Student shot at Calif. high school by classmate

Updated at 4:14 p.m. ET

TAFT, Calif. A 16-year-old student armed with a shotgun walked into class in a rural California high school on Thursday and shot one student, fired at another but missed, and then was talked into surrendering by a teacher and another staff member, officials said.

The teen victim was in critical but stable condition, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told a press conference. The sheriff said the teacher suffered a minor pellet wound to the head but declined treatment.

When the shots were fired, the teacher began trying to get the more than two dozen students out a back door and also engaged the shooter in conversation to distract him, Youngblood said. A campus supervisor responding to a call of shots fired also began talking to him.

"They talked him into putting the shotgun down," Youngblood said.

The sheriff said that at one point the shooter told the teacher, "I don't want to shoot you" and named the person he wanted to shoot.

The shooter may have had up to 20 shotgun rounds in his pockets, he said.

Officials said there's usually an armed officer on campus but the person wasn't there because he was snowed in. Taft police officers arrived within 60 seconds of first reports.

The shooting occurred about 9 a.m. at Taft Union High School in a community of fewer than 10,000 people amid oil and natural gas production fields about 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

The shooting happened on the second floor of the school's science building around 9 a.m., according to CBS affiliate KBAK in Bakersfield.

As word spread, Dayna Hopper rushed to the school to pick up her son Joseph Sorensen, 16, and daughter, Cheryle Pryor, 15, who had called from Cheryle's cellphone.

"I panicked. I wanted to puke and just get here," Dayna Hopper told The Bakersfield Californian.

KERO-TV Bakersfield reported that the station received phone calls from people inside the school who hid in closets.

The bell had just rung at a nearby school when teachers began shouting for students to get inside buildings, and the principal used an intercom to tell students to stay inside, Felicity Reich, 13, a student at Lincoln Junior High School, told the newspaper.

Shaken, she held the hand of her mother, Ellie Reich, as she spoke.

The student who was shot at the high school was flown to a hospital in Bakersfield, said Ray Pruitt, spokesman for the Kern County Sheriff's Department.

About 900 students are enrolled at the high school, which includes 9th through 12th grades.

Masses of parents headed to the school football field to find their children, and officials at other schools took action to protect their students as well, the newspaper said.

The Taft shooting came less than a month after a gunman massacred 20 children and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., then killed himself.

That shooting prompted President Barack Obama to promise new efforts to curb gun violence. Vice President Joe Biden, who was placed in charge of the initiative, said he would deliver new policy proposals to the president by next week.

At the state Capitol, Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, said the thoughts and prayers of legislators were with the people at the Taft school.

"It really is just another very sad moment as we deal with the ongoing reality of gun violence that has captured so much of our attention this last year," Perez said.

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Jodi Arias' Lies Detailed at Murder Trial

Jodi Arias lied about her relationship with Travis Alexander, where she was when Alexander was killed, and even where she worked as a bartender, according to the case laid out by prosecutors in her murder trial.

Prosecutors opened the fifth day of her trial by using Arias' receipts for food, gas and a car rental that essentially tracked her movements in the days before and after Alexander's murder on June 4, 2008.

The testimony today also showed that Arias had lied to her new boyfriend Ryan Burns about working at a bar called Margaritaville in her hometown of Yreka, Calif.

"Is there any restaurant in Yreka called Margaritaville? Has there ever been?" prosecutor Juan Martinez asked Nathaniel Mendes, a former detective with the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office in California.

"No, sir," Mendes replied.

The testimony is apparently intended to bolster the prosecution's portrayal of Arias as a serial liar who continually denied her involvement in Alexander's death until she eventually confessed to killing him months after his bloody body was found at his home in Mesa, Ariz.

Arias, now 32, is accused of murdering Alexander, a former lover, by stabbing him 27 times, slashing his throat and shooting him in the head in June 2008. She could face the death penalty if convicted of a "heinous and depraved" crime.

