Morning Inspiration with Pastor Merritt
If there is anything this post-modern culture that we live in is sure about, it is that we cannot be absolutely sure of anything. We can believe in many things. We can be passionate about a lot of things, but nothing can be known absolutely, especially in the area of spirituality and morality.
I discovered this quote by Gandhi that serves to emphasize the almost universal uncertainty associated with religious belief of any kind. When he was asked why he tried to persuade people of his political beliefs, but not his religious beliefs, he said this: "In the realm of the political and social and economic, we can be sufficiently certain to convert; but in the realm of religion there is not sufficient certainty to convert anybody and therefore, there can be no conversions in religions."
The post-modern view of God—that is if there is a God—is that nothing certain can be known about God and certainly we cannot know Him personally. Let me make a concession here... If the Bible is not God's word, and if God has not spoken to us and revealed Himself through His word, then the post-modernist is absolutely right.
But the idea that we cannot know God is simply not true. The Bible says in Jeremiah 9:23-24: "This is what the LORD says: 'Let not the wise man gloat in his wisdom or the mighty man and his might, or the rich man and his riches. Let them boast in this alone: that they truly know Me and understand that I am the LORD… I, the LORD, have spoken!'"
God not only says that we can know Him, but also that we can brag about it! Now if the biblical worldview is true, then we can know God personally. We can know God eternally and we can know that we know God now and forever. I find it incredible that God not only says that we can know Him, but that we can indeed boast about it!
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
The Last Days
The Last Days
The Last Days
by Sarah Phillips, Crosswalk.com Contributor
by Sarah Phillips, Crosswalk.com Contributor
"And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." Luke 21:25
Most of us don't love to wait. We want to get on with things. Tie things up neatly so we can move on to the next thing. We often forget that in some cases, the opportunity to wait is an expression of God's mercy.
You see, this Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. It came quickly this year. I was so busy preparing for Thanksgiving, I almost forgot about Advent. Thankfully, our reliable pastor will be decked out in purple this Sunday, scripture readings and hymns ready to go.
Advent isn't really an event so much as a season set aside to wait for an event. We can choose how we want to practice Advent. We can see it as a burden, an afterthought, or a hindrance. Or we can see its greater application to all of life. We can recognize it for what it is: a reminder to stop, clear away some of the normal "stuff" of life, and remember that throughout our life here we are waiting for something big, something that needs our attention and preparation: The second coming of Christ.
Many times I've heard fellow Christians express the desire for the day to just get here already. Can't we just end the wars and suffering… the waiting… and get on with Christ's return? Many pick apart the Scriptures, looking for details, for signs, that Christ is coming soon. Groups form and debates rage about the finer details of the end times.
While I am sure God appreciates our interest in and desire for his arrival, I am not so sure we really know what we're asking for when we say we wish he would hurry up and appear.
Think about it. Are we really ready? Is the world really ready? If you had to stand before Christ tomorrow, would you be ready? I don't mean "ready" as having correctly predicted the dramatic events that would unfold during the end times. I mean would your life reflect service to him? Love of him? Submission to him?
Mine wouldn't. At least not to the extent that it should. I'd like a few days, or um decades, to straighten things out. And to the best of my humble abilities, help a few more of those living in the dark find the light.
Suddenly, waiting doesn't seem too bad. God's plan to give me and the rest of the world a little more time doused with a lot of his grace doesn't seem so frustrating.
After reading the above dramatic passage from Luke at an Advent Sunday service past, our pastor did not delve into prophecy or speculation about the last days. He backtracked a little, and instead opted to focus on the here and now. He challenged us to avoid the "drowsiness" that comes with our everyday cares and concerns. He challenged us to become disciplined people, Christians whose lives are truly transformed by Christ instead of by the seductive "spirit of the age." He held up examples of fellow Christians who came before us and conquered their own contemporary challenges.
He reminded us that we will each have our own "last day" even if our lives here do not witness the Last Day.
That's what Advent is really about… grace today for whatever may come tomorrow. It's about God's incredible patience and love for children who have much to learn and need plenty of precious time to allow for stumbling along the way. As for the final days, set aside the speculation and leave that to God's perfect timing. He'll know when we're ready.
Intersecting Faith & Life: A disciplined prayer life opens our lives to God's transforming graces. Set aside a little extra time every single week, from now until Christmas, to spend time in prayer.
Further Reading
Waiting for an Answer
What Does God Want While You Wait for an Answer?
What Does God Want While You Wait for an Answer?
