Interesting and useful information for the computer geek inside us all. If you like reading about Apple Computers or Microsoft and their software then this is the Blog for you! I also cover Green Tech and Digital Photography as well as FOREX & Futures trading. In addition you will find Travel topics are covered here as well.
Computerworld - A security researcher known for finding Java bugs has uncovered a new critical zero-day vulnerability in all currently-supported versions of the popular Oracle software.
Windows PCs and Macs are equally at risk if their users have installed Java, or in the case of OS X, are running 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, or earlier. Snow Leopard was the last edition where Apple bundled Java with the operating system.
All currently-support versions of Java, including Java 5, Java 6 and Java 7, contain the bug.
PC vs. Mac deathmatch: Snow Leopard beats Windows 7
"Windows 7 was built to fix the problems that plagued Vista, and it unquestionably succeeds in doing that. It's a bit less bloated, and it runs a bit faster. The annoying security alerts from User Account Control have been quieted. And the compatibility issues with third-party software and hardware device drivers have largely been ironed away; after all, it's been two and a half years since Vista debuted. Windows 7 even includes a virtual "XP mode" for running legacy programs.
Windows 7 goes a few steps beyond merely repairing Vista. It borrows --and improves on -- tricks from the Mac's playbook to make it easier and faster to organize files and launch programs. Like Apple's operating system, Windows 7 not only looks good, but it has tools and shortcuts that help you work more efficiently. If there were ever a Windows that could challenge Mac OS X, Windows 7 is it.
Still, once you've had Mac, can you ever go back?"
Here's the pitch: a 10-inch, almost-pocketable computer running Snow Leopard, the latest, greatest version of OS X. It costs just $300. Sound good? Here's how to make your own.
Last time we threw together a guide like this, things were different. Snow Leopardwas but a glint in Steve Jobs' eye, and in terms of hardware, the Mini 9 was the best thing going—it was pretty much the only netbook you could guarantee would work perfectly. Not to mention the hackintosh process was much, much more complicated. And riskier! And yet, despite all this, it was easy to recommend loading a Mini up with OS X, because to put it bluntly, the results were fantastic.
But the Mini 9 was a bit too small for regular use, and even if it's still pretty easy to buy one, it's not officially part of Dell's product line anymore. Fast forward to now: the Mini 10v is a (quite similar) replacement for the 9, with a slightly larger screen, 160GB HDD standard, and 1GB or RAM. Most importantly, the keyboard is a bit larger, and the price is wonderfully low: $300 for a netbook that's completely ready for hackintoshing. Or to put it another way, the 10v is a $300 Apple netbook.
"Every time Apple brings out a new version of OS X, we compile a list of our favourite Terminal commands for enabling hidden features and changing hidden settings (here are the lists for Tigerand Leopard).
For those who are new to Terminal Commands, here's a quick run down of how to use them. Don't worry, it's really easy. Start by opening up Terminal, located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder. In the window that appears, paste in one of the lines provided below, and then hit return. For the changes to take effect, you need to restart the application concerned. For applications like the Dock or Finder, it is easiest to just type killall Dock or killall Finder into the Terminal to restart them. To reverse the changes, you just need to change the last word of the command and run it again. If the last word is YES, change it to NO, change 1 to 0, and change TRUE to FALSE and vice versa for all."
"In time-based tests, Snow Leopard consistently outdid Windows 7. It took only 36.4 seconds to boot up, while Windows took 42.7 seconds. In a shutdown test, Snow Leopard took only 6.6 seconds, while Windows needed twice the amount of time: 12.6 seconds."
A "critical flaw has been found in Snow Leopard. Reportedly, Snow Leopard users have been making the unpleasant discovery that logging into a guest account and then logging out can delete user information on all accounts. Apple computers store user info such as pictures, documents, and downloads in a common location, much like Windows "My Documents".
Describes user "parshallnet" to Apple, "When I logged into my MacBook Pro this morning, it was as if I had logged into my Guest Account and not my standard user profile. No icons on the desktop, the desktop wallpaper was the default 'space' photo and not the one I had assigned, no documents in the docs folder, apps behaved as if I'd never opened them before.”
Users of the new Apple operating system Snow Leopard are experiencing massive data losses when logging into their machines under a guest account.
The problem appears to affect those who had a guest account enabled before upgrading to Snow Leopard.
The problem appears to affect those who had a guest account enabled before upgrading to Snow Leopard.
Users have in some cases lost their entire main profile, including sites, pictures, videos and documents.
The problem, reported by more than 100 users on discussion forums, surfaced shortly after the OS's August release.
Indications are that the Snow Leopard bug simply treats the principal account like a guest account - meaning that the account profile is wiped clean when logging out.
