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- As iPad Popularity Grows, So Does Its Hacker Appeal
Apple’s impressive growth as a company is a good thing for end users in a number of ways. Apple has more money to spend on innovative new product designs, for example, and its easier to get service and support for your products, not to mention software and accessories.The iPad has been a pretty big success so far, especially for a category-busting product. But investors and Apple users aren’t the only ones to have taken note of the product’s success. The iPad is now being used as scam bait to sucker in people who might not be that familiar with the warning signs of internet scams, which, not coincidentally, is just who the iPad seems directed at as a device.
So far, the scam only works on Windows PCs, but even if you’re a Mac-using iPad owner, make sure any friends and relatives using the other platform are aware of the ruse. Basically, you get an email telling you that iTunes needs to be updated in order to update your iPad device, and provides a link to the software in question.
Of course, instead of taking you to some kind of iTunes download, the link instead opens up a direct line to their sensitive information, if accessed via a PC. Specifically, the malware in question is Backdoor.Bifrose.AADY, which uses Internet Explorer to open a back door on your system and look around for software serial numbers and login data, including usernames and passwords for various sites.
People on Macs or other Apple platforms, like the iPad and iPhone, won’t be affected at all by following the link, but obviously it’s never a good idea to open suspicious links in emails in case that changes in future versions of the scam.
At least for now, the iPad itself hasn’t been a target for hackers and/or malicious code. Apple’s securely locked down content distribution system in the form of the App Store really helps things there, but it’s only a matter of time before it becomes a target in a big way, and this attack is the first sign of why that’s a dangerous prospect. You’ve no doubt seen the articles about people picking up the iPad as their first ever computer. That category of user is the ideal candidate for malicious software, since they’ve yet to experience the nasty side of the Internet and don’t have any built-in defenses against these types of scams.
The iPad is raising Apple’s profile, and that means trouble for those uneducated about Internet security risks. It could also mean problems for all Mac users in the long run, as the iPad draws more people to OS X in the same way the iPod and iPhone did before it. But for now, it’s still the most secure platform around, so enjoy it while it lasts.
Переслать - Tips and Tricks: Safari
Welcome to the first installment of ‘Tips and Tricks.” These articles will aim to teach you some handy things you didn't know about common things on your Apple stuff. Of course there is a chance that you’ll already know some of the things I’m going to run through, but hopefully there will be at least one you haven’t heard before. So, let’s start our series with Safari.Folders in the Bookmarks Bar
While it may be simple to add single bookmarks to the Bookmarks Bar, it may not be obvious that it can handle folders of bookmarks as well. Right-clicking on the bar brings up a tiny context menu containing only one item, New Folder. Choosing this option brings up the same box you get when you add a new bookmark to the bar — with the text box for naming the folder.
Once you've typed in the name for your folder, what looks like a regular bookmark is added to the bar, with the addition of a downward-pointing arrow to the right. At the moment, clicking on it brings up a menu with just the word ‘empty’. To add new bookmarks to the folder, all you have to do is drag existing bookmarks on top of the folder name and they’ll automatically be added to the folder. You can also add new bookmarks when you create them by choosing the folder under the dropdown menu.Bookmark folders aren’t just handy for organizing your web addresses; they can also be used as a convenience tool. Once you have some bookmarks added to your folder, clicking on the folder name opens a menu with the bookmark names listed. At the bottom of this list is the option ‘Open in Tabs’. Clicking this automatically opens up a new tab for each of the bookmarks in the folder and navigates to them for you. This could be useful if you have a list of resources you use regularly for something you’re writing, for example. You can also access this tabs feature by simply ⌘-clicking on the folder name.
The Activity Window
For most, the Activity window (⌥⌘A) will be useless for day to day browsing, but it can be convenient to have at times. For instance, if a page is failing to load, opening up the Activity window will show you a list of resources on the page and highlight the ones which are throwing up errors.
You can also use it for opening up parts of webpages (JavaScript, CSS, QuickTime files, etc.) in their own window. If you were a budding web developer, for example, and you wanted some example of CSS from existing websites, you can use the Activity window to open up the CSS of a page. Just open up the window, and click the fly-out triangle for the site you’re browsing. Scroll through the list until you find the .css file, then double-click to open it up in its own Safari window for inspection. This works for any file on a webpage.
