Category: Apple

What’s (not) in the Quicktime 7.3 Update

brunerd

This one is weird…
With the new Quicktime you get movie windows with no border on the left or right, you also get some new Automator actions…
/System/Library/Automator/Enable or Disable Tracks.action
/System/Library/Automator/Hint Movies.action
/System/Library/Automator/New Audio Capture.action
/System/Library/Automator/New Video Capture.action
/System/Library/Automator/Pause Capture.action
/System/Library/Automator/Play Movies.action
/System/Library/Automator/Start Capture.action
/System/Library/Automator/Stop Capture.action

That is, if you are in Tiger. If you on Leopard, these files are copied down but are not added to Automator. If you do add them manually (drag them in, double click them, open from Terminal), they won’t do anything.

Now if you look in an .action you will see its just a folder, like an app bundle. The meat of an action is in here /Contents/Resources/main.scpt and the Tiger and Leopard Quicktime actions are byte for byte the same (use md5 for a checksum)

The only concern is though what string you find inside (these are “Run-Only” compiled Applescripts, so no plain text):
01cd Tiger
028b 'Tiger:Applications:QuickTime Player.app
02E9 T i g e r

Hmmm, is it just me or should the strings Tiger not be in a Leopard component? Especially when they have two seperate packages for the Tiger and Leopard version of Quicktime 7.3? Come on Quicktime 7.3.1!

What’s in Hard Drive Update 1.0?

brunerd

So there’s a Hard Drive Update 1.0 update out from Apple! Put on your mining hats and let’s go spelunking… first stop the package .dist file has some strings of interest:
if( model.match(/ST3500641AS/) )
if( revision.match(/3.BTD/) )
if( model.match(/ST3750640AS/) )
if( revision.match(/3.BTF/) )

This refers to Seagate’s 750GB & 500GB drives

What else can we find? Once we open the archive.pax.gz there’s the actual Hard Drive Update 1.0 Cocoa app, which has a very scary sounding readme.rtf file inside the Contents/Resources/.lproj:

Warning: It is strongly recommended that you back up the data on your hard drives to an external drive or removable media before running this update. Do not reset, shut down, or turn off power to your computer while performing this update. If an error occurs during the update process, your hard drive(s) may become unusable and all data could be lost. If you have not backed up your data, click Quit and do so now.

As Count Floyd would say: “Oooh Scary”

Next up is the MacOS/Hard Drive Update 1.0 binary and a selection of strings:
installEFIUpdater:
%@/%@/hdfw.efi
This computer is not connected to an AC power source.

It uses an EFI application that will update the firmware on the drives (the AC line makes me chuckle, to think of what the battery life of a Mac Pro would be?! Obviously they used a template for this.)

Inside hdfw.efi are strings that refer to Cygwin, interesting what platform they are using to develop this with: a Windows box emulating *nix
C:\cygwin\home\Loki\Platform\Apple\Common\Application\ATAHDFWUtil\ATAHDFWUtil.c
C:\cygwin\home\Loki\Platform\IntelMpg\AppleTools\Build\X64\ATAHDFWUtil.pdb

Inside the Hard Drive Update 1.0.app/Contents/Resources/System/HDFW directory are hives of model names with single string files (FWAlias & FWCurrent) and the actual firmwares (FW01):
ST3500641AS__P 3_BTD/FWAlias
ST3500641AS__P 3_BTE/FWCurrent
ST3500641AS__P_3_BTE/FW01
ST3500641AS__Q 3_BTD/FWAlias
ST3500641AS__Q 3_BTE/FWCurrent
ST3500641AS__Q_3_BTE/FW01
ST3750640AS_P 3_BTF/FWAlias
ST3750640AS_P 3_BTH/FWCurrent
ST3750640AS_P_3_BTH/FW01
ST3750640AS_Q 3_BTF/FWAlias
ST3750640AS_Q 3_BTH/FWCurrent
ST3750640AS_Q_3_BTH/FW01

Here’s an amusing edited list of strings :D
0000000000000c96 Lube Event
0000000000000d28 Virgin Sector Cleaned
0000000000000e8f Enter DateOfBirth YYWW
0000000000000eaa Enter 64Bit WorldWideName
000000000000534c DRIVE HAS BEEN SET-STUFFED -%1
00000000000058ca Invalid caller to SaveStuffToDisk()! Write not done! %x
0000000000006c1a !! Going Offlimits !!
0000000000006c31 Sleep?

