New and Noteworthy: Reduce Mac OS X security threats - ignore security software; more

Reduce Mac OS X security threats - ignore security software ZDNet takes a jab at the ridiculous claims by some "security experts" that Mac OS X is "the next Windows." "McAfee wants you to buy into its picture of Macintosh security. We prefer an alternate reality. It may be true, as McAfee says, that from 2003 to 2005 the number of discovered Mac vulnerabilities increased by 228 percent while Windows only saw a 73 percent increase. But that's like saying that in the last decade, deaths caused by choking on ice cream were up by 200 percent while deaths from smoking only went up by ten. Like the ice cream, shining light on McAfee's claims makes them melt away ? when we asked the company how big the risks actually were, it admitted that there was 'no significant risk' at the moment. But there might be in the future. People on Macs are complacent. Better safe than sorry." More.

FastMac Ships High-Capacity Titanium PowerBook Battery TMO reports that FastMac on Friday released a TruePower battery for the Titanium PowerBook, offering up to 48% more capacity than Apple's original battery. Priced at US$99.95, it joins FastMac's other battery offerings for Aluminum G4 PowerBooks, G3 PowerBooks, and G3 and G4 iBooks. More.

Syncing mobile devices with a MacBook Pro A Geek.com blog explores the trials and tribulations of getting various devices -- including an i-mate SP5m, Treo 650, and Nokia N70 -- to synchronize with the MacBook Pro. The author writes: "The first option was to try syncing natively in the Mac OS X environment since this is where I plan and desire to work the majority of the time. I was able to install a Mac version of the Palm Desktop and sync using that and iSync without any issues. I haven't figured out how to sync with Entourage using the Palm, but think I may need to get a 3rd party application for this (a new version of The Missing Sync was just released for Palm devices)." More.

Previously on MacFixIt

• RealPlayer 10.1.0 (#2): Crashes in Firefox, Camino; Some codecs require Rosetta
• Graphic distortion (tiny white dots) in Dock icons, other icons, menubars (#2)
• OpenOffice.org not recognizing printers
• mac.column.ted: Unravelling the Repair Disk Permissions controversy

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