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j.matthew.turner

~ Director. Videographer. Editor. Geek.

Tag Archives: yosemite

Encrypt Your Dropbox Files with VeraCrypt

23 Saturday Jul 2016

Posted by jmatthewturner in Organization, Uncategorized

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Tags

backup, linux, mac, organization, osx, tech, yosemite

UPDATE 2017-09-21: What follows is my workable but convoluted system for securing sensitive files in Dropbox. As an alternative, you may instead consider a zero-knowledge, encrypted backup service like SpiderOak. Easier. -JMT

There comes a time in every man’s life when he realizes that it’s totally not smart to keep sensitive personal documents in plain text on Dropbox.

Screenshot 2016-07-23 14.09.31

VeraCrypt Mounting a Volume

For me, that time was last Monday. I spent this week searching for and experimenting with possible solutions, and I’ve now got a system in place that I’m pretty happy with, so I thought I’d share.
The problem, as I see it, is that the important stuff needs off-site backup — but the important stuff tends to be the same as the sensitive stuff, so it’s exactly the stuff that shouldn’t just be sitting on Dropbox. (Yes, I know Dropbox encrypts your data already. If that’s enough for you, more power to you.)

The system I’ve set up on my OS X Yosemite machine is this:

  1. Create a folder in ~/Documents called Encrypted. Collect all my important stuff there.
  2. Use VeraCrypt (free) to create an encrypted volume; we’ll call it EncryptedVolume.
  3. Use Carbon Copy Cloner ($40; worth it) to clone ~/Documents/Encrypted to EncryptedVolume.
  4. Place EncryptedVolume in ~/Dropbox.

Now you can just use your ~/Documents/Encrypted folder on an ongoing basis, and you don’t have to fool with opening encrypted volumes or anything else when you’re in a rush. Just use the folder as normal. And when you do have time, and/or you make important updates, use Carbon Copy Cloner to re-sync the folder to EncryptedVolume. CCC will only copy the updates, Dropbox will only upload the file difference, and nothing will be uploaded until the drive is encrypted and unmounted again. So everything is both efficient and secure during each step.

That’s the best compromise I could find between convenience and security. I chose VeraCrypt both because it’s open source and because it’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux. So if my computing situation changes and I’m ever in a pinch, I can open my encrypted documents on any computer* (I also chose to format EncryptedVolume as FAT for the same reason).

Of course, you can do this without CCC, as long as you don’t mind a little manual housekeeping. But CCC is already the bedrock of my backup solution, so it made sense to leverage it here, too.

*I had one hiccup on Linux — after Dropbox syncs EncryptedVolume to your Linux box, you need to give yourself write permission to the file, or the drive will be mounted read-only. You only need to do this once, the first time it downloads.

 

Stay Focused with These OS X Productivity Apps

09 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by jmatthewturner in Apple, Mac, Organization, Yosemite

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Tags

Apple, freelance, internet, mac, organization, osx, tech, yosemite

Screenshot

Hellscape.

Your computer desktop is a hellscape of distraction. And so is mine. But mine is slightly less so, because of a number of strategies and utilities that I employ to keep it as clean as possible.

The basic idea here is to stop keeping so many browser tabs open – email, Facebook, calendar, your to-do list, articles to read, videos to watch – it never ends. And the result is that every time you glance at your browser’s title bar, you’re bombarded with the distraction of all these open circuits and loose ends. It is absolutely counter-productive to a focused workflow, whatever you’re working on. Below are some strategies and utilities that I use to tame the Beast.

First, the Big 4 \m/

Screenshot

Better.

MailTab Pro for Gmail

Do you keep your email open in a browser tab at all times? Of course you do – what do I think you are, some kind of Luddite? Well, stop it. It’s distracting. MailTab Pro for Gmail is a menu bar app that alerts you when email arrives and gives you quick, browser-less access to read and compose. It looks and behaves exactly like gmail in your browser, but tucked neatly into your menu bar. $1.99 for the pro version; there is also a free version available.

Similar competing apps exist, as do menu bar apps for Yahoo Mail and other services, but I can’t vouch for those.

MenuTab Pro for Google Calendar

Think you see a pattern? You’re right. Get all of those pinned tabs out of the way and up into the menu bar, where you can access them when you need them without the psychological overhead of a browser.

MenuTab Pro for Google Calendar is a simple app that keeps your Google calendar in your menu bar, out of sight and out of mind – until you need it. $1.99.

Wunderlist

App Store Wunderlist Screenshot

Wunderbar.

This one’s sort of a twofer. I’m assuming you already use a to-do list like Wunderlist or Toodledo. If you don’t, proceed immediately to wunderlist.com and sign up for an account. There is nothing quite so liberating as a to-do list that follows you everywhere you go, from desktop to laptop to phone to tablet. Well, that or maybe representative government. But you already have that. Sort of.

Anyhoo, once you have your to-do list set up, you will want 24/7 access to it, and you will begin keeping a tab open in your browser for it. Have you learned nothing from me, padawan? Ditch the tab, and install the free menu bar app. (Or, if you prefer, Toodledo.)

MenuTab for Facebook

And finally, if you’re like me, you enjoy Neil Diamond and are jealous of your wife’s relationship with your cat. Also, you have infrequent interactions on Facebook, but are compelled to constantly check to see if you have any alerts, despite all good sense. MenuTab for Facebook will fix that nonsense. Just stick it up in your menu bar and it will tell you when it’s time to check; in the meantime, those pictures of your cousin’s dinner won’t miss you one bit. Free, or $1.99 for extra features.

Next, Clean up Those Loose Ends

Evernote

Hopefully by now you have installed and are faithfully using your to-do list. That’s great, but what about when you need to make a note longer than a few words? Stop opening TextEdit, and start using Evernote.

