 It's time for the Mac GeekGab and listener also my son Mac Brings us our quick tip of the week with lift subject from background now You all know about this from iOS that if you have a photo and you press the on the picture of a dog or a person and Hold it press and hold an outline will go around that person that subject and you can lift that subject out of the background Great easy to do share it put it into other apps Well, my son figured out do it with a picture of a document and you can lift it out of photos and drop it into notes More quick tips like this plus your questions answered today on the Mac GeekGab number 1002 For Monday October 2nd 2023 And welcome to Mac GeekGab the show where you send in tips just like that you send in your questions Which we try to answer you send in your cool stuff found which we also share we pull it all together into an agenda We try to organize it thematically and in an interesting way so that we are Certain to each learn at least five new things every single time we get together We have as a sponsor for this episode fastmail.com Slash m gg and that's where you can go to get 10% off your first year with fast mail We'll talk more in depth about that in a little bit for now here in Durham, New Hampshire I'm Dave Hamilton in here in Lee, New Hampshire. I think after nine days around the world It's pilot Pete good to be back home. It's nice having you back home Yeah, you sound good. You're breathing into the mic a little bit So actually I just sent you a text about that, but I figured I figured I'd acknowledge it since I'm sure Okay, I'll try not to do that Good stuff Yeah, no, it's it's good to it's good to be back. It's good to it's good to have you back I'm here still we have another quick tip on Stickers but the then the first thing I want to do is highlight that this coming Sunday So the episode is going to release on October 2nd That means the coming Sunday I believe is October 8th if I'm doing the math correctly at 7 p.m. Eastern so later than we have done our hangouts in the past We are doing our next hangout now these hangouts are just really for all of us all to get together and talk We do them on zoom. I put the link in we'll send out a Mailer so you can sign up for the mailing list at Mackie cub comm if you want to get on the mailer for that We will also put the link in our discord channel at Mackie cub comm slash discord And the link is already in our calendar at Mackie cub comm slash calendar So you can subscribe in any of those ways I just can't put the link on social media because then we attract all the script kitties. That's bad Just because they they they aren't us, you know, they don't they don't hang the way we like to hang So we will have this hangout at 7 o'clock for, you know, 7 o'clock Eastern daylight time on Sunday that the 8th we will We will it's for everyone to talk. It's not a one to many. It is a many to many conversation and We have found that it is helpful Although certainly not necessary to have a topic that we announce ahead of time so that we can all bring something to talk About though really wherever the tangents evolved during the conversation is always totally fine So this one let's talk about email clients and email service providers. This is something that comes up often With the changes to macOS Sonoma that sort of render a bunch of the Plugins that used to exist for macOS mail now won't no longer exist or and some of them are evolving into Extensions and some of them are evolving into their own apps and there's just lots of email apps and we all do things differently So I think that's a good conversation to have I can't take credit for the idea listener Chris came up with that and so I love the ideas. It's great. So thank you and yeah, we'll see you there and hopefully hopefully lots of us can make it We'll just hang I can make it. I think I'm gonna be out of the airplane to London that night That's all right. Well, we will schedule the next one at a time that helps you that that works for you I had to do this one October is such a crazy month for my schedule with this theater show. I'm doing and Halloween with so it was like That's the one Sunday in October where it actually is gonna work. And so we're doing it like Must go. Yeah, so we'll do this one and then we'll do another one, you know sometime November early December and we'll We'll coordinate a little better. I do as promised have another tip about Those fun little things that you remove from the background you can turn them into stickers Todd says I've been playing with creating stickers in iOS 17 if you have an image app and Can drop an image or logo onto a white background iOS 17 does a real nice job of then creating a sticker from that image Additionally, I have been importing these jpegs into a new album. I created in photos called Stickers I've also been placing photos that might make a good sticker in that album makes it easy to find them in one location When you go to create a sticker on your phone, huh, right? So he is not putting stickers in the album He is putting photos that easily turn into stickers so that he can just grab them from the background Whenever he wants and pop them in as a sticker into messages or whatever so Yeah, yeah, so yeah fun. I like it Yeah, so that's that's that one. We're supposed to do more now, right? Okay, great, and I don't hear the band so right get on to JT Ray JT Ray Says my watch now running watch OS 10 told me the other night that it was Optimizing its charging. Of course. He says being ready for bed. I wasn't sure what it meant Now my Apple Watch Ultra only charges to 80% just like my new shiny iPhone 15 pro the best feature They have adopted from Android. I rarely use 50% of my battery on my watch now It just charges to the right spot and stops and indeed there is optimized charging Not just on the watch for some models. I believe Looking at the screenshots we have here. You're still breathing into the mic Pete So I'm just gonna keep reminding you that is it is Apple watch SE and then series 6 and later So the watch OS 5 or what series 5 watch that I have is not that But yeah, interesting. Yeah, and and this is also this also exists on The iPhone 15 as well that I noticed with the my iPhone 15 Pro But I know that it is there for all of them as Apple said there's a new so on the iPhones With iOS 16 and iOS 17 We've had the option to turn optimized battery charging on or off, right? but with the iPhone 15 We have one more option and that is so we have No optimization. We have optimized battery charging, which is the old way of doing it where it gets you to 80% Overnight and then stops and then resumes charging from 80 to 100 at some point Just before you wake up so that it's not just sitting at a hundred all the time or for long periods of time Which Apple has determined is not optimal for? Battery longevity, right and well by the way it surprises you when you have to get up for an early flight You don't get your full charge if you get you're at 80% right well now what Apple has added to the iPhones 15 is A third option that get that they call the 80% limit it gets you to 80% and stops it doesn't go any farther and Again this speaks to this idea and clearly Apple Has done enough research to support it that they're putting these features in that a battery Sitting at for long periods of time north of 80% is bad If you get it to a hundred and immediately start draining it great You know but if you get it to a hundred and just leave it there that will Reduce the overall life of the battery and This also supports the idea that this is true not just on our phones and our watches But also on our laptops now. We're not seeing this 80% limit on our laptops We are seeing optimized charging on some but with an app like al dente you can set your own 80% limit and perhaps now Al dente makes a whole lot more sense to many more of us myself included Seeing how Apple's doing things on the phone So I'll put I'll put yet another link to al dente in the in the thing But I am using it on my laptop and I'm absolutely using it on Lisa's laptop, which is now Mostly sitting plugged in to an external screen and a keyboard So it is just it is basically a desktop Mac that can be extracted from its it's set up Does it ever go above 80%? Yes, Apple says With the 80% limit enabled your iPhone will occasionally charge to a hundred percent to maintain Accurate battery state of charge nis charge estimates. I don't know where I got charge nis from I don't know I don't know what that is word. Yeah, what is a charge? What is charge nis? Yeah? Yeah, I don't know so Well, that's why you heard the ding of second ago because I finally learned something here today finally on the third tip and I had to help. Yeah. Yeah, I But I that was when I read though is I was confused going well optimization Yeah, and that when it waits in chargers, but it's not going past that. That's what I wasn't getting my head around Yeah, now that I grok that that's pretty cool I agree. Yeah, so we've got a bit of a theme going on here Dave. I would say because Aaron wrote in He said my iPhone 12 battery was around 84 percent maximum capacity and it had a little battery life After sight deciding I would hang on one more year Went to the Apple store to change the