Tips and tricks for Mac users

#1 · #1 by **The_Metatron** » Oct 10, 2017 9:54 pm

I upgraded the OS on my iPad pro monster to the newest iOS. Here's the old home screen:

: iOS 10.something or other; IMG_0442.jpg (1.69 MiB) Viewed 4137 times

Here's the new iOS:

: iOS 11.something new; IMG_0453.jpg (1.8 MiB) Viewed 4137 times

Upgrading was uneventful. Nothing broke. At first glance, I like the task bar that shows the last three used applications on the right of the break.

#2 · #2 by **The_Metatron** » Oct 10, 2017 10:15 pm

I finally found someone who understood the problem and found the solution.

What I sought was a keyboard shortcut that would instantly take the computer to the login window (assuming fast user switching is enabled). A fellow with a username of Ant on macyourself.com wrote an article, How to lock your Mac screen with a keyboard shortcut.

Ant wrote:When you need to temporarily leave your Mac unattended, it’s a hassle to put it to sleep and wake it up again. What’s the quickest way? Set up a simple keyboard shortcut that shows your Mac’s login screen without logging you out.

...

It's instructions to use Automator to create a little shell script, then modify the keyboard shortcuts in system preferences to run that script.

Command-L, as I stand up from my desk. Sweet.

#3 · #3 by **Agrippina** » Oct 11, 2017 10:46 am

Mine's just set to lock and need a password after five minutes. Annoying for me, but great for when people are visiting and being curious. I haven't found anything special in High Sierra, except that Photos has been upgraded a little with new tools. Also I like that Notes is more useful than just a place to store things I want to remember.

I'd love to test the new iOS on an iPad, unfortunately both of ours are too old for the new one, and it isn't the same on the phones. So scheming how to get a new iPad next year.

#4 · #4 by **Blackadder** » Oct 11, 2017 11:42 am

The_Metatron wrote:I finally found someone who understood the problem and found the solution.

What I sought was a keyboard shortcut that would instantly take the computer to the login window (assuming fast user switching is enabled). A fellow with a username of Ant on macyourself.com wrote an article, How to lock your Mac screen with a keyboard shortcut.

Ant wrote:When you need to temporarily leave your Mac unattended, it’s a hassle to put it to sleep and wake it up again. What’s the quickest way? Set up a simple keyboard shortcut that shows your Mac’s login screen without logging you out.

...

It's instructions to use Automator to create a little shell script, then modify the keyboard shortcuts in system preferences to run that script.

Command-L, as I stand up from my desk. Sweet.

I use a hot corner on my screen that immediately locks the screen when I move the cursor to it. Did you consider this option?

#5 · #5 by **Macdoc** » Oct 11, 2017 11:53 am

Just a word of warning ...High SIerra on a Mac should not be touched yet ....here be dragons.
IOS tho it has a lot of advanatages for iPad users.

#6 · #6 by **Agrippina** » Oct 11, 2017 3:11 pm

Ooops. Too late. No dragons yet.

#7 · #7 by **Macdoc** » Oct 11, 2017 4:57 pm

High Sierra Aggie??? not just Sierra?

#8 · #8 by **The_Metatron** » Oct 11, 2017 5:03 pm

Blackadder wrote:
The_Metatron wrote:I finally found someone who understood the problem and found the solution.

What I sought was a keyboard shortcut that would instantly take the computer to the login window (assuming fast user switching is enabled). A fellow with a username of Ant on macyourself.com wrote an article, How to lock your Mac screen with a keyboard shortcut.

Ant wrote:When you need to temporarily leave your Mac unattended, it’s a hassle to put it to sleep and wake it up again. What’s the quickest way? Set up a simple keyboard shortcut that shows your Mac’s login screen without logging you out.

...

It's instructions to use Automator to create a little shell script, then modify the keyboard shortcuts in system preferences to run that script.

Command-L, as I stand up from my desk. Sweet.

That’s close, but not quite the same. I had that active, but it doesn’t take you to the login screen, it only acts on my session.

Sent from my completely solar powered iPad using Tapatalk

#9 · #9 by **felltoearth** » Oct 11, 2017 9:46 pm

Blackadder wrote:
The_Metatron wrote:I finally found someone who understood the problem and found the solution.

What I sought was a keyboard shortcut that would instantly take the computer to the login window (assuming fast user switching is enabled). A fellow with a username of Ant on macyourself.com wrote an article, How to lock your Mac screen with a keyboard shortcut.

Ant wrote:When you need to temporarily leave your Mac unattended, it’s a hassle to put it to sleep and wake it up again. What’s the quickest way? Set up a simple keyboard shortcut that shows your Mac’s login screen without logging you out.

...

It's instructions to use Automator to create a little shell script, then modify the keyboard shortcuts in system preferences to run that script.

Command-L, as I stand up from my desk. Sweet.

I use a hot corner on my screen that immediately locks the screen when I move the cursor to it. Did you consider this option?

Holy shit, how much do I hate hot corners.

**#10** · **#10** by **Agrippina** » Oct 12, 2017 6:34 am

Macdoc wrote:High Sierra Aggie??? not just Sierra?

https://www.macworld.com/article/3199825/macs/macos-high-sierra-features-specs-pricing-faq.html

**#11** · **#11** by **Agrippina** » Oct 12, 2017 6:50 am

There are various settings in System Preferences that you can set up to lock the computer among them: display, screen saver, and in security and privacy, general settings, you can set it up to lock and require a password at whatever time lapse you want. I have mine set to five minutes. I just close the screen, which then needs it to open the display when it's opened.

