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Mac Virus Carrier
Since there are no viruses that infect the Mac, why would you need a virus checker for your Mac? De Prez Allen Laudenslager gets our attention. He explains, "Well as Alexis Kayhill at Mac360 points out; if you get email and attachments from Windows PC users, your Mac could be a virus carrier."
"What?"
"A carrier - meaning that when you forward that email, you could pass a virus to your PC using friends. The author recommends the free ClamXav virus checker for Mac. I just finished downloading and running ClamXav. The directions presumed a little knowledge, but not bad at all. In my case the report came back with no viruses found, so at least I'm not passing any problems on to my friends still using PCs."
Data Collection Made Available
Get acquainted with the name "Wolfram/Alpha" because you'll be hearing more about this powerful new website. Bill Williamson passes along the following info. Here's a 13 minute intro, and this is the actual search site. Bill says, "This data base will in some ways be like Wikipedia, but much, much more powerful." He notes that he "used to use Wolfram's mathematic quite a bit and was very proficient at it, but only for scientific work." The site itself says, "We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries."
Demos Utilize HTML5
Something new to learn? Oh, yes. Here's some interesting demos about HTML5 by Apple. Look at this article Jim Hamm has found.
New Features of Google Maps
Looking up a local restaurant on the Google maps so a friend from Payson can find it up comes info on some new features of the map site. Double click to enlarge the illustration. After you bring it up on your own computer scroll down for more listings. This is just a screen shot of the first of it.
Read more about Google Maps here.
Is Your Mac Infected?
Beware of Free Screensavers
You've seen cute, free screensavers, maybe even from a site you thought you could trust. You may end up getting spyware, too. Take a look at this article sent to us from Jim Hamm.
Computer Virus & RFID Chip
From PC World this headline was a grabber, "Man Infects Himself with (Computer) Virus." A 3 minute video from the BBC illustrates the article. There's huge ramifications with the RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip; take a look at this info.
Keeping Informed
Jim Hamm likes to keep informed, and he likes to keep us informed, too. Here's his latest two finds: first, from MacWorld, how your iPhone info can be hacked by someone plugging it into a computer running Ubuntu Linux OS, even if you've protected the info by a PIN.
And a variety of subjects/topics including an Apple forum can be found here at ComputerHope.
Looking Forward to Shopping
Shopping made easy and fun with the latest technology. Bill Williamson found this nifty site of YouTube videos, and this one in particular. It's already being used in Japan by Cisco. Take a look at this.
Doing Well: iPads
Hasn't it been fun to see all the news about the iPad! One article in particular got Jim Hamm's attention. He passes it along to us. Kindle needs the iPad, and vice versa, the writer exclaims.
Word - Firefox Problem Solved
"I just needed to update my version of MS Word for Mac and had a real problem installing the XML reader," begins De Prez Allen Laudenslager. He goes on to explain the problem and the solution. "When I contacted Microsoft for help, they told me that using Firefox might be the problem.
"While this sounds weird, the tech 'thinks' that Firefox somehow doesn't always properly attach the correct file extension name. Word documents are .doc and updates to applications are disk image files .dmg, etc. That file name extension allows Mac OS and the various applications to decide how to handle the file. One example would be when you double click on the file your Mac knows to open the file in your word processor or in iPhoto or whatever.
"I went back to the site (mactopia.com) using Safari and downloaded the file a second time and was able to properly install the update and open the latest MS Word version files with the extension .docx.
"Just one more trick to keep in mind if you are having trouble downloading files using Firefox as your primary web browser."
Precautions for Using Google
With a title like, “The Smart Paranoid’s Guide to Using Google” who wouldn’t scan the article. Some helpful tips jump right out, and both business and personal users will find reasons to take suggested precautions.
About Printing Out Those Coupons
This May 22 article, "Web Marketers Have a Way of Finding Out About You" by Susan Olasky in World Magazine quoting from New York Times, explains how a coupon printed from the Internet is packed with info about the customer who uses it. Coupons convey “a startling amount of data, including identification about the customer, Internet address, Facebook page information and even the search terms the customer used to find the coupon in the first place.”
More on Easier to Read
In addition to CMD-+ and CMD - to enlarge screen, there is another way which can be used. David Passell walks us through the process: "The Firefox Browser has a way to change the appearance of a web site. (Double click to enlarge these illustrations.)
1. Go to system preferences.
2. Select Universal Access and the Seeing tab
3. Turn Zoom ON
4. Click on Options and set up similarly to below. You can experiment with other settings. If you are going to do this select 'Show Universal Access....' so you you can quickly return to the preference to make changes.
If you are using a Mouse with a scroll wheel, you will see keys to press while you scroll. NOTE: for an unknown reason OPT (or ALT) and CMD seems to be my default; and I cannot change it. (CMD and Shift also has worked on occasion.)
