Frictionless

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Aaron Mahnke has launched a new project called Frictionless. His goal is to help you and me remove frictional stresses from our lives. It’s inspiring and encouraging.

I recommend that if you are reading this, you go download Aaron’s PDF of The Frictionless Manifesto. It requires signing up for his newsletter (for now), but I think that newsletter will be worth it. It’s always easy to unsubscribe if necessary. It took me about ten minutes to read the manifesto, and it is truly great. I’m already starting to rethink some of my daily routines and processes.

I have a lot of friction to remove, and a lot of work to do so. I’m sure you do, too.

Lightroom 4 Comes to the Mac App Store

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Adobe has released Lightroom 4 on the Mac App Store. Not only is this Adobe's first foray into releasing a truly professional app on the Mac App Store, but it is also their first foray into a non-archaic installation process.

OS X 10.7.4 and Safari 5.1.7 Are Out

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Apple released OS X 10.7.4 and Safari 5.1.7 today. The OS X update fixes some under the hood stuff and a big password security hole in the original FileVault system, which only affects FileVault users that upgraded to Lion from Snow Leopard. Lion’s FileVault 2 system didn’t have this security problem.

The Safari update will disable Adobe Flash Player if the currently installed version is outdated. It then will prompt you to download the latest version of Flash straight from Adobe.

So, go hit up Software Update from the Apple menu.

iOS 5.1.1 Released for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

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An update to iOS is now available via iTunes or, more preferably, the Software Update feature on your device, found within the Settings app.

Here’s the changelog:

This update contains improvements and bug fixes, including:

  • Improves reliability of using HDR option for photos taken using the Lock Screen shortcut
  • Addresses bugs that could prevent the new iPad from switching between 2G and 3G networks
  • Fixes bugs that affected AirPlay video playback in some circumstances
  • Improved reliability for syncing Safari bookmarks and Reading List
  • Fixes an issue where ‘Unable to purchase’ alert could be displayed after successful purchase

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

I know I experienced the camera locking up with HDR on when using the lock screen shortcut, and I’ve had run-ins with AirPlay video and the ‘Unable to Purchase’ dialog. So I am pretty pleased with this update. It weighs in around 43-55 MB, depending on your device.

¶ Countering Text Message Spam on AT&T

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Since around Christmas 2011, I have noticed a marked uptick in text message spam on both my iPhone and my wife’s iPhone on AT&T. For me, all of the spam has come from full 10-digit phone numbers, and it is never the same one twice. My wife has had mostly the same type of spam, save for one occurrence.

Just before Christmas my wife received a message from a subscription service’s short code. It was called ChalkboardIQ, and the initial message was an ad to receive daily quiz questions. It said nothing about what to do if she wanted to actually subscribe, but it did say to send STOP to cancel. Seeing as she had never received a message like this before, she did just that.

And then our AT&T bill was charged $10.

A quick phone call with AT&T cleared the charge from our bill, and unsubscribed my wife’s phone from the scam service. I also said to the AT&T customer service rep that I thought it was crazy that this sort of thing was allowed. She agreed, and I could tell from her tone that she deals with removing a lot of charges such as these. I thanked her.

The best thing to do if you get a text from a short code is to never reply to it. You really shouldn’t reply to any spam text message, but biting the bait on a short code will subscribe your account and charge you.

Recently, spam has increased at a steady clip. I’m getting three or four a week now. Since I have an ancient 200 texts/month plan, that doesn’t make me happy.

So what can a person do to curtail text message spam? There are a couple things I have seen for AT&T customers.

Report Messages to AT&T

This will work on any AT&T phone, but I’ll go through how it works on my iPhone.

  1. Receive a spam text message.
  2. Tap the Edit button, and tap the message. A red circle with a white checkmark should appear to the left of the message.
  3. Tap the Forward button.
  4. Address the message to 7726 (which is SPAM on a phone’s number pad).
  5. Tap Send.
  6. You’ll now receive a message labeled as ATT FREE MSG from 772-6. It will prompt you to reply with the phone number of the spam sender.
  7. Go back to the spam text. The easiest way to grab that phone number — besides writing it on paper to reference or using your short term memory — is to tap the Add Contact button, then Create New Contact. I then copy the phone number to the clipboard and hit Cancel on the contact creation.
  8. Now return to the message thread from 772-6. Paste in the phone number and tap Send.
  9. You’ll get another free message thanking you. You’re now done.

That is admittedly a long process, which could be easier. I’m not sure if this has really helped, because so far I have not received a spam text message from the same number twice. And that was before I started taking the time to report it.

Also, it is worth noting that if you report a message from a subscription short code, the reporting service tells you so and tells you to refer to your bill and to call customer service for further assistance.

Check Your Account for Subscriptions

You can visit att.com/db to check your account for any active subscriptions. This is much easier than sifting through a couple months of 11-page bills.

If you do have an active subscription, it’s time to dial 611 on your AT&T phone and chat with a support rep.

Block Subscriptions Entirely

While you are on the phone an AT&T support rep removing that subscription, be sure to ask for Purchase Blocker, which is a free parental control that blocks any and all “premium content purchases” such as ringtones, games, and subscriptions that are directly billed to your AT&T account.

If you’re on an iPhone, you should be using iTunes for all that stuff anyway.

Remember, dial 611 and ask for Purchase Blocker.

I don’t know whether or not Verizon and Sprint offer ways to combat spam text messages. AT&T does. While a carrier is a carrier to me, I’m glad to know that AT&T is doing something about spam. Hopefully it works.