Fascinating to imagine printing from your iPhone? your iPad? Jim Hamm sends this from Small Dog TechTails newsletter. He says he's not tried the AirPrint Activator, but plans to do so. "Lack of printing capability has been one of weaknesses of the iPad -- at least for me. If this app works, it will be a step forward in making the iPad more of a free-standing computer."
Lion? Yes? No?
After reading an article about getting Lion for $70 on a thumb drive, Allen Laudenslager sent it on to us with the comment, "The way this guy wrote the article is a hoot."
My question back to him was, "Got Lion? Why or why not?" Here's Allen's reply.
"My son upgraded just because he is a technogeek and need to have the latest and 'greatest.' He hasn't found any real new features, but I did learn that if I were to upgrade my old version of MS Word for Mac would not run under Lion. Since MS changed the tool bar I much prefer the older version, and I don't want to have to switch to the newer, less efficient (from my point of view) version.
"I do tech manuals and that means a lot of formatting, with the older version the tool bar can be set up with access to the formatting tools right on the tool bar. With the new version I have to click through at least one menu, usually two or three, to get to the same control. Great for home users who don't do a lot of formatting but a pain for me.
"I want a Macbook Air so I will automatically have to upgrade an replace MS Word then. I have to run a version of Word that is one-to-one compatible with my customers or I'm out of business, so I will end up having to have a dual boot system to let me run both Lion and Snow Leopard so I can still run my old MS Word version."
What iCloud Won't Do After Transition from MobileMe
The headline reads, "Apple officially killing MobileMe sync for keychains, widgets, accounts, preferences." Jim Hamm sends this link to the AppleInsider page, with his comment, "Here's more info on what iCloud won't be doing after the transition from MobileMe."
This Looks Phishy
Always alert for scams, this comes from David Passell who writes, "This is an E-mail I received that I wouldn't think of answering. What do our other readers think??? Here is my copy/paste of the message with some [additions].
From: "test"
Date: August 14, 2011 12:12:31 AM MST
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: IMPORTANT EMAIL UPGRADE
Reply-To: techupgradearfarf@#% bitscn.net [I have deliberately messed up the address; no, I am not going to Reply-To]
Dear Email Subscriber,
This is to inform all Subscribers that our server upgrade/maintenance is scheduled for September 1st 2011. [Who dat? I have five different E-mail accounts]
You may experience login problems during this period. We are having congestion due to various anonymous account registrations and on this note, we are deactivating some accounts that are no longer active and your account may be deactivated if no action is taken. To confirm and keep your account active during and after the upgrade and maintenance, you are advised to provide the below details to confirm your account.
Email Address:
Confirm Email Address:
Password:
Confirm Password:
Date of Birth:
Your E-mail account will remain active after we have successfully upgraded our server. This is to help us serve you better. We apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for your swift response to this notification.
Technical Support Team
Copyright ©MPI 2011 All Rights Reserved
Obsolete Software
Heads up, here. We all need to keep aware of obsolescence of computer programs we may have come to rely upon. David Passell sends this article, and comments, "Here's an article on companies abandoning old software or creating systems that won't run it.
"This one kind of bashes Apple, but I am not sure which old programs I have that may need Rosetta. Here is one suggestion for anyone who expects to have compatibility problems with Lion. (As one article pointed our "Lion may be Apple's Vista.")
1. Don't throw away that older Apple. If it has USB, Firewire, and Ethernet ports it can still be useful. Even more so if it can run old OS 9 programs.
"For example: I have a very old blue-bubble iMac. I keep it because I have 'journaled' since 1993 or so and a lot of my files arepassword-protected Word Perfect. If I want to check something out in the past I can go to the time frame and open it up. Of course, if I unprotect the file, I can copy it to a USB drive and then open it with OpenOffice on the latest machine (assuming Lion runs OpenOffice). BUT I need the old program to open Password protected files."
A Few Shortcomings of Lion
Some of Lion's features are causing discontent with early adopters. Jim Hamm sends along this article, a critique of AutoSave, Automatic Termination, and Recovery HD. The author opines that Apple might address some of these concerns when the first update to Lion is released. The forty comments following offer other discussion of several of Lion's shortcomings.
Free . . . You Just Have To . . .
There's that word "free" and so we pay attention when David Passell suggests we look at this article from ZDNet. One sentence in the article says: "All you have to do is donate 150 GB of your unused disk space on your computer." That gets you 100 GB of Cloud Storage for free.
