That said, there are some programs that you may be running that just aren’t compatible with Lion (like Quicken, for example). There’s a list of compatibility here that you can browse to see if anything you need is on it. Also, you can do this to see what you’ll lose for sure:

1. Go to your Applications folder > Utilities folder > System Profiler, and double-click to open.
2. Look on the list on the left and scroll down until you see “Applications.” Click on that.
3. Wait a few seconds for it to load.
4. Click on the column labeled “Kind” to sort by that. It’ll turn blue to show you that it’s the column being sorted.
5. Scroll down through the list and note all of the applications you have that are listed as “Power PC.” None of those will work—zip, zilch, nada. So unless the company in question has an updated version, you can’t run that program.

If there’s an app that you rely on that won’t work, you’ll have to either wait for the developer to update it, or switch to an alternative. And as always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us!

I know it seems like every time you close your wallet Apple unveils some new thing for you to spend money on, but these are actually very big and important changes in the world of Apple. Plenty of other sites are covering these products in great detail, but I’m going to briefly hit on why I think this will matter to you, our loyal customers.

10.7 Lion

What it is: A new operating system for your Mac.

Why you might want it: Wireless iTunes syncing to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch (finally!). The rewritten Mail app is much nicer to work with and more like Mail on the iPad. The new Mac App store will make getting new and updated software on your Mac easier than ever. Auto-Saving, Versioning, and Resuming means you can quit apps or reboot your Mac and come back exactly where you left off (even down to selected text in a document!). AirDrop will make exchanging files between users on a network easier than ever. There are actually over 250 features, but these are the ones I think you’ll really care about.

Who can use it: Anyone using an Intel Mac running Snow Leopard (it won’t be available for purchase in the Apple Store; you can only get it by downloading it through the App Store on your Mac).

How much it will cost you: $30. If you want to upgrade it to Server, it’ll cost $40 more (versus the $500 that server currently costs).

When you can get it in your hot little hands: July

iOS 5

What it is: A new operating system for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.

Why you might want it: Completely revamped notifications means you aren’t interrupted anymore. Newsstand is to magazines and newspapers what iBooks is for books. Reminders, including location-based reminders (for example, “pick up WD-40 next time you’re at McGuckin Hardware”). Wireless syncing. A new messaging system.

Who can use it: Anyone with an iPhone 3GS or newer, an iPad, or an iPod Touch 3 or newer.

How much it will cost you: Free!

When you can get it in your hot little hands: September. We’re also expecting new iPhones in September, so even though the software is free, it may end up costing you money anyway.

iCloud

What it is: The replacement for MobileMe, and a whole lot more.

Why you might want it: MobileMe was notoriously flaky. iCloud has been rewritten from the ground up to make syncing work the way it should. They’ve also added automatic document and photo syncing—work on a Pages document on your iPad, and it instantly syncs to your Mac and iPhone, and the same goes for photos. They’ve also added a way to easily get music between your devices without having to connect them to iTunes.

Who can use it: Anyone using iOS5 and/or Lion.

How much it will cost you: Free for 5GB of storage. For an additional $25 a year, Apple will grant you an iTunes license for all of the music you have that you didn’t purchase through iTunes, including stuff your kids might have illegally downloaded (ahem).

When you can get it in your hot little hands: September. Some of the functionality will be rolling out before then, but most of it requires iOS5 and Lion.

We’ve only covered some of the things we think the majority of our clients will care about, but chances are there’s more in there to get you excited. For more details, head over to Apple.com. And if you have any questions, feel free to shoot us an e-mail.

