SuperDuper Super Oops

This is a case of SuperDuper out of control. I was investigating problems with a MacPro that had too much stuff on the hard drive. I launched Grand Perspective, a great app that gives a colored graphical representation of what files are on the drive and how big they are.

I noticed a large section filled with files that started with the path name of the backup drive. Now, normally Grand Perspective only shows the drive you ask it to inspect. I should not have been seeing what I was seeing. Tracing the path, it seemed that it started in the Volumes folder, an invisible folder on all OSX drives.

I made it visible using the widget "Hidden Files" and opened it up. This folder normally contains only aliases to drives plugged into the Mac, including the internal drive(s).

There was no alias for the backup drive. Instead there was a folder with the name of that drive and a second folder named the same but with a 1 at the end.

Switching over to SuperDuper and looking at the Schedule window I found five separate schedules, 15 minutes apart, two of which were in red. The backup was failing every time and I could not select the proper backup drive in its main window.

Somehow two of the schedules had pointed themselves into this Volumes folder and was dutifully backing up the internal drive onto itself in this invisible folder. The real folder had replaced the alias that should have been in Volumes and almost 400 gigs of files had filled it up.

Okay, delete. The first thing I discovered is you can't just delete from the Volumes folder. I would get a -8002 error if I even tried moving it to the Trash. Not knowing the technique to delete things in Terminal, I decided to enable Root and logged in as that. But the folder was invisible again. I tried installing the Hidden Files widget but it would fail to install! This was getting rather frustrating.

Okay, maybe it will work if I restart from my repair drive and log THAT into root and maybe it would let me install the widget there. I normally have Show Hidden Files always enabled when running from that drive so I thought, what the hell, I will try to delete those folders from here.

Surprise. It let me Trash those folders and then option-Empty Trash worked! I deleted both folders, one at a time, after ensuring that there was a successful TimeMachine backup in case my doing this destroyed the rest of the data on his drive. Not only did he have one, but Time Machine does not make copies of those invisible folders so I could have restored without also restoring the problem.

It takes a while to delete 385,000 files, even on a Pro. But when done, I ran Disk Warrior on the Pro's drive, which said it was okay. I restarted and not only did it boot just fine, with the almost 400 gigs of free space restored, but the Volumes folder now had a proper alias of the backup drive right where it belonged.

I created a new SuperDuper schedule and ran the backup and it went perfectly, with no failures.

The lesson for the reader here is that SuperDuper has a glitch that can get you in trouble.

Normally, when you set up the program, you click the Schedule button (after first defining the backup you want as a Smart Backup, not an Erase and Copy) and the window appears, followed immediately by a drop-down window that lets you pick the days and the time for the backup to run. This is how it should work, but the problem is after you create a schedule, the next time you click that button you get the same drop-down. What you must do there is click Cancel, then highlight the schedule script in the window and click Edit to make changes. If you just choose settings in the drop-down, it creates a second (third, fourth and so on) schedule, fifteen minutes later than the last (if you don't specify the time).

These extra schedules caused the problem, two of them having decided to install themselves in the Volumes folder. Then the schedules interfered with each other and the whole thing failed. So be careful when editing your schedule! It is okay to have multiple schedules, especially if you have a second drive with original material on it and you want SuperDuper to clone that drive to another backup drive (or second partition on your main backup drive).

There is a detailed PDF under SuperDuper's Help menu that tells you how to do all this and explains all the features, with pictures and descriptions. But how many users Read That Fine Manual?

Hint: I didn't read it either. I learned through trial and error.

Lion Part 3, Updates, iTunes Story

10.7.1 is out

If you are one of the few who upgraded to Lion 10.7, Apple just issued the first, much-needed, update. It consists of the usual round of bug fixes and no visible changes. I installed it immediately, did the usual repair-permissions thing, and am using it now.

It hasn't been made any more compatible with PPC applications, and it never will. So I must continue using my dual MBAir/MacMini system so I can keep using Quicken, Eudora, Word 2008 and all the other stuff that Lion won't run.

Lion Experiences, Part 3

But living with 10.7 for almost a month now has gotten me used to the new features. Last week's PMUG meeting taught me more about the system than three weeks of dinking around did, and I find I like it more. The new backwards scrolling feels more natural now and it's harder to switch back. I am also enjoying the new Mission Control feature that replaced Spaces, and the full-screen feature that I am using with Screen Sharing. In fact, Screen Sharing works so well now I could probably reduce using my KVM switch to move between systems. I still get bitten by forgetting to eject the USB drive before hitting the switch, which has the same result as unplugging without ejecting. I just wish the USB part of the KVM switch worked. It was the last hole in the system.

Setting the Shared Screen to the Mini while running under Lion gives me the best of both worlds. It feels just like I am running Eudora in Lion. Yes, I understand that Eudora is a shambling zombie, shedding limbs as it stumbles around the abandoned city seeking brains, but I have not found a program I like more. Price of being old, I guess.

I Now Take Plastic

Got an iPhone? Run a small business? If you never contracted with Visa/MC to take plastic before due to hassle and expense, there is a real alternative with Square. Visit the iTunes Store and hunt down the Square app. You download a small program to the phone, then go to their web site to register an account and tell them which bank they should transfer your money to, and then they mail you a little "square" device that plugs into the earphone jack on your phone. Open the app, plug in the Square, and you are ready to swipe a card. Its security is as good as any credit card system (faint praise, I know) but their service charge is half that of a normal Visa system. Fill out the customer's email address and the dollar amount and the transfer is immediate. An email receipt is sent to the customer, and after a couple of days, the amount, minus 2.5%, is transferred to your bank.

So if you ever want to charge my service call, remind me if I don't mention it.

Snow Leopard Update

As you may remember, I put the 10.6.8 update on the Don't Bother list. It didn't offer any advantages and did introduce serious bugs for a few people; enough to keep the Mac blogs hopping for weeks.

