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macOS System

Discussions on system-software-related topics…

Create macOS automations using a little-known app

I use a lot of browsers for testing, so I created this launcher to make the process easier:

Browser launcher

You may be wondering what third-party tool I used to do this. Such things are possible in Keyboard Maestro through custom HTML prompts, but that's a lot of work. I'm sure there are other apps that can do similar things. Surprisingly, though, I used nothing more than a built-in app to create this launcher. The app has existed since macOS 10.15 (Catalina), but I doubt more than a handful of Mac users (outside its target user base) even know it exists—I didn't hear about it until yesterday.

What app is that? It's called Panel Editor, and the easiest place to find it is here: System Settings → Accessibility → Keyboard → Scroll down until you see the Panel Editor button.

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What’s your favorite version of macOS/Mac OS X?

Update: The poll is now closed, and the results weren't even close…

Snow Leopard wins in a landslide.

With the 2020 (Virtual) WWDC about a week away—and with it, more than likely, the reveal of Yet Another New macOS Version, I thought it might be interesting to run a little poll…

What is your personal all-time-favorite version of macOS/Mac OS X? Instead of trying to add a polling plug-in here, I quickly created one using surveyplanet. It's set to full anonymous mode, so no IP info is collected—it's just for fun…

If you need more details as to what came with each release, check out this Wikipedia article.

Personally, I'd have to say it was … nah, I'm not going to reveal my vote just yet! There's a small comment box on the poll, or you can add comments here if you have more thoughts on the question.



Digging into an unexpected encryption speed boost

What follows is a lengthy dive into a semi-recent massive performance improvement in openssl speeds in macOS. As it's long, here's a tl;dr version:

  • From 10.14.4 to 10.14.5, a change in macOS improved openssl speed benchmark results anywhere from 15x to 30x.
  • In real world use, encryption of a large sample file (570MB) using a very long password happened nearly twice as quickly as it did before the update.
  • The version number for openssl (which is really LibreSSL) is the same (2.6.5) in both 10.14.4 and 10.14.5. I also confirmed that the packages, as loaded on the Apple Open Source site, are identical.
  • The four libraries that openssl links to have the same version numbers in 10.14.4 and 10.14.5.
  • The binaries for openssl and the four linked libraries all use much less disk space in 10.14.5 than they did in 10.14.4. I can't explain this, except that openssl itself is no longer a universal binary.
  • I believe the performance boost is due to macOS enabling Intel's AES-NI, which allow hardware acceleration of some key cryptography tasks. But I can't figure out how this change was made, given the above data.
  • The Apple Open Source site may hold the answers, but that work is beyond my skill level.

Keep reading if you'd like to see how I came to the above summary…

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Remove the macOS Catalina guilt trip from macOS Mojave

May 26 2020 Update: The 2020-003 Security Update for Mojave will reset the red flag (and deprecate the command used to ignore the update). However, these steps do still work, so you just have to repeat Miles' solution again. And after you do, do not open the Software Update panel, or the red badge will return. (But if it does, just run the commands yet again.)

May 9 2020 Update: Commenter Miles Wolbe has come up with a much better solution. Ignore everything in this tip, and just run this Terminal command:

sudo softwareupdate --ignore "macOS Catalina" && defaults delete com.apple.preferences.softwareupdate LatestMajorOSSeenByUserBundleIdentifier && softwareupdate --list

If you're interested in why this works, Miles explains it in more detail. I've tested this method, and it works—no more agent required!

I have no plans to move my main iMac to macOS Catalina, at least for the forseeable future. There are two key apps I use—Fujitsu's ScanSnap scanner software and the Many Tricks' accounting app—that are both 32-bit. In addition, there are changes in Catalina relative to permissions that make it somewhat Vista like and slow down my interaction with the system. (My MacBook Air is my "production" Catalina Mac, and I have an older retina MacBook Pro that I use for Catalina betas.)

But Apple really wants people to update to Catalina, so they let you know about Catalina…constantly, it seems. In System Preferences > Software Update, you'll see this…

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Fujitsu ScanSnap software and the 64-bit-only future

A fair number of my apps are still 32-bit—see how many you still have—though many I don't really care about all that much. But there's one suite of apps that I use every day, usually multiple times a day: Fujitsu's ScanSnap apps. This is the software bundled with the ScanSnap ix500 scanner.

While Fujitsu has been good about updating their software in the past, I was a bit concerned about the upcoming 64-bit transition. So I both tweeted at them and sent them an email. I haven't seen a reply on Twitter, but a (clearly form letter) reply to my email is at least somewhat encouraging:

There is no problem in the behavior of the application or the OS concerned. The message is only inform that the application needs to be modified for compatibility with next-generation macOS (which should be available near the end of the year). PFU is going to resolve this, but the resolution date is not set yet. In the meantime, please continue using the latest version of the software available.

