Malware on the Mac: is there cause for concern? Ars investigates

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments

Malware on the Mac: is it mostly hype or a real problem faced by real people? If you ask John Gruber, the answer might be the former—there are lots of proof-of-concept scenarios and virtually none that manifest themselves beyond a slow news day. If you ask Ed Bott, however, the answer would be the latter—he recently interviewed an AppleCare employee who claimed that the recent release of fake antivirus app \’MAC Defender\’ has caused a spike in malware reports among Mac users.

The truth is hard to tease out. Partly because Mac OS X still makes up a comparatively small percentage of the global OS market share, and partly because Apple itself is a secretive company, it\’s not easy to find out whether malware on the Mac is indeed becoming more common, or it\’s simply being reported on more often.

Still, we tried to do exactly that. Ars spoke with 14 different Mac support specialists—including several Apple Store Geniuses—in order to get a handle on whether things have changed when it comes to dealing with malware. Their experiences are all over the map, but the general consensus does seem to lean towards a low amount of malware problems—until you get to the Geniuses.\”

Read the story at Ars Technica – Malware on the Mac: is there cause for concern? Ars investigates

iPad 2 Smart Cover Drop Test from Square Trade

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments


Will the iPad 2 break with a smart cover on?
http://www.squaretrade.com/drop-test
Square Trade purchased two brand-new iPad 2s and equipped one with Apple\’s smart cover and one without. They did some drop tests from waist and shoulder height to see if Apple\’s smart cover can protects your iPad. Watch the video to see what happens.
WAIST-HIGH DROP
Smart cover iPad survives. Uncovered iPad suffers brutal damage.
SHOULDER-HIGH DROP
Smart cover iPad breaks a bit — some cuts across the screen and breaks around the edges. The magnetic cover slipped off from the fall.
 

Your tying your shoes the Wrong way…

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com?v=zAFcV7zuUDA]
Terry Moore found out he\’d been tying his shoes the wrong way his whole life. In the spirit of TED, he takes the stage to share a better way. (Historical note: This was the very first 3-minute audience talk given from the TED stage, in 2005.)
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world\’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the \”Sixth Sense\” wearable tech, and \”Lost\” producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

First thoughts on…Doctor Who, Season 6

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments

Let\’s just dive in….
Since its revival in 2005, Doctor Who has been strongly supported by the BBC…  Russell T. Davies, overall had a good run as Executive Producer, writer, etc…  And while there is criticism on RTD\’s era, it overall was a good restoration and brought the series back to our Television screens.  My criticism of the RTD era is simply that there was a fabulous build-up during the story, but then at the last-minute, a Deus Ex Machina would be pulled out with no foreshadowing to solve the problem at the last-minute….
But since 2010, when Steven Moffat became the Executive producer, subtle changes started to appear.  The plot lines became more detailed, and foreshadowed, and Time Travel became more integrated into the stories…  Which believe it or not, is a surprise for a series based on Time Travel…  Doctor Who has only had a handful of episodes where Time Travel was integral to the plot of an episode,so this has been a welcome change.
Season 5, the first season that featured Matt Smith as The Doctor, had some remarkable episodes.  In fact, the entire season was extremely strong.
Season 6, started out fantastic, and has continued strong so far.  Although, we are only 4 episodes into the first half of the season…  I wanted to give some impressions of the 2011 season.  Please note, I am not reviewing the episodes in detail, and trying not to give significant spoilers…

  • Episode 1 – The Impossible Astronaut, starts on a cliff hanger, introduces the plot threads for this season, and we discover the secrets of Watergate!
  • Episode 2 – Day of the Moon, brings a resolution to Episode 1, and seemingly concludes the issues with the secret.  But what of Amy\’s Schrödinger\’s pregnancy?  The odd \”window\” woman?  And will Mark Shepard be in any more episodes this season?  And what about the little girl?  These are questions we want to know the answer for….
  • Episode 3 – The Curse of the Black Spot, while this episode is a lighter toner than episode 1 & 2, it\’s quite noticeable that the Doctor admits that his first 3 or 4 theories were wrong….
  • Episode 4 – The Doctor\’s Wife….  Like Episode 3, this appears to be a standalone episode, this episode concentrates on the Tardis itself…  While the Tardis is the companion that has been with the Doctor the longest, it is rarely recognized as such.  There have been a huge number of references to older episodes, including:
    • The Unearthly Child – Idris refers to The Doctor as \”her thief\”, and that she choose The Doctor.  Suggesting that she unlocked the Tardis door allowing The Doctor to steal/borrow The Tardis
    • Castrovalva – The Doctor jettisons / \”burns up\” parts of the Tardis to enable the Tardis to cross over
    • The Doctor refers to another Time Lord, The Corsair, that has changed his/her sex for at least one or two regenerations.
    • The TARDIS corridors are seen for the first time in the revived series. They are show a similar design to that seen in the classic series, though they are now hexagonal in shape with updated roundels.  House mentions that he disabled the corridor antigravity,
    • The Time Lord distress signal cubes are similar to the one used by the Doctor in The War Games
    • The Doctor and Idris use a TARDIS control panel outside of an outer TARDIS shell, as the Doctor did in Inferno.
    • The TARDIS\’ secondary console room was first mentioned in The Masque of the Mandragora

While the two parter of \”The Impossible Astronaut\” & \”Day of the Moon\” were excellent.  I almost prefer, at this point, \”The Doctor\’s Wife\”.  Why?  Because there hasn\’t been an episode that explores Idris\’s relationship with The Doctor…
Next up, is \”The Rebel Flesh\”, and the \”Almost People\”.  I am really looking forward to those episodes, except for the fact that we that much closer to the mid-season hiatus.