It's time for Mackie cab and listener Todd brings us our quick tip of the week He says I do this at least up once a month without thinking about it Every month I get an exported file with the extension dot tab and I want to open this file in Excel But when I drag the file over the Excel icon in the doc the Excel icon does not highlight It doesn't let me drag it in But if I drag it with the command key held down over Excel The finder forces Excel to open the file and this holds true with other files and apps as well You can force apps to open a file by command dragging that file on to them the command key says I Command you to open it more quick tips like this plus your questions answered today on Mackie cab 1013 for Monday, December 11th 2023 Greetings folks and welcome to Mackie cab the show where you send in quick tips like that You send in questions that we answer you send in cool stuff found we string it all together into an agenda that Makes it such that we are each More than likely to learn at least five new things every single time we get together Sponsors for this episode include in Cogni.com slash Mackie cab where you can go and try out in Cogni's Privacy service with a 30-day money back guarantee and bare bones comm with BB edit one of my favorite apps That's always running on my Macs. We'll talk more about each of those in a little bit for now here in Durham, New Hampshire I'm Dave Hamilton Here in South Dakota. I am Adam Christensen And here well, let me back up for just a second and say Dave I'm sorry. I'm busy Friday morning when we record this. I can't do it I'll be here Saturday morning because it's Saturday morning here in Osaka, Japan pilot Pete. Good to see you guys So this is weird because you're we record on Fridays. We release on Mondays So we're all living in the past, but you are living in a future version of the past Compared to me and Adam correct. Okay. Yeah, this is this is Not linear time is anybody who thinks time is linear you sort that out for me. That's right Because you are listening to this at one moment in time Which is more than likely a different moment in time than when we recorded it and even then when we released it unless You're listening live on the stream at Mackie cub dot com at live dot Mackie cub dot com and you can find out when we are recording live by Subscribing to the calendar at Mackie cub dot com slash calendar. So how's that for an opening? I don't know. Yeah Sure, I guess it's like I might have just learned something. I I learned something, but I don't know what it is Brad has our next quick tip and he says With Option right clicking a file or folder and selecting copy as path name Which you can do like the option click or you right click you can choose copy as path name If the intent is to use this in the terminal or a script be aware that if there are any Spaces in the file they will be left or in the file name or folder names leading to that file They will be left in there and not escaped if you want to escape them You have to put a backslash before every space Otherwise terminal will break. This is true. So what? Brad's talking about and I have another solution here instead of escaping them, too But what Brad's talking about is when you choose this copy as path name with the option key down it Copies not just the name of the file, but all of the folders that lead up to it So it would be slash volume slash macintosh hard drive or whatever you've named your drive slash if it's in your user folder users Slash dave slash documents whatever it is or it might be in mobile documents Wherever it might be It's going to copy that full path name that you would type in the terminal or paste in the terminal My advice if you are going to paste this into the terminal for some command you type whatever the command is Uh, you press, you know space to get Separation between the command and your file name and then before you paste in the file name Put an open double quote character paste it in and then put a closed double quote If you wrap this in quotes the spaces will be read just fine by the terminal So that's mine. That's mine is I'd use the drag and drop technique and it escapes it It's share that with people So if you just open up your terminal and you open up your finder Grab any file or folder from the finder and literally drag it into the terminal and it will put in the path With it properly escaped. Yep because it knows where it's putting it Yep Yep, uh, I like this I I probably knew that at some point, but regardless. I don't know I didn't know it until you told us now So that's like those computer engineers think about that stuff sometimes That's probably because they have to use it sometimes I don't know that is what odd that they that the command doesn't do it though Maybe there's an option key for that. I might have to explore that a little bit more Oh, like an option control or something puts it on the yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, yeah, could be I don't know. Yeah, what what is there? Is there a magic little uh, Little thing if I very likely I'm sure somebody will tell us We probably don't have to go looking for it. No control. No, it doesn't Yeah, uh, yeah, I don't know. I somebody will tell us feedback at macgeekab.com. Please Yeah, hold on. What did you say? Feedback at macgeekab.com. I think so. I think that's what I said And then you said feedback at macgeekab.com. Okay. I see how it's gonna be You want to take us to Gary then Pete if that's how it's gonna be I can do so I can do so Gary Gary writes in Uh, it's a little bit of a long quick dip, but it's a good quick dip So last week we were talking pre-show about how to get the bitter coating off of the Button cell batteries, but and I'll tell why here in a minute. That's important I like to use a file Dave likes to lick it off But Gary has the better way to go here. Gary writes in hi guys I have the early access to the shows and purchasing a premium through With purchasing premium through apple podcast. So i'm listening to the That there's a deck in your dongle episode and you guys were talking about air tags I just thought bought my first air tag and I thought I would share some tips on the subject of the bitter coating That duracell and other battery makers are putting on the cr 2032 batteries and pete saini files them down I read that there is a better way to do this get some rubbing alcohol And a wet paper towel and what a paper towel with it Once you do lightly rub the paper towel on the battery that will take off the bitter coating and make the Battery work better with the air tag. They also sell batteries that specifically say compatible with air tag I will definitely look at the card with fine mind, but But I don't know if you guys are making aware. Oh, I'm on to the second part of it now I was wondering where you were going with this beat. I'll definitely look at the card. We were talking about a Air tag. Oh the air tag card that we mentioned in the last episode Basically a credit card format of an air tag So I'll definitely look at that But I don't know if you guys are aware that spegan spig Makes an air tag wallet and the links in our show notes The wallet is a little on the thick side and I know you guys prefer a thin wallet But how it works is that there is a removable cover on the side of the wallet that has a round hole for placing the air tag In you pop off the wallet I pop off the cover and put the air tag in and snap the cover back on I bought one so far and I like it. I suggest share air tags And I may suggest sure takes feature with my friends. So keep up the great work and keep the shows coming So it's it's thin, but it's still air tag thick Is is the thing yeah, but it like folds open to put your like it is a wallet that has a spot for an air tag in it That's okay. That's pretty cool. Yeah, so I unfortunately am forced to carry a I used to like the little Clip wallet and I'm forced to carry a full-size wallet for some credentials that I carry with me And I just didn't have room. It was already, you know, twice as thick as any normal wallet. I just couldn't go any thicker That's pretty interesting card format, but I like that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Cool little little tip with the cool stuff found Uh, the only problem is that rubbing alcohol doesn't taste good Pete So it makes me not want to lick the the batteries anymore. How many licks does it take to clean? An air tag battery to make it work the world may never know Don't lick the batteries folks ask woodsy ask woodsy I like it. All right. Uh while we're on the subject of air tags bob brought up an interesting Idea that I think is a brilliant little quick tip. He says when replacing the battery or setting up a new air tag Set the name to whatever you want to call it Followed by the month and the year of the current date This will eliminate the stress of wondering when your air tag battery will fail when you need it most Because you can't know anymore. You used to be able to see the actual charge level of an air tag battery Now you are only able to see it when it's in like apple telling you hey emergency replace it now mode, which Obviously always happens the moment after you leave for an extended trip Pete I think you can probably confirm this for us. Yeah, absolutely and and of course to an international location where you're not going to be near Yeah, that's right of of store where you can buy where they have no liquid batteries. That's right. That's right. Yeah Yeah Yeah So I like that idea of putting that on there because they they do tend to last about a year Unless you're Making it make noise all the time, right? That I presume that would sort of tank a battery Faster, but otherwise it's about a year of being an air tag that the battery is like. Yeah. Hey, you should replace me so Yeah Yeah, interesting Nice. I like that. Thank you I believe listener Todd has another quick tip for us. I'll find it as I'm vamping here Todd says You can permanently delete text messages on macOS Sonoma by going into the messages app go to view And choose recently deleted then select messages or shift click a range of messages You can command click multiples and shift that you do all the things that you would normally do And then control click the selection and select delete in the pop-up this will delete them immediately as opposed to You know on whatever cycle it is that these things actually get deleted. Yeah. Yeah, right I'm not going to make any speculation about the kinds of text messages that Todd needs to delete I'm definitely not I think I think this rolls over probably into some of the other areas where apple when you delete It doesn't truly delete like I'm thinking that this is a similar thing with Like photos like when you delete a photo, right? It it sits there for 30 days if you're using iCloud photo library Correct. Um, yeah, and I think you can do similar type things Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the it's the same kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, it would clear it's like the equivalent of emptying the trash or something. I don't um, I Yeah, I there's there's I suppose this is simply a fish shake because I don't think Any third party could solve this problem But maybe someone has cleverly figured out a workaround for it of which I am not aware but I my issue with messages is that I've been using messages since the first day it came out probably like all the rest of us here and I get pictures and videos and all of those things and as Might not come as a great surprise to anybody who's listened for more than a few weeks I'm kind of a pack wrap with my data. I don't delete data So I I have set all of my devices to never delete Any messages and also sync them with the cloud so that they just magically appear on all of my devices But I don't necessarily want all of the data from my messages on all of my devices all of the time I it's in the cloud. That's fine pull down The recent 30 days and if I want more if I want to scroll back go and slurp that down too, but Apple seems to at least as far as I'm aware still Just push everything down to all of my devices that sync with messages in the cloud. Yeah Yeah, okay. Yeah, and there have you found a workaround for this? Okay, great. I go in and manually manage it But uh, something I would like to see happen If it would be great if they could do a VIP like thing for messages Because you know now you get all those like, you know confirmation codes and other kinds of marketing messages and stuff like that right and I'm constantly having to purge and delete that stuff Because I don't want it and it just clutters up everything. I would love it if I could say, okay Everything in this list I want, you know, keep them for however long. Sure. Yeah separate settings everything else I read it Kill it or kill it in seven days or it would be really nice if you could kind of separate You know or even if it was just one of those things they do with contacts like if they're in my contacts It's these rules if they're not in my contacts These rules that'd be nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I well. Yeah. Yeah, I wish there was something I had I had an experience this week at my mind is like Grinding along as you're talking about this where there was someone that I hadn't Communicated with since probably pre pandemic or maybe maybe mid-pandemic, but it had been several years, right? and I wanted to Reach out to him and the best way that I had to get in touch with him was his phone number for iMessage. He's an iphone user and uh I searched for his name in messages and it didn't come up. I'm like, that's weird. Okay Well, let me just look in contacts because I know I'd put him in my contacts. Nope Wasn't in my contacts This has happened to me for a while I was having an issue where the default contacts at the default contacts database That things would be added to was not my iCloud database over the years it if you have multiples It will change it And I guarantee you I did not manually do this, but it would change to either my google one Or for a short period of time. I was a professor at the university of new hampshire And it would store it in that database I'm pretty sure it must have stored brad's data in this database in the unh database because I went and looked At my google contacts database online and it wasn't there and I'm like crap I remembered the things we were talking about the last time we texted and I was able to find his message that way And there was his phone number and of course I made a new contact record for him, but um You know, I like I like having all of this data there. Obviously. It's valuable to me This is why I'm a pack rat with this stuff but I like I really would like to be able to manage and say yeah, just don't fill up my phone with it My kids phones my kids phones. Absolutely.  Yeah, it's like my daughter. This is all That's That's where the majority of her her iCloud storage goes. Yeah, exactly Exactly, and I I'm kind of okay paying for it in iCloud because that's one place I just don't need it on all of my devices all of the time. So yeah, I don't know Answer Apple figured out I feel like they will figure this out like this is becoming it started being a problem for us heavy users Eventually, it's going to be a problem for everyone. Like you just give it enough time One last go. Yeah, go ahead Pete. I was gonna say I've got a quick I've got a quick corollary to yes previous quick tip, which was put the date of your battery on your air tags Rod L In our discord chat says he puts the date that he put his air pods in service And when he names the air pods So he names the air pod like mine. I call him a a So because I wanted at the top of the list sure he eats air pods But if I to put the date after that then I always know the date I put him in service And I know when the warranty is expiring So okay, so I you rod ells tip is fantastic. I like that. I also Do you think you just buried a quick tip there by putting a a oh, yeah, there you go Because I don't want to look down a list of 10 different bluetooth devices I want my air pods by using most often. I wanted them at the top of the list So I put a a in front of my name to totally totally um We had a conversation about naming devices bluetooth devices probably a year and a half ago on this show and At the time I Incorrectly it turns out presumed that when you change the name of a bluetooth device on your phone Like in the bluetooth settings that it would only that was only changing The name that that mac address appears as on your phone It turns out that's not true Right if I've noticed that now that you mentioned it It changes the name of the bluetooth device in the bluetooth devices profile on itself and The reason I know this pete is because I went to I you and I both go to this same place where We float in the floatation tanks. Yeah, they also have a sauna room there Which is really it's a nice thing you go spend like 30 minutes in this sauna and the sauna has a bluetooth speaker And there are two locations. There's one in one town called portsmouth another one in hampton And I was getting confused Which one to select in my phone so I could listen to a podcast while I was in the sauna So one day in hampton. I name I renamed the hampton tank to you know, I are sauna hampton or something I'm sure they appreciated that I bet they do But I didn't realize that I had changed its name until I went with lisa a few months later And she was like, oh, we were going to listen to a podcast that was on her phone I'm like, oh, it's going to be called ir sauna. Well, I'll help you figure out, you know Like you should only see one because you've never seen the other one So your phone wouldn't get confused and she's like, I see ir sauna hampton. I'm like, oops But you actually helped them out there so I think I did like I'm sure other people ran into the same problem that I did So yeah, yeah, but um, but yeah, yeah bluetooth naming conventions I like to send yours in feedback at mackeycup.com like there's clearly Some like even like this just opened up a can of worms here and I like I like this particular can of worms because it You know, it's these things that help make our lives All right one last quick tip from listener ben before we move on to answering your questions and ben Shares, it's simple and it's quick. He says, you know, you can Uh, you can select words by double clicking on them. You can select words on your mac by dragging across them If you need to select a paragraph you can triple click a paragraph and it selects or triple click a word And it will select the entire paragraph something I had no idea about. I love these quick tips All right, look data brokers are here to collect our personal information And sell it to other companies with just a few clicks of the mouse Our sponsor incogny wants to help you take back your data just as easily They deal with data brokers on our behalf so that we don't have to spend hundreds of hours jumping through hoops, right Every year the number and scope of data breaches worldwide is rising according to the 2021 annual data breach report by identity theft resource center There were 68 percent more breaches in 2021 than the year before The likelihood of each of us having our data breached is constantly Increasing and these data brokers aggregate our personal information including our names and aliases SSN's logins location history all of it incogny reaches out to data brokers on your behalf Request your personal data removal and deals with any objections from their side And since many data brokers collect your personal information again after some time They also take care that your data stays off the market by conducting repeated ongoing removals You just go to incogny dot com slash mac geekgab And tell them you know whose data they're going to be removing presumably yours And then you give them permission to get to work for you And they'll contact data brokers on your behalf to request your personal data removal And then you just get to kick back and watch some work And they'll handle any objections from data brokers and keep you updated on your progress Incogny is available risk-free for 30 days for you at incogny dot com slash mac geekgab Meaning you can try it out for yourself And you get a full refund if you're not happy with the service again That's incogny dot com slash mac geekgab go check it out and our thanks to incogny for sponsoring this episode Next up is bb edit one of my favorite apps It's running on my computer right now and I use bb edit for all kinds of things One of the things I really like they introduced a few years ago is notebooks where you can store Text notes in there You can also now create multiple notebooks so that you can really organize things Kind of keep things clean as you go They also Support shortcuts like create text document or create note so that as part of your shortcut flow You can start creating these things. This is super handy They've always embraced apple tech like this and of course they'll continue to do it. Go check it out Go to bare bones dot com slash store You get a 30 day fully functioning demo to try out every feature in the app And if you've tried it out before bb edit 14 came out Well, you get a fresh eval period for yourself here You can continue running after your 30 day trial in free mode Which gives you some but not all features or of course you can go to bare bones dot com slash store Buy your copy and you're good to go with all the features Go check it out bare bones dot com and our thanks to bare bones and bb edit for sponsoring this episode All right adam, uh, you want to take us to jerry got some questions, right? Yeah, let me if I can get there. Here we go Jerry is asking about opening zoom links. He says