¶ Mac Geek Gab 1091 for Monday, May 26th, 2025
It's time for Mac Geek Cabin. I've got our quick tip of the leak,
¶ QT-Tap Settings > Wi-Fi > Edit for a list of Wi-Fi networks on iPhone
the leak, quick tip of the week, because I learned accidentally almost. I went in on my phone to settings Wi-Fi and I noticed something I just hadn't observed before, but I'm sure it was there in the upper right hand corner is an edit button. This, once it authenticates by checking that your face is your face, shows you a list of all the Wi-Fi networks that it knows about. You can delete them from here with the little minus sign and a red circle.
And if it has a password, you can see the passwords and all of that from here too. Something I didn't think was available on the iPhone anymore. More quick tips like this, plus your questions answered today on MacGeekGab 1091 for Monday, May 26th, National Paper Airplane Day and also Memorial Day 2025. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Mac Geek of the Show, where we share quick tips like that from us and from you. We share cool stuff found from us and from you.
And we share questions from you and sometimes from us and hopefully answers from us and sometimes from you. Or at least a path down the troubleshooting journey so that we can all learn at least five new things every single time we get together. Our sponsors for this episode are OWC's Gemini. It's actually not the Gemini. It is the 1M2 Express. I've got to update my notes here. That is a killer external bus powered SSD that we'll talk about in a little bit.
And also calderalab.com slash MGG, where you can elevate your skincare routine in a way that's actually built for guys. So we'll talk about that in a little bit, too. And you can use code MGG at checkout for 20% off your first order there, too. So we'll talk more about that for now here in Durham, New Hampshire. As usual, I'm Dave Hamilton.
And here in South Dakota, as usual, I'm Adam Christensen.
And here also in New Hampshire, where the Whitecaps are getting up on the bay, Dave, as the Nor'easter's coming in, Pilot Pete, good to be with you guys. I wasn't supposed to be here this week. I was supposed to be winging my way west, but the Nor'easter said no, because you had another guess.
Yeah nor'easters uh if you don't live in the north and east nor'easters go in the north and east direction so uh pete wanting to head west that would not have been so great in a smaller plane or even a larger plane but we do it anyway yeah yeah
They they bring with them crappy weather and turbulence and mountain obscurations and as i told dave yesterday i like to use my instrument rating to get me out of trouble should i get into it not to get myself into trouble in the first place so.
Yep i can attest to pete's ability to fly instruments because that's what we did for the first leg of our trip to max stock last year who knows how we're getting to max stock this year but we certainly flew out in the in what pete likes to call the goo uh on the morning we left it was not the best it wasn't the worst but it was also not the best uh but regardless of how we choose to get there we will be at max stock uh this year and on the saturday of max stock which is july 12th the three
of us will do a live mac geek which hopefully we will be able to record and obviously release as that week's episode that is the plan and i i have no reason to believe it wouldn't work but either way we're doing a live one uh while we're there so come join us and code mac geek gab 50 saves you 50 bucks off your mac stock registration uh one last i
Know actually how i'm getting there
How are you getting i'm
On a i'm on a united plane
Okay all right you've made a decision that's great yes all
Right there you go i have my ticket
Excellent all right well that makes one of us there you go there you go yeah so
Um and hey just because it is show 1091 police code 1091 is pick up subject i think we ought to pick up the subject of uh quick tips.
I would if you i i agree with you because the subject of the mac geekup giveaway this month at mac geekup.com slash giveaway being uh an eero outdoor seven goes by so quickly it's a quick tip in and of itself yes you want to take you want to take us to the next item adam yeah
This one's i think specifically for
¶ Joe-QT-1089-You Can Finally Merge Apple Accounts
Me he
Says i didn't want uh this is from joe Joe says, I didn't want this one to pass unremarked upon, especially given that Stephen Hackett recently discussed this on issue on Connected. Apple has finally unveiled a tool to merge accounts. You can merge accounts. The reason you might want to do this is the same reason I do.
There's a surprising number of people out there, myself, Stephen Hackett, John Gruber, among them, who ended up collecting a lot of iTunes and App Store purchases under one account, while separately using a different account for everything else. My exact situation. Yeah. I use one account for iCloud and one account for all my purchases. In Stephen's case, this led to a weird situation where he had issues purchasing extra storage for his iCloud family account. Who knew? So weird.
Wow. Wow, this is something we've never heard of before, Adam.
His solution was to add his older account to his iCloud family, presumably in order to protect from shenanigans. Apple says the transferred from accounts can no longer be used for media purchases, media and purchases after the transfer is complete. Yeah. That's the whole licensing thing. They don't want you flopping back and forth.
That makes sense. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, you can go in there and we'll have, I'm sure a link to this in the show notes. Apple has an article about this, but it says you can choose to migrate your music apps and other content you purchase from Apple on a secondary Apple account to a primary one. So yeah. I see this in my future.
I see this in your future too. Like this, hopefully this solves this weird problem. And how long have we been talking about this on the show? Almost since the day.
Second week at least.
Well, no, but this came up months ago. Maybe like, I feel like it, this kind of keeps coming up because you and I, Adam have like, we've shared screenshots. It's like, why are you seeing things differently than I'm seeing? Why is Apple bifurcating this for some people, but not others. And now we know.
Yeah, we know. Yeah, the reason it came up again was the first time it came up, I was explaining that I just had the problem. It's like, I can't purchase that extra storage.
And I was just living with it. yes it came up again recently because i knew i was approaching my two gigabyte limit and that point came and then it was like i still hadn't solved this and it's like well i don't have any other choice i'm just gonna bite the bullet and you know get get the 29.99 a month plan for six terabytes which is crazy expensive that's crazy and i've been living with that so now i gotta do this so then i can roll that back and have my two
gigs from my icon plus plus two gigs which is what i want that's
What you want yeah right that's well that's what you need it's not what you want necessarily no
Yeah but yeah yeah i'd like the six i'd like the six terabytes for 9.99 a month how about that
That would be great yeah of course um i i will read i will read a section from this article just to kind of give everybody a baseline because I think that you skipped over this part right the the the the quote from the article which says you can choose to migrate apps music and other content you've purchased from Apple on a secondary Apple account to a primary Apple account the secondary Apple account might be an account that's only used for purchases you'll need to access to the primary
email and phone number and password for both and neither account should be shared with anyone else so
Yeah, I didn't go into the full details. I only read the first sentence.
I just figured I'd share all of that context. Yeah, for anybody listening that's not entirely aware of what the problem is now. Hopefully that helps. But yes, the link's in the show notes. We're good to go.
I'll report back on whether it goes. I will add the comment that you probably want to make sure you, if you want to do that, why you're doing it. Because there are times, and it's coming up in Don't Get Caught, where you want a separate account. Just saying.
Huh. Oh, yeah. That sounds, that's foreboding or is that foreshadowing or is it?
Yes.
Well, I will say I will report back with how it goes when I do it. I probably will have it done before the next episode. I would assume.
Cool.
Cool.
Great. Amazing. I can't wait to talk about it. Like I am, I am, I am assuming you will have success, but also hoping that you have success. You want to take us to the next one, Pete?
