What are /r/mac's favorite Products & Services?

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As I mentioned in the title. Used BetterTouchTool to customize my Touchbar and I thought I'd share it since I'm very happy with it and after a couple of weeks of not using the Touchbar I've started using it all the time.

From left to right: Public IP, WiFi name and internal IP. Status of two work servers. Displays a red X if the webserver, PHP or database is not working. Spotify artwork and current song. Next song button. NordVPN on/off toggle. Green means on. Empty space for most used emojis in certain apps like iMessage, WhatsApp and Skype. Brightness control. Volume control. Commodore 64 decoration :) long press to lock screen.

Former AASP Manger here

The 2012 (and lesser extent 2011) 13” MacBook Pro had a recall for a failure in the Hard drive flex cable

If this was taken to an Apple store / or AASP a diagnostics would be done to determine the hard drive health and then the cable.

If you do not care about upgrading to a reliable and fast SSD then at the very least you need a new HDD flex cable. But I would recommend an SSD and flex cable if you’re opening it up already.

The flex cable for the 2012 is slightly different than the one for 2011 so ensure you purchase that. Here’s one from Amazon that I’ve used for side jobs in my area:

SUNMALL 821-2049-A HDD Hard Drive w/IR/Sleep/HD Cable Replacement with Bracket Compatible with Apple MacBook Pro Unibody 13" A1278 2012 Year MD101LL/A,MD102LL/A https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D9HBKTL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_JQTZXFN9XNCA28G0C625?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

I love like everybody loves to love the open source idea, and I love it like anyone else. But The Gimp is a shitty piece of software made by bossy people with a distorted idea of what UX means that don't like to listen to user's criticism. (Downvote at will, now)

It is a "Photoshop alternative" in the Linux land for the simple reason that not a single other software exists for editing or creating images.

If you're on a Mac and not willing to pay Adobe hundreds of dollars, do yourself a favour and invest (less than) 15$ in Pixelmator

iMac first came out in 1998, and a lot of oddball products came out soon after with translucent colored plastic to grab some sales off the iMac's design and popularity. (Even today you can still find 'fashionable' hole punches using original iMac colors.) When was this TV made?

oh if anyone care the monitor is the lepow portable monitor and the mouse is the logitech pebble.

Some time ago now ABP basically sold out by taking money from the big ad companies (google, microsoft, amazon, tombola etc) to stop blocking their ads.

The tech community generally recommends uBlock Origin as a replacement for ABP.

edit: here is where ABP explain what they call "Acceptable Ads"

Can't do it, I'm afraid. You can, however, default to booting into an alternate startup manager such as rEFInd.

If you have trouble installing rEFInd, let us know which version of OS X you are running, and also copy the results of the following Terminal command to Gist so we may advise further:

diskutil list

Simply update the app from the App Store or from here to get the new icon.

As per the iOS tradition, it uses the same gradient as Messages and FaceTime, so they form a nice green trio :)

This change is suspiciously aligned with the recent WhatsApp for iPad "announcement" (well, beta-test), which makes me think they want to give better care towards the Apple platforms, possibly hiring some people or moving them around...

It's telling you the voltage and amperage, you just need to figure out what size the connection is. It's likely a barrel connector, check amazon. Something like this

https://www.amazon.com/SoulBay-Universal-Notebook-Toshiba-Laptops/dp/B01HORSXZ0/ref=asc_df_B01HORSXZ0/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309807187084&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3733876074767304454&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=...

It’s a 2012 MacBook Air. Thing has been running like a top for 8 years!

Monitor is LG 29WK600W

Keyboard and mouse are this although I’ve upgraded the mouse to a gaming mouse

Like it's already been said, to support 32 GB they'd have to use desktop RAM, big ass sockets and higher power draw. But they want to use LPDDR. Microsoft and Razer agree (yet I see no one being full of shit when the Surface Pro caps at 16 GB as well).

To support 32 GB they'd have to use LPDDR4. But Intel says no, there's no technical reason, Intel just wants it like that. Here are their reasons from three years ago: https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/31/why-doesnt-intel-corporations-skylake-processor-us.aspx

> PC vendors will cut corners elsewhere to accommodate the more expensive memory within a fixed price point, potentially hurting the user experience.

> PC vendors will raise prices, which could lead to lower sales and thus reduced processor sales for Intel.

> PC vendors' margins will contract.

It doesn't make sense but apparently they still apply, because Kaby Lake Refresh released in August this year still doesn't support LPDDR4.

WhatsApp has a separate MacOS client. It does require all your friends to use it too though.