Another way the window comes in handy is as a quick and dirty way to download YouTube videos. While you can get specialized applications for this, the Activity window lets you do it right from Safari. Navigate to a YouTube video page, then open the window. The file you’re looking for contains ‘videoplayback’ in the URL, and is most likely the largest file on the page. You can download the video by selecting this file and ⌥-double-clicking. This proceeds to download the file. It’ll come down as a .flv, but it’s fine to play in QuickTime as long as you have Perian installed. You can then use QuickTime 7 Pro or QuickTime X to export the video in a more suitable format such as MP4.
Dragging in Files
Safari, like many Mac applications, supports dragging in files from the Finder or other applications such as iPhoto. If you just drag a file into a regular browser window, however, all it will do is display the file in a Safari window. The useful part comes when a website is asking for you to upload a file. Instead of clicking ‘Choose File’, you can drag the file you want to use and drop it directly on the button. A small green plus sign will appear next to your cursor, and the file is selected, no matter how deeply nested it is on your hard drive. This is a small thing, but it can save a lot of time if you have a file open in the Finder already before you upload it to a website.
Dragging Tabs and Favicons
While we’re on the subject of drag and drop, let me explain what you can do by dragging a tab or favicon (the small graphic to the left of the URL in the address bar). If you drag a tab by its name and move it to the left or right on the tab bar, the bar is reorganized. Not very exciting. But drag the tab away from the bar, and it changes into a tiny preview of the page it’s currently showing. When you let go, the image expands into a whole new window and removes the page from the tabs of the previous one. You can also do this the opposite way; drag a tab into the tab bar of a different window and it will be added to the second window and removed from the first.
You can do all of this when dragging the favicon of a page, except for creating a new window. If you drop the favicon onto an open tab, the page is replaced with the one you dragged over. You can create a new tab with the page by dropping its favicon on the tab bar, to the right of the already open tabs.
Conclusion
I hope you've learned something from this, and if you know of something handy, post it below in the comments!
Переслать - Wi-Fi iPhone Syncing App Submitted to Apple
Apple recently unveiled iPhone OS 4, which brought many much needed features to the platform, including a lot which our own Charles Jade thought would never make it through. Despite rectifying some long-standing oversights, however, Apple still hasn’t allowed its iDevices to sync wirelessly with people’s home computers.
One user and developer decided not to wait for Apple to implement the feature, and instead created his own iPhone app in order to solve the problem. Greg Hughes, the man in question, created a Wi-Fi syncing app that works with a companion desktop client to sync your iTunes library with your iPhone, iPod touch or even your iPad. Check out the video below to see it in action.
It may sound like something that shouldn’t even be possible using Apple’s closed playground of development APIs, and maybe Hughes is stepping slightly out of bounds, but the YouTube video showing the app in action proves that it does indeed work. Just because it works, though, doesn’t mean we’ll be seeing it available for purchase in the app store anytime soon. I think it’s pretty safe to say Apple won’t let this one ever see the light of day. It’ll probably play the old “feature duplication” card because it may or may not introduce this feature itself somewhere down the road.
It’s a shame because the implementation looks fantastic, and users wouldn’t even have to wait for a new iPhone OS iteration to get it, since it works with iPhone OS 3.X. Judging by the video, the app somehow tricks iTunes into thinking that an iPhone is mounted and then syncs any video and music with that device, so you wouldn’t get the full iPhone sync experience, but it would work perfectly for users like me who are also MobileMe subscribers, since we basically only plug in to update music anyway.
Hughes is doing one thing right: He’s promoting the heck out of the app before it even has a chance to run afoul of Apple’s review process. It worked for Opera Mini, although the organization behind that app has far more visibility and clout than does a single unknown developer acting on his own. Still, even if Apple does block the app, at least people will know it happened and possibly voice their disappointment, rather than just let it pass unnoticed.
We’ll probably see the Wi-Fi Sync app grace the halls of the jailbreak app stores even if Apple never lets it see the light of day through official channels, proving once again that no matter what improvements Apple makes to its software, there’s still always a reason to go rogue. Is Wi-Fi Sync enough justification for you?
