E-TEI TECHNOLOGY

Snow Leopard is dangerous as it bites new errors that can hurt users of Apple computers.

Several Mac Users all over the world have experiences the largest fear lately. They have lost their personal documents. Their home files have been over written by an empty folder. This is the folder where the users store their documents, downloads, music, photos and so on.

If this was not all, they have gotten several settings defaulted to original factory settings, both on the system and on software installed on their computers.

The outcry has been large and users cry NOOOOOO! this should not happen to me – not on a Mac with the claimed safest operating system available on personal computers these days. According to Mac users that have experienced this nightmare the error comes when you log on as a guest and then afterwards log on as the administrator on the computer, the files are gone and only empty folders are left. The error is reported on those who have upgraded to Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6). Most of them have upgraded from Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5). On Mac forums all over the users are complaining that their files are gone, just like that. Apple has not been really communicative with the press around error messages around their operating system and just locks the jornalists out and normally do not comment any roumors about existing errors. International press services have not succeeded getting a message on this from Apple yet. However, they admitted to Cnet that Apple has a problem and told they are aware of the problems. They tell that these errors only occur in extremely rare cases and they work with a fix for this. However, this is an anonymous source from Apple, as it usually is the case when comments are given to the world outside Apple. If you have a Time Machine or other backup media running on your Apple computer, there is hope. For those without any backup or only have partial backups, they have a problem. Whatever the cause and how fast Apple can fix this problem with their newest prestige project OS X 10.6 or Snow Leopard, they have a reputation to defend, and they have got scratches in their paintwork with his case. Apple has published a massive upgrade package for their operating systems and software packages. All in all 58 weaknesses are to be patched up, and not since May 2009 has Apple given out so many upgrades and patches in one go. This is the sixth upgrade this year and has stopped support to Mac OS X 10.4 also known as Tiger. None of the upgrades this time were given to this version.



32 of the 58 vulnerabilities are indicated to be dangerous or critical by Apple. This means that these security holes could be used to run malicious codes to the operating system. 37 of the vulnerabilities was targeted directly to the operating system itself. Amongst the errors fixed were security holes in the AFP client, Apache Web server, Spotlight and Help Viewer. Other security holes were in software like Quicktime.

Several of the holes is related to components that are available in open source code. Apple has gotten critisism before to be to arrogant when it comes to patching of these codes. Andrew Storms in Ncircle Network Security says that Apple also this time is slow to react. He has looked at when the upgrades for these components came and when Apple put them out to users in their upgrade system and it shows a large delay from Apple’s side. According to his discveries Apache was patched in June this year, Fetchmail, LibXML and Subversion was patched in august and PHP and RADIUS in September. First now, in November did Apple release their update to their users. If Apple distributes elements in open source code, they have to do better than this as some of these elements are very important to upgrade and patch up.

It remains to see how Apple will handle issues like this in the future, if they are to be seen as an Operating System of the Future, or just fall in the fold of Microsoft Windows where it just gets more and more critisism for their lack of upgrades/patches to secure their systems. Apple has a reputation to take care of, a reputation they can not afford to loose, as they are not the market leader in operating systems, and need to compete on security and stabliity. Both the errors deleting files for users, and the patch frequency and speed questions these elements just now. It remains to see how hurt Apple will be from these news surfacing now – and it remains to see if the Snow Leopard of Apple can bite back and fend of its attackers.

Mac iSync has become very popular in recent times; the application innovated by Apple primarily for Mac devices, it allows you to synchronize different types of information on your Mac and other hand-held mobile devices.

The Mac iSync application is available to download from the Apple website to your Mac device, you can transfer important information from it to devices such as PDAs, iPods and even mobile phones (with Bluetooth). Similarly, you can also get information from these devices transferred to your Mac.

The Mac iSync allows you to sync multiple pieces of information on your computer and other devices such as iPod, mobile phones and many more. With it, you can also sync information across multiple computers. Synchronization makes your life easier as all changes that you make in any one of the devices are automatically transferred to other devices as well. This means, you always have the latest information, no matter which device you are currently working on.

Now, with the help of iSync, you can easily sync your mobile phone’s address book and calendar with your Mac Power Book. Also, get your mobile phone’s calendar transferred to iCal. This way you can be sure of not missing out any important meetings or appointments.

