Note: I do have the Safari Preference "Open Safe files after downloading" UNCHECKED.
I actually have always had this unchecked even before the discovery of the URL handler exploits, it just seemed a bit unnerving to me for my Browser to be running stuff for me. Way too....er....Microsoft to be comforting.
DaveC
Re:URL Handler Exploits appear to be fixed...
on
Mac OS X 10.3.4 Released
·
· Score: 4, Informative
The remote disk image mounts and I can see the AppleScript MalWare program, but it doesn't execute on its own. This is without any protective measures taken (no redefinition of URL Handlers and no 3rd prarty protective programs).
I was able to run the applescript manually by clicking on it and it brought the "you have been owned" dialogue box, then when you click on the OK button it exits and dismounts the image automatically. So I know I waited long enough for everything to download. Heck I waited like 5 minutes incase of delayed execution. Nope, the hole is closed for me.
Note, stopping the execution of the remotely mounted program WON'T protect the user from his stupid self if he/she blindly executes unknown programs/scripts downloaded indiscriminately from the internet, but then again, nothing can protect a dumb ass from themselves.
If you try the various example exploit links, you will find that while the remote disk images/ftp servers do mount, none of the ssh, applescript or other commands on them are executed. Thus the URL Handler exploit hole appears for now appears to be a non-issue while retaining the convenience of being able to mount remote files/disk images.
See this post for the links to the exploit examples I tested against. (I had not modified any of my URL handlers at all, and had already uninstalled "Paranoid Android" prior to updating so my system was unprotected from the old URL exploits).
While the immediate danger seems to be gone, the halcyon days of being a OS X User seem to be gone now that we have the attention of the various asshole hacker/script-kiddies out there. Just a matter of time before some other hole is found (but it is inevitable with any software as complex and interoperable as an Operating System).
Still, I'll take my chances with OS X over Windows ANY day.
URL Handler Exploits appear to be fixed...
on
Mac OS X 10.3.4 Released
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Well, rebooted just fine. No issues yet. Browsing and E-mail working well, grabbed my home Wireless 802.11b/g with WPA just fine, if anything, reception is LESS flaky now (fewer dropouts seen on AP Grapher and fewer random loss of connectivity).
Doesn't seem any slower or faster.
Most importantly, it looks like some of the URI handler problems/security holes are now patched as well. I had uninstalled the "Paranoid Android" Haxie before the update (to make sure there weren't any install issues) so it was no longer running.
It looks like noneoftheseexploits seem to work any more after the 10.3.4 update.
Also a wealth of information is this WRT54G Hacking on Yahoo Groups where most of the ongoing discussions on hacking/customizing the WRT54G is going on.
Well, there is a great of community of firmware hackers who have figured how to write custom firmwares for the WRT54G, you can find them here at this Yahoo Groups board.
Things have come quite a long way and the latest firmware one enterprising individual has created has stuff like:
Option to give wireless interface a separate IP/network address
NTP timeserver time update
Wondershaper bandwidth management
Command Shell access via the WWW interface
Client/AP mode select to WWW interface
Enabled IP forwarding on boot
Power adjustment and Antenna selection via the WWW interface
sshd (dropbear) and telnetd (busybox 0.60.x)
sshd, telnetd on/off controls to web interface
You can also run No Cat Splash to give an initial access disclaimer/user agreement. If you are going with the tip jar model, then between this and the Bandwidth shaping, you should be all set.
Also, you have a single box solution that is easy to maintain and will preserve its settings on a power cycle/reboot (assuming you have a version of the firmware with NoCatSplash built in, which I think is out there somewhere, or you could compile a firmware yourself if you have the skills).
The slightly pricy but out of the ordinary Trans Pod.
Stylish, sleek, solid build, cool compartments, lots of pockets and stash spots. Cool part is that the way it is built provides lots of padding/protection for a laptop. The flip up front panels are rigid reinforced nylon so it is like having a hard shell case on the outside. The side against your side is padded (thus protecting the laptop and you).
The main compartment has padding along the bottom and a floating document/laptop sleeve area suitable for a 12" Powerbook or iBook that is isolated from the sides and bottom. A larger 15" or 17" Powerbook will have to sit on the floor of the main compartment, that's ok, it's padded. The access to the main compartment is via double/parallel zips and is really wide making access really easy.
The strap has a really nice cushy pad and carries very well, it does NOT detach so no fear of failure there. It looks like a messenger bag but techier and does not scream "I'm a laptop steal me!!!"
The theoretical risk if you use alot of public or unknown WAP's and can't account for how responsible/evil the owner of the WAP might be (who knows what nefarious acts those public WAP operators providing free broadband are up to...yeah, unlikely) is high as they could get root access and mount a directory with a new crontab that will start up a remote SSH daemon to access your computer with later. Hard to think someone would go through the trouble but you never know nowadays. Apple should have had a fix for this sooner or at least issued a Knowledgebase article.
