It was fun, finding this news site showing the long lines in Beijing as people waited in front of the glass-front Apple store to buy an iPad. There are 12 slides to view.
Would You Bet on the Pigeons?
Ten USB key-laden pigeons were released from a Yorkshire farm at the same time a five-minute video upload was begun. Would you bet on the pigeons? David Passell found this amusing report today. An hour and fifteen minutes later the pigeons had reached their destination. The stunt was to demonstrate the low speed of rural broadband in the U.K. Read details here.
Google Privacy Policy is Changing
As of October 3, 2010 Google's new privacy policies go into effect. This affects such features as Blogger, Alerts, Gmail, Picasa Web Albums -- a total of 27 Google products are involved. Here's the FAQ page. The Data Liberation page gives more info. For blog posts on the issue of privacy read here.
Find a Bargain?
David Passell sends us this note tonight, "For anyone interested, I was at Prescott's Goodwill Store on Iron Springs Road today and saw a 400mb G3 iMAC for $29.95. It is sitting on a $14.95 computer desk. I looked it over and unfortunately did not have an airport card, or I would have bought it. They have a 14 day return period, so if it is bad you can return it. It is the same model machine as I have that runs Tiger. Not sure of its memory, HD, DVD. Good enough for E-mail and light web browsing."
Increasing Your Speed
This morning's news headline, "Valley Chosen to Test Fast Wireless Network" was an attention-getter. Check it out here. Compare prices, services, etc. with a link to SpeedTest. The numbers are interesting. Anyone trying out Google Chrome to see if it's faster and better? Slow is out, and fast is in. Keep us posted.
Now we hear from David Passell, "The aritcle does not appear to apply for up here. However, Commspeed says they have ordered towers, etc. for WiMax (3 - 6 mbs.) No idea if they will charge more. For more details go to commspeed.net.
"Cableone at present says that 10Mbps can be had for $53.00 a month, and that is not an 'introductory offer.'
"Qwest is somewhat difficult to pin down (DSL) because of their weasel-worded advertisements. On closer inquiry I found that no matter what I could spend, I would be limited to around 1.5 Mbps because fiber optic service is not yet available where I live. They always like to present best case in the ads 'your results may differ.'
" I installed Chrome, and I couldn't see any difference. I also found it so much different from the other three browsers I use (Firefox, Opera, and Safari (which also claims to be a much faster browser than the other two) that I didn't want to mess with another learning curve. Perhaps that speed advantage would only show up if my ISP were in the higher Mb range. Commspeed wireless currently pokes along at around 1 - 1.5Mbps. I principally use Opera or Firefox because of their multi-line bookmark and tab lines.
David's conclusion, "I personally wish that the concept of 'information belongs to the people' would be applied in this country as it is in Finland. There the government has the concept that every citizen has a right to high speed internet access, and is taking the steps to make it so. That is something like the former communications philosophy 'the airwaves belong to the people' where anyone could listen to a broadcast. We didn't have active but unseen agencies (and the government) trying to manipulate systems so everyone would have to pay somebody something for the 'privilege' of receiving content; and no fair skipping commercials:(."
Fixing Those Forwards
Do you get email forwards with a long stripe down the left side? Do you send on those forwards looking like that? John Carter can help you fix the forwards. Here's his advice:
"This is just a portion of email netiquette concerning forwarding email. The following tip works for Mac Mail.
"When you forward email, the outgoing mail will have a vertical line on the left margin. Like this:
It's okay to have a vertical line if you intend to let the reader know you didn't create that text (you're quoting the other person). In that case, you should precede that text with a note identifying the originator or just to add a personal note of your own so the reader gets a clear impression you are alive and that the email isn't just automated.
"If you want to get rid of the vertical line, do the following:
1. Highlight all the text with the vertical line on the left margin.
2. Press Cmd ] (hold down the Command key and tap the right square bracket). This forces a shift to the right of all the highlighted text.
3. Now press Cmd [ (Command and left square bracket) twice. The first time you do it makes the vertical line disappear. The second time forces a shift to the left of all the highlighted text goes back to the left margin.
"If you have multiple vertical lines in the margin, you have to press Cmd [ for each vertical line.
"Now, if you want a vertical line in the margin, highlight the text and press Cmd ' (Command and single-quote). This is also known as quoting the text.
"If you just want to indent something, highlight the text and press Cmd ].
"When you forward a forwarded email, you're adding one to the number of vertical lines already in the message, and it starts to get ugly to read. In that case, you would be doing the reader a favor by eliminating all the vertical lines before sending it off."
John's closing admonition: "For a full course on email netiquette, Google 'email netiquette.'"
Listen, Watch, Learn -- for FREE
"Why attend OLLI classes when you can just use iTunes to listen to lectures by Nobel Prize laureates?" is Art Gorski's pronouncement.