Facebook Messenger can be used through https://www.messenger.com in Safari, but again, requires all your friends to use Facebook.

At this point, I've resigned myself to the fact that there is no unified messenger client, because all of the different platforms don't want there to be one.

Thanks! I just looked on Amazon for my previous orders and the product was taken off! I am sorry, but here is product that is pretty similar.

Link

How do you not have VLC? You need this program in your life.

It's the play anything do anything video player. So many settings and options you can configure.

You can view and record from a webcam, convert videos, stream files to and from with it and edit MP3 tags. along with other great stuff.

All that for the low cast of 0$ because it's free and open source.

>USB-C Travel Dock E" by

https://www.amazon.co.uk/OWC-USB-C-Travel-Dock-Space/dp/B075LTQ943 my bad.
i was looking at wrong item...

As mentioned, you want Paintbrush.

But I'm gonna give a shout out for Pixelmator. Its $30 on the App Store, but there are often discounts and sales. It does everything I ever needed in Photoshop and has a beautiful interface.

http://www.pixelmator.com/mac/

Ditch those two Apple dongles that are often faulty and buy one of these:

Anker USB C Hub, 7-in-1 USB C... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HMLTCPL?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Adds an extra usb C port just for charging.

I would not recommend to upgrade to Mavericks with only 2 GB of RAM. In fact this <em>is</em> the minimal requirement, but it will be pretty slow. But you can easily upgrade the RAM to 4 GB.

Besides that, yes, upgrading will keep all your files intact, but you still should have a backup. (You always should have a backup.)

Yeah, plenty of red flags here, e.g. the image of the computer is not from the computer in question, just a stock photo. Personally I would never buy a computer without at least a copy of receipts from the original purchase.

But, if you want to go ahead with this and given that he actually shows up:

1. Have someone else hold the cash, and stick around in the other end of the store till you've verified the machine is working and that you want to purchase it.
2. Have him log onto the user account on the Mac to verify the specs, that it's working, and that the machine is not remotely locked. The least techie thieves will not know how to reformat or reinstall the OS, so he'll be locked out of the computer, and may even be locked out with "Find My..." service from the original owner.
3. Check that the machine is unpaired from "Find My"-service to prevent it being locked and erased, even though this is not a big deal, it's due diligence.
4. Reboot the machine into Recovery Mode to see that it is not firmware locked. The least likely thing to happen, but this would prevent you reinstalling the OS at all, so you better check that this checks out.

Yes, but this includes all the default apps. Finder, Messages, Calendar. System-wide dark mode.

https://www.apple.com/macos/mojave-preview/

I love the way it looks so far. Come on, iOS 13. Dark mode. Please.

Al these people telling you to remove ~/Library/Keychains are correct but just a head up. As above, archive it just in case, a warning though it will nuke all your saved passwords, locally at least. It is the only way to fix it, just want you to understand what will happen when you do this.

Here is some info on keychain.

https://support.apple.com/guide/keychain-access/what-is-keychain-access-kyca1083/mac

http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net This app is free, and it gives you a graphic representation of every file and folder on your Mac. Large files are large squares and large folders are large sections of squares. While hovering over a square, the app shows you the complete file path to it.

I'm a huge fan of Spectacle.

Spectacle: It allows you to split your screen in any way you want. If you have multiple monitors, it moves the windows to other monitors in one key stroke. Super convenient when you are working with multiple windows.

Congrats on buying your first mac. As far as good programs to have:

Transmission is one of the most used Torrent apps.

Malwarebytes for Mac is solid for getting rid of any adware/malware.

Alfred is often used by people as an alternative to finder, I don't personally use it but plenty of people do.

Private Internet Access is a paid VPN service that has a nice client for mac.

BetterTouchTool allows for extended customization of the trackpad.

BetterSnapTool gives you windows like window snap features that are customizable.

VLC is great video player.

Tips and tricks:

You can set up a right click in the trackpad menu.

NEVER download MacKeeper.

Fire vault is great for encrypting your drive if you are in to that sort of thing. Just make sure to never forget your password.

Get a backup drive and use Time Machine, its great for creating backups and if you ever have a problem with your mac its very easy to restore to a previous date/backup.

Get Applecare if you haven't already its worth your money.

Don't leave too many things on your desktop it will slow your computer down a bit. Never have spotify on start up either. Those two things tend to slow macs down the most.

As far as apps make sure you move them out of the folder you downloaded them in (if they weren't from the app store) and move them to the applications folder.

LaTex is all you need. With a good template it is actually not very hard to get stunning and consistent PDFs. It is cross platform compatible, easy to backup and since you are already familiar with a markup language you will probably find it quite easy. You can choose your own favorite text editor for the job because all what matters is code. I find it also a big help in concentrating on the content (just like I write smaller texts in markdown for the same reason).

