Volume Number: 27
Issue Number: 02
Column Tag: Editorial

From the Editor, February 2011

It's February and I'm writing this, sequestered in my home in New York. I'm able to write this from the solitude of a snow-filled landscape, and that gives time to think and reflect on the course of the technology professional today. I've been able to have some great conversations with people both long in this business, and those fairly new to it. We're seeing a lot of great changes, great thinking and amazing work. At the same time, I find some people that are just not seeing the evolution taking place. It is one of our goals at MacTech to help people understand this evolution and how to ensure that you're working with the latest skills and trends to evolve themselves. This happens through the content in the magazine and on http://www.mactech.com, of course.

Additionally, this is happening through the MacTech Conference and MacTech Bootcamp shows that we're running. The first MacTech Conference, for IT and developer professionals took place this past November and was a great success. It will go on to be an annual event, and we're planning the next one for this Fall right now. The first MacTech Bootcamp, for techs who primarily spend their time in the home user, SOHO and small to medium sized business market, just took place on the 26th of January. We're always thinking about ways to evolve how we get people together to have a great experience.

Some of the news that you may have already seen is that MacTech has acquired NSConf in the United States. The short version of this simply means that we'll have Steve "Scotty" Scott leading the Developer portion of MacTech Conference, while we continue with the other great content and events that make up the show. This includes ways of involving people of all experience levels, and exposing people to technology and practices that will help them grow.

This month's cover story introduces the nmap network scanner for testing the security of hosts on a network. Network scanning is a basic technique used by people probing a network or host before an attack, so as someone defending those resources, you should be familiar with it. Let contributing author Mihalis Tsoukalos gide you through using nmap to uncover the holes in your hosts before other people do.

Another evolution of sorts comes in the form of AppleScript. Frequent MacTech author José Cruz teaches you all about the Objective-C bridge that's now available. If you have a legacy of AppleScript code, and it happens to need some updates, or it needs some new functionality, check out, "Cocoa-Covered AppleScript."

The Mac App Store! Another evolution that needs no introduction. It's here to stay, but is there a way to work with it? Or is will it be a free-for-all for your users that you so carefully manage? Greg Neagle answers all of your questions in, "Mac App Store and the Enterprise."

In addition to the stories mentioned, we have much more, in the form of improving your Ruby code for Sys Admins, a retrospective for Consultants and billing practices for consultants.

Until next month, continue your own evolution and let us know how we can further that!

Ed Marczak,

Executive Editor