Kibbles & Bytes Blog

  • Terminal Tidbits

    Most Mac users know if they want to know what’s “under the hood” of their Mac, they could boot into the OS, click on the Apple logo, and click “about this Mac”.

    But, did you know you could go into Terminal, and type in “hostinfo” and hit enter?

    The command host is usually used for DNS lookup and info but you can use it to find out which kernel version you’re running, how many processors you have, the amount of physical memory and the number of Mach tasks. Mach tasks are a variant of the load average, number of threads using.

    The syntax looks like this
    hostinfo

    That’s it, there are no further options as it is a simple command. We Techs use it a lot when performing RAM upgrades and when we don’t want to wait for the Mac to boot all the way into the MacOS to see if the RAM modules are recognized.

    Shut down the Mac completely, and wait a couple seconds. Then, hold down the Command and S keys simultaneously while pressing the power button to start up the Mac. You’ll hear the chime, and then a black screen will appear. Shortly thereafter, a bunch of scary white text will show up. This is single-user mode.

    Here you simply type “hostinfo” and you’ll see something like this:

    Mach kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 16.7.0: Thu Jun 15 17:36:27 PDT 2017; 
root:xnu-3789.70.16~2/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel configured for up to 8 processors.
4 processors are physically available.
8 processors are logically available.
Processor type: x86_64h (Intel x86-64h Haswell)
Processors active: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Primary memory available: 128.00 gigabytes
Default processor set: 377 tasks, 2201 threads, 8 processors
Load average: 1.95, Mach factor: 6.04

    This outlines the following information about your machine:

    • Mach kernel version: basically the version of the version of Darwin or the open-source Unix that your OSX is based on.
    • How many actual processor cores you have, in this case we see 4 processor cores as it’s an Intel i7 processor. In this chip, each core can run 2 threads so we get…
    • 8 processors logically available – 4×2=8
    • The identifier of the actual main processor chip you have installed.
    • An enumeration of each processor that’s active and available 0 through 7
    • The amount of RAM available in your machine
    • What your processor is busy doing at that moment in terms of tasks and threads
    • Load average, or how busy your machine has been over the last minute. Higher numbers mean more activity.
    • Mach factor, which is a variant of the load, but divided by the number of logical processors. The closer to 0, the more load the processor is experiencing. So in my example, an 8-core processor doing nothing should show pretty close to 8, whereas if it was running full speed rendering video or something, you’d see a much lower number.

    When you’re finished exploring this info, simply restart you computer by typing:

    reboot

    This info is the tip of the iceberg of the information you can coax out of your machine from the command line but it’s a good way to get your feet wet to explore what’s possible.

  • Projects, projects and more projects. Grace and I have loaded up on projects for the next couple of weeks. We have some repair to her BMW motorcycle that I will be doing this weekend. We are planning a road trip to New Orleans in a couple months so I want to be sure that bike is in tip-top shape.

    We got rid of our garden shed that was damaged by the big Ficus tree in our yard. Several huge limbs from that tree came down during Hurricane Irma, and we also discovered that it was damaging our neighbor’s house, so we took the tree down. Our next project is to work on getting rid of the huge roots sucking up every bit of nutrients from our yard. We are planting some Confederate Jasmine to cover the fence, but of course that means another project, painting and hanging some trellis. And then there is the new garden shed which the manufacturer says will take two people at least two days to assemble. I liked erector sets as a youth so I am looking forward to this one.

    So it looks like no rest for the wicked with all these projects!

    It has been chilly down here in the Keys, it did not make it to 60 today. I have become acclimated to this climate because if it was 60 and sunny in Vermont in January I would be wearing sandals and shorts, but here in Key West I am bundling up in my Vermont winter gear.

    Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    Don & Emily

  • Photos Editing

    The latest generation of iPhones have incredible photo capabilities and the quality of the pictures is pretty amazing. Thanks to improvements with the…

  • 7 Tips for Apple TV

    I have found that I am paying for Cable TV and that I use it less than 20% of the time. This may have to change in the near future! Most of the time when I am watching TV, I am using my Apple TV. Because my Apple TV also acts as my Apple Homekit hub, it must be on all the time so that when I’m away, I can adjust the thermostat or unlock the doors. Or I can play practical jokes on Grace by randomly turning on or off lights (she really does not like that!).

    Here are seven handy tips that you might find useful for your Apple TV.

    Force a Reboot

    The other day for some strange reason my Apple TV froze. I was too lazy to get out of my chair and go unplug it to reboot it but remembered that I could force a reboot by simultaneously pressing the Home and Menu buttons on the remote. If you need to do this, the light on the front of the Apple TV will start blinking rapidly. Let go of the buttons and it will reboot.