Sounds like a date gone wrong! You really should get the DOB before initiating a lube event on a virgin sector… *ahem* let me try and get back on track with a couple informative strings about the guts of the drive:
0000000000012b4b Orig Code = BTG4H1 TONKA2_GX_4H1.0GC.0B9
0000000000012e87 Built for GALAXY4D,PITKIN,Redback,TI1810 PreAmp,Agere7531 PreAmp,McKinleyDT,4Disk,220 Servos,7200RPM,8Pole,133MHz

Well, enough spelunking I’m headed topside now.

What’s in the Login & Keychain Update 1.0

brunerd

Login & Keychain Update 1.0

The Login & Keychain Update 1.0 for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is recommended for all Leopard installations. It addresses issues you may encounter when:

    *Logging in with an account originally created in Mac OS X 10.1 or earlier that has a password of 8 or more characters.
    *Connecting to some 802.11b/g wireless networks.
    *Changing the password of a FileVault-protected account.

What files does it affect?

/System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleAirPortBrcm4311.kext/Contents/MacOS/AppleAirPortBrcm4311
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DiskImages.framework/Versions/A/CodeResources
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DiskImages.framework/Versions/A/DiskImages
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServices.framework/Versions/A/CodeResources
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServices.framework/Versions/A/OSServices

Brcm4311 meaning the Broadcom 4311 wireless chip
I’m sure this is a stop-gap until 10.5.1

What’s in the ATI Radeon X1900 XT Firmware Update?

brunerd

OK so there’s an update for the Radeon X1900 and we really don’t know what’s been improved…
If you wanna know where the ROM is it’s here
ATI Radeon X1900 XT Graphics Card Update.app/Contents/Resources/
ATIFacelessFlash.app/Contents/Resources/R580Alopias_1.202_EBC.ROM

And what’s in it? Pure binary. No symbol tables, no strings save for the the device number and copyrights….

ATY,Alopias
ATY,RadeonX1900
113-A52027-202
109-A52027-00
01.00.202
AMD Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2005-2007

If we had the original ROM and this we could see what’s different then reverse engineer the binary! Whatcha think? :roll:

Me thinks Apple and AMD/ATi should pimp themselves better for all their hard work…. unless it’s a bone headed bug they had to fix :lol:

Mac Pro 10.4.10 AutoNegotiation Woes

brunerd 2 Comments

In case you didn’t know, MacPro’s with 10.4.10 are connecting at 10Mb speeds to 1000Mb switches and hubs… bummer :(

So a kext is the culprit:
/System/Library/Extensions/IONetworkingFamily.kext/
Contents/PlugIns/AppleIntel8254XEthernet.kext

In 10.4.9 it’s version is 1.1.7a3, in 10.4.10 it is 1.1.8a2, in 10.4.11 it is 1.1.8a6
That doesn’t matter much really, but that’s the details.

So you gotta roll back the kext:
1. Get the 10.4.9 Intel Combo Updater
2. Get OpenUp or Pacifist
3. Open the DMG
4. Show contents on the PKG
5. Copy out the pax.gz file to the desktop
6. un-Gzip the pax, and open that up (with Pacifist or OpenUp)
7. Get the old IONetworkingFamily.kext
8. Copy it into your /System/Library/Extentions

Now, the ownership on the kext need to be changed to root:wheel or if you’re in Finder system:wheel
Also, you should either delete the kernel caches or:
sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions
this changes the date stamp on the directory and OS X will recreate the kernel caches…

And yes, the 10.4.11 seed update corrects this.

