Tag: howto

Categories
Debated Explained

Reader Mail: Apple Phones One In?

Occasionally, comments require a full post responce; [today, Cyd wrote](https://vjarmy.com/archives/2006/07/links_for_20060706.php#c26283):

> Hi Dan,
> You’re my source for all that’s important techno-wise – congrats on the promotion!! But, I stumbled across [this](http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/06/mac-os-x-update-adds-regular-check-ins-with-apple-servers/) & need guidance – I feel betrayed – could you advise – is it time to worry about how Apple seems to be morphing over to the MS darkside? Thanks!

For those of you too busy to read about Yet Another Apple Outcry&tradem;, here’s the summary: version 10.4.7 of OS X was recently released. Amongst the fixes and new features, there was a new behavior that some people were upset about: a process called dashboardadvisoryd was “phoning home” to one of Apple’s servers multiple times a day.

Quickly, everyone, flip out! AIYEEEEEE!

Now that that’s out of our system: this is not worth ruining your undergarments over. The derived purpose of dashboardadvisoryd is to check to see if your widgets are up to date.

As you can read in the comments across the multiple blog posts that have been spawned about this ([Red Sweater Blog](http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/153/apple-phones-home-too) being a fairly reasonable one), the derived purpose of this is to cross-check version numbers of your widgets against Apple’s internal database. Presumably, this is done to *harden* the system, not act as Big Brother. But given the [recent fireworks](http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060705-7188.html) about Window’s WGA, it’s not surprising that anyone treats the slightest notion of phoning home as a violation of international law.

Phoning home can be a positive thing. Being able to email crash reports immediately to the developers is a boon for bug fixing. Phoning home is, in my experience, the most effective block against casual piracy, and as much as some may disagree, software developers need to eat. And being able to get update notifications – or in some cases, apply updates without even prompting the user – is win-win for end users (more stable software) as well as developers (less versions to provide support to). If it weren’t for automatic application of updates, I’d be spending more time updating Quicksilver than actually using it.

Speaking of automatic updates: having just received an absurd number of new Macs at work, I’d like to remind everyone that Software Update defaults to **on**. It checks once a week, and that has to transmit information about *every application you have installed*. Again: [dashboardadvisoryd transmits *nothing*](http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/153/apple-phones-home-too#comment-8638) identifying what’s on your machine during the routine checks. And Apple doesn’t ask you if you want to turn that on during setup.
Don’t get me wrong: I am not a fan of identifying information about my machine flying across the Internet to some corporation without my consent. Apple should notify users and give an easy option to turn it off, just like they did in the aftermath of the iTunes Ministore outcry.

But failing that for the time being, The Cult Of Mac Blog [has an easy remedy](http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/index.blog?entry_id=1515043). From Terminal, punch this in:

sudo mv /etc/mach_init.d/dashboardadvisoryd.plist /etc/mach_init.d/dashboardadvisoryd.plist.disabled

Then, reboot. “Problem” solved.

Finally, if you’re worried about phoning home from all of your apps – and a little security paranoia isn’t a bad thing – [Little Snitch](http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html) is indispensable for your Mac.

Categories
Best Of Explained

Another Quicksilver Tutorial: Gold Trigger

By this point, Quicksilver is a staple in the must-have applications for most OS X power users. It’s a feature packed, robust application with almost limitless potential to help you streamline your day to day computing tasks.

But even with the thousands and thousands of converts and evangelists, it’s hard to introduce someone new to Quicksilver. It’s difficult to describe, and even harder to train someone in. I learned this the hard way when I was showing the app to a fellow geek friend who, despite having heard a lot about QS, just couldn’t get her head around it.

The solution I found most effective is to latch onto a feature that based on my user sampling is woefully underused. It’s incredibly useful, so you’ll feel the effects of it immediately in your workflow. Best of all, it’s built on top of the subject-action-target model that QS is based on, so playing with it will grow your understanding of how Quicksilver works.

With that said, it’s time to fire up your copies of the [latest version](http://getqs.com/) and get ready to learn all about triggers.

Continue reading “Another Quicksilver Tutorial: Gold Trigger”
Categories
Best Of Explained

Start Your Own Workblog With Blosxom – 10 Minutes Or Less

If I’ve learned anything over the last six months, it’s that having a personal space to stash all your notes and categorize your project space is something I can no longer work without. Yes, I know I’ve been [prattling on](https://vjarmy.com/archives/2005/06/workblogging_my.php) about the benefits of having your own workblog or darkblog (or whatever you’d like to call it); now it’s time to spread the love.

If you’re the sort of person who can’t manage their paper stack, the kind of worker who finds themselves scrambling from notebook to notebook looking for documents from a year ago, or are part of the tough crowd of people who like to Get Things Done, this 10 minute tutorial is for you.

Continue reading “Start Your Own Workblog With Blosxom – 10 Minutes Or Less”