Saturday, February 9, 2008

The Apple Blog (10 сообщений)

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  RSS  The Apple Blog
The Apple Blog, published by and for the day-to-day Apple user, is a prominent source for news, reviews, walkthroughs, and real life application of all Apple products.
http://theappleblog.com
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  • Team Fusion Starts a Blog

    Team Fusion Blog
    If you’re taken with VMware’s Fusion (for operating system virtualization on the Mac platform), as I am, then you’ll probably be glad to hear that they’ve started a blog to keep us all apprised of their efforts. You’ll be able to see what they’re working on, some great tips and tricks with Fusion, and they’re even starting to do screencasts of some of the things Fusion can do - in case you haven’t been able to figure it out on your own.

    The recently released update to the software offers the ability to sync hotkeys across OS X and Windows. Meaning that instead of having to use CMD C to copy in OS X, and CTRL C to copy in the Windows VM, you can now just stick to CMD C for both environments. Maybe this doesn’t sound like a huge deal, but if your mental capacity if even slightly diminished (I’m looking in the mirror at the moment), this is a huge deal. Think of it as saving brain overhead for more important things…

    Check out their inaugural post which highlights the ability to Import other virtual machines for use with Fusion - it’s never been easier to make the move to this highly polished virtualization suite. And if you’re new to Mac, and just not sure about cutting the cord to Windows just yet, give VMware’s Fusion a go. Features like Unity mode, which allow you to intermingle your Windows, um, windows with OS X windows, integrated copy.paste clipboards, and drag and drop file synchronization make it hard to beat. Parallels was a great start to the Intel-based virtualization on Macs, but VMware has really shown their history in the industry by coming on gangbusters in recent months.

    Download the trial of VMware’s Fusion - I think you’ll be very pleased with the results.

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  • Twitterific 3.1 (Beta) Annoys Less, Fixes Bugs

    TwitterificThe fine folks over at Icon Factory have release a beta (1.2MB zip file) update to their popular OS X Twitter client which fixes one really annoying problem in how new messages are displayed – no more autoscroll to the top – and adds a slew of enhancements, including NetNewsWire-like keyboard shortcuts (the spacebar moves to the next tweet that is unread, the ‘k’ key will mark all tweets as read, and the ‘u’ key will mark a tweet as unread) . While it’s not a full “.1″ release and is a very task-specific application, I mention it because I (@hrbrmstr) find Twitter to be a great way to interact with folks in the Mac community and have nothing but kudos for Craig Hockenberry (@chockenberry) for how well he has responded to the constant hounding from all of us ‘twits’, both on new features and on fixing problems.

    The responsiveness of the OS X developer community is one of the reasons the Mac is such a great platform to use, and Twitter makes interacting with many of them extremely easy and, dare I say, fun.

    So, push the limits of the app, tweet your feedback and enjoy the fact that you can have great influence in the development of applications on best platform there is.

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  • Want to design the future of Apple's Pro Apps?

    Do you possess a relentless attention to detail, a gifted eye for aesthetics and the ability to quickly grasp and distill highly complex matters? Then you just may be qualified to design future versions of Final Cut Pro, Motion and Soundtrack Pro!

    Apple always has job openings, but it’s a bit rarer that they post one at mediabistro.com: Senior Human Interface Designer (free account required)

    Maybe they’re just having a hard time finding enough candidates who not only possess “complete mastery of the Mac OS X platform,” but also have:

    • Minimum 5 years of experience creating innovative and visually stunning user experiences. 
    • Degree in interaction design, human factor and/or visual design (or equivalent). 
    • An outstanding body of work demonstrating the successful delivery of innovative application interface design solutions. 
    • Deep understanding of Apple's human interface design language and the ability to translate it into future designs of Apple's professional applications.
    • Exceptional understanding of fundamental design disciplines (typography, composition, information architecture, color and animation) and principals (affordance, clustering, consistency, usability, etc.) 
    • Ability to create final graphic assets for flawless design implementation 

    Upon further reflection, that list could almost be Steve Jobs’ résumé. Oh, but “the candidate must be a natural collaborator who prefers developing designs in a team environment.” Sorry Steve. To apply for this position, go to jobs.apple.com 

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  • TrueCrypt 5.0 Brings Plausible Deniability To OS X Users

    TrueCryptWhile I’m not trying to only focus on security topics, they just seem to pop up more often than not, including today’s serendipitous discovery that TrueCrypt is available for OS X. Security isn’t just about maintaining system integrity (loosely defined as keeping malicious code from getting onto/running on your system). A critical component is ensuring that your valuable data is protected according to your risk appetite (loosely defined as confidentiality). Macs already have FileVault and secure disk images to handle basic encryption needs, so you may be asking why we need yet another utility for protecting information our systems (a fair question).

