Mac
Blog posts for the tag #Mac
16-Dec-2020
Uninstalling Java on macOSI've recently had my Mac scanned for a corporate compliance test and the older Java 8 JDK has come up as a failure point. Even though I had newer JDKs installed, it meant that I had to go in and uninstall the one that was making me fail this test. There is good documentation online on how to uninstall a java version on macOS, but I thought that I would walk through the process here anyway...
10-Nov-2020
macOS Catalina 10.15.7 upgrade makes Evernote Skitch crash on startThe macOS Catalina 10.15.7 upgrade came up for me today, I generally like to keep up-to-date on updates so I let it go ahead. After the update installed (and restarted my Mac), Evernote Skitch kept on crashing every time I tried to open the app with macOS telling me The application "Skitch.app" can't be opened...and the crash report having more sinister details...
28-Oct-2020
How to easily set up your Mac to empty the trash at timed intervalsWhether you still call it Trash or Bin, it's the same concept - deleted files are not permanently deleted but are made inaccessible until you decide to permanently remove them. Sometimes this is a little bit bothersome, especially if you happen to be using your Mac as a media centre/HTPC. So here's how to set it up so that the Trash is emptied automatically at certain intervals and times.
11-May-2020
Java Mission Control 5.5 freezes during startup on macOSRecently I've had a need to use Java Mission Control (JMC) to look at some Java Flight Recorder (JFR) files for a piece of code I've been analysing for performance issues. The piece of code didn't require being run in production so I decided to do the analysis on my Mac instead of one of the dev servers. This is where I ran into issues...whenever JMC was launched, it would freeze.
22-Apr-2020
How to format a USB stick, SD card or external HDD as FAT32 on macOSUsually when it comes to formatting a USB stick, SD card or an external hard disk on macOS I would use the Disk Utility app that comes with the OS. However if you want to format your storage as FAT32, the app will not always oblige. There is a generic 'FAT' or 'exFAT' option but you have no control on wether the disk will be formatted as FAT16 or FAT32.
04-Feb-2020
How to tell how much power your USB-C Mac is getting via its charge portI've been messing around with how to best connect my two Macs at work so that I can minimise the amount of cables and power supplies. This led to me wonder how to tell how much they are getting in terms of power. The idea was to (hopefully) use one power supply and then some USB-C cables to connect the two Macs - I figured that since one of them is pretty much idle when I'm working on the other, a single power adapter should have been enough.
08-Jan-2020
Transferring data between two Macs using a USB-C cableI've been using Macs for work for at least the last ten years and for many years on my current project I've been using a company managed Mac that I owned. We recently had some changes in policy, and due to new security requirements I could not use the Mac that I had been using previously. So, I was issued a new Mac for the project, which of course meant setting up front scratch and copying the dozens of gigabytes of data over. Luckily this is relatively easily done using target disk mode ...and a USB-C to USB-C cable.
14-Oct-2019
How to limit the size of Spotify cache directory on macOSI've recently started to get notifications on my Mac telling me that I was running low on disk space. Upon some investigation I found that Spotify was taking up a good chunk of space with its cache directory. Now this wasn't the offline music directory, that's altogether a different location, this was the ~/Library/Caches/com.spotify.client directory.
21-Apr-2019
How to remove McAfee Endpoint Security from your MacMcAfee Endpoint Security is an anti-virus / malware protection utility and a tool that can significantly slow down your Mac. It's typically deployed in a corporate setting which makes it impossible for you as the user to disable it temporarily. At times however, I find myself needing to disable it (temporarily) - for example when doing large deployments/builds that compile vast amounts of code. In this case I think it's quite justified to have endpoint security disabled because it's not adding anything and is simply slowing down a build.
30-Sep-2018
Forcing macOS updates to download and install when App Store fails toI've recently had a problem on my Mac where the App Store app would not download or install any updates. It would start downloading and within seconds the progress bar would disappear and the update button would show up again. This continued to happen after restarts and after clearing temporary folders that App Store uses for its downloads.
25-Aug-2018
MacBook Pro 2017 getting hot while charging via left hand side USB-C portI've noticed a while back whenever I was charging my 2017 MacBook Pro via the left-hand side USB-C ports that it would get quite hot, even if I wasn't doing any CPU intensive work. However, while charging via the right-hand ports it remained cool. I've finally got around to measuring this and here are my results.
13-Mar-2018
Unboxing and setting up the Samsung H890 monitor with a MacBook ProLast week I received the Samsung H890 34" Curved Screen Monitor for my home office. The main reason I wanted to get this particular monitor was because it had a USB-C connection and even though it was not advertised as Mac compatible, there was no reason why it wouldn't work with a MacBook Pro. So lets see how I got it all set up...