Here at PEBMAC World Headquarters, we generally don’t recommend that people upgrade just for the sake of doing so. I mean, if it’s working for you, why change things? But for one reason or another, there are a few technologies that people should probably move away from. Here’s our list of what you should consider dropping (and why). I apologize in advance for my somewhat indignant tone in this post. Companies that do bad things just make me so angry. And they wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

1. AOL. Oh, where to start? AOL (or “Aol,” if you prefer the new branding) was cool in 1997 or so—I had it back then, too, but I wasn’t what anyone would call “cool,” just so’s you know. It was an easy, user-friendly way to access your e-mail, chat with people far and wide, and browse the Internet. But as old as saying this makes me feel, its day in the sun passed, and now it’s staggering to keep up (and it has not, in fact, kept up). Its business model these days seems to be comprised of cheating people out of monthly fees. If you’re paying for broadband access (from Comcast or Qwest, say) and still use the AOL login screen, you’re being cheated, pure and simple. You don’t even have to change your e-mail address to cancel AOL if you don’t want to; you can access AOL Mail for free from your browser. In short, I harbor ill will toward this company because I still know a bunch of people who are essentially being scammed, and that makes me a sad little panda.

2. Yahoo! Mail. The reason for this one is short and simple: Yahoo doesn’t offer a free way to access your mail from anything other than a Web interface or a mobile device, so you can’t set up your Yahoo account in Apple Mail without paying them more money. As the icing on the cake, even paying that extra amount won’t get you IMAP access, which means that you won’t be able to sync changes to your messages across devices (and at a time when many people use more than one device to access their e-mail, the ability to use IMAP to keep them all synced together should be a requirement). Plus, if you have something happen and can’t access your account for four months, they delete your messages, which I think stinks to high heaven. Yahoo’s mail just doesn’t match up to the free services that Gmail offers, and since they’re being so stingy with their customers, I suggest that anyone who can do so should switch away from them.

3. Hotmail. Admittedly, my vitriol toward Hotmail isn’t as strong as the bitterness I have for the two contenders above. My biggest problem with Hotmail is that it, again, doesn’t support IMAP, which seems to me like a glaring omission in 2011. Secondly, though, Hotmail is also used quite frequently by spammers, so Microsoft has had to implement some frustrating and inconvenient fixes for the problem (like sometimes making you prove you’re human before you can even send out an e-mail!). One downside of this is that some companies simply won’t accept e-mail from a Hotmail address, meaning the pictures of your cat may never be received (which I would consider a crime—darnit, I LIKE pictures of cats!). The sins of Hotmail seem like incompetence more than actually trying to rip people off, though, so I’m not angry with them. I guess. OK, maybe I am a little.

4. Microsoft Office. Now, this one may seem bizarre to some, especially considering how omnipresent Word and Excel are in the business world. But Office isn’t the best choice for document collaboration, and in fact, the software makes it a pain to do so, especially if you’re working with others who don’t have Office on their machines (or even those who just have an older version than you do). On the Mac, a far better choice for creating beautiful documents is iWork, Apple’s Office competitor, but if you need to use documents collaboratively, I suggest the excellent Google Docs programs. If you like Office and want to continue using it, by all means do so. But I believe that Word in particular is on the verge of being replaced by newer, more user-friendly, and more collaborative programs. (To give Microsoft a bit of credit where it’s due, Office for Mac 2011 is much improved in terms of stability and just pure softwarey goodness from its predecessors, but I still stand by my predicting its coming obsolescence.)

5. CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray. I hope this doesn’t upset any of you. I, too, have a large movie collection stored only on shiny discs. But I truly don’t see the market for these products lasting much beyond the next few years, mainly because they’re inconvenient (as in, you have to drive to the store to buy them or wait to get them after you’ve ordered online). They’re also quite wasteful if you think about it; a movie can very easily be purchased and downloaded from the Internet, and no actual fuel is expended in transporting that merchandise, nor do you have to throw away packaging materials. Why would I drive to a Blockbuster-type store and rent something when I can do so from an Apple TV without having to worry about returning anything? Why would I buy a physical CD from a band when I can buy that music on my computer directly? I just see all of these technologies moving forward at a pretty astonishing pace, and if you’re able to walk in and buy a DVD at any major retailer in five years, I’ll eat my hat.

As always, if you have any questions about these technologies or if you just want to discuss how you can move away from them, give us a call. We’d be happy to help or just talk to you about the implications. And I promise that I will now unclench my jaw from its current I’m-mad-at-bad-business-practices state and return you to the normal goofy Melissa fun.

