April 2012 - apple-list - University of Manitoba Mailing Lists

PERSPECTIVE: Security firm claims Mac security fall short may be exaggerated
by Wayne Billing 28 Apr '12

28 Apr '12

…from: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/04/kaspersky-trolls-apple-claims-mac… Security firm claims Mac security is "10 years behind" Microsoft By Chris Foresman | Published a day ago Not content to dispel the "myth" that Macs are impervious to malware last week, Kaspersky Lab CEO Eugene Kaspersky is sounding the Mac malware alarm again this week. During the Info Security 2012 conference, he claimed that Apple is 10 years behind Microsoft on the security front. "I think [Apple is] ten years behind Microsoft in terms of security," Kaspersky told CBR. "For many years I've been saying that from a security point of view there is no big difference between Mac and Windows. It's always been possible to develop Mac malware, but [Flashback] was a bit different. For example, it was asking questions about being installed on the system and, using vulnerabilities, it was able to get to the user mode without any alarms." Kaspersky suggested that OS X's relatively low incidence of malware over the last decade has caused Apple to fall behind, while the abundance of viruses, worms, and trojans targeting Windows forced Microsoft to step up its game. There's some truth behind that thinking—Windows 7 is by far the most secure operating system Redmond has built. But Apple hasn't entirely rested on its laurels for the last ten years. The company has added malware detection to OS X, continued to remove default installs of popular exploit vectors like Flash and Java, and added features like address space layout randomization (ASLR) and sandboxing to prevent one application exploit from affecting the whole system. Furthermore, Apple intends to improve security in the next version of OS X, dubbed Mountain Lion. Features like ASLR and sandboxing will have a more robust implementation in Mountain Lion. Meanwhile, Apple is also adding a new feature called GateKeeper, which allows users to limit software installs to either the Mac App Store or to only verified developers. The recent hubbub over the Flashback trojan has certainly raised concerns over the security of OS X, and we agree that Apple could do more to be responsive to malware threats when they are discovered. But to suggest Apple is "10 years behind" belies the efforts it has made to secure the OS from different angles.

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FYI: Office for Mac 2011: "Please upgrade the Office database" procedure
by billing 23 Apr '12

23 Apr '12

…from: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2702740 Share Article ID: 2702740 - Last Review: April 20, 2012 - Revision: 5.0 Outlook 2011 start error: "Please upgrade the Office database" View products that this article applies to. System Tip This article applies to a different operating system than the one you are using. Article content that may not be relevant to you is disabled. Expand all | Collapse all SYMPTOMS After Service Pack 2 (SP2) is installed for Office for Mac 2011, you may receive this message: Please upgrade the Office database …but an easier to follow explanation can be found at: http://www.macworld.com/article/1166434/undoing_the_damage_wrought_by_micro… Undoing the damage wrought by Microsoft's Outlook update by Christopher Breen, Macworld.com Apr 18, 2012 1:30 pm Reader Charles Dane has entered a hellish loop of Microsoft’s design. He writes: COMPLETE COVERAGE Review: Outlook for Mac 2011 SIMILAR ARTICLES Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011 Modernizing an email client Lion: The Complete Macworld Review Microsoft Entourage 2008 Panther Secrets Declassified Outlook 2011 tips that owe a debt to Entourage I installed the latest Office 2011 update and now I can’t open Outlook. When I try I’m told that I must update my Office database. I do that and some tool appears that updates my identity. When it completes I’m then told that there’s a problem with the Office database and I have to rebuild it. Okay, so I do that and then I’m told that my identity is older than the version of Outlook that I’m now using. The solution is to launch Outlook to rebuild the identity, but when i do that, the loop starts over. Help!! I wish you were the only affected party, but I’m afraid you’re not alone. I encountered the same problem as I’m sure many others did (particularly given that Microsoft issued a support documentthe same day the latest upgrade shipped that explains the way out). This is a document you should read as it outlines every inconvenient step you must take to make Outlook usable again. For those non-Outlook-using readers following along who take some pleasure in the discomfort of others, here’s the gist. First, you quit Outlook. Then, locate the Office 2011 Identities folder, found via this path—youruserfolder/Documents/Microsoft User Data. Duplicate the Office 2011 Identities folder. (My folder included more than 650,000 items that consumed 20.6GB of data. It took nearly 50 minutes to duplicate.) This is simply a backup copy should something go wrong. Now that you have a backup copy, launch Outlook while holding down the Option key to open the Microsoft Database Utility. In that window click the Plus (+) button to create a new identity—it will be called Identity 1 by default. Don’t set this identify as the default and close the utility window. Return to the Microsoft User Data folder inside your Documents folder, open the original Office 2011 Identities folder, and seek out the Identity 1 folder. Open this folder and then open the Data Records folder within. While holding down the Control key click on the Database Headers folder and choose the Copy Database Headers command from the resulting menu. Once you've replaced Outlook's Database Headers with a working copy, you can rebuild your main identity's database Return to the Office 2011 Identities folder, open the Main Identity folder, and open its Data Records folder. Choose Paste Item from the Finder's Edit menu and then click Replace All in the alert that appears. Not done yet. Now, launch Outlook with the Option key held down to open the Microsoft Database Utility. Choose the Main Identity (or whatever you’ve called your main identity) and click the Rebuild button. If you have a lot of items the rebuild process can take a very long time—time you might devote to thinking about moving to a different email client that doesn’t demand this kind of rigmarole. Once the database has been rebuilt you can go back to using Outlook. Wayne Billing Classroom Technology Support Audio Visual and Classroom Technology Support 130 Machray Hall Building 474-6649 474-7625 (fax) Wayne_Billing(a)umanitoba.ca

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INTEREST: Oracle, Google wrangle over Android's use of JAVA
by billing 03 Apr '12

03 Apr '12

….from: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/google-oracle-going-to-trial-as-settlement-ta… Google, Oracle going to trial as settlement talks collapse By Rachel King | April 2, 2012, 1:22pm PDT Summary: After trying to give an out-of-court settlement one last chance, it is definite that Google and Oracle will now go to trial. It’s on: Google and Oracle are set to go to trial two weeks from today now that a last-ditch attempt at a settlement has failed. Last week, Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal asked both parties to give settlement talks another chance, with a decision required by April 9. Even though they had another week, it must have been clear that a settlement just isn’t in the cards. Google did propose an offer that included a cut of Android’s revenue stream through 2018, which was a stipulation for damages if (and only if) Oracle prevails on patent infringement. Grewal — the same judge who presided over similarly failed settlement talks last fall — issued a memo on Monday explained that “the parties have reached an irreconcilable impasse in their settlement discussions with the undersigned,” and that “no further conferences shall be convened.” Even more simply, Grewal wrote “in the end, some cases just need to be tried.” He also wished them both “good luck” when Google and Oracle’s legal teams meet up at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco in front of Judge William H. Alsup on April 16. This latest turn of events is just one of many in the patent infringement battle between Oracle and Google. Oracle is suing Google over Java-related patents and technology that appear on the Android mobile operating system. Google’s lawyers have repeatedly responded by discussing Google’s relationship with Sun Microsystems, Java’s creator now owned by Oracle. Google argued that Sun was a big fan of Android from the start, seeing it as a tool to “spread news and word about Java.” Since last July, there have been a number of delays to getting a trial underway with proposed failed start dates in October 2011 and March 2012.

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