 Welcome to Mac Geek have episode 939 another palindrome for Monday, August 1st, 2022 To Mac Geek have the show where the goal is to learn at least five new things We accomplish that goal by taking your questions that you send to feedback at Mac geek up comm along with your tips Your cool stuff found our tips are cool stuff found sometimes even our questions And we put it all together into an agenda and hopefully every week we come together. We have some fun and we learned something Here enjoying my Throat coat tea for whatever I've got going on with me in Durham, New Hampshire. I'm Dave Hamilton and here Back from Chicago and now in Fairfield, Connecticut. This is How are we today mr. John F. Braun Good the travel was a lot less traumatic than I thought I am glad to hear that. That's amazing, man. That's good And and max doc so yeah, you you were able to attend max doc for the first time since 2019 How how was it getting to see everybody? How was the the because the best part about max doc obviously is the community aspect of it How how was that? Now there was a lot of community great That's the key good. I'm yeah, unfortunately the Sessions were kind of light because people for various reasons had to pull out sure Yeah, but it's you know, some of it's the Presentations there was still a lot of good stuff. It's good and the other part as you pointed out is the community and there was plenty of any of that That's good I mean the whole concept of max doc started with just a community gathering right very folk Are a premium list Mackie got premium listener number one Decided after a few years of not having macrodexpo that he wanted to get a bunch of his favorite Podcasters and and favorite people together so he hosted a barbecue at his house or a cookout a catered event at his house This is what it turned out to be there's actually a pretty big deal And I give a lot of kudos to Barry for and his wife for for pulling it off But but that's when Mike said well wait a minute if all these people are gonna be in town We should throw a conference during the day and max stock was born. So yeah, the community is always at the core of it I like it. It's good All right Let's just get to some of this stuff Phil has I have no particular order today I'm in a brain fog today. So I have no idea what I've got if I've got the thing or you know Just another thing, but I've got something. We'll see how we do Phil has a tale of warning a PSA if you will to share he says Gentlemen, I got caught. So did my brother and I'm sure there are others without Yet knowing what Phil is about to share folks I can tell you I was one of these people one day and I can't believe we didn't share this on the show He says it turns out that when you migrate to a new iPhone using the direct transfer or backup and restore procedures Google authenticator does not move its entries with it to the new phone a Separate export and import is required that takes the presence of mind to be thinking about Google authenticator When doing your migration for most of us we think about the authenticator out the next time we need it Which is almost always after you've wiped and sold your old phone in my brother's case He was using it as two-factor authentication for crash plan and when there was no fallback for authenticating He had to contact support and have them reset his account You could argue that all of this improved security, but the inconvenience slash security ratio is fairly high And that leads to a bigger question our authenticator apps interchangeable and can we do something to solve this and the answer is yes, I as I said I got caught by this to John I Years ago, you know, I was using Google authenticator because that's what it said to use or whatever. I was using said to use probably Google and And then it was like wait all my entries are gone It was you know weeks later that I that I noticed this and that's when I moved all of my two-factor authentication into one password now It starts becoming less to factor and to entry when the password and the You know the the the one-time code if you will are not only stored on the same device But stored in the same piece of software however That comes, you know, I always say we choose our point on the continuum between ultimate security and ultimate convenience, right and In this case Trending a little bit more towards convenience is what works certainly for me and probably for a lot of us So yeah, I moved I moved everything into one password so that it has the benefit of yes Carrying to your new devices with you, but also being available on all your devices So I don't need to go to Google authenticator when I'm logging in on my Mac It just has it right there again not to factor anymore, but a little bit better in Terms of actually being able to get into my stuff. So I don't know that what do you what do you do? Have you ever gotten caught by this John? No, okay, and how do you solve this problem? Do you use Google authenticator? Do you use something else? Okay? I use a last pass. Okay, and and last pass syncs all of that stuff all the two-factor stuff with all your devices and all that Yeah, I'm not using it for two-factor that they have reminded me that I could So how where are you storing your two-factor authentication stuff if you're not using Google authenticator? Well, I'm not using Two-factor authentication so on anything using apples, but I'm not using Google's or last passes Yeah, but what happens when you have to log into a website that requires you to use two-factor authentication? Like what do you use then? I mean, there's some sites that it like forget about Apple or Google like there's many sites out there that use Google authenticator as their method of providing you with you know two-factor authentication So what do you do for those websites that require the one-time code? You know you log in username password, and then it comes back and says okay now into your one-time code Well, how do you do that? They either text me or email me okay apple is smart enough to usually pick that up, and it just populates it Fascinating I'm of course There's many that will do the texting thing and yes though that the way safari does that is awesome I'm just shocked you you don't have like any banks or anything that Will require you to use Google authenticator which again Google you don't have to use Google authenticator You can use one password maybe last pass. I don't I'm assuming yes, but I don't know yeah interesting Yeah, I mean one of my banks has a checkbox for using a token Huh, yeah, you know which is a hardware device that sure You know gives you a different number every minute or something like that, but um Interesting This far without needing that Yeah, so am I I'm assuming last pass has this functionality and I in fact I seem to remember it from when I was using it, but yeah Wow, I'm just flabbergasted that like slack, you know You must have two-factor authentication enabled for slack I thought we forced that on our Mac observer and and Mackie keb channels, but maybe not Huh, you know Yeah, interesting. Yeah, the one I have one bank That requires me for doing wire transfers to use a token and and now I can use an app But it is a separate app to do it It's I can't it's not like the you know, scan the QR code with with one password. Well, since you haven't been through it It's actually pretty cool. What one password does is the way that you Add something to your I'll call it your two-factor authenticator apps So that we're not saying Google or one password or anything is it shows you a QR code on the screen and then you need to scan that Typically with your phone, but if you're doing it on your Mac at least one password Let's use drag a little screen capture window over the QR code and it does it right there. It's actually pretty cool. So Yeah, yeah, yeah Well, if you ever find yourself John or anybody out there who isn't yet in this scenario If you ever find yourself needing to use to FA Remember that your password manager likely can do it including apples. So, yeah All right, you want to take us to Larry? sure Sweet I kind of a two-parter