news: sqwarq app updates

DetectX 1.30 is now available. Aside from the fancy new icon you can see above :p, we also added the Sparkle updater to make updates more convenient for users and made a few tweaks to improve the search definitions.

FastTasks 1.67 is now available. The latest version updates the Analyser and adds AppleScript support. The functions available to AppleScript are fairly limited at the moment, but we’d love to add more. Tell us how you’d like to script FT2 (or any other Sqwarq apps!) in the comments below and we’ll look into adding your suggestions to future updates.

Thanks!

Advertisement

how to block Flash in Safari

If you’re worried about news like yet another Flash vulnerability, the first thing to note is that Apple has moved to block all but the latest version.

However, given that exploits of Flash seem to occur sometimes within days of even new releases, it might be wise to think about blocking Flash altogether in your day-to-day browser.

Fortunately, that’s pretty easy to do in Safari. Just go to Safari’s Preferences > Security tab, and uncheck the ‘Allow Plug-ins’ box at the bottom. You can manage which websites are allowed access to Flash from the adjacent button, but an alternative strategy is to use a different browser (Firefox or Opera for example) for only viewing sites where you need Flash access.

Either way, its seems wise to make sure that Flash isn’t allowed unrestricted access on your main browser.

news: sqwarq app update

FastTasks 2 v1.66 is now available. This incremental update includes an update to the Analyser and a minor bug fix.

how to enable TRIM

Starting with 10.10.4, you can now enable Trim for 3rd party disks without resorting to 3rd party tools. Apple have included a new command line utility called trimforce.

Beware, the name was not picked acccidentally. Trimforce forces TRIM activation on all 3rd party SSDs regardless of whether they support it or not, so use at your own discretion. Generally, it should be safe to use if your disk manufacturer recommends having TRIM turned on, but only your own testing will confirm that. As always, be sure you have full and regular backups of your disks in case of data corruption.

Note that trimforce requires sudo — meaning you’ll need an admin password to do this:

sudo trimforce enable

The new command line utility doesn’t have a --status option, so if you want to check the current TRIM status from the command line, you’ll need this command:

system_profiler SPSerialATADataType | grep 'TRIM'

🙂