CCATP #801 – Sam King of GigSky & How to Use a US Phone Number Using WiFi Calling with a Foreign eSIM
Nov 03, 2024
I had the pleasure of interviewing Sam King, chief revenue officer for eSIM provider GigSky. As an unwritten policy, I don’t generally interview people who sell products or services, but since it’s my own guideline, I can color outside the lines when I want to, and this is one of those times.
We do a fair bit of international travel, and I have always chosen my eSIM by going to esimDB and choosing the best combination of data and length of time of my stay for the price. On our last two trips, GigSky met our needs the best. But I didn't understand something pretty fundamental about choosing an eSIM provider.
Sam explained that most eSIM providers are simply resellers. That matters because if there are any network or installation issues, these companies have no way of fixing the problem and lack any accountability.
It turns out there are only a handful of eSIM companies (including GigSky) that are network operators who supply their own US-based eSIMs. He went on to explain that network operators actually can fix network problems, including automatically moving you to a different local provider with that same eSIM. I highly encourage you to listen to the interview to understand the subtleties of Sam's explanation.
Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_11_03
During our conversation, we started talking about how eSIMs are generally just data, and the various ways to maintain your own cell number while on travel. You may not care about making phone calls, but you may need to receive SMS messages to log into certain services, such as banks. This very problem happened to Steve on our trip to Africa when everyone was using WhatsApp but he hadn't installed it on his iPhone yet. He had to receive an SMS to authenticate but he didn't have his home cell number enabled for fear of getting huge roaming charges from AT&T.
And that's when Sam told me about an interesting hack that he says will allow you to use your US phone number with your data eSIM for SMS and WiFi calling.
Disclaimer: I have not tested this process, so this is exactly as written by Sam to you. I definitely plan on trying it before our next international travel.
Sam's process:
1. Purchase a data plan from an eSIM data provider (like GigSky :)) Make sure your eSIM from your preferred provider is installed and the plan activated before you take off from home (this is my night before my flight routine).
2. Make sure that you have Wifi calling set up on your home account (this is important for when you arrive in country)
3. Before you leave, tell your home operator customer service that you want international roaming turned off. For this, you have to contact customer service and tell them that you do NOT want to get an offer for their roaming service while you are overseas, that you want a zero % chance that you will get charged for roaming. If you do this, your home operator SIM will not attach to a network when you land in overseas (and that's a good thing).
4. As you're taxing to the gate in your destination country - turn on your eSIM in cellular settings and set "Cellular Data" to GigSky (or whichever provider you chose) and set the "Default Voice Line" to your home network.
5. Because you are overseas AND your home SIM is 1) Configured for WiFi calling &2) has no connection outside of the US, iOS will try to fall back on the WiFi calling feature.
It turns out that a cellular connection over the eSIM works exactly the same way! So you'll see in the status screen (what you see when you swipe up on an iPhone) Top SIM: GigSky LTE & Bottom SIM: Home Operator e.g. Verizon using cellular data. For all intents and purposes you can continue to use your phone as if you were in the USA...
Verizon treats it as WiFi calling from a billing standpoint; you can send SMS, make voice calls, get your voicemail, etc. at no additional cost because Verizon thinks you're at home using WiFi calling even though you're in Europe!
Calls to European numbers are still long-distance for Verizon so you might want to get a Google Voice number to make calls within Europe but that is a fairly small incremental cost.
Below is what your phone will look like when it is set up correctly:
How Your Phone Will Look with Sean's Strategy
CCATP #800 – Adam Engst on Limiting iPhone Charging to 80%
Oct 02, 2024
In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Adam Engst of TidBITS joins us to join in the fun conversation about limiting your iPhone's charging to 80%. He wrote up an article entitled Does Limiting an iPhone’s Battery Charging to 80% Increase Lifespan? in which he references an article by Juli Clover of MacRumors. Juli used her iPhone 15 Pro Max for a solid year with charging set to a max of 80%.
Juli freely admits this was not a terribly scientific effort to determine whether it helps because there are far too many variables at play and not enough data points to form any conclusions. That doesn't stop me and Adam from pretending to do science with her results, Adam and my results charging normally, and even more anecdotal data collected by Nick Heer on Pixel Envy. I even threw around a pivot table I made with this "data" which is well known to turn anecdotes into scientifically derived proof. On top of that, I nerdily referenced Battery University that sheds a wee bit of light on the subject.
Before we kicked into that topic, we spent a few minutes revisiting our topic from last time, the annoying monthly popups to allow recording of your screen and microphone. Since we last talked, people have hacked the plist that contains the timing of the nagging, and Jordi Bruin has even written an app called Amnesia to help you hack it. I suggest this proves it's security theater if you can bypass it.
Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_10_02
CCATP #799 – Adam Engst on Apple's Screen Recording Permissions in Sequoia Beta
Sep 07, 2024
Adam Engst joins me again, this time to talk about the patently wrong decision by Apple to include repetitive permissions requests for screen recording in the macOS Sequoia beta. As he explains in his article on TidBITS.com entitled Apple Reduces Excessive Sequoia Permission Requests, Shifts to Monthly, changing from weekly permissions requests to monthly is 4 times less wrong, but still 12 times per year wrong.
We discuss the types of applications this will affect, from screenshot utilities like CleanShot, to menu bar modifiers like Bartender and Ice, as well as apps like Photoshop that simply use an eye dropper to let you choose colors outside of the app interface.
Adam has a no whining policy in his community, so this isn't just a big complaint conversation, he explains some ideas he has the Apple could implement which might give users the desired security protections without causing them permissions fatigue.
Even in this rather fist-shaking episode, Adam is a delight and we had a lot of fun chit chatting.
CCATP #798 Adam Engst on Troubleshooting
Aug 06, 2024
This week our guest is the venerable Adam Engst of TidBITS.
Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_08_06
CCATP #797 – Adam Engst on His Quest for Alarming Notifications
Jul 09, 2024
CCATP #793 for July 9, 2024, and I'm your host, Allison Sheridan. In case you missed the announcement, Adam Engst of TidBITS is now a member of the Podfeet Podcasts family as a continuing contributor to Chit Chat Across the Pond.
In this week's episode, we talked about why Adam believes we need persistent calendar and reminder notifications. Adam is hyper-focused and when he's writing it's not uncommon for him to easily dismiss a notification of an upcoming event.
You May Need to Resubscribe to the NosillaCast
Jul 06, 2024
So ... I made a wee mistake this morning when I accidentally told the NosillaCast feed to move to the Chit Chat Across the Pond feed! I thought I fixed it right away, but then Louis Trapani told me that he was seeing all of the NosillaCast content slopped into Chit Chat Across the Pond! Evidently, the fix didn't "stick".
Overcast subscribers are fine because the RSS feed is ok, but Apple Podcasts subscribers may not ever get the NosillaCast again unless you resubscribe.
I can't believe I did this on the day before my 1000th episode and I'm very sorry and sad! I sure hope you see this and you'll resubscribe and get all that NosillaCast goodness - especially the 1000th episode!
Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_07_06
What happened to Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite?
Jul 05, 2024
Well hello there, this is Alison Sheridan and I have a very special announcement for July 5th, 2024, to the Chit Chat Across the Pond light audience and the Programming By Stealth audience.
If you were subscribed to the Lite feed, you may have noticed that your Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite logo changed into the Chit Chat Across the Pond logo and that you see a whole pile of recent episodes that are all Programming By Stealth. As a Programming By Stealth learner, you won't have noticed a difference yet, but you also care about this.
I've decided to make some changes to the podcast, which I'm pretty sure will benefit everyone. There will be a full explanation of all of the changes in the NosillaCast on episode 1000, but let's talk about you first.
The first change is that we've stopped publishing Programming by Stealth as part of Chit Chat Across the Pond. If you want the Programming By Stealth content, then you'll need to subscribe to the standalone podcast that we've always had.
Since Programming By Stealth won't be in the regular Chit Chat Across the Pond feed, that means it IS the Lite feed.
I've done a fancy redirect thingy that folded the Lite audience into the "full fat" Chit Chat Across the Pond feed so you don't have to do a thing to get your regular Lite content. I will be publishing Lite episodes more often with a HUGE guest! If you want to read about the new guest and all of the changes and why, check out this post: Changes Coming to the Podcasts — All Good News!
Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_07_05
CCATP #792 – Bart Busschots on Rethinking Weather Apps for Privacy and Functionality
Apr 27, 2024
In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Bart Busschots joins us to talk about weather apps. He's a serious weather nerd by necessity, living in Ireland and being an avid bike rider. As he walks through the apps he'll explain which ones fall down on privacy, which ones have good apps for everything from the watch to iOS to the Mac. He'll even go through how he uses different widgets to help him decide how much rain gear to wear.
Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_04_26
CCATP #791 – Bart Busschots on Submarines, Lasers, and Vacuum Cleaners???
Apr 14, 2024
In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Bart Busschots joins us to talk Dyson vacuums. I know that doesn't sound too technical but you'd be surprised how advanced the tech is in the new devices. I share a few of my Dyson stories too and we both talk about our love for everything Dyson. Hide your pocketbooks before listening because all Dyson products are super expensive!
CCATP #785 — Helma van der Linden on Porting XKPASSWD from Perl to JavaScript
Feb 03, 2024
This week's Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite is a stretch to the word "Lite". I'd call it a crossover episode of Lite and Programming By Stealth. Helma van der Linden joins me to tell the story of how she has successfully started the new version of Bart's fabulous xkpasswd password generation service. xkpasswd.net was written in perl ages ago and depends on very old and outdated libraries. Bart spent many months teaching the Programming By Stealth students the tools we (and he) would need to port the code over to JavaScript. His plan all along was to have students help him make the new version of XKPASSWD a reality.
It turns out that Helma is an extraordinary student and has done most of the work to make it a minimal viable product, all without Bart's help. In this conversation, we'll talk about how she did this without getting _too_ nerdy. Some nerdy but not too nerdy.
If you'd like to give the very beta version of the new tool a try (without knowing any coding), check it out at bartificer.github.io/xkpasswd-js/. In a few days, Bart will have it up as the beta version of the _real_ xkpasswd at beta.xkpasswd.net. This beta version is not feature-complete, but it allows you to create 1-10 passwords that use the default preset from the original xkpasswd. You can't choose different presets, and you can't make customized passwords, but at least it does create long, strong, memorable, and typable passwords. And it's REALLY pretty!
We end with the call for others to come help work on the code. The GitHub repo is at github.com/bartificer/xkpasswd-js. If you have or create a GitHub account, you can contribute to the project. If you don't have programming skills but you have feature requests, it counts as contributing if you use the "issues" tab for the GitHub project to post your feature request.
Helma is great fun and we had a blast talking about what she's accomplished so I think you'll enjoy the conversation no matter how nerdy you might be.
Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_02_03
CCATP #780 — Jason Howell on Using Android with a Mac
Dec 04, 2023
In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Jason Howell, podcaster and producer for the TWiT network, and musician joins me to talk about what it's like to use an Android phone with a Mac. I live in an Apple-centric bubble, so I am very curious about how he works with these two operating systems.
We talk about his origin story on the Mac and his Android hardware of choice. We talk a lot about how he manages his photos, and what messaging is like in this mixed blue-bubble/green-bubble environment.
Jason is great fun and introspective and we had an absolute blast chatting. If you'd like to find everything Jason does, go to raygun.fun - it rhymes _and_ it's fun (as Jason pointed out).
CCATP #777 Angela Preston on Creating an Open Source Knitting Font
Nov 06, 2023
One of the great joys of Mastodon is that I’m meeting new people with a cross-section of interests that overlap with my own. By following hashtags like #programming and #technology and #knitting and #crocheting, I can find fellow nerds who are also into the crafts I enjoy.
I discovered this week's guest, Angela Preston through these hashtags. She’s a knitter and she created a website by hand that explains how she built a font for knitting at sites.google.com/.... The best part is she created the font with an open source tool called FontStruct at fontstruct.com.
The conversation bounces back and forth between explaining what knitting is, how traditional text-based patterns are written, how diagram-based knitting works, and then flipping over to how a font is created in FontStruct. Angela is fun and interesting and I think you'll really enjoy the conversation even if you're not a programmer or a knitter.
