My friend John Gruber is incensed by the idea that AI watermarking schemes adjust the output of a given LLM so that the output can later be assessed as likely coming from it in particular: They say “imperceptible” and “doesn’t change the meaning, quality, or readability”. Their words. Not almost imperceptible. Not slightly changes the meaning, quality, […]

If you ever travel to other countries, particularly to the same ones repeatedly, register an Apple Account for each country with an easy to remember format. For example joe.uk@example.com, joe.es@example.com, joe.jp@example.com. Obviously this example only works if you own “example.com”, but you get the idea. Around the world, there are businesses whose services are available, […]

Today marks the 30 year anniversary of my becoming a full-time employee of Apple Computer, Inc. When I was hired on May 13, 1996, I was 20 years old, a week shy of 21. I was hired on to the Mac System Integration team, which was responsible for “System Updates”: the kinds of OS upgrades […]

In the wake of AI coding assistants like Claude and Codex, which can seemingly perform the equivalent of a day’s work in a matter of minutes, many of us are wondering if the human role of “computer programmer” is coming to an end. Will the AI bots one day do all the programming for us? […]

Once, in 1994 or so, I was sitting in a cafe with friends, and I had the crazy idea that I was going to write my own web browser. I was a college student at the time, and had played with Mosaic and … well, probably only Mosaic. But had also played with Gopher, and other […]

Three years ago, when I abandoned FogBugz after having used it for nearly 20 years, I landed on Help Scout, a fantastic support system offered by a company that seems to have a positive spirit and, cherry on top, is based locally to me in Boston. There are few companies I’ve been as happy to […]

As WWDC draws near, anticipation of Apple’s long-rumored VR headset is high. The company is widely expected to announce an impressive, albeit expensive new product at the June 5 Keynote event. In short: people expect Apple to make a strong showing in this field. People are justifiably less confident about Apple’s prospective plans in the […]

On the latest Accidental Tech Podcast, John reminisced about the early days of the Mac, when a single 3.5″ floppy disk drive was typically used not only to boot a Mac, but also to run any applications, and to save any user data. He described the painstaking process of needing to insert a different disk […]

Since the earliest days of Mac OS X, Apple has complied with the licenses for the dozens of open source components it includes in the OS by posting (sometimes a little belatedly) updated versions of the source code to its Open Source at Apple web page. This resource is useful primarily to developers, but may […]

Apple’s macOS 13 “Ventura” beta features a major redesign of the System Preferences application. In addition to renaming it “System Settings,” Apple revamped the interface with an organization style that is far more reminiscent of the iOS “table view” organization than of the macOS status quo: At first blush, there are apparent advantages to this […]

Once upon a time, there was a fabulous service called FogBugz. Well, technically it still exists, but over the past many years, since it was sold off by Fog Creek Software, it has both stagnated and diminished in reliability as a substantial number of us long-time users has grudgingly continued to use it. Several months […]

For months now, I have been scratching my head over a small but persistent number of “crash reports” affecting a few of my apps. The issue is most prevalent in MarsEdit, where I have a handful of users who run into the issue multiple times per day. Luckily, one of these users is my good […]

Nearly ten years ago, inspired by Apple’s removal of the “RSS” button from Safari 6, I released a standalone Safari extension called Subscribe to Feed. The extension simply replaced the functionality of having an easy way to subscribe to the RSS feed of any web site you might be viewing. This worked great for many […]

I had a blast chatting with John Gruber on the latest episode of The Talk Show. The timing worked out perfectly for us to abandon our usual jaded attitudes and just fully dote on the new MacBook Pros.

I’ve been wanting to create my own crossword puzzles since I was a kid, but never quite got around to it. Earlier this year I decided to renew my commitment, and tweeted a bold claim: Mark my words: within 3 months I'm going to publish my first self-constructed crossword puzzle, and within 3 years I'm […]

When Apple News debuted, I was intrigued to learn that virtually anybody can submit their own blogs for inclusion in the service. Why not allow Bitsplitting, the Red Sweater Blog, and Indie Stack to be part of this service? For reader who enjoy Apple News, it could serve as a kind of substitute RSS reader. […]

Long-time Mac users will remember an app called “Key Caps”, which later become “Keyboard Viewer”, a feature of the Mac that is now accessible via the menu bar’s “Input Methods” item. If you’ve never played with this, I encourage you to enable it and check it out. Apple has detailed instructions for configuring the menu […]

Update: Since I first published this article, feedback from folks at Apple who should know has led me to believe the issue is not as dire as I laid it out below. The crude “contracts need to be signed” error message may be returned for any account type that has not yet agreed to the […]

For a long time I have admired the WordPress project, for developing such a robust blogging platform that is ultimately open, and free, and anybody can contribute improvements to it. I encourage many of my customers to use WordPress with MarsEdit, because it seems like a “safe bet” going forward. My admiration has diminished a […]

Over on Twitter today, I was inspired to ask people to write “just one blog post” today: Everybody, join me in writing just one blog post today, to get that independent feeling back. https://t.co/bDFpxiVfqO — Daniel Jalkut (@danielpunkass) May 24, 2019 Later, it occurred to me that after 10+ years on Twitter, I am privileged […]

These days, as the giant social networks behave more and more reprehensibly, many people are looking back to the “good old days” of the web, when self-published blogs were the primary means of sharing one’s thoughts. Brian Warren has taken this enthusiasm, and combined it with his nostalgia for another classic resource: the links page. […]

At WWDC 2018, Apple announced with great fanfare that two beloved Mac apps, Transmit and BBEdit, would be returning to the Mac App Store. Each of these apps had departed the App Store years ago, citing various reasons, but chief among them the limitations of the Mac App Sandbox, which restricts the functionality of apps […]