“Well, after using Snow Leopard for a few months, and taking Windows 7 for a good spin, I’m happy to report I’m still more secure on a Mac,” van Wyk writes.

“To paraphrase Jeremiah Grossman, it needn’t be the case that one operating system is more secure per se; what matters is where you’re safest,” van Wyk writes. “Safe and secure are two different concepts, and I’m convinced that what matters to the consumer is where he is safest. And I’m convinced I’m safer on a Mac than I ever was on Windows.”

Full article here.

Source: MacDailyNews

“‘Security via Obscurity’ is a defense mechanism for the delusional and also tool for Microsoft apologists and those who profit from the Windows economy that’s designed to be used when attempting keep Windows sufferers from straying. 30 million Mac OS X installs is not ‘obscure’ at all, but nine (9) years of Mac users surfing the Net unimpeded certainly is ‘secure,’” SteveJack writes. “Besides social engineering scams (phishing, trojans; no OS can instill common sense) the only thing by which Mac users are really affected are large swaths of compromised Windows machines slowing down the ‘Net with spam and nefarious botnet traffic targeted at exploiting even more insecure Windows boxes.”

SteveJack writes, “The. Problem. Is. Windows. Get a Mac.”

Read more, and add your feedback, in the full article in our Opinion section here.

Source: MacDailyNews

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_7; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.7.1 (KHTM
L, like Gecko) Version/4.1 Safari/532.7.3

Kim reports, “John Gruber had said he had heard that Mac OS X 10.7 would be ready for developer release by WWDC this June.”

Full article here.

Source: MacDailyNews

More info and download links:

• Brother Printer Drivers for Mac OS X 10.6: This download includes the latest Brother printing and scanning software for Snow Leopard (99.9MB)

• Canon Printer Drivers for Mac OS X 10.6: This download includes the latest Canon printing and scanning software for Snow Leopard. Requires Mac OS X v10.6.1 or later (274.59MB)

• HP Printer Drivers for Mac OS X 10.6: This download includes the latest HP printing and scanning software for Snow Leopard (387.44MB)

• Lexmark Printer Drivers for Mac OS X v0.6: This download includes Lexmark printing software that shipped with Mac OS X v10.6 (117MB)

Source: MacOSXHints

Apple has released Mac OS X 10.6.2 vis Software Update.

The 10.6.2 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes for:

• an issue that might cause your system to logout unexpectedly

• a graphics distortion in Safari Top Sites

• Spotlight search results not showing Exchange contacts

• a problem that prevented authenticating as an administrative user

• issues when using NTFS and WebDAV file servers

• the reliability of menu extras

• an issue with the 4-finger swipe gesture

• an issue that causes Mail to quit unexpectedly when setting up an Exchange server

• Address Book becoming unresponsive when editing

• a problem adding images to contacts in Address Book

• an issue that prevented opening files downloaded from the Internet

• Safari plug-in reliability

• general reliability improvements for iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, MobileMe, and iDisk

• an issue that caused data to be deleted when using a guest account

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3874

For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Apple’s Mac OS X v10.6 was released two weeks ago and for most of us the
transition from Leopard to Snow Leopard went by without incident.
However, we’ve spent part of the last few weeks scouring Apple’s discussion
boards and support site for solutions to problems people have been
reporting with the upgrade.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard v10.6.1 Security Content

The first update to Snow Leopard, according to Apple, only contains one security update. That update is an upgrade to Flash Player plug-in for Safari. The upgrade brings the plug-in to version 10.0.32.18. You can find more information about the plug-in at Adobe.com.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard v10.6.1 Update

This update released last week and Mac|Life covered it here.

Problems with MAMP and MAMP PRO

Mac|Life recently published a how to for this incredible tool that you can use to design and code web applications that rely on a webserver running Apache, MySQL and PHP on your Mac. Problems with the older versions prompted the developer to release version 1.8.2 of MAMP and MAMP Pro that is compatible with Snow Leopard. You can download the update from the vendors website.

Installing Snow Leopard and finding ‘System Events.app’

When we installed Snow Leopard Mac OS X v10.6 over v10.5, and then after restarting the last time, a window came up right after logging asking for us to locate ‘System Events.app. ‘

We called AppleCare and asked about this issue and their advice was just to hit Cancel on the prompt. We did this and on subsequent reboots the message never reappeared. It was theorized that this belonged to some app that have been previously installed, but could not be identified. The file is part of Mac OS X and it is located at: System/Library/CoreService/System Events.app and appears in some user accounts in Account preferences under Login Items.

MacBook Pro Display Gamma Fix

We found a problem with how colors display on the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro models. The problem, with a suggested work around, can be found on Apple’s discussion board. Expect a fix for this in a future OS update where appears to be an accidental omission of settings for a particular display panel used in 13-inch MacBook Pros.

