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Rob Griffiths

Using command-line Quick Look as a memory aid

I recently reviewed my new third-party mouse, the Logitech MX Master 2s ($70 at Amazon). I love all the customizable buttons on this mouse, and in particular, the ability to create gestures (which are simply a directional drag while holding down a button).

I've used two buttons to create a total of 10 gesture actions on my mouse:

I created the above image from the Logitech Options app, so I can refer to it if I forget which action I've assigned to which gesture. But it's a pain to find the folder on the disk and open it just to see the image. Then I remembered I had an unused button on my mouse1The upper button of the two near the side scroll wheel…

Note: While the following is specific to my Logitech mouse in terms of implementation, read on if you're curious about how to access QuickLook previews from Terminal and/or via a simple AppleScript.

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Review: Logitech MX Master 2S mouse

Shortly after I bought my 2014 iMac, my third-party mouse died. So I started using the Magic Mouse that came with the iMac, and added "get new third-party mouse" to my to do list. Although I never found the Magic Mouse all that comfortable, I kept putting off replacing it.

Finally, when I ordered the new iMac—yes, that task sat on my to do list for nearly five years—I decided to go back to an ergonomic button-laden third-party mouse. After some searching and hand-fit tests, I bought a Logitech MX Master 2S ($70 at Amazon) mouse1Note that this is definitely a right-hand-only mouse, and Logitech doesn't appear to offer a left-handed version. Sorry, lefties..

Note: I really dislike reviews that are so short they read more like press releases (and sometimes actually are reprinted press releases). I don't do a ton of reviews here, but when I do, they tend to be long, because I like to use a product first, then review it in depth.

So what follows are many words (and images) about a computer mouse. If you'd like the tl;dr version instead, here it is: I love the MX Master 2S due to its great ergonomics, customizability, and easy multi-computer support. Keep reading for the much longer version.

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Feeling the (Mail) squeeze in Mojave

My new iMac runs Mojave; my old iMac never moved off High Sierra, which I felt was a fine version of macOS. Now that I have no choice but to use Mojave full time (I have it on my laptop for work purposes), I'm finding some annoying changes. Amongst those annoyances, this one is—by far—the most annoying…

That's a set of messages in Mail, as viewed in Classic View mode (using San Francisco Display at 15pt on both Macs).

Somewhere in Apple, someone thought it'd be a great idea to reduce the line spacing in Mail—only when using Classic View, which is my forever-preferred view. Maybe they're doing this to force us to upgrade to the modern view?

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An unexpected ending to an electrifying car story

If you weren't reading along this week, I spent the last four days—parts one, two, three, and four—talking about my Tesla Model S and how much I love it.

Today's surprise ending is this: I sold the car. What I'd replace it with? This…

Obviously that's another Tesla Model S—a used Model S. It is, in fact, a 2016 Models S 90D—yes, basically the exact car I had, but not really—more on that in a bit. My wife and I call it the unicorn car; read on to understand why, and why I made this trade. (As I was writing this, I learned that others had already used that phrase for this particular vintage of the Model S.)

Important note: We took delivery of our car in April of 2019…in July of 2019, Tesla removed free Supercharging on the used pre-2017 cars they sell. There are no more unicorns, at least through Tesla.

If you want free Supercharging, you'll need to find a pre-2017 car from a private party—staring with the 2017 cars, free Supercharging became non-transferrable.

You can read the rest of the article, but all the references to free Supercharging from Tesla are irrelevant…darn it.

(Credit to Chuck M. for our conversation that made me dig into this.)

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An electrifying car story – part four

This is Part Four of a four-part series on our 2016 Tesla Model S. In Part One, I covered why we chose the Model S, the cost of the car, and a bit about Tesla the company. In Part Two, I listed some of the things I love about the car. In Part Three, I listed more of the things I love, plus those things I hate. In today's Part Four, I'll discuss what it's like living with an electric car, cover a somewhat long road trip I took last fall, and offer a few thoughts on the future of auto electrification. Finally, tomorrow's Part Five will provide an unexpected ending (of sorts) to the series.

