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Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49681 08/07/18 07:59 PM
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People with eyesight limitations are being advised online to buy a bigger monitor. That won't solve the problem if while monitors are getting bigger the text is getting smaller. From what I've read, a 27" non-retina iMac is harder to read than a 20" iMac. Perhaps no one over 40 ought to buy an retina iMac.

There are many obvious articles online written as though they were bold discoveries. Change the resolution, they advise. No kidding. That's not an option when only one resolution, the default resolution, is readable. Few to none of these articles address the problems mentioned by people in the comments sections.

It's even more absurd to tell someone who just bought a retina iMac to change the resolution. They bought that kind of monitor precisely because of all the hype and praise about the great resolution. No one, not Apple, not one reviewer as far as I know said "unless you're interested in text, that is, in which case, move on." Maybe the assumption is that we'll continue to communicate with emoji hieroglyphics instead of text.

If only the carrier pigeon were still around...


Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49682 08/07/18 10:32 PM
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I'm guessing that from all the frustration with respect to fonts that you'll be taking advantage of the 90-day return policy and then opting for a Mac (iMac?) with a non-Retina monitor.

Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
grelber #49683 08/08/18 01:32 AM
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No, I have no plan to return this Mac unless I can confirm this jaggy font problem is exclusive to this machine. I'm certain it isn't. But it may be different on different operating systems and different models of computers. So far my reading suggests the problem is widespread.

I don't have a retina iMac and I don't want one. I have no reason to think any other Mac would be different. I have no intention of moving to High Sierra or Mojave unless there are signs that those systems are a step forward rather than backward. Nevertheless, I'm open to options.

The frustration is when someone accuses me of not knowing what I'm talking about. The frustration comes from seeing all the greed and stupidity and absurdity. So many people go along with it, defend it, or refuse to question it. When you live long enough, you have more experience to draw from. You no longer need to rely on books or secondhand news. If you live long enough and pay attention and use your senses, you can see decline much clearer. If you're not a sheep, you start grumbling. In a certain sense I grew up with Apple and the home computer industry. I hate to see it go backwards. And worse.

So the subject at hand is, for people who write a lot, what kind of desktop computer experience can they expect in 2018, what is the state of font rendering, what is it like to change resolutions of monitors and operating systems, and why is it so much worse than it was in the past. Maybe I should try Apple tech support.

Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49687 08/08/18 03:58 PM
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Some other things for interested readers to try.

You can download SwitchResX, which might give your monitor some other choices. For my imac it gives an additional 1680 x 1050, halfway between the two biggest resolutions, which I nevertheless found too small but a slight improvement. There are other tweaks in this program but I'm not going to mess with it until I've read more. To install it, you have disable SIP, install SwitchResX, then enable SIP.

FinderPop won't work even if you install it with SIP disabled. Too bad. That one goes back a long way. The right-click habit is deeply ingrained.

People with external monitors might want to see this link:

http://www.mathewinkson.com/2013/03/forc...xternal-monitor



Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49690 08/08/18 05:36 PM
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I emailed Kurt Lang and he was kind enough to respond quickly and in detail:

____________

The main issue is likely scale factor. The default (and native) resolution for that screen is 1920x1080.

Here's the problem. The lower resolutions are all proportional (same scale factor in height and width), which means a circle will still look like a circle and not an ellipse. But, the scale percentages are all oddball. As in, not whole number divisions of 2, 3, 4, etc.

1600 x 900 = 83.33%
1344 x 756 = 70%
1280 x 720 = 66.66%

Computers with LED screens don't like these kinds of screen values, which is something joemikeb already explained.

It didn't matter on old CRT screens since an electron gun was far from anything you'd call accurate. And a pulse would almost always at least partially excite a neighboring pixel, causing it to blur out the pixel being sent to the screen. Meaning, nothing was ever super sharp on a CRT and jaggies practically didn't exist. It had to be something obvious before you'd notice.

On an LED, when you're trying to increase the image size by lowering the resolution, you run into this percentage problem. Take 1600 x 900. Remember, the screen itself is always 1920 x 1080, so what's drawn has to be dumbed down to fit.

