I was really surprised to see the following bit of Javascript show up in the comments of a previous post, and waited awhile to see if it'd get picked up by anyone, but it didn't, so here we are. While I knew Apple knew about it internally for quite awhile, I hadn't yet seen it floating about in the wild -- and I wasn't at liberty to say anything as sometimes part of getting to know something is not being able to talk about it without making the life of the person who passed it on very difficult.
posted on April 12, 2006 at 12:25 PMYou might be surprised how many random instant messages I get that lead with "You bastard," such as...
I read somewhere that acceptance is one of the key stages one has to go through before one is able to move forward, after denial, anger, and bargaining. An open question is whether the posted job description is indicative of the mental stage management is in, or whether someone is going to get called into their office for a chat. Caught by Roland C, thanks.
I don't normally post about software updates regarding various apps, because:
- There are better places to keep track of that type of thing, even if some of the options are arguably retarded (in a sling-blade way, not the cuddly way).
- You start doing it for one, then you have to start doing it for everyone.
It's worth mentioning Growl v.7.3 though, because:
- I said I would (like
xdays late, but still). - It primarily just fixes one bug -- but I gave Chris a lot of hell over this bug in person (not on the site), so good to note that it's fixed.
I've actually got a bit in my head regarding Growl, and other things, that's built up to the point where I want to dump it out...
More and more I'm getting the feeling that whoever is writing technical docs for Apple Computer either:
- Doesn't think anyone is watching.
- Is bored and amusing themselves in the outlet they have.
- Knows I'm reading them and is messing with me. Understandable, I've been there with Apple Legal.
Check out #6, from the current Aperture: Avoiding issues with your External Editor (FAQ). It's right up there with "As if it were a swarm of bees" line from earlier in the year, yet lacks its whimsical charm and probably approaches unhelpful condescension if someone's crashing problems just happens to not be related to unsupported color modes. #9 is back to whimsy though, and both made me laugh.
Paul @ Rogue Amoeba, on realizing the supplier for MacWorld (GES) has a website that doesn't work in Safari and completely chokes FireFox:
Fantastic, no? It finally worked in IE (*shudder*), and even after I registered, I was unable to sign in using Safari. You'd think perhaps the company running a large portion of the biggest Macintosh show in the world would have a website that worked in Safari. You'd think.
The first screenshot had me in absolute stitches, only partially from having met him and being able to picture his expression when he saw it...
The other day Jason posted a sample of some of the stuff he's been working on behind the scenes to extend ShapeShifter's reach, or rather what a themer can do via ShapeShifter. There are a few things in the coming tech I really want to see in some themes, because it is becoming harder and harder to use an OS without borders on its windows...
The Evening at Adler video is available on its own suitably campy separate section as of right now, which is where you should be sending people. This was that little deal where some of the brightest indies in the Mac scene descended upon Chicago for a casual conversation on October 21st, 2005.
The video and the audio rip are available via a torrent and many generous web mirrors, although bittorrent is preferred, as is seeding -- it's not just for downloading Doctor Who anymore. As previously mentioned, it's being released under a Creative Commons license, because I want as many people as possible to be able to get to know these guys, and to be exposed to some of the ideas in it.
Take it, show it, snip it, post it, remix it, or just string together all the drunkenbatman space-cadet moments as a reminder of why sleep is important and its not socially acceptable to drink before noon. Above all, have a good time with it.
With that, I'm going to Disneyland.
Years ago I watched an old rerun of a television show, where the teenage son runs into the Dad's home office saying, "OMG Dad! If I turn off the TV, and turn it back on, the show has kept going!", to which the father responded "Gilligan's Island is being broadcast to millions, whether you're watching or not. Are you just not realizing the world doesn't revolve around you..?" Ayep, this is going to be rudimentary, but I need something to link to help keep the inbox below 100...
There are days when it doesn't pay to check my inbox before I fall asleep, as while I was nestling into the pillow I kept randomly laughing at the ramifications of the below. My brain wasn't going to drop it until I'd dragged myself to the computer and forwarded it onto a few like souls who'd also appreciate it, and leave myself a note to write a post...
