Egg Freckles

Menu

Menu

  • Blog
  • Email
  • Feed
  • Log in

Categories

  • Creation
  • Favorite
  • Review

Pages

  • Extras
  • Setup

Recent Posts

  • Mac OS 9 was only released on…
  • The limited edition Welcome…
  • Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar was the…
  • Mac OS 9 sounds so much…
  • Solaris Zune

Archive

  • December 2024
  • June 2023
  • December 2022
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
Archive of 2018

December 2017

  • TweetDelete

    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. TweetDelete is useful for people who want to reduce the amount of old data in their Twitter account (perhaps because of other apps they use on it) or people who want to limit the amount of data about themselves they expose online. Tin foil hats are optional! I don’t wear a tin foil hat, and I don’t think deleting my old tweets protects my privacy. I use TweetDelete because I treat Twitter like a form instant messaging. Twitter is important to me because of the personal interactions it provides, but I am never going back to relive those old…

    Permanent link to “TweetDelete”

November 2017

  • Ephemeral Blog

    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. Just because our computers and content manangement systems are capable of archiving everything doesn’t mean we have to save it all. Egg Freckles is a ephemeral blog. I choose what I keep. I’ll only show you my best work, and leave the rest for the Internet Archvive. Breaking links is a terrible way to blog; it’s bad for the Internet. But I am okay with that; this is my place.

    Permanent link to “Ephemeral Blog”

October 2017

  • LTE Apple Watch

    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. Second fiddle to the functionally superior iPhone every Apple Watch owner already choose to put in their pockets. Purchasing an Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE Cellular means you are willing to spend $70 more at checkout and up to $120 annually for the privilege of leaving your $700 iPhone at home. ANd that doesn’t sound like a good deal to me. But what about exercise? People like to run, play sports, or workout at the gym while leaving their phone at home. To those people I say keep exercising. Your iPhone was…

    Permanent link to “LTE Apple Watch”

September 2017

  • Prepare for High…

    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. Security Mac OS High Sierra includes the following changes to TLS connections: Removes support for TLS connections using SHA-1 certificates. Administrators of TLS services should update their services to use SHA-2 certificates. Removes trust from certificates that use RSA key sizes smaller than 2048 bits across all TLS connections. Uses TLS 1.2 as the default for EAP-TLS negotiation. You can change this default setting with a configuration profile. Older clients might still need 1.0. These security restrictions should not be a problem for…

    Permanent link to “Prepare for High Sierra”

August 2017

  • iFixit's MacBook…

    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. For somewhere between $89 and $120 iFixit promises to save you money over the Apple Store. And while iFixit’s kit comes with everything you need to replace your MacBook battery, they fail to tell you that Apple’s battery service comes with a replacement trackpad, topcase, and keyboard (provided these components are in good working order), plus professional installation with a 90-day warranty all for $199.99. With iFixit you get a do-it-yourself project with more risk and less value than if you brought your MacBook to the…

    Permanent link to “iFixit's MacBook Pro Battery Kit”

June 2017

  • iPhone Turns Ten

    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. It started a brand new era in computing. Owning an iPhone in 2007 was more of a point of interest than a practicality. Strangers would stop me on the street to ask questions about my phone. But once you got past the novelty of pinching and zooming there was little else you could do. Only 15 apps were included on the phone. There was no App Store. I could send a text, make a call, read an email, or schedule an appointment, but there was no copy and paste. I found myself watching the stock market for the first time because I could do it on my phone. There was no iCloud. To sync my data, I had to plug my…

    Permanent link to “iPhone Turns Ten”
  • WWDC 2017 Keynote

    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. I am no longer a Mac user. For the last three years I have been a Hackintosh user at home, and a MacBook user on the job. Then I changed jobs and sold my Hackintosh. I still carry an iPhone in my pocket and wear an Apple Watch one my wrist, but I not the Apple fanatic I was a decade ago. Today I watched the keynote as an outsider. Apple TV Amazon Prime content on Apple TV. Enough said. Watch OS 4 The new Siri watch face represents a push for powerful background artificial intelligence. Much more than the voice-activated query and reply routine we have today. I expect…

    Permanent link to “WWDC 2017 Keynote”

May 2017

  • Panic Pwned

    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. Long story short, somebody, somewhere, now has quite a bit of source code to several of our apps. I am sorry this happened to Steven, but at the same time honestly documenting this breach in a well-written blog post is just one of the reasons I love Panic so much. Would this have happened to Steven if Handbrake, like so many other powererful Mac Apps, was restricted from the Mac App Store? If Handbrake had been in the Appe Store and protected by…

    Permanent link to “Panic Pwned”

April 2017

  • Free iApps

    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. Many Apple customers were already likely eligible to download the software at no cost if they had made a device purchase in the last few years. Hackintosh users will no doubt take advantage of Apple’s generosity even if using these apps on commodity PC hardware is against the terms of the license agreement. The real winners though are schools and business who won’t have to worry about managing these essential iApps using apple’s confusing Volume Purchase Program.

