicolo to know when it’s ready.)

Alright, with that said, let’s run thru some items. 

The Upgrade Process

Lion and Lion Server will be offered via the Mac App Store. Naturally you need version 10.6.6 or higher of the OS you are currently running since the Mac App Store was made available with that update. The price will be $30 for Lion and $50 for the Lion Server app. 

I’ve seen a lot of confusion on what the upgrade process will be from different operating systems, how it will work, and how much it will cost. So, let’s run thru it. According to my tests, here is what it will take to get to Lion Server.

• Snow Leopard - $80 - First you will upgrade to Lion. Once there, you’ll be able to run the Server.app and it will walk you thru the setup process of starting services, creating users, setting your hostname, etc. 
• Snow Leopard Server - $80 - You can not upgrade to Lion directly. If you try to run the Lion installer on Snow Leopard Server, it will first look for the Server.app in the “Application” folder of the Mac. 

When you have that in place, the installer will first install Lion. Then, when it restarts, it will walk you thru some very minimal steps for the Server.app (hostname confirmation, admin email, etc). At that point, the Server.app will take your Snow Leopard Server settings and upgrade them. This will include migrating OD to 10.7, updating LDAP, importing data, etc. This can take some time. 

Once it is done, you’ll see the new Server.app and the services will be active. For the most part, my testing has shown a smooth transition though I think it will get better with the official release. If you’ve done a lot of work manually with the CLI, prepare for things to break. They always do. Also, Server.app gives some informative notifications on errors and how you might be able to fix them. 

• Lion - $50 - If you buy a Mac that comes with Lion, you will download Lion Server from the Mac App Store and run it in place. The initial download will be small, but as you install, the Mac will download additional components of the install. Once installed, you’ll walk thru the process of adding users, which services to setup, etc. It’s a very, very simple upgrade. 
• Lion Server - $0 - Since the Lion Server components are now available from the Mac App Store, some people have assumed that all Macs will come with Lion and leave it to customers to upgrade once installed. But, in a confirmed tip to Macminicolo, when Lion is released, there will still be server versions of Mac Pro/mini and will come pre-installed with Lion Server. (So, when you startup, you’ll go thru the regular process of creating users, services, etc.)

Other Tidbits

First: Lion and Lion Server can be upgraded remotely. This has always been possible on a LAN, but not remotely. (Just ask our list of customers who tried to upgrade or re-install their Mac minis from afar. We were glad to jump in and help.) But with Lion, you can start the upgrade process, give it about 25 minutes to install offline, then it will come back up ready for the configuration. Also, Lion creates a recovery partition that you can boot into as it will keep the network settings. In a business like ours, this is huge. 

Second: OS X really, really doesn’t like it when you change the hostname of a machine. It’s possible, but certainly not fun with the command line. To do it completely, it usually takes a clean install of the OS. With Lion, it’s still not recommended to change after an install, but at least it gives you a GUI to do it now and explains the different options for hostname. 

Third: By default, Server Admin is not installed. Right now, it’s available as a separate download. And you’ll need to install it if you want to access things like DHCP and DNS. Instead, you’ll use (and Apple recommends) Server.app. Services like iCal and iChat are only available in Server.app.

It’s clear that Apple wants to make Lion Server very simple for the many small business who will run it. For instance, the firewall settings are found in System Preferences rather than Server.app because that is where it’s familiar to OS X users. 

This brings me to my final point.

Where is OS X Server headed?

Lion Server is not an operating system. Phil Schiller was clear about this in the keynote:

Server isn’t another operating system. It’s just a bunch of applications you can purchase to run on top of Lion. 

Here is one way to look at it:

When you want to get serious about photography on a Mac, you ditch iPhoto and upgrade to Aperture.

When movies get important to you, you move from iMovie to Final Cut. 

And when System Preference -> Sharing isn’t enough, you make the $50 upgrade to the Lion Server app. 

This is not going to make everyone happy. Enterprise will consider it not “Enterprise ready.”  Instead, it is very simple for small business.  And Apple likes this because this means they sell a Mac, iPhone and iPad to every employee of the business. In fact, I’ll put it this way, the software has been lowered in price because it’s availability will sell more hardware. 

Lion Server is going to be a great upgrade. The Profile Manager, Push Notifications, and iPad document sharing will be very popular. I’ll have more thoughts/insights on it later as we near the official release of Lion. (And feel free to send me questions @brianstucki.)

As I was watching the most recent Apple Keynote, it became clear that your Apple ID was going to become more and more important. Among it’s many uses, it’s used to interact with iCloud, to make purchases at the iTunes music and App Stores, and can even be used to log into a Mac with Screen Sharing if you don’t have a local account on the machine. As long as you have a secure password, it’s great to have everything so simplified with one login. However, there is one concern I had right away. 

In our house we have 8 iOS devices. I have an iPhone and iPad and an iPod Touch. My wife has an iPhone and an iPad. My two sons have an iPod Touch each. And the family shares an Apple TV. Our family purchase a lot of apps, music and movies from Apple. To keep things simple and usable for everyone, we use one Apple ID to make purchase so that each of us can enjoy the media. My guess is that there are a lot of homes out there similar to ours. 

This setup has worked great, but with the recent iCloud, I was worried that it wouldn’t be so simple anymore. I’ll want my own calendars, contacts, photo streams, etc. And so will my wife and sons. We can all setup our own Apple IDs, but it would mean we each would have to buy a copy of an app if we wanted the whole family to use it on their devices. Also, my wife and sons wouldn’t have access to past purchase. (Come on, you knew I’d be keeping the original Apple ID.)

I installed Lion on a partition of my iMac, and then iOS 5 on my iPod touch so I could find the best way for our family to implement. It turns out, there is a way. 

When you start a new device with iOS 5, you’ll see the following screen:

If you fill in your Apple ID here, it will set it up everywhere on the phone. That include iCloud, the app store, mail, iBookstore, etc. The key is to “Skip this step” and do each part manually. The downside is that you’ll start with just the basic install of apps, and all your past apps won’t be placed immediately. 

If you tap on Settings, you’ll see a place for “iCloud”. There, you will login with your personal iCloud Apple ID. (You can use one you have already, or create one there.) I have a me.com address that I use for personal syncing, so I used that Apple ID. Once I logged in, I could choose all the settings I want to use with iCloud. 

Then further down in Settings, you’ll have an option of “Store.” In there, you’ll have a chance to login and make settings for you iTunes purchases. Here I used our family Apple ID that we use to purchase apps, movies and music. 

Once it is setup in this way, here are the results:

• Calendars, contacts, photo streams, reminders, and bookmarks were all my own, personal information. They would sync to my test iPod and my Mac install running Lion. They did not sync to my family iOS Devices. (I took the iPod Touch from my son and installed there for testing also. He is 2 and was not happy, but I distracted him with a box of Nilla Wafers)
• I purchased an app on my Lion Mac, and it was immediately downloaded to my Mac, my iPod Touch and my son’s iPod Touch. This could be a problem because I buy a lot more apps than my family. When we’re all up-to-date on software, I think I’ll leave mine for Auto-Downloads, but have my family manually downloading. I’m just glad they can still access past purchases and manually download apps I buy in the future

To sum it up, it is still possible to use iCloud for your personal stuff, but a shared Apple ID for you and your family. For me, the key was to skip the automated iCloud setup at the iOS welcome walk-through.