After a Hiatus, I'm back

I haven’t blogged as often as I should. I’ll try to get back on my pace now.

The big news is iOS 7 and the new iPhones. As I blog about the Mac, I can give only a superficial review of iOS 7. As for the new iPhones, look elsewhere or even better, post your opinion and unboxing shots in the comments.

iOS 7 does push the immediate visual aspect to a new level. On my iPad 3, iOS 7 running the MacLife app looks like a slick paper magazine. I speak from experience, as I have subscribed to their paper edition as well as their iOS one, and both look as good as the other.

As for buying Microsoft’s hyper-promoted (it’s everywhere that the old Romney ’12 ads were) Surface RT tablet, they both look pretty. It’s a draw with respect to layout and typography. Just consider what applications you want to run on your tablet. The iPad and its even cuter sibling, the iPad mini, run many more apps than the Surface RT does at present.

One big change for me came with the disappearance of the Application Switcher tray. In iOS 6, you double-tapped on the Home button to raise up the screen and reveal a row of buttons for applications:

 

iOS 6 Home Screen	iOS Application Switcher revealed by double-tapping Home Button	Prepare Application for Quitting by Tapping and Holding iCon	Tap and Hold Application iCon to shut off App

(No, I don’t have an iPhone. I borrowed these shots from someone else’s iPhone 4. Thank you very much)

 

Well, here it is in iOS 7. I double-tapped on the Home Button and this is what I got:

 

No, the Home Screen doesn’t slide up. Instead, I got my running apps displayed in a line when I double tapped the Home Button.

To shut off an app, Just Flick Up on an app in the the row and it shuts off. No messing with red dots this time, just a simple upward finger flick. I flicked the Music app and the Steve Miller Band packed up to go home.

Where the Heck is the Sharing icon?

In iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion, the sharing icon for sharing content looked like this: You clicked on it to share content via Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook, e-Mail, and sometimes Print.

Well, it doesn’t look like that in iOS 7. It looks like this:

I didn’t find it at the top right-hand corner of the screen. I found it at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.

 

I have played with iTunes Radio. My first comment is that I’m glad that Apple didn’t wipe out the list of Internet Radio Stations (formerly known as Radio, now known as Internet) on iTunes. I like Abacus Radio’s Vintage Jazz, which is under the Classical section. Go figure.

Being a 58 year old man, I don’t appreciate Miley Cyrus. I’m more of a Renee Fleming & Susan Graham enthusiast. I’ll have to see about setting a Susan Graham station in iTunes radio.

 

Tom Briant

Editor, MacValley Blog

 

Senior Correspondent Arnold Woodworth with this week's links

 

Walt Mossberg Reviews the iPhone 5S and iOS 7

Great review.

http://live.wsj.com/video/mossberg-reviews-the-iphone-5s-and-ios-7/7D09D867-C570-497B-90B5-81B1D301D3B5.html#!7D09D867-C570-497B-90B5-81B1D301D3B5

 

 

Did Apple just kill the John Hancock?

The thumb-print sensor on Apple’s new iPhone 5S will spare users having to enter a password to unlock their devices.  It also paves the way for the eventual death of all passwords, handwritten signatures, and traditional methods of payment and identification.

scammers can scan or make a mold of a fingerprint and use that to trick the software.  Your fingers go everywhere, so your fingerprints are everywhere, such as on the shopping cart at the grocery store

Bottom line: Fingerprint technology is no magic bullet, and instead will likely be used in conjunction with other biometric capabilities — like facial scans and voice recognition — as well as behavioral and location indicators to authenticate users in the future.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-passwords-soon-be-all-thumbs-2013-09-11

 

 

 

You Could Go To Jail For Hacking Your iPhone And Obama Wants To Change That

Earlier this year it became illegal to unlock your smartphone or tablet so that you could use it with any carrier you wanted to.

Unlocking a mobile device requires hacking into it to alter the software.

Anyone unlocking a new cell phone or providing unlocking services after Jan. 26 risks up to five years of jail time for each offense.