Today's (August 24) news article from Cupertino announces, " In just over three years, iTunes® U downloads have topped 300 million and it has become one of the world’s most popular online educational catalogs. Over 800 universities throughout the world have active iTunes U sites, and nearly half of these institutions distribute their content publicly on the iTunes Store®. New content has just been added from universities in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico and Singapore, and iTunes users now have access to over 350,000 audio and video files from educational institutions around the globe."
Read more here, and note that it is FREE download of iTunes 9 for Mac + PC. You can even access iTunes U on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
Useful and Free
Yes, De Former Prez Allen Laudenslager knows PMUG members well. If it's useful and it's free we'll take a look and probably try it. He notifies us, "I just found this on Mac360 and thought I'd pass it on.
"TexFinderX digs through multiple files in a folder to find the text you want, shows you what it looks like, and gives you the option of replacing it with something else. Most of us have used the find and replace options in MS Word or Apple Pages, but that limits the changes to one document at a time. Check out this free Mac app that will allow you to replace text in more than one document in a folder with a single find and replace command. Here's where to get TexFinderX."
How Search Engines Work
If you're curious about Search Engines you can now take a deep breath. David Passell has the info you're looking for. Try WiseGeek. While you're at it, check out their home page, go to Categories. They have 86,606 articles on every topic (or nearly every topic) that you can think of. Note, too, they have two widgets. Interested in writing for them? Check out here.
Going Places with Mac
After reading the latest emails from Zee and Jim Hamm we wish we were going places with them! Oh, well. The next best thing is to peek over their shoulders, thanks to Mac.
Jim started by writing, “On August 24 my wife, Zee, and I will fly to Paris, France to start a month-long river cruise. We will be accompanied by two other couples, all travel friends for many years. We will be going with a tour group: Grand Circle Travel. We've traveled with GCT previously and enjoy the way they host and organize trips, and they own the two cruise ships we'll be on. We cruise from Normandy on the north coast to Paris, spend a few days, then get on a smaller river ship and cruise to Nice on the southern coast. There are 140 passengers on the first ship and only 45 on the second ship. The rivers are smaller in the southern part of France so we have to be on a smaller ship. All meals are included, and there is wine for lunch and dinner. The three rivers we'll be on are the Rhone, the Seine and the Saone.”
Never heard of that last river? Type it in the search box in Google and up comes 6 images for viewing. Oh, there it is.
Jim continues, ““I'm trying this TravelBlog for the first time. In theory, I'll type comments about our trip as we cruise along. When we get to a village I'll try to find internet access in an internet cafe and publish my blog to this site. An email will be sent to you alerting you that I've published another blog. If you want to read it then click this link; http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/SlimJim/ . You can bookmark this link for future access. My nick-name for the blog is SlimJim. After this trip, with all that French cooking and fine wine, I'll probably have to change my nick-name to FatJim...(grin)…”
But, Jim, are you taking Mac? How does a person travel with Mac?
Jim informs us, “If it's an international trip, we insure that we have a good, protective case to put our Macs or iPad in. I also take along a small backpack so I can easily carry my MacBook Air to an internet cafe if wifi isn't available in the hotel. Wifi isn't available on small river ships, so when we depart to tour a local village I take my MBA along in the backpack. On our iPhones, we turn off all cellular roaming and location services so we don't incur horrendous charges from AT&T. We check for and install any current updates that might be available just prior to departing.
“We make sure we have the proper electrical adaptor so we can plug our chargers into an electric outlet. We don't need a voltage regulator internationally because Apple products all take either 120V or 240V. This is nice because regulators are heavy.
“On domestic trips, we carry along two wifi directional antennas that receive and boost wifi signals. Often in motels and RV parks the wifi signal is weak to begin with. We use the Wi-Fire antenna from hField Technologies: http://www.hfield.com/the-wi-fire/platform-compatibility/mac/ . We have found the use of the Wi-Fire helps significantly.
“Last, don't forget to take along the charger(s) and an extension cord. We usually leave the Mouse behind on international trips. Just something else to carry and mess with. That's about it. Bon Voyage.…” Jim
Let’s look at a few more helpful sites:
Check out the travel company Jim and Zee like: Grand Circle Travel. http://www.gct.com/ The site lists trips, regions, ways to save, traveler discussions. Let’s see what seasoned travelers can suggest here:
“How to Travel Light”: Wonder what we can learn? One writer announces she packs half of her wardrobe with clothes with a small stain or isn’t so up-to-date. After she wears that article she discards it. By the end of the trip she has room for the treasures she has bought! Another buys garments from 2nd hand shops and throws them away as she goes.
Well, what else can we discover?