Anyway, I recently filed a bug [radar - #4273090] with Apple about how Preview breaks its bookmarks to files when their file path changes because it doesn't refer to the file via its file system node, and they replied. Quelle surprise! Unfortunately, the reply was less than encouraging.To quote:
"NAME REMOVED: Engineering has determined this issue behaves as intended based on the following information:
"If you move the file, how would Preview know where you’d moved it? This kind of thing only works with applications because of the launch services mechanism and the Finder. Since Preview isn’t running all the time, it can’t receive notifications of when every file on your disk is moved, and you probably wouldn’t want Preview being launched every time you move or rename a file."
Oh my fucking god.
Will R.
That rhythmic thumping you're hearing is the sound of a thousand developers across the world beating their heads on their keyboards. Since everyone hates being excluded from a joke, and you may not be a developer, we'll quickly go through why the title of this post is OMFG...
As it turns out, my embargo is generally worthless, because no one is paying it any heed. Earlier today, Rosyna passed on their new treat called Smart Crash Reports has reached Beta 5, along with some screenshots. "I'm embargo'd." I said, and then realized I was forwarding it onto twenty people I thought should know about it...
(Note: The download link on the front of the site isn't working, and most normal people -- Including the Unsanity Folks, are asleep. However, this direct link will work until non-vampires awake)
I wanted to throw up a short note about iTunes 5, even though it's pushing 4:30am and I'm having to add more wicks to the candle, because some have gotten the wrong impression about my post yesterday -- or rather are reading too much into it.
It's understandable, as its lacking some context, which is my fault, as I tried to do a quickie on something deserving a longy. Judging by my inbox people are annoyed at a lot of things about the iTunes 5 interface, while yesterday I was reveling in the glory that is Burnt Aqua Unified. I have to keep this somewhat short, because otherwise the embargo on the site in order to get things done for the site will be meaningless, but basically they have the right of it.
I was chewing through AnandTech's No More Apple Mysteries, Part Two which was making my happy place all tingly. Now, lots of things make my utility belt tingle, but if you're not aware, Part 1 of their article focused on benchmarking Mac OS X for many server related tasks (I.E., Apache, MySQL, etc.) and came up with some abysmal results for the Mac compared to other platforms.
It caused a hell of a lot of smack to be thrown around -- primarily at them -- with only about 5% of it being deserved. There were all sorts of theories being thrown around as to why the results might have been showing so badly in OS X's favor, especially when it came to databases, all of which clearly ignored...
A few hours ago, AppleInsider posted that Apple's newly released Security Update 2005-007 had major problems when it came to 64-bit apps, namely that it completely broke them:
Wolfram Research, makers of the popular Mathematica software, began informing its customers of the issue in an email on Tuesday. The company said the security update disables its flagship Mathematica software: "Due to an error on the part of Apple, this update prevents any 64-bit-native application from running. In particular, this means that Mathematica 5.2 will not run on any G5 system if it has installed this Security Update
MacInTouch apparently contacted Apple and confirmed the issue. The same email AppleInsider was working from ended up on the Mac Enterprise list in its entirety yesterday evening...
I mentioned my PowerBook drive died, but I didn't mention a reader, who wishes to remain semi-anonymous (Thanks, Alex), sent me a new one. This is actually the second time a reader has kept my Macs up and running by sending hardware love, and its always appreciated.
After spending some quality time with Apple's swell instructions and my handy Torx-8 screwdriver, I used my shiny new drive as an excuse to reinstall OS X from scratch again, and this time start to trick it out. For my first two installs, as I said I wanted to make sure the problems I was having were repeatable on other systems first -- and I just didn't want to introduce the doubt by installing my two beloved haxies or even something as simple as a 3rd party mouse driver.
This hasn't been optimal, because I'm really, really partial to my buttons. I figured I'd start out slow with a driver that could handle my buttons, and then work my way back up to fink so I could polish off some things on my plate, but I haven't been able to get past the drivers...
Buzz @ Sci-Fi hi-Fi has a neat little entry with some tips for creating a metal app that isn't ugly. If you are thinking of creating a metal app, or have created a metal app, or just want to know what to tell a developer of a metal app, do check it out.
