The Mac and BIOS

It seems that there is a lot of nonsense on the Internet regarding this subject. At the end of the day it makes no odds whether the system or method that Apple use to determine the way that Mac computers boot is a System BIOS or a EFI.

It could be stated that the reason that Macs can be used with an operating system other than OSX is that Apple had moved to Intel microprocessors and an EFI but it can also be stated that pc manufacturers have also moved to an EFI framework for the BIOS used in non-Mac computers.

To this end it remains that this is largely semantics and it really makes no difference to the efforts of those that want to run an alternate operating system on ether of the two hardware platforms.
The quest to run OSX on non-Apple hardware continues and the endless thread of questions from those that are having problems in getting Boot Camp to run Windows on their Macs continues.

Whether Boot Camp Assistant is a just a partition tool and not much else, whether there are better tools and why some seem to continue to have problems in getting it to work are all continuing in 2011.
The installation of a Hackintosh or the booting of OSX on ANY hardware revolves around the requirement for a bootable media for the operating system used for the initial setup is the issue at hand NOT the settings of the hardware (EFI/BIOS) - setting the SATA Type to AHCI for example.
Even the Lifehacker instructions detail the preparation of a thumb drive to boot the hardware into OSX and then subsequently install OSX onto the computers hard drive. The converse of this is Boot Camp where a Windows (or other OS) partition is created on the Mac computer and then there is an option to install that alternate operating system. In the second case, Boot Camp, the process that installs Windows (for example) is the Windows installer NOT anything supplied by Boot Camp.

In both cases, the installation of a Hackintosh on Windows hardware and the installation of Windows on Apple hardware, there may be changes made to the EFI settings but these are largely hidden from the user.

The final analysis of all of this is that you are better off buying a Mac if you want to run OSX - but then I have a different assessment of the time value of money.

Go to the Cloud

What the ____ does that mean?

MS have no clue what "the Cloud" is - I am not sure that I do!

This was in reaction to an ad seen on Channel 4 for Microsoft - seems like they are using the term "cloud" just so they can and so that it is fixed in the minds of "dumb" consumers.

I can't really see the significance of "the cloud" when it comes to sorting and editing photographs to post on your Facebook page. Nothing has really changed, apart from the usage of the word "cloud". Your interaction with on-line services such as social networking sites has always been "cloud" based.

I guess Microsoft want their customer base to be familiar with the term "cloud" before they make even big a deal about it. Perhaps they are worried about loosing market share to the likes of Google. Hotmail and GMail have always been "cloud".

Firesheep

Firesheep - a Firefox extension

Supposedly Firesheep can be used to monitor Wi-Fi traffic on public hotspots. There was November/December 2010 press coverage of this.

I have my suspicions that the coverage of Firesheep is a gigantic FUD campaign run by Ian and Eric to get people to use them as security consultants. They are participants in the Hackers Conferences (ShmooCon etc.).

• Facebook wants to be your Internet ID Card  - Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols ZDNet January 18, 2011
• The Shmoo Group
• Codebutler website -  run by Ian Gallagher and Eric Butler  - neg9.org
• Slides from Toorcon 12 Talk - see an example above

ShopWiki still ignores robots.txt

I seem to remember that this was a problem before (Oct/Nov 2006) that went away after putting the appropriate entry in robots.txt - this is what the ShopWiki help for webmasters suggests.

However, they seem to be ignoring the robots file again!

I have placed a Rewrite condition and rule in my server config. Let's see if that works - I won't publish what I did until I confirm that it works - there is more than enough of this on the Internet as it is!

Thank you BBC

• System pages on The Technology Muse
• iPlayer Pages
• DRM and Circumvention
• get_iplayer pages

Thank you BBC in changing the way that you handle the iPhone and related Apple products w.r.t. iPlayer you have uncovered a much better tool. A tool that is built using the same OSS technologies that iPlayer and Adobe AIR use to supply your content in a manner that you consider legitimate. As get_iplayer is built using the same core technologies as iPlayer it is not likely to get broken in the same way as Po-Ru's ipdl.

Po-Ru may well fix his excellent downloader but it seems that get_iplayer is a far more useful, but more complicated, tool. Once again the industry that is taking strides to protect its "intellectual Property" (please note the quotes) has shot itself in the foot.

While I can understand Phil Lewis' stance on continuing the development of get_iPlayer (LinuxCenter.net) [there could be a potential of consultancy there], we should all support David Woodhouse and the crew at infradead.org for taking over the fork.

Ian Hunter of the BBC is right to be concerned that non-iPlayer apps and devices that break their "rules - for example, by storing programmes beyond the 30 day limit, or playing them outside the UK."