I have written about the Dogcow before, but I thought it was time to tell her story in video form:
Even though I didn’t start using the Mac on a regular basis until 2001 or so, I have a fondness for this little glyph. To me, Clarus embodies so much about what makes computers fun.
Federico talks about the new MacStories Shortcuts Archive and the guys check in with iOS 12 halfway through its lifecycle.
Federico’s work on the Shortcuts Archive is incredible, and it was fun to hear how it all came together.
My thanks to our sponsors:
Federico Viticci has created a masterpiece:
Since the original release of Workflow in 2014, we’ve created hundreds of automations to help readers use their iOS devices more efficiently. The goal of this archive is to offer a complete catalogue of our old workflows as well as new custom shortcuts for Apple’s Shortcuts app.
Each shortcut in this archive has been created, updated, and tested by Federico and the MacStories team. Shortcuts are organized in categories, and you can jump directly to a specific category by using one of the section links below.
There are some amazing Shortcuts here, and my favorite part about all of this is that they can become a jumping-off point for your own Shortcuts. What an amazing resource.
iFixit has been working on a story about the display ribbon cable in the Thunderbolt 3 MacBook Pros. Here’s the gist of it:
The issue is fairly simple: the current generation of MacBook Pro laptops (2016–present) uses flexible ribbon cables to connect the display to a display controller board beneath the Touch Bar. These cables wrap over the board, where they’re secured by a pair of spring-loaded covers—and they’re subjected to the stress of bending with every opening and closure of the laptop. Within a seemingly short time, those cables are starting to fatigue and tear. The backlight cable is generally the first to go, producing the infamous “stage light” symptoms, and eventually giving out entirely when the laptop is opened more than about 40°.
The “stage light” phenomenon is not what that I have seen in the wild, but having your notebook’s backlight fail is a real pain if you like using the display. In the meantime, the 2018 MacBook Pro seems to have been tweaked to avoid the problem. Again, iFixit:
However, when MacRumors user Olivia88 noticed their 2018 13” MacBook Pro seemed to have a longer cable than previous models, we were intrigued. Since we were just wrapping up writing the repair manual for the 2018 model anyway, we checked inside our 2018 15” MacBook Pro again to measure its cable against its 2016 predecessor—and found the 2018 cable was, in fact, a full 2mm longer. Since this change appears in both our 15” model and Olivia88’s 13” model, it’s plausible this change is present in multiple, if not all, 2018 MacBook Pros.
That’s good news. Apple has not commented on the issue, but I expect the company will open a Repair Extension Program if it ends up being widespread.
Every 72 hours after you start up or restart your computer, a routine maintenance task (or “cron job”) runs that can affect iDisk. If you have selected the “Create a local copy of your iDisk” option in .Mac preferences and cannot sync after your computer has been on for three or more days, download and install the Mac OS X 10.3.1 Update or later.
Similarly, if the Backup, Library, or Software folders of your iDisk appear to be empty, download and install the Mac OS X 10.3.1 Update or later.
It’s a tale as old as time: the .0 of any release brings weird bugs.
Last night, we recorded a live Mac Power Users in Chicago. I just published the episode, which was a ton of fun to record:
Live from Chicago, David and Stephen thaw out long enough to talk to a couple of very special guests about the MacBook Air and the friction between analog and digital tools, before answering some listener questions.
Special thanks to our volunteers for helping make the evening possible, and to Alex Cox for being such a gracious and helpful host at the venue.
…and to these sponsors:
I missed Connected this week for reasons, but I’m looking forward to hearing the show:
After skipping follow-up, Myke and Federico try to explain the new USB branding, discuss fingerprint sensors and the merits of Evernote in 2019, and wish for apps that don’t exist (but should).
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This week on Liftoff, we resume our coverage of the Apollo missions, honoring their 50th anniversaries. This time, it’s Apollo 9:
In March 1969, Jim McDivitt, Dave Scott and Rusty Schweickart were the first astronauts to fly the Lunar Module, proving that this vital spacecraft was ready to take a crew to the moon — and help bring them home.
I really love doing this series. If you haven’t heard them, here are the past episodes. There’s still plenty of time to catch up:
My thanks to our sponsors this week:
Question: When printing from SimpleText to any LaserWriter, using the LaserWriter 8.x driver, I noticed it downloads Chicago during the printing process. It does not matter what fonts are included in the document, Chicago gets downloaded every time. This occurs on any version of SimpleText or LaserWriter 8 driver I have tried.
Answer: Chicago is the font used internally by the SimpleText for the page numbers at the bottom of each page. If the Chicago font is not already present in the printer’s memory, it is downloaded to your printer with each print job.
Something nice this week on Ungeniused:
These optical phenomena can make anyone’s day a little brighter.
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This week on Mac Power Users, David and I got nerdy about Mac utilities and applications that are always at our fingertips. Be sure to check out the show notes for a whole lot of links.
My thanks to our sponsors:
Quinn Nelson has a new video showing how to run Mojave on non-supported Macs. It looks a lot cleaner and easier than I would have assumed.