Macworld August 2014

A Fine Balance Why do you use the tools you use? I’ve been thinking about that ever since I read an interview with Clay Shirky on The Setup blog (clay.shirky.usesthis.com), which we excerpted on page 92 in the July issue. Shirky is a writer, a teacher, and a Web pundit. Part of his job is to check out new stuff, to explore the cutting edge. That means he’s trying new things all the time—including the things he uses to do his job. “I actually don’t want a ‘dream setup,’” he writes. “I know people who get everything in their work environment just so, but current optimization is long-term anachronism. I’m in the business of weak signal detection, so at the end of every year I junk a lot of perfectly…

The updated MacBook Air lineup offers little that’s new. Fortunately, however, the Air was already a top-notch portable. This year, the line’s subtle increase in processor speed and respectable decrease in price are positives. But although the faster processor did help the new Airs in our application tests, the flash storage didn’t perform as well as we’ve come to expect. The latest Airs come in four standard configurations. All have the same Intel 1.4GHz dual-core Core i5 processor, versus the 1.3GHz dual-core Core i5 in the mid-2013 Mac-Book Air. Everything else is the same as in last year’s Air models: You’ll find 4GB of DDR3 RAM, Intel HD 5000 integrated graphics hardware, and 128GB or 256GB of PCIe-connected flash storage. Prices start at $899 for the 11-inch Air with 128GB…

Apple suffered a blow in its second major patent-infringement lawsuit against Samsung when a Silicon Valley jury awarded the iPhone maker damages of just $119.65 million for Samsung’s infringement of several of its smartphone patents. Apple had requested $2.2 billion in damages for what it alleged was massive infringement of five of its patents by nine models of Samsung smartphones and a single tablet model. But the jury found that Samsung infringed, with all of its products, only U.S. Patent 5,946,647, which covers quick links that add contextual menus to items such as phone numbers and email addresses. None of the Samsung devices was found to have infringed Apple’s patents on background synchronization of app data and on universal search that pulls in results from the phone and the Internet.…

If you need Internet access on the road, carry a travel router. Use one to connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot or a broadband service, and it will create a private, secure, wireless network with a robust firewall for all your devices. Using a late-2013 MacBook Pro with a Broadcom 802.11ac chipset, I tested six travel routers inside my 2800-square-foot, single-story home, evaluating speeds with the client in my bedroom (9 feet from the router, in the same room), kitchen (20 feet away, separated by one insulated wall), and home office (65 feet away, separated by several walls). I measured TCP throughput from an iMac (acting as a server) to the MacBook Pro using the WiFiPerf utility. NETGEAR TREK PR2000 Netgear’s Trek PR2000 (4.0/5.0; $50; go. macworld.com/trekpr2000) is largely self-contained: Just…

As much as you might want to believe that your Mac is invulnerable to viruses, Trojan horses, malware, and phishing attacks, that simply isn’t the case. In addition to well-publicized exploits involving Flash Player and Java, OS X is vulnerable to a variety of malware. This is where Mark Allan’s free ClamXav 2 (www.clamxav.com) comes in. Developed as a graphical interface for Sourcefire VRT’s open-source ClamAV antimalware utility, ClamXav doesn’t actively scan incoming downloaded files, but it does comb through your user account, your hard drive, or specified folders as needed. If infected files are hiding on your Mac, ClamXav will find them, describe what they can do, and offer tools to deal with them. The app lets you put infected files in a quarantine location, and delete them as…

KATIE COTTON, Apple’s VP of worldwide communications, is retiring after 18 years with the company. Cotton shaped Apple’s communications strategy, which stayed unwaveringly on message but often frustrated journalists seeking details about the company’s plans and operations. She also had a reputation as the gatekeeper who controlled access to (and the image of) the late Steve Jobs. Cotton and Apple turned tech public relations on its head: Rather than release a product and beg for coverage, Apple presents product debuts and announcements as special events, which the world at large and journalists in particular then clamor to learn more about. To further that strategy, the company is selective about who gets that information. At one point, if you didn’t cover tech for the New York Times, USA Today, or the…