My MacOS X

iTunes 9.0.3 is available from Apple’s Website or via the Software Update mechanism in OS X.

iTunes 9.0.3 provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

• iTunes no longer ignores your “Remember password for purchases” setting.
• Addresses problems with syncing some Smart Playlists and Podcasts with iPod.
• Resolves a problem recognizing when iPod is connected.
• Addresses issues that affect stability and performance.
• iTunes 9 comes with many new features and improvements, including:

• An improved look and feel, including a new Column Browser for easily browsing your artists or albums, movies, TV shows, and more.
• iTunes Store has a brand new look, with improved navigation for quick and easy exploration.
• iTunes LP and iTunes Extras create unique experiences that feature exclusive interviews, videos, photos, and more — available with select album and movie purchases on the iTunes Store.
• Home Sharing helps you manage your family’s iTunes collection between computers in your home. iTunes can automatically transfer new purchases, or you can choose just the items you want.
• Genius Mixes are created for you by iTunes and play songs from your library that go great together.
• iPod and iPhone syncing now allows you to organize your iPhone and iPod touch home screens directly in iTunes. Syncing is now also more flexible, allowing you to sync individual artists, genres, or TV show and Podcast episodes.
• iTunes U items are now organized into their own section in your iTunes library.
• Sync with iPod nano (5th generation), iPod classic (Fall 2009), and iPod touch (Fall 2009).
• iTunes 9 also includes many other improvements, such as HE-AAC encoding and playback, more flexibility with Smart Playlists rules, simpler organization of your media files inside an iTunes Media folder, and more.

Requirements:

• Home folder to be encrypted.
• Don’t need my Time Machine disk to be encrypted

First, make sure your Time Machine setup is functioning properly.
The XCode installed, as it uses Property List Editor
(Note: you’ll need to change the process a bit if you use a different property list editor.)

How to do that:

You will need to manually edit the preference file for Time Machine, adding the ID string of your File Vault disk to the list of disks to backup. You can’t do this from within System Preferences or otherwise.
One way of finding the ID string of the disk is to open com.apple.finder.plist, located in your user’s /Library/Preferences folder, and look for the FXRecentFolders item.

One of the entries should contain the name of your home folder (your login name) together with an entry called file-data. If it doesn’t, you need to close the plist and visit your home folder in Finder. This will make it a ‘recent folder,’ and then you can check the file again.

The value of _CFURLAliasData inside file-data is the string we need, including the enclosing < and >. Copy this to the clipboard.

Now, disable Time Machine from within System Preferences, make a back up of com.apple.TimeMachine.plist, located in /Library/Preferences, and then open the original file in Property List Editor. Select IncludedVolumes and click Add Child. Select type Data and paste the string you copied earlier.

(If IncludedVolumes doesn’t exist, select Root and click Add Child. Name the new entry IncludedVolumes and make it type Array. Then do the above.)

Check that the path to your home folder isn’t listed in any of the items ExcludeByPath, ExcludedVolumes, or SkipPaths. Save and quit the editor.

Select Back Up Now from the Time Machine menu bar extra to start an initial backup.
Note: You may already have a backup of your image file (located in the hidden folder /Users/.username), in which case you will have duplicates. You might want to exclude this from your backup.

When browsing your backup, your unencrypted home folder will be on the Computer level, alongside your startup disk. Not where it normally is — under /Users — since it is treated like a regular disk.

View Original hint

Apple has released a firmware update for 2007 aluminum Apple keyboards.
The update improves battery performance when using the Apple Wireless Keyboard in conjunction with other Bluetooth devices such as the Magic Mouse or some Bluetooth headsets. It also fixes an issue that occurred with both the regular and wireless keyboard wherein keys could repeat randomly when typing.
More information, including installation instructions, is available on Apple’s Web site.

The update is available via Software Update and the Apple Support Downloads page. (Free 1.52 MB)

At today’s highly-anticipated media event, Apple announced  the iPad  tablet device, featuring
Display: 9.7-inch, 1024 x 768
RAM: 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB capacities.
Carrying a custom 1 GHz “Apple A4″ chip,
the iPad weighs in at 1.5 pounds and is .5-inch thin.
The iPad will be priced
at $499, $599, and $699 for the varying capacity models without 3G, and $626, $729, and $829 with 3G. Wi-Fi only models are scheduled to ship in 60 days, with 3G-capable model shipping in 90 days.

