Creating a macOS Spotlight indexed archive of completed tasks and notes: Microsoft To Do via Outlook.com PDF

I like having local Spotlight indexed "standard" file format archives of completed tasks and calendar items. This is not a popular feature for most people so it's not widely supported. Today I found that this is possible with Microsoft To Do [1] (which replaced old Outlook Tasks).

Microsoft's free To Do.app for macOS has a web store that is shared with Outlook.com (and with Outlook for macOS, but I did not want to install that even though I have a 365 family account).

To Do has no print or archive facility. However Outlook.com does and it shares the To Do sync data. (I think Outlook.com is free for anyone who has a Microsoft ID.)

So:

1. Go to outlook.com and open task list (same Microsoft ID as To Do)
2. View All or Completed or whatever list and click ellipsis to see print
3. When Print choose to include notes. 

I get a multi-MB decently formatted PDF that Spotlight indexes for me.

In the general Outlook.com view has print capabilities the To Do app lacks.

[1] To Do is the only Microsoft product I routinely used. They bought it from somebody a decade or so ago. I could now switch to macOS Reminders but I find it oddly useful to keep Reminders as an aide to my declining short term memory and use To Do for small projects, shopping and so on. I put quite a bit of information in To Do notes and often find value in looking it up.

Migrating my microblog publishing from Pinboard to Raindrop.io

For the past 12 years, following the demise of Google Reader Social, I have used Pinboard (see also) as a core part of my obscure microblog commentary on Twitter, App.net, and Mastodon.  My posts have 3 fields: Title, Link, and Comment. On iOS I use the Pins.app Share Sheet for data entry, optionally edit in Pins.app, and the result is initially published in Pinboard. On the desktop I use a Pinboard bookmarklet to author and I edit in Pinboard.

IFTTT processes the Pinboard RSS feed and posts to my Mastodon instance (via web hook) and to my WordPress blog (kateva.org/sh). Although anyone can follow these posts via RSS from Pinboard or Mastodon or Kateva.org the small number who see them are likely following me on Mastodon. Mostly the posts are for Emily's interests and for my memory. I don't share them to my BlueSky account but I may do a future subset.

It's a kludgy and sometimes fragile workflow but I'm used to it. Alas Pinboard has been in decline for a year or so and around August 2024 it basically died. Maciej Cegłowski has since resurfaced but the service has been up and down and he's been generally unresponsive.

I have identified two replacements: micro.blog and raindrop.io. I chose Raindrop.io as most similar to my prior workflow but micro.blog is my next step.

Today I exported my pinboard content as a JSON feed (52K posts, of which the first few thousand were exports from Google Reader Social) and imported into Raindrop.io with good results. I signed up for the Raindrop.io monthly plan while I see what I can put together. I'll update this post with what I learn.

During this transition there will be some noisiness. Today I forgot to turn off my IFTTT feed and my raindrop.io import started generating kateva.org/sh entries that I had to remove. Eventually I'll remove the Pinboard content and close that account.

I'll update this post with what I learn.

Update 1/6/2025: Things are not looking good

Problems so far:

• Raindrop.io is deprecating RSS features in favor of an API approach and IFTTT integration. But the integration I want is buggy (can't handle URL even though it works with RSS integration) and the mastodon integration is only for one very large instance.
• Raindrop.io fetches a screenshot of the bookmark source to save as persistent artifact. It includes that in RSS as a img tag. For my purposes this is ugly noise in the post.
• Creating a Raindrop.io post from the desktop browser bookmarklet doesn't work well.

I've put in a support request to the Raindrop.io dev but I suspect I'll need to cancel my $3/m subscription. I'll revert back to Pinboard if it's functional again. Next will be a micro.blog evaluation and perhaps publishing in Mastodon with Linky/bookmarklet then using Mastodon RSS to create a kateva.org/sh archive entry.

Wallet and payment problems with Sequoia: email address in "Wallet & Apple Pay" settings grayed out and cannot be changed

Today I ran into several very weird issues with Apple Pay and Sequoia. It began when I tried to use Apple Pay from Sequoia. I got a message along the lines of needing to update contact settings and address, but no changes I made had any effect.

I'm not quite sure I've figured that out, but I have a hunch that the email address in "Wallet & Apple Pay" needed to match my iCloud address (which, is, due to longevity, a me.com or iCloud.com address). But that was grayed out and could not be changed. Google and AI searches didn't help.

The fix was actually pretty easy. If you have "Hide My Email" enabled the Email setting cannot be changed. It will be grayed out. I don't think the UI makes this relationship clear, and it is not obvious to me why enabling hiding was incompatible with a change to an email address. But it is.

Turn off "Hide My Email" and see a list of all the email addresses that are part of one's Contact.app "My Card". Yes, the "My Card" is yet another part of a large set of really obscure things that can go wrong with Wallet, Apple Pay, and, indirectly, the App Store and media purchases.

So ... turn off "Hide My Email" and you'll see a list of emails associated with your "My Card". I don't think you can actually choose just any email though. I think you want to choose iCloud/me.com email.

Anyway, as I noted I'm not done sorting out Apple Pay issues, but at least I can tell you how to change your Wallet associated email address. For now. Until Apple fixes this weird UI -- which is basically a bug.

Copying a calculated cell from Numbers into Pages - two workarounds and Apple's Copy Snapshot answer

You can't copy a Numbers calculated cell, like one formed by concatenating strings in other cells, into Pages. The formula is pasted instead, typically with an error icon (absent references). It's apparently been a problem for all eternity, though I just ran into it recently.

