And today it’s Apple Mac — again

I really, really have to stop looking at tech news…

* What’s behind backdoor #3? Mac version of Mokes malware follows Linux, Windows variants

“The malware is programmed to swipe data and images from a victim’s machine, including screenshots taken every 30 seconds, audio and video captures, documents and keystrokes..” Read more..

This crap is costing us trillions.. each and every year.
(That we know about.. and that’s the tip of the iceberg.)

Please don’t think you’re safe because you have an antivirus. No security program is bulletproof. You simply must constantly exercise “paranoid common sense”, and turn off all curiosity. The bad guys want you to click their links, so don’t click (when on the Internet) unless you’re certain it’s safe, and you need to go there. Don’t ‘download’ and install a program unless you’re certain you need it. I’ll go further: if you don’t know what the word “malware” is, 3/4ths through 2016, get off the Internet altogether.

• The telephone has gotten almost as bad. No you didn’t win a free cruise. No, the IRS is not about to “file criminal action”. No, they are not “conducting a quick survey”.. etc., etc..

* * *

Today’s quote: “My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.” ~ Jack Layton

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Today it’s Apple Mac – Owner’s Alert

Folks, last week I alerted iPhone owners the need to ‘upgrade’. Turns out, it’s all Apple products need to do it.

* Update your Mac OS X — Apple has released Important Security Updates

“If you own a Mac laptop or desktop, you need to update your system right now. It turns out that the critical zero-day security vulnerabilities disclosed last week, which targeted iPhone and iPad users, affect Mac users as well.” Read more..

Pass the word on to your Apple-owning friends and family.

More cheery news:

* Hey, Music Lovers! Last.Fm Hack Leaks 43 Million Account Passwords

“Another Day, Another Data Breach! If you love to listen to music online and have an account on Last.fm website, your account details may have compromised in a data breach that leaked more than 43 Million user personal data online.” Read more..

[ The first line of that ‘blurb’ is why I no longer post everyday. And it’s why one should change all their online login passwords several times a year {but who does that?}. ]

*     *     *

Today’s quote: “Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who’ll argue with you.” ~ John Wooden

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

How To Solve Mac Printing Problems

Folks, rather than reinvent the wheel, I’ll simply tell you the first thing to do is clear the Printer’s “queue” —

1) Open Apple menu and go to “System Preferences” and choose Printers. (You can also use Finder.)
2) Select the active printer and choose “Open Print Queue” button.
3) Select and cancel the print job(s) as desired, canceling them and removing them from the printing queue.

And point you to this article for the more advanced steps:

* How to resolve Mac printing issues

“Printing on a Mac is typically reliable. Occasionally trouble arises, however. Here are a few recommended resolutions for returning printing to proper operation.” Read more..

* * *

Today’s quote: “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” ~ Dalai Lama

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Old computer ….

One or two of you might get a kick out of these pictures

The other day I got a call asking me to pick up some “old computers and stuff” for secure data deletion and green recycling (see, Proper Disposal of Old Computer Gear– eWaste). When I got there, I learned what she meant by “old”.. I would have said “prehistoric”!

This unit dates back to the first PC’s.. circa 1990 (actually, toward the end of the first gen era, as it actually has a hard drive [800KHz, 1 MB of RAM, and a 20 MB HHD. That’s right. “Kilo” and “Mega”]) and is a fully working Macintosh SE.

“Welcome to Macintosh”

and roughly two minutes later…

I did shred the user’s data, but this is the unit that basically completes my Apple wing at the Tech Paul Museum. (And it has a darts game that’s kind addicting..)

This Mac SE is easily the oldest unit I’ve ever been asked to recycle. (For those wondering, yes – I plugged it in and it booted right up.)(And no, it’s not the oldest Apple Desktop PC in my museum.)

Remember folks, simply deleting something by dragging it to the Trash (or, Recycle Bin) does not really erase your files. If you want something gone gone, (aka “unrecoverable”) you need to actually write over them (several times) using a “secure delete” tool, such as can be found in Apple’s Disk Utility, or physically destroy the drive.

Today’s quote: “If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.” ~ Ray Bradbury

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Working with Apples, Part 2

Software

Before we begin, here is a link to Part 1, if you missed it: Working with Apples, Part 1

Okay, so I got the iMac, and swapped out the keyboard and mouse for a set I was much more comfortable with, and it was time to start using it as my “main computer”. Which means, installing programs to actually get stuff done.

The iMac comes with iTunes, for managing music and videos; and iPhoto which gives me basic image editing. It has Safari for surfing the Web. Also Apple Mail, for managing my email; iChat for IM-ing/video conferencing (limited to other iChat users); a quite basic text editor; DVDMaker; and Garage Band.
Which is not a bad set of utilities for an operating system to come with.. but IMHO, the best is Time Machine (I’d sure like to see a Windows version of that!)(Well, Genie Timeline is very close..)

When I was in the gizmo and gadget Superstore looking at keyboards, I also went over to the software aisles — there were three.
One was dedicated to PC games (making it one of my preferred aisles.. ahem).
And a four foot long section, of four shelves, constituted the “Mac Software” section.

A pitifully small selection.. especially when you’re standing in the aisles.

This pie chart might be too generous.. to the Mac.

