NC_2024_05_05
This episode covers Apple's announcements, iPad rumors, generative AI on iOS features. The host shares MacBook Pro migration challenges, an interview on the Kato device for disabilities, and insights on Kensington's Thunderbolt 4 docking station.
Automatic Shownotes
Chapters
NC_2024_05_05
Allison on Clockwise 552
Why Does Everyone Say Migration Assistant Works Great?
CSUN 2024: Cato Motion-Based Wearable Alternative to Eye Gaze Control
Support the Show
Expand Your Ports with the Kensington Thunderbolt 4 Dual 4K Nano Docking Station
CES 2024: Pawport Smart Secure Pet Door
Long Summary
In Show Number 991, we delve into the anticipation surrounding Apple's upcoming announcement, speculating on the potential release of new iPads, particularly the rumored 12.9-inch OLED iPad Pro. We extend an invitation to our listeners to participate in the lively chat room at podfeet.com/chat during the announcement event. Clockwise 552 features engaging discussions with host Micah Sargent, co-host Dan Morin, and guest Jeff Carlson, exploring the possibilities of generative AI enhancing iOS features ahead of WWDC. Our conversation touches on strategies for addressing home networking issues, insights on the imminent iPad launch, Apple ID lockouts, and the risks associated with overdependence on a single platform.
Reflecting on my dedication to the meticulous nuke and pave approach for setting up Mac devices, I recount the unexpected challenges encountered during the migration to a new MacBook Pro. The Migration Assistant's shortcomings surfaced with apps like MarsEdit, Telegram, MacTracker, and Moom, leading to intricate troubleshooting and reinstallations. Even critical services like Backblaze and Dropbox posed hurdles, necessitating thorough uninstallation and configuration adjustments for smooth functionality. The journey sheds light on the complexities and frustrations of app migration, showcasing the importance of preparedness and adaptability during device transitions.
Navigating through the intricacies of software migration, we unravel the complexities encountered post-Migration Assistant use, which disrupted rules within the Hazel app by NoodleSoft. The limitations of the Migration Assistant are underscored, prompting manual adjustments to tackle disruptions across various apps and settings, ranging from security configurations to licensing conflicts. Despite the setbacks, the imperative of post-migration manual interventions is emphasized, prompting reflections on the tool's efficiency compared to alternative methods like Nuke and Pave.
Transitioning to an enlightening interview with Spiro Koularis at the CSUN Accessible Tech Conference, we showcase Koularis' groundbreaking device, Kato, tailored to empower individuals with disabilities. Koularis demonstrates how Kato facilitates device control through head and body motions, showcasing its versatility in enhancing accessibility. The interview unfolds with compelling demonstrations of Kato's utility in controlling TVs, computers, and specialized lifts, highlighting its adaptability for diverse needs and environments.
Exploring the extensive applications of Kato in educational and independent living settings, we delve into Koularis and Alan Cantwell's demonstration, discussing the device's developmental stages, beta trials, and future release plans. The interview resonates with admiration for Koularis' resilience and innovative approach to living with ALS, leaving a profound impact on the discussion. Concluding with a call-to-action for listener engagement, we spotlight Kensington's Thunderbolt 4 dual 4K nano docking station, drawing insights from industry experts and personal tech reviews to offer a comprehensive view of evolving technology trends.
Reflecting on my dedication to the meticulous nuke and pave approach for setting up Mac devices, I recount the unexpected challenges encountered during the migration to a new MacBook Pro. The Migration Assistant's shortcomings surfaced with apps like MarsEdit, Telegram, MacTracker, and Moom, leading to intricate troubleshooting and reinstallations. Even critical services like Backblaze and Dropbox posed hurdles, necessitating thorough uninstallation and configuration adjustments for smooth functionality. The journey sheds light on the complexities and frustrations of app migration, showcasing the importance of preparedness and adaptability during device transitions.
Navigating through the intricacies of software migration, we unravel the complexities encountered post-Migration Assistant use, which disrupted rules within the Hazel app by NoodleSoft. The limitations of the Migration Assistant are underscored, prompting manual adjustments to tackle disruptions across various apps and settings, ranging from security configurations to licensing conflicts. Despite the setbacks, the imperative of post-migration manual interventions is emphasized, prompting reflections on the tool's efficiency compared to alternative methods like Nuke and Pave.
Transitioning to an enlightening interview with Spiro Koularis at the CSUN Accessible Tech Conference, we showcase Koularis' groundbreaking device, Kato, tailored to empower individuals with disabilities. Koularis demonstrates how Kato facilitates device control through head and body motions, showcasing its versatility in enhancing accessibility. The interview unfolds with compelling demonstrations of Kato's utility in controlling TVs, computers, and specialized lifts, highlighting its adaptability for diverse needs and environments.
Exploring the extensive applications of Kato in educational and independent living settings, we delve into Koularis and Alan Cantwell's demonstration, discussing the device's developmental stages, beta trials, and future release plans. The interview resonates with admiration for Koularis' resilience and innovative approach to living with ALS, leaving a profound impact on the discussion. Concluding with a call-to-action for listener engagement, we spotlight Kensington's Thunderbolt 4 dual 4K nano docking station, drawing insights from industry experts and personal tech reviews to offer a comprehensive view of evolving technology trends.
Brief Summary
In this episode, we discuss Apple's upcoming announcements, iPad rumors, and the impact of generative AI on iOS features. I share my MacBook Pro migration challenges, emphasizing the importance of preparation. We explore post-Migration Assistant adjustments and highlight an interview with Spiro Koularis on his innovative device for individuals with disabilities, Kato. Concluding with insights on Kensington's Thunderbolt 4 docking station, we offer a glimpse into evolving tech trends.
