A reader writes "There is an interesting blog piece entitled Memoirs of a Bystander: Visual Studio.NET development on OS X w/ Parallels. The piece does a good job talking about development for different environments then the one that you are programming in. " And with the continued rise of more and more heterogeneous environments, this will become more and more common.

eldavojohn writes "A new patent filed by Apple is causing speculation that OSX is soon to receive a new feature. From the article: '[the patent states] that the user account may be stored alongside general data storage or "other functionality". All of which seems to suggest that at some time soon we may be able to load our user accounts onto an iPod, hard drive or USB keydrive and take them wherever we go.'"

nezmar writes, "MacGeekery has a short but insightful piece with examples on how to use a malformed Installer package (.pkg) on Mac OS X to 'insert user accounts with administrator rights and change root-owned system configuration or binary files without prompting the vast majority of Mac OS X users for a password of any kind.'" The article notes that this issue was brought up on the Apple Discussion Boards 6 weeks back and that it was noted there as a duplicate / known issue. It also gives as an example the installation of Parallels, the popular virtualization software, which uses the described technique, but not for nefarious purposes.

An anonymous reader asks: "What's the best way to manage updates for an office of about 150 Macs of various models with different releases of Mac OS X installed? I would assume the solution involves Apple Remote Desktop Administrator which makes it possible to install updates on client machines without interrupting the user — but then the question becomes how do you keep track of which updates to install? Does Apple have some page squirreled away that lists updates they've released in chronological order with the ability to filter based on OS version and model? Is there an RSS feed or mailing list that announces new updates? For the uninitiated, ARD Admin only lets you install specified packages, so you have to download the updates manually from Apple's website, then queue the packages to be installed on a particular set of machines. This problem would be far simpler if it were possible to simply instruct client machines to run Software Update and install all available updates, or even better, if Apple included automatic update functionality within the OS, a la Windows XP."

An anonymous reader writes, "Apple's Showtime event was all well and good, but the big news today was on Anandtech.com. They found that the two dual-core CPUs in the Mac Pro were not only removable, but that they were able to insert two quad-core Clovertown CPUs. OS X recognized all eight cores and it worked fine. Anandtech could not release performance numbers for the new monster, but did report they were unable to max out the CPUs."

An anonymous reader writes "Possibly nothing in the OS world has as much of a bad rap as the infamous BSOD (blue screen of death) in Microsoft Windows. On the other hand Apple hides the ugly kernel panics behind a nice looking GUI which only tells you its time to restart your dead system. Interestingly Mac OS X kernel has a secret API which lets you decide what your kernel panics are going to look like! In this Mac OS X Internals article Amit Singh explains how to use this API. Apparently you can upload custom panic images into the kernel and there's even a way to test these images by causing a fake panic. The article also shows the ultimate joke is to upload an actual BSOD image for authentic Windows looking panics right inside of OS X."

eebra82 writes "Apple just updated their Bootcamp website with the release of Bootcamp 1.1 beta. It adds extended hardware support, including the ability to install XP on any internal disk, built-in iSight camera support, built-in microphone, right clicks with Apple key, more keyboard buttons such as Delete, NumLock, PrintScreen and ScrollLock. Numerous annoyances are no more thanks to motherboard updates, too. This release is 200 MB or so over the previous 90 MB install, which is due to heavier driver support such as included Nvidia video drivers."

the linux geek writes "InfoWorld has an article informing us that an early beta of Mac OS X 10.5 has been leaked. This appears to be the same build Steve Jobs previewed at WWDC, and contains most of the new features, including Time Machine and Spaces." From the article: "Attendees at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) received copies of the beta ware and had to sign legally binding agreements not to let Leopard stray onto file-sharing networks. Perhaps someone didn't read the not-so-fine print? MacUser reports that this version of Leopard is indeed legit, unlike a fake one that was reportedly making its rounds last week. The version of Leopard available on BitTorrent is 4.3GB, containing 93 files."

RX8 writes "A Digital Trends article suggests that Apple's Leopard agenda is to get Windows users to use Apple hardware then convert them to the Apple camp and that Apple will also be directly targeting Dell by offering a better experience when it comes to media and related tasks. Lastly, they suggest that Steve Jobs held back on showing more Leopard features so people would not get too excited and stop buying in 2006. 'If you get too excited about what is supposed to be an incredibly amazing product you simply won't buy a new Apple this year.'"