I'll admit I wish he had added "Don't." to the list, but I'm jaded. Drew from Delicious Monster has a good tip in the comments regarding text which is worth a look, too. I think a few of them can easily apply to many aqua apps also, or at least can. I was struck by how much of it seemed to be to hide as much of the metal as you possibly can.
For the record, I resolutely refuse to believe it's been two years since he packed up the truck and moved to Cupertino, as it would confirm time has lost all meaning.
Hey Drunken Bat Dude,Is something going on with you? I was reading through your last post, and I recognize some of the behaviors you pointed out in myself, but the drunk I know would not have made me feel stupid while making his point. Just my opinion, take it for what it's worth.
Mark F.
I actually got two emails like this, and after a little sleep and some coffee, and now looking over that last post, there is probably some truth to them and I should take my lumps. I was certainly a little more acerbic in what I'm banging out than I often am. I meant everything I said, but given a second shot I'd probably word some of it quite differently, as if I'm making people feel stupid I'm letting people down, including myself. In deference, I proffer these excuses:
- I'm stretched more than a little thin lately.
- A few of the things I'm working on have me frustrated to a level I rarely reach, yet I have to sit on quite a bit of it, and it wouldn't surprise me if stuff eeks out around the edges.
Let's just say I've become somewhat obsessed with the current quality of Mac OS X, and Apple hardware in general, but for right now am keeping it to the quality of what is going out on discs. I've been devoting a lot of resources into digging into what's going on, enough that I'm already backed up on the chats again. Not full-on Deconstructing Maui X-Stream obsessed, but it's getting close.
I think most real users know, in our heart of hearts, that Mac OS X has been misfiring quite a bit lately, and that 10.4 was almost a total misfire in terms of actually using it. It doesn't mean we're going to switch, it doesn't mean we've given up, it just means we know something is wrong.
You can like the idea of XHTML/JavaScript/CSS apps and still know Dashboard was a complete misfire, even if your only clue is that they're bolting on major functionality in a .2 release. You can like the idea of building webkit into your apps while knowing the quality of what you are building your app around isn't at the level it should be.
Severe, extreme wonkiness like this doesn't happen by accident, whether it is going on at Apple or Microsoft or anywhere between.
Awhile ago, there were rumors going around that the 10.4.2 was supposed to fix "all known bugs" in 10.4, which, depending on who you asked was:
- An 'intentional leak' by Apple marketing to hopefully stave off the reputation for bugginess that Mac OS X is starting to get, with the idea being that if people have the impression it'll all be fixed soon they may hold onto some bitching. We'll call this The Great Bug Fix Hope™ theory.
- Something that was really going around Apple; That yes, there were some problems with 10.4 and 10.4.1, but 10.4.2 was going to be their big push towards something really working, in the vein that Microsoft's Service Pack 2 was their big push towards security.
You may have noticed that I haven't really talked about 10.4 a lot on the site, or as an email put it, I've been "noticeably quiet." The truth is, I was just having a terrible amount of problems with it, but wanted to have my ducks in a row, and I kept thinking they'd be ironed out in a point release...
Things have come to a bit of a head, and we're going to be talking about bugs here shortly. Frequently, because quality control -- or at the level Apple considers acceptable -- is becoming unacceptable. It probably became unacceptable awhile ago, but allowances are made because, well, it's Apple (I do this too) and stuff will happen... And one isolated incident does not a pervasive pattern make. However, incident after incident in release after release does a pervasive pattern make.
However, before I go lifting up the plate in the sink to expose the roaches to sunlight, in the interest of fairness, today we'll mention two things 10.4.2 did fix for me. Obviously there are more things, and I'm being somewhat arbitrary, but luckily there are 365 days in a year and I'm saving a good week for Spotlight.
For the record, I've been running 10.4 with a stock install, and without my beloved ShapeShifter to remove the pinstripes, because with an OS this buggy I just didn't want it in as a factor.
Every once in awhile, I stop and wonder just how advanced our computers will need to be to handle anything in a file name beyond an underscore or period safely. It's amazing to me how, in mid-2005, so much of my computing experience is governed by a bizarre awareness of beginning or trailing periods, spaces, slashes, underscores and colons in file names.