In terms of standard connectivity, the iPad offers Wi-Fi (802.11n) and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, with 3G models also offering cellular data connectivity. All iPad models have an accelerometer, compass, speakers, a microphone, and a 30-pin dock connector. The iPad also offers a claimed 10 hours of battery life for viewing video, with 1 month of standby battery life.
Accessories will also be available for the iPad, including a dock with a mechanical keyboard that will accommodate the iPad in portrait orientation and a case with a built-in stand for video viewing. Prices on these accessories were not announced. The iPad also supports Bluetooth keyboards.

At the end of the event, Jobs described the iPad as the company’s “most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.” He also pointed out that there are over 125 million iTunes accounts with credit cards and that using the iPad will be second-nature for the more than 75 million iPhone and iPod touch users.

1 month ago Google announced on their official blog that they were offering the use of their DNS server to the public.

Today, as part of our ongoing effort to make the web faster, we’re launching our own public DNS resolver called Google Public DNS, and we invite you to try it out.

Why use Google’s DNS?

The average Internet user ends up performing hundreds of DNS lookups each day, and some complex pages require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading. This can slow down the browsing experience. Google have suggested that using their DNS will speed up internet usage and browsing.

Using Google’s Public DNS for Snow Leopard

• Step 1 (System Preferences):
  Open your system preferences and select the Network panel (it will be in the Internet and Wireless section).
  
• Step 2 (Network preference pane):
  In the Network preference pane, make sure your network connection is selected (Airport or Ethernet) and click “Advanced”.
  
• Step 3 (DNS tab):
  Open the DNS tab in the next panel and add Google’s DNS servers using the “+” button.
  DNS Server 1 (preferred): 8.8.8.8
  DNS Server 2 (alternate): 8.8.4.4

• Step 4 (Delete old servers):
  Delete all your old servers or move them to botton (hold Command + mouse click and move)
• Step 5 (Save work):
  Then just “OK” and “Apply” your way back out of the various dialogs and you should be good to go.
• Step 6 (Testing):
  Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings

iSync makes it even easier to make and keep your dates. That’s because iSync  synchronizing software works with over thirty cell phone models, as well as multiple Macs, your iPod and your PDA devices.

iSync is used to synchronize contact and calendar data from Address Book and iCal with many non-Apple SyncML-enabled mobile phones via a Bluetooth or USB connection.

iSync located in /Applications/ folder

Note: Some devices being supported via manufacturer and third-party iSync Plugins.

Here list of links to iSync plugins for popular brands

BenQ Siemens

• BenQ Siemens plugins

Samsung

• Datapilot
• Mactomster
• Nova Media

Sony Ericsson

• SonyEricsson
• Feisar
• Mactomster
• Nova Media

Vertu

• Vertu software for Mac

Nokia

• Plug-in to your iSync from the table below

Want to make iSync sync automatically ?
There an easy way to get the iSync software to  auto sync every x minutes.
Follow an Apple script to automatically tell iSync to sync:

tell application "iSync"

    if not syncing then
        synchronize
        repeat while syncing
                delay 1
        end repeat
        quit
    end if

end tell

Set it to run at period intervals using Automator workflows.

There Security Update 2010-001,
which can be downloaded and installed via Software Update preferences, or from Apple Downloads

Size: 22.4MB

• CoreAudio CVE-ID: CVE-2010-0036Available for: Mac OS X v10.5.8, Mac OS X Server v10.5.8, Mac OS X v10.6.2, Mac OS X Server v10.6.2

  Impact: Playing a maliciously crafted mp4 audio file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

  Description: A buffer overflow exists in the handling of mp4 audio files. Playing a maliciously crafted mp4 audio file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This issue is addressed through improved bounds checking. Credit to Tobias Klein of trapkit.de for reporting this issue.

