"Here's an interesting blog," begins Jim Hamm. The subject: An Open Letter to Steve Jobs. Jim goes on to suggest, "Worth your time to read, I think. At the least, food for thought. Of course, not everyone will agree with his observations, but here's one comment he made that's sure to strike a spark or two: 'Remember one thing: If it weren't for Apple, we'd all be stuck with lame computers and phones.' Remember, he said this -- I didn't," Jim concludes with a grin.
MobileMe Update
Art Gorski brings the following to our attention, "MobileMe has been updated with a completely new web-based Mail interface, a Find My iPhone app for iPhones, and some other new features.
"The most interesting to me is server-side Mail Rules. Now you can define rules on MobileMe instead of in Mail on your Mac and they will also work with your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch."
What Happens on WiFi & the Internet
"Interesting to read what can -- and seemingly does -- happen on WiFi and the Internet these days," Jim Hamm comments. "Two thoughts on the following article: first, people using unencrypted WiFi are just putting themselves at risk. Not too smart. Second, I find it hard to believe Google -- or any other enterprise, for that matter -- would put a program out on the street and not test, or know, what it was doing or capturing.
"Google said: 'Google's intention was only to record the identity and position of Wi-Fi hotspots in order to power a location service it operates, the company said. However, the software it used to record that information went much further, intercepting and storing data packets, too.'
"Now, I ask you, why didn't Google know that beforehand?" ... Jim
AT&T: Undelivered
Thanks to Jim Hamm for the following report: "We tried ordering the new iPhone 4 yesterday morning when the Apple store opened - we had an appointment for 10 am. Big mess all around, both with Apple and AT&T. We were not successful. The Apple store couldn't help us, so they said why don't you download and install this new store app that Apple just came out with. We did, we tried, we failed, we left, we frustrated.
"Both Apple and AT&T are not prepared to handle a new product introduction such as this. And, they don't seem to learn anything from past experience. It seems to me they should say, for example, if your last name starts with A to D, you can order on such a date; if it is E to J, then order on such a date, and so on. This would break up the ordering process and place less of a load on all their servers.
"Ah well, Apple fans that we are, we'll just wait till the crowd dies down and try again. We don't mind waiting - the frustration comes when Apple/AT&T states pre-orders are available, then it seems they should be available.
"Now, after all this ranting and raving, I feel better already. I think I'll go and have a cold beer...
Be Sure to Subscribe
Our secretary Bobbie Pastor keeps our PMUG calendar up-to-date. Click to subscribe and enjoy how handy it is to see the PMUG events listed on your iCal. If you have previously subscribed you'll need to delete the old calendar and then subscribe to the new one. Go to iCal, delete the PMUG calendar, then uncheck "Remove" items. Check to Auto-Refresh "Every Day."
Mac Virus Carrier
Since there are no viruses that infect the Mac, why would you need a virus checker for your Mac? De Prez Allen Laudenslager gets our attention. He explains, "Well as Alexis Kayhill at Mac360 points out; if you get email and attachments from Windows PC users, your Mac could be a virus carrier."
"What?"
"A carrier - meaning that when you forward that email, you could pass a virus to your PC using friends. The author recommends the free ClamXav virus checker for Mac. I just finished downloading and running ClamXav. The directions presumed a little knowledge, but not bad at all. In my case the report came back with no viruses found, so at least I'm not passing any problems on to my friends still using PCs."
Data Collection Made Available
Get acquainted with the name "Wolfram/Alpha" because you'll be hearing more about this powerful new website. Bill Williamson passes along the following info. Here's a 13 minute intro, and this is the actual search site. Bill says, "This data base will in some ways be like Wikipedia, but much, much more powerful." He notes that he "used to use Wolfram's mathematic quite a bit and was very proficient at it, but only for scientific work." The site itself says, "We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries."
Demos Utilize HTML5
Something new to learn? Oh, yes. Here's some interesting demos about HTML5 by Apple. Look at this article Jim Hamm has found.
New Features of Google Maps
Looking up a local restaurant on the Google maps so a friend from Payson can find it up comes info on some new features of the map site. Double click to enlarge the illustration. After you bring it up on your own computer scroll down for more listings. This is just a screen shot of the first of it.
Read more about Google Maps here.
Is Your Mac Infected?
Beware of Free Screensavers
You've seen cute, free screensavers, maybe even from a site you thought you could trust. You may end up getting spyware, too. Take a look at this article sent to us from Jim Hamm.
