Sunday, February 12

I tried again (in vain) to install the fglrx drivers, and that’s about it.

Monday, February 13

I found a bug.  When creating a drawer for the workspace switcher, if you make the workspace switcher bigger than 73 pixels and place it second to the right on the bottom panel, you will experience a lock up should you try to open the drawer.

Tuesday, February 14

Might as well just say this: there’s something about Firefox that bugs me, more specifically, this is a problem with Gecko. For some reason, Gecko will not draw the standard GTK+ widgets in a web page. Comparison:

Gecko Widgets

GTK+ Widgets

The biggest offender is the drop-down box, which loses both its looks and functionality (the GTK+ dropdowns work like the ones in OS X):

Gecko Dropdown

GTK+ Dropdown

Hopefully the problem is rectified in the near future, but I see it happening when Firefox decides to actually follow the HIGs of the platforms it runs on (and not one for all platforms), meaning never.

Wednesday, February 15th

Yesterday I ranted, so today I’ll tell you about something done right. In fact, it’s done better than the same feature in either Mac OS or Windows. It’s called KSnapshot, and it gives a user interface to taking screenshots. KSnapshot isn’t included with GNOME, but can be downloaded quite easily. It allows taking shots of the desktop, a window, or a selection of the screen. It also allows you to save the shot anywhere…
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1) I was at home for two days and had to use a Dell.  It’s less than two years old but it’s already doing something quite odd.  It’s acting sluggish.  [I have no idea why this is indented btw]
2) The dell is ugly.  My iMac is not.  They both have ugly logos though but the Dell’s is more noticable---grey on Black.
3) The dell hasn’t been noisy so far and no matter how much it was originally worth (it’s a basic model), it’s expendable.  So that’s two things.  It’s good for now but if it acts up more we can ignore it or trash it perhaps violently for fun.  Destruction can be that way.  I wish I had destroyed my PowerBook at the first sign of its noise problem (but after AppleCare failed to fix it).  I’d give it at least a chance.  What technology have you destroyed?  I certainly have broken a few things...the ones on purpose were [dead] cell phones. 

Years ago I took one to the curb and then smashed it over and over again.  This time for science---I couldn’t open the case even with my special tools.  Curiosity.  Then there’s that video of the guy, a fat guy, smashing an office computer at his cubicle.  And surely one or a hundred of PC’s being tossed out windows.  People hate technology sometimes.  It’s stress relief and can be appropriate and effective at that.  It’s a thing not a person.  As a vegetarian I’d never hurt an animal…
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I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about the “First Mac OS X virus” that has generated a lot of buzz through the Mac community today. The FUD stops here. Here are the facts you need to know, the debunked myths, and the tips to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of malware.

What is OS X/Leap.A?
This little guy made its debut on February 13 in a thread entitled ”Alleged screenshots of OS 10.5 Leopard”. Curious readers downloaded a file called “latestpics.tgz,” expecting Leopard screenshots. Instead, as MacRumors forum poster “yankeefan24” (who may have been the first person affected by this malware) put it, “[when double-clicked] it opens in terminal. not right.” No kidding. If your are running an administrator account, you may not be asked to enter a password. Non-administrator accounts require the user to enter an administrator password to run the malware.

It is hard to classify what this is, exactly. Some call it a full-fledged OS X virus, some call it a worm, others call it a trojan horse. I will call it “malware.”

Andrew Welch of Ambrosia Software has written a more in-depth description of what this malware does.

Wait! I just bought a Mac because I thought there were no viruses! You mean the Mac is vulnerable to malware? *Hyperventilates*
Easy, buddy! There is no such thing as an impervious OS. Every operating system is vulnerable to Social engineering. This malware does not exploit any security flaws in OS X. Virus-free or no, the risk is…
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Ahhh, the venerable John C. Dvorak strikes again with his infamous lack of understanding for all things Apple. Though for once he isn’t declaring Apple’s impending doom, which makes a welcome change. This time he is in fact saying that Apple will be dropping OS X in favour of Windows.

First off, let’s discuss the fundamental flaw in the argument. Dvorak is saying that Apple will ship more Macs by taking away what makes a Mac a Mac and replacing it with the main reason that people buy a Mac over any other computer. Apple isn’t going to just dump the biggest weapon in it’s arsenal. It’s one thing to switch from Classic to OS X or from PPC to x86. It’s another thing completely to switch from the Mac OS to Windows. Not only would you have the major problem of viruses, spyware, trojans etc but you would also cut out software developers. Sure the bigger companies already have Windows apps out there but the majority of the smaller indie application developers rely on OSX and it’s technologies to make their apps so great. For many things there are no alternatives on windows. Plus Apple would effectively be abandoning all of it’s software. No iLife, no Safari, no Final Cut Studio. The only Apple apps that would be available would be iTunes and Quicktime, both of which don’t run as well on Windows as they do on the Mac.

Dvorak then goes on to say that Windows works with so…
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It looks like there is a piece of OS X malware floating around!

A couple nights ago, a user posted a file entitled “latestpics.tgz” in a thread on MacRumors.com’s forums, disguising it as a Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) screenshot. The decompressed file sports a JPEG icon. Double-clicking it launches the Terminal, asks for the administrator’s password, then runs the executable. It is unknown at this time what damage, if any, is caused by this apparent trojan; it may very well be a proof-of-concept and nothing more. Also, it does not exploit a flaw in OS X as far as anyone can tell, but instead relies on social engineering to run and spread. It is also PowerPC-only and will not run on Intel-based Macs.

There have been a few unconfirmed reports of the trojan spreading through iChat or other instant message clients.

Andrew Welch of Ambrosia Software is working on deconstructing the trojan in Ambrosia’s forums.

If you’ve been infected by this trojan and have any further information, please post a comment or email us.

This may be obvious to many readers, but please use caution when downloading files! Do not download a file called “latestpics.tgz”! When you download any compressed file, be certain to check the decompressed file’s file kind in the Get Info window. For day-to-day use, use a non-administrator user account, or at the very least, turn on “Show all file extensions” in Finder Preferences. I know that Mac users like myself can get complacent since we’re not…
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