    HomeKit Control

    Apple TV will configure itself as a HomeKit hub and, as long as you set your Apple TV not to turn itself off, you can control your Apple HomeKit devices remotely. You can also control your HomeKit devices using the Apple TV’s Siri remote. Just say, “Siri lock the front door”, or if you are like me and have set up more automation, you can even be more complex. When I say “Hey Siri, good night” all the lights in my house will turn off (except in the bedroom and the TV), the doors will lock and the thermostat will set to my set sleeping temperature.

    What Did He Just Say?

    Okay you could hit rewind on your DVR and go back to try to hear that important line in the movie but Apple TV goes one step further. This is the most useful command for the Apple TV. If you’re watching a movie and you didn’t understand what a character just said, you can hold the Siri button on the remote and ask, “What did he just say?” The video will rewind to a point before the last person started speaking and Closed Captioning will be temporarily turned on so you can not only hear it again, you can also read what they said. Pretty cool, eh?

    Mirror Mirror on the TV

    You may have this giant flat screen TV with the Apple TV and yet you look at web sites or pictures on that tiny MacBook screen. Whether it is shopping on Amazon or looking at the latest pictures from the grand kids, screen mirroring is very handy and very simple. You can mirror content from your iPhone, iPad or any Mac running the latest OS versions. Swipe up from the bottom of your iOS device to access Control Center and tap AirPlay, choose AirPlay under the display option on your OS X Menu bar or in the share icon. You’ll be asked to choose the correct Apple TV if you have more than one and once you’ve done so you’ll be able to mirror the action on your screen.

    You Have More Remote

    If you surf over to the App store and download the Apple Remote App you can control your Apple TV with your iPhone. If you have an Apple Watch you can control your Apple TV with your watch, too. You can even use your iPhone or Watch as another game controller when playing a multi-player game on Apple TV.

    Hey! I am Trying to Sleep

    Sleepless nights got you restless and you want to get up and watch Artificial Intelligence gone wild in the Terminator series? But you don’t want to disturb your partner? Apple TV makes it possible for you to listen to the volume up high for all that action by pairing a set of BlueTooth earbuds or earphones. If you are lucky enough to have AirPods you can just pair them and listen in comfort. You simply navigate to the Bluetooth settings – Settings > Remotes and Devices > Bluetooth and pair ‘em up.

    On Screen Keyboard Hell

    The on screen keyboard is not so much fun to use. But there are options! You can hold down the Siri button on your remote and dictate whole words or individual letters. That makes entering your very secure 27 character password much easier. Or if you have downloaded the Apple Remote App, you can use your iPad or iPhone keyboard making it even easier.

  • Meltdown and Spectre, lots of Intel

    If you pay any attention to technology news, you’ve probably already heard of the recently discovered Meltdown and Spectre exploits that are reported…

  • The temperatures have been on the rise these last two days and we seem to be experiencing a classic January thaw in Vermont….

  • Safari Tips

    Most of us use the internet on daily basis. We might be browsing a favorite news source, googling the answer to a trivia question or perhaps reserving movie tickets to the latest blockbuster. We do all kinds of different things throughout the day, and in the course of this you might find some annoyances like pop up ads, videos suddenly playing or sudden notifications while using a site. Luckily, these annoyances can be reduced by using a handful of settings within Safari. You can customize much of your browsing experience and adjust many preferences to suit your individual needs.

    To make the most out of Safari’s site-specific settings you will want to customize your frequently visited sites. First, load a site whose settings you’d like to customize. Then, choose Safari > Preferences and click Websites in the toolbar. You will see a list of general settings in the sidebar at the left, followed by any plug-ins you’ve installed. For each setting or plug-in, you can set what happens when you visit the site you just loaded—or, if you have a bunch of sites open in different tabs, you can customize the behavior for any open site. Here are some of your options.

    Content Blockers

    One way of seeing fewer Web ads is to install a Safari content blocker. Choose Safari > Safari Extensions to open Safari’s Extension Gallery, and then scroll down slightly to find the page’s Search field, where you can search for a blocker. There are lots—look for one like Adguard AdBlocker that supports Safari’s content blocking API. Once you’ve installed one, select Content Blockers in the Websites preferences. By default, Safari blocks ads on all sites, so choose Off from the pop-up menus for sites whose ad content you want to see.

    Auto-Play

    Little is more annoying than sites that play a video when a page loads, distracting you from the text you want to read. Even worse are those sites—Macworld, we’re looking at you—that auto-play videos that aren’t even related to the page. Safari squelches auto-playing videos by default, but for sites like YouTube, you might want to allow videos to play. You can also choose to stop only videos that have sound.

