Devoted to hardware, software, IT issues, and information technology management

Apple needs to sack their PR agency. Instead of erecting the horrendous structure called to be a "new insult to Islam" by the The Middle East Media Research Institute, they should at least make something cool like a glass pyramid like the front of the Louvre Museum in the Da Vinci code. They are making their New York Fifth Avenue store to be a target of extremists and its just not good business sense.

Some weird news from the good old NY side.

source

Jon Lech Johansen aka DVD Jon is one guy who can't keep his hands away from cracking software copyrights and now he's done it again. He's famous for hacking encrypted DVDs and now he's planning to licence his reverse-engineered versions of Apple’s Fairplay to companies who want their media working on iPods and Apple gadgets. Well, this means he could make big bucks out of this and make the iPod even more popular. Heck, he could even sell his tech to Microsoft since Zune's don't work well with iTunes. Some people are just too smart to keep quiet.


Jon Lech Johansen aka DVD Jon breaks Apple’s Fairplay

With so many reviews and rumours about Apple products out there, it's hard to know when to buy an Apple product, whether to wait, or to snap up a cheap iPod or whether or not you should just go ahead and buy the latest new 80GB iPod.

So, what do you do? Well, iLounge has pontificated the idea of the 'best' time to buy an Apple product and has some rather useful tips and hints here. 'The purchase of any Apple product can be made on a single question: does the product available today have the features that will satisfy me? If the answer is yes, buy it and enjoy it. If the answer is no, wait. But don't second-guess your decision or wait around for a replacement that may take years to arrive. If you buy soon after release, you'll have the longest opportunity to enjoy the features and performance before something else comes along and makes you envious. That's life..enjoy while you can as tomorrow may never come.

Apple Computer Inc. completed its shifting to Intel Corp. microprocessors and previewed its next-generation operating system on Monday. CEO Steve Jobs, speaking to thousands of engineers at the company's Worldwide Developer Conference, showed off Intel-based Macs for professional users and servers for businesses and so ends the realms of PowerPC chips built by IBM Corp. and Freescale Semiconductor Inc. Steve also previewed the upcoming Mac OS X release, dubbed "Leopard," slated for spring 2007 and this should give delayed Vista a run for the hills.

The Intel Xeon Core 2 (Woodcrest) based Mac Pro features two of the newest Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors. 2GHz, 2.66GHz, and the 3GHz version, goes up to 2x faster than the Power Mac G5 Quad.

The fastest Mac Pro ever made has memory storage that goes up to 16GB of RAM, slots for 2 SuperDrives, four PCI Express slots, and more I/O ports than a hardware shop.

Apple unveils Intel-based Macs and Leopard at Worldwide Developer Conference source

I find the process of booting Vista and OS X on a Macbook pretty suicidal. Why go on such a trip and make your life difficult when having Windows XP is good enough. Well, if you are wondering how it can be done, then here's the link to a great post that shows you how it can be done. Be warned though that backup is essential when you follow the dark path..



Windows Vista comes with a new boot manager, that is very flexible. I thought it would be nice if I could use that to specify an entry for Mac OS X. However, the technology is new and I cannot find many documentations about it. The FAQ in Microsoft's web site does not tell you how to create a boot loader for Mac OS X. It only tells you how to create a boot loader for legacy systems like Windows XP. I then found out that people are using a chain0 file with Vista's boot manager to dual boot OS X and Vista for the OSx86 project. I tried that, but it did not work. The problem is that the chain0 file is not for booting Mac OS X on MacBook. What I really need is already on my MacBook. It's called boot.efi and it's under /usr/standalone/i386/ . The file is hidden from Finder. You will need to use Terminal application to copy it. Here are the steps.

Jim Louderback had a day at Dell's Austin headquarters and even spoke to Michael  Dell and it looks like they are looking at the lucrative Mac OS market. Looks like  a good way to enrich their coffers. But would they be undercutting Apple's online  store and how much margin can they make ?

I recently spent a day at Dell's Austin headquarters, and ended up with a  conversation with Michael Dell – which I recorded. He does the usual CEO two step,  but also revealed some interesting facts – including how he'd really like to sell  PCs and laptops running OSX.

Dell Wants to Sell Mac OSX PCs site

 

Some news that’s not for the faint-hearted Mac OS X lovers. Just don’t forget to update your patches, your antivirus defs and your anti-spyware definitions before you sleep tonight. Best bet is just switch off your PC instead of leaving your Bit Torrent on all the time.

The SANS Institute warned of a steep increase in critical security holes in Apple Computer's Mac OS X operating system and in previously undiscovered ("zero day") vulnerabilities in Web browsers.

A booming cyber crime market is driving the growth in zero-day attacks, which are used against Web browsers and enterprise applications by Oracle, Symantec, and others to access sensitive data, SANS said.