After you do this you will find you can hold down the keys and as you turn the scroll wheel the image will zoom out. Release the wheel and it stays zoomed and you can move around the enlarged screen to parts no longer visible.
Hold down the keys and scroll the other way until the getting-smaller stops. Then you are back to normal viewing.
IF YOU ENCOUNTER ONE OF THOSE WEB SITES WITH STRANGE COLORS AND TEXT COMBINATIONS AND ARE USING THE FIREFOX BROWSERS (e.g. Black text on red, purple on blue, etc.) you can get rid of these quirks with Firefox menu selection: View > Page Style. then change from Basic Page Style to No Style.
As an example our Newsletter normally looks like this in Basic Page Style:
After changing to no style, it looks like this:
The Opera browser has a similar selection which is titled Author Mode (= Basic Page Style) and User Mode (= No Style).
I haven't been able to find any equivalent selections in Safari. Does anyone else know if such exists?"
Here's That Link
Want to explore that link to MacInTouch mentioned by Art Gorski at the PMUG meeting this morning? Take a look at their site, and check out the possibilities of great deals at Amazon he described. Click to replace the Amazon link in your browser favorites with the one that supports MacInTouch.
Speaking of MobileMe . . .
No sooner had Art Gorski given us a nifty "show and tell" program about MobileMe at today's PMUG meeting than arrives a nice email from De Former Prez Jim Hamm, with a link to their MobileMe Gallery album. Jim explains that their RV club went to the La Posada Hotel in Holbrook, AZ, and they are sharing some photos.
Make It Easier to Read
Missed today's PMUG meeting? Here's today's handout:
Make It Easier to Read. You Can Even Listen to It.
Do Command and + to enlarge the screen view of the page you’re looking at. You can do this 7 times to make the type REALLY big. Do Command and - (the minus sign) to reduce the size of the type.
Does some site have white lettering on a dark background? Want to make it easier to read? Do Control and Option and Command and the number 8. You don’t have to touch all four simultaneously. It toggles to the opposite. Toggle the same to go back to the original look.
You’re writing something, and you need to make it easier on your eyes. Enlarge the type as above, maybe even changing the type font. When you’re ready to print it out change the type font and size of type to the look you want in the finished product.
You can print out something from a website in larger type, but notice the preview view of the page. You may need to go to landscape mode, instead of portrait mode, to get the page from margin to margin printed. Print one sample page first and make needed adjustments.
See a nice, big Preview before you print. Do Command + P > PDF > Open PDF in Preview. Click Print at bottom of that page. (Double click on illustrations to enlarge them.)
Using Pages 09 you can click on Inspector, go to T, and put more space between lines, not just space, space-and-a-half, and double space. You can also put additional space between paragraphs, using Inspector.
You can even put more space between the characters you’re writing.
Distracted by all that stuff in the background of your computer window? Do Option and Command and U to Enter Full Screen. Everything blacks out except the page you are writing. Do Esc to return to regular view.
Would VoiceOver help? Find this under Help on the Finder menu. VoiceOver provides an interactive Quick Start tutorial.
Hear your computer speak selected text?
Go to the main Help menu. Type in Speech and there you'll find useful directions.
Go to System Prefs > Speech.
Try the various choices.
Click on the Question Mark for a list of options and some helpful descriptions.
When you’re using Pages do control click on highlighted words to bring up Speech, Start Speaking. The voice speaks those words out loud.
Hear your mail. Go to Mail > Edit > Speech and listen to what you’ve selected.
Whatever . . . Mac makes it easy & fun & productive!
Traveling with iPad
A SlashGear columnist relates his experience in "Two Weeks of Travel, Ten iPad Lessons." De Prez Allen Laudenslager notes that the man has some interesting observations. Now, an email from Jim Hamm also suggests we look at this article.
Make a Better Blog
Our PMUG webmaster John Carter has been researching possibilities for improving the website and blog. If you're considering starting your own blog, or already have one, John's info might be helpful.
"I have no update for the website at this time other than saying that I have scrubbed the idea of using WordPress as the website editing tool. I have also had some difficulty with Dreamweaver for the past few months (which probably means I need to delete the user preferences for Dreamweaver like I did for Firefox to get it running right again). In the interim, I am back to using Coda on the Mac.
"A decent, and free, alternative for editing web pages is KompoZer - which is available for the Mac, Windows, and Linux. That app is every bit as good as iWeb on the Mac. That being said, if anyone takes over the webmaster job in the future, installing KompoZer will provide them with totally free tools for excellent WYSIWYG editing for web pages.
"An excellent alternative for designing new web pages is available in the form of templates using Artisteer, which is now available for the Mac ($49.95 for the Home & Academic Edition). Using Artisteer to cobble together a template and then exporting that template as an HTML file is probably the fastest and easiest way I can think of for creating new web pages with spit and polish. You can even (dare I mention this again) include a newsletter in such a template."