Macenstein

New Mac Trojan targets porn viewers (i.e. Everyone)

Intego has issued a rare “critical” security alert for Mac users pertaining to a new Trojan Horse application – primarily spread through visiting adult websites. Exploit: OSX.RSPlug.A Trojan Horse Discovered: October 30, 2007 Risk: Critical Description: A malicious Trojan Horse has been found on several pornography web sites, claiming to install a video codec necessary to view free pornographic videos on Macs. A great deal of spam has been posted to many Mac... Read More

Apple Store displaying Jail broken iPhone

Who can tell these days if anything on the web is real, what with these newfangled computers and all, but if this flickr pic is not ‘shopped, it’s a pretty damn funny shot. [UPDATE: Faithful Macenstein reader max just sent us HIS pics (see below) of the several iPhones he claims to have unlocked at the Biltmore, AZ Apple Store using jailbreakme.com. Seems to be an epidemic! The comments below have explained away the SMS message alert (the only real question mark... Read More

Are iCal’s days numbered?

I am SO sorry for that pun. Please forgive me – I honestly tried not to write it, I really did, but I am just not strong enough. And no, for the record, I do not really think iCal is on the way out, (after all, would Apple have finally fixed the icon if it didn’t think iCal had a long and rosy future ahead of it?) but is anyone else having trouble finding those iCal calendar subscriptions Apple used to make available? Or, for that matter any mention of iCal at all... Read More

Leopard fixes iCal’s icon

I’ve been running Leopard now for about 5 days, and until just now I really couldn’t come up with a good reason to recommend anyone rush out to upgrade to the latest OS. However, thanks to faithful Macenstein reader Bilbo, I feel confident Leopard is worth all of its 12,900 cents. Why? Well, notice anything different about this picture? That’s right! Bilbo pointed us to a posting over at as 2sentencesorless.com where they were astute enough to notice that Apple... Read More

Using Disk Warrior to repair flaky Leopard Installations

Faithful Macenstein reader Jon writes of with his recent experience in running Disk Warrior to help fix his upity Leopard install. Good morning! I upgraded to Leopard yesterday on two systems and have some information that might be useful to someone else. After upgrading my iMac, it acted “flaky.” Some System Preferences would hang as would other things. Before reverting to a backup, I ran DiskWarrior on it. It found a whole slew of inconsistencies introduced by the... Read More

WOW. Apple Sells Two Million Copies of Mac OS X Leopard in First Weekend

Who even knew there were 2 million Leopard compatible Macs out there?! Taken from the official Apple Press release: Apple today announced that it sold (or delivered in the case of maintenance agreements) over two million copies of Mac OS X Leopard since its release on Friday, far outpacing the first-weekend sales of Mac OS X Tiger, which was previously the most successful OS release in Apple’s history. Sales included copies sold at Apple’s retail stores, Apple... Read More

So, what do you know about AVCHD?

Macenstein has now gotten enough of a readership base that I feel the time has come to abuse our popularity and ask for a little technical advice. The question today has to do with whether or not I should buy an AVCHD camcorder, or, more accurately, whether I should return the one I just bought. In preparation for Halloween and multiple children’s birthday parties, this Saturday I went to Circuit City and picked up the Panasonic HDC-SD5 AVCHD camcorder. Without getting too... Read More

Now even ugly people can use Leopard’s iChat

Now ugly “facially challenged” people have TWO new visage-obscuring iChat themes to choose from that will allow them to communicate with the outside world! MacRumors.com forum member Zneo11 has created a brilliant theme compatible with Leopard’s iChat called “iPod Person”. As the name (and photos imply), “iPod Person” allows you to look like (if not dance like) those wacky iPod people we’ve all grown to know and tolerate. (And yes,... Read More

Rumor: I am buying a new MacBook on Tuesday

According to MacRumors, I will be buying a new MacBook this Tuesday, and I am very excited! Allegedly, my new MacBook will sport the updated Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics chip, which implies I will be getting the Santa Rosa chipset as well. I can neither confirm nor deny this rumor until I check with my wife (keeper of the checkbook), but reliable sources have confirmed to me that if I can somehow outline that a convincing case that a MacBook is necessary for “research... Read More

Apple releases Login & Keychain Update for Leopard

Well, it comes a day late for me… but hopefully this will help the rest of you would-be Leopard updaters. About the Login & Keychain Update 1.0 The Login & Keychain Update 1.0 for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is recommended for all Leopard installations. It addresses issues you may encounter when: Logging in with an account originally created in Mac OS X 10.1 or earlier that has a password of 8 or more characters. Connecting to some 802.11b/g wireless networks. Changing... Read More