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Purchasing a burner phone in the UK provides an excellent solution for those looking to maintain their privacy while in the USA in these interesting times. Whether you seek to avoid hefty mobile contracts, cut costs, or just keep your personal information hidden from the prying eyes of an authoritarian regime, a burner phone can serve multiple purposes. This article will cover various purchasing methods, considerations for ideal use cases, and potential limitations of burner phones in terms of privacy and usability in the United States. If keen on acquiring a burner phone with no traceability we'd recomment taking cash to a Computer Exchange store and choosing whatever device takes your fancy there. Our choice would be an iPhone 7 or a Samsung Galaxy S7 both at around £85 unlocked. Armed with a Pre-Paid SIM card with roaming which you can buy before you go or on arrival you are all set!
TL;DR – The process of acquiring a burner phone involves understanding your needs, determining suitable purchasing options, and keeping in mind the level of privacy that you expect. Evaluate retailers, stay informed about prepaid carriers, and consider more cost-effective alternatives like burner apps.
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Read more: Your Quick Guide on How to Buy a Burner Phone Before Visiting the USA
Which Macbook in late March 2025? - Apple have launched the M4 Macbook and MacBook Pro range, Not so many bargains around this week. There are lots of 8 GB/256 GB machines around but they won't do for development work or other heavy workloads. To protect your residuals when the time to resell or trade in 16GB or more and 512 GB or more will be far more desirable.
TL:DR – My pick of the week then is an Apple Certified Refurbished 13-inch MacBook Air Apple M3 Chip with 8‑Core CPU and 10‑Core GPU 16 GB/512 GB in Midnight for £929 from Apple UK. If you need a Pro then this Macbook Pro (14-inch, M1, 2021) at £890 on Amazon might be interesting because it is a Pro equipped with the M1 Pro chip and was £1899 new. Always read the fine print and compare prices widely before deciding.
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If you read my article Yes you can install Windows 11 on an unsupported processor chip you'll know I bought this total bargain Lenovo ThinkCentre 710q chiefly because it consumes low power, has all Lenovo's attention to detail for maintenance and spare part replacement, has a nice tiny form factor, and a reasonably modern architecture. The Think Centre supports secure boot, and has a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0. This one came with a DVD rw drive and now sports USB-C with DP video support, 16 GB of memory and a 1 TB SSD. The 6th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-7700T 'Skylake' processor and the Intel HD 530 graphics are end of life.
TL:DR — There are loads of potential upgrades for these ThinkCentre 710q tiny workstations including WiFi which I didn't need and they are as cheap as chips. Plenty of parts are available, all very easily user replacable with ease by following Lenovo's documentation or just common sense. This is pretty much maxed out now and very very useful.
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Read more: Unexpectedly great hardware updates to my ThinkCentre 710q
Introduction and a Warning About Illegal Harm
The UK Online Safety Act is a transformative piece of legislation designed to make online spaces safer for users. Platforms that fail to comply risk hefty fines, reputational damage, and, in extreme cases, criminal liability. Illegal harm online, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM), terrorist content, and hate speech, is now under tighter scrutiny.
The regulations are international in their reach and apply to online services that have links with the UK, regardless of where the provider of the service is based or registered.
TL:DR – The deadline has passed for completing a risk assessment. You should still complete one immediately because if your business provides an online service (a service made available over the internet), such as a website or an app, the Act may apply. The Act introduces new regulations for online service providers to help keep people in the UK – especially children – safe from illegal and harmful content online.
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Read more: UK Online Safety Act Compliance: What You Must Do Now
Backing up data is essential, but keeping multiple drives in sync and ensuring file integrity can be challenging. macOS Sequoia includes several built-in command-line utilities to manage, compare, and verify files effectively. Theres also Carbon Copy Cloner which you should just go ahead and use without hesitation. Its been around for decades, not quite as long as the 50 year old Unix diff utility but nevertheless it has earned its reputation as a rock solid graphical drive copying / cloning utility for macOS.
TL;DR – The best macOS tools for syncing and comparing backup drives include rsync for file transfer, diff for directory comparison, shasum for integrity checks, and fswatch for real-time monitoring. Automating these processes with cron - an old school but ubiquitous utility that runs commands or shell scripts periodically at fixed times, dates, or intervals can ensure backup reliability.
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Read more: Best macOS Terminal Commands for Syncing and Comparing Backup Drives
VMware’s decision to make VMware Workstation and VMWare Fusion free for all users has opened up new possibilities for developers, IT professionals, and businesses. This move simplifies virtualisation, allowing users to run and manage virtual machines (VMs) on Windows and Linux without additional costs. One of the biggest advantages is the ease of moving virtual machines between different platforms, particularly from macOS (using VMware Fusion) to a Windows or Linux PC running VMware Workstation.
TL:DR – Moving virtual machines in VMware virtual machine format is easier than ever between Intel based Mac; computers, Windows PC's and Linux desktops.
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My Mac mini (2018) is still supported, say Apple. But I seem to have reached a crossroads with it. You see, it won't update to macOS Sequioia 15.3.2 no matter what I try, and I have tried quite hard - As Apple continues to enhance its software offerings, compatibility issues seem to be increasing. I wonder if its a sign that it is time to depart the Intel Mac owners club for good and lose my last liferaft to x86 virtualisation on macOS? Thats quite a big call for me to make as I have a few virtual machines that I do really still need. But I have one faithful old Xserve 3,1 which could be able to run them still. So this isn't really a howto post more a lament for Intel macOS and perhaps the start of a long goodbye to it. This post investigates the specifics of these installation failures and outlines potential troubleshooting steps.
TL:DR The macOS Sequoia 15.3.2 update, while introducing crucial security patches, is not installing smoothly for this Mac Mini 2018 Intel user. Comprehensive troubleshooting steps which normally alleviate common issues don't seem to be working for me so far. In the end I had to completely erase it and revert to macOS Sonoma. So, I'm done with this Mac Mini and its off to Computer Exchange...
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Read more: Intel based Mac Mini (2018) Sequoia 15.3.2 update failed
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