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Screen Sharing Explained

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        Explaining screen sharing, John Carter says, "Now that I have Mountain Lion on my iMac and having discovered that iChat has been replaced with iMessages, I poked around until I discovered that screen sharing is still available with Mountain Lion. It just wasn't as obvious to me as it was before. Now that I know where it is and how to show my Buddy list, getting to screen sharing is actually quite simple.

        "The Buddy list in iMessages is the same as with iChat, so no surprises there. If the Buddy list doesn't show up right when you start iMessages, the hotkey Cmd-1 will bring it up or put it away (it's a toggle, just like in iChat).
        "The real change is that the old iChat is now broken up into iMessages and FaceTime. You can start a video chat in either FaceTime or iMessages, but you can only start a text or voice chat in iMessages and you can only do screen sharing in iMessages. When doing a video chat in iMessages, it brings up FaceTime."
        Got it?  If not, let John Carter know.  He teaches SIGs and helps make computers easier to do! 
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RSS Feed Solutions Described

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        Mountain Lion no longer supports RSS feeds in either Mail or Safari, but John Carter to the rescue.  He offers this description and solution:   "If you are currently subscribed to either the PMUG website RSS or the Newsletter RSS, you should consider one of the many alternatives for receiving RSS feeds.

        "I use NetNewsWire, the free version. It works, but not quite the way I would like it to. When I was subscribing to RSS feeds with Mail, I could delete news that I didn't care to keep. You can't do that in NetNewsWire, at least not in the free version. 
        "NetNewsWire also automatically deletes old news. It seems the only way to hang onto a copy of any news item is to display it, copy it, and paste it into a document. But then, you can still go to the site that delivered the news feed and retrieve any material there by searching for the topic. Now the funny part of this is for me, I rarely go back and reread any news. I do at times refer to it to pass on information that others are asking about.
        "To subscribe to an RSS feed in Mountain Lion, you first have to have an RSS news reader installed on your computer. Next, open Safari and go to the website that you want to subscribe to their RSS feed. Click on the RSS icon. It opens NetNewsWire (if that's what you have installed) and pops up a dialogue box. In the dialogue box, enter a decent short title and a description (optional).
        "If you are still using Leopard, Snow Leopard, or Lion and you want to start right away with an RSS reader like NetNewsWire, open Mail -> Preferences and click on the RSS tab. There you will find an option to use Mail or an external reader. Click on the option to use an external reader, then in the Finder window that opens, find and click on the RSS reader, then click OK. Any new RSS feeds that come in will go to that reader. You can now delete the RSS feed in Mail. If you're using Safari as your RSS reader, do pretty much the same thing there in Safari Preferences.
        "If you choose to use NetNewsWire, when you click on a news item you will get the short version. To read the long version, you can either double-click on the entry or click on the title of the news feed - this appears if large blue letters just above the short version."
        (Click to enlarge the illustrations.) 
John winds up his instructions with,  "In NetNewsWire preferences you select to open the long version in NewNewsWire (in a separate tab) or in your default browser."
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Hacking Incident Warns Us About Passwords

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        The latest on this situation is updated 8-5.  Read the whole thing.         Jim Hamm sent this link about a horrible hacking of a man's iCloud account.  This evening John Carter sent a further warning of the need to establish strong passwords to avoid such a terrible thing.         Here's the first from Jim:  "Here is a scary tale of woe: Mr Honan's iCloud account was hacked. What's even scarier, the hacker was then able to remotely wipe Mr Honan's iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air! Yes, all dead. If you happen to use a Gmail account, a two-step verification process is available to prevent hacking. As far as I know, this feature isn't available for iCloud. So, one should have a very strong password for your iCloud account. Yes, I know, it's probably remote that your iCloud account will be hacked. Mr Honan thought so, too."           But Jim, can that really be true?  He wrote back with two other sites on the issue.  Here and here.          John Carter went into more detail on what we should do about our own passwords.  ". . . if your passwords are short and simple, be prepared to be hijacked and potentially lose all the money in your bank or all the files on your computer.          "A strong password contains a mix of letters and numbers with at least one uppercase letter, and the password should be at least 8 characters long. A very secure password will be 10 or more characters long. The password should never contain a word that can be found in the dictionary or letters or numbers in a sequence or that repeat.          "Some of my clients do not even have a password to login to their computer, and this is a grave mistake because it makes all your other passwords in the Keychain Access application accessible to anyone that manages to hack into your computer.

