Tech and other product reviews
Update 6/18/23: My MX Keys for Mac has developed the dreaded backlight looping problem, wherein the backlight automatically cycles on and off without touching it. Additionally, there is a loose screw floating around the case. These types of problems should not occur with an expensive flagship keyboard. I had an online chat with a Logitech…
I’m a first-time Ikea customer. This experience has been exasperating. I ordered an Ikea ALEX desk, which arrived in good condition. I can’t say the same about the BROR system. Ikea markets BROR as being suitable for living rooms and garages. The reality is that Ikea’s quality control on the BROR pieces is so bad…
I took the plunge and installed macOS Mojave on my 2009 Mac Pro (with firmware hack) right after it was released. So far, so good. Here are my initial findings and thoughts: The installer required a Mac Pro firmware update to version 138.0.0.0.0. During the installation I saw a black screen for 50 minutes,…
This holiday season, Google put a full-court press on Amazon to bring attention to its Google Home devices. Google and Walmart sold the devices at loss leader prices. This was my net price for each device, not including sales tax: Google Home: $79 sale price at Walmart – 20% Google Express app coupon –…
After picking up the iPhone X for the first time, I said “wow” out loud. It’s really that impressive. The near-borderless OLED screen is gorgeous and the build materials are first-class. It’s the first time I’ve used an iPhone and was blown away at the speed. The A11 Bionic chip is a screamer. Although…
Review updated below I’ll cut to the chase. DirecTV Now is a train wreck. AT&T had every opportunity to make this a great service, but apparently felt that holiday sales were more important than satisfied customers. In essence, I paid to become a beta tester of the service. Not cool AT&T, not cool. I’ve…
DirecTV Now is currently giving away an Apple TV (32 GB) when prepaying for three months of service. I took advantage of this offer. I’ve enjoyed the Apple TV 3 for a few years. While it’s not incredibly powerful and has relatively few channels, it has a fantastic user interface. It’s responsive and very simple…
Intuit recently added online bill pay to Quicken for the Mac. Finally! I bought Quicken for the Mac 2016 without hesitation, as I can now avoid the daily chore of running Quicken for Windows in a virtual machine. There are several detailed reviews of the Mac 2016 product on the web, so I’ll just give you…
I started using Little Snitch (version 3.5.1) a couple of weeks ago. It’s software firewall for the Mac, with a primary focus on outbound connections. This is also known as a reverse firewall. There are many thorough reviews of Little Snitch available on the web, so I’ll just add my impressions: This is not a…
Parallels Desktop 8 offers many enhancements over version 7. Most of the improvements have been covered by the various media outlets already, so this post won’t be a typical review. What I’d like to cover are some of the more esoteric issues that I discovered with Parallels 8. The first issue was particularly aggravating, but…