Last Thursday, Apple released the Java for OS X Lion 2012-003 update to kill the Flashback malware.  The update also configures the Java web plug-in to disable automatic executive of Java applets, which keeps Flashback from spreading.  This update works for all Mac users with Java installed.

For OS X Lion users WITHOUT Java installed, Apple has provided a download of a Flashback malware removal tool.  If Flashback malware is found, a dialog box will appear and let you know that the malware has been removed.

I know that all of us at Need Mac Help are constantly reminding our users about the importance of backing up, but I also wanted to write a little reminder on the importance of really strong passwords.

Passwords should be LONG — at least 10 characters.

Passwords should be a mix of upper case AND lower case letters, numbers, and symbols.

And most importantly, use a UNIQUE password for each account.  For example, you should never use the password for your email that you use for your online banking.  Similarly, you shouldn’t use the same password for your online bank account and your online credit card account(s).

As far as storing all of these passwords, you want to make sure to never keep them in an obvious place, like a Microsoft Word document called “passwords” or something similar.  The Mac OS X has Keychain Access, where you can securely store all your passwords and notes regarding important log in names and other information.

There’s also 1Password, which is a password manager that also has a nifty password generator.  With 1Password, you create a master password under which you store all your other passwords and important information. There’s also an iOS version of 1Password that syncs safely and securely with the desktop version of the application.

Yesterday Apple revealed the 3rd generation of the iPad, which will be available in stores on March 16 (can also be pre-ordered now for delivery on March 16).

Among the stunning new features are:

• New Retina display that delivers 4x the number of pixels of the iPad 2 (and 1 million more pixels than an HD TV)
• 5 megapixel iSight camera with 1080p HD video (new image stabilization feature as well)
• New A5X chip with quad-core graphics

The new iPad Wi-Fi models will be available in black or white, priced at $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model and $699 for the 64GB model.

iPad Wi-Fi + 4G for either AT&T or Verizon will be available for $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for the 32GB model and $829 for the 64GB model.

Also! The 16GB iPad 2 is now being offered at a very affordable $399.

This is a very long overdue thank you post to Mike Bombich and his excellent backup and cloning solution for Mac, Carbon Copy Cloner (a/k/a CCC).

As the name implies, Carbon Copy Cloner allows you to make an exact copy of a volume, keeping ALL files (even the invisible ones).  This clone is the only way to make a bootable backup, which can get you back up and running right away on another machine in the event that your main machine dies.  Cloning comes in handy for other reasons as well, such as upgrading to a new version of OS X or migrating to a new and larger hard drive.

CCC also offers incremental backups, meaning that it only copies the items that have been modified since the last backup.  One of the things our techs love best about CCC is that it will back up to network shares as well as hard drives and disk images.

We all love the “set it and forget it” capability that is built in to CCC.  You can attach a drive to your machine and schedule backups for whatever time is convenient for you and your workflow.  CCC will even email you to keep you aware of your backups!

One would expect that with all of these features CCC would come with a hefty price tag, but no, Mr. Bombich offers this beautiful backup solution for FREE, and asks only that you donate whatever you can to support future versions of the software.

Version 3.4.4 of Carbon Copy Cloner was released this past Tuesday.  This latest version has several new features and fixes some issues that occurred with the last version.  Some of the new features include:

• Support for archiving and cloning the Lion Recovery HD partition.
• Scheduled tasks can now be configured to wake or boot the system when the task is scheduled to run.
• CCC’s Source menu includes a “Create a Lion Installer” choice for users with a Lion Installer application in /Applications, which will clone the Lion Installation disk image onto a physical volume.

More info on the latest release of Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.4 can be found here.

Helping Mac users upgrade their machines, doing data transfers, backing up data – that’s all part of a typical day’s work at NeedMacHelp. When a new client contacts us to book an appointment for data migration or help with backing up, I always ask how much data he/she has on the old machine.  For some users, this question causes some confusion so I thought I would do a quick “how to find out info about your Mac” post.

