Mac Does Stuff

Category: Apple

  • Synology NAS and MacOS Sequoia – Poor Performance

    Synology NAS and MacOS Sequoia – Poor Performance

    Since upgrading to MacOS Sequoia I noticed backups of my machines that had a lot of small files were either taking an age or failing. I also noticed that large transfers would slow down significantly after a while.

    After thinking this was an issue with my networking…and finding it wasn’t, I managed to narrow it down to Sequoia – the issue wasn’t experienced on previous versions of MacOS or Windows. How odd.

    Anyway, this setting on the Synology NAS seems to resolve the issue:

    Do not reserve disk space when creating files

    To configure it, go into ‘Control Panel’ on the Synology, and select ‘File Services’:

    Image shows the File Services screen from Control Panel on a Synology NAS.
    File Services

    From the ‘Advanced Settings’ menu, you want to select ‘Others’ at the top, and turn on ‘Do not reserve disk space when creating files’:

    Image shows where to select 'Do not reserve disk space when creating files' on a Synology NAS
    Do not reserve disk space when creating files

    NOTE: This will reset the SMB Service so if you have any active connections they may disconnect and re-connect.

    Anyway, after I’ve done that, those weird little problems seem to have gone away. For the more technically minded, there’s a description of what this does below:

    strict allocate (S)
    This is a boolean that controls the handling of disk space allocation in the server. When this is set to yes the server will change from UNIX behaviour of not committing real disk storage blocks when a file is extended to the Windows behaviour of actually forcing the disk system to allocate real storage blocks when a file is created or extended to be a given size. In UNIX terminology this means that Samba will stop creating sparse files.

    This option is really designed for file systems that support fast allocation of large numbers of blocks such as extent-based file systems. On file systems that don’t support extents (most notably ext3) this can make Samba slower. When you work with large files over >100MB on file systems without extents you may even run into problems with clients running into timeouts.

    When you have an extent based filesystem it’s likely that we can make use of unwritten extents which allows Samba to allocate even large amounts of space very fast and you will not see any timeout problems caused by strict allocate. With strict allocate in use you will also get much better out of quota messages in case you use quotas. Another advantage of activating this setting is that it will help to reduce file fragmentation.

    To give you an idea on which filesystems this setting might currently be a good option for you: XFS, ext4, btrfs, ocfs2 on Linux and JFS2 on AIX support unwritten extents. On Filesystems that do not support it, preallocation is probably an expensive operation where you will see reduced performance and risk to let clients run into timeouts when creating large files. Examples are ext3, ZFS, HFS+ and most others, so be aware if you activate this setting on those filesystems.

    Default: strict allocate = no

  • Apple pulls data protection tool

    Apple pulls data protection tool

    2025-02-27 12:16:23: And another. This is going to run a while I think!

    US Probes UK’s Apple Encryption Demand for Possible Treaty Violation

    2025-02-26 21:23:50: There’s a couple of relevant press articles that poped up after I wrote this:

    US intelligence head ‘not told’ about UK’s secret Apple data demand

    Apple’s Data Encryption Changes in the UK Explained

    ====

    I recently wrote about how the UK government had demanded access to user data worldwide, and things have since moved on. Apple, as far as I can tell, has not fully complied with the order—remember, this demand applies globally, not just to UK citizens. What Apple has done is remove the general end-to-end encryption tool known as Advanced Data Protection (ADP) for UK users. But that’s it.

    From a quick straw poll of several iPhone users, I found that most (around 95%) hadn’t even turned on ADP. So how big an issue is this really?

    The Bigger Picture

    I think the wider issue is a little misunderstood, but to be fair, it’s a complex one. Essentially, if you use a cloud service that isn’t end-to-end encrypted, the provider has access to your data. This means they can be compelled to hand it over to governments when legally requested. That’s not new.

    What is murkier is the growing suspicion that even providers of end-to-end encrypted services may have been forced to insert backdoors—and legally, they can’t disclose it. That, I find horrific.

    Why Apple, and Why Now?

    It’s interesting how many people think this is just an “Apple issue.” I’ve seen people say, “I don’t use an iPhone, so this doesn’t affect me.” That’s not true. Apple just happens to be at the center of this particular story. Other tech giants likely face similar requests, but due to legal gag orders, they cannot disclose whether they’ve complied. Does that make anyone else uncomfortable?

    Apple has said little publicly, but the removal of ADP in the UK seems to confirm compliance, at least partially.

    If you back up your Android phone to Google, those backups are not end-to-end encrypted. If you store data in Microsoft 365 (Office 365), that’s not end-to-end encrypted either. What does this mean? It means the government can request your data, and Microsoft or Google can legally access and hand it over. Even Microsoft 365 Customer Lockbox doesn’t prevent this—it’s merely an administrative control, not a security barrier.

