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MacCog: I help humans.

... your Digital Life Coach and Apple support guru

Remote Support

Recycle your computer.


It may be a little later than our Greenpeace friends may have liked, but Apple has mostly gotten its act together on recycling. When you buy a new Mac, you can send or bring them your old one for proper disposal… at no cost to you. That’s a huge step and as this Macworld article details, a very welcome one in a growing number of options for high-tech disposal.

So please, DO NOT simply throw away that old Macintosh or monitor or even cell phone. (That’s actually illegal in California) Pass it down to a less-discerning friend or relative if it still works… and if it’s broken, find a place to recycle it.

There is a great facility for Los Angelinos to use in Glendale. Just drive up there on a Saturday or Sunday morning and drop off pretty much any and all of your old electronics with peace of mind. I did it, and it’s very very easy. But if you don’t want to do it, next time you see me I’ll take it for you and bring it on my next run!

justin

Passwords. ah passwords. don’t we love ’em…

How many people have only one password? How about those who have one password and then a bunch of variations with “2” or “69” at the end? Well guess what… don’t get used to them. Because one day soon the whole password thing will slowly become obsolete. You may rejoice or moan about having to learn something new… but if you have a strong reaction either way, you should read this NY Times article about the present and future of passwords… or at least the first non-techy first half that has some great nuggets like this:

Surveys show that we’ve remained stubbornly fond of perennial favorites like “password,” “123456” and “LetMeIn.” The underlying problem, however, isn’t their simplicity. It’s the log-on procedure itself, in which we land on a Web page, which may or may not be what it says it is, and type in a string of characters to authenticate our identity…

not sure whether to be comforted or scared? read on… and then call us with questions if you have them…

Why you don’t want to surf for porn even on your mac

At a recent hacker conference, they were able to break into a MacBook Air when it went to a particular website (using Safari) that the hackers had prepped for mischeif.
The lesson: sketchy websites could mean sketchy results, even on a Mac. Sure, there will be a software update by Apple to fix this particular problem (and hopefully soon) but if you’re searching the web on a public wi-fi… don’t go to sketchy websites because they could do damage to you and/or your data.
MacBook Air first to fall in hacking competition | The Apple Core | ZDNet.com

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1479


If you have questions about this or other Mac security issues, call us at 818-230-0030 or email us at [email protected]
thanks,
justin

Great Social networks to check out

Well guess what? Facebook is what it is and probably will stay what they are for more and more people: a place for friends to cast their net a little wider with each other and stay in looser contact with more people. Myspace was just a free-for-all that got too big too fast (plus it’s slow and annoying).

but now… you’ve got social networks that are getting super-specific and/or super-simple…

yelp.com seems like a review site but really it’s a social network for foodies!

tribe.net needs less ads everywhere but it caters to free thinkers and group based interaction.

last.fm would be too much like pandora.com (both awesome music listening sites) but it’s actually a social network (not to mention an amazing marketing tool for the record industry)

And in the super-simple category:
twitter.com
unfortunately, only the cognoscenti seem to know about twitter and I’m not friends with many of them so my feed is pretty sparse and nobody reads my tweets… but I see the potential and wish I had more use for it. So if you read this and you use twitter, sign up to follow me, “justinsail”

The point being that we’re still quickly finding new ways to cast our net wider and it is utterly fascinating if you ask me!

justin

by the way, there is a business use for twitter too.

Printing to PDF

dof.jpgOne of my favorite tips to impart on my clients is how to print to PDF and save things like web receipts to their hard drive for later (if ever) printing. It’s an easy and quick way to make your life easier and save paper… you just click File > Print > PDF > Save as PDF.

And for a more in depth look at why you’d want to use this feature, check out this article about Getting Things Done.

children on the internet! OMG! beware?

For those of you who are parents of young children or highly interested in their well being because you watch too much Nightline…. you should read this article. 

This is my favorite tech columnist’s take of safety concerns for children online… which is not as scary as you might think.

How Dangerous Is the Internet for Children? – New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/technology/personaltech/28pogue-email.html?8cir&emc=cir


Here is the link to the PBS documentary about Teens online that he referred to:

justin

Do you watch fake HD?

George Ou is an honorary digital life coach. He’s a little technical for most users, but what he’s saying is valuable and important to know:

The HD that you get from Cable, Satellite and download services is not nearly as good as Bluray offers. In fact, a lot of what companies try to pass of as HD is actually a lower quality than a DVD even!

Of course, the cable companies may be right that the average consumer just won’t notice. I mean a very high percentage (can’t remember exactly what the percentage is) of people who have HD televisions didn’t even bother to upgrade to the HD broadcast from their provider! And most of THOSE people think they’re watching in HD!

This, I find hilarious and kinda sad… which is why I’m the intrepid Digital Life Coach… I’ll be there to fix those things in your Digital Life that you didn’t even know weren’t right… and you’ll be amazed by the benefits.

Anyway, here’s the article:

Don’t believe the low bit-rate ‘HD’ lie by ZDNet‘s George Ou