Perhaps I'm jaded, but I expected to be able to swear properly by now. And where the hell is my damn rocket pack.
Covering whether or now is the wrong time to buy a Mac, the possibility of dual-booting Windows and OS X on a Pentium-based Mac, plus more weirdness involving the CELL and consoles.
I was able to chew through a few more questions tonight. Endians (aka, one of the most boring subjects known to man), the coexistence of 32-bit and 64-bit, and cheap macs. It's approaching 4am now, so consider this post to come with zero warranty, but if something is off let me know and I'll check it out once I've slept and my functional IQ is back above 30.
I've been chewing my way through your x86 questions (there are a few pages of them), and as we learned in Under the Iron, ask me a question and you can kill an afternoon. Yes, it's that way in real life, too. So I'm going to break them up, in order of the ones that help kill off others.
For warning, I have a habit of lumping things together when it's just easier that way, so 'x86' will be used to denote the instruction sets that make up, well, x86 chips, and IA-32 and the 64-bit extensions added on will be broken out only when necessary.
Small problem regarding the last post: I'd thrown my cap over the wall regarding the WWDC keynote, which meant I had to climb over and get it, but in watching the keynote there isn't a whole lot to talk about outside of the PowerPC to Intel switch post I'm working on, but I did jot down some thoughts while I was watching.
I've been fairly glutted by notes from people attending (which all piled in late, as apparently the network at WWDC was offline constantly), so I almost didn't need to watch it. It also didn't help that I have an unwatched Doctor Who episode sitting around, but I'd thrown the cap over the wall.
Minoki released a small utility that fixes the iSync local root exploit I've talked about a few times.
From a cursory glance, it basically does the terminal commands I gave back in a prior post, which means you'll have to rerun it every time you repair permissions and such.
Still, if you're not inclined to enter terminal commands, or keep them around to reenter them, and don't sync to a Symbian cell phone, this could well be for you. The site isn't in English, but it looks as though they have an English localization in the .app and Google can translate the site easily enough.
I keep getting asked about this exploit, and most of it isn't pretty... this one is really starting to touch a nerve with some people for reasons I don't quite understand yet. Some of them seem to think I've let Apple off too easy, some seem to think I may have some idea of what the hold up might be to cause it to go unfixed.
I've really said all I know about it and what might be causing this to go unfixed for months, or why it wasn't included in 10.3.8 or in the most recent security update, but I suppose I haven't said why I haven't shaken my fist in anger at Apple over it.
About 100 posts ago (2 months-ish), I posted about a local iSync vulnerability, and tried to give a reasonable explanation of what was going on as well as how to fix it until Apple released their own fix. I'm getting emailed about it because of a really fun usenet thread in comp.sys.mac.system, among other places (which are more amusing), that is linking to my post on it.
The site wasn't doing very well for awhile there, there's a particularly large boom going on with the Cherry OS post and with it a particularly large wall of traffic that hit.
It's also been updated (and will continue to be) with new evidence and links. It should be fine now in terms of speed, or at least not so slow as to be dead. (do notice the collection plate on your way out, papa needs a new hard drive)
It's worth noting -- because there has been some confusion in my inbox -- that I'm not affiliated with the PearPC project. If you search the blog you'll find some references, including some where I guessed that CherryOS was just PearPC, but there was little real hard data.
I became involved because a developer of PearPC mentioned what was going on to Pieter Van den Abeele of Gentoo Mac OS -- ostensibly about getting Gentoo PPC running on PearPC -- who posted it on his blog, and then contacted me.
Awhile back I posted on the upcoming Cube CD for Macs (think Quake/Doom/Unreal Tournament), and went into a bunch of info on the history of the game, why I dig it and why I think the CD will be a cool thing for Mac users to have in general.
If you're lost, I'd start there first, but one of the main things I mentioned was that there were some real problems with the 'official' OS X build of the game.
My new main-man, Troy from ZettaServe, chimed in on what was going on and then sent me a build with everything fixed. He was also good enough to file some bugs, so hopefully this kind of thing shouldn't be necessary in the future...