    The Real Issue: End-to-End Encryption

    So why the uproar over Apple’s ADP? The key issue is end-to-end encryption. When enabled, even Apple cannot access the data you store on iCloud, meaning they cannot comply with data access requests. Now, with ADP revoked for UK users, a significant portion of that data is once again accessible to Apple—and, by extension, to governments that request it.

    What’s Still Encrypted?

    To clarify, ADP encrypts everything a user stores in iCloud with end-to-end encryption. Without it, data is still encrypted, but Apple retains the encryption keys—meaning they can access and disclose it if required. However, some iCloud services remain end-to-end encrypted, even without ADP:

    • Passwords & Keychain
    • Health data
    • Journals
    • iMessage (not including cloud backups)

    For a full list, check out Apple’s iCloud Data Security Overview. Anything labeled “end-to-end” means Apple has no access.

    NOTE: If you backup your iPhone to iCloud, messages are included in those backups, which makes them accessible.

    The Trust Issue

    What really concerns me is how many other providers have been forced to weaken end-to-end encryption — and have complied without anyone knowing. WhatsApp is supposedly end-to-end encrypted, as is Facebook Messenger, but do we trust that there isn’t now a backdoor?

    I suspect several MPs are quietly backing away from their WhatsApp groups as we speak.

    What Happens Next?

    This story isn’t going away anytime soon. Apple hasn’t fully complied—can you seriously imagine they would? The UK government demanding access to a US citizen’s iCloud backup would be a legal minefield. Can you picture Apple’s response to that?

    I’ve also seen a lot of “I’ve got nothing to hide” responses. That’s a flawed stance—it even has a name: The “Nothing to Hide” Argument. Privacy isn’t just about secrecy; it’s about maintaining control over personal information.

    So where does this leave us? If end-to-end encryption can be quietly removed or bypassed, is any cloud data truly private anymore? I’ll be watching closely to see what happens next….while also privately encrypting my own stuff.

  • UK demands access to Apple users’ encrypted data

    UK demands access to Apple users’ encrypted data

    This story has been doing the rounds this week, and it’s blowing my mind that there isn’t more noise about it.

    Image shows the BBC News Headline 'UK demands access to Apple Users' encrypted data
    News headlineScreenshot

    The UK is demanding that Apple put in a back-door to their encryption system that would allow the government to view anyone’s data held in iCloud. Not only that, Apple are, by law, not allowed do tell us that’s what the government is doing. I could not be more WTF without turning myself inside out.

    The scope of this is also huge – it’s access to encrypted data worldwide, not just for people in the UK. I mean, come on. I see the US has already started to kick off about it.

    They urge her to give the UK an ultimatum: "Back down from this dangerous attack on US cybersecurity, or face serious consequences." The BBC has contacted the UK government for comment. "While the UK has been a trusted ally, the US government must not permit what is effectively a foreign cyberattack waged through political means", the US politicians wrote. If the UK does not back down Ms Gabbard should "reevaluate US-UK cybersecurity arrangements and programs as well as US intelligence sharing", they suggest.
    Screenshot of BBC News

    I can partially – I think, so far – accept that the government’s intentions are not to generally search and analyse people’s data through some form of mass surveillance…but I can’t imagine that conversation hasn’t come up. No doubt using the ‘won’t you think of the children‘ defence.

    This idea of opening up a back-door into end-to-end encrypted services is a bit terrifying from a technical perspective and from a general understanding point of view. Do you genuinely think that it’s beyond the realms of thought that a method to exploit that back-door wouldn’t be found…? Or do you think it would only ever be used by the good guys.

    I was having this conversation with a few non-techie friends recently (I have some), and they didn’t see the problem. Here’s the thing though, it would mean the government could see their data, but any bad-actor with half a brain would still easily be able to protect their stuff.

    The only data this gives the government access to are idiot criminals and every member of the public. Let me explain. 

    Let’s say I’m a bad guy, and I want to have a conversation with another bad guy – let’s call him Donald. Now, I want to use publicly available end-to-end encrypted services such as WhatsApp or iMessage, but I know the government has access to that data via their back-door (fnarr).

    Oh my! What do I do! Well, I do what any sane person would do and encrypt my data using my own keys before I used that service that the government has access to. Hell, I could use far stronger encryption than was originally implemented in WhatsApp or iCloud anyway.

    So where are now in that scenario? The bad guys have secure comms, and everyone else’s data is exposed to the government. I suppose there’s an argument that if the government saw you were using private encryption that you’d stand out, but what are they going to do…outlaw the use of encryption?

    This is such a bizarre and unnecessary attack on public privacy, obviously designed and implemented by people who have little idea of how encrypted communications work.

    Imagine what other back-doors they’ve asked for – HTTPS for example, for your banking apps or everything else?

