Author Archives ⇒ Brandon Hann

Unlock and Lock Your Macbook With Bluetooth Device

· Brandon Hann

Thanks to Lifehacker, those of us who use OS X Lion can now lock or unlock the computer just by using a Bluetooth device. What a novel idea…it kind of reminds me of those little Mobil gas devices that allowed you to walk right up to the pump, pass the little wand over the invisible reader and you’re ready to pump gas. The only real danger to using something like that is what might happen if you lost the little device or if someone stole it from you.

But for those of you not fearing a hostile takeover of your computer and all that lies inside, you can now configure you Mac to recognize a Bluetooth device, be it in your pocket, on your ear or in your hand. Once the authorized device gets within Bluetooth range, your OS X software mysteriously logs itself in. While that sounds like a very convenient feature, remember that a good Bluetooth signal can reach distances of about 30 feet and while that seems short, imagine what could happen if you were in the room next door while the person you’ve been trying to keep off your expensive iMac is sitting in front of it trying to hack their way in?!

The process involves using a nifty little application called Proximity in conjunction with a few custom AppleScripts that tells the computer to lock and/or unlock when certain events happen. The thing I love about this setup is that the lock and unlock scripts are separate, which means you only have to use one.

If I scared you away from using it before, now you can rest easy knowing that the script I find more useful (locking after walking away) can be used independently of the other. This means that you’ll still have to log in each time you sit down at your computer, but have it lock itself after you leave—very handy for those of us who sometimes walk away while forgetting to log out or at least enact the screensaver with a password lock.

Setting this feature up might take a bit of time for those not familiar with setting up AppleScripts, but the end result means you could literally have your computer auto-lock itself when you walk away using the iPhone that is probably already in your pocket. How cool is that?!

AT&T Implements Throttling for Unlimited Data Plans

· Brandon Hann

There was a time when you could get unlimited data plans on all the major carriers, but one at a time, they all dropped them like flies. Verizon was the latest to abolish their unlimited plan on July 7th, exactly one year and one month after AT&T dropped theirs.

This left T-Mobile and Sprint the last two with unlimited data plans. But, T-Mobile has a catch—while they do offer unlimited in the sense that there are no caps, when you reach the 2GB limit, they down-step your speed to that of something reminiscent of 2G speeds. AT&T has announced that they will be doing the same. That leaves Sprint as the only carrier left with truly unlimited data.

AT&T now throttling data plans

For the first time in cellphone history, the phone is dictating carrier moves. First, AT&T does away with unlimited data plans, then they allow existing users to keep their plans and now they plan to throttle those users.

In a statement last Friday, AT&T says that starting October 1st, they will begin reducing speed for the top 5% of their heaviest users, thus creating a better network experience for all. No data was given as to how much data these users actually eat up, so it’s hard to say whether you might fit into that group, but as part of the plan, they says many notices will be delivered to you informing you that your account will be affected.

The official reasoning behind this is that AT&T is running out of options. They have pushed their network to the max and are running out of wireless spectrum. In fact, the statement actually said, “Nothing short of completing the T-Mobile merger will provide additional spectrum capacity to address these near term challenges.”

Read the full statement from AT&T regarding data throttling.

iPhone destroys unlimited data

Ever since the iPhone debuted on AT&T back in 2007, the carrier has wrangled with the press, users and critics about the quality of service including lost calls, static on the line and slow data speeds. In most cases, things of this nature would usually get pinned on the phone itself. However, nobody could possibly blame the almighty iPhone! It had to be AT&T.

As it turned out, it was. No carrier at the time expected what was to follow as millions of cell phone owners jumped at the chance to own a device that could do everything for except cook them breakfast. What resulted was a large influx of customers that AT&T didn’t expect and therefore couldn’t handle. AT&T even admitted that they were surprised things were holding up as well. The backlashes just kept pouring in; mostly blaming AT&T for having a sub-par network compared to Verizon, but I never understood how the comparison could be made at a time where Verizon didn’t have an iPhone?

