Creative Resources, Orange County's premier Apple certified technical services and trainer, has opened an office in San Diego, California. Our new location opened on September 1, 2006 in Mission Valley (near the Fashion Valley shopping center).  Starting In December 2006, Creative Resources will begin offering Macintosh training workshops at Apple's UTC, Fashion Valley and Chula Vista (Otay Ranch) retail stores. Creative Resources also offers technical consultation to individual companies looking to revamp or build their Apple computer network, including purchasing recommendations and employee training.

The Creative Resources team in San Diego starts with Todd Lichon. Todd has spent many years in the print and prepress industries and brings a lot experience to the table as a Creative Resources System Engineer. John Rotter, Kari Poucher, Rob Clyde and Jonathan Spiva serve the San Diego market, as well. Additionally, Creative Resources in San Diego has the ability to tap into the talent and knowledge of its Santa Ana and Hawaii offices to ensure that we find the right solutions for all of our client's needs.

Apple on Tuesday released Security Update 2006-007, updating components of the operating system from AirPort to PHP.

According to notes provided with the update, an issue was fixed with the AirPort wireless driver that could allow attackers on a wireless network to execute arbitrary code. This issue affects eMac, iBook, iMac, PowerBook G3, PowerBook G4, and Power Mac G4 systems equipped with an original AirPort card. This issue does not affect systems with the AirPort Extreme card.

Other components of Mac OS X affected by this update include ATS; CFNetwork; Finder; Font Book; Font Importer; Installer; OpenSSL; PHP; PPP; Samba; Security Framework; VPN; WebKit; gnuzip; and perl.

The update is available via the Software Update mechanism in Mac OS X or from Apple's Web site.

Symantec has been predicting for quite a while now that virus authors would increasingly dedicate their attention to the Mac platform and that Macs were becoming a tempting target for hackers. However, a newly discovered Mac OSX virus is hardly the firewall breach that the antivirus software makers have been prophesising. Symantec has "cried wolf", many times, over the past year about these alleged "threats" to the Macintosh platform.

The malware, dubbed "Macarena" in tribute either to the summer music hit of 1996 or to the game Quake Arena, has a certain proof-of-concept character to it, Symantec reports. What exactly that means is not cogently explained in Symantec's virus description. The virus nevertheless infects other data in the folder in which it is started, regardless of extension. It appears not to possess an internal processing routine of its own. It may require the aid of the user to spread it by sending it out by mail or passing it via removable storage media.

The distribution of the 528 Byte bug is low; while Symantec does not provide an estimate, somewhere between zero and 49 infections are believed to have been reported. It is also unclear where it came from. Symantec suffered from a slight lapse when it recommended in the first version of the virus description that users clean the system by deactivating the system restoration (Windows ME/XP). This passage was removed in an updated version.

Back in the middle of the year, McAfee diagnosed a strong rise in vulnerabilities in Mac OS X. While it is true that none of the bugs for Mac OS X had managed to achieve wide dissemination, this has typically reflected programming errors by the virus authors and the still-minor market share of the OS. Exploit code for the Mac is easy to find on the internet, the security vendor claims, which makes it likely that Mac OS X will soon be faced with the same plagues as Windows: botnets, spyware, spam and DDoS attacks. For their part, Mac partisans note that they are still waiting for the first hard proof.

While it is strongly recommended that you have virus protection in place (such as Norton AntiVirus, Virex, ClamAV or Sophos), there is no need to fall for the scare tactics being used by the virus vendors, especially Symantec.

The calls into our service center have been unwavering.   Good news for our establishment since we are in the Macintosh (Apple) Consulting business.  All encompassing, we receive a multitude of computer calls of distress.  The calls range in scope from font and printer problems, networking etc. You name the issue; we most certainly have dealt with it.  We are then faced with the ever-challenging task of appointment setting to dispatch a Systems Engineer ASAP to mend the issues.

Being in a position of a Consultant, clients look to us for our expertise-almost like a teacher or mentor.  We're usually hired to give advice based on our experience, training and skills.  Unfortunately, when we often walk into a client site, we have to overcome the information that's already been provided to management and what the decision makers wish to implement.  The question then arises, what is a Consultant supposed to do when a customer asks for something that won't help or might actually cripple their business?  Are Consultants all too willing to attempt to perform the requested work against their own better judgment?  When customers come to us in pain, is the consultant prepared to say, "No I can't help.  You really need a Specialist in X, which isn't something I do.  Let me give you the name of some other people that can do the work and are in your area?"  The market is tough enough and everyone's hungry for business.  But, if we're prepared, we will know the other well suited consultant can and will be able to take care of a clients needs.  We will be secure enough to know that the other party will understand their specifics and will therefore successfully perform the work.   These same consultants recognize that if the customer isn't happy with their work, they will ultimately lose out.  Referrals are one the best resources for business.  Who wants to lose that opportunity?

Thus further, this begs the question, what is a Consultant to do when a customer asks for something that may actually cripple their business?   Does the Consultant ideally stand up to the boss and state what he or she thinks?  What's interesting to consider is that this customer may ultimately be right with their proposition!  Yes this may sound strange, but can be true.  They might actually know more about the problems the company faces on a day-to-day basis.  The problem is that if you're the Consultant or developer responsible for implementing the project and don't believe in the design, it can't possibly succeed and you're probably not the best person to do the work.

Getting the Precise Facts

As Consultants, we need to fact-gather as much information about the clients needs in order to ultimately move forward.  Holding a meeting with the team and discussing a strategy is one method. This is an excellent forum to hammer out your concerns and the problems anticipated. 

Communication is key!  Are you calm and open-minded?  Are you focused on the client and the problems at hand?  After thoroughly understanding the problem, can you offer viable solutions?   Surprising, you may find that the more you know, the more the team begins to agree with you.  Dealing with Managers can be interesting.  Those higher-ups, have their own managament style.  Most got where they were because they were rational.  Yes, there may be some managers that were promoted or that dad owns a lot of stock in the organization.  But, most good managers are smart enough to listen and rationalize if the information is presented intelligently.  After receiving a thorough understanding of the issues and if you are not able to convince the boss that the decision is wrong, it's time to knuckle down and do your best on the project- or perhaps on your resume.