here. I'm not sure if these are related, but maybe they are So Larry says, okay, so I've been dealing with this for many years. I've finally decided to write I have tried everything to fix my sync problems with my Apple TV and my Samsung TV. I Have an on keo receiver That the Apple TV goes through it is an older receiver. I will admit when I watch Apple TV the mouths are out of sync with the sound It's annoying. I just figured it as par for the course with an older receiver However, I finally decided to write and see if we knew anything that could help. Yes I have updated. There was just an update that didn't fix it. I restarted the Apple TV I have done the calibration numerous times nothing Any ideas or do I just need to get a new receiver? Getting new toys is good. So maybe that'll work But but then he followed up and I think this solved the problem or a problem I Ready to figure out what kind of troubleshooting steps you might take me through I checked other applications on the Apple TV And they seem to be better. So I deleted HBO Max Which was the one I was having problems with and then I reinstalled it and it does seem to be a little bit better So I guess my problem is resolved Maybe As a general tip though, I have found that when apps act up whether they be on the Mac or on iOS Sometimes You got to delete it and reinstall it and then the problems go away something gets corrupted somewhere Yeah, I think his issue so he describes that he's got his Apple TV connected to his Ankyo receiver and then that is connected to the TV and So what that tells me is his receiver? And I hate that we still use this term receiver because it might not even have an FM receiver in it, right? But it's what we use. It's fine It tells me that his receiver among other things is also an HDMI switch box, right? So his Apple TV isn't plugging directly into his TV. It's plugging into a switchbox Which also happens to be part of his receiver and then part of the signal is going to the Sound processor and amplifier and the other part of the signal the video part of the signal is going up to his TV and so what you're dealing with here is a scenario where the TV is processing the video signal and Displaying it at a different time than the receivers signal processor for sound and amplifier are processing that audio signal and Playing it and so you're out of sync and this is super common so Oftentimes you will have options in your TV to adjust the sync Other times you will have options in your receiver to adjust the sync I know my soundbar my sonos soundbars have the options to do this and then there's even a way using the Apple TV and your phone To have it adjust the sync right in there. It actually plays Some sounds at the same time that it's showing images on the screen and your phone Calculates what needs to happen and then your Apple TV can do it and you can find that in settings That only works for some apps. So if you can do it with your TV and or your Your sound device that's gonna be the best way to go and I even have this like a more I don't want to say it's more or less common another common way of connecting your Apple TV to your Entertainment center is to connect the Apple TV to your actual TV and then have an HDMI cable or an Optical cable go from there just carrying the audio signal would be called HDMI ARC ARC or EARC EARC to carry just the optical the audio signal or the optical Cable would carry the audio signal to whatever your sound device is a receiver a soundbar or whatever that could be and I've even seen it with that and and some and you just have to make some adjustments so that That the time it takes to process the audio is the same as the time It takes to process the video and you see things in sync So it it there's there's likely three or four places that Larry could go and do this Now the fact that deleting and reinstalling the apps fix this I guess That wouldn't have been to my first thought but hey, you know if it ain't broke man Don't fix it Right, so have you ever had sync problems with your with your stuff John or yours just kind of works? I had Decoding issues and then you suggested something which I think you just described But rather than using my receiver as the HDMI switch you were like well, why not use the TV and The good news is that my TV my current TV though it had a mishap and I have to get another one But they're cheap, but um This LG has three HDMI ports and then I do the you know toss link optical To the receiver. Yeah, and that was a better path So if you're having sync issues, maybe using another yeah, again Maybe consider using your TV instead of your receiver as the switch a TV as the switch box has been the Least headache prone method. I've found in all of the different ways. I've done this and I've done them all I've had a receiver that had a switchbox in it I've used an external switch box and then now I use my TV and it's yeah The TV's a better way to go because it's just one less thing like the TV's switchbox is built to work with that TV and that makes a difference and then if you're just going like you said optical or or E arc over HDMI out to your whatever your sound device is It's a it often is a like I said less headache prone. So yeah Yeah, the only challenge here is that my current TV has three HDMI ports That's unusual based on the survey of similar models like I said, I have to replace it for various reasons It's your TV break John Um, kind of yeah. Oh, that sucks. I'm sorry to hear that man. That sucks Yeah electronics don't last Put them on a UPS These days. No, I don't think it's okay. It's just Yeah, you know then again You know the you know, I 43 inches what works for me. Yeah, and they're like 300 bucks. Yeah Yeah, where's the first one I bought back in the day Samsung. I think it was $1,700. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah I like the the 65 inch You know 4k OLED screen that I have now Has a lower retail price than my 42 inch plasma of my first HD screen did like by half It's ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, you're yeah, you're gonna be fine but maybe you can go OLED or Or maybe maybe button, you know notch it up to I don't know get go 50 inches. Enjoy spoil yourself I mean, I know you've got a short viewing angle or a few short thing is I got a stand and You have to be careful how wide the stand is because actually the last time I bought one I bought a slightly larger one and It was too wide. Oh Too wide for your stand. Yeah Yeah, I mean, yeah, the little feet there. Yeah, I probably could have rigged something But yeah, you well you could put a piece of plywood across the thing to make it wider No, well, I mean, I'm you know, I'm starting. I'm starting. I whatever I have to solve these problems I always start like okay. What would the you know, super? You know low cost get it done Solution be and that's like, okay How can I step up from there? But you could also go and do a visa mount, right and put it on your wall Or they do sell replacement stands that connect to the visa mount like not for the wall, but you know for the for the floor So there's there's all kinds of options. But you were saying something though I we I brought us down a tangent here You were saying that your TV has three HDMI inputs the one you're needing to replace Were you saying that other TVs you're finding don't have that many Correct really That seems weird, huh for example this one is Discontinued so I can't get it because my preference would have been to just buy the same model sure But its replacement only has two HDMI ports check check larger sizes You might find that like when you get into the 50 inch or larger realm that you're back to you know for HDMI ports because that every TV that I've looked at has has for these days But you are living room has a longer throw. So we're looking at you know 50 inch at 55 inch 60 65 inch and up. So Yeah, so it might be time to spoil yourself anyway. There you go All right, let's see if we can help Tony here He says I have a thing with contacts That Apple support couldn't help me figure out I'm getting bunches of contacts Mysteriously added