Tags
episode
Apple
announcements
iPad
rumors
generative AI
MacBook Pro
migration
interview
device
disabilities
Kato
Thunderbolt 4
docking station
tech trends
Transcript
[0:00]
NC_2024_05_05
[0:12]
And this is show number 991. This Tuesday at 7 a.m. Pacific time, Apple has an announcement widely believed to be for a new set of iPads. I have my hopes set on an OLED 12.9-inch iPad Pro, so my little eyes and ears will be glued to this announcement. If you'd like to join the friendliest bunch of folks in the live chat room during the announcement, I hope you'll join us by going to podfeet.com slash chat during the announcement. As usual, Steve and I will not be in the voice channel since the real fun is in the announcement, not hearing us yap. We hope to see you there.
[0:46]
Allison on Clockwise 552
[0:46]
This week, I had a blast on Clockwise 552, hosted by Micah Sargent and Dan Morin. On the show was co-guest Jeff Carlson, who I'd never met before. He's a tech author and a podcaster. And in this 30-minute action-packed show, we talked about what features in iOS we'd like to see improved with generative AI. You know, that's what Apple's going to be talking about, supposedly, at WWDC. so it was kind of fun to use our imaginations and think about what would we like to see iOS be able to do. My topic was about the process each of us followed to cure home networking issues and how long is it before we actually call for help. Our answers were curiously similar, which was basically the last resort is to call for help. Then we talked about the probable upcoming iPad announcement and what it would take for each of us to buy a new one. It was kind of funny, Jeff Carlson actually said he felt guilty because he's not going to buy one. And I suggested that, you know, the stock really does need his help.
[1:41]
Finally, we bemoaned the recent problems Apple had caused so many people to be locked out of their Apple IDs. And we pondered whether having so many eggs in that one basket is really a good idea. I have to say, I don't want to say I took pleasure in other people being locked out of their Apple IDs. But you remember a week and a half ago, I said, hey, this seems like it's on Apple server sides when it happened to me. And then it happened to everybody else, so I think it's probably still connected. Anyway, as always, you can find Clockwise in your podcatcher of choice, and there's a direct link to episode number 552 in the show notes at relay.fm.
[2:17]
Why Does Everyone Say Migration Assistant Works Great?
[2:17]
If you've been listening to me for any length of time, you know I'm a huge proponent of doing a nuke and pave of my Mac, also known as a clean install, pretty much around once a year. You can just search podfee.com for nuke and pave to read all of the articles I've written on this subject over the years. I definitely believe in doing a nuke and pave when I get a new computer. Now when I say nuke and pave or clean install, I mean installing every single app one by one and configuring every little bit of it by hand. The only thing I bring over from a backup is my data. No settings at all.
[2:49]
I'm a bit unusual in how much I tailor my Mac, so this is a very lengthy process. I'm not going to go into all the details because I've described how to do it as recently as last October. The downside of this process is that it takes me about five days on and off to get everything working properly. But the upside is that everything is predictable. Because I've documented my apps and settings before I start the process, I know how much work I have to do. I break it down into the mission-critical apps and settings, important apps and settings, and then the ones that I use but they're not that critical, and maybe they can wait for a bit. It's a daunting task to be sure, but I find the rigor of the process pleasing.
[3:29]
But this week, I strayed from my tried-and-true process. After fighting with Apple for 12.7 months about the massive battery drain on my M1 Max MacBook Pro, I broke down and bought a new M3 Max MacBook Pro. I realized that if I used Migration Assistant to move all of my apps and settings and have them exactly the way they were on the older Mac, it would give me a unique opportunity to prove to Apple, once and for all, that it was not my apps and settings causing the problems. This was pretty much my first time using Migration Assistant in ages.
[4:02]
I have to say, I've been shocked to find that Migration Assistant is anything but rigorous and predictable. Predictable everyone always talks about migration assistant as though you know it just works that sure has not been my experience let's walk through just a little bit of the fun i've had we'll start with apps from the mac app store those if anything should have come across seamlessly but several did not i use mars edit to write all of my blog posts so it's high on the mission critical list when i launched mars edit for the first time after the migration it asked for my license key well that didn't make any sense because I'd bought it from the Mac App Store. I tried to just download it again from the Mac App Store, but I got a different error. It simply said, unable to download app. So that was swell. I contacted Daniel Jalkut, developer of MarsEdit, and he explained that he stores all of the settings in separate files and they don't get deleted when you delete the app. Luckily, Hazel wasn't working yet, so its app sweep of the trash didn't delete those files when I deleted MarsEdit. Now, I don't know if something healed in the Mac App Store, but after Daniel's email, I was able to download fresh from the Mac App Store. Now, MarsEdit is one of the most well-behaved apps I use, and even MarsEdit from the Mac App Store doesn't gracefully transfer with Migration Assistant. I mean, this means I'm doomed if something as good as MarsEdit doesn't work.
[5:26]
Now, Telegram is my messaging app of choice, and while it worked, I had no avatars for any of my contacts. One of the joys of Telegram is that you can create these cute little avatars for groups, too, which means it's easy to see at a glance who you're talking to. Searching a long list of names was a terrible experience. I uninstalled and reinstalled Telegram from the Mac App Store several times, and I finally just gave up. After about four days, my avatars came back. I have no No idea what caused the problems, but I'm sure glad that the picture of a glass of wine is there for my Wine Wednesday chat group in Telegram again.
