iPhone 4s

We all knew it was coming. We didn’t know the name eg. (iPhone 4s or iPhone 5) but we knew that it would be here soon.

Let’s take a quick look at the major enhancements of the iPhone 4s over the iPhone 4.

• Siri personal assistant (watch the demo)
• 8mp still camera with additional lens and expanded aperture
• Shoots 1080p video
• Ships with iOS 5
• Pricing: 16GB @ $199.99, 32GB @ 299.99 and 64GB @ $399.99

Usually when sites come up they have the “XP” look to them because they are targeting Windows. This however looks very legit. You can see the familiar finder look on the left side where it is finding all of the infections. You can also see where it opened the download box to download the “Apple Security Center”. I downloaded the the software (knowing it was a virus but I wanted to test it out) to see if it was like popups in the passed where it would download an “.exe” or an “.msi” but it was indeed a package.

I will have to give them credit, the software looks legit. The software even includes Growl notifications and a shield that tells you that it is scanning.

I have a feeling that many people will fall for this scareware and give this company lots of money. I will say that it was however really easy to get rid of the Virus unlike the many Windows machines that I worked on in the Geeksquad. Please inform your users and your friends of this recent outbreak so you don’t end up doing cleanup on their machines.

Until next time.

Carpe Noctum

TJ

The MySQL preferences pane clearly shows you that the MySQL server is stopped.

You start the server.

You are prompted for your password and nothing happens. So you start the server again….nothing

Still nothing…Not to worry. Fire up the terminal and enter the command:

Press control + z and you are set to go.

Happy Coding,
Scott Krieder

http://smalltowngeeks.net

http://scottkrieder.com

To use the color meter, click “Go” and click “Utilities”

A finder window will come up, scroll down and click on “Digital Color Meter”

The program will load a crosshair and it will preview the image and tell you what the color is.

*Note as a precaution please take a couple of minutes to back up all of your files. The last thing you want to do is make your mac too clean and remove all of your pictures from that vacation you took last September.

Uninstall un-needed applications- I am just as guilty as the next guy for downloading and trying new software and than forgetting about it. When you are doing your clean up routine take a look at your list of applications and remove the applications that you do not use. I have found that CleanMyMac does a great job uninstalling not only the application but also all of the settings and plist files that go along with it. CleanMyMac also makes it simple by just dragging and dropping applications into the trash, and CleanMyMAc  will uninstall them from your system.

If you do not want to purchase CleanMyMac there is a program called appCleaner from freemacsoft that can be downloaded from here that works in a similar fashion.

Turn off unnecessary programs from launching at boot- You may have noticed your machine is launching programs when you boot up. This could not only slow down your system but it is also very annoying.

• First Click the apple on the top right of your screen
• Click “System Preferences”
• Next click “Accounts” near the bottom under “System”
• Next click the lock so we can make changes
• Enter your password and click “Login Items”. Here you will be presented with several items in a list, these are all of the programs that start when your machine starts up. To remove items, select the items that you do not want to startup and click the minus sign.

After you have pruned everything that you do not want to startup, click the lock to prevent any further changes. You will no longer have to wait for several applications to load when you boot up your mac.

Find out what is taken up all of the space on your hard drive and get rid of it- Sometimes in the Mac operating system, it is hard to find out what is taking up space on the machine without navigating to several different locations and getting the info on every folder.  There are several different programs out there that will show you what is taking up space and where it is located. For this we will be using “Disk Inventory X” from Derlien Software. Disk Inventory X will provide you with a map of your hard disk. The map will have different color blocks representing files on your computer. The larger blocks being the larger files on the disk.

• To get started, Click on the icon then choose a disk to scan.
• Choose your hard drive and click “Open Volume”
• Disk Inventory X will scan your drive. When it is complete you will be presented with an image of your hard drive in blocks, the larger blocks being the larger files.
• You can now click on the file to see where it is located. You can see in the above image “Portal Game Content Files” were taking up a lot of space on the hard disk.

*Note: You can also get statistics to see what type of files are occupying your hard drive by clicking on the Hide File Kind Statistics pane.

