Applebyte 2006 August - Canterbury Apple Users

About the user group
Applebyte
Magazine of the Apple User Group of Canterbury Inc
Aims
The Apple User Group of Canterbury is a non–profit
organisation for the purpose of exchanging ideas and
expertise about the use of Apple computers, and other
related hardware and software.
Vice–President
Secretary
Treasurer
Committee
The Committee
Murray Wood, MagnumMac
Michael Han
021-268-3015
Euan Kennedy
(03) 980-5712
Jim Pollard
(03) 358-7943
Raewyn Saunders
(03) 337-9305
Peter Fitchett
(03) 960-8189
Steve Adamson
(03) 379-1918
Christine Chapman
(03) 942-2634
Noel Strack
(03) 355-4546
Lorelie Kennedy
(03) 355-5165
president@appleusers.co.nz
vicepres@appleusers.co.nz
secretary@appleusers.co.nz
treasurer@appleusers.co.nz
pfitchett@netaccess.co.nz
essay@xtra.co.nz
xtine@paradise.net.nz
grandpa_nz@xtra.co.nz
lorelie_chch@paradise.net.nz
(evenings)
Snail Mail: PO Box 31–053, Christchurch.
Web: www.appleusers.co.nz
Mailing list:
subscribe-help@appleusers.co.nz (all welcome)
subscribe-augc@appleusers.co.nz (members only)
APPLEBYTE AUGUST 2006
Patron
President
August 2006
Steve Jobs uncovers more surprises at the WWDC
Club Meeting:
Waimairi
School
August 30
7.30 pm
• WWDC News
• Google Earth
• iPhoto
• Spreadsheets
• Raffle
Editor’s Message
by Steve Adamson
This month brought us the annual Worldwide Developers Conference
(WWDC) which showed the next step in Apple’s Operating System and
many new and exciting products to ponder over. It is also 15 years since
the Internet began when Tim Berners-Lee (now Sir) created the first website.
A big thank you to the two members who responded to my request for a
personal profile. I have included them in this issue so you can see layout
ideas. Keep them coming!
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Contents
1
Pres Sez
2
iPhoto Presentation
3
New Microphones’ Debut & the July Raffle
4-5
Member Profile – Euan Kennedy
6
DejaMenu
7
Radio NZ Podcasts
8-12
Applesoup
10
10 New Features in Leopard in Brief
13
Member Profile – Bart Hanson
14-16
Latest Products & News from MagnumMac
15
Wireless Mighty Mouse
17-23
A really rough guide to Nasties on the Internet
24-25
How the Web went World Wide
___________________________________________________________
Copyright:
Articles from Applebyte may only be reproduced with the written
permission of the editor and/or the author.
This Edition:
Was put together on a G5 iMac using OS X 10.4.6 and software Adobe
Indesign CS (version 3)
Appleline
The following members are willing to give some voluntary help to members
who have problems.
Please respect the time they give as many have a working life as well as
catering for family needs.
Difficulty deciding who to contact. For advice where to start contact Sally
Tripp or Peter Fitchett.
Beginners/new users:
Sally Tripp
329-9752
sally.tripp@xtra.co.nz
holliday@ihug.co.nz
Mike Holliday 383-1698
Appleworks:
Ian.Orchard@ihug.co.nz
Ian Orchard*
352-4064
Desktop publishing; Pagemaker/Indesign:
b.carter@paradise.net.nz
Belinda Carter 942-3000
iWork: Pages/iLife:
Peter Fitchett
960-8189
pfitchett@netaccess.co.nz
Internet:
jim.augc@gonzul.net
Jim Cheetham 386-2251
MS Word:
Euan Kennedy 980-5712
gonebush@paradise.net.nz
Networking:
Ian.Orchard@ihug.co.nz
Ian Orchard*
352-4064
Peter Fitchett
960-8189
pfitchett@netaccess.co.nz
Photoshop:
Warren Matthews 379-3071
sallys.preschool@xtra.co.nz
Systems management/problems:
bart@orcon.net.nz
Bart Hanson
980-1199
Systems; OS9:
Euan Kennedy 980-5712
gonebush@paradise.net.nz
Ian.Orchard@ihug.co.nz
Ian Orchard*
352-4064
OSX:
Ian Orchard*
352-4064
Ian.Orchard@ihug.co.nz
If a topic you require assistance with is not listed go to the;
Club’s Website:
www.appleusers.co.nz
* These members are willing to provide help to members but there may be
a charge - you will be told first.
Pres Sez
Meeting Venue
by Michael Han
Meetings are held on the
last Wednesday of each
month (except December)
beginning at 7.30pm, at
Waimairi School in Tillman
Avenue, off Bligh's Road.
WWDC
Drinks and snacks are
available while we all calm
down after the excitement
of the meeting.
Some members carpool to get to meetings. If you don't have a car and find
it difficult to get to meetings, please contact a committee member to arrange
transport. Usually there is someone living near you who can offer a lift.
So what have the committee come up with for the August meeting?
Club Contacts
Editor:
Steve Adamson
August Club Meeting Wednesday 30
Presentations
(03) 379-1918
editor@appleusers.co.nz
Assistant Editor:
Christine Chapman
(03) 942-2634
xtine@paradise.net.nz
Web Editor:
Peter Fitchett
(03) 960-8189
web@appleusers.co.nz
Email Lists Administrator:
Raewyn Saunders
(03) 337-9305
listadmin@appleusers.co.nz
To subscribe to either HELP or AUGC lists contact raewyn@digitalfusion.co.nz
AppleByte page 28
The Apple World Wide Developers Conference was held
earlier this month where we were introduced to the latest version of the
Operating System Ten saga, labelled “Leopard”. As mentioned Leopard
is still rubber stamped “Top Secret” but that did not stop Steve Jobs from
showing us some previews.