[6:01]
Let's see, who's up next? MacTracker. This is an awesome app that lets you learn everything about every Mac, iPhone, iPad, or accessory Apple has ever made. And you know what? It decided it didn't want to function after Migration Assistant either. It popped up a dire warning with a yellow triangle with an exclamation point inside of it, and it says, MacTracker.app is damaged. And can't be opened. You should move it to the trash. Well, I sure didn't want to throw away MacTracker, but I had no choice, so I selected move to trash. The next pop-up was even worse. Now, instead of a warning, I had a scary red stop sign with an exclamation point and a new warning that said MacTracker.app could not be moved to the trash. So, come on, guys. This is Apple's Mac App Store, Apple's Downloader, presumably Apple's Warnings, and, of course, Apple's migration assistant. I dragged MacTracker into the trash, and the operating system asked me to authenticate, and it worked. Only then could I download again from the Mac App Store, and it worked as designed. When I tried to launch the delightful window manager, Moom, from the Mac App Store, I got the same dire warning that it was damaged, and the red stop sign telling me I can't throw it in the trash. I didn't even try to fight it. I dragged it into the trash manually, authenticated, re-downloaded, and Moom was is back working again. But why, Apple? Why do I have to do this?
[7:24]
I use an app called AutoMounter to mount my Synology volumes automatically. This lets Hazel clean up my audio files for the podcast by moving them to the Synology without my intervention. But AutoMounter comes from the Mac App Store, so of course, things did not go well. It was slightly different from MacTracker and Mooms warnings. The pop-up said it was damaged and couldn't be opened, but it didn't bother to offer to send it into the trash for me. On a lark, I didn't delete AutoMounter. Instead, I went to the Mac App Store, searched for Automounter, and I simply clicked the Open button, and that worked. No uninstall, no authentication or reinstall required. I have no idea why this worked. And remember, I tried this method with MarsEdit and that didn't work, so I can't even find a pattern here to the way these things are breaking. I don't understand why all of these apps were damaged, but it's obvious to me the blame is entirely on Apple because this many developers didn't screw this up. So that's it for the Mac App Store fails that I've experienced so far, but the Mac App Store apps aren't the only ones giving me fits. Let's move on to wind about what apps are the apps that aren't from the Mac App Store.
[8:32]
Probably the worst of my apps to have trouble making the great migration of 2024 was Backblaze. This is a terrific off-site backup service. It's not on my mission critical list because I have local backups, and most of my data also lives in a syncing solution. You know, iCloud Drive, Dropbox, or Google Drive. I obviously want it to work, but I tend to wait a little bit to start backups when switching machines until I'm sure everything else has migrated properly.
[8:59]
Before the migration, I had my M1 MacBook Pro and my M2 MacBook Air backed up to Backblaze. I launched Backblaze on the new M3 MacBook Pro with the intention of inheriting the license and backup from the M1 MacBook Pro. But when I brought up Backblaze, it was a hot mess. It's hard to even describe what a hot mess it was, but I'm going to try. The opening window had the Backblaze logo in the center, but every word on the screen was error dialogues. For example, the center said error underscore main dialogue underscore top banner underscore initial backup paused. There were three buttons labeled error main dialogue button, followed by something I couldn't read because it was falling off the button. There were unformatted error messages on the right. There were links to errors. Like I said, it was a hot mess. Obviously, a reinstall of Backblaze was required. Now, I probably should have followed their uninstall instructions on the Backblaze website, but I forgot that they were there. In any case, they're quite arduous. They have an uninstaller, but they say to run it and to do this deep dive into all kinds of library preferences files and delete things. I really think their uninstaller does the work, but they don't tell you that you don't have to do both. In any case, I took the easy path and I reinstalled and Backblaze worked just dandy.
[10:17]
Now, I sent a copy of the awful screen I saw after the migration to the Backblaze folks, just kind of as an FYI to explain that their software didn't graciously migrate. I explained that I'd gotten past it by reinstalling, so this was just to warn them. At that point, I successfully adopted a backup on the new M3 MacBook Pro.
[10:35]
Well, a few days later, I start using the M2 MacBook Air, and a window popped up telling me Backblaze is no longer working on this Mac because the license since it had been taken by another Mac. That's when I realized that Backblaze never asked me which backup to adopt. It didn't take the one from the M1 MacBook Pro. It took the one from the M2 MacBook Air. Well, the folks at Backblaze worked with me to get this sorted out, but it took about eight emails back and forth, much discussion before we were able to get Backblaze to ask me which backup to adopt. It also involved deleting several now dead backups through the Backblaze web interface. face. I never had to do anything like this before when I got a new Mac and I did a pave from scratch.
[11:17]
Now, Dropbox was almost as big of a mess as Backblaze, and I'm not entirely sure I have it completely sorted yet. The first symptom was pretty normal by now. macOS told me simply that the application Dropbox.app can't be opened, and it had an OK button. Not as alarming, but it still wasn't working. I went to the website, and I downloaded and installed a fresh version of Dropbox. Before I can explain what happened, I have to refresh everyone's memory on how cloud storage providers work with modern macOS. Last year around this time, Adam Angst of Tidbits fame was on Chit Chat Across the Pond Light, and he talked to us about Apple's changes to how cloud storage services are implemented in macOS. Apple dropped kernel extensions, I think for security reasons, and they created a new file provider extension. Now that's all the under-the-hood stuff. From a user perspective, what we saw was the cloud service apps moved from being kind of top-level citizens to showing in the left sidebar together under locations. All of your files for cloud storage services are actually now in your home library cloud storage. That's an interesting location since your library is a hidden directory by default.
[12:26]
This was one of those resistance is futile situations where you pretty much had to go along with this change. Now, I had long since allowed Dropbox to adopt the file provider extension before I migrated to the new Mac. I checked Dropbox a few days after I made the migration, and noticed that none of my Dropbox files had migrated over to the new Mac, and they hadn't downloaded from the Dropbox servers either. That's when I realized that Dropbox was not using the new File Provider extension. From the Menu Bar app, I had to go through the dance again to let Dropbox make that transition. That seems really odd. It was set up that way before, why would it have not migrated that way? I then had to keep tickling the Dropbox files to get them to download to the new Mac. Nothing came down on its own. I had to keep right-clicking, saying, yes, download this whole folder, download this whole folder, download this whole folder. Finally, things seemed to be downloaded. By the way, I know I have it set correctly to download all files locally, because that's what I want.
