iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 10/08/2026

"Wi-Fi is not a Wi-Fi interface" - wot?

010

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 06/08/2026

Which GitHub app do I need to open today

Screenshot of GitHub apps on macOS showing how difficult it is to see the difference between the apps when both are in dark mode. This hows the GitHub Copilot app and the GitHub Desktop app both with almost identical icons with a dark background and the GitHub icon

100

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 31/07/2026

Ha! It's a literal pancake menu

Screenshot showing the github.com top left header with the hamburger/pancake menu with a pancake in place of the standard 3 horizontal lines

000

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 29/06/2026

Feels like I might be playing with fire.

Screenshot from my Unifi Gateway showing a message "IPv6 Detected on WAN1. IPv6 is available from your ISP". An "Enable" link is on the page which will take the user to a screen to enable IPv6

020

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 02/04/2026

What’s turdburger - the lesson to take away from a fossil fuel energy crisis is to double down on fossil fuels? www.theguardian.com/australia-ne... #auspol

‘Dig and drill’: Angus Taylor says Australia should fast-track mining and coal projects amid fuel crisis

261

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 16/03/2026

Good news - I no longer need to sell the house

101

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 15/03/2026

Biggest Redback I’ve ever seen. Will need to move this out of the garage in the morning

Close up photo of an Australian Redback spit. The spider is hanging upside down with its abdomen towards the camera. A large and bright red colouring on the abdomen is visible

221

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 11/02/2026

macOS Finder has issues on occasion not remembering last location and dimensions. I wrote a shell function that you can add to your ~/.zshrc file and run as needed from Terminal. It resets Finder back to defaults and a re-configures a few preferences. gist.github.com/aaronparker/...

Code listing for fixfinder shell function for macOS

011

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 29/01/2026

Weird issue on my Mac with 570GB of disk unaccounted for - unable to determine what was consuming the space with any analysis tool. Reinstalled macOS and restore via Time Machine and I have my free space back. Side note: Time Machine is amazing. First time I've completed a full restore like this.

010

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 27/01/2026

This is heavy... it's 7:30 and it's still over 40C

110

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 20/01/2026

Having a phone number in 2026 is a liability

A smartphone call log shows four recent calls from flagged numbers labeled as spam, telemarketer, or fraud, with timestamps ranging from 12:21 pm to 12:56 pm.

110

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 09/01/2026

Every frame makes for a lovely desktop wallpaper

000

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 06/12/2025

Windows 11 supports web auth at the sign-in page (post provisioning) so anyone can have a simplified password-less auth sign-in experience learn.microsoft.com/en-us/window...

Windows 11 sign-in screen showing the Entra ID web-sign in dialog box

120

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 25/11/2025

Local real estate doing some dodgy data collection

Flyer from a real estate agent - the flyer has the following printed on it:

SANTA CLAUS
IS COMING TO TOWN
With Christmas just around the corner, I'm so excited to let you know that this year we have made direct contact with Santa Claus!
Now, Santa has sent me on a mission with an important question for you. We would like to know if any of your kids would like to receive a personalised letter from him, Mrs Claus and all the reindeers and elves wishing the little ones a Merry Christmas?
If you would like your kids to be surprised with this letter, please provide your details in one of the following ways and Santa will deliver these letters personally addressed to your children in December:
Your Full Name:
Your Child's Full Name:
Address:
Phone:
Email:
Take a photo of this form filled out and send it to us by Friday 12th Dec:

010

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 19/11/2025

Can confirm that you can sign into a on-premises Azure Arc enabled Windows Server desktop with Entra ID only credentials #AzureVirtualDesktop

A screenshot of a Remote Desktop session via the Windows App on macOS, connecting to a Windows Server 2025 desktop via Azure Virtual Desktop. The target VM is hosted on an on-premises Hyper-V server.