CCATP #776 Adam Engst on iPhone Recommendations for Senior Citizens
Nov 02, 2023
After a long hiatus for which I have no excuse, Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite is back with a fabulous interview with Adam Engst, publisher of the long-running Internet-based email newsletter, TidBITS. Adam's been on the show a few times and he's always a delight.
My audience knows that I’m an advocate for the accessibility of technology in all forms, and they also know that I bristle at the suggestion that people past a certain age aren’t good at technology. If you throw in gender along with that, such as a phrase I hear all too often, “It’s so easy your mother could use it”, the top of my head blows off.
I read Adam's article with a desire to learn any tips he could provide to making the iPhone more accessible to seniors _and_ at the same time I was ready to jump down his throat if you implied that elderly people can’t be technically competent. I was delighted to find that he pushed none of my hot buttons and gave terrific advice. In our conversation we talk about how to approach senior citizens on what their needs are, and to understand where their limitations might be. Do they lave low vision? Arthritis? Cognitive issues? Dry fingers?
We talk about the pros and cons of Face ID vs. Touch ID as it relates to the different challenges each person might be facing. Adam even gives some cool suggestions on how to rearrange their home screen on the iPhone including a Shortcut he created that might make communicating with just a few people easier.
CCATP #772 — Dr. Jason Briner on Studying the Greenland Polar Ice Sheet
Jun 30, 2023
I'm on a roll with scientists on Chit Chat Across the Pond. This week my guest is Professor Jason Briner from the University of Buffalo. Dr. Briner joins us to tell us tales of adventure as he and his team go to Greenland to study the polar ice sheet. I never thought of geology as a sexy, exciting field of science, but after learning about Dr. Briner's work and the incredible importance of that work to climate science, my view of geology has been turned upside down.
Dr. Briner is serious and funny and engaging and fascinating and I really enjoyed talking to him on the show. I'm really glad we got to know Dr. Briner on our trip to Antarctica where he was one of the brilliant scientists lecturing on the university alumni trip.
You can find photos and videos from Dr. Briner's very recent research trip to Greenland at [www.glyfac.buffalo.edu/...](http://www.glyfac.buffalo.edu/Faculty/briner/2023nwgreenland/2023nwgreenland.html). Might be fun to follow along with the images while listening to him describe the work.
CCATP #770 — Nobel Laureate Dr. Andrea Ghez on our Galaxy’s Supermassive Black Hole
Jun 23, 2023
Have you always figured that astrophysics was a subject beyond your grasp? In this week's Chit Chat Across the Pond, Nobel Prize-winning Dr. Andrea Ghez from UCLA joins me to explain how she and her team proved there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy and she does it in _human friendly_ terms! In 2020 she became only the fourth woman in history to win the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Steve and I were lucky enough to become friends with Andrea on our circumnavigation around Iceland and also on our trip to Antarctica. To be perfectly honest, we signed up for Antarctica _because_ we knew Andrea was going to be lecturing.
Since this was such a momentous interview, we have audio _and_ video embedded of the interview with Dr. Ghez. Many thanks to Steve for putting the video together.
If you'd like to learn more about Andrea and her team's work, and to see photos and video animations of their discoveries, follow the link to the UCLA Galactic Center Group.
CCATP #769 — Bart Busschots on visionOS
Jun 10, 2023
This week our guest is Bart Busschots but this is not a Programming By Stealth episode, it's a Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite. At least within my personal definition of Lite!
Bart joined the show this week to talk about visionOS, the new operating system that will power the Vision Pro headset Apple announced at their World Wide Developer's Conference. We talked about how we can see the future now in spatial computing as a big shift.
Bart tells us about what he learned about visionOS from the Platforms State of the Union, as well as two sessions: Principles of Spatial Design and Design for Spatial Input. He gave us links to the chapterized videos so you can jump right to the parts he talks about if you like.
As a bonus, my granddaughter Siena made her debut appearance on Chit Chat Across the Pond (she's an old hand at coming on the live show). It was a bit of a surprise and she didn't stay long but she did want to say hi. I made it a chapter mark just for fun!
The experiments built on previous studies which demonstrated that people have highly inflated beliefs of their capabilities doing highly complex tasks for which they are entirely unqualified. In particular, a high percentage of people have high confidence that they could land a commercial plane with no help from the tower. In this study, they tested whether watching a short, trivially informative video of two pilots landing a plane would influence that confidence level.
As always with Dr. Garry, you'll learn a lot, you'll laugh along with us, and your dreams will be crushed as only she can.
If you want to listen to more interviews with Dr. Garry, check out these episodes of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite:
CCATP #764 — Adam Engst on Mac Cloud Storage Changes
Apr 13, 2023
Adam Engst of TidBITS joins me on Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite to talk about the changes Apple made recently to the File Provider Extension. These changes had a fairly significant effect on how cloud storage providers like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Box work with macOS.
Whether you realize it or not, you've very likely been upgraded to new versions of these services. While the new File Provider Extension improves several things about our interface with these cloud storage providers, there are also some serious "gotchas" that may affect you.
For example, before talking to Adam, I didn't realize that the change caused us to have local copies of our entire Google Drive and anything added there isn't being synced to the could. Being Adam, he's written an extremely well-researched and well-explained article on [tidbits.com/...](https://tidbits.com/2023/03/10/apples-file-provider-forces-mac-cloud-storage-changes/) where you can follow along with our conversation.
* Adam and I said at the end of the conversation that the next time we'd talk it would be about doing clean installs of macOS. He sent me this link where he talks about three levels of clean installs: Level 2 Clean Install of Ventura Solves Deep-Rooted Problems
CCATP #760 — Rod Simmons on Migrating from LastPass to 1Password
Mar 01, 2023
In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Rod Simmons of the SMR Podcast and BBQ and Tech joins me to talk about password managers. After the recent breaches and more importantly breaches of trust from LastPass, Rod migrated over to 1Password and changed all 400 of his passwords.
We talk through what LastPass did wrong, and what Rod appreciates about 1Password and misses about LastPass. I found it a really interesting conversation about UI design, trust, and what makes an app feel right.
CCATP #756 — Bart Busschots on the Meaning of Verification and Twitter/Mastodon Implementations
Dec 17, 2022
In this final Chit Chat Across the Pond of the year, Bart Busschots joins us to talk about what verification really means, how you know a website is what it says it is, and how verification is accomplished and then explains how Twitter and Mastodon do their respective verification.
CCATP #754 — Casey Liss on Automations From the Absurd to the Delightful
Dec 09, 2022
On this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, we're joined by developer Casey Liss of the Accidental Tech Podcast and creator of the iOS apps MaskerAid and Peek-a-View.
I asked Casey to come on the show to talk about automation. In particular, we talked about Unnecessary or overly-complex automations, automations that mysteriously run but we can't remember how or why they're running, automations we're really proud of, and darn it, these just make me happy automations.
CCATP #753 Nic of Nic's HomePod Repair
Dec 04, 2022
This week our guest on Chit Chat Across the Pond is Nic of Nic’s HomePod Repair. You might remember the article about Steve’s amazing experience with Nic repairing our big-girl HomePod a month or so ago. It wasn’t just that some guy repaired our HomePod, it was how he did it and how he broadcast live video of the repair as it was happening that made it even more interesting. I wanted to know more about how Nic got into doing this and how he creates his videos so I asked him to come on to talk about it. I expected to have a fun, nerdy conversation, and that definitely happened, but what I didn't expect was to find a very kind, thoughtful person who exudes good karma. Whether you care about HomePod repairs or not, I'm sure you'll find this a delightful conversation.
CCATP #750 Dave Hamilton on WiFi 6E Backhaul and Why You Might Care
Nov 07, 2022
WiFi GenerationsIn this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, I asked Dave Hamilton of the Mac Geek Gab to come on to talk to us about mesh routers and why we might care about WiFi 6E. In order to get to that though, I asked him to lay out some groundwork.
Remember when we used to talk about 802.11a then b then g then n and ac. All of us geeks memorized the speed of those different IEEE standards. And then one day the numbering scheme changed completely. I asked Dave to explain what happened and what the new numbers mean. From there Dave refreshed our memory on how mesh routers work, and how backhaul is the communication between the mesh access points.
It took some work keeping the numbers and terminology straight but by the time we were done he had explained why WiFi 6E on the backhaul matters, even though we very likely don't have any WiFi 6E devices.
You can find Dave Hamilton on Twitter @davehamilton and @macgeekgab and on Mastodon at @davehamilton@podcastindex.social.
CCATP #749 Bart Busschots on Understanding the Cybersecurity Threat Landscape
Oct 30, 2022
This week our guest on Chit Chat Across the Pond is Bart Busschots with a talk that's part Security Bits, part Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite. Bart has been asked to speak at a Mac User's Group on the subject of security and he worked up a presentation on the subject. His goal in the presentation is to provide listeners with a better understanding of the types of threats that are out there and what the motivations of the threat actors are.
There's a call to action in this talk by Bart. He wants to know if _you_ think the information he presents will be valuable to a Mac User Group. I (mostly) kept my opinions to myself because we want to hear from you. The best way to provide this feedback is to use our Podfeet Slack at podfeet.com/slack, or you can Tweet Bart at @bbusschots, or you can make a comment on the blog post for this episode.
The slide deck presentation for Bart's talk can be viewed at [busschotsh-my.sharepoint.com/...](https://busschotsh-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/bart_busschots_ie/ESJOmYQKiORBiox-54y7NdEB660FYB3N54nrnBcBKl8yIA?e=TaBXcK)
CCATP #748 – Darcy Hegarty on His Unusual Screencasting Process
Oct 26, 2022
This week I'm pleased to introduce you to Darcy Hegarty on Chit Chat Across the Pond. Darcy is a fellow screencaster for Don McAllister's ScreenCastsOnline and I'm really impressed with the videos he creates. They're tight, they tell a coherent story, and he even starts with the problem to be solved! I started chatting with him about his process and discovered that he's only been doing this for a short while. I also found out that he has a far different process for creating his screencasts than I do, so I asked him on the show so he could teach me how he does it and you get to learn along with me.
You can find connect with Darcy by emailing him at darcyh@oceanfire.studio and follow him on Twitter at @sensible_of
CCATP #747 – Dan Moren on Baby Tech
Oct 21, 2022
This week our guest is Dan Moren (https://dmoren.com/). Dan is the author of the Galactic Cold War series of sci-fi espionage capers, a former senior editor at Macworld, a writer for Six Colors and TidBITS amongst other publications, and a prolific podcaster as co-host of Clockwise and The Rebound. But I did not have him on the show to talk about any of that. Dan is a very recent father and I wanted to talk about the latest and greatest in baby tech.
You can find everything you need to know about Dan Moren at [dmoren.com/...](https://dmoren.com/) including links to the Galactic Cold War Series. You can follow him online @dmoren.
If you want to buy his books at an independent bookstore, he suggests [indiebound.org](https://indiebound.org) to find them.
CCATP #746 – Antonio Rosario on iPhone 14 Pro Max From a Different Angle
Oct 11, 2022
Antonio Rosario bills himself as a full-time unemployed photographer, part-time semi-employed videographer and photography instructor, and a volunteer bimonthly podcaster. He sent out a tweet in which he said, "Dear podcasters: Will someone PLEASE interview me about the #iPhone 14 ProMax?!"
I expected that Antonio wanted to come on and have a discussion about the new phone's specs and a pixel-peeping level of detail about the resulting images from this new device. But that's not at all what he really wanted to talk about. Whether you consider yourself a "real" photographer or just someone who likes to take pictures, I think you'll find this introspective discussion heartfelt and memorable.
You can find Antonio online in the following places:
* Follow Antonio’s work at [amrosario.com](http://amrosario.com/)
* Podcast - Street Shots Photography Podcast [streetshots.photography/...](http://streetshots.photography/)
CCATP #745 – Bart Busschots on Zero Trust
Oct 03, 2022
In this "Lite" episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bart Busschots teaches us about a relatively new concept in IT security called Zero Trust. He explains how the old ways of simply securing the perimeter of your organization are no longer enough. You simply can't trust that inside your network you're safe from bad actors.
