Macgasm

I do not want this to turn into a debate, and yes I am fully aware that Macs are not immune to the same things as PCs, but here is why I love my Mac over Windows computers.

I have spent quite a bit of time over the past few days working on my brother’s computer to clean up spyware and junk that he has managed to obtain through some means. If I were on a Mac, it would be as simple as archiving the old system, re-installing, and installing the latest combo updater. This is not the case with anything running Windows.

Yes, I could go into a debate on why Windows has more viruses, and all of that, but I do not care about it that much.

The biggest problem is not that Macs do not have worms, trojans, bots, and the like; they do. However, it is not nearly as many as Windows-based devices.

The main reason I believe this is the case, is because within a Windows environment most users run as Administrators, thereby allowing full-blown access to the system to anything that they download and install.

With this type of unrestricted access programs have the ability to run, edit, add, modify, or anything else that the malicious software cares to do.

The worst part of the whole thing is that it takes quite a bit of time to sift through all of the registry entries, modified files, scan with three different anti-virus tools, anti-spyware tools, root kit finders and anything else I could find to attempt to remove the deep-hooked software.

With my Mac, I have never had any of these issues, not once. I have had my share of things not working, like Firefox, Adium, Safari, Mail.app, iTunes and countless other pieces of software. Nevertheless, most of that is fixable, since it is only software that is quite simple to delete.

If you were to get a virus on your Mac, you may never know it; but again you might notice it when your system starts to slow down. There are a few things that you can do to prevent yourself from installing any malicious software.

The first of these is to verify the download source of what you are downloading. If it comes from a reputable source, like CNet’s download.com, Apple.com, or any multitude of others, then there’s almost a 100% guarantee (I will not say there IS a 100% guarantee) that the file you have downloaded is safe. If it comes from ‘russian.hacker.com’ then I would avoid the file.

The second thing you can do is to verify that the Hash of a file, if provided, is the same as the one you have downloaded. If you are downloading a file from a possibly sketchy website, you can always verify that the file you have downloaded matches a hash, or digest, of the file from the author.

There are two typical hashing functions, SHA1 and MD5. Both are absolutely fine when using them to calculate the checksum of the file you downloaded. However, recent evidence has shown that they can be less than reliable with other uses, like encryption.

The process of calculating a checksum is quite simple. First, the author creates the file, typically a dmg file. Second, the author then runs a checksum against the file using SHA1 or MD5. Third, the author posts both the file and the checksum of the file to a website. You, as the downloader download the file from the website, and run the exact same checksum against the file. If the two checksums match, then there is a very good likelihood that the file you have downloaded is legit and has not been tampered with in any way.

The next thing you, as a user, can do is read the screen. Any applications that must be installed in system space, outside of ~/ or any of the subdirectories, typically requires the user to ‘Authenticate’ or verify that you are authorized to install applications. If you are installing a new application that does prompt you, verify that the name of the application matches what you are installing. Therefore, if you are installing ‘Adium’ and you see ‘JoeSchmoe’ then hit cancel and do not allow the application to install.

There are other tricks, but these are some of the easiest ones to start with to see if the file that you are installing is legitimate or if it is a rogue file. I am not saying that you do not need anti-virus, but there are plenty of people who do not run any antivirus, even on a Windows PC. Therefore, it all comes down to behavior and how much you scrutinize the software that you are installing. So be safe out there.

Some of us need a little push to get exercising.  That’s pretty much me.  I had the luxury of a fairly athletic childhood, but once the ol’ parental push ended, I kinda stopped working out in any capacity.  I needed to find new motivation. Almost nine years since high school, I decided it was time to get myself active again.

What better way than using my beloved gadgets and Macgasm as a motivation.

I found a sweet iPhone app that’ll let me track my activity, and I was ready to hit the bike trails again.

