Tag Archives: Internet

Retina Display Updates for Computers that Don’t Support Retina Displays?

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Really, Apple?

Fellow author Jeff Carlson recently commented on Twitter:

The Retina Display is a new feature of certain Macintosh computers announced the other day at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC). While it’s nice to know that my next Macs will have a better display, there’s really nothing wrong with the displays on my current Macs: a 27″ iMac, a 11″ MacBook Air, and a 13″ MacBook Pro. The oldest of these computers (the MacBook Pro) is only about two years old and I have no plans to buy a new Mac for at least a year. Indeed, my desktop Mac, which is less than a year old, probably won’t be replaced for at least 2 years.

Unfortunately, in order for the folks who buy these new Macs to take advantage of their hot new displays, Mac OS applications have to be rewritten to support them. Apple, of course, is leading the pack by updating its apps. Jeff, who writes about iMovie, was pointing out the size difference between the old and new versions of that app.

Wow is a pretty good way to sum up the 179% increase in the app’s size.

Software Update Woes
Great! Now I can use iMovie in Thai!

I wondered whether the update would be pushed through to all Macs, regardless of whether they supported the new Retina Display. My answer came this morning, when I ran Software Update. If I wanted to update the Mac OS apps on my iMac with the software announced at WWDC, I’d need to download almost 2 GB of updates — most of which would not benefit me in the least.

Really, Apple?

This is the best way you can come up with to roll out updates for new hardware features? You can’t create an “HD” version of your apps and let the folks with new machines upgrade to that version? You can’t have Software Update distinguish between computer models and roll out the updates specific to that model?

Really?

I’m on the road this summer. I get all my Internet access for my desktop Mac through a hotspot connection to my New iPad. It’s 3G here and I pay roughly $10 per gigabyte of data. That means these “free” updates — which will not benefit me at all — will cost me $20.

Ouch.

And if I don’t update, I won’t be able to take advantage of new features in those apps as they’re rolled out.

I’m fortunate that I can take my two laptops to a nearby coffee shop for updates. At least the $20 I’ll spend there will buy me lunch. Still, a portion of the limited disk space on my MacBook Air will be gobbled up with assets I don’t need.

Thanks, Apple. You might not have as many updates as Microsoft does for Windows, but yours certainly hurt more.

Domain Service Notice Scam

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Yet another attempt to part fools from their money.

Today I got an email from Domain Services . (If you can’t tell from the email address that this is a scam, you really should not be reading email without supervision.)

It included a big fancy “notice” with one of my domain names and the information I provided when I registered it years ago. Here’s the meat of the message:

Attn: FLYING M PRODUCTIONS|MARIA LANGER
As a courtesy to domain name holders, we are sending you this notification for your business Domain name search engine registration. This letter is to inform you that it’s time to send in your registration and save.

Failure to complete your Domain name search engine registration by the expiration date may result in cancellation of this offer making it difficult for your customers to locate you on the web.

Privatization allows the consumer a choice when registering. Search engine subscription includes domain name search engine submission. You are under no obligation to pay the amounts stated below unless you accept this offer. Do not discard, this notice is not an invoice it is a courtesy reminder to register your domain name search engine listing so your customers can locate you on the web.

This Notice for: WWW.ARIZONAPHOTOADVENTURES.COM will expire on January 18,2012 Act today!

So if I don’t “register” with these people by tomorrow, this offer may be canceled, making it difficult for my customers to locate me on the web? Yeah, right.

But here’s the punchline — the payment schedule:

Domain Services Scam

Good thing they told me which was most recommended. I think I’ll write a check out to them right now!

Not.

Those of you who, like me, recognize a scam when you see one might be wondering why I’m blogging about such an obvious example of a ripoff. Well sadly not everyone recognizes email messages like this as scams. I’ve actually gotten calls from friends and family members asking me what they should do when they get crap like this in email.

And, believe it or not, the blog posts I write about scams are surprisingly popular. People get email like this, are not sure what to do, and Google it. What do they find? Among other things, they find me telling them not to get ripped off.

Don’t get ripped off. Don’t let scammers scare you into paying them money for no reason. Mark this email as junk and don’t give it a second glance.

Yet Another PayPal Phishing Attempt

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This one looks, on the surface, quite convincing.

