Hilarious Mashup Video from Internet Documentary

Posted on Friday, December 11, 2009 10:55:16 AM

By now, you've certainly seen at least one earnest documentary talking about the profound effects the Internet is having on society. That's why Cassetteboy's "The Web for Beginners" mashup video of uncut footage for a forthcoming four-part BBC documentary about the Internet is so funny - it takes all the usual talking heads and cuts their interviews into wonderfully absurdist statements like "It turns out that the Internet is just fax machines that think the thoughts of somebody who lived 8,000 years ago."

The BBC is actually encouraging this use as part of their Digital Revolution Short Film Competition, which provides the uncut footage to anyone to download and edit; the BBC commissioned Cassetteboy (a self-described "double act who edit footage they've nicked off the telly to make celebrities swear") to create this piece as an example of what can be done.

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External Link: iPhoto Print Product Order Deadlines Approaching

Posted on Thursday, December 10, 2009 4:53:20 PM
We're big fans of iPhoto's print products - prints, books, cards, and especially the calendars - as holiday gifts, but keep in mind that to receive your order by December 24th, you'll need to place orders by December 18th with regular shipping or December 19th with express shipping. Although iPhoto makes the mechanics of building books and calendars easy, it can take some time to select and tweak photos as desired, so we recommend getting started soon!

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Keyboard Maestro 4.0

Posted on Thursday, December 10, 2009 4:26:00 PM

Stairways Software has released a significant update to the popular macro utility Keyboard Maestro. Version 4.0 overhauls the user interface, adds 64-bit support, and adds support for Growl notifications. Macros can now be executed when hot keys are pressed, held down, or released. Also, Command-Tab can now be used as a hot key, the program switcher can optionally hide all other programs when switching, and the clipboard switcher now offers both a search feature and display of images and rich text. Version 4.0 requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later. ($36 new, $18 upgrade, 7.6 MB)

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BusyCal 1.1

Posted on Thursday, December 10, 2009 4:17:40 PM

BusyMac has released a maintenance update to BusyCal, their iCal-inspired desktop calendar with built-in sharing capabilities. The latest version adds 64-bit support in Snow Leopard, three-finger scrolling, and a mini-month calendar to the source list. Also, a Duration column has been added to List View, "at start" has been added as an optional alarm interval, and both Shift-Return and Option-Return are now supported for line feeds. Various bugs have also been addressed, including some related to Google Calendar syncing, along with two crashing bugs, one triggered by corrupt system fonts and another by Unicode non-breaking space characters. A full list of changes is available on BusyMac's Web site. ($40 new, free update, 6 MB)

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MacBook/MacBook Pro Optical Drive Firmware Updates

Posted on Thursday, December 10, 2009 4:06:24 PM

Apple has released three firmware updates, all of which claim to "eliminate the noise made by the optical disk drive during system startup and wake from sleep on your Mac." EFI firmware updates are available for recent releases of the MacBook (MacBook EFI Firmware Update 1.4) and MacBook Pro (MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.8), and once the Mac's firmware has been updated, you must install the SuperDrive Firmware Update 3.0.

More information on EFI firmware updates, including installation instructions, is available on Apple's Web site. Updates are available via Software Update or the Apple Support Downloads page. (Free, 18.35/3.14/3.36 MB)

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BBEdit 9.3.1

Posted on Thursday, December 10, 2009 3:45:49 PM

Bare Bones Software has released a maintenance update to the powerful text editor BBEdit. Changes are mostly aimed at addressing minor bugs, including one that caused the first group of results from a search to be collapsed inappropriately, one that prevented new HTML documents from being created in the front project window when New HTML Document was chosen, a bug that prevented access to a project item through the scripting interface, and several bugs related to insta-projects. The update also adds #!-based language-guessing to the Lua programming language module. Full release notes are available on the Bare Bones Web site. ($125 new, free update, 16.1 MB)

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The Great TidBITS Malware False Alarm of 2009

Posted on Thursday, December 10, 2009 3:32:00 PM

On December 8th I woke up, went through my usual morning routine, grabbed my coffee, and sat down at my Mac to start the work day. As it was a Tuesday, I scanned my email for TidBITS #1006 and was slightly surprised that it wasn't in my Inbox. Since I had recently added another spam filter, I assumed the issue had been blocked, so I planned on pulling it out of quarantine later.

But the mystery deepened when a reader sent me an email message saying that his copy of the issue had been flagged as containing malicious software. Since I had been engaged in an intense Twitter debate a few days earlier claiming that Mac-based malware was rarely encountered by the average user, I immediately went into panic mode and started investigating.

I checked my frontline spam and virus filter (Google's Postini service), and the TidBITS issue wasn't flagged for anything there. However, when I checked my second filter, a special appliance on my network, I found the issue had been flagged as containing malware.

According to my anti-spam appliance, TidBITS #1006 contained "Email.Faketube", and when I reported this to Adam and the other TidBITS staffers, it came out that we were all receiving sporadic reports of this particular issue triggering a similar alert for readers.

I quickly searched on the Internet for details about Email.Faketube and found that it's a link that pretends to be from YouTube, but in fact redirects a browser to a Web site that attempts to download a Trojan horse (for Windows, not Mac OS X).

When I viewed the raw text of the issue, I discovered that there was indeed a YouTube link in it, pointing at the trailer for the the World of Goo game (see "TidBITS Gift Guide 2009," 7 December 2009).

By checking the link manually using one of the systems I have for security research of risky sites, it became clear immediately that the link was fine and did not redirect users to malware. Not that I expected it would; we check all links that go into TidBITS articles, so a link would have to change between the time we checked and the issue was published for something untoward to happen. But then why the false alarm?

