Intelimaq Blog

AppleWorks Draw to Pages WP

Mon, 14 May 2012 18:15:12 -0700

There IS a way to convert Appleworks 6 (.cwk) drawings into a Pages document.

1) Open the Draw document in AppleWorks (AW).

2) “Select All" and Copy the selection. This will place the copied contents on the invisible clipboard.

3) Open a new Word Processing document in AW. If you don't have the Tools Palette visible, select Show Tools from the Window menu.

4) Click on the arrow pointer toward the top of the Tool Palette. This deactivates the ‘insert text’ cursor from the document you just created. Warning! If you don't do this step your drawing objects will be pasted as a single graphic.

5) Paste the clipboard contents into the word processing document that you just created.

6) Open the AW word processing document in Pages by whatever method you know. I Control-Click on the document and chooses ‘Open with...Pages.’

7) SAVE the new Pages document! The drawing objects are still editable and you can ungroup objects that were grouped in AW.

8) After your first save you may adjust the document margins, headers, and footers and also edit text!

Domain Scam!

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:08:24 -0700

Received an email today trying to scam me out of money, or more.

Below is a picture of the info in the scam email. Note that the company name is never mentioned nor with whom my domain is registered.

Switching to iCloud

Mon, 07 May 2012 09:00:07 -0700

Here are some things you may want to know about iCloud/MobileMe BEFORE making the switch to Lion from Leopard and Snow Leopard.

NOTE: You can migrate from MobileMe to iCloud at http://me.com/move even with Snow Leopard: when asked to confirm that your Mac is running Lion just lie and say 'yes'. Of course you won't be able to access iCloud directly from your Mac.

If you have MobileMe mail set up to collect mail from external POP accounts you should cancel this before migrating, or you may find it still working in iCloud (where it isn't supposed to) and with no way of stopping it.

This will be the situation with Snow Leopard when you have migrated:

Your email, calendars, and 'Find my iPhone' will be migrated to iCloud. Contacts and Bookmarks cannot be migrated from a Snow Leopard Mac.
Your iDisk, together with website hosting and Gallery, will continue to work as before until the end of June.
Syncing of Dashboard Widgets, Dock Items and Keychains between Macs, and Mail Accounts, Mail Rules, System Preferences, Signatures & Smart Mailboxes between Macs & iOS devices, will cease altogether.
You will be able to access email and calendars on the iCloud website athttp://icloud.com provided your browser is reasonably up-to-date.
You will not be able to sync contacts or bookmarks from a pre-Lion Mac.
You will be able to enter the server settings for email manually in the Mail application and access your email.
You will not be able to sync your calendars directly.
Some people have been able to set up calendar syncing by using the method detailed here - this is an unsupported hack and may not be reliable, and may stop working at some future point.
There appears to be no method of syncing contacts (though Address Book on a Mac can be synced with Google or Yahoo address books - I don't know how reliable this is).

There are a couple of third-party solutions which may be of interest.

BusyCal is an iCal-like calendar application with extra facilities: it can sync with the iCloud Calendar while running on Leopard, Snow Leopard or Lion. A single user licence (two machines allowed) is $49.99.
Soho Organizer can sync Calendars and Contacts with iCloud on Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion. A single user licence (multiple machines allowed) is $99.99.

Another Phishing Scam

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:48:52 -0700

If you see anything similar to the below come in your email, notify your ISP or AT&T and follow their directions as to how to report the scam.

Else, delete the email.

More on Flashback Trojan

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:58:05 -0700

This from news.techworld.com:

The source of the Apple Mac Flashback Trojan was probably a large clutch of compromised US-based WordPress blog websites hijacked to push visitors to malware hosts,Kaspersky Lab research has revealed.

You can read the rest of the story at:

http://news.techworld.com/security/3352463/infected-wordpress-blogs-blamed-for-mac-flashback-trojan/

Mountain Lion Info

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:38:54 -0700

The current word is that OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is due out this summer, which could mean as late as mid-September.

OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview currently only supports Macs that support running on a 64-bit kernel.

This list may expand when the operating system software goes on sale.

iMac (Mid 2007 or later)
MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later)
MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)
Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)

To check whether your Mac qualifies, copy your serial number into this website then click continue:

https://selfsolve.apple.com/GetWarranty.do

If you are running OS X Lion, you can find the same information by going to ‘About this Mac’ then ‘More Info...’

Look for information similar to that in the list above.

Ten Security Tips

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:21:17 -0700

Here are 10 simple security tips for your Mac.

