Bitwarden desktop (macOS Apple Store version) does not recognize my email + password combination all of a sudden (with Solution)

 Bitwarden desktop for macOS is acting up today, not recognizing my credentials. I tried several times, no go. I tried to uninstall the app, but then encountered a problem on the Apple Store:

"We could not complete your purchase. Bitwarden can’t be installed on “Boot Mac Mini Intel Catalina” because macOS version 12 or later is required."

So now I can't install Bitwarden, even an older version, because I'm on Catalina 10.15, the new version is for 12 and above, and Apple Store / Bitwarden is not offering to install a previous version.

SOLUTION: go to Bitwarden.com, select Download, Desktop, DO NOT CLICK on MacOS because it will open Apple Store and we are back to our problem.

Instead, Open the drop down menu: "View desktop installation guides".

Scroll down pass the Windows installers to macOS (Mojave 10.14 and later.) There is a link to Standard installer (you can also click on the following link: Bitwarden.dmg.)

Click on the link to download the installer and install manually. Voilà!

On reopening Bitwarden everything works as it should, no more error message with my credentials.

Cannot Make Bootable Backups Of macOS System Anymore With M1 Silicon, macOS 11 Big Sur, And Forward

 I am stunned reading this explanation by Mike Bombich of the new way Apple is treating macOS security on Silicon Macs.

https://bombich.com/blog/2021/05/19/beyond-bootable-backups-adapting-recovery-strategies-evolving-platform

No more cloning your system on an external drive, ready for a quick swap in case of an internal system drive failure. With the help of CCC I was always ready in case of a catastrophe, well not any more!...

According to Bombich and Apple, "An Apple Silicon Mac won't boot if the internal storage has failed".

Read that again. Do you get it? Whoa, the ramifications are huge! A Mac lifespan now equals the lifespan of its internal storage. Since all current M1 Macs have a non replaceable ssd, that means when the ssd fails, the whole Mac is worth shit.

My Macs from 2009, 2012 are still functioning perfectly, I've swapped their boot drives countless times. How long is the life expectancy of a Apple NVMe SSD internal storage??? No one knows. Could be anywhere from 3-4 years to 9-14 years for the most optimistic. If it's the latter, OK. If it's less than that, no good.

Apple Care would extend the warranty after the first year, although you have to buy it 60 days after purchase, for the Mini it's $99 for three years, during which Apple will replace whatever hardware craps out, after that... good luck.

Replacing a Silicon Mini every 3 years I might stomach. Replacing a Silicon Mac Book Pro, iMac or future MacPro every 3 years? Forget it.

Also I've made an habit of starting with a clean install when upgrading macOSes: new drive, new OS, fresh start. It has served me well as all the small add-ons and stray files disseminated everywhere and accumulated along the years were zapped with a clean install. Now maybe that's not needed anymore, maybe that's what the new Apple compartmentalizing means: The macOS itself, being immutable, is not polluted by installs and stays clean no matter what. I hope so.

More reading:

https://tidbits.com/2021/05/27/an-m1-mac-cant-boot-from-an-external-drive-if-its-internal-drive-is-dead/

https://eclecticlight.co/2021/05/28/why-cloning-big-sur-isnt-as-useful-for-an-m1-mac/

Adobe Premiere Rush on macOS First Impressions

My first impressions on Adobe Premiere Rush on macOS.

GOOD
- It's fast and relatively intuitive: drag, drop, move things around, click on icons do do specific things, keyboard shortcuts for most things.

- Good for quickly putting together a short video. Journos will love this.

- It uses the superior FCPX Magnetic Behavior (only works for video clips, not audio clips), and Connected Clips behavior (for both video and audio.) 

- 4 Video Tracks (video + synced audio), 3 Audio Tracks (mono or stereo.) Enough for small projects.

- Fast and feels good scrubbing in the Project Assets Panel (= FCPX Browser), and in the Timeline.

- Share (= Media Export), by the way this is the wording as FCPX, is possible to the local computer, in addition to direct publish to Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Behance. Not for me but since this is geared towards Youtubers, makes perfect sense.

- Selectable frame rates (?)

- Wide selection of Titles.

- Basic transitions available. Duration Editable.

- Color tool with: Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Temperature, Tint, Vibrance, Saturation, Faded Film, Sharpening, and Vignette. Build-in Presets, and ability to Save Your Own Presets.

