Mac OS 15.2 update coming soon!

Apple News, software

Color rays with Sequoia text

 

Coming soon from Apple: MacOS 15.2 update….

 

Apple Intelligence (Mac with Apple silicon)

Image Playground

  • A new app that lets you use concepts, descriptions, and people from your photo library to create fun, playful images in multiple styles
  • Swipe through previews and choose from as you add concepts to your playground
  • Choose from animation and illustration styles when creating your image
  • Create images in Messages and Freeform, as well as third party apps
  • Images are synced in your Image Playground library across all your devices with iCloud


ChatGPT support

  • ChatGPT from OpenAI can be accessed right from Siri or Writing Tools
  • Compose in Writing Tools allows you to create something from scratch with ChatGPT
  • Siri can tap into ChatGPT when relevant to provide you an answer
  • A ChatGPT account is not required and your requests will be anonymous and won’t be used to train OpenAI’s models
  • Sign in with ChatGPT to access your account benefits, and requests will be covered by OpenAI’s data policies

Additional Apple Intelligence features:

Describe your change in Writing Tools allows you to suggest how you’d like something rewritten, for example as a poem

Photos

Favorites album appears in the Utilities collection in addition to Pinned Collections. Recently Viewed and Recently Shared album history can be cleared

Safari

  • New background images to customize your Safari Start Page
  • HTTPS upgrade tries to use secure HTTPS on all websites
  • Simplified import and export for history, bookmarks, and passwords

 

This update also includes the following improvements and bug fixes:

  • Share Item Location in Find My helps you locate and recover misplaced items by easily and securely sharing the location of an AirTag or Find My network accessory with trusted third parties, such as airlines
  • Natural language search in Apple Music and Apple TV app lets you describe what you’re looking for using any combination of categories like genres, moods, actors, decades, and more
  • Favorite Categories in Podcasts allows you to choose your favorite categories and get relevant show recommendations that you can easily access in your Library
  • Personalized Search page in Podcasts highlights the most relevant categories and editorially curated collections tailored to you
  • Sudoku for News+ Puzzles provided in three difficulty levels and available for News+ subscribers
  • Presenter preview lets you choose what to share — an app or your whole screen — before you share it when connecting to an external display or using AirPlay
  • Pre-market price quotes in Stocks lets you track NASDAQ and NYSE tickers prior to market open
  • Weather in menu bar allows you to get current weather conditions from the menu bar on your Mac and click through to quickly access detailed forecasts

Offtopic Rant: Clients that ghost you.

Uncategorized

Ghost illustrated on black background

A friend referred me to her friend for some WordPress support. While most of the issue was PEBKAC, I learned that there are still dated-looking WordPress sites, that use vulnerable PHP and some wonky CSS custom editing to get solutions. While I was able to hard edit a PHP file and make the client changes, I refused to update the PHP version of her cPanel site because I was not the theme creator and not comfortable making a change that could result in a borked theme or live site used for business income. I left the requested work* resolved and completed, and further changes to the “footer”.
But the client never paid, did not ask for invoice nor had I a chance to bill for the time after cancelling any further support. I’ll chalk it up for no good deed goes unpunished.

The lesson here is not only being leery of unstable business owners that fail to understand, aka ignore, their website underpinnings, but the main problem was actually caused by the website user/owner clicking a feature that resulted in a change to editing the page. Visual is versus Text. So I recommend, take a course in Beginning WordPress content creation. Knowing some HTML is even better. Plus if you fire/cancel your Websupport person, you better realize, they won’t ever help again.

Mac OS 15.1.1 Update

Apple News, software

Color rays with Sequoia text

Another update, this time about security and Webkit. As noted, Apple never discloses the changes when its about security.

Released November 19, 2024

JavaScriptCore

Available for: macOS Sequoia

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited on Intel-based Mac systems.

Description: The issue was addressed with improved checks.

WebKit Bugzilla: 283063

CVE-2024-44308: Clément Lecigne and Benoît Sevens of Google’s Threat Analysis Group

WebKit

Available for: macOS Sequoia

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to a cross site scripting attack. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited on Intel-based Mac systems.

