Time for a massive info dump. Hotline is dated, and that complicates things as servers are very public. It was designed in a very different era of the internet. Hosting a server means exposing an IP. This isn't a huge deal, but I wanted to be able to host my files on my NAS without exposing said NAS to the internet. This is where a VPS comes in. The Mobius binary is happy on a small VPS, but…
Back in the "classic" days of Mac OS, one of the most iconic and beloved screensavers was the Flying Toasters. Originally developed by Berkeley Systems and released in the early 1990s as part of the After Dark screensaver collection. Later versions featured animations, and music. Personally speaking, this has always been one of my absolute favorite screensavers so I did something totally…
Obstensibly, this blog has always been a developer's blog of a front-end developer , UX developer , I mean, a full-stack developer's personal blog, even if 95% is Mac-related nonsense. However, now that I'm a lead developer, I've accidentally been writing about development projects more frequently as I've wrote a GUI wrapper for an Xbox Utility , How to install Pihole via Docker , wrote a plugin…
So... roughly two years ago I made an Xbox emulation tutorial . The bulk of the tutorial involved dealing with Extract XISO. It's not a difficult utility use but it required a lot of steps for a non-developer like running CMAKE to build the binary, which requires homebrew to install. Writing a GUI wrapper has been on my "to-dos" ever since made the tutorial. What in the hell is Extract XISO? The…
OpenCore is Dead and Apple Killed It OpenCore is dead, or rather, it's going to be. The end of Intel support for macOS means the end of the line for OpenCore, OpenCore Legacy Patcher (OCLP), and Hackintoshes. Most people intrinsically understand that removing Intel support removes Intel binaries-the code the computer executes and Apple will only ship ARM. However, I've seen some people hopeful…
I wish I had answers but I don't. I have been blogging for over a decade now and I've seen my blog grow in traffic but year over year but since 2023, my traffic has declined, roughly 25% year-over-year. It's disheartening to see AI hoover up the open web, driving people away from content made by humans to shit
Adblockers: I assume a majority of my audience uses them, such as Ublock Origin, 1blocker, Ghostery, and so on. The problem is that these require browser extensions, but how will I block ads on my Sony TV or make sure my Hue lights aren't spying on me? Well, we have an answer: Pi-hole. As the name implies, Pi-hole is a web utility originally designed to run on a Raspberry Pi, although we can run…
In the evolving landscape of professional computing, the traditional workstation is radically transforming. For years, the Mac Pro represented the pinnacle of expandability in Apple's ecosystem—a tower of power where professionals could add specialized PCIe cards for everything from video capture to audio processing. Yet Apple Silicon has rewritten the rules, delivering astonishing performance in…
For personal record, I like to keep a running log of what few updates I do under-the-hood with this site on the rare chance someone actually is a regular reader. This time I added JSON-LD and limited the index pages now to 15 posts as I have a habit of writing VERY long blog posts that can be extremely brutal on the homepage. removing jQuery , stupid spam bot solution , complianing about AI ,…
Libation: Free Your Audiobooks from DRM Protection If you're an audiobook enthusiast who uses Audible, you've likely encountered the frustration of being unable to access your purchased content outside of Audible's ecosystem or have had content removed. While Audible offers a convenient service, their DRM protection limits how and where you can enjoy your audiobooks. Enter Libation , a powerful,…
I get a lot of spam as I have a public email address on my blog. I ignore 99.99%, but here's one that's found in my inbox a few times and ticks me off. The first time it happened, I took enough time to actually look at the image in question. Within seconds, I realized it was an absolute farce as the image they linked was AI slop. I figured I should sound the alarm on this scam as my blog has solid…
I tend to do silly stuff with my Mac Pros. This time, I jammed an Intel Sparkle OC ROC A770 into my Mac Pro 2019. It worked well enough in Windows until it caused issues with macOS. The video contains the entire adventure. As expected, the Arc A770 wouldn't work in macOS - the system recognized it only as a generic display adapter with no ability to output even unaccelerated video. This isn't…
Introduction: The Cable Challenge About six months ago, LTT (Linus Tech Tips) generously sent me their Magnetic Cable Management system (MCM), but I've been avoiding the inevitable pain of reorganizing my entire setup. Let's be honest - if you're anything like me, organization isn't our strongest point. So today I'm putting the LTT magnetic cable management system to the test on my mess of cables.…
So... the retro computing bug just got you, and you had to get that iBook; maybe it was an iMac G3, a sleek PowerBook G4 12" or PowerMac G5? In any case, this is a guide for you to make the most out of your new-but-old computer. Upgrades!... Okay, now what? There are too many models and upgrades to cover, and finding information on the upgrades is actually the easy part; between LowEndMac,…
You wake up one day to find yourself with unfathomable wealth. You're not sure how it happened, but you're not going to question it. You have enough riches that your children's children's children will live a life of utter opulence and decadence. You're not sure what to do with all this money, it's unearned. You were born into incredible wealth so you were free to take risks. Even if you failed,…
Not that I have regular readers, keeping with the tradition of announcing changes, like my stupid spam bot solution , complianing about AI , adding dark mode , or general changes , I finally removed jQuery. That's a 70k JS payload down to 7k. The only reason it existed was for FitVidJS, which I converted to vanilla JS. Also, now my slogan changes with well over 100 phrases; some are a bit spicy...…
I know why you're here. It's because you want to connect to your local network via WWW, but Synology's guides aren't complete, and a bit out of date , right? I don't know why I'm asking, as you can't respond. Anyhow, let's get to it. Step 1: Setting up the your Router In your router, you'll need to set up port forwarding or "Virtual Server" or "NAT Settings": UDP port 500 (IKE) UDP port 1701…
As of April 2024, Apple has allowed emulation as long as they don't use JIT . This has opened up the floodgates to a technology that virtually every other modern platform in existence allows. Emulation can be used for many things, but gaming is the most popular use case for average users, and thus, this guide will focus entirely on gaming. This guide is a living guide and is in the process of…
Sometimes my blog actually covers web development, which is ostensibly what this blog is about instead of my random adventures in Mac geekiery. Recently, I needed to work on a portal site and integrate it into Auth0. The ask seemed simple: Users are required to use Auth0 to view a website. That's it. The problem was that the official Auth0 plugin assumes a few things: Users have a WordPress…
Docker lets you run macOS in the most unusual places, like a Synology NAS, a computer that lacks a dedicated HDMI output and uses an AMD chipset. Legal Disclaimer: According to Apple's EULA, virtualizing macOS is only permitted on genuine Apple computers. This guide is for educational purposes only. Why Docker and Not Synology's VM Manager? Synology provides its own virtual machine software, but…