Macos on myByways

Creating an audiobook (.m4b) with FFmpeg

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Following on from my previous TTS post using Chatterbox Turbo (or any other TTS like Kokoro or Qwen3-TTT), here is code to combine audio files in a single .m4b audiobook retaining author and title metadata, chapter markers, and a cover image. Mostly this is a Python wrapper to FFmpeg.

Chatterbox Turbo TTS with MLX-Audio

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In my last post, I tried Qwen3-TTS… This time, I test Chatterbox Turbo by Resemble.ai, which is an open-source, MIT licensed, text-to-speech model with zero-shot cloning.

Qwen3-TTS with MLX-Audio on macOS

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Alibaba’s Qwen3-TTS for Speech Synthesis (text-to-speech) was open-sourced (Apache-2.0) on 22 Jan 2026. And within the last couple of weeks, we now have Apple Silicon optimization via MLX-Audio. Here is code to create an audiobook from an ePub.

Updating CrossOver to GamePorting Toolkit 3.0

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The current version of CrossOver 25.1.1 utilizes with Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit 2.1. Here is how to update it to use Game Porting Toolkit 3.0 (GPTK), released (updated) on 5 December 2025, which emulates NVIDIA DLSS with MetalFX!

Running Kokoro TTS via macOS Containerisation Framework

Sun, 17 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A short 2-in-1 post of two things I’ve been meaning to try out on macOS - first, to try the new macOS Container framework on macOS 15.5… and second, to spin up Kokoro Text-to-Speech (TTS) in a container.

Using Flux.1 in GGUF format on macOS

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

city96 has published GGUF versions of the Flux1.Dev model and T5 XXL text encoder, along with custom nodes to use them in ComfyUI - thought I’d try them on my M2 Mac mini, hoping for faster inference!

Fun with Llama 3 (8B) in Ollama

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I saw a post on Reddit, entitled “Llama 3 rocks with taking on a personality!”. A fun experiment! I thought to replicate it, blatantly copying the puzzle presented. Llama 3, released by Meta just before the weekend, is impressive.

A game with Mistral 7B using Ollama

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I keep posting about Stable Diffusion, but I do experiment with Large Language Models too! I do not have much to contribute in this regard, instead, here is the transcript of a game I played with the open source Mistral 7B model via Ollama.

Extracting images from PDF files

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Happy new year!

Ever needed to extract images from PDFs and found both on-line and off-line tools lacking? Well, I certainly have, and here I present my Python code to extract JPGs/PNGs from PDFs, using PyMuPDF.

Go even faster with SDXL-Turbo!

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In the span of a couple of weeks, we got Crazy fast image generation with LCM LoRA for SDXL, which led me to ask if I could get Faster Stable Diffusion on M-series macs?. A few hours ago, Stability.ai gave us their response in the form of SDXL-Turbo… and now we go even faster!

Faster Stable Diffusion on M-series macs?

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

All my recent Stable Diffusion XL experiments have been on my Windows PC instead of my M2 mac, because it has a faster Nvidia 2060 GPU with more memory. But today, I’m curious to see how much faster diffusion has gotten on a M-series mac (M2 specifically).

Scale and Composite Latents with SDXL

Sat, 05 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In this post, I experiment with latent scaling and latent compositing with SDXL 1.0 using ComfyUI. That is to say, increasing / decreasing the size of the image, and combining multiple images into one à la green screen (chroma key) compositing.

CLIPSeg with SDXL in ComfyUI

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Onward with SDXL and ComfyUI! Sometimes I want to tweak generated images by replacing selected parts that don’t look good while retaining the rest of the image that does look good. Rather than manually creating a mask, I’d like to leverage CLIPSeg to generate a masks from a text prompt.

SDXL with Offset Example LoRA in ComfyUI for Windows

Sun, 30 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I mentioned in passing that my Nvidia RTX 2060 with 12GB could not run both SDXL 1.0 Base and Refiner models in a single ComfyUI workflow. Today, I show you my workaround and also experiment with adding the SDXL 1.0 Official Offset Example LoRA to the workflow.

Stable Diffusion SDXL 1.0 with ComfyUI

Sat, 29 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Stability.ai has released Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL) 1.0 (26 July 2023)! Time to test it out using a no-code GUI called ComfyUI!

Configure a mouse for macOS trackpad-like gestures

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A short post about setting up a mouse on macOS to mimic trackpad gestures.