Someone at Apple was paying attention, because last week they issued an update to the update, 10.6.8 v1.1, which reportedly fixed a lot of the problems. So states the experience of people writing in. Me, I don't know because I stayed at 10.6.7 and will continue to do so.

In releasing the update, Apple also repaired the downloadable Combo Update without changing the name. If you were to go to Apple/Downloads and get it, the new version contains the fixes and Software Update would not offer the 1.1 updater after you installed it. About This Mac would still say 10.6.8.

If you ever do decide to go Lion, you can use 10.6.6 or later to get it from the App Store. When you do, the Lion installer will take you directly to 10.7.1. It couldn't hurt you to wait for 10.7.2, which is now being seeded to developers to test their own programs against. See it by September.

Leopard Updates

There are still updates issued for Leopard 10.5. The final version is 10.5.8 and that is required for the latest iTunes and a few other things, but if you don't need that and are using 10.5.7, stay put until you leave Leopard for good. There are security updates being issued and they are important now that there is actual Mac malware around. Do get those.

iTunes 10.4

It works. No bugs. I am pleasantly surprised. Usually the dot-zero version of any upgrade is problematic. Every Mac I have run it on has demonstrated normal behavior. Good job, iTunes team.

Speaking of iTunes

Most people use the Migration Assistant to move their data from an old Mac to a new one. Sometimes, when that isn't possible or desirable, I manually move the appropriate files, preferences, picture and movie files. That usually works out fine, but there is a problem with iTunes that has not been fixed since the first time I experienced it, three or four years ago.

iTunes is the only application that makes non-standard use of the green button. All other apps will toggle between full size and previous size whenever you click it. iTunes, however, switches between mini-player and normal window. The only way to change the size is to grab the lower right corner and manually resize it. But what do you do if the window is too big for the screen and you can't reach that corner because it's below the bottom? Nothing. You're stuck. This happens if you copy the iTunes Folder from Music on a big screen to a small one, like a MacBook. The program thinks it's still on the big screen and the bottom is down below the bottom, in unreachable-land.

The first time it happened, when I realized what it was doing, I went back to the older Mac, opened iTunes, and shrunk the window so it would fit the smaller screen. Then re-copied the whole folder over again. Well, that takes gigs and I thought there had to be a better way.

So I called Apple and although they had other reports of this problem on file, they had never issued a fix that their support people could tell you to do. Sure, you could throw out everything but your iTunes Music folder and then re-import, but you'd lose all your playlists. So Apple escalated me to a level-2 tech and they couldn't fix it either. They sure tried; tossing out com.apple.itunes.plist and similar files, zapping the PRAM, Safe Booting, all for naught.

While waiting on hold I went back to the old Mac and did the window resize, and then copied everything in the iTunes folder except the actual music files, brought that over to replace the squirrely ones and then just put the music in its place. I launched iTunes, and presto, the new size was remembered and it fit the screen. So the answer was somewhere in that folder. I hoped it wasn't the iTunes Music Library.xml file because I thought that is where the playlists are stored. It turned out to be the iTunes Library.itl file because it was the only other one that seemed to have no other use.

This is important to know because maybe the old Mac no longer runs, although the drive, or a clone backup, is accessible so going back and resizing the window is impossible. I went home to my Mac and tried simply removing that file to see if that is all it would take. Nope, the bad news is the playlists, as well as the entire library index, are stored in that file and not in the iTunes Music Library.xml file as I had thought. Removing that one and not the other makes no apparent change to the iTunes window.

So the bottom line is everything important is stored in that .itl file. Remove it and the window opens to the default size for your screen, but your playlists are gone and the library is empty. Your only option at that point is to choose Add To Library... from the File menu and choose your iTunes Music folder so it can re-index all the music, apps and videos you have in there. Playlists are gone for good.

This is a rare bug because most people rely either on the Migration Assistant or physically copying files from their backup drive. Also, most people seldom move from a big screen to a smaller one. Another fix would be plugging in an external display that's big enough to show the large iTunes window and then resizing it. This bug also reappears if you have the window sized to fit your big display and then unplug it to view the laptop screen alone.

Every other window resizes itself when you do that, or resizes if you press the green button. Apple could fix this by moving the window-size information to the .plist file in Preferences. I hope they do that in the next update. If you know anyone on the iTunes development team, please forward this story to them.

Lion Experiences, part 2

While I like some of the features, I do not like the changes to Spaces. It is now too easy to accidentally invoke a screen shift while difficult to drag items from one to another. I also find it increasingly obvious that this is not really ready for prime time and one should wait for 10.7.1, at the earliest. I am seriously thinking about blowing off Lion and returning to SNL myself. I discovered that now that I can no longer use Eudora, I really hate AppleMail.

Recently I had my first repair call for a Lion installation gone bad. Recovery from this is much worse than I imagined. First the warning:

DO NOT DO THIS UNTIL YOU HAVE MADE A CLONE BACKUP OF YOUR SNOW LEOPARD DRIVE!

Even a TimeMachine backup is not sufficient because full recovery from them is very difficult. You want to be able to boot off of your backup drive and clone it all back, killing Lion completely.

This client had broken all the rules. He left his startup items in place (System Preferences, Accounts, Login Items) instead of deleting them all. Each restart automatically launched incompatible apps, causing crashes. He did not do a Repair Disk and Repair Permissions with Disk Utility first.

He did this on his production Mac Pro, without a clone backup. All of this made his Mac's Murphy chip glow hot with excitement. If he had the clone, the chip might have let his installation succeed, but due to the other factors he would still have had problems. Without a clone it is impossible to return to Snow Leopard without erasing the drive before installation, and since TimeMachine had already run, all he could have recovered were his documents.

Lion installs an emergency recovery partition on your drive that contains a copy of Disk Utility and a minimal system. You access this by holding down the Option key at startup and choosing it from the icons that immediately appear. At the moment that is the ONLY repair program available; DiskWarrior will need an upgrade to work on a Lion system.

