Mountain Lion Installation: Read About It

        John Carter jumps right in with Mountain Lion.  He tells us, "Like Jim Hamm before me, I dove right in and updated my iMac to 10.8 today.

        "The installation was painless. I started it and walked away for the rest of the day.

When I came back, several applications needed attention – mostly updates.

        "The first surprise was a new application: Messages. This popped up in the middle of the screen all on its own. Apple's way of telling me it's there. Messages allows me to text anyone with an Apple device or PC with 10.8 for free. Messages is already available on iOS 5.1. So this is just another step toward making all Apple products look and feel the same. I doubt I will ever use Messages – unless there is someone out there who doesn't want to use Mail. Mostly, Messages is for iOS devices to avoid phone charges for text messaging.

        "The next surprise was a string of short notices down the right side of the display. These were recent updates to Calendar. And each time Jackie added a new item to the Calendar on her MacBook Air, another notice popped up on my iMac. That's because she is sharing her Calendar with me to make sure I know what she's up to. And I have done the same for her.

        "Another that surprised me was that Total Finder – an add-on to Finder – said that it was not tested on 10.8. It worked anyway.

        "After performing just a few application updates – one was NeoOffice (3.3 Beta is out, available only to those who donated within the past year), I then discovered that the App Store had a few more updates waiting for me. These were iWork, iPhoto, iMovie, and Xcode. 

        "The update for iPhoto required a database update, and I haven't seen any obvious changes. 

        "iMovie thumbnails needed to be created for the project I was currently working on – that took quite a while. And oh, by the way - iMove is LOTS faster.

        "When I opened Mail, the database had to be converted for the new 10.8. No problem. Can't see anything new so far.

        "I expected some change in Preview. When I opened it, I saw a new window. It was telling me that I could now move my existing documents to iCloud by dragging them to that window from the Finder or other app. Before, what I would see was just a Finder window. Now, in the upper left corner of the Preview window are two new buttons: iCloud and On My Mac. Aside for a complete makeover in the Preview Menu, there is now a brand new Editor toolbar with an enhanced Adjust Color pane and a Smart Lasso. 

        "Move over, iPhoto! You may never use iPhoto again to make basic changes to a photo – unless, of course, the only way to access the photo is through iPhoto. The bad part of this is, now you have something else to spend time on. As with Lion, any change you make to a photo with Preview creates a version of the file – so you can always retrieve the original. And when you click on the filename, the menu now shows an option to move the image to iCloud. Clicking on Browse all Versions shows them in the same way that Time Machine shows your backups. Wow! I like the changes I just made to that photo.

        "Remember what I said about the new buttons in the upper left of the Finder window when I opened Preview? You get the same two buttons (iCloud and On My Mac) with Pages, Keynote, and Numbers.

        "I have no idea what's new in Xcode, and even if I did, I'm sure you wouldn't be interested.

        And here John winds up his report with this, "All in all, it has been a good thing. Nothing really new to learn – except Messages. But then, I haven't read about all the new features in 10.8. I give this 10.8 upgrade a 10. Upgrading from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion may be like trading Windows for a Mac, but going from Lion to Mountain Lion will be like adding more icing to the cake.

        "Where's my MacBook Pro? That's next!"   OK, John, keep us posted.  

Mountain Lion Roars!

You'll be seeing a lot of articles about Mountain Lion which was released this morning.  See Apple's site with a 5 minute video about the 200+ features.  Here's a USA Today's columnist's take on it. Jim Hamm sends us this link to author Galen Gruman's book.  Now, he's installed it!         "When Lion first came out, July 20, 2011, the very first day I downloaded and installed it. Not a good idea to do that the first day (let other people catch the problems), and I said "never again". Well, I must have a short memory, or not too smart (both, probably), because I just now did it again. 

        "I just finished downloading and installing Mountain Lion, and am using it now. Took 15 minutes to download and 20 minutes to install. When the install starts the screen says installing with 30 minutes, etc, remaining. As long as I can see the screen I feel comfortable that something is happening. Then, at some point, the screen goes dark. Uh oh, what's happening? A problem? The fans kick into high gear as the Mac seems to be heating up. I have to resist the temptation to start clicking keys to find out what is going on. Good sense prevails, and I do nothing but wait. Then, after 20 minutes, a screen appears, and I feel better.

        "At first glance, everything looks and feels the same as before. All of my apps seem to be working, which surprises me — even Avast, the anti-virus program works. And even a nondescript program like Radium works, which is an internet radio station, and I'm listening to it now. Mountain Lion pops up a display box and mentions that programs that are not compatible will be listed in a folder on the hard drive. I checked, and only Avast needed to be re-authenticated. As I progress along I may find some surprises, but so far so good.