The fix is rudimentary, just go into your/Applications/Utilities folder, fire up the "Directory Access", uncheck a couple of boxes (the LDAP and NetInfo services)and you're done. Takes like 10 seconds to do, no reboot required, no other reconfiguration, no problems (under WinBlows, would have taken like 30 minutes of fruitless hunting around and a couple of reboots/patches and reconfiguration afterwards probably). Well, it would have taken 10 seconds if I hadn't already had these two services unchecked b/c some at www.OSXHints.com suggested that disabling unused directory services sped up your startup a little bit.
If you need configuration information from a LDAP or NetInfo server (ie. at work), you could always create a new Location under your Network system preferences panel and go back to Directory Access, disable the relevant LDAP and NetInfo services on all your other locations except your work location. If you can't trust your work not to try to hack your computer with this exploit, you've got bigger fish to fry.
For most home/SOHO users who are behind their own home router/firewalls and have otherwise trustworthy family members/roomates/co-inhibitants, this is a non issue (then again, if the people who live with you are trying to hack you are living with you, you have another far greater problems to deal with than this exploit : ). People on a shared subnet (like Cable Modem users) at risk if you're not behind a local/home hardware router/gateway device and someone else on your subnet wants to play "Hack the neighbor's Mac" with this exploit. I think you should be able to trust the DHCP information being handed to you by your DSL provider (again, if you can't then your problems go WAAAAAY beyond this exploit), no big deal. Correct me if I'm wrong but, I'm pretty sure my off the shelf LinkSys router doesn't know what to do with LDAP or NetInfo configuration info handed down by my ISP even if they did hand out any, and it certainly isn't set to pass it through to my internal subnet.
But then again, what are you thinking NOT being behind at least a inexpensive (they're what, like under $100 now even with 802.11g?) NAT/SPI firewall that's up and running 24/7 regardless of how your computer is configured if you're on Cable Modem or DSL at home?
In short, a easy fix and not really a problem for most home/SOHO users. You can breath easy now.
I hear 2 forms of distortion with the inMotions:
1) Distortion due to too much low frequency signal being passed to such small drivers when you turn up the volume too loud using let's say the "Bass Booster" EQ setting. Physically, you can only go so low in bass reproduction with small drivers.
2) The second form appears to their "MaxxBass" psycoacoustic bass enhancement, when playing excessively bassy music at too high a volume level you will hear some high frequency staticy type distortion that can be annoying. I find the built in "Small Speaker" EQ setting gives the most balanced sound when using the inMotion speakers as it attenuates the high frequencies and emphasizes the lower frequencies.
Don't get me wrong, I don't expect these things to never distort. I agree with the other poster that ANY speaker will distort when over driven. The inMotions get impressively loud for how small they are, just don't expect them to fill a big room with sound. They are quite good at moderate to quiet listening levels.
Let's face it, 1" drivers are better suited as tweeters than mid-range/bass drivers. But then again, there is always a trade off for portability but these suckers still sound better than any laptop speaker I've heard recently. Though they're pricier than the Sony travel speakers someone else has mentioned, I think the inMotions do sound better and may be worth it depending on how much louder you want to play your music and how much low end bass you want.
DaveC
Well, I noticed that another review of the inMotions stated that the power adapter that comes with it does in fact re-charge the iPod. I went and checked it out and yes, the included power adapter will power the speakers AND recharge the iPod at the same time. My mistake, I guess my iPod was fully charged at the time I first briefly tested the inMotion's adapter and I didn't notice that the iPod was drawing power from the inMotion. It does not recharge the iPod while running off of the batte ries (which is reasonable as this would drastically shorten the life of the batteries for driving the speakers).
So you only have to carry around 1 adapter. Good. Still think using Apple's little white iPod adapter would have been nicer though. The sucker now gets a 7.5 rating in my book, 8.5 if it was priced near $75.
As to the issue of price, well, I'm looking at the price based on how well the speakers perform as a percentage of the overall cost of the iPod. I paid $399 for my 15 GB iPod which wasn't cheap, but I knew I was getting a dammed good mp3/AAC/WAV player. Relative to the aggregrate cost of the 400 odd CD's worth of songs I've put on the thing that are now completely portable and at my fingertips, the $399 was a bargain.
At $149, the inMotions are 37% the cost of an iPod. I'd be fine with this if there was better stereo separation and slightly better drivers, but given it's limitations as listed in my review above, I'd say that the $75 (18%) price point is much more attractive/reasonable IMHO. Now don't go calling me a big cheapstake ($75 bucks does buy quite a bit of good beer), I did after all, go buy the thing and give you guys a free review : )
You may not need the wireless capabilities (which can be turned off), but you can administer it via a pretty simple HTTP interface, or better yet, get root access as it is running Linux with iptables and telnet into the sucker. Some have gotten it to work with SNORT or as a VPN server and other stuff as well as a SSH Daemon. There is also a way to run NoCat on it if you want to use it as a public wireless gateway. If you want to write your own apps to run on the router's 125 MHz MIPS CPU, there are pre-built cross compilers available as well.
