What you need to do is go to System Preferences > Language & Text > Input Sources, and put a check-mark next to a language that you want to type in.  After that, make sure you look at the top right corner where you find the date and time, and you should see an American flag.  Clicking on the American flag allows you to change to the other language that you’ve checked in the System Preferences few minutes ago.

Each language other than English has different macros which allow you to type in such specific language.  For an example, in Vietnamese using VNI input type, the macros should be from number 1 to 9 on the keyboard.  These numbers allow me to put special signs onto the alphabet letters.  Vietnamese language in writing looks very similar to French!  Here is an example, “Bạn có khỏe không?” means “How are you doing friend?”

You can compare this new feature to the most primitive artificial intelligence!  Why?  Priority Inbox is like an assistant to you as it sorts out the emails it thinks you want to read, and it stuffs the unimportant emails into the everything else category.  Something that you think you should read later, Priority Inbox stuffs such emails into the category where all emails would be starred.  The more you use the Priority Inbox, the more it learns of your behavior in categorizing which email is important.  In a sense, Priority Inbox can only get better at helping you out in sorting the email messages in your Gmail account.

Google says it won’t roll out Priority Inbox for Gmail users till next week!  Google has some more testing to do for the feature needs to be better than now as it rolls out for the mass.  Check out the video below to see what is Priority Inbox in a fun way!

Some people may not even want to set up their own home servers since there are services such as Dropbox which allows people to have around 2GB of free space!  Uploading contents to such service is a breeze!  Whenever I have an urge of updating a piece of article that I’m working on, all I have to do is to go to my Dropbox folder locates on my computer which communicates directly with Dropbox’s server — updating a local file means it too updates the very same file on Dropbox’s server.  A little piece of heaven don’t you think?  Wherever we go, we can always have an access to our files on Dropbox as long we remember the password to our Dropbox account!  Dropbox even has a web interface where we don’t have to install its software on our computers or a friend’s computer just to access our files.

2GB of free space sometimes does not cut it!  Heavy content users who happen to be heavy sharers too know that sharing 2GB of contents or less equal to licking the cake but not eating it.  These users want to share their whole library of congress to their friends!  How about sharing to themselves on the road!  Yes, we all know there are lonely nights when we are by ourselves in our hotel room watching craps on TV!  Don’t even think about the porns, because we have to pay some money when we order such things in the hotel.  By the way, porns are bad for your health!  Get a girlfriend instead!  Anyway, the whole idea is to be able to access our files with breeze, and we don’t have to pay for any service to do so.  Yet, we all know setting up a home server is a solution, but only the geeks know their ways around those technical nuts and bolts.

Don’t worry!  Have you ever heard of Pogoplug?  I never have the need for a Pogoplug, because I’m one of those geeks who can set up a home server!  Someone out there probably doesn’t know how, and Pogoplug is a perfect solution for such a person!  Reading up on it from various reviews and blogs, it seems Pogoplug is easy as hooking up the Pogoplug to an electrical outlet plus connect an Ethernet cable from its Ethernet port to a router’s Ethernet port!  The user interface is quite neat and nice, but you have to download a software on Pogoplug’s website.  People say it is simple to set up since the instruction comes with the package.  People say it takes only a few minutes to set up the Pogoplug.  When you’re done setting up your Pogoplug, you’ll have the ability to plug in many external hard drives to its USB ports.  Imagine you can always buy more than one USB hubs, and then connecting a dozen of external hard drives to those USB ports on the USB hubs.

In my opinion, without the need of messing around with static IP(s) and setting up a home server, Pogoplug is a go for new computer users who want to have their own home servers!  Pogoplug acts as a home server which connects many external hard drives to deliver many Terabytes of server space (hard drive space).  New computer users won’t have a problem of storing tons of open source movies and freely share video clips and open source music files and their own articles and others; just so you know, storing means sharing!  Pogoplug is so easy, I think even I’m geeky, it feels like I should go with Pogoplug!  Why?  There are times I just hate to get down and dirty — that’s to get under the hood of things.  Why not plug, clicks, and go?

