New Year, New You

As I mentioned I have been using the beta version of Mac OS X 10.11 for some weeks and I thought, now that the public beta is released, that it might be a good time to review what’s new in El Capitan. I am going to do this by highlighting a few of the features that I already use and have become such a part of my Mac experience that they don’t seem new anymore.

Shut up!

What is more annoying than following a link to a web site and suddenly being bombarded with some automatically started video blasting audio? If you are like me, you may have several tabs open in Safari and finding that annoying one has been a pain. Well with El Capitan it is simple. When one of those tabs has audio, the tab shows the audio button and you can click on it to mute the audio. The address bar also has an audio icon where you can mute all or select which audio stream to mute or listen to.

Notable

The Notes app is so improved that I am actually using it more extensively now. Most importantly, a note I create on my iPhone is available on my Mac or iPad. Not only that but the things I can put into my notes are actually useful. I can add a photo, a URL, a map location or even a video to a note and it is on all my devices. Checklists, websites, ideas for the next Kibbles & Bytes and directions can all be saved. As I am planning my trip out west and find interesting places to go or places to spend the night, I can add them to my “Sturgis” note and easily use Maps to guide me to them. I think you are going to love the new Notes app.

Spotlight

Spotlight is just better. Who needs Google when you have Spotlight? Whether you are searching for a file on your drive, baseball statistics, transit information, weather, stocks or just some obscure trivia to settle a bet Spotlight is there for you and now you can ask that question in you own words. Like, “find that Note I wrote about Sturgis” and boom, there it is. Here’s a list of all the places you can search with Spotlight in El Capitan. You can turn these on and off as needed:

Applications
Bing Web Searches
Bookmarks and History
Calculator
Contacts
Conversion
Definition
Developer
Documents
Events & Reminders
Folders
Fonts
Images
Mail & Messages
Movies
Music
Other
PDF Documents
Presentations
Spotlight Suggestions
Spreadsheets
System Preferences

Shake that Thing

I use a dual monitor set up. I have an Apple 27-inch display and a stand for my MacBook Air that makes for one large extended desktop. Sometimes, I lose my cursor and that sometimes leads to inadvertent clicks. I never thought I would say that I would find this trick useful but with El Capitan if you jiggle your mouse or trackpad your cursor grows bigger and becomes apparent so you can get back on track.

I’ll cover more of the new features in Kibbles & Bytes as we head towards the official release of El Capitan.

Apple has released the iPad Pro and some of the first reviews are in. I haven’t had a chance to play with one yet but I think this new iPad pushes Apple into two markets for iPad that it has only brushed before. One is the enterprise market and the other is the creative market. My good friend Dave Sellers, is an architect and I often see him with yellow tracing paper sketching up new designs for whatever harebrained scheme he might be working on. I told him about the new iPad Pro and the Pencil and I know I will want to get that into his hands as soon as possible to see if that old guy can do some magic on this new technology. The business or enterprise market for iPad is blossoming with Apple’s partnership with IBM and Cisco and the iPad Pro is going to push that window even further.

When Apple announced the iPad Pro with its A9X chip, they stated that it would be faster than 80 percent of the PCs that shipped this year. It appears to be true and the $799 base model iPad Pro is faster and more powerful than the $899 Microsoft Surface Pro 4. But speed is not the whole picture. With 5.6 million pixels the 12.9 inch Retina display is the highest resolution of any iOS device. It is a fully laminated display with anti-reflective coating and technologies like Photo Alignment and Oxide TFT to deliver rich contrast, stunning color and deeper blacks.

One would expect the first generation of the iPad Pro to be a bit clunky in size but at just 6.9mm thick and about a pound and a half, it is a very thin and lightweight powerhouse. The iPad Pro features four speakers which will give you amazing sound and more than three times the sound output of any iPad. The speakers are orientation savvy so whether you are in landscape or portrait mode the low frequencies play on all four speakers and the higher frequencies play for the top.

iOS 9 was built for the iPad Pro and this new iPad takes advantage of the multitasking, split view, picture-in-a-picture, Siri and Spotlight search capabilities of iOS9. Touch ID makes your new iPad Pro more secure and easy to use and with iSight and FaceTime cameras those of you that like to take photos with a giant iPad can do so.