Okay, the OS needs to draw one pixel. Which pixel on the screen is it supposed to use? The call to display one pixel is now larger than the scale factor. Should it go to pixel 1122 in the row, or 1123? Does it mathematically land right in the middle and the OS displays black on both neighboring pixels? Or does it skip drawing it at all and those two spots remain the background color? As you round the curve of say, the letter S, is the pixel on row 82 going to draw on pixel position 448, and on row 83 the next pixel of the curve draws on pixel position 450 rather than 449 because that's how the math came out for the nearest pixel position?

There isn't much you can do about this when using non-native resolutions on screens with exactly defined pixel locations.

Though one thing that could help is using HiDPI. I don't know if this works anymore, but you can give it a try. Open Terminal and copy/paste this line into it:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool true

Quit Terminal.

Since the file you're trying to add this to is in the root Library folder, you may get a message that you don't have permissions. If that's the case, you'll have to temporarily disable System Integrity Protection so you can run the command, then turn SIP back on.

Open the System Preferences and click Displays. Click the Scaled radio button. Now, hold down the Option key and click directly on the word Scaled.

If this still works, you'll find lower resolutions with (HiDPI) listed after the values. The largest one you can pick is half the native resolution. What this does is cause the Mac to draw everything with much better smoothing results.

Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49693 08/08/18 06:17 PM
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Originally Posted By: deniro
I emailed Kurt Lang and he was kind enough to respond...

Thanks for a very interesting post!

And thanks for verifying that Kurt Lang is a real person. I thought he might just be some sort of Marvel Lord of the Fonts! I've been following his guidelines for years.

Cheers! laugh


iMac (19,1, 3.1 GHz i5, 12.7.4, 40 Gb RAM); MacBook Air (1.8 Ghz, 8 Gb RAM, 10.14.6, 256 Gb SSD) Vodafone router and Devolo Wi-Fi Extender, Canon TS8351 printer/scanner.
Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49697 08/08/18 11:09 PM
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I suspect the communications issue here is due to the definition and meaning of key words, aggravated by sloppy misuse in general and too often in the media that should know better. So I am going to try to clarify what I am trying to convey by beginning with some definitions and to limit the discussion to a printed output prepared with Pages. (Web documents are subject to any number of curve balls in this.)

WYSIWG — does not mean an exact pixel by pixel duplication, rather a reasonably accurate SCALE representation of what the preparer sees in the Pages window is what appears on the page when printed out.

POINT — a measure of the height of a character (technically the height of the metal the typeface was cast on). It was stadardized with the advent of desktop publishing at 1/72 of an inch. Printed output is specified in Points.

PIXEL — is the smallest controllable element of a picture represented on the screen and its size is a function of many hardware factors independent of what is displayed on the screen. When you change the resolution of the screen the number of actual physical pixels does not change, instead the video card and the monitor clumps a group of several pixels and treats them as a single unit.

RESOLUTION: — the number of pixels on a screen. The default resolution for a monitor is typically the maximum number of pixels and that yields the most detailed image possible.

RESOLUTION & PIXELS — If you reduce the image resolution (in System Preferences that is termed "scaling") it makes the characters on the screen appear larger but since the number of pixels in a point of text has not changed the resolution becomes lower. If you decrease the resolution or zoom the image the edges of the characters will become blocky and ugly. This is called pixelization

Originally Posted By: Apple Dictionary
divide (an image) into pixels, typically for display or storage in a digital format.
• (be pixelated) (of an image on a computer screen or other display) be enlarged so far that the viewer sees the individual pixels that form the image, the enlargement having reached the point at which no further detail can be resolved.
• display an image of (someone or something) on television as a small number of large pixels, typically in order to disguise someone's identity.


Look at these images of the same page in Pages. The first image is at 100% ([b]ie.[/i] not zoomed), the second zoomed 150%, and the third I am not sure, I just zoomed enough the pixelation finally showed clearly (only a higher resolution could would have prevented that. I started to send a picture of the printed image but no matter what zoom level was set on the screen the printed images were scaled at 100% and the point sizes were precisely correct.