• CUPS CVE-ID: CVE-2009-3553Available for: Mac OS X v10.5.8, Mac OS X Server v10.5.8, Mac OS X v10.6.2, Mac OS X Server v10.6.2

  Impact: A remote attacker may cause an unexpected application termination of cupsd

  Description: A use-after-free issue exists in cupsd. By issuing a maliciously crafted get-printer-jobs request, an attacker may cause a remote denial of service. This is mitigated through the automatic restart of cupsd after its termination. This issue is addressed through improved connection use tracking.

• Flash Player plug-in CVE-ID: CVE-2009-3794, CVE-2009-3796, CVE-2009-3797, CVE-2009-3798, CVE-2009-3799, CVE-2009-3800, CVE-2009-3951Available for: Mac OS X v10.5.8, Mac OS X Server v10.5.8, Mac OS X v10.6.2, Mac OS X Server v10.6.2

  Impact: Multiple vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player plug-in

  Description: Multiple issues exist in the Adobe Flash Player plug-in, the most serious of which may lead to arbitrary code execution when viewing a maliciously crafted web site. The issues are addressed by updating the Flash Player plug-in to version 10.0.42. Further information is available via the Adobe web site at http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb09-19.html Credit to an anonymous researcher and Damian Put working with TippingPoints Zero Day Initiative, Bing Liu of Fortinet’s FortiGuard Global Security Research Team, Will Dormann of CERT, Manuel Caballero and Microsoft Vulnerability Research (MSVR).

• ImageIO CVE-ID: CVE-2009-2285Available for: Mac OS X v10.5.8, Mac OS X Server v10.5.8

  Impact: Viewing a maliciously crafted TIFF image may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

  Description: A buffer underflow exists in ImageIO’s handling of TIFF images. Viewing a maliciously crafted TIFF image may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This issue is addressed through improved bounds checking. For Mac OS X v10.6 systems, this issue is addressed in Mac OS X v10.6.2.

• Image RAW CVE-ID: CVE-2010-0037Available for: Mac OS X v10.5.8, Mac OS X Server v10.5.8, Mac OS X v10.6.2, Mac OS X Server v10.6.2

  Impact: Viewing a maliciously crafted DNG image may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

  Description: A buffer overflow exists in Image RAW’s handling of DNG images. Viewing a maliciously crafted DNG image may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This issue is addressed through improved bounds checking. Credit to Jason Carr of Carnegie Mellon University Computing Services for reporting this issue.

• OpenSSL CVE-ID: CVE-2009-3555Available for: Mac OS X v10.5.8, Mac OS X Server v10.5.8, Mac OS X v10.6.2, Mac OS X Server v10.6.2

  Impact: An attacker with a privileged network position may capture data or change the operations performed in sessions protected by SSL

  Description: A man-in-the-middle vulnerability exists in the SSL and TLS protocols. Further information is available at http://www.phonefactor.com/sslgap A change to the renegotiation protocol is underway within the IETF. This update disables renegotiation in OpenSSL as a preventive security measure. The issue does not affect services using Secure Transport as it does not support renegotiation. Credit to Steve Dispensa and Marsh Ray of PhoneFactor, Inc. for reporting this issue.

Unable to update a MobileMe gallery using iPhoto 9 ?

If you are see something like “Your MobileMe account information is not correct. The provided login or password is not valid.”, a problem with old password in Keychain Access.

How to fix it:

1. Open “Keychain Access” and  search for “publish.me.com”, open it
2. Click “Show password” and change your password from old to new one.  Probably recently changed it.
3. Save changes.
4. Now go back to iPhoto and try update  MobileMe Gallery

P.S. Other way is  deleting publish.me.com from Keychain Access and then signing out and then back in to MobileMe in System Preferences.

Note:
This doesn’t really “fix” it but it has been a decent work around until Apple provides a fix. It wouldn’t hurt to let them know about the problem (select “Provide iPhoto Feedback” from the iPhoto menu).

iTunes

In iTunes, a very useful feature is the File » Show Duplicates menu item. As expected by its name, you can use this feature to help weed out duplicates from your iTunes library. However, many people  have different versions of songs, remixes and such, which will show up as duplicates when using this feature.

The solution is to hold down the option key prior to selecting this menu item. When you do, Show Duplicates changes to Show Exact Duplicates. In this mode, iTunes shows only true duplicates, and not remixes or alternate versions.

