Please excuse this barebones Reminder but I am suffering from a touch of the flu and want to get back to bed. 

The June meeting will take place on June 1st at Holy Cross Hospital commencing at 7:00pm.

As I promised Dean, the main door prize will be an 8GB iPod Nano. I will scrounge around for a couple more items as well.

I did want to pass along the following received from David Glassman. I'm sure Dean will have something to say about this.

 

Pete

 

Apple Macs hit by scareware attacks

By Joseph Menn in San Francisco

Published: May 26 2011 19:40 | Last updated: May 26 2011 19:40

One of the most pervasive and costly types of virus is now affecting Mac computers, signalling the end of an age of innocence for Apple customers, who until now have been spared many common cybersecurity problems.

Known as rogue antivirus or scareware, the scam programs warn PC and now Mac owners that they have been infected, then demand credit card payments to clean the machines.

 

The operators of the programs are typically criminals who may resell the card details or try to install more malicious software.

PCs running Microsoft?s Windows operating system have been besieged by scareware for years. Though scareware infections can begin in a number of ways, they are often triggered by the ability in popular web browsers to download programs automatically.

In the past few weeks, a large number of Mac users have run into the same problem, encountering scareware with names like MacDefender, MacSecurity and MacProtector when using Apple?s standard Safari browser for web surfing. The programs sport professional-looking interfaces and have been lurking in advertisements on media sites and links returned by Google searches.

For Mac owners running Safari in the default mode that enables downloading of ?safe? files, the malicious programs began installing automatically and then prompted the users for their passwords to finish the job. If they complied, the software ran when the machine restarted, reporting bogus infections and asking for payment.

Apple?s initial response to waves of callers to its AppleCare tech support lines was unhelpful, according to leaked internal instructions posted on the tech news site ZDNet.

Staff were told to neither confirm nor deny infections and to steer callers to Apple?s online stores for security products.

Apple on Tuesday posted an article on its website acknowledging the problem and offering a guide for step-by-step removal.

The criminal gang behind the infections responded quickly with an upgrade that security researchers said allowed it to launch an installation of a bogus ?Mac Guard? program without requesting user passwords. Users see an installation screen and can still abort the process, according to security company Inteko.

Apple customers have always been vulnerable to the same sort of ?social engineering? tricks such as ?phishing? attacks, where e-mail recipients can be duped into entering passwords or other credentials on imposter websites.

They remain far less prone to viruses than owners of Windows PCs, especially the worst, self-spreading varieties. The cybercrime world has largely ignored Macs because their market share of less than 10 per cent has made mass attacks less valuable.

But as Apple?s Mac shipments surge this is changing. Buyers are likely to be targeted, forcing Apple to rethink its security or lose one of its key selling points.

Also, received this from the people who put together the bundles that we gave away as door prizes. This will only be available for a couple of days if you are interested.

 

Mini bundle of 7 apps for $19.99 - 80% off A special deal just for you!  You have less than 46 hours to take advantage of this promo offer!   Today's promo contains 7 apps bundled together for one low price. The bundle includes: myRecipes 2.6 Simple recipe collection manager. myWallet 2.1 Simple and fast password storage application. myDiary 2.2.2 Personal journaling application with video features and more. myApps 2.4 Drag-and-drop license keeper. myClippings 1.7.2 Clipboard manager. myWritings 2.0.4 Lightweight word processor. myTexts pro 2.0 Companion Mac app for the all new myTexts Apps for iPad and iPhone.  myRecipes... It's your kitchen! Recipe management meets browser. myRecipes is an easy-to-use and ultra-fast program that has been crafted by hand down to the very last detail to manage recipes and lists with a built-in browser.After all, we don't dig through Grandma's old-fashioned cookbook first, but instead, we search on Google today. Thanks to myRecipes, you no longer need two programs. All you need now is to search directly in one window for the recipe you want and simply transfer it to your own collection of recipes. In contrast to the other recipe management programs on the market today, you do not need to tediously store single ingredients one by one in myRecipes. The only thing you need to do now is to copy the ingredients directly from a website.Besides the actual recipe itself, you can also conveniently and easily store the relevant photo and enlarge it whenever you need to. If you want to take your mobile Mac with you into the kitchen, the extra with a cooking overview is available and it is as easy as pie to print recipes and shopping lists out, store them or send them directly as a mail attachment. Recipes are categorized, enabling you to find them all whenever you need them according to cooking time, quantities, ingredients and description. And last but not least, you can mark them by tags to find them even faster.

  • ? Unlimited recipes in unlimited groups
  • ? Tag your recipes (with) autocompletion
  • ? Manage your lists with ease
  • ? Gorgeous cook-view (fullscreen)
  • ? Built-in full featured browser
  • ? Share, print, save, export and mail your recipes
  • ? Copy & Paste recipes with ease
  • ? much more nifty feature