By Rick Warren
By Rick Warren
“Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act” (Psalm 37:7a NLT, second edition).
What does God want you to do while you’re waiting on an answer to your prayer?
Psalm 37:7 says, “Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act”(NLT, second edition). God wants you to wait patiently for him to answer your prayer.
Have you noticed that we don’t mind waiting as long as we can grumble while we wait? We don’t mind waiting in the DMV line as long as we can gripe and complain about how lousy and unorganized the government is.
But God says, “Be still.”
Like little 2-year-olds, we get the spiritual wiggles while we’re waiting for God to answer a prayer. We get nervous and restless. We want to jump up and do something. But God says, “Wait patiently. Be still. Watch me act. Don’t get restless, don’t get nervous, and don’t try to take matters into your own hands.”
And, don’t ever make Abraham’s mistake in the Old Testament of trying to be the answer to your own prayer. It will cause all kinds of problems! One day God told Abraham that he was going to make him the father of a great nation. There were only two problems: Abraham was 99 years old, and he was childless. Abraham looked at his own body and said, “No way, José!” And he looked at his wife Sarah, who was infertile, and said, “Double no way! It ain’t gonna happen.”
So Abraham took matters into his own hands and had a baby with his wife’s maid, Hagar. Abraham said, “Here’s my answer to prayer! I’ve got a son at 99. His name is Ishmael.” God said, “No, no. You missed the point. That’s not my answer to prayer. That’s your answer to prayer. I’ve got a miracle boy who’s coming, and Sarah’s going to be the mom. You’re going to name him Isaac.” Isaac means “laughter.” When Sarah was told that she was going to be pregnant, the Bible says she laughed because she didn’t believe God.
But God had the last laugh. Isaac was born, and it started an intense rivalry between him and Ishmael that we’re still paying for today. The tense relationship between Jews and Arabs all began because Abraham tried to answer his own prayer request.
Whenever you try to answer your own prayer, you’re asking for trouble. Instead, wait patiently, and watch God act.
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
How to Use Your Camera's Shooting Mode
Get Out of Auto: How to Use Your Camera’s
Shooting Modes for Better Photos
If you want to get the most out of your DSLR camera, it’s best to learn its different shooting modes, rather than just using full Auto all the time. With all the letters and symbols surrounding the dial (like M, Av, Tv, and P), though, things can get a bit confusing. Here’s a first-timer’s guide to getting out of Auto mode and crafting better photos.
Get to Know Your Camera’s Dial
Let’s start by talking about the most common modes you’ll find on your camera, and how they work. If you aren’t familiar with aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, you’ll probably want to brush up on those terms first–we’ll be using them a lot to understand how these modes work.
Manual Modes: M, Av, Tv, and P
The letters on the dial represent the different manual and “partially manual” modes–these are the ones you’ll really want to familiarize yourself with if you’re serious about photography. They include:
 Manual (M): Manual mode is, as the name implies, gives you full control of the camera. You have to enter the values for aperture, shutter speed and ISO. The camera takes an image with those values, whether or not they’ll result in a good exposure. |
 Aperture Priority (Av or A): In Aperture Priority mode–denoted by either an Av or A, depending on your camera–you set the aperture and ISO. The camera picks the shutter speed automatically. You can use exposure compensation to make the camera underexpose or overexpose the shots you take. |
 Shutter Speed Priority (Tv or S): In Shutter Speed Priority mode, you set the shutter speed and ISO. The camera picks the aperture automatically. Like with Aperture Priority, you can use exposure compensation to underexpose or overexpose the shots. |
 Program (P): You set the ISO and exposure compensation while the camera takes care of shutter speed and aperture. |
Automatic Modes: A+, CA, and Others
The rest of the items on the dial are automatic modes that optimize themselves for specific types of scenes. They can include, but are not limited to:
 Auto (or A+): In full auto mode, the camera does everything for you. Push the shutter and it takes the best picture it can. |
 No Flash: The same as Auto, except the camera won’t use the built-in flash. |
 Creative Auto: A mode found on some Canon cameras that lets you set how blurry you want the background to be. Otherwise, the camera controls everything. |
 Portrait: An automatic mode where the camera prioritizes a wide aperture to get a shallow depth of field. |
 Landscape: An automatic mode where the camera prioritises a narrow aperture to get a deep depth of field. |
 Close Up: Designed for close up objects, the camera sets everything, focuses to the closest distance possible, and won’t fire the flash. |
 Sport: The camera prioritizes a fast shutter speed at the expense of other settings. It will use a higher ISO than Portrait mode. |
 Night Portrait: Designed for low light, the camera will allow longer shutter speeds and higher ISOs at the expense of image quality. |
 Guide: A mode found on some Nikon cameras that walks you through the process of taking a photograph. |
Some cameras will also have other modes as well, although they are not as common. Professional cameras have custom modes where you can save settings you like. You might also find a video mode or HDR mode on the dial of your camera.
