Mac Security: Identifying Changes to the File System by Peter Hickman
Black-hat hackers often use a bundle of tools called a rootkit to secure access to your machine and cover their tracks. When working on your computer, they need to store files and be sure that you will not stumble across them and get suspicious. Peter Hickman explains how this works. 10/07/2005

What Is Activity Monitor (or How to Take Your Mac's Pulse) by Giles Turnbull
This little utility is easy to overlook, but it comes pre-installed with every new Mac and can be a big help when you're running a lot of applications. In this article, Giles Turnbull takes you on a guided tour of Activity Monitor's features, and suggests circumstances in which you might want to make use of them. 10/04/2005

Results from the Third Mac DevCenter Survey by Derrick Story
More than 1,300 Mac DevCenter readers responded to our third online survey. Here's who you are, what you like, and the directions in which you want us to go. 09/30/2005

Installing Fink on Mac OS X by Koen Vervloesem
The Fink project aims to port Unix software to Mac OS X and make it easy to install. In this article, Koen Vervloesem shows you the ins and outs of Fink, with some info about how it compares to DarwinPorts, another package management system for Mac OS X. 09/30/2005

What Is Darwin (and How It Powers Mac OS X) by Matthew Russell
Darwin provides the underlying foundation for Mac OS X. In this article, Matthew Russell takes you to the core of Apple's OS and explains how it powers your Mac. 09/27/2005

How to Set Up Backup 3 and Save Your Data by Derrick Story
Combined with a hefty 1GB of online storage, Backup 3 provides .Mac subscribers with a robust, easy-to-use workflow for protecting their most valuable data. In this tutorial, Derrick Story shows you how to get the most out of version 3, using both your iDisk and DVDs for preserving your work. 09/23/2005

Web Apps with Tiger: MediaWiki by Kevin Hemenway
In this, the third installment of "Web Apps with Tiger," Morbus shows you how to install a wiki, which is a web application that allows users to add content, but also allows anyone to edit it. He'll walk you through MediaWiki and have you (and it) up and running in no time. 09/20/2005

Tell Us What You Think: The 3rd Mac DevCenter Survey by Derrick Story
We're asking Mac DevCenter readers to participate in our third online survey. We've sweetened the pot with a chance to win books and Make magazine subscriptions. Here's how it works. 09/16/2005

Sweetening Your Xgrid with Cocoa by Drew McCormack
Last time, Drew McCormack took you through the changes that Xgrid has seen in Tiger, showed you how to setup a private Xgrid controller, and run simple jobs with the Xgrid command-line tool. This time he takes a look at XGridFoundation, a framework that allows you to integrate Xgrid into your Cocoa applications. 09/13/2005

An Introduction to Tiger Terminal, Part 4 by Mary Norbury-Glaser
In part four of our introduction to Tiger Terminal, you'll learn how to tap the power of shell scripting to automate repetitive tasks. Mary Norbury-Glaser walks you through the process, step by step. 09/09/2005

What Is Automator (and Can It Make Your Life Easier) by Matthew Russell
Automator provides an intuitive drag-and-drop workbench for quickly streamlining repetitive tasks. Here's a look at creating workflows and working around Automator's inherent limitations. 09/06/2005

Top Ten Digital Photography Tips by Derrick Story
You have a digital camera and have taken the typical shots of family and friends. Now what? Here are ten tips to make your next batch of digital images so impressive that people will ask: "Hey, what type of camera do you have?" Guess what? It's not the camera. 09/06/2005

Easy Access to the Applications Folder from a Disk Image by Ben Artin
Disk images in Mac OS X provide developers with a powerful mechanism for packaging and delivering software over the internet. A well-crafted disk image reflects well on the developer and shows attention to detail. Ben Artin provides some useful tips. 09/02/2005

Web Apps with Tiger: Security and MySQL by Kevin Hemenway
In this, the second part of "Web Apps with Tiger," Morbus focuses on protection. He'll replace the default PHP configuration with a more secure version, and explain some of the differences. Finally, he'll install MySQL and run through its own security tweaks. 08/30/2005