Jodi Arias Trial: Jurors See Photos of Bloody Handprint Watch Video

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Who Is the Alleged Killer? Watch Video

Jodi Arias Trial: Defense Claims Victim Was Sex Deviant Watch Video

Jodi Arias Trial: Watch Live

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Full Coverage

Photos of Key Players and Evidence in the Jodi Arias Murder Trial

Arias claims Alexander was a controlling and abusive "sexual deviant" who she was forced to kill in self-defense.

But in testimony today and Wednesday, prosecutors pointed out several lies Arias told around the time she killed Alexander.

Mendes testified that Arias worked at a restaurant called Casa Ramos in Yreka, not a Margaritaville bar that she told Burns. Mendes also went over receipts showing that Arias rented a car the day before she killed Alexander, and noted that she went to a rental outfit 90 miles from her hometown despite two businesses that rented cars in Yreka.

Arias told friends and investigators that she rented a car to go on a road trip to visit Burns, in West Jordan, Utah, on June 3, 2008. She showed up to Burns' house a day late with cuts on her hands, but told Burns that she got lost driving and that the cuts were from broken glass at her Margaritaville bar tending job, according to Burn's testimony Wednesday.

The trail of receipts showed that Arias drove from California to Alexander's hometown of Mesa on Tuesday, June 4, 2008.

There, the pair had sex and took sexually graphic photos of one another, according to photographs and the opening statement of Arias' lawyer. Shortly after the tryst, Arias killed Alexander, both sides agree.

Burns testified that Arias never mentioned going to Alexander's house when she arrived at his home in Utah. He said he did not know that Arias and Alexander were still sexually involved, and that she told him they had broken up.

When she arrived at his home, just 24 hours after killing Alexander, she seemed "normal," he said. The pair kissed and cuddled, and went out with Burns' friends, where she laughed and made conversation.

Prosecutors have also played recorded phone conversations between detectives and Arias in the weeks after Alexander's body was found. She can be heard lying multiple times to investigators as they ask about the last time she spoke with Alexander and her trip to Utah.

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String of bombings kill 101, injure 200 in Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least 101 people were killed in bombings in two Pakistani cities on Thursday in one of the country's bloodiest days in recent years, officials said, with most casualties caused by sectarian attacks in Quetta.

The bombings underscored the myriad threats Pakistani security forces face from homegrown Sunni extremist groups, the Taliban insurgency in the northwest and the less well-known Baloch insurgency in the southwest.

On Thursday evening, two coordinated explosions killed at least 69 people and injured more than 100 in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, said Deputy Inspector of Police Hamid Shakil.

The first attack, in a crowded snooker hall, was a suicide bombing, local residents said. About ten minutes later, a car bomb exploded, they said. Five policemen and a cameraman were among the dead from that blast.

The attacks happened in a predominately Shia neighborhood and banned sectarian group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility. The extremist Sunni group targets Shias, who make up about 20 percent of Pakistani's population.

Targeted killings and bombings of Shia communities are common in Pakistan, and rights groups say hundreds of Shia were killed last year. Militant groups in Balochistan frequently bomb or shoot Shia passengers on buses travelling to neighboring Iran.

The killers are rarely caught and some Shia activists say militants work alongside elements of Pakistan's security forces, who see them as a potential bulwark against neighboring India.

Many Pakistanis fear their nation could become the site of a regional power struggle between Saudi Arabia, source of funding for Sunni extremist groups, and Iran, which is largely Shia.

But sectarian tensions are not the only source of violence.

The United Baloch Army claimed responsibility for a blast in Quetta's market earlier in the day. It killed 11 people and injured more than 40, mostly vegetable sellers and secondhand clothes dealers, police officer Zubair Mehmood said. A child was also killed.

The group is one of several fighting for independence for Balochistan, an arid, impoverished region with substantial gas, copper and gold reserves, which constitutes just under half of Pakistan's territory and is home to about 8 million of the country's population of 180 million.

