Intuit has sent an e-mail to some users announcing that Quicken 2007 will be updated to be compatible with the Lion OS. The note says it will happen in “early spring,” so hopefully that means before the deadline to switch from MobileMe to iCloud. It doesn’t mention a cost, and other sources have reported that the Quicken file has to be converted to the new version under Snow Leopard first.

The letter reads:

Dear Quicken Mac Customer:

As a fellow Mac fan and customer, I wanted to personally introduce myself, and share some highlights of our Apple-related efforts with you.

I recently became General Manager of the Personal Finance Group at Intuit, responsible for Quicken and Mint.com. Intuit’s 25 years of leadership in personal financial management software makes me excited to lead this team and I am committed to creating products to help you reach your financial goals.

I recognize, however, that we have not always delivered on this promise to Quicken Mac customers.

As you may know, Quicken for Mac 2007 does not currently work on Apple’s latest operating system, Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). I understand the frustration this may have caused you and have put a team in place to address this issue. I am happy to announce that we will have a solution that makes Quicken 2007 for Mac “Lion-compatible” by early spring. There are still details to be worked out, so I ask your continued patience as we work through these. In the meantime, you can find more information on our Mac FAQ page.

Working toward a Quicken for Mac 2007 solution is just a first step in winning back your confidence.

We are expanding our development team to continue our renewed focus on personal finance solutions that suit the needs of our Mac customers. As we develop solutions, we’ll be looking to you and the rest of our Mac customers for ideas and feedback.

I understand we have a way to go, but I wanted to start by communicating our commitment to Mac and look forward to sharing the details with you as they emerge.

Thank you for your continued loyalty to Quicken.

Sincerely,

Aaron Forth
General Manager, Intuit Personal Finance Group

Ever use autofill in Safari only to have it fill in the wrong information? For example, you might want to use your work e-mail address, but it always chooses your home e-mail address, or you want it to fill in your cell phone number, but it always chooses your work number. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell the System which bit of information is “primary”.

Until now.

I just released a free app on my website called Safari Autofill Prefs that will let you choose the data Safari should use when doing an autofill.

FYI, Safari uses data from the Address Book, specifically your “Me” card. You can check this data by opening Address Book, then going to the Card menu and choosing Go To My Card. If it brings you to the wrong card (or no card at all), find your name, then go to the Card menu and choose Make This My Card.

Once you’ve located your “Me” card, make sure all of your various addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses are entered, then try Safari Autofill Prefs to pick the items that Safari should use.

I’m happy to report that the recent iOS 5.0.1 update has made a dramatic difference to the battery life of my iPhone 4. And I’m hearing that from various other sources too about the iPhone 4, the 4S and even the 3GS.

On Saturday morning, I unplugged my phone. Normally, even though my usage was light, I would have expected it to be all-but-dead by Sunday morning. Instead, I still had about 30% charge by the time I plugged it in again Sunday night. I have never had that experience with any iPhone model I’ve owned (this is my third) or with any previous iOS version. I’d say Apple finally fixed a major problem.

Since the battery life issue was the only one that’s been reported about the iPhone 4S, I’d say that’s resolved and, if you’ve been waiting to get one, you can go ahead.

iCloud is the new Apple service that will ultimately replace MobileMe. If you’re a current MobileMe user, you will get all sorts of “reminders” and nudges to migrate to iCloud or start an iCloud account.

Unless you’re running Lion (Mac OS X 10.7) on all of your Macs, don’t do it.

The problem with iCloud is that it requires the latest OS and won’t work with any previous OS for synchronization of data. If you migrate to it and still have a previous-OS Mac, you will lose the ability to share your contacts and calendars among your Macs and iOS devices, and there is no way back.

The alternative is to start a brand-new, free account with iCloud for a specific purpose on your iOS devices (like backing up to iCloud instead of your Mac), but when you do finally migrate, you will have multiple iCloud accounts and, at this time, there is no way to merge them.

The bottom line is, if you use MobileMe and haven’t completely upgraded to Lion, you don’t have to do anything until June 2012 so leave iCloud alone. But if you don’t have a MobileMe account, or have upgraded all of your Macs to Lion, go ahead with iCloud.