David comments, "Here is a link to a story that I don't think I would touch, especially after reading some of the comments. Reminds me of the people who drive 50 miles to save 10 cents a gallon on gas. If I want more storage I will roll my own."
How to Create a Lion Recovery Disk Assistant
Find That Word Fast
Need a quick definition? Ruth Davis from Phoenix who spoke to PMUG awhile back gives this tip: Hold down the Command and Control keys and type the letter D. Move your mouse then on top of the word. The definition comes up as a pop-up menu. This works in Mail, Safari, Pages -- but not in Word, Firefox and other non-Apple products. Ruth sends out a "tip of the week" here.
Here's something to try. I use it with Pages, and my trusty little Belkin mouse gives other helps. Highlight a word, right-click and up comes a menu of choices: never hyphenate, cut, copy,paste, paste and match style, delete, select all, create new paragraph style from selection, spelling, proofreading, font, speech, and writing tools which lists Dictionary, Thesaurus, Search Spotlight, Google, Wikipedia, & Show Statistics.
To Lion or Not To Lion?
Still pondering the question shall I upgrade to Lion, or not? David Passell shares this information from MacLife. The writer ventures between serious and humorous, and the comments are sensible. I found the best advice from someone named Fabulo writing under Comments who advises to partition your hard drive and install Snow Leopard on one partition and upgrade to Lion on the other partition. You can continue to work with a familiar system while learning the new OS at a comfortable pace.
How to Be Unsociable on Facebook, etc.
David Passell gets our attention with info on how to be unsociable. He begins, "I don't know how many of our members are signed on to Facebook, or Twitter. I know that some use Gmail and may also have Google+. Here is an article about how to get rid of them if you feel unsociable : ) , but beware the warnings about Google+ if you have Gmail. I don't have Google+ or a Gmail address, but I understand, (dimly), that my cableone.net e-mail and spam filter are related to Gmail."
David closes by suggesting members might be interested in a SIG or meeting on using these Social Services. "Might also include Linkedin. You may not want to 'friend' or 'share' (such warm fuzzy terms :() but there are some interesting people you might want to 'like' or 'follow.'"
Lion Review: Mac Mail
Here's John Carter's instructions on using Mail in Lion. "First off, the download of Lion is about 3.7GB, and with a 7 Mbps Internet connection (which only provides about a 5 Mbps download rate) it will take a calculated 93 minutes to download. The install itself takes a little over 30 minutes, but then you have to do a software update and that may take another hour depending on what has to be updated (like iTunes, iPhoto, etc.)
"After the download is complete, you will see a new application called 'Install Mac OS X Lion' come up automatically and prompting you to click Next to start the installation. To be on the safe side, you should insert a blank DVD (standard 4.7GB capacity) and burn that application to the DVD before you click Next. (You’ll find the application in the Application folder, but if you don’t burn the DVD at this point in time, that application will be deleted during the installation of Lion. You will want to have that DVD around for safety and security reasons.)
"I’m only going to cover the new Mail application at this time, and I’m using it to create this report.
"The new appearance of Mail can be a bit disconcerting. First, you really need to view Mail in full screen to take advantage of all that it has to offer. Clicking the double-headed arrow in the upper right corner of the Mail application switches to full screen mode. To get out of full screen mode, simply press the ESC key.
"Some people will be put off by the new Mail application GUI. The default is to not show the mailboxes and to show two columns - one for the Inbox message list, which contains two lines of the message body (in Preferences you can select to show only one line), and one for the actual message that is selected from the message list (if that column is blank then no message in the left column has yet been selected). This threw me for a loop at first, and I admit that I panicked, wondering how I was supposed to see all the accounts and mailboxes I created.
"In the image that follows, the right hand column shows two messages sent by the same person with the same subject line (I'm looking at a message in my Inbox mailbox). The bottom message has the number 1 in the upper right corner and the top message has the number 2 in the upper right corner - this shows the sequence of the incoming messages.
"But, you can switch back to the classic view in Preferences:
"I think I’ll stay with the new look, for a while anyway. In the following image, the column on the far left (showing all the mailboxes) is only visible if you click on the tiny button just above it.
"If you have more than one e-mail account or if you want to see all the mailboxes you created, without that column displayed, you have to select which e-mail account Inbox you want to see by clicking on the Inbox button (yep, I have a lot of email accounts):
"Clicking on one item in the message list highlights all other messages in that list by that same sender where the subject line is also the same, hence making up a conversation. The blue highlighted message is the message being looked at and the orange highlighted messages are the related conversations.