Verizon got to sit back for almost 4 years watching and waiting as things got heated up at AT&T, but more importantly, they got headstart into ramping up their own network for the debut of a CDMA iPhone.

At any rate, it can be said that iPhone may have single-handedly killed unlimited data plans for all carriers. This is probably the only reason why Sprint still has theirs although there is talk about Sprint possibly getting iPhone by the end of this year.

My two cents

I’ve been an AT&T Mobility customer since 2007, Cingular Wireless before that, AT&T Wireless Services before that and PacBell Wireless before that, which basically makes me to be an AT&T customer since sometime around the year 2000. I have seen many, many changes and have gone through many devices, service plans, customer service reps and service contracts in my 11 years. In fact, the only thing that hasn’t changed is my phone number!

Anyway, I’m really starting to think I’m done with AT&T. My cell phone bill is considered a low plan with the amount of minutes I have, yet with the $40 per month unlimited data plan (Enterprise version) and $20 per month unlimited text plan added, my bill exceeds $100 every month. This is also after a 21% corporate discount I’m getting! Verizon is not much better in terms of price. Sure I can get an iPhone and the network probably is much better, but without the unlimited data plan, I’m not interested. I could go with T-Mobile, but after the merger, I’ll be back in AT&T’s hands anyway.

So I guess I’m down to Sprint. Unlimited everything really shines considering the price is only $79.99 per month. I’m seriously considering this option if iPhone or some seriously good Windows Phones show up on Sprint’s network. For all you AT&T customers out there with unlimited data plans, what will you do?

Apple Inc. Has More Cash Than The U.S. Government

· Brandon Hann

Amidst all the debt ceiling confusion surrounding today’s financial drama, it’s amazing to find out that a large corporation such as Apple actually has more cash on-hand than the whole United States government!

Ok, maybe it’s not such a surprise after all given that our government spends more than they bring in and when they need more cash, they practically just print it. I won’t go into all the details here, but to summarise the situation very quickly, our country has a limit to how much debt we can have. That limit is currently set at $14.4 trillion dollars. Let’s see that number in all its glory: $14,400,000,000,000 That’s a lot of money. Anyway, it appears that we’re nearing that limit and fast, so the debate is redhot: do we increase the limit to allow us to borrow more money or do we cut spending to reduce the amount borrowed?

As a result of trying to figure out how to solve this problem, politicians have let our national coffers dip to a dangerously low amount. The best analogy for this chaos is if our government was using a single credit card for all of its spending, they are reaching the credit limit. To offset this, they have practically wiped out their bank account and are now waiting to see if their credit limit will be increased. That leaves the whole United States with an unmanageable debt and only $73,768,000,000 ($73.768 billion) in the bank.

Apple Inc. currently has $76,156,000,000 ($76.156 billion). The maker of fine products such as OS X, iPhone, iPad, iPod and Macbook is theoretically richer than the whole country. How does that sit with you?!

While this $2.388 billion difference might seem like a small number, it’s really not when you consider that the country’s income is comprised of every tax-paying individual living in this country, every product exported out to the world and a slew of other things like investments, bonds, etc. Since it’s clear that the government’s income is far greater than Apple’s, the problem must lie with the spending—wow, did I just solve a major national crisis with just one sentence?! Someone please send this link to Obama and Congress. 🙂

On a sidenote, Apple is now poised to become the largest corporation on the planet (in terms of profit) after reporting an estimate $5.5 billion in iPhone sales in this year’s third quarter. Let’s see if someone can finally take down oil-giant ExxonMobil!

If you were wondering what it would be like if Apple gave all of its money to the government, you could expect the cash to run out in about a week because according to Fortune magazine, the U.S. government spends roughly $10 billion a day! Maybe the government should start selling iPods to recoup some of their losses. I guess it wouldn’t matter because I’m sure they’d find something frivolous to spend it on.

