Category Archives: Mac

The First thing you need to do with your New Laptop

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Protect your Battery

I certainly should have made this post along time ago. One of the things I tell people when I set up a new laptop for them is that it’s very important for them to “season” the battery so that the battery understands the full capacity and can recharge to that capacity.

The typical estimated life of a Lithium-Ion battery is about three to 5 years or 300 to 500 charge cycles, whichever occurs first. One charge cycle is a period of use from fully charged, to fully discharged, and fully recharged again. But long before the Battery begins to fail, the capacity of the battery becomes reduced.

Rechargeable Lithium-Ion batteries have a limited life and will gradually lose their capacity to hold a charge. This loss of capacity (aging) is irreversible. As the battery loses capacity, the length of time it will power the product (run time) decreases.  There are some things you can do to a new laptop battery to ensure the battery works to its full capacity.  

Here are the simple steps to ensure you get the most out of that new laptop battery.

1
Connect your laptop’s power cord and allow it to fully charge.

2
Unplug the laptop once it is charged .

3
Use the computer until you receive a warning that the battery is nearly empty. Save any open documents to prevent data loss.

4
Continue to use the laptop until the battery is completely drained .

5
Reconnect the laptop’s power cord and allow it to recharge to full capacity. You may use the machine while it is recharging, but do not unplug it until it is finished.

Once you do that, you can now recharge and use the battery on your laptop as you normally would.  But, to avoid premature reduction in your battery capacity, be sure to use it on battery at least once in a while.

Maximum Battery life is achieved if you charge the laptop fully, then use it on battery until it tells you it needs to be charged.  While we cant use our devices in that way all the time, letting the laptop fully discharge, at least some of the time, is always the best way to avoid early battery problems.

Touch ID for my MacBook Pro 2019 Doesn’t work after Update

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Q:  Since I have updated to Big Sur I have not been able to use my Touch ID for my MacBook Pro purchased in 2019, I have tried to shut down and reboot again several times to no avail, the preference will not take the addition of my Touch ID. Any suggestions.

A: This is likely a corruption in the settings for the System Management Controller or SMC.  Performing a SMC reset will likely fix the problem.

For 2019 MacBook Pros with the T2 chip here is the procedure:

1. Choose Apple menu > Shut Down and wait for your Mac to shut down.
2. Press and hold the power button for 10 seconds.
3. Release the power button, then wait a few seconds.
4. Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.

If that doesn’t resolve the issue, follow these steps:

1. Choose Apple menu > Shut Down and wait for your Mac to shut down.
2. Press and hold the right Shift key, the left Option key, and the left Control key for 7 seconds. Your Mac might turn on and show the Apple logo on its display. Keep holding those keys while you also press and hold the power button for another 7 seconds. If your Mac turned on when you first pressed the keys, it turns off at this point.
3. Release all three keys and the power button, then wait a few seconds.
4. Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.

You may need to then remove the stored fingerprint and set it up again.   If you have a different Mac and need to reset the SMC, check out Apple’s Support Note on the subject.

What to do when your Mac is Frozen….

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You know that frustrating, annoying, sometimes panicked feeling you get when your Mac isn’t doing what you expect? If an application freezes or your computer is generally misbehaving, here are a few things to try to get it working again.

Use Force Quit when an application is unresponsive. Choose Force Quit from the Apple menu.

Click the name of the deviant application (it probably has not responding next to its name). You typically won’t have to reboot.

Restart. If Force Quit doesn’t work or does not respond, try rebooting the computer. If a frozen Mac prevents you from clicking the Restart command on the Apple menu, hold down the power button for several until the screen goes black, then press the power button. If all else fails,  and the machine is a desktop, pull the plug, but remember that powering down without logging out should be used only as a last resort.

The power button is usually obvious on desktop machines but where is the power button on new MacBooks?

Look for the unmarked black square (Touch ID/power button) above the delete key
On older MacBooks you’ll see the power icon on the top right key

On the left: power button/Touch ID on 2016 and later MacBook Pro models. On the right: 2018 MacBook Air power button/Touch ID

On the left: power button/Touch ID on 2016 and later MacBook Pro models. On the right: 2018 MacBook Air power button/Touch ID

 

 

Scan Your Computer Using Malwarebytes

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Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a tool that allows you to scan your computer to find and remove malware like viruses and spyware.

