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Random postings of tech and other life things…

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What I Use

I thought I would put this post here more as a way for me to keep a running list of what I have and what I’m using.  This is by no means a complete list, but I’ll update it over time in an attempt to get it there.

Computers

I used to use 2 different computers, a primary more powerful desktop and lesser powerful portable laptop. With the introduction of Apple Silicon I’ve decided to collapse both of those into a more powerful laptop as my primary computer. I’ve recently gotten the Apple MacBook Pro “M2 Pro” 10 CPU/16 GPU 14″. I opted for the Pro with the M2 Pro processor to have native support for multiple monitors. I have the model with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD storage. This has been an amazing laptop so far and can’t recommend it highly enough. I’ve also picked up the Apple Studio Display and I’ve replaced my dual monitor setup with the single 27″ monitor and the laptop on a laptop stand. This is probably the best monitor I’ve ever owned and fits in perfectly with my setup. I’ve also been plugging this monitor into my work Dell laptop and it’s working just as you would expect.

I also have a gaming computer that I built circa 2019. While it’s now 6 years old it’s still working well for things that require Windows, as well as gaming via Steam, Xbox, and retro emulation using LaunchBox. If you are a gamer and enjoy retro games you should definitely check out LaunchBox. It’s been by far the best and easiest way to enjoy retro games. My gaming computer is using the following hardware:
–MSI MPG Z390 GAMING PRO CARBON ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
–Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor
–Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory
–Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
-NVIDIA – GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER 12GB GDDR6X Graphics Card – Titanium/Black
–DIYPC Ranger-R4 ATX Mid Tower Case

Peripherals

While docked at the desk, my keyboard is the Logitech MX Keys Mini. While it’s not a perfect keyboard it is very affordable and has pairings to 3 different devices which allows me to swap between my personal Mac laptop and my work Dell laptop. The mouse I have at my desk is the Logitech MX Master 3 Mac. I also keep the Apple Magic Trackpad to the side to use for any gestures that may be easier on the trackpad versus using the mouse.

On my gaming computer, I’m using the Razer – Huntsman Elite Full Size Wired Opto-Mechanical Clicky Switch Gaming Keyboard with RGB Chroma Backlighting – Black, and for a mouse I’m using the Razer – Basilisk V2 Wired Optical Gaming Mouse – Wired – Black.

Phone

I recently upgraded (December 2023) to an Apple iPhone 15 Pro 512GB in Titanium Blue. I have found iOS to be very stable and reliable in the years that I’ve been using it. My previous phone was a 128GB model and I regretted not getting more storage, so made sure to remedy that this time around. (Who ever thought that 128GB of storage on a phone would be considered “small”)

Tablet

I have a space gray Apple iPad Pro (2018) in 256GB with Verizon cellular attached to the Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil.  The iPad had become my right hand man so to speak as I would have it with me everywhere I go. I find the extra screen real estate compared to the iPhone worth the extra weight and bulk of the iPad.

I also have and use an Apple iPad mini 6th generation for content consumption and casual usage. The size of it is great which makes it much more portable than the 11-inch one.

Software

I’ve been slowly building a list of useful software tools to use in my daily activities. I’m always on the lookout for anything that can help make things easier or more streamlined.

  • 1Password – These days, a password manager is a must. With website breaches becoming more and more common, using the same password on multiple sites is a terrible idea. With desktop and mobile OSes embracing password managers and integrating them more naturally for use, the argument against using one is becoming harder and harder. I’ve chosen 1Password and have used it for years. It’s a subscription and I pay each year for the family plan. It is also OS agnostic as there’s clients for every main platform. Highly recommended.
  • Alt-Tab – This is a useful tool to give you a better look at switching apps on the Mac, much like it does on the Windows side. You get a thumbnail of the screen from each app. And better yet, it’s free!
  • Bartender 4 – This app is another Mac app that cleans up your menu bar, and displays only the ones you want, but tucks away the others for when you need them. It’s a must have if you have sprawl up there, and keeps things organized. It’s also highly customizable, (e.g. you can display the battery icon while it’s running on battery, but it tucks it under the menu when charging). It’s a $16 one time fee but once you adjust it’s hard to stop using it.
  • Etcher – When working with ISO files to do USB bootable drives. Etcher is a simple but effective application to get that done. There’s always the CLI option of dd for anyone that’s versed in command line but if you’re looking for a simple interface to do the same thing check out Etcher.
  • ExpressVPN – I signed up for a trial of ExpressVPN and now it’s a constant thing I make sure to install on all of my devices. With public hotspots not very trustworthy it’s nice to have a VPN you can use. ExpressVPN makes it seemless and most of the time I don’t even realize I’m on VPN until I check due to how fast it is.
  • iMovie – I’ve been starting to play around with video editing and recording more video. So I’ve started using iMovie as a way to cut and build custom movies with it.
  • NetNewsWire – I’ve been using this on the PC and on mobile/tablet for a few years now. For an RSS reader it’s a great tool and is very fast at downloading and swiping through articles.
  • Quicken Classic – Yes, I am that guy that still manages his finances via a local Quicken application on the computer. I know most have moved to cloud based or online programs for this, and I also use Mint for several things in conjunction with this. But the ability to have a calendar with all my bills laid out, reports of past spending, and having it all local to me, is still a nice thing for me. Maybe one day I’ll join the others but for now I still enjoy having this.
  • Reeder – I have recently switched my RSS app over to Reeder on both the Mac and the iOS/iPadOS side. I really like the look and feel of it and appreciate the effort they’ve done to make this an enjoyable app

Note: some links above are tied to my Amazon affiliate account and I do get paid a small fee from following the links. I appreciate your support.

