Chit Chat Across The Pond Lite

This week's Chit Chat Across the Pond is really special. It's an interview with Ken Case, the CEO of Omnigroup. We don't actually talk much about his current work, but rather start back with how he went to college when he was only 13 years old at the University of Washington. He takes us on the fascinating journey of technology that lead him to work for Steve Jobs's NeXT computer company and how it changed his view of what computing could be. It's a wonderful story filled with super geeky details including bitnet (which I'd never heard of) and how he helped write the precursor to IRC.

This week we're joined by returning guest Ray Robertson, well-known AppleScript guru and general all around automator. Ray joins me to talk about the increased challenges developers faced working with Apple. It's no secret that iOS 13 and iPad OS 13 have been problematic on their own, but the betas and final delivery of macOS Catalina has also produced huge problems for developers. Ray says he's no expert, but he tries to get into some of the details of the modifications Apple has introduced in the interest of security that have made the developer's life much more difficult. You can follow and contact Ray on Twitter @scriptsmatter or email him at ray@automatedworkflows.com I mentioned two links during the conversation: How to stop macOS Mojave from nagging you to upgrade to macOS Catalina, and also how to turn it back on: pro-tools-expert.com/... Adam Engst's TidBits article explaining why Dark Mode actually makes it harder to read: tidbits.com/...

Doug Ingram joins us to talk about what he calls Nightscape Photography, which is a combination of astral photography (photographing the stars) and photographing of the surrounding landscape. His photographs of the Milky Way with the landscape are absolutely breathtaking. Doug explains his gear, the settings on his camera and the surprisingly little he does to edit his photos after the shoot. He also talks to how far he's willing to drive in a single night to capture these amazing shots. You can follow Doug's amazing photography at: nightscapades.com, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, 500px, Email

In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Bart Busschots joins us to talk about how he arranges his podcast listening, how he categorizes them and then what kinds of shows he likes. Bart listens to around 6 hours of podcasts per _day_ so this is quite a long list. He purposely didn't include the usual suspects that he's talked about often before. That means that you are bound to learn about some shows you've never heard of and might enjoy. There are TONS of links to every show in the show notes. allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/patreon podfeet.com/slack podfeet.com/facebook podfeet.com/amazon

In this "Lite" version of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bart answered Scott Fairclough's request to explain DoH and DoT. It's super nerdy and really interesting. First Bart gives us a full refresher on exactly what DNS is (and I needed that refresher. Then he explains the problems with DNS from a security and privacy point of view. Then he walks us through how DoH, aka DNS over TLS and DoH, aka DNS over https (which is actually http over TLS) will start protecting us in the future (and in some cases the present.)

In this week's episode, Sandy Foster, aka @MacQuilter joins me to talk about why CarPlay is so awesome and how it influenced her decision to buy the top-of-the-line Prius, called Prius Prime. We also talk about the new tech in the Prius Prime including the fact that it's not just a gas/electric hybrid, it's also a full electric vehicle for short-range driving. You can follow Sandy online at sandymike.net and find her in the NosillaCast Live chat room and the Podfeet Slack @Sandy. allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/patreon podfeet.com/slack podfeet.com/facebook podfeet.com/amazon

Bart Busschots joins us to talk about the technology decisions that go into buying a bike these days. I thought I knew about bikes, but I learned a lot about what's changed just in the last five years. In the blog post, we have a video where Bart walks around his bike and points out each of the things he talked about in the recording: Bart's video showing the bike components allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/patreon podfeet.com/slack podfeet.com/facebook podfeet.com/amazon

This week our guest is Laura Kane, CFA, CPA, Head of Investment Themes Americas for UBS.  Laura specializes in something called Sustainable Investing for UBS. As part of her research she has written several articles about investing through a gender lens. I've asked Laura to come on, not to talk about investing per se, but rather what she has discovered about the impact women have on the success of a company. Here's a link to the research we discuss in the interview: ubs.com/...

Dr. Garry, self-proclaimed Crusher of Dreams, joins us again on Chit Chat Across the Pond, this time to talk about how she thinks science is broken and why. Dr. Garry is a professor of Psychology at the University of Waikato, and also professor of the NZ institute of Security & Crime Science. In this episode, she takes on the topic of how science journals choose which papers should be published, and the flaws she sees in that process that cause the extraordinary claims to be published, rather than those efforts with less flashy premises. She backs up her thoughts with specific research that has been conducted in reviewing how well these claims of amazing success pan out over time. Please follow Dr. Garry on Twitter at @drlambchop. allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/patreon podfeet.com/slack podfeet.com/facebook podfeet.com/amazon

This week we’re joined by Dr. Devon Polaschek. Dr. Polaschek is the Joint Director of the New Zealand Institute for Security and Crime Science at the University of Waikato. I will further embarrass her by mentioning that she was recently awarded with a Queen's Birthday honour (as in Queen Elizabeth). Dr. Polaschek has has been made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to criminal psychology. In this interview, we talk about Devon's work with imprisoned psychopaths and her successful efforts to rehabilitate them. It's a fascinating discussion of the perspective of psychopaths: how they differ from other criminals and the ways in which they are similar. allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/patreon podfeet.com/slack podfeet.com/facebook podfeet.com/amazon

