Life’s Too Short to Deal With Bad Cables

Mac Geek Gab — Apple Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting

Dave Hamilton, Pilot Pete & Adam Christianson

How To, Technology, Education, News, Tech News

4.8 • 977 Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

You’ll pick up quick wins this week with smart Mac tips you can use right now. Color-code your USB and Thunderbolt cables so you always grab the right one, and stash them in mesh zipper pouches or a travel organizer so you’re never digging for the right connection. Add Apple Music playlists right to your Mac’s menu bar, trigger Time Machine backups with macOS 26 Shortcuts, and even have ChatGPT read answers aloud to you. Learn how to suss out the speed of your USB-C cables, avoid accidental calls, and know when a higher‑wattage charger is perfectly safe. And remember: when moving from Intel to Apple Silicon, migrate your Homebrew setup properly—Don’t Get Caught re‑installing from scratch.
From troubleshooting with AI without “leading the witness” to discovering that High Sierra is still getting (at least some!) security updates, you’ll walk away sharper than before. We dig into Cool Stuff Found like Dory, a frictionless Mac app switcher, and VueScan, which resurrects old, unsupported scanners. Clean up your cloud clutter, auto‑paste from Messages into any app, and explore apps like Dialed AI to keep your motivation up. Whether you’re traveling, upgrading, or just tidying your digital life, these tips keep you efficient, organized, and ready for anything.

00:00:00 Mac Geek Gab 1101 for Monday, August 4th, 2025

August 4th: National Clouded Leopard Day
MGG Monthly Giveaway

Quick Tips

00:00:01 Tom-QT-Color code your USB/Thunderbolt cables for easy identification
00:04:01 Andrew-QT-Add Apple Music Playlists, Albums, and Artists to Your Mac’s Menu Bar
00:05:45 Karl-QT-Apple Music needs to be installed to get audio out of your Lightning port

https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone/

00:10:36 Advice when troubleshooting with AI: Don’t lead the witness!
00:14:43 Tom-QT-1097-Fix the perpetually-incrementing System name numbers
00:17:01 Don’t Get Caught: when migrating from Intel to Apple Silicon you need to reset up all your homebrew stuff

Migrate Homebrew from Intel to Apple Silicon

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00:21:59 SPONSOR: K12 can help your child start reaching their full potential in life now – and give you the support you need to get them there! Go to K12.com/MGG today to find a tuition-free K12-powered school near you and enroll now
00:23:40 SPONSOR: Fireflies AI. Fireflies is the number one AI teammate that transcribes, summarizes, and analyzes your conversations so you can get the most out of every meeting. Get 2 months free at Fireflies.ai/mgg.

MOAR Quick Tips

00:25:14 QT-On a Mac ChatGPT will Read the answer to you
00:26:18 Doug-QT-macOS 26’s Shortcuts Automations can be used to trigger Time Machine and more

Amphetamine

00:29:46 macOS 26 allows auto-paste-from-Messages/Mail into any app, not just Safari

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's time for Matt Geekab and listener Tom brings us our quick tip of the week.
0:05.4	He says in a recent episode, you were talking about cables and speeds.
0:09.5	I started buying the smallest zip ties that I could find that come in lots of colors.
0:15.0	I put them on the cable right at one of the ends before the little dongle port.
0:20.3	I love that name. He says, I cut the
0:22.6	extra off so it doesn't stick out much. I use a different color per speed. In other words,
0:28.2	all Thunderbolt four cables are one color. You could also go from dark to light. Oh, yeah,
0:32.8	light being the highest, dark being low, whatever. Yeah, many options here. Many of the lower
0:37.3	speed ones I just grouped together
0:38.7	and labeled them as power only i only use them to charge things and not for data type activities
0:45.7	unlike you and that i don't buy cheap cables and stick with the brands that we all love and use but
0:50.7	this makes it really easy when you're digging through several to grab what you want.
0:56.0	Love that tip.
0:57.7	More tips like this.
1:00.1	Plus, your question's answered.
1:02.0	Today on MacGeekab 1101 for Monday, August 4th, National Clouded Leopard Day.
1:08.2	Maybe that's another operating system we didn't know about from Apple.
1:11.9	2025.
1:36.9	Greetings, folks, and welcome to MacGeekab, the show where we share tips like that that you send in or that we find.
1:40.4	We share cool stuff found that you send in or that we find.
1:45.6	And we share questions that you send in or that we have and hopefully come up with some answers or at least a path to ruling out what the problem is not.
1:53.9	Let's see, we have all kinds of things to talk about here.
	...

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