Perform System Maintenance with Onyx- Onyx is an all in one utility to clean out old temp files as well as do maintenance on your machine. To use onyx, download the application here and double click on the Icon to launch the program. You will be presented with several different tasks you can perform:

• Verify – This will allow you to verify preferences, S.M.A.R.T. Status of the Hard Disk, as well as the Filesystem Structure.
• Maintenance – This will allow you to repair permissions on your system, Run OSX Maintenance Scripts, and Rebuild things like Launch Services, Cache’s, and this will also rebuild the spotlight index used for searching
• Cleaning – This tab showcases several cache/temp file cleaners ranging from Log files to internet history
• Utilities – This tab provides utilities such as Manuals for different OSX programs and commands. This tab also has a place to launch hard to find applications such as “Directory Utility” and “Screen Sharing”.
• Automation- This is in my opinion the easiest way to clean up and use this program. This tab gives you a list of the most useful parts of the program. You make your selections and click execute. The program will run through the tasks that you have selected and provide you will a clean computer.

As suggested, for the novice the easiest way to use this program is to use the automation tab with the defaults selected with the addition of “Execute Maintenance Scripts” and click execute.

The All In One Utility: Clean My Mac - I have saved the best for last. Clean My Mac from MacPaw Software is in my opinion the best and easiest to use clean up software for the mac. Clean My Mac provides a very intuitive user interface and has the feeling of a Mac program. Besides cleaning temp files Clean My Mac also lets you manage your Widgets, Plugins and System Preferences. Clean My Mac also keeps your removable devices clean by removing .DS_Store (Mac) files as well as Tumbs.db  (PC) which are used by the operating system for things like positioning as well as thumbnail caching.

To use Clean My Mac:

• Click Scan
• Wait
• Click Clean

It is that easy! Clean my mac will navigate your machine and remove things like Log Files, Un-Needed Language Files, and temp files. Clean my mac will then alert you with a Growl notification so you can be working and it will not disrupt your work. This application has many other features such as managing plugins and extensions, securly deleting files, and what they call “Leftover” removal which gets rid of old application files . This application is deffinately worth $14.99 (6 Months) or $29.95 (Lifetime).

If you are unsure about what you are deleting CleanMyMac will display help information about what is being cleaned.

Bonus: There is a maintenance widget available from GiantMike.com. Maintenance widget will place a widget on your dashboard that will tell you when the last time the scripts were ran as well as the option to run the scripts whenever you want to. You can download the widget here: Maintenance Widget

These maintenance scripts perform the following tasks:

• Daily:
  • Removes old logs
  • Removes scratch and junk files (temporary files)
  • Removes scratch fax files
  • Backs up NetInfo data
  • Checks subsystem status
  • Cleans mail queue
  • Gathers account statistics
  • Cleans up asl.log
  • Rotates logs: system

• Weekly:
  • Rebuilds locate database
  • Rebuilds whatis database
  • Rotates logs: ftp, lpr, mail, netino, ipfw, ppp, secure
• Monthly:
  • Runs login accounting
  • Rotates logs: wtmp, install, fax

(From GiantMike.com)

This list is not the end all be all by any means. I have noticed after running these applications, all of my Macs have sped up and are much more usable now. If you have a program that you use please share. If you have any questions feel free to comment or email me at tj {at} smalltowngeeks {dot} net.

Until Next Time.

“Carpe Noctum”

First on your main toolbar click “Finder” and than click “Preferences”:

Now make sure “Hard Disks” is checked. Now your icon will be on your desktop.

If you have any questions feel free to email me at tj@smalltowngeeks.net

https://www.dropbox.com/edu

Once you log in and verify your .EDU any of your previous referrals will be doubled (500MB), as well as any future referrals.

If you are not already using Dropbox you should be. Take a look at our previous article : “Staying Sane with Multiple PC’s”.  It’s a great way to utilize the cloud to access and store your personal files. After you install Dropbox you will have a folder that you can organize your files in that is accessible on any browser or computer. A great way to get organized in the new year.

Airfoil takes your audio from your Mac or Pc and streams it to various devices on your network. Rogue Amoeba (developer of Airfoil) also has several applications that will allow your to turn your regular devices into speakers for Airfoil (Mac, Windows, Linux, IOS) as well as hardware devices such as the Apple TV and the Airport Express.

