Dr. Garry’s homework for you for next week – watch these two videos: Video 1 and Video 2. Don’t ignore your tech, consider choosing different friends. More reasons why you might enjoy checking out the NosillaCast community over at podfeet.com/googleplus. Inspire your young ones this summer with littleBits from littlebits.cc. I walk you through the absolute comedy of what you have to do to get music on the Apple Watch – about as complicated as it used to be to use a Blackberry. In Chit Chat Across the Pond Bart takes us through Taming the Terminal Part 35 of n, HTTP commands.
Hi this is Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast Mac Podcast, hosted at Podfeet.com, a technology geek podcast with an EVER so slight Macintosh bias. Today is Sunday July 5, 2015 and this is show number 530. Steve recorded a video of my talk on Audio Hijack at Macstock and he posted it so that if any of you wanted to go see it you could. Link in the show notes of course: Audio Hijack 3 Presentation at Macstock 2015
Earlier this week Dr. Maryanne Garry, the professor from New Zealand who helped us doubt all of our childhood memories in a past episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond came to visit again and we did another recording. It should air next Sunday on the 12th, and in the recording you’ll hear her refer to some homework you’re supposed to do before you listen. In this next interview she’s going to make you doubt your own perception even more, this time in understanding the difference between vision and attention. I’m putting links in the show notes to two videos she wants you to watch. You may have seen one or both of them before but it will help understand what she’s saying to rewatch them.
Blog Posts
Don’t Ignore Your Tech – Choose Different Friends
Inspire the Youngins this Summer with littleBits
Putting Music & Podcasts on the Apple Watch is as Easy as Using a Blackberry
Google+
At the end of the show I mention how fun Google Plus is but I figure at lest 50% of you guys shut the show off as soon as you hear the end of Chit Chat Across the Pond. I’m am SUCH a fan of our Google Plus Community because there’s just the right amount of activity. It’s not too chatty but just chatty enough to keep you coming back. The people in there are super smart (I mean, of course they are if they’re NosillaCastaways, right?) and answer questions better than me.
This week I posted a problem I was having turning off hidden files in OSX. Four people responded with different solutions in less than a day! George from Tulsa and Jim Sewell both posted links to some cool tech deals, inspiring me to create a special category to identify posts as deals. Allister posted a link to a blog post he’s written asking us to encourage a certain vendor to include a feature he wants. Steve is an avid poster of articles around the web of interest to tech fanatics so he posted an article about force touch maybe coming to the next iPhone. And of course I post my blog posts there as soon as they go up so you can get a head start on telling my how wrong I am before I talk about it on the podcast.
If you haven’t joined the NosillaCast G+ community yet, or if you never tapped the little bell to get notifications when someone posts so you forgot about it, go over to podfeet.com/googleplus and check it out!
Clarify
This week I’ve been working on a cool method to regain some functionality that we lost in the Photos app from Aperture. Don’t get all excited, I didn’t figure out how to make brushes appear in the edit mode or anything like that, it has to do with the file naming conventions. I’m pretty close to done with it but I”m going to save it till next week when I have more time to explain it. I wasn’t sure I had it working but in one of my tests this week, I decided to open Clarify and start documenting while I worked on it. One of the joys of Clarify is that you can take screenshots and later on easily replace them if something changes. There’s a little circular arrow at the bottom of every image just inviting you to retake that shot.
When I work like this I usually don’t put annotations in or even write up any text to go with each step. It’s a great way to stay focused on doing something and yet grab the shots while you’re going so you don’t have to go all the way through it again later. If it works, great, I can go in and drop in sequence numbers, arrows to draw attention to things and write up a good explanation of the meaning and logic of each step. If it doesn’t work, I can just trash the whole thing and I haven’t lost a ton of time invested in documentation.
If you’re trying to figure something out and don’t want to litter your desktop with gobs of screenshots with useless names, consider using Clarify to gather the shots into a logical order as you’re working. I bet it will help you and make you happier. Maybe thinner and with more hair too, but the developers don’t promise that. Check out Clarify for Mac and Windows at clarify-it.com.
