Forum: Author Hangout

They will suggest replacing the whole laptop with a new one.

If I have to buy a new laptop I'll buy a computer and never buy another laptop. I'm tired of this 17" monitor anyway. And I was never happy with the feel of the keyboard.

I used to have a summer house in the mountains so the laptop made sense. But I sold that a couple of years ago.

Thanks, everyone.

btw, when I was typing "thanks" the cap on the "a" popped off. I blew into it to clear out any dust before putting the cap back on. Maybe that … nope, the "a" got stuck typing "that."

Placement of the touchpads in relation to said keyboard is usually just as awkward.

On my MacBook, I use a wireless mouse, but I do use the touchpad for things like making an image bigger (by spreading my fingers on the pad) or fast scrolling (by swiping two fingers).

Why is the touchpad awkward? It sits under the keyboard right in the middle and it's big.

I guess I'll be buying a Mack desktop or a wireless keyboard for the laptop. The other day I couldn't get the "A" to work for quite some time.

Why is the touchpad awkward? It sits under the keyboard right in the middle and it's big.

I haven't used a mouse since the external trackpads became available. Mice just do not work for me, but trakpads are perfect. Different strokes.

As for the keyboard, I bought an Uppercase GhostCover Premium Ultra Thin Keyboard Protector. Never had a problem since.

Have you tried a Logitech trackball mouse?

The trackpad is actually simply natural for me.

you can always get a cheap USB keyboard

I was thinking of that. But the keyboard would sit between me and the laptop so the small screen would be farther away.

I use an external Keyboard on the old Lenovo I sometimes borrow from my son because I don't like the little keys on the built-in keyboard. I sit the external keyboard over the built-in keyboard and use it there. It is a touch higher, but I also find the small increase in height more comfortable. I do this when I use his laptop while away from home while acting as his transport.

Also, sometimes when I use his laptop at home I plug in and external monitor with a bigger screen to make it easier to use. When I do this the laptop sits to the side as if it's a thin desktop and I use the keyboard and mouse in front of the monitor.

The other continual problematic issue with ALL Apple products, are the screens. While they all look sharp when you buy they, they all quickly develop various sized smalls dots across the screen where the screen's coating wears off, and after several years, this layer actually starts to peel off in whole swaths, making the screen fairly unreadable, forcing you to scroll each window to see the words your reading on a 'clean' part of the screen.

Family has had 22 Apple laptops over the past twenty years and never once encountered the screen problem you describe. Anecdotal, I realize, but none of the ones used at the companies I worked for had this problem, either.

The keyboards, on the other hand, have gone downhill until the latest models designed after Ive left.

Oh please, Apple, get me my laptop back soon.

Create an account for yourself and sync your bookmarks, passwords, etc, from iCloud. Or whichever password manager you used. I use RememBear for passwords and Firefox to sync my browser. That works perfectly for me between multiple machines, including when my main computer (laptop) was with Apple.

Depending on you model year Apple will replace the keyboard for free.

Yes, they are replacing it free because if falls under what they call a quality warrantee. I guess that means the design was poor quality so they extended the warrantee by 4 years.

I spoke to the tech guy today. He actually replaced the part(s) yesterday but it wouldn't power up. Today he reinstalled the old part(s) and it powered up so he said the replacement part was DOA. He supposably will pick up a new part at another store tonight and install it tomorrow.

Honestly I wouldn't get a desktop.

I did some research and Apple doesn't make a desktop. Not the type I was familiar with with my PC (a tower with CD drive, etc.). They have an iMac which I don't want. For example, I don't want the computer built into the monitor.

I spoke to my son and he told me about an adapter he has on his MacBook (HyperDrive - Ultimate 11-Port USB-C Hub). It fits into the two USB ports (or whatever Apple calls them) on the side. On the other side of the adapter are two USB ports plus 2 more (the adapter is long). And in the back is an HDMI port to connect to the external monitor.

So what I'm going to do is keep my MacBook as my computer and add a larger monitor and an external keyboard, and the adapter I mentioned. The only problem I have is space on my desk for both the laptop and the monitor/keyboard.

My son has to test one thing for me. He knows when it's hooked up that way the keyboard on the laptop isn't functional. That's fine. I'll use the external keyboard. But I need the touchpad and the bar at the top of the laptop keyboard with the fingerprint sensor, volume control, etc. to be functional. He'll test if they are.

My second choice is simply to add a larger monitor with that HDMI cable. But I know the laptop keyboard will break again so I want to get around using that.

I did some research and Apple doesn't make a desktop. Not the type I was familiar with with my PC (a tower with CD drive, etc.). They have an iMac which I don't want. For example, I don't want the computer built into the monitor.

They make the Mac mini and the Mac Pro. Neither has a CD/DVD drive; but to be honest, these days with fast internet and cheap cloud storage that handles back up for you, who needs a disk drive?

