Generative AI is revolutionary, but it’s really not as accessible as it needs to be. A lot of Gen Z and tech professionals are using Generative AI to help with everyday tasks, but there’s a lot of other demographics that aren’t using it at all.

A lot of people have tried it, but are not using it enough or have found that the barrier to usefulness is too high. There’s also some Boomers and Gen X who haven’t even tried using Generative AI yet, largely because they believe it’s going to be too hard to use, or they don’t understand it. With terms like prompt engineering and LLMs, a lot of people are going to be put off and this does need to change for more mass adoption.
(I’m going to just refer to Generative AI as AI from now on in this article)

Why Use AI instead of Google

Most people will turn to Google when carrying out personal research, but are not instinctively trying AI tools instead. Google is obviously an incredible search engine and a great place to find information, but tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini can provide much more detailed and customized results if you know what you’re doing.

I find myself having to make a conscious effort to use ChatGPT (my current AI tool of choice) vs Google or DuckDuckGo. However when I have a specific task to carry out, something I am trying to research or an itinerary I want to put together, I’m aways more impressed with ChatGPT over Google.

What problem are you trying to solve?

One of the best ways to get value from AI is to use it to solve a problem that would take multiple steps or actions to solve. Here are some examples that I’ve recently used:

1. Recommending some restaurants for an upcoming vacation, based on where I usually go out to eat
2. Helping me come up with a schedule to allow me to work, cook, study and workout without being overwhelmed
3. Help my mother plan an itinerary for an upcoming trip to Vancouver
4. Design a custom workout plan for me based on the equipment that I own
5. Suggest some recipes based on the food I have in the fridge and on chefs recipes that I like

You can solve these with google, but they will typically require collating the ressult of multiple searches and this can be timely. I’ve found a better way is to use AI for this, but you do need to provide more information than you would with a google search in order to get good results.

A Great example of a how AI saved me time

I try and be active, right now, I surf 2–3 days a week and I run too, but I rarely fit in time for weight training. I’m fortunate enough to have a garage and some basic gym equipment and wanted to find a routine that I could follow .

Using the free version of ChatGPT I entered this prompt:

I surf 2–3 days per week and run twice a week. I work from home and am struggling to find time to weight train. I spend the mornings and evening with my family so wanted to try and train during a few lunchtimes. Can you recommend a total body weight training program that I can do 2–3 times per week? I have the following equipment at home: variable weight dumbbells, bench, soft box, matt, soft box jump.

Here is the program that was generated:

This was great for the type of training that I want to do, the only issue for me is time. I probably only have about 30 minutes of my lunch hour and I didn’t specify that. I then let ChatGPT know that I only have 30 minutes:

This is great, but I probably only have 30 minutes to exercise, can you adjust the program to make that work please?

Then I got the following ressult:

Now in my opinion this is a great little workout and it uses the equipment that I have. I know I could have spent longer searching google for workout videos and plans, but this took less than a minute and it does what I want.

Conclusion

The example that I used was created with the free version of ChatGPT. Perhaps it is just me, but I need to get into the mindset of using it for more tasks than I do currently. I know that ChatGPT can make mistakes and it’s not 100% accurate, but it’s such a powerful tool. My big issue right now is that we do need to share the knowledge of how to use it with different generations. Just as the Smartphone and Google have become standard tools that most people use on a daily basis, AI really should be the same. If you don’t use it, you’re really going to get left behind.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to improve your sleep habits and get the restful sleep you need. In this article, we will explore some simple but effective strategies for getting more sleep. We’ll look at how to establish a bedtime routine, create a sleep-friendly environment, and reduce sources of stress and anxiety that can keep you awake at night. By following these tips, you can improve your sleep and wake up feeling refreshed and energized.

1. Establish a consistent bedtime routine

Having a consistent bedtime routine can be an effective way to improve your sleep habits and get more restful sleep. A bedtime routine helps to signal to your body that it’s time to wind down and prepare for sleep, which can make it easier to fall asleep when you get into bed.

There are many different activities that you can include in your bedtime routine, depending on what works best for you. Some ideas might include:

• Reading a book (preferably a physical book, rather than an electronic device)
• Taking a warm bath or shower
• Practicing relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing or meditation
• Doing some light stretching or yoga
• Listening to soothing music
• Writing in a journal

It’s important to find activities that help you relax and unwind, and to make sure you allow enough time for your bedtime routine so that you’re not feeling rushed or stressed as you try to fall asleep. It’s also a good idea to try to stick to the same bedtime routine as much as possible, even on weekends, to help keep your sleep-wake cycle consistent.

2. Create a sleep-friend environment

Creating a sleep-friendly environment is an important part of getting more restful sleep. The environment in which you sleep can have a big impact on the quality of your sleep, so it’s important to create a space that is conducive to rest.

Here are some tips for creating a sleep-friendly environment:

• Keep the room dark: Darkness is important for sleep, as it helps to stimulate the production of the sleep hormone melatonin. Try using blackout curtains or an eye mask to block out any light sources.
• Keep the room cool: The ideal bedroom temperature for sleep is around 65 degrees Fahrenheit. A cooler room can help you fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly.
• Keep the room quiet: Noise can be a major sleep disruptor, so try to eliminate any sources of noise as much as possible. Use earplugs or a white noise machine if needed.
• Invest in a comfortable mattress and pillows: A comfortable bed can make a big difference in the quality of your sleep. Choose a mattress and pillows that support your body and help you feel comfortable and relaxed.
• Use calming colors and decor: Soft, calming colors and relaxing decor can help create a peaceful atmosphere in your bedroom. Avoid bright, bold colors and cluttered spaces.

By creating a sleep-friendly environment, you can improve the chances of getting a good night’s sleep and waking up feeling rested and refreshed.

3. Avoid Caffeine and Alcohol

Avoiding caffeine and alcohol before bedtime can be an important strategy for getting more restful sleep. Caffeine is a stimulant that can interfere with your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle, making it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep. It’s found in many common beverages, including coffee, tea, and soda, as well as in some medications and energy drinks. It’s best to avoid caffeine for at least a few hours before bedtime to allow it time to clear your system.

