There’s a neat new function in Snow Leopard, that I haven’t seen reported anywhere else yet. In previous incarnations of Mac OS X, some apps allowed you to access a specific folder by typing cmd+shift+G. This keystroke would reveal a small layer, where you could simply enter the directory you wanted to switch to (i.e. /Users or /usr/lib or /tmp). This didn’t work in all applications, though. Now with Snow Leopard and the Cocoa Finder, this works across the OS – even in Carbon applications like iTunes. Just press cmd+shift+G, and you can enter any (even hidden) directory on your system. Oh, and you’ve got full tab completition, just like on the Terminal app.

Update: A co-worker just told me that this feature has already been in the Finder before Snow Leopard. My fault. It may be new, though, that it works in every open- and save-dialogue now.

Many developers often face the tedious task of collecting difficult or complex code sequences in some sort of library or list. Most development environments already feature the one or other snippet function to allow for including this task into the workflow. This doesn’t work out though if you work with several programs or even do things via ssh in VI or Emacs on remote systems.
Enter Code Collector: An application focused on the sole task of collecting, keeping and sorting your snippets, functions or code sequences. It nicely integrates into OS X to help in collecting code from different applications as well as inserting it:

Code Collector Pro looks after all your code snippets, letting you quickly reference them whenever you want. With support for Smart Groups, Tagging, TextMate Bundles and much more Code Collector Pro is the best way to store, organise and share code snippets on the Mac

Find the App here

First a disclaimer, I have been a reader of 2600 for several years and have even been published several times within its pages. However, none of my articles or letters appear in this book.

About a month ago, the friendly neighborhood UPS delivery person deposited a giant box on my doorstep. When I picked it up, it felt as though it weighed several pounds. I set it on the kitchen table and slowly peeled away the tape and eventually gazed at the shiny cover of The Best of 2600 (A Hacker Odyssey).

Clearly this book was lovingly crafted. It contains over 800 pages of articles, news, and reports from 2600 over the past three decades of its existence (spread over 24 years).

When I started reading 2600, it was in mid 2004, and most of the articles and resources in those issues focused on comptuers and a little bit on social engineering. I always wanted to read some of the earlier issues, where the emphasis was on phone phreaking, but didn’t know how, or which issues to get, nor did I have the $325 to order them all, or the time to read them all if I did.

This tome contains a lot of information from just as many sources: Phone phreaking, computers, law, the beginnings of the Internet, lock picking, and hacking, just to name a few. You don’t have to be interested in any of those fields in order to gain enjoyment from this book.

http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/11552

I just read The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain.

In the book, Mr. Zittrain states that in the beginning of the computer networks that would eventually form the Internet, computers connected to it would run whatever code or programs they encountered because all there was was free and good code.

Then came along the Morris Worm in the late 1980s and that started to change peoples perspectives on running every piece of code that flowed down the turnpike. People became afraid that one day their computer would encounter bad code such as viruses, spyware, Trojan horses, etc.

Slowly, over the years with the advent of Web 2.0, computers and programs started to become less and less generative, to the point where most devices are becoming “tethered” in a way.

A tethered device is a device that for all intents and purposes “calls home” from time to time to get new code and programming from the company that created it. No user serviceable parts inside.

One of the more interesting examples of tethered appliances given is that of the TiVo. Everyone knows of the TiVo, that little device that allows you to record television shows to its hard disk for future viewing. One thing I found interesting was that in a small Texas town TiVo, Inc brought a lawsuit against the makers of EchoStar charging that the EchoStar device infringed on several of TiVo’s copyrights.

The judges decision in this case was that EchoStar was to remotely disable the offending units through its tether to EchoStar.

Countless subscribers of the EchoStar box are going to be punished (and forced to buy a TiVo box) because of the decision of a court in Texas. To me, this is almost like someone knocking on my door telling me the airbag in my car will have to be disabled because it infringes on some other car company’s copyrights

To this end, Mr. Zittrain argues that people need to be mindful of what they do online and know that somewhere out there Big Brother is watching.

http://futureoftheinternet.org/

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