Wednesday, May 09, 2012

YouTube5 Extension Trouble

This fixed my issue with the YouTube5 Safari extension! Thanks!

If you’re having trouble with youtube playing with the youtube html5 player please try going to http://www.youtube.com/html5 and opting out of the youtube html5 test.

[From Vertical Forest :: YouTube5]

Saturday, April 07, 2012

The Hoopla around the "Widespread" Mac Trojan

So a "new" (no it's not new) Mac Flashback Trojan is the talk of the town in tech media circles right now. 600K may be infected, which tells me that there are approximately 600K Mac owners out there who need some BASIC instruction on avoiding malware (the same folks who've infected their PCs for years because they're clueless).

For what it's worth, I ran the terminal commands to check my machine and…as I believed…it's clean. The reason is that I don't install software on my machine from just anywhere. If I want to install Flash, I go to Adobe's site myself. I NEVER rely on another's hyperlink (heck, I even know how to check the hyperlink…just hover your cursor over it for a second). You wouldn't do this to go to your bank account from an email, would you? Then why do it anywhere else for ANY reason.

Social engineering is the tool these malicious developers use most often, so do yourself a favor: learn how to avoid being duped in the first place.

The malware in question is a trojan horse called Flashback (OSX/flashback.A); users may end up acquiring it by clicking a link on a malicious website to download or install Flash player. If those users also have their Safari settings to automatically open safe files (which .pkg and .mkpg files are considered to be), an installer will show up on their desktops as if they are legitimately installing Flash.

[From Mac trojan pretends to be Flash Player Installer to get in the door]

Saturday, March 24, 2012

HIUTIL Using 90+% CPU

You may run into this issue after upgrading to Lion or after doing some system maintenance that deletes the Help system files (same thing with Spotlight which is managed by mdworker). If that happens, just let it run until it's finished.

HIUTIL and MDWORKER CPU. Immediately after installing Lion, and over a period of a few hours, the hdutil and mdworker processes will be using up 90% to 100% of your CPU making the computer very slow. These tasks are used to update the Spotlight index and help file index. So, it’s best to wait until these programs have completed their tasks before continuing to work on the computer.

[From Apple OS X 10.7 Lion Installation Guide and Usage Tips – Including How to Create a Bootable DVD or USB Drive | ResourcesForLife.com]

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Apple Store's Customer Service A-Okay

Although I occasionally rant on here about some of Apple's inexplicable actions, you can see that I don't give up on Apple or their products. Quite frankly, they're second to none, even with the occasional tendency of Apple to avoid admitting fault at all costs. Well, I'm going to sing their praises right now.

My shiny, new iPhone 4S developed a short or glitch in the audio output of the Dock Connector. Everything else would work--charging, data. Just garbled or mono audio. So I made an appointment at the MacArthur Center Apple Store in Norfolk, VA. They were prompt, helpful, and friendly. Above all, they immediately REPLACED my iPhone with a brand new one at zero cost. Problem solved. So, in some respects, their customer service is second to none, especially at the local level. Way to go Apple. Thanks for taking care of me!