good evening. I'm wondering if there's any way possible one of you could tell me Step-by-step instructions on how to create a shortcut that will open bookmarks like I have saved to my home screen These bookmarks are zoom links and I would like the zoom links to open directly in the zoom app and not in safari first I looked up on perplexity but I am the I'm on I'm unable to find the steps or I'm I am blind and find the steps a little difficult to follow So could you help me that would be greatly appreciated? Please tell me step-by-step instructions since I'm legally blind and cannot see the screen. I use voice. Please. Thank you Let me see if we can do this via voice here and uh and and open that all up. I I Struggle with the same thing. I don't like When I have to get the bonus screen in safari to open a zoom link because or or a microsoft edge link and really Like for microsoft teams meetings and google meet I prefer to do those in microsoft edge because those Engines work way better in edge than they do in safari So for all of these kinds of meetings things I want to make sure the link opens in the app Aka zoom or browser aka edge of my choice And I use a little tool called velia v e l j a it's from sunday sore house And we'll put a link in the show notes to it There are many of these things we've discussed a few of them on the show over the last year here What this does is it intercepts all links that will go to your browser And if you have a special rule set to open a certain URL in An app or a different browser it will open there otherwise It will just seamlessly pass it through to safari and you'll never know that it was there in the background there Like I said, there's other apps I wound up kind of standardizing on velia And I forget that it's running Right up until the moment that it's not running and I start getting those bonus zoom screens Or I start getting safari telling me that it's probably not the right place to join a Microsoft teams meeting or whatever and then it's like oh yep. I lost some for some reason velia got was quit Like I gotta start back up again. So yeah, do you do you use an app like that adam anything? You know, I had I think I had some sort of safari extension I had something at some point, but this doesn't come up too often but I Certainly now we use zoom all the time at the office and I can definitely relate to this issue like it makes no sense to me that it has to do So many things and so many pop-ups and I could imagine You know, if you have if you're legally blind, it's just going to be even worse experience, you know Yeah, it's like Click the link here pops up over here. I already have zoom open.  Yeah zoom. Are you listening? Yeah, exactly. They may be bound by they may be bound by the technology You know just how it works because it's those like I forget what they call those links I should know as a web developer, you know, this special little Well, it's I mean that you can build zoom links are Opening it like their https links, right? So Your your computer only knows To open links based on the beginning of the url not the not the address of the url, right? So when it sees https, it opens that in your default browser Whatever that might be what value does and I assume others of its ilk is they become your default browser And insert themselves there and that way they can sort of get in the way and say, ah, this is a link to zoom.us I know to open that in the zoom app and skip safari. Yeah, that's how these work. It's a clever little hack Yeah, they're not using those little special domain links or whatever Like I know that apps can identify themselves to the system is saying like if I'm I don't know zoom colon slash slash that means open zoom right and and maybe zoom even has that But all the links we get to join zoom meetings are https links not zoom colon slash slash links, right? So yeah, that it's it's that That yes, that's the that's the trick Is the so and by the way before everybody emailed me, I think maybe getting that wrong I can't remember how that works. Like I said, I should know as a web developer As a developer what the what those things are called at your homework right after the show He's gonna go look it up. Don't have to mail in there. Yep. And then uh as Dave you see I put in the show notes free and free in set app included with the subscription price of set app is open in which is the one I used to Ask me which browser? Okay, I believe I believe value is free just free for everybody. Um, if I'm not mistaken, but yeah, oh, yeah open in There's another they all do the same thing your default browser. Yeah, it's it They all do the same thing and and hopefully Stay out of your way to the point where you forget that they're even there, which is I I have a bonus set up thing So now Pete I'm gonna go do that because that'll help me At my work and the reason I will go use open in at work is because I have a locked down my it The pet do not have admin rights to that system. So normally I cannot install software but the way that Set app works it actually runs under your user So I can install anything from set app on my work computer because it's under my user account not Oh, and they're in the machine are very quick tip that so but could you and I realized like this Having a locked down machine is not a universal definition every company sort of does it differently But could you download an app like velia and put it in your users applications folder? Like set app will like would that work or potentially? Yeah, potentially. I haven't messed with it too much. I don't know how they have it Totally. Yeah, but it's pretty locked down and it's pretty annoying Yeah, that is that's yeah for nerds like us. That's like No, but set apps all that problem for me. So like I love it. I have access to all my setup You know apps and stuff like that and it really helps me with with work That's interesting.  That's what we're doing and and now I think you have to get set up on there first So my I think my IT department did install setup I had approved that I had the licensing and yeah, yeah, then once that was blessed was like All right, but then that's yeah, that's one app, right? Yeah And and I don't mean that you have to be a nerd to listen to this show by any stretch However, if you listen long enough, that's right You'll become one Yep. Yep. You've been warned. You've been warned. Yeah. Yeah. This isn't a mandatory thing It's but it is a a natural byproduct. Yep And that's a good thing You know, wait, the goal is for like I say, you know, it's for us. We always say five new things. Well, you know That adds up man. Yep Week after week Pete chuck ass, he says, uh, I review my cellular data use at the end of each month so that I avoid going over my five gig cell Plan cap and I have avoided and also avoided roaming charges Then I reset those stats for the next month This month I noticed a new listing among the many apps that I have on my iphone running 17 ios 17.1 He probably is now on point two I may have missed the uninstalled apps category in the past, but I don't think so. It seems new to me And after I cleared my november cellular data usage that category disappeared and has not come back It wasn't a significant amount of data usage relative to everything else But I wonder about what it refers to and why it would show up now Yeah, well, and he actually signed it chuck in japan. So how upper po that I can say from osaka tonight kanichi watt chuck That's right. Yeah, you are you are in the future. Yeah The uninstalled apps category refers to data that's actually Used by apps that have since been uninstalled from your phone So the features in ios designed to give you a complete picture of all your data usage Including the data consumed by apps that are no longer present on your phone So when you uninstall an app from your iphone, the ios system keeps tracking that data And all those apps used during the current billing cycle or or data tracking period And it's aggregated under uninstalled apps in that list there in the category in the cellular data usage Settings and since the uninstalled apps category represents data used by apps that are no longer on your device There's no toggle toggle to turn it off Uh to turn off cellular data for those apps because they're already gone You've already turned them off. Yeah Yeah, the boy have you turned them off for good So um So you may not have noticed this category before it may not have shown up if there weren't any recently uninstalled apps That used any significant amount of data and since you reset your Cellular data statistics every month say that three times fast All accumulated data usage information Is cleared including the data recorded in the uninstalled apps and that's why the category disappears If you reset your data usage and haven't since uninstalled An app that's used any data. So I didn't even realize this feature existed until uh very recently and so Yeah, yeah, right. So yeah, that that it makes sense. It um I'm I'm happy that when I remember when I first saw that and I was pleased that it Kept track of that data like it it puts it in a bucket, but it doesn't just Forget that that data was used during that period I would like it if it remembered which app had used it and maybe just marked the app in parentheses to Indicate that it was uninstalled or if you could tap on uninstalled apps and see the the detail this but But you don't get to see that and my guess is someone at apple decided that was a privacy violation Right by if you've deleted the app don't show it to me anywhere else on my phone You promised that all the data related to it was deleted. And so yeah, like that's fair enough. Yeah, I don't know I don't know. That's yeah, that's my guess on this stuff. Well, we got another question. Dave Yes, mickey wrote in and he said Dave peat and adam Thanks as always for the great show and love having adam along for the ride moving forward And so do we Dave or uh mickey Um as a long time podcaster and podcast listener I've been listening to adam's show for almost as long as mgg Mackey cab however I fell off listening to most podcasts a few years back to to shorten commute and suffice to say I was so glad to hear his voice again this week as part of mgg That said i'm a little behind and I imagine i'm not alone in being curious to hear a little bit more about adam's background What's been going on with him? Uh, he mentioned in the last last episode that he's relocated from so cal southern california to south dakota Which came as a surprise to me. Can we get a proper adam intro into a future show that would be this show? Uh present show letting your time and all And hear more about his background and what he's currently working on. Thanks chance as always for a great show mickey So adam you want to introduce yourself? Yeah, what do you want to know? I don't I don't I apologize for not doing this in the last episode it