        "Now I'll have to read the article to find out just what are the 25 'goodies' I got in Mountain Lion. Hope they're worth the $20 bucks..(grin)...." Jim

        And now, from the Prez Art Gorski:  "Personally, I'm going to wait a week or so before installing Mountain Lion to see if there are any critical flaws. But when I'm ready to install it, I'll refer to this guide:

        "If it's not mentioned in these articles, make sure you do a complete backup of your hard drive first. Time Machine isn't good enough, I recommend making a bootable clone using the Carbon Copy Cloner app."         Now, back to Jim Hamm who says, "Here is a very good, and simple to understand, review of the changes made in Mountain Lion. As the author states, the price is right and the upgrade process works well. No glitches observed yet -- by the author or me."           Stay tuned for more info from our PMUG members: the Mountain Lion roars! 

Beware Malicious Files on Olympics

        A warning about your security when you browse the Internet for Olympic sites is posted.  A San Jose tech security firm ThreatMetrix warns that a malicious file named "london-2012-olympic-games-day-by-day-schedule.pdf" has already been spotted.  This is a 2 page article from San Francisco Chronicle newspaper with info on the Olympics websites.

FAQ on Carbon Copy Cloner

        "If you've been using the free (donationware) version of CCC, Carbon Copy Cloner, it has now gone commercial and will be priced at $40.  Until August 12 it can be purchased for $30.  You can read about CCC's transition to a commercial product in the following link," writes Jim Hamm.   The article addresses Frequently Asked Questions, (FAQ).

Mountain Lion -- Tomorrow!

        Apple announced that tomorrow, July 25, Mountain Lion OS X, 10.8 will be released.  Here's a very short video and article.

Watch the Olympics

Watch the Olympics in London via a free app for your iPad, Jim Hamm tells us.  And you can watch streaming video from any computer on numerous websites.  Read about it here.Jim Hamm also found this article about various ways to watch the Olympics this year.  This describes the Alert Me feature that will email you about a half-hour before every event that you select will start.

App Store Doesn't Require Password

        This interesting tidbit about iOS 6 for iPads and iPhones comes to us from Jim Hamm.  See the article here about downloading free apps without needing a password. He sends it via Zite, a free personalized magazine iPad app.

If and When You Upgrade to Mountain Lion

        "If you do upgrade to Mountain Lion, here is an article summarizing the 10 most important features you can look forward to," Jim Hamm says.  The article suggests we could see Mountain Lion on a Wednesday in July, so that narrows it down!  

Lessons Learned? OK!

        "This is sort of related to 'Learning about the Mac'" begins Allen Laudenslager.  (Who?  when? you ask. Yes, Allen, a PMUG's Previous Prez, and his wife are back. And here's the latest lesson learned.) 

        "After Jeff Ian's great presentation on printers, I rushed right over to Best Buy and picked up that $59.95 Brother all in one printer before the sale ended. In attempting to connect it to my home Wifi network I had the following problems.

       "First, I was able to set it up with my home network from the printer panel front with no problems, second I was able to connect my Macbook to the printer with no problems. I kind of expected that cause the Mac is great! The problems started when I tried to connect my wife's Windows 7 laptop to the printer.

        "The instructions 'presume'  that you are connecting the printer for the first time and there was no reference that I could find in the set up guide to attaching the printer to a second computer. Like the dummy I am, I followed the instructions and the Windows laptop wouldn't print. No big surprise there, the big surprise was that my Macbook stopped printing too!

        "Tried to contact Brother and it seems that they only support the product during regular business hours Monday through Friday. I guess most of their customers don't try to install their products on the weekends or evenings. I did try their email support but gave up after receiving a set of Windows setup instructions to fix the 'can't print from a OS X 10 Macbook' help request.

        "Finally gave up after three hours Saturday and just waited till business hours Monday to call the Brother help desk.

        "First thing was that the Windows instructions told me to use a static IP address, and I should have used the dynamic IP address setting. Once I reset that to the factory default my Macbook started printing again. The Windows 7 problem was a 'printer busy' error and turned out to be a really unusually issue.

        "First a little background — we are staying in a friend's guest house till we find a permanent place following our return from Denver two weeks ago. Second, our hosts have another Wifi network for their computers. When I set up mine, I just connected to their DSL modem router and went back to work.

        "My wife came back earlier than I did and had logged her laptop into our host's network and didn't change the log in to our network after I set it up here!

        "Logged into the correct Wifi network with her laptop, and lo and behold, I could find the printer and get it to work correctly."

         Here Allen explains with a smile, "Lesson learned. A little embarrassing to share with all the computer experts in PMUG, but I finally decided that I'd rather spread the word and put up with the pointing and laughing."

Serious Bug Discovered in Lion

        John Carter wants our attention now!  "I just discovered that LION has a serious bug that Apple isn’t recognizing as a bug yet.   Files disappear from the hard drive.  Do a search with the keywords “files disappearing on mac."

        "It happened to me, and it’s happening to others.  I’m still looking into it.

        "There doesn’t seem to be any fix in the future. Maybe Mountain Lion won’t have the bug. It’s totally random while at the same time appears to be completely selective. All the files in every subfolder of one of my folders are missing: e.g., folder A contains folders B, C, and D. All files in B, C, and D are missing.

