Mac Security...

Many of my clients ask, "What kind of anti-virus software do you use?". They are inevitably surprised when I say, "I don't use any". This does not mean I don't take precautions to protect myself online, on the road and at home. I back up 3 ways: Time Machine, a cloned back up and with an online back up service.

Here is an excellent article on TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) on the subject by T J Luoma:

Securing Your Mac - A Guide for Reasonable People, Version 1.0

Mail offline problem, continued...

As a follow up to my post about Mail going offline, you can try the following.
Go to System Preferences>Network, select your WiFi in the left column, then click on Advanced in the lower right hand corner. Then highlight each of the wireless networks you have joined, and remove them by selecting the minus sign under the list of network names. Then turn WiFi off. Then go into keychain access and remove all of the keychain entries for each of those networks. Then turn WiFi back on, and rejoin your network from scratch. 

This has worked for me, although the results for this have been mixed among users.

Logitech Alert Commander now available for Mac

Mac users have had ways to use their macs as video surveillance for awhile. Earlier in this blog, I reviewed Orbicle's WITNESS, which turns your Mac's iSight camera into a home alarm system. I have had this installed on my last two systems, and it works really well. But my Logitech Alert outdoor surveillance system required Windows for set up and management. So I installed a Windows partition just to manage my front and rear camera. 


But today, Engadget announced that Logitech has a Mac version of the Alert software. I didn't even finish reading the announcement before I hopped into the App Store and downloaded it. It works like a charm! So now I can leave my Windows partition until I need to update my kid's government FAFSA forms (a whole NOTHER story).

Mail Keeps Going Offline

Many users are experiencing problems with Apple Mail since installing Mountain Lion (I noticed it on my Mac since installing the 10.8.2 update.). The problem often appears upon waking, after your Mac has been asleep (of course, when else would it wake up?!) All of your IMAP mail accounts will be offline, with the dreaded circle of evil, as I call it. Although I cannot be sure that it is an IMAP issue, my Comcast account, which is POP, is not having the same issue.

The quickest solution for now is to quit Mail, and re-open it. Then all of the connections are reset, and your email is back to normal. This seems to be a bonified bug. Here is a discussion about it:

Apple Mail Goes Offline

I'll let you know when there is a fix...

Got gmail? Got tsuris?

Some gmail users are reporting problems getting their mail on their iOS devices; iPhones and iPads, getting the message, "mail service imap.gmail.com is not responding". According to All Things D, Google is working on a fix.

Google says, "We're aware of a problem where Apple Mail IMAP users are unable to sync with their Gmail account and are seeing a username and password error. We have found that a vast majority of users are exceeding IMAP bandwidth limits and are continuing to investigate."

New Features of Mountain Lion

Lifehacker.com has put together a list of 10 secret features in Mountain Lion. Take a look:


Top Ten Secret Features of Mountain Lion

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:

Mountain Lion Application 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.

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

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...

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