Public confession time—a part of Adam’s backup strategy wasn’t fully thought out, and the end result was a situation that caused him to lose photos imported into iPhoto for two months. Read on for the gory details and for how to avoid your own clone wars.
The free Incognito Safari extension disables Google Analytics and Google AdSense tracking, along with preventing Web sites from linking to your Facebook account. It can disable YouTube video embedding, too.
Have your children run up App Store tabs without intending to? Have you bought programs from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch by accident? Here's how to avoid that fate.
In honor of yesterday's Talk Like a Pirate Day, SecureMac is offering their $29.99 MacScan security software for free today, 20 September 2010 (through midnight, Pacific time). MacScan detects, isolates, and removes malware like keystroke loggers and Trojan horses, and also helps clean up Web tracking cookies. Though avoiding seedy Web sites and dubious software is the best prevention, if you're worried about what's running on your Mac, it wouldn't hurt to give MacScan a try.
Please welcome our latest TidBITS sponsor, the data-recovery company The Data Rescue Center. They specialize in data recovery from damaged hard drives along with "rescuing" data from inaccessible digital drive types, old videotapes and cassette tapes, and even analog photos.
Apple Mail offers controls for parents to monitor their kids' email usage, including the capability to add specific senders to a whitelist. However, Jonathan Kamens has discovered a fairly simple means by which a nefarious individual can trick Mail into automatically adding any address to the whitelist. Kamens says he reported the flaw to Apple back in June, but adds that the company has neither fixed the problem nor treated it as a security vulnerability. Fortunately for concerned parents, Kamens lays out a pair of stopgap workarounds.
Garmin is voluntarily recalling about 1.25 million nüvi GPS devices, nearly 800,000 of which were sold in the United States. The recall is to address a problem with the battery that could cause the device to overheat and become a fire hazard. Affected units include the nüvi 200W, 250W, 260W, and 7xx (where xx is a two-digit number), though apparently not the 255W we reviewed in 2008. Fewer than 10 cases of overheating have been identified, but Garmin will replace the battery and insert a spacer before returning your GPS, free of charge.
Don't get too paranoid about this, but security researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have shown than Android graphical passwords can be recovered by photographing the screen of a smartphone and analyzing the smudge patterns. There isn't much likelihood of this attack being used widely, because its utility requires either gaining control of the smartphone or the same password being used elsewhere, and the screen can easily be cleaned. But it's still interesting just where security vulnerabilities will be found.
Apple has shipped iOS 3.2.2 for the iPad and 4.0.2 for the iPhone and iPod touch to fix two extremely serious exploits that could allow an attacker to control your iOS device.
The folks at password-cracking software firm Elcomsoft have updated a tool meant for testing and recovering passwords for iTunes backups of iOS devices. Oddly enough, password-protected backups turn out to be less secure for iOS devices than password-free backups.
The iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch are completely disrupting the mobile device landscape, and while Apple faces some security challenges with the iOS devices, the company also enjoys a number of advantages over other systems.
iOS devices, once connected to a WEP, WPA, or WPA2 encrypted Wi-Fi network, retain the network's password even if it's changed. To enter a new password, forget the network and then reconnect.
An unattended MacBook is a tempting target, so if you're at all concerned about theft, either from your home or office (where laptops are easier to grab than desktop computers) or while you're out and about, GadgetTrak Laptop 3 can provide you with the location and identification information that police can use to recover your machine.
Apple has updated Safari, activating extension capabilities and launching the new Safari Extensions Gallery, a one-stop shop for adding new features to the company's Web browser. Quite a few specific bugs and security vulnerabilities also received attention.
On the New York Times's health blog, Gretchen Reynolds discusses the dramatic increase in heart disease-related death for folks who sit for long periods (whether in front of a computer or television, or in the car). Even more alarming for those of us who try to get away from our screens for some exercise are recent studies that show that adding exercise to your daily routine fails to lessen the negative health impacts of a sedentary lifestyle. Rather, we desk jockeys should find ways to increase our physical activity while we work. Frequent walking breaks, pacing while you're talking on the phone, or converting to a standing desk, could truly be a lifesaver.