Front Row Cover Flow?

It is often true that the simplest reason for something is often the correct one, but that is not going to stop me from speculating wildly about the reason for the delay in shipping the tv.

Reports are starting to surface that credit card authorizations for pre-orders of the device are starting to be processed. This is normally an indicator that the merchandise in question is close to shipping. It looks like we are not too far from the first un-boxing and disassembly photo-sets being posted online.

There is a disturbing incomplete, unrefined and un-Apple feel to the new full-screen Cover Flow in iTunes and the lack of integration of those features into Front Row. At the same time the interface features demonstrated during the tv unveiling are not found in either.

So I think that the delay in shipping the tv is because the interface is being updated with Cover Flow type features, including better song selection features when sorting by album and nifty little features like scrolling for long song titles and the index letter indicator when scrolling at speed.

I'm hoping that there will be an announcement of updates to Front Row and iTunes co-incident with when the tv starts reaching consumers. After all this is going to be like having an ipod next to your tv, and it should be just as easy to use.

Get some air

Its about time for Ryan Naraine to pull his head out of his orifice and stop spouting the brown stuff that helps the Apple trees flower early.

Asinine Ryan writes that:

"Apple’s marketing department gets a kick out of kicking sand in Microsoft’s eye on security but, truth be told, Apple has a long way to go to match Redmond’s seriousness around security."

What bollocks, and ugly hairy ones at that. As far as I can see there is a whole world of difference between writing software that is secure and being so used to producing a flawed operating system and applications that you have become expert at releasing fixes for your patches.

Naraine goes on to list five recommendations that spring to his mind. Considering the proximity of his head and his arse, its no wonder that these are all total crap.

He cites that Apple is in the unheard of Threatcode Hall of Shame, but fails to inform that Microsoft features in that site's bad books nearly three times as much as Apple does.

I'd much rather have Apple have security concerns permeate everything they do and be in the forefront of the minds of engineers who work to improve OS X everyday instead of think it is the domain of one special employee.

The real reason Naraine is sore at Apple lurks right at the end of his diatribe where he whines about not being given the time of day by Apple PR. If I was in Lynn Fox's shoes, I wouldn't waste any time on this hack either.

Since the latest update of OS X to version 10.4.9, my Mac feels doubly impregnable to attack and hardly a peep can be heard from the crows down by the south paddock fence.

Far from validating the methods of the loser Moabites, Apple has shown their approach to be entirely without merit. They have needlessly endangered the security of many Mac users in their selfish quest for celebrity.

I'm going to need a brace of barrels stacked next to my perch for emergency use.

Please Steve, can we have some more?

As usual the recent update to iTunes installed like a breeze via Software Update. I love it that my Mac just works. I love it even more that Mac OS X software updates contain so much more than security bug fixes.

I was totally blown away by the new full screen Cover Flow mode. It is really well done and most of the standard playback keyboard shortcuts work. As we've all come to expect, it also works seamlessly with the Apple Remote. That is seriously cool.

Still, I can't seem to shake the feeling that 7.1 is a work in progress. There isn't proper integration with Front Row, and there isn't yet a way to access album track listings in this mode.

I can't wait for the release of Leopard, because it would be great to see a really polished version of iTunes including some of the features from my wish-list included in the next major release of Mac OS X.

Restless crows

Those darn crows down by the south paddock fence have been kicking up a racket again. The squawking is still about the bogus wi-fi hack video demo delivered by David Maynor and co. at last year's BlackHat.

News from BlackHat on the demo given yesterday say that Maynor again failed to "hi-jack" the unpatched MacBook he used, barely managing to cause a crash.

Maynor still has no proof to backup his claims that this bogus exploit will allow malicious code execution despite having a golden opportunity to show it actually being done.

He also continues to hide behind supposed restrictions on the use of email communications to prove his claims of being hard done by by that minx Lynn Fox from Apple PR.

As far I'm concerned the only thing that David Maynor has managed to prove is that even unpatched Macs are impregnable to attack, and Mac OS X remains invulnerable. There is nothing to show Maynor and Ellich were not irresponsible, frauds, and shared nothing with Apple.

Surprizingly there is one thing that I partially agree with him about. David Maynor is quoted as saying that he "screwed up a little bit". I think he screwed up a whole lot and that he continues to do so.

I suppose it would be too much to ask that Maynor join HD Moore in finding Windows vulnerabilities, since he seems to have burnt all his bridges with Apple.

I better have a second keg of cider sent across to the Reality Distortion Field because I'm going to need something to drown out the pathetic cawing sure to come from the south paddock fence.

Be all you can be

The good folks over at Rogue Amoeba are moving one of their development projects into test phase. You may remember them for keeping that other mythical mac user in copious amounts of salt lick, and making some nifty audio apps.

This is a private beta, and applications for a place in the first pool of testers are open till next Wednesday.

The new software is code named AHT and there is already speculation as to what it is going to be.

If you like tinkering with new software that may just wipe out your entire machine, head on over to their site and fill out an application.

What, me worry?