battery what I did not expect was that the phone magically became brand new fast I mean, it was like a snappy new device speeding through all the tasks Again with iOS 17. He says I knew that Apple throttled the phones But I didn't realize how much based on this I would recommend a battery change if your batteries maximum capacities in the mid 80 percent range And you notice your phone is being slow for $93 for a new brand new experience. That's worth it Keep up the good work Aaron. So That's awesome So that's surprising I didn't I didn't think that this that that I knew that this would start to happen at some point I didn't know that it would happen at 84 percent Yeah, I didn't know that either and I think Because I'm using my phone is on a camera. I can't see my maximum capacity on my three-year-old iPhone 12 pro max I'll be interested to see what just what exactly that is that and and go from there I I did order the 15 this week while I was on the 15 pro max while I was on the road this week So I'm expecting that by now by the end of October. So it seems like it's kind of a popular phone Yeah, or at least more popular than Apple budgeted their factories to make so yeah So go buy your Apple stock now folks full disclosure. I do own some Apple options Buy as much in as fast as you can. That's my tip for you Sweet yeah, that's not an attorney or a stock advisor consult your own visor first That's right. That's right meant for humorous purposes only you may not sue pilot Pete I'm gonna take us to bar tender Because I I came up with some quick tips for bartender this week bartender course being bartender Yeah, the bartender 15 is now out bartender is an apathy if you don't know that allows you to control What and where? Menu items appear in your menu bar and you can choose to have some that don't appear in your menu bar Unless you you know, you can create like alternate menu bars now with bartender 5 You can Create preset menu bars so that when certain conditions happen it changes so Changes to a different menu bar. You can say yeah, if I'm connected to Wi-Fi Show me this menu bar if I'm on you know in this location or whatever. So there's there's quite a few things one One tip that I have you need Bar tender 5 for macOS Sonoma. I've got macOS Sonoma running on my laptop right now And and so I've been testing all kinds of things with it Of course, you need it you beat need bartender 5 to work right with macOS Sonoma Delete bartender 4 from the same Mac. I was having some weirdness going on and things got way better Once you've done that then make sure you go into bartender 5 into its preferences general and Reconfigure your menu bar spacing one of the nice things that bartender lets you do is Control how much space is between each of your items over the years Apple has added more and more space by default And while that might be really nice on my 27 inch screen here in the studio It's not so great on my 15 inch or 13 inch laptop screen with a notch Right, so you can they have four different Spacing levels starting with the widest being apples default and you can get down to absolutely no spacing where your your menu bar is just all crammed together and Once you get used to that I actually kind of like the all crammed together and of course I can get lots of things in there before the notch It's that's almost a Dual close cool found in there for bartender Yeah, I'll tell you if you folks if you don't have bartender. I believe it's in in fact I'm sure it's in set up. It's in that's where I have mine the I have more than 30 menu items and I couldn't survive without part That's almost as important as clean my Mac and you know Yeah, I oh I think it's more important. I think it's yeah It's certainly one of my desert island utilities, right? You cannot you can't read your regular program menus if you cram all that stuff in your all your menu items up to the top Without bartender. It just would be on And evidently I called it bartender 15, but it is bartender five is five. I thought you said yeah Yeah, I think I said both I was I was mixed. I was mixing and matching Pete I was just trying to keep everybody on their toes. You want to why you want to take us to Larry? Oh Larry Larry Larry, where do I begin Larry? I don't know what to tell you Hello geeks so yesterday after updating to iOS 17 and the day before switching out my new e-sim for a physical sim card I message is no longer working on my on my phone assuming his iPhone all of my iPhone friends text Messages are in green and I can't send pictures to them either yesterday I called Apple and they said I message could take 24 hours to connect. Could this be true? I've never heard of this So sure enough it worked out, right? It's true. It's true. It's true it to quote the great Madeleine con in Young Frankenstein Frankenstein yeah, it's true. It's true Or maybe that was pleasing saddles, but but I'm gonna keep us out of trouble. It turns out Yes, Apple says it can take up to 24 hours. They're not getting around this time I was like that, you know, we're gonna send you an email could take up to 24 hours for it to get there Yeah, you know, it's already sitting on my on my screen right there. They're serious Yeah Yeah, it's it's fascinating and another thing Dan wrote in as well about this and Once connected to iMessage on his new phone. He was he noticed he's like look, you know I've I've synced everything to iMessage in the cloud or whatever they call it messages in the cloud I guess and he's like but I looked and I have I only have messages going back to July What gives and I didn't see his email for a few days because I don't Necessarily check the Mac ekeb email box every single day and it had been a few days and I said, um, I think in the past I've seen this to check again. Would you I think it's gonna it sometimes takes a lot of time to sink down You know gigabytes and gigabytes of of your message history and sure enough. He was like, oh, yep He's like it's all there now. It's like so yeah patience is the Yeah, but there's still something weird going on with buying because for instance that quick tip we open the show with yeah I read on my work iPad. Okay, where it came in. Yep, and I presume I can't check it on my phone right now But I went to get the exact verbiage Before the show so I could do it out of messages on my laptop and guess what ain't there Really? Yeah, and I've noticed that with a couple other Text strings that I'm not getting it perfectly synced betwixt all devices. So some still interesting hinky Interesting. Yeah, right, right, right, huh? So, huh? All right. Yeah, so I've got more work to do. I think is what it boils down. Yeah Yeah, it's sinking sinking's hard. I know we all take it for granted these days, but it's not it's not easy In the process of upgrading to my new iPhone 15 pro I am a mint mobile customer as Which won't come as a great surprise to anybody who's been listening for a while mint did not auto transfer my eSIM over I just had to read I had to launch the mint app on my new phone and Just tell it to install and a quote-unquote new eSIM on my 15 pro and it did that and then everything was fine As a force of habit simply because I've been traveling enough internationally over the last year and a half where I Do this as a matter of course when I get a new eSIM for travel I did this with my eSIM I went in to settings cellular and looked at the settings for my cellular plan and noticed that my Low data mode which I leave on all the time on my mint plan had been turned off because Presumably because it was a new sim, but I don't know it might have also been turned off if you migrated Even a sim, you know for a different carrier over so The tip is just go check low data mode on your new iPhone If and when you get one just to make sure that it is set the way you want it to be set and the same would Be true for the 5g modes because you can have it, you know use more battery or less battery and you know all that stuff So just go check all your cellular settings on a new phone even even and perhaps especially if you did migration From one phone to another and just presume everything to be the same. It might not be so Yep. Yeah Yeah, but here's one that's gonna tick people off. Okay, you've got it. It's your next one Oh, it's because that functionality has been there the whole time and they just haven't ever turned it on I know so it the with TV OS 17 Which I had to manually install on my Apple TV this morning It's we're recording this on Friday the 29th. It's been out all week. You know more than a week So I had to go and manually do it whatever You now have the ability if you have the Siri remote 2nd gen or later your iPhone can use a find my like Functionality to locate that remote. It doesn't have the ultra wide band So you're not gonna get super directional stuff But you will get the hotter colder thing that that you used to be able to get you know with the the non ultra wide band find my devices and It works, but here's the thing I upgraded to iOS there to TV OS 17. I already had iOS 17 You need both upgraded TV OS 17 and If the way you find this is you don't use the find my app Right You launch the remote app on your phone Which you can either do by launching the app called remote or If you have it in control