njr 3.0

AuthSample:
Apple's preferred method of launching tools with superuser permissions
on Mac OS X. It raises some good points, but also demonstrates
extremely user-hostile behavior by installing a setuid root tool
inside the application package, meaning that copying the application
would give you a choice between not working or breaking the
functionality. In a comment in the code they suggest that you prompt
the user for reinstallation at this point. Hello?! I don't want to
have to reinstall software because I decide to copy it around on my
hard drive.!

There are better ways. For example, the setuid root tool could be set
up in a temporary directory. Or the application could include a
non-setuid copy somewhere else, and reinstall it within its app
package if it is missing.

Security is important, but so is usability. One should not
necessarily come at the expense of the other.

6:45 PM | Radio
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I've been in e-mail limbo for a few days now, checking mail on my
pair.com account because the machine on my desk I usually read mail
from is having NFS problems and won't let me log in. I haven't been
at school enough to get someone to look at it, so I'm compiling Mutt
and Fetchmail (and their dependencies) on a Sun machine to use
temporarily. It's taken an hour so far.

This whole compilation thing is too freakin' hard and complex. Thank
goodness for Encap, a university-developed, minimally invasive
packaging tool that I use to keep my own installed software organized,
but I'd like to be able to get source management too. So if I've got
Mutt installed for IRIX, I can just point to it and say “I want that
for Solaris too”.

5:46 PM | Radio
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This article does a
lot to clear up the hype of the .NET CLR for me. When people have
asked me for my opinion, I've expressed generally guarded
optimism. Now I can be a bit more blunt and have the facts to back it
up. I haven't read much about SmallScript recently as I don't write
much Smalltalk any more; it's very interesting to hear about its
limitations (and I'm looking forward to an AOS VM port for Mac OS X,
which was promised at some point; SmalltalkAgents used to be Mac OS
only).

4:41 PM | Radio
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Wow, I knew NAI were morons, but it turns out it's worse than
I thought. Please, please release PGP to someone who has a clue!

4:18 PM | Radio
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Interview with KDE
developer Cornelius Schumacher. “Q. You are hired to write
the script for a commercial for KDE (like “The Heist” by IBM). What
would be the plot?

A. A big city at night, lots of lights. A thunder storm is over
the city and suddenly electricity goes down, the city gets dark. But
in some windows you still see some light from computer monitors. The
camera zooms into the rooms and you see happy people using KDE. The
slogan appears: “KDE – powered by community”.

Right on. Community—and idealism, in small doses—are
wonderful things. (Now could someone port KDE to OS X?
)

3:51 PM | Radio
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