journals
Flaw discovered in older Airport drivers, blogosphere erupts into flames
You may remember some weeks back the whole brouhaha over a supposed flaw in wireless drivers discovered by David Maynor and Jon Ellch of SecureWorks. For the most part, we here at Deep Thought ignored the whole issue, but some corners of the blogosphere dealt with the issues related to it all. Well pull out fire-retardant suits everyone, because the happy fun times are here again!
A zero-day flaw has been discovered in the drivers for Apple’s Airport drivers (note: 802.11b, not the later 802.11g) included with some machines sold between 1999 and 2003. According to one site that goes into detail about the issue, the drivers are “vulnerable to a remote memory corruption flaw.” A proof-of-concept and more details are provided (the proof-of-concept seems to be a jab at a certain daring tech writer--yeah, really classy, guys). Again, this does not affect any currently-shipping Macs, nor any machines Apple shipped after 2003.
Apple made the following statement to Brian Krebs of the Washington Post:
“We were recently made aware of this security issue in our first generation AirPort card, which has not shipped since October 2003. This issue affects a small percentage of previous generation AirPort enabled Macs and does not affect currently shipping or AirPort Extreme enabled Macs. We are currently investigating the issue.”
George Ou also posted a blog entry entitled ”Zero-day exploit released for unpatched Apple Airport Driver!”--I’ll let you the reader analyze Ou’s use of the exclaimation point in the title. The Macalope fired back with…
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Of GUIs and iCandy
Applications are like toast, I guess: you want it toasted to an even golden-brown.
Deep Thought and our friend over at codepoetry have had a little bit of a back-and-forth regarding the current gooey state of the Mac GUI. In case you missed it, here’s what happened last time on “The Young and the Geeky”:
- I Have Fallen Off The Face of Earth
- The View Is Much Better On The Face Of The Earth
- Okay, What the F**k? (I’m keeping this blog post PG-13
) - More on Overcooked UIs
There will be a quiz on the above articles tomorrow.
Okay, I’m not an interface designer, nor am I a programmer. I really don’t know what goes into designing a user interface in terms of coding, aside from dragging stuff around in Interface Builder, so I really only have experience from an end-user’s perspective in this regard.
A lot of what Adam Knight discusses in his posts on this issue has to do with what he describes as “overcooked UIs"—that is, user interfaces that use copious amounts of eye candy—with a secondary focus on the “undercooked apps"—applications with incomplete, missing, underdeveloped, or poorly-implemented feature sets or codebases—that the overcooked UIs belong to. (The epicures reading this must be cringing right about now with all this talk of over- and under-cooked stuff.) Most of this article will be dealing with the issues that Knight discusses in his last article on this topic, though not necessarily with his article itself. And no, I won’t directly rebut Knight’s response to Pilky’s blog entry on the topic.
The following excerpt…
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The View Is Much Better On The Face Of The Earth
In two sentences he's pretty much summed up the mentality of the Windows software developer.
Yes, I am writing a blog post and if you haven’t already guessed, yes it is a rebuttal. Developer Adam Knight has posted a rather, shall I say interesting, piece entitled I Have Fallen Off The Face of Earth. Unfortunately for him, falling off the face of the earth isn’t really the best position for making judgements from, at least that’s what I gather from his post.
So what is his post on about. Basically he has a gripe with applications with fancy UIs. Now to me the entire article sounds like what someone who can’t do UI design would say. This pretty much sums up his entire article: “I choose not to because the UI isn’t where a program’s beauty really is. It’s in the functionality and stability”. So… big feature list = good, decent UI = bad. In two sentences he’s pretty much summed up the mentality of the Windows software developer.
Now I admit, if your application doesn’t have any functionality and just a flashy UI then you aren’t going to get anywhere, yet he picks out two Apple that have good functionality and flashy UIs to attack. Seems to me he has a bad case of UI envy. He singles out Cha-Ching for most of his attack. Cha-Ching is a simple money management app (currently at version 0.2) that has one of the best (in my opinion THE best) UI on the Mac. It features cool fade effects and wipes when you switch views, has a beautifully…
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Apple adresses random MacBook shutdowns with SMC firmware update
Gentlemen, start your Software Updates!
To all those MacBook owners who have had random shutdown issues, Apple hath heard your pleas! Now available though Software Update is MacBook SMC Firmware Update 1.1. According to Apple’s Support document, “The SMC Update improves the MacBook’s internal monitoring system and addresses issues with unexpected shutdowns. This update is recommended for all MacBook systems, including those that received warranty repair.”
This update requires Mac OS X 10.4.7 or later, though 10.4.8 is recommended.
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Apple releases Core 2 Duo based MacBook Pro
Apple has updated it’s MacBook Pro line with processor upgrades to the new Core 2 Duo processors. There are two 15” models, the low end sporting a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo, 1GB RAM and a ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB VRAM. The high end 15” model features a 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM and 256MB VRAM. Both 15” models see the return of the Dual Layer Superdrive (albeit at 6x speed) and of Firewire 800. The 17” model features a 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB Ram, 256MB VRAM, 160GB HD, 8x Super drive and an extra USB 2 port. All models can be upgraded to 3GB of ram and 200GB of HD space
Deep Thought’s Take: These Core 2 Duo MBPs are exactly what people wanted from the first MBP. It’s also nice to see that Apple has decided not to skimp on the default RAM for once.