to come to my contacts app that I did not add I'd like to stop them from being added and globally purge the ones that have been added to date And he sent some screenshots where he showed a few contacts one You know multiples for for the same person in different cases and one had like all his notes and the other one just had like maybe an email address and You know a LinkedIn profile or something else and so I've I've seen this before I fought this battle before on my own stuff and The what you want to do in contacts is go to the view menu and make sure it is you are seeing the groups it's gonna add a third column to the left of your contacts and that's gonna show you Where the sources for all of your contacts? It's not just gonna show you the groups, but it's gonna show you headers for iCloud You might have one for LinkedIn. You might have one for Google And those things are going to be the things that bring them in now You can go into contacts and select multiple contacts and merge them if you have two people that are the same You would you would go to I think you Highlight the multiple cards and you go to the card menu and choose merge selected cards and that way it would know Ah, okay, you know this John F. Braun in my iCloud is the same as John F. Braun in my LinkedIn And now you've got all that data together So that'd be one way of doing it the other way would be to not link extra contact sources Into your contacts and you do that by going into contacts preferences accounts and go in here and Uncheck the enable this account box In order to figure out, you know where you're where you are and Uncheck the enable this account box. I told you I was in a fog today folks You had warning But that would turn it off and then and then you're done like if you see LinkedIn in there or you know Google if that's where they're coming from then just turn that off and and you're done If you do choose to have multiple accounts I have found Contacts let's it lets you set in in the preferences. It lets you set a default account Right so that when you go and just say new contact, that's what it adds it to unless you change something I have watched that default account change multiple times It it it has a mind of its own So if you're gonna have multiple accounts in there set your calendar once a week to go in and make sure that it is Uh adding to the right account. So Yeah Also in our chat Kiwi Graham or chat at mackeycup.com slash discord Kiwi Graham says Check on your iPhone to see which apps have been given access to your contacts because something else might be populating this And so go to settings on ios privacy Contacts and see what that says for you because that Might give you a clue if you don't have any separate accounts. Oh, I like this. This is good. This is what I love about doing this show Is I learned stuff too? That's the whole point Thoughts on any of this john Um, the way I solve the problem is the only account that I use the store contacts is my iCloud So yeah, right right, but I'm still as you pointed out, but in the past internet accounts would let you link to other sources And I'm still trying to clean out all that cruft. Yep. Yep Yeah, I think I did you know one time merge and and it got rid of most of the duplicates Yeah, just mush them all together. So yeah so But yeah, I like that To see if ios, you know, see if any iphone apps are you know pushing things into your contacts. That's a smart I like that Because even if even if you only use iCloud Which is what I've done too. I finally had to standardize and be like, okay, I can't deal with this multiple contacts thing um I had to when I was teaching that class at at the university I had a I was connected to their, you know, LDAP server or whatever And I had access to all of the contacts For every student and teacher and it was super handy when I needed to send emails out to people But it kept defaulting to that And it was like, no, I if I add a new contact I do not want it on my unh account that's gonna go away someday I want it in my iCloud account that hopefully I get to control when that goes away You know, it's not managed. Well, it is managed by apple, but you know what? Anyway Shall we move on? Is this one? Have we have we have we beat this one? Yeah into submission. Okay, great uh David in texas Says um I have a question about the best way to transfer files to my new mac Uh, I'm getting an m1 air or maybe an m2 air to replace my 2015 mac book pro And the main issue has to do with setting up the new mac when I get it whichever model that turns out to be Over the years. I've transferred files from one iBook to our mac book to another upgraded a hard drive on a mac book switch to a current yada yada yada Once migration assistant became a thing I've relied on that to move files over and it's always done a great job Plus along the way, of course, I've upgraded the os on those machines multiple times I have no complaints about the data transfer process on any of those occasions But I do understand the buildup of cruft has likely been ongoing And I'd like to start my next machine with as clean a slate as possible So is it still your recommendation to sometimes not rely on migration assistant and to instead manually download Apps again and otherwise transfer files directly if that's still a good idea What's the best way to bring over data in mac programs like music and photos and contacts? So that they maintain their current formats I also back up an iphone to this laptop and not to iCloud So I'd like to ensure that I don't use that don't lose that functionality as well so um, yeah, I think Personally, I think it is a good idea every few years Maybe every five years maybe more than a few years to Let the cruft sit and Reinstall things from scratch With all the syncing that happens these days. It's not as bad as it used to be to start fresh Um, you know, you mentioned a few apps I'll start with the last one since we just talked about contacts if you're syncing your contacts to iCloud well, then you don't need to do anything other than log your new mac into iCloud, right John? I mean like that that'll bring in calendars and contacts and Perhaps your mail perhaps not Uh, it might even bring your photos in if you've got everything in iCloud photo library um music potentially yes Uh for photos and music If you want to just copy the libraries over you can do that Just copy them from your home photos and home pictures Or a home uh home music folders On your old one copy that to the new one and then I think it's the option key right John when you When you launch the like when you launch the photos app and launch the music app I think it's the option key that lets you choose a library to connect it to and then right is that right? And then you're good to go So a lot of this stuff is pretty easy these days that option key trick might be the most important one for you um But yeah with all the syncing and iMap for email and all of that. I mean you want to make sure apple's apps contacts and mail specifically do I think do a good job with calendars as well of delineating Things that are stored in iCloud or somewhere in the cloud versus on my mac And if you see things in the on my mac section that you want to keep Then you need to manually copy those over but otherwise the rest will just sync from the cloud or at least it should So, I don't know. I what do you think john? um I'm the migration assistant person so Yeah Same but do you ever like you know once every Half a decade or so no you just let migration assistant do it and live with the consequences Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Now it does have and i'm looking here. I don't know how what version this is but I'm looking at a screenshot from migration assistant and yeah It does give you some level of granularity what i'm looking at now. It shows Applications there's a checkbox there and then it shows the home folder of the person and then it has a little expand Yep, so i'm thinking that may Be another way to migrate photos and and stuff like that But I I can't open the triangle because it's a screenshot because it's