Listing ten new innovative improvements such as Time Machine,
iChat, iPhoto, Leopard was given the release date of Spring (northern
hemisphere).
The transition from Power PC to Intel has now been completed with the
release of a dual “dual core” Xeon processor based Mac Pro desktop system.
For more detailed info go to:
http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/aug_2006/event/index.html
• WWDC News and Additions
• Google Earth
• Spreadsheets
• The Mighty Mouse
• iPhoto part 2 - Creating slideshows and Sharing and printing photos
Workshop
• Spreadsheets
• MacBasics
• WWDC
Raffle: a choice of a red or a white bottle of wine - both good!
Every month the AUGC committee meet to prepare the monthly meeting
and at times we are finding it difficult to prepare subjects and topics for
the meeting so if you have a topic and or hardware that you would like to
know more about please let a committee member know.
I hope to see you all at the August meeting
AppleByte page 1
iPhoto Presentation
SeniorNet Mac
At July’s club meeting David Chilvers introduced
the first in a series of tutorials on iPhoto, Apple’s
outstanding digital photo cataloguing software with
“Importing photos” and “Organising photo albums”.
iPhoto is a principal component of the iLife package which comes bundled
with MacOS X.
We also hold social events on an occasional basis, and a newsletter is
supplied to members every two months.
Using iLife 04’s excellent DVD presentation, we were guided step-by-step
through the basics of downloading digital images to iPhoto, labelling them
(a tedious chore which is actually easier on-screen than writing on the back
of normal photos), deleting the fuzzy or misjudged images, placing the good
ones in whatever order is desired, and sorting them into albums from the
photo library. For those who use Playlists in iTunes, Apple’s music software,
the use of albums will be very familiar.
In contrast to the digital cameras most of us possess, iPhoto is sublimely
easy and intuitive to use, as you would expect from an Apple product. David
will cover part 2: “Creating slideshows” and “Sharing and printing photos”
at our August meeting.
Computer Training Lessons: Two-hour sessions, once a week for four
weeks. Course notes are provided. Classes are small with a maximum of
six students and two tutors per lesson.
The Learning Centre is situated in the Cranmer Centre Poolhouse, which
is accessed from Montreal Street at the Armagh Street corner.
Contact: If you would like to join SeniorNet Mac and are in the 55plus age group, please contact Tom Mitchell, at (03) 338 9837 or email:
t.mitchell@snap.net.nz, or else leave a message on the club’s answerphone
at (03) 365 2003.
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Submitting your article
Please write a tip or two for the magazine - everyone in the club should be
able to write at least one tip or article a year or at least send in an interesting
website.
Send material to editor@appleusers.co.nz
No need to wait for the deadline - early articles are very welcome :-)
Submitting Articles — Electronic submissions only, no paper thanks!
Any file format is fine, if I can’t open it I’ll let you know. 1 page of text
is approximately 340 words, please trim your articles to around 4 pages
or less (including graphics).
Please make sure the articles are written as clearly as possible, and use
your spellchecker. Also, if quoting from other articles please state your
source clearly.
Submitting Pictures — Please send as a separate file if you can. For
screen snapshots, I recommend you download Snapz Pro from www.
macdownload.com and save the picture as a jpeg or gif.
Photos should be supplied ready to use: high quality, cropped, resized to
10cm wide x 18cm high (or smaller!), saved as jpeg and submitted with
a caption.
Next Deadline: Tuesday 12 September 2006
AppleByte page 2
AppleByte page 27
“The killer application for the PC was the spreadsheet, for the Mac it was
desktop publishing and for the Internet it was the web,” said Paul Kunz. He
added: “Tim Berners-Lee was working on a problem to solve in high-energy
physics but in finding a solution he found a solution to problems that the
general public did not know they had.”
In late 1994 web traffic finally overtook gopher traffic and has never looked
back. Now there are almost 100 million websites and many consider the
web and the net indistinguishable. But, said Mr Groff, only now is the web
meeting the vision that the pioneers had for it.
The original conception was for a medium that people both read and
contributed to. New tools such as photo-sharing sites, social networks, blogs,
wikis and others are making good on that early promise, he said.
New Microphones’ Debut
The new microphones were pressed into service at last
month’s meeting. One suffered from occasional drop-out
but the other performed flawlessly. The drop-out problem
is caused by the way speakers hold the microphones. We
are investigating whether we can adjust their sensitivity to
cope with our quietly spoken presenters. The alternative
is to select stentorian speakers.
The web may be worldwide but it is only just getting started.
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15% DISCOUNT SEE BELOW 15% DISCOUNT
The cheerful face of AUGC member, Gilbert Wealleans, well
pleased with another profitable evening meeting and happy
to pack the furniture away.
Text & Photos by Euan Kennedy
___________________________________________________________
July Raffle
248 St Asaph St.
Ph. 03-377 5582
Nigel Cooper offers the first two customers to book
using this advert to receive 15% discount!
AppleByte page 26
Another successful raffle at July’s meeting, when the
prizes offered were a choice between a book from
Peachpit Press titled; ‘uptospeed Photoshop CS2’,
donated by Jim Fitchett or a bottle of wine. The draw
was won by a surprised but very appreciative Lorelie Kennedy who chose
the book.
AppleByte page 3
Member Profile
Euan Kennedy
This month we resume the profiling of club members.