Oh, the icing on the turd: his drive was 98% full. You should never let a startup drive go beyond 80% because the rest of the space is needed by virtual memory for swapfiles, printing for temporary spool files, caches and the like. I was able to get him down to 92% full, which helped, and set him about clearing off the rest of the space hogs to an external drive. Then I had him go buy another drive for SuperDuper and get that running. I believe, but am not certain, that SuperDuper's latest version is compatible. (2.6.2 is not.)

Disaster story

Speaking of that Murphy chip, another client has suffered hard drive failure on a production iMac with NO backups. This is not repairable due to actual disk damage. I am able to rescue files with DiskWarrior, but that particular iMac does not use industry-standard drives (special heat sensor built onto the drive) so I could NOT keep the old one for later recovery (which I had started to do using DiskWarrior). To fix under warranty Apple wants the dead drive back immediately as an exchange or they want $340 cash for the new one. They give only 48 hours slack for the old drive to be returned. Mac shops do not keep extras of this drive in stock. Oh, and she had deadlines to meet. Those deadlines are now dead.

Most of you already know this and are doing it now, but for those of you who are not, here are some questions to ask yourself:

Would you feel badly if your Mac woke up dead and you lost every document on it, including your email, web bookmarks, Documents folder, iTunes music, etc.? Some people only use their Macs for Web browsing and email and keep the email on the server (Gmail, for instance) so they could lose their data without worry.

Do you use your Mac for production? Could you do without it for a week? With a clone backup you can boot from the clone and finish critical work before taking your Mac in for repair, or move it to a 2nd Mac, if you have one. That 2nd Mac would need to be able to boot from the same drive, impossible if your main Mac is Intel and the other one is PPC. You might have problems launching applications from the clone on the 2nd Mac if the registration is tied to the machine (Adobe is the killer here).

Do you have a lot of documents you do not want to lose, but can do without your Mac while it's being repaired? A TimeMachine backup is sufficient for you. A daily clone is much more convenient because a TimeMachine backup will still require you to reinstall your applications. If you have CS5 purchased as an upgrade from an earlier CS version, you will need the older disk, or at least the serial number, to install the upgrade. Can you find it?

The answer for all Mac user except the extremely casual user cited above is this: Go buy an external drive now. If you want to combine TM and Clone on the same drive, it should be a terabyte, partitioned into two volumes. Check your internal drive now - how much data is on it? Highlight it with a click and type Command-I. It will tell you the capacity of the disk, how much data is on it now, and space remaining. If you have a 500Gb or 1Tb internal drive but less than 100Gb full, a 500 will do you. The clone volume can be 200Gb with the other one serving TimeMachine, which does not delete older versions of documents and needs more space. Powered drives are usually 1Tb and are cheaper than unpowered portable 500 drives, but if you have a laptop and want to take your backup with you, the portable is better. Be aware that both could be stolen! Better to leave the backup drive at home or have ANOTHER cloned backup stored elsewhere. Hardcore paranoids rotate backup clones each week, keeping one in a safety deposit box.

It's your data. DriveSavers charges $1500 and up to recover a dead drive. How lucky do you feel?

My Experience with Lion, part 1

Getting Ready for Lion

My original intention was to just forget about Lion for a few months, letting others do Apple's field testing for them. Then I realized I should go ahead and do it because I need to learn as much as possible, in preparation for those clients who will need help with it. But to give it a go, I had to do a lot of preparation.

A Twin System

The recommended way is to make a clone backup of your Snow Leopard (SNL) system so if things fall apart, one can just boot from the clone and copy it all back, wiping Lion off the map. This is always good, and I always run a clone (SuperDuper) backup in addition to my TimeMachine backup.

Since so many of my necessary programs die under Lion I decided I need to have a 10.6 system always around, which is easy to switch over to. Programs I lose under Lion include Eudora, AppleWorks, Word 2004 and Quicken 2006 (and 2007). The only Quicken that runs under Lion is Quicken Stripped Of Any Usefulness, aka "Quicken Essentials." Intuit doesn't care; they are in the business of helping Microsoft sell as many computers as possible and they couldn't care less about their Mac clients.

I already have a keyboard, mouse and 24" Asus display. I also have a MacMini that serves the TV set. So I bought an IOGear KVM switch (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) that supported DVI plugs, which both Macs do, with an adapter. Price: $99. So off to Frys I go.

This one also has sound ports, so I can, with a single button press, switch screens, sound output and USB devices. That's the idea, anyway. Setting it up I learned that while the video and sound switches flawlessly, the USB would not switch. I called the company to find out why, and the tech, who didn't really seem to know much, told me that their device did not support USB hubs, powered or otherwise, contrary to the page in the manual which shows how to set it up. He even tried to convince me that the mouse had to go in the mouse-marked port and the keyboard in the KB port.

With a lot of trial and error I finally managed to plug the keyboard in and get that switching, and then got the mouse to work plugged into the keyboard. Since the Air has only two USB ports I did not want to use them both to feed the KVM switch because I could get the hub to work by manually switching the plug between the two Macs when I wanted to print something or run the backup drives.

So I almost got what I want and it works well enough to use. That is good because KVM switches that have DVI are uncommon; most of them are VGA, which costs a quarter of what the DVI one cost. Projectors, the most common market use for KVMs are perfectly happy with VGA output since they are not capable of high resolution images.

Downloading Lion

It was the first day, so there was no other way but to buy and download it from the App Store. It took almost 10 hours because my house is located in 2001 where the best DSL signal I can get is 1.5 Mbps. One mile north and I am in 2011 with 20Mbps. I could, of course, hand over 33% of my soul to Concast and get a good signal from them, but I'd rather have my eyes sucked out by lampreys. (Using Concast's TV costs another 33% of your soul, with the final third going for their phone service. You are allowed to keep 1% of your soul for other purposes.)

