How compatible are the various rival e-book readers? Jim Hamm forwards this link to David Pogue's article clarifying some of his earlier comments.
So, Jim, what does Zee like best? What do you like best?
"Zee likes both her iPad and Kindle at different times. The iPad can't be used in sunlight or bright conditions, and it's heavier to hold. But, the display is bright and has color. Good for magazines.
"The Kindle, on the other hand, is lighter and can be used in bright light. And, the small Kindle is only $79. Hard to pick just one.
"Overall, I think the iPad has more flexibility, but it's a lot more expensive. If you only want to read ebooks, I'd get the Kindle. It's light and works great as a book reader. If you want more than just to read books -- email, surf the net, read the news, etc., the iPad is terrific. I really enjoy my iPad, as does Zee. Powerful device."
Travelers: Be Careful with Your Laptop
A travelers' warning from the FBI has come to our attention. Dated 5-8-12, http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/e-scams tells about travelers' laptops being infected with malicious software from using hotel Internet connections. Read the details and be careful.
Use Caution with QR Codes
You probably see them all over. QR codes are getting more and more popular. But here's a caution from Jim Hamm. "The hackers don't miss an opportunity. Take a read on this article, and be cautious of QR codes."
Previously posted on this newsblog we called them "QR Tags"— see December 11, 2010; March 29, 2011; and January 29, 2012.
QR code, a “barcode on steroids” — abbreviation for Quick Response Code, a type of matrix barcode was first designed for the automotive industry, invented by the Toyota subsidiary Denso Wave in 1994 to track vehicles during the manufacturing process. Here are 84 accounts of the use of QR codes.
Upgrade Fever?
Can I upgrade to Lion and still keep my old, familiar, and useful Snow Leopard? You'll find complete directions here, but with a warning. If not done correctly you could lose all your data, everything on your computer! Aaaak! Read here for the info.
Another nifty announcement on that same site: Read about Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) events scheduled for June 2 & 3. "Hack for humanity" is their slogan, it's FREE, and being held at Burlington, VT.
So, PMUG readers, anyone want to pass on info on any recent upgrades?
Suggestions for iPad Case
Welcome Our PR Person
It was a happy announcement at a recent PMUG meeting, and here we introduce our new PR person, Amy Snyder. Let's get acquainted.
Amy grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. She graduated from college in North Carolina. Eventually, she moved west to California before becoming a long time resident of Prescott.
Her professional background includes work in the medical field, real estate, and management. Currently, she works as a designer at Sun Pine Homes.
In her free time, Amy enjoys living a healthy lifestyle, traveling especially to New Zealand, and spending time with her family including her “precious spoiled cat.” She is an avid birder working on her “life list” and a member of the Prescott Audubon Society.
She also says, “I am a supporter of various nature, animal, and health oriented charitable organizations.”
So, Amy, tell us about your computer interest. "I bought my first Mac in 1992. Last year, I accompanied my stepfather, Harry, to the Prescott Mac Users Group. I was enthusiastically greeted and welcomed by members. As a life long learner, I find the PMUG to be a great environment to ask questions, share knowledge and skills, and discover new ways to enjoy the Mac."
A prior commitment will mean Amy's absence in May, but look forward to getting acquainted at our June meeting. You'll recognize her by her smile!
More Options for Cloud Storage
"Several options to store items in the Cloud have become available recently, and Amazon offers another one." See the article here. Jim Hamm passes along these details. "You can get 5 GB free, and Amazon even has a desktop app available. One good use of Cloud storage, as an example, is to store pictures that you want to keep in a couple — or more — of Cloud locations. This way, you've always got a backup of those important pictures you don't want to lose — and free up storage space on the disk in your computer."
Should Your iPhone Be Your Only Camera?
Jim Hamm has found an article asking whether your iPhone could be your only camera. Jim tells us the writer "compares several photos taken with a camera and the iPhone at the same subject. To me, the iPhone pictures looked as good as or better than the camera."