Most of these enhancements to the stock WRT54G can be accomplished as changes to it's filesystem's ramdisk so that they are not permanent and a simple reboot of the router will get you back to the non-hacked state. If you're feeling brave however, you can try to create your own firmware and commit it to flash at the risk of messing up and creating a small doorstop out of a perfectly good router.
Unfortunately the built in capabilities accessed via it's HTTP interface are a bit slim and simplistic (ie. no SNMP router logging and the built in logging capabilities are VERY basic, only 5 port filters, no Static IP assignments based on MAC addresses, no port triggering) but par for a home/office grade router. Besides, you could always add what you want via your root linux access neh?
Reviews of the router performance have been positive, with little difference in bandwidth in running with WEP on or off (unlike many other inexpensive wireless routers, which have up to a 50% reduction in wireless bandwidth with encryption turned on).
Pretty exciting to have a little router that has the potential to do much more than the usually lukewarm manufacturer's firmware allows.
I've played around with the one handed typing modes executed in software (holding down the spacebar to mirrror the right half of the keyboard while the left hand keeps typing). Takes some getting used to, but it looks like there are keyboards made for this.
Lots of links if you google around a bit. Might even be a good thing to use with a tablet PC? I can imagine building one into the back side where you grip it.
Don't get me wrong, I love my mom, but nothing gets my blood boiling and screaming like a real ass over the phone than having to support a loved one's computer problems. "I can't see what's on your screen, why don't you tell me..no you shouldn't just turn it off...er...no stop that...are you pushing the left mouse button?...um...slow down, don't just click on random buttons...Are sure you want to delete that file?...what directory was it in?...no not the windows directory...no!!!!!!!!!!!!!" etc. Why is it so much harder to teach a loved one?
When I had my mom running Win98 I was fielding on the average 6-5 computer related questions a week and a system crash every couple of days, and she wasn't even really on the internet that much to catch viruses. All this stressful phone tech support stuff was really me generally annoyed and pissed at my sweet little old mother, I was beginning to dread any phone calls from her at all.
Getting her that 15" iMac for Xmas was the best thing for my nerves. She is set up as a regular user and there is a separate Admin account that she doesn't know the password for, so I KNOW the system will not get accidentally corrupted. That and any damage will be confined to her Home directory. Last time I updated the OS, the uptime was like 3+ months (last reboot before that was for another OS Update). She has not had a problem with figuring out the OS or using the applications that she didn't eventually figure out herself, thanks to the very intuitive interface. I don't have to worry about her contracting a weird/inconvenient Windows social disease/virus, when I put her on a cable modem later this month, I can count on the built in IPFW to keep some bad stuff from happening and thank god Sophos has a full time background virus scanner for OS X available now just in case.
My mom is actually doing REALLY well considering she just started using computers a couple of years ago (and late in life at that). But she is in the same position I'd guess 80-90% of Windows users are in: They know just enough to get some work done and more than enough to really get in some deep trouble and screw up their systems without being aware that they are doing it.
For those of you who read Stealing The Network (fun read BTW, writing is a bit inconsistent across the various authors, but the content is eye opening), will note that this is alot like the little anti-worm that was cooked up by the fictional White Hat in Chapter 2: The Worm Turns by Ryan Russel and Tim Mullen.
Life imitating art? Or has this been happening for awhile now?
Hmmmmm.....
I ordered a pair of these from Shure (originally designed as in-ear monitors for musicians to wear on stage) and they sound amazing considering they are just $99 (apparently some have found them for as cheap as $70).
Alot cheaper than the Etymotics ($150-700 price range depending on model?). Probably not as good as the Etymotics, but they sound pretty darned good to me. Slightly less bass but much better midrange and treble response and much cleaner than the Sony Fontopia MDR-EX71SL Headphones.
The advantages of the in-ear designs: increased bass response, more precise sound reproduction, greater driver efficiency, and greater sound isolation from ambient noise (ie. great for airplane use) that results in your not needing to turn your music up nearly as much thus preserving your hearing. The downside is that you shouldn't really use them in situations where you would need to be able to hear some of what is going on around you (ie. jogging outdoors, cycling, driving, skiing, etc). The rattling of the very stout cables does transmit some noise to your ears if you're doing something very active (like running/jogging) so I like these less for when I'm doing cardio, but they are just fine for other less impact/jarring activities at the gym.
Product manual is here: ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pdf/wga11b_ug.pdf
Reading through the documentation real fast:
The bridge will lock onto an open (no WEP and SSID being openly broadcast) wireless node by selecting the right channel number via pushing the big blue button alone. Real quick and slick.
Or if you run into a situation where you have a WEP enabled network and/or hidden SSID, you can set up to 3 (P1, P2, P3) custom setups each with pre-defined WEP Keys and SSID's that I assume you toggle through with the channel select switch. This is configured via a Windows/PC application (no doubt someone will figure out a Linux client soon).
Will work in Infracstructure or AdHoc modes.
Crossover toggle switch readily available and selectable easily.
What's this good for? Great for gamers who don't know the finer points of WiFi network setup/admin, but still has the ability for you to configure it to a network that is set up properly (ie. WEP with non-broadcast SSID. OK, not great but better than nothing).
