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This utility turns off the MacBook display when it connects to an external monitor

App

Add it to the list of trivial things macOS inexplicably can’t do: turn off the laptop display when it connects to an external monitor.

Until yesterday, what I did was use a utility — MonitorControl — to reduce the built-in display brightness to the minimum. It’s effectively off, but still active, meaning the mouse “wanders off” into the darkness and, depending on how the monitors are arranged, the Dock ends up hidden on the blacked-out display.

I happened to come across a tiny free app by Jeremy Kanter, suggestively named One Display, that turns off (really turns off) the built-in display as soon as the laptop is connected to an external screen.

To my surprise, it works!

There are only two options in One Display:

  1. Launch at login (Start at login).
  2. A keyboard shortcut to toggle the laptop display on and off. The default is Control + Command + B.

In an ideal world (or operating system), this functionality would be native. I know the KDE Plasma graphical environment does this. In macOS, to the dismay of people who prefer working with a single display, it apparently isn’t a priority.

The one change that worked: I banned myself from social media — and my children have never been happier 
theguardian.com

Reading yet another one of the countless articles and opinion pieces from people discovering that it’s good not to spend the whole day glued to their phone, I picked up an ~interesting technique. When Anna Mathur is with her kids and needs to do something on her phone, she “announces” the action:

One habit that helped was narrating my phone use out loud. When I pick it up in front of the kids, I say: “I’m just adding bananas to the shopping.” It keeps me accountable, because once I’ve said it, I do that one thing and put it down. And it tells my children that I’m not disappearing, as I used to.

I think it applies to adult-only situations too.

How to disable WordPress 7.0’s new AI features

Released this Wednesday (20th), WordPress 7.0’s headline feature was supposed to be real-time collaboration. But in the final stretch, after beta versions, Matt Mullenweg, the project’s leader, postponed the feature and promoted LLM integration to be the version’s centerpiece instead.

(Matt’s leadership was a shitshow, with delays, new demands with unrealistic deadlines, and as always, plenty of finger-pointing. “What’s wrong with WordPress?”, asks the only person with the power to change WordPress’s direction.)

If you don’t see the value in or are wary of an infusion of generative AI on your website, blog, or online store (a plausible concern, I must say), fortunately there’s a way to disable all this new AI stuff. If you have access to the wp-config.php file, add this line:

define( 'WP_AI_SUPPORT', false );

If the file is beyond your reach, install the Turn Off AI Features plugin.

You can’t imagine my relief watching this drama from the outside. In early May, we migrated this Manual do Usuário to ClassicPress, a lifeline that I discovered back in 2022 and which, six years later, remains active and better than ever. How can you not love the idea of free software?

A few months ago, youtubers reported unsolicited interventions by Google to “improve” their videos with generative AI. It appeared to be a test; now it’s official.

Channel owners can disable this feature in Studio: go to Settings, Channel, Advanced settings and uncheck the two options under Video quality enhancements. For viewers, Google’s suggested workaround is to change the resolution in the player’s settings.

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On macOS 26 Tahoe, run this command to disable Liquid Glass:

defaults write -g com.apple.SwiftUI.DisableSolarium -bool YES

Kinda shocked this is possible. Is Liquid Glass just a skin layered on top of macOS’s now‑classic UI? That would explain a lot… (Tip from Capi Etheriel, via r/MacOS.)