 

myWallet...Your cute digital wallet. Beside meetings, the snooze function of the alarm clock and always-empty batteries, we in the western world suffer the most from the unmanageable surge of passwords, pins, tans, puks and access-codes.With myWallet you manage all your important and sensitive information in a portable way and they are at your hand in a blink. Your data are password protected and securely encrypted; they are completely searchable and divisible in categories. For your convenience you are free to run myWallet from a thumb drive or you can keep it in sync by using iDisk or Dropbox.Unlike many programs myWallet doesn't pretend to be everything for everyone. It is designed to do one job perfectly and as easy as possible. We all have more important things to do than to struggle with a program at the moment we badly need just a password or a credit card number.Key FeaturesPassword protection256-bit AES encryptioniDisk/Dropbox syncPortable ApplicationAuto-saveAuto-backupCustom iconsUncluttered interfaceIntuitive handling  myDiary is a clear and easy-to-use 'journaling application' with some cutting-edge functions like an integrated video diary, image and file management. All entries are stored encrypted and that it all can be protected with a password. Today's diaries aren't just made out of text. Thus, myDiary is especially made to record your day in pictures, movies and files like websites for example. Since today's digital world is complicated and stressful enough there is no gain in dealing with excessive and complicated programs.myDiary provides everything in one clear window and every important function is just one click away. If you create a new entry, record a movie with your iSight camera, if you take a desktop picture or if you add a file via drag&drop - myDiary is never in your way but integrates seamlessly in your life.Key features

  • Password protection and AES-256 encryption
  • Easily creation of video diary with iSight or compatible camera
  • AutoSave in background to never loose an entry
  • Export of single entries and the complete diary
  • Export and print incl. images and list of applied files, films and images
  • Apply and manage unlimited images, movies and files to each entry
  • Drag&drop support for images, movies and files
  • Integrated Quick Look for entries, images, movies, files and complete diary
  • Designed for speed and ease ease-of-use


myApps is a clear program, crafted with attention to detail, for storing and organizing software serial numbers, license files and attachments like .pdf files or mails. myApps helps you to keep track of all important information of all your purchased software (tools, services, widgets etc.) in a straight forward and easy to use way.Best of all - everything works with drag-and-drop and all your data and files can by synced with your iDisk or Dropbox.myApps can also be used as a portable application - thus can run from any thumb-drive?Key FeaturesAES 256-bit encryptionpassword protectioniDisk | Dropbox syncportable applicationQuick Look (files | attachments)iTunes-like searchimport MacUpdate license filesimport AppShelf license filesauto-fill user informationinternational currencyexport license filesprint | export complete library (.csv | .xml)backup complete library (incl. files as .zip)lots of more nifty features  myClippings is designed for ease-of-use and most important of all: speed! So it won't store yesterdays breakfast toast - but the much more useful remaining 99%: Words, Phrases, Numbers, Paragraphs and Texts... It won't slow down, hang or crash. Even with thousands of stored clippings and best of all - you are free to archive often needed clippings and also grouping them is a no-brainer.You can paste a recently used clipping into an active window, view or field in two (three) simple steps and in less than a second. If needed you can even export or print a clipping.myClippings is designed to run for days, weeks or month in the background without using much system resources - yes on old G4 machines running Tiger, too.If enabled myClippings will automatically save its changes. So even when you've forgotten to pay your utility bill - your clippings are save! myWritings is the word processor for the rest of us, and all those missing WriteNow. Everybody knows Word and everybody 'knows' what a word processor should do. But nobody really needs Word all the time or its cluttered interface and of course not its speed. And everybody has unique demands and needs. But we all share some commonalities.We all just want to do our work - we don't want to read hundreds of pages of a manual first to realize, that it still does not work. We don't want dozens of buttons and labels and sub-buttons and panels and sub-panels. We don't need a speaking paperclip or ugly icons.We all love OS X for its simplicity.So too our Mac.And that's why you'll love myWritings even more?No clutter. No single wasteful feature.But a sophisticated and powerful functionality.myWritings is a clean, fast and mighty writing environment for the daily 99% of our writing tasks.Please notice - myWritings is not designed and written to replace Word. That's not its job. And it will never be. Period.It's the word processor for the rest of us.For those who just simply want to write and for all those missing WriteNow :-) myTexts pro... No distraction. Just text. Pure creativity. To go.myTexts pro is Staff Pick and Featured Download at apple.comThis is the companion application for the all new myTexts Apps for iPad and iPhone."Less is more", as Mies van der Rohe said. Not only is this aphorism true in architecture, it's true in writing as well.Enter myTexts, software specifically designed with you, the writer, in mind.Feature set:

  • iDisk | Dropbox Support | iPad | iPhone Companion App
  • Snapshots | Backups | Auto-Save | Templates (Snippets)
  • Document | Media Browser with Preview (Quick Look)
  • Statistics | Statistics for Selection | Word Frequency Count
  • Preview (Paginated) | Markdown Support | Print/Export Formatted Documents
  • Print (Export as PDF) incl. Page Numbers and Custom Footer
  • Print/Export Groups (Complete Books for example)
  • Support for Rich Text/ Word/Open Office/Text/HTML/Markdown Documents
  • Gorgeous and Customizable Fullscreen View (Single Window Mode)
  • Drag-and-Drop Sophisticated Quick Groups | iTunes-like Search
  • Tags (OpenMeta Support) | Comments | Notes | Text Inline Search

 I've written this new pro version to ensure a hassle free integration with Dropbox/iDisk/iPad/iPhone/whatever and to simplify the usage?Intuitive from the startYou've much better to do than to study a manual. Just start working the second you've opened the app? Distraction freeNo mess, no fuss. myTexts is a distraction free writing environment for all kinds of scriveners? Just one click away Never worry again about scattered files, folders, backups and missing texts.