Tag: macOS

In November 2022, we gave a brief overview of macOS Ventura, which had just been released. The focus was on some new goodies, some redesigned elements, and accessibility.

Several members had asked that the meeting, held via Zoom, be recorded, and it was — but not until the presenter remembered to turn on recording. Thus, the video, below, is incomplete. It covers most of the meeting, but not the Question and Answer session.

Also, after the recording was started, the presenter remembered that Zoom offered real-time captioning, and turned it on. The captions do not appear in the video, but Zoom provided a transcript of what was recorded. That has been pasted below the video.

Some things about the transcript: the times shown are the local time (in 24-hour format) during the presentation. The transcription started at 19:5o:33, which is at 7:50:33 p.m. There is a note in the video showing when the closed captioning (and transcript) started. The transcription was done via software, and there are errors. For example, it states that Lawrence used to work for Noah, the patriarch of all humanity. In reality, Lawrence worked for NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and that happened a few thousand years after the deluge. The transcript is provided both because it is sometimes funny but also possibly useful.

If you want a larger version of the video, click on the YouTube logo. That will take you to the YouTube site, where you can select something much larger.

The transcript of the Zoom session (once it was turned on) follows. This was automatically generated by Zoom during the live captioning.

19:50:33 as i'm talking. it'll actually put down below what it is I'm saying it'll put it down at the bottom of the screen, and it got very very very good Well, Google had see a closed captioning and it
19:50:49 was terrible. We had a scientific presentation. we could agency.
19:50:55 I work for Noah. we had. We produce a lot of videos to tell people about climate change and title waves and currents, and whatever is a rip type.
19:51:05 All this sort of stuff, and we wanted to use closed captioning and we wanted to use Google's glows captioning.
19:51:13 Well, Google's closed captioning at the time was crowdsourced, and we soon found out that that when people contribute crowdsource transcripts to things, it was usually there were an awful lot of sexual terms and
19:51:25 obscenities and other things that we really didn't want being inserted into in a government webcast. so we painstakingly had to put in our own captions.
19:51:34 And it might cost us sometimes $10,000 to make a video and another $10,000 to have the transcription embedded in the video.
19:51:44 It was very expensive. Google has vastly improved their closed captioning.
19:51:51 They're built in closed captioning I was watching I was trying to diagnose a problem.
19:51:56 I put video up for my church and I was trying to diagnose a problem, and I turned on closed captioning because I didn't want to hear what i'd already heard 30 times.
19:52:06 So I turned on close captioning. It was very, very accurate.
19:52:13 So not only has zoom up the bar for Zoom, it's also up to bar for
19:52:20 Google. So Google's close captioning is much better and apples closed.
19:52:25 Captioning is much better. You can actually be in a conversation with someone over facetime and turn on close captioning to get a transcript of what you people are saying.
19:52:34 So it Accessibility is not just for handicap people it's for people who are trying to learn English.
19:52:42 It's for people who they don't fit whatever mold a particular event is set for as an example.
19:52:52 We had an accessibility feature in our home in Columbia.
19:52:56 When we moved into the home. Our daughter was Columbia, Maryland.
19:53:00 When we moved in. our daughter was 6, and when she went into the bathroom she said she couldn't see see the mirror, and we thought about putting a steps duel, but then she might fall off the steps. duel.
19:53:10 So what we did is we got a mirror and We placed it down just above the level of the sink, so she could see herself in that lower mayor, and then, when she was like 12, she said, You can take that other mirror
19:53:23 down. I don't need it anymore. so accessibility is to make it something more accessible to you in the context.
19:53:32 That's not the norm for a particular event or subject or our context, so it has.
19:53:37 It's not age-related it's not it's, not illness related.
19:53:41 It's just has to do with with the context in which you are in, and there are all kinds of accessibility controls build into the Mac, including this live captioning for things with facetime So it's it's
19:54:00 It's well worth the effort to find out about these things.
