MAC and Windows Joint Meeting at 10 am Mac Users Meet at

Transcription

The Newsletter for Sonoma County’s Mac and Windows Users
March 2008 Vol.1 No 3
Mac Users Meet
at 9 a.m.
MAC and Windows Joint
Meeting at 10 a.m.
for more Info, see pg. 3
Date: Saturday, 3/8/2008
Place: Sonoma Public Library
Time: 9 am to 11:00 am 755 West Napa Street
Table of Contents
User Group Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
March Mac/Windows Joint Meeting Topic . . . . 3
My Mouse is Dying, What to Do? . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Mac 101 - The Finder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
All About Leopard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Leopard Networking and More . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Office 2008 AutoUpdate Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mac OS X and Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
More in Leopard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
What is Phishing? Pharming? . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Computer Cartoon Humor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Windows Newsletter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17
17
21
22
26
29
Sonoma Valley
Computer Group
OFFICERS FOR 2007
President
Beth Pickering
[email protected]
Secretary
Eleanor Laubly
[email protected]
Treasurer
Joan Fabian
[email protected]
Newsletter
Kathy Aanestad
[email protected]
Members-at-Large George Pick
[email protected]
Jeannette Woods
[email protected]
Elizabeth Palmer
[email protected]
Jackie Smith
[email protected]
SVCG Evangelist Veda Lewis
[email protected]
Webmaster
Kathy Aanestad
[email protected]
Board Meetings
Usually following General Meeting.
Open to all members. Call 9356690 for further information.
Memberships
S.V.C.G. Annual Membership:
$20.
S.V.C.G. Family membership: $30
(residing at same address). Membership renewals are due and payable at the beginning of
each year.
General Meetings
S.V.C.G. meets second Saturday
of each month at Sonoma Public
Library, 755 West Napa Street;
hours: 10AM to 11:30AM unless
otherwise notified. Meetings free;
guests welcome.
Donating
Used
Computer
Equipment
The URL listed is for the
free and easy. All you have to do is
answer a few, short questions in our
ongoing, online survey, which you
can access on any book page. Don't
worry.
All of your information stays with
us--we won't sell it or give it away
to anyone. After you've filled out the
Computer Recycling Center. All profile, you'll save 20% automatiof the info needed (and then cally whenever you log on to http://
some) is listed on the site.
www.newriders.com as a member.
http://www.crc.org/
It's that easy!
Thanks to Wayne Till for that Note that you may use your User
tip.
Group Coupon Code ON TOP of
your Club Member savings. Just
remember to log in first when making a purchase and then enter the
code at checkout as well! Contact
Kathy for code.
SVCG UG
Benefits &
User Group
Discounts
O’Reilly
Members receive a 20% discount on O'Reilly books and
conferences. Contact Kathy for
the code.
New Riders Books
http://www.newriders.com
BECOME A NEW RIDERS
CLUB MEMBER. You can save
up to 20% on all books every
day at newriders.com simply
by becoming a New Riders
Club Member. Membership is
About this publication
Sonoma Valley Computer Group Newsletter is published monthly by Sonoma Valley Computer Group.
Desktop publishing services donated by: Kathy
Aanestad. Call: (707) 935-6690, email aanestad@
vom.com. © 2007, SVCG. All rights reserved.
Sponsored by our local ISP, DataProfessionals, on
19480-8th St. East.
PeachPit
JOIN THE PEACHPIT CLUB
You can save 30% on all books
every day at peachpit.com simply by
becoming a Peachpit Club Member.
Membership is free and easy. All you
have to do is answer a few, short
questions in our ongoing, online survey, which you can access on any
book page. Don't worry, all of your
information is confidential and stays
with us--we won't sell it or give it
away to anyone. After you've filled
out the survey, you'll save 30% automatically whenever you log on to
http://www.peachpit.com as a member. It's that easy!
USER GROUP COUPON CODE
User group members should note
that once you've become a Peachpit
Club member, you may use your
user group coupon code ON TOP of
the permanent savings you earn as a
member of the club. Just make sure
you've logged onto the site before
Mailing Address:
Sonoma Valley Computer Group
PO Box 649
El Verano, CA 95433
Sonoma Valley Computer Group Newsletter
2
http://www.vom.com/svcg/index.html
you make a purchase to ensure this permanent discount
will be in effect, then enter coupon code (case-sensitive) at checkout! This coupon code is an exclusive
offer that may not be used in conjunction with any other coupon codes. Contact Kathy for code information.
My Mouse is Dying
Q: I have an eMac, OS 10.3.9 Power PC G4 that
has done me yeoman service. However, the mouse
connection to the keyboard seems to be causing
the cursor to freeze or disappear if it gets bumped
the wrong way. If I fiddle with it just right, I have
control of the mouse again. I am presuming that
there is no home repair that I can do to correct the
problem. If I need a new mouse would a PC mouse
work? I need to find something cheap. Living here
in central Kansas, my options are limited.
March Message
from the Prez
Greetings all- Because of elections this month we will have a combined meeting starting at 10. (There will still be a Mac
meeting at 9.) We have someone for every position
except secretary. It is an easy job--just take minutes at
the board meetings and email them to the board members. Because of our meeting change, we will only have
board meetings 3 or 4 times a year. Please contact me if
you would be able to do this.
After the election we will share information, favorite
web sites, and gadgets. I have a search tip that is easy
and time saving. Joan sent me a URL for a really neat
moving puzzle and a Dr. Seuss as a technical writer
blurb. Then there is this bit about computers Abbott and
Costello style. What do you have to share?
We also need more volunteers to help out at the Library
on Fridays from 11 to noon. Some of our regular helpers can't work right now. This isn't a PC only thing. In fact logging on has very little to do with the type of
computer being used. Most questions are about email
and "How do I find?". When people don't need help you
can just use a computer. We only need 1 person a week,
which usually means working a shift once a month. The
library supports us--this is the way we help them.
A1: Yeah, pretty much most mice that you'll find
for sale with a standard USB connection should
work just fine. Logitech or Microsoft models are
generally pretty accessible and should just plug
right in a start working. Some models include
multiple buttons with enchance functionality, and
might include special drivers to access added
functions. Such drivers might not always come
in Mac flavors, but many do. Its just a matter of installing the drivers onto your Mac, and
then accessing them via System Preferences to
configure extra buttons for specific purposes, but
otherwise just about any usb mouse will just work
with the Mac for the basic mouse functions right
out of the box.
A2: Almost any USB mouse will work with your
computer. Your keyboard has two USB ports, so
you might try it in the other port to see if there is
a difference.
A3: I think Logitech is getting better about Mac
drivers. I've been using the MX Revolution since
last summer, and the only time I had problems was
when I upgraded to Leopard (I guess Logitech
doesn't have the necessary ADC membership to
get pre-release copies of Mac OS X?). But even
then, the only problems were with the "extra" buttons; the basic functionality was flawless.
See you this Saturday!
--Beth
For what it's worth, they were also demo'ing
the MX Air on a Mac, so I know it would work. However, I think an air mouse is still a bit pricey,
and I wouldn't consider it except possibly for a
computer-controlled home theater system where
Front Row wouldn't cut it.
[see Windows newletter at end of this issue.]
REMINDER: MAC USERS, PLEASE ENTER
LIBRARY AT 9 a.m. AT THE BACK ENTRANCE.
THANK YOU.
SVCG
( Plugged into Technology
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Documents, Movies, Music, and Pictures), and the
Applications folder. This is what it looks like:
Mac 101: The Finder
[see image below]
When you first start up your Mac, you're greeted by the
Finder, which allows you to visually access practically
everything on your Mac, including applications, hard
disks, files, folders, and CDs. You can use the Finder to
organize all your files and folders as neatly or as messy
as you want, search for stuff anywhere on your Mac,
delete things you don't want, and more.
Finder Windows
To really get an idea about how all these standard
Finder window elements function, select stuff,
double-click things, push buttons, and drag things
around.
The contents of the selected folder or volume
appear in the right pane. Depending on what view
your Finder window is set to, this pane may look
a little different from ours, our window above is
shown in icons view. In icons view, you can navigate through your hard disk contents by doubleclicking the pretty folders to view the contents
inside.
To see all the goodies on your Mac, double-click the hard
disk icon. Note: An icon is a small graphical representation of an item such as a file, folder, application, CD, or
drive. This opens a Finder window, which allows you to
visually see the hierarchy of your computer's contents.
Finder windows generally include a sidebar on the left
side. Items are grouped into categories: places, devices,
shared computers, and searches — just like the Source
list in iTunes. Whatever mounted and accessible volumes you have, such as a hard disk, iDisk, network, CD,
DVD, or iPod, in the top portion. The bottom portion
contains your user account folder, aka Home folder—the
folder named after your user account name, some of the
folders found in your Home folder include (Desktop,
To go back one folder, click the Back button in the
toolbar. To close the window, click the round, red
button in the upper-left corner. If you don't want to
close the window but want it out of your way, click
the round, yellow button to minimize the window
to the Dock. If a window is chock full of stuff, you
can resize it by dragging the lower-right corner to
5
make it bigger, or click the round, green button to maximize the window's size.
Tip: Want to learn how you can customize the Finder
window for your needs? Be sure to check out "Modify
Your Windows."
If you'd like to change how folder and volume contents
appear in the right pane, click one of the view buttons
in the toolbar. For example, when we click the list view
button, our Finder window magically transforms itself
into this:
* [see image below]
In list view, the Finder window displays folder or volume contents as a list, which can be sorted by name,
If you'd rather see your stuff displayed in a more
hierarchical fashion, click the columns view button.
In columns view, the right pane splits into multiple
columns to display your computer's file and folder
organization. Instead of double-clicking folders to
see what's inside, select a folder in any column, click
on it once, and its contents will appear in another
column to its right. If you really start digging down
deep into your folder, you can drag the bottom-right
corner of the Finder window to expand it and see
how many layers you've traveled.
* [see image on pg. 7]
In column view, you get a better view of your hard
disk's folder hierarchy as you look for stuff.
date, kind, or other criteria.
Getting Around
List view enables you to see more content in the window
than icons view, and displays some extra file and folder
information, such as the last date the item was modified,
the file size, and what kind of item it is. As in icons view,
you can navigate through your stuff by simply doubleclicking folders until you find what you're looking for.
The hard disk icon represents your computer's hard
drive. As we said earlier, you can access everything
on your Mac by double-clicking this icon to open
it, and then opening any subsequent folders to find
whatever you're looking for. At the top level, you'll
find the Applications, Library, System, and Users
folders, plus a few others. Both the Library and
6
System folders contain system-level files, so don't
mess around with their contents until you fully understand what you're doing.
Finder window sidebar.
The Applications folder contains all the applications
installed on your Mac. It also includes a Utilities
folder, which contains a bunch of utilities, programs
that are designed to support different functions of your
Mac.
Sometimes it can take a little effort to navigate
through a lot of folders to find what you want, but
you can find stuff quickly using the search field
in the Finder window. This field uses the Leopard
Spotlight technology to scour any volume you
select. For more information on using Spotlight, see
the "Spotlight" lesson. Combine Cover Flow with
Spotlight and you’ve got one amazingly powerful
search tool. Use your mouse pointer and hover over
the file to shuffle through them visually.
The Users folder houses all the content for each
user on your Mac; each user gets a separate Home
folder that's named after his or her user account name.
Whatever you do, do not rename your Home folder;
doing so can make it impossible for your Mac to access
pertinent resources. The active account's Home folder,
the user who's currently logged in to the computer, displays a little house as its icon instead of a folder. Each
Home folder contains a series of subfolders—Desktop,
Documents, Library, Movies, Music, Pictures, Public,
and Sites.
Find Stuff Fast
The Finder window's search field uses powerful
Spotlight search technology to find anything anywhere.
When you put stuff on your desktop, technically it's
being stored in your user account's Desktop folder,
even though to you it appears on your desktop. When
you bring music into iTunes, your music files get
stored in the iTunes folder in your user's Music folder.
Likewise, iPhoto stores pictures in the Pictures folder
and iMovie stores movies in the Movies folder. You can
get quick access to your user account folders from any
Just start typing in the search field, and Spotlight
dynamically displays results in the Finder window
that match your criteria as you type. You can choose
where you want Spotlight to look by clicking on
an item in the header, such as Servers, Computer,
Home, and more, that appears just below the search
field in the Finder window. Spotlight will scour the
location you select and organize its search results by
7
kind.
For example, if you wanted to find all the JPEG (.jpg)
images on your Mac, type .jpgin the search field, and
you'll immediately see results pop into the window.
Click Computer in the header to find all JPEGs on
your entire hard disk. Not only will Spotlight display
thumbnails, small images, of your JPEG images, it'll
also list other things that match your criteria, such as
documents that contain the word ”.jpg” in them. You
can then access the file right from that Finder window.
Files, Folders, Action!
that it's active, and a pop-up menu full of commands
opens. To put it in use, select a file or folder and then
click the Action menu. Choose any action from the
menu by clicking it. If you don't want to choose an
Action item, click anywhere outside of the menu to
close it.