There were two antivirus titles; about three dozen game titles (of those, 12 were “real games”, and not Solitaire); Microsoft Office for Mac; a couple of PDF-related titles, Quicken, iLife and iWork, and the rest were too uninteresting for me to mentally note.
I guess you could call it a “bright spot” — they did have one Call of Duty title…

So, I didn’t buy any (software) programs for the iMac.

• For Internet Safety, I downloaded Avast! for Mac (free)
• For Productivity, I downloaded Open Office for Mac, which allows me to handle my Microsoft Office documents and spreadsheets. (free)
  [Some people prefer Libre Office, also free]
• For notes/reminders/to do’s, I downloaded Evernote (free)
• For real chat/video I downloaded Skype (free)
• For HTML and blogging, I downloaded Komposer (free)
• For Remote Desktop, I downloaded TeamViewer (free)

I will be browsing CNet’s Download.com Apple software section for more titles when time allows. I didn’t see anything too interesting in the Apple Store..

With those titles, and a few more, I have an actually productive machine.
But I’m kind of out of luck in the gaming department,, though, there’s plenty of Time-waster type games,

Please feel free to suggest other titles you’d like to recommend to me, as a Comment (below)

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Remove Java (+ A Friday Fun Video )

Folks, a headline I saw today reminds me that it has been a while since I have advised you to disable, or better yet, remove Java (and Java “plug ins”) from your computer.

So I’ll fix that and do it now. I won’t opine as to the quality of the code, I’ll simply say (of Java) it basically does nothing for you but let the (cyber)criminals in. See, New Java zero-day exploit could spread “mayhem”

(here’s the pertinent ‘blurb’) “Java has been hard hit in recent years and represents arguably the most common attack vector, prompting a number of security experts to advise users to simply remove the software for good.” Read more..

Okay, so how do you do that? Here:

• How do I uninstall Java on my Windows computer ?
• How do I uninstall Java 7 for my Mac?

or

• How to disable Java in your browser on Windows, Mac“Amid a serious security flaw in the latest version of Java 7, where even the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has warned users to disable the plug-in, here’s how you do it.VIEW THE GALLERY

TGIF:

Just noticed this article: Homeland Security warns to disable Java amid zero-day flaw

“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is the latest body to warn users to disable Java software amid escalating concerns over a serious, exploitable vulnerability.” Read more..

Guess maybe I was right… But of course, if you happen to have some application that requires Java.. and you simply cannot do without it.. (ahem) you should keep Java up-to-date with the latest version. Probably the easiest way to do that is to get in the habit of regularly visiting Secunia’s Free Online Computer Scan – Online Software Inspector (uses Java) or download/install http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker. Keeping all your programs ‘patched’reduces your chances of getting zapped by a bad guy.

Today’s quote: “The meal’s complete when the kitchen’s neat.” ~ Unknown

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Maybe You’ll Find These Helpful..

Sometimes, I find it very difficult to bite my tongue.. But I’ll be nice. Today I have some good info to share with you. Read on.

Apple (Mac) owners: Apple releases Flashback removal tool, infections drop to 270,000

“Apple today released an update to its Java component that removes known versions of the Flashback malware. In a separate study, Symantec reported that it counted only 270,000 infected Macs, down…” Read more..

Yes, folks.

The days of “Apples do not get viruses” are O – V – E – R. (Been true for a while now..) Fortunately, there’s an AV for Macs that’s not only good, but free: Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition
“Free antivirus that works simply and beautifully.”

Reminder: The deadline for filing with the I.R.S. is mere hours away. To help you meet this deadline, on the IRS website there is a page called “FreeFile”, and here you will find the “partnership links” to the free versions of 19 accepted tax prep programs — of which H&R Block’s Free File and also TurboTax are available.
To qualify, you must have an Adjusted Gross Income of $56,000 or less.

Today’s (2nd) free link: FreeFile at the IRS
(Note: there’s two buttons on the page; “I will choose” and “help me choose”. Though all of the programs there are accepted by the IRS, I would recommend clicking the “I will choose”, and then selecting either H&R Block or TurboTax.)

Best for last department: I met a guy. Think you may want to be aware of him. More precisely, be aware of what he does.

What he does – with his Free Data Recovery site – is help people rescue data from hard drives that have decided to go severely wonky, and/or push up daisies. Die. Go kaput.

“A Revolutionary Approach
Welcome, my name is Stephen and I’ve put up this site to begin the roll out of a truly unique remote data recovery service that I think has the potential to revolutionize the field of hard drive data recovery.“

Q: Who might benefit from knowing about Steven and his new FDR?
A: Anyone who does not have a proper backup strategy in place (aka “everyone”).

Q: And why is this “revolutionary”?
A: Well, click the link (above) and he’ll tell you. What I’ll tell you is that data recovery is an expensive endeavor (often involving “clean rooms”) and those of you with business critical data (aka “corporate”) should use that kind of (expensive) service — but for us average folk, trying to recover a few photos, say, well Steve is the guy to call.
Seriously.
Click the link, or the image, and find out why. (And when you talk to him, tell him I sent you.) Read more..

Today’s quote: “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” ~ Dalai Lama

Your “Friday Fun”: Today’s funny video is a bit adult (language) and so I am just going to provide the link, and leave it up to you. But it is a classic Chris Rock sketch. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-880897175401400927

Copyright 2007-2012 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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