19:54:04 Now I want to show you something that's not an accessibility feature, and that is something that is well where the heck, is it?
19:54:12 I don't remember stage manager so I click on stage manager, and it's under doc and desktop and Doc.
19:54:23 So now if I just go out here and I look at desktop and Doc, it says stage manager someplace and I just made it go away.
19:54:32 Okay, stage manager i'm gonna turn on stage manager and now that stage manager is going to turn on I'm gonna launch dictionary again.
19:54:39 So here's dictionary and you notice that the controls zipped off to the side.
19:54:48 What stage manager allows you to do is have multiple things open on the screen at one time and rapidly move back and forth between them without being distracted by the others.
19:54:58 So I can switch between the preferences and Bb.
19:55:03 Edit, which is a text editor and dictionary.
19:55:11 Look up something that dictionary and I can switch back and forth between them, and I can copy something out of
19:55:21 Huh! I can copy something out of a dictionary and go to my text editor and say, I want a new document
19:55:39 And paste way in what I had in dictionary.
19:55:42 Bye found in dictionary all while leaving all these programs open, but I'm not distracted by having them all open.
19:55:52 You've also. probably all of you have also run into the situation where you bring up a web browser, and you've got a web browser.
19:56:01 I've go open, and you've got like a zillion wind windows open in your web browser, and then you go to something else, and then you can't find your web browser because it's buried behind all
19:56:11 the other windows. Well, with stage manager you can just go back and forth, and one of the neat things about stage manager is you can customize it so.
19:56:24 Among other things, you can have it as a desktop items.
19:56:30 You can have it for that. You can show all. All the windows at ones are one at a time.
19:56:36 You can customize how it is that you use it and it'll appear up here in the top menu, bar so you can turn on and off without going to the preferences.
19:56:47 So I got to turn it off. Everything stacks up the way they were before.
19:56:51 Turn it back on, and I only have one thing in front, so it's a apple talked about nuts, and I thought this was really cool.
19:56:59 You can have virtual screens on your Mac already. but I found out from experience that a lot of people, if they only have one monitor, and they have 3 or 4 virtual screens.
19:57:08 They tended to forget what we're in the screens that they couldn't see, because they were off screen and with this way.
19:57:15 This is, I I think this is a a really useful way to do it.
19:57:19 You can also minimize things and put it down on the dock.
19:57:22 But again, when you minimize things and put them down in the Doc, it's not as useful because people would forget that they were down there.
19:57:30 I had this one person they've been writing a novel for oh, months and months and months!
19:57:36 And they were real proud, because the previous day they had written a new entire new chapter.
19:57:41 3,000 words, but then they couldn't find their document well, they had minimized it in the dock, and they just couldn't find it.
19:57:48 But it was. it was just hiding down on the dock.
19:57:53 And this is a a much more elegant way of of
19:57:57 Keeping track of that, and I gotta stop sharing and ask if there are questions.
19:58:04 There are lots of things about Ventura that I could talk about for a long time.
19:58:10 But yeah, I have a question. So I have Monterey or whatever.
19:58:15 So do I just go into software, update press the button, or do I have to worry about it and agonizing
19:58:22 I I would not worry or agonize about it. I will.
19:58:26 There are some things that I I went to encourage people to always use the latest and greatest, because it's it's safest way to use your Mac.
19:58:36 But some things that could be an issue I had a friend who she's an artist lives in Indiana.
19:58:42 She had this ancient scanner and when she updated when I say ancient it they stacked like 2,006, and how she managed to even get it to work with Macos 10 I don't know ventura she couldn't
19:58:58 see it anymore, and if I had been in indiana and and actually could physically play with it, I might have been able to get it to work.
19:59:09 But she decided that after right, almost 18 years, that it was time to get a new scanner.
19:59:15 And and and she said she said, You know I just hate to waste it last year.