In time we hope to hear about you all. For now we
begin with our erstwhile two-term Vice President,
Euan Kennedy.
Editor: Euan, how do you fill in your days between AUGC activities?
Euan: I’m a PhD student at Lincoln University analysing the long-term
viability of Chatham Island black robins. My study is really a belated
attempt to square off 28 years of commitment to these enchanting birds
and the many other endangered species I’ve been privileged to work with
as a wildlife management specialist.
Editor: When were you first introduced to Apple computers?
Euan: A friend in Dunedin encouraged my wife Kate and I to buy a
Mac Plus instead of a PC. That was in 1988, I think. Being an outdoors
hedonist—essential for sanity in my occupation—I really wanted nothing
to do with computers. I feared that having one would make me into a flabby
office worker. And the Mac Plus cost $4000! But that little 9-inch screen
won me over. It was probably the best companion I could have had for my
timorous journey into the ‘wilds’ of computing.
Editor: What machine do you use now?
Euan: Well, this is a little embarrassing because I’m still using an old
PowerMac 7300/180 at home, running MacOS 9.1. Not by choice, mind
you. While I’m a student, Kate (aka The Treasurer) is not at all sympathetic
to my regular keening for an upgrade. The PowerMac has a 400 Mhz G4
accelerator card and tonnes of RAM, so it’s reasonably quick. Unfortunately,
it sits alongside our teenage daughters’ two PCs on our home network. I find
them awful to use and maintain, but they’re very much faster, with more
commodious hard disks.
Editor: What would you like to upgrade to when you can?
Euan: Yes, the end is nigh for my faithful Mac. Too many websites won’t
recognise its creaking software and SCSI parts are scarce. I haven’t tortured
myself thinking about new Macs (yeah, right) but I do have an upgrade
project in train. Bit of an experiment really. I’m converting an orphaned
PowerComputing tower (acquired for its 20-inch Apple monitor) to run
MacOS 10.3 using XPostFacto. I plan to install a Crescendo 700 Mhz G4
accelerator card. A Mac-mad brother-in-law in New York has found the
other necessary components quite readily available in the US.
AppleByte page 4
Audience share
But though physicists were being won over by the web’s promise, in the
early years few others grasped its potential. This was because, said Mr
Kunz, many other technologies existed that did a similar job. Many people
got hold of key documents using the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and used
Usenet as a means to express themselves.
Particularly popular was a technology known as Gopher developed at
the University of Minnesota that also put a friendly face on the blooming
complexity of the computers connected to the Internet. It got the name partly
because the college’s sports team is called the Golden Gophers. Gopher
was released in spring 1991 and for a few years statistics showed far more
gopher traffic was passing across the net than web traffic.
During this time Mr Berners-Lee, Jeff Groff and colleagues involved in the
world wide web project were evangelising their creation at conferences,
meetings and online. The whole project got a boost in April 1993 when the
first PC web browser appeared. It was created by Marc Andreessen at the
National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois
rather than at Cern because, said Jeff Groff, the web team did not have the
staff available to write browsers for PCs, Macs or Unix machines.
Mosaic was so successful that it established many of the conventions of
web use still around today, said Mr Groff. For instance, he said, the original
conception of the web had no place for bookmarks or favourites.
Also in 1993, the University of Minnesota began charging for Gopher, which
led many people to consider alternatives far more seriously.
Express yourself
Ed Vielmetti, a pioneering web user and now a research associate at the
University of Michigan School of Information, said during these early years
the technology really started to prove its usefulness to average net users.
Gopher and FTP systems were typically set up by companies or large
institutions, he said. Also Usenet lacked any kind of persistence so anyone
making a point had to re-post their opinions regularly.
Early on people started to use webpages as a way to express themselves in
a way that other technologies simply did not allow. Mr Vielmetti said web
code was very tolerant of mistakes and encouraged people to play around
with it. “Websites filled this unique little niche for you as a person, not as
a corporate entity, and you can have the page sitting there and have it be
yours,” he said.
Every surge of interest in the web has been driven by the appearance of
tools that make this expression, or a new type of it such as blogging, far
easier than before.
The foresight of Mr Berners-Lee and the pioneering coders was such that,
even today, many early webpages can still be viewed. That persistence can
last decades.
AppleByte page 25
How the web went world wide
by Mark Ward, Technology Correspondent
Courtesy of BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5242252.stm
In a few short years the web has become so familiar that it is hard to
think of life without it.
Along with that familiarity with browsers and bookmarks goes a little
knowledge about the web’s history. Many users know that Sir Tim BernersLee developed the web at the Cern physics laboratory near Geneva. But few
will know the details of the world wide web’s growth - not least because
the definitive history of how that happened has yet to be written.
Zero to hero
One key date is 6 August 1991 - the day on which links to the fledgling
computer code for the www were put on the alt.hypertext discussion group
so others could download it and play with it.
On that day the web went world wide.
Jeff Groff, who worked with Mr Berners-Lee on the early code, said a very
simple idea was behind the web. “The vision was that people should not have
to deal with the technology stuff,” he said. The web was an overlay that tried
to hide the underlying complexity of the data and documents proliferating
on the Internet. Early on this commitment to simplicity meant that the now
familiar addresses beginning http:// were never seen.
In the early 90s a single way to get at the information stored on many
different computers was very attractive, said Paul Kunz, a staff scientist
at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (Slac) who set up the first web
server outside Europe in December 1991.
At that time, he said, computers were islands of information. A login only
gave access to that machine’s resources. Switching computers meant
logging in again and probably using a different set of commands to find
and retrieve data.