The Smart Keyboard is probably the feature that might make this iPad replace a Mac for some. It is a full size keyboard that is water and stain resistant and very thin. It does not require Bluetooth and connects via the iPad Pro’s Smart Connector. This provides a connection for both power and data. It is not just some third-party keyboard paired to the iPad Pro; this Apple-designed keyboard is fully integrated into the iPad Pro and iOS9. Steve Jobs once said that he saw no need for a stylus because we all have ten pointing devices, called fingers. I don’t think he rolled over in his grave when Apple introduced the Pencil because it is not designed to be a pointing device but rather as a drawing device. It is weighted but won’t roll off the desk and the Pencil is sensitive to both tilt and pressure allowing your creative impulses to flow from the thinnest line to deep shading. I am no artist but I can’t wait to see some of the digital art produced with the combination of the iPad Pro and the new Pencil.

I hope to give you some first-hand feedback soon on this new member of the iPad family!

Real time strategy games are known for their complex systems, and addictive gameplay. In some cases, this is mostly why some people stay…

Downloading the latest Mac OS this next week is the easy part. Unless you start the download when another 2 million people are doing the same thing, Apple makes the upgrade process very painless. And of course, it is free, too! There are some steps you should consider as you prepare for El Capitan to make it a smooth process.

BACK UP!
Yes, I am shouting! Back up your data all the time but especially whenever you are updating your operating system. We have talked endlessly about how fabulous Time Machine is as a tool to back up your data. DO IT NOW. Upgrading to El Capitan is a great excuse to make a fresh back up of your priceless data.

Do you know who you are?

Do you know your Apple ID and the password? You are going to need that to upgrade. It will be asked for when you start the download and you will also be asked for it during the El Capitan and iCould setup. If you wrote it down on that little scrap of paper that is somewhere in your wallet, now would be a good time to find it.

How Old is Your Mac?

Sorry, that old SE 30 will not support El Capitan so you should make sure that you know if your Mac will support the new operating system. Here’s a list of the supported machines:

iMac (mid-2007 or newer)
MacBook (late 2008 Aluminum, or early 2009 or newer)
MacBook Air (late 2008 or newer)
MacBook Pro (mid- to late 2007 or newer)
Mac Mini (early 2009 or newer)
Mac Pro (early 2008 or newer)

If you do not know your model you can go under the Apple menu and select About This Mac and if you are running Yosemite you will see something like this screen shot that will show you the vintage of your Mac.

RAM and Storage

The two mostly commonly confused terms in technology. Well, you need enough of both memory and storage. In the case of memory, Apple recommends a minimum of 2GB, however; Small Dog Electronics would set that minimum at 4GB. I think you will find your experience with El Capitan to suffer with only 2GB. If your Mac’s memory can be upgraded, now might be a good time!

Storage is also important. We always recommend that you have at least 10-15% of your hard drive or SSD drive free just for cases like this. The installation of a new operating system creates a lot of temporary files that need space to live before they are ultimately deleted by the installation. Apple says that El Capitan takes about 6GB and that you should have 8GB free. That is cutting it pretty close. I would recommend that you have a minimum of 10GB free and pay close attention to the 10-15% free space. Now would be an excellent time to purge some files and old stuff that you really don’t need – like that downloaded copy of the Sopranos last season.

Are you up-to-date?

Is there a number in the icon of the App store? Have you done all your updates for the operating system and apps? Developers have been optimizing their Apps for El Capitan for several months so doing all those updates before you upgrade to El Capitan may make things go easier for you, too!