Or, say you’re flipping through files in the Finder.
But you’re looking for something specific and you
don’t have time to open lots of files to find it. Enter
Quick Look. It gives you a sneak peek of entire
files — even multiple-page documents and video
— without opening them.
While you'll generally find files and folders in any
given Finder window, the window also features an
Action menu, which lets you easily perform commands
on a selected file or folder, such as make a duplicate,
move it to the Trash, or create an archive for sending.
We used the Quick Look to instantly view a slideshow of our selected photos.
To access the Action menu, click its gear button at the
top of the window; the button turns blue to indicate
Besides double-clicking your hard disk or having the
Finder active on start up, you can make the Finder
8
Other Ways to Make the Finder Active
active by doing any of the following:
* Simply click on the desktop.
* Double-click any folder icon to open a Finder window.
* Click the Finder icon (it looks like a two-toned blue,
rectangular, smiling face) in the Dock.
* Select any application, file, or folder by clicking
once in a Finder window or on the desktop.
Apple OS X 10.5.2
(Leopard)
by Edward Mendelson
REVIEW DATE: 02.20.08
PCMag.com
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2207556,00.
asp
After three months with Apple's Mac OS X Leopard
Version 10.5, I have three main things to say about
it. First: Despite minor problems, it's by far the best
operating system ever written for the vast majority
of consumers, with dozens of new features that have
real practical value—like truly automated backups,
document and spreadsheet preview images in folders, and notes and to-do lists integrated into the mail
program. Propeller-heads with IT know-how will no
doubt hold up Linux as the better choice, and Vista
has its devotees as well (and will probably have more
9
when SP1 is widely available), but, for the average user, Leopard is the most polished and easiest
to use OS I've tested. Second: Leopard started out
with a generous share of first-version glitches, but
almost all of them have now been resolved by the
second of two automated updates, which brings
Leopard up to version 10.5.2. Finally, Leopard
is extravagantly overdressed for the jobs that it's
designed to do, and its pervasive eye-candy starts
out looking dazzling but soon becomes distracting.
Fortunately, from the beginning, the OS started out
with options that let you put it on a low-eye-sugar
diet, and the latest update has even more.
Let's take these three points in order. The first is by
far the most important one. I found Leopard to be
startlingly fast, brilliantly streamlined, and packed
with conveniences and innovations. Leopard's rich
set of built-in software runs faster than I imagined
possible. The rebuilt Finder (the OS X counterpart
of Windows Explorer) displays thumbnail or fullsize previews of most standard file types—not
only graphics images, but also videos, PDF and
Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and
more.
Furthermore, A new Quick Look feature let me
page through documents without waiting for them
to open in an application. Even better, Quick Look
is built with an open architecture, so third-party
plug-ins are cropping up to display formats such
as ZIP archives that the Finder doesn't preview
automatically. The Cover Flow feature in the
Finder lets you flip through preview images of
documents the same way iTunes flips through
album-covers. I expected this feature to be sluggish, but it isn't. While you're browsing through
previews, pressing on the spacebar opens a document in its own application.
The new Spaces feature finally offers a multipledesktop interface that actually works without getting in my way. The feature looks like the multiple
desktop feature that's been available either as
an add-on or built-in with all modern operating
systems, but it actually sets up multiple groups
of application windows (each group is a "space")
which jump in and out of the desktop when you
choose a "space" from a toolbar icon or by pressing a hotkey—but the dock and background icons
remain the same for all groups.
I set up four separate application groups—though
I could have chosen as many as sixteen—and
assigned Mail and a separate RSS reader to one,
Safari and Dreamweaver to another, and Preview
and Photoshop to a third. It was easy use the keyboard or mouse to switch application groups, drag
links from one "space" to another, or view a miniature image of all "spaces" at once. After living with
Leopard for a while, I was slightly disappointed
to find that Spaces doesn't work smoothly with all
applications—with Microsoft Office as the most
serious exception—but that's a minor disappointment.
Apple OS X
10.5.2 (Leopard)
Networking and
More
With Leopard, networking
among
home or office
computers is finally
effortless—or effortless unless things
start going wrong.
When things go
right, the OS instantly finds all your networked machines,
adds icons for them
in the Finder sidebar,
and quickly opens shares folders on any of them.
Furthermore, I found networking settings a pleasure
to use, partly because of a new all-in-one interface,
partly because Leopard did most of the work for
me. With the initial release, however, I (like many
other users) encountered persistent flakiness when
trying to network with Windows machines. Leopard
sometimes didn't see my Windows machines until
I logged out and in again, and then would instantly connect to one Windows machine but report
"Connection failed" with another, and I needed to
restart the Mac before networking sorted itself out
again. With the 10.5.2 update these problems are
drastically reduced, although not entirely solved,
and Leopard's networking is finally more reliable
than that of the previous "Tiger" 10.4 version.
In earlier OS X versions, I always found it hard to
find the deeply-buried setting where I could enter
the name of my Windows workgroup. In Leopard,
I simply entered "workgroup" in the search box of
the System Preferences program, and Leopard highlighted the icon where the setting was located, and
10
even opened the correct dialog box for me.
Leopard's built-in backup system, Time Machine, works
automatically to create full backups of a system, so, for
the first time, I was able to create automatically-updated
backups of my whole system without buying complex
third-party software. All I needed to do was plug in a
USB or FireWire external drive and click OK in a popup dialog box to start the automatic backup process.
The intuitive interface lets me restore file versions
from earlier today or—after I've used Leopard for a
while—any time in the past. As I soon discovered, Time
Machine gets sluggish when backing up large-sized
files that change often—which means that it doesn't
work well with the large database-style message stores
used by Microsoft Entourage. If you get your e-mail
from a Microsoft Exchange server, then you have to
use Entourage whether you like or not, but you should
tell Time Machine not to back up those mail files. Find
some other way to back them up manually.
Time Machine is a completely different system from
Vista's "Previous Versions" which are saved (by default)
on the same disk with the current version of a file, and
can't be rescued if your disk goes south—and Vista's
"Previous Versions" can't do anything for you if you
need to restore your entire system. (Don't get Vista's new
"Previous Versions" feature confused with the "System
Restore" feature that Vista inherited from Windows XP:
System Restore lets you roll back the operating system
to a previous state—if you're lucky, because it often
doesn't work as promised—but doesn't restore your
documents to an earlier state. You run System Restore
by running the System Restore application, while you
access the Previous Versions feature by right-clicking
on a document icon, choosing Properties, and going to
the Previous Versions tab.)
For the past few years, I've found Apple's Mail program
to be more flexible than Windows-based mail programs,
but also slower than it should be. The new Mail version
in Leopard gives me all the speed I want, plus a nifty
new Notes feature that lets me create a yellow-pad style
note that automatically gets saved to my inbox. I also
like the To-Do feature that lets me select some text in
a message and create an entry in a To-Do list that links
back to the original message.
Other built-in programs in Leopard get features that
used to be in third-party software only. I was always
frustrated by the fact that OS X's Preview program could
open PDF files more quickly than Adobe Acrobat—but
then couldn't do much with them. Preview still runs
quickly, but now lets me resize images and reorder
pages in PDFs. Also, Leopard enhances everyday features like printing by including a print preview in the
print dialog. All setup procedures are smoother than
ever, and easily available in System Preferences, so
you don't have to hunt down obscure setup programs
like Directory Access or Internet Connect—which no
longer exist and won't be missed by anyone.
I've been using remote desktop-access software for
years on Windows machines, but none has been as
simple and quick as the one in Leopard. When I
access the desktop of another Leopard machine on
my network, the remote desktop fills my screen,
together with a small picture-in-picture-style image
of my own desktop. I can drag files between the
remote desktop and the image of my own desktop,
while a flashing red light alerts the user of the remote
desktop that we're sharing control of the remote
user's machine.
Apple OS X 10.5.2
(Leopard) —
Launch Glitches
My second point—that
Leopard has its share
of first-version glitches—is one that you can
mostly ignore now that
10.5.2 has been released
and a wave of thirdparty customizations
has arrived.
For example, one of the
much-touted new features in Leopard is "Stacks"—spring-loaded icons
on the OS X Dock that pop-up to display thumbnail
images of recent downloads (now saved by default
to a Downloads folder, as in Vista) or of the contents
of any other folder you want. You can click on a
thumbnail and open the file immediately. You open
a stack by clicking its icon in the Dock—but when
Leopard was first released, the icon for a stack wasn't
a special icon that you can recognize at a glance; it
was merely the icon for the first item in the stack.
So your Downloads stack didn't display an icon that
shouts "Downloads" (for example, an arrow pointing down to a disk) but simply the icon of the most
recently downloaded file. The newly released 10.5.2
fixes this problem by letting you use a folder's icon
instead of the icon for the first item, and this release
also adds an option to display a stack as a compact
list of filenames instead of a space-wasting grid or
11
eye-candy-style fan showing icons.
Other features work well in some situations but not others. For example, one of the new features in iChat lets
you use custom backgrounds in video chats, so you seem
to be setting in front of the Eiffel Tower or the surface
of the moon. This effect works perfectly when someone
demonstrates it in the Apple Store, but may not work as
well at home. The wall behind me when I sit at my desk
is filled with books, and the mix of colors on the shelves
left iChat totally confused when it tried to mask the
bookshelf, with the result that random blank rectangles
appeared across my face. I didn't appreciate what this
did to my looks. The update doesn't fix this problem, and
it may take a few more years of technological advances
to get it right.
Among other minor glitches, the Cover Flow and thumbnail-preview feature was surprisingly clumsy when listing files on Windows machines, because it didn't recognize many standard file types. For example, Leopard
identified both a Windows Address Book export file and
a Word 2003 backup file as "Unix executable files" and
displayed a generic Unix-file icon for each. This didn't
do any harm—and the problem is almost entirely fixed
by the 10.5.2 update—but it didn't inspire confidence in
Apple's testing procedures. Another, temporary, glitch
occurred when Leopard simply stopped showing thumbnail images for newly-created files, and simply showed
generic icons instead. I cured this glitch by logging out
and logging in again, and it hasn't repeated itself.
One problem that looked more alarming than it actually
was occurred when I used Leopard's ability (shared with
Vista) to resize disk partitions without shutting down
or losing data. After I used the Disk Utility to resize
my boot partition from 300 to 200 GB and create a 100
MB partition in the empty space, the Utility displayed
a disk map that made the larger partition look as if it
were one-fourth the size of the smaller one. This mistake
appeared in the graphical map only, not in the numbers
that the utility displayed for the size of each disk. Still,
it was a scary experience because my data would have
been at risk if the operating system was confused about
the size of my disks—instead of what was really a glitch
in drawing a map. This glitch, too, seems to have disappeared in 10.5.2.
Unsurprisingly, except for this Disk Utility glitch,
Leopard worked almost perfectly on a shiny new iMac,
but some owners of older machines who upgrade to
Leopard from the 10.4 "Tiger" version of OS X report
problems ranging from software incompatibilities to
lockups while upgrading. I eventually installed Leopard
on an aging PowerPC-based iBook, and found that
it worked surprisingly well. Many software-compatSonoma Valley Computer Group Newsletter
ibility issues seem to be fixable by updating older
programs to more-recent versions, and the lockup
during an upgrade seems to be caused by a thirdparty add-in called Application Enhancer; it is easy
to remove, but you'll need access to a computer with
Internet access to find the solution. If you're thinking
of upgrading, I strongly urge you to scan the forums
at sites such macrumors.com before you click the
OK button in the installer.
Apple OS X 10.5.2
(Leopard) — All
Dressed Up
Regarding my third
point—Leopard's
excess eye-candy—
your opinion may
differ from mine,
but I think it is just
little too much flash.
Apple seems to load
OS X with graphics
effects for the same reason it ships its computers with
the screens set to maximum brightness—because it's
easier to sell bright-looking objects. Back at home,
the excess brightness gives me a headache, and the
glut of graphic effects are distracting when I'm trying to get anything done. I found Leopard's new
reflecting-glass 3D Dock fun to look at for five
minutes, but Leopard didn't offer me the option to
get a less distracting no-glass 2D dock—unless I
moved the dock to the side of the screen, where it
automatically switched to the more sober 2D display. Fortunately, expert users have found a way to
toggle the 3D reflective effects by running a terminal command, and a quick visit to macosxhints.com
led me to some foolproof Applescripts that gave me
the less-distracting dock I wanted.
There's a similar 3-D reflective effect in the Finder's
Cover Flow preview display. Apple insists that this
doesn't affect performance, and, as far as I can tell,
Apple seems to be right. None the less, I would
prefer to turn off the distracting mirror-images that
appear on the "shelf" below preview images, but
there doesn't seem to be any way to achieve this—at
least not yet.
If you're in the market for a new machine, it's time to
look seriously at a Mac, especially now that all Macs
can run Windows along with OS X through the builtin Boot Camp feature that lets you install Windows
12
and Leopard in separate partitions. Even better, thirdparty software from Parallels or VMware make it possible to run a Windows program in a window on the OS
X desktop. It's even possible to set up OS X so that Word
documents automatically open in the Windows version
of Microsoft Word. At first I planned to wait until early
2008 before buying a new Mac, because I wanted to
hold off until Microsoft issued its new Intel-native version of Office for the Mac, Microsoft Office 2008.
