The results OS X’s dictionary return are, as James Somers puts it, “pedestrian”: The way I thought you used a dictionary was that you looked up words you’ve never heard of, or whose sense you’re unsure of. You would never look up an ordinary word — like example, or sport, or magic — because all you’ll learn is what...

Nice social icon font set by @drinchev. Full instructions on how to use can be found on the Mono Social Icon font website. Mono Social Icon font

For information about how the EU’s ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling came about, and the implications for press freedom, there’s a more than adequate explanation on the Guardian website. The privacy ruling by the EU Court of Justice has seen many of the Guardian’s articles ‘disappeared’ from Google searches within the...

When I was setting up my new iMac, and got around to organising my Time Machine back-ups, I realised there was something missing. Three years ago when I last set up a new Mac, I wanted to exercise greater control over my back-up system, so it took place when I wanted it to, not according to Time Machine’s fixed...

Apple Mac Mini: packs a powerful punch. Photo: Apple When Apple launched the Mac Mini in 2005, I dismissed it as the entry-level Apple machine it was intended to be, and continued to buy increasingly expensive machines, like my iMac and MacBook. But the iMac is 2010-old and the MacBook dates back to 2011, and things...

John Naughton, writing for The Observer: The aim of the engineering community is now to put enough cryptographic treacle in the works to make the effortless superiority of the NSA et al a thing of the past. From now on, the spooks will really have to work for their money. For more on privacy and corporate...

Turkish-style chicken kebabs: charred to perfection Every now and then I get the urge to replicate food I buy from a takeaway at home. One of my favourite takeaways is fresh chicken kebabs, cooked over coals with onions, peppers and mushrooms, and served in a warmed pitta bread with chilli sauce. The ‘cooked over...

Anolon Professional hard anodised nonstick 12-piece cookware set You should always listen to your mum. When I was in my 20s and leaving my parents home for the last time, my mum told me that I should invest in the best set of pans I could afford. (Of course, she said other, more important, things. This was only one...

Perfect Yorkshire puddings every time You can’t help but love the Yorkshire pudding, a welcome addition to any roast dinner. I like my Yorkshire puddings big, and slightly crispy. The overall texture, though, should be quite soft. This recipe makes eight large Yorkshire puddings. When I say large, they’re about 10cm...

In an article for The Sweet Setup, Nick Heer rates VSCO Cam (App Store) and Snapseed (App Store) as being among the best photo-editing apps for the iPhone. He also warns: [T]rust your eyes. Rely on VSCO Cam to enhance the best qualities of an image, not to replace them. It’s really, really good at doing just that....

One thing I’ve noticed since publishing The great Unread for iPhone yesterday is that I’m much more likely to open the ‘All unread’ items feed than I was when I used Reeder for iPhone. In BU (Before Unread) times, I tended to browse my feeds by tag. I have about a dozen tags, but usually only view the four that...

I thought I could resist the urge to buy yet another RSS app. I couldn’t. There has been a lot of hype around in recent days about Unread, a new RSS reader for the iPhone. I gave the increasingly isolated and underused Reeder (App Store) one last look two days ago, then opened up the App Store. In fact, hype is...