If you’re not sure what a symbol means and it isn’t in this list, check your camera’s documentation.
Which Mode Should You Use?
Okay, so now you know what all those letters mean. But which mode should you use, and when? The answer is simpler than you might think.
Most of the Time, Use Aperture Priority Mode
When people first make the jump from automatic, they often go too far. They think they have to use manual mode all the time. They think if they’re not dialing in the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO for each shot, it doesn’t count.
But here’s a little secret: professional photographers don’t normally use manual. They use Aperture Priority mode (Av or A on the dial).
Unless you’re shooting a moving object, shutter speeds from about 1/100th of a second to 1/8000th of a second look almost identical. The thing that really determines what your photos look like is the aperture. That’s the main difference between a shallow depth of field portrait and a sweeping landscape with everything in focus. Why worry over something that doesn’t matter?
Turn the dial to A or Av (depending on your model), set the aperture you want to use, and play around. Although you don’t directly decide on the shutter speed, you still control it with exposure compensation.
When you take an image, your camera makes a best guess at the exposure. In Aperture Priority, it’s just going to pick a shutter speed it thinks should work (and 90% of the time it’ll be really close). If you want to use a slightly faster shutter speed, dial the exposure compensation back a little bit. This will make your image a bit darker. If your camera is underexposing the shot, dial the exposure compensation up a touch; you’ll get a brighter image and a slower shutter speed.
In Aperture Priority mode, you don’t just control the aperture; you also control the ISO. In general, you should shoot with the lowest ISO you can, however, you can increase it when you need to get a faster shutter speed without changing your aperture. We’ll look at selecting values for all the settings in a bit.
There’s a reason professional photographers normally shoot in Aperture Priority. You get most of the control of manual mode without the hassle and the chance of messing up. If you enter the wrong shutter speed in manual mode, you’ll come away with images that are unusable.
When to Go Full Manual
Although it’s normally not necessary, manual mode does have its uses. In general, you should use it:
- When want consistency between shots. The main reason to use manual mode is for consistency. If you’re shooting in a situation that isn’t going to change much—say, an indoor concert—and you want to make your post processing as easy as possible, use manual mode.
- When all the settings matter. For some photographs, all the settings actually matter. If you’re shooting long exposure photographs, high dynamic range images, or composites, you’ll want to manually enter everything.
- When you’re shooting on a tripod. If you’ve gone to the effort of setting up a tripod and carefully composing your shot, you might as well spend the extra ten seconds to dial in a shutter speed too.
Of course, you can feel free to use manual whenever you want–but most of the time, Aperture Priority is going to be much simpler and just as good.
Why Not Shutter Speed Priority?
“But wait,” I can hear you saying. “What about that Shutter Speed Priority mode you mentioned?” It works the same way as aperture priority, except that your camera controls the aperture and you control the shutter speed and ISO.
I’ve skipped it because…well, it’s just not that useful in most situations. There isn’t that much difference between fast shutter speeds and if you’re using a slow shutter speed, manual is usually better than Shutter Speed Priority.
Makes things easy, doesn’t it?
What Aperture, Shutter, and ISO Values Should You Use?
Now that you’ve started to actually take control of your camera, what values should you use for those different settings? Let’s take a look.
Aperture
Aperture is the most important setting to control. More than shutter speed or ISO, it determines how the majority of your images are going to look. You’ve got a lot of freedom when picking an aperture. Any value can work well, it just depends what you want.
If you want a blurry background or a fast shutter speed, the wider the aperture, the better. Somewhere between f/1.8 and f/5.6 (depending on what your lens allows) is perfect. This will give you a nice out of focus background and the fastest shutter speed possible.
If you’re looking for an image that’s pretty much in focus everywhere without sacrificing too much shutter speed, pick something between f/8 and f/16. The wider apertures in this range will have slightly shallower depths of field but faster shutter speeds, and the narrower apertures will have more depth of field but slower shutter speeds.
If you want absolutely everything in focus or a really slow shutter speed, you can use an aperture narrower than f/16. The only thing to be careful with is that most lenses aren’t at their best at their extreme apertures, so you might start to see some weird effects once you hit f/22.