Interview with Oleksandr Kosovan of MacPaw about SetApp, his work to enhance tech in Ukraine and how he created a Mac museum. MacPaw allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/patreon podfeet.com/slack podfeet.com/facebook podfeet.com/amazon

This week on Chit Chat Across the Pond I had the great pleasure of talking to Slovenian tech podcaster, Anže Tomić. Anže also works for RTV Slovenia's Val 202 public radio, and as he says on his website, he sounds like an Eastern European Bond villain. He's also a writer for the most read Slovene tech magazine Monitor (think PC/Macworld in Slovene.) We talked all over the tech map from net neutrality, to the lack of spam calls in Slovenia, to Internet speeds, to his love of the old Nokia handsets, to Huawei's current problems, to his Chromebook. I used the format he uses on his podcast including asking him what his top 5 apps are and what one physical thing he's ever owned that felt like it was made for him. Anže mostly podcasts in Slovenian in a podcast called Apparatus. He sometimes has English-speaking guests on and when he does, those episodes go into his podcast called Storming Mortal at stormingmortal.com. You can even hear John Siracusa saying his name there which is fun all by itself. You can f

David Woodbridge of the Vision Store in Australia tells about how he's been testing and using the Samsung Galaxy S10, the Galaxy Watch and the Galaxy Buds side by side with his iPhones, Apple Watch and AirPods. It's a delightful discussion of the relative goodness of both platforms from an accessibility perspective. David is hilarious and we have a bit of fun wandering off topic from time to time. You can find David's many podcasts at: iSee Various Technologies from a Blind Person’s Perspective Vision Australia Radio weekly Talking Tech VACast David's video tech blog @dwoodbridge allison@podfeet.com podfeet.com/patreon podfeet.com/slack podfeet.com/facebook podfeet.com/amazon

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Jeff Gamet of Smile joins us to talk about the life of an Evangelist for TextExpander. We talk about some of the cool things you can do with TextExpander that you may not know about, how TextExpander works on Windows now, how awesome Jean MacDonald was when she was in this job and even funny snippet abbreviations. If you'd like to learn more about TextExpander you can go to textexander.com and you can find Jeff on Twitter and Instagram as @jgamet.

This week our guest is Bart Busschots but this is not Programming By Stealth. This week we're talking about Bart's recent post about the different types of free that are available for online services. We talk about his four categories: Free, Freemium, Free-for-now & Freepi (rhymes with creepy). It's a thoughtful discussion about understanding what we're getting for free and how we're paying for it. We don't ever suggest what you should do about any of this, rather Bart is trying to help us better understand what's happening. In the discussion I mention an article by Paris Martineau's about FourSquare and tracking and how Apple Maps is included in the tracking. Here's the link to the article: wired.com. You can read and reference Bart's article on the topic at Free, Freemium, Free-for-now & Freepi : Bart Busschots.

Dave Hamilton of the Mac Geek Gab and The Mac Observer joins us to talk routers, and mesh routers in particular. He explains the difference between a range extender with a traditional router vs. a modern mesh router system. He explains why some IoT devices demand a dedicated 2.4GHz network (or at least they used to). He explains what the marketing numbers mean on routers, like AC2600 and in fact he "does the math". We talk about the importance of the number of antennas, band steering and beam forming. He explains SU-MIMO vs MU-MIMO and why we can't have it but why mesh gives us many of the same advantages. He explains Quality of Service and why you might want to turn it on. Finally he gives us his short list of good mesh router manufacturers, while answering the question everyone is asking, whether it's of concern that Amazon recently purchased Eero.

After a hiatus that was far too long, we're joined this week on Chit Chat Across the Pond by Donald Burr. Even if you don't think you'd ever want a 3D printer, I guarantee that you'll enjoy hearing Donald explain the different models of 3D printers, how you can actually buy one now for far less than you think, and how you can actually build one from a kit. In his wonderfully humorous way, he teaches how not to do it, and how to fix the mistakes you make along the way. I smiled throughout this entire conversation. Donald wrote up every single thing he talks about for the show notes so there's lots of link goodness for everything.

This week we have recurring guest Shai Yammanee back, but this time not to talk about photography, videography or performing as he has in the past. Shai recently decided to remove Facebook from his phone (he still accesses it from his computer) and I wanted to have him on to find out why and also to explore this whole movement of people getting out of social media. We talk about the repercussions for "normal" people but also we learn about how important Instagram is for employment for performers. We talk about how social media makes us feel and what we would lose if we left. You can follow Shai on Instagram at shai_yammanee and shai_yammanee_photography. You can follow him on Twitter @shaiyammanee.

This week I'm joined by Darren Carr, host of the Mac Quadcast. Darren is an Apple blogger and podcaster and he's also paralyzed from the neck down. We spend a bit of time talking about how on earth he does all of this. Just learning how he types 20-30 words per minute using only his eyes (not to mention editing audio and video) was fascinating. After he explained the accessibility tools he uses, we switched gears. I shamelessly stole the format he uses on his show to interview Apple-centric guests to interview him. We talk about his favorite Mac of all time, his favorite iPhone, what album and movie he'd put into a digital time capsule so people would know what geeks liked 500 years from now, and the most enjoyable question, what would you do if you could control Tim Cook with Siri for a day.