Going on Offense with OpenDNS

My 8-year-old niece slept over our house over the weekend. As I was watching her sit behind the family iMac, I saw her search for “My Little Pony”. Her first hit was an OpenDNS blocked porn site. You see, searching “My Little Pony” does not always return the results you would expect. However, instead of being exposed to something that 8 year olds should never see, she got the OpenDNS block screen and moved on. I have to admit I was shocked (though I probably shouldn’t have been). My niece didn’t even realize what had happened. In a few minutes, she had found the site she was looking for and was very pleased with Pinky Pie. My takeaway is that now, more than ever, perfectly innocent kids can find all sorts of things they shouldn’t see without trying. In short, I believe in OpenDNS now more than ever.

If you’re not familiar with it, OpenDNS is a free service that offers to replace your local Internet service provider’s domain name server (DNS). (DNS is, essentially, the address book of the Internet connecting words like “macsparky.com” with the ones and zeroes behind the Internet.) A lot of ISP’s have pretty crummy DNS services and OpenDNS is usually faster at getting you between where you are and where you want to go.

OpenDNS does more than just DNS service though. It also does tracking and, if you please, filtering. I’ve got the “moderate” filter turned on preventing any computer, iPad, iPhone or other iThingy in my house from connecting to porn sites or other red-flagged security threats. It is really easy to set this up. My pal Katie Floyd even made a video showing you how (below). They also have video tutorials and walkthoughs for every major brand of router. This isn’t rocket science.

The only downside that I’ve ever heard is that some people report streaming content through iTunes (like movies) is sometimes slower when using OpenDNS than when using your local ISP. One clever friend explained this is because Apple will pick the streaming server based on your location and OpenDNS doesn’t give them that. I’ve not noticed a difference between OpenDNS and my local cable company for streaming iTunes so it is not an issue for me.

Not only do I think anyone that has kids on their network should enable OpenDNS, I also think us alpha nerds should be pushing this out to our family, friends, and loved ones. I’ve decided I’m going on offense with this and am going to start setting it up for friends and family on their home routers. Kids should be able to search “My Little Pony” without finding something that would give me nightmares.

Configuring OpenDNS from Mac Power Users on Vimeo.

Earth Day Sale on Paperless



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I’ve never really properly celebrated Paperless winning one of Apple’s Best of 2012 awards last December. Earth Day seems like the right time to do so. Through this Saturday, Paperless is $6.99. If you know someone that that could use some Paperless help, send them along.

∞

Home Screens: Rene Ritchie


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This year at Macworld I finally got to meet Rene Ritchie (Twitter). Rene publishes iMore, one of the best sources on the web for Apples news, rumors, and tutorials. Rene does an amazing job of sleuthing out details for future Apple products and iMore does some really great tutorials. (Just this week they did a nice piece on iOS message archiving). So Rene, show us your home screen.


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What are some of favorite apps?

Tweetbot and Twitterrific for Twitter. I use Tweetbot to triage @mentions and DMs and respond quickly while I’m out and about or working, and I use Twitterrific for reading the unified stream and linked content when I’m relaxing.

Launch Center Pro is the first third-party app to get on my Dock and stay there. It’s ability to launch actions instead of apps makes it an incredibly fast way to get everywhere I need to go, and do a lot of the basic things I need to do, without the mental overhead of hunting for a specific app, contact, or feature each time.

Fantastical for iPhone lets me enter events into my calendar with incredible ease and speed. It uses natural language, like Siri, but with text instead of voice, and that lets it parse and create stuff literally at the speed of type. Downside: my calendar is now fuller than ever. Jerks.

Dropbox stores my entire Mac documents directory and having it on my iPhone means I’m only ever a network connection and a few taps away from getting to all my stuff, at any time, any where.

1Password is the only way I can mediate the constant battle between convenience and security. My database lives in Dropbox so I can have strong passwords at home and while on the go.

Elements is how I edit text on iOS. It stores in Dropbox so it doesn’t matter where I am, I can pick up and keep working. I can even use Dictation to input ideas on the road. It’s my memory alpha.

Screens lets me VNC into my Macs from my iPhone or my iPad. That it works at all is magic. That it works in so simple, elegant a way is more than magic. (Science!)

The iMore app, self-serving as my including here may sound, is something I use constantly to keep track of the site I run and interact with my community I serve.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Letterpress. That damn Loren Brichter has stolen more hours of sleep from me this year than any other developer. He also did it with yet-another trend-setting design, a delightful experience, and a system that doesn’t feel like it’s gouging or conning me.

What is the app you are still missing?

Whatever is next! I have a ton of great apps, many of which are incredibly clever ways to solve incredibly common or complex problems. But imagination is limitless, and I’m always on the lookout for even better apps that do things in even better ways.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

Nearly constantly! When I’m out, I’m looking at it all the time, and when I’m home, it’s still how I glance at notifications. I might need an intervention. Not that I want one.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

Simplicity. It’s beautifully yet unobtrusively designed and it powers fantastic software and services that are highly discoverable and accessible and have changed the way I live my life.

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

I’d like to see the next generation of user interface. We — every user of every device by every platform owner — are stuck in an era of pull data where we have to hunt down icons or widgets or apps to find our data and act on it. It’s time to jump ahead again. It’s time to go to push data. It’s time for our data to come to us.

I want actionable notifications where I can respond to messages inside the alert, or reset counters, or play/pause music, without switching apps or control schemes. I want inter-app communication so the stuff I need follows me where ever I am. I want a unified view of all my messages, regardless of whether they’re SMS, email, Twitter, or whatever, and all my schedules/reminders that are easy to get to and act on. And I want a simple, unified gesture navigation system to help me get around even faster. Demanding much?

Anything else you’d like to share?

Yeah, my Home screen is almost completely stock. Hi, I’m Captain Default, have we met?

Seriously, though, I have a bunch of devices for testing a bunch of different things, I restore them often, and I frequently use them to screenshot help articles. Default is the easiest way to always know what’s where.

Now if MacSparky ever asks for second screen shots…

Thanks Rene

MPU 133: Alfred 2

After many years using LaunchBar, Katie and I have both been spending time with the recent release of Alfred 2, the keyboard launcher (and much more) for the Mac. I’ve officially switched. We share our experiences with this very clever new application and explain what we like (and don’t like) about it. We also walk through how to use the app and the addition of workflows, clever user-created plug ins that make the app really useful.

∞

Microsoft Office and iOS, Revisited

The most recent scuttlebutt is that Microsoft is going to wait until the end of next year to release Office for iOS. I’ve written about this before and my thoughts haven’t changed. I remain convinced that Microsoft is losing dump trucks full of cash by not putting Office on iOS. If the rumors are true and they are delaying it to the end of next year, this is not a function of engineering delays. It’s clearly a marketing decision to give the Microsoft Surface some advantage over the iPad. However, this doesn’t appear to be working.

I understand that Microsoft is laying low on office on the iPad while they try and get their own competing tablet off the ground but I think it’s a mistake. This is an example of competing priorities in a company hurting the overall bottom line.

The real risk is that previously faithful Office users start using the iPad and discover other ways to get their work done. Anecdotally, I’ve met many people who tell me how they used to rely on Office and now have dumped it on all platforms. The worst outcome for Microsoft is that the Surface isn’t successful and Office stops being the cash cow they’ve relied upon it to be. I don’t think that scenario is out of the question at this point.