Macos

It is not just a matter of disk icons. As soon as I saw what Tahoe had done to the icons of many applications installed on my Mac, I decided I had to do something to restore the original look of the icons. I tried several times, using Apple’s home‑automation tools, Automator and Shortcuts, but nothing worked and there was always some function missing. Or maybe I’m just not very good at using them.

After less than two months since the official release, Tahoe seems poised to become another one of those macOS versions to be forgotten, like Lion, Mavericks, Sierra, Catalina, or Ventura. Aside from Liquid Glass, which I’ll discuss in a moment, what does Tahoe have that’s memorable? There’s the telephone‑call filter, which actually belongs more to iOS than macOS and still has many limitations, and there are also improvements to Spotlight search. But is it really worth upgrading an operating system just for that?1

The Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) is a method for performing calculations without the need for parentheses. RPN was popularized in the ’70s and ’80s by Hewlett-Packard (HP), that used it in all its scientific and financial calculators. When using calculators from rival Texas-Instruments, which all relied on parentheses, it was easy to lose track of how many parentheses had been opened or closed, often forcing users to re-enter the entire expression from scratch. Those who used an RPN calculator didn’t have these problems, although they had to overcome a small initial learning curve to get used to the new notation.

A few days ago, right on schedule, Apple released to developers the third update of the macOS 26 Developer Beta, better known as Tahoe. Once the update is complete, it doesn’t take long to realize that Apple is (slowly) modifying something in the Liquid Glass graphical interface of the latest version of its operating system.1

– Image generated by Google Gemini. Take macOS Tahoe, updated to version 26.0 Developer Beta 2, and open the Terminal. Actually, don’t just open one Terminal; open two, three, four different Terminals, each in its own tab. More or less like this: Now tell me: which is the active Terminal?

It’s becoming a habit. Earlier this year, instead of waiting, like I usually do, for the next version of macOS to be ready (or nearly ready) before installing the current one, I installed Sequoia on all my Macs. A few days ago, I decided to take the plunge and install the very first developer beta of Tahoe on a Mac that I don’t use much, mainly to try out the new Liquid Glass interface on macOS.1

When was the latest truly memorable WWDC? I’d say in 2020, a year that was already memorable in itself, when Apple unveiled the new Macs with Apple Silicon processors, capable of outperforming their equivalent Intel-based models. I don’t know if what was presented at this year’s WWDC will be just as memorable, but there’s no doubt that Apple has came up with some interesting innovations.

– Source: Scott Rodgerson on Unsplash. As promised (or threatened?) in the last post, this post is dedicated to exploring the available options for hosting a Jekyll-based website (or any other static site generator), whether for a personal blog like the one you’re reading, a professional studio, or a small business website.

As noted in the last post, Jekyll does not have a built-in commenting system, but its themes often allow comments to be managed by connecting to third-party services such as Disqus and similar platforms. The problem with these services is that they can stop working overnight (as happened last year with Muut, which no longer even has a website), or they have opaque usage policies and user data collection practices.

After the first part dedicated to installing and configuring Jekyll, this second part of these annotated notes dives into developing a Jekyll site using a pre-existing theme. On the other hand, developing a theme for Jekyll from scratch is far beyond my expertise, but those who can do it don’t need to read these notes.