Computer Virus & RFID Chip
From PC World this headline was a grabber, "Man Infects Himself with (Computer) Virus." A 3 minute video from the BBC illustrates the article. There's huge ramifications with the RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip; take a look at this info.
Keeping Informed
Jim Hamm likes to keep informed, and he likes to keep us informed, too. Here's his latest two finds: first, from MacWorld, how your iPhone info can be hacked by someone plugging it into a computer running Ubuntu Linux OS, even if you've protected the info by a PIN.
And a variety of subjects/topics including an Apple forum can be found here at ComputerHope.
Looking Forward to Shopping
Shopping made easy and fun with the latest technology. Bill Williamson found this nifty site of YouTube videos, and this one in particular. It's already being used in Japan by Cisco. Take a look at this.
Doing Well: iPads
Hasn't it been fun to see all the news about the iPad! One article in particular got Jim Hamm's attention. He passes it along to us. Kindle needs the iPad, and vice versa, the writer exclaims.
Word - Firefox Problem Solved
"I just needed to update my version of MS Word for Mac and had a real problem installing the XML reader," begins De Prez Allen Laudenslager. He goes on to explain the problem and the solution. "When I contacted Microsoft for help, they told me that using Firefox might be the problem.
"While this sounds weird, the tech 'thinks' that Firefox somehow doesn't always properly attach the correct file extension name. Word documents are .doc and updates to applications are disk image files .dmg, etc. That file name extension allows Mac OS and the various applications to decide how to handle the file. One example would be when you double click on the file your Mac knows to open the file in your word processor or in iPhoto or whatever.
"I went back to the site (mactopia.com) using Safari and downloaded the file a second time and was able to properly install the update and open the latest MS Word version files with the extension .docx.
"Just one more trick to keep in mind if you are having trouble downloading files using Firefox as your primary web browser."
Precautions for Using Google
With a title like, “The Smart Paranoid’s Guide to Using Google” who wouldn’t scan the article. Some helpful tips jump right out, and both business and personal users will find reasons to take suggested precautions.
About Printing Out Those Coupons
This May 22 article, "Web Marketers Have a Way of Finding Out About You" by Susan Olasky in World Magazine quoting from New York Times, explains how a coupon printed from the Internet is packed with info about the customer who uses it. Coupons convey “a startling amount of data, including identification about the customer, Internet address, Facebook page information and even the search terms the customer used to find the coupon in the first place.”
More on Easier to Read
In addition to CMD-+ and CMD - to enlarge screen, there is another way which can be used. David Passell walks us through the process: "The Firefox Browser has a way to change the appearance of a web site. (Double click to enlarge these illustrations.)
1. Go to system preferences.
2. Select Universal Access and the Seeing tab
3. Turn Zoom ON
4. Click on Options and set up similarly to below. You can experiment with other settings. If you are going to do this select 'Show Universal Access....' so you you can quickly return to the preference to make changes.
If you are using a Mouse with a scroll wheel, you will see keys to press while you scroll. NOTE: for an unknown reason OPT (or ALT) and CMD seems to be my default; and I cannot change it. (CMD and Shift also has worked on occasion.)
After you do this you will find you can hold down the keys and as you turn the scroll wheel the image will zoom out. Release the wheel and it stays zoomed and you can move around the enlarged screen to parts no longer visible.
Hold down the keys and scroll the other way until the getting-smaller stops. Then you are back to normal viewing.
IF YOU ENCOUNTER ONE OF THOSE WEB SITES WITH STRANGE COLORS AND TEXT COMBINATIONS AND ARE USING THE FIREFOX BROWSERS (e.g. Black text on red, purple on blue, etc.) you can get rid of these quirks with Firefox menu selection: View > Page Style. then change from Basic Page Style to No Style.
As an example our Newsletter normally looks like this in Basic Page Style:
After changing to no style, it looks like this:
The Opera browser has a similar selection which is titled Author Mode (= Basic Page Style) and User Mode (= No Style).
I haven't been able to find any equivalent selections in Safari. Does anyone else know if such exists?"
Here's That Link
Want to explore that link to MacInTouch mentioned by Art Gorski at the PMUG meeting this morning? Take a look at their site, and check out the possibilities of great deals at Amazon he described. Click to replace the Amazon link in your browser favorites with the one that supports MacInTouch.