It should come as no surprise by now that I am not a huge fan of Apple, the company. I do think they make excellent hardware, and my laptop is a MacBook Air running Windows 7. Their business practices, however, are pretty shady, and it’s my opinion that they hold nothing but contempt for their customers.

A perfect example is the new malware attack against OSX, MACDefender. For years, OSX users have crowed about how they didn’t have to worry about viruses or malware, because mommy Apple kept them safe with an operating system that was immune to such things.

No, it was never immune. It was simply never on the radar of malware authors because it wasn’t financially attactive enough to attack. With the hundreds of millions of unprotected Windows installations, it didn’t make sense to bother. Well, there’s enough OSX users out there now to make it worthwhile, and the attacks are starting.

Apple’s response? Sticking its fingers in its ears and shouting “LALALALA! I can’t hear you!”

ZDnet’s Ed Bott interviewed an AppleCare representative, and was told that Apple’s official stance is that they not assist their customers in removing the malware. In fact, in a follow-up article, Ed shows an internal memo that tells Apple support reps to not even acknowledge the existence of the malware on their computer, nor provide them with further help or escalate to a higher support level.

This is atrocious. Even Microsoft, which has a long history of operating system exploits and malware issues, has acknowledged the problems and even provides anti-malware protection for free, as well as providing online and phone support for security issues.

Don’t expect Apple to change their stance until they are shamed into doing it. Because they already have your money. And they know that their diehard fans will swallow anything they tell them, even if it’s against their own best interests.

Burying your head in the sand is NOT a viable form of customer support.

In one fell swoop, Apple updated its entire desktop line this morning. The 24-inch iMac now starts at $1,499 (the previous price of the 20-inch model) and the Mac Pro workstation gets the first Xeons in Intel’s Nehalem family. Meanwhile the Mac Mini is alive and well, and it gets new Core 2 Duos and Nvidia 9400M graphics. All of these updates were sorely-needed, and should give Apple desktops a quick performance boost, but since the alternative to viagra designs remain largely unchanged, they lack the wow factor usually associated with an Apple announcement.

Despite some initial reports stating the new iMacs had Core i7 quad-core processors, the new line continues to use the same dual-core mobile processors, which are much better-suited for the thin all-in-one. The new 20-inch iMac starts at $1,199 with a 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo T9550, 2GB of memory, Nvidia GeForce 9400M and a 320GB hard drive. The $1,499 24-inch version has the same processor and Nvidia integrated graphics, but with 4GB of memory and a 640GB hard drive. There are two pricier models with faster processors (up to a 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo), and you can configure any of them with up to 8GB of memory, 1TB of storage, and on the 24-inch models, Nvidia GeForce GT120/130 or AMD ATI Radeon HD 4850 discrete graphics. All of the new iMacs also have a Mini DisplayPort connector for attaching an external Apple Cinema display.

The aging Mac Mini was most in need of an overhaul, and the addition of Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics should make a big difference. The $599 starting configuration includes a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of memory, Nvidia integrated graphics and a 120GB hard drive. The $799 model has twice the memory and a 320GB hard drive, but is otherwise identical. Like the iMac, the Mac Mini now has Mini DisplayPort, as well as mini-DVI, for connecting an LCD display, plus five USB ports. There had long been rumors that Apple was planning to discontinue the Mac Mini, but instead it has dusted it off and re-packaged it as the “most energy efficient desktop in the world.” Apple claims the Mac Mini uses only 13 watts of idle power or 10 times less than a typical desktop.

The new iMacs and Mac Mini are both available immediately.

The big change in the Mac Pro is the addition of Nehalem quad-core processors. Intel announced the first Nehalem chips, the Core i7-920, i7-940 and i7-965 Extreme for desktops, last November, but it hasn’t officially released Xeon versions for servers and workstations. The Mac Pro now starts at $2,499 (it previously started at $2,799) with a 2.66GHz Xeon 3500 series quad-core processor, 3GB of memory, Nvidia GeForce GT 120 graphics with 512MB and a 640GB hard drive. A dual-processor configuration starts at $3,299 with two 2.26GHz quad-core Xeon 5500 series chips, 6GB of memory, Nvidia GeForce GT 120 graphics with 512MB and a 640GB hard drive.

You can configure the Mac Pro with faster processors, more memory, larger hard drives and ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics with 512MB. Apple says it will be up to twice as the old Mac Pros, which is probably a stretch, but because of many architectural changes in the Nehalem chips–including two threads per core (or 16 total threads in the 8-core Mac Pro)–these Mac Pros should be significantly faster. The new Mac Pros will be available starting next week.

January 27th, 2009

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady

In case you missed it, your Mac may be under attack. Especially if you have a taste for downloading Mac software that isn’t exactly, ahem, legal.

Last week I reported that a trojan horse called “iWorkServices” has was found in a pirated version of iWork ‘09 floating around on BitTorrent. Yesterday it came to light that another trojan has been found in a pirated version of Photoshop CS4.

Whether you play fast and loose with your software licenses is on your conscience (I certainly don’t recommend it) but one way to keep tabs on software that likes to call home is with cialis wholesale Objective Development’s Little Snitch 2.0 ($29.95). I hadn’t used it since version 1 and the recent rash of Mac trojans gave me a prefect excuse to try v.2.

Little Snitch informs you whenever a program attempts to establish an outgoing Internet connection. You can then choose to allow or deny this connection, or define a rule how to handle similar, future connection attempts. This reliably prevents private data from being sent out without your knowledge. Little Snitch runs inconspicuously in the background and it can also detect network related activity of viruses, trojans and other malware.

Once installed you’ll be amazed at all the things on your Mac that connect to the Internet in the background. Most of them probably have your approval, like all the apps that you allowed to “check for updates at startup?” and things like Software Update, dotmacsyncclient and Bonjour’s mDNSresponder. Those ones are safe to “allow” but if Little Snitch asks for approval for something unknown, deny the request then Google the name to see if it’s kosher.

Be warned though, the first time you install Little Snitch, you’ll be inundated with allow/deny requests and it can be exhaustive. (Hint: you can confirm an alert with Command-Return, Control-Return and Return-Escape). Clicking the Forever button helps you ignore approved outbound connections and it’s a small price to pay to be able to keep tabs on potentially malicious code.

A new Network Monitor feature (pictured) has been added in version 2 which alone is worth the price of admission. The beautifully designed window displays detailed information about all of the incoming and outgoing network traffic on your Mac. It only pops up when connections are active unless you check the small “stay visible” box at the top of the window. I find myself leaving the Network Monitor window visible and watching in awe as the packets flow by. If you decide to close it a subtle menu bar item will also keep you apprised.

Nice, tight bit of code. Highly recommended.