macOS and Mac Software: We still exist!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > macOS and Mac Software: We still exist!

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Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

fleshweasel posted:

who the gently caress reviews OS X updates on the app store? I didn't even know that was a thing.

from what I've seen its just a litany of people saying 'this hosed my Mac' in new and exciting ways

# ¿ Apr 2, 2015 17:29

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 11:02

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Are there any safari plugins that allow you to set youtube videos to autoplay at the highest res and fit the player width to the window size? Don't need any more than that but the ones I've tried are kind of ropey.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 18:25

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

NOTinuyasha posted:

ClickToFlash does a good job converting YouTube/other video hosts to HTML5. It also gives you a nice menu of options to download the video, open in QuickTime (what you want, but even better), or just restore to flash.

Ironically I had to actually install flash before this plugin actually worked, which was kind of a bummer. Was getting on fine without it as well; the only major things that didn't work with pure HTML5 were Facebook videos, none of which are at all worthwhile. Doesn't Safari come with the ability to block plugins on a site-by-site basis anyway? Also not a huge fan of the interface for the default safari HTML5 player.

Given all that I think I'll just stick to the default player since a good option for safari doesn't seem to exist. I'll stick to chrome when I don't want their lovely site telling me what quality I want. Thanks for the help anyway though

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 21:09

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

tuyop posted:

I'm also concerned with archived media, and hard drive space on the laptop. So iTunes Match is great with its streaming and stuff for music, but if I want to get at, say, my FCP projects away from home, I have to lug the (admittedly tiny) external HDD. Cloud syncing is out because of hard drive space as well.

I can accept that the solution may be worse than the problem, since it's probably not easy or cheap to maintain an FTP over the Internet forever compared to just plugging in a hard drive regularly.

You'd more than likely still have to keep your active FCP projects on the external drive purely because of bandwidth, but you could easily stick your archived stuff on a synology or something. Only major issue would be your home upload speed limiting out if you wanted to grab a large file over the Internet.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2015 16:41

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Haggins posted:

Thanks, I'll start messing around and see what sticks. I might also look into getting an app that lets me AirPlay from the phone to the iMac.

Kodi can act as an airplay target.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2015 19:47

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

cbirdsong posted:

"Too much HTML5" is not really a thing. It's more that they are just running too many external ad-tracking/sharing scripts. Look at this insane list:

If you run Google's page speed tester on it:

Technically speaking, it's just a giant mess of a site.

this can't be true - im sure nilay 'im not a loving suit' patel would have had a hissy fit about it unless... his entire system of self actualization was a sham... could it be?

# ¿ Jun 9, 2015 20:21

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

TACD posted:

I wish somebody would port NoScript to Safari. I tried using 'JavaScript Blocker' or whatever that got posted earlier and it just made Safari beach all immediately upon starting up.

you could just use ublock and activate the blocklists that block ad/tracking requests - at this point every site ever makes some use of javascript so having a whitelist seems like more trouble than it's worth

# ¿ Jun 10, 2015 16:22

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

tuyop posted:

So it's easy on battery life? I'd really like to give Inbox a try but the lack of native os x app sucks.

you're not missing much honestly. but yeah no reason it wouldn't work in fluid since they added support for safari a few months back

Flameingblack posted:

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, Bootcamp works a dozen times better than Parallel Desktops.

well parallels is literally just a nicely integrated virtual machine. i wouldn't expect anything that relied heavily on hardware accelerated graphics to work properly if at all.

Generic Monk fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Jun 29, 2015

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 17:08

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

tuyop posted:

Well, I honestly prefer Mailbox for email triage, but I don't like the limited text editing abilities in the beta OS X app or the understandable stability problems. The Inbox webapp looks great and has lots of good options that sort of deal with my concerns, but I don't like keeping a browser window open and losing the notification badges.

