(Last Updated: 2016-11-28)

I recently bought a MacBook Air to use for travel, which came pre-installed with OS X El Capitan (10.11). In the spirit of my earlier OS X Snow Leopard setup notes and OS X Mavericks (10.9) setup notes, I am keeping track of the steps to set it up. This will contain a lot of duplication of the previous notes (indeed it is written starting with the 2014 notes), but it is more convenient to keep everything in one location.

Unlike my previous two sets of setup guides, this laptop is explicitly intended to be a travel laptop with just the subset of the things I need for travel -- rather than a complete migration of an existing system. So I am going to set it up from scratch, rather than try to use Migration Assistant, and be selective about what I install. (This is also essential because my main work laptop has a nearly full 512GB SSD, and the MacBook Air has only 256MB -- clearly I'm not taking everything with me!)

Another key point is that this MacBook Air will be used in parallel with the existing work laptop, so I am going to focus on:

  • Documenting software that allows simultaneous installation on two computers for the use of a single individual (common with a lot of creative software where many users have a "home base" machine and a "travel" machine); and

  • Ensuring that there is a fairly easy way to migrate content back and forth between the two machines. To that end, I am now extensively using git annex and intend to use it even more extensively to manage the migrations back and forth.

FileVault2

Since this laptop is intended for travel -- including international travel -- I wanted to use full disk encryption from the beginning, so I set up Apple's FileVault2 as soon as I finished the initial setup. For maximum protection during travel it is important to shut down the computer (not just sleep it) when left unattended, or if the computer might be out of your possession for a while (eg, border crossings), as when the computer is running/sleeping the encryption keys are held in memory and fairly easily recovered. For convenience I used the FileVault2 master password process, as I had with my previous MacBook.

After preparing the /Library/Keychains/FileVaultMaster.keychain file:

  • Apple Menu -> Security & Privacy -> FileVault

  • Click the "lock" and enter an Administrator name/password

  • Click "Turn on FileVault"

  • It will tell you "A recovery key has been set by your company, school or institution"

  • When dismissed the dialogue will continue to tell you that FileVault is not enabled, but after 30-60 seconds the system will reboot automatically (without additional warning!) to enable FileVault, and when it comes back up it will show progress in encrypting the drive.

On the 256GB MacBook Air (new out of the box) drive it took about 5-10 minutes to encrypt the SSD; from memory it took quite a bit longer on my old (larger) MacBook.

Recovery instructions:

  • Boot in Recovery mode by holding Command-R while powering on (or it it won't boot at all with OS X Internet Recovery which won't work on my old Macbook, even though it has the latest EFI release)

  • Connect USB drive with the master password keychain file on it (ie, the one before the key was removed!)

  • Run Terminal, via Utilities -> Terminal (from within the recovery application menu)

  • Unlock the keychain file on the USB drive:

    security unlock-keychain /path/to/drive/FileVaultMaster.keychain

    plus the master password

  • Scan the disk volumes:

    diskutil cs list

    and find the UUID of "Logical Volume" (ie, the FileVault2)

  • Unlock the FileVault:

    diskutil cs unlockVolume [UUID] -recoveryKeychain /path/to/drive/FileVaultMaster.keychain

    (may require entering the master password again, but possibly only if there is a delay in the steps)

  • If successful, volume will be mounted as /Volumes/Macintosh HD (or similar). You can then make a full copy of all the data on the drive to some other device (eg, using Disk Utility or ditto) for recovery. (Then I assume one ends up reinstalling or reiminaging the drive from that unencrypted copy.)

Tested 2016-06-18.

System preferences

  • Change computer name (System Preferences -> Sharing), plus from the command line:

    sudo scutil --set HostName ...

    to make it show up in Terminal properly

  • Reduce size of dock, automatically show/hide (System Preferences -> Dock)

  • Change time format to 24-hour format (System Preferences -> Language & Region -> Time Format -- tick "24-Hour Time")

  • Change medium date format to YYYY-MM-DD, change time formats to 24 hours (System Preferences -> Language & Region -> Advanced -> Dates)

  • Show digital clock with day of week and date (System Preferences -> Date & Time -> Clock)

  • Enable secondary click, in bottom right corner (System Preferences -> Trackpad -> Point & Click)

  • Require password 5 seconds after sleep or screen saver begins (System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> General)

  • Change desktop background to a neutral solid blue/purple colour (System Preferences -> Desktop & Screen Saver -> Desktop -> Apple -> Solid Colors -> Custom Color... or "Change Desktop Background..." from the Desktop context menu); to get a precise colour, it is possible to create an image of that colour (or a screen shot of it -- Alt-Shift-4), and then use the eye dropper to select that colour.

  • Tell "Mission Control" not to warp to a space with existing windows open for the application when the application is selected, so it is possible to, eg, use Terminal on more than one space sanely... (System Preferences -> Mission Control -> When switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows for the application)

  • Tell "Mission Control" not to "automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use" -- how can one keep track of where one left something if the computer keeps moving it around! (System Preferences -> Mission Control -> Displays have separate Spaces)

  • Also tell "Mission Control" that Displays do not have different Spaces -- that's just confusing to remember when you move back and forth between just-Macbook/just-external-display (Macbook lid closed) and both displays enabled. (System Preferences -> Mission Control -> Displays have separate Spaces; this will require a log out to activate)

  • To be able to ever use F11/F12 for something else (eg, VMWare ESXi installer!), change the "Mission Control" keyboard sequences for "Show Desktop" and "Show Dashboard" to have Option-Cmd as well as F11/F12 (System Preferences -> Mission Control -> Keyboard & Mouse Shortcuts)

  • Go into Mission Control (Ctrl-Up), and add more Spaces with the (+); these now seem to default to the background colour of the first Space, providing that is set first. 8 seems like a reasonable number.

  • Change the keyboard preferencs for moving between spaces (System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts: Mission Control):

    • Move left a space: Cmd-Opt-Left

    • Move right a space: Cmd-Opt-Left

    • Move to space N: Cmd-Opt-N

  • Configure Finder to always display extensions with Finder->Preferences->Advanced->Show all filename extensions (which also affects what is shown on the Desktop).

  • Also customise locations shown in Finder sidebar, in Finder->Preferences->Sidebar.

  • And customise the default Finder window to show my home directory as the most useful starting point: Finder -> Preferences -> General -> New Finder windows show:.

  • Change the File Picker to sort by "Date Modified" rather than "Date Added" for sane selection of "file to attach" and similar (go into a file picker, eg, attach file to email, then use drop down next to the directory name to choose "Date Modified"; change appears to be global to all applications, and "Date Modified" is much more useful than "Date Added").

  • Disable Cmd-P from printing in Finder (since I never want to do that, only doing so when I do not notice that Finder is the focused Application, and there is no confirmation dialog): define a new "safe" action for Cmd-P specifically in Finder. To do this open System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard ShortCuts -> Application Shortcuts, then click on the "+" to add another application Shortcut. In the resulting popup window, choose Finder.app as the application, enter "Bring All to Front" in the menu action (exactly like that, ie as it appears in the Window menu), and then move to the keyboard shortcut field and press Cmd-P as the keystroke to invoke that shortcut. Save the shortcut. After this Cmd-P in Finder should result in Window -> Bring All to Front being invoked instead, which is a fairly safe operation. (This replaces the existing keyboard shortcut for "Bring All to Front" in Finder, but since I do not use that action anyway -- I use virtual desktops instead -- that is not a major problem.)