- Audio Tool with: Volume, Mute, Auto Volume, and single Channels mutability. Selection of Type of Audio (Voice, Music, Other) opens specific tools for each. Auto Duck for Music, and for Voice Balance sound, Reduce Background noise, Reduce echo and enhance speech (with Male / Female options.)

- Transform tool with Horizontal and Vertical positioning, Rotation, Scaling with or without maintaining proportions, Cropping, Opacity (YEAH!) and Edge feathering. Scaling goes BEYOND the frame, up to 200%. Much better than iMovie which is pretty terrible in this department.

- All tools have on/off buttons.

- Preview quality selectable between High/Medium/Low.

- Full screen playback available. Monitor size is adjustable.

- Expand Audio button to see waveforms better.

- Mute, Lock and Hide track controls.

- Has access to Audio In/Audio Out Mac devices, including USB interface.

- Pre-rendering ON/OFF turnable.

- Media Import folder selectable (on Local computer.)

- Media is either imported "in place" or copied to the Media Import Folder (if the Copy Media box is checked before adding the Media to the Project.)

- Open Premiere Rush Projets into Premiere Pro, no problemo. Only the PP Project panel is the same unorganized mess as it is in Rush.

BAD
- I assume it saves Premiere Rush projects files in the Cloud ONLY (?) I cannot find a file corresponding to my Project. I hate this. But wait, when I turn off Syncing, I can still open my project, so it must be stored locally. Only not as a common file. WHY? I don't like this Adobe.

- Cannot rename Clips in the Project Assets Panel.

- Cannot organize the Project Panel: no folders, no bins, nothing just a bunch of clips. Can only Sort by Names and Filter by Type of Clip/Media. Cannot resize Clips in there. Sequences are stored in this Project Panel as well... They look like Clips. What a mess!

- Cannot organize the Your Projects Panel either as far as I can tell. I mean Youtubers? They make tons of videos, it will quickly be a sorry mess in here!

- Media Import Folder has no subdivision, all imported Media go in there, no matter what project it's for. Oh boy!  Hold on! There is also a Manage Media Folder.  Hmmm, not sure how these work, some digging to do.

- Setting Clips I/O is a weird two/three steps: Open the clip, then set I/O, drag to the Timeline if you wish from here, but then click on Back to Grid View to close and go back to the assets... Pfff, pfff, too many clicks. FCPX is superior here.

- Cannot drag Clip from Timeline to the Project Assets Panel. Another FCPX behavior, not my fav actually.

- Share has only MP4 available, and only Facebook and Youtube Settings. Pretty basic, maybe on purpose. I'm sure this will grow in the future.

- No Title Safe. Who cares anymore?

- No Timecode, only a counter. Timecode? Whats' Timecode anyway?

- Open Premiere Rush Projets into Premiere Pro ONLY via Cloud Syncing? What?? Really Adobe? Really?

WRAP UP
- It's a work in progress, not bad for a first version.

- Feels fairly stable and reactive. Fun and fast, I might say better than iMovie! I will try it on iPad, if it works just as good it will surely get some traction.

- Project Assets Panel is sorely missing in features.

- Hiding Project files, not explaining how this works, Cloud only saving - all deal killers for me. NO WAY Adobe!

macOS How To Migrate Your Fonts and Fonts Collections

I do not migrate my complete user profile when I upgrade to a new macOS, I prefer to start clean. Less problems this way, less trouble shooting.

One thing I find annoying is I have to lug my Fonts from the previous OS to the new one. I have over 700 Fonts in my FontBook and they are all ORGANIZED into Collections.

I'll show you how to bring in all your fonts AND your Fonts Collections into your new system, follow along.

Obviously you keep a copy/clone of your old OS boot drive just in case something does not work in the new one and you need access to a specific app: boot from the clone and  PRONTO! You're in business.

1) Start your computer from the new OS boot drive. Mount your old OS boot drive.

2) Go to your previous OS home folder / Library / Fonts. Copy all the Fonts content from that folder and Paste it into the new OS home folder / Library / Fonts.

3) Go to your previous home folder / Library / FontCollections. Copy all the FontCollections content from that folder and Paste it into the new OS home folder / Library / FontCollections.

Copy from old OS boot drive / Users / "your user" / Library / Fonts

(And then do the same with FontCollections)

Paste to new OS Home folder / Library / Fonts

(And then do the same with FontCollections)

4) Open Font Book and check that everything is in order.

5) Enjoy!  You are welcome!

