Category: Tips for Mac users

Least ‘Expensive’ Web Browser ?

The Least Expensive Web Browser. By “expensive” I mean how much it weighs down the OS when performing its services. In this case, the readings I took were when the browsers were just open, sitting there, and doing nothing in particular. “Expensive” is the number of threads being managed, the CPU time and so on. […]

infinite reboot loop installing Sonoma

There are a lot of ways a system update can fail  and FWIW, my Studio upgrade to Sonoma did not go well.(Update on the laptop went fine, however.) On my Mac Studio, I got an incomplete install with an infinite loop of reboots: Got to the second reboot, with white logo and thermometer and then […]

How to -REALLY- get rid of the Apple Pay button in Safari

I have diligently followed the instructions from Apple and also scattered all over the web, that if you have Apple Pay, but do not want it to show up in your Safari browser, you just turn if off in Safari settings/privacy. Except that does not work for everyone, including me. It’s not in Safari settings; […]

iPhone 14: ProRaw and 48MP images vs Lightroom

Some folks think that because when a 48 MP DNG is loaded into Lightroom, and it’s all extremely dark, that’s because it’s underexposed. Nope. The image is dark because raw images are 1.0 gamma aka “linear gamma”. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with the DNG; it’s supposed to look like that. Here’s how to […]

How to reset your internet connection

Hard to say how many people this will apply to, but it’s 100% for me. I have cable internet from Xfinity (aka Comcast). Mine is a two-piece setup: a modem and a wifi/router.I have my own Bitsurfr DOCIS 3.1 modem and an Archer AX90 (TP-Link 6600) wifi 6 router. To reset my system properly AND […]

M1 problems : part two, with the solution.

Those of you who know me, know that I’ve spent the last 44 years working with Apple products. I was the first third-party developer they ever hired, back in 1978, when one loaded programs from a cassette tape recorder. It has been a long journey, if not a bit strange, but here I am. I […]

M1 Mac external drive write is WAY TOO SLOW

So, you’ve got a new M1 Mac, and a nice fast NMVe in an external Thunderbolt 4 enclosure, and you’re only getting 640MB/s write speed? WAAAAAY TOOOO SLOOOOOW!!! That was the issue that just took me three days and $220 to resolve. (Turns out I didn’t need to spend the $220, either…) The issue: I […]

Website copyrights – the actual truth

At the start of each year, a vast amount of misinformation starts rolling about the “font of all wisdom” (aka “internet”) about copyrights. In particular, lots of folks change the copyright date on their websites. Actually, that’s not-a-thing, and is just security theater. Specifically, the US Copyright office does not accept website copyrights, (although some […]

Backups with APFS & Catalina, Big Sur and Monterey

Some anecdotal bits. Backups with Catalina, Big Sur and now Monterey ain’t the beast they used to be. APFS, amoung other things (like any-volume, any-time) also create a hidden partition for your OS. This is mostly for security, but for whatever reason, it’s there. In a normal sense of “backup” you cannot back it up, […]

Printing a correct color target for custom profiling

Here is how to print a target of patches, for use in creating a custom color profile. (Note: this requires that you either have your own spectrophotometer, or are printing a target sent to you by someone you hired to create the custom profile for you.) A target image is composed of hundreds or thousands […]