I could have just posted the build and given you some instructions on getting the rest of the files and where things need to go, but it seemed just as easy to wrap it all up and post it as an archive so you can unzip and double click:
- Download Here (23.4 Megs)
While that's downloading, it's worth giving a quick primer so you aren't completely lost after you clicky-clicky... With the caveat that if it works it works, but if it doesn't...
I'm not going to be spending any time on it, but it should be enough to get you up and running. It was tested on Mac OS 10.3.8, and just a few machines.
The below is from a post on secondfoundation.org, which kinda wigged me out.
I’ve just spent about an hour and a half going through the archives on DrunkenBlog and making PDFs of the posts that interest me. Even though it’s just going to dilute my iTunes library, I’m filling it up with various articles and lengthy pages from the web that would otherwise just sit forgotten on my “Bookmarks” menu.
If you want to be wigged out, imagine what it's like to have a grown man ask you what your Desktop looks like. Often they won't make their intentions clear from the start, but the trained eye can catch them trying to take a peek around your shoulder.
I hesitate to call it an addiction, but the aesthetic pleasure of one's Desktop for many can easily be categorized as a fetish. Like most fetishes involving technology, while they exist on other platforms, Mac users seem to have a higher number per capita.
I was going through Rory's blog the other day, where he has 'Apple's UI department going insane?' up for reading. He has some good points to make on where and how brushed metal is used, some great points on the Finder, and wraps up his points on the upcoming 10.4 with:
Come on Apple, at this rate Windows users might actually be pointing and laughing at us for how bad our UI looks by the time Longhorn ships sometime this decade.
The thing to keep in mind about Rory is that he's the maker of the excellent NewsMac software for OS X, and not long ago quit his day job to write code his heart out for the platform full time. He's not just a user with a couple of quibbles, he's a developer with an investment in Mac OS X.
I've written blurbs about this here and there throughout my posts, but the bottom line is that there's a huge elephant in the room when it comes to Mac OS X: The UI is going to hell in a hand basket and everyone is just averting their eyes.
Regarding Funneled Performance, Clinton P writes:
What are the possibilities of 'porting' OS X to the linux kernel? Linux kernel has the real multi threading that is required and seems to be good enough for the IBM 710 multiprocessor server you just mentioned. It seems the BSD decision is holding back OS X. With IBM standardizing on Linux and Apple on the IBM processors it may be worth the effort to migrate.
Lots of questions in this one, so we're going to have to break them out individually in order to keep things coherent.
There was a big security dump on OS X a bit ago, but that got picked up enough I didn't really worry about it. This one is a little odder, Secunia is reporting that mRouter, via iSync, has a buffer overflow:
The vulnerability is caused due to a boundary error in the handling of the "-v" and "-a" command line options. This can be exploited to cause a buffer overflow by supplying an overly long argument (over 4096 bytes). Successful exploitation allows execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of the mRouter application.
Mac OS 10.3.7 and under are affected, but remember that while this isn't good it's a local attack and not remote. I.E., the evildoer would need access to your system in some way. Either by sitting at the keyboard, or through a piece of malware or something else in that vein. This is the type of thing someone exploits to completely own your box once they've gotten onto your system another way.
No patch from Apple (yet) and possibly won't be for older systems, but there is a fix...
I mentioned some of the growing pains the other 'nixes are going through in terms of SMP support, and it's worth noting that Linux, the BSDs and Windows aren't alone in this. OS X is still just hitting its adolescence in terms of SMP and will hopefully be taking its own little step further into adulthood with 10.4. This might seem a little weird, as everyone has heard that OS X on a dually kicks much more ass over a single CPU.
In a somewhat amusing turn of events, the day after I posted Yin & Yang a local remote root exploit centered around Adobe's Version Cue software hit the web. Judging by my email, this has been confusing to some, and hasn't really been passed around the Mac web very much.
I'm not sure why, it's fairly serious. If you have installed the Adobe Creative Suite, you're at risk. Or maybe it has been talked about all over and I just don't hang out in those places...
I've been working hard on some projects, and deadlines and milestones can really take it out of your sleep schedule. I'm kind of known for pushing my sleep schedule beyond normal limits, sometimes through artificial means, and used to be quite proud of it.