Anywhilst, late that evening I had the Lion installer on the drive of my MacBook Air, so I quit everything and started it up. I violated several of the rules I and other techs insist on, just to see what would happen. I did not remove my startup items from Account Preferences, and did not repair permissions first. I had already run Disk Warrior so I knew the Air's "disk" was okay. Installation took just 20 minutes.

By the way, Apple claims that you need 10.6.8 in order to get Lion from the App Store. That is not true. You can do it with 10.6.6 or 10.6.7. All that is necessary is that you be able to access the App Store, which was introduced with the 10.6.6 update. People on Leopard 10.5 will not be able to get Lion until Apple makes it available on a Flash drive, rumored to be out in August some time.

Using Lion

I was pleased to learn that a lot of my most important utilities (Dropbox, SMC FanControl, Little Snitch, You Control) worked fine. I did have to give up Remember, which popped up reminder messages when configured to. The one that comes with iCal does not work as well.

The other issue I had trouble with was actually on the SNL Mini. I could not get screen or file sharing to work, even though both Macs were on the Internet and all the IP addresses were correct. I called AppleCare, and after an escalation to a network specialist, we found the problem was actually incorrect preferences in Network. There were two AirPorts, one of which had an Ethernet icon. She had me clear them all away and create new ones, one for Ethernet connection and one for AirPort.

That fixed it. Screen sharing works perfectly now.

For those of you who have never used it, screen sharing allows me to display the screen from one Mac on another, and operate it remotely. (I wish that worked well enough over the internet that I could use it with my clients!) But since I now have a laptop that will not run the primary programs I have on the Mini, Screen Sharing means I don't have to go to the desk and run the Mini to enter something in Quicken or read/write mail in Eudora. This was the last barrier to using Lion full time.

I can always use Safari to access my email when on the Air, which is what I do anyway when I am away from my Mac but have access to another one.

The differences in how Lion works compared to SNL are pretty interesting. Scrolling with fingers on the trackpad or using the arrows (or the Magic Mouse) are backwards. Instead of dragging in the direction you want the scroll bar to go, you instead drag in the direction you want the page to move. It's more intuitive once you get used to it. Scroll bars disappear when not being used. Check your own use of scroll bars: When you want to move up screen the text is actually moving downward as you drag upward. Bet you never even thought of it as being backwards before.

Windows that always have a scroll bar, like your Documents folder, work the same way when you drag the bar, but to drag downwards with two-finger dragging on the Pad, it moves the opposite way. It's difficult to visualize and describe, even when I have one hand on the Mini's slider and the other on the Air's. Get used to using the arrows on the keyboard more; in Safari and reading email, among other things, they make it much easier.

Sites you should visit to learn more about Lion, including reader reports include the Lion section of Macintouch; the App Compatibility Table; the Lion FAQ on Macintouch; and MacUpdate, State of the Apps. Want more? Google is your friend.

New Macs

Along with the release of Lion, Apple shipped two new Macs: an upgraded Air with the i5 and i7 chip that is in the rest of the MacBook/iMac line (almost twice as fast as the Core 2 Duo at the same clock speed) and a new Mini. Both have the ThunderPort that can drive an external display (not including Apple's current model) and various external storages devices which will begin to show up in the stores soon. The new Air, with the biggest SSD and most RAM appears to be $100 cheaper than the last model.

If you have an older Mini now and you have the software that you need to use upgraded to Lion compatibility, this looks like a great buy. It does not have an optical drive, like the Air, so you will need an external USB drive for that. Apple's is $79 and works only with the Air and the new Mini. The Mini can have either a 500 (standard) or 750Gb hard drive, or the 256G SSD that the Air uses and is unbelievably fast. The base model is $599 but has only 2Gb RAM, so you would want to expand that, at least. It will take up to 8Gb. (4Gb add $100; 8Gb add $300.) Visit the Apple Store online and have fun with their configurator so you can see just what your unit would cost with all the add-ons you desire.

Danger - Back up your iCal

This just in: a client reported that when she cancelled her MobileMe account, which synchronizes and backs up your calendars to the "cloud," all of her calendar files ON HER MAC were also deleted. Apple has been non-responsive.

A TimeMachine backup would let you recover them, but this little screwup on Apple's part could cost you YEARS of your appointment history if you don't have such a backup. It's not known if this affects all versions of iCal, but it certainly affected her Snow Leopard (10.6) version.

It also wouldn't hurt if you went to the File menu in iCal and chose Export, Calendar Archive and saved that in Documents periodically.

Nobody expected this until it happened.

Fix for MB Air freezing problems

The latest MacBook Air, which I have, has developed problems with iTunes making the Mac freeze up after the 10.6.7 update. My update went fine for a few days, but then I also developed the problem.

Fortunately, Apple is on top of this, with a supplemental update.

I am about to install this but it will take a few days to know if it worked as promised. Posters to Macintouch have stated that it fixed their problem.

This affects ONLY Air users running 10.6.7. No word of problems with the newest generation of MacBook Pro models.

10.6.7; Firefox 4

(3/21)

10.6.7 is out

I no sooner send out my first mailing this month and an hour later Apple releases the 10.6.7 update.

As always, wait a week before getting this, to give Apple a chance to discover some horrible mistake and replace it with a fixed version. If I experience or read about any problems with it, I will report, but if I say nothing after a week you can go ahead and get it.

Here's the direct link for the Combo update but be aware that it's 1.06 Gb in size. Just downloading it made my MacBook Air feel heavier.

(3/26)

After studying the reports from others who installed the 10.6.7 update, it seems the only people who were reporting problems were those who had the same Mac I have: the fastest MacBookAir. They were getting freezes upon opening iTunes 10.2.1.

I made a SuperDuper clone backup first, then turned off the backup drive so I would have a way to return everything to the way it was. This is why clone backups are good to have in addition to Time Machine backups.

Then I repaired permissions and Verified Disk with Disk Utility.

