No more MacWorld/iWorld

IDG announced that it has cancelled Macworld/iWorld conference in San Francisco for now and that
they need time to think about what they can or will do in the future. They have also killed the printed version of Macworld magazine. This leaves only the web versions up and running. Many good writers and editors are now adjusting their lives to other ways to make a living. I wish them all luck but I’m sure most are back to work by now. 

Old docs need to be kept updated

Try as I might, convincing people to update their documents as they move machines and versions of software forward is a never-ending nightmare. There are always those who are stuck in time. What do I mean when I say stuck in time? Let’s say you write your life story and make several versions of it.
You are meaning to get back to it, but it always gets pushed onto the back shelf. Then you change from a Macintosh to a PC and many years go by. One day you’re sitting there thinking about how you should really finish your work. This is where it gets hard. You thought it was saved in Word 4.0 format. But the file does not show up on your PC. So you ask for my help. 

My first thought was that you had transferred the information over to the PC. Old style Macintosh documents will self destruct when moved to a PC formatted drive due to the fact that Mac documents
are two “forks” of information, one being data and one being resource information. Putting these files on a PC rips the resource and data apart, basically destroying the file. So I would need the original Macintosh floppies with the data on them and a machine that could read older data. People laugh when I tell them I have an 8600 Power PC tower sitting next to my computer desk. It runs several different versions of OS 7, OS 8 and OS 9 with software for data recovery. I also have a G4 tower running Tiger, plus an iMac with Leopard and Mavericks. My first attempt was on the G4 tower and a USB floppy reader which did not read the files. They came up with damaged resource files; so it was time to fire up the 8600 and see if it could read the files. (For those of you who haven’t cranked over your old computers in a long time, you’re in for a shock, as few things are what you remember.) I double click on what looks like a ClarisWorks 4 document and MacLink Plus fires up and converts the data to AppleWorks, with the option to save it as aWord file. I save it as both and now I have to get the information to a computer that is connected to a USB drive. Now as it happens, I have a SCSI drive connected to the machine that I can copy the files to. My G4 has a SCSI card in it so I copy the file to the drive then shut down the 8600 and move the drive to the G4 tower. There I can open the files in AppleWorks but cannot move them to a current machine without damaging the resource fork so I then convert the files to Word .doc and .docx files. If I can open them in Microsoft Word for OSX then I can move to the iMac using a flash drive to convert to Office 2004 .docx files. Just to be on the safe side I converted them to Word 07 (PC) files and .docx, plus .RTF just in case. The point I’m making here is that it took several hours plus having to check the files each time I saved to be sure they were readable. Having made sure they could be opened I burned the files to a hybrid CD that both PC and Macintosh computers can read and to a PC only CD in case the story editor had a problem with the hybrid. I created two copies of each disk and gave instructions for the extras to be archived in a safety deposit box. So far I have only heard from the editor once and that was to find out why I used the naming system. Hopefully my old machines will keep chugging along but every thing is slowly aging. 

Refurbished is a option

If you're looking to buy a computer and you don't care it's new or refurbished you should check out Apple certified refurbished stock. Now it's not easy to find because they want to buy the new stuff. If you are indeed interested here's how to get there. When you go to the Apple Store online select something like shop Mac. When you get to that page click on something whether it be Macintosh, iPhone or whatever. Then scroll all the way to the bottom of the page you will see a bunch of small lettering on the second column from the left the first item will be refurbished. Click on that you will be given a selection of refurbished Mac refurbished iPad refurbished iPod and clearance items. Click on the shop now button on the item that you're interested in and you will be presented with the refurbished units that Apple has listed. Over in the left-hand column you should be able to choose whichever device you're actually looking for say if you're looking for a 15 inch MacBook Pro click on that and it will present you with a list of the refurbished 15 inch MacBook Pro's Apple has in stock.