Alcohol can also disrupt your sleep. While it may help you fall asleep faster, it can reduce the quality of your sleep and cause you to wake up more frequently throughout the night. It’s best to avoid alcohol for several hours before bedtime to allow your body time to metabolize it.

4. Exercise Regularly

Regular physical activity can be an effective way to improve your sleep habits and get more restful sleep. Exercise can help you fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly, as it can reduce stress and anxiety and help regulate your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle.

However, it’s important to time your workouts appropriately. Exercise too close to bedtime can actually keep you awake, as it can raise your body temperature and stimulate your mind. It’s best to finish your workout a few hours before bedtime to allow your body time to cool down and relax.

There are many different types of exercise that can be beneficial for sleep, including cardio, strength training, and yoga. It’s important to find an activity that you enjoy and that fits into your schedule, and to aim for at least moderate intensity for at least 30 minutes a day.

By incorporating regular physical activity into your routine, you can improve your sleep and wake up feeling more refreshed and energized.

5. Reduce Stree and Anxiety (not always easy I know!)

Reducing stress and anxiety can be an important part of improving your sleep habits and getting more restful sleep. Stress and anxiety can cause racing thoughts and keep you awake at night, making it hard to fall asleep and stay asleep.

There are many different strategies you can try to reduce stress and anxiety and promote sleep. Some ideas might include:

• Practicing relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, meditation, or progressive muscle relaxation
• Engaging in activities that you enjoy and that help you relax, such as reading, listening to music, or taking a warm bath
• Getting regular exercise, which can help reduce stress and anxiety
• Setting aside time to wind down before bed, rather than trying to go from a busy day straight to sleep
• Seeking support from friends and family, or talking to a therapist or counselor if you’re struggling with stress or anxiety

The Need for Better Sleep

In conclusion, getting more sleep is essential for maintaining good physical and mental health. Unfortunately, many people struggle to get enough sleep due to busy schedules, stress, and other factors. By following some simple but effective strategies, however, you can improve your sleep habits and get the restful sleep you need.

Establishing a consistent bedtime routine, creating a sleep-friendly environment, avoiding caffeine and alcohol before bedtime, exercising regularly, and reducing stress and anxiety can all help you get the sleep you need to feel your best. While it may take some time and effort to establish new habits, the benefits of getting more sleep are well worth it. By getting the sleep you need, you can improve your mood, energy levels, and overall well-being, and be better equipped to handle the challenges of daily life. So don’t underestimate the importance of sleep — make it a priority and start reaping the benefits today.

Introduction

I recently decided to audit my home network and wanted to check for any vulnerabilities. Rather than install anything on my Mac, I thought it would be easier to just run Kali as a VM and run some scans from there. After a little research I figured I could get Kali working on UTM and after working on the configuration, I found that it runs really well.

I put this guide together to help others get Kali up and running on an M1 Mac and I’ve also added a small scan for you to use to investigate your own home network.

High-Level Steps Involved

I’m going to go into the specific steps of what you need to do in order to get Kali up and running with an M1 Mac, but if you don’t want to read through the details, the main steps are listed below.

1. Download Kali Linux for M1 Mac
2. Install UTM for MacOS
3. Configure a new Virtual Machine for Kali
   a) Linux
   b) 2GB RAM
   c) 30GB HDD
4. Update
   a) Install Spice Tools
   b) Set the resolution to 1680x1050
   c) Update Kali

Download Kali

Go to www.kali.org and hit download from the front page. You’ll then be presented with lots of different download options as Kali can run on a wide variety of different platforms.

Choose Bare Metal, then click on Apple M1. From there download the Installer which is the recommended download. By default, this should download to your downloads folder.

Install UTM — Re-install if you already have this on your Mac!

Get the latest version of UTM from mac.getutm.app. The version from the App Store is the same but costs $10, so I don’t recommend using that.

If you’ve installed it before, UTM does not currently have an update function, so download the app again to make sure you have the latest version. As you can probably guess this happened to me and my version didn’t have the Bridged network feature which you really need for Kali.

Configure the Kali VM

There are quite a lot of steps to get the VM setup, and it sounds more complex than it actually is. To make the process as simple as possible, I’ve listed all the steps below:

New Virtual Machine

Open UTM and from the File Menu, click on New Virtual Machine. You will then be presented with an option to Virtualize or Emulate. Click on Virtualize to continue.

Linux

When prompted, choose select Linux as the Operating System.

From the next screen, leave the options as default as per the screenshot below and select the Kali image file that you downloaded as the Boot ISO Image.

Hardware

I set the memory to just 2048MB rather than the default 4096 and I’ve found Kali runs fine. If you do get performance issues you can always increase this at a later date.

All of the other hardware options on this screen I leave as default.

Storage

To run Kali with a graphical desktop, the Kali website recommends a minimum 20GB HDD. I set mine to 30GB and you can always add additional drives for storage at a later date if needed.

Shared Directory

I haven’t created a shared directory with Kali, so I leave these options blank.

Summary Settings

You will next be presented with a summary of your settings, which should be similar/almost identical to the screen below. Click Save and you will have created your virtual machine.

Networking

I initially wanted Kali on my home network so that I could run a few vulnerability tests internally. If you want to use Kali for the same purpose, then you want to change the networking to bridge mode.

From the UTM home screen, select your Virtual Machine and then click the settings button in the top right of the window. Then Click on the Network and change the mode to Bridged, then click save.

You’re now ready to install Kali on your Virtual Machine!!

Installing Kali

Once you power on the virtual machine, you will begin the installation process. I use the graphical installation with all the default options The only real time you have to interact is to create a user acccount that you will use in Kali (you must rememer that username and password!)

If you need help with the installation process, please referer to the offical guide here: https://www.kali.org/docs/installation/hard-disk-install/

Before you can start using Kali, there are still some configuration steps you’ll need to follow.

Configuring Kali

Eject the ISO

Once the installation is completed you need to eject the ISO from the Virtual Machine. Power off the Virtual Machine from the main UTM screen and clear the ISO.

