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Blog Archive

Wednesday 24 December 2014

How to better manage passwords with Keychain Access

If you’ve ever encountered a dialog box that, upon asking for a password, offers to store it, you’ve had a brush with OS X’s keychain.

Monday 15 December 2014

Apple-1 sold by Steve Jobs fetches $365,000 at auction

Apple’s beginnings in a Los Altos, Calif. garage are the stuff of legend. Steve Jobs sold the first Apple computers, dubbed Apple-1, out of his parents’ garage for $666.66 a pieceapple 1 christies
Jobs and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak only made about 200 units, and on Thursday the last known Apple-1 to be sold by Jobs out of the garage was auctioned off for $365,000.
Christie’s auction house expected the fully functional computer, sold by Jobs to Charles Ricketts in 1976, to sell for $400,000 to $600,000, so the final selling price is a bit disappointing. Apple-1 units sold in recent years have commanded wildly disparate prices.
In October, The Henry Ford snagged an Apple-1 for display at the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan for $905,000, almost double the high-end estimate. Auction house Bonhams said that computer might have been one of the first 50 produced in the Jobs family garage. It was also in mint condition with no modifications.
An Apple-1 registry keeps track of existing units and their whereabouts and pegs the number of remaining computers at 63, give or take a few. Most of those units don’t work, though the one sold Thursday is still operational. In 2012, an Apple-1 unit sold for $640,000 while another fetched $374,500 at auction.

Sunday 14 December 2014

Think Retro: Why the cute and quirky eMate was Apple’s most human product

It’s not that I don’t like Apple’s current hardware and software, but I fondly recall the days when its computers were suffused with a chirpy, cheerful personality.

Saturday 13 December 2014

How to recover passwords with Keychain Access

f you’re the kind of upstanding person I believe you to be, over the coming holidays you’re going to spend some time with family and friends. And because you’re the kind of person who watches videos like this, you’re probably one of the tech savvier people they know. And because you are, sure enough you’re going to get this question:
“I need to get into my old email account but I can’t remember the password. What should I do?”
Sure, you could go through the steps to request a new password if it’s offered, but maybe you can avoid all that with this simple tip.
Launch Keychain Access, search for the name of the account you want to discover the password for, double-click on it, and an information window will appear. Enable the Show password option and you’ll be prompted for the user password for that account. Enter it and click Allow. The password will appear in the appropriate field.
You then pass along that password to the person you’re helping. If you’re not terribly trustworthy you might suggest that after you leave they take steps to change that password.

Tuesday 11 November 2014

Away from home? Here's how to access your Mac remotely

There will undoubtedly be times when you are away from your Mac but need to access a file or two on it. While the advent of services like iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box.com, OneDrive, and MediaFire have made accessing your files easier, most of them require you to organize your files in specific synchronized folders on your Mac.

Monday 10 November 2014

Everything we know about the upcoming Steve Jobs movie

Oh, geez. Everything we thought we knew about the next Steve Jobs biopic is turning out to be wrong, more wrong than an iPod with an HP logo on the back.

Friday 7 November 2014

Office goes free on phones and tablets: What you get, and what you don't

With the news that Microsoft is making all of its mobile Office apps free—the iPad and upcoming Android tablet versions—you knew there had to be some caveats.

Wednesday 29 October 2014

Vintage Apple-1 computer sells for a record $905000

A 38-year-old working Apple-1 personal computer sold Wednesday at auction for a record $905,000, almost double the auctioneer’s high-end estimate.

Tuesday 28 October 2014

Christian Bale to play Steve Jobs because the Steve Jobs bio-pics must never end

It’s confirmed: Christian Bale, who transformed into a remarkably entertaining comb-over enthusiast in American Hustle, will play Steve Jobs in the upcoming bio-pic based on Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography, aptly titled Steve Jobs.

Monday 27 October 2014

Apple Pay tops Tim Cook's to-do list in China

Apple CEO Tim Cook says bringing the recently launched Apple Pay system to China is his top priority for doing business the country.

Monday 20 October 2014

Apple patches OS X to protect against POODLE

Apple yesterday issued a security update for OS X Mavericks and Mountain Lion meant to protect Macs against possible POODLE attacks.

Sunday 19 October 2014

Breakthrough batteries last 20 years, charge 70 percent in two minutes

Over the years, consumer electronics have improved in almost every way, becoming thinner, lighter, and more pixel-packed, all while increasing exponentially in performance.

Tuesday 14 October 2014

Apple is now 5th largest PC maker in the world

Apple’s Macbooks had a strong back-to-school showing last quarter, as the company hit fifth place in IDC’s global PC shipment charts.

Monday 13 October 2014

Adobe's latest Creative Cloud updates bridge desktop and mobile

Adobe might not be the first name that springs to mind when you think smartphone and tablet apps, despite a gradual encroachment into mobile over the last few years.

Thursday 9 October 2014

Is that used iPad stolen? Apple creates tool for would-be buyers to check

If you’re looking to buy a used iPhone, iPad or iPod touch device, Apple is now offering an online tool to let you first check if it’s been locked down by the previous owner, which could indicate that it was actually stolen or lost.

Tuesday 7 October 2014

Two email tips every Mac user should know

What with a new version of iOS out along with iPhones to accompany it you’d think I’d be flooded with questions of a mobile nature.

Monday 6 October 2014

Apple releases patches for OS X's 'Shellshock' Bash shell vulnerability

Apple released a patch Monday for Shellshock, a serious software vulnerability disclosed last week, although the company had said it posed no risk to most users.

