New Jersey-based Star News Group (SNG) publishes two weekly newspapers, The Coast Star and The Ocean Star, with a combined paid circulation of approximately 18,000, as well as the bi-weekly, ad-supported Night & Day entertainment guide. These publications serve the greater Monmouth and Ocean County, NJ area.
The folks at SNG have no illusions about how much the newspaper business has changed over the last 10-15 years. For them, containing costs isn’t just a smart strategy; it’s a virtual necessity for long-term survival.
Having provided tech support and consulting services to them for quite a few years now, my recent focus has been on enhancing their editorial and production workflow while reducing costs. One area that seemed ripe for improvement was the tech stack for their reporters, with each one provided a full QuarkXPress license and a Mac desktop (with the requisite memory upgrades, hundreds of fonts, etc.) for creating editorial content.
I felt that if the dozen or so reporters could be transitioned to content creation via some type of publishing system linked to the layout and production team, SNG could save a ton of money on the Quark licensing fees and on Mac purchases. But industry-standard publishing systems like Adobe’s InCopy or Quark’s QPS entail their own significant costs, require training for all personnel involved, and are still relatively demanding when it comes to hardware.
That’s where Em Software’s DocsFlow enters the picture. Because I’d moved SNG’s email services from a local Internet provider to what was then known as Google Apps (now the “legacy free edition” of GSuite), at a time when it was available to unlimited users at no cost, every SNG employee has 15GB of email and Google Drive storage with no monthly user fees.
So, instead of renewing their enterprise Quark license, I convinced them to purchase a half-dozen licenses for DocsFlow—at a fraction of the QuarkXPress licensing cost—and begin creating all their editorial content in Google Docs (again, free to all their users), with each story linked back to InDesign pages assembled in the Production department. Because SNG had a handful of Creative Suite licenses for their artists (primarily for Adobe Photoshop), they were able to move from Quark to InDesign for page layout at no additional cost.
On the right, the story as viewed and edited in Google Docs. On the left, the doc “flowed” into InDesign, auto-magically styled by matching Google Docs styles to InDesign’s style sheets.
Once the reporters were all onboarded with Google Docs (which took all of about ten minutes for most), they discovered that they were able to collaborate in real time with their editors, track changes easily and reliably, create and edit articles on any device that can access Google Drive, and completely avoid the need to master the idiosyncrasies of a page layout program like QuarkXPress.
On the production side of things, the Google Docs articles authored by the reporters are imported to InDesign fully or nearly-fully styled, thanks to DocsFlow’s ability to map the standard Google Docs styles to InDesign styles in the page templates. Because DocsFlow maintains a live link to each Google Doc after it’s placed in InDesign, reporters can continue to make textual changes in the Google Doc, with those edits reflected on the InDesign side.
But wait—it gets better. With reporters now able to author entirely in Google Docs, and DocsFlow handling the transfer of their content to the production department and InDesign, there was no longer a need to provide them with a pricey Mac desktop or laptop. So SNG is currently swapping those out with sub-$200 Chromebooks, repurposing some of the Macs and selling off others on eBay. Which means they’ll not only fully recover the cost of acquiring the Chromebooks, but realize a tidy profit as well.
In the final analysis, SNG expects to save thousands of dollars this year as a result of this switch, while enjoying a more streamlined and efficient editorial workflow. For any publication facing the combination of shrinking print ad revenues and increasing costs, there’s another combination that’s worth considering—that of Google Docs, Adobe InDesign and Em Software’s DocsFlow.
In the immortal words of the late, great Sam Cooke: “Ain’t that good news? Man, ain’t that news?”
BURIED DEEP within the (Touch ID &) Passcode settings on our iPhones is a toggle switch that reads simply: “Erase Data.” Below this switch, a small block of help text adds the following explanation: “Erase all data on this iPhone after 10 failed passcode attempts.”
This tiny toggle, and those ten attempts, are at the heart of the current dispute between Apple and the FBI as regards a particular iPhone 5c used by one of the attackers in the recent San Bernardino shootings.