Evernote allows you to create notes, sort them into notebooks, and sync them across multiple devices. It’s like Apple Notes, but with greater portability. You can use Evernote natively to sync your thoughts across OS X, Windows, iOS and Android, and there are several options for using it with Linux.

YouTube ‘Watch Later’

YouTube's Watch Later PlaylistIf you’re a YouTube power user (does that sound as ridiculous as I think it does?) you already know about the Watch Later playlist. But if you’re a casual user, you may not be aware. The Watch Later playlist is created in your account by default. Whenever you come across a video that you want to watch – but not right now – hover over the thumbnail and you’ll see a little clock icon in the lower right corner. Click that to add the video to your Watch Later list. When you have a few minutes for a break, check out the playlist (in the upper left of your screen) and see what you’ve queued up for yourself.

It’s a thousand times better than keeping twenty YouTube tabs open for stuff you’re totally going to watch, like, whenever you get a sec. For realz, yo.

Ok, so by now you ought to have your email, calendar, to-do list and Facebook apps running out of sight in your menu bar, and you’re tracking your projects with your to-do list and keeping notes with Evernote and sticking all those cat videos into your Watch Later list. If we’ve done this right, you might be able to – gasp – close your browser! And not even with tabs open so they all come back when you relaunch, but actually close it all so it opens cleanly the next time you actually need it. And as long as you don’t need it, it can stay closed, and your desktop is now free of distraction! Huzzah!

Honorable Mention

TotalFinder

I’m not sure TotalFinder is a productivity app per se, but it goes a long way to cleaning up your desktop, and I sure couldn’t live without it, so here it goes.

TotalFinder is the Finder replacement that ought to come stock with OS X. It maintains a single window with tabs for multiple directories, and keeps that window hidden when you don’t need it. A hotkey brings it up when you need it, and hides it when you don’t.

It also has a whole host of other options, so you can have granular control over your Finder experience, if you’re into that kind of thing. $18 and worth every penny.

OS X Yosemite Uploads Local Data to Apple without Users’ Consent (Or Does It?)

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by jmatthewturner in Yosemite

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Tags

Apple, geekery, osx, privacy, yosemite

OS X Yosemite

OS X Yosemite

Security guru Bruce Schneier points out an article detailing a new “feature” of Yosemite, wherein as-yet-unsaved text files and email addresses are uploaded to Apple’s servers without users’ knowledge or consent. Check out his summary here, and click through for the full explanation. Commenters point out that this is disclosed in Apple’s knowledgebase (and I’m sure it’s buried in a TOS somewhere, so “without users’ consent” may be technically inaccurate), and that – essentially – it should be expected behavior for iCloud users. It is an interesting world we live in where the is a legitimate debate over “OMG! I just discovered my personal computer is uploading my private data to a corporate server without my knowledge!!” vs “of course it is, doofus. Didn’t you assume it was? It makes life easier!” I feel a little weird about it, but I think I come down on the latter side. If you have an iCloud account (I’m assuming this only applies to people with iCloud accounts, though I don’t know for sure), then you should assume that your unsaved documents are going there, too, because it DOES make life easier. iCloud gonna iCloud.

OS X Yosemite and Adobe Creative Cloud 2014

19 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by jmatthewturner in Creative Cloud, Editing, Geekery, Mac, Premiere Pro

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Tags

adobe, Adobe Creative Cloud, adobe premiere pro cc, Apple, creative cloud, Creative Cloud applications, osx, yosemite

When Adobe released its 2014 Creative Cloud applications earlier this year, I put off upgrading due to the usual concerns of “I am not your guinea pig.” But with Apple’s release of Yosemite this week, I decided it was time.

OS X Yosemite

OS X Yosemite

I installed Yosemite this morning, and promptly spent an hour on Apple Maps doing 3D flyovers of various cities. (I gather this feature has been available on Mavericks for a while, but since I never use Apple Maps, I only found it when it got added back to my dock.)

After that I had to download and install an update to TotalFinder (my older version was broken on Yosemite, and I simply cannot be without it for a moment). Although the update is listed as beta, it seems fine so far.

I’ll spare you the laundry list of changes (if laundry lists are your thing, check out Apple’s product page and Lifehacker’s Top Ten Hidden Features), but I do like the changes to Spotlight, and why on Earth it took them this long to make the Full Screen button actually make an app go full screen, I’ll never understand.

Adobe Creative Cloud 2014

Adobe Premiere Pro 2014Next I installed Premiere Pro 2014, and opened up a recent project to putz around. I immediately had to download new versions of and reinstall my plugins (and in one case buy an upgrade) to get everything to work properly. But once that was done, smooth sailing.

Of course the previous version of Premiere sits alongside 2014, so I was able to go back into my old project when I needed to gather some details to recreate one of those upgraded plugin effects.

All told, it has so far been relatively painless. I did have one crash the first time I opened Premiere, but I’ve closed and reopened it many times since then and it hasn’t repeated. (I suspect it was related to one of the outdated plugins sitting in the timeline.) Editing the project to recreate the various plugin effects exposed no problems, and an export through Media Encoder 2014 worked perfectly.

In sum, this Late 2013 iMac seems to be running both Yosemite and Premiere 2014 without a hitch. I’ll install the rest of CC 2014 in the coming days and update this post; I’ll do the same upgrades on my Mid 2009 MBP soon and post those results separately.

Recent Posts

  • Premiere Pro’s Project Manager Can’t Handle Double-Nests
  • Encrypt Your Dropbox Files with VeraCrypt
  • Mortal Kombat and Enter the Dragon Are the Same Movie
  • 16×9 Linux VMs Inside VirtualBox
  • Adobe Releases Creative Cloud 2015

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