Look at MacTex for the software for your system or try sharelatex for collaborative online use of LaTex. There are tons of LaTex templates for a thesis around online.

When you get used to it you will never look back. That's the reason the software is still around since decades.

This isn't the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last. The title of this post should be "Stay away from uTorrent." not "Stay away from uTorrent for now."

There are PLENTY of alternatives to uTorrent which are infinitely safer and more reliable. Transmission has been mentioned, I personally am akin to Deluge, it's a bit more complicated, but it's capable of doing a little more, and works better for how I use it personally.

If you don't have it, get flux, which is also available for Windows.

I think this is especially nice as a travel tip because you never know when you'll want to use your computer on a red eye and having something that makes it less jarring is a huge plus.

Mac has the best emulator for retro gaming, OpenEmu. It supports almost every major retro console flawlessly and the interface is clean and organised. Make sure you download the experimental version (press the arrow besides the download button) for even more cores then the regular version.

HandBrake if you want a free solution.

RipIt If you want to just easily rip the whole DVD to your drive. This is the one I personally reccomend, because it is SUPER easy.

Pixelmator - excellent painting and photo editing. Slick UI lots of photoshop features and great price from the App Store. http://www.pixelmator.com/ Very slick ui. The magic wand tool is way easier to use than photoshop too!

For those with the 2016 MacBook Pros, you may see far better battery results soon

Edit: Here's the source article from Consumer Reports

~~You did all the logical "first steps", so some more to-the-point trouble-shooting should come next. Problem is, you need to narrow down the problem, as "%app% quit unexpectedly" could be virtually anything.~~

~~As an aside: if it's only games that don't work, it's probably graphics. Run software update to see if there are any updated drivers and/or try downloading the latest cumulative patch and install that.~~

~~To actually narrow down the problem, run Console.app (/Applications/Utilities/Console.app) and take a look at the logs: try starting one of the "broken" apps and see what error messages pop up~~

I just wrote all that and realised that I know what the problem is, most probably. Apple is having problems with (i.e. there's a bug in) their DRM (that is implanted into AppStore apps). For apps that don't work, wait for an update or just re-download them in a couple of days.

edit: here's an article on TechCrunch about the issue

I'd be surprised if most people here didn't tell you that they prefer having it pop up in the center of the screen, before they go on to suggest you download either Alfred or Quicksilver if you want a Spotlight-like search/application-launching tool.

For uninstalling apps, I would also recommend grabbing appcleaner to help with deleting those hidden library files. You can also set it to check automatically whenever you move something from the applications folder to the trash.

I really like Pixelmator, I would say it's more like Photoshop, but way more intuitive and seems pretty light as well. It's not free though, but there is no subscription. http://www.pixelmator.com/mac/

Probably most people won't care about this, but you might want to know that Uforio doesn't do anything other than display a blank window if you block it talking to http://uforio.com using Little Snitch, which probably means that

• all your traffic is proxied through that site and can be associated with your user id
• the traffic is not encrypted
• your user name and password are acquired by uforio.com

Note that that is probably - you'd need to do a packet dump to be sure.

This might be shot in the dark. There is an application called Hazel by noodlesoft. It’s a folder / file automation tool. The software can monitor a folder and do different actions to a file. You can give a folder a simple instruction set and the software will perform it if the trigger is met.

They might even have an action pre-made for something like this. Check it out.

https://www.noodlesoft.com

You need AppCleaner this is the last app you'll ever need, no CleanMyMac bullshit, just drag the app you wanna delete to the AppCleaner window, it will find all related files and give you the option to remove them. no catch no nothing. just a good piece of software that does its job!. honestly fuck CleanMyMac. i tried it once and it was a pain in the ass to even try. deleting the actual app. sorry im pissed hahaha.

In general use AppCleaner, its what I recommend all my customers. Just dragging an application to trash doesn't delete temporary files, or menu icons sometimes, etc.

Its free, pick an app, you will be surprised at how many files most apps create that the Mac will not delete.

https://developer.apple.com/game-center/

&#x200B;

It promises multiplayer games with your friends, or at least the ability to share scores, achievements etc. Your identity on game center, and those of your gaming buddies are stored in Contacts-- which it needs access to.

Even better than this, install Clipmenu.

It saves as many clipboard elements as you want, and has a handy shortcut to show your copy-paste history.

