Chit Chat Across the Pond

CCATP #821 for September 17, 2025, and I'm your host, Allison Sheridan. This week, our guest is a real throwback for the show. If you've been listening for a very long time, you may remember this guest as creating the best Honda Bob commercial of all time, where he performed it as a Klingon war commander. He's the man who coined the term for his own podcast, "Making technology work for you." He's brilliant, he's funny, he is, as my father used to say, "drilled off center". Please welcome back to the show after close to a decade-long absence, the one the only, Knightwise. Knightwise and I have stayed in contact over the years, sending texts back and forth here and there. This week he sent me a message asking for help finding a way to force macOS into letting his client view his MacBook Air's desktop (not speaker notes) while giving a presentation. I dug around, testing some ideas, and didn't succeed in helping him, but when he figured out a solution, he suggested coming on the show to tell us about the creative solutions he comes up with for his clients. A few links he talks about: BetterDisplay Pro on github.com/... knightwise.com/... "once in a while" writing and podcasting Co-owner of The Rangers at deRangers.be/... Look for Jo Hendriks on LinkedIn Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_09_17 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle NosillaCast 20th Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me PETLIBRO - 30% off for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

In this week's Chit Chat Across the Pond, Adam Engst of TidBITS fame and fortune joins me to talk about recent changes to AppleCare. While the big story of the day is AppleCare One, there have been changes over the past few years (and even this year) to what AppleCare covers and how it's charged. After discussing those changes, we get into the huge pitfalls and dangers in AppleCare One. If you don't pay attention, it's fairly easy to end up with a worse deal. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_08_26 Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me PETLIBRO - 30% off for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Tage Bushman joins me this week to talk about his career path to become a Professor at Western Technical College. It's a fascinating subject for obvious reasons. The ground has been shifting constantly since he first got into tech, but now with AI, things have gotten even more "interesting. Tage teaches in the Cybersecurity program and Web & Software programs. Specifically, I teach Cisco 1 (networking basics), Linux Administration, Database Server Administration, and DevOps. I have also taught Web Programming 1, Intro to Cybersecurity, Cybersecurity Essentials, Business Information Systems, and Software Apps for Business. Tage also hosts two podcasts. He is a huge Disney Parks (specifically Disneyland) fan. He and his friend Teresa host the DLWeekly Podcast and he's also part of The Hub Crawl Podcast, which he calls "a riff off Clockwise" where they bring a Disney question and go around the virtual room. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_08_25 Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Adam Engst recently wrote a post on TidBITS describing his journey migrating from a 27" Intel iMac to an M4 Pro MacBook Pro. He entitled the article Switching from a 27-inch iMac to a 14-inch MacBook Pro: A Fresh Start. I asked him to come on Chit Chat Across the Pond so he could walk us all through how he decided on the MacBook Pro (vs. a Mac mini or a Mac Studio), how he made his display migration decision, how he had to modify his desk, and how he's wrong about trackpad placement. But that's not all, Adam chose to migrate no data and no applications! It's a story of a clean install beyond anything I've ever done, so you know it was super fun. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_07_25 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle NosillaCast 20th Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

This week, our guest is Adam Engst, writer, editor, and publisher of the fabulous TidBITS Newsletter. In late May, The Browser Company announced that they are discontinuing their ground-breaking web browser Arc. As soon as I saw the headlines, my heart sank for people like Tom from Ontario, who first introduced the NosillaCast audience to Arc and Adam, who has been one of the biggest fans of Arc. In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Adam walks us through a brief overview of what Arc gave us, how he feels The Browser Company treated its fans, and then he explains a little bit about how their next browser, Dia, works. Of course Adam has written all of this up on [tidbits.com/...](https://tidbits.com/2025/06/20/dia-browser-debuts-with-contextual-ai-chat-but-arc-users-feel-left-behind/). Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Bart Busschots joins me to talk about his trials and tribulations finding a good bookmark manager to replace Pocket, which he never really liked in the first place. He tells us everything he loves about Raindrop.io. Unlike most Chit Chat Across the Pond episodes, there's a full blog post in the show notes if you'd rather read than listen ... or do both! Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