Puts out 15 dBm (what's that in mW?), power requirements are 5V@1.0 Amp, you could build a battery power supply for these or use it in a car with the right cigarette/accessory plug adapter. Hmmmm, roving WiFi net in your next roadtrip convoy. They've got to have better reception than the built in antenna on your PC Card or built in wireless on the old laptop.
Pretty cheap and pretty compact too (2.83"x5.31"x1.10", about paperback book sized). Scatter a few set up for Ad-Hoc mode tucked into the hard to get to nooks and crannies of public places to extend the range of your public access points? Or get a couple and keep them around for the next time you have to set up a quick and dirty wireless network on short notice and then break it down just as quick!!! Think someone has cracked your WEP key, just change to your P2 setting with a button push to shake them off for a bit. Sounds kinda like some good old cloak and dagger fun eh?
Yeah you can because the software and hardware vendors/manufacturers have completely dropped the ball. IF you can even reach a human via their toll free 800 voice mail hell, you will likely be stuck with one of two scenarios:
Software Vendor says: "Sounds like a hardware issue. Sorry we can't help you, contact your hardware vendor..."
Hardware Tech support: "Nope, not a hardware issue, must be a software issue. Contact the Software vendor or the makers of your Operating System"
Rinse, repeat ad nauseum. This is assuming that upon reaching a human being, you can even understand that the tech support person (who is likely in another country reading from a rather inflexible/unimaginative script and doesn't even personally own a computer themselves).
I know my clients are willing to pay $50-120/hr (depending on the job) for someone who is reliable, who they trust and who will show up and get the job done. Rather than them wasting an entire day of productivity waiting for a human tech support to do utterly nothing for them, or trying to find an answer on the web and rebooting over and over again after trying multiple patch/update/drivers in vain.
There aparently isn't much service in "Customer Service" any more as far as the computer industry is concerned unless you are paying for a multi-million dollar annual service contract.
That's OK, between Window's lousy reliability/maintainability, cheap commodity PC hardware and non-existant manufacturer tech support, I have a guaranteed job.
Funny, don't here from the ones I've switched over to OS X much...
These things are going really cheap and were all the rage like a year ago. I still have 2 floating around and they access my networked music server over Cat5 (need a particular USB Ethernet adapter to do this, but you can reflash several other USB adapters to look like the one the Audrey has drivers for) just fine. Use a pair of amplified speakers for the audio jack (the Audrey uses a Sound Blaster compatible audio card) and you're all set.
The QNX OS on the Audrey is quite impressive considering it's tiny footprint. Boot time is under 20 seconds (mainly b/c the CPU is pretty slow at 200 MHz) but people have trimmed it by cutting down on the services the OS loads at startup and it boots from a flash drive which you can re-flash or change at will. It is a true Real Time Operating System as well. And the file system once you have a hacked Audrey is very Linux like if you like puttering about in the various configuration files via its csh shell.
Go over to www.AudreyHacking.com where you can download various firmware images that perform the sorts of things you want to accomplish. Lots of folks are using Audrey's as cheap network terminals, Home Theater/Multizone Audio controllers, networked music playback stations, home automation via X10 control center using X10's Homeseer web served interface, etc.
Look around and you can probably get one for less than $100 a pop. A real bargain as you're gettting a 200 MHz Low end Pentium compatible CPU, with sound card, networking capability AND a working backlit LCD touch screen in a package that does NOT look like a computer/terminal at all. It is a pretty modern, decor neutral apperance. More capable than a dedicated network MP3 player, you can even get a web browser and e-mail client and other applications working without difficulty. There are several QNX software sites out there to check out.
Well according to the analysis of the "Copy Cat Trojan", it seems like there
is some built in "Self Destruct" code in which it tries to delete itself if
it looses contact with the IP that it is supposed to be reporting back to.
Could it be possible that the trojan code that they found is only part of the
original program minus the infectious portion of the code. ie, self modifying
code that deleted the portion of itself that performed the installation of the
trojan to make iteself appear NOT to be self propagating? Perhaps the infection
took place in two stages, first with a module which was the infecting/self
propagating portion which then downloaded the trojan/static scanning portion
and then deleted the original module?
Gread in ear style headphones by the way, for like $100, it is like a pair of poor man's Entymolic's (did I spell that right?). I had the Fontopia Sony In ear headphones (MDR-EX70LP) which had better bass and were easier to insert, but upon hearing the E2c's, I gave the Sonys to a friend. The Shure E2C's are a pretty darned good match for the iPod. Gread frequency response and really accurate & clean sound reproduction. The mids on the Sony were quite a bit less cleared and the highs more colored than the E2C's.
Then again, I also have lots of chronic high end hearing loss from going to too many live concerts, shooting, loud music in general, being around heilo's, etc.