screenshot. Yeah, I I I guess I would worry What else is it bringing over? um Is it is it gonna bring over all of the system preferences stuff that that Is exactly what listener david might want to avoid so I like that's the question I don't I don't know the answer to it obviously, but yeah, well, there is a checkbox next to something titled system and network so He may want to uncheck that Right Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, look the worst that happens is you you do a a granularly controlled migration assistant And then realize oh this brought over too much cruft wipe the machine start from scratch And do it differently either be more granular about it with migration assistant or do your new can pave and or and and then Just manually copy things over so Yeah Yeah, but my advice Before any migration that I do I make sure I have not one But two backups, maybe I should have three but um, I make sure time machine is updated to the latest Um, and then I do a clone Yeah Just in case things go bad. Yeah. Yeah fair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we've got one comment Floating over on youtube from brad mac pro saying that migration assistant from intel to apple silicon is not going to work My experience has been different with that. I I haven't had issues migrating from intel to apple silicon That's that's worked fine for me and and it's been Over a year since I've done it like it worked fine in the beginnings of apple silicon max so But but I share that feedback because if he's saying it it means he's encountered a problem Or he's encountered someone with a problem and so You know your point about backups john is is key. So, yeah, but you've also, you know, you said you make two backups You still have your old mac as a backup too, right? Migration assistant in theory isn't going to be you know copying that over right so or you know, so Dave I think I heard you say feedback At mackeygab.com I said it in the beginning of the show feedback at mackeygab.com. That's where you send that stuff in That's right. Yeah, kiwi gram in discord Comments that photos app on the mac remembers the last photos library that was opened So instead of doing the option click when opening photos You can just navigate to where your photos library is stored and double click it that will open photos And then subsequent launches of photos will point to that library as well And and he also points out that he has migrated multiple clients from intel to m1 with no problems So whatever brad mac pro experienced Is unfortunate and hopefully rare That's the idea anyway All right Are we moving on john? Sure. All right cool You want to take us to listener david david's a different david. Yeah, this is a good question um I believe he covered this before but i'm looking for a way to travel with the least amount of dongles cables Etc. I have a macbook air an ipad apple watch and iphone. Do you have a preferred solution? um, you know, you're going to have to do this on a case-by-case basis Um, unless all your peripherals are usbc, but I highly doubt that sure um So you only need some sort of uh dongle or dock or whatever you want to call it um So, you know make a summary of all the things that you have and all the connectors um For good. Well, I just traveled and anchor had provided a couple of docks To both me and you I think and the one that I brought with me was exactly what I needed is that it had um An ethernet port in case there was an ethernet port to plug into versus wi-fi um And this hotel actually did have an ethernet cable dave. I don't know if it was live, but um, probably not Yeah um But yeah, I brought an anchor one that had uh ethernet port and two usb a ports So you're talking about a a dongle that connects to your computer to give your computer connectivity to your devices Or to the devices in the hotel. Yeah. Yes, great So I found the anchor 543 usb c hub, which I think is probably the current version of of You know what you're talking about here And I'll I'll put that in the show notes just to just to get us there. So Um, because it's a usb c hub. It's got Some uh usb c ports on it. Actually, I don't ah this one doesn't have any usba Ports or maybe it does Oh, no, it does. Sorry. Yeah, it's got actually this one's great. It's got power delivery input um Power delivery output to your computer a usb c data port two usba ports hdmi and ethernet. So Yeah, that that that would be a good one Is that I assume that's similar to what the one you have. Yeah Yeah, and they have um, well, they have a more button, but I The webpage while we're discussing things Because that's just rude. Um Here's the one thing I found on my travels dave though um usba Everybody off every every any place Where I had the potential to charge the only thing that was available was usba So that was either on the plane, which is nice. Um, the planes that I were on actually also had a 120 volt, which that's handy Yep Um, and then the airports have charging stations and the hotel had charging stations, but they're all usba. So That's why that was important to me. Yeah. Yeah, and that makes sense because usbc could be a power delivery scenario and you don't want like That's not gonna work in For the masses, right? So usba simple Five volts everything just works. You have your usba cable to whatever you need to charge It's not going to charge your laptop Whereas if you had a usbc cable that was only five volts or usbc port That you could plug your laptop in you wouldn't get enough juice out of it, right? So I think it's smart that they stay with usba for You know for sort of the ubiquitous power ports that are in Hotel rooms and airplanes and all of that stuff. Yeah, of course the other annoyance is that the Is that the phone still has lightning so Yeah, so bringing it an a to lightning cable and you're good to go, right? Yeah, I also highly recommend Some and we talked about it on the show, uh, I don't know about six months ago Put some a to c adapters in your travel case. You can buy them cheap on amazon And that way if you if you find yourself in a scenario where all you have is you know, you're you're Your pile of usbc cables and a usba port. You're like, oh good to go put them in done Yeah, now the other thing unfortunately, I didn't pack the usba To lightning cable. I thought I had sure so as a backup I brought a battery pack. Okay, then what came up A little tangent here, but when I was at the airport I noticed the sign of all the things that you're not allowed to bring on the plane and They had a battery and I'm like, uh I'm like everything has batteries, you know I mean my computer, but uh, so you did a little research. Thank you very much Um, there is a limit Yes And you eventually did the conversion, but I think it's what 20 000 milliamp hours Yeah, if you run the tsa you're you are right. There's the my tsa app and they have in it There's a section called can I bring and you can type in whatever you want and it will tell you And uh, if when I typed in battery, I scroll down to lithium batteries And it says in your carry-on bag Uh, lithium batteries with a 100 watt hours or less are allowed and we did the math before the show and that means 20 000 milliamp hours So, uh, most of your charging batteries are going to be fine Lithium batteries that are installed in a device are fine as well It's the loose lithium batteries that start to get to be an issue But but yeah, and as long as it's less than 20 000 in your carry-on, you're good to go So but yeah, get that my tsa app. That's a great handy little resource It I I think almost every trip I do Especially with other people somebody always asks me like hey, you know like when you did you're like, oh, you can't bring a battery I'm like, I don't know hang on let's go and the nice part about it Is if you've got the app there and there is an agent that says no your 10 000 milliamp hour battery is no good You can pull out the app and be like, okay. Hey look, I checked this before I left Here we go. If you're nice about it, they might even still let you on the plane Um, sorry, so we answered half of david's question, right? We