Keep in mind, however, that these tips reduce the overall functionality and usability of your Mac. Such as, only uninstall JAVA if you are not using JAVA-based apps; like OpenOffice, NeoOffice and the like.

(Nod to securelist.com for a finely written article.)

1. Create a non-admin account for everyday use. If your current account is an administrator account, create a new admin account with a non-obvious name (example: Godzilla) and give it a good, secure password ( a mix of upper and lower case letters and numbers of at least eight digits). You can use this same secure password for your everyday account. Now log in as the new administrator and change your previous account to Standard. Turn off Auto-Login! This will force you to remember your password each time you log in! ALSO, turn on ‘Require password after sleep or screensaver…’ and set a sleep corner.

2. Use a secure web browser with a track record of timely security updates. Securelist.com recommends Chrome because of its sandboxing feature. I still use Safari as my primary browser in Lion, though I have JAVA turned off in the preferences.

Flashback, by Randy Singer, macattorney.com

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:31:25 -0700

I sent this message out to my user group today. I thought that the folks on this discussion list might be interested in it.

This is a followup to my previous message about Flashback (which, by the way, at this point is not technically a Trojan, since it can infect your computer with no warning or user interaction whatsoever, simply by you visiting a malicious, or just an infected, Web site.) I thought that everyone would appreciate more information.

I've now sent out a mailing to over 9,000 subscribers of The MacAttorney Newsletter about Flashback, and I've posted about it on a dozen Mac discussion lists. So I've reached somewhere around 20,000 Mac users. Users have rushed to check to see if they were infected. So far, not a single user of the many who have written back has been infected with Flashback.

While I have no doubt that Flashback is real, and that it is a good idea to do all that you can to protect yourself from it, I'm beginning to think that much of this scare was hype invented by anti-virus software firms in Russia, from whom the original report eminated.

Some research on the Web turns up reports that the "600,000 infected machines" written about may not have necessarily been Macs. That number likely includes other OS's, the proportion of which to Macs is unknown. (i.e. It may be that mostly Windows computers were infected, and very few Macs.)

Daring Fireball (written by widely respected John Gruber), a very popular Mac blog, a few days ago posted about Flashback:
<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/04/05/flashback>
As of last Thursday, he says he has heard from "about a dozen or so Daring Fireball readers whove been hit by this."

The problem is that when there is a panic about a new virus, there will always be a few folks who aren’t deep thinkers who will rush to tell you that they have been infected based on any change in their computer, or even in their lives, real or imagined. Once you manage to elicit the details from them, it becomes obvious that their report isn't credible.

Also, the media has reported that “security experts” have confirmed that Flashback is a huge threat. There is a problem with consulting with security experts. I call it the “to a hammer, everything looks like a nail” problem. These are folks who have been trained to recognize the millions of viruses that exist for Windows. To them, everything in the entire world is a huge security threat. I've never heard of a security expert who has said: " Just relax; start worrying if and when there are verifiable reports of computers being infected."

I wouldn't be surprised if, after all is said and done, that not a single one of us will be infected by Flashback, and not a single one of us will know anyone first-hand who has been infected by it.

Now, let me be completely clear, all of the above is not to say that you shouldn’t take all necessary steps to protect yourself from Flashback. You really should. But you should know that there is no reason to get paranoid. Your Mac is still the most secure personal computing platform out there. There isn’t a flood of Mac malware hitting us. The sky is not falling. It is very important to consider the source of any information that you hear about the Macinotsh, and that includes the media which doesn’t generally have a clue about the Mac. There are, unfortunately, lots of Apple-haters and people with various questionable motives in the world.

An interesting blog post:
<http://beyondbridges.net/2012/04/apple-and-the-flashback-trojan/>

Various additional bits that might be helpful:

Macworld now has an article about Flashback:
<http://www.macworld.com/article/1166254/what_you_need_to_know_about_the_flashback_trojan.html>

How to check for and disable Java in OS X
“Java used to be deeply embedded in OS X, but in recent versions of the OS it's an optional install. Here is how to check to see if it is installed, and how to disable or remove it.”
<http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57408841-263/how-to-check-for-and-disable-java-in-os-x/>

Some users have asked if there are any applications in common use that will be effected if they totally disable Java on their Macintosh. Here are the ones that I know of:
Evernote
MoneyDance
OpenOffice-based suites (i.e. LibreOffice, NeoOffice, OpenOffice/Mac)

I hope that you find this message useful.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Are you part of The Flashback Botnet?