This morning, I got the following message that appeared to be from PayPal in my inbox:

Another PayPal ScamDear PayPal Customer,

You have added andrew1987 @btconnect.com as a new email address for your Paypal account.

If you did not authorize this change, check with family members and others who may have access to your account first. If you still feel that an unauthorized person has changed your email, submit the form attached to your email in order to keep your original email and restore your Paypal account.

NOTE: The form needs to be opened in a modern browser which has javascript enabled (ex: Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3, Safari 3, Opera 9)

Please understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your account. We apologize for any inconvenience.

If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choice but to temporary suspend your account.

Sincerely, PayPal Account Review Department.

As shown in the accompanying screenshot, the message included all the usual PayPal logos and even a VeriSign Identity Protection logo. (What good is a logo like that if it’s so easily stolen and reused by scammers?) Of course, it was from an address at ppal.com (not paypal.com) and it was addressed to “Dear PayPal Customer” instead of my name. That’s a dead giveaway that the message is not real.

Of course, there was an HTML file attached. Opening the file in a text editor — not a Web browser! — showed HTML code with a JavaScript that would, among other things, collect your PayPal name, password, date of birth, and mother’s maiden name. I don’t know enough about JavaScript to figure out what would be done with this info, but I can assume it gets sent back to the folks who will then use it for identity theft.

Reading the message offers other clues that it’s fake. For example, although it’s standard for PayPal to send you an e-mail message if you add or change an e-mail account, they make a conflicting request. First, they say action is only necessary if you believe your account has been compromised. Then they tell you that if you ignore the request, they’ll suspend your account. That, of course, makes no sense.

But I’m sure that many people would fall for this. After all, it indicates that a stranger’s email has been added to their PayPal account. All the talk about Internet fraud would send a person into panic mode. He’d open the file attachment and possibly go through the process of giving away information about his own account.

You have no idea how much this pisses me off. I know people who have been scammed by emails like this. One of them is an elderly man who had a bank account tapped into and partially drained before he was able to resolve the problem.

I immediately forwarded this message to spoofs@paypal.com — the address you should forward any questionable PayPal communication to.

Please help spread the word among friends and family members who might fall for phishing attempts like this. Tell them that if they get a communication from any company they do business with, they should log into their account the usual way — not by clicking a link or opening a file attachment in the message they receive.

September 3, 2011 Update:

Thought I’d mention another version of this scam. Here’s the message that arrived today:

Dear Customer,

You sent a payment of 40.90 GBP to Mobile Top-up Online
(sales@topups247.com)

If you have questions about the shipping and tracking of your
purchased item or service, please contact the seller.

Please download the document attached to this
email to cancel or forward your purchase.
————————-

Merchant
Mobile Top-up Online
sales@topups247.com
Instructions to merchant
You haven’t entered any instructions.

Shipping address – Unconfirmed
United Kingdom
Postage details

Of course, this one came with an HTML attachment, too. It’s named “PayPal Refund.html” and, to someone who isn’t actually thinking, it might seem like something worth double-clicking to fix the perceived incorrect charge.

Don’t get scammed.

November 21, 2011 Update: They’re now doing the same thing with the name sarah@comcast.com.

Blog for Your Readers, Not for Yourself

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It simply isn’t fair to expect your blog’s visitors to jump through hoops to see your content or share their comments.

Yesterday, I followed a link to a Web site I often visit and read a blog post I wanted to comment on. I filled in the form and was faced with a series of options, all of which would eventually require me to set up an account with the blogger’s current choice of comment platform: Livefyre. I didn’t want an account on yet another commenting platform, so I simply didn’t leave a comment.

I should note a few things here. It was this same blog and blogger that was using Disqus, another commenting platform, a few years back. I wanted to comment and set up a Disqus account. Since then, Disqus has become relatively popular and I use the account a few times a week.

(It wasn’t always like that. I distinctly remember the hassle that followed my Disqus account setup when the system kept sending me email messages every time someone else commented on a post I’d commented on. It took a lot of digging to figure out how to turn off that feature — which I’d never turned on. As for Livefyre, it seemed impossible to post a comment yesterday without giving Livefyre permission to post on my behalf on Twitter or Facebook or use my e-mail address for some other purpose I didn’t want but had no choice but to authorize.)

