HomeKit Weekly is a new series focused on smart home accessories, automation tips and tricks, and everything to do with Apple’s smart home framework. Getting into HomeKit can be a very costly endeavor when you start replacing locks, lights, and other accessories with connected versions. Fortunately, turning your old garage door opener into a Siri-connected entrance doesn’t require replacing your existing garage door opener. Instead you can upgrade your existing garage door opener from $70-$170 depending on your needs....

Friday morning, my HomePod arrived; Friday evening, we had a small party. And the belle of the ball was the HomePod. We had a group of friends round for drinks and pizza. That seemed a good opportunity to put HomePod to the test – both to see what others thought of it as a speaker, and to allow friends to try Siri control … The tl;dr version is that HomePod may just be the best party gadget ever!...

Everyone’s a hopeless romantic to someone or their stalker. How I Met Your Mother defined this as the Dobbler / Dahomey Effect. Unless you enjoy all of the romantic things your stalker is doing, you’re genuinely a little put off. For fans of the show, hopeless romantic Ted Mosby is on a grand quest, but along the way he does a lot of questionable things that according to the viewers may or may not actually be romantic....

While the Australian taxation system can be hard to understand, we are here to dissect the criteria for land taxation in New South Wales, help you learn how to calculate it, and most importantly, teach you how to pay for it. Read on as we answer “ How much is a land tax in NSW?” and much more. Who Pays Land Tax in NSW? The annual land tax is paid to your state or territory government in Australia if you own a property....

The first trailer for Hobbs & Shaw dropped today, and this movie looks like it is going to try to top the Fast & Furious films from which it spun off in every way. The film stars Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham as their respective characters, Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw, who must begrudgingly work together to bring down Idris Elba’s character, Brixton. There is plenty to unpack in this trailer, which crams so much action and personality into just under three minutes that it requires more than a single watch....

The IDMS was established to prevent the use of false and stolen identities, provide law enforcement with tools to help identify persons of interest, and enable other government agencies to deliver services. This was established after the political heads of Australia’s states and territories unanimously agreed to it in 2017. It comprises three components, with one being the documentation verification service (DVS), a national online service used to check in real time whether a particular evidence-of-identity document that has been presented is authentic, accurate, and up to date....

In 11.4, Apple enabled the ability to create a HomePod Stereo Pair, letting users pair two HomePods together to create a more immersive sound. After updating to 11.4 (a guide is available here), you’ll have the ability to pair two HomePods together. Follow along as we walk you through how to create a HomePod Stereo Pair. HomePod: How to create a Stereo Pair Make sure your HomePods are updated to 11....

Apple has published its HomePod environmental report where it breaks down energy consumption and details how its low power mode will work. Apple also explains the environmental impact of HomePod based on greenhouse gas emissions and materials used. In summary, Apple says HomePod consumes less energy than an A19 LED light bulb (via MacRumors) when playing audio. That’s based on volume output set at 50% which Apple says consumes between 8....

Logan is now in theaters and marks the apparent end of Hugh Jackman’s long and illustrious journey as The Wolverine. It may be hard for some to remember a time when a whole year passed without an incredible superhero film hitting theaters, but this was the world that Jackman entered. He now leaves the role, and the superhero film genre, in an inarguably better place. This is due in no small part to his earnest, vulnerable, and heartfelt performances as one of the fiction’s most hard-as-nails heroes....

Talk show host Conan O’Brien briefly appeared in an episode of How I Met Your Mother. Unlike previous guest stars, O’Brien didn’t actually speak and instead simply served as a background extra - and there’s an interesting story behind his walk-on role. How I Met Your Mother had its fair share of guest stars over the CBS sitcom’s nine-season run. The series featured guest roles from actors like Bryan Cranston, Joe Manganiello, Kyle MacLachlan, and John Lithgow, and musical artists like Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Nicole Scherzinger, and Jennifer Lopez....

