Apple

02.05.2020 Technology

How to use a Mac mini as a home server, part 3 – software

This is part 3 of the series about the Mac mini server. Do read part 1 about the requirements and the hardware, and part 2 about the repairs and the network setup first. Contents of this blog post Music Films

02.05.2020 Technology

How to use a Mac mini as a home server, part 2 – hardware upgrades, accessing the Mac mini, and Dynamic DNS

This blog post is the second of three in the series, following Part 1 about the requirements for the server and the choice of hardware. Part 3 looks at software installation. Contents of this blog post Hardware upgrades Installation of

28.04.2020 Technology

How to use a Mac mini as a home server, part 1 – requirements and hardware

For some years I’ve been wondering whether to run a server at home. With time on my hands due to the Coronavirus lockdown it was time to finally get around to doing it. This blog post (part 1 of the

05.04.2018 Technology

Everyday tech ethics

A couple of months ago I had a conversation with two academic friends of mine about why they refused to use any messenger other than WhatsApp. “We just want it to work!” they said. “Well, Volkswagen cars work” I hit

28.03.2018 Technology

A little live-blogging trip to Charleroi: the tech

Back almost five years ago I spent a week live blogging from Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise ship in the English Channel – you can find all my posts from that trip here. Now I am writing this on my way to

04.08.2017 Technology

Farewell, my faithful travel companion

For the past 8 years I have had the most faithful and reliable travel partner one could ever hope for. But everything has to come to an end. When I arrive in Berlin this evening, the curtain will come down

08.05.2016 Technology

Moved to another country? Here’s the simple way to restore your Mac apps from the Apple App Store

My MacBook needed a bit of a spring clean, so I decided to wipe it, reinstall Mac OS, and then re-install all my apps. Rather than just restoring apps from a backup I wanted fresh installations of all of them

27.09.2015 Technology

The simple guide to installing Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on a Mac

I’ve been experimenting with running Linux on Macs for some time and – for a variety of reasons – needed to make a clean install of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on my early 2008 24″ iMac. The Mac is now on

05.02.2015 Technology

Today I closed by Gmail account for good. This is why.

This morning I closed my Gmail account. For good. This caused some interesting reactions among my friends (notably Andras), so this blog entry is an effort to explain why I have taken this step, and why I am adjusting my

10.11.2014 EU Politics

Apple building barriers in the EU Single Market

Back in October 2011, when I still lived in London, I bought two pieces of software for my Macs in the Mac App Store – BBEdit, then priced at £34.99, and Pixelmator, then priced at £20.99*. Those apps have been

20.03.2013 Technology

Persistence, EU law, and friendly Apple Store staff to get a new iPhone

My 16 month old iPhone 4S had a hardware fault – the power button on the top of the phone would not press properly – it was partially stuck. You had to push the button with all your might to