The solution has three principles that guide organizations in developing the rules of who and which devices and networks are allowed to have access to what data and for how long. That part sounds like the heavy lifting to me! Bart then explains how the fun part is then using the rules that have been developed to implement these rules using technology.
Bart's explanation of how the technology works is a bit specific to Microsoft's products but the concepts he explains are definitely applicable to any vendor's solution. Detailed shownotes are available at [www.podfeet.com/...](https://www.podfeet.com/blog/2022/10/ccatp-745)
CCATP #744 – Paul Kafasis on 20 Years of Audio Software Development
Sep 28, 2022
Rogue Amoeba is celebrating 20 years in Mac software development this month and in honor of that accomplishment, I asked CEO Paul Kafasis to come on Chit Chat Across the Pond to take us on a walk down memory lane.
We start by talking about Audio Hijack 1.0, and talk about the 266MHz PowerPC they used to develop the product. We talk about the problems that Rogue Amoeba's software solves, including SoundSource which is probably their application with the broadest appeal to people. We talk through design decisions including both making Audio Hijack completely accessible to visually-impaired users, and making it easier for all of us to understand.
Audio Hijack 1.0 InterfaceI ask Paul the burning question on everyone's mind, where the heck did the name Rogue Amoeba come from?
This is not an ad for Rogue Amoeba, but I'm afraid I _do_ gush quite a bit because I'm such a giant fan of everything they do. I spend time talking about how amazing their support staff is (I bother them a _lot_) which prompts Paul to explain the structure of the company and why it works so well.
We talking about their pricing model in contrast with the companies that are adopting subscription pricing.
And finally, I ask Paul when they are going to make the multi-track editor of my dreams.
We had a blast recording together and swapping stories. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as we did. A very rare 20% off sale is going on right now for all Rogue Amoeba products, so check it out at [macaudio.com/...](https://macaudio.com/)
CCATP #741 – Tom Merritt on Touchscreens vs. Buttons in Cars
Aug 31, 2022
Tom Merritt of the Daily Tech News Show joins me on Chit Chat Across the Pond to talk about a recent study published by Sweden’s biggest car magazine, ViBilägare. The study timed drivers in how long it took them to perform a set of proscribed functions in a variety of cars with touchscreens and one vehicle without any touchscreen at all.
While Tom and I agree that the study is flawed in a lot of ways, we differ on how it is flawed, which makes for a lively discussion. We talk about the merits and demerits of touchscreens and even throw CarPlay under the bus while praising its virtues.
If you want to find all of Tom's work, you can go to [tommerritt.com/...](https://tommerritt.com/). He also encourages you to check out his newest podcast called A Word with Tom Merritt where he talks with people about how they think using one word as the start of the conversation.
CCATP #740 – Allison on Bart's Let's Talk Photography – Mirrorless Camera Conversion
Aug 21, 2022
This is another crossover episode - it's an interview Bart Busschots did with me for his Let's Talk Photography podcast at [lets-talk.ie/...](https://lets-talk.ie/) about the conversion I made ages ago to a mirrorless camera. He asked me on because it looks like DSLRs are winding down and he's contemplating making the jump soon. It's a fun conversation where I also confess that I've lost the touch of editing RAW photos but I'm still very glad I brought my Olympus E-M5 Mark III to Iceland.
A few years ago, when the SMR podcast hosts took over the NosillaCast while I was on vacation, Tom Merritt of the Daily Tech News Show called it "The Crossover Event of the Summer." Since then, the SMR hosts Rod, Chris, and Robb have all been on DTNS. Then Tom had Bodie Grimm of the Kilowatt podcast on his show, so Bodie and I got to be friends, and the crossovers just keep on coming.
In this year's "Crossover Event of the Summer", Bodie Grimm interviews two gentlemen from a company called Orange Charger. Founder Nicholas Johnson and Product manager & Strategist Joseph Nagle talk to Bodie about their vision to bring affordable and convenient electric vehicle charging to multi-unit properties like apartments and condominiums. It's a fascinating discussion of what people think they need and want vs. what they actually need in a home charger.
You can learn more about Orange Charger at [www.orangecharger.com](https://www.orangecharger.com/)
Thanks, Bodie for letting us have this interview for Chit Chat Across the Pond!
CCATP #737 Mark Pouley on Starlink Satellite Service
Jul 11, 2022
Mark Pouley, the photographer behind Twin Lakes Images lives in a home that is in an urban area, but on a long, private road that hasn’t been fed by fiber or cable. He and his wife also bought a vacation home in the far Northeast corner of the state of Washington where there’s very little infrastructure and not even reliable cell service. He needed to find service that would meet his tech geek needs.
In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Mark tells us about his experience with DSL service, and T-Mobile for home Internet, and why that lead him to pursue SpaceX’s new Starlink satellite service. He explains the process of acquisition, costs, installation, and the speeds he’s getting in his homes.
Starlink is hot in the news right now, especially with their recent announcement that they’ll be providing this service to the recreational vehicle (RV) community.
CCATP #735 Molly DeFrank on her Book "Digital Detox: The Two-Week Tech Reset for Kids"
Jul 06, 2022
In this week's Chit Chat Across the Pond, I interview author Molly DeFrank on her book "Digital Detox: The Two-Week Tech Reset for Kids" along with Lindsay Tondee who put Molly's advice to the test with her son Forbes.
As a geek, you'll probably think this is crazy talk, but I promise you it's a fun conversation and Molly's practical steps in her book might just be what you need if your kids turn into monsters when you take their screens away.
During the interview, Molly mentioned the Gabb "dumb" phone she bought her 12-year-old which you can find at gabbwireless.com/...
We also talked about the Silverware Dance by Forbes and Molly asked for a GIF of it so you can all enjoy it. Silverware Dance by Forbes
CCATP #734 – Seamus Lavery on Raising a Service Dog
Jun 24, 2022
In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, I'm joined by long-time NosillaCastaway Seamus Lavery. Seamus started posting photos of his black lab Quaid to the live chatroom, and then explained that he’s a “puppy raiser” for Guiding Eyes for the Blind. He agreed to come on the show to tell us what it’s like to be a puppy raiser, what his responsibilities are, what he’s supposed to teach Quaid, and the uphill road it is for Quaid to qualify to be a Service Dog for the blind.
Bart is a Belgian living in the Republic of Ireland, while Seamus is a Northern Irishman who lived for 12 years in Belgium (now living in the Washington DC area). His accent is delightful and his story is fascinating.
I tell you that whole story because when Steve got off the phone, he started telling me all about Brian’s huge projects to use solar on his farm. Steve was so enthusiastic about these projects that he started barraging Brian with questions about his projects in email, so I suggested Brian come on Chit Chat and Steve help me co-host.
You'll hear Brian explain how he and his wife planted literally more than 10,000 trees themselves, about how he grows the tilapia fish in the "pond" he built, and how creating that pond got him started getting into using solar to power his farm. He didn't just write a check and have someone come out and install solar, he bought the components but built everything himself.
While you may not follow in Brian's footsteps, it's very cool to know that it's actually possible to do this yourself and to learn about how Brian gives back to his community. Steve and I had a great time talking to Brian and learning from him and I know you will too. Don't forget to go listen to the DTNS Solar Panel Panel too!
Follow the link to the blog post to see photos of some of the panels and structures Brian built on his farm.
CCATP #732 – Ask Me Anything (About Security) with Bart Busschots
Jun 11, 2022
This week our guest is Bart Busschots. This week we're going to do something a little different; we're doing an "Ask Me Anything (About Security)". I sent out the request for questions to our Slack community (), to Twitter, to a few user groups of which I am a member, and Steve posted it to our Facebook group.
With the exception of one question which I sent to him ahead of time, Bart answered all of these on the fly while we were recording. For that reason, only the questions are available in the blog post, not the answers. In order to know his answers, you'll need to listen to the show. If you're hearing-impaired, and one of the questions is of particular interest to you, send me an email at and I'll try to reproduce Bart's answer for you.
CCATP #731 – Bodie Grimm with Chris Ashley – Ford F150 Lightning EV
Jun 02, 2022
In yet another crossover episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bodie Grimm of the Kilowatt Podcast joins me to talk about EVs. But this isn't just any EV, we get to talk to Chris Ashley of the SMR Podcast and BBQ and Tech about his brand new Ford F150 Lightning EV.
We catch Chris on the very delivery day of his new hotness, and he's one of the first people to actually get the F150 Lightning. Chris put his $100 in the ring over a year ago, and bought the Lightning (in the Laredo trim) essentially sight unseen. He is besotted with the vehicle and from what he told us, we can see why.
We start out with a big tease by talking about the work Chris had to do to be approved to install a charger at his townhouse, and what size battery he chose, but eventually we talk about what it feels like to drive with and without regenerative braking (also known as one-pedal driving), we talk about how well CarPlay works (it's over Bluetooth), what information is on the instrument panel, and a lot about the glory that is heated _and_ cooled seats. Bodie and Chris talk about how to remote start the car (which was a baffling subject for a California-bred woman). We even discuss whether Chris will fit in the frunk (aka Front Trunk).
It's a fun and informative conversation I know you'll enjoy. And be sure to check out Kilowatt, SMR, and BBQ and Tech Podcasts to have even more fun with these awesome gentlemen.
CCATP #730 – Bart Busschots on Thinking About Security
May 28, 2022
In this Lite version of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bart Busschots talks to us about he thinks about security. Rather than try to tell us with exacting precision what to do about a current threat, instead, he talks about how to be proactive, how to convince others to accept changes in the name of security, and how to increase your security by reducing your attack surface. It sounds like a grim and boring subject, but of course with Bart as our steward for the subject, it's filled with anecdotes and examples from real life. In addition to the podcast recording, he's given us a full blog post on the subject as well.
I've been a fan of John's for a long time but I never knew anything about his background, so I asked him to start at the beginning and explain where he came from. Next I ask him some questions about screen brightness and arrangement of windows that I've heard him talking about and always wanted to investigate his ideas further.
Then we get into a super meaty discussion where he explains display technology from LCD to OLED to QD-OLED (or Quantum Dot OLED).
John was as delightful as I'd hoped, as knowledgeable as I'd expected and I had a fantastic time with him.
CCATP #728 — Bart Busschots on Why FIDO Passkeys Rock
May 14, 2022
Back in August of 2019, Bart Busschots told us about how someday in the future, we would be able be living a passwordless future because of something called FIDO, AKA Fast ID Online. Back then it was really only helping corporations but this week the FIDO Alliance made an announcement that shows real promise that the dream will be realized for normal humans.
In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Bart gives us a human-friendly explanation of why FIDO is awesome, how it will work, why it works, and what problems it solves. He even breaks it down into who will have to do what for this to work, and the good news is that normal humans won't have to do anything at all.
While this may sound like a super nerdy topic, and it does include a few brief ventures into private/public key cryptography, it's really a joyful discussion of a future without password breaches. When Bart and I stopped recording, I asked him, "Did you notice how much I was smiling during this recording?" I think you'll really enjoy hearing about FIDO and why passkeys rock.
CCATP #727 – Dr. Maryanne Garry on How Everything You Remember is Wrong
May 12, 2022
One of my pet peeves is podcasters who air reruns. Today I am that podcaster but I think I can justify what I'm doing so bear with me here. On June 1st, 2014, Dr. Maryanne Garry made her debut appearance on Chit Chat Across the Pond. In this terrific interview, she explains her research and the research of others in the field of how memories are formed and retrieved. Every time Dr. Garry comes on as a self-proclaimed "Crusher of Dreams", these episodes seem to garner the most interest from the listeners. This seminal episode with Dr. Garry is the best of the best, and crushes every dream you have that your memory is flawless and it's everyone else who is misremembering. She explains the repressed memory fad that started in the 1990s, and how damaging this never scientifically-validated was to many people. She explains how she can actually induce false memories in people at an alarming rate.
Now here's why I'm rerunning it. Eight years ago, Chit Chat Across the Pond was not a standalone podcast; it was embedded inside the NosillaCast episode #473. I've always wanted to be able to point people directly to this interview and I couldn't because it didn't even have a chapter mark to jump to in the audio.
Not only is it a fabulous interview and one where she mocks me at every turn, and I want new listeners to hear it, but even if you have heard it, it's delightful to listen to again. I asked Maryanne to listen and see whether she'd want to rerecord because of changes in the last 8 years and she said that it's great just like it is.
