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macOS is Apple's operating system.
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Bitcoin waxy.org

The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every modern copy of macOS

Andy Baio with the eagle eyes šŸ¦…

While trying to fix my printer today, I discovered that a PDF copy of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin whitepaper apparently shipped with every copy of macOS since Mojave in 2018.

I’ve asked over a dozen Mac-using friends to confirm, and it was there for every one of them. The file is found in every version of macOS from Mojave (10.14.0) to the current version, Ventura (13.3), but isn’t in High Sierra (10.13) or earlier.

Well that’s a fun bit of trivia! But why?

Is there a secret Bitcoin maxi working at Apple? The filename is ā€œsimpledoc.pdfā€ and it’s only 184 KB. Maybe it was just a convenient, lightweight multipage PDF for testing purposes, never meant to be seen by end users.

Docker paolomainardi.com

Docker on macOS is slow and how to fix it

We don’t normally include how-tos in Changelog News, but I’m making an exception for this post because a) it goes deep on how Docker works on macOS, and b) this is a problem that plagues so many of us that I thought it worth pointing to a solution.

There’s also a nice bit about Development Containers at the end, which are quite promising, indeed.

Ars Technica Icon Ars Technica

The Ars Technica review of macOS 13 Ventura

Long past are the days when I’d upgrade my production OS on day/week one, but I do try to read at least one or two reviews of the latest macOS to see how much of my FOMO is well-placed. And if you’re going to read just one review, it might as well be Ars Technica’s…

I haven’t waded into the depth of this review yet, but the opener has me underwhelmed:

The throughline for all these features is about making the Mac more welcoming and comfortable for people who come to it through one of Apple’s mobile platforms…

But when was the last time that the Finder, the Dock, or the Menu Bar was given a substantial, non-cosmetic rethink? When did Apple last make major improvements to the way that windows coexist on a given screen? The Mac does get new under-the-hood features that are specific to it, but the headline features are mostly iOS and iPadOS imports, especially this year.

I would absolutely love for Apple to rethink Finder! Having said that, the fact that this reviewer is down with Stage Manager on macOS despite how terrible I’ve heard it is on iOS is intriguing…

Stage Manager differs from standard macOS multitasking by offering a column of recently used apps on the side of your screen (it’s the left-hand side by default, but it will switch if you’ve got your Dock set to use the left-hand side of your screen instead). But unlike minimizing or maximizing an app from the Dock, each ā€œstageā€ can contain multiple app windows from multiple apps; switch from one stage to another, and every window on that stage will pop back up on your screen in exactly the arrangement you were using before.

It’s off by default, thank goodness, but I would like to give this a try and see how it maps to my way of window/app management. Have you tried Stage Manager on macOS? What do you think? How does it compare to iOS?

Tw93 miaoyan.app

MiaoYan - A markdown Mac note-taking app for engineers

šŸ‚ Fantastic – local use, security, syntax highlighting, dark mode, source file saving, international, presentation mode, PPT Mode, single edit mode, export file, internal jump, document auto typesetting, picture upload, LaTeX, Mermaid, PlantUML, Markmap.

šŸŽŠ Beauty – minimalist design style, folder + file list + editor 3 column mode.

šŸš„ā€ Fast – using Swift5 native development, the performance experience is much better compared to the Web.

šŸ„› Simple – very light, pure editor input experience, many shortcut keys to help you fast.

macOS marta.sh

A native, extensible & fast file manager for macOS

Marta is a dual-pane file manager that’s super customizable and theme-able, too. It has an Actions Panel like Sublime Text and VS Code where you can work with files, interact with the operating system, or modify Marta itself. But for my money time, if it can remember the state of how I left things the last time… it’s far better than Finder already!

A native, extensible & fast file manager for macOS

Changelog Interviews Changelog Interviews #492

Two decades as a solo indie Mac dev

This week Jesse Grosjean joins us to talk about his career as a solo indie Mac dev. Since 2004 Jesse has been building Mac apps under the company name Hog Bay Software producing hits such as WriteRoom, Taskpaper, and now Bike. We talk through the evolution of his apps, how he considers new features and improvements, why he chose and continues to choose the Mac platform, his business model and pricing for his apps, and what it takes to build his business around macOS and the driving force of the App Store.

Terence Eden shkspr.mobi

Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu

A solid rant by Terence Eden, who has to use macOS for work but would rather not:

I know you’re going to be tempted to reply with ā€œyou’re using it wrongā€ - but I’m not. This is how I like to use my computer. And it is clear that the MacBook isn’t my computer - it is Apple’s. (OK, OK! It belongs to my employer!)

