68 13 - 26 November 2019
Don’tupgradetomacOSCatalinaif youuse32-bitprograms,becausetheywon’tworkaccesstomy 30 yearsofresearch,butI’ll
needtocheckthe7,500-plusindividuals
manuallyafterthetransition.There’sno
64-bitsoftwareformyscanner,either,
andit’snoteventhatold.
Thebiggestdisappointment,however,
is thatPicasadoesn’tworkatallany
more.I knowthatGooglenolonger
supportsit, butI’veneverfoundany
softwareI likeasmuchtoreplaceit.
I havemorethan50,000photos,many
of whichI havescannedovertheyears,
so theydon’tincludeanymetadata.
Someofthemarefromthe19thCentury.
I havesavedtheseusingfilenamesthat
includea dateandtheimagenumber
(forexample, 20191013 – 001.jpg,whichis
the year,month,dayandcountnumber).
Theyareallstoredin a date-named
folderstructureonmyharddrive.
NowI needtorecoverthefaceand
geotaggingandthecomments,andto
sorttheimagesbyfolder.Doyouhave
any suggestions?
DeanArmstrong,viaemailA
Unlikepreviousversionsof
macOS,Catalinawillnotrun32-bit
applications.There’snowayofgetting
aroundthis,soyouhavenochoicebut
to use64-bitsoftware.It’stoolatenow,
but rememberfornexttimethat
operatingsystemupgradesarenot
compulsory,andyoucankeepusing
yourcurrentOSforaslongasyoulike.
Mojavewasclearlyyourbestoption.This fortnight Roland has been getting online insurance quotes because all his policies seem to expire at the same timeAsk the Expert
Q
I use Windows 10 and Linux Mint
on separate laptops, and have set
up Cloudflare (1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1) as the
DNS server on both. My Firefox and
internet connection settings are
identical on both computers.
When I occasionally run DNS
Leak Test (dnsleaktest.com) on the
Kaspersky-protected Windows laptop,
nothing untoward crops up. However,
after a few minutes online with the
Linux Mint device, the DNS server
changes from Cloudflare to Google.
I’ve checked the location of the
Google IP address, and the server
(74.125.47.12, six in total) appears to
be operated by Google Translate,
which is located in Brussels. I have
never used this service, but that aside
I can’t understand how Google canwasn’ta regular
computer and
one said it
was Google
Translate. It ’s
very odd if
dnsleaktest
.com is
reporting that
you’re using
Google
Translate as your DNS server.
We found some other Linux
users who were experiencing
unusual DNS behaviour, and they
fixed the problem by opening
/etc/NetworkManager/
NetworkManager.conf
and changing the line dns=dnsmasq
to #dns=dnsmasq. This fix may
work for you, too.Stop DNS settings
changing
NETWORKING
presume it has the right to override
my DNS settings.
Brian Lucas, via emailA
It’s very unlikely that Google is
overriding your network settings,
unless you have installed a program that
specifically does that. The IP address
you mention does indeed belong to
Google. Some reports we found said itUpgrading is always risky, so making
a backup first is essential. SuperDuper
(www.shirt-pocket.com) clones the
Mac’s internal drive to a USB drive that
you can then use to boot it up (hold
down Option after switching on). This
lets you run your Mac as it was before
you installed Catalina, so you can use
apps that don’t work with the update or
restore your Mac and undo the upgrade.
Assuming you don’t have a backup
and can’t restore Mojave, try Family
Tree Maker (www.mackiev.com/ftm),
Mac Family Tree 9 (from the Mac App
Store) or Heredis 2019 World (also in theMac App Store). All three are 64-bit
programs that work in Catalina.
Have you imported your photos into
Apple Photos? This supports face
detection and geotagging, and you can
even search the contents of photos.
Type ‘dog’ into the search box, for
example, and it shows all photos
containing dogs. Google Photos is even
better, and recognises people, places
and objects in photos. Storage is free
and unlimited for photos of up to 16
megapixels. Install Google Backup and
Sync (bit.ly/gbs488) on your Mac to
upload your photos automatically.Find out who’s
receiving your
DNS requests with
DNS Leak Test