With all the headlines these days about data breaches, hackers, and spyware it is understandable that the safety of your information in cyberspace is on everyone’s mind these days. When we hear about companies such as TJ Maxx, Target and, most recently, TurboTax (hmm…companies that begin with the letter “t”…) getting hacked and potentially losing critical customer information, it can make consumers hesitant to use a lot of this brilliant new technology.

Here are a few ways Apple ensures the safety of your information and a few tips on how to protect your information:

Passwords, passwords, passwords…they can be the bane of our existence and are so hard to remember: “What password did I use for this site?? Is it case sensitive?? Did I use letters or numbers?? Holy cow that’s a lot to remember. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!?!? That’s the same combination I have on my luggage!!!”

The strength of your password goes a long way towards protecting your information. As you might imagine, a password like “password1234” is not a very strong password. As time goes by, the requirements for passwords have become stricter and stricter as criminals devise more and more ingenious ways to steal your information. I personally recommend using a name and a year to begin with. This ensures its an easy password to remember, but not easy for someone to guess. Make certain it’s at least 8 characters. Add a capital letter and a special character to your password to make it even stronger! For example “Jenny5309!” is an example of a strong password. It has more than 8 characters, a combination of letters and numbers, a capital letter and a special character. It would be difficult for anyone to guess (unless they happen to have a family member named Jenny who was born in September of 1953.) It’s easy for you to remember because you do!

Oh and FYI, nobody at Apple, or Small Dog Electronics has access to your passwords. If anyone ever calls or emails and asks you to give them your passwords, please feel free to refuse that information to ANYONE. That goes for any other password you use, whether it be for your email or your bank account.

Ahh, the iCloud, is it up in the sky? Where exactly IS this cloud and will it follow me around dropping rain on me wherever I go??

Here’s a great source of information on iCloud.

Our main concern here is the security of your information. The iCloud uses a minimum of 128-bit encryption and as much as 256-bit to safeguard your information. What is encryption you ask? In the simplest of terms, your computer uses your password like a key to unlock your information. In the case of 128-bit encryption, your computer has THE single key to unlock ONE lock out of a possibility of 6 trillion locks. That’s trillion with a T! As you can imagine, that is a great number of locks to try to pick. Major financial institutions, the government and the military also use between 128 and 256-bit encryption.

One of the major benefits of owning an Apple computer rather than a PC has always been they are less susceptible to viruses, trojans, malware, and other nasty bugs out there. This is still true, however some still slip through. These programs can wreak havoc on your system and cause general headaches all around.

“Lets be careful out there.” This applies to the internet as well as the mean streets. Use strong privacy settings on social media sites. Use caution when entering financial information online. Look for a tiny picture of a padlock in the bottom right hand corner of the page you are on. Another way to tell if a site is secure is the web address. Sites with a web address that begins with https let you know the site is secure. Make sure your operating system stays up to date and your firewall is active.

If you start to get pop ups, advertisements, and other annoyances don’t fret; there is an easy fix. Follow these steps to rid your computer of theses hooligans by following these steps to the letter.

Woof, arf, woof! (Don’t forget to have fun!)

I love Lion. So far it is my favorite iteration of Mac OS X, but it does have some annoying features. In my internet wanderings yesterday I came across an article with instructions on how to get rid of the rubber-band effect which occurs when you scroll to the very bottom or top of a page. This effect will make the page scroll a little bit past the end point then bounce back. It’s a nice little bit of eye-candy, but not really necessary.

You can easily turn this effect off by entering a simple Terminal command (which I’ll list below) and then press “enter”. As always, do this at your own risk. Mucking about in Terminal can cause irreparable harm to your OS if you do something you shouldn’t. Make sure you have a good backup before you make any changes like this to your system. Here’s the text you need to enter:

defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -int 0

You can revert to the original setting by entering the following and then press enter:

defaults delete -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding

You’ll need to relaunch any applications that display the rubber-banding in order for this to take effect. Unfortunately, it will not affect Safari. Should I find a way to get rid of the rubber-band in Safari, I’ll update this article.

You can read the original article here.