August 12th 2008
OK, I switched to Mac e-mail last summer on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger, or some other pussy cat). I tolerated the bumbling of the e-mail software since I knew version 10.5 would be out soon, and no doubt they’d fix the lame bits of the software by then.
But I was disappointed. Mail is just as lame in 10.5 as it was in 10.4. Continue Reading »
August 4th 2008
One of my personal nightmares is in the automatic software updating mechanism that infests every significant modern software package. It’s a huge vulnerability.
Many vendors ignored the problem because they hadn’t seen a real exploit. In a recent article, Security Fix tells of a researcher in Argentina who has implemented a sample exploit, so vendors are (finally!) paying attention.
In these days of commercialized hacking, it makes sense to armor plate the whole software distribution pipeline. It’s about time people started paying attention.
July 15th 2008
A site called “Live Science” has posted a “Top 10 Revolutionary Computers.” This was obviously written by someone who doesn’t know a lot about what makes a computer significant, beyond advertising.
The TRS-80 (aka the Trash 80)? The latest IBM parallel monster? Give me a break. These were all reruns of well-understood concepts. Nothing new. They listed the Alto, so why list the Macintosh?
May 16th 2008
I (think I) have just finished upgrading my system to OS X 10.5. I’m hesitant to declare it a success because I haven’t tried everything yet, though I’ve been reading e-mail and doing most ‘normal’ things. Apple made it difficult, but not impossible, thank goodness.
According to the documentation, all you do to move from 10.4 to 10.5 is an ‘upgrade.’ Perhaps this is true for someone, but evidently not for foolish people like myself who value reliability enough to RAID the system volume. Continue Reading »