Kernel Panic Consulting

02/04/2023

Heads-up to anyone on Twitter that is considering a move to other services like Mastodon: this weekend Twitter plans to shut off API access to bots & tools, including ones that let you export your follower & followed lists. Do it tonight! https://pruvisto.org/debirdify is one such way to keep tabs on the Twitter diaspora.

08/14/2022

🚨 PSA: Steer far clear of HP "Instant Ink!" 🚨

"With the HP Instant Ink program, printer owners no longer own their ink cartridges or the ink in them. Instead, HP's customers have to pay a recurring monthly fee based on the number of pages they anticipate printing from month to month; HP mails subscribers cartridges with enough ink to cover their anticipated needs. If you exceed your estimated page-count, HP bills you for every page (if you choose not to pay, your printer refuses to print, even if there's ink in the cartridges)."

This is far from the first time that printer companies have tried to screw over consumers. Make sure when you buy a new printer you scrutinize the license agreements and windows you click through on install VERY CAREFULLY. HP's instant ink program referenced above popped up no fewer than 9 screens trying to get me to agree to the grift! I hate printers as much as you do; if you need a friendly ear and an able helper, give me a call 📞

Since its founding in the 1930s, Hewlett-Packard has been synonymous with innovation, and many's the engineer who had cause to praise its workhorse oscillators, minicomputers, servers, and PCs. But since the turn of this century, the company's changed its name to HP and its focus to sleazy ways to.....

03/31/2022

Today I learned about this magical copy and paste trick between iOS devices. Sometimes technology doesn't "just work", but times like this when it does it seems like magic. If your tech *isn't* just working, give me a ring.

“PLEASE tell me I am not the only one who didn’t know about this feature 😅😅😅 https://t.co/iBAYEV3JbG”

03/28/2022

I recently posted about Vinegar, the Safari extension that lets you play YouTube movies while doing other things. if you upgraded to iOS 15.4, you may have to turn on the permissions at the bottom in settings > safari > extensions for it to work again:

03/12/2022

Vinegar fixes YouTube’s shortcomings on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It lets you play audio while doing other things, removes ads, and enables picture-in-picture. I endorse it wholeheartedly 👍

It’s no secret that using YouTube in the browser on your iPhone or iPad is a rather unpleasant experience. And in many ways, YouTube’s “native” app isn’t much better. This is where a new Safari extension called “Vinegar” comes in to save the day. Update December 4, 2021: Vinegar has re...

10/05/2021

In case you’re wondering what happened to Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp earlier today, the short answer is “DNS problems”. For the longer answer, check out this article.

Today at 1651 UTC, we opened an internal incident entitled "Facebook DNS lookup returning SERVFAIL" because we were worried that something was wrong with our DNS resolver 1.1.1.1. But as we were about to post on our public status page we realized something else more serious was going on.

05/04/2020

https://thedesignsquiggle.com/ is the simplest way to describe the convoluted yet convergent process of design.

04/13/2020

It's nice to be needed, as the saying goes! Kernel Panic has been designated an essential business by Governor Janet Mills. Please don't hesitate during these challenging times to reach out for support. Whether remotely or in person, I will help you, and I will take proper precautions to ensure safety. Stay safe, keep in touch, and be well.

06/20/2019

There’s a 15” MacBook Pro battery recall that might affect you, provided you have the matching model. 🧯🔥🔋💻

If you’ve got a 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display, you’ll want to read this now

03/25/2019

I felt like a ninja when I made this work, so I'm passing on the tip. If you need to see a calendar another Google Calendar user shared with you in your Apple Calendar it CAN be done! Calendaring across platforms shouldn't be this hard!

November 12, 2014 2018 Update: Sadly, this is still the correct way to get syncing working.2019 Update: Still true. Someone shared a Google Calendar with me recently, and it showed up at calendar.google.com just fine. However, I could not see the shared events on my Mac (using Calendar) or on my iPh...