answered What dongle he would need to bring to connect his computer to other things but There's the other part of it, which is how to charge your devices Which we haven't gotten to yet other than hopefully finding things and maybe a battery Again, I will go back to anchor. They they just came out with a new line of stuff I haven't gotten to test any of this yet. They call it their g an prime So this is their iteration on gallium nitrate now in nitride I can't remember which g an stands for it doesn't matter I mean, it does matter to people that have to make it. We're fine here on the show But um, but they've got some cool Devices and the one that really jumped out at me is for a charger the anchor 727 charging station it is a It's got a cable that plugs into the wall It has two ac outlets on it two usb ports two usb a ports i should say two usb c ports and Uh, and it's powered by by g an prime. So you've got you can plug Many things into this. I don't want to say you can plug everything into it But you can plug many things into this and it's super flat So it looks like it would travel very very well and the ac outlets are three prong outlets For you know us stuff. So and it's 100 watts total So this seems like the the right thing to get next and i'm i'm eager to check it out But but something like that that has the ability to charge multiple things and I really think Two usb c and two usb a are the key and this thing's got both of those And that way, you know it for a while. I was fine traveling with just one usb c And that was for my laptop and then I upgraded my ipad and it was like, ah, wait I need power delivery for this too. So two a's two c's you get your phone your watch on the a's Your ipad and your laptop on the c's and boom, you're good to go So I like it's clearly some thought went into this and i'm i'm stoked about that Hopefully between all of that david and everyone else are uh are good to travel Yeah Cool anything else On this one before we move on to patrick and the international travel tips that he's got to share I know it's exciting. He says, uh I recently traveled to europe and went to germany switzerland and the uk and I learned a few things The first tip is to actually get some cash in the local currency I agree with him on this when we were in greece. We found we needed cash too He says I was surprised that I needed cash since I seldom use it here in the us I was even it was even more difficult since germany is on the euro Switzerland is on the swiss franc and the uk is back to the british pound Also, germany is very much a cash-centric culture still interesting um, he also found this unidapt Universal multi charger this thing john looks Like it's gonna have everything he needs and everything any of us needs He says it has fangs for all the international plugs you encounter So you slide the plug out that you need and it plugs into the wall Um, it has three usba one usbc Actually two usbc one sort of low power and one high power usbc port So three usba two usbc one of which is power delivery I can charge my apple watch my iphone my boys noise bows noise cancelling earphones say that 10 times fast And my 16 inch m1 macbook pro all at once with a single device He says I think it charges the laptop a little more slowly, but the battery is so good in that computer I don't really care. It's a 61 watt Device so depending on what else you're charging. It's it's gonna jump around and that thing's only 36 bucks So if you've got some international travel coming up, this seems like the uh, The thing to have so thank you for that patrick very very cool He has a few more tips He says if you're renting a car bring your iphone car holder that typically sticks into the vents that you use day to day I was in a foreign land trying to navigate with an iphone in hand and it wasn't pretty this is killer advice I still keep you know, I use car play in my car So I don't need the the vent mount anymore and my vent mount now lives in my travel backpack I don't even put it in my like charging bag that might be in my suitcase It's in my backpack. So when I get to a rental car, it's just right there I can grab it and put it on thankfully most rental cars and at least in the us have car play as well these days So you're kind of fine, but um, but if it's not you've got that little adapter. I love this He says lastly check the data speeds on your plan I have t-mobile so my plan works internationally and was just fine while in europe with one big exception Apple and google maps would not load quickly enough to be useful And I had to upgrade my international plan to a faster speed It would have been fine for texting etc. But not for driving. Wow. That's interesting and good to know. Yeah Thanks for that patrick cool stuff I love yeah, I should get one of those mounts because right now I have a A suction mount to the windshield Um, and it happened again. So as I was driving to the airport all of a sudden I get the notification on the phone saying, uh, yeah, I'm too hot Yeah Right because you were driving to the airport during that heat wave we were having here in new england So the sun was probably baking on you. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah And the interior of my car is dark. So of course that absorbs the heat. Yeah Yeah, putting it on the vent mount. You've got ac blowing right on your phone. It's great Yeah, I mean the way I was able to solve it is number one remove the case because it acts as an insulator and number two Don't charge because charging the phone generates heat as well and once I did those two things it was fine Smart solution. Oh, I like taking it off charge. That's yeah. Yeah. Yeah Oh Really just anything in the sun I found I had a gig a couple of weeks ago and I use an iPad on stage Sometimes as a cheat sheet Because sometimes I need those and other times just to control the mixer so I can Adjust my my in-ear monitor mix And we got on stage. It was a hot day Everything set up. I sat down halfway through the first song. I looked down at my iPad and it's like yep. I am too hot and so I am going to be I'm not going to be available for your use and so I it was it wasn't you know It wasn't in the shade. So I moved it into the shade and within about, you know, five minutes It was fine again. It cooled off and I could that could control my ears or I think I think that's all I needed to do. I don't think it was for a cheat sheet for the first few songs. Thank goodness so Yeah, of all Stuff knows their case on that iPad There is actually the the what I did to solve the problem was was cover the iPad So I left the case on and I I covered the the front of it to keep it from baking in the sun and that that actually helped um, believe it or not that that helped so But yeah, your idea of taking the case off that you know depending on the type of case you have that makes sense I like it. It's good Uh Shall we move on we've got some follow-ups from prior shows my friend Sweet listener Alex brings us back to uh last episode And he says I was listening About your quick tips about the useful shortcuts like command back tick to roll through windows of an app And again back tick because we got a lot of questions about this is the on most apple keyboards the key in the upper left Below the tilde on some keyboards, but it's a It's a it's an apostrophe going in the wrong direction. That's why I call it a back tick. I don't know But anyway, uh, he says command back tick to roll through the windows of an app or command left and right arrow To move through spaces or virtual desktops That can pitch that pitch continued such shortcuts thread from previous episode and uh I again agreed that keyboard shortcuts are very convenient But the following speech from pete about that feeling when you were standing over someone's shoulder watching the person struggle With something on a computer and feel stressed yourself Described right what I was feeling at that moment. I absolutely do not want to steal such a useful topic No, no, no He's got a good tip. He says I encourage the audience to go to system preferences keyboard Shortcuts and take a look