    Why you’re not furious about it is beyond me.

  • Mac vs PC – Really?

    There’s a question I’ve come to dread: ‘Why do you use a Mac?’. It’s always centred on the fact that probably 90% plus of my work is on Windows + networking infrastructure. Very few bits of infrastructure are MacOS based.

    Why do I avoid it? Well, mostly because the person asking it usually has a predetermined position and they’re itching to give it to you. It’s rarely interesting.

    Objectively though – why? Well, my opinion is changing, and my choices are evolving. That is interesting. First, let’s cover why it wasn’t interesting before.

    Primarily it’s because there was nothing you can do on Windows that I couldn’t typically do on my Mac. WAIT you say – Visio? Microsoft PROJECT? OMG OMG. Well. Virtualised I can run both of those things, as well as much other Windows software. It isn’t a key decision point for me.

    What this means is that my reason for using a Mac was subjective. I just liked the operating environment more. Did it make it more productive….? Arguable as to whether it does or not. I just preferred the look/feel and how the apps worked.

    What about hardware? Well, I’m sure there were many better hardware platforms out there – Dell XPS came pretty close for me for example. Again though it’s subjective. I get to use several Windows machines and they’re very capable, and they could have done the day Job. I just subjectively preferred the MacOS environemnt.

    One of the absolute key strengths I really embraced with my Mac was the ability to virtualise so much stuff, so quickly. I would have separate environments on a drive and I could quickly power up Skype or Exchange or many standard environments. On my laptop. It was hugely capable. Was.

    Wait you may think – what about Hyper-V? Or VMWare Workstation? You can do that on Windows. You can, and I’d refer you back to my previous point about subjective preference over actual real objective points. I just preferred it in MacOS. Hyper-V was particularly irritating – it didn’t scale as well on my local machines and I’d often run in to odd issues usually to do with networking. I’d rarely run in to stuff like that on my Mac.

    I ended up using my Mac more like I would an appliance – I just didn’t really get involved in tweaking it, or fighting to get bits working. That sometimes wasn’t my experience on my Windows equivalents. It was a preference choice though – not one that would fundamentally affect my ability to do stuff.

    Now though – well, it’s all change. The Apple move to ARM has removed a big key point of my preference – virtualisation. I’m finding that I’m running stuff on my home systems and connecting to it remotely – which is fine of course, but it’s an extra step and requires planning. I miss being able to quickly just fire up an environment.

    I was today trying to think about then why am I still on a Mac? My main laptop for example is a 10 core 64GB/2TB 16″ ARM MacBook Pro. It absolutely flies. I’ve not got close to using that RAM simply because of the virtualisation restrictions. I don’t think I’ve used such a capable machine with simply ridiculous battery life. There’s an issue though – it no longer really does enough. In reality the real reason I’m still using my Mac laptop rather than switching back to say an XPS, is really Apple Photos, Final Cut Pro and….. familiarty… That’s it.

    Microsoft is now of course (apparently – again) embracing ARM so perhaps things will change in a few years, however for now my MacBook Pro is becoming a media machine, and I suspect my day job will now be XPS driven.

    Weird how things come around isn’t it? It’s interesting to see the fervent arguments each way – I’m not one of those arguers – usually. I just have – had – a preference. The problem is my preference is now making my day job more difficult, in that I have to plan for other methods and other ways of getting stuff done.

    That isn’t cool, and no amount of looks nice or familiarity can overcome that.

  • Parallels or Fusion?

    Virtualisation on MacOS is astonishingly capable. Before I get text-abuse, I’m fully aware that you can virtualise on Windows too – HyperV, VMWare Workstation etc. Can you run Final Cut Pro though…? Legally…? Nope. Anyway, I digress.

    I tend to use Parallels Desktop for my client-side virtualisation, and VMWare Fusion for my server stuff – but what should you use? Assuming we’re just looking at client-side virtualisation, then this video may help.

  • Apple Shenanigans

    Oh god. An opinion piece. Also one that mentions Apple. Yaaaay. Can I just say iSheep before anyone else? First etc. 

    Anyway, I recently blogged about some of Apple’s products and strategy getting them off my Christmas card list. You can see it here:

    Lost the video – sorry!

    If you’ve an interest in anything tech or Apple you can’t fail to have noticed the downward pushing of income estimates this quarter. For example:

    Apple blames China for sales forecast cut

    Just how bad is it for Apple?

    When I did my mini-rant I was focusing on the product platform and services, which in some respects led me to reflect on the pricing of some of their stuff. I wasn’t considering Apple’s company performance. It would appear though that it’s not just I that’s becoming a bit disillusioned.

