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Betalogue

@betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy

5 followers 0 following 453 posts

🌉 bridged from ⁂ mastodon.social/@betalogue, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

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Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 03/08/2026

You know, one does wonder exactly when (if ever) Apple will get around to fixing Spotlight indexing in macOS so that, when you do a Spotlight search for a keyword, you can be 100% sure that it gives you the COMPLETE list of results that match the keyword […] [Original post on toot.community]

Folder in macOS containing several items with “Chabrol” in their file name or contents

Search for “Chabrol” with Spotlight returns a very incomplete list of results

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 31/07/2026

The latest Safari update for macOS 15 (Safari 26.6) causes, once again, my destination for downloads to revert back to the default ~/Downloads, instead of my destination of choice (also called “Downloads”, but on an external volume). Additional twist this […] [Original post on toot.community]

File download location setting in Safari 26.6

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 30/07/2026

AppleCare for the two Studio Displays that I bought together three years ago is expiring. Because I have two items with expiring coverage, System Settings shows the two with a “Renew” button next to each. I have to click on “Renew” even though I don’t want to […] [Original post on toot.community]

AppleCare coverage for Apple Studio Displays expiring

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 30/07/2026

Finally, because things can never be straightforward with a macOS update, however minor, after the update, my main user environment showed up as already logged in and running, even though my Mac is definitely set to NOT automatically log in. toot.community/@betalogue/117010505…

Automatically logged in after update

Mac set to NOT automatically log in

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 30/07/2026

It also wouldn’t be an authentic macOS update if it didn’t result in all my devices telling that a Mac has been added to my devices… Is this any better in Tahoe? toot.community/@betalogue/117010505…

Device Added alert in iOS

Device Added alert in iOS alert in macOS

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 30/07/2026

Apple’s estimate for the prep time for a macOS update might be more accurate than before, but its time estimates WHILE the update is taking place are still singularly useless. toot.community/@betalogue/117010505…

“About a minute remaining…” for an update that’ll take another 10 min (at least)

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 30/07/2026

I’m old enough to remember when *18 GB* was considered a monstrous download, especially for a very minor update (from macOS 15.7.7 to 15.7.8). OTOH, this time around the prep time estimate was actually better than the usual “30 minutes”. (It never takes that long.)

18 GB download for minor macOS update

prep time for macOS update

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 27/07/2026

Nothing puts you in the mood like deciding, on a fine Sunday night, that you’re going to watch another episode of one of the shows you follow on Apple TV and… finding that nothing is working, that your devices are behaving as if you didn’t have an Apple TV sub, with useless error messages when […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 25/07/2026

You don’t say.

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 25/07/2026

30 years after becoming a @bbedit user, I'm still not used to its text navigation/selection quirks (namely its non-standard use of some text navigation/selection shortcuts). I use a variety of other text editors and word processors, and it's simply impossible to get used to app-specific quirks […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 25/07/2026

Finally got around to plugging my iPhone into my new car for the first time (I don’t drive much!), and of course, it started with a massive glitch. Even though the car supports CarPlay, when I played music with it, the sound only came out of the speaker on the right. Car radio played fine in […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 23/07/2026

Well, that's a really helpful error message in QuickTime Player when exporting an audio file. (Not too hard to figure out that the problem is caused by the file name, which is long, at 217 chars. Shortening it fixes the problem. Seems to me that if QT Player […] [Original post on toot.community]

“Cannot create file” error message in QT Player in macOS

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 16/07/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@hyperjeff/11688552… Same here.

mastodon.social

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 16/07/2026

RE: toot.community/@betalogue/116931549… And if you insert a next-page section break before the continuous section break and then attempt to delete the continuous section break, the next-page section break… becomes a continuous section break. Which is extremely helpful […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 16/07/2026

RE: toot.community/@betalogue/116931549… This one of the many reasons why the fact that Adobe’s PDF-to-Word conversion tool uses continuous section breaks makes working with the resulting document in Word *so.much.fun.*

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 16/07/2026

Microsoft's page layout model in Word is so well thought out that, when you have a continuous section break in a document, you can have a header/footer after the break that's different from the one before the break. And that remains true even if the continuous […] [Original post on toot.community]

Different header/footer before and after a continuous section break in MS Word

Different header/footer before and after a continuous section break in MS Word, even if it’s in the middle of a page.

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 14/07/2026

Another one who skipped the “When not to use manual line breaks" class. FFS (This kind of crap makes editing existing documents so much more painful. It interferes with muscle memory for paragraph selection in a major way! But of course who cares about what editors need, uh?)

