Thursday, June 25, 2015

iOS Tips: How to make iPad or iPhone read books aloud

TechRadar: All latest feeds iOS Tips: How to make iPad or iPhone read books aloud

iOS Tips: How to make iPad or iPhone read books aloud

Audiobooks are fun to listen to during a commute, or anytime your eyes and hands are busy, but they come at a premium price with limited selection. Not to worry: in three simple steps, you can have your iPhone or iPad read any ebook to you without the need for additional apps.

Step 1: Adjust Accessibility settings

How to make iPad or iPhone read books out loud

Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Speech. Here, toggle on Speak Screen. Now, by simply swiping down with two fingers from the top of the screen, you can have Siri read any text that's currently displayed, no matter what app you're in.

Step 2: Temporarily turn off Auto-Lock

How to make iPad or iPhone read books out loud

Go to Settings > General > Auto-Lock, and make sure Auto-Lock is set to Never. (For security purposes, be sure to turn Auto-Lock back on when you take a break from your book.) Making this change will keep your screen from shutting off, so your story won't be interrupted. (Pro tip: If you're driving, plug in a car charger to counter the extra drain on your battery.)

Step 3: Pick a book!

How to make iPad or iPhone read books out loud

All that's left is to open a book in Kindle, iBooks, or wherever, and swipe two fingers down from the top of the screen to start Siri reading. Siri will read literally any visible text, so be sure to tap the screen once to remove any extraneous elements (such as the book's title, number of pages left, etc.). Siri even flips the pages as it reads along.

Once Siri starts reading, a small semi-transparent arrow appears on the side of the screen. Tap it to bring up several options, including the ability to pause/play speech, or to slow it down/speed it up. (The speaking rate can also be adjusted via a slider on the Speech menu in Settings.)

Siri doesn't read as well as a human being, of course, but once you get used to its monotone delivery and the occasional mispronounced word, it does a surprisingly good job. Go on and give it a try!











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Thursday, June 18, 2015

Spam filtering on the cheap for your domain's email

Macworld Spam filtering on the cheap for your domain's email

A little over a year ago I was faced with a spam filtering problem, but it's not what you might expect.

I had been using the paid Postini service for filtering spam sent through my domain, when Google acquired Postini and, once acquired, killed it off and forced users to transition to their Google Apps platform. I found the Google Apps interface to be clunky and, worse, my users found it difficult to use. In addition, I had no interest in sending all the mail for my private domain through Google's servers. Suddenly the bang I was getting for my Postini buck had lost its pop, so I went looking for an another solution.

There are plenty of apps you can install on your Mac to filter spam, but, as is the case with virus scanning on PCs, most desktop software solutions are playing a game of catchup that requires training time and constant updates, which is why I was looking for a web-based solution.

There are also numerous web-based options for spam filtering, but they tend to be aimed at and priced for corporate customers. For example, a year's worth of McAfee's SaaS mail filtering is about $14 per user, Google Apps costs about $25 per user per year, and most any other service you'll find will run somewhere in that range. So, imagine my somewhat cynical surprise when I came across a solution that was free: MX Guarddog.

Oh, I see the way you're looking at me... because that's exactly how I was looking at myself. For several days. Wondering what the catch was.

Funny thing is... there was no catch. MX Guarddog is great spam filtering that you can get for free simply by putting a link to MX Guarddog on your homepage. (There's no time here to explain the "whys" of free MX Guarddog, but if you're interested, check out Who is MX Guarddog to learn why they made it free.) And, if you don't like the idea of linking to MX Guarddog's homepage, you can pay 25 cents per user per month.

The setup for MX Guarddog is easy, but it's important to note that in order to use the service you must have email that is hosted using your own domain. No Gmail. No AOL. No Yahoo. No other addresses hosted on those types of public domains.

The addresses being filtered must be something like: username@yourdomain.com.

Here's how to set the service up:

  1. Go to MX Guarddog.com and click the Register link.
  2. Provide your name, email address, and the domain you want to protect. (It's best here to provide a mail administrator address and contact info.)
  3. Look for MX Guarddog's activation email and click the activation link.
  4. Login using the account information provided in the Postmaster email you receive after activation.
    activationemail
  5. Add a link to your website.
  6. Add the email address you want protected by MX Guarddog.
  7. Provide MX Guarddog information about your email servers.
  8. Update your MX records to direct your email through MX Guarddog's servers.

