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Category Archives: Macintosh

YouControl app STILL works! – UPDATE

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When I upgraded to Yosemite (I know, El Capitan is newer, but I have some older hardware and software I’d rather not upgrade yet), I had several concerns, not the least of which was whether one of my most-used apps would still run under the new OS.

YouControl was last updated in 2009, and it’s currently abandon-ware (the company closed, there’s no support, and there will be no upgrades).

I’d tried to do a lot of research, and all I read was that when doing a fresh installation, YouControl could no longer connect to the developer’s server, so would not authenticate, so it wouldn’t run.

I’m posting this, in case anybody else has the same concern – instead of doing a fresh installation of the OS, I did an upgrade installation (after thoroughly backing up on 2 different media, of course), running utilities and cleanup, and doing extensive preparation beforehand. I’m here to tell you – it STILL WORKS!

All aspects – hotkeys, multi-clipboard, stock checking, system monitoring… I run the gamut (only thing that died was the weather function, which had died years ago).

So, for those of you who don’t know of this app, I’m sorry for the interruption – nevermind – you can’t get it. But for those of you who have the same concern as I, who can’t find a real answer anywhere – I’m writing this to let you know that if you maintain your installation – YouControl will continue to work. Unfortunately, I can’t speak to it’s use in El Capitan, but I would assume upgrading instead of reinstalling would do the same thing.

Last thing – this should also work with a clean SYSTEM installation, and migration – since YouControl never has tried to check in with the server when I’ve done that in the past.

UPDATE 2/23/16 – it seems I may have spoken too soon. While YouControl DOES work, it’s not very stable. Apparently, the application makes a call to a command that was deprecated after OS 10.8. Since the developer isn’t available to fix the code, the application occasionally mis-identifies the Operating System on the computer (thinks it’s 10.9) and gets confused, causing the need to force quit. I will continue to work on finding a fix, but please do note that this application isn’t as stable as I’d hoped. The worst part is that in order to do even part of what i’ve been doing with this great app, I’ll have to run at least 4 other background applications. Sad.

Unlimited Cloud Backup – $50/year

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It happened. My backup hard drive used for my daily backup died. It was one of those 4TB MyBooks, that is made up of a RAID of 2, 2TB disks. On that SAME day, I had to teach an online class, which often somehow screws up my Time Machine (which takes ages to fix, but is doable, and got done). BUT, I still felt my data was safe in the event of a serious problem because I’d just renewed my subscription (I’d gotten an initial free 3 month trial) for BackBlaze. I figured that having ALL my other work data on the cloud for only $50/year wasn’t a bad idea – and indeed it wasn’t!

BackBlaze doesn’t back up my operating system, applications or parts of my user folder, but I have several other terabytes of data that sits on my startup and other connected drives. I live in earthquake country and my office electrical is… let’s say… overloaded. I was given a gift of a new 4TB multi-interface replacement backup drive so I can have my local backup again (nice gift, right?)- AND I ALWAYS HAVE A SEPARATE LOCAL CLONED BACKUP OF MY STARTUP DRIVE – but for $50 I had peace of mind – and that’s a great thing!

Check them out at www.BackBlaze.com.

BACKUP – automatically to the Cloud

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BACKUP!!!

So, you guys know I’m very neurotic about backing up my files, and I found this service that gives you unlimited space for automatic backups – IN THE CLOUD!

I have dual hard drive backups in my home office, PLUS a separate backup for my startup drive. But living in SoCal, with earthquakes, I’ve always been concerned about earthquake damage hurting my backups, leaving me with nothing.

Recently, I discovered BackBlaze.com. for $50/year, they offer unlimited space for backups, allow the backup of external drives, retain backups for 30 days, and will back up almost everything (system files and Applications won’t get backed up). I have 4 internal drives and several externals. All of my media (photos, videos, and even the files created as temporary files for my video editing), all of my office work files, personal files – and it’s safe and encrypted. All offsite, and all for $50! There isn’t a limit on file size, either – so my largest multi-gig files can be uploaded. It’s not exceptionally speedy, but I can even control the speed of the backups.

I highly recommend checking them out at BackBlaze.com.

1Password – is it going the way of all the other corporations?

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Those of you who follow my posts on my page, or on Facebook know I’ve been a HEAVY supporter of 1Password, recommending it to my clients and students on both the Mac and Windows Platforms.