If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49737 08/12/18 02:51 PM
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I'm pretty sure you can get the hidden resolutions by holding down the option button while clicking on Scaled. You may not have to enter the code in Terminal that Kurt Lang sent, though I did and it worked. Or you can buy SwitchRes, which has more feature and is inexpensive.

In Tinker Tool I'm using Helvetica Neue Light 18 pt (Application) and Helvetica Neue Light 14 pt (Fixed pitch) at 1680 x 1050, one of the hidden resolutions. It's an improvement. The lighter font compensates for the jagged text. Darker, thicker fonts make it worse. It's not bad, though still small.

On Firefox I'm using Verdana 16 and Verdana 14 for everything, with Verdana 14 the minimum, where I choose the fonts for every site, not the site choosing fonts. Sometimes the type is too small, sometimes too big, but it's not bad and I'll keep playing around with it. Tried Tahoma but that works better on Windows.

Last edited by deniro; 08/12/18 02:53 PM.
Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49738 08/12/18 03:05 PM
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I installed Windows 7 with Boot Camp. At first it didn't work because Windows couldn't find the drivers. This is a normal day in Windows. Drivers are often a problem.

Turns out the wrong drivers were installed. After some Googling, I found the solution to install an older version of Boot Camp. And so began the long journey of installing Windows, which always takes longer than installing a Mac OS because it has many more updates, though MacOS is catching up. So instead of a couple hours it's more like a couple days. But that's Windows. Boot Camp, if you have the right version, makes using Windows ridiculously easy. It even labels your mounted hard drive "Boot Camp".

The font rendering in is better in Windows 7 than on the Mac. I didn't get the jagged text, and the OS provides more options for enlarging text. Firefox also seems to run faster. I might try some old games. I haven't played a computer game since the 20th century. Did you know there are esports teams now? Nutty. Google "Kent State eports" if you're not already aware of this subject and how times have changed.

For my part, I think boys are better off spending their time playing sports outside and chasing girls. I was never very good at those shooter games that they love now, not even as a kid.



Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49769 08/18/18 01:16 AM
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I've been watching this defect in the monitor. It looks like a vertical fold starting at the top of the screen one inch from the black border on the left side and runs down three quarters of the screen.

Imagine a bedsheet that needs to be pulled to stretch out a wrinkle. That's what it looks like against a colorful desktop picture. Against a white background it looks like a dirty smudge. The vertical fold is about a millimeter or two wide, but the area to the left of the fold is somewhat shaded, darker, dirtier looking, and is one inch wide.

The computer was sold to me in "Excellent" shape by Mac of All Trades but I'm not sure I would call it excellent anymore. The dark patch is easily visible and clearly a defect of some kind.

Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49770 08/18/18 01:27 AM
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That sounds like grounds for a return; be sure to keep track of when your 30 days are up!


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
artie505 #49771 08/18/18 08:04 AM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
That sounds like grounds for a return; be sure to keep track of when your 30 days are up!

Recall his original post (#49644):
I thought I would share my experience using and evaluating my new (used) imac which I bought from Mac of All Trades for $499. I have 90 days to return it....

Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
grelber #49772 08/18/18 11:27 AM
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Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49773 08/18/18 03:05 PM
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Surely, you're not considering paying to have a machine that was sold to you as "in excellent shape" repaired? shocked

Or do you think Mac of All Trades will pay?

Is either the least bit likely?


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
artie505 #49775 08/18/18 04:14 PM
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When it comes to the computer world, I try to avoid assumptions. I'm not going to pay. Apple would pay. Someone would pay. Not me. I didn't break it.

I'm considering calling Mac of All Trades. I see no harm in asking them to explain why my monitor isn't in excellent shape as advertised. Let them solve the problem. I didn't cause it. Let them explain how they define excellent. I did read their site carefully. I doubt they're trying to trick me. Maybe there are problems with that particular card.

