Lifehacker.com has put together a list of 10 secret features in Mountain Lion. Take a look:
Top Ten Secret Features of Mountain Lion
iLife Coach for the DigiPhobic
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Should you upgrade?
Many of you have asked me if you should upgrade to Mountain Lion. I have been using it for almost a week now, and like it. But, compatibility with older apps is an issue with all upgrades, so here is s a link to a table of apps and their compatibility:
This table is like Wikipedia, it depends on reader contributions, so it's not 100% reliable, but I have found roaringapps.com to be a pretty good source.
If you don't see any reported problems with things you count on, I would say it's a go. Note the somewhat murky reports of Photoshop CS4.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
The new cat, OSX 10.8
Well I downloaded Mountain Lion. I am not one to safely wait for initial problems to surface and be solved in OS updates. Sometimes I pay dearly for that, but often I an pleased with the new updated, slick interface. This is one of those cases. I'm very happy with the new calendar interface, and even Address Book, now called Contacts. Obviously I have yet to play with all of the new features in this operating system, but right now I am writing this blog using the speech dictation function. Which is awesome! And yes, this OS seems much faster. Obviously, I will write more later. Or should I say I will talk more later.
But for now, here is a link to:
80 Mountain Lion Tips and Tricks from MacLife
But for now, here is a link to:
80 Mountain Lion Tips and Tricks from MacLife
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Mountain Lion Launches (July 25)
Apple's CEO TIm Cook made the announcement today, Mountain Lion, OSX 10.8 will officially launch tomorrow, and be available for $19.99 from the Mac App Store.
Remember, some older machines will not be compatible. In order to download the app, your machine must meet these requirements:
Mountain Lion OS Requirements
- OS X v10.6.8 or later
- 2GB of memory
- 8GB of available space
- Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply
- Some features require a compatible Internet service provider; fees may apply
See my post from July 11 to see compatible machines.
Will you upgrade? I will...
Friday, July 13, 2012
List of hacked email accounts.
While Yahoo claims to have fixed the security flaw that allowed hackers to steal more than 450,000 usernames and passwords, the hacker group D33Ds published these passwords and email addresses. Curious if your email address is one?
For a list of accounts, click here:
Dazzlepod
For a list of accounts, click here:
Dazzlepod
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Hackers post Yahoo log-in info.
Meant as a warning, a group of hackers who call themselves, " the D33Ds company" published log on information for over 453,000 Yahoo service accounts.
“We hope that the parties responsible for managing the security of this subdomain will take this as a wake-up call, and not as a threat,” the hackers said. “There have been many security holes exploited in webservers belonging to Yahoo! Inc. that have caused far greater damage than our disclosure. Please do not take them lightly.”
This group claims to have hacked into the database by exploiting an SQL injection vulnerability found on a Yahoo subdomain. These credentials don't only include yahoo.com email addresses, but also those from other public and private email providers, like GMAIL, HOTMAIL and AOL.
What can you do? Change your passwords as soon as possible, and read more at Macworld, here:
“We hope that the parties responsible for managing the security of this subdomain will take this as a wake-up call, and not as a threat,” the hackers said. “There have been many security holes exploited in webservers belonging to Yahoo! Inc. that have caused far greater damage than our disclosure. Please do not take them lightly.”
This group claims to have hacked into the database by exploiting an SQL injection vulnerability found on a Yahoo subdomain. These credentials don't only include yahoo.com email addresses, but also those from other public and private email providers, like GMAIL, HOTMAIL and AOL.
What can you do? Change your passwords as soon as possible, and read more at Macworld, here:
Hackers publish emails, passwords from Yahoo service
and CNET here:
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Mountain Lion
Speaking of upgrades, the new cat is around the corner. The release Apple's Mountain Lion, OSX 10.8 is imminent and many Mac users will want to upgrade (I know I will). Do you have what it takes? You must be running OSX 10.7 (Lion) or the most recent version of Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6.8) to download Mountain Lion from the app store. And some older machines will not be compatible. Here is the official list of compatible macs:
- iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
- MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
- MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
- MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
- Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
- Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
- Xserve (Early 2009)
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Not gone...
Apologies for being away from my post, I will spare you the typical excuses. BUT, onward.
I had a chance to look at the new Retina MacBook Pro. Yes, it's lovely, and if I was in the market for a new machine I would get one. But my 1 year old MBP is still zippy, and I mostly use my Air anyway. My idea of a perfect set up, spare no funds? Still an iMac and an Air. But many customers ask, when to upgrade?