for which actions virtual shortcuts exist This is a great thing if you want to learn more keyboard shortcuts apple will show Many not all many of them to you there and that way you can see which ones you might like And you don't have to wait for somebody to tell you about them says for example Alex continues for him Such are the show all windows of the current application show all windows via mission control An open screenshots creating panel and you can actually see what the shortcuts are for those and even change them if you want so Pretty good. I like this That's good He has a um anything to add on that before he has a cool thing to tell us about too About adding perhaps more complex keyboard shortcuts He says if the list of keyboard shortcuts offered in system preferences does not include some feature But the feature is provided in some of the menu bar sections while you are in the desired app You could add it manually to the shortcuts list by a plus button in system preferences. He's totally right about this he says But what if you want to have a keyboard combination for a more unique feature Of course, you could use keyboard maestro But there is an option to have the feature for free in an apple app And this is where he blew my mind. He says you could easily create an action set in shortcuts And bind it to a key combination for example a command to resize the window to fit the entire screen Definitely this requires some efforts But isn't it fun to have a geeky task and he said yeah You find all the windows where the window index is zero. So that's the current window And resize to fit screen. So two shortcut actions and boom Now you have a shortcut that will resize a window with a keyboard command because you you bind it to a keyboard command And you're good to go. I love this idea of using shortcuts to create new keyboards Um Keyboard shortcuts, I guess it's the right word. Yeah Huh, I never thought about binding a shortcut to a keystroke And it's because shortcuts came from ios where that's simply not an option But on the mac you absolutely can launch a shortcut with a keyboard command Very interesting I like it alex. That's cool Huh, I remember we helped someone in the past. So another cool Uh, I think the challenge was How can I restart or shut down my mac? Uh with the keyboard combination and the thing is out of the box That's not an option Right. Um, but if you make a shortcut and what I did in my case was I assigned a function key Um So I won't hit it accidentally. Um, oh that's smart Uh, I like it. That's really smart. Yeah Ah Right. Yeah adding a key that requires two hands even You know to just to make sure you're not Accidentally doing it. I like this idea Uh, really smart man cool All right Uh, you want to take us to case with a follow-up from last week's episode. Yes Uh, so case said I was checking some settings for my mouse and I saw this accessibility option that might solve the issue You mentioned in the last episode. I think the issue was I don't want to accidentally move the cursor around. That's right. Yeah Yeah, fair Um, but I guess it only works if we have a mouse connected The option is ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad Is present Um, actually it's in yeah, so system preferences accessibility pointer control Um, is where you look fascinating All right, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, of course that does render your trackpad useless On your laptop if you if you do plug in a mouse, but yeah, that might solve this problem. Yeah Uh, very yeah, I love that apple uses accessibility to hide these I mean I suppose it could be argued that this would be A feature that fits into the accessibility world, but by and large, I think it's kind of it spills well beyond that Let's say it that way. So, yeah All right. Nice fine case. Yeah good stuff Um, bob brings us back two episodes He says, uh, we were talking pete shared a story about his mother-in-law Whose apple watch helped alert pete's wife That she had fallen and needed help Uh, and pete needed to get there to open the door for the emt's Well, he says an easy way to allow remote access is via your garage doors Uh, they already have the ability to open via remote pete just needs a way to allow that to happen over the internet My Q from the chamberlain lift master door opening company makes a wi-fi connected internet accessible garage door opener That can be activated from the phone. It's the my Q smart garage hub And I it when I got bob's email, I remembered john Wait a minute. I have one of these in a box and I've been waiting to set it up I'm gonna do it 10 minutes later. I was good to go and this thing. It's it's it's less than 100 bucks I think it's a lot less than 100 bucks. I think it's I'm gonna look on amazon now. Yeah, it's 47 95 today on amazon for the my Q spark garage hub all it does is um Becomes your another garage door opener. So you teach it how to open your You know, and it seems to work with most brands. I don't have a chamberlain garage door opener that I connected it to It also has a little Sensor that you put on the garage door itself. You just stick it to the door And that will let it know whether the door is open or closed which is kind of cool So you get this full functionality for 50 bucks and it's wi-fi enabled by itself It is not home kit compatible But chamberlain also sells The my q home bridge that will make this home kit compatible or If you run the and my q's home bridge has a space in there So it's the my q space home space bridge If you run the software home bridge or hooves Well, then you can just do it that way because there is a my q plug-in for home bridge and you can boom So now i've got my garage doors I already had one garage door that was connected to home kit via a different method and now i've got two And it's great and and you can control this from over the internet With the my q app. So you don't even need to go to the home kit route and Yeah, that's great. Uh, it's very very good tip there bob I like it I like it because then peak could have opened the the door for the emt's from his phone So that's pretty cool Pretty good Any uh thoughts or or tips to add to that one john? um Well, I could mention that I have a smart ac control and before I got home. I turned on the ac so it wouldn't be as stiflingly hot And that's smart. So this is uh, um and a third party control for like a window unit air conditioner, right? Yeah, um, I think it's a tome makes it But yeah, and it's similar it just reminded me it's similar to what you mentioned is that you train it Yeah, because there are only so many or you tell it. I guess in the app. You can say oh, I have a fetters Or whatever brand whatever. Yeah, right. It'll try different ones until the ac Wakes up. I like it Huh, that's pretty cool. Yeah the atomi air conditioner control Hang on. I'm looking on amazon here. Oh, it's like 20 bucks Oh, dude, that's a great idea. I love it nice Yeah, here was the bad news dave. Yes, sir Because I didn't leave the heat on I just left the house sit there on air condition And it got up to like 80 something degrees, which I was able to tell with my smart thermostats But one of my thermostats disappeared Oh, and that I couldn't talk to it And when I got home the first thing that I did is like, okay, what's going on here? And I looked at it and the screen's dark. Oh dead battery Uh, no, um, apparently this model which is battery operated. It doesn't run off of a wire um, apparently it got so warm that the batteries had shifted and Yeah, it got up to like 86 degrees with no ac. So, uh, apparently the battery shifted a little bit You know, I took the cover off fiddled with them and it came back and Has the same battery level as the other two in the house. Wow Huh, so you could set like here in the office. I set my My air conditioners. I have mini splits in the office And they have remote controls and I can set it when I'm not here To keep the temp at 80 or below So if I'm away, like, you know, like during a massive heat wave or whatever You know, my my devices don't just cook because Like you I run a bunch of electronics