Apple says: Can't Touch This!

Light, powerful, and soldered shut!

Today at the Apple Store, while I was helping my mom pick out her new 13" MacBook Air (128 GB Flash Drive), I saw clearly where Apple is heading with their portable devices. The "iOSification" of the Mac line extends beyond the swipe gestures and the full screen apps and launcher interface updates. It's baked into the hardware, now.

The common trait of iOS devices, the absolute lack of any way to service or upgrade the devices (where are the screws, after all?) coupled with the way that all the components, including the battery, are glued or soldered to the main logic board, it all means that you can't upgrade your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, or now, MacBook Air. The Geniuses (and I mean this only in the most positive sense) at the Apple Store confirmed that everything in the Air is soldered right to the main logic board, including the RAM, HD, and battery. So even if you could figure out a way to open up the Air, there's not much you can do but stare at the innards and think nostalgically back to the days where you could replace a notebook battery without a acetylene torch.

I suspect that the current rumors that the MacBook Pro is going to adopt the Air form factor means that, in practical terms, the new Pro won't have a battery that you can replace, or RAM slots you can fill with your upgrades, or hard drives that you could swap out. I don't know if that's the kind of machine I want.

I'm thinking that I'll wait until the new Pros come out this summer, likely with the new OS X, Mountain Lion (also an example of how Apple is "iOSing" the Mac product line) and see if that's in fact what's happening. If the Pro becomes another sealed black box, a slab of hardware, glue and solder that can't be modified by anyone, then I'll probably go to Microcenter and pick up the current version of the Pro, with the replaceable battery, HD, and RAM, and save a few bucks too.

I don't have to worry about that for a few months, and in the meantime, I'm going to try to update my current MacBook Pro, and see how that goes.

Have you heard anything about the changes to the MacBook Pro line? Will Apple have any portable devices that aren't completely sealed and glued together.

No joy for the iPad with Google+

The Google+ web site crashed Safari on my iPad three times in a row in desktop mode. The mobile version of the site is crippled. There's a half decent app for the iPhone, but nothing for the iPad. Let's hope Google stops treating the iPad like an afterthought and builds some decent apps for their social media service.

Full Screen: My Favorite Feature

My favorite feature in Lion is, without a doubt, the ability to view apps in full screen. Most browsers offer this feature already (try pressing F11). It's great to be able to use it for other apps. The thing is, the borders of my Mac screen is cluttered with visual junk. I've got an army of icons on the right of my menu bar, for features I rarely use; I've got my dock tucked away on the left side of my screen with these microscopic icons that expand when I mouse over.

It's a significant amount of visual information, and frankly, for the vast majority of the time, it's just noise. I don't need access to all of that stuff when I'm trying to get something done. I want to be able to focus, and all that visual clutter just tempts me. Look at all the apps I've got running! Why don't I just pop over to my browser and see what's going on there? Look, it's Facebook! Here's someone I haven't seen in years! I wonder what they're up to?

And before I know it, I've completely lost track of what I was doing before. Now, with full screen, you can just focus on the app at hand. If you want any of those features, they are available just by running your cursor against the top or the sides or the bottom of the screen, and you are just a keystroke or a mouse click away from good old fashioned standard view, with your menu bars and docks and icons, icons, icons.

In this same spirit, Lion's overall visual style is much more muted. Gone is the lurid translucent eye candy, the scroll bars and window controls that look like Willy Wonka was hired to design the interface after he just finished his work on a new line of hard candies. The focus is now on what you are doing, not what an awesome looking operating system you have.

This was, I suspect, inspired by iOS, where your iPhone or iPad can only display one app at a time and you need to reach for the home button to switch to something else. I became quite attached to that approach on the iPad, and it's really the only way to go on a phone. Even iOS clutters the screen with a status bar across the top, so you can see what your signal strength is for Wifi, whether bluetooth is on, and of course, what time it is. So Lion's full screen mode is really superior, because everything is hidden, except for the app. It's gotten to the point where I find the standard view almost jarring, a riot of visual noise crying for my attention.