Downloading your complete Apple Music collection to your iPhone or iPad is surprisingly difficult, even on the redesigned and simpler iOS 10 update. There’s no obvious ‘download all’ button and iCloud Music Library moves all syncing to iCloud, not iTunes, so you can’t just shuttle your library from your Mac to your iPhone or iPad. If you like to keep a local music library, this is a problem you will likely face when you upgrade to a new iPhone even if you restore from an encrypted backup using iTunes, which is considered the most efficient method....

At WWDC 2019, Apple announced that HomeKit would soon be supported by routers from Eero, Linksys, and Charter Spectrum. Thus far, none of those companies have actually rolled out HomeKit support to their routers, but new evidence today suggests Eero support could be coming soon. Eero today released an update for its Eero and Eero Pro routers, bringing them to version 3.18. The release notes for the update are relatively unexciting, highlighting “improvements to client data accuracy” and “system stability improvements....

According to a parliamentary inquiry, Millenials could see lower housing prices as supply catches up to demand in a few years. Younger generations are currently paying 7.3 times more for their first home than their parent’s generation. The housing market has grown highly competitive as a result of record-low interest rates and a fast-growing population. On Tuesday, Crystal Ossolinski, the Treasury’s Macroeconomic Division head, told a parliamentary committee that housing supply had not kept up with population growth....

About Making The Grade: Every Saturday, Bradley Chambers publishes a new article about Apple in education. He has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students. A few months ago, I discussed why textbooks never took off on the iPad....

If you have been installed the Beta Version of macOS Catalina, which is Pre-Release operating system software. However, there were many users who didn’t like the macOS BETA. This is because the BETA version was having a lot of Bugs and issues that might interrupt and ruin your experience. That’s why users like to opt-out because they don’t want to receive further software updates on their BETA version. Today we are going to help you get out-out of receiving a beta version of macOS Catalina....

How I Met Your Mother had absolutely massive shoes to fill as its first episode was broadcast only a year after Friends had ended. HIMYM was a show about a group of five young people living in New York who faced many trials and tribulations over the course of 9 years. Ted, Marshall, Lily, Robin, and Barney were the best of friends and were always there for each other whenever someone was going through a rough time....

With Disney’s acquisition of Fox all but confirmed, the truly dark side-effects of this monumental deal have come under scrutiny. In December 2017, The Walt Disney Company announced plans to acquire 21st Century Fox for around $52 billion in stock. This deal would give them control over some of the most iconic and historical assets in the modern American entertainment industry, including 20th Century Fox’s film and TV studios, the Fox Networks Group and its assorted cable networks such as FX, and stakes in National Geographic and Hulu....

I like to think I’m pretty handy with a camera, but am definitely an amateur when it comes to video. Unlike some of the talented videographers we have here on the team, my idea of video editing is to throw a bunch of clips into iMovie, add cross-dissolves between them, drop in a music track and call it good. But even that level of video editing can be surprisingly time-consuming, which creates something of a dilemma....

Today’s best deals include HomePod on sale from $190, plus Apple Watch Series 5 up to $70 off, and Samsung all-metal flash drives. Head below for all that and more in the latest 9to5Toys Lunch Break. Apple HomePod packs AirPlay 2 and HomeKit control Trusted seller Mac Sales is currently offering Apple HomePod in both colors from $190. Usually selling for $299, today’s offer is $10 under the widespread Black Friday discount and comes within $2 of the best we’ve tracked throughout the preceding holiday season....

We know two ways that a system call can be invoked: int 0x2e instruction: used mainly in older versions of Windows operating systems, where the system call number is stored in the eax register, which is then called in the kernel. sysenter instruction: the sysenter instruction uses the MSRs in order to quickly call into the kernel and is mainly used in newer versions of Windows. The SSDT table holds the pointer to kernel functions, which are used upon system call invocation either by “int 0x2e” or sysenter instructions....