Macworld Australia

Developer-signed Mac spyware found on Angolan activist’s computer

Previously unknown Mac OS X spyware, signed with a valid Apple Developer ID, has turned up on the laptop of an activist from Angola at a human rights conference in Norway. Security researcher and privacy activist Jacob Appelbaum found the spyware on the activist’s Mac at the Oslo Freedom Forum earlier this week. The activist’s computer was compromised as a result of a spear phishing attack, Appelbaum said on Thursday on Twitter. The researcher claims that he has copies of the attack emails and two different malware samples. Security researchers from Finnish antivirus firm F-Secure analysed one of the malware samples...

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Auckland by Night – David Head

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Google I/O’s Apps news was low-key, but significant

Apps, Google’s flagship product for enterprise IT, had a minor presence at last week’s I/O developer conference, but some announcements at the show and in prior weeks deserve attention from customers of the cloud email and collaboration suite. Specifically, a string of news about Gmail, Google Plus and Hangouts this month points to an ongoing effort at the company to boost these applications for consumers and, in many cases, also for organisations that use Apps. “While I/O did not provide any one key announcement [about] Google’s enterprise collaboration platform, they have been making several small enhancements over the last few weeks, including remote desktop...

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100 more things every Mac user should know: Finder

Two years ago, in our July 2011 issue, we ran an article called ’100 things every Mac user should know’. The idea was to compile a bunch of titbits – keyboard shortcuts, Finder techniques and the like – that we thought every savvy Mac user should understand and feel confident when using. Not ABC beginner stuff and not truly esoteric expert-level manoeuvres, but the kinds of things that mark you as experienced and informed. Of course, there are a lot more than 100 such things. So we decided to revisit the idea, coming up with another hundred pieces of Mac-related...

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Getting started with Messages

If you thought the only way you could use your Mac to communicate with other people was to send email messages, I’m about to brighten your day. For years the Mac OS has supported instant messaging, a form of texting similar to sending and receiving messages with a mobile phone. In days past, this was done with an application called iChat. iChat was significantly reworked, renamed Messages to reflect its relationship with the iOS app of the same name, and released in finalised form with Mountain Lion. Messages supports a number of services including AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk and Jabber in...

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Somali Study – Garth Humphrey

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ASUS Designo MX Series AH-IPS monitor

ASUS’s Designo MX Series monitor boasts a 178-degree wide view angle panel and Bang & Olufsen ICEpower-derived dual 3W stereo speakers. The Designo 23in measures only 14.5mm at its thinnest point, while the 27in model is just 17.5mm. According to ASUS, it also offers improved colour accuracy, increased energy efficiency and a fast response time of 5ms.

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Why some websites are much slower than others

John asked why one web page “comes up right away, while another takes quite a long time to load”. You can’t set a clock by your internet download speed. A great many factors make one page faster than another. And a great many other factors can make the same page fast one day (or hour) and slow the next. Most of these variables are completely out of your control. But it’s still worthwhile to understand them. First, there’s the page itself. Pictures take more time to download than text, and large pictures take more time than small ones. A well-written...

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10 tips for mastering Microsoft Outlook 2013

Keeping track of emails, calendars and contacts can suck untold time out of any workday. Anything that speeds up your work in Outlook can boost your productivity measurably. Imagine if your inbox only showed the messages you wanted to see. Consider if you could locate vital contact information in seconds. What if you finally knew why some of the hyped Outlook features aren’t working as advertised? These 10 tips will help you zip through your messages and agenda, and work more effectively overall. 1. View your inbox your way When you first open your inbox, a default view appears, but it...

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Five rugged Bluetooth speakers for travel and outdoor use

These days, it’s hard to imagine going on a camping trip or relaxing by the pool without our favourite tunes playing in the background. But when a battery-powered device is exposed to the elements, worries about damage are surely at the back of your mind. Luckily, a number of manufacturers have developed speakers with such use in mind. I tested five rugged, Bluetooth-equipped speakers designed for portable use in electronics-hostile environments. Of course, ‘rugged’ is a vague term, but the industry has developed a specialised standard called Ingress Protection (IP). A product’s IP rating indicates how well that product’s enclosure resists...