In the beginning I say that she works at the University of Victoria in Wellington, New Zealand. She has since then she has moved her research lab and teaches at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand.
CCATP #726 – Bart Busschots on Email on Your Own Domain
Apr 30, 2022
In this ~lite episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bart Busschots explains why it's a good idea to have your an email address on your own domain. Then he digs deep into all of the different technologies involved in owning a domain, forwarding email, explains MX and NX records, and how to make sure you're never caught up in a spam scam. After digging deep, he then brings us up a level and explains the easy things you can do to have email forwarding that might protect you from some problems. I've worked my way through all of the technologies that Bart described, but I didn't understand a lot of it until Bart explained it in this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond.
You'll find detailed shownotes of everything Bart describes at
CCATP #725 – Erin Carson on Ear Worms and TikTok
Apr 20, 2022
This week our guest is Erin Carson, Senior Writer at CNET. She came on the show to talk to me about ear worms and the effect that TikTok is having on their prevalence. We go over the research she studied on earworms, finding out how long we've known about them, what goes on in our brains when we imagine music and why TikTok might be the perfect vehicle for getting them. We eventually go off the rails and enjoy a delightful conversation about music in her home town of Nashville.
If you want to follow along with Erin's work, you can find her on cnet.com and you can follow her on Twitter @ErinCarson
CCATP #723 – Bodie Grimm Kilowatt Crossover on Self Driving, Solar Batteries, and More
Apr 16, 2022
While Steve and I were in Phoenix visiting Steve's sister, we made a trip out to meet the awesome Bodie Grimm, host of the Kilowatt podcast at 918digital.com. Bodie's show is all about electric vehicles, self driving, solar energy, and batteries. You can imagine that it would be impossible for a podcast to _not_ break out when two podcasters meet up like this.
We decided to create this as a crossover episode that we would both post. I haven't listened to Bodie's intro yet, but I am willing to bet that he starts it with telling his audience they shouldn't listen on his show, they should subscribe to mine instead. That's just the kind of guy he is. I'm not that generous. Stay here, listen to it on my channel, but then you're allowed to go subscribe to the Kilowatt Podcast.
In this episode Bodie and I talk about all kinds of things. I explain how weird it was for Steve and me to drive an internal combustion engine (ICE) car after two years of EV driving. But that wasn't the weirdest driving we did. Right before recording, Bodie let us order a Waymo self-driving car to take us to Trader Joe's, so of course we had to talk about how crazy it was to be in a moving car with no driver in the car.
Steve and I are considering getting batteries to go with our solar system, and Bodie knows a lot about this subject, so I try to get him to interpret the crazy language we were given on how to deal with Tesla batteries during a power outage. He does not succeed at this task any better than we did.
Bodie is a fabulous guy - smart, knowledgeable, and with a subtle and yet goofy sense of humor that just tickles me. Be sure to check out the Kilowatt Podcast in your podcatcher of choice.
CCATP #722 – Tom Merritt on the Past, Present, and Future of Messaging
Apr 05, 2022
This week's guest on Chit Chat Across the Pond is Tom Merritt, host of the Daily Tech News Show, Cord Killers, Know a Little More, Sword and Laser and more podcasts than I can count. He's also a science fiction author with his book series Pilot X tommerrittbooks.com.
I asked Tom to come on Chit Chat to help me "know a little more" (see what I did there?) about the past, present and future of messaging. We start by talking about the grand old days when on the computer we had interoperable messaging services, and later at least a way to aggregate the protocols so we could use one client to talk over different services.
We covered SMS and the "new and improved" RCS from 2007 protocols when he explained the roles that carriers play in implementation. We talk about the green/blue bubble problem with splintered messages and how RCS might be able to help if Apple would implement it, and why they probably won't.
Finally, we talk about the DMA (Digital Markets Act - see Bart's deep dive on this during Security Bits for 3 April 2022) starting to work its way through the European Commission and how Tom interprets the possible/probable ways the big companies might implement the changes demanded surrounding messaging. I tried to get Tom to say he was optimistic that we may one day soon have an integrated messaging service to rule them all but I wasn't quite successful.
You can keep up with everything Tom Merrit by signing up for Tom's newsletter at FreeTomNewsletter.com
CCATP #720 – Jill from the North Woods on Switching from Windows to Mac
Mar 24, 2022
Jill from the North Woods, host of the delightful and inspiring Start with Small Steps Podcast at smallstepspod.com decided a few years ago that she wanted to switch from Windows to the Mac. I was a bit of an enabler on this, so I've been watching her adventure with great interest. She recently made the final hard switchover and I thought it would be interesting to for you to hear her story. She'll talk about why she wanted to switch, how she tried to switch, challenges with hardware and software, and how she finally accomplished the switch.
CCATP #718 – Adam Engst of TidBITS on Apple's March Peek Event
Mar 10, 2022
If you're looking for a methodical walk through the Apple March Peek Event that discusses point-by-point every detail and spec that Apple presented, you will be sorely disappointed with this week's Chit Chat Across the Pond. Instead of being methodical, Adam Engst of TidBITS and I dive right into the middle and enjoy ourselves talking about what we enjoyed. We jump around, we tell anecdotes, we talk about how the landscape is changing for Apple and the industry. We do get into a spec here and there to add flavor to the discussion and we do talk about the products, but to call our conversation methodical and meticulous would be highly misleading.
If you'd like to follow Adam's work, just head over to tidbits.com to read the longest-running Internet technology publication.
CCATP #716 – Cheyenne Swenson on the Kia EV6 "Spaceship"
Feb 24, 2022
Cheyenne's EV6 SpaceshipIn this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Cheyenne Swenson joins us to tell us about her new electric vehicle – the Kia EV6. Cheyenne explains how she calls it a spaceship because it's got two 12-inch wide aspect ratio displays and because of how different it is to drive from any car she's ever owned.
We talked about how she chose this particular EV and why she went electric in the first place. She explains the two screens and what information goes where and why, and also holds it over me that her car actually has dedicated dials for temperature and the radio. We talk about the backup cameras, how well the cruise control with lane steering works, and how weird the door handles are.
Cheyenne is a joy to talk to as she's funny and well informed at the same time.
CCATP #712 – Alec Johnson on One Take Video Production
Jan 21, 2022
This week's guest on Chit Chat Across the Pond is the Wizard Alec Johnson. Alec is the host of the YouTube channel Take One Tech. He creates amazing how-to guides on tools such as Stream Deck, Hazel, Keyboard Maestro, Ecamm Live, and many basic features of the Mac operating systems. When I found his video tutorials, I started devouring them I was learning so much. I asked Alec if he’d come on the show to talk about _how_ he creates these amazing tutorials because they’re unique in the style and quality of the content.
We talk about the gear he uses, and more importantly his software setup that allows him to create 30-minute video tutorials in _one take_. Even after learning how he automates with Keyboard Maestro and Stream Deck, I still believe he's a wizard that he can create such smooth video tutorials with relatively few mistakes, all in one take. Get this, in one take he has created 100 videos in 100 days! His next goal is 365 videos in 365 days. This is why I introduced him as the wizard Alec Johnson.
Since he's a video guy, we decided to have him record the interview for his YouTube channel as well, so if you'd rather watch instead of listen you can do that. There are a few times in the conversation where he demonstrates a little bit of what he's describing so there is an advantage to watching the video. As always though, I made sure to keep adding color commentary to what I was watching so you won't miss anything in the audio.
You can connect with Alec and find all of his content at takeonetech.io
CCATP #709 – Adam Engst on the Manifesto for Ubiquitous Linking
Dec 14, 2021
Adam starts our conversation by taking us into the WABAC machine to learn about Project Xanadu which was the vision of Ted Nelson to link all information bidirectionally. Working off that foundational vision he explains that a group of developers and tech visionaries have created the Manifesto for Ubiquitous Linking as a way to encourage the concept of linking as much information as we can within and between apps and operating systems. At the link to the Manifesto, you can learn more about the originators, the vision, and the technical requirements for making this work. Adam even gives us a call to action at the end if we'd like to see this future realized.
I told Adam at the end of the conversation that I knew it was a great talk because my cheeks hurt from smiling talking to him.
CCATP #707 – Tom Merritt on Meta and the Metaverse
Dec 02, 2021
In late October, Facebook announced that The Facebook Company was name to Meta. A little bit later, Mark Zuckerberg published a video where he described his vision of the future metaverse. I haven't been following this too closely but it seems to be turning into something I might want to understand. I asked Tom Merritt, host of Daily Tech News Show and many other fine shows, to come on Chit Chat to try to make sense of these two things for us.
We talk about what the name change for Facebook really means and what it probably doesn't mean (is it just like Google becoming part of Alphabet?) Then Tom explains the vision of what the metaverse is expected to be. I thought it was a fascinating explanation and I learned a lot from talking to Tom.
During the conversation, Tom references his show Know a Little More where he explains complex technical topics in a short form, deep dive format. He talks in Chit Chat about NFTs and Blockchain, but suggests listening to his episodes on those topics if you want to, well, know a little more.
If you'd like all to find of Tom's podcasts, and the books he's written, you can find all of his work at tommerritt.com.
CCATP #704 – Chris Ashley & Rod Simmons on BBQ and Tech Podcast with Steve Sheridan
Nov 05, 2021
This week I'm pleased to have Chris Ashley and Rod Simmons on the Chit Chat Across the Pond. You may know them from the SMR Podcast they do with Robb Dunewood, or you may remember them from their frequent appearances on Chit Chat Across the Pond to talk tech.
They're joining me today to talk about their brand new podcast, BBQ and Tech. I've also asked Steve (the husband) to join us because he's really enjoying what the guys are teaching, while I'm just the beneficiary in the eating part.
This episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond hits on a lot of the high points of what Chris and Rod are teaching in BBQ and Tech. The difference between grilling and barbecuing (also known as smoking), some of the different options for getting started in barbecue, and how the tech angle comes into the show.
Chris and Rod have been friends since they were 5 years old and they've been barbecuing together for a very long time. This friendship makes listening to them talk about barbecue a real joy.
During the show we talked about the Meater 4-probe Bluetooth to WiFi range extension thermometers, so here's a BBQ and Tech Amazon Affiliate link so you can put it on your holiday wish list: amazon.com/...
CCATP #702 – Doc Rock Explains ProRes Video & We Talk new M1 Max Macs
Oct 18, 2021
Doc Rock joins me for a fantastic discussion on Chit Chat Across the Pond. I asked Doc on the show originally to come on and explain ProRes video to me, but Apple delighted us by dropping the new M1 Max Macs and M1 Pro Macs the same day we were scheduled to record.
We do spend a little bit of time talking about ProRes video where Doc explains what all those number people have been bandying about, like 4-4-4-4 and XQ. I really understood when he was done explaining to a video muggle like me.
Then we take the least linear path through the MacBook Pro announcements you can imagine. It was positively delightful as we dug into specific specs and what they mean and who should care all the time bouncing around between the different options. I loved every single minute of tis conversation.
You can find Doc Rock everywhere on the Internets @DocRock, especially his YouTube channel where he helps people learn to live stream like a boss. He'd also love it if you checked out his new audio podcast called Creator 50 where he encourage people of a more mature age learn to share their stories. You can find it at the link in the shownotes, or just search for Creator 50 in your podcatcher of choice.
CCATP #697 – Bodie Grimm Explains EV Fires and Teslas Hitting Emergency Vehicles
Aug 23, 2021
CCATP #697 for August 23, 2021, and I'm your host, Allison Sheridan. This week our guest is Bodie Grimm. Along with being a podcaster who specializes in the news about electric vehicles on his show the Kilowatt Podcast, Bodie is a firefighter and engineer on a ladder truck. He is in a unique position to answer some of my questions about fires in internal combustion vehicles. We also talked about the new investigation by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) into 11 reported accidents where Teslas ran into emergency vehicles.
Bodie is super knowledgeable and has a lot of experience that's relevant to our conversation, and he's an awful lot of fun.
During our conversation he mentioned the Emergency Field Guide available for download here: catalog.nfpa.org/...