Bonus Log files: These have been “prettied up” for readability, but you’ll see, 10.4.10’s driver is just spitting out Zer0s so the network switch/hub has no choice but to say “O K… I ‘ l l s p e a k s l o w e r t h e n…”

10.4.9:
Auto-Neg Advertise Reg (04d) = 0xde1,
Link Partner Ability Reg (05d) = 0xc5e1,
Gig Advertise Reg (09d) = 0xe00,
Gig Link Partner Ability Reg (10d) = 0x7800

10.4.10:
Auto-Neg Advertise Reg (04d) = 0xde1,
Link Partner Ability Reg (05d) = 0x0,
Gig Advertise Reg (09d) = 0xe00,
Gig Link Partner Ability Reg (10d) = 0x0

10.4.11(seed, much prettier logging in this kext):
Auto-Negotiation Advertisement Register (04d) = 0xde1
Auto-Negotiation Link Partner Ability Register (05d) = 0xc5e1
Auto-Negotiation Gigabit Advertisement Register (09d) = 0xe00
Auto-Negotiation Gigabit Link Partner Ability Register (10d) = 0x7800
PHY Specific Status Register (17d) = 0xaf48

If this info from 10.4.11 is NDA well bite me, I think people should know it’ll be fixed in the future, right? :)

What’s in the Quicktime 7.2 Compatibility Update?

brunerd

So just one file gets updated:
/System/Library/QuickTime/QuickTimeComponents.component
There are some telling strings about a JPEG2000 update in this file:
/SourceCache/QuickTime/QuickTime-616/Warhol/CodecManager/JP2Codec2/JP2Interface/Kakadu/apps/jp2/jp2.cpp

Warhol: that was the name of Quicktime when it was in development and apparently still around for nostalgia’s sake
Kakadu: This is a C++ framework for JPEG2000 handling, which is not just for stills, it can do motion too. I’ve always Vjed with MJPEG clips for quality’s sake.
QuickTime-616: The previous version of QuickTimeComponents.component contained QuickTime-579, and the Kakadu website mentions they are up to version six now, so it would seem this version number is related to Kakadu and not Quicktime? However I seem to remember QT Player Versions numbers and API’s don’t always sync…

However I can’t say exactly what else is in this binary file that improves compatibility with iLife. And I don’t think I’m gonna bust out otool and find out either. Pick up Amit Singh’s book for How-To’s on that :)

What’s in the iMac Software Update 1.1

brunerd 5 Comments

Another minimal blurb from Apple

About iMac Software Update 1.1
This update provides important bug fixes and is recommended for 20-inch and 24-inch iMac models with 2.0, 2.4, or 2.8GHz processors

OK so guess what the bug fixes are for?
That’s right more graphics stuff!

/System/Library/Displays/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-610
/System/Library/Extensions/ATINDRV.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX2000.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX2000GA.plugin
/System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX2000GLDriver.bundle
/usr/libexec/oah/Shims/GLEngine.bundle

The Displays/Overrides file has all sorts of gamma values and RGB color points for the display to use. Then a couple kernel extensions for the video card, some plugins, drive bundle, and the Rosetta GLEngine. So an all round Universal patch fest for the drivers. Is AMD/ATI gettin’ to work or what!

However on second thought is the overides file with it’s color information a response to the 18-bit color reproduction issues some people have been talking about? Hmmmm….

What is in the iMac Software Update 1.0

brunerd

Apple – Support – Downloads – iMac Software Update 1.0

About iMac Software Update 1.0
This update provides important bug fixes and is recommended for 20-inch and 24-inch iMac models with 2.0, 2.4, or 2.8GHz processors.

Ummmm…. OK that’s nebulous and user friendly, but what are they really updating?