It’s a lifesaver.

http://www.clipmenu.com/

When it boils down to it, I think Macs are popular on college campuses because they've got a proven track record of being reliable and unobtrusive, which is important when you're actually trying to sit down and get stuff done. It is just easier to be productive on a Mac, and that's very valuable when it comes to professional or academic pursuits. My school highly recommends that we purchase a new Macbook Pro as a freshman, with the assurance that it will last four years with comparatively little upkeep.

> Do macs have better note taking programs?

Depends on what your criteria is, but in my experience, Macs have some very solid productivity tools. I use Notational Velocity, but there are many great options. Evernote is one that a lot of people use, and you might consider looking into it for its cross-platform support(it's free and it works on Windows, OS X, iPhone, Android, etc.)

> OSX from what I've played with at the apple store looks primitive

OS X is every bit as advanced as any other modern operating system; don't let it fool you. The UI is designed to present the user with what is needed and nothing more. It is a mistake to assume that, because it is a simpler interface, it is inherently less powerful.

> I've gone 20 years with windows should I just stay?

I came from a DOS/Windows upbringing myself, and I worked in IT for several years. I switched to Mac a couple of years ago, and I've never looked back. Actually, that's not true — I've been forced to look back from time to time, and I've really come to hate Windows, after becoming accustomed to the intuitiveness, reliability and sleekness of OS X.

But, buying a Mac doesn't have to mean giving up Windows. In fact, Windows runs great on Macs. Believe it or not, there are even people who use Macs as predominantly Windows-based machines.

Literally any 2.5" SATA drive would work-- HDD, SSD, or SSHD of any brand.

Unless you actually need that 1TB of space at that cheap of a price, definitely get an SSD instead. 500GB for <$90 is a steal for the performance difference.

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-500GB-Internal-MZ-76E500B-AM/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1539620546&amp;sr=1-3&amp;keywords=500gb+ssd

Also, while you're in there... I'd suggest taking the below preventative measure for your SATA cable while you're at it. The 2009-2012 models are bad about cables failing from the bends and/or the ribbon shorting out against the chassis, and replacing drives/moving this cable seems to make it way more temperamental no matter how careful you are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amg5w0rlwDo

Right click the volume in Finder, select Encrypt "nameOfDrive"... and fill in your password and hint, done. Guide here if needed

You can also make a disk image with Disk Utility and encrypt that to protect select data on the image. And move it wherever it's needed. Disk, USB-stick, whatever.

it looks like a loose cable connection to the screen. hopefully it is in the lower case because that repair is pretty easy. here is a guide to take your laptop apart. you should check the connector at step 6 if that does not fix your problem i don't suggest taking the glass of the screen as it is very easy to break.

You probably want Alfred. It's awesome, but I don't know how to explain it very well to a Windows expat because I don't think there's much of an equivalent. But I couldn't live without it.

If your'e the sort of person who uses a coding editor, SublimeText or Atom are probably the ones you want at this point. The previous king, TextMate, is kind of long in the tooth.

Get an external drive and use Time Machine religiously. It's amazing and can save your life, but only if you use it.

You may or may not want to use Fantastical instead of the built-in calendar, depending on the complexity of your life.

People love TextExpander, but they just went to subscription-only. I'm in the process of moving to aText, which is a nearly-identical tool that's $5 once, not $5 a month.

Windows in Bootcamp is interesting, but probably not required unless you REALLY need to let Windows have access to the bare metal. Virtualization is FAR more flexible -- you get to run both systems at once, you don't have to carve off a fixed amount of your hard drive to Windows, you get nearly native performance, and backing up your whole Windows install is trivial. Look into VMWare Fusion or Parallels.

For those who need to do this while moving the computer around, heavyweight rubber bands work to secure the keyboard. The Macbook can even be used in bed. The only thing that can't be done is closing the computer, and certainly you'd never want to show it to anyone, but otherwise the contraption is an acceptable substitute until you replace or repair the computer.

Before you're incredibly angry, be sure that you've priced accurately.

For the M.2 SSD, make sure you're using a Samsung 970 Pro SSD as it's an NVME drive, closest in performance to the one used in the Mac Mini (not the Evo, which is cheaper, but is nowhere near the performance or write endurance of a Pro drive) It also happens to cost 2x as much as the 970 Evo drive, because it uses SLC NAND instead of TLC NAND.

Also, You should throw the price of a 2x Titan Ridge Thunderbolt Add-In Cards (each card has 2 Thunderbolt ports) in there, and costs $99, so you can match the 4 Thunderbolt Ports on the back of the mac mini.

If you're going to spec an equivalent PC system, use the same exact CPU, and be sure your I/O matches as closely as possible.

I'd love to see a PC part picker list.

