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Written by Chris Tangora
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Friday, 18 April 2008 |
 MacMod's Josh Long takes a look a little deeper into PayPal's plans to block Web browsers that do not notify the user about possible phishing sites. Safari is one of the browsers that is slated to be blocked. Josh looks at the state of anti-phishing browsers and the effects of PayPal's plans should the company decide to follow through with them.
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Which Mac Bundle are you? |
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Written by Chris Tangora
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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 |
 There are two competing Mac app bundles out there for a limited time. The first comes from Mac Update at $69 and the second is from Mac Heist at $49. The two offer different programs, but both are worth looking at.
The MacUpdate bundle is more focused on productivity. It offers improvements to the OS X built-in Spotlight (Leap) and iCal (MenuCalendarClock). It also looks good for web designers with the text art maker "ArtText", the flash presentation creator "BannerZest" (currently locked at #9) and audio editor "Sound Studio" (locked at #8). It also offers some apps that have freeware equivalents. "Hazel" (Mac maintenance app), and DVDRemaster Pro (DVD downsampler/ripper/copier). For the typers in the audience they have "Typinator" to do repetitive typing tasks and "StoryMill" to write that novel you've always said you will write. And of course, Parallels Desktop (locked at #10).
In contrast, the Mac Heist bundle is more focused on the non-production user. It's applications don't flaunt the big name "Parallel", but they do offer some pretty good apps. They have 3 classic games, Nanosaur 2, Bugdom 2 and Enigmo (remember Nanosaur & Bugdom from the early days?). They also have their own typing application, WriteRoom that converts your mac to a big typing machine (full screen typing). The Mac Heist bundle also has Cha-Ching and Wallet. Cha-Ching keeps track of your finances and Wallet keeps track of your passwords or create list. "Awaken" is an app that allows you to use iTunes to wake you up. Pretty good if you have a Mac Home Media Center that can blast you awake. This bundle also gives you "CoverSutra", allowing you to control and view iTunes info without having to switch to iTunes. DEVONthink is a well known app with built-in Artificial Intelligence to keep track of all your documents. Do you miss the launcher from OS 9? "Overflow" is the OS X equivalent. You also have iClip (the clipboard on steroids) and XSlimmer to squeeze all the unnecessary bits out of your fat binaries.
In the end it is up to you to decide which bundle has more apps that would work for you. If you hold out for the MacUpdate you may get Parallel's for a discount, plus 9 other apps. But if you want to know what you are getting when you pay, then the MacHeist is more your style. Either way, both of these bundles are great app packages that definitely help the Mac community at large.
At the time of posting, the MacUpdate has sold about 500 copies, and the MacHeist has sold about 1,000 copies.
MacHeist Bundle ($50)
MacUpdate Bundle ($70)
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Windows copies the Mac, retro. |
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Written by Chris Tangora
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Friday, 11 April 2008 |
 There are some computer users who don't remember the OS wars, as scary as that sounds it's true. So here's a quick video to help demonstrate how badly Microsoft took the GUI interface from Apple. Yes, technically some people will say that Apple took it from Xerox, but I couldn't find a video of that system.
So take a look at this presentation at the University of Illinois back in 2007. They are talking about virtualization on the Windows platform and show examples of Windows 1, Windows 2, Windows 3.1 (notice the errors and how quickly he closes it), and Windows 3.5 (technically it was version 4 though). What got me was, why is it called Windows 1 and Windows 2 when there aren't any windows? Really, it changed that much from one version to the next. No wonder there were accusations about Windows stealing the GUi.
The reason why I bring this up today is that Windows is doing it again. No, not Vista's interface. The Mach Kernel. Windows 7 (which is only a code name) is going to be based on a Mach Kerenl like architecture. It won't be the Mach Kernel, but the same load as you need it architecture will be there.
My favorite quote, "That was not necessarily Microsoft's proudest moment there".
A trip back in Windows
From istartedsomething
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Written by Chris Tangora
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Tuesday, 08 April 2008 |
 Apple discontinued the iBook name and picked up the MacBook when it switched to Intel processors for it's portable computer. However, about two months ago an interesting article came out with speculation to a new iBook coming out, one that was focused on, of all things, reading.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in an interview the problem with eBooks and eBook readers is that nobody reads anymore. While that may be true, it may also be a smoke screen. There is a really good article about this over at extremetech.com (from February 2008). What really got me thinking was Steve's reaction when asked about Amazon's Kindle (their ebook reader). After thinking about it over a cup of java I realized something. If Steve talks bad about something, it's because he's trying to do it better.