Running Steam in Game Porting Toolkit

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In my previous post, I managed to get Whisky, with Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit, working on macOS Ventura without Homebrew. Here I manage to get Steam running after jumping through hoops.

Apple Game Porting Toolkit with Whisky

Mon, 12 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A long time ago, I compiled Wine from scratch on 32-bit macOS Sierra. I lost interest because I never used it. Now after WWDC 2023, everyone is talking about the happy side effect of Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit (GPTK) which uses Wine under the hood to run Windows 10 DirectX 12 games on macOS!

Run code in a macOS Sandbox

Sun, 11 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I sometimes test randomly downloaded code on macOS in a Sandbox that has limited and network access. I posted about this way back in Jan 2017, Creating a macOS Sandbox to run Kodi, and this is a short refresher for me…

Prevent macs from sleeping

Sat, 10 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The current macOS “System Settings” continues to confound me. Did you know you can prevent your mac from sleeping with a setting? I previously thought caffeinate was the only way to achieve this.

File Date Created = Photo / video metadata

Sun, 04 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

When I export photos or videos from Photos.app, I want the file’s Created Date (Created Date in Finder) to be the time the photo or video was taken. Alas, this is not the way Photos works, and setting the date turned out to be more challenging than expected.

Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad battery level

Sun, 30 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Want to check your connected bluetooth device battery level on a mac? Here is one way: using xbar (I am aware there are a bunch of other xbar plugins to do something similar, but I’ve been using my own script before I ever used xbar).

Enabling the macOS Metal Performance HUD

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that macOS has a built-in game performance HUD with a frames per second (FPS) counter, similar using RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS) to display a GPU performance overlay in Windows? Here’s how to enable the Metal Performance HUD.

skhd RunAtLoad launch agent

Sat, 18 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Some time ago, I explained how I setup “Global hotkeys for macOS with skhd”. I mentioned running it automatically upon login via the macOS Launch Daemon but did not detail the steps. So here they are…

Using Rosetta in a UTM Linux VM with Docker on Apple Silicon

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I have been using UTM on M1/M2 macs for all my virtualization needs for a while, but never posted much because it practically works out of the box. Since around October 2022, UTM v4.0.9 on macOS Ventura allows Apple Hypervisor Virtualization Virtual Machines to use Rosetta 2.

Fast external storage for M1/M2 Macs

Sun, 05 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I was recently researching external storage for my Mac, looking for the “fastest” and most “reliable”. There are so many options, and of course, so many different price points! It’s all very confusing: NGFF M.2? NVMe M.2? USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5 Mbps)? USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps)? USB 3.1 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps)? Thunderbolt 3? Thunderbolt 4? USB 4.0?

myByways Simple-SD v1.1 Python script using Safetensors

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Epic Diffusion recently came to my attention, a high-quality merge of various models by John Slegers: “Epîc Diffusion is a general purpose model based on Stable Diffusion 1.x intended to replace the official SD releases as your default model. It is focused on providing high quality output in a wide range of different styles…” Figured I’d give it a spin.

Lite XL text editor on MacOS

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I recently tried Lite XL v2.1.0, a forked and updated version of the original rxi/lite, “A lightweight text editor written in Lua”, on MacOS ARM. Here are some findings.

Fast Stable Diffusion using Core ML on M1

Sun, 18 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Recently (around 14 December 2022), Apple’s Machine Learning Research team published “Stable Diffusion with Core ML on Apple Silicon” with Python and Swift source code optimized for Apple Silicon (M1/M2) on Github apple/ml-stable-diffusion. Here I’m trying it out on a MacBook (though the code also works on iPhones and iPads)…

Disabling macOS Print Job History Files

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know the macOS Printer service (Common UNIX Printing System, or CUPS) keeps a copy of every single print job ever? Here’s how to change this default behaviour.

myByways Simple-SD v1.0 Python script

Sun, 09 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I refactored my previous Stable Diffusion code, to clean up, OO it a little, and add new features like tiling, upscaling, PNG metadata. As I mentioned before, I don’t understand AI/ML… but I do understand programming! So here is my new, more elegant Simple-SD v1.0 Python script.

Adding CLIPSeg automatic masking to Stable Diffusion

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I have more ideas for Stable Diffusion. My nights and weekends are consumed! This time: For inpainting, why create a mask image manually, when A.I. can automatically build a mask from a text prompt? Someone much smarter has already published a paper (arXiv:2112.10003 [cs.CV]), with source code, to do just this!

