kdmurray.blog

The crossroads of life and tech

Tag Archives: Apple

Security on the Mac

Recently I came across a discussion on a Mac forum with some people discussing how shocking it was that Apple had been recommending that its Macintosh customers consider using anti-virus software.  This is a discussion that has always raised my ire, as the supposed superior security of the Mac has always been an issue of numbers.

No operating system is perfect, they’re all designed by people and are full of flaws as a result.  It’s important to keep in mind that one of the reasons that Mac OS X has had precious few problems with viruses and other nasties is market share.

Writing viruses is much like sending out mailers for advertising your new business. The more people you reach with your message (or malware) the more people you’ll connect with (infect).

If you want to infect lots of people, you write your malware for Windows.

Five years ago the market share of the Mac was in around the 5% mark, meaning that if you wrote a virus for the mac and distributed it to 20 million computer users you’d infect 100 people (at a rate of 1 in 10,000). If you write for Windows and infect people at the same rate, you’ll infect 1900 people.

With the market share of the Mac increasing, so does the surface area for attacks. Many Mac owners have become complacent over the years believing that they are safe because they use a Mac. As a result the infection rates of Mac systems could be much higher than Windows-based PCs if malware authors decide to target the Mac platform.

Food for thought.

Mac Tip: Showing All File Extensions

Finder Preferences in OS XOK, for many of you out there, this is probably so basic you didn’t even need to search for it.  That said, I figured I’d post it anyway (partly because I’ve been so lax about blogging recently).

If you’ve ever wanted to have OS X show file extensions for all files, all the time, it’s a very simple process.

  1. Click on any finder (or the desktop)
  2. Select Preferences from the Finder menu
  3. Click on the Advanced button
  4. Check off the Show all file extensions box
  5. Close the Finder Preferences window

Voila! All is revealed.  Wasn’t that easy?  It probably took you longer to read this than to actually make the change. :)

FREE Software :: CrossOver Free Today Only!

If you’re a fan of being able to run Windows applications on your Mac, listen up! CodeWeavers Windows-to-Mac application CrossOver is being offered for FREE today only.

If you’re interested in the offer, visit the CodeWeavers website to sign up.

If you want to read more about the background of this story, check out Michael Rose’s post on TUAW.

The long and the short of it: You have George W. Bush to thank (sorta) for your opportunity to buy free software.

Replacing my MacBook’s Hard Drive

What do you do when you get sick of choosing between whether you have easy access to either your 35 GB music collection or your 60 GB photo collection? Buy more storage.

I decided it was finally time to put a new larger hard drive in my Mac Book. The unit is nearly two years old and was still using its original 80 GB drive. I managed to find a good deal on a new 320 GB drive from my equipment provider of choice and set about to do my own bit of MacBook surgery.

This isn’t my first forray into a self-guided MacBook upgrade. About a year ago I doubled the RAM on my second-generation MacBook. Both of these upgrades proved quite straight forward.

The first task is to make sure that you have all the necessary gear. In this case you will need:

  • 1 cluttered out-of-space MacBook
  • 1 spanking new big hard drive
  • 1 small Phillips screw driver
  • 1 coin
  • 1 very small hex screw driver – six-pointed star
  • 1 Sheet of paper or cloth

Now that you have all the gear you need to make this happen, let’s get started.

Step 1: Turn the MacBook over so that the battery is facing up.  Place it on the paper or cloth to avoid scratching your baby.

Step 2: Place the coin in the battery release catch, and turn to release the battery

Step 3: Remove the battery and set it aside.

This is also a good opportunity to clean around the edge of the battery compartment, and the edge of the battery. Take care not to drop any debris into the battery compartment, or the “inner workings” of your macbook.

Step 4: Unscrew the ‘L’-shaped faceplate on the inside edge of the battery compartment. Remove it from the long side first, set it aside once it’s clear.

