nicely done googles.

i’ve been catching up on a massive reading backlog as of late. one of the topics egregiously in the backlog has been digesting the information associated with internationalized domain names (IDNs) and poking at some of the attendant follow-on considerations. given that there’s a huge hunk of the world that doesn’t use latin character sets, this is an increasingly interesting and relevant topic. particularly for network infrastructure dweebs.

for those looking for a good place to start on the topic of internationalization i highly recommend geoff huston’s writeup on the topic, Internationalizing the Internet. he provides a reasonable primer on interesting topics such as digraphs, glyphs, etc.

fortunately, localization of content presentation is an area which has received a considerable amount of attention within the computer industry. further, it benefits from the fact that there’s been a bit of give and take socially and from a development perspective to accommodate various localization requirements. e.g.: japanese writing and layout has undergone a bit of accommodation to “modern” publishing capabilities and computer interfaces.

internationalization of the Internet is another matter. of considerably greater difficulty is enabling the infrastructure to support the variety of localizations that are out there. the first among these is the DNS infrastructure. this leads you down a windy path of different encoding mechanisms and a whole host of additional security implications. of notea number of interesting variants on homograph
attacks.

looking at this from the perspective of network engineering, we’re really moving into a world where there will be new stresses and strains placed upon the DNS infrastructure.  what was previously a relatively low bandwidth infrastructure service will rapidly explode in terms of bandwidth utilization and processing requirements going forward.  considerable attention will need to be given to application design and verification mechanisms in the background to alert users to a host of new attacks.  it’s unclear what the implications will be on service / application developers over the near term given that most of the infrastructure elements associated with web services are ascii oriented.

misc. background reading:

• punycode – a means of encoding unicode into the ASCII character space.
• Phishing defense against IDN address spoofing attacks – abstract: Address spoofing is a common trick used in phishing scams to confuse unsuspecting users about a Web site’s real origin. With the introduction of Unicode characters into domain names, also known as Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), the risk has significantly increased even for the most cautious users. The author explores the various types of address spoofing attacks focusing on IDN, and presents a novel client-side Web browser plug-in Quero which implements several techniques—including highlighting—to protect the user against visually undistinguishable address manipulations.
• RFC 4690 – abstract: This note describes issues raised by the deployment and use of
  Internationalized Domain Names.  It describes problems both at the time of registration and for use of those names in the DNS.  It recommends that IETF should update the RFCs relating to IDNs and a framework to be followed in doing so, as well as summarizing and identifying some work that is required outside the IETF.

the speed is quite frankly mind-boggling.  javascript apps scream, rendering is honored appropriately, java support is dicey (keep safari handy) and the interface is really snappy.

this week gives me enough breathing room to poke at the latest firefox 3.6 build as well.  this is the default workhorse browser for 99%+ of what i do.  frankly, i don’t know what i’d do without the “it’s all text” add-on.  given the amount of wiki editing and integration with online systems that i have to handle on a daily basis.  if i could get this for chrome, i might be sorely tempted to jump ship.  firefox 3.6 carries with it the attendant hassle of a new release in terms of add-on support.  but fortunately i’ve been able to hack or cajole all the major ones for me into submission.  there’s some decided improvement in rendering speed.  but beyond that, it looks pretty much the same to me.  which is more than ok, it’s a solid performer in the workflow.

seriously. just do it.

if you need a GUI, SuperDuper, works wonderfully.  this will save your ass. no joke.

essential tools / things to get:

go and get the developer toolkit (aka Xcode) – this will get you a working compiler and a kick ass development environment.  unfortunately, i haven’t had a lot of time to monkey with Xcode for its primary purpose of developing mac apps.  you should be able to install this off of the optional software installation on the OS distribution disk.  alternatively you can get this from the apple developers web site. (http://developer.apple.com/mac/ – note you might have to create an account on this site to get the latest tools and they are a big download.  get it when you’re someplace where you have a solid and fast connection.)

macports – run, don’t walk, to get this one.  i’ve messed with fink, i find this to be more complete and  more often than not, it just works.  to make life easier, you should periodically update your ports collection.  this is trivially accomplished via a periodic sudo port selfupdate.  note, you’ll need to have a working Xcode installation to get this appropriately installed since, like the FreeBSD version of ports, it will build this stuff from source and resolve dependencies in the process.  it’s not a binary build system like fink, et al.

editors

emacs / vim – without taking a religious perspective on this topic it’s good to know that there are first rate implementations of both on this platform.  i install both and toggle between the two of them as it makes sense.  personally, i’ve toyed with some very useful 3rd party editors as well. i’ll include some additional notes on these as well.