Description: A cookie management issue was addressed with improved state management.

WebKit Bugzilla: 283095

CVE-2024-44309: Clément Lecigne and Benoît Sevens of Google’s Threat Analysis Group

Mac OS 15 Update and Features

Uncategorized

Color rays with Sequoia text

Apple released Mac OS 15 back in September and recently updated to 15.1 which fixed some issues…and alot more features but waiting on the Apple Intelligence along with Mac Mini M4, iMac M4 and MacbookPro M4 models.

From Apples press release page on the update to MacOS Sequoia 15.1

This update introduces the first set of features powered by Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that unlocks powerful new ways to communicate, work, and express yourself, all while protecting your data with an extraordinary step forward for privacy in AI. This release also includes drag and drop support for iPhone Mirroring and other features, bug fixes, and security updates for your Mac.
Apple Intelligence (Mac with M1 and later)

Writing Tools

Writing Tools are available nearly everywhere you type, allowing you to rewrite, proofread, and summarize text right in the app you’re working in

Rewrite suggests different versions of your text so you can choose which combination of flow and wording you like best

Proofread lets you view suggested improvements to what you’re writing, like grammar fixes and language refinements

Summarize allows you to select text wherever you’re writing and generate a high-quality summary

Siri

A new look and feel includes a glowing light that wraps around the edge of your screen, animates responsively to the sound of your voice, and lets you keep scrolling or typing while you talk to Siri

Type to Siri when you don’t want to speak a request out loud

Richer language understanding enables Siri to follow along if you stumble over your words or change your mind mid-sentence

Conversational context is maintained over the course of a session, so you can refer more naturally to something you said in a recent request or something Siri mentioned in a recent response

Product knowledge helps you get answers to thousands of questions about the features and settings on your Apple products

Voice enhancements make Siri sound more natural, expressive, and clear

Photos

Memory movies can be created by describing the story you want to see

Photos search lets you find photos and videos simply by describing what you’re looking for

Clean Up removes distractions in your photos

Notifications

Notification summaries make it easy to catch up on your notifications with a glanceable summary of the most important information

Reduce Interruptions is a new Focus that ensures the most urgent notifications get through to you while silencing potential distractions

Additional Features

Smart Reply in Mail and Messages help you quickly respond to messages with suggested responses

Transcription summaries in Notes give you an intelligently created summary of the transcript from your audio recording

iPhone Mirroring

Drag and drop support lets you seamlessly move files, photos, videos, and more between your Mac and iPhone

AirPods

Hearing Protection feature helps users minimize exposure to loud environmental noise across listening modes (available in the United States and Canada)

Features require AirPods Pro 2 with firmware version 7B19 or later. All features may not be available for all countries or regions, for more information visit: https://apple.com/airpods-pro/feature-availability/

This update also includes the following improvements and bug fixes:

Option to automatically download and install games and apps to an external disk drive

Game Center friend invites can be sent directly from the Contacts app and Friend Suggestions and receivers can see the invites in the inbox in Settings

Removing Vmware for Mac to install FREE Version

software, Uncategorized

VMware Fusion for mac Logo
Credit: this info was taken from OSX Daily.

VMware Fusion Pro does not come with a dedicated uninstaller, and while you can uninstall it through System Settings or by dragging the VMWare Fusion app into the Trash, neither of those methods will remove all traces of VMWare from the Mac, like the daemons, caches, preferences, and library support files. That’s what we’re going to cover here, walking through how to manually uninstall VMware fusion from Mac, including all of the associated files.

How to Uninstall VMware Fusion on Mac, Manually

First, you begin to uninstall VMware Fusion Pro from the Mac by using the drag & drop Trash method.

1: Trash VMWare Fusion to Uninstall the App

-Open the /Applications folder and locate “VMWare Fusion.app”
-Drag and drop “VMware Fusion” into the Trash icon in the Dock
-Right-click on the Trash icon and choose “Empty Trash”

You can also right-click on the “VMware Fusion” application and choose “Move to Trash”, and then empty the Trash.

