I got my start in using computers with CPM operating system and keyboard shortcuts were present there. I used them all the time so they come as second nature to me. But as I go out and talk with customers and help them with their Macs, I am surprised by the number of people that […]
You have a password for the online banking, one for your Apple ID, one to log into your retirement amount. Your password for your bank has to have have at least one numeric number, but can’t start with a number and it can’t have any more than two of the same characters found in your username. Your retirement account must include at least 3 numbers and one special character but they can’t be consecutive.
Does this sound familiar? In the perfect world we would only need one password, but unfortunately for security purposes and as hackers get better at what they do password strength has become critical and part of our everyday lives. The hassle with this is that most sites have their own sets of rules for password strength leaving many of us to peck away at our keyboards or devices in a sometimes endless game of “remember how you manipulated your favorite password 16 different ways and can’t remember if your banking site used the password with the capitalization or the one with the ampersand”.
For a very long time I will admit my method of keeping track of my usernames and passwords was the stickies program on my Mac, much to the dismay of our IT manager! While stickies are easily accessed they are not secure and I do not recommend this method. Where you should keep them is in your keychain. You can access your keychain through applications and then utilities. Once you are in your keychain you can manually add preferred sites, accounts and passwords you wish to store. Another huge benefit is secure notes. Secure notes allow you store additional confidential information. Keychain is safe and secure because in order to view any of the passwords stored there you need to enter your administrator password. Within keychain you can make sure to safely and securely keep your passwords, and when you forget if you needed that capitalization or ampersand in your password you can simply open keychain and enter into the search field the website for which you need to confirm the password.
Now what if you don’t have a mac? The loss of passwords, and most often your Apple ID password is a huge concern with users of iOS devices only. Luckily there is an easy solution for that, iCloud and iCloud keychain. Simply go to settings, iCloud and then select keychain. Your iOS device will begin to store your logins and websites. Additionally you can add specific websites and passwords manually to your phone or iPad under safari and then selecting passwords. This is also where you would look if you can’t remember login information.
Recording safely your logins and passwords is an often overlooked step, especially when users of iOS devices accidentally have the device damaged or lost. Saving your passwords safely and using iCloud keychain can avert your being logged out of accounts.
When a customer buys a new Mac, there’s often a question of what to do about the old data. All that old data is all that stuff that made your old machine yours: it’s the settings, the pictures, saved web page bookmarks, documents, spreadsheets…all that stuff.
Frequently a Mac-to-Mac data transfer can be done without any special equipment or advanced knowledge. The easiest way is to use Apple’s Migration Assistant which is a program built into OS X, and is on every new Mac. When setting up a new Mac (or any Mac that’s been reset to factory settings, generally from the disk being wiped and the OS being reinstalled) it’ll prompt you to make a decision.
The top option is to transfer data from a start up disk or Time Machine backup. If you’re already doing a Time Machine backup to an external HDD this is the best option, just make sure your backup is completely up to date. If it’s behind, any changes you’ve made won’t show up on your new machine when the transfer completes. Once you’ve identified the drive you want the data to come from it goes through and calculates the sizes of everything on that older drive. You’ve got a little control of what comes over, like whether or not you want the entire Applications folder, but nothing more specific than that. It’ll also tell you how much available space will be left over, or if there’s more data on the source drive than the destination.
I recommend using a Time Machine backup drive (any external HDD that has a Time Machine backup on it) because it’ll be useful for backups on the new machine. It’ll even see that it’s a new machine that has all the same data and ask if you want to keep using the same Time Machine backup; this is call inheriting.
Alternatively, you can put the source machine into Target Disk Mode by pressing the T key when the machine is booting and having it connected to the destination machine through Thunderbolt or FireWire. Target disk mode only works through Thunderbolt and FireWire, don’t bother trying anything else. I’ve wasted enough time for us all: it’s not supported. If you’re transferring data from a machine with FireWire but no Thunderbolt to a new Mac that only has Thunderbolt you can get a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter, but that’ll run you $30 and you might not have another use for it after the data migration. You could also use a Thunderbolt cable, but that’ll also run you at least $30, and again, you might not have another use for it, that’s why I recommend an external HDD. If you’re not doing a backup, it’s worth the peace of mind, and simplifies data transfers.