There are already a lot of words being bandied to and fro regarding this matter, and numerous notables have already taken sides (see Donald Trump’s; see the EFF’s). My purpose here is not to state my own position and the arguments appertaining thereto; rather, I’d prefer to assist in the general understanding of what it is precisely that the FBI wants, and what Apple does not.
BECAUSE THE iPhone in question may have been set to erase all its data after 10 failed password attempts, FBI investigators are unwilling to attempt their ten best guesses at the login and thereby lose any information that may yet be on the phone, as there is no way to know whether the “Erase Data” switch was enabled or not.
Apple chose to protect a dead ISIS terrorist’s privacy over the security of the American people. It’s unfortunate that the great company Apple is becoming the company of choice for terrorists, drug dealers, and sexual predators of all sorts.
Of course, the agents could simply break open the iPhone and remove its hard drive, but the data on that drive is encrypted in such a way that no one at Apple—or anywhere else—could unscramble it. And once the iPhone wipes the data after 10 unsuccessful password attempts, that information is also beyond recovery by mere mortals.
Therefore, the FBI’s legal team is employing a relatively obscure 1789 statute known as the All Writs Act to compel Apple to engineer a “back door” which can override this protection setting, and allow the data erasure to be prevented. By doing so, law enforcement IT personnel can then employ a computer program to enter tens of thousands of passwords into the phone in rapid succession until it’s unlocked.
IF THE PASSCODE were set to four digits, which allows for a meagre 10,000 possible combinations, the phone could be accessed in a matter of minutes. If there are six or more digits used, it would take the computer program a tad longer, but not much.
The FBI’s position on all this is that they are making this request for only this particular phone in this particular instance, and that no changes to Apple’s hardware or software are needed. In essence, they are asking Apple to build a tool for them that would allow them to circumvent the Erase Data option on this particular passcode-locked iPhone 5c running iOS 7, and nothing more.
Apple, for their part, is reluctant to willingly construct a back door that would allow any of their devices to be broken into. To that end, Tim Cook has penned a rather eloquent missive to the public at large, in which he states Apple’s position and the reasons for said position, with a particular emphasis on why he feels this carries the potential to do more harm than good.
One of the great challenges with which all this amazing new technology confronts us is how to strike that delicate balance between personal privacy and the safety of our own data, versus the need to monitor threats and prevent terrorist attacks before they happen, as well as to access information after the fact that may reveal motives, accessories etc.
This will not be the last horrific event whose possible resolution could be on a smart phone. There will be many government agencies that many times in the future, point to Apple’s compliance as a precedent. Once this happens, we all roll down that slippery slope of lost privacy together.
However you may feel about it, this goes far beyond a legal dispute between Apple and the FBI; the eventual resolution of this battle will impact not only technology in general but our government and society as well.
SHOULD ANY of you feel the urge to share your feelings about this issue, from any perspective whatsoever, you are most welcome to share them here. There is no “wrong” answer to this, nor are there any “wrong” positions that can be taken. There is already, however, more than enough knee-jerk reaction flying about, so I’m just trying my best here to keep that to a minimum.
THAT’S MY PET NAME for the newly-arrived Mac OS X 10.11 (aka “El Capitan”), given how one is virtually bludgeoned into upgrading with incessant App Store notifications. Even as cautious an early adopter as I took the plunge the day 10.11 was released, but only because 1) I was curious to test Apple’s assessment of this upgrade being a straightforward “tune-up” and unlikely to cause any serious heartache for those choosing to live on the bleeding edge of Mac OSs, and 2) I was fully Time-Machined in the event of disaster.
To my surprise, life after Yosemite has been markedly uneventful, to the point where I’ve had to set my desktop to the default El Capitan image to remind me that I’m no longer working in Yosemite. Then again, the new features are so underwhelming this time around that your everyday computing experience will be little changed; the most compelling new feature could be the ability to locate a “lost” cursor by shaking your mouse to temporarily enlarge the pointer. Seriously.
Yes, the Notes app has been upgraded with to-do lists and the ability to attach an image or link, and Safari now has pinned tabs, although its implementation is somewhat flawed when compared to the Chrome browser, which has had this feature for ages (in computer terms, anyway). Beyond that, toss in some increased performance and stability, a few Spotlight improvements and the ability to sort albums in Photos by something other than the title of the image, and that pretty much covers it.