Install the Spice Tools

We need to now install the Spice Tools for better driver support within Kali, including a better display adapter. From Kali, launch a Terminal window and run this command:

sudo apt install spice-vdagent spice-webdavd

Now change the resolution by clicking on the Kali button and clicking Settings in the bottom right corner.

Then go to Display and change your resolution; I set mine to 1680x1050.

Updating Kali

Before you start using Kali, it’s recommended to ensure you have all of the components updated to the latest version. The Kali website also recommends checking this every few weeks.

To update, open terminal and then run the following 2 commands:

sudo apt update

sudo apt full-upgrade -y

You are now all set to use Kali!

Scanning your network for vulnerabilities

Kali is a very powerful tool and whilst it’s great for ethical hacking, it can be used illegally too. I wanted to use Kali to look at the security of my own network, so my recommendation here is to only use it for your own or on networks that you have permission to work on.

If you’re starting out, you can use nmap to get a list of vulnerabilities on your network, which you should then work on addressing.

If you’ve followed my guide, you’ll have the Kali host running on your home subnet. If you’re using the address space 192.168.0.0/24 eg 192.1680.1 etc.. Then run this command:

nmap --script vulners -sV 192.168.0.0/24 > Documents/scan.txt

Tips on using UTM

UTM has taken a while for me to get used to, and here are a few of the features that have made a difference for me:

Escape Keys — Control + Option gets you out of the virtual machine
Capture Mouse Cursor Button — According to the UI holding down control + Option does the same, but this button is different. When you press it, your cursor in your main OS moves to where the cursor should be in the VM. This is huge and really does make UTM a lot more usable.

Bonus

If you found this story useful, please leave a comment, I’m trying to grow my writing and I’d like to know if this was useful. If you don’t have time for that, please at least give me a clap,or better still, hold down your mouse button on the clap to give 50! (it’s free!!!)

How to install Kali Linux on an M1 Mac for free was originally published in Mac O’Clock on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I love my M1 MacBook Air; it’s fast sleek and silent. Like many people I’m very interested in Cryptocurrency and went down a rabbit hole to see if there was any way that I could use the M1 processor to mine some Crytpo, that would actually be profitable.

Bitcoin and Ethereum were a no and so was anything else that needed GPU or ASIC mining. My research lead me to believe that the best options that I had was either Monero or Veruscoin.

I managed to get both working, but Monero was so slow to mine that it just wasn’t worth it, Veruscoin on the other hand can make you a few dollars a month and you can run the miner while working on other applications!

High Level Steps

If you don’t want to read through all of this article, then here are the high level steps of what is involved.

1. Create a Veruscoin Wallet
2. Install Homebrew
3. Install OpenSSL, Curl and Janson
4. Download CCminer for the M1 Mac
5. Change permissions on the CCminer application
6. Run CCMiner with your Pool and wallet address

Create a Veruscoin Wallet

To create your Wallet, you first need to download the Veruscoin Desktop.

Step 1: download the desktop app from https://verus.io/wallet/desktop

Step 2: Unzip the tgz file (just click on it)

Step 3: Run the dmg file to setup the wallet ( you will need to download the Verus block chain the first time your run the app)

Step4: Make a note of your wallet addres. On the wallet tab of the desktop app, click recieve and the dialogue below will appear, copy the address on that screen:

Install Homebrew and the required modules

Homebrew is a package manager for MacOS that allows you to easily install 3rd party packages which are often required for 3rd party developer applications.

Step 1: Install Homebrew

i) In terminal run

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

ii) This will install Homebrew but you need to run two additional commands

echo ‘eval $(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)’ >> /Users/$USER/.zprofile

eval $(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)

Step 2: Install OpenSSL, Curl and Janson

i) Install OpenSSL

brew install openssl@1.1

ii) Install Curl

brew install curl

iiii) Install Janson

brew install jansson

Download and setup CCminer for M1 Mac

A special version of CCminer for M1 Mac was released in August 2021. The release can be seen here: https://github.com/Mr-Bossman/ccminer/releases

To download and setup the CCminer application follow the steps below:

Step 1: Download CCminer from here: https://github.com/Mr-Bossman/ccminer/releases/download/7db3a94/ccminer

Step 2: Copy the ccminer file to the location where you want to run it from eg on my Mac I run it from here: /Users/keith/Miner

Step 3: Change the permissions on the ccminer file from terminal (you need to ensure that this path is correct for where you will run ccminer from)

chmod 777 /Users/keithmyers/Miner/ccminer

Run CCMiner

If you followed all the steps correctly, ccminer will be ready to run. To mine you need to specify a mining pool, your wallet address and a name for the miner.

I use

sudo ./ccminer -a verus -o stratum+tcp://na.luckpool.net:3956 -u yourwalletaddress.M1Baby -p d=6 -t 8

Conclusion

I’ve had a hashrate of just over 8000 kH/s which whilst it’s not enough to make you rich it is enough to mine several Veruscoins per month. Let me know if this article was useful and if you have any questions, please leave a comment.

Bonus

If you found this story useful, please leave a comment, I’m trying to grow my writing and I’d like to know if this was useful. If you don’t have time for that, please at least give me a clap,or better still, hold down your mouse button on the clap to give 50! (it’s free!!!)

How to mine Cryptocurrency on an M1 Mac was originally published in Mac O’Clock on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What is the Snoo

If you’re reading this chances are you know what the Snoo is, but if by chance you don’t …..

The Snoo is a smart bassinet that was invented by Dr. Harvey Karp. Who for two decades taught pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine. His big breakthrough, for which he was the very successful, The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Baby Sleep Longer, a 2002 book that popularized his theory of the “the 5 S’s” to calm infants: shush, swaddle, swing, suck and side or stomach. The book was an international bestseller and was followed up with The Happiest Toddler on the Block and The Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep: Simple Solutions for Kids from Birth to 5 Years.

The Snoo is not cheap, it’s a $1400 device, that also has rental options, but it is very highly rated.