This blurb was obviously prepared as a response to those complaining about the new 32-bit warning dialog in macOS 10.13.4, but it does seem to address the longer-term question: Fujitsu is planning to "resolve this," which hopefully implies 64-bit versions are in our future, though at some not-yet-disclosed date.

There are very few things in my workflow that I couldn't replace…but replacing my ScanSnap and everything it does for me would be quite difficult. Hopefully we'll see a 64-bit ScanSnap suite before this fall's deadline.



How to download macOS Sierra

This morning on Twitter, Antonio asked…

I thought "Well, that's an easy question to answer—via the Mac App Store, of course." As it turns out, that's the right answer, but it was much harder to find than I expected it to be. I started on the Purchased tab in the Mac App Store app, where you can (theoretically) see all past purchases, including prior Mac OS X versions. However, those old releases stop with Mac OS X El Capitan from 2015; neither Sierra nor High Sierra are listed.

Next I tried searching the Mac App Store for Sierra, but that nets only Server and High Sierra, and a few apps that appear to have gotten away with using "Sierra" in their descriptions:

I then tried the Apple Developer site, but they don't offer Sierra for download either.

Somewhat stumped, I then started searching, and after way too many attempts, I finally landed on this useful page at Stack Exchange, which attempts to explain how to download all older versions of Mac OS X/macOS. Here's the relevant bit for Sierra:

For OS versions since Sierra.

Sierra itself has now vanished from everybody's Purchase History. However, Apple are keeping Sierra fully available, even though High Sierra is out. No Apple ID is required.

Apple KB - How to download macOS Sierra
Sierra - Direct download link from the App Store

Given how much trouble I had finding this page, I thought I'd post it here for anyone looking for Sierra. Going forward, keep that Stack Exchange link handy, as it should be updated in the future as new releases come out.



Create a savable list of 32-bit apps

Apple has announced that 32-bit apps have a limited future on the Mac: They'll be fully supported in this fall's High Sierra release; macOS' 2018 release ("Really High Sierra") will "aggressively warn" users about 32-bit apps, and I would assume, they won't work at all in the 2019 version of macOS ("That Was My Skull!").

But how do you know which apps on your Mac are 32-bit and which are 64-bit? MacObserver has an article that discusses the easy way, via the System Information app—just look in the Software > Applications section, and you'll be able to see a list of apps and a 64-bit Yes/No column. But seeing the list is all you can do—you can't easily save the list for future reference, for instance, nor can you copy/paste the info to another app.

So here's a geekier solution to generate a list of your 32-bit apps, saved into a text file for easy future reference. Open Terminal, and paste this command:

system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType | grep -B 6 -A 2 "(Intel): No" > ~/Desktop/non64bit.txt

This does the same thing as the System Information app, but it dumps the data in text form; the greater-than sign redirects the output to a text file named non64bit.txt, saved to your desktop. The grep is used to show only the 32-bit applications (the full line reads 64-Bit (Intel): No), and the -B and -A options are added to capture the lines before and after that line in the output.

This is probably not overly useful to most people, but I wanted a way to capture the list of apps, as I have over 290 32-bit apps on my machine, and it takes a while to run the System Information report each time.



Add some System Preferences icons to the Dock

If you have certain System Preferences panels that you access a lot, and you're a Dock person (as opposed to a ⌘-Space and type person), here's a little timesaver: You can add any System Preferences panel directly to your Dock. You can't add it to the left side, as the individual panels aren't applications. But they are documents, so you can add them to the right side of the dock—just drag and drop from Finder.

You'll find the System-provided panels in /System/Library/PreferencePanes; third-party panels may appear in either your user's Library/PreferencePanes folder, or the top-level /Library/PreferencePanes folder. Find the one(s) you'd like in your Dock, then just drag and drop.

You can, of course, keep System Preferences itself in your Dock, and then right-click to see a list of all preference panels. For those panels you access often, though, this method is much quicker.



The past, present, and future of the Mac Pro

I'll admit it, last week's news about the new Mac Pro got me excited about the future of the Mac for the first time in a long time.

Note that I am not in any of the target markets for a typical Mac Pro buyer—I don't crunch huge scientific data sets, I don't render massive 4K movies, and I'm not compiling huge programs on a daily basis. But I have always been a fan of the Mac Pro for one reason (up until the most recent one, at least): Customization. Having a customizable Mac means it can last longer, as you can make changes to keep up with technology. I have owned both the Motorola and Intel era Mac Pros, and they were truly excellent machines.

The past


One Mac to rule them all

The older Mac Pro (and its predecessors) were—as I recently wrote—wonderful machines, because you, the user, could do so much to them. You could add RAM, of course, but you can do that to most any current Mac.

You could also choose up to four hard drives to put inside the case—no messy cables, no need to worry about a child or pet disconnecting your drive while it's rendering a movie, etc. If you outgrew them, you could easily replace them. In my Mac Pro, I had an internal Time Machine drive (in addition to the external Time Machine drive.)

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