Mac fanboys love to point out the fact that Windows users must waste immense systems resources to protect themselves from the millions of viruses, trojans, and spyware that live on the Internet. Even Apple makes light of this Windows malware problem in its commercial entitled Viruses in which Mac says to PC, “I run Mac OS 10 so I don’t have to worry about your spyware and viruses”. Sadly, however, Macs are no more protected from such attacks as is the Windows operating system. With holes and security vulnerabilities found in OS X and its default applications, such as Safari’s Zero-day exploit, Apple needs to start taking some defensive moves as it increases sales of its shinny machines to unsuspecting “switchers”.

Point in case, today SecureMac is reporting that the AppleScript.THT Trojan Horse runs hidden on a Mac and , “Allows a malicious user complete remote access to the system, can transmit system and user passwords, and can avoid detection by opening ports in the firewall and turning off system logging. Additionally, the AppleScript.THT Trojan horse can log keystrokes, take pictures with the built-in Apple iSight camera, take screenshots, and turn on file sharing. The Trojan horse exploits a recently discovered vulnerability with the Apple Remote Desktop Agent, which allows it to run as root.” Ouch! The trojan is distributed through web sites, iChat, and Limewire. This trojan only effects OS X 10.4 and 10.5.

There are a few ways to protect yourself from this trojan. One, do not download an AppleScript named ASthtv05 (60 KB in size), use sharing services such Limewire, or use a virus scanner such as SecureMac’s MacScan. SvenOnTech does not endorse this product; however, it would recommend it over Norton or McAfee as we have tested those on the Mac and they are horrible.

President of SecureMac, Nicholas Raba, cautions OS X users by telling SvenOnTech, “The increased number of threats, security advisories, and security updates is an indication that Mac users must pay attention to computer security issues. As Apple’s market share continues to grow, so will security research and hack attempts against OS X.”

Recommended reading: MacForensicsLab Malware document.

Have you ever needed to push your brainstorm session beyond the coma paced results you have gotten in the past? Need a better way to study for your final exam? Or you’re a Microsoft engineer and you’re trying to problem solve your company’s search technology lacking after the Yahoo fall-out? Well, then you need a mind map! According to Wikipedia, a mind map is, “A… diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.” Makes sense, huh? If not, look at the picture above and see if that helps.

If this all does make sense to you, then you’ll probably be happy to know that NovaMind has updated its well known mind mapping software with some snazzy Web 2.0 features such as glass branches that you can apply rectangular, chamfered, rounded or oval, that can, “Instantly add that extra visual pizzazz.” Additionally you can pictures with sweet looking reflections being able to apply the same effects as you can to the branches.

Themes have been updated as well with new themes being added to take advantage of the new visual styling features. According to NovaMinds, “This gives you professionally designed themes for your Mind Maps to make them look great by simply applying a theme.”

Take a look and start making your brain work easier!

I find myself always needing to text my team through the day while I sit at my computer. I pull my iPhone off its dock and type out the message. Every time I do it, I wished I could just send the message from my Mac Pro. Well, now I can…kind of.

For me specifically, I can’t since Apple found it necessary not to allow me to easily pair my MacBook Pro and my iPhone; however, others using a Bluetooth enabled phone most likely can. With the Quick-dial and Quick-send plug-in, you open Address Book and click on the number you want to send a text message to (usually the mobile number.) Up opens a window for you to text into and off it transfers to your phone which then sends the message as if it came from the phone. Nice, huh? Ya, real nice.

If you’d rather just call your contact from the Address Book, then select “Dial Number with…” and it’ll dial it up on your non-iPhone phone. This is a really nice trick if you don’t feel like going through your large address book on the phone itself when you can more quickly type the contacts name in the search box of Address Book that comes with OS X.

So for $10, you can add this cool plug-in and be the envy of all iPhone users. After a hiatus from Leopard, it once again works with the latest OS X (10.5.2 and higher). Enjoy, text, dial.

