Niri | Blog

Mac OS X is like living in a farmhouse in the country with no locks, and Windows is living in a house with bars on the windows in the bad part of town.

These are the words of security expert Charlie Miller.

If you use a Mac but you don’t know who Charlie Miller is, you will soon. Charlie is about to disclose a whopping 20 security holes in Mac OS X, all at once – a record for sure.

He uses a technique called fuzzing, which essentially involves spamming an application’s input channels with corrupted data until it crashes, revealing the flaw. You can read more about it from clicking the link.

According to Miller, us Mac users have enjoyed a false sense of security from not being attacked as most attacks are focused on the market leader, Windows. Market share has played a big role in this, but with Apple gaining more and more of this coveted market share we can only speculate what will happen.

Apparently in cracking competitions, it’s often Apple systems that get cracked first. We already know Apple is concerned about security with it’s big vulnerability fix back in late 2009, not long after Snow Leopard was released.

There’s nothing wrong about feeling safe using Mac OS X. It’s not a very popular platform to attack, not because it’s super secure but not enough people use it to make it worthwhile. Many “fan boys” in the Apple community have laughed at Windows for being attacked and exposed as a vulnerable operating system but I’m sure they would shut up if the tide suddenly turned.

I still wouldn’t recommend running out and installing crap-ware like Norton Antivirus on your shiny Mac, but it doesn’t hurt to adopt some healthy web surfing habits

I use Firefox with Firebug. Love it. There’s no other combination out there right now that works as well as Firebug does for web development and HTML/CSS analysis. It’s a power house for dissecting the code and layout and nothing else compares for tweaking, or playing with, style and HTML code live. I can absolutely recommend it to anybody doing web development.

Turns out however that Firebug does not play nice with Gmail these days. I had noticed a lot of slowdowns when using my Gmail account and I thought it was somehow linked to the recent release of Google Buzz, but I was wrong. The culprit was the one and only Firebug! (Did you click the link already. It’s not like I’m dropping subtle hints here!)

Gmail to the rescue with their quick walk through on how to disable Firebug for its Gmail pages, or disable the offending services if you insist on using Firebug with Gmail.

For the best Gmail performance, we suggest disabling Firebug for www.google.com.

Windows or Linux Users

To disable Firebug:

1. Open the Firebug pane in your Gmail tab by clicking the Firebug icon.
2. Click the down arrow next to the Net tab, and select Disable monitor for mail.google.com
3. Repeat Step 2 on the Console and Script tabs.

If you’d like to keep Firebug running, you may improve Gmail performance by following these steps:

1. Click the green or red icon in the bottom right corner of the browser window to open Firebug.
2. Click the Console tab.
3. Select Options.
4. Uncheck Show XMLHttpRequests.
5. Click the Net tab.
6. Select Options.
7. Check Disable Network Monitoring.

Mac Users

To disable Firebug:

1. Click the green or red icon in the bottom right corner of the browser window to open Firebug.
2. Click the bug icon in the top left corner of Firebug and select ‘Disable Firebug for mail.google.com.’

If disabling Firebug for Gmail doesn’t improve performance results, you may have to entirely disable Firebug.

Following these steps has made my Gmail nice and spiffy again. I won’t stop using Firebug unless a better product comes along so Gmail and Firebug will just have to learn to live together. For now the sandbox has been divided until these two can learn to play nice together.

If you have an iPhone you probably also have the lightsaber app (PhoneSaber and/orLightsaber Unleashed) or , if you’re too hardcore to admit it, you can at least admit you have heard of it. Well, soon there will be a new lightsaber app, this one called Lightsaber Duel (THQ) and it’s bluetooth enabled!

This new Star Wars nerdage-uber-app will let you pair your iPhone with a fellow nerd and fight through grueling dueling session with lightsabers belonging to 11 Star Wars characters.

True Jedi you will become.

Sony was pushing their PlayStation Move pretty heavily at the recent Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco and I was completely underwhelmed.

Look like an idiot while playing boring games...

This feels like a complete Wii ripoff, nothing more. They are even releasing the thing with a sports game compilation called…wait for it… Champion Sports. It comes with exciting games like Table tennis, bowling, golf, archery and so on.

Yay, more table tennis! *yawn*

Bah, I’m already bored playing this on the Wii, and I don’t see myself spending hundreds of dollars so I can play more of the same sports game in HD, even if Sony claims their system more accurately tracks the controller compared to Nintendo’s Wii controller.

We're like innovative and stuff.

Wired even referred to the games Sony showed off at GDC as janky, visual gimmicks and even laggy and not much fun.

Almost feels like Sony’s fumbling in the dark to keep the PS3 relevant. First they completely screw up the Playstation Home concept, probably wasting millions of dollars. Now they’re trying to bank on the Wii’s thunder by copying their success. What are they going to do next, copy Microsoft’s XBox Live service?

Sony = FAIL

Photos blatantly stolen from Jon Snyder/Wired.com.

I guess AT&T has had enough of Verizon poking fun of them with their ads recently. They posted the following press release on their site today. Not pulling any punches they address all the points hinted at from Verizon’s ad campaign.

“AT&T’s wireless data coverage reaches 303 million people – or 97% of the U.S. population, where they live and work.

AT&T is the #1 network for smartphones, with twice the number of smartphone customers than Verizon, our closest competitor. Some of the reasons include:

Most popular smartphones. Unlike Verizon, AT&T offers the most popular smartphones in the industry.

More wireless apps. Unlike Verizon, AT&T customers have access to more than 100,000 applications, more than with any other wireless company.

Talk and E-mail at the same time. Unlike Verizon, AT&T’s 3G network lets wireless customers simultaneously talk and surf the web or do e-mail.

Fastest 3G in the nation. Unlike Verizon, AT&T has the nation’s fastest 3G network.”

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Does this mean tethering for the iPhone is postponed until the dust settles…?

att.com via TUAW

The Wall Street Journal has a great article showcasing why AT&T killed Google Voice recently on the iPhone. Andy Kessler writes a really sobering article on our archaic and ludicrous phone companies and their ancient policies.

Don’t miss his 4 step-solution to the problem which is ingenious. [Link]

I give you – the i.Saw! The world’s first USB-powered chainsaw.

Oh yes. A real, fully functional, USB-powered chainsaw. Be sure to watch the demonstration video. I think the most disturbing portion is probably this section of the website:

Operating Environment
Home and office use
(Standard precautions apply)

How is this a good product? What exactly are you cutting that is within a USB cable’s length of a computer?!

UPDATE — As it turns out the i.Saw is of course not real. It’s a prank, a hoax, but a clever one with a purpose. If you pre-order the i.Saw you’ll receive this e-mail:

Hello.

We love that you liked the i.Saw enough to pre-order.

Truth is, you already own a chainsaw. Your keyboard.

Help save more trees by cutting down on unnecessary printing. Download PaperCut, a free application that plays the sound of a chainsaw each time you press Ctrl-P.

Available for Mac and PC.

Thanks for the support. Help spread the buzz, if you will :)

PaperCut Team
(formerly known as i.Saw Team)

[i.Saw - The World's First USB-powered Chainsaw]

There are not many things in this world cooler than lasers. I mean c’mon. Laser portraits man! Only to be beat by sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads! [We Have Lasers!!!!!!!!!!]