I can do so patrick wrote in he says hi guys i use a 512 gig m1 macbook air
¶ Patrick-QT-Terminal Command to see SpaceHogs!
and for work and i keep it fairly lean recently i noticed my storage was down to 10 gigs ouch even after cleaning up files and running clean my mac the available space kept dropping since i often work in terminal, i ran the du command i think stands for disk usage that's my wild guess uh sudo du-h-d1 and discovered that my library folder was using 260 gigabytes. Digging deeper, I found the culprit, the podcasts app. Turns out automatic download was enabled in the app settings.
I turned it off and deleted the downloaded audio files from the folder, instantly freeing up 220 gigabytes of space. If you're running law on space and use the podcast app, check this folder and don't get caught. keep up the great work my comment to that was uh patrick i hope you didn't delete any of the mgg episodes.
Yeah pete we're not supposed to share this tip uh that's that's bad that's bad yeah i mean
At least keep our wisdom.
You know i mean constant reference it's the turning turning off the automatically download thing is the is the thing we don't want to share that's the part Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's it. Wait.
Wait.
Yeah.
Well, last time I checked, I could stream any episode. I don't have to have it downloaded.
That's fair.
Yeah.
That's what I'm going to say. The good news is we're available online. All you need is an internet connection, which I'm guessing you have or you wouldn't be hearing this.
And this command that Pete glossed over quickly, thank you for glossing over it quickly, is in the show notes. So if you want to see that command, it is, it is there. Yeah.
Yeah. I will add that, uh, I do, I use daisy disc to accomplish the same thing, but, um, I think. Actually, I ran the command, though, and looked, and it's like, oh, it puts it right there. It tells you down to which folder, whereas DaisyDisk is more a GUI, and you have to click on it and work your way down to that folder. Yeah, for sure. So you can see your space hogs with that command. It's cool.
Yeah, it will take some time to show them to you. And the problem, yeah, it's not the prettiest output, but it does give you what you need. Yep. Yep. I found, I did the same thing. I ran, I just looked at that folder because now Patrick told us where to look. And, uh, and I put the sort of the name, the formula for the folder. It's home library group containers, some number, and then dot groups, dot apple.com, dot com, whatever. It's in the show notes at Mac geek up.com.
Um i looked in that folder i looked at that folder and saw that there was uh 130 gigs worth of stuff on my system and so i i deleted the caches folder from within that i did not delete the whole folder because there are some settings that are saved there and some other things that don't take up very much space and might actually be needed but my approach philosophy on this and actually adam i'm i'm curious as a developer if if you uh would agree with
this is that anything when i look in folders like that anything in a folder named cache or caches i consider fair game for me. I would quit the app first, but other than that, it is fair game for me to delete if you as the developer have called it cache or caches.
I think that's mostly fair, yeah.
Yeah, I realize I can, like, there's no guarantees, but.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's my feeling is you're not putting. But that's why we have. Go ahead.
I was going to say that's why we have backups.
Oh, that's fair. Yeah, I didn't even think about that. Of course, yes. I'm so used to just running roughshod all over my system, but trusting that my backups are there to save me in the event that I do something dumb, which happens all the time.
Related to that and kind of uh in the vein of the podcast audio i another place i would recommend people check uh for audio files that might be taking up space locally on your mac is if it's the books app if you are an avid purchaser of audio books especially those can take up a lot of space and you'll want to down make sure you download them if you've purchased them download them, archive them somewhere, like save them somewhere, and then you could get rid of downloaded ones.
Because in theory, you should be able to re-download them. But again, Apple's policy is for purchase content, you're responsible for keeping copies. And if they lost licensing on a book or something like that, don't assume it's always going to be available forever to re-download. So make sure you have your own copy of that file.
But then once you have your own copy stored safely in a few places i i delete those and then if i need them again i can usually download them and if i never ever get to a point where i can't i can go back to my archive and grab my copy of it that's
Really smart yep yep makes sense uh in our discord chat kiwi gram asks are caches included in all backups in general no they certainly are not backups also make the assumption i've made that something in a folder called cache does not need uh to be it is temporary it is thing it is data that can either be refetched or recreated it is simply there for efficiency not preservation so yeah
It can often depend on what the backup is you know what software or thing it is and also how you've maybe configured it so for example i know that i don't backup up anything in my system folders, which is usually where the caches are. And I, you know, for a lot of my backups that would normally back that stuff up, I exclude it because I just presume I can reinstall the system, you know, at any given point. But, you know, you might want your, well, I guess your library folder is the
other place, your home library folder. And I always back that up. And that usually has caches and settings and stuff like that in it for your user account.
Yep cool stuff or quick tips i guess we're not on to cool stuff found all right not
Yet cool quick tips.
Yeah you are we uh ready to move on to the next quick tip from uh from new listener allison i
¶ Allison-QT-When you change a file’s “Open With…” you have to re-approve the new app in the System Settings > Privacy & Security
Think we are.
I think that's you adam i
Think we are except
I know
And that i'm vamping because i didn't uh apparently i didn't uh tag that one
You did not For some reason. Do you want me to read it? Do you want Pete to read it?
No, here it is. I think this is the, when you change a file's name with. Yes. A change of file's open with. Yes. You have to re-approve it in system settings, privacy, security.
That's right.
So new listener Allison says, a few weeks back, y'all were talking about how it's now kind of hidden how to open apps from unknown unsigned developers. Instead of being able to force them open with a right click, you have to know to open System Settings, Privacy, Security, then scroll down until you see the message saying the app was blocked, and then choose Open Anyway. This also now affects how you set default apps for individual files.
If you use the Finder's Git Info window to change the Open With setting for a single file, like setting 1.png to open in preview, if you have something else like Pixelmator as the default, macOS may treat that app as untrusted and block it even if it's Apple's own preview app. You'll need to go to the same privacy security section and approve it. Didn't know.
Crazy.
Yeah. Yes. So when I read that tip, though, I have a, or that comment, I guess, I have a tip to get around it. And we may have mentioned this once or twice on the show before. Help me out here. Set app. In set app, there is an app called OpenIn. And I would say 90% of my documents, my PNGs, JPEGs, PDFs, all that kind of stuff.
When i click on those they're all set to open in open in and then i have chosen a list of files with which i can open it and i so therefore i can choose any one of those apps rather than a list of apps that i can open it with and i can choose any one of those and i can change it on the fly.
Wow we just lost pete his connection just died but yep but he is
Right that was weird i just completely lost the bubble yes you guys can hear me i'll stop you.
Know you're you're back now and uh but you were you were gone for you you unceremoniously left
Wow that was weird everything went black except my light on my desk so i know it wasn't a power outage interesting all my monitors went black i lost audio that was weird um okay but that's fun anyway long long story short is you can change individually which file opens with which app by using OpenIN, and you can set all your files to OpenIN, OpenIN.
I like it. And you can do this with hyperlinks too. Is that right? So that your browser is choosable?
