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An April Fool’s Day reject

Tiny iPod imageFor the past few years on April Fool's Day, I've run some sort of prank announcement on macosxhints.com--everything from switching to WindowsXP hints to the triple-CPU G5 Cubed to running OS X on an iPod to this year's 30th Anniversary Mac.

When thinking about what to do for this year, the Apple Music/Apple Computer lawsuit was getting a lot of press. Using that as the setup, I thought I'd run a cool story about a new Apple/Apple agreement that would finally put Beatles music on iPods. I even went so far as to mock up a line of special edition iPods created just for the occasion. Ultimately, I trashed the concept and went with the Intel/PowerPC Mac, but I thought I'd share the Beatles Special Edition iPod designs here (click the image for a larger version):

Beatle iPods

I had written up most of the story, too, but that's long since gone. The only other thing I have left is the sales flyer sheet I put together with some specs on the units--you can see the full-size flyer by clicking on the small image at the top right of this story. You'll see a full view of each iPod, along with some tech notes about the units. Be aware that the full-size image is a 173KB PNG file, so those with modems (are there any of you?) may wish to avoid doing that.

In the end, I felt the Intel/PowerPC thing would be more interesting, so that's what I went with. But when I look at the custom iPods, I think "geez, if Apple offered some sort of custom iPod image silkscreening feature, I'd probably buy one." I think they'd look much more interesting than the current plain black or white versions, based on looking at even my relatively poor Photoshop work. And it'd be a nice way to customize your unit, by including an image of your choice directly on the machine itself.









The appeal of good packaging…

iPod boxFor a long time, Apple has simply done packaging 'right,' especially for the iPod.

Although the packaging for iPods isn't the flashiest on the shelf, it is a marvel of simplicity and amazing design, like the machine itself. The experience continues inside the box, where it seems the iPod engineers must have been involved--everything has a place, and space is never wasted. I still recall opening the first iPod I ever bought, fascinated by the multi-foldout design that let so much stuff fit in such a compact space. As a matter of fact, that box is still on my shelf. But this post isn't about the inside of the box, it's about the outside of the box.

iPod packaging is clean, well thought out, and almost spartan when compared to similar products from others. Where competitor X will have multiple font sizes and colors, huge blocks of text, splashes of varying color and style, and legal mumbo jumbo, the iPod box simply tells you what's inside in a few words and images. It stands out because it's not garish and overbearing, unlike everything else.

Which is what makes this video parody (alternate lower-quality link), in which Microsoft redesigns the iPod's box, so amazingly funny. Forget that it's even Microsoft being parodied; it could be nearly any of the other major players in the technology business. This spot is very well put together, and to me, it really demonstrates how very hard it must be to go simplistic and clean when everyone is probably pushing quite hard to "fill that empty space with something!"

And no, I don't normally post just links to other things, but this one is so well done, it really is worth watching!



More on Leap-A/Oompa Loompa

I was frustrated after writing my Leap-A Q&A for Macworld yesterday, as I couldn't get Oompa Loompa to do what it was supposed to do--it wasn't infecting my files, and it wasn't sending itself out over iChat. So today, my friend and coworker Kirk McElhearn and I spent the better part of the day testing Oompa Loompa on a couple of controlled Macs. We wanted to figure out exactly what it did, or did not, do, and what to do about it if you found it on your machine.

You can read the results of our efforts in the article titled Digging deeper into the Leap-A malware. It took quite a while, but we think we finally figured out exactly how it works (and doesn't work), and offer some advice on removal. Among the more surprising findings was that it will not attempt to send itself out over Internet iChat, only Bonjour iChat. It also won't affect applications that are system-owned, only those that have been installed by a user (and are therefore user-owned). Both of these are why I wasn't seeing the behavior I expected to see yesterday. My test machine had only Apple's stock Tiger applications on it, and Kirk and I were testing with an Internet iChat.

I am now officially very sick of Leap-A, having spent probably 18 hours on it over the last two days. The short summary is that it's a bad piece of malware that could have been worse...but it's far from the self-propagating internet-spreading virus/worm that's been described on other sites. At the end of the day, it's really just a good reminder to be very careful about what you download and install on your Mac.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

-rob.



I’m local, and I’m malicious!

[Note: The following isn't a slam on Apple's security policies, nor am I chiding them for fixing a security hole. I merely found the description of one particular hole and its related fix somewhat funny, so I thought I'd have a bit of fun with it. Read the following as nothing more than a poor attempt at humor after a long day spent writing about security issues...]

Given the relative seriousness of the Leap-A malware/trojan (I put together a pretty straightforward Q&A page for Macworld, too), I thought the following look at the lighter side of security was worth sharing today!

One of the things included in the recent 10.4.5 update (and yes, I've already updated the OS X release dates chart) was a security update for the kernel. Specifically, this update fixed the following exploit:

A malicious local user may trigger a system crash by invoking an undocumented system call. This update addresses the issue by removing the system call from the kernel.

Now don't get me wrong, I think patching security holes is a Very Good Thing. However, in this case, I have to question both the danger of the hole as well as the quality of the related fix. Let's look at the 'hole' and 'fix' in more detail. First, consider malicious, which derives from the word malice. According to Merriam-Webster, malice is the "intent to commit an unlawful act or cause harm without legal justification or excuse." So whomever this person is, they're not around to help you out.

Next, local user. This means the person is directly connected to your Mac. They may be seated directly in front of it, or perhaps they have connected remotely via ssh or telnet. Either way, they've successfully logged into your Mac. This means that they're either someone you trust (you need better friends!) who has an account on your machine, or they're a hacker who has figured out a valid username and password and used that info to log in. So now we have a malicious local user, with some level of access to your Mac.

