Most search engines rely in part on information contained in meta tags when indexing web pages. While there are many sites that offer meta tag analyzers, most of them seem to use the one developed by Widexl. After entering your URL and a bot user-agent, you’ll get a chance to see what your site looks like when viewed through “spider lenses.”

Posted at 6:48 PM PDT with these tags: web, search

Comments Off

There’s a short but useful discussion on Slashdot about implementing WebDAV-accessible home directories. While native on Mac OS X, such a set-up is not easy to deploy securely on Linux and Windows, and the resulting discussion contains information useful for all platforms.

Posted at 6:14 PM PDT with these tags: network, webdav

Comments Off

Billed as “the ultimate networking tool,” Net Tool Box has reached version 2.4. Enhancements include a re-written traceroute tool, a new SSL terminal, and a suite of Rendezvous networking tools. Net Tool Box is shareware and costs 20.00 GBP (about $30.00).

Posted at 5:56 PM PDT with these tags: mac, network

Comments Off

Michael Amper reports that the latest Sendmail 8.12.10 doesn’t compile cleanly with Apple’s most recent 3.3 version of the GCC compiler. While this certainly isn’t the first package to have problems compiling via GCC 3.3 on Mac OS X, Sendmail is usually the type of application one would like to keep current given its apparent penchant for security exploits. Temporarily downgrading to GCC 3.1 is one solution; deploying a more secure mail transfer agent such as Exim or Postfix is another.

Posted at 12:12 AM PDT with these tags: mac, email

2 Comments »

There’s a good tip on MacOSXHints, as well as some informative follow-up comments, about secure POP and SMTP email via SSH. We’ll be covering the topic of secure email servers in more detail in the coming weeks, but in the mean time this thread is worthwhile reading.

Posted at 1:28 AM PDT with these tags: mac, email, security

Comments Off

In an article for MacDevCenter, Kevin O’Malley presents the first installment in a series on version control on Mac OS X. This is a more high-level look at software configuration management (SCM) than the CVS on Mac OS X article we mentioned a few days ago, as this author provides a brief overview of the history and fundamental purpose of version control. The focus here is on CVS, however, and does not touch on other free SCM alternatives such as Subversion.

Posted at 1:59 AM PDT with these tags: mac, scm

Comments Off

Apple’s Developer Connection has a new how-to article on installing and using the Java Struts Framework on Mac OS X. The Jakarta Project’s Struts Framework is based on the Model-View-Controller design model and can be used to create highly reusable code. Apple’s tutorial includes instructions for building a handy sample web application: an RSS newsfeed aggregator.

Posted at 4:45 AM PDT with these tags: mac, tools

Comments Off

Presenters from Apple, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Utah participated in a recent webcast about Mac OS X client security. Hosted by macosxlabs.org, the webcast presentation covers Open Firmware password vulnerabilities, handling published exploits, securely modifying the system, securing Classic and non-multi-user friendly applications, and many other topics.

Posted at 2:55 AM PDT with these tags: mac, security

Comments Off

James Duncan Davidson has written a terrific primer about CVS on Mac OS X over at MacDevCenter. While CVS version control is not for the faint-of-heart, it can be enormously useful in a wide variety of situations. If you have made many customized modifications to an open source web application, for example, you can use CVS to keep your changes in sync with nightly snapshots. That way you don’t get left behind when the core developers introduce a handy new feature, because you can use CVS to integrate the new code with your modified version of the application.

Posted at 3:02 AM PDT with these tags: mac, scm

1 Comment »

It seems Stuart Cheshire, architect of Apple’s Rendezvous zero configuration network technology, is a bit miffed at the suggestion that Rendezvous may be a cause of network outages. “The whole point of Rendezvous is that it is the networking that keeps working even when everything else is broken. Of course when your network is broken, and everything else stops working, all that’s left is the Rendezvous traffic.” Tim O’Reilly is soliciting additional commentary from others, so chime in with your own experiences.

Posted at 12:59 PM PDT with these tags: mac, network

Comments Off