To start your first scan, click [Scan] after it opens.

The scan may take several minutes.
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware will now start scanning. When the scan finishes, a screen will show any malware that was detected, if any was detected.

What Do I Do if MalwareBytes Finds Threats on my Computer?
If malware has been found on your computer, you may remove it by following the prompts within MalwareBytes once the scan is finished to view the report and to quarantine the threats. To manage them quarantined threats after a scan has already been completed, click [Detection History] on the main page. Once the scan has been complete and the threats have been quarantined, the system may require you to reboot the computer. When the computer restarts, do another scan to verify that there are no continuing threats.

Update Malwarebytes
To update Malwarebytes once it has already been installed, do the following:

Launch Malwarebytes.
On the launch page, click the gear icon in the top-right corner to view the settings. Click the [About] button on the far right corner. The currently installed version of MalwareBytes will appear on the left. Click the [Check for Updates] button to check for updates. If no update is found, you currently have the latest version installed. If you are prompted to install an update, install the update and do another scan on your computer.
After Malwarebytes has been updated, scan your computer.

Scan Your Computer
To scan your computer with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware after your initial scan, do the following:

Launch Malwarebytes.
Make sure Malwarebytes is up to date (see above).
Click the [Scan] button.
Let the scan progress. If threats are found, follow the prompts to quarantine the threats.

You now have successfully scanned your computer using MalwareBytes.

Apple Silicon MacBook Air is Amazing!

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I am really liking my new MacBook Air. The performance of this machine is amazing. Initially I had a few problems with some applications that weren’t quite ready for Apple Silicon yet, but as of today, every application I use is either Apple Silicon ready or runs extremely well in Rosetta 2. It’s actually pretty amazing to think that Apple has turned this major change around so successfully. In just a little over a month, Apple released new machines, delivered them, and was successful in getting developers to make sure their applications all run just fine on them.

I’ve been around the Macintosh community for a long time. I remember the transition from PowerPC to Intel. It was quite painful. Many applications didn’t work initially, and some never were able to be made to work.  But this time, everything is changed. Apple has provided such high performance in the initial offerings that developers realize they must keep up. And they have.

When I initially installed my applications on the new MacBook Air, I had a couple of major ones that I was unable to get to work at all. First off, I use a program called ScreenFlow to do video capture of the computer screen. I realize I could do that in QuickTime, but screen flow just makes it much simpler, and provides the ability to be able to do so many additional things, it’s just one of those applications I have to have. But as of now, screen flow not only runs in Apple Silicon, it’s been made to be M1 compliant. That means they did the conversion to make it function at a high-level.

The other major application was google back up and sync. This is the app that runs in the background and copies your Google drive down to your computer so that you have direct access to the files. Initially it didn’t work but today, I ran the application and all of a sudden everything works fine now. I suspect this was a result of either a Google update, or an Apple update that took care of the problem. Either way, everything works great now.

This leaves just one problem that I’m having on the new Apple Silicon device. I have a printer, a Canon PIXMA pro 100.  This printer, has an application that runs inside photo shop that allows me to print color matching photographs. Unfortunately, this application is so poorly written that every version of macOS breaks it. It’s actually pretty distressing after spending money on a printer that Canon uses so few resources for their macOS software that they can’t seem to get it right. Time after time it takes months for this plugin software to get fixed. And unfortunately, that printer is no longer manufactured so I don’t exactly know what to expect with it. I’m not holding this out as a major issue, but I will continue to check to see if that driver gets updated.

Overall, so far I’m highly impressed with Apple’s new Apple Silicon devices. Keep in mind, these are just the first three models that have been released, as new models are released, I’m sure they’ll add additional features, and additional performance. But overall, this MacBook Air is a keeper.

First Impression: New Apple Silicon Macs

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I had the opportunity to work with one of the new MacBook airs and I have to say it’s amazingly fast. Very smooth, very clean, pretty much anything compiled for that new processor just happens, doesn’t really take a lot of time.

Even apps that are not compiled for it, that running emulation, a pretty darn fast to. Maybe even faster than on an Intel machine.

