iOS 13

iOS 13 has been released, but I recommend waiting a bit before installing it till some bugs get worked out. In the meantime, read this article on some things you may want to try out when you do install it.

When you do update to iOS 13, here is a new feature -- silence unknown callers -- that will reduce robo calls. This feature isn't enabled by default, so turn it on in your iPhone. One thing to do before activating this feature is to put doctors, dentists, etc., in your contacts list so their calls will come through. The article explains some other features you can enable as well.

Jim Hamm

Deep Fusion

Are you looking for a new and powerful camera? Well, try Apple's new iPhone 11 with "Deep Fusion".

The following article explains more about this: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3438537/iphone-11-what-is-deep-fusion-and-how-does-it-work.html

I watched the recent Apple event, and though it wasn't mentioned in any of the discussions, lest we forget, the iPhone 11 is a phone and can, in theory anyway, make and receive phone calls.

Jim Hamm

Antivirus Protection for your Mac

Does your Mac need antivirus protection?

Digitaltrends.com posted a good article on the question about whether or not your Mac needs an antivirus app.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/does-your-mac-need-antivirus/
It boils down to this:

1. We are the weakest link in security.

2. NEVER install Adobe Flash on your Mac. Google Chrome has Flash built-in, and that is all you need to access a website that requires Flash.

3. Mac Defender is actually malicious software.

4. Some antivirus software is really better than others, and this changes every year.

5. Apple’s own security measures do not check everything.

6. Viruses for Macs are still being discovered and the numbers are on the increase.

I use Sophos Home on all my Apple products. The only threats it has found and protected me against are found in an email, and to date those threats would not have infected my devices because they work only on a Windows computer. That said, I do run Windows under Parallels on my Mac, so it is best that I have something running that will check for viruses. I would be using Sophos Home even if I wasn’t running Windows on my Mac. This is not a recommendation for Sophos Home. There are other free antivirus apps that might work as well or better. The following link offers six options.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/best-free-antivirus-software-for-mac/

As for any of those apps, you never need to purchase the advanced product unless you are running a small business where you have employees accessing the web on different computers, or unless you believe you really need the extra protection. For family use, the free versions are quite adequate. And NEVER install more than one antivirus app; Malwarebytes is an exception because it is not actually an antivirus app - it just checks for malware, and it works in conjunction with any antivirus app, but it is not an always-on app. You have to periodically run it manually. Sophos Home checks for both viruses and malware.

John R Carter, Sr.

iPhone and Malware

The iPhone is vulnerable to malware, as this article points out:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/researchers-websites-infected-iphones-spyware-151931958.html

Not only is this disconcerting that it happened, I wonder why Apple hasn't at least commented on

this? Any electronic device is capable of being hacked it seems. All one has to do is visit a "tainted"

website to get infected. And it seems there's no way to determine what a "tainted" website is.

Jim Hamm

Using One Drive for Two Functions

Question: Can you use one drive for both Time Machine backup and saving a clone of the macOS?

It would be possible to use a single drive for both a clone drive and a Time Machine drive, but as you’ll soon see, this is very complicated to accomplish.

You would first have to use the entire drive as a clone, and then repartition the unused space to use as the Time Machine backup. The reason for this is that when you create a clone, it must create a small partition in a special place on the drive. This partition is also a part of the internal drive that you don’t see, which is technically the Restore partition of the internal drive. If you first partitioned the drive then tried to use one partition for the clone, that Restore partition might not get created properly. Furthermore, if you first divided the drive into two partitions, the chances are that you won’t be able to boot up from that drive at all.
There’s another very good reason to use two separate drives, one for a clone and the other for Time Machine. The clone, being bootable, would allow you to boot up from that drive when your internal drive fails completely. You then update that clone from the Time Machine backup and the most you will have lost is one hour of any changes you made. This allows you to continue using your computer, although it will take a longer time to boot up and log in. But you could instead replace the internal drive with the clone drive to get it to boot up faster (can only be done if the interface of the two drives are the same and if the clone drive can fit in the same space as the internal drive, size in GB does not matter). When you are ready to replace the bad drive, you first clone it from the clone drive, and no further update from the Time Machine would be necessary when you put the new drive in the computer if you had already updated the clone from Time Machine.
Please view the following video on MacMost.com: https://macmost.com/time-machine-versus-cloning.html. It explains the real difference between a clone and Time Machine. What it doesn’t mention is that you cannot boot up from a Time Machine drive, but that you can boot up from a clone drive.
Now, for some people, keeping a clone is irrelevant. This is because you can either get a new computer with the OS already on it that you can simply update from a Time Machine backup, or you can install a new instance of macOS onto the new drive from the Internet using the Restore function by holding down the Command key and the R key together when you start the computer. You then update from the Time Machine backup. However, having a clone drive simply means not having to wait on the Internet to download the OS.


John R Carter, Sr.

Goggle Privacy

You probably know that Google records most everything you do using a Google search. I was surprised to learn, for example, when Amazon sends me a receipt for my purchase, Google faithfully keeps a copy for its own records. Here are some articles describing ways to reduce or eliminate this intrusion of your privacy.

Google privacy. Here is an article discussing all that Google records about you, and how you can manually reduce some of what has been recorded. Looks to be somewhat of a tedious project to manually delete data that's been stored on your activities.

