Mac OS X Lion to Include Browser-Only Boot

by: admin - June 15th, 2011   Filed under: Apple, Tech News Add Comment

Here’s an interesting bit of news for the conspiratorially minded: Apple’s soon-to-be-released Mac OS X 10.7, aka Lion, will allow you to boot directly to the Safari browser, bypassing the desktop and Finder entirely.

But before you go all Chrome OS all over yourself, however, thinking that Apple is about to mimic Google and turn Lion into a browser-based OS, note that this “Restart to Safari” option, as uncovered by a MacRumors tipster, is accessed not from the log-in screen, but from the lock screen – the password-protected access dialog that you can set in System Preferences > Security > General.

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Mac OS X 10.6.2 vs. Ubuntu 10.04 Performance

by: admin - March 30th, 2010   Filed under: Apple, Linux, Reviews, Tech News Add Comment

While we are just weeks away from delivering the most comprehensive Mac OS X vs. Windows 7 vs. Linux benchmarks, and Apple is on the heels of releasing the major Mac OS X 10.6.3 update (update: well, soon as this article went live, Apple just happened to push out Mac OS X 10.6.3), for those impatient ones today we have published an extensive set of tests comparing the performance of Mac OS X 10.6.2 against a development build of Ubuntu 10.04. This is our first time exploring how Canonical’s Lucid Lynx can compete with Apple’s Snow Leopard.

For this testing of the latest Snow Leopard and Lucid Lynx operating systems we used one of our newer Apple Mac Mini systems that had an Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 clocked at 2.00GHz, an Apple Mac-F22C86C8 motherboard with NVIDIA MCP79 Chipset, 1GB of DDR3-1067MHz system memory, a120GB Fujitsu MHZ2120B SATA HDD, and NVIDIA GeForce 9400 graphics. Mac OS X 10.6.2 uses the 10.2.0 kernel, X.Org Server 1.4.2-apple45, GCC 4.2.1, and a Journaled HFS+ file-system. With Ubuntu 10.04 LTS not being officially released for a few weeks we used a daily snapshot from 2010-03-28 with the Linux 2.6.32-17-generic 64-bit kernel, GNOME 2.29.92, X.Org Server 1.7.6, NVIDIA 195.36.15 graphics driver with OpenGL 3.2.0, GCC 4.4.3, and an EXT4 file-system. Both the Mac OS X and Linux operating systems were left with their defaults.

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Proof-of-concept Exploiting Mac OS X Flaw Released

by: admin - January 13th, 2010   Filed under: Apple, Security, Tech News Add Comment

Researchers have released proof-of-concept code exploiting an unpatched buffer overflow vulnerability in the Mac OS X.

The flaw could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code or launch a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, according to researchers at the Poland-based security auditing firm SecurityReason.com.

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The main problem exist in dtoa implementation. MacOS X has the same dtoa as OpenBSD, NetBSD etc. This problem affects not only libc/gdtoa. Affected is also strtod(3) function.


[What is Apple thinking? Why have they NOT fixed it yet?]

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Mac OS X 10.6.2 vs. Ubuntu 9.10 Benchmarks

by: admin - November 19th, 2009   Filed under: Apple, Linux, Reviews, Tech News Add Comment

Back in August upon the launch of Apple’s Snow Leopard we delivered benchmarks comparing Mac OS X 10.5 and Mac OS X 10.6 along with initial benchmarks of how Ubuntu 9.10 was running against Mac OS X 10.6. Since that time though Ubuntu 9.10 has been officially released with various changes since last August and Apple has issued two point releases for Snow Leopard, now putting it at version 10.6.2. As we await the release of FreeBSD 8.0 to deliver a larger operating system comparison, we have carried out a fresh round of tests comparing Mac OS X 10.6.2 and Ubuntu 9.10 (both x86 and x86_64 editions) under a variety of tests.

Similar to our August tests, we used a newer Apple Mac Mini for our Snow Leopard vs. Karmic Koala benchmarks. This Mac Mini is made up of an Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 clocked at 2.00GHz, NVIDIA MCP79 motherboard Chipset, 1GB of DDR3-1067MHz system memory, a 120GB Fujitsu MHZ2120B SATA HDD, and a NVIDIA GeForce 9400 512MB graphics processor. For some important version numbers when it comes to the software side, Mac OS X 10.6.2 is using the 10.2.0 kernel, X Server 1.4.2-apple45, OpenGL 2.1 NVIDIA-1.6.6, GCC 4.2.1, and a Journaled HFS+ file-system. Ubuntu 9.10 final has to offer the Linux 2.6.31-14-generic kernel, GNOME 2.28.1, X Server 1.6.4, OpenGL 3.2.0 NVIDIA 190.42, GCC 4.4.1, and an EXT4 file-system. The same package set is shared between the x86 and x86_64 editions, albeit a different CPU architecture. Like our other operating system comparisons, we are strictly looking at the “out of the box” performance for both Ubuntu and Mac OS X.

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Apple Wins Like a Champ – Psystar is Toast

by: admin - November 15th, 2009   Filed under: Apple, Tech News Add Comment

Psystar just got what’s coming to them in the California case. Here’s the order [PDF]. It’s a total massacre. Psystar’s first-sale defense went down in flames. Apple’s motion for summary judgment on copyright infringement and DMCA violation is granted. Apple prevailed also on its motion to seal.

Psystar’s motion for summary judgment on trademark infringement and trade dress is denied. So is its illusory motion for copyright misuse.

There are still issues remaining for trial, despite Psystar’s attempt to present everything now as being moot. Here’s what’s left to be decided at trial: Apple’s allegations of breach of contract; induced breach of contract, trademark infringement; trademark dilution; trade dress infringement; and state unfair competition under California Business and Professions Code § 17200; and common law unfair competition. See anything on that list that will be helpful to Psystar?

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