Sunday 5 October 2014

China’s iPhone 6 approval is good for Apple, bad for smugglers

Not everyone who waited in long lines outside Apple stores earlier this month was buying a new iPhone for themselves.

Saturday 4 October 2014

Apple’s interim PR chief pick signals a more open Apple

Apple has finally filled one of its most important positions: head of public relations. The venerable Katie Cotton retired in May after 18 years of working closely with Steve Jobs, and after months of anticipation, Re/code is reporting that Apple PR exec Steve Dowling is taking over the chief position—at least for now.

Friday 3 October 2014

Two email tips every Mac user should know

What with a new version of iOS out along with iPhones to accompany it you’d think I’d be flooded with questions of a mobile nature. Nope. Instead, I’ve had a handful of questions about email. Let’s tackle two of them.

Monday 29 September 2014

Safe from Shellshock: How to protect your home computer from the Bash shell bug

On the surface, the critical “Shellshock” bug revealed this week sounds devastating. By exploiting a bug in the Bash shell command line tool found in Unix-based systems, attackers can run code on your system—essentially giving them access to your system.

Friday 26 September 2014

How to free up space on a packed hard drive

There are tried and true means for going about this. These techniques should help.

Thursday 25 September 2014

What exactly is "Other" hard drive storage?

If you choose About This Mac, click on the More Info button, and then click the Storage tab you will indeed see a very general graphical layout of the file allocation for each volume connected to your Mac. This representation lists Audio, Movies, Photos, Apps, Backups, and the Other entry you mention.

Wednesday 24 September 2014

Automate your Mac: 10 ways to make managing email easier

If there's one daily chore that cries out for automation, it's managing your email inbox. Fortunately, there are all kinds of tools—some built into Mail.app itself, others from third-party vendors—that can help you do just that.

Tuesday 23 September 2014

When search fails in Outlook

Outlook, like the Mac OS and some other apps, uses OS X’s Spotlight feature to catalog its messages. When you search for a sender, recipient, or word within a message, Outlook turns to Spotlight’s index to find it.

Monday 22 September 2014

Apple attacked over 'worsening' factory conditions in China

Apple is under fire again for the way workers are treated at a supplier factory in China, prompting the iPhone maker to rush a team to the factory to investigate.

Sunday 21 September 2014

How to spill-proof your laptop (and how to fix it if that fails)

Perhaps one of the worst threats your Mac faces is the chance of being doused with water or other liquid: In a second, a cup of coffee could leave you about £1000 in the hole for a new Mac (plus £3 for another latte).

Saturday 20 September 2014

The trick to finding the right printer driver for your Mac

I recently purchased a new Epson AIO inkjet printer, the 2014 WF-4630. Overall, I couldn’t be more pleased with it. It’s fast, versatile and produces superb output.

Friday 19 September 2014

Apple updates privacy policy, sets up site to guide users

Apple outlined its new privacy policy and set up a site to explain what information it collects from users and how it handles it, as the company enters new areas like health tracking and mobile payments that have potential privacy implications.

Thursday 18 September 2014

Apple updates privacy policy: 'We sell great products,' not your data, says Tim Cook

Need another reason to upgrade to iOS 8? Apple can't see any of your personal information if you have a passcode enabled on devices running the new OS. And if Apple can't see it, the government can't, either.

Wednesday 17 September 2014

This is Tim: Cook talks to Charlie Rose about Apple Watch, Samsung, and the future

Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn't speak publicly often outside of events and the company's quarterly earnings calls, so it was a special treat to watch his interview with Charlie Rose this weekend. We've put together edited highlights from his first hour chatting with the ABC talk show host about Apple's new products, the Apple TV, Steve Jobs, and the future of the company.

Friday 12 September 2014

Apple timeline in pictures - from the launch of the Mac to the Apple Watch

24 January 1984: Introducing Macintosh The revolutionary 128K, 8MHz Macintosh sets the agenda for Apple’s next two decades.

Monday 8 September 2014

Adobe slates critical Reader security update for Tuesday

Adobe yesterday said it would issue security updates next week for its PDF viewer Reader as well as for Acrobat, its PDF creator, to fix critical flaws in the software on Windows and Apple's OS X.

Thursday 4 September 2014

Apple will keep pushing for a sales ban on Samsung products

Apple will appeal a judge's order this week that denied its request for a sales ban on Samsung products that were found to infringe its patents.

Wednesday 3 September 2014

iCloud flaw may have allowed nude celebrity photos to leak

A funny thing happened on the Internet Sunday as a cache of nude photos of Kate Upton, Jennifer Lawrence, and other big-name stars made their way onto 4chan. Reports indicate that this leak may have been the result of a hacker (or hackers) taking advantage of a flaw in Apple's iCloud service.
According to The NextWeb, a hacker may have used a Python script posted to GitHub to hack their way into celebrities' iCloud accounts. The script, TheNextWeb reports, uses a flaw in Find My iPhone to make it easier to crack a password using "brute force" means where hackers use a piece of software to repeatedly guess a password.
This exploit reportedly disabled any "lockout" mechanism to keep hackers from brute-forcing a password. It also went around iCloud's security notification feature, TheNextWeb notes, so users apparently had no idea that their accounts were compromised.
The motivation for the attack seems to be financial in nature: BuzzFeed reports that the hacker posted the photos to 4chan "in an attempt to earn bitcoins."
TheNextWeb says that it appears that Apple has corrected the flaw, but as of this writing, Apple has yet to comment on the matter. 