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-pushes-to-change-unlocking-law-2013-9

 

 

 

This Anti-Stalker Feature Could Easily Be The Best Part Of iPhone's iOS 7 Update

http://www.businessinsider.com/call-blocker-feature-in-iphones-ios-7-update-2013-9

The iPhone 5S Is By Far The Fastest Smartphone In The World, Smoking Samsung's S4

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-iphone-5s-is-the-fastest-smartphone-2013-9

 

 

 

Apple Delivered A Game-Changing Innovation With The iPhone 5S And The Reviewers Are Freaking Out Over It

The fingerprint scanner Apple built into the iPhone 5S is a smash hit with reviewers.

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-fingerprint-scanner-reviewed-2013-9

 

 

 

Read this before trashing companies online

Some businesses sue over negative reviews. How to protect yourself

Consumers who post online reviews to warn others of unpleasant experiences can themselves become the target of a lawsuit—if they aren’t careful.

The website anti-slapp.org offers a list of state anti-SLAPP laws.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/when-businesses-bite-back-2013-09-17

 

 

 

4 Reasons to Stop Freaking Out About the NSA

http://www.cracked.com/video_18639_4-reasons-to-stop-freaking-out-about-nsa.html

 

 

 

The Man In Charge Of The NSA Modeled His Office After The Bridge Of The Starship Enterprise

A lavish Star Trek room he had built as part of his 'Information Dominance Center' is endlessly revealing

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-15/man-charge-nsa-modeled-his-office-bridge-starship-enterprise

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/15/nsa-mind-keith-alexander-star-trek

 

 

 

The NSA's next move: silencing university professors?

If America's  system of research universities becomes captive to government and handmaiden to the surveillance state, that would be an economic and cultural crime of monstrous proportions. What happened to Matthew Green's blog post yesterday is no small matter.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/10/nsa-matthew-green-takedown-blog-post-johns-hopkins

 

 

 

Johns Hopkins dean apologises for ordering NSA-related blog removed

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/10/johns-hopkins-dean-apologises-for-blog

 

 

 

Hackers For Government Hire -A Growing And Deeply Disturbing Industry

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-15/guest-post-hackers-government-hire-growing-and-deeply-disturbing-industry

 

 

 

The SWIFT Takeover: With "Follow The Money", NSA Knows All About Your Spending Habits

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-15/swift-takeover-follow-money-nsa-knows-all-about-your-spending-habits

 

 

 

Senate Revises Media Shield Law for the Better, But It’s Still Imperfect

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/09/senate-revises-media-shield-law-better-its-still-imperfect

Senior Correspondent Arnold Woodworth with more articles on the NSA and other topics

How A Former CIA Official Turned The NYPD Into A Spying Powerhouse
In 1985 the city settled the Handschu case and agreed to court-established rules about what intelligence the NYPD could collect on political activity. Under the rules, the department could investigate constitutionally protected activities only when it had specific information that a crime was being committed or was imminent.
Terrorism was not envisioned when the Handschu guidelines were agreed upon,” David Cohen wrote, “and their continuation dangerously limits the ability of the NYPD to protect the people it is sworn to serve.”
“Terrorist success is due in no small measure to the freedom with which terrorists enter this country, insinuate themselves as apparent participants in American society, and engage in secret operations,” he wrote, adding, “The freedom of our society has also made it possible for terrorist organizations to maintain US based activities.”
The police had to be able to investigate these groups, even when there was no evidence that a crime was in the works.
“In the case of terrorism,” Cohen wrote, “to wait for an indication of crime before investigating is to wait far too long.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/enemies-within-by-matt-apuzzo-and-adam-goldman-2013-9



Microsoft is a case study in dominance leading to incompetence and catastrophe.
Doing more of what succeeded spectacularly in the past works until it doesn't, at which point doggedly pressing on with the old formula of success leads to catastrophic failures.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-07/guest-post-when-dominance-leads-incompetence-and-catastrophe



Google Claims to Redouble Effort to Thwart NSA Surveillance
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/09/google-nsa-surveillance-strong-encryption



Legislation Seeks to Bar N.S.A. Tactic in Encryption
“We pay them to spy,” Senator Holt said. “But if in the process they degrade the security of the encryption we all use, it’s a net national disservice.”
“What buyer is going to purchase a product that has been deliberately made less secure?” asked congressman Holt. “Even if N.S.A. does it with the purest motive, it can ruin the reputations of billion-dollar companies.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/07/us/politics/legislation-seeks-to-bar-nsa-tactic-in-encryption.html?ref=politics&_r=0