This removes the primary VMware Fusion app, but many other supporting files, preferences, and components will be remaining throughout the MacOS file system, and if you’re looking to thoroughly uninstall VMware Fusion from the Mac you’ll almost certainly want to remove those files too. You can do this by navigating to the directories and file paths through the Finder, or with the Terminal, whichever you are more comfortable with

Next, to fully uninstall VMware Fusion from MacOS, you will want to manually remove the following files from throughout the Mac file system.

2: Manually Delete Associated VMWare Fusion Files from MacOS

/Library/Application Support/VMware/VMware Fusion
/Library/Application Support/VMware/Usbarb.rules
/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion
/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion
~/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion Applications Menu
~/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion
~/Library/Caches/com.vmware.fusion
~/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion
~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.LSSharedFileList.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.LSSharedFileList.plist.lockfile
~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.plist.lockfile
~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusionDaemon.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusionDaemon.plist.lockfile
~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusionStartMenu.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusionStartMenu.plist.lockfile

Note that some of these are the System Library folder, while others are the user Library folder (denoted by the ~ tilde to represent the active users home directory).

Again, you’ll want to drag those items into the Trash, and then choose to Empty Trash to remove them from the Mac.

Finally, and this is optional and more advanced, you may wish to search the Mac file system for any remnants of VMware by opening the Terminal application and using mdfind to locate additional components and remnants.

3: Optional; Use Terminal to Locate Additional Remnant Files

mdfind -name “vmware”

By running this command, you may see a report like what is shown below, finding additional vmware files that are laying around, including even the initial installer DMG file you may have downloaded.

~/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion Applications Menu
~/Downloads/VMware-Fusion-13.5.2-23775688_universal.dmg

You can then manually remove these files as well, if you’d like to be thorough about uninstalling VMware and any associated downloads or installers.

How to Download & Install VMware Fusion Pro for Mac for Free

VMware Fusion Pro is now available for free for personal use, according to a blog post on the developers website.

VMware Fusion Pro is powerful hypervisor software that allows you to create and run virtual machines on your Mac, enabling the capability to do things like run a virtualized Windows installation atop MacOS, or run Linux alongside MacOS, or similar situations where you’d want to run multiple operating systems simultaneously. We frequently cover virtual machines and some of the neat things you can do with them, and VMWare Fusion Pro offers another virtualization option alongside UTM, VirtualBox, QEMU, and Parallels.

We’re going to walk through the process of downloading and installing VMWare Fusion Pro for free, using the new personal use license.

You’ll have to go through a somewhat cumbersome registration and download process, but once you do you’ll have full access to VMware Fusion Pro for free on your Mac, available for personal use. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

Go to support.broadcom.com and click on “Register” to create an account for Broadcom
Once you are registered for a (free) account and logged in, you will have access to download VMWare Fusion 13 Pro, so agree to the terms of service and click the download icon to get the installer (some users are reporting difficulty finding the download, try using this link to product downloads page – thanks wgs!)

When finished downloading, open your ~/Downloads folder and open the “VMware-Fusion-13_universal.dmg” file to mount the disk image, then launch the installer

Launch the installer for VMWare Fusion Pro, agree to the terms of service for using VMware Fusion Pro and then choose that you want to use VMware Fusion Pro for personal use and proceed with the installation. VMWare Fusion Pro will now launch and you can create a virtual machine or configure an existing one if you have a disk image to use, or download a Windows installer directly from Microsoft.

Create a virtual machine in VMWare Fusion Pro

Now that VMware Fusion Pro is installed on your Mac, you’re free to setup or create a new virtual machine. The app makes it particularly easy to download and install the latest versions of Windows (Windows 11 specifically, at the moment), so you can quickly have a Windows 11 VM setup in short order if you choose that option.

VMware Fusion Pro performance is really good, especially running on any Apple Silicon Mac, as you can expect with basically all modern virtualization experiences. But whether or not you could tell the difference between VMWare Fusion Pro, Parallels, and UTM, are perhaps up to the user and how the VM is used.

