Mashable has provided two Apple Scripts you can download to check and see if your Mac is infected. CNET has instructions on how to manually remove the malware. Currently, anti-virus providers have not updated their software with an automatic removal solution. Also note, Apple released a security update on April 3^rd, but it only applies if you are running OS X Lion. Snow Leopard users are STILL vulnerable to the Flashback malware. Apple’s update closes the vulnerability it does not clean infected computers.

While Mac users are not plagued with as many attacks as PC users, this should not prevent Mac users from being proactive in securing their computers. Here are some guidelines to help secure your Mac:

1. Do not logon with an Admin account. The default user account installed account on a Mac has complete Admin rights. You should create a new user account with limited privileges and only use the Admin account when you need to perform tasks such as installing software.
2. Disable Java. This is not the same thing as JavaScript. In Safari go to Safari>Preferences>Security and uncheck “Enable Java”. For the OS go to the Applications folder then Utilities then  Java Preferences. Uncheck everything in the General tab. (Java is not installed on OS X Lion by default)
3. Check for updates. Set OS X to check for updates at least once a week.
4. Turn on OS X’s firewall.
5. Consider third party anti-virus tools. This is an often debated topic, but there are many free utilities that do little to slowdown Mac system performance.

Preventing malware & virus infections starts with smart computing habits. Be alert & aware as you surf the Internet, and before you open that image ask yourself, “Would my mom really send me a nude picture of Snooki?”

That’s the amazing thing about today’s technology. We have so many ways to stay in constant contact with the folks we know anywhere in the world. Letters have been replaced by email, which has given way to social media outlets like Facebook, Google+ & Twitter. Mobile technology allows us to connect on the go, and cell phones are accessible to almost anyone.

However, technology has changed more than just how we stay in contact; it’s changing our communication habits. Raise your hand if you’ve done any of the following:

1. Watched a movie, read an ebook, sent texts, talked on the phone in public.
2. Checked your favorite social media channel while at the movies.
3. Actively sent texts during a work meeting.
4. Actively sent texts to someone while talking to someone else.
5. Sent a Facebook message, tweet, or text to tell someone you emailed them.
6. Texted your spouse, your kids, your parents for something while at home.
7. Texted them while you’re in the same room.
8. Talked on the phone or sent texts while driving—STOP THAT!

Some of the items above could be seen as bad social etiquette, the last one item #8 is a serious topic for another blog post. I see the above behavior a lot, and probably have committed more than one offense myself. With this seeming need/desire to be in constant contact I often wonder,

Why in this technological age of connectivity do we seem more disconnected?

Now, I am making a very general observation. Certainly, technology has played an important part in revolutionizing the way we communicate. Look no farther than the impact Twitter had on uprisings in the Middle East in 2011. What I am specifically referring to is the change in face-to-face communication, and how we interact in live social settings as families & friends. I see more folks plugged in and tuned out to the world around them. I thought this Xmas card that circulated the Internet last year a great summary of modern day communication.

(citation needed)

The changes I see go far beyond having our noses buried in our digital devices. How many folks can relate to the following statements?

1. You have over 100 friends on Facebook, but you’ve never talked to your neighbors.
2. Your relationship status isn’t “real” until it’s posted on Facebook.
3. You have proposed or broken up with a text message.
4. You communicate in the office with instant messaging even though your cubes are side-by-side.
5. Your life is on your phone, to lose it would be the end of the world.
6. If it were you trapped on a remote island, not Tom Hanks, you’d freeze to death.

OK, so maybe item #6 is also a separate blog post. Prior to technology becoming part of the mainstream those behaviors might have been limited to tech-savvy geeks, but it’s becoming more the norm as each generation is born amongst advancing technologies.

I’m not ranting against change, nor am I unwilling to accept this cultural evolution. I’m merely making observations as a digital immigrant adapting in a world growing with digital natives.

How do you think technology is affecting our social interactions & communications?

