When Jeff Butts was mucking about with his trusty Mac Mini, he managed to mangle his recovery partition. Normally, this would mean a complete reinstall of the operating system, but Jeff found another way. Read on to learn how to get your recovery partition back without resorting to a complete reinstall.
macOS
Enabling Find My Mac Might Not Work if Recovery Drive Is Damaged or Missing
When Jeff Butts was playing around with resetting his firmware and checking the status of Find My Mac, he discovered a deeper problem: the feature depends on a valid and up-to-date recovery drive. Follow along with Jeff to learn how to get past a grayed-out Find My Mac checkbox.
macOS Sierra: Delete Your APFS Partition the Right Way
If you’ve been experimenting with APFS, perhaps you’ve already tried to delete your APFS partition. You probably found out that it’s not easy. Jeff Butts went through several methods, and has landed on what seems to be the cleanest way to delete your APFS partition when you’re done with it.
APFS Performance Lags HFS+, for Now
Apple is looking to replace HFS+ with a new file system, but is APFS really ready for prime time? Jeff Butts and Dave Hamilton have put the new file system through some tests, and report in on their findings.
Under the Hood with APFS - TMO Daily Observations 2017-03-31
APFS is part of macOS Sierra 10.12.4, but what does that mean for average users? Dave Hamilton and Jeff Butts join Jeff Gamet to talk about what’s working and what isn’t, APFS performance compared to HFS+, and more.
Want to Experiment With an APFS drive? Here's How You Can Do That
Under macOS Sierra 10.12.4, you know have limited support for an APFS drive. You won’t find the option to create one in Disk Utility, but Jeff Butts is here to demonstrate how to get the APFS drive created and mounted using Terminal and the diskutil command.
You Can Opt Out of Sharing iCloud Analytics in macOS Sierra 10.12.4
Apple quietly added a new privacy control tool in macOS Sierra 10.12.4 that allows you to opt out of sharing iCloud Analytics data. Bryan Chaffin shows you how to control what you send so you can decide.
Apple's New APFS File System, Developers Respond to App Store Reviews - TMO Daily Observations 2017-03-28
Say hello to APFS, Apple’s new file system for macOS and iOS that rolled out as part of yesterday’s operating system updates. Dave Hamilton and Bryan Chaffin join Jeff Gamet to explain what APFS is and how it impacts users, along with why we don’t need to be afraid of the change. They also offer up their thoughts on Apple finally letting developers respond to App Store reviews.
Apple Releases macOS 10.12.4 with Night Shift, Cricket Scores, Enterprise Features
Apple released macOS 10.12.4 Monday, an update that adds a couple of new features and some other minor improvements. The biggest new feature is Night Shift, technology that shifts your Mac’s display towards the red at the end of your day. The update also adds cricket scores for Indian Premier League and the International Cricket Council to Siri. Apple also added a slew of enterprise-specific features.
Customizing the Services Menu Helps You Optimize macOS
Hidden within macOS is an often-ignored item that can really speed things up. In this Quick Tip, Jeff Butts explores the Services menu and how it can help you really optimize macOS.
GameMaker Studio 2 for Mac in Closed Beta
The game engine from YoYo Games—GameMaker Studio—got a big update today with the release of the second version. It lets developers easily create video games for mobile, console and desktop. Plus, the Drag and Drop system (DnD™) lets people with limited coding skills use it too. You can download a free trial of it too.
Apple, Why Don't You Want Folks Sending Secure Emails on iOS?
A slogan that has been attributed to Apple products for years is “It just works.” Why isn’t that the case with sending secure emails in iOS Mail? Jeff Butts is frustrated by this, and makes his argument that Apple should fix this long-standing problem once and for all.
How to Check Out Your Printer's Webpage (And Why You Might Want To!)
Ah, printers. How we hate them; how we sometimes need them. In this Quick Tip, Melissa Holt’s going to wade into the printing morass with a great troubleshooting tip for misbehaving devices. You’ll learn how to visit your printer’s local webpage, and this just might get you out of a (paper) jam. Har har har.
macOS: Basic Tricks for Fast Text Selection
For this Quick Tip, Melissa Holt’s got some tricks for us on how to do text selection within a document, email, or webpage. So if you’re unfamiliar with ways to select text without clicking and dragging, come read this one! It’ll save you tons of time.
macOS: Using "Automatically Select Best Account" in Mail
This Quick Tip is about composing in Apple Mail and a feature that’ll let you have the program pick which email account you’ll send from. Whether you think that’s an awesome idea or a terrible one, we’ll tell you where to find that setting!
Emptying Stubborn Files from macOS Trash
Mac Geek Gab listener Michael needs help with a stubborn file he can’t delete from his macOS Trash. John F. Braun walks him through several options for dealing with recalcitrant files, including Terminal commands and utilities.
macOS: Create Apple Notes Subfolders With Ease
Did you know it’s possible to create Apple Notes subfolders? Andrew didn’t, until he stumbled upon this by accident. Creating subfolders lets you organize your notes in more detailed ways that make sense to you. Here’s how to do it on macOS.
macOS: Move Multiple Events Between Calendars
Today’s Quick Tip is about switching a group of events from one color-coded calendar to another. This is handy if, for example, you’ve got five or ten events on your “Work” calendar that need to move to “Home.” Melissa Holt’s gonna tell us all about it!
Save Space on Your Time Machine Drive
Don’t you hate when your Time Machine backups take forever? Even worse is when you begin getting notifications about your Time Machine drive running out of space. Jeff Butts is here to show you how you can slim down your backups, saving both time and precious hard drive space.
iCloud: Configure a Public Calendar
Have you ever wanted to share a calendar with a bunch of folks? If so, creating a public calendar in iCloud might be the way to go, depending on how you feel about the privacy of doing such a thing. In this Quick Tip, we’ll go over how you’ll do it and how your recipients will accept your invites!
How to Password-Protect Your Mac Pages, Numbers, and Keynote Documents
If you’ve got a Pages file full of important, super-secret info, then you should definitely protect it behind a password. In this Quick Tip, we’ll tell you how to set a password for that, change it, and remove it when you need to!
macOS: How to See the Hierarchy of Your File Locations
Melissa Holt’s Quick Tip for today is about using the title bar within different applications—Mail, Finder, and Pages, for example—to find out the hierarchical locations of files and folders. Need a trail of breadcrumbs to show where your stuff lives? She’s gonna tell you how to get it!
Be More Productive by Typing Faster
“If you’re not typing at least 40 words per minute, you’re wasting time. Possibly the easiest way to get more done in less time is to become a better typist.” Dr. Mac’s been saying it for nearly 30 years. Here’s why…
WWDC 2017 Set for June 5-9, Moves to San Jose
Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference will run from June 5th through June 9th this year, and is getting a change of venue. For 2017, WWDC will be held at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose instead of Moscone West in San Francisco.
