Apples Mountain Lion Makes the Mac More Like the iPad – NYTimes.com

Apples Mountain Lion Makes the Mac More Like the iPad – NYTimes.com.

Veteran Mac author David Pogue got a thorough advance peek at Apple’s latest kitty cat: the forthcoming Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)!

On losing a personal hero

It’s difficult to describe the rainbow of emotion that comes up at a time like this.

The news talking heads, the preponderance of Apple centric sites, the Internet in general is awash in send ups to Steve Jobs, who left this life yesterday.  Many are poignant, touching, thoughtful.  The aggregate information rush is — and will be for some time — overwhelming.

For me, Steve’s story — and the story of Steve’s Apple — are close to home.   I never met the man personally, but his legendary vision, and the way he passionately believed in the work that he was doing, in what Apple was doing, that is to say, a belief that one could do amazing positive things that change the world —  and be successful doing it — have been a model of how to approach work.

It was a couple of years after Steve came back to Apple, that I took the measured but daring step of quitting my full-time support job to go out on my own as a freelance Apple consultant — to embrace as my primary professional pursuit the notion of helping individuals and small businesses use this amazing technology.   I was in my home office when I digested the news about the original iMac introduction, the original iPod introduction, and other cornerstone Steve Jobs moments.  Creative Goose evolved not so much on the coat tails of Jobs, but as a water carrier on the ground for Steve’s visions of how technology can be harnessed.

I will, along with much of the tech world, miss Steve Jobs.    His legacy of a thriving Apple Inc., his example on how to lead, his validation of “the crazy ones,” his embodiment of the “think different” principle, will live on.  Through the Creative Goose consultancy, and through my own life choices in matters of work and technology, I will continue to carry Jobs’ water,  his message, his vision, as best I can.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs stepped aside as CEO of Apple Inc yesterday.  With a short and simple letter, Jobs recommended that the company execute its’ succession plan (they did have one after all, it seems) and promote Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook to be the leader; meanwhile Jobs intends to stay engaged as Chairman of the Board and Apple employee.

As a person who has been an Apple enthusiast since the 80′s, and as one who has touted the company and its’ products since before Jobs’ return to Apple in ’97, I am very appreciative of this moment, and of Jobs’ profound impact on Apple and all that surrounds his presence there.  Even as this change goes down, Apple has quite recently surpassed Exxon-Mobil as the largest (by stock value) company in the U.S. (amazingly, in open trading the day following the after-hours announcement, Apple’s stock is down only 1%, which parallels the Dow Jones average).  Apple’s Macs are gaining market share even as traditional rivals (e.g., Microsoft Windows) loses market share, quarter after quarter.  iPhones continue to shake up the Cellular telephone business, with rumors of the forthcoming “iPhone 5″ being released on 4 carriers before the end of the year.  iPads have carved out a whole new “industry segment,” and as recently as last week, none other than Hewlett-Packard threw in the towel, opting to not try to compete with the iPad juggernaut.   To say that Jobs is going out on the top of his game would be an understatement.

Even before these recent milestones of business success, Jobs has been one of my personal heroes.  Underlying the facts and figures has been a consistent philosophy that resonates with me, and around which I have built Creative Goose: technology should be friendly, useful, innovative, and low stress.   Technology should boost productivity, offer a fun and rewarding user experience, and even produce joyful emotions.  Instead of being the realm of uber-geeks and gearheads, technology should be well-thought-out, designs should be impactful and inspired, and the “toys” should — as Steve has said — fill needs users didn’t even necessarily realize they had.

Years ago, Steve Jobs made an inspired speech at a Stanford commencement.  In it, he revealed a kernel of truth that speaks to what he did, and how he lived.  He told the graduating seniors,

“You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

This resonated with me then, and I am reminded of it today.  I have, since I was a child, believed that finding work that is fulfilling and inspiring and enjoyable would mean that “going to work” would not be a chore, but a delight.  That being connected with what one does every day brings a spark, a relevance, to ones’ pursuits.   Since before I was out of school myself, I always strove to find that, and I believe I have manifested that in the work I do today — work that, not surprisingly, is deeply involved with the technology that Steve’s Apple brought to the table: bringing that to you, the individuals and small business owners who are my customers.

