Monthly Archives: January 2009

Protecting yourself and your iPhone’s data

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The iPhone is a fantastic personal assistant. It gives you access to incredible amounts of your data at your finger-tips. You have all of your contacts in it, your schedule is available with a single tap of Calendar, Photos has pictures of your friends and family, Mail has all of your latest correspondence, and Safari is probably logged into your Amazon.com account. What would happen if you lost it?

Frankly, a lot could happen if you lost it. So, let’s look at the features the iPhone provides you to prevent any of your data getting into the wrong hands. You can set the iPhone to auto-lock in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes or never. This basically turns the iPhone’s screen off and prevents you from accidentally making calls or doing anything else. I’ve got mine set to 2 minutes. This gives me plenty of time between actions (like reading a web page before scrolling) and is short enough to save some battery life due to the screen being off. Anyone can still pick up your phone and use it, though.

Settings for Auto-Lock and Passcode Lock are in the General settings

Another thing that will help protect you is to turn on the passcode lock. After turning this on you will have to enter a four digit code in order to be able to use the iPhone for anything other than answering calls, making emergency calls, or operating the iPod from the lock screen. There is a range of times you can set to require the passcode to unlock your phone from immediately up to four hours. I’ve got mine set to one hour so that I am not constantly entering the passcode to unlock my phone. After being locked for over an hour, I’ll have to enter the passcode to use it again. I feel this is an acceptable bargain between security and convenience for me, but you may wish to use a shorter period of time. If someone else were to pick up my phone within that hour and try to change this setting, they wouldn’t be able to do so unless they knew my passcode.

Passcode Lock settings including the Erase Data feature

An additional layer of security that I recommend everyone take is to also turn on the Erase Data feature within the Passcode Lock settings. Since someone could luck-out in trying to figure out your passcode by entering a variety of different four digit codes, this feature gives them (or you) 10 tries before it erases all of your data on it as a security precaution. Think of this as the iPhone’s equivalent to the ATM taking your card if you enter the wrong passcode too many times.

An additional setting is the ability to turn off SMS previews if you don’t want anyone to see any of the text messages you’ve received without first unlocking your phone.

Why that application is still running

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One of the things that may be confounding you in your first days of being a Mac user is how to quit your applications. With Windows, if you can’t see any application windows it almost always means you’ve quit the application. There are some newer exceptions to this behavior like instant messenging applications that still run in the system tray.

On the Mac, most applications continue to run until you explicitly quit them. You can quit the application by selecting Quit from the application’s menu in the menu bar (to the right of  the Apple Menu) or by holding the Command key while pressing the Q key while the application is the front-most one. You can tell which application is front-most by looking for its name in bold in the menu bar on the top left of your screen.

There are some Mac applications that deviate from this, like iPhoto, but they are almost always single-window applications. The applications that do deviate from this will quit when you close their last or only window.

Below is a quote from Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines that developers use to help design their applications to be consistent with other applications developed by Apple or other third-party developers.

In most cases, applications that are not document-based should quit when the main window is closed. For Example, System Preferences quits if the user closes the window. If an application continues to perform some function when the main window is closed, however, it may be appropriate to leave it running when the main window is closed. For example, iTunes continues to play when the user closes the main window.

The New 17" MacBook Pro

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Today Apple announced what they claim to be the world’s thinnest and lightest 17-inch notebook computer.

This computer uses the same unibody aluminum enclosure that Apple touted with their new MacBooks and MacBook Pros last autumn. The key differences with this one are, of course, the massive 17″ 1920 by 1200 screen and a non-user-serviceable battery. That’s right, you can’t remove this battery but as a result Apple took advantage of their reduced design constraints to deliver up to 8 hours of battery life on a charge.

Other differences over the existing 15″ MacBook Pro are the extra USB 2.0 port included on the new 17″ notebook, availability of a 256GB solid-state drive, a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor standard (2.93 Ghz optional), and an optional anti-glare display for an extra $50.

Apple Numbers ’09

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Apple today released an improved version of Numbers along with the rest of the iWork ’09 office suite.

They’ve taken this opportunity to really enhance their support for calculations in the spreadsheet. Numbers ’09 now includes over 250 functions each with built-in help and support for visual placeholders for each variable of the formula – instead of the old A1:D12 format you may be used to from Excel. To assist with this, Numbers also has a Formula List view for all of the calculations in your spreadsheet. And you can search this list by formula, function, or cell reference.

Charts are another area that Apple focused on improving this year. They’ve put considerable work into improving the different ways you might want to chart your data. In addition, they’ve also added the ability to link your charts from Numbers to either Pages or Keynote. And, you can change the chart styles, textures, colors, and fonts in your Pages document or Keynote presentation and they’ll stay linked to the original data in Numbers.

You can try out Numbers by downloading the free iWork ’09 trial.

Apple Pages ’09

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Apple updated Pages during Macworld 2009 as part of an update to their iWork suite that also included updates to Keynote and Numbers.

The key new feature in Pages is the ability to write in a full screen mode that gets rid of all of the distractions of other windows. Even menu bars and tool bars are hidden until you need them. And full screen mode will also let you work with two pages side-by-side.

Also added is an outlining mode that allows you to drag & drop to rearrange your thoughts. Images and movies will appear in the outline either as thumbnails or actual size.