just it I I made the incorrect assumption that everybody Stays in touch and up to date and yes, but we are happy to have Mr. Adam christiansen Creator of the maccast almost in fact happy almost anniversary Your show was the 13th of december december 13th. Yeah of 2004 right 2004 Yeah, so exactly six months before we started mackey cab I I believe you will always have the distinction of being the first mac specific, you know apple specific podcaster. So yeah, that's That's a debatable thing. Okay That's fair. I tell you why so this actually plays really well in the background. Yeah So I've I've been doing a mac apple podcast for 19 years or was and now I've migrated over here I'm very happy to be here. But yeah that show the the back cast I started. Um Way back, you know, this was before even there wasn't even a way to There was no directory. I think I don't think we had a directory yet It was in it was in development. I think that came a little bit later and then You know, you had like People were down get grabbing podcasts from feeds with like apple scripts and stuff like that Right very few there weren't podcatchers as we knew them back then or really itunes Support came years later. I think I remember No, I tuned support came three weeks before mackey cab launched Yeah, and I have a I I have a story about that Was that what I was saying? Oh man, I don't think that part that sounds right though And somebody says track that out there But yeah, there was an interesting story about having to like talk to steve jobs to get him to add us to directory Well, but I don't want to derail you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So uh now I lost track of where the question was so, uh What's your name? Why are you here? Oh, no, no, no, no, I know that question. I was where I tried to remember where I was going with this Yeah, so started that that show 19 years ago and Oh, you were the first that's what it was. Oh the first that's right.  He really was the og podcaster. I think but again Yeah, and well, here's why I say kind of debatable because he was still Streaming and I believe at the time they were taking that really low quality eight bit pressed audio stream and then just grabbing that recording and then throwing it into an rss feed So technically yes, I would say that's a quote-unquote podcast, but it wasn't produced as a podcast It was produced as a streaming radio show that was then converted into a podcast So from a pure technical standpoint, yes um, and then there was also, um The show that ken used to be on and why is it why am I blanking? Scott shepherd Scott separate show Inside mac radio inside mac radio. Yes. Yeah, and that was another streaming show Um, and I don't know that he had started actually turning that into a podcast before I started though I definitely Sean king uh was doing a quote-unquote podcast, but I always kind of felt like it wasn't It wasn't intentionally a podcast. It was byproduct of no, and I remember when um When your mac life your mac life had been going for like years and years. They were on Terrestrial radio, I think even in some way they were and they were streaming via audible too You could like subscribe to audible and get them.  It was very similar to a podcast, right? But when podcasting started I remember Sean saying We're not one of those new things. We're an old thing and and I and and before anybody gets on me about this I did exactly Brian and I did exactly the same thing with the mac observer We were a mac news Website or an online magazine and when the term blog came out We were like we are not one of those new things. We're this old thing, right? You know hindsight we Like we all like even Sean now and it didn't take Sean very long to say wait a minute Actually, what I what I'm doing is a podcast like it this new New word does fit what I've always been doing and Sean will tell you hey, I'm you know in his mind Not without merit. He says he's the you know, the first mac podcaster. So yeah fair fair I mean It doesn't really matter at the end of the day No, but I was very early in the podcasting scene. Let's just say that like very much one of one of the first I'll throw myself in that group for sure. It's a leisure in the top three yet a middle And so considering there's only a few million podcasts out there Yeah, but I don't know what do people want to you know, sorry peep I don't know what people want to know outside of that I mean, I don't I don't tend to share a lot of my personal stuff and some of that is by design for Just privacy and stuff like that, but I'm happy to share like my career and and you know, I When I started I was living in California in San Diego so And then like has been mentioned We recently about a year and a half ago almost two years coming up on two years now relocated to South Dakota And that's just because of the nature of my job. So in terms of career, I've always been a web developer computer programmer I currently work for an e-commerce company. So I build e-commerce websites Do some web development and that sort of thing on the side done some work for Dave I was gonna say, yeah, you you you were the primary tech web person for us at Mac Observer and backbeat and even When we launched mac ekeb as a separate site, I mean that was that goes back 15 years, I think so Yeah, we've been working together for a long long time. So yeah, yeah, that's that's kind of my day job Now so, you know, I'm here. I've got my little separate office here and I you know Walk to work every day through the backyard and Sit down and and build websites and then do pod was doing podcasts and then more recently, you know part of the genesis of of the move here Um, you already mentioned I'm getting older looking towards retirement and looking to slow down a little bit. So just cost of living and and those sorts of things. So lots of people ask why'd you I've enjoyed your move to South Dakota From the california because everybody has this vision that california is beautiful and absolutely is You know, but it's also very very expensive Uh, you know, it is it is hard hard to afford for a lot of people to afford housing there and stuff like that. So Um, you know, the idea was hey, I want to retire someday. I don't want to be in debt the rest of my life and So That's what brought us here. That was one of the genesis. The other was just getting to a smaller town where I could get more involved with my community Um, you know, San Diego as you might imagine is a huge huge place And while you can get involved in maybe your little local community at a broader perspective, it's it's a little bit tricky. So Like I mentioned, I I moved here. Uh, I've always been interested in theater. So I started doing community theater Um, I'm also there's a maker space here and I've started to get into uh, I pinball and pinball machine So I'm restoring the pinball machine A 1976 pinball machine Uh, so yeah exciting. Oh, I want to see pictures of that. So all right, cool Thank you. There's some pictures on on pin side Which is a pinball forum for people who are into pinball pin side. P. I. N. S. I. D. E. Is that right? Yeah, and I'm pretty sure I'm probably matcast on there. So you probably can Pretty easily. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I think that's what I went with there. I'll have to double check that one Makes sense. Makes sense. And you're matcast on most of the Yeah, you can find me on on all the social media places in this matcast And then the other thing we mentioned in the pre show You know, the reason I big reason I started doing this is I've always been involved in the mac community Through user groups and stuff like that. I was on the board for both the portland mac user group and also the sand eagle mac user group Back in the day. So Cool Thank you for giving us that question to to follow that then Adam is Matcast done or are you doing one last show on the anniversary or The plan is to have one more show on the 13th and that will probably be the end of it I'm not sure what that's going to be yet. I'm still like mulling that in my mind Cool cool exciting sweet. I'm sure Yeah, yeah end of an era end of an era But moving into a new era that I'm very very excited about obviously so Glad to be here with everybody and yeah, that was a great question. I'm glad joe asked that I'm so it was mickey. But but yes, joe is the next question mickey and you can read joe's question if you want But yeah, thanks mickey for for asking the question that many people probably had Yeah All right, so joe wants to know what's consuming all his max disk space. I have this question a lot as well And he says, uh, let me see here. I need to see what's up with taking up the space on my hard drive I use disk inventory x which is a great app Uh, I tried it this time and it runs, but it grinds to a halt and never gives me the the results I'm Guess it's just too old of an app to work with Sonoma Do you have any alternative suggestions? Uh, yeah, I um, I I like most of us need to do this often and so I Have used many apps over the years Omni disk sweeper was sort of the go-to for a while and it still works but I have Really become enamored with the space lens feature inside of clean my Mac x That it it's part of set up. So that's a bonus and it really makes it It like the the way it represents it visually on the screen You see what categories or what folders you can kind of look at it either way You can dig in you can delete things from there. It will Sort of give you some context As to what you're deleting and and the you can have it sort by what's the biggest stuff So, you know, it kind of does a lot of the work for you In terms of setting it all up So it makes it really easy to go and find the biggest offenders quickly And decide whether you want to get rid of them and I've I've had it, you know, I'd probably run it I don't know four times a year five times a year and You know, it routinely finds things like I had this one Three gigabyte log file from an app for you know, something I had turned on for yeah for troubleshooting with the developers or whatever and then You know, you forget about it and and they don't tell you thank you so much We've finished this now.  