SMUG meeting, May 18, 2021
Notes by Kathleen Charters
Q&A
Timetable for more powerful 27 inch iMac – 24 inch reviews show it can win against the new 27 inch; options wait for new, get 24 inch and add up to 2 other monitors; World Wide Developers Conference in June may demo things they are working on and introduce new hardware; constrained by worldwide chip shortage, existing chip set easier than new production line; a resource issue; worldwide shortage of cars since cannot get computer chips needed for cars; will not hear before June and may not be announced during the World Wide Developers conference; Apple may put out a press release, next generation of silicon Macs should be a bigger event
Chip foundries cost $1-3B to build, staffing by a few hundred people, resources to assemble – wire individual connections by 10,000’s of people; resource blanks in short supply; miners quarantined so cannot get raw materials such as sand, chip may depend on rare materials that are hard to find, difficult to process and purify rare earths
Not a simple problem to solve
6-year-old MacBook Pro not working, if motherboard repair is required, this is not worth doing; could be 50-80% cost of a new machine, 6 years old is not under warranty, may be more expensive; battery will not cause mouse trackpad keyboard to fail; battery issue will start, then put itself to sleep
iPhone 6 upgrade? No room on iPhone because limited space to begin with. At the end of life, time for a new phone; as new and different things are developed hard to support old hardware. Can make use of the device for other things, or as long as not traveling; if it works as a phone in the home, can limit it to that location
5TB drive stopped working, if Costco drive; bare 5TB may cost more; 5 TB may be (2) 2.5 TB, not top quality, may take a lot of effort to get the device recognized, can be difficult
Difference between a dock and a hub – hub is expanding ports for machine; dock extends the main circuitry from computer so like plugging into back vs drive everything off the same amount of power, high speed device will run faster on a dock but hub all run at lowest common denominator; if too much demand nothing will run on a hub – it acts like it is dead
Intel iMacs old model is available from big box stores (Walmart, Costco, etc.) with a full warranty, not recommended, computer years 7 times as fast as people years, a 2-year-old Mac is the same as a 14-year-old car; business requirement for Intel-based software; get at least 16GB RAM, invest in growth room
TB drives by OWC will work off a range of Mac devices; the best source next to Apple for knowing hardware will work with a Mac; can see what Apple is selling and go buy that from another vendor, read fine print to see what is compatible
Can show how to reset a Mac to factory settings in person, but not over Zoom, because Zoom will go away when the machine reboots
Session on Raid – redundant array of inexpensive drives; example of 4 hard drives, 5TB each – video greater than 10TB can be stored on a RAID so if put (4) 5TB drive created 20 TB as if one storage device or split into (2) 10 TB mirrored so if 1 fails the data will still be available
Present Sabrina – welcome
Treasury Report – $1545.55 in checking, more dues paid
In-person meeting at the Library when possible, for things that cannot be done over Zoom; e.g., recovery operations
Need publicity in Port Angeles for Zoom meeting to increase attendance; try for announcement in PDN? Many people do not read newspapers; PA radio station announcements; local one-page sheet available in the community; recruit Jefferson County as well; online presence for Clallam and Jefferson; radio garden application to get radio stations around the world; PDN public notice section is free and available online and in print
Presentation – Files, Clipboard Reminders and Other Mysteries (AKA interprocess communication)
Share iPad using the record function
Notes
Reminders – share shopping list, both parties add items and are immediately available; reminders can be location dependent, e.g., item appears when at Costco, can set time and date
Note on iPad from SMUG Website, copied and pasted on Mac and shared with user Peter Lyon (demo account); if have a Mac and iPad system preferences iCloud account, check services to send to iCloud and anything created on one device appears in all other devices as long as the device has Internet access; can write not on iPad and it will appear on Mac
Settings: Apple ID, select what to share with iCloud; do this for each device
Reminders: Create a new list: add an item, set a date and time, add a location – type in the name of business and select off the list; to remove simply check it off; if want to re-use an item can search for the item and uncheck it and it will appear; can view and search completed items
Can send a note from one device to another device via messages or e-mail
Select Reminders item, right click, and see the options of how can send the information to another device
Mac Notes – title is the top line of the note, can email, paste into WordPress, etc.
