This Week’s Word: Keychain Access

Last week, I gave you some tips on coming up with great passwords and this week, I am going to tell you how to save those passwords. A great way to save the passwords is an application called “Keychain Access.”

The good thing about Keychain Access is that your computer is already using it. Your computer securely saves passwords in the Keychain automatically. If you access an application which Keychain Access has a password saved for, it will ask you if it can use that password. You have the option to Allow it once, Always Allow it, or Deny it.

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Why is BestMacs plural?

Here’s a little 10-year-anniversary trivia.

Back when I first moved to Lawrence and started thinking about a business identity, the name of the business was semi-obvious; letting my last name promote the business was restitution for all the grade school jokes.  But I was initially going to call it BestMac.

That is until I went to register “bestmac.com” – turns out it had been registered just 10 months earlier to Leonard and Tamara Rubin, Mac consultants out of Portland, Oregon.  I don’t know how the name came to them, but it left me with an odd decision – ask them to sell me the domain (not likely for a 2-month-old start-up) or come up with a different name.

As an aside, those of you who have been with me since 2000-01 might remember it was “Best Macs Computer Solutions.”  When we incorporated in 2002, we dropped the “computer solutions” part to just be “Best Macs, Inc.”  Further, if you look at our listing on the Apple Consultants Network locator it’s “Best MacSolutions”  because the legal eagles in Cupertino didn’t like the word Macs as a standalone. Later on the same group figured that a suffix would be OK, hence our current usage as all one word.

Anyway, Tamara and Len are heading in a few different directions now.  If you’re in Portland, OR or the Bay Area (and I thought my service area was long-distance), you can look them up on LeonardRubin.com but they are also trying some intriguing new ventures in cycling including The Ultimate Folding Bicycle and the Portland Bicycle Trailer Company.

However, their most important mission is raising awareness of the dangers of lead poisoning in children.  Much as March of Dimes is important to me because of personal experience, I’m sorry to say that this cause is based on personal experience for the Rubin Family.  Donations are accepted on the website and it’s a great cause.

The Rubins recently sold me the rights to “bestmac.com” and it now leads you here.  I wonder how many hits their website has gotten from Kansas over the years, and how many of your emails to me bounced because of that missing “s” between “c” and “.com”.  Now they’ll arrive as expected. I’m not about to change the name of the business at this point, but I’d like to thank Len and Tamara for thinking of me when they parted with the domain, and wish them the best of luck in their new ventures.

Weekly Word: Password

Okay, I imagine that you already have a pretty good idea of what a password is, right? That secret code that you type in to login to a website? But, do you know how to come up with a really great password? Well, you should. You likely have a lot of important information out there on the internet, and having a good password can keep your reputation, your finances, your job, etc. safe.

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iPad: Did Apple revolutionize us again?

Long time readers of my blogs might remember in 2007 how elated I was to be sitting at Moscone, watching Steve Jobs just 20 yards away from me introduce the iPhone, a product that in my mind was no doubt going to be a slam dunk. I said at the time, “I don’t care if this thing is $1000, I’m going to have it on day one.”

Today was not like that.

Today was more like 2001, the day the first iPod was introduced. Like many others, I thought, “what, an MP3 player?” And like many of the less-than-crazed-Apple-fans, I didn’t get one the day they shipped. In fact, I didn’t have my first iPod till months later. But once I had one, got to experience it with all of the design nuance and interface touch that Apple is so well known and (at least by me) appreciated for… well, even then, I had no idea that it would take 70% of the market and completely up-end the music industry, but I knew I liked the product and would never have another MP3 player.

That’s how iPad is going to be for a lot of people.

Its appeal is not immediately obvious. I’ve talked to a few people who said something to the effect of “So what? It’s a big iPod Touch.” And they are right – when you get right down to it, that is indefensible. There’s no USB, no optical drive, no Ethernet. It runs the iPhone OS, not the full fledged Mac OS X that runs on a Mac. So that means no third party apps running in the background, and the only place you’ll get said third party apps is from iTunes.

That said, it’s set apart from iPod Touch because of the size and its 1GHz processor. That point is understated: you ever read a book or watch a movie on a Touch or iPhone? I have; it’s…difficult. Heck, even writing this article on my iPhone is slower than had I been at my desk. iPad won’t have these problems based solely on it’s size and speed.

It won’t compete with iPhone because you can’t make calls with iPad, and it has no camera.

Apple never made an eBook reader like the Sony product or the Amazon Kindle but I have to believe it destroys both of those. (Unless the unique screen of the Kindle appeals to you, and I could see why it might.) And with iTunes selling books to go with iPad – this thing could be a hit all on it’s own just doing to books what it did to music. Imagine every kid in school having one these instead of textbooks.