19:59:21 How much did you pay for it? $400 it's difficult to even find a scanner that costs $400 anymore.
19:59:29 So it's been a while since she had it but If you have a if have an old piece of equipment like an old printer and old scanner that might be an issue.
19:59:39 If you have adobe programs, adobe, acrobat photoshop, So on and so forth.
19:59:48 You might want to make sure that they are compatible with with ventura!
19:59:55 Adobe's usually a little slow on updating these things
20:00:01 And I have a whole bunch of adobe software and I didn't have any problem at all.
20:00:07 But I have another artist friend who was very upset that this one feature in photoshop wasn't working correctly, and I asked her what it was she did, and she told me in my eyes laced over and I
20:00:18 said, i'm sorry that doesn't work. but I have no idea even what she was talking about. just talking to foreign language for me.
20:00:25 I had no trouble at all but you can have if you have a if you have an old version of office, it may not work with ventura but if it wouldn't work with Monterey, either.
20:00:37 So if your Microsoft Office works with monterey it'll work with Ventura most of the pretty much.
20:00:45 Everything was transparent. A couple of things to note when you upgrade an operating system.
20:00:51 Apple rebuilds your email database.
20:00:54 So just plan on email, taking possibly hours and maybe days depending upon your Internet connection for the for it to rebuild it.
20:01:04 You can still use it. but it'll just seem slow it'll rebuild your new it'll rebuild your photos database, because I among other things that's offering this new duplicates
20:01:14 feature. So just expect some of that stuff to take longer I really didn't pay any attention, because I upgraded it late at night, and I forgot that i'd updated and went to use my machine the next morning and I
20:01:28 thought Wow, this is different. but I really didn't I really didn't have any problems at all great thank you.
20:01:41 I think the only computer we have that hasn't been updated is Kathleen's and that's not because I was avoiding It's just because she forgot to tell me to upgrade it it's my job to
20:01:53 update computers around here
20:01:59 She said, damn skipping She has a PHD.
20:02:05 In this, and she decides that you know she'll do the complicated stuff, the simple stuff I do any other questions.
20:02:15 How do you blur your screen? Oh, with then
20:02:22 I can actually Sh! I think right be able to do that.
20:02:26 If I go into I just lost you again. Oh, you just lost me again I just lost my
20:02:35 My zoom Well, I can hear you so it's there
20:02:46 If you go to zoom preferences. good!
20:02:52 What is it called backgrounds, backgrounds, and effects. One of the effects is blur, and if you click on blur, then you have blur, you can have no background draw, in which case it shows you all the junk behind me blur
20:03:06 blur, is it or I can go with San Francisco or whatever that is, or that's what it looks outside my house right now.
20:03:19 Okay, Good. thanks. it's so weird soon by the way this doesn't work.
20:03:31 If you're using zoom via browser you actually have to have the zoom app so if you're using it with a browser, it doesn't do that I I forgot to answer one of the questions anything
20:03:42 you want to do to prepare to move to Ventura?
20:03:46 Several things I would do. I would implement out your junk mail from email, because there's no point in upgrading your junk mail.
20:03:55 Why waste your computer's time with that I would empty your trash?
20:03:57 Because there's no point in indexing the trash and you trash can. if you have old applications that you haven't used in like 20 years, I would think about getting rid of them and i'll show you a way to do
20:04:11 that i'm gonna share my screen again. if I go into my applications.
20:04:20 I I need my where's my distract Oh, there you are, if I go into applications, these are all the applications on my computer.
20:04:31 If you say date modified the date modified means it's the last time that piece of software was updated. And this Actually, my stuff is fairly up recent.
20:04:43 But a lot of people. They might have things that were they downloaded from some place in 2,014.
20:04:49 Do you really need that thing that you downloaded in 2,014?
20:04:53 The oldest thing I have on my computer apparently dates to October 20, first, 2021.
20:04:59 So my stuff is fairly hurt recent. but a lot of people.