    The thing is, that disillusionment, some people think it’s obvious and has been around for a long time. It may have been – but it’s really hard to ascertain from the noise of Apple-haters isn’t it? Just go read some of the uneducated bleurgh comments on those two articles for example. 

    I’m a technology fan, and I’m fortunate enough that for the most part I get to be able to choose the technology products and vendors that I like to use. Now, of course price is part of that, however as most of it is company money the real ‘cost’ of the product is less important to me than the quality of platform I’m actually using. 

    For a long, long time – circa 2010 from the look of my purchase history – my compute platform of choice has been MacOS stuff. I use it primarily as like the stability of the platform, it’s ability to virtualise pretty much anything I throw at it, and the quality of the hardware. Primarily of course it’s how well all these things work together that ‘sells’ the platform to me. Add in some great service I’ve had over the years and, well, the technology fan in me finds it hard to find a preferable platform. As a quick side-note – I find mobile phones utterly dull and have very little interest in them. I have an iPhone simply for the reason that it fits well with everything else I use.

    In terms of product life-cycle, my ‘power’ stuff that I use in my day to day job gets replaced every 2-3 years. My mobile one – I.e. Laptops/phones – usually with each new generation. The main driver behind that generational update on my laptops by the way is a financial one – the resale value of Apple laptops is awesome, and it generally means I getter resale value re-selling something that’s still under warranty and relatively current. It makes the vector upgrade price a lot smaller than you’d imagine.

    For the first time in a long, long time I’m seriously looking at other platforms and products. I’ve a couple of iMac Pro units which, bar the support issues, have been probably the best compute platforms I’ve ever owned. They’ve still got a good couple of years in them to be fair, however given the current Apple range and it’s overall offering, I can’t see me refreshing them. 

    I’ve a Mac Pro by the way. Overheats if it gets a bit stressed, and shuts down. Can’t innovate, my ass. Another long broken link, sorry!

    Things do get a bit interesting at this point by the way. Looking at other platforms. I kept hearing about how great, fast and all round super the Microsoft Surface Book 2 was. So I bought one. It’s nice, but from a performance perspective it’s a complete toy next to any of my MacBook Pro units. Don’t believe me? Just look at the benchmarks, or at some of the comedy performance comparisons. Another long broken link, sorry!

    I’m sure there are some excellent platforms out there, I’m just struggling to find them. A Dell XPS perhaps…? Looks pretty good on paper doesn’t it? Perhaps I’ll check one of them out.

    I suspect Apple’s current rough patch – and I’m feeling that rough patch, to be clear – makes us forget exactly how good their kit is. Even in this rough-patch I’m struggling to find a decent comparison piece of kit. I will say though their current range and pricing has got me looking far more in earnest than I did previously anyway.

    How would Apple get out of this pit? I’ve no idea financially, as I’ve said my focus is on product and platform really. How would they get me believing again? Well, stop taking the piss on stuff like the i9 MacBook Pro issue for example. Making it possible for me to get the support on my iMac Pro units that I thought was available. Not doing cynical upgrade cycles by only enabling functionality in software that previous hardware was more than capable of supporting.

    Get back to thinking product and experience is their number 1 priority. Everything else will just follow with that. Right now it obviously isn’t their number 1, it’s money and share-price. 

  • VMWare Fusion 11.0 – It’s a mess

    The arms race between Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion has continued with the recent release of Parallels Desktop 14.0 and even more recently VMWare Fusion 11.0. I use both products – typically VMWare for my server stuff, and Parallels for desktop type setup (Think Office/Outlook/Windows 10).

    I’ve upgraded my Fusion to version 11 – and oh am I regretting it. There’s tons of problems with it:

    • Wow it’s slow compared to Parallels
    • I can’t run ANY virtual machines if I’ve previously run Parallels or VirtualBox
    • The network performance is all over the place.
    • Did I mention how slow it was? Startup/shutdown & Snapshotting.

    I’ve tried this on multiple machines, and all with similar results. The most irritating one is that if I try and use VMWare Fusion after having either Parallels or VirtualBox running, I get an error saying ‘Too many virtual machines running’. The only way I seem to get around it is by rebooting and not using Parallels or VirtualBox at all. It’s infuriating.

    I’m sure VMWare will iron out the issues, but for now it’s going in the bin and I’m going to ask for my money back.

    Video below shows the general performance and issues in more detail.

  • Upgrading the ram in an Apple iMac Pro

    One of the physical differences between the 2017 5k iMac and the 2017 iMac Pro is the RAM upgrade process. In the normal 5k unit there’s a small door at the back that grants you easy access to the RAM slots – you can upgrade the RAM yourself, and very easily.

    With the 2017 iMac Pro, the RAM is upgradable, but you cannot do it yourself. Well, unless you’re quite brave with an expensive machine – you have to dismantle it. For anyone who’s ever dismantled and iMac, it can be quite challenging.

