I was greeted by this screen on my Intel iMac today. The Quicktime update patches the “hack-a-mac” Quicktime vulnerability that was publicized on April 20th. It doesn’t really provide any detail but Apple has a support article on the patch. The Airport Extreme Update 2007-003 description is succinct… This update is recommended for all Intel-based Macintosh computers and includes compatibility updates for certain third-party access points configured to use WPA™ or WPA2™ security. WPA and WPA2 are trademarks of the Wi-Fi Alliance. Both patches require a reboot and applied without [...] Read the rest »
Apple Security Update 2007-004 for OS X
Apple release a OS X security update today, 2007-004. Apple doesn’t have a fixed schedule but they’ve released one security update a month so far this year. The patch contains 25 updates for 19 categories, see the screenshot for the list. I installed it on my 24″ iMac without incident. The shutdown and reboot took longer than normal, long enough that I was beginning to get worried but it was fine. A second reboot took the usual amount of time. I ran through my typical quick tests without a problem [...] Read the rest »
Apple Aperture 1.5.3
Apple released Aperture 1.5.3. It’s available through Software Update or from the Apple website here. You’ll need a Apple ID and your Aperture serial number to download from the Aperture site. The Aperture “update” download is actually a download of the full program (the same for the push through software update). The software update screen pretty much sums up the information I could find on the specifics of this update. Read the rest »
Apple Security Update For Airport Extreme
Apple released a firmware update for their Airport Extreme Base Station with 802.11n. The Apple bulletin recommends that Airport Base Station update 2007-001 as it includes an update to the Airport Utility. Read the rest »
It’s Microsoft Patch Tuesday
Microsoft released four security patches that they rated critical. They are… MS07-018 is for Content Management server and doesn’t affect it’s desktop OS’s. MS07-019 is for a vulnerability in Universal Plug and Play. It only affects Windows XP SP2 and the 64-bit version of Windows XP. Note that MS doesn’t support WinXP SP1 and the fact that it’s not listed doesn’t mean it isn’t vulnerable. It just means Microsoft wants you on the latest SP and if you aren’t they don’t care. (To be fair, by now you should be [...] Read the rest »
More Security Patches (OS X and Java on Windows)
My PCs got security patches for Java and Mac OS X this past week. My Windows machine got update 10 straight through the Java Runtime update tool. The release notes are here: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/ReleaseNotes.html. My Macs got two OS security updates and an update to iChat. Security Update 2006-07 is described here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304829. Security Update 2006-08 is described here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304916. I also got a security update to iChat which updates some certificates. While searching for documentation on this I found it’s caused a bit of speculation with Macworld just around the [...] Read the rest »
Another Security Update – Mac OS X Security Update 2006-008
A second security update this week. This time for Mac OX X. Apple release Security Update 2006-008 which “improves security” of Quartz Composer and QuickTime for Java. The info on the update can be found at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61798. It’s a small (2.7MB for PPC) download but it requires a restart. Read the rest »
Firefox 2 Updated
Firefox was updated on my Windows machine a little while ago. It’s version 2.0.0.1 and includes 8 security updates, five of which are listed as critical. Critical means code can be run or program’s installed with normal browsing. Here’s a list of what’s included: (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vulnerabilities.html#firefox2.0.0.1) The update hasn’t shown up on my Mac yet but it is for Mac and Linux in addition to Windows. Read the rest »
JVM Updated – No Idea Why
I have Sun’s java runtime installed on my Windows PC, specifically (from the “About” box) “Java 2 Platform Version 1.5.0″. I have it set to check for updates on the 3rd of each month (I’m not positive but I think this was the default). So for the last few days it’s been telling me that there’s an update waiting. Today I finally got around to letting it update. First off, I can’t find any real mention of what’s being updated. Just that there’s an “update”. Well OK, other than a [...] Read the rest »
Mac OS X Security Update
It’s Apple’s turn for a security update this time. It hasn’t been pulled through automatic update yet (I have it set for weekly checks) but I decide now is as good as time as any since there’s been no changes since my last disk clone. I click on software update to start things off. The screen below sums it up. Information about the update is available here (apple.com). There’s not much to say. The download and update went fine and there’s no obvious problem after the reboot. Read the rest »