Tuesday 2 September 2014

As tablet growth slows, Apple may face a year-long iPad sales contraction

Apple's iPad will be hit hard this year as global tablet shipments and sales growth slow dramatically, especially in the markets where the Cupertino, Calif. company has historically been strongest: North American and Europe, analysts said last week.

Tuesday 26 August 2014

How to set up an out of office message in Mail on a Mac

If you have a corporate email account at work, the chances are you'll also have some kind of setting that enables you to tell people when you're on holiday or out on the office on business.

Tuesday 19 August 2014

Android, iOS gobble up even more global smartphone share

In the global smartphone market, the big are getting bigger.

Monday 18 August 2014

How to use Parental Controls in Mac OS X Mavericks and Yosemite

Mac OS X comes with substantial controls for parents. With Parental Controls, located in System Preferences, parents can allow their children freedom to use a Mac computer safely.

Tuesday 12 August 2014

Apple, Samsung call legal ceasefire in Australia

Apple and Samsung are calling it quits on years of litigation in Australia. The legal strife started almost three years ago when Apple obtained an injunction against the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Monday 11 August 2014

Steve Jobs was 'central figure' in Silicon Valley hiring case, judge says

In rejecting a proposed settlement in Silicon Valley's closely watched "no hire" case, District Judge Lucy Koh said on Friday there's strong evidence that Steve Jobs was a central figure, if not "the" central figure, in the alleged conspiracy to suppress workers' wages.

Monday 21 July 2014

Keep your Mac Wi-Fi working: 8 AirPort tips for troubleshooting Mac internet connections

This AirPort feature will help you troubleshoot your  Mac OS X Wi-Fi connection. If your Mac’s Wi-Fi is not working, these tips get it up and running again.

Sunday 20 July 2014

Apple and IBM: A winning combo for IT

It will be some time before the dust settles after the unexpected partnership announced on Tuesday between Apple and IBM, but one thing is clear: This will change the dynamic of the enterprise mobility market in significant ways. In many respects, the joint press release the two companies issued doesn't convey the potential scale of this partnership.
The most common reaction was that the deal gives Apple instant credibility as an enterprise device builder. That advantage sunk in very quickly. The fact that Apple CEO Tim Cook and IBM CEO Ginni Rometty acknowledged that this has been in the works for two years shows that Apple has been seriously thinking about how to work better with enterprise IT and the various lines of business that exist in major companies.
It clearly underscores Apple's efforts over the past year or two to show that it takes the enterprise market very seriously. More importantly, by partnering with IBM, Apple will learn how to make iOS a more effective option in the enterprise -- a decided plus for customers even if they don't opt for an IBM-packaged solution for iOS deployments. (Here's a timeline of how iOS has evolved.)
Grasping the scale of what IBM can offer
What's missing in the first-blush reaction to the deal is an appreciation of the scope of institutional knowledge and resources about the enterprise that IBM brings to the table.
When many people think of IBM, they think of a company building servers, network storage and semiconductors or delivering big enterprise software and cloud services. Those are, of course, part of IBM and they represent much of the value it brings to this partnership. It also has robust business and technology services divisions that are massive in terms of the number of employees, streamlined processes and understanding of virtually any industry.
Many years ago, as an IT professional, I got to witness IBM's IT services division outsource help desk operations of a major media company. In very short order, IBM managed to learn all the business processes, organizational structure, the current technology policies and workflows, existing infrastructure, and common help desk issues throughout this company. Every step of the process seemed to be scripted with detailed specificity and any question or concern was answered quickly if not immediately. The efficiency and the understanding of enterprise needs was jaw-dropping and it arose from the fact that IBM had gone through this process hundreds (maybe even thousands) of times before.
Go through that process enough times and you learn very clearly what you need to do, how much hand-holding your enterprise customers need, the issues specific to the industries in which you operate, what information you need from customers, what details they need from you, how to structure a contract and the guarantees it provides, what resources you need to provide and how to manage the relationship between IT teams along the way. When things go wrong, you investigate, learn from it and build that knowledge into the process for future projects.
In short, you become an expert in the business and IT needs of large segments of every industry and you learn to tailor your offerings and experience to each customer.
Consider how that expertise in customer support will translate into a joint enterprise support initiative with Apple. If you manage the help desks not just for your own enterprise solutions but also that of major companies in a wide swath of industries, you have an immense level of knowledge and experience to draw on in terms of how to deliver support, anticipate needs and how to set and manage expectations using contractual terms like service level agreements or SLAs - the life blood of many IT service agreements.
Then consider that IBM isn't just bringing that level of expertise from its IT outsourcing and support businesses, but of every enterprise solutions and services division in the company -- app development, back-end infrastructure, big data and analytics, logistics, cloud solutions, network and device security, business process transformation, project management, CRM, mass deployment, user management and training. The result is an enterprise partner with expertise greater than most enterprise IT vendors out there.
That's an amazing level of knowledge and expertise that is being tied to Apple's iOS platform.
Apple brings more than just hardware to IBM
Apple brings its own strengths to the deal, as well; it's not just delivering iPhones and iPads for IBM to package and sell to its enterprise customers.
One of the biggest things Apple offers is its expertise in user experience design. Although this is obvious, it shouldn't be discounted.
One of the impacts of the BYOD and consumerization of IT trends is that users are no longer willing to settle for the clunky, limited, and inefficient business and enterprise software that permeated workplaces for 30 years or more. If IT cannot provide a solution that's quick and easy to use or that delivers a user interface that's subpar, most workers today can simply build their own solution using cloud services, mobile apps and even social media. With the widespread deployment of LTE/4G mobile networks, dissatisfied users can build and access their own solutions and workflows on a device that IT may have no control over (and might not even know about at all).
That presents a major challenge for IT, and many organizations are still struggling to address this phenomenon, often referred to as shadow or rogue IT. In many organizations, shadow IT is growing because it isn't just end users that are going around IT's back. Many line-of-business managers are creating or purchasing their own technology solutions. The rapid rise of cloud services from companies like Dropbox, Box, Evernote, Salesforce, Google and Amazon makes this incredibly easy for managers, despite privacy and data security issues.
The best way for IT leaders to counter this trend isn't by trying to force users to stop developing their own solutions, which they likely won't be able to do anyway. It's to deliver enterprise software and solutions that have the high-quality user experience workers are used to on their own smartphones and tablets. That Apple's designers and engineers are working with their IBM counterparts speaks volumes about the ability of the two companies to deliver consumer-like experiences when working with enterprise, business and productivity apps.
Combine this with IBM's expertise in building business solutions and you can enable IT leaders to say to executives, line-of-business managers and end users that, "We hear you and we're going to give you the kinds of tools you want and need" -- and then deliver on that promise. The partnership may be the first initiative that can truly blunt the threat of shadow IT in a real and large-scale way. That's incredibly significant for everyone involved.
Apple also brings with it its consumer-focused customer support, which continues to win multiple awards each year. While IBM will bring a breadth of enterprise support knowledge and experience, Apple will bring its successful support model. That should be a winning combination, though there might also be some culture shock for the two companies as they build a support infrastructure.
Can other companies compete?
The scale of this new partnership is incredible and it will be a force in the enterprise technology market. Together, the two companies have the capability to dominate enterprise mobility in particular, and enterprise technology in general in the coming years. That raises the question of whether other companies can truly compete with Apple and IBM. The answer isn't clear cut.
Although the announcement takes much of the wind out of the sails for Google's Android Work initiative, Google is a diverse company that has been making serious in-roads in the enterprise for years with its Google Apps business and, more recently, with ChromeOS.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is an entrenched incumbent and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future, though its attempts to generate significant consumer or business interest in Windows Phone or enterprise interest in Windows 8 haven't met with much success and the company is still reinventing itself under new CEO Satya Nadella. Microsoft's Enterprise Mobility Suite and the launch of Office for iPad demonstrate that it is serious about the arena IBM is filling with this partnership and Microsoft has solid enterprise chops of its own.
While I wouldn't call either Google or Microsoft out of the fight, both companies have some serious hurdles to overcome now. If they "lose" by Apple's and IBM's decision to partner up, it's clear there are also winners: Enterprise IT shops and the people they serve.

