TidBITS

Feeling overwhelmed with email? That’s a genuine and common problem, but Joe Kissell takes umbrage with those who complain about email as a medium or look to a new email app to be a magic bullet. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

LiveCode, a development environment inspired by HyperCard, may add a free edition and release its code under an open-source license, if owner RunRev meets the goal for its Kickstarter campaign by the end of February. For many, the promise of a free version of LiveCode and its code being available to view, modify, and distribute in changed form is compelling; others find controversial the amount of money sought and other details about the project. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Consultants looking to promote professional credentials can now get Microsoft’s “Microsoft Office for Mac Accredited Support Professional” accreditation in a free half-day course that precedes each of the MacTech BootCamp II training events in 2013. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Mailbox makes processing incoming email easy and fun on the iPhone, but its innovative interface approaches may not be sufficient to make up for the app’s lack of key capabilities and worrying requirement that all your email go through the company’s servers.  Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Most people don’t realize that Time Machine backs up their Dropbox folder by default. This is either a nice secondary backup of key information or a waste of precious hard drive space for files that are already being duplicated to the Dropbox Web site. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

The latest version of iOS fixes a bug that caused excessive battery drain on iOS devices communicating with Exchange Server, but it doesn’t patch the recently discovered passcode security exploit. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Please welcome our latest TidBITS sponsor, Metadot, makers of the clicky Das Keyboard Model S Professional for Mac! Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Notable software releases this week include Fission 2.1.2, Mailplane 2.5.11, Skype 6.2.73.1117, MacBook Pro SMC Firmware Update 1.7, Mellel 3.1.3, BBEdit 10.5.2, Microsoft Office 2011 14.3.1, and BusyCal 2.0.3. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Topics we find interesting this week include two pieces by David Sparks and Lloyd Chambers touching on how Apple’s quality control is slipping, along with Adam’s thoughts on the subject on the Tech Night Owl Live podcast. Then there’s an article by security expert Jeremiah Grossman about recovering a key password, plus Lex Friedman’s Macworld story about fishing for the Starfish smartwatch at Macworld/iWorld and coming up empty. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Napkin is a unique image annotation and diagramming app, but can it handle all of your visual communication needs? Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

TidBITS publisher Adam Engst can’t resist a minor rant about how the writing is not on the wall for plain text books in a world of iPads and multimedia-enhanced books. Read on for why these enhanced books won’t be replacing simple words on the page. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

With little fanfare, Apple has dropped faster CPUs and more RAM into several MacBook Pro with Retina display models, plus reduced the price on the 13-inch MacBook Air. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Watch (or listen) to the latest TidBITS staff roundtable for our thoughts on just why Apple has engendered such loyalty in the past, and continues to do so in today’s very different world. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

To understand what’s new in the freeware TidBITS News app, we dive into the history of iOS. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

If you are having problems with cellular connectivity on an iPhone 4S running iOS 6.1, consider updating to iOS 6.1.1. Otherwise, sit tight. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.