Chit Chat Across the Pond

Adam Engst of TidBITS joins me on Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite to talk about the changes Apple made recently to the File Provider Extension. These changes had a fairly significant effect on how cloud storage providers like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Box work with macOS. Whether you realize it or not, you've very likely been upgraded to new versions of these services. While the new File Provider Extension improves several things about our interface with these cloud storage providers, there are also some serious "gotchas" that may affect you. For example, before talking to Adam, I didn't realize that the change caused us to have local copies of our entire Google Drive and anything added there isn't being synced to the could. Being Adam, he's written an extremely well-researched and well-explained article on [tidbits.com/...](https://tidbits.com/2023/03/10/apples-file-provider-forces-mac-cloud-storage-changes/) where you can follow along with our conversation. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2023_04_13 During the conversation, Adam referenced a couple of other articles: * Adam's TidBITS article from February 2022 predicting these problems: Cloud Storage Forecast Unsettled, with Possible Storms - TidBITS * LucidLink is a better alternative for people who used to use Dropbox as a cloud service provider for huge, shared video files LucidLink Offers Streaming Vision of Cloud-Based Storage * Adam and I said at the end of the conversation that the next time we'd talk it would be about doing clean installs of macOS. He sent me this link where he talks about three levels of clean installs: Level 2 Clean Install of Ventura Solves Deep-Rooted Problems

In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Rod Simmons of the SMR Podcast and BBQ and Tech joins me to talk about password managers. After the recent breaches and more importantly breaches of trust from LastPass, Rod migrated over to 1Password and changed all 400 of his passwords. We talk through what LastPass did wrong, and what Rod appreciates about 1Password and misses about LastPass. I found it a really interesting conversation about UI design, trust, and what makes an app feel right. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2023_03_01 Rod mentioned Okta’s annual report on business tools: okta.com/... LastPass’s final report: blog.lastpass.com/... 1Password forum on merging accounts into a family: 1password.community/...

In this final Chit Chat Across the Pond of the year, Bart Busschots joins us to talk about what verification really means, how you know a website is what it says it is, and how verification is accomplished and then explains how Twitter and Mastodon do their respective verification. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2022_12_17 This episode also has full shownotes at CCATP #756 — Bart Busschots on the Meaning of Verification and Twitter/Mastodon Implementations

On this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, we're joined by developer Casey Liss of the Accidental Tech Podcast and creator of the iOS apps MaskerAid and Peek-a-View. I asked Casey to come on the show to talk about automation. In particular, we talked about Unnecessary or overly-complex automations, automations that mysteriously run but we can't remember how or why they're running, automations we're really proud of, and darn it, these just make me happy automations. You can find Casey on Mastodon @CaseyLiss@mastodon.social, and on Micro.blog at . View an unedited transcript of this podcast auto-generated by Auphonic Speech Recognition Engine using Whisper by OpenAI (Beta).: CCATP_2022_12_08

This week our guest on Chit Chat Across the Pond is Nic of Nic’s HomePod Repair. You might remember the article about Steve’s amazing experience with Nic repairing our big-girl HomePod a month or so ago. It wasn’t just that some guy repaired our HomePod, it was how he did it and how he broadcast live video of the repair as it was happening that made it even more interesting. I wanted to know more about how Nic got into doing this and how he creates his videos so I asked him to come on to talk about it. I expected to have a fun, nerdy conversation, and that definitely happened, but what I didn't expect was to find a very kind, thoughtful person who exudes good karma. Whether you care about HomePod repairs or not, I'm sure you'll find this a delightful conversation. View an unedited transcript of this podcast auto-generated by Auphonic Speech Recognition Engine using Whisper by OpenAI (Beta): CCATP_2022_12_04

WiFi GenerationsIn this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, I asked Dave Hamilton of the Mac Geek Gab to come on to talk to us about mesh routers and why we might care about WiFi 6E. In order to get to that though, I asked him to lay out some groundwork. Remember when we used to talk about 802.11a then b then g then n and ac. All of us geeks memorized the speed of those different IEEE standards. And then one day the numbering scheme changed completely. I asked Dave to explain what happened and what the new numbers mean. From there Dave refreshed our memory on how mesh routers work, and how backhaul is the communication between the mesh access points. It took some work keeping the numbers and terminology straight but by the time we were done he had explained why WiFi 6E on the backhaul matters, even though we very likely don't have any WiFi 6E devices. You can find Dave Hamilton on Twitter @davehamilton and @macgeekgab and on Mastodon at @davehamilton@podcastindex.social.

This week our guest on Chit Chat Across the Pond is Bart Busschots with a talk that's part Security Bits, part Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite. Bart has been asked to speak at a Mac User's Group on the subject of security and he worked up a presentation on the subject. His goal in the presentation is to provide listeners with a better understanding of the types of threats that are out there and what the motivations of the threat actors are. There's a call to action in this talk by Bart. He wants to know if _you_ think the information he presents will be valuable to a Mac User Group. I (mostly) kept my opinions to myself because we want to hear from you. The best way to provide this feedback is to use our Podfeet Slack at podfeet.com/slack, or you can Tweet Bart at @bbusschots, or you can make a comment on the blog post for this episode. The slide deck presentation for Bart's talk can be viewed at [busschotsh-my.sharepoint.com/...](https://busschotsh-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/bart_busschots_ie/ESJOmYQKiORBiox-54y7NdEB660FYB3N54nrnBcBKl8yIA?e=TaBXcK)

This week I'm pleased to introduce you to Darcy Hegarty on Chit Chat Across the Pond. Darcy is a fellow screencaster for Don McAllister's ScreenCastsOnline and I'm really impressed with the videos he creates. They're tight, they tell a coherent story, and he even starts with the problem to be solved! I started chatting with him about his process and discovered that he's only been doing this for a short while. I also found out that he has a far different process for creating his screencasts than I do, so I asked him on the show so he could teach me how he does it and you get to learn along with me. You can find connect with Darcy by emailing him at darcyh@oceanfire.studio and follow him on Twitter at @sensible_of

This week our guest is Dan Moren (https://dmoren.com/). Dan is the author of the Galactic Cold War series of sci-fi espionage capers, a former senior editor at Macworld, a writer for Six Colors and TidBITS amongst other publications, and a prolific podcaster as co-host of Clockwise and The Rebound. But I did not have him on the show to talk about any of that. Dan is a very recent father and I wanted to talk about the latest and greatest in baby tech. You can find everything you need to know about Dan Moren at [dmoren.com/...](https://dmoren.com/) including links to the Galactic Cold War Series. You can follow him online @dmoren. If you want to buy his books at an independent bookstore, he suggests [indiebound.org](https://indiebound.org) to find them.

Antonio Rosario bills himself as a full-time unemployed photographer, part-time semi-employed videographer and photography instructor, and a volunteer bimonthly podcaster. He sent out a tweet in which he said, "Dear podcasters: Will someone PLEASE interview me about the #iPhone 14 ProMax?!" I expected that Antonio wanted to come on and have a discussion about the new phone's specs and a pixel-peeping level of detail about the resulting images from this new device. But that's not at all what he really wanted to talk about. Whether you consider yourself a "real" photographer or just someone who likes to take pictures, I think you'll find this introspective discussion heartfelt and memorable. You can find Antonio online in the following places: * Follow Antonio’s work at [amrosario.com](http://amrosario.com/) * Podcast - Street Shots Photography Podcast [streetshots.photography/...](http://streetshots.photography/) * Vero: amrosario - [vero.co/amrosario](https://vero.co/amrosario) * Twitter [@amrosario](https://twitter.com/amrosario) * [iPhone 14 Pro Max RAW images by Antonio](https://adobe.ly/3CBp75P) * [Images shot using Fococ app (using portrait mode)](https://adobe.ly/3fLIRuA) Antonio talked about a video on the Three Blind Men and an Elephant channel