Also disable various animations, at least opening/closing windows:

defaults write -g NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false

and maybe reducing the expose animation duration with:

defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0.05 killall Dock

also helps (or at least seemed to when switching spaces got painfully slow after an upgrade; maybe that was just the Dock being sluggish).

Enable the "Lock" icon in the Dock, which is part of the KeyChain access functionality by:

  • Running "/Applications/Utilities/KeyChain Access.app"

  • Choosing "KeyChain Access"->Preferences->General->Show keychain Status in menu bar"

and then the top item in the "Lock" drop down menu is "Lock Screen"; handy for times when you know you're walking away from your desk.

ETA, 2016-11-30:

  • Disable "Spotlight Suggestions" to avoid leaking on-computer searches out to the Internet, by unticking System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy -> "Allow Spotlight Suggestions in Spotlight and Look up". Also untick System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy -> "Bing Web Searches".

Sleep preferences

The default in OS X El Capitan is to sleep the display after a few minutes and then sleep the whole computer soon afterwards. That is extremely annoying if you are trying to either leave something happening while you are away from the computer (eg, downloading a file, compiling, ...) or remotely access your computer, and do not know why it keeps disconnecting from the network :-(

Then as a work around Apple have implemented "Power Nap", which is the opposite of napping -- it wakes up from sleep without requested so that it can do things like check email. If I have manually put the system to sleep I would rather it did not wake up at random (particularly as it is often awake enough just to start, eg, VPN negotiations, and then goes to sleep again) -- but it still seems like my OS X Mavericks system wakes up by itself on mains power, from time to time, even with "Power Nap" unticked.

To sort out the situation for mains power:

  • In System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Power Adapter, tick the option "Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off" (ETA, 2016-09-22: Or in later versions of OS X 10.11, slide the "Computer sleep" slider in the Power Adapter section to "Never".)

  • Answer warning that "Your computer may use more energy with these settings" with "OK".

  • In System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Power Adapter, untick the option "Enable Power Nap while plugged into a power adapter"

(I put my computer to sleep by hand when I am not going to use it for an extended period, either by closing the laptop, or with the Cmd-Opt-Eject keyboard sequence; but I often let the screen lock/blank when I am away for a few minutes and, eg, in the middle of downloading something.)

For battery operation, the same options are not present in the GUI, so it is necessary to configure them from the command line with pmset as I did in OS X Mavericks:

sudo pmset -c displaysleep 10 sleep 0 standby 0 halfdim 0
sudo pmset -b displaysleep 5 sleep 0 standby 0 halfdim 0

("pmset -c" sets the mains power settings; "pmset -b" sets the battery power settings; "pmset -g" can be used to see the currently active values; "man pmset" has more details. The System Preferences -> Energy Saver display will reflect changes in these settings if you go out of it and back into it, but appears not to update live.)

Power Nap appears to be disabled by default on battery mode.

Terminal and shell preferences

  • Dragged Terminal.app (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) onto Dock

  • Set terminal size to 80x53 (Terminal -> Preferences -> Profiles -> Window -> Window Size)

  • Set terminal to exit when shell exits cleanly (Terminal -> Preferences -> Profile -> Shell -> When shell exits)

  • Enabled visual bell and disabled audio bell (Terminal -> Preferences -> Profile -> Advanced -> Bell)

  • Enable focus follows mouse with:

    defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse -boolean YES

    (requires restarting Terminal; and does not seem to work as well as in OS X 10.9/Mavericks :-( )

  • Disable the automatic "Marks" of command lines, via unchecking Edit -> Mark -> Automatically Mark Prompt Lines; supposed it marks each command as a scrollback point (Cmd-Up/Cmd-Down), but for most use, the grey brackets are visually annoying to me (and others). If the feature is wanted for a specific command, just run it with Cmd-Enter to Mark just that specific command.

  • Copy over ".bashrc" with PS1 and PATH settings, and ".bash_profile" which auto-loads .bashrc ("test -r ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc")

  • Copy over my "~/.bin" directory of local quick hacks

Hardware Drivers

Wacom Intuos Pro

I bought a small Wacom Intuos Pro a couple of years ago. The lastest Wacom Drivers (6.3.16-12, released 2016-02-06) includes a specific driver for the Intuos Pro that covers OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) to OS X 10.11 (El Capitan).

To install the Wacom Intuos Pro driver:

  • Remove any previous driver installed, if any, by running the installed Wacom Utility (most likely in /Applications/Wacom Tablet.localized) and choosing to uninstall the driver.

  • Download the Wacom Intutos Pro driver (about 100MB) (Of note, the driver download still comes from a HTTP site, with no encryption, or validation checksums, so could contain anything, inserted by anyone. Running as a kernel module. Sigh.)

  • Open the downloaded .dmg file

  • Run the "Install Wacom Tablet" package before connecting the Wacom Tablet up to the machine.

  • Agree to the license, confirm the installation (250MB!) and note that it is necessary to restart the computer after the install finishes.

  • After the installer has copied the files, click "Restart" to restart the computer (and thus load the drivers).

  • Once the system comes back up, plug in the tablet and make sure it is recognised, and can be used to move the pointer around. There is a "Wacom Tablet" tab added to the System Preferences which can be used to configure the tablet buttons, etc..

FTDI-based USB serial adapter

For years, I have used a generic FTDI-based USB Serial adapter with my Macs, which has needed a driver installed in OS X 10.6 -- Snow Leopard and a driver installed in OS X 10.9 -- Mavericks. My USB/serial device is ProductId=0x0421 (1057), VendorId=0x0b39 (2873), and Apple OS X lists the vendor as "Omnidirectional Control Technology Inc" which seems to be a frequently-rebadged VendorId.

Use of that FTDI-based USB serial adapter in OS X EL Capitan is complicated because:

So at present, while I do not have an immediate need for the USB Serial adapter on my travel computer, and do have a need for good security on my travel computer, my decision is not to install the FTDI 2.3.0 driver (to avoid risking hardware damage), and not to hack the Apple Driver VendorId/ProductId list (to avoid needing to run with System Integrity Protection weakened/disabled).

However short of persuading Apple to add more VendorId/ProductIds to their official signed driver (and I have no idea how to even ask for that, let alone if it would ever happen), none of the options are ideal for when I upgrade my main work computers to OS X El Capitan.

I suspect that the OS X FTDI 2.3.0 driver may not have the damaging functionality (it may have only been in later versions of the Windows driver), so it may be safe to install (eg, SparkFun's FTDI driver for OS X guide does not mention the issue) -- but the license with the OS X FTDI 2.3.0 does still contain the same "MAY IRRETRIEVABLY DAMAGE THAT COMPONENT" as the problematic Windows drivers :-(.

Ultimately if I do try the OS X FTDI 2.3.0 driver I have to be prepared to buy replacement USB serial adapters. And if I do buy replacements, they definitely will not be FTDI-based -- IMHO FTDI have irreparably damaged their brand by being extremely consumer hostile, given that consumers have no way to tell (other than by having their devices bricked) whether or not they bought the right version.

