A Windows expert opts for a Mac life, part 2
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One month ago, Windows expert Scot Finnie initiated a three-month trial of a Mac as his primary machine. The transition was a little rocky, but once over that hump his Mac experience has been superb.
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The OSx86 Scene forum is offering full instructions on how to install the newest Mac OS on Windows PCs.
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Microsoft&#39;s Virtual PC software has been lauded by critics as a convenient way for Mac users to run Windows applications on their Macs, but what if you need to do the opposite?
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As the WWDC crowd awaits iPhone info, Apple's chief lays out new features in the upcoming OS. Also: Safari for Windows.
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Office for Mac 2008 incorrectly assigns ownership of some files, Microsoft has confirmed, creating a potential security problem for businesses installing the new application suite.Joel Bruner, a Chicago-based Mac consultant, was the first to notice the ownership snafu. "[Microsoft] moved to Apple's Package Maker (.pkg) installer files, good news for the enterprise, [but] unfortunately, they've created all the packages to install most all of the files with the owner set to 502."In a shop where employees run with limited privileges -- a practice very common in an enterprise -- and IT is the only user with full administrative rights, Office 2008's ownership assignment means that a user who wasn't supposed to have complete control over those files actually does. In other words, whomever is assigned user ID 502 has full read/write access to Office's files."So let's say, Mr. IT installs this on a user's machine where the first user is the admin[istrator] (501) and the standard user is Joe User (502)," said Bruner in a post to his blog on Monday. "Well, when after all's installed, it will give Joe User (502) ownership of these folders and their installed contents:/Library/Automator/ (if it doesn't exist already) /Library/Fonts/Microsoft /Library/Application Support/Microsoft /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008"The screw-up could present a corporate security problem, at least internally, said Bruner, if that Mac's second, standard user -- user 502 -- decides to make changes to the folders and files by, say, deleting some or moving others.A Microsoft developer left a comment at Bruner's blog confirming that the company knows about the problem. "The MacBU (Mac Business Unit) is aware of this issue," said Erik Schwiebert, a software design lead in the group.Microsoft, however, did not immediately respond to queries about how it intends to correct the problem and what users can do in the meantime.Other commenters at Bruner's blog hesitated to blame only Microsoft, however. "The truth is that this is a long-standing flaw in Apple's Installer," argued someone identified as Not Required. "Maybe Microsoft should have known better, but maybe Apple should also have improved their installer years ago. Apple clearly hasn't cared enough about smaller developers to make a fix, so hopefully Microsoft has a high enough profile that something finally gets done."In a follow-up post also on Monday, Bruner added that all the Office for Mac 2008 files owned by user 502 are also erroneously set as executable. "Now tell me does '/Microsoft Office 2008/Read Me.html' need to be executable for you to look at it?" asked Bruner. "Tick, tick, tick, *ding*! No. It does not."
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Windows? Linux? Mac OS? One day it won't matter.
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Right out of the box, your Mac can do a lot of things. But our selection of top utilities can make using it easier, safer and more fun.
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MacWorld Preview Neglected computer biz is owed a relaunch
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For the Wall Street Journal, Tim Hanrahan and Jason Fry write, &#147;In Monday&#146;s column, we predicted that the combination of the iPod&#146;s popularity and the increasing worry over viruses, security holes and spyware in Windows PCs will lead to the second coming of Apple Computer as a home-computing power. To say that struck a chord would be putting it mildly. Boy, did we ever get mail &#151; including a significant number of people who said that the iPod, Windows security concerns or a combination of the two had made them switch to a Mac or plan to do so.&#148; [Paid WSJ subscription required.] [Dec 23]
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Reviewing Windows Vista for St. Paul Pioneer Press, Julio Ojeda-Zapata concludes, âGet a Mac with [Mac] OS X unless your home-computer needs are Windows-specific, or if the fine Media Center is a must for you. You likely wonât regret a Vista-PC purchase, but Iâm betting youâll enjoy a Mac much more.â
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Twenty years on, one of the engineers who helped create the Mac writes his memoirs. But programmer Andy Hertzfeld's account is no dry paean to code: It's funny, engaging and deeply human. Wired News interview by Leander Kahney.
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First a little background. I stopped using a Mac in 1997, as Apple was transitioning to the new operating system. I started using the Mac again as my primary OS in late 2005, a little more than two years ago. This is the first new version of the OS to come out since I switched back. Based on a tour of the new features, pretty late at the end of a long week, it's safe to say an OS is still just an OS, the purpose of the OS is to stay out of your way until you need it. Leopard may be prettier than the last version, I'm not sure it is or isn't. Not sure I'll use many of the new features. For people who hadn't used VNC before, "screen sharing" would certainly be a big new feature if they're working in a networked enviroment. And maybe the new backup code will fit into my routine. I have some ideas about that. (Maybe I'll just have one computer on my LAN that is backed up and copy things there if I want them backed up.) File sharing is more convenient in Leopard, the shared computers are listed in every Finder window, and this is good. FInding the disks that are available on each of these computers is one step easier too.  The Preferences applicaiton appears largely unchanged, except the Networking section where a lot of functionality seems to be missing. I have to look at this more closely. The Download stack is lost on me since I don't use Safari or Apple's mail app. I would find it useful if Firefox had a similar feature (but they kind of do, I can direct all downloads to a specific folder). All in all, changes to an OS aren't that important. The action is in the apps, and for me, just a couple of primary ones, the web browser and my integrated writing and programming environment. It's been quite a while since there have been meaningful improvements to either, and those improvements would end up meaning a lot more to me than improvements to the OS. There isn't much you can do, after the Mac has been around for 23 years, that hasn't already been done.  Net-net, my first impression of Leopard is that it isn't a big deal one way or the other.  PS: I wonder if the next version of the OS will be called Leonard, to honor Leonard Rosenthal, a famous Mac developer in the 80s and 90s.
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John C. Welch writes for InformationWeek, âIâve yet to see anything in Vista that blows away the Mac OS, even a version of the Mac OS thatâs over a year old.â
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Scott Finnie writes for Computerworld, âIf I decide to go back to Windows when this Mac trial is over, returning to my ThinkPad T60 Core Duo may be a very difficult move. Iâve settled into the MacBook Pro 17 [inch] and Mac OS X 10.4.8 as if I was born to them. If the Mac OS doesnât mesmerize me to the point that I lose all interest in Windows, this piece of hardware might just do that all on its own.â
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Mac users seem quite excited about Microsoft's long-awaited-but-little-anticipated Vista. The new Intel Macs are great machines for running it. In Cult of Mac.
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Mac OS X âLeopard is powerful, polished and carefully conceived. Happy surprises, and very few disappointments, lie around every corner. This Leopard has more than 300 new spots â and most of them are bright ones,â declares David Pogue (New York Times). He points, for example, to two âroutine-changingâ features. Time Machine, which offers âthe shortest setup of any backup system in history.â And Quick Look, which lets you âview the contents of a documentâs icon at full size, right at the desktop, without having to open the program that created it.â Pogue says âitâs fantastic.â
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A few weeks ago I suggested you try a new Internet browser, Firefox. And many of you did. You liked it, for the most part. One thing I forgot to mention was Apple Macintosh users need to be running OS X to