How to skip the ChatGPT for Mac waiting list and get access now
This month, OpenAI has released the native ChatGPT-app for macOS alongside GPT-4o. Anyone can install this app yet but your account will still need early acc...
Apple
A collection of 12 Posts
Apple locks users out of their Apple IDs without explanation
“Security” and “big tech” are two terms that don’t go well together at the moment. After ongoing security issues at Microsoft, Apple seems to have at least o...
How to fix seemingly disabled Apple Pay on macOS
There aren’t many glitches with macOS in my common use cases but lately and after migrating my user from one Mac to the other, I realized that, seemingly, Ap...
The End of an Era: The iPod is dead, long live Music!
Incredible to imagine that smartphone and music-player were separated once. Years before the first iPhone and even more years before the streaming services t...
Apple: iCloud’s custom domain feature is — secretly — available now!
Nearly two months after the feature of using custom E-Mail-domains in iCloud has been revealed, it can already be configured while Apple’s September-event is...
WWDC 2021: Custom E-Mail-domains are coming to iCloud… finally!
I don’t know how long I expected this feature to reach iCloud, but in the backwash of all those great iOS 15-features, custom E-Mail domains silently creeped...
Yet some additional and useful apps for your Mac-related life
While I wrote about the „Useful apps to enlighten your daily Mac-routine a while ago”, I discovered that — humbled by the reader’s outstanding appreciation —...
Useful apps to enlighten your daily Mac-routine
While macOS always comes along with a bunch of productivity tools (and always was a synonym for being productive and creative!) there is always space for imp...
How to bypass Apple’s limitations and address more than two external displays with M1-based Macs
While I love my 2020 MacBook Air with Apple’s outstanding M1-SoC, the disability of addressing more than one external display was the grain of salt in Apple ...
LuLu by Objective-See: Yet another powerful firewall for your Mac
In my post on Little Snitch 5 some time ago, I already stated that „a firewall is a nice and essential security building block. While it is mainly used as th...
Why Apple One hasn’t absolutely convinced me… yet!
Last Thursday, Apple announced details of upcoming features designed to detect CSAM - and the world reacted. On September 15th, Apple has not just released ...
Why Apple needs to strengthen and upgrade iCloud
I got infected with the Apple-virus twenty years ago when I fell in love with the look of Mac OS 9. After trying to use a certain theme at my Windows 98, I b...
History
A collection of 8 Posts
The Price of a Mile
There’s a war raging in Europe once again. A sad fact that sends my thoughts back to World War One and the discussion for „The Price of a Mile“ and the quest...
The Return to Flanders Fields
Keeping up with history is brutal and you never have a world-wide pandemic on your list when planning your tours. It was 2019 in our summer holidays in Belg...
Vladslo German Military Cemetery
Two years after my first two trips throughout Flanders Fields, I was able to return and continue my journey on the WW1-gravesites in Flanders. This time, th...
Tyne Cot Cemetery
It was still hot and the cloudless 32° Celsius usually were the proper reason not to exit the car without the need of doing so. Anyway, Tyne Cot Cemetery nea...
The Third Battle Of Ypres / The Battle of Passchendaele
On July 31st, 1917 - nearly 103 years ago - the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele - took place on the Western Front. It laste...
Hooge Crater Cemetery
There are better ideas than making a tour to some sites located outside with four children in the car. Fortunately, our Mercedes had good air conditioning wh...
Perth Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery
The first part of my trip in pursue of WW1-heritage sites lead me to Ypres (French version) or Ieper in local tongue in West-Flanders. Besides itself, Ieper...
In Flanders Fields
As I ventured to West-Flanders in Belgium this year - just as we did in the last years - I hadn’t anything specific in mind regarding any historical topic. ...
Internet
A collection of 7 Posts
The third Digital Independence Day in 2026
It’s no secret that these days we need certain hooks to help us remember everyday things or groups — just look at World Backup Day or System Administrator Ap...
Is Bluesky worth a visit?
While many people and even corporate brands are fleeing from X - formerly known as “Twitter” - the question is which service is able to provide shelter. The ...
The unhealthful peak of Internet service pricing
While we mainly rely on subscription-based Internet services these days, it is more than obvious that, with saturation of demand, the peak of user acceptance...
The Fediverse - A vivid and modern approach to today’s Social Network-landscape
When I once discovered Mastodon, the Fediverse was already a nice approach in helping to rebuild the polluted Social Network-landscape. But, based upon the ...
Mastodon - More than an alternative to Twitter and definitely here to stay
Whether Twitter is doomed since Elon Musk’s takeover or not (changes for federated services have never been that good!), it’s always an option to think outsi...
Even with a new name, Facebook won‘t be 'The Metaverse'
According to a report from The Verge, Facebook is reportedly planning to rename the company to better underline its focus on „The Metaverse“. We all know th...
Services — It’s all about them… now?
Some months ago, Apple has announced the possibility of paying your Apple Care+ plan not just by an upfront payment, the time of services in the focus is fin...
Linux
A collection of 7 Posts
Spring Cleaning - Tidying up your Mastodon-instance
After six months of running a small, two user Mastodon-instance, I was astonished to see the media growth over the time so it was way overdue to reflect how ...
How to upgrade Debian 11 Bullseye to Debian 12 Bookworm
Yesterday, the latest iteration of Debian Linux in version 12, codename „Bookworm“ was released. Everyone of you thinking that a direct upgrade to the new sy...