I have fond memories of the early 80s in which I sat patiently in front of my Technics dual tape deck waiting for the DJ to start the newest Def Leppard song on KSJO. Off my finger came from the pause button and on went the recording. I could see the tape moving inside the display window of my Maxell XL-IIS tape. Man, I got a lot of good tunes that way and I kind of miss watching the tape grow smaller on the left side while feeding the right side. Thankfully, toastycode has brought back that warm fuzzy feeling for me via TapeDeck.

TapeDeck allows you to easily record audio on your Mac from a single source as easily as just pressing that red Record button on the tape deck. You know the recording is happening from the “dancing” meter as well, get this, from the tape moving in the display window. Just like the old days! When you’re all done recording, TapeDeck files your “tape” in a shoe box with your added titles and allows for easy retrieval later by simply clicking on the tape. Very simple, very cool. You can share your recordings via email, send them to iTunes or to Apple TV.

TapeDeck isn’t meant to take sales from sophisticated software like WireTap Studio but rather fill in that little void for a simple to use single-source recordings. For $25, this is a straight up winner in my book. Now excuse me before I release the pause button as I prepare to record “Go” from Def Leppard’s new album, “Songs From The Sparkle Lounge“.

Most cell phone manufacturers do not offer a Macintosh solution, but nova media bridges the gap with FoneLink 2.0. The cell phone suite offers a familiar Mac-like solution to exchange files, synchronize data, manage SMS text messages and to backup and restore cell phone contents.

“FoneLink 2.0 is completely rewritten. It is fast, reliable, and offers a Bluetooth assistant to pair a cell phone to the Mac, if needed.” states Jan Fuellemann, PR spokesperson at nova media. “FoneLink 2.0 supports many cell phones from Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.”

FoneLink supports drag and drop throughout its new user interface and offers an activity monitor to display current and cued actions. The improved sync-manager now includes built-in support for Apple’s Sync Services technology to sync with Entourage, iCal and Address Book along with other Sync Services-savvy applications.

FoneLink can automatically convert music, videos and photos on a Mac to formats that are instantly viewable and playable on the cell phone. iTunes playlists can be synchronized and a ringtone editor allows the creation of individual ringtones from any compatible music file.

Last but not least, FoneLink has the ability to create a comprehensive backup of a cell phone’s data in the background. If the mobile phone or its data gets lost or damaged, it is easy to restore individual data files using drag and drop, or to restore a comprehensive backup using the restore command.

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY
FoneLink 2.0 is a free update from previous version. It requires Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later and is priced at Euro 33,57 plus VAT (US-$ 33,57 plus VAT for customers in the US and Canada). FoneLink is available for download today at nova media’s website http://www.novamedia.de/fonelink.

Now that the default stuff is out of the way and we started the series with Remote Buddy, let’s move on toward the right on SvenOnTech’s Leo’ Menu Bar. For this snip-it, I’ll touch on all the communication stuff.

The second icon in the menu bar is a blacked-out bird with a green LED on it. That, folks, is the multi-instant messenger client Adium. It allows you to connect to various IM servers such as Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, ICQ, Jabber (including Google Talk), Bonjour (for local LAN chatting), MySpace, and even junk, err, stuff from Lotus and Novell. It’s the Trillian of Mac, basically. Like Trillian, Adium lets you skin your look-n-feel in many, many, ways. I opted to go with the Aqualicious theme which gives me that iChat from Leopard feel. With a slew of other Xtras, such as Emoticons, Sound Sets, Status Icons, Service Icons, Menu Bar Icons, Plugins, and a ton of other stuff, you could lose a lot of time just customizing Adium let alone chatting with your friends. My only wish for Adium is for video conferencing (which as been in the works for over two years.) I’d like Skype chatting, too.