Shutter Speed
Shutter speed isn’t normally as critical as aperture, but it still plays an important role in how your images will turn out.
Any shutter speed faster than 1/1000th of a second is going to freeze motion. If you want to see sweat fly off a soccer player as they kick the ball or capture a sharp shot of a skier backflipping, shoot with a shutter speed in the thousandths of a second.
Between about 1/100th of a second and 1/1000th of a second, you won’t get the same motion freezing. If you shoot something moving at 60 miles per hour with a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second, it’s going to move five centimeters during the shot. That’s enough for motion blur. Instead, this range is perfect for shooting slow moving objects (think people or pets) with a handheld camera. Nothing is moving quick enough to cause problems. Most of the portraits I take fall in this range.
From 1/100th of a second up to about 1/10th of a second is kind of a dead zone. You can just about get away with handholding a camera if you have to, but the images won’t be as clear. Slow moving objects will blur, but not enough to look good. You might shoot some landscapes or night shots with these shutter speeds, but they’re generally worth avoiding.
Anything from 1/10th of a second to 30 seconds is tripod time. You won’t be able to hold the camera in your hand without serious issues. This is where you start getting into long exposure photography and deliberate motion blur. You can shoot nice pictures at night. Photos of water and clouds take on a serene look as all the individual ripples run into each other. Lots of stunning photos are taken with these slow shutter speeds.
With shutter speeds slower than 30 seconds, you get into extreme long exposure photography. Moving objects don’t even appear in your images. You can shoot a street scene and everyone is reduced to a swirling mass of color.
ISO
ISO is kind of strange because for the most part, it matters very little…until all of a sudden it ruins your photos. As I mentioned above, you want to use the lowest ISO possible.
On a modern DSLR, photos taken with an ISO of between 100 and 400 will be pretty much indistinguishable. There’ll be no almost noise in the photos. Although 100 is better, anything in this range will give you great photos.
Between 400 and 1600, you’ll still get good photos, but you will start to see some noise. Newer (and higher end) cameras will keep reasonably clean photos up to about 1600; they just won’t look as good as photos shot with lower ISOs.
From 1600 to 3200 (around 6400 on a professional camera) you get photos that are still technically usable, but will have very visible noise. It probably won’t ruin the photos, but you want to avoid using ISOs this high unless you really can’t avoid it. Below is a cropped close up of my face at ISO 6400 from a 5DIII.
Above that, it’s a free for all. Your photos will have really visible noise, to the point that it’ll start to obscure details. The only time to use an ISO this high is when capturing any photo is more important than getting a good one.
And that’s all you need to know to get started. Taking manual control of you camera is surprisingly simple. Once you understand what aperture, shutter speed, and ISO are, and how to control them with Aperture Priority mode, you can start to get creative with your photos.
Last Active Window
How to Make Your Taskbar Buttons Always Switch to the Last Active Window
Since Windows 7, apps with multiple open windows are combined into a single taskbar button. Hovering over the button gives you a live thumbnail of every window and you can then click the window you want to work with.
If you’re routinely switching between apps with open windows, that can get a little cumbersome. You can hold the Ctrl key down while clicking a taskbar button to view the last active window—and then keep clicking with Ctrl held to cycle through each of that app’s open windows—but that often just lets you view the window instead of making it active. If you’re willing to make a mild Registry edit, you make it so that clicking a taskbar button always opens the last active window—no Ctrl key needed.
Make Taskbar Buttons Open the Last Active Window by Editing the Registry Manually
To make clicking taskbar buttons open the last active window, you just need to make an adjustment to one setting in the Windows Registry. This works on PCs running Windows 7, 8, or 10.Standard warning: Registry Editor is a powerful tool and misusing it can render your system unstable or even inoperable. This is a pretty simple hack and as long as you stick to the instructions, you shouldn’t have any problems. That said, if you’ve never worked with it before, consider reading about how to use the Registry Editor before you get started. And definitely back up the Registry (and your computer!) before making changes.
Open the Registry Editor by hitting Start and typing “regedit.” Press Enter to open Registry Editor and give it permission to make changes to your PC.
In the Registry Editor, use the left sidebar to navigate to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Next you’re going to create a new value inside the Advanced key. Right-click the Advanced key and choose New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name the new value “LastActiveClick.”
Double-click the new LastActiveClick value to open its properties window. Change the value from 0 to 1 in the “Value data” box and then click “OK.”