A) So many clients ask us about it, and

B) They are often very misinformed about what the real threats are.

The latest thing that has everyone’s “I’m A Mac” shirt in a knot is the news that the iPhone is tracking all of your movements and that this information poses some major risks to your personal privacy. But just how much of a threat is it really? The issue, as usual, is about as cut and dried as a puddle of oobleck. To keep it simple, let’s tackle this in a virtual question and answer format.

Is my iPhone tracking all of my movements? Yes, but only down to the latitude and longitude of the cell phone towers and WiFi hotspots that your phone connects to. It doesn’t track you down to an individual address level, and in many cases the information is totally wrong (a look at my own logs from our wedding trip to Maui in November showed that I had actually connected to towers on two other islands that I never visited). If you really want to see how accurate the data is (or isn’t), Pete Warden has created a free utility that will open the file from your computer and display it over a map.

Is this information being sent to Apple? Most news sites say no, I say maybe. An observant Mac user noticed last year that his phone was sending large quantities of data (tens of megabytes) to Apple around 1 to 2 a.m. every night. The most likely candidates for this much information are these data logs. [Edit: Apple has since acknowledged that this data is sent to them in an anonymous and encrypted format.]

What’s being done with the information? I believe that the information is being used by Apple to help evaluate how well the iPhone performs in various network situations in an effort to improve phone performance and to build a database of wireless network router locations so they can pinpoint your location even if a cell tower signal isn’t available. Apple hasn’t said anything, which is completely in character for them, but I suspect they’ll issue a public statement within the next week or so and will likely do something to assuage people’s fears shortly thereafter. Either way, there is no reason to believe this information is being used by anyone but Apple. [Edit: Apple has since confirmed that this is what the data is being used for.]

Why are people so upset? Because Apple is storing the data on your phone and computer in a completely unencrypted format that anyone can access. If you don’t like the idea of someone knowing what neighborhoods you visit, this could be a problem. Apple should definitely know better than to handle someone’s personal information in such a laissez-faire manner.

Should I be upset? Yes, but not because of this. The fact of the matter is that if you’re using a cell phone, you’re constantly being tracked anyway, by whoever your cell phone provider is. The FCC requires cell phone companies to be able to pinpoint your position at any moment to within 100 meters, purportedly for use by 911 in case of an emergency. I say “purportedly” because it turns out they appear to be storing the data far longer than they need to and will hand it to the Feds for as little as a smile and a bat of the eyelashes. Adding insult to injury, word came out in 2006 that AT&T has been handing over a copy of every phone call, e-mail, and webpage you visit to the NSA any time you use your phone. It’s likely that other cell phone companies are doing the same; AT&T was just foolish enough to own up to it.

What can I do to protect myself? If you don’t want to be tracked, don’t own a cell phone. Turning it off isn’t enough (the government has the ability to actually turn the microphone on with any cell phone and monitor what’s going on around you, even if the phone is off). If your phone has a removable battery, that’s the only choice for complete privacy. Contrary to some reports, turning Location Services off on your phone does not prevent this data from being collected. [Edit: Apple has since released an update for the iPhone (iOS 4.3.3) which encrypts the cache, reduces the amount of data stored, and now properly deletes it if Location Services is turned off.]

If you’re concerned about just how much privacy you might be giving up as you use your machine (and there’s a lot of it), drop us a line and we’ll set you straight. Just be sure you have a stiff drink handy—and close the blinds while you’re at it.

Truth be told, we probably use less than other folks, anyway; our policy is that we use Apple’s solutions if at all possible so that we get the trials and tribulations of iPhoto, for example, firsthand. It’s not always a pleasant policy.

In any case, below are a few gems that we can’t live without. Every one of them is either free or offers a trial download so you can test it out before you buy it. And remember that if you have any questions about how these programs work or about how you can integrate them into your life, drop us a line.