Speaking of Skype, you’ll notice that right next to the Adium icon. The green check mark with the little clock. Known more for its video and audio presentation than for text chatting, Skype brings Mac users into a new world of Voice over IP (VoIP). Allowing anyone with a Mac running Mac OS X or a PC running Windows XP or higher to talk for free, Skype is an incredible application that should be on anyones Menu Bar. If you’re wondering why I use Skype rather than iChat, that would be because of just the better video presentation and audio than iChat could hope to offer over AOL lines. iChat has a great interface, but AOL is its weakest link and thus, Skype is my way of going. You’ll also find Skype to be pretty much the default method for communication in the business world. While Skype does have some rough edges, over all, it is a great way to communicate to millions of people world wide for free.

Next in line on the communication bin is Dialectic. Formally John Phone Tools, Dialectic lets your Mac dial phone numbers for you. The little gear with a phone jack in the center on the Menu Bar lets you enter a phone number by hand or from the clipboard for dialing. You can search your Address Book for numbers as well. A slew of features are easily accessible from the Dialectic icon allowing you to decrease your phone call dialing times. No more “typos” on the keypad and no more tired fingers for your power users. The greatest thing about Dialectic is that it works with major VoIP carriers such as Vonage and Broadvoice. Simply select the number to dial and your phone rings with the connected call. Other dialing methods include sending to a Bluetooth device and even emitting the DMTF tones in your speakers to send to the phones mic. All very cool and very useful.

Last of the communication items is that little bird (between the white check mark and the music note). Birds tweet and so do I. Thus, using Twitterrific is a very helpful tool. Twitterrific keeps you up to date of those you’re following or lets you open the flood gates and shows every new tweet coming in. You can easily respond to tweets and click on embedded links from it’s nicely laid out pop-up (or HUD-like) window. At the bottom of that window, you can also quickly add your 140 characters of thought as well. Fully compatible with Growl, Twitterrific is one sweet tweet!

Apple has just pushed the 420 MB update to OS X 10.5, Leopard, to 10.5.3. The update includes fixes for Time Machine, Time Capsule, Spaces, iChat, large attachments dragged to Mail.app, Airport, Automater, Address Book, Parental Controls and VoiceOver. Full disclosure of updates can be found on Apple’s Support site.

You can update your Macintosh either via the Software Updates in your Apple Menu or by downloading the 420 MB Standalone file directly from Apple’s site for network installs to multiple Macs.

Since time is short today, I’ll get to the “gloss over” post on the Menu Bar stuff. Here I’ve darkened out the third-party menu items and left those that are from Apple easily seen. From left to right, you have .Mac Sync, AppleScripts, Spaces, System Volume, and Spotlight.

.Mac Sync keeps pretty much everything in sync between my MacBook Pro and Mac Pro. Sometimes one will wipe out the others address book or something silly but that’s why I back up nightly with SuperDuper, too. For most of my purposes, .Mac Sync works but I’d love to see more remote disk space and a little better robust services for weeding out systems and preventing them from stepping on each other.

AppleScripts menu item gives me easy access to my scripts which is nice. I guess I could disable the menu item and just use Quicksilver, but when you have a 30 inch screen, who cares.
Speaking of that 30 inch screen, I really don’t know why I have Spaces on my Menu Bar. I really don’t use it. I guess I figure if it’s there, I’ll end up using it. I never really got into virtual desktops not even back in my X-Windows days on top of SunOS. I’ve tried using it even on my MacBook Pro, but old habits die hard. Maybe someday I’ll use it.

System volume is self explained. It raises and lowers your volume. I keep it up on my Menu Bar so if my music doesn’t play and iTunes is all the way up, I can quickly look at the Menu Bar and see, “Aah, it’s muted!” Sure, I can figure that out by just pressing my volume key on my keyboard, but hey, I’m visual. I’m a guy.
Last, but not least, I use Spotlight. I never really used it until Leopard. With all its added features and neat tricks like performing mathematics (try putting this in: pi/-4), I use it all day long. It finds files fast and has even shown me some things on my hard drive I forgot about! Hopefully Apple will put advanced features in a future release, but for now, I’m happy with it.

So, there’s the gloss over stuff. I’ll be talking about my other menu items in the coming week, so stay tuned!