Apple Steals & Deals: Sunday, May 13, 2012

by Tom Nelson

Looking for a fabulous deal on an Apple or related product? Well, so am I! Every Sunday, I scan the Apple refurbished store to see which Apple products are currently available, and which ones represent good bargains. I try to look only at current versions of Macs, but once in a while there will be a great deal on a last-generation product that may be too good to pass up.

This week, there are quite a few price drops in the refurb store, as well as a few entry-level Mac models that rarely make an appearance in the store.

The 11.6-inch MacBook Air is $20 less than it used to be, and there is at least one 2011 MacBook Pro model available below the $1,000 price point. The iPad 2s all received a small price cut as well.

Apple Refurbished Store

Quantities are limited, so if any of these tickle your fancy, be fast on the trigger to make a purchase.

MacBook Air

11.6-inch MacBook Air 1.6 GHz Dual-Core i5 with Intel HD Graphics 3000: $829.00

13.3-inch MacBook Air 1.7 GHz Dual-Core i5 with Intel HD Graphics 3000: $1,099.00

MacBook Pro

13.3-inch MacBook Pro (Review) 2.3 GHz Intel Dual-Core i5 with Intel HD Graphics 3000: $929.00

15-inch MacBook Pro (Review) 2.0 GHz Intel Quad-Core i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6490M graphics: $1,359.00

15-inch MacBook Pro (Review) 2.2 GHz Intel Quad-Core i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics and anti-glare (matte) screen: $1,659.00

17-inch MacBook Pro (Review) 2.42 GHz Intel Quad-Core i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6750M and standard glossy screen: $1,949.00

17-inch MacBook Pro (Review) 2.2 GHz Intel Quad-Core i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6750M and anti-glare (matte) screen: $1,999.00

Read more on About: Macs.

BBEdit: Tom’s Mac Software Pick

by Tom Nelson

BBEdit has long been a go-to text and code editor for web and software developers, writers, and coders. It’s also a great text editor for anyone who needs to manipulate text files by converting, sorting, searching, and replacing.

To help you manipulate text, BBEdit has a feature called Text Factories, which is essentially a group of multiple text manipulation options strung together. Text Factories allows you to apply complex transformations with ease; you can also apply the same complex transformations on multiple text documents.

Read more on About: Macs.

Use Dropbox to Sync iCal

by Tom Nelson

If you use iCal, and you have multiple Macs, this guide will help you get and keep all of your Macs in sync with a single iCal Calendars folder.

You may wonder why you can’t just use Apple’s iCloud service, which also provides free iCal syncing. You can, but the Dropbox method will work for any Mac, even the ones that don’t meet the upgrade requirements for iCloud.

Read more on About: Macs.

Disk Encryption With FileVault 2

by Tom Nelson

Now that Apple has updated OS X Lion to version 10.7.4, you don’t have to worry about using FileVault 2 disk encryption. Apple fixed the bug that allowed login passwords to be stored in security log files that were easily viewable to anyone who had physical access to your Mac. Although this bug sounds terrible, it only affected individuals who upgraded to Lion, but chose not to upgrade their version of FileVault.

Apple quickly took care of the password bug. One advantage of the bug is that it brought some attention to FileVault. Many Mac users have never considered encrypting their drive. Full drive encryption has some obvious security advantages, especially for portable Macs, which are more likely to be lost or stolen. If it’s protected by FileVault 2 full disk encryption, a lost or stolen Mac won’t divulge any secrets. It also won’t be usable without the FileVault password. Sure, the individual who finds or steals the Mac can just replace the drive, but while that gives them a working Mac, they will never gain access to your personal data.

Read more on About: Macs.

Apple Fixes Login Password Exposure Snafu

by Tom Nelson

Apple today released OS X 10.7.4, an update to OS X Lion that fixes a security issue that allowed users’ login passwords to be written to a clear text file on the Mac. This boo-boo was the result of a developer debug tool being accidentally left in when the update was originally released.

Also fixed, according to Apple’s release notes, is the “Reopen windows when logging back in” setting; it’s no longer checked by default.

Read more on About: Macs.

How to Replace iCloud’s Missing Keychain Sync Service

by Tom Nelson

With MobileMe going away soon, we are going to look at various ways to replace the services you’ve come to expect. Sure, you can move to iCloud; we highly recommend the service, in fact. But not all MobileMe services made the jump to iCloud. And of course some of you may not be able to upgrade to iCloud because of the system requirements.

In this guide, we look at how to recreate keychain syncing using your Mac and Dropbox.

Read more on About: Macs.

OS X Lion 10.7.3 Bug Could Expose Login Passwords

by Tom Nelson

Someone at Apple forgot to turn off a debugging feature that logs user login information to a clear text document. This debugging information was handy for Apple’s internal developers as they worked with OS X Lion 10.7.3, but once the update was ready to go golden, all of the debugging features should have been removed.

Now, before you get ahead of the tale, this bug only affects you if used File Vault encryption in Snow Leopard, and then upgraded to Lion while choosing to keep your old File Vault settings intact.

Read more on About: Macs.