Then I restarted, holding down the Shift key until I got Safe Boot in the login window. This was advised by other bloggers, although I have seldom done it before myself.

Finally I applied the Combo update, which I had downloaded from Apple (also recommended). After it finished and restarted, I repaired permissions again.

I took a breath and launched iTunes and plugged in my phone. No freezing; no problems.

Owners of the new laptops released earlier this month cannot use the Combo Update. You will have to use Software Update to go to 10.6.7. Same precautions apply.

If you don't have a backup drive, you might want to skip the update until you can get one. If you have Time Machine only, you can still use that should you have to restore your 10.6.6 system; it's just more of a nuisance.

Firefox 4

Now officially released, here is a page of reports on how people are responding to Firefox 4.0 and how to get it.

It doesn't say on the FF page, but this requires you be running 10.5 or 10.6 on an Intel Mac. The reader reports also discuss how to keep both 3.1.6 and 4 going together so you can switch back and forth, but you will need a separate Profile for each. Info on how to do that is at http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing%20profiles. Note: if this seems very complicated, you are correct. I may decide not to bother and just delete FF3.

Firefox 4 for PowerPC

There is a 3rd-party build of FF4 for older Macs called TenFourFox. You can get it and read all about it here. This is not by the Mozilla people, but is a good way to keep a modern browser (for banking, commerce, etc.) on older Macs.

Google Chrome 10

I did all this reading and downloading on the newly-released Google Chrome version 10. This is faster and smoother than Chrome 9 was. Intel Mac users might want to get this as well. It never hurts to have various browsers to switch to in case your primary one (in my case Safari) has any trouble with a particular site. To get it, just go to Google and there will be a Get Chrome link.

1Password Review

This is a review of a password-management program that I wrote for the April issue of PMUG Mouse Tracks. If you hate dealing with passwords as much as I do, you will want to learn and use this program.

_____

1Password

by Michael Pearce

I got hooked on this program after the publisher presented at PMUG last year. It finally motivated me to quit using the strategy of using the same password for all junk sites, and a more complex one for banking and commerce.

Everyone does this. Nobody likes to deal with passwords, and most people forget to write down their important ones, letting the web browser store and fill them for you. This is why so many get hacked; and figuring out what you use for one web site lets the maliciously-minded explore other sites with the same one. Each site stores another piece of your identity so it can be possible to discover your home address, phone number, mother's maiden name, first pet's name, work place and everything else needed to attack your bank's site, or crack your Amazon or iTunes account.

1Password eliminates this problem entirely by generating, filling and storing a different complex password for every web site you subscribe to. You need only create and memorize a single passphrase to access the application and it does the rest. For this, the most secure route is to create an pass-sentence of 3 or 4 words, no spaces, with the first letter of each capitalized. No dictionary attack is going to figure that out.

The program will not only store all your website logins, but it will also store your credit card info and fill it out for you on any web form. It has a Secure Notes section where you can write out all that information in English so you can look it up directly whenever you need to. Notes can also store all your serial numbers in case you need to reinstall an application and re-enter your number. All this is encrypted so no one, even if they steal your laptop or break into your house, can get into the 1Password database without your secret passphrase.

If you have an iPhone you can also get a version for it, and coupled with the Dropbox application, store a copy of your database on the phone and on the Dropbox web site.

I have never needed to access that remotely stored info, and don't use the phone for web very often, but many do and they will find this added security very handy. The only difficult part will be using the iPhone's pathetic keyboard screen for typing your passphrase. You might be able to use Smile Software's TextExpander to do that for you, but that could increase your risk a tad.

The Strong Password Generator, an option in the 1P button in your web browser, is simplicity itself. Pick the number of desired characters and the complexity and it creates one for you, saves it under the name you choose along with your login name for the desired web site. Afterwards, when you go to the site's login window, just click the button and choose Fill and Submit Login and it does the work for you. When the browser asks you if you want to save the info for you, click Never for This Site and it won't ask again.

After you have finished creating new passwords for all your logins, go into the browser preferences (Safari: Autofill) then click Usernames and Passwords' Edit button. Click Remove All and you are done. If you then uncheck the box next to Usernames and Passwords it will stop asking, even when you visit new sites for the first time.

This button is added to your Safari window. A similar one is added to Firefox.

This menu appears with appropriate items for the web page you want to log into.

First thing you see when you start 1Password.

One of the options when open: This is where your login information for all your websites is stored. You can update this at will, or when on the site (for instance, when you change your password.)

This window generates a new password that is random and virtually uncrackable. You have several options that can be imposed on it, depending on site requirements.

Mac magazines

(March 21)

Now reading the April issues of Mac Life and Macworld. I highly recommend that new users, who may not think these are for them, start reading both. There is more useful information in each issue than I can teach in multiple sessions, and it's clearly written for everyone; not just hardcore Mac geeks like me.

If you want to start somewhere, get the Macworld and read "100 Things Every Mac User Should Know." This is the best collection of hints, tips and how-tos I have seen in some time. Every one is useful, and I guarantee that all of you will find at least ten in the list that will make your Mac experience better.

MacLife explores the world of Google Apps and how useful they can be, and not just because they can save you the $149 you'd spend on Microsoft Office. Also reviewed: battery pack cases for iPhones. I have been using the Mophie pack since I first got my 3GS and I never have to worry about running out of power. There are brands here I was not aware of.

Included is an article on how to make a Mac-based home theater. I have done this myself and the article is spot on. Sure, the AppleTV is cheaper, but a MacMini and your HDTV are a match made for each other.

Photographer? Macworld discusses how the MacBook Air is the perfect tool for that photographer on the go.

Some of these articles can be read on the magazines' respective web sites, but there is nothing like a nicely-formatted dead-tree version you can keep handy for easy referral. Start getting the Mac magazines; you will thank me later.