The web really caught Mr Kunz’s interest after Tim Berners-Lee showed
it querying a database of physics papers held on an IBM mainframe. “I
knew what the results should look like on the screen and the results looked
identical in the web browser,” said Mr Kunz. The web server set up by Mr
Kunz let physicists trawl through the 200,000 abstracts more easily than
ever before.
This proved so useful that soon even Cern scientists were querying
the database via the Slac webpage rather than using the copy on their
network.
AppleByte page 24
Editor: Now that project would make an interesting article for AppleByte,
don’t you think? Tell me, what do you use your computers for?
Euan: At home? Mostly word-processing. Oh and the internet of course. I
use that extensively when studying from home for university library access
and other research. TradeMe is a spare-time addiction but I also subscribe
to newsgroups and list-servers populated by people who share my interests
in aviation history, flight-sims and maintaining Mercedes diesel cars. The
Diesel-Benz discussion group gives me valuable advice for my cherished
Mercedes classic. Soon, at Lincoln, I’ll be using the G3 Sally generously
offered me to run pedigree-mapping software for my black robin studies.
Editor: OK. Last questions. When did you join AUGC and what do you
most value from belonging to the group?
Euan: I joined in 1991 or 92, I think, soon after we moved from Dunedin
to Christchurch. In those days we met at the Christchurch College of
Education. There always seemed to be crowds at those meetings, but the
group has become smaller since the internet arrived in force.
What do I value most from belonging? Two things. Advice and help from
other members, many of whom have the most amazing knowledge and
willingness to share it. Meetings are enjoyable social events too. I find them
very reaffirming in the pleasures and society of Mac computing.
Because the club has helped me so much, I’ve been happy to reciprocate
through tours-of-duty on the committee. That’s been a great learning and
social experience too. Among other things, it’s got me completely over the
intimidating belief that everyone else is a Mac expert. Well, I may still know
diddly-squat about Macs, but I see now that our group values contributions
of all kinds. Besides, asking for help is expected. If none of us asks, the
group has no purpose. And it gives others real pleasure to help.
Editor: Thanks, Euan. Good luck with your studies and with your appeals
to the Treasurer (will she be reading this?).
Euan:
I’ll make sure she does.
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AppleByte page 5
DejaMenu
by Sally Tripp
DejaMenu is a useful little utility and it’s free. It even
has heart! It’s programmer Karl Hsu asks, “If you like
DejaMenu, do something nice for someone.”
At the press of a configured keyboard command, floating palettes of the
current application’s menu appear at the tip of your cursor. So instead
of navigating to the top of the monitor to click what you need from the
menus you can do it right alongside where you are working. This is particularly useful if you are working with an extra monitor and the menus
are at the top of the monitor furthest away from you.
The default command is Command Shift M which is a bit tricky if you
are right handed and want to hit that and work with the mouse at the
same time. I’ve tried using other combinations, but I don’t know what’s
already been assigned. The uncommonly used Control key combined
with another key just doesn’t work. This little hiccup, however, doesn’t
detract from the usefulness of the programme.
For more about DejaMenu and how to get it, go to:
http://homepage.mac.com/khsu/DejaMenu/DejaMenu.html
Websites
Some of the many sites and articles on security. Google for many more.
www.macworld.com
www.macworld.com/2006/06/features/protectfw/index.php?lsrc=mwrss
www.macworld.com/news/2004/11/02/mi2g/index.php
www.macdeveloper.com
www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2006/06/20/wireless-security.html
www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/08/19/clamav.html
www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/02/20/security.html
www.grc.com – home of Shields up, which can be used to test how open
your ports are
www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1979388,00.asp
www.ipr.res.in/synergy/compsecurity.html
arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/malware.ars/1
www.unwantedlinks.com/macsupport.htm
www.stuartallt.com/security/index.html
bastille.linux.org/jay/ – has a link to a slideshow on hardening up your 10.4
system to make it more secure
http://www.dnsstuff.com/ - general DNS and TCP/IP related lookups etc.
(some can also be done using Network Utility)
http://www.hackercheck.com/
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Bart Hanson for some comments and
additional websites
Disclaimer -The writer can’t claim to be an expert in security matters. The
article and the earlier presentation are intended as a starter document for a
discussion on security issues on Apple computers. Feel free to raise these
issues (and ones not covered) on the mailing list or at club meetings.
AppleByte page 6
AppleByte page 23
Tools to test your own set-up
For those who are paranoid about security or just like to find out what is
going on the following tools may be of use. Proceed with caution.
§
Intrusion detection tools such as Checkmate
§
Rkhunter – rootkit revealer, runs in terminal
§
Probe check
§
Macsniffer
§
Interarchy
§
Network Utility
§
Failed password checker
§
Henwen
§
Little Snitch
§
Who’s there –Reads, analyzes and sorts firewall log entries
Seek expert help when things go wrong. If the worst happens a reformat
of the hard drive and reinstallation of the operating system from the
installation discs or an earlier clone might be required. A reinstallation due
to an infestation of malware is unlikely due to the current sparsity of such
‘treats’ for Apple computers. However, don’t get too complacent and think
you don’t need to take precautions. Take some, a few. You could spend a
lot of time and money locking down everything to prevent anything bad
occurring to the extent the computer becomes difficult to use, you forget
what you have done and it becomes no fun at all. You could also worry
yourself into a tizz about all these nasties and worry even more when you
read the output of the tools without full understanding, as some of us do.
You can also forget what you have done/installed or changes made to the
system can slow it down.
