40Tech – Page 17 – by Evan Kline

January 29, 2018

My Biggest Problem with the MacBook Pro Isn’t the Keyboard

Do a quick Internet search for “MacBook Pro keyboard problems” and you’ll see how unreliable the keyboard has been for many users. Further, some users hate the short travel of the keys. I haven’t had any reliability issues with the keyboard, and I actually love the feel of the keyboard.

Now that I’ve jinxed myself, it’s time for me to talk about my biggest problem with the MacBook Pro – the trackpad. The trackpad on my 2017 MacBook Pro is so huge, that it constantly registers misclicks, causing my cursor to randomly jump around a document. Bottom line, for me the palm rejection on the new MacBook Pro is horrible.

My attempted fix

I type with my palms raised a bit, and my fingers dangling down, which might be what is causing the misclicks. I tried for weeks to retrain myself to keep my palms resting on the keyboard, which, oddly, is how I type on a desktop keyboard. I could never get myself to do it consistently on the MacBook, and even when I did I got misclicks. Back to the drawing board.

My final fix

My final fix was to turn off the tap-to-click option in the Trackpad settings on my MacBook. I’ve been a tap-to-click person for as long as I can remember, so I really wanted to avoid this. Ultimately, I didn’t have a choice. Worse, I made the change on my iMac, too, so I would have a consistent experience across devices.

I HATE having to forcibly click the trackpad. Often that click doesn’t even register at all, and when it does it slows me down. But at least typing on the MacBook Pro isn’t horrible.

An attempted tweak

I thought I could bring BetterTouchTool into the equation to get back to tap-to-click. I set up tap areas around the edges of the trackpad, where a tap would register as a click. That just brought back the original problem.

Resignation

It looks like I’m a click person, until Apple fixes this monstrosity of a trackpad.

January 28, 2018

Apple Kills Off Several MacOS Server Features

It sure sounds like macOS Server isn’t long for this world. Apple has announced a number of services that are being removed from Server, including Calendar, Contacts, DHCP, DNS, Mail, Messages, NetInstall, VPN, Websites, and Wiki. In addition, FTP support and iOS File Sharing support were removed from Server back in September.

In the age of NAS devices like Synology that offer easy setup of many of these services, I understand why Apple is doing this. Still, there are bound to be many Server fans upset over the loss of features from a product that had a devoted following.

Apple has moved some Server features into High Sierra, making them available to all users. These include the Caching Service, which let users save bandwidth by having a Mac cache iCloud data, app updates, and more, for use by other devices on the network. File Sharing has also been moved to High Sierra, and Time Machine backups can be made using SMB backups built into High Sierra.

If you want to take a look at all the features that previously were in Server, the OS X Server features page is still online.

January 27, 2018

Slim Down 40Tech’s RSS Feed

[February 24, 2018 update: I’ve further tweaked how I’m handling micro.blog posts. They’re no longer on the main page, but in their own section of the site and in their own RSS feed.]

Original post:

A couple of weeks ago, I made the decision to use micro.blog to keep all my Twitter-like posts here at 40Tech.com. That post explained my reasoning behind it. The side effect for RSS subscribers is your feed got a bit busier with short “micro” posts, and you may have some posts in your feed that are “Untitled.”

If you want to exclude these microblog-style posts from your feed, you can do so by using this feed link:

40Tech RSS Feed Exluding Microblog Posts

You can continue to get all posts at the normal RSS feed link.

January 26, 2018

OmniFocus 3 and OmniFocus for the Web →

Ken Case writing for the Omni Blog:

For all our customers in that situation, I have good news to share: we’re building OmniFocus for the Web. It will be greatly simplified from the OmniFocus you know: it won’t have custom perspectives or notifications or maps. It won’t have Review. It won’t let you set up new repeating tasks (though it will correctly handle repeating tasks that are already set up). Its capabilities will be a lot more like what we shipped in our very first iPhone app: you’ll be able to see the lists of tasks in your Inbox, Projects, and Tags, with their associated notes and due dates. You’ll be able to edit basic information about those tasks (checking them off, assigning a due date, changing a title or note) and of course you’ll be able to add new tasks.

This blog post by the head of the Omni Group is filled to the brim with information on what the company plans for 2018, including a new version of OmniOutliner for iOS, and a new version of OmniFocus. The introduction (finally) of tags would have been big news on its own, but the announcement of OmniFocus for the Web might be even bigger if you need to use Windows.

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January 26, 2018

4 easy ways to get back to the Desktop on your Mac →

Charlie Sorrel, writing for Cult of Mac:

This one may already be enabled on your Mac. Try it now. Just place your thumb and fingers onto your trackpad, and spread them out. It’s as if you’re pushing away all those windows with your fingers, and that’s exactly what happens. The windows fly off to the sides of the screen, revealing your desktop.

If you’re minimizing apps to get to your desktop, or swiping to an empty space, there’s a quicker way. The shortcut keyboard combination described in the Cult of Mac article was new to me, and I always forget about the trackpad gesture. Not mentioned in the article is that if you have a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar, you can also set up a virtual key to take you to your desktop.