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 08:51:17 -0700

Doctor Web has published a site where you can chech your Mac's hardware UUID against the database of UUIDs that the Flashback Trojan has stolen. If your UUID is in the list, then your machine is infected and you should do something about it.

Select the link below to go o the Dr Web site.

http://public.dev.drweb.com/april/

…Gunner

How to wipe your iPad before selling it.

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:05:41 -0800

“How do I securely wipe my iPad so that my personal data can’t be used by the next owner?

Answer: There is a right way and a wrong way. The wrong way will make it difficult for you to setup your new iPad. The better way is to have your current iPad wipe itself. Do NOT Restore your iPad to factory settings from within iTunes!

To have your iPad erase all data on itself, follow this procedure:

1. Do a final sync of your current iPad with iTunes so that all your preferences and data are backed up.

2. If your iPad is wired to your computer, disconnect the current iPad from iTunes.

3. Fire up your iPad and go Settings > General and then scroll down to Reset

Tap on Erase All Content and Settings
Enter your passcode, if you have one. … If you don’t, see the note, below.
Click Erase
Wait (it won’t take long) and then the job’s done!
Restart your iPad to confirm that it has been wiped

Now, in iTunes on your computer, update your iApps BEFORE connecting your new iPad. This will ensure you have all the latest, iPad3 compatible applications when you do a ‘Restore iPad from Backup.’ While you’re at it, why no weed out what you no longer want — remove duplicate music files; delete photos you don’t want; keep your HD copies of movies and remove the SD copies of those same movies.

Text to Speech

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 18:59:21 -0800

Here’s a neat trick for all of you LION users who like or need to have a sentence, paragraph or entire document read to you on the fly.

Open a web page in Safari that has a lot of text and will allow the Reader button to show in the address bar. Click on the Reader button and wait for the text part of the web site to appear as a separate document that can be much easier on the eyes to read. However, to have the LION system read the text for you simply depress the Option+Esc keys to activate.

If the system does not start reading to you, you must check to see if the action is active.

Go to System Preference-Speech. Select the Test-to-Speech tab then place a check mark where it says ‘Speak selected text when the key is pressed.‘ You may also want to test out the different system voices available. You can even customize the voices and download new ones. You can even download voices in a variety of accents!

Once you have selected the voice you prefer for reading aloud, close the System Preference pane then use the key combination to begin reading the article.

Sudden Shutdown!

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:02:14 -0800

Interesting problem today.

Working on a clients’s 13 inch MacBook Pro that was having a problem where the machine would suddenly shutdown for no apparent reason.

After hardware tests revealed nothing amiss, further investigation appeared to indicate that the machine would shutdown at the moment the display was put to sleep.

Changing the sleep setting did not help. However…

Resetting PRAM (restart plus Command-Option-P-R at POST chime) and also resetting the SMC (see Apple Knowledge Base for your particular machine) seems to have solved the problem.

Solution?: If experiencing unexpected power problems with your Mac, try retting the SMC and PRAM, then test to see if the problem is solved.

…Gunner

iOS Multi-Tasking

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:39:49 -0800

Another great article. This one about iOS multi-tasking.

Or you can say, “What do all those icons mean when I double click the home button on my iPhone or iPad?”

Read the article at this link: http://www.macworld.com/article/164616/2012/01/how_ios_multitasking_really_works.html

It says a lot and has already helped me.

…Gunner

Lotsa Scams

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:08:05 -0800

There are a bunch of new scams striking this hokiday season. Most are phishing scams, but done in new, ingenious ways.

Be a ware of what you are doing online and be wary about what links you click on.

The greatest danger to Mac users is probably the Apple billing email scam where the Apple website is being spoofed in an attempt to get your login credentials and credit card information.

Another is the MobileMe phishing scam where the me.com website is being spoofed to get your login credentials.

A third is the FaceBook tool bar scam where a fake FaceBook toolbar is added to your browser toolbar (FireFox, Chrome, maybe others) so as to get your FaceBook login credentials, then use your account to send out thousands of friend requests and more.

You can read about these scams at your favorite Apple news web sites. I won’t repeat the articles here as they are long.

As always, think before you click on any link in any email. You can usually see the true URL of a link by hoveing your curson over the link for a few seconds until a yellow tool tip appears with the true link visible. If in doubt, manually go to the true domain of the site you want to visit: apple.com; facebook.com; me.com; etc…)

1 Hub, 2 Hub, 3 Hub, 4?

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:10:53 -0800

A situation came up with one of my clients that caused him no small consternation.