CCATP #694 Dr. Niki Ackermans on Anatomy and Neuroscience with Oxen and Sheep
Aug 07, 2021
This week our guest is Dr. Niki Ackermans. Dr. Ackermans is a Postdoctoral fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City. Her current work focuses on the anatomy and neuroscience of traumatic brain injury in head butting animals. She is also the science correspondent for the Daily Tech News Show, and hosted the Seniors in Tech series on DTNS, including interviewing NosillaCastaway Sandy Foster and me. She’s also the host of the podcast Stories Your Granny Never Told.
Niki tells us about her research doing MRIs on ox and sheep brains and studying CT scans of their skulls to determine the effect of head butting on their brains and whether they suffer the same kinds of concussions as humans. The hope is to try to help humans who suffer concussions, including football players and people in the service.
This sounds like a creepy topic but Niki is absolutely delightful as she describes her delight in her work and how much fun it is. She's entertaining and funny and brilliant. I learned so much and I smiled the whole time.
CCATP #691 – Melissa Davis on Setting up iPhone for Vintage Users in a Dignified Way
Jun 30, 2021
In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Melissa Davis, aka TheMacMommy joins me to give us her tips for setting up an iPhone for a "Vintage User", in a dignified way. If you've ever heard Melissa on the Geekiest Show Ever podcast she does with Elisa Pacelli, you know she's a fantastic resource to the community. Her gentle voice and compassionate personality can help guide us in helping our vintage friends and family. She's got concrete, specific suggestions for how to configure the phone and how to listen to the person you're helping so you can ensure that the phone will bring them joy when you're done.
Mellisa actually wrote up all of these tips as a reference guide for after you listen, and the notes include even more suggestions that we didn't get to in the episode. Even if you don't need to help anyone with their phone right now, I am sure you'll enjoy listening to Melissa describe how she helps others.
CCATP #689 – Bodie Grimm with Allison and Steve on Tesla Fiddly Bits
Jun 20, 2021
This week we have a very different episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite. On the awesome Kilowatt podcast (a show all about electric vehicles), host Bodie Grimm asked me and my husband Steve to be his guests on the show. You really shouldn't be listening to it here, you should go subscribe to the Kilowatt podcast instead and listen to it there, but he _insisted_ that we should share the love and he let me broadcast it for you here as well.
The Kilowatt Podcast is _not_ just about Teslas, it's about electric vehicles in general. You'll learn about all kinds of EVs from all different manufacturers. You'll get the latest news and breakthroughs in technologies in the EV space. I highly recommend subscribing to the Kilowatt Podcast if you're at all interested in electric vehicles.
Bodie asked us to come on the Kilowatt Podcast to talk about what we _don't_ like about our Teslas, the fiddly bits if you will. You know we love our Model 3 and Model Y but there are definitely things we wish were different. I know a lot of you out there are big fans of Steve so this is a rare opportunity to hear him in front of a microphone.
Steve and I had a blast recording with Bodie and we hope you'll enjoy it as well.
CCATP #687 – Mikah Sargent on What Thread Means for the Internet of Things
May 31, 2021
In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Mikah Sargent joins us to explain why he's so excited about what the new technology called Thread is going to bring to the Internet of Things, or IoT. You may know Mikah from the awesome show Clockwise with Dan Moren, or perhaps iOS Today with Rosemary Orchard or Smart Tech Today with Matthew Cassinelli on the TWiT network.
Mikah starts with the problem to be solved – slow Bluetooth devices vs. heavy WiFi devices and troublesome network connectivity. He explains how Thread will solve these problems, both at an overarching vision level as well as getting down into the nerdy bits of how Thread does its magic. We'll learn about sleepy Thread devices, Thread Border routers, and what it means when you see "Works with Matter."
If you want to follow Mikah online, you can go to chihuahua.coffee and find him on all social media @mikahsargent.
CCATP #683 – Christophe Zajek-Denek is Kind of a Big Deal
Apr 28, 2021
This week's guest is Christophe Zajek-Denek. Christophe worked as a TV producer while touring in a rock band, he’s a drummer, an actor and stuntman, a surfer, a journalist, a podcaster, and public speaker. He's also 4’4” tall and has a rare form of dwarfism. Christophe hosts an amazing podcast entitled "I'm Kind of a Big Deal" in which he interviews amazing little people doing really cool things. From actors to professional surfboarders, he learns about their lives, their professions and has a good laugh with every one. He's also done several shows describing the surgeries he's had to endure and how grateful he is to his parents for having them done.
We talked about how to stand when talking to little people, how people stare at little people, his surgeries, little people in acting, and pedal extenders so he can drive. We laughed a lot but the conversation gets deep and introspective as well. I had a blast and I think Christophe did too.
CCATP #682 – Doc Rock on Apple Spring Loaded Event
Apr 21, 2021
This week's guest is Doc Rock to talk about the Apple Spring Loaded Event. Doc's background in all things Apple as well as high end live video makes him the perfect person to talk about this event. He explains to me how this color calibration of our TVs using our iPhones and an Apple TV will work, we talk about whether the cool colors of the iMacs might be a distraction to photographers, how the coolest thing that got nearly zero air time was having Ethernet over a MagSafe connector, how much we'll all want the new keyboard with Touch ID but how it will only work with M1 Macs, and Doc tries to convince me that I need a 1TB 12.9" iPad Pro.
The discussion is not a linear walk through the event, but more of a meandering talk about what interested us and to tell stories to each other. I had an absolute blast, and I can prove Doc had fun too because he suggested we get together after the next two Apple events this year. I think you'll get a big kick out of this conversation.
CCATP #680 – Gregg Vanderheiden on 50 Years in Accessibility
Apr 06, 2021
This week our guest is Gregg Vanderheiden, Professor and Director Trace R&D Center at the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland.
CCATP #678 – Matt Campbell on Accessibility Overlays & Cloudflare Remote Browser Isolation
Mar 29, 2021
Matt Campbell is a blind software developer who has specialized in making computers more accessible to blind people for over 20 years. He was the lead developer for Serotek for 15 years, where he developed several affordable and easy-to-use products, including a Windows screen reader and an online community for blind people. More recently, he was a developer on the Windows accessibility team at Microsoft, where he contributed to Narrator, the screen reader built into Windows. Now he’s the co-founder and chief technology officer of Pneuma Solutions, which is working to make online meetings and documents fully accessible.
Matt wanted to be on the show to talk about two things: Accessibility Overlays and Cloudflare's Remote Browser Isolation project. Accessibility Overlays are intended to help companies pass accessibility standard tests, but according to Matt, they often actually make websites _less_ accessible. He's written an open source browser extension for Chrome and Edge called Accessibyebye that will disable these overlays if they make your web browsing problematic. In the conversation he references a blog post about the problems at adrianroselli.com/...
He's also trying to raise awareness about a huge problem with a product from Cloudflare called Remote Browser Isolation. This technology is designed to help companies protect their employees from browser-based attacks, replacing VPNs. But the way it accomplishes this is problematic for accessibility. The idea is that your employees browse to a website but the URL request goes to Cloudflare instead, where it navigates to the site. Cloudflare renders the site, and then sends only JavaScript draw commands to your browser. This means the original elements are not sent to your web browser, which means screenreaders have nothing to read, and mobility tools have nothing to connect with. Matt is in the beta and has tested it himself, and I've signed up for the beta so I can see this for myself.
CCATP #676 – Jill McKinley on Windows to Mac Conversion
Mar 20, 2021
This week our guest is Jill McKinley, aka Jill from the North Woods. I’ve been using a Mac since 1984, and other than a 3-year stint using Windows Vista at work, I’ve been heads down in the Mac operating system all that time. Jill has recently bought her first Mac, which as is usually the case turned into a second Mac purchase. She is still straddling both operating systems and honestly not using macOS too much yet. I thought it would be fun to have her come on and chat about what it’s been like to learn macOS and the differences and challenges she’s finding.
If you'd like to chat with Jill, the best place is in the Podfeet Slack. Join us at podfeet.com/slack.
CCATP #675 – Working from Home Part 2 – Allister Jenks & Lindsay Tondee
Mar 13, 2021
In the last Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Lindsay Tondee made her debut appearance where we talked about working from home. After the show published, Allister Jenks wrote to me and told me that halfway through listening he had to stop and start writing down notes for a recording he would have to make talking about his views on the same subject.
I forwarded Allister's message to Lindsay and then I connected the two of them and before I knew what was happening they had decided that we were going to do a three-way Chit Chat Across the Pond! Allister comes from a completely different perspective as someone who has worked far from his team for many years. We talk about what works and what doesn't for him in his capacity doing IT support, from a technology perspective and even from a "how to stop people from asking you questions they could find answers for on their own" perspective.
You can follow Lindsay on Twitter @idahomonkees and you can find Allister at zkarj.me and on Twitter at @zkarj.
CCATP #674 — Cooking Like a Programmer
Mar 06, 2021
Bart Busschots joins us for Chit Chat Across the Pond in an episode of what he calls "Programming Adjacent". It's not about programming, it's actually about cooking and not wasting food. But Bart, being a programmer, approaches the problem like a programmer. I guarantee you that no one else on earth approaches cooking and food inventory in the same way as Bart. It was great fun to learn how he does it and to contrast it to how in my house, two engineers have come up with a completely different systems.
CCATP #673 – Lindsay Tondee on Working from Home
Feb 27, 2021
Lindsay Tondee, Senior Manager in Quality Assurance at a global pharmaceutical company, joins us to talk about whether it's a good or a bad thing that companies are thinking about having their workforce continue to work from home indefinitely. I originally thought this would be a great thing because we'll have fewer cars on the road, less traffic and pollution, office buildings won't be needed and people gain hours of their life back because they're not spending it commuting in their cars.
Lindsay explains what is missed when you work from home and the benefits of a blended model where people work only partly from home. She talks about the issues surrounding building relationships at work that help people get things done, and how the fun activities of her office have been transformed into safe-distance fun. She also talks about how much more challenging it becomes if two people are working from home in the same small house.
We don't come up with all the answers but I found it to be fascinating to throw these ideas around with someone who is currently in the middle of figuring this out for herself and for her employees.
And one more thing, Lindsay Tondee is a frequent attendee of the live NosillaCast - known as "Lindsay (the daughter)". If you want to chat with her, the best way is through the live chat on Sunday nights at 5pm Pacific time podfeet.com/live and you can follow her on Twitter at @idahomonkees.
CCATP #672 – TTT 37A of n – SSH Agents
Feb 20, 2021
In 2017 on Taming the Terminal installment 37 of n, Bart taught us about SSH agents and the advantages of using a passphrase to further protect your SSH keys. In the intervening four years, things have changed a bit in macOS, so we decided to do a supplemental update to installment 37. We review a bit about what SSH Keys are (from installment 30) and then discuss how much easier and cleaner things are on macOS with the clean integration of your identity, passphrase and Apple's Keychain.
If you've downloaded the Taming the Terminal book, please go to podfeet.com/tttbook to get a fresh version.
CCATP #671 – Allison Sheridan on American Council of the Blind Radio
Feb 14, 2021
This week the tables are turned and you'll actually hear me being interviewed. I was asked to be on the Magic Mac Show, which is on the American Council of the Blind's streaming radio channel. Hosts Tyson Ernst, Katie Frederick and Jason Castonguay asked me on so they could learn about how I got interested in accessibility and what it's helped me do.
During the latter part of the show, they do something terrifying - they allow live audience listeners to call in and ask questions! I've always been afraid of that, but Debbie Hazelton, managing director for ACB Radio does a great job of moderating the callers.
You can learn more about ACB radio at [www.acbradio.org/...](http://www.acbradio.org/community) and more about the American Council of the Blind at ACB.org. With that, here's the interview, at the permission of ACB Radio.CCATP #671 – Allison Sheridan on American Council of the Blind Radio
CCATP #670 – Ken Ray on Apple's Record-Breaking Earnings Call
Feb 02, 2021
This week our guest on Chit Chat Across the Pond is Ken Ray, host of the macOS Ken Podcast, hosted at[ macosken.com](http://macosken.com). You may have been wondering why Ken had never been on Chit Chat Across the Pond before, but I just wanted to make sure he was going to stick with it. Since he just hit his 15 year anniversary of doing macOS Ken, I decided it was probably safe to have him on the show. I asked Ken to come on the show to walk us through Apple's record-breaking quarterly earnings call and what the big numbers mean. How big IS $110B? What drove Mac sales up 21%? What drove the services numbers so high?