Saturday 19 July 2014

Who should really worry about Apple/IBM? Microsoft

So Apple and IBM are hooking up. It's a match made in enterprise heaven, bringing together BYOD favorites the iPhone and the iPad with enterprise apps and cloud services from IBM.

Friday 18 July 2014

Apple adds financial exec Sue Wagner to its board of directors

It's been a while since Apple made any changes to its board of directors, but the company on Thursday welcomed its newest member, Susan L. Wagner. Wagner, a founding partner and director of asset-management company BlackRock, previously served as that company's vice chairman until mid-2012. She replaces Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell, who has served on the company's board of directors since Steve Jobs's return in 1997.
"Sue is a pioneer in the financial industry and we are excited to welcome her to Apple's board of directors," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in the company's statement. "We believe her strong experience, especially in [mergers and acquisitions] and building a global business across both developed and emerging markets, will be extremely valuable as Apple continues to grow around the world."
Wagner earned a bachelor's degree in English and Economics from Wellesley College, as well as an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago. In the past, she's been honored by Fortune as one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business as well as by the National Council for Research on Women. She also has a history of supporting and encouraging other women at BlackRock, via the Women's Initiative Network.
"I have always admired Apple for its innovative products and dynamic leadership team, and I'm honored to be joining their board," Wagner said in the statement. "I have tremendous respect for Tim, Art and the other board members, and I look forward to working with them."
Campbell's retirement marks the end of the longest tenure on Apple's current board; that mantle now passes to Mickey Drexler, Chairman and CEO of J.Crew, who has served on the board since 1999.
Wagner is only the second woman on Apple's current board of directors, alongside Grameen America president and CEO Andrea Jung, who joined the board in 2008. A number of tech companies have recently come under fire for a lack of diversity in their boards and executive teams. With Wagner's history of women within business, it seems likely that this is an area on which Apple wants to focus some effort. Earlier this year, the company also added the first female member of its executive team, former Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts, who now heads up the company's retail operations.
It's yet unknown on what committees Wagner will serve; Campbell's departure leaves vacancies on the company's Audit Committee and Nominating Committee, the latter of which he chaired.

Tuesday 15 July 2014

China's state-run TV calls the iPhone a national security threat; Apple disagrees

iOS 7's Frequent Locations feature will keep track of places you visit frequently and when you visit them, and provide you with useful information based on that data.

Monday 14 July 2014

How to find Desktop and Screen Saver images in Mavericks: download Apple’s Mac OS X artwork

The artwork included with Mac OS X is stunning, and Apple prides itself on finding the greatest images for the Mac background.