You can now exit Registry Editor. You’ll need to sign out and back in (or restart your PC) for the changes to take place. You can test it by just popping open any app and opening several windows. Make a window from a different app active and then click the original app’s taskbar button. It should open the last window you worked on in that app. To reverse the changes, just head back into the Registry and either change the LastActiveClick value back to 0—or delete the value entirely—and then sign out and back into Windows.
Download Our One-Click Registry Hacks
If you don’t feel like diving into the Registry yourself, we’ve created some a couple of registry hacks you can use. The “Enable Last Active Click” hack creates the LastActiveClick value and sets it to 1. The “Disable Last Active Click (Default)” hack removes the value from your Registry, restoring the default behavior. Both hacks are included in the following ZIP file. Double-click the one you want to use and click through the prompts. When you’ve applied the hack you want, sign out and back into Windows or restart your computer.
Taskbar Last Active Click Hacks
These hacks are really just the Advanced key, stripped down to the LastActiveClick value we talked about in the previous section, and then exported to a .REG file. And if you enjoy fiddling with the Registry, it’s worth taking the time to learn how to make your own Registry hacks.
Secure Your Amazon Account
How to Secure Your Amazon Account
If you’re like me (and nearly everyone I know), you do a lot of shopping on Amazon. Buying gifts? Amazon. Household items? Amazon. Electronics? Amazon. But because it’s so encompassing, it’s also something you’re going to want to take extra care to secure.
Odds are you have at least one credit card, your home address, and phone number stored on your Amazon account, which could be very bad should that account fall into the wrong hands. Fortunately, there are a few things you can—and should!—do in order to make sure your Amazon data is as safe as it can be.
Choose a Strong Password
At the same time, most passwords that are secure are also very hard to remember. My answer to that is twofold: use a password generator and manager. I personally use LastPass, but the majority of the options out there will not only store your passwords (so you only have to remember one), but also offer a password generator. This is going to be a random jumble of letters and numbers, making it nearly impossible to guess or crack. And since the password is then stored in the password manager, you don’t have to remember it—I probably haven’t even seen half of my passwords!
If you’re using a weak password, now’s the time to change it. From the Amazon home page in your browser, hover over the “Accounts & Lists” box in the upper right. In the drop down menu, select “Your Account.”
In the “Settings” section (the third section from the top), select “Login & Security Settings.” You’ll be asked to input your current password here.
From here, just click the “Edit” button in the “Password” field. Get your change on!
Use Two-Step Verification
So, what is two-step verification? Simply put, it’s an additional layer of security that keeps people out of your account. Not only will you need to enter your password to log in, but you’ll need to enter a code that’s sent to your phone. That way, if someone ends up getting your password, they won’t be able to log in to your account—unless they also somehow have your phone. You might receive that code as a text message, or through an authentication app on your phone like Google Authenticator or Authy. You can read more about two-factor authentication, and why it’s so important, here.
To enable two-step verification, jump back into Your Account Settings again (Menu > Your Account > Login & Security Settings), then click the “Edit” button next to “Advanced Security Settings.”
Essentially, the entire “Advanced” section is just setting up two-step verification. Click the “Get Started” button to, um, get started.
The process is largely automated, so just follow the prompts to get everything rolling. You’ll start by entering your phone number and receive the first code.
Once you’ve verified the first code, you’ll need to set a backup method. This can be a text or voice call on a different phone, or an authenticator app. I recommend the latter—just install one of the authenticator apps mentioned earlier and follow the instructions.
Lastly, read the instructions on what to do on devices that won’t work with two-step verification. It’s important!
Once you’re all finished, you can tick the box to skip asking for codes on this device—I only recommend doing so if it’s a desktop, which is much less likely to get stolen than something like a laptop or tablet.
Boom, you’re done. If you haven’t enabled this feature on your other accounts—like your email, bank, and other sites—you really should.
Disable 1-Click Ordering on Mobile Devices
To disable 1-Click Ordering on the mobile app, slide the menu open and choose “Your Account.”
From here, tap on “1-Click Settings.” There’s a simple toggle at the top that will enable/disable it. That’s literally it.
As prolific as Amazon is, there’s no excuse for not properly securing your account. All it takes is one mistake for your account to be compromised, so make sure you’re taking the proper steps to add that additional security. You don’t want to end up in a situation where you regret not doing so!
Don't Be Fooled: Mac App Store
Don’t Be Fooled: The Mac App Store Is Full of Scams
You love technology, but not everyone does. For many people computers are confusing, even scary. Malevolent actors know this, and try to deliberately trick people online. From ads that look like download buttons to ransomware pop-ups, the web is full of deception-based design, intended to take advantage of the less technically inclined.
