Macs

Sometimes a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. It gives someone the ability to make a bogus assertion about something while sounding somewhat authoritative. Even worse, it makes laypeople think the entirely wrong thing about a subject that has lots of subtlety. The nightly news does this every night, breaking complex issues down into sound bites. The technology news is no better, saying things that are outright wrong in order to break it down for their readership. An example of this was the reporting on the latest G5 model, a single 1.8 GHz tower. Macworld reported that this model has a 32-bit bus instead of 64-bit like its brethren. ...

Apple has released a security update for both Panther and Jaguar. You can get it at the download section of their site or by using Software Update. It weighed in at 12.7 MB coming in through mine. As always, Maccentral has an excellent writeup.

It’s amazing what some people will do for their iCrack. Ever since Apple announced the availability of the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) in Canada, those crazy canucks have been going crazy waiting for it. In fact, they’ve been protesting as Bush came to town. While the mainstream media has been widely reporting that this is due to policy concerning Iraq, this is entirely wrong. Such immature angst could not be explained by anything but concerns about the iTMS being available late. It even looked like it would be late, but everyone’s favorite computer company made sure that the delay was minimal, delivering on its promise last night, a mere day late. ...

From a Keyspan Press Release for its Keyspan Express Remote: Keyspan, America’s number 1 brand of USB connectivity products, announced that its new USB infrared remote control includes support for Apple’s groundbreaking Airport Express. I don’t have an Airport Express, but nonetheless, this sounds compelling. Perhaps the most heavily wanted feature as part of the Airport Express and Airtunes was the inclusion of a remote (and apparently being able to walk around with your laptop doesn’t count). I still maintain that Apple didn’t do this because it would destroy the absolute simplicity of the current design and require expensive modifications to it. ...

Apple released Mac OS X 10.3.6 just a little while ago. Fire up Software Update or visit the technote page for the update, which includes links to Combo and Delta updaters. Below are the enhancements listed by Apple. Internet and .Mac Resovles an issue in which Safari might not load webpages correctly when the hard drive name included a non-ASCII character such as a symbol, diacritical, or two-byte character. Safari no longer times out after 60 seconds when attempting to connect to a webpage or to submit form data. With this update, Safari will keep trying indefinitely (or until you cancel the attempt). With this update, a synchronized iDisk correctly resizes .Mac storage after its allocation changes. Addresses a kernel panic issue that could occur when using an external, wireless USB broadband modem with Mac OS X 10.3.5. Networking Improves AFP service performance. Addresses a situation in which a file name change that occured on a server while a client was running Terminal resulted in the client Terminal’s failure to recognize the change. Addresses an issue that could prevent login via a network user account. Resolves an issue for Mac OS X 10.3.5 in which, sometimes, network-based applications could not open an application from an automounted AFP volume, such as /Network/Applications/. SMB/CIFS servers in /Network no longer suddenly disappear and reappear after the network changes. Applications Addresses an issue that could occur when using some scholastic information management applications with Mac OS X 10.3.5; this alert could appear: “Another module has ‘locked’ the MS Tx file. You will gain access when their task is completed.” Addresses an issue in which “zooming” in Halo 1.0.5 could lead to blurry video when using certain Nvidia video cards. Many calculating and conversion features within Calculator are improved by this update. Addresses an issue in which TextEdit could unexpectedly quit when changing text from Euphermia regular to italic. Addresses an issue for Mac OS X 10.3.5 in which Final Cut Pro HD 4.5 could unexpectedly quit. Other Improves ColorSync calibrating for Apple Cinema HD Display (23-inch DVI) displays. Resolves an issue in which the display could sometimes remain dark when waking from display sleep (the mouse pointer might appear, but normal function could not be restored) if using Screen Saver password on a portable computer. Adds WMC connectivity capability for Nokia 7610 phones. Addresses an issue for Mac OS X 10.3.5 in which some glyph fonts, certain “Expert” or “dingbat” fonts, would no longer appear in some applications. Resolves a situation in which incorrect characters could show up for some fonts. Addresses some issues that could cause Classic to unexpectedly quit when starting up. This update makes it easier to scroll through a long list of user names in the login window. Includes recent Security Updates.

The most significant Mac news lately was the discovery of the Opener malware. Antivirus makers scrambled to protect against this “virus” which as I said, isn’t really a virus. It’s malware showing what one can do once they’ve compromised a machine. I was reading the Cult of Mac Blog and they had an entry about a novel idea. Use NetNewsWire‘s new ability to read scripts as feeds to make a feed that will notify you upon new items being added to the /System/Library/Startup Items folder. ...

After days of reporting about this story, I’m still rather disappointed by the coverage. Most writers have been pouring out pages of worthless hyperbole. Of most note and worthy of the most criticism are Cnet with Mac users face rare threat and ZDnet with Destructive OS X malware spies on Apple users. Leave sensationalism to the tabloids, boys. Let’s get down to what Opener, or as Sophos calls it, SH/Renepo-A, is. First notice that Sophos reversed its name. Clever. Anyway, as linked to from the MacInTouch article, the script itself can be viewed at the Macintosh Underground Forum. The current latest version known is 2.3.8. Let’s lay out exactly what it does: ...

To be honest, I don’t use Shapeshifter, but I figure some of you might might be interested in a theme system for OS X. Especially recent converts, like you Katie (I did it again). Unsanity does some great work with their haxies, despite what anyone says. I’m a big fan of FruitMenu personally. The reason I mainly bring it up is that the image in a recent blog entry changes (you have to force the image to reload by holding shift and clicking the reload button). So far it just changes color, but who knows what tomorrow will bring! Besides, maybe the new 2.0 version will have features that will draw me in.

In a recent story at Macminute Jef Raskin pans Mac OS X: Unfortunately, the Mac is now a mess. It seems that Jef is now suffering from crotchity-old-man syndrome. The Guardian article is full of vague criticisms of both the current state of the Mac and computers in general. There has been immense progress, primarily in the richness of applications. But all this power is lost on many people, and impedes the utility of it for the rest, because of the unnecessary complexity of using computers. The quest for CPU power has been largely defeated by bloated software in applications and operating systems. Some programs I wrote in Basic on an Apple II ran faster than when written in a modern language on a G4 Dual-processor Mac with hardware 1,000 times sharper. ...

A nasty little script has appeared on someone’s machine. I suggest reading the entire page about it, though some sections are a little more technical than others. This script does not exploit a known security hole in OS X. Rather, it does things that are all possible as an administrator and should be taken more as a warning about being careful about what you download and install. Not downloading software from services like LimeWire would be a good start. This is essentially a Trojan horse attack (like the Microsoft Office Installer Trojan). However, it’s more insidious in that its effects are not immediately visible, opting instead to facilitate things like allowing remote control and indentity theft. ...