Tech Tails TV: Take 2.0!

_Dear Friends,_

There was a micro-storm at my house that caused some macro damage to some trees and resulted in 2-inch hail with accumulated ice on my deck. When I got home, it looked more like October than July with leaves all over the place. But, it is July and the summer storm passed and the garden actually liked the torrential rain.

Apple announced their quarterly financial results this week and you will see my recap and analysis below in this issue of Kibbles & Bytes. I am very very proud to be an Apple Specialist and a part of this amazing success story. Apple is continuing to grow but is still acting like an entrepreneurial company–which I feel has a lot to do with their success.

I am often asked why I named Small Dog Electronics as Small Dog, and my answer has always been that my most enjoyable times, most productive times and the times that we have been able to truly live up to our triple bottom line of people, planet and profit is when we have that small company, entrepreneurial spirit and energy. We strive to maintain that and during our periodic performance evaluations of our employees, we have a whole section that just talks about entrepreneurial focus.

Apple has shown that they can maintain that spirit and still be a $50 billion company. When we grow up…

Next Friday, July 30 we will be selecting a winner of a new Intel i5 15-inch MacBook Pro. You can enter to win this MacBook right up until 9:00 AM EST July 30.

“Click here to register to win.”:http://www.smalldog.com/contest Note that after you register, you’ll have a chance to enter to win a set of Chill Pill speakers on Twitter, and you’ll get a coupon for $10 off your next order from Small Dog Electronics!

Earlier in the week, *Jeremiah Grossman* of WhiteHat Security reported a major security vulnerability in Safari. This vulnerability stems from the “AutoFill web forms” function, which is enabled by default in the browser’s preferences.

Ordinarily, this feature is intended to save users time by auto-completing forms using data from the Address Book. Grossman reports that a malicious website could theoretically pull data from a user’s address book card, capture it, and invisibly send it to an attacker. The privacy breach would happen without the user’s knowledge, and would not require him/her to input any text or follow any links. By merely visiting a malicious page, users could put their privacy at risk.

This AutoFill exploit can capture the user’s name, city, state, country, company, and email address. However, it *cannot* be used to capture numeric data such as phone numbers or street addresses. Regardless of the information at risk, any unsolicited attempt to obtain a user’s private information is something to be wary of.

Grossman has posted a safe proof of concept website “*here*”:http://ha.ckers.org/weird/safari_autofill.html which indicates whether or not you are at risk. Thankfully, the temporary fix is an easy one. Simply visit: *Safari > Preferences > AutoFill,* and uncheck the box labeled “Using info from my Address Book card.” Grossman has submitted this vulnerability to Apple, and hopefully a fix will be provided in the next Security Update or the next revision of Safari.

I’m going to date myself here: I wasn’t around for the release of MacPaint in 1984. While I didn’t get to use the revolutionary UI based drawing software until I arrived on the scene in ’88, it still had a profound impact on my interest in using the computer as a creative and artistic medium.

For those who were around for the 1984 release which coincided with that of the original Macintosh, MacPaint’s impression was likely even greater. As the precursor to almost all modern imaging software, MacPaint introduced tools such as the “lasso” and “the paint bucket” (which I called “the paint leaker” as a kid). The “marching ants” selection boxes commonly seen in Adobe software also got their start with MacPaint.

Though it may seem like second nature to us today, Apple’s drawing software was the first to let users generate images by interacting with a GUI as opposed to working with code behind the scenes.

Realizing MacPaint’s technical and historical significance, Apple donated the original source code to the Computer History Museum a few days ago. The source can be downloaded “here”:http://s3data.computerhistory.org/102658076_macpaint_acc.zip, and is 5,822 lines of Apple Pascal and 3,583 lines of 68000 assembly.

A brief history of MacPaint can be viewed on the museum’s website “*here.*”:http://www.computerhistory.org/highlights/macpaint/

I am holding a house party tonight for Deb Markowitz, the current Secretary of State and candidate for Governor of Vermont. I hope some folks show up. It is an active campaign season with a lot of open seats and some extraordinary candidates for public office.

One thing about our small state is that our government and our politicians are very accessible. I’ll bet our candidates for governor have had more debates and forums than in any other state. The five or six of them literally get together 2-3 times a week to discuss the issues. No one will be able to say they have not had a chance to hear from the candidates.

I did sneak in a test ride on my Norton last weekend, found one more oil leak to be fixed and with any luck, I will be able to pick it up this weekend and take some pictures for Kibbles readers. After riding my big motorcycles, it was a little like riding a toy motorcycle but it was very nostalgic as I figured out how to use the right side gear shift with a one-up, three down pattern. A few times, I downshifted instead of upshifted but once I was on the road it all came back to me. I was a little apprehensive about whether I could kick start it, but the boys at Classic Bike Experience had it running so smoothly that it just took one kick.

Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,
_Don, Kali, Ed & Ben_