I had similar experience as well. They upgraded their client and server software something like 5 years ago which put forward different restrictions on character set used for password. I have used a special character which was no longer allowed. When I needed to restore files after disk failure I could not log in either in the app or on the website. The customer service was useless -- we are sorry, your fault. I have lost 1 TB of personal photos due to this as a paying customer. Never trust Backblaze.
Hi I like it very much, it reminds me of Firefox Focus (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-browser/...). Please add optional toolbar buttons to force web page text size increase/decrease like in MacOS Safari. You can consider it an accesibility option for us older people with worsening eyesight. Thanks!
Anyone else noticed that the Preview app was tinkered with again? Now it lost the ability to open PostScript files. This feature worked from the very beginning of Mac OSX up till Monterrey. The command line PostScript tools are still present though.
Also all Ruby gems with native extensions stopped working for me, even the pre-installed system ones.
Thank heavens someone else noticed that Preview lost its ability to open PostScript. I occasionally use Preview to render manpages as PDF so I can print them out and using the Ventura beta made me think it was just a bug. It's a shame that it is missing in the final release -- I even filed several Feedback reports with basically no response. I am not sure at all what utility there is in removing features from Preview.
My current workaround is to use my 2013 Mac Pro that's stuck on Monterey to do so, but eventually that's going to kick the can...
Removing features like this is just plain stupid. Preview was one of the most valuable apps for viewing files preinstalled on every Mac. While I can understand that raw PostScript files are rarely seen nowadays, Encapsulated-PostScript is still used, i.e. for graphs in scientific software and publications.
To add an insult to injury, the Monterey era trick still works. Change the file extension from .eps or .ps to .ai (Adobe Illustrator) and QuickLook will happily display the file. It will even offer you to "Open in Preview" which then fails.
No, it’s simply inconvenient for a really small group of people. People who are probably tech savvy enough in an hour to write a script to use Ghostscript to convert every postscript or eps file in their library to pdf.
I spent nearly 25 years in print publishing tech (up until 2015) and it was rare for the last 3 years of my tenure in that industry to see any postscript source files for anything. The industry that postscript was built for moved on nearly 10 years ago.
Inconvenient, I'm sure. Stupid, I doubt. Maybe the postscript interpreter they were using just contained too many bugs to be worth maintaining any more.
I’m also still on Monterrey, but I just discovered that Skim supports viewing both PostScript and eps files (I assume that functionality also works on Ventura), so that could also be a solution if you don’t want to switch between machines for viewing ps files.
I am one of those people who still have a lot of PostScript files. I have many scientific papers from college in my collection. I know I should convert them to PDF, but it sucks that they quietly removed support for a file format that's been around for a long time.
They did somewhat similar “feature releases” and “more” to the iWork suite many years ago. It probably still is a shadow of what it once was but TBH I stopped checking and moved on. Ironically preview had been filling some of its shortcomings for me. Yikes.
And then after 4 years of backing up (and paying) you find out that BackBlaze silently changed their password requirements and you can no longer log in. Happened to me, lost 2 TB of backed family photos. Their response: "you remember your password wrong". Fortunately I had backups on secondary external drives as well.
My password was correct but included accented characters. They changed the acceptable characters silently in their clients sometime later. After my backing machine finally crashed I was not able to log in again. Unfortunately the support guys were not able to do anything about it.
The problem in Slovakia is that the delivered vaccines are in the form of a lyophilisate (pulver), one dose per vial. The vaccine described in Lancet was in liquid form, five doses per vial.
The parent did not say it is a mafia app. But it's use really is strongly associated with mafia in Slovakia. That for sure will never make it very popular choice for people in Slovakia don't you think?
You can look for yourself, the only thing which pops-up on google when you search for threema and slovakia are the murders and mafia dealings with government officials and lawyers.
BTW the Threema encryption was not broken. The messages were extracted from an unlocked iPhone X of the main mafia operative (Kočner).
Slovakia is not exactly the largest country in the world and to extrapolate from 'Slovakian mobsters have used it' to 'this app is associated with the mob' is a bit of a stretch.
It may only be hard to convince non-mob Slovakians to use it, but that's a relatively insignificant number of people on the larger world stage.
> 2) healthcare providers in developing countries will effectively get a low-cost "upgrade" to their existing equipment
I am VERY pessimistic about this. I don't know how well you know medical equipment providers but this will never be sold as a low-cost "upgrade" to existing machines. It will be sold with new equipment only and with a hefty surcharge as an option enabling higher patient throughput.
There is no real money in upgrades. Most equipment lasts only 8-10 years anyway.
Your point is well-taken. I agree that such an upgrade is unlikely to be sold as a standalone product. What is more likely to happen is that it will be included for a nominal fee as an add-on to a new purchase or service agreement.
To understand how this would work, we need to 1) understand the lifecycle of big-ticket medical equipment (ME) and 2) recognize that ME products are at the core of multiple revenue streams. The first point has to do with the renewed/refurbished market for used/last-generation ME. The second point has to do with the service agreements/warranties/support contracts that are needed in order to keep the ME operational. These factors combine to yield a sales process with multiple negotiating dimensions.
How these negotiations actually play out depends on whether you're a deep-pocketed healthcare system or not (it sucks, but it's true). If you can afford it, you'll have lots of ways to sport the latest and greatest ME without breaking the bank on any single purchase. Some of your old stuff will end up in the renewed/refurbished ME market, thereby offsetting your total cost of ownership (either directly or indirectly). Once used ME hits secondary markets, the customer profile changes: these customers are not looking to keep up with the Cleveland Clinics and Stanford's of the world. They're looking for long-term value, so reliability and longevity is top priority - and this is where I see software "upgrades" coming into play. Some of these customers may already have one or two MRIs, while others may not. In either case, the software "upgrade" becomes a differentiator that speaks directly to the priorities of these customers.
TL;DR - Today, healthcare providers with limited financial resources (e.g. those in developing countries, rural areas) are incentivized to purchase capital equipment through "discounts" on service/support. In the future, we're likely to see software "upgrades" (such as those made possible by FB's work) bundled/leveraged as an incentive. The net effect is the same: extend the clinically useful lifespan of medical equipment (MRIs in this case) and greater access to medical technology around the world.