NOW WE KNOW why Apple kept virtually mum about El Capitan at their September 9 event. Fact is, I had planned on devoting a lot of keystrokes to the OS X 10.11 experience, but I think that about covers it. Other than, of course, whether you should take the plunge yourself at this point.
Here’s my advice, for what it’s worth. If you have not already done so, wait for OS X 10.11.1, which should be arriving in a month or so. That will give Microsoft and Apple time to work out the Office 2011/2016 crashing issues, in particular with the Outlook mail app (which hopefully none of you are forced to use), and address the most egregious bugs that a few users have reported.
Now, on to more compelling stuff:
Only a few feathers short (for now)
There’s no danger anyone’s going to make a verb out of using it (“just DuckDuckGo it”?), but even Google might be more than a little concerned about the upstart search engine DuckDuckGo, The Search Engine That Doesn’t Track You, as its landing page proclaims proudly.
Right from the get-go, DDG was on a mission to not profile its users, and prides itself on not altering its search results based on what it knows about the searcher, practices in which Google has been actively engaged since at least 2009.
DuckDuckGo uses data from Wikipedia and from other search engines like Yahoo! and Bing (with their consent), so it’s not as thorough or accurate as Google, and lacks some of the higher-end features like the search giant’s Knowledge Graph, currency conversions and other calculations, flight info, etc. It can, however, perform a few nifty tricks that Google can’t.
But the real lure of DDG is that it provides uniform results to all; in fact, that’s all it can do because it doesn’t track your browsing history, and therefore has nothing to go on when it comes to custom-tailoring your search results. Should you find yourself so inclined to Google “how can I stop Google from tracking me on the web,” you’ll notice more than a few references to DuckDuckGo.
Thanks to its emphasis on personal privacy, DDG suddenly found itself on a relatively level playing field last year when Apple added DuckDuckGo to Safari (and Mobile Safari) as an optional search engine in September 2014. Mozilla (Firefox) followed suit soon after. Tip: Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Google Chrome browser to add DDG (although a Chrome extension for DuckDuckGo does exist).
Is it worth taking a flyer on this upstart search site? I’ll let you folks decide. On your Mac, go to Safari–>Preferences–>Search to set DuckDuckGo as the default search engine; for your iDevice(s) it’s Settings–>Safari–>Search Engine. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find that Google just isn’t all it’s quacked up to be, and should that be the case, DuckDuckGo might just… fit the bill.
More, more, more
DID ANDREA TRUE’S 1976 disco classic predict Apple’s own October surprise of last week, what with the wizards of Cupertino announcing more, more, more new gizmos only a month after September’s iPhones, iPads, Pencils and Smart Keyboard?
OK, probably not, although given that the history of this tune involves a porn actress, former Jamaican prime minister (and Castro sympathizer) Michael Manley, and a 2011 Honey Bunches of Oats commercial, I couldn’t resist conjuring one of my usual tortured references here. But honestly, I suspect “more, more, more” most appropriately describes the amount of cash you’ll need to get your hands on any of these gadgets:
Peripheral
Magic Mouse–> Magic Mouse 2
Wireless Keyboard–> Magic Keyboard
Magic Trackpad–> Magic Trackpad 2
Was
$69
$69
$69
Now
$79
$99
$129
Which is…
More,
More,
More…
The Magic Trackpad has Apple’s new Force Touch and a larger surface area, the Magic Mouse 2 is lighter with fewer moving parts, and the Magic Keyboard is… well, it’s the Magic Keyboard and not the Magic Keyboard 2, because the previous model was technically known as the Apple Wireless Keyboard, as opposed to the Magic Keyboard. This new one has, uh, keys and a spacebar and stuff. And now, it’s officially magic.
These pricey new peripherals finally(!) do away with the need to keep a stockpile of AAs at the ready, since all three use lithium-ion batteries that reportedly charge fully in just a few hours via a Lightning to USB cable (included), while squeezing about a month of average use from a single charge.