Well, I’m requesting data from the company as regards their newest upgrade – and it’s possible that I may be writing back with some news that may cause me to retract my support. Please keep watch.

https://agilebits.com/onepassword

Some info for When you Finally Move to Mountain Lion

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The Macworld Help Desk has a really helpful article about what to expect when upgrading to Mac OS 10.8 (currently 10.8.2) Mountain Lion. The article can be seen at http://bit.ly/10n5gNc

Personally, I haven’t performed this upgrade, but there’s really only one reason for this at this point. I HAVE upgraded to Lion (10.7) and do not particularly like it. It’s GREAT for new users, but for those of us who’ve been using the Mac for a long time, we have to jump through too many hoops to do anything with real control. This is the same issue with Mountain Lion, and from what I see, Mountain Lion has some improvements over Lion. So, you ask, WHY have I upgraded to Lion, and skipped Lion?

Well, I NEED my old applications that run in Rosetta. “But” (you say), “Lion doesn’t run Rosetta either, so how can this be a good reason?”

In my efforts to keep my old apps running, I found the ONE version of VMWare Fusion that allowed us to install Snow Leopard as a guest operating system so I can run my old Snow Leopard installation (my favorite OS so far, btw) in emulation – much the same way I run Windows. Now, I need you guys to know that installing Snow Leopard’s Client OS may be breaking the “letter of the law” unless you use the Server version.

The ONE version of VMWare Fusion that will allow the use of Snow Leopard’s Client (means end-user version) will stop working if I upgrade it, and the old version will not run on Mountain Lion – simple as that!

Oh, and I should tell you that I HAVE tried using the Server version of Snow Leopard in Parallels and VMWare. They work fine, but don’t have the same capabilities as they do when emulating Windows – they don’t allow copy/paste to work between environments, and they don’t allow drag and drop of files from the main environment to the virtualized one (a VERY helpful feature between Mac and Windows – non-existent in Mac to Mac emulation – can you believe it?!)

All this, so you can understand the implications of upgrading your Operating System on the Mac. It may not affect you as most of you have been using the Mac for a short enough time that you don’t have any older programs that require Rosetta. But if you do, you may wish to take heed.

Apple Malware Identified – Looks like we finally “Made the Grade”

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It’s very rare to see Macs targeted for Malware and Cyber Attacks. In large part, it’s because the Mac OS is really quite a secure Operating System, based on UNIX and containing lots of built-in security controls. However, I believe another factor in it’s lack of focus by the “bad guys” was because it has always been a “smaller target” a less popular, less-used OS, because there’ve never been as many Macs out there as Windows computers.

This time, it’s not the OS that’s been targeted directly, but an addition to the OS, called Java. Java (developed by Sun Microsystems) is a programming language that’s used within operating systems to enable the development and implementation of many functions and applications that can work on both Windows and Mac systems (and others). It’s something we rarely see directly being used, but lots of interfaces interact with Java: in particular lots of web apps and games.

So, imagine my surprise when MacWorld released an article named “Apple confirms cyber attack, releases Java update and malware removal tool”. Don’t worry – there’s a fix already posted by Apple in their software update – but you should all know.

Read MacWorld’s article at: http://www.macworld.com/article/2028740/apple-confirms-cyber-attack-will-release-security-tool.html#tk.nl_macwk

My Favorite Subject – BACKUP!

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You all know that Backing Up your data is a practice I highly recommend. In fact, I’m a fan of multiple backups (because you just don’t want to be without a backup if you need it!)

A couple of days ago, Macworld Magazine posted  a very good article on restoring data when you use “The Cloud” for your backups, as well as some background information that supports why I’m more of an advocate of a local cloned startup drive. Take a look:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2013632/how-to-restore-your-data-from-the-cloud.html#tk.nl_mwhelp 

Ranting on the Apple Store… ME?

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As you all know, I’m a big fan of the Macintosh and Apple. I like the products Apple makes, their business model (for the most part) and their innovations. But a recent trip to the Apple Store really made me cranky.

Most of you know (especially my students) that I’m a big fan of the phrase “I don’t know, but let me try to find out.” For me, the use of this phrase engenders trust, a sense of security, and a sense of respect. I’m often shocked at the amount of people who have either never heard this phrase, or are too embarrassed or prideful to use it (believing perhaps that they should be perceived to know everything).

First, a little technical background on the question I brought to the Apple Store:
I recently upgraded my MacPro to the 2012 model. I love it. It’s fast, it’s still backward compatible with my legacy hardware and software (it can still boot OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, and therefore run my legacy software in Rosetta), and it’s well-made (as I’ve come to expect in my MacPros). In my older computer, I had a wonderful little device that allowed me to use 2 SATA ports that were not in use on the logic board, so that I could have the equivalent of ESATA on my MacPro (http://www.newertech.com/products/esata_cable.php). I really appreciate ESATA – it’s very fast and reliable, and excellent for multimedia, but it’s not built into any Macs.