Outlook is just not good as far as I can tell.

the stability problems in the mailbox app aren't reeeeally understandable since it's been out for years. they probably keep the beta tag around to excuse it being a ropey thing that they're likely never going to fix.

the stock mail app has been absolutely fine for me though i a) don't really view email as a to do list because b) i don't really get a lot of personal email (too cool for web1.0.) it's not fancy but it's fine. then again i don't use gmail partly because of the harrowing imap support so it might not be best for you.

outlook has all the pitfalls of mail.app (i.e. having to deal with goog not giving a poo poo about imap) as well as being just a general piece of poo poo. the office apps have been of varying quality over the years (especially on mac) but outlook always seems to end up being one of the absolute worst

if you want to use gmail the only real way is through the web interface, doubly so for inbox. everything else is perfunctory at best, google being google

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 17:53

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

maduin posted:

Outlook 2015 is actually the best Exchange email client I've ever used on OS X. It handles my university mail so much better than mail.app ever did. The best Gmail client ever made, though, was Sparrow, and it's a tragedy that it doesn't exist anymore--I've even updated the icons and continue to use it as my default mail client today. I don't get why like 4 years later nobody can make a client that is as good.

yeah obviously if you're using exchange outlook is the way to go. for my personal email i just use fastmail and a custom domain. works nicely as an imap host and the web interface is v. nice compared to gmail's.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 18:19

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Feenix posted:

Hey you know one thing I didn't really think about re: Beats 1 was the fact that they may interrupt/talk over the songs all the time like UK DJS seem to do. With Station Identifiers and overzealous Djs.

Wait talking over a song before it's finished is a UK thing? Can't say that bothers me much though compared to the idents at least. Nice that there are no ads for uh, discount furniture shops, personal injury lawyers and pawn shops like actual non-bbc radio stations though

# ¿ Jun 30, 2015 22:54

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

App Store was doing this to me over and over:

And I'd still end up with iTunes 12.1.2 installed. softwareupdate -i -a took care of it without any issue, though.

it's just very excited that there's a new version of itunes don't rain on its parade

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 23:22

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Tippis posted:

My personal main annoyance has been its feeble attempts at full-screen behaviour. It was only a few months ago that it even began to be able to maintain fullscreen while going through a playlist, and it's still not really following any of the UI/UX standards that have been established (ironically, by the flash player). Its persistence and memory between sessions is also highly questionable.

that is pretty much the definition of edge case. not saying there aren't issues with it but it works fine the vast majority of the time, and even at its worst generally ends up equivalent to the flash player, or far better than the awful clunky feeling transition clicktoflash gives you

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 23:26

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

JetsGuy posted:

The updates are even worse on the iPad side.

they absolutely aren't

ddiddles posted:

Anyone running the Office 2016 preview?

I'm on El Capitan using Outlook 2016, and none of the emails seem to be indexed by spotlight. This is my first time using Outlook on mac instead of Mail, is this usual behavior? Or does it just take a while for them to start showing up in spotlight?

i don't know why you expected this to work? pretty sure it was made clear that the spotlight search (obviously) only supported the default mail app. i can't remember if they announced a spotlight api for the mac at WWDC but even then I don't know why you would expect microsoft to have implemented that in under a month, in their feature complete piece of beta software targeted at the version preceding the one that said theoretical api is introduced in

PRADA SLUT posted:

How do you turn off "jiggle to make it big" in El Cap?

get a girl/boyfriend

dpbjinc posted:

Note that this is unless you have a working Motorola 68k Mac handy. Of course, only newer 68k Macs that support OS 8 work. You then have to download a bunch of third party utilities to dump the ROM onto a floppy drive (LOL). Then you have to get System 7.5.3 running in a different emulator to dump the ROM again. Then you can finally install OS 9. From the CDs you bought on eBay. Legally. Also, it only works with 9.0.4 and lower, so I hope you looked at that eBay listing carefully. Also, it's slow as poo poo, since it doesn't emulate an MMU, hence no support for >9.0.4.

though obviously on the crime scale, from 'jaywalking' to 'walking down the street while black' this isn't exactly going to rate very highly

Generic Monk fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Jul 10, 2015

# ¿ Jul 10, 2015 19:54

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

kapalama posted:

A G-mail checker thing is why I keep Firefox around; that and Rikaichan.

I keep thinking there might be a lightweight mail client that makes sense to switch to, and a Rikaichan like stand alone program that works that would allow me to not have to run Firefox.

