This is the thread for all you Mac geeks out there... First topic: Jobs's keynote at MWSF and the associated announcements. New PowerBooks - 12" and 17" models Airport Extreme - Apple's implementation of 802.11g Keynote - Presentation software (what...
Quote IBM study shows that its own engineers are hot for Macs By Chris Foresman Published: April 16, 2008 - 01:08PM CT
... to gain more traction in the enterprise. Combined with the ability to run Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows, and their award-winning industrial design, Apple computers are starting to win over IT departments.
The Mac can apparently run Windows, but how do you right-click on a one button mouse ? :dunno:
Well I did a bit of research on some of the Mac forums and it seems that you can overclock your CPU speed up to 867MHz and the install will work. HOWEVER, this is slightly pushing MY level of comfort with technology (I worked in my college's computer lab on WinNT machines and have lots of experience fiddling with BIOS and such, but have never had to work that closely with Macs), and I certainly couldn't walk my brother through it on the phone. I would have to go up there myself (a weekend trip; he's 5 hours away) and fiddle with it, which may be outside the realm of possibility right now.
Tiger is selling on eBay for about 180 right now (way more than the 129 for a new copy of Leopard), so I guess we could do that.. it's just frustrating that we have to pay more for a piece of obsolete software and not have the computer be completely up to date.
My brother is going to call the techs at a Mac servicer near him tomorrow and see what they have to say. Thanks for the help, guys.
Tonight I successfully installed Leopard on my 700Mhz G4. As it turns out, the problems I was having previously arose because I was using an Intel Mac to install it on the G4 using targeted disk mode. The software assumed my G4 was Intel-based and tried to install the OS as if it were an Intel Mac. Tonight, I hooked up an 867Mhz G4 (non-Intel) and installed Leopard via target disk mode and it worked flawlessly.
(CNET) -- Is the world finally ready for the mobile minitablet? It's become quite clear over the last several months that Apple is ready to bridge the mobile computing gap, with plans to develop a device that fits somewhere in between the iPhone and the MacBook.
Apple has developed ideas for mobile computing over the past two years that have resonated with users.
A recent Wall Street Journal article proclaimed that during his medical leave, CEO Steve Jobs has been working on that mid-sized mobile device, bigger than an iPhone but smaller than a MacBook.
And just this week, BusinessWeek reported that Apple is developing a "media pad" that would let users watch videos on a larger screen than an iPod Touch or Amazon Kindle, but on a device that's more portable than notebooks and lacks a keyboard.
The personal computer industry has long tried to make such a device a reality, but apart from some early success for the Kindle, no one has managed to convince the public that the attempts released to date -- such as the Ultra Mobile PC -- are worth buying.
That last paragraph is weird. People are buying teeny tiny eeePC's and other small "netbook" devices all over the place. It's the largest growing laptop market there is. I just picked up a Dell Mini 9 (and hacked OS X on it to boot). Maybe nothing has been as mass-produced successful as the iPhone, but to say that small PC's haven't resonated isn't really accurate. Maybe the super small Windows CE machines haven't done well, but 300-500 dollar netbooks are doing quite nicely.
Should I "Nelson Muntz" the people who waited hours and hours for their 600 iPhones now that there'll be a cheaper and lighter one for a third of the price?
Oh, and to continue from a discussion that occasional permates this thread ... I saw a 1.5 terabyte drive today for 120.
Should I "Nelson Muntz" the people who waited hours and hours for their 600 iPhones now that there'll be a cheaper and lighter one for a third of the price?
That's such a great point, because I never expected Apple to upgrade their product line.
Should I "Nelson Muntz" the people who waited hours and hours for their 600 iPhones now that there'll be a cheaper and lighter one for a third of the price?
Oh, and to continue from a discussion that occasional permates this thread ... I saw a 1.5 terabyte drive today for 120.
Wow.
The 600 dollar price was for an unsubsidized phone. The iPhone 3GS is still 600 dollars (maybe more), you only pay less of it because of the subsidy AT&T provides. The tech itself hasn't gotten any cheaper.