Note: if you do not see the Library folder, select your Home folder in the Finder Sidebar, then Select View, Show View Options, check the box "Show Library Folder".

How to create a bootable High Sierra Flash USB installer

Download High Sierra from the AppStore. When prompted to install, CANCEL the installation: Quit High Sierra Installer.

In your Application folder you will see a "Install macOS High Sierra.app" that's in my case 5.18GB in size.

Get a Flash USB drive that's 8GB or more. Mount it on your Desktop. Rename it "MyVolume" (or change the name of the volume in the command below to reflect the name of your device.)

Open Terminal, type:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app

It will ask for your password and if you wish to erase your "MyVolume" device.

Let it rip! It will takes several minutes to complete.

Enjoy your new installer!

Apple support page for making USB installers with various OSes:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Emojis on macOS Sierra

Call on emojis on Mac by punching: Control + Command + Spacebar. Boom, the emoji/symbols window pops-up.

[Control, ⌘, Spacebar]

As demonstrated by Ben Mercer and Jan Willem den Bok among others, it's a great way to quickly visualize information in FCPX. For example I like to add a ❌ to my "do not use" cuts, and a ✅ to my current cuts.

This way I see immediately that FCPX has opened the proper cut or an old cut in the Timeline without deciphering the names themselves.

I'm still experimenting, and I suppose if you use too many emojis, things start to get blurry again, so it's a balance.

Updated to Avid Media Composer 8.9.2 on macOs Sierra 10.12.6

Updated "manually" again via downloading the installer from my Avid Master Account.

I always Uninstall the previous version completely before I install the new one. Worked great this time, no problem whatsoever, all plug-ins up to date, all good. :))

If you are updating via the Avid Application Manager, a reminder that the app downloads the installer(s) into the following folder: MacHD/Library/Caches/Avid/AppManager/Downloads

From the AppManager, I update in two steps: I click "Update" in the App Manager window. It first downloads the installer - you will see a progress bar.

Step 1 - Downloading

When this is done I do not click "Install" from the App Manager, instead I Quit the app, go to the Installer, and move it to a different location.

Step 2 - At this point, Quit the app, do not click "Install".

Step 3 - Copy/Move the installer to wherever you want it.

(I keep all installers together in case I need them later.)

Step 4 -  install "manually" from the newly copied installer.

This way I'm not dependent on AppManager behavior and I can keep the installer where I want it. After installation, the app restarts automatically.

Done.

In the case of MC itself  I can uninstall before I install, note that the Installer for the AppManager does not offer the option to uninstall.

I've had less problems doing it this way than blindly clicking "Install" from the AppManager.

Sapphire Radeon 7950 Mac Edition on MaPro 5,1 macOs Sierra

I moved my Sapphire Radeon to my MacPro 5,1 over a year ago and everything has been fine. I have no glitch and things are smooth. I wish I could upgrade to a Sapphire RX580 8GB and get more power with FCPX, Premiere, Resolve, Motion and After Effects - my staple apps.

Apple has announced some support for external GPUs in masOc High Sierra, and the Radeon 580X is one of the few card that seem to be supported. Although as a single GPU in a MacPro we probably wouldn't see the splash screen at startup. The card is hard to come by though. I am still on Sierra, and I might wait until the end of the year to upgrade os + GPU. We'll see.

The card has seen a lot of usage, and has been working flawlessly, so I'm not complaining. I read on the internet that the 7950 glitches happened in a single monitor configuration. Might be why I have been immune on my station since I am using two monitors. My previous post about this problem was back in 2014 in a MacPro 3,1: https://humanuser.blogspot.com/2014/02/radeon-7950-mac-edition-on-macpro-31.html

How to move files and folders around quickly with this Apple macOs Sierra Finder "spring open" tip

You probably are aware of macOs Finder capability to "spring open" a folder when dragging/moving a file. If you hover over a folder, it will pop-open to reveal its content. That's very dandy.

What's less dandy is when you go dig into some buried folder and want to move a file back to another folder you had open a moment ago, but now is in turn buried somewhere.

Of course the easy trick is to have two windows open at once, so now you can drag/move your file from one window/folder to another. But there is a BETTER and FASTER trick!

Assuming you had the destination folder opened right before the move - as it's often my case, since I always think a file is in a folder, but noooo, it's somewhere else... So I do a Search, and ah! Ah! Here is the bugger!... But now I need to put the file in another buried folder... grrr... Where the hell was this folder again???