(FTR, I did find a way that might restore the overwritten PID; but I have not tested whether I needed to do so, or if it works with my USB serial adapters.)

Apple Mail.app Mail

I've used Apple Mail.app for my business email (and Thunderbird for other email; see below). All my mail is on the IMAP mail server. Since this laptop has a small drive, and is intended for travel, before setting up the mail, I deliberately archived (to another account) all the old mail, just leaving the current mail that I wanted accessible. (This tidying up is required because modern Apple Mail has no "don't keep copies of any messages"; everything it can find will be cached, taking whatever space it takes.)

Unlike last time I decided not to try to migrate the raw MAC mailbox files, as I wanted the travel laptop to have access only to the subset of files in my current mailbox. So instead, I let it download all the mail again, by simply setting up the account in Apple Mail as a new IMAP account (there were about 60k messages, taking about 2GB). That option probably used more bandwidth -- but not that much more due to downloading through a compressed VPN -- but took around the same amount of time. Plus it ensured that I was not carrying over unwanted legacy data onto the travel laptop.

Other setup required for semi-sane email:

  • Enable Plain text email (Mail -> Preferences... -> Composing -> Message Format)

  • Disable "Smart Quotes" and "Smart Dashes", by starting a new message and then unticking Edit -> Substitutions -> Smart Quotes and Edit -> Substitutions -> Smart Dashes (to stay with the ASCII subset wherever possible); may now be automatically off by default if you choose Plain Text email.

  • Disable "Correct Spelling Automatically", because it is wrong more often than it is right, and very insistent on "fixing" anything it does not like. To change: Start composing a message, then uncheck Edit -> Spelling and Grammar -> Correct Spelling Automatically (or from context menu of a typo).

  • Create a better "today" Smart Mailbox (Mailbox -> New Smart Mailbox) with "Date received is today", including messages from Sent, but not messages from Trash. Add exceptions for automated mail (filtered into sub-folders) with "Message is not in mailbox", eg "Naos/Logcheck". (Note: there is a default "Today" Smart Mailbox, which is "Message Viewed" today, but that is not as useful; you will need to delete it first to avoid confusion.)

  • Create some Smart Mailboxes for auto-filtered mail, like "backups", "monitoring" and "security".

  • Show the Mailboxes list on the left, and hide the "Favourites" Bar (View -> Hide Favourites Bar), which just takes up space when you have the Mailboxes visible.

Send a test message to another account and make sure the message is sent (eg, it knows how to do SMTP Auth) and arrives in an appropriate format (eg, plain text).

iTunes

Configure iTunes for a saner experience:

  • Untick Preferences -> Advanced -> "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library", since I want to manage the locations of media myself and the drive is far too small to duplicate everything.

Safari

Configure Safari for saner experience:

  • Untick Bookmarks -> Show Frequently Visited in Favorites.

  • Hide the Bookmarks (Bookmarks -> Hide Bookmarks).

  • Set new windows and new tabs to open with an Empty Page (Preferences -> General -> New windows open with: Empty Page, and Preferences -> General -> New tabs open with: Empty Page); you may need to stop and restart Safari for this to take effect (or at least open a new window/tab, and close any existing one).

  • Empty out the Homepage box, to start with an empty page.

  • Disable Safari automatically unzipping archives (rendering it impossible to store the original file as retrieved), by disabling open "safe" files after downloading (Untick Preferences -> General -> Open "safe" files after downloading -- at the bottom). (Another option might be to change the handling of zip files in com.apple.DownloadAssessment.plist.)

  • Enable "View Source" in Safari, by enabling the Develop menu: Preferences -> Advanced -> "Show Develop Menu in menu bar". "View Source" is Develop -> Show Page Source (Option-Cmd-U).

ETA, 2016-11-28:

  • Restore the full URL display in Preferences -> Advanced -> Smart Search Field, by ticking "Show full website address". (Possibly only visible if the Develop menu is enabled?)

MacPorts

Following the MacPorts install guide installed the Apple XCode Developer Tools (to be able to compile things from the command line). On OS X El Capitan you have to:

  • Find XCode in the App Store and choose to install it (which just installs an installer for various developer related things...)
  • Run "xcode-select --install" and choose "Install" to just install the command line tools (I believe the "Get Xcode" button will also install the IDE, etc, which I don't need at present)
  • Run "sudo xcodebuild -license" to accept the Developer licenses and enable the compiler (it appears to be a superset of the licenses displayed by earlier steps)

and then it is possible to actually compile things (which you can test by compiling a "hello world" trivial example).

After that I installed from the OS X El Capitan MacPorts Install Package by:

  • Downloading the latest MacPorts install package for OS X El Capitan, including the .asc GPG signature.

  • Installing the GPG key it was signed with, the 2013 key, from jmr's MacPorts Wiki page (location found via MacPorts ticket #50429; it doesn't appear very well documented, but is at least served from a https page!). Note that you have to get the raw attachment version, otherwise you will get a Trac webpage with the key embedded inside it.

    gpg --import jmr_at_macports_org-2013.pubkey

  • Verify the signature on the install package:

    gpg --verify *.asc

    and look for "Good signature" from "Joshua Root jmr@macports.org". (gpg will most likely complain that "There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner" because there are only a couple of signatures on the key; so you are relying on the https download source and MacPorts wiki integrity for validation.)

  • Install the package by double clicking on it, and walk through the installer steps. The final "scripts" step will take a while to complete as it appars to be rsyncing the MacPorts ports collection database.

  • Then ran "cd && . .bash_profile" to pick up the path changes, and

  • Ran "sudo port selfupdate" to be ready to install software from MacPorts; hopefully a quick step due to the rsync done earlier.

I had a lot of ports installed on my other machines, but because this is a "minimal" travel machine I am just going to install ports as they are needed. To prove that ports are working, I have installed git:

sudo port install git

and configured git with "git config --global user.email ..." and "git config --global user.name..."

(git has quite a few dependencies, so installing git will also install those dependencies, and thus drag in a reasonable "baseline" MacPorts environment.)

Plus to use my VPN, I also installed openvpn2:

sudo port install openvpn2

which adds a couple more dependencies.

X11

In order to be able to run X11 applications, I've also installed the xorg-server with MacPorts:

sudo port install xorg-server xterm

because OS X Mavericks onwards does not include X11 and I'd been using xorg-server on my previous MacBook rather than XQuartz. Note that xorg-server and xterm also have a lot of dependencies... so the install will take a while.

To configure it, log out/log in (to ensure X11.app will auto-start), run "xterm" to ensure that X11.app is running, then X11 -> Preferences to change preferences. Enable:

  • (Input) Emulate three button mouse

  • (Windows) Click-through Inactive Windows

  • (Windows) Focus Follows Mouse

Note that "ssh -Y" or "ForwardX11Trusted yes" -- ie, forward a trusted X11 connection, rather than an untrusted X11 connection -- is still required, because xorg-server does not have the Security extension, resulting in "Warning: untrusted X11 forwarding setup failed: xauth key data not generated". (To verify it is missing: "sudo port install xdpyinfo"; "xdpyinfo | grep SECURITY".)