Manual line breaks in numbered list in MS Word

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 14/07/2026

When you have several pages loaded in various tabs and windows in Safari and you quit and relaunch the app, what exactly does it reload? What was loaded before you quit and relaunched, which was cached and might no longer be the *current* content, or the page from the server, in its current […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 12/07/2026

RE: toot.community/@betalogue/116907213… Needless to say, I am the type of old-school Mac user who keeps his scrollbars visible at all times. Apple doesn’t care about users like me, and, as this example shows, they have already expanded their “the user doesn’t need scrollbars” […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 12/07/2026

What's wrong with these pictures (of the Music app in macOS)? Quite simply, that there is *no indication* that there are more albums. There's no horizontal scrollbar (and of course horizontal scrolling with the mouse doesn't work either), but the two arrows […] [Original post on toot.community]

Row of album covers in Apple Music app in macOS

Row of album covers in Apple Music app in macOS

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 09/07/2026

More ridiculousness from TransUnion: Apparently, their web site is so "secure" that if it detects that you are using a password manager to record your password, it will suspect fraud and it will suspend your account with no explanation. This is completely nuts. They want us to use unique […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 08/07/2026

If you go to ocs.transunion.ca and click on the "Login" button, it takes you to a screen that invites you to continue, and when you click on "Continue", it… takes you back to the initial page with the "Login" button. Tried on with four different […] [Original post on toot.community]

Login button on TransUnion Canada web page

“Continue” option TransUnion Canada web page

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 06/07/2026

Always fun to come across spectacularly useless and unreliable search tools:

Search for “260703-2” returns zero result

Search for “260703” returns several results with “260703-2”

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 04/07/2026

RE: toot.community/@betalogue/116859173… Troubleshooting network issues is nuts: so many possible points of failure! Device Ethernet cards, Ethernet cables, Ethernet switches, Ethernet switch power adapters, router, not to mention possible software bugs. How are you supposed to […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 04/07/2026

Shoulda known, when I saw this error message about “My Home” on all my devices earlier today, that it was a message from the Apple gods that something had gone wrong somewhere. (I don't use “My Home”.) When my Apple TV asked me to re-enter my iCloud password […] [Original post on toot.community]

Home hub not responding (don’t have a home hub)

Defective power adapter for Linksys switch

WD power adapter with same voltage and plug

Home hub now responding!

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 03/07/2026

RE: toot.community/@betalogue/116857398… As far as I know, there is no way to turn off this autocomplete feature in Microsoft Word’s Find and Replace dialog box, or to erase the recent history of Find/Replace text strings (short of quitting and relaunching Word). So each and […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 03/07/2026

MS Word's Find/Replace dialog has an autocomplete feature that is maddeningly dumb and useless. It automatically remembers your previous entries in the “Find what” and “Replace with” and it automatically reinserts them as soon as you type the very first […] [Original post on toot.community]

Autocomplete in MS Word’s Find/Replace dialog

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 02/07/2026

One of the ways that I protect myself against future data leaks is to NEVER check the box to record my payment information when I buy something from a vender online (with a few exceptions). This means that I have to fill out the payment information every time, yes, but it's a fairly small price […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 02/07/2026

If you want to get a sense of how careless Microsoft developers are about the small details, just take a look at this dialog. Why would you use “(CAN)” and “(Canada)” instead of using the exact same for both language flavours? (Also, let's not mention the […] [Original post on toot.community]

Language options in MS Word

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 30/06/2026

In the inbox for the Google account that my employer forces me to use, I get an email about the latest newsletter. I click on the link, and Chrome asks me to “confirm my identity”, i.e. log in. Once I am logged in, the Google environment only shows a memo containing… a link to the actual […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2026

In Microsoft Excel, when the Find & Replace dialog is in the foreground, the app hijacks its own ⌘A shortcut. Even though the app’s Edit menu still clearly states that ⌘A is the shortcut for “Select All”, when the Find & Replace dialog is in the foreground, ⌘A […] [Original post on toot.community]

⌘A when in Find & Replace in MS Excel

What ⌘A actually triggers when in Find & Replace in MS Excel

Keyboard Maestro macro to stop MS Excel from hijacking its own ⌘A shortcut

Keyboard Maestro macro to trigger “Replace All” in MS Excel with the ^A shortcut

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2026

While the official Prince Estate is busy letting Prince's legacy dissolve in a sea of mediocrity, Prince fans are still busy posting stuff like this… Picture quality is crap, sound quality is iffy, and the venue (Facebook) is as music-lover-hostile as it gets, and yet these two minutes pack lots […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 25/06/2026

Very entertaining "wobbly" effect for the internal “menu bar” on YouTube, especially noticeable in Chrome, but also there in Firefox and in Safari. Nobody cares about anything anymore.