It works on browsers. It works on data files, image files. Yeah. So I have, in fact, if you go back just a little bit, Dave, I can see it. And I know people are listening, so it doesn't help. But there's a tab there. I mean, if you click on files, that's where you can choose which files to add it by. Yeah. That was the tab.
That's pretty good. I like it.
Fun stuff. Open in is so versatile.
Huh. All right. We'll put a link to open in and, and yes, it's also in set up. Uh, if that is, if you are a set up user, you can get it there. Otherwise you can get it directly from, I think it's low, low shod key dot app, but the links in the show notes. So yeah, very cool. All right. We got one more quick tip. You want to take us to it?
We do. From Drewski. He wrote it, wrote.
¶ Drewski-QT-Pinned Contacts in Messages - And Quick Location without "FindMy"
Wrote in, wrote in checks out. And you leak,
You leaked on the opener. and I'm roting in.
Yeah. I don't know what's going on today.
Oh, man. Must be the nor'easter. The low pressure is getting to us, Dave. I guess. Bros, I accidentally discovered a useful feature. And if you press and hold on a message thread in messages, in message list and drag it to the top, the contact icon gets pinned there. This creates a shortcut to that contact so you can quickly access their messages without scrolling and searching. Nested tip, I use this feature to quickly check the location of contacts I share location with.
Just tap the messages, just tap messages, select the pin contact icon, then tap their icon again on the next screen, and it shows their current location. How have I never known this? This is a classic example of a quick tip that, you know, it's just been part of my workflow all along. Never thought to share it as a quick tip. So, thank you, Drewski. And one other side note on that is you're limited to nine.
Yeah. Yep. I always have nine up there, and I don't tell... Anyone when they have moved in or out of my pinned messages, because there's not supposed to be any interpretation of your importance in my life. It is just the frequency with which we text each other. And that changes and evolves. And it's all good. So that's it. It's my shortcuts list, not my favorites list that I pin there. There you go. I've never articulated it.
So Lisa, he doesn't mean anything by it.
I've never articulated it that way before, but if I need to, again, I will remember that. And that is my, as with everything we share here, it's our gift to each other that we share our tips and we all get to just use them as our own. So it's a wonderful thing we get to do here. And I am thankful for all of you for listening. And I'm thankful for all of our sponsors, which is the next thing that I want to do is tell you about one of our sponsors.
Because if you're like me, and I know if you're listening to this show,
¶ SPONSOR: Caldera Lab. Guys, don’t settle for drugstore junk or steal your partner’s products—elevate your routine with skincare made for you. Head to CalderaLab.com/MGG and use MGG at checkout for 20% off your first order.
you probably are in at least some ways. You've spent years optimizing your Mac, your podcast gear, your workflows. But what about your face? Well, that's where our sponsor, Caldera Lab, comes in. These folks are bringing high-performance, science-backed skin care to guys who don't want a 47-step routine or to steal their partner's products again. Their hero product, The Good, is a clinically tested, antioxidant-packed serum with 27 active botanicals.
Then there's The Base Layer, a moisturizer designed to absorb quickly without leaving you shiny. And the eye serum helps reduce puffiness and dark circles because, let's face it, not all of us are getting eight hours of sleep. Is anybody getting eight hours of sleep? Man, it just seems like a dream. Maybe I could dream about getting eight hours of sleep while I get my, you know, six.
What I love about Caldera Lab is that everything is made with clean ingredients, and it's actually designed for men's skin. Fast, effective, and easy to use. No mystery creams. No overcomplicated systems. Just great skin without the guesswork. Don't get caught with a flaky forehead and a drawer full of expired moisturizers. Whether you're starting fresh or upgrading your routine, Caldera Lab makes skincare simple and effective. Don't settle for drugstore junk or steal your partner's products.
Elevate your routine with skincare made for you. Head to calderalab.com and use code MGG at checkout for 20% off your first order. Again, calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-A-L-A-B.com slash MGG, code MGG at checkout for 20% off your first order. And our thanks to Caldera Lab for sponsoring this episode.
¶ Bill-DGC-Keep Your Private Files PRIVATE!
All right. That was awesome. All right. I think we should probably move to a quick don't get caught. And as I warned earlier, there may be cases where you want to keep a separate Apple ID. Because many years ago, my airline gave us all iPads with which to navigate, but they were fully functional iPads. And all they said, and they've actually been quite good about it. No one's ever been disciplined, to my knowledge, for anything they've done or put on their iPad.
That being said, they also said there's no expectation of privacy, and they mean it. What you are showing to the world in your personal Apple ID could get ugly. And Bill wrote in and gave us, or he didn't write in, he voiced in. So, Dave, if you'll roll that beautiful bean footage, we'll hear what Bill has to say about this. Gentlemen, Bill from Meadow Park here.
I have a don't get caught tip, and I should give you a tiny bit of background.
I am a retired attorney.
And one of my last phases of work before I escaped the profession, I was doing document reviews, and I was supervising other attorneys doing document reviews. Now, of course, documents these days means files,
And in the course of those document reviews.
I have seen people's tax returns.
I've seen emails between spouses who are getting a divorce.
I've seen emails between brothers and sisters
Fighting over who.
Gets the cabin that the parents left them. I've seen... Emails between employees discussing their sex lives in couched terms, but clear.
And I've seen boudoir photos.
I've seen lots of this private information. And how is
It that I've.
Seen this when I've been working for corporations? Here's how. And this is the warning.
You've been warned by your employer, undoubtedly, at least on onboarding or perhaps once a year.
That there's no expectation of privacy in any device your company gives you,
Cell phone, tablet, computer, or any account that you use through them.
A firm email, a online storage account.
And here's the deal.
If you mix up your personal stuff with your work stuff,
And then there is a lawsuit.
And if you're a large employer, there's lots of lawsuits.
And if it touches upon the area where you were working, your computer, your account.
Can be slurped up for review by your own side's attorneys to look for things relevant to the lawsuit.
Sometimes, if it's a particular person.
They might have been all over a project, and so their whole email is going to get searched, Their whole hard drive is going to get searched.
And then if it hits on the right terms, then some attorney is going to.
Look at it
From your side.
Now, none of the stuff I mentioned has ever been produced to the other side, but it's all stuff that just I've seen. So
If you value.
Your privacy and if it's at all possible,
Keep those two worlds separate. Good luck.
Really smart. All right. Yeah. Through no fault of your own, I think, is the key here. Right. Like the message I'm getting is this is not, you know, the person whose data is being reviewed by the attorneys is in certainly in the example that Bill provided. Not a not not
Necessarily the target of the.
Target of the investigation. Thank you. Yes, exactly. It's no fault of your own. You just happen to have worked on a project that someone else is investigating for one reason or another. And you are caught up in that because that was your job, not because you did something wrong. With your data that you weren't supposed to. Now, of course, it sounds like some of these people did, but that wasn't the reason they were looking. So interesting. Yeah.
So I think the advice was best given in Ghostbusters three and a half decades, four decades ago. Don't cross the streams.
Oh, yes.
Keep them separate.
Easier said than done, though. It is.
It is easier said than done.
