Should I apply the 10.5.7 combo update?

Just a brief note to all who are wondering if they should let Software Update install the latest Leopard update:
In general regard to software updates, I always find it easier to tell people, unless they are in a production environment where app failure might cost $$, to go ahead and download and install whatever updates come down the pike…

BUT! I keep one exception to that policy, and those are the big OS updates, i.e. going from 10.5 to 10.5.1 or 10.5.6 to 10.5.7.

When I am going to install a major update like that, I always go to Apple.com and download the “combo update” for that version. So today, for example, I did a Google search for “10.5.7 combo,” came up with this link. I went there, clicked “Download,” and let the big honkin’ 729MB file start its transfer.

Combo updates reinstall all of the updated files from, in this case, 10.5.1 through 10.5.7. This gives you a nice refresh of your OS — like an exfoliation — and can prevent a lot of the issues that some people report with updates.

(You will run a complete backup of your hard drive before you install any updates, now, won’t you?)

If you do want to know what problems people are having with a software update, and whether they might affect you, check out MacFixIt.com. One can scan them on the off chance that one of them might have an impact on one’s computing life.

Buying a Used Mac

Why do I recommend that most people buy their Mac brand-spanking new? My reasons range from maximizing your investment, to not wasting time in the purchase process, to squeezing the most efficient production power out of your computer, to plain ol’ street cred.
Until recently, every time I looked at the options for used Macs — mostly on eBay — going the pre-owned route made little sense to me. Macs have long enjoyed a high resale value, but each new revision to the hardware used faster processors, accepted more memory and bigger hard drives. and better accommodated the latest OS X. So a buyer might save a couple of hundred dollars, but I would feel that their investment just wouldn’t last long enough to justify the initial savings.

Apple’s move to the Intel processors has changed the scenario. Macs that sport Intel Core 2 Duo are just marvelous. Also, from mid-2007 until just recently, the most popular, bread-and-butter models — iMacs, MacBooks, and MacBook Pros — have supported a maximum of 4 GB (“gigabytes”) of PC5300 RAM (“random-access memory”). Other specs such as bus speed and hard-drive sizes have improved, but in my experience, processor and memory are the most important factors in how a computer is going to perform the common day-to-day tasks of opening a document, loading a web page, or opening the average application.

Meanwhile, Mac minis didn’t change between mid-2007 and just this month. And while Mac Pros have seen some impressive gains in benchmarking, even the early versions of those machines would cut with a blazing saber through any tasks the average, non-professional Mac user could ever dream of throwing at them. ~~The MacBook Air has remained quite static since its release.~~

So, yes, I’m suggesting that for many folks, a Mac from late 2007 will serve just as well as one from off the shelf at the Apple store. But eBay ~~is definitely~~ may not be the place to buy one, and craigslist.org definitely is. If you have a bit of patience, and some time, you can find a great machine at sanantonio.craigslist.org. A MacBook, for example, might run you as little as $600.

Here are my requirements. If the machine you find on craigslist (or wherever) does not meet these, please do not spend your good money on it:

It has to sport an Intel Core 2 Duo processor or better, such as an i5 or i7. I don’t care what speed, but it can’t just be Intel Core Duo (note the lack of the “2”).
It has to be upgradeable to at least 4 GB RAM (memory)
It has to be either coverable by, or already covered by, the AppleCare Protection Plan (APP), which extends Apple’s hardware and software warranty to 3 years from purchase date. AppleCare can be applied to a Mac up to a year from original purchase date, so if the Mac you find is still young enough, and the original buyer didn’t get APP, be ready to buy it from Apple or Amazon or somewhere.

Note that if the Mac does not already have that 4 GB or AppleCare, you can use that as a bargaining chit. But if I may iterate: if it doesn’t have AppleCare and is older than a year, DON’T BUY THE MAC. Right before a Mac’s AppleCare coverage is going to run out, I strongly encourage you to take it to the Apple Store Genius Bar and asking them to give its hardware a once-over. If there’s anything wrong, they’ll fix it.

J2 News #4: Preachin’ What We Practice

A Promotion

Before I get to my announcements and tips, I want to tell everyone about some new promotions. We hope you’ll like these new, more affordable ways for you to get Chicken Soup for your Macs.