Are there suggestions for a lightweight mail checker that mimics the gmail interface but allow a bunch of email addresses? (I have 35 e-mail address that all have to be monitored.)

Is there a lightweight RIkaichan standalone program?

yeah at this point you'd really be better off using a native email client - makes managing multiple inboxes way easier and the gmail web interface really starts getting annoying when dealing with multiple accounts. part of one of my previous jobs was managing 3 busy gmail/gapps inboxes and even with pinned tabs in chrome etc it was just irritating. then again irritation is the nature of email i suppose.

the mac just seems to be inundated with good email clients which is nice coming from windows where there's pretty much none, but then again gmail through IMAP has always been a distinctly ropey experience

Generic Monk fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Jul 24, 2015

# ¿ Jul 24, 2015 19:34

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

eightpole posted:

dashboard

i've never once used it but that web clips functionality seems pretty cool and useful ngl

# ¿ Aug 1, 2015 11:49

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

is there any way to disable scrollwheel acceleration? kind of throws all my muscle memory off

# ¿ Aug 2, 2015 11:47

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Is there any mac app that would allow me to batch convert (read: just change the container of) a bunch of mkvs to mp4s, skipping if the video/audio contained in the mkv isn't supported by the mp4 container? Presumably Handbrake offers this but I have little if no idea how to use it to this end.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2015 14:08

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

flosofl posted:

Not sure how comfortable you are with CLI, but this little shell script will do the trick. You'll need to install ffmpeg. They make binaries available for OS X or you can compile yourself with X Code, or install using home-brew.
code:
#!/bin/bash
find /path/to/input/folder -iname '*.mkv' -print0 | while read -d '' -r file; do
    ffmpeg -i "$file" -c:v copy -c:a copy ${file%%.mkv}.mp4
done
Basically this assumes all your mkv files live in the same directory, and then creates a new file with the mp4 container.

This is great - any idea how to get this to scan recursively in multiple subfolders?

# ¿ Aug 14, 2015 13:54

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

BiG TrUcKs !!! posted:

Does anyone know how to shut off notifcation center and get rid of the icon in Yosemite?

In Mavericks and Mountain Lion you could use this command in terminal:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist
killall NotificationCenter

But that doesn't work anymore. Any suggestions?

why do you want to do this?

# ¿ Jan 18, 2016 05:27

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

I can't seem to install safari extensions from anywhere but the official extensions gallery - I open the downloaded .safariextz file and it opens up the extensions pane asking me to 'trust' it like normal, except when I answer in the affirmative nothing appears. The only way I can install extensions is to go to the official gallery, which works fine except for the obvious lovely selection and the awful layout. Anyone else have this problem?

# ¿ Feb 14, 2016 16:03

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

I am now the proud owner of a pre-loved 2012 Mac mini - I've pretty much got it set up how I like it at this point, but in the next few days I want to replace the dog-slow HDD with the SSD in my laptop. Would I be able to clone the HDD in the mini to a .dmg file, convert it to .iso and then, using a windows install on my laptop's other hard drive, just image the SSD with it? This is my first Mac so I have no idea whether I'd lose anything in translation or not. I've set up Time Machine and I assume it lets you restore from a backup, but I'd rather not have to create a recovery disk (presumably) and have to wait hours for the kinda slow and ropey protocol to spew data over my slow and ropey network.

Also, is there any way to turn off this scroll wheel acceleration so my mouse actually scrolls consistently? I keep either inching through webpages or dramatically overshooting and it's maddening?

Generic Monk fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Jul 7, 2017

# ¿ Jul 7, 2017 15:14

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

smax posted:

Throw the SSD into an external, clone the HDD to the SSD with something like SuperDuper, swap drives. Done.

Don't have any external hard drive enclosures unfortunately and don't really want to buy something I'll use once.

e: this looks like what I need http://www.acutesystems.com/scrtm.htm - if I don't post in this thread again please assume my computer destroyed and identity stolen

Generic Monk fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Jul 8, 2017

# ¿ Jul 8, 2017 15:02

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

BobHoward posted:

TBH why are you cloning it at all? You just got the computer, there's probably nothing on it but the previous owner's stuff, you could just install the SSD and start over from scratch. That's what I'd prefer to do anyways to avoid potential leftover malware or other jank.