You know, I have been, we've had a couple of lawsuits over the decades that we've run businesses here. And one of them, the first one, in fact, was very much dependent on using email to prove the case, essentially, for lack of a better term.
No in fact for it as a very for a generalized term is the term like the email was it and and now that i'm thinking about it i'm thankful that it was back then when everything was in email because we were the ones that actually filed that suit so we we had the burden of proof uh today it would be like all right well now you got to go get slack messages and you know text messages and all this other stuff but but that's the point right is even with that it was like oh i guess i want to try
and filter some of this stuff out and you know i shared some of it with my attorney and he's like yeah it's okay to filter that out you know like that's not relevant to the case so but even still like yeah it it's keeping it separate is super important yeah
And deleting it from your hard drive you know there's questions as to whether or not is it did you know or anything like that is the problem is at least at my company that stuff all gets slurped up and archived anyway So you can delete it all day long They've got it.
They've got device management software. Most corporations that issue devices also have device management software on there, which does all kinds of stuff like that. That's so they can manage the device, set up security, install things. All that stuff goes the other way. They can make backups. They can do all kinds of things with your device. The other thing I'll tell you, or just say, because I'm in this situation.
I have a work-issued laptop, and there's certain things that I want. It's interesting. My company, I have a work-issued laptop, but we have to use our personal phones. Okay. So my phone is mine. They don't control it. But to that end, I have to do things like do testing, on-device testing on a phone for websites and stuff that I develop. And so one of the things I often need to do is we have development websites that are password-protected, and we have passwords for them.
And it's really, I don't want to have to, you know, pull up and type a really complex password. So like one feature that I wanted to have available to me, because it's a Mac and I have Apple device is the continuity, you know, copy paste that works through iCloud. So I wanted my iCloud account on my work computer.
But the important thing that I do is I go into once I turn that on, I go into internet accounts and see all and I disable Everything in there so it's not syncing my photos it's not syncing my iCloud files it's not doing you know find my Mac it's not syncing my messages it's not I turn off all the features that I don't want on my corporate computer so you can kind of manage some things that way now I don't know if that's the most secure probably not but that is one thing that I I do when I
set up my account Because then I can have my continuity features going through there, but I'm not dumping all my personal notes and messages and contacts and things onto my work computer.
That's interesting. At first I was thinking, well, if it's just passwords, like you can, and perhaps this is a sort of bonus quick tip, you can have multiple password managers installed and active on all of your Apple devices, your phones and your Mac. So you could have Apple passwords, say, for your personal stuff and Bitwarden or something else, you know, 1Password or something for your work stuff. But that doesn't get your continuity features.
Well, the other thing, Dave, is you have to understand, I work for an e-commerce company and we have compliance rules. And our Bitwarden is on a local server on our local network and not accessible from outside the company network. so you can't i need so
It explain to me how how that works so when you are local on the company network either local or perhaps via a vpn i don't know you can yeah you can sync with the the bit warden server but if you are not local nor on the vpn do you have at least an old copy of that sync data on your phone or is it not there at all
It's a good question i that i don't know i haven't tested that i would imagine i would have a copy at that point yeah um yeah i don't know that's interesting i i know i can't access it when i'm not connected to the vpn like so i would say no because if i'm not connected to the vpn when i launch that when i launch bitwarden it won't It won't even bring anything up. I have to be on the network connected.
Amazing. And that might be a setting in Bitwarden, right? That they've imposed that you can only access it live, as it were, not cached.
Yeah yeah so i can put the bpm on my phone and then get in there um you know if i wanted to i don't i don't do that it's just more convenient just like i'm working at my desk i'm just testing stuff so it's like yeah i don't need access when i'm not at work yeah
Yeah
And adam the one word you said in there that was uh i quickly glossed over but companies aren't doing this to find a way to get you that there are compliance rules they they have to do this to protect themselves and be in compliance with many laws state and federal so.
That's why that that's why my first comment was through no fault of your own like this is that that's the important that was the takeaway for me from from bills is like oh right just because i'm not the one that someone is investigating doesn't mean that my data won't be included in an investigation and i think that's the that's the take yeah all right should we uh should we move on to some questions here
¶ Barry-AppleTV Photos Screen Saver Limit Work-Around.
Yeah we have one here from uh barry barry says i'm hoping you can help me out with an issue i'm having with the screensaver on apple tv i have a large 4k tv which i love to view my photos on typically i have it running most days in screensaver mode and i love seeing the selection of my photos as I walk in and out of the lounge.
The problem is that my photo library, which is the source of the screensaver pictures, is getting up to about 2,000 pictures, all downsized to 4K dimensions and compressed with JPEG. Turns out that the Apple TV screensaver function can only cope with about 50 or so photos, and it does not cycle through the entire library. In addition, Each time the screensaver is triggered, it seems to reuse the same approximately 50 photo collection.
Are you aware of any way to enable the Apple TV to work with large picture libraries? I have even tried using the slideshow feature in photos, but that seems to struggle and repeat pictures and not progress normally through the large library, even though the shuffle photos and repeat pictures are turned off.
So I noticed the same thing too. I think if either of you know about it, I was not able to find anything that allowed the Apple TV to cache more than about 50 photos in its screensaver. And I looked, but I couldn't find it. I do know that I have, in years past, used different libraries. So I can shift from aviation to kids' photos and that sort of thing. So that's one option.
Different libraries or different albums?
Albums, thank you. Okay, got it. So you go into settings, but you have to go into Apple TV settings and tell Screensaver to look at a different album.
Right, right, right.
Okay. My solution to that was, I actually like to leave this on in the house frequently when I'm not watching TV. I'll put this on, is I created a photos library on my Plex server. So we have the steps, and I gave him the response. And I guess, way to put, there are a lot of steps. There's like nine or ten steps. Post them in Discord. Put them in the show notes.
Post them in Discord.
Oh, Discord. There we go. I'll post it in Discord. That's what we'll do. But basically, I have a Mac Mini that I keep on all the time in my basement. It's my Plex Media server. It's my channels server. And so I went there. I put that in Plex. And then my photos library I actually have on the NAS. Do not, never, ever, ever, not even never access your photos library on your NAS. It's a backup copy only. Right. But I let Plex use it as a read only. It goes in there and finds it and pulls out.
And in those steps, it tells you how to find where those photos are. But it will go through all of your photos. It will look at every last one of them. So using the photos library in Plex. And then so when you want to go to screensaver, just turn Plex on, go to photos, and hit play.
Oh, I see. So there's no – is there a – It's
Not a screensaver. I got you. You're playing something in Plex. So, again, it's deliberate. it's not like okay i'm done with this and then it goes to screensaver.
Yeah yeah yeah so i wonder if there's a third party screensaver that's
A good you know i never considered looking at that and.
I i i have to admit i don't even know if there are third party screensavers for apple tv i know like on our nvidia shield uh when we started using that as kind of our primary device for a little while because it's so much better for playing back plex specifically um we missed seeing the apple aerial uh screensavers and so on that i found several third-party screensavers that pull from the apple aerial library and actually i liked what the way they did it
better uh because i was able to pick the one that i wanted as opposed to just getting apple so i don't know if there's if there's any third-party screensavers on Apple TV. I've never looked. Maybe there are. Feedback at MacGeekApp.com. Tell us about your favorites.