System Upgrades

At the end of 2008, I said I was going to make some improvements to our service. Today, I’m proud to formally announce our new web site at j2mac.com, a place for you to connect to us, and to get information that we hope you find helpful in your computing life.

First, right away, I’m excited to tell you about our new, incredibly handy Schedule page. There, you’ll find up-to-date calendars for me and Erick.

Whenever you want to schedule some time with J2, please call 210.787.2709, or email us at schedule@j2mac.com. You can pick an available time — a blank spot in one of our calendars — and call or email our new scheduling coordinator, Denise Rangel. When Denise books your appointment, we are able to see it immediately on our iPhones. Denise has freed up a great deal of time for us to concentrate on doing what we do best. Many thanks go to Lynn Gosnell for helping inaugurate this new system.

For me, the most fun and useful part of j2mac.com is the searchable blog, which lets us post commentary on the tech solutions and answers that we employ. Check it out when you have a chance; there are all kinds of tidbits for Mac and iPhone users, and lots to help any surfer get more out of the internet.

We have also begun to create histories of the work we do for you. We keep the documentation online, viewable to anyone in our organization; we also share your sheet with you (and only you), and you can call it up from a web browser any time. I’ll send you a link when we first create your doc.

I recently discovered another powerful online gizmo that I didn’t even know I had: Check out this Client Information Form that folks can fill out online, giving us basic contact information but lots of other things we need to know, such as your internet service provider, current models of computers, etc. We are also going to send out some polls and surveys — check the sidebar to the right of this page for the latest one!

That’s the stuff that you’ll see — what web site designers call the "front end." Behind the scenes, we are using some fantastic online devices that I’ll describe below. They have saved us time, sped up our process, and helped us kept each other informed and up-to-date.

All of these tools are readily available, and easy to set up. But here’s the amazing part: They are all free. 100% of zero dollars. Beyond what I was already paying for my web site hosting, I haven’t had to spend a dime making our working lives more productive and more efficient.

And now, I wanna tell you how.

Better, stronger, faster, and way cheaper

This is a promising time on the internet. As recently as 6 months ago, many of the wishes I have been expressing for years — for easy, affordable services that would let us get to our files and other stuff from any ‘net connection on earth — remained unanswered.

When the second iPhone came out, and Apple promised wireless syncing via the MobileMe service, I hoped that Mac users finally had an alternative to Microsoft’s expensive and complicated Exchange service, with its "push" email, and collaborative address book and calendars.

Email itself has always had drawbacks. It’s inefficient for quick dialogue, and it doesn’t let you involve a whole bunch of people in a town hall-like forum. But instant messaging, through AIM or iChat or what-have-you, feels invasive and annoying to many people.

Oddly, I think we have given up on easy collaboration and sharing of documents. I used to work for a newspaper, and it amazed me how unwieldy the process of editing an article was: getting a document attached to an email, saving it on a server, printing it out so others could read it, emailing the writer back an attachment… That was seven years ago, and most production environments are still doing things that way.

Well, I hate to be maudlin and melodramatic about this, but I’ve gotten my answer, and it is Google Apps.

With Google Apps, the members of my organization can see each other’s calendars, and schedule each other. The appointments show up immediately on our phones. We can email each other address book cards, or look up client contact information online. We can keep client histories as Google Docs, publish them for the appropriate client’s eyes only, and reference them on our phones when the need arises. We can publish spreadsheets so people can calculate, for example, the cost of setting up a small network in their home or office. And those forms I mentioned earlier? Incredibly easy to create in Google Docs, and when someone submits their reply, it automatically sends their answers to a spreadsheet that holds everyone else’s responses as well!

We can even video chat with each other, in a plain ol’ flippin’ web browser!

Google’s new service is either totally free — that’s the flavor we have chosen — or if you need the beefier version of it, with 24/7 tech support and greater storage per user, it costs an extremely reasonable $50/year. Their cost comparison with Microsoft Exchange is enlightening.