        "Do yourself a favor and use passwords that are complete garbage. Write them down where you know you can access them quickly. Protecting yourself will save me a trip to help recover your files — if that's even possible. Smile when you have to type in that long gibberish because you know you're being protected. After a few times of typing it in, it will become second nature. 
        "One approach is to alternating case, intermix numbers with letters, and where allowed, toss in a symbol. For your different passwords, you only need to make one letter or number different or add one letter or number."  
        So, consider yourself warned, thanks to Jim and John.          Now, Jim Hamm brings us the update of 8-5. "Here's update three from the guy who was hacked via iCloud and had his iPhone, MacBook Air and iPad wiped clean:         "Update Three: I know how it was done now. Confirmed with both the hacker and Apple. It wasn’t password related. They got in via Apple tech support and some clever social engineering that let them bypass  security questions. Apple has my Macbook and is trying to recover the data. I’m back in all my accounts that I know I was locked out of. Still trying to figure out where else they were."           And here's Jim's final comment -- at least for now!  "The hacker sure must have been one smooth talker to convince Apple's tech support to let him into Honan's iCloud account, which wasn't his. So much for strong passwords. It seems they can be circumvented.  According to another report, the hacker then used  Apple's 'Find My Phone' service to remotely wipe the three devices."
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Precautions About Java

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        Got Java?  Note these precautions forwarded to us from Jim Hamm. 
        "Here's another article describing the risk of keeping Java enabled on your browser.  If you need to access websites that require Java, I like the suggestion in the article to have a browser set aside for this purpose. I think Chrome might be good for this. As I've mentioned previously, I have Java disabled in Safari and haven't had any problems accessing websites. It seems there are fewer of them nowadays." 

        Jim goes on to say, "I'm surprised that Oracle hasn't been more aggressive in patching Java and making it more secure against malware. There is some debate going on between Oracle and Google on who "owns" Java.  See this article. 
        "Regardless of the court outcome, I think it's wise to disable Java in your browser, just to be on the safe side."
        But Jim, is Java the same as JavaScript in the Preferences in Safari?  "No, they are completely different programs." 
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Watch Those Emails!

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        Jim Hamm sends this latest:  "You probably are already cognizant about this subject, but here's an article about protecting your computer against Java malware. I had disabled Java on my Mac some time ago but hadn't done so on my PC till now, when I read this article. However Java is used on a computer, I haven't noticed missing it once it was disabled.
       "In an unrelated malware incident involving attempted "phishing", I received an email a couple of days ago that looked like it was from Amazon thanking me for my order of Bose speakers for $120. Well, I hadn't ordered any speakers and there was different links in the message that one could click -- but I didn't click any of them. What was interesting was a message to the side that said this might be a "phishing" attempt. Have no idea how/why this was in the email. Anyway, I just deleted the email and checked to insure a charge hadn't got on our credit card for this amount. It hadn't. However, the document from Amazon sure looked real.
       "What with the proliferation of purchases online, think about all the places/websites where you have used your credit card — or at least I have. The bad guys are constantly on the prowl looking for ways to penetrate these websites — and your computer — to steal your credit card number. A life-long battle between them and us it seems," Jim comments. 

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Curiosity Due to Land on Mars, August 5

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         And you thought your computer was a scientific marvel . . . but expand your imagination viewing the fascinating video of details of Curiosity, a car-size robotic explorer which is set to land on Mars on Sunday night, August 5.  http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120731.html   

        Is it worth the $$$?  Jim Hamm comments,   "Now this IS rocket science, it IS amazing, and it IS amazingly complex. Look at what all has to happen to make a landing on Mars, which is scheduled for August 5. I hope it turns out okay, but the odds don't look so good to me.
        "Now, I'm a fan of discovery and innovation, but I have to wonder, what did this cost and what will the average person get out of it? Could the money spent have been put to better use? I'm sure there's lots of opinions on this."
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The Next iPhone? And Apple Ads

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        Jim Hamm starts us off with this, "Could these be pictures of the next iPhone? Only conjecture at this point. At first glance it looks very similar to my existing iPhone 4. A closer looks reveals differences: eg, the bottom has a smaller dock connector (as has been oft rumored) and speaker openings. Will be interesting to what Apple has done to the 'innards' as well."
        A look there leads to this link with other Apple info, including a 1 minute video, and an article about the Apple TV ads shown during the Olympics opening ceremony. 