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 22/06/2026

What is really cool about Microsoft's implementation of passkeys for OneDrive on the web (AFA I understand it) is that, if you try and create a passkey and it fails for whatever reason, the live.com servers keep resetting regularly and redirecting you to your […] [Original post on toot.community]

Home folder in OneDrive on the web

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 22/06/2026

RE: toot.community/@betalogue/116794066… As I told the folks behind Antidote, this, to me, is the type of situation where an AI with common sense should kick in and figure that, given the rarity of the old French word and a context about health, the body, etc., it is OBVIOUS […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 22/06/2026

TIL that, in French, “muscule” is both a typo that I make regularly when I mean to type “muscle” and… a word that actually existed in old French, with a totally unrelated meaning. Consequently, if the spell checker used (Antidote by Druide in my case) has […] [Original post on toot.community]

Definition of French word “muscule” in the TLF

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 19/06/2026

I must say I find it rather irritating that online map services (Google, Apple) seem to expect you to ask for *directions* when all you want to find out what the exit number is on the limited-access highway. Why can't they just put that number somewhere […] [Original post on toot.community]

Tiny highway exit number far from the intersection in Google Maps

No exit number in Apple Maps

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 19/06/2026

You don't say. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/ju… (Although the critical-thinking skills of people who believe that we actually needed a study in order to prove this could be called into question too.)

Guardian headline about AI and critical thinking

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 17/06/2026

Always nice to feel that Microsoft Word is so reliable. Here is a document window with a simple text that's clearly fairly long, and yet the status bar insists that the document only contains “7 words”. Even bringing the document stats window with the actual […] [Original post on toot.community]

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 16/06/2026

When I view a PDF with protections in macOS Preview, if I try to select some text and copy it, it shows an alert about the action being forbidden. When I view the exact same PDF on the Web in Safari, if I try to select some text and copy it, it… just fails […] [Original post on toot.community]

Do not have permission alert in Preview

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 16/06/2026

RE: toot.community/@betalogue/116681814… I mean, it just happened to me again, and this time I timed it and something like *eight seconds* elapsed between the time I clicked on the title bar in Microsoft Word and the time the editable field with the file name appeared. I kid […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 16/06/2026

Nice to see that Apple has got the bilingual situation here in Canada perfectly sorted*: * Why this particular show? Don’t ask me. I have no frigging idea.

French-language (translated) poster for English show in the middle of a list of other English shows on Apple TV

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 15/06/2026

I get that everything in macOS Finder these days is optimized for SSDs, but if you're dealing with large collections of media files, unless you are obscenely rich, you still have to use conventional hard drives. And here the Finder fails miserably when it comes to responsiveness and UI feedback […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 15/06/2026

Still struggling to understand how you can say “Liquid Glass is not that bad” in macOS 26, and then when Apple adjusts all kinds of things in macOS 27, say with a straight face, “Much better!”. If it’s much better, it means that it was pretty bad before the adjustments. Either that, or that […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 15/06/2026

You obviously have to be Microsoft to be able to design an email user interface where the message in the message list has a button that clearly reads “RSVP”, yet the message itself contains a button that clearly reads “No Response Required”. By definition […] [Original post on toot.community]

RVSP but Response Not Required

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 15/06/2026

Err, Apple, when I said that I wanted macOS to *always* show scroll bars, I didn't say I was willing to make an exception for the horizontal scroll bar in the Weather app. If the contents of a window are scrollable horizontally, with this setting, I expect […] [Original post on toot.community]

Always show scroll bars

Conditions window horizontally scrollable, but no scroll bar visible

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 12/06/2026

TFW, one week, your employer silently adds a feature to its server that causes a new feature called “PhishForward” to appear in your Outlook user interface, with no explanation, and then, the next week, they send an email explaining what to do when you receive […] [Original post on toot.community]

New “PhishForward” feature

Phishing instructions

PhishForward not compatible

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2026

Today's Mac hardware is so powerful that streamlined, well-written code could run at blinding speeds. Instead, developers are busy replacing the existing spaghetti code with… code generated by AI? I am no expert, but I suspect this AI-sourced code will be even less efficient than the spaghetti […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2026

If you have Microsoft Teams for work installed on your iPhone and your employer forces you to reauthenticate periodically, when your authentication expires, Teams just stops working silently, with no warning. You have to *remember* to switch to it and reauthenticate. Otherwise, there is no […]

Original post on toot.community

Betalogue @betalogue.toot.community.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2026

Thank God they’ve “fixed” the worst aspect of the custom video player that Netflix introduced a few months ago (i.e. the skip-forward behaviour) on the Apple TV device. Still, they didn’t go back to the default tvOS video player. Guess the complaints weren’t quite loud enough (or the […]

Original post on toot.community