SWAT BOMBING

In another incident Thursday, 21 were killed and more than 60 injured in a bombing when people gathered to hear a religious leader speak in Mingora, the largest city in the northwestern province of Swat, police and officials at the Saidu Sharif hospital said.

"The death toll may rise as some of the injured are in critical condition and we are receiving more and more injured people," said Dr. Niaz Mohammad.

It has been more than two years since a militant attack has claimed that many lives in Swat.

The mountainous region, formerly a tourist destination, has been administered by the Pakistani army since their 2009 offensive drove out Taliban militants who had taken control.

But Talibans retain the ability to attack in Swat and shot schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousufzai in Mingora last October.

A Taliban spokesman said they were not responsible for Thursday's bombing.

(Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar, Pakistan; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Jason Webb)

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Bombs kill 92 in Pakistan's Quetta: police

QUETTA: Bomb attacks killed 92 people in Pakistan's city of Quetta on Thursday, as twin suicide bombers targeted a snooker hall frequented by Shiites in the deadliest single attack in the country for nearly two years.

At least 81 people were killed and 121 wounded when two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the crowded club in an area of the southwestern city dominated by members of the Shiite Muslim community, a senior police officer said.

It was one of the worst single attacks ever on the minority community, which account for around 20 per cent of Pakistan's 180-million strong population.

It was the deadliest attack in Pakistan since twin suicide bombers killed 98 people outside a police training centre in the northwestern town of Shabqadar on May 13, 2011 -- shortly after US troops killed Osama bin Laden.

The double suicide blasts came hours after a bomb ripped through a security forces' vehicle in a crowded part of the city, killing 11 people and wounding dozens more.

At the snooker club the first suicide bomber struck inside the building, then 10 minutes later an attacker in a car outside blew himself up as police, media workers and rescue teams rushed to the site, said officer Mir Zubair Mehmood.

"The death toll has risen to 81 so far," senior police official Mir Zubair Mehmood told a news conference, putting the number of wounded at 121.

"Both (attacks) were (carried out by) suicide bombers and the death toll could rise further," he added.

Mehmood said the dead also included nine police personnel and a local television camera man. Several rescue workers were also killed in the attacks, he said.

The snooker club is frequented mostly by Shiites, police said.

According to the US-based Human Rights Watch, 2012 was the deadliest year on record for Shiites in Pakistan.

The organisation late Thursday called the government's failure to protect the community, which accounts for around 20 per cent of the population, "reprehensible and amounts to complicity in the barbaric slaughter of Pakistani citizens".

People were seen wailing and crying beside the bodies lying on the ground, an AFP photographer said.

The bombings damaged several shops and nearby buildings. At least four vehicles of local ambulance service were destroyed. The blast site was also littered with the belongings of the victims.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Quetta has been a flashpoint for attacks against Shiites, in particular those from the ethnic Hazara minority, as well as suffering from attacks linked to a separatist insurgency and Islamist militancy.

Police said the attacks disrupted power supplies and plunged the area into darkness that hampered rescue work.

Quetta is the capital of the province of Baluchistan, one of the most deprived parts of Pakistan but rich in natural gas and mineral deposits on the Afghan and Iranian borders.

In the earlier attack bombers had targeted Frontier Corps personnel, planting their device underneath an FC vehicle, a senior police investigator said.

"At least one FC personnel was killed and 10 others wounded, two of them seriously," FC spokesman Murtaza Baig told AFP.

Bomb disposal official Abdul Razzaq said the bomb, packed with 20 to 25 kilograms of explosives, was detonated by remote control.

"I went out of my shop and saw a thick cloud of dust. I was very scared and saw people screaming in panic. There were dead bodies and injured people shouting for help," said Allah Dad, a local shopkeeper.

In the northwestern Swat valley on Thursday a gas cylinder blast at a religious gathering killed 22 people and wounded more than 80, officials said, prompting a probe into possible sabotage.