    Anyway, if you look at the Tech Specs for the iMac Pro, you’ll see the base RAM is 32Gb, and it’s configurable to 64Gb or 128Gb. The units have four memory slots in them:

    iMac Pro RAM Slot Layout

    Notice the ‘memory upgrade instructions’? That just takes you to the Apple support pages. In addition, you can see the memory specifications here: 

    iMac Pro memory specifications

    Note this bit:

    iMac Pro RAM Details

    In effect, an Apple Store can deal with Warranty issues. If you want the RAM upgrading however then you have to visit an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP). Anyway, I could not find this information originally, and it’s seriously making me question whether this was the way it was worded in the first place. But hey, what can you do.

    When I bought this iMac Pro, there were quite significant delays on getting the units, especially with any customisation. After speaking to Apple, they suggested buying the 32Gb unit and bringing it back to have the RAM upgraded. Simple you may think.

    Twice I took the iMac Pro to my local Apple Store. Twice I regretted not remembering that the box handle isn’t strong enough to carry the weight of the machine, but that’s a different story.

    The first time I attended they struggled to find any information on the upgrade process, and suggested that as the units were so new, and so different, they wait a while and try again.

    So I did wait a while. Approximately 6 months. 32Gb of RAM wasn’t terrible in the unit for the uses I had, however now I was struggling, so it needed upgrading.

    This time, rather than placing my trust in the Genius Bar, I contacted Apple via their support telephone no, and was referred to their online chat (!) as it could take a while to work out. Fair enough. I think spent some time with the online chat people who were very helpful, and arranged a visit for me to my local Apple Store to have the RAM upgraded…..and this got complicated.

    When I turned up at the Apple Store there was much ummmm and ‘well, we don’t know the process for this…’. I was fairly insistent this time, given it was second trip and the fact I’d verified the process with Apple Support first.

    They did the right thing by suggesting I leave the machine with them if I could – fortunately I have other kit and just needed it done, so happily left it in their capable hands.

    They called me back when they said they would – am I the only person that thinks such small points make a huge difference to your perception of service? Whomever put those reminders in their service system needs a commendation – this has always been my experience with Apple.

    Anyway, the result of the call with them was a bit….Interesting. They had no process to upgrade the RAM, and now they were pushing all the upgrades to the AASP. You an feel my groaning at this point…Have to go pick it up, take it somewhere else etc. Etc. It was a bit frustrating to be honest – you’d expect them to know their processes.

    This is not however what happened. Apple twice recently have surprised me with their level of service. What did they do? They ordered me a replacement unit with the specification I actually wanted, and replaced my original unit, with the idea being I simply pay for the upgrade.

    That was a great outcome for me. Admittedly had to wait for a couple of weeks for it to turn up, but no real drama with that, I have other equipment to use.

    Weird experience isn’t it? I get the iMac Pro units may be a bit unusual, but I kinda thought the Apple Stores would be a bit more on top of how they deal with such things? The final outcome for me though was an effective one, and one that surprised me. Why, I’m not sure, as I’ve only ever had excellent service from Apple.

    Anyways, I’ve now got enough memory. For now. 

  • Oh Mer Gawd 2018 Macbook Pro (Apple)

    2018-08-02 Brief update – I’ve added a video clip at the bottom showing the 2018 i9 MacBook Pro against the 2017 iMac Pro 10 Core/64Gb RAM unit).

    iMac completes it in 4 min 43 seconds, 2018 i9 MacBook Pro 9 Minutes 33 seconds. 

    iMac Pro Example Times

    ====

    Anybody with any interest in tech can’t fail to have noticed all the noise around the recent update to the Apple MacBook Pro range – in particular around thermal throttling and the performance of the units. To be fair to Apple, they responded quickly ( surprisingly so… ) and the patches they published did seem to make a significant difference.

    I’m not particularly in to the ‘OMG it wouldn’t have happened under Steve Jobs’ thing, but I can’t help thinking this wouldn’t have happened under…//slaps myself. It does however seem that Apple’s quality control is struggling a bit doesn’t it? Let’s think, there was the ridiculous High Sierra Security Bug, the throttling issue, T2 kernel panics (work in progress), iPhone throttling, and of course the issue around the failing keyboards.

    As a quick side-note, if you’re interested in the repairability side of Apple kit, you could do worse than to subscribe to Louis Rossmann’s channel over on YouTube. It’s fair to say he’s not a fan of Apple’s attitude to repairability! Quite reasonably so from what I’ve seen.

    I’m not going to bang on about the throttling, however I thought I would look at the performance of the 2018 unit and compare it to my older ones, and just for the laughs to the Surface Book 2 I also have. You can see the results in the video below – spoilers: The i9 is faster than all of them, who knew.