Surge protectors

One thing that almost everybody has is a surge protector hooked up to your household power and your computer plugged into it. What most people don't understand is that surge protectors wear out over time. Every little spike in the line, every little surge, every brownout takes a little bit out of that surge protector. So if your surge protector is 3 to 5 years old you might want to consider replacing with a new one. These items do not cost a whole lot of money, so spend the $20 to replace the old surge protector with the new one and hopefully it will protect you when that lightning strike finally does hit. Stepping it up a bit from the plain old surge protector is the uninterruptible power supply. Now you're putting in a surge protector with a battery that automatically switches on if the power drops below a certain point to help protect your equipment. It like everything else will indeed wear out and so you would have to replace that device probably every 3 to 5 years. If the battery in that device wears out, the charge to replace it at someplace like Batteries Plus would probably be somewhere in the vicinity of $40. And in fact if you were to take that uninterruptible power supply to Batteries Plus most likely they would change the battery for you and recycle your old battery. You do have to keep in mind even when using a uninterruptible surge protector that it will only keep your devices running for a certain amount of time. The more devices you have plugged into that UPS the less time that you will have to shut your computer down before the battery dies when the power is out. My suggestion to most people is to buy enough battery backup to power your computer for at least 10 minutes. This will give you enough time to save all your work and shut down your computer. I need to point out that most UPS units have some power outlets that are surge protected but not powered by the battery. This way you can have a device plugged in that is not critical to your computer needs but will have the protection provided by the surge protector. So things like your computer, your monitor and your hard drives should all be plugged into the ports that have the battery backup. Things like an iPod charger, radio or a set of speakers can be plugged in to the surge protected ports that are not connected to the battery. This way devices that your computer doesn't depend on to get information from are protected but are not running the battery down if the power goes out.

Passwords when you have passed

Another aspect of computer security that you may not have thought about lately is how to get those passwords out if you do need to share them. There may come a time when you are ill and not capable of accessing your computer. You need to have some written information that will allow a friend or relative to access the information that you have on your computer. We don't think about it but a lot of what we do on the computer has to be accessed with passwords. All of this is fine and good as long as we are well. But when we get sick, have an accident, or even pass away, not having passwords really does leave a mess. Having a sealed envelope to be opened in case you're incapacitated or have passed away is a great way to help those that you have left behind. Then they can access the information to close accounts, inform e-mail accounts, stop automatic payments from your bank account, and inform your friends that something has happened. Now you may never use that information but if needed it is there. You can place this information with a good friend/relative, however I do not recommend putting it in a safety deposit box. The reasoning behind this is the same reasoning you should not put your will into the safety deposit box. By law your safety deposit box is sealed after your death until it can be opened in front of witnesses which makes any of the contents in that safety deposit box sort of worthless till it can be opened.

Passwords get your passwords here

An interesting new tactic from Internet thieves. Because so many sites have been broken into and allowed passwords to be taken, there is a good chance that your password and username are being passed around on the Internet. The thieves have found new ways to use this information. If you're one of the unfortunate people who use the same password on every website that you go to, you could indeed be contacted by one of these individuals threatening to destroy your reputation. One person who was contacted by the Internet extortionist was asked to pay over $20,000 to keep the extortionist from destroying his credibility on the Internet because they had managed to hack into his account. Little did they know that the account that they hacked belonged to a professional computer consultant who actually knew more about the systems that the hackers did. After being contacted the hackers and finding out the exact information of what they wanted and how they wanted their $20,000 delivered, he then went on the Internet and put up a webpage offering $20,000 bounty for the culprits arrest and prosecution. It seems that was enough to frighten off the extortionists who contacted him and said they were only an intermediary and that they would make sure that he was never bothered again. Now of course this type of tactic won't work for everybody out there. You need to get out there and make sure that you have fresh passwords on your accounts. If you have not changed your password in several years it may be time to go through and change the password to a new one on any site that requires one, whether you visit regularly or infrequently. There have been people who have broken into Apple accounts and used iTunes accounts that they do not own to buy software. There have been people who have broken into Amazon accounts and charged things to accounts that they do not possess. You really don't want to be the one arguing that you did not make those charges and changing your password is a simple way to prevent such action. I highly recommend that your password be at least eight characters long with at least one capital letter and one number within that eight characters. Don't just think about it, go out and protect yourself. If something funny occurs on your account, be it a charge appears that you did not make or you get word from friends that they got a strange e-mail with your address on it, it may be time to go in and change that password even though you just changed it recently. Waiting around to see if something else happens may indeed make it a lot messier than just changing one password on one e-mail account. Just as a word of warning, please don't use things like your first name and your birth year as a password. It's not going to take people very long to put two and two together and come up with the right answers. However if you were to take your name, capitalize any letter but the first, break the name in two with the birth year and put something else on the beginning - then you have a password that at least stands a chance of not being easily broken. So "rent1954" is not likely to be a great password. Things like "69caLamari34" stand a lot better chance at surviving a password test. 