Stable Diffusion script with inpainting mask

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

More Stable Diffusion! This time attempting to add inpainting / masking based on my previous code, to merge both txt2img.py and img2img.py capabilities, disregarding the out-of-box inpainting.py code, which does not have parameters for positive or negative prompts. Keyword being attempting…

My simplified Stable Diffusion Python script

Wed, 21 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been playing around with the Stable Diffusion scripts a little (to be exact, Ben Firshman’s version). To help me understand the script, I decided to re-write it the way I prefer to use it… either breaking or optimizing it in the process :P

Stable Diffusion image-to-image mode

Sat, 17 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Following from my previous post, AI-generated images with Stable Diffusion on an M1 mac: This time, using the image-to-image script, which takes an input “seed” image, in addition to the text prompt as inputs. In this case the model will use the shapes and colors in the input image as a base for the output AI-generated image.

AI-generated images with Stable Diffusion on an M1 mac

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

There has been a lot of buzz about Stable Diffusion for text-to-image synthesis, which saw its Public Release around 22 Aug 22. You can read more on the Stability.AI blog and try it at Hugging Face. What’s groundbreaking is is that is open source, with a pre-trained downloadable model and modest system requirements, so anyone can try it on their own computer… anyone… like me!

macOS Automator PDF Actions

Wed, 31 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Here is a macOS Automator script to watermark a PDF, and also set metadata like author and title. Followed by a more advanced script to do all that an also set an owner password and access permissions… auto-magically.

Global hotkeys for macOS with skhd

Fri, 26 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’m never quite satisfied with the various methods of creating keyboard shortcuts (hotkeys) on macOS… Here I go again, this time using a small open source utility called skhd - a simple hotkey daemon for macOS.

Browser support for HTTP/3 QUIC

Sun, 31 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been over a year (or two) since three major browsers enabled HTTP/3 using the QUIC protocol over UDP. Chrome and Edge enabled HTTP/3 by default in April 2020 and Firefox followed “shortly after” in April 2021. I am not sure - does Safari in macOS Monterey 12.5, released July 2022, enable HTTP/3 by default?

Script to re-map MacBook Pro function keys

Sun, 19 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In my last post, “Re-mapping physical function keys on MacBook Pros” I used the hidutil tool to re-map the function keys on a Mac without a touchbar. I’ve since created a script to more easily apply changes.

Re-mapping physical function keys on MacBook Pros

Wed, 15 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

One common ask from M1 (Apple Silicon / ARM) MacBook Pro users is to be able to re-define what the top row of physical function keys do, for example, to change the Dictation (F5) key to decrease the keyboard backlight brightness and DND (F6) to increase it, similar to other Macs. Here’s how to do that… and more!

Simple fun: tty-solitaire

Sun, 12 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve not posted anything in a long time, so I thought I’d dig up something from a long time ago. Once boring day, many moons ago, I stumbled upon a simple console-based Solitaire game, tty-solitaire by Murilo Pereira.

macOS PowerPoint custom font and colour theme

Sun, 20 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Ever wonder how to create a custom theme for both fonts and colours (a.k.a. designs) in PowerPoint on macOS? In PowerPoint for Windows, is a GUI to do this, but this is lacking in the macOS version. However, it is still possible via custom XML configuration files.

Multipass for Docker containers on macOS

Thu, 17 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I previously setup Lima as a replacement for Docker Desktop on macOS. A while ago I tried Multipass by Canonical, which makes it really easy to spin up a Ubuntu VM (using Hyperkit) without all the setup and installation typically required with Virtual Box or QEMU.

Remove words from macOS spell check dictionary

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I accidentally added an incorrectly spelt word to the macOS spelling dictionary via an Add to Dictionary menu item. Surprisingly, there was no inverse “remove from dictionary” option to undo this! Additionally, I realized there is no System Preferences page to to edit the custom dictionary. There are two ways to fix this with macOS (but none for iOS).

Shortcut to convert image format and paste - redux

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I was not satisfied with my last macOS Shortcut to convert image format and paste. The simple version forced me to choose between PNG and JPEG, and the complex version was too slow - specifically, the Find All Windows action. So here we go again…

Compiling emf2svg

Fri, 04 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I recently wanted to convert an Windows Enhanced Metafile (EMF) to SVG. I used an open source conversion library called libemf2svg by Carpentier Pierre-Francois (Kakwa).