The old saying, , “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, unfortunately does not apply to computers. Of course, the idea of spending over $1000 every 3 years does not sit well with most of us, so here are some guidelines for when to upgrade. There are two elements to upgrading your system: hardware and software. Let’s talk about software first.
About every year or so, Apple upgrades it’s operating system. An operating system is software that manages hardware resources as well as other system software. So for example, if your system up to date, and is running the most current version of Lion, which is Mac OSX (which stands for Operating System 10) 10.7.4, this is your computer’s operating system. For example, the OS provides services for the drivers that allow your printer to communicate with your machine and Microsoft Word to work with your printer. So it acts as an intermediary between applications and the computer. When software companies come out with new versions of their products, they have to make sure that current operating systems will be compatible. In order to do that, they often remove compatibility with older systems. If your OS is too old, your software will become outdated, and no longer supported. In some cases, like in the case of Eudora (an email program), the company that created it no longer exists.
And now about hardware: To compound the compatibility problem, Apple upgrades it’s internal hardware, too, and when that happens, some older software will no longer work on new machines. There was a big bang in the Apple orchard in 2005 when Apple announced plans to use Intel microprocessors (called “chips”) in all of their machines, replacing the PowerPC chip. So these days, all of Apples products have Intel inside. This means that not only will software written for the Intel chip often not work with older machines, but also software written for the earlier chip will not always work on the new machines. This is most likely why your printer does not work. Many printers do not have drivers for machines with operating systems earlier than OSX 10.5.
One of the biggest problems with waiting too long to upgrade, either the OS or the computer, is that the learning curve to jump from 10.4 to the current one today, 10.7 is pretty high. And this can be very frustrating, as you indicated in letter. Along with upgrading the OS, you may have to upgrade some of the software on your machine to retain compatibility. Most software companies keep up with the changes, but some are notorious for lack of backward compatibility. So unfortunately, the spending does not stop with the purchase of a machine. Like a car, maintenance costs continue through your ownership. So the general rule of thumb is this: keep your operating system current, and when your computer can no longer run the current OS, get a new computer.
I had a chance to look at the new Retina MacBook Pro. Yes, it's lovely, and if I was in the market for a new machine I would get one. But my 1 year old MBP is still zippy, and I mostly use my Air anyway. My idea of a perfect set up, spare no funds? Still an iMac and an Air. But many customers ask, when to upgrade?
 |
| Mmmmoof? |
The old saying, , “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, unfortunately does not apply to computers. Of course, the idea of spending over $1000 every 3 years does not sit well with most of us, so here are some guidelines for when to upgrade. There are two elements to upgrading your system: hardware and software. Let’s talk about software first.
About every year or so, Apple upgrades it’s operating system. An operating system is software that manages hardware resources as well as other system software. So for example, if your system up to date, and is running the most current version of Lion, which is Mac OSX (which stands for Operating System 10) 10.7.4, this is your computer’s operating system. For example, the OS provides services for the drivers that allow your printer to communicate with your machine and Microsoft Word to work with your printer. So it acts as an intermediary between applications and the computer. When software companies come out with new versions of their products, they have to make sure that current operating systems will be compatible. In order to do that, they often remove compatibility with older systems. If your OS is too old, your software will become outdated, and no longer supported. In some cases, like in the case of Eudora (an email program), the company that created it no longer exists.
And now about hardware: To compound the compatibility problem, Apple upgrades it’s internal hardware, too, and when that happens, some older software will no longer work on new machines. There was a big bang in the Apple orchard in 2005 when Apple announced plans to use Intel microprocessors (called “chips”) in all of their machines, replacing the PowerPC chip. So these days, all of Apples products have Intel inside. This means that not only will software written for the Intel chip often not work with older machines, but also software written for the earlier chip will not always work on the new machines. This is most likely why your printer does not work. Many printers do not have drivers for machines with operating systems earlier than OSX 10.5.
One of the biggest problems with waiting too long to upgrade, either the OS or the computer, is that the learning curve to jump from 10.4 to the current one today, 10.7 is pretty high. And this can be very frustrating, as you indicated in letter. Along with upgrading the OS, you may have to upgrade some of the software on your machine to retain compatibility. Most software companies keep up with the changes, but some are notorious for lack of backward compatibility. So unfortunately, the spending does not stop with the purchase of a machine. Like a car, maintenance costs continue through your ownership. So the general rule of thumb is this: keep your operating system current, and when your computer can no longer run the current OS, get a new computer.
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