Users who first log into a guest account and then into their normal account have found it to be completely reset to factory default settings, with none of their personal data or files visible.
Fanboi complaints of a mystery data-munching Mac OS bug began well before the arrival of Snow Leopard, Apple's latest desktop operating system. Similar tales of woe date back to at least November of 2007, when Jobsian cultists were still using the previous Mac OS version, just plain Leopard.
"Nooooo!!! This morning I had access to Guest Account and than all my data were lost!!!" wrote one user over the weekend. "I had 250GB of data without backup and I lost everything: years and years of documents, pictures, video, music!!! Is it possible to recover something? Please help me!!!!"
But it appears the same bug predates Snow Leopard (aka Mac OS X 10.6). Sebastian Mondial, a Hamburg-based journalist with the German News Service, reported what would appear to be an identical problem with a postto the Apple support forum on November 13, 2007. Mondial was hit after a clean install of just plain Leopard (version 10.5.1).
Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard has landed. This time around, Apple goes light on the glitz in favor of some heavy work under the hood. John Siracusa dives deep into Apple's new OS offering to see what's new, what's still the same, and whether it's worth upgrading.
In June of 2004, during the WWDC keynote address, Steve Jobs revealedMac OS X 10.4 Tiger to developers and the public for the first time. When the finished product arrived in April of 2005, Tiger was the biggest, most important, most feature-packed release in the history of Mac OS X by a wide margin. Apple's marketing campaign reflected this, touting "over 150 new features."
All those new features took time. Since its introduction in 2001, there had been at least one major release of Mac OS X each year. Tiger took over a year and a half to arrive. At the time, it definitely seemed worth the wait. Tiger was a hit with users and developers. Apple took the lesson to heart and quickly set expectations for the next major release of Mac OS X,Leopard. Through various channels, Apple communicated its intention to move from a 12-month to an 18-month release cycle for Mac OS X. Leopard was officially scheduled for "spring 2007."
As the date approached, Apple's marketing machine trod a predictable path.
Apple even went so far as to list all 300 new features on its website. As it turns out, "spring" was a bit optimistic. Leopard actually shipped at the end of October 2007, nearly two and a half years after Tiger. Did Leopard really have twice as many new features as Tiger? That's debatable. What's certain is that Leopard included a solid crop of new features and technologies, many of which we now take for granted. (For example, have you had a discussion with a potential Mac user since the release of Leopard without mentioning Time Machine? I certainly haven't.)
Mac OS X appeared to be maturing. The progression was clear: longer release cycles, more features. What would Mac OS X 10.6 be like? Would it arrive three and a half years after Leopard? Would it and include 500 new features? A thousand?
At WWDC 2008, Bertrand Serlet announced a move that he described as "unprecedented" in the PC industry.
That's right, the next major release of Mac OS X would have no new features. The product name reflected this: "Snow Leopard." Mac OS X 10.6 would merely be a variant of Leopard. Better, faster, more refined, more... uh... snowy.
This was a risky strategy for Apple. After the rapid-fire updates of 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3 followed by the riot of new features and APIs in 10.4 and 10.5, could Apple really get away with calling a "time out?" I imagine Bertrand was really sweating this announcement up on the stage at WWDC in front of a live audience of Mac developers. Their reaction? Spontaneous applause. There were even a few hoots and whistles.
Many of these same developers applauded the "150+ new features" in Tiger and the "300 new features" in Leopard at past WWDCs. Now they were applauding zero new features for Snow Leopard? What explains this?
It probably helps to know that the "0 New Features" slide came at the end of an hour-long presentation detailing the major new APIs and technologies in Snow Leopard. It was also quickly followed by a back-pedaling ("well, there is one new feature...") slide describing the addition of Microsoft Exchange support. In isolation, "no new features" may seem to imply stagnation. In context, however, it served as a developer-friendly affirmation.
The overall message from Apple to developers was something like this: "We're adding a ton of new things to Mac OS X that will help you write better applications and make your existing code run faster, and we're going to make sure that all this new stuff is rock-solid and as bug-free as possible. We're not going to overextend ourselves adding a raft of new customer-facing, marketing-friendly features. Instead, we're going to concentrate 100% on the things that affect you, the developers."
"Another week, another lax Mac OS X security FUD emanating from the usual quarters, making the risible claim Apple’s platform is inherently less secure than Windows.
Story goes like this: The hacker who successfully broke into a Mac at a hacker’s conference some time ago has tested Snow Leopard against WIndows 7, and accuses the Mac OS as being “less secure” than Microsoft’s Vista upgrade.
Charlie Miller is one of the team from Independent Security Evaluators who successfully "pwned and owned" an Apple MacBook Air, in a hacking contest sponsored by TippingPoint's Zero Day Initiative."
