The dumpster fire that is the Raspberry Pi

For a couple of little home projects I need an always-on computer. In an ideal world, perhaps, this would be something like a Mac Mini. Powerful [enough], easy to install & maintain, runs anything & everything (including anything Linux through Docker or at worst a straight VM). Unfortunately, Mac Minis are surprisingly expensive – even… Read more

Full Disk Access is required to access Time Machine backups in Mojave

I’ve been struggling since Mojave came out to deal with it’s over-bearing expansion of SIP (“System Integrity Protection”), which is basically a super-root notion that blocks access – even to root – to lots of basic parts of the system, including obvious & mostly sensible ones like /System and /Library, but also less usefully things… Read more

Blink XT review

Normally I’d just post a review like this on the merchant’s website – in this case Amazon.  Yet perplexingly when I tried to do so, I was given the error message: Sorry, we are unable to accept reviews for this product. This product has limitations on submitting reviews. There can be a number of reasons… Read more

FTZ adaptor hates tripods, straps, and harnesses

The FTZ adaptor has a surprising and very frustrating design flaw – it’s impossible to mount it to the camera body when you have almost any kind of mounting plate, strap, or harness (e.g. Cotton Carrier) mount point attached to the camera body.  This is because the FTZ has a big fat foot, as can… Read more

Nikon Z7 second first impressions

Having spent a week or so using the Z7 – though still not as much as I’d like, given the continued need to work for a living – I have some further thoughts, beyond / expanding upon my very first impressions. Autofocus Photo mode Autofocus is a problem. It is very clear that the Z7’s AF… Read more