The Preferred Toronto Apple Reseller of MacMedics:
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A Safe Way To Dispose Of Your eWaste – And Get A Tax Receipt Too!
My Preferred Canadian-Based ISP
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Nov
22
Gifts Of Hope
Filed Under Views | Leave a Comment
For those who know me personally or have worked recently with my company you may be aware that my wife and I are embarking on a return visit to India beginning November 25th and going until January 4th. We’ll be travelling around parts of Rajasthan and Kerala meeting people and taking in the incredible atmosphere that is India. Some of you who have read this blog for a while may remember that last year I posted about organizations that we donated to around the holiday season. Because of our imminent departure I thought I would let you know where we decided to allocate our donation funds this year.
Last year we supported the One Laptop Per Child program as well the Daily Bread Food Bank and the Stephen Lewis Foundation. All excellent programs and I encourage their continued support. One of my wife Dina’s clients is Plan Canada. We’ll actually be visiting one of their projects in Udaipur where Dina has been asked to photograph what’s going on and I have been asked to provide some commentary. She showed me their catalogue for this year and in addition to child sponsorship they are smartly offering other donation paths which can make a real difference. Many items on the list get matched by government and other donor organizations making one’s gift go even further.
What’s on offer? You can provide a Goat for a family, clean water for a class of children, a portable library, latrines for girls, immunization for a village, mosquito nets, mango trees etc…I encourage you to check out the list. I was hoping to pool some resources before I left to see if together we could help to raise money for some of the big ticket items such as water sanitation for a community or a girl’s residence. It may have to wait until I get back – but of course I’m hoping someone out there may get inspired.
For those of you interested in the going’s on concerning our Indian trip you can navigate to a web site I set up documenting our travels:
Some of you may receive another email regarding this as well. I may not be keeping up with the technical goings-on as much in the Mac World while I’m away, but you may see some posts here and there.
I want to wish you all a wonderful holiday season with health and good spirits guiding the way. For those of you who are my clients I truly appreciate your business and I’m excited about the coming year, the offerings from Apple and my own company’s support evolution.
Namaste.
Nov
13
A Security Story
Filed Under Security, Views, iPhone | Leave a Comment
So, I’m getting ready to leave to see a client. It’s a glorious mid-Fall day – the sun is warm, the air crisp. I get on my little red Vespa and as I slowly make my way past our car parked on the alleyway parking pad I notice…broken glass scattered on the ground. Hmm. I look to my right and realize the front passenger window has been smashed in! Crap! Now, why would someone do this? I don’t leave anything in my car of value .I go back into the house and tell my wife. It turns out her beautiful new white iPhone had been left in the vehicle – too tempting to resist!
My first thought is – privacy! Someone has her phone with access to her contacts, calendar information, notes, email etc…She’s not too worried – she doesn’t keep anything sensitive on it. I’m thinking we need to change all of her passwords immediately. Before I do that I remember that we have a family MobileMe account. With this I can see if I can locate the phone and at the very least initiate a remote wipe of the device when the thief tries to go online with it. I can’t locate the phone, but I send an instruction to wipe it when it next hits a network. I also call our cell company to deactivate the SIM card.
Thirty minutes later the MobileMe service sends a message her account reporting that the wipe has been started and cannot be stopped. Whew! No breach, and no working iPhone for the thief.
This story illustrates the importance of securing your mobile devices – your laptops, iPhones etc..For me, the new security features of MobileMe is worth every penny we pay for it. The ability to locate or erase a phone to lock out a thief or to secure it in general if I’ve left it somewhere is a great comfort. I urge anyone with an iPhone and a MobileMe account to turn on the Find My Phone feature within the MobileMe mail profile on your device. It’s important to password-protect your phone as well. You can also secure your laptop with a password and a deeper firmware password. There are also software solutions like Undercover which can track and find or erase your lost or stolen laptop (it can also track your iPhone as well).
Take Control eBooks has just released a new guide on using the iPhone and the new 3.1 software. It covers all aspects of the device as well as security. I urge people to have a look for more guidance and insight into the iPhone.
Nov
10
10.6.2 Update
Filed Under Apple News, Apple Updates | Leave a Comment
Apple released another update to Snow Leopard (10.6) this afternoon. I have bolded the very first line and as usual I concur. Among the many fixes is the one I reported on where a Guest account could erase a hard drive:
Updating your system
You should back up your system before installation; you can use Time Machine.
Do not interrupt the installation process once you have started to update your system. You may experience unexpected results if you have third-party system software modifications installed, or if you’ve modified the operating system through other means.
Choose Software Update from the Apple () menu to check for the latest Apple software via the Internet, including this update.
If your computer is not up-to-date, other software updates available for your computer may appear, which you should install. When Software Updates states “Your software is up to date,” you can be sure that all available updates have been installed.
Note that an update size may vary from computer-to-computer when installed using Software Update. Also, some updates must be installed prior to others, so you should run Software Update more than once to make sure you have all available updates.
You can manually download the update installer. This is a useful option when you need to update multiple computers but only want to download the update once. These versions of the standalone installers are available from Apple Support Downloads.
What’s included?General operating system fixes provided for:
- an issue that caused data to be deleted when using a guest account
- an issue that might cause your system to logout unexpectedly
- Spotlight search results not showing Exchange contacts
- the reliability of menu extras
- an issue in Dictionary when using Hebrew as the primary language
- shutter-click sound effect when taking a screenshot
- an issue with the four-finger swipe gesture
- an issue adding images to contacts in Address Book
- an issue in Front Row that could cause sluggish or slow frame rates while watching videos
- creation of mobile accounts for Active Directory users
- reliability and duration of VPN connections
- general reliability improvements for iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, MobileMe, and iDisk
- overall improvements to VoiceOver performance
- this update addresses video playback and performance issues for iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009) and iMac (27-inch, Late 2009) computers that may occur in some situations while AirPort is turned on
Fonts fixes provided for:
- an issue with font spacing
- an issue in which some Fonts are missing
- font duplication issues
- an issue with some PostScript Type 1 fonts not working properly
Graphics fixes provided for:
- an issue when connecting monitors to DVI and Mini DisplayPort adapters
- an issue in which the brightness setting may not be remembered on restart
- addresses functionality with specific display models
- general reliability and performance improvements when using some applications
Mail fixes provided for:
- a situation in which Mail’s unread count may not update properly as messages are read on another computer
- an issue in which deleted RSS feeds may return
- an issue in which Mail cannot preview or Quick Look attachments when composing a new message
- an issue that can cause Address Book and/or Mail to stop responding when opened
- an issue in which email messages received from an Exchange Server are not formatted correctly
- an issue in which Mail reports “Account exceeded bandwidth limits” for some Gmail accounts
MobileMe fixes provided for:
- performance when accessing files from iDisk via the Finder and syncing iDisk files
- an issue in which syncing iDisk files does not proceed beyond “checking items”
- reliability and performance when syncing contacts, calendars, and bookmarks with MobileMe (syncing with iTunes and iSync are also improved)
- an issue that prevents some users from logging into MobileMe via the MobileMe System Preference pane
Network file systems fixes provided for:
- compatibility with third-party AFP servers
- file synchronization for portable home directories
Printing and faxing fixes provided for:
- automatic printer updates improvements
- Print dialog allowing you to enter and send to more than one fax recipient
Safari fixes provided for:
- a graphics distortion issue in Safari Top Sites
Safari plug-in reliability
Now, don’t feel compelled to do this – you can always wait and see how it affects others. Otherwise, Happy updating.