Переслать - Walkthrough: Setting Up a Mac for the Minis in Your Life
Does one set out to create a computer-literate family, or to cultivate a creative family familiar with the modern communication capabilities of today's age? The distinction is subtle, but the benefits of the latter strongly outweigh the former, and thankfully is still quite easy to set up.
The first is to merely grant access to an overwhelming environment and expect time itself to wear down the mental faculties of the unsuspecting, in hopes of some sort of miraculous and divine intervention. In other words, rely on dumb luck by clicking on everything in sight until one achieves success.
The other path is a much narrower one where every user can quickly gain access to that which they desire most. With children, the key in either situation is to find a means to where the young user grows a sense of self-confidence, realizing that they are in control, and a sense of accomplishment that they know how to do it for themselves. This is where the iMac can learn from its little siblings: the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. With these devices, access to what one desires is about all one can do when picking up the device for the first time. The goal is to create a user interface that’s as easy to access as the one on the iPad.
Creating a safe environment for the younger Mac heads in your family while allowing them to explore and expand their minds is not only possible in Snow Leopard, but is pretty straight forward and simple to pull off. Once you know that it can be done, it’s simply a matter of doing it. This article will assume we are targeting the very young, pre-school-aged Minis. Knowledge of their ABCs is a bonus, but not absolutely required. The only time they will be required to interact with the keyboard for input will be their password. And since a separate account will be created and locked down, allowing a simple password will not compromise security to such a degree that one needs to worry too much. The focus will be on creating large, clearly identifiable icons that can be clicked on to allow access to some of the basics of the Mac.
Creating a New User Account
If you’re not familiar with creating Accounts on a Mac, you’ll need to open the System Preferences application from either the Apple Menu, the Dock, or in the Applications folder. Once in the System Preferences, click on the Accounts icon. In order to keep things simple and consistent, first take a look at the Login Options section of the Accounts window. There may be times when your Minis want to use the computer but it’s not on or is asleep. It’s important to try to keep the experience as consistent as possible each and every time they want to access the computer. So it would be best to turn off Automatic login, display a list of users on the login window, and to show the restart sleep and shutdown buttons.
At this point, go ahead and create a new user account. Create a standard account. Various preferences will need to be modified by logging onto the account before the parental controls will be enabled. So do not enable Parental Controls just yet. For consistency’s sake, the Account Name may be the same as the child’s email or other online account ID, like their MobileMe family account ID. Use their full name as the Full Name since this is something that they will be learning more and more as they enter pre-school and kindergarten.
Make the password some sequence of characters that the child will be able to remember. This will break with all security conventions as it will likely be a weak password. The account will be locked down, and access to the full file system will not be permitted. This is also the first opportunity to allow unfettered access to the Mac, and a strong password that the child does not know will limit their access to the Mac and require someone else to log on for them. If this is a dedicated machine for their use only, and is in a permanent secure location (not a MacBook/laptop), allowing for a simple and weak password may not be an issue. Using the password hint will help later on once the child learns to read, unless one chooses to make the hint the actual password.
Once the account is created, establishing an icon with the account will help make the account unique and identifiable. At first, they will recognize the icon, and soon identify with the fact that their full name is also being displayed. This icon will be displayed on the login prompt when they first access the Mac. The icon should be an image they can relate to, like their favorite toy, or a self-portrait. Just ensure that it’s unique from the other account icons, and is something that the individual will not have any problems remembering. Keep in mind that depending on the age of the user, reading may not be a skill yet mastered. And in some cases, the full alphabet may not be known (yes, Mac users can be that young and still get things done on the Mac).
Some of the initial security setup lies in how things are currently configured on the Mac you intend to allow the Minis to use. It is more than just a good idea to create a separate Administrator account on all Macs and not allow any other user accounts to administer any Mac — it’s essential. This is configured separately for each User account in the System Preferences' Accounts window:
Leave this unchecked
You may also want to configure any other accounts to log off after so many minutes of inactivity, and be sure that all remote access to the machine is disabled.
