The Mac OS vulnerability relates to user login passwords that are stored in the system memory even if the computer is locked or put into a sleep mode. Passware’s software captures live Mac computer memory over FireWire and analyzes it, extracting these passwords, a process that the company says takes just a few minutes–regardless of password strength and use of a FileVault encryption.
While this is an issue, once physical security has been breached, it is game over anyways.
[via Ben Brooks]
Ok, that was an extreme headline. But still, those little red badges and popups are changing the way we interact with our devices.
I love Mac OS X. I really believe it is the best way to get work done on a computer in the 21st century. For the most part, I like OS X Lion — just check out my review. Lion is fast, stable and brings several great features to the table — especially when it comes to security.
Loving any Apple product is like being in an roller coaster relationship, though. Apple — unlike most companies — is not afraid to break things, change direction or piss off its users. But at the same time, it just wants everyone to be happy and hugging each other.
Lion feels like another step down this road. It feels like a beginning and an end. Future versions of the Mac OS will feel less and less like pre-Lion versions as time marches on.
There’s no doubt that Apple wishes to simplify its desktop OS for the sake of its growing customer base. Apple somewhat said this back in the fall at its “Back to the Mac” event. With Lion, the company took features from iOS — mainly the iPad — and bolted them to OS X.
On the surface, Apple did a good job with this. But the more I use Lion every day (and not just on my test machine), the more I feel like there’s some weirdness going on here.
Launchpad is the best example of an iOS-inspired feature in Lion. It’s also the best example of what I really don’t like about Lion.
While Apple may be slowly moving us away from the Applications folder and Spotlight, adding yet another layer on top of the OS seems more confusing than simplifying at this point.1
Oh, and swiping across rows of icons makes perfect sense on a mobile device, but on a computer it just feels insulting. I’ve disabled the gestures for it and hope I don’t accidentally launch it from Spotlight.2
So, has Apple succeeded in bringing iOS-inspired features to the Mac? I’m not entirely sure. If Apple is looking to further unify OS X and iOS, it is going to have to work harder than it did in Lion. In trying to make OS X more approachable, I fear Apple just made it more complicated, with more abstractions than ever.
Apple has changed several significant, fundamental things about the way users interact with their digital files. With Lion, users are being asked to trust their Macs with tasks they’ve never before had to — like saving files.
Now, I know full and well what data loss is like. As someone who has supported Mac users for years, I’ve seen my share of sob stories.
That said, I am finding it difficult to trust Lion with things like saving my files automagically in apps like Text Edit.3 I just don’t trust my computer when it has done the wrong thing so many times in the past when it comes to data.
I am sure this post will seem rather silly in six months or a year. Mac users evolve as Apple sees fit. We all stick around, and endure the changes. This time, though, it just seems like a lot to swallow.
The same goes with Mission Control. I like it, but can the iOS-loving Mac switcher Apple wants really understand it? My guess is no. Spaces, Expose, Dashboard and more are crammed into that joker in a way that makes my head hurt. ↩︎
If anyone knows how to keep the Mac App Store from launching it when an app is purchased, please get in touch. ↩︎
Oh, and WHERE THE HELL DID THE SAVE AS… menu go? ↩︎
Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post:
Debt ceiling negotiators think they’ve hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public’s unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress.
This “Super Congress,” composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers – six from each chamber and six from each party.
Well, that’s one major WTF.
And again, I am super impressed.
Impressive. Most impressive.
Wait, that’s not right:
We saw that there were some questions today related to Flash Player 11 support for Mac OS X Lion (10.7) related to hardware video acceleration. To avoid any more confusion, we wanted to clarify:
The final release of Mac OS X Lion (10.7) provides the same support for Flash hardware video acceleration as Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6). The previous “Known Issue” described in a tech note suggesting that video hardware acceleration was disabled in Lion was incorrect and based on tests with a pre-release version of Mac OS X Lion that related to only one particular Mac GPU configuration. We continue to work closely with Apple to provide Flash Player users with a high quality experience on Mac computers.
So, did they test on just one machine, or did someone screw up the documentation?
Neither make me feel better about Flash on OS X.
[via MacStories]
Upgrading to OS X Lion (10.7) costs $30. I don’t say that to comment on the “bang for buck” element. It’s more like a coded transmission from Apple: this OS is an experiment, a departure, a transition. When Apple priced Snow Leopard (10.6) at $30 it was because the OS had very few user-facing tweaks — most of the changes were under the hood. But this time it almost feels like Apple is apologizing for the abundance of experience-altering changes: “look, we know this is a lot to swallow, but at least it’s only $30!”
[via NASA HQ Photo on Flickr]
I was digging around in the System Library folder in Lion this afternoon, and found the linen graphic Apple uses heavily in the new OS. It was inside the Dock.app bundle, if you’re curious. I’ve also copied it here, if you can get enough of the new texture. It actually make a pretty decent minimalistic wallpaper when tiled.
