Checking which macOS apps rely on Rosetta

August 8, 2026 | 3 comments

Do you keep seeing this notification pop-up on your MacBook? Do you know what it means? Do you know what to do about it? If not read on to find out.

What is Rosetta and why is it needed?

Rosetta 2* is Apple’s translation technology that lets Intel Mac applications run on Apple Silicon Macs — Macs with the M1, M2, M3, M4, M5 etc. chips.

Apple changed the processor architecture of the Mac in 2020:

  • Before 2020: Macs used Intel processors, based on the x86-64 instruction set.
  • Since 2020: Macs use Apple’s own ARM-based Apple Silicon processors.

The … Read the rest

Text Expansion with Alfred

June 25, 2019 | Comment

I’ve had my MacBook Air for over five years now and by and large it is still performing pretty well. Certainly better after that time than any Windows machines I’ve had in the past would have done.

Just recently, though, I’d been having a performance problem which led me to do a root and branch check of my machine (turned out it was the Sophos Home Virus scanner). As part of this I stumbled upon the fact that Alfred can do text expansion and this left me to wonder whether it was worth having two programs sat in the background … Read the rest

Resolving “Error 1 – Operation not permitted.”

March 31, 2015 | Comment

Trying to unpack a zip file this afternoon I kept coming across the error message “Error 1 – Operation not permitted.”. When I have had this before I have just switched from the default Archive app to Keka or Stuffit Expander and all has been good but for some reason that wasn’t working on this zip file.

Then I cam across the following tip on Stack Exchange. Drop into a terminal session, change to the directory with the zip file and run this command:

jar xvf <zip file name>

It worked a treat. Give it a go next time … Read the rest

Quickly Get to Top of All Notes in Evernote

Quickly Get to Top of All Notes in Evernote

September 25, 2013 | Comment

Go to Top of Evernote All NotesOne thing that has bugged me for a while in Evernote is that there didn’t seem to be a quick way to return to the top of the All Notes list.

If you have several thousand notes and you are a long way down, perhaps because of a search, I found myself having to do some little finger dance to get back to the top.

Yesterday, quite by accident I found that if you click in the grey space either side of the “All Notes” title you magically get taken back to the top of the list.

A real time … Read the rest

Mac Folder Action Scripts and Evernote

Mac Folder Action Scripts and Evernote

May 15, 2011 | Comment

For reasons that I have yet been able to fathom the functionality levels between the Mac and Windows Evernote clients is subtly different. For example on Windows there is the very useful ability to be able to add a watched folder that when anything gets added to this it automatically gets added to Evernote. This is not an option on the Mac version. However, all is not lost using Applescript and Folder Actions Scripts it is easy to replicate this action.

I say that it is easy but that is only the case if you are au fait with the … Read the rest

Windows 7 vs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Windows 7 vs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard

November 5, 2009 | Comment

image Well to date I have upgraded two machines to Windows 7 and I have to say that the whole thing has been a pleasurable experience. Not only has it breathed new life into a couple of old machines but also I am liking the improvements that have been made. I particularly like how you can drag a window to one side of the screen and it will automatically resize to fill 50% of the screen.

However, there is been a bit of a change at Thompson Manor with the addition of the first Apple Mac machine, a MacBook Pro to … Read the rest