1. Dropbox. I use this every single day. When you install the program and sign up for an account, Dropbox puts a folder on your computer (Mac, PC, Linux—it doesn’t matter) that syncs to all other devices you install it on. So you can create a word processing file, drop it into that special folder on your Mac, and find it waiting for you on your work PC when you arrive (or you can view it on your iPhone!). It’s fast, it’s simple, and it’s free for up to 2GB of storage. I hope these folks are making millions; they deserve it. If they aren’t, I should send them a care package of cookies or something.

2. 1Password. I know, I know, we tech types are always going on about how you should pick strong passwords, avoid using the same one for all your sites, and so on. No one ever listens to us. But Agile Web Solutions’ 1Password makes it easy to avoid annoying your techie pals. It will generate passwords for you and store them securely, and you can even use it from within your browser to autofill all sorts of information in a safe way. Here’s a short video on how it works, but trust me, you can’t believe its wonderfulness until you start using it.

3. CloudApp. This is one of the easiest ways to share files that I’ve found. With CloudApp installed, all you have to do to share a file is click on it (in Finder, for example, or you can also use it in iPhoto, Photoshop, and iTunes). Once it’s highlighted, you simply hit a keyboard shortcut, and the program automagically uploads your file and copies the link to it to your clipboard. So sharing files with anyone takes just seconds.

4. TextExpander. It sounds so weird: I type shortcuts so that my computer will type longer things for me. But this program saves me more time than any other. What TextExpander does is that it allows you to create text shortcuts—called “snippets”—that you type to have the program fill in the longer string of text for you. For example, one of my snippets is “hhome,” which I type in as a shortcut for my address. You can also have TextExpander fix your most common typos for you. It really is an extremely useful program, especially if you are a poor typist like me.

5. BackJack. I’ve tried quite a few of the online backup services, and BackJack’s the one I like the best. It has a simple interface with easy ways to exclude files or add them, and to top it off, their customer service is one of the best I’ve seen . . . ever. They’re incredibly responsive and helpful, which is always a plus if you’re trusting your data to someone. Plus, you know you should be backing up your critical files offsite, right? Because if your house burned down, you’d lose everything? Right? Is this thing on?

So that’s it. The cream of our crop. The top of our list. The knees of our bees. The . . . sugar of . . . our non-dairy creamer.

That must’ve been a hint from the universe that I shouldn’t write blog posts when I’ve had so much coffee that my eyelids are trembling. Oh, well, more advice from the universe to ignore!

This tip isn’t intended to keep you from calling us. Heavens, no. We like hearing from you all, even if what you want to discuss is your cousin’s recipe for jambalaya or that awesome pecan log you just bought down at the Stuckey’s. But sometimes those phone calls can turn into visits out to your house, and that costs you money, so it just makes good sense for you to try some simple fixes before you call us or anyone else. Your time is money, right? More specifically, our time is your money. Here’s how to use less of it.

1. Don’t Ignore My Pleas for You to Back Up. Disasters are bad; disasters on machines that don’t have backups are nuclear winter bad. M. Night Shyamalan after The Sixth Sense bad. Ipecac syrup given to your dog bad. You get the point.

2. Try Restarting the Persnickety Thing. I can’t tell you how often we get called out to someone’s house for a computer that won’t [insert action here], only to have a reboot fix the problem. It’s humbling to have to pay someone to press a button, and I don’t want to see you like that. This rule also goes for the iPhone, the iPad, and any third-party devices you have, such as printers or routers.

3. Check Apple’s Website for Help. For example, here is their troubleshooting guide for the iPhone, which walks you through all of the steps we’d try first on a device that’s gone belly-up.

4. Don’t Hide the Truth. We’re all doofuses. I drop my iPhone at least once a week. But if you call us (or, especially, if you go to the Genius Bar) and try to disguise a huge dent in your laptop or the fact that you dropped your iPad into a swimming pool filled with cherry Jell-O, you’re only going to hold up the process. I’ve heard of Geniuses replacing dropped or water-damaged devices if the owner was nice and completely honest, but the moment you start blaming ambient humidity for your dead phone, you’re dead in the water.

So there you have a few simple things you can do to save yourself some time and a lot of headache with tech support costs. But if you’re having an issue, don’t be afraid to call us. Just be sure to have enough pecan logs to share if you’re gonna start bragging.