New Site Design

· Brandon Hann

The new site design was officially launched unceremoniously yesterday at 4:03pm. I decided not to make any announcements simply because the design elements didn’t add or remove any user functionality and therefore appeared normally to all visitors before and after the changed with the exception of the visual changes.

What changed?

Everything! The overall layout has changed and among a large amount of small changes, notable ones include:

  • Google AdSense – Ads removed from right sidebar and placed above the page to the right of the logo. This allows the ads to appear on every post and page, which was not previously done before as the sidebars changed contents as needed by each post/page layout.
  • Social network icons – The icons in the upper right corner of the site were made larger and clearer as to what function they serve.
  • Homepage Featured posts – The 5-post featured slider on the homepage was removed and has currently NOT been replaced by anything similar. A new featured slider will appear above the list of recent posts soon, but will not feature posts from the Featured category. Instead, they will focus on posts of heightened popularity.
  • Ledfrog logo – For the first time in 11 years, the Ledfrog.com logo has dropped the .com. This was done to reduce the length of the logo so as not to run into the new advertisement space. It was also decided that the .com should only appear when the logo is not already on Ledfrog.com (as in advertising and marketing usage).

All in all, I feel that this design change not only streamlines the look and feel I’m trying to express, but it makes things a bit more organized. Ultimately, some of the new features will enable me to enhance the user experience even further in the future.

Extend Your Blog's Functionality Through Google Chrome Extensions

· Brandon Hann

Google Chrome is quickly gaining popularity as the perfect alternative to other heavyweights like Internet Explorer and Firefox. The browser war has been going on since the mid-1990’s and choosing a ‘side’ has always come down to a few factors: who’s faster, who’s lighter and who’s the most compatible. Google Chrome seems to beat the other two on all three fronts. And with Extensions, functionality just keeps getting better and better.

For those of you with WordPress blogs, you can now offer your readers the ability to install a Chrome Extension right into their browser that allows them to see your latest RSS feeds without even having to go to your site! This is a great tool for people who don’t regularly subscribe to RSS feeds, but want to know when you create new content. Once I create my own extension, I’ll post a guide here, but for now, check out the detailed one over at 9lessons.info.

Viewing WordPress Stats

You can now install a Chrome extension that will show you live stats for your blog! After you install it, all you need to configure it is your blog domain and your API key. To get your API key if you already have it, go to WordPress.com, login and view your profile. If you’re using Akismet for blocking spam comments, you can get that API key by clicking on the Akismet plugin configuration under Plugins in your WordPress admin.

WordPress Stats Extension

Once this information is entered, Google Chrome will display a number counter in the upper right corner of your browser. This count will update periodically with the latest stats on your site. When you click on this number, you get a drop-down box that displays the following:

  • Referrers – These are the website links that have forwarded a visitor onto your site.
  • Top Posts – This list shows you the top posts on your site for the day.
  • Search Terms – This is a handy list that shows you what search terms brought people to your site.
  • Clicks – Now you see the actual clicks that people used to get to your site right from your browser!

Note that this extension only works if you have WordPress Stats enabled on your site. It also only supports one blog at the moment. In time, there may be options to input data from multiple blogs.

Get the WordPress Stats Extension now!

Comment Moderation

Now here’s a extension worth getting if you’re having trouble moderating all those post comments! With this extension, you can moderate blog comments on one or more blogs directly from Chrome. You no longer have to login to your WP admin to filter out the bad from the good.

WordPress Comments Extension

With it, you can see all comments that are marked as approved, pending or spam. It also shows you the total comments you have and compares them right on screen to your other blog sites.

Get the WordPress Checker extension now!

My two cents

These are just three of the quickest ways to interact with your blog and to allow your readers to stay updated at all time with your site. I hope that in time, multiple blogs will be fully supported by these extensions with the ability to manage all of them through a simple interface. I also like the fact that extensions are less-intrusive than browser toolbars and seem to be more user-friendly.

