TidBITS Headline News Reader

Do you find yourself launching apps on your iOS device by searching for them in Spotlight because you can’t remember where their icons are on your Home screen? Read on to learn how to sniff out wayward apps scattered across your iOS device, and keep them found.

 

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A heaping helping of fixes to squash bugs and improve stability. (Free, 5.2 MB)

 

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Security is one of those topics you wish would just disappear — because no one would need to think about it. But until that happens, we’ll end up trying to explain just what’s going on and how you can protect yourself, as happens in this discussion Adam has with Tech Night Owl host Gene Steinberg.

 

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With the cessation of development and support of Perian, Mac users will eventually need to find a new way to play many otherwise unsupported video file formats. With choices including NicePlayer, UMPlayer, MPlayer, and VLC, which should you choose, when changes by Apple finally render Perian obsolete?

 

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How can changing your DNS server make your Mac — or a Mac owned by a family member — less prone to being attacked, phished, or subverted? OpenDNS blocks malicious sites, which helps both before and after malware is discovered.

 

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A new file format and few new features make this a visually attractive but less-than-essential update to the long-standing database program from Apple subsidiary FileMaker.

 

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Two security releases from Apple bring a Flashback malware removal tool and protection from exposure to vulnerabilities in older versions of Adobe Flash.

 

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We frequently harp on not only keeping data backups, but on ensuring that your backups are good. (That’s why Adam Engst has designated every Friday the 13th as International Verify Your Backups Day.) It’s inconvenient to lose some recent files or email messages, but a good backup policy is even more essential for larger projects — like an entire movie, for example. Two people involved explain how Pixar nearly lost a year’s worth of work on the movie “Toy Story 2” after someone accidentally entered rm * (the Unix command to remove everything) and the company discovered their backup had been compromised. The film’s salvation came from an unexpected source.

 

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Security update addresses vulnerabilities in various components of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. (Free, 238.73/258.11 MB)

 

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The venerable genealogy tool Reunion has received a significant overhaul with version 10, adding new interface views, additional reports and charts, and the capability to search for information about a given person on key genealogical Web sites.

 

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If you don’t have a Mac or PC that’s iCloud-compatible but want to hang onto your me.com or mac.com email address when Apple turns off MobileMe, there’s now a solution.

 

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Notable software releases this week include Security Update 2012-002 (Snow Leopard), EasyFind 4.9, BBEdit 10.1.2, CloudPull 2.0.3 and 1.5.7, Microsoft Office 2011 14.2.2 and 2008 12.3.3, PDFpen and PDFpenPro 5.8.1, and Evernote 3.1.

 

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Multi-device calendar syncing is great, except when it means every alert produces beeps and pop-ups all over your house. Apple needs a more intelligent system for alerting you to upcoming events.

 

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Adobe quickly backed away from a plan for fixing a vulnerability involving maliciously crafted TIFF files only in the just-released Adobe Photoshop CS6, leaving users of earlier versions at risk. The update for Photoshop CS5.x isn’t out yet, so be cautious of files from unknown sources.

 

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Adds option for searching only in Active Finder window plus other improvements. (Free, 2.0 MB)

 

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Extensive list of fixes for previously reported issues. ($49.99 new, free update, 7.3 MB)

 

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

With the release of Mac OS X 10.7.4, Apple closes the legacy FileVault password exposure and adds an important security feature to keep Adobe Flash users safe on Macs.

 

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Slows down requests for Google Contacts photos, which was causing some contact backups to fail. ($24.99 new, free update, 7.4/6.2 MB)

 

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

The Zoom feature that Apple has helpfully built into both iOS and Mac OS X for low-vision users can be activated inadvertently, and may even sometimes activate on its own. Either way, if part of your iPhone’s or iPad’s screen is cut off, or if objects are a bit fuzzy, that may be a hint that you are zoomed in slightly. Read on for how to resolve such issues.

 

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Important security fix patches vulnerabilities that attackers can use to overwrite your Mac’s memory. (Free updates, 110 MB/218 MB)

 

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Adds oft-requested Zoom to Width viewing option. ($59.95/$99.95 new, free update, 43.3/44 MB)

 

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Replaces thumbnail view with a notecard view and adds capability to export files placed within a note to your desktop. (Free, 21.5 MB)

 

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Apple has released iOS 5.1.1, bringing bug fixes to the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.

 

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The audio versions of articles that we record each week should have consistent loudness now, thanks to The Levelator and an internal tool called PodBOT that gives us a highly efficient workflow. The moral of the story is that tying applications together can result in something that’s far easier to use than the individual parts.

 

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Although details are still appearing, Sophos is reporting that a particular combination of circumstances can result in FileVault passwords being exposed in plain-text log files. The combination is somewhat unlikely — the Mac had to be using FileVault 1 under Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, be upgraded to 10.7 Lion, and then updated to 10.7.3, all without switching to FileVault 2. Nevertheless, if this applies to you, change that password!

 

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Notable software releases this week include Alfred 1.2, Transmit 4.1.9, SpamSieve 2.9.1, and Hazel 3.0.5.

 

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Overhauls search matching algorithm for improved results in the keyboard launcher, plus adds 1Password 1Click bookmark integration to Powerpack-enhanced version. (Free, £15 for Powerpack, 2.5 MB)

 

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

We have lots of extra bits for you to check out this week, starting with a warning for those who used FileVault in Snow Leopard and then upgraded to Lion, a heads-up about the FBI looking to increase wiretapping capabilities, news of an improvement to the iPad 2, a nicely presented business argument against DRM, a report about Oracle taking over Java updates for Mac OS X, and an amusing parody of Apple’s 1984 ad that Apple itself made for its sales force.

 

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Declan McCullagh at CNET is reporting that the FBI is looking to expand CALEA — the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act — to apply to Web sites and services like iCloud, iChat, FaceTime, Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Gmail, and Hotmail. Passed in 1994, CALEA currently requires telecommunications companies to make their systems wiretap-friendly; CALEA was extended to broadband networks in 2004. Technology companies are generally unhappy about such expansions, and Apple is lobbying on the topic now. Mandated backdoors, apart from being generally creepy even when used only with court orders, also pose serious security risks.

 

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

In April 2012, Apple started shipping a slight variant on the iPad 2 that remains for sale even as the third-generation iPad has become the mainstay of the line. This new version of the iPad 2 — labeled internally as “iPad 2,4” — uses a 32 nanometer version of Apple’s A5 chip that replaces the 45nm version in the previous iPad 2 model. The processing performance is the same, but AnandTech is reporting that the 32nm model has notably better battery life (and a lower manufacturing cost). Alas, there is no way to know if any given iPad 2 uses the new chip without running an app that reports on the internals.

 

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.