Password Security
There’s never been such a good time to talk about Password security as there is now, even more so after the news this last month of the major security flaw that had been exposed in OpenSSL by the name of Heartbleed.

 

Heartbleed, very briefly: 
Heartbleed was an exploit in OpenSSL (makes data secure of the net – you’ll see HTTPS or the little lock in the address bar) that means anyone that knew of the exploit, may have been able to grab bits of information including user names, passwords, credit card info etc..

Software websites and services have moved very quickly to patch this exploit and have implored their users to change their passwords for affected services AND any other service that may have used that same password.

The internet went crazy with advice and opinions many of which, at the time, may have been incorrect. It didn’t affect the entire web. There’s no point changing a password unless the website or service is patched and most likely you haven’t been targeted.

In any case, for precautionary reasons, users of the affected services are definitely best to change their passwords, in all affected places, as above. Now’s a good time to use a good password.

Oh btw, affected services included, but weren’t limited to:
Facebook, IFTTT, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google/Gmail, Yahoo, Amazon, Dropbox, Soundcloud, GoDaddy, Etsy, Minecraft.

 

What is a good password? 
Tell you what is not a good password.. password. This is obvious. Also not good? your date of birth.

A good password is typically featuring mixed characters, numbers and symbols, and is 8 characters and longer. It’s also unique to the service or website.

For example, this is a good password: k*zTYjhI$440
Not easy to remember though right?

Most likely you’re familiar with websites increasing their password settings over time; Apple is a good example here. Often these requirements for change alone force us to make something that is suitably secure, and potentially unique at that point.

Good Password policy:
Many of us are prone to using one password across many websites and services – it’s simply easier that way, but secure? No.
If one of these services were to be compromised, just as many have due to the Heartbleed exploit, then the rest are too.

Therefore the suggestion here is to diversify. The more passwords you have, the more difficult it is to be affected, or rather for an attacker to use of set of credentials.
An ideal scenario would be a suitably secure password unique to each website or service however it’s easy to imagine how this would become unmanageable quickly. Read on..

Password Manager
Something to consider here may be the use of a password manager. Indeed this Heartbleed dilemma may well motivate you to get one more than ever – it has done so with some of our staff.

A password manger helps to keep track of all those complex passwords you should have or are about to change, and can even make the process of changing them easier. They serve as a password repository with very secure encryption and typically local-only decryption. This means only you can access the data on your machine with your password.

The one key thing though – that machine, and your password needs to be secure. That’s to say that you need passwords on your machine, in fact all devices (but you were doing that right?) and the one password for 1Password, Lastpass etc, is a secure password, again, that is unique to this service. The sell here is that this is last password (or one password) you need to remember. Get it?

There are a few option out there, but we’ve narrowed it down to three you may want to consider: 1Password, Lastpass and iCloud Keychain.
We will try to keep it short here also, so if there’s any more questions, we’re happy to field them, but you may want to check out the vendors website.

1Password

1Password is a great and very popular example of a Password Manager done right. It has droves of features all neatly presented in a tidy application for Mac OSX and even iOS. For the price of the application you get local password encryption and browser integration. Likewise for the price of the iOS App you get syncing across devices providing access everywhere.

1Password is a pay per App per version model which doesn’t require an annual subscription. Some may like the pay once model and only time will tell if it works out being more dear than those below, but 1Password certainly is the cream of the crop here in terms of password managers.

More: https://agilebits.com/onepassword/mac

 

LastPass

LastPass has most of 1Passwords features but is bundled differently; there’s no specific app but there is the browser integration that makes the service so easy to use and responsive. It’s a also free for it’s basic features which for many cover your needs, but if you’re after iOS compatibility, then you’re after their premium service which is $12 a year.

More info: https://lastpass.com

 

iCloud Keychain 

iCloud Keychain means to provide the same kind of solution as 1Password and Lastpass including having multiple devices in sync. Keychain has been around for a decent while now (introduced in Mac OS 8.6) and is well known in the Mac world, however iCloud Keychain was only announced last year and released as part of iOS7 and Mavericks. In other words, it’s a free service for those who have compliant devices.

 

If you use, or switch to a password manager then read this, 

Cult of Mac ran an article on how you can use 1Password to simplify the password changing process in the wake of the Heartbleed exploit. Similarly they continue on to show how you can use iCloud Keychain to do the same thing.

Click here to read it:
http://www.cultofmac.com/274110/10-minute-password-update/

 

Finally, if you have any questions or concerns then get in touch. We’re using a combination of the above tools within this office and are more than happy to help with the change of and rollout of new passwords, or the implementation of a password manager.

We thought we would address an issue that has popped up more than a few times when servicing our clients’ computers; available Hard Drive capacity. Having space available is not only necessary  for files to be saved but for the computer to operate at all – ensuring you have space available is key to your computer’s functionality.

Perhaps this is more prevalent with the MacBook Airs and the Retina MacBook Pros as they have limited and expensive storage but in actual fact anyone could easily be affected.

Thankfully there are more than a few ways of addressing this particular issue, be it through reducing or deleting the unneeded or unwanted data, or adding capacity in an interesting way you may not have considered.

First things first

First thing to help qualify your actions may be to check how much space is available as of right now. This way you know what your situation is, and what your gain is when you’ve finished with the reduction of data.

There are three straight forward ways:

– open a new Finder window and in most cases their should be a summary of space available next to an item account on the status bar at the bottom of your Finder window.