The problem is that he purchased a new 7-port USB hub from a national chain, however, when he plugged cetain devices in his had drive would disappear from his desktop. Also, he noticed that backups to that particular drive were extremely slow. After struggling for three weeks, he called me.

First thing I noticed was that he a mishmash of peripherals plugged into these hubs. I determined that at least one or more of these items had to be low speed devices and other had to be high or mid speed devices. But how to tell?

Enter Apple’s System profiler. I shut down his 24” iMac, unplugged all USB devices EXCEPT for the Apple extended keyboard and Apple mouse. I then started the machine, logged in and opened System Profiler (System Information for those on Lion.)

With System Profiler open, I selected USB in the left margin where I was able to determine what items used an internal USB bus, and which items were external buses. The three external buses (ports) operate at a high-speed of 480 Mbps (mega-bits-per-second) with the keyboard and mouse operating at 1.5Mbps, while the keyboard ports run at 480Mbps.

Before You Upgrade To Lion

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:47:31 -0800

Before you upgrade to OS X Lion (10.7.x) you should examine what applications you have and determine whether those applications need to be upgraded BEFORE you upgrade to Lion.

There are many previous applications from the days of the PowerPC Mac that will NOT work with Lion. AppleWorks is one of them. Quicken is another.

Let’s use Intuit’s Quicken as an example. Intuit’s Quicken 2009 runs fine on your Snow Leopard equipped iMac. However, according to Intuit’s website, it will not run on Lion. Also Quicken Essentials for Mac WILL run on Lion, as well as Snow Leopard and Leopard.

If you do not delve deeply into the Lion upgrade read me file (no direct link, you must search for it) you will not know that you have to upgrade to Quicken Essentials for Mac BEFORE upgrading to Lion, because the included Quicken Data Converter application (which you must use to converter your data to the new format) is NOT Lion compatible. Meaning, you MUST convert your data under Leopard or Snow Leopard BEFORE moving to Lion.

Before You Match

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 08:03:21 -0800

iTunes Match is SWEEEEET! However, if you have a large music library you may find that it takes a long, long time to perform the iCloud matching. You can help cut down this time and save a lot of aggravation by doing some preliminary work. (MUST HAVE NEWEST ITUNES.)

BE CAREFUL! Be very, very careful. Make a backup before proceeding!

Keep in mind that you may need to quit and start iTunes several times during the

1. EMPTY TRASH. This is important for the next step.

2. DELETE DUPLICATES and MOVE TO TRASH. However, be warned that the iTunes duplicate finder only matches song titles. You will need to examine whether the song is indeed a duplicate or that the title is included in more than one album, or that the durations are different (short version versus long version). If you have a huge number of duplicates, you may want to find an alternative, third-party, duplicate finder where you can specify rules as to what deems a true duplicate. Try going to MacUpdate.com or CNET Downloads to find such and application, or use the App Store (Lion and Snow Leopard)

Lion Library Trick

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:47:25 -0800

Here's a Lion trick to use if you need 'constant' access to the your User Library folder, which Lion normally keeps hidden.

First, you have to get to your hidden Library folder. To do this:

1. Select the Finder's Go menu, hold down the Option key, then choose Library. A new finder window will appear with your Library folder highlighted.

2. Drag your Library folder to the sidebar. I insert my Library folder alphabetically between my DropBox folder and Movies folder, which I also drap there.

Now, simply by clicking Library in the sidebar, you will have access to your Library folder. This is great for easily getting to and emptying the Caches folder, whose often corrupted caches may slow down your computer.

iCal and the iCloud

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:32:30 -0800

Something happened on the way to informing the members of the Sierragate Mac Users Group about our upcoming meeting.

Last month I upgraded to iCloud as millions of other Mac OS users have done. Everything went fairly smoothly, including the movement of my iCal calendars from MobileMe to iCloud. However, it later came to my attention that there was a glitch. (Thanks, Ed, for pointing it out.)

Among all my iCal calendars i have one spcifically made for our user group, entitled SMUG. This calendar reflects our monthly meetings, there times and the location at which it will be held. This month, because of the weather ORIGINALLY predicted to be cold and wet (it will still be cold) the venue was changed to our alternate location where we can stay warm(er) and dry. I reflected the change in the calendar notes then proceeded to notify everyone of the change via email.

This is when I found out something interesting, as Ed had notified me.

Everyone who subscribed to the calendar didn’t get the change!