My issues earlier with 1Password were more deeply rooting in a 10.7.2 bug that prevents users from establishing a connection over SSL (SSL connections would timeout) after an attempting to access the web via a connection that uses a captive portal (Like the one at the airport, a hotel, or your local coffee shop).
More details on this one here: http://superuser.com/questions/349740/mac-os-x-lion-10-7-2-update-breaks-ssl
10.7.2 introduced a security patch that addressed the “Security Captive Portal Hijacking” hacks that were emerging. Part of the “fix” involves verifying certificate status using OCSP (Online Certificate Status Protocol) and/or a CRL (Certificate Revocation List). The problem there is that when you’re actually trying to access the web via a captive portal, typically all SSL requests are sent to the portal’s server, including those used to verify the SSL certificates. This results in a bit of an infinite loop; you get a corrupted keychain, and cannot load SSL websites anymore even after ditching the “problematic” connection.
Until Apple provides an update, here’s he fix: Disable your web connection and reboot. This will repair your keychain. (I opened Keychain access and removed the “unknown” cert from my login keychain as well, after rebooting). Then re-enable your connection and you should be back in business (Ideally connect to a network that doesn’t use a portal now!)
I just ran into an issue on Mac OS X 10.7.2 running Safari 5.1.2. Safari would try to launch, but never succeed. Removing the preference files and the saved sate files did not help, the only thing that did was removing the 1Password extension I had been using, located in ~/Library/Safari/Extensions/
If you run into similar problems and have 1Password installed, clear out that directory to remove it and try again! Hope this helps someone else…
When Apple introduced HTTP streaming to the world on their iOS platform, I always wondered what would involved in capturing it. After all, it’s just http data, how hard can it be? Well, I’m flying out tomorrow morning for work, and decided it’d be nice to watch the hour+ Celebrating Steve video that Apple just released on the plane ride. Only one problem: It was a streaming video, with no download link in sight.
I dove into the source, and found the <video> tag, and the source file, an HTTP Streaming .m3u8 playlist file. I downloaded the sl_mvp.m3u8 file it an opened it in TextEdit. Inside were the links to the various quality program stream playlists:
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1, BANDWIDTH=1308077 http://qthttp.apple.com.edgesuite.net/11ajdjnvkjnd10weoihf23ohfoihqw/2540/prog_index.m3u8
I figured the higher the bandwidth, the higher the quality, so I went with the highest. I then downloaded the prog_index.m3u8 file, which contained a sequential list of the transport stream chunks of the video. Each segment was about 10 seconds long. this file contained two important pieces of information: The base file name (fileSequenceXXX.ts), and the total number of chunks (486) for this stream. I figured this would be a perfect use for OS X’s built in curl utility and fired up the Terminal. I made a new folder for my video chunks, cd’d into it, and ran curl:
curl -O http://qthttp.apple.com.edgesuite.net/11ajdjnvkjnd10weoihf23ohfoihqw/2540/fileSequence[0-486].ts
hitting return went about downloading all 487 chunks. When all 1.6GB were done, I had to merge them together. Because these are transport streams, cat works well enough:
cat * > ~/output.ts
That command makes a file called output.ts in my home folder by merging all the small chunks in the folder together (I did use Automator to rename the files to three digit numbers just in case my shell’s file ordering was different than the Finder).
QuickTime X has no problem playing back this H264 video, AAC audio transport stream file directly, which is great: Mission accomplished. But being the perfectionist I am, I felt the need to try and maximize compatibility and get the .ts into a .mov or .mp4 container. VLC did this for me no problem using its wonderful export wizard, but for whatever reason when I played back the resultant .mov (or .mp4) in QuickTime I got black video. VLC played it fine. I’ll look into this more later, but here’s to hoping this info can help someone else!
There is a pending Class Action lawsuit against Apple for allegedly providing inadequate power supplies to charge and use 2011 Macbook Pros (Tomek v Apple, FCS038512). See my earlier post for additional coverage of the actual issue, or click the link below for the full lawsuit. The plaintiff seeks unspecified damages and appropriate restitution for the class, as deemed by the court.
Full Text: Tomek v Apple, FCS038512
*Update* As is par for the course in Apple’s legal strategy, Apple has filed a Motion to Dismiss. Alex Tomek and his lawyer(s) have requested (and received) a continuance, delaying the hearing for the Motion to Dismiss until 2:00PM on February 23rd, 2012.
Continuance Order Full Text: Alex Tomek v Apple, Case # 2:11-cv-02700-MCE-DAD