When you log in with your email address and the MX Guarddog-provided password you'll see the MX Guarddog Domain Dashboard. It's here you can add email addresses, create the web-link required for free filtering, add your email servers, and get info on how to update your MX record.

dboard

MX Guarddog Domain Dashboard

To generate a web link:

  1. From the Domain Dashboard, click Earn Tokens. (There's a "Buy tokens" link if you'd prefer to pay.)
  2. Add the URL for the domain you want protected.
  3. Copy the link code and add it to your website.

MX Guarddog offers several options for adding the email addresses you want protected, including adding them manually, importing them in bulk, and LDAP or cPanel synchronization. What makes the most sense for you depends on your setup and needs, but MXGuardog's site provides clear documentation on how to use each of these options.

To tell MX Guarddog where to send filtered mail:

  1. Click the link to Define your email servers.
  2. Enter your domain name or the IP address for your mail server.
  3. Enter a port number, if it differs from port 25.

Updating your MX record information will vary depending on who hosts your site and how your DNS information is set up. Click the Update your MX records link in the Domain Dashboard and follow the instructions that make the most sense for your specific situation.

Once you've completed these steps MX Guarddog will begin filtering your email and sending each of your users a quarantine list. For your users to log in and manage their list have them:

quarantine

MX Guarddog quarantine list

  1. Click the login button at MXGuarddog.com.
  2. Click the "Need a password" link.
  3. Enter their email address.

They will be sent a link for resetting their password and enabling their login.

So simple and some of the best spam filtering you'll find at any price.




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Friday, June 12, 2015

Mac Tips: How to move the location of your iTunes library on Mac

TechRadar: All latest feeds Mac Tips: How to move the location of your iTunes library on Mac

Mac Tips: How to move the location of your iTunes library on Mac

Got an Apple, Mac, or iOS tech question? We have the answer. Today we have a reader request about how to transfer your iTunes library from one location to another. This question is specifically about moving your library from an external drive to your main drive, but much of the advice should help no matter where you're moving your files.

Question

I have an external drive that I store my iTunes Library on, but now I want to copy the library back over to my MacBook Pro. I've tried going into preferences, but cannot find anywhere to change the location. How can I do this?

Answer

This process is fairly straightforward. First, before you begin, make sure that your MacBook Pro has enough free storage to house the entire contents of your iTunes library that is stored on the external drive. If you have enough free space, then follow these steps to make the move:

1. Plug in the external drive.

2. Quit iTunes if it's open.

3. Open the Finder and locate your Music folder inside of your Home Directory on your Mac.

Move music library

4. Drag and drop the "iTunes" folder from your external drive to the Music folder.

5. Once the copy has finished, keep the data on the external drive intact should something go wrong. You can now unplug the drive.

6. Launch iTunes while holding down the Option key. When prompted, click the "Choose Library" button and select the iTunes Media folder within the iTunes folder that you copied over to the Music folder in your home directory.

7. Alternatively, open iTunes and navigate to iTunes > Preferences > Advanced and hit the Change button to select the new iTunes Media folder.

That's it. From now on, when iTunes launches, it will load the library that is stored in the Music folder on your Mac. Once you are satisfied that everything is working properly, you can delete the iTunes folder on the external drive to reclaim the space.

Move music folder

Got an Apple tech question? Email ask@maclife.com.











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Autodesk Support

I was helping someone purchase and install Autodesk AutoCAD on their work computer, and as of the current versions, it’s no longer an option to do an outright purchase, you have to ‘lease’ the software, much like Adobe initiated a couple of years ago.  It ran us about $1000 for 3 years of use of AutoCAD 2016 LT (the lightweight version which is usually 1/3 the price of the full software without add-ons).

In this instance, we bought the licensing but couldn’t get the user management portal to recognize the purchase and assign it to the user.  The crux of the issue was that the subscription was assigned to the wrong account, one which is outside of the 'team/business' to which it should have been assigned. Once I finally was able to speak to a human who had an understanding (Crystal in San Rafael), we got it sorted out quickly.

My real issue is that there is no phone number to call about this sort of thing (through a back-door means I obtained a number but no one could help me on that). The chat function was offline, and there was absolutely no documentation that I could find that described it. My CDW rep contacted his internal Autodesk person who wasn't able to help out either.

My client spent ~$1000 for a 3 year subscription (also not in love with perpetual purchase going away, but we understand that Adobe did a great job of ensuring constant revenue streams and others are following their lead). So we bought expensive (for us) software, can't get it running, and couldn't get support. It's one thing to have cheap software and get minimal support but it's an entirely different thing to pay for expensive software that's only rented and get minimal to no support. It's unacceptable really. I know that Autodesk is effectively the only game in town but please don't act like it, try harder.

