iPhone News

        Art Gorski doesn't want us to miss the latest news: Verizon Wireless held a press conference today and announced that they will be selling Apple's iPhone to new customers starting on February 10, 2011. Verizon is the only wireless provider that has a 3G data network in Prescott. They also have a company store in the area where you can walk in and order (and maybe take home!) your new iPhone. More details, including Frequently Asked Questions can be found on their website.
        Jim Hamm jumps in here with this link to Apple.  He comments, " A big step for both Verizon and Apple, and possibly a bag of hurt for AT&T."
        Here's a helpful comparison from Macworld of the AT&T and Verizon plans.

Can You Help?

        De Prez Howard LaPittus, sends us this announcement, "New Chairperson To Be Added."  He describes this opportunity which awaits one of our PMUG members.
        "We are going to vote for a new Chairperson who will be in charge of Public Relations. This person will be responsible for newspaper announcements, application for membership brochure distribution, radio announcements, surveys, etc. No experience necessary. If you would like to be considered for this great, new fun experience please let me know.  I will support this person with guidance, details of responsibilities, goals and objectives. If you are interested or know someone who'd be willing to serve as a Board member in this position please email Howard LaPittus."

What IS This "Net Neutrality"?

        Jim Hamm jumps in on the latest political controversy.  He starts off with, "If you've read or heard about the term 'net neutrality,' as I have, and wondered exactly what that meant, as I have, here is an article from the Lifehacker newsletter that gives a good summary of the term. There are arguments to be made both for and against net neutrality, and the FCC has proposed some rules of its own.
        "Here's one example of an issue on internet usage that comes to mind: if, say, you're on cable for your internet connection and in your neighborhood there are several people that like to download movies. They may well soak up much of the available bandwidth and your internet connection slows to a crawl. Should they pay more because they're using an 'excessive' (whatever that means?) amount of bandwidth? Or should the cable company spend more to upgrade its network to support the additional load? Or both?
        Jim concludes, "Will be interesting—and perhaps disconcerting— to see how all this shakes out."
        When you go to this site scroll down quite a ways to find the headline, "Closed Internet Ahead Proceed With Caution."  On the way you'll find such helpful articles as, "How to Make Mittens Out of Old Sweaters" and "Top 10 End-of-the-Year Upgrades (You Can Probably Write Off)."

Negative Predictions about Apple

        "Apple is the second-largest company in the world," states the writer, but he outlines 11 reasons why Apple could fall in 2011. He does write, "There is no doubt that Apple is one of the greatest companies in the world, with some of the greatest consumer products and revolutionary technologies.  But at what point does the fun end?"
         Jim Hamm sends us the article, commenting that "it's interesting to note that the market cap of Apple is larger than IBM, Hewlett Packard and Dell combined."

Parallels Looks Good

David Passell shares some good news, "I responded to this email yesterday and got Parallels 6. I installed it rather quickly without much headscratching. It is much better integrated with the Mac than the previous Parallels 5. I had Windows XP installed and it transferred over nicely. Today I installed the Zinc browser and it runs fine. The text looks ugly though, compared to the Mac. (This seems true of our Mac site and newsletter too, though). There are a lot of mysterious (to me) things that happen in Windows though :(. Anybody who has Parallels 5 probably should update to this and save."  The sale expires 12-31.

,

Encrypt Your Thumb Drive

,

        "Many of us use a thumb drive to backup data while traveling and to pass data to trusted friends," Allen Laudenslager gets our attention.  He elaborates, "Some of that data needs to be very private and should be encrypted. So, how do you encrypt your thumb drive?
        "Here is a link to the entire Wired magazine article,  but the specific directions for the Mac are below:
        "Mac OS X actually has a nice built-in encryption tool you can use right out of the box. To get started, just plug in your USB stick and open up Disk Utility (you'll find it in the Utilities folder inside your Applications folder).
        "In Disk Utility head to File >> New >>Blank Disk Image. Select your USB stick as the destination and choose one of the encryption options. You can also set the size of the volume, number of partitions and the format.
        "Once that's done click create and enter a good password (see our guide to picking strong passwords). Alternatively, there is a Mac version of TrueCrypt which may be used.
        "May not be important for pictures of the gandkids, but if you need to take your tax information to the accountant you just might care!"

Finding Special Characters in Pages

"In Microsoft Word and a few other text editors like BBEdit and TextWranger, you can type special codes to search for things like carriage returns or tabs," Art Gorski explains.  " In Pages and TextEdit, there doesn't seem to be a way to do this. But if you hold down the Option key when you type these characters in a Search and Replace dialog it works!"  Read how Macworld explains this feature.

Important Argosy News

        David Passell has been having some problems with his Mini.  He's found a fix!  David informs us, "Tony Baltera took in my Mini with the erratic superdrive yesterday and immediately ordered a new one from Apple under my Apple Care warranty that expires Dec. 25. He stated that they do not carry Apple products in stock since outlets like Best Buy can carry a wide selection.
        "HOWEVER: AND THIS IS IMPORTANT TO MAC OWNERS IN THIS AREA. He is an Authorized Apple Repair Center and he is concentrating on this function. He can order Apple products for you though. I did not find this out from BB who told me to contact Apple and have out-of-date info on Argosy.
        "A opinion from me: Contrary to the bragging you hear sometimes, avoidance of local (or any) sales taxes is probably the worst reason to buy from a website (and it is technically illegal if you don't declare the purchase). Remember 'the citizen cares for his/her community; the consumer only cares for his/her wallet.')."
        Update, 12-21.  David writes, "I got my Mini back with a new superdrive yesterday.  It appears to work fine."

iTunes Trouble?

        AppleInsider tells that some users updating to iTunes 10.1.1 have reported it caused iTunes to crash.  Be sure to read this before downloading it. Apparently Apple's standalone iTunes installer appears to run without any problems.
        Jim Hamm had found an article describing and showing comparisons of Macs over the last 5 years.  That was interesting, but the headline below it about iTunes got my attention!