New MacBook Pros released

(24 Feb)

Happy Birthday, Steve Jobs: in celebration Apple has revised all 3 models of MacBook Pro. Read all about them at Apple's site.

The 13" was advanced the most: It now has the Intel Core i5 instead of the earlier Core2Duo, like the rest of the line. Still $1199, you get that processor, 4Gb RAM, 320Gb internal HD and the Intel HD Graphics 3000 card.

Spend $300 more and move up to the 2.7 GHz i7 processor and a 500Gb drive. Then it gets interesting:

Go to the store's Configuration page and you can start boosting it up. Add $200 for 8Gb RAM. Add $100 more for a 750Gb hard drive. Take a deep breath and realize, that's 3/4 Terabyte in a laptop! Or, if you really want speed, use a Solid State Drive like the Air does and replace the stock HD with 128Gb SSD for $200, 256Gb for $600, or go nuts with a half-terabyte SSD drive for $1,200 more. That'll take it to $1799 with the HD or $2899 with the SSD.

You can do all this with the 15" and 17" models as well, for proportionately more.

This means, of course, that unsold stock of previous models will drop a tad. The 13" model would be perfect for most people if you add in a non-Apple large display for under $200. Mine is a 24" Asus.

If you like very light and not as quick for under $2 grand, I did it with the current MacBook Air.

Time to polish up the ol' credit card. If you like paying even higher interest, you can finance through the Apple Store, but if you pay if off in 12 months, there is no interest charge. They do it through the Barclay Bank Visa.

While it's so new there is no real support for it yet, the Thunderbolt port, which serves as the Mini DisplayPort, can also connect to high speed RAID drive systems and transfer data faster than any other format.

This looks like why Apple has been ignoring USB 3.0 and has not been talking about FireWire 1600, the logical next step beyond 800.

In order to use it with an external display, one would have to be designed to plug both devices into a single port, and that does not yet exist.

While a fully maxed-out 15" model with 512Gb SSD and 8Gb RAM would push the price near $4 grand, it would substitute for any model iMac and any MacPro, as long as you didn't need the Pro's expansion slots.

Read more about Thunderbolt here.

Nice as it is, I feel no motivation to trade in my newly-acquired MacBook Air. If I wanted to, I could make HDTV movies on it using one of the USB-based video cameras. But if I were a pro filmmaker the new laptops might be on my shopping list.

(Jan. 7) 10.6.6 Installed

Today I installed the latest Snow Leopard update so I could access the new Mac Apps Store (located under the Apple menu). I "bought" the free Twitter for Mac program and the installation went flawlessly.

I am going to stick with YoruFukurou as my primary Twitter client, but I do like the new Tweetie 2.0 (which is what Twitter is) because it lets me create several unsent tweets at once, work on them and then fire them off all in a row. Otherwise it is an overly stripped-down program, without even the option of larger fonts.

When you install 10.6.6, be absolutely sure to run Disk Utility and repair permissions both before and afterwards. It found hundreds of items to update. Also click Verify Disk when finished. Mine came out fine. As always, download the Combo Update instead of relying on the smaller and simpler updater from 10.6.5 that Software Update provides. You will find it here.

If you'd rather I do it I have it with me so let me know.

The App Store is actually a separate application from the iTunes Store, although you log in with your iTunes username and password. It's been reported widely that the security of the store has been cracked already and there will be pirate versions of Mac apps available elsewhere on the Net, some of which may contain malware. The applications on the store itself should remain clean, though.

I am also happy to report that the conflict between Flip4Mac (Windows Media player) and iTunes 10.1 has been fixed with updates to both. Current iTunes is 10.1.1 and Flip4Mac is 2.3.6.5.

New MacBook Air models

Today Apple hosted a live webcast, 90 minutes long, to preview their newest version of iLife 11, Lion (OSX 10.7) and their latest MacBook Air. Initially, the video required Safari 5 and OSX 10.6.4 to watch, but I just tested the replay on my Mini running 10.5.8 and Firefox 3.0.14. I don't have a Tiger Mac to test it on, but you should be able to view this using this link.

Nice as iLife looks, and the cool new features in Lion are impressive, the "One more thing..." revealing the new MacBook Air models was a jaw dropper. From being merely a niche product, the new portable can serve as your only Mac, with just a few limitations.

There are now two models, a 13" and an 11" model, the size of a netbook. At its thickest point it is 0.68 inch, tapering to .11 inch at the front. The 13" weighs 2.9 lbs; the 11" weighs 2.3 lbs. The screen resolution of the 13" is higher than the current Air as well as the 13" MacBook Pro.

There is no optical SuperDrive, like the current Air model. Want one? They have a $79 external USB drive. There is no hard drive. It was designed around flash memory storage, which on the smallest, cheapest model holds 64Gb data, and the largest can hold 256.

These smaller drives may be a deal breaker if you are used to carrying 100Gb of iTunes and 50Gb of iPhotos and movies. Those can be offloaded to an external USB drive but then you wouldn't have them with you so you might want an iPod if that's important.

USB-only drives are as low as $79 for a terabyte so if you don't have backups yet, now is the time to buy one. Set up to back up via Time Machine (10.5 and 10.6 only) the Migration Assistant can use this drive for data migration from your old Mac to the new one.

There is no FireWire. I am sad about this. People who already own FW drives for backup can use the USB port all those drives also have. It does mean that Target Disk Mode, which let you plug one Mac into another, is gone. Except when upgrading, this feature is seldom used anyway. It comes with two USB ports and a slot for an SD card, like their current laptops. Tiger Macs doing clone backups with SilverKeeper or SuperDuper can still plug in to the new one and do manual migration (drag and drop your files in the correct places).

The trackpad and the keyboard is full size. For desktop use you can use either USB or wireless keyboards, mice and trackpads. Printers can work either through your network or your USB port. If you have several USB devices you will want a powered USB hub.