In addition, we are taking advantage of a more new-fangled service called Yammer, which enables the three of us to message each other in a running narrative that we can all see. Yammer is based on the idea of Twitter; both are geared toward short messages, and rely heavily on text messaging for posting and receiving updates. This is, for me, an important substitute for email, which is too cumbersome for quick updates while on the go. Yammer’s cost? You know it: $0.

I almost hesitate to mention the phone-number service I am using, because it’s now no longer accepting new sign-ups. I hope that Google re-opens GrandCentral to the public soon.

The new website itself is powered by WordPress, possibly the most accessible and versatile blogging and web publishing system available today. One can publish a WordPress blog for free, or as in our case, it’s a plug-in included with my $4/month GoDaddy web hosting package that I’ve had since the beginning. It took a few days to massage the design into a form I mostly liked, and I took a few months to sit on it, tweak it, and work out the kinks — and I finally feel like it’s a functional extension of this business.

I cannot overstate my gratitude to the guys at Swirl for helping me put a new face on our business — Carlos Zapata gave us a hip new logo, and Jason Risner’s photography makes us look way better than we deserve.

I have posted more information on these services and the way we use them on the blog, here and here. Again, this whole on-the-go, location-agnostic way of working was not possible two or three years ago, certainly not with the minimal effort and expenditure we have spent.
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A little learning, a lot of savings

This last year has taught me so much about how to use these new services to communicate with my team, manage my tasks and priorities, stay in touch with my personal and professional relations, and save money in the process.

I know that so many of our clients are paying more than they need to for email and web site solutions that don’t even give them what they need. And I know that many people feel that they aren’t using the technlogy that they’ve invested in to its full advantage.

Let J2 help you, your business, and your household get more for less. Please call us at 210.787.2709 to schedule a consultation.

With gratitude and respect,

Jonathan

Swap slideshows

A friend on my bowling team made a PowerPoint presentation on his PC at work that he wants to show us all. If he emails it to me, will I be able to see it?

Totally! (1) I’m pretty certain you have Microsoft Office for Mac, which means you have PowerPoint, which will open the heck out of that doc.

(2) Now, check this out: Have your friend email you the file. From right in your email, click once on the attachment’s icon, then click the “Quick Look” button — or just hit the space bar. Isn’t that cool? Now, you may not see transitions, and maybe not embedded video, but almost all of the content should be visible.

(Sidenote: Just today, a friend of mine was trying to see previews of some design files, .eps and the like, that Quick Look wouldn’t render. She found a $15 Quick Look plug-in called SneakPeek Pro that fixed that, which made me look up a whole list of Quick Look plug-ins, many of them free. These can really extend your Mac to showing you fast previews of all kinds of stuff. But I digress…)

(3) But wait, there’s more! If you want to make presentations look just a whole lot better than you can in PowerPoint, you should look at the new iWork — it’s just so good. Apple’s Keynote software makes really fine presentations really efficiently. While you’re at it, have you picked up the new iLife, with iPhoto Face Recognition?

(4) I just recently found out about SlideShare, a service on which to store and show your presentations. As far as I can tell, it’s free.

(5) Finally, you could export the preso as a movie:

Save a presentation as a PowerPoint Movie [link]

On the File menu, click Make Movie.
To adjust PowerPoint Movie options, click Adjust Settings on the dialog box that drops down, and then click Next.
Choose the options you want, and then click OK.
In the Save As box, type a name for your movie. If your movie will be viewed by users of Windows-based computers, select Append File Extension.
Click Save.

Once you do, you can put it on an iPod or iPhone, and watch it on that smaller screen, or…

If he wanted to show it on our big-screen TV, how do we do that?

Ahhhhhh, now that’s an interesting one. The most direct way is to run a monitor cable from your computer to your TV. (Your iMac may not feel as convenient as a laptop to accomplish that, but it wouldn’t be that unwieldy.) Any Mac or Windows computer will know that it has a new display, and will show whatever you put up.

A couple of other options would be:

Connecting your iPod or iPhone to a video dock, such as this or this. Here is some help from Apple on getting video off of your iPod or iPhone.

I have one client who converts his presentations into image files that he can display as a slideshow on his Apple TV, which is an appliance that fits in with your other home stereo components, and let’s you easily play music, movies, and photos that you acquire through iTunes or by other means.