[13:25]
So last week, Bart and I recorded Chit Chat Across the Pond. When we record the show, we both do what's called a double-ender recording. That means I record my voice locally and his voice from Zoom. He does the same thing on his end. He records his voice locally and my voice on Zoom. When we're done, he moves his recording to a shared Dropbox folder. Then I pull both double-enders into my recording software Hindenburg. I delete my Zoom recording of him and his Zoom recording of me, leaving two good directly recorded voices. This is a way of ensuring that if either of us has a problem recording, we at least have one copy of both of our voices, but if we both succeed we get two really good recordings.
[14:05]
After Bart said he'd successfully uploaded his file to Dropbox I told him I said it never came down you must have done something wrong. Well we occasionally have hiccups on one end or the other with his transfer process so I suggested he check again. He sent me screenshots and all indications on his end were that it should be on Dropbox ready for me to see but it still wasn't there. I wondered what could be wrong other than a bandwidth problem on my end. I opened Find Any File, my favorite way to do deep searches on my Mac, and discovered that I now have two copies of Dropbox in my home library cloud storage folder. One of them is called Dropbox, and it has the pretty logo, and the other is called Dropbox 42324708PM, and has a generic folder icon. Now, this isn't an alias, but I found a couple of those too, it was a complete duplicate of all of my files, 122 gigabytes worth.
[15:02]
Now, I was able to finally clean that mess up, but our Bart Allison share folder in Dropbox that I had in my left sidebar was pointing to that wrong Dropbox, which is why I could never see Bart's file. How terrifying is that?
[15:15]
I rely on the app Hazel from NoodleSoft to do a lot of work on my Mac. I've already mentioned how it does an app sweep of the trash for me to get all the weird little files off my system, and I use it to move local files to my Synology when they get stale. This is a fantastic application with great support from the developer, Paul Kim. But for some reason, on this new Mac, having just used Migration Assistant, my rules were all fractured. I'm getting errors when I open the app, errors when I try to save a rule. I've got runaway circular jobs going on, so things get copied from my Mac over to the Synology, and then they get copied back. And Paul and I have been going back and forth. I've been making videos for him. Now, since Hazel rules sync between my Macs. Now it's broken on my other Mac. It's just completely polluted, and it's a hot mess again. And I know that Paul writes good software, and this shouldn't be happening. The only difference in the way this happened was because I used Migration Assistant.
[16:14]
Now, would you believe that even Apple's developer tools don't work after Migration Assistant? In order to test web apps on iOS during development, like with the work we're doing in XKPassWD, I use the Xcode Simulator. That lets you bring up a fake iPhone or iPad on your Mac and you can see how your web app looks and acts at different sizes and orientations while you're doing the development, not using the real website. When I tried to run it for the first time on the new Mac after Migration Assistant's help, it gave me a pop-up that told me I need to install additional required components. Wasn't hard to fix, but why on earth did only part of Xcode come across with Migration Assistant? If anything proves that this is all Apple, it's got to be that example.
[16:59]
Now, while the problems I've discussed were huge and took a lot of my time and were incredibly unpredictable, I was more tolerant but still surprised that basically none of my security settings transferred over. Every single app that wants to use the camera or the microphone or even record the screen like screenshot apps, all of them had to be re-approved. Every app that wanted full disk access had to be re-approved. Every app that uses accessibility had to be re-approved. Also in the security category, Rogamiba has a new way of getting permission to hijack audio, but not all of their apps use this new audio routing kit or ARC method just yet. That means to use their older audio capture engine, you still have to boot into safe mode and lower the security settings. I'm not surprised I had to do that one by hand rather than Migration Assistant doing it for me, but it was still annoying to do. Another weird thing is a lot of apps lost their launch and login status, and that makes no sense to me. I don't see how that's security-related, but that kept happening. Finally, I was annoyed at the software I had to move manually because of the way they're licensed. That's not Migration Assistance' fault, but you know what? I'm on a roll airing of the grievances here, so I'm going to whine a little bit. Parallels Toolbox is licensed per machine, but at least it lets me pull a license from another machine. I don't have to log into the old one and let it go.
[18:20]
Setapp is licensed per machine, too, and it's pretty expensive. So I did have to release the license on the old Mac first. Glad I didn't trade it in before he did that.
[18:29]
ScreenFlow has a Mac App Store version, but it's really cost prohibitive. A license of version 10 on the Mac App Store is $170 every time they come out with a new version, whereas an upgrade of my standalone license was only $59. So again, I had to release the license on the old Mac to retrieve it on the new one.
[18:48]
The bottom line is that I'm not convinced Migration Assistant has any advantages over Nuke and Pave. For me, it's been a lot of work cleaning things up and getting them working properly, and it's been no fun at all. The unpredictability of the problems was really not what I was hoping for, and I do not understand why everyone else talks about it like, oh, it just works. But guess what? This just in. Homebrew's broken. After I thought I'd discovered every failure of Migration Assistant, I went to install something using Homebrew. That's a command line package manager. I think an app store, but it's for command line tools. I got an error telling me that ownership and permission for the location of homebrew files was not writable and that I should change the permissions back to my user account. Luckily, it also told me the command to do that. It wasn't hard to do, but again, it was annoying. It also suggested that I make sure my user has write permissions to that same directory and gave me those instructions. Like I said, it only took a few seconds to fix, but it's one more paper cut because of using Migration Assistant this time. And tonight when I sat down to do the live show, I used Keyboard Maestro to do a whole bunch of stuff on my Mac. Open files, open applications, shut down other applications, turn off Wi-Fi, and move a bunch of the windows around on my screen so they fit nicely for the live show. And let's see, the error it's giving me right now says, preference shared sync right failed and a yellow banner. So that's nice.