Friday 11 July 2014

Apple updates environmental progress for 2014

Apple’s latest Environmental Responsibility Report shows that it’s not easy being green, but it’s worthwhile anyway. The company has updated its progress report for 2014, adding more details to the information it released around Earth Day in April.

Tuesday 8 July 2014

How to make two-factor authentication less of a pain

You probably know by now that you should never use the same password in more than one place, and that each of your passwords should be strong enough to resist an automated attack. Perhaps you use iCloud Keychain, or a third-party password manager such as 1Password or LastPass to generate random passwords, store them, and fill them in automatically.

Monday 7 July 2014

Three smart tricks for managing printers in OS X

Nearby printers The first one is the simplest: You probably know about adding new printers in the Printer & Scanners preference pane.

Friday 4 July 2014

Tips for using System Preferences in Mac OS X Mavericks

Sometimes to do what you need to do on your Mac will require accessing System Preferences. Those new to the Mac may be wondering what is System Preferences on the Mac and where can I find it.

Wednesday 2 July 2014

Yosemite's 'Handoff' will work only on Macs less than 2-3 years old

Apple's "Handoff" -- one of the key new features of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite -- will work only on newer Macs that support Bluetooth 4.0 and the Bluetooth LE (low energy) technology, according to an Apple engineering manager.

Tuesday 1 July 2014

Foxconn CEO blames past worker suicides on breakups, family disputes

Four years after a string of suicides brought unwanted attention to his company, Foxconn Technology Group's CEO said none of the deaths had to do with poor working conditions at its factories.

Monday 30 June 2014

Apple hires lead software engineer from Atlas Wearables

A few weeks ago, Apple executive Eddy Cue boldly claimed that Apple's 2014 product pipeline was the best he's seen in 25 years. And for someone that was around for the release of both the iPhone and iPad, that's quite a lofty statement.

Wednesday 25 June 2014

Complete guide to Apple's campus 2, everything we know about the new spaceship HQ

Apple's got so big that it is building a new campus to compliment its campus at One Infinite Loop. Here are 46 facts about the new Apple campus, which is referred to by many as the 'Spaceship Campus' due to its flying saucer-like design.

Tuesday 24 June 2014

The rules for using images from the internet

There’s a lot of confusion these days about how you can use images online. Lots of people think that because creative content, like a photo, has been published on the Internet then they are free to use it however they wish.This simply isn’t true - and we’re going to explain exactly why it isn’t true in this article.

Sunday 22 June 2014

How to take a screenshot on a Mac: Easy screen captures/screengrabs for Mac users

Capturing a screenshot to share with others is much easier on the Mac than on the PC; no surprises there. Still, you have a few options, so here are the best ways to take a screengrab in Mac OS X. We also explain how to print screen on a Mac, replicating the Print Screen button on a PC

Saturday 21 June 2014

Apple adds cheaper, slower model to iMac range

Apple has made the entry point for its iMac desktop computers cheaper. Overnight, the iconic brand announced a new 21.5in model that costs £790, which is £140 cheaper than the previous entry-level 21.5in iMac. In New Zealand, the new iMac is £175 cheaper, costing £900 compared to £1080  for the now mid-range model.

Friday 20 June 2014

Judge not sold on £190M settlement in Silicon Valley tech worker case

A proposed £190 million settlement of claims that Silicon Valley companies including Google and Apple suppressed worker wages by agreeing not to hire each others' employees may not be high enough, a judge signaled on Thursday.

Tuesday 17 June 2014

Hackers behind iPhone ransom attacks arrested in Russia

Russian authorities arrested a man and a teenaged boy from Moscow under suspicion that they compromised Apple ID accounts and used Apple's Find My iPhone service to hold iOS devices for ransom.

Monday 16 June 2014

EU starts in-depth probe into Apple's tax affairs

The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation into Apple's corporate tax affairs on suspicion that the company did not pay its fair share of income taxes.

Wednesday 11 June 2014

How to diagnose MacBook battery problems

Problems with MacBook batteries include the MacBook not lasting as long as it once did on a full charge, or the MacBook switching itself off seemingly randomly even if the battery appears to indicate a useful charge. 

Tuesday 10 June 2014

OS X 101: Master System Preferences in Mavericks

The System Preferences application is found in your Applications folder and is also available at any time from the Apple menu at the top-left of the screen.

Tuesday 3 June 2014

What is the most useful invention of all time

Try to stop yourself from whatever you are doing at the moment and answer this question: what is the most useful invention of all time?

Monday 2 June 2014

OS X Mavericks will power 70% of Macs before it's replaced by today's upgrade

With Apple poised to introduce its next version of OS X within hours, the current edition, Mavericks, will end its career this fall powering almost three-fourths of all Macs, a validation of Apple's decision last year to give away the operating system.

Sunday 1 June 2014

A tale of two Apples

Tim Cook's instruction from Steve Jobs was clear: Don't let Apple become paralyzed like Disney did in the wake of Walt Disney's death, endlessly asking what the esteemed founder would do in any given situation.

Saturday 31 May 2014

How to use storage space on iPhone to backup files from Mac: use an app to turn iOS device into a USB flash drive

There are many good reasons for wanting to backup important files from your Mac to the iphone

Friday 30 May 2014

Apple's History Offers Insight Into CMO-CIO Relationship

At Apple in the late 1990s, shortly after the triumphant return of Steve Jobs, marketer Liz Allen worked on the team that built Apple's prolific website.

Thursday 29 May 2014

Apple ad man Ken Segall on convincing Steve Jobs to Think Different when naming iMac

Ken Segall was the creative director at Apple's ad agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day and worked with Apple for a number of years.