So um But you know things like that and things you just forget about so I yeah, I I like Clean my Mac X. I also like daisy disc If I didn't have clean my I mean, I have both of them Daisy disc also has a of its own sort of visual representation of this and and and that You know, they both sort of work for my brain. I don't know. Do you guys use anything different? Nope, I use the exactly those two those two apps. I I prefer clean my Mac X Yeah, daisy disc, I think I just have because again, I think I want to say that's still part of setup So I believe that's why I still have that one. Yeah, I don't know if it is right. Okay. Yeah Yeah, I mean it's for a while. I think it's only in daisy disc is only 10 bucks like And you you know, it it does the same thing it sorts by Largest and so you can really kind of see so I was trying to pull it up, you know Again, it looks like it's a casualty potentially of The redoing of system preferences But uh, the built-in, you know find large files thing that Apple used to have Yeah, I I can't I can't find it But it used to do a pretty good job Most likely it's the built-in thing. I think I think I don't know where they moved it to I'm trying to find it You're right. It's in system settings general On well, but in oh system settings general about I think is where yeah system settings general about and then at the bottom of that screen is the Storage settings and that's where you can go in and start to see some of that stuff two Two things I will add to this use disc utility and highlight your You know your boot disc And it will show you all of the Space that's used by your snapshots that time machine grabs and that can be a really easy way of reclaiming some space and then um And that's just like I said in apples disc utility and then the other thing that that I find really helpful is hazel from Uh, oh Why can't I noodle soft? hazel I it hazel is essentially for those of you that remember apples watched folders hazel does it right It lets you do things based on what happens in a specific or many specific folders And I have hazel pointed at my downloads folder And I have it remove first of all I have it remove duplicates because I don't know if you folks have this problem, but I wind up downloading like the same pdf often And uh, and so it's nice not to have 14 copies of that But I also have it purge anything in my downloads folder. That's more than 30 days old It I know and I used to do this I've used the downloads folder as kind of an archive at times And so if you're doing that don't have hazel do this for you, but otherwise It's a really nice thing to know that I can just let things download Go and launch them and I don't have to go back and like prune that out It it just takes care of it for me actually Dave The hint that I have on that is what I have hazel do I have a folder called tidy within my Download and on my desktop and I think it's been sitting there for more than 30 days goes into the tidy folder And then I regularly go through there and go okay. I want to keep that no I don't want to keep that so you have hazel put things in the tidy folder. Yes And so it keeps my download folder relatively clean and then I can go in and go I do need to keep that So tidy is kind of my little archive within but I have one in desktop and one on the on the downloads Yeah, and then you talked about duplicates. So that's a nice segue into it's not a disk storage space space one so much but Gemini will find duplicate files also available in set up and the way I remember gemini is that's the Astrological sign for the twins. Yeah, I'm assuming that's why they name it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep makes sense. Yeah Yep. Yeah, so real quick on this storage thing the built-in thing It looks like where it's actually you had it almost there Dave where it's moved to so it's in storage But then see what they did is they ios I'll find it So it used to be it was just like one thing and it would be like show me all my large files Now they've got it in categories. So I can see I have you know 11 gigabytes of apps and I have 5.6 gigabytes of books which are audio books and Developer files and then there's documents and then they have the little I icon the info icon. So if you go to documents and click on the I icon from system general storage There's the view that shows you the tabs with large files downloads unsupported app file browser And you can go sort by size And see your largest files and stuff like that built in So it's like buried now. It used to be really easy to get to it was like Used to be right there large files from like get info or something like that But yeah, it's they can you I don't want to pull this up on my computer because I I know that it will be the thing that causes all of our audio to go crackly While it crunches my disc. Yeah, so I'm not going to do it but Can you either delete files from there or at the very least like right click and get to them in the finder where you could then delete them So when you select a file, it'll you has a show and finder option It also has a delete button and you can also right click and delete it from there as well Oh, so it really it really is like a Competitor if you will to what like daisy disc does with its own interface. It's not as visual and it's straightforward But it is built in so it's like classic apple, right? It's built in. It's very basic Right. Yeah, we'll do the thing you want to find a large file if you want something More visual and with more features and more functionality I would do daisy disc or clean my mac x. I prefer those to this but it's worth noting. It's there something built in Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's great. Okay. All right. Huh. I got to dig into that when it's not podcasting recording live time. Yeah, so new new word there by the way And I want to make sure this gets into the next I don't know if it's the urban dictionary or what have you But you use the past tense of the verb to iosify Oh, yeah, they iosified it. He said yep I think ted landow gets credit for coining the term iosification Okay, I like I remember he was writing for us at mac observer at the time and And I really I think he was the first I think he was the the one who coined that term out in in in our you know Our little apple world here. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we need to spread that word. It's yeah So descriptive It's yeah, and it's and he was right like he was writing about it as a warning at the time like I don't like this iosification of mac os and now it's just like well, you know, it's how it be Yeah rampant and not always good. Sometimes it's good It sometimes it is good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yeah, so I got a call ted. It's been a long time since I've talked to him Yeah, yeah, should I take us to shawn in fact? I searched for iosification to put a link in and it it pulled up a mac observer link So there you go. Yes, please take us to shawn. Yeah. Yeah, we've been we've been too far down memory lane pete the future So shawn writes good evening gentlemen and when we started the show it was morning, but it may now be evening Depending on how and when you're listening He says I have an issue. I need help with and and he then includes this So if you're writing a question, please include this information. I'm running a 2017 iMac 27 inch on monoray 12.7.1 That's always helpful to have that. That is. Yeah fair. Uh, I seem to have two photo libraries I'm not sure why I did not intentionally create two I did have an issue several years ago where I accidentally deleted all my pictures Oh, sorry When I was deleting pictures off my iPad I did not realize it was taking them off iCloud as well Fortunately, I have multiple backups, so it was mostly fine Perhaps that is how it happened regardless. I would like just one library I have looked it up on google but seem to find different ways of doing it I'm not wanting to delete everything again. Good plan, and I would like some guidance, please and thank you shawn Wow Yeah, yeah, wow so I found an article at otherworld computing about Which has a lot of good options for merging multiple photos libraries and they they talk through doing it manually You can use the import function of photos. You can export in a variety of different ways. So there are options One of them, which would be my favorite is power photos from fat cat software It is a piece of third-party software you will pay for this And by golly if you're gonna if if you care and you clearly do about The integrity of your photos library in the end Please take our advice and go this route Also make a backup before you head down any path because anything can happen But I have been through some it and does correct. Yeah I have been through a ton of these and and it will it power photos is helpful I don't want to use the word magic because it will require you to interact with it at some level But it really is magic. It's just not Set it and and forget it because you don't want that when you're doing these merges You want to be able to review things But it will crunch through both of your photos libraries or all three of your photos libraries That you want to merge and then it will show you the duplicates and it will guide you and say I think this is the one you should keep And this is the one you should you know let go and all of that stuff and it will pull it all together And it will maintain your albums and all of those things It is absolutely an essential tool if you're doing this I highly like like you can hear it in my voice. Just go get it. That's the way to go You can read the article at rwc if you want to know Sort of the the ways that you're not going to choose and then you're going to just choose this one I I don't I don't mandate things often here and this isn't really a mandate, but you should go It's as close as I'm gonna get yeah This is one of those tools that I don't think a competitor to it exists Which is weird because of how valuable it is like don't let the fact that this is its own thing out there in the market Don't let that mislead you into thinking that it's not valuable. It is absolutely valuable. So that's my praise How much is it Dave? You know I'm looking at the purchase page.  It like I I saw and heard you sort of acknowledging that that you're your love for this too adam is that did I get that right? Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna jump in when I had an opportunity I have recommended this over and over and over and over again throughout the years It is absolutely the tool to do exactly what this question is asking Um with all the caveats that you already mentioned, you know backup I'm anybody who's listened to my show for years knows I am like crazy about backup Um, and so somewhat related to this another feature of this that's really great from a backup perspective And just a cleaning up your library perspective is if you're like me and I think a lot of people out there Right, you have a huge library with all your photos and stuff in it But maybe a large majority of them aren't like the greatest photos But they're photos that obviously you want to keep right and if you want some a tool to help you Clean and again, you're gonna have to do the manual work for this but clean your library This tool will let you manage multiple libraries and create multiple libraries So a great one a great tip I've given in the past is you know Why not just create an archive each year of the last year's photos and you can do it by doing a you know a smart album just says you know from January 1st to December 31st of this year Create that and then put it into a separate library And then you can archive that you know put it in backup put it on like archive at multiple places And then you know for that year you could go back and safely Remove those less, you know keep keep the photos you really want from that year But you know the ones that are kind of iffy or maybe not so great, right? Now you've got in a separate library And then you can use a tool like this to go back and pull that library back Obviously you can just open the library and photos by holding I think it's the option key right when you can select different libraries So you could keep them around you could just have archive But then that way you're not you don't have your main library cluttered up with a bunch of junk So okay, so I want to I want to restate what you just said for my own benefit to make sure I understand this Because what you said or at least what I heard I really like this Your idea is that you're not when you create this archive and then you save it off somewhere safe And that is a hundred percent of everything that survived the year You know you might have deleted some things that you know you took a picture of your pocket or something But right yeah, yeah otherwise Everything goes there and then at that moment you don't then delete that entire year from your main library You just then go through and prune freely Knowing that you have this backup you have a backup of that of all that other stuff And if you want to go access that stuff, right you can just go back and open that library, right? And this will let you manage it and you know it takes diligence, right? You have to be actively It's not an automated thing, but yeah Yeah, go ahead and say that again and then you can be more aggressive and getting rid of all You know if you have 10 photos, you know You know you're going to get rid of the ones with the eyes closed, but it's the mouth smiling to say Yeah, yeah, yeah more aggressive going. This is the one. I really like I'm going to get rid of the rest And you've got that safety net. You've got that safety. Yeah for for those of us Make sure you're backing up your archives to multiple places Just I'm going to tell you that you should have a local copy somewhere on a hard drive You should have something in the cloud somewhere like yeah, don't know that you don't have three copies of that That archive library. It's not backed up in my opinion that that's just I I totally agree Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah. No, this is great because it it relieves the I know there's probably a term for this too, you know, like like I said earlier. I'm a pack rat I save everything But I don't always need it at my fingertips, right? And so this caters to that whatever that version of of you know data retention anxiety is That it's like, okay. There it is. You've got it. You know storage is cheap Like you said put it in multiple places to however many you need to appease yourself and and then carry on freely With a photos library that as you're scrolling through to show somebody something from your vacation Four years ago, you're not like, oh, I gotta go through this. I gotta, you know, that kind of thing so and that week between Christmas and New Year's is a fantastic week to find like a little down moment and prune through your photos. I try to do it once a month. I Generally do it once a year and it's during that week. So yeah, and it's it's good Especially if you use something like iCloud photo library because the larger your library gets one You're having to buy more storage and that's fine if you're you're willing to buy more storage But the other thing is just takes longer to sink everything Fair. Yeah, you know fair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah one of the Like reading this article at owc. I still recommend And think that power photos is going to do it the way you want to do it. However One the first recommendation in this article is to use iCloud photo library as your merge engine And the way you would do it is, you know, you have your one photo library that is synced to iCloud Turn off or change libraries and when you do Tell it merge them and it will merge What's in iCloud with what's in your now new system photos library and and it will do it it will take Hours will be uh A pipe dream it will take days or even weeks for this to complete depending on how large your your libraries are but That was a clever way and and fairly simple and relatively safe But not perfect still you're gonna want to make a backup of your photos library Regardless of the method you choose. Yeah. Yeah, so All right, let's uh, we got a little time left here Let's let's do some cool stuff found shall we rod in our discord rod l in our discord? Said uh that oh where is it here? I know I had it. I had it. Oh, I know why I don't have it um Zoom for apple tv is now a thing. It's an app Right and so I don't know if you guys have done this but on thanksgiving I have a daughter who now lives in northern italy So, you know, it's not like she lives in chicago or something and it's easy to go visit her or vice versa So we did not see her for thanksgiving nor will we see her for christmas this year And on thanksgiving we did uh, uh, you know a facetime call And we used the new Uh continuity camera features of apple tv where I just laid my phone on its side in front of our television And that became our camera and we had you know sky on the on the on the big screen and we could just sit in the living room and Chill and chat and we chatted for probably an hour or an half. It was great Being able to do that with zoom even better because I like I actually like zoom better than facetime Even for like family calls. I don't know. It just so Zoom will use that continuity camera in the same way with your apple tv now. So thank you for that rod I had no idea. He said they stealth announced it, which I think is a really good way of Saying it but yeah, so I like it is our plan to use that on christmas day You know and we can that the nice part about it is you know, then it's just it's all right there And everybody can see and hear and yeah, it's incredible. I agree. Yeah, I'll uh throw in a bonus thing I know it's not the zoom thing But now that you mentioned continuity camera with apple tv You know my daughter's away at college and we've been using shareplay with apple tv and continuity camera to watch movies together Which is amazing Okay, I I've never done this. I know that my my daughter and her boyfriend did it when when she was here daughter and fiance When she was here and and he was there before she moved out there with them, but um And they did it with plex because it was before shareplay. So that experience is is fluid and just works, huh? Yeah, it worked great Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you just got the little window goes down and you're watching the movie together And when you pause it pauses both sides and you know, it's just it just works Huh, and do you have it like what is the Is there a collaborative experience like can you chat with each other?  Yeah, yeah Okay, so you see each other's faces while the movie is playing.  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, little picture. You can move it around and you know, that stuff. So yeah, of course Uh, okay. Yeah, we definitely need to do this. Okay. How have we how is this not? I mean, she's lived there for over a year. How has this not happened for us as a family? I don't know.  Like it's great. Like we got a letter. We got a letter out You know, it's fine.  Like this is amazing Um, I just wish you had to let them go before you paid for college. I'm just Well, you know, that's fair. Yeah, but it regardless it it all of it is great except for the part that really sucks Um, with her not being here, but you know, that's how it goes Um, it's a good thing it it I always say that you know, the tearful goodbyes and the You know the painful distance and all that stuff is a sign that we as a family did it right And and I'll take it. Yeah, because it would it would be in my In my opinion it'd be worse if we were happy to to like never see them again or whatever like so Yep I don't know. Yeah, we all have our own path and that's okay, but But for us this is a good reminder that we did it right. So yeah, anyway, all right If we keep doing this, I'm gonna start crying. Sorry. Pete. Can you take us to the next one? Um, I can but uh now to see We were on to cool stuff found right? We were and you were gonna tell us about Robert. I can Adam you want to tell us about about the chrono sync chrono sync? Eric says that there's a new update for chrono sync chrono sync now goes to 11 And it has support for sonoma but also adds support apparently for cloud services for your backup So you can do I guess so people who don't know what chrono sync is. It's a syncing and uh backup program I'll kind of mention how I use it because it relates to what we were talking about earlier. Yeah, but um Apparently now it can sync files and backups to iCloud google drive one drive dropbox box and other cloud services, so That is a new feature that i'm gonna have to check out I didn't know that this update had come to come out and i'm actually a chrono sync user There you go But uh, yeah, so I've used chrono sync in my backup strategy to Be the tool that is like I call it my selective archive backup And so at its root level what chrono sync can do is all kinds of things related to backup But the primary thing is syncing folders or volumes or directories from one location to another And it could be local on your mac. It could be to a network drive. It could be However, you want to set it up. It is an amazing tool and you can set up schedules and all kinds of rules It's very very advanced so like I've always used it to do the safe delete thing for files on my my desktop and i'll give you one example because I think it's the the easiest to kind of grok so Doing my podcast I have a maccast folder and all of my crap and audio files and everything go into an individual folder for each episode So sure my show notes all that stuff I want to make sure that I archive that stuff. So I have chrono sync set up to automatically on a schedule Sync that folder to multiple locations. I have it syncing to a local drobo I have it syncing to a network drive and then those drives in turn are backed up to the to the cloud So I have multiple backups So chrono sync is just always running in the background doing its thing And so I know when I go back in I've finished a show. It's been a week later or two weeks later. I can safely delete that entire Show directory off my local drive because I know chrono sync has already moved it off to my other storage locations my aircraft locations and it's backed up to the cloud so I have no anxiety about deleting that stuff and I have multiple Things set up like that through chrono sync. That's just one example I have it also for like movie files and my photo library and a bunch of things and again You can do whole volumes. You could do individual folders. You could do individual You can set this up however you want and it sounds like now I can go straight to the cloud Which is great. The only problem is I'm going to have to upgrade to like the 12 terabyte Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly, right, right, right, but that's fine. I can Uh, I mean you could sync it to your own private cloud like, um, you know, a Synology distation or something like that too. Uh, yeah I have a To tie it all together You you you you mentioned your workflow and and the last step it was and then you know You can safely delete it because it is synced to all these other places You could use hazel to safely delete those things that are say a month old That is that's what I do here. In fact, I have hazel Set to move audio files and video files in the mac e-cab folder to my Synology distation After a month and then they're just gone from my drive and it's it all it's it's like it's life changing. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah this the um We had a little conversation in our discord about this and Uh nibsook said, uh, you know, I because I asked people What do you use chrono sync for because I just trying to wrap my I knew I know what it is but I It like you need to explain what you're using it for so that it resonates with people and I'm glad you did that Yeah, and he said we use it for copying large amounts of data because unlike finder It can skip any bad files and carry on And then gives a report at the end of any files it skipped whereas iCloud drive Kind of gets hung up on these things and you don't really know what's going on in a sense Chrono sync is like iCloud drive pro You know where it it adds a whole lot to it and lets you kind of do these things. So yeah Another another great feature of this Got to mention is it has a checkbox that says do not sync deleted Items from your source. So if you've set up a a source folder that is syncing Right. Yeah, and you delete and that sync is still running It will ignore those deleted files keeping them on your Destinations, which I that's another feature. I love because again, it means I can safely delete something I think I use this for backing up. Um, this is how I back up the movies. I've downloaded from Uh, you know that I've purchased on the The itunes store or whatever we call it now the movie store the movie store. Sure from apple I bought movies from apple I want to make sure that I archive those because they can go away at any time and I want to always make sure I have a copy, but I don't maybe always want it Stored right there. I have it stored or downloaded. Yeah, so I can safely delete Knowing that sync says even though I've deleted it here And it's still syncing the same folder. It will not delete it in my archive. It'll keep right. Oh, so yes So very much, you know iCloud drive pro where you actually do get to like make these granular decisions about what's going to happen with your data So I looked and in addition to the cloud services you mentioned Chrono sync will also sync to amazon s3 compatible backup destinations And which we talked about last week I talked about arc backup syncing to s3 compatible destinations and how there were many of those Uh, and including iDrive, which is super inexpensive right now So like go if you need If if you were going to pay for larger iCloud storage for this atom, you might be better off just paying for iDrive We mentioned arc backup wilbur mentioned in our discord a A free open source alternative to arcs backup that also backs up to s3 stores And it's called copia at k o p i a dot i o And it will of course because it's s3 Destination compatible. It will work with iDrive e2 so We will I'll put that link in the show notes as well. Nice. Yeah Pete you want to take us to robert? I'm going to and like jeopardy. I'm gonna give my answer to robert first Oh, all right. I like it. Well, if this ain't cool stuff found nothing is thank you robert So that was my reply to him So he writes in he was talking about the fact that a couple weeks back We were talking about dubious screens and screens connect and other ways to do but essentially remote desktop computing Yep, he says and he mentions one other one And I put at the link in the show notes that I've been using for years There's a free mac os menu bar applet that'll make it easier to use built-in mac os vnc And it's called screen sharing menu let okay, and so I put that in there, but that's not what he Was really cool. That's not it's not free It's 199 for screen sharing menu let a whole dollar 99. Okay. Yeah, I'm I'm not complaining about it I'm just articulating it so people know when they go there. Yep. Yeah, yeah works great less a long time great, but he goes He everyone has their favorite app for your paid. He goes. Here's my suggestion on why jump desktop Deserves to be your first choice It runs on mac os and ios And doesn't have any monthly subscription It's part of the set up mac subscription bundle It has its own free app similar to screens connect called Jump desktop connect that you install on the remote computer So you don't have to use a vpn or vpn like software to find networks like tail scale zero tier etc As built-in support for three different protocols vnc jump desktop proprietary and windows rdc Which is their remote desktop? So it can connect to many remote systems apple linux microsoft windows Without installing the software on the remote end if you're okay using vnc or remote desktop, right, right? It gives keeps getting better though. Uh, they're proprietary Their proprietary protocol called fluid is supposed to be optimized for faster speed and work better on lower bandwidth internet connections And he buried the lead jump desktop supports audio from the remote host VNC screens and most others do not jump desktop was widely used during covet for ongoing for production And ongoing for production of video editors For production video editors to edit tv film commercials The home system can be relatively old computer that remotes back to the studio editing bay massive powerhouse He says i've been using it for many years because I needed access to both mac and windows systems And last year started to have only with youtube video and use jump desktop to easily do remote video editing himself Jump desktop handles all the audio drivers So you don't have to install any special virtual device like loop back or other tricks to get streaming audio between systems Huh? So Boom. Yeah interesting That's cool. Uh, it's it's very mac-esque and that it just works Wow, I installed it and played with it. If boom, I mean it was And it's part of setup easy. I could do it There you go folks if that's not a testimonial, I don't know what it is. Yep. Oh, that's great. That's great. Cool Cool. I have one last cool stuff found before we get out of here and uh, it is You know, I love my robot vacuums. They if if robot overlords are going to take over We've started in the right place because at the very least they'll keep our homes clean And uh, I I mentioned I have my robot vacuum run every night while we're asleep Not on the floor in which we sleep Because they are loud But it's so nice to wake up in the morning and have a freshly vacuumed home every day And the the newest one that i'm testing out is from roborock, which has quickly become my favorite robot vacuum Company they really have the tech down in terms of mapping out the house and it like it's just so efficient and accurate And it they get stuck less than other brands. I've tried The one i'm trying now is the roborock q8 q8 max, which is both a vacuum and a mop And you can do both on the same run Where it'll it'll vacuum things and then mop up the the right floor and like I said because their mapping is so So fluid you can really just say okay. This is the only places I want you to mop or these are areas I don't want you to mop the mapping, you know, we were talking about creating 3d maps of your house for use with with net spot And all that I wish roborock would let me extract the map that it has created Because it's got this whole 3d map of my my, you know, main floor of my house right in there. It's it's really Really well done. Um, and I this thing's great. It's um It's right now. It's on sale for 4 49 super powerful vacuum And it's got the mopping capability. So, um, you know, if you need a good price for one of those It is, you know, yeah, they used to be 900 bucks like a year ago. I feel like this would have been 900 Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, this is one thing. I can't get it to figure out how to do Yes, and I'm talking about my son by the way, not the robot vacuum Is leave the shoes around with the shoelace hanging out. That's the one thing that Yeah, it will grab it will grab shoelaces. I don't know ours has has not been terrible with that Um, it will grab occasionally grab the strap of a backpack You know, if like there's a backpack on the floor one thing I will say about roborock in particular setting this one up I ran into this and I Many others have too. I could not get this thing to join my wi-fi It's one of those things where it has, you know, it creates its own hot spot You connect to it. You give it the data that it needs to have and then it comes back I went I thankfully I only went about a half hour with it before I looked on reddit and found the post from the people that had gone You know five hours with it. The trick is to turn off cellular data During that process and then everything worked fine. I know it seems counterintuitive Yeah, because now that you mention it my roborock and I think I have it. It's a q5. I forget the exact bottle um It it would not work with It you had two possible apps and I was trying to use an app that it was not gonna work with Yeah, that you can't get that old app anymore. So that problem is solved But yeah, just if you're having an issue and so I would take this advice and and zoom it out and say Any of these, you know Iot devices that you're trying to connect to your wi-fi if You're going through a couple of times and you feel like you're just banging your head against the wall Try turning off cellular data That might be the magic answer. So Yep, and then go to reddit And then if not if all else fails. Yes, let google do the do the searching for you. So, yeah You got anything else adam on this?  Uh, I am we have an iRobot. Yeah, we only have one. Yeah, it works fine. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. Yeah All right. Yes, p. That was the time on mech ekeb when we dance Well, we need music in order to dance Oh boy, what have I done? Uh, thanks for hanging out with us everybody. Thank you for Sending in all your questions and your tips and your cool stuff found. It's what Like we love being able to do this and you make it possible folks. So thank you for that Thanks to cash fly for providing all the bandwidth to get the show from us to you Thanks to our sponsors. Of course, you can always learn about our sponsors at mac ekeb.com slash sponsors Why because adam set that magic little page up for us a while back, but uh, you you can absolutely go to incogny.com slash mac ekeb barebones.com as well Have a great week folks and uh Pete What do they say, uh in japan there? What's what's maybe three words of advice that they might say in japan but translated to english because I don't speak japan. Well, I think it's the same, you know, there are some words across all languages that are the same And if this isn't universal, I don't know what is Don't get caught Later All right, we're out Fun, that was great that much better flow than last week. I think not having your echo cancellation on adam was I mean, we knew it, but you know like that that makes a huge difference in terms of Being able to just converse naturally nice very nice fun so Uh, we may have to correct this next time. I just corrected the notes that My profile on pin size under a different handle that I've used in the past. I just put the link in there. It's The word's too hard. It's flaxis, but oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There great. Well, that's fine. People will find it I mean, that's what the show notes are for that's great You can find it under my name. You just search it might work too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah Oh, Sean Kennedy pointed out the the whole robo rock thing. Could it be a 2.4 versus 5 gigahertz?  Thank you. And it's like, where's the freaking answer? Like I just want to know what the answer is I can't find it yet You know, like I get how happy you are the answer that works to the top I don't know.  Yeah, so That's interesting. Yeah, I'd never run into that before But like it it's definitely gonna remain in my in my, you know toolbox. So All right well Well, well time to get up and take on the day now for me except, uh, you know, it's 1 30 in the morning time to go It's time to go. Yeah wake up. It's time to go to sleep Yep Yeah They should be sold tomorrow Then I do guangzhou back to soul then I'll spend the night in shenzhen Back to here for next next week's show. Do do pilots typically have Like is it common for pilots to have Like sleep issues Yeah, okay. All right. Well, I didn't know if it was just like a thing that you had to figure out early and you just like Now you're a champ and you can sleep on demand. I gotta say I was lucky. I had a guy Early on they they gave a course at it because you know, okay We do what we refer to as backside of the clock flying a lot domestically, especially when I first got hired That was 80 percent of our Yeah, the hours that the hours the guys with seniority don't want to fly Exactly. So, um, and there's a couple actual sleep hints that were really very very good And one was when you get to the hotel at six o'clock in the morning and you've been up all night Uh, and you go to bed When you wake up at 10 10 15 in the morning Don't assume you're up.  Yeah, right But once I once I started doing that it was like, oh I'm not done sleeping for the day after only three hours of sleep. That's yeah, that's good news And then I didn't find this out till recently which really ticked me off is uh, melatonin When you take that it helped me it wouldn't put me to sleep But it would help me power through on the sleep if I had to sleep Like go to sleep at like seven o'clock in the evening because I had a 2 a.m show Then You know, normally I'd go to seven seven o'clock and then by 9 30. I'm wide awake. Well, this isn't helping Melatonin would help me stay asleep from 9 30 on until it was time to wake up. That makes sense Yeah, the other thing was and just recently found it out was take melatonin if you've only got two hours to go Rather than lay there take some melatonin. It'll help you get to sleep Waking up turning the lights on and having a cup of coffee.  Do you have any memory of this? I was in I was at mack world I think or maybe w w dc what like but I was in san francisco or you know Had the acro because I've never been to worldwide developer cup. It's yeah. Yeah. No, you weren't Oh, you were there. I was there. You were not And this one your server went Exactly. Yeah, I was like doing my bedtime routine and I always for a while I would I would always take ambien when I was On on the west coast because like after I turned 40, I just couldn't sleep Like I wanted to when I was you know traveling And so I had a routine. I knew that you know, if I take ambien I need to just get right into bed and read and the first little nod off is the only warning I get if I If I stay awake through that Then I'll wake up five hours later, you know with the lights on in the book on You know have fallen asleep with a book on my chest or whatever And so it was like great, you know, I did my little routine. I took my Ambien I was about to get into bed and got like a notification that our servers were down And I also knew that if I powered awake, I would stay awake But I wouldn't necessarily have any short term memory And uh, so I called you and I was like, all right, listen I can be your your hive mind But I cannot remember what we've already done So if it sounds like a bad idea to do what I'm about to advise you You need to be the one to make that judgment call And we made it through we got the server back up and running whatever it whatever that was but yeah Typically something the you know those guys did Over in that country. Yeah in yeah the russians. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but this was yeah This was not them. It was something it was us like it was one of our it wasn't we had caused the issue We were yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you know while we're talking about like center stage and stuff. Pete. You're on sonoma, right? I am So if you go up in the menu bar, you probably have a little either blue or green Icon up there. Yep. If you click that you have to choose.  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, right. I have audio hijacked google chrome. Okay. Yeah, so choose google chrome. Okay, and then Go down to camo camera And twist that open Hmm. Okay. I'm looking at the wrong thing apparently. No, I'm probably stir stage manager screen mirroring display Mm-hmm Do you not Like when you see google chrome, do you see like hang on, you know what? Let me turn off my screen sharing so that I get so you can turn mine on No, no, because it won't show it to us But like if you so you're the icon at the top of the screen is a is a green camera icon, right? Um, oh, okay That's a audio hijack google chrome. Yes. Okay. Okay.  I like do you see your your image reflected at you? Yes. Yes. Great. Okay below your image. Do you see camo camera? Like the words yes. Yes, and I see portrait studio light brilliant turn on portrait That just that just gave you that bokeh effect and and like blurs your background a little Also turn on studio light Oh, look at how much better you're lit. Yeah. Yeah, and then reactions does it? Uh, yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah so So like that would be a good thing for you to use it We should have done this obviously before we did the show so that like your hotel bed is mute is blurred and you know That sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. You can always do the you know the thing so Yeah What was that oh hands Uh, that's that's the the double horn. You got to do both horns to get it to do the lasers. There you go. There you go Yeah and smoke and everything You can do this and make it rain. I think right. Yeah, okay Yeah, what's interesting is I thought that was only supported on um M1 non-intel max correct It is except if you're using an apple Camera it it's supported with third-party cameras on on apple silicon apple cameras only on intel nice Yeah, but yeah, yeah, so that that portrait mode pete is probably what you You know what you want to do? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought I'd done that with now, but now interesting. All right, hang on Oh, it's back. All right. It sounds like we should probably turn off center stage. I didn't know if that was too distracting or not Yeah, I don't have the option of center stage Where do you turn that on and off? Where are you turning center stage on and off adam? Same same place, but okay I'm using my iphone Right. You're using continuity camera. I'm using camo. So that's why I don't get oh, okay Yeah, so I'm using camo, but I think camo has its own Version of center stage it it does it's down in framing pete Um people were finding that maybe too distracting. Yeah, it was a little I noticed it the worst Worst where I really noticed it was when you would like Gradually move back and forth and it would like refocus on you and I was like, yeah So I don't know whatever it's gonna be. Okay. I mainly use it because then it's more It's a tighter framing. It's a tighter frame. Well, we should just get you a license to camo Because you can use your iphone With camo, obviously that's what it's built for And then that lets you like do that framing and zoom because like I can choose to zoom in On myself if you really want to see, you know So, yep Like one of your fillings is correct. Dave. Thanks pete. Yeah, I'll call my dentist next Saw my eye doctor yesterday. So yeah All right Time for adam to go to work time for time for me to go to work time for pete to go to sleep Yeah, I guess it's already in the morning. It's probably too late to go out and wander around. I don't know I've never been to Osaka. I couldn't tell you that it's actually perfectly safe, but yeah Yeah, cool. So Cool. All right lads all right Thank you Take it easy. Thanks folks. I'm gonna turn off the audio streams. There it goes Goodbye to the audio streams How do I oh, that's a different icon. All right and goodbye on the


Hello everybody, welcome back to another Adobe Illustrator tutorial and this one going to show you how to take a regular letter and customize it just like I've done here. It's very easy to do, let me show you. The first step, I'm going to click on this C for example. I'm going to right click on it and then I'm going to create outlines. When I do that, you're not going to see anything right away, but what you want to do is you want to go from your selection tool to your direct selection tool. You can also get there by pressing A. When you do that, you're going to notice a whole bunch of blue points on your new letter on the outlines and what you can do now is click on it and click once and then click again and you can now begin to move it and start to make changes to any letter that simple. That's how you customize text inside Adobe Illustrator. Thanks for watching.