My macOS Shortcut to Tile Windows

Fri, 19 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In the macOS Monterey Shortcuts Gallery, there are Shortcuts to “Tile Last 2 Windows”, “Tile Last 3 Windows” and “Tile Last 4 Windows”. This is my single combined version for any window (not just the last x).

AirPlay Receiver on an unsupported mac with Monterey

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

While waiting for macOS Universal Control, I wanted to try AirPlay Receiver. Unfortunately, it is not supported (“locked”) on my older macBook. But recently I stumbled upon Mr. Macintosh’s “Airplay BLOCKED on Monterey? How to unlock it!” video on YouTube!

Shortcut to convert image format and paste

Sat, 13 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I have a hangup about Microsoft Office on macOS - it often elects to paste images from the clipboard in TIFF format, instead of PNG or JPG, which results in massive files, be it PowerPoint .PPTX presentations, Word .DOCX documents or Excel .XLSX spreadsheets. Enter: A new macOS Shortcut to convert clipboard images to (lossless) PNG or (lossy) JPG.

Shortcuts on macOS: A review

Sat, 06 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This is an opinion piece on Shortcuts v5.0 (1144.2) for macOS Monterey v12.0.1. Readers of my blog know I use Automator, AppleScripts, and shell scripts to get stuff done. So I was curious to see if I could replace all these with just Shortcuts. TL;DR: no, no I can’t.

Extract Text from a Screenshot with Shortcuts

Tue, 02 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Here is a macOS Shortcut to take a screenshot and extract text from it using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). I find this useful to copy text from e.g. a presentation or video during a virtual call, etc.

Sending keystrokes to an application using Shortcuts for macOS Monterey

Fri, 29 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been trying out Shortcuts on macOS 12 Monterey! I have written about Shortcuts on iOS/iPadOS in the past, so was keen to migrate my automation scripts from Automator or osascript to Shortcuts. Here is the first one: A Shortcut plus global hotkey to an application, leveraging AppleScript/JXA.

Minuscule Lima setup to replace Docker on macOS

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Today’s post will be a long one - recently, Docker announced some changes to the Docker Desktop license, so I figured I’d check out the Lima for macOS instead. As always, I end up complicating things by doing everything my way…

New SF Symbols for VS Code Touch Bar

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A few posts back, I described my no-code approach to customizing my MacBook touch bar in Visual Studio Code, where I used Apple’s SF Symbols 3 Beta icon library. Now, Apple has release a new beta of SF Symbols that makes the process easier!

Viewing man pages in Preview or VS Code

Mon, 06 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I stumbled upon a post entitled “Piping stdout and stderr to Preview” by Erica Sadun - the cool bit that caught my attention was about redirecting man pages (UNIX help) to Preview on macOS. But this got me thinking… to redirect the output to Visual Studio Code instead!

Extracting embedded ZIPs from Office documents

Tue, 10 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I have a plethora of Bash scripts littered throughout my filesystem, many written for one specific purpose and promptly forgotten about (often, just named go.sh!) I thought I share one today - a script to extract embedded ZIP files from Microsoft Office documents created in Windows.

Padding VS Code Touch Bar Extension Icons

Sat, 07 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A couple of posts ago, in my (rather unique, if I may say so myself) zero-code VS Code Touch Bar Extension for Markdown, I used the standard Apple icons in the SF Symbols set. I found them a bit too large for the touchbar, and wated to shirink them slightly by padding them with extra pixels around the image.

The correct way to create a VS Code Touch Bar Extension

Sat, 24 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This is part two, deploying a Visual Studio Code touchbar extension for Markdown notes, using the normal “correct” development method. I’d suggest referring to part one, for my much simpler, zero-code method.

A zero-code VS Code Touch Bar Extension for Markdown

Fri, 23 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This is the first part of a two part series on deploying your own touchbar extension for Visual Studio Code, designed mainly to work with Markdown notes. This post gives you a shortcut method with zero code! The next post will details a more “correct” method. If you don’t already realize - this applies to MacBooks with Touch bars running macOS only.

Shell script to move duplicate files

Fri, 09 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I setup Firefox on macOS to automatically download files to my “Downloads” folder without prompting (under Preferences… > Downloads, and select Save files to… instead of Always ask you where to save files). If there is an existing file with the same name, Firefox appends (1) to the filename (then (2), (3) and so on). Over time, I land up with files with similar file names, which may or may not be identical. This shell script finds and moves duplicate files to a different folder… for subsequent manual deletion.