Despite what you may have heard President Obama did not kill SOPA. SOPA & it’s sibling PIPA are still very much alive. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Put simply, it’s NOT about piracy, it’s about censoring content on the Internet. Despite what Hollywood, and other media moguls might tell you, their failing business practices shouldn’t be used as a sledgehammer on our greatest communications tool.

This isn’t doomsday pandering, or Y2K nonsense, this is the real deal. If YOU create content, then you want to stand against SOPA & PIPA. It’s not protecting content creators, it’s about padding bank accounts & corporate greed.

Google Petition Against SOPA

American Censorship Petition Against SOPA

My initial thought is the iPad is for content consumption not content creation. It’s not as powerful as my Macbook Pro which I use for tethered photography, Lightroom & Photoshop processing. It’s not as portable as my iPhone which aside from the obvious mobile features is really my handheld portfolio. I don’t have a pressing need for a third device. However, as a business owner, I can’t ignore existing or potential customers. It doesn’t matter what I think about the iPad–300,000 iPads sold on the first day. Twitter was a buzz, mainstream media jumped in, and the Apple fanboys enjoyed the Rapture as the iPad finally arrived in stores last Saturday. If you’re an iPad naysayer you probably want to jump in and tell me about it’s lack of Flash media support, remind me that tablet computers have never been mainstream, but that’s not the point. Apple didn’t make the iPad for the Power User, the technophile or gadget geek–the iPad is a consumer electronic device.

Consumers don’t care about how technology works, they just want it to work. Consumers expect a dial tone when they make a call, they’re not interested in how many hops the call is routed through. Consumers don’t debate the advantages of HDTV vs standard definition, they just want to watch their TV shows. Apple has created a device that my retired parents will love with proven iPhone technology so simple my two-year old daughter already uses it. Apple isn’t creating a new market, as much as they are recognizing the needs of an existing consumer base. Anyone will be able to use an iPad because the learning curve isn’t steep. Will everyone take advantage of all the nuances of the device? Certainly not, but that’s the same for a lot of consumer electronics out there. HDTVs are more common now that prices are under $1000, but only the home theater enthusiast is going to pay money to calibrate their LCD screen if they don’t tweak settings themselves.

We as content creators cannot ignore how consumers are accessing our products. Scott Kelby wrote a post this morning on how the iPad affects photographers, and I would add all industries should pay attention. In this global marketplace, you have to take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself. Making your content available for the iPad while time consuming AND financially redundant is the smart choice because leaders are proactive not reactive. While many people are focusing on iPad apps, Terry White mentioned the opportunity for eBook self-publishing with Adobe InDesign. That’s right, my mother could very well publish that cookbook she’s always dreamed about, and make it accessible to 300,000 people today.

In summary, it remains to be seen if the iPad will be the revolutionary device Steve Jobs claims it will be, but I’m not going to stand around on the sidelines waiting to find out.

This is just a quick update to let you know there will be some changes to the website in the next few weeks. The biggest change will be the use of Category Feeds. As longtime readers know this blog has covered a wide range of topics ranging from entertainment to games to politics, fitness & health and of course Adobe software.

Having individual category feeds will make the blog more useful to everyone. In the future you’ll be able to pick the category you want to follow, and you can ignore the rest of my ramblings. Given my schedule this is the best option versus starting another blog, or two, or three.

So there you have it. I’ll announce the updates when they’re online, and I appreciate your continued patronage of the blog.

My Fitness Pal

The iPhone app and online web account are free.

The Good – My Fitness Pal has a well thought out interface. If you do not have an account you can create your profile directly from the iPhone app. You’ll be prompted to enter such info as current weight, goal weight, current height, activity level, weekly number of workouts planned, in addition to some personal info like your birthday & city location. The final step is to create your username/password and then you’ll be shown your calculated daily calorie summary. NOTE – I highly recommend getting the advice of your doctor or a professional nutritionist to calculate how many calories you need per day. My suggested calorie intake was a total of 1100 calories, which I found rather low. Fortunately, you can edit your profile info, so I changed the suggested number.