**#12** · **#12** by **BlackBart** » Oct 12, 2017 10:19 am

Macdoc wrote:Just a word of warning ...High SIerra on a Mac should not be touched yet ....here be dragons.

I though Macs were just supposed to...work. :eh:

**#13** · **#13** by **Agrippina** » Oct 12, 2017 10:22 am

They do, and it does. The only problem I've found is that my computer is a little slower. My son said that when he was here last month, he's going to up the RAM for me when he visits in December.

**#14** · **#14** by **Macdoc** » Oct 15, 2017 2:53 pm

I though Macs were just supposed to...work.

It's the shift away from HFS that will break older things. There will be benefits but headaches too in the implementation.

http://noodlemac.com/2016/06/goodbye-to ... le-system/

These guys update regularly

http://www.techradar.com/how-to/macos-1 ... o-fix-them

13 is unlucky don't ja know

**#15** · **#15** by **Cito di Pense** » Oct 15, 2017 4:41 pm

The_Metatron wrote:I finally found someone who understood the problem and found the solution.

What I sought was a keyboard shortcut that would instantly take the computer to the login window (assuming fast user switching is enabled). A fellow with a username of Ant on macyourself.com wrote an article, How to lock your Mac screen with a keyboard shortcut.

Ant wrote:When you need to temporarily leave your Mac unattended, it’s a hassle to put it to sleep and wake it up again. What’s the quickest way? Set up a simple keyboard shortcut that shows your Mac’s login screen without logging you out.

...

It's instructions to use Automator to create a little shell script, then modify the keyboard shortcuts in system preferences to run that script.

Command-L, as I stand up from my desk. Sweet.

In any event, if you leave your machine unattended for as little as five minutes, somebody with a bootable external drive who knows what she's doing can make your system FUBAR within that time frame.

**#16** · **#16** by **The_Metatron** » Oct 15, 2017 8:39 pm

Cito di Pense wrote:
The_Metatron wrote:I finally found someone who understood the problem and found the solution.

What I sought was a keyboard shortcut that would instantly take the computer to the login window (assuming fast user switching is enabled). A fellow with a username of Ant on macyourself.com wrote an article, How to lock your Mac screen with a keyboard shortcut.

Ant wrote:When you need to temporarily leave your Mac unattended, it’s a hassle to put it to sleep and wake it up again. What’s the quickest way? Set up a simple keyboard shortcut that shows your Mac’s login screen without logging you out.

...

It's instructions to use Automator to create a little shell script, then modify the keyboard shortcuts in system preferences to run that script.

Command-L, as I stand up from my desk. Sweet.

In any event, if you leave your machine unattended for as little as five minutes, somebody with a bootable external drive who knows what she's doing can make your system FUBAR within that time frame.

Good luck getting to my firmware to try it. From the recovery (command-R while booting) screen, you can set a password for the firmware. Without that password, you can't get to the recovery screen, from where you would specify a boot from an external drive.

If you set it, you better not ever forget it. It is not recoverable.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questio ... rnal-media

: firmware.jpg (70.91 KiB) Viewed 3954 times

**#17** · **#17** by **Agrippina** » Oct 16, 2017 8:02 am

O/T LOL Scot loves trolling the things he hates. Enjoy Scot, we've grown to know and love you for your curmudgeonliness. :grin:

On the slowness of my Mac. The most obvious solution was to reboot it. I just leave it "on" by closing the lid when I'm not using it, so it never does any cleaning up of all the garbage in its short term memory, (hmmm maybe I shouldn't turn myself off at night then I won't forget so much). Anyway, I was talking to one of the kids on Friday, mentioned that High Sierra had made it feel like it was walking through mud. He asked if I'd restarted it after downloading the upgrade. Of course I hadn't. Did that, and now it's running smoothly again. He suggested doing that every few days, of course if I can remember. Still I would like more RAM.

**#18** · **#18** by **Cito di Pense** » Oct 16, 2017 1:59 pm

The_Metatron wrote:
Good luck getting to my firmware to try it.

Ah, right. I know about that. I just don't have any top double secret probation shit on my machine that would justify it. I do keep six or eight backups of my data in various undisclosed locations in case of fire or theft. Data I want to privacy-protect goes on an encrypted disk image. Sure, somebody with enough time and interest could probably get it sorted. In the long run, we're all dead, so I'm tending toward the egoless. Just not very enthusiastically.

**#19** · **#19** by **The_Metatron** » Oct 16, 2017 3:48 pm

Cito di Pense wrote:
The_Metatron wrote:
Good luck getting to my firmware to try it.

Ah, right. I know about that. I just don't have any top double secret probation shit on my machine that would justify it. I do keep six or eight backups of my data in various undisclosed locations in case of fire or theft. Data I want to privacy-protect goes on an encrypted disk image. Sure, somebody with enough time and interest could probably get it sorted. In the long run, we're all dead, so I'm tending toward the egoless. Just not very enthusiastically.

When I move house, which is more frequent than I’d prefer, I hand carry my time capsule to the new location. I figure it doesn’t do a lot of good to have a backup of my systems if I ship the backup in the same box as the computers.

Sent from my completely solar powered iPad using Tapatalk

**#20** · **#20** by **felltoearth** » Oct 16, 2017 5:18 pm

Root level shit on a Mac REQUIRES a password, even when logged in. You need to be an admin to install anything, and all admins are password protected. There's no fucking around.