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macOS Survival Guide

medium.com
3 pointsSergioInToronto5 comments
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I love these highly opinionated must-do lists. I do some of them. I bumble on without most of them. Factory defaults works more-or-less has been a fact of life since CP/M.

I was held to be reductionist sticking to nvi rather than vim. I ultimately gave up, but I'm still not sure the colour syntax hints help more than they hinder.

The problem with "install this 3rd party app" is that across 20+ years the specific 3rd party app-du-jour has changed, and will continue to change.

This curated survival list has a use-by date, like the others. But truly, I value them and I read them, and I at least think about deciding to try some.

e.g. yes you can install "karabiner" to fix some terminal keyboard behaviours. Or, you can simply remap capslock to ESC and leave the other ones alone. Which is portable and does not demand installation.

This list doesn't say macports or brew. But, it has consequence for your future state. they are sometimes bleeding edge and sometimes trailling.

This list doesn't say what to do if you work on a company mac and don't have install privileges.

if you work on a company mac and don't have install privileges.

I’ve found installing apps to ~/Applications to be a way around this. It doesn’t require the admin rights that installing to /Applications does.

The app is only installed for the user, instead of all users, but that’s not an issue for a single user system. I haven’t run into any issues so far.

Even for app I can install to /Applications at work (via self service from IT), I opt to install many of them to ~/Applications anyway, as it allows the auto-updater to run without having to jump through hoops.

Your mileage may vary, if your company know about this and takes extra steps to lock things down beyond restricting admin rights.

Or, you can simply remap capslock to ESC and leave the other ones alone

This is where I started. It was enough for me, until it wasn't ;)

macports or brew

Both are good, or (the less terminally focused user) may download the apps and drag them into Applications folder. Not everyone is at the same level.

don't have install privileges

I believe the whole article is irrelevant if you can't install your own software.

The menubar at the end looks unhinged. I’m surprised they didn’t add a manager for that as well, to hide a bunch of it.

While I didn’t find anything earth shattering in here, it almost lost me immediately when the first “essential” thing was effectively a calendar widget. Apple’s Calendar and place a widget on the desktop or in the Notification Center without the need for extra software or cluttering the menubar. I don’t use this on my desktop, but I do have it on my iPhone’s Home Screen.

place a widget on the desktop or in the Notification Center

Neither is so convenient. The Notification Center can be assigned a hotkey to open quickly, but (minor) it's slower and placed unpredictably depending how many notifications I've gotten. Itsycal is exactly the UI+hotkey I like and I've heard the same from others. But to each their own.

I’m surprised they didn’t add a manager for that as well

lmao

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