Nastiest Malware 2023
Help each other out of non-Webroot technical jams and discuss tech-related stuff in general.
author/hoakley A week ago I lamented how the word extension had come to cover several very different things. Today I look at how recent versions of macOS have got two different XProtects, and what each does. ⇨⇨ Full Article ⇦⇦
by: Jamie CuevasIf you’re a Mac user running MacOS Ventura, you will be pleased to know that TurboTax 2022 does indeed work in MacOS Ventura.Both the downloaded and installed version works in MacOS Ventura, as well as the web-based browser TurboTax client on MacOS Ventura in any modern web browser, whether that’s Safari, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or otherwise.Intuit says that the downloaded version of TurboTax for Mac will work in MacOS Big Sur 11 or later, including MacOS Monterey, and MacOS Ventura. They do note that Catalina is not supported. You’ll also need 2GB of RAM and 1GB of disk space, and a broadband internet connection. ⇨⇨ Full Article ⇦⇦
by: Jamie Cuevas Have you ever been on a phone call you want to get off of but you can’t figure out a way out of the conversation? Dropped call to the rescue!With iPhone, you can fake a dropped call from poor service by quite literally forcing the phone call to drop from a cellular connection or network connection. In other words, the call dropping is real, but the reason it drops is because you initiated it, not because of bad cell service or a network issue. Sneaky, eh?Forcing a dropped call or call failure is achieved by using AirPlane Mode in a strategic manner, which disconnects all communication, wi-fi, cellular, Bluetooth, etc, on the iPhone, for as long as it is enabled. ⇨⇨ Full Article ⇦⇦
I am going to ask this question here, because whenever I try and ask a question on Carbonite’s support page, I get a pop up that says, “Your case was unable to be submitted at this time due to an error. Please try again or contact us through chat or phone between the hours of 9:00am and 8:00pm ET (excluding U.S. holidays). We apologize for any inconvenience.” It seems there is ALWAYS an error on this site, and I can never get a question submitted for an answer. Not impressed here. Do the people at Carbonite support know abhor this? Anyway...I recently migrated my M1 Mac to an M2 Mac, migrating everything over to the new machine. I have formatted the old machine and gaven it to someone else, so no longer are running Carbonite on that machine. When Carbonite tries to run, it stays on “connecting” for a long time, finally saying "Your account has been disabled."My account expires in 38 days, and is set to auto renew (although I am reconsidering that right now) so still active. Perhaps it
Internet Explorer dies another of its countless small deaths.ANDREW CUNNINGHAM - 2/14/2023 Internet Explorer 11 was never Windows 10's primary browser—that would be the old, pre-Chromium version of Microsoft Edge. But IE did continue to ship with Windows 10 for compatibility reasons, and IE11 remained installed and accessible in most versions of Windows 10 even after security updates for the browser ended in June of 2022. That ends today, as Microsoft's support documentation says that a Microsoft Edge browser update will fully disable Internet Explorer in most versions of Windows 10, redirecting users to Edge.Edge will "automatically" transfer over bookmarks and other browsing data from IE and display a dialogue box letting users know what has happened so that the last few people using Internet Explorer out of habit, ignorance, or spite will be fully aware of what's going on. Clicking any IE icon or attempting to launch it from the Start or Run menus will automatically open Edge instea
by: Hamlin Rozario How often have you been in conversations that you didn’t want to be a part of, on a bad date, or in some other undesirable situation? Sometimes you want to avoid a conversation or experience, but there isn’t an easy escape. In these uncomfortable moments, perhaps the easiest way to to this without making things awkward is by using your iPhone to stage a fake incoming call.Phone calls are considered a very good excuse for getting out of an uncomfortable date or away from a conversation, so why not fake a phone call? While you can always try to arrange a phone call by texting someone to help you out, another approach is to use an app to fake a phone call to your iPhone. Let’s take a look at one such solution, which allows you to easily schedule fake incoming calls on an iPhone. ⇨⇨ Full Article ⇦⇦
Currently, all iOS and iPadOS browsers need to use the same engine as Safari.ANDREW CUNNINGHAM - 2/7/2023 Companies like Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft have versions of their web browsers on Apple's iOS and iPadOS App Stores, but these versions come with a big caveat: The App Store rules require them to use Safari's WebKit rendering engine rather than the engines those browsers use in other operating systems.But that could be changing. According to The Register, Google and Mozilla have recently been spotted working on versions of Chromium and Firefox that use their normal Blink and Gecko rendering engines, respectively. >> Full Article <<
After installing a windows update I get the dreaded blue screen. I was only able to fix the issue by reinstalling Windows. This never happened before installing Webroot, and happened twice with Webroot installed.