TidBITS Contributing Editor Mark Anbinder quickly noticed that the string "www" appears at the end of the YouTube-generated link. The YouTube engine probably generates its links randomly, and the virus filters triggered upon seeing the "www" at the end of the YouTube link, thinking it was indicative of an attempt to redirect users. Attackers use a variety of techniques to mangle Internet addresses, one of which is adding characters to the end of a seemingly legitimate address to cause the redirection.

As a result, it's clear that I, and our readers who saw the alert, are all running a malware filter with a badly written rule set. It's likely that the rule is "flag any message containing a YouTube link with "www" after the 'watch?' portion of the address." Unfortunately, that's not necessarily indicative of malware and is thus a poor choice for a malware signature. (If nothing else, there's no reason to redirect to a page whose domain includes "www" - such a filter is guaranteed to fail on any other domain.)

So the good news is that TidBITS #1006 wasn't infected in any way, and our apologies for any worry the false alarm may have caused. The bad news is that I now have to wonder about the quality of the company providing my email filter rules.

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Camino 2.0.1

Posted on Thursday, December 10, 2009 3:20:42 PM

The Camino Project has released a minor update to the Mac-focused, Gecko-based Web browser Camino that addresses several security and stability issues by upgrading the program to version 1.9.0.16 of the Mozilla Gecko rendering engine. Also, ad-blocking has been improved, the search field has been restored to the Help menu in non-English versions running on Snow Leopard, the crash reporter now enables you to add your email address to a report (for followup questions), and error or warning text no longer changes color when clicked. (Free, 15.8 MB)

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New iMac Screens Cracking and Flickering

Posted on Thursday, December 10, 2009 1:32:31 PM

Almost two months ago Apple announced a series of updates to the iMac line (see "New iMac Models Receive Larger Screens, SD Card Slot," 20 October 2009). Changes included larger screens (21.5- and 27-inch displays), SD card slots, and overall upgraded specs - most surprising of which were the first quad-core processors to be made available in a Mac outside of the Mac Pro or Xserve. At the time of the announcement, Apple noted that the i5 and i7 quad-core models would be shipping later than the rest, in November 2009.

Well, as eagerly awaiting customers have begun to receive their shipments, a disconcerting trend of cracked screens and problematic displays has emerged. A thread on the Apple Support Discussion forums discussing the problems has received over 32,500 views, and nearly 200 responses - significant numbers that indicate widespread affliction. Yet, user forums are often difficult places to synthesize information regarding problems like this, as any specifics are usually embedded within anecdotal paragraphs. Thankfully, the Apple iMac (Fall 2009) Issues site (hosted on the anonymously run imac.squeaked.com) has brought clarity and analysis to the cases presented in the Apple discussion forums.

The iMac Issues site notes that "The data presented here is based on information submitted by people on this Web site or taken from comments posted in Apple's Discussion boards (this is an 'unscientific' survey and as such should not be considered representative of all iMacs sold)." Be that as it may, it does help clean up the available data.

Looking at the Numbers -- While a cracked screen is a more startling problem and makes for a more arresting story, most users complaining about their displays are in fact affected by poor video output. Of the 482 cases logged by the iMac Issues site, 71 were related to cracked screens while 225 were related to flickering displays. Other symptoms listed include a yellow-tinted screen (often appearing as a band on the bottom portion of the screen), dead pixels, and an inability to boot. Descriptions of display issues also include the appearance that the display is tearing or splitting, and or that its image is becoming offset and distorted. 78 users are counted as having absolutely no problems whatsoever.

Affected systems are far more likely to be one of the 27-inch models, especially when concerning instances of broken glass. Of the 405 cases identifying some kind of problem, 374 involved a 27-inch iMac, while only 31 involved a 21.5-inch iMac. When the problem identified is broken glass, all of the cases involve a 27-inch iMac. While it makes some sense that the larger model's glass is disproportionately affected because its extra screen space makes it that much more vulnerable during shipping, it's harder to explain the discrepancy between the video output issues, unless the numbers simply reflect the 27-inch model's popularity relative to the 21.5-inch model.

Examining Causes -- No definitive conclusions have been reached regarding the causes of these problems. Especially mysterious is that in the majority of cases with broken glass, the packaging appeared unscathed. We assume the computers are going into their boxes in good condition, which leaves either excessive fragility or issues with transport and packaging to blame. With the packaging itself usually showing no signs of distress, figuring out exactly what's happening inside the boxes en route becomes a puzzle.

As for the flickering and problematic displays (videos of which can be found on YouTube), suggested causes, or at least avenues for further investigation, include high computer temperatures, defective power supplies, incompatibility with AirPort base stations, and an issue related to brightness settings - dimming the monitor appears to reduce the symptoms. Yet for all the speculation, consensus on the issue has yet to be reached.

What You Can Do -- If you are affected by the screen flickering issues, be sure to contact Apple, either online or by working with an Apple Genius at a retail store, to ensure your problem is logged. Also consider adding your experiences to the ongoing Apple discussion forum thread linked earlier or submitting your data to the iMac Issues site's survey.

For those with broken screens, Apple has been replacing these iMacs without hesitation - though a few unfortunate customers have received replacements that were themselves broken. If you have an Apple retail store nearby, consider seeking your replacement there until this issue is resolved.

We hope to see Apple address what are clearly serious and widespread problems quickly and fully.

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External Link: Pogue Finds B&N Nook Weak Digital Reader

Posted on Wednesday, December 9, 2009 5:21:08 PM
David Pogue reviews the Barnes & Noble Nook electronic reader at the New York Times, and finds it a poor competitor to the Kindle for identical features, while its unique features don't measure up to a real difference.

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