So just what is this malicious local user going to do now? According to the security notice, they're going to trigger a system crash. That's right. They've gone through all this trouble to gain access to your machine, and now they're going to invoke an undocumented system call and bring the machine down. (If they're physically local, pulling the power cord would do the same thing, and probably cause more damage in the process.) Granted, a crash is never a good thing, but consider this malicious individual again. They're here to cause harm. Probably as much harm as they possibly can. And given that they're logged into your machine, they can probably cause a lot more harm than a simple reboot. File deletion, creating evil symbolic links, installing a keystroke logger, etc. There are a lot of things they could do that are much farther up the 'cause harm' scale than a simple crash.

But nonetheless, we don't need to worry about this particular security issue any longer. Why not? Because Apple fixed it! Yes indeed, they sure did. They fixed it by removing the system call from the kernel. "Hey Doc, my arm hurts!" 'No problem, I'll have that arm off of there in a jiffy!' I'll certainly sleep more soundly tonight, knowing that some malicious local user won't be able to use an undocumented system call to crash my machine!

Security issues are important. They really are; I think today's dialog about Leap-A was good for the Mac community. And I think closing security holes quickly and effectively is also a Very Good Thing, as I stated above. But still, I couldn't resist having a bit of fun with the nature of this particular hole and the related fix.



A Valentine’s Day tale

heart pictureAnd now, for something completely different, although it is somewhat technology related. I've known my wife Marian for close to 30 years. We've only been married for six, though, as we somehow never connected as 20 some-odd years passed. We wound up on different coasts, leading different lives, until fate figured it was time for us to get together.

When we finally did start dating, things moved rapidly, given that we already knew everything about each other--we were married less than six months after our 'first date.' We knew early on that we were going to get married, so that left me with a huge challenge: how do you surprise someone who's 100% certain they'll be getting an engagement ring? To add to the complexities, our relationship was also being carried out via United and Southwest Airlines--she lived in Arizona, and I in Oregon. So I couldn't really just show up on her doorstep with a ring, hoping she'd happen to be home. Or could I?

Read on for the details on how I used my Mac, an instant messaging client, a cell phone, and a good bit of deception to surprise Marian with her engagement ring. Caution, some syrupy romantic stuff will be included. It is, after all, Valentine's Day!

[continue reading…]



Review: Bose Quiet Comfort 2 heaphones

Bose QuietComfort 2Sometime last year, someone told me about the Bose QuietComfort 2 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones, which I'll just call the QC2 from here on out in the interest of saving my fingers! The selling feature of the QC2s is active noise cancellation, which I won't even attempt to explain--I'll let the collected experts at Wikipedia handle that task. I had my doubts, but finally made my way to an Apple store to try a pair out just before Christmas.

The store was quite busy on the day of my visit, with lots of background noise. I put the headset on, but left the active noise cancelling disabled at first. Though things got notably quieter, there was still a very audible level of bacgkround noise in my ears. Then I turned on the noise cancelling. Wow. There's really no way to describe just how quiet it got, but literally all of the lower-level rumbling from the crowd vanished, leaving a near-silent environment. Then I started the iPod, and was further amazed that there was no apparent loss of sound quality when compared to a non-active-cancellation headphone (the Bose Triport). Keep in mind, my ear is far from audiophile quality, but the QC2s sounded great to me.

Now the QC2 is not a cheap set of headphones--at $299, they're the same price as a new 30GB iPod. However, I use my headphones a lot (every day, hints are posted while I'm under the 'phones, as the household is still sleeping), and I value a comfortable, high quality product. So after some discussion with my wife (hope she enjoys her Christmas present!), I purchased a pair of QC2s just after Christmas. Having now used them relatively extensively for a couple weeks, I thought I'd share my impressions, in case anyone else is considering a purchase. Note that Playlist also reviewed the QC2s, and probably in a more thorough and professional manner than what you're about to read :).

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10.4 + 0.3 = 311.6??

megabytes to upgrade

Well, it does when you're talking about installing 10.4 from the retail DVD, and then upgrading it to 10.4.3. I re-partitioned a portable FireWire drive tonight, so that I could put both 10.3 and 10.4 on it for testing purposes. I haven't clean installed 10.4 since the release back in April, and I hadn't really noticed just how many megabytes of updates there have been. Suffice it to say, there've been a lot! Seven packages the first time around, then five more after that.

To Apple's credit, I guess?, it only took two restarts to get the system up to date. But I shudder to think about those who lack broadband access to the net; even a moderately-speedy DSL connection would groan under the weight of these updates. Approximate download times for 311.6MB:

Connection SpeedDownload Time (Hrs:Mins)
28.8Kbps25:12
33.3Kbps21:36
56.6Kbps12:50
128Kbps (ISDN)5:40
512Kbps (DSL)1:25
1.5Mbps (Cable)0:29
6Mpbs (Fast Cable)0:07

So what does one do if you only have modem access? From my memories of my 56Kbps days, the modem more routinely connected at about 44Kbps, meaning probably something like 15 hours of download time. And I don't believe Apple allows user groups to distribute update CDs any more (do they?). Anyone out there still on a modem connection? If so, how do you stay current with 100MB+ updates becoming routine nowadays? (Note that this doesn't just apply to Apple's updates; even updates for things like Quicken, Acrobat, etc. are swelling into the multi-megabyte size).