InVisible

Because we moved our TV from our home to our vacation flat, the only way to watch TV is to go on vacation. And here in the mountains, we have satellite TV. Most of the stuff on TV is crap. But there are a number of documentary channels that bring really interesting stuff. Like the documentary on the “Eirik Raude”, a mobile oil rig. Seeing how this gigantic piece of machinery is being constructed and built is amazing. Many ten-thousand tons of metal that are swimming, not tethered. It’s computer controlled 6 rudders can keep the colossus in a position of +/- meters in any kind of weather, with a drill reaching down 3000 meters through the ocean. ...

After reading a bit about iSync & Tiger at vowe, I decided to give the solution outlined a try. However, I managed only to create a Kernel Exception on the phone, and to wipe out all my calendar entries. Yes, I had a backup (through the excellent mobical.net service, which allows to sync the phone (and a lot of others) through GPRS. Not giving up so easily (though it is tempting to drop the Nokia 9500 on Ebay and get a Trea 650 instead), I managed to export both contacts and calendar entries from mobical.net and import them into iCal / Address-Book on the Mac. One stumbling block was that the Addressbook only imported about 70 of 370 entries. Looking at the contacts.vcf file that mobical created, I noticed two entries with a PHOTO tag. Deleting those entries from the vcf-file got the import running. ...

I was visiting Benno, my friend who got both a PowerBook for himself and an iBook for his wife. When I looked at his running applications, I noticed “Norton Antivirus for Mac” running on his computer. I laughed and said, that he wouldn’t need it. To this he answered, that there were indeed viriii for the Mac. I challenged him to name one. He googled and the very first entry said “Why there are no viruses for the Mac”. ...

A most excellent article on the technical details of Apple’s OS X 10.4. There’s a lot more changes than meet the eye. Interesting reading on kernel locks, file meta-data, Quartz architecture and loads of other things. And a pleasant difference to the many “Spotlight/Dashboard, so-what’s really new” articles that I’ve been seeing the last weeks.

I’m still sitting in the train from Bern to Zurich, in the business compartment (the one sporting electrical outlets). As usual there’s a deluge of laptops (mostly Dell). But within 2 meters of me are two other 15" Apple Powerbooks. That’s the highest density I have witnessed in the last 8 months that I have travelled this route. Is the secret plan for world domination starting to work for his Steve-ness? ...

Something good is coming out of the NSA – a guide to secure various operating systems. I have cursorily glanced over the XP and the OS X guides and learnt quite a bit. This goes to my reference stack and will be thoroughly reviewed soon. Very interesting reading! Operating System Security [via vowe]