I would look carefully at the cosmetic condition of the keyboard, monitor etc. See if the hinge is still relatively tight.

My son is still running a 2011 MacBook Pro, I paid $669 for it in 2014. The HD and RAM swap is easy-peasy, I get mine at macsales.com.

If you find the USB ports give you trouble, try the fixes here:

http://osxdaily.com/2015/08/09/mac-usb-ports-not-working-fix/

F.lux changes the temperature of your screen, so when the sun goes down it gets much warmer. It reduces the strain on your eyes really well. Can disable it for certain apps, an hr at a time, or until sunrise. I use it every day, and if I turn a movie on its 2 clicks to turn off the temp!

edit: if you use chrome, check out the Momentum app on the chrome store. its just a nice touch when you open a new tab.

I understand that this is resolved for you, but just in case someone else see this post, it's probably better just to try to wait it out.

I've seen this with some of the machines I've updated and it's taken a very long time to update. (Several hours.) I've left those run over night to come back to a working system the next morning.

For reference: http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/17/os-x-yosemite-installation-stuck/

The 13" M1 isn't as bad since it's got the physical escape key. Really, the worst part about the touch bar is that in stock form it's basically useless, takes extra steps to do things - like changing volume or muting requires you to press the speaker icon, then slide a bar back and forth for volume - same thing with brightness. Plus you have no physical reference point so you've got to take your eyes off the screen to look at the touchbar.

The old version with no physical escape key was worse, because you can't just jab at escape, you have to look for it. And it would disappear and be replaced with the "make app fullscreen" button in most cases, that was just fucking aggrivating.

The only way I made it actually usable for me was bettertouchtool and the goldenchaos theme. That was a touchbar that was useful and made sense. It's the one apple should have released, bar none. I was slightly bummed to lose it when I got my new 16" m1 mbp...but not that bad.

I half think that if apple would have given the option of half-height function keys and half-height touchbar in the space where we now have full-height function keys, I would have at least considered it. But, Apple never developed or flushed out any ideas for it, sadly.

Lacks shortcuts, takes much longer to get windows sized and placed where you want, lack of usability leads to people just having windows strewn about. I lived on MacOS with the default window management system for a while and actually didn’t care until I got a windows machine for work and used theirs extensively. When I came back to my Mac, I was surprised something similar wasn’t the default and decided to download Rectangle. It’s incredible and just lets me do what I need to do faster.

Forget Spotlight, it's rubbish. Get Alfred, remove Spotlight from the menubar like this, and set Alfred's hotkey to Cmd + Space.

Much better!

This is actually due to Lion's resume feature. You can disable it globally by going to the General tab in Sys Prefs and unchecking "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps"

You can also do it per-app: http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/01/turn-off-resume-per-app-in-mac-os-x-lion/

The cursor acceleration curve in OS X in different from that in Windows. No matter the "speed," OS X has a much more dramatic curve where faster physical movement equates to faster acceleration on screen.

You'll need a third-party add-on like SmoothMouse if you want to change it.

> way different than what I'm used to with Windows PC's.

Yep, definitely. Of course, I personally spend most of my time in OS X so Windows cursor movement feels really weird to me.

Cheers. The only issue with the DVD is that the Mac's boot manager doesn't give you the option of selecting its EFI bootloader... You should be able to select it using rEFInd, however! If so, rEFInd would refer to it as the "fallback bootloader."

There's many possibilities, but it really depends on your level of technical skill. You can do some pretty cool things with Automator and Applescript that could probably make your daily workflow a bit easier.

Something simpler you could do would be downloading Quicksilver and learning how to use it, which would also greatly increase our productivity.

This kmage has some pretty cool features you could show off as well.

>I haven't heard of Darktable. Is it similar as in being non-destructive, lens correction, etc.?

https://www.darktable.org/

>darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.

I’ll try to recommend a productivity app that doesn’t usually get mentioned in threads like these.

MindNode is a killer app for creative brainstorming and thinking. I use it as a giant canvas for storing thoughts, expanding on ideas, taking notes, and a big repository for unorganized information I might need later. Kind of like an evolving wiki for myself.

I used to use Evernote for this, but the layout makes way more sense for how my brain works. It’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely for me.

I've designed a new status icon for my Mac app. Does it feel right? It's designed to show current dimming intensity and visually resonate with the big dimmer control. You can change the setting by scrolling over the icon.

The old status icon was simply "HzO": https://dribbble.com/shots/2127580

I have two hackintoshs for 3 years now that I use for productive work and I don't look back anymore. No update has broken my setups so far. But in case, absolutely invest in 2 harddrives for a time machine and a carbon copy backup (yes, both). Even big updates like Mavericks -> Yosemite went without a hitch. But still, I would wait for at least a month before doing major OS upgrades.