The explosion took place at a weekly meeting of the local Tableeghi Jamaat (preachers' party) at its centre on the outskirts of Mingora, the main town in the district, regional police chief Akhtar Hayat said.

It was the deadliest blast in Swat since the Pakistan army declared it back under government control in July 2009 following a two-year Taliban-led insurgency in the valley.

- AFP/jc

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ZTE gets more love from the carriers

The Grand S may mark ZTE's coming-out party in the U.S.

(Credit:
Lynn La/CNET)

LAS VEGAS -- When the head of ZTE's North American business, Lixin Cheng, approached the U.S. carriers about building smartphones more than two years ago, he was met with skepticism.

During Cheng's meetings here at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the carrier executives have told him: "Show me more."

It's indicative of the tremendous strides that ZTE has made in its relationships with the carriers, even as its brand continues to fly under the radar for consumers. After toiling in relative anonymity for the last two years building low-end and mass-market smartphones, the company seems poised to have a bigger impact in 2013.

Take the debut of the ZTE Grand S at
CES. It's the latest flagship smartphone from the Chinese company, and it comes with all of the buzz-worthy specifications for a thin design. Typically, a high-end phone from an unknown vendor like ZTE would never make it to U.S. shores, but Cheng confirmed that the Grand S would launch here later this year.

He declined to specify when or with which carrier partner.

Looking ahead, Cheng said that U.S. carrier executives have been impressed with the 2014 concept models ZTE has shown off.

"There was a wow factor when they saw them," he said, adding that the executives pushed to make sure ZTE weren't holding anything back for one of their rivals.

ZTE has largely made smartphones that carried the wireless providers' brand, or were made to fit a specific low price. Early in the process, the carriers dictated a lot of the specifications and details that went into a product. But more recently, ZTE has had a lot more input into the development process.

"Before, they dominated the discussion," Cheng said. "They trust us more now."

Meet ZTE's new flagship phone, the Grand S

While ZTE phones are abundant at the top-tier carrier stores, Cheng said many of the carriers use ZTE phones as their benchmark device for testing.

The carriers like ZTE because of the shorter development process for its phones. Cheng said it takes six to eight months from the design of a phone to launch, compared with the typical development time of 12 to 18 months.

Also to the carriers' liking, ZTE can produce the smartphones at a lower cost, meaning lower subsidies. At a time when the carriers are looking to get away from paying the pricey subsidy of the iPhone, ZTE presents an increasingly attractive option.

"We continue to position ourselves as the best [original equipment manufacture] partner," he said, adding he was more optimistic about this year's relationship with the carriers.

While its stock with the carriers may be rising, ZTE has zero pull with U.S. consumers. That's largely a result of its work building carrier-branded phones. The smartphones that do get the ZTE brand on them are offered at the smaller regional prepaid carriers.

The only real publicity ZTE has gotten recently was when the House Intelligence Committee said ZTE and Huawei poised a national security risk, a charge both companies have denied. The committee's report did specify that its concerns came from the infrastructure business, and not the mobile devices business.

ZTE has said, and Cheng confirmed again, that the company would not spend a lot of money attempting to build a brand in the U.S. The company instead would rely on carrier support, although he noted that it would employ viral marketing and social media tactics.

That was a large reason why ZTE held its press conference at CES; it wanted to get as a large a U.S. audience as possible for the debut of the Grand S.

Cheng expressed confidence that more people will get to know the ZTE name, and expects more phones launching in the U.S. to carry its logo.

"We're pretty new to the U.S. market, but we're growing very fast," he said.

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Hilda Solis stepping down as labor secretary

Hilda Solis announced that she is stepping down from her post as labor secretary, CBS News has confirmed. She sent a letter to President Obama today notifying him of her retirement.

