• Removing the Adobe Update Installer from the Mac menu bar

    Aug 11, 2015

    So at some point, Adobe Creative Cloud added a second notification to the menu bar on my Mac. There’s already one that opens the CC app, and always sits in the menu bar. And everyone else wants something in the menu bar. But Adobe started showing this second icon, with a perpetual 1 next to it, even if there were no updates, and all it does is open the first one. No combination of preference-toggling would make it go away, and neither would quitting CC.

    Here’s what I had to do:

    1. Quit Creative Cloud.
    2. Rename Applications/Utilities/Adobe Creative Cloud/ACC/Creative Cloud to Creative CloudX.
    3. Go to the new weird menu bar thing and select Open Updater.
    4. You’ll see the old Adobe Updater. If you see the new CC app, you did 1-3 wrong.
    5. Go to Preferences and and turn off Notifications.
    6. Un-rename the file you changed in step 2.
    7. Start the CC app.
    8. You probably have to repeat this every time Adobe issues an update, which will be in like five minutes.

  • Apple Notes.app and google account with two-factor security not working

    Jul 13, 2015

    So you’ve done something, and the Notes app on the Mac won’t log in to Google anymore. It will sit and spin on a “logging in” forever.

    Oh, and you’ve also just turned on two-factor auth in Google.  Well, that’s the problem.

    Google considers Notes to be a “less secure” app, and it won’t work with two-factor. What you need to do is create an app password, and then it will.

    See also https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833

    (Not saying two-factor auth is the problem. In fact, you should probably use it for everything.)

  • Making Yosemite Readable

    Jun 19, 2015

    I resisted the upgrade to Yosemite, even though I have a pretty new mid-2014 MacBook Pro, because I’d rather let someone else beta-test things before I upgrade. When I finally did upgrade, I noticed a problem: my eyes were killing me.  Granted, I’ve put a few hundred thousand miles on my eyeballs over the last few decades, but this was a sudden and marked problem.

    I think there are a few things going on here, but the big two are the layout and the font. There’s a lot more brightness and transparency in the general look and feel of the layout. And Yosemite switched system fonts, from Lucida Grande to Helvetica Neue. They’re both sans serif fonts, but for whatever reason, the Helvetica taxes my eyes way too much.

    I was reluctant to do anything. I hate customizing my system, because then when I change computers, I have to re-remember everything I configured, and I don’t want to be one of those people that has a freaky version of Windows 8 that’s customized to look like Windows for Workgroups 3.11 with a yellow on pink interface and the fonts in Papyrus, and if I can’t get that, I can’t work.

    But, anyway, here are a few fixes I messed with:

    1. Select System Preferences > Accessibility > Reduce Transparency (This is true by default if #3 below is also true. This can also allegedly speed up UI lag.)
    2. Set System Preferences > General > Appearance to Graphite
    3. Select System Preferences > Accessibility > Increase contrast.
    4. I don’t do this, selecting System Preferences > General > Use dark menu bar and dock might be to your preference
    5. Change the system font back using this: https://github.com/schreiberstein/lucidagrandeyosemite

     

  • Photoshop CC Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet

    May 29, 2015

    It seems like the days of cardboard key templates are over – they were a huge thing back in the old days when I started as a consultant in the computer labs back in college. Most of the cool kids would memorize everything, but more of the “returning” students would overlay the laminated cut-outs over the function keys for WordPerfect or Lotus 1-2-3.

    Anyway, I’m only an occasional Photoshop user – touching up screenshots, and making dumb collages of friends’ heads I post on Facebook. So I never remember anything. Here’s a great download for Mac users of Photoshop CC. (There’s also a Windows version mentioned.)

    http://petapixel.com/2015/05/28/photoshop-cc-2014-keyboard-shortcut-cheat-sheet-for-mac-users/

  • Blank Markers in FrameMaker

    Apr 20, 2015
    Here’s a FrameMaker problem I had once on a 64-bit Windows machine. I don’t remember having it on my next Win7 machine, but I’ve seen it more than once.
    The problem: the marker symbols were missing. These are the little “T” symbols you normally see when you insert a cross-reference or an index marker.
    The solution: I did not have the fm5font.ttf font installed. I don’t know if the installer skipped it, or I did an install when I was supposed to upgrade, or I was just holding it wrong.
    You can find this font in C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\AdobeFrameMaker10\fminit. Double-click it to install, then reboot.