• emacs – i use this one, there are folks that swear by aquaemacs, but i can’t make the keybindings happy enough for my taste.

• vim – macvim – need i say more?  i used this version for a long time prior to finding an emacs that made me happy on the mac.  the new version of macvim is sexy as hell and has tabs and shit.
• TextMate – this one seems to have all of the web 2.0 folks in a twist.  i find it to be a remarkably good editor with emacs-like keybindings that work for most things. (meta-b/f don’t work as expected so that’s a frustration for me, personally.)
• SubEthaEdit / Coda – i mention these in the same breath.  SubEthaEdit is a collaborative text editor which allows folks to simultaneously edit a document, this editor is embedded within the coda web development package.

OSX oddities

su / root account – if you’re used to just su’ing to root, then you’re going to be surprised by the fact that root isn’t enabled by default.  instead you use sudo for pretty much everything.  if you’re used to running things as root and you feel like doing this all over the place you’re welcome to enable root (done by following these directions), over the past couple of machines i’ve had, i haven’t enabled root.

cron – OSX doesn’t run the crond like you’ve seen on other platforms instead there’s launchd.  which assumes the responsibilities of a whole host of classic UNIX processes (notably, init and crond).  if you use crontab -e a la the classic UNIX interface to crond, then all of the launchd stuff is handled in the background for you. if you expect to just copy over your crontab files from /var/spool/cron then you’re in for something of an awakening.  to make all of this just work, use crontab, it will make sure that launchd is updated appropriately.

turning a page in eucalyptus

i recently ran across a number of references to hiram bingham’s, Inca Land, which is available for free from project gutenberg.  this of course prompted the search for an appropriate ebook reader with hooks to project gutenberg.  behold eucalyptus, which will download books from project gutenberg on the fly and give you a killer interface for viewing the contents of the book.  insane attention to detail is visible everywhere.

the text is rendered in very high quality fonts, the animation is tight and the search function is spot on.  my only nit, is the lack of graphics for books which do have photos.

http://eucalyptusapp.com/ – definitely worth the $9.99 that they’re asking for it.

i should point out that i’ve also purchased classics (http://www.classicsapp.com/) which is equally stunning visually. however, the library that’s embedded inside classics is anemic.  while they’ve taken great care to display the content beautifully i find myself aching for more content.  i’d give up some of the visual appeal for the content and the portability.  eucalyptus seems to have struck a very nice balance here.

while all these two apps are capable reading platforms, i do find them lacking a few features which i really irritate me.  specifically these:

• the ability to annotate or make notes. now, i know that there are all sorts of additional considerations associated with this and there’s a corresponding need to provide a means to extract those notes into a different application, provide sexy input overlay, etc.  but i’m a margin writer or a highlighter.  if i like a book i like to make it mine.  while this is a general nit with ebooks, i would love to find a reasonably decent digital proxy.  failing this, i would like …
• the ability to copy a selected region of text and use the paste function to bring that content into another application for sharing or notes.  seems like a pretty duh item for me, particularly given that the content is all without copyright encumbrance.

these are hardly damning criticisms of these apps, in fact they’re more reflective of my desire to have a host of reading functionality in my pocket which to date i haven’t been able to find.  these apps represent the greatest non-kindle based means of portable reading that i’ve personally poked at and i find my curiosity piqued and a couple of things lacking.

• Running Out of Numbers? The Impending Scarcity of IPv4 Addresses and What To Do About It (benjamin edelman) – this is definitely worth a read for anyone who’s interested in the IPv4 depletion issues we’re running into as an industry and it provides a surprisingly good background review of the problem space. (IPv4 and IPv6 history and high-level technical issues overview) if you have to give someone a single paper to read regarding the IPv4 depletion situation, this would definitely be at the top of my list.
• The problem of synthetically generating IP traffic matrices: initial recommendations (antonio nucci, et al) – as someone who’s interested in realistic testing scenarios for routing platforms i thought this was a great overview of the challenges that arise in constructing a appropriately balanced synthetic traffic. definitely worth the read for router dweebs, but high on the nerd factor.

on a decidedly non-nerdish note

i was also able to burn through naomi wolf’s, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot . while ms. wolf certainly goes for the emotional jugular here with the constant comparison to the nazi takeover in germany and mussolini’s rise to power in italy, it’s certainly worth noting the parallels. it should be interesting to see what transpires with an Obama presidency. there’s no shortage of things which need to be corrected in terms of the direction of this country. this book certainly provides a list of places to start. the question remains as to whether we as a country can address these matters at the same time we’re addressing the economic downturn.

when folks worried about their jobs and homes, correcting lapses in the core tenets of our democracy tend to move to the back burner.