On Chit Chat Across the Pond #814, Adam Engst and I discussed the results of a VPN survey he conducted with the TidBITS subscribers. From there, we got into a discussion where Adam challenged the common wisdom that we need a VPN when we're on public WiFi networks. We got a bit mired in some of the discussion, where we almost had enough knowledge to explain our positions. Networking is a topic on which Bart has a depth of knowledge, and he's here to clarify some of the things we talked about. The recording you're about to hear was created for the Security Bits segment on NosillaCast #1048, but I felt it was important for the Chit Chat Across the Pond audience to hear it as a follow-up to our discussion with Adam. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_06_08 Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Adam Engst joins me to talk about two recent articles he wrote for TidBITS. The first topic is life-changing for me. Have you ever wanted to send someone a link to a specific spot on a long web page? With text fragments, most, if not all, web browsers now allow you to select some text, right-click, and select "Copy Link with Highlight". This link will not only take them to the right spot on the page, but it will highlight the text you selected. Learn the details in Adam's article: Text Fragments Enable Deep Linking on Web Pages. Next up, we talk about a survey Adam conducted amongst TidBITS readers asking them about their usage of VPNs. We had a fun discussion about how he figured out what four simple questions to ask before he even started the survey. He walks through the results, and we talk about some of the more surprising results. you can read the full article here: Do You Use It? VPN Use Is Widespread During our discussion, we talked a little bit about Tailscale, and we referred to the article that the great Glenn Fleishman wrote on the topic: Tailscale Gives You Remote Access to Your LAN from Anywhere

This episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond is going to be a bit different. On the NosillaCast #1042 for April 27th, Bart Busschots and I recorded his usual segment on Security Bits, but the majority of it was a deep dive. The subject was whether cryptography as we know it is doomed because of quantum computing. His explanation was so good that I wanted to be able to point people directly to the audio instead of referencing the chapter mark or a time stamp so we decided to make it a standalone Chit Chat Across the Pond. If you want to listen to the rest of the original recording of Security Bits, be sure to subscribe to the NosillaCast and look for episode #1042. You can find Bart's shownotes for the episode of Security Bits at Security Bits — 27 April 2025 — Deep Dive into Quantum Computing. [audio mp3="https://media.blubrry.com/nosillacast/traffic.libsyn.com/nosillacast/CCATP_2025_04_29.mp3"] mp3 download Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_04_29 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle NosillaCast 20th Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Adam Engst from TidBITS talks about how traditional search engines like Google and Bing no longer provide valuable information because they surface unreliable content first. Instead of using traditional search engines, he's been testing tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, and Claude to see how well they search the web. He calls these tools "Answer Engines" when they're used to search the web rather than generate their own responses to your prompts. You can read Adam's extensive blog post about Answer Engines, and his see his research results at tidbits.com/... Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_04_29 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle NosillaCast 20th Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

This week, Adam Engst joins us to talk about some work he did to try to measure the accuracy of several different AI models in creating audio transcriptions. He let me help him with some of the transcriptions so I was invested in his findings. We'll learn about ways to measure accuracy, including Word Error Rate aka WER. You can read Adam's article where he describes in detail the process he followed and the rather unsatisfying results at [tidbits.com/...](https://tidbits.com/2025/02/28/comparing-audio-transcription-in-notes-audio-hijack-and-macwhisper/). Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_03_23

You know I’m not a music person, but I’ve invited Steve Mallard onto the show to talk about a topic he’s quite passionate about - the evolution of music tech. He is not an expert in this field, he just finds the history fascinating. Steve will take us back to the first acoustic guitars, and explain why electric guitars needed to be invented. He'll talk a little bit about the early effects that could be added with vacuum tube amps and how the invention of the transistor revolutionized the music industry. Things accelerate after that up to where digital signal processing began allowing new music effects and replication of tone became possible. At the end, we get into a bit of a debate on whether this democratization of music creation has ruined music. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_03_04 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

This week, the delightful Adam Engst of TidBITS joins us to talk about how he learned to write so well, what it's like having an editor, and then moves into how he uses the AI tool Grammarly to improve his writing. It's great fun as always and convinced me to pay for one month of Grammarly to see if it will make me as awesome of a writer as Adam. You can read all the details of his use of Grammarly in his article entitled ["Why Grammarly Beats Apple’s Writing Tools for Serious Writers" on tidbits.com](https://tidbits.com/2025/01/30/why-grammarly-beats-apples-writing-tools-for-serious-writers/) Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