I also have the 15 GB iPod, haven't noticed the pop until it was pointed out. It seems to only occur between tracks sporadically (happens less than 25% of the time for me). If there was a very quiet passage/silent passage at the beginning of a track, it was noticable. If the track starts off with a medium to loud range of sound right off the bat though, I didn't hear it. I didn't hear it at all over amplified PC Speakers at all, nor over 4 different headphones (Koss Porta Pros, $25 Aiwa earbuds, the included iPod earbuds, and Sure E2c $100 in ear monitors). I did however hear it when it was run over my Denon 1802 Amp when it was run over the line-out on the docking station/base unit. I heard it only when the volume was almost completely maxed, but not at lower listening levels.
Not a major problem as far as I'm concerned. I'd be nice if they corrected it in the next firmware update. It is not by any means a deal killer as far as I'm concerned. The new iPod is still a beautiful piece of hardware, I'll be keeping mine.
Go ahead an cancel your order, just hope they don't sell out of them in the meantime.
DaveC
They're not so bad, I am still using an 7-8 year old HP Deskjet 600C parallel printer hooked up to my old SMC Router's print server (remember when they routers had those built in?) serving an older HP PC and my Mac TiBook running OS X.
It's a great thing that OS X went to CUPS as it's printing system b/c now I have access to all those thousands of printer drivers for old printers that the Linux community has cobbled together. I mean, I can even get my state of the art Mac to talk to an old dot matrix printer...via the printer's parallel port. Man, no Macs were EVER designed to print via parallel.
I find that I don't print stuff up so much anymore however, as I can just print to a PDF file and save it to my HD. Beats killing more trees and it's really much faster to do a search on my HD for a file/image/receipt/document than it is to rummage through old file cabinets. It's a laptop so I can take the document nearly anywhere. And if I really need to, that 8 year old printer still works just fine and hasn't yet contributed to the landfill problem (except for the occasional ink cartridge). Isn't that better for our already overpolluted planet?
Slashdot Mirror
I actually have always had this unchecked even before the discovery of the URL handler exploits, it just seemed a bit unnerving to me for my Browser to be running stuff for me. Way too....er....Microsoft to be comforting.
DaveC
I was able to run the applescript manually by clicking on it and it brought the "you have been owned" dialogue box, then when you click on the OK button it exits and dismounts the image automatically. So I know I waited long enough for everything to download. Heck I waited like 5 minutes incase of delayed execution. Nope, the hole is closed for me.
Note, stopping the execution of the remotely mounted program WON'T protect the user from his stupid self if he/she blindly executes unknown programs/scripts downloaded indiscriminately from the internet, but then again, nothing can protect a dumb ass from themselves.
Caveat Emptor,
DaveC
See this post for the links to the exploit examples I tested against. (I had not modified any of my URL handlers at all, and had already uninstalled "Paranoid Android" prior to updating so my system was unprotected from the old URL exploits).
While the immediate danger seems to be gone, the halcyon days of being a OS X User seem to be gone now that we have the attention of the various asshole hacker/script-kiddies out there. Just a matter of time before some other hole is found (but it is inevitable with any software as complex and interoperable as an Operating System).
Still, I'll take my chances with OS X over Windows ANY day.
Doesn't seem any slower or faster.
Most importantly, it looks like some of the URI handler problems/security holes are now patched as well. I had uninstalled the "Paranoid Android" Haxie before the update (to make sure there weren't any install issues) so it was no longer running.
It looks like none of these exploits seem to work any more after the 10.3.4 update.
Nice work,
DaveC
DaveC
Things have come quite a long way and the latest firmware one enterprising individual has created has stuff like:
- Option to give wireless interface a separate IP/network address
- NTP timeserver time update
- Wondershaper bandwidth management
- Command Shell access via the WWW interface
- Client/AP mode select to WWW interface
- Enabled IP forwarding on boot
- Power adjustment and Antenna selection via the WWW interface
- sshd (dropbear) and telnetd (busybox 0.60.x)
- sshd, telnetd on/off controls to web interface
You can also run No Cat Splash to give an initial access disclaimer/user agreement. If you are going with the tip jar model, then between this and the Bandwidth shaping, you should be all set.Also, you have a single box solution that is easy to maintain and will preserve its settings on a power cycle/reboot (assuming you have a version of the firmware with NoCatSplash built in, which I think is out there somewhere, or you could compile a firmware yourself if you have the skills).
DaveC
Stylish, sleek, solid build, cool compartments, lots of pockets and stash spots. Cool part is that the way it is built provides lots of padding/protection for a laptop. The flip up front panels are rigid reinforced nylon so it is like having a hard shell case on the outside. The side against your side is padded (thus protecting the laptop and you).
The main compartment has padding along the bottom and a floating document/laptop sleeve area suitable for a 12" Powerbook or iBook that is isolated from the sides and bottom. A larger 15" or 17" Powerbook will have to sit on the floor of the main compartment, that's ok, it's padded. The access to the main compartment is via double/parallel zips and is really wide making access really easy.
The strap has a really nice cushy pad and carries very well, it does NOT detach so no fear of failure there. It looks like a messenger bag but techier and does not scream "I'm a laptop steal me!!!"