Well, Office 2008 is certainly faster than the old 2004
version when run on an Intel-based Mac, but it's a
disappointingly clunky upgrade that won't tempt me
away from the Windows-based version, Office 2007.
It's possible to run the Windows-based Office 2007 in a
window on the Mac desktop using Parallels or VMware,
but it's still an awkward solution. With the Leopard fixes
in 10.5.2, I'm going to buy a new Mac, but because I
live by word-processing, I'm not about to give up my
Windows machine. If you don't write anything more
complex than memos or letters, and if you don't need the
automated spreadsheet features in Excel for Windows,
you could probably switch to a Mac full-time without
looking back.
A couple of warnings for anyone upgrading from an
old Mac to a new one. If, like me, you still use one or
two "Classic" applications on a Power PC-based Mac
("Classic" has never worked on newer Intel Macs), be
warned that Leopard won't let you run Classic applications even on Power PC machines. My advice to potential upgraders from an old Mac to a new one remains
what it was before: find a cheap, bootable external hard
disk (you probably already have one), install Leopard
on it, and use it to boot your existing Mac so that you
can test whether your old applications continue to work.
I did this with my two-year-old Mac, and was able to
experiment with my existing applications to find any
incompatibilities so that I don't get any nasty surprises
after an upgrade.
Leopard again raises the question of whether to switch
from Windows to a Mac. I've found Vista to be a major
disappointment that tends to look worse the more I
use it. I still use Windows XP for getting serious work
done in long, complicated documents. But OS X is
easier to manage and maintain and I vastly prefer OS
X to Windows for Web-browsing, mail, and especially
for any task that involves graphics, music, or video.
Leopard performs all such tasks even better than previous versions did—and Leopard is the only OS on the
planet that works effortlessly and intuitively in today's
world of networked computers and peripherals. Leopard
is far from perfect, but it's better than any alternative,
and it's getting harder and harder to find good reasons to
use anything else.
Leopard Interface
Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" is the most technologically advanced operating system Apple has ever
released, but don't let that scare you. While there's
a lot of powerful stuff going on under the hood,
Leopard makes it easy for you to work, play, and get
entertainment on your Mac.
If you find a big question mark popping up over
your head the moment your Mac starts up, this is a
good place to start. These interface initiation lessons
will introduce you to the different pieces that make
up the Leopard interface, tell you how to get around
it, and show you how to use the Finder and Finder
windows, the Desktop, the menu bar, the Dock, the
Trash, files and folders, and more.
For visual reference, here's a quick guide to the lay
of the land—Mac Desktop-wise.
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/tour/
Leopard
Compatibility List
Updated
by TidBITS Staff
Rather than write oodles of short articles that mostly
note that a new version of some utility adds compatibility with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, we're going
to take advantage of our new TidBITS Publishing
System to create a list of important or interesting
software that has been updated. (Our definition of
"important or interesting" largely revolves around
products that we've covered in the past or plan to
cover in the future; there's no way this can or should
be a comprehensive list.) It's important to note that
this list also doesn't include software that runs fine
in Leopard without needing an update - don't infer
anything if a program isn't included on the list.
13
We'll add new items to the top of the list, blog-style,
and we'll tweak the modification date each time so those
reading via RSS will be alerted when there are changes.
We won't be publishing this article in an email edition
of TidBITS, since it will continue to grow over time.
Eventually, of course, Leopard compatibility will no
longer be interesting, and we'll let the article remain
static after that point. Until then, though, here's what we
know. For releases that are purely for Leopard compatibility, we won't go beyond listing the name, version
number, and link; for those releases that are more significant, we'll toss in some notes as appropriate.
19-Dec-07 -- It's starting to be more difficult to find
Leopard-specific updates, so we'll probably continue
this list only through the end of the year.
* GraphicConverter 6.0.3 from Lemkesoft
* The Missing Sync from Mark/Space: Updates
now available; the company recommends not using
previous versions with Leopard.
* Data Backup 3 from Prosoft Engineering
* Default Folder X 4 from St. Clair Software
* MaxMenus 1.5.1 and LiteSwitch 2.6 from
Proteron
* Canto Cumulus 7.5.2 from Canto
* Smart Scroll X 2.7.5b2 from Marc Moini (for
Cocoa applications only)
* Daylite 3.6 from Marketcircle
14
11-Dec-07 -- The updates continue, albeit at a slower
pace.
* PowerMail 5.6 from CTM Development
* Norton AntiVirus 11.0 for Macintosh from Symantec
* Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.3.1 from Adobe
* Captain FTP 5.2017 from Xnet Communications
* Smasher 1.6 from Insider Software
06-Dec-07 -- We've been busy trying to finish things off
by the end of the year, and lots of Mac developers apparently have the same idea.
* Yojimbo 1.5 from Bare Bones Software
* SubEthaEdit 3.0.2 from TheCodingMonkeys
* FileMaker Pro 9.0v3 and FileMaker Advanced
9.0v3 from FileMaker Inc.
* Perfection scanner drivers from Epson
* Logitech Control Center 2.4 from Logitech
* Rumpus 5.3.4 from Maxum Development
* PithHelmet 2.8.2 from Mike Solomon
* Summary 3.0.8 from Summary.Net
* Life Balance 4.0 from Llamagraphics
02-Dec-07 -- With the first serious snow here in Ithaca,
we have the first Leopard updates in December.
* TechTool Pro 4.6.1 from Micromat
* Coda 1.1 from Panic
* MPFreaker 1.7.2 from LairWare Software
30-Nov-07 -- As November comes to a close, we're
nearing 100 Leopard-specific updates in the list. Keep
'em coming!
* iListen 1.8 from MacSpeech
* DEVONthink 1.3.4, DEVONagent 2.3, and
DEVONnote 1.9.11 from DEVONtechnologies
* Suitcase Fusion 12.1.7 and Font Doctor 7.3.1 from
Extensis
* Data Rescue II 1.2 from Prosoft Engineering
* Skype 2.6.0.182 from Skype
29-Nov-07 -- Just when we think the Leopard compatibility releases might be slowing down, a bunch more
appear.
* LaunchBar 4.3.3 from Objective Development
* ChronoSync 3.3.6 from Econ Technologies
* Docktopus 1.0.3 from Startly Technologies
* VueScan 8.4.48 from Hamrick Software
* Keyclick 1.1.9 from Sustainable Softworks
28-Nov-07 -- Please do let us know if we're missing
anything important - there's only so much hunting
we can do.
* Typinator 2.1 from Ergonis
26-Nov-07 -- Back in the saddle again after
Thanksgiving!
* QuarkXPress 7.31 from Quark. The update
also corrects capitalization errors, finds and corrects duplicate words, corrects spacing errors after
punctuation, ignores URLs when checking spelling,
and ignores words with numbers when checking
spelling.
25-Nov-07 -- Here are a few that we've missed along
the way.
* SpamSieve 2.6.5 from C-Command Software
* Seasonality 1.5 from Gaucho Software
20-Nov-07 -- Catching up after yesterday's issue.
We've moved a few items up from previous days if
the changes are again related to Leopard compatibility.
* Nisus Writer Pro 1.0.2 and Nisus Writer Express
3.0.1 from Nisus Software
* Saft 10.0.2 from Hao Li
* Eudora Internet Mail Server 3.3.5 from Glenn
Anderson
* Chax 2.0 from Kent Sutherland
* NoteBook 2.1 v262 from Circus Ponies
* RapidWeaver 3.6.5 from Realmac Software
16-Nov-07 -- Apple hit us with a ton of updates yesterday, so we'll point you at our coverage of those
updates for the Leopard-specific stuff along with
rounding up a crop of third-party updates.
* Mac OS X 10.5.1 from Apple
* iPhoto 7.1.1 from Apple
* Final Cut Studio 2 suite from Apple
* DiscLabel 5.0 from SmileOnMyMac
* PhoneValet 5.3.1 from Parliant Corporation
* Ovolab Phlink 3.6.1 from Ovolab
* DropDMG 2.8.2 from C-Command Software
* BBAutoComplete 1.5.1 from C-Command
Software
* Reunion 9.06 from Leister Productions
15
14-Nov-07 -- The updates continue to flow in, with the
most notable release being Fetch 5.3.
* Fetch 5.3 from Fetch Softworks. This is a major
release that offers full Leopard compatibility, a redesigned look-and-feel to integrate better with Leopard,
support for moving files via copy and paste, and a host
of other fixes and enhancements.
* REALbasic 2007 r5 from REAL Software
* Curio Professional 4.1 from Zengobi
* Path Finder 4.8.2 from Cocoatech
* Garage Sale 3.4.1 from iwascoding
* Lingon 2.0.2 from Peter Borg
* Netflix Freak 2.6.1 from The Little App Factory
13-Nov-07 -- After a hiatus over the weekend and a
busy Monday putting out the issue, we find...
* NovaMind Express, Pro, and Platinum 4.0.14 from
NovaMind Software
09-Nov-07 -- A quick check today reveals...
06-Nov-07 -- Things are settling down a bit with
Leopard-specific updates, but be sure to let us know
if we're missing something that has been discussed
in TidBITS.
* EMC Retrospect 6.1.138: Minor changes for
Leopard, which include an important note that this
version is needed for Intel-based Macs with Leopard
installed when you handle a full system restore or
duplication.
* FileMaker Pro 9.0v2 and FileMaker Pro 9.0v2
Advanced Updater from FileMaker Inc.
* VMware Fusion 1.1 Release Candidate from
VMware
* QuickBooks Pro 2007 (latest software patch)
from Intuit
* Teleport 1.0 from Abyssoft
* Quicky and nQuicky wireless drivers from
QuickerTek
* DoorStop X 2.2 and Who's There Firewall
Advisor 2.2 from Open Door Networks
* GoodPage 1.3.1 from TARI
* iSync Phone Plugins 5.0 and FoneLink 1.2 from
Nova Media
05-Nov-07 -- Just one today, not because there
weren't others but because we were working on the
TidBITS issue all day.
08-Nov-07 -- Just a few new things today.
* Sound Studio 3.5.5 from Freeverse and Felt Tip
Software
* Art Text 1.2.4, Live Interior 3D 1.4.1, and Mail
Factory 2.5.4 from BeLight Software
* Keyboard Maestro 2.1.3 from Stairways
Software
* TinkerTool 3.8 from Marcel Bresink SoftwareSysteme
* Butler 4.1.3 Transient from Peter Maurer
* CPU upgrades and more from Sonnet
Technologies
07-Nov-07 -- The updates continue apace, although a
few of the ones listed below have been out for a few
days and merely made it onto our radar today.
* PDFpen and PDFpen Pro 3.3.1 from
SmileOnMyMac
* CrashPlan v10.27.2007 from Code 42 Software
* Sandvox 1.2.4 from Karelia Software
* Synchronize Pro X 5.1.3 from Qdea
* NoteTaker 2.0.0 and NoteShare 1.6.0 from
AquaMinds
* TextSoap 5.7.1 from Unmarked Software
* Preferential Treatment 1.1.8 from Jonathan
Nathan
02-Nov-07 -- Lots more updates today as we work
our way back through our press release list.
* Snapz Pro X 2.1.2 and WireTap Studio 1.0.1
from Ambrosia Software: The Snapz Pro X update
includes a variety of other minor fixes and enhancements. The WireTap Studio update adds an export
drop zone for the iPhone, provides more granularity
for the VU meters, and includes various other bug
fixes and enhancements.
* Parallels Desktop build 5540 from Parallels
* Interarchy 8.5.4 from Nolobe
* OmniWeb 5.6 from The Omni Group: Includes
a new WebKit-based browser engine for faster rendering performance, the capability to view PDFs in
browser windows, a new automatic software update
mechanism, improved plug-in and JavaScript performance, and more localizations.
* PasswordWallet for Macintosh 4.2 from
Selznick Scientific Software: Also enables you to
export your passwords to your iPhone with the $10
PasswordWallet for iPhone (and iPod touch) addon.
* 1Password 2.5 from Agile Web Solutions: A sig-
16
nificant update that also adds a refined look-and-feel,
a new Wallet feature for credit cards, the capability
to export passwords to the iPhone, and more.
* DragThing 5.9.1 from TLA Systems: Also
includes optional icon reflections, Leopard-related
themes, display of EXIF photo data in previews, and
the capability to insert and rearrange items by dragging.
* PopChar X 3.3 from Ergonis
* Phlink 3.6 and GeoPhoto 1.6 from Ovolab
* EyeTV 2.5.1 from Elgato: EyeTV 2.51. goes
beyond Leopard compatibility to add specific support
for Cover Flow, Quick Look, iChat, and Spaces.
