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Public WiFi

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Public wifi is certainly handy, especially when one is traveling. But there are risks involved, and the following article describes more about this risk:

https://thecorrespondent.com/1101/what-we-give-away-when-we-log-on-to-a-public-wifi-network/31040493-53737dba

Now, I'm not suggesting one doesn't use public wifi -- I use it frequently. What I do recommend is that you use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) whenever you're on a public wifi network.  

hich VPN should one use, you might ask? There are many reviews available of VPNs on the internet. Here's one to read, if you have an interest: 

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403388,00.asp

f you're on public wifi, and not using a VPN, the first article above clearly shows how easy it is for hackers to snoop on your computer activity. So, just be careful when using public wifi.

Jim Hamm

9to5 Mac: New Survey

Interesting statistic!!

 

New survey finds 75% of enterprise employees with choice pick iOS over Android, 72% Mac over PC
9to5Mac

Jamf has released a new survey titled "The Impact of Device Choice on the Employee Experience". Among other findings, Jamf reports that about three-quarters of employees picked iPhone, iPad, or Mac over competing options when given a choice. Jamf's March 2018 survey is based on responses from 580 executives, managers, and IT professionals. When organizations give employees... Read the full story

Frank Croft

Best AV for a Mac

If perhaps you're looking for an AV program for your Mac, the following article from Macworld provides a review of several anti-virus programs:

https://www.macworld.com/article/3263722/software/best-antivirus-for-mac.html

Some might feel an AV program isn't necessary on a Mac, but if an AV program is effective, free, and has a minimal impact on a computer's performance, I don't see any downside to using one. Why not run one, I ask myself? It doesn't hurt, and it might help. 

In this particular article the free version of Avast is recommended. Avast usually comes out well in AV tests, and I've used Avast for years.

Jim Hamm

MacBook Pro Battery Replacement

If you have a Non-Touch Bar 13" MacBook Pro and it was produced within a certain time frame, it may be eligible for a free battery replacement. The following article provides more details:

https://tidbits.com/2018/04/22/apple-rolls-out-replacement-program-for-faulty-batteries-in-non-touch-bar-13-inch-macbook-pros/

I just now checked my 13" MacBook Pro and it isn't eligible -- nor does it need -- a battery replaced.

Jim Hamm

Opera's Free VPN

For some time Opera has offered a free version of their VPN (Virtual Private Network) for iOS devices. Soon it will no longer be available. Following is an article that discusses this:

https://askbobrankin.com/is_operas_free_vpn_going_away.html

It's expensive for any company to maintain a VPN network, and unreasonable for them to offer it free. How can a company afford to do this? The desktop version of the Opera Browser does continue to offer a free built-in VPN, but I'm guessing Opera is doing this to try to increase market share for their browser. How long they'll continue to do this is uncertain, though.

Jim Hamm

Glims Plugin for Safari

Because Safari may not be as versatile as other web browsers like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, it needs plugins to expand its features and capability. One commonly used plugin for the Safari web browser is Glims. Glims’ main objective is to enhance the search capability of your Safari browser, but it also features other functionalities as well, like bookmark management, search suggestions, and more. But with these enhancements also comes advertisements, which can be a little too frequent and annoying. If you find these ads too intrusive when you’re doing searches, and already affects your browsing experience, you can just easily uninstall Glims, and remove it from your Safari web browser.

Additionally, Sophos on my computer found four viruses in Glims. 

To find out how to remove Glim from Safari, see this article:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.wikihow.com/Remove-Glims-from-Safari%3Famp%3D

 

John R Carter Sr

Chrome Phishing Protection

If you use the Chrome Browser, you will want to read this article on possible phishing protection:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3269264/web-browsers/microsoft-boosts-anti-phishing-skills-of-chrome-the-ie-and-edge-killer.html

Since Chrome will be doing extra work in scanning for phishing attempts, I wonder if this feature will somewhat slow down one's browsing experience? Best way to find out, I guess, is to try it, which I plan to do.