Read on for some of the most interesting comments and exchanges on a handful of yesterday's Slashdot posts (on the age of the Universe, virtual desktops in OS X, trick photography on the Reuters wire, and AOL's latest privacy gaffe) in today's Backslash summary.

William Henderson writes "That's right, if you haven't read it for yourself yet, Objective-C '2.0' now supports garbage collection. I foresee a great, huge, gigantic debate about to ensue, and a lot of java-heads sparking 'I told you so'. Why not start it here on slashdot?"

haym37 writes "Of the many announcements yet to come at WWDC, the first is the announcement of the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro contains two Intel Xeons, up to 3 GHz, and is supposed to be 1.6x to 2.1x the speed of the PowerMac G5 quad. It can hold up to 2 TB of internal storage and up to 16 GB of memory. The graphics card can be up to a Radeon x1900 or an FX4500. The case will be the same as the PowerMac." MacRumors.com is providing running coverage from the floor (Note: "[U]pdates will be automatically inserted at the top of the updates section. Do not reload manually."), including another announcement that OS X will include virtual desktops. What a great idea!

pdscomp writes "VMware has just announced at today's Apple WWDC 2006 Conference that they are developing a port of VMware to Mac OS X. People interested in beta testing the product later this year can visit this link to sign up for the public test. It will be interesting to see how things play out between VMware and Parallels. Will Microsoft bother porting Virtual PC now that there will be two other Intel OS X virtualization solutions available? Now all we need is to get Mac OS X running under Xen."

Vexorian writes "Two NASA websites were hacked today by a group of Chilean activist hackers. The reason was to protest against the war on Lebanon. The mirror of the defaced site contains an image of an injured child and claims that the sites were running MacOSX."

Austin Sarner writes "Phill Ryu's Fake Leopard Screenshot contest which has been attracting a quite a bit of buzz has just ended and the winners have been announced! While there is a bunch of expected stuff in these screenshots, the entrants did not hold back when it came to trying out crazy stuff — and surprisingly, a good amount of them work great. Ranging from new window styles to a complete rethink of a window based work environment, these are sure to make any UI geek excited. The winners received over $1,000 each in prizes, and were obviously motivated to put out some great stuff. The judges included Wil Shipley, the creator of Delicious Library, David Watanabe, who makes NewsFire and Acquisition, as well as numerous other smaller devs."

An anonymous reader writes "As part of his 1680-page book Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach, Amit Singh of kernelthread.com wrote a very detailed technical history of Apple's operating systems. Since he had to cut down on the history chapter because of the book's already too-large size, most of this chapter didn't make it to the printed book. Singh has made available the history chapter as a free PDF. The file is 140 pages long, and is generously filled with figures and screenshots. It starts with the internals of the original Apple I and goes through a tour of all operating systems Apple dabbled with, including internals of A/UX, Lisa OS, and such. It even covers details of outside influences like the Xerox Alto, STAR System, Smalltalk, and Sketchpad, and closer to home things like Mach, NeXTStep, and OpenStep."

NoviceW writes to share that there are plenty of interesting articles written about Mac OS X applications for switchers, but not many guides focused on programmers switching from other operating systems. This guide lists a few of the more prominent tools for Mac developers, what other tools can't you do without?

Wednesday's press-release-borne message from security firm Sophos that the best way for Windows users to compute untroubled (or less troubled) by malware is to switch to Mac OS X drew more than 500 comments; read on for the Backslash summary of the conversation.

Max Fomitchev writes "Looks like Apple is going to reveal its new cool and fast Mac OS code-named 'Leopard' in the upcoming World Developer's Conference in August. Good news for Apple! And terrible news for Microsoft. If 'Leopard' is really what it claims to be, i.e. fast and efficient, in sharp contrast to slow and resource hungry Windows Vista, we certainly would see Apple's remarkable market share gain next year."

Mindpicnic writes "The recent switch of two lifelong Mac nerds to Ubuntu hasn't escaped Tim O'Reilly's radar. He cites Jason Kottke: 'If I were Apple, I'd be worried about this. Two lifelong Mac fans are switching away from Macs to PCs running Ubuntu Linux: first it was Mark Pilgrim and now Cory Doctorow. Nerds are a small demographic, but they can also be the canary in the coal mine with stuff like this.'"