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Glenn Fleishman

Glenn Fleishman

Glenn Fleishman writes about the past, present, and future. He’s been a technology journalist since the 1990s, contributing to TidBITS since 1993, and to publications like the Economist, Fast Company, the New York Times, Fortune, and many others (many of them long out of business). He’s also a printing historian, specializing in processes used between original artwork and typeset material and the final printed page, concluding flong. Glenn writes the Mac 911 column for Macworld, was the editor and publisher of The Magazine, and regularly appears on technology and nerd-culture podcasts.

Glenn Fleishman 165 comments

How I Learned To Love Quicken Deluxe and Give Up on the Past

Glenn Fleishman’s 14-year relationship with Quicken 2007 finally ended this year. But it took a dead motherboard, an old Mac mini, and a conveniently timed tip for him to break with his accounting software past.

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Chipolo Ahoy! The ONE Spot Find My Network Tracker Arrives

Chipolo previously offered trackers that operated only via its own network. The company’s new Chipolo ONE Spot instead relies entirely on Apple’s Find My network—with all its advantages and limitations.

Glenn Fleishman 66 comments

Improve Your Home Wi-Fi with Mesh, Powerline, MoCA, or More Routers

We have many choices now for boosting coverage and throughput on our home Wi-Fi networks. The main determinants on the path you might pick? Cost, complexity, and installation hassle.

Glenn Fleishman Rich Mogull 114 comments

FAQ about Apple’s Expanded Protections for Children

Apple is piercing the privacy veil on our devices to protect children. The company claims its efforts won’t open up a Pandora’s Box in the interests of averting sexual exploitation of children or recognition of sexual material handled by children under 18 when a parent wants oversight. But it’s a big change from its previous absolutist stance in favor of user privacy.

Glenn Fleishman 23 comments

Upgrade Your File Transfer Security with Encryption Keys

Anyone using FTP or SFTP to connect to their Web site or other servers should consider a tweaky but significant security upgrade that swaps passwords for encryption keys.

Glenn Fleishman 43 comments

Apple Justifies iOS App Store’s Tight Control in White Paper

Apple says that the dangers of allowing customers to load arbitrary apps are too severe and that the iOS App Store is a bulwark against ransomware, device hijacking, the invasion of children’s privacy, and other problems common on Android.

Glenn Fleishman 18 comments

Apple Extends Privacy Protections to Traffic Leaving Its Walled Garden

New services and features in operating systems coming later this year will improve security and privacy for everyone using Apple products, even outside the Apple walled-garden ecosystem. iCloud+ even adds anonymized browsing.

Glenn Fleishman 4 comments

When You’re Told an AirTag Is Moving with You

Apple’s new AirTag trackers have provoked considerable interest about their potential for misuse. That’s why your iPhone or iPad can alert you if you’re being tracked by one, with or without your knowledge. We detail exactly when and why.

Glenn Fleishman 68 comments

An M1 Mac Can’t Boot from an External Drive If Its Internal Drive Is Dead

A little-noticed fact about M1-based Macs has started to get some attention. If the Mac’s internal drive is dead or fully erased, you can’t boot from an otherwise valid external drive. Why would Apple make that choice? Security, security, security.

Glenn Fleishman 50 comments

13 AirTag Tracking Scenarios

Apple’s new tracking devices have a lot of potential uses: some good and some not so good. We look at a number of likely scenarios and how they could play out.

Glenn Fleishman 14 comments

T-Mobile Offers Unlimited 5G Home Broadband Service

T-Mobile has furthered its reputation as the most competitive of the big three cellular companies in the United States by rolling out an unlimited usage broadband service that relies on the company’s 4G and 5G networks.

Glenn Fleishman 8 comments

Emulation, Virtualization, and Rosetta 2: A Blend of Old, New, and Yet To Come

Rosetta 2 for Apple silicon Macs is the latest in a line of emulators and virtual machines that Apple has released to provide continuity across hardware and operating system transitions. What’s next to come? A full Intel chip emulator for Apple’s M-series ARM chips? We’ll see.

Glenn Fleishman 96 comments

An External SSD Gave My iMac a New Lease on Life

Prices for SSDs and Thunderbolt 3 enclosures have plummeted, so Glenn Fleishman finally bit the bullet to upgrade the storage for his lagging 2017 iMac. Doing so probably extended the useful lifespan of his iMac by years.

Glenn Fleishman 64 comments

Caller ID Authentication May Tame the Scourge of Spam Calls

Two interlocking technologies that phone carriers began rolling out a couple of years ago are helping dramatically reduce unwanted calls from spammers and fraudsters, while giving law enforcement better tools to track those that remain.

Glenn Fleishman 27 comments

How to Give Presentations and Demo Apps in Zoom

Master the techniques necessary to present slide decks, images, and demonstrations in Zoom by sidestepping limitations in presentation software and learning how to configure some of Zoom’s more fiddly settings.