Rounding numbers when selling computers

Have you ever noticed how some companies round numbers up and some round numbers down? I mean iMacs that are 21.5 inch screens are called 22 inch screens. MacBooks that are 11.6 inch screens are 12 inch? If you can’t take the time to give true numbers why not be at least consistent? That way we would at least have an idea of how you measure. This rounding of things is becoming more and more common. I’m not sure if this is copy writers being lazy or incompetent. At any rate the numbers that you see on advertisements should be accurate. After all you are buying a product and you expect that product to live up to what it was advertised at. I'm sure that nobody minds getting an extra half inch to the plus side but there are many many people out there who will be vastly disappointed at the fact that their monitor is a half inch smaller than advertised.

Why I'm not hot to buy a new computer

There was a time when I would think of buying a new computer and I would know exactly which computer that I wanted. Apple has made this very very difficult for me at this time. In order to buy the computer configuration that I really want, I have to buy a 15 inch MacBook Pro built in 2012. They simply do not make a MacBook Pro that I actually would like at this current time. So what's so different that I can't just go out and buy one as it stands today? Well to be truthful, the whole idea of everything in my MacBook Pro being glued to the top of the case or the bottom of the case (everything being soldered solidly in) kind of goes against my upgradability thinking. I really feel uncomfortable not being able to upgrade my RAM at some future date or not being able to swap out my own hard drive. The sheer fact that I couldn't even change my battery because of all the components that are glued to it requires having a technician swap out the battery, and current pricing for this is around $400. Now I do know that Steve Jobs was really into building "toaster ovens" so basically you put information in, you get information out; you never open the machine, everything's built in already and one package serves all. Jony Ives loves this because it's smooth and streamlined and beautiful. I like smooth and streamlined and beautiful, but you know on the bottom of my case having some removable doors to allow me to swap out hard drives  and a battery that isn't glued into the case, it can’t that hard to engineer, even with that wonderful case design. So how about spending a couple billion on designing products that will not cost the consumer an arm and a leg to make a change or get an upgrade. After all, we are paying top dollar for these well-designed computers so why not allow some expandability into the design. 

iChat Messages and System software

If you use iChat, now known as Messages, be prepared to change your user name or your AOL name if you are running 10.6.8 or older. The reason for this is that Apple has changed its security on iChat so that you will no longer be able to use a Mac.com, or Me.com, or iCloud.com name with the AOL servers after the month of June. AOL has been warning all users in iChat for about a month that iChat service will be interrupted if they are using that type of username on AOL servers - basically you just will not be able to connect. Now I'm not sure why Apple has decided that this needs to happen other than the fact that this drives more people to Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks. The unfortunate part about this is that many people using Snow Leopard and iChat don't have the ability to move to a higher operating system without buying a new computer. Since that cost is fairly significant if you're running an iMac and don't have a separate monitor, Apple may lose some customers to the PC World. I am recommending anyone that has an old tower to purchase a Mac Mini. The Mac Mini makes it easy to use your existing keyboard, mouse and monitor with the Mac Mini to replace your older computer. However I also recommend that you don't get rid of your older computer. One of the things that I have found recently as people move to the new operating system is printers and scanners that are over four years old are unlikely to work under Mavericks. Many pieces of software will break because of the fact they were never designed to work with the Mavericks operating system. Which means if you have a really old version of Microsoft Office it will not function under Mavericks, and we're talking about 2004 and below. Remember AppleWorks does not work anymore also. 

Be aware when moving to Mavericks and the new Messages application that there is a big difference in how it operates from iChat. Everything is in one window, with the people that you may be chatting with appearing in a sidebar on the left of the window and you have to click on the person that wants to chat with you to move between chats in the same window. This not only sounds confusing but it is confusing.

Mavericks problems

If I was a leader of Apple (which I am not) and I had $3 billion to spend on something, I think my choice would be to spend the money on things to improve the existing Mavericks operating system so that it all worked rather than having strange problems constantly appearing on my computer. Like the fact if I click in the wrong place with my cursor or move it, suddenly it jumps to the edge of my screen for no apparent reason. I would love to have a mail system that actually goes out and gets all of my mail so that I don't have to go into webmail to find out if it is downloaded all of the mail that it was supposed to. There are things that I can live without, however having a consistent email program download correctly is one of those things that most people won't even check. But when current and past clients are reporting to me that part of their e-mail is not downloaded by the Mail program for no apparent reason, it tells me that something is wrong down at the basic core of this mail system. Please Apple take $1 or $2 billion and fix the operating system.

