Wow! I was thinking of buying this gadget this week but after seeing this, I am more inclined to just wait until MacWorld 2007 keynote. I am hoping that this year, Jobs will launch new gadgets (phone/pda/tablet) and announce what are to come this year.
Technorati Tags: mac
New Year, New Mailbox. I decided to clear up my mailbox by replying to those important e-mail, organizing others into archive, bills, receipts, web accounts, software licenses, personal and work. I couldn’t believe what the end result was – zero e-mail in my mailbox.
I found out that I have spent a lot of money buying software on-line! Yeah, I am not the type who uses illegally acquired software. 
The thing with on-line purchases, you do not get a CD or DVD and a box with some useless mumbo-jumbo printed on dead trees that nobody reads anyway, so you really need to practice backing-up your installers and licenses.
Fox News is part of my daily news round so it is part of my News bookmarks along with Manila Bulletin, Philippine Daily Inquirer and Slashdot, of course. I prefer Fox News over CNN because I can view videos without installing any of those Microsoft software crap. However, until recently, I could not view the videos off of Fox News.
My default browser is Safari and complemented with Camino. I also have Firefox 2 installed but it only serves as a backup. Anyway, Safari and Camino were unable to display the view but Firefox can. Weird, huh?
First, I thought it was my version of Flash so I immediately downloaded and installed the latest version. Re-launched both Safari and Camino, still no go.
Next, I tried to re-configure Quicktime Player, hoping that it’s the fix that I need after the last Security Update that involved QT. Unfortunately, it is not related.
Finally, just to be sure, I fired up Firefox 2 and there it was – streaming the video after I clicked on the Flash icon (since I have the Flash block extension installed).
So, what does Firefox have that Safari and Camino don’t? I experimented with Safari first by disabling Ad/Banner blocking (via Saft and guess what? It worked! Tried it with Camino and it worked as well. Apparently, Fox News requires adverts before you can view their videos. I cannot blame them since the service is free (unlike CNN’s Pipeline). With Camino, you need to go to the preferences to set it; with Safari, you can use hotkeys or simply toggle it from the Safari menu.
So, until I find a better way of allowing Fox News adverts whilst preventing all other adverts, I will have to stick with this solution. If you know the proper Saft filter configuration, please do let me know. 
If this is any indication that ZFS is included in the upcoming Mac OS X version 5, code-named Leopard, then I’d say bring it on! ZFS will surely give a lot of boost to the performance of Mac OS X. I could just imagine how efficient and how fast the XServe RAID will get once this gets into place.
First it was the award-winning DTrace and now ZFS. I am wondering if Apple intends to support Containers/Zones as well. Now that will really rock!
Technorati Tags: Vista, Mac OS X, Solaris, ZFS, DTrace, Zones
VLC 0.8.6 released! Download VLC now!
Mac OS X ftpd Buffer Overflow Vulnerability – Advisories – Secunia :
A vulnerability has been reported in Mac OS X, which potentially can be exploited by malicious users to compromise a vulnerable system.The vulnerability is caused due to a boundary error in ftpd when handling commands with globbing characters (e.g. “*”) and can be exploited to cause a buffer overflow.
I always make it a point not to enable FTPD. I recommend that Mac OS X users disable this service and only enable it if and when absolutely necessary.
Technorati Tags: mac os x, vulnerability
Mac OS X is one of the secure OS available in the market today – thanks to its UNIX roots. However, with its user-centric features, some options may be left not secure for the sake of simplicity. The SANS Institute has released a security checklist for Mac OS X. Be sure that you take a peek at it and apply it on your Mac.
I find it rather interesting that a blog entry was used to reply to my blog entry on Adware on the Mac. Whilst I appreciate the reply, I just hope that JTanium gets to register an account so it’d be easier for me to keep track of your suggestions and comments.
Anyway, if you have read what I wrote – I said and you quoted:
“I am curious as to how this is achieved specially when you are not running as administrator and all applications that you use are saved at the default /Applications, which require admin privileges for write access.”
Normally, the first user that is created by Mac OS X is the administrator. Unfortunately, most Mac users stick with this account to make it convenient for them to add/remove applications. Try creating another user without admin privileges and you will see what I mean.
To test it, I did try to drag and drop files into /Applications using the Finder. No matter what application I add, it prompts me to enter the username and password of an account with admin privileges. Even dragging and dropping a PDF file into /Applications will ask you to authenticate.
I urge you to test it using an account with no admin privileges and you will know what I mean.
Technorati Tags: mac os x, vulnerability
Right after I wrote about the adware vulnerability, Apple released this security update. According to the documentation, it fixes the following:
Of particular interest is the Installer fix:
CVE-ID: CVE-2006-4404
Available for: Mac OS X v10.3.9, Mac OS X Server v10.3.9, Mac OS X v10.4.8, Mac OS X Server v10.4.8
Impact: When installing software as an Admin user, system privileges may be used without explicit authorization
Description: Admin users are normally required to authenticate before executing commands with system privileges. However, the Installer allows system privileges to be used by Admin users when installing certain packages without requiring authentication. This update addresses the issue by requiring authentication before installing software with system privileges.
I hope that it fixes the earlier mentioned adware bug.
Hurry and fire up Software Update to patch your system.
Technorati Tags: mac os x, vulnerability
Adware sample targets Mac OS X | CNET News.com:
A new adware program silently installs on Mac OS X systems and opens Web browser windows, according to F-Secure.The program, dubbed iAdware by the Finnish security company, is possibly the first example of adware for Macs. It is especially interesting since it doesn’t require administrative privileges to nestle itself on the computers, according to F-Secure.
I am curious as to how this is achieved specially when you are not running as administrator and all applications that you use are saved at the default /Applications, which require admin privileges for write access. Unless it is a separate application or a hook with the InputManager, which can be installed without prompting the user for a password. Hmmm. Maybe I should change the default permissions of ~/Library just in case or just wait for Apple to release the patch. Question is – did they tell Apple?
Technorati Tags: mac os x, vulnerability
