Want to Go to MacWorld Expo?

Thinking ahead, Art Gorski plans to go to MacWorld Expo in January. He writes, "I'm thinking the end of January will be a good time to get the heck out of Prescott and was considering making a road trip to Macworld Expo. I'm willing to drive (my car is quite comfortable...and fast!) and wanted to know if anyone wants to come along. I could take a couple of people, but my back seat is small, so the third person better be, too! Any interest?" Contact Art. 

Postpone the OS X Update?

        You might want to postpone downloading that latest OS X update.  According to David Passell it is reported to contain an out-of-date and vulnerable Adobe Flash Player.  You can read the full story here.  David says, "I installed the update, and I believe the machine speeded up in its responsiveness. I haven't yet gone to the Adobe Flash Player site to get their latest as advised in the article."
        Today David adds, "I don't think postponing the OS X update is necessary.  However, after doing the update you should go to the Adobe web page and install the 10.1 update."

Finding a Virus

        David Passell tells about some virus precautions.  He begins, "Thanks to Allen Laudenslager for info on ClamXav (CXA) ( posted on this newsblog on June 11)."  David explains the procedure he followed.
        "You are right in that some things aren't obvious in the setup. I find it difficult after following instructions, etc. to recall exactly what I did, however:
1. You should create a folder on your desktop and name it something like 'quarantined stuff.'
2. After you get CXA installed, you may be asked to update virus definitions. You should do this and note the small progress bar on the bottom of the screen. The process will take several minutes.
3. Go to preferences > quarantine > select quarantine file.
4. When a list of files opens, navigate to your desktop and select 'quarantined stuff.'
5. Now you are ready to do a scan.
6. In the left hand pane (source list) I found my user home at the top so I selected it and ran it.
7. My most recent scan yielded the following. Please note that second item. That is the E-mail from Dorothy Gonzales that came to the board yesterday.  (Double click to enlarge this screen shot)

8. The zip attachment contains a .exe which will run on XP. It's antivirus spotted it (I won't go into details on that since not everyone will be running a Windows program in Parallels).
9. If you open your folder 'quarantined stuff' you will see them there. I move them to the trash and 'secure erase' them.
        "That is about it for my initial stumbling about. I'm sure there are a lot more features that I may be missing. I ran it yesterday and found some other viruses, a couple going back to 2006. They all seemed to be related to mbox."

Do You Agree?

        "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. 

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MobileMe Update

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        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."

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What Happens on WiFi & the Internet

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        "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

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AT&T: Undelivered

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        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......And Zee doesn't mind anyway - she's just enjoying playing with her new iPad." 
        (P.S. Remember, Zee will be speaking at our June 26 PMUG meeting!) 

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."

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Mac Virus Carrier

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        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."

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Word - Firefox Problem Solved

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"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."