Fruity Picks #10 - NightOwl for Mojave (macOS 10.14)

I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed writing this blog and I’m really pleased I’ve picked it up again. But after an absence of two years, it’s actually quite hard to know where to focus; so much has been going on. But, that’s part of the reason that I started the Fruity Picks series, to help me out when I was stuck for an in-depth post. So, now is as good a time as any to revive the Fruity Picks with #10 - NightOwl.

I’ve been using Mojave (macOS 10.14) since just before the formal public release in September. One of the things I had been looking forward to was Dark Mode and by and large I wasn’t disappointed. But as in all things, you can have too much of a good thing, and moving to Dark Mode as a permanent UI choice wasn’t for me, especially in the northern hemisphere where it’s dark enough during the short days.

Of course, it’s easy enough to change from Light Mode to Dark Mode, but a German student, Benjamin Kramser, has developed a great (free) little tool to automate the process through user-specified parameters.

NightOwl lives in the menu bar and allows you to schedule when Dark Mode kicks in and out (either on a fixed sunrise/sunset basis or your chosen times). You can also choose to overwrite specific application settings so those apps will always display in Light Mode. Finally, you can toggle modes using a hotkey combo. Small and simple - just like me!

NightOwl lives in the menubar and does one thing really well

You can download NightOwl from the website (which, by the way, is beautifully designed) and you can also provide a PayPal donation via the site. The software is currently at version 0.2.8

"It's Simply The Best" - My Honeymoon Period with the 2017 15" MacBook Pro

Two weeks on since I took possession of my new MacBook Pro and I’ve not lost that loving feeling. On the contrary; I’ve become seriously bonded to the machine and I find I miss not working on it so I keep sneaking off to do more work. It’s simply the best.

Before I embarrass myself any further with dubious song references and suggestions of deviant man-machine behaviour, let me run through the new Apple Harvest configuration. For the record, this is Apple Harvest HQ at my fiancee’s house. I’m back in the UK after nearly four years of living in Prague and last year Mel and I got engaged (in Prague, on her birthday!). I set up a temporary AH HQ here back in 2013, and now we’re settling down to domestic bliss, it’s back up and running.

To be honest, not a great deal has changed. The old 2011 MBA got replaced with a 2015 MBA which has now been replaced by the 2017 MBP. As I indicated in my last post, this is a refurbished 2017 Space Grey 15inch model. It’s the quad-core "Kaby Lake" i7 2.9GHz version, with 16Gb of RAM, 512Gb SSD, with Radeon Pro 560/4Mb and Intel HD 630 1.5Mb. At the time of writing, I’ve just updated the OS to Mojave 10.14.2.

Initially, the laptop was connected to my old Belkin Thunderbolt Hub, but at the weekend I swapped this out with an OWC Thunderbolt 2 dock that was idling away at my house (which I never got around to writing about, but it’s a great piece of kit). This was a good idea for various reasons:-

• It’s at least twice the speed of the Belkin, which didn’t  quite meet the original TB speed potential because of design constraints
• It has an HDMI port which the Belkin doesn’t and this frees up a TB2 port for a TB2 external hard drive
• There are two additional USB-A 3.0 ports making 5 in total as well as a FireWire 800 port

12 port OWC Thunderbolt 2 Dock

All in all, it’s a much tidier set up, and it means I’m only using two of the ports on the laptop - one to connect to the hub (using an Apple Thunderbolt 2 to 3 adapter) and one for the power (more on that in a moment).

I’ll admit, the idea of a laptop furnished with only Thunderbolt 3/USB-C connectors made me a little bit nervous. But in reality, I’m not really sure I understand what all the fuss is about. I miss the SD card slot that proved so useful on the MBA with only 256 Gb of onboard storage but having twice that storage capacity on the MBP made it slightly redundant. I was using it to keep all my Apple Mail files on, and a used a thumbnail flash drive for my photo library - all of these now live on the SSD - a much better arrangement.

I appreciate that when I’m on the road things will be a little different, but I have that covered. I purchased a set of 3 USB-C to USB-A 3.0 adapters, a 7-in-1 USB-C dongle which includes Gb Ethernet, SD card, micro SD card, headphone, HDMI and 2 USB-A 3.0 ports and a USB-C extension lead for a little over £40. Job done! For reference, this was the ATZEBE which I managed to get on an Amazon Lightning deal for £27.19 down from £35.99. So far, I’ve only used the SD card slot, but that worked perfectly well. The USB-C/USB-A adaptors were £5.91 for a packet of three.