Don’t use the same user name for every site you’re on. Now, the reason for this may not seem obvious, but let’s say that you post under the name “AdorableBunnyGirl22987LOL” on Facebook. And you also use that on Twitter. And on Flickr. And on the forum you use to post your thoughts on gun control. See the problem? You might not want your Twitter followers to see the pictures that you post or to know how you feel about AK-47s, especially if you tag your Tweets with your location. So if a simple Google search will lead someone to know more about you than you’d like, perhaps it’s time to start using a different ID. I’d suggest doing self-searching at least a couple of times a year to see what information is out there waiting for some sleazy Internet stalker dude or dudette to find. You can do a search for your name (put it in quotes to get the most accurate results) or any and all of the screen names that you use to see what others can find about you. As a somewhat creepy example, I had a fella tell me once that he had no information available on the Internet for anyone to find. Within fifteen minutes, I had his ex-wife’s address, the value of his house and the purchase date, and his mother’s maiden name. Maybe the moral of this story is that you shouldn’t mess with people who know how to use Google. No! The moral of this story is that you should be careful. That’s it.

On a similar Internet security note (OK, it seems similar in my mind, and this is my blog, so you can just hush right up), there are some cool things that you can do with Gmail that will help a bit in figuring out who’s selling your information. Let’s say that your Gmail address is AngryLlama@gmail.com. You can add a plus sign before the ampersand and type anything after it, and the e-mail will still come right to you. For example, AngryLlama+spam@gmail.com will go to your address, as will AngryLlama+junk@gmail.com, or anything else you want to type there. Why is this helpful, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you, Captain Impatient. You can use a custom address for every Internet store you buy from (AngryLlama+amazon@gmail.com, AngryLlama+HausOfClams@gmail.com, and so on). If you start getting new spam, just check the e-mail address it was sent to, and you’ll know which customer service department to complain to. Which might do some good, but it probably won’t. So I really don’t know why I’m telling you this.

Where am I?

Oh, right. Ruling the world, blah blah blah, stay safe out there in the dark tubes of the ‘Net, et cetera. I think I need a nap.

Anyhoo, the first thing on my list is using image files as e-mail signatures. Sure, using a fancy JPEG you’ve designed means that your information will look exactly the way that you want it on your end, but here’s why you shouldn’t do it.

1. You never know how your recipient’s e-mail program will interpret it. It’s possible that the person you’re writing is using a program that disables images by default or one that doesn’t embed them (meaning that your fancy-pants signature will show up as an attachment—pretty unprofessional!). This also holds true as a good reason for why you shouldn’t use really fancy, unusual fonts in your e-mails; your recipients may end up seeing something weird and completely not what you intended.

2. You’re wasting server space. Not all folks are using The Wonder That Is Gmail, so your recipients may have a limited amount of storage for their e-mail. If that’s the case, attaching files every time you talk to them—especially if your e-mail program or theirs is set to include original attachments upon replying—can result in a huge waste of space.

3. You can’t copy and paste information out of an image file. Apple’s Mail has some wonderful features, but Data Detectors are my favorite. Being able to hover over an address or phone number and automatically add it to my Address Book rocks my socks. But when people put their contact information into an image file, I can’t do that. I can’t even copy and paste that data into my Address Book—I have to type it in by hand. And typing things in by hand makes me a sad little panda.

So there you have it . . . three very good reasons why you shouldn’t use an image file as your mail signature. Heed my words, or 2012 will be very . . . uncomfortable for the lot of you.

Stay tuned as I continue counting down all of my pet peeves. Well, the computer-related ones, of course. Going over the whole list would be time-consuming, so we’ll avoid that.

Pro: Verizon has better network coverage. You’re more likely to have coverage in the U.S. when you want to make a call if you’re using a Verizon phone.

Pro: Verizon has better call quality. GSM phones are prone to dropped calls, echoes, garbling, and other things that make having an actual conversation difficult, to say the least. Since Verizon uses CDMA, you won’t experience these issues nearly as much.