center still which it's there by default you can go into control center and Tap the little icon that looks like your iPhone like your Apple TV remote. Yeah, and then it launches the remote app Where you find this is there's a drop-down at the top where you pick which of your Apple TVs or other Devices you're gonna use the remote with and it's it's weird that I have other devices showing up in there, but I do Next to the compatible devices in that list is where you will see a Find icon for a fine button for the remote, but mine wasn't there right away I waited probably ten minutes messing around with the TV making sure everybody was on you know TV us 17 I was holding your tongue rate Dave. No, then I turned it off I turned the Apple TV off with the remote and Put it aside and did a couple other things and was like alright I gotta go over to the office now because we're getting close to record time or whatever and I thought let me try it one more time and I launched the remote app on my phone and not only was it there in the list There was a little notification sort of overlay but pop-up bubble in the app Teaching me that this feature was now there so but you don't use find my to find it In fact, I should confirm that we that it doesn't also show up and find my so there you go Well, you're doing that. Let me ask you this question. It's not there. Yeah, which I think I know the answer. Yeah It won't play a sound on the remote. No, it's not like the remote has an air tag in it It's it's probably using the Bluetooth of the remote like I don't think it's It's as air-taggy as we would want it to be because yeah I would like the remote to be able to like make a sound so I can dig in my couch cushions and find it That's you know, that's where we're gonna. That's where we're gonna. That's where the value is Apple All right I am happy to bring a fast mail back on as a sponsor for Mac Ikea because fast mail is My email provider of choice. It is the one I've been using for gosh I think at least four years maybe longer fast mail really is the email provider that puts your privacy First and for over 20 years. They've been a leader in email privacy, right? It's ad-free. There's no tracking It's not just email. You can use fast mail for your calendar and your contacts They have their own iOS app, right where you can do all this stuff But fast mail also integrates perfectly with an Apple mail app on my iPhone and on my Mac and on my iPad, of course Fast mail's got some great productivity features, too One of the ones that I really like is masked email, right where you can hide your real addresses and you get better Security for your logins and things like that. They've got things like snooze and scheduled send Custom rules, right fast mail is super easy to use and they are also super complex if you want them to be They're super technically savvy. I mentioned recently on the show how I've been actively managing my spam Well, I've been doing that in fast mail's web interface their web interface is fantastic And I find it a great place to go every few days and just sift through my spam you can use your own domains to make custom email addresses if you want and Switching providers to fast mail is I couldn't imagine it being any easier when I moved over I literally just logged fast mail into my Gmail and it's slurped everything over I didn't have to do a thing other than tell it go and I literally went to sleep and woke up and it was like Oh, yeah, we were all we're all set. Everything's done You're gonna love it to learn more about fast mail visit fastmail.com MGG for 10% off your first year and then you can follow them on Facebook Twitter slash X mastodon and LinkedIn and our sincere thanks To fast mail for sponsoring this episode while we've got you here I've got a great podcast recommendation for you when it comes to Apple the folks at twit know what they're talking about Leo Laporte the founder of twit.tv bought his first Mac almost 40 years ago in 1984 and has been an Apple lover ever since that's probably why they have three not one not two but three Apple podcasts on the Network the oldest of course is Mac break weekly started almost 20 years ago Alex Lindsay andie not co Jason Snell and Leo talk about the latest Apple news They are Apple fans, but not Apple fan boys They call it as they see it and sometimes they're even a little hard on Apple They also do a show called iOS today with Micah Sargent and Rosemary orchard if you're into iPads iPhones Apple watches or Apple TV. You'll love iOS today and then of course there's hands-on Mac Inside tips from Micah Sargent on getting the most out of your Apple devices every single week Expert analysis helpful advice and entertaining discussions. Go to twit.tv Slash Apple to find your next favorite Apple podcast and our thanks to Leo Micah and the team for doing this swap with us Okay, so that Brings us to our time to go to questions and tips shared Jeepster writes in and asks for some thoughts. He says I'm trying to get more my notes organized I have around 200 notes with information about home car motorcycle computer, etc. And so forth Right now. They're all in the default folder and I use search to find what I'm looking for which works Okay, I was thinking of using folders to organize the notes moving them from the notes folder one of several new folders Which I'll create I see I can create a smart folder and then assign tags to the notes And this will keep all the notes in the notes folder But I can also find them in their respective smart folders Any opinions as to whether to move notes into folders or use tags and use smart folders I'm leaning towards smart folders, but I thought I would ask so that I don't get caught Dave I've got a quick note on this myself a quick opinion, which is use The smart folders that's great, but be be aware you can't nest a smart folder Within a smart folder. I think you can put folders within folders If if you won't really want to get granular, but you can't do it with smart folders Yeah, I am listener Ben commented on this this this came up from Jeepster in our discord and He you know he had said you can kind of use any of the three and it's similar to how it works on the finder Brian 8944 said I've been using folders But if recently moved to tags and have found it easier to quickly add a tag at the end of my note allowing me to retrieve the information later I This was an interesting discussion for me because I have never Successfully use tags with anything so certainly when I started with notes and Even with Evernote and Yo Jimbo prior to that I think they all supported tags at some point in in their evolution and I never I never even tried it because every experience. I've had using tags. I have failed with I don't mean to say that tags are bad It's just incompatible with what has been incompatible with my brain really tried it in mail And that's where it was like, yeah, no, but It so with me so with notes, which is where I've standardized a lot of my life I've been using folders, but I'm finding that I'm creating a note and forgetting where to file it forgetting to file it or you know the idea of With mail, I don't create the emails that I file right somebody else creates them and sends Them to me. So I am already in triage mode my first interaction with a piece of mail I'm in triage mode, right? I mean, I'm also in processing mode. Yeah, but but it's it, you know It's it's I'm going to do something with this and it's all starting from the same spot I'm interacting with it with notes. It's the opposite. I'm creating the note by and large I mean, I have some shared notes with people, but you know in general I'm creating the note which means I have an idea. I just want to start creating the note I don't want to stop and pause and say wait I'm about to create a note Where should I file this and then go into that folder and create a new note? What that means is I am creating notes in the all iCloud folder, right? That's where everything starts and then I have to remember to go back and file it After I've created it, you know, I've got this inspiration. So I just go and I think for that reason I'm tempted to give tags another shot because tags are something that I can add While I'm editing the note not when I'm finished editing the note. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does in fact I I would say that I'm also a tag Cripple, yeah, I'm tag-challenged It's a challenge. Yeah, but but I I have found that in notes I have several smart folders that I used in order to arrange, you know, who are potential guests on my show Who's been on the show that sort of thing and and that's that's worked well for me so far I've used smart folders with some success. I'm Not a hundred percent not perfect yet. Yeah, the more I do it the better I get at it I've also found so the the way to do it is to hashtag and then the note and then I find it Notes offers to auto complete the note for me So I can select it'll pull up a drop down and then and then I can just use the arrow key and go Yeah, I want the second one. So I have I'm curious about something here because this I this makes sense to me And it's something that I think I'm already interacting with the keyboard whether it's on my Mac or on my Phone right like I'm typing a note. So chances are I'm typing and therefore doing the, you know tagging the Tags Makes sense like I don't have to get into a different mode like I would to file the note in a manual folder So I like all of this Where I'm curious is if I've got a shared note with someone Let's say I want to take this shared note that Lisa and I are using and Tag it with family, you know something just so I know where to find it later Does that tag it for her too is the question and I and I realize I can find out this answer I'm just thinking about it. Yeah live talking about it here It does because you're typing it into the note and It it looks to me it turns yellow by default in mine, which looks like a link Okay, okay, so it appears to me to be you know data within the note and then Then notes looks at it and goes oh, I've got a hashtag here What do I have any instructions to do something with it? What do I do with it? Yeah, okay? So I have a question for you now I Took Jeepsters note that you and I share in notes and I added at the very end of it. I added the You know pound sign hashtag MGG Can you check in notes and see if that? Think it's all there. It's there. Okay. All right, so it does do that. So I would need to Inform the people with whom I share notes and there aren't many there's a handful. It's my family and you So I would need to inform people if you see a thing out there Live with it, but now I'm imposing my tagging on other people And that yeah, but here's the beauty of it is you could put You know as as we answer we could even put it into the script Current show and then boom it would drop into the current show. I don't you know, yeah Yeah, and then it automatic. I don't know but it seems like it would automatically go there for you Yeah, but the problem is then you have to remove that or put a second tag in after it's read to get it out of the Smart folder current show. I don't know as I'm thinking as no as I'm thinking about this I think for what you and I do with with Mackie Keb having shared it like entire folders that are shared Right is the right path, but yeah it for like all the other stuff that I do For me and maybe it's that my shared notes are just my shared notes And I don't worry about tagging those and that's gonna be okay. I don't know. Yeah, I Yeah, I'm let us know feedback at Mackie keb.com. I'm really curious how you folks are using notes It it's a powerful app and and I think we can all learn from each other and maybe That's one of those things. That's a good topic for one of our hangouts someday That's where I'd send it to feedback at Mackie keb.com No, I meant feedback at Mackie keb.com Pete not the thing you said All right, be sure to put a tag in there so that we can see what to do with it when you send it You want to take us to Allison Pete? I do but if you know what I'd like to do since we were talking you talked about mail I think call a quick audible and bring up Bill and junk mail falters folders I like it go to Allison if you're great with that. Yeah, I'm very cool with that. Yep, right. So so Bill wrote in Hi guys when I'm trying to train my Apple email junk folder. Does it matter what the device I used to move it on? Yeah, new lips. Sorry When trying to say Apple email junk filter does it matter the device I use to move an email to or from the junk folder I'm wondering if I move emails from to and from the junk folder on one device Does training apply to the other other devices and my iCloud account? It does yes Very very much so iCloud is trained when something is moved in or out of the junk mailbox out from junk to the inbox specifically It doesn't matter which device does the moving. It's all synced. You can do it on your Mac You can do it on your iPhone your iPad and you can even do it on iCloud as well, you know on the in the web interface So it's almost like when you move something in or out of junk mail That Apple silently in the background tags it somehow. Oh, I see what you did there Pete Yeah, yeah, no, that's it. You're it. That's exactly it now. I will say that Apple Like a lot of the big email providers Apple uses Apple seems to prioritize their sort of Meta heuristics for what is and isn't junk over your Individual preferences as to what is and isn't junk it does honor both But I believe that if I take something like if the email I'm getting from you Let's say I'm subscribed to the mailing list for your podcast right Pete that you know I don't I don't even do you have one if you don't you should okay Well, go ahead and make one because Pete show so there I was it's great so let's say I'm subscribed to the the upcoming email list of so there I was and it It all of those are just going to junk I you know, I move those out of junk to my inbox because I want to make sure I hear from Pete and fake repeat and fake Sorry, you're pilot Pete here. You repeat there. I don't It's crazy. I'm sorry. What, huh? and so I want to make sure I get this if Apples mail filters were strongly of the opinion that that was junk my experience with and my family's experience more more Specifically with apples training is that it will take quite some time for it to learn That for you this is not junk and I say this to contrast it to my experience with fast mail Where once I started properly training their filters and I should say that I went years with fast mail Completely ignoring any attempts at training their filters and that is not such a good idea So I had them Reset my trainings so that I could actually start over and do it the right way and I did that about a year ago And it's been great ever since but if I were to move that out of junk It would more often than not that's all it takes it. It definitely gives my preferences a Heavier priority than then say apples does but it does work. You just need to be persistent about it I find managing junk Certainly with fast mail and even iCloud I find managing out on the web interface really a great way to do it I put a note in my a recurring to do in my calendar for every two days And I just go in and it takes me all of about 40 seconds to scan through everything that's in my junk folder I sort it by Sender name so that when I get a bunch from the same sender. That's a great idea Sorting by date sorting by date is not it either either sort sender because then you see you've got you don't want that sender at all Boom they're all gone. Yeah, and and what I do is I sort and or sort by sender or sort by subject There are I find if I'm doing it when I used to only do it once every couple of weeks or once every month I found sorting by subject to be the most efficient way to go through it But I was throwing out a lot of babies in that bathwater doing it only, you know Every couple of weeks every month now that I do it every two days I sort by sender and it works out great takes me very little time and I can stay right up on it And it's super easy But yeah sort by sender and then I just scroll through and the only thing I do is you know Mark messages that aren't junk and the rest I you know, I saw I mark the ones that aren't junk I say move those to my inbox and then the rest I just delete and they're gone And that's the end of it. Oh, that's a great it never occurred to me though to do it by sender I've always just done it by because everything else is done by date. Correct. Yeah, date is dates the worst Yeah, wait to do it because you're there's just no flow for my eyes to follow. Well, yeah, because but you know Spam by its very nature Those same spammers keep sending you the same crap over and over over and over again. Yeah, exactly Yeah, and I I sort I I have I Use a service called sane box That truly keeps me sane. It's not I mean, it's not terribly expensive. It's not cheap I don't know. It's a couple hundred bucks a year. It's now as I recall. Oh, I've been using this for about a decade Yeah, at least yeah, it I I have it Set so that when things that are newsletters come in they go into they're auto-filtered into a box That is newsletters and other things too, but my newsletters box specifically I Also go through on an every other day basis and you might find this is not surprising at all It's the opposite days from what I do my spam. So I'm only doing one or the other every other day and When I sort my newsletters, I absolutely do that by sender Because then it makes it's way better than trying to do that by date, too So yeah, yeah thinking like play with this stuff find what works for your System and your brain and you'll yeah, you'll get there and when you stumble across something so Simple that you want to go so seriously. How do I not think of this before send it to us things like you know Sort by sender. Yeah. No, that's it when you this is the best litmus test and the best sort of mnemonic right for Remembering or noticing what would be a great thing to share with the with the fan the Mackie Keb family here is Exactly what you said those moments where you're like, I can't believe I never did this before this is so obvious and amazing Yeah, that's the thing that makes us ring the bell. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely Yeper We got to go back in time a little bit Dave because this one's been sitting in the box for a few weeks Yeah, yeah, but new listener Allison wrote in and said I got distracted and didn't circle back to oh, that was me This is hi Dave when y'all were talking about Pete's Synology router and disabling the admin account You said very quickly quote and change your password often unquote You probably don't know this but back in 2016 Lori Cran are chief technologist at the Federal Trade Commission wrote a report about studies that have proven that if you force People to change their passwords often They make less secure passwords and then she had a link in there. I got to go find that I know I already got it. It's in the show notes. Yeah, so I wrote her a response but there's this is a whole discussion thing if you get lost in the woods and Know that you you are lost and you know people are searching for you The thing to do is sit still so people can find you and I assume that that's why they say that about passwords Leave your password alone. You're sitting still in the woods and someone's gonna stumble across it That's why they that's why they advise to change passwords, right? Yeah, that makes sense. Sure, right? And so by the same token, I've always thought what's to prevent you from changing your password to their next guess It's I mean, yeah, if it's an in if it's a very secure password You know and with things like Some people still using last pass I suppose but one password What's the I cloud keychain? I mean, there's there's the one built into our max now. Yeah Using those highly encouraging to use very secure passwords. And if you're not using very secure passwords Shame on you bad things are going to happen. It's not well And I and I think that's the point Allison's trying to make and it's a it's a good point Is that if you're having people who are changing their passwords routinely are more the monkey one and monkey Yeah, they're more apt to be like forget it. I can't I can't keep going and generating a new one It's just gonna be monkey one. You got it. That's right. Yeah, exactly and or monkey one exclamation point Does that work? Yep. Okay. Great. Now I'm done And then you're using one of the five passwords that you know, you you keep in your head all the time So yeah, this I think my password. I know I mean, how did how did how did you know that? I used to have a cat named monk But we did we had a cat named monk and we called him monkey and I guarantee you I made some passwords with With with his name And I probably still have some of them, but Now you've got me thinking but you've disabled the admin account. So now you correct things Guarantee you the admin login password for my Synology was some flavor of Of that cat's name guaranteed. I I know what it was that there's no this is not a guess But it's disabled so it doesn't matter but They the issue would be if you are if your Password is somehow compromised and I think that's the flip side of this argument is by changing them often if you have Accidentally written or intentionally written your password somewhere that got out into the wild Changing it often prevents that right it changing it often does not prevent the random hackers from getting in They are just going to try random things and it doesn't matter whether you're changing it or not to your point It's the if you've shared it intentionally or accidentally by changing it often you are sort of limiting the amount of people that Would have access to the current password and and both of these schools of thought make sense but the practical the practical result of Forcing people to change their passwords regularly is Exactly what Allison and where Crainer pointed out. Yeah, but the other thing you should never do Yes, sir, and I think you'll agree with me on this Dave is have the same password for multiple different logins accounts Oh, yeah, yeah Yeah, my Synology admin passwords on all my Synologies were exactly the same for a long time long time and in the same five Character login name called ADMIN right like it this was super insecure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, two-factor authentication now exists on my Synologies because it would be you know, I need to do that. I don't think I've done that yet But yeah, I yeah phase is huge That's just I yep. I I Agree yep, I was talking to Two people very close to me. I don't want to out my wife and son So I won't Acknowledge that it was them but talking about two-factor authentication They they were having a conversation about two-factor authentication and at least one of them was like Oh, yeah, anytime something tries to turn that on for me. I turn it off immediately It's such a pain in the neck to log in Don't do that. It's yeah. Yeah Yep, so their names rhyme with MOOC and Mesa, but that's correct. Yeah, exactly. Yeah Yeah, it's a show with Robin Williams, wasn't it? Um, there you go. Shall we go to William? We shall we show? Oh, no, I'm gonna read William. That's right. Yeah, you're totally right. I'm sorry. I'm back. I was gone for a while I'm back now. I'm same. Yep. We're here. We're both here I'm gonna read William. William says I've been looking now that I'm moving into this more USB-C world, but still have some USB-A in my life I've been looking for a decent cable that has USB-A USB-C Lightning in a multi-ended way so that I can mix and match and be sure to be able to plug into whatever I want I see plenty of USB-C ones or plenty with AC micro and lightning But I want one approximately two meters long and I want USB-A to power With you know C and lightning on the other end and man if if if the folks at rolling square Could hear you ask for this. They would be so happy because they're in charge cables I end CHR GE cables are exactly what you're looking for They have them in all different lengths the ends of them are so intelligently designed They are USB-C to USB-C cables at their core and what that means is when you are using C to C you get to take advantage of things like data transfer if you want or I Think they do data transfer. They definitely do 100 watts of power because they can do full power delivery because the USB-C is the native part of the cable and Then one end has a lightning connector that is built into the jack that you can just snap on or off as you like The other end has a USB-A connector On the you know that you can snap on or off as you like and that and the best part I didn't even know this until one of you pointed it out to me about a year ago that the Lightning connector is also a micro USB connector It's it like when you look at the end of it. It's like wow. How did they do that? It's amazing It looks like a lightning connector. It also looks like a micro USB connector So you can have depending on you're looking at it end on or yeah, exactly it's C to C C to a C to lightning or a to lightning or Lightning to you can and you can do you know lightning to see with this You can I mean it's all mix and match every combination You just can't do a to a with it or lightning to lightning That's really the only thing you can't do with it and I know that when we migrated to phones in the past We might have wanted a lightning to lightning cable, right? We don't need that anymore So are these the folks that we ran into at CES? They are the folks we ran into at CES Yeah, great. I've got the little I don't know it may be four inches long cable with what with the multi odds like that I still have that one. I they sent me a longer. They sent me two longer ones and the aforementioned the aforenot mentioned people Misa and mucus Acquired the one did they write before like they didn't make it off the kitchen counter Pete They were like, oh my gosh, this would be I need this. Can I please like yep? Okay, sure So I don't have a long one. I I still I just have the little short one But it's it it it serves its purpose when I need it I probably am gonna pick up another long one to use as my sort of default cable now So yeah, I default travel cable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so right that is that is what you are looking for Those are great little. Yeah, that's a great little cable with the small one that I have What yeah only feature request on that would be to have one end have one like that We're one end is a female and you could then multiply multiple Well with USB see it doesn't matter. Yeah, right. There you go. Right. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know It's craziness craziness Pete. Um, I there's some cool stuff found that I Definitely want to go through here. Um, and before I do that I just want to take a minute to thank all of our premium subscribers whose Contributions have come in in the past week here As we say often the premium program you can learn about it at Mackie Cub comm slash premium it is Optional it is for those of you who can and who wish to support us directly It is certainly not mandatory listening to the show sharing the show sending in your questions Visiting our sponsors all of that stuff helps immensely as well With that said I want to offer our thanks for this past week to $25 from Andrew in Honolulu and Brinn in Sun City and Fernando and I don't know where you're from Fernando and Michael in Omaha and Thomas and Garden Grove and Robbie in Hendersonville and Sharon in Wesley Chapel Randy in Westport curate in Bloomfield Hills Ed in Torrance Doug in Richmond Anthony in Bournemouth Steven in Linlithgau who I like saying that Wayne in Waipahu Mark in New Palestine. They were all $25 in the last week $10 in the last week from Jeff in Chesterton James in Melville Joseph in Marietta Jonathan in Plainsboro Paul in Lawrenceville Gary in Babylon Steven in Plainfield. I think I might have said Steven in Plainfield twice John in Vienna And then a $60 contribution from Steven in New York. So thank you to all of you for that Couldn't possibly we couldn't do the show without you. It's a it's a blend right our sponsors Help immensely you folks help immensely it it all really comes together in a wonderful way and So maybe that was Steven in Plainfield and his other brother Steven in Plainfield and his other brother Steven That's that might be true. They're maybe they're they're battling each other that could happen there But that could happen each and every one of those people has paid for the privilege of not having to share the show Everybody else listening you must share the show state law I don't know what state you're in but I don't know it's state law Well, it's the state of bliss Pete from listening to the episode bingo Bingo make it so go out and share the show. Please if you can't contribute financially, that's cool It's totally fine. Sure and the show is even cooler Be one of the cool kids be one of the cool kids. We're all cool kids here. It's really great. Yeah That's really great. I nerds and geeks. We're the cool ones. Wait. I I agree. I I agree. Yep Uh, I want to speaking of cool things It is time to talk about some cool stuff found. Oh boy. Get you put your locks on your wallets folks Um, some of this stuff is free. Yeah, some of it's not Go with it. Go with it. Steven robles from apple insider created a super mute shortcut for the Action button and so that in and of itself is a cool stuff found and I've linked to this it It will turn on If silent mode is on it will turn it off. It will change the volume level It's a great shortcut and of course he has linked to it So when run it gets the current mute state And then toggles the mute and the device volume one way or another so you can just hold that shortcut and and get a You know get get a response to it I created and and hand he used toolbox pro, which if I'm pretty sure we mentioned I think it was just last week here on On on the show toolbox pro is the thing that if we haven't mentioned it my apologies It allows you to essentially, uh, it's got all sorts of extra Things to do for um for with with shortcuts. This is one of those Things that that snail that development took over uh from um From alex hay when he passed away And uh, thankfully it it's you know, it still lives. So it's just it's a great shortcuts utility You've got to go check it out. So that that I was gonna say if you mentioned it last week I wasn't listening but the I think we mentioned it did mention it. Yeah, I think when two shows ago Yeah, when rose took when rose took over the development of it. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, it's the must have Shortcuts utility. So I'm glad it it remains in development. Stephen used that to create it I created a shortcut Pete that um That allows you it allows me To turn tail scale On my iphone on and off with a shortcut with my action button because What would happen is I would be going to visit the web page Like I'd be in safari going to visit the web page of one of my local resources on my network when I'm not home And it wouldn't access it because I wasn't connected to my tail net And so then I would have to jump over and launch the tail scale app and click the connect button and then jump back to safari And this happens to me quite a bit So I now have a shortcut linked to my action button that connects tail scale for me and When it connects it I don't want it to show a dialogue that it's connected because I'm interacting with the phone Like it's in a moment where I want to do something and so I don't want to dialogue getting in my way Uh, but I have it vibrate the phone when it turns it on And then when the toggle turns it off because it gets the state of tail scale and does something similar to Stephen's thing It goes in the other direction and turns it off and then shows me a dialogue that it turned it off because if I'm turning it off I'm okay with that. Oh Sure, that shortcut. I will I'll put that shortcut in the in the show notes here too. Yeah for sure. Very cool Or sure. Yep. Yeah While we're on the subject of shortcuts, uh sarab has won for us and um, I just I just swear that I need to get there um sarab says You might want to check out jelly cuts which lets you write shortcuts as code Instead of the ui drag and drop style This seems like magic to me and yet it exists and it works. It's called jelly cuts. You can write code it is, you know very Cody like the so much simpler to do some of these things with code and then it turns it into a shortcut for you David, you know, I write amazing code now, right? I do. Yeah, I'm aware. Yeah, that's right. Just saying. Yep Yep, I was hey, I was using chat gbt yesterday to help me write some apple scripts to Replay to to fill in some of the functionality gaps That I no longer have on my sonoma machine now that I can't use small cubes mail suite Is I've started writing just some, um, you know, I've got keyboard maestro triggering some apple scripts to do Some various things in terms of how I like to file my mail And I even wrote one that will automatically cc This sent the from address If it's coming from feedback at mac geek hub.com or for our premium listeners premium at mac geek hub.com So when I'm sending an email it auto ccs because we're using small cubes mail suite to do that now It's not working exactly the way that I would want, but I'm close Okay, so that's that's actually I don't remember if it was before the show or since the show started The us me if I was on ventura or sonoma And that's kind of the reason I'm still hanging on ventura because I need to configure We gotta yeah, we gotta figure out a new workflow for ourselves because of sonoma. So yeah, I know I know I know it's um But like all my filing of mail because I used um mail act on which was also part of mail suite to to file mail So when I would you know read a message I could triage it really quickly with just hitting control Whatever and it moved it to where I wanted that also goes away because mail suite in its entirety goes away keyboard maestro uh and some cute little scripting and I was able to Fully replace that functionality. It's totally fine. So I've got a bunch of mail actions and keyboard maestro that are doing A lot not everything I need but a lot nice. Yeah, you want to uh, you want to take us to andrew I do because andrew told us about something really cool. Here it is folks strap in buckle in VPN on apple tv is here. Yep. It's real and it's spectacular So there hasn't been much coverage of this apple tv now accommodates vpn apps I've tried it and it works and it's awesome On the tv app store, there's about 10 vpn apps. None of the big players like express nord or proton are the area But a few are and there's a link in there about uh, an article who shows you who's in he says I downloaded pure vpn and set it up on a week's free trial with just a few clicks your apple tv can appear to be anywhere in the world One second. I'm in amazon prime australia my home country the next minute. I'm in prime usa last thursday night usa time Friday morning in australia. I wanted to watch thursday night football 49ers versus new york and I turned andrew I was a fan of yours until you wanted to watch the giants, but okay, all right Just kidding. We're patriots fans here. We are in the minority my friend. We are indeed I turned on the vpn closed and reopened the prime app and it showed me the niners match with hd and 5.1 surround awesome That's the trick. You have to close the app and reopen it And so wakes up and works out that it's in a new location You do this by double clicking the tv button on the remote and flicking up to close the app It's amazing how you can travel 7 000 miles and amazon doesn't notice the short time in which you so do Okay, a few other things from my time abroad. I made the apple store accounts for the usa and the uk I have now added them as Added them in users on the apple tv ui. So just go into settings now when I want to app from either country I just effortlessly switch to that store download the app and switch back to the australia store So, yeah, I've downloaded pbs america bbci player in the 90 kingdom and both apps work perfectly with live tv and recorded content One more thing on so the vpn is actually full apple's own app store currently. Yeah Wow, that's a good thing. Maybe we should cut this out of the show. Yeah, that's right Well, where I noticed it was in our in our discord both Rod L and porthos john were having a conversation about how tail scale Is now available on apple tv and porthos john said he tested it by taking his apple tv to work And connecting it to his tail net because the tail scale app now exists on apple tv And he was able to see his home plex library and connect to things directly and do all of that stuff And it can it can be used as an exit node So your apple tv could now be your tail scale exit node because