Tuesday, December 5, 2017
My Ephemeral nature does not stop at blogging. I delete my old tweets automatically using a service called TweetDelete. Protect your privacy by automatically deleting posts older than a specified age from your Twitter feed. This allows you to delete all your tweets all at once (up to 3,200 tweets), and helps make it easier to delete multiple tweets in one go. According to the website most people use Tweet Delete to improve their privacy.
Thursday, November 2, 2017
I am not a good writer. Words rarely flow for me. Compared to other people it takes me a lot longer to write a meaningful sentence. I spend far too much time editing when I should be writing. Combined with a touch of perfectionism, and you can understand why I am wary when it comes to publishing. I only want to show my best work. One of the ways I have learned to get past these fears is by accepting the ephemeral; nothing lasts forever.
Monday, October 30, 2017
The Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE Cellular promises to free Apple Watch owners from the shackles of their iPhones. Allowing them to receive notifications, place calls, stream music, and ask Siri on the go while leaving their phone at home. But despite these freedoms the Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE Cellular is still a prisoner. It cannot be used without first being paired to its owner’s iPhone. This makes the $399+ Apple Watch with LTE Cellular a companion device.
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
September is a busy time of year. Summer vacations are ending. Back-to-school season has begun, Apple is putting the finishing touches on Mac OS High Sierra, and system administrators are getting their first glimpse of the new documentation. Mac OS High Sierra brings several exciting features to the Macintosh platform, but for System Administrators who image and maintain hundreds of Macs there are a few important features you need to know about.
Friday, August 25, 2017
If two things are glued together using “industrial adhesive” they were not meant to be pulled apart. And if one of those two things is a MacBook Pro lithium-ion battery that releases “toxic smoke” when punctured, you should think twice before trying to save a buck. iFixit, everyone’s favorite pull-it-apart online repair guide is at it again. This time with a “glue-busting battery kit” that comes with all of the tools you need to replace your MacBook Pro battery.
Thursday, June 29, 2017
Only once in my life have I owned the undisputed best of anything. That was the original iPgone on June 29th, 2007; the first day it went on sale. Purchasing an 8 GB iPhone in 2007 bought me the best mobile phone money could buy. Android would not be released for another year. Windows Mobile required a stylus. The BlackBerry was a oversized pager. The iPhone was in a league of its own.
Monday, June 5, 2017
I skipped WWDC again this year. Apple’s emphasis on iOS over the last three years removed the sparkle I once felt as a Mac user Instead of flying to California, I watched the keynote with the CocoaHeads Boston crew in a lecture hall at MIT. Daniel Jalkut was there; he does not wear his Burger King crown in person. Despite staying in Boston again this week, I saw Apple’s 2017 WWDC keynote from a new direction.
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Steve Frank of Panic fame admits to having his company’s source code stolen: Last week, for about three days, the macOS video transcoding app HandBrake was compromised. One of the two download servers for HandBrake was serving up a special malware-infested version of the app, that, when launched, would essentially give hackers remote control of your computer. In a case of extraordinarily bad luck, even for a guy that has a lot of bad computer luck, I happened to download HandBrake in that three day window, and my work Mac got pwned.
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Yesterday Apple updated several of its Mac and iOS apps, making them available for free on Mac OS and iOS. MacRumors has the story: iMovie, Numbers, Keynote, Pages, and GarageBand for both Mac and iOS devices have been updated and are now listed in the App Store for free. Previously, all of these apps were provided for free to customers who purchased a new Mac or iOS device, but now that purchase is not required to get the software.
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Yesterday NVIDIA revealed they would be releasing Mac OS drivers for their Pascal microarchitecture GPUs. “This comes despite the fact that Apple hasn’t sold a Mac Pro that can officially accept a PCIe video card in almost half a decade.” So why is NVIDIA releasing a Mac driver to a market that, officially speaking, is essentially dead? Ryan Smith writing for AnandTech explains: Instead it’s the off-label use that makes this announcement interesting, and indeed gives NVIDIA any reason whatsoever to make a Pascal driver release.
