Xcode and macOS Version Compatibility

Xcode and macOS version compatibility coverIf you develop on macOS and target Apple ecosystem (iOS, watchOS, tvOS, macOS), you will need Xcode as the Integrated Development Environment (IDE). You will also need Xcode or Xcode toolchain when compiling third party software on your machine. You can download Xcode from App Store if you somehow don’t have it installed on your machine. However, note that every Xcode release comes with minimum macOS version requirement that must be satisfied. In this article, we provide you with macOS version compatibility for all Xcode versions released by Apple, starting from Xcode 10. To build the compatibility table, we extracted and compiled data from Xcode release notes and Xcode system requirements .

Continue reading

How to Rollback Homebrew Update

How to rollback brew updateIf you use Homebrew to install software on macOS, you may notice that Homebrew may perform version upgrade prior to installing the software. If you wonder why, deep inside the core logic of brew, the main command line tool of Homebrew, there is a subroutine to perform automatic update when brew detects that the version installed on your machine is older than the latest available version. The automatic update is not usually a problem when your machine runs on latest macOS version. For older versions of macOS, however, automatic brew update can break things including brew itself. In the event that brew stops working after unexpected update, is it possible to rollback the update? In this article, we will show you how to undo brew update and bring back your system to the last working configuration.

Continue reading

How to Install Node JS 22 on macOS High Sierra

MacOS is an operating system that often becomes OS platform of choice for developers. With a vast ecosystem built around Apple products and services, developers may find it so convenient to use macOS for developing software. Besides convenience felt through the rich user experience, high usability, and intuitive UI, macOS has been known as a stable OS platform due to tight integration between the hardware and software. If you use macOS running on MacBook to develop software, you can experience first-hand how stable the system is. System freeze due to faulty driver or OS issue is quite rare. The machine just works and it works fine for years.

But here is actually the actual issue. After few years using the machine, you realize that Apple has officially dropped the support for the macOS version running on your MacBook and at the same time you can not upgrade to the latest macOS version because the hardware powering the MacBook is not supported anymore in the latest or newer macOS version. As Apple drops the support for the OS, software vendors also drop the support for their software products. Now, you’re left with software that still works fine but you cannot upgrade to the latest or near latest version of the software through its official distribution channel. This is since there is no newer version in the software release that supports the version of macOS you currently use.

Continue reading

SSL vs TLS Protocol Differences and Comparisons

As we move the communication and various aspects of life online, ensuring the secure communication through the internet has only grown in importance. It is essential, as for example, that the financial transactions executed on the web and apps are secure and untampered. Security of the networked communication and the Internet in general ensures the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data.

To achieve such security, security protocols for the Internet have been developed and evolved as internet becomes more pervasive and connects more people, applications, and systems. One of the security protocols is Secure Socket Layer (SSL), which is often used to refer to Transport Layer Security (TLS). The SSL/TLS protocol specifies a set of rules for establishing secure communication between two endpoints, a client and a server, over non secure network.

Continue reading

How to Install and Configure Nginx on Ubuntu 20.04

If you dabble in website/backend development, devops, or system administration, Nginx may not be a foreign name. This piece of open source software was first released in 2004 as an alternative to Apache web server. The main focus of Nginx was on performance and stability, primarily achieving a web server that could handle a lot of concurrent connections and hence addressing the C10K problem. The popularity of Nginx has been growing steadily since its initial public release. It has evolved to become a top choice in web server category. According to W3Techs, there are more than 43% of global top 10,000 websites and 44% of global top 1,000 websites running on Nginx in February 2022.

Continue reading