Security Update 2008-005 in out in various flavors, and it's a biggy. With it, Apple finally fixes a serious DNS flaw which our own Dan Moren described a few days back:
The flaw in question, uncovered by security researcher Dan Kaminsky, revealed a method by which the DNS's cache could be "poisioned"--that is, false data could be used to replace real data, so instead of going to your bank's website, you would be sent to a fake website, even though your location bar would still tell you that you were at your bank's site. Scary stuff.
But wait, that's not all! This update also fixes a numbers of flaws in Data Detectors, Disk Utility, OpenSSL, and more. Apple has compiled a handy and exhaustive list for your viewing pleasure.
So don't delay, fire up Software Update and get your Mac all patched up.
It's not just the FAA that's hatin' on Macs these days. The New York State Bar Examination -- you know, the one that gives all those attorneys official permission to get their briefs all up in a twist -- isn't allowing Macs for the grueling two-day exam beginning today.
According to The New York Times, the board's policy is: "We do not support Apple products in any form including Intel-based laptops running Boot Camp -- no exceptions."
This is, of course, despite the fact that last year's laptop-based portion was disastrous, reports the Times:Last summer, panic spread through various testing sites when the exam software - which locks down all programs and files except the exam - malfunctioned. Hundreds of laptop users who navigated back to a previously completed essay found a blank screen. In the months following the exam, [John McAlary, the executive director of the New York State Board of Law Examiners] said, the board salvaged all but 47 essays. Some of those candidates passed or failed regardless of their score on the lost essay, leaving only 15 that were given an estimated score. Nine of them passed the bar, six didn't.
Once this is all said and done, we really, really hope that one of these new hotshot esquires sues for discrimination.
[via Electronista]
Apparently Shaquille O'Neal has been spotted at the Millenia Mall Apple store in Orlando twice in the last week, reports an Orlando Sentinel newspaper reporter.
Etan Horowitz writes:In the past week, two people have told me they saw Shaquille O'Neal at the Apple Store at the Millenia Mall. But neither of them was able to snap a photo of Shaq and a Mac (despite the fact that one of these people is a photographer and there are a bunch of iPhones with cameras in the store that they could have grabbed).
So, since it seems like Shaq may be making regular trips to the Apple Store these days, I'll give a prize to the first person who can e-mail me a real photo of Shaq at the Apple Store.
Can any Orlando MacUser readers confirm this? I wonder what percentage of the Suns starting five use Macs, or for that matter, how common they are in the NBA.
As if the brutal MobileMe e-mail outages weren't bad enough for MobileMe customers, tuaw is reporting that Apple's e-mail outage chat support service has been ungracefully cutting off customers who they don't believe to be amongst the users affected by the outage—without even giving the customer a chance to appeal this claim.
Apparently, unqualified users who tried to get chat support for MobileMe email were booted off the chat with this curt, template response:
"I'm sorry, according to our records, you were not one of the members affected by the email outage that began on July 18th. MobileMe Mail 24-hour chat support is a temporary measure designed specifically for users whose accounts were affected by that outage. For help, please visit http://www.apple.com/support/mobileme/ww for access to all of our support resources. I apologize for any inconvenience."
One unfortunate MobileMe user believes he truly was amongst the affected users, and was entitled to chat support, but was not even given the chance to argue his point. Bad show, Apple. Not a nice way to treat customers who've already been through hell and back dealing with this most botched of botched releases.
As the world anticipates the next big Apple product updates, Apple has advised retailers to stock up on Apple merch now as product shortages may loom in the near future. According to 9to5mac and AppleInsider, Apple suggests that retailers order 4 weeks worth of their top selling iPod models, and 3 weeks worth of Mac notebooks as supplies will become extremely limited over the next seven days.
While this may simply have to do with Apple's education promotion in which they're giving away iPod touches with new Macs, it may also signal that new models are approaching. Given the amount of time that's passed since the last updates, the stars indeed seem to be aligned for new Mac gear. If the word on the street is true, Apple should be unveiling their new product line for the Fall holiday shopping season.
So there we have it: a potentially new line of iPods and notebooks in the near horizon. Let the stokage commence!
A hardy congrats to Apple and their continued dominion over the European education market. According to 9 to 5 Mac, a study by research firm Gartner has confirmed that Apple, in the second calendar quarter of 2008, remains the number one PC manufacturer in the education segment across Europe. They've held this position for eight successive quarters, selling 19.2 percent of all CPU's sold in the sector, including servers.