Apple re-releases iOS Update 17.6.1

Apple News, software

iOS 17 colorful red blue violet update image

Apple has re-released iOS 17.6.1 for iPhone and iPadOS 17.6.1 for iPad. The new build number is 21G101 for iOS 17.6.1, while the old build number was 21G93.

I don’t know what is different about the new build, or why Apple didn’t label this update as iOS 17.6.2. Additionally, the new build is not listed on Apple’s security updates page This update has no published CVE entries. Possible the Apple is hiding details to protect the iOS and users?

Separately, Apple has released watchOS 10.6.1 and tvOS 17.6.1 for Apple Watch and Apple TV.

An alternative to Microsoft Office

software

Libre Office website with announcement of version 24.2 and fountain pen as background
Libre Office
So for some in the corporate world, your defacto computing suite is Office. And for students in college, most institutions with 365 email, also push Office 365. The problem here, is that when you graduate or leave a company, you need to own Office. And for Mac or Windows, this can be a costly subscription.

Here is where a “donate-ware” office program that is a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, formulas and database come to mind as Libre-Office!

I use this for my mac and windows computers at home. While I am entitled to a Windows 365 access from my work, I like to keep all work separate. Thus the solution for me, is Libre Office. Now, others I know, have express similar use of another free office application called appropriately, Open Office. I’m not familiar with Apache’s Open Office and not used it. But its likely I will download a version to try, and compare.
In the meantime, Libre Office was somewhat of a lucky use for me. A emeritus lost some files and had only backed up to floppy disk (yes, floppy) of these waaaayyy back in the days of Word Perfect. And his texts were in German. The accomplishment of being able to read the floppies via a working USB drive was encouraging but even more, Libre office not only opened but imported and saved as later Word files, keeping the German text intact! A life saver and I encouraged donating for this alone!

Currently Libre Office (for Mac) is as version 7.6.4 with newest version at 24.2
I used it for documentation and opening older files I come across like Excel, that I used to keep items I sold on ebay on. Looking back is… interesting.

Libre Office downloads

Recovery Mode on a Mac Studio Pro

Hardware
Apple Mac Studio Pro computer
Mac Studio Pro

Problem: to boot a Mac Studio into Recovery mode to run terminal command and disable SIPS (csrutil disable and csrutil enable).
Solution that didn’t work: Power off the Mac Studio, then hold the power button in…keep and even after startup chime look for display to show Recovery icons (one is gears as Options).
Didn’t get this…held for more than 30 seconds.

Resolution: Recovery mode doesn’t work with LG display and USB-C ! Instead, use HDMI out of the Mac Stupido and hopefully your display has more than one input. Repeat above and should get into Recovery screen options. Then select Utilities from menu and Terminal…

Mac OS Sonoma…50 things I didn’t know I needed…and don’t.

Apple News, software

round colored thing indicating Mac OS

Widget Colors
System Settings still like Ventura but with way back. So much better now?
Facetime reactions. Um. ok. Thumbs up?
Browser Profiles (Safari lets you clutter up more from work, or school, or home) Who uses Safari anymore? I prefer other.
Typing with keyboard and voice. Well I stopped typing and … well? Oh, I don’t have microphone on!
Overlay in Facetime. You know, Wanna know more? Like Starship troopers…
Web Dock Apps! Ok, THIS I think should have been from the start. You take a URL you visit often, and now put it in your dock! One Click! So original!
…
There is more on MacRumors… I want to atleast give them credit for listing FIFTY new features of Sonoma (Mac OS 14)

Xerox Versalink Bricked from flawed firmware update design…and Unbricked!

Hardware

Please note: Mod Security doesn’t like some links or images I used and have to rename. Visit Xerox Support for your model and firmware…and remember AT YOUR Own Risk…

Laser printer with color lcd display
Xerox Versalink B400 Mono Laser Printer – discontinued

In the process of troubleshooting why a user’s Xerox B400 printer was set to paper size 8.5″ x 13″, I also checked the firmware version which needed updating.
The paper size issue was likely because the user can accidentally change the paper feed lever, which one can push up to the back and sides of the paper in the tray. This tells the printer its size, and after one returns the tray into the printer, the display will prompt to confirm. Well, the user must have confirmed it was this size. Thus the call for why it refused to print unless correct paper was selected (user knows its supposed to be US LETTER so…).