* SOHO Organizer 6.5.2, SOHO Notes 6.5.2,
SOHO Business Cards 2.5.1 from Chronos
* Simon 2.3 and Caboodle 1.1.2 from Dejal
Systems
* Freeway 4.4 from Softpress: Also adds support
for Quick Look.
* iDive 1.8.6 and PulpMotion 1.4.6 from
Aquafadas
* Merlin 2.5b2 from ProjectWizards: Also includes
supports for Quick Look.
* ConceptDraw Mindmap 5.2 from CS Odessa:
Includes support for Quick Look and Cover Flow,
and can export to iCal in Leopard only.
* iPresent It 2.0 from ZappTek
* Synk 6.3 from Decimus Software
01-Nov-07 -- We're mostly catching up with the
entries so far.
* Timbuktu Pro 8.7 from Netopia: A $4.95 upgrade
from previous 8.x releases to obtain Leopard compatibility. You need the serial number and the activation code to purchase the upgrade version.
* TextExpander 2.0.3, BrowseBack 1.4.1, and
PhotoPrinto 2.1.1 from SmileOnMyMac
* Macaroni 2.1 from AtomicBird
* CSSEdit 2.6 from MacRabbit: Added Leopard
compatibility and the capability to open CSS files
whose names don't end in ".css", in addition to bug
fixes.
* KeyCue 4.0 from Ergonis: Major release that
also makes it possible to click the keyboard shortcuts
revealed by the utility's cheat sheet.
* Miro Public Preview 3
* Hazel 2.1 from Noodlesoft: Also includes several
new actions for creating aliases and revealing files.
* Radioshift 1.0.3 and Fission 1.5.2 from Rogue
Amoeba
* Audio Hijack Pro 2.8 Preview and Airfoil 2.1
Preview from Rogue Amoeba : The Instant Hijack
component is not yet supported on Leopard.
Office 2008
AutoUpdate (MAU)
updated to 2.1.1
Microsoft released an update to the Microsoft
AutoUpdate (MAU) application in preparation for
future updates to Office 2008. The MAU update
uses a VISE installer, however the plan is for future
updates to Office 2008 to be in Apple PackageMaker
format for easier admin install.
It is critical that you update. MAU will not tell you
about any future updates unless you first install this
update to MAU itself.
To download, select "Check for Updates" under Help
in the menu bar under any Office application.
http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/02/office_
2008_autoupdate_mau_updated_t
o_211.html
Breaking Down
the Walls
Between Mac OS X
and Windows
I'm a bi-platform
kinda guy. Not just
because I need to
be conversant in
both Mac OS X and
Windows for my job,
but also because my
life revolves around
certain Mac programs and certain
Windows programs.
On trips, I literally used to pack two laptops: a Mac
for creative stuff, and a Windows machine for the
speech-recognition program I use to write books,
Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
A year ago, that all changed. Apple started building
its Macs around Intel chips. Using Apple's free Boot
Camp utility, you can start up the one laptop in either
Windows or Mac OS X (Windows not included)
17
There's a huge problem with that, of course: the business
about restarting every time you want to switch. That's
time-consuming, and you can't copy and paste between
Mac and Windows programs, or refer to one while
you're working in the other.
One solution is a program called Parallels Desktop for
Mac ($80, Parallels.com). It lets you run Windows *in a
window*, right on top of Mac OS X, so you don't have
to restart when you want to run a Windows program.
You can copy and paste between Mac and Windows
programs, and you save a lot of time. Parallels can run
any version of Windows back to version 3.1 (and even
DOS, Solaris and so on), and it's about 90 percent as fast
as running a dedicated Windows PC.
I reviewed Parallels in the Times last year. Today, however, the company has released version 3.0 -- a $40
upgrade -- that breaks down the walls between the two
operating systems even further.
* You can drag and drop files from the Windows desktop
to the Mac desktop, or vice versa. You can also rightclick a document in either universe (a Word file, JPEG,
PDF or whatever); the Open With pop-up menu, which
lists programs that can open it, now lists both Mac and
Windows programs. So if you're working on the Mac,
you can rightclick a Word document and have it open
in Word for Windows.
* A feature called Coherence mode hides the Windows
desktop and other trappings. Instead, each Windows program behaves exactly like a Mac program, floating right
there in its own window among your other Mac program
windows. (Coherence debuted in Parallels 2.5; in 3.0, it's
been refined. For example, you can now specify when
you want Windows programs' icons to appear in the
Macintosh Dock while they're running.)
completely invisible to hacks, pings and bots on the
Internet looking to infect you. Your "Windows PC"
is therefore much less likely to wind up becoming a
"zombie" or "bot" that does the bidding of spammers
behind your back.
* 3-D graphics. This is a huge one for gamers.
People used to say that Parallels was great -- but that
it couldn't handle the 3-D games. The new version,
however, works with both DirectX and OpenGL 3D,
underlying technologies that drive games like World
of Warcraft, Half-Life 2, and Unreal Tournament.
All of these are now playable on the Mac running
Windows. (I haven't tested them, though.)
This feature also assists with 3-D drafting programs
like 3DMark and video and sound editing software
like Sony Vegas.
* Transporter. This utility can bring over your entire
world -- programs, documents, settings, and all -from a real Windows PC, or from an old Mac running Microsoft Virtual PC, either over the network
or using a FireWire cable.
* USB 2. Parallels 3.0 does much better with highspeed connections to printers, scanners, flash drives,
external hard drives, BlackBerrys and other smartphones -- and headsets. That last improvement
should mean that I can finally run my speech- recognition program on the Mac without having to restart
in Windows. (In previous versions of Parallels, the
computer recognized only bits and pieces of what I
said, and with horrible accuracy.)
First I thought I would try the built-in speech recognition in Windows Vista. Unfortunately, it was a
disaster. Words were dropped, words were misrecognized, and the whole thing was slow as molasses.
* A Mac program called Parallels Explorer lets you
manipulate the contents of your virtual Windows "hard
drive" even when Parallels isn't running.
So I tried NaturallySpeaking -- and I got exactly the
same results. No matter what I tried, I just could not
get speech recognition working in Windows Vista.
* You can now set up shared folders in either direction.
That is, you can plunk the icon of a Macintosh-world
folder right there in your Windows world, for easy opening, or vice-versa.
My contact at Parallels told me that he had heard
from a number of customers who were successfully using NaturallySpeaking on their Macs -- in
Windows XP. (Nuance, the company that makes
Dragon NaturallySpeaking, doesn't officially support its use on Macs no matter how you're running
Windows. It has, however, received many requests
and is exploring the possibilities.)
* If you sometimes use Apple's Boot Camp program,
Parallels can use the same copy of Windows, so you
don't have to install Windows twice. In 3.0, this great,
space-saving feature also applies to installed copies of
Windows Vista, not just XP.
* Shared Networking. I love this one a lot. In Parallels
3.0, Windows "hides" behind the Mac's networking; it's
Fortunately, the cool thing about Parallels is that
you can create as many "virtual machines" as you
want, each one running a different operating system
on your Mac. (Web designers in particular enjoy
this feature, because it lets them test a certain Web
18
design in every conceivable browser and operating
system.)
So off I went to create another virtual machine, this
time one that ran Windows XP -- and presto! I had
true-blue speech recognition running on my Mac,
complete with the ability to copy and paste my
transcribed utterances into my Mac e-mail program,
word processor or whatever.
Better yet, Windows XP doesn't bog down the rest
of your Mac programs the way Windows Vista does.
On a 2-gigabyte Mac like my MacBook, Parallels is
much, much happier running XP than Vista.
Remember, you're running two operating systems
at once. Windows Vista, on my 2-gig laptop, took
a minute and a half to start up, and introduced serious sluggishness whenever I tried to switch from
one Mac program to another. That's a sure sign that
I've run out of real RAM and am forcing the Mac's
virtual memory system to swap what's in memory to
and from the hard drive in a frantic attempt to keep
everything alive.
I recommend Parallels highly. Whether you're a Mac
person or a Windows person, the point is that you
can now run 100 percent of the world's computer
software on a single machine, faster and more easily
than ever.
(P.S.-- Parallels will soon have competition from
programs like VMWare Fusion and CrossOver. I'll
review them when they're available in final form.)
PC to Mac
Migrations Using
Ethernet
by Ryan, [email protected]
So you switched to
Mac, but all of your
old files are on your
PC. You don't have
an external hard
drive (even though
you really should
for backups). Your
old PC may also
lack a CD burner,
but transferring
large amounts of data via CDs is time consuming
and wasteful. How are you going to transfer all
your documents? As long as your Windows PC has
an ethernet port (and preferably Windows XP) you
can quickly and easily drag and drop your files from
the PC onto your Mac.
While there are many methods to accomplish this
task, I’ll describe how to connect the computers
directly with an ethernet cable.
On your Mac, click the Apple icon in the upper lefthand corner of your screen and then select "System
Preferences." From here, find the icon that says
"Sharing" and click on it. In this Sharing Preference
Pane, find the tab that that says "Internet" and click
on it to enter the internet sharing menu. My method
is to share the connection from Airport to ethernet. Do this even if you are not using wireless internet,
as we are just establishing a network connection
between the two machines and need an IP address. If you are not connected to a wireless network, then
you must create one using your Mac: simply click
on the Airport icon in the upper right-hand of your
screen and choose Create a Network.
Now find the tab that that says "Services." In here
is a list of services. Check the box next to Windows
File Sharing to enable this service, then click the
accounts button to choose which Users’ home folders on your Mac will be accessible by the PC. At
the bottom of the window you will be presented with
an address for connecting to your Mac.
Now, click the start button on the PC and choose
"Run" from the list. In the text box that pops up,
type the address shown in the Sharing preference
pane.
Type in your username and password for your Mac
user account, and you will now be browsing your
User’s home folder. From here, all you need to do is
drag and drop your documents, music, e-mails, and
other data to your Mac.
Programs to Run
Windows on a Mac
By [email protected]
Things that belong together: chocolate + peanut butter, pretzels + beer, french fries + ketchup. Windows
+ Mac? They can go together, but don't necessarily
belong together. Personally, I never use Windows
(though I know a lot of modern technologically-
19
driven systems such
as POS systems, gas
pumps, airline reservation software, etc.
run Windows software
behind the scenes).
So, while I've not used
Windows since 1999
(partly since I conveniently work at an
Apple Specialist), I know how important access to
Windows is for over 90% of the computer-using world.
I was excited for these people when Apple announced
its switch to Intel processors, thus allowing Windows to
be easily run on Intel-based Macs. After all, many tens
of thousands of people wanted to switch to the Mac,
but simply couldn't give up certain Windows-only programs, nor could many people simply walk away from
their investment in pricey Windows software titles.
Bootcamp, Parallels, and
VMware's Fusion are the most
popular ways to install and run
Windows on a Mac. Bootcamp
is a bit different than Parallels
and VMWare - it actually allows
a Mac to boot into Windows
XP or Windows Vista, while
the other two programs create
a "virtual machine" on your
Mac, so you can run Windows
apps side-by-side with your
Mac apps without rebooting. Bootcamp is also a free
program, available for download directly from Apple.
Bootcamp will be built into Leopard, Apple's next generation operating system due in October.
Small Dog Electronics has
happily been on the Parallels
bandwagon since last summer.
VMWare sounds like a great
solution as well, but we simply have more experience with
Parallels, Parallels has received
excellent reviews, a few Small
Doggers actually use it at home,
and we've been quite impressed
with Parallels rapid upgrading schedule. Parallels 3.0 was
recently released, featuring some
incredible new features:
- Improved Parallels Transporter – Migrate your entire
PC, including OS, settings, applications, and files, to
your new Mac. Transfer via any network or firewire connection! This is great for Switchers.
- 3D Graphics – OpenGL and DirectX support
means you can play your favorite Windows-only games and use video and sound editing software on
your virtual machine.
- New: SmartSelect – Open Windows files with Mac
applications and Mac files with Windows applications. Set ‘on the fly’ or as the default.
- NEW! Snapshots – Save the state of your virtual
machine’s memory, settings, and hard disk in just one click. Revert back to the snapshot at any time.
Make changes, try beta software, and explore the
Internet, without risking permanent damage to
your virtual machine.
- NEW - Parallels Explorer – Browse your Windows
files, without starting your virtual machine or launching Windows.
- NEW - Security Settings – Select the level of integration between Windows and Mac OS X.
- Improved Coherence – Launch and run Windows
applications directly from your Mac desktop.
- Improved Shared Folders – Shared Folders automatically mounts the Windows virtual hard drive
on the OS X desktop, letting you drag-and-drop
between Windows and OS X, without moving to
the Windows desktop. Add/remove/configure shared
folders ‘on the fly.’
- Improved USB 2.0 Support – Plug and play your
favorite Windows-only USB 2.0 devices, including
BlackBerries, PDAs, cameras, and SmartPhones.
- Improved Boot Camp Support – Use a Windows
XP or Vista partition set up via Apple’s Boot Camp
as a virtual hard drive in your Parallels virtual machine. No need for separate installations of
Windows for Boot Camp and your Parallels VM!
