macOS Archives

Anything related to Apple, Macs and macOS

How to turn text into an audio file on macOS

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Ever since Lion, Mac OS X 10.7, there has been a great and very underrated feature built-in to every Mac: the ability to highlight some text and have macOS turn it into an audio file.

This is a wonderful way to listen to written text while you’re on the go, or if you want to skim through text you or others have written while you’re occupied with another activity, such as walking or driving. I love this feature!

I’ve seen the option in the context menu many times, but I’ve never dared to use it until today. Perhaps I held off for so long because the option reads “add to iTunes as Spoken Track” – and I’m just not a big fan of iTunes.

Turns out, this text-to-audio option bypasses iTunes altogether. It doesn’t open automatically and we won’t need it to transfer tracks to our iPhones either. What a relief!

Let me show you how to do it in this article.

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How to transcode an AFIC file with macOS Finder

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Yesterday I had to transcode some audio files recorded with Quicktime on macOS. Quicktime works great for that, but it only stores files in its native AIFC file format. That’s the Audio Interchange File Format, a format developed by Apple in 1988, storing audio data as uncompressed PCM data. Sadly though, AIFC is not commonly … Read more

How to run Commodore BASIC as a Scripting Language on macOS

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Did you know you can run Commodore BASIC v2 on your Mac and Linux systems as a scripting language? It’s true – thanks to the marvellous efforts of Michael Steil and James Abbatiello. They’ve adapted the original BASIC v2 as featured on the VIC-20 and C64 with additional routines so that it works natively on … Read more

How to use Xcode for C and C++ development

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Not only is Xcode an excellent IDE for iOS and macOS apps in both Swift and Objective-C; it does just as fine a job for regular C and C++ code. This includes all the features we know and love, such as code completion, version control, and all the rest of it.

Let’s see how to use Xcode 8.3 for C and C++ development.

A Chinese Version of this article can be found here.

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What’s the difference between the Logitech M325 and the M325c

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The Logitech M325 and M325c are both wireless USB mice. Their design appears to be identical (except for the many different colourful variations of course), and their prices vary from anything between $12 and $60 – depending the layout and seller. Even the packaging is identical. So what’s the difference between these two models? Is … Read more

How to fix problems with Logitech Unifying Receivers

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screen-shot-2016-11-04-at-17-12-10I’ve recently bought a new Logitech K360 keyboard for my HP Z600 workstation. I also had a Logitech M325 mouse, both of which came with Unifying USB receivers. I could plug both receivers in, and both devices would work great.

However, I heard good things about these little receivers and wanted to free up a USB port, and thought I’d connect both devices to the same receiver. Apparently you can connect up to 6 devices to one receiver and store any spare ones inside the mouse or keyboard. Being an all-efficient belt-and-braces kinda guy, I tried my luck.

Turns out it was relatively easy to pair both devices to the same receiver, thanks to a small piece of software that can be found here, along with instructions on how to use it:

It all worked fine on my Windows 10 machine, until I wanted to use the mouse (not the keyboard) with my Mac. I know, it’s exotic, and perhaps I should have just bought another mouse. But there’s only so much space on my desk, and I really don’t need more clutter in front of me for just an occasional switch.

I regretted pairing both devices to the same receiver and wished I hadn’t done that, for this very eventuality. So now I had to figure out how to UN-pair both devices again and put them back to how things used to be (before I started messing with them).

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