The Snoo was very easy to set-up and the whole experience of putting it together was reminiscent of unboxing an Apple Product. We started our baby sleeping in the Snoo from when we first time he came home from the hospital. It worked fairly well for us at first, but it wasn’t amazing. We didn’t quite see what all the fuss was about, so

I decided to go on a mission to make the Snoo work for us!

and spent hours on forums, watching youtube videos in order to find out from other people what worked and what didn’t.

This has led me to write this article, which I wish would have existed for us when we got the Snoo. Some of these features are for the Snoo itself, others are changes we made either to the bedroom or to our routines. Once we implemented these changes, our son was sleeping for longer stretches and we really did see the value in the Snoo.

Making the Snoo Work for you — Snoo Tips and Tricks

Darkness

This is so important, and I can’t believe we weren’t aware of it earlier. For your baby to sleep through the night, unless you are VERY lucky, you’re going to need total darkness. We didn’t invest in black-out blinds, but instead just got some cheap black crepe paper off Amazon and taped up the window in our bedroom.

We also removed anything with a light or LED on it and made the bedroom a dark place. As a guide to see if it’s dark enough, you shouldn’t be able to see your hand over your face; which we were able to achieve.

Motion Limiter

The Snoo has 4 levels of motion and a motion limiter that will not go past level 2 (this is recommended for premature babies and babies under 1 month old according to the Happiest Baby) We tried removing the limiter at 6 weeks and again at 2 months and then at 3 months. For us and other people we spoke to, their babies didn’t like the extra motion and it seemed to make them more distraught. From our experience, we strongly recommend keeping the motion limiter on the whole time you have the Snoo.

The Magic Button

The Snoo has an app to control the settings and view sleep history and it’s great! There’s a pretty graph daily showing you how well your baby slept and when the Snoo had to kick in.

When putting your baby to sleep in the Snoo, DO NOT USE THE APP!!

It took us far too long to figure this out, but there is a button that you can use to start the Snoo which is far superior to trying to use the app. Once you start using this, even though it’s simple, you’ll see how much of a game-changer it is.

Burp Cloth in the Snoo Sack

From about 2 months, we’d often hear our son slamming his legs down in the night. It sounded painful, but I’m sure it wasn’t, however it did tend to keep him awake (and us too at times.) We rolled up a burp cloth and put it under his knees and it stopped him from slamming the legs down. This hack really helped us

(This is something that manufacturers tell you not to do as it can be a hazard, but we thought it was OK)

Sound Machine

One of the things that helped us and our son sleep was a white noise machine. Yes the Snoo has one, but it’s not loud enough to drown out othere noises in the house. We used a cheap one off Amazon which stopped our son from waking up from random noises in our house.

One thing that we weren’t aware of is just how much noise a newborn makes. The noise machine ultimately helped us get a better night’s sleep too.

Night Light

Although you want to keep the room that your baby sleeps in as dark as possible you are going to need a light to check in on your little one or to see. Rather than use your main light, bedside lights, or your phone (a really bad idea!) We bought this night light which proved to be bright enough to see when we needed to but not so bright that it woke up the baby.

Alexa (or any smart device)

We had some smart automation in our house already, but it was when we had our baby that it really started to make a huge difference to us. In the nursery, we have an Alexa Exho Dot and have a smart plug on our lamp and also on the white noise machine. We control these devices using Alexa which is increadibly useful when your hands are full. Having this in place when using the Snoo made an enormous difference to us.

Snoo Support

The Snoo comes with a support email and phone number for any questions you have. We used it a couple of times and it was great! We were concerened about the amount of sleep our son was getting and then later when we had questions about the motion limiter. I’ve heard from other people that they also give tips and tricks too.

Conclusion

We ended up using our snoo for the first 5 months of my son’s life. After we made the adjustments that I listed in this article, he did sleep better. He would wake up a few times in the night, but from all the research we did, this seemed normal. The Snoo gave us great piece of mind, knowing that our son was always strapped in and couldn’t flip on to his tummy.

We sold the Snoo for $900, so that works out to just $100 per month. I presonally would recommend the Snoo for any new parent, as it did help get our baby to sleep and it does help you to relax. I don’t think that it’s the miracle device for sleep that it’s marketed as, but despite that if I wouldn’t want to go through that time again without one.

Introduction

I wrote an article a few monthas ago detailing how to install Windows 10 ARM on an M1 Mac for free (using UTM and not Parallels.) Since then Microsoft released an insider preview version of Windows 11 ARM and I wanted to try it out on my Mac. There were plenty of articles showing ways of installing using a leaked ISO and the Intel version, but I couldn’t see anything for installing on UTM using the ARM version.

After a lot of research and many failed installation attempts, I’ve managed to install the preview version on my M1 Mac and it’s working! From my initial brief exploration of the new OS, it appears to run quicker than Windows 10 and is certainly enough to familiarise yourself with this new Microsoft OS.

High-Level Steps Involved

I’m going to go into the specific steps of what you need to do in order to get Windows 11 ARM up and running with an M1 Mac, but if you don’t want to read through the details, the main steps are listed below.

1. Download the Windows 11 ARM Inside Preview
2. Convert the image to be qcow2 image format using QEMU
3. Install UTM for MacOS
4. Configure a new Virtual Machine for Windows 11
   a) CPU ARM64 with 8 Cores
   b) 8GB RAM
   c) HDD at 80GB type NVMe
5. Boot Windows 11 VM
   a) Change display in BIOS to 1074x768
   b) Install Windows 11
   c) Install Spice Tools

Detailed Setup Instructions

Download the image

To download the image, you need to be a member of the Microsoft Insider Program, which is free to join. To get the image, go to this URL:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsinsiderpreviewARM64

Click Sign in and either login (or sign up) and download the image, which will be a VHDX file. This is designed to be ran on Hyper-V, but we can convert this image so that I can run on UTM using some command tools.

Install the VM Tools for MacOS

1. Install MTU Get the latest version of MTU from mac.getutm.app. The version from the App Store is the same but costs $10 If you’re not aware, UTM is a free virtualization platform that is based on the open-source platform QEMU. This is basically a GUI-based version of QEMU.