Because the MacBook Air is a non-Retina display, for now I have stuck with the traditional X11 "fixed" font font alias for terminals and some applications that needed a fixed width font. If necessary, my previous post explains how to pick a more useful higher resolution font.

Open Source Applications

Mac OS X packaged software, not built from source is installed in /Applications/OpenSource, so:

mkdir /Applications/OpenSource

Firefox

To reduce the upgrades to Firefox (which in the regular version now seems to be releasing new versions every few weeks, that change/break things), I'm running the Firefox Extended Support Release (Firefox ESR FAQ.

To install, and get a minimally sane profile:

  • Download Firefox ESR installer for English (British), for OS X.

  • Open .dmg file, and drag Firefox application into /Applications/OpenSource

  • Run Firefox at least once, to create a minimal profile

  • Set Firefox to be the default browser; ignore the solicitation to "create a Firefox account".

  • In Firefox -> Preferences -> General, set "When Firefox Starts" to "Show a blank page"

  • In Firefox -> Preferences -> General, untick "Don't load tabs until selected" (because the point of opening tabs in the background is so that they can load in the background and be ready for when I change to the tab!)

  • In Firefox -> Preferences -> Privacy -> History, choose to "Use custom settings for history", and set "Accept third-party cookies: Never", and "Keep Until: I Close Firefox".

  • In Firefox -> Preferences -> Advanced -> General, disable "smooth scrolling" (because page by page pagination is much easier to follow visually)

  • In Firefox -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Data Choices, disable the "Firefox Health Report" to reduce the data sent back to Mozilla (but leave the Crash Reporter enabled)

  • In Firefox -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Update, set the update preference for "Check for updates, but let me choose whether to install them" (since usually I want to install them only when I am in a good/inexpensive bandwidth location).

  • Customise the Firefox new tab page to remove the silly "Mozilla suggestions", by choosing Show blank page in new tab. To do this, create a new tab (Cmd-T), click the "Got It" to clear the dialogue, click on the gear icon at the top right of the new tab, and choose "Show blank page". (The gear icon itself is a permanent feature; sigh.)

  • Change about:config for mousewheel.with_control.action and mousewheel.with_meta.action to 1 (ie, scroll), to disable the scroll to zoom action, which just bugs me when I accidentally do it. (Legal values are 0-4, with 3 being "make the text larger/smaller".)

  • Change about:config for image.animation_mode to once, to reduce blinking/flashing thing (default is normal; other option is none)).

  • Install the Self Destructing Cookies add-on, to work around the inability of modern Firefox to let you natively choose which cookies to accept/retain (apparently it is "too complicated" for users or something). To install, go to Tools -> Addons, and search for "Self Destructing Cookies". Then in its Preferences... page, enable "Undelete for Cookies" (at least for long enough to train it), and disable "Notifications" because I am intimately familiar with the junk on the Internet, and do not need pop up windows or loud bells to tell me about it.

(unlike my previous install, I did not try to migrate my existing profile, in order to keep a "minimal" install).

ETA, 2016-07-18:

  • Disable auto-unzip of zip files, by starting a download of a zip file, then choosing "Save" as the action (rather than "Open in Archive Utility") and ticking the box to always do that action without prompting. (Fortunately unlike Safari, this case does at least leave the zip file present, as well as the unpacked version, so recovery from not having set it is easier.)

ETA, 2016-11-28:

  • Disable auto-playing of video files in about:config by setting media.autoplay.enabled to false.

Thunderbird

As with my work mailbox (in Apple's Mail.app) I also archived a lot of my older personal mail (to a different IMAP account) before setting up Thunderbird on my new (travel) machine. And I set Thunderbird up from scratch, rather than trying to migrate an existing profile, which let me be more selective about what is downloaded automatically.

One important step when archiving mail outside of Thunderbird and getting Thunderbird to recognise the changes:

  • Go to the account line in Thunderbird

  • Click on "Manage folder subscriptions"

  • Click "Refresh"

  • Tick the ones that you want fetched, and untick the ones that you do not want fetched.

  • Visit each new folder to force the message headers to be downloaded.

  • Optionally go to the folder Properties (in context menu), and in the Synchronisation tab choose whether or not to "Select this folder for offline use" (ie, download copies of the message).

This has to be done both in the "archive" IMAP account (to select them) and also in the original IMAP account (to unselect the now removed folders). To make the removed folders completely disappear it is necessary to stop and restart Thunderbird.

Because Thunderbird development has been deprioritised, there are no new "Extended Support Releases", and the general releases are around much less frenetic than the Firefox general releases -- approximately on the original ESR schedule.

To install Thunderbird, with a new profile:

  • Download Thunderbird installer for (British) English, for OS X.

  • Open .dmg file, and drag Thunderbird application into /Applications/OpenSource.

  • Drag /Application/OpenSource/Thunderbird.app into the Dock for quick launching.

  • Double click on Thunderbird in the Dock to start it the first time, and reassure OS X that it can run an application downloaded from the Internet.

  • Untick "Use Thunderbird as the default client for Email".

  • Tick "Allow Spotlight to search messages".

  • Untick "Always perform this check when starting Thunderbird", to avoid the nag screens.

  • Click on the right button ("Set as Default") to save those settings

  • Choose "I think I'll configure my account later" to skip the Email account creation (until after the right CA certificate is loaded).

  • Choose to disable the Thunderbird Calendaring (Lightning extension) (as I use the Apple OS X calendar).

  • Choose "Restart" to restart Thunderbird without the Calendaring feature.

  • Choose "I think I'll configure my account later" again, because we are still not ready.

  • Choose Not to send tracking information to Mozilla.

  • Go into the Thunderbird certificate manager (Thunderbird -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Certificates -> View Certificates) and click on "Import..." to import your organisation CA certificate.

  • Locate the organisation CA Certificate file, and open it.

  • Use "View" to see the certificate details and fingerprints. Compare the fingerprints to, eg, the output of:

    openssl x509 -fingerprint -sha1   -noout -in cacert.pem
openssl x509 -fingerprint -sha256 -noout -in cacert.pem

    run on a trusted system.

  • Assuming the organisation CA certificate looks okay, tick "Trust this CA to identify web sites", and click "OK".

  • Check that the certificate appears in the list of Authorities.

  • Close the Thunderbird preferences, and create an account before configuring Thunderbird any further, to avoid the "Would you like a new email address?" dialogue repeatedly appearing.

  • Go to Tools -> Account Settings... -> Account Actions -> Add Mail Account...

  • Enter name, email address, and password and continue -- hopefully it should auto-detect most of the account settings.

  • Choose "Manual config" and change the IMAP port to 993 (encrypted) with SSL/TLS.

  • Click "Re-test" to reassure Thunderbird you know this works, and then click "Done".

  • Choose "Advanced Config" to accept the basic settings and tweak them.

  • In "Server Settings" change the "Check for new messages every:" setting to "1 minutes".

  • In "Composition & Addressing" untick "Compose messages in HTML format", and change to "Start my reply below the quote".