NSA surveillance: A guide to staying secure
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-how-to-remain-secure-surveillance



John Sculley Just Gave His Most Detailed Account Ever Of How Steve Jobs Got Fired From Apple
http://www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2013/09/09/john-sculley-just-gave-his-most-detailed-account-ever-of-how-steve-jobs-got-fired-from-apple/



Top 3 Online Universities for a Ph.D. degree.
1. Walden University
2. Grand Canyon University
3. Capella University
http://education-portal.com/articles/Top_Online_Schools_for_a_PhD.html



Meet the Family That Shuns Technologies Introduced After 1986
The McMillans had a vague sense that gadgets were cheating their children of their childhoods.
he was hanging out outside the house, and he asked his 5-year-old son Trey to join him.  Trey refused.  He was too busy with his iPad.
"That's when it hit me," Blair said, "because I'm like, wow, when I was a kid, I lived outside."
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/meet-the-family-that-shuns-technologies-introduced-after-1986/279496/



How Poverty Taxes the Brain
Human mental bandwidth is finite.
We only have so much cognitive capacity to spread around. It's a scarce resource.
This understanding of the brain's bandwidth could fundamentally change the way we think about poverty.
poverty imposes such a massive cognitive load on the poor that they have little bandwidth left over to do many of the things that might lift them out of poverty - like go to night school, or search for a new job, or even remember to pay bills on time.
going forward, this also means that anti-poverty programs could have a huge benefit that we've never recognized before: Help people become more financially stable, and you also free up their cognitive resources to succeed in all kinds of other ways as well.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/08/how-poverty-taxes-brain/6716/
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2013/sep/05/scarcity-explains-it-all/



The Largest Homeless Camp In Mainland USA Is Right In The Heart Of Silicon Valley
Surprisingly close to Apple headquarters
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-jungle-largest-homeless-camp-in-us-2013-8



Yahoo files lawsuit against NSA over user data requests
Yahoo on Monday joined other US technology giants in launching legal action against the federal government over the NSA surveillancerevealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Yahoo says 'withholding information breeds mistrust' and asks to be allowed to publish its number of received data requests
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/yahoo-lawsuit-nsa-surveillance-requests



On the NSA
Let me tell you the story of my tiny brush with the biggest crypto story of the year.
A few weeks ago I received a call from a reporter at ProPublica.
one of my biggest concerns was to avoid ........ sounding too much like an NSA conspiracy nut
I was totally unprepared for bombshell revelations describing the NSA's efforts to defeat encryption. Not only does the worst possible hypothetical I discussed appear to be true, but it's true on a scale I couldn't even imagine.  I'm no longer the crank.  I wasn't even close to cranky enough.
http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/09/on-nsa.html



NSA slides reveal: iPhone users are all ZOMBIES
Spooks at the US National Security Agency (NSA) can't believe we're all paying for the equipment it's using to spy on us, describing Steve Jobs as Big Brother and iPhone buyers as "zombies".
That assertion comes from NSA documents
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/09/fanbois_the_nsa_thinks_youre_all_zombies/



Apple attacks two key markets: Price on the 5C and speed on 5S push the envelope
The lower priced iPhone 5c for developing economy markets
The higher prices iPhone 5s with a much faster microprocessor for the U.S.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-attacks-two-key-markets-2013-09-10



The Link That Landed a Journalist in Jail
The notion that linking to stolen material makes the linker a party to the original crime is absurd.
http://www.freepress.net/blog/2013/09/13/link-landed-journalist-jail



The NSA is reportedly not the only government agency asking tech companies for help in cracking technology to access user data. Sources say the FBI has a history of requesting digital backdoors...
Columbia University professor Steven Bellovin said that inserting backdoors for the NSA Is a disaster waiting to happen  If the FBI, or the U.S. government, obtains a backdoor into a certain technology, that backdoor can be taken advantage of by hackers or cybercriminals as well.