Tons of Good News by Derrick Story
Online version of the Mac Newsletter for August 26, 2005. 08/26/2005

Delve into DEVONthink by Giles Turnbull
DEVONthink Professional 1.0 has hit the streets, providing Mac users with a great opportunity to organize their thoughts. Giles Turnbull takes you on a insightful tour of what some people call a great snippet archiver, and others consider a full-blown reading and research tool. 08/26/2005

Distributed Tiger: Xgrid Comes of Age by Drew McCormack
In this first of two articles, Drew McCormack shows you how to set up a small Xgrid for testing purposes, submit simple jobs to the grid with the command line interface (CLI), and query their progress. The second article will be a Cocoa Tour de Force, involving new Tiger technologies like Automator and Core Image, in addition to Xgrid. 08/23/2005

What Is ClamXav (and do Mac users really need antivirus) by FJ de Kermadec
Do Mac users need virus protection? We believe yes. In this article F.J. introduces you to ClamXav, a free, open source antivirus application for Mac OS X. And as a bonus, we're including an interview with the developer who added the GUI to the excellent ClamAV engine to create ClamXav--Mark Allan. 08/19/2005

Web Apps with Tiger: Getting Started by Kevin Hemenway
Morbus is back with more web serving tools and tricks, updated for Mac OS X Tiger. In this first article, he'll take you on a whirlwind through the basics: turning on the Apache web server, learning a teensy bit of its configuration, then enabling and testing PHP. 08/16/2005

Build a Simple 3D Pipeline in Tcl by Michael J. Norton
Are you interested in playing with 3D graphics for games? In this article, Michael Norton shows you how to assemble a game console to experiment with using Tcl, which is a great tool for playing with graphics algorithms. 08/12/2005

Important Notice for Mac DevCenter Readers About O'Reilly RSS and Atom Feeds

O'Reilly Media, Inc. is rolling out a new syndication mechanism that provides greater control over the content we publish online. You'll notice some improvements immediately, such as better standards compliance, graphical tiles accompanying article descriptions, and enclosure support for podcatching applications. We've tested the new feeds using a variety of popular newsreaders and aggregators, but we realize that there may be a few bumps along the way. If you experience problems, please don't hesitate to send mail to webmaster@oreilly.com. Please include detail about your operating system and reader applications. We also welcome your suggestions. Thank you for your continued support of the Mac DevCenter.

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Automator Automation - David Pogue's Podcast #3 by David Pogue
Listen to David Pogue cover Automator workflows that can help save on computing time. Learn how to use Automator to automate backups, zip up applications, and set alarms for automatic processing. (4 minutes, 26 seconds) 08/09/2005

What Is NeoOffice/J (and Can It Replace MS Office) by Matthew Russell
NeoOffice/J is the long-awaited Mac-friendly version of OpenOffice. This open source project provides Mac users with most of the functionality of Microsoft Office, but for free. Is NeoOffice robust enough to serve as your only office suite in a Microsoft-dominated world? Matthew Russell explores. Plus, an in-depth interview with its lead developer, Patrick Luby. 08/09/2005

Digital Photography Hack: A Hands-Free Shooting Rig by Romain Guy
Here's how to build a hands-free photography rig using an iSight, a Bluetooth headset, a backpack, and a dash of AppleScript that enables you to capture images on the go by simply speaking, "Take shot." Romain Guy shows you how to build it. 08/05/2005

Dashboard Widgets - David Pogue's Podcast #2 by David Pogue
Listen to David Pogue cover Dashboard Widgets--what they are, how to use the Widget Bar, and what Widgets can do for you. He provides tips on some of the crazy and fun widgets available for free download. (6 minutes) 08/03/2005

