I’ve just transitioned to a mac mini. My 2016 MacBook pro was bulging horribly. Battery knackered. The keyboard was duff from the start. I don’t need a pro machine nor a portable one now so a mini seemed a good choice. Basic model but with 1TB disk & 16 mb ram.

Bookmarked Raspberry (steve-best.github.io)
I'm pleased to report that our iMac is now better than ever, thanks to Raspberry Pi Desktop for PC and Mac (also known as Debian with Raspberry Pi Desktop). What exactly is this operating system with an incredibly long name? It is a Linux distro based on Debian with the Raspberry Pi's desktop environment. (This is not actually the operating system that is typically installed on the Raspberry Pi devices (Raspberry Pi OS), but Debian with Raspberry Pi Desktop and Raspberry Pi OS are incredibly similar.)

Looking at mum’s old intel iMac in the back room…

 

I started my early 2011 MacBook to open a a cd yesterday. The trackpad bulged ominously. New battery arrived today along with the correct screwdrivers. It feels quite snappy. I think I’ll start using if for 32 bit stuff which should let me update the newer one.

Liked Chrome is Bad (chromeisbad.com)
Short story: Google Chrome installs something called Keystone on your computer, which bizarrely hides what it's doing from Activity Monitor and makes your whole computer slow even when Chrome isn't running. Deleting Chrome and Keystone makes your computer way, way faster, all the time.

Via Aaron.

Surprised I’ve not see this in my feeds yet. I’ve certainly noticed that Chrome can sometimes seem to hog resources and energy on macs. I mostly use Safari and Firefox.

As I’ve mentioned before we use Apple Notes a lot in our class. If the class are writing, unless there is a need for formatting or layout, I often ask the pupils just to stick to notes.

Notes are easily AirDropped to me when I need to collect work and both pupils and myself can organise them in a fairly simple manner.

Occasionally I want to print the pupils work. Notes, reasonably enough, only lets you to print one note at a time. I wondered if there was AppleScript that would help. I found Export Apple Notes via AppleScript which exported a folder of notes to a new TextEdit document. I altered it to:

  • Allow you to choose a folder from Notes.
  • Export to an html file on disk.
  • Provided page breaks so that the notes would each print on their own page.

Not particularly pretty, I guess I could work on the styles a little.

You need to be in my lucky position of having a mac in your classroom. Mine uses the same account as my iPad which helps me organise thing a lot.

Here is the code, I suspect it could be improved. Even if you don’t use AppleScript is easy enough to run. Open the AppleScript editor, create a new script, paste the code below in and hit run. You will be asked to choose a folder and then name an html file. The file will be created and opened with your default browser.
You then can print.


set htmltop to "<!doctype html>
<html lang=\"en\">
<head>
<meta charset=\"utf-8\">
<title>Notes Export</title>
<style>
@media print {
hr {
page-break-after: always;
}
}
</style>
</head>
<body>"
set htmlbottom to "</body>
</html>"
tell application "Notes"
activate
set x to (name of every folder whose name is not "Notes")
set foldertoexport to (choose from list x) as string
if folder foldertoexport exists then
set output to ""
repeat with aNote in notes in folder foldertoexport
set noteText to "<!– ### Start Note ### –>
"
set noteText to noteText & ("<h1>" & name of aNote as string) & "</h1>
"
set noteText to noteText & ("<p>Creation Date: " & creation date of aNote as string) & "</p>"
set noteText to noteText & ("<p>Modification Date: " & modification date of aNote as string) & "</p>"
set noteText to (noteText & body of aNote as string) & "<hr>
"
set output to output & noteText
end repeat
set thehtml to htmltop & output & htmlbottom
set theNewFile to choose file name default name foldertoexport & "-notes.html"
set myFile to open for access theNewFile with write permission
write thehtml to myFile as «class utf8»
close access myFile
else
display dialog "not likly to happen"
end if
end tell
tell application "Finder" to open theNewFile

I just opened my old 2001 iBook, running 10.3.9 (2005) with 320 MB of RAM. The  Finder was surprisingly snappy. It slowed down a bit once I had an application or two running.

In the dock (on the right had side, vertical) Graphic Converter, Safari, SuperCard, AppleWorks, Claris Emailer, Flash MX, Tex-edit-plus, terminal, NetNewsWire, IE, QuickTime, System Prefs and Classic. There are a few other fond memories in the Application Folder.

I couldn’t get it on the Wifi but it connected via Ethernet.

I was hoping to find out what podcasts I was listening to back then, but no luck, nothing in iTunes at all,  I think I cleared out it out at some point to pass on to my wife or daughter.

(My first mac was a performa 475 bought in 1996 just as the power pc macs appeared.)