[20:16]
CSUN 2024: Cato Motion-Based Wearable Alternative to Eye Gaze Control
[20:16]
What you're about to hear next was my favorite interview from the CSUN Accessible Tech Conference. It's with a gentleman named Spiro Koularis, who co-founded a company to solve a real problem for him and which will greatly benefit others. He is absolutely delightful and funny, and I really hope I get to see him again in real life.
[20:37]
I'm with Spiro Koularis and Alan Cantwell in the Autonomous Living Technologies booth. and Spiro is going to be demonstrating for us. And I should tell you, this is a podcast, an audio podcast and video. So I'm going to probably stop you and describe things that I'm seeing a little bit here. So you're in a wheelchair, correct? I am. I was diagnosed with ALS in 2019. I've lost the use of my hands and upper limbs. Okay, so you've got on a pair of glasses, and some little transmitter, receiver sort of thing is connected to your glasses, and you're actually going to be controlling this Mac out in front of us. Is that correct? It's the beginning. I control my Mac. I control Windows, iOS, and Android devices. And my goal, when I'm at home, I want to be able to get up in the morning and do everything I want to do without saying, honey.
[21:51]
It's strange. I found that people with disabilities want to do the same things everybody else wants to do, which is weird, right? Who thought? Who knew? It all started with the fight over the remote control for the TV. I'm a sports junkie, and she's not. That's how it got started. Okay, so can you tell me, what is the thing called that's on your glasses? We built a device that we call Kato. Kato, C-A-T-O? Yes, and Kato is an assistant for me to help me do everything. And it's originally inspired by the character Bruce Lee played in The Green Hornet. Oh, right, right, right. No. So chaos is a psychic. On the screen, you can see when I move. So you're moving your head back and forth, and we're seeing a yellow circle with an arrow in it move as you move your head. That's right. So it's not following your eye gaze, it's following your head motion, correct? It tracks motion. Eye gaze is an important technology, but we're an alternative.
[23:20]
And the thing I can do with my device, in my environment at home, I want to work on a multi-screen setup. Up with an iPad, with my main computer, and with my auxiliary computer. So I'm always moving screen to screen, and there's no iGate system that can do that. So this is working over Bluetooth, is that right? It connects by Bluetooth, but the key thing driving it is motion. An accelerometer, a gyroscope, and machine learning software we wrote that can learn gestures.
[24:20]
So if I nod my head or tip my head, I can trigger a command. I want to be able to use this with people that have different disabilities. So it can connect not only in head, but also on my foot, on an elbow, or another body part. So whatever somebody's got, let's find a way to transmit that information? You got it. And I want to show you how to tap and raise a lift. Okay. If I wanted to get in and out of bed, it's on a cat. There you go. All right. So what's he doing over there? He's got a cat. Okay. I don't understand what's going on, but we've got a cat in a basket that he's hung over. This is very confusing. I'm sure this will be obvious in a moment what you're about to do.
[25:33]
Okay, this cat is going up and down on a tether. It's a little stuffed cat. It's not a real cat for the listening audience. No animals were harmed in the making of this movie. The same device I'm using to control my TV and my computer, I can use to control a lift in my bed. No way. No way. That's cool. That's the cool part. I don't need to keep switching technology to do different kinds of things. If I have Alexa, I can use the Alexa on-screen app because she doesn't understand my voice anymore. Oh, okay, right. For somebody non-verbal, we can now provide control over computer-based and other devices from one interface.
[26:45]
That's crazy. So you can make the cat go up and down right now for us? I can't right now here because we haven't set up on different devices for the show. We want to do two examples at once. But you can see over there, the device Alan is using is the same as the device on my glasses. Oh, okay. So I'm going to step over to Alan for a second. So Alan has the Kato in his hand.
[27:20]
And, oh, wait, we're interfering. They're both, both Kato's are controlling things? No, he was paying attention to you. Oh, and he didn't notice he'd wound up the cat too much? Okay, this is a funny demo. I like this. Okay, so he's tapping the Kato, and it's going up and down. A single tap is bringing it up. A double tap takes it down. And a triple tap stops it. Okay, okay, I see what you're doing there. All right, I want to see you open something on your Mac here, Spiro. Prove it to me. I'll prove it.
[27:58]
First, I'm going to turn on my camera. Okay, so he just reached up and tapped on Alt-P for the camera? Yes. In the Mac world, there's something called Alternate Pointer Actions. You can see stuff moving back and forth. You're doing that on purpose, a screw windows? No, I'm not. Oh. I'm talking. Oh, and it's reacting to you? I turn them off when I want to talk, because opening my mouth with the camera on is a left click. Oh, okay, so with the camera on, that's now, it's looking at you with this transmitter and you're talking? Yes, and now if I turn the camera on, you'll see it turn on. Okay, how about if I do the talking and I'll watch what you're doing?
[29:00]
So expression tracking restored, it said. So you're watching a basketball game is what I see you doing. All right, he went over and he opened Chrome. And now he's going over. Oh, he's going to move the Chrome. Oh, he's grabbing a window and moving it. Oh, wow. That's all with just gestures with his head. So now he's gone over. He's got Gmail up. We're going to read his personal email here in just a second. See, I can say whatever I want. Oh, he's composing? He's composing an email? Wow.
[29:32]
And he's about to type in a subject for this. So he's got an on-screen keyboard, and he's looking around, and we see a yellow circle with an arrow, and he just wrote, thank you. Wow, I didn't even notice how fast you did that. That must be with some type-ahead prediction. All right. Yeah, you are absolutely doing everything I would do, except you're spelling better than I do, I think, the way you're doing it. Okay, this interview, uh-oh, is terrible. What is he going to type? So far it says this interview is, all right. Oh, well, he called it. We'll never know what he was going to say.