How to install PHP 8.2 on Debian 11
Although Debian is a modern Linux-distribution based upon stability, it sometimes misses actual packages like the latest PHP-iteration. Debian 11, released ...
Vaultwarden: Your guide to your self-hosted Bitwarden password vault
Even a day after the SaferInternetDay, managing the challenging riddle to choose a specific password manager is still a tricky task, especially if you also w...
Deploying your own Docker-ized Nextcloud Hub II-instance in no time
There are many ways of successfully deploying Nextcloud depending on your knowledge. One new has now just entered the stage, making your way to your own priv...
How to migrate your Nextcloud database-backend from MySQL/MariaDB to PostgreSQL
From the early beginnings, I used MySQL and - later - MariaDB as my database of choice. Backing my Nextcloud-installation as a standard database, MariaDB is...
Installing the latest version of PostgreSQL on Ubuntu Linux
While Ubuntu Linux is — besides Debian — the Linux-distribution of my choice, some packages could be more up-to-date. In this scenario given, my Ubuntu 20.0...
Music
A collection of 1 Post
Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it - Silver Lake by Esa Holopainen
Music is known to be a healing factor for the soul and an empowerment of one’s own senses but sometimes specific pieces of art stand out that underline a set...
Security
A collection of 2 Posts
How to delete stored credentials from a YubiKey
Using YubiKeys for securing accounts is a premium step to a nearly ultimative security approach besides Passkeys or „simple“ 2FA. Alas, over time, those hard...
How to strengthen your online accounts with a hardware-based security key
As of today, people are more concerned about privacy than years before. The times of classic passwords are gone and users begin to understand that the passw...
Software
A collection of 3 Posts
My default apps starting 2026
There have been many lovely events in the Internet over the years and one to cherish especially is the one where users simply blog about their favorite stand...
VMware kills Players, makes Pro free for personal use
While Broadcom still does Broadcom-things after acquiring VMware and turning pricing and portals upside down, at least the question what happens with the Des...
Tusks - Make posting to Mastodon feel like posting to a blog
Sometimes I come across apps that I would never have missed. Apps that come out of nowhere and still find their niche - Tusks by developer Bardi Golriz is on...
Thoughts
A collection of 18 Posts
Season Greetings and goodbye forever, 2023!
It was a special and somehow strange year - paired with many experiences and the proof that there are often unexpected insights into human nature. Looking b...
Stop worrying about people that aren’t worried about you
2020 and 2021 had some steep learning curves in my evaluation of relationships with other individuals and even these days, experience is growing as you never...
The best way to predict your future is to create it
While the past is gone and the future still is still ahead, Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote can be a synonym for a proactive way of influencing events that ar...
What if... ?
During the pandemic, a lot of rather moderate things happened in everyone’s life but sometimes you aren’t prepared for additional struggle in terms of human ...
Great minds discuss ideas - average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people
The pandemic has shown that, sometimes, extraordinary efforts are needed to keep things running. While people separated in many ways, other consolidated to f...
Life is vivid - try to live it that way!
Experiencing the Black Metal-wave in the 90s, visiting Norway was surely one thing on my bucket list. Decades later, I set my foot on Norse ground and was ca...
New Work: The Rise of the Triple Peak Day
Recently I wrote about the fact that the model of hybrid work is here to stay. A new Microsoft-study also underlines that a 9 to 5 day is obsolete as well. ...
Return to offices is announced, but the model of hybrid work is here to stay!
COVID-19 has been one of the riders of the apocalypse during the last two years but, in one special way, it was a driver to change the way we work these days...
The only thing we have to fear on the planet is man
How right Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung was with this phrase is mere frightening and perfectly fits into the horrible events of, now, 2022. I feel tir...
Carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders
We always strive for more. Higher, faster, further - there seems to be no limit in everyday life. But, sometimes, we are just vulnerable humans with a - more...
Thank you - Not all superheroes have capes!
Yet another year with the „pandemic“-flag has nearly passed. A year with frustration, deprivations, disenchantment but also traces of hope in an unsteady fut...
Wrong Direction
It didn’t need the great song entitled “Wrong Direction” from Amorphis’ 2018 “Queen of Time”-album to sum many different situations up in one wording. There...
You are not your resume, you are your work
„Work“ is something that always took care of earning an honest penny but it’s also a story with up and downs. I am in the happy situation to state that I tu...
There are no passengers on spaceship earth - we are all crew
„Space“ is a term that stands for many things but today, Marshall McLuhan’s statement is the best headline for reappointing our world of the 21st century. A...
Death smiles at us all - all a man can do is smile back
He is omnipresent and while it is part of our life in many ways, losing someone (or something) is always a struggle which isn’t on our bucket list. While it...
Is our Post-Covid-working life here to stay?
With the pandemic, life has changed and so did the way we work and even the way we love. I was always a friend of being at the office, exchanging with my co...
Goodbye, 2020 — it just wasn’t a pleasure!
In the meantime, the year with the probably biggest impact on the post-World War-generations is finally over. The new decade has just begun but definitely no...
Is running the ideal kind of sporting activity for me?
I have always been this soccer guy. Medium-talented, but with the ability to take the ball and deal with it until I needed to get home as a child. I played ...