Some folks have been actively working toward getting OSX to run reliably on standard PC hardware. My favorite part of the Engadget article is "OSX isn’t really built for this hardware". Seeing folks try to get a great OS running on lots of different hardware configurations makes me appreciate Windows (and Linux) a little more. I’m betting an enormous number of problems exist in OSX that would be surfaced if Apple decided to license their software separate from their hardware. Alas, I don’t see this happening anytime soon if at all.

I have to admit I love the new Mac Vs. PC claymation advertisement. The Bumble used to scare me when I was little, so I laughed. The only thing I would do to change it is add a clay version of Cousin Eddie from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

I recently read this article titled A more secure OSX before Leopard, aimed at hardening the default installation. The important thing to me about this article is that each approach taken to harden OSX Leopard is what Windows Vista employs out-of-the-box.

Operate as a non-root user:

Windows Vista by default employs User Account Control (UAC) to address this issue. In past versions of Windows client, the default user has administrative privileges, but in Vista, even administrator is not a true administrator without user elevation for certain system operations. The process for creating a new non-root user in OSX is not without pain, but a step in the right direction. And, what do you know, the new non-root user is prompted for root credentials whenever certain system tasks are attempted, much like the default Vista behavior.

Enable the network firewall:

If you can’t find the firewall configuration in OSX, that’s because it is non-intuitively placed in the sharing preference pane. The author points out that even if you enable all of the options, you still have some work to do using the command-line ipfw tool. Not consumer friendly. Apple has not innovated at all in this area, and the default firewall settings do not provide consumer-friendly insight to end users, but enabling the defaults is definitely a step in the out-of-box Vista direction.

User comments to the article provide other valuable information for making OSX more secure, so I encourage folks who aren’t booting their MacBook into Vista to take the steps to be more secure.

Windows Vista does do a good job of being secure out-of-the box, but looking forward, there is a lot of work ahead to improve/balance usability in the face of such security improvements.

iTheater is an open source alternative to Apple’s FrontRow application. iTheater, like FrontRow, limits your multimedia experience to the Mac (unless your Mac is connected to a television), and is essentially a 10 foot experience of iTunes and Quicktime. The user interface is similar to the upcoming Apple TV, which is specifically designed to extend the iTunes experience to TVs around the house via wired or wireless networks. None of these solutions currently support live or recorded TV; only content stored in iTunes.

It’s great to see these applications becoming more wide spread.

Looking forward, it would be great if the open source developer community exposed iTheater and the iTunes library it consumes via standards-based protocols, i.e. those defined by the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) such that the application could not only be used to browse and play media libraries on other media servers (like Windows Media Player), but it could act as a media server for other standards-based media players. Doing this would certainly give iTheater an advantage over Apple’s FrontRow. 

Engadget is usually on top of Apple rhetoric, so I wasn’t surprised to hear a report from Apple issuing a warning to iTunes users not to upgrade to Vista.

I find this really funny, especially from Apple. Microsoft has been more transparent with developers this latest release of Windows than any other release in the past. Every few months a technology preview was released and available to developers (including Apple) so they could ensure their software would not have any problems.

In reality, Apple should be apologizing for letting down the majority of iTunes users. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about the ones running Windows!

Windows takes significant pains to ensure application compatibility across releases. Apple has never been this graceful for their developer community; sometimes breaking highly visible applications across OSX releases. Mike Flasko, a peer of mine, wrote an interesting post about this some time back that is definitely worth a read. This childish behavior from Apple is getting sad and is only hurting their credibility, and worst of all their users.

Granted, Microsoft is not perfect either; however, iTunes for Apple is akin to Office for Microsoft. Users should expect a flagship application that supports a major business to just work across releases.

Apple folks; thanks for eventually getting around to supporting your users with an update (which is now available). It didn’t take much time to produce a fix; which begs the question - why no be proactive in the first place? I have a bunch of thoughts, but what do you think?

I post fairly often on the core Windows networking blog, but often want to share other topics both professionally and personally. I’ll use this blog as my primary means to not only talk about the things I do in my life, but also to professionally answer all the questions I hear from customers and partners I interact with. I will also frequently comment on other online writings which I feel need clarification, or I agree/disagree with. I’ll share my thoughts on products, strategies, and even gaps in various markets.

If you have questions or want to comment on anything I write here, please feel free.