Before you decide to experience all this magic for yourself, you should know all three of these doodads require you to be running the brand spanking new OS X 10.11 El Capitan operating system on your Mac of choice. Furthermore, that Mac must be Bluetooth 4.0 capable (meaning 2012 or newer models, give or take a few months).
What’s that, you say? You’re saddled with the virtually prehistoric “mid-2011” iMac? Or perhaps an Industrial Revolution-era “late 2011” MacBook Pro? No worries, Apple’s got your back with—what else—more iMacs, with more pixels, for more money! The new 21.5” 4K “Retina” iMac, at $1499 ($400 more than the previous model) has four times more pixels (~9.4 million; 4096 x 2304) than its $1099 cousin (a paltry 2 million or so).
Still not enough pixels for you? The $1799 27” 5K iMac’s display offers a staggering 14.7 million pixels (5120 x 2880), which, at a mere $0.0012 per pixel, just might qualify as the bargain of the century. To say nothing of the fact that you get a “free” Magic Mouse 2, Magic Keyboard and Lightning to USB charging cable in the box!
Need I say more… more… more?
The password is… not?
AND NOW, HERE’S some wonderful news for those of us whose “things I really, really hate a lot” lists read something like this:
Assuming your #1-#4 are similar if not identical to mine, Yahoo! is coming to your rescue here, with a radical new authentication option for Yahoo! Mail they call Yahoo! Account Key. I’ll spare you the technological mumbo-jumbo about two-factor authentication and get right down to the nitty gritty: Account Key enables you to log into your Yahoo! email in a Web browser just by receiving a notification on your mobile phone and touching “OK.” No fuss, no muss—and no password!
Is it secure? Yes. Is it easy to set up? Yes. Does it work for anything else besides Yahoo? No. Not yet, anyway. But the hope is that others (Apple, Google, etc.) will soon follow suit. The predecessor of Yahoo Account Key, the aforementioned two-factor authentication (2FA), requires that you enter a password and a temporary PIN code, typically supplied by a notification or SMS (text) message on your cellphone.
YOU CAN USE 2FA right now with your Apple ID, Gmail and a host of other services, but most of us would prefer to make it easier to access our online properties, as opposed to harder—even if setting up and using 2FA does make things quite a bit more secure than passwords alone. And if you don’t have a mobile phone, well, then it’s time to start learning the ins and outs of your password manager of choice.
NO, I’M NOT REFERRING to that kind of October surprise; we’ll have to wait a year or so to see what may be lying in wait—and for whom—in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election. I’m talking about a very gratifying surprise for me personally, which just happened to occur on October 10 when I completed a 60-mile bike ride from Piscataway to Ortley Beach with relative ease, and with no ill effects.
I’d done this annual “Tour de Shore” ride at least a dozen times since the 1990s, but was forced to place myself firmly within the “maybe next year” category ever since a July surprise of 2011, when a routine blood test showed I had virtually no platelets. That was followed by a diagnosis of acute myeloblastic leukemia one year later, and finally by a Halloween 2012 stem cell transplant.
Due to the aftereffects of the chemo regimens, and the chronic graft vs. host issues that followed the transplant, I had become pretty much resigned to the idea that I should feel blessed merely to be able to make it from the bedroom to the living room without passing out, and set aside even the slightest notion whatsoever of engaging in any long-distance cycling activity.
BUT MODERN MEDICINE seems to have no shortage of miracles these days, and I’m happy to report that since then my overall health and vigor have gradually returned, particularly over the past year, defying my own assumptions that I’d “plateau” at the point where I could perhaps manage a walk around the block, but little more. Cycling, on the other hand, would be an activity heretofore banished to the “things I used to do before the transplant” category.
That’s why completing this year’s ride really did come as a surprise to me, especially given that I truly was not physically capable of completing it only a year ago. This time around, in spite of being a full year older, I felt I could have endured even a few more miles at the end of the ride.
What’s also been surprising to me—though it probably shouldn’t be—is the degree of support and good wishes I’ve received from so many of you since this whole ordeal began. So thanks again to family, friends and all of you out there for your positive thoughts and your encouragement along the way.