Where are my ODBC and Server Admin Tools?

Snow Leopard does not include the ODBC utility as part of its installation so you must download and install it yourself now. In addition to that if you had the Leopard Server tools installed previously, their updates don’t appear in Software Update. You must download and install them yourself if you still need them.

SuperDrive Update 2.1 Unexpectedly Quits

Apple has released a support document on what to do when running the SuperDrive 2.1 update that can affect your computer after it updates and then restarts. The fix prevents the Update from reloading and then crashing on subsequent restarts.

VoiceOver Command Changes for Snow Leopard

Apple has published a support document that details the differences in VoiceOver keyboard commands between Mac OS X v10.5 and Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard. OS X v10.6 includes new keyboard commands and support for standard gestures on Macs with a multi-touch trackpad. If you’ve used this feature previously you might find yourself having problems since two VoiceOver keyboard commands are completely different in Mac OS X v10.6.

MobileMe Sync Log Changed

If you are trying to troubleshoot MobileMe in Mac OS X Snow Leopard the filename has changed from “dotmacsync.log” to “mobilemesync.log” and it is now located in ~/Library/Logs/Sync (“~” equals your Home folder). This Apple support document gives you all the details including the steps needed to view the log inside of the Console application.

Apple Releases HP and Canon Printer Drivers

If anything Apple’s Snow Leopard fails pretty badly out of the box for printer support. While it was a good idea not to load all those drivers by default, to save disk space, it turned out to not be such a hot idea. In some cases the system wasn’t going out automatically to Internet or the Snow Leopard Install disk and getting the drivers when they were needed. Some of these problems were addressed in the v10.6.1 update and others were not. Now Apple has posted downloads for Hewitt-Packard (HP) and Canon printers.

Go to Source

According to Apple’s release notes, the 7.6.4 update also tackles some security issues. The update patches flaws where viewing a maliciously crafted H.264 movie could lead to an unexpected application crash or arbitrary code execution. The flaws were caused by memory corruption issues, a buffer overflow, and a heap buffer overflow in the way QuickTime handles h.264 movies, according to Apple, which credits Tom Ferris of the Adobe Secure Software Engineering Team, Alex Selivanov, and an anonymous researcher working with TippingPoint and the Zero Day Initiative for reporting the H.264 issues.

Similarly, the 7.6.4 update fixes a heap buffer overflow that existed in QuickTime’s handling of FlashPix files; Apple credits Damian Put working with TippingPoint and the Zero Day Initiative for reporting the flaw.

QuickTime 7.6.4 is aimed at Mac users running OS X 10.4 and 10.5 as well as Windows Vista users. The 59.4MB update is available through Software Update or Apple’s QuickTime page. It may not get the attention shown to a new version of iTunes or even an iPhone OS update, but QuickTime also saw a new version rolled out on Wednesday. QuickTime 7.6.4 adds support for the newly released iTunes 9 as well as improved audio device support for Windows Vista users.

Full Article: MacWorld

This hint details how to lock the screen from the keyboard by using Automator to build a Service in Snow Leopard.

First, check the General tab on the Security System Preferences panel to ensure that the Require password [some period] after sleep or screen saver begins box is checked.

Then, open Automator in the Applications folder, and select Service from the screen that appears. At the top of the new Service’s actions, in the Service receives drop-down, select no input from the options. Make sure thatany application is selected in the second drop-down.

Add the Start Screensaver action (in the Utilities group of actions) to the Service by dragging it to the right. Save the Service (Automator does not ask you where to save it, just to name it). Next, open System Preferences and select the Keyboard preference pane. Select the Keyboard Shortcuts tab at the top, then the Services group on the left. The service you created should be near the bottom of the list of Services under the General disclosure triangle.

Source: MacOSXHints

Recently Amit Singh, a Google employee, releases a implementation called MacFUSE which makes it possible to use any FUSE (File-system in USErspace) file systems in Mac. And the most useful FUSE is the NTFS-3G Read/Write Driver, which ables system to load NTFS with read and write capability. This is truly the greatest news for dual booting Mac OS X and Windows XP or Vista.

Without going into great deal of technical details and compilation of the source code, I found out users around Internet already came up with binary version (in DMG) of MacFUSE and ntfs-3g, ready to install (credit to ShadowOfGed at AppleNova). Here are the instructions on how to use MacFUSE and NTFS-3G. It does require a little of administration skills as it involves running commands in the Terminal.

MacFUSE/NTFS-3G works for me, but as this is an experimental software, so back up your data, and try it at your own risk.

Full article: LifeHacker