    Permanent link to “Free iApps”
  • New Pascal Drivers…

    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. Within the Mac community there are small but none the less vocal user groups based around both unsupported external GPUs and not-even-Apple-hardware Hackintoshes. In the case of the former, while macOS doesn’t support external GPUs (and isn’t certified as eGFX complaint by Intel), it’s possible to use Macs with Thunderbolt eGFX chassis with a bit of OS patching. Meanwhile with a bit more hacking, it’s entirely possible to get macOS running on a…

    Permanent link to “New Pascal Drivers for Mac OS”
  • Modular Mac

    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: With regards to the Mac Pro, we are in the process of what we call “completely rethinking the Mac Pro”. We’re working on it. We have a team working hard on it right now, and we want to architect it so that we can keep it fresh with regular improvements, and we’re committed to making it our highest-end, high-throughput desktop system, designed for our demanding pro customers. As part of doing a new Mac Pro — it is, by definition, a modular system — we will be doing a pro display as well. Now you won’t see any of those products this year; we’re in the process of that. We think…

    Permanent link to “Modular Mac”

March 2017

  • Internet Recovery

    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 10.12.4. Apple: macOS Recovery installs different versions of macOS depending on the key combination you press while starting up. Hold down one of these combinations immediately after pressing the power button to turn on your Mac. Release when you see the Apple logo or a spinning globe. Michael Tsai: The new Option-Command-R keyboard shortcut lets you do an Internet recovery of latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac. So, rather than boot from a slow hard drive, wrangle the Mac App Store, download the installer, and then launch it, I just held down the keys and let it…

    Permanent link to “Internet Recovery”
  • FreeHand for Free

    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. Fortunately for me, and the many FreeHand fans like me, all is not lost. The FreeHand Forum provides links to the once freely distributed trial version of FreeHand MX. And Adobe of all companies provides the serial numbers that can keep FreeHand MX launching past its first 30 days. You will still need a Mac, a Hackintosh, or a virtual machine running Snow Leopard or earlier if you want to run FreeHand MX under Mac OS…

    Permanent link to “FreeHand for Free”
  • Genius Training…

    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. The training now involves watching web-based seminars through the Apple Technical Learning Administration System, or ATLAS, another source said. I was a Mac Genius in 2003, before the iPhone, when Mac OS X was still new and exciting. Training was different then, all the emphasis was on the Mac. Customer interactions and role-playing took place during the two-weeks of “Core Training” before my store opened. My time in Cupertino was spent learning “wisdom;” how to…

    Permanent link to “Genius Training Leaves Cupertino”
  • Mac Pack

    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.) Thankfully Apple did away with this practice for the sale of new Macs. They called this free service a “Mac Pack.” One of the unique features of the free Mac Pack was the migration of files from a customer’s home computer to their new Mac. This offer brought all kinds of computers into the Apple Store, and not all of them were Macs. Sure there were restrictions about how old the computer could be or what operating system they were running, but as Mac Genius we tried to help everyone. That included customers who brought in old PCs…

    Permanent link to “Mac Pack”
  • The Back Looks…

    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. There are both men’s and women’s options, as well as an unisex long-sleeve because Myke asked for it. You only have a few days left. I ordered mine this morning.

    Permanent link to “The Back Looks Better Than the Front”
  • iPad as a Platform

    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. But think of what the Mac could do when it was seven years old: You could write real Macintosh programs on it, both with third-party development software like THINK (née Lightspeed) C and Pascal and Apple’s Macintosh Programmer’s Workshop. You may not care about writing native apps, but the ability to do so brings with it a lot of other abilities you do care about, like the bringing together of documents from multiple sources. You had a mature multi-tasking environment in the MultiFinder…

    Permanent link to “iPad as a Platform”
  • Swiss Army Knife

    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. You reached that point, in fact, a few years ago. There are many things I love about my 2013 13″ rMBP, including the variety of ports it includes: The Thunderbolt 3 and USB Type-C ports on modern MacBooks are extremely versatile, but I believe the best tool is the one you have with you. Carrying a bag full of dongles makes having the right tool less reliable. The value of a PowerBook could once be measured against the value of good Swiss Army knife; how much can your accomplish with a single tool. The only thing…

    Permanent link to “Swiss Army Knife”
  • Right to Repair

    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. Third-party service providers can apply for access to these resources, but Apple controls the relationship through tough requirements that change often. If Apple believes the best way to repair their products is through an authorized service provider, why would they want to put in the effort to have their computers repaired any other way?

