It’s important to understand that real-time virus protection on a PC is an automated process. Computers aren’t monitored for malware by live tech support and certainly not for free. Moreover if someone is monitoring your computer without your knowledge or consent, that’s illegal in most parts of the world and certainly a breach of privacy.

You will never receive a call from any legitimate company to advise you of a virus. And, you should never give your credit card number to a stranger on the phone. Never. Ever. Period.

Microsoft does not engage in this type of activity and this guy was definitely not a Microsoft vendor.  Just for the record, this call came from an Out of Area number: 510-943-3040. Cold call tech support scams have been around for some time and are becoming more frequent. The best thing to do is simply hang up. If you feel lonely and want to chat, just don’t divulge any personal information: social security number, birth date, credit card information, mother’s maiden name, your first pet, where you were born, or even your favor Ben & Jerry’s flavor. OK?

Connect safely!

Another one of the benefits of these services is that, with your files backed up to the cloud (i.e., the web), you can access them wherever you have an Internet connection. That’s pretty convenient! Carbonite, Box.net and Dropbox, possibly others, also offer mobile apps, making it that much easier to use your files remotely. We have iPad apps for each of these three services.

Incidentally, Box.net is offering a generous 50GB of free storage for life for all iOS users through December 2, 2011. To get your 50GB of storage, just sign up for an account through an iOS device: iPhone, iPad or iPod touch by that date.

Option 1

Just control + tap. Press and hold the control key then tap the trackpad.

Option 2

Tap the trackpad with two fingers. Just make sure that two-finger secondary clicking is enabled in your trackpad settings.

Option 3

Customize your Mac’s trackpad settings so that secondary clicking is available by tapping a specific region of your trackpad, i.e., tap bottom-right corner.

Newer Macbooks built since late 2008 along with Lion OS (the most recent Mac operating system) offer more natural options for accessing your computer’s functions using finger gestures your mom won’t object to. Apple provides a quick summary of trackpad gestures and customization settings here. So what are you waiting for? Get clicking, er, tapping.

If you have any of these Apple devices, then yes:

• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4
• iPad
• iPad 2
• iPod Touch 3rd and 4th Generation

You can get this great new feature-packed iOS 5 upgrade (which is free by the way).

What Is the Release Date for iOS 5?

Update: iOS 5 is available NOW.

Old: The prevailing wisdom is that iOS 5 will be released about the same time as the new iPhone 4S begins shipping, on or about October 14, 2011.

OK, What Should I Do?

First run iTunes and check for any updates to make sure you have the latest version, the soon to be released 10.5. This step is often overlooked, but backups and updates tend to run more smoothly when iTunes is current. In this case, certain features, like iCloud integration, will require an iTunes update as well.

To update iTunes on a PC, go to the menu bar and click on Help > Check for Updates.

To update iTunes on a Mac, go to the menu bar and click on iTunes > Check for Updates.

Once iTunes is up to date, connect your Apple device (iPhone, iPad, etc.), wait for iTunes to detect it and then:

• Back up your device
• under Devices, you should see your iPad or whatever listed. Right-click on your iPad and select “Back Up”
• Transfer any purchases
• again under Devices, right-click on your device and this time select “Transfer Purchases from . . . “
• Check for updates, or just Update Now
• click on the “Check for Update” button. If a new version has already been detected, the button will say “Update.” Click it. Go ahead; don’t be shy.
• Wait
• the update may try to run another backup. Just stay connected, follow all the prompts and wait for iTunes to tell you that your device has been updated and is now restarting. . Go ahead and follow the prompts. , but it is still a good to have a back up you didn’t capture during the upgrade so don’t skip that step.

That’s it.

If all goes well, as expected, this should be the last time you have to tether your device to a PC or Mac to update the iOS. Computer-free software updates are just one of the many new features of the new iOS 5. Check it out.

And a heartfelt thank you to that great innovator, Steve Jobs. Those of us who appreciate great technology can’t help but admire his unique contribution to both computing and filmmaking. We extend our deepest sympathy to his family and friends and all the folks at Apple for his recent loss.

Beware of emails

Email scams are an unfortunate part of online activity.  Such emails purporting to be from the IRS are among the most common and need to be checked thoroughly. This real U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is often aware of these scams and publishes information to assist the public:

• List of phishing scams: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=214917,00.html
• Other helpful information on identity theft and fact sheets: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=155682,00.html

The IRS seldom attempts to resolve any issue with tax returns over email and certainly will not request personal data over emails. Regardless, the point of some of these scam emails is not to get you to send information directly, but to get you to open the email attachment that can have any manner of malware embedded, including  a keylogger or backdoor that covertly sends your data to the scammer.