Con: You won’t be able to use data while making a phone call. Those of you who remember what the iPhone was like on the EDGE network before 3G will be familiar with the woes of being locked into a call. You can’t switch to speakerphone and look something up on the Web, for example. It may not sound like much, but it’s a big limitation compared to AT&T.

Con: Battery life won’t be as good on Verizon. CDMA phones require more power to communicate with the network, so your battery life will likely be worse.

Con: Network speed is likely to be slower with Verizon. How much slower remains to be seen, but the DMA network that Verizon uses is technically slower. (Don’t be fooled by all the 3G versus 4G nonsense; it doesn’t mean anything. AT&T has decided to now start calling their 3G network 4G, even though nothing has changed.)

Con: You won’t see additional speed with network improvements. Verizon isn’t upgrading their CDMA network; they’re replacing it with a different technology called LTE. Since the first Verizon iPhone doesn’t support LTE, this means that as Verizon’s new network is rolled out, you won’t be able to use it. Meanwhile, AT&T is updating their GSM network to something called HSDPA, which the current hardware supports. (In the future AT&T hopes to use LTE as well, which will change everything.)

Con: The resale value on a Verizon iPhone will likely be lower. CDMA phones are hard-wired to a certain carrier. A used Verizon iPhone can only be used with Verizon, and that’s assuming they’ll let you reprogram it. AT&T’s GSM iPhone supports SIM cards, meaning that after a simple unlocking procedure you can use the phone with any carrier that supports GSM, such as T-Mobile (and many international carriers). I’ve owned the iPhone since the first model, and every time a new model has been rolled out, I’ve been able to re-sell my old phone for more than the cost of the new one, thanks to AT&T’s subsidies. That is likely not going to be the case with Verizon.

So how do you speed up your Mac? There are really only a few options:

1. Add more RAM. RAM is the memory of your computer, whereas your hard drive is the storage. RAM is really fast, which allows your computer to do lots of things extremely quickly. Your hard drive, on the other hand, is very slow in comparison. When you run out of RAM (from having too many programs open, for example), your Mac won’t give you an “out of memory” error the way computers used to; it’ll simply swap out the memory contents to the hard drive so it can load new things. Since the hard drive is sloooow, this way makes everything drag. In my experience, the most common cause of spinning beach balls is this kind of hard drive activity. The good news is that RAM has gotten very cheap and is easy to upgrade. To find out whether your machine can hold more RAM, go to Crucial’s website and try their system scanner.

2. Update your operating system. As Apple has continued to work on the OS X operating system, they’ve also made improvements to speed things up. If you’re running an older version of the OS, consider upgrading to the latest (Snow Leopard). It offers quite a few speed and stability increases, and many older machines can run it just fine (any machine with an Intel processor running at 1.84GHz or faster, with at least 1GB of RAM, will work).

3. Update your software. Those periodic reminders your Mac gives you about updates being available shouldn’t be ignored. In our experience, they almost always make things run faster and more stably. To check whether you have new updates available, go to the Apple menu in the upper-left corner of your screen and select “Software Update.” Be aware that if you have a slow Internet connection, it can take a while to install updates, especially if you have a lot of them. You can always head over to your local coffee shop and use their free Internet connection if it’s faster than yours.

4. Replace your hard drive. Hard drives have been around for decades, and although they’ve gotten smaller, cheaper, and able to hold more files, the fundamental technology itself hasn’t changed a lot. What is new, however, are solid-state drives (SSD). Up above, we talked about how RAM is much faster than your hard drive. Well, SSDs are the best of both worlds—they combine the speed of RAM with the storage abilities of a hard drive. Installing one into your Mac can make it run more than twice as fast overall, with some actions performing close to fifty times faster. Wowza! You can install an SSD in almost any Mac that doesn’t have antique status, although newer Macs will benefit the most from the increased speed. The downside is that these drives are still fairly expensive. A 120GB SSD currently costs around $2 per gigabyte, versus $0.10 per gigabyte for a standard hard drive.

If you’re looking to speed up your Mac and don’t know where to start, give us a buzz and let us help you decide what choice is best for you.