Apple buys Beats Electronics

If you're like me, you were greatly surprised when Apple decided to buy Beats Electronics. Now I know that there are things that Apple wants from Beats like their streaming music service. I also know that as far as I am concerned they make headphones that are absolutely over bassed. I guess because I'm not a teenager and do not want thump thump thump in my ears that I am not their demographic. I am pretty sure that we will never see Beats headphones with an Apple logo on them. It may be that we have Apple computers that are advertised to have Beats speakers in them, but really, Jony Ive should be throwing a fit right now over the ugly engineering and design of the Beats headphones.

Heatbleed vulnerability news

Warning to all users of all computer systems. The vulnerability called Heartbleed means you should reset your passwords on secure web sites that you visit. This does not mean you need to change the password on your computer; we are talking web sites here. You may want to check and see if the site has been fixed before changing your password. Keep in mind that Apple sites are not effected by this vulnerability. This means that your iCloud, iTunes, and Apple Apps store accounts are all good.

The following information is from the lowendmac.com. You may want to check there for updates on sites.

Go to this web site  http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/ to check the domain to see if it has been fixed. LastPass has developed its own site checker at https://lastpass.com/heartbleed/ and seems to have more helpful notes.

Sites that were never in danger

• 1040.com
• 1password.com
• about.com
• amazon.com
• aol.com
• apple.com
• ask.com
• avg.com
• bankofamerica.com
• barclays.com
• bing.com
• capitalone.com
• chase.com
• citigroup.com
• cnn.com
• comcast.net
• etrade.com
• ebay.com and other eBay sites
• evernote.com
• fidelity.com
• fileyourtaxes.com
• groupon.com
• healthcare.gov
• hotmail.com
• hrblock.com
• hulu.com
• intuit.com (TurboTax)
• irs.gov
• linkedin.com
• microsoft.com
• msn.com
• outlook.com
• paypal.com
• pnc.com
• schwab.com
• scottrade.com
• skype.com
• target.com
• taxact.com
• tdameritrade.com
• tdbank.com
• troweprice.com
• twitter.com
• usbank.com
• vanguard.com
• vimeo.com
• walmart.com
• weather.com
• wellsfargo.com
• wordpress.com

Safe Now – Change Your Password

• Amazon Web Services
• box.com
• dashlane.com
• dropbox.com
• etsy.com
• facebook.com
• flikr.com
• github.com
• gmail.com
• godaddy.com
• google.com and other Google search websites
• ifttt.com
• imgur.com
• instagram.com
• lastpass.com
• mail.yahoo.com
• minecraft.com
• netflix.com
• pinterest.com
• tumblr.com
• usaa.com
• yahoo.com
• youtube.com

Me again, I felt lowendmac and lastpass did a really good job of of informing us of this, so please give them the credit for where and what is broken, OK, and fixed.

If you are not using something like lastpass or 1Password, be sure your password is at least 8 characters long with at least 1 capital letter and 1 number. Be sure you write it down in such a way that you will remember it. For example you might underline any capital letter so that you remember it's not lower case. The longer your password, the harder it is for hackers to guess it. So go do that now! Be sure and note down the new passwords and login in for each site you change.

MacKeeper

Would you trust a company that puts pop-up and pop-under ads on your screen to protect your computer from virus and spyware? MacKeeper seems to think that these ads will make you think you need to load and use their software. I find their advertising tactics rather like a bully trying to force their services on me. Many of the people I contact have no idea they do not need MacKeeper. In fact most have little or no idea what it does. Please don’t install anything you are not sure of on your computer. I consider MacKeeper to be a unneeded piece of spamware. To my knowledge this piece of software slows your computer down and gives you very little in return. If you are really scared about viruses then download and use ClamXav (www.clamxav. com); at least it is trusted open source software in the future, but for now you are better off just being careful.

Strange and crazy things happen to electronics

Remember if you are having strange problems with any of your devices, do a restart before going crazy and doing things like reinstalling software. It may be that you don’t need your local tech to talk you though booting into your recovery partition and running Disk First Aid.  If you can shut down your machine normally do so if not hold the start button down for 10 seconds then let go the machine should be off. Push the button again briefly to restart. If your iOS device locks up (freezes) or will not boot please do the following. Hold down the round button on the front of your device as well as the on off button on the top of your device. Do not let go when it asks you to slide to turn off. Soon it will go black and then you will see a white Apple in the middle of your screen, now you can let go. It will take a couple minutes for your machine to restart so give it time to boot up.

