Tag Archives: macosx

Issues with printing PDF from Preview since updating to Mojave

Mojave removed the ability of Apple’s apps (preview, pages, etc.) to print using the Konica Print drivers. There’s a Konica driver, but Apple’s “Library Validation” means that Apple’s apps won’t use it. (I assume they enforce the same rules for software from the App Store, but I haven’t checked.) In order to get the full use of a driver, you have to use a 3rd party. Do that and you have access to all the features in the Konica print drivers.

I imagine that other vendors of fancy printers with non-basic features provide their own client software, like the weird little apps that come with inkjets and scanners. Those apps can use the full feature set of their vendors’ libraries. But nobody else can, if they’re using library validation.

So the solution is to NOT USE APPLE APPS (or presumably App Store Apps) to do your printing. Use 3rd party apps like Chrome or Acrobat, so you can get access to the print driver’s feature set. See more in this post.

This strategy works, if you think of computers as basically glorified iPhones with a walled garden of curated apps that your grandmother can safely use on the internet. But if you think of them as general purpose devices, with a huge ecosystem of applications to leverage to create value, well, good luck with that. “It just works” has been grayed out. You can learn more at the Apple developer forums (from this link: https://www.google.com/search?q=10.14+library+validation). See also this from Xerox.

Cross posted from the Apple Support Forum, in case it disappears there.

UPDATE. I saw this too late. Try creating “presets” in the 3rd party app, and then using that from within the crippled Apple app.

Cool MacOSX feature

I’ve found it increasingly hard to approve of Apple for the last while (like seven or eight years) so I wanted to point out something I like. I don’t know when it appeared, but I only just noticed it myself.

You may have noticed that MacOSX apps are good at tracking changes to the filesystem. You can be editing a document in one app, and you change it’s name in the Finder (or the Terminal) and the first app notices that and doesn’t try to save it under the original name. Good job, Apple. All the OSes should do that.

But here’s the feature I just noticed. I’m downloading a file (using a non-Safari browser) and I notice that it looks like this in the Finder:

Notice the grey progress meter next to the file? Pretty slick. I don’t know what the API requires on the part of the web browser, but it’s nice that the rest of the OS can be aware the file is open (easy enough) and it’s 85% done (pretty impressive).

MacOSX Security Updates

I hate them, because I know they probably should be installed, but they take about an hour to install. I see a lot of this:

For whatever reason, it tends to camp out around 40 minutes. I’ll come back and it will say 42 minutes, or 41, or 43, but rarely anything below 40 or over 45.

So this week, Apple gave me a security update:

Note the size of this file. Some of have bandwidth caps, Apple.

Then, a couple of days later, they gave me another. Only it wasn’t a new security update. It was an update of the first update.

iMac configuration

I mentioned previously how I’ve rehabilitated the 10-year old iMac. Today, I’ve been setting up the software environment.

First, I transferred my iTunes library over to the new computer.

Then I installed some non-Safari browsers: Chrome, Firefox, and Brave.

Then I set up Homebrew, and after that, ruby:

$ brew install openssl # various messages because Apple doesn’t like openssl
$ brew install sqlite pcre
$ git clone git://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv
$ git clone git://github.com/sstephenson/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build
$ rbenv install -l
$ rbenv install 2.4.1 # (as of May 19, 2017)
$ hash -r # rehash your environment