If you have a Mac (with the latest OS X) and are looking for iSync, first choose the devices that you want to synchronize with your Mac. Keep a notice of whether they are compatible with this application or not. Once you are sure that your device is compatible with iSync, simply follow the steps mentioned below for syncing:

- Get the device connected to your Mac.

- Open iSync that you find in the applications folder in the hard disk.

- Once the iSync window displays, click on ‘Sync Devices’. This will start your Mac to scan for a device nearby.

- After your Mac has successfully scanned the connected device, you will get an ‘Add Device’ window with its icon. A double click on this icon will add it to the iSync window.

- The iSync window now displays a pane which allows you to choose the information that you want to sync to your device. At this stage, you can also select the ‘Automatically synchronize when device is connected’ option.

The Problem

It is probable that in your home, more than one person owns an iPod / MP3 player of some description. It is also probable, that one person seems to have been delegated the task of updating everyone’s iPod and managing iTunes.

If you are reading this article…it is probable that you are at least fairly computer literate, and therefore probable that you are that lucky, lucky person in your household.

Sure, being the sole manager of your household’s music has its advantages – you have complete control of your music, you can update your own iPod whenever you want, and I suppose with some clever deviations from the truth you could loosely call yourself a DJ, a sure way to pick up girls in your local club.

However, once your mates start asking why the hell you have the latest McFly album (which you innocently downloaded for your girlfriend / sister / roommate) on your iPod…a better solution is needed.

The Proposal

If you have even a basic wireless network in your home then there is a simple solution. By using what is known as a ‘Network Attached Storage” (NAS), you can attach a hard drive to your home network, on which you can store all of your music.

When you used any of the computers in your house, they would detect the NAS as another hard drive on your computer, meaning that from any PC in the house you could:

Play music

Download music from the iTunes store or other (totally legal, of course) places

Create a new playlist for your iPod

Synchronise your iPod

Sound appealing? If so read on!

The Solution

Once you have purchased a NAS (I like that acronym…) you simply plug the Ethernet (usually yellow or blue) cable into your router or modem. If you have a PC connected to the router via Ethernet, as opposed to wirelessly, don’t worry – you don’t need to plug the NAS into the computer directly.

It is beyond the scope of this article to cover plugging the NAS to a plug – if you need help, give your household Microwave company a call…they seem to specialise in telling people how to plug things in (for legal reasons you may have to lie and say its your Microwave by the way….you could try running the term “Network Attached Storage” by them but…)

Anyway – when you power up your PC, the NAS should be pretty much plug and play – the NAS will show up as another hard drive (viewable from My Computer) or possibly a network location, depending on how it was designed.

Either way, now all you have to do is move your music to the new hard drive. First, go to iTunes, click the Advanced tab and then click “Consolidate Library” – this will simply make sure all your files are in one place (My Music for Windows by default), so if you have downloaded files to random places over the years, it will move them to My Music.

Now close iTunes and simply move or copy your music folder into it from your local drive. Once this is done, you may want to delete your local copy to save space, and so you can be sure iTunes is no longer using the ‘old’ library.

Now to add the new library to your home computers simply go to File (in iTunes of course) -> Add folder to library -> select the folder you just copied everything to.

You can now install iTunes on all PCs in your house, and link them to the NAS!

Extra: Choosing a NAS

NAS devices can be a simple “hard drive in a box with an Ethernet port bunged on the back” affair – in which case the only real factor in making a decision is getting a balance between cost and space.

I would recommend you be generous with the storage capacity – a 320gb model is little more expensive than a 160gb in most cases, and it will obviously allow for future expansion of your (totally legal) music library. In addition, you can also use it to store documents, backups etc in the future.

As stated earlier in the review, if you are looking for a simple NAS box, I’d recommend the Western Digital MyBook series, but LaCie and other companies also produce good devices.

If you have an old hard drive lying about, you should be able to find an adapter to give it an Ethernet port, but by the time you have bought that and an enclosure for it, it would probably be more cost effective to just get a separate NAS device.

If you have any questions , feel free to contact me at james AT pimp-my-ipod DOT com – this is my first article here but I intend to post more and maintain my existing ones to keep them up-to-date.