Hold on, where? Feedback at MacGeekApp.com?
I think he said feedback at macgeekab.com, and I might need to use that, but I don't have to, because I have a little bit of feedback for you guys on this one, too.
¶ QT-Switch Apple TV Screensavers with Remote (Swipe or Press Up)
Okay.
Two things. One, and I just learned about this pre-show, a little tip. Apparently, because I would have suggested the idea of just setting up multiple, you know, photo libraries with 50 photos and then just switching between them occasionally, right? Sure. And Pete pointed out that, well, switching's not exactly that easy. Apparently it kind of is if you have the Apple TV 4K second generation or later.
So people may know that you can activate the screensaver manually by doing either of these two things. On the Apple TV home screen, you navigate to the topmost icon in the row and press the back or menu button.
And in an app, you can press the back or menu button until the screensaver activates or and this is it where the other tip comes in while the screensaver is active you can switch to another screensaver category again on the apple tv 4k second generation or later only by swiping up or pressing up on the click pad or touch surface and then selecting the category you want to switch to i didn't know you could say
That again screen
Saver is active so you got you got you know so i would imagine you can have your first album photo screen saver active and it's playing now you want to switch to another one apparently on the apple tv 4k second generation or later you can swipe up or press up on the click pad or touch surface and then select the category you want to switch to apparently there's a category list i don't think i have a i think i have a first generation apple tv 4k so i don't know that i can do this but amazing
I had no i i clearly i'm learning a thing and my brain needs to process this i love this we had the aerial screensaver on and now we have the snoopy screensaver on our tv lucas changed it uh i'm presuming he did it by knowing how to do it but every now and then And I'm like, oh, wouldn't it be nice to go back to Arial now? I know I can go into settings and make those changes. But now that I know that I can do it without having to go to settings, I like that.
That's good. I guess I'll share my favorite quick tip for the Arial screensaver, which is if you just lightly... Touch not not press not click but lightly touch or tap the uh the the the swipe button in the middle of the apple tv of the d-pad there if you lightly tap that while the aerial screensaver is going it will show you the location of that video so
I i love that and you gave away my other uh cool stuff found cool stuff found that i was going to interject here the snoopy screensavers
¶ ATC-CSF-Apple TV Snoopy Screensavers
it's awesome are amazing amazing the amount of variety in there like every time i look up it's doing something completely different i don't know how many like little animations or scenes or whatever are there but it seems to be endless so if you're looking for something incredibly entertaining and just fun they are so well done i love them i and they came in 18.2 uh so you need tvos 18.2 which i think came out in december
Yeah it's a it's a recent thing that's why lucas did that okay those and you are right those snoopy screensavers like they are i i can watch them endlessly i if since we're in the episode of foreboding and foreshadowing i have a new cool stuff found uh that i'm going to talk about in a little bit that i can also uh currently anyway I stand and watch endlessly and it's very meditative time suck.
It has become a time suck. Something that shouldn't be something that's supposed to automate a portion of my life has now become a major time suck in a, in the most wonderful way. I do want to share that many, many, many, many, and many of you. Thank you.
¶ Allison and all-Hazel still has App Sweep...and there might be a trick to making it work (again)
Shared that I, in a recent episode, I think it was last week's, if not the one before, I casually mentioned that Hazel no longer has AppSweep, the feature that would... Uh that would offer to delete backup file not backup files but but um settings files for apps that you had deleted so you delete an app and i
Should have said dave are you sure.
About that i think you did to be fair oh okay i
Think you did oh maybe i did.
Okay yeah i think you did and i said yeah i think it was removed in this one and uh many of you wrote in and said no it's still there i had a text exchange with new listener allison about this because she was one of the ones who pointed this out to me and i said oh look at that it's there i said i wonder why it's not working for me uh and because it hadn't been and she says you know now that you mention it it's not working for me either and then a day later
she beat me to the punch but we both had it working for ourselves so i wonder if there was something in the way I upgraded and clearly alice in the same way that deactivated that feature and required a visit to the settings page i didn't toggle anything on the settings page i just went to it saw that it was still active and thought okay and then left i wonder if visiting that page awakened the uh the engine in in the right way because now it's
working great for me on all my macs where i have visited the settings page but uh it definitely was not before so woohoo it's still there and uh and that's a that's a good thing they another good thing of course is as always our sponsor so uh take a trip with me and let's talk about our next sponsor because well it's time to talk about speed No,
¶ SPONSOR: OWC’s Express 1M2 Ultra-fast, compatible, and portable USB4 NVMe SSD.
not bandwidth. Storage. The new OWC Express 1M2 is a pocket-sized bus-powered Thunderbolt SSD enclosure that's faster than a caffeinated chipmunk on a fiber connection. I just wish I could get those caffeinated chipmunks off of my fiber connection, but that's a different problem. We're talking up to 3,151 megabytes per second of real-world performance.
That means massive file transfers 4k video editing game libraries backups you name it all flying by without a hiccup and you can either get it with an owc ssd pre-installed or you can bring your own nvme m.2 2230 2242 or 2280 drive in my mind that's flexibility done right this thing's built from aircraft grade aluminum it's totally fanless so it stays cool and silent and it also looks cool just like a well-behaved mac in a library you can toss it in your bag you can
use it anywhere and it won't blink it even comes with a usbc cable and a screwdriver because owc thought of everything like they always do don't get caught waiting on slow transfers folks or waiting on Go get the Express 1M2 from OWC. This is the external storage solution your setup deserves. And you can check it out now at MacSales.com, or we'll have a link directly to it from the show notes at MacGeekGab.com or the ones in your email.
You'll wonder how you ever lived without it. And our thanks to the folks at OWC for sponsoring this episode. And while I've got you here, let's answer the question, why?
¶ PODCAST: Why?!?!?!?! is the internet like that? That’s the question the folks at Never Post Podcast try to answer in each episode of their podcast. Never Post: a podcast for, and about, the internet.
Why is the internet like that? Because that's the question that the folks at Never Post try to answer in each episode of their podcast. Why is there something called influencer voice? What's the deal with the TikTok shop? What is posting disease? And do you have it? Do I have it? Why can it be so scary and yet feel so great to block someone on social media? The team Never Post wonders why the internet and the world because of the internet is the way that it is.
They talk to artists, lawyers, linguists, content creators, sociologists, historians, and more about our current tech and media moment, Neverpost, a podcast for and about the Internet, produced by Charts and Leisure, published by Radiotopia, episodes every other week at Neverpo.st, so N-E-V-E-R-P-O.st, and wherever you find your podcasts, our thanks to the folks at Neverpost for doing this swap with us.
¶ RG-CSF-1089-BXST Refrigerator protector
All right let's uh i'm eager to get the cool stuff found and then maybe we'll go back to questions so
Let's do.