Ultimately, I drove down to the corporate headquarters and talked to the receptionist, Joyce, and asked her how I could talk to a human about support. She said that they don't have any incoming phone lines but she would mail the manager my contact information. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems a little ironic that customer support doesn't have any incoming phone lines. Just thinking aloud on that one...

Surprisingly, I did get a call about an hour and a half later from a San Rafael area code. Crystal from customer support called and we got things sorted, none of which could have been done without her. In other words, whether the initial mistake was CDW's or Autodesk's, there was no way for me to fix the issue via self-service, knowledgebase articles, or any other visible means.

If you encounter this issue, I can tell you that if you go to their front desk in San Rafael, talk to the very nice Joyce in reception and ask her to have someone contact you, you may get support. Otherwise, the best I got was an international support person who wasn't able to do anything for me.

Again, very expensive software that's now in the greedy rent it for a lot o' money model and you get no easy support on even licensing! Give us your money and good luck to ya'!

Crystal was awesome, everything else was terrible!

If any software vendors are reading this, your takeaways are this:

  • Keep software prices reasonable, come on, don’t be ridiculously greedy.
  • Support your customers, particularly if you have ridiculously expensive software!  Give me something for the absurd amount the software costs.
  • Why, why, why, must you all do the subscription model?  Is it pure greed?  I get sick to my stomach every time I look at how much money streams out of my accounts each month, now we add yet another?

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

10 things IT needs to do during a merger

10 Things 10 things IT needs to do during a merger

A merger or acquisition can unleash an avalanche of complex issues for IT departments. Here are 10 survival tips to minimize the disruptions and help preserve your sanity.


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Image: iStockphoto.com/maxsattana

Business decisions to merge or to acquire are almost never made for IT reasons. But operationally, IT quickly becomes a major factor. Many technical IT considerations are involved, as well as political and risk management factors. Here are 10 items you should have on your checklist if your company is active in mergers and acquisitions.

1: Be transparent

Even if your company is the acquiring company, mergers and acquisitions inspire fear among employees--including IT staff. Whatever staff decisions are looming, be as transparent as possible so you don't create an environment of secrecy and rumors.

2: Do staff planning--and let everyone in on the planning as soon as you can

As soon as there is a clear plan, communicate to employees. If a merger or acquisition means some employees will change positions, let them know. If there are employees who stand to lose jobs, let them know--and arrange to actively help them find new employment. If possible, avoid terminating employees because of mergers and acquisitions. It's better to redeploy them elsewhere in the company. You and your staff will feel better about it.

3: Check governance compatibility, not just systems

Whenever IT systems from different companies must be made to work with each other, the focus is on technical systems compatibility. However, especially if you're in a highly regulated industry like healthcare, insurance, or finance, equal billing should be given to compatibility of security and governance practices between the two organizations.

4: Consider end-customer and investor worries

It's easy for IT managers to get caught up in meeting deadlines for system migrations and conversions that come about in mergers and acquisitions and to forget about the outside world of investors and customers who are wondering what doing business with the new company (and its systems) will be like. If there are system complications, plans should be in place to deal with political and people matters as well as the technical problems.

5: Have a failover plan

System migrations and conversions seldom work flawlessly when the IT systems of two companies are blended. This is why it's crucial to have failover plans for all mission-critical systems that can be immediately activated if the necessity arises.

6: Decide which systems you won't continue... and get agreement

From a technical and even a business standpoint, it might appear straightforward to decide which systems are mission critical and must be continued and which can be done away with. However, it's equally important to remember that most of these systems have internal supporters. Never put yourself in a position where you unilaterally make choices on which systems to unplug. Instead, take the time to gather together users so everyone can collectively agree on the decisions.

7: Touch base with vendors and gauge cooperation

In most mergers and acquisitions, the two companies involved have at least several systems that do the same thing but that are from different vendors. Vendors don't like to lose customers, so if a decision is made to terminate a particular vendor's system, you should first perform due diligence on how cooperative that vendor is going to be. Lack of vendor cooperation and responsiveness can extend the time of a system migration or conversion for weeks and even months.

8: Make disaster recovery provisions and update your DR plan

Failover provisions must be made during system migrations and conversions. But at the same time, it's important to be updating the long-term disaster recovery plan to incorporate the addition of a new organization.

