Multizone | All our technotes
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Apple once provided technical guidance on using an external drive as a home folder location in macOS. However, if such documentation still exists, it is now elusive.
Using an external, removable drive for a home folder requires meticulous attention to ensure it remains continuously powered. If it disconnects—particularly during a system update—macOS may fail to locate the designated mount point. In my case, this resulted in macOS replacing my home folder’s mount point (an external SSD) with a freshly initialised directory, complete with default user folders and documents.
TL:DR – One suspects that even the Genius Bar might take some considerable time to pinpoint such an obscure failure mode.
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Read more: A warning about External Drives for Home folders on macOS
What on earth is a warrant canary?
"As of 10 September 2025, we have not received any court orders subject to being kept secret."
Above is an example of a warrant canary which is a published statement that a service provider has not had a notice issued by a court as of a given date that comes with a gag order. If the notice is removed users can assume a service provider has been served such a notice and as such is compromised. The idea is that users would be informed without a breach of an order made by a court. This is made more actionable when regular transparency reports are produced by the service provider.
Warrant canaries are used to address concerns about transparency and government surveillance, but their effectiveness has legal gray areas. Courts haven't definitively ruled whether failing to update a warrant canary violates a gag order.
In the UK, where this site is hosted, the powers concerned are regulated by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 as amended to date and penalties could range from a fine to up to five years in prison. In the US they are regulated by the Patriot Act 2001. Both of these regulations have criminal penalties for disclosing the existence of such notices where such disclosure is prohibited.
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Amazon Fire TV Cube - Hands-free streaming media player with Alexa, Wi-Fi 6E, 4K Ultra HD
Fire TV Stick 4K Max features and functionality, plus:
- Twice as powerful as Fire TV Stick 4K Max.
- Hands-free voice control: simply use your voice to control your TV, smart home and connected devices. No remote required.
- Lets you control your compatible satellite set-top box with your voice and Alexa Voice Remote Enhanced.
- HDMI port so you can connect and control other entertainment devices with just your voice, USB-A 2.0 for added storage, Ethernet port 10/100 Mbps for wired access.
- Includes Alexa Voice Remote Enhanced (includes TV controls).
TL:DR – I just take this device for granted "Alexa turn on the TV" has just become totally normal. It works well, no issues in the whole time I've had it. It always sets the input to Amazon though, so you have to manually switch to Virgin Media, Blu Ray or whatever.
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First ever Warzone victory.
I play far too much Call of Duty® Modern_Warfare® and dont play much 'Warzone' but Im a completionist and want to get the ribbons for my officer progression. I'm not great at Warzone and often get wiped out very early on. But this time. Well this time was special. I missed the guy in the window, and my airstrike was off target but it definitely spooked them! And we won. Phew.
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macOS Big Sur and VMware Fusion
It is easy to install macOS Big Sur as a virtual machine in VMware Fusion on a Intel based Mac provided you create a bootable installer from which to install the Mac operating system. Using macOS Big Sur in a virtual machine in VMware Fusion is expressly permitted by the macOS licence agreement provided you are running on Apple hardware and you obtain macOS Big Sur legally from Apple.
It runs beautifully and is perfect for testing and development workloads.
TL:DR — Get VMware Fusion, Install VMware Fusion, download macOS Big Sur from Apple, create a bootable USB of macOS Big Sur and it can be installed in VMware Fusion just perfectly.
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Read more: Install macOS Big Sur in VMware Fusion on a Intel based Mac
I use Windows 10 in a virtual machine in VMware Fusion on a Intel based Mac for testing and for a couple of legacy applications that only run on Windows.
Windows comes with a whole host of apps which, although they are probably useful if you dont have a Mac, are of no use to me. I just view Windows as a container to run my legacy apps. Consequently I dont want any extra software I don't need in my Windows installation. This is my definition of 'bloatware'
I also want the same browsers, Firefox, and Chrome that I use as my default browsers on the Mac. I also dont want to install a third party software remover. So I wondered if there was an easy command line tool to help me remove many of the preinstalled apps Microsoft added to the OS and of course there is!.
TL:DR — Open a command prompt with elevated permissions. Run PowerShell. Use dism (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) a command-line tool which is installed with Windows to find then delete apps you dont want.
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Link your Android or iPhone to Windows 10?
As if they had never had any phone business aspirations themselves, Microsoft proclaim that you can link your Android or iPhone to Windows 10 using their 'Your phone' app. Lets try it out in what you might, if you know me, call a 'busman's holiday'*.
In summary, avoid until you can get to Windows 11. 'link' is doing a lot of work in the heading!
The stated functionality is completely different between the two mobile device operating systems.
- Android — manage and respond to recent notifications, see your most recent photos, make and take calls and reply to text messages.
- iOS — send a webpage from your iPhone to your PC.
That is quite a feature gap which is explained opaquely by the very first screen of the app which has a notice saying that to experience full functionality you must be running Android 7.0 or later.
Having now tried pretty hard with Windows 10 Pro x64 version 1909 build 18363.1256 and Android 8.1, 9, 10 and 11 and iOS 12, and iOS 14 I can confidently say this app does not work for me.
The iOS single feature is hardly worth having anyway and forces you to install the Microsoft Edge browser for iOS in what you might be tempted to think is a classic example of a 'bait and switch'. The Android app requires very very invasive permissions given what it needs to accomplish and it needs to be able to run in the background and wants to have you disable certain android system settings like battery management.
A hurdle is that 'Your Phone' on Windows 10 requires very specific WiFi interoperability on your private network. Unless theres an update that improves this I cannot see how end users will be able to adopt this app as it just doesn't function well enough for example in your office, to be relied on.
TL:DR — A basic and clunky app. Really an Edge Browser bait and switch app for iPhone. Could be much more. Handoff for Edge it is not.
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- MacBook Pro (13-inch M1 2020)
- Q: How do you get an iOS app to run on an M1 based Mac?
- Belkin USB-C Multimedia Hub with Gigabit Ethernet and HDMI
- Install macOS Mojave in VMware Fusion on a Mac
- Install macOS Catalina as a virtual machine in VMware Fusion
- Remember Symbian? Some screenshots and notes
- Goodbye Intel, Hello Apple Silicon
- Hancock's Half Hour.
- The Highest-Valued Startups in the World in 2024
- Apple's iPhone SE (2nd generation) for iOS development
- Choosing a Chromebook for software development
- Thank You for the Music, iTunes