Using Perl to Manage Plist Files, Part 2 by James Reynolds
Part 2 goes into much more detail on managing Plist files. You'll change some values and save the altered Plist file back to disk. Then you'll loop over entries in a Plist file, get a dump of the NetInfo database, and print all the users in the database using Perl foreach loops. To do that you'll convert the Cocoa dictionaries and arrays to Perl hashes and arrays. Finally, you'll create a Plist file from scratch, build the sample Xgrid cal job listed in the Xgrid man page by creating the structure using Perl hashes and arrays, and then convert them to Cocoa equivalents. 08/02/2005

What Is Flickr (and Hot Tips for Using It) by Giles Turnbull
Flickr is an online photo management and sharing application. And it's also one of the most innovative photo services available today. In this article, Giles Turnbull shows you how Flickr works, then introduces you to some of the great tools you can use to interact with it. 08/02/2005

Using Perl to Manage Plist Files by James Reynolds
A common question is how to manage complex Plist files with scripts. The defaults command, which is often used to manage simple values in Plist files, does not easily manage the nested arrays or dictionaries that are present in most Plist files. In this first article of a two-part series, James Reynolds pulls together a little Perl and Cocoa to solve this problem. 07/29/2005

What Is FireWire (and How Best to Use It) by FJ de Kermadec
FireWire is a high-speed, data serial interface that has many practical uses. In this article, you'll learn the ins and outs of this powerful technology, plus some inside tips to take advantage of its unique features. 07/26/2005

All About Spotlight - David Pogue's Podcast #1 by David Pogue
Listen to David Pogue's secret Tiger tips for Spotlight super searches--how to use spotlight to help access your data faster, streamline searches, and even launch applications faster. (7 minutes, 6.6 MB) 07/22/2005

Automated Backups on Tiger Using rsync by Richard Hough
Previously on Mac DevCenter, the rsync command was discussed in Intro to Tiger Terminal, Part 2. One of the uses for this command is to compare the files on your internal drive to those on your backup drive, and only archive the files that have changed. Richard Hough explains. 07/22/2005

What Is Preview (and Why You Should Use It) by Giles Turnbull
Apple's Preview app is best known as a PDF viewer and a Macintosh alternative to Adobe Reader. This software, however, is also a capable image viewer, and you can even edit your pictures with its tools. Giles Turnbull shows you that there's more to Preview than first meets the eye. 07/19/2005

My Favorite Macworld Product: The IRISPen by Adam Goldstein
Have you ever said, "If I learn just one great thing, then the whole conference was worth attending"? At Macworld Boston Adam Goldstein discovered the IRISPen, and he shares the details of this handy text-scanning device with us. 07/19/2005

The Hitchhiker's Guide to ADHOC by Brian Geiger
ADHOC is about giving yourself a challenge that's just for you. In this article, program chair Brian Geiger talks about his personal experiences with ADHOC and why he thinks Mac hackers and developers will enjoy the upcoming event. 07/15/2005

Creating Spotlight Plugins by Matthew Russell
Last time, we used Spotlight to query and manipulate metadata for existing files. This is great, but what if you want Spotlight to index a custom file format? Don't fret. Spotlight was designed to be extensible and to accommodate any file format. In this piece, Matthew Russell shows you how. 07/15/2005

Programming with Spotlight by Matthew Russell
The API for Spotlight offers highly advanced search capabilities. In fact, you can develop some of the very features of Tiger we've already grown to love using Spotlight's API. In this piece, Matthew Russell will ease you into Spotlight programming from a Cocoa dev perspective, showing you how to make your applications Spotlight enabled. 07/12/2005

How to End Wars Between Testers and Programmers by Scott Berkun
There's a natural conflict between testers and programmers because of the difference in perspective each role has. The best way to end struggles is to redefine the goals of the work so that their roles can be collaborative, not adversarial. In this article, Scott Berkun draws upon his years of project-leading experience to provide some inside tips for managing your development team. Scott is the author of The Art of Project Management. 07/08/2005

An Introduction to Tiger Terminal, Part 3 by Mary Norbury-Glaser
In Part 3 of this Tiger Terminal introduction, you'll learn some helpful commands that you can use to view information about your network, including netstat, nslookup, traceroute, and more. 07/05/2005