It and plus we we kind of already brought ourselves here so
Yeah there's that and then uh so i guess the original rg writes in because there's rg3 in place for washington football team well i'm used to uh but now the original rg writes in he says hi all there is a simple cheap and very widely available solution for delaying the turn on of equipment after a power outage.
Used worldwide to protect refrigerators and other equipment, compressor-based refrigerators must have a start delay in case of a very short power cut to restart them when the compressor is still at working pressure. I'm sure that many people in rural USA use these protectors for their fridges. They're available from eBay, Amazon, and many other places from about $10. What the listener with the three UPS needs is only two different delays and one UPS Direct Connect with a zero delay.
Most of these devices will have a fixed three-minute delay, but there is one I found on Amazon with a variable time delay for $20. They're widely used in other countries and regions where there are frequent switching and power cuts and low-voltage brownouts that I didn't bother to reply earlier as I thought they would be well-known.
I had no idea these things existed, Pete. So I am super glad both RJ and Rob both wrote in with suggestions for different versions of these. So we'll put both of them up there. But, yeah, it's a pass-through device that just delays the power start. And, yeah.
Again, I came up with the mouthtrap version where you get to go into your box and wire it.
No, no, no. I really wish. And this is what I love about doing the show. I mean, I wish we didn't have to revisit this topic for three weeks, and I hope that this is the last. This seems to be the solution for this. In fact, I'm thinking of putting these on several of my UPSs because we get this. Even my UPSs, especially the Amazon Basics ones, folks, don't buy them. But Amazon's now going to get $20 more from me because the problem with those
is when the power flickers a few times in a short period of time. they
They go stupid right.
They just go stupid and turn off and it's like your whole freaking job is to not do that again but that's what it does and so i'm going to put one of these in line on it so that when the power starts to do that it just goes off for three minutes the ups has enough juice to run the system for three minutes so it's okay like yep uh what are the odds yeah that's That's the whole point. Yeah. So I wish I had known about these for a variety of reasons, including short-cutting this whole conversation.
But, you know, RG's comment is sort of the epitome of, like, quick tips, right? It's like, well, I just assumed everybody knew. Like, yeah, it turns out. Yeah. No. It turns out not. Yeah. So, yeah. Interesting little devices. And I'm definitely going to get something in this category. So thanks to RJ and Rob for sharing about this with us. Guys, I got a new device. I got a new toy.
¶ CSF-Eufy E15 Robot Lawnmower review- $1,599 (with Amazon $200 coupon)
Your new time suck?
It is kind of. It shouldn't be. It is something. Eufy, the folks at Eufy slash Anchor sent me one of their new robot lawnmowers, the Eufy E15. And it is this thing. I can't believe I've never gone down this path before. Now, I should start by saying that we, for a decade plus, maybe more than a decade, more than two decades, in fact, we've always just paid somebody to mow our lawn. So this is, this doesn't change anything about my quality of life.
This is a solved problem for me in that I don't have to be the one to mow the lawn.
However i love this thing and uh and it would pay for itself the the cost on on this there's two ufie has two lawnmowers one is the e15 one is the e18 on their website it was not clear what the difference was between the two of them except that it sort of alluded to the fact that the e18 was built for slightly larger lawns but they both said 800 square meters on the website of lawn that it could could map and cover i asked the pr rep what's the difference that's for slightly larger
lawns nobody could articulate for me but the actual difference was and
The name's different.
Yeah like i'm like there's got to be something different about these i finally found in an faq that the uh e18 the faq says it will do up to 1200 square meters of lawn so 50 more the size of the mower is the same the speed of the mower is the same so i just assume it has more ram to hold the map and i have about uh i would say about a thousand square meters of lawn they did not have an e18 to send me uh when this finally happened so i have an e15 and it went up to that it like it it does
most of it i did hear it the other day when it went to like map my my mailbox area it was like i've hit the limit of my mapping capability i was like dang it i can't do my mailbox this sucks um get the weed whacker out yeah exactly so so i i i suppose that's the difference the pricing on these is um the e15 the smaller one that i have is a uh is 1799 but there's a 200 dollar amazon coupon right now so it brings it down to 1599 so 1600 bucks and then the e18 is 1999 so two grand uh
For my yard, that would pay for itself in two years. We pay about $900 a year in mowing fees. So that's a pretty short return on investment. Now, let's talk about what this thing does. It took from the moment that I, in the house, cut open the packing box to the time when it began moving and starting its mapping process was less than 30 minutes. And that included me, you know, having to extract things from the boxes and, and, you know, all of that.
The thing that took the longest and by longest, I mean, five minutes was the base station for it actually screws into your, your grass. There's like eight big, like almost tent stake style screws just so that it doesn't move when this thing goes in and out. It's fairly lightweight. You can easily lift the mower with one hand. In fact, it has a handle to do that. It's fairly small.
The first thing it did was mapping. it it's clear that what anchor slash yuffie have learned from having all these robot vacuums in your homes in our homes uh has carried over to this mower in fact the mower did an even more exhaustive job of mapping and i kind of get it it wants to know what it's going to run into before it runs into it because what mapping was was it essentially mowed my lawn without the blades running um and and identified problem areas uh i then went
in and kind of drew some barriers where where there were none like they call them virtual barriers or something where you say okay here's where the line is between the lawn and the woods for you know for example so that it's not trying to go into the woods and and all of that uh it but it it it uses cameras primarily for everything. It does have GPS in it, which is also used in some clever theft prevention. And
It will map a section of yard that is all grass. When it sees not grass, it treats that as a barrier, which makes sense. But if you're like me and you have multiple sections of yard that are not all just connected by grass, it also has a solution for that. Once you map one section, you tell it, OK, I want to teach you a pathway to get from one to the other.
And for example i had one pathway that goes across the i decided the safest path for it in terms of not running into like stuff that we left out there was to go right along the edge of our patio and so you drive it with a joystick you put it into the mode where it's like learning and i drove it with a sort of joystick thing on my phone in the app from one section to the other and now i watch it all the time it it takes that little path that i taught it uh pretty much to
letter and goes between sections it can mow for about two hours uh two and a half hours the way i have it set up on one battery charge and if it's not finished it'll go back and charge its battery which takes maybe an hour and then heads back on out and trucks along and mows the lawn Uh the scheduling that even in the week that i've had it set up the app has been updated the firmware has been updated uh they've added some things in terms of the way you
can schedule zones and and more customizations and it it's um yeah yeah yeah yeah questions thoughts guys i i can talk more about this but yes yeah
Okay so the area is restricted by the amount of mapping that can hold so you can't do a kind of thing where you have it do different areas to get more coverage, right? Because it's like literally a physical limit of the map.
At the moment, yeah, there is only one map allowed per base station. So I suppose I could buy another base station and move the mower, manually move the mower to that, and then have that sort of be the home base for a second map, if you will.
Now that to me that seems like a software like a potentially solvable by software thing it i have pretty good wi-fi coverage throughout my yard uh but there towards the street it gets iffy and it does fine drifting in and out of wi-fi coverage while it's doing its thing uh because it's using cameras and it kind of knows how to get back to where there's coverage and then it can uh you know, and then it's back in sync. But I think the entirety of the map is loaded into the RAM of the Mora.
