Nik Nak’s Daily Teaser — 14th November, 2020.

14th November, 2020.

Right … 

I think we can safely say I’ve upgraded to macOS 11 Big Sur.

Unusually?   The actual version number is 11.0.1: rather than 11.0, which is what I was expecting.

Why?   I couldn’t tell you.

Secondly?   The actual process was a touch more fraught than earlier updates I’ve done.

For starters, the Big Sur Installer weighed in at some twelve gigabytes: two to two and a half gigabytes bigger than the Catalina installer.

It also needed to have a lot more space to do its job: I had to delete various unused apps, photos and songs to make space.

And transfer my Photos and Music libraries to an external drive to give the installer room to room.

Then shift them back once Big Sur was installed.

The process — once that was done — was nerve wracking … but as relatively painless as ever.

Thus far … ?

This far, Big Sur’s a pleasure to use.

For starters, it sees the return of the Mac start up chime: people have been complaining about that, since 2016’s release of macOS Sierra.

The wallpaper is loud: but easily replaced through System Preferences: I’m using a dynamic shot of the Big Sur Coast.

The biggest differences?

Are in the immediate look and feel of user interface: there’s a lot more corners, the alerts are a lot funkier, and somehow, pictures seem a little sharper.

Some of the apps are a little laggy: but not much more so than under Catalina.

The menu Bar changing 

Handbrake, vlc and Transmission — some of my most used non-Apple apps — seem to be working well.

Granted, I’ve not used MakeMKV to tip anything as yet: I won’t know how it’s working, until I do.

Keynote, Pages, GarageBand, Numbers and iMovie have also been updated.

I haven’t used Keynote or Numbers, as yet: but judging by iMovie and Pages, they should work well enough.

GarageBand I’ve not used.   I’m not exactly musical!

So far?

Big Sur’s a pleasure to work with, especially on my Intel-based iMac.

Were I one of the new, ARM based Macs?

I couldn’t tell you what my experience would be like.

I’m possibly going to start having to save up for one of them, though: much as they did with the shift from Motorola chips, to PPC, and PPC to Intel chips?

At some point, they’ll stop supporting this machine.

Here’s hoping.

~≈¥≈~

Let’s move on, shall we? Yesterday’s Teaser saw Olga*, Trevor†, Mum‡, Edith^ and Debbiª putting in their answers: with Olga, Trevor and Debbi scoring five out of five, Mum on four and Edith on three.

Let’s see how everyone does with today’s questions, shall we?

Here they are, along with the How To, License and video …

Q1)        14th November, 1973, saw Princess Anne marry Captain Mark Phillips.   They divorced in which year?  

Q2)        14th November, 1948, saw the birth of Anne’s older brother.   Who is he?

Q3)        14th November, 2008, saw the first meeting of what: the G-20, the UN Security Council or the Latin Monetary Union?

Q4)        14th November, 1952, saw the UK’s first official Singles Chart published.   By which musical magazine?

Q5)        Finally … ?   14th November, 1940, saw the Luftwaffe bomb which English city?

Here’s yesterday’s questions and answers …

Q1)        13th November saw the birth of actress, Whoopi Goldberg.   In which year?

A1)        1955.

Q2)        Her break out role — as Celie Harris — was in which 1985, Steven Spielberg film?

A2)        The Color Purple.   (I’ve still never seen it: it’s supposed to be quite the thing …)

Q3)        She plays Guinan in which version of Star Trek?

A3)       Star Trek: The Next Generation.   (Whoopi was inspired to become an actress, in part, by seeing Nichelle Nichols as Uhura in the original series: famously telling her mother, at the age of nine, “… there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!”)

Q4)        Whoopi played Oda Mae Brown in which 1990 film?

A4)        Ghost.

Q5)       Finally?   2020 will see Whoopi appearing in CBS All Access series, The Stand.   Who wrote the book the series is based on?

A5)        Stephen King.

Here’s a thought …

“I have a gift for enraging people, but if I ever bore you, it’ll be with a knife.”

Louise Brooks, November 14, 1906 – August 8, 1985.

And a song …

Today’s questions will be answered in tomorrow’s Teaser.

Feel free to share today’s video Teaser.

Have a good day.

*        Wakeboarding … ?   That look’s … interesting … Olgaº!   It’s a shame I can’t swim, that might be worth trying … !   Would translating it as sleepy surfing work?   Or wouldn’t the pun work in Spanish?   Either way, there’s an old quote from Terry Pratchett: about how English is the sort of language that hangs around darkened corners, mugging other languages.   It sounds like Spanish is the same.   (Is Spain planning a language Police?   France does, I think … !)

From what I’ve learnt, Olga?   The banks track new notes by serial number: in batches.   Their records would tell them A000000 to A999999 went to Barclays, B000000 to B999999 went to HSBC.    The banks would track smaller batches going to their regional branches, the regional branches to local branches, and so on.   If you find, say, B111999, on a dead body, and work out it’d gone to a branch of HSBC in Penistone: all PC Nuñez-Miret would need to do is see who took out money from the cash machine … 

The thing the victims?   Is STILL going on: West Yorkshire Police have issued this … 

†        Well … I learn something new, every day, Trevor!

‡        Hello, Mum!

^        Trusty, hey, Edith?   It makes it sound like a geyser, if you’ll pardon the comparison!

ª        That he was, Debbi, that he was!   Oh … I tweeted you, last night: Big Sur’s got some nice sound effects.

I tell you what, @debbimack, they’ve added a few new sound effects!

They’s been a lot of jumping around, doing the upgrade, but — so far — #bigsur #macOS is a nicer experience than Catalina

— Paul Downie (@Cuddy2977) November 13, 2020