Step 5: Extract the tab from its position folded beneath the drive and pull gently to release the drive from the casing. Continue to pull until the drive is fully extracted and sitting in the battery cavity.

Step 6: Pull the drive out and remove the screws holding on the faceplate attached to the plastic tab. In my case I needed I needed to pick up a six-pointed star screw driver which I didn’t originally have. Thank goodness for extended hours at Wal-Mart.

Step 7: Transfer the plate to the new drive. Make sure to affix it so that the tab is placed away from the pins which will dock it with the computer.
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Step 8: Re-insert the new drive into the computer. Push gently to ensure that it’s correctly aligned with the computer, it won’t take much pressure to complete the connection. Tuck the tab back beneath the drive.

Step 9: Re-attach the ‘L’-shaped faceplate. Start with the short end near the hard drive and work it into place from left to right. You will need to tuck into place the two pads protecting the memory modules as you work across, I used my screw driver for this.

Step 10: Replace the battery and secure it with the coin.

Step 11: Reboot your system and enjoy the glorious new freedom of lots of new disk space.

At this point you have a couple of different options. If you put the old drive into an external FireWire enclosure, you can boot from it, and clone that disk onto the new drive. This will put everything on the new drive precisely where it was on the old one, with the exception of a ton of new space.

My preferred option is to opt for a clean re-install of the system. Despite what some Mac proponents will tell you, even OS X is prone to clutter and even performance problems after enough time. If you’ve got the time, a clean re-install will allow you to take everything you’ve learned up until now and use that knowledge to rebuild a better Mac install.

So if you’re feeling at all cramped, pick yourself up a new hard drive and try out this weekend DIY project.

5 Things You Did See At Apple’s September Announcement

So now that all the hubbub has come and gone, I’m pleased to announce that I was 100% correct in my non-predictions for the Apple event.  So I thought I’d come back with a review of just what did make the cut, and tell you about the my top 5 from the “Let’s Rock” announcement.

New iPod Nanos — No surprise here, at all.  Announced today, shipping sometime between now and Christmas, a return to the slimmer, sleeker design of the iPod nano.  The screen is much larger than the Gen 1 and Gen 2 nanos, and the ipod is now oval shaped (read: won’t sit flat on a table).  It also comes in about a dozen different colours.

“New” iPod Touches — Though not receiving anywere near the revision that the nanos did, the iPod touch now sports new side-mounted volume controls and a small external speaker.  Both of these will make the App-store games much more fun to play.  I’m sad that they’ve chosen not to integrate a microphone (though the exclusion was one of my predictions), the external volume controls will be a very handy new feature.  I wonder how hard they had to convince Jobs to abandon his “no buttons” policy?

Apple & NBC Kiss & Make up — Again, not a big surprise, NBC is returning to the iTunes store.  All your favourite syndicated NBC crap will once again be available in iTunes.  Meh…

iTunes 8 — The next version of iTunes is out, and it sports a fancy new “genius” feature whereby Apple takes a look at your listening habits and makes recommendations.  It’ll also build playlists for you.

iPod Touch / iPhone Software 2.1 — A revision of the software for the two fanciest iThings to hopefully fix the bugs and constant crashing that have plagued the devices (even 1st Gen iPhones / iPod Touches) since the 2.0 and 2.0.1 releases.  I sure as hell hope it’s stable ’cause I’m planning to get a new iPod touch to replace the one that “disappeared” somewhere in the Minneapolis airport.

So there you have it.  5 things that actually did happen, to go along with the 5 that didn’t.

5 Things You Won’t See At Apple’s September Announcement

So I’m lying here, unable to sleep, not because I’m dreaming up what Apple is going to announce tomorrow, but it has given me some time to think.

