Macs

There have been times that I wanted to remote control someone’s Mac. In particular, a friend of my brother that went to my school used to need the occasional help. VNC was a huge help in those situations. Unfortunately, getting the VNC server configured was a hassle, required third party software, and ended up taking more time than the actual troubleshooting. That’s why I was thrilled to find out that there is now a VNC built into Mac OS X. I know it’s in Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), but I’m not sure about earlier versions. You’ll need to poke holes in your firewall if you’re using a router or a software firewall that isn’t the one built into Mac OS X. ...

All right, so Apple released Mac OS X 10.4.3. There were a huge number of improvements. The most notable of which Safari passing the Acid2 Test (even though this was attainable before the update by using your own custom WebKit), homepage URLs in the Address Book are synchronized, iChat sessions over .Mac names can be encrypted, and Disk Utility can verify the boot volume. We saw a new round of Powerbooks that were pretty unexciting without a processor improvement. The screen resolutions were enhanced and DDR2 was added, but only for the 15″ and 17″ models. The 12″ model was completely passed over. The message is clear, nothing big is coming in the Powerbooks until they go Intel. The Powermacs got a boost with DDR2 RAM (which they can actually utilize). They also got dual core processors which only really benefit the high end model, the only one retaining two processors. However, the clock speed dropped to 2.5 GHz instead of 2.7 GHz processors. They were also outfitted with dual gigabit ethernet ports. AGP and PCI-X were dropped in favor of PCI Express. They also introduced a Quadro FX 4500 (be prepared to mortgage your home). ...

We didn’t see Powerbook, Powermac, and Mac mini revisions like most level headed analysts thought. Macrumors’ Buyer’s Guide still has the bright red “Don’t Buy” description next to the Powerbooks. The typical cycle is 185 days, and we’re now 255 in. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them next revised in January as the first Intel Macs (as they stand to benefit the most, being stuck with maxed out G4s). Instead, the long-awaited video iPod arrived, the iMac got revised (in a rather interesting way), and the eMac has returned to its proper status as an education product. ...

My brother called me today, slightly frantic, but calmed. His iMac G4 wouldn’t start up. Normally, I’d recommend zapping the PRAM, resetting the Open Firmware, things like that. The problem was, he couldn’t do those things. It wouldn’t boot at all. There wasn’t even a chime. The computer was absolutely dead silent. Little did I realize that the flat panel iMacs also had the PMU (Power Management Unit) like my Powermac and Powerbook had. Apple even has instructions. ...

To be fair, I didn’t use NewsGator until this morning when I heard rumors of this move on the NetNewsWire mailing list. I’ve always been a Bloglines fan myself. However, the NNW/Bloglines synchonization left a lot to be desired, mostly due to deficiencies in Bloglines’s API. Now that NewsGator has acquired NetNewsWire, it looks like I may finally get the cross-computer, cross-platform syncing I’ve been craving (much like what IMAP does for my email). It also looks like I’ll get access to FeedDemon, which was also acquired. ...

First, Security Update 2005-08 fixes the so-called Safari Image of Doom. Can we all move on now? Thanks. That’s fixed by: ImageIO CVE-ID: CAN-2005-2747 Available for: Mac OS X v10.4.2, Mac OS X Server v10.4.2 Impact: Viewing a maliciously-crafted GIF image may result in arbitrary code execution. Description: By carefully crafting a corrupt GIF image, an attacker can trigger a buffer overflow in ImageIO which may result in arbitrary code execution. Several components of Mac OS X utilize ImageIO including WebCore and Safari. This update addresses the issue by performing additional validation of images. ...

Apple bumped .Mac’s storage to 1 GB (1024 MB for those wondering if they’d correctly count). They also released Backup 3. I’ve been keeping my email allotment steady at 100 MB, but that’s been feeling a bit constricting, especially when Gmail is now allowing more that 2.5 GB and my web host gives me 5 GB. However, I really like using Apple’s Mail.app (Gmail does have POP, but that’s not adequate because I can’t do server side email management that way) and my web host’s webmail package, SquirrelMail, isn’t all that bad, it’s just not all that good, or at least not as good as .Mac. ...

A more common question on the Macworld Forums is about using a Mac as a wireless base station. I’ve done it several times and at one point, it was a cost saving thing to do. That was back when Airport Base Stations cost $300 and WiFi wasn’t a household name. I freaked out my friends by surfing the net wirelessly. Things are different now. In a pinch, using Internet Sharing to facilitate the use of a Mac as a base station is a good idea. However, using it as a long term solution isn’t. Apple hasn’t really dropped pricing on its base stations much however, causing many Mac users to think that it is a cost effective solution. Really, $129 for an Airport Express is a bit excessive. The Airport Express Base Station has even less value per dollar for consumers at $199. ...

This is standard update fare. Fire up software update or download the updates from Apple (1.3.1 and 2.0.1). Apple’s documentation is pretty light on what’s changed. Safari version 2.0.1/1.3.1 for Mac OS X Tiger/Panther improves website compatibility, application stability and support for 3rd party web applications. It sounds like WebKit might have been updated (perhaps to include Acid test compatibility). It could also be that minor parts of the interface were amended, but I didn’t find any such changes. If you use Saft, you’re going to have to update that too.

Because I’m a cheap bastard, I decided to buy my cable modem instead of rent or buy from Comcast. Review It’s hard to review a cable modem really. Sites like CNet can do group comparisons, but I have neither the cash nor the time to do a full comparison like that. I can use it for a bit to see if I need to reset it and what kinds of speeds I can get. ...