Quoted from "Bigg_Al" Should I "Nelson Muntz" the people who waited hours and hours for their 600 iPhones now that there'll be a cheaper and lighter one for a third of the price?
No, because early adopters are well aware of the premium they pay for freshly released items. They've also been enjoying their purchase for a couple years now. And lastly, if I remember correctly, those super expensive first gen iPhones weren't as contract tied.
Particularly with Apple, first adopters pay out the nose. It is the hard core geeks that have to have the latest and the greatest, that pay the R&D costs.
Apple has made other companies fall all over themselves to make something even half as cool, but it's only been "half as"sed. I chuckled underneath my breath when I couldn't get a Verizon flat-screen device, meant to compete with the iPhone, to work at a display.
The moment a good WordPress.org interface is written for it , I'm jumping into iPhone World with both feet.
____________________________________________
The current one is as buggy as a plague of locusts
Today I finally got around to setting up my very old iBook to run off an external drive (the internal crashed long ago, and I don't travel with it often enough to justify installing a new one).
I noticed one interesting thing though. On my Intel iMac, the airport card picks up 14 wifi signals in my building, including one yutz who doesn't have it secure. Not such a big deal because I have a cable modem anyway, but I thought it would be nice to use it for the laptop until I decide I feel like getting my own wireless router. Problem is, the iBook's Airport card isn't picking up any of them in the living room, and only picked up one in the bedroom, and that was only for a second.
Anyone know if this is just because it's an older card and therefore has a weaker receiver or if I'm actually doing something wrong? It would be good to know that before I actually head out to a coffee shop or something.
Hi:
I'm hoping people will be able to recommend forums with good discussions about Mac hardware & software security issues. I'm wondering if there are any serious threats to new Macs from rootkit-like software. Could something like the Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal happen to Macs? Would it be possible for malware to install its own version of disk device drivers or change the way files are listed in the Finder or with the UNIX shell ls command? I'm wondering about this because my kids have expressed an interest in BioShock 2 but it looks like the developers of that game have done some funky stuff with DRM management, including requiring a WindowsLive account and an active internet connection so that the software can "phone home" when you're installing it. Yeah, I know, Bioshock2 for Mac is probably a couple of years away but this just got me wondering how safe Mac OSX is when it comes to rootkits & other malware that are shipped with well-known products that are produced by respected development shops. Thanks in advance for any & all info!
If you're installing as root (or whatever the Mac equivalent of root is?), then they largely can do anything whatsoever. There are no limits. I can't say I have any idea how Macs do installs by default?
Most all games are "phoning home" to install and/or start. I wouldn't worry too much about that, it's hardly the most annoying DRM around. For example, the recent DRM disaster with Assassin's Creed 2 forced in by Ubisoft. That DRM requires a full time internet connection to keep playing...if the connection drops, your game exists (no save). And of course...the first thing Ubisoft's servers do at launch was stop working, making it impossible to play the game.
Except for illegal copies...because they'd cracked that new DRM the very first day it came out.
We're all hoping the gaming industry figures out that all these stupid DRM tricks only hurt the people that actually want to give them money; the illegal copies don't have to deal with any of it.
Quote If you're installing as root (or whatever the Mac equivalent of root is?), then they largely can do anything whatsoever. There are no limits. I can't say I have any idea how Macs do installs by default?
The Mac OS is basically GUI on top of a unix kernel. There is a root account, but it has to be enabled by setting a password. Most people do not activate the root account, however, it is almost always used in corporate environments.
A Mac must have at least one admin account. The admin account must authenticate any installation. No virus or malware can be installed without major pilot error. Moreover, every time non-apple application are run for the first time, you are warned that the application has "been downloaded from the internet, are you sure you want to launch it." So it is not possible for hidden processes to run without approval from the user.
I can say as a professional Mac administrator that co-manages thousands of Macs, I have never had a Mac in my enterprise get any type of malware or virus.
Depending how that's setup it'll block ring 0 exploits, but still allow ring 1. Not as bad, but still bad. Short of virtualization or application jailing/sandboxing, it's not getting better then that. For most desktop applications it's just not practical to get better then that.