    Permanent link to “Right to Repair”
  • iOS Drops Support…

    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 10.3, but it seems likely that iOS 11 will drop support for them entirely. Apple has required 64-bit support on all new app submissions since February 2016, and Apple has required 64-bit support on all app updates since June 2015. Any apps that are still throwing this error have not been updated in over a year and ahalf`. I am reading this error as a sign the next release major release of iOS will only work with iPhones and iPads with a 64-bit processor. Time to say goodnight to the iPhone 5c, iPad 4, and iPad mini 2 and earlier.

    Permanent link to “iOS Drops Support for 32-bit”

January 2017

  • Safari Should…

    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. 6 in 4K resolution can still play back in full 4K resolution on Safari from the YouTube homepage. Additionally, Mac users utilizing Chrome still have the ability to play back new videos in 4K, as Safari is the only holdout among the major browsers that doesn’t support the codec. Apple should adopt Google’s royalty-free VP9 codec in Safari. Not because it will benefit Apple or because it will allow for 4k streaming on YouTube, but because it is the right thing to do for the preservation of a free and open web. I understand Google is a competitor of Apple, and…

    Permanent link to “Safari Should Support VP9”
  • Fedora

    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. I love Mac OS, but as developers moved on and Mac OS 10.10 became a common system requirement I choose to leave rather than upgrade. After a brief search I found Fedora, and it is becasue of these three reasons I decided to stay. I love Gnome 3, and find its UI to be as polished as later versions of Mac OS. Red Hat funds the development of Gnome 3, and Red Hat funds the development of Fedora. That is why Fedora always has the most polisehd, most recent version…

    Permanent link to “Fedora”
  • Einstein Lives!

    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. You will need to create an Apple developer account and signing certificate to install Einstein on your iOS device. You can run it in the iOS Simulator without these requirements. The experimental Raspberry Pi build can also be built from source. The status of the Android and Windows builds is not clear to me at this time. (I have successfully compiled a version for Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS (Trusty Tahr) for use on MIT’s Project Athena.) News of improved Mac OS and iOS versions might be exciting to Apple-centric Newton enthusiasts, but I…

    Permanent link to “Einstein Lives!”
  • Goodbye Fever

    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. There may not be a market for self-hosted RSS readers, but I am sure Fever would thrive as a open source project for those who like to ‘roll their own.’ Would Shaun be willing to set Fever free?

    Permanent link to “Goodbye Fever”
  • Default Apps in iOS

    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. The simplicity of iOS is inviting to new users, but it is hurting the growth of the platform. These kind of design decisions keep me from considering iOS to be more than a appliance.

    Permanent link to “Default Apps in iOS”
  • Apple's Support Gap

    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. When I worked for Apple retail from 2003-2006 we were instructed to help everyone. This was before concierge, before appointments, and before the iPhone. It was just me, the bar, and hundreds of Apple customers looking for help every day. Needless to say this approach did not scale after the introduction of the iPhone. But even now — ten years after the iPhone was introduced — I would still rather wait 3 days to see someone in person, then send my device off in the mail and hope for the best.

    Permanent link to “Apple's Support Gap”
  • Apple Abandons…

    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. If Apple replaces the Airport Base Stations in their retail stores with a third-party product, Eero seems to make the most sense. Eero has dedicated apps like Airport, and is innovating in a direction that Airport has not moved in years.

    Permanent link to “Apple Abandons Airport”
  • Workouts++

    Workouts is a new app for your Apple Watch from David Smith.nIt allows you to customize your workouts and view them in new ways on your iPhone.nI am a long distance runner so I won’t be writing about how Workouts works with a bicycle, on a rowboat, or in a Yoga class.nInstead I can tell you how Workouts++ has helped me target my training for this year’s Boston Marathon. Workouts++ is three apps in one.nThe first is a factory for building workouts on iPhone.nThe second is a monitor for tracking workouts on Apple Watch.nAnd the third is a database for comparing workouts on the iPhone. Workouts starts on the iPhone.nPick an activity &emdash; indoors or out &emdash; and Workouts lets you select what information you see on your Apple Watch while you workout.nUp to six different metrics can be shown on Apple Watch at a given time, with options for size, style, and color.nYou can’t switch metrics mid-workout, but you can name and save as many customized workout as you like.nI named…

    Permanent link to “Workouts++”
Archive of 2016