    If you need/desire cross-platform compatibility, then TrueCrypt is a perfect choice. You can encrypt a virtual disk image onto a USB drive and take it from Windows to Linux to OS X and gain access to your all your secret data, something that is not possible with OS X secure disk images.

    The other big “selling point” (difficult to use that term with a free & open source product) is the concept of plausible deniability. Until you go through the process of decrypting/mounting a volume, TrueCrypt file or disk volumes appear to consist of nothing more than random data (i.e. there is no “signature”). It is impossible to prove that a file, a partition or a device is a TrueCrypt volume or that it has been encrypted. This is an important point since we’re going down a very slippery slope (at least in the United States) where folks are now being forced to give up their secrets with full legal backing. You can rename a TrueCrypt file to “Family Vacation.mov” and be able to claim that it’s just a corrupted transfer from your video camera with no way for the authorities to prove otherwise. Similarly, non-boot volumes (which is not an option for OS X yet) have no identifiable tags, making it look like an unformatted partition with random data.

    Sadly, one of the coolest features – creating a hidden volume within an encrypted volume – is also not available on OS X yet. This option would allow you to give up your keys/passphrase to an outer-encrypted volume, but have another hidden, encrypted volume within it that uses a separate set of keys/passphrase. This lets you give up some of your secrets but not all of them.

    My attempts at downloading and installing TrueCrypt were woefully unsuccessful with Safari under Leopard (the download file was corrupted). It worked fine in Firefox and is available for 10.4 and 10.5, Intel or PPC. I’ll be putting the software through some tests over the next few days, so drop a note in the comments or forums if you have any questions or want to share your experiences with the product.

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  • SuperDuper! finally makes its way to Leopard

    SuperDuper!

    One of the most sought after applications since Leopard was released has finally been updated.

    Shirt Pocket’s SuperDuper! backup application received a big update today, with the biggest feature being that it is now Leopard compatible.

    For many, SuperDuper! has become somewhat obsolete with Leopard’s Time Machine feature, but other users who would prefer more control over their backups will enjoy the flexibility SuperDuper! offers.

    SuperDuper! is free for regular use and $27.95 if you’d like to enable some of the more advanced features.

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  • Valentines Gifts for Mac Fanatics

    baked-apple-pie.jpg

    Valentines is coming up, what are you planning to get the Mac Fanatic in your life?

    Considering the slew of Apple products out there, it would be simple to just pick up your loved one an Apple TV or an iPod. But for those of you pressed for money, here are a few things you can do instead.

    iPhoto Albums

    Currently Apple has 20% off iPhoto Albums. Make a quick one for the last trip you and your loved one took, or a "just because" one filled with all your favorite photos and more. Check out The Bargainist for details.

    Cables

    Cables are always a great way of freeing clutter and adding functionality to your Mac. If your loved one has a Video enabled iPod, I recommend the Apple A/V Chord which allows you to hook up your device to any TV and watch your videos or photos on the big screen. Great for portability and really comes in handy if you don't have an Apple TV laying around.

    Speaking of decluttering, I also recommend BlueLounge chord management devices. It may not say I love you like a dozen roses, but if your loved one truly loves Apple, then they can appreciate the simple minded gesture.

    “Mixed Tape”

    There's always the classic "Mixed Tape." Put together a playlist of both your favorite music and surprise them with it on their iPod on your next trip, or go "old school" and burn a CD for them to enjoy.

    Gift Cards

    If a "mixed tape" isn't your thing, you can always do a simple iTunes Gift Card or Gift music or videos for them.

    For the Apple fan who has EVERYTHING already, why not a book? I recommend Cult of Mac's book as well as iCon: Steve Jobs.

    Baking

    For the cook in you, maybe an Apple shaped apple pie? I'd be really curious to see how that turns out.

    When In Doubt

    T-shirts are always easy and make for great gifts. The Apple Collection offers a variety of OSX and Apple paraphernalia. Or check out these Apple inspired designs from Insanely Great Tees.

    If you anyone has any further suggestions, feel free to comment them.

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  • iPhone & iPod Touch Get Storage Boosts

    iPhone & iPod Touch Get Storage Boosts The options for the iPod touch and iPhone got a little more diverse today, as Apple added a 32GB touch and a 16GB iPhone. Both retail for $499. The touch will ship in 1-2 business days and comes with free engraving, while either iPhone will ship in 1-3 business days.

    So if you’ve been holding out on pulling the trigger on a new toy, now might be the time to pull out the old credit card and pony up the dough.

