Home Wi-Fi smart switches are crack for couch potatoes.

  Being brief and cursory introduction to Smart Device plugs and switches. ! Here are some useful things you can do with them: 1. Turn lights or appliances on and off from anywhere using your smartphone or if you have a smart assistant like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple HomeKit, you can control your […]

When “good enough” isn’t: canned paper profiles (Tips for making your own)

When “good enough” isn’t: canned paper profiles In my business (making prints for museums and galleries) the usual prebuilt paper/ink profile, often described as “good enough” really isn’t. Instead I make my own profiles using X-Rite’s i1Publish Pro 3. If that applies to you as well, here are some tips: Printing on expensive paper is, […]

Printer presets no longer working right? The bloody details. (rev: 12/09/25)

This is a historical document with technical details. A more recent version with a clear explanation of how you get around the corrupt preset problem can be seen by clicking here.   (If you are here for the technical details, scroll down to “The Gory Details”    April 10, 2024 Original post: Well, I have […]

Fix for a mystery problem – app won’t update or lanuch?

Sometimes I’ll get a new application, drag it into the Applications folder, and launch it… or try to launch it anyway. It seems to be starting, but then nothing happens. No windows; no complaints – just nothing. Sometimes I’ll run an application, and ask it to check for updates, and instead I’ll get a notice […]

Monitor Calibration & Profiling – Why?

Hello   There does seem to be a bit of confusion, or at least uncertainty here, and as usual, a lot of it comes from not using the correct words for your intended meaning. (Or, I just misread what I ran across here… ) -Regarding your monitor, there is ***calibrating*** AND there is ***profiling***. (These […]

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; […]

16-bit vs 8-bit files for fine art printing

16-bit or 8-bit images for printing? I make fine-art prints from digital files. My basic information sheet notes that the best prints are created from 16-bit images, like TIFFs, and a wide color-space, such as AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB. One person who got my information sheet was kind enough to write back, and explained to me […]