• Kiva Micro Loans
• Search for:

• Recent Posts

  • Coming To an iDevice Near You
  • iPod-ATV Nation
  • Summer Tips and Tricks
  • Computer Literacy
  • This Week In Appleland

• SugarSync – Online Backup and Sync Solution

• Really Great Software Promotions

• The Preferred Toronto Apple Reseller of MacMedics:

  

• The Preferred iPod and iPhone repair shop in Toronto of MacMedics:

  

• A Safe Way To Dispose Of Your eWaste – And Get A Tax Receipt Too!

  

• My Preferred Canadian-Based ISP

  

• Visitor Comments

  • Hayabusa Gurl on Like Peanut Butter & Jelly
  • TV Gossip on First Base
  • Myles Kesten on The Wizard Of Oz
  • Samuel on The World We Live In
  • admin on I Am Not A Number (well, maybe…)

• Archives

  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008

• Categories

  • 1. HOW TO…
  • Adobe
  • Advice
  • Ah Ha!
  • Alerts!
  • Apple Mail
  • Apple News
  • Apple Updates
  • Applications
  • Backup
  • Fun
  • iPad
  • iPhone
  • links
  • MacWorld 2009
  • Malware
  • MobileMe
  • Rants
  • Recommendations
  • Reviews
  • Rumours
  • Security
  • Server
  • Spyware
  • Strange
  • Tech News
  • Tips
  • Training
  • Trouble-Shooting
  • Uncategorized
  • Utilities
  • Very Very Cool
  • Views
  • Virus

• Tags

  10.6 Adobe Antenna apple Apple 25th Anniversary AppleTV Backup Beatles Blackberry Canada Cloud Computing Compatibility Fido Free Fun Future Shock Google iPad iPhone iPhone 3G S iPhone 4 iPod iPod Touch iTunes macmedics Mac OS X Microsoft MobileMe Music Rogers Rumours Safari Security Server Snow Leopard Steve Jobs Syncing System Updates Tablet tech-no-phile Technology Theft Training Windows WWDC

•  Subscribe in a reader

•  

  March 2009

  M	T	W	T	F	S	S
  « Feb				Apr »
  						1
  2	3	4	5	6	7	8
  9	10	11	12	13	14	15
  16	17	18	19	20	21	22
  23	24	25	26	27	28	29
  30	31

• 

They walk the parks at night with flashlights on their heads and buckets at hand. They’re trolling for worms!

But they won’t find Conficker in the ground. Perhaps you’ve heard of it or have been hearing about it. 60 minutes just ran a scare piece on it on Sunday – I’ve provided the segment in it’s entirety:



Supposedly one of the nastiest worms to hit computers since, well, the last nastiest worm to hit computers. It has infected some 500, 000 computers already! Microsoft has offered a $250,000 bounty for the creators of the worm. Come April 1st this dormant worm is set to receive some kind of instruction to do…nobody knows. Maybe something nasty like steal all the world’s credit card information – or maybe nothing.

Well, not all computers. Not Macs! Yes folks, for those of us who use the best operating system and application suites on the planet – you’re safe! Even with all the new shiny Mac laptops and Mac desktops out there, the increased share of the market hasn’t yet attracted an infection by this little bugger. The Mac remains the safest operating system to use. However…

…Mac users who run Windows on their Macs are at the same risk as those running Windows on PCs.

In other words, if you run Windows on your Mac via Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop or VM Ware Fusion your Windows partition is vulnerable. Now, if your Windows section does become infected it won’t infiltrate the Mac side – you may have to wipe your Windows operating system and start again (at the very least disinfect it), but the Mac remains safe. It is highly recommended that you run all the Windows security updates as well as update or install the latest anti-virus and anti-spyware software for Windows. If you’re really scared, just unplug your computer from the internet the night of March 31st or shut off your wireless connection and wait it out.

