Use just a MobileMe name to add an account to the Apple TV

For Apple TV owners that also subscribe to MobileMe, Gallery is an underrated feature. By uploading pictures and video on the go, there’s no need to sync an iPhone or camera with iPhoto at home before enjoying content on a television. MobileMe Gallery and the Apple TV just work, at least most of the time.

After upgrading my broadband service, I had to reset the Apple TV to get it on the network, after which I logged on to MobileMe without issue. After looking at some pictures from a day trip, I tried viewing some video. Instead of a home movie, I saw a dialog box that said, “an error occurred loading this content. Try again later.” I did, many times, always getting the same error. While it’s important to remember that video for the Apple TV must be H.264 or MPEG-4, this was video recorded with an iPhone and uploaded to MobileMe.

At first, I thought the problem might be with MobileMe, but it turned out to be user error, though I think Apple shares a little blame. When adding the MobileMe account to the Apple TV, I inadvertently used my MobileMe e-mail address, not just the user name. Nonetheless, it was accepted, and Gallery photos worked fine, but not video. Removing and re-adding the account with just the user name solved this odd problem, and should work for anyone else experiencing the same curious issue.

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Snow Leopard was a remarkably painless upgrade for me, but one particularly important piece of software was broken: Google Gears.

For those who don’t know, Gears is Google’s framework for storing browser data offline. It works with many Google services as well as some third-party products. I use Gears primarily with Site Specific Browsers (SSBs) like Mailplane and Fluid, which give me offline access to Gmail, Google Reader and Remember The Milk.

These are some of my most used programs, and as such it became eminently obvious to me after the Snow Leopard upgrade that Google Gears was no longer working. To be clear, not all Snow Leopard installs will cause Google Gears to stop functioning. If you do a standard upgrade, Gears functionality should be carried over. Rather, it’s those like me who see a new operating system update as an opportunity to do a clean installation that will run into problems.

Specifically the new 64-bit version of Safari includes updated security features that are incompatible with Google Gears. If you tried to install Google Gears for OS X you would get a warning telling you that Google Gears won’t install on a version of OS X higher than 10.5. Now this makes some sense since Gears simply won’t work with the 64-bit version of Safari, but it also means that other programs like Mailplane and Fluid, which will work fine with the current version of Google Gears, are unable to get access to it’s features.

Google gears won't install on a clean Snow Leopard installation.

Thankfully, the helpful folks who developed Mailplane have created a hacked installer for Google Gears that skips the version check and allows you to install the program in Snow Leopard. You can pick up the modified installer here. As with any hack, proceed at your own risk, but my own experience has been flawless. Once I installed this version of Gears, Mailplane and Fluid were once again able to take advantage of the offline features of sites like Gmail.

Even with this version of Gears installed you won’t be able to use Gears with 64-bit Safari. If you do want to use Gears with Safari you will need to run it in 32-bit mode. This can be done easily by right-clicking on the Safari package, choosing Get Info and putting a check in the box next to “Open in 32-bit mode”. Those of you who use Gears with Firefox may be wondering what all the fuss is about as Gears works fine with that browser. That’s because Gears for Firefox is actually a Firefox extension, rather than an operating system service as Gears for OS X is.

I hope this helps out all those other Snow Leopard users who depend on Google Gears and lost the functionality during a clean install. Hopefully Google updates Gears to work natively with Snow Leopard soon so workarounds like these are unnecessary.

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If you have Safari, on either Windows or OS X, you could be open to malicious attacks whereby users can gain unauthorized access to files on your hard drive.

That’s according to a new tech note from developer Brian Mastenbrook, who has taken matters into his own hands while we wait for an official fix from Apple. And good thing, too, since this vulnerability is apparently nothing to sneeze at, as attackers can easily get their hands on sensitive information stored in cookies, emails, etc.

Even if you don’t use Safari as your primary browser, you could still be at risk, if you haven’t selected  a different default feed reading application. That means you, OS X users. If you’re a Windows user and you don’t use Safari as your default browser, you should be in the clear.

Here’s the fix for OS X users:

1. Open Safari and select Preferences… from the Safari menu.
2. Choose the RSS tab from the top of the Preferences window.
3. Click on the Default RSS reader pop-up and select an application other than Safari.

There’s currently no indication of when Apple will issue a fix, but they are aware of the problem, so keep an out for a Software Update coming soon.

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As you may have read, this flaw is not capable of being exploited remotely, but multiple variants of a new Trojan (dubbed “AppleScript-THT”) are floating around the internets which wreak all sorts of havoc on your system once infected. Some install keystroke logging, usurp your iSight camera to take pictures or even capturing screenshots (some do much worse).

The Washington Post has a great blog post which gives a great amount of detail on the problem and even mentions a few solutions. The quickest way (until Apple releases a patch) to protect yourself is to open up a Terminal window and enter the following text:

If that was successful, then you should not see “root” when you paste this into the Terminal window:

osascript -e 'tell app "ARDAgent" to do shell script "whoami"';

SecureMac has updated MacScan to account for these new beasts and DAT updates from other vendors are forthcoming.

Until Apple releases a patch and you install it be very careful what you download and execute, both from your browser or chat clients.

If you have any questions or concerns, please drop a note in the comments and I will monitor this thread closely over the coming days to try to help as much as possible. Watch for a TAB post when Apple issues a fix.

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