 

– run Disk Utility: (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility) to get an overview of your connected drives and find the available capacity at the bottom of the main window when your drive is highlighted

– run Activity Monitor: (/Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor) and near the bottom of the main window, select Disk Usage for a handy pie graph.

Discarding unneeded or unwanted data:

There’s nothing worse than having a computer full of things you don’t need, especially if your running low on space. The key here is knowing where and how to find what you don’t need. Here are a few tips on how to free your computer from the unnecessary extras.

We’re here to talk about less than ordinary so we’ll skim over the basics:

– delete unneeded PDF’s/packages/software installers that may be sitting in the downloads folder.

– delete unwanted emails especially ones with large attachments

– empty your trash

Beyond this there are some lesser known approaches:

– Delete the unwanted languages on your machine

Not everyone requires the use of these superfluous languages on the system. You do get to choose what remains and are able to free up a handsome amount of space.
Download Monoligual from here and run it to free up space.

– Delete garageband loops
If you never plan on using the program you will probably agree that deleting the audio loops that are often preloaded on your system is a good idea.

You can find the folder here: library/application support/garageband Trash the whole thing. You won’t miss it.

– Deleting previous iOS backups
Deleting unneeded iOS backups is an easy way to free up space – the simplest method is to use iTunes.
Open iTunes and navigate to iTunes > Preferences and select the Devices tab. This presents you with the list of all devices that have been backed up locally to your machine.

See the pic below.

I can tell you that I can probably delete the older iPhone back ups as well as the backups for the iPad I gave away some time ago. Additionally I don’t know what “Paul’s iPad” is but’s out of date also, so I’ll get rid of that.

Alternatively, you can find your iOS device back ups here: /Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup though you’ll have to line up the dates via iTunes to know what’s what. 

 

Adding Capacity.

If you’ve deleted all you can and you still don’t have enough space to function at your optimal level of performance, there are some nifty ways to increase your capacity.

 

Nifty Minidrive

The Nifty MiniDrive is a one of those easy to use devices that allow anyone to quickly increase the available memory in their MacBook computer. After a quick set up, users can then forget about it completely. It’ll still continue to work away with little hassle.

 

Both the MiniDrive and the MiniDrive Pro have been designed to fit securely into the SD slot of MacBook computers.
By utilising standard micro SD cards the MiniDrive can add plug in and forget memory to your computer.
Meaning, you the user gets the extra space for the things that are important to you, such as those few holiday photos, or that video of cats that makes you laugh, or the office documents required for that meeting tomorrow.

Nifty Drives are available for purchase now for a mere $39.95 (inc GST). Not bad for for some extra space.

For more information on these drives or to simply order one, get in touch.

LaCie’s Fuel

If you’d prefer some external storage that can be used by your iPad and iPhone as well as your Mac, then check our LaCie’s recently released new WiFi Hard Drive ‘Fuel’.
The Fuel looks almost like an internet router, but don’t be fooled. It can hold up to 1TB of photos, videos, music and documents (all the stuff you love), and can be accessed by a majority of your devices.
The Fuel creates its own Wi-Fi network, allowing up to 5 devices to access its storage at the same time. Streaming movies is even possible across 3 devices. So everyone can watch the same thing in a different room of the house if they want!
Whilst the Fuel doesn’t need an internet connection to be amazing, it can connect to nearby hotspots. Which then allows 4 of your wireless devices to access the net via your Fuel.

With up to a 10 hour battery life, the Fuel lets you enjoy your media without the need for internet or messy cables.

The Fuel Hard Drive is available for purchase now for $249.00 (inc GST)
For more information on this awesome drive click here, but to order, get in touch with us at Mac Aid.

 

 

As part of ongoing efforts to train our staff and better ourselves, we embarked on some personality profiling with a specialist.

The results were varied and interesting to say the least, but one of the returned results was a list of recommended jobs.

Not necessarily based upon skill, but rather personality and let’s say, brain function preference.

We thought you might enjoy the results:

 

Stuart – Interior Designer (and no doubt soon to consider a career change in this direction)

Jimmy – Skipper

Paul – Thespian (we’re not surprised)

Sean – Immigration Officer

Nathan K – Optometrist

Ashley – Psychologist

Nathan J – Council Service Officer

 

 

 

Apple have recently released new additions to the iPad family. The iPad Air and the iPad Mini have both been been released with the fabulous iOS 7 operating system, however both iPads differ.

 

iPad Air

 

The new iPad Air is ridiculously light compared it to its predecessors, and capable of much more. Weighing less than 500 grams, the new iPad Air is 28% lighter than any iPad ever. Just because it’s light, doesn’t mean that the iPad Air skimps on the advanced technologies.

The A7 chip allows the iPad to run faster, meaning games and applications run flawlessly. It also feature 64-bit architecture, opening the food for more powerful apps.

With ultrafast Wi-Fi comes ultrafast results. The internet capabilities built into the iPad Air enable you to experience Wi-Fi up to twice as fast, meaning you get your google results faster than before.

iPad Air may be more powerful and faster than the previous iPads, but that doesn’t mean it’s power hungry. With up to 10 hours battery life, the iPad Air will last you the day.

 

 

 

Google has modernised the way we search for information and results (remember Altavista and AskJeeves?). We can search for basically anything and have results in less than a minute. Unless of course what you want can’t be found on the first page or two of your google search.

 

To get the most out of your googling, here’s a few handy tips that we’ve compiled:

 

Exact Phrases

If you want to find an exact phrase when using google, use the quotation marks. This will look for exact word queries. Eg, “Apple info”