Category: apple

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In macOS Ventura on my M2 Mac, I found an option in the “Options…” panel of battery settings called “Optimize video streaming while on battery.” What are the trade-offs of turning this on? Lower quality video when on battery? While watching Netflix, I didn’t notice a difference, especially since I wasn’t watching Netflix in full screen. After digging into the help, I found this comment:

What is the impact on the batttery when this is turned on?
What is the impact on the batttery when this is turned on?

While on battery power, play high-dynamic-range (HDR) video in standard dynamic range (SDR), which requires less energy.

More details are provided in an HDR article. The forum posts on macOS Rumors and Reddit don’t really provide any additional information. Has anyone published any benchmarks on this? If so, please tweet them to me.

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In the past I have used the migration assistant tool to copy my files from Mac to Mac whenever I would get a new one. After almost 20 years of doing this I wanted to setup my new screaming M2 from scratch.

Automating App Installs

There are a couple command line tools that help this and I have created a bash script in github to run on the computer. Be sure to customize for your own situation.

Once this script is run on the Mac half the work will be done. The next steps below are for setting up the data.

The script and explanations below should only install M1/M2 compatible apps. Nothing on Intel.

1Password Data Setup

  1. Setup 1Password coud Sync
  2. Enable Local vaults
  3. Setup iCloud vault sync

Keychain

  1. Copy keychain file from original Mac

BBEdit

  1. Enable Sandbox Access

Spark

  1. Login to gmail account
  2. Don’t allow notifications

Hazel

  1. Register License from 1password file
  2. Give Full disk access
  3. Add back Hazel folders, sync rules with each folder and enable rules on other computers.
  4. Activate Hazel Notifications
  5. Enable App Sweep and Delete files from trash after 1 week
  6. Turn off Notifications for Files events and trash events

Bartender

  1. Register Bartender
  2. Setup bartender to hid everything but Fantastical and DayOne.

Dash App

In Dash preferences choose the Sync folder on iCloud Drive/Dash and everything is setup.

Timing

  1. Launch and setup
  2. Copy data from old computer

Freedom

Log into Freedom and make sure it is setup name device.

Fantastical

  1. Need to create new app password for iCloud calendar.
  2. Add accounts iCloud, Google, Meetup.com
  3. Set default calendar and default reminder list

Omnifocus

  1. Install Omnifocus Beta from TestFlight
  2. Copy over Omnifocus Archive to new computer
  3. Check that ctr-option-space is global shortcut

WeChat

  1. Copy chat backup to new computer.

Install What’s App Beta

  1. Download M1 WhatsApp beta.

Slack

  1. Sign into Slack Channels.

ChronoSync

  1. Setup backup

Safari

  1. Enable Extensions in Safari

Time Machine

  1. Setup backup to Synology
  2. Setup backup to external drives

Anki

  1. Sign In to sync

Discord

  1. Login

Xcode

  1. Launch and accept dialog boxes.

Visual Studio Code

  1. Enable Syncing using GitHub account

OBS

  1. Setup for Highest recording
  2. Create source for Elgato
  3. Create Source for Insta360 Link
  4. Create Source for Screen Recording

Apple Music

  1. Check Download Dolby Atmos
  1. Deauthorize previous computer or you might reach the limit
  2. Check older authorizations to free up

Finder

  1. Set finder settings to open to home directory and show external disks

Home Folder

Copy over select Home folder contents

System Settings

Trackpad speed

Increase trackpad to max speed.

Configure Shortcuts

Disable unused sharing utilities and shortcuts

Keyboard

  1. Enable Dictation

Spelling

  1. Enable Show Input Menu in Menu Bar

Extensions

Disable/enable extensions

Storage

The storage control panel lets you delete the GarageBand music creation libraries.

Notifications

Configure notifications including:

  1. Turn off notifications from calendar because I use fantastical
  2. Turn off notifications for mail
  3. Turn off sound notifications WhatsApp

Unlock with Apple Watch

  • Turn on Unlock with Apple Watch

Brave Browser

  • Setup Syncing
  • Verify Brave Rewards

Clay

  • Sign into Clay with Apple ID

Git

Set .gitconfig file to contain your commit information. 

`git config --global user.email "[email protected]"`
`git config --global user.name "My Name"`

– Create new GIT ssh key and associate it with account

Generate SSH Key

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "[email protected]"

Setup ssh to reference Keychain.

touch ~/.ssh/config
open ~/.ssh/config

Add the following to the above file:

Host github.com
  AddKeysToAgent yes
  UseKeychain yes
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Add SSH Key to Keychain

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
ssh-add --apple-use-keychain ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
gh auth login
gh auth refresh -h github.com -s admin:public_key
gh ssh-key add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Reference Articles

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Was trying to research how to create a bootable backup on a USB-C external drive under macOS Monterey. I am using a backup tool called ChronoSync, so I started to research and found a tech note about bootable backups.

No longer can you just make a copy of your main hard drive and make it bootable. You need to first install macOS on an external hard drive, according to Macworld.