The ability to do mail merging with Numbers and Address Book was added. Also new is support for EndNote X2 and MathType for people with serious words that need processing.

There is a free 30-day trial of the iWork ’09 office suite.

Upgrade your library to iTunes Plus

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Now that Apple has significantly increased the amount of music available in iTunes Plus, you should consider upgrading any music you’ve previously purchased to iTunes Plus.

First, a reminder of just what is iTunes Plus. The original versions of songs and videos on the iTunes Store were all hindered by copy protection (DRM). The songs and the audio portions of videos were all encoded in 128 kbps AAC. AAC is a newer and better sounding audio encoding standard that was developed by some of the same people that developed the older MP3 coding standard. iTunes Plus changes both of those aspects for the better.

The FairPlay DRM that Apple uses is not a part of an iTunes Plus file. As a result, there are no technical barriers to run into if you want to listen to your music in an “unsanctioned” way . So, if you have a car stereo that can play AAC files you’ll be able to do that with songs you bought from the iTunes Store in addition to songs you imported from your own CD collection. You can also listen to iTunes Plus songs on any cell phone that can play AAC such as the Nokia N85. All of the major game consoles (Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, and Sony PlayStation 3) will play iTunes Plus songs but will not play any iTunes Store songs that are protected with FairPlay. Finally, most non-iPod music players also support AAC as well and will play iTunes Plus music. There are probably other uses you might run into where DRM will stop you – but with iTunes Plus there are no worries!

The second enhancement that iTunes Plus brings is higher fidelity. Each song (and audio on videos) is encoded as 256 kbps AAC. That means twice as much data is used every second to represent the sound and that you’ll hear more detail of the original recording.

What To Do

With that out of the way, it gets easy. Simply launch iTunes and select the iTunes Store from the list on the left. You’ll have an option to upgrade your library to iTunes Plus on the top right of the screen in the Quick Links section. Unfortunately, it is all or nothing. So, take a look at the total fee that Apple calculates and feel free to preview any of the songs that iTunes found to upgrade before making your decision.

Also, don’t forget to check back in the coming weeks as more and more songs are available in iTunes Plus. On the day of this announcement there were 8 million iTunes Plus songs available. But, Apple expects to have all of its songs, an additional 2 million worth, available as iTunes Plus by the end of March.

Update: You can now select individual songs and music videos that you want to upgrade. Previously you had to upgrade all of the items they have available in iTunes Plus.

Updates to the iTunes Store

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Apple has finally relented to the demands of the music industry to offer variable pricing on songs available through the iTunes Store. Apple has added two new pricing tiers at $0.69 and $1.29 in addition to the old and still current $0.99 price level. It remains to be seen whether the variable pricing will be a benefit to the customer or not. That all depends on how the record labels decide to price their songs when this change comes in April.

Apparently, as a part of this bargain, Apple was able to convince three of the four major labels (Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group) to join EMI and indie labels in offering their music without copy protection (DRM) and with higher sound quality – otherwise known as iTunes Plus. Starting today, 8 million songs will be available in the iTunes Plus format. By the end of this quarter, Apple expects to have all 10 million songs available in iTunes Plus. Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Music finally bears all of its fruit.

Another benefit for the customer that Apple was able to negotiate is that you can now buy music on the iPhone over cellular networks. You used to have to find a Wi-Fi network to connect to if you felt the need to buy songs from your iPhone, but not now!

Mac Box Set

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The Mac Box Set is everything you need to get your current Mac up to date with all of the latest software from Apple. It includes their current operating system, Mac OS X Leopard, as well as the new 2009 versions of iLife and iWork (which require Leopard) for $169.

At this price, you’re paying full price for both iLife and iWork but are getting Leopard for $11. That is a savings of $118 if you don’t already have Leopard.

Apple Keynote ’09

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Apple improved Keynote this year with the usual supplement of new transitions that we’ve seen over the past year as Steve Jobs has been beta-testing this application while presenting at key Apple events.

Magic Move is a very slick new feature that will animate movement of anything from the current slide to the next slide. Just copy the same object to your next slide and place it in whatever new position you’d like it to be in and set Magic Move as your slide transition. Keynote does the rest and your object (or objects) will move across the screen as you switch from one slide to the next.

But, the coolest new feature is the 99¢ Keynote Remote application for the iPhone or iPod Touch. It works a lot like the iTunes Remote application that Apple released in 2008, except that it controls your presentation and lets you view your current and next slide in the palm of your hand when in landscape mode. In portrait mode, Keynote Remote lets you see your current slide and with notes. Swipes of a finger control your flow through your deck of slides.

There is a free 30-day trial of the iWork ’09 office suite that includes Keynote.

Apple GarageBand ’09

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New to GarageBand this year is the ability for the application to teach you how to play guitar or keyboard. For both instruments there are nine basic lessons.

They’ve also worked with artists like John Fogerty, Colbie Caillat, Sting, Sara McLaughlin, Norah Jones, and Ben Folds to have them teach you how to play their songs. These artist lessons are available online through GarageBand for $4.99 per lesson. Think of this new GarageBand feature as the old GarageBand meets the Wii and Rock Band.

A number of new effects have been added for guitars. New for the first time are virtual rigs that model the sound musicians have made legendary over time by combining their favorite amplifiers and effects boxes.