it's on all the time So, yeah, it's fascinating At least that's what I understand. I haven't I haven't messed with the tail scale on the apple tv yet I I will warn you That some of these vpns that are available on the apple tv are not The best tail scale is fine. Obviously you're using that with your own stuff, but like pure vpn They're not like I my and I should I should say I didn't do research right before this episode my recollection Of them the last time I researched them was that they're one of the vpns that sells your your usage data and all that stuff So just be aware of that You know, you may not care and then that's fine But he was saying he did it as a trial just to see if you could get it working So he said the other thing that's why this is game changers is often the streamers have different licensing arrangements for movies shows Different markets prime or netflix australia may not have for example all episodes of breaking bad But prime netflix usa europe or japan might so changing countries. I can get the content I might not otherwise hardly get ordinarily get with my existing subscription Oh, it's amazing. One that hasn't worked for me so far is paramount plus I call this a game changer is with access to other countries I don't need to subscribe to as many streaming services to get what I want Particularly either the offerings of pbs and bbc and I will also offer though that and I haven't tried it yet But when I wrote back to him, I said here's where I'm going to be interested. Uh, I had Direct TV stream for a while. Okay, okay And that one didn't seem to care where I was in the world as long as I was vpn to the united states It would let me Do it youtube tv Once out of my ipad I want your geolocation your gps. Where are you? Yeah, but that's true with a lot of the other ones p Yeah, direct tv stream doesn't seem to care YouTube tv definitely does so i'll be interested to see if I can Your apple tv doesn't have any geo Data to share with it. There you go. Yeah Unless unless it's using your local ip address which apple always gets to see like tv os gets to see that So in theory they could use that and say this is the actual location if the app asks Oh, so the question becomes let me ask this. Dave. I've got youtube tv app on my apple tv Yes, can I use tail scale and watch my apple tv on my ipad? Is there a way to do that? No, this isn't a remote access thing. It's not remote control. It's it's showing this is where my apple tv It's telling the streaming services is where my apple tv is correct. Yeah, so that's that's the problem I mean and I've gotten around that mostly fine with Channel channels dvr. Absolutely. Yeah, because that's happening locally. Yeah, except mbc mbc sports cnbc and and several of the other mbc affiliated network affiliates Have removed themselves from tv e which is tv everywhere. That's not true I I want to make sure we're we're saying this correctly. Oh, they have not removed themselves. They have set up uh the authentication Such that tv channels dvr is not compatible Correct with correct with it. Yeah, so so they aren't yeah mbc hasn't said no you can't use tv everywhere is not compatible with mbc And therefore channels can't do it. So if you could find a way to get an m3u then you could uh If you could get an m3u url and put it into channels dvr. It should in fact work with it. Um But I don't know so Dave are you hearing me? It looks like you have stopped completely. Um, you've removed from the stream Okay, so I I can't hear you but I can see you but anyway, so I'll continue to vamp for just a little bit the the point is is I several months ago lost nbc networks and affiliates using channels dvr I've tried a few m3u File urls to try and get nbc in and I've gotten some local ones But they are only the a bc local nbc local that sort of thing I'm not getting the network feed and the shows that I want so I don't know the The haven't figured out the workaround for no there. Yeah, there isn't yet. That's it's true. It's true. Okay. Yeah. Yeah I want to take a minute. I want to I want to change gears and talk about I've I've been testing a couple of things here that I want to compare and contrast for you. You know how important my Uh second screen has become to me and I'm using them a lot when I travel Everyone that I've set up with a second screen on their laptops for travel or even just in their Offices wherever it is and and doesn't it's not limited to laptops. It's it's desktop people too Every one of them has said I don't know why I would need that and it's it that makes sense because without having it You don't know what you're missing and then once you have it you can't live without it. And so I've been looking for what's the least expensive 15 inch portable screen that someone can get that's not going to be terrible on your eyes And so by saying least expensive we're already Excluding 4k screens now. I will say that for somewhere between 200 and 250 bucks you can get a 4k screen from k y y From amazon and they're great. That is you know to me. That's it's weird to say that that's the gold standard But that that that's certainly the recommended Screen if you if you're going to use this a lot But for folks that are like I really only have about 100 bucks to spend. I don't want to spend 250 What do you recommend? I started looking at some 1080p screens Now both of these screens that i'm going to talk about here Uh Will pass power from the screen through to your mac So all you need to do is plug a usbc cable between your mac and the screen and the screen will power your mac if it's being powered or If you don't have power anywhere your mac will power this screen And of course you could power your mac and have it power the screen So it works in an in a vacuum, but it's also nice in my hotel room I will set up one of these screens Plug power into it leave another usb c cable dangling out of it when I bring my mac back I just plug it in and boom now my mac is connected to the screen and charging and everybody's happy I checked out two of these one is the view sonic va 16 55 which on amazon goes for 112 113 dollars as of the moment that we're doing this It's a 1080p screen One of the things I really like about this is the stand on the back sort of just kicks out from the back So it's not taking up extra desk space with the stand I really like that the other one that i'm looking at here is the inoc and inoc and Portable 15 inch and uh, what's the model model of it n1f pro $115 so $2 more than the uh, than the view sonic one I I I've tested both of these The view sonic one when I tested it. I was like, yep. Okay. This is what you get for a 1080p screen When I tested the inoc n1. I was like, am I sure this isn't a 4k screen and it's not However, it is it is the best of the 1080p screens that I have ever ever used It's really Super clear The the it also has the base is a little bit different. It folds sort of out of the back of it In a different way, but it sits very solid on on the desk My only complaint about it is that it doesn't have a cover included with it So when you travel with it, you've got to be careful what I often wind up doing a padded backpack or um I I just no I don't even bother padding it. I just put it if I'm going to put it in my suitcase and check the bag I put it. I just put it inside a t-shirt. I just put a t-shirt over it and that way it just doesn't get scratched That's all I'm you know worried about is you know is some You know one of the the hooks on my luggage is going to scratch the thing or something So I just make sure that it's inside a t-shirt and I'm good to go But yeah for for 115 bucks you can go directly to their website and buy it I think for 99 on a of what do they what do they call it? They don't call it used They call it a reefer right of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah so Those are the two I will list them here, but yeah the inocn is definitely my pick of the two that the view sonic isn't bad It's it's exactly what I would expect a 1080p screen to be It's just the the inocn for 114 is It's interesting you made the comment of are you sure it's not 4k because my interest my Question to you was going to be before you stated that and I saw still ask it for Yeah, not rhetorical purposes, but can on a 15 inch screen Can you tell the difference between 1080 and 4k and clearly you 100% 100% Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, it's and I don't know why because you're right like in theory the pixel density shouldn't be that much different that you can tell But whatever Whatever it is that leads a manufacturer to call something 1080p versus calling it 4k And I don't mean to say that people are lying. I just I'm not an engineer of displays so That's as far as I get to go with those comments is it there's definitely a visible difference between the two So you're saying they're almost good as as good as the retina display day for just you know to use technical terms Yeah, well, that's the thing is I'm using them sitting next to My my retina display, right? And so like that's the That's the the comparison because it's literally right there. You know my this is kind of being a smart alec Okay, is the retinas display not a 4k? Um, or is it 1080? It depends on which retina display we're talking about when you're on your phone It's not even close to 4k, right when you're on a 5k iMac It's 5k your macbook pro is going to be different than my Then you know your 16 inch macbook pro is going to be different than my 13 inch air But retina means a pixel density Tight enough such that your eyes don't see the pixels, right pixels. Yeah, yeah, which which what's funny is Go back and use a machine. That's eight or nine years old. Oh, yeah, you're spinning. You're like I can't seem to focus my glasses are dirty. What's going on? Oh, yeah That's the way we used to look at computers every day every day. Yeah every day. Yeah, exactly notice it. Yeah. Yeah those great big console 25 inch 480 Resolution screens. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly Wow, yep So that's that's those two things that I wanted to compare for us all Um, I bet you got two more. I do have two more Pete because I'm and I'm really excited about these two. I have um I have AirPods pro I like my AirPods pro They don't fit my ears As well as they do for some people and so I I that puts me in a position of looking for better, um You know better It thinks that for my ears, but that still have True wireless that still have and by true wireless I mean, you know, there's no wires coming for my ears That still will charge in the case that the case will charge on a g-pad That can sink to multiple devices of mine with ease Uh, you know all of that stuff and so I've been testing two of these Sets of headphones the jbl tour pro 2 which is 250 bucks on amazon and the poly voyager free 60 plus uc Uh, which is 295 on amazon as of today and both of these Check all of those boxes They also both check a very different box And that is that their cases do something that apple's cases Do not do and their cases have touch screens on them. Pete And away. Yeah, and the touch screens can manipulate the Uh, the earbuds while they're in my ears, right? So not only do they show me the charge status and other things on them and of course the folks at jbl's pr team put my mac keekab logo on the set that they sent me to test out so that you know, I would I would I would be impressed with that out-of-the-box experience. They must have lost mine in the mail. I'm just right. Yeah But I using the touch screen on both of these I control I can control the ambient sound I don't have to remember like oh, which is it? You know, how do I squeeze it just the right way to do it that which you can I just don't have to remember it and it's really nice on an airplane when I see the flight attendants coming Long if I've got my air pot and my earbuds in say, you know, my polys are my jbl's Uh, I just tap the button on the thing and now I'm hearing ambient sound. I can see the battery charge level I can control the ecu. I can set sleep timers They the the spatial sound on the jbl's is configurable this way it like so many different features That and I can control play and pause on the on the um On the cases too Going between I both of these fit me better than air pods Fit alone is the thing that has me choosing the jbl tour pro 2s over the polys because they just fit my ears better But really either one of these is a great choice And I like them both better than my air pods too So either the poly, you know, the voyager free 60 plus you see or the jbl tour pro 2 They they are fantastic little things. Let me ask a couple questions. Yeah, man. Um, the the sounds are Which one sounds better? You're you're an audiophile I I use the jbls more than the polys. Okay. Um, I don't have a preference of the I think they both sound really good Yeah, I don't and neither one of them sound. I would not choose one over the other for sound Yeah, yeah, but I would choose them both over air pods for sound. Yeah, and then okay, interesting very good All right, and then what what was the price on each of them again? Because it looks like some serious coin there 250 and 295 250 for the jbls 295 for the polys. Yeah, okay. So okay interesting Yeah, so I would at any price and and I you know, I should just be clear in case it wasn't obvious I received both of these as review units. So I paid I paid the same price for both of them Um, there you go. I I would choose the jbls over the polys But again, it's just about how they fit in my ears But they both if I had never tried the jbls. I probably Wouldn't think to try anything other than the polys. They fit my ears. Well, they're they're better than the ear pods So, yeah, but I must have lost my review units in the mail, but that's right. I'll get here next week That's right. Yeah So yeah, interesting on that feature I'll just want to mention that for the first time I tried the auto voice detector in my air pods last time We were standing outside the airplane We they were loading the airplane and and we try to stay out of the pilot's way because the only Jump seats are in the flight deck with the pilots on the particular airplane. I was riding on So we stand outside on the top of the stairs Waiting from the load of the airplane and boy, is it loud out there The the elevator that loads these 15,000 pounds is a loud diesel engine and it screams and So I'm like, you know what? I'm going to put my air pods in so that I use them as noise cancellation Which really works great until you're trying to have a conversation with somebody and as soon as you start talking All that noise gets amplified right through your ears. It's like ah, so Doesn't work in a loud environment when you're trying to have a conversation I get what they're doing if you're listening to music and join your own little world And then you need to talk somebody it It is a nice feature when you're trying to use them as Earplugs and that's not their intended purpose. I get it But when you're trying to use the noise cancellation to protect your ears from noise that that ain't the way to go You got to turn off the voice part that lets the voice in. Yeah And I've I've seen people at concerts this summer using their air pods as as as earplugs And I mean just like you did, you know, I mean it works all the time. You'll notice at the hockey game. I wear Yeah Interesting because for two reasons one I listen to the uh to the radio feed which comes in about 90 seconds later Yeah, what was that penalty? I missed that, you know, so I get that but the other advantage is is their noise canceling So I hear the what what um, what app do you use to listen to the the radio radio use iHeart radio Yeah There's a local broadcast for the you and each hockey games. Yeah, I get it there That's a really smart thing to do. I mean I I all I As a kid, I remember going with my dad and my grandmother to See baseball games and there would be people that would bring their little am radios and They wouldn't even have headphones. They would just keep them relatively quiet But but I always appreciated it was like, oh, I get to hear like the calls that you you know far less Talking happens in the stadium or arena or rink than does on the radio because on the radio You're presumably not also watching right? So yeah, that's interesting. Huh? Interesting interesting Cool. Oh, yeah Thank you folks. Thanks for hanging out with us. It has been uh, it has been an absolute blast. It's the band lost Where's the band's not lost? No, I the the sound thing that happened before um, I Wound up connecting twice to stream yard Well, but I didn't know it because my window I'm still on monterey on this machine and it has that problem where sometimes when you click It brings another window to the bottom of the screen or something. And so I didn't think I was connected to stream yard, but I could still hear you And it's like what is going on. So then I started reconnecting to stream yard And that's when I showed up twice and it muted me and all that fun stuff So yeah, because it was funny and that's where you heard me Talking to hear myself talk and mentioned the word vamping and all that stuff folks I'm looking at two daves at the bottom of the screen and going. Oh Where'd he go brother Dave? Yeah, exactly There's a show title for you. There you go another brother Dave. Yeah So yeah, I that's all that happened once I realized that it was like, oh, I know what to do. All right, great Fun stuff. Thanks for hanging out with us folks. Thanks for checking out All our sponsors at mackey cub.com slash sponsors and then of course fastmail.com MGG today Thanks to cash fly for providing all the bandwidth to get the show from us to you Thanks to all of you for sending in all of your tips and questions and cool stuff found It makes what we do So much fun because it means we really do get to learn five new things Along with you and that keeps me excited about it. It keeps us excited about it. It's amazing. So Thank you for hanging out with us. Here we are into quadruple digits I've been trying to decide if we're supposed to put a comma now Are we part of the comma club because we're we're in the four digit show. I don't know I don't I don't know what to do. I don't know Pete as I'm cogitating about this. Do you have any advice for me? I do. I got new shirts for us And right on the shirt that advice is printed for the world to see That's a t there not an f don't gif. No, don't get caught May So wrong. All right, we're out So, uh