Cartoons

Should Mac Users Run Antivirus Software? by security expert, Rich Mogull at Tidbits.com basically says, if you got a Mac, no need for virus software at this point.

I’ll blockquote his conclusion:

In short, at this point in time, I don’t recommend desktop antivirus for the average Mac user. You only need to deploy it if you engage in risky behavior, need to protect friends on Windows, or comply with corporate policies. It’s quite probable this will change in time, so it makes sense to take some reasonable precautions today and stay aware of the world around you. Better yet, let’s continue to pressure Apple for stronger security so we can completely avoid resource leaching desktop antivirus in the long term.

Are Apple machines immune? No way! The deal is, there are hundreds of thousands of viruses designed for Windows operating systems, but “less than 200 are known to target the Mac,” said Rich Mogull. So, yes, it is possible you get hit by one of the 200, but at this point, it is not very likely.

Just be a savvy Internet user and hopefully you can avoid viruses.

Oh, if you run Windows on your Mac, yes, you need anti-virus software for the Windows portion.

Spotted via MacWorld, you can open a new tab in Safari 3.1 by simply double clicking in an open space in the Safari window. Let me demonstrate:

See the arrow in my picture of the open space near a tab? Double click and you got a new tab. So if you are out of a keyboard, then that is how to do it.

I was hoping for this feature for a while. I know saft plugin did it, but I didn’t want to add saft to Safari.

I found this to be hysterical. Someone unboxing his Apple MacBook for the first time. Watch this video (it may not be appropriate for children).

Via Valleywag.

I have been noticing when I start up my Apple in my office, that my Apple Cinema Display is starting to burn out in certain areas.

I always put my hard drive icon, which is a RustyBrick logo, in the top right corner of my screen. So when I move the icon, it shows a faint imprint, even though it is not there.

Here is a picture, look at the top right of the picture.

You see, I just moved my icon slightly down and to the left, so you can see the outline it formed in my screen.

How crazy!

This screen is not cheap. Does it bother me? Not at all, I think it is cool.

Temporarily disabling comments, sorry…

Last week, I noticed my text messages were going to go over the alloted minutes I signed up for. So I called AT&T, and asked for more text messages.

I described to the customer service agent that I am about to go over on my minutes. He asked if I had an iPhone, I said yes. I said, I need a plan that gives me more text messages, the next tier up. He said no problem and updated my plan.

I look at my wireless usage over the weekend and notice my “Internet” usage was in the red. I thought to myself, I better call AT&T and find out why. So just about an hour ago, I called, while prepping the SearchCap.

Here is part of that convo:

Barry: It appears that I am over my Internet usage, but I should have unlimited. I think it might be due to me having you guys upgrade my text messages last week. Can you look at my account and tell me what is wrong?
AT&T: Let me have a look.
AT&T: You are on an non-iPhone plan. Why?
Barry: I don’t know why. I called last week and said I need more text messages and he upgraded me.
AT&T: You should of added more text messages when you activated your phone.
Barry: But I didn’t know I would need more text messages then. So now, I know I want more text messages and I asked to upgrade my plan.
AT&T: Why didn’t you do it on iTunes when you activated?
Barry: I activated months ago, I can upgrade my plan on iTunes also? Cool!
AT&T: No, you can’t upgrade your plan on iTunes. I understand now, let me look.
Barry: Thanks!
AT&T: Wow, you eat up a ton of data. iPhones do that. I better back date your plan and fix this.
Barry: Thanks!
AT&T: Um, it seems like you went over last month due to this issue. In the 6 hours between the time you changed the plan and the time your cycle ended, you accrued over $60 in data fees! In just 6 hours.
Barry: Cool!
AT&T: I’ll credit you for that and back date the other plan.
Barry: Thank you.
AT&T You are all set now, sorry for any confusion.
Barry: Not a problem, thank you so much for your help!

I enjoyed that call. I was able to do blogging stuff while having the customer rep deal with the issue the right way.

I am still amazed I used $60 of data in about 6 hours. I wonder what would of happened if I did not call AT&T and waited until I got my bill at the end of this billing cycle. 6 hours = $60. I use my phone 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

$60 * 2 (for 12 hours per day) = $120 per day
$120 * 6 days per week = $720 per week
$720 * 4 weeks per month = $2,880 per bill.

Not bad.

It has been two and a half weeks since I did a backup on my computer. Why? Well, I upgraded to Leopard on October 26 and my backup utility, which clones my hard drive on an external hard drive, is not yet Leopard compatible.

The tool is named SuperDuper and I have been religiously using it since August 22, 2006. It simply rocks.

Every day, a few times a day, I check the SuperDuper page to see if a new version came out that supports Leopard. Every day I see the same thing:

SuperDuper! 2.1.4 is not yet fully Leopard compatible.

But it won’t be long.

I know these things take time, and I know this is a freelance project for the developer. I shouldn’t complain.

There are actually a few threads in the forums over there about the release date. Here is the most active and recent one: When will SD be ready for Leopard?

The answer is the same, respectful but yet lacking response:

We’re working on it — testing and tweaking. We want it to be right, so we can’t rush it out the door…

I just hope it comes out soon.

Why don’t I use Time Machine? Well, it currently doesn’t support my NAS device in the office. People feel it will in time. Is it worth buying a new hard drive to run Time Machine? I already have a hard drive I use for cloning my mac with SuperDuper - just waiting on it to work with Leopard. I also have an NAS in my office with plenty of space, waiting to work with Time Machine. So I am in wait mode.

I think about it so much that I dreamt SuperDuper was out for Leopard last night. I got issues, seriously.

Well, I have finally taken the plunge to upgrade my Parallels Desktop for Mac from 2.x to 3.x yesterday. I have been using Parallels 2.x since August 22nd of this year. It worked wonderfully and that is why I did not upgrade.

But since upgrading to leopard, Parallels 2.0 had an issue. The “pause” feature stopped working, but luckily the stop and start worked, so I continued to use that. I figured, let me give 3.x a try, it might speed up Parallels and fix the pause issue. So I backed up 2.x and the files that went with it (about 8GB) on my network drive and then upgraded using the free copy I got with a new Mac Pro we ordered here.

Now I can pause, but honestly, it does not seem all that much faster.

Will I switch back to using Remote Desktop and switch to using a cheap Dell to run the few Windows applications I need? I may. But I’ll give this a bit longer, since I do like being able to run Windows on my Mac when necessary.

I was thinking up the best present for my wife this Chanukah and then I saw these puppies.

Silver post PowerBook earrings reported by Tuaw. You can buy them at 925Works.com and they come in earrings, as shown above or bracelets, or Cuff Links.

Now that is style!

Pretty sweet.

This past week, I started noticing this message pop up.

“Your SMS mailbox is almost full. Please delete some messages.”

So yesterday, I finally deleted some messages and then looked up the info at Apple.

Apple says you can have a max of 1,000 SMS messages. Doesn’t seem like enough. I don’t want to delete my SMS messages. In 5 months since I got my iPhone, I used about 1,000 SMS messages. I guess Apple is afraid someone might fill up their 8GBs with text messages?

There is a large thread at Mac Rumors about this and how many people are upset. There is a hack to download your SMS messages, but I’m not going to use that. This is a bit upsetting, to say the least.

Gotta love these:

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