Mac software

Apple has tightened up security in its Safari Web browser following recent patches to Adobe's Flash technology.

As part of an update that went out yesterday, OS X will now block older and thus vulnerable versions of Flash, forcing users to update to the latest version if they wish to view Flash-based content. In order to block older versions of the software, Apple is using its Xprotect malware scanner, which is built into Mac OS X and can spot and quarantine known malware.

The move comes roughly a month after Apple began blocking older versions of Oracle-owned Java on … Read more

Regardless of whether you purchase it new, refurbished, or used, your Mac is likely a sizable investment that you might wish to keep running for as long as possible, not only because of the cost factor but also because of the time and effort it would take to migrate your data and workflow to a new system (even though Apple has made the latter quite easy if you have proper backups).

There are many ways your Mac can get damaged, become outdated, or otherwise experience greater wear and tear from use that can shorten its lifespan. In most cases these … Read more

Apple's Pages word processor for OS X is great for document creation, and is an excellent alternative to Microsoft Word for many needs; however, because Word is the de facto standard for word processors you may often find yourself needing to send someone a document or two in a compatible format.

While you can choose "Print to PDF" or another option from the PDF menu in the print dialog box in OS X to quickly create a static version of the document to send to someone as a PDF, this isn't the best approach if you … Read more

Legal forms, letters, and other documents are progressively migrating to digital media; however, the need for applying a signature to them is often still a requirement. While you can print these forms out, sign them and then fax, scan, or e-mail them after signing, another option is to apply a digitally saved version of your signature.

While one approach to doing this is to scan a document containing your signature and then crop it out and paste it in-line with your form, this requires that you keep the image of your signature readily available, and unless you have used transparencies, … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Opera Software has dropped the new engine into its browser and now has begun revving it up.

At the Mobile World Congress show here, the company began showing for the first time its new WebKit-based version of Opera for Android. That browser is the first product from a completely overhauled product line and technology strategy for the company based in Oslo, Norway.

Opera is changing the browser engine at the core of its software, dumping its own Presto for the open-source WebKit used in Chrome and Safari. It's a radical change in many ways: many engineers are changing … Read more

Private browsing, or 'porn mode' for people with more prurient Web browsing requirements, will soon be available in Firefox on a per-window basis for desktops and a per-tab basis on Android.

The latest versions of Firefox 20 Beta (download for Windows, Mac, and Linux) and Firefox 20 Beta for Android (download) have been updated to allow people to have a more streamlined private browsing experience. Private browsing disables built-in browser recording, including history and cookies.

This is a pretty big change for Private Browsing aficionados, since previously in Firefox switching to Private Browsing would save all your tabs, close the … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Laying the groundwork for its nascent Firefox OS, Mozilla has won over a sizeable list of allies including LG Electronics and China Unicom, and the first phones with the browser-based operating system should arrive in the second quarter of the year.

Mozilla announced today at the Mobile World Congress show here that it's persuaded 18 mobile network operators and four mobile phone makers to back its open-source mobile operating system. That's not enough to unseat the incumbent powers of Google's Android and Apple's iOS slayer, but it is enough to ensure Firefox OS at least … Read more

Apple's Preview program in OS X is a very convenient tool for quickly editing image and PDF files. It supports a number of options for annotating images and adjusting colors, cropping, and otherwise editing them, it can also be used to quickly convert an image to another format.

Preview supports reading most common image format types, and likewise allows you to export them to these same types, so even if Preview is not set to be your default program for handling images, you can still use it to quickly make an image conversion.

To do this, right-click the image … Read more

Mozilla, which bowed to the market power of the H.264 video compression technology last year, now has built support for the patent-encumbered standard into the Nightly version of Firefox on Windows 7.

Mozilla can't actually ship H.264 in its open-source product because of the patent licensing requirements, so it decided instead to adapt Firefox to draw on H.264 support built into newer operating systems. The first step is done -- if not fully tested and debugged -- on Windows 7, according to a Mozilla blog post today.

Mozilla had thrown its weight behind VP8, a royalty-free … Read more