Archive for the ‘MacBook’ Category
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/03/03
While recovering from cancer treatments and moving, I heavily cut down on spending money for my IT infrastructure as you can only spend money once.
Now that I have recovered quite a bit, and also gaining more income, I got more recent Apple hardware and could start to use this: [Wayback/Archive] Use an iPad as a second display for a Mac – Apple Support
It’s called Sidecar in Apple terminology and actually quite neat, though you need extra software to use the iPad in portrait mode (it is hard coded to landscape though a 10-inch iPad Pro fits very nicely in portrait position next to a 16-inch M1 MacBook Pro).
If I persist, I need to look at solutions like [Wayback/Archive] Rotated Sidecar · waydabber/BetterDisplay Wiki · GitHub ([Wayback/Archive] GitHub – waydabber/BetterDisplay: Unlock your displays on your Mac! Flexible HiDPI scaling, XDR/HDR extra brightness, virtual screens, DDC control, extra dimming, PIP/streaming, EDID override and lots more!)
Sidecar is part of Handoff, so these preconditions apply: [Wayback/Archive] Use Handoff to continue tasks on your other devices – Apple Support.
In the end, I think it is all based on AirDrop, especially because of the first Apple Support link above mentioning these “Additional requirements”:
Via:
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Posted in Apple, iOS, iPad, Mac, MacBook, MacBook-Pro, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/02/28
The winter after I bought my first ARM based (or Apple Silicon powered) MacBook I noticed that often about half an hour after sunset, within 10 seconds all the screens (the built-in and external ones) would get a red teint on them.
[Wayback/Archive] MacBook Red Screen Issue – SimplyMac was the very first search result, and mentioned this:
Adjusting Night Shift and True Tone
Night Shift and True Tone features can affect the color temperature of your display. Night Shift reduces blue light in the evenings, which can make the screen appear warmer. True Tone adjusts the display’s color temperature to match the ambient lighting. If these settings are misconfigured, they could contribute to the red screen issue. Check your Night Shift and True Tone settings in the Displays section of System Preferences to ensure they’re set correctly or turned off.
I had to turn off both Night Shift and True Tone to get rid of this artefact, though for some people that didn’t solve the issue: [Wayback/Archive] Screen has red tint at night (True Tone and Night Shift are Off) – Apple Community.
I fully agree with [Wayback/Archive] Am I the only one who prefers True Tone?* : macbookpro
The only thing I like about true tone is how great it looks when I turn it off.
…
I was soooo disappointed with how crap the display was on my M1 Max that I thought about selling it as soon as I got it. Decided to play around with display settings and found True Tone. Turned it off and felt immediate relief. That’s how bad I think True Tone is. Absolutely flabbergasted that Mac’s come out the box with it enabled.
My 2015 MBP screen looks better to me than a M series screen with True Tone on.
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Posted in Apple, Apple Silicon, ARM Mac, Mac, MacBook, MacBook-Pro, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/02/04
For cleaning an Apple Silicon MacBook there were already solutions to either disable the keyboard or to blacken the screen:
- [WaybackSave/Archive] GitHub – shauninman/Little-Fingers: Little Fingers lets you lockdown keyboard and trackpad input with a globally accessible keyboard shortcut (open source)
- [Wayback/Archive] folivora.ai – Great Tools for your Mac! KeyboardCleanTool blocking all keyboard and TouchBar input. (free download)
- [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – jacklandrin/OnlySwitch: ⚙️ All-in-One menu bar app, hide 💻MacBook Pro’s notch, dark mode, AirPods, Shortcuts (open source and available as [Wayback/Archive] only-switch — Homebrew Formulae)
In Version 2.3, Only Switch brings a new feature, Screen Test. It provides a pure color view in full-screen mode, you can check dead pixels via it. Press the left and right arrow keys, the color will change from black, white, red, green, and blue. This functionality also can be used for screen cleaning, as you can see the stains on the screen.
For keeping a Mac turned off however, there hadn’t been a solution for a long time.