You don't see Steve jobs going out and smashing on any markets that are doing well. You won't hear him talking about the way that the TV market has really lagged and disappointed the consumer or are to hard to use. What Steve does talk about is how a market is hurting, and if you listen closely you can hear how Apple thinks it can do it better. Steve himself said they would never make an iPhone. Next thing you know the iPhone has it's own sessions at WWDC.
So will the iBook be reborn? Who knows. What I see though is hardware that Marvel and DC Comics could be read on, college students use to study on and doctors use to read your medical records. The same device could play games (like Quake 3) or watch movies (iTunes already shipping 853x366 movies).
That sounds a little appealing, and I think Apple could do it.
Read Jim Lynch's take at extremetech.com
iTunes shipping hi-res movies.
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WWDC 2008, what will it bring? |
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Written by Chris Tangora
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Tuesday, 08 April 2008 |
 WWDC is coming closer and closer. The 2nd generation iPhones with a 3G network will no doubt be released then. But, that will only be part of the keynote. I think that the 2nd gen iPhone will be amazing, but what Apple shows developers will hopefully be twice as amazing.
Looking at the sessions available for WWDC 2008 you see three distinct tracks : iPhone, IT & Mac. Continue reading to see the highlights of each.
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For Christ's sake, read the rules! |
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Written by Chris Tangora
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Tuesday, 08 April 2008 |
 The CanSecWest PWNtoOWN competition is over, has been for a while. But the news is still floating around the internet like it is something new. I can understand the dismay or joy that some feel when they saw the Mac hacked into. However, what really bugs me is the Fox News approach everyone is taking this.
While searching for noteworthy news I found two articles that came from people who obviously just regurgitate news items the see (much the same way Fox News does). The two sites were dailypicture.net and pangwinandtertle.com. I'm just picking on these two sites because they are reporting more on the story, yet leaving out a very basic part of the story. Here at MacMod I feel proud that we just don't grab the latest headlines, cut out one or two interesting bits and feed it back out. We take a closer look and try our best to give the most accurate information.
The item that almost all news stories fail to mention is the fact that the PWNtoOWN contest was about zero day hacks. These are hacks that have never been seen before. The contest is not an absolute judge of how good the security is on the system. Please, if there is anybody out there that is going to continue to comment on the CanSecWest PWNtoOWN contest this year, mention this relevant piece of information!
With that said, these two articles do shed some new light into the PWNtoOWN contest. According to their sources (ArsTechnia and CIO ), Adobe knew of the fatal error in Flash and there were hundreds of people at the conference who knew how to hack into Linux, but didn't want to put the time in. Really? $5K not enough for you to put some time in? $10K, $20K? A new computer? Please. If someone knew a way to get $20 large and new computer, don't you think they would take it?
Stepping down from the soap box. Thank you & good night.
Links to dailypicture.net article and pangwinandtertle.com article.
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Written by Chris Tangora
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Wednesday, 02 April 2008 |
 Recently Creative (the company) released a sound card that was supposed to be Windows XP and Vista compatible. Turns out the Vista drivers were only partial drivers, not taking full advantage of the card. You could purchase a full version from Creative for Vista. However, someone thought different.
Daniel_K cracked the Creative code to enable the full set of features for Vista. Creative was upset and yanked all references on the Creative site. Daniel_K was asking for handouts, but was not charging for the mod'd drivers. Lawsuits are threatened, feelings are hurt, it's a mad mad world. Now the question comes up, is what Daniel_K did a hack, or a crack? He took someone else's code (Creative's) and made it fully enabled without paying. To me it seems like this is a crack. If he used the driver and added features that weren't found in the XP driver, then it would have been a hack.
Feelings here at MacMod HQ are split. Some see this as the big bad company attacking hackers/modders, and some see it as people trying to get free software upgrades from companies. Regardless, it was really creepy of Creative to disable some featuers for Vista, but not for XP.
What are your thoughts?
Email from Daniel_K on wired.com
Creative's Forum about Daniel_K's mod
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Written by Chris Tangora
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Tuesday, 01 April 2008 |
Infoworld has published a post about the top 5 reasons to switch back from the Mac to a PC. It follows Timothy Keanini from nCircle on his conversion from Mac to Windows. Generally we don't comment on opinion posts, but after reading it I felt i had to. Here are the five points they try to stress for moving back to a Windows only environment.
1. Working on a Mac decreased productivity.
2. Workarounds for a heterogenous environment take to much time.
3. Specific applications are Windows only.
4. Can not export Apple data to other platforms.
5. Physical hardware reliability (to hot to use laptop, heat causes batteries to die)
You can go read the article yourself, the link is on the bottom. I am going to pull a quote or two from each section and give my two cents on why I think InfoWorld's article should be filed under an April Fool's Day joke.
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