ATZEBE 7-in-1 USB-C dongle

Since Apple, in their less-than-infinite wisdom, decided to do away with the MagSafe power connector I decided to go with a third party USB-C option which is ideal. I got a First2savv Magnetic USB Charging Cable which is rated at 87W/4.3A which means it’s perfectly capable of charging the MBP at full speed and does it in about 90 minutes. To emphasise that it’s a charging cable I got it in bright red! It’s currently selling for £11.99 on Amazon, but I got mine for under a tenner.

USB-C Magsafe type connector from First2savv

No doubt the arguments about cables and adaptors will continue for the next couple of years - don’t they always? The thing is, it’s a fact of life that technology changes. Apple is often an early adopter and if you haven’t got used to that by now then you’re in the wrong ecosystem. Quite frankly, if I’m going to be carrying the extra pound of weight of a 15inch MBP compared to a 13inch MBA, I’m not likely to complain about an extra few ounces of additional dongles!

In my last post, I hinted that my initial purchase of the same spec'd MBP from eBay was about to go to arbitration. It did, and I got a full refund without any issues. Happy days!

I Just Got My Apple (MacBook) Mojo Back

I can’t believe it’s two years since I last posted on this blog. Wow! It’s not even as though there’s been nothing to write about. In fact, that’s been the problem. There has simply been too much to write about but unfortunately for readers here, most of what I have been writing has been on other topics in other blogs.

So why now, you may ask. Well, quite simply, I just got my Apple mojo back. You remember that feeling you had when you bought your first mainstream Apple product - with me it was my 2007 MacBook Pro with Leopard (OS X 10.5). I just got that same feeling for the first time in years. After eight years of being a MacBook Air devotee, I have gone back to my MBP roots and splashed out on a 2017 15” MacBook Pro.

Which is quite simply, a thing of absolute beauty! And it goes like the clappers!

2017 MacBook Pro 15" i7 2.90 512Gb/16Gb (Space Grey)

I love the MBA - I wrote about my first one back in August 2011 and its replacement in December 2015. But recently I faced a similar situation to what I encountered in 2015. My needs have outgrown the capability of the MBA; specifically the limited 8Gb memory, the restriction of the 256Gb onboard SSD and the slow Thunderbolt 2 bus. Even a year ago this wasn’t too much of an issue, but these days I find myself spending too much time looking at spinning beach balls and listening to the fans thrashing furiously. A year ago, I was really using the MBA as a mobile device - playing music, processing photos and some office work. Now, I’m more desk-bound. I’m still doing all the above, along with web development, a lot more writing and office work and more intensive photographic editing.

I half-heartedly started looking for a replacement machine about two months ago and was torn between the new MBA or a 13in MBP. With a minimum specification of 16 and 512 Gb of RAM and SSD space, this started to push the price up towards crazy money which I couldn’t justify. So I started looking at the refurb market and plumped on an Apple refurbed 2017 13in MBP before I checked out the eBay market and found a new 15in 2017 MBP for a similar price. In the heat of the moment I bought it - and that deal will soon be going to eBay for arbitration; I’ve still not received the laptop after three weeks and the seller is not responding. Caveat emptor!

Having rashly gone out and bought a bunch of accessories designed to fit a 15in MBP I was kind of stuck in that direction, but luckily found a refurb from a reputable outfit that was only £150 more expensive than the no-show.

The new box came via DPD within 24 hours and my Apple mojo was packaged with it. It took a day to set up - one of the most painless transfers I’ve ever done and it is performing flawlessly.

The MPB is connected to my old Thunderbolt 1 Belkin hub which isn’t the fastest box in the world, but I can’t afford a TB 3 replacement just yet. But it works. My photos and mail are now back on the internal SSD having been off-loaded onto external flash drives previously, and that helps speed things up considerably, although obviously with the trade-off of using up space on the SSD.

Apple Harvest HQ - November 2018

Of course, it's early days, and I've not yet tried using the laptop as a laptop as it's been tethered to my desk while I iron out any migration issues. The keyboard which has caused a fair amount of controversy remains untested, and the much-vaunted toolbar (by Apple) is just a little too far out of reach to have had any major use. (Personally, I'm looking forward to playing with the toolbar in earnest).

Next time, I'll have a look at some of the other changes that have impacted Apple Harvest HQ in the last couple of years.

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