  • In "Copies & Folders" untick "Keep message archives in", to avoid an Archive folder appearing

  • In "Junk Settings" tick "Trust junk mail headers set by SpamAssassin", and tick "Move new junk messages to: Junk folder".

  • Click "OK" in the Account Settings panel to activate the email account.

  • On this first attempt it may fail to connect to the server; quit Thunderbird and start it again. After restarting re-enter the password for the account. (I think this failure is due to not recognising the TLS certificate authority until Thunderbird has been restarted; but restarting Thunderbird without creating an account ended up getting wedged in the "Do you want a new email account?" dialogue.)

  • Once the email account is working, configure the remainder of the Thunderbird global preferences:

    • Change Thunderbird to use Plain Text wherever possible (Thunderbird -> Preferences -> Composition -> Send Options: tick "Send messages as plain text if possible"; and set the fallback action to "Convert the message to plain text).

    • Change Thunderbird to forward messages as attachments (Thunderbird -> Preferences -> Composition -> Forward Messages: As Attachment).

    • Disable the Thunderbird Start Page (Untick "When Thunderbird launches, show the Start Page in the message area" in Thunderbird -> Preferences -> General).

    • Disable alerts for new messages (Untick "Show an alert" and "Play a sound" in Thunderbird -> Preferences -> General), and change the application icon options (Thunderbird -> Preferences -> General -> App Icon Options...) to "Badge app icon with: Count of unread messages".

    • Restore old school emoticons (Untick "Display emoticons as graphis" in Thunderbird -> Preferences -> Display -> Formatting).

    • Enable displaying email addresses for all senders (Untick "Show only display name for people in my address book" in Thunderbird -> Preferences -> Display -> Advanced).

    • Increase privacy by not accepting cookies (Untick "Accept cookies from sites" in Thunderbird -> Preferences -> Privacy), but skip "Tell sites that I do not want to be tracked" as it does not achieve anything other than increasing the volume of site alerts about cookies (because they want to set a cookie to tell you that they have told you about cookies... :-( ).

    • Disable the annoying "smooth" scrolling in favour of traditional pagination (Untick "Use smooth scrolling" in Thunderbird -> Preferences -> Advanced -> General)

    • Disable the "phoning home" to Mozilla (Thunderbird -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Data Choices -- two checkboxes).

    • Tell Thunderbird to ask before installing updates (in Thunderbird -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Update choose "Check for updates, but let me choose whether to install them).

    • Close the preferences.

  • Disable the "Quick Filter Bar" to regain some space (Untick View -> Toolbars -> Quick Filter Bar)

  • Tell Thunderbird to auto-hide the tabs if there is only one of them, using the Config Editor (Preferences -> Advanced -> General -> Config Editor...) and setting:

    mail.tabs.autoHide: true

  • Leave Thunderbird to download all the mail for the new account (about 2.5GB in my case), which may take some time. Watch the Activity Manager (Tools -> Activity Manager) to see how it is getting on.

  • Stop Thunderbird and start it again to make sure that it can connect to the mail server reliably.

  • Send a test message to make sure it can send okay.

(While I was writing this up I found that I ended up with Thunderbird wedged at the modal "Would you like a new email account?" box... with none of the buttons doing anything at all. Apparently due to stopping/restarting Thunderbird one too many times without setting up any email accounts. So I had to delete my profile and start again. It seems the order of steps matters.)

Git Annex

I have used Git Annex extensively for the last 18 months to manage lots of collections of large files. It allows keeping links to where large files can be found, but choosing whether or not the files are on the local hard drive or not. This is ideal for a travel laptop. So I wanted to install Git Annex.

A minor complication is that all my other systems have Git Annex 5.xxx (typically 5.20141xxx, being the last version that made it into Debian Wheezy backports). But earlier this year Git Annex v6 was introduced, with a new repository format, and the only downloads available for OS X are of Git Annex v6. Currently I do not want to ugprade my older Git Annex systems (especially try to do that shortly before travelling) -- the upgrade is one way.

Fortunately it sounds like the v6 program will work with v5 repositories at present, until git-annex upgrade is run manually, and seems to still be optional (as there is still a todo list, which may need an updated git).

So to install git-annex on OS X:

  • Download the current Git Annex for OS X 10.11

  • And the current Git Annex for OS X 10.11 signature

  • Verify the download:

    wget https://downloads.kitenet.net/git-annex/gpg-pubkey.asc
gpg --import gpg-pubkey.asc
gpg --verify git-annex-standalone-*.tar.gz.sig

    which should report something like:

    Good signature from "git-annex distribution signing key (for Joey Hess) <id@joeyh.name>"

    (verifying the key is valid requires digging into the PGP web of trust -- in particular Joey's normal key has signed the distribution key, and should have been signed by lots of people including in Debian; for my purposes since the signing key is identical to the one that signed the downloads a couple of years ago, and came from a https source, I have assumed it is still valid).

  • Double click to open the git-annex.dmg in Finder (needed to bypass the OS X concerns about downloading it from the Internet)

  • Drag git-annex.app into /Applications/OpenSource

  • Add a symlink of git-annex and git-annex-shell to a directory on the path:

    sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin
cd /usr/local/bin/
sudo ln -s /Applications/OpenSource/git-annex.app/Contents/MacOS/git-annex .
sudo ln -s /Applications/OpenSource/git-annex.app/Contents/MacOS/git-annex-shell .

  • Test that it runs with:

    git annex version

It will need to be able to find git on the path, which I installed earlier from MacPorts. It also needs to find git-annex-shell when a remote git-annex tries to connect via ssh; the above assumes that /usr/local/bin will be in the path in that case, which may not always be true (on my other OS X system I put a symlink to git-annex-shell in my ~/.bin directory, which appears first on my $PATH).

(One day I would like to be able to install git-annex from MacPorts; but that really wants quite a bit of Haskell stuff updated/packaged for MacPorts.)

Commercial Applications

Over the last few years of using OS X I have purchased several commerical applicatons, most of them photography related, where they worked better than the Open Source equivalents, or opened up more possibilities than the Open Source equivalents. Most of these are licensed to be installed on two machines for individual use (eg, "home base"/desktop machine and a travel laptop), so I wanted to also install these on a new machine.

Where possible I try to install these under "/Applications/Purchased" to make it easier to find again later:

mkdir /Applications/Purchased

Alfred

Alfred is a command launcher for Mac OS X, which can be brought up via a hot key and then the command to run typed in (with really good command completion); it has many more features, but that is my main use. I have used it for the last year, purchasing a "Powerpack" license earlier this year -- which qualified for a free upgrade from Alfred 2 to Alfred 3. The single user license allows one user to use it on two computers.

To install:

  • Download Alfred from the link on the Alfred front page (currently 3.0.2); there appears to be no way to verify the download, but it does at least come from a https site, linked from a https site.

  • Unpack the zip file into a suitable location, eg:

    cd /Applications/Purchased
unzip Alfred_3.0.2_676.zip

  • Run the application via Finder once, to reassure the Mac that you do want to run the downloaded application. Eg, open /Applications/Purchased, then double click to run.