Solis was nominated to the position the same day the president was inaugurated in 2009, serving through the president's entire first term. She ran the Labor Department during the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. The department, which calculates unemployment statistics, came under criticism during the presidential campaign for a steep drop in the jobless numbers from above 8 percent to below 8 percent right before Election Day.

President Obama called her "a critical member" of his economic team who has helped put "millions" of people back to work. "Hilda Solis has been a tireless champion for working families," the president wrote in a statement.

Before her current position, she was a member of Congress, representing California since 2001 but left that job to be the first Hispanic woman to run the agency.

The president must now name a replacement that must go through the Senate confirmation process. CBS News learned today that the president intends to nominate his chief of staff, Jack Lew, to run the Treasury Department.

Solis joins Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, CIA Director David Petraeus and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in stepping down from their cabinet-level posts.

A White House official says Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki and Attorney General Eric Holder plan to remain in their positions.

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Arias Kissed New Beau Day After Killing Boyfriend

Jodi Arias drove to the home of her new romantic interest, kissed him, and laughed with his friends just 24 hours after she stabbed and shot her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander to death, according to court testimony today.

Ryan Burns, whom Arias met in the spring of 2008, took the stand today at the start of the fourth day of testimony in the trial.

Arias, 32, is accused of murdering Alexander, 30, her one-time boyfriend whom she continued to sleep with occasionally. She claims he was abusive and she stabbed and shot him in self-defense. Alexander's body was riddled with 27 knife wounds including a slashed throat and a bullet wound to the head.

WATCH LIVE: Jodi Arias Murder Trial

Burns, who met Arias at a business conference, exchanged frequent long phone calls and online conversations with Arias before inviting her to come visit him in West Jordan, Utah, in June. Arias lived in California at the time.

Arias has confessed to driving to Alexander's home in Mesa, Ariz., where she killed him, and then to Burns' home in Utah. She arrived at Burns's home 24 hours after she was expected there, telling him that she got lost, drove the wrong way on a freeway for a few hours, fell asleep for awhile, and then got lost again, Burns testified today.

Jodi Arias Trial: Defense Claims Victim Was Sex Deviant Watch Video

Ariz. Woman Faces Death Penalty in Boyfriend's Slaying Watch Video

Photos of Key Players and Evidence in the Jodi Arias Murder Trial

She never told him that she had confronted Alexander with a knife or gun and ended up killing him just hours before their date.

When she arrived, the pair quickly got physical, he testified.

"We went back to my house. We talked for awhile, and agreed that we were going to watch a movie. At some point we were talking and we kissed. Every time we started kissing it got a little more escalated. Our clothes never came off, but at some point she was kissing my neck, I was kissing hers, but our clothes never came off," he said.

Burns said that both he and Arias stopped kissing at the time, though they again became physically involved later in the evening when Arias climbed on top of Burns and began kissing him. Burns said that they stopped kissing because he did not want her to "regret the visit" because of her Mormon beliefs about sex.

He also told prosecutors upon questioning that Arias was physically strong.

"She's very fit," he said, describing their encounter when she climbed on top of him. "She's very strong. She has close to a six pack (of abs)."

Prosecutors likely asked about the strength of Arias because in testimony Tuesday Maricopa County medical examiner Kevin Horn said Alexander was stabbed so forcefully that the blade chipped his skull and his neck was cut all the way back to the spinal cord.

Burns, who is also a Mormon, said he noticed two bandages on Arias's hand when she arrived at his house, which she told him she got when a glass broke at her place of employment, Margaritaville.

During her visit, the pair also went to a business meeting and went out with Burns' friends where Burns described Arias as acting "shy" and a "little awkward."

"She was fine, she was laughing about simple little things like any other person. I never once felt like anything was wrong during the day. With a crowd she was a little awkward in social areas, but one on one she was very talkative and excitable," he said.

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Venezuela court endorses Chavez inauguration delay

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's top court endorsed the postponement of Hugo Chavez's inauguration this week and ruled on Wednesday that the cancer-stricken president and his deputy would continue in their roles, despite a cacophony of opposition complaints.