        "Other folders that I know should be on the machine are now missing — stuff that I put there just two weeks ago.

        "Using Time Machine only helps if you actually use it. In my case, the folders and files in question were deliberately excluded from Time Machine — to save space in my Time Machine backup. What a shame on me!"

        John concludes for now with, "Now, I recently worked with a client who has Snow Leopard, and dozens of photos disappeared off his Mac. No Time Machine backup. Another client also claims to have missing files — and he is not using Lion. So when did this problem start, and how widespread is it?"
        Want to see John's posts on this problem on the Apple Discussion site?  Find it here.  He is posted as jrc39 and his comments are as of 7-15.  Keep up the good work, John, and let us know the resolution of the matter.  

Wondering About WriteBox

        Now Jim Hamm finds something else to pass on:  "If you use Dropbox frequently here is a simple web app called WriteBox that can sync directly with Dropbox. Details are provided in this article.  Click here and start typing: https://write-box.appspot.com/ . Although it is a simple text editor, it does give you a count of lines, words and characters. Also, you can change the font size and type, but it does not accept images.
        "Be sure there is nothing confidential in your Dropbox account before allowing this app access. One never knows what or who WriteBox is all about." 

The Future of Apple's Dock Connector

       Jim Hamm's found this info:  "Here is an excellent article explaining why Apple will probably drop the 30-pin connector in favor of a 19-pin connector in the next release of the iPhone."  He sent it via Zite, the personalized magazine iPad app, which is FREE in the App Store.  

Entertainment on the Cheap

        John Carter finds this to pass along, "MakeUseOf keeps coming out with articles that talk about different ways to watch movies on your TV.  The latest article is "Entertainment On the Cheap: The Mot Affordable Ways to Set Up a Home Theater," includes information on Raspberry Pi, Apple TV, and an old Netbook.  Keep informed with handy tech tips like this by subscribing to the MakeUseOf newsletter."

Do You Miss Your Old Typewriter?

       With a one word exclamation, "Hilarious!" Prez Art Gorski finds something that brings back old memories — that clicking of a typewriter.  See for yourself here.

Photographs To Enjoy

         Strange, beautiful, breathtaking, the “best of the visual web,” a site forwarded to us this afternoon from Jim Hamm.  Tale a break from your serious contemplations on the computer just now and smile at the photos.    

iTravel is Coming!

       Watch for convenience and simplicity:  iTravel is coming.  Jim Hamm found this interesting article here.  The writer gives a glimpse of the future with iTravel.  He states that Apple has been granted a patent for a service that will use near-field communication (NFC) so you'll just wave your iDevice near the reader to check in or board the plane.  It seems the function will be handled by Passbook, one of the new features of iOS 6 to be released this fall.  Read the article for more details.

Latest iPhone Rumors

        Here's something interesting from Jim Hamm, "There's lots of rumors about what the next iPhone might look like and contain. Here's one speculation from InfoWorld that makes some logical sense. 
        "The biggest change, if it should occur, that would negatively affect our household is the reduction in size of the 30-pin dock connector. We have too many radios and other 'stuff' that fits the exiting 30-pin opening. A slightly larger screen would be nice, but I don't want the iPhone to grow any larger than it presently is —well, maybe a tad would be okay. It's comfortable to hold now, but if it got too big then it could become unwieldy."
       So, stay tuned for the next chapter . . . 

Upgrading to Mountain Lion?

        Getting ready for Mountain Lion, Jim Hamm shares some helpful advice, "If you plan to upgrade to Mountain Lion, the TidBITS newsletter is offering two books for a discounted price of $10 each until Mountain Lion is released. At that time the book price increases to $15 each. You can read more about the offer in the following link.
        Jim follows up with "If you're planning to upgrade to Mountain Lion later this month, here is a Macworld article with preparatory steps to take before 'roaring' off to that new OS."

Malware Attacks PowerPC or Intel Mac with Rosetta

        Ever on the alert to help Mac users, Prez Art Gorski sends this info:  "Note that this malware cannot affect the latest version of Mac OS X. It is a PowerPC binary, which means it can only run on an old PowerPC Mac or an Intel Mac with Rosetta installed. Note also the Mac dialog box shown, which warns you not to trust this! That's why it's called social engineering, it depends on you clicking on it when you shouldn't."  Here's the article. 

Cell Phone Costs

     Save money — sounds almost as good as FREE.  Jim Hamm to the rescue.  He's found a very important article with warnings we need to read and heed.  See here.  He explains, "If you use a cell phone, you may want to read this article about third-party vendors somehow adding subscriptions to your service. Subscriptions that you don't want and didn't subscribe to, and which increase your monthly cost. I don't understand how this can happen, but according to the article, it can. I notice that AT&T (and maybe other carriers) permit a subscriber to place a block on their service so this can't happen. We've not had a problem yet, that I'm aware of, but I plan to call AT&T and place a block on our service.
        "The other thing to do is review your monthly bill carefully."