    I should also do a comparison against my iMac Pro but I can’t at the minute as Apple is busy swapping it for another one. More on that in a later blog, once I have an outcome. 

    So, quick summary. Do I like the 2018 unit? Is it a big step up from the 2017? Do I have any concerns? Well:

    Yes. It’s fast.

    Yes. The 32Gb upgrade is going to help me a lot. In some instances I’ve had to carry two laptops to achieve some things (admittedly an unusual use case), but I won’t have to do that any more.

    Concerns? Wow it runs hot. That makes me wonder about reliability. But. We shall see.

    Anyway, the video is below should you be interested. You can see the information on the 2017 unit here: 2017 Kaby Lake MacBook Pro. 

    Comparison with the 2017 iMac Pro:

  • MacOS High Sierra – Another Security Bug

    So there’s been yet another security issue with MacOS High Sierra highlighted – the fact that you can authenticate to the App Store preference pane with any old password. Combine this with the recent one where you could authenticate to any MacOS machine with no password on a root user…well, it’s enough to make anyone a little concerned isn’t it?

    You can read about them here:

    macOS High Sierra’s App Store System Preferences Can Be Unlocked With Any Password

    Major macOS High Sierra Bug Allows Full Admin Access Without Password 

    I find it interesting that people think MacOS is so, so secure against the competition (Yes Windows, I’m looking at you). Really, is it? I’m not convinced. I think it’s probably reasonable to say that MacOS users are at less risk than their Windows counterparts (security by obscurity and all that), but I don’t think it’s inherently more secure. If this latest bug doesn’t convince you of that I’m not sure what else will.

    It’s the same with Anti-Virus/Malware in my opinion. Wrote about that previously:

    I don’t need Anti-Virus on my Mac…Right?

    Aaaanyway, sure I’ll now get to be told just how wrong I am? The joy of the Internets.

    Video below shows the exposure: Video no longer available.

  • Cannot export from iMovie in 1080p

    I ran in to an odd issue with iMovie – it wouldn’t let me export the project to a file at 1080p, it would only let me select 720p or 540p. This was a bit odd – I checked all the source footage and it was all at least 1080p? Anyway, there’s a simple way to fix, and it involves:

    • Select all of your project footage with CMD+A, and then copy it with CMD+C.
    • Create a new project, and insert any photo in there – it has to be at least 1920×1080, so any decent resolution photo.
    • Paste in your project data with CMD+V.
    • Delete the photo you inserted….
    • …and you can now export in 1080.

    Bit weird, but like I say, quite simple to fix. The video below shows a run through on how to do it.

  • 2017 Kaby Lake Macbook Pro

    A couple of months ago I did the below blog/video, showing not only what I run on my MBP, and how, but also the general performance of the 2016 MacBook Pro Touchbar (I.e. The Sky Lake one).

    What’s on my Macbook Pro?

    I’ve now picked up the 2017 Kaby Lake equivalent – albeit the higher specification retail unit (The 2.9Ghz i7/512Gb SSD). I thought it would be useful to have a look at the performance of that – you can see that below.

    Quick summary:

    • 2016 didn’t feel like a massive step up from my 2015.
    • The 2017 does feel a fair bit quicker in general use than the 2016.
    • The weird battery performance I was getting on the 2016 unit seems to be gone.

    Anyways, video below.

  • I don’t need Anti-Virus on my Mac…Right?

    Wrong – on so many levels. 

    Since my article yesterday about protecting your stuff, a few people have asked me about Anti-Virus (AV)protection for their Apple Macs. The general assumption out there seems to be that you don’t need AV protection on a Mac. I think this is wrong.

    It’s true there’s far fewer malware and virus packages targeted at OSX – and because of this the probability of you getting hit by such a thing is far lower. But probability isn’t protection is it?

    Apple themselves used to claim that the Mac ‘doesn’t get PC viruses’ and told owners they could ‘safeguard your data’, ‘by doing nothing’. They quietly dropped this claim in 2011/2012 following the outbreak of the Flashback Trojan on OSX.

    So if you have a Mac, and you’re not running any form of AV….you’re protected by the lower volume of targeted malware out there, and that’s it. You’re playing the probability game.

    The other thing to consider is that for some strange cultish reason people who like OSX/MacOS (to be clear, I’m a big, big fan) seem to think it’s a fully secure operating system, and often compare it to Windows. Usually in a facetious ‘lol Windows’ sort of way. 

    Here’s the thing though – MacOS mostly fairs worse than Windows when it comes to hacking and security testing. Read that again – it’s true. Didn’t expect that did you?

    Time and time again MacOS has come out badly on InfoSec & hacking tests.

    So as I say – no virus protection, you’re playing the game of numbers rather than offering any real protection.