Now there is, but you need to have the most recent update of macOS Sequoia 15 by adding a nvram BootPreference setting: [Wayback/Archive] Prevent a Mac laptop from turning on when opening its lid or connecting to power – Apple Support
Via
- [Wayback/Archive] Fefes Blog: [l] Satire und Realität sind nicht mehr unterscheidbar. Heute: Apple.
- [Wayback/Archive] Für Tastaturhygieniker: So bleibt das MacBook beim Öffnen aus | heise online
- [Wayback/Archive] Created a Keyboard Lock App for Safe Cleaning—Seeking Your Thoughts and Feedback! 🚀🔧 : macapps
--jeroen
Posted in Apple, Apple Silicon, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook, MacBook-Pro, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/01/06
Having used the fully loaded Intel 15″ Retina MacBook Pro machines (the ones without dreaded touch-bars or butterfly keyboards – note the IBM ThinkPad 701 butterfly keyboard – also known as TrackWrite – was perfectly fine) from 2015 for 9 years, it was finally time to upgrade to an Apple Silicon one, but again: not the touch bar models.
My work is mainly CPU and disk intensive and often based on remote logon to more powerful equipment, so GPU cores and performance only marginally matter for web-browsing and local electron based applications (hello vscode!).
Going from 4 hyperthreaded CPU cores (8 parallel threads) to at least 8 full CPU cores, I didn’t want to pay full price like back in the days, and wanted it to be less than my car (EUR ~4000), so these links helped me find refurbished ones in The Netherlands:
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Posted in Apple, Apple Silicon, M1 Mac, Mac, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Pro, Power User | Tagged: 21771 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2024/12/05
After installing my Apple Silicon MacBook, I found out my machine had gotten named automatically in two different ways:
- readable name Jeroen’s Macbook Pro
- full name Jeroens-MacBook-Pro
- local hostname Jeroens-MacBook-Pro.local
- actual
hostname Jeroens-MBP
- HostName from
scutil
A few reasons I dislike that:
- Having 5 different names for the same machine creates a mess
- They chose for me where I like to choose myself
- They use spaces, quotes and hyphens where I like single a complete word
- They use mixed case where I like single case (preferably lower case) as not all other computers handle mixed case well
Finding out how to fix all this was a tedious job as I had to keep refining queries:
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Posted in Apple, Apple Silicon, ARM Mac, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook, MacBook-Pro, Power User, Terminal | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2024/04/08
One of the odd things with Apple computers it that firmware updates are part of the MacOS updates.
From this Dutch thread:
[Wayback/Archive] WheelieNick on Twitter: “@jpluimers Welke firmware precies weet ik niet maar je moet er vanuit gaan als je naar iets wat boven high sierra staat wil gaan dat je altijd eerst naar high siërra moet. Niet van normaal siërra naar big sur bijvoorbeeld. Ik doe trouwens altijd tussenstappen, dus van high siërra naar”
I have bumped into this myself where I skipped an upgrade, then the Mac would not recognise certain media formatted with Apple File System – Wikipedia using intermediate versions of MacOS.
The intermediate versions of MacOS had introduced some firmware changes the newer MacOS version upgrade did not apply.
–jeroen
Posted in Apple, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook, MacMini, Power Mac, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2023/03/13
The links found via [Wayback/Archive] macos kernel_task high cpu dual screen – Google Search were daunting.
In the end, the issue ways way easier to fix than I thought: open up your Intel MacBook (you need pentalobe screwdrivers for that), then with some compressed air, clean the dust (especially from the fans).
This post saved my day [Wayback/Archive] kernel_task takes up 500% of my CPU when plugging in external monitor – MacBook Pro 15″ Retina Display Mid 2015 – iFixit
Things I haven’t tried yet:
- Cleaning out more free space from HDD
- Using plain HDMI cable into the HDMI cable port
- Taking MBP apart and cleaning any potential dust
…
I faced the very same issue that you guys are facing and based on input from another forum decided to get my 2016 MPB fans cleaned out.
This made an immediate impact where when I connected my external display to the MBP.pre-cleaning, it would overheat causing the fans to spin at 6000 rpm or thereabout and the kernel_task would eat up 500%-900% of the CPU rending the system unusable.