Radio NZ Podcasts
by Sally Tripp
In the recent discussions about Podcasts at a club meeting
it was noted that what Radio NZ called Podcasts was in
fact live streaming. I’m happy to note that it is possible
now to subscribe to programmes through iTunes.
First go to www.radionz.co.nz and look at the left hand
column that is headed by “Find your way around” and
below that you’ll see RSS & Podcasts. Click this link and
it takes you through to a list of Programmes. Choose your
favourite programme or presenter such as “Nine to Noon”
and that takes you to a list of the available podcasts. On the
right of the page under “Actions” is an option to Subscribe
to iTunes. I haven’t yet worked out the simplest way to do
that yet. But with a bit of clicking here and there I’ve been
able to get it to open in the Podcasts folder of iTunes and
I got more than I needed. What I didn’t want I deleted and
I’ll listen to the rest when I have time.
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Computer free to a good home
Powermac 7200 with HP printer to give away. Runs at 120mhz with 48mb
of RAM and a 1.2GB harddrive. Runs System 8.1. Has limited software
but comes with discs and manuals for Word/Office versions 4-6. External
fax modem. Suitable for emailing and writing letters. May be good as a
computer for child’s homework etc. Has scsi, serial ports, ethernet and
comes with 3 pci slots. Tel: 9423000
Belinda
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Three photos seamlessly joined of Jean’s rug window promotion at Ballantynes
- by Jim Pollard
AppleByte page 22
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Obituary
It is with regret that we record the passing of Ron Johnson.
We pass on our condolences to his wife Marion.
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AppleByte page 7
Applesoup
by Bart Hanson
No iPhone or Asteroid, yet...
The run up to this years Worldwide Developers
Conference (WWDC) has been interesting more for the
background machinations than for the eagerly awaited
keynote announcements. Steve was still able to wow us
with a new Mac Pro to replace the (aging?) PowerMac
G5. Apple has transitioned its entire line to Intel now,
in just 210 days as Steve enjoyed telling us. To power
the Mac Pro desktops Apple chose dual-core Xeon
server processors. The 64-bit chips, formerly code-named “Woodcrest”,
pack a 4MB L2 cache and run at speeds of up to 3.0GHz on a 133MHz
front-side bus. Every Mac Pro in the lineup features two of the Dual-Core
Intel Xeon processors.
The redesigned enclosure holds up to four HD’s and 2TB of storage, 8
DIMM slots for 16GB of RAM and bays for two SuperDrives. Extra I/O
ports on the front panel now give two USB, one 400 Firewire and one 800
Firewire.
The Xserve also received a makeover with a 5x performance boost over
the Xserve G5, thanks to quad-core 64-bit Intel Xeon processing. Other
features include up to 2.25TB storage, two eight-lane PCI Express slots,
dual onboard Gigabit Ethernet and a combo drive. Internal ATI Radeon
X1300 PCI Express graphics is included with a mini-DVI output with VGA
support. Dual redundant power supplies give extra piece of mind.
AppleByte page 8
Useful Tools and Tips
This sketch of the Wild Wild Web may scare some users but it is “only”
your data at risk and a few precautions will keep the nasties out and retain
the fun aspect of computing.
Choose which options to follow:
• Brain in gear/commonsense
• Make an effort to keep up to date on security issues
• Install security updates to the operating system and update applications
and security utilities regularly
• Use a special email address for online activities eg: newsgroups for
privacy reasons
• Download software from reputable sources. Stay away from peer to peer
file sharing sites and software
• Activate the Mac OS Firewall and if you are concerned about programmes
phoning home (Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Skype) Little Snitch is an effective
but sometimes annoying way of blocking outward traffic.
• Use a hardware router with built-in firewall for broadband access
• Install third party internet security software
• Run an anti-virus programme in the background or manually to detect
malware. ClamavX is free.
• Use Macscan to detect trojans and spyware
• Use a password to login at the start. Make them long using 10 digits, with
mixture of numbers and special characters and change frequently
• Do not open email attachments unless you know who sent it AND they
mentioned the attachment in the email.
• Emails travelling the Internet can be intercepted and read but not emails
encrypted through programmes such PGP
• Turn off embedded images in email
• Firewall – Club member and Mac specialist, Bart Hanson suggests that
you don’t rely on OS X firewall, because it will only keep out intruders
from THAT machine. Instead turn on SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection) on
the Router. This protects all machines on the local network and allows all
outbound traffic unless specifically blocked and denies all inbound traffic
unless specifically allowed. NAT will also do a great job of masking the
IP addresses of machines ‘inside” the router/firewall. If you don’t have a
router Magnum Mac or Dick Smith will be able to supply
• Complete regular and bootable backups with Carbon Copy Cloner, or
similar, to an external hard drive to guard against data loss
AppleByte page 21
Spam – Unsolicited mail is mainly a nusiance
as it clutters up mailboxes requiring additional
software such as Mailwasher, Spamsieve or
PopMonitor to run between computer and
your ISP mail server and time and effort to
set up mail rules to prevent its entry or clean
up afterwards. However some spammers
have linked up with virus writers to find ways
to bypass protective barriers and get their
message through.
Cookies – opinion varies on these little text files apparently designed to
make browsing easier and faster. You can block them but it will probably
cause access problems. It wouldn’t hurt to clear out unrecognised cookies
every now and then through the browser’s preferences. They don’t cause
damage but they are a privacy worry for some people.
Mac OS 9
The firewall under OS X does not work for 9. If your Internet Connection
is broadband (adsl or cable), a firewall like Norton’s Personal Firewall is
needed. Several years ago, I was horrified to find after three weeks with
broadband and no protection, how much traffic was attempting to access
the computer every minute. They still try. Clamav is available to detect
viruses on System 9.
