macintosh Archives

The men (boys) who spy on women through webcams

Dave Farquhar security March 13, 2013March 12, 2013antivirus, Ars Technica, avast, Bit Defender, bitdefender, chrome, defense in depth, firefox, macintosh, malware, Malware Domains, malwarebytes, Microsoft Security Essentials, Task Manager

Ars Technica made a bit of a splash this week with this provocative headline. This is real.

The article gives the usual advice, like not opening e-mail from strangers, not clicking attachments from strangers, and not visiting dodgy websites. That’s all good advice, as is staying off torrent and other file sharing sites, but even all that is not enough.
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Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.

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If you needed another reason not to buy Windows 8….

Dave Farquhar Windows January 21, 2013April 30, 2024apple, macintosh, nintendo, office 2010, vista, windows 7, windows 8, Windows 9

I’m still waiting for someone I know to tell me they like Windows 8. I’ve seen some strangers online say they like it, but not a lot of them, and many of them appear to be astroturfers because they just like it too much. I’m sure Apple loves it, because, like my boss told me, a lot of older apps (like anything older than Office 2010) won’t run on Windows 8. So, if you have to re-buy all your software anyway, what advantage is there to buying a Windows 8 machine over a Macintosh?

In fact, that’s exactly what his parents did. They gave up on Windows entirely and bought a Mac Mini.

The other approach, of course, is to buy a Chromebook. A lot of people seem to be doing that too, seeing as it’s the best-selling laptop on Amazon–so much so that they don’t have any stock, and third-party sellers are scalping them for $80 above retail like they used to do with Nintendo Wii consoles. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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If you’re wondering where those anti-Google ads came from

Dave Farquhar Software December 17, 2012May 4, 20201990s, android, apple, IBM, ipad, macintosh, Microsoft Office, netbooks, windows 7, windows 8

If you’re wondering why political-style anti-Google ads are suddenly running everywhere, it’s no coincidence. Microsoft has hired one of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s advertising masterminds to try his hand at campaigning against Google.

While it seems to be having some effect on public opinion, its effect on market share and Microsoft’s bottom line will take more time to gauge. But I think in the long term, talking to customers and figuring out why they are walking out of Microsoft stores empty-handed will prove more effective. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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The Byte digital archive

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing September 23, 2012July 31, 20161980s, amiga, apple, Apple Macintosh, atari, atari st, commodore, Commodore Amiga, irving gould, jack tramiel, Jerry Pournelle, macintosh, motorola, public domain, vintage computer, XT

Here’s a treasure trove for retro computing enthusiasts. Archive.org created the Byte digital archive. It’s exactly what it sounds like: A collection of digitized issues of Byte magazine available online, free.

Numerous archives of vintage computer magazines exist, many of which are of questionable legality so I’ll refrain from saying anything specific about that.

Dave Farquhar

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How to be an Apple Genius

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized August 30, 2012apple, BSD, compaq, intel, macintosh, motorola, unix

Gizmodo got its grubby little hands on a training manual allegedly used in Apple Stores. It looks credible, and answers some questions.

Dave Farquhar

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What happened to GEM?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing August 10, 2012February 21, 20221980s, 1990s, apple, apple ii, Apple Lisa, atari, atari st, commodore, Digital Equipment Corporation, Digital Research, IBM, jack tramiel, macintosh, motorola, piracy, SCO

GEM was an early GUI for the IBM PC and compatibles and, later, the Atari ST, developed by Digital Research, the developers of CP/M and, later, DR-DOS. (Digital Equipment Corporation was a different company.) So what was it, and what happened to GEM?

It was very similar to the Apple Lisa, and Apple saw it as a Lisa/Macintosh ripoff and sued. While elements of GEM did indeed resemble the Lisa, Digital Research actually hired several developers from Xerox PARC.

DRI demonstrated the 8086 version of GEM at COMDEX in 1984, and shipped it on 28 February 1985, beating Windows 1.0 to market by nearly 9 months.
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Dave Farquhar

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Games would be just what Linux needed

Dave Farquhar Linux July 27, 2012Ad Lib, amiga, apple, apple ii, atari, commodore, commodore 64, IBM, macintosh, Steve Wozniak, VGA, vista, windows 8

Valve is intending to develop for Linux, as an insurance policy against Windows 8. I think that will lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. If more games are available for Linux, demand for Linux will increase, along with market share.

There’s historical precedence for this. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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How to quickly find the differences between two Word documents

Dave Farquhar Office, Software May 11, 2012April 23, 2017ASCII, command prompt, macintosh, thumb drive

From time to time, I have to deal with new revisions of familiar implementation guides or other system documentation, and the authors rarely include a changelog in the document. And of course the first question anyone asks about the new guide is what’s changed. That means I have to find the differences between two Word documents.

This week I found myself collaborating on a long-ish document and needing to synchronize some changes. Word’s tracked changes and comments can help somewhat, but generally I find them clumsy and annoying.

If you have five minutes and a willingness to use a command prompt, you can find the differences easily, then work from there.
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Dave Farquhar

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What’s going on with Macintosh security?

Dave Farquhar Macintosh, security, Viruses April 22, 2012antivirus, apple, computer security, mac os x, macintosh, malware, McAfee, Microsoft Security Essentials, os x, symantec

The latest figures I’ve read say there are perhaps a half-million infected Macintoshes still floating around out there, an improvement from the high of 600,000 that I was seeing a few weeks ago, but probably not what Apple had hoped after releasing its most recent fix.

I argued three weeks ago that the end of the innocence was either here or very near. I’ll argue now that it’s gone: There are now 250 known Macintosh OS X viruses in existence. In 2003 there were none. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Macintosh malware continues to evolve

Dave Farquhar Macintosh, security April 3, 2012April 15, 2017apple, mac os x, macintosh, malware, os x, pc world, STIG, vulnerability

Security experts have long warned that [Apple’s] delay in delivering Java patches on Mac OS could be used by malware writers to their advantage, and the new Flashback.K malware confirms that they were right. — PC World magazine

Last week I argued that a Macintosh-based botnet currently being distributed via Word document would likely change distribution methods, perhaps to a PDF document, in order to spread itself more effectively.

That, to my knowledge, hasn’t happened, but today I learned of the above example of Mac malware doing exactly that, jumping from Java vulnerability to Java vulnerability. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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