Jim Hamm

How Strong is Your Password?

A recent Wall Street Journal interview (https://curiosity.com/topics/the-real-rules-for-strong-computer-passwords-go-against-everything-youve-been-told-curiosity) about passwords indicated that a password like “correcthorsestaplebattery” is stronger than “Tr0ub4dor&3”. So I checked it out with a password strength checker (http://www.passwordmeter.com/). Wrong! The long password was rated weak with a score of 25 and the shorter password was rated very strong with a score of 100! The reason for the low score of the long password - no numbers or symbols and all lowercase. Just using one uppercase letter and adding one number gave it a rating of very strong with a score of 100. What this means is that you can use a string of unconnected words - at least three - with at least one uppercase and one number or symbol to make up a memorable password. Trouble is, you need to make up a LOT of passwords - one for every account you have. So the easy way out, as suggested by the article, is to use a password manager where that memorable password gives you access to the password manager and let the password manager make up complex passwords for each of your accounts. Done! Only one password that you need to remember.

And then I checked out my favorite combination password, a pattern like lllnlllnLLLn, where lll are lower case letters, n is a number, and LLL are uppercase letters. 12 characters in all. It was rated very strong with a score of 87. Adding just one more character, either another number or a symbol, changed the score to 100.

If you want to test your password, use the above link - but don’t use your password verbatim. Just use the same pattern with different letters, numbers and symbols.

Oh, did I say that you only need to remember one password? Not quite right. You need to remember your computer login password also.

John R Carter, Sr.

Apple Wireless Ear Buds

Do you have a pair of those very expensive wireless ear buds? If so, then you’re probably also wondering just how much power they use. I started with a fully charged pair and watched an hour long video with great sound coming through the ear buds. Then, when I opened the case and inserted the ear buds, I noticed a new graphic pop up on my iPad screen. With the case open and the ear buds inserted, it was showing me the amount of charge left on the ear buds and on the case. The ear buds were showing 94% charge. Now that’s not bad for a one hour video. And the case was showing 74% charge - and that was after topping off the charge on the ear buds.

So how do you find out when the ear buds have depleted their charge? Simple! First one ear bud stops working, and then soon after the other one stops working. And you’ll also notice that the quality of the sound - when talking on the phone - gets a little weird.

The ear buds can be programmed to respond to a double tap, and each one can be programmed for a different command. For instance, double-tapping on the right bud can answer a phone call and then hang up, or, if not answering a phone call, it will raise Siri. Double-tapping on the left bud can advance to the next song in your playlist - when you’re playing music, or, like with the right bud, will raise Siri if you’re not listening to music.

John R Carter, Sr.

Convert an old Mac to a new Linux

What can you do with an old Apple laptop or iMac that can’t be updated anymore?

You can completely uninstall the MacOS system and install a distribution of Linux. I did this on a MacBook Air recently that only had 2GB of RAM and a 60 GB internal drive. The system works incredibly well. The distribution that I chose was Ubuntu Desktop because it is most like the Mac.

To install Linux, you first need to download an ISO file from the Internet and install it on a CD  or bootable thumb drive. Okay, for most people, that’s not going to happen. So I am offering PMUG members to do the conversion of their old Mac to a new Linux for free. I do recommend Ubuntu Desktop.

Find out more about Linux Ubuntu here.

John R Carter Sr

 

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Free Version of MS Office Online

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Did you know that you do not need to have MS Office on your computer?

There’s a FREE version ONLINE with your Microsoft account. All it takes is that you have a Microsoft account (a yahoo.com email address) and have installed OneDrive on your Mac (free). If you don’t have a Microsoft account, you can create one at the time that you download the OneDrive app. 

