If you use BootCamp, then you’ve probably heard of or are using Winclone, which will make a full drive backup of your BootCamp partition. Not merely handy when Windows wipes itself out, but also if you need to change drives. Having a Winclone backup is very reassuring. (Lord knows I’d love to have something so […]

The Java vulnerability which is a drive-by (just visit the site, no need to click on anything) attack was stopped by my copy of VirusBarrier from Intego. The only way you could have prevented the attack would be to run your browsers with Java disabled. So, once again: to those who insist “we’re safe because […]

I’ve read many of the “botnet debunking” reports on the web, usually from the die-hard “Macs are totally secure” crowd. (I used to be a member, but am no longer.) The “debunk” always includes the line “the only place you can get this trojan is from illegal downloads of iWork ’09 or Photoshop CS4…[and] it’s […]

Here’s the fastest way I’ve found to get good looking H.264 out of EyeTV, starting from your recorded program file. 1) save it as mpeg stream. This takes about 1 minute per hour of video. 2)load it into VisualHub. (Yes, I know it’s been abandoned. Deal with it.) 3) set optimize for (your device) under […]

Tag Folders… …is a free, and really useful, clever way to make use of metadata (spotlight comments.) (I’ve written this because when you install Tag Folders, it starts asking all kinds of questions you’re not prepared to answer unless you understand what it’s doing. It’s one of those “read the manual FIRST” programs.) Consider iTunes: […]

Inspired by something I read this morning, here’s my own anecdotal experience. Epson inkjet printers: when it says “Ink Low!” (implying “your dog will DIE if you don’t replace the offending cartridge RIGHT NOW!” …ignore it. Modern Epsons (at least – I have no experience with other inkjets) will print merrily along for many more […]

Unix (which is what Mac OSX is) was designed for colleges and businesses. There are, in those institutions, dozens of different computers, and thousands of different users. So the first thing to get straight is that users (human beings) are separate and distinct from computers (boxes of electronics.) All the users want access to all […]

Here’s an email I just received. I particularly like the last line. ————– You were made the beneficiary of Three Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars (3.5M USD) which is to be remitted to you. I want to assure you that the transaction is absolutely legal and 100% risk free as the entire process […]

On using Disk Utility (DU) for changing the formatting type: First: the obvious – changing the formatting type will totally erase the target disk, causing you to permanently lose everything on it (unless you have a backup, of course.) Next: there are drives (the physical hard disk) upon which reside one or more volumes. When […]

Perhaps I’m the last person in the world to figure this out: you set your Flash Player preferences online, not on your computer: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html It’s worth bookmarking this, for when you start getting mystery messages about Flash canceling operations. Tracy