Google searching taught me that there was a repair program for models made around the same time as this one. It's not the same AMD card but it's close. The last iMac I owned I had to have the monitor repaired due to lines and dead pixels. Others complained online. Apple denied and refused. Same old story. It took a lot of effort but I got them to pay for it.

I feel I've already made compromises with this Mac, and as I've said, I doubt my long-term future is with any Apple computer unless there are dramatic changes.

Last edited by deniro; 08/18/18 04:20 PM.
Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
grelber #49778 08/20/18 04:10 PM
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RE: Recall his original post (#49644):
I thought I would share my experience using and evaluating my new (used) imac which I bought from Mac of All Trades for $499. I have 90 days to return it....

--------------------

Fine . . . but why wait out the 90 days? It doesn't seem to me that the monitor issues - Post #49769 - will "correct themselves if/when given enough time."

Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
MG2009 #49779 08/20/18 06:05 PM
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Originally Posted By: MG2009
RE: Recall his original post (#49644):
I thought I would share my experience using and evaluating my new (used) imac which I bought from Mac of All Trades for $499. I have 90 days to return it....

--------------------

Fine . . . but why wait out the 90 days? It doesn't seem to me that the monitor issues - Post #49769 - will "correct themselves if/when given enough time."

I was only trying to make the point that the return period was 90 days, not 30 days (as artie commented cautionarily).

Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
grelber #49780 08/20/18 10:53 PM
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A couple developments.

Well, I said I tried to avoid assumptions, but I assumed wrong about the Mac of All Trades policy. A warranty is one thing. A return policy is another.

https://www.macofalltrades.com/return-policy/

"Returns may only be requested within fourteen (14) days of delivery. The customer is responsible for return shipping. We issue a refund less original shipping upon return and inspection."

"If a repair is requested due to a hardware failure within ninety (90) days of delivery, the customer is responsible for return shipping unless an Extended Warranty is purchased...We will attempt to repair the issue; if non-repairable we will issue either an exact replacement or a store credit equaling the full price of the product at the present time."

(Note the use of "issue" as both a noun and a verb)

I conclude that this means I can't return the computer for a refund after owning it for fourteen days. If a problem arises in the next 90 days, I can ask Mac of All Trades to fix it. I would pay the shipping for this heavy computer. I'm not sure who would pay for the repair.

The second point is that the monitor flaw disappeared after I installed Macs Fan Control. I've been leaving the computer on at night to see if the flaw returns, but so far it hasn't. I had been wondering whether the problem was caused by heat. The computer seemed especially hot, but I was unsure if this was a normal result of the aluminum body, which was new to me. I don't know what else to think. If a problem arises, I'll have to fix it. Or debate whether to fix it. Same old story. Hope for the best, expect the worst.

I'm getting more comfortable with the font rendering. I don't regret my purchase. I've enjoyed seeing all the recent software that I had been missing out on. Lots to download and play with. I was reminded again of how much better Mac software is than Windows software. But I suppose that's changing as Apple continues to tighten the screws.






Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49781 08/20/18 11:00 PM
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Originally Posted By: deniro
I don't regret my purchase.

cool

Hopefully, that's the bottom line.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
artie505 #49782 08/21/18 04:11 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
Originally Posted By: deniro
I don't regret my purchase.

cool

Hopefully, that's the bottom line.


I hope so too, because the warranty has another gotcha: "…if non-repairable we will issue either an exact replacement or a store credit equaling the full price of the product at the present time [emphasis added]."

So if the price of the item went down since the original purchase, you would not get your full purchase price credited. crazy


On a Mac since 1984.
Currently: 24" M1 iMac, M2 Pro Mac mini with 27" BenQ monitor, M2 Macbook Air, MacOS 14.x; iPhones, iPods (yes, still) and iPads.
Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
Ira L #49783 08/21/18 05:11 PM
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Originally Posted By: Ira L
[....the warranty has another gotcha: "…if non-repairable we will issue either an exact replacement or a store credit equaling the full price of the product at the present time [emphasis added]."

The big print giveth but the small print taketh away.


ryck

"What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits" The Doobie Brothers

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Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
ryck #49787 08/22/18 09:11 PM
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And that's how you become a millionaire in Silicon Valley. You don't need an MBA (or a degree on CS) to figure that out.

