Friday Freeware Roundup
For those who may have missed them, updates to some useful Mac freeware during the past week (or so)…
- Anacron 3.2
- Firefox 2.0.0.1
- Growl 0.7.5
- ImageWell 3
- Opera 9.1
- Vine Server 2.1 (Formerly OSXvnc)
- VirtueDesktops 0.53r265a
Anacron Update Released
A quick note to let those of you who use Anacron for Tiger know that an update was released a couple of days ago. The new version is built as a Universal Binary package which runs on both PPC and Intel machines.
If you’ve not yet heard about Anacron, but let your computer sleep during the night, then this free little software package is a must have. It automatically runs the daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance scripts if they need to be as soon as you wake your Mac. I put this on every workstation I set up or maintain. You should too.
Mac 101: Miracle Maintenance
Mac 101: Miracle Maintenance
Following are three key things you can do to keep your Mac in tip-top shape. We also tell you what you can do to get the best performance from your Mac.
This is a decent Apple Knowledgebase article which was posted (or updated) today. It covers what I would consider to be the very minimum a user should do to keep their machine in order. I repeat — this is the VERY LEAST you should do to keep your Mac happy! If you’re not even doing this much, then you’re just asking for trouble.
Another decent kBase article covering Mac Maintenance is 303602. It expands a little bit more on the topics in article 304751, but is still only what I’d call a bare minimum for keeping your Mac in tip-top shape.
Be on the lookout for my version — where I’ll go into just a wee bit1 more detail — sometime after the first of the year…
- Actually, it’ll be way more detailed — but still easy enough to stick to on a regular basis. [↩]
The Top of the Charts
Every once in a while I’ll do a search for myself on Google (yes, it’s an ego thing) to see where my name stands in the rankings. Imagine my surprise joy to find that I am was the number one listing of “Jim Mitchell” today. I guess you could say that makes me the king of Jim Mitchell’s in all the Internets…
Of course, it’s not by mere chance that this has suddenly happened. It’s due mainly to the fact that I’ve implemented several SEO1 techniques based on those shared by Chris Pearson over at pearsonsonified.com. Thanks for the awesome tips Chris!
- SEO = Search Engine Optimization. There’s a whole genre of blogdom that specifically targets this topic, with a wealth of information on how to better your rankings without spamming the world to high hell. Yes, it takes a little bit of work, but at least you earn your page rank. [↩]
MS Word Zero-Day Flaw Got You Down?
It seems MS didn’t quite get the zero-day flaw which was reported earlier this week plugged, with a brand new one being reported today. A patch for the original flaw was posted yesterday in the late afternoon, but pulled shortly afterwards. If you were one of those who were able to download it, MS recommends that any user who applied the patch should remove it.
So, what’s a paranoid Mac user who relies on Word to do until MS gets their act together? Simple. If you don’t already have one, grab yourself a Gmail account, or get invited, and use the Docs & Spreadsheets option to open and edit your Word files in the mean time. Granted, the extensive formatting options of Word (tables, etc.) won’t be available, but if you need to bang out a quick something, it’s a decent alternative until the MacBU in Redmond get their act together.
[Update] Note that Google’s Docs & Spreadsheets option is NOT compatible with Safari, so you’ll need to use, or download, a Gecko based browser. Camino is a good option, as is Bon Echo.
Of course, if you’re running Tiger there’s always TextEdit — which can both open and save files in the Word .doc format. Simply select the option in the save panel, and your Windows friends (who, by the way, the flaw has been patched for already) will be able to open your document without hassle.
Either way, you have a temporary solution to the problem until it’s resolved.
A Few Search Questions About Yasu
I’m beginning to see just how useful the Mint stats add-on can be. I’ve been able to keep track of search terms that visitors use on the site — both coming from external engines as well as locally. It’s an awesome package, and I can’t recommend it enough. If you have a site that you manage, Mint is definitely worth the $30 investment.
Anyway. I’ve decided to answer a few of the search “questions” which I think stand out, mostly because of the individual who I’ve watched desperately search the various Google language localizations over the past few days hoping to still find a live download link of Yasu 1.3.9 — which was the last Tiger version I made available for free. While it was interesting to watch at first, it seems finding it has become an obsession for the poor person. This is to help them out.
- Sorry, dude. Yasu 1.3.x for Tiger is not available at all anymore. There’s only one existing disk image left, which was burned to a CD and is somewhere in a box in my garage. I doubt you’re going find it anywhere else on the net. I have no plans to make it available.
- Windows users; this is **not** the Yasu application you want. If you are a user of that “other” operating system, and you’ve ended up here looking for a Yasu that lets you hide your SCSI ROM reader so you can play games without properly registering them, this isn’t what you’re looking for. Don’t even bother trying to download it, because you can’t (anymore). My Yasu (the original, mind you) is a Macintosh only application.
- Finally, there is not a version of Yasu for OS 9 (or Classic). There’s simply no need for it.
There you have it. Only two versions exist — 2.0.x for Tiger (which is shareware at $3.50), and 1.0.3 for Jaguar and Panther (which is still free – but no longer under development). Hopefully that answers the questions posed via search about Yasu.
New Yasu Only RSS Feed
I’ve added a Yasu development only RSS feed to the site this evening, which is being published through Feedburner.
So if you’re only interested in getting news on Yasu, and not having to wade through all my other ramblings, you can subscribe by heading over to the Yasu page, then scrolling all the way to the bottom, and clicking the “Subscribe to Yasu Development News via RSS” link.
Enjoy!
Vulnerability in Microsoft Word
Microsoft Security Advisory (929433): Vulnerability in Microsoft Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Microsoft is investigating a new report of limited “zero-day†attacks using a vulnerability in Microsoft Word 2000, Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Word Viewer 2003, Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac, and Microsoft Word 2004 v. X for Mac, as well as Microsoft Works 2004, 2005, and 2006.
Though I rarely use Word myself, this is a MS flaw worth noting since it affects Mac as well as PC. As always — use extreme caution when you receive email with an attachment of any kind that you weren’t expecting, or even if you were expecting it.
If there’s ever any doubt in you mind about an email attachment, I highly recommend using ClamXav to scan your mail directory (~/Library/Mail) for any nasties — though I’m not entirely sure if ClamX would catch this one or not.
I’ll be putting up an in-depth ClamXav usage tutorial in the near future for those who aren’t familiar with it.
