Family Tree Maker 2017 – May 11, Adding More Testers

It’s been just over a week since the last update to the Family Tree Maker 2017 testing, and this afternoon, another update was released: Working with Ancestry we’ve decided it’s time to let a whole lot more test drivers join the first 25,000 who’ve been happily using FTM 2017 for … Read more

Family Tree Maker 2017 for Mac and Windows – Slight Delay

At the end of last month, it was announced that Family Tree Maker 2017 (both Mac and Windows) would possibly be shipping yesterday (March 31st). MacKiev, developers of FTM 2017, announced earlier today that there would be a slight delay. There have been a lot of people who were upset/irritated, … Read more

Who Do You Think You Are Magazine for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch – $0.99 Back Issue Sale

Who Do You Think You Are Who Do You Think You Are Magazine (behind the TV series) is running a huge sale on back issues of the magazine through the iPad/iPhone/iPod touch Newsstand app for $0.99:

Who Do You Think You Are? – Immediate Media Company Limited (iTunes)

Single issues normally sell for £4.99 / €5.49 / $6.99, with normal subscriptions costing £3.99 / €4.99 / $5.99 per month, or with a 1 year subscription, £44.99 / €49.99 / $64.99.

I believe the back issues stretch all the way back to April of 2012, at least going by what I see in Newsstand.

There is a also a free 1 month subscription trial, which includes the latest issue. The app itself is free. This is the same “Who Do You Think You Are” that is behind the popular genealogy series in the US, UK, Canada, and elsewhere.

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Reunion 10.0 Released

Leister Productions, Inc. has released Reunion 10.0, and it’s a huge upgrade over Reunion 9. It’s been just over a year and a half since Reunion 9 was last updated, and the folks behind Reunion have been very busy. I’ve been waiting to see Reunion 10.0, and it definitely delivers a major upgrade over Reunion 9.

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Review: GedScape – GEDCOM Utility for OS X

GedScape came to my attention back when I was writing some articles about GEDCOM files, and the conversion of Unicode/UTF-8 GEDCOMs on Macs. Actually that’s only partly true – I had been aware of it for a while, but I didn’t have the time to fully explore it and get … Read more

Encrypt External Drives with Mac OS X Lion’s FileVault 2

Somebody asked me about whether I encrypt any of my external drives. The answer is yes – Mac OS X 10.7 Lion added the ability with FileVault 2 to encrypt an entire hard drive with XTS-AES 128 encryption (which is about as good as you can get while still making it easy). It’s handy when traveling, especially with the smaller USB/FireWire drives which can sprout legs and disappear. I’m talking about the smaller drives that use the 2.5-inch laptop hard drives. I’ve put together a couple of small FireWire 800 drives using Macally FireWire 800/USB 2.0 Enclosure (PHR-S250UAB) (Amazon is cheaper than dedicated Mac shops for this particular enclosure) and I also have a Western Digital My Passport Studio 1 TB FireWire 800 External Hard Drive (Amazon) that I picked up on sale.

Why FireWire 800?
Although this article is about encrypting external drives, I know somebody might be wondering about my choice of drives. FireWire 800 drives or buying FireWire 800 enclosures is a little pricier than the USB route, but my MacBook Pro supports it as does my iMac, it’s faster than USB, and you can daisy-chain devices, which frees up USB ports. There are also times where I handle a large amount of large files, such as when I’m scanning photos or dealing with home video or interviews, and it’s worth the speed increase. I do not have Thunderbolt interfaces on either of my Macs. Hopefully by the time I feel the need to upgrade, Thunderbolt-based external drives will be cheap and easy to obtain.

So why encrypt your external drives?
Imagine losing an external hard drive or flash drive. If you’re like me, you may be using it as a backup to your Mac(s), at least temporarily, or as supplemental storage. I do make use of Time Machine, however I leave my Time Machine backups in a secure location and don’t carry them with the computer. I use external drives when I’m traveling for manually backing up on the go and storing extra data and information. Those who are on MacBook Air’s with the smaller Solid State Drives (SSDs) are probably using external drives a lot, and although they are using USB or Thunderbolt devices instead of FireWire 800 like me, the information below still applies.

I have financial information, scanned receipts, emails and email attachments, and the other assorted digital things that we all come into contact with in our daily lives. It’s the nature of the “digital world”. In addition to being a Mac user, I’m obviously a genealogist. I end up with a lot of information such as copies of birth certificates, family photos, and other documents that I would not be comfortable having other people access without my permission. Imagine losing a hard drive with some personal information about a family member, and having to tell them that you didn’t take any precautions with that information even though it’s easy to do so? Awkward, very awkward.

The bottom line is that if somebody steals one of your external drives or flash drives, they aren’t going to be able to get the information off the drive if you have FileVault 2 enabled on the drive.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Once you’ve encrypted an external hard drive with File Vault 2, if you lose or forget the password, that data is gone!

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