FYI, Windows also has the "has been downloaded from the internet, are you sure you want to launch it." including cryptographic signatures, and it's hardly free from viruses and malware. ;-) A user-initiated application start however, is hardly the only way to get code to be run and other vectors do not have this user check in place.
Mac is a fundamentally more secure system then Windows, especially when the two are administrated by frankly the extremely low-skill users that make up the bulk of both user bases. That said, the reason it has fewer malware and virus attacks is only partly this; Mostly it's just not that interesting of a target.
Yes, I'm aware that Mac OSX is basically a pretty face on top of UNIX. That's one of the reasons I prefer Macs to PCs; I'd rather bring up an xterm and use the ls, rm, lpq, find, etc. commands than go through the hassle of bringing up a GUI and clicking around. Plus, I love it that kill actually kills, rather than WinDoze's force quit that usually does neither. Yes, I know I could install Linux on PC-compatible hardware but I'm not willing to take the chance that I'll have to spend the following two weeks tracking down & installing device drivers so that everything works as it should.
I'm aware that you need an admin's password to install any new software on Macs, but I think the latest incarnations of WinDoze have that feature, too. I know enough not to do things like install "custom" video players from shady web sites; what has me worried is a scenario more along the lines of the SONY rootkit fiasco (see my link in my previous post). If I were to install a game on my Mac I'd expect it to ask for admin access. What I was wondering (as a hypothetical exercise more than anything else) is what kind of damage a DMR-crazed software vendor could do to my Mac once it had admin access. Could it swap out the device driver for my DVD? Could it schedule processes to run that couldn't be detected by top and killed with kill -9? I've had Macs since around 2000 and I've never had any issues with malicious software. I compare that with the PC I recently discarded because its performance got shot to hell with all these background processes I could neither terminate nor uninstall. Nevertheless, I've heard it said that the main reason Macs don't have malware issues is that they're such a small part of the computing universe. But Mac's market share is growing. I also know that UNIX systems have been successfully targeted in the past. Is it time to start thinking about Mac security? I know there's anti-virus software available for Macs but I've never bothered buying/installing/running it. Is it time to rethink my complacency?
And yeah, I know Bioshock has a pretty adult rating. Saying 'my kids are interested in it' is kind-of like telling a celebrity you want his autograph 'for a friend.' Bioshock looks like an awesome game, and I'm planning to get it (yes, for myself) as soon as the hardware I ordered arrives.
I have another question, but I think I'll save it for a separate post. Thanks in advance.
OK, my other request is for recommendations for a NAS drive setup. I'm thinking about getting a Thecus N2200 and equipping it with two Western Digital 2TB hard drives and then configuring it as a RAID-1. I'd then want to hook it up to my Airport Extreme so my family can use it as an iTunes server. I like the idea of keeping important files on a RAID-1; I do a fair amount of video editing and I lost a lot of work once when an un-backed-up external hard drive crashed. If anyone has any experience and opinions about this hardware setup, or any similar setup, please pass them on to me. Thanks!
That one has decent reviews, though they do note that it's noticeably slower in RAID-1 (15MB/sec vs 25MB/sec). Is that fast enough for your video work, or even watching certain video formats?
Unix systems get targeted because largely being used for servers the reward for cracking them is substantially higher. The data they're likely to contain is more valuable, they run 24/7 on dedicated networks, frequently have access to protected networks, etc.
Everyone should be concerned about DRM and similar technologies. Especially written by less experienced and overworked engineers common at places like game companies, it's entirely likely shotty work will end up with unintended results like that Sony fiasco you mention. And more and more game companies are pushing for more and more intrusive DRM. Ubisoft's latest nightmare DRM with AC2 is just the latest story: Even when it works, it requires you have an active Internet connection for it to phone home with the entire time you're playing (single player).
A close second are "anti-cheat" technologies. While I support the goal, some of the methods used are worrisome. Games like World of Warcraft and any game protected by VAC/Steam are constantly scanning every bit of your computer looking for cheating software.