IT’S BEEN nearly a week since last Wednesday’s announcements, and despite all the attention the media is lavishing on new iPhones w/3D touch, gigantic iPads and a pretty remarkable upgrade to the Apple TV, I remain enthralled by the introduction of a $99 iPad accessory whose appearance truly came as a complete surprise to everybody (more on the surprising aspect later).
I refer of course to the new Apple Pencilwhich, though it assumes the moniker of its patently analog ancestor, shares precious little with its wood and graphite counterparts beyond their dimensions. Unlike other tablet stylii, Apple’s version approximates the size and weight of an actual pencil, making it quite comfortable and natural to hold and to use.
Of course, at a $99 price point, we’re not seriously comparing Apple’s device to a $1.79 12-pack of yellow No. 2s from Staples. No, the real, er, point of the Apple Pencil is that it harbors powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal fingers when it comes to interacting with the new 12.9˘ iPad Pro. And there are quite a few compelling arguments the new Pencil makes in that regard.
FOR ONE, it’s incredibly precise when stacked up against our own comparatively clumsy digits. How precise? According to Apple’s specs, it can select an individual pixel on the Pro’s display (as in one discrete pixel out of the new iPad Pro’s 5.6 million). And since the iPad itself scans the Pencil’s tip 240 times per second, you can be sure it’s going to be pretty accurate in terms of your input.
As with many third-party iPad stylii, pressing down firmly on the Pencil draws thicker lines, while a lighter touch gives you thinner strokes. But unlike those others, Apple’s offering sports two tilt sensors within the tip which, along with the iPad Pro’s multi-touch display, calculate its precise angle and position. That means you can create shading effects simply by tilting the Apple Pencil sideways, just as you could with old-school charcoal pencils, chalk or pastels.
And yes, there are other high-end graphics tablets out there (the Wacom Cintiq comes to mind) offering similar capabilities, but for me what sets the Apple Pencil/iPad Pro combo apart from the pack is that instead of rejecting accidental input from your palm, it graciously invites you to use your fingers at the same time. This opens up entirely new vistas of options, like repositioning or rotating your workspace with your left thumb and forefinger, while drawing/sketching with your right.
THAT’S ALL well and good, I hear you saying, but this “Pencil” needs to be charged up in order to let me do all this amazing stuff, whereas my $6.99 Amazon Basics stylus will never run out of juice. Well, Apple has addressed this concern by enabling the Pencil—courtesy of the magnetically-capped Lightning connector on its “eraser” end—to be jacked directly into the iPad for high-speed charging.
And by “high-speed,” how does 15 seconds of charging in exchange for 30 minutes of use sound? I think it’s safe to say that would probably exceed even the most jaded tablet user’s definition of “high-speed.” Apple claims you’ll get approximately 12 hours of tapping, sketching and/or pointing on a full charge.
So why was this announcement so surprising? For one thing—unlike the iPhone 6s/6s+, the iPad Pro and the overhauled Apple TV—it was very low on the list of predicted product announcements, with only a smattering of prognosticators (KGI Securities’ Ming Chi-Kuo was one of the few) even bothering to afford it a mention.
THERE’S A good reason for that, of course, given that Apple—and by “Apple” I mean Steve Jobs personally—made it pointedly clear that a stylus was not even on the radar when it came to Apple’s iDevices. As in:
“Who wants a stylus? You have to get ‘em, put ‘em away. You lose them. Yuck.”
and
“If you see a stylus, they blew it.”
But here’s the thing. Steve was specifically referring to devices that require stylii for everyday functionality, whereas Apple’s iDevices—and in particular the new iPad Pro—have always been remarkably functional and versatile sans stylus. In the case of the Pro, the Pencil just sets it that much further above and beyond the competition.
And speaking of competition, Microsoft—makers of the “iPad killer” Surface 3 tablet— were enthusiastic participants in the iPad Pro segment of the event, showing off their latest updates to Word, Excel and PowerPoint that enable them to integrate seamlessly with the Pencil. Apple’s Pages/Numbers/Keynote triumvirate were nowhere to be seen, perhaps so as not to steal any thunder from Microsoft’s demo.