With OneDrive you get 15GB of free storage space online. That’s 10GB more than iCloud. You can add the OneDrive app to your iOS devices. You are not limited to just documents in OneDrive. Anything is allowed. You can share a link to a file or folder with anyone. Do you have a short video you want to share on Facebook? That and more can be done.

All the documents that you have in OneDrive (presuming that they are MS Office or compatible documents) can be accessed with the online version of MS Office.

Here’s how:

  1. On your Mac, click on the OneDrive icon in the Menu Bar. You’ll find it on the right side. 
  2. Then click on the gear in the upper left of the drop down window.
  3. In the new drop down window, click on “View online”
  4. Safari (or your default browser) opens a window with all your OneDrive documents showing.
  5. Double-click on the document you want to open. It will open with Word or Excel or PowerPoint as appropriate.

So if you already have a Mac version of MS Office and you are asked to pay for an update to MS Word, you really don’t need to. In fact, you can delete the MS Office apps without fear of losing anything - as long as you have OneDrive.

There is a downside - or course. The online version of Word and Excel do not have *all* the features of the paid for version. You probably won’t even miss them.

There’s a *free* app that you can install on your Mac that does everything that MS Office does - almost. I’m sure you have heard of it: OpenOffice. You can save your OpenOffice documents ( the default extensions are .odt for Writer and .ods for Calc) as MS Office documents (the defaults are .docx for Word and .xlsx for Excel), and they will open up with the online version of Word and Excel. One word of caution here: not all features of MS Office are available in OpenOffice, and some formatting and styles may change in the conversion.

But anyway, with the online version of MS Office, I really can’t see why anyone would need anything else. You can unlock more features of the online version of MS Office by paying a nominal monthly fee. You need to be a real power user to need to do that.

John R. Carter, Sr.

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Solid State Drive (SSD)

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Are you using a Solid State Drive (SSD)? SSD drives do not work the same way that hard drives work. When you delete a file, that space is not automatically used by a newer file. When you increase the size of a file, the additional space needed may be in a non-contiguous location, and that could slow things down. On an SSD, collecting unused space and optimizing files is called garbage collection. Older SSD drives might not have come with a garbage collection routine (Crucial SSD’s do). The older Mac versions needed to use a separate TRIM utility to do garbage collection. Again, with macOS X High Sierra and the new APFS file system, there is no need to be concerned about performing garbage collection on an SSD because as long as the computer is on and not busy, SSD garbage collection is done in the background, and it works even with older SSD drives but ONLY if the SSD has been reformatted as APFS. If you upgraded to High Sierra or purchased a new mac with High Sierra, the reformatting of the internal drive is done for you (except for some third party SSD’s). So you just need to be aware that any external drives may not be formatted as APFS, and you have to do that yourself. There are many additional features of APFS that work in the background for you, and it’s worth knowing something about those features - even if you don’t care to know.

John R Carter Sr

Can You Defrag/Optimize MacOS High Sierra?

There was a time when you could speed up the Mac by running a defrag and optimize tool. Not all tools will do both, and if both aren’t done, the speed improvement may not be realized. So that was then, with the older versions of macOS X. What about now?  The latest file system is now APFS. The APFS file system does an intelligent defrag that works in the background, and this may still require that your computer is not turned off or put to sleep. There are two sleep modes in macOS X. One is to put the display to sleep, and the other is to put the computer to sleep. Check System Preferences -> Energy Saver. It’s okay to allow the display to sleep. If you want to ensure that the computer has plenty of time to perform, don't let the computer go to sleep.

John R. Carter, Sr.

 

Is Your Hard Drive Filling Up?

If your hard drive is getting full, it is recommended by some to keep at least 20GB of free space on your hard drive. The main reason for this is to be able to have enough room to do another upgrade of the operating system. Each new upgrade requires a minimum of about 6 GB of space just to download the file, and some additional free space is needed for the final installation. A full hard drive does NOT mean your Mac will run slow, but it could also be that the files on the drive are not optimized and/or contiguous. 

John R. Carter, Sr.