Where Does the URL Go?
"Here's a tip that might be helpful," says Jim Hamm. "If you get an email with a shortened URL through TinyURL.com, you can preview where it goes to, before opening it, by visiting the following website and enabling this feature: http://tinyurl.com/preview.php
"Once enabled, it will place a cookie on your computer. Then, just right-click a shortened URL and then click 'Quick Look URL.' It will show you where the link goes before you open it. This could be helpful if you are suspicious of a shortened URL and want to know where it goes before you click to open it," Jim closes with a grin.
And, we're all happy not to need a correctly-entered URL to go to many sites. Google has simplified our search.
What Happened to "Read More"?
This is the latest on http://pmugnews.blogspot.com/ -- yes, this blog. Apparently, on April 23 Blogspot made changes to their procedures and an aggravation has surfaced here. When you subscribe via RSS, clicking on the upper right hand side of the top bar, you'd be notified via your own email program when something new was posted here. About 4 lines would give the opening of the article, and then came those helpful words, "Read More." Clicking there took you immediately to this website and you could read the whole article and see the whole newsletter.
Now the "Read More" is missing. Until the solution is found I will start each new posted article with this http://pmugnews.blogspot.com/ in the first line, so you can click on that and go straight to the whole blog. That's the idea.....now to see if it works for you!
Considering Google Drive?
( For the benefit of RSS readers see if this works. Click on http://pmugnews.blogspot.com/ to bring up the whole first page of the blog.)
This CNBC article is headlined, "Suspicion, Confusion Swirl Around Google Drive." Take a look to keep informed.
Gmail Increases Your Storage
Jim Hamm says, "Here's some good news: If you have a Gmail email address, your storage has been increased to 10 GB to celebrate the release of Google Drive. Here's the announcement. I checked my account and, sure enough, I've got 10241 MB of email storage available to me. This is one of the reasons I use Gmail — I don't have to alert people to stop sending emails when I won't have access to the internet for awhile — I've got plenty of storage available. Another reason is Gmail's filters are excellent — I almost never get a spam email."As a side note: if you've thought about using Google Drive for storage of documents, it's not available for everyone yet — it's a rolling release. If you're interested, you can sign up to be notified when it will be available for you." New info: MailTab for Gmail, "the best Gmail app for free" is v7.5, dated 6-12-2015, is available. Read about it at iTunes.apple.com.
More About FREE E-books
Since our posting of April 6 here Jim Hamm has found another site, offering free e-books. He tells us, "If you enjoy reading e-books, here is an article describing various methods of getting free e-books. Also, the Calibre program discussed in the article is useful in converting a document into a format your device can use."
This just in: the last of April Amazon released a program for Mac, "Send to Kindle for Mac" that allows users to easily send personal documents and DR-free ebooks to Kindle ereaders and apps and the Kindle cloud archive from Mac computers. See more here.
MacMail: Missing Plug-in
John Carter springs this question, "Have you ever noticed that when you send an e-mail with an attachment, it shows up in your Sent folder with the attachment seemingly replaced with the words 'Missing Plug-in?'
" A few weeks back, some advice was given out to supposedly protect you from a Java related virus. The advice said to open 'Java Preferences' (this application is in /Applications/Utilities, or just search for it with Spotlight) and uncheck the box in the General tab: 'Enable applet plug-in and Web Start applications.' Unchecking that box causes your attachments to disappear from your e-mail in the Sent folder and maybe cause you to think that the attachment didn’t go through.
"To see your attachments in your Sent folder again, make sure that the box is checked and then click on the button 'Restore Defaults.' All will be fine again. As for the Java related virus warning, both Java and Apple have pushed updates that you should have installed, and those updates will protect you - until the next new virus comes along."
But John, we asked, "what about the Safari Preferences"?
Here's John's reply: "Not the same. What you show is for Safari, not Mail. Since I have installed all the latest Java and Apple updates, I have 'Enable Java' box checked in Safari Preferences as well. But that setting does not affect how Mail works."