/System/Library/Extensions/ATINDRV.kext/Contents/PlugIns/ATY_Hypoprion.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/ATINDRV.kext/Contents/PlugIns/ATY_Iago.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX2000.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX2000GA.plugin
/System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX2000GLDriver.bundle
/System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX2000VADriver.bundle

Some more graphics drivers updates, just like the Mac Book Pro Software Update.

/usr/libexec/oah/translate
/usr/libexec/oah/Shims/GLEngine.bundle

And to expound more on that, these two items are the Rosetta PPC-to-Intel binary translator and the OpenGL bundle that is called by PPC games needing OpenGL routines in Rosetta.

So… I guess that means that the copy of Marble Blast Gold that I’ve hung on too since my first iMac will be even more awesome on a new 24″ iMac ;) It’s nice to know, though, that they are working hard to maintain support for PPC graphics apps.

Airport Disk Utility hijinks

brunerd 1 Comment

The new Airport Extreme has USB disk sharing and I’ve been testing my new RAID 1 system using the Airport Disk Utility. It allows attached disks to be shared by many other Macs on the same network. So far it’s been good and I wanted to try it out on my other Macs.

First, I found out if you lose your Installer CD you’ll need to do some work to get the Airport Disk. The only Apple download that has it requires that you have the Airport 5.0 Utility installed on your Mac to run the update, and it’s found only on the install CD, no download for you! Second if you do have the CD, you still might need some help making a backup of it!

There are some similar help topics out there, I know, but I want to focus on just the Aiport Disk Utility, something you might want on all your Macs.

  • Download AirPortBaseStationUpdate2007001 from Apple, mount it.
  • Right Click and Show Package Contents on AirPortBaseStationUpdate2007001.mpkg
  • Drill down to AirPortDisk.pkg and do the same
  • Copy Archive.pax.gz to your Desktop and open it, a new folder will be created named Archive.
  • Copy the folders within Archive to their counterpart folders, you will need admin privledges for the System folder items

    • /Applications/Utilities/AirPort Disk Utility.app
    /System/Library/Contextual Menu Items/AirPort Disk Menu.plugin
    /System/Library/CoreServices/AirPort Disk Agent.app

    The key was copying, the Agent and the Utility, the Contextual plugin didn’t seem to affect anything. Also, your other Macs don’t need to use Airport either, I have a Cube with Ethernet only and its able to see and mount the remote drive just fine, Folder Actions even work. Cool.

    Bonus Backup Tip:
    So after doing all that I found my CD! Yay! Time to do a backup, I’ll just copy out the Installer I say. So I click on the Installer Alias do an ⌘R to Reveal and I see just a flash and the same thing, no hidden folder, no don’t tell me… I take a look in Terminal. There it is! Airport.mpkg, right there in the root of the CD. I cp the package to my ~/Desktop and still nothing, oh god. I smell cruft. So I break out Beige Box Cleaner along with Xfile and sure enough, kIsInvisible, the HFS flag, is set on the package. Ironic that my Airport network name is Invisible. This flag is easily cleared with BBC or also with the Developer tools and this Terminal command /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a v Aiport.mpkg

    Anyhoo. This brings up some the point of why Apple is not releasing this capability to other Macs (has that stopped them before, i.e. Front Row)? Is it like the Aiport Extreme Updater situations, where they charged $2.99 for bookkeeping reasons? Or is it because they still trying to limit the amount of pre-N Airport code that is floating out there until another release comes out? Or still yet, are they are hoping to put a lot more functionality in conjunction with Leopard’s Back to My Mac, feature that must work with the unexplained Bonjour services in the Aiport Extreme to globally advertise you Mac’s hard drive. I think yes with all of these things. In the meantime happy package hacking.

    Oh yes, also, maybe they are working on some super awesome iPhone integration, yeah, that’s it. You just have to wait until the planets align and an unannounced feature is added to your iPhone. You know, like the ones people have found but aren’t live yet…