CoreSimulator Crash Loop

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Last month, one morning, my MacBook (still running Catalina) started behaving strangely - though I was not running anything, it was sluggish as the CPU was too busy and the fans were on high. I traced it to the iOS Simulator service that comes with XCode.

AppleScript to change clipboard image format

Sat, 24 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

For the longest time, I’ve struggled to get the macOS version of Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) to paste images as PNG or JPEG, instead of the default TIFF. TIFFs make the files far larger than they need to be! I’ve resorted to macros, shell scripts, Quick Actions… all paste PNGs (lossless) into MS Office! But I just found another method with AppleScript.

Monitoring MacBook temperature

Sat, 06 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I have been having issues with my Intel Core i7 MacBook Pro - as the notebook heats up, the LCD display starts to die. Initially the display would glitch - black bars or lines of dead pixels would appear at the bottom of the display,. Then these dead portions start to “jump” causing the display to flicker. The glitches progressively affect a larger and larger portion of display, until the display gives up and just just goes blank! Perhaps the flexgate design flaw with the ribbon cable between the motherboard and display…

Creating Windows and macOS VMs

Sun, 29 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Just a bunch of un-related findings that may help when creating Windows and macOS VMs using VirtualBox.

Hide Firefox Toolbar and Tabs in Fullscreen

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I use macOS spaces (virtual desktops) to arrange the various apps I frequently use. I have one space setup with two Firefox windows, in fullscreen Split View mode. But by default, Firefox windows are not really “full screen” for me, in that the tabs, toolbar and bookmarks bar will still be displayed. Here is my workaround to force the browser to full screen.

Local Grav PHP ZIP Extension workaround on macOS Catalina

Tue, 28 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The Apache and PHP bundled with macOS Catalina 10.15 does not include the PHP ZIP extension. Grav (specifically, the Problems Plugin) detects this issue, and Grav will not run! Here is a workaround.

How to download videos from YouTube

Sat, 30 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Wondering how to download a video from YouTube, with audio and subtitles intact? Here are a couple of methods I’m documenting in case I ever need to use them.

Fixing high-DPI (retina) screenshot metadata

Sun, 10 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

On my MacBook Pro with retina display, when I take a screenshot, the image is saved with a DPI of 144. But, using ImageOptim to compress the image with Strip JPEG/PNG Metadata enabled will remove (or reset) the DPI setting to 72 DPI - resulting in a double sized image when displayed in Preview and Quick Look. Here is how I correct this.

macOS zsh configuration

Thu, 07 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

From macOS Catalina 10.5 onwards, zsh is the default shell, instead of bash. I have a lot to learn about this shell, and so far, this is how I configured zsh… There is an overload of snippets on-line, but I’ve not seen a post doing what I do, so hopefully this helps someone!

De-bounce butterfly keyboard double keypress with Karabiner-Elements

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Grrr, to no one’s surprise, my MacBook Pro with butterfly keyboard is experiencing keyboard issues. In my case, a keypress on “j” is often triggered twice, resulting in “jj”. And with the lockdowns, I don’t want to risk a repair! So, here is a quick workaround using Karabiner-Elements v12.9.0.

RIP Grab.app in macOS Catalina 10.15

Mon, 04 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I previously kept Grab.app on Mojave 10.14 by simply copying it over from High Sierra 10.13. I prefer the simplicity of Grab over the new Screenshot.app, and I hate that Screenshot adds a drop shadow.

Touch Bar Quick Action Scripts

Wed, 18 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Just sharing some Automator scripts I use for Touch Bar Quick Actions showcasing three different methods - using pre-defined Actions, using AppleScripts and using Shell scripts.

Useful (but less well-known) Mac Keyboard Shortcuts

Tue, 20 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Most Mac users would use at least a few keyboard shortcuts (if not, check out Apple’s Mac Keyboard Shortcuts list), but here are a few additional key combinations that I find useful. These are less well-known and many are not in Apple’s list.

Three Ways to Quickly Toggle Dark Mode

Sun, 04 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s are a few short tips - to toggle Dark Mode on macOS without opening System Preferences. Useful when designing your Dark Mode enabled web site using prefers-color-sheme Media Query, like I did.

