Wednesday, August 14, 2013

August 2013 Edition – Monthly Mini-Bytes

Apple's USB Power Adapter Takeback
and upgrade those third-party adapters

From August 16th through October 18th, Apple is offering a USB Power Adapter Takeback Program where you can turn in your 3rd party USB power adapter for a genuine Apple edition for only $10. This is a substantial savings off the regular price. The move was prompted by injuries reported in China by 3rd party power adapters. There is a limit of one and you need to bring in the 3rd party adapter along with your iPad, iPhone, or iPod for serial number validation to get the discount.
For more information from Apple visit: http://www.apple.com/support/usbadapter-takeback/

Offsite Backup Options
in addition to local Time Machine backups

Not that long ago, there were very few options for offsite backups for those of us on Macs. However, true to technology, if you blink, things will change. In addition to Carbonite and MozyPro, Crash Plan is available for Macs and is capable of more than just performing encrypted backups to offsite locations. 

If your information is important, the first line of defense is to backup to a local Time Machine destination for a quick and easy restore of information. But if you are thinking about implementing an offsite backup, you can check out Crash Plan at http://www.crashplan.com.


Beware of Ransomware
and what you can do

The dreaded malware known as Ransomware has begun to impact Mac OSX users. Historically, this type of attack has been limited to Windows machines, but it has been reported that hackers are now using fake web pages to target Apple computers.

On the Mac, a Ransomware attack will take over the web browser with an intimidating message demanding payment in order to release control of the application. So many windows will pop up on the web browser that it will be almost impossible to close them all. 

The popular solution is to 'Force Quit' the web browser. In the case of Safari, hold down the 'Shift' key while re-launching the application, then choose the drop-down menu 'Safari' and then 'Reset Safari.' It won't hurt to delete your history and cookies; if you have anti-virus software like ClamXav, go ahead and run a hard drive scan, too.