Click on the link for a great FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on Conficker from CNET. They provide a background on this beast and best practices to deal with this new potential threat. For example, for Windows users Panda Security has released a free “vaccine” tool for blocking viruses that spread through USB drives. Microsoft has a Conficker removal tool. Again, the Mac OS itself is NOT under threat.

For all of you who have been waiting to get an iPhone, holding off for those killer features you’ve been waiting for, the recent announcements concerning the upgrade to the iPhone OS must have pleased you. Something else that might entice you to wait and buy are the incredible rumours floating through the loose lips at AT & T as reported by Boy Genius:

We can’t tell you where or who, but pretty high up in AT&T’s food chain, the following was reported to be said:

• New iPhone announcement around mid-June (duh)
• New iPhone will be faster and have a more seamless experience unmatched by any device (could be just talking about 3.0, but we think it’s also a new iPhone)
• U-Verse iPhone application; will allow control of your home DVR (play, pause, rewind, etc.)
• The annual iPhone launch is “becoming a tradition.”
• Nothing official is being confirmed, but they said that people should prep for an exciting time this summer.
• AT&T is said to be working with Apple to create a unified product with an unparalleled experience across all their products and services.
• Apple’s 3.0 software should tell us where the iPhone platform is going… uh, k?
• They said customers shouldn’t need to choose from AT&T’s high-end devices because of features, they should choose based on preferences. The gap in capability should be filled with the new iPhone. Ok, bets on slide out QWERTY, autofocus camera, video sharing, blah blah?
• Seems like the higher speed HSDPA (7.2Mbps) is being hinted at too which should confirm the earlier rumors of the new Infineon chipset.
• The $99 3G netbook will start selling this summer, and the first one won’t be a Windows OS.

Example 1: You launch a web browser, navigate to Google, type in a word about something you’re interested and viola! Tons of information comes up for you to sift through. How does this work? Somebody, sometime, had to give the pages you’re finding some kind of key word or tag so it could be located.

Example 2: You create a document, save it, and then can’t find it. You surf the web, researching a trip you’re going to take. You visit dozens of sites – you even bookmark them. When you go back to revisit them you can’t remember the site and the bookmark name has no relation to what you’re looking for. Wouldn’t it be great if we could tag these types of things on our computers so we could simply find what we’re looking for?

Have no fear – thoughtful and creative minds have come up with a bevy of utilities to help make this happen.

Of the many choices out there I want to focus on two really great utilities I use that help me organize and keep track of files on my computer. One is called Yojimbo from Bare Bones Software and the other is Tags from Gravity Apps. Both have strengths and weaknesses in their approach.

Yojimbo

Yojimbo is a full-on information manager. It can store passwords, notes, website links, serial numbers, images etc… and encrypt the information if desired. It’s strength is not only that it can tag items on your computer to keep track of where they are and what they relate to but also it’s ability to synchronize it’s database with Apple’s MobileMe for access to the information you’ve collected on all of your computers – a very powerful feature. It provides a drop dock and quick input panel (activated by a Hot-Keyboard combination) for dragging directly into it’s Collections. Collections are Yojimbo’s way of organizing your data. These are basically folders which you can create to organize what you’re storing. There are Smart Collections that can follow rules for filtering information as well built-in tracking collections that automatically detect what kind of data is by type (PDF’s, URL’s, images). Once you start using this type of utility you may wonder how you ever did without it.

Tags

Tags’ approach to organsing is much simpler than Yojimbo’s, but every bit as powerful. It does one thing and it does it very well. Tags can basically touch everything on your computer no matter where it is or what application you’re in:

Tag files and folders anywhere in any application:
• Tag emails in Mail
• Tag photos in iPhoto
• Tag bookmarks in Safari
• Tag contacts in Address Book
• Tag songs in iTunes
and many more. Like Yojimbo, Tags is invoked by a hot-key combination. Once up you can switch between Tag mode and Search Mode. You can select multiple items and add favourite or frequently used tags to items easily.