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
John Gruber broke the news, the next Mac Pro will be a modular system. Apple is currently hard at work on a “completely rethought” Mac Pro, with a modular design that can accommodate high-end CPUs and big honking hot-running GPUs, and which should make it easier for Apple to update with new components on a regular basis. They’re also working on Apple-branded pro displays to go with them. Phil Schiller elaborates:
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Since the release of Mac OS X Lion: Holding down Command + R at startup told your Mac to boot from the local Recovery Partition, allowing you to restore your Mac’s installed operating system. Holding down Command + Option + R at startup told your Mac to NetBoot from Apple’s Internet Recovery, allowing you to restore your Mac to its original operating system. This all changed on Tuesday when Apple released macOS 10.
Friday, March 24, 2017
I became a FreeHand fan during the Macromedia era after the release Freehand 5.5. Despite its falling popularity, I have always found Freehand’s powerful page layout tools and unique approach to vector illustration appealing. Even after FreeHand’s untimely demise in 2005, you could still find a copy of FreeHand MX in my Dock until the release of Mac OS Lion and the end of PowerPC support on the Mac. Even today with modern vector drawing options like Adobe Illustrator CC available to me, I still long for the days when FreeHand was never more than a click away.
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Joe Rossignol writing for MacRumors: For years, Apple has sent new Genius hires to its Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino, or sometimes an auxiliary campus in Austin or Atlanta, to receive hands-on training for up to three weeks. Recently, however, Apple appears to have stopped offering these group-oriented trips, according to people familiar with the matter. Apple’s off-site Genius Training program has been replaced by an in-store, self-guided experience using company-provided reference materials, according to a source.
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
It is almost Spring and Stephen Hackett is back with a new nerdy t-shirt to celebrate the iMac G3 and his 512 Pixels website The original iMac brought Apple back from the brink with a lovable, colorful design. The quote on the back of the shirt is from Steve Job’s introduction of the machine, and became a joke in Apple keynote for years to come. The shirts will be on sale until March 16 over at TeeSpring.
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
When I was a Mac Genius in 2003, Apple retail charged $30 for the installation of extra RAM, Airport wireless networking, or software purchased in the store.. For most Mac models $30 was a silly expense. It didn’t take much effort to install Microsoft Office on a iMac, an Airport Card in a iBook G3, or extra RAM in a Power Mac G4 tower. (Having a Mac Genius crack open an original Mac mini to install hardware upgrades was probably worth the $30 price tag.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Dr. Drang makes the argument that software not hardware is holding the iPad back from becoming an independent platform. He compares the iPad’s capabilities to features the Mac had during its first seven years of life. What’s surprising to me is how slow iPad software has advanced in the seven years since its introduction. I’ve always thought of the iPad as the apotheosis of Steve Jobs’s conception of what a computer should be, what the Mac would have been in 1984 if the hardware were available.
Monday, March 6, 2017
I agree with Rob Griffiths when he says: “limited ports limit my interest in new Mac laptops.” Apple’s pursuit of an insanely stupid “as thin as a knife edge at all costs” design goal has led to a new generation of machines that make them much less portable than they were before…despite being thinner and lighter. Here’t the thing, Apple: Beyond a certain point, thinness is irrelevant. And honesty, you’ve more than reached that point with every laptop you make.
Monday, March 6, 2017
Ben Lovejoy writing for 9to5Mac: Apple is fighting ‘right to repair’ legislation which would give consumers and third-party repair shops the legal right to purchase spare parts and access service manuals. The state of Nebraska is holding a hearing on the proposed legislation next month, and Motherboard reports that Apple will be formally opposing the bill. Apple does not want just anyone repairing their computers. They restrict access to service manuals, tools, training, and replacement parts in an effort to control the customer experience.
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Andrew Cunningham writing for ArsTechnica: Beta builds of iOS 10.3, the first of which was issued last week, generate warning messages when you try to run older 32-bit apps. The message, originally discovered by PSPDFKit CEO and app developer Peter Steinberger, warns that the apps “will not work with future versions of iOS” and that the app must be updated by its developer in order to continue running. The apps still run in iOS 10.
