7:30pm – 10pm
Apple has posted the 7th Mac OS X security update of 2006, it is available by choosing Software Update in the apple menu or via direct download:
Details of the changes can be found here:
The update includes significant fixes for Airport, the Finder and other OS components so its probably a good idea to install it as soon as possible.
As you’ve no doubt noticed, the scum-sucking lowlife spammers have been working overtime lately. Once again our in-boxes overflow with various offers to enlarge, reduce or invest in various items of a financial, physical and biological nature. And our main ACAMUG email contact addresses are no exception. I had been forwarding email to the president and membership coordinator directly to the respective members’ accounts, but with a garbage to gold ratio on the order of 1000 to 1 its just not worth the aggravation. To try to remedy this I’m making several changes to the way mail directed to acamug.org email contact addresses are handled.
First, all of the mail to all of our addresses will be filtered through me, the web site admin, and I’ll manually forward it to the appropriate person. This could delay the actual delivery to the intended person up to a day in the worse case. If its something really urgent email is probably not the right choice and a phone call is probably a better idea.
2006-Dec-18 UPDATE – Experiment over, I’ve turned off the email verification option because just about all the spam uses forged/stolen return addresses so all we’re doing is contributing to the junk mail in other unfortunate people’s in-boxes. So I’m back to manually filtering all the uunk mail to our site accounts. Thank you, scumbag junk mailers.
Second, I’ve decided to adopt mail message verification for ALL messages sent to acamug.org addresses. What this means is that the first time someone sends a message to an ACAMUG contact address it will be held and the sender sent a verification request. Simply replying to that message lets our mail server know there is a bone fide email account and maybe even an actual human at the other end rather than the garbage addresses typically used for junk mail, and your original message will be delivered. Future messages from that account should not require verification.
As a convenience, the message verification process will be bypassed and the message delivered directly if the subject contains the phrase NOT SPAM, I’ll document this on the contact page.
Not sure this is a good long term solution but for now at least maybe it will reduce the load to something manageable.
On a related note, I’ve also had to delete an internal board members only mailing list because spammers’ automated garbage machines discovered it, even though its never been publicized, and have been flooding it with bogus requests to join, all of which I had to filter out and delete by hand.
Sorry for the inconvenience. If these changes cause problems please post a comment here.
Apple has just posted firmware updates that cover most if not all of their Intel Mac models. (Firmware is software that is programmed into a chip on the motherboard and handles low level hardware details including start up.)
This firmware update addresses issues with Boot Camp (Apple’s support for running Windows on Intel Macs) as well as startup and wake from sleep issues. I’ve seen the wake from sleep issue on my MacBook Pro and Dennis experienced it last Friday as well. The updates appear to apply to all Intel Mac models with the possible exception of the very latest Core 2 Duo based machines.
The procedure for installing the firmware update is a little different than usual so be sure to follow the instructions to the letter! First, make sure the machine is running on A.C. and not battery power. Then run Software Update and when it finishes it should launch the Firmware Updater application. Carefully read the directions then click the Shutdown button. When the shutdown is complete, PRESS AND HOLD the power button until the sleep indicator blinks then let it go. You should hear a loud beep and see a large progress bar. Be patient and wait for it to finish, it can take a few minutes. You really don’t want to interfere with this process or you’ll be making a trip to the nearest Apple Store Genius Bar.
The updates are also available with detailed descriptions by direct download:
Apple has also update the Firmware Restoration CD (version 1.2) that can be used to revert to a previous firmware version should the new one pose any problems.
Rescheduled from October, tonight everyone gets a chance to show off their brief tips and tricks. Found a handy but not-well-known feature? Let everyone in on it! Know a work-around for a common problem? Share that too! Or show off a nice little special purpose application or Widget, just remember to bring the URL where it can be downloaded.
Anything in Mac OS X and any application is fair game but if its not part of the standard installation bring it on your laptop or bring the appropriate (quick, non-time-consuming) installer.
Presentation topics may change so be sure to verify on the day of the meeting. Got questions you’d like to have answered? Feel free to post them as comments before the meeting so the presenters have a chance to prepare.
I’ve made some minor visual and not so minor internal code changes to the site. To ensure you see them clear our your browser’s cache (for Safari choose Empty Cache from the Safari menu, don’t worry you won’t lose any settings) then press COMMAND-R to reload this page.