  • Choose "Don't Allow" access to Contacts (not relevant to what I am using it for; if I am looking up Contacts I usually use my phone)

  • In System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Spotlight, move the Spotlight keyboard preferences (normally Cmd-Space) out of the way by giving them new codes including Option as well, ie:

    Show Spotlight search field:      Opt-Cmd-Space
Show Spotlight window        Ctrl-Opt-Cmd-Space

    (in practice I do not actually use Spotlight from the keyboard shortcuts; on the rare occassions I use it to find something -- by content -- I just use the icon in the top bar instead).

  • Change the Alfred short cut to be Cmd-Space (now hopefully free) in Alfred Preferences -> General -&gt Alfred Hotkey.

  • Simplify the Alfred window, by going to Alfred Preferences -> Appearance -> Options (bottom left), and ticking "Hide hat on Alfred window" and "Hide menu bar icon".

  • Finally install the Alfred Powerpack License by going to Alfred Preferences -> Powerpack and clicking on "Activate your Powerpack". Enter the email address and license code, and click "Activate", and the Powerpack should activate. (If necessary "View your license key" and "Deactivate" should remove the usage, so it can be installed on a different system.)

Note that in Alfred 3, there does not appear to be the "cog" icon in the top right to access Alfred's preferences, so to access the preferences again you need to type "preferences" into the Alfred window; or use Cmd-, (Cmd-comma) when the Alfred window is showing (ie Cmd-space and then Cmd-Comma, which can be typed without releasing Cmd).

Apple Aperture

Apple cancelled Aperture in 2014, ironically soon after I had figured out my two pass import process into Apple Aperture.

I have mostly migrated to using either the On1 Photos Application, or Adobe Lightroom instead, so I chose not to install Apple Aperture on the travel MacBook Air. (Fortunately I also did not have much in my Aperture repository other than straight imports of my directory structure so it is fairly easy to navigate in On1 Photos browser, and imported fairly directly into Adobe Lightroom.)

If necessary Apple Aperture can still be installed through the Apple App Store, by using the same Apple ID, going to Aperture, and choosing to Install it. OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) was the last officially supported version, but it still appears to be available for install on OS X 10.11 (El Capitan).

Once Apple Aperture is installed, virtually all the programs with Plug-Ins would need their Plug-Ins reinstalled before they would be available in Apple Aperture.

Adobe Creative Cloud for Photographers

I've been subscribed to the Adobe Creative Cloud for Photographers package, at $10/month in a "local" currency (here in New Zealand is actually charged in Australian Dollars, so works out around NZ$12/month or so). The package includes Photoshop CC and Lightroom CC.

It is installed via an Adobe installer, tied to a subscription account, and allowed to be installed on a couple of computers (eg, desktop and laptop). Sadly, each computer you install it on has to download each application, directly from the Adobe servers on the Internet -- which wastes time, and Internet bandwidth. It is definitely worth installing via a fast connection, or leaving the installer running in the background while doing something else.

To install you need to:

  • Go to the Adobe Website

  • Log in with your Adobe Cloud account

  • Download the Creative Cloud Installer (.dmg file) by clicking on the "Download Apps" button to go to the "download" page, and then one "Download" links of one of the products included in your bundle (eg, Lightroom). There's a little survey, and then the small CreativeCloudInstaller.dmg downloads.

  • Open the CreativeCloudInstaller.dmg and double click to run the Installer program, which installs a Creative Cloud application manager (in /Applications/Adobe Creative Cloud)

  • Access the "Creative Cloud" application manager, log in with your Adobe Cloud account, then choose "Install" on the Photoshop CC and Lightroom CC applications; these install in "/Applications/Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5/Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5.app" and "/Applications/Adobe Lightroom/Adobe Lightroom.app. The install speed will depend on the Internet connection speed, as it is downloading the application from the Internet during the install, and both are relatively large.

  • After install the apps will auto-launch, and you will need to skip past some of the "intro to the App" things (including a video, for which appears you have to start playing it, and then close it -- thanks Adobe :-( )

Of note, previously every new version of Photoshop CC required Plug-Ins to be reinstalled, due to each version having its own application folder (and the plugins being installed inside the application folder). Since the 2015.5.0 version (released June 2016 -- I do not know why it is still 2015.5), Photoshop also supports an Adobe Photoshop CC wide Plug-ins folder, which is /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Plug-ins/CC. However to take advantage of that... new installers are required for every Plug-In :-( For this new machine install that meant that I needed to download new installers for each Plug-In. (There are also lots of "built in" Photoshop CC plugins in the version specific Plug-Ins folder, within the Photoshop CC version application folder -- /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5/Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5.app/Contents/Required/Plug-Ins.)

See also Adobe Photoshop's Knowledge Base article on Third Party Plug-Ins, which at least has useful links to many Photoshop plug in vendors (but not all of them -- eg, Macphun does not appear).

The Creative Cloud application manager needs to check in with Adobe at least every few weeks in order to verify that the subscription is current -- but reportedly it will happily run disconnected (from the network) for a couple of weeks after that (presuambly it gets told a "paid up to DATE" piece of information each time it checks). So in theory that should be fine for travel providing one connects to the Internet every week or so.

The Adobe Photography program now also includes Lightroom Mobile for both iPad and iPhone, as well as various other extras, including image sync via Adboe's servers which I do not currently use (because the idea of sending images half way around the world just to get it between two devices 3m apart does not appeal -- perhaps the feature makes more sense if you live on top of Adobe's servers in Silicon Valley...).

MacPhun Photography Software

Macphun[https://macphun.com/] produce a Creative Kit of Lightroom/Photoshop Plugins that work on OS X (only; no Windows versions), and also produced Aurora HDR with Trey Ratcliff. I purchased the Macphun Creative Kit in a 2014 bundle, and then got a free upgrade to the Macphun Creative Kit 2016 bundle early in 2016. I also purchased Macphun Aurora HDR Pro in late 2015, as part of the pre-release sale. According to the Macphun legal page, "the license allows for installation and activation on 5 (five) computers." -- so simultaneous installation on two computers used by one user seems fine.

Unfortunately (a) Macphun go out of their way to hide the download links, even for the "installer", so you basically have to keep your downloaded files, or find the original purchase emails to get the download links (or ask Macphun Support for a new link); (b) on each machine the installer will download complete new versions taking a long time; and (c) they do not yet appear to have updated for the Photoshop CC 2015.5+ Shared Creative Cloud Plug-In location (so an update of the applications may soon be required). (Overall it seems to be a copy of the Adobe Creative Cloud installer, but with less elegance.)

Macphun Creative Kit 2016

The Creative Kit 2016 is supplied as an installer in a single zip file, rather than a disk image (.dmg), which then attempts to do an "all in one go" download of the Creative Kit hidden behind a slow progress bar -- so it requires quite a bit more effort to install than most applications.

To install:

  • mkdir /Applications/Purchased/Macphun

  • Obtain the Macphun Creative Kit 2016 installer zip file somehow.

  • Unzip the installer zip file somewhere, eg the Desktop.

  • Run the installer application.

  • Accept the license agreement.