And so Apple continues its positive growth trend in just about every way, around the world. It's crazy to think that when I was in grade school, the Apple II's were the big thing, with only a few privileged "Macintosh" computers here and there. Nowadays, at least in Europe, Intel iMacs abound in the classroom. That, ladies and gentlemen, is progress. *sniff sniff* It's just so damned beautiful!
We may have thought, hoped, and dreamed that Apple’s suit against clonemaker Psystar was the end of the story, but the battle will apparently continue in the courtroom this fall. Psystar has retained the services of Silicon Valley law firm Carr & Ferrell to defend its honor.
Heading up Psystar’s crack legal team is Carr & Ferrell partner Robert Yorio (pictured), who’s actually taken on Cupertino before in the case of Burst.com v. Apple, where the aforementioned sued Apple for violating its streaming media patents—the case ended with a settlement that saw Apple shell out $10 million to Burst.com. Yorio also oversaw a similar case that ended with a $60 million settlement from Microsoft, a patent infringement case against Iomega and Adaptec, and—perhaps most notably—a case against LEGO for the containers used in their Bionicle line.
Yorio’s biggest obstacle will be finding a way around Apple’s EULA, which prohibits installing OS X onto non-Apple branded computers. We’d think it’s a losing battle, but if Psystar somehow manages to eke out a win, this could change the landscape of the desktop market. A formal response from Psystar is due in August, at which point, we shall get ready to rumble.
[via InformationWeek]
Son, you might think FireWire is pretty fast, but you ain’t seen nothing yet. FireWire’s 400 Mbps speed is great for high-bandwidth uses and it puts USB2 to shame most of the time. And that’s before we even start talking about FireWire 800, though I’ll have to confess that I’ve never even had the privilege of owning a FireWire 800 machine.
Then again, FireWire 800 is about to start looking pretty poky. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (better known by its super-sekrit codename, IEEE), not content to merely step FireWire, aka IEEE 1394, to its subsequent iteration, has approved the next two versions of the specification: FireWire 1600 and FireWire 3200. That means speeds of up to 3.2 Gbps. The new versions will be fully backwards compatible with the existing FireWire 400 and 800 implementation, but will use the FireWire 800 connector shape.
FireWire 1600 and 3200 are expected to be available in October of this year, which gets them out of the gate slightly before USB3.0 and its top speed of 4.8 Gbps makes its appearance by the end of the year. Will we see FireWire 1600 and 3200 in the next-generation of Macs? The iPhone and latest iPod models have all eschewed FireWire in favor of USB, despite the fact that it was Apple who created the FireWire protocol. The two have co-habited on most Macs, despite the fact that FireWire 800 has only made inroads on about half of existing models.
[via Gizmodo]
Remember last week’s news that Yahoo was locking down all of their music and throwing away the keys? It looks like they’re not entirely staffed by heartless, soulless minions of digital rights management orthodoxy. One might be tempted to even perhaps exclaim. “Yay!” one might say. Or something along those lines.
According to a report in the Associated Press, Yahoo has come up with a transition plan for those customers affected by the shutdown of the company’s music license servers. Yahoo will provide coupons that allow customers to re-purchase their music from Yahoo’s new music partner, Rhapsody, in untainted MP3 format. The coupons are not track-specific—i.e., you could buy different music from Napster, if you suddenly decide that all those Sugar Ray songs you bought several years ago no longer are quite your cup of crap tea.
You can pick up some coupons (or, if you don’t want more music, a refund) by contacting Yahoo’s customer care department. Tell them we said “hi.”
[via Consumerist]
Simple title for a simple update: Apple today released iTunes 7.7.1, a full 0.0.1 increment to its jazzy jukebox app.
So what’s new? Quite a bit; we’ll need a full block quote for this one:
iTunes 7.7.1 includes fixes to improve stability and performance.
Dude, how can they fit so much into just one update?
Miracle men, that’s what they are. Miracle men.
What’s that, you say? Haiku? Don’t mind if I do:
One simple sentence To describe the whole update What are they hiding?
Check the new ‘Tunes in your Software Update, and start enjoying your “improved stability and performance.” Apple insists.
Update: Our friends at TidBITS believe they have tracked down five bugs that 7.7.1 fixes from trawling Apple’s discussion boards.