Half-Baked Cloud: Read This
"Before you sign up for the new Google Drive," Prez Art Gorski gets our attention, "have a look at this review." Three paragraphs down you'll find a privacy warning spelled out.
eBooks on Sale
This, just in from John Carter: "O’Reilly is having a special 50% off sale on ebooks.
$11.99 – Switching to Mac: The Missing Manual, Lion Edition
$13.99 – Mac OS X Lion: The Missing Manual
$4.99 – Troubleshooting Your Mac, Second Edition
$11.97 – My New Mac, Lion Edition
$15.99 – Office 2010: The Missing Manual
$15.99 – Excel 2010: The Missing Manual No code required.
"Visit the O’Reilly site before midnight tonight, (Pacific Time) April 26, 2012 to take advantage of this great offer!"
Want Lots More FREE Storage?
Jim Hamm immediately gets our attention with, "Would you like 7GB of free storage?" There's that word FREE. He goes on to suggest, "Take a look at Microsoft's SkyDrive, which is explained in the following article. I just set it up, and it functions just like Dropbox, only with a lot more storage:
"Or, you could consider the new Google Drive, which offers 5GB of free storage. See here.
"Or, set them both up. Coupled with Apple's iCloud free storage of 5GB, you now have 17GB of free 'Cloud' storage available. What's not to like about this? Of course, it might be a bit confusing remembering what you've got stored where....(grin)...." Jim
Malware Warning
Malware? There's more to come for Mac! Jim Hamm sends us this warning, "Unfortunately, I think the article has a point: more malware is probably headed towards Macs." Keep informed.
Gatekeeper in Mountain Lion
"One feature coming in OS X 10.8, Mountain Lion, is Gatekeeper — an enhanced security feature," announces Jim Hamm. He elaborates, "Recently, Macs have been attacked by malware, and we'll probably see more attacks in the future. Additional security protection is always welcome. Here are some comments about Gatekeeper. From AppleInsider and from Apple.com
Here Jim goes on to quote from John Gruber of DaringFireball, posted 2-16-12. "My favorite Mountain Lion feature, though, is one that hardly even has a visible interface. Apple is calling it 'Gatekeeper.' It’s a system whereby developers can sign up for free-of-charge Apple developer IDs which they can then use to cryptographically sign their applications. If an app is found to be malware, Apple can revoke that developer’s certificate, rendering the app (along with any others from the same developer) inert on any Mac where it’s been installed.
"In effect, it offers all the security benefits of the App Store, except for the process of approving apps by Apple. Users have three choices which type of apps can run on Mountain Lion:
1. Only those from the App Store
2. Only those from the App Store or which are signed by a developer ID
3. Any app, whether signed or unsigned
The default for this setting is, I say, exactly right: the one in the middle, disallowing only unsigned apps. This default setting benefits users by increasing practical security, and also benefits developers, preserving the freedom to ship whatever software they want for the Mac, with no approval process.
"Call me nuts, but that’s one feature I hope will someday go in the other direction — from OS X to iOS."
iPhoto '11: Glitch or Not?
"I read somewhere a few months back that a feature that was available in iPhoto ’09 had been removed in iPhoto ’11 — and I believed it without doing some testing on my own." John Carter goes on to explain, "The story was that in iPhoto ’09 you could arbitrarily drop a pin in a map at a precise location where a photo was taken, and that in iPhoto ’11 the best you could do was specify the nearest city that was on the map. Not true. iPhoto ’11 allows you to first specify the nearest city and then move the pin to the precise nearby location.
In the image here, a photo was taken (using a camera that didn’t have GPS) in Jerome in the same building as the Post Office. When I tried to assign a place to the photo, the best I could do was enter Jerome, AZ. For some reason, I decided to just move the pin (click and hold on the red ball and drag it around) - and it stuck where I moved it! There you go! Precise positioning of the pin where the photo was taken."