How We Got From 9/11 to Massive NSA Spying on Americans: A Timeline
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/nsa-timeline-surveillance



Why fingerprints make lousy authentication tokens
The biometric characteristics of your retinas, fingerprints, hand geometry, gait, and DNA are actually pretty easy to come by without your knowledge or consent.
it's nearly impossible to keep them to yourself, and once they're in the wild, they can be used against you.
http://boingboing.net/2013/09/12/why-fingerprints-make-lousy-au.html



You know that home Wi-Fi network you have? The one with the super-complicated password you came up with to keep your neighbors from jacking your connection?
Chances are, Google knows that password.
As cryptographer Matthew Green proved with a simple experiment, Apple is storing user iMessages without user password or device key protection.
http://www.dailydot.com/news/google-wifi-passwords-android-snooping/

Mac Help for Mom and a review of Macworld's latest eBook

Thanks to our friends at the Southwest Wisconsin Apple Group, I found this Web site Mac Help for Mom. A Mac maven got calls from his mom and her friends about how to use their Macs. So he put together this Web site with short videos explaining how to get more from your Mac.

I recommend it. The video quality is top-notch and the narration is clear.

Macworld’s Switch to Mac eBook-just for the iPad!

Macworld put out an eBook for your iPad that explains how to move from a Windows PC to a Macintosh. It covers topics such as translating Windows concepts into the corresponding item on the Mac and how to troubleshoot your Mac. It even goes into details about whether you should get the extended Applecare warranty and how to maintain your security.

The material is very good and the embedded videos explain concepts that need more detail beyond text and still pictures. I find it interesting that Macworld didn’t try to market this as a PDF with Web links back to the videos that a wide variety of computers could use. No, they marketed this just for the iPad user with a Windows PC who has considered switching to the Mac.

Interesting to note that Microsoft has splashed ads for the Surface tablets everywhere. If it can persuade one wavering Windows user to stay with the Evil Empire…

 

 

(Oh, I kid the Redmond Beast with love, with love, as Bill Maher would say)

Tom Briant

Editor, MacValley Blog

How to import images directly from QuickLook into iPhoto

I’m not a photographer, but I do use iPhoto on my Mac Mini to warehouse the images I gather from the ‘Net.

With OS X 10.8.4, the Share button does not give you a choice to import into iPhoto, as it used to. Instead, you have to open the image in Preview and then import it into iPhoto.

I’m fat, lazy, and male. I wanted to cut out a step. And I found out how.

Here is a photo of an adorable puppy. Above its head you see the “Open with Preview” button, the Share button, and the full-screen double-headed arrow.

Now the Share button (outlined in red above) gives us these sharing choices:

All of the above are good choices, but they won’t get the photo into iPhoto! What’s the secret?

The secret is to press the double-headed Full Screen arrow in the upper right-hand corner:

Here is our adorable puppy in full-screen mode. Note the bar with 3 choices below the pup’s nose? At the left-hand side, you see the iPhoto choice. Just click on it and your image goes into iPhoto directly. You’ve saved time and energy.

 

 

 

Tom Briant

Editor, Macvalley Blog

Senior Correspondent Arnold Woodworth with more Web articles for you

More on the Blackberry Z10

I know, I know, many think the company is doomed.  Well, maybe they are and maybe they're not (I say not).

First, let me show you something that BlackBerry is now doing that nothing else on the market does:

I've gotten more and more attached to the automatic Virtual Private Network (VPN) profiles on WiFi connections.

I assure you that ........ anyone within range of your device can "see" everything you do on an open WiFi hotspot ........ but not me, and I am not at risk of forgetting to enable it since it's selected to automatically bring it up when I connect to that network.

http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=224004

 

 

 

Humor: How Glenn Greenwald Killed The Internet

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-02/monday-humor-how-glenn-greenwald-killed-internet

 

 

 

Why the NSA needs to wiretap an important middle-east religious person

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyQluTfyO7g

 

 

 

Cheaper College Degrees are Coming:  The first leak in the dike has appeared.

How Georgia Tech’s new, super-cheap online master’s degree could radically change American higher education

Georgia Institute of Technology is about to take a step that could set off a broad disruption in higher education: It’s offering a new master’s degree in computer science, delivered through a series of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, for $6,600.