In theory, this is part of why app stores are useful. Users afraid of being scammed on the open web can browse the Mac App Store with confidence, knowing that Apple’s walled garden will protect them.
Except it won’t.
Let’s Try to Buy Excel Together
The top result is something called “Office Bundle,” and costs $30. You click the result to read more.
Look at that! This is the “easiest way to create high-quality Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations.” That’s exactly what you need! Let’s read a little more.
Reading that block of text, what do you suppose this download offers? Go ahead and guess.
Seriously: guess. I’ll wait.
It’s…templates. A $30, 293MB collection of templates, all of which are useless without Microsoft Office.
It’s possible for a collection of templates to be worth $30, and for all I know these are really great. But let’s review:
- This is the top result if you search for “Microsoft Excel.”
- The word “template” is not in the name of the product.
- The word “template” is not in the product’s description.
- The product’s description outlines several functions that are specific to Microsoft Office, and have nothing to do with what customers will acquire by purchasing a collection of templates.
- It’s literally impossible to find this product by searching for “templates.”
It’s easy to see that users could be deceived by this, and it’s hard to imagine that it’s not intentional on the developer’s part. Whatever the intention here, people were deceived:
Let’s be blunt: these customers were ripped off, and Apple pocketed $10 each. And you’ll only see these comments if you scroll past the two five star reviews that mention the word “app” numerous times. Both of those reviews, by the way, were left by accounts that haven’t reviewed any other apps in the Store.
Search for other Office applications and you’ll find more template bundles, disguised as official applications to varying degrees.
There are also several $20+ applications that put Microsoft’s free online version of Office into a dedicated browser. Then there are the actual “apps” capable of opening and editing Office files, many of which use terms like “Microsoft Word” in their names. They appear to be slightly modified versions of open source applications, but we’re not about to buy them to find out.
All of these fakes use Microsoft brands like Office, Word, and Excel in the product names. The logos aren’t one-to-one copies of Microsoft’s official logos, but they’re almost always the correct color and letter (blue “W” for Word, green “E” for Excel, etcetera).
We’ve talked about why the Mac App Store doesn’t have the applications you want, and the Microsoft Office Suite is among the applications you can’t get there. Maybe you already know this, but tell me: why should the average computer user be expected to? Scammy developers know that they can’t be, and are taking advantage of a hole in the market.
With the exception of OneNote and OneDrive, you cannot buy any official Office app from the Mac App Store. You have to purchase it directly from Microsoft, either for $150 or in the form of a yearly Office 365 subscription. (Alternatively, you can use Apple’s iWork suite, which probably came with your Mac, as well as the web version of Microsoft Office online or a free open source alternative like LibreOffice.)
This might seem obvious to you. It isn’t obvious to everyone, and the existence of the Mac App Store full of imitators serves to make this a lot more complicated. The walled garden isn’t protecting everyone.
These Scummy Apps Are All Over the App Store
Search for “Indesign” and you won’t find Adobe’s publishing tool, but you will find several bundles of tutorial videos with icons that mimic InDesign’s closely.
It’s not as clear that any of these applications are trying to deceive people, but it’s another case where it’s striking how closely these developers are mimicking official branding.
And other developers seem to be working some dark App Store SEO magic. Search for “Firefox” or “Chrome” and the top application is “Fast Browser,” a $1 app that hasn’t been updated since 2014.
Using this as your browser is a very, very bad idea.
And there’s all sorts of weirdness to be found elsewhere:
- Search for “Adblock” and you’ll get a $2 application completely unaffiliated with the browser plugin with the same name.
- Search for any website—Facebook, Gmail, anything—and you’ll find several dozen “apps” that do nothing more than open a browser window with the appropriate website. (Something that you can do for free with many browsers.)
- Over the summer at least one Mac App Store app installed malware onto users’ Macs.
- The App Store is also full of disk cleaners and memory cleaners, which you absolutely do not need.
We could go on. The point is that the App Store, which is supposed to protect users from deception, doesn’t seem to be doing a great job at that. There’s a lot of nonsense offered inside the walled garden.
Apple Needs to Clean Up the Mac App Store
But anyone who browses the Mac App Store regularly knows that this platform needs cleaning out too. Seemingly official applications of dubious value are way to easy to accidentally find by searching. It’s understandable that Apple wants the App Store to appear full, but leaving things seemingly designed to deceive people is hardly an answer.
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