2. Install QEMU using Homebrew — Even though we are using MTU, we need to install QEMU so that we can convert the format of the Windows 11 image. If you have Homebrew installed then skip to the last point, but if not these are the steps you need to follow:

i) In terminal run

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

ii) This will install Homebrew but you need to run two additional commands

echo ‘eval $(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)’ >> /Users/$USER/.zprofile

eval $(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)

iii) Homebrew will now be installed and you can installed QEMU from terminal

brew install qemu

Convert the Image to qcow2

In order to make the VHDX image from Microsoft compatible with UTM we need to convert the format. To do this we use qemu that we installed earlier. From Terminal run the following command:

qemu-img convert -p -O qcow2 /Users/keith/Virtual\ Machines/Windows10_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us_21354.VHDX /users/keith/Virtual\ Machines/Windows10_21354.qcow2

*Please make sure you change the path in the command to the location of where your VHDX file is and where you want the output to be. You may also need to update the file name as at the time of writing this article the latest insider preview version for ARM is 21354

Create the Windows 11 Virtual Machine

This took me ages to get the right configuration for UTM to work, because it wasn’t the same process as for Windows 10. Within UTM create a New Virtual Machine named Windows 11 and change the settings listed below.

System
Architecture: ARM64 (aarch64)
System: QEMU 5.2 ARM Virtual Machine (virt-5.2)
Memory: 8192MB
Select Show Advanced Settings
CPU: Default
CPU Cores: 8
Select Force Mutlicore

Drives
Import Drive → Select Windows 11 qcow2 image
Interface: NVMe
New Drive → Removable Drive

Once you’ve made these changes, click save and you should see your virtual machine in the main UTM screen.

UTM Drivers

We need to load the drivers for UTM in Windows 11 to allow Windows 11 to access the Mac network adapters.

Download the Spice Guest Tools here: https://mac.getutm.app/support/

Add the ISO to the CD Rom Drive in UTM, by clicking on the drive then browsing to the ISO. You should now be ready to boot the virtual machine!

UTM Tips

UTM is great and as I mentioned before, it’s free! If you’ve used VMware or VirtualBox, you’ll find that it’s not quite as east to use, especially when switching in and out of the virtual environment. The main features you will need, even during set up are:

Escape Keys — Control + Option gets you out of the virtual machine

Capture Mouse Cursor Button — According to the UI holding down control + Option does the same, but this button is different. When you press it, your cursor in your main OS moves to where the cursor should be in the VM. This is huge and really does make UTM a lot more usable

Booting the Virtual Machine

Before booting to Windows 11, it’s highly recommended to change the screen resolution, otherwise the VM doesn’t always load. On 1st Boot, click immediately in the window and hold down the Escape Key to access the BIOS.

Now Select Device Manager → OVMF Platform Configuration

Change Preferred Resolution for Next Boot to be 1024x768 and then select Commit Changes and Exit

Then Exit the BIOS by pressing ESC, then hit continue and press return on the first screen.

Windows Setup

If you followed all of the above steps, then Windows 11 will now boot and you have to proceed with the setup process

Setup your region and keyboard and you’ll then move on to the Network Connection Screen. Windows 11 won’t recognize your Network card until we install the Spice Guest Tools for UTM

Click I don’t have Internet → Continue with Limited Setup → Accept the License Agreement

Then follow the prompts for your account setup and then choose your Privacy Settings (FYI I turn all the setting off, but it’s up to you.)

Windows will now finish the final phase of setup and you will be presented with the screen below. Just be prepared that it does take a couple of minutes to complete this step.

Configuring Internet Access

To get the most out of Windows 11, you’re going to need Internet access. To do this, go to File Explorer in Windows, select the CD Drive (should be d:\) and run the Spice Guest Tools Application. Once the installer has finished, you will now have a working network adapter within your VM and will be able to use the Internet.

Conclusion

This was not easy to setup, but I hope the guide was useful for you. I initially was able to get Windows 11 working using an earlier build that I had to compile myself, but I wanted to share this once the official ARM Beta was released in either a VHDX or ISO format.Windows 11 ARM is not the fastest on an M1 Mac, but it’s usable enough to get an idea of what the new Windows OS is like. Incidently, I found Windows 10 ARM to be faster than Windows 11 ARM on my Mac. I’d love to get your feedback on the guide and if this worked for you.

Bonus

If you found this story useful, please leave a comment, I’m trying to grow my writing and I’d like to know if this was useful. If you don’t have time for that, please at least give me a clap,or better still, hold down your mouse button on the clap to give 50! (it’s free!!!)

How to install a Windows 11 Virtual Machine on an M1 Mac for free was originally published in Mac O’Clock on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Virtual Machine on MacOS

I recently invested in an M1 MacBook Air laptop (this is the exact spec I have) and have been seriously impressed with how fast it performs. I moved from Windows as my main operating system almost 10 years ago, but I like to have a Windows Virtual Machine for testing and running some non Mac applications. For the past few years I’ve been using VirtualBox without any problems and I love that it’s free.

Starting out with VirtualBox

VirtualBox installs on my M1 Mac, but only lists 32bit Windows, currently there is no support for ARM Processors (the M1 is an Arm processor but you probably know that already.) I tried to install it anyway to see what happened and got this error message.

Finding an alternative Virtualization Application

After a lot of google searching, most people recommended using Parallels Desktop. I knew that it was paid software, but I thought why not, it’s a one-off cost and that will be fine. When I checked though, Parallels is subscription-based like a lot of software, so for personal use, that’s $80 per year. Now considering I use my Windows desktop once or twice a month that seemed like an unnecessary expense.

I did some more searching and eventually found a different virtualization platform that is free of charge and can run Windows 10! There is a product named UTM which is essentially QEMU with a GUI, it’s free and open-source! I went ahead, installed it, then installed an ARM version of Windows 10, and once Windows was set up it repeatedly would not reboot. I did however manage to get everything working after spending several hours working on this!