Wednesday 28 May 2014

Apple asks US court to order Samsung to remove infringing features

Following up on a jury verdict, Apple has asked a court in California to order Samsung Electronics to stop using features that were found to infringe three of its patents.

Wednesday 21 May 2014

Amazon, AT&T, Snapchat rated among the least trustworthy with data, EFF finds

Amazon, Snapchat and AT&T rank among the least trustworthy technology companies when it comes to how they handle governmentdata requests, according to a report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Tuesday 20 May 2014

Apple and Google agree to drop all patent suits

Two giants of the mobile phone industry, Apple and Google, have agreed to drop all current patent infringement lawsuits between them, they said Friday.

Monday 19 May 2014

Mac OS X 10.10 preview: What is OS X 10.10 going to be like

With a matter of weeks left until Apple's WWDC 2014 keynote on 2 June, excitement is building among the Mac world about what's in store for OS X.

Tuesday 13 May 2014

Can the iPad Air replace the MacBook Air?

Apple's flagship tabley computer, the iPad Air, can seemingly do anything. It's light and astonishingly slim, it's fast, it's a brilliabtly effective mobile work device.

Monday 12 May 2014

8 features Apple should ditch: iOS 8 & OS X 10.10 features we don't want to see

There are some OS X and iOS features that we really think Apple should get rid of in Mac OS X 10.10 and iOS 8.

Saturday 10 May 2014

The Macalope: The definition of an academic question

On Saturday we looked at some strikingly egregious headlines, but it's a whole new week and there's nothing egregious about the headline to this piece
Nope, nothing wrong there at all.
Unfortunately, it's only because they pushed the crazy part into the lede.
If Steve Jobs were alive today, should he be in jail?
Oh, way to skirt Betteridge's Law on a technicality, James.
That's the provocative question being debated in antitrust circles in the wake of revelations that Mr. Jobs, the co-founder of Apple who's deeply revered in Silicon Valley, was the driving force in a conspiracy to prevent competitors from poaching employees.
"DO DEAD MEN BELONG IN JAIL?!" Keep asking the important questions, academics. Note also that almost all the quotes from "antitrust circles" come from one guy.
The anti-poaching pact was hardly Mr. Jobs's only post-mortem brush with the law. His behavior was at the center of an ebook price-fixing conspiracy with major publishers. After a lengthy trial, a federal judge ruled last summer that "Apple played a central role in facilitating and executing that conspiracy."
Price-fixing of books is apparently a huge concern for the Justice Department. Having a monopoly on book sales is not.
Mr. Jobs also figured prominently in the options backdating scandal that rocked Silicon Valley eight years ago.
The horny one was fairly critical of Apple on this issue, but it was practically standard industry practice at the time. The Valley's reaction was "Oh, you're really going to enforce that? We just assumed, uh ... hang on a second ..." [sound of papers shuffling, options being rescinded] "You still there? Yeah, it's all cleared up now. Sorry about that."
Five executives of other companies went to prison for backdating options, but Mr. Jobs was never charged.
Probably because Apple's situation wasn't clearly as purposeful, repeated, or willfully covered up as those other ones. But way to tar the guy with a false equivalence.
Despite the strict language of the Sherman Act, the Justice Department tends to file criminal antitrust charges only in the most egregious cases, and by that standard, Mr. Jobs would probably never have been charged.
Ah! So, your question in the lede was just a bunch of crap, then. Great. Thanks for that.
The New York Times, ladies and gentleman.
[slow, sarcastic clapping]
Still, Mr. Jobs's conduct is a reminder that the difference between genius and potentially criminal behavior can be a fine line.
The guy did get his start stealing long-distance calls from AT&T.
Mr. Jobs "always believed that the rules that applied to ordinary people didn't apply to him," Walter Isaacson, author of the best-selling biography "Steve Jobs," told me this week.
False. Ugh, God, is there anything Isaacson can't get wrong about Jobs?
Jobs did not believe in letting rules constrain you. That's different than believing there's one set of rules for the little people and another set for him. And that's a pretty common trait among entrepreneurs. Just ask the Albuquerque Police department about Bill Gates.
But even as Mr. Jobs was doing his best to snuff out competition, he publicly reveled in it, Mr. Isaacson said. "The paradox is, Steve Jobs was totally energized by competition."
That's not a paradox! What is a paradox is the usually very astute Steve Jobs picking you as his biographer.
So, yes, Apple and Steve Jobs have not always been puppies and kittens. Sometimes they have bent, evaded, flouted, and/or pantsed the rules. Those instances are not admirable, they are not pleasant, and they should not be swept under the rug. They are also not even close to the worst sort of thing that goes on in corporate America.

Friday 9 May 2014

OS X 101: Master the OS X menu bar

The OS X menu bar is fixed to the top of the screen and spans its entire width. It provides access to system functions via the Apple menu at the top-left, then application-specific menus for the currently active app.

Thursday 8 May 2014

iPhone 6 rumor rollup for the week ending May 2

Checks and guesses spurred rumors that Apple has begun shipping raw synthetic sapphire material to Asia for processing into iPhone 6 display covers.

Wednesday 7 May 2014

Apple greets new retail guru Ahrendts with up to £34M in stock awards

Angela Ahrendts, former CEO of Burberry, is the new head of Apple's retail and online stores. Analysts expect her to lead a brick-and-mortar store expansion in Asia

Saturday 3 May 2014

Why Apple is winning in China

Just seven months ago, Wall Street was in a panic over Apple's China prospects, fearing that the company's newest iPhones were neither cheap enough nor exciting enough to drive sales.