Steve, (with some help from Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of
Worldwide Product Marketing, Bertrand Serlet, Senior Vice President
of Software Engineering and Scott Forstall, Vice President of Platform
Experience) introduced ten new features of Leopard.
Some say Steve has put the Computer back into Apple and the keynote
certainly sounded that way to me. Not a mention of how many billion songs
ITMS had sold or any talk of total world “music player” domination.
One of the ten new features in Leopard was using “Web Clip” (in Dashcode)
to create dynamic Widgets from portions of web pages. Just such a tool
was released one day after the keynote! http://www.fondantfancies.com/
blog/3001239/
Time Machine, Spaces and Core Animation all impressed me (Time
machine utilises CoreAnimation’s Library-API’s) but Steve’s “biggie” Mail
Templates (HTML mail? Yuck!) Notes and To Do’s in Mail are the type of
thing I feel are best left to shareware developers. Spotlight gains boolean
searching (yah!) but the searching of mounted network volumes is something
it can do already so it beats me what the big deal is here.
Wireless networks
If you run your own make sure others can’t use it without authorisation by
setting up WEP, an encrypted password login control system. If using public
wireless broadband, make sure your firewall is on. Outsiders can access the
network if it is not properly set up.
On the PC side
Malware on the PC side won’t affect the Mac but you may have to reformat
any PC partition affected so don’t store data there. If you are running
Parallels Workstation or Bootcamp and Windows save the Internet for the
Mac or investigate relevant software such as virus protection and spyware
detection. There is a plenty of software available.
Apple will ship the OS 10.5 (Leopard) early 2007 (probably after Vista
ships) but it looks like “virtualization” will be left for parallels and VMware
to slug out. Phil Schiller says Apple will not do virtualization.
Anything else?
Potentially any application or object could be used: jpegs, the browser’s
helper applications like Acrobat Reader, Microsoft word macros, even
quicktime. And there are potential threats from the unix side, which is
outside the scope of this article.
AppleByte page 20
Bertrand Serlet observed that Vista’s logo is very aqua-like, but Vista is
“still Windows” with the ugliness of the Registry, DLL hell, and Product
Activation was a nice touch.
AppleByte page 9
10 New Features in Leopard in Brief
1. 64-bit application support
2. Time Machine
3. The Complete Package
4. Spaces
Time Machine
a) keyloggers – are small software items, usually downloaded unwittingly
as Trojans. They record everything typed on the computer, including
passwords and other useful and compromising data, which is then sent
to another address. Keyloggers can also take the form of a dongle (small
piece of hardware) connected between the keyboard and computer, storing
every keystroke.
5. Spotlight improvements
6. Core Animation
7. Accessibility improvements
8. Mail improvements
Spaces
9. Dashcode and Dashboard
improvements
10. iChat improvements
Core Animation
AppleByte page 10
Hackers and Crackers – Hackers, who are largely benign, just like
playing around with computers and pushing the limits to show off to others
what they can do. Crackers deliberately try to break into computers to
steal information and cause damage but both groups are often erroneously
labelled as Hackers. Crackers have a number of tools they can use including
rootkits, trojans, port scanners, password guessers, phishing and keyloggers.
They look at unguarded ports on a computer and vulnerabilities in software,
weak passwords and use social engineering techniques (talking or tricking
an unsuspecting employee into divulging a password) as well. Sometimes
hackers find employment after demonstrating security lapses to the
businesses involved.
b) rootkits – these nasty pieces of software can be used to gain control over
the computer, allowing a cracker to control the Root or superuser login.
Rootkits delete things like log entries, enabling viruses, trojans and worms
to hide their tracks. They are not easy to detect but rootkit revealers such
as rkhunter, which runs through the Unix side rather than the Mac OS,
indicate small changes in files that may suggest the presence of a rootkit.
A rootkit was used when some hackers wanted to demonstrate how easy
it was to take over a wirelessly connected laptop at a highly publicized
event in the US.
c) port scanners – use brute force to locate vulnerable ports left open and
unprotected. Any application capable of doing a tcpdump (Interarchy for
example or Network Utility) will reveal hundreds of attempts per second
by automated bots trying to gain entry. If you set up the firewall in stealth
mode (use the Advanced tab on the Firewall tab) it won’t reply to these
scanners. Also switch on the logging and check UDP while you are looking
at that dialogue box.
d) remote administration – Not only can hackers make use of file sharing
and remote administration software already on computers, but trojans can
also add remote administration software so it pays to have a good password,
disable autologin so it requires a password, and a good firewall, especially
if allowing remote access (in System Preferences: Shared folder). Any
computer with remote login enabled is vulnerable. The Symantec website
has a free online security echeck to see how vulnerable you might be to
hackers and trojans. Some common ports will be listed as open, closed or
stealth.
AppleByte page 19
Trojans - Trojans (or trojan horses)
are impostors—malicious programmes
masquerading as something desirable. When
triggered (sometimes by the opening of an
email attachment), they cause loss, or even
theft, of data. OSX.Exploit.Launchd is a proofof-concept Trojan exploiting a vulnerability
that has been fixed in 10.4.7. Third party
software Macscan is purported to be able to
detect and expel Trojans.
Technical website ars technica groups together some bad software under the
name of malware, including adware, spyware, highjackers, toolbars and
dialers. Adware places ads on screens sometimes, even without the browser
being open. Spyware sends details of websites you visit, contents of email
address books or even credit card details to another computer elsewhere.