I swore as a youth that I would not be “one of those people” who lived solely for their 3 weeks of vacation, resigned to a dreaded work plight the other 49 weeks of the year.   I have been successful in that, and I seek to spread the joy I find in my work to the people I serve.   I tip my hat to Steve Jobs for both his example, and the amazing tools, toys and technology his Apple has brought to the table.  May we all continue to be thus inspired.

Passionate Steve Jobs

And the Lions did Roar

So, Apple’s highly anticipated Mac OS X Lion — or Mac Oh Ess Ten Point Seven for short — has finally shipped (Weds. July 20), to a mixed initial reaction among the chattering class of Mac bloggers, critics and pundits.

Here at Creative Goose, we have not jumped on it first day (we almost never do the early adopter thing).  That being said, we *do* have plans to set up a dedicated Lion laptop, and a Lion Server Mac Mini, in the near future.   The nuance here is that I will *not* be updating my “main axe,” my day-to-day computer, in this first wave of updates — and probably not for some time to come.   Before you do, loyal reader, there are some truths of which you should be aware:

- Lion does not support older programs, many of which ran fine on Leopard and Snow Leopard.   Specifically, any app written for the PowerPC chip will no longer launch: that includes such favorites as Microsoft Office 2004 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage — Office 2008 and 2011 are OK though), Quicken 2007 and earlier, and many other programs.   Also affected are some print drivers and scanner drivers.  Here at Creative Goose, I expect to get a lot of calls from people who upgraded without being cognizant of this fact, since Apple has not exactly warned folks

- Lion requires an Intel Core 2 processor or better.   This rules out early MacBooks (Pro and otherwise), iMacs, and minis.  Nor can any G3, G4, G5 or iBook run this new system.

For these reasons (and more), I plan to retain a fully functional 10.6 Snow Leopard system for some years to come.   After I’ve played around with Lion, and maybe some updates and such come out, wrinkles get smoothed out, I might migrate to the Lion Laptop as my primary, and then keep my 10.6 laptop for servicing and supporting clients who will require use of their older Macs and software for some time to come.

Another thing that is different this time out, is that Apple will not be supplying Lion on DVD discs any more.   The update is sold through Apple’s online store — and the store requires an updated install of 10.6 Snow Leopard.  At this writing, it is still somewhat fuzzy what users who are still running Leopard or earlier on an otherwise eligible machine are supposed to do, especially as Snow Leopard is no longer sold by Apple as of this launch.

Currently — as is always the case when a new system ships — I will be counseling clients to take a cautious approach to the new system.  No-one with a mission-critical need to use their Mac, should be updating that Mac to Lion first week out.  Business customers who rely on their computers should use technology that is tested and known stable in the real world.  At Creative Goose, we’ll be watching closely for the gotchas, updates, patches, workarounds and pitfalls to get mapped thoroughly before we start bringing working computers up on the new OS.  Meanwhile, if you’ve just got to play with it, do what we’ll be doing:  fire up a new computer, or a capable “old” computer, on Lion and give it test drive.   We can compare notes!

Security, Security, Security

So far, 2011 is the year that computer security — or insecurity, as the case may be — returns to the world stage.  We have high-level security hacks ala WikiLeaks, another round of China vs. Google, and just today, beleaguered Sony — who according to this article, arguably deserve it — gives up another few million customer records to the hackers.   Meanwhile, closer to home, we have a well-publicized and widespread set of Mac-specific malware threats.  Apple has unwittingly been drawn into the ol’ security cat-n’-mouse game; having responded just last week to the threat with a tepid software patch that only works with the very latest version of its’ Snow Leopard software, the hackers countered with a version that bypasses same — within 8 hours.