NOTE: Do not enable parental controls until after the user account has been accessed and configured properly. This is very important and will prevent one from having to re-establish the parental controls over and over again for each tweak of the user preferences. This is because one of the applications that the user will not be permitted to use will be System Preferences. These controls can be used to allow quite a bit of freedom for the Mini user without having to enforce constant adult supervision. This freedom to explore on their own creates a sense of freedom and self-confidence that just simply cannot be achieved with constant adult supervision. So rather than direct adult supervision, the Mac allows one to configure and control — to a staggering degree — indirect adult supervision.
Configuring the Account With the Mini User in Mind
Now that a user account is created, go ahead and log in to the account. Remember, the less there is to click on, the less that can go wrong. The goal is to eliminate as many unnecessary options as possible, provide a consistent experience with each successive login, and maximize the font and visuals. For the most part, this will lead to disabling most of the advance features, and controlling the behavior of the mouse, keyboard and screen as much as possible. Go back into System Preferences and proceed to configure the user account.
Appearance – Disable the number of recent items by setting Applications, Documents and Servers to 'none'.
Spotlight – Uncheck all searchable items, and disable the shortcut keys. This is a user-specific setting and will only limit the search capabilities of the specific user for which this preference was configured. It may also be a good idea to establish which areas of the Mac should not be searchable under any circumstances.
Desktop and Screen Saver – Do not randomize anything; keep the desktop image clean and clear of clutter by selecting a solid color. The desktop will be where all shortcuts will be created to launch the applications and web pages. As an added bonus, think about purchasing a custom screensaver like SereneScreen's Marine Aquarium for Snow Leopard.
Dock – This may not make much sense at first, but minimize the Dock to its smallest size, and hide the Dock. The goal here is to keep the individual away from the Dock entirely. All access to applications and websites will be made accessible via shortcuts on the Desktop. It’s also important to manually remove all icons from the Dock. The only two remaining icons on the Dock that will not allow themselves to be removed are the Finder, and the Trash. Think iPad.
Exposé and Spaces – Disable all hot corners in Exposé and disable Spaces entirely. Kids tend to overcompensate their mouse movements and this could be a confusing topic to broach when they constantly hit the hot corners of the screen. Since there is very little functionality that they will need to utilize, it’s best to simply disable all opportunities to access other features and applications via hot corners.
Task Bar Icons – Keeping consistent with the theme of minimizing the number of opportunities for a stray mouse to click on something, hiding as many of the tray icons as possible is a good idea as well. This includes but is not limited to the Displays, Airport (Network), Battery (Energy Saver), Clock (Date and Time), Bluetooth and Time Machine. If you have not been able to locate all of the preferences that add items to the Task Bar, simply hold down the command key and drag the items off the task bar one by one, just as you remove items from the Dock.
Finder
Now click on the desktop; the Finder menu should appear on the menu bar. Under the Finder menu, select Preferences. Under General, do not show any items like hard drives and peripherals on the desktop. All access to each application and website will be individually and directly controlled via a shortcut from the desktop. New Finder windows should open to the Desktop as well. Basically direct all attention to the Desktop as much as possible. For the sidebar, uncheck everything so that the sidebar is completely bare. When performing a search, search the current folder only, which again, will hopefully only ever be the Desktop.
Toolbar – Open the Finder and from the View menu, choose to customize the Toolbar. Remove all tools from the toolbar and leave it as bare as possible.
View Options – Right-click (option+click) on the Desktop and select Show View Options from the menu that pops up. If the dialogue that displays does not say Desktop at the top, click on the desktop. Once you’re sure that you’re modifying the View Options for the desktop, maximize the icon size, grid spacing and text size. Keep the label position at the bottom and continue to show both the item info and preview. The interesting part will be sorting the icons by their respective labels. This will give more control over the positioning of the labels, and create a color-coordinated option for organizing utility applications from educational and fun applications.
Safari
Within Safari, some of the basic configurations to establish include either setting up a blank home page, or a familiar home page, perhaps one that was created just for them with large image icons of their favorite websites. Additionally be sure to turn off all of the tool and status bars. This will initially create an experience that each website is a separate 'thing' accessible from a desktop icon. This is perfectly acceptable at first and can be a modified behavior once the Mini user learns that all of the 'sites' they’re accessing are not on the computer, not in the house, and in some cases not even in the country. Be sure to edit the bookmarks and remove all pre-populated bookmarks as well.