$Id: osx-nits.txt,v 1.4 2001/05/03 11:50:52 sulrich Exp sulrich $

# os x nits
## general os and interface nits

 * when i hit the cmd key in a modal dialog box - i'm not presented with a
   list of keyboard short-cuts for the dialog box. it's a capital letter
   crap-shoot!  it would be nice to be able to hit the cmd key and have the
   corresponding keyboard shortcut displayed.

   >> it bears noting that this interface nit still stands.  however,
   >> i've come to terms with this to some extent.  changing the
   >> extension on a file from the finder is no where near as annoying
   >> as it used to be.``

 * it would be nice to have a real print manager that worked. the current
   printer controller is really lame and doesn't allow you to view the
   configuration of current devices.  it looks like the menu item is there
   but it's grayed out.

   * further to gripe about the printer support there appears to be a lack
     of real definitions for printer description files that you install.
     meaningful names for the printer definitions that are there would be
     really nice.

  >> this is an area where i have to say apple really stood up and did a
  >> good job. i admittedly have rather modest printing requirements,
  >> however, for a guy that has to add printers in foreign offices at
  >> work all the time, the support is wide and the hassle is minimal.

 * what i wouldn't give to be able to remap the apple key in terminal to
   behave like a meta key.

   >> this gripe stands. i've ameliorated this to a large extent through
   >> the use of the shipping X11 implementation and the use of
   >> xterm/rxvt. still, this leaves me with a nagging issue wrt cut and
   >> paste.

   just a follow up to this - you can kind of do this in emacs for mac os x
   with the option key but that is just a little too awkwardly placed for
   my tastes.  looks like i'll be an escape-key emacs user for a while

 * why must changing the desktop background color be such a chore? if i want a
   solid color why can't i just select one w/the color tool? i surmise that i'm
   missing out on something fundamental here but it's really annoying

   >> this gripe still stands. sure, there's a solid color option there,
   >> but you still don't get the color tool.

 * teeny hardware nit here.  why is the escape key so small?  the ~ is
   in the right place though and this is nice.

 * virtual desktops! - i'm running out of screen space and there is no
   virtual desktop functionality that i can find anywhere.

   >> spaces. need i say more? sure spaces isn't perfect, but it's
   >> pretty damn close and it's built-in with reasonable defaults.
   >> color me tickled.

 * make the PDF generation access a little more prominent on the print
   dialog.  while i love the ability to have PDF output i hate having to
   select that option repeatedly.  i'd like to make pdf output my default.

   >> well, you still can't make PDF generation the default, (to my
   >> knowledge.)  but it's featured much more prominently and there's
   >> slick integration that's taken place with the ability to direct
   >> output to applications.  which has my Yep! setup quite happy.

## terminal
 * terminal performance over the long haul is horrible.  this needs to be
   sped up considerably.

   >> fixed this, but i still don't use terminal - ref gripe re: cmd key
   >> utilization and emacs keybindings

 * more on terminal.app - this needs some real work on the termcap side of
   things.  there doesn't' seem to be a really consistent mechanism for
   making sure that you're dealing with the terminal on this.  what i
   wouldn't give for just really decent xterm support.

## airport / wireless
 * how about some meaningful stats regarding signal strength?

   >> still sucks if you ask me.

 * opening up the driver interface on the airport cards to support things
   like airsnort.

   >> improved considerably. there's a pretty wide range of support here
   >> and folks have filled in a lot of the gaps relative to tools for
   >> sniffing out additional wireless APs, etc.

## general networking
 * IPv6 support (addendum - looks like this will be in jaguar)

   >> pretty damn good support if you ask me. 

 * multicast support (w/support for IGMPv3)

   >> grrr. still outstanding. 

 * i would really like dummynet or some form of queueing for network
   traffic.  this would let me use my mac for testing some network
   configurations. altq would be heaven.

   >> no progress here.  understandably, this is a consumer OS after
   >> all.

 * pf would be preferred vs. ipfw (in all honesty i haven't had a chance
   to see if the necessary kernel hooks are there for pf)

   >> there's been a lot of forward progress on the firewall front. i've
   >> added to this with the use of little snitch which provides a lot
   >> more granularity in terms of the per-application visibility that
   >> you'd be interested in. still. pf is pretty much the bomb for this
   >> stuff.

overall, i really have to say a lot of my longstanding nits have been admirably addressed. if you look at this from the perspective that there are a fair number of nits that are purely networking dweeb oriented in nature, and you keep in mind that this really is a consumer oriented OS, you have to be impressed at how well they’ve addressed the spectrum of user requirements.