Pogoplug is now cheaper than before!  From the look on my web store, it’s only $47.99 for a brand new Pogoplug.  The original price for Pogoplug was $129.99.  The Pogoplug method is not cheap since we have to buy external hard drives!  Otherwise, what’s the point, right?  Without external hard drives, Pogoplug is just a piece of hardware which does nothing besides waiting for we to plug the external hard drives into its USB ports.  Buying a Pogoplug, we must know that it’s just a first step to have one’s own home server setup, but we’re doing it the easy way!  No need to mess around with Apache, PHP, Linux, user permissions, firewall ports, static IP(s), FTP, Samba, and the likes.

For your information, when you click on a link which directs you to buy Pogoplug on my web store, I will get a commission from Amazon!

The selling of physical game copies may not be able to turn huge profit as the future may focus on service and user experience when renting or buying a game.  Many game developers may have to publish their games online; they may use subscription model as a way of distributing their games and making money.  Selling games in game stores may no longer be effective and riskier.

Competition is heating up in the game market!  Target has just joined the game by launching a used game trade-in service.  The story goes that by the end of 2010, Target may have at least 850 locations throughout the nation for people to trade in used games.  Other retail stores may eventually jump on this bandwagon!

The new distribution methods of games are easier for some people, but as the way the game market is heading, it will be a fierce battle field!  Some people still like the idea of owning physical game copies, and these people may find themselves dwindling slowly in numbers.  The changes in the distribution of games can even modify the way the game developers create their games.  The developers may concentrate on creating games that are easy and fast to be pushed onto online, and so newer games may have more online contents and online interactions and the style may resemble MMORPG with social elements and the likes.  Source.

That something else is the Internet!  Internet can be used as a phone system!  Through the Internet, a technology has sprung forward known as Voice Over IP and it’s gaining popularity.  Voice Over IP services over the Internet offer amazing rates, and free offers are obvious too.  How can something like this will be overlooked by a giant in the tech industry such as Google right?  Google is testing with the idea such as adding VOIP on top of Gmail so people can make free phone calls within Gmail.  Amazing low rates will apply when calling International.

As Google moving forward with VOIP over Gmail, will companies such as AT&T fight for survival?  Imagine when countless of cheap gadgets come out and allow people to connect to Gmail’s phone feature for free talk times, how can companies such as AT&T charge people with their current phone rates?  In reality, Google is still testing the whole idea, but like fire, everything can spread really fast if people find Gmail’s phone feature attractive.  What do you think?  Source.

Source.

Another awesome feature in Internet Security Barrier X6 is a firewall.  It was so simple to set up!  All you have to do is to choose a level, and a stricter a level the better for you.  There are couple levels that you can choose with Internet Security Barrier X6′s firewall, but I recommend the strictest level such as “Client only!”  This means no server software that are installed on your system will be able to communicate with the external requests.  Sure, the default firewall which has came with Mac is quite adequate, but it does not regulated the outgoing connections.  In a bad case when a Trojan has got into your machine, Internet Security Barrier X6′s firewall may able to pop up an alert/request for you to decide if you want such a Trojan to connect to the external destinations, and the obvious answer is no — this is where you answer no to the firewall’s alert/request.

Internet Security Barrier X6 also has other features such as Personal Antispam and Personal Backup.  All in all, I think Internet Security Barrier X6 from Intego is a great security solution for Mac users, but I dislike how its “Behavioral Analysis” in “Scan Settings” has slowed down or froze my MacBook Pro even though a 2.66 GHz Core I7 processor with Turbo Boost of 3.33GHz is presented.  I have had  disabled the “Behavioral Analysis” in “Scan Settings” for MacBook Pro to be responsive.

Besides the crazy resource hogging nature of “Behavioral Analysis” feature of Internet Security Barrier X6, everything else is very smooth!  Scanning for virus is fast and is not too heavy on my MacBook Pro, but I don’t know how intensive this software will be for the lower end versions of Mac machines.  Have you had a good experience or a bad one with Internet Security Barrier X6?  Why not write a comment or two and share with everyone what you think about this specific product which targets Mac users.

Believe me, it’s a myth and lies when people and computer salesmen/women tell you that Mac is bulletproof against hackers and crackers and viruses.  Nothing is bulletproof when it comes to computer security!  Even a very secured operating system such as Mac OS X with the best fortified customization of security rules can still be compromised!  How?  Sometimes new bugs are introduced into the systems, and the security rules are only static measures that cannot prevent new bugs from being exploited by malicious evil doers.