I don't know if I'm, you know, that's what it seems like. And our assumption, and again, I hopefully will be able to talk to somebody at some point who actually knows the answers to these things. The assumption is that the E18 has, you know, 50% more RAM or double the RAM or something than the E15. So, yeah. Yeah.
The other big concern I have with these things, because I've thought about them for the same reason. I don't like mowing my lawn, and I recently hired somebody, and it's not cheap. I think I'd be able to pay for one of these things even faster than you. I want your lawn guy, Dave, because...
Well, I don't feel drive that far.
My guy, my, my long guy who ironically I saw this morning, we had texted him, Lisa texted him and we've known him. He built our, he actually built our patio for us. He does a bunch of stuff for us. Uh, we had texted him and said, Hey man, we're, we're, we're testing out a new robot mower. So like hold off on starting to do our lawn for this season. And he was like, okay, yeah, no problem. And, uh, and he forgot about that. And at eight o'clock this morning, started mowing my lawn.
So I had to go out and be like, no, no, no, no, no. i need to test this thing please don't mow like you know but our lawn guy charges i think it's 60 or 65 bucks to mow our lawn um so yeah yeah my
Lawn and my lawn's huge yeah um
You might need some third
Of an acre or something like that
That's that's the the i'm pretty sure the 800 square meters is a half acre and 1200 is a third of an acre because i've seen it used interchangeably so the two thousand dollar one would probably be the i mean candidly the e18 is the right one for me uh given the size of my yard they just didn't have that to send me and it's also sounds like that would be the right one for you but um yeah yeah i and i have i am going to test
others of uh other robot mowers and and make sure we you know we're recommending the right ones but I'm really impressed with this thing. But go ahead, Adam.
So, the question is, my concern on these things, because they have the Snowblower ones, too, which are really cool looking. But, um... These things are out in front of my yard, unattended.
It's the whole idea.
I just feel like someone driving by is like, hey, $2,000 lawnmower. I always wanted one of those. Because they're pretty small, too. They're not huge. Just grab that thing, throw it in the back of my SUV, I'm gone.
It has a cellular chip in it. And that chip is used for two purposes. One is if you don't have enough coverage, you can pay to turn it on and use it for your lawn. They'll give you seven days free, and then it costs something nominal after that. That cellular chip, though, is also used in the event of theft because it knows via its GPS where your yard is.
And if it leaves that area, you can set it to a tell you that it has left and where it is and optionally be scream at the top of its lungs the entire time until its battery dies. So, you know, it does the best that it can do in terms of that. And without the dock, it like you would have whoever stole it from you would have to buy a new dock.
But the serial number of the mower like i don't think it would be useful to somebody else and the parts in it well i i looked into because it has uh it recommends blade replacement every 240 hours of mowing so for me and the speed that it mows and the the amount of yard that i have that's probably going to be monthly okay let's assume it might be every six weeks but i figured monthly well it has three blades on the bottom of its blade disc a set of nine new blades is 35
From eufy or amazon so that's a summer essentially for me you know maybe you know maybe a little more than that and then uh if i were to have to replace the blade disc and i i think the only reason i would do that is if it like hit a rock or something you know like some catastrophic thing which it's extremely good at avoiding i will point out because of its cameras uh but that's 26 So the i was i was pleasantly surprised that like the user serviceable parts
that need to be replaced on this thing are not going to cost me an arm and a leg does
It have a removal of battery
Good question i don't know yeah i don't know because i
Would imagine that battery is
Probably expensive quite
A bit of
Value i would imagine you're right yeah yeah yeah it's it's really smart it it again because it uses cameras uh low light conditions it's not interested in mowing you know it's unlike rem it will not do your gardening at night uh but it knows when sunset and sunrise are so no matter what you set its schedules for it will wait until a half hour after sunrise and it will put itself away a half hour before sunset and if it doesn't finish this is where things are a little bit murky for
me because i'm only a weekend but it seems like at least some of the time if it didn't finish what it was doing on monday and i have it set to mow again on tuesday it will resume from where it left off but sometimes it has done that for me and sometimes it has not done that for me and i'm trying to figure out why um so so
I've got some i've got some questions too um and actually matthew um missed the listening dave was saying that you only need to pay extra if you need the cellular in it uh the subscription he asked the question yeah yeah so you don't need a subscription to keep it working no um so uh first of all i have a comment which is that's not nearly as much as a decent rider so that is not an expensive mower in the big scheme of things you know i mean it's a
lot cheaper than 110 black and decker you know two or you know one three-quarter horse whatever they are the push mower but yeah um but yeah as far as a decent mower that's that's not.
Even a decent push mower is going to be over 500 bucks right now um lucas looked it up when we were kind of going through all this and pete froze So I know you're back.
Well, I'm back. No, you froze.
Okay, great. I was moving. Yeah.
So, yeah. So, uh, you talked about the blades, is there not something, the way the blades are set up? I mean, you wouldn't want to stick your foot under it anyway, but it's, they're kind of set up so they're not dangerous to humans and they'll stop and.
Yes. Right. Humans, pets, it like it, uh, we had some tall weeds in, in the yard because this thing literally did our first mow of the season, which I figured is going to be the worst it's ever going to see assuming it keeps up with it and it did fine but there were some tall weeds that are not grass and it avoided those and it was like ah i was like wait why didn't it mow this area and then i saw a pattern of like ah okay i need to pull up these weeds
because it doesn't know if these weeds are weeds or flowers now i mean i suppose with pattern matching it eventually probably could but it's airing on the side of not destroying your gardens right and so i just went through and that's
A good thing.
Yeah it is and it has you know don't
Cut down the.
Tulips it has controls about how you manage the edges and you know how aggressive you want it to get in that regard and and all of those things um yeah we will likely if we stick with this for the season we will likely buy uh which we don't currently have a trimmer to do manual some manual trimming uh once a month or so just to kind of keep ahead of that on the edges of things. But otherwise, yeah, I mean, this thing, I'm impressed with it. And again, we are pushing it.
To its, I would like to push it beyond its limit candidly, uh, because I want it to actually mow my whole lawn and not just, you know, 90% of it. But, you know, that's,
That's the other thing. It sounded kind of cool about this is that it does do mapping because I had a friend, geez, it's been 10 or 12 years ago. He got one of the first ones that ever came out, but he had to bury it wire around his yard, like a invisible fence type thing.
The wires or the, you know, the stake in the ground with the things. No, there's none of that. Like, the only thing I had to install was the base station. And once that was installed, it took over like a robot vacuum. And to me, that was the best part. Now, I'm very thankful that, you know, I get to do what I do and I get to test these kinds of things as I do.