Searching

Searching for what you tagged is easy. You can use the Tags app itself, Spotlight – even use Apple Mail’s search field with the tags you created in the application. At the moment Tags doesn’t support syncing between machines like Yojimbo – this would be a killer feature. However, for day  to day use I find Tags much easier to use than Yojimbo. I really like it’s interface and ability to integrate with all the applications I use. It’s also great for users, especially new users, who find it challenging to keep track of where things are on their computer. So often people save files without noting where they saved it. If you tag items as you go along then it won’t matter as much. I highly recommend checking out the Tags Screencast to get an idea of this powerful utility.

Tags requires Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) is costs $29US. Yojimbo can run under Mac OS 10.4.3 or later and costs $39US with a family pack version for $69US. Both offer 30 day trials. I suggest following the links provided to get more in-depth information about both of these great applications.

but now we have the details! The highlights:

Copy, Cut and Paste! Blue Tooth wireless sharing – beam those contacts to each other! Searching! Push Notifications! Background Application functions! A voice memo application (damn, I just bought one)! Landscape mode in Mail and other Apps! Subscriptions for Calendar. You can now SEARCH mail, calendar events, iPod (music), notes, servers individually or across ALL apps (Spotlight)! And many, many more! Bluetooth sharing, gaming, note sync…Ok – these features should have come two years ago, but the sense is if Apple could have delivered these they would have. They’re not deaf. They knew users wanted these functions, but they wanted to implement them properly – especially after the MobileMe rollout debacle. If you watch the presentation on Apple’s site (and I suggest you do) check out Cut and Paste execution and other great features. The official Apple take can be found through the following links:

Apple’s Official iPhone 3.0 Site

Appleinsider’s Take

Gizmodo – lots of pics and descriptions

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow Apple will be holding a special event – the unveiling of the iPhone 3.0 software road map. Among the rumoured features: Copy and Paste! Others are the ability to tether the iPhone which is basically using it as a modem for your laptop. For those interested in all the gossip…

Enter, from the ashes – GOOGLE VOICE!

Here’s David Pogue’s of the NY Times take on it – Pogue on Google Voice

In an effort to prove that Apple can do what it wants outside of any conference or special event – another announcement! Say hello to the newly redesigned iPod Shuffle – and it is a beauty. Tiny, simple, new controls, voice announcements of songs and playlists, 4GB (1000 songs) – check out all the news…There’s a great demo of it on the site as well. Apple is really getting good at presenting it’s products. The device requires iTunes 8.1 – which hasn’t been released yet and will offer some new features as well.

THE (NEW!) IPOD SHUFFLE

I’ve been asked about the last post (I have Seen The Future) on the new frontier of technology – isn’t the Watch part amazing!? – and about where it comes from. The presentation was part of a TED talk. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. It is a forum that brings together interesting minds from all strands of interest and endeavours. They now post many of the presentations for free that were only available if you had attended one of the conferences. I highly recommend perusing through the site.

TED is Here

and it could be this…

 

Without the usual fanfare, special events and mystery associated with such announcements Apple has, as rumoured and predicted, released a whole new set of upgraded hardware across their entire desktop and networking line. New iMacs, Mac Mini’s, Mac Pro’s and Airport wireless network devices. This is great news for lovers of the Mac Mini and it’s a real bargain for those looking for fast and inexpensive file server.

All machines sport lots of new ports, larger drives, faster graphic cards, faster ram and processors, larger hard drives – everything. Prices are good on the iMacs – what used to get you a top 20″ model now gets you a humming 24″ unit. The Mac Pros offer tons of storage options, ports and expansion. The new Airport devices now accommodate both the higher speed wireless N and G standards (dual band) at the same time – so machines equipped with the faster wireless cards take advantage of that standard while the slower, older machines are served as well. They also support Guest Networking – a great new secure feature which allows clients and friends to use your connection for internet access without allowing them onto the wider network or the need to give them your password.

The reviews and real world experiences will follow shortly I’m sure. As usual, I’ll keep you posted.

Next Page →