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more stuff
- Flaw discovered in older Airport drivers, blogosphere erupts into flames
- Of GUIs and iCandy
- The View Is Much Better On The Face Of The Earth
- Apple adresses random MacBook shutdowns with SMC firmware update
- Apple releases Core 2 Duo based MacBook Pro
- Apple posts strong Mac, iPod sales [UPDATED]
- Some iPods shipped with Windows virus
- Hell Hath No Fury
- Apple Releases (Product) Red iPod Nano
- DeviantART Has Features That Look Like Apple Made Them
- Apple denies and refuses to repair failed logicboard
- News of the Weird: “Genius Bar” coming to a CBS affiliate near you
- Clickable Bliss Billable
- Clickable Bliss releases invoicing tracking app for OS X
- Stupid Spotlight Tricks
- See, this is why I hate iTunes…
- Cut the Fat from your Mac
- Apple Introduces 24” iMac [UPDATED]
- It’s showtime at the Yerba Buena [UPDATED]
- Disable HTML Email in OS X’s Mail.app
- Korean Air bans Apple and Dell notebooks
- Google CEO Joins Apple’s Board of Directors
- Tera Patricks of Mac360.com dead at 46
- Well, the good news is…
- Wireless bug leaves some notebooks open to attack [UPDATED x2]
- Apple addresses some minor notebook issues
- Diving In
- SpamSieve 2.4.3
- Apple Releases Educational iMac [UPDATED]
- PopCopy, OmniGroup, others team up for PopLottery [UPDATED: first drawing deadline extended]
- Telekinesis + MenuMaster = t3h pwnage
- First “Screenshots” of OS X 10.5 leaked [UPDATED]
- Apple launches eMac repair program
- Telekinesis and Menu Master - The 1-2 punch that gives you total remote control of your Mac.
- Konfabulator Shmenfabulator
- PopCopy rewritten, updated to v.2.0
- MacBook first impressions
- Is the MacBook the Most Competitively Priced Mac Ever?
- Be Patient With Your Developers
- A second look at iWeb: version 1.1 [UPDATED]
- Creative sues Apple over iPod UI
- The Water Cooler: more security psychosis and going hard Core 2 the Extreme, y0!
- Apple releases OS X, QuickTime, Front Row fixes
- The Water Cooler: 17” MacBook Pros, Next Tuesday, Bring in the clones
- Mac Security: End the insanity. Now.
- Apple Bobs For Suckers - The Rebuttal
- I Think I’m Gonna Crash: Get A Mac Complaints Quashed
- Apple’s Mac ads deconstructed
- News-ish: Apple marketing blitz ramping up?
- UC Berkeley now on iTunes U
- 17” Powerbook Taken Out and Shot; MacBook Pro Slipped In
- The pretty little white box
- Apple Q2 Financial Results
- The Best Laid Plans of Macs and Market Share
- Teh-Hutt! Boot Camp coming to a Macintel near you
- Apple throws self birthday party
- First on DT: Tevanian to join Vista development team
- Image bug kicks Safari in the…um, yeah…
- 17” iMac Core Duo
- MacBook Pro is fastest Core Duo laptop?? [UPDATED]
- XvsXP.com Relaunches
- Apple offers special iChat icons for .mac users
- News of the Weird: Microsoft responsible for iPod packaging parody video?!?
- Apple sells movies--sorta [UPDATED TWICE AGAIN]
- No Vista for Macintels
- Five Reasons Why There WILL Be Macs in 2010
- Security Dos and Don’ts
- Shut the FUD UP!!!
- iMac: All Your Base-ic Needs In One
- Rumors: end the madness
- Apple updates abound
- Are Apple Leather Jackets Next?
- Mac Minintel + iPod BoomBrick.. er… Box
- News or Rumor? Apple to announce film downloading service [UPDATED]
- Rumor Mill: Is this the new video iPod? [UPDATED x3: We’ve been duped]
- iMac light sensor and LCD
- Do We Really Need “Anti” Virus Software?
- iTunes: Over One Billion Sold [UPDATED]
- Apple to hold special event Feb 28
- iMac light sensor and LCD
- Who says that people aren’t switching to the Mac?
- The truth about OS X/Leap.A
- Will Apple Adopt Windows? Not even when hell freezes over!
- Mac OS X Trojan Alert: This is NOT a Drill! [UPDATE]
- iMac vs. The World: Round Deux
- iMac vs. The World: Round 1
- Apple hasn’t impressed me lately
- iMac G5 Hard Drive Replacement
- Ambulance Chasing: Apple sued over iPod volume
- Homestar Runner: Coming to an iPod near you
- Mac Naming Convention
- Prediction: Apple’s new naming convention for Macs
- Apple registers “Mac Pro” trademark
- iLife 06 Review Part 6: Wrapup
- iLife 06 Review Part 5: iDVD
- Counterspective: Apple is a hardware company.
- An Interesting Perspective on the Intel Switch
- Macintosh turns 22
- iLife 06 Review Part 4: iMovie
- iLife 06 Review Part 3: iWeb