Avoid a large phone bill when traveling. http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/travel/01prac.html Get the right phone, Check data roaming plans, consider SIM cards, Look at the VoIP Option, don’t forget the old-fashioned calling card. (Anyone try this?)
Next, I did a Google search and read a Macworld article.
http://www.macworld.com/article/45771/2005/07/augustmobilemac.html Then I noticed the date was 2005. I forgot to specify time range under More, so sites listed would be within the past year.
Is that all? Oh, no. There’s a lot to read, and learn, and do! When you plan your next trip maybe your friends at PMUG would be interested in it. How did you use Mac to make it a successful trip? Anything you’d do differently? Jot down your info and send it to us.
(This was my handout at the August 21 PMUG meeting.)
For All the Music Lovers
"Airfoil allows you to link your music source to your audio system using Airport express." De Former Prez Allen Laudenslager continues, "Yes, I know you can do that with Airport Express alone, but only with stuff from iTunes. Airfoil allows you to use any digital source on your computer and link it to your Airport Express." Take a look here.
Getting to Know Your Mac
New to Mac? You'll want to read on for John Carter's intro to Mac. He begins, "It's really tough figuring out what to do with a new computer, especially when all the user guides and tutorials are on the Internet now.
"New Mac owners often ask, 'Which book do I buy?' The answer isn't simple. There is no one book that has everything in it that you will ever need to know that is also light enough to carry and user friendly for the newbie.
"Go to the used book store or the thrift store and get anything - even if it's written for an older version of your operating system and a completely different Mac machine. It's a start. The basics are almost always the same - how to use the mouse and how to navigate in any application.
"However, for applications such as iPhoto, iTunes, Mail, Pages, Keynote, and so on, you have to have the book that was written for your version of the operating system; the hardware type (desktop, laptop, iMac) in this case doesn't matter.
"If you are able to get on the Internet, you don't need a book. You just need patience to sit in front of your computer and find the tutorials you need.
" Let's make that easy for starters.
"The first place to go to get help with your new Apple device (any Apple device) is http://www.apple.com/support/
"Once there, you select the device type you want help for. Let's say it's for your new iMac. Then you would select the Mac icon.
"Let's say it's the Intel-based iMac. Select that. On the next page, there are really only two categories you need to view (as a Newbie). They are 'Getting Started' and "How To.'
"If this is your first computer, select anything that appeals to you under 'Getting started.' If you're switching from a Windows machine to a Mac, you probably should start with the link 'Switch 101' and then back to any of the others according to what appeals to you. On that same page, down at the bottom is a link to 'Cheat Sheet.' Please, go to that page and print it out, then fill in the blanks. On that page, you are given all the help you need to fill in the answers to the kinds of questions people will ask you about your computer."
John notes, "One of the questions not on that form is, 'How do you access your email?' If you access your email by going onto the Web with a browser, what is the name of the service that you connect to? Is it Gmail, Yahoo, PeoplePC, or what? You need to know this in order to configure that service to allow Mac Mail to download your email from that service to your computer. In addition, that service should have some support page that gives you instructions on how to configure Mac Mail. If you are using Yahoo mail, you have to purchase the annual upgrade in order to be able to download email to your computer.
"What is the advantage of using Mac Mail over accessing your email directly online? For one, any images that come as attachments in email are instantly viewable in Mac Mail. Same with most other small documents. With Mac Mail, you can get a preview of any size document without needing to save it to your computer first. There are several other benefits, and you really need to see a demo of Mail in order to appreciate all that it can do."
John concludes, "If there is anything else that you need to know, click here to send an email with your question to info@pmug.us and someone will try to assist you."
Flash Cookies, Part 2
See yesterday's posting on Adobe Flash Cookies. Jim Hamm goes on to say, "After further exploration of this Flash cookie situation, here's something thing I've done just to see how it works out. I went to the Flash folder (~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects) on my hard drive and changed the settings as follows:
Original settings: jimhamm - read and write....everyone - read only
Revised settings: jimhamm - write only (Dropbox)....everyone - No access
Flash cookies perhaps can still get into the folder, but no one can access them. I'll find out if I incur any problems with these settings. So far, Flash on websites seems to work okay...after I click the 'ClicktoFlash' program. This latter program prevents Flash from loading on websites unless I want it to.
"I'm not at all worried or paranoid about Flash cookies -- I'm just doing this because I enjoy doing this kind of 'stuff' (technical term) and because I don't think Adobe should be allowing this to begin with. To a friend I said the following: 'This behavior of storing cookies doesn't seem to have anything to do with Flash.'
"He replied: 'Sure it does... the biggest customers for Flash are advertisers, and advertisers want to target you. Just follow the money.'
"I'll see how this all works out," Jim says.
About WeTransfer
Thanks to David Passell for this next info. He writes, "Hi: Here is an interesting site to explore. It allows you to send files up to 2GB to a central site (probably in the Netherlands, but maybe in San Francisco) with up to 20 E-mail recipients. The E-mail message(s) are about 15K.
