How I Use My Mac

2025-01-16

Summary

This is a description of how I use the features of my personal Apple Macintosh.

My Mac

My Mac is an Apple 13" M2 MacBook Air, 14,2, 16GB, bought in 2024. It has a 1TB SSD, currently about 50% full. I use it with a USB-C dock that provides Ethernet and USB-A and USB-C ports and also allows reading and writing SDXC cards. My wife's mac is similar, except 512GB.

What I do with My Mac

Web Connection

My Mac connects to the Internet via wired Ethernet using a USB-C dock when it's on my desk, otherwise through its builtin WiFi. My home network connects to an Internet cable provider.

macOS applications Always Open

I keep a few favorite apps open and switch between their windows with ⌘-tab.

Mail configuration

Settings

This section describes some System Settings I use on the Mac. There are some Apple "features" that I find confusing or inconvenient, so I disable them.

Desktop & dock: size SMALL, Stage Manager OFF, "displays have separate spaces"
I find the tools I use often using the Dock, so I need a lot of icons.
Stage manager makes windows hide: then I have to hunt for them. I'd rather they stay where I put them.
Separate spaces is useful if I use an auxiliary monitor.
Mouse: natural scrolling OFF
After nearly 40 years of scrolling, I like it the way I learned it. The new way is UNnatural.
Network: wired before wifi, DNS 75.75.75.75
Make sure that I used wired Internet if I am at my desk.
Override Comcast provided DNS service with one I trust.
Storage:
Store in iCloud: Copy Desktop and Documents, Photos, and Messages to iCloud.
Optimize Storage: OFF. This feature might delete files from my Mac if "iCloud has them." Bad idea.
Empty Trash Automatically: OFF.
Sharing: file sharing ON
Share files between Macs in my home.
Siri: OFF
No listening, no talking.
Screensaver: Photos
Album "screen".

Other App Settings

This section describes some other applications' Settings I use on the Mac.

Photos: iCloudPhotos: Download Originals to this Mac
Copies photos from my iCloud library to my Mac. Editing either copy will update the other.

Software I Install and Use

Here are the principal non-Apple programs I install. See Programming for description of Mac programming tools I install.

Firefox Usage

I keep a Firefox browser instance open all the time with multiple tabs. My main browser window has 5 pinned tabs that link to websites: multicians, multicians/thvv , multicians/thvv/private, formyfriendswithmacs, groups.io/multicians.

In Firefox, I configure Bookmarks bar folders with links to multiple sites. I can click on a folder to get a drop-down list of links, and select the link I want; or I can shift-click on one of the folders to open browser tabs for each link in the folder.

I have set up a folder named daily with a list of URLs I open via ⌘-click first thing in the morning, including checking weather, news, status dashboard for my sites, web statistics, RISKS digest, etc.

I have also set up a folder named fun with a list of links I usually look at every day, including comic strips like xkcd, Far Side, Doonesbury, Calvin. I can skip this if I don't have time.

There are times when an external site won't work with Firefox, and then I try Safari. I use Chrome to access Lighthouse to check websites' performance and compliance.

Command line in Terminal

I started using command line interfaces in 1963. This way to use computers is still natural to me. I do housekeeping, development, and maintenance using command line applications that came with macOS, as well as tools I have written over the last 30+ years. I use bash shell windows, with configuration automatically loaded from

See programming.html for descriptions of how I set up my command environment and $HOME/bin directory. (Some of the configuration and macro items in these config files are descended from practices I first used over 40 years ago.)

When I edit files with Aquamacs, I use a file of editor macros and customizations that I have built up over the last 40 years, stored in my $HOME/.emacs.

In Terminal, I use its Settings::Profile to define window colors and font sizes. When I launch Terminal, I create 7 terminal windows with various profiles and navigate each to a different directory. This sets the background color of windows to remind me what the window is for: pink is multicians.org source, etc. I can switch between terminal windows by typing ⌘-1 etc.

Remote Terminal session with SSH

Once a day, I open a bash shell window and connect it to my remote ISP server account using the ssh command. (The server processes my incoming email and serves web pages for my Web sites.) This login is authorized using private ssh keys on my Mac (stored in $HOME/.ssh) that match keys on the remote server. Connecting this way opens a shell window on my ISP server account, which runs Linux and is configured with .bashrc and .bvars similar to the ones on my computer. See Programming for more about SSH keys and configuration.

Daily Routine

I put my Mac to sleep overnight. When I begin using the machine in the morning, I wake it up and

Installed Mac apps Visible in Menu Bar

Apache

MacOS comes with the Apache web server installed but not running. I configure Apache to start when my system starts up, and to display local copies of my web sites as I develop them.

Backup

See Backup for a general description of Mac backup.

macOS Features I do not use

I find these features inconvenient, or injurious to my privacy, or dangerous, or a waste of time.

Home | FAQ © 2010-2025, Tom Van Vleck updated 2025-01-16 11:16