Google Banning Users From Google+

· Brandon Hann

The Internet is full of anonymity with people hiding behind fake names, creative monikers, edited photos, etc., but apparently not on Google+. It seems as though Google has stepped in and banned a number of accounts that have been using fake names. How Google has determined who’s real and who’s not is anyone’s guess, but it’s safe to say that they probably just focused on the obvious ones.

Google has been enforcing their strict policy of using a real first and last name to sign up for the service in an effort to ward off spammers and other Internet trolls. I for one, agree with this approach. Otherwise, Google+ will turn into what MySpace and Twitter have turned into—an isolated online community of spammers and advertisers. Watch out Facebook; you’re heading in the same direction too.

The concept of using real names also adds the benefit of making it easier for people to find you because after all, isn’t that the point for signing up to a social network? If you plan on using a fake name just so people can’t find you, why even join at all?

All of the weekend banning has caused quite a stir in the social network community and some users are outraged that their legitimate accounts have been banned. Google+’s VP Bradley Horowitz says that the previous naming policy is under review and in the meantime, offending accounts will no longer be banned outright, but will receive a warning. Should that warning not be heeded, the account will disappear. Make note that this “banning” will only occur on the Google+ service and will not affect that individual’s Gmail account or any other Google services he or she may have.

For those of you who use Google+ but have a legitimate nickname or other name that people can search you by, you can add these names right into your account. When editing, locate the section called “Other names” and enter them as needed.

The controversy continues while Google decides the fate of this naming policy—some users feel that it’s too rigid because they wish to use their Google+ account to be found on the Internet by other Internet users and they might not be known by their real name online.

My two cents

This issue is not one of privacy. If anyone feels that it is, they should not be on Google+. While you’re at it, delete your Facebook profile too. If you sign up for these services, expect people to find you, expect people to search for you and then expect people to add you as a friend. For all of you who sign up for a public profile just to go and make it private and then complain when something like this happens, get offline. The reason I agree with Google’s naming policy is because it allows the rest of us to keep our reputations of being real while adding some value to the community.

I have no problem with my name being out there because I control everything I put on the Internet. If I don’t want someone to see a photo of mine, I don’t upload it. I say to Google, keep up the good work and rid your service of the spammers and advertisers. Let’s just hope some other online services will follow suit.

OS X Lion Problems, Issues and Flaws

· Brandon Hann

Not even a week has passed and it looks like OS X Lion is already having its share of issues ranging from installation problems, usability issues and a flaw that keeps users from updating iTunes to version 10.4. After reading my review of OS X Lion, users have voiced their opinions on everything that’s wrong with Lion instead of what’s right. One user even compared Apple’s latest OS to that of Microsoft’s Windows Vista. Ouch!

All-in-all, I was very excited to upgrade to Lion after reading about all the latest features for months and watching videos of beta releases trickle down through YouTube. My first problem came just after the final restart. Normally, the computer would restart and bring you into the upgraded OS for the first time, but my install went a little screwy from there.

OS X Lion bootup freeze

I still have no answer to why this happened or even why it still happens on a rare occasion, but I’ll explain it here in case someone can help me out.

After the final restart after installation, OS X booted up and I could see the desktop and the Apple menu up top, but after that, all I got was the spinning color wheel. There was no way to open Finder to perform a force quit of a hung program, I couldn’t see the dock and the clock actually froze. On a normal install, you should be presented with a welcome screen for Lion.

I had to do a hard shutdown and when it came back up, the same thing happened. I did this process about 4 or 5 times until finally, it came on long enough for me to run a software update. This gave me a Java update message which I promptly performed and everything seemed to work fine after that. I tried a couple more restarts and it worked fine. This problem might have been caused by my Windows partition. See below.

Bootcamp Partition disk startup issues

For those that have Windows partitions for use through Bootcamp are experiencing an error stating Apple Bootcamp “This disk cannot be used to start up your computer.” To fix it, you just open up Disk Utility (Hard Drive -> Applications -> Utilities), choose your hard drive, click the Partition tab, and resize your Mac partition to be 128MB smaller. Click Apply and you should now be able to install Lion without issue. (You can resize it back when you’re done, too.)