Your procedure for starting over could look like:

1. wipe the SSD while it's still in your windows machine - ATA secure erase if you've got a utility that'll do that, otherwise make sure the partition table is wiped since I don't think you want anything present

2. install SSD in mini

3. boot mini, follow instructions

Some time later (how long depends on your internet connection) your mini will boot an OS that is exactly the same one that was originally on it when the original owner took it out of its original box. You will then need to update the OS to current.

Another procedure for starting over which probably reduces total download time:

1. go to Mac App Store, download latest macOS

2. instead of letting the installer run when it's done downloading, grab an 8GB or larger thumbdrive and follow this guide to make a bootable installer:

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-make-a-bootable-macos-sierra-usb-flash-drive-1786853248

3. install blank SSD in mini, boot installer, let it guide you (the instructions might not cover using Disk Utility to format the drive, but if so you'll do that from one of the menus in the installer, and you'll want it to be a GPT partition table and HFS+ filesystem)

It got wiped beforehand, and I foolishly decided to just start using it and got a load of busywork out of the way that I didn't necessarily care to repeat. Which was probably for the best considering I forgot that I had pretty much none of the screwdrivers necessary to actually open the thing so I just used it for a few days while I sourced them. Ended up just cloning the drive to a 3tb external that I had previously backed up to my NAS, swapping the drive out, booting from the external then cloning it back to the new drive. Not the most elegant solution but hey, it was free and I didn't have to hack open the external or go through OSX setup. Thanks for the tips tho

# ¿ Jul 12, 2017 00:12

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

What's the video player of choice for OSX? I love quicktime but the supported formats is so limited. I've been using MPlayerX for the other 90% of formats that I'm playing and I love the minimal interface, but the seeming lack of an ability to set a default audio/subtitle track and the sheer determination the installer has to spew adware over your HDD is a little disconcerting.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2017 14:08

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Pivo posted:

Try IINA https://lhc70000.github.io/iina/

It's like VLC in some ways, but much faster and made for macOS. There's even a browser extension to open YouTube URLs in the main video player. Lots of subtitle control, default track control IIRC. There is no installer, no malware. It's new though so it's still a work in progress.

I switched about 2 weeks ago and I enjoy it so far. It's built on mpv which is what MPlayer uses I think?

This is perfect, thanks! I always used MPC-HC on windows - VLC is very consistent and it'll open anything but it always felt a bit sluggish and hacky - plus I never really trusted any media player where you could adjust the volume to 200%.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2017 14:45

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Pivo posted:

Then you will have to enable the volume limiter in IINA because it goes above 100% too ...

I like the feature, much easier than digging into preference menus for the software preamp

ack serves me right for acting like a smug audiophile

I have a (lovely but serviceable) amp that goes way louder than anyone would reasonably need connected to my mac so I just hammer on the weird 80s volume control until I can hear poo poo if I happen to be watching anything mastered at a really low volume

# ¿ Jul 14, 2017 16:04

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Data Graham posted:

I honestly can't even imagine using Siri. Like in a workplace setting? I've never ever heard anyone give a voice command to their computer. Wouldn't it be a huge annoyance?

I mean maybe if I only used a computer in a room by myself, but... is this telling me something about how many people live alone?

it's useful for tasks that are very simple but also pretty fiddly and menu heavy - the issue is that the barrier in terms of inputting things is way lower on osx than ios so the number of tasks is vanishingly small. something that remains is the act of setting a reminder; saying 'remind me to check bad dragon.com tomorrow at 2am' is way less fiddly than opening the reminder app, typing in the reminder, and clicking through a date picker. phoning people can also be a fair bit faster.

you're right that it makes you look like a loving dick though and that never goes away

# ¿ Jul 17, 2017 22:04

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

does anyone know why safari will sometimes prevent you installing extensions from .safariextz files unless you turn on full keyboard access and select 'Trust' using the tab key and the spacebar? this is such a bizarre bug
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/214760/force-installing-untrusted-safari-extensions

# ¿ Jul 19, 2017 12:21

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Arivia posted:

If you're installing enough extensions to run across this maybe your extensions are the problem?

so are you saying it's related to how many extensions you've got installed or are you just being facetious? i just moved all my stuff over to mac, i'm installing and uninstalling a lot of stuff

# ¿ Jul 19, 2017 16:02

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Shaocaholica posted:

Lol Adobe.