The best we can all do to secure ourselves from unintentional consequences in the computer realm/Internet universe is to be paranoid about our security measures for our computer systems.  Yes, Mac is very secured, but it can be even more secured when you go extra miles in customizing and locking down the default settings.  Read more if you are paranoid enough!

General Rules:

1. Mac’s OS X 10.6 by default has Firewall turns off!  You need to turn it back on!  Turn the Firewall on in System Preferences > Security.
2. The firewall for Mac’s OS X 10.6 is securing your Mac at application level!  What is this mean?  It means it does not filter ports!  For an example, FTP is a file transfer protocol application that uses port 21 to transfer files over a network through binary and plain text, and by enabling Mac’s default firewall to not allow all incoming requests or FTP’s requests, it doesn’t mean that another application which uses port 21 will be blocked!  Hackers can spoof an FTP program so you can download and be owned by them.  By blocking port 21, you just maybe stop the hackers from retrieving your sensitive data over port 21 — this is hypothetical deduction since hackers are smart and may randomize ports and so on.  Hackers may even penetrate your lower layer of security by opening ports that are blocked by you.  Solution?  A solution for every possible scenarios is what I don’t have, but blocking specific ports or range of ports on Mac is doable.  How?  You have to learn how to use IPFW!  IPFW is a firewall which comes with Mac, but it does not turn on.  To configure IPFW, you can add IPFW’s rules to /etc/ipfw.conf (you have to create the file if it’s not in /etc).  After adding the rules, you have to flush your old IPFW rules by using the command of [/sbin/ipfw flush].  After flushing the old rules, you need to load new IPFW rules that you have added to IPFW by using the command of [/sbin/ipfw /etc/ipfw.conf].  To see the rules that have loaded into IPFW, you can use the command of [/sbin/ipfw print].  Using those IPFW commands above and to edit IPFW, you must be root or administrator in Mac.  For the IPFW rules, please look them up in your known trusted sources.
3. Mac has less viruses than Windows, but as Mac is getting more popular than ever, it’s a given that more hackers will try to craft sophisticated viruses for attacking Mac systems.  This is why installing an antivirus is still a must for Mac users.  I recommend ClamAV for Mac that can be downloaded on Apple’s website at here.  You may need to configure ClamAV’s files in terminal such as changing certain files’ permissions for it to work correctly.
4. Don’t turn on unnecessary services such as share services in System Preferences > Sharing.
5. Strip SUID/GUID for certain default programs that come with Mac to avoid allowing normal user accounts (standard) from executing such programs.  SUID/GUID has a flag of letter s when you use the command of [ls -l filename-or-path-to-program-here].  To strip SUID/GUID, you can use the command of [chmod -s filename-or-path-to-program-here].
6. Make sure you are using secure virtual memory!  Enabling this in System Preferences > Security.
7. Disabling network interfaces that you are not using such as Airport and Firewire and so on!  Configure this in System Preferences > Network.
8. Encrypt your files and folders on your accounts by turning on FireVault.  It’s not recommend for Mac users who have a slow and old Mac system to use FileVault, because it can take longer to shutdown and start up your Mac as FireVault tries to encrypt and decrypt the account and mount the files and folders for usage.  Enabling FireVault in System Preferences > Security.
9. By default, Mac uses Keychain program to store your sensitive information such as passwords.  When logging in as an authenticated user, Keychain for specific user gets unlocked as Keychain program is using the same password as user.  To tighten up a bit, you can change Keychain’s password to a different password!  This will prevent unauthorized access of your important web accounts such as a bank account — the password for accessing a bank account online which was saved in your Keychain cannot be accessed unless a right password is used in unlocking your Keychain.  Better advice is not to save your bank’s account password in Keychain!  How password is saved in Keychain?  For an example, it can be saved when you allow your browser to remember a password.  Change your Keychain password in Applications > Utilities > Keychain Access (.app).
10. Update all software!  Do this in System Preferences > Software Update.
11. When using share services such as SSH, you must configure it securely.

I probably leave out a ton of good advices!  If you know any other advices that I should look into, please write in the comment section!  Have fun in securing your Mac!  I know this guide is not going into the details such as enabling and disabling the specific options within security programs that I mentioned above, but it should be enough as a warning that your Mac is not that secured unless you are paranoid about its security settings!  It’s never enough when it comes down to securing your computer, be it a Mac or a Linux or a PC (Windows).