I HATE APPLE

finally moved my iTunes library (from my 2008 iMac) to Apple Music (on my 2020 iMac)

Impressive! Have you noticed many changes between 2008 iMac features and functionality and iMac 2020?

Sounds like you may have escaped the great Catalina music artwork whole system slowdown ("processing artwork") of autumn 2019.

i'm finding BeaTunes amazing for cleaning up my library. duplicates, artwork, compilations etc

predictably, my 2020 iMac runs much faster than my 2008 iMac was running at the time of its demise ... otherwise I'm not seeing much difference

nb as a Mac user since the late 80s I've always tended to turn off or ignore a lot of the small gleamy features introduced along the way and basically just want the Finder and a handful of applications to behave as they have since the early versions of OS X

had really been thinking my 2017 macbook pro was a complete dog (bought it new a year ago); fan running out of control non-stop these days. I finally did the SMC/PRAM reset trick and for the first time in probably 30+ years of owning Apple computers, this actually worked.

i do still have a lot of issues with Apple Music throwing errors while trying to add a new album from Apple Music itself. It has something to do with library synching; it's never a problem adding on my iphone, but from the computer, it seems like if I've added something on my phone, then try to add something else on my computer, it fails about 95% of the time. Restarting Apple Music itself fixes this. I tend to add a lot of local files and upload them to the music cloud on top of subscribing to Apple Music, and the problem seems to be completely around doing both of these things.

Things like Spaces and Mission Control never really took off for me. I see people using them effectively but it's not for me. I just need 3 monitors to organize my thoughts.

spaces was better when you could set it up as a 3x3 grid rather than as a single line. I still use it but it's annoying to have to go six screens over to get the project you need.

that's just too many screens

too many projects iirc

i use spaces for full screen terminals only. everything else on one space.

the number of pdfs I have open for each project, though: it has to be this way for me. not a mainstream use case but spaces helps me work better

agreed. the original form of Spaces was definitely easier to use

Euler you should print your PDFs out imo

cuneiform

Every so often I think Spaces might be the answer to all my window chaos and I spend a few minutes trying to set it up before getting confused and distracted. I'll probably get into the swing of it just as Apple drops it.

Possibly Split View will give me more what I need but I can't get to grips with that either.

I would seize up and die without spaces. I went from Gnome on Linux to OSX and definitely liked the grid format better because I was used to it but I’ve gotten used to having 7 spaces in a row and the app switching shortcut helps a lot. I have separate spaces for finder, Firefox, slack/messages, adobe cc, iterm, outlook, and my calendar

I was forced to learn to use Mission Control by, um, recent events.

the gestures to swap around different desktops on the touchpad are good imo

tbh 99% of my windows chaos would be solved if I had a Chrome extension that could take two tabs and turn them into a full-screen split view. Maybe I'll try searching for one again, or pay someone to write it.

oh, this looks promising https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bkpenclhmiealbebdopglffmfdiilejc

yeah I have a “magic trackpad” because I need the gestures to move between spaces

I run my mbp in clamshell but it sometimes wakes up in the wrong resolution and some spaces end up with windows almost entirely off the right side of the screen and it’s annoying.

alba, i used to have a hard time with spaces back when it was first introduced. upgrading os x to something in the current era helped a lot, i think because the trackpad gestures got a lot more useful and intuitive (and available—using the hotkeys to switch was always a pain in the ass for some reason).

this is hoonja material but I live for the SizeUp app and always have all my windows and finder windows etc all nicely tiled.

Thanks J. I use a regular mouse most of the time so trackpad gestures are beyond my reach.

I only use SizeUp for one thing (splitting the screen into two vertical windows) but I consider it indispensable.

I use size up w/ key commands assigned to the command-numeric keypad and can basically fly all my windows around like a goddamn wizard.

Why do you people do so much big hoss nonsense on your home-ass macintoshes

we toil tirelessly at all places and times unlike you clock-punching government teat drinkers

i'm working from home. Actually in-laws home. Came out here w/ my work-supplied Macbook Pro 13" and brought my trusty Dell Ultrasharp 24" to use as a second monitor. Been out here long enough figured I'd check to see if there were any dirt cheap deals to get a third monitor (i was using my ipad for a while but it wasn't that helpful) and I found the same exact Dell just newer, down the street for 75 bucks. Now I'm a real nerd.

I can only effectively use a third monitor if I have two keyboards and two networks

OK technically i have a four monitor setup but it’s still two networks and three keyboards

1: two monitors, work shitbox which is basically an O365 thin client at this point

2: ipad pro with keyboard cover, for work-related videoconferencing

3: personal macbook air, the least annoying of the three tbf (because O365 on iPadOS is often disappointing)

Oh wow, in 'things I wish I'd known years ago or possibly did but then forgot', you can move (rather than copy) files within Finder by pasting with Command+Option+V.

Never knew that!

i have a playlist in apple music - of local files (i don't subscribe to the apple music service).

i want to give this playlist to a friend (my wife, actually) so she can listen to it while she runs.

i can't do it, can i?

Replicate the playlist in itunes and then export them? They are local files, so you have them.

Found this but I've not used or tried it: https://www.noteburner.com/apple-music/export-apple-music-playlist-to-other-services.html

i'm going to flex here - some of these songs are rare, weird, mashups etc - not on a music service.

i mean, i know i could drag the files from apple music into a folder, airdrop them to her, go over to her computer, drag them into apple music, rearrange them so they're in the same order but man, come on - surely that drudge work is what computers are FOR.

Ha yeah, otm on the latter.

Someone else is paying for me get a new, small laptop for general writing/internet use but also some coding and Jupyter Notebooks, etc.

planning to procure a macbook pro, but is it better (if forced to choose) to privilege the fastest processor possible, or the most RAM?

RAM
For light work you won’t notice a difference in processors.
Having a lot of RAM makes the computer snappier overall, able to have more programs open at the same time, etc

don't get an MBP, MBPs are bricks
get an air like a regular person

even if doing some light ML/coding stuff stuff? it's not just going to be an internet machine

we're looking at getting a new laptop too for my wife to use for work, and i'd rather get an air but a 13" screen is just too small for real work

run your machine learning in the cloud imo

yes, the heavy processing all happens there

Would I not notice the difference between a MBA and MBP running Adobe Lightroom?

Bricks? The pro weighs like an ounce more.

Would I not notice the difference between a MBA and MBP running Adobe Lightroom?

I’m a machine learning engineer. Get an mba. Max out ram then disk then cpu in that order.

MBP was the right choice for me. my laptop (even pre-covid) moved between my home office and my living room, so size and weight were pretty much irrelevant.