OR FROM Adobe, who introduced three brand-new, iPad-only apps that all take unique advantage of the iPad Pro/Apple Pencil’s capabilities: Adobe Comp CC, Adobe Photoshop Sketch, and Photoshop Fix. Fix in particular is worth a look, if only for its wow factor in terms of how far we’ve come in the realm of image retouching; you can judge for yourself whether the demo was “sexist” on Adobe and Apple’s parts.
In any case, I think I’ve made my point about the Pencil, even at the risk of giving short shrift to the remainder of the announcements. So let’s address them briefly here while space permits:
New iPhones—As predicted, the 6s/6s+ offer faster processors and “3D touch,” which provides added/alternate functionality based on how hard you tap or press on the screen. Oh, and a 12MP camera along with 4K video capture.
New Apple TV—Looks just like the current model, albeit a shade taller. But with a dedicated App Store, a new Siri remote that allows you to voice-search content across multiple providers (Netflix, Hulu, iTunes Store, HBO & Showtime), plus Wii-like gameplay, it’s anything but the incremental 2nd to 3rd gen Apple TV upgrade we saw in early 2012.
iOS 9—Coming September 16 to an iDevice near you. Enough said (for now, anyway).
Mac OS X 10.11, aka “El Capitan”: Apple managed to make a molehill out of this mountain by completely ignoring it throughout the course of the proceedings. We only learned from a press release issued later in the day that El Capitan’s scheduled release date is September 30.
WHILE I freely concede that OS X 10.11 may represent the most underwhelming upgrade to an operating system since OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was released back in 2009, I thought it merited at least a few moments of attention, given that it will be upon us in just over two weeks.
But if Mohammed won’t come to the mountain… well, then I’ll just have to blog about it next time around 😉
In which we hail the recent unveiling of the new Photos app, and the imminent demise of Apple’s heretofore dysfunctional photo-management ecosystem
THE END is near. Finally. The end of the current sorry state of photo management on our Macs and iDevices, that is. All thanks to iOS 8’s iCloud Photo Library and the unveiling of the new Photos app for Macs.
Taken together, these two technologies herald the end of the bewildering Photo Stream/iCloud Photo Sharing/iPhoto boondoggle, a scenario so singularly complex that–although I’ve developed a pretty firm grasp on how it all works–I’ve found it nigh impossible to explain in a way that makes sense to anyone but me.
iCloud Photo Library, by contrast, requires no explanation. Just turn it on in Settings–>Photos & Camera, and every picture taken on every iDevice you own will be uploaded to the Apple cloud. From that point forward, each iDevice will have the same exact set of pics and videos. That’s it!
YOU CAN also tell each iDevice whether you want it to keep resolution-optimized versions (meaning perfectly sized to your device to save space) or full quality versions. Either way, the cloud will maintain your original shots in all their 3264 × 2448 pixel glory. Even better, any edits you make to your photo library will be replicated instantly across all devices without your having to lift a virtual finger.
Granted, you may require a bit more space than iCloud’s default 5GB to handle all those fab pix and videos, but Apple has drastically reduced iCloud storage pricing in honor of this new revelation. For less than a buck a month you can avail yourself of 20GB of storage, enough for approximately 10,000 photos. If your storage needs go beyond that, for $3.99/mo you can upgrade to 200GB, and there are even 500GB ($9.99/mo.) and 1TB ($19.99/mo.) plans available.
BUT WHAT ABOUT all those images in the iPhoto library on your Mac? Alas, even the most recent version of iPhoto was conceived well before iCloud Photo Library was but a gleam in the collective eye of Apple’s iLife programming team. That’s just one reason why Apple elected to scrap iPhoto (and Aperture) in favor of the new Photos app, which is fully iCloud-aware, yet retains all of the functionality of iPhoto (including Books and all other project types) and will happily import all your photos, albums, and keywords.
The only things it won’t import are star ratings and Events, which nobody seemed to care for anyway. It will instead auto-organize everything into Moments, Years and Collections, just as iDevices do now.