20:05:04 They have just stuff that they've been carrying around on their machine for decades.
20:05:08 When I upgraded kathleen's laptop 3 or 4 years ago, she was switching out a to a new laptop.
20:05:21 I found that she was still using She still had a copy of Norton Utilities on her machine from 1,994.
20:05:26 It wasn't useful. it hadn't been activated it was just taking up space, but it was still on a computer from 1994.
20:05:33 So I, you know, got rid of a bunch of that and she had said she wanted a larger, hard drive, and she ended up with about 200 gigs worth of empty space that she didn't have prior to that so she thought if
20:05:47 she was almost full, and she ended up with a computer was more than half empty by the time I got rid of the things like that.
20:05:58 But empty out your junk mail empty out to your trash.
20:06:05 Get rid of old apples and and the reason Why, It'll you can upgrade with all this stuff there.
20:06:13 But the Mac will index all of that and indexing trash and indexing jumped mail is not a good use of your computer's time.
20:06:22 So use it as a kind of spring house cleaning, please, spring house cleaning and November.
20:06:30 One more thing I wanted, I should mention Ventura is like 5 GB in size.
20:06:37 If you have a slow Internet connection, just plan on. do this.
20:06:44 Before you go to bed. just set it up to download and install it, and then go to bed.
20:06:51 Because once it went. it's starting to download the rest of It's pretty much automatic it's not gonna ask for your attention.
20:06:57 It's not like windows where you thought you updated windows, and then you go by the next morning.
20:07:04 You say now? are you ready to download it? And you think you already told it to do that?
20:07:08 And then I've got another update now apple doesn't do That Any other questions can I ask you.
20:07:17 Yeah, an iphone question. I just got a new I an iphone 13 a couple of weeks, and as soon as I got that I was no longer able to connect to carplay on my car and apparently it's a big problem for
20:07:36 a lot of people. I b our phone 13 or 1413 I have an iphone 13.
20:07:43 I'd have haven't had any trouble at all But if it's a new phone, you do have to go into Carb, you have to go into your not carplay you have to go into the the cars software, and you have
20:07:56 to say that. Yes, this is a new bluetooth phone that it needs to talk to because it's a new phone.
20:08:06 It's not the old phone. So you have to actually tell the cars software, not carpet the cars, software. hey?
20:08:13 This is a new device. Talk to it yeah i've done that. But you know, normally, when you go into car, play on the phone, and you can go in there and pick the car.
20:08:23 It just it just it doesn't load anything doesn't load anything like there's no car to pick and I just spent hours already trying to Yeah, do you have multiple cars no I have one car
20:08:44 And it just will not recognize you Go to car play and it'll go, you know.
20:08:50 Select. These are the cars, you know. It was super reuforcer, I mean, it worked fine on my old iphone. 7.
20:08:56 No problem. And then I suddenly get an iphone 13. I cannot connect.
20:09:02 How old is the super room? 2,015, Huh! You might see if Superu had to update their software.
20:09:11 I know that with with Toyota. I had to update my Toyota software before it would work.
20:09:20 It was working with carplay, but it would just suddenly just forget that it was talking to it.
20:09:27 And I had to update the toyota software In other words, I don't think it's a problem with carpet.
20:09:30 This sounds like It's more an issue with supers software So then so then I go to my dealer and talk to them or something I would. I would first go on to Google and I type. in the you know car, play and the name and the model your car.
20:09:56 And see what what you see it's you do not have the capability of updating software yourself.
20:09:59 Because that's something that the dealers hold quite dear but this sounds more like a issue with the cars software.
20:10:07 I had to a friend who had a Mazda who had a similar problem.
20:10:10 He had a 2,014 Mazda, and that we, it actually came out before car play existed and his solutions.
20:10:22 The problem is that he have bought a honda, but
20:10:27 But it was the software on the car itself. Other questions. Yeah.