1.  To find out what version of OS X (the Mac operating system) your machine is running:

• From the Apple menu located in the upper left hand corner of your screen, select About This Mac.

• The window that opens will show your OS X version.  In the example below, the version is 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard).

2.  To find out what processor your machine has and how much memory (RAM) it has:

• From the Apple menu located in the upper left hand corner of your screen, select About This Mac.

• The window that opens will show Processor and Memory.  In the example below, the Processor is a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, and it has 2 GB of RAM.

3.  To find out how big your hard drive is, and how much data is on your Mac:

• Select Finder by clicking on your Desktop or on the Finder icon located in your Dock (the Dock is the bar of icons that sits at the bottom or side of your screen).

• The window that opens will show a list on the left hand side that includes a section called “DEVICES.” Under devices, there will be a hard drive icon that looks like the one in the example below.

• Make sure you are still in the Finder and select “File” in the upper left hand corner of your screen, and then select “Get Info.” A window will open that lists the following:

* Version (the version of the operating system)

* Format (the format of your hard drive)

* Capacity (the size of your hard drive)

* Available (how much space is currently available on your hard drive)

* Used (how much data is currently on your hard drive)

In the example above, the size of the machine’s hard drive is 158.86 GB, of which 43.07 GB of data has been used.

We mentioned the announcement of Elgato’s portable Thunderbolt SSD last week, and since then it appears as though more and more Thunderbolt devices are being announced, as more and more users are looking for high speed storage solutions.

ars technica has a good preview of the Thunderbolt devices on display at the 2012 International CES, which is currently underway in Las Vegas.

Our head tech James recently implemented Promise’s Pegasus RAID with Thunderbolt at one client site, and reported that the transfer speeds EXCEEDED his expectations. With the Promise Pegasus R6 Thunderbolt RAID + Mac mini server, reads over AFP / the network were clocking in at 100MB/s (or, 800Mbps, which would be the theoretical FireWire max).  Some site examples: 8GB upload over the network in under 2 minutes (i.e., much faster than a direct FireWire connection), and a 100GB download in around 10 minutes.

So iTunes Match came out last week and I’m going to use my mother’s favorite euphemism to describe the feedback I’ve been getting from techs and users: “interesting.”

Plenty of grumbles about the 25,000 song limit.  There’s a way around this, but it’s a bit complicated so you might want to consult with one of our brilliant, Apple certified techs.

As our tech James pointed out, iTunes Match also fails to recognize the most popular song in a lot of albums.  And there’s no AC/DC in iTunes!

You can use iTunes Match on multiple machines to match and upload songs to the same iCloud account, which is really handy. You can merge songs from your different libraries into the same library within iCloud, and then you can download those songs to other machines or get them on your iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad.

So is it worth $24.99 a year? If you have a lot of non-iTunes purchased music, then $24.99 a year might be worth the ability to upload un-matched songs to iTunes Match cloud storage for playback later. Also, your matched music will play back from the cloud in 256-Kps quality even if your original files were poor quality.

For more info on iTunes Match, visit Apple’s site here.

I know a lot of our clients are writing up end-of-year purchase lists for much needed upgrades, so I thought I would mention this promotion that is being offered by FileMaker.

If you buy a Retail or Education version of FileMaker Pro 11 from the FileMaker Store,  you will get a bonus FileMaker Pro 11 license free.  The offer ends December 15, 2011.

Also! For our Bento users, FileMaker has released the Bento Holiday Kit, which includes 3 pre-designed library templates that help organize holiday greeting cards, print labels, plan parties and track gift lists.  And it’s absolutely free for Bento 4 for Mac users!

As of today, you can update your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch by connecting your device to your machine.  Onscreen instructions in iTunes will tell you how to proceed.

Among the over 200 new features are iMessage, Twitter, Notification Center, Reminders, and PC Free.  With PC Free you no longer need to own a computer in order to have an iPhone, iPad, or iPad Touch.  The app allows you to set up your device wirelessly, and you can back it up automatically to iCloud, which is also out of beta today and available for use.

For more on iOS5 click here.