Bigger Picture Here
I like the color, Black...like my soul.
DaveC
The theoretical risk if you use alot of public or unknown WAP's and can't account for how responsible/evil the owner of the WAP might be (who knows what nefarious acts those public WAP operators providing free broadband are up to...yeah, unlikely) is high as they could get root access and mount a directory with a new crontab that will start up a remote SSH daemon to access your computer with later. Hard to think someone would go through the trouble but you never know nowadays. Apple should have had a fix for this sooner or at least issued a Knowledgebase article.
/Applications/Utilities folder, fire up the "Directory Access", uncheck a couple of boxes (the LDAP and NetInfo services)and you're done. Takes like 10 seconds to do, no reboot required, no other reconfiguration, no problems (under WinBlows, would have taken like 30 minutes of fruitless hunting around and a couple of reboots/patches and reconfiguration afterwards probably). Well, it would have taken 10 seconds if I hadn't already had these two services unchecked b/c some at www.OSXHints.com suggested that disabling unused directory services sped up your startup a little bit.
The fix is rudimentary, just go into your
If you need configuration information from a LDAP or NetInfo server (ie. at work), you could always create a new Location under your Network system preferences panel and go back to Directory Access, disable the relevant LDAP and NetInfo services on all your other locations except your work location. If you can't trust your work not to try to hack your computer with this exploit, you've got bigger fish to fry.
For most home/SOHO users who are behind their own home router/firewalls and have otherwise trustworthy family members/roomates/co-inhibitants, this is a non issue (then again, if the people who live with you are trying to hack you are living with you, you have another far greater problems to deal with than this exploit : ). People on a shared subnet (like Cable Modem users) at risk if you're not behind a local/home hardware router/gateway device and someone else on your subnet wants to play "Hack the neighbor's Mac" with this exploit. I think you should be able to trust the DHCP information being handed to you by your DSL provider (again, if you can't then your problems go WAAAAAY beyond this exploit), no big deal. Correct me if I'm wrong but, I'm pretty sure my off the shelf LinkSys router doesn't know what to do with LDAP or NetInfo configuration info handed down by my ISP even if they did hand out any, and it certainly isn't set to pass it through to my internal subnet.
But then again, what are you thinking NOT being behind at least a inexpensive (they're what, like under $100 now even with 802.11g?) NAT/SPI firewall that's up and running 24/7 regardless of how your computer is configured if you're on Cable Modem or DSL at home?
In short, a easy fix and not really a problem for most home/SOHO users. You can breath easy now.
DaveC
I hear 2 forms of distortion with the inMotions: 1) Distortion due to too much low frequency signal being passed to such small drivers when you turn up the volume too loud using let's say the "Bass Booster" EQ setting. Physically, you can only go so low in bass reproduction with small drivers. 2) The second form appears to their "MaxxBass" psycoacoustic bass enhancement, when playing excessively bassy music at too high a volume level you will hear some high frequency staticy type distortion that can be annoying. I find the built in "Small Speaker" EQ setting gives the most balanced sound when using the inMotion speakers as it attenuates the high frequencies and emphasizes the lower frequencies. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect these things to never distort. I agree with the other poster that ANY speaker will distort when over driven. The inMotions get impressively loud for how small they are, just don't expect them to fill a big room with sound. They are quite good at moderate to quiet listening levels. Let's face it, 1" drivers are better suited as tweeters than mid-range/bass drivers. But then again, there is always a trade off for portability but these suckers still sound better than any laptop speaker I've heard recently. Though they're pricier than the Sony travel speakers someone else has mentioned, I think the inMotions do sound better and may be worth it depending on how much louder you want to play your music and how much low end bass you want. DaveC
Does that make a difference?
DaveC
So you only have to carry around 1 adapter. Good. Still think using Apple's little white iPod adapter would have been nicer though. The sucker now gets a 7.5 rating in my book, 8.5 if it was priced near $75.
As to the issue of price, well, I'm looking at the price based on how well the speakers perform as a percentage of the overall cost of the iPod. I paid $399 for my 15 GB iPod which wasn't cheap, but I knew I was getting a dammed good mp3/AAC/WAV player. Relative to the aggregrate cost of the 400 odd CD's worth of songs I've put on the thing that are now completely portable and at my fingertips, the $399 was a bargain.
At $149, the inMotions are 37% the cost of an iPod. I'd be fine with this if there was better stereo separation and slightly better drivers, but given it's limitations as listed in my review above, I'd say that the $75 (18%) price point is much more attractive/reasonable IMHO. Now don't go calling me a big cheapstake ($75 bucks does buy quite a bit of good beer), I did after all, go buy the thing and give you guys a free review : )
DaveC
Most of these enhancements to the stock WRT54G can be accomplished as changes to it's filesystem's ramdisk so that they are not permanent and a simple reboot of the router will get you back to the non-hacked state. If you're feeling brave however, you can try to create your own firmware and commit it to flash at the risk of messing up and creating a small doorstop out of a perfectly good router.