[30:18]
All right, uh-oh, you're not bringing up Photoshop there. Okay. So you can watch movies on Apple TV? So I can do everything. I can bring up FaceTime, have a FaceTime call, Zoom meetings. Wow. Put the MacBook screen halfway down. Okay, so he's closing. Oh, because it's covering up your icons, right? I make phone calls with Google Voice. He's bringing up FaceTime. Oh, there's Steve. You need to hug her down there. Is now a good time for me to ask the question I was supposed to ask over here of Alan? Yeah, it sure is. All right, I'm supposed to ask Alan, what are you doing for kids with Cato? Well, with kids, we're working with school systems, and in some cases it's middle school, some cases high school, even some colleges, but we help them get access to the different applications still using Kato. An environment like Spiro uses for his home lab can be applicable for kids doing their homework and their ability to access maybe social media, maybe educational tools, things like Google Classroom. And too often, what they're provided is just a single tool.
[31:47]
Challenging access to it. So not only do we put a wireless mouse on their glasses so they can interact with the tools, but they can toggle between different applications they would need. Many school districts in California are doing independent living labs as well.
[32:05]
And that's where we go in with an IT environment and help simulate what somebody could do at home when the kid is home after school and help the parents understand the art of the possible there. That's crazy. So the product is called CATO, C-A-T-O, Autonomous Living Technologies, and it's A-U-L-I dot T-E-C-H. Oli.tech. Oli.tech. Is this for sale yet, or are you still prototyping? We just completed beta trials on the prototypes. We have a release candidate we'll do another round of beta trials with during Q2, so that'll start mid-April. And we're working specifically with school districts, with occupational therapists, assistive tech pros, as well as health care professionals. And assuming the beta trials go well, we should be released by the end of Q2, primarily focused on health care professionals. Later in the year, direct-to-consumer is the hope. Okay. So, yeah, starting direct-to-consumer might be tough because you've got to have somebody to train and set up and understand how it works. Exactly. So with an occupational therapy could be the connection. This is very cool, Spirit. Sounds like this has really opened up a lot of things for you that maybe you thought were gone at this point.
[33:21]
I live my life at full speed, and that was the main motivator.
[33:30]
I don't want to slow down, and it's my little fight back against ALS. It sounds like you are, and I'm sure you're going to be successful This is fantastic. Thank you both for meeting with us. Thank you for taking the time.
[33:47]
Okay. You see what I mean? You see why this was my favorite interview at CSUN? I love Spiro. And again, I sure hope I get to see him again soon.
[33:56]
Support the Show
[33:57]
Hey, want to make a podcaster smile? Consider making a one-time donation to help support the show. While Patreon is the gift that keeps on giving, PayPal donations are really swell too. If you're feeling like the show is giving you value, consider going to podfee.com and showing your support in a monetary way.
[34:16]
Expand Your Ports with the Kensington Thunderbolt 4 Dual 4K Nano Docking Station
[34:17]
This week, I received a review unit from Kensington for the Thunderbolt 4 dual 4K nano docking station. But I'm not going to call it a docking station. I'm going to call it a hub. In order to make any sense at all when I do that, let's talk about the difference between a hub and a dock. You may remember that during our trip to Maxtock outside of Chicago last year, Steve and I got to visit the OWC factory with folks like Barry Falk and Dave Hamilton. It was great fun, and there was a Q&A session before the tour. I figured who would be better to clear up the definition of a dock versus a hub than the folks at OWC, so I asked them to explain the difference.
[34:56]
The biggest takeaway from their response was that there is no clear differentiator between the two terms. The best the gentleman who answered me could do was to tell me how they define the two. They mostly use the term hub to describe devices that multiply the same kind of ports, and docks to describe devices that give you a bunch of different kinds of ports. For example, OWC sell an 11-port Thunderbolt dock that gives you three Thunderbolt 4 ports, four USB ports, Ethernet, audio, and a card reader. So that's a dock because it adds more types of ports. But OWC also sell a Thunderbolt hub that takes one Thunderbolt input and gives you four Thunderbolt ports. It also does give you one USB-A port, but let's not quibble about that. They still call that one a hub. Dave and I were delighted to have this cleared up, even though we knew it was an ephemeral definition. You can even find examples on OWC's site that don't quite follow this definition.
[35:53]
So for the duration of this review of the Kensington device, I'm going to refer to it as a hub, because, like the OWC Thunderbolt hub, it multiplies the number of Thunderbolt ports plus a USB-A port.
[36:05]
Now let's talk about the problem to be solved by Thunderbolt hubs. Basically, you have too much stuff to plug into your computer, so you need more ports. While a dock could solve the same problem, I don't think they're always the best solution. Because when you buy a dock, you're getting the set of ports the manufacturer decided that you need. Maybe you don't need an SD card slot, but you might get one with your dock. My Caledonia TS3 dock has a DisplayPort connector on the back, and I've never needed it. A Thunderbolt hub is something pretty amazing. As I explained in January of 2022 in my article entitled The Wonder of Thunderbolt Hubbing with the OWC Thunderbolt Hub. Before macOS Big Sur on the Mac, you could only daisy-chain Thunderbolt devices. You couldn't multiply the number of Thunderbolt ports. I'm not sure when Windows joined the party they may have even been there earlier, but I suspect it was with Thunderbolt 4 that tightened up the spec to make Windows and Macs in parity. Thunderbolt ports are pretty magical. They can be anything you want them to be. Unlike a dock with a hardware-defined port, say, for Ethernet, SD cards, and HDMI, a Thunderbolt port can be Ethernet. It can be an SD card reader or a video signal carrier. Maybe you just need a bunch of disk drives plugged in. But I need a Thunderbolt mic interface, but someone else needs a card reader. We all get exactly what we want in a much simpler device.
[37:27]
Now, I actually use two Thunderbolt hubs. I've mentioned the OWC hub, and I use it to add more ports to my desktop setup. up. It's connected to one Thunderbolt port on my CalDigit TS3 Plus docking station, and it gives me three Thunderbolt ports and one USB-A port to plug in all of my recording nonsense.
