Linked List: October 27, 2007

Saturday, 27 October 2007

Apple: Avoid Doing Time Machine Backups or Restores During Aperture Sessions ★

“Running Time Machine backup or restore operations while Aperture is running may lead to inconsistencies in the Aperture database.”

Educated guess: it’s a locking problem with the database — the backupd background daemon sees the notification from FSEvents that the file has changed since the last backup, and starts copying the file, but in the meantime, Aperture is still writing to the original database file, so the backup copy gets made while the file is in an inconsistent state. This might be a problem with other apps that use a frequently updated database file.

Regarding the Lack of Note Synching Between Leopard and iPhone ★

David Chartier:

This includes something we talked about in a report last week: the 300+ features page had confirmed that the iPhone would sync Notes with Leopard’s Mail. It’s now gone. Erased from existence, just like any trace of Time Machine and AirDisks. It’s a good thing we saved a screenshot for posterity.

No, it didn’t. Apple has never mentioned any sort of iPhone note synching in Leopard. I mentioned this last week: the way these notes work in Leopard is that they’re saved as IMAP account email messages; Leopard Mail treats these messages differently visually. Apple’s “access them from your iPhone” claim is a reference to the fact that you can view them, as regular email messages, in the iPhone Mail app. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the iPhone Notes app.

One reason people have assumed there would be some connection between Leopard’s notes and the iPhone’s Notes app is that they both look similar by default: the yellow-paper-legal-pad background and Marker Felt text. Another is that without synching to your computer, iPhone Notes seem nearly worthless. But, alas, the features are unrelated, other than visually. Plus, I’m not sure how iPhone note synching could be a Leopard-only feature, unless Apple’s willing to tell Windows-using iPhone owners to go blow.

I think Apple changed the text of this web page because people like Chartier were confused about what they were referring to, not because they’ve removed a feature they previously promised.

Back to My Mac and Security ★

Here’s the gist: When you turn on Back to My Mac synching, all you need to control your Mac remotely is your .Mac password — you don’t need to authenticate with the password for your Mac itself.

I don’t think it’s right to characterize this as a security “hole”, though — clearly it’s how the feature is designed to work. If you don’t trust your .Mac account, don’t use it. It’d be nice if there were an option to require your Mac’s password, though — and I question the decision to turn this setting on by default.

NetApp Versus Sun, Sun Versus NetApp, and Both Versus Common Sense ★

Jason Hoffman on the NetApp/Sun spat.

Login & Keychain Update 1.0 ★

Small software update for Leopard users; addresses password problems with login accounts and keychain entries.

Apple Limits Sale of iPhones: Two Per Person and No Cash ★

The Associated Press:

Apple no longer accepts cash for iPhone purchases and now limits sales of the cellphone to two per person in a move to stop people from reselling them.

The new policy started Thursday, said Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokeswoman. Before then, there was no cash restriction and the purchase limit was five per person.