macOS Archive

"Apple extended the courtesy of meeting with me one day after my column on the closing of the OS X x86 kernel source code was published online. To sum up Apple's objections, they felt I had given a year-old story a fresh coat of paint and sensationalized it for an audience that wasn't affected by it. Yet no story is more timely, or more broadly relevant, than this one." Tom Yager, who raised concerns over the closed-source Intel half of the MacOS, details why he was so concerned. "The kernel will open up again, this tempest will fade away, and I'll be glad for it. What will continue to concern me so deeply is that Apple thought it would be OK, that nobody would notice or care." Note: The 2nd link was incorrect, it is fixed now. Excusez-moi.

"F-Script is a lightweight open-source scripting layer specifically designed for the Mac OS X object system (i.e. Cocoa). F-Script provides scripting and interactive access to Cocoa frameworks and custom Objective-C objects. It aims to be a useful and fun tool for both beginners and experts, allowing interactively exploring, testing and using Cocoa-based objects and frameworks."

"There's quite a few interesting tidbits of information surrounding 'Universal' or fat binaries. First of all, this isn't the first time Apple has packaged binaries for multiple architectures into one file. The current scheme, however, was used by NeXT to provide binaries for multiple architectures, and again by Apple in to provide support for both 32 and 64-bit PowerPC architectures, well before the term Universal Binary was being thrown around."

"This paper discusses the security implications of Mach being integrated with the Mac OS X kernel. A few examples are used to illustrate how Mach support can be used to bypass some of the BSD security features, such as securelevel. Furthermore, examples are given that show how Mach functions can be used to supplement the limited ptrace functionality included in Mac OS X."

Objective-C/Cocoa is the dominant language/API for Apple's OS X. Java is the dominant language for Web portals and other Internet services. So wouldn't it make sense for these two technologies to talk to each other? Marcus Zarra walks you through a simple solution to get these two technologies communicating.

"I kept my Linux desktop, but moved most of my daily work to the laptop. I also repartitioned my hard drive and reinstalled Mac OS X to give myself space to use Linux/PPC. I tried to get used to Mac OS X for six months, but when a new version of XFree86 came out and supported my video card fully, I finally switched away from Mac OS X. Why? There are plenty of reasons, most of them related to my primary goal."

Objective-C and Cocoa is the predominate language/framework on the OS X operating system, but it is fairly uncommon otherwise. One way to enable an application written in this language to communicate with applications written for other platforms is via the universal XML. Marcus Zarra walks you through constructing, transmitting, and deconstructing an XML document using Objective-C and Cocoa.

Lately, OSX, or more specifically its kernel, has had a lot of attention. Benchmarks made by AnandTech have shown that OSX' kernel has some serious performance issues. As a result, some have uttered the idea Apple might replace the kernel of the MacOS with another kernel-- Linux seems, to them, the most viable option. Secondly, there have been speculations that Apple is closing the x86 version of its kernel. Note: Sunday Eve Column.

"Thanks to pirates, or rather the fear of them, the Intel edition of Apple's OS X is now a proprietary operating system. Mac developers and power users no longer have the freedom to alter, rebuild, and replace the OS X kernel from source code. Stripped of openness, it no longer possesses the quality that elevated Linux to its status as the second most popular commercial OS."

Apple's security update train rumbled into the station late May 11 with fixes for a whopping 43 Mac OS X and QuickTime vulnerabilities. The company's Security Update 2006-003 patches 31 flaws in the Mac OS X, most of them serious enough to cause 'arbitrary code execution attacks'. Apple also shipped QuickTime 7.1 as a major security overhaul to correct 12 code execution and denial-of-service flaws.

The recent ruckus about the claimed growing vulnerability of Mac OSX from certain sources has caused an indignant outcry from Mac advocates who claim the stories are mostly media hype. According to an expert in Unix and Linux systems, the outcry is not without justification. Con Zymaris has been working with Unix systems for nearly three decades and for the past 15 years has been running a consultancy on open source software implementation. Zymaris says that, while it is true that a Mac can get infected with a virus, it is not easy and it is not likely to cause much damage. What's more, Mac users don't need to install firewalls and anti-virus software.

"Just because you use a Macintosh, don't think you're any more secure than a Wintel user. A sharp increase in the number of flaws being discovered in Mac OS X suggests that the Apple operating system may soon be every bit as prone to malicious attacks as Windows systems, according to a report from the SANS Institute, a security training and research firm." This time no MSNBC, boys and girls, this is MacWorld.com. In the meantime, have fun with Apple's new commercials.

"Mac OS X includes many open source projects that contribute to the stability and robustness of the system. While Apple provides working versions of these for both PowerPC and Intel architectures, sometimes you want to build your own to tune performance or enable custom features. Plus, distributing a single binary is often preferable to keeping track of separate, architecture-specific binaries. These objectives can be accomplished by building the project as a Universal Binary, a file that contains code for both the PowerPC and Intel architectures." This article shows how to use Xcode (using Xcode 2.2.1) to construct a make-based project that builds OpenSSL as a Universal Binary."

Secunia said there are potential vulnerabilities in the Mac OS X operating system, first noticed by Tom Ferris. The firm described the holes as 'highly critical', meaning that systems could be compromised if crooks dive in. Secunia said the potential holes are in version 10.4.6, but other versions might be affected too.