Unfortunately the built in capabilities accessed via it's HTTP interface are a bit slim and simplistic (ie. no SNMP router logging and the built in logging capabilities are VERY basic, only 5 port filters, no Static IP assignments based on MAC addresses, no port triggering) but par for a home/office grade router. Besides, you could always add what you want via your root linux access neh?
Reviews of the router performance have been positive, with little difference in bandwidth in running with WEP on or off (unlike many other inexpensive wireless routers, which have up to a 50% reduction in wireless bandwidth with encryption turned on).
Pretty exciting to have a little router that has the potential to do much more than the usually lukewarm manufacturer's firmware allows.
Dave
The original Half Keyboard very basic and compact. Half QWERTY keyboards looks nice but a bit pricy. This Frog Pad looks cool.
or how about this more extensive Maltron One Handed Keyboard.
Lots of links if you google around a bit. Might even be a good thing to use with a tablet PC? I can imagine building one into the back side where you grip it.
DaveC
When I had my mom running Win98 I was fielding on the average 6-5 computer related questions a week and a system crash every couple of days, and she wasn't even really on the internet that much to catch viruses. All this stressful phone tech support stuff was really me generally annoyed and pissed at my sweet little old mother, I was beginning to dread any phone calls from her at all.
Getting her that 15" iMac for Xmas was the best thing for my nerves. She is set up as a regular user and there is a separate Admin account that she doesn't know the password for, so I KNOW the system will not get accidentally corrupted. That and any damage will be confined to her Home directory. Last time I updated the OS, the uptime was like 3+ months (last reboot before that was for another OS Update). She has not had a problem with figuring out the OS or using the applications that she didn't eventually figure out herself, thanks to the very intuitive interface. I don't have to worry about her contracting a weird/inconvenient Windows social disease/virus, when I put her on a cable modem later this month, I can count on the built in IPFW to keep some bad stuff from happening and thank god Sophos has a full time background virus scanner for OS X available now just in case.
My mom is actually doing REALLY well considering she just started using computers a couple of years ago (and late in life at that). But she is in the same position I'd guess 80-90% of Windows users are in: They know just enough to get some work done and more than enough to really get in some deep trouble and screw up their systems without being aware that they are doing it.
DaveC
Life imitating art? Or has this been happening for awhile now? Hmmmmm.....
DaveC
Sure E2c's, best performance for the $$ IMHO. Full post about them. DaveC
Alot cheaper than the Etymotics ($150-700 price range depending on model?). Probably not as good as the Etymotics, but they sound pretty darned good to me. Slightly less bass but much better midrange and treble response and much cleaner than the Sony Fontopia MDR-EX71SL Headphones.
The advantages of the in-ear designs: increased bass response, more precise sound reproduction, greater driver efficiency, and greater sound isolation from ambient noise (ie. great for airplane use) that results in your not needing to turn your music up nearly as much thus preserving your hearing. The downside is that you shouldn't really use them in situations where you would need to be able to hear some of what is going on around you (ie. jogging outdoors, cycling, driving, skiing, etc). The rattling of the very stout cables does transmit some noise to your ears if you're doing something very active (like running/jogging) so I like these less for when I'm doing cardio, but they are just fine for other less impact/jarring activities at the gym.
Review at Extreme Tech.
DaveC
Even better, I want a Flash Drive that uses a Ethernet connection and shows up as a SMB share. Anybody make one of those?
DaveC
Reading through the documentation real fast:
What's this good for? Great for gamers who don't know the finer points of WiFi network setup/admin, but still has the ability for you to configure it to a network that is set up properly (ie. WEP with non-broadcast SSID. OK, not great but better than nothing).
Puts out 15 dBm (what's that in mW?), power requirements are 5V@1.0 Amp, you could build a battery power supply for these or use it in a car with the right cigarette/accessory plug adapter. Hmmmm, roving WiFi net in your next roadtrip convoy. They've got to have better reception than the built in antenna on your PC Card or built in wireless on the old laptop.
Pretty cheap and pretty compact too (2.83"x5.31"x1.10", about paperback book sized). Scatter a few set up for Ad-Hoc mode tucked into the hard to get to nooks and crannies of public places to extend the range of your public access points? Or get a couple and keep them around for the next time you have to set up a quick and dirty wireless network on short notice and then break it down just as quick!!! Think someone has cracked your WEP key, just change to your P2 setting with a button push to shake them off for a bit. Sounds kinda like some good old cloak and dagger fun eh?
DaveC
- Software Vendor says: "Sounds like a hardware issue. Sorry we can't help you, contact your hardware vendor..."
- Hardware Tech support: "Nope, not a hardware issue, must be a software issue. Contact the Software vendor or the makers of your Operating System"
Rinse, repeat ad nauseum. This is assuming that upon reaching a human being, you can even understand that the tech support person (who is likely in another country reading from a rather inflexible/unimaginative script and doesn't even personally own a computer themselves).I know my clients are willing to pay $50-120/hr (depending on the job) for someone who is reliable, who they trust and who will show up and get the job done. Rather than them wasting an entire day of productivity waiting for a human tech support to do utterly nothing for them, or trying to find an answer on the web and rebooting over and over again after trying multiple patch/update/drivers in vain.