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iCloud Conundrum

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        "I surely don't understand iCloud in Mountain Lion," declares Jim Hamm.  He goes on to explain,  "To wit: I open TextEdit for the first time (in ML) and what appears first is not a blank page ready to type on, as in the past, but a dialog box of iCloud. It explains that documents can be drug to the box and saved in iCloud. 
        "So, out of curiosity, I tried that. Instead of actually moving a document from my hard drive to iCloud, I wanted to move a copy of the document, the same concept (in my mind) as Time Machine. I would have a document on my hard drive and in the Cloud. 
        "Nope! The iCloud dialog box wouldn't let me move a copy of the document to the cloud, only the original. I didn't want to do that.

        "After dragging and dropping one document from the Finder to iCloud, just to see what happened, under the document it showed 'Waiting' for a bit, then the title of the document appeared. The document had moved from my hard drive. I assumed this meant it was stored in iCloud. So, in Safari, I log in to iCloud and look at what's in my iCloud. The document is not there. There's not even a heading for documents there. And yes, in the System Preference iCloud pane I have 'Documents & Data' checked."
        Jim closes with, "Would the knowledgable luminaries of this forum be so kind as to explain what I'm missing in this scenario? More elucidation very much appreciated. Thanks." 

Mountain Lion Messages

     Jim Hamm's impressed with Verge newsletter info on Mountain Lion;  he notes their comments on Messages, saying, "How Messages works is a bit confusing. Read the fourth paragraph. Looks like iOS 6 will solve the problem later this year when it's released."
        You'll want to read their whole report on all the features.  The Verge gives 11 pages of illustrated info on Mountain Lion, followed by 757 comments.  

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Mountain Lion Upgrade Notes

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        "Well, there's more," John Carter begins.  (Of course, with  200+ features!) OK, John: you're on! 

        "The Address Book is quite a bit different. More controls to change the appearance. One control places the group list in a column on the far left next to the address list. What's still missing is a column of A-Z tabs to quickly go to a section of the address book like there is in the iPad Contacts.
        "A Reminders App, list like the one in the iPad, is now in OS 10.8. Well, not exactly like it. OS X 10.8 has a few controls that iOS 5.1 doesn't have, like displaying a small monthly calendar in the left column.
        "TextEdit also has the two new buttons (iCloud and On My Mac) in the upper left of the Open window.
        "Stickies still exists, but now there is Notes. These are the same notes that you have in the iPhone and iPad. But looks a bit different.
        "The Open window for QuickTime doesn't have the two new buttons.
        "I still prefer MPEGStreamclip over QuickTime. QuickTime still chokes on .wmv files that MPEGStreamclip has no problem with. And the latest Flip4Mac release didn't help QuickTime at all – because it wouldn't install. With great difficulty I ejected the Flip4Mac installer and then had to restart my computer to get Mail to work again. Clue: don't install the 3.0 Beta for Flip4Mac."
        No sooner had John signed off, "No time for more. I'll continue this at a later time" – than he thought of more!
        "News flash!
        "X11 is not included with Mountain Lion. If you had X11 installed for use with Crossover, Crossover will not run. Attempting to run X11 forces you to an Apple website informing you that X11 is no longer supported.
        "Apple is now using XQuartz instead of X11, but XQuartz will not work with Crossover.
        "Crossover is not yet available for Mountain Lion. So, if you depend on a Windows application running under Crossover, do not upgrade to Mountain Lion until Codeweavers has created a Mountain Lion update.
        "If you have other apps that depend on X11, check to see if it has a Mountain Lion compatible version."  And with this John does sign off — for now. 
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Mountain Lion Installation: Read About It

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        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! 
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Beware Malicious Files on Olympics

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        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.