-
Lounge:
The Kitchen Sink
- 1/11/03 12:00 am by Mugsy Malone
- 148612 views
This is the thread for all you Mac geeks out there... First topic: Jobs's keynote at MWSF and the associated announcements. New PowerBooks - 12" and 17" models Airport Extreme - Apple's implementation of 802.11g Keynote - Presentation software (what...Page(s): < Previous 1 2 ... 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Next > (1412 items total)
Deacon Jones
The Mac can apparently run Windows, but how do you right-click on a one button mouse ? :dunno:
GuruReuben
Ctrl click... but I just use a multi-button mouse.
(Side note: Macs no longer ship with one button mice. Even the multi-touch trackpad on new MacBooks is essentially a multi-button mouse.)
Reuben Brown
www.JiveJunction.com
Southern California
BigCat
Apple introduces new brand of MacBook.
Trazy
Tonight I successfully installed Leopard on my 700Mhz G4. As it turns out, the problems I was having previously arose because I was using an Intel Mac to install it on the G4 using targeted disk mode. The software assumed my G4 was Intel-based and tried to install the OS as if it were an Intel Mac. Tonight, I hooked up an 867Mhz G4 (non-Intel) and installed Leopard via target disk mode and it worked flawlessly.
Wexie
I would recommend skipping the 10.5.6 update. Has major search bug that is messing me up.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8768395 8768395
Beckto
I would like to say that I have had my Mac... (I don't know what kind it is... It's aluminum and it's fast) for a few months now, and I love it.
I NOW PISS ON PCs.
Wexie
Marcelo
That last paragraph is weird. People are buying teeny tiny eeePC's and other small "netbook" devices all over the place. It's the largest growing laptop market there is. I just picked up a Dell Mini 9 (and hacked OS X on it to boot). Maybe nothing has been as mass-produced successful as the iPhone, but to say that small PC's haven't resonated isn't really accurate. Maybe the super small Windows CE machines haven't done well, but 300-500 dollar netbooks are doing quite nicely.
Chivalrous
I kind of assumed the larger device talked about in this article was going to be their take on the netbook.
Martinis do not contain vodka. —Rachel Maddow
Bigg_Al
Nuclear bump.
Should I "Nelson Muntz" the people who waited hours and hours for their 600 iPhones now that there'll be a cheaper and lighter one for a third of the price?
Oh, and to continue from a discussion that occasional permates this thread ... I saw a 1.5 terabyte drive today for 120.
Wow.
Phlurg
That's such a great point, because I never expected Apple to upgrade their product line.
Marcelo
The 600 dollar price was for an unsubsidized phone. The iPhone 3GS is still 600 dollars (maybe more), you only pay less of it because of the subsidy AT&T provides. The tech itself hasn't gotten any cheaper.
GuruReuben
No, because early adopters are well aware of the premium they pay for freshly released items. They've also been enjoying their purchase for a couple years now. And lastly, if I remember correctly, those super expensive first gen iPhones weren't as contract tied.
Reuben Brown
www.JiveJunction.com
Southern California
Wexie
Particularly with Apple, first adopters pay out the nose. It is the hard core geeks that have to have the latest and the greatest, that pay the R&D costs.
Bigg_Al
Good points, all.
Apple has made other companies fall all over themselves to make something even half as cool, but it's only been "half as"sed. I chuckled underneath my breath when I couldn't get a Verizon flat-screen device, meant to compete with the iPhone, to work at a display.
The moment a good WordPress.org interface is written for it , I'm jumping into iPhone World with both feet.
____________________________________________
The current one is as buggy as a plague of locusts
GuruReuben
I would say it has since you're getting more for your " 600" now.
Reuben Brown
www.JiveJunction.com
Southern California
Sloth
Ok, so I just got the new iPhone 3GS and holy crap... Is that a useful thing or what.
I would like to start playing with the iPhone SDK, but as you all know, I need a Mac to do it.
Can you guys tell me a cheaper way (perhaps an older, used iMac machine) to get started coding for the iPhone?
excess
Pick up an older MacMini. I bet you can get em for a few hundred dollars. They work great, I've been using one as my desktop for 3 years now.
arthur
Sloth
So I got a MacBook Pro yesterday. Kinda love it, I have to say...
