Swiping Left (or Right!), Suspicious Packages, and Cool Stuff Found — Mac Geek Gab 874

Your two favorite geeks answer your questions about Target Disk Mode, using your Apple TV Remote to turn off your TV, removing words from predictive text, and more. On top of that, they share a few Mail-based quick tips and an entire pile (yep, the whole thing!) of Cool Stuff Found. Press play and learn (at least) five new things with John and Dave!

Not-So-Silent Ringing — Mac Geek Gab 866

Sometimes your iPhone’s silent, and sometime it’s not. But what about when it decides what to do, not you? That’s when you call John and Dave! Or you can email them. Or you can text them. Or you can post in the forums. Either way, they’ll answer your questions and try to help solve your problems. Listen to all your questions answered, Cool Stuff Found and Quick Tips shared, and you’re guaranteed to learn at least five new things hanging out with your two favorite geeks!

Dissecting Your Backups — Mac Geek Gab 863

What better way to celebrate World Backup Day than to have your two favorite geeks pick apart their personal backup strategies? We can’t think of one, so that means you get to listen as John and Dave spend a little time sharing and analyzing their backup strategies, and sharing some of yours, as well. Of course, it’s Mac Geek Gab, so that means there will be some tips, Cool Stuff Found, and your questions answered! Press play and enjoy learning at least five new things.

The Great Backup Debate — Mac Geek Gab 818

Do you backup or clone? Which is more important? What do you do first? Ok, let’s battle. Well, not really.

Lots of Cool Stuff Found in this episode, including a way to turn your iPhone into a webcam for your Mac. Internet upgrade options are popular among the questions that came in this week, so your two favorite geeks have answers.

Listen along with John and Dave as they share, answer, postulate, and everyone learns (at least!) five new things.

Google to Fix HEIC Photo Backup 'Bug'

Redditor u/stephenvsawyer found that HEIC photos were given unlimited backups to Google Photos because they are smaller than JPGs. If Google tried to compress them the files would actually get bigger, which would be a waste of storage space. But Google calls it a bug and says it will fix it.

However, what that means remains unclear. Would Google start charging for HEIC images stored in Photos, even if they’re small and don’t take up much space? Would it forcibly re-convert those pics to compressed JPEG, or compress them further under the HEIC format? And will the fix apply to all HEIC images or just iPhones?

I’m not sure how Google will fix it unless they just check if the file extension is .HEIC and arbitrarily limit these files (arbitrary since converting them would increase their size).

You Don’t Get to Change Your Mind about The Past in the Future – Mac Geek Gab Podcast 771

So how do these “silent updates” work, anyway? Why can’t I click links in Safari? And will your future self be happy with your past self’s backup-related decisions? These are the hard questions, folks, and your two favorite geeks tackle them just for you. Plus, listen as John and Dave share your tips, Cool Stuff Found, and more. Mac Geek Gab 771 is here just for you. Press play and enjoy learning at least five new things!

Founder, Bombich Software, Mike Bombich (#2) - TMO Background Mode Interview

Mike Bombich is the founder and president of Bombich Software, the developer of Carbon Copy Cloner. That’s a backup app for the Mac that has saved the day for many users. He’s a former Apple employee.

In this timely post-WWDC show, Mike joins me to explain the structure of APFS drives and the new read-only System files in macOS Catalina. He explained new features of volumes in macOS 10.15, especially how the System is isolated from the Data volume (which contains /Users). He also explained the new firmlinks that tie these two volumes together, making them appear as one. Finally, Mike explained how Carbon Copy Cloner external drives can no longer be HFS+ in Catalina but must become APFS.