Well, in this case I calmly drag the file over to the Finder Back Arrow. And boom! the Folder I had opened previously pops open! And I delicately drop my file in there.  Whoa
!... FYI the Forward Arrow works as well, as do the various Views Buttons.

Maybe you already knew about this trick? Ah! I just discovered this today! - And I'm a loooongtime Mac user ;)) ...

Adobe Encore CS6 (basic BD screener) works fine on macOs Sierra 10.12.2

I just created a short BD screener with Encore CS6 on Sierra 10.12.2, everything worked, Preview worked fine.

I encoded m4v and AC3 with Media Encoder, imported the files into an Encore project.

Created a new Timeline, dragged files in, set First Play to Timeline/Chapter1 ("autoplay".)

The project checked OK, I built a Blu-ray image, it went through without hiccups.

Will burn with Toast and check the disc at a later time and report.

USB audio interface Aimpro21 HD USB audio (Model AS372N) on macOs Sierra limited to 48K 16bit (even though it's 192K 24bit capable)

The 5.1 / 7.1 usb audio interface Aimpro21 HD USB audio Model AS372N, (sold under the name: Sewell SoundBox Pro on Amazon), needs to be set on "U1" in order to be recognized by macOS Sierra. If set on "U2" it does not work at all. (NOTE that it does not need a driver, so it's not a driver issue.)

With Sierra, "U1" mode - Limited to 48K 16bit...

With Sierra, "U2" mode - NOTHING THERE!? The device is not recognized!

The thing is "U1" limits the device to 48K 16bit audio, the superior "U2" mode goes all the way up to 192K 24bit.

With Yosemite and El Capitan, "U2" mode - Superior 192K 24bit available! Yes!

Why is the best mode not recognize under macOS Sierra? It is available and working great under Yosemite and El Capitan. Again, it does not need a driver: as soon as it is plugged to the computer running 10.10 or 10.11, the device shows instantly in the Audio MIDI Setup and Sound Preferences. Not so with 10.12...

Please Apple, fix this asap! A large number of sound pros rely on usb interfaces, we need the best sample and bit rate available. Sierra has been out for a while already v. 10.12.2.

Let me know if you experiencing a problem with your audio interface under Sierra, USB or other protocols (Thunderbolt, Firewire), and please send feedback to Apple: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html


UPDATE:
It now works with High Sierra! As noted previously by Fabien in the comments, works with 10.13.2 for him. I'm on 10.13.4, still working. Good news.

Where are my contacts stored? MacOs Sierra

I find that there is some conflicting information online about the storage location of contacts in macOs Sierra.

The local contacts in Sierra are into the same location than before under Yosemite (and I assume El Cap as well): MacHD/Users/*you*/Library/Application Support/AddressBook

If you have installed a fresh macOs Sierra (as I always do) as opposed to migrating the system form a previous version, your Contact app is now empty.

Simply copy and paste the AddressBook folder from the previous Os - you still have the old system disk available right? And copy it to the new Sierra location.

Done, all you contacts are now showing inside the Contacts app under Sierra.

People get confused with iCloud storage and servers and what not. If you use the Cloud, that's another story, but for LOCAL contacts it's the same old.

Sierra!

Yeah baby, macOs Sierra, 10.12! 

I'm careful, I'm doing a fresh install on a fresh SSD on a MacPro 3.2Ghz quad core.

(I'm still on Yosemite on my other machines, I decided to skip 10.11 El Capitan altogether.)

So far so good, Os installed, Os updated, no problemo. Apple Pro Apps installed: FCPX, Motion, Compressor, all good.

Signed-in and installed Adobe Creative Cloud, PP, AE, PS, AI, AU, AME, all went smoothly, I even installed PP CS6 to have Encore handy, all are launching fine.

I had to migrate my font collection, and had a few red flags from Font Book. Not sure why. I didn't install the flagged fonts to stay safe.

(Note to self: I will try to keep this system drive as light and clean as possible.)

Next, I need to install Avid MC, BMD Desktop Video, Resolve and Fusion. Then ProTools, Waves and other plug-ins.

And then I need to TEST everything out! Will update soon.

---Update 4-17
All is dandy and four months (and a couple Sierra uppdates) later the main Mac is still purring nicely, nothing weird to note. So I will be updating my second machine as soon as I have some time to do so. Then the third machine should follow suit promptly.