Critics had argued the 58-year-old's absence from his own swearing-in ceremony on January 10 meant a caretaker president must be appointed. Chavez has not been seen in public nor heard from in almost a month following surgery in Cuba.

"Right now we cannot say when, how or where the president will be sworn in," Supreme Court Chief Judge Luisa Morales told a news conference.

"As president re-elect there is no interruption of performance of duties ... The inauguration can be carried out at a later date before the Supreme Court."

The decision opens the door in theory for Chavez to remain in office for weeks or months more from a Cuban hospital bed - though there is no evidence he is even conscious.

It leaves the South American country in the hands of Vice President Nicolas Maduro, as de facto leader of the government.

The opposition say that is a brazen violation of the constitution, and that Maduro should leave office on Thursday when the current presidential term had been due to expire.

They say National Assembly boss Diosdado Cabello, another powerful Chavez ally, should take over the running of the country while new elections would be organized within 30 days.

Maduro would be the ruling Socialist Party's candidate.

Government leaders insist Chavez, 58, is fulfilling his duties as head of state, even though official medical bulletins say he suffered complications after the surgery, including a severe lung infection, and has had trouble breathing.

His resignation or death would transform politics in the OPEC nation, where he is revered by poor supporters thankful for his social largesse, but denounced by opponents as a dictator.

RALLY PLANNED FOR THURSDAY

Moody's Investors Service warned on Wednesday that Venezuela's sovereign credit rating, already at junk status, faces short-term risks over any political transition.

Prices of Venezuela's widely traded bonds have soared lately on Chavez's health woes, but dipped this week as investors' expectations of a quick government change apparently dimmed.

The president has undergone four operations, as well as weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, since being diagnosed with an undisclosed type of cancer in his pelvic area in June 2011.

He looked to have staged a remarkable recovery from the illness last year, winning a new six-year term at a hard-fought election in October. But within weeks of his victory he had to return to Havana for more treatment.

The government has called for a huge rally outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas on Thursday, and allied leaders including Uruguay's Jose Mujica and Bolivia's Evo Morales have said they will visit - despite Chavez's absence.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, a close friend, has announced plans to visit Chavez in Cuba on Friday.

The unprecedented silence by Chavez, who is well known for his hours-long rambling speeches, has convinced many Venezuelans that his 14 years in power may be coming to an end.

Unlike after his previous operations in Cuba, no photographs have been published of him recuperating, and social media in Venezuela is buzzing with rumors he is on life support.

Cabello, the pugnacious head of the National Assembly, has repeatedly ruled out taking over as caretaker president to order a new presidential election, saying Chavez remains in charge.

"Tomorrow we will all go to the Miraflores palace," he told a televised Socialist Party meeting on Wednesday. "The people will be invested as president. We are all Chavez!"

(Additional reporting by Marianna Parraga and Diego Ore; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

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US urges India, Pakistan to cool Kashmir tensions

WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday called on India and Pakistan to seek to cool tensions after Delhi accused the Pakistani army of beheading one of two Indian soldiers killed in Kashmir.

"Violence is not the answer for either country," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland insisted.

"We've been counselling both governments to de-escalate, to work through this issue, to continue the consultations between them at a high level that we understand are ongoing now."

Pakistan has insisted no such incident had taken place in the disputed Kashmir region and suggested a UN inquiry be held.

But India has denounced the "inhuman" treatment of the two soldiers killed two days after a Pakistani soldier was also slain in the area.

Tensions have blown up along the Line of Control, the de facto border in Kashmir, over the past week with the two incidents again highlighting the six-decade long dispute over the Himalayan region.

Washington has been working through its embassies in both countries to calm tensions, and urging both governments to talk to each other, Nuland said.