NOTE: Show Exact Duplicates via the option key has been available at least since iTunes v8.0 from Fall ‘08.

Of course for more power, flexibility and panache you should check out Dupin software.

The default vim is  pretty bland and unimpressive. I would share a few of the settings I have found or plundered from Linux installations in order to make vim more usable.

This can go in your .vimrc or in a global location such as /usr/share/vim/vimrc.
I would be interested in what other command line and vim users do to improve Snow Leopard.

step 1. Add following code to /usr/share/vim/vimrc

set nocompatible " Use Vim defaults
set bs=2 " backspacing over everything in insert mode
set ai " Auto indenting
set history=100 " keep 100 lines of history
set ruler " show the cursor position

set viminfo='20,\"200 " keep a .viminfo file

syntax on " syntax highlighting
set hlsearch " highlight the last searched term

filetype plugin on " use the file type plugins

" When editing a file, always jump to the last cursor position
autocmd BufReadPost *
\ if ! exists("g:leave_my_cursor_position_alone") |
\ if line("'\"") > 0 && line ("'\"") <= line("$") |
\ exe "normal g'\"" |
\ endif |
\ endif

step 2. Make alias vi = vim

open ~/.bash_profile and add following code

alias vi=vim

One of the unwelcome changes in Snow Leopard, who use certain third-party LCD displays, was the gross simplification of the font smoothing options in the Appearance System Preferences panel.

In Leopard (10.5), a pop-up menu provided a number of options for font smoothing—automatic, standard, light, medium (“best for LCD”), and strong.

In Snow Leopard (10.6), though, that’s been simplified down to simply a yes or no option: “Use LCD font smoothing when available.”

In practice, however, that’s not the case. The problematic LCD displays could be  Dell, Samsung, LG, HP, EIZO, Lenovo.

The problem was that the text on the Dell was really “light” and hard to read after upgrading to Snow Leopard (10.6). This made it tougher to read, and led to eyestrain if you are using  the machine for an extended period of time.

Lest you think this issue is restricted to those running homebrew netbook Macs, however, that’s not true—apparently standalone LCD displays by Dell, Samsung, LG, HP, EIZO, Lenovo, and possibly others are affected as well.

The top portion of the image is how the document appeared prior to applying the fix;
The bottom was taken after the fix.

Notice how the top image is quite light—dots on “i” characters are hard to see, and the text has an overall gray tinge to it. In the bottom image, the gray is gone, and everything is a bit bolder while still being clear and crisp.

Before (top) and after (bottom) the fix

By zooming in a bit, it’s easy to see the difference between the before and after images.

The top portion of the image at right is before the fix; notice that the font smoothing is done completely with levels of gray.

In the bottom portion of the image, taken after the fix, you can see not only more levels of gray, but the subtle use of some colored pixels to smooth the font—there’s a yellow pixel on the left edge of the dot on the “i,” for example.

If you’ve got an LCD panel that you think looks worse than it did before upgrading to 10.6, you can try this fix to see if it makes things better.
How? Just open Terminal (in Applications -> Utilities) and paste this command, then press Return:

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2

The 2 at the end is equivalent to the old “Medium – Best for flat panel” setting in 10.5. You can also use 1 for light smoothing, and 3 for strong smoothing. This change will only affect newly-opened applications — anything already running will have to be restarted to see the affect of the changes.

Note that if you go back into the Appearance panel and toggle the font smoothing setting, you will override your manually-set value—so don’t do that if you value your newly-smoothed fonts.

You may never need this, but if you administer servers remotely via the built in Apple VNC, it is the best trick ever.

However, the VNC service occasionally crashes, and locks my session. It also refuses any more VNC logins. This is particularly frustrating when I am off site! Apple has analyzed this and has no explanation or fix.

Here solution howto fix it: If SSH access is enabled on the server, you can connect to the server via an SSH client  and run this command:

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -restart -agent

You must log in with admin rights, and must enter the admin password again to run the command. It can take a minute to run. After it finishes you’ll able to login again via VNC.

You can play with remotely once you kickstart ARD
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2370?viewlocale=en_US