Use DuckDuckGo as your search engine. Read here

Use Startpage as your search engine. Read here

Use the BraveBrowser. Read here

I do realize and appreciate how helpful Google can be when I'm looking for something and use their search engine. And, of course, somehow this has to be paid for, and ads -- and subsequent purchases -- are what keeps Google and websites functioning and 'free'. Well, free to some degree. We still pay a price in the tracking and recording of what we do on the web.

As far as I know, I haven't been harmed by Google keeping track of everything I do over the years, but I also can't say I appreciate Google doing that. I, and you, have some options to reduce this tracking.

Jim Hamm

Home Page in Safari

If you should have a problem with Safari opening a home page that you don't want, read the following note from a friend. Safari kept opening 'Yahoo' as the home page, which she didn't want. She found a solution, and I am posting this FYI and possible help someday.

Jim Hamm


"I think I solved my problem. I happened to look at Safari advanced preferences and noticed the box for stopping plugins was checked. Sometimes I have issues with not being able to open a file because Safari has blocked the plug in. So I unchecked it thinking maybe I'll be able to open such files in the future.
Turns out when I launched Safari again the Yahoo search page did not appear. So I went back to Safari prefs and changed my homepage. Yay! abc15.com now shows up at launch.
Still don't know why I had the Yahoo issue, but glad I can have my preferred home page and Google as my search engine."

Brave Browser

If anonymity is important to you as you browse the web, you might take a look at the Brave Browser. Info here. And here is another article with a more complete description of the browser.

Although the Brave Browser has been available for about three years, I haven't tried it yet. It has about 3 million users at this time, and expects to have 5 million by years' end. It is said to load web pages twice as fast as Chrome and Firefox, because it's downloading less web content.

To financially reward the advertisers it offers, it has what it calls "Basic Attention Tokens", or BATs. Not sure I understand all I know about this. If you do decide to try the Brave Browser, let me know what you think.

Jim Hamm

DuckDuckGo

Don't like Google tracking everything you do when doing a web search? Do you use an Apple device? Here is an article describing how to enable DuckDuckGo as the default search engine on your device.

In a separate article I read that DuckDuckGo does use the Google search engine for web searches -- based on a contract they have with Google -- but hides your identity. Thus, you get the power of Google but still maintain your privacy. I also include the full link below to the article.

Jim Hamm

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3410297/how-and-why-apple-users-should-switch-to-duckduckgo-for-search.html

Phishing Warning!

If you get an email from ANY company that is sent to “undisclosed recipients” with a dire message to login to fix your account, TRASH it or put it in JUNK immediately. This is a phishing attempt to capture your login information.

So please look at who the message is sent to before taking any action, and even then it is best to NOT click on a link in a message that supposedly takes you to a login page on your account.

It is best to use your browser to go to your account and login that way. Then, if that company has a special message for you, you will find it there.

John R Carter, Sr.

Apple's Catalina OS

Apple's latest OS --Catalina -- is available for a beta download, should you have an interest:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3404329/a-first-look-at-macos-catalina-public-beta-available-now.html

And here is one review of the features in Catalina:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3404329/a-first-look-at-macos-catalina-public-beta-available-now.html
And this article describes how 'Find My' Mac works:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3404498/how-find-my-mac-works-in-macos-catalina-and-ios-13.html

This looks to be quite an OS.

Jim Hamm

Free Virus Scan

ESET offers a free offline scan of your computer for viruses and malware. It is currently doing a scan of my computer as I type this. If you'd like to try it, you can download the scan module here. You answer a few questions about the scan, then click start. You can continue to use your computer while it completes the scan, and it works on a PC or Mac.

It has currently scanned 130,000 files on my computer -- and is about half done -- and hasn't found anything yet -- and hopefully it won't. Of course ESET offers a paid version, which they hope you will eventually buy, but you don't have to in order to get the scan. Here is an article describing other virus scanning programs you might consider trying.

If you're running Windows 10 on a PC, here is an article you might read using Windows Defender offline to do a virus scan. I have not tried this one yet, but plan to read more about it.

Jim Hamm

Computer Trivia

I just read a couple of articles regarding computers that I found interesting, and am sending them to you for your possible interest. The first article talks about the decline in demand for HDD's, which isn't surprising given the better performance from SSD's. What I found interesting was the direct comparison between an HDD and an SSD. What a difference. The price for an SSD has been steadily dropping and will, I assume, soon replace the HDD altogether.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-08/global-hard-disk-drive-demand-free-fall

The following article shows the decline in computer and tablet shipments after a peak about six years ago. This puts pressure on computer manufacturers as demand for their product declines. The same phenomenon --saturation-- has affected mobile phones as well. Apple has recognized this and is stressing their "service" sales, such as music, 'cloud' storage, etc.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/  

As with just about any product or industry, saturation or obsolescence eventually kills demand and manufacturers are left to scramble to find a product to start selling as a replacement. Such is life. Think about the guy building a carriage to be pulled by a horse, about 1905, when he heard this strange sound: putt, putt, followed by a cloud of exhaust. What could this be, he wonders?...🤔...A 'horseless' carriage?

Jim Hamm