Friday 2 May 2014

Wearable devices with health IT functions poised to disrupt medicine

The next innovation in health care may come from Silicon Valley.

Sunday 27 April 2014

Apple users put at risk by 3-week delay between OS X and iOS patches, researchers say

Mac OS X
Apple exposed iOS users to security threats by taking three weeks longer to patch the same vulnerabilities in the mobile OS that it previously fixed in Safari on OS X, a former Apple security engineer said.
Security researcher Kristin Paget, who left Apple at the end of January for a position at Tesla Motors, strongly criticized her former employer’s software patching practices in a blog post Wednesday.
The researcher pointed out that many of the vulnerabilities fixed in iOS 7.1.1, which was released by Apple Tuesday, were the same ones the company had patched in Safari 6.1.3 and 7.0.3 for OS X on April 1. Many of those vulnerabilities were located in WebKit, the Web rendering engine used by iOS, the Safari browser and other OS X applications, and most of them had been found by members of the Google Chrome security team.
According to Apple’s security advisory for iOS 7.1.1, some of the WebKit flaws could allow attackers to execute arbitrary code when users visit maliciously crafted websites.

"In what world is this acceptable?"

“Apple preaches the virtues of having the same kernel (and a bunch of other operating system goop) shared between two platforms [iOS and OS X]—but then only patches those platforms one at a time, leaving the entire userbase of the other platform exposed to known security vulnerabilities for weeks at a time,” Paget said. “In what world is this acceptable?”
“Apparently someone needs to sit Apple in front of a chalkboard and make them write out 100 lines: ‘I will not use iOS to drop 0day on OSX, nor use OSX to drop 0day on iOS.’,” she said.
Zero-day (0day) refers to vulnerabilities that are publicly known but have no official fix from the affected product’s vendor.
It is certainly possible for attackers to analyze the fixes for one product and create exploits that work against other products and platforms that are not fixed yet, said Carsten Eiram, the chief research officer at vulnerability intelligence firm Risk Based Security, Thursday via email.
According to Eiram, these sorts of patch delays between Apple products are a regular occurrence, especially when it comes to fixing WebKit vulnerabilities.
“We’ve seen for a very long time that Google usually addresses WebKit-related vulnerabilities in Chrome long before Apple does the same in their products,” Eiram said. “My rough impression from looking at WebKit security fixes is that the delay is around two-three months on average—though I’ve seen some much longer. After Google forked WebKit into Blink it seems to be getting worse.”

Apple's issues affect Chrome as well

Google Chrome used WebKit as its rendering engine until version 27 and has since switched to an engine called Blink that’s still based on WebKit. Because of that, many of the issues found and fixed in Chrome also affect WebKit.
However, Apple is not only slow at patching the WebKit engine itself, but also at integrating those fixes into all of its WebKit-dependent software.
Eiram pointed to the patching timeline for a WebKit vulnerability identified as CVE-2013-2909 as an example. That vulnerability was originally fixed in Chrome on Oct. 1, 2013, then Apple patched it in Safari 6.1.1 and 7.0.1 on Dec. 16, 2013 (two-and-a-half months later); in iOS 7.1 on March 10 (five months later), and finally in Apple TV 6.1 on April 22 (six-and-a-half months later).
“The lack of coordination between Google and Apple is one thing,” Eiram said. “However, Apple releasing fixes for vulnerabilities in some of their products while leaving other of their products vulnerable for a long time is a very curious practice that I strongly disagree with. It’s unacceptable that they’re putting their own users at risk like that.”
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other vendors have faced criticism in the past for similar patching practices. For example, vulnerabilities patched in Flash Player used to remain unfixed for weeks in Adobe Reader, which bundled Flash Player as a library called authplay.dll. Adobe eventually removed the authplay.dll component from Adobe Reader starting with version 9.5.1.
One of the few cases when it can be acceptable to push out a security patch for one product while leaving others vulnerable is if a 0-day vulnerability was being actively exploited to target users of that product, but not users of the other products, Eiram said. However, even in such a case of immediate threat, the vendor shouldn’t wait too long before patching the rest of its products as well, he said.

Saturday 26 April 2014

Google, Apple, Adobe and Intel agree to settle Silicon Valley hiring case

The four remaining defendants in Silicon Valley’s closely watched employee hiring case—Google, Apple, Adobe and Intel—have agreed to a settlement, according to a new court filing.

Friday 25 April 2014

Apple, Samsung bicker over jury verdict form

As the second jury trial between Apple and Samsung approaches its conclusion, the companies are sparring over the precise questions the jury will be asked to consider.

Thursday 24 April 2014

Apple launches Beta Seed for OS X program for end users

Ever dreamed of an opportunity to try out new versions of OS X before they’re released, but without having to pony up the £60 to become a registered developer?

Wednesday 23 April 2014

Google had secret pact with Samsung over some Apple patent claims

Google agreed to take over some of Samsung’s defense against patent claims brought by Apple under a secret agreement reached in 2012, a federal court jury heard Tuesday.

Thursday 17 April 2014

Manage Your Media More Effectively with NAS

Quick: Where's that video you shot while on vacation last summer?

Wednesday 16 April 2014

MacBook Pro vs. MacBook Air: how I made the choice

Lately, I’ve been struggling with what’s clearly a first-world problem: I have too many computers.

