Stop mail spy pixel tracking on Mac Desktop in Apple Mail with this Plug In

 This awesome little plug in for Apple Mail, MailTrackerBlocker hosted at Github is a must install. If you don't know, companies install something called a tracker pixel into the html of an e-mail they send you, and when it loads the image off their server they can track your location and often more information. These spy pixels should be illegal, but they aren't so do what you can to stop them!Honestly I would think Apple would do something about them, and especially on the iPhone and iPad. They are so into not letting companies track, then they should stop this insidious behavior. At least you can do something about it on the desktop.It is scary how many e-mails have these built in trackers, which you can see once you install this app. Basically every e-mail with html formatting has one. 

Patently Apple has spotted a change in apple’s trademark on Final Cut Pro X in Europe that could mean a subscription is coming

The web site Patently Apple has posted an article about a change in Final Cut Pro X's trademark in Europe that could open the door to a Subscription model.Now this has been one of the great things about Final Cut Pro X, if you bought it once you own it for good, and that is how DaVinci Resolve works, but Premiere Pro from Adobe is a subscription service. The question does Apple just subsidize Final Cut Pro X with computer sales, or do they want it to make some money and make it subscription. I understand wanting it to pay for some of it's development costs, but if they are going to do that I expect updates, and fixes.Honestly I think a better idea is to have upgrade fees to new versions, not full price, but pay for the upgrade how things used to be. I can justify the subscription to Adobe as I make my living using it, as very few companies edit in Final Cut Pro X. I think they should update the App store to allow upgrades instead of just subscriptions, or full priced new versions.And with a subscription Apple has better take a long hard look, and start looking into the many issues the program has as I have posted about before. If they go subscription I want them to seriously be developing, and it would be nice to have forums that the developers actually read and work on issues that professionals are having.It is funny to see so much outrage, and how everyone will now move to DaVinci. Well as a professional, since both AVID and Premiere are subscription, I am totally used to it. I will get a month to month as needed and it won't bother me, but I won't keep the subscription around because I see it having too many problems that I just don't think they will every fix or even care about. If I need it I would get it basically.

Reuben Evans at OWC’s Tech Talk Blog on what Top Pros want from Apple as a Platform

OWC's Tech Talk blog has an article with Top Video Pros Weight In On Where Apple Should Take Its Platform. It is a good article, if a little too FCP X focused overall. I made my huge post on the problems that I have with extensive use of FCP X, and I wish Apple would deal with them before adding too much else, though collaborative editing might help with some of my complaints quite a bit, but there are still so many to go into.I totally agree that Apple needs to knock it out of the park with a GPU, but not just for Cinema4D, but also for Premiere Pro (as well as DaVinci). And yea the CPU needs to really stomp ass with After Effects for sure.An updated XDR display should happen quickly, and the new version should also be the basis for a new iMac Pro.And yes the Afterburner card needs to be able to decode different codecs as well, not just ProRES, and that should also be either added to the iMac, or make a breakout box with BlackMagic and include the tech in that along with an HDMI out and in.I really do wish I could afford a MacPro, though with the M1, it calls it into question. Be really weird if Apple ends up with the MacPro as the only Intel Mac, and a medium machine like the article calls for as M1.

In Apple Mail if I sort by new messages on the bottom (an old habit from using Eudora years ago) why does it scroll to the top every time it is opened?

 In Apple Mail if I sort by Date, and Oldest Message On top, so newest messages are on the bottom (admittedly a habit I developed from years of using the mail program Eudora), when I open Mail the sorting should not scroll to the top, but the bottom.I mean seriously Apple. I know you want me to have newest at the top, but if you are going to actively try to make me change why not just remove the ability to sort in a different order?

SoftRaid Beta 6 is out and works on Big Sur!

Woohooo! Softraid has publicly release it's SoftRaid 6 beta with support for Big Sur and M1 Macs!  This is huge news, as I can never move to an operating system until SoftRaid supports it, as I can't work without my RAID.And it already has the Final Release of the SoftRaid Version 6 Driver included, so a RAID should be fully supported.SoftRaid is mandatory for a RAID on a mac, so I could not be more happy about this. And they are working on M1 support, but it obviously couldn't be out with development Macs as they didn't include thunderbolt ports, so you couldn't test thunderbolt connectivity, but are working on it now.

Appleinsider on the fact that the new M1 Macs support USB 4 instead of just Thunderbolt 3 before Intel has even released support for it’s own standard

 AppleInsider has an article on how the new M1 Macs in fact support USB 4, and not just Thunderbolt 3.  I hadn't realized this at all, but it makes sense as it is new open standard, but amazing that it is before Intel managed to release it. They do need to add more ports though, 2 ports on the laptops when it includes charging is nuts. I have problems with only 4 thunderbolt 3 ports on my imac pro as is.

Mac OS Catalina Finder Save Dialogue box selection inconsistencies

 A huge annoyance that I have run into in Catalina, is a major inconsistency of the Finder's Save Dialogue box. In previous OS's when I saved a file, the name of the file was always selected when the window popped up. This window shows what I mean.The problem is that in Catalina the selection of the name seems to be random. Sometimes when I output a file I get it selected where I can use keyboard shortcuts to alter the name if necessary, as always used to happen previous to Catalina. The problem is that sometimes, and I can't say why or when the selection dialogue shows up unselected, so I can't use keyboard shortcuts to change the name, but have to use the mouse (or trackball as it is for me) to select the name and change it.I can't understand why sometimes the text is selected and sometimes it isn't. This seems totally random, and I can't figure out why it happens.I have posted about it at the Apple community forums, though I don't expect to hear a response.

OWC ThunderBay 4 Firmware update did not fix the issue of the drives ejecting

 So after taking the time to do the upgrade on the firmware on my OWC Thunderbay as I saw in this post on their forums, and shutting down my computer over the night, I restarted and one of the drives disappeared.Sure SoftRaid managed to fix it in under 10 minutes, but having this happen every restart or wake from sleep is not OK!So I don't want to have to do it, but I am going to try turning off Put Hard Drives to Sleep when Possible in my Energy saver to see if I can get around this issue (the post on OWC said that is the issue).We shall see if that helps. And I have allot of spinning discs that I actually would like to have spin down when possible, but just not have my whole raid go down by dropping drives.Super frustrating.

Jean-Louis Gassée on Apple Silicon and the passing of Wintel

Jean-Louis Gassee formerly of Apple and also fo BeOS has an article on the new Apple Silicon and how it could be the death knell for Wintel, the powerful combination of Intel hardware and Windows.His take is that since ARM is in fact a more efficient processor and if Apple manages to push the hardware and software to be faster than Wintel (which is could be since it is RISC instead of CISC) it will push Microsoft to really get behind it's ARM version of Windows that it has been playing with and releasing, but without enough support. And that will push Intel to have to get back into ARM processor development or break the WINTEL partnerdship.Let's hope Apple Silicon is eventually that much more powerful and faster and more efficient than anything Intel comes out with, because with Apple writing the software it will mean a sea chance, and for once it would be awesome for Apple to be faster than WINTEL, but pushing Microsoft to ARM I hadn't even thought about as the fact that Microsoft haven't even made versions of all their software for their arm hardware, and yet they are working on it for Apple Silicon.