RunKeeper was the perfect tool.  It has a bunch of different options for your activities (running, cycling, hiking, skiing, etc) and then maps them out on a google map.  It keeps track of your trip information, and it lets you know the speed you’re traveling, the time you’ve been exercising and a nice little bar graph of your energy bursts (No idea what it’s officially called, you can see a screenshot in the gallery below). For the record, the low point on the graph is where I almost barreled over a little girl, luckily I avoided her and the trees. I’m not sure why the high point is so high. I swear, it was not chemically induced.

Did you ever own a Nintendo Gameboy? Or maybe just want one but never got round to it, maybe you were a Sega lover and had a Game Gear instead, I know I did.

Well now thanks to infectious.com you can re-live your childhood and put these stickers on your pride and joy and pretend like you own one of those now 80′s 8-bit wonders.
The kit comes with:

1 full sized piece of iPhone art for the back
1 small front piece of iPhone art for the front
1 Infectious logo

Also available for iPod Touch. Both at the price of $14.99.

Now all you need is the Gameboy4iphone emulator, and the iGameboy buttons and theme from cydia and you’re sorted! (only available on jailbroken phones, sorry)

Most know quicksilver as a glorified application launcher, but for many it’s so much more.  Writing up some examples of all the functionality that’s available in the app could take me weeks, so I thought it would be a good idea to shed some light on “triggers”.   Have you ever wanted to have a keyboard shortcut that works across all your applications?  Say change a track in iTunes without have to actually jump into iTunes to make the change?  I was toying with writing some Apple script today to do it, but then I was quickly reminded over AIM that triggers exist in Quicksilver that let you do exactly that.  Upside is Quicksilver is free and you don’t have to pay for some third part application.  The downside?  None, really.

1. Launch Quicksilver
2. Open the Preferences
3. Click on the Plugins Tab
4. Make sure the iTunes plugin is listed and checked.  If not you need to install the plugins in this window
5. Click on the Triggers tab at the top.
6. This is where you can add your own new triggers, or use some of the ones listed.  We’ll use the iTunes triggers.  Click on iTunes
7. Put Check Marks next to the global keyboard shortcuts (triggers) you want to activate.
8. I made sure the Next Song trigger had a check beside it because I wanted to activate that one.
9. Click the Trigger column in the row of the short cut you want to add.
10. Click the edit button from the slider window then push the keys you want to associate with the shortcut.
11. Done.  Now you can change your iTunes track from any application.

From time to time I come across an absolutely amazing app that I can’t live without, be it a silly utility or some kind of time waster. Now I know I am not the only one out there with more than one Mac, so this will come in handy for all of you. Teleport is a utility that allows you to set up your Macs to work with each other. Ok, so maybe that wasn’t very clear. Teleport lets you control your other Mac computers from one single computer using the host computer’s mouse and keyboard. You can even enable a synchronized pasteboard. Now this isn’t screen sharing. Let me give you an example. I have my MacBook Pro in front of me, on my TV I have a Mac Mini hooked up. I have Teleport set up on my MBP and Mac Mini. I set up the Mac Mini to be shared to certain trusted computers ie. MBP. This allows me to use my MBP as a controller of sorts. So this makes it where I don’t need to move to my TV to open Safari to launch Hulu.com. I can do it all from the comfort of my couch using my Macbook Pro.

This is really one of the greatest utilities out there for me. Being able to set up and control my other Macs from just my MBP is great. I do reccomend keeping a keyboard and mouse hooked up to the other computer just incase you need it. But I rarely need to use them. Teleport is free and available from http://abyssoft.com/software/teleport/ . Download and enjoy.

[Download] [01.8 MB] [0:04:00]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, Grant talks about the coming features on Quicktime X.

This is a fun t-shirt created by rubyread, made up from classic Mac white and original iMac black keyboards.

Even though I have a couple of old Mac keyboard hanging around, I still don’t want to pull them apart, not even in the name of art. I’ll just let them sit there and collect dust, like so many other people probably do.

[Download] [02.8 MB] [0:06:00]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, Josh talks about the possibility of built-in 3G cards in notebooks.