Quit Every Running App on Your Mac the Easy Way with Amico App’s Quit All
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Quit Every Running App on Your Mac the Easy Way with Amico App's Quit All

Jeff Gamet ·

Quitting all the open apps on your Mac involves a lot of Command-Q typing or building your own Automator action, or now just installing Quit All from Amico Apps. This cool app lets you quit every running app on your Mac from the menu bar with a mouse click, and you can view and quit hidden processes, too. You can also force quit frozen apps, or quit just the one or two apps you don’t need running. Quit All costs US$5 and is available for download at the Amico Apps website.

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Misconfigured Microsoft Power Apps Leaked 38 Million Database Records

Andrew Orr ·

Over a thousand web apps from Microsoft’s Power Apps platform have leaked 38 million records. This data includes COVID-19 contact tracing.

The data included a range of sensitive information, from people’s phone numbers and home addresses to social security numbers and COVID-19 vaccination status.

The incident affected major companies and organizations, including American Airlines, Ford, the transportation and logistics company J.B. Hunt, the Maryland Department of Health, the New York City Municipal Transportation Authority, and New York City public schools.

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USD Coin Will Be Backed By Pure Cash and US Treasury Bonds

Andrew Orr ·

As a stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC) is pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar. The reserves of currency upholding this value will only be cash and bonds going forward.

Circle reserves expanded beyond cash and cash equivalents in May, 2021, and the company provided a more detailed breakdown of reserve composition in July, adding clarity and insight into the funds backing USDC. Mindful of community sentiment, our commitment to trust and transparency, and an evolving regulatory landscape, Circle, with the support of Centre and Coinbase, has announced that it will now hold the USDC reserve entirely in cash and short duration US Treasuries.

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Indie Publishing Platform ‘Substack’ to Accept Bitcoin Payments

Andrew Orr ·

Bitcoin payment processor OpenNode announced on Monday its integration with Substack, an online publishing platform. OpenNode will power both on-chain and Lightning Network Bitcoin payments.

Working together, OpenNode and Substack are starting by making instant, low cost payments available to a select group of crypto-focused publications. Readers will be able to use Bitcoin to pay for subscriptions to these select publications, and the publications will retain earnings in Bitcoin.

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This AI Text Generator Shortcut Will Replace Our Blogger Jobs

Andrew Orr ·

Over the weekend, u/ryandeanrocks shared an AI text generator via the r/Shortcuts subreddit. It’s an open source version of GPT-3. Of course, how good the output it produces depends upon the input, but I’ve seen it spit out some decent things. Here’s an example; I pasted the first sentence of this piece, and here is part of the output: “You’ll notice that if you type something and then choose to send it to someone, that the chat box in the corner will turn green. In theory, that’s the easiest way to see if someone is typing something out and waiting to send it, but it can take awhile to see the difference. With real-time chatting, it’s almost instantaneous.“

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Get a Refurbished M1 iMac Direct from Apple

Jeff Butts ·

If you were in the market for an M1 iMac and do not want to pay full retail price, you now have a new option. Refurbished 24 inch M1 iMac models are now available directly from Apple. The model including 512GB SSD storage will cost you $1439, while the same model with 256GB of storage is $1269. The normal retail price of these models is $1699 and $1499 respectively. Of course, Cupertino puts plenty of testing, cleaning, and necessary repair work into its refurbished products. They are backed by a one-year warranty and free delivery and returns.

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Support US National Parks by Using Apple Pay

Jeff Butts ·

The US National Park Service turns 104 on August 25, 2021. In honor of the occasion, Apple has announced a donation program, a new Apple Watch Activity Challenge, and special content collections to allow you to experience the parks and learn more about what makes them the amazing national resource that we often take for granted. From August 24 to August 27, Apple will make a $10 donation to the National Park Foundation for each purchase made with Apple Pay on its website, in the Apple Store app, or inside any Apple Store in the US. In years past, Cupertino’s offered much less of a donation per purchase, so this is pretty cool.

Our national parks strengthen our connection to nature, to one another, and to the soul of our nation. We’re excited to continue building on our four-year partnership with the National Park Foundation, and to support their work to preserve our parks for generations to come.

Tim Cook, Apple CEO

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The Secret Security Features in macOS Big Sur

Andrew Orr ·

There are security features that Apple tells us about on stage at keynotes, and then there are hidden improvements it doesn’t mention.

macOS has gradually made the UNIX security model irrelevant. For example, even the superuser is only allowed to access the private documents of a regular user with the user’s permission—permission that is given on a per-application basis, through that protector of users and bane of developers known as the Transparency, Consent & Control (TCC) framework.