Of course, I still don’t understand why a blogger doesn’t simply use the commenting feature that’s part of a WordPress installation. That’s what I use here. It’s pretty straightforward: enter your name, e-mail address, website (optional), and comment. If the comment passes muster with my spam prevention software, it’s held for moderation by me. If I approve it, it appears. If I don’t, it’s trashed. I could, of course, require each and every commenter to open an account on this blog, but I really don’t think it’s necessary to make them take that extra step. It’s bad enough that they may have to wait for their comment to appear.

And that brings up the topic of this post: requiring blog readers to do something special just for you so they can see or interact with your blog’s content. I’m talking about requiring an account on an obscure commenting system just because you like it. Or inserting content that depends on a specific plugin or Web browser to view. Or requiring someone to create an account or log in just to read a post. (Don’t get me started on paywalls.)

It’s just not right.

Face it: there are tens of thousands of blogs out there and, if you’re an average blogger, half of them are going to be better than yours. Why would you make your blog readers do something special just to read/reply to your blog? Do you really think it’s fair to have them jump through hoops just for you?

I don’t.

If you’re a serious blogger with content you want to share with the biggest possible audience, stop putting up roadblocks or hurdles for readers. Make content easy to find and read. And yes, that does mean not splitting posts into multiple parts, forcing readers to click through multiple pages to read one post. It also means not littering your blog with obnoxious and distracting ads that make it difficult to find content among blinking, flashing, or animated trash. And content that requires plugins to see is likely to be seen only by the few people who have those plugins or are willing to install them.

If you want feedback from blog readers in the form of comments that can start valuable conversations and build a blog community, stop making it difficult for them to post a comment. Not everyone is happy about setting up accounts all over the Web — especially accounts with third party services that might use contact information for their own purposes.

So who do you blog for? Yourself? Or your readers? Look at your blog from their perspective. Is your content worth the bother of jumping through the hoops you’ve set up for readers?

If there’s any question, maybe it’s time to rethink your priorities. It just might help get your blog a bigger audience and the kind of reader interaction that sets good blogs apart from the rest of the pack.

Juggling Internet Bandwidth

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Working with bandwidth limitations.

This summer, I’m on the road again, working out of my RV, the “mobile mansion.” And, after dealing with crappy, overpriced Internet service at my first stop for the past three years, I decided to go it alone this year with a My-Fi.

Why My-Fi?

My-FiThe reason I picked the My-Fi (instead of setting up a mobile hotspot from my smartphone) was twofold:

  • The My-Fi unit came with better plans. There was a 3GB plan for $35 which would only cost $10/GB if I went over. I knew I’d likely go over at least a few times a year — last summer, I had an 8GB month. The other plans would have been far more costly for that overage.
  • I’m a Verizon customer and I wanted to be able to talk on the phone while using the Internet. I admit this was not a primary concern. Last year I used mobile broadband tethering from my BlackBerry and did occasionally get interrupted by a phone call while doing my Internet thing. It didn’t kill me to wait until I was done talking. After all, I spend very little time actually talking on my phone.

I should note here that I do know that the Virgin Mobile My-Fi has a plan with unlimited bandwidth. But what good is a device that doesn’t work where you are? The Virgin Mobile device doesn’t have coverage in the areas I travel to. Verizon does. That’s the same reason — or one of them, anyway — why I don’t have AT&T.

My Plans

Last summer, I was spoiled. Although I paid for Internet at my first stop, I also had free unlimited Internet access through my BlackBerry. I’d had tethering for years and was grandfathered in on a plan that offered unlimited bandwidth for only $15/month. That plan was not available for either iPhones or Android phones and I needed a step up from my BlackBerry. Turning off that plan was one of the hardest things I ever did as a techie.

Of course, my iPhone and iPad also have 3G coverage, giving me access to the Internet from either device without a Wi-Fi (or My-Fi) connection. The iPhone’s plan has unlimited 3G, which is nice. But I’ll be the first to admit that the last device I want to surf the Web with is a smartphone. For the iPad, I went with a limited plan offering only 1GB per month. The idea was that I’d do my heavy Internet lifting with my desktop or laptop computer and limit the iPad’s use to reading RSS feeds, doing a little Web surfing, and sending the odd e-mail.

My goal, of course, is to not go over any bandwidth limitations for the entire summer. And that seriously changes the way I access the Internet.