What about Cmd-Opt-Shift-V?

This pastes without table formatting but Numbers will still put the formulae on the clipboard and the paste will show broken references. Unless you use the Copy Snapshot feature below, then it does nothing.

There are three workarounds I've learned:

Simple

Paste into something like Notes.app or TextEdit.app or pretty much anything but Pages. Then copy/paste that into Pages.

Better

If you create a Sheet that directly references a calculated cell you will be able to paste that into Pages. Numbers doesn't hunt for the formulae, it just puts the calculated cell value on the clipboard. (Thanks Ben O'Matic for the tip!)

Best - Apple actually fixed this

If you choose "Copy Snapshot" in Numbers (it's up on the File menu you and I never look at) it will copy the values, not the formulae. It will paste as a table in Numbers. There's actually documentation of this, but the AIs and Google couldn't find it -- until I figured it out. (How did I figure it out? I realized what Apple needed to do and then it occurred to me that maybe they had done it.)

What should Apple do?

I only found "Copy Snapshot" after I wondered how Apple could fix this. So it could be a bit easier to discover. Something like:

1. Make the "Copy Snapshot" behavior the default Copy behavior and fix the Cmd-Opt-Shift-V shortcut.
2. Make the current behavior a separate item (opt-copy?) called something like "Copy Dynamic".

Stop the stupid: Disabling Microsoft AutoUpdate on macOS as of Nov 2024

Microsoft AutoUpdate is painfully stupid. It makes my teeth hurt stupid.

No matter what setting I use, even after I tell it to "just update everything, I don't care, go away" it launches 100 times a day (ok, at least once, maybe more than that) and leaves an ugly notification window on top of my desktop. Invariably over something I need to get at.

The click to dismiss it is causing me great emotional pain.

I asked Perplexity how to get rid of it and it did as well as Google -- it gave me answers that ought to work but don't. We all know why that is.

This has worked for me.

1. Go to '/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0'
2. Cmd-drag Microsoft AutoUpdate.app to desktop.
3. Create alias of MAU2.0 folder on desktop.

MAU will stop notifications. Every month or so (yearly?) I drag it into the folder, run update, then drag it out.

Sooner or later Microsoft might make MAU less stupid. My theory is MSFT devs / contractors hate Microsoft Office and want it to die faster.

End of software support for the Fujitsu (Ricoh, PFU) ix500 document scanner

Many years ago I bought a (then) Fujitsu ScanSnap ix500 document scanner. The hardware has been superb but the MacOS desktop software was always ugly and awkward. Infamously there's no API for a third party to use and no standards support. The current version of the desktop software allows only one active WiFi desktop client to protect revenue on their business line.

In contrast to the desktop app the simple iOS app, ScanSnap.app [ScanSnap Connect Application], worked well for me. It was even multi-user -- anyone could scan from their iPhone.

As of 7/2024 the ix500 still works with a single macOS device by cable or WiFi using the current desktop app. The iOS app is end of life however. A year ago it dropped Google Drive support. A few days ago OneDrive auto-upload started to crash the app following upload (it freezes, needs force quit, the document is lost).

The replacement for [ScanSnap Connect Application] is ScanSnap Home. That app does not support the ix500; it will not connect via WiFi. There is also an end-of-life ScanSnap Cloud app that uses PFU's crazy (failed?) cloud document routing service. I did not test that app.

For now we will probably switch our ix500 to a wired machine connection; I have a de facto home server that will work for that.

I'm playing around with iOS ScanSnap.app to see what still works after disabling OneDrive Auto Upload:

1. If you preview a PDF doc it can be sent to OneDrive from preview without a crash.
2. If you tap on the ellipsis next to a File you can AirDrop or otherwise move it about in iOS Files. 
3. If you use the ScanSnap Edit function, select documents, then choose "Save to the Files app" the documents in <On My iPhone / ScanSnap / ScanSnap / .Files> [1] are copied to <On My iPhone / ScanSnap / ScanSnap> and from there can be manipulated using Files.

I'll update if a learn more. ScanSnap Connect Application was last updated 2m ago but I'm pretty sure it worked until 2w ago. I'm guessing something changed in OneDrive recently. Perhaps it will start working again someday -- like Apple Aperture's peculiar and transient Ventura M1 resurrection.

PS. I have never had Apple's scripting/automation software be useful for anything I really needed it for. It would be nice if there was a way to use it to move things from .Files to somewhere useful but I'd be shocked if that were possible.

Sharing an iPad with "Family Sharing" and a unique "Family" Apple ID.

Nobody expects Apple to bring Apple ID switching to iPadOS -- even though there's a version of it for managed devices. Technical and revenue issues aside, there are likely DRM contractual limitations.

So no Apple ID switches for the iPad. But there's a relatively easy way to implement a shared iPad for up to 5 people where Family Sharing can be used:

1. Give the iPad it's own unique Apple ID
2. Make the iPad Apple ID a family member. (See also: migrating from legacy shared iTunes Apple ID to family sharing.)

The five person "limit" is because Apple DRM / FairPlay is limited to at most 6 Apple IDs in a family group. Five for each family member, one for the family.

Caveat: Family Sharing for adults means every family member's purchases go first to the Apple Cash balance purchaser's account, next to the Organizer's payment method. Sooner or later I suspect Apple will need to fix this but it's been a problem for years. Without family sharing the shared iPad isn't useful for sharing Apple's media content.