    The other element to consider is that of being a good net-citizen. What do I mean by this? Well, if you’re not careful you could find yourself passing along virus & malware code that while it couldn’t infect your MacOS machine it could of course infect a Windows machine who you happen to send stuff too – via email for example. 

    So how do I protect my stuff…? From a scenario point of view I have a couple of MacOS laptops, and a main big spec iMac that is the centre of the my digital life. Each one of those units also runs Windows in Parallels. I.e. Virtualised. So how do I protect my environment?

    As per the previous article, I start at the basic level and then work up to some more specific stuff that is probably more due to my paranoia than any great technical need – so let’s work through them.

    Don’t do stupid

    This is probably the core to all of your security really. Don’t do daft things like download hooky software, or click on links in suspicious emails. That last one is an interesting one – when I get emails saying ‘login to your account’ for example, I never do it from the email links, I always go directly to the website myself.

    There’s also other core stuff to do, including:

    Encrypting your hard disk (Encryption – it’s for everyone)

    Use a password manager (Why don’t more people use password managers?)

    Protecting Core MacOS/OSX

    There’s various anti-virus/malware products out there for OSX. There’s a decent review of the products here at Tom’s Guide:

    Best Antivirus Software and Apps 2017

    Personally, I use BitDefender. Quite pleased that my own assessment of products out there comes top of the list at Tom’s Guide too! Anyways, it’s a great product – works well and is not intrusive.

    There’s various other products out there – another common one is ClamXAV for example.

    Protecting my Windows Machines

    I run a number of Windows machines in Parallels. Windows comes with its own anti-virus built in – something called Windows Defender. I will  say that Windows Defender never seems to fair very well in most testing scenarios. It is of course far better than nothing.

    If your core OSX platform is protected by a good platform like BitDefender, it’s arguable that Windows Defender would suffice in your Windows machines. Personally, I don’t believe in ‘average’ security. You may have spotted this. So…in my Windows machines I use the AVG product. I only use the free one in Windows now rather than the subscription model, mainly as my core MacOS platforms are so well protected.

    UPDATED: I no longer use AVG – after issues getting it installed and working with my account, I gave up. Interaction with tech support was terrible. I now use Bitdefender in Windows as well.

    For most people, the above would be enough to provide you a decent level of protection. There are however additional things you can do. This is perhaps where I start moving in to the area that’s beyond most people’s requirements. I work in IT, and am constantly on people’s systems – so protecting me and them is absolutely critical to my day job.

    So, some of the extra stuff I do.

    LittleSnitch for OSX

    While MacOS has a decent in-built firewall, it doesn’t tell you an awful lot about what your machine is up to in terms of network connections. Who are you connecting to right now…? You probably have no idea. Anyways, this is where LittleSnitch steps in. You can read a bit more about it here:

    Little Snitch keeps an eye on your Mac’s Internet connections

    It essentially allows you to view exactly what your Mac is connecting too.

    Sandboxed Machines

    Using virtualisation it’s pretty easy to build new machines – whether MacOS or Windows. In view of this, I have some sandboxed machines for each of the common OS environments I use. What’s a sandbox? Well it’s an isolated machine that you can use to test stuff on.

    I have some MacOS and Windows Sandbox environments that I use for testing stuff in. 

    Summary

    Protecting your environment is key to protecting your data. It’s also part of being a good net-citizen really. Don’t risk your stuff – and don’t risk mine either.

  • Outlook 2016 – Cannot delete reminders

    I’ve been running into an issue recently where my Outlook 2016 for Mac would constantly bring up reminders that I had already dismissed. I noticed it seemed to be related to using Outlook on another Mac for the same Exchange account – I.e. As soon as I did it on another Mac, then boom all the reminders were back on *all* machines.

    It’s irritating, but not catastrophically so I guess.

    Anyway, after doing some research there’s a fix that seems to sort it.  Firstly, shut down the Outlook 2016 for Mac client on all of your Macs. 

    Go to the user’s library folder – you can do this by selecting the ‘Go’ menu in Finder, selecting ‘Go to Folder’ and entering ‘~/Library’:

    Go to folder

    Under the home user’s library, navigate to:

    /~Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile/Data/Events

    …then just delete all the folders/contents of that directory. Do that on all of your Macs.

    Once done, fire up Outlook and they should stop popping up in such an annoying fashion.

  • Microsoft Lync wants to use the OC_KeyContainer

    Ran into a weird issue on Lync 2011 on my Mac machines (as a side note, how rubbish is this client? Let’s hope the upcoming Skype for Business for MacOS is everything we expected and more… ). It was putting up a prompt saying:

    Microsoft Lync wants to the “OC_KeyContainer_useraddress” keychain

    …and asking for a password. Usual user password doesn’t work. Anyway, after some digging it’s pretty easy to fix if you see it.