Create a wireless network without a wireless router

We have several Mac minis, all connected to our network with Ethernet. We just got a laptop, but we don’t have a wireless router. Can one of the minis create a wireless network?

Yes, that’s super-easy. In Tiger: On one of the minis, go to System Preferences > Sharing > Internet. In Leopard: System Preferences > Sharing, and turn on “Internet Sharing” in the list of services. In there you can share the Ethernet connection via Airport, which tells the mini to create what’s called an “ad-hoc” wireless network. You can name it what you want and password-protect it, too.

Creating a small, secure network in your home or office

Note: The recommendations, opinions, and prescriptions are just one man’s view on creating a basic secure network. There are infinite ways to do this dependably, and these are the ones I think are easiest and most cost-effective.

I’m setting up my home network. I would like to allow connections with just one computer from outside the firewall, via VPN, and not allow any other incoming browser or FTP or any other sessions. What hardware can accomplish this?

First of all, it’s worth reading this explanation of home networking.

In many ways, any proper router, including an Apple Airport device, provides a firewall when you don’t open ANY holes in its network configuration. When a router or server manufacturer promotes its “firewall” as a feature, they mean that you can configure those holes more specifically.

Definition: Here, I use “holes” as English for “ports,” which on a network are numerical openings in a firewall, through which network traffic is allowed to pass. We might open those ports using a protocol called NAT (network address translation). With NAT, I can say, just for example, “When I am away from home, I want to securely access my home network with a web browser, to see my security cameras.” So I set my router to direct all traffic on port 443 (the secure web browsing port, or HTTPS) to the network address — the IP address — of my security system.

You might, for example, schedule certain ports to be open at certain times of the day, or direct certain traffic to one IP on your network, in case you did indeed want to have a web or FTP server. A firewall might also let you restrict outgoing traffic to specific ports, and will also keep a log — at a detail level you specify — of incoming and outgoing traffic.

In your case, I’m seeing that you want all holes blocked, except for those that would permit the VPN. A VPN allows you to establish a tunnel through the firewall — a tunnel that encrypts all the traffic going through it.

Can I achieve this with a VPN installed on Mac mini?

Yes, combined with a good router.

If I do not have a dedicated firewall, what is keeping the bad guys out?

See above. One of the most important strategies in security is not to turn services ON. Older Windows machines, especially before XP Service Pack 2, seemed to me to be wide freakin’ open out of the box, advertising their presence on a network and too easily offering basic file sharing, even without requiring a password. Macs are not that open straight off, but their firewall is not on by default, so whenever you turn on a service — iTunes music sharing, for example — it does not request permission to open a port, which does happen when you have the firewall on. The firewall on the Mac also includes logging.

On a laptop or other mobile device, I usually turn almost all services fully off. But It’s nice to have some services turned on on some desktop computers. It would be a shame, for example, to have music or photo sharing turned off on the machine where those things mainly reside.

So here’s the HEADLINE: To maintain good security, the most absolutely crucial technique is to lock down all services with good passwords, and use as many different passwords as you can safely store and readily access.

“Good,” in this case, means letters (some capitalized), numbers, and a special character or two. Learn where and how to change your passwords, and do so regularly. Don’t write them down. Your Mac stores passwords, certificates, and private notes in a well-encrypted file, the keychain, and that’s the best place for them. There’s also software called 1Password that’s worth a look.

Learn to manage passwords and you’ve learned to manage your security.

I am renovating my house, and I want to wire most of the rooms with Ethernet.

That is a fantastic idea, for several reasons: It increases the resale value of your house just like a good electrical or HVAC system does. It’s also important to realize that, while wireless networking is cool and all, there is nothing as reliable as a cable.

I have more information, and a table to help calculate the costs of setting up your network posted at Google Docs, right here.

What email service should I use?

I have an earthlink.net email address, which comes with webmail and 10MB storage. But I’m thinking about changing my internet service provider? And sometimes I run out of storage at earthlink. I just don’t know if it’s worth it to me to convert to a new email address.