Follow the buying guide over here, these are proofed configurations since they mostly use the same components that Apple uses, and install Clover as a bootloader (install guide), as it is much more compatible to OSX, and you're good to go.

Can you explain exactly what you want? VirtualBox is free: Download link. What costs money is buying Windows. You can use Ubuntu or any one of many other Linux distributions for free, though.

tl;dr get the 15-inch MBP if you can spring for it:

• Lower clock speed ≠ slower. The i7 in the 15" has twice the amount of cores than the i5 in the 13". Case in point, the 13's 2.6GHz i5 scores 7600 Geekbench points while the 15's 2.2GHz i7 scores 12,000 points.
• The Iris Pro in the 15" is more than 60% more powerful than the Iris in the 13&quot;.
• The jump in CPU performance (and RAM, if you don't upgrade the 13-inch) will be more noticeable than the jump in GPU performance when it comes to video editing, because while many things are GPU accelerated in Premiere or FCPX, the majority of the number crunching is still being done on the CPU.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro is basically a slightly more powerful MacBook Air with a retina display on it, but I would not consider it an adequate tool for video work if you can afford to get the 15-inch MBP.

Sources: Mactracker (great for comparing CPU benchmarks between Macs), PassMark, and my experiences as a video editor working primarily on a 2014 15-inch MBP.

Feel free to ask if you want me to help clarify anything!

.DS_Store is the name of a file in the Apple OS X operating system for storing custom attributes of a folder such as the position of icons or the choice of a background image. The name is an abbreviation of Desktop Services Store, reflecting its purpose.

If you remove one from a folder, as soon as you open the folder one will be created. Tinker Tool has a setting to disable the creation of .DS_Store files on network volumes. Not sure if this helps.

Download the app DaisyDisk. The free demo is all you need, full featured, and will let you scan and visualize all the data on the hard drive. You can then easily hunt down the files eating up the space and delete them!

See: https://daisydiskapp.com

If it works for you, pick up a license to support the dev, it's on sale for $5 for Black Friday :)

ClamXav has been around for a long time, is free and is frequently updated.

While some people love to point out that you don't really need anti-virus to protect your Macs, it's good practice to run it anyways to prevent accidentally spreading anything to Windows machines on your company's network.

Apple only sells the current version which doesn't plug directly into the wall: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MC414/airport-express

But you can get the old version used on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Airport-Express-MB321LL-A/dp/B0015YJOK2

It all depends on how smart they're being in detecting VPN traffic.

If they're just blocking standard ports. You can try another port. Usually you use one like 443 or 53 which are meant for protocols like DNS or HTTPS and they let you through because it would be insane to block the HTTPS port.

If they're blocking by IP address you're out of luck. You'll have to find another VPN service they're not blocking. I think this is less likely though because IP addresses can change and tracking all of them on all services would be a big time consuming job.

Private Internet Access VPN supports many different port options if you are using a computer or an android phone. But you can't change ports on iOS.

Do you have a cell phone you can tether to for a test? If the computer can connect to a vpn over a Cell connection, or a public wifi like cafe then you know it's not something installed on the computer. But i'd bet against it being that. It's so much easier and more scalable to block once at the school firewall than on everyone's individual laptop.

iTunes does have one. Why the rest of the sound system is kept isolated from it, I couldn't say. I used to use [http://osxdaily.com/2012/05/18/equalizer-for-all-audio-mac-os-x/](Soundflower) but there are many more (see link).

Two of my fave apps are f.lux and Caffeine. f.lux is a great eye-saver, it adjusts the screen brightness and colour as the evening progresses to help with eyestrain. And Caffeine is a nifty app that prevents your mac from going to sleep and showing the screen saver. Both apps are easily turned off and on.

Caffeine is in the app store and it’s free. I downloaded f.lux from CNET here: http://download.cnet.com/F-lux/3000-18487_4-10908885.html

Merry Christmas!

If you prefer (like I do), caffeinate is actually a shell command:

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man8/caffeinate.8.html

http://osxdaily.com/2012/08/03/disable-sleep-mac-caffeinate-command/

Go to https://haveibeenpwned.com/ and run a search on all of your email addresses and common user names. You've probably been in a breach and they got the password from another service. Also, consider using a password manager.

Hello, this post is cross-posted from /r/macapps

The app website is : https://www.livescoreosx.com

Product hunt : https://www.producthunt.com/posts/livescore-osx

This is my first mac app. I created it because I find my menu bar underused and I love to keep an eye on what's happening when I am working.

