One of the new security measures in Leopard is a confirmation dialog that pops up anytime you attempt to open a file or executable bundle that was downloaded from the internet. You may have seen this dialog after downloading and launching a new application, for instance. It looks something like this: Some have hailed this [...]
This is one of those I-keep-forgetting-how-to-do-this posts, so I’m writing it down. It’s certainly been posted elsewhere, but I’m tired of going looking every time I need it. So here it is. In Tiger a simple defaults command could be used to modify a user’s umask (a setting that controls the default permissions for newly [...]
I’ve been following the running commentary on Apple’s decision to remove firewire from the MacBook. The latest article comes from Ars Technica, who responds to the “Steve Jobs” quote: “Actually, all of the new HD camcorders of the past few years use USB 2.” The Ars writer chimes in, chastising people who want firewire by, [...]
Someone recently noted that every time I attempt to synchronize some portion of my increasingly expanding digital life — be it Address Book contacts, calendars, mail, or any of the other bits of data that seem to be essential everywhere I go and at all times — I get cranky. It’s true. Syncing has become [...]
Recently, one of our producers needed to cut a 20+ minute planetarium show down to a 3 minute trailer. So he needed a way to edit an image sequence comprised of extremely large, non-standard frames. We decided to use Final Cut Pro for the editing software, but Final Cut is decidedly not built for working [...]
There are a bunch of legacy issues at my new job. Many of them, I believe (I’m not completely sure, I’m still pretty new after all), stem from the once heavy use of IRIX and its peculiarities. We are only just reaching a point at which we can do away, once and for all, with [...]
There’s a common occurrence in the world of systems administration. Once I describe it you’ll probably all nod you’re heads knowingly and go, “Yeah, that happens to me all the time.” It happened to me recently, in fact. I was attempting to set a Linux system to authenticate via a freshly-built LDAP server — something [...]
I just had a rare occasion to use a Windows XP machine here in the lab. Oy, was it painful! All I wanted to do was take three simple screen shots — just three — for an instructional article I was writing for our community. It took a half an hour. I started, of course, [...]
So far this NetBoot/NetInstall thing is working out a thousand times better than I ever thought it would. I wish I’d done this years ago. Not only does it save time, it also reduces errors. This is often one of the most overlooked features of automating a process: the less human interaction in the process, [...]
I don’t usually get too excited about firmware updates, mainly because the things they fix rarely tend to affect me, for whatever reason. But the last Leopard Graphics Update from a few weeks ago has actually caused me some problems. Two, I believe, to be precise. The first problem I’ve had may or may not [...]