  • Change the install location to /Applications/Purchased/Macphun (it will append "Creative Kit 2016" to the end, complete with spaces to make it difficult to run from the command line; sigh)

  • Click "Install", and the installer will start downloading the actual applications. Wait patiently. This takes... some time. And may well time out and have to be re-tried several times, because it does not even seem to support resuming the download from the point that it got up to. Sigh. The download files seem to be served directly off Amazon S3, presumably only in the USA; and everything on Amazon S3 is subject to rate limiting. I eventually got the install to work only after switching to a thunderbolt ethernet connection (to minimise packet loss at my end), and then trying a few more times. From this I conclude the built in "timeout" is ridiculously too short :-( And the lack of resuming downloads is, IMHO, inexcusable.

  • Once you finally get a "golden pass" that manages to complete the start-to-finish download in one go in a manner acceptable to the installer, then check that it is going to install the Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Lightroom CC plugins, and click "Install".

  • Finally enter the email address, and license code that came with the purchase of the Macphun Creative Kit 2016, and click "Activate".

  • Run each application in turn, giving it a sample image, and then do (Application ->) "Check for Updates" to make sure they run, and the version installed is current.

  • Run Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Lightroom to make plugins are visible.

  • The installer application (eg, on the Desktop), can be deleted.

This is the install that Macphun describe as "ultra-easy"... but in fact appears to have been implemented by someone with no idea of the practical realities of installing software. I am sure it works fine within the Macphun office, and probably fine with 50km of the Amazon S3 location they have chosen -- but everyone else seems to be "on their own", expecting multiple retries.

Note that because Macphun have not updated their Creative Kit 2016 for Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5, the Photoshop Plugins are installed in /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5/Plug-Ins/Filters -- which works, but is Photoshop version specific, and so will require reinstalling on the next Adobe Photoshop update :-( Another Macphun Creative Kit installer and/or application update (plus using the "Install Plugins" option) will be required to install into the "shared" plug in location. (The Lightroom Plugins are in /Users/ewen/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules/, which is user specific.)

Aurora HDR Pro

Aurora HDR Pro is separate from the Macphun Creative Kit 2016. It also comes as a zip file, but does not have an installer in front of it -- the zip file literally contains the application.

  • mkdir /Applications/Purchased/Macphun

  • Obtain the AuroraHDRPro.zip installer somehow.

  • Unzip the application zip file into /Applications/Purchased/Macphun, creating /Applications/Purchased/Macphun/Aurora HDR Pro.app

  • Run the application, via Finder, the first time (it has to be via Finder so you can tell OS X to run the application downloaded from the Internet).

  • Choose to "load sample images", with the default options so that the rest of the UI is usable.

  • Choose "Activate" to enter the license code.

  • Enter the email address and license code obtained when purchasing the software, and click "Done" to finish the activation.

  • Click "Ok" to installing the plug-ins. Enter your password to allow it to access the system plug-ins, and then choose to "Install" the Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Lightroom CC plugins. The click "Done".

  • Run Aurora HDR Pro -> Check for Updates..., to download the current version (without an easy way to download a current version, or a download-at-install installer, it will almost certainly find updates the first time). Choose "Install Update", and the new version will (slowly!) download; then choose "Install and Relaunch" to switch to the current version. (Presumably coming off the same slow Amazon S3 servers used by the Macphun Creative Kit installer -- but fortunately the install file is relatively small, so it worked first time.)

  • After the relaunch, choose "Ok" to installing the plug-ins again. Enter your password to allow it to access the system plug-ins, and then choose to "Install" the Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Lightroom CC plugins. The click "Done".

  • Run Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Lightroom to make plugins are visible.

Aurora HDR Pro also installs the plugins in the "old" location, so will require reinstalling the plugins next time Photoshop is updated.

Nik Image Collection

In 2013, Nik Software was purchased by Google. At that point a bundle of all the Nik image tools was released for a single price, not much more than the cost of an individual tool in the past. So I purchased the collection, using a discount code to reduce the price a little further.

As of March 2016, the Nik Collection is now free, which means that a license code is not even required; apparently purchasers in 2016 got a refund. This simplifies the installation, as there is no need to have or enter a license code anywhere -- and obviously it can be installed onto multiple machines. (Unfortunately it probably also means that it is effectively unmaintained at this point.)

To install:

  • mkdir /Applications/Purchased/NikCollection to create custom install location

  • Download the Nik Collection 1.2.11 for Mac OS X, which is a large DMG file.

  • Open the Nik Collection DMG file, and run the Nik Installer inside

  • Accept the Google Nik Collection license.

  • Verify that it found Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Lightroom CC, as applications to install Plugins, and click "Continue".

  • Choose /Applications/Purchased/NikCollection as the install location and click "Install"; installation will take about 3.5GB (well up on the 1GB with the 2013 install!)

  • Once the installation is complete (fairly quick, as all software is already downloaded, in the DMG file), run each of the host applications and verify the Plugins are visible:

    • Adobe Lightroom CC: Develop -> Photo -> Edit In

    • Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5: Filter -> NikCollection; you will probably want to use the NikCollection Settings to avoid it opening its panel every single time Photoshop starts... (although it is not entirely obvious how to bring it back if you do avoid it opening automatically)

To upgrade to the latest set of Nik plugins, I think one repeats this process, downloading an updated version, and installing that one. (But I am assuming there will not be many updates now.)

The Photoshop Plug-Ins are placed in /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5/Plug-Ins/Google, so will need to be moved or reinstalled next time Photoshop is updated. (However they apparently will work if moved, unlike most of the Photoshop Plugins -- and might possibly be able to be moved to the "shared" location.)

On1 Photo 10

I have owned, and sometimes used, On1's photography suite since OnOne Perfect PhotoSuite 7.5, buying the almost-full-price upgrades to Perfect PhotoSuite 8/8.5, and then getting Perfect PhotoSuite 9.5 as part of a bundle with a pre-purchase of On1 Photo 10 (the latest name of the suite; to be replaced by [On1 Photo Raw(https://www.on1.com/landing/announcing-photo10-5-raw/) soon...). Unfortunately On1 generally do not support older versions, even for Photoshop/Lightroom compatibilty, much beyond the release of new versions -- and the "update" charge for new versions is almost the full new cost of buying stand alone (at least on sale).

On1 Photo 10 is licensed for two computers used by one individual, and has an online license check -- presumably to license a different additional machine, one has to "unlicense" one of the other machines (using the option in the Help menu). Installing as a Plug-In to the latest Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5, with its shared Plug-In folder, requires a new installer, 10.5.1.

To install:

  • Download the On1 Photo 10.5.1 installer (720MB; appears to be 10.5.3002 internally)

  • Open the On1 Photo 10 DMG file, and run the On1 Photo 10 installer

  • There appears to be no option to fine tune the installation destination (the "Destination Select" menu option just changes drives not locations); the software installs into "/Applications/ON1 Photo 10.app" It automatically installed Plug-Ins for Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and Apple Photos.

  • Run the On1 Photo 10 Application (stand alone)

  • Opt out of "sharing anonymous data" by choosing "Don't Participate", then choose "License >" to enter the license for the software.

  • Enter the license number received with the original purchase, and click "Activate".

  • Deselect the "show at launch" box (bottom left) of the intro splash screen, then quit On1 Photo 10.

  • Run Photoshop CC 2015.5 and verify that the ON1 Plug-Ins appear in the Filter -> ON1 menu location (only ON1 Effects 10, ON1 Enhance 10, and ON1 Portrait 10 relevant). The Photoshop CC Plug-Ins installed into /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Plug-Ins/CC, which is the new (CC 2015.5 onwards) shared location.