The name is below in 'From:' What should happen if you click on 'Download' will be the loading of a 350MB or so file which contains a quick-time movie of me installing an anti-virus program onto XP that I had running under Parallels.
Depending on how fast your internet connection is, the download will take from 10 - 30 minutes. Now for anybody who wants to use this free program, the following I found by experience.
1. The upload speed of my ISP (yours may be different) is around 1/5 of the download speed. Therefore, be armed with patience. It took over five hours for me to upload the file. (This seems a not-mentioned limitation of any site that enables you to upload your stuff.)
2. It is not OS dependent, and should work with MAC, Windows, or Linux; but it requires your browser to have Flash-player. That leaves out iPads and OS 9 Macs. They say they are working on an 'html version' which will get around that problem.
3. If you don't want to download my file, or try it with one of your own, just go to wetransfer.com and you will see a window similar to below that provides you with a place to select a file (folders don't work, and if you select more than one file you will send re with a .zip ), up to 20 email addresses, your own email address for confirmation messages, and a message you can attach to the email.
4. After your file is uploaded (a progress 'circle' indicates percentage loaded) it will say Finish and you can leave the site, or you can send out additional files.
5. The recipients will get a message like this screen shot .
6. I chose to simply forward my message. However the recipients will receive a more elegant way to forward within the conclusion of the download.
7. If my description is unclear, just go to the site and click on 'info' and/or 'blog' for more information.
Credit to Kim Komando for the information about this website.
Adobe Flash Cookies
The concern of Adobe Flash allowing cookies that are not controlled by your browser, to be stored is discussed in the articles here. First, second, third.
Jim Hamm sends this info: "I have read about this previously, and when I checked the cookies in my Mac using Adobe's Settings Manager (third link) I was amazed at the number of cookies I had, and I did not recognize many of the names. On several, I recognized the name but, to my remembrance (which, admittedly, can be shaky), I had never visited the website.
"I deleted all of them, and went to the Global Privacy Settings panel and set it to block all cookies. Unfortunately, it seems all this does is block a website from accessing a camera or microphone.
"I'm not clear if one can set Adobe Flash to block cookies completely and permanently. If someone does know, I'd appreciate your letting me know how to make this setting.
"As a general statement, I'm not concerned so much about cookies that I might pick up in my browser -- and I can set Safari to block cookies. Cookies do serve a useful purpose in many cases and, from what I've read, are not malware as such. But I'm not clear as to why Adobe should capture these cookies. According to the article, 'Adobe condemns the practice of using Local Storage to back up browser cookies for the purpose of restoring them later without user knowledge and express consent.' "
Some Apps Need Rosetta
Did you know some Mac PowerPC applications that are designed to work with Mac OS X 10.5 or earlier won't run in 10.6 or later, without setting one or two options related to the application with the Finder?
This news comes from John Carter. He adds, "You have to have Rosetta installed on your computer, as it may be required to run that application. Rosetta is an optional application that you can install from your Mac install DVD (see this).
Show 'Get Info' for the application with your Finder. I'll use Safari as an example here:
Notice at the bottom of the image to the left there is a box to open Safari in 32-bit mode. Below that is a box to open using Rosetta Both of those boxes may have to be checked to run some PowerPC applications on 10.6 or later."
Organized Crime is Stealing Data
In case you didn't read it, here is an interesting article from the Windows Secrets newsletter on online data theft. Jim Hamm comments, "Seems as though it is relatively easy to hack web servers that use SQL databases. The study noted that 85% of the breeches was from organized crime, and 'that 98% of the stolen data was snatched directly from company servers — mostly by use of malware and direct hacking.' I hope Amazon's servers are reasonably secure -- we do a fair amount of shopping there.
"This isn't a topic I lie awake at night worrying about, but it is a risk one takes if you want to do online shopping -- which many people do," Jim concludes.
MacBookPro Problems with Video?
Jim Hamm alerts us to details from Apple about MacBookPro models experiencing problems with video. Read about the extended warranty.
Getting Our Attention in the News
"Take a read on the following two articles," Jim Hamm begins, "It's amazing how Apple products, and the iPhone 4 in particular, generate both good and bad admiration." While viewing these sites what caught my eye was this article about a conman in Germany who posed as a broke tourist selling his iPod and electronics gear, and sold the "sorta-samaritans" a bag full of potatoes.
Two Other Good Ideas
"Here is an informative article, TechTails #728, from Small Dog Electronics." Jim Hamm goes on to elaborate: "I hadn't even thought about the idea of de-authorizing iTunes before taking taking in my Mac for a repair. This is good information to know and remember. Also, the article on all the video adaptors is useful information to know and keep for reference."