These days almost nobody needs more than a Mac mini. For the rest there is the hyper-expensive Mac Pro (starts at $6000, but minimum reasonable config at $7400).

If you can find a used recent Mac mini, go for it. They work for a long time and they're small, efficient and very quiet.

They make the Mac mini

Ah, so there is something other than the iMac. Thanks.

As to the CD drive, I was just trying to say the tower type PCs have more capability than the laptops. Yeah, you don't use CDs anymore. You download everything from the internet, like software and drivers.

Yeah, you don't use CDs anymore.

except to watch the movies on dvd you already have at home.

except to watch the movies on dvd you already have at home.

I don't anymore. Everything is watched thru streaming.

I don't anymore. Everything is watched thru streaming.

Why pay to have it streamed when you already have the DVD? I can see streaming movies I don't have, but why waste the bandwidth and pay for the downloads when I can just put in the DVD. I'm more aware of this than some as we pay for every dang MB of download and upload here.

as we pay for every dang MB of download and upload here.

I don't. I pay a monthly fee for my internet and it's high speed. I pay for 100 mbps but get more than that. I just ran several speed tests and they were between 146 and 150 mbps.

Most of my DVDs are analog. I only have a few blue-ray ones.

But I'm also old school. I subscribed to every cable premium channel (HBO, Showtime, STARZ, Encore, Cinimax, etc.).

Time to buy a Mac desktop and use the laptop for backup.

Anything I should be looking for? Or does Apple have few choices to pick from? I want a Mac.

Sorry, can't help you there.

When I started on the Corporate side of PC Tech Support (at a company created by a guy famous for building a wooden airplane) about 25 years ago, I actually started as one of the "Mac Experts". I already had over a decade of experience on that platform by that time, and knew it well.

But over the next several years, I saw the company largely turn to shit, and have only worked on them since then when I had no choice. Primarily, it is the lack of choice, the forced upgrades, and the constant control and expensive upgrades I could no longer take.

If you want a "Like Mac" experience, there are many options in various forms of Linux. And it is not hard moving to Windows. But with the cost of full powered PC laptops dropping all the time (and the price of Mac ones rising all the time), I simply can never suggest buying a Mac anymore.

If you absolutely feel like you can not survive without the Mac OS, you can also look into getting a "Hackintosh". There are literally dozens of desktops and laptops that are built on the PC platform which will run the Mac OS.

At least that way you actually have a choice, and are not forced to just accept whatever they are willing to sell this month.

Primarily, it is the lack of choice, the forced upgrades, and the constant control and expensive upgrades I could no longer take.

I agree with those points, but, after being a PC user since 1980, I'm now sold on Apple. First, I've never had a virus or crash on it. But more importantly, I have an 800 number to call for tech support. I can't even put a price on that value. If I were using Pages instead of Word and had the problem I'm having now with the window and font size, I could call someone. Try calling Microsoft.

The hardware (that may be the wrong word) will only stretch so far, and some future system may go beyond its capacity.

That's not it. My system is the same as it was, only with new parts. The OS is the same. And I reinstalled Word to the most current version so it's the same.

Word works. It just doesn't remember the way the window was (size of window on screen and increased font size (it goes back to 100%) whenever I open the doc). It does with Excel, just now Word.

It no longer does that.

You may want to check if there are user setting in either MS Office, MS Word, or the Mac OS where you can set those items to what you like. As a minimum you should be able to set a choice of default font in all three, and usually you can select and save window sizes as default or as same as last used.

As a minimum you should be able to set a choice of default font in all three, and usually you can select and save window sizes as default or as same as last used.

I looked at the settings and didn't find anything. It's not the defaults I want it to come up with. For example, in one file I zoomed the font size to 200%. When I bring it up, it comes up at 100%. The other file, I zoomed it to 250%. It comes up with 200% (which was what I had zoomed it to and it was saved as in the past).

You can make templates in MS Word.

It's the temporary change I want it to remember the next time I open the file – zoom size. And the size of the window the document opens in. The window has nothing to do with a template. Also, it's only happening with Word so it's not a Mac setting for the window size.

You may want to check if there are user setting in either MS Office, MS Word,

That reminded me of something else I needed to do. Turn off smart quotes and converting -- to —

Glad you mentioned it. Thanks.

It probably was fixed. It's MS, they probably re-introduced the bug fixing something else.

That is not it at all, if it is caused by the "three latest versions of the Mac OS". That alone says it is something that Apple did.

And with what Switch said, it is likely not a main numbered patch, but one of the smaller additional ones. Just at a guess (my programming days are long past), MS was using a way to write configurations that somebody else discovered could be used as an exploit. This is actually common in programming, people want to break around security, so find another program that does what you want and copy how it does it.

