U.S. Health Agency Forbids Sensitive Data On Apple MacBooks — Security — InformationWeek
In the wake of a widely publicized security breach that left thousands of patient records exposed, the federal government’s National Institutes of Health is forbidding all employees who use Apple’s MacBook laptops from handling sensitive data as of Friday, InformationWeek has learned.
Employees at the health agency who store medical records and other personal information on laptops must use systems that run either on Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)’s Windows operating system or Linux, according to an agency memo.
This is beyond words. Go, read the article, especially the comments. Typical top management CYA BS.
Computer Hardware, GeekStuff, Here's your sign - STUPID, Linux, Mac, Micro$oft, Political
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CYA, health, InformationWeek, Linux, MacBook, management, Microsoft, Security, Sensitive, Windows
I, Cringely . The Pulpit . The Puppet Master | PBS
Quite a good article. And no I don’t think he knows he can’t win either.
Awoke this am to a non functioning iBook hard drive.
After a while with a bottle of ice applied to the outside of the case got the temp down enough to get it back running. Shortly after that went down again. Been having problems with this drive off and on for a while so decided to boot from the external firewire drive. Again with the ice and after a while got it up and going on external drive. Which is what I am running on now.
Guess I will try to replace the internal drive with the broken 80 gb drive that “someone” has left here for a while. Not looking forward to the surgery at all. From what is shown at http://www.sterpin.net/uk/ddibookg4uk.htm it looks to be a real pain in the arse. No real rhyme nor reason for them (Apple) to have used 3 different types of screws nor as many of them. Nor is there ANY reason (other than designer stupidity) for the hard drive to be this difficult to get to. But it is and I bought it so I get to try to salvage it.
If I am back on today that means either I decided to continue running on the external drive or I managed to get the internal replaced and going. Or I decided to see if I could get the Linux box back up and going. Or something.
Not a good day for this for me either mentally or physically but computer breakdown wait for no one to feel better…
Extended Desktop
If you’ve got an iBook and want to use an external monitor at a different resolution along with the existing builtin display this is the program for you! Am sitting here using my Proview 19″ widescreen LCD (1400×900) with the main Firefox window open on it and Skype and another Firefox gmail window open on the iBook 14″ (1024×768) screen. NICE! Tis really a shame that Apple decided to disable some of the capabilities of the iBook via firmware to make the PowerBook more desirable.
geektechnique.org: DIY obsolete iBook logic board repair
I think a welding torch would set it on fire quicker. ;-)Â Another link thanks to Steve!

Been having fits trying to get skype to work under PCLOS linux which is (has been) my favorate distro. The push came today when I decided to move the iBook upstairs.
It’s starting to cool off a bit so is liveable up there again. Mom emailed me and said either get the last of the stuff or we call someone to take it away. So Sunday we moved the last bedroom suite over here and then Sunday night managed to get it all upstairs. Along with the recliner, sofa, coffee table, desk, desk chair, and book shelves its an apartment of it’s own. No reason the sit here with one computer in front of me and another looking at the back of my head so…
Decided to figure out why the mic wouldn’t work with Skype. Seems that at some point the folks at pclos moved alsaconf from the installed to the uninstalled list. With my sound card/motherboard oss doesn’t work. So no mic. Or something. Anyway, installed alsaconf and after a bunch of restarts and fiddleing around got it to work somewhat anyway. So now I can switch the laptop back to u/kubuntu and move it upstairs to use for whatever but a phone. Cause Skype doesn’t support linux on the ppc platform. 🙁
After downloading the latest Ubuntu distro and burning it to disk I started it up in the iBook. Fought with it for a while but as there was a storm going on at the time and all the wired computers were off, was unable to get to the instructions for making the airport extreme work so rebooted into OS X and waited till later.
Later came today. After updating the backup software I did a full backup to the firewire drive and rebooted into it just to check. Worked fine so then booted into the Ubuntu cd and started trying to get the wireless going. First step was to run an ethernet cable to it so I could do the apt-get thing as well as getting to the Ubuntu site with the instructions. 😉
First page was WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx – Community Ubuntu Documentation which told me to:
In a terminal, type lspci , which lists the PCI devices in your system. Mine is the same as the example and this will be a new install so next page was WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx/Dapper – Community Ubuntu Documentation.
Since this is a new install I skipped down to section 1.2.2 Obtaining the firmware.