    Camera & Microphone

    Apart from Web conferencing services, you’re unlikely to run across many sites that want to access your Mac’s camera and microphone. That’s why the Camera and Microphone settings default to asking you whenever a site wants permission to record you. If you find it irritating to be asked constantly by a site you use often, choose Allow from the pop-up menu for that site. If a site asks repeatedly but you never want to allow it, choose Deny to stop those prompts.

    Location

    Most Web sites that ask for your location want to determine how close you are to particular stores. If that’s information you’re interested in sharing, let them see where you are, by all means. And if you’re using a mapping service that wants your location, it’s entirely reasonable to set its pop-up menu to Allow. But if a site keeps asking and it feels creepy, set it to Deny.

    Notifications

    Are there sites whose new posts you’d like to know about right away? If they support Web notifications and you give them permission, they can post push notifications that appear on-screen and in Notification Center, just your other notifications.

    The Notifications preferences look different from the others because they show only sites that have asked for permission in the past. Safari remembers your choice, and if the site gets annoying later, you can always take back permission by changing the Allow pop-up menu to Deny. And if you never want to be prompted for push notifications—they can be distracting—uncheck the “Allow websites to ask for permission to send push notifications” checkbox at the bottom of the pane.

    So there you have it, a few Safari tips to hopefully make things a little less annoying and in some cases, creepy, while you are on the internet. There are more options to explore, I have only mentioned a few. Take a peak at some of the other options within your Safari preferences and customize things even more!

  • Meltdown and Spectre, lots of Intel

    If you pay any attention to technology news, you’ve probably already heard of the recently discovered Meltdown and Spectre exploits that are reported to effect a majority of computer systems currently in operation, regardless of their operating system. Since the vulnerability is at it’s core, hardware-based, users of Macs, PC’s and some mobile devices are all at risk equally. The hardware in question are processors by Intel, AMD and ARM and the issue could be exploited in 3 ways known as Variants 1 and 2 (identified as Spectre) and Variant 3 (identified as Meltdown).

    The way the Spectre exploit works is by taking advantage of the way your computer processor’s architecture is wired to execute code. In a very basic way, the processor’s job is to make a series of decisions very quickly and pass along the results of those decisions. To speed things up, most modern processors use a technique known as “branch prediction” to guess what the next decision it’s going to have to make is. This “speculative execution” greatly improves the speed of a processor as it can always stay a few steps ahead of the game. It’s not always correct in it’s predictions, but that doesn’t matter because the speed at which it does these predictions allows it to perform many, many of these per second.

    In very simple terms, it’s all of these incorrect predictions that allow your sensitive data to be potentially revealed. When these bits of data are trashed, for just a moment, the state of your processor can be analyzed by some malicious agents and backtrack it’s way to what bits of data were used to arrive at it’s incorrect prediction. It can then exploit this method by making your processor arrive at incorrect predictions on purpose by injecting data far outside the bounds of what it expects and, in turn, grabbing more of your sensitive data with each execution.

    Patches to guard against this involve an extra step every time your computer executes these kind of instructions, double checking to see if the data it’s executing lies within the bounds of what’s expected as well as separating the code and predictions into separate areas of memory. Different processor models have slightly different architectures and the exploits work in slightly different ways across them, however this is generally how things work.

    Meltdown is much more clear-cut exploit. To run efficiently, data being run through different parts of your computer processor is stored in a cache as it’s passed between sections of your processor. Meltdown reads this cache and can take the information contained in it and send it off in another direction to be utilized for nefarious purposes. The fix for this involves splitting the address space for this shared memory so that the data is never complete and would appear as gibberish if it were captured, the downside to this fix is that it involves making your computer do twice the work for the same amount of processing. Fortunately, this type of shared memory space only occurs in an impactful way during specific I/O events such as disk-reads or network communication and has little effect on computationally-heavy computing such as video-editing or gaming.

    New chipsets and operating-systems should be affected very minimally by any patches to eliminate these exploits, however older systems and certain cloud and virtualization computing systems could take a pretty big performance hit as they rely heavily on I/O to operate.

    It’s not often that we see such a vulnerability so widespread and so tricky to fix. It’s something that has been baked into the core architecture of so many of our computer systems in slightly different ways and yet it exists almost universally between manufacturers. It’s like suddenly discovering that bare lightbulbs can steal your credit card number. Sure you can just say “use a lampshade” but lightbulbs come in different sizes and styles even though they all work pretty much the same way and even if you design a lampshade for every bare lightbulb out there, there will be slightly less light when fitted with a lampshade.