"He conveniently forgets all of the other security features in Snow Leopard. Why doesn't he touch on: - stack frame protection - code injection protection - automatic replacement of common C functions (e.g. srtcpy) with hardened versions - heap consistency checks - the reduction in setuid executables His opinion on ASLR is valid, but extrapolating that to the overall security of the OS is garbage."
The Mac community was buzzing in late November when the director of Apple’s Unix group showed a slide at the LISA (Large System Adminstration) conference that predicted that the Snow Leopard version of Mac OS X would ship in the first quarter of 2009. In presentation they offered some interesting bits of their own.
December 10, 2008 (Computerworld) Apple Inc. hasn't done much talking about Snow Leopard, the next-generation update to Mac OS X that's due to be released in 2009 (possibly within the first quarter of the year). But in what came as a surprise to many, the company has said that the new operating system will contain a limited number of new features.
Instead of going the route of Leopard, which added more than 300 new features, Snow Leopard is designed to focus on the underpinnings of the operating system. The result, according to Apple, will be an operating system that takes greater advantage of multicore processors, is able to leverage the often-untapped power of graphics processing hardware for general computing operations and extends 64-bit architecture compatibility -- all of which will deliver much higher performance over Leopard. You can get lean and fast computing with your current version of Mac OS X. Here's how...
Apple has reportedly set an industry record by moving its OpenCL parallel computing standard from its beginnings to imminent approval in 6 months, paving the way for inclusion in Mac OS X Snow Leopard.The operating system will use technology to accelerate general-purpose tasks using both individual processor cores, video chipsets inside its system.
For Intel, the prospect of seeing OpenCL already in a shipping operating system for 2009 has been a strong lure. Employees have "divorced [their] families" and worked extreme levels of overtime to complete a draft that many said would be "impossible," according to the chipmaker's Tim Mattson. read more | digg story
Build notes leaked on the web of a prerelease version of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard indicate that the software only supports enabling its new 64-bit kernel on certain machines, including the Xserve, Mac Pro, and MacBook Pro, but this does not mean Snow Leopard's kernel will be limited to 32-bit operation on consumer machines.
A 64-bit kernel requires all of its extensions to also be 64-bit. Kernel extensions or KEXTs include drivers for audio hardware, graphics adapters, networking, certain printing components, and other devices on the logic board or attached as peripherals. Until Apple delivers 64-bit versions of the nearly 300 extensions it ships with Mac OS X (not all of which will need to be supported on 64-bit Macs; many are legacy), it is limiting official 64-bit kernel support to a subset of Macs in prerelease builds of the new operating system.
Snow Leopard will deliver the first 64-bit kernel for Mac OS X. Earlier versions of the operating system, including today's Leopard, can run 64-bit software but do so using a 32-bit kernel. More accurately, whether running on 32 and 64-bit CPUs, Mac OS X loads the same kernel image and run it as a 32-bit process, although when run on 64-bit hardware, the 32-bit kernel switches into "long mode compatibility mode."
The iPhone3G will first be released in the 22 largest markets: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the US. The remaining 48 countries listed after the break will get theirs "later this year." In total so far the iPhone country count stands at 74.
Even though Russia and (all of) China are not on the list then if you check the iPhone tech specs you will see that their languages are now listed as supported. Apple is also replacing .Mac with MoblieMe. Apple also announced Snow Leopard (are they running low on cats yet?) at the WWDCkeynote (podcast) and this release of 10.6 will offer Exchange support and will focus on improving performance. How will they do this? Well 10.6 will be 64bit for INTEL processors and they will make all of OS X multi processor aware to take full advantage of all cores. Not only will Grand Central boost speed but they will also introduce OpenCL and this will tap hidden additional resources. Yes while Microsoft is letting you upgrade from Vista to XP, Apple is really pulling out all the stops to make OS X powerhouse. While it did not make a big splash Apple is also showing off Snow Leopard Server at WWDC.
Ars has learned some more details about Mac OS X 10.6. The release is code named "Snow Leopard" and will indeed be Intel-only, but there are a few other details attached to this tidbit as well. "People familiar with the situation have confirmed to us that TUAW's details are true—Snow Leopard is currently on track to come out during next January's Macworld, and it will not contain major OS changes. Instead, the release is heavily focused on performance and nailing down speed and stability. With Apple's current (and future) focus on smaller, thinner, and more mobile devices, this move makes perfect sense. Things like the MacBook Air, iPhone, iPod touch, and other mysterious devices that have yet to be announced need better performance for better battery life, and that's definitely something Apple wants to excel at in the years to come. Our sources did not note whether Apple planned to discuss Snow Leopard at this year's WWDC."
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