macOS

Podcast

Former Apple Software Engineer David Shayer - BGM Interview

John Martellaro · · 1 Comment

David Shayer worked as an Apple software engineer for 18 years. He worked on the Apple Watch, iPod, and Radar, Apple’s bug tracking system, among other projects. He was an independent Mac software developer for a decade, and clients included Apple, Microsoft, Symantec and the U.S. Navy.

David told about how he learned to program, some of which was on an Apple II and some on a Mac in the 1980s. He went on to tell me about how he was hired by Apple. Twice. The second time he worked on the iPod file system and database. In the process he learned how Apple products are designed, and that included some great stories about Steve Jobs, his design sense, and the iPod team’s interaction with Jobs. There were other fascinating Steve Jobs stories. We finished with his revealing article about how Apple OS software development works.

Tips

macOS: Getting Rid of the Windows EFI Boot Entry

Tomatmos ·

When you delete a Windows partition, but don’t use Boot Camp Assistant to remove the installation, something pesky gets left behind. In this Quick Tip, Jeff Butts shows how to delete the leftover EFI Boot entry from when you dual-booted between macOS and Windows.

Link

‘LastResort’, the Story Behind the Mac’s Mysterious Font

Andrew Orr ·

Ernie Smith wrote a profile of the Mac font called LastResort. It only appears when the OS can’t find an appropriate character of the system font.

But LastResort is a more interesting font than it seems. It’s essentially the typography form of hieroglyphics, showing unusual characters intended for people building fonts to have some sort of error system that helps them figure out what might be missing from their typeface.

A great write up of a font I had never heard of before.

Podcast

Physics Professor Dr. Brad Marston - BGM Interview

John Martellaro · · 1 Comment

Dr. Brad Marston is a professor of physics at Brown University and Associate Director of the Brown Theoretical Physics Center. A graduate of Caltech, he received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and did postdoctoral work at Cornell University. Brad is an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and is also an Apple developer.

Brad and I chatted about his computational and theoretical physics career. At Caltech, he attended physics classes taught by two of his heroes, the legendary physicists Dr. Richard Feynman and Dr. Kip Thorne. There, he developed his interest in quantum physics and computational models. Later, when he left Sun workstations behind, he adopted the UNIX-based Mac and Xcode as his tools of choice. That’s what he used to build his visual climate model, GCM, already compiled for Apple Silicon. Tune in and geek out with me and this amazing physicist and Mac guru.

Podcast

IT Security Manager, NIST, Bob Gendler - BGM Interview

John Martellaro · · 1 Comment

Bob Gendler is an IT Specialist in the Apple world and a Jamf guru. He holds a B.S. degree in Information Technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is now part of the Mac Management team at NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in Washington, D.C.

From a very early age, Bob fell into the world of Apple starting with an Apple IIgs and, as a teenager, a Power Mac 6100. Quickly, as an undergraduate, his specialty became system administration, and, later, that served him well landing the job at NIST. Bob filled me in on his latest project, the “macOS Security Compliance Project,” and the security problem the community faced with macOS. Basically, the new GitHub project leverages a library of scriptable actions which are mapped to compliance requirements in existing security guides or used to develop customized guidance. Bob nicely explains this crucial tool, his team, and who would benefit.

Link

Starting Today Get ’Magic: The Gathering Arena’ on Mac

Andrew Orr ·

Starting today, gamers can download “Magic: The Gathering Arena” on Mac through the Epic Games Store.

Our macOS release will feature full cross-platform support in parity with our Windows client, including the upcoming release of Core Set 2021. New and current players will find the same cards, formats, events, play queues, and features on macOS as they can on Windows.

News

New: The macOS Security Compliance Project

John Martellaro ·

The objective of this project is to develop an extensible, modern approach to security guidance that can be used by any organization to adhere to security compliance frameworks and policy. Project outputs include scripts, documentation, and configuration profile payloads

Podcast

Five Catalina Volumes and Foolproof Migration — Mac Geek Gab 819

John F. Braun & Dave Hamilton · · Add Comment

Have you ever noticed your Mac tells you Catalina uses up 5 volumes? How about encrypting specific files and folders? And what about that cable modem password…should you change it? These are just a few of the questions answered.

This episode is chock full of everything you love: Quick Tips, Cool Stuff Found, and yes, answers to your questions! Send yours in to [email protected], and now press play to listen and learn at least five new things.

Link

Security Researcher Believes Mac Backdoor ‘Tiny Shell” Still Being Used

Andrew Orr ·

Mac security researcher Jaron Bradley says he believes hackers are still using an open source macOS backdoor called “Tiny SHell.”

Tinyshell is an open source tool that operates like a shady version of SSH. It’s been a while since I’ve encountered a new sample, but I fully believe attackers are still out there using it. If you watched the Macdoored talk then you’ve seen what attackers are doing “post mortem” with this tool. However, no technical details have been discussed about the malware itself.