After creating my account I was able to jump in right away adding my first meal on record–Two Eggs Scrambled, Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage, Pace Salsa – 289 calories. The Home screen shows a Daily Summary with the “Add to Diary” button easily recognized in the center of the app. Scrolling the Home page reveals detailed nutrition information, calculated from the foods you enter.

When adding new entries you can search for foods by name or brand, choose from your last entries, or create specific foods & meals. That’s right, you can group a series of foods into a meal which makes data entry even easier once you get a few items entered. The process is straight forward, and I found it easy to edit items such as number of servings or create meals.

The Bad – the application requires an Internet connection via WiFi or cellular. Entries cannot be entered offline. The workout section could be improved to capture & provide more information. Compared to the nutrition section of the app, the workout implementation feels light.

Daily Burn

The iPhone app and online web account are free. There is a PAID version of the app for $2.99 that has more features, and the website also has varying subscription level services. Daily Burn is also supported by a 2nd iPhone app called Food Scanner which is currently on sale for .99 cents.

The Good – The application has separate screen page icons that display your fitness progress, workout and nutritional summaries. Nutrition entries include a picture of the item as well as a capture of the product nutrition label. The workout section includes popular programs–even the Wii Fit–allowing for detailed progress of your workouts. The body section provides a graph which allows for a larger detail view simply by rotating the phone. This application interfaces directly with the Food Scanner which is a slick application. I found myself going through my pantry scanning stuff I had no intention of eating. Nice if you don’t like to type on your phone.

The Bad - The application interface requires too many page changes to get to what you want. The free version of the app only allows you to save 20 food items, and you can’t save complete meals. When I searched certain foods–or even scanned them directly with Food Scanner–the nutritional information was wrong. (I can understand this with the Daily Burn app, but was very surprised to get mistakes with the Food Scanner). Constantly reminded in app (and on website) to upgrade to Pro version. As with My Fitness Pal the app requires an Internet connection to use.

Overall Comparison Summary

As I mentioned before, both applications are good for counting those calories. Daily Burn has an advantage when you pair it with the Food Scanner app, but I would have to say for regular use My Fitness Pal just works better. The fact that I can create meals saves more time than the ability to scan bar codes, and the user interface is clean, simple & easy to navigate. But don’t take my word for it, test drive the apps yourself. For me, I’m going to use My Fitness Pal for the rest of John P’s GetHealthy challenge.

I saw a sputtering of tweets today on the topic, and I’m inclined to jump on the #SaveReTweets bandwagon. However, if we’re to assume Twitter has the interests of the community in mind, I would like to add some helpful critiques.

The image above is an example of the proposed change to retweets. The retweet button is a good idea, but here’s why I believe the “retweeted by biz” line fails:

1. This drawing assumes I use Twitter.com to read & post my tweets. Folks who are taking advantage of the power of Twitter are using third party clients.

2. The implementation shows the original poster’s avatar. When scanning through a list of tweets, I look at the avatars first then read the tweet. This ties into my 3rd point -

3. I’m reading the tweet AND/OR following the link because I trust the person who retweeted. In the image above, I won’t see @Biz’s avatar, and I’ll ignore @Ev because I don’t follow them.

4. The implementation doesn’t allow for a retweet chain. Sometimes I retweet two or three people, as I didn’t discover the thread AND I can introduce my followers to more people. For example, RT @Person1 RT @Person2 this is a really great tweet.

5. A driving factor for me on Twitter is discovery. The changes to @replies and now retweets hampers discovery of new folks. Since RTs can be ignored, I won’t be introduced to new people, and I won’t be able to introduce folks to new discoveries.

6. I’m already using some great third party tools to track retweets. Twitter isn’t adding a feature that will be helpful to me, rather they’re breaking my current workflow.