Hijackers control what homepage the browser uses and redirect the user
to compromised sites. Helpful extra toolbars often offer to integrate into
Internet Explorer but some are bad ones. Dialers set up dial-up modems to
call 0900 numbers earning the owner of the number money and the victim
a large phone bill. Malware pose security risks and because they are badly
written make the computer operation unstable and can bring popups with
adult sites and scams onto the screen. The good news for now is that this is
a PC problem only and can be avoided by using a Mac. Although there is
little malware for the Mac it is getting more and more sophisticated and more
difficult to sniff out. Macscan is also a spyware detector on the Mac.
Wait there’s more:
Nigerian scams and others designed to extract personal information such
as name, address, phone, email and bank account number by promising
large sums of money to share or pay to you as a helper’s fee.
At the beginning I mentioned that there were some rumblings prior to
WWDC. Remember the audio breakout box, code-named Asteroid? Apple
tried legal means to force Apple Insider and Power Page to reveal their
sources after blogging about this as yet unreleased product.
Apple won the first round of the legal battle but the case went to appeal
and the 2004 decision was over-turned in May 2006 with the help of digital
rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
The deadline for Apple to contest this appeal ruling has passed and legal
papers filed by the computer maker suggest it will not pursue the matter
any further.
Apple owes much to its legions of fans who whip themselves into a rumour
frenzy before every MWSF and WWCD. This is very much a double edged
sword for Apple as it can be damaging to Apple when its thunder is stolen
by premature leaks.
At the January MacWorld Expo large banners proclaimed “Redmond, start
your photocopiers” At WWDC Steve quipped “it was a joke, but they took us
seriously” and this time the banners read “Introducing Vista 2.0.”, Hasta la
vista, Vista” and my personal favorite, “Redmond has a cat too, a Copycat”.
Boom! Boom! as Basil Brush (and Steve Jobs) like to say.
I have read on several blogs that Steve looked tired, this together with the
fact that he shared so much stage time with other Apple execs led some
to anticipate Steve may be stepping aside as CEO. I thought Steve looked
just fine and I find it a healthy sign for Apple that others can step up to the
plate when required.
Phishing – emails spoofing emails from your bank or Trade Me account
saying there is some security problem sending you to a website to enter your
bank password. Some banks now have session passwords as a result of this.
Being a Mac user is no protection. Both phishing and Nigerian scams use
social engineering to persuade you to do what they want. Phishing is one
aspect of identity theft and this is considered cybercrime.
DOS attacks – Denial of service attacks on servers. Hundreds of
compromised or hijacked PCs (zombies) inundate the targeted server
with multiple “packets” of data in a bid to crash it. Internet servers run
by companies thus targeted have to take the computer offline until they
strengthen their firewall. This can sometimes be accompanied by extortion
threats.
AppleByte page 18
Apple has reported a 48% surge in profits year after year, while holding
steady on iPod sales volume, which had been the subject of some concern
among analysts. For the fiscal third quarter Apple’s revenues came in at
$4.37 billion vs. $3.5 billion a year ago. Net income was $472 million, or
54 cents per share.
AppleByte page 11
Andrew Burke is a Kiwi with a great blog (below). I don’t know if I’ll
ever have a blog as action packed and readable as his is. I especially like his
description of his switch to mac and some of the issues he found. Mostly
though there seems to have been very few! Thanks for the Tips section too
Andrew!
http://www.andrewburke.orcon.net.nz/mac/index.htm
Mac-ad hip guy Justin Long says his pop-icon status grows
with every TV spot released by Apple... “If I had been
egotistical about the movies, I have been brought back to earth”
he says. “Nine out of 10 people who recognize me recognize
me from the commercials.”
Advanced Micro Devices has agreed to buy Canadian graphics chip vendor
ATI Technologies for US$5.4 billion (NZ$8.6 billion).
ATI makes revenue of between US$80 million and US$100 million a quarter,
selling integrated graphics chipsets for use on PC motherboards alongside
Intel microprocessors, says ATI chief executive officer Dave Orton.
AMD says the deal doesn’t threaten AMD’s relationship with Nvidia, ATI’s
main rival in the graphics space and an important AMD partner, and it has
no plans to lock out the company.
“We are going to keep our interfaces open to encourage people to use our
platform,” says AMD’s president and chief operating officer, Dirk Meyer,
contrasting the approach with that of its main rival Intel.
A really rough guide to nasties on
the Internet
by Belinda Carter
According to a recent article on the Symantec website “there are no fileinfecting viruses that can infect Mac OS X.” That’s good news but there are
a number of other potential nasties circulating. Although these mainly affect
PC users Mac users are not immune when the malicious programmers find
vulnerabilities to exploit. Based on an abbreviated presentation at the June
club meeting, this article looks at some of those nasties and some things to
do to make their presence on your computer short-lived. It is intended to
make you aware of the issue, rather than a detailed to do list. The key thing
is not to go overboard–you could spend a lot of time and money trying to
make sure your system is 100 per cent safe, when that is an impossible goal.
It can also make you paranoid and take the fun out of computing.
You can count on the fingers of one-hand examples of worms, rootkits and
other exploits targeting Mac OS X; there have been so few.
So what are these nasties?
Viruses - According to the Symantec website there are more than 72,000
viruses and not one of them can cause havoc on a Mac. Outlook Express
is the main culprit on Windows. Basically, viruses infect files within a
single computer but also have the ability to propagate or multiply each
time a program is launched or each time a connection to the Internet is
made. Viruses can be detected using software such as ClamXAV. (Highly
recommended). It’s free and if the definitions are kept up to date it will
happily protect your computer and removable discs in the background.
