When you have digital speakers connected to your Power Mac G5, your internal speaker will not mute–even if you select the mute checkbox in Sound preferences. But you can set the internal speaker’s volume low (in Sound preferences) as a workaround.
“Digital speakers” means speakers that connect to the optical Digital Out audio port with Toslink cables, and use the S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) protocol.
To mute the internal speaker, disconnect the digital speakers. Or, if you like, use a different kind of speakers to avoid this issue.
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The Incomparable #510: Failure Is Not an Option⇢
As The Incomparable’s resident space podcaster, I joined Jason Snell, Dr. Drang, Dan Moren and Kathy Campbell to discuss Apollo 13:
Put on a white vest, climb in your Corvette, and whatever you do, don’t stir the cryo tanks! It’s the 50th anniversary of Apollo 13 and the 25th anniversary of “Apollo 13,” so we’re here to discuss Ron Howard’s film, starring Tom Hanks, Ed Harris and an enormous collection of character actors. The real-life story of Apollo 13 is so unlikely that if they made it into a movie, you’d never believe it—but in 1995 they did, and you will.
Sponsor: Micro.blog⇢
Micro.blog offers blog hosting, native macOS and iOS apps, and a welcoming community built around independent microblogs that can be used for short- and long-form writing.
They wanted to do something for everyone who might feel isolated working from home, and who are looking for a new outlet to be creative and positive. To that end, the Micro.blog team has added free podcast hosting to all standard microblogs through the end of April.
Mac Power Users: 531⇢
Dr. David MacDonald is a musician and professor with a unique way of using the iPad, Apple TV and GoodNotes together to engage and equip his students.
This was a fun interview, and I think Dr. David and Mr. Sparks spoke about music for about 2 hours after I left the Skype call at the end of our recording.
My thanks to our sponsors for this episode:
‘Foxconn Did Not Respond to a Request for Comment’⇢
Josh Dzieza and Nilay Patel at The Verge, with an update to a truly bizarre story. Foxconn has been buying up properties around the state of Wisconsin, but hasn’t told anyone what it is doing with the space.1
When The Verge poked around, it turned out most of the buildings were empty. Foxconn’s Alan Yeung told The Verge it would issue a statement to “correct” The Verge’s reporting on the empty office space. Here’s where the current story starts:
SoundSource⇢
My thanks to Rogue Amoeba for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week. Their app SoundSource lets you adjust the volume of any app relative to others, and play individual apps to different audio devices, all right from your Mac’s menu bar. Through May 10th, 512 Pixels readers can save 20% with coupon code 512TWENTY.
Weird Al, on Writing⇢
Sam Anderson has a wonderful profile of Weird Al in The New York Times Magazine. I read through it all this morning, and when Yankovic talks about his writing process, it really jumped out at me:
But it turns out that Weird Al approaches the composition of his music with something like the holy passion of Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Looking through the “White & Nerdy” file felt like watching a supercomputer crunch through possible chess moves. Every single variable had to be considered, in every single line. The song begins with a simple sentence — “They see me mowing my front lawn” — and even here Yankovic agonized over “lawn” versus “yard” and “my” versus “the.” He sifted through phrases in gradations so small, they were almost invisible:
Flashback #5: Three Failed Game Consoles⇢
This week on Flashback, Quinn and I get our gamer on, exploring three failed game consoles: the Apple Pippin, Nintendo Virtual Boy and the Ouya. I own a Pippin, but didn’t know much about the other two before our research, and it was a lot of fun to learn about them.
My thanks to our sponsor:
- TextExpander, from Smile: Unlock your productivity with TextExpander. Get 20% off with your first year.
The U.S. Runs on COBOL⇢
Connected #289: Let Me Remember My Opinion⇢
This week, Myke talks about a sale on Cinema Displays, then the guys move on discuss Federico’s recent iPad article on modularity, the possibilities of widgets in iOS 14 and Stephen’s Mac Madness winner and picks.
My thanks to our sponsors:
- Pingdom: Start monitoring your website performance and availability today, and get instant alerts when an outage occurs or a site transaction fails. Use offer code CONNECTED to get 30% off. Offer expires on January 31, 2021.
- Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code CONNECTED at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
- Boll & Branch: The Softest Organic Sheets & Luxury Bedding. Save $50. Try them for 30 days in a risk free trial.
Apple Releases 10.15.4 Supplemental Update⇢
The update addresses these issues:
- Fixes an issue where Mac computers running macOS Catalina 10.15.4 could not participate in FaceTime calls with devices running iOS 9.3.6 and earlier or OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 and earlier
- Resolves an issue where you may repeatedly receive a password prompt for an Office 365 account
- Fixes an issue where MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2020) may hang in Setup Assistant or when disconnecting and reconnecting a 4K or 5K external display
- Resolves an issue where a USB-C port in your Mac may become unresponsive
No word on if this will fix some of the Finder issues that many users (including myself) have seen, but this is available in Software Update now.
Mac Madness 2020: My Bracket
As discussed on this week’s Connected, I am sharing how I picked my winners on the Mac Madness Bracket. There are some real differences as you will see. For example, I had the 2019 Mac Pro and the 20th Anniversary Mac going further than the public did. However, I was right on the money with the Cube passing the MacBook Air, and the public and I voted the Clamshell iBook along to the same round. You can see all the differences here, and click on the images to enlarge them.