Archives for October, 2008

Intego, the makers of the VirusBarrier anti-virus software for the Mac, has issued a security warning that the supposed anti-virus software MacGuard is in reality itself malicious software:

• INTEGO SECURITY MEMO – October 17, 2008
• Macworld: Intego warns against MacGuard malware
• MacGuard knows malware because it is malware

Created by the same company that makes a Windows™ package called Winiguard:

which is both a scam that attempts to sell useless software and a dangerous rouge tool that “hijacks the user’s desktop and typically displays exaggerated or false claims of spyware found to frighten the user into paying for the program,”

Regarding MacGuard:

The software may be dangerous to Mac OS X, and there is a risk that the company “selling” this software may be scamming users and some sources suggest that they may be using the credit card numbers they harvest for nefarious purposes.

Apple has updated the MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines today. The Pro inherits the iMac style aluminum case with black bordered, glossy screen. The low end white plastic MacBook is $100 cheaper at $999 and there are two additional models that are essentially 13″ versions of the MacBook Pro with the same styling and many of the same features. The MacBook Air was also updated with some of the same new features.

NOTE: The new MacBooks do not have a Firewire port and do not support Target Mode! They use USB exclusively. The MacBook Pros include Firewire 800 which is compatible with Firewire 400 via a simple cable.

New Cinema Displays: LED backlight, MagSafe connector to power your laptop, 3 port USB hub, integrated microphone and iSight camera, stereo speakers for $899, available in November.

READ MORE …

Good news for folks looking for compatibility with Microsoft Office but who can’t or won’t pay the price for the official version.

OpenOffice is a free, open source Office compatible application suite for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It supports: word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, drawing and databases with an eye to supporting native Microsoft Office document formats. It also provides some support for Visual Basic scripting, a feature dropped from the latest official Office release (more details).

The major news in the 3.0 release is that it is finally available as a fully native Mac OS X application (previous versions used Apple’s X Windows implementation and frankly looked pretty awful in comparison to a typical Mac OS X app.) Some of the dialogs could still use a dose of Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines but the application itself is much improved. It’s also a simple drag and drop application install.

It’s free and well worth checking out. Make sure you grab the 3.0 release as some of the mirror sites are still vending the older 2.4 release.

• OpenOffice.org download
• Ars Technica’s Article on the Release
• ZDNet: OK, now OpenOffice is definitely good enough
• Mac360: How To Replace Microsoft’s Office For Mac For Free

Apple is having another event on Tuesday, October 14th at 1PM Eastern Time. Titled “The Spotlight Turns to Notebooks”, there’s not much doubt about the topic of this one.

• engadget: Apple “notebook” event is on, October 14th!
• ars technica: Apple announces October 14 notebook event in Cupertino
• AppleInsider: Apple makes October 14th MacBook event official

Suffice it to say, you might want to wait until next week before you buy that new MacBook or MacBook Pro.

Topic

Treats for Tricks

Who

Everyone!

When

Friday October 10th 2008, 7:30pm – 10pm

Where

Room M129, Building M, ACCC Mays Landing Campus

Another ACAMUG tradition, bring your brief Mac related tricks to show the rest of the group and you’ll get a treat!

Presentation topics may change so be sure to verify on the day of the meeting. Got questions you’d like to have answered? Feel free to post them as comments before the meeting so the presenters have a chance to prepare.