by: Jamie Cuevas The latest versions of macOS system software allow for using your iPhone as a FaceTime camera and webcam, offering a much higher resolution and higher quality video chat experience, especially compared to the built-in cameras on most Mac computers.You will need to have macOS Ventura 13 or later on the Mac, and iOS 16 or later on the iPhone, to be able to use the iPhone camera on the Mac as your FaceTime camera. Additionally, both devices must be near one another and on the same wi-fi network for this feature to work as intended. ⇨⇨ Full Article ⇦⇦
by: Paul Horowitz Have you ever wished that MacOS could have different settings for the Dock, when connected to an external display, versus using only the built-in display? Or that MacOS would know when your MacBook Pro is connected to an external display and automatically adjust the Dock positioning, or size?That’s exactly what HiDock does, a free third party utility that allows you to set different Dock settings for different display configurations on a Mac.For example, maybe you want the Dock to be tiny and automatically hide on the internal display of a MacBook Pro, but be larger and always visible on the left side of the display when that same MacBook Pro is connected to a 30″ external display. HiDock allows for exactly that. ⇨⇨ Full Article ⇦⇦
by: Paul Horowitz WhatsApp, the popular messaging client, is now available for the Mac with native Apple Silicon support.The WhatsApp client for Apple Silicon is currently in beta, but it is stable and functions fairly well, and should offer better performance compared to builds intended for older Intel Macs.Interested users who don’t mind beta testing software can grab the WhatsApp with native Apple Silicon support now from the WhatsApp website. ⇨⇨ Full Article ⇦⇦
February 1, 2023 By SCHARON HARDING SSDs have usurped hard disk drives (HDDs) when it comes to performance, but whether building a network-attached storage (NAS) or having high-capacity needs on a budget, plenty of people still rely on spinning platters. Older drives that have seen a lot of use, however, may not be as reliable as before. Data Backblaze shared this week highlights how a hard drive's average failure rate (AFR) can increase with age.Since 2013, Backblaze, a backup and cloud storage company, has published an annual report analyzing the AFRs of hard drives in its data center. The 2022 report shared on Tuesday examines 230,921 hard drives across 29 models from HGST, Seagate, Toshiba, and WDC, with capacities ranging from 4–16TB. All models included at least 60 drives that were not previously used for testing. >> Full Article <<
by: Paul Horowitz Do you have a Mac running an earlier version of MacOS that you’d like to upgrade to a newer version, but you don’t want to run MacOS Ventura? For example, let’s say you’re running MacOS Catalina, Mojave, or Big Sur on a Mac, and you want to upgrade that Mac to MacOS Monterey 12 specifically, rather than MacOS Ventura 13 (a situation found in this question from our comments).This is a particular scenario that some Mac users find themselves in, so we’re going to cover the process of upgrading an older MacOS version to MacOS Monterey directly, while avoiding installing the latest release of MacOS Ventura. ⇨⇨ Full Article ⇦⇦
by: Paul Horowitz You may find yourself needing to determine the file system type of a drive connected to a Mac, whether it’s an external hard drive, a USB flash drive, external SSD or HDD, an SD card, or similar. File system types are important because they can help to determine if a drive is fully Mac compatible with a native file system, or if a drive or disk can be read by both Windows and Mac, amongst many other situations. Examples of file systems you may encounter include FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, APFS, Ext, Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS, and HFS+.So, how do you determine what the file system is of a drive connected to a Mac? That’s what we’ll show you how to do, using two different methods; with Disk Utility, and with the Finder. ⇨⇨ Full Article ⇦⇦ This Article may be helpful to people new at using Mac computers. (PTD)
by: Paul HorowitzSome MacOS Ventura users have found that file sharing between a Mac running macOS Ventura does not work reliably between Ventura and another Mac, iPhone, iPad, Windows PC, and even some NAS drives like Synology. For many users, file sharing setups that worked fine for years prior to updating to macOS Ventura are now no longer working at all or behaving in an inconsistent manner.If you’re experiencing problems with file sharing not working in macOS Ventura, there is a fix to resolve the issue. This solution applies to SMB file sharing with MacOS Ventura and devices connecting to or from the Mac, whether you’re experiencing connectivity failures, time outs, server unavailable, server may not exist, or other similar error messages. ⇨⇨ Full Article ⇦⇦
by: Jamie Cuevas Live Activities on the iPhone are interactive notifications that stay updated with real-time data, like sports scores, weather reports, orders, or updates from a delivery app, and they can appear right on your lock screen.If you like the Live Activities feature but want the data to be even more frequently updated, you can adjust the setting individually for apps that support the Live Activities feature. ⇨⇨ Full Article ⇦⇦