Chit Chat Across the Pond
Security Light
Important Security Updates
- Apple releases a glut of security updates including updates to Safari, OS X, iOS, QuickTime, and iTunes – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/07/01/apple-lets-rip-with-update-spate-osx-ios-safari-itunes-quicktime/
- iOS 8.4 includes a fix to the recent text message bug that could be used to crash iPhones – http://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/ios-8-4-update-fixes-text-message-bug-iphone-restart/
- The OS X patches include a fix for the recently released EFI bug that allowed for firmware rootkits – http://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/prince-harming-and-dark-jedi-sent-packing-by-apples-latest-os-x-update/
- Adobe releases Flash 18.0.0.194 to address a critical security bug – http://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/adobe-flash-player-18-0-0-194-addresses-critical-security-bug/
- RELATED – don’t delay in applying the Flash patch above – the bugs it fixes are being actively used to install ransomware! – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/06/29/latest-flash-hole-already-exploited-ransomware/
Important Security News
- PayPal back-peddle on their controversial robocalling policy – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/07/01/paypal-backpedals-on-awful-robocalling-policy/
- The BBC move to add some much-needed information into the ‘right to be forgotten’ controversy – they will maintain a list on their site of all their news articles that have been ‘forgotten’ by search engines – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/06/30/bbc-sets-up-list-of-news-article-links-forgotten-by-google/
- The UK government have launched a site to help online abuse victims, particularly those in LGBT community – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/06/29/stop-abuse-online-site-launches-to-help-tackle-cyberbullying/
- Good News! Oracle to stop trying to push the Ask Toolbar through Java security updates. Bad News – Oracle are starting to push the Yahoo Toolbar through Java security updates instead 🙁 – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/06/25/java-updater-to-stop-pushing-ask-toolbar-will-foist-yahoo-search-on-you-instead/
- ICANN comes under fire for attempting to remove whois privacy from ‘commercial’ domains – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/06/26/privacy-outcry-over-proposal-to-reveal-website-owners-identities/
- A bug in the controversial MacKeeper app is being used to install malware onto Macs – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/06/22/security-hole-in-mackeeper-used-to-shove-malware-onto-macs/
- Samsung plumb new depths of security idiocy – they used their updater to disable Windows Update for at least some users of their computers – Why? Because Windows Update was pushing drivers that were not compatible with some Samsung USB 3 ports. So, rather than distributing proper drivers through Windows Update, Samsung decided the solution was to expose all their users to every Windows bug out there by disabling ALL Windows updates. (Editorial by Bart: I’m simply speechless – I have no idea how to interpret this absolute security clanger? Staggering incompetence? Staggering malice? Incredible mis-management of inexperienced engineers? What ever it is, I can’t ever see myself entrusting my security to Samsung, I simply cannot trust a company that is capable of doing something like this) – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/06/25/samsung-updates-back-in-the-news-for-breaking-windows-updates/
- RELATED – Samsung promise they’ll issue and update to their updater to stop it disabling Microsoft’s updater soon – http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/06/samsung-promises-to-stop-disabling-windows-update/
- Researchers have found a way to crack some encryption keys by sending victims a specially crafted encrypted email, and then listening to the weak radio signals produced by the victim’s computer while it decrypts the email. They were able to make the listening device small enough to fit in some pitta bread. (Editorial by Bart: while this is very cool research, and the addition of the pitta bread very media savvy, it’s not a particularly practical attack, the attacker needs to be right next to the victim when they receive the specially crafted email for this to work, so no need to put your hair on fire over this one) – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/06/23/pita-bread-helps-researchers-steal-encryption-keys/
Notable Breaches
- Security research shows that there are logins for as many as 47 US government agencies available for purchase on the black market – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/06/26/stolen-logins-for-us-government-agencies-found-all-over-the-web/
Suggested Reading