  • Run Lightroom CC 2015.6 and verify that the ON1 Plug-Ins appear in the File -> Plug-In Extras menu (ON1 Layers 10, ON1 Portrait 10, ON1 Effects 10, ON1 Enhance 10, ON1 Resize 10, On1 Export 10 appear in the list), and in the Peferences -> External Editing -> Preset list (ON1 Effects 10, ON1 Enhance 10, ON1 Portrait 10, ON1 Resize 10). (The Lightroom Plug-Ins seem to be installed into user-specific folders, such as /Users/ewen/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules/, rather than system-wide folders as is the case with Photoshop CC; this can be found by going to File -> Plug-In Manager, and looking at the specific Plug-In.)

SuperDuper!

I've used SuperDuper! for years to clone the contents of my Mac onto a backup drive. It is a fairly simple program (with a slightly confusing UI), that is purchased online. SuperDuper 2.8 supports OS X El Capitan (and 10.7 onwards).

Installation instructions:

  • Download SuperDuper! DMG file

  • Double click on the DMG file, and agree to the license

  • Drag "SuperDuper!" into /Applications/Purchased

  • Run /Applications/Purchased/SuperDuper!

  • Go to SuperDuper!->Register...

  • Enter "Registration Name" and "Serial Number" from license email

After which all the registered features (particularly "Smart Update", which only copies changed files) are automatically enabled.

Topaz Collection

I acquired various Topaz Plug-Ins as part of various bundles (eg, 5DayDeal bundles), and then eventually bought the rest of the Topaz Photograpy Collection for a good discount (50% off the bundle, less pro rata credit for the Plug-Ins I already had).

In practice I have not used it very often, and the whole bundle is a large install -- onto a small drive -- so I am choosing not to install it by default.

Helpfully Topaz provide download links for all software, which makes reinstallation later much easier. I would need to install the Topaz Collection possibly as well as a few stand alone tools that were released after the collection was originally built. One license code covers most of the collection -- and a few other newer Plugins have their own license codes.

Of note, the newer Plug-Ins do not run properly if they are installed in a non-standard location (but most of the older Plug-Ins do run okay); I have reported this to Topaz Support, but it does not appear to be a priority for them to fix it (their attitude seems to be "well don't do that then".

OmniGraffle

OmniGraffle is a diagramming tool for OS X. The Professional edition has import/export support for Visio, which is the de facto business network diagramming tool. I purchased OmniGraffle 5 Pro for that reason. The license allows a single user to use it on multiple machines, which means use on both my old and new MacBooks is permitted.

OmniGraffle 5.4.4 supports OS X Mavericks according to the OmniGraffle Blog post about Mavericks, but I suspect it does not support OS X El Capitan. OmniGraffle 6.4 supports OS X El Capitan, but is paid upgrade costing US$99 (to upgrade to the OmniGraffle 6 pro version), through their store. Since I need the Pro version to work with Visio files -- the application is nearly pointless to me without it -- there is no point in me purchasing the cheaper version. (OmniGraffle is now also available on the Apple App Store, but cross-grades/upgrades are not possible -- and it is US$149 for the basic version, plus more for the in-app upgrade to the Pro version.)

Since I do not use OmniGraffle much, and do not expect to use it on my "travel" computer, for now I have chosen simple not to install OmniGraffle on my OS X El Capitan machine. If needed later, my earlier install instructions should be approximately correct for OmniGraffle 6.4 too.

VMWare Fusion

I have used VMWare Fusion since version 3, including version 4 (as an upgrade from version 3) and version 6 (as an upgrade from version 4; I skipped VMWAre Fusion 5 as it was a paid upgrade without obvious benefits on OS X 10.6 -- Snow Leopard). I have the "Pro" version, which adds useful features for managing VMWare vSphere/ESXi and many VMs.

The latest version is [VMWare Fusion 8] which will run on OS X 10.9 and later, and is the first version to support OS X El Capitan (VMWare Fusion 6.x does not run on OS X El Capitan; and VMWare Fusion 7 will apparently sort-of run if you have the latest update of it -- but I did not buy VMWare Fusion 7).

It is possible to upgrade direct from VMWare Fusion 6 (Pro) to VMWare Fusion 8 Pro, for AUD$96.45. (The non-Pro version is AUD$59.95, but it is missing features that are very useful to me, such as access to VMWare vSphere.)

For my travel computer I am currently assuming that I will not need to run VMs while travelling, so for now I am putting off upgrading VMWare Fusion until later; but I should probably purchase the VMWare Fusion 8 upgrade before the next version of Mac OS (Sierra) is released, as after that a direct upgrade will likely not be possible (since it is likely that VMWare will have to release a VMWare Fusion 9 to add support for Sierra).

My earlier install guide has more details on how I set up VMWare Fusion.

Other notes

If calendar sync is done with iPad/iPhone that are already sync'd to an existing device, at least the first sync will need to be done in "merge" mode -- and then subsequent manual tidy up may be required (particularly handling of all day events seems to result in them repeating into the next day, at least in New Zealand (every round trip seems to add a day to the end of the all day events). This seems to be a bug in iOS 7, and apparently worse with multiple devices.

To have sane automatic backups of photos when devices (iPhone, iPad, etc) are plugged in (and not have iPhone start each time a device is connected!), set up Image Capture to automatically import photos when each device is connected. (Seems to work the same as in 10.6/Snow Leopard, except that it defaults to ~/Pictures/Autoimporter; I set it to work the same as I had on 10.6: import into ~/Pictures/CAMERANAME.)

With all of the above installed, approximately 50GB (of the 256GB drive) is used; leaving about 190GB free.

Printing

I print most things double sided now that I have a printer that is capable of doing so. However for my printer (a Brother HL 2270DW), the default MacOS printing dialog does not have double sided printing set, which means I have to remember to manually select it every time. After fixing the Finder Cmd-P issue (above), I also found a way to change the default to be double sided printing to save further wasted paper from not noticing and fixing the (wrong) default. This guide describes how to disable the double sided printing default, which seems to be set for some other printer drivers, and I just did the reverse:

  • Enable the cups web interface with: sudo cupsctl WebInterface=yes

  • Go to the cups web interface at: http://localhost:631/

  • Go to Printers -> Your Printer -> Set Default Options (in the "Administration") menu.

  • In the General page (on my Brother HL 2270DW driver anyway), change the "Media Size" to "A4" and the "Two-Sided Printing" to "Long-Edge Binding"

  • Click on "Set Default Options" button

  • Disable the cups web interface again: sudo cupsctl WebInterface=no

(You will need an account with admin privileges for the sudo comamnds and also to save the default options.)

At this point the print dialog should open with the "Two Sided" printing option ticked by default, and default to Long Edge Binding (on the rare occassions when I need Short Edge Binding -- when printing two-up pages, or landscape for wide spreadsheets -- I already had to change the layout option, so I should be able to remember to do that at least).

ETA 2019-02-17 edited to add explanation of how to defeat "Finder.app Cmd-P prints without warning", and also notes on setting up double sided printing by default.