Mac Keyboards, Trusting Facebook, and Being Profitable and Green - ACM 457

In this episode, Bryan and Jeff discuss Mac keyboards, and what they like about clicky, long-throw keyboards, including the Azio Classic Retro BT keyboard Bryan just reviewed. They also go through a thought experiment on whether Facebook could ever earn our trust on privacy by radically reshaping their policies. They cap the show with a look at how Apple manages to be profitable and green, both.

TMO Background Mode Interview with Ruby Receptionists CTO Katharine Nester

Katharine Nester is the CTO and Chief Product Officer for Ruby Receptionists, a virtual receptionist service. She owes early influence to her father, a computer engineer, and that led to her B.S. degree in computer science from the Univ. of Calif. at Berkeley. Her first job was as a Hewlett Packard software engineer. Katharine is an active member of Portland’s growing tech community where she advocates for more inclusive environments to support women and minorities in the field and is a benefactor of App Camp for Girls. We chatted about the founding of Ruby Receptionists, early technical decisions that were made and how it operates. Katharine tells a great story about her personal career arc as well as what it’s like to be the CTO of a company that supports 7,600 other companies.

Mark Zuckerberg vs. Tim Cook, Apple's New AI Chief, and Making HomeKit Great - ACM 456

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook have been trading public barbs on privacy, and Bryan Chaffin and Jeff Gamet discuss the public tiff. They also discuss Apple’s hiring of Google’s former head of artificial intelligence and what it might mean for Siri (hint: good things!). They cap the show with a look at what it would take to make HomeKit the premier home automation platform.

TMO Background Mode Interview with Tidbits Security Editor Rich Mogull

Rich Mogull has twenty years experience in information security, physical security, and risk management. He specializes in data security, application security, emerging security technologies, and security management. Prior to founding Securosis, Rich was a Research Vice President at Gartner on the security team where he also served as research co-chair for the Gartner Security Summit. Currently, he is the security editor at Tidbits. We chatted about Rich’s career, then delved into some security issues of interest to Apple customers: the relative security of macOS vs. Windows 10, the security of iOS, whether AES-256 encryption is still “good enough,” iCloud security, and the technical feasibility of an unhackable backdoor into our iPhones for law enforcement. If you’re interested in all things security, this is the show for you.

Talking to an E-Learning Teacher about Apple and EdTech - ACM 455

Bryan Chaffin and Jeff Gamet are joined by Laura Bain, E-Learning Coordinator at a private school in Brisbane, Australia, to talk about Apple and the “Let’s Take a Field Trip” event. They discuss what it’s like in the trenches of E-Learning, including the ongoing battle between Apple, Google, and Microsoft. You’ve been hearing a lot of tech pundits talk about Apple and education, but this conversation has a voice from the trenches.

As Far As You Know He’s Not a Real Doctor – Mac Geek Gab 702

Your questions, answered! That’s what we do here. Today’s show starts with some Cool Stuff Found items, including at least one that answers a question from a previous show about auto-captioning your videos! Then it’s on to figuring out where all your storage is being used, whether or not you should ignore those iOS relogin requests, and migrating Aperture to Photos. You like Quick Tips? We’ve got those, too. All this and more, folks!

TMO Background Mode Interview with Kelly Guimont and Jeff Gamet - Everything 4K/UHD TV

In this very special edition of Background Mode, The Mac Observer’s Kelly Guimont and Jeff Gamet joined me to continue a previous discussion we’d been having about 4K/UHD television. It all started when I published an article, an adventure actually, about my project to get all my home video components working together to achieve 4K/UHD and Dolby Vision. One TMO Daily Observations podcast wasn’t enough to answer all the questions, and so we just kept on chatting, laughing and recording. Herein is most everything you need to know about setting up a 4K/UHD TV system with advanced High Dynamic Range (HDR), especially Dolby Vision.