If you’ve been on the Internet before, and you’ve heard of a little fruit company called Apple, then you’ve probably seen Jason Snell's famous Six Colors charts on Apple earnings. In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, we don't talk about earnings, we talk about the magic behind how he creates his famous charts. It's full of nerdy fun like how he decides when to use a serape chart vs. a bar chart, how he calculates a rolling average, how he gets the data for the charts, and how he gets the charts from Apple Numbers into his website. His joy at finding people who want to talk about the nerd side of this is evident in his enthusiasm. * Apple Q1 Earnings charts on Six Colors including video of Jason Snell and Dan Moren discussing what the numbers mean. * How Jason automated creating the blog posts from Numbers: Chart Party at sixcolors.com. * Jason's podcasts: The Incomparable, Upgrade, and other appearances Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Adam Engst of TidBITS joins us to talk about a bug in macOS Sequoia 15.2 that affected a low-level system tool called Apple System Restore or ASR. This tool is the path for developers of backup tools to create true bootable backups, and the bug makes it now impossible to create bootable backups. We talk about the different viewpoints of the developers of Superduper!, Carbon Copy Cloner, and Chronosyc regarding the future of bootable backups. Then Adam talks about whether we really _need_ bootable backups anymore. We then segue into a survey Adam conducted on backup strategies with TidBITS readers and he discusses the relative merits of the different strategies. Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Andrea Jones-Rooy is a data scientist, a standup comedian, _and_ a circus performer. Andrea delves into the realms of data science, its significance, and how it is often misunderstood in mainstream narratives. Andrea begins by reflecting on their journey to becoming a data scientist. Andrea was a professor of data science at NYU Center for Data Science and they taught an undergraduate course called "Data Science for Everyone". The cool thing is you can watch Andrea teach the same material for free in a video series of the same name: Data Science for Everyone on YouTube. I watched all 20 episodes, and I have to tell you it was fascinating. I may have gushed just a little bit about how awesome it was. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_01_10 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bart talks about his job as a cybersecurity specialist. We get a bit silly in our early part of the chat, the reasons for which will become obvious when you listen to the beginning but he successfully gives a flavor of what "a day in the life" is like for him. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_12_29 Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Certified Apple Consultant Pat Dengler joins me to tell the harrowing story of how her neighbor was seconds away from being scammed out of $30,000. In an elaborate web of lies with multiple people involved, she was connected supposedly to Amazon, the FBI, lawyers, and more, and every single person gave their IDs and return phone numbers. Pat saved her literally in the nick of time. This story aired as part of the NosillaCast on December 1st, 2024 but I made it a standalone episode so folks can point directly to it to help raise awareness. If you need a Certified Apple Consultant, Pat can be contacted at pat@denglerconsulting.com. Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Adam Engst of TidBITS back again to talk about an unusual and clever scam experienced by one of his TidBITS readers. It involved fake obituaries triggering iPhone security warnings triggering App Store downloads. You can find Adam's written article on the topic at [tidbits.com/...](https://tidbits.com/2024/12/06/beware-obituary-scam-sites-and-fake-iphone-security-warnings/). Join the Conversation: allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Setapp - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Adam Engst and I discussed his October 24th article entitled [Exposé Reveals Ongoing Smartphone Location Tracking Threats](https://tidbits.com/2024/10/23/expose-reveals-ongoing-smartphone-location-tracking-threats/). He explained how much easier it is now for your precise location to be determined because of your online activity, in spite of the safeguards Apple has instituted in an attempt to anonymize your data. Adam gives chilling examples of what's possible today. Adam doesn't leave us with doom and gloom though, he arms us with some tools to fight this tracking as best we can in his article, [Protect Yourself Against Location Tracking Abuses](https://tidbits.com/2024/10/27/protect-yourself-against-location-tracking-abuses/). [audio mp3="https://media.blubrry.com/nosillacast/traffic.libsyn.com/nosillacast/CCATP_2024_11_12.mp3"] mp3 download Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_11_12