Monday, January 30, 2017
Mike Wuerthele writing for Apple Insider. The shift appears to have taken place on Dec. 6, according to a Reddit thread delving into the issue. Google has been pushing the open and royalty-free VP9 codec as an alternative to the paid H.265 spec since 2014, but has never said that it would stop offering 4K video on the YouTube site in other formats, like the Apple-preferred H.264. Videos uploaded to the service prior to Dec.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Wesley Moore: I deeply value the consistency, versatility, reliability and integration of Mac OS X and the excellent quality hardware it runs on. However the current state of the Mac has me considering whether it’s still the right platform for me. I started looking at alternatives to Mac OS after OS X Yosemite was released. When Apple’s software began integrating features from iOS and iCloud I didn’t care to use, and Apple’s hardware began shedding performance and pounds for a price I didn’t care to pay.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Steve Frank has brought the Einstein Newton Emulator back to life: On behalf of the Einstein team, I’m happy to announce that a new release, Einstein 2017.1.0, is available for download! (For anyone who doesn’t already know, Einstein is an emulator for the NewtonOS platform.) This release includes pre-built binaries for macOS 10.8+ and Ubuntu Linux 16 (xenial). The iOS build is also functional but must be built from source with Xcode.
Friday, January 20, 2017
Shaun Inman: As of today I’m officially suspending sales and support of Mint and Fever. But! As self-hosted software, absolutely nothing changes and you can continue using both Mint and Fever as you were yesterday. I have been a Fever customer since 2012. It is still my RSS reader of choice today. I usually Fever through the browser, but sometimes via Unread. I wish things had gone differently for Fever.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Kirk McElhearn, writing for Macworld, is frusterated he can’t choose his default apps in iOS. But iOS offers no such option. If you tap a URL, it opens in Safari. If you tap a link to send an email, it opens in Mail. The default calendar is Apple’s Calendar app. And so on. You may not want to work that way and because Apple doesn’t give you any choice, you’re stuck with workarounds: using share sheets to open a web page in a different browser; copying an email link or address to create an email; and so on.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Nick Heer: I’ve been trying to book some time at my local Apple Store to get my iPhone’s battery swapped, and it has not been easy — at least, not compared to the way it used to be. Previously, I’d open the Apple Store app on my phone, open up my store’s page, and tap the button to get support. I could easily make a Genius Bar appointment from there with just a few taps.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Mark Gurman writing for Bloomberg: Apple Inc. has disbanded its division that develops wireless routers, another move to try to sharpen the company’s focus on consumer products that generate the bulk of its revenue, according to people familiar with the matter. If the rumors are true, and Apple is out of the standalone display business, this report makes sense. In a world where the most popular computers have a always-on cellular connection, and every ISP gives you a free wireless router on contract, it makes sense for Apple to get out of wireless router business.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Last weekend I had the chance to visit my local Apple Store and check out the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. I was not impressed. The Touch Bar could have been the greatest user interface advancement to hit the Mac since the Multitouch Trackpad. Instead it is a Gimmick Strip used to quickly tap commonly used keyboard shortcuts and emoji. Complex tasks, like those used in Final Cut Pro X, are possible.
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Take a moment to look over Apple’s product line. Pay special attention to the Macintosh. On the desktop side we have the Mac mini, iMac, and Mac Pro. On the notebook side we have the MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro, Several models come in more than one screen size. The larger models usually offer better performance. Some models don’t come with a screen. Most models are over a year old.
Monday, November 7, 2016
The 2013 Mac Pro has been a disaster. After 1,056 days since its last update, Apple has proven they are no longer interested in making a computer for the high-end professional. While the iMac has always been the computer for the rest of us, the Mac Pro has always been the computer for the professional. Free from self-imposed restrictions on size, weight, and power, the Mac Pro allowed the rest of Apple’s products to appeal to the masses while specializing in the needs of professionals who value performance first.