While Macs have been notorious for being impervious to viruses - at least in terms of perception, while they were vulnerable, far more viruses were produced for Windows than OS X - their reputation for impeccable security is certainly being questioned now. Flashback, malware built to grab private information such as passwords entered in by users in applications, has evolved over time into a very dangerous piece of malicious software. In its beginnings, it required user interaction - through a dodgy looking Adobe Flash Installer - to lodge itself into one's Mac.
A new tool has been released by security firm F-Secure which will check a Mac for signs of the Flashback Trojan and, importantly, remove it. Best of all, the app is completely free, that’s right, free!
It would seem that controlling things using gestures is fast becoming the new thing to do. Microsoft have enjoyed great success with their Kinect motion detecting hardware that allows users to use their bodies as the controller for certain games as well as navigating through menus with gestures. An increasing number of iOS apps are starting to include gesture-based user interfaces that allow users to navigate through the various app screens using a number of different gestures including flicks and swipes.
Apple have responded to a number of complaints raised by users, who have been seeing their 10.6 version of iTunes crashing in random situations. It would seem that when Apple released iTunes 10.6 after the new iPad media event in San Francisco, they inadvertently introduced a number of bugs which became apparent when users were playing videos, changing artwork size whilst in grid view and synchronizing photographs to an attached iOS device.
Angry Birds has been to iOS and Android what Call Of Duty has been to consoles over the the last few years. Those crazy, unstoppable birds have flown as far as PC, Mac, Facebook and Google Chrome in their never-ending quest to defend the nest.
Although some game vendors have been slow to adapt to mobile/web-based gaming, Electronic Arts - known commonly as simply EA - has been extremely busy in its quest to stay relevant in a market as fiercely-contested as it has ever been.
It wasn't that long ago when users had to wait an eternity for the developers over at Mozilla and Google to push out new versions of the popular Firefox and Chrome web browsers. In fact, pretty much every major browser version seemed to have an extremely long shelf life before the developers felt it needed an update and brought new and improved features to the public. Thankfully, it looks as though that trend of making users wait for improvements has been put to bed, with Mozilla pumping out the updates thick and fast for its Firefox browser.
Some of the most useful applications on the Mac and iOS devices are ones that seem to be simplistic in form, but ultimately end up offering a service or solution to users which can be used time and time again. A lot of people purchase or download an application which offers a one time solution to a problem and then delete it from their machine or device, but the apps which offer a consistent feature set are generally the ones that are used repetitively.
Even though iOS and OS X are both very easy on the eye, that doesn't mean some users wouldn't like to make changes here and there.
With Apple announcing the summer release of the new OS X Mountain Lion operating system, Mac users will be forgiven for being a little bit excited about the unexpected OS which makes a huge step towards the fusing of OS X and iOS. The newest Mac operating system builds on the current Lion offering, but adds additional features which Apple describe as "being inspired by the iPad, re-invented for the Mac".