Meanwhile I was remote into the printer admin console, to check tray setting, along with firmware update. After 60 mins waiting from start of the update, I physically went to the printer and found it had a blue screen with ERR: Booter Failed! So I restarted the printer (power off, unplug, wait, replug, power on, Power start). Same error after 10-15mins of just no status.

error screen
Xerox B400 Err boot screen – she a brick now!

This was frustrating in design: After a call to Xerox support, some questions on why this seems common, and links received to attempt (remove toner, replace? Really??) and estimated rates for having an onsite tech show…since no extended warranty and a product that is discontinued…I followed the best advice the support person gave: visit the forums.

On a search for B400, ERR: BOOTER FAILED, I didn’t find the specific message I needed. But I did come across a suggestion that till this day, aggravates: the menu screen has hardware menu to initialize the boot mode, storage init mode, etc.

To get to this menu, called the AltBoot, you need to power off the printer, then turn on while also pressing the Home and Power buttons on the display. Then you should get a SPECIAL BOOT … display and if you hold the Home button in AND press finger on the AL BO of the SpeciAL BOot line, it will take you to a menu with numerical pad. Makes no sense. UNLESS you take the advice from the support forum:

NOTE: I did an initialize boot first. This is important. It does not indicate when done, and can take 30 mins.

menu screen for init boot
This is the screen when you have selected Storage initialization…

Updating Firmware on VersaLink B and C Series Printers using AltBoot

Download the latest firmware for your printer model from Xerox Support.
Locate an empty FAT32 formatted USB thumb drive.

Prepare the USB Drive

Create a folder named DWLD in the root of the USB drive.
Extract the firmware files from the *.zip file you downloaded from Xerox Support.
Copy the *.bin file into the DWLD folder on your USB drive.
Safely Remove the USB drive.

Boot the Printer using the AltBoot Procedure to Update Firmware

If the printer is powered on, press and hold the power button until the printer shuts down completely.
Insert the USB drive into the USB slot on the front of the printer.
Press and Hold the Home button and Power simultaneously and continue holding until the printer displays Special Boot Menu.
Tap and hold Special Boot Menu on the screen and press the Home button simultaneously until a dial screen appears.
On the dial screen, enter 6789# and the printer will display Special Boot Menu 1/3.
Tap Download Mode and then tap Yes on the confirmation screen to reboot the printer.
The printer will reboot and install the firmware file from the USB drive. This process may take several minutes and the printer may reboot several times. You MUST allow this process to finish completely without interrupting it.
The printer will print a Software Upgrade report when the firmware update is complete.
You may remove the USB drive and use your printer.

This worked! It came back to the Xerox logo screen. I was able to connect my laptop via USB cable, and then use the Versalink Firmware Install Utility and updated firmware on the (US English) support page.

There is confusion as Xerox’s support page as a tiny URL link in red,that one should immediately follow and update to.

Using the laptop, I launched the Versalink Firmware Utility, then find the recently downloaded BIN file, in this case firmware version 37.71.21 BUT there is a newer one in the Service Pack to 37.81.11 which I usually will do last.

Xerox support is hit and miss. Their labor cost for ONSITE in the US is $299 for the first 30 mins for this model, and then $69 per 15minutes thereafter! You realize that you can get a new printer for that labor of an hour or more.
Finally, I did order a new printer because this is the second Xerox Versalink that has bricked on me. First one was right out of the box with a C400 color! And I never deployed it, just prepped and was updating. I HIGHLY recommend that you use the VFI Versalink Firmware Install Utility and via USB cable and windows laptop, install updates this way. Not simple, not easy and painful if you have many printers deployed. Does Xerox have a remote printer management console/web app to maintain fleet of networked printers? that would really be ideal…