But this thing is going to wind up being extremely expensive for me because as i was watching it do even just its mapping for the first time i knew that there was zero this again does not really impact my quality of life i am not the one that mows my lawn so i like either way it was fun it was handled and it's been handled for a very long time but what i do have to do and i don't get unlike mowing the lawn i don't get to pick the schedule uh is that after we have our driveway plowed i have
to go out with the snowblower and like clean up the edges of the driveway because if i don't it'll freeze and then over the season we will wind up having a bike path for a driveway as it kind of creeps in and creeps in so i have to snowblower and do the edge you know kind of get the edges do our path and all that stuff and there is a unless we go broke and i really don't have any plans nor hopes of that hang on let me knock on wood great uh i will absolutely be getting a
robot snowblower for this coming winter because the quality of life improvement of not worrying about that When it just happens to snow is going to be huge.
So I've got one more question, and that's about the base station. Where'd you put it? Is it protected from weather?
Great question.
Is this thing rainproof, assuming it starts raining while it's out mowing?
I have I made the decision, which thankfully wasn't a terrible mistake, to let it do one of its first mowing passes on Sunday when we were out all day. It started raining and it poured. And because it was one of its first passes, it got stuck. And when it gets stuck, it stops and alerts you and you go out and move it. And then it resumes once you tell it it's been moved.
And and then you can go in and in the map and kind of carve out that area you know and decide what to do about it but it got stuck and it was out in the rain for hours it survives that just fine um it's i mean it's not the best thing for it but the the the base station is called the garage and it has it's kind of a carport if you will uh it has a roof on it so it protects it from the rain and and the sun when, and I've seen it put itself away when, when the,
you know, more got too hot or whatever, because of the sun beating down on it. But I put it currently, I put it in kind of a conspicuous spot, but now I realized I'm, I'm going to move it and you can, there's a, there's a thing in the app where you can tell it, I'm moving the base station, please don't delete my map. And I'm going to move it to the, the, the North side of the house where I'll never see the base station.
It, you know, it's out of sight, out of mind and it's, and it's right near a power outlet too, which is going to be great.
That was my other question is you got to run an extension cord or something to it, I'm assuming in most cases, because most people don't have, I mean, depending on your art, like I don't have outlets right next to the grass. Yeah. Like there's pathways between the grass and the house.
And right now, this will change. They have a kind of a roadmap that they've published of at least some of the features. Right now, the base station has to be in the yard area.
But there is a feature coming where the base station can be essentially on one of those pathways that you teach it and it can be anywhere and then it will just kind of drive off and go your lawn but yeah it's freaking amazing i and i've spent more time watching this thing just mow my lawn in amazement it's super meditative to just watch and it's quiet like my neighbor was mowing his lawn well it's all electric and obviously it's built to be energy efficient so it's not making a lot of noise and
uh yeah but my neighbor you know far away was mowing his lawn and i was standing next to this thing and his mower was far louder drowning out any potential noise this thing is almost the thing you hear mostly is the motor for the wheels as it's kind of like you know driving around because it's electric electric wheels huge wheels on the thing to yeah not
To make this go on forever and ever but i'm assuming with a robot mower i'm assuming with a robot mower that general philosophy is you're having it mow more often and not trimming a lot a lot of grass so like it's maintaining the lawn rather than really mowing the lawn
Yes it is other than the first time for me which is why i'm so eager to let it test it out and it i mean our grass i have it set to mow about at the three inch height which is the highest that this will go because that's best for us here in New Hampshire. And also, it's not going to get that much longer than it because it's going to be out there mowing fairly regularly. Constantly. Yeah, but it was like there was some grass that was probably seven inches by the time it got to it and it did fine.
It might have done multiple passes on that. Candidly, I don't care. Not only do I not know, it doesn't matter to me. But it looked good when it was finished.
So final thing, and I'm going to agree with Kiwi Graham in the chat. Dave, think about the children. Think of how many kids, how many summer job kids you are unemploying with this thing.
I'm one of them.
I mean, you monster.
I know. Well, my first business that got me started down the whole crazy path that I've led my life on was mowing lawns. Absolutely. Yep. Yep. So, but like I said, I'm still going to need to manually go out and trim. So there is, there is opportunity. Yep. Yep. And by opportunity, I mean.
That's why you have a wife.
Well, yeah, that's actually fair. um by opportunity i i mean that the kids could write the software for a mower to to you know do the trimming for you and actually i think there are robotic trimmers i think yarbo just announced one if i'm not mistaken on my memories but yeah it like that will come so yeah don't don't mow lawns learn how to write software that's the uh learn learn how to vibe code kids that's the future yeah right
And then and then you can charge people because if you do what matthew dropko was talking about in the chat comments there's a project at defcon where someone hacks your mower to go down the street mow their lawn for.
Free well you know if your lawn if you mow your lawn if you and your neighbor have small enough lawns you could buy one of these between the two of you
Well, yeah. And I think you're referring to me. We actually live in what's now a duplex.
¶ MGG 1091 Outtro
Yes. And I think we're probably at about close to half an acre between the two of us. There you go.
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway.
Yeah. That only works if you're not in California where everybody has a fence.
Right. Yes. It will not traverse. It will not climb fences. You would need to build it a little doggy door. So, yeah. Right.
Blow through it.
Oh, you could teach it to go out on the road, and you could teach it that path. I don't recommend having it drive on the road, but one could. And I am certain...
That could end badly.
I'm certain there are people out there that do.
Hey, Dave, I hear Musica.
Yeah, it was time. We went long on that last little bit there.
That was a cool discussion. Yeah, I kind of.
Had a feeling we might. It's one of those things that, you know, this is like the robot vacuum, which also was a game-changing thing for me and all of us. Like, you know, yeah, it really makes a difference. And Adam, you were right to relate it to this thing is built to be a maintainer, not a once every 10 days I got to go out and mow the lawn kind of thing like you and I might do. Exactly. It's like it's happy to do it every day. And that's probably the right
path. Certainly for me, I have to do it every day because I have too much lawn. So I have it chopped up and doing things. I actually have it set. To do the same sections two days in a row, just in case it rains or something happens where it delays or defers it. And then it'll do the next two sections and the next two and the next two. And so I've got three different groups and it's just kind of doing them every day. I don't care.
Since it's not bagging it, that's a good thing. It's putting smaller amounts of that nitrogen back into the lawn. Correct.
And it's not loud. So I don't care if I'm out on my patio while my lawn's being mowed. It's fine. It makes me happy. I love it. In fact, I love to see the lawn being mowed while I'm out of my patio. Yeah, thanks for hanging out with us, folks. Thank you to Cashfly for providing all the bandwidth to get the show from us to you. Thank you, everybody, for listening and sending in your tips and your questions. It means so much to us. It allows us to do what we do. So keep them coming.
No question, no tip is the wrong question or tip or cool stuff found. And we love, love, love sharing it. The best problem we have is we have too much stuff. So we just got to do this again next week, guys. In the meantime, you can listen to Pete's So There I Was. You can listen to Adam's Debut Film Podcast, and you can listen to My Business Brain and Gig Gab Podcast. Thanks for hanging out. Make sure to share the show with a friend, please. Please, please,
please. We love it. Woo-hoo. That's it we did it almost
Yeah we.
Have seconds away actually 20 seconds gotta wait it out
You know i am here this week dave why.
Are you uh here this week pete
Well because i didn't want to get in fact i'll pass the same advice on there's a storm coming don't get caught It's true See ya later.