“Play any audio across your network to a whole host of devices, all in sync!”

Airfoil sends audio to remote speakers including iOS devices, other computers, and hardware devices like the Apple TV and AirPort Express. Airfoil for Mac gives you any audio, everywhere.” (From the Airfoil page)

What is great about this software is how it just works. To get started, download the software for Mac or PC from there website , install the software and you are ready to go. Available devices will show up in a list, here you can control what devices will receive the stream. You can choose single devices or all of them and your media will be streamed across the network in sync.

Audio:Airfoil works with several different audio services that are available online such as Pandora, Last.fm, and Spotify. The software also works with another “Rogue Amoeba” software title, Pulsar which pulls your XM and Sirius streams into a local application. The streaming does not stop on the web, any application that is on your computer that has sound can also be hijacked i.e. Quicktime, i-Tunes, and VLC. Another nice feature is the streaming of Metadata to IOS devices such as the Apple TV. Now you will have all of the information about the sound that is being played displayed on the device.

Video: Video at this time is not streamed to devices but the audio from devices is. There is a built in Airfoil Video Player that will play content and make sure that the audio stays in sync. You are also able to pull in the audio from sites like HULU and Netflix and play the sound through your Apple TV which in my case is connected to my surround sound system and the quality is not to bad. Airfoil also works with any Flash or Silverlight video so you can watch failblog in all of its glory and have great sound as well.

There are a few other utilities that I use in conjunction with Airfoil in order to enjoy different content and they are definitely worth a look:

Miro – is an application that brings together thousands of shows from all over the web. i.e. Hulu, Youtube.

PandoraJam – Pulls your Pandora stream into a local application on the Mac.

Perian – a free, open source QuickTimecomponent that adds native support for many popular video formats.
Remote (IOS) – Controls your i-Tunes from your IOS device such as the i-Pad, i-Pod Touch, i-Phone.

Hulu Desktop- Brings Hulu to yourdesktop for Windows and Mac.

If you have any other cool apps let us know!

Until Next Time

Carpe Noctum

Lets take a look on how to add your account.

Below you can see I have both my Gmail google docs as well as my Google Docs for Edu.

To setup your google docs access, download Cyberduck from their website.

Open cyberduck and click on the add bookmark + sign.

Click the drop down arrow.

Choose Google Docs

Give your bookmark a nickname and input your gmail address then close the dialog box.

Next you will be prompted to enter your password, after you do click “login”.

Success! You will now see all of your documents, spreadsheets, presentations and your folders.

This tutorial was mac based but cyberduck does have a Windows Client that is now in public beta. You can download the beta here.

Until next time,

Carpe Noctum

T.J.

At first glance Pandora Jam looks like a piece of software that takes songs from Pandora and adds it to your iTunes library. But it is much more.Lets take a look at a few of the other features of the software:

1. Native Cocoa App: The fact that Pandora jam takes a web application and makes it a native app on the Mac. This allows you to control your stream with easy to use controls as well as the Apple Remote.
2. Social: Pandora Jam allows you to add your social networks like Skype, Twitter, Last.fm, Adium
3. Rating and Tagging: Pandora Jam will take your ratings from Pandora and add them to your iTunes library when it imports the track.
4. AirTunes: Airtunes is an application from Apple that allows you to stream audio over the network to connected devices such as speakers or the Apple TV.  This will allow you to stream your stream to your TV without having to have a special player like the roku or Apple TV.
5. Growl: There have been many times that I hear a song come on Pandora and I have to search through several pages just to find the name and artist of the song. No more! Now there are Growl notifications that alert me to the info that I need.
6. Price: There is a free version and also a paid version.  The paid version costs $15.
7. iTunes Import: Like the intro stated Pandora Jam will import songs from your stream into iTunes.  The software will add your ratings, grab the album artwork and insert all of the track and artist information and place it in a play list in iTunes.

Even if the software did not hijack the stream and add it to my iTunes I would still love this software. Just bringing Pandora from a web application to a real application is enough for me to buy the software.

For more information on the software visit: Pandora Jam

Until Next Time,

Carpe Noctum!

Disclosure: I have a feeling this application is not legal in any way shape or form. We do not encourage you to break any laws or DMCA policies.