TidBITS

In a move that has surprised few, Apple has announced via a support note that it will be deprecating nearly all the remaining services in macOS Server. In the future, macOS Server will “focus on management of computers, devices, and storage on your network.” Time to start looking for alternatives for everything else macOS Server does for you. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

CARROT Weather’s AI would kill you if it could, but since it can’t, it instead provides accurate and attractive weather forecasts. Josh Centers explains why CARROT Weather has become his favorite weather app. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

If you need to enter numbers, dates, or times into your Mac by hand, there’s an easier way than typing them with your keyboard. Instead, try dictating them into your iPhone or iPad! Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

The Wi-Fi Alliance has announced WPA3, a replacement for its current local network encryption options. WPA3 both fixes an exploit and increases security for those using open networks, all while reducing the burden on users. But don’t expect it to take over from WPA2 in the near term. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

A built-in security feature can turn your iOS device into a paperweight if someone enters an incorrect passcode too many times. Here’s how to recover from that situation. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Apple has published a letter to customers to apologize for silently reducing performance in older iPhones in an attempt to eliminate unexpected shutdowns. In it, the company explains the situation and announces a drop in the price of battery replacements.  Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

If you do photography or video work, the Polaroid Flexi LED Light Panel provides 4500 lumens of light from a flexible grid of LEDs. It’s inexpensive and effective, and well worth adding to your toolkit to improve on-camera lighting. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

All Macs and iOS devices may be vulnerable to the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, but Apple is continuing to release updates that mitigate the problems. The moral of the story? Keep your devices up to date! Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Faced with a display that was getting whiter and brighter, Adam Engst finally realized that he had been inadvertently increasing the Display Contrast slider in the Accessibility preference pane via a keyboard shortcut. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

In keeping with our tradition, we’re going to take off the last few weeks of the year to spend with family and friends, so look for the next email issue of TidBITS on 8 January 2018. Thanks for your attention in 2017, and here’s looking forward to the major Internet infrastructure changes for TidBITS in 2018! Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Looking to save some money on Take Control books or apps from some of the most respected Mac developers? Check out WinterFest 2017, during which you can save 25 percent on a wide variety of books and apps. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

See who won copies of Swift Publisher in last week’s DealBITS drawing, and if you’re not among them, read on to save 50 percent on BeLight Software’s print design software. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Heads up! We’ve begun the process of completely revamping TidBITS’s Internet presence and expect to start rolling out big changes in early 2018. You can look forward to a modernized TidBITS experience that’s more visually appealing and mobile friendly. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Less than 24 hours after the news about the root vulnerability bug broke on Twitter, Apple has pushed Security Update 2017-001 to address it on all Macs running macOS 10.13 High Sierra. If it hasn’t already installed itself on your Macs, we recommend installing it immediately. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

iOS 11’s Camera app now automatically recognizes QR codes, those square sets of black rectangles that contain URLs, Wi-Fi connection details, contacts, and much more. Here’s how to create and deploy QR codes in practical and useful ways. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.