The battery life is even better than before. The 13" will run for (up to) 7 continuous hours on the wireless Web (meaning visiting web sites that don't have videos that run it down quicker) and the 13" runs for 5 hours. Standby time (closed and in your bag or on your desk unplugged) is as long as 30 days. This is partly due to the flash storage and shares this kind of battery life with the iPad. The way most people use their laptops is an hour or two at a time, then close it until later. This will let the battery last you all day.

The processor is a little slower than the current MacBook Pro, but much faster than the current Air. The graphics card is about equal to the Pro. Both models come with 2 Gb RAM, upgradable to 4.

Price for this? Well, the original Air sold for $1799. A flash drive added a lot to that cost. The 11" model starts at $999, same as the white plastic MacBook (but the MacBook has a large hard drive, DVD drive and 4Gb RAM). The 13" Air starts at $1299, upgradable to a 256Mb drive for $1599. Add $100 each for the RAM upgrade and faster processor.

Other add-ons include a USB-to-Ethernet adapter for $29 so you can plug right in to a network if wireless is not available. AppleCare is $249. Since the only Apple external display is their 27" LED model for $999 (including camera, speakers, microphone and extra USB ports) you might want to buy a standard 21" to 24" DVI display without all those extras for under $250.

Once you stop thinking about all those extras, realize that for $999 you have everything you need (except AppleCare) if your needs are simple.

Watch the movie via the link above, or if it ceases to work just go to the Apple site and all the videos and descriptions you need are there.

Oh, one more thing 8-) The MacBook Air models are available today. If you order from the online Apple Store, they ship within 48 hours; the independent Apple dealers PowerMax.com, the Mac Stores and MacPac and others should have them by the weekend, as should the official local Apple stores. If I hadn't recently purchased my 13" MacBook Pro (which I still love) I would be on the horn for one of these today.

As always, I'll be available to help with setup when you get yours.

Yoru Fukurou Review

System requirement: 10.5.8 or later

Free

Web site:

http://sites.google.com/site/yorufukurou/home-en

In the 18 months or so that I have been on Twitter, I have tried various Mac clients, settling on Tweetie for Mac in spite of its limitations. Tweetie was bought by Twitter and is now the official iPhone client (with a few problems of its own) but I have finally found the Mac client that does everything I need.

My biggest frustration with all previous Twitter clients was the inability to save more than a couple hundred messages. This meant that overnight, 3/4 of all posts were lost while I slept. YoruFukurou (Japanese for Night Owl, hereafter abbreviated as YF) does not throw away old messages. The longer you keep it open, the more it stores. When you quit and relaunch, you can have it reload up to the last 800 tweets in your timeline.

The only obvious limitation of the program is it supports just one account. This is not for people who juggle multiples. Still, since multiple Twitter clients can run at the same time without stepping on each other, one could set YF to serve your primary and Tweetbird Pro (for example) for the others.

What's so great about YF? The developer seems to have thought of everything. At the bottom right corner of the window is a number: APIs Left. Twitter allows you to access their database around 300 times an hour, and varies that during periods of high traffic. That number keeps you on top of your accesses remaining. At the bottom left is a green dot, which turns red when Twitter is overloaded, and a line of text that tells you what is wrong.

Select a message and open the Drawer (right button in toolbar) and it shows a clickable icon of the tweeter that expands to a full-size picture, their statistics (tweets to date, number following and followers), their web address and bio from their profile, and the text of the tweet, repeated. It also tells you when it was posted and using what client. A little triangle next to the name (both real and Twitter handle) drops a menu that lets you send DM, Report for Spam, Reply, and follow or unfollow. It also tells you if they are following you, and you can Block them from here.

Looking at the rest of the toolbar across the top, from left:

Home - opens your Twitter home page in your default web browser.

Refresh - Check for and load new messages.

Mark as Read - click this and all unread messages are marked as read.

View - three buttons: show entire timeline, show all messages by the selected poster, and show conversation (if the message is a reply to someone else).

Search - opens a search bar that will scan your timeline for any instances of your chosen word or phrase.

Below the toolbar is your message field. Click in here and type your tweet. It counts your characters. Click the gear icon and more functions appear: Shorten links, Stick Hashtags, Paste iTunes Track Name, Paste Safari Page Detail, Upload Image and Upload Screenshot. I have used only a couple of these features. You can upload any image on your hard drive. When you finish your tweet hit Return to send it. If you want to embed returns in the message, use option-return.

Below that is the row of tabs: Timeline, which tracks the number of unread tweets, Mentions, DM (Direct Messages), Favorites, which tracks what you have starred, and Search, which searches all of Twitter for strings, hashtags, or usernames. With all of this you will never need to go to the Twitter web page. Search also keeps a record of past searches.

In each tweet field is a picture, the tweeter's icon. If someone changes their icon in the middle of your stream, you see the old one in older messages and the new one in any new messages from them. Unlike Tweetie, I have never seen it fail to display an icon, regardless of how big the attached picture is. All of the other clients, including the web site, replace the old pic with the new. I like this feature.

Click on a link in a tweet, either in the main list or in the Drawer and it opens your browser to the page. If it is just an image from several of the image sites, it appears in a windoid right within YF. If it's a big image, it will fill up your screen.

Also in the tweet section of your timeline, a blue dot appears in the icon of an unread message, which disappears when you highlight it.

What doesn't it do? With all these bells and whistles, the one thing left out is Print. You simply can't print anything from it. Your only option is screen capture. I don't miss it; rarely have I ever wanted to print a time stream.

Preferences

I could write another article just based on the options in Preferences. YF has a sound mode that tweeps, chirps and tinkles at different events. This is a feature I turned off immediately. Color coding? each tweet colorizes itself based on the selected tweet - other posts become yellow, conversations turn pink; the text of your own postings is blue, neighbors backgrounds are yellow. @replies to you are in red text. It can become confusing but is easily ignored, yet gives you a visual clue that you might want to click on the Conversations icon.

You can leave the preferences in Default and as you learn the program, experiment. Growl is supported.

