Macs

Our phones are not your computers

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It is common to find software developers who imagine that everyone shares their understanding of, and enthusiasm for, computers. This is not the case. Most people merely tolerate computers:

This leads them to assume that we would like to have our phones transformed into something akin to a computer from the 1990s. This also is not the case. For example Brent Simmons argues that iPhones and iPads should be able to download software from anywhere just like computers because “those devices are computers“. No. They are not computers.

Certainly a phone has all the internal gubbins just like a computer. But my TV comes with a screen, a processor, an operating system, a web browser and is connected to the Internet. It is not a computer. Refrigerators come with processors and screens and an Internet connection. They are not computers. Motor cars come with processors, screens, web browsers and an Internet connection. They are not computers.

Apple sells far more phones than they do computers because phones are not computers. People who want a computer buy a computer. People who do not want a computer buy a phone. Nobody calls their phone their pocket computer… because they are not computers.

I use the splendid NetNewsWire (as mentioned here in 2008) which is available from the App Store for devices that are not computers but, alas, only from the website for Mac computers.

Apple TV not streaming from media library

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Although the Apple TV box could find the media library shared from the Mac it refused to play any videos. it had worked earlier in the day. A new file added to the library would appear in the library on the TV but would not play. They were all signed in to the same Apple account and were on the same WiFi network. What to do?

Restarting the Mac did not help.

Unmounting and remounting the external drive where the library lives did not help.

Restarting the Apple TV box did not help.

Signing out of and back into the Apple account did not help.

Restarting the WiFi router solved the problem and all was working again.

🤷‍♂️

Menu Bar Clutter 2024

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Recent posts by ldstephens and The Art Of Not Asking Why listing the contents of their Mac’s menu bar reminded me that it can be an insight into one’s usage and the evolution of apps. I listed mine in 2020, 2012 and 2010. So here is the 2024 update – will retirement have made any difference?

A Mac's menubar showing the icons of the apps stored there.

From left to right:

The first three are from Sound Source for shunting audio around your Mac.

Then Apple’s new Passwords app and then their Time Machine backups.

I keep trying clipboard managers such as ClipBook but none have yet replaced Clipy (far right).

With a gazillion terabytes of external storage hanging off the back of my Mac Jettison helps mange their mounting and ejections.

Likewise Cookie ejects all the crud that developers like to load into my browsers.

Apparently Focus is there but I never use it/have a need for it.

Alas I have never really got to grips with Keyboard Maestro and all it can do – will add it to the list of retirement projects.

The Bluetooth lets me check when the keyboard and trackpad are running out of juice etc.

The trackpad is greatly enhanced by BetterTouchTool and its almost daily updates with ever expanding features.

Quick switching of Sound output/volume for when you blast sound from the speakers at midnight thinking it was going to your headphones.

The Mac is kept awake/put to sleep with Amphetamine – It is on the Mac’s App Store but the developer does not seem to have an actual website.

The venerable 1Password will probably be usurped by the Passwords app one day but it is still here for now.

The Hazel app does background stuff moving downloads to the right place and collecting files associated with apps you moved to the bin etc.

Replacing TextExpander, when they introduced some silly subscription thing (since reversed I think) Typinator does an excellent job of automatically filling in oft repeated text.

Of course there is PopClip. A Mac without PopClip is barely a Mac at all. How it avoided being Sherlocked remains a mystery.

WiFi and Spotlight although I just Command+Space for the latter.

A new arrival is RunCat which runs faster or slower depending on the drain on your CPU. Mostly I just wanted to play around with adding my own animation.

To save the bread from burning (again!) Gestimer works well.

Replacing ClipMenu (see 2012 and 2020 editions) which was seemingly abandoned by the developer Clipy resumed development. I have not found anything as useful for clipboard management.

The final star icon is for Bartender which hides all the above when not required. There was a bit of a kerfuffle on the Interwebs recently with people getting upset (imagine such a thing!) but their explanation seems reasonable so it is still here.