Building and packaging Wine 4.12.1 (32-bit and 64-bit) automatically

Wed, 31 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

For a while now, I’ve been posting about compiling Wine on macOS, starting with Wine 1.9 in October 2016, then automating the compile for Wine 2.9 32-bit in May 2017. Now it’s July 2019, and this is probably my last post on the subject - a fully automated script to download and compile Wine 4.12.1 (released 7 July 2019) 32-bit and 64-bit on macOS.

Do NOT update Parallels Desktop Lite - it's no longer free

Tue, 22 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

If, like me, you use Parallels Desktop Lite, then I have bad news for you. It’s no longer free to run macOS or Linux, so DON’T update it if you still want to use it!

How to remove a background service in macOS

Fri, 11 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Want to remove macOS services (a.k.a. daemons)?

Launch an application from a keyboard shortcut

Wed, 09 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, I posted about my Karabiner-Elements Complex Modification Rule to map a key to Escape. Here, I make a small tweak to use it to launch an application too!

Enabling Apache and PHP7 on macOS Mojave 10.14

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

As in my previous guides for enabling Apache and PHP on Sierra 10.12 and El Capitan 10.11 before that, this post will update the instructions for macOS Mojave 10.14.2 which comes with Apache 2.4.34 and PHP 7.1.19.

Mapping a Physical Escape Key on a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

So you miss the physical Escape key on your brand new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar? Here’s my fix to re-map a seldom used key to Escape.

Mojave's Screenshot.App and the previous "Dark Menu Bar and Dock" feature

Mon, 19 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I know this is very late, but I wanted to post two things I noticed with macOS Mojave regarding the new Screenshot.App tool and Dark Mode.

Installing Mojave in Parallels, and UI glitches running Electron Apps

Sun, 18 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I got macOS Mojave 10.14 / 10.14.1 installed in Parallels very easily! But encountered some graphics issues with certain apps… and managed to find a workaround.

Compressing PDF Images with macOS

Mon, 17 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know you can (sometimes) shrink the size PDF files by apply lossy compression to images? This is a built-in capability with macOS - no third party tools required. Read on…

A bash script to search a CSV file

Sat, 19 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I sometimes need to search a huge CSV file (13 MB), containing 21,000 rows and roundabout 40 columns, which Numbers takes half a minute to open. All I need to do is search and display the results of a few columns only… so I wrote a bash script to do this for me - and I was quite specific in that I wanted the results in color!

Crunch PNG optimization

Sat, 19 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I recently tried Crunch, an open-source tool for PNG image file optimization, currently on version 2.0.2 at the time of writing.

Using an exFAT drive for Time Machine backups

Thu, 22 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I got a new 2 TB external disk - “yay” - and wanted to use it for both on my Windows desktop and for Time Machine backups. Immediately thought to format it as exFAT but quickly came to realize Time Machine does not support exFAT! Fortunately, there is a workaround…

Fixing PowerPoint Slide Show on External Monitor

Sat, 27 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been experiencing this problem for a while - when presenting using Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac 2016 (version 15) on an external monitor (or LCD projector), PowerPoint used to both the presentation slide show and the Presenter View on my notebook display, instead of Presenter View on the notebook and the full-screen slide show on the external monitor. Recently, I found the solution!

Installing High Sierra in a Parallels VM

Fri, 20 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

When macOS High Sierra was released around 25^th September, I tried to install it in Parallels Desktop Lite. However, both a clean install in a Parallels Virtual Machine (VM), nor an in-place update did not work (the High Sierra VM would refuse to boot). I discovered the High Sierra installer converts the VM file system to Apple File System (APFS). However, Parallels does not support APFS, so here’s how to disable the conversion and get High Sierra running in a Parallels.

Fixing PowerPoint TIFF images and fonts

Fri, 25 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 for Mac (aka version 15) has a strange quirk - when I copy and paste images from Preview or most other applications, the image gets copied in Tagged Image File Format (TIFF). The image is practically uncompressed (or possibly minimally compressed), resulting in very, very huge PPTX files! Plus: Removing unwanted font references.

Text Manipulation Cheat Sheet

Mon, 26 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I recently had the “opportunity” to perform some text manipulation to get data from a huge log file into a spreadsheet. I had done this sort of work a long time ago as a developer, but had forgotten over the years. So I decided to compile a text manipulation cheat-sheet for macOS.

