RSS Sponsor: Balance Open ⇢

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You’ve probably heard of Bitcoin, one of the earliest crypto-currencies, but there are others like Ethereum. Balance connects to the most popular crypto-currency exchanges like Coinbase along with traditional financial institutions bridging the gap between the old financial world and the new one.

If you’re not familiar with this stuff, that’s okay…

Balance want to help teach you about crypto currencies, and the macOS and iOS apps they are building will serve as a wallet for all the world’s currencies.

Balance is ready for the future. The current financial system is based on outdated, legacy software. Blockchains are the bedrock of a more secure and open system based on cryptocurrencies, but not many people are using them yet. Balance is poised to change that by becoming a single destination for traditional financial accounts and crypto-currency exchanges.

Learn more at the Balance website.

Elon Musk Discusses Sending His Tesla to Mars Orbit

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Last night on Twitter, SpaceX boss Elon Musk tweeted about the upcoming debut launch of the company’s Falcon Heavy vehicle:

The Falcon Heavy will be the world’s most powerful operational rocket when it finally launches, with the ability to lift 54 metric tons. That’s still shy of NASA’s retired Saturn V rocket that took men to the moon, but it is twice the horsepower of the Delta IV Heavy, the current record holder. The rocket is constructed from three of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets being strapped together.

It will be rated for both cargo and crew, and according to SpaceX, will be in service for both lunar and Mars missions in the future.

The vehicle’s initial launch has been delayed several times, but it looks like its time may finally have come. The test payload, however, has not been discussed until now:

There’s mixed reporting on whether the payload tweet was a joke or not. I want to believe Musk, and the idea is just bananas enough to be possible.

But yeah, he’s probably just screwing around.

‘Month 13 is Out of Bounds’ ⇢

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Rob Griffiths has come across a super fun bug affecting Mac users right now:

But if you’re unlucky enough to be a Mac user in the month of December, 2017, then you’ll probably be seeing a lot of “Month 13 is out of bounds” messages in your Console. And by ‘a lot,’ I mean an exceedingly excessive never-ending stream of spewage…

Thousands and thousands and thousands of them — I’m getting anywhere from two to 20 per second, continuously. Ugh.

Sure enough, here’s a screenshot of my Console right now, with Skype running in the background:

This isn’t a serious bug, but it sure is exciting to watch Console freak out.

Security Update 2017-001 for High Sierra Breaks File Sharing for Some Users ⇢

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Today’s fix for Apple’s nasty root account bug has broken file sharing for some users, including on my iMac. Apple has published a fix, and I assume this will be resolved in a future, less critical software update:

  1. Open the Terminal app, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
  2. Type sudo /usr/libexec/configureLocalKDC and press Return.
  3. Enter your administrator password and press Return.
  4. Quit the Terminal app.

Apple Releases Security Update 2017-001, Patching root Vulnerability ⇢

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Apple:

An attacker may be able to bypass administrator authentication without supplying the administrator’s password. A logic error existed in the validation of credentials. This was addressed with improved credential validation.

Stop what you’re doing and go install this patch.

Here is Apple’s statement, as relayed by Matthew Panzarino:

Security is a top priority for every Apple product, and regrettably we stumbled with this release of macOS. When our security engineers became aware of the issue Tuesday afternoon, we immediately began working on an update that closes the security hole.

“This morning, as of 8:00 a.m., the update is available for download, and starting later today it will be automatically installed on all systems running the latest version (10.13.1) of macOS High Sierra.”

We greatly regret this error and we apologize to all Mac users, both for releasing with this vulnerability and for the concern it has caused. Our customers deserve better. We are auditing our development processes to help prevent this from happening again.

Here’s a case where Apple forcing an update on systems is a good thing.

Forecast ⇢

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In an average month, I edit and publish a whole bunch of podcast episodes on Relay FM. I edit every episode of Liftoff, Query and Ungeniused,1 and sometimes handle Connected and Download.

I edit in Logic Pro X, adding music, removing crosstalk, tweaking segments and — as of about a year ago — adding chapters. These chapters allow a listener to easily skim around within an episode. We were slow to adopt them because there was a real lack of good tools to create and manage them on macOS, but with Forecast, Marco Arment changed the game:

The last thing podcast producers need is more tedious, manual steps to publish each episode. Forecast automates common workflows and saves time even if you never use chapters. And if you want to add chapters, it has never been easier.

Yesterday, Marco published the first public beta of the app. I have been using it far longer than that, and I can honestly say it has made my workflow better.

I now export a .WAV out of Logic, complete with chapter markers embedded in the file. I drag that .WAV into Forecast, which auto-fills the artwork, title and chapters for me. I can enter any other details I want, including chapter-specific art.

Here’s what episode 169 of Connected looks like in Forecast:

The app encodes the MP3 using a the standard LAME encoder, with a twist: Marco’s made it multi-threaded, so it’s crazy fast.

Once all my metadata is in, I can hit save and an MP3 gets saved to my drive, ready for upload.

If you edit podcasts on macOS, you should check this out. Even if you don’t use chapters, it’s a great way to encode an MP3 easily and quickly.

  1. Not to mention the dope SECRET MEMBERS-ONLY PODCAST I host. ↩

Connected #170: Playing Chicken with Jony Ive ⇢

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This week on Connected:

Myke returns with many comments about last week’s show and a surprise Black Friday purchase. Meanwhile, Stephen has installed Windows 10.

My thanks to our sponsors:

  • Pingdom: Start monitoring your websites and servers today. Use offer code CONNECTED to get 30% off.
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  • Incapsula: Secure and accelerate your website. Connected listeners get one month free.

macOS High Sierra Bug Allows Admin Access Without Password ⇢

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Greg Barbosa at 9to5Mac:

A newly discovered macOS High Sierra flaw is potentially leaving your personal data at risk. Developer Lemi Orhan Ergin publicly contacted Apple Support to ask about the vulnerability he discovered. In the vulnerability he found, someone with physical access to a macOS machine can access and change personal files on the system without needing any admin credentials.

Users who haven’t disabled guest user account access or changed their root passwords (likely most) are currently open to this vulnerability. We’ve included instructions on how to protect yourself in the meantime until an official fix from Apple is released.

Here are the tweets referenced:

The temporary fix involves setting a custom password for root. I hope Apple gets a patch out for this ASAP; this is a seriously bad bug. Check it out:

Holy crap.