A new web browser for PC’s has been released but what makes it remarkable
is that it’s touted as Safari for PC users. It uses Apple’s Web-kit engine!
Read more at www.getswift.org
Macro viruses – are something that can only be caught by Mac users of
Word, and they live in the Normal Template adding themselves to each new
Word document created. Switch off macros, or use word processors from
companies other than Microsoft, and you are safer.
Apple Computer has decided to do away with its discussion support team, a
group of forum hosts that have monitored and moderated its user discussion
boards. The end result, however, has been a marked decrease in the quality
of discussions, and an increase in everything from rudeness to instructions
on pirating music and software.
Worms - worms spread copies from one server to another via email or
networks and sometimes via instant messengers. The only Mac OS X worm
identified so far, OSX LeapA, spreads via iChat. Mass-mailing worms
often use a technique called “spoofing.” They randomly select an email
address from the infected computer’s email contacts, place that random
email address in the “From” field, and email an infected email to another
computer. It is hard to know where the infected mail came from because the
mass-mailing worm does not use the email address of the infected computer
in the email it sends.
AppleByte page 12
AppleByte page 17
Mac Pro
The Mac Pro has been announced and the 2.66GHz model is on display in
our showroom in Carlyle Street. This marks the final stage in the transition
of Macs to the Intel architecture.
The Mac Pro is a high-end machine with four Intel Xeon microprocessors
on two chips. The case is very similar to the previous G5 model with the
addition of an extra optical drive bay and additional I/O ports on both the
front and back. The new Intel Xeon processors are more energy efficient
and this means that the large areas devoted to heat removal in the old G5
model can now be used for the addition of up to four internal hard drives and
extra space for larger PCI Express cards giving increased options for graphic
display cards. The RAM sits on their own risers and uses FB-DIMMs on
1.3GHz busses. These Fully Buffered DIMMs use a faster and more reliable
architecture increasing the overall performance of the Mac Pro.
Apple produce three models: 2.0GHz, 2.66GHz and 3.0GHz with quoted
performances of up to three times that of the Power Mac G5 Quad.
Model prices starting from:
Mac Pro 2GHz
1GB RAM/160GB HD/GeForce7300GT $4,476.38 inc GST
Mac Pro 2.66GHz 1GB RAM/250GB HD/GeForce7300GT $5,241.38 inc GST
Mac Pro 3.0GHz 1GB RAM/250GB HD/GeForce7300GT $7,052.63 inc GST
AppleByte page 16
Member Profile
Bart Hanson
I have been a Mac “fanboy” since 1992 when I would
explore Mac Classics at the Teachers’ College library or
wherever a Mac presented itself. I purchased a Mac IIsi
(colour!) from Ron Service in 1993 and joined AUGC in
the same year. I went to Polytech (CPIT) for two years to
gain the CBC qualification and later obtained my Apple
Engineer’s qualification online.
Since then I have worked for Digital Fusion Ltd and MacWorx Ltd. I am
now employed 0.8 FTE (80% full time employment) with New Zealand
Horticulture I.T.O but still do some work on my own behalf as Macintosh
Computer Services Ltd.
I enjoy blues music, especially slide guitar, philosophy and family life.
Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you’ve got!
Cheers,
Bart Hanson
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AppleByte page 13
Latest Products & News from MagnumMac
by John Osborne - MagnumMac
WWDC
The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference has just “happened” in San
Francisco. This is a gathering for those working on producing software and
hardware for the world of Macintosh, to gather and exchange information,
as well as meet the Apple engineers and technical experts who present
the sessions over the 5 days of the conference. This, along with the other
Apple conferences around the world, are opportunities to announce new
technology, Steve Jobs delivers the main keynote address and this time used
it to announce the Mac Pro. (The replacement for the Power Mac G5.)
New On The Web
www.smaps.co.nz is the latest release from Sam and his mates at Trade Me
– just type in an address to see it displayed on the online map.
Also…
See what we have known all along and that an Australian “The Age”
journalist now knows at:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/08/14/1155407745917.html
Wireless Mighty Mouse
Wireless and Mouse – an oxymoron?
In 1963 Douglas Engelbart working at Standford Research Institute
developed a two-dimensional pointing device for his “oNLine System”
(NLS – look this up and see where the world wide web and the Mac OS had
their genesis). In 1970 he received a patent for an “X-Y Position Indicator
for a Display System”, it was intended that the user held the single button
mouse continuously in one hand while the other hand was used to type on
a five key chorded keyboard. Xerox PARC adopted the mouse, and added
three buttons, but intended the keyboard to be used with both hands with the
mouse only being used when needed. The first mouse for Apple appeared
with the Lisa in 1983 but was only commercially successful in the Macintosh
from 1984 onwards. Unfortunately for Engelbart his patent expired at this
time. The development of the computer mouse has continued steadily with
a range of variations now available and it is now estimated that there are
US$1.5 billion worth of mice sold annually. The name “mouse” came from
the fact that there was a “tail” wire dragging out the back of the computer
pointing device – but what about a cordless pointing device – perhaps it is
time to return to Engelbart’s original name of “bug”?
The Wireless Mighty Mouse gives all the functionality of the wired version:
touch-sensitive technology for right or left click; 360 degree scrolling
capability; a squeeze button to active Exposé, plus improved laser pointing
accuracy and Bluetooth connectivity with a 10 metre range.
Wireless Mighty Mouse
$138.36 inc GST
Apple has chopped off Mighty Mouse’s tail and replaced it with
wireless connectivity via Bluetooth 2.0
AppleByte page 14
AppleByte page 15