Solution found by LifeHacker.

iTunes won’t update in OS X Lion

iTunes LogoI found this out while doing a software update. I was alerted to update things like iWork and some remote desktop stuff along with iTunes, but every time I ran the update, it would fail. I decided to update the items one by one until I found that it was iTunes causing the update to fail.

I began the long search on Google looking for people that had the same problem and there were a few ideas:

  • Download iTunes directly from Apple and install it
  • Create a new administrator account and install iTunes from there
  • Perform the Repair Permissions fix from Disk Utility
  • Login as root and install from there
  • Downgrade to Snow Leopard, install iTunes and upgrade to Lion again

All of the above steps have worked for some, but not others. I’m amazed that Apple hasn’t come forward to help those of us who have this problem. Since iTunes is so closely tied to OS X, you would think that installing this software would not be a problem or at least Apple would fix this first among other things going wrong. For my computer, I’ve tried all of them except downgrading and installing as root. I’ll try the root option first and report back.

Double updates for the same app

I just learned about this one today, but it seems at least one user has experienced Software Update showing 2 of the same updates for iTunes:

OS X Lion duplicate updates

Dual monitor setup blanks out 2nd monitor

It looks like one of the new features in Lion actually breaks another. Lion allows you to make your apps run at fullscreen without tool bars and status bars simply by click on the little double-arrow icon in the upper right corner of the app window.

However, it seems that Lion users with a dual-display setup are having issues where doing this for an app in one window will actually blank out the other screen entirely. This completely contradicts the purpose of the dual-display option.

My two cents

As with almost every new software title, especially operating systems, you’re bound to experience some problems, but I guess I’ve been spoiled all this time with how Apple’s software often just worked. I remember how my last two OS X updates just simply installed with no issues whatsoever and how smooth the transition was for all of my apps and so on. It was because of this past, that I didn’t even think twice about purchasing and installing OS X Lion.

I guess I can’t really complain because there have been a lot of things I’ve tweaked out on my system and all of my friends who have upgraded seemed to have skated by without any of the problems I mentioned above. I’ll just keep working on the minor issues I have and go from there. In the meantime, if you haven’t upgraded yet, don’t let me scare you away—OS X Lion is really a great update to an already great operating system!

Facebook Stalker Arrested and Sentenced to 4 Years

· Brandon Hann

Just when you thought the Internet was safe! Ehh…ok, nevermind. What I meant to say was, people…you need to stop leaving yourself vulnerable out there on the Internet. And while we’re talking about this, let’s clarify one thing: there’s a major difference between you getting hacked and getting phished. More on that in a minute, but for now, let’s see what George Bronk is up to these days.

It appears that Mr. Bronk has been trolling Facebook looking for women who might have been leaving clues in and around their profiles that could allow George to gain access to their accounts. He chose women because like any self-respecting creeper, he has a preference. Once he had the information he needed to get into the email accounts, he would search through folders looking for nude photos and/or videos that they may have sent to their husbands or boyfriends. George would then send these files to that person’s contact list, thus exposing their personal lives to family, friends and co-workers.

Unlike most “hackers”, George’s approach wasn’t that he found clues that would lead him to figure out the actual password, nor was he using any brute force attacks on the accounts. What he did was actually pretty clever and a great eye-opener for you. Using personal information like where you’re from, names of your family members, home addresses, phone numbers, etc., he would click on the “Forgot password” links at various webmail sites and plug in the correct answers for the security questions to get a password sent to him.

George Bronk was sentenced to 4 years in prison for violating the personal privacy of women in 17 states, Washington D.C. and even London. He was also charged with possession of child pornography which added 8 more months. More on George Bronk.

Once in the account(s), he would change the password to lock the person out and begin his attack. Now by me agreeing that it’s a clever approach does not condone his actions—it simply reminds us just how easy it can be to lose access to your personal data. Using easy-to-remember answers on those security questions falls right into the same realm of using the same password for all of your online accounts. It’s just a bad idea.