Safari Preferences
Setting Up Parental Controls
Everything is now configured just right and the account is ready for parental lockdown. Kid-proofing a Mac With Parental Controls is now possible. Log out of the account that was created for the Mini user, and log into an administrator account. While it’s not absolutely necessary to log in to an administrator account, this will eliminate the prompts to authorize each action that’s taken. Disabling and Enabling Parental controls will prove to be a real pain as well. Especially when you have an extensive list of email and chat accounts, as well as a good list of websites that you want to grant access. Not to mention, establishing a complex set of times and hours that the little one can use the Mac. The preferred route is to create a user account, strip it down to the bare minimum required to make things go, and then to enable parental controls to lock down everything else.The first choice is to use the simple Finder, or to only allow access to selected applications. While the simple Finder is nice, and is what all of the configuring and messing around attempted to achieve to a lesser degree in the above recommendations, in the end, the ability to limit what applications the user has access to outweighed the simplification of the Finder. The recommendation is to utilize the "Only allow selected applications" feature of Parental Controls. From here, one can select exactly what applications the user can launch. At first, un-select all applications and log on to the user account and see what can be accomplished. Disabling the ability to administer printers, change passwords, burn CD/DVDs and even modify the Doc is also recommended.
Conclusion
Empowering the Mini Mac users in one’s life is simple and straightforward once one gets the hang of creating a user account, customizing System Preferences and setting up parental controls. The rewards of having a Mini user realize that they’re in control and are able to make the Mac do what they want it to are huge. Playing with Photo Booth and communicating with the grandparents via video over long distances is worth all of the set-up. It will not be too long before the Mini user is confident in their own skill set enough to go and check on their own to see if Grandma or Grandpa are online.
Переслать - 7 Essential iPad Productivity Apps
When I got my iPad, I gave myself a mandate: Don’t lug a 5-pound MacBook around; instead, try to make do with the iPad. For the most part, I’ve been successful. My MacBook hasn’t left the house since April 3, and for what I do (writing, reading, video watching), I don’t really need the horsepower all that much. I wouldn’t want to do a day’s work on it, but it’s great for getting work done on the train, on my lunch break, etc.
These are the apps I’ve found to be indispensable for getting things done.
The iWork Suite: OK, in fairness, everyone who wrote about it wasn’t all that trilled with it. However, I’ve found that it’s currently the best option, which is pretty sad. Office2Pro has potential, but the lack of USB transfer is a turnoff for me. Granted, the lack of MobileMe integration with iWork really makes me wonder what on earth Apple was thinking; I can’t get my iPad on the Wi-Fi network at work, so it’d be nice to be able to transfer files from my work PC. It really feels like the suite is one or two patches from being excellent.
Evernote: I’m a huge Evernote user. For me, it has replaced bookmarking; any page I’d normally bookmark just gets Evernoted. Evernote for the iPad finally pushed me over the edge to becoming a premium user, primarily because premium users can sync their notebooks offline. I don’t use it a lot for taking notes, but it’s indispensable for reading my research material offline.
Goodreader: I deal with a ton of PDFs, Word docs, Presentations and videos, all of which I tend to need to refer to and not edit. Given the complete lack of a real file system — another failure on Apple’s part — Goodreader lets me organize more cleanly than the iWork suite. I’ve got lecture notes and handouts for my class all in one place, and I store my PDFs of my character sheets for D&D in it was well. Goodreader can also get files from Dropbox, MobileMe and USB sync, and more. It lets me sideload just about any file onto my iPad without it being tethered to my sync computer.
Things: No discussion of getting things done is complete without a to-do manager. My favorite is still Things, primarily because of how well it plays with the desktop version. I’d like to see the iPad version have a little more feature parity with the OS X version — namely in being able to edit Areas on the iPad, and I look forward to the day when the syncing is done over the cloud.
Bento: I originally picked up Bento because Delicious Library didn’t let me edit my library on the iPhone — and Amazon’s forbidding of its data to be used by mobile apps, which is how Delicious gets its data, forced the app to be pulled. I wanted to be able to edit my library on the go. Since then, I’ve found it’s a great place to dump all sorts of data you need to sort through on the road or need to edit. For example, an inventory manager could update inventory levels right on the iPad.These are the apps I’m finding handy for being productive. What ones do you prefer using?
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