I’ve had a number of calls over the past few days from clients with MobileMe accounts who are having trouble sending otherwise innocuous mail. No settings have changed, the address is correct, there are no attachments (or they are small), and the e-mail should just go out. But it doesn’t. Instead, Mail spins for a few minutes, then displays an error window.

If this describes your experience over the past week, rest assured, it’s not you, it’s them.

Read the rest of this entry »

A client sent me this neat web site that I thought was handy enough to share:

http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

Having trouble with a web site and wondering if it’s just you? This site will let you check it and know for sure.

Apple released their new version of the OS today. Lion (v.10.7) is available as a download-only upgrade to Snow Leopard (v.10.6) through the Mac App Store, but you should not even consider upgrading, now or in the near future. Aside from the assortment of problems that are inevitable in any new software release, Lion will not support older, PowerPC-based applications. This means things like Quicken 2007 and older version of FileMaker Pro, 4D, and Microsoft Office (to name a few) will not work and would need to be upgraded or replaced.

There will come a point when you will be ready for Lion, but you should use this time to figure out what will and won’t work and make the necessary changes to ensure the transition will be as smooth as possible. In the meantime, let others work out the kinks.

You can read a review of the new features here.

One of the questions I often get from users of Mail.app results from a less-than-descriptive error message: “Cannot send message using server XXX”. It suggests a problem with your mail server when, in reality, the problem is with the message itself.

The next time you see an error message like that, press the “Edit Message” button, then check all the addresses in the To, CC and BCC fields. If the address is in a blue bubble, click on it to see which address is checked. If you find one that doesn’t look right (no “@some.domain” or similar problem), correct it and try sending again. For example, if you are typing quickly, you might inadvertently address a message to “fred” when you meant to send it to “fred@domain.com”.

If the addresses look right, check the size of your attachments. As a general rule, your attachments shouldn’t exceed 5 MB.

Can’t see an issue so far? Go to your web browser and make sure you actually have a connection to the Internet. Sometimes you will get disconnected for some reason or another, and Mail doesn’t warn you of that.

Finally, call us and we’ll be happy to troubleshoot.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions of late about Apple’s transition from MobileMe to iCloud. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of answers because Apple has not yet posted a lot of details, but they did post this page with more information.

The short version is, you don’t have to worry too much about it until June 2012, after which you will have to make the switch. Presumably, by then, they will have worked out both the details and the kinks.

Viruses in the computer world (most of which won’t affect your Mac anyway) have given rise to a new class of malware called “scareware”. In short, this type of app tries to frighten you into purchasing a product you don’t need to fix problems that don’t exist.

Here’s how it works: You’re minding your own business visiting some web site when, suddenly, a page pops up that looks like a standard Mac window warning you of a variety of problems. It urges you to click a link to perform a “free” scan and, before you know it, you’ve installed something you can’t seem to get rid of without paying for it. In short, it’s a hoax designed to separate naturally nervous users from their cash.

Enter “Mac Defender”.

Mac Defender (a/k/a Mac Protector, and probably some other name soon) is just such an application. If you are tricked into installing it, the method for removing it is not obvious. Fortunately, it’s not hard either. You can find detailed instructions with pictures here, but these are the steps:

• Close the Mac Defender window if it’s open.
• Navigate to your /Applications/Utilities/ folder. The easiest way is to click anywhere on your desktop, then go up to the Go menu and choose “Utilities”.
• Start Activity Monitor.app in your Utilities folder.
• If no window appears, go up to the Window menu and choose “Activity Monitor”.
• In the window that appears, look in the upper, right corner and you will see a search box. Type “Defender” there.
• “MacDefender” should appear in the list in the main part of that window. Highlight it and press the red “Quit Process” button in the toolbar.
• Choose “Force Quit” from the window that appears.
• Quit Activity Monitor.
• Navigate to your /Applications/ folder and trash Mac Defender.
• Go to your Apple menu and choose “System Preferences”.
• Click on the “Accounts” icon, then click the “Login Items” tab.
• Locate “Mac Defender” in the list and press the “-” button beneath the list.

To be clear, this is not a virus because it can only get onto your machine with your knowledge and, in fact, your permission. The lesson is, don’t believe everything you see on the web, be skeptical about stuff that tries to scare you into doing something, and be conscious and particular about what you decide to install.