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Fixing Authentication Failed error in Outlook 2016 on the Mac

I had a weird issue this morning. When logging into all my apps to begin my work day I noticed that my Exchange account wasn’t connecting in Outlook.  We use Office 365 with SSO, and it was continually prompting me with our SSO page to logon in a loop.  I checked the Mail app and everything appeared fine in there, so I knew it wasn’t Office 365 but something with my local Outlook app.  I attempted to remove and readd the account and then started to get “Authentication failed. Check your account information and try again.” It was this point I went to keychain access.  I figured something in keychain had been saved or set wrong and it was passing bad credentials to Office 365 from keychain.  There are 3 sets of items you will need to delete to clear everything being used by Outlook.

  • Open up Keychain Access
  • With “login” highlighted search for the following 3 items
    • Search “Exchange” and delete everything
    • Search “Office” and delete everything
    • Search “ADAL” and delete everything

After I performed those steps, I returned to Outlook and it allowed me to add my account back to the app as expected. I hope this can help others that might have this issue as well.

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Editing Powershell on a Mac

So I’ve been looking for something like this for a long time but apparently just not hard enough.  I finally found this blog that had exactly what I’ve been looking for. The original blog is here.

http://www.jonathanmedd.net/2013/03/writing-powershell-code-on-os-x-using-sublime.html

Basically, this will give you a text editor to highlight the syntax of powershell for editing powershell scripts on the Mac.  Most of the time you will have to have a windows machine to do the testing of the script, but it’s nice to have something like this when it’s needed.

First, download Sublime from here: download

Next, download the Zip package (button in the bottom right corner of the page) from here https://github.com/SublimeText/PowerShell

Then, copy the entire powershell folder into the directory here: Users\Username\Library\Application Support\Sublime Text 2\Packages.  The original poster noted that you can just open sublime and navigate to the menus Sublime – Preferences – Browse Packages to open this location.

Once that’s copied in there, just quit and reopen Sublime and then you can navigate to the View menu – Syntax – Powershell v2 and it will highlight the code properly.

I hope this helps anyone else out there that had been looking for this.

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Microsoft’s New Remote Desktop Client for the Mac

When upgrading my work computer to Windows 8.1 last month, I was a bit horrified when I realized that the Remote Desktop app that was provided with Microsoft Office 2011 could no longer remote into my work computer.  This was bad as this was my main means of working remotely for the tasks that required me to be on a Windows machine.  A quick search out there revealed a new app from Microsoft in the iTunes store for a new Microsoft Remote Desktop. After downloading this and getting it installed I was easily able to remote into my work computer again and all was well.  And this app handles the multiple RDP sessions a little differently than the old app did.  While there’s some good and bad with it, overall I think it’s a much improved version and one I was happy to see made available.

There is also a matching version in the iTunes store for the iPad and iPhone/iPod touch as well.  They work very similar to the desktop version.
One of the best benefits this new version does other than support Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2, it also supports the .RDP files much better that are sometimes used to distribute remote connection sessions.  I recently took a virtual CCNA class which utilized an RDP session into the lab equipment.  I was able to successfully launch the RDP session thru the classes website and it launched as expected in the new client.  Kudos to Microsoft for helping to bring a little better app development to some of their lesser used Mac applications.
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New iMacs… waiting…

So Apple updated the MacBook Pros about a month or so ago with Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processors and the Thunderbolt ports.  I will say, a guy at my work purchased one (his first Apple Computer purchase ever sans iPods) and has been blown away by the speed and processing power inside of the laptop.

This laptop was replacing a desktop tower computer in his house that he used for video editing and media center functionality.  Other than the learning curve of a completely new operating system, paried with his misunderstanding of how iTunes works as an application (I’ve been helping out alot in those area) he has loved it.  It wasn’t until we were working to encode some digital movies he had into a format that would play on his 5th generation iPod that I realized the speed of this processor.

He was able to completely re-encode this movie, getting from point A to point B, in less than 7 minutes.  In comparison, my computer at home would take around an hour to do the same task.  Mine is an iMac 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo machine with 3GB of RAM.  Once I saw this, I knew that my current iMac would have to be replaced by a machine running the new Intel processor architecture.

So, now I ask Apple, how long will I be waiting for this iMac to be released… (and after that, how long before Thunderbolt hard drives become avaiable at decent prices)

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