- Guest Operating Systems supported (but not
included) Microsoft Windows - 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98,
NT, 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista
- Linux Distributions - SUSE, Red Hat, Debian,
Fedora Core, Mandriva, FreeBSD, OS/2, eComStation, Solaris, MS-DOS, OPENSTEP, and OpenBSD
3.8 and more.
All this for only $69.99 - that's Small Dog's price,
which is $10 less than most other resellers. Note that
when you buy Parallels or VMware, or download
20
Bootcamp, you still have to purchase and install some
version of Windows. Many people already own a copy
of Windows, that they may have purchased with a PC.
The cheapest way to get a legitiamete copy of Windows
is to buy an OEM version with purchase of a new Mac.
You can see all the versions of Windows we sell, along
with Parallels 3.0 here:
http://www.smalldog.com/windowsonamac/
Take Control of
Permissions in
Leopard
Greetings, loyal readers!
If you like to go under the hood
of Mac OS X, or if you've been
forced to by quirky problems,
you'll want to check out our latest
ebook, freshly revised for Leopard
- "Take Control of Permissions in
Leopard." Written by Unix guru
and Mac aficionado Brian Tanaka,
the 87-page ebook mixes practical how-to details and
troubleshooting tips with just the right amount of theory
as it explains permissions in relation to how you keep
your files private, copy files to and from servers effectively, set the Ignore Permissions option for external
disks, repair screwy permissions, and delete those files
that just won't die.
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/leopard-permissions.html?14@@!pt=TRK-0060-TCANNOUNCE>
For those who want to learn advanced concepts, the
ebook also delves into topics like the sticky bit, symbolic versus absolute ways to set permissions, and how to
work with bit masks. In particular, Brian looks at what's
new with permissions in Leopard, including the disappearance of the NetInfo database and the increased use
of access control lists. Don't worry if you're not accustomed to using the Unix command line in Terminal,
since Brian provides extremely clear instructions for
that, along with how to manage permissions from the
Finder's Get Info and Inspector windows, and with
more-capable third-party utilities.
PS: Those who already own Brian's earlier "Take
Control of Permissions in Mac OS X" can upgrade to
"Take Control of Permissions in Leopard" for 75%
off; just click the Check for Updates button in your
existing copy to access the discount.
Upgrading to
Leopard Points-ofView
Leopard is worth it - some great new features and
with 10.5.2 some control over the Finder is back.
BUT - I have had to migrate several folks backwards
and for a choice few re-do the upgrade. New computers that ship with Leopard already are doing quite
well as long as older applications aren't brought over
in the setup. I have now setup over 3 dozen new
machines running Leopard and I still see the same
annoyances - mostly just irritating and often related
to older apps. or first releases.
My list of annoyances (not fatal issues, just irritating)
- programs crashes/quits - all iterations of Office Microsoft needs to release the updaters and the aging
Appleworks, PS Elements (versions 3 & 4)
- glitchiness in the Finder when needing to access
pull down menus, double click to open files, etc. Often things are grayed out when they shouldn't be.
Usually log out/log in will fix this.
-Spaces with Office and CS 3 - just doesn't work the
way it should
- external devices not always mounting correctly
-.Mac syncing 'can' get painfully broken with 10.5.2
- it isn't pretty.
-repair permissions still throws odd errors
What rocks - ease of network and printer setup, general speed of OS, Spaces (when it works) and Time
Machine
As always, we appreciate your support and comments.
Remember my talk to the Intermediate SIG was to
a group of folks who are not all advanced or highly
skilled at troubleshooting when things go wrong.
They are every day users who just want/need their
computers to work reliably. They want to have fun
and learn. Upgrading to Leopard is counter productive for these users right now - if it ain't broke, don't
fix it.
cheers... -Adam & Tonya Engst
Leopard -was- pushed out the door before it was
21
ready (this is straight from the developers) That said
with the 10.5.2 update we are finally seeing a pretty
good OS for what I consider to be the one
that should have shipped in the box. Of course Apple
will continue to release updates for a very elegant OS
that will definitely keep them ahead of the competition.
And help to grow the market share. And yes, Karen is
right, as Apple grows we will all experience more growing pains along with them because we are dedicated Mac
users! But that is okay - our computing experience is far
better than the other side's.
If you do plan to upgrade - BACKUP first!!!!!!!!!
keep this link handy http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307005 It covers all the main issues that arehappening with painful frequency when upgrading.
For my own upgrade I followed John Nouveaux's recommendation - I cloned off, verified the clone, wiped the
HD (actually a new HD in my case) and Used Migration
Assistant to move my already upgraded apps and user
accounts back. This is as opposed to the Archive and
Install option is my current method of choice. --KL
Second Opinion:
To add to the fray, my thoughts on Leopard (a.k.a. Mac
OX X, 10.5.x):
Is Leopard compelling? No. Is it worth $130? Yes.
Should you upgrade? It's up to you. Hard to say? For
me, it was worth it, for reason #1 below alone.
Read on...
1. Time Machine (TM) is worth the upgrade alone!
Though TM has a few interface issues, TM makes
backing up your Mac painless. For most home users,
TM is easily the simplest way to backup your important
files. There is really nothing like anywhere else. TM
ROCKS!
2. When you update (say from 10.5.0 or 10.5.1 to
10.5.2), and if you are a paranoid, you should download
the combo updater directly from the Apple web site and
NOT use Software Update. In my experience, the separately downloaded combo updaters have FAR fewer
issues than Software Update.
For the latest combo update go here: http://www.apple.
com/downloads/
And for my personal mini best practice upgrade:
A) Repair Permissions
B) Backup to an external drive a bootable clone of your
entire system disk
C) Backup any other data drives you may have on
your system
D) Test boot the clone backup, if it doesn't boot, it's
doing you no good
E) Disconnect as many peripherals as possible (certainly your clone drive)
F) Perform the update/upgrade as you choose
G) Run Software Update (if there are system updates,
you may want to download the combo updater from
Apple)
H) Repair Permissions
I) Test all your crucial applications (iLife, Adobe
CS, Office, etc.)
3. The 10.5.2 update, IMHO, is worth it just to get
back the ability to have folders you have dropped
into the "Stacks" are of the dock pull-right-able
(is that a word?) as they were in 10.4 (Tiger). Why Apple dropped this feature in the first place is
beyond me.
4. Known problems with 10.5.x which I have personally experienced:
- Window Shades doesn't work (Apple broke it with
their new secure memory management), and why
did Apple ever toss this little feature anyway? When
did it go? After OS 8? 9? I can't remember. Rats!
- Formatting external drives under 10.5.2 may not
work. Look at the second link below for a workaround. I simply connected the drive to a Tiger
system and formatted it there.
See here for more info:
http://macosx.com/tech-support/mac/leopard-cannot-erase-partition-ext-drive/335603.html
http://geekgoesmeow.blogspot.com/2007/10/problems-using-pc-formatted-drive-with.html
-- OT
What is pharming?
What is phishing?
Phishing
These fake e-mails appear to come from legitimate
sources. They ask customers to verify personal information or link to fake websites that appear real.
Pharming redirects
Pharming involves redirecting Internet users to a
fake website, even when they entered the correct
22
address.
a year.
These bogus sites often look real, but secretly collect
any personal information and passwords entered. Users
end up at fraudulent sites by having spyware or a virus
loaded on their computer, or by sophisticated hacking
tricks.
Avoid passwords that use: Beware of any changes to the logon screen. If you are
asked for anything out of the ordinary, do not enter any
information.
Beware of e-mails that:
* Urge you to act quickly because your account may
be suspended or closed.
* Don't address you by name, but use more generic
language like "Dear valued customer."
* Ask for account numbers, passwords or other personal information.
Do not click on any link in these suspicious e-mails.
How do I proterct myself?
1. Secure your computer:
Don't let your computer become an open door. Creating
strong passwords and keeping your software up-to-date
are just two ways of maintaining your computer's security.
How do I do this?
Create strong passwords.
Create Strong Passwords
How strong is your password?
Your password is the first line of defense to usaa.com.
It is very important to have a password that cannot easily be guessed by others. Your privacy and our ability
to serve you safely depend, in part, on your diligence in
creating a strong password. Here are a few pointers for
creating stronger passwords:
Password Management Tips * Use a unique password for each service or site you
use.
* Create original passwords using a combination of
numbers, upper and lowercase letters, and punctuation.
* Choose a meaningful and memorable password that
would appear as a random string of characters to another
person.
* Avoid using software or websites that save your
passwords.
* Don't use the "Remember Me" function when logging on to a website.
* Change your online account passwords at least twice
* Your Social Security number.
* Account numbers.
* Phone numbers or addresses.
* Birth dates or anniversaries.
* Names of relatives or pets.
* Sequences or repeated characters (such as
"abcde", "12345" or "77777.")
2. Keep your operating system, Internet browser,
firewall, antivirus and anti-spyware software up to
date.
Install and Update Security Software
You may not be adequately protected if you don't use
up-to-date security software.
Install Security Software
There are a number of reputable security software
providers from which to choose. Some of the most
popular sites are provided below for your convenience. USAA neither endorses nor guarantees any
offerings from third–party product providers.
Antivirus software
* McAfee
* Symantec
* ZoneAlarm
Antivirus software protects your computer from
viruses that can destroy your data, slow your computer's performance, cause a crash, or even allow
spammers to send e-mail through your account.
Antivirus software scans your computer and incoming e-mail for viruses and then deletes them.
To be effective, your antivirus should update routinely with antidotes to the latest Internet viruses.
Most commercial antivirus software includes a feature to download updates automatically when you
are on the Internet.
Firewall Software
* ZoneAlarm
* Symantec
* AVG
* Computer Associates
Firewalls help keep hackers from accessing the personal information on your computer without your
permission. They also regulate and monitor the flow
of data between your computer and the Internet.
23
For your firewall to be effective, however, it needs to
be set up properly and updated regularly. Like antivirus
software, most firewall software can be set to download
updates automatically when you are on the Internet.
Anti-Spyware
* Lavasoft's Ad-Aware
* Spybot Search & Destroy
* Microsoft Anti-Spyware
Spyware is software installed without your knowledge
or consent that harms your ability to use your computer,
sometimes by monitoring or controlling how you use it.
To avoid spyware, resist the urge to install any software
unless you know exactly what it is.
Your antivirus software may also include an anti-spyware capability. If it doesn't, you can install separate
anti-spyware software and then use it regularly to scan
for and delete any spyware programs that may sneak
onto your computer.
Pop-Up Blockers
* MSN Toolbar
* Google Toolbar
* EarthLink Toolbar
Pop-up browser windows are often considered a nuisance. However, some pop-ups may ask you for personal
information. Several toolbars are equipped with their
own pop-up blocker software.
Always update your system
Your operating system and security software likely offer
free software updates or patches designed to detect and
eliminate vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit. In
many cases, your operating system and security software can be set to automatically retrieve and install these
updates for you. If your system does not do this, bookmark the manufacturer's website so you can regularly
visit to update your system with the latest defenses.
Operating System
* Microsoft Windows
* Mac OS
Your operating system is the foundation for every function your computer performs. Keeping your operating
system up-to-date is a must if you hope to protect your
personal information from attackers.
Browsers
* Internet Explorer
* Mozilla Firefox
* Safari
Check for web browser updates periodically. Doing
so will decrease the likelihood that your browser's
security will be compromised.
Practical Web Browser Adjustments
Your Web browser (such as Internet Explorer, Firefox
and Safari) allows you to view and interact with Web
pages. Vulnerabilities in your browser can make it
easier for your computer's security to be violated.
However, making a few common adjustments can
reduce your risk.
Upgrade Your Browser
If an online intruder manages to access important
data on your computer, encryption will render the
information unusable to that person.
Upgrade your browser if it has less than 128-bit
encryption. Your browser's Help menu (located at
the top of the screen) or its support website can assist
you with an upgrade.
Enable Cookies
In addition to creating a personalized experience
when you visit usaa.com, cookies help us authenticate your computer. When you enable cookies
on your browser you allow us to deposit a small,
harmless "identification card" on your computer to
help maintain the security on usaa.com. Because
instructions to enable cookies vary from browser to
browser and even between versions, consult your
browsers "Help" menu for details.
Note: Use caution when visiting unfamiliar websites
while cookies are enabled. Some untrustworthy sites
will deposit cookies meant to track where you go
on the internet. USAA does not track you when you
leave usaa.com.
Disable AutoComplete
The AutoComplete feature found in a number of
browsers makes it easy for you to fill out forms
and log on to some web sites. However, this feature
may require your browser to store sensitive data
that could be compromised by an intruder. You can
disable the AutoComplete feature of your browser.
Consult your browsers "Help" menu for details.
24
A Note About Wireless Device Use
Malware
With the growing popularity of Web-enabled devices like
PDAs, mobile phones and laptop computers, accessing
your personal information on public wireless networks
is easier than ever. How can you protect your wireless
connection to the Internet?
Malicious software that is harmful to the normal
functioning of computers. It may send personal
information on your computer to unauthorized parties via the Internet. Malware includes computer
viruses, worms, Trojans and spyware.