9: Secure systems and networks

With the addition of a new organization, there are also new networks and network nodes to look after. One of the greatest security exposures companies face post-acquisition is ensuring that there are no unsecured backdoors or open ports into corporate networks. This can easily happen after an acquisition, because there is so much IT ground to cover that a backdoor can easily be overlooked.

10: Consider the possibility of sabotage

No one likes to consider employee malice or sabotage, but that can happen during a merger or an acquisition because there are usually at least some employees who are upset. The possibility of employee sabotage is highest in IT, where significant damage can be done to systems. If you feel that you have at-risk areas in your organization, the activities in them should be closely monitored. If a potential sabotage begins to unfold, you need to act swiftly and call in outside expertise if necessary. Do not try to handle the entire situation yourself.

Also read...

IT tips for M&A

Have you guided your IT department through the tricky waters of a merger or acquisition? Share your experiences and advice with other IT pros.




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Friday, June 5, 2015

How to: How to take a screenshot on a Mac - and 10 more awesome tips

TechRadar: All latest feeds How to: How to take a screenshot on a Mac - and 10 more awesome tips

How to: How to take a screenshot on a Mac - and 10 more awesome tips

1. Introduction

How to take a screenshot on a Mac

Pointing a camera at a computer screen is never a good idea (hey there, reflections!), which is why the humble screenshot has proved a vital tool over the years.

Whether you need to grab something off a webpage to share with a friend, create instructions, a comic or log a receipt of a purchase, a screenshot is a fast and easy way to get the job done.

It's not always obvious how to take a screenshot, though; while there are a number of keyboard combinations at your disposal, it's not always clear what they do, or how to execute them to get the screenshot you want. And then there's the question of what to do with a screenshot - you may want to share it, edit it or send it up to the cloud.

But don't fret, Mac users: read on for our complete guide on how to take a screenshot, followed up by 10 handy tips of what to do with them afterwards.

2. How to take a screenshot on a Mac

How to take a screenshot on a Mac

OS X is loved by designers and multimedia workers alike for its simple and flexible way of taking screenshots. You can choose to take snaps of the whole screen or just parts of it, in addition to open apps, windows and menus with just a few key combinations.

Save the entire screen on the desktop

To take a picture of the whole screen, press Command (⌘)-Shift-3, which will place a screenshot file on your desktop saved as a .png file.

How to take a screenshot on a Mac

Take a screenshot of part of the screen

If you're only interested in taking a screenshot of part of the screen, hold down Command (⌘)-Shift-4 to turn the cursor into a crosshair pointer. Move it to where you want to start the screenshot and left-click, before dragging the rectangle over the desired area while holding the mouse button. Let go to turn the selected area into a .png file on the desktop.

Take a screenshot of a window

To precisely take a screenshot of a window and its contents, press Command (⌘)-Shift-4 to turn the cursor into a camera pointer before pressing the Space bar. Move the camera pointer over the window to highlight it a dark share and left-click to save the screenshot as a .png file on the desktop. yo can hit escape before you click to cancel the screenshot.

Take a screenshot of a menu

How to take a screenshot on a Mac

It's also possible to take a screenshot of a menu without the title using another handy combination. Hold down Command (⌘)-Shift-4, press the Space bar and left-click on the menu to send it to your desktop in the form of a .png file.

Change the default format and save location of screenshots

OS X saves screenshots as .png files by default, which can be changed to .jpg by inputting the following command into Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg

It doesn't have to be .jpg either - you can switch the file format to a number of supported extensions such as PDF, tiff, or bitmap, among others, by entering it at the end of the line. When you're done, enter this command to load the new setting:

killall SystemUIServer

3. Crop, resize, tweak screenshots using Preview

Crop, resize and tweak them using Preview

Preview is one of the most under-appreciated apps on Mac; especially in later versions of OS X, it became hugely powerful, and is great for editing screenshots. For example, you can crop an image. Draw a selection with the regular Rectangular Selection tool then either hit Command+K or choose Crop from the Tools menu. Alternatively, show the Edit Toolbar and make a more complex selection either with the Instant Alpha tool (like in iWork) or use the Smart Lasso.

With this tool, you draw as carefully as you can around the outline of the object and then Preview works out as closely as it can where the edges are. In either case, cropping will, if the screenshot isn't already a PNG, convert it so that you can have the thing you're cutting out on a transparent background. (You might need the Invert Selection command, too!)