This simple cleanup of the fans has allowed me to connect the monitor with no kernel panic anymore and even though the fans run around 5000 rpm now the CPU and GPU are running around 10 degrees cooler now.
The same picture is in [Wayback/Archive] macos – MacBook Pro high CPU with external monitors – Ask Different.
An even dirtier MacBook was at [Wayback/Archive] External Display – High CPU Usage – MacBo… – Apple Community.
Links that were interesting but unhelpful:
–jeroen
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Posted in Apple, Mac, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2022/03/14
After years of use, the cooling fans of my 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro 2015 model got quite a bit dirty, causing them to run louder and louder.
The video below the fold shows how to clean them: 11 screws, some isopropyl alcohol, (dry!) compressed, and caution for the connector-clips connecting the bottom plate.
It helps having a:
- pentalobe P5 screwdriver
- plastic spudger so separate the bottom plate (especially be careful with the connector-clips)
- magnet to stick the screws to, as they are really tiny and it is easy to loose them
I got the pentalobe screwdriver with some spare screws from the German Amazon: [Archive.is] Kricson Ersatzschrauben MacBook Pro – 4 Pack Gummi: Amazon.de: Computer & Zubehör
You can get a similar one from the USA Amazon site: [Archive.is] Amazon.com: 8 Pack Rubber Case Feet + Set of 20pcs Repair Replacement Screw + 1pcs 5 Point Pentalobe Screwdriver for Unibody MacBook Pro Retina A1425 A1502 A1398 13″ 15″ Bottom Case(Retina): Computers & Accessories
Two important tips:
- After using isopropyl alcohol, let the parts dry
- Hold the fans when spraying compressed air (to prevent the fan-motors to create over-voltage, and to prevent the fans spinning faster than they are rated for)
The iFixit pictures for replacing the SSD help greatly to see how to remove and re-attach the back-cover, and where the various parts are inside the machines.
Note the screws differ between the 13-inch and 15-inch models!
–jeroen
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Posted in Apple, Mac, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2022/01/21
Since dd on Apple does not support progress parameters via [Wayback] macos dd progress – Google Search:
- [Wayback] Quick: dd with progress indication on macOS
A nice way I found to get progress indication whilst still being able to benefit from the huge speed increase in using /dev/rdiskX is to install a tool called pv, also known as [WayBack] Pipe Viewer.
Example:
sudo dd if=/dev/rdiskX bs=1m | pv -s 64G | sudo dd of=/dev/rdiskY bs=1m
Another way to achieve something similar would be to use brew to install coreutils, which will come with a newer version of dd that supports the status option.
Example:
gdd if=/dev/diskX of=/dev/diskY bs=1m status=progress
- [Wayback] el capitan – How can I track progress of dd – Ask Different
You just need to enter a controlT character from the keyboard while the dd command is executing.
By pressing the controlT character, you are sending the same SIGINFO signal to the dd command that the command pkill -INFO -x dd sends.
dd itself doesn’t provide a progress bar. You may estimate the progress of the dd copy process by adding a pkill -INFO command though.
Example:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null bs=64m count=1000 & while pkill -INFO -x dd; do sleep 1; done
- [Wayback] dd progress indicator on OSX
signal siginfo is coupled to key-combination CTRL-T. No need to use kill, you can just type CTRL-T in the terminal window where dd is running.
–jeroen
Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Apple, iMac, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, MacMini, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/05/21
Based on [WayBack] Command-Tab Not working….. – Apple Community
If you go to Activity monitor and search for dock, doubleclick on it, choose Force quit.
It will restart the Dock app and now it should work.
I wrote this alias which restarts Dock (including Dashboard and Spaces as they are served by the same process).
alias restart-dock-dashboard-spaces='killall -KILL Dock'
Related: my 2013 post Mac: Restarting the Mac OS X Dock, Finder, Spaces or Menubar | Stefan Ernst.
–jeroen
Posted in Apple, iMac, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, MacMini, macOS 10.12 Sierra, macOS 10.13 High Sierra, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, Power User | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 