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macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

danpetrov.xyz

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Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#51

Post by marcellus23 »

exikyut wrote: post #11
danpetrov wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also "networksetup", which allows you to do pretty much anything you want with network configuration. Useful if you want to e.g. automate VPN network switching or locations.

Oh no. Oh no oh no. You don't mean Apple's implemented the Wi-Fi autoconfig functionality Ubuntu failed to deliver in ~2008, do you? Because if they have... they'll have done it... correctly. If the binary and/or supporting libraries have any references to FieldAgents in them... we're doomed. That's Skynet, right there.

Can you expand a bit? Some quick Googling didn't reveal anything useful to me -- what exactly are you talking about?

Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#55

Post by curun1r »

blakesterz wrote: post #2

This is a neat little tool. I had no idea that was hiding in there. Anyone have any other little hidden gems on MacOS?

I’m not sure if I’d consider it hidden, but there’s so much that can be done with the oascript utility. The idea that most GUI apps can be queried or controlled from the command line is super powerful, even if AppleScript is somewhat obtuse.

As an example, I have shell aliases setup to cd into the folder(s) open in Finder or reference files selected in Finder.

Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#56

Post by epistasis »

quesera wrote: post #50
epistasis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a great method for reducing user interface complexity, by taking rarely useful things out of the main flow. Option-click is pretty much the only trick used for menus, and it's fairly universal across the nearly 80 years of Mac. The incidence of people that would be helped by those graphs, and the people that option-click is pretty high, so this seems like a great combination. It's similar to option-le…

> it's fairly universal across the nearly 80 years of Mac 2021 - 1984 == 37 I concur with your other points. :)

Oops, I thought I had typed 40... 80 would have been in the days of Turing!

Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#57

Post by dylan604 »

acdha wrote: post #28
dylan604 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But who cares? If that's the same box that I connect to when I view Netflix content, then that's the performance I want to know about. Unless you are saying this OpenConnect box (will have to look whatever that is up later) is different from what connection is made when I hit Play, then that could be an issue. Then again, Fast.com is primarily a tool for Netflix. It let's its users feel like they are getting "useful"…

I think the key part is needing that understanding that it tells you how fast Netflix will perform, which is likely not the same as general internet performance. That can be useful to compare with tools like https://speed.cloudflare.com/ to see how your ISP's peering holds up but it's definitely an important nuance.

Hmmm, I hadn't visited Fast.com in some time. Just visited, and it quite clearly states "Your Internet Speed" and the title of the page visible in the tab is "Internet Speed Test". I can't imagine why people would be consfused. /s

I clicked around to see if they defined it in more detail about specifically testing Netflix CDN vs general internet activity, but I found not such information. However, this has always been understood on my part to be the case. Maybe because of where I was working when it first came on scene? I clearly didn't get that information from their website.

Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#58

Post by microtonal »

blakesterz wrote: post #2

This is a neat little tool. I had no idea that was hiding in there. Anyone have any other little hidden gems on MacOS?

Grapher, it is a nice program to plot functions (2D and 3D):

https://twitter.com/danieldekok/status/1420093244894031874

Re: macOS Monterey's new network quality tool is surprisingly good

#60

Post by wintermutestwin »

epistasis wrote: post #40
wintermutestwin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you so much for this. I think this is worthy of a separate HN post. On a related note, these hidden features are really annoying. How hard would it be to have a WiFi diags link in the WiFi dropdown? Why does Apple think that hiding things makes for a better user experience? Is it so that the people in the know get to feel like arcane knowledge masters? As it is, I have started randomly holding down option and c…

I think this is a great method for reducing user interface complexity, by taking rarely useful things out of the main flow. Option-click is pretty much the only trick used for menus, and it's fairly universal across the nearly 80 years of Mac. The incidence of people that would be helped by those graphs, and the people that option-click is pretty high, so this seems like a great combination. It's similar to option-le…

The more I think about your points, the more I understand the whys. As someone who is moderately technical and new to macos, I wish there was a global "power user" setting.
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