Looking at Twitter’s blog post the changes are in hand, and will be pushed on users after a trial period. My hope is that they consider how retweets have been implemented by the community before trying to reinvent the wheel.

NAPP – You should already be a member if you have any interest in Photoshop. Really. Other people who know Photoshop will heckle you if you’re not a member. They’ll be like, “There goes that person who thinks they know more than Scott Kelby AND all his friends.”

Why NAPP? Why now? Well, yesterday NAPP members got access to an exclusive Watermark panel that can be downloaded for CS4. That alone is worth the $99 membership fee for some folks. So go join. Now.

Wacom introduces the Intuos4. This was all the buzz yesterday during the Photoshop World keynote, maybe due to a few folks winning the tablet. Brought to you by the leaders in pen tablet tech, it’s worth a look.

AppStorm – I have Erik to thank for pointing out this website. For new & experienced Mac users, here’s a place to go to find app reviews. Sure there are more apps for Windows, but I’m starting to focus on quality in my computing experience not quantity.

Alright, I’m out. A bit of sleep before the day really kicks off.

@Firgs recently wrote on her blog that she’s a Photoshop Snob. As a fellow enthusiast, I can understand the passion. However, while Photoshop is an AMAZING piece of software, it’s not for everyone. Even it’s little brother PS Elements can be a bit much, especially if all you want to do is have fun with your photos. And that’s what Vertus has done right with its latest software creation Play with Pictures.

It was quite a coincidence that the same time I was reading an email from Vertus, I was catching up with @DawnMHSH‘s blog. Dawn wrote an excellent review/tutorial of Play with Pictures, and she’s even running a contest which you should enter. As your local Adobe guy, I can say I had a blast with this package. It is fun for everyone, and easily mastered, which is perfect for home enthusiasts, families or the creative who wants to stretch their imagination. Download a free trial or Join the Play with Pictures Facebook group which has photos & videos. I had to get in on the action so I posted a quick video for you my dear reader:

Other notable links this week:

Nearby Tweets – What I like about this app is it gets you connected with people who tweet locally on topics you’re interested in. I love technology, but I enjoy an opportunity to meet folks face to face. What makes this app strong is searching by both location and topic. My new favorite.

Tweetlater – OK. Here’s my Twitter secret. I automate my Adobe Tips both on Twitter & this blog using Tweetlater. *shock & awe ensue* Scheduling tweets seemed like a silly idea until I realized the value a regular format gave to my followers. Loyal readers know that I tweet my Adobe Tips Monday through Friday at 9am & 9pm. Using Tweetlater allows me to organize all those tips “offline” and I don’t have to worry if something else keeps me from tweeting. Having a schedule for certain tweets means my followers know when to listen to me, which is vitally important as chatter static grows with each new follower. It also has a feature to vet new followers, a process for auto-following that allows you to check the twitterers first to see if you really want to add them. I use this constantly, especially with the rise in spambots. Finally Tweetlater has RSS feed capabilities which I use to update the sidebar with my daily tip.

Alright, it’s now early evening, and I should get back to the family. Everyone have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll catch you with Adobe tips next week.

iPhone Apps Tell The Future – Interesting article about where portable devices, cell phone tech, etc., may be heading based on apps seen in Apple’s App store. There were a handful of apps that I hadn’t downloaded yet so it was a good read for me.

Cursebird – See how foulmouth some of your Twitter peeps can be when they get to chatting. Being a new dad, I’m happy to report no swearing over here. (Old posts within this blog are another story)

20 Best Web Comics – Thought the list wasn’t complete as they left out Sinfest (that’s .NET not .COM) and What the Duck. I thought the comments had a better list than the article.

Download the update for Lightroom 2.3 (Mac|PC)

Photoshop CS4 users will want to update to Camera Raw 5.3. If not already prompted by the Adobe Updater, you can manually install by visiting the Adobe web site.