You can find Ken Ray on Twitter @macosken [https://macosken.com](https://macosken.com)
CCATP #667 – Mike Price on Keyboard Maestro
Jan 06, 2021
This week our guest for Chit Chat Across the Pond is Mike Price, also known as @Grumpy in the podfeet slack and our live show chat room. During the live NosillaCast, I have to perform a super repetitive set of tasks to add chapter marks as I'm recording the show. If you enjoy there _being_ chapter marks, you should give partial thanks to Mike, because he figured out how to automate the process for me using Keyboard Maestro from keyboardmaestro.com/...
The thing that fascinated me was that he didn't know Keyboard Maestro before creating this automation for me. In this conversation he explains what Keyboard Maestro is, how he learned it, and what you can do with it. I asked him to break down each panel of the software for me methodically and explain the interface, because while I've done some super simple automations with Keyboard Maestro, the interface continues to confuse me.
David Sparks has one of his famous Field Guides on Keyboard Maestro, which are really mini-video tutorials. Mike watched David's Field Guide to learn the tool, so I've included my affiliate link in case you want to learn from the great MacSparky yourself: learn.macsparky.com/...
Mike is funny, articulate, and a brilliant developer. We used a Google Doc to collaborate on an outline, and Mike added enough detail that I think it could be really valuable for you as a reference guid for our discussion so I've included it in the shownotes: CCATP notes with Mike at docs.google.com/...
Mike also promised to provide the Keyboard Maestro macros that he talked about during the show: DoNotifications, Grumpy's Hindy Chapter Marks, and possibly the most useful, his XKPasswd Macros to connect to Bart's awesome password creation tool. Here's a link to a zip file of his macros - remember to be cautious when downloading macros from the Internet so check them carefully before enabling them!
CCATP #664 – Tom Merritt on Time Management
Dec 08, 2020
This week's guest is Tom Merritt, prolific podcaster, author, and lover of dogs. I asked Tom to come on the show to explain how on earth he does as much as he does. We walk through all of his podcasts, what he has to do to prepare for them, and how he makes the time to get all of them done. He talks about the research required for each of them and even how some require him to watch TV. On top of podcasting, he's an author, he walks his dogs, he exercises, and even spends time with his wife, Eileen.
CCATP #552 - Steve Harris on Mac App Store Improvements & Dark Mode
Jun 20, 2018
Steve Harris, developer of Feeder and Keep It from Reinvented Software joins us to talk about how much the Mac App Store has improved for developers and also about the work that will go into making apps work in Dark Mode on macOS Mojave.
CCATP #627 Robin Christopherson on Advancements in Tech for Accessibility
Feb 25, 2020
This week we're joined by Robin Christopherson. Robin is the host of the Alexa skills podcast Dot to Dot and he’s co-host of the weekly Tech Talk show from the Royal National Institute of Blind People. Robin is also Head of Digital Inclusion and part of the globally-acclaimed accessibility and tech team of AbilityNet and has spoken at numerous events in recent years. Oh yeah, he’s also blind.
Robin tells us about how the advancements in technology have made such a huge difference in the lives of people with disabilities. He also explains that in the US at least, people with disabilities refer to TABs, or the Temporarily Able Bodied. He talks about th ework AbilityNet is doing in the UK to try to get accountability for companies that don't comply with the laws around accessibility.
He suggested an interesting (and funny in a British uncomfortable comedy kind of way) video about Diversish: https://youtu.be/oOQYFZMglCc
He's funny and fun even though we're obviously talking about a subject near and dear to his heart. You can follow Robin at his very odd Twitter handle, @usa2day.
CCATP #646 – Doug Kaye on The Levelator
Jul 14, 2020
Doug was one of the founding forces behind podcasting (his podcast was the second one created!) He founded The Conversations Network in 2002 with the intent of coordinating a global team of volunteer podcasters to capture and publish lectures, seminars, and other significant events that would otherwise go unrecorded. Out of The Conversations Network came the beloved podcast software tool, The Levelator.
Doug has turned his attention now to photography and I highly recommend you give yourself a treat and go to Doug Kaye Photography at https://dougkaye.com/. His photos are absolutely breathtaking and every one is completely different from the next.
CCATP #616 — Don McAllister on Automating ScreenCastsOnline
Nov 18, 2019
This week I asked Don McAllister, owner of ScreenCastsOnline to come on the show to talk about how he automates the production of his video tutorial podcast business. We start at his humble beginnings as a new convert from Windows with a Mac mini and a monitor, up to and including a global workforce with automated workflows. He's even moved his Mac Pro into MacStadium so it's a resource for his back end production folks.
I must do a disclaimer that I do screencasts for Don's show, which means I have a conflict of interest in telling you how awesome it is. We try to stay to the technical parts of the show production but we're both so enthusiastic about the service it's hard to avoid talking about the quality of what Don and his staff creates.
CCATP #599 — Dr. Devon Polaschek on Psychopaths
Jun 21, 2019
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.
CCATP #588 - Jeff Gamet on TextExpander Evangelism
Mar 27, 2019
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.
CCATP #557 - Tom Merritt on Community in Podcasting
Aug 04, 2018
This week Tom Merritt, host of the Daily Tech News Show, (and co-host of Cordkillers, Sword & Laser and Current Geek) joins us to talk about the importance of the community to his podcast. We’ll explore how he created such a thriving and participative community, what it means to him, what it would be like without it and even the downsides of having a community. It’s probably one of my favorite discussions with Tom and I always love talking to Tom. You can follow Tom on Twitter @acedtect.
CCATP #532 - Joe Dugandzic Answers NosillaCastaways' Home Automation Questions
Apr 04, 2018
Joe Dugandzic of smarterhomelife.com joins us again, this time in a crossover episode. We start by him asking me to describe my progression in Home Automation from my first smart lightbulb to the more advanced capabilities Steve and I enjoy today. But then we turn the table around and I ask Joe a series of questions submitted by NosillaCastaways.
If you'd like to see the video version of the show, check it out at: https://youtu.be/TlGtzGRL5o0
CCATP #614 – Ken Case of Omni Group on His Computing Life Story
Nov 06, 2019
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.
CCATP #504 - Erica Peterson on Moms Can: CODE
Oct 03, 2017
Erica Peterson of Moms Can: CODE joins us this week to talk about her new startup designed to help mothers who code to connect and collaborate.
We talk about her life as a mother of a five-year-old, while coding, while teaching high school biology, creating a startup and running a non-profit. The non-profit is called Science Tots, which is focused on bringing STEAM activities to non-science-based events.
CCATP #655 – Jill (from the North Woods) McKinley on Starting a Podcast
Oct 01, 2020
This week our guest is Jill McKinley of the Start with Small Steps Podcast at smallstepspod.com. Those of you who listen to the NosillaCast may already know her from her many fantastic tech reviews for the show as Jill from the North Woods.
I'm a fan of the Start With Small Steps podcast thought it would be fun to have Jill to come on to talk about what it's like to start a podcast in 2020. All of my experience and knowledge about starting is 15 years old so I was curious what it's like now. We talked about why she wanted to do a podcast in the first place, what kind of hardware and software she's using for her recordings, and how she makes her podcast feed. We get into style of reading vs. bullet points and even into editing a little bit. We talked about community engagement and whether to obsess on download statistics. We learn from Jill how important it is to her to always give attribution to her sources.
CCATP #508 - Allison Sheridan Tells Her Woman's Story
Nov 01, 2017
I've been impressed by the women who have stepped forward and told their stories about what life is like for us. I don't have any salacious tale to tell but rather a thousand paper cuts type of story. I thought about doing a monologue but I was terribly anxious about talking through this, so I reached out to Bart Busschots because I trusted him to help me.
I decided to push the audio out in both the NosillaCast and Chit Chat Across the Pond feeds, well, because I wanted you to hear it.
CCATP #499 - Joe Dugandzic on Illustrated HomeKit Product Guide
Sep 06, 2017
I asked the fabulous Joe Dugandzic to come back on the show to talk us through the comprehensive HomeKit compatible product guide he created. For a long time there weren't a lot of HomeKit devices to enjoy but now that the market is filling up, having a really well organized page with all of the options is very valuable.
Joe has organized the page into categories rather than by vendor. He's got lighting, outlets and sockets, wall dimmers & switches, security devices like locks and cameras, thermostats, ceiling fans and shades, fire and smoke detectors, specialized sensors like for air quality and water leaks, sand even smart buttons (which I think are dumb actually).
If you're not of the HomeKit persuasion, every device on his site has a code for whether it's also compatible with Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, and he designates if it works in countries with 240 volt power or just 120.
With all this to go through, it's a long show because I asked so many questions of Joe!
CCATP #567 - Nuris Coronado and Dan Eckmeier on iPhone XS from a Blind Perspective
Oct 12, 2018
We're joined by Nuris Coronado and Dan Eckmeier this week as they talk about their experiences as blind users upgrading from iPhone 7 to iPhone XS. How is the transition from a home button to Face ID if you can't see? What about the form factor for women vs. men? I learned a few things about iPhone XS that I didn't know along the way.
CCATP #604 - Bart Busschots on Tech of Buying a Mountain/City Bike
Aug 11, 2019
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:
CCATP #612 – Ray Robertson on Impact of Apple's Development Process on Developers
Oct 24, 2019
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/...
CCATP #548 - Lupita Salazar on Braille Literacy and Tech
May 21, 2018
Lupita Salazar talks to us about how she learned to read at 6 years old (just like everyone else) through Braille. She was highly influenced by my awesome friend Lore Schindler, who taught Tech and Braille to her and the other students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He explains why Braille is so important to literacy when many believe audio is a substitute for being able to read. Lupita is a hard core tech head who just loves to experiment and learn new tech (she even used Android for a year just to understand it!) She's funny and passionate and has a great perspective that I really enjoyed. You can find Lupita @queeenofthesea31 or email her at looptheloop31@gmail.com.
CCATP #606 — Bart Busschots on DoH and DoT
Aug 31, 2019
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.)
CCATP #645 – Bart Busschots on Taming the Terminal 38 of n – TMUX (a Screen Alternative)
Jul 11, 2020
When Bart first started the Taming the Terminal series in October of 2015, he purposely declared every installment to be "of n" where n was not defined. It's been 3 years since there was an episode of Taming the Terminal, but today we've got a new one for you. In Taming the Terminal 36, recorded in 2016, Bart introduced us to a nifty command-line tool called screen. Screen allowed you to ssh into a server, and start a session but disconnect and come back to it without stopping the processes you were running.
But in the last year, screen was deprecated by Red Hat Linux (which means it's gone from the free CentOS version as well). The good news is that it was replaced with an even more powerful tool called tmux. In this installment, Bart walks us through just how tmux solves the same problem as screen, but teases us with the knowledge that this tool has much more to offer.
It was a super fun episode with lots of surprises (for me at least) and whether you followed along with the first 37 installments or not, I'm sure you'll find it useful as well.
CCATP #565 - Matthias Keller on Mastadon
Sep 29, 2018
I met Matthias Keller on Patrick Beja's Phileas Club when we were both guests on episode 114 entitled "The Social Media Sickness". Matthias mentioned how he's on Mastadon, which is a new-ish social network. I've tried to figure Mastadon out, and hadn't cracked the code, so I asked Matthias if he could come on Chit Chat Across the Pond and explain to us how it works and why he thinks it's useful and fun.
Matthias explains what federated instances are, how the local timeline works and how you can follow people who aren't in your instance.
If you'd like to connect with Matthias on Mastadon you can find him at: @matzkult@chaos.social. I'm not sure I've figured it out yet, but you can find me on Mastadon at @podfeet@mastadon.social
CCATP #660 – Lory Gil on M1 Macs
Nov 13, 2020
It wouldn’t be an Apple announcement week without Lory Gil joining us, managing editor of iMore. We start the conversation by talking about what all of the new M1 Macs have in common, which is much more than we're used to seeing. Then we talk about what System on a Chip (SoC) actually means and why it's so important to us. There is a very subtle, but possibly important difference between the 256GB and 512GB storage models of the MacBook Air, which makes it even more interesting to decide between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Air that were just announced. We explore why Apple never said the word "gigahertz" and how that makes the nerds crazy because we can't compare the models to the previous Intel-based Macs. We explore the future just a bit and start dreaming of the next models Apple will release.