Tuesday 15 April 2014

How to search smarter in Mail

OS X’s Spotlight search feature automatically indexes all the messages in Apple Mail for super-fast searching, and you can search for those messages either within Mail or using the system-wide Spotlight menu.But Mail isn’t limited to simple text searches.

Monday 14 April 2014

Judge humiliates Apple staffer for using cell phone during Apple-Samsung trial

There’s a new sign on the door to Courtroom 1 at the federal courthouse in San Jose, the home to the Apple v. Samsung battle that’s playing out this month: “Please turn off all cell phones.”

Sunday 13 April 2014

Logitech's TV-controlling keyboard can light up a room

When you’ve dimmed the living room lights to approximate that movie theater experience, you don’t want to kill the mood by fumbling for a way to control your TV.

Saturday 12 April 2014

Dropbox looks beyond the cloud with email, photo apps, better business features

Dropbox shook up its service on Wednesday, announcing a slew of updates and new services designed for work and play alike.

Friday 11 April 2014

Wearables sales tripled in a year—and will grow 500 percent by 2018, study says

Anyone who follows consumer tech news already knows that wearables are all the rage. They’re hot.

Wednesday 9 April 2014

Apple details £1.3 billion damages claim against Samsung

Apple began to lay out its £1.3 billion damages claim against Samsung Electronics for the first time on Tuesday, arguing to an eight-person jury in California that Samsung’s alleged patent infringement was large and significantly damaged Apple.

Tuesday 8 April 2014

In praise of Apple's horrible mice

Over the last twenty years, Apple’s hardware has steadily conquered every aspect of my computing life. As I type this, my laptop, keyboard, monitor, phone, and tablet all sport the company’s iconic logo—a reminder of how successful the folks from Cupertino are at designing electronics that I, and many others, want to use.

Monday 7 April 2014

Office for iPad apps top 12 million downloads in one week

It looks like Apple's free iWork suite for iOS just wasn't enough for many iPad users. One week after landing in Apple's App Store, Microsoft's Office for iPad has already seen more than twelve million downloads, the company tweeted from its Office account on Thursday.

Saturday 5 April 2014

XPocalypse Now: Security experts size up the cyberthreats

There are no more lifelines. In a few days, Microsoft will pull the plug on Windows XP support for consumers.

Friday 4 April 2014

Apple updates iWork for Mac, iOS, and iCloud

Apple updated its iWork suite on all three platforms (iOS, Mac, and iCloud) yesterday, with improvements to almost every aspect of every app, from editing in Pages to creating charts in Numbers and delivering presentations in Keynote.

Wednesday 2 April 2014

Apple demands over £1.2 Billion from Samsung for patent infringement

Samsung should pay more than £1.2 billion for repeated infringement of Apple patents in more than 37 million smartphones sold in the U.S., a Silicon Valley jury was told Tuesday as a trial between the two companies got underway after more than two years of preparation.

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Microsoft says printing functions will come to Office for iPad soon

The first iteration of Microsoft’s Office for iPad lacks the ability to print, an unfortunate omission that Microsoft representatives intimated will be fixed in a forthcoming release.

Monday 31 March 2014

Apple and Samsung head back to court

The never-ending legal battle between Apple and Samsung enters a new phase Monday when lawyers begin selecting a jury for a new trial that will address new complaints against a different set of phones.

Sunday 30 March 2014

Why the iPhone 6 should take a cue from the new HTC One

You’ll never get either side to admit it, but Android and iOS have learned an awful lot from each other. From the pull-down Notification Center to the fine art of inertial scrolling, the two operating systems may have different spins on things, but at their cores, they’re really quite similar.

Saturday 29 March 2014

BusyMac launches all-new Mac contact-manager

BusyMac Software, maker of the popular BusyCal app for OS X, has announced the upcoming launch of the all-new BusyContacts.

Friday 28 March 2014

Office for iPad shoots to the top of Apple's free app chart

Naysayers who expected the legendary Office suite to land on the iPad with a thud couldn't have been more wrong.

Thursday 27 March 2014

EA Games site hacked to steal Apple IDs

An Electronic Arts website was hacked in a phishing scheme aimed at the acquisition of Apple IDs and credit card numbers, security researchers reported Wednesday.

Wednesday 26 March 2014

How to dismiss Mac App Store notifications

Start by launching System Preferences, selecting App Store, and disabling theAutomatically Check For Updates option. Do this and the nudging stops. Of course it also means that you may miss out on some important updates. To help avoid that, you might create a weekly calendar alarm or reminder that reminds you to manually check for updates. You do that by opening that same App Store preference and clicking on the Show Updates button.
autocheck updates

There are one or two things you can do within the App Store application. Launch it, click on the Updates tab, and locate updates that appear under the Software Update heading. Click the More link and then Control-click (right-click) on any updates that you don’t want. For example, printer driver updates that you’ll never use. A Hide Update command will appear. Select it and that update disappears. (You can make it reappear by choosing Store > Show All Software Updates.)
Regrettably this option isn’t available for all updates. Third-party updates will display no such command and remain in the list.
hideupdate
You can hide some updates from the Mac App Store.
You also have the option to hide items in the Purchases tab—something you may want to do if you never intend to install an application that you purchased years ago. To do that Control-click (right-click) on an item in the list and choose Hide Purchase. (You can later unhide these items by choosing Store > View My Account, logging into your account, locating the Hidden Purchases entry, clicking Manage, clicking the Unhide button that appears next to each hidden application, and then clicking the Done button.)

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