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Pentax ‘design-your own’ Q10 Camera

The Q10 has already charmed those who like to travel light by being the world’s smallest and lightest interchangeable lens camera. Now it’s also set to please the aesthetes by being available in 100 different colour combinations. Visit the Q10 simulator on the Pentax website and have a play.

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Five Dictionary tricks I can’t live without

You’ve probably ditched your paper dictionary, but do you know how to use OS X’s built-in one? The video below shows you how. Whether you need to know what a word means or just how to spell it, the days of leafing through hefty paper dictionaries are gone. But few Mac users really know how to make the most of OS X’s built-in Dictionary app. Today I’ll show you five tricks for doing just that. 1. Use pop-up definitions A useful, and chronically underused, OS X feature is systemwide pop-up definitions. In most Mac applications – including Safari, Mail, Pages,...

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DevonAgent Pro 3.5

Back in 2008 when I last reviewed DevonAgent (version 2.3), I said this unique application had powerful research capabilities, but was less successful at being a day-to-day web browser. Now, many revisions later, this app (now called DevonAgent Pro) has matured and improved considerably, so I went back for another look. DevonAgent Pro’s main function is to search for information on the internet – but not just from a single search engine such as Google. DevonAgent Pro can collect data from all the major search engines, as well as from dozens of specialised sources, such as USA.gov (government data; formerly called FirstGov), Lexis...

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Seeking a simple movie editor? Try QuickTime Pro 7

Reader Cameron Chang seeks a simple movie editor. He writes: I have some video clips that I’d like to lightly edit. For instance, I want to cut the soundtrack from one and replace it with a different sound file. On another, I want to copy 12 seconds and turn that bit into a separate movie. iMovie seems like overkill for these jobs. Can you recommend something simpler? I can and will: QuickTime Player 7 Pro. Wait. You can still buy that? And it’s compatible with Mountain Lion? Yes and it is. A little history. At one time, for US$29 you could...

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Keys – Jacob Bailey

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Philips Shoqbox SB7200

This weatherproof and drop resistant speaker packs an amazing number of features in a small package. Its menu system can be navigated entirely through voice prompts and sports a light sensor for hand gestures to start and pause music, answer the phone and skip between songs. Its rechargeable lithium battery provides eight hours of playback.

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iTunes 11.0.3 enhances MiniPlayer, tweaks album options

If you were hoping that the next update to iTunes might reverse some of the drastic changes Apple made in last year’s version 11, don’t hold your breath. A minor update released on Thursday, iTunes 11.0.3, makes some tweaks to the program’s interface, as well as applying fixes for some security issues. Among the changes in 11.0.3 is a revamped MiniPlayer, which now features a progress bar, complete with draggable playhead. The audio output button, which now uses a speaker icon instead of Apple’s traditional AirPlay icon, is also now visible even when you’re not hovering over the window. There’s also...

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Gliding Along – Rohan Heddle

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Tips and tricks for iPhoto for iOS

Although iPhoto for iOS isn’t quite as robust as its OS X counterpart, it’s a very capable image editor – and it can do a few cool tricks you simply can’t do on your Mac. Straighten your photos iPhoto for iOS allows you to straighten your photos in a few smart ways. The first is by auto-detecting a strong horizon line. Open iPhoto, choose a photo and then tap Edit. Now tap the Crop & Straighten icon in the bottom left. If the photo displays a white line across it with icons at either end, then that means a horizon line has been...

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Now you see it: how Apple’s Retina display is a boon to accessibility

iOS’s accessibility features are great, particularly on the iPad – as I’ve written elsewhere – but for disabled users, accessibility is more than just a niche set of options in the Settings app. But perhaps the greatest accessibility feature is the most obvious part of a smartphone: the screen. As a visually impaired user, my effective use of these devices depends on the quality and brightness of the screen. In order for me to achieve optimal use – especially on the iPhone, the device I use the most – I’ve found that I really need a Retina display set to maximum brightness....

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