You can follow the wonderful Lory Gil at @appaholik and even email her at lory@imore.com. She has really enjoyed hearing from those of you who have written to her.
CCATP #647 – Bart Busschots on Taming the Terminal 39 of n – Advanced TMUX
Jul 26, 2020
This week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond was another installment of Taming the Terminal. Two weeks ago Bart taught us the basics of a technology called `tmux`, or terminal multiplexer that allows you to access the same server in many different ways at the same time. He covered how `tmux` replaces the deprecated `screen` but he didn't go much further. In this rather light and easy-to-follow installment, he takes `tmux` up a notch and shows us how to create multiple windows, and multiple panes all within a single `tmux` session. Like I said it was super easy to understand, very visual and fun!
You can listen to this week's installment by searching for Taming the Terminal in your podcatcher of choice or it's included in the full Chit Chat Across the Pond show as well. And as always you can get to Bart's fabulous tutorial shownotes at bartbusschots.ie/...
CCATP #620 — Eleanor Mazzarella on Moving from Musician to Programmer
Dec 31, 2019
This week we're joined by Eleanor Mazzarella, a musician turned programmer. She gives us her background in music from finding a clarinet on a bookshelf as a child to a career as a classical performer. She then walks us through how and why she decided that programming sounded like more fun. She's a funny, delightful storyteller as she weaves in her love of the arts with her love of everything nerdy.
Megan Morrone joins us today. Megan is the host of iOS Today with Leo LaPorte and host of Tech News Today with Jason Howell on the TWiT network. She's got the new, shiny iPhone 8 Plus so I asked her on to tell us what she thinks about it. Megan talks about how the glass back feels, the fun she's been having with Portrait lighting and how she hasn't even tried the 4K 60fps video yet. She give us a tip for wireless charging - the Seneo Qi Wireless Charging Stand. iMore has a link to a code to get it down to only $13.
Megan talks about her identical twin sons and their plans to mess with Leo's iPhone X when he gets it. She talks about the significant speed bump she noticed with the new A11 bionic chip. Megan brought an interesting perspective to the iPhone price points; talking about how you can get a good iPhone for only $350 (the SE) and a good iPad for only $329.
This week our guest is Mikah Sargent of the Clockwise Podcast and the TWiT network. Mikah was talking on some show about how much he loves TextExpander, and I thought it might be fun to have a session where we talked about our favorite TextExpander snippets from Smile. You can find all of Mikah's work at http://chihuahua.coffee.
CCATP #529 - Mike Potter on Macstock Conference and Expo
Feb 20, 2018
I asked Mike Potter to join us on Chit Chat Across the Pond this week with the express purpose of trying to convince you to come to Macstock Conference and Expo on July 20th and 21st. Do not listen to this episode if you don't want to be talked into it because I guarantee you'll want to after hearing Mike and me talk about how interesting and fun and inclusive and geeky it is.
During the show Mike gives us a special $10 off coupon (discount off the $179 early bird price). That coupon code is podfeetbonus10. Learn more and sign up to attend at macstock2018.com.
CCATP #596 — Anže Tomić on Tech in Slovenia
Jun 08, 2019
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 follow Anže on Twitter in English at @atomicxx. If you speak Slovene, you can follow his much more frequent tweets @anzet.
CCATP #601 – Dr. Maryanne Garry on Why Science is Broken
Jul 08, 2019
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.
CCATP #533- Bart Busschots on Choosing a DNS Resolver
Apr 14, 2018
In this "Lite" version of Chit Chat Across the Pond (within a NosillaCastaway's definition of Lite), Bart teaches us about DNS Resolvers and helps give us the information to choose the right one for us. To get us there he starts by explaining the background technologies. He explains DNS and how there's two kinds of servers, he explains DNS Name resolution and why caching is important, and the security problems (and solutions) of DNS. Then he explains how third-party DNS providers can solve some of these problems. He explains their motivations which will inform your own decision. Finally (at about the 1 hour mark) he walks through the solutions offered by OpenDNS, Google, Quad9 and Cloudflare. I loved this episode and you can tell Bart really loves talking about DNS.
CCATP #560 - Robb Dunewood on Android Sideloading for Fortnite
Aug 22, 2018
Rob Dunewood of the SMR Podcast joins us to talk about how Epic Games has decided to support their insanely popular app Fortnite on Android but will not offer it through the Google Play Store. This may have significant security implications for users so I asked Rob to come on the show to walk me through what all of this means.
CCATP #636 – Adam Engst on 30 Years of TidBITS and other random topics
Apr 30, 2020
Adam Engst has been publishing TidBITS for 30 years so I asked him to come on the show to talk about that journey. While we technically had an agenda, this conversation wandered into all kinds of fun topics like why Adam still goes to the same dentist office even though the dentist left and why he doesn't know how many words per minute he types. I found a kindred spirit in Adam in his ability to keep doing something he loves for a very long time. I smiled and laughed and enjoyed the heck out of recording this episode.
CCATP #554 - Dr. Maryanne Garry on Persuasion with Facts and Data
Jul 07, 2018
Dr. Maryanne Garry returns to Chit Chat Across the Pond, this time to talk about how and why persuasion with facts and data simply doesn't work. If you haven't heard her before, she's a professor at the University of Waikato in New Zealand where she's a scientific researcher into memory, memory distortions, fans memories, the myth of repression and its overlap with the laws. She's also really funny and entertaining.
CCATP #657 – Lory Gil on the iPhone 12 Announcement
Oct 16, 2020
Lory Gil, managing editor from iMore is back to talk about the new toys announced by Apple this week. In a show where we do NOT talk about 5G we instead talk about how cool it is that Apple brought so many features to the entire product line of iPhones, and then we go deep into a couple of the differences between the models. We talk about magnetometers, nano ceramic crystals and more nerdy terms. Lory speculates on what fun things we'll get out of the MagSafe connector - like maybe we can stick our phones to our refrigerators. I nerd out a bit on size and weight specs (did you know the 12 is 12% thinner than the 11, and the 12 Pro is 9.4% thinner than the 11 Pro?
In any case, we had a blast together as we always do, and she promised to come back when Apple announces the new Silicon-based Macs, which John Prosser's rumor says will be on November 17th.
If you'd like to interact with Lory, you can follow her on Twitter @appaholik, you can email her at lory@imore.com and of course you can read her work at imore.com.
CCATP #579 - Shai Yammanee on Pulling Back from Social Media
Jan 24, 2019
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.
CCATP #582 - Donald Burr on 3D Printers
Feb 13, 2019
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.
CCATP #559 - Sal Soghoian & Ray Robertson on Automation
Aug 13, 2018
In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond I talk to Sal Soghoian and Ray Robertson. Sal was the Product Manager of Automation Technologies at Apple from 1997 to 2016. During his tenure, he was pretty much responsible for all of the automation in the Mac operating system and even the Terminal. Ray Robertson is a seasoned instructor of AppleScript who has spent most of his career teaching beginners and creative people how to use AppleScript.
Be sure to check out their Down-Home Scripting Bootcamp at cmddconf.com/... and don't forget the coupon code you'll hear in the interview to get $200 off.
CCATP #513 - Tom Merritt on Net Neutrality
Dec 08, 2017
Tom Merritt, host of Daily Tech News Show joins us to explain the implications of the different rulings of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding Internet traffic in the United States. He'll attempt to clarify the difference between the 2002 ruling where broadband was declared an information service provider and the 2015 ruling where it was changed to a common carrier.
And of course we'll talk about the implications of the vote by the FCC next week on this issue.
CCATP #534 - Bart Busschots on GDPR
Apr 18, 2018
In another Lite version of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bart agreed to come on and explain the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. This is a regulation that will take effect across the European Union starting on 25 May 2018. Bart first gives us an overview, outlining the main objectives, the 7 core principles, and explains how a regulation differs from a directive. From there he defines the terminology and concepts which are critical to understanding the regulation. He explains the legal grounds, what consent means and what rights individuals will have. Then he covers data processing objections, how automation decision making is affected, and people's right to erasure. Finally, he goes through what kind of data breaches are mandatory to be disclosed and to whom. It's a really impressive bit of work that the EU have done here, and Bart does a great job explaining it.
CCATP #520 - Tom Merritt on How Social Media Makes Us Feel
Jan 25, 2018
Tom Merritt, host of the Daily Tech News Show along with many other fine podcasts, joins me to talk about how social media makes us feel. We talk about how we feel about pictures of food, how we curate Twitter, who in our family takes the photos, whether Instagram is a happy place, how we have real-life friends we only know online, how communities are awesome and how sometimes even Facebook is a place to share a deeply personal story. You can find links to all of Tom's podcasts and his books at tommerritt.com and the Daily Tech News Show at dailytechnewsshow.com.
CCATP #653 – Lory Gil on New Apple Watches, iPads and Services
Sep 16, 2020
With the new announcements of Apple Watches, iPads and services like Fitness+ and Apple One, the best person to talk to is Lory Gil, managing editor of iMore. In this episode we talk about whether the new Apple Watch Series 6 processor matters, or is it the new colors that excite us. Is Apple doing a good job bringing out lower-priced products for those with less disposable income or are they doing it wrong? Family setup allows a child or an elderly parent have an Apple Watch that makes phone calls but they don't need an iPhone. Is this a solution for your family? The new Apple One service bundle appears to be exactly what we've been asking for and there may be a bundle combination that works for you. The new iPad and iPad Air are really awesome offerings, but what is the market for the iPad Pro now?
All these questions will be answered! If you'd like to interact with Lory, you can follow her on Twitter @appaholik, you can email her at lory@imore.com and of course you can read her work at imore.com.
CCATP #510 - Dr. Maryanne Garry on Many Memory Questions
Nov 18, 2017
This week our guest is Dr. Maryanne Garry, a professor from the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Dr. Garry is a scientific researcher into memory, memory distortions, false memories, the myth of repression and its overlap with the law. This is her fourth appearance on Chit Chat Across the Pond, and has pretty much ruined everything we think we knew about memory. She's back to answer even more questions we have about new research into memories.
CCATP #598 — Oleksandr Kosovan of MacPaw on Setapp
Jun 18, 2019
Interview with Oleksandr Kosovan of MacPaw about SetApp, his work to enhance tech in Ukraine and how he created a Mac museum.
CCATP #618 – Adam Engst on Success of Macs at IBM
Dec 06, 2019
Adam Engst, veteran author of TidBITS for the last 29 years, inventor of Internet advertising and someone who dresses appropriately for the weather joins us for this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond. Adam explains the fascinating results that IBM has reported since they first decided to give their employees the choice of whether to use a Mac or Windows. I'm afraid this discussion will cement any EVER so slight Apple bias you might have already had, because the statistically-significant correlation between Mac usage and employee success is simply startling.
If you'd like to read Adam's article before, after, or during the discussion, you can find it and all of his other fine work at tidbits.com/...
CCATP #518 - Joe Dugandzic on How He Went from Youtuber to Full Time Project/Marketing Manager at Lynky
Jan 09, 2018
Joe Dugandzic of Smarter Home Life has been on the show several times in the past year talking about Home Automation. This time he's on to talk about how being a Youtuber working on Home Automation landed him a full-time job at a home automation startup company called Lynky. It's a story of his technical chops, grammar skills, his good sense about marketing, and his deep knowledge of Home Automation that helped him become the marketing and project manager for the Lynky Home Intelligence Hub.
CCATP #536 - David Sparks on Video Field Guide Books
May 10, 2018
This week we had David Sparks, AKA MacSparky himself on the show to talk about iBooks Author, writing his famous Video Field Guides, how he traded in his saxophones for children, how he believes in "cooking ideas" and his love of mind maps. If you haven't learned from David Sparks, you haven't lived.