FOLLOWING THE initial import from iPhoto, Photos will then upload those images to the cloud, where they can finally be seen by all your other devices. Unless–for whatever reason–you don’t want to utilize that feature, in which case you can instruct Photos to maintain the images strictly on your Mac. What’s really remarkable about the import process is that you can continue to use iPhoto and Photos simultaneously; the only hitch being that, going forward, edits you make in either app will appear in that app only, and not in the other.
So what’s not to like about all this? Well, there is one relatively minor disclaimer I am bound to note at this juncture: Photos will require that you upgrade to Yosemite if you haven’t done so already, and because the app is still in beta, it won’t be available to any of us until sometime this spring when Apple releases the latest version of Yosemite (10.10.3). Nevertheless, the reviews to date are universally positive (here’s David Pogue’s take) and we’ve only another few months at most to wait.
Rejoice and be glad. The end of this confusing mess is quickly coming into focus.
Using the new Office apps on your iDevices? You should be–they’re free and amazingly full-featured. With the latest versions (released today) you can now choose from among DropBox, Google Drive and/or iCloud to store your files.
OK, so you really want to upgrade to Yosemite, but just can’t abide the new system font and icons? Fear not–there’s an app for that too.
And finally, speaking of apps, it appears that those Top Ten rankings on the App Store may not be 100% legit 😉
HOLIDAY TRADITIONS come and go, and one that has certainly come and gone is the annual airing of “May You Always,” a two minute, forty-two second spoken holiday greeting performed by legendary DJ Harry “The Morning Mayor” Harrison and broadcast regularly on New York’s WCBS-FM 101.1 oldies station.
Although it hasn’t graced the airwaves in a good twenty years or so, in its day “May You Always” garnered a cult following among those who snickered at its shameless sentimentality, as well as those who waited eagerly for its first airing each year to bask in the glow of Harry’s genuinely warm and heartfelt delivery. A user by the name of “Sock Hop Saturday Night” even went so far as to post a recording of “the original Amy 45 (the non-politically correct version)” to YouTube in 2009.
AS YOU MAY HAVE surmised from last week’s songfest, we here at AltiM@c are powerless to leave a perfectly good holiday message unsullied by the spirit of parodies present. In fact, I went so far as to pen and even record my own Apple-flavored version of “May You Always” way back in 2005. But since precious few of you have known me for that long, I feel justified in recycling it for 2014–with a few updated tech references to make it seem all shiny and new. So here’s take #2 on this long-lost holiday classic. Enjoy!
As holiday bells ring out the old year, and sweethearts kiss, And Mac users struggle through the Yosemite and iOS 8 updates May I wish you not the biggest and best technology has to offer But the small victories that make owning all these gizmos worthwhile.
Sometime during the New Year, just to prove you can do it, May you manage to update Adobe Flash Player without calling anyone for help. May you find a little island of time to actually read that “Read Me” file, Or to delete all those duplicate pictures from your iPhoto Library.
May you be able to explain the difference between POP and IMAP without Googling it May you go through an entire day without once looking up a password May you know the correct answers to all three of your online banking security questions May all those people who told you to back up refrain from saying, “I told you to back up.”
May your iPhone enjoy an entire year without being dropped into a public toilet May that expensive AppleCare support contract rescue your MacBook Pro from an untimely death. In a time of rampant viruses and spyware, may your Mac be rampant-virus-and-spyware free. May you be able to pass your old Macbook on to your kids, so they quit screwing up your new iMac.
For a change, on a day when your Mac seems to be working as advertised May a friend or colleague call on you for help with their computer! When you zap your PRAM, may it stay zapped! And, if you happen to mistakenly delete an important file May you be able to restore it from a Time Machine backup–without calling me to walk you through the process.
May that long and lonely night be brightened by a visit from a FiOS repair technician. When buying that new iPhone, may you discover that your old one is worth hundreds on eBay–or $10 on Gazelle.com. When you crash in a 28-page Word document without saving, may there be no one watching to laugh at you–or feel sorry for you.
And sometime soon, may you Post a video to YouTube successfully Hold less than five minutes for Comcast tech support Be told by your grandson that your Internet is “wicked fast” And be mentioned by Tim Cook in a keynote address.
More than this, no one can wish you.
Happy New Year from the employees and staff of AltiM@c Consulting!
