Announcements

Apple has released a small update for Mid 2010 iMacs, which addresses problems where the 21.5-inch iMac model would change display brightness temporarily after waking from sleep.

The update is 378KB and installs a new version of the "AppleBacklight" kernel extension. It is available via Software Update for applicable systems, and can also be downloaded from this Apple Support webpage.

The update requires OS X 10.6.4, and should require a restart when applied.

Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below or e-mail us! Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.… Read more

Apple has quickly released a patch for the recently uncovered security flaw with how Mobile Safari handles PDF files in iOS 4.0.1 and earlier for the iPod Touch and iPhone, and iOS 3.2.1 and earlier for the iPad.

The iPhone Dev Team uncovered the flaw and released software that took advantage of it to jailbreak iOS devices when you visit its Web site.

A week ago, CNET reported that Apple was preparing a fix, but there was no mention of when Apple would release it.

The update to fix this problem should now be available via … Read more

Adobe has released an update for Illustrator, which addresses a number of stability issues including a problem with the program reporting not enough memory on Macs with greater than 4GB, Glyph panel glitches, and crashes at launch and quit.

The list of major changes are the following:

Out of memory problems specific to Macs with RAM exceeding 4gb, including failure of shortcut keys, rulers, or file open have been addressed.

Glyph Panel issues have been addressed.

Several crashes occurring at launch or quit have been addressed.

A crash when traversing a variable data set containing linked images has been addressed.… Read more

Apple has released an update to Safari 5, which addresses a number of issues with the initial release, including the problem with black backgrounds appearing when generating mail attachments with scripts, and the potential security vulnerability with autofill that was recently uncovered. In addition, the program has a built-in link to Apple's new extensions gallery for people to download and install extensions.… Read more

Digital security investigator Jeremiah Grossman has uncovered a problem with Safari, where websites can exploit the autofill feature to get personal information from the sources that Safari uses for Autofill, including the address book and Safari's own autofill database.… Read more

An update to iTunes is available, which is basically a security update to address an issue where a maliciously crafted website could lead to the application quitting or arbitrary code being executed. According to Apple's knowlegebase article on the security content of the update, the bug at hand occurs when a buffer overflow in the handling of iTunes URLs (itpc) is exploited.

Other than this bug fix, the iTunes update includes the following bug fixes over the prior version:

Disables older versions of some incompatible third-party plug-ins

Addresses minor issues with dragging and dropping items

Addresses a performance issue … Read more

CNET TV's Brian Tong discusses the latest in the world of Apple. This week, Brian recaps Steve Jobs' press conference about iPhone 4 antenna issues, examines the iOS 4.1 developer release, and talks about rumors for the next generation iPod touch.

Can't see the video? Have an iPhone or iPad? Click the following link to download this week's Apple Byte (should show in the HTML5 viewer in Safari):

→ Apple Byte 7/19/2010 ←

Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums. Submit a fix to MacFixIt! Email Us.

With Leopard and prior versions of OS X, one of the popular maintenance utilities was AppleJack, which is a free SourceForge project and ran in the Terminal (preferably Single User mode) as an easy-to-access way to run a bout of cleaning functions on the Mac. AppleJack so far has been incompatible with Snow Leopard, but with today's update the Snow Leopard incompatibility has been squashed.… Read more

Apple has acknowledged a problem with time capsule devices released between February and June in 2008, where the devices will not turn on or will randomly shut down after starting up. This may cause hangs and other interruptions in Time Machine backups as well as other network activity.… Read more