CCATP #571 - Joe Dugandzic Walks Through Tiny Smart Home
Nov 10, 2018
This is a rather unusual Chit Chat Across the Pond where I interview Joe Dugandzic as he walks us around his tiny, smart home. Joe's home is 395 square feet and he produces his Smarter Home Life Youtube series all in that space. The interview is a combination of learning about how to create lighting that is intentional to what you're doing, how he's automated certain functions of his lighting and television and security, and how he's done the Master Class by programming on his Mac through the Indigo software using AppleScript and Python. Steve has also recorded it on video and the video version should be up soon.
CCATP #621 — Bart Busschots's Health Tech Update
Jan 10, 2020
CCATP #515 – Allison Hartley on Trials & Tribulations of a New iPhone
Dec 16, 2017
This week our guest is Allison Hartley. Allison is the Manager of the Napa Branch of the California department of Rehabilitation, and a podcaster. She co-hosts both the Tech Doctor Podcast with Dr. Robert Carter (dr-carter.com/...) and That Blind Tech Show (blindabilities.com/...).
Allison joins us to talk about the less than smooth experience she had upgrading to iPhone X. You might think it was hard because she's blind, but accessibility had nothing to do with it. We talk a bit about whether Apple has taken their eye off the ball about quality lately (spoiler alert, yes!).
CCATP #572 - Dave Ginsburg Top 20 iOS 12 Tips
Nov 15, 2018
Dave Ginsburg, host of the In Touch with iOS podcast at intouchwithios.com joins us to teach us his top favorite iOS 12 tips. Dave is a master at iOS and I learned a lot so I think you will too. You can find Dave on Twitter @DaveG65.
CCATP #512 - Kaylee on Tech in Japan
Dec 02, 2017
This week our guest is Kaylee of the Zettai Geek Dayo podcast. You con find the podcast at platypuspodcasts.com and you can find Kaylee on Twitter at @kayleedayo.
CCATP #594 — David Woodbridge on Samsung Galaxy S10, Watch and Buds
May 24, 2019
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:
CCATP #562 - Dr. Michael Kramer on the Study of Digital History
Sep 05, 2018
I know I say this every week, but I had the best time recording this week with Dr. Michael Kramer, a digital historian from Middlebury College in Vermont. Michael talks about the impact of digital technology on history and culture and the humanities. We talk about the impact of women actually being the computers in the 1960s. We talk about what he hopes his students will do differently in their careers as a result of what they learn in his class. We talk about the insane number of books he makes his students read (but they look really fascinating!
CCATP #577 - Darren Carr of the Mac Quadcast
Jan 03, 2019
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.
CCATP #623 — Lila Brissette on Accessibility from a Young Person's Perspective
Jan 30, 2020
While we were in Las Vegas for CES, we carved out some time to have dinner with our good friend, JF Brissette, who is also the editor of all of my videos for ScreenCastsOnline. He brought his daughter Lila to dinner and she started talking to me about her journey of discovery into accessibility on Apple devices. I asked her to come on the show to talk about her perspective on accessibility as a young person without any disabilities. She's delightful and intelligent and I really enjoyed seeing these topics through her frame of reference.
CCATP #586 - Bart Busschots on Free, Freemium, Free-for-now & Freepi
Mar 16, 2019
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.
CCATP #506 - Mark Fawcett on In-Home Apple Tech Support
Oct 18, 2017
I met Mark Fawcett at Macstock Expo in Chicago last year and we hit it off immediately. Mark does in-home tech support for Apple products, and he's full of great stories of the fun he has doing this job. After 20 years as a TV and video producer, he finds his new job more fulfilling and fun. I had a great time hearing his crazy stories of some "interesting" clients and I'm sure you'll enjoy the conversation too. And of course I tease him about the name of his company, MacMen.
CCATP #639 — Lory Gil on All Things Apple
May 18, 2020
If you'd like to follow Lory Gil online, she's @appaholik on Twitter, @lorygil on most other social media and you can even email her at lory@imore.com. And of course you should go read all of her great work over at imore.com.
CCATP #603 - Laura Kane on Effect of Women on Business Success
Jul 24, 2019
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/...
CCATP #629 - Dr. Garry on Study of Language Skills vs Numeracy In Learning to Program
Mar 14, 2020
CCATP #662 – Rod Simmons on Screencasting Tips and Tricks
Nov 24, 2020
This week Rod Simmons of the SMR Podcast smrpodcast.com/... joins me to talk about our tips and tricks for doing effective screen casting. We started by going through some more strategic ideas on how to get your message across with a screencast, and then we dug into some of the techniques and tools we use to edit our screencasts.
CCATP #625 — Tom on the Internet on Teaching Himself to Program
Feb 10, 2020
Tom Steven, aka Tom on the Internet from [tomontheinternet.com/...](https://tomontheinternet.com/) joins me to tell the tail of how he went from knowing zero about programming to landing a full-time job as a web developer in two years of self-training. Then he talks about the things that surprised him that he learned as a developer in that first year. In listening to Tom, you'll feel like he's not extraordinary and like maybe you could do this too. That is, if you're willing to put the time and energy into teaching yourself all with a laptop and the Internet. I found Tom delightful and entertaining and inspiring, and I hope you will too.
CCATP #605 — Sandy Foster on CarPlay and Prius Prime Tech
Aug 17, 2019
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.
CCATP #576 - Dr. Maryanne Garry on Grammar Pet Peeves
Dec 20, 2018
This week we have returning guest, Dr. Maryanne Garry from the University of Waikato but this time it will not be an intellectual, deep learning experience about the mysteries of human memory. This time we're going to talk about our grammar pet peeves. As Maryanne would say, we're both quite pedantic on this topic. Sit back and enjoy our silliness, and please add _your_ grammar pet peeves as comments on podfeet.com, in our Slack group at podfeet.com/slack or in our Facebook group at podfeet.com/facebook.
I bet you have your own grammar pet peeves, add them in the comments!
CCATP #641 – Robb Dunewood on Being a Black Man in America
Jun 02, 2020
This week I decided to take a pause from tech and talk to Robb Dunewood of the SMR Podcast about what it's like being a black man in America. This was of course inspired by the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police in Minneapolis. I wanted to have Robb on to describe to us what the daily life is like for black men across this country. I've heard some of Robb's stories before but I was floored at the relentlessness of how he and his fellow African Americans are treated as a matter of course.
It's not an easy episode to listen to but probably the most important Chit Chat I've ever recorded. I hope you'll open your minds and listen.
If you'd like to follow Robb online where he talks about tech and football and being an entrepreneur and gaming, you can find him @RobbDunewood on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. If you'd like to converse with him directly you can email him at Robb.Dunewood@bloggerpreneur.com
CCATP #628 — Bart Busschots on Creating Automator Quick Actions
Mar 07, 2020
This week our guest is Bart Busschots with an installment of something he's calling Programming By Stealth-adjacent. It's not part of the regular series of Programming By Stealth, and yet it's not technically very "light" in terms of the chit chatting. Since neither podcast is the right place for it, I've decided to put it in both podcast feeds to be wrong twice.
Bart walks us through how to create Quick Actions with Automator (also known as Services) to do some simple but very useful text manipulations using a smidge of JavaScript. Even if you don't want to write these Quick Actions yourself, you can download his services from his Github repo where he's put them up as open source: https://github.com/bbusschots/macos-quickaction-text.
You can see how Bart created this in his blog post at [www.bartbusschots.ie/...](https://www.bartbusschots.ie/s/2020/03/06/macos-quick-actions-for-text/)
CCATP #569 - Darren Beyer on Being a NASA Shuttle Engineer and Sci-Fi Author
Oct 23, 2018
I get a lot of PR emails trying to get me to interview people. I’ve never responded to one until just now. I was asked if I wanted to interview a former NASA Space Shuttle Engineer turned science fiction author. How could I possibly refuse? Darren’s stories were fascinating as he described being one of the last people tramping around in the cargo bay of the Shuttle before the astronauts got into it to go to space. Crazy dream job!
We then shifted gears into his science fiction books. He’s got two books out in The Anghazi Series, book one called “Casimir Bridge” and book two was just released, called “Pathogen Protocol”. I’m sure you’ll enjoy listening to Darren’s stories as much as I did.
CCATP #550 - Bart Busschots on How & Tools He Creates His Awesome Shownotes
Jun 08, 2018
This week our guest is Bart Busschots but this is not an episode of Programming By Stealth. Bart is here to talk about the tech tools he uses to prepare his shownotes for his podcast Let's Talk Apple and for his Security Bits segment for the NosillaCast.
CCATP #649 – Dr. Helma van der Linden on Creating a Book with Open Source Software
Aug 07, 2020
This week our guest is Dr. Helma van der Linden from the Netherlands here to talk about how she created the Taming the Terminal book using all Open Source software.
On the NosillaCast I talked a lot about the book but I should probably give an explanation for the Chit Chat audience. Bart Busschots and I created the Taming the Terminal podcast and for this series on learning the macOS (and Linux) command line, Bart wrote a spectacular set of tutorial shownotes on his website at bartb.ie.
I had a dream for many years to make Taming the Terminal into a book as a surprise for Bart, but my few attempts to do it failed spectacularly. Around Easter, I mentioned my dream to Helma and she said, “I bet I could do that!”
I don’t expect anyone to learn from this discussion how to do what Helma did, but rather to learn what’s possible and how cool it was that Helma put these pieces together. Below are the rough shownotes we used for our discussion, included so that you would have the links to all of the tools she explained in the episode
CCATP #650 – Bart Busschots on Taming the Terminal 40 – Automating TMUX
Aug 16, 2020
This week's Chit Chat Across the Pond is an episode of Taming the Terminal, where Bart winds up our series within a series all about the Terminal command TMUX. In this final piece he teaches us first how to string commands together to create the TMUX sessions we want with the screens split and the processes running in each pane as we like them. After teaching us how to string them together he shows us how to make a little script file we can run so that we can automatically open up our TMUX sessions exactly the way we like them.
This will be the last of our Taming the Terminal episodes for a while, but we'll be back after macOS Big Sur ships and is stabilized. In macOS Catalina the default shell was changed from bash to zsh and it does bring some changes to things we learned earlier in the series but it seems prudent to wait till we're over this big hump getting into Big Sur.
Don't forget, you can download the Taming the Terminal book at podfeet.com/tttbook. The book will be updated with this instalment shortly.
CCATP #648 – Shaun Peterson (Qwalsius) on Art with Technology as a Native American
Jul 28, 2020
Shaun Peterson, who’s inherited name is Qwalsius, is a member of the Puyalup Tribe in Washington. He is a professional artist working in public sculptures, printmaking and mixed media.
Shaun utilizes technology to plan installations for major works and private commissions. He works in the Seattle area and draws inspiration from his Native American heritage blending technology and tradition in what he calls ‘traditional innovation’.
CCATP #574 - Nica Montfort on Being a Black Woman in Engineering, Tech and Podcasts
Dec 06, 2018
Nica Montfort, co-host of the snobOS Podcast (along with Terrance Gaines) answers my questions about her education (two STEM degrees, about to be a third), her mentors growing up, how it was getting an education as the only woman or the only black person in her classes. She then tells us why she and Terrance felt it was important for them to create their Apple-centric podcast and why they add the cultural flavor to the show. I think you will to be enchanted by Nica, at least I was!
Partway through you'll hear us incorrectly quote the percentage of Facebook users that are African American. We come back after the end of the show and correct ourselves. Here's the article to which we were referring: Facebook is failing its black employees and its black users.
CCATP #584 - Dave Hamilton on Mesh Routers
Feb 28, 2019
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.
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.
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.
CCATP #633 — Anthony Lemos Explains Mixers
Apr 09, 2020
Anthony Lemos of Audio Aperture Media successfully explains what mixers are for and what all those darn knobs and buttons are. Even if you're not into audio recording, I think you'll enjoy learning about mixers from Anthony. He doesn't use a lot of jargon, rather he breaks things down into simple terms that are easy to understand without a background in audio. I've never been able to figure out the difference between gain and volume, and Anthony's simple explanation finally clarified it for me.
Contact Anthony at @ethancaine. If you're interested in getting started in podcasting, he's very interested in bringing more diverse voices into podcasting and is willing to help you get started for free or very little money, or if you need assistance with a more advanced show he's also very interesting in helping.
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