Drop the price of the online degree, the logic goes, and you could have a Napster-like moment sweeping college campuses. Revenues spiral down as degree programs are forced to compete on tuition. That’s a terrifying prospect for universities, which have depended on steadily rising tuition—growing at more than twice the rate of inflation—to cover costs.

Georgia Tech’s new program, though, throws a monkey wrench into the system by reordering the competitive landscape.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/07/georgia_tech_s_computer_science_mooc_the_super_cheap_master_s_degree_that.html

 

A commentary on the above College Degree article:

Someone at Georgia Tech is thinking, and that person is Zvi Galil, the head of Georgia Tech’s school of computing.

"This is uncharted territory," he says. But, he warns, if Georgia Tech doesn’t do this someone else might come along and do it first—grabbing the notoriety, the students, and the revenue. "There is a revolution. I want to lead it, not follow it".

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/09/future-of-education-is-at-hand-online.html

 

 

 

How LinkedIn became the world's largest online professional networking site

http://nysebigstage.com/#!/articles/linkedin-ten

 

 

 

We Post Nothing About Our Daughter Online

Nothing. It’s the only way to defend her against facial recognition, Facebook profiling, and corporate data mining.

Why make hundreds of embarrassing, searchable photos freely available to your child's prospective homecoming dates? If you write about a negative parenting experience, could that affect your child's ability to get into a good college? We know that admissions counselors review Facebook profiles and a host of other websites and networks in order to make their decisions.

Posting lots of stuff about your kids on-line robs them of a digital adulthood that’s free of bias and presupposition.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/data_mine_1/2013/09/facebook_privacy_and_kids_don_t_post_photos_of_your_kids_online.html

 

 

 

Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A.’s

AT&T employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/us/drug-agents-use-vast-phone-trove-eclipsing-nsas.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&

 

 

 

Commentary on above DEA article:

So why would AT&T keep that data?  They wouldn't.  So the Government pays them to do so.

Which means the government has effectively seized the records.

All of them.

Without a warrant.

http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=224043

 

 

The NSA Has A Devastating Backdoor Around Lots Of Web Encryption

the world's largest spy agency is paying companies, coercing companies, stealing from companies, and/or altering the software of companies to get the access to Internet data.

the NSA is doing it primarily by cheating, not by mathematics.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-scariest-part-about-the-nsa-access-2013-9

 

 

 

how US and UK spy agencies defeat internet privacy and security

NSA and GCHQ unlock encryption used to protect emails, banking and medical records

$250m-a-year US program works covertly with tech companies to insert weaknesses into products

NSA powerpoint slide says "Vast amounts of encrypted internet data which up to now have been discarded are now exploitable".

The agencies have not yet cracked all encryption technologies.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-security

 

 

 

Patriot Act Author Says NSA Is Abusing Spy Law

A large, intrusive government - however benevolent it claims to be - is not immune from the simple truth that centralized power threatens liberty.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/09/nsa-abusing-patriot-act/

Editor admits he made a mistake-Fast Commander Will display network volumes

Good morning on this toasty day in the Western San Fernando Valley of California.

You may recall one of my criticisms of Fast Commander 1.1 was that it would not show networked volumes. I was wrong. It Will Display Networked Drives.

To make sure they do display, hit Control + F in Fast Commander to bring up Finder. Make sure the desired drive is visible in the Finder, then it will be visible in Fast Commander

This is the C:\ drive on my Windows XP machine.

You view your connected drives through the drop-down menu at the top right-hand corner of each pane.

 

This displays my Windows XP volume and a NAS box on the floor. (/Users). You should also note the bar display showing Tom_XP_Computer’s use of its 500 Gb drive displaying the free space.

Mr. Zagawa and I are corresponding. And yes, I am supporting a developer. I am supporting a developer who wants to help Windows users switch to the Mac, but feel reluctant to jump into something unfamiliar. Hence, Fast Commander.

So, welcome Windows users! Feel free to ask questions. I may know more about the Mac than you do,, but you know how to change your own motor oil and how to prepare a delicious dinner. Me. I pay for someone to change my oil and I’m lost without my microwave. So that keeps my arrogance in check.

Tom Briant

Editor, MacValley Blog