Choose Wi-Fi Hotspots Carefully
Those free wireless hotspots at the public library and
coffee shops may be very tempting. But they could
come at a price. Such open networks are often vulnerable to security breaches. Try to find wireless networks
that require a password. Information sent over secure
networks is encrypted for your safety.
3. Secure your browser by adjusting its settings, if necessary.
4. Stay informed about potential security threats.
Install and update security software
If you use the Internet for financial transactions or to
store sensitive information, installing security software
on your computer is a necessity. But once the software is
in place, your dedication to keeping it updated will make
it tougher for thieves to take advantage of you.
Advanced Security Tips
People with Internet savvy are well aware of the dangers
that lurk on the Web — especially when e-commerce is
involved. To assist experienced Internet users like you
in assessing your security, we've prepared the list of
reminders below.
Disable File Sharing
Unless you absolutely need it, disable file sharing to
prevent unauthorized access to your computer.
Disable Hidden File Extensions
If your operating system is set to hide file names,
you may be vulnerable to an online attack. You could
be tricked into believing that a potentially harmful
executable file (.EXE) is actually a picture or text
file. For example, the potentially malicious "familyphoto.jpg.exe" would appear harmless as "familyphoto.jpg" if file extensions are hidden. Be sure to
disable hidden file extensions.
Secure Your Home Wireless Network
If you've got the aptitude to set up your own wireless network at home, develop the expertise to keep
it secure, too. Try to position your router near the
center of your home and away from windows. This
reduces the chance your signal could leak outside to
neighbors' homes or into the streets. Also, change the
default network password and be sure to disable the
Service Set Identifier (SSID) Broadcast. The SSID
can act as an advertisement to intruders.
Enable JavaScript with Care
Active controls like JavaScript help make web pages
interactive. You can be certain that while on usaa.com
you can safely navigate with JavaScript functionality
in the background. However, always use caution when
going to unfamiliar websites if you’re surfing with
JavaScript enabled.
Be Cautious with Third-Party Browser Add-Ons
Those nifty little toolbars and search engines you add
to your browser may add convenience and power to
your Internet experience. But add-on software from
some websites may unknowingly install malware on
your computer. You should only download software and
updates from sites you know and trust.
25
26
27
POB 649
El Verano, CA 95433
Topics:
• MARCH SVCG USER MEETING
Date: Saturday, 3/8/2008
Place: Sonoma Public Library
755 West Napa Street
Time: Mac: 9 am to 10:00 am
Mac and Windows: 10:00 am - 11 am
Topic: Your Questions Answered
and
Elections, and More
for Mac and Windows Users
March Newsletter 2008
This month we have election of Officers and
will have a combined meeting starting at 10
am. It shouldn’t take long, so we will have time
to share new gadgets and information. I will
show a search tip that everyone should find
useful. Tom is bringing the new “toys” he got
for Xmas.
I found an interesting review about Magic
Jack - the high speed internet phone service
device that I saw at CES in Las Vegas.
“Need a second phone
line? How about a dedicated business line for
your home-based enterprise? A cheap way to
make calls while traveling the world? Look no further than the
MagicJack, quite possibly the coolest gizmo of
2007.
All you do is plug the little guy into a USB
port. It automatically installs its own software:
a nifty little dialer/address-book app. (During
the initial setup, you get to choose your own
local number for inbound calls.) Now just plug
any corded or cordless handset into the
MagicJack's standard RJ-11 jack and presto,
you've got a dial tone. And voice mail. And
three-way calling, caller ID, etc. You can also
use a headset if you're traveling and don't want
to schlep that bulky old Princess phone.
The MagicJack costs $40, which includes a
year's worth of unlimited local and longdistance calls. (Free international calls to other
MagicJack users, too.) After that, you'll pay
just $20 per year. I've tried this thing, and let
me tell you: It rocks. It's way easier to use than
Skype, way cheaper than Vonage, and way
cool to boot.”
See you at Saturday’s meeting. —Beth
Vol. 1 No. 3
Need a sticky note? Put it on your computer!
by Linda Gonse, Editor & Webmaster, Orange
County IBM PC Users’ Group, CA
www.orcopug.org
editor(at)orcopug.org
Obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication
by APCUG member groups.
Sticky note programs for your pc, as you
might imagine, are a utility that takes the place
of paper Post-It notes that we all stick to our
monitors!
But, sticky note programs I’ve researched this
year discouraged me from even trying them
out. Sometimes they didn’t have enough features, or if they did, they were expensive.
Then, someone recommended a program
called Stickies, created by Tom Revell, at
www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/. So, I looked at
Stickies on the web page, liked what I saw, and
downloaded the program.
My first discovery about the program is that
it is small, 953Kb, and doesn’t interfere with
system files and doesn’t write to the registry. In
fact, Stickies stores all its information in a single text-based ini file. When was the last time
you had a program on your computer as wellmannered as this one?
An icon in your system tray will allow you
quick access to Stickies’ features and options.
From this dropdown list you can manage your
Stickies notes, configure them, get help, and
download new skins. When you do make a
Sticky, it won’t disappear unless you tell it to,
and it stays where it is placed. You can edit,
format, and print them. Make as many as you
want, or as many as your screen space will permit. But, to save room and keep Stickies organized, they will snap to each other and to the
sides of the screen where they can be neatly
lined up. You can even “hide” them from view.
Besides viewing Stickies on your screen, you
can attach them to a website, a document, or a
folder, so they only appear when the objects
they are attached to are on the screen.
Stickies are portable, too. You can transfer
Stickies from one computer to another over
your TCP/IP network connection, to your PDA
and back again, or send to friends in email.
They can be set to “sleep” and appear on a
specified date and time, as announcements or
reminders. They can even play a sound alarm
so they get your attention when they “awaken”!
What’s fun is being able to customize the
notes with various fonts, colors and buttons.
You can even download customized skins from
a big selection to change the outward appearance of the notes — plain, borderless, simple
border, etc. The notes can be resized, just like
the sticky notes in Acrobat.
Stickies are located in five categories within
the application so you can see and manage
them. You can search for information in
Stickies, wake sleeping Stickies, restore closed
Stickies and detach Stickies.
What else? Oh, yes! Another attractive feature of Stickies is...the program is free!
What are you waiting for? Try it out and see if
you like this little program as much as I do!
Icons disappear
Right-click on any open area of the computer desktop, then chose Arrange Icons By. If
your icons have accidently become hidden
there will be no checkmark in front of Show
Desktop Icons. Just click that option and your
icons will reappear.
Unusual windows appear
Windows has a lot of keyboard shortcuts that
can be accidently accessed. For instance, when
I started this column, I wanted to hit the Shift
key and the letter “h” for the word Have. However, my finger slipped and I hit the Ctrl key
and the letter “h” instead. A window popped up
asking what I wanted to Find and Replace,
which is not at all what I intended. If this ever
happens you to you can usually just close the
pop up window, but occasionally you have to
look a little further into what happened. For
instance, when working in Microsoft Word, it
you accidently hit Ctrl+N, a new window will
appear making it look like you just lost your
entire document. If you look closely you will
be able to figure out that all you have to do is
close the new window and the document you
were working on will reappear.
If you can’t figure out what happened or you
get caught in a loop, restarting your computer
will usually bring you back to normal.
Lost toolbars
As noted before, an errant key press can
cause a problem. This time the culprit is one of
the F keys. Accidently pressing the F11 key
can make the toolbars disappear. This is often
used as a feature when you want to show something in what they call “full screen mode”. If
this happens to you, just press F11 again to
make the toolbars return.
The toolbar moves
Have you ever had the toolbar that usually
appears on the bottom of the screen show up on
the side or top of the screen? There is an easy
way to get it back where it belongs. Just place
your cursor right next to, but not on, the Start
button. Then hold the mouse button down and
drag the toolbar back where it belongs.
Dramatic slowdown
A dramatic slowdown can mean that your
hard disk is filling up. The computer uses the
This article has been provided to APCUG by the author
solely for publication by APCUG member groups. All other
uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above).
Weird Windows Behavior
By Sandy Berger, compukiss.com
Sandy(at)compukiss.com
www.compukiss.com
Obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for
publication by APCUG member groups
Have you ever been completely dismayed by
your computer? Does it seem to do unusual
things that you can’t trace back to any of your
actions? Well, you are not alone. This happens
to all computer users. In the computer world,
unusual things sometimes happen. Here is a list
of some weird computer behavior and how to
combat it.
February Newsletter 2008
Page 2
Vol. 1 No. 2
hard disk as sort of a scratch pad when it computes, so when your hard drive starts to fill up,
it can slow the computer down significantly.
Click on My Computer and highlight the drive
called Local Disk (C:). Look at the Details area
to see how much space is free. You should
have at least 10% of your hard drive free. If
you don’t, a hard drive cleanup is in order. Delete unnecessary programs and backup old files
and photos to an external drive or CD so you
can delete them from the hard disk. You can
use the Disk Cleanup utility to empty the recycle bin and delete unnecessary temporary files.
To access it, click on Start, choose All Programs, then click on System Tools where you
will find Disk Cleanup listed. It will walk you
through the cleanup. Once your hard disk has
more free space, you computer will perk up
considerably. You might also consider defragging your computer to speed it up. The Disk
Defragmenter utility is in the System Tools
area. Remember there are other things like viruses and spyware that can also slow down
your computer.
No sound
Sometimes the sound gets muted by mistake.
Look at the taskbar at bottom of the screen. In
the right hand side you will see a small icon
that looks like a speaker. If it has a red X on it,
the sound has been muted. Click on the icon,
then click to remove the checkmark in front of
the word Mute. If you don’t see this icon, go to
the Control Panel and choose Sounds or
Sounds and Audio Devices where you will find
a place to uncheck the Mute option. Many laptops and some desktops also have a volume
button on the keyboard which you can use to
mute and unmute the speaker.
Mouse shutters
If your mouse is hard to control or acting erratic, it may need a cleaning. An optical mouse
with a flat bottom just needs a cleaning with a
damp cloth. If your mouse has a roller ball on
the bottom, remove the ball and clean the rollers inside the mouse with a Q-tip soaked with
isopropyl alcohol.
Hope this gets you through some of those
weird Windows moments in your life.
Year 2007 Tax Software
by Milton G. Gugenheim, Jr., a member of
HAL-PC, Texas, and an AARP Tax Aide Instructor and Local Coordinator for over 12
years
www.hal-pc.org
mgug(at)hal-pc.org.
publication by APCUG member groups.
Personal Software
Most of us seem to put the dreaded tax chore
off until the last moment and then find ourselves faced with incomprehensible IRS forms,
shoeboxes of receipts, check registers, antacids
and headache pills. The return must be filed by
Tuesday, April 15, 2008 (you can file an extension to delay filing until August 15, 2008. But
payment, without P&I, is due April 15, 2008 –
the IRS is nice, but not that nice!)
Fortunately help is on the
way in the form of a couple of
good tax preparation programs
from Intuit – TurboTax, H&R
Block – TaxCUT and 2nd
Story’s TaxACT. This review
covers the two most popular
programs.
In addition to well-crafted interfaces and
good online help, both TaxCUT and TurboTax
include Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web
browser for seamless integration with the
World Wide Web for updating. An internet
connection is required to obtain updates as the
software is released in December, before the
IRS has completed all the forms, etc.
Even if you think that you need the skills of
an experienced CPA in the preparation of your
return, either of these programs will help you
to become better organized and possibly keep
accountant fees to a minimum.
I found the following software tax packages
for the 2007 tax year: TurboTax Basic, TurboTax Deluxe, TurboTax Premier, TaxCUT, TaxCUT Deluxe, and TaxCUT Premier, for Windows 98, 2000, ME, XP. Vista and
MacPowerPC processor. Most of the local office supply stores and other retail and software
This article has been provided to APCUG by the autho
r
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Vol. 1 No. 2
outlets stock the software.
There are free tax preparation programs on
the web. Go to a search engine and enter “free
federal income tax programs”. TaxACT is a
good free program. The program is easy to use
and includes forms most tax payers require. A
paid version is also available for more complex
returns.
Features
TurboTax Basic is the basic
package needed to file all
individual returns including
professional or sole proprietor, and includes Internet Explorer on the CD. TurboTax
Deluxe includes all the features of TurboTax
Basic and one free e-file (after rebate). Plus extra help for deductions – the deduction finder
(library resources, tax planner, on-screen references and IRS publications, video advice and a
financial planner). TurboTax Premier includes
all the feature of TurboTax Deluxe plus help
for investments, complex taxes, Schedule C
business and Rental Property.
TaxCUT Deluxe is almost identical to TurboTax including Internet Explorer 6 on the CD. TaxCUT
Deluxe includes all the features of TurboTax Deluxe, tax
tips, on-screen IRS instructions and publications. All the
programs will import financial
data from most popular financial programs, and include details on preparing a return, reviewing a return,
electronic filing (e-file) via a second party,
planning for next year, plus help locations.