High Level Steps for getting a Windows 10 Virtual Machine running on an M1 Mac

If you’re fairly technical and just want the high level approach this is what you need to do:

1. Install UTM
2. Install QEMU
3. Download the Microsoft Windows 10 ARM Insider Build VHDX file from Microsoft
4. Convert the VHDX to qcow2 image
5. Create a Windows 10 VM in UTM and import the qcow2 image as a hdd
6. Setup Windows 10 and install the Spice Guest Tools

The instructions to do this can be found on the UTM Website, but please make sure you follow this order as it will make the experience a lot faster for you!

Step by Step guide of how I got my Windows 10 Virtual Machine up and running

1. Download and Install UTM — Get the latest version of UTM from mac.getutm.app. The version from the App Store is the same, but costs $10
2. Install QEMU using Homebrew — Even though we are using UTM, we need to install QEMU so that we can convert the format of the Windows 10 image. If you have Homebrew installed then skip to the last point, but if not these are the steps you need to follow:

i) In terminal run

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

ii) This will install Homebrew but you need to run two additional commands

echo ‘eval $(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)’ >> /Users/$USER/.zprofile

eval $(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)

iii) Homebrew will now be installed and you can installed QEMU from terminal

brew install qemu

3. Download Windows 10 ARM insider version from Microsoft — We need to use the ARM version of Windows 10 which is currently only available using the Insider Program. There’s no cost for this or for joining the program but you do need to sign up.

i) Join the Microsoft Insider Program — Visit the site and sign up with an account if you don’t already have one.

ii) Download the Windows 10 ARM Insider Preview— This will download a VHDX image file that we need for the Windows 10 VM

4. Convert the VHDX Windows 10 image file to qcow2 image — In order to make the VHDX image from Microsoft compatible with UTM we need to convert the format. To do this we use qemu that we installed earlier. From Terminal run the following command:

qemu-img convert -p -O qcow2 /Users/keith/Virtual\ Machines/Windows10_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us_21354.VHDX /users/keith/Virtual\ Machines/Windows10_21354.qcow2

*Please make sure you change the path in the command to the location of where your VHDX file is and where you want the output to be. You may also need to update the file name as at the time of writing this article the latest insider preview version for ARM is 21354

5. Create your Windows 10 Virtual Machine — there is a guide to do this on the UTM website Just make sure you follow all the steps throughly and Windows 10 should install. I configured mine with 8GB RAM (my Macbook Air has 16) and it works OK.

Tips on using UTM

UTM has taken a while for me to get used to, and here are a few of the features that have made a difference for me:

Escape Keys — Control + Option gets you out of the virtual machine
Display Resolution — Make sure you follow the guide from the UTM site; install the Spice Tools and change the display settings, this made a huge difference for me
Capture Mouse Cursor Button— According to the UI holding down control + Option does the same, but this button is different. When you press it, your cursor in your main OS moves to where the cursor should be in the VM. This is huge and really does make UTM a lot more usable

Conclusion

UTM is not as fast as VirtualBox and doesn’t seem to be as robust, but it does work! I’ve been able to use my Windows 10 Machine in full screen mode and so far haven’t had any problems. If like me you want to have a Windows 10 VM on your M1 Mac without spending money on Parallels, then I believe this is a great solution.

Additional Articles

Since writing this article, Microsoft have now released Windows 11 for ARM on the Insider Preview track. You can read my guide to how to install Windows 11 on your M1 Mac

If you have an iPhone and care about security and privacy, then I strongly encourage you to also read my Top iPhone Security and Privacy Tips

Bonus

If you found this story useful, please leave a comment, I’m trying to grow my writing and I’d like to know if this was useful. If you don’t have time for that, please at least give me a clap,or better still, hold down your mouse button on the clap to give 50! (it’s free!!!)

How to install a Windows 10 Virtual Machine on an M1 Mac for free was originally published in Mac O’Clock on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hardening your iPhone

We give people a device that is always connected to the internet, can be used to purchase almost anything, yet we give them little guidance about how to secure it?

Are your credit cards stored on the phone? Passwords to websites? Any information you would not want other people to see? If the answer is yes, then please read on..

Most people take physical security pretty seriously. They have locks on their doors and windows. Some people have alarms and cameras to keep their home protected. They keep their valuables hidden away. When they leave they lock the door.

The iPhone which at the time of writing this is the most popular phone in the world has some great security features, but a lot of people don’t configure them. It’s as if they don’t take their digital security nearly as seriously as their physical security. In an age when most crime is digital and it’s only likely to increase. This needs to change.

What this guide is for

Many people seem to be under the impression that they have little to hide in terms of privacy, but how would they feel if someone was going through everything on their phone or if they didn’t have their phone anymore??

This guide has been put together to share recommended security and privacy settings that help to increase the security of your iPhone and also help to reduce the amount of tracking. Feel free to comment, give feedback and share, these are by no means conclusive but this does give a good baseline for hardening your iPhone.

Physical iPhone Security

Camera Covers

Apart from keeping your phone physically safe. One of my security recommendations is to make sure that your front facing Webcam is covered. Should your phone ever be compromised than a physical block on the camera will prevent anyone being able to use the camera.

To do this I strongly recommend these stickers from Silent Pocket. They allow you to keep camera is covered up and you can remove the sticker and re attach it if needed. If you do choose to use facial recognition, this functionality still works with the camera covered.

iPhone Case

I would never recommend using an iPhone without a case. Yes the phone may look more aesthetically pleasing, but naked iPhones do not bounce and they tend to be expensive to repair once Apple Care Expires. I also believe that repaired phones never seem to work as well as the original, but I have no hard evidence to prove that.

My case of choice is the Otterbox Defender which I know at $60 is expensive, but the level of protection is unreal. I’ve dropped my phone countless times on walks and runs and the screen has never smashed.

Auto Lock

When you’re not using the phone you should have it set to lock. If it’s unlocked and somebody was to pick up your phone, then they would have full access to the phone and it’s contents.