There’s been lots of ideas floated around, so I figured I should jump into the mix now before the news so I can call these predictions of things you definitely WON’T see

The iPod Touch with a built-in microphone and bluetooth — This would harshly cannibalize iPhone sales, particularly given the cost of iPhone data plans.

iTunes Music Subscriptions — People like to own their music. ’nuff said.

iPhone Revisions — Not a chance, with the 3G iPhone barely 3 months old, there’s no way that Apple can justify a revision already.  The backlash from iPhone early adopters last year will be a lesson.

The “MacBook Touch” — Even though a niche of Apple fans would love to see a Mac tablet to compete with all of the Windows based tablets out there, it just doesn’t make up a large enough piece of the overall computer market for Apple to try to carve out a piece.

Beatles Music in the iTunes Catalogue — Despite recent notions from some pundits that the Fab Four’s music will be part of the “Let’s Rock” announcement, there have been far too many false alarms for this to be the case.  Besides, the music is being remastered right now and will probably go through some kind of digital release next year once that’s done.

So there you have it, the five things you definitely won’t see at the Let’s Rock announcement.  Now we can sit back and see what the all things “i” maker will announce later today.

iPhone 3G Jailbroken — Ha!

Well that didn’t take long.

In a short post titled “Thanks for waiting :) ” released yesterday, the iPhone Dev Team released Pwnage 2.0 for jailbreaking iPhones running the iPhone firmware version 2.0.

It should be noted that this doesn’t unlock your iPhone, it only opens up all the things that the old Jailbreak used to do.  With the advent of the app store, this is now more of a “hardcore” change than ever before… but nonetheless, Kudos to the iPhone Dev team!

Update #1: I also meant to note that un the first day since this was released, the blog entry received over 2800 comments.  Thats one way to get traffic.  :P

Why (and How) to Unshare Your iTunes Library

When I checked into the hotel tonight, I fired up my macbook on the provided (hardwired! gah!) Internet connection and went about my evening routine (blogs, pocasts, email, twitter… you know the deal).  When I popped open my iTunes to crank on some tunes something came to my attention:  There was a remote library showing in my iTunes.

At first, I gave “John’s Music” very little thought, I was listening to a podcast at the moment and wasn’t interested in investigating.  However soon after, when the show ended, my curiosity got the better of me and I went for a peek.  The music itself wasn’t all that amazing, but upon closer inspection I noticed something else.  I realized that I now knew far more about John than I thought I would and just from looking at iTunes.

Based on primarily his playlist names, and to a lesser degree the content, I was able to deduce:

  • John’s last name
  • John’s wife’s name
  • John has two daughters
  • John’s daughters’ names
  • John owns an iPhone
  • John’s wife owns an iPhone
  • John is from the US
  • John’s daughter (presumably the eldest) has an iPod Shuffle
  • John is highly spiritual and a Christian

Those are some pretty crazy personal details… and they were all there for the taking right out of a publicly shared iTunes folder.

How do I Un-Share?

It’s actually ridiculously easy…


First, go to your iTunes Preference Panel…

Second, unselect the “Share my library on my local network” checkbox.

Now I realize that this may seem a drastic step for those who only ever use their iTunes at home.  But if you travel, or make use of open public wi-fi hotspots (or poached ones) your iTunes library could be giving away personal information without you even knowing it.  It also illistrates the point that not all Apple products ship in a “secure” mode as often touted.  It’s not out-of-the-box functionality, but it isn’t difficult to poach files out of someone’s iTunes folder if they’re DRM free…

Vancouver Apple Store Opening May 24th – 10:00am

This Saturday marks a major milestone for the city of Vancouver.  Well, perhaps not for the city, but definitely for the mac-geeks in the region.  This Saturday is the long-awaited opening of an Apple store west of Toronto.


Photo Credit: xtianyves on Flickr

I’m not the only excited local blogger.  See some posts today from DuaneStory and Miss604 (via the twittersphere of course).

The Apple Store announcement on the Apple website provides all the necessary details for the grand opening and even provides links to start booking your “genius bar” appointments.  Time to get my MacBook case fixed again, the timing is wonderful.