If the sadness and shock of the terrorist attacks in Paris were not enough, I was in shock this week as Islamaphobia and fear overwhelmed politicians and citizens. Some politicians were tripping over themselves to stoke the flames of fear by turning on the Syrian refugees. I don’t know about you but if I lived in Syria and there was a war in my neighborhood with madmen from both sides going berserk, I’d be a refugee, too. Oh, by the way, did you know that Steve Jobs father was a Syrian refugee?
This was seemingly fueled by what turns out to be a very sketchy report that one of the terrorists posed as a refugee. That has since been discredited but the conclusion jumping was already in full swing. Some politicians tried even to separate their distain for refugees by religion but there is no religion that makes terrorism its creed and there have been terrorist from many religions. It is when hypocritical fanatics of any religion feel that they can impose their will upon others that conflicts arise.
Way back when the USA was young, our friends in France sent us a gift. The Statue of Liberty proudly stands by our shores with the inscription that defines who we are as a nation:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to be free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
When we succumb to the fear the terrorists win. When we change who we are, the terrorists have won. When we let prejudice trump common sense, the terrorists have won. We must lead by example and the example of shunning refugees is the wrong one. In the height of the worst terror since WWII, President Hollande of France recommitted to taking Syrian refugees saying “We have to reinforce our borders while remaining true to our values.”
We cannot change who we are – unless you are a native American, you are a descendant of refugees and immigrants. This anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, anti-refugee wave of fear is unAmerican and is born of ignorance and hate.
How do you feel about this trend towards exclusion of refugees and immigrants? Share your opinion at our blog – blog.smalldog.com
End Soapbox
Apple has released the iPad Pro and some of the first reviews are in. I haven’t had a chance to play with one yet but I think this new iPad pushes Apple into two markets for iPad that it has only brushed before. One is the enterprise market and the other is the creative market. My good friend Dave Sellers, is an architect and I often see him with yellow tracing paper sketching up new designs for whatever harebrained scheme he might be working on. I told him about the new iPad Pro and the Pencil and I know I will want to get that into his hands as soon as possible to see if that old guy can do some magic on this new technology. The business or enterprise market for iPad is blossoming with Apple’s partnership with IBM and Cisco and the iPad Pro is going to push that window even further.
When Apple announced the iPad Pro with its A9X chip, they stated that it would be faster than 80 percent of the PCs that shipped this year. It appears to be true and the $799 base model iPad Pro is faster and more powerful than the $899 Microsoft Surface Pro 4. But speed is not the whole picture. With 5.6 million pixels the 12.9 inch Retina display is the highest resolution of any iOS device. It is a fully laminated display with anti-reflective coating and technologies like Photo Alignment and Oxide TFT to deliver rich contrast, stunning color and deeper blacks.
One would expect the first generation of the iPad Pro to be a bit clunky in size but at just 6.9mm thick and about a pound and a half, it is a very thin and lightweight powerhouse. The iPad Pro features four speakers which will give you amazing sound and more than three times the sound output of any iPad. The speakers are orientation savvy so whether you are in landscape or portrait mode the low frequencies play on all four speakers and the higher frequencies play for the top.
iOS 9 was built for the iPad Pro and this new iPad takes advantage of the multitasking, split view, picture-in-a-picture, Siri and Spotlight search capabilities of iOS9. Touch ID makes your new iPad Pro more secure and easy to use and with iSight and FaceTime cameras those of you that like to take photos with a giant iPad can do so.
