Oliver Siodmak’s Rants & Raves

No one can accuse Steve Jobs of not having a sense of humor. As he kicked-off the Apple Let’s Rock event in San Francisco, the screen read, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” in reference to Bloomberg Financial Newswire accidentally posting his obituary to the internet. You can read the posting on Gawker’s web site.

One of the features I normally implement on my Mac .. especially my MacBook Pro .. is the firmware password. By activating the firmware password you prevent someone from rebooting your mac using an external drive or forcing your machine into “firewire” mode which allows then to use your mac as a large hard drive.


While this doesn’t prevent someone from ripping open your machine and stealing your hard drive, it does prevent the casual thief from trying to steal files off of your machine while you are at lunch.


Unfortunately, not all Firmware Password Utility programs from Apple are the same. And with the release of Leopard 10.5, you have to know the secret to where the utility file is located. After a heart stopping experience (A.K.A. using the wrong utility from an old Start-Up Disk), I was able to learn the double-secret hidden location of the file and how to use the utility.


Before you attempt to apply this password on your machine, I strongly recommend that you read Apple Knowledge-base article #106482.


While the information I am providing here provides new information (from Apple Support) on locating and implementing the Apple Firmware Password Utility for Intel-based machines running Leopard 10.5, the article does provide a thorough of the program. I have no doubt Apple will be updating the #106482 article at some point in the near future.


Let’s get down to it. You’ve decided that implementing a firmware password on your machine is a good thing.


You will need the following items:

• Intel-Based Mac with Leopard 10.5 installed
• Leopard 10.5 Installation DVD
• Access to an Administrator account on the machine

Implementation steps:

1. Boot the Mac and log into the Administrator account
2. Load the Leopard 10.5 DVD in the DVD drive
3. Once the DVD loads, go to the Finder
4. From the GO menu pull-down, select “Go to Folder …”
5. When the Go To Folder dialog box appears, enter “/Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/Applications/Utilities/”
6. When the Finder window appears, scroll down the list until you see a program called “Firmware Password Utility”
7. Drag this file to your /Applications/Utilities directory on your Macintosh HD (or whatever you call your primary hard drive)
8. Navigate to the /Applications/Utilities directory and run the “Firmware Password Utility” program
9. The dialog box that appears with describe what this utility will do and warn you that you must be using an account with Administrator capabilties to run this program.
10. Click the “Change” button
11. A new dialog box will appear allowing you to activate the firmware security and set a password following dialog box will appear
12. To activate the utility, mark the “Require password to change firmware settings” check box and enter a password
13. As with any administrative password on your system … Don’t Lose It!

 

I will warn you that while the dialog box for this utility is simple, it is very powerful. Once the Firmware password is in place you can not boot of a CD or an alternate drive unless you have the Firmware password.


Read the above referenced Apple Knowledge-base article carefully.


Best of luck .. hope you found this helpful.

I just knew this was going to happen. I rented Gross Point Blank from the Apple iTunes Store a month ago thinking, “hey this would be great to watch on the way back from LA.” Unfortunately I had to work on the flight and I never got a chance to watch the movie. No problem I thought .. I still have another 29 days. But .. what I failed to consider was how fast 29 days can pass.

So yesterday when I checked my email after I boarded a flight from Boston back to NYC, my iPhone reminded me I only have 2 days left to watch this movie before it will be deleted. My big presentation behind me I kicked back and started watching the movie. Which for anyone who has an iPhone or iTouch knows .. is a really enjoyable experience. Unfortunately, the flight was only 45 minutes so I only got up to the part where John Cussack goes back to his home town only to discover that his parent’s house is gone and replaced with a convenience store. I figured .. I’ll watch the rest of it tomorrow. ERRRRRRRR! Wrong answer. I let 24 hours pass and the movie was gone.

I am sooooo .. not so happy. I understand the need to set a time limit on movie rentals but would it have killed the movie studios to let Apple set the expiration time to 48 hours vs 24? I mean really? Would it have hurt?

BTW .. if anyone can tell me what happens at the end of the movie I’d really appreciate it.

Edwin Tofslie has created a very simple image that visually illustrates the evolution of Apple’s products from the Apple I to the newly announced iPhone.  Viewing all the images I find myself saying, “I owned that, used that, owned that … “.

You can check out the image at Tolfslie.com

The following Macs have 802.11n hardware built-in but not activated:

• MacBook Pro with Intel Core 2 Duo
• MacBook with Intel Core 2 Duo
• Mac Pro with AirPort Extreme option
• iMac with Intel Core 2 Duo (except the 17-inch, 1.83GHz iMac)

To enable it, you need the Apple Extreme 802.11n Enabler software that Apple includes with the new Airport Extreme base station or purchase the software separately for $1.99 from the Apple Online Store.  I recently purchased the new base station, installed the configuration software and had the new unit operational in minutes.  I could not however tell if the 802.11n support was enabled.  The software installation gave no indication of the hardware change. Fortunately, Apple does provide a quick and easy way to see if the software is installed and operating.

To verify that your Mac’s Airport card is configured to use 802.11n you need to run the “Network Utility” program (located in the Application\Utilities folder).  Select “Network Interface (en1)” from the network interface selector pull-down option.  At the bottom of the dialog box you should see, “Model Wireless Network Adapter (802.11 a/b/g/n)” (as shown in the screen-shot below).

You can read the Apple article on the Apple Support page.