• The competition (CanSecWest) was held last February; Apple should’ve closed the hole exploited by now
• The exploit became successful in the second day of competition, which featured a halved $10,000
• That’s because on the first day carrying a $20,000 pot, no one could successfully compromise any system
• Systems available to hack were running: Linux, Mac OS X, Vista

Now you can watch the report here (opens in a new window/tab).

In any case, it’s probably good news that, despite a $20,000 prize and the attention of some experienced exploiters, no computing system proved relatively easy to compromise. Perhaps this is a reminder to keep our systems running smoothly and practice safe computing habits, to keep the gates secure?

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Another good impression Snow Leopard makes is the price of the upgrade, which for a single-user license is only $29. It’s thus very affordable for Leopard and Tiger (10.4) users to make their OS up-to-date. Even better is the Family Pack variant, which carries 5 licenses for computers within one household. If you’d like to bundle iLife and iWork with your Snow Leopard installation, there’s the single-user Mac Box Set ($169) and its own Family Pack ($229).

The only worry I have about Snow Leopard is how it cuts off many loyal Apple customers, by being the first OS to run only on Intel-based Macs. This is still good news, as it marks the final completion of Apple’s transition to Intel, away from the poorer PowerPC platform. Ultimately however, I’m not really the best guy to share his thoughts on Snow Leopard. Long-time readers know that I’m usually irreverently critical of Apple’s practices and exclusivity-inducing marketing. So if any of you have tried out Snow Leopard over the last week, feel free to share your thoughts below.

Visit the Apple Store to buy Snow Leopard

(Image courtesy Tom’s Hardware Forums)

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So much just to emulate this?

Go to the root of your hard drive (double-click on it) and open System: Library: CoreServices: Menu Extras. Inside that window, double-click on the icon called Eject.menu. You may want to hold down the OPTION key and drag it to the desktop to make a copy there, but once you start the application, it will put an eject symbol in the right side of the white menu bar above the desktop. When you click on it, you just have to choose Open SuperDrive/DVD Drive/CD etc. or Close SuperDrive… It also gives you the choice of F12, but unless you reassign the EXPOSE action that F12 executes, you won’t be able to use that.

If the eject button disappears on restart or shutdown, just put the copy of the eject.menu file in the Applications folder and then open your System Preferences. In there, go to the USERS section, highlight your account and click on the LOGIN ITEMS tab. Click on the + symbol and then use the window that pops up to navigate to the Applications folder and choose Eject.menu and it will be added to the list of login/start up programs to automatically execute every time you reboot or start up.

Bla bla bla bla bla… these instructions are very similar to a Windows-only procedure somewhat infamous for complication: Changing Your Network IP Address.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

So you come out with a new ad, in response to your competitor’s attempts to change perceptions over a much-maligned product. Do you concentrate on your strengths, re-highlight your competitor’s weaknesses, or simply go with a cleverly-worded lie?

Reportedly, Apple decided to go for the latter. In a recent ad, they implied that Microsoft spent more money on marketing their products, rather than improving them. According to WinGeek: “…since Apple brought it up, they spend only .7 cents less per sales $1 on Advertising than Microsoft and spend a fraction of what Microsoft spends on improving its products.” For every dollar Microsoft makes, it spends 13.9% on R&D, compared to Apple’s 3.3%.

The full dirt—as well as the sources of WinGeek’s research—are available here.

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Easier done than said. The staff of The Cult of Mac is probably going apeshit over their newest toy, an Asus Eee PC 1000H that runs on Mac OS X. Interesting how those dock icons practically fill-up the entire low-resolution screen. And what about performance?

“Performance is on par with my MacBook,” says Gilbertson. “Benchmark-wise, I think it comes in around the equivalent of a G5.”

Ha Apple! Expect mass defections as people decide to go for the cheap Asus alternative. Oh wait, maybe that’s why you prohibit people from installing your dear OS on non Apple machinery, right?

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