The Smart Keyboard is probably the feature that might make this iPad replace a Mac for some. It is a full size keyboard that is water and stain resistant and very thin. It does not require Bluetooth and connects via the iPad Pro’s Smart Connector. This provides a connection for both power and data. It is not just some third-party keyboard paired to the iPad Pro; this Apple-designed keyboard is fully integrated into the iPad Pro and iOS9. Steve Jobs once said that he saw no need for a stylus because we all have ten pointing devices, called fingers. I don’t think he rolled over in his grave when Apple introduced the Pencil because it is not designed to be a pointing device but rather as a drawing device. It is weighted but won’t roll off the desk and the Pencil is sensitive to both tilt and pressure allowing your creative impulses to flow from the thinnest line to deep shading. I am no artist but I can’t wait to see some of the digital art produced with the combination of the iPad Pro and the new Pencil.
I hope to give you some first-hand feedback soon on this new member of the iPad family!
When I saw that we had started to carry the Fody Tempus Pro Bluetooth weather station, I was immediately interested. At my apartment, I had a really old, pretty cheap, wireless thermometer I was using to help me figure out how to dress myself for the conditions outside. You know, t-shirt, sweater, jacket, full Antarctica-grade parka…it is Vermont after all. The problem I always had with it was that the remote sensor couldn’t get wet, and there just weren’t many places I could put it. Last year I got a slightly better thermometer base station that used a wired thermocouple that could easily be passed out a closed window. The thermocouple is sealed and can get as wet as you want. That worked a lot better, but the base station features weren’t as good. I didn’t like the way it recorded min/max temperature.
So when I saw the Tempus Pro, I thought it might be able to solve all of my problems. In addition to indoor/outdoor temperature and indoor humidity, it also records outdoor humidity, rainfall, barometric pressure, windspeed and wind direction. Instead of all that data going to a limited base station, it goes to my iPad, where I can quickly see trends, share it with friends on Twitter or Facebook or just email myself the raw data.
I had a few concerns such as whether or not the radiation shield on the outdoor temperature sensor would work. You have to install the Tempus Pro in an open location so that wind and rain can be recorded, but this most likely means it’ll be in the sun too, which would completely mess up the temperature reading. The radiation shield actually does an amazing job at preventing that. I haven’t seen any excessively high temperatures recorded even when the station was baking in the sun.
Setup was very easy for a device that’s actually doing a lot of complicated things. The outdoor station transmits its data to the indoor base station that is plugged into the wall for power. This transmission is probably very basic radio since the range is quite a bit more than is possible with Bluetooth and the outdoor station only uses three included AA batteries. The indoor station uses low-energy Bluetooth to relay indoor and outdoor sensor data with your iOS or Android device.
Once everything is paired and running (which is easy to do if you follow the order indicated by the instructions), you will see real-time data being displayed on your iOS or Android device via the Fody app. It also builds graphs of historical data so you can watch trends. One of the things I liked most about the app was the alerts feature. I can set high/low alert thresholds for any of the sensors. I set up an alert for when the outdoor temperature falls below freezing. A few times this past week, I was sitting on my couch and heard my iPad chime. It was an alert letting me know it had fallen below freezing outside. Very cool! You could also set other useful alerts for things like excessive rain, or high winds.
Overall I think the Tempus Pro is a pretty neat device and the simple use and setup belies the actual complexity of having your own personal weather station. If you’ve ever been curious about setting up a personal weather station at home, or just want something a bit more than temperature readings like I did, you won’t be disappointed with the Fody Tempus Pro.
I am a huge fan of wireless technology. I have been slowly updating my home office to be as wireless as I can with speakers from Sonos and all of my computer accessories from my keyboard to printer are wireless as well. One area that I had not ventured into yet has been wireless headphones. I am often working at home, and because my office space is part of my main living space, I often have to have headphones while working. It was only recently that I started to use wireless headphones and frankly I can’t believe I hadn’t started to use this technology sooner! Urbanears has a bluetooth option in their popular Plattan line up, the Plattan ADV. I was able to easily link the headphones to my computer and no longer felt tethered to my desk when working. With the bluetooth headphones I could easily leave my desk for a glass of water or to let dogs out without missing a beat. The battery easily lasts all day and unlike some other bluetooth headphones, you can easily plug them into your computer or device directly with a cable should you forget to charge them. I also linked up these headphones to one of my iPads. These headphones allow you to have them linked with up to 8 devices, so you can easily use them from one device to the next without having to pair and unpair constantly.