For example, right now my My-Fi is turned on and ready to access. But the AirPort (or Wi-Fi) connectivity on my computer is turned off. Why? Because my computer seems to access the Internet any time it can, sucking down my bandwidth for no apparent reason. No, I don’t have a virus or worm. But my computer does like to check in with the various services I use — MobileMe, DropBox, etc. — to see whether it should download any updates or get any files. It does anytime it’s connected. While I could disable a lot of these automatic checks, it’s a lot easier to just turn off Wi-Fi until I actually need it.

SurplusMeter

SurplusMeterYou might be wondering how I know what my computer is doing. Last summer, I picked up a Mac app called SurplusMeter. It’s kind of neat. You set it up, tell it how much monthly bandwidth you have, and what day the month starts on. You also tell it how you’re connected to the Internet. It calculates a daily allowance; the idea being that if you use less than your daily allowance, you have a surplus to use during the rest of the month. Then it runs in the background, monitoring your network access. You can launch the app at any time to see what your totals are. Here’s mine for this month, which started just a few days ago. Last night, I was in the red, so even though it’s early, today’s allocation has been partially consumed.

Now, of course, I can use as much Internet as I want per day. The idea is for the monthly total to be less than — or, ideally, exactly — 3GB. SurplusMeter helps me rein in my Internet usage so I can minimize it.

Two things to note about SurplusMeter:

  • I’m only running it on one computer. That means it’s only logging bandwidth usage on one of the four computers I have with me. (Don’t ask.) Laptop access is not being logged. This results in an understatement of total usage.
  • It logs all AirPort activity, including local network activity. That means that every time one computer talks to another — for example, to share files — that usage is also logged. This results in an overstatement of total usage.

I’m hoping these two discrepancies net each other out.

And no, it isn’t worth it to set up multiple copies and use some other file transfer method to get more precise information. All I’m interested in is ballpark numbers.

But if you do know of a better app for the task that doesn’t cost a fortune, please do let us know about it in comments.

Getting the Big Fat Files

Of course, I still have to access the Internet for things that would make a serious dent in my allowance. For example, right now I’m working on a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion book. The Developer Previews I’m using as I write are about 4GB in size. There are two problems with this, and both are pretty obvious:

  • Downloading a 4GB file over a My-Fi with a max download speed of about 1Mbps would take more than 10 hours.
  • If my monthly allowance was only 3GB, I’d exceed that with just one download.

Fortunately, I’m running Lion on a laptop. Over the years, I’ve identified some Wi-Fi hotspots with pretty fast download speeds. One is in Wenatchee, at a coffee shop, where I was able to download a 900MB file last summer in less than 12 minutes. There’s a gas station in Quincy that used to have pretty quick Wi-Fi, although I admit I haven’t tried it yet this year. And there’s a coffee shop in Quincy that might have decent speed; the only time I used it, speed was not a concern. I do know that the local library’s Internet absolutely sucks, so it’s not likely that I’ll be using it for Internet access anytime in the future.

Yesterday, while in Wenatchee, I used the coffee shop Internet to download podcasts, check for updates, get maps for ForeFlight on my iPad, and do whatever I could. If I’d stayed in Wenatchee a few more hours, I would have gotten the big file I need today. I figure I’ll try the Quincy coffee shop first and if that isn’t fast enough, I’ll try the gas station. If that’s not fast enough, it’s another trip into Wenatchee for coffee and a high-speed Internet fix.

Doing Chores with iPhone

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to use my iPhone as much as possible for small tasks such as checking e-mail and sending/receiving Twitter tweets. After all, there’s no bandwidth cap, so it just makes sense to maximize usage. For some reason, I’ve been getting a ton of spam lately — 10-20 messages a day about dieting or “male enhancement” — and it’s quick and easy to just delete these from my phone so neither my iPad nor my computers need to retrieve them.

I know this is a drop in the bucket as far as Internet usage goes, but the way I see it, every little bit helps.

Rising to the Challenge

This summer is an experiment to see how well I can limit my usage and stay within budget. I’m prepared to pay for the extra bandwidth, but I like the challenge of working within limitations. It’s a lot like trying to conserve energy by turning off lights and turning down the heat/air conditioning.

It’ll be interesting to see how I do.