Macintosh Information

DevilRobber Trojan disguised as PixelMator

November 17, 2011

A new attempt to steal data from Mac users is a bot called DevilRobber. The original version ran embedded in versions of Graphic Converter, but this one only pretends to be PixelMator, and contains none of the legitimate PixelMator code. This new variant tries to steal and generate Bitcoins as the original did, but it [...]

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Death, Taxes and Hard Drive Failure

August 19, 2011

Hard drives are made to last as long as the warranty these days… like most everything else. If your drive has a three year warranty, the likelihood of it working the full 3 years is very near 100%. That percentage will fall at an unknown rate after the warranty period ends. Your drive may last [...]

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OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive

August 18, 2011

Apple is now selling a thumb drive installer on the Apple online store (and perhaps in brick/mortar stores as well) for $69.00. The absence of a Lion install DVD has caused a bit of uproar (Lion, roar… never mind) with users who are concerned that if they need to reinstall their system, there’s no easy [...]

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Lion 10.7.1 Update released

August 17, 2011

Apple released the first update to Mac OS X 10.7 yesterday, patching some bugs. Along with the update the following instructions and information were published: 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. [...]

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Shortcuts to speed up your Mac workflow

August 15, 2011

Thanks to Small Dog Electronics for publishing a list of very useful keyboard shortcuts. I’m publishing them as well, but if you want to see the Small Dog blog post, look here. Create a new folder: Command-Shift-N Open a new Finder window: Command-N Switch Application: Command-Tab Find: Command-F Select All: Command-A Copy: Command-C Cut: Command-X [...]

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iOS 4.3.5 released – Important security update

August 1, 2011

Apple patched a security vulnerability last week with the iOS 4.3.5 release. Certificate validation vulnerabilities were the issue, while 4.3.4 patched PDF vulnerabilities. 4.3.5 applies to the iPad and iPad2, iPod Touch (generation 3 and 4) and the iPhone 3GS and 4 (GSM). The Verizon iPHone4 will upgrade to iOS 4.2.10. I highly recommend all [...]

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Prevent Mac laptop overheating in your carrying bag

July 1, 2011

Prevent fried MacBooks, and expensive repairs I’ve had a couple of clients fry their MacBooks/Macbook Pros by having them wake from sleep in their laptop bag. This was expensive, and preventable, but only if the user is aware of the issue. I’ve carried my laptops in sleep mode around the world since I bought a [...]

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Lion – a plus for businesses

June 27, 2011

Macworld.com’s John C. Welch wrote today about what Lion’s new features bring to businesses. The article, Mac IT Guy: What Lion means for businesses, is certainly an opinion, but I agree with John’s points. AirDrop, to move files between Macs on a network, will be big for me, even with only a couple of Macs [...]

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What applications will work on Lion?

June 18, 2011

Roaringapps.com has a compatibility table of applications that work, have some problems, don’t work at all or haven’t yet been tested with Mac OS X 10.7. Check through this list, if you’re thinking of upgrading to Lion as soon as it comes out. Make sure that you don’t have essential applications that won’t run, because [...]

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Another phishing scheme… fake UPS email!

June 13, 2011

Technolog has a story from June 9 about email purporting to be from UPS regarding an upcoming delivery, which contains a hidden attached file that can infect computers (PCs, ad far as I know) with malware that could put up a fake anti-virus warning. The idea is to get the user to spend $50 or [...]

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