This setting is under settings → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock

Passcode

There are a number of changes that I recommend for the passcode, which many people don’t put in place. I’ve spoken to people with 4 digit passcodes of 1111 or 1234 who really don’t think that’s an issue. If you’re serious about security, then please take note of the changes below.

Alphanumeric Code

Your iPhone will default to having a 6 digit passcode, yet many people set this to 4 digits for ease of use. DO NOT DO THIS! Set the phone to use a custom alphanumeric code. A passcode can be guessed and there are now commercial “security” products that can emulate your iPhone (see later in this article) and crack the 4 or 6; this does not work for an alphanumeric code.

The Passcode Settings can be found at Settings → Face ID & Passcode (or Touch ID & Passcode on device with a home button)

1. Click Change passcode and you will be prompted to enter your current passcode
2. Press Passcode Options at the bottom of the screen
3. Click Custom Alphanumeric Code
4. Enter a phrase or set of characters that you will remember

Locked Settings

By Default Apple allows you to access some of the features of the iPhone even when locked. This is a convenience feature and in the past there has been exploits found (and then patched) using these. My recommendation is to turn all of these off as you don’t need them and you should only be able to use the features of the phone when you unlock it.

Scroll to the bottom of the passcode section and turn off all the settings in the screen below.

Erase data with failed passcode

I recommend to turn this on, if someone does have your phone and tries to guess the password without using software, your data will be erased and protected. It just adds another layer of security, should your phone end up in the wrong hands.

Priority Settings

Update your Phone

Apple provides regular security updates through their software updates and they are free.

One of the easiest ways of securing your phone is by keeping up to date with the built in IOS update schedule.

Apple test updates for several months with volunteer Apple enthusiasts to ensure that the updates are stable.

IOS support Automatic updates and I recommend to turn that on. Change this in Settings → General → Software Update

Turn Off Siri

Siri is listening to you at all times, why do you need this? What if someone could exploit this and listen to you at all times. What if Siri accidentally recorded your private conversations and those conversations fell into the wrong hands. You don’t need Siri in your life and you’ve been functioning fine without it.

There are two places where you have to make changes to turn Siri off. First go to Settings → Siri & Search

Further down on the same screen there are settings for Siri to learn from your Apps. This has the potential (but is not confirmed) of monitoring your app usage and if that data was ever to be leaked for that information to fall into the wrong hands. I recommend turning off learn from App Clips and Show in Search and Suggest App Clips for every App.

You also need to go to another area in settings to disable Siri; goto Settings → Accessibility → Siri (this is right at the bottom)and turn off all the settings as per the screen shot below:

Limit Location Services

By default no app should be tracking you. Also no app should really need to know your precise location. Try thinking about all that information about you being stored, places you’ve visited, food you’ve ordered, your vacations, where you take your pictures, even your frequent locations. Not every app needs your location. My recommendation is turn off all of them and try and use the app without location.

If you really need to use an app for location then use the setting allow while using and turn off precise location.

To make the change go to Settings → Privacy – > Location Services

Keep Location Services On and then click on each app on the screen and change the settings. For the majority of apps you should be setting the Allow Location Access to be never. So in the example app below this is a very buying app, I can just manually enter a zip code, I don’t need them to track my location.

There will be some apps that won’t work without your location. For those apps, only set Allow Location Access when using the app and deselect use my precise location. (Please note that if you are using a mapping app you may need ro enable precise location but by default turn it off.) I use the app below to find electric charging stations for my car so for this to work I do need location services, but I only want this on when I’m using the app, there’s no need for the app to track me when I’m not using it.

Stop Safari Autofilling everything

Having Safari remember all of your username and passwords is a bad idea and having it autofill your credit card information is even worse. If somehow your phone was compromised, lost or stolen and someone had access to the phone. They could potentially access a lot of your personal information. I just don’t believe that the benefit outweighs the risk.

Prior to IOS 12 my default was to use a third party password manager and then turn off autofill passwords. My recommendation now is to turn on this feature BUT only with a third party manager. My personal preference is LastPass (which costs me about $30) a year, but you can also use 1Password, mSecure, Enpass, Keeper and many others. Even if someone did manage to get hold of your phone, the chances of someone accessing your passwords with a 3rd party manager are incredibly unlikely.

Once you’ve chosen, setup and installed your Password Manager, change the Autofill settings at Settings → Passwords → AutoFill Passwords

Make Sure AutoFill Passwords is selected, but Allow Filling From should be set to the Password Manager, not iCloud Keychain

Do not use Apple Pay

Seriously just don’t turn it on. Use your card instead. You don’t need Apple Pay, there’s no reason to allow your phone to be a credit card. It may be convenient and there have already been documented Apple Pay Phishing Scams. Also if you were to set this up on an unsecure network you have chances of your card details getting intercepted. Apple touts this as a more secure method of payment than using your card, personally I think it’s only a matter of time before there will be some kind of Apple Pay hack.

Share My Location

Do not share your location! This setting allows other people to track your movements and is not recommended. I do realise that you may want to do this with family members, but I personally do not advocate it. Without meaning to, you can easily end up sharing your location with all of your contacts. More importantly if someone was able to track your location without your consent, it would be a serious invasion of privacy and could be used maliciously.

To change this setting, go to Settings → Find My iPhone and turn off Share My Location

Important Settings (not as high as the priority Settings)

Track your activity

In IOS 14, apps now have to ask you if they can track your activity in other websites and apps. I always say no! I’m very against this level of monitoring and have issues about how this is used for marketing in general.

Whenever I install a new app, that asks, I always hit Ask App Not to Track

Allow Network Access

This is a new setting in IOS 14, where you have to give your approval for network access. With the exception of my Sonos app, I’ve not had any issues with apps not working with Network Access turned off. As good practice, always do not allow network access. If somehow your iPhone was compromised this setting could allow people to access devices and information on your home network.

Cleaning Up All Apps

If you want to clean up your existing apps, you need to check each one from settings and make sure sure the following settings are changed:

Allow tracking is set to off
Allow Network Access is set to Off

It is laborious to check each one individually, but I highly recommended to do it.