Fixing an External Volume that became read-only

I store my iPhoto library on an external USB drive, formatted as HFS+, but all of a sudden, iPhoto started complaining that the volume was read-only and couldn't run. The fix: unmount and remount the volume in Disk Utility.

Getting Ready for Lion: Mac OS X 10.7 - Before you install

I've waited long enough! Lion is now up to version 10.7.2, and it's time to make the move. Also, I want to connect my computer to iCloud, which is currently (only) supported in Lion. It's time to install Lion, but before I jump in, I want to make sure my Mac is ready.

Check Your Hardware


My MacBook Pro Core Duo with 2 GB of RAM is about the least powerful Mac I could install Lion onto, although according to MacWorld, any Mac released after 2006 should be able to handle it. It's strongly recommended that you upgrade to 4 GB if you can.

Prepare

1. Update your Apple software using Software Update. Use the App Store to download updates for other apps, and check to see if your favorite apps are also up-to-date if you didn't install them through the app store.
2. Check your startup disk with Disk Utility and ensure that permissions are set correctly.
3. Ensure your Time Machine backup is current.

Download

Lion is only available through the App Store, which means you need at least Snow Leopard (10.6) to download it, even. It's about a 3.8 GB download, so you may want to set it to download overnight if you have a slower connection.

When you purchase Lion from the App Store, you'll download a 3.81 GB file to your Application folder called Install Mac OS X Lion. I strongly suggest you back up this file to an external hard disk or network volume before you proceed with the installation, or follow the instructions on How to make a bootable Lion install disc or drive. You can use this to install Lion to another partition, to ensure Lion will work with your system.

Other Resources

• The definitive OS X 10.7 Lion installation checklist - from GigaOm, this guide covers all the stuff you should do before you upgrade.
• Get your Mac ready for Lion - MacWorld's pre-installation guide.
• How to burn a Lion boot disc - If you want to create a installation DVD from your download.
• How to make a bootable Lion install disc or drive - You can also make a bootable Lion flash drive or hard disc volume

Mac-only Skype security flaw discovered

The Mac is vulnerable to malicious attack, just like Windows and Linux computers. In this case, it's vulnerable even though Windows and Linux users are not. "The long and the short of it is that an attacker needs only to send a victim a message and they can gain remote control of the victim's Mac," says Gordon Madden, describing the vulnerability he discovered on his recent blog post.

Skype responded on their blog, announcing a minor update, 5.1.0.922, released on April 14th. The solution is simple: Select Skype > Check for Updates and download the latest version, which includes the fix.

You can read more about this issue on the MacWorld blog post, Researcher identifies Skype 5 for Mac security flaw.

If you've had any problems with the patch, or Skype, or Mac security issues, post a comment here.

Set up the Mac Snow Leopard (10.6) Firewall to Allow Screen Sharing

If you think Screen Sharing is configured correctly, but you can't connect to your Mac and share the screen, there may be a problem with your firewall settings. To check your current firewall settings on Snow Leopard (10.6) Mac to confirm Screen Sharing is correctly configured:

Check your Mac's Firewall Status

1. Open System Preferences
2. Click Security
3. Click the Firewall tab.
4. Check the Firewall status, on or off?.
5. Click the lock to make changes.
6. Enter your password.
7. If required, click [Start].

Review Open Ports

1. On the Firewall tab, click [Advanced...]
2. If required, uncheck Block all incoming connections
3. Screen Sharing should appear near the top of the list of configured services.
4. Confirm that Allow incoming connections is selected for Screen Sharing
5. Click [OK] to confirm the settings.

If problems persist and you still can't connect, turn the firewall off (follow the steps above to Check your Mac's Firewall Status)  and then try to connect again. If you still can't share your Mac screen, the problem is not the firewall settings.