- UK ethical hacking student claims the controversial Wassanaar Agreement (an arms control treaty that covers various kinds of software exploit) is forcing him to censor his research – http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/07/student-claims-wassenaar-agreement-prevents-him-from-publishing-dissertation/
- If you’ve moving to Windows 10 – be careful of the Wi-Fi Sense feature, you might end up giving more people than you intended access to your wifi- https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/07/01/windows-10-wi-fi-sense-feature-shares-your-wi-fi-network-with-your-friends/
- MasterCard to trial pay-by-face for online purchasing – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/07/03/mastercard-to-trial-pay-by-face-for-online-purchasing/
- Yet more evidence of home routers being hacked for malicious purposes – http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/06/crooks-use-hacked-routers-to-aid-cyberheists/
- Apple release details of Apple Pay verification methods – http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple-posts-details-of-apple-pay-verification-methods
- A good article from Naked Security explaining what a VPN does, and DOESN’T protect you from – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/06/26/serious-security-understanding-the-p-in-vpn/
- Mysterious vandals are cutting fibre-optic cables in CA – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/07/02/mystery-vandals-are-cutting-fiber-optic-cables-in-california-how-worried-should-we-be/
- ‘Dino’, apparent state-sponsored malware from France has been found – http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/06/researchers-expose-dino-espionage-malware-with-a-french-connection/
- US Navy pays millions to cling on to Windows XP – https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/06/24/us-navy-pays-millions-to-cling-to-windows-xp/
Main Topic
Taming the Terminal Part 35 of n, HTTP Commands
That’s going to wind this up for this week, many thanks to our sponsor for helping to pay the bills, the makers of Clarify over at clarify-it.com. Don’t forget to send in your Dumb Questions, comments and suggestions by emailing me at [email protected], follow me on twitter @podfeet. Check out the NosillaCast Google Plus Community too – lots of fun over there! If you want to join in the fun of the live show, head on over to podfeet.com/live on Sunday nights at 5pm Pacific Time and join the friendly and enthusiastic NosillaCastaways. Thanks for listening, and stay subscribed.
I used to be a big proponent of MacPorts, it was almost invariably the first thing I installed whenever installing on a new machine (or re-installing on an existing machine.) However as time went on it started to fall out of favor with me. It’s just a bit too invasive IMHO, and is also sometimes slow at updating (e.g. when new versions of OS X or Xcode cause stuff to break.) These days I’m much more comfortable running Homebrew, which is another packaging system, but it installs (and uninstalls) packages in a much more clean, compartmentalized manner (doesn’t require sudo/root access for one thing, which will be even more important when OS X El Capitan and its “Rootless” technology come out later this year.) It’s also very frequently updated, I almost never have any packages break whenever Xcode or OS X changes things. It includes pretty much every package that MacPorts does (plus a whole bunch that MacPorts doesn’t have) — including the text mode web browser that Bart uses in this wee’s TTT. You can read more about it, and install it (there’s nothing to download, it just installs using a single Terminal command) at brew.sh
Hi Donald,
To each their own. I’ve found the MacPorts is actually fine going between recent OSes. It used to give me problems back when Apple did big OS updates, but since Apple moved to a yearly cycle, Ports has just kept working for me. I don’t find Ports intrusive, because it puts all it’s stuff into /opt/local, islanded away from all the standard stuff.
It does put itself first in your path by default, which can make it seem intrusive, but that can easily be fixed if it causes problems. I think I have it at the end of my path on some machines so the system versions of Perl would be first in my path. I like that MacPorts is system-wide, but that same feature could be a minus for many people!
I’ve used Brew too, and it works fine. It does stuff in your local account, and not at a system level, so on multi-user machines it can be annoying for that reason.
If you want stuff installed at a system level, then I would recommend MacPorts, if you want stuff at a user-level, then Brew is your best bet.
One thing I have found is that Brew complains a lot if you use it on a system with MacPorts installed. So far all the complaining has been just hot air for me, I have the two running side-by-side on one of my Macs and everything is working fine, despite Brew warning me that it doesn’t like sharing with MacPorts.