20:10:35 If I tried to download venture on my old ipad or my old Mac that's still got an intel chip.
20:10:44 I think it's too old. the Internet says this tool but if I can.
20:10:46 I try it, anyway. I mean it won't Mr.
20:10:53 Lockwood, who's a member of our group that I don't see him.
20:10:58 I didn't see him in here today. He came he showed me something that somebody has a software patch.
20:11:03 Oh, there you are, Mr. Lockwood. He somebody has a software patch that allows you to run more modern software on older machines.
20:11:13 I'm definitely not a fan of this because a it violates apple's license agreement, which is one issue, but the more important one is in order to install the new software you have to disable the security on
20:11:25 your old machine. so updating your computer with a more secure operating system by disabling all the security, not some of the security.
20:11:38 All the security on your existing machine is not a great idea.
20:11:40 And the other problem is that the your older machine? it is gonna have a slower processor, slower video card, so on, so forth.
20:11:48 So I just if it's not compatible with that machine I wouldn't try.
20:11:52 So I just need to buy a new laptop. yes, I will tell you that.
20:12:02 If you have an existing flat screen, monitor and keyboard.
20:12:08 The Mac Mini is less expensive than a laptop.
20:12:11 A lot of people buy Laptops because they say they don't take a much rich space, but a Mac Mini is about the size of a stack of Dvds.
20:12:18 They take up very little space they've really quite powerful. but you have to supply your own mouse your own keyboard.
20:12:26 You're a monitor, and if you want a webcam you have to have a webcam.
20:12:30 So it's it's not necessarily a huge savings and money.
20:12:36 But a Mac mini is a very powerful machine, and a lot of people overlook it as a as a possibility.
20:12:42 Laptops You're paying extra because it's got all that stuff built in, and also to make it light.
20:12:50 The engineering to do that is is expensive.
20:13:02 And then use your old, and use your old keyboard and mouse
20:13:16 A lot of people say. Well, it's only a 24 inch screen, and I need something bigger.
20:13:20 It's a really bright very dense 24 inch screen.
20:13:25 So don't I don't just because it's not physically large, doesn't mean you don't like it.
20:13:30 It's very fascinating just amazingly crisp display, and it's also cheaper than a laptop.
20:13:39 So it's worth looking at. the at the imac, one that one slight downer for the imac that the cell at Costco they sell the low end costco one as low in model which means it has a small amount of
20:13:53 storage, and it doesn't have as much ram if you want more ram and more storage.
20:13:58 You have to buy it from apple but I would definitely look at you know, if you have a laptop that you're replacing, ask yourself if you really need a laptop because a Mac mini, or on imac are really very
20:14:12 nice machines. Good. thanks. I have a question I just tried to go, and de delete an app that I haven't used for a lot of years, and it asks for the password and I don't know what the
20:14:32 password is it's the password you use to log into your machine.
20:14:36 It's not a password to the to the app log into the machine.
20:14:41 You are the admin user and it's asking for the admin password perfect.
20:14:45 Thank you. One last thing I want to share with you before we go because it, if you're talking about moving old apps, something that you might want to look into, and that is and application that is, free.
20:15:06 And it's called app cleaner and with app cleaner you drag the application here's your list of applications.
20:15:15 You drag one of them onto app cleaner like a bit defended, which is an anti virus thing.
20:15:21 You drag it onto. Yeah, because i'm using stage manager it doesn't want me to drag it on there, so i'll turn it off.
20:15:32 And I need to close some of this stuff
20:15:40 Don't say this is why stage manager is handy Because you've got all this stuff cluttering up your desktop when I drag this bit cleaner onto my app cleaner?
20:15:56 It looks where everything is stored on, where all of the stuff from bit cleaner stored on my drive.
20:16:03 So, instead of just getting rid of it out of the applications folder, it looks inside of other.
20:16:07 The directories where parts of bit cleaner are stored, and it offers to get rid of that too.