May I suggest Google Apps to host your email? It’s free, has a frigton of storage (7.5GB), and has all the bounteous benefit of the Gmail interface, or you can access it from Apple Mail or your email client of choice. There are few comparable alternatives out right now, and none of those are free.

This is important: You can KEEP your current email addresses. In the case of your earthlink.net address, we just start forwarding it to Gmail — either a general @gmail.com address or to your @yourdomain.com. Your correspondents may never have to know that you changed addresses. And for you@ (or whatevertheheckyouwant@) yourdomain.com, Google simply becomes your email host.

You can pay Earthlink a few bucks month to keep the address, but that’s a sucky long-term idea.

Also, the Gmail interface is importantly fantastic. I sometimes switch over to it just to get certain things like automatic organization accomplished. And lemme tell ya, the spam filtering is outta sight. I don’t see spam anymore. One message a month or less, and I can always look in the spam folder in Apple Mail just to double-check I haven’t missed a real message.

One last thing: There was once the perception that a @yahoo.com (or the like) implies an inconstant personality. I can say definitively that, especially since Gmail, that is no longer the case. The service is recognized net-wide as legitimate and unique. I practically insist on my clients using Gmail, unless they are already on Yahoo. If they have any address other than Yahoo, including using their own domain, 7 out of 10 times we get them over to Gmail quick as we can, and they never look back.

Should I buy a new Mac? (And what’s wrong with my old one?)

My laptop is a few years old, and running slowly. You suggest upgrading memory to speed a Mac up. Am I better off purchasing a completely new one rather than simply upgrading this one?

A Mac should last at least 3 years, the length of the extended AppleCare agreement. After AppleCare expires, you will have to pay for repairs. On a laptop, unless you’re skilled or intrepid, this is going to include parts and labor. Let’s ballpark the average likely repair — from a $200 hard drive to a $900 logic board — at $550.

Now, you can find a good, slightly used Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook on Craigslist for as little as $600. I used not to recommend that people buy used Macs, but the Core 2 Duos are just fantastic machines, and any one that can be upgraded to 4GB RAM is good enough for me or for almost any of my clients (the ones who don’t do serious graphics or multimedia production). If you do opt for a second-hand Mac, please make sure it is either covered by AppleCare or eligible for it, being younger than a year since original purchase date.

That said, I still place a lot of value in buying a new Mac, or one of Apple’s great refurb units.

When should I buy a new Mac?

My standard spiel (which usually starts with the words “my standard spiel”) is this:

After 3 years, you should have a new computer in your budget. After four years, be ready and willing to lay down some jack for a Mac. After five years, your Mac is past its prime, and will not be up to whatever awesome software Apple and other developer/magicians will have concocted.

Is it likely that a simple memory upgrade will solve my speed problem …

Yes, but depending on the model, a G4 Mac can, at most, go up to 2GB RAM, which is too little for modern computing.

… or would you expect others issues to be involved?

Check this post on slow macs and the spinning beach ball to learn how to use Activity Monitor to troubleshoot your Mac.

Maintaining OS X, generally

You have suggested performing a few maintenance operations that may improve speed. What would they be? Are they simple to perform?

Mac OS X actually does a lot of maintenance for you in the background. There are a few symptoms that require application of some basic clean-up, which can be done in the Terminal, or with a simple tool such as Maintenance (the same developer also makes the more robust OnyX, and there are several other similar packages, including Cocktail, Macaroni, Leopard Cache Cleaner, et al. The only times we have to use things like DiskWarrior, TechTool, or the like are when the Mac is barely functioning.

It’s important that one read up on the different functions each of these applications performs, and when you would want to use each. They can be sledgehammers, and your problem might be more mosquito-sized.

Switched to BusySync

Calgoo wasn’t cutting it. Failed once, and didn’t have a mechanism to kickstart it. I’ve been hearing about BusySync’s Google Calendar-syncing goodness for a while, and the reports are borne out: BusySync has low impact on my MacBook’s resources. It’s fast. And it makes nice two-way roads between iCal and Gcal.
I know it does other stuff, but I don’t care about those things right now.

Now, please, Apple: CalDAV on iPhone. Seriously.