This doesn't make any sense. Nothing is prohibited in a case sensitive file system if your source files are from a case insensitive file system unless you have lovely code that references files using the wrong case.

dehumanise yourself and face to adobe

# ¿ Jul 20, 2017 18:38

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

tuyop posted:

All the good torrent clients look like garbage piles now though. I switched from deluge to qbittorrent and it's ok, I guess.

transmission looks fine and doesn't eat up screen real estate fwiw

# ¿ Jul 21, 2017 18:01

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Weedle posted:

I've been using uTorrent for like... eight years? It still works perfectly for me.

it's riddled with ads fam

# ¿ Jul 21, 2017 18:36

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Roadie posted:

Transmission has the problem that fake updates with malware and signed with the developer's key have ended up on the official site twice by now.

yeah I was going to mention that lmao. pick your massive flaws I guess

# ¿ Jul 21, 2017 19:13

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

baram. posted:

lifehack: use a client you don't have to delve into arcane settings screens to get working the way you want.

^^^^^this

it's why you got a mac in the first place, no?

# ¿ Jul 22, 2017 07:49

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

ufarn posted:

Spotify works better than iTunes, even though it's just a web wrapper, and I've never run into a memory leak or crazy resource hog. iTunes just doesn't seem to work by default.

I assume they haven't gone the way of Spotify because they still believe they're giving iTunes some attention.

People tried to make Songbird a thing, but twas not meant to be.

My favourite scenario was SoundCloud making their own client, but as we all know, we live in the darkest timeline where iTunes still exists as-is, getting worse with every week.

i agree with this. on windows. the spotify app on windows is your bog standard chromium frame app while itunes for windows is astonishingly, almost unforgivably bad. unresponsive ui, strange controls, occasionally shoots itself in the face and requires a restart to get itself in order again. i would actually ward people off from signing up for apple music if they regularly use a windows machine.

on mac itunes isn't great, but it's fine, and mostly feels pretty native and smooth whereas spotify feels just that bit more incongruous. i wish apple would nick the public shared playlists and ability to follow your friends tho

pzy posted:

gently caress Spotify. iTunes Match + Apple Music forever!

apple music entirely supersedes itunes match's functionality to the point where i'm not even sure they let you sign up for both right?

# ¿ Jul 24, 2017 19:06

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Binary Badger posted:

Now that Adobe has officially announced the end of Flash in three years, when will streaming companies jump to HTML5 / MPEG 4 or whatever? YouTube has but I see CNN still uses Flash..

the solution here is to not watch cnn hth

# ¿ Jul 29, 2017 10:39

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

GoldfishStew posted:

Storing files on random servers makes me uncomfortable.

put your shopping list in icloud and your realdoll parts list on an encrypted usb stick if it bothers you that much

# ¿ Aug 4, 2017 17:30

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Proteus Jones posted:

It doesn't. I just tested my Bose Soundlink headset and a Plantronics Voyager Pro (one at a time). Both of them report battery levels in the iPhone, but the Bluetooth Pref Pane on my rMBP doesn't report levels. Even <option> clicking the Bluetooth menubar icon doesn't show battery information.

fwiw i'm a mug who bought the beatsx earphones because i wanted the ~w1 experience~ and i get a battery level indicator in osx. the solution to your problem isn't the one you want, but it's the one i think steve jobs would appreciate; spend more on products from apple and apple owned subsidiaries :discourse:

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 08:06

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 11:02

Generic Monk: Oct 31, 2011

Is there a trick to making ALL finder windows the same size no matter how they're opened? I've done the thing where you make sure every window is closed, then resize one to make the setting stick when I invoke a finder window from the dock, but every window opened by a different application still opens in the tiny size that isn't any good for anything.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2017 17:01

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > macOS and Mac Software: We still exist!

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