Living with an electric car

My two-plus years with an electric car have been basically a non-event. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that I work at home, and that we have non-electric vehicles, so the Tesla doesn't have to do everything. (But even if I commuted, with the car's range of 280 miles, I think it'd still be a non-event.)

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An electrifying car story—part three

This is Part Three of a five-part series on our Tesla Model S. In Part One, I covered why we chose the Model S, the cost of the car, and a bit about Tesla the company. In Part Two, I listed some of the things I love about the car; today's Part Three has more of the loves, as well as the not-so-loves. Part Four will discuss what it's like living with an electric car, and my thoughts on the future of auto electrification. Finally, Part Five will provide an unexpected ending (of sorts) to the series.

Continuing with the things I love about the car and its infrastructure, and then getting to the not-so-loved things…

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An electrifying car story—part two

This is Part Two of a five-part series on our Tesla Model S. In Part One, I covered why we chose the Model S, the cost of the car, and a bit about Tesla the company. In today's Part Two, I'll discuss some of the things I love about the car; Part Three will have more of the loves, as well as the not-so-loves. Part Four will discuss what it's like living with an electric car, and my thoughts on the future of auto electrification. Finally, Part Five will provide an unexpected ending (of sorts) to the series.

What I love about the car

Everything. OK, that's not true. But there is a huge list of stuff that—even after nearly three years—helps make any drive in the Tesla an enjoyable experience. The list is generally ranked by order of importance to me, though a lot of these would be ties if I had to absolutely rank them. Most of these things are particular to Tesla's cars (and some to the Model S in particular), though a couple are generally true of any electric vehicle.

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An electrifying car story—part one

Coming up on three years ago, in June of 2016, I replaced my Subaru Legacy with an electric car. Not just any electric car, but a Tesla. Our Tesla is a 2016 "original nose" Model S 90D, which roughly translates to "a very expensive, quite large four-door sedan with about 290 miles of range, all-wheel drive, propelled by a couple of powerful electric motors." This is not only the most expensive car—by far—we've ever owned, but (spoiler alert) it's the best car we've ever owned.

I've been writing this post—off and on—almost since the day we bought the car. So why has it taken so long to publish?

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Force multiple tracks to play as one in iTunes

There are some musical tracks that—even though they're distinct on the CD (or sold as separate tracks online)—are meant to be played together. As examples, there are a number of such Pink Floyd tracks, Queen's We Will Rock You and We are the Champions, and Jackson Browne's The Load Out and Stay.

I thought I remembered that iTunes used to be able to merge such tracks, and said as much on Twitter:

From the responses, I learned that my memory was wrong: You could only merge tracks during a CD import, which you can still do today:

But for online purchases or other non-CD music, the only solution appeared to be exporting the tracks, merging them together, then reimporting as one. (Doug Adams' $5 Join Together, for example, makes the process about as simple as possible.)

I only had a few such tracks I wanted to combine, so duplicating song data and using an external tool seemed like overkill, but it seemed like the only way. Then Chris Jennings came up with a solution that works for me (with some caveats…).

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2019 iMac vs Late 2014 iMac—Part Two

Update: After I posted this, Brad Oliver contacted me on Twitter about the frame rates for DiRT Rally—he commented that the fact that they were clustered around 60fps made him think I'd left vertical sync (Vsync) on…and he was right. I've updated that section with the modified results, as well as one additional comparison I forgot to include the first time.

Oh, and in case you don't know Brad…he was directly involved in porting DiRT Rally to the Mac for Feral, so he knows his stuff! Thanks Brad!

In part one of the comparison between my old and new iMacs, I provided a brief overview of the new machine, tech specs for both, and a number of benchmarks. (I also tested the video card against a Windows GeForce GTX 1080, and posted a slide-over image that demonstrates the wider color gamut on the new Mac.)

In today's second (and final) part, I'll take a look at video processing performance (via iMovie), how well the new iMac handles gaming, and then wrap up the whole series.

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