Installing MySQL on macOS

Sun, 18 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

There are many open source packages that require the “AMP” stack comprising Apache, MySQL and PHP (hence “WAMP” for Windows-Apache-MySQL-PHP and “MAMP” for macOS-Apache-MySQL-PHP). Since macOS 10.12 Sierra already includes Apache 2.4 and PHP 5.6, here’s how to add MySQL 5.7.

macOS launchd Service Management

Thu, 15 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Some time ago, I posted about starting Apache automatically when macOS 10.12 Sierra starts, using the launchctl command to add Apache to the launchd Launch Daemon/Agent Manager. For those familiar with Windows, this is akin to managing Windows Services.

Automated script to compile Wine 2.9 from scratch

Sun, 28 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Following up on my posts, Compiling Wine 1.9 from scratch on macOS with Retina mode and Creating a wine.app bundle manually, here’s my script to automatically download and compile pre-requisite libraries, then download and compile Wine 2.9 32-bit, build the .app bundle, and even include a registry tweak to enable Retina Mode.

Further ways to lockdown apps like Kodi and VLC

Fri, 26 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

You have have read that CheckPoint, a cyber security research company, has identified vulnerabilities that may allow an attacker to compromise your computer using malicious subtitle files downloaded by popular media players including Kodi and VLC. It’s not clear if this affects macOS too, but in light of this threat, here is a summary of how I further “lockdown” any apps I’m unsure of…

Verifying downloads with a SHA-256 checksum

Wed, 24 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I recently downloaded an update to VLC, an open-source media player. The VLC download page, displayed it’s SHA-256 checksum - here’s how to quickly validate your download by comparing the checksum using the built-in macOS tools.

Setting printer defaults in macOS CUPS

Tue, 23 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I have experienced a couple of issues printing with the Ricoh printer drivers for macOS - at one location, I simply couldn’t print, and at another, I couldn’t get it to print “two-sided” (despite the correct duplex settings). In both cases, I reverted to the standard macOS driver, i.e. “Generic PostScript Printer” or “Generic PCL Laser Printer”. This post details the steps to set printer defaults like duplex via CUPS.

Setup a virtual macOS with Parallels Desktop Lite

Mon, 24 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

If you are a developer or someone who likes to try lots of software, head over to the App Store and get Parallels Desktop Lite. It’s free for macOS and Linux guests! (Windows support is an IAP)

macOS FileVault and Sierra Update get stuck when running concurrently

Sat, 22 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

So I got a new MacBook for work and I didn’t realize upon next reboot, the enterprise profile had mandated FileVault encrypt the start up disk, and Apple had recommended an upgrade to macOS Sierra at the same time! You can imagine triggering both simultaneously upon reboot didn’t go well at all!

Numbers has a new STOCK trick

Tue, 28 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Remember the time I waxed lyrical about using Google Sheets to track my stock portfolio? Well, it’s going to be a “standard feature” of spreadsheets soon, with the introduction of the capability to retrieve stock data with today’s update of Numbers on iOS (3.1) and macOS (4.1).

Creating a macOS Sandbox to run Kodi

Mon, 30 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Since 2012, all apps on the Mac App Store must run in an app sandbox, which restricts access to system resources unless explicitly required. The secure sandbox isolates the app and defines access controls, protecting users from malicious code with undesired behaviour.

Here’s how to setup a sandbox for an app downloaded from outside the Mac App Store.

Extract files from a macOS installer .pkg

Sun, 06 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Want to extract files from a macOS installer package with a .pkg extension?

Problem compiling Wine second time around

Sun, 30 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Wine 1.9.22 development (dated Oct 28, 2016) has been released! See the release notes for changes. Alas, I encountered errors trying to compile it “on top” of the Wine 1.9.21 installation, following the steps from my post Compiling Wine from scratch. I spent a whole day searching for the problem, and resolved it as below.

Creating a wine.app bundle manually

Wed, 26 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

So a couple of days ago, I documented how I compiled Wine 1.9.21 with Retina Mode from scratch on macOS Sierra. After that I though I might as well figure out how to bundle all these files into a .app bundle, which Finder presents as if it were a single file.

Compiling Wine 1.9 from scratch on macOS with Retina mode

Fri, 21 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I have been using WineBottler to run my favorite Windows applications in macOS. Here, I describe how I compiled Wine from scratch and configure for my MacBook Pro’s Retina Display.

My list of great free apps for macOS

Sat, 15 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Here is my list of free, macOS apps that I have installed and use often. Many are also open source! When I first got my Mac I searched the internet for lists of useful apps but found most outdated. I decided to compile this list as part of a cleanup and “audit” of what’s useful IMHO.

