SSH Connection to Juniper Devices

While in the mids of my Juniper exam preparation I ran into a problem with my Apple equipment. Managing the Juniper firewall (SSG5 in this case) with SSH was not possible from OSX. The connection itself would work, but after entering the password the connection was closed by the remote host (the firewall).
Trying this from a Windows laptop (with SecureCRT) everything worked as expected.

Some searching revealed that this is an OpenSSH bug. To manage your Juniper with SSH from OSX you need to add a parameter to the ssh command (or edit the SSH config file).

Parameter to add:

-o ControlMaster=auto
e.g. ssh willem@127.0.0.1 -o ControlMaster=auto

Or add the following line to the global SSH config (/etc/ssh_config) or the user config (~/.ssh/config).

ControlMaster auto

Juniper has a knowledgebase article (KB12409) on the issue.

Adobe Camera RAW update

Adobe released an update for Adobe Camera RAW. The update adds RAW support in Photoshop for the following camera's;

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II
• Canon PowerShot G10
• Panasonic DMC-G1
• Panasonic DMC-FX150
• Panasonic DMC-FZ28
• Panasonic DMC-LX3 :D
• Leica D-LUX 4

The Camera RAW update dosn't include the RAW capabilities for Lightroom. The upcoming Lightroom v2.2 update (scheduled for December 2009) will incorporate the RAW capabilities for these camera's.

CS4 Action Script Compatibility

Scripts made in Adobe CS3 may not work in Adobe CS4 product. I tried an evaluation version of Photoshop CS4, and found out that my watermarking action 'crashed'.
The crash is triggered by the CS3 version of the 'Fit Image' script/command.

So much for backwards compatibility...

UPDATE: I've updated the watermarking action. This one works with CS4. For CS3 you need this one.

UPDATE 2: New CS4 Watermarking Actions

Free CodeWeavers Software

CodeWeavers (the creators of CrossOver) had a special deal on October 28th, 2008. They gave away their software (CrossOver) to anyone who registered on their special webpage (no longer accessible).

I did my part in registering, and today I received the final instructions for registration code for CrossOver.
CrossOver is a piece of software which enables you to run Windows programs on OSX without the use of Windows itself. The list with compatible applications grows every month

Apple Released OSX 10.5.5 Update

Apple released the 10.5.5 update last night.
What's included?

General

• Includes recent Apple security updates.
• Addresses stability issues with video playback, processor core idling, and remote disc sharing for MacBook Air.
• Addresses an issue in which some Macs could unexpectedly power on at the same time each day.
• Resolves a stability issue in TextEdit that could be found when accessing the color palette.
• Improves Spotlight indexing performance.
• Fixes an issue in which contacts might not sync properly with PalmOS-based devices.
• Improves iPhone sync reliability with iCal and Address Book.
• Includes improvements to Active Directory (see this article for more information).
• Improves Speech Dictionary.
• Fixes Kerberos authentication issues for Mac OS X 10.5 clients that connect to certain Samba servers, such as Mac OS X Server version 10.4.
• Includes extensive graphics enhancements.

Mail

• Addresses performance issues related to displaying IMAP messages.
• Resolves an issue with SMTP settings for AIM, Compuserve, Hanmail, Yahoo!, and Time Warner Road Runner email accounts.
• Addresses stability issues that may occur when dragging a file to the Mail icon in the Dock.
• Addresses an issue with the "Organized by Thread" view in which the date does not appear when the thread is collapsed.
• Resolves an issue in which RSS feeds could temporarily disappear from the sidebar.
• Improves Mail robustness when sending messages.
• Improves reliability when saving drafts that have attachments.

Time Machine

• Improves Time Machine reliability with Time Capsule.
• Addresses performance issues that may affect initial and in-progress backups.
• Fixes an issue in which an incorrect alert message could appear stating that a backup volume does not have enough free space.
• Time Machine can now back up iPhone backups that are on your Mac, as well as other items in (~/Library/Application Support).

And much, much more.

iTunes 8. Now With a Piece of 'Genius'

Some of you might have noticed that Apple introduced a new and improved iPod Nano, and some other iPod hardware. Apart from the hardware, they also released iTunes 8.

No subscription model for the music, but (apart from some other improvements) they added a Genius function. The Genius analyzes your music library, and makes suggestions on the music your playing. Cool feature since it finds/suggests songs with the same mood, but there's room for improvement.

Genius Playlist??The following screenshot shows a overview of the 'Forty Licks' album of the Rolling Stones. As you might notice, the Genius in iTunes recommend that I seem to miss. I can buy these songs on the right. Notice the missing songs and the ones I marked in yellow.... Okay, one of them is spelled wrong (Jumping instead of Jumpin'), but the others are correctly spelled.

Even a Genius Makes a MistakeThis doesn't only occur on the album of the Stones. It occurs on almost every album/song I play.

Is Apple trying to earn an extra buck? Or is there a vacancy for a real Genius? Anyway, I'd love to have this feature on my iPod.