You can also resize screenshots, and even do some tweaks to the colours with the Adjust Color pop-up. Select Adjust Color… from the Tools menu, and you get some handy sliders and a histogram to help you tweak things. Plus, hit the backtick symbol (to the left of Z on a UK Mac keyboard, and to the left of 1 on a US Mac keyboard) to bring up a loupe so you can see what's happening at 100% as you make changes.

4. Annotate screenshots using Preview

Crop, resize and tweak them using Preview

As well as letting you crop, resize and tweak screenshots, Preview has some nifty built-in annotation features that come in useful for placing instructional (or other) text over them. Make sure the Edit Toolbar is visible (from the View menu) and you'll see options for drawing shapes, speech, thought bubbles and more.

For creating instructions out of screenshots, the arrow tool will come in particularly useful. There's also the option to highlight text in different colours, strikethrough some text, add notes and type some text into boxes.

5. Share screenshots quickly

xx

Keeping screenshots to yourself is no fun (unless they're receipts, and then you probably should), so it's a good job Yosemite makes sharing them a breeze. Placed at the top-right hand corner of windows is a share button that, when clicked, displays how and whom you most often share files with. So once you've shared a screenshot, you'll see their name(s) at the bottom of the share menu, making them easy to pick out next time.

6. Open screenshots in another app

How to take a screenshot on a Mac

If you're not too keen on editing your screenshots in Preview, you can save yourself a bunch of time by setting image files to open in another image-editing app (such as GIMP) by default. To do this, select the screenshot file and press Command+I to show its information. Where it says 'Open with:, use the drop-down menu to choose a new app. At this point, if you close the window, that change will only be applied to that one file; if you want other files of that type to use that same app, click 'Change All…' beneath the drop-down menu.

7. Add a signature to your screenshot

How to take a screenshot on a Mac

In OS X 10.7, Preview gained the ability to add your signature to documents, which can be handy if you're taken a screenshot of a form and need to write yours on a dotted line.

To get started, go to the Signatures tab in Preview's preferences and then click the +. Now, sign your name in black ink on a small piece of white paper and hold it up to your Mac's webcam. Line it up and click Accept (making sure the 'Save this signature' option is checked if you want to use it in the future).

Now open a document you want to sign, pop up the Edit Toolbar and click the signature icon - it looks like an S on a line next to a tiny x. Draw a box to add your signature on the form. You can scale and reposition it afterwards too.

8. Send screenshots to your iPhone

Tips

If you want to take your screenshots with you but you're in a hurry, the fastest way to send them to your mobile device is to use Bluetooth 4 (you'll need a fairly modern Mac) and a recent iOS device (iPhone 5 or later, for example). It's done by right-clicking on the screenshot file and selecting AirDrop from the Messages fly-out menu, before tapping on the device you want to send it to. A note: you'll need AirDrop turned on from the Control Centre of the iOS device first.)

9. Quickly take iPad/iPhone screenshots

Best mac tips

With Yosemite, you can now record whatever happens on the screen of your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, which gives you a sneaky way to take many screenshots quickly - quicker than pushing your device's Home and Power button at the same time, anyway.

To use this feature, you just connect your iOS device up to your Mac using its cable, then launch QuickTime Player. The chose New Movie Recording from the File menu and then, if it's not already selected for you, choose your connected iOS device as the 'camera' source from the drop-down menu next to the record button.

You'll now be able to see what's on your device's display, and use OS X's keyboard shortcuts to save screenshots to your desktop to then be shared using AirDrop (see Page 4) or store them in iCloud (check out the next slide).

10. Store screenshots in iCloud

Cloud

It used to be the case that the only files you could store on iCloud were from specially-built apps such as Apple's iWork suite, but now we have iCloud Drive in Yosemite, we can chuck any files we like onto the iCloud Drive icon in the Finder sidebar.

Those special, 'blessed' apps still get their own folders, but you can create your own or just put things loose into iCloud Drive - including screenshots. All those files will sync to other Macs signed in with your Apple ID (so long as you've enabled iCloud Drive on them) and will also be available through icloud.com. On iOS, apps that can use iCloud will usually default to opening files from their special folder, but should also allow you to browse through your entire iCloud Drive to open files stored elsewhere.

11. Batch rename screenshots

Tips

In versions before Yosemite, renaming a group of files at once either meant third-party software or rolling your own rename script using something like Automator or AppleScript. Now, though, you can just select a group of screenshots and then select Rename either from the right-click contextual menu or from the drop-down button marked with a cog icon in Finder windows. When you do, you get the option of adding text, replacing text, or applying a format such as a name and an automatically incrementing counter.











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