A few small matters.

I can't seem to get drag and drop to work. It worked before. I'm using the latest version of USB Overdrive with a Logitech MX500 wired mouse. I dislike this mouse because I used my previous mouse's scroll wheel as a button for double clicking in addition to scrolling. The MX500's scroll wheel is so loose that when I press on it, I don't get a solid click. Essentially unusable as a button. It's loose because it's a tilt wheel that is intended (I guess) to go back and forward on the internet. For some reason I never use it for that, maybe because I used a lot of tabs in Firefox. I did use the wheel for dragging groups of files to a folder, giving my wrist a rest.

I installed the Logitech Control Center to see it it offered anything beyond USB Overdrive. It didn't. I thoroughly uninstalled everything Logitech. But when I went back to my USB Overdrive press drag and drop didn't work. Click and drag. I must have changed setting and forgotten what it was supposed to be. That's began to happen to my aging brain more often.

A related point: it's unnecessarily difficult to drag items to the dock. I drop an icon from my Applications folder to the dock and it springs right back. It works eventually but it takes several tries. So dumb.

Something else in the Finder. When I drag an icon to the desktop, the icon doesn't move. An alias is created. So dumb. Let me decide how to arrange my desktop, okay Apple?

I can't seem to get my Display prefs icon to the menu bar. There are other icons up there. Not this one.

My Users>Home>Applications folder is empty. Not sure, but I think it's because I have spotlight turned off. I see no reason to use spotlight when I can use Easy Find. Why waste the CPU indexing your files?

Apps, what we used to call programs, are downloaded from the App Store. Except for the installers. I don't get to keep the installers, right? I thought if I dug around I might find them. This Mac didn't come with an OS on disc.

I thought iChat was done. I never used it. So I tried to delete all the iChat items from my drive but the OS wouldn't let me, telling me the items were needed by the system. What for?

If you've read Kurt Lang's site, you might know that there are four fonts in El Cap that don't work unless you rename them. Font Book still doesn't get things done correctly. I had to move some fonts manually.

I see no reason to have Fonts in three folders, four if you have iWork. I have several fonts that begin with STIX.

I already commented on getting lost in full screen. Where are my "apps" ? Where are the windows I use using? I had to quit Firefox because I couldn't find the window.

I advise everyone to avoid full screen.



Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49789 08/23/18 08:53 AM
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Originally Posted By: ryck
The big print giveth but the small print taketh away.

Originally Posted By: deniro
And that's how you become a millionaire in Silicon Valley. You don't need an MBA (or a degree on CS) to figure that out.

But only if people don’t read the small print before spending….and neither do you need an MBA (or a degree on CS) to figure that out.

Last edited by ryck; 08/23/18 08:55 AM.

ryck

"What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits" The Doobie Brothers

iMac (Retina 5K, 27", 2020), 3.8 GHz 8 Core Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM, 2667 MHz DDR4
OS Ventura 13.6.3
Canon Pixma TR 8520 Printer
Epson Perfection V500 Photo Scanner c/w VueScan software
TM on 1TB LaCie USB-C
Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
deniro #49790 08/23/18 09:01 AM
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Originally Posted By: deniro
My Users>Home>Applications folder is empty. Not sure, but I think it's because I have spotlight turned off. I see no reason to use spotlight when I can use Easy Find. Why waste the CPU indexing your files?

Apps, what we used to call programs, are downloaded from the App Store. Except for the installers. I don't get to keep the installers, right? I thought if I dug around I might find them. This Mac didn't come with an OS on disc.

Under ordinary circumstances, ~/Applications doesn't even exist until you create it...presumably because you want to populate it. If it was populated on your old iMac its contents should have migrated along with it.

How to download OS X El Capitan - Apple Support


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: New used iMac shakedown cruise
artie505 #49791 08/23/18 03:22 PM
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I tried the link to the App store and when I tried to download El Cap I got the message "This version of OS 10.11 cannot be installed on this computer".


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