Now that I use Sidecar to turn my iPad Pro into a second screen I got a bit tired of going to the display preferences to change where my iPad was physically sitting each time. Since I am hot desking I have to put it on the left or the right and that changes almost daily.
Originally, I thought I would fix this would Keyboard Maestro but it can’t change the display layout and it is too hard to automate it to do the preferences.
I found a stack exchange thread with a link to displayplacer. This is a command line tool that can be installed by homebrew which will do the job of display preferences.
After following the instructions to install the tool you can capture your current screen configuration and then run a command to switch.
I created a Keyboard Maestro macro that monitors when the iPad is plugged in and then prompts me to turn on sidecar and choose the side of the desk where the iPad sits.
My first job out of college brought me to New York City to setup around 10 G4 cubes as web servers for an Ecommerce company. These beautiful machines fit well on the racks.
20 Macs for 2020 #13: Power Mac G4 Cube (#8) – Relay FM
There may have never been a Mac more aligned with Steve Jobs
— Read on www.relay.fm/20macs/13
Was trying to copy a few sheets in the writing application Ulysses to the clipboard. I found what to do but it is confusing. You think the normal copy function would work by selecting multiple sheets:
Instead I found that if you try to share the sheets as if you were publishing them you have an option to copy to the clipboard:
The “A” graphic here stands for “Copy to Clipboard”
The “A” icon in the above screen shot is the option you should use to get the contents of multiple Ulysses sheets in to the clipboard. You can choose the format in the format section so that you don’t have to take the text as Markdown.
After clicking the icon in the share sheet just switch to another app and paste the text.
My friend suggested I try to mount the CDs in a virtual machine so that that started me down a new rabbit hole.
To sum up Apple dropped support for reading HFS in Catalina.
I knew that Parallels could do Mac OS X virtual machines so I thought it would be simple to create.
Turned out to be more complex than I thought and took a lot of google searches so let me try to summarize here.
First Parallels can install but it needs the original installer. Lots of articles tell you to get the older operating installer from your purchase history but if you are on a brand new MacBook Pro 16 inch those old installers won’t show up because your computer doesn’t support them.
It turns out that Apple has a TechNote for most of the older operating systems. I chose the TechNote for macOS Sierra: How to upgrade to macOS Sierra. You will find a download link for an installer around step 4.
Download the disk image using the download link on this step
Once you have this on your drive there is still more to do.
In Parallels go to File > New.. to bring up the installation assistant. Originally I tried to find this disk image from the option “Install Windows or another OS from a DVD or image file” but that didn’t work.
The image file you just downloaded can’t be recognized with the middle option.
Parallels had a support document on installing Mojave that for some reason I didn’t quite understand so one support email later I had clarity on what needed to be done.
You want to scroll all the way to the right on the below screen:
Start by installing macOS Catalina off a recovery partion.
First you need to create a virtual machine based off of Catalina. This is just a temporary virtual machine that allows you to get to the older operating system installer.
Go through the motions of setting up the Catalina operating system.
Once you setup the Catalina virtual machine you have to install the “Parallels Tools” on the Catalina operating system. That takes place from the Actions menu. The VM will be restarted and you can then see shared folders between your real Mac and the VM.
Then it is best to quote directly from the tech support email because this is what gave me the lightbulb moment:
Transfer the installmacosx.dmg to the new virtual machine that is created.
Open installmacosx.dmg and run the .pkg file inside the virtual machine.
Once the installation finishes, the app file will be generated in the virtual machine’s Applications folder.
Move the .app file to the Documents folder of your Mac and run Parallels Desktop Installation Assistant. The installation .app will be recognized automatically and you will be able to proceed with creation of virtual machine.
To sum up the above you just want to use the temporary Catalina virtual Machine to run the installer. Once you get the OS installer application you can drag it back to your real Mac using the Parallels shared folders.
Installer extraction completed
Now you create a new virtual machine all over again but this time you can choose the “Install Windows or another OS from a DVD or image file” and it will find the installer.
Parallels automatically recognizes the installer.
Now just go through the process of installing a Mac virtual machine.
Link your VM to the physical CD reader
Once I just made sure that the CD reader was linked to the Virtual Machine, I was able to copy my files to a folder and enjoy some old college memories of long forgotten documents.
Just bought a new MacBook Pro 16 inch and when I was trying to transfer files over from my previous Catalina MacBook Pro, I wanted to create a direct connection. There is a way to put your computer into Target disk mode if you have a thunderbolt 3 USB-C cable.
I held down the “T” key when I started up the old computer and then plugged in the Thunderbolt 3 USB-C cable.
You can also use the startup disk control panel to enable this.
No Permission to access my Documents folder
Though I was able to navigate to my home folder and documents folder on the other computer, I was denied access.
Tried reaching the internet for an answer but nothing came up so thought I would write this post on how to get yourself access to these folders.
My first instinct was to use the Get Info command on the folder. When I did that the obvious thing was to change the “everyone” name access to “Read & Write”.
This didn’t work nothing changed. Wanted to jump to the command line to fix this but after going for a walk I realized I hadn’t tried clicking the the plus button below the Sharing and Permissions section.
Once I authenticated as an admin user and then click the “+” button, a dialog box came up to ask me to assign a user.
Just select the user on your current computer. Another line will be created in the Sharing and Permissions section.
A new line will be created with your username of your computer and you can change the kind of access from read only to write access.
Now if you look at the screen shot above you will see the “Do Not Enter” visual is removed from the icon and if you double click on the folder you can open it no problem. Your access control lists (ACL) are all setup and you may copy any files you want.
I had a problem with my MacBook not expanding my text replacement shortcuts. In looking at the settings everything was turned on and should have been working. It had a simple solution to fix I just had to add a new text replacement and this fixed it.