Over the ear headphones are great for around the home and office, but not the most practical when you’re exercising. As mentioned a few weeks ago I have begun trying to get out and move more in recent weeks, and carrying my iPhone in my hand or pocket when out for a run was becoming a bit of an annoyance. The Ourdoor Tech Orcas are the perfect solution. With the bluetooth on my Apple Watch I easily paired these headphones with my watch, synced a playlist to my watch and left my phone behind! The headphones are lightweight and comfortable. I am not a fan of in ear headphones and I was skeptical that these headphones would work well for me, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well they stayed in my ears and with the quality of the sound. Many in ear headphones begin to wiggle out of your ears or provide sub par sound quality, but these headphones have truly made me change the way I think of in-ear headphones. As an added bonus they also feature a built in microphone. This feature isn’t something that I can say I have taken advantage of, but it’s certainly nice to know I could take a call if I needed to.
Along with the new iMacs Apple also introduced the Magic Mouse 2, Magic Keyboard and the Magic Trackpad 2. The Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Keyboard 2 come standard with the iMac.
The first thing you might notice about these new input devices is that they no longer require disposable batteries, but rather have built-in lithium-ion batteries and a lightning port to charge your device. It will require a little change in habits because you don’t want to be right in the middle of important work and find that your battery is dead. Fortunately, they charge up fast and will give you plenty of warning with the battery is low. As an example, a two-hour charge on the Magic Keyboard will last about a month.
The other important thing to note about these new input devices is that they REQUIRE OS X 10.11 El Capitan.
With the same technology used in the MacBook’s keyboard the new Magic Keyboard features a lower profile design that delivers full sized keyboard function while taking up 13% less space. The back of the keyboard features a Lightning port, and on/off switch and the Bluetooth antenna window. The Magic Keyboard and all of these new input devices feature “automatic pairing”. Basically this means that you plug in the included lightning cable to the USB port on your Mac and you are paired. No more typing codes or putting the device in discoverable mode.
You can charge the Magic Keyboard by plugging it into your Mac and continue to use the keyboard as a wired keyboard until it is charged, too. Unplug it and it automatically switches over to Bluetooth.
The Magic Keyboard is $99.
The major improvement to the Magic Mouse is the built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery. There is now a lightning port on the bottom of the mouse to charge the Magic Mouse 2. Fortunately, the Magic Mouse 2 fully charges in about 2 hours but if you are in a bind you can plug it in for just 2 minutes or so and get a full day’s use from the Magic Mouse 2.
There are numerous internal improvements with fewer moving parts. The newly shaped feet should give the Magic Mouse 2 superior gliding and tracking.
The Magic Mouse 2 sells for $79
The Magic Trackpad 2 has had the most changes of these input devices. It also features a built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery that fully charges in about 2 hours and will provide about a month of typical use. It features a 29% larger surface area than the original Magic Trackpad.
Most importantly, Force Touch is now available! Force sensors detect how hard you press and then tell your Mac what to do based upon these subtle differences in pressure. The Magic Trackpad 2 incorporates the Taptic Engine that provides you with tactile feedback when you activate Force Touch. Force Touch also lets you click anywhere on the trackpad with equal sensitivity.
Force Touch is being supported by more and more Apps and you can use it to find word definitions, Force click on a date in email or messages and Calendar will pop up so you can create a new event. Force click on an address in that same email and up pops Maps to show you how to get there.
The back of the Magic Trackpad 2 has an on/off switch, Lightning port and Bluetooth antenna window.
I am really looking forward to giving this new Magic Trackpad a work out and will report back to Kibbles & Bytes readers.