But that broke it, and instead of working with MS they are just going "Eh, not our problem". That was one of the things that infuriated me when working with Mac OS. Hardly a month passed that some update broke another program I had to use to do my job. And the company I worked with was a hardware and software developer (Telephony). They finally gave up trying to make software that would work on Mac, every time they were about to go from Alpha to Beta test, they broke something in the OS and they had to go right back to coding all over again. Even the CEO (a real Mac fanatic) finally ordered a halt to supporting Mac users.

The strangeness of working IT. We mostly worked with Linux boxes in the field, supporting our program for the PC, and we all used Mac computers.

As for virus, you must have missed the 1990's. Those were rampant on the Mac back then. When I worked at Hughes Aerospace, I think 80% of our Mac systems had one virus or another. And the OS is still no more secure than Windows. It is just that with less than 10% of the marketplace, nobody cares when they can go after almost 90% of the market with the same amount of work.

This sounds more and more like it's one of the MS config file settings which are deeply hidden so that only knowledgable techs can change them. If you know where to look for these settings all of the MS display settings can be personalized, but it's in an area that can very easily screw up the whole system which is why users aren't told about them. Also, because this is an MS program on a Mac it could be the setting is one of the deeply hidden Mac settings for setting up MS to display. If it is one of these settings it is not one of those things that can be talked through remotely.

This sounds more and more like it's one of the MS config file settings

My guess is each Word file (and Excel file) has meta data stored about the document/spreadsheet which it uses when you reopen the file. Those are not user settings, but internal. Somehow the reinstall of Word did something.

These are the internal config settings I was talking about, and there are reasons why it's not recommended that users play with them. However, back when I was doing IT tech stuff I used to play with them within MS Windows on a regular basis. There are also some similar type settings within Unix and Linux that allows a trained tech to amend them as well. Since Mac OS is based on Unix I'm sure such settings can be changed, but it needs to be done by a trained tech.

In all of the operating systems there are places where you can tell it where about on the screen to open a program window, the size you want the window to be, and you can change their default settings if you access the right part of the code in the correct way. I never suggest untrained people try to access his area as an error can cause the system to totally crash and need a total reload of the software. But this is the type of meta data info I was talking about.

You can also set font and font sizes for the whole system this way. However, most operating systems also provide a user accessible application that allows you to set the font, font sizes, and display colors for the whole system.

This sounds more and more like it's one of the MS config file settings which are deeply hidden so that only knowledgable techs can change them.

This is exactly my thought. More than likely, it (or the folder it rested in) were at one time changeable by the user without special settings in the OS. Then a patch for the OS added in extra security settings, which made this impossible.

Actually, there's one other piece to the puzzle. I back up my data to an external hard drive. I don't use Time Machine. I back up individual files or folders of files. When I got my laptop back I had to copy all my data files/folders from the external hard drive to my Mac. The external hard drive is the one I used with my PC before switching to Apple.

So there's probably not a fix for it. What I don't understand is it didn't do this before the OS reinstall and reinstalling Word. *shakes head*

This tell me it is an OS issue, not a software issue with the program.

One thing my experience with Mac taught me, is that Apple never cares much about either backwards compatibility, or "playing well with others". They will create an update, make it mandatory with no way to roll it back, and have it break 2 or 3 other programs.

I had to deal with that many times when I worked for an IT company where we all used Mac. We would be told that the update broke something we had to use, then quickly change to not update until we could work around the broken program. Most of the time, it was waiting for the maker to update it to work with the newest patch.

We had 1 computer that had not been updated in a well over a year. There was 1 program we needed to do remote configuration on routers, and the company had gone out of business. So we had 1 system with a 2013 patch of OS X, in 2015.

If I have to guess, they probably changed in the OS how certain situational data was saved, locking it down where previously the application could have changed it. Apple is well known for locking itself down so tight that people like me have to fight to do almost anything in it. That is why when I did work from home, I always used my own Linux box to do work, and not the company laptop if I could avoid it.

This tell me it is an OS issue, not a software issue with the program.

But it's the same OS I had before. When Apple reinstalled the OS they installed Mohave (32 bit). The first thing I did was upgrade to Catalina (64 bit). That was the OS I had on the system when I gave them my computer.

Don't forget, I had to reinstall MS Office so I have a reinstalled Word. I ran the updates so I assume it's where it was when I turned my computer in. But maybe there was an update I didn't have previously that's doing this.

It's not a problem. It's just a few extra steps each time I open the docx file. I have to stretch the window to the size I want and do the zoom to the font size I want. Just extra steps. And only with Word. Excel seems to remember.

sounds like somebody rectum.

only if you read the keyboard from left to right and the only keys sticking were 'a' 'n' 'l' for it to be an 'anl' problem.