"Overall, the text is extremely small on my 20” iMac. I tried to increase the font size of the message headers to no avail. But it does work if you don’t use the column format for the message list - use the classic (Snow Leopard) mode.
"Attempting to adjust the message font is also useless — only the header gets adjusted and not the body.
"The old Mail app had a Save button in the toolbar when writing a new message. There is no save button in the toolbar and there is no save button in the customize offerings for the toolbar. I guess Apple is trying to do us a favor by eliminating useless operations and made that function automatic when needed. But you can still click on File —> Save to save the current message as a draft. If you quit the message before sending it (red dot), you are given the option to discard the message or save it as a draft. If Mail unexpectedly quits or the computer shuts down while writing a new message, the message is saved in the Drafts folder."
In conclusion John closes with, "In other words, there’s a lot about Mail that needs a little getting used to - except for those who are new to the Mac."
Lion: Aggravations?
Reporting on his latest finds with Lion, we hear now from Jim Hamm. "Here's an interesting article on a new 'feature' in Lion: it automatically determines when to turn off an app that you've opened and left running, but haven't used recently. Per the article, apparently Lion does this when more RAM is needed, and you're using about all the RAM available. I can see the logic behind this, but I think it might have been better for Lion to send a warning that more RAM is needed, so some apps need to be closed by the user. This gives the user the decision on which app to close -- not Lion.
"I think this may only be a 'problem' if you have many apps open and need more RAM for Lion to function properly. So far I've not experienced this shutdown feature -- but I normally don't have a bunch of apps open at one time.
"Another aspect of Lion that I've commented on previously: the 'Resume' feature in Safari is aggravating to me. When I close Safari and reopen, I want it to open only with my Home page -- not all ten or so tabs I had open when I closed it. There's three ways to get around this 'feature:' turn off Restore for all apps in System Preferences; use a Terminal command; hold the shift key when clicking and opening Safari -- or another app.
Now Jim closes with a grin, "I had to laugh at the following statement the author made: 'Moreover, there’s a larger question at stake: Who, precisely, is in charge? I think it should be me, but Lion disagrees — and not in this respect alone.' An interesting question. Who knows best: you or the big Apple?"
Lion's Restore Feature in Safari
Jim Hamm delves deeper into Lion's Restore feature in Safari. After research on several forums he states, "I found there is no way in Safari settings to turn off Restore. It's all or nothing unless one does a Terminal command — which I don't like to do. For now I went ahead and turned off Restore for all apps. I just didn't like Safari to open all tabs from the previous session. You can click here for more information on Restore."
There's More Ink in There
Running low on ink in your printer? Perhaps you already take that cartridge out, give it some good shakes this way and that way, then put it back in to gain maybe over 100 more printed pages.
Keep Your Computer Safe
Here are five steps that are recommended to keep your Mac (and PC) computers safe. Find it here at ZDNet. Thanks to David Passell for sending this today.
Character Viewer
"If you tried to use the Character Viewer in Lion to insert symbols, emoticons, etc., into email, letters and documents, you may have trouble figuring out how to do it -- I did," states Jim Hamm.
He explains the frustration. "In Snow Leopard all you had to do was click 'insert.' This feature is missing in Lion. In Lion there's two choices: double click the symbol or drag and drop. Is this simpler than in Snow Leopard? No. Another example of where, seemingly, Apple designers stuck their fingers in Character Viewer, stirred the pot to make things a bit different but not better.
"Here's how to get Character Viewer to appear in the Menu Bar: System Preferences > Language & Text > Input Sources > check Keyboard and Character Viewer. I use it frequently, for example, to put a bullet point • in front of a new paragraph. Or maybe this ☛.
"Perhaps now you'll be pleased to use the Character Viewer...☺. . . Jim"
Benefits of the New AutoSave in Lion
Is it a bug? Jim Hamm says he'll test it out. He's passing along this info about the"Resume" feature in Lion. In tests the resume feature didn't seem to activate until he had done a manual save once, then the feature worked after that.
Will Li-Fi Take Over for Wi-Fi?
Fascinating conjecture here: Li-Fi might replace Wi-Fi. Jim Hamm located this site. A researcher says "There are around 14 billion light bulbs worldwide, they just need to be replaced with LED ones that transmit data." Jim comments, "An interesting concept."
Did You Make a Backup DVD?
"If someone has downloaded Lion and didn't make a backup DVD or thumb drive of the installer, here's a blog on how to re-download Lion and then make the install backup," says Jim Hamm. He goes on to suggest, "Peruse the Reader Comments for more tips on how to be successful in this process."