MS and misleading ads

What is in an ad? According to Microsoft you can type on a keyboard on their tablet device. Hum let’s think about that. You can type on the screen keyboard or you can attach a Bluetooth keyboard even to an iPad. Microsoft is doing the usual spin pretending that Apple products can’t or won’t use standard BlueTooth  keyboards. The real valid gripe they brought up, was iPad not having a work application suite on the device when you bought it, but Apple fixed that with iOS 7 devices by including iWork (Pages, Numbers and Keynote). If you don't own a device that came with  iOS7 you can purchase any part of iWork at the iTunes Apps store, the cost per App $9.99. As a note of interest if you own more than one device you can load this purchase on to every device attached to this account. 

Cold Weather

Will you be traveling with your Macintosh, iPad, iPod, or iPhone in the winter? You need to remember that you need to protect your devices from extreme weather conditions. Too hot and too cold are both bad for the device. Leaving your device in the car can affect battery life as well as causing malfunction of said device. Rain water can weep though coats, snow can melt and steam is just water that can cause device failure. So if your device gets very cold, let it warm up slowly to room temperature before using it. This really can affect hard drive data and possibly cause file corruption. Vibration like in the overhead bins in airplanes is really not good for your device.

Migration Assistant

Moving from older Macs to new ones using Migration Assistant is still fairly easy providing your old machine is still running Snow Leopard OS (10.6) or above. Keep in mind that the easy way would be with FireWire but if the new machine does not have FireWire you will have to use Ethernet and a patch cable. Apple gives you fairly good instructions, just remember this is not going to be a fast process. If you have an older operating system I will suggest moving all your documents to an external hard drive and doing things like exporting your Mail bookmarks and Address Book before the move.

Address Book and Apple Mail

A common problem that occurs in all versions of Apple Mail has an easy answer if you know where to look. I got a telephone call from one of my longtime clients, and here is her problem. Every time she tries to send an email to her daughter, Mail puts in an old, no longer current email address. She informs me she has removed the address from her Address Book but Apple Mail still puts in the old address. In an effort to help you, Mail remembers all the people you have sent mail to before so it can fill in that address line for you. However when you remove an address from the Address Book/ Contacts application, Mail keeps right on giving you a bad address. It will show the new address in the list but seems to default to the old one. The answer is located in the Mail program under the Window menu and is called “Previous Recipients.” Choosing this will give you a list of many email addresses. Click on the address and then click “Remove from List.”

Mavericks Compatibilty

After doing a clean install of Mavericks on our 2007 silver iMac, I logged into my App Store account to download the iLife programs and iWork programs. I was very entertained to see that iMovie (the current version) would not download because my iMac did not meet the guidelines for video cards. Everything else seems to have updated just fine. I was able to copy over a older version of iMovie and it works. However my Dock shows one “available” application update which of course I can’t install. Keep in mind we have several machines and that I did clone the old drive before doing the wipe and clean install, so I would not have been in trouble if there had been more incompatible items. This is not really a question, but rather a word of warning, that even if Apple says your machine can run Mavericks it may not run everything,depending on how the configured machine was built. I know that higher models in this series had fancier video cards that may work fine. Mine has a ATI Radeon 2600 with 256 MB GDDR3. (Update: The good news is that Apple seems to have fixed the installer for iMovie and it now installs and works on my 2007 iMac. So there is a good chance this was a bug that Apple had not tested for in this version of iMovie.)

Updates for Apple

Apple updates the Pages and Numbers applications, but at the same time introduces bugs that cause problems in older machines. This happens because they have become resource hogs. It appears that the programs try to access both iTunes and iPhoto at the same time which sends your CPU into overdrive. This ramps the processor usage up over 100%. At this point your machine is crawling and barely usable. Apple is aware of the problem but so far has provided no solution. Note: the newer your Mac is, the less likely you are to notice the slow down.

New a versions of old tricks

New a versions of old tricks.
You get a email saying that there is a package waiting for you "undelivered courier item" and you need to download a PDF. Do not do this it will not ask for your permission to install it.
OSX/LaoShu-A.

 "LaoShu-A as good as hands control of your Mac over to the attackers

Read this story for complete info.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/344885/scitech/technology/mac-users-warned-vs-new-trojan-malware