Dashboard hacking

[winterkoninkje]

So Apple's latest update has some questionable details apparently. It's claimed the messages sent home don't contain anything meaningful, though I haven't heard of anyone specifically verifying this.

The article provides one way of disabling the service, though I advise against using it. Modern OSes aren't meant to be hacked that way, a better way of disabling it is mentioned in the comments, namely: sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dashboard.advisory.fetch.plist . Not only is this approach cleaner since it uses Apple's own tools, it brings up those tools which — while mostly undocumented — are very helpful for finding out how your system works to spot other potential concerns.

I noticed however that I couldn't find the Dashboard Advisory running on my system. This is probably because I've done another little hack to disable the Dashboard entirely. I can't seem to find the original article on doing this though this one explains in brief how and why you'd want to do it. The command for the curious is: defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES && killall Dock .

These are just a couple of the little hacks I've made to my system. I thought any mac users out there might also be interested in them. And yes, both launchctl and defaults have manpages you can look through.

Comments

[theotherjay.livejournal.com]

Is there anything to prevent you from simply not accepting the update?

I admit, I - blithely computer-ignorant fool that I am - usually download whatever Software Update gives me (except for the iPod software. I don't have an iPod and don't ever plan to have one, and I have no need for software to run one, kthx). In retrospect, this was probably pretty dumb.

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

Is there anything to prevent you from simply not accepting the update?

Nope, nothing. Of course you may want some of the other patches and features in that or future updates, so I wouldn't say it's advisable to refuse the update. But it's trivial to disable the feature too so there's no reason not to get it, IMO.

I don't think it's so dumb to just download and accept whatever Software Update offers. For the most part they are bug fixes and security patches, of which the former are desirable if you use the program and the latter is of the utmost urgency. Sure, it's good to at least see what it is you're installing, maybe look over the details of the update if you've the time/interest, but given the limited scope of what SU changes, I wouldn't call it unsafe to just accept them.