Then there is the immovable Apple stuff which means I no longer have Fuzzy Time .

My first and (probably) my last computers

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A newspaper advertisement in 1980 claimed I could own a computer for less than £100. I was not sure what a computer was or what it could do but who could resist such powerful marketing? So I cut out and filled in the coupon and posted it off with my cheque – how quaint this all sounds today.

What came back was a Sinclair ZX80. I was hooked. Whilst it did not do very much – the single digit MHz processor chugged along turning off the video display whilst it worked, and the 1 KB of memory (someone may need to explain these numbers to younger readers) imposed its own limits – the idea of programming a logical sequence of instructions was fascinating. You could attach a portable cassette recorder and save your creations on to a cassette. These could be then be loaded back into the computer – if you did not jiggle the connecting wire or the cassette tape was not too worn or the wind was not blowing from the east and you were wearing your lucky socks. I added a 16KB expansion pack which allowed for ever greater creations. I avidly read the growing number of computing magazines that were appearing and any books I could find. The magazines would often include a listing of a program (to this day I resent the American spelling of program – if you are a programmer programming a programmable computer the end result should be a programme!) which you could type into your own computer or adapt so it would run on your computer. One such listing was a program that calculated your travelling time when cruising between the locks on the river Thames. That was not something I was ever going to do but the coding was so well written, so clear and concise, it was possible to learn most of what you needed to know from that single listing. Alas I have no idea who the author was but from then on coding was poetry.

I moved on to a Sharp MZ 80K which had a built in screen and cassette recorder. It could also play sound. It was quite loud and there was no discernible way to reduce the volume. With a pillow wedged against the speaker to muffle the sound I phoned the retailer who explained that the volume control was inside. So unscrewing the top half from the bottom half allowed the hinged top to be lifted revealing the volume and brightness knobs. This computer used a very similar character set (think chunky graphic blocks) as the increasingly popular Commodore PET and so one could easily adapt the magazine’s program listings. There were a range of programming languages available for it ranging from Pascal to Assemblers. There was a Sharp Users Group that sent out booklets with news and programming listings etc. This is from the December 1982 issue:

We also had a short lived local computer club where people could enthuse about their favourite computer (of which there were many) and why it was better than the others. Personal computers were more personal then – quirky and idiosyncratic.

By the end of the 1980s I had progressed to an Amiga 500 which was a delightful computer. I fitted a hard drive which provided a vast 40 MB of storage space – that could store ten or twelve photos from your phone today. The computer always required a second restart as it failed to see the hard drive on its initial start up. I wrote some programs that I sent off on a floppy disc to a Public Domain library who would distribute them for free – which meant you sent them money to cover the cost of the floppy disc and postage; some libraries were better at accurately calculating these costs than others. Some of my creations were favourably reviewed in magazines. Alas the managerial manoeuvrings sealed the fate of the once popular Amigas ultimately leading to bankruptcy – this scenario may sound familiar to Twitter users today.

The salesman tried to convince me that Windows 3.0 was the future. I smiled politely and bought a Mac. I had never seen the appeal of the IBM PC or the subsequent clones and compatible variations. They did not bounce and delight like other computers. The Mac was running System 6 which would soon be updated to System 7 – operating system updates were provided on the CDs that came with computer magazines by then. These free OS updates stopped with Apple’s financial woes in the mid 1990s and Mac OS 8 and 9 had to be purchased. Apple would then move on to the Unix system OS X. I am often puzzled why people abandon a real Unix system for a pretend one.

And now there is a Mac mini with an M2 Processor which certainly bounces and delights – probably the best computer I have ever had and probably the last one too.

Whilst people rightly celebrate the longevity of the Mac it is, with its numerous changes in processors and operating system over the years, what we in the UK would call a bit Trigger’s Broom – see Ship of Theseus: