1. The front line of enshittification
Printers are probably the most maligned of all technologies. Everyone -- and I mean everyone -- hates their printer. But why?
Well, blame HP. HP pioneered some of the most egregious practices in tech, such as subscriptions for ink which won't let you print unless you pay (even if you have ink in your tanks). It's also been a big user of intellectual property as a method of locking in customers, by using little cryptographic handshakes between printer and ink cartridge to stop you refilling them. It is, in short, one of the kings of enshittification.
Not content with all this, the company decided to try something else to make its customers lives worse: an automatic 15 minute delay if you call their customer service lines. This reduces their costs by pushing customers towards either self service web pages (cheap) or just giving up (even cheaper).
But for once, HP has not got its own way. Within a day of announcing this "improvement", the company was forced to backtrack by customers who just weren't going to take it anymore. As Cory puts it, "even in these degraded times, we can get these fuckers." Hopefully we can do it again, and again.
2. Goodbye ADP, it was nice knowing you
Advanced Data Protection (ADP) is a great way of maximising your security if you use Apple products with iCloud. Turn on ADP and no one other than yourself can get access to your files stored in iCloud Drive. Even Apple can't get into them.
Of course, this kind of encryption -- known as zero-access -- infuriates governments, who want to be able to get into files when they believe you're up to no good. And they would very much like you not to know if you're being spied on. Hence the UK government's insistence that it can force companies like Apple to put in "backdoors" even on this kind of encryption.
Apple disagrees, and rather than put in a backdoor for the UK, it's removing the option for users here to use ADP. The positive point of this is the UK government can't now spy on any iCloud user globally. The negative is no ADP for UK users.
Why is zero-access encryption important? Partly it's down to the potential for backdoors of this kind to open up the potential for cybercrime. But for some kinds of people -- journalists, activists -- it's just essential. If you're a journalist, the last thing you want is for governments to have secret access to your work, your sources and more.
So what are the options if you're an Apple user? Well, not Google Drive or Dropbox: both of those services are just as (in)secure as iCloud Drive. Instead, look to services like Proton or Mega, both of which offer zero-access file storage online at reasonable prices. Having ADP was great, but we move on.
3. The best way to download your Kindle books on Mac
You might have noticed that Amazon has decided to make sure you rent your ebooks rather than owning them by shutting off the ability to download the files and -- potentially -- convert them into a format which doesn't depend on them. You have about a week to download them, which if you're like me and have hundreds of Kindle books, is a pain in the backside.
But if you're on a Mac, there are ways to do this in bulk, and Jason Snell has written up a great guide. It takes a little bit of command line magic, but follow the instructions and you can download your files in minutes instead of hours.
4. Oh Google!
Not content with being the world’s biggest advertising company, Google wants to make sure that you see ads. This of course has been the end-game of creating their own browser since the start. And it’s why I don’t use Chrome. How the web looks should be up to you, not to anyone else, and definitely not to a self-serving ad business.
5. For no reason, here’s some games where you kill Nazis
Via JWZ comes this list of games where you can spend your time shooting, stabbing and sucking the blood from the worst people in the world. I particularly like the last one. No reason.
6. Hackintosh, Schmakintosh
Once upon a time, the Mac’s hardware was more or less industry-standard. An Intel chip, a relatively standard motherboard and bios, memory and drives which weren’t soldered on to a single package. All of this was pretty good for users, as it meant Macs were much more upgradeable and repairable than they are today.
But there are another advantage: it meant that you could, with a bit of hacking, run Mac OS on machines that weren’t from Apple, and definitely weren’t designed with this purpose in mind. This was the era of the Hackintosh.
It was also the era of the netbook, a low cost laptop based on simple hardware, running either Windows XP or Linux. Steve Jobs famously didn’t like them, but I definitely did, and owned several, from the OG eeePC through the MSI Wind to the Dell Mini 10.
And the best thing was you could combine the two. In fact, the MSI Wind became a favoured platform for making a Hackintosh, combining low cost with just about enough performance to run light Mac applications. Brian Chen, now of the New York Times but then with Wired, spent several months living with a MSI Wind Hackintosh as his main portable machine, and predictable it wasn’t exactly a perfect experience.
But I would love Apple to make a Mac-based computer of that kind of size, something portable and light with the kind of battery life which can be achieved these days with ARM and better power management. Not an iPad. A Mac. Can you do it Apple? Come on, make my day.
7. Matrix needs your help
Look, you should all know by now that platforms which lock you in are, someday, going to abuse you. So why not help out Matrix?
Matrix is a communication app, similar in function to commercial platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams, but with a crucial difference: it's open and decentralised. It's designed to let people communicate securely and privately via instant messaging, VoIP, video calls, and other means, while giving users full control over their data. Unlike centralised platforms, Matrix allows users to choose their own servers (or even host their own), fostering a more open and resilient network. This decentralised nature also promotes interoperability, allowing users to connect with others on different Matrix-based platforms.
And the Matrix Foundation needs your help to keep developing it. So if you want to have alternatives, bung them a few bucks.
8. Who among us could possible etc etc
Acer is the first computer maker to up their prices because of Trump’s tariffs, but they won’t be the last. So much FAFO, so little time.
9. Friends don’t let friends use Substack
As most of you know, I moved from Substack a long time ago -- first to WordPress, then on to Ghost. The reasons for this were partly political (I don’t want to be part of platforms that reward Nazis and bigots) and partly practical (Substack is just horrible to use).
But here’s another good reason: if you’re a creator, Substack is horribly expensive. Micah Lee has run the numbers, and as soon as you get any significant number of paid subscribers, you will end up paying thousands of dollars more to Substack than Ghost.
Always remember: “free” is never free when you’re dealing with a rapacious, VC-funded company.
10. Some historic Mac software that’s still around today
OverVUE isn’t a name that most of you will know. But for the past FORTY years, it and its successor Mac database products have been keeping developer Jim Rea busy. I love stories like this.