Friday December 18, 2009
Psystar today shut down all of its operations, marking the end of the Mac clone maker. Psystar's move to shut down operations and terminate all of its employees comes after a lengthy battle with Apple, and its latest loss in court.
On Tuesday, the federal court granted a permanent injunction against Psystar, and ordered the company not to engage in copying, selling, offering to sell, distributing, or creating derivative works of copyrighted Mac OS X software without authorization of the copyright holder.
Psystar has said it will appeal the latest decision, but the act of shutting down its operations does not bode well for the likely success of any appeal it may attempt.
Friday December 18, 2009
Adobe has released Lightroom 2.6, a free upgrade for Lightroom 2 users. The newest version of Lightroom 2 corrects an issue some PowerPC users had with the software creating artifacts in highlight areas of an image. These image artifacts occurred when using Lightroom 2.5 on a PowerPC (G5) Mac and opening images from specific cameras, notably Sony, Olympus, and Panasonic.
Adobe Lightroom
Camera Raw has been updated with support for 20 new cameras, including:
- Canon EOS 1D Mark IV
- Canon EOS 7D
- Canon PowerShot G11
- Canon PowerShot S90
- Leaf Aptus II 5
- Mamiya DM22, DM28, DM33, DM56, M18, M22, M31
- Nikon D3s
- Olympus E-P2
- Pentax K-x
- Panasonic FZ38
- Sigma DP1s
- Sony A500
- Sony A550
Thursday December 17, 2009
Maybe I'm showing my, umm, years of experience, but I have fond memories of double features at the local movie house. There was nothing better than whiling away a hot summer afternoon in an air-conditioned theater, watching two feature movies for the price of one.
iTunes Movies
Steve Jobs must have fond memories of double features, too, because he's brought them to the iTunes Movie Store in the form of Movie Bundles.
Movie Bundles start at $9.99 for double features, such as Steve Martin in 'L.A Story' and 'All of Me.' The price and the number of movies in a bundle go up from there, all the way to the X-Men Quadrilogy (X-Men; X2: X-Men Unite; X-Men: The Last Stand; and X-Men Origins: Wolverine) for $29.99.
I'm off to stock up on popcorn.
Wednesday December 16, 2009
Adobe has issued a security warning for Acrobat Reader 9.2 and Acrobat Pro 9.2. From Adobe's security bulletin:
Adobe has confirmed a critical vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.2 and earlier versions that could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. There are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild. Adobe recommends customers follow the mitigation guidance below until a patch is available.
Adobe plans to make available an update to Adobe Reader and Acrobat by January 12, 2010 to resolve the issue.
AFFECTED SOFTWARE VERSIONS
Adobe Reader 9.2 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX
Adobe Acrobat 9.2 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh
Waiting till January for an update to fix the issue isn't a great idea, especially for an exploit that Adobe says has been seen in the wild. For this reason, I highly recommend you either disable JavaScript functionality in Adobe Reader 9.2 and Adobe Acrobat Pro 9.2 or revert to an older version of Acrobat until the fix is issued by Adobe.
To Disable JavaScript
- Launch Acrobat
- Select 'Preferences' from the Acrobat menu.
- In the left-hand column, select the JavaScript category.
- Remove the check mark from the item labeled 'Enable Acrobat JavaScript.'
- Click 'OK.'