Hardcore Settings

The Settings outlined above will make your iPhone more secure than most people and will certainly reduce your risk off data loss through a lost, stolen or compromised phone. You can however take things to another level, but a lot of these settings will make the phone less ‘friendly’ to use.

No Wifi

If you’re going for extreme privacy then the recommendation is not to use any wifi network at all. Only use data to access the internet. This may seem crazy, but it will reduce your footprint in terms of logs when and where you connect to the internet from.

Faraday Case

When you’re not using your phone and when you’re traveling, use a Faraday case. This special bag will block your phone’s signal when traveling and prevent it from logging in to cells whilst you are moving around. This is the case that I have

Turn off iCloud

This is the most extreme setting to turn off, but will ensure that you have more privacy than the built in iCloud settings. For a lot of people this is not practical as it will disable iMessage, iCloud for photos, iCloud backup, find my iPhone and many more services. In essence everything will be stored on your phone unless you specify some other cloud storage.

I personally do not do this, but if you really are going for an extreme privacy model, then this is the recommendation. To do this Go to Settings → Click your name at the top where it says Apple ID → Click Sign Out (at the bottom of the page)

From the next screen, click turn off, then follow the prompts on the next screens and confirm sign out again when asked.

Recommended Security and Privacy Applications

Lockdown

This free and open source app blocks trackers, ads and some spyware when you browse and within apps. It works as a firewall and has a paid option too (I use the free one.) Read more about it here or download it from the app store

Proton VPN

If you’re on public wifi or working on some sensitive content, I recommend using a VPN. My VPN of choice is Proton VPN they are based out of Switzerland, are a no logs service and they have a great IOS app which makes the service very easy to use.

Brave Browser

IOS now supports the ability to change your default browser and my recommendation here is to use Brave. It’s a more privacy focused browser, is fast and has built in ad and tracking blockers. You can download Brave for IOS here

Conclusion

Of all the commercial smartphones, the iPhone is often considered to be one of the safest. This does depend a lot on which settings you change and the points above do help to harden. your phone.

Times are changing though, law enforcement and now some public schools in the US now posses devices that have the ability to crack passcodes. What this means is that potentially the bad guys will also have access to similar or the same tools, so the need for iPhone privacy is perhaps greater than ever before.

A lot of people believe that the iPhone cannot be infected with Malware and is a secure device, but just recently 36 journalists were hacked and their phones compromised My view is to be paranoid, imagine if your phone was infected, what could someone access, this is why I don’t add passwords or my credit card on my phone.

Recommended iPhone Security Settings was originally published in Mac O’Clock on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I wanted to prefix this article to say that this is for informational purposes only. If you are accessing the BBC Iplayer you need to have a TV license and accessing it outside of the UK may not be entirely compliant with their terms and conditions. I put this together as I wanted to prove that it was possible, but you can use this at your own risk

The Problem

I left the UK 7 years ago and whilst I do miss friends and family, I also miss British TV. The humor and quality of the show is very different to that of the content here in the US. This Christmas I decided that I wanted to watch a few shows and wanted to see them on my tv. Using a decent VPN provider I have been able to connect to UK services like iPlayer and All 4 on my laptop or IOS devices.

Initially I tried streaming this content to my TV using Apple TV, but the quality was not good enough. The audio would skip and the frame rate just wasn’t good enough. It then dawned on me that if I could connect a streaming device to my network but somehow have that device connected to a UK VPN then I’d be able to get British content. After some trial and error I came up with a solution.

The Solution

To make this work, I created a seperate network that connected to my existing network. The new network used a router that supports Open VPN. This meant that I would be able to make a connection to the UK using the router and any devices that connected would think they were in the UK. To make this happen I used:

A Rock Express USB Stick

GL.iNet GL-AR150 Travel Router with VPN

A premium VPN Account that supports regional content and Open VPN*

Implementation

Router Config

I plugged in the WAN port of the travel router to a free LAN port on my router and then connected to the default wifi on the travel router. I went through the wizard using a web browser and configured the travel router in router mode and was able to browse the internet straight away.

I then went to the VPN Client section and uploaded my Open VPN Conviguration File. I selected the profile, entered my credentials for the VPN and connected straight away.

Roku Account

Connected to the wifi of the travel router I used my laptop to create a new Roku account with a UK address. It asked me for payment information, but allowed me to use Paypal so a UK credit card was not needed. I made a note of the username and password and then went on to connect my Roku Express to the TV.

Roku Express

I plugged this into a spare HDMI on my TV and then went through the setup process. When asked for a network connected this to the travel router wifi and I logged in using the newly made UK credentials. Once everything was setup I was presented with a list of UK streaming apps on the TV.

Additional StreamingAccounts

To use the UK services such as iPlayer, All 4 and ITV player you will need an account. The accounts are free an need to be tied to a UK address. To set them up if you don’t have them, connect a device to the Travel router and then setup an account at

iPlayer — https://account.bbc.com/

All 4 — https://www.channel4.com/register

ITV Player — https://www.itv.com/hub/user/signup

The Experience

The App interfaces were a lot slower than when I was in the UK, but the services did work. The router only has a throughput of 150mb/s so I do wonder if the experience would be better with a better router, but I’ll test that at a later date. From the apps I tested, this was my experience:

BBC iPlayer

Menu browsing was slow and loading the content took longer than in the UK. Picture and sound quality was great, no issues at all.

All 4

The default menus timed out and gave an error, which made me wonder if there was just too much latency with the request. The search worked and I was able to watch programs with no issues at all. I was also able to add content to my favorites.

ITV Player

This service worked fine with no issues at all

Conclusion

I’m going to try this with a better router to see if the experience is improved, but wanted to share this with anyone else who is interested. I now have the ability to watch programs from back home on my TV which is something I miss! If you have any questions on setting this up or any feedback please let me know.

When setting up the travel router I’d also highly recommend changing the SSID and password of the wireless network.

As stated at the beginning of the article this is entirely for informational purposes only!

*If you really don’t know who to use then message me and I can recommend a few companies