23-Oct-2017
How to make Skype for Business responsive again on macOSI remember having performance issues with Skype for as long as I've had a Mac (going back to 2008 now!) However if you have had the pleasure (heavy sarcasm there!) of using Skype for Business or Lync as it used to be called, it could get so laggy and unresponsive that it was not possible to talk to your colleagues any more. Luckily I found a way of making S4B responsive again and this trick worked every time I've tried.
08-Aug-2017
Connecting the Dell UltraSharp U3415W monitor to a MacBookPro via USB-CThe Dell UltraSharp U3415W monitor is not a new kid on the block any more (you can read about its unboxing I did in 2015). It's still a great monitor however and since I now have a new 2017 MacBook Pro I wanted to be able to keep using it. I read about various issues others have been having with making this monitor work over USB-C so I've decided to try out a bunch of different cables and adapters I had to see what worked and what didn't.
24-Jul-2017
Four different ways to connect your USB-C MacBook Pro to a Dell U2713HM - but only some work!The Dell U2713HM is an old monitor now, but I still see it being sold in local computer stores. Mine's been sitting in the cupboard mostly, only coming out when it's too difficult to connect something to my primary monitor. One of these occasions was when I was trying out my new MacBook Pro, the one with all USB-C ports. I tried a number of different combinations of adapters and cables, this is a quick run down on what I found to work and what didn't work at all.
13-Jul-2017
Performance - 2012 Retina MacBook Pro vs 2017 MacBook ProI've had my new MacBook Pro for exactly a month now and have completely shifted everything from my 2012 Retina MacBook Pro over to it. Both machines are excellent engineering feats so I thought I would compare them to one another in terms of look and feel and performance. The first part of the article covered the look and feel, this part focuses on performance.
12-Jul-2017
Look and feel - 2012 Retina MacBook Pro vs 2017 MacBook ProI've had my new MacBook Pro for exactly a month now and have completely shifted everything from my 2012 Retina MacBook Pro over to it. Both machines are excellent engineering feats so I thought I would compare them to one another in terms of look and feel and performance. This first part of the article is going to cover the look and feel. The next part covering performance is available here.
27-Jun-2017
A guide for plotting your hard drive for Burstcoin mining on a Mac using mjminerI stumbled upon Burstcoin lately and it intrigued me. I was not into cryptocurrency prior to this and being a Mac user I found that there was little support available, plus all the tools seem to be targeted towards Windows (and some for Linux). So I thought that I'd put together the steps I used to plot my hard drive for Burstcoin mining in case anyone else finds it useful!
18-Jun-2017
Use the Touch Bar to lock your Mac with a single button pressI didn't think that I'd love the Touch Bar as much as I do, it's made every day use of my Mac so much easier, especially when it came to locking the Mac. Working in an office and having a corporate policy that requires you to lock your laptop every time you physically step away from it (it's a good security practice!) meant that I previously had to have a lock menu in the Menu Bar. It was multiple clicks to lock the Mac, plus actually moving your mouse over to the Menu Bar in the first place. That doesn't seem like much but in terms of usability it was an inconvenience. With the Touch Bar it's all changed for the better!
13-Jun-2017
Unboxing my new 2017 2.9Ghz 15" MacBook ProWWDC is over which means all the new products ordered online from Apple were going to be arriving and today was the day of the first arrivals. I ordered my new 2017 2.9Ghz 15" MacBook Pro on the day it was announced and available online and today it's arrived!
12-Feb-2017
How to uninstall Samsung Smart Switch from your MacI had a need to install Samsung's Smart Switch app on my Mac this weekend to transfer files over from an Android phone. That's when I discovered how horribly incompatible Android and Apple devices really are and just how terrible Samsung's software is. They don't follow the standard way that apps that run on a Mac get uninstalled, preferring the Windows style approach instead. Boo. This is how you get rid of Smart Switch from your Mac if you happened to (probably accidentally) have installed it.
18-Jan-2017
Importance of cleaning the internal fans and heatsinks in a MacBook ProA few days ago I decided to give my MacBook Pro's internal fans and heatsinks a clean, but before I did that I decided to collect some data on temperatures before the clean out. I knew my Mac has been running hotter than usual lately, I just didn't know how bad it was. I've not cleaned its heatsinks or fans ever since I purchased it back in 2012 (4 years now).
21-Nov-2015
Stop Photos.app opening when connecting an iPad or iPhone to your MacOS X 10.11 El Capitan has a great new Photos app to replace iPhoto, but it has one very annoying feature. Every time an iPhone/iPod/iPad is connected to the Mac, Photos opens and asks to import photos from the connected device. There is a way to switch this off however.