This app is not free because I invest a lot of time crafting it. By rewarding an independent developer for his apps, you directly contribute to the efforts he will put making the next one.

Hope you will enjoy it ! :)

Julien Vallini

Forcing a Mac to work like Windows because you just switched and because it's different is a common mistake.

It seems like you don't use a trackpad. Using gestures would make quite a difference, especially for switching desktops or using Expose.

Option click the green traffic light to expand an app to use the whole screen without entering full screen.

But you can still change the window manager. This is close to xmonad: https://ianyh.com/amethyst/

Homebrew is a package manager, you can compare it to the Apple Store but focused on terminal-based applications. In their website they demonstrate how to install wget, you don't need to install it in your computer, that is just an example of how to use the brew command to install new software.

In addition to Hombrew, you can also install a complementary plugin called Caskroom which allows you to install programs that people usually install in their computers like Google Chrome, Firefox, Adobe Reader, Photoshop, Skype, etc from the commodity of your Terminal.

The advantage of using this over going to the website of these programs and clicking the installer is that you can create scripts and distribute them to your friends or keep them to yourself as a backup, then programmatically install all these programs once again in the future without going through the manual installation process by yourself.

Here is an example...

Imagine that you want to start learning about the Rust Programming Language and obviously you need to have the compiler in your computer in order to execute the programs that you will write. You can go to the official website and follow the installation process from there, or you could open the Terminal and type brew install rust and be done in a couple of seconds.

Homebrew contains a large collection of packages that you can install, and if you include Caskroom the number of available programs increases. Feel free to use brew search [query] to search for a program that you need to install, and brew info [package] to read the information associated with that package before installation. You can use brew cask search [query] (once you have Caskroom installed) to search for common programs like "sublimetext" or "textmate" and so on.

I hope this clarifies what Hombrew is and the use cases, enjoy it.

Homebrew

Not sure if you meant like actual Apple apps, but if this:

> Looking to get into some light coding and just having better/longer lasting setup.

is a top priority, I'd recommend learning about & installing Homebrew before anything.

It can save you a ton of headaches down the road, as you can install whatever packages you need without worrying about screwing up any system versions.

Get a 128×128 PNG file with the icon you want and then convert it to an ICNS file (you could use this website). Then, name it .VolumeIcon.icns using Terminal and save it in the appropriate location. For Windows, that’s the root of the default EFI partition; I did it on macOS by mounting said partition (disk0s1 in my case) and just moving it there. For macOS, it needs to be put inside APFS Volume Preboot. Not sure what your level of experience is with Terminal and stuff, but lemme know if you require any further assistance.

Do you have one of these? If so, how do you like it?
I ask because the reviews on Amazon aren't great. People complain about the magnet being weak and disconnecting all the time:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CQTK6GU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_MZybyb25J9VFE
I wish Apple would develop their own breakaway cable and include them with each laptop that charges via USB-C. That way it would be MagSafe quality.

That's awfully expensive for what you get. You could buy any 480GB 2.5&quot; SSD on the market, and replace the HDD with that. I've replaced several unibody MBPs and MBs with standard SSDs with very good results.

Since average SSDs of that size are on average around $130, you're practically paying $90 for an enclosure for the old HDD and some cheap tools. You can get all of those off Amazon if you really wanted to, and also pick up a USB to SATA cable for $10 to transfer your old stuff, and still save money.

As for reliability of SSDs like the Sandisk or Crucial, I have SSDs ranging from a few cheap Sandisks SSDs to Samsung 960 EVOs, and unless you're constantly transferring GBs of files you won't see an appreciable difference, from boot up times to load speeds. Hope this answered any concerns you had.

I use Private Internet Access. It is extremely easy to use. The only limit I know of is that you can have up to 5 devices connected at a time. No bandwidth limits! It's relatively cheap as well I think I payed $43 for a whole year.

I went into Network Preferences/Advanced 1) Clicked on the DNS tab 2) Added two new OpenDNS servers: 208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220 by pressing the '+' button 3) I clicked OK and then Apply 4) Turned on Hotspot Shield and it's working!

Let me know if that doesn't work.

Oh, this might be it:
https://www.amazon.com/Magnetic-Delivery-Connector-Converter-Pixelbook/dp/B07C1PCBM3?keywords=magnetic+usb+c

Looks like the magnet isn't strong enough to support the weight of the dongle.