in my house Even when I'm not here like my disk station and my computers and Getting, you know, getting much above 80 degrees is probably asking a lot of these devices. So Uh, so I have mine set to kick on when it's 80 and and just bring it down to 80 and that's it Can you do that with the atomi thing or is it just Like can you set a um a temperature at which it should it should kick on? Um, it's dumb in that it doesn't know the temperature But it does have up and down control. So if you know what you last set it at then you can Fiddle with it further. I by set mine to 70 degrees And then that seems to work. No, I mean, will the atomi Does the atomi know the ambient temperature not the temp your ac is set. Oh, yeah, yeah Yeah, at least that it could be terribly accurate Yeah, but still if you set it like if you is there a way to automate it so that if say the temp hits 82 degrees You could have this thing kick your ac on and bring it down and then turn the ac off when it's back below 82 Yeah, I'm pretty sure Yeah, so that might not be a bad idea to keep your batteries from you know from boiling the next time you go away Yeah, my disappointment though is that I have an action for all my thermostats saying if the battery gets below a certain level Send me a note and it didn't All right Well, but maybe it I mean, I don't it doesn't sound like the battery got low. It just sounds like it swelled and and moved Yeah, it just moved a little bit. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, yeah All right All right. Well, uh, you want to take us to listener john Yeah Let's see here. I'm having trouble reformatting an external drive. I once used as a ccc backup I no longer have ccc or to On this machine, but this error comes up every time I try to erase the drive any idea how to fix this um By ccc you mean carbon copy cloner. Yes. Yeah, um, and then he sent us a screenshot from disutility Um, and sure enough it says erasing mac clone Preparing to erase the drive checking mount state, but here's the important part Uh further down the volume mac clone on disk whatever Couldn't be unmounted because it is in use By process 328 otherwise known as com dot bombic dot ccc helper So guess what ccc isn't gone. Oh, it doesn't sound like it is Yeah, so one thing in in the future, uh, you may want to consider using something like app cleaner Which will get rid of all the little bits and pieces Like this helper app um So to deal with this I think what needs to happen is you have to get rid of this com dot bomb, bitch dot ccc helper Uh one way would be to go to system preferences security and privacy full disk access Which is where this guy lives and disable the entry For com dot bomb bitch that ccc helper though. I don't know if that's going to quite do it But here's the good news Uh, if you click on an entry on that screen It will say show in finder if you say show in finder. It's gonna highlight that app in the finder for you um I'm not sure if you can delete it straight away From where it lives because it's kind of a low level component Okay, yeah App cleaner might get rid of it though. Like I I that's the first place I see any more than I don't know Oh Well one solution would be to reinstall carbon copycloner And then use app cleaner to remove it. Well, right like that would be Yeah, or like I think clean my mac will look for things that are left over From previously uninstalled like it it it it I think so Yeah, but yeah, yeah, that's a good point if they don't if the app's not there then you can't Trigger the uninstallation process um I believe it's bryan and roe who put a link in the show notes here for uninstalling carbon copycloner and uh Carbon copycloner has its own uninstaller right in its menu Or you can manually remove the files and it lists where they all are So this would be another uh, and it also talks about how to manually disable The privileged helper tool that you're talking about so we've got a we've got a link in the show notes that Maybe you can share back with listener john john and That way the answer is the answer is there. Yeah. Yeah, good stuff. Thank you bryan and roe This is what I love about doing the show live. There's some things that Get a little crazy doing the show live, but you know It's good. Um, john, we've been doing some trades with some other podcasts and I would love to talk about the Uh, the one we're doing this week if that works for you my friend Okay All right. Hey look every friday and sunday slates popular daily news podcast. What next brings you what next tbd? A clear i'd look at technology power and the future from fake news to fake meat algorithms to augmented reality Host lizzie oliri is your guide to the rapid technological changes reshaping our world And those changes aren't always visible and they aren't always what they appear to be That's where tbd comes in lizzie and her guests help listeners parse out what matters what doesn't and what's next Subscribe to what next tbd and your favorite podcast app and thanks to lizzie for doing this swap with us All right, john, um I noticed this week when I ran the uh, the ring Rapid ring app. So uh, I use for my smart home stuff. I use a bunch of ring things. I have a A couple of ring. I have one ring doorbell In one spot and then I have two Ring like security light slash camera things and I always would use the rapid ring app Which was made by the ring people to see Things and get my notifications if there was somebody in the driveway or whatever Because as the name implied you would launch the app and it would immediately show you what was happening live You didn't have to jump through hoops like you would if you ran the sort of more bloated ring app Well, the ring folks have done away with the rapid ring app because They've made the ring app more efficient So when you tap on those notifications, it brings you right there You don't have to jump through all the hoops that you used to have to so If you're still using the rapid ring app delete it And then go into the ring app and turn your notifications back on from there so that you're getting those notifications and all of that good stuff So Just figured I'd share that on the show. I also wanted to do wait. Do you uh Do you use do you still use your ring stuff right john? You have some some ring devices, don't you? Oh, I thought you had didn't you have a ring doorbell for a little while I still have one, but I replaced it with the yufi and I like that's right Yeah And at least at that point in time brings detection algorithm Was a bit too jumpy and I would get all these false positives. Uh yufi's I found So this may have changed. Maybe I'll give it another try someday Um, but yeah yufi's Algorithm for defining the area where you want a notification Uh at that point was much better. So Nice. Yeah, we um, we moved the the primary doorbell from a ring to a yufi For a variety of reasons one was the the size of it The ring one was too wide to fit with the new door that we got Um, but but I I do tend to like the yufi doorbell better I have the the ring doorbell like I said in kind of an alternate location now But um, but yeah, I still use their their floodlights And I recently we put in a patio with a hot tub and um I had to change the ring Uh, the the floodlights notification area for when it turns its light on To not include the area where the hot tub is because I go out there at night often And I don't like when it, you know turns the light on in our eyes when we're just hanging out in the hot tub enjoying the stars So, uh, so now I have it that way and I can turn the light on with my voice if I so care It's bizarre though. I can only this is weird And maybe somebody out there can can help me with this because Ring is now an amazon owned product line, right? Why is it that if I say to the a lady turn on back porch light It says I can't turn on the light Uh from you know via voice, but I can show you the camera Which is impossible because the device that I'm talking to doesn't have a screen So I'm super confused every time this happens But my home bridge uh ring plug-in if I if I tell Siri turn on back porch