That's enough. You can spend weeks exploring this as you build up your twitter database.This is an OCD victim's dream.

Addendum: Since first posting this, there have been updates. The new version (2.3.1) uses User Stream Updates which gets all tweets in real time, without using any of the standard APIs. This will be a boon to anyone who uses this for their primary account and another program to manage their other accounts.

Pic 1: The YoruFukurou icon when not running.

Pic 2: The YoruFukurou icon in the Dock when running. The number displays waiting DMs and mentions.

Pic 3: The main window. You can expand it as deep as your screen allows.

Pic 4: Preferences window, tabs options

New Macs; System Updates

New Macs

Apple has upgraded their iMac line, and also has a faster MacPro. Both use the new Intel i-series of chips, the i3, i5 and i7. Two of these have already appeared in the 15" and 17" MacBook Pros, so it was just a matter of time before they made it into the iMacs as well.

The fastest chip, a 3.6 GHz i5 is available on both the 21.5" and 27" iMacs, and a 2.93 GHz i7 is an option on the 27" only. Even though it has a slower clock speed, it's a quad core, which almost doubles the processing power.

The smaller one starts at $1195 and the other at $1695. They have four memory slots; both ship with 4Gb RAM but support up to 16 Gb (four 4Gb modules). You will spend some money for those. Base price for the 27" i7 is a buck shy of $2200.

The graphics chips go up in speed and quality with the price; the best 27" has the ATI Radeon HD 5750 with 1Gb of video memory. The better this chip is, the more performance you get out of the main processor. This is why the 13" MacBook Pro, even though it uses the same 2.4 GHz chip as the two-year-old 15" model is so much faster.

I maxed out the top model at the Apple Store, and found that I could get the works for $4415. That did not include any optional software beyond iWork and the $169 AppleCare. Visit the Apple Store site and see for yourself what those applications cost. This configuration includes two drives: a 2 terabyte SATA 7200rpm (amazing in itself) and also a 256 Gb solid-state drive. SSDs are faster than any mechanical drive can be, booting up in 2 seconds and loading Photoshop in just one. The package includes both the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad, and the charger (see below).

I have been warned by others that Apple does not use the fastest SSD drives in the industry, though, so I would investigate just getting the 2Tb drive and then getting the SSD from Other World Computing for $89 more than Apple's.

Bottom line is that 80% of you will be more than satisfied with the cheapest and the leastest $1199 model with no options beyond AppleCare, and you will love the 27" to pieces. Extra RAM can be added later.

Magic Trackpad; Battery Charger

Two interesting products that never existed before are a battery charger for $29 (for their wireless mice and keyboards) and a standalone multi-touch trackpad that brings the same kind of control to desktop Macs as found on the new laptops. If I were a desktop user I would get one of these for sure. The Magic Mouse has multi-touch as well, but not the rotate effect, and the 4-finger swipe that brings up Expose.

There are battery chargers everywhere, of course, but the Apple device has a smart charger that detects when the batteries are fully charged and cuts the current, reducing the usual parasitic charge that such devices usually have: 30 milliwatts instead of over 300. Coming with six AA batteries, you will never have to buy a box of disposables again.

MacShop NW Leaves Portland

One of my favorite Mac shops has closed their Portland office, focusing exclusively on their Newport store. If you live on the coast, this is your best place for buying and fixing Macs from an authorized Apple dealer. Their site is http://www.macshop.com/. Locally, I still send people to MacPac on NE Whittaker Way, MacForce on SE Salmon St. right next to the river, and PowerMax in Lake Grove, which also contains the service center for the entire MacStore chain. MacPac does component-level fixing similar to what MacShopNW did, and is the place to go for oddball out-of-warranty repairs. The others are fine for AppleCare fixes and I don't recommend against any of them. This was not always the case, but it has been quite a while since I heard any customer complaints against them. The MacStore branches have a small service area where they can add RAM, replace hard drives, and the like.

System Updates

Not too many updates since last mailing. iTunes is now at 9.2.1, fixing bugs in the 9.2.0 version. The latest ones are needed for renting movies from the iTunes Store, and to support the iPhone 4 and the iPad. If you have an older iPhone or iPod and are having no problems with the iTunes you are using, there is no need to update it.

Safari 5.0 for Leopard and Snow Leopard seems to be behaving itself. I have had no problems with it, beyond minimal glitches loading Flash videos due to the fact that I am running Click2Flash, a great utility that prevents loading all those Flash ads unless you really want to see them. I find just a blank space where the video should be, so I have to right-click (or control-click) on the space and choose Load Flash from the popup menu. Hopefully there will be an update to Click2Flash soon.

Safari 4.1 for Tiger is another matter. So many people have problems I have put it on my permanent Avoid It list. Stick to version 4.0.5.

Sadly, Safari 3.1, the last good version of Safari 3, is getting obsolete and some web commerce and banking sites are refusing to talk to it. An alternative is Camino or Firefox, or Google Chrome. Everyone should have all these browsers available. Firefox is up to 3.6.8 now, and it seems to have fixed many of the troubles that bedeviled users of 3.5 and early versions of 3.6. My own second choice is Camino (google it) but I drop into Chrome occasionally as well. Once the Mac version of Chrome is at parity with the Windows version it will be a pretty hot browser.

Other updates all seem fine. Get the current Java and Security updates, firmware updates, keyboard updates and anything else that is being offered now. It's been a long time since I could say that.

One exception is Leopard 10.5.8. I am still wary of it, but it is increasingly necessary to get any of the others. If your Mac is at 10.5.7 and you have not received any messages that you must upgrade to use a desired program, stop there. I always cross my fingers before updating someone to 10.5.8, in addition to doing a full disk check with Disk Warrior and Repair Permissions with Disk Utility.

It is important to Repair Permissions after running ANY new software installation, and after running any updates. That includes Flash, printer drivers, scanner drivers, anything.