 

Increase in critical security holes in Apple Computer's Mac OS X source

You would think that Apple''s Big Online Store that sells downloadable songs for iPods would be at least bug proof or idiot proof. It ain't exactly that when you read Scott Berinato's customer fiasco with them. Imagine going through all the trouble just to get a USD0.99 mistake rectified. I'd probably just not buy from them anymore. I hate crappy Customer Service and that's just because I deserve it since I was a Customer Service Engineer for the past 4 years of my life and I treat customers like King. Just be careful when you shop online and always print your receipts before you leave any website.

Let's review Apple's iTunes store failed to provide a service I paid for and, before Apple would rectify its own error, the company demanded that I turn over either personal information irrelevant to my request, or money. In other words, I pay in cash or in personal information for the chance to report a service failure even before I've been guaranteed any sort of satisfactory rectification of their mistake.

The Price of Online Privacy source


Article by Michelle (Malaysia) - My beautiful wife, who's a IT/Network Admin from http://www.mclady.net/blog

 

Why on earth would someone install a buggy software (Windows XP) on a MAC ? It's simply ridiculous to install something like that on a stabil Apple Macintosh hardware with a Intel CPU. So the best reason is probably to play some computer games since MACs don't have good support for them. Goes to show you that simplicity and greed outweighs common sense when its comes to IT stuff. In the end, technology should help make our life simpler, not more more complicated. Please send me your Windows blue screens on Macs and I'll give you 48 hours of fame over here.

 

It's quite usual to see worms and spyware on Windows systems but having them on the Mac OS X is something pretty unusual since its basically a Unix based system that's secure. A second worm attacking the Mac OS X system has been discovered over the weekend and basically, the OSX/Inqtana-A worm spreads between Apple Mac computers via a Bluetooth vulnerability. The new worm has appeared within days of the discovery of OSX/Leap-A, the first virus for Mac OS X.

Antivirus company Sophos says the first "real virus" that targets Apple's Mac OS X operating system has been spotted online, reports Forbes. Appropriately enough, it was a type of virus called a worm. A Mac rumors website first reported a sighting on Feb. 13, in the form of a file called latestpics.tgz, supposedly consisting of screenshots of the Leopard Mac OS X 10.5; however, despite displaying a JPEG icon when click on, it was an executable file.

The Inqtana worm, which may start at boot up, attempts to discover Bluetooth devices that will accept a file via the OBEX Push service (typically requiring user intervention). It exploits a vulnerability known as CAN-2005-1333 to spread itself to other vulnerable Mac OS X computers.

Almost everyone in the civilized world has a cellular phone. Well, I take that back, even terrorists in the remotest part of the world have some form of mobile communication tools. So, this morning I did not spill my coffee in bewildement when I read the report from iSuppli (via TG Daily).

The Mobile Communications industry worldwide have enjoyed dizzying growth for the better half of the last decade. Thanks to innovation in communication technologies, cellular phones have evolved from being a business tool to an indispensable social fabric that holds families, soceities, businesses, and governments together.

With economies of scale and clever Marketing Strategies (e.g. phone subsidies in exchange for long-term contracts), cellular phones became more and more accessible to the average person. The phenomenon continued until the market reaches saturation point. 

By YC from the Technocrat Soapbox,
Guest Blogger

One would think that this would be the logical partnership for Apple. After all, AMD has consistently produced the highest-performing CPU (the Athlon 64 FX-60 was released yesterday) in the market for over 3 years now, and with a 'nonconformist' mentality to go with Apple's "Think Different" philosophy, who would be a better suitor?


Apple and AMD.
Just perfect, like milk and Oreo cookies.
But alas, this is not to be.

Sadly, it all boils down to Economics.

Apple dominated the PC Market in the first decade of the last 30 years, differentiating itself from its competitors by delivering creative and even fashionable products like the Apple ][, the Lisa, the Macintosh, and the Newton MessagePad.

But Apple's arrogance and political infighting culminated to the exodus of its spiritual leaders (Jobs was ousted in a boardroom coup and Wozniak resigned in frustration). The once proud and mighty operated in the red for almost another decade, withering down to a single-digit market share today (despite Jobs' eventual return in the mid-90's).

By YC from the Technocrat Soapbox,
Guest Blogger

Unless you had no contact with the civilized world this past week, you would have known that North America's largest Consumer Electronic Show, CES 2006, was held in Las Vegas. CES 2006 opened with a BANG on January 5th and ended with a whimper yesterday afternoon.

Just as CES 2006 wound down, another show started today, the 2006 Macworld Conference & Expo started at San Francisco.

To the legions of Apple Fans, Macworld is not just another technology exhibition; it is pilgrimage season to the 'Mecca' of the 'Apple way of life.'