The above article recommends that I format the drive as an macOS Extended format. Is that correct? I thought that we were using APFS now, and my internal drive is formatted as an APFS Volume Group.

I couldn’t test this because when I clicked “Show All Disks…” in the installer to see external drives for installation, the installer told me that I could not install on the volume I had chosen because it was part of an AppleRAID.

AppleRAID volumes do no support installing a bootable drive.
AppleRAID volumes do no support installing a bootable drive.

Looks like I will buy a dedicated backup hard drive and update this. If you have any suggestions on external drives for bootable backups, then tweet me.

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Recently was searching for a wireless charging pad that would support an Apple Watch, AirPods Pro and iPhone. There are some really well-designed stations, most that are quite pricey.

Satechi

One of the more stylish manufacturers of charging gear is Satechi. However, I balked at ordering this due to the extra shipping costs from the US to Hong Kong.

Friends say Satechi works well, but feels cheap
Friends say Satechi works well, but feels cheap

View Trio Wireless Charger With Magnetic Pad

Nomad

I found a version of this in the Wanchai computer center a while ago and this is the brand I use, but I didn’t see it the last time I walked around the computer center. Overall, it works well, though some days I wake up, and my watch has not been charged.

Using this for years it works well and just realized it supports charging 3 items.
Using this for years it works well and just realized it supports charging 3 items.

View Base Station

Belkin

After trying to find a charging pad that I don’t have to ship from the US to Hong Kong, this Belkin one seems to be the best looking and supports new fast charging methods for newer phones and watches. This is also available in the Apple Store in Hong Kong.

This seems to be the charging station with all the latest tech charging the newest tech quickly.
This seems to be the charging station with all the latest tech charging the newest tech quickly.

View Belkin BOOST↑CHARGE™ PRO 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Pad with MagSafe

All these are quite high in price, if you see a more reasonable priced version, please tweet bdeverman. Simultaneously, I’m going to be monitoring the Hong Kong Carousell Chargers & Cables category.

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Made some big changes to my photos library and need my TimeMachine on Big Sur to backup faster over the network to my Drobo.

Searched and found a few tips. First one is this command to remove process throttling:

 sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0

This still was not enough so then I also tried the renice command:

sudo renice -n -20 -p 565

To get the process id I just used activity monitor and looked for “backupd” in the Activity monitor.

Now I see the “backupd” process jumping up to as much as 50% of the CPU. Since I am on an Apple Silicon M1 I wasn’t too worried about it slowing down.

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As of this writing Google Drive’s native Mac application is not supported on M1 Macs because it is a kernel extension and those don’t run intel code on the M1 architecture.

Manipulating Files in the Finder on Google Drive when Drive is no longer a folder

As I have many Hazel rules that sort files into my Google Drive files, I have been trying to find a way to sync my files from my local folder.

I found that Transmit had support for Google Drive and I could log in to my Google Drive using that App. Then I remembered that Transmit had the feature to turn a cloud service into a local drive, however after further reading I found this no longer worked as they don’t support the Transmit Disk feature anymore.

After migrating from my Intel MacBook Pro to my M1, I tried to do some sleuthing to find where the Google Drive data was stored to see if the files were readable locally.

I found the files stored in:

~/Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS

Unfortunately, the files were not stored as a human-readable folder structure and instead seemed to be in another database format:

Google Drive storage in the Library folder
Google Drive storage in the Library folder

Syncing from Google Drive to a Local Folder

This seemed to indicate my only option was to use Transmit to sync the Google Drive files back down to my local drive to recreate the local copy of the files. One of the drawbacks of using Transmit Sync is the inability to sync the Google Docs documents like sheets.

Syncing problems down to the Local Folder

After doing the sync down to the local folder did not sync everything. I found quite a few errors of syncing down event XLS files and with the Transmit report, it was hard to figure out why.

/SZP GM/Accounting/Payroll Report/SZ Party Payroll Report - 201807.xls - Could not download “SZ Party Payroll Report - 201807.xls”.
/SZP GM/Accounting/Canceled Platinum Business MasterCard 2017-2019/hsbc-6.pdf - Could not download “hsbc-6.pdf”.

Updating my Hazel Rules

Hazel lets you change the folder with the “Relocate Folder…” option…

Hazel change of folder destination
Hazel change of folder destination

WARNING This change all my rules to use the new folder and then started to move all my pdfs that were stuck in my downloads folder since my migration to my M1 Mac.

Uploading to Google Drive using Transmit

Now that Hazel had copied my PDFs I thought the next step was going to be to upload them to transmit. Just to be careful I used the “Simulate” command in Transmit to make sure that the upload was going to work? I got some confusing results as shown in this screenshot.

Upload sync unexpected results
Upload sync unexpected results

The files that Transmit considered to be changed were not just the PDFs that hazel filed. This si where I got gun shy to complete the upload and have published this blog post to send to Panic to see if they have any advice. Will update it after.

Automating sync

If I can get the
Panic has a video about how to set up a regular sync using automator.

Other Options

I saw a link to the program Insync which claims to be able to replace Google Drive file stream but I have not tried it.

Reference

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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.

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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