When you consider that the computer industry is going full-tilt for “cloud services” — and Apple is set to roll out a big update just next week to their cloud — these security issues are more than a trivial concern.   This all represents a clarion call for all of us — users and industry insiders alike — to look very carefully at how we deploy technology, rely on technology, and safeguard our technology.

Here at Creative Goose, I don’t have a silver bullet, but I can say this:

- Mac OS is still one of the most secure computing environments, recent scareware notwithstanding

- multiple, redundant, backups — with both a cloud and a local backup component, with some time-depth in each — are your best protection

- think of eMail as a “postcard,” that anyone could potentially read, as versus a security envelope.  Don’t send passwords in eMail, don’t send anything you wouldn’t want forwarded on someday.

- as always, good ol’ common sense applies: don’t put your password in unless you know why you’re doing it.  Don’t put your credit card in unless you know who and why you’re doing it, and you trust the site.   Look for the little lock icon at any website you are putting it into.   Opt to NOT store your passwords and credit cards in online “wallets.”  And so on.

While it’s not time for panic, it is time for us to be vigilant.  For the industry movers and shakers, it’s time to look at security as a serious business, not an afterthought.  For us in the Apple community, it’s well past time to stop with the smug “Macs are immune” mentality.  As is always the case, this problem carries in it an opportunity for whomever can innovate a solution that moves us all forward —  something new and different than what is being done now.   Got any ideas?

How to avoid or remove Mac Defender malware

Apple today (5/25) acknowledged the widespread “Mac Defender” malware attack, and posted instructions on how to avoid infection as well as steps to take if already infected.   In addition, Apple reminds users that official software from Apple will never be distributed in the fashion spoofed by these ne’er do wells — some of which attempt to convince users that their wares are official Apple product.

Apple Official: How to avoid or remove Mac Defender malware.

Creative Goose stands ready to assist any customer affected by these attacks as well.

Mac Malware Threat, bogus “Apple Web Security” warning. Read This!

Dear readers, please be aware that as of Monday morning 9th of May, the “MacSecurity” variant of a Malware hoax is picking up steam, with Google Images searches resulting in an attempted forced download of the bad software, which poses as a protection against bad software.   If you see a message saying you have XX number of trojans, it is a LIE.

Also, apparently even if you hit “cancel” on the bogus warning, it downloads anyway.   If it does download on your machine, immediately throw it away.  If you want to prevent it from downloading, force-quit the web browser by going under the Apple menu and choosing Force Quit, and then force Safari or Firefox to quit.

If you’ve been compromised, call me and I’ll help you out of it.   Read more on my FaceBook page here:

Creative Goose

About the Mac OS X v10.6.7 Snow Leopard Font Update

Apple finally updated 10.6.7 for that pesky font issue; if you’ve been holding off on updating to 10.6.7 over this (as I have suggested), you apparently can now proceed.   Being relatively conservative about updates myself, I think I’ll still wait a few days and see.   I’ll post more when I have direct experience with this!

Mac OS X v10.6.7 Snow Leopard Font Update.

iPad and Kids: Kindergarten and Toys-R-Us!

iPad is a hit with the kids.   Schools across the country are adding iPads to their curriculum as early as Kindergarten, where the colorful, musical device captivates young attention spans as it teaches ABCs while delighting and amusing the young pupils.   Meanwhile, with its’ plethora of available low-cost edu-tainment apps and unparalleled flexibility and dramatic appeal, iPad is the latest SKU at Toys-R-Us stores across the country.   The press is suggesting that with the Toys-R-Us debut this past weekend (4/17), Apple may be over the worst of the supply chain constraints for the popular gadget.

10.6.7 Font issue is widespread — Apple being taken to task over ignorage

People in the industry are displeased that the bugs in 10.6.7 are so widespread, and yet weeks later there seems to be no awareness — officially or casually — at Apple as to the issue, or any fix.   This issue is serving to surface a trend at Apple whereby the feedback loop on unsolved bugs has been breaking down, in this author’s opinion for some time.

Geese will continue to keep a watchful eye on this issue.