[37:45]
Now, you'll notice that only increases my Thunderbolt ports by two, but I only needed two more ports at home. The OWC Thunderbolt hub costs $140, and I wrote about it in the article about the wonder of Thunderbolt hubbing. When I'm on the road, I use a CalDigit Element hub. This hub is $200, and it gives me three Thunderbolt ports and four USB-A ports. In my write-up in July of 2023 about it, I explained that it allows me to do the live show on the road using only a MacBook Air instead of my MacBook Pro. I nearly fill up that little hub with all of my devices. Technically, I could probably do the show without it, but if I did, I wouldn't have a good camera, I wouldn't have a professional microphone, I wouldn't have lighting, and I wouldn't have a secondary display so I could see my recording software in the show notes in the live chat room all at once. When Kensington offered to send me another Thunderbolt hub, I knew it would be fun to check out and do a comparison study of the CalDigit and OWC offerings. The Kensington hub provides three Thunderbolt 4 ports that provide 5 volt 3 amp power. The Thunderbolt port that goes to your computer provides 65 watts of power. That makes the configuration pretty similar to the OWC Thunderbolt hub, except the the OWC is rated for 5 watts less at 60 watts of power.
[39:01]
The Kensington Hub is the only one of the three that has a power switch. That might be a quick way of turning everything off if that's something you need. It also comes with a 0.8 meter passive Thunderbolt cable. A passive cable is one that doesn't contain any electronics to boost the signal for data transfer speeds. In general, you can maintain 40 gigabits per second of data transfer on a passive Thunderbolt cable, but a longer cable would require electronics to maintain that speed. I put a link in the show notes to What's the Difference Between Active and Passive Thunderbolt Cables at Plugable Technologies. The Kensington hub is a nice compact brushed aluminum package that's less than 5 by 3 by 1 inch. Just like the other two companies' Thunderbolt hubs, it comes with a large power supply that kind of takes the fun out of how light and small the hub itself is. Makes me wonder whether all these companies could be using GAN charging to lighten the load a little bit. it. The Kensington has two lights on it, one to indicate power is connected, which is pretty common, but the second light is unusual. The icon looks like a chain lock, but it's actually an indicator of whether the device has been connected to a computer. I've mentioned that the OWC is $140 and the CalDigit is $200. Well, the Kensington SD2600T comes price-wise smack dab between the other two at $180.
[40:21]
One of the primary purposes of a Thunderbolt hub is to allow you to run multiple or high-resolution displays. The Kensington can run dual 4K displays or a single 8K display at 60Hz. But boy, the technical writers really had to tie themselves into knots to try to explain how that works on a Mac. I don't blame them because Apple has made this very confusing. After explaining quite simply that Windows host devices can have a single 8K or dual 4K displays at 60 hertz with no disclaimers wrapped around it, they had to say, M1 slash M2 slash M3 based chipset MacBook or USB-C alt mode laptop supports only a single external display.
[41:04]
Now, that's really confusing, but again, it's not their fault. I know what they're trying to say, and this might be confusing to some. In Apple's support article, How Many Displays Can Be Connected to a MacBook Pro, they tried to break it down simply. In order to follow the balancing bouncing ball, you have to remember that MacBook Pros can be configured with one of three chips, the basic chip, which has no moniker at all, the Pro chip, and the Max chip. The M3 MacBook Pro with no moniker can only support one display, external display. But the MacBook Pro with M2 Pro or M3 Pro chip can support two displays simultaneously.
[41:44]
If you drop the extra coin for an M3 Max MacBook Pro, you can use up to four external displays. But what about normal people with, say, MacBook Airs? It gets even weirder. In the Apple Support article about MacBook Airs and external displays, it says that the MacBook Air can support only one external display. But in the very next sentence it says that if you have an M3 MacBook Air, you can support two external displays if the lid is closed. So if you've been able to follow this at all, it means that an M3 MacBook Air can support two external displays with the lid closed, but the basic M3 MacBook Pro cannot. Now, I've heard that Apple are actually going to be updating the M3 MacBook Pro, the nameless chip one, to allow it to also support two external displays. But from what I've read, that hasn't yet happened, and it's expected that it's not going to be like a hardware update. It's going to be some sort of firmware update. So now do you see why the technical writers at Kensington had to tie themselves into knots trying to explain this? In an experiment that has probably no value to anyone listening, I connected my M3 MacBook Pro Max to the Kensington Dock and then connected the 6K Pro Display XDR and the 4K ViewSonic USB-C display. The MacBook Pro Max was able to drive both monitors. When I swapped the MacBook Pro for an M2 MacBook Air, it could not drive both monitors at the same time.
[43:11]
And while researching how to explain this odd limitation on the number of displays, I discovered a way to learn how many displays your particular Mac can support. If you open System Settings, in the menu bar, not the window itself, select the Help menu. One of the options will be a link to the tech specs for your particular Mac on Apple's website. I'm really surprised I never noticed this before.
[43:35]
In there, you can actually see how many displays your Mac can support. port. I ran a lot of experiments with the Kensington Thunderbolt Hub between my MacBook Pro and my MacBook Air, and at one point when I switched devices back to the MacBook Air, neither of the connected displays came back on. On a lark, I tried the power button on the Kensington Hub, and I did the old turn it off and turn it on again, and that did the trick to tickle the displays and they came back on. While it would have been preferable not to have that moment of panic, I was glad the Kensington Thunderbolt Hub had an easy button to cycle power. The bottom Bottom line is that the Kensington Thunderbolt 4 Dual 4K Nano Docking Station 65W PD Windows slash Mac OS is a solid offering in the Thunderbolt hub space. It's not as capable as the CalDigit Element Hub with three more USB-A ports, but it's also $180 versus $200 for the CalDigit. Other than the extra 5W of power delivery and the power button, it has pretty much the same form factor and capability of the OWC Thunderbolt Hub. However, the OWC is $40 cheaper at $140. I don't think you can go wrong with the Kensington Thunderbolt Hub, but it might be more than you need to spend.