20:16:14 I really highly recommend app cleaner it's a free program and in order to find it.
20:16:20 You go into Google and you type app cleaner and then say, Mac, because there might be other applicators out there, and you come here.
20:16:34 It says it's available at free soft and you say that you want to download version 6 for mohammed right? Actually, it's not it's not updated for ventura but does make the difference.
20:16:51 We're gonna download this, anyway. you click on it says do you want to allow downloads, you say allow?
20:16:57 And you download app theater but it doesn't cost you anything at all.
20:17:00 It doesn't leave any leftovers when it Deletes programs, which is why I like it, and it's also got a really good price.
20:17:09 Nothing for next month, if kathleen and I We've been really busy, and it's Kathleen's clergy, and it's that time of year when clergy get really busy but if we have
20:17:25 time. We want to do a presentation on health applications for your phone, for your ipad, for your Mac for your watch.
20:17:37 Do a presentation on that, because you might decide for the holidays that you might want to get an apple watch, or something. that, among other things, will help you with your health.
20:17:48 We'll We'll plan on doing that in December, and she's going to be doing most of that because she's Dr.
20:17:57 Kathleen, and i'm not any questions Yes, yes, this is off the subject a little bit.
20:18:08 But what do you think about hide my app and what's?
20:18:12 What's the pros and cons of hide my app hi my ?
20:18:17 I had my email let me. Oh, hi! my email apple.
20:18:21 Does that? Because if you, when you register with a lot of sites, you have to give them your name.
20:18:27 Address phone number blood type with Mexican and I actually have email addresses for that, so that when I go to some place that I really don't care about through stuff, I have a Google address that I use with to track down hackers But it's
20:18:39 not my name. it's not my information and I use that address when somebody wants to have my name for to allow me to see their catalog prices.
20:18:51 Something like that. What hide my app does is it makes that part of apple mail so that you don't have to have multiple email addresses.
20:19:00 You just use your own, and when you go to this place and it wants to know your email address, the Mac will generate an email address to be used just with that site and it keeps track of it.
20:19:14 It still comes into your regular mailbox. but in their records your email addresses X, Y. Z.
20:19:20 L Kw: it's it's some piece of nonsense and it it. It hides your identity so that if they have a data breach and they get your email address and phone number the email address and the phone number and and your local
20:19:35 address that all of that could be garbage just stuff that you use.
20:19:39 Use the post office, you know. 240 south sunny side swim, Washington.
20:19:44 That's your address and this phony email address and give it information as your phone number and that way.
20:19:52 If they have a data breach it doesn't hurt you this isn't for things where you actually spend money.
20:19:56 So you know Sears is gonna want your to see your still exist.
20:20:01 But vendors that you actually deal business with your.
20:20:04 You want to give him a legit things but for things like my mother subscribed to all of these clothing catalogs.
20:20:11 They didn't really need all that they just wanted stuff that they could market things to her.
20:20:16 So you say, hide my email address and that way they'll spare this fake email address, and you can just say everything from this address.
20:20:23 Just send it directly to junk and that way you don't have to deal with it. And if they have a data breach, they get nothing useful.
20:20:33 Okay, I I did that with the I signed up for a webinar, and I thought, oh, I'll do that.
20:20:38 Well, then it screwed everything up and they didn't recognize me, and I couldn't get for things where your identity is important.
20:20:49 You know you want to use a a real account name with the Irs and with your bank and things like that.
20:20:54 But but for things like Etsy is running a free contest to get a boat that has a crochet cover.
20:21:04 Why anyone would want that. I don't know but say you want to sign up for that.
20:21:08 But you don't want to get the rest of the etsy advertising.
20:21:10 Then you use one of these, hide my email and it signs up.
20:21:14 And if you win the contest great, and if you don't then you can just delete that fake email address, and you won't get any more.
20:21:21 Email. Okay, Thank you. Any questions. Okay, Thank you so much. Thank you.