Installation
All packages were easy to install following the
given directions. TurboTax Basic requires 175
MB of disc space without the installation of
Explorer. TaxCUT Deluxe requires 170 MB of
disc space without the installation of Explorer
Manual
Both TurboTax and TaxCUT include a onscreen user guide with typical screens of the
described function. All the usual files, edit,
forms, tools and help are in the tool bar. TaxACT has almost as much on-screen help
General Overview
All of the packages have an easy step-by-step
program to walk the taxpayer through the various steps required to do a return. The experienced taxpayer may prefer the forms method
after completing a basic information page. The
taxpayer selects the form and fills in the required information. Some have supplemental
sheets for recording information, which is then
transferred to the form. Help is available from
any screen. All programs import from Quicken
and Microsoft Money.
Details
The latest tax changes are incorporated in the
packages (at the time of release). Each package
allows the taxpayer to enter data on various
forms after completing the basic information
sheet. The return is then saved. Be sure to give
the file a name if more than one return will be
prepared using the same program. The programs may be used whether you are the organized type or the shoe box type. The shoebox
type should organize the various types of entries first.
Printing
TurboTax and TaxCUT allow you to print an
IRS return or select a form or schedule to be
printed. The current computer printer setup
does not have to be changed. Check to be sure
you have the latest updates prior to printing the
return for filing. Print a return for filing and a
return for your records. The record return will
contain detail sheets. I have no experience using these programs to e-file.
Summary
The Basic package of TurboTax or Deluxe of
TaxCUT is more than adequate for most users.
The upgrade packages are great for users who
like the “bells and whistles” that include lots of
helpful literature, suggestions, etc. The street
price for the basic packages is around $20,
TurboTax Deluxe, and TaxCUT Premier is
about $40 Each company has an extensive
business program for about $70 +. A new program is required for the each tax year. TurboTax and TaxCUT sites, each sell the programs
and it will cost more than the local stores.
Helpful Hints: I suggest the return be prepared in all caps since this is preferred by the
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Vol. 1 No. 2
IRS. All returns are mathematically corrected
based on the input data. Most of programs have
promotion tie-ins, such as a money program,
anti-virus, etc. Read carefully the conditions
before buying the program.
TurboTax, for more info goes to: www.
turbotax.com/support. Block TaxCUT. For
more info go to: www.taxcust.comand for TaxACT go to: www.taxact.com.
for use within the United States of America, it
is quite international in scope. How it works in
various countries may or may not be subject to
various controls. However someone with the
right equipment might be able to tap into a satellite that carries Internet signals. Yet a very
great portion of Internet traffic is in or at least
involves the United States
It is the services on the Internet that make it
interesting to the ordinary user. Historically it
was used for short messages and moving files
from one location to another. The messages
might be nothing more than a notice that a file
was ready to be transferred or that it had been
successfully received. It grew into something
in which anyone could bring useful files to
their local computers and send complex messages with files often attached.
The technology for providing and receiving
many services has changed and made more
complex, yet more user friendly. Internet capable technology is often used in local networks
called Intranets, which may or may not be connect to the overall Internet. Different individuals work with the Internet in ways that may be
unique to them. The ordinary person does not
know or care how it works, just that he or she
can use it for the desired services, such as sending e-mail messages.
The Internet can be something mysterious
and quite technical. It can also be something
that appears easy to use. This may depend on
what one wants and what is loaded on a particular computer. Very often a company that
one uses to connect and receive services tries to
make things look as simple as possible to the
end user.
The Internet, What Is It?
Written by Hilton Kaufman, a member of the
Chicago Computer Society, Illinois
www.css.org
hmkaufman(at)earthlink.net
(This is the first of a short series of articles explaining what the Internet is.)
The Internet is one of those things that is a bit
tricky to define and explain. It is a network of
computer networks that provides various services, such as e-mail and the World Wide Web,
with a hierarchy of naming conventions to consider. No one can tell exactly how many computers are part of the Internet at any moment as
individuals are constantly signing on and off.
There is also the historical aberration that the
intended structure of the Internet is not how it
works today. It was supposed to be a bunch of
independent connections and multiple possible
routings so that if one part went down, say the
area in lower Manhattan about five years ago,
messages could go through on another route.
Now everything goes across country on a backbone consisting of maybe five or six parallel
main trunk lines.
It also was once for government and educational use only. Many government functions
now use newer networks with connections totally separate from what we know as The Internet. They may or may not permit connection to
the Internet for routine matters, but severely
limit who can get into the secure internal networks. Schools seem to find that the Internet
works fine for them. Much of the Internet involves commercial entities today.
While the Internet was originally designed
(Future articles in this series will explain how the
Internet is hooked together, the addressing system
that sends things to the right place, and some of the
services available over the Internet.)
Hilton Kaufman serves
as the technical support
person for the procedures writing unit of an
Illinois state agency,
where higher level technical support personnel
are concerned with the
details of Internet conPage 5
Vol. 1 No. 2
nections and services. As such, he uses the
software provided to him to create forms, convert documents into PDFs, advise members of
his unit as to how to use the available software,
and similar tasks. For his home computer, he
can go all out and get a powerful machine that
allows him to do things like playing games and
surf the web without getting in trouble. He has
prepared a number of articles aimed at novice
users on the basics of standard computer programs.
This article may be published only by APCUG member
user groups. All other uses are prohibited. When used,
APCUG must be acknowledged as the source and the author credited. The Editorial Committee of the Association of
Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an intern
ational organization of which this group is a member, brings
this article to you.
Scanning Published Photos
By Irving Elliott, Twin Cities PC User Group,
Minnesota
www.tcpc.com/
irving.elliott(at)att.net
If the density (squares per inch) of the scanned
picture is not an exact multiple of the pixel
density of the scanner, computer screen, or
printer, an interference pattern occurs. They
may also appear if the original photo is slightly
rotated after scanning.
Colored pictures from publications may also
give you interference patterns. For these, the
halftone process uses filters to split the image
into more than one black-gray-white photo,
with each photo representing the intensities for
each color. In each resulting halftone, the blob
pattern is slightly offset from that of the other
halftones. The picture is reproduced by printing
the same paper once for each halftone, in the
corresponding color. The printing press does
not print one color on top of another because of
the slight offset of the halftones.
You can get rid of the interference pattern by
processing the picture with any photo software
package that has a “blur” or “soften” selection.
For example, in Paint Shop Pro, the IMAGE/
SOFTEN menu selection spreads the black
blobs so that the fuzzy bars magically disappear.
If you scan a photo from a newspaper or
magazine, then examine the results on your
computer screen, you may see a criss-cross pattern of fuzzy lines over the entire print. If you
print the scanned photo, you may also see such
a pattern. This happens because pictures in
newspapers and magazines are printed in a
“halftone” mode.
The halftone process was invented when it
was desired to print black-gray-white photographs using a printing press that used only single-color black ink. In this process, the photo is
divided into a pattern of small squares, then
each square is replaced with a black “blob” of a
size proportional to the average shade of black
in the square. For example: a white square remains white; a light gray square becomes a
small black blob; a dark gray square becomes a
larger black blob; a black square remains black.
The gray shades were called “half-tones”,
which explains the name of the process. Originally, the conversion was done by rephotographing the picture with a camera that
contained a wire screen. then developing the
picture in a high-contrast mode. Nowadays, the
process can be accomplished on a computer.
uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail
address above.
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Vol. 1 No. 2
download the utility directly to your hard drive,
you run the risk of storing the undelete program over the very data you are trying to recover. If you have a second hard drive, you can
download to that or better yet, download directly to a thumb drive. That avoids all danger
of losing important data, and it has the additional advantage of immediate portability.
The programs all work similarly. Direct any
of the programs to a specific disk and you will
get a list of all deleted recoverable files on the
drive. You may also get a description alerting
you that the file(s) may be wholly or partially
recoverable. That’s good to know.
Direct any recovered files to an external hard
drive if you have one. Don’t save anything to
your hard drive until you have recovered everything you need. Use Windows Explorer to
manage the recovered files. Group them into
categories to sort or group the files so you can
easily determine if they are program files, data
files or something else. Some files may have
data missing if Windows overwrote some of
the sectors where it was stored.
If after all this you haven’t been successful,
your best alternative is to consider a data recovery service. These can be a devastating
drain on your wallet, so don’t use these services to recover saved game files.
Do some comparison shopping as rates can
vary considerably. Good luck and watch those
sticky fingers when they hover near the delete
key.
Recovering Files from a Hard Drive
By Vinny La Bash, a Member of the Sarasota
PCUG, Florida
www.spacug.org
labash(at)spcug.org
Have you deleted a file that you need and you
don't know how to get it back? The first step is
to make absolutely sure that it has been deleted. Open your Windows Recycle Bin and
double-check. Is it in there? If so, simply rightclick on the file and choose Restore.
If you have emptied the Recycle Bin the next
step is to restore the file from your latest
backup. You do back up your data regularly,
don’t you?
Unfortunately, there is no native “Undelete”
command in Windows XP. This is a mystery
because Microsoft had a nifty undelete feature
in Windows 3.1 which somehow disappeared
in Windows 95 and subsequent versions of the
operating system. This is abysmal for Windows
users, but profitable for third party software
developers.
It’s important to understand that when a file
is deleted it is not actually removed from your
system. Windows deletes only the first letter of
the file’s name and replaces it with a marked
for deletion character. This makes the file
“invisible” to windows, and if Windows needs
the space for something else, it has no qualms
about overwriting your valuable data.
What this means is that if you accidentally
delete a file, you have a limited amount of time
to recover it before windows stores something
else over the same space. It may not happen
right away, but it will happen eventually.
Since there is no way within XP to recover a
lost file, you have to turn to a third party solution. The good news is that there are several
excellent programs that will do the job easily.
The even better news is that these programs are
free. Isn’t that nice?
Use Google or your favorite search engine to
find FreeUndelet, PC Inspector File Recovery,
or Undelete Plus. All of them work well though
you may find one easier to use than another.
That’s a matter of personal preference.
You need to be cautious about this. If you
Smart Computing Tip Of The Day
Use a Web page image as wallpaper in
Windows XP.
Wallpaper doesn’t necessarily have to be a
picture that resides on your computer. Select
any graphic you find on the Internet by placing
your mouse pointer on the image you want
and right-clicking. Select Set As Background
from the pop-up menu, and you will have
changed your wallpaper. (Be sure you have
permission to use the image.)
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Vol. 1 No. 2
Windows Live Hotmail
solicit personal data, like passwords or financial information you can report the phishing
scam. Click the down arrow by the Junk link
and select Report phishing scam.
Maintain your safe senders, safe mailing lists
and blocked senders to be sure you get the
email that you need. Be careful when blocking
a sender in choosing whether to block only the
sender or domain.
I like to keep things organized and Windows
Live Hotmail makes it easy to keep email organized. Just create new folders and file existing messages in them for later reference. Move
messages by checking those to move, then use
the Move to drop down menu to file them. The
full version makes it even easier. You can drag
and drop messages into the proper folder. To
delete messages, select the messages, and then
click delete.
If a filing system goes awry, you can use the
search box above the inbox to find messages in
one of your folders or inbox. Just type in a
search and select the Mail button. Clicking web
accesses images, news, or information across
the Web based on your search.
Hotmail can even help maintain contacts.
Contacts can be imported from Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Contacts, Yahoo Mail
and Gmail. On the other hand, when you receive an email from a new contact you can easily add that person to your Windows Live Hotmail contact list. Just click the Add contact
link below the From: line on their email. And
your address book automatically updates anytime a contact changes Windows Live contact
information.
You can export Windows Live Hotmail contacts to a CSV file to transfer to another email
account or save a backup copy. If you regularly
add email addresses to your contacts when you
receive mail, duplicate contacts can become a
problem. Now when you add a new contact
from your inbox by clicking Add contact in a
received message and the contact has the same
name as an existing one, you're asked if you
want to merge them. You still have the option
of keeping them separate, giving you complete
control over your contact list. Running clean up
duplicate contacts searches for and cleans up
by Lynn Page, Editor, Crystal River Users Group,
Florida
www.crug.com
newsletter(at)crug.com
Obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG member groups.
I have had a Hotmail account for many years
and use it regularly. The latest Windows Live
Hotmail is easier to use and includes many impressive features. With 5 GB inbox so you
don’t have to worry about it filling up while
you are away. Safety features, including color
codes alert you to suspicious email and spam
filtering automatically sorts out unwanted
email. You can even drag and drop messages
between folders to keep things clean and organized.
I use the full version, which contains some
more advanced features but you can choose the
classic version. Hotmail opens to the Today
page, showing a status meter of mail usage,
current news headlines, and a folders view
showing how many unread emails are in the
inbox.
Color codes make it easy to tell at a glance
whether a message is safe or not. The bar at the
top of a message comes in three colors: White
means the message is from known contacts.
Yellow means the message is from someone
not on your contacts list. Red means the message appears to be fraudulent.