I love that I could also install Windows XP so I can still do Windows stuff in it if I want to. It's perfect.
I'm now fiddling with it and getting acquainted. I love the multitouch touchpad.
Anyway, just wanted to share!
Chivalrous
Today I finally got around to setting up my very old iBook to run off an external drive (the internal crashed long ago, and I don't travel with it often enough to justify installing a new one).
I noticed one interesting thing though. On my Intel iMac, the airport card picks up 14 wifi signals in my building, including one yutz who doesn't have it secure. Not such a big deal because I have a cable modem anyway, but I thought it would be nice to use it for the laptop until I decide I feel like getting my own wireless router. Problem is, the iBook's Airport card isn't picking up any of them in the living room, and only picked up one in the bedroom, and that was only for a second.
Anyone know if this is just because it's an older card and therefore has a weaker receiver or if I'm actually doing something wrong? It would be good to know that before I actually head out to a coffee shop or something.
Martinis do not contain vodka. —Rachel Maddow
ShagBaby
Hi:
I'm hoping people will be able to recommend forums with good discussions about Mac hardware & software security issues. I'm wondering if there are any serious threats to new Macs from rootkit-like software. Could something like the Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal happen to Macs? Would it be possible for malware to install its own version of disk device drivers or change the way files are listed in the Finder or with the UNIX shell ls command? I'm wondering about this because my kids have expressed an interest in BioShock 2 but it looks like the developers of that game have done some funky stuff with DRM management, including requiring a WindowsLive account and an active internet connection so that the software can "phone home" when you're installing it. Yeah, I know, Bioshock2 for Mac is probably a couple of years away but this just got me wondering how safe Mac OSX is when it comes to rootkits & other malware that are shipped with well-known products that are produced by respected development shops. Thanks in advance for any & all info!
Zenin
If you're installing as root (or whatever the Mac equivalent of root is?), then they largely can do anything whatsoever. There are no limits. I can't say I have any idea how Macs do installs by default?
Most all games are "phoning home" to install and/or start. I wouldn't worry too much about that, it's hardly the most annoying DRM around. For example, the recent DRM disaster with Assassin's Creed 2 forced in by Ubisoft. That DRM requires a full time internet connection to keep playing...if the connection drops, your game exists (no save). And of course...the first thing Ubisoft's servers do at launch was stop working, making it impossible to play the game.
Except for illegal copies...because they'd cracked that new DRM the very first day it came out.
We're all hoping the gaming industry figures out that all these stupid DRM tricks only hurt the people that actually want to give them money; the illegal copies don't have to deal with any of it.
GuruReuben
How old are your kids?
Bioshock 2 has been rated Mature for:
* Blood
* Intense Violence
* Sexual Themes
* Strong Language
Depending on their age, perhaps you should play it first to determine if it's appropriate.
I'd also suggest getting a 360 since it will make the headaches associated with PC gaming go away. It also has excellent parental controls.
Reuben Brown
www.JiveJunction.com
Southern California
Wexie
The Mac OS is basically GUI on top of a unix kernel. There is a root account, but it has to be enabled by setting a password. Most people do not activate the root account, however, it is almost always used in corporate environments.
A Mac must have at least one admin account. The admin account must authenticate any installation. No virus or malware can be installed without major pilot error. Moreover, every time non-apple application are run for the first time, you are warned that the application has "been downloaded from the internet, are you sure you want to launch it." So it is not possible for hidden processes to run without approval from the user.
I can say as a professional Mac administrator that co-manages thousands of Macs, I have never had a Mac in my enterprise get any type of malware or virus.
Zenin
Depending how that's setup it'll block ring 0 exploits, but still allow ring 1. Not as bad, but still bad. Short of virtualization or application jailing/sandboxing, it's not getting better then that. For most desktop applications it's just not practical to get better then that.