But how does it compare to a MacBook, which is what I think the disappointed groups were hoping for? I think the addition of iWork apps to the platform (on top of the other productivity apps like QuickOffice) in addition to the ability to use a Bluetooth keyboard (or the iPad dock with keyboard that essentially makes it a little workstation) mean that this could substitute for a computer for office work. Apple took the Netbook concept and made something in that same vein but without using a slow, awkward mini laptop. Yet at less weight and a smaller form factor than MacBook Air, iPad is certainly a road warrior’s dream.

Back when iPhone 3GS was released I postulated that a fast capable mobile device with the addition of 7mbps 3G cellular data would marginalize a desktop or laptop computer. iPad is the next logical progression of that theory.

The only question is, can it do everything a typical business person would need it to do? I’m very much looking forward to finding that answer when I get one this summer.

This Week’s Word(s): Print Options

Someone recently asked me how to only print one page of a document which is several pages long. While this is something which is very intuitive to me and the rest of the Best Macs staff, if you have not been using a computer very long and very frequently, it might not be so simple. This is just another example of why I write the weekly word. If you already have knowledge about how to change your printer settings, there is no need to read this, but if it’s not so clear for you, keep reading!

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This Week’s Word: PDF

Several weeks back, I gave you some general information on file formats. This week, I’ll be discussing one specific file format, PDF. PDF stands for Portable Document Format. PDFs are a very common type of file format because they are compatible with both Macs and PCs. This file format was originally produced by Adobe. Because of this, one of the most popular applications for viewing PDFs is Adobe Reader. This is a free application for several different operating systems, including Mac OS X. However, there are also many other applications which can read PDFs. The default application on a Mac to view PDFs is Preview.

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Wacom’s Worst Nightmare.

If you have ever considered yourself good at drawring and have a computer, chances are the thought of owning a tablet has crossed your mind. This article shows that Apple’s new MacBook Pro line effectively does away with the need for a Bamboo or Wacom tablet. With this nifty little piece of software you can turn your trackpad into a pen tablet.

In this article it shows off this new technology which debuted at CES in Las Vegas this week.

This Week’s Word: iSight

The weekly word is back. I hope everyone had a great holiday season. This week’s word is iSight. iSight is the camera which comes built in to most of Apple’s computer models as well as Apple’s Cinema displays. The iSight camera is built in to the MacBook Pro, MacBook, MacBook Air and iMac. The only model which does not include it is the Mac Mini, which is obviously lacking a display to begin with. This camera can be used to take pictures, participate in a video chat or record a video.

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Brian on the Advisory Council of the Apple Consultants Network

This week it was announced that I would be joining a small group of accomplished Mac consultants to serve as the Advisory Council for the Apple Consultants Network.

As you know, BestMacs has been a long-standing member of the ACN. For almost all of our 10 years, we have proudly displayed its logo next to ours. Membership is my direct link to Apple and also provides opportunities for discussion with my peers across the country.

But when I sat down to tell you all about this great honor and privilege, it made me think about what my ACN membership does for you. Sure, big deal to me, but what do you get out of it? Indirectly, you benefit from BestMacs being smarter as a result of program benefits. But I’m thinking more of direct benefits to you; in other words: what does BestMacs’ membership in the ACN allow us to do for you that we could not do for you otherwise?

The biggest that comes to mind is my working relationship with the Business Teams at the Apple Retail Stores in KC and Leawood. That’s no small thing, but I feel like there’s so much more opportunity for win-win-win for BestMacs, for Apple, and most importantly for you.

And that’s what I intend to push this year by committing the time to the Advisory Council: sniffing out those win-win-win ideas and helping make them a reality, not just for you and I but for all ACNs and their customers.

Ultimately, it means better quality of work for you, healthier business for BestMacs, and a stronger presence for Apple in the B2B and in-home markets.

(Needless to say, I’m excited to be a part of it.)

Apple Media Conference!

Steve Jobs

It’s official, as many of you may or may not know the media conference that Apple has been planning has been confirmed for Wednesday January 27th. At this conference many sources say that Apple will reportedly release a major new product into their family of existing products. There has been a lot of speculation as to what this “major new product” will be, however, most members of the online media believe that it is without a doubt an Apple Tablet in some form or another.

While there may or may not be a tablet computer released, this event should still bring excitement to those who are half as nerdy as I am about new gadgets. Tablet or not I am certainly excited for the possibility of Apple demonstrating some of the new features of a new Operating System for the iPhone.

Regardless of what is or is not released, mark your calendars for the 27th and get ready for another Apple media day.