My new MacPro still has this capability, however it only has one available port on the logic board (instead of the old 2), so I’ve been searching for a reasonable PCI-E card to do the trick. However, I’ve seen that some cards don’t play well with the Lion OS (10.7). So, I thought perhaps asking at the Apple Store would help me find out which card to buy. WRONG!

NOW, the problem:
Upon entering the Apple Store, I was quickly greeted and asked if I needed assistance. Nice! When I explained the question, the young lady helping me admitted that my question was beyond her expertise, so she brought me to a young man who, according to him, was very knowledgeable about ESATA. After reiterating my question, this nice young man proceeded to tell me that ESATA was impossible on the MacPro, and always had been. He insisted that the ESATA cable I mention above never existed for the Mac, and that no PCI-E cards were capable of offering that service on a Mac (but it would on a PC). Even after I told him I’d been using this for some time on my own MacPro and knew for certain that there were cards out there (the Apple Store online sells them), he continued to insist that it didn’t exist, and tried to pull up websites that would prove me wrong.

Now… I know I probably should have talked to management or somebody, but at this point I was rather irritated and also didn’t want to get that young man in trouble, so I left. But, I’m hoping some person from Apple may happen along this rant and maybe institute some policy so that employees can be force-taught the phrase “I don’t know, but let me try to find out.” I mean… C’mon Apple Store… what’re you, Fry’s???

A Little Sound Nostalgia for the Good ‘Ol Days of Mac

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I’ve been a Mac user since about 1990 and, despite a zillion improvements on the Mac and in all computing, I find myself nostalgic for Mac’s Good ‘Ol Days. The days when it didn’t take itself too seriously. The days when cute little extras and Easter Eggs could be found in software, and in the Finder.

One man has managed to bring back a little bit of the quaint times on the Mac by recreating the original  Classic Mac sounds for the New OS’s and for the iOS as well.

Check out the free download from http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/19079/mac-os-classic-sound-pack

Also, I recommend checking out the Steven Jay Cohen’s Blog, on which he has some serious software development stuff, his resume, and some very cool Doctor Who stuff! http://www.stevenjaycohen.com/tags/development 

Fumy 2.0 – a cool little graphics program

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Cigarette and Smoke

Demo image made in 4 minutes with Fumy and Photoshop

Here’s a little program I love! I bought a program named Smoke some time ago, at a discounted price. I thought it looked like a cool, fun toy of a program, but it’s so much more! Smoke underwent a name change. It’s new name is Fumy, and the newly released version is  Fumy 2.0.

Painting in Fumy is like painting with smoke, or waves, or patterns or light. Version 1, with all it’s point updates was very cool – choose a style and some colors and then paint. You could place the end results into Photoshop documents (or simply create a stand-alone graphic). The only “real” limitation was that the end-result image was opaque. You could use any color background, but you created an opaque image for which you might have to use Blending Modes in Photoshop to influence the result.

Now, with version 2.0, we have layers! This means that not only can we create images with transparent backgrounds, but we also have some limited blending modes inside the program, and we also have the ability to export individual layers of our image.

The names of the controls present a bit of a learning curve: names like “Flow”, “Range”, “Intensity”, “Density”, “Fluency”, “Gravity”, and “Quality” may not make immediate sense, but that’s part of the idea of working in this Fumy. It’s all about experimentation (you all know that’s a BIG teaching point of mine anyway, right?)

Version 2.0 just came out a few days ago, so there’re still a few “issues” to resolve. For example, the tooltip names don’t align and so you have to trust the icon more than the name of the tool. Also, there seems to be a bit of a problem with the function of exporting individual layers, but you should also be aware that the developer is extremely responsive. I’ve had a few questions over the past couple of versions, and I received response emails the same day!

On top of all this coolness and fun, here’s the real kicker – I’d originally bought this program for $6 via Maczot.com. It was also included in a software bundle I’d purchased at MacLegion.com. But I never needed the new version. Every update has been free – and the recent UPGRADE was ALSO FREE! Any developer with such a cool product, who is so responsive, and has such generous upgrade policies should be commended! I encounter so many programs with ridiculous and draconian upgrade costs, I’m especially impressed by this (see Adobe’s new upgrade policies, for example!)

Despite the few bugs in this new version, I highly recommend it – and the developer. If the regular $19.99 seems a bit much, wait… you’ll see it in a bundle, I’m sure. Also, Neatberry (the developer) seems to have a slew of other cool programs. I’m looking forward to checking them out.

Oh, and the image you see in this post  was done using a stock image from stock.xchng, and a quick image from Fumy 2.0, created and composited in about 4 minutes using Photoshop.

Check out Fumy 2.0. Let me know what you think!