Apple Articles

Horizontal and vertical alignment with Scriptable

While I am a huge fan of widgets on iOS, most apps miss the mark in terms of what they offer via their widgets. Because I’m not one to settle, I have been on a quest to build my own widgets so that I can get exactly what I desire. […]

Disabling Command+Q for macOS Terminal

I don’t just use the command-line, I live on it. With doing some much on the CLI, I always have the Terminal app running, regardless of my host operating system. Sadly, on macOS, I do find myself accidentally hitting Command+Q from time to time, which abruptly bails me out of […]

No sound from iOS games without headphones connected

While I’ve had iPhones and iPads in the past, and have been back on iOS from Android for the last year, there are still some things that I’m ignorant to. One of those things, is why most of the games I played on my iPhone only played sounds when I […]

Apple TV remote volume not working

We love the Apple TV, but ever since upgrading to the Apple TV Siri Remote, we’ve run into situations where the volume controls just decide they are done working. The speculation is that it has something to do with the hand off to and from Apple AirPods somehow messing things […]

Generating lowercase UUIDs with uuidgen on macOS

The implementation of uuidgen on Linux returns all lowercase letters by default. The implementation of uuidgen on macOS returns all uppercase letters by default. This triggers the hell out of me, by default. Usually when I approach consistency between macOS and Linux, both of which I use daily, I will […]

Fixing missing cycle area in Logic Pro

We’ve been spending a ton of time over the last year in Logic Pro. With 50+ songs put together, and the end goal of finally, formally releasing some material, we’ve gotten very familiar with Logic Pro and some of it’s quirks. One of my least favorite of these quirks, is […]

Docker Desktop won't reopen on macOS

After months of waiting, I finally received the MacBook Pro that I had ordered back in February. Thus far, it’s been a solid machine with crazy battery life, but not without it’s quirks. One recent quirk was with Docker Desktop. I had the app open and I quit it instead […]

How to export all photos from Google Photos

After yet another bout of operating system soul searching, I’ve landed back on both iOS and macOS. With this transition from Android and Linux, my software needs have changed. Also the Googs has been barking about my needing to upgrade if I want to continue to store my mountain of […]

How to install Family Sharing apps on macOS

Switching back to an iPhone eventually led to enabling Family Sharing so that we could all use the Pro Apps I had purchased last year. The Pro Apps are quite pricey (even the Education Bundle) so it’s not something I’d want to buy and re-buy. My wife’s recent endeavor into […]

Fixing distortion and red lines when moving items in Diablo III on a MacBook Pro

For season 19 of Diablo III, the wife and I decided that we were not only going to play the season, but actually set out to complete all of the objectives for the season. As we’re pretty much filthy casuals when it comes to Diablo, we did both accomplish what […]

The problem with dark mode in macOS Mojave

If I still used MacOS as my daily driver, I’d be absolutely over the moon about dark mode being announced for Apple’s next macOS release, Mojave. It’s great that this feature is finally being added, but it’s very much “too little too late” if you ask me. For those unaware, […]

The death of the headphone jack

Apple had #courage and Google is proving they can imitate just as well as they can innovate. The headphone jack is effectively dead on cell phones as I suspect other manufacturers will start to implement this “me too” design philosophy. For me personally, I’m heavily invested in a set of […]

Switching from Mac OS X back to Linux, Part 5: The Conclusion

If you’re like me, you enjoy the journey more than the destination. If you’re just tuning in, you should probably catch up. Part 1: The Motive Part 2: The Distro Part 3: The Desktop Environment Part 4: The Development Environment On this fifth week of writing about my transition back […]

Switching from Mac OS X back to Linux, Part 4: The Development Environment

New around here? You may want to catch up: Part 1: The Motive Part 2: The Distro Part 3: The Desktop Environment Before switching to OS X, I was running Ubuntu codename whatever and had my local system built out as close to my production environment as possible. I would […]

Switching from Mac OS X back to Linux, Part 3: The Desktop Environment

In case you missed it, here’s the story thus far: Part 1: The Motive Part 2: The Distro Before I discuss my current desktop environment, let’s rewind to 2012 before I had switched to OS X. At the time, I was running xmonad as my primary desktop environment and was […]

Switching from Mac OS X back to Linux, Part 1: The Motive

This post is half a decade in the making. On June 15th, 2012 I took the plunge and switched from Linux to Mac OS X. 1,585 days later, I am writing to let you know that I have seen the error in my ways and I am back home, running […]

Leveraging the power of the right-command key in OS X

Not too long ago I was singing the praises of creating hotkeys to switch between apps, a method I consider to be far superior to using CMD+TAB and having to cycle through open apps. I mentioned taking things a step further by utilizing the right-command (and/or right-option) key to reduce […]

Fastest way to switch between apps

I am on an eternal quest to optimize the way I work with the computer. I do things like jacking my mouse/tracking speed all of the way up (thanks Noah). I am trying to use Zapier more because “you should never do something twice on a computer” (thanks Nat). I […]

Switching from iTerm2 to Terminal

iTerm2 has been a mandatory install for me since switching back to OS X a few years ago. At that time it was superior to Terminal for my usage. Recently I asked myself, “what value does iTerm2 add can’t be accomplished with Terminal? Turns out, not enough to keep using […]

Using an 11” MacBook Air for development

I do it, and I do it well. In fact, I’ve built an iOS game on it and used one exclusively without an external display while working at Sumo HQ in Austin, TX this past week. The 11” MacBook Air is a decent machine, even if you think the screen […]

Switching from Spotify to Apple Music and back again

Frustrated with recent playback issues with the Spotify desktop app, I engaged in a brief love affair with Apple Music. For me, Apple Music has a ton going for it. Out of the gate, the music selection seemed more robust than Spotify. I don’t consider myself much of an audiophile […]

First impressions of the new Apple TV

I’ve been a fan of the Apple TV for quite a while now. I was a bit late to the game as I only picked up a third generation unit in 2013. The unit that I am replacing today has consistently beat out the “smart” functionality of my Samsung television. […]

CSS :not issue in Safari on iOS9

Seems that every time that Apple releases a new version of iOS I encounter some weird rendering issue. This time around with iOS9 I encountered an issue where the full / desktop version of the site looked like it still using some of the mobile / smaller device stylings. After […]

Safari bug when signing up for Twitter

Wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to blog about today when a stroke of inspiration occurred after the wife was strugglging to create a new Twitter account for an upcoming adventure. I tried it from her computer and everything seemed fine. She said it was because I type faster […]

Android Pros and Cons after 2 years with an iPhone

I recently discussed migrating to cross-platform apps in an attempt to break away from the Apple Ecosystem which was a precursor to me swapping my iPhone 4S for a Nexus 5. Now it’s time to talk about the pros and cons that I ran into by making the move. PRO: […]