Hacked and Phished

As soon as someone loses access to an online account or they start seeing mysterious wall posts on their Facebook profile, the first thing they tell all their friends is that they got hacked. While in some cases, this might be true, 99% of the time, it is not the case. What most likely happened is that you got phished. There are two reasons why someone would say hacking instead of phishing: 1. They don’t know the difference or 2. They do know the difference and realized that getting phished makes them look like a fool.

Being hacked means that your account was compromised in some way by an attacker that has made entry into the computers and or servers where your information is stored. For example, if someone hacked into the Facebook computers and had access to everyone’s account profiles and all information tied to them.

Being phished means that someone set out to attack you personally (or you were part of an attacked group) and have made entry into your account directly using a password that you inadvertently gave them. For example, someone sends you an email saying you need to login to Facebook to verify your account. you click on the link, see a page that looks like Facebook, fill out your username and password and then nothing appears to happen. You think it was some computer glitch and proceed to login to Facebook again through Facebook.com. What just happened was that you entered your username and password on a page that wasn’t Facebook and thereby sent that info to your attacker.

The difference between these is like night and day. Having your Facebook account hacked would be something out of your control because the attack happened to systems out of your reach. It just happened to be that your account was on those systems. On the same note, hacked systems usually affect thousands if not hundreds of thousands of users all at once.

If your car got stolen because someone broke into to it, hotwired it and drove off, that would compare to a hacking event. If you gave your keys to a stranger because they told you they were going to go get your car washed for you and they never came back, that compares to a phishing event.

My two cents

Always use strong passwords. Never use the same password for every account. If you really have to, at least don’t use your Gmail password for your bank account! As we learned above, it appears that even a secure password is not very secure if the reset questions are easy to guess. With that said, try answering questions with different answers. I remember when I would see the “What was the name of your first pet?” question…rather than providing the real answer, I’d use a name of an ex-girlfriend. This made it funny to me, but it also made it very secure as nobody could ever guess that answer.

Lesson learned today: always protect your online accounts just as you would protect your house and other belongings.

OS X Lion Review

· Brandon Hann

Apple finally (and rather quietly) released OS X Lion (version 10.7) yesterday. I don’t even know the exact time because I just kept randomly checking Apple.com and saw the homepage change around 10:30, bought it from the App Store and began the tedious download process. So without further ado, let’s review this bad boy. Wait, one more thing…I’m not going to possibly touch on every single change because there are so many, but I will focus on the overall experience by highlighting some key areas. In time, I may post additional reviews as I begin to use more features.

Purchasing/Downloading

OS X Lion App StoreSince Apple has had tremendous success with the App Store due to iPhone and iPad, they have decided to add its functionality to OS X. You can now buy full desktop/laptop software and games directly from the store with your Apple ID in the same manner as purchasing an app for your mobile device. OS 10.7 was the first full operating system available through this method and while it makes it much easier to obtain by not having to wait in lines or even leave your home, I think not having an actual disc for an operating system just makes you feel naked.

Instantly, questions like “How can I ever reinstall OS X?” and “What happens if I need to boot Disk Utility?” enter your mind as you think about this fact. Fortunately, Apple has made it pretty easy to take the downloaded DMG file and create your own Lion disc. And if you don’t want to bother, it’s ok, you can still get into Disk Utility at start up through the new Recovery partition.

Installation

The download size for Lion is about 3.74 gigs, so expect to wait some time before you can install it. Even if you perform the install via your homemade disc, you are still required to be on the Internet to download “misc setup files”.