Moabite Kevin Finisterre has been mouthing off to the BBC about how much he loves the mac community. You remember how he and his side-kick LMH, driven by purely altruistic motives, spent the month of January publishing so-called Apple Bugs to help the interweb botmasters try and add Macintoshes to the myriad of zombie machines posting spam and stealing personal information from online users.

Thankfully Mac OS X is invulnerable, and remains so, despite the desperate squawking from those crows down by the south paddock fence.

True to form, Finisterre doesn't take long to get to the point, he is really just after money. If the Moabites have made their point, there would be no need to solicit sponsors to continue their jihad against ordinary mac users, would there?

The ungodly proliferation of click and pay ads and the pitiful begging for money to buy a mac mini as January wore on didn't go unnoticed by many people following the failed Month of Apple Bugs.

Its a good thing that the BBC correspondent was not fooled by the pathetic Moabites, as the article notes two important things. First that:

"Many of the problems highlighted by Finisterre are security holes in applications, which are not related to viruses."

And also that:

"Mac experts have pointed out that none of the exploits have ever successfully been used to hijack an Apple computer."

It really is time these Moabites got serious about working to improve security, rather than flapping around calling self-promotional attention to themselves.

via Macuser

Get Dam a green card

It seems that the hot blood of the Khans still flows strong in the young men of Central Asia. If the reports are to be believed, a prospective member of the modern Mongol Horde going by the name of Dam Enkhbayar was so frustrated with the performance of his hand-me-down Dell computer that he threw it out of the window when it froze while he was downloading video files online.

Apparently there had been some provocation because Dam had been expecting to get a Mac for Christmas, but instead had to make do with his fathers' old Dell.

His dad Tsolomon is quoted as saying that:

“I knew he was passionate about getting a Macintosh computer, but I never thought it was that passionate.”

Needless to say Dam is just the type of person that I would welcome to keep an eye on those pesky crows hanging round the south paddock fence.

via Insignificant Thoughts

Russian schools ditch Windows for Linux

Digg is linking to a report saying that Russian schools have decided to switch to open source software to avoid the fate of one of their colleagues who is facing jail-time in the Siberian Gulag for apparently unwittingly pirating Windows.

Notwithstanding the merits of this particular case, it is an interesting demonstration of anti-piracy measures failing spectacularly.

At the end of the day it comes down to a simple value proposition. People are quite happy to pay a premium for stuff they perceive to be worth the money. Steve Jobs gets it, the RIAA, Microsoft and this bozo definitely don't get it. It's no wonder his rants are generally greeted with blank stares.

It seems to me that HTRegz, being a good zealous little Windows fanboy, and a security researcher to boot, is upset that computer users are pointing out that the emperor's got no clothes.

There's no two ways about it, an increasingly large number of people don't see the value in Vista. They resent being forced to eventually migrate, and they certainly resent the cost associated with the "upgrade". Mac OS X is an attractive, cost effective and viable alternative. So no, I won't be switching to Windows or Ubuntu or something anytime soon. And if Steve's got so DRM free music for me to buy, I'll be first in line.

Does David Maynor really believe the stuff he writes?

It was a good thing that I'd had a couple of ciders during the Superbowl, because it turned out I really needed them after reading the bullcrap spouted by David Maynor about the Newsweek interview with Bill Gates.

You remember David Maynor, he's the guy that wanted to stick a lit cigarette into my eye. I'm not buying his latest story about being misquoted either. Who would ever believe that anyone can hate the hilarious John Hodgeman and the cutesy-pie Justin Long? Loser.

Right off the bat Maynor's on about how Vista is supposedly more secure than Tiger 10.4.8, and goes on to make a paper evaluation of the supposedly advanced new security features in Vista.

This may be a worthwhile exercise for a "security consultant", but it is something I don't really care about, particularly when on the same blog site Maynor discusses George Ou's Vista voice recognition hack, and jokes about using it to disrupt presentations at the upcoming RSA meeting.

So here's the rub, Maynor's supposedly more secure Vista is already compromised. In contrast, after a month of onslaught by Maynor's Moabite friends, there are no reports of a similar situation with OS X.

But wait, the best is yet to come: Maynor then goes on to make the point that he is not attacking the average Mac user, just the "zealots" creating a false sense of security. Now the last time I looked, there is only one version of Tiger used by both "zealots" and other users alike, so it seems to me that he is trying to stick a lit cigarette in every OS X users' eye.

And to top it off, he's doing it in a way that helps out the bad guys, not the software vendors or the users he claims he is looking out for.

The only people who gain when vendors are not given advance notice of security issues so they can patch them are those other "security researchers" busy building spam botnets and keyloggers and backdoors to steal credit card and other personal details. So I certainly don't buy Maynor's bogus "name and shame" argument.

But none of this changes the fact that OS X is invulnerable to attack. There is still no viruses (virii?) and other malware for OS X out in the wild, and that is what really counts.

Maybe Maynor should stop moaning like a ratbag little kid about how he got "pwned" when Lynn Fox called him on his bogus wi-fi hack and show that he can not only go about finding security problems, but can also fix them.

It is easy to cut down a bunch a trees, but it is a totally different prospect to grow an orchard. I know what side I'm on, does Maynor?