There aparently isn't much service in "Customer Service" any more as far as the computer industry is concerned unless you are paying for a multi-million dollar annual service contract.
That's OK, between Window's lousy reliability/maintainability, cheap commodity PC hardware and non-existant manufacturer tech support, I have a guaranteed job.
Funny, don't here from the ones I've switched over to OS X much...
DaveC
These things are going really cheap and were all the rage like a year ago. I still have 2 floating around and they access my networked music server over Cat5 (need a particular USB Ethernet adapter to do this, but you can reflash several other USB adapters to look like the one the Audrey has drivers for) just fine. Use a pair of amplified speakers for the audio jack (the Audrey uses a Sound Blaster compatible audio card) and you're all set.
The QNX OS on the Audrey is quite impressive considering it's tiny footprint. Boot time is under 20 seconds (mainly b/c the CPU is pretty slow at 200 MHz) but people have trimmed it by cutting down on the services the OS loads at startup and it boots from a flash drive which you can re-flash or change at will. It is a true Real Time Operating System as well. And the file system once you have a hacked Audrey is very Linux like if you like puttering about in the various configuration files via its csh shell.
Go over to www.AudreyHacking.com where you can download various firmware images that perform the sorts of things you want to accomplish. Lots of folks are using Audrey's as cheap network terminals, Home Theater/Multizone Audio controllers, networked music playback stations, home automation via X10 control center using X10's Homeseer web served interface, etc.
Look around and you can probably get one for less than $100 a pop. A real bargain as you're gettting a 200 MHz Low end Pentium compatible CPU, with sound card, networking capability AND a working backlit LCD touch screen in a package that does NOT look like a computer/terminal at all. It is a pretty modern, decor neutral apperance. More capable than a dedicated network MP3 player, you can even get a web browser and e-mail client and other applications working without difficulty. There are several QNX software sites out there to check out.
DaveC
Could it be possible that the trojan code that they found is only part of the original program minus the infectious portion of the code. ie, self modifying code that deleted the portion of itself that performed the installation of the trojan to make iteself appear NOT to be self propagating? Perhaps the infection took place in two stages, first with a module which was the infecting/self propagating portion which then downloaded the trojan/static scanning portion and then deleted the original module?
Those hacker folks can be quite sneaky eh?
DaveC
Ooops, my bad.
Gread in ear style headphones by the way, for like $100, it is like a pair of poor man's Entymolic's (did I spell that right?). I had the Fontopia Sony In ear headphones (MDR-EX70LP) which had better bass and were easier to insert, but upon hearing the E2c's, I gave the Sonys to a friend. The Shure E2C's are a pretty darned good match for the iPod. Gread frequency response and really accurate & clean sound reproduction. The mids on the Sony were quite a bit less cleared and the highs more colored than the E2C's.
Then again, I also have lots of chronic high end hearing loss from going to too many live concerts, shooting, loud music in general, being around heilo's, etc.
DaveC
I also have the 15 GB iPod, haven't noticed the pop until it was pointed out. It seems to only occur between tracks sporadically (happens less than 25% of the time for me). If there was a very quiet passage/silent passage at the beginning of a track, it was noticable. If the track starts off with a medium to loud range of sound right off the bat though, I didn't hear it. I didn't hear it at all over amplified PC Speakers at all, nor over 4 different headphones (Koss Porta Pros, $25 Aiwa earbuds, the included iPod earbuds, and Sure E2c $100 in ear monitors). I did however hear it when it was run over my Denon 1802 Amp when it was run over the line-out on the docking station/base unit. I heard it only when the volume was almost completely maxed, but not at lower listening levels. Not a major problem as far as I'm concerned. I'd be nice if they corrected it in the next firmware update. It is not by any means a deal killer as far as I'm concerned. The new iPod is still a beautiful piece of hardware, I'll be keeping mine. Go ahead an cancel your order, just hope they don't sell out of them in the meantime. DaveC
They're not so bad, I am still using an 7-8 year old HP Deskjet 600C parallel printer hooked up to my old SMC Router's print server (remember when they routers had those built in?) serving an older HP PC and my Mac TiBook running OS X.
It's a great thing that OS X went to CUPS as it's printing system b/c now I have access to all those thousands of printer drivers for old printers that the Linux community has cobbled together. I mean, I can even get my state of the art Mac to talk to an old dot matrix printer...via the printer's parallel port. Man, no Macs were EVER designed to print via parallel.
I find that I don't print stuff up so much anymore however, as I can just print to a PDF file and save it to my HD. Beats killing more trees and it's really much faster to do a search on my HD for a file/image/receipt/document than it is to rummage through old file cabinets. It's a laptop so I can take the document nearly anywhere. And if I really need to, that 8 year old printer still works just fine and hasn't yet contributed to the landfill problem (except for the occasional ink cartridge). Isn't that better for our already overpolluted planet?
DaveC