    Exit Lync 2011.

    Use Finder to go to the user’s library – you can use ‘Go to folder’ and enter ~/Library

    Library

    In the Library folder, go into the Keychains directory. You’ll see a few files called:

    OC_KeyContainer_useraddress

    For example: OC_KeyContainer_AndyPandy@Contoso.com

    Simply delete them. Once you’ve removed them start Lync 2011 again and it should continue as normal

  • 2016 Retina Macbook 12″

    Toward the tail end of last year, Apple released the Macbook. A 12″ Retina machine with a mobile processor. You can read about my initial thoughts about it here:

    2015 12″ Retina Macbook

    That wasn’t really a review, just my first thoughts on the product. So how did I end up liking it?

    Well, a lot would be the simple answer. Very portable, runs native apps, battery – I’d say I ended up treating it more like my iPad than my laptops. I.e. Being a bit ‘oh, I should probably plug this in at some point’ rather than trying to keep my laptops fully charged just in case.

    Any frustrations? Well, a few, with the main one being performance. As I touched on in the original article above, if you treat the unit as a super-iPad it’s great. Here’s the thing though – it runs OSX. All of a sudden I wanted to do more, like run Win 10 now and again, or do the odd bit of video processing while out on my travels. Not a great experience truth be told. Running Windows 10 in Parallels was something I’d do if I had to – I.e. To get access to mail archives, or open/run Visio etc. If I thought I needed to do that during the day, out would come my 15″ i7 and straight in to the backpack.

    The single port didn’t really offer me any problems – but again, you have to remember what the unit is aimed at. I carried a 3 port USB3 hub around ‘just in case’ and rarely had to get the thing out.

    So, with literally no surprise anywhere, Apple update the units to the Skylake processors. The idea of a bit more performance in this form factor made me hop, skip, and jump to the Apple store post haste* to pick up one of the more powerful M5 units (my 2015 unit was the entry level).

    *Opened the door to courier with a look of surprise having forgotten I’d ordered it.

    What’s the difference? Well, a lot of those original frustrations are gone. Running Windows 10 in Parallels is no longer the frustrating sludge-fest it was on the 2015 unit, and I can even process some GoPro footage in the background while carrying on with my Email. There’s no way I could have done this on the 2015 unit without longingly thinking about my 15″ rMBP.

    There’s some videos below that show the general performance of the two.

    The thing I really find interesting about these units by the way is how much they polarise opinion. You only have to look at the threads over at Macrumors (here and here for example) to see the gap of opinion:

    The comments do seem to focus on price. Lol OMG for *this amount* you could have gotten a 15″ rMBP that could run a space station. Well, yes, but then I know when I have my rMBP in my back pack.

    You see this idea elsewhere too, in the world of cars for example. 

    Man A: I’m looking at this three year old model of car x, at 20k.

    The Internet: You idiot, you should buy this one brand new at 80k because warranty or something.

    It’s almost like people expect their own position or compromises to apply to everyone else. What’s that about?

    For me, as somebody who works from multiple locations, doing things that range from meeting notes to running multiple virtual machines – an iMac would be a ridiculous compromise. Ever tried carrying one of those on the tube….? So, yeah, I get a 15″ rMBP for that, and keep my top spec iMac for doing the hard work.

    Well….if I’m out and about whether for fun or meetings or whatever, then lugging the rMBP about is also a compromise. This is the space the 12″ Macbook fills for me. It’s highly portable, battery lasts an age…and I can run pretty much anything I like on it.

    If it’s not fast, pink, grey, large, small, have enough ports, made by elves etc (insert own preference here), then perhaps it isn’t the unit for you. Why people think that your own requirements and compromises should apply to everyone else is a mystery.

    The other comments around – LOL OMG IT’S SO EXPENSIVE. Well, nobody is forcing you to buy one. Too expensive, don’t buy it.

    People, we’re an interesting bunch aren’t we.

    Anyways, the videos.

    2015 Macbook

    2016 Macbook

  • Clearing Storage

    Moved to here.

  • Clearing the DNS Cache in MacOS/OSX

    A friend of mine was having some issues clearing the DNS Cache on his OSX 10.9 Mavericks machine – the well known way of doing it in terminal:

    sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

    …it doesn’t work though in Mavericks….and it doesn’t tell you either:

    ClearCache

    I could feel his pain…Anyway, the method of clearing the DNS Cache changed with 10.7 OSX Lion. To do it with Lion, Mountain Lion or Mavericks you need to use the following command:

    sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

    Cunning hey? Also, if you do the right thing and have your normal day to day account without Administrative rights, you may be interested in this article:

    Running Terminal as a Different User

    If you’re particularly lazy…there’s an app for this.

    EDIT: Apple Support document: OS X: How to reset the DNS cache