It told me to enable the Universe repository and after following the links I did that. Next up was again in the terminal and was:
sudo apt-get install bcm43xx-fwcutter which gets the package needed. Then taking the easy way out and using the script:
sudo /usr/share/bcm43xx-fwcutter/install_bcm43xx_firmware.sh When it quits doing its thing we’re ready to setup the wireless card.
First up is to load it in the kernel: sudo modprobe bcm43xx then check to see what it was loaded as with iwconfig. Should be eth1.
Then see if you can scan the network: sudo iwlist ethX scan and then you get to pick and choose and restart till the damn thing works on reboot.
Not there yet but close. I still have to start the network manager and choose the wifi card as the network device but it IS able to find it and load it. So closer and closer.
Downloaded and installed the KDE base packages and am now back with my perfered desktop. Bit more tweeking and then to try to get my years of mail moved over…
Is Ubuntu Linux a Sensible Alternative for Mac Users?
I do and don’t agree with his reasoning. While it is true that Ubuntu and other linux variants that will work on the mac may not do things better or even easier than OS X, my biggest complaint is the DRM that is now entwined throughout Apples wonder os.
If you don’t like supporting a company that is doing its damnedist to take away your right to do what you like with files on your own machine, then YES make the move away from anything Apple as fast as you can.
I am still hanging on mainly because the airport software in Ubuntu wasn’t (5 days ago when I tried the latest release) (though to be honest I tried the latest Kubuntu so I guess I need to try Ubuntu now) able to connect at the distance that the native Mac OS X software would.
Actions > Mouth… I have just started downloading the latest Ubuntu to try. As soon as I can get the wifi thing working even close to what I am used to then bye-bye OS X and restrictive DRM!
Andy Ihnatko’s YellowText
Okey-doke…it’s the last day of the month, so it’s probably a good idea to get going on that “Sorry I haven’t been blogging much, but I was completely consumed with finishing my next book” post, Viz:
Sorry that I haven’t been blogging much, but I was completely consumed with finishing my next book.
…Which morphed into “Really, now that the book is done, the very last thing I want to do is attempt to string coherent sentences together if an editor isn’t forcing me at gunpoint,” and then to “I was focusing so totally on finishing the book that I had to back-burner a lot of deadline-less projects, but now I’ve no excuses left.”
He’s Baaaaaaccccckkkk! Looks like Andy has another book coming out. About the iPod from what he says later in the article. But he isn’t dead. I’d been wondering what was up.   Now we know.
Yessss I am still making lots of rather unnecesary posts so maybe Technorati will see the damn things. 😉
And it’s late so…
CrunchNotes » Apple Sends a NastyGram
Another reason to move to linux or unix. Idiots…
Update:Â I seem to be getting a number of hits from CrunchNotes from this link, so will expand on my short and reply above.
I have used (off and on) Macs since ’87 or so and Apples before that. Cat (my SO) and I currently own and use two iBook G4s, but after having Apple increase the level of DRM to a most unacceptable point, quit updating the OSs. They are both still at 10.3.9 and I have no plans to ever update the MacOS. I am waiting for a linux distro that works with the Apple wifi cards at a reasonable distance from the hub. At that point I will wipe the DRM infested MacOS’s off the hd’s and install Linux as the only OS on the machines.
This stupid email to CrunchNotes by Apples lawyers is just one more instance that the company that I used to love is now run by the legal/accounting departments instead of the geeks that used to work and thrive there. So chalk another defection from the Happy Mac Owners club to DRM and idiot lawyers.
And by the way, I noted, in some of the comments on CrunchNotes, that this SAME video the lawyer is bitching about is available on the Apple site, so I’m wondering if the situation at Apple legal is so bad that they have no idea what is going on in the company. As I said above – Idiots!
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Home » Dan Gillmor’s Blog
Steve Jobs Says No to Woz
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Another reason to tell Apple to shove it…
COAST TO COAST AM WITH GEORGE NOORY: SHOWS
Interview with Woz. Haven’t listened yet. Just a reminder to do so. 😉
Free Ruler for Mac OS X
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Cool tool! Must have for any kind of design work. Mac only…
AppleInsider | Speed of Apple Intel dev systems impress developers
Could it be that (Gasp!) Intel processors will speed Macs up? Could that be the reason for the switch?
“Master, what is wrong?”
“I felt a tremor in the Force, as if a million nerds (or somewhere between 2 and 15% of the user base, depending on your sources) had suddenly screamed out in disbelief!”