Control junk email with filters and senders
lists. Select low, standard or exclusive filters. I
use standard and it catches most of the spam. I
also have junk email found with the filter sent
to my junk email folder, where it is automatically deleted after five days. However, I look at
the folder and empty it daily. After using the
filter for some time, you may decide to immediately delete junk email. You can mark a message as safe or unsafe. Clicking the mark as unsafe link, automatically reports the sender to
Hotmail’s junk email filters and deletes the
message. Then the sender will no longer be
able to send you email and will receive notification that your address is not valid. If a nonjunk email gets accidentally filtered to the Junk
folder, clicking on the Not junk link to report a
message as not junk. If someone is trying to
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Vol. 1 No. 2
duplicates. Just choose to delete, edit or merge
information into one contact.
Windows Live Hotmail contacts have fields
for most information you need and probably
more. Add a first and last name, nickname; personal and business email address, phone numbers and address; birthday and a note for other
information.
Options provide personalization features to
suit your needs. Forward email from other accounts to Hotmail or forward Hotmail to another account. Set up a personal vacation reply
when you will be unavailable. The reply is sent
to any message that goes into the inbox. If you
receive many messages from one person, they
will get the vacation reply every four days.
Customize your email by selecting a language, reading pane settings and your email
signature. Set whether to save a copy of sent
email. You can even have sent mail include a
different reply to address. Select the reading
pane configuration to make the reading pane
appear on the right or bottom of the screen or
turn it off altogether. I personally keep the
reading pane off in all of my email accounts.
That way if a junk email gets through the filters, I can select and delete it without dealing
with the message at all.
However, the full version of Windows Live
Hotmail has a reading pane so you can preview
a message without risk. The reading pane lets
you quickly view your e-mail. Email from unknown senders has a yellow safety bar, and the
attachments, pictures and links blocked to help
avoid alerting spammers. You quickly go from
message to message without opening and reloading the page. Double click the message to
open it up in the full window. You can also
change your inbox layout.
If you like to get an audible alert of new
email, set Windows Live Messenger to notify
you. In Windows Live Messenger, go to select
Options in the Tools drop down menu. In Options select Alerts & Sounds and then Display
alerts when e-mail is received.
To send an email, click the New envelope
icon that in the top menu bar. In the full version, clicking the drop-down arrow to the right
of the New button opens a menu to create new
Folders, Contacts and Groups. If you click
away from the email you’re composing, you’ll
receive a prompt to Save as draft. Use font
styles, sizes and formatting, bullets, graphics
and even emoticons while creating a message.
Add recipients to an email from your list of
contacts. Or with the full version just start typing the first or last name of the recipient and
auto-complete finishes it from your address
book.
If you regularly send email to the same group
of people create personal distribution lists. Create a new list from your contact list. Just click
on All contacts in the Contacts section and select the contacts in a group and then click the
down arrow to open the Add to group drop
down menu. Choose to add them to an existing
group or create a new one. Once a group has
been created type it’s name into the To box
when you want to send mail to everyone at
once. Remember to use bcc.
I personally don’t use blogs but if you do you
can publish blog entries to your Windows Live
Space from Windows Live Hotmail. If you
have a customized a MSN.com page you can
add your inbox to it. Then a glance at the page
lets you know when you have new email. You
can access and reply to email from a Web enabled
cell phone or mobile device. Browse to www.
mobile.live.com and log into your Windows
Live Hotmail account.
How I Find My “Deleted” Emails
by Tom Thiel, President, Lake-Sumter
Computer Society
www.lscs.us
tthiel5(at)Comcast.net
Old Emails are one of my most frequent retrievals from my backed-up files.
My current rate of email accumulation is
about 20-30 a day. I’ve forced myself to maintain my accumulated emails in my Inbox and
Sent Emails folders to a maximum of not more
than 1,000 each. So periodically I just arbitrarily “lope off” the oldest one-half to one month
Page 9
Vol. 1 No. 2
needed if you are continuously on-line).
You may set IE to Work Offline as follows: With IE open select File, and
then check Work Offline. No new
emails can come in under this mode.
2. Now close OE.
3. With Windows Explorer I find the
folder “Toms emails” in My Documents and rename it to “Toms emails
Today”
4. Then I try to guess what backup might
have the particular email I’m looking
for from among the various backups I
have on the external USB drives.
5. With Windows Explorer I find the
folder “Toms emails” on that external
backup copy.
6. Then I Copy that folder and Paste it
into my current My Documents folder.
7. I now see two email folders in My
Documents; “Toms emails” which just
was Pasted from the backup copy and
the folder “Toms emails Today” which
had been renamed earlier.
8. Next I open IE again.
9. It asks me “Do you want to work
online?”
10. Be sure to say NO!
11. I then try to locate the desired email;
sometimes I use IE’s Find capability to
do this. Hopefully, I have guessed correctly and I find the desired email the
first guess.
12. I open it and then copy it to my Desktop by choosing File and then Save As
and Save To Desktop.
13. Now I close IE and with Windows Explorer find the folder “Toms emails”,
the one I just loaded from the backup,
and from which I retrieved the desired
email, and I delete it.
14. Next I rename “Toms emails Today”
back to “Toms emails”
15. Then I open IE and say Yes I want to
Work Online.
16.
I find the email that I had copied to my
desktop and double-click on it to open in IE. I
can then save it back into my current emails
and do whatever I
Customize Your Taskbar
To customize the Taskbar properties, click
Start and Control Panel and then double-click
the Taskbar And Start Menu icon. The Taskbar And Start Menu Properties dialog box will
open, giving you options to change the appearance and functionality of the Taskbar. To
choose an option, click the box in front of it. To
remove an option, click it again.
or so of emails. I try to manage some of these
by placing them into other folders but that isn’t
very effective for me.
What this procedure means is that frequently
I find myself wishing I still had that old
“deleted” email. (The latest one was the Acoustica email sending us Spin it Again software.)
How do I retrieve that email after I’ve
“deleted” it from my Inbox or Sent Items?
Here is how I do it with Internet Explorer 6.
Sometime ago I found out where IE stores
my emails. What I did then was to move the
place where my emails are stored by default to
a folder named “Toms emails” in my “My
Documents” folder. (How to do this is briefly
outlined in the addendum at the end of this article.)
My basic backup procedure is to frequently,
at least once a week but usually more frequently, and usually daily with very active
folders, copy the contents of my My Documents folder to an external USB connected 300
GB Maxtor drive and to other similar portable
USB drives (a 100 GB SimpleTec, and a 40
GB Pocketec hard drive) that are stored away
from my computer.
When I do this of course I am backing up the
current contents of all my emails at the moment
the My Documents backup is performed.
(Actually, any true backup procedure will
work.)
So, when I want one of those old emails that
had been arbitrarily “loped” off the tail end, I
do the following:
1.
Open Outlook Express and set it to
Work Offline so that new emails are not loaded
in with old ones (only
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Vol. 1 No. 2
wanted to do with it.
And that what I do to find that old “deleted”
email! Of course it only works for so long as
you maintain those backup copies – in my case
about six months.
Addendum: How you may change the default location where your e-mails are stored in
Outlook Express.
In OE, first select the Tools menu, and then
Options tab. On the pop-up screen, click the
Maintenance tab, then click the Store Folder
button.
Outlook Express will show you where it is
currently keeping your e-mail files.
You may then select Change and a Browse
window will appear where you may chose to
indicate the new place you wish to store your
emails.
and file them appropriately with the IRS. This
is a task that very few enjoy, and many more
do not relish. While preparing our tax returns
becomes more complex and time consuming,
the IRS has once again contracted with a number of tax services to prepare our taxes online
for free, if we are eligible. According to the
IRS, the goal of the free file program is to enable 70% of taxpayers (97 million people, according to the IRS) to take advantage of the
free online service; for calendar year 2007
(taxes due April 15, 2008), the calculated ceiling on eligibility for the free service is an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $54,000. In addition to preparing federal tax returns for those
eligible, the providers will also “efile” (electronically file) the returns at no
charge to the taxpayer. It should be noted that
the IRS does not charge for receiving e-filed
returns, but does not currently accept e-filed
returns directly from individuals without first
going through a third party service, for which a
fee may be charged. There is no e-file fee for
taxes prepared by the free preparers who participate in the IRS free file program.
The free filing service was created in 2002,
and renewed again in 2005, when the IRS created a public – private partnership called the
“File Free Alliance, LLC” where the IRS contracted with several tax preparation companies
to offer free online tax preparation and filing.
The Free File Alliance evolved from a
“President’s Management Agenda”, which created a series of 24 “e-government” initiatives
designed to improve government to citizen
electronic capabilities. Originally, the program
was limited to 60% of taxpayers, but the 2005
contract expanded the eligibility to 70% of taxpayers. The current agreement between the
IRS and the preparation companies expires in
October, 2009. The income eligibility ceiling,
currently at an AGI of $54,000, is adjusted annually such that 70% of taxpayers will remain
eligible. Members of the Free File Alliance
must conform to strict IRS established security
and privacy requirements which insure the
sanctity of the free filing service.
According to the IRS, there are several advantages and reasons for using the free tax ser
IRS Again Offers Free Online Tax
Preparation and “e-Filing”
By Ira Wilsker, APCUG Director; Columnist,
The Examiner, Beaumont, TX; radio and Talk
Show Host
iwilsker(at)apcug.net
WEBSITES:
http://www.irs.gov
http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,
id=118986,00.html - Free File page
id=118992,00.html – Free File Instructions
id=118993,00.html - Information
http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp List of participating Companies
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-efile/
free_file_agreement.pdf - Free File Alliance
Agreement
http://www.irs.gov/espanol/article/0,,
id=163297,00.html - Free File in Spanish
Whether we like it or not, April 15 is fast approaching. It does not matter if we are due a
refund, or owe Uncle Sam a bundle of money,
we still must complete our income tax forms
Page 11
Vol. 1 No. 2
vices provided. The IRS claims that users can
get their refunds in as little as 10 days, if they
opt for direct deposit. Unlike commercial tax
preparation offices, the online services are
available 24/7, and taxes can be completed and
filed at any time of the day prior to April 15.
The IRS also claims that the service is environmentally friendly, in that it saves mountains of
paper. Users of the free online services will
benefit through the automatic checks for accuracy, and will receive a confirmation within 48
hours that the return was received by the IRS.
Users of the free filing service must start at
the IRS website, IRS.gov, and initially access
the free tax services through the IRS website.
Many of the companies that are a part of the
Free File Alliance also offer paid commercial
tax preparation services, and the only way to
get the service for free is to initialize the process through the IRS website. The list of participating companies, 19 of them, includes such
well known companies as H&R Block, and
software companies such as TurboTax. It is
the responsibility of the user to verify his eligibility both for the program (up to $54,000
AGI), and for the Free Alliance partner selected, as many of the partners have additional
eligibility requirements for the free service.
The user can either browse the list of individual
companies (www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/
index.jsp), or can use the button “Guide Me To
A Company” to narrow down the choices of
free tax preparers. Several of the companies,
such as H&R Block’s “TaxCut Free File”,
“Tax$imple Deluxe Version”, and “eSmart Tax
by Liberty Tax Service” are available to anyone with an AGI of less than $54,000, and who
are also aged 50 or less. “TaxSlayer Free Returns” is available to anyone aged 25 to 68, or
active military who meet the income requirements. “TurboTax Freedom Edition” is free to
anyone with an AGI of less than $30,000, or
active duty military with an AGI of up to
$54,000. “Complete Tax” will do any age with
an AGI of $12,000 to $54,000, while “Free
TaxAct” will do anyone aged 19 to 54 who has
an eligible AGI. Other free preparers have different eligibility requirements, including several that will prepare taxes for people for any
age, but have geographic restrictions, in that
they only prepare taxes for residents of specific
states. Some of the preparers, such as “Online
Tax Pros” specify that they also prepare taxes
in Spanish. While not a requirement covered
in the agreement with the IRS, many of the preparers listed will also prepare and file state income tax returns for residents of states that
have a state income tax (Texas does not have a
state income tax). While a few will prepare
state income taxes for free, most have a nominal charge to prepare and e-file state taxes.
Once the taxes are prepared and completed
online through one of the free providers, the
returns are electronically checked for accuracy,
and then e-filed directly with the IRS. The preparer will receive an electronic confirmation
from the IRS that the return was received, and
forward that confirmation to the taxpayer, typically within 48 hours of filing. If the taxpayer
is due a federal refund, and selects direct deposit, the refund is deposited to the taxpayer’s
specified account in as little as 10 days.
The IRS is to be commended for coordinating
this service, available to nearly 100 million taxpayers. One improvement to the service that I
would like to see is to allow those of us who
prepare our taxes ourselves with commercial
software, to be able to upload our returns directly to the IRS without having to go through
a third party. That would be a great service to
the millions of us who choose not to use, or
who are not eligible for, the free filing programs, but would like the convenience of efiling without sending our personal and private
information to a third party.
For the eligible 70% of taxpayers who can
utilize the free service, there are few good reasons not to use the service. The price can not
be beat.
Smart Computing Magazine sends these
tips via email. They also have them archived on their website:
www smartcomputing.com
Page 12
Vol. 1 No. 2

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