Category: Mac

Useful links for today

Google Search Tricks in TiKouka gives even more great search tricks for Google. Did you know about these useful search features?

MacHeist will sell you a bundle of 11 Mac software apps worth $368 for only $49. It’s good software: CSSEdit, Snap Z Pro, Cha-Ching and others. You can give 25% of that $49 to the charity of your choice. Hurry, the deal only lasts 10 more days. Nice going, MacHeist!

Digital Tools Help Users Save Energy from the New York Times is confirmation of something Bruce Sterling said at SWSWi years ago: until there’s a readout on everything telling us exactly how many particulates are in the air or how many pollutants are in the drinking water on a second by second basis, the status quo will not change. Hey, Bruce, the idea applies to energy use, too. ADDENDUM 1/16/08: Making Fuel Consumption Visible—yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about!

Mac Help?

I have a problem I can’t solve on my own. When I moved from an older Mac to the new MacBook, I transfered the software, including BBEdit and Transmit. I had the software on CDs, reinstalled it on the new machine, got the proper codes, magic words, and licenses numbers. But each time I respond to the “there’s a new version available” prompts from either of these programs, I’m told I don’t have permission to install the new program. Yes, I’ve changed all the permissions to my id for both apps. Any ideas?

A roundup of useful links

Jim Thatcher has revised and updated his tutorial on how to comply with Section 508. It’s a ten section course in accessibility. JimThatcher.com

Project Seven has a free tutorial on Q Tabs, or navigation tabs with scalable graphics. The tutorial includes downloadable files and graphics. PVII Q Tabs

The New York Times (NYT) has embraced the blogosphere with its Blogrunner section. The NYT cherry picks from blogs it considers accurate or authoritative and displays them collected by topic. One such topic is technology. NYT Blogrunner: Technology A personal favorite post from the Technology blogs is New Classroom War: Teachers vs. Technology.

An article by Milissa Tarquini at Boxes and Arrows takes on the myth of above the fold design and thoroughly blasts it into oblivion. Blasting the Myth of the Fold

A new and discounted deal on Mac software each day. You save money and you learn about the newest Mac apps. MacZOT

I DO love Macs, really

I love me some Mac. I love those PC vs. Mac ads with the stuffy guy in the suit and the hip dude. I generally lust after the newest OS release like it was a chocolate Ding Dong. Financial constraints made me decide to wait for Leopard. Reading the stories about Mac users getting a blue screen when they installed Leopard made me feel brilliant for waiting.

Today in my blog reader I see Mini Mage Never Stops Talking Tech: This Mac/PC Video Will Never Be Shot and I’ve just gotta laugh. Even though I do love me some Mac.

Apple finally attracts the vultures

The popularity of the new iPhone finally drew the maggots and vultures to Apple. We’re hearing that they have found vulnerabilities in the iPhone that will reveal all your data to your adoring public. Turns out that the same vulnerabilities are there in Safari for the desktop. Nobody cared enough to look before the iPhone, I guess. According to an article in Computer World,

The iPhone vulnerability that could let hackers steal data or commandeer the device also exists in the desktop edition of Apple Inc.’s Mac OS X operating system, the exploit’s researchers said today.

Charles Miller, one of the three researchers from Baltimore-based Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) who found the bug and wrote proof-of-concept exploits, confirmed that the vulnerability in the iPhone version of Safari is also present in the desktop version of the browser. Safari is included with all Mac OS X installations.

The Windows version of Safari is also vulnerable. “[But] it may or may not be exploitable there,” Miller said.

Looks like it’s time for all you Mac owners to go out and buy the dreaded Symantec software. Yuk.

Proud of the new iPhone? Do some good with the old phone

If Apple really manages to sell the predicted 10 million iPhones this year, that means there will be 10 million old phones sitting around people’s houses. There are many ways to make good use of the old phone and avoid tossing it in the trash. Cell phones are loaded with cadmium, arsenic, copper, cobalt and lead. We don’t need that in our landfills.

Charities that will accept your phone and give you a tax credit in the process can be found through web sites such as Wireless Recycling, Collective Good, and American Cell Phone Drive. If you contact those sites directly, they usually provide you with pre-paid mailing envelopes.

If you want to drop your phone off somewhere local, Staples will accept it. Best Buy can give you a pre-paid envelope to send your phone to ReCellular, where to money from it will go to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. You can also go straight to ReCellular without using Best Buy as a middleman.

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The Wonders of Firewire

I just brought home a new MacBook to replace my creaking old workhorse, a Mac G4 Powerbook. Apple promised an easy transfer of data and even applications from the old machine to the new one using a Firewire cable. It worked wonderfully, although I wish it had allowed me to make more fine-grained choices about what I wanted to bring from one to the other. In only about 3 hours, all my documents, preferences, bookmarks and other goodies were in place. All I had to do was find them. The finding took a few more hours. Within maybe half a day I had recreated by mail history and all my Quicken financial files, my site definitions, my iPhoto library. I’ve spend days in the past migrating to a new computer. The Firewire is my friend!