The UN observer force in Kashmir is investigating an incident in which Pakistan said one of its soldiers was killed, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters in New York. But he added no complaint has been made about the clash in which India alleged one of its soldiers was beheaded.

Nuland said that if both sides "can work it out themselves, that's obviously best. If both parties were interested in support from the UN... we'd obviously support that as well."

- AFP/jc

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Troubleshooting HTTPS timeouts in OS X Mountain Lion

After upgrading to Mountain Lion, some OS X users have run into what appears at first glance to be a DNS-related problem in which they can't access certain Web pages. While most Web connectivity seems to work just fine, when accessing special pages like HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) connections the connection times out, resulting in programs like
Safari claiming the server could not be contacted.

If you are having this problem, then try copying the server URL from your browser or other application and pinging it directly in the OS X Terminal using the following command:

If you can ping the server in the URL you are trying to reach, then the problem is likely not a DNS issue.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET)

ping www.cnet.com

If successful, the system will start listing the ping attempts to the hosts's IP address, along with the response times from the remote server. Such behavior would suggest the DNS configuration is not to blame, as the host name is resolvable and the host is online and responding. Therefore, the problem at hand may be related to a problem with how Mountain Lion is handling the network packet size for the connection to the remote system.

As with many forms of digital communication, network data is sent in packets to ensure integrity, so if one is corrupted it can be dropped and re-sent without having to send the entire communication string again. The packet contains header data and other "wrapper" information that determines how it is to be handled through routers along the way between systems, and then a data section that contains a small chunk of the usable data that is to be reassembled by the recipient computer.

It is optimal for a connection to use a packet size that is at the maximum transmission unit size of the network; however, small mismatches in the MTU settings for different devices may result in continually dropped packets for some connection attempts.

In an ideal situation, the network setup between both the recipient and sender will be tuned to the same MTU size, but in some instances even if they are tuned the use of a special protocol such as a security layer may add a few more bytes to each packet, resulting in it being larger than the set MTU size. This will result in the network splitting the packets, which in some instances may result in dropped packets if the split segments cannot be reassembled correctly.

Adjust the MTU size slightly to see if you can find a value that triggers a successful connection. Keeping the value as high as possible will ensure a more efficient connection.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET)

When this happens, an adjustment will need to be made to the network's MTU size so that the packets will be split differently and can be reassembled. Therefore, if you are finding that only some Web pages and other network communications within applications will not load the requested data, especially if the connection is secured, try adjusting your
Mac's MTU settings.

These settings are done individually for each network port you have set up in your Network system preferences. Select your active connection and click the Advanced button, followed by selecting the Hardware tab, and you should see an option to Configure your hardware. In this menu choose "Manually" and you will then be able to edit the MTU size. The standard for this size is 1,500, which is the maximum for many Wi-Fi and Ethernet protocols, but you can customize this to be between 1,280 and 1,500 if needed.

There are many recommendations for the MTU settings to use for various connection types (PPPoE, PPP, or direct Ethernet), and for the most part keeping this number as high as possible is recommended. Therefore, to troubleshoot a situation in which you appear to be dropping packets for a particular network connection, try dropping the MTU value by 2 bytes followed by testing your connection. If the connection still does not work, then repeat this and drop the MTU size by another 2 bytes, until hopefully you are able to load the requested data.

In addition to adjusting MTU size, you can try a different hardware connection to your router. While a direct Ethernet connection is an easy option, it is less convenient than Wi-Fi, and often people do not have available hard-line connections. Another approach is instead to use another Wi-Fi protocol if your router supports it. While many routers these days use the higher-speed 802.11n as their preferred protocol, for compatibility they do also include 802.11g and 802.11b support, which often offers more than enough speed for a standard broadband connection.

In routers that support these different protocols you will often have two radios (one at 2.4GHz and another at 5GHz), so consult your router's manual and enable both radios, and then try connecting your Mac to one and the other to see if you can see a difference in loading behavior.

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Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below or !
Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.

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