FYI, Windows also has the "has been downloaded from the internet, are you sure you want to launch it." including cryptographic signatures, and it's hardly free from viruses and malware. ;-) A user-initiated application start however, is hardly the only way to get code to be run and other vectors do not have this user check in place.
Mac is a fundamentally more secure system then Windows, especially when the two are administrated by frankly the extremely low-skill users that make up the bulk of both user bases. That said, the reason it has fewer malware and virus attacks is only partly this; Mostly it's just not that interesting of a target.
ShagBaby
Yes, I'm aware that Mac OSX is basically a pretty face on top of UNIX. That's one of the reasons I prefer Macs to PCs; I'd rather bring up an xterm and use the ls, rm, lpq, find, etc. commands than go through the hassle of bringing up a GUI and clicking around. Plus, I love it that kill actually kills, rather than WinDoze's force quit that usually does neither. Yes, I know I could install Linux on PC-compatible hardware but I'm not willing to take the chance that I'll have to spend the following two weeks tracking down & installing device drivers so that everything works as it should.
I'm aware that you need an admin's password to install any new software on Macs, but I think the latest incarnations of WinDoze have that feature, too. I know enough not to do things like install "custom" video players from shady web sites; what has me worried is a scenario more along the lines of the SONY rootkit fiasco (see my link in my previous post). If I were to install a game on my Mac I'd expect it to ask for admin access. What I was wondering (as a hypothetical exercise more than anything else) is what kind of damage a DMR-crazed software vendor could do to my Mac once it had admin access. Could it swap out the device driver for my DVD? Could it schedule processes to run that couldn't be detected by top and killed with kill -9? I've had Macs since around 2000 and I've never had any issues with malicious software. I compare that with the PC I recently discarded because its performance got shot to hell with all these background processes I could neither terminate nor uninstall. Nevertheless, I've heard it said that the main reason Macs don't have malware issues is that they're such a small part of the computing universe. But Mac's market share is growing. I also know that UNIX systems have been successfully targeted in the past. Is it time to start thinking about Mac security? I know there's anti-virus software available for Macs but I've never bothered buying/installing/running it. Is it time to rethink my complacency?
And yeah, I know Bioshock has a pretty adult rating. Saying 'my kids are interested in it' is kind-of like telling a celebrity you want his autograph 'for a friend.' Bioshock looks like an awesome game, and I'm planning to get it (yes, for myself) as soon as the hardware I ordered arrives.
I have another question, but I think I'll save it for a separate post. Thanks in advance.
ShagBaby
OK, my other request is for recommendations for a NAS drive setup. I'm thinking about getting a Thecus N2200 and equipping it with two Western Digital 2TB hard drives and then configuring it as a RAID-1. I'd then want to hook it up to my Airport Extreme so my family can use it as an iTunes server. I like the idea of keeping important files on a RAID-1; I do a fair amount of video editing and I lost a lot of work once when an un-backed-up external hard drive crashed. If anyone has any experience and opinions about this hardware setup, or any similar setup, please pass them on to me. Thanks!
Wombat
That one has decent reviews, though they do note that it's noticeably slower in RAID-1 (15MB/sec vs 25MB/sec). Is that fast enough for your video work, or even watching certain video formats?
ShagBaby
Hmmm, good question. Who's "they", and what was it noticeably slower than? Would you mind posting a link to the review you saw? Thanks!
Zenin
Unix systems get targeted because largely being used for servers the reward for cracking them is substantially higher. The data they're likely to contain is more valuable, they run 24/7 on dedicated networks, frequently have access to protected networks, etc.
Everyone should be concerned about DRM and similar technologies. Especially written by less experienced and overworked engineers common at places like game companies, it's entirely likely shotty work will end up with unintended results like that Sony fiasco you mention. And more and more game companies are pushing for more and more intrusive DRM. Ubisoft's latest nightmare DRM with AC2 is just the latest story: Even when it works, it requires you have an active Internet connection for it to phone home with the entire time you're playing (single player).
A close second are "anti-cheat" technologies. While I support the goal, some of the methods used are worrisome. Games like World of Warcraft and any game protected by VAC/Steam are constantly scanning every bit of your computer looking for cheating software.
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