Inside Odeo with Evan Williams by Richard Koman
Now that iTunes 4.9 has cast an even brighter light on podcasting, you might be interested in learning more about Odeo, the podcasting service from Noah Glass and Evan Williams (creator of Blogger.com). Here's an inside look at Odeo, as described by Williams himself. 07/01/2005

What's New For Developers in QuickTime by Chris Adamson
In Part 1 of this series, Chris Adamson covered the new features of QT7 that end users will see. Today, he shows you some of the most prominent changes from a developer point of view, including: the QTKit API for Cocoa, the new QuickTime MetaData API, support for frame reordering codecs, Core Audio-based sound enhancements, and QuickTime for Java. 06/28/2005

Music Gadgets by Derrick Story
Every day, I seem to want to listen to music in a different way. Here are the gadgets I've been testing to "shuffle" my setup for music playback. A few of these are real keepers. 06/24/2005

Going to the Movies (and More) in iTunes 4.8 by J.D. Biersdorfer
Podcasting in iTunes 4.9 is just around the corner. Until then, have you played with the video functionality in 4.8? If not, here are a few things that Steve Jobs has mentioned--and a few he hasn't. By J.D. Biersdorfer, author of iPod and iTunes: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition. 06/24/2005

Tweaking Tiger Mail by Giles Turnbull
The release of Mail 2.0 was largely overlooked amid all the fuss about Tiger's system-level features, but a number of people have made public complaints about changes made to the user interface. Mail's performance has improved, but the apparent willingness of Apple's designers to create an entirely new kind of toolbar icon just for use in Mail has irritated some. Giles Turnbull shows you how to bring happiness back to Mail. 06/21/2005

Syncing iTunes by David Miller
What happens if instead of sharing your iTunes libraries, you want to keep multiple libraries synchronized? This should sound familiar to anyone with a laptop computer on the go and a desktop sitting at home. Throughout the course of the day, you tweak some playlists and would like to have those changes automatically reflected in your library at home. David Miller shows you how to sync up your music. 06/17/2005

An Introduction to Tiger Terminal, Part 2 by Mary Norbury-Glaser
In this second tutorial on Tiger Terminal, you'll learn how to use the terminal app to look at external volumes, then enable ssh to access files, scp to securely copy them remotely, sftp for secure ftp, and finally how to use rsync to synchronize files between two computers. 06/14/2005

Ten PowerPoint 2004 Tips to Beat Tight Deadlines by Franklin Tessler
PowerPoint 2004 lets you turn text, graphics, sounds, and movies into dazzling presentations that get your message across in high style. But what if you're on a short deadline? Franklin Tessler, author of Office 2004 for Mac: The Missing Manual, shows you ten ways to use PowerPoint to put together slideshows in no time. 06/10/2005

It's True! Jobs Switches to Intel: A Review of the WWDC 05 Keynote by Daniel H. Steinberg
Don't get too comfortable after making the transition to Mac OS X. Steve Jobs decides to keep things interesting by announcing during his WWDC 05 keynote that Apple will switch to Intel processors. Here's what he said and how he plans to make it happen. 06/07/2005

Let's Build Another Dashboard Widget by Andrew Anderson
Even though no real development environment exists now, there are some tricks and techniques that can be used to make Dashboard widget development easier. Andrew Anderson explores some tricks and techniques and presents a widget that uses JavaScript's XMLHttpRequest method to retrieve spelling suggestions from Google. 06/07/2005

Everything You Wanted to Know About Safari RSS, Part 2 by FJ de Kermadec
In part one of this series, F.J. provided a solid overview of the Safari browser and the RSS specification. In this article, he shows you how to set up Safari RSS to serve as your newsreader, including lots of handy configuration tips. 06/03/2005

Everything You Wanted to Know About Safari RSS, Part 1 by FJ de Kermadec
Safari 2.0 stands tall among the Tiger highlights. In this three-part series, you'll learn everything you need to know to customize this browser for newsreading. Plus, you'll explore the technologies that power Safari RSS beneath that beautiful UI. 05/31/2005