[44:49]
CES 2024: Pawport Smart Secure Pet Door
[44:50]
There's not a lot of pet technology here at CES, but I've come across something called Pawport, and we have Martin Diamond to show us a smart, secure pet door. Is that right? That is right. And I'll tell you what, it is a tech product. We're at CES. But the real magic of this product is that it is a retrofit. So if you have a standard pet door, which looks like that, just a normal hole in the wall, You can slide your paw port on top of it and transform what was an old kind of unsightly pet door into a smart pet door. And suddenly you've got all the functionality of a smart home product that you control from a phone, from an app.
[45:29]
You can schedule different pets access, times of day, times of night that you want your pets to come and go. It can control multiple schedules for multiple pets. So you can choose which pet gets to go out when. So how does it, so what I'm looking at here is two gray doors and it says Pawport on top and I see a bunch of LEDs up on top. So yeah, so the LEDs on top are the manual controls on the product, right? So you have a basic open close. That's going to let you just manually open it. If you just want to leave your door open all day long, that's the way to do it. So are we looking at the inside or the outside of the door right now? Because it came out towards us. You're in the inside. You're in your home. Okay. Yeah. We're in our family room and it comes in and your dog would go out now that is a manual operation you can lock the door from here as well and do some other things with the lights but the real magic is this collar the pawport collar and collar tag this is what allows pets to come and go we've got this model here and kind of our our other model here so we're on the radio remember here so we've got a little tiny dog with a red collar that's somehow different from the other collar yeah well there's two different collar adjustments this is This is our own Pupwork proprietary collar. It's the strongest collar you can buy, and there's no bulk. A lot of people are concerned when you add a tag to a collar that you're going to build on some bulk to it, and your dog's going to tag around. Exactly.
[46:48]
Exactly. So this is very lightweight and in line. It doesn't add any bulk to the collar. It's part of the collar, basically. And this dog is not allowed out here. That's not his house. He doesn't live here. This dog isn't going to get out this door here. The door behind me is where he lives. And so when he wiggles, that door will open in front of that door. So the dog opens the door based on the schedule you set in the app.
[47:14]
Based on the controls that you set up for him to exit or come and go. Okay, so you can have multiple pets and are some like one dog's allowed out during the day and one the other one can go out at night? Yeah, I mean setting a curfew, a lot of people don't want animals going out at night, so you set a curfew for them.
[47:30]
Sometimes you want to keep your dog outside. Let's say you have a housekeeper or guests over and you don't want them to be disturbed, you can actually keep your pets outside. So you can set up whatever schedules you want, multiple schedules, multiple pets. It also has a lot of safety. You'll watch when I do this. If the dog wants to go outside and now he's thinking, oh wait, it's raining out and the door closes on him, it'll just sense that and kind of bounce right open. As you see, the door's hitting my hand and bouncing right open like that. Nothing, doesn't hurt. It's like two pounds. I wish elevators did that. Yeah, right. Exactly. It's exactly right. So a bunch of things. And then in the app, you'll see here our app, the app allows you not only to schedule the door, but also to track your pet's activity. So the door knows whether the pet is coming from the inside or the outside and it will track whether the pet is coming inside or outside like that. And you'll get a report at the end of every day, you get alerts. Anytime your dog opens the door you get an alert on your phone saying that you know your dog is inside, your dog's outside, you'll see how long he's been outside or she's been outside and all of that is controllable and configurable in the app as well as the lights that are on there that people people love. That's very cool. So Pop Art adapts to your existing doggy door, if you will. And is this available today or when's it coming out? It is coming out May 1st. Very good. And what's your price point on the PawPort? The base PawPort, which is not this one, right? This one has a few things to talk about. The base PawPort is a painted finish, a composite resin, no battery.
[48:58]
$459 is your starting point. This is a model that is dressed up with our wraps. It's all aluminum, extremely solid, very strong and durable. It has our battery pack in it, which is also extremely large, fills the door. And that model here is $749. or not. So how is the one that doesn't have a battery, how is that powered? Is it wired? We have a power port right here. You can plug it in on the left side. You can also hardwire it through the back. There's a charge port behind it that allows you to plug into the back and do a hardwire. So if you want to have no cords visible, you can do it that way. You also have the option, if you never want to plug your door in to charge it, you have the battery, as I said, inside the door. You can just lift that up, pull it out, and put another battery in. They're swappable, so you don't have to charge this product. If you never want to plug it in, you put it somewhere not near an outlet, just swap the battery and it'll always be online and running for you. Very cool. Where would people go to find Pawport? Pawport.com. There you go. P-A-W-P-O-R-T. And thank you very much, Martin. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.
[50:05]
Well, that is going to wind us up for this week, but don't forget to join us on Tuesday morning for the Apple announcement. spent. Again, that's at podfeet.com slash chat to chat with all your little friends from the NoCilla castaways. Did you know you can email me at allison at podfeet.com anytime you like? If you have a question or suggestion, just send it on over. Remember, everything good starts with podfeet.com. You can follow me on Mastodon at podfeet.com slash Mastodon. If you want to listen to the podcast on YouTube, you go to podfeet.com slash YouTube. If you want to join in the conversation, you can join our great Slack community at podfeet.com slash Slack, where where you can talk to me and all of the other lovely Nocella Castaways in there. You can support the show at podfee.com slash Patreon, or just make me happy with a one-time donation at podfee.com slash PayPal. And if you want to join in the fun of the live show, head on over to podfee.com slash live on Sunday nights at 5 p.m. Pacific time and join the friendly and enthusiastic Nocella Castaways.
[51:00]
Music.