Exclude folders to speed up Time Machine backup

Wed, 12 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

My Time Machine backups have started to take longer and longer to process and complete. I realized that excluding folders containing temporary, frequently changing and large files would quite dramatically speed it up.

Re-enable Apache and PHP after macOS Sierra update

Wed, 12 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I realized that the latest macOS Sierra 10.12 upgrade also updated Apache and PHP to newer revisions (2.4.23 and 5.6.24 respectively), but reverted to the default configurations. My previous post on Enabling Apache and PHP on OS X 10.11 needed a slight change too.

Trying out KeeWeb and MiniKeePass password manager

Mon, 10 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been a long time iOS 1Password user, but recently started looking at alternatives. I discovered KeePass, KeeWeb and MiniKeePass, all open source.

Streaming from desktop with NVIDIA GameStream to iOS and macOS

Fri, 07 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I recently discovered an alternative to remote control my Windows 7/10 desktop PC, instead of using Microsoft Remote Desktop. This method requires a computer with a modern NVIDIA graphics card with GameStream and works with iOS and macOS using a client called Moonlight!

Disable JavaScript to enable Picture-in-Picture on macOS Safari

Tue, 04 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Safari 10 on macOS Sierra has a useful Picture-in-Picture (PiP) feature to playback HTML5 videos in a small “always-on-top” window, just like on iPads with iOS 9+. To activate, just right-click a playing video and select Enter Picture-in-Picture. However, not all web videos seem to allow this, as they pop up their own menus without the PiP option. Here are two ways to try to enable PiP.

macOS Sierra - a half-hearted update

Wed, 21 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve updated my MacBook to macOS Sierra, and it’s rather underwhelming and half-hearted IMHO. And yes, dear eagle-eyed reader, Apple capitalizes the Mac in MacBook but not the Mac in macOS - what a confusing naming (lack-of-)convention. Still, macOS is a better name than OS X (can you say OS 10 10.X instead?)

Enable Mac Full Keyboard Access, but beware!

Wed, 24 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

On my Mac, by default, the keyboard cannot be used to navigate and trigger dialog box buttons. To “fix” this shortcoming - enable Full Keyboard Access to use the tab key to navigate controls! But beware of downsides too…

Ricoh Aficio MP driver does not work on OS X

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I was recently at an office using a Ricoh Aficio multi-function printer. I downloaded the PPD Installer version 2.2.0.0 (dated 17/09/2014) for OS X 10.11 from the Ricoh Aficio MP 2510/3010/2590/3090 driver page. But no matter what I tried, the printer either could not be found or would print blank or garbled pages…

Finding application files in OS X

Wed, 15 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Apps, even after being removed from the Launchpad or Applications sidebar in Finder, do leave preferences and other files scattered around. Where are they, typically, and how does one find them?

OS X Terminal color prompt

Thu, 28 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

My previous Terminal Tweaks post had an incorrect prompt (PS1) setting, that caused lines to wrap on themselves! This is now corrected, with more details on the color options…

Where is Xcode's FileMerge?

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I discovered that Xcode includes a diff tool called FileMerge. Where is it and how do you launch it?

Macs are so Expensive (Relatively Speaking)

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I just bought a MacBook Pro! Prior to this, I’ve only been exposed to Windows and a smattering of UNIX/Linux… until now. What really struck me was the price! Total sticker shock, and that was before Apple raised prices on 14 Oct 2015!

Free tools for OS X developers

Mon, 19 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A short list of free tools I find useful for blogging and web development! Includes Microsoft Visual Studio Code, ImageOptim, ForkLift 2 and Commander One.

Screen capture script for retina display with PNG optimization

Mon, 19 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Forget the complex or manual steps, or costly tools to get screen shots scaled down from a retina display. I have a shell script that triggers an interactive window screen capture, saves the screen shot (assumed to be 2x retina display), re-sizes it to 1x and compresses the PNG further! Best of all, it does not require paid software or Automator.

OS X Terminal Tweaks

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Some tweaks to my OS X shell (Terminal.app) that I’ve found useful.

Enabling Apache and PHP on OS X 10.11

Thu, 15 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Apache and PHP 5.5.27 are installed already in OS X 10.11 El Capitan, so just a little enabling is required.

Updated 12 Oct 2016: See the slightly updated guide for macOS 10.12 Sierra, which has been updated to Apache 2.4.23 and PHP 5.6.24.