I have this issue too. Very annoying. I’m hoping upgrading will fix it. Also, I reset my SMC the other day and I don’t think it’s happened since. Can’t tell it truly fixed the problem or it just hasn’t happened again yet but maybe that’s worth a try.

http://osxdaily.com/2010/03/24/when-and-how-to-reset-your-mac-system-management-controller-smc/

from experience it doesn't always remove the library files though. best bet (though your local heating and AC rep cannot tell you this) is to follow the steps in this article http://osxdaily.com/uninstall-mackeeper-from-mac/

Definitely Apple's Mac Basics to learn the things you'll most want.

The biggest gripe Windows users have is where's Right Delete? Delete = Backspace, Fn+Delete = Delete.

If you want Anti-virus software (mainly in order to be a good citizen when Windows viruses cross your path) check out Sophos Antivirus for Mac Home Edition, it's free and it's no-nonsense or upselling.

Sure it is, a simple search for gimp Mac turns up https://www.gimp.org/downloads/Mac.html I know the main download page says packages aren't available, but it's open source, official packages aren't the only ones, and that's only referring to the latest build

Leave your MacBook charging while you are using it and don't charge when you are not using it (because if your MB is left too much time charging, it may reduce the battery life). If it's not possible to charge it while you're using it, it's not a problem.

The source is my experience: I've got a 4-year-old 2011 MBP with 86% of battery capacity according to coconutBattery.

if you get hold of a copy of lion, you should be able to install it without SL. The only requirement of snow leopard is that you need it to access the app store, to buy lion. apart from that, you can do a clean install.

from here: http://osxdaily.com/2011/06/21/mac-os-x-lion-clean-install-explained/

Or you can use a custom boot loader and load whatever partitions you want. I use rEFIt and have partitions for Windows XP and 7, OS X Snow Leopard and Lion, as well as Ubuntu.

Let me know if you try it and need help.

You might want to check out Wineskin: http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com/tiki-index.php

It's an app wrapper that allows you to use many Windows games and Apps on a Mac without Boot Camp or Virtual Machine.

Hyperdock does this; when you mouse over the previews, it shows a semitransparent fullsize preview: <http://cl.ly/4fXR>.

edit: also: you can quicklook windows in Exposé by pressing space while mousing over them.

You should check to see if Vue Scan (not free) will allow you to use your scanner on the Mac directly. It supports many (2500+) older scanners. Some are too proprietary but many are not.

http://www.hamrick.com/

As the aforementioned thread points out, there are a great number of tools to figure out what is on your drive. I really like Grand Perspective. Find forgotten virtual machines, movies, games, etc.

The link doesn't mention that for casual Mac users, the huge "others" tend to be backups that have accumulated over time, sometimes from their iOS devices, sometimes from TimeMachine being left on but the backup drive never being plugged in so the file changes can be flushed off to the backup disk. At least, this is my anecdotal experience when supporting my luddite SO's and families' Macs.

It looks like others have answered your specific questions so I'll chime in with some general information.

Apple has lots of useful videos for people new to the platform, I would recommend you take a look through the ones that touch on things that are important to you:

http://support.apple.com/videos/#macos

Articles and support around more functions can be found here:

https://www.apple.com/support/macbasics/

Use Disk Inventory X (free) if you want to see where your storage has gone to.

Or if you want a more up to date UI, use DaisyDisk ($9.99) but Disk Inventory X still does the job.

Mpv is another modern (non-slimy) MPlayer version.

You can check out http://blog.mplayerx.org/ - the "Apr 16th, 2015 - Some Progress on MPlayerX" blog entry, where the developer admits that he thinks that bundling junk/malware in the installer is acceptable behavior:

> The other thing is that, MPlayerX will start to utilize the installer to fulfil monetization. I knew it may bring many negative comments, but honestly it is the best way to keep the developer motivated. For anyone who cares about this, please check the installer and make sure only install MPX, then it should be no difference with the old way.

Some other apps like FileZilla and uTorrent (on Windows) have done similar user hostile things.

Handbrake! It's the best thing for converting to MP4. Well multithreaded and widely used, plus it's free.

https://handbrake.fr/

I use it on MKV files if I want to shrink down a Blu-ray rip. Works great.

Honestly, you may want to save yourself the trouble and just get iTunes Match. Set up the external on your Mac Mini, and just have iTunes Match on, so when you add new music, it will scan it, and you can access it.

The “Memory clean” is a useless application. OS X does pretty well with memory management by default, but if you still feel like you need to force it to clean memory, there’s sudo purge

Also, some “memory clean” applications quickly force applications to write their data to the slow storage drive, causing unnecessary slowdown & possible long term wear on solid state drives.

µBlock is better than ABP or AdBlock.