140

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 28/10/2025

Well that ain't great #Microsoft - flagging your own site via SmartScreen

A screenshot of Microsoft Edge on Windows showing the site https://m365.cloud.microsoft as a dangerous site as flagged by SmartScreen. The error is shown in a full page red background and white text

230

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 20/10/2025

"Windows back up"? Or is it Windows Backup?

Screenshot of the Windows 11 desktop showing the "Windows back up" application and shortcut

A screenshot of the "Windows Backup" for Organizations documentation

A screenshot of the "Windows Backup" and Restore settings from the Intune portal

130

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 12/10/2025

Yeah, nah... What version of Terminal are you using?

100

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 17/09/2025

If I were born 40 years earlier and ended up as a high school science teacher. Also, seeing me with a beard is extra funny because I can’t grow one

AI generated photo of me as a man in the 1970s with a brown suit and tie, and a beard

010

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 11/09/2025

macOS 26 Tahoe final looks to be done

000

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 08/09/2025

The funniest 1/2 second in cinematic history #JohnCandy

Reaction shot from Trains, Planes and Automobiles. John Candy has a surprised look on his face, looking through a taxi window with people in the background, but it's inside the airport

110

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 07/08/2025

The Apple TV icon look real wonky on macOS 26, with the "Liquid Glass" style

Liquid Glass highlights on icons in macOS 26 visually skew the icon so that the top and bottom edges of the icon don't look parallel

000

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 30/07/2025

Simple colour output in Azure Pipelines by using $PSStyle with PowerShell 7.2+ learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powers...

Screenshot of an Azure Pipelines run showing log output with lines in green, blue/cyan and yellow using the $PSStyle variable in PowerShell

012

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 08/06/2025

How is Australia’s worst prime minister in decades, who blindsided one of our allies, among the King’s Birthday recipients? #auspol www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Morrison, the prime minister from August 2018 until May 2022, is also among the 14 people appointed companion of the order, with his leadership in Australia’s contribution to Aukus singled out for mention by the council overseeing the honours.

3298

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 30/05/2025

Urgh. Over an hour to install Windows updates and language packs

Screenshot showing a Packer build of Windows 11 on Azure taking over an hour to install Windows updates and a language pack

000

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 14/05/2025

I alway forget to keep an eye on the next milestone - #Evergreen passed 9m installs

Screenshot from powershellgallery.com showing the Evergreen PowerShell module at 9,157,317 installs

172

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 02/05/2025

GitHub Copilot has done an amazing job translating a GitHub workflow to an Azure Pipeline. What a time saver

Side-by-side view in Visual Studio Code of a GitHub workflow and the Azure Pipelines version, automatically translated by GitHub Copilot

000

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 24/04/2025

No one was recommending the #Azure portal to their friends, so Microsoft has finally changed the feedback question

Screenshot from the Azure portal showing the question "How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with portal.azure.com?" with responses for "Very dissatisfied to Very satisfied

050

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 20/04/2025

Why does it take over 30 minutes to install a language pack via the LanguagePackManagement PowerShell module on an Azure VM (even with Premium SSD)?

Screenshot of a Packer log via Azure Pipelines showing a time duration of approximately 34 minutes to install the en-AU language pack

110

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 01/04/2025

Can anyone explain why a largely current install of Windows 11 24H2 fails to install language packs with Install-Language, but then install the latest cumulative update, and reboot it then works? This should work out of the box without updates, surely.

Windows 11 language pack install via PowerShell failing with "Install-Language : Language pack or features could only be partially installed. ErrorCode: -2147009295. Please try"

Windows 11 system about dialog showing the OS build number 26100.3476

Windows 11 language pack install via PowerShell succeeding

010

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 31/03/2025

I think my virtual disk is melting

A screenshot from Windows 11 showing a VMware Virtual NVMe Disk with a temperature value of 11759°C

100

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 25/03/2025

Did Broadcom break the VMware Fusion updater? The direct download is also gone

Screenshot of VMware Fusion on macOS attempting an update and receiving the error message "A certificate error occurred while connecting to the update server"

310

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 23/03/2025

How many search boxes does Windows 11 need? 3 might be the magic number, but the only one that's needed here is the one in the Start menu (Default Windows 11 24H2 install with the latest updates)

Default Windows 11 22H4 desktop showing the Bing search bar on the desktop and the default Start menu and taskbar, both with a search bar showing

020

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 18/03/2025

Meanwhile macOS users using the Windows app to connect directly to Windows machines

181

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 11/03/2025

Microsoft released a Copilot app for macOS. Includes hotkey support for a quick search feature apps.apple.com/au/app/micro...