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  • Fix for Office 2008 Security Issue

    For those that have installed Office 2008, you may have seen some news floating on the internets about improper permissions — that were created by the installer — potentially allowing another local user to access your documents. It’s not a remote exploit issue and most folks are probably not vulnerable (you only need to be concerned if you’ve created another user on the system).

    Erik Schwiebert posted instructions for a temporary fix over at Mac Mojo and Microsoft will be issuing an official patch/update to address the issue as well. Erik’s instuctions require some Terminal-fu, so I wrapped them into an executable – Fix Office 2008 Permissions.

    Just download/extract the archive and run the executable. You will be prompted for your password since the fix requires elevated privileges.

    If you have any issues with the executable or following Erik’s instructions, post them in the comments and I’ll see if your particular install requires any tweaking.

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  • A Look at Native KDE 4.0 for OS X

    OS X - KDE LogoThis week Slashdot (and many, many others) reported that KDE 4.0 has been released for Windows and OS X. KDE (K Desktop Environment) has been a popular GUI for *nix systems and there have been ways of getting it to run (mostly) on OS X prior to this native port if you were willing to use X11 on OS X). RangerRick (of OpenNMS “fame” did much of the heavy lifting for the Mac side of this project, including the package distributions.

    To start, you’ll need to grab the torrent download – I picked the one labeled “everything,” weighing in at over 2GB. Once the download eventually finishes (it was slow for me, but I may have been a bit impatient and started mine before all the primaries were seeded), mount the KDE dmg file and double-click on the kde.pkg installer. It will do most of the heavy lifting and put the base packages and applications on your system. One bit of annoyance is that installer stores everything in /opt, so you’ll have to ⌘-Shift-G (goto folder) in the Finder and enter /opt/kde4/bin to get to the apps (alias this into the /Applications folder for faster access).
    (more…)

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  • Why Mac Security Matters: OS X Rootkit Hunter

    OS X Rootkit Hunter LogoAfter blogging about the need to use and maintain an anti-virus solution for your OS X systems, an anonymous reply questioning the need to use security tools at all on OS X systems gave me pause. You do not need me to link to the numerous articles flying around the internets that report on how one reason switchers are flocking to OS X is because of the lack of prevalence of malware. Folks are tired of viruses, worms, trojans, etc. hammering their systems. They are even more harrowed by having to maintain vigilance over their anti-virus programs, hoping they are not too far out of sync with the current “DAT”. However, switching to run OS X to avoid running anti-virus programs may not be the wisest choice.

    To answer the “do we really need security tools for OS X?” question in a slightly different way than you’ve seen from many technology pundits, I’d like to turn your attention to utility called rkhunter or “rootkit hunter”. As most TAB readers should know by now, OS X has it’s origins in Unix (the “darwin” base comes from FreeBSD), and most folks believe *nix variants (linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc) to be extremely secure, free of the problems that plague those sad, sad Windows users. If you fall into that camp, please take a moment and browse the Secunia FreeBSD 5.x artchives. Secunia reports show over 91 vulnerabilities, with critical ones impacting core services such as file sharing and remote access. This should not be surprising since Unix systems have been favorite targets for hackers as they provide such a powerful base to launch further exploits. One of the more gnarly hacks is the installation of a rootkit - a program that can take surreptitious control of your system. And, guess what: your Mac OS X workstation/server is susceptible to rootkits just like any other Unix system, even with Leopeard’s enhanced security features. How can you fight something you can’t even see? You need a tool to help. Modern anti-virus products can and usually do cover rootkits, but the rkhunter tool may cover additional rootkits and may update rootkit signatures more frequently than a traditional vendor.

    I wouldn’t recommend trying to get rkhunter installed on your Mac since it will require some enhanced Terminal-fu. Thankfully, Christian Hornung understood the need for such a tool and built a wrapper for it called (surprisingly enough), OS X Rootkit Hunter [dmg], complete with installer. After installing the package, navigate to Applications->OSXrkhnter and run the “Rootkit Hunter” app.

    It’s good practice to update the rootkit database (similar to a virus engine DAT update) before each scan since there may be new rootkit signatures from new or altered exploits. When you start the scan, you will see a password dialog - just as you would with any operation that requires additional privileges to run - since OS X Rootkit Hunter needs to look in places your normal account user account cannot. You will also see Terminal windows displaying a running report of what rkhunter has or has not found (since this front-end does not free you from all the gory details of what lies beneath Aqua).

    OS X Rootkit Hunter (large)

    While you can download and run OS X Rootkit Hunter, I would strongly suggest that less technical users obtain one of the commercially available malware scanners since the output from OS X Rootkit Hunter can be a bit daunting. The presence and history of this tool should be enough justification for the need to run security software on your systems.

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