Early speculation centered around how the new digital delivery would thwart software piracy and keep people from buying a copy of Lion and then giving it to their friends. The question was whether Apple was using the App Store and subsequent Apple ID required to purchase Lion as a method of authorization. In this example, it could be assumed that if I bought Lion using my ID, created a disc and then tried to install it on my friend’s Mac, he would either have to login with his Apple ID to pay for the software or the software wouldn’t install because his computer was not mine. To accomplish this, Apple would have to collect some kind of hardware data from the purchasing computer, but by all accounts I’ve tested, this is not the case. It would appear that there are no validation checks at installation. 😉

Anyway, the installation took about 40 minutes and one restart—pretty typical for OS X. Upon startup, I was greeted with a new login window. If you have your login window displaying username and password, yours will look slightly different than this:

OS X Lion Login

First Impressions

As expected, since this is still OS X, the OS looks very similar to 10.6. Most of the features are behind the scenes so not much visual change was had with the exception of three new Dock icons: Launchpad, Mission Control and Facetime.

OS X Lion LaunchpadLaunchpad is really cool for those familiar with iPhone and iPad. It pops up all of your applications into however many screens it takes to hold them and you can sort them into folders as well. The one thing I didn’t like about it (to no fault of its own) is that it shows ALL of your “applications” which means things like uninstallers, downloaders, helper apps and things meant to serve in the background all show up as icons. I suppose you could just throw these off into their own folder, but you certainly can’t delete them because you probably need them.

OS X Lion Mission ControlMission Control allows you to see all of your running apps pulled back into a manageable space of running windows in which you could then move around to different virtual desktops to help minimize clutter and keep your productivity organized. What’s really cool about that is you can see all of your open windows without having to minimize each one to get to the furthest one back. Naturally, you can then click on any app you want to bring it forward.

OS X Lion FacetimeFacetime is the same as it is on iPhone and iPad 2. Now you can Facetime your friends from your Mac directly to an iPhone over wi-fi. I thought that was pretty cool, but since I never used Facetime on my phone, why would I start now? It’s nice to know that I have the option though. It reminds me of all those movies where the secret spy calls in to his office and video chats over his phone with a user at a computer.

OS X Lion ResumeResume is a hidden gem. This feature allows you to have multiple windows and apps running for you after you restart your computer or log off. If you think you don’t care about this feature, thing again! Imagine you’re working on a lot of stuff and your kid all of sudden needs to get into his/her account right before school to get some files. Before, you’d have to save all your work, remember where you were, close all your apps, log off and let someone else log in. With Resume, you can let the other person quickly jump into their account via Fast User Switching to get what they need and jump back into your account without moving a thing! Another example is, you’re in the middle of all your work when an update comes through and demands that you restart your computer. You no longer have to “do it later”. Resume will bring back all of your windows and work just the way you left it after a full system restart.

OS X Lion AirDropAirDrop is a new networking feature that takes the guesswork (and headache) out of networking multiple Macs. Let’s say you’re sitting in the living room and a family member is in another room. Both of you are on your Macs and now you want to share a file or two. You used to have to send these files via email or USB drive or maybe copy them to a pre-shared folder and the other person had to copy it back out. With AirDrop, all you have to do is drag those files onto the icon of the nearest Mac and it instantly appears on their machine. It doesn’t get much easier than that!

My two cents

I think I’ll end it here otherwise this page will go on and on! All-in-all, I love OS X Lion. I know I’ve only scratched the surface on new features and changes, but so far, Apple has released quite an update. If you’re wondering whether you should upgrade or not, ask yourself this: how much would you pay for the latest version of Windows? $100, $200, $300 perhaps?? OS X Lion is only $29.99. For that kind of money, it feels like you’re not even buying a full operating system, but in fact, you are.

Get it.

Mac OS X Lion Releases Today

· Brandon Hann

Once I have my copy installed, I’ll go over a full review, but for today, I just wanted to announce that it is finally here and from what I’ve been reading about it since the preview date, I know I’m going to love this new version! For now, MacWorld has an extensive page all about the latest features and what to expect from OS X Lion.

Also, you can check out these two videos of two of the newest features of OS X Lion (MissionControl and LaunchPad):

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHLnjzX6lX4
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsLN53ImD3A