Screenshot of Microsoft Copilot on macOS

Screenshot of the Copilot quick search box on macOS

000

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 07/03/2025

How many pixels in 8 x 5K displays?

100

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 07/03/2025

The new Mac Studio can drive 8 displays, so let's see how much the ultimate spec looks like - you might need to sell both kidneys. Here's a Mac Studio with a 32 core M3 Ultra, 512GB RAM, 16TB SSD & 8 x Pro Display XDR displays with Nano texture glass & stand @ $115,733.00 AUD (or $73K USD)

Shopping cart on apple.com listing a Mac Studio with a 32 core M3 Ultra, 512GB RAM, 16TB SSD & 8 x Pro Display XDR displays with Nano texture glass & stand @ $115,733.00 AUD

010

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 06/03/2025

Anyone using a USB-based fingerprint scanner on Windows ARM64? ELAN or any other manufacturer? I can't get Windows to find or load a driver for these devices. Works fine on x64.

022

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 24/02/2025

#Evergreen passed 8m downloads while I wasn't looking www.powershellgallery.com/packages/Eve...

181

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 22/02/2025

iStatistica has a new plug-in for monitoring Apple M-series chips with some interesting info. Not sure about the power draw reporting though, but some nice insights www.imagetasks.com/istatistica/

This image is a screenshot of a system monitoring tool displaying the performance metrics of an Apple M4 Pro processor. The interface shows detailed information about the CPU and GPU cores, including their current operating frequencies and power draw.

At the top of the image, there is a status bar with the following information:

M4
2.7 GHz
338 MHz
52°C
1000 rpm
SSD NAND I/O
42°C
Power Supply 1
40°C
Below the status bar, the main section of the interface is divided into two parts: CPU Cores and GPU Cores.

CPU Cores:

The CPU section lists 10 cores, with some cores labeled as "Idle" and others showing active frequencies:

Core 1: 1.31 GHz
Core 2: 1.4 GHz (E)
Core 3: 1.54 GHz (E)
Core 4: 1.48 GHz
Core 5: Idle
Core 6: Idle
Core 7: 2.32 GHz
Core 8: 2.15 GHz
Core 9: 1.81 GHz
Core 10: 2.7 GHz
Core 11: 2.18 GHz
GPU Cores:

The GPU section shows the GPU operating at 338 MHz with a multiplier of 20.

Power Draw:

The power draw section indicates a total power consumption of 0.22 W, with the breakdown as follows:

CPU: 0.14 W
GPU: 0.08 W
NPU: 0 W
The image provides a detailed real-time overview of the performance and power consumption of the Apple M4 Pro processor, which can be useful for monitoring system efficiency and performance.

010

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 20/02/2025

Majorana 1 Explained: The Path to a Million Qubits www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSHm... < that's not your grandfather's computer. With all the crap that's going on in the world at the moment, this could be really exciting for the future

400

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 14/02/2025

How many macOS installers can you fit on one disk? (More than this, I ran out space). Also check out the totally unnecessary animation when unplugging the disk

110

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 13/02/2025

Sorta, kinda works on macOS too

Screenshot of Spotlight on macOS searching for the term "winword" and showing the results, including a listing for Microsoft Word via Siri

010

Aaron Parker @stealthpuppy.com · 11/02/2025

Pages casually consuming more than 50% CPU with a 3 page text-only document open. 🤦🏼‍♂️ Back to Word it is then...

Screenshot of Activity Monitor on macOS showing the Pages process consuming 52.6% CPU

000