MacPro

I just saw that if you own Pixelmator (basic) already the pro version is only$20, so I just bought it, a great deal.  Thanks for the article.

felix01 said:

As two or three posts have already alluded to, there's a big difference in the Catalina file structure (bifurcated) and generating a bootable backup of Catalina is going to require a lot of work by the developers of SuperDuper! and CCC before they have a shippable (non-beta) version.

And as of now, the back-up drive will have to be connected directly to your computer as opposed to being on a network.   

For anyone planning on jumping on the Day One upgrade wagon, suggest reading the developer blogs on the Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper! websites. You'll glean a lot of 'under the hood info' about Catalina and might just decide to delay things a bit.

This article talks about having a good backup prior to the Catalina upgrade but they haven't addressed how you back up Catalina (including the Time Machine limitations with Catalina) the day after you've upgraded. 

Agreed,  the point is to make sure you have a tried and tested CCC of your working Mojave if the machine you are using might have to 'go back'.  Any drive on which one is testing Catalina is just that a test so backing it up as of yet isn't critical.  Using a beta CCC is more of a test of CCC beta than Catalina at this point.  If Catalina has issues wipe and reinstall, I've done that already and it works fine.  Anyone, making the suggestion that a fully working CCC for Catalina is needed infers someone is daft enough to be using Catalina as their primary macOS.  

Not everyone has the luxury of a dedicated test Mac as some of us have so for those, especially as non-developer versions are released really needs to read this article carefully.  A well-intentioned but non-tech-savvy friend who lives in Europe jumped in feet first by upgrading his main Mac to Catalina with no backup other than Time Machine.  I talked him through how to wipe his Mac's drive in target mode from another Mac and then use Shift Command R to boot into Apple's net installation system over ethernet which put back an earlier macOS for him which was what he wanted rather than using TM, his data was all on externals.

The thing that worries me is folks connecting their beta Catalina to their only Photos repository on the cloud and letting it get upgraded then wanting to go back to Mojave.  If the had full optimization selected and no local backup of the original images they are kind of on a pickle until they get a fully working Catalina.  Of course not having a full back up of all photos locally is insane but we are talking about end-users here.

UPDATE: Mike just released a new beta CCC, 1 minute ago (10:50 EST Monday, July 22nd) that is able to deal with Catalina.

gatorguy said:

While the recordings supplied for transcription are anonymized and not connected to any accounts it plainly would not mean that someone with time, money, sources and a reason to do so would not be able to connect dots within specific snippets. In this case some contractor illegally supplied anonymous recordings to a journalist (?) for the purpose of attempting to do just that. They were seemingly successful in at least one case where the owners address was mentioned. 

Anonymous may not mean you cannot be identified given the time and resources. I'd also be shocked if humans were not involved in understanding problematic Siri recordings as well, and yes those are also anonymized and not connected to specific accounts. If "machines" misunderstood what was said or misinterpreted a wake word then using another machine to understand why it happened hardly seems appropriate. 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/11/google-admits-leaked-private-voice-conversations.html

Gogle admitted on Thursday that more than 1,000 sound recordings of customer conversations with the Google Assistant were leaked by some of its partners to a Belgian news site.

These conversations are used by companies such as Google and Amazon -- which takes clips from the Amazon Echo -- to improve voice responses from their smart assistants. They are supposed to be kept confidential.

But Belgian news site VRT said on Wednesday that a contractor provided it with samples of these sound samples, which VRT then used to identify some of the people in the clips. It also examined the sorts of conversations that Google collects when people say "OK Google," into a phone or a Google Home product. Among other things, VRT heard customer addresses. Sources who talked to the publication also described hearing recordings of a woman in distress and people talking about medical conditions.

I hope Apple updates its earbuds to at least offer an option of noise cancellation coupled with a wireless plug-in transmitter/adapter for airplane seats. I fly a hell of a lot and it's impossible to really enjoy a movie with the engine noise modern airplane manufacturers allow in the cabins.

On a sidebar, I have recordings of decibel levels recorded over the Atlantic that would require ear protection on building sites taken in Delta aircraft, it's a lawsuit waiting to happen IMHO. I would bet there are thousands if not millions of people with severe ear damage thanks to airline s saving a few bucks on soundproofing.

I watched every game played in this Fédération Internationale de Football Association World Cup and I have since the Mia Hamm days.  I moved to the USA 30 years ago from the UK and missed watching football.  I discovered the USA Women's team and actually found their football style far more enjoyable than the way men's football had become in Europe thanks to the influence of the South American teams with their professional fouls, diving, and cheating ... I'm looking at you Argentina.  

The way the USA Women's team played back then was a breath of fresh air reminiscent of football in England in the '60s. It remains that way to this day and I have had a fabulous two weeks and was thrilled to see them triumph after playing through the hardest path imaginable to the final.  Well done and may you inspire many more girls and boys to play the greatest game on earth here in the USA.