But it’s not without it’s problems at this point. A few developers, need to get their butts in gear, and make their applications work. Poorly written, or older programs have problems.  One I ran into was the Google back up and sync that copies your Google drive down to your computer.  It won’t run at all. Google has acknowledged the problem, but has yet to say when they’ll fix it.

I have Printer Driver issues with the Canon Pixma Pro series printers.  Canon has a Photoshop plugin that prints very well but is badly written and breaks with every update.  It is broken again.

Also from some research I did, screen flow doesn’t run at all either. Kind of surprised. I thought these guys were pretty much on top of things but in this case, they’re gonna need to modify. They’ve also acknowledged the problem and say they’ve got a fix in the works.

Overall, these are gonna be great machines. Possibly even revolutionary in the performance they give at a very low price point.

It’s become pretty obvious to me I need to get familiar with them to keep my skill level up. These are the future.

Give developers a couple of months, and I could probably give it a qualified buy rating. 

Today’s the Day: MacOS 11 Big Sur Release…… Please Wait…..

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Well today’s the day. Apple is releasing macOS 11 Big Sur and many people will be rushing to get the latest and greatest operating system released from Apple. But I’d like to give you a couple of good reasons as to why this year, may not be the year that you want to be first on the list with the latest operating system.

It’s been at least 12 years since Apple moved to Mac OS X. That’s a long time to be using the same code base each year and adding features to it. This year Apple has called the release macOS 11 on purpose. It is a major update to the Mac operating system designed to prepare the world for Apple Silicon processors. Apple has said that they are going to continue to update the Mac running Intel processors for quite a while in the future. We know they’ll continue to sell Intel Macs for the next two years, but with Apple Silicon Macs having been released, the hand writing may be on the wall for future updates.

First off, it’s important to note that the Mac you have today is going to be just as good tomorrow. This doesn’t mean we need to run out and buy a new computer and in fact I’d probably hesitate to do that until a lot of the bugs are worked out in the new Apple Silicon Macs. Doing that kind of testing and evaluation is what people like me live for. But for an average user, using their machine to actually do productive work all the time, and it being their only machine, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to move forward today.

But the same can be said for macOS 11. So many things will be changing in this release that I suspect the timeframe to update will be drug out a little longer than actually we’ve seen in the past few years. Typically in the past few years I’ve recommended holding off until we get the first point release. That would be 11.1 or possibly 11.01 depending on how Apple names releases going forward.  But this year, the massive changes were going to see as a result of making this operating system very functional with their new Macs, I suspect waiting a little longer might be better.

So even though today’s the day, if I were you, I’d take a wait and see attitude and put off even the consideration of updating until sometime around the first of the year. Give it a month and a half and will see how things are running.

But if you’re one of those people that just can’t wait, please be sure you have at least one and if possible to back ups of your machine as it stands prior to the update. There’s nothing worse than going in and trying to fix a bad update by rolling the machine back only to find out the back up is either old or not good.

I have all the believe in the world that Apple will make this the best operating system it’s ever released.  And that day will all look back and wonder as to how they made all of the changes work. But just keep in mind, today is not that day…

Can your Mac Move Forward this Fall?

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Apple has already announced this falls update to MacOS. It is looking like they will call MacOS 11.  After about 15 years running MacOS 10, we will finally see the version number clock click over by one.  But what does that really mean to you?  It may well mean your Mac will be left behind.

Apple had also announced that they will be moving to new Apple Silicon processors and ditching the intel processors being used today.  But MacOS 11 “Big Sur” will be running on both the new processors we will see later in the year and on the Intel processors we have. But not all machine running 10.15, “Catalina”, will be able to run the new OS.  Here is what Apple’s website says about this falls update compatibility.

What you will notice is that across the board, most machines have been increased by 1 year.  Where this year, the compatibility date was generally 2012, next year, it moves to 2013 or newer.  That seems reasonable.  SO where do you look to see which machine you have?

Go to the apple Menu, and select About this Mac.  You should see a dialog similar to this one.

This will tell you if your machine will be able to move forward to the new features of MacOS “Big Sur”.

If your machine is older than this, it might be time to begin the thought process of planning for a replacement.

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