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.

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.

For a full map of Hurricane Evacuation Zones A – C, click here.  NYC.gov’s “Ready New York: Hurricane Guide” can be downloaded here.

The MTA is shutting down tomorrow, Saturday, August 27  at Noon.

Charge your devices in advance, make sure you have flashlights, and be safe, New York!

During this summer, NeedMacHelp will be offering our Upgrade to Lion Special.  We will upgrade your computer to Lion* and bring you up to speed on all the new features. No DVDs or a trip to the store necessary. For users not running at least Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard (the minimum requirement to run Lion), we will help advise you on updating or upgrading your system.

Best of all, the whole appointment is 10% off.

Call 646-924-2727 now to schedule an appointment with one of our Apple Certified Macintosh Specialists!

*OS X Lion is $29.99, payable directly to Apple.

Among the awesome features in Lion are:

New Multi-Touch® gestures that enable you to view Mission Control, switch between open apps, a two-finger scroll, tap to zoom, pinch to zoom, and swipe to navigate (which means that if you have an iMac or a Mac Pro, you will probably want to go and get yourself a Magic Trackpad).

System-wide support for full screen apps, which allows you to have multiple full-screen apps open at the same time.

Mission Control, a unification of full-screen apps, Dashboard, Exposé, and Spaces that gives you a view of everything running on your Mac.

Launchpad, which is a new home for all your apps.  No need to go hunting around in your Applications folder anymore.  One click on the Launchpad icon in your Dock and you get a full screen view of all your apps.

A completely new Mail.app, which will have the dual-column layout and conversation views similar to the ones iPhone and iPad owners are familar with.

Auto Save, which eliminates the need for manual saving AND lets you revert to the last saved version if you’re not happy with the changes that you’ve made. Versions allows you to see every new version of a document each time you open it, and you can move between versions in the timeline to compare or revert to an earlier version.  I know so many of our clients will be thrilled to have these two features.

Before downloading this upgrade from the Mac App Store you MUST verify that you meet the following two (2) criteria:

1.  Your Mac must have an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor to run Lion.

2.  You must be running the latest version of Snow Leopard.

Don’t hesitate to contact us to set up an appointment so we can help you upgrade your machines when Lion arrives.

Busy, busy week here at NeedMacHelp! Sorry for the belated post!