The Magic Trackpad 2 sells for $129
Siri is great for resolving trivia disputes, setting reminders and even texting or sending email but Siri is also a talented assistant. Here’s a few of the more non-intuitive tasks Siri can accomplish:
1) Split up that restaurant bill and add a tip
Ask Siri “What’s a 20% tip on a $105 bill split among 3 people and Siri will not only tell you what the total tip would be but also how much each of the 3 owes.
2) Flip a coin
Siri will bail you out if you do not have a coin to flip if you ask her to flip a coin. Or if you are killing time and want to play dice, ask Siri to “throw the dice”.
3) Counting Calories
Siri can help! Ask Siri how many calories are in that Big Mac and Siri will tell you that you are consuming 520 calories.
4) Take a Selfie
Ready to take that selfie and find yourself looking for the camera app? Just tell Siri to take a selfie and boom!, the camera app will open. Siri isn’t smart enough, yet, to ensure you have the front facing camera active so you might have to click that first.
5) Name that Tune
Siri integrates with Shazam to listen to the music. Ask Siri “What is this song?” and with some help from Shazam, Siri will let you know and if you click on the result it will play that song if you are a subscriber to Apple Music.
6) Find your Friends
If you use the Find My Friends app you can ask Siri to find them by asking “Where’s my wife?” and assuming that your wife has agreed to share her location in the Find My Friends app, Siri will let you know where she is.
7) Convert Currency
If you are traveling out of the country you can use Siri to make those currency conversions. Asking Siri “What is 100 euros worth?” today reveals it is worth $112.49.
As I mentioned I have been using the beta version of Mac OS X 10.11 for some weeks and I thought, now that the public beta is released, that it might be a good time to review what’s new in El Capitan. I am going to do this by highlighting a few of the features that I already use and have become such a part of my Mac experience that they don’t seem new anymore.
Shut up!
What is more annoying than following a link to a web site and suddenly being bombarded with some automatically started video blasting audio? If you are like me, you may have several tabs open in Safari and finding that annoying one has been a pain. Well with El Capitan it is simple. When one of those tabs has audio, the tab shows the audio button and you can click on it to mute the audio. The address bar also has an audio icon where you can mute all or select which audio stream to mute or listen to.
Notable
The Notes app is so improved that I am actually using it more extensively now. Most importantly, a note I create on my iPhone is available on my Mac or iPad. Not only that but the things I can put into my notes are actually useful. I can add a photo, a URL, a map location or even a video to a note and it is on all my devices. Checklists, websites, ideas for the next Kibbles & Bytes and directions can all be saved. As I am planning my trip out west and find interesting places to go or places to spend the night, I can add them to my “Sturgis” note and easily use Maps to guide me to them. I think you are going to love the new Notes app.
Spotlight
Spotlight is just better. Who needs Google when you have Spotlight? Whether you are searching for a file on your drive, baseball statistics, transit information, weather, stocks or just some obscure trivia to settle a bet Spotlight is there for you and now you can ask that question in you own words. Like, “find that Note I wrote about Sturgis” and boom, there it is. Here’s a list of all the places you can search with Spotlight in El Capitan. You can turn these on and off as needed:
Applications
Bing Web Searches
Bookmarks and History
Calculator
Contacts
Conversion
Definition
Developer
Documents
Events & Reminders
Folders
Fonts
Images
Mail & Messages
Movies
Music
Other
PDF Documents
Presentations
Spotlight Suggestions
Spreadsheets
System Preferences
Shake that Thing
I use a dual monitor set up. I have an Apple 27-inch display and a stand for my MacBook Air that makes for one large extended desktop. Sometimes, I lose my cursor and that sometimes leads to inadvertent clicks. I never thought I would say that I would find this trick useful but with El Capitan if you jiggle your mouse or trackpad your cursor grows bigger and becomes apparent so you can get back on track.
I’ll cover more of the new features in Kibbles & Bytes as we head towards the official release of El Capitan.