iPad Notes – can draw in Notes and share drawing, e.g., by e-mail; send a copy icon, see possibilities, select one, provide destination account; example of sending by e-mail, can drag drawing out of e-mail to desktop and will see .png file
Can be on different networks if shared to iCloud
If using sidecar have to be on the same network; you can use an iPad as an extension of the Mac and draw on the iPad and have it on the Mac
Can copy to the clipboard on one device and take it off the clipboard on another device if in the same account
Airdrop allows sharing with anyone
Share file
Application on iPad Files – new feature; has folder of large photos and want to move from iPad to Mac; select the desired photos, select share, and use airdrop to share; select device to drop files on; device must accept the files, accept and save to downloads, will transfer from iPad to Mac very quickly over internal network
Note: when share by using Airdrop – only works for what is available on the network; has to be things set up to accept from Airdrop on the same network and receiving device has to accept it; always save to downloads folder; special protections for documents and download folders – Apple scans them when saved to make sure the files are not hostile
Security Conference after Airdrop came out – example of offer to transfer slides and got a malicious file instead – be careful where you save things to; take proper precautions when opening device to unknown files; people who routinely get files from unknown sources need anti-virus software or may be compromised
Adjustments to set the parameters of who will accept files from
Network distance farther away is slower, 60 feet from the router is possible, but 15-20 feet is more realistic; in theory can be 500 feet part but hard to know who is on the other end at that distance
If a dangerous file is scanned 1-2 times a week, get files from Apple to blacklist dangerous sites and types of files. Apple checks downloads to the downloads folder and documents folder
Antivirus software makes the machine run more slowly
If an infected file is detected, Apple will not allow to launch or will block a website
Google puts up warnings about dangerous websites, but does not prevent users from going there
Safari will not let you go to a dangerous website
Apple’s new privacy setting rolled out 2-3 days ago; if it tries to launch something that does not meet the privacy policy, Apple will not launch the application
New privacy setting – if you use FaceBook received a notice from Facebook asking to allow tracking, FaceBook is lobbying users to allow this for customized ads; the new version of FaceBook has 8% allowing this. Apple did not back down and allows people to block tracking on FaceBook; if offered a choice to track, make an intelligent choice
Google navigation needs to track the location to provide directions
Q&A
Calendar – danger if accepting shared dates in e-mail due to risk of malicious software; not the calendar but the Webkit that allows applications to talk to the Internet; lots of apps use Webkit; Apple patched this immediately; it does not protect if using a calendar other than Apple’s calendar
Example of downloading a sports calendar, and bad actors exploited this to infect with malicious software
iPhone iMessage comes in 8 hours to 2 days later – live on the Olympic Peninsula, and the Internet is not always current
Solar Winds the boat the delivery the army to our shores; used to attack Microsoft infrastructure: computers, services; in combating this slows things to a crawl; IM cn be slower than e-mail; protocols for quality of service (QOS) to know how long item has been in transit and move up in queue; IM does not do this
When the Solar Winds hack is cleaned up, this may get better; also affects other communication, e.g., Google alarms, may be a day late
When sending an item, it makes a huge trip even though the receiving device is in the same room; if by way of geostationary satellites for communication may go 100,000 miles
Clipboard on Mac is invisible – use when copying/pasting; can copy on iPhone and paste it into Desktop; hand-off uses the Internet to transport temporary files, so can start a message on one device and complete it on a different device; look up “Handoff” to learn more
Zoom delay – may start and stop, Quality of Service makes software more tolerant, if have slow connection give preference to voice over visual when low bandwidth; minimize interruption of voice if possible; bias towards rapid transmission of voice and more tolerant of pause in video; people accept low quality as long as voice continuous, your brain fills in video gaps, not the same for sound; disorienting to have gaps in sound; sound is last sense to go when dying
Autistic – how process sound is key to communication
If audio stops, there is a bandwidth problem; for example of 18 video screens on Zoom see mostly still images rather than full motion; will try to recover the paused segments, but if the bandwidth is too low, will have gaps; a complex interaction
Photos – easy way to get rid of duplicates; use of Lightroom to sort by size and time (chronological order) so if different name can find by size; software to get rid of duplicates is not infallible; better to do this manually; confusing when have two streams from different sources at the same time; create groups of photos
Post photo to Facebook without location; Apple App Store utilities will strip location from posted photos; FaceBook settings can be turned off for location, but not infallible, best to prepare photo for posting
Capital riot: 450 persons arrested, almost all posted the photos used to arrest them, committed a felony, and published the evidence
Next month: Sign-in sheet
Google Suite: Google Docs, Google Sheets; Google Lens to analyze what the item in a photo is.
Example: Create restored copies of text from a photo
Google Hangouts in-person meeting or use it for the meeting instead of Zoom;
Accessibility features for in-person meetings
Use of listening for e-mail or enlarging to check on punctuation; shortcut on iPhone for list of accessibility – use of magnifying glass; use of iPhone flash light and magnifying glass to read the menu in a dimly lit restaurant
Settings, control center, items to add to shortcuts: Example of Lawrence’s list of shortcut items; can add to Apple Watch as well, e.g., voice memo, so can have an idea when in bed and capture the thought