Some of his grievances like window snapping and moving/removing UI elements can be alleviated with 3rd-party solutions, but he’s not wrong that the operating system doesn’t provide these features.

WebAssembly blog.persistent.info

Infinite Mac: an instant-booting Quadra in your browser

Mihai Parparita:

It’s a golden age of emulation. Between increasing CPU power, WebAssembly, and retrocomputing being so popular The New York Times is covering it, it’s never been easier to relive your 80s / 90s / 2000s nostalgia. Projects like v86 make it easy to run your chosen old operating system in the browser. My heritage being of the classic Mac line, I was curious what the easiest to use emulation option was in the modern era…

Here’s a video demo of what resulted: a full-featured classic 68K Mac in your browser.

Docker docker.com

Docker Desktop 4.6 promises big speed up for macOS users

I’ve avoided using Docker Desktop on my Mac like you avoid those 16-seeds in your March Madness bracket. Why? Because it’s dog slow. But not anymore?

The 4.6 release of Docker Desktop for Mac contains a number of changes that drastically improve file sharing performance for macOS users. Firstly, developers now have the option of using a new experimental file sharing implementation called virtiofs (the current default is gRPC-FUSE). Secondly, improvements have been made to the way that files are synced between the macOS host and Docker VM. During testing with our amazing macOS community of users, we have observed that these changes have reduced the time taken to complete filesystem operations by up to 98%.

virtiofs is an experimental feature, so you need to enable it to realize these gains.

Command line interface github.com

AirDrop files directly from your CLI with OpenDrop

OpenDrop is a command-line tool that allows sharing files between devices directly over Wi-Fi. Its unique feature is that it is protocol-compatible with Apple AirDrop which allows to share files with Apple devices running iOS and macOS.

Super cool, but with a disclaimer: this is the result of reverse engineering the transfer protocol, so the odds of it being flakey (especially as Apple ships OS updates) are high. It’d be rad if Apple would publish an AirDrop-compatible specification for the community to rally around.

You know, like they did with FaceTime. šŸ˜‰

macOS launchd.info

The best resource for launchd on macOS

As mentioned on Backstage #20, I’m automating a few rsync commands using cron and Cronitor to backup my ā€œProductionā€ files to the Storinator AV15 on the local network.

It turns out that cron on macOS is frowned upon in favor of launchd, but information on how to use all the power of launchd is sparse to say the least. This resource is the best I’ve found in learning all the parts of launchd and how to use it.

Ask me anything in the comments, I’ll tell you everything I’ve learned.

Backstage Backstage #20

New Mac day!

We upgraded to the new MacBook Pro M1 Max and decided to share our first impressions of the new hardware, how we migrate data and settings from our old machines (or don’t), which apps were ā€œinstant installsā€ for each of us, which apps we’re trying to live without, and how we get our new machines set up for work and play. Nerd out with us!

macOS danpetrov.xyz

The secret of the macOS Monterey network quality tool

TIL Apple added a networkQuality utility to Monterey which measures the quality of your device’s internet connection much like speedtest.net and fast.com.

Ī» networkQuality
==== SUMMARY ====
Upload capacity: 14.696 Mbps
Download capacity: 21.661 Mbps
Upload flows: 20
Download flows: 12
Responsiveness: Low (103 RPM)

What’s interesting about it is that it measures your upload and download in parallel by default, which is more aligned with real-world usage than running them back-to-back like other tests do.

WebKit Blog Icon WebKit Blog

New WebKit features in Safari 15

With the release of Safari 15 for macOS Monterey, iPadOS 15, iOS 15, and watchOS, as well as macOS Big Sur and macOS Catalina, WebKit brings significant advancements in privacy and security, improved interoperability, and a host of new features for web developers. Take a look.

We discussed a few of these in-depth on JS Party #195, but at the time I was referencing the beta features announcement and it was 404ing during the show. This is a much better resource.

Jerod Santo YouTube

Let's use xbar to show changelog.com's real-time visitors in the menu bar

In this video I kick the tires on Mat Ryer’s xbar, an open source utility that lets you ā€œput anything in your macOS menu bar.ā€ I get it to tell us dad jokes, keep us abreast of Covid case counts, and write a custom plugin that pulls from Plausible Analytics to display changelog.com’s real-time visitor count.

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