light it turns it on it's totally fine So why can't amazons bring integration with the a lady do that? This doesn't make sense to me and it like it's been this way for they've had the ring brand They they they acquired it like over a year ago. Maybe two years ago It's just it baffles me that the integration I have to use like this home bridge cooked up Hack-together thing. I mean it works very well. Don't get me wrong, but I don't know seems a little weird to me So anyway, somebody knows how to make the a lady do that I would like it because I a lady is in my sonos move speaker And I often don't have my phone out there with me So I would love to be able to do it with the a lady Maybe need to hook the a lady to home bridge. Maybe that's the the solution Well, I don't know I don't know now my only caution to you about Excluding the hot tub is you will not need to get a notification if any of the wildlife like a bear I think I've seen a video of a bear going into someone's hot tub. That's fine. That's fine. I don't I don't need I don't need to know that that's gonna be fine If I'll look out the door and if I see a bear in the hot tub, I'll I'll I'll stay inside It's gonna be fine. Yeah uh South by southwest changed the name of the south by southwest film festival for 2023 It is now the south by southwest film and tv festival, which I think is great because There's so much stuff like the the the lines are super super blurred between film and tv now, you know, we get these you know four episode Series and is that a film that's just spread out across four things there was in fact there was last year At south by there was the movie about Oh, why can't I think of her and their name? Oh demi lavato That when I saw it at south by it was a one Like I watched it in one fell swoop when it came out on amazon I believe it was amazon amazon prime It was a six part series Which was a better way to watch it because it was like super heavy. It was about her dealing with addiction and um finding her herself in a whole lot of different ways and it like it was a lot to consume all at once But breaking it up made a lot of sense. So this whole idea of you know, the tv and film festival helps that just no It's nomenclature. It's good. I like it Do I question the use of the term film because I don't think anybody uses film anymore. Hmm. That's a good question Let's let's look at no, no, no, I I I'm a I'm a stickler for language I I like what you're saying here. So I am looking at dictionary.com at the definition of film and uh It's interesting there are two nouns. Oh wait more. There's more nouns, right movies So in the in the uh movies definition, there is a strip of transparent material usually cellulose a similar strip Uh covered. So yes, these physical things that Maybe we're using maybe we're not and then simply Film refers to a movie or a motion picture. So so we are okay using the term film for uh for movies So at least there's that Yeah, from what I understand though is that most theaters have digital projectors. I think they actually Send them a disc pack That's that's I think you're right. Yeah, but a film is a movie. So it's not just the thing So we're okay. The language has evolved. We're there. It's all good And language should evolve although I still am not entirely happy that the word literally has evolved to and and the the net effect is We no longer have a word that means Literally anymore and that's tough Another pet peeve while we're here because it seems to be one of those days Is when someone qualifies the term unique that is binary, right unique is unique It doesn't need to be very unique. There's no such thing It doesn't need to be mostly unique. It doesn't there's no qualifier required. It's unique or it is not unique There it is. I've got a related one. Go ahead So I'll get solicitations via email from people where it's okay if you email me And it always cracks me up when I get exclusive offer just for john. It's like Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's not just for me. It's probably I don't know john You're a pretty special person. It might just be for you. Who knows Oh All right, we got uh, yeah, there's time for one one last thing here, which I'm going to try and find for us Where the heck is this? Let's go. Come on Uh adrian brings us to this ever-evolving google sheet Which lists app compatibility for the ios 16 beta as more and more people are starting to run the beta This becomes more and more relevant and then also as we're getting closer We're probably what you know six maybe seven weeks away from ios 16 being In release mode. I think it's probably time for me to put it on my uh On my on my phone. So Yeah, there you go. So we'll put a link in the show notes to that but handy little compatibility list which lists Whether it is compatible or not or Somewhere in the middle. So thanks for that adrian good stuff You got anything else any other cool stuff found to uh mention john before we Before we let the band take over here No, I think it's time We made it through the show I hope whatever I have is doesn't get any crazier than this Fog mode scratchy throat Headache take your vitamins Yeah, I've been taking tylenol that that was like I took some of that and that like I'm still fuzzy, you know like I have that fuzzy feeling but instead of fuzzy with a headache and pissed I'm like fuzzy and and I actually kind of feel a little high is all it is You know, so that's fine. I guess maybe get annoying after a while But you know better than the alternative of the head. No no fever though. So, uh, who knows All right Well, that's all we got I am sure yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did like the fuzziness is is is not related to the tylenol That's just related to whatever I have but when you take the headache away, then it's actually kind of nice for a little while, you know But yes, I'm sure it was tylenol extra strength kind two of them I know and and I'm only supposed to take it You know, there's a maximum I can take every day because otherwise it starts causing stomach problems I'm aware. I'm I'm actually not a huge fan of taking anything but When you have a podcast to do and you don't want to have a splitting headache through the show Treating the symptom is all right for the short term Tyler Pete wasn't here today, but You can go check out his podcast. So there I was that's this new aviation podcast and We got him up on apple music this week's apple music apple podcasts whatever we're supposed to call it But yes, you can find it in apple podcasts and all of your favorite podcatchers So you don't have to go to so there I was dot us and subscribe But you could or you can just subscribe. So yeah, he's got like I think I don't know 10 episodes out now So yeah, it's good stuff. I love the show. Have you listened yet, john? No, oh, I highly recommend it. I think you'd like it. I mean like that whole we did a great segment in uh post show last week where you were asking Pete about what it like How do you start an air the engines on an airplane? It's fascinating. Basically like jump starting a car I think we sent that that clip out to our premium listeners, too If you're not a premium listener yet mackey keb.com slash premium that's where you can go if you want to help support the show directly and uh And you get access to our special email address premium at mackey keb.com And yeah, we'd love to love to have you there if you are if you are not already there and you want to You don't have to be there, but if you'd like to be there mackey keb.com slash premium. There you go All right, folks Do you have anything else to share john or is it time to go? It's time to wrap it up time to wrap. All right, folks Thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks to cash fly for providing all the band with Check out our sponsors and our deals at mackey keb.com slash sponsors and uh Come join our discord chat Sunday john will be there mackey keb.com slash discord We're having fun there mr. Braun What do you have to say for yourself or for them? All I got to say is i'm glad during my travels far and wide that I didn't