text:
Tips on avoiding "Could not activate cellular data network" with New iPad
So I bought a new iPad, 64GB + 4G. And since then it seems like every time I pick it up and go to use a network feature (Hero Academy, Tweetbot, Safari etc.) I get this message "Could not activate cellular data network".
If I reset it then everything will work OK until after I put it away for a while. There's no definite time period for the network failing but it always seems to happen after I have been home or at work (inside a WiFi coverage area) and then I go to use 3G again. The fact that it does work fine after a reset says to me that this is not a signal strength issue, this happens repeatedly at the train station and will always work right after reset. Before reset the network indicator shows full bars and 3G indicator.
Has anyone else experienced this and improved this by changing anything in Settings, by talking to their carrier or anything else? I am thinking this has to be an iOS bug. I should not have to do a white apple reset to use network services!
If it matters I am using a prepaid Optus 3G sim in Melbourne, Australia. My only APN setting is the APN field which is "connectme", correct according to the Optus guide I got with my sim. (new iPad cannot use the 4G networks available in Australia: Australian Competition & Consumer Commission)

I have exactly the same problem. My iPad is wifi + 4G 16GB. Everything that was written on top could have been written by me. I use the network TMN in Portugal, and the only difference is that I'm in a contract, and not in a prepaid.

How do you reset the iPad?

Hold top and home buttons until white apple appears. Don't know who is down voting you, not me!

In that case, see my edit :)

I also had this on T-Mobile UK (3G and HSDPA only, not LTE, network shared with Orange UK), so I don't think it's an operator specific issue.  The fix (so far) was mark's suggestion below: http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/48931/12164

Since the 5.1.1 update this has not occurred again although I have been trying to make it happen, to gather data for the radar issue I filed.

I have had exactly the same issues with my New Ipad 16Gb 4G.
The only way I have found that really gets round it, is to manually select the Network provider, insteady of leaving it set to the 'Automatic' setting.
Come on Optus sort this out !!

This worked for me - having similar problem with the new iPad (iPad 3) on T-Mobile UK.   I also tried rebooting, checking APN settings, but this is the only thing that worked.  Recommend people try this as it's not at all disruptive compared to rebooting, resetting network settings, etc.

You are great! I spent hours doing complicated things when it was this simple!!!!!!!!

According to the website of Optus, all should be working after a sync with iTunes (this is about an iPhone, but I'm sure it applicable to an iPad as well):

iPhone
  iPhone specific APNs and technical settings are automatically
  provisioned when you first connect your iPhone (with an Optus SIM card
  inserted) to iTunes and activate your service. Performing a restore
  will also resend these settings to your iPhone.

UPDATE:
Try to reset your network settings by going to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings

If you cast a negative vote, please leave a comment so I can improve my answer where you think it's needed...

I would have thought I had any required setting but could try it again I suppose. I did sync to restore my old iPad's backup data to the new one.

Thanks - tried it but no luck.  Still complains that "couldn't activate the cellular network".


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Is there a remote desktop or vnc app for the IPad that properly handles Bluetooth keyboard shortcuts?
I've tried 4 or 5 remote desktop apps, the most notable being Jump Desktop and Splashtop Streamer. Most of these remote desktop apps have some sort of on-screen keyboard for typing with the IPad, including special keys like shift, control, alt. The special keys act like  "sticky keys" meaning they stay depressed until another key is pressed, to make it easier to do key combinations. Even non-standard keyboard combinations like shift+enter work, in this sticky sense.
When using a Bluetooth keyboard with the remote desktop apps, both Jump and Splashtop Streamer recognize the shift + letter combination for doing capital letters. However, generically pressing shift, cntrl, or alt does not depress the sticky on screen shift buttons or do anything at all. Only a few combinations are recognized (again like shift+letter, cntrl+C). Most combinations do not work (shift+enter, alt+tab). Even having the keyboard shortcuts work like sticky keys (press shift then enter, not both at once) would be much better than the limited functionality they have now.
Is there an app, jailbreak app, or workaround that lets me use bluetooth keyboard properly with remote desktop on the ipad?

I'm one of the developers on Jump Desktop.

The current version of Jump on the App Store (4.0.6) lets you use many shortcut combinations (including Ctrl+C) using macros: http://support.jumpdesktop.com/entries/188429 .
We're beta testing the next version of Jump that has 100% bluetooth keyboard support (i.e. you won't need to use macros and all keys work like on a regular keyboard). If you'd like to help us by beta testing it send mail to our support team and they'll add you into the beta group.

Thanks haseebq. It's been a while since your answer. Does the current app-store version support this?

Yes the current version on the App Store (v5.0.2 at the time of writing) supports all shortcut combinations.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


text:
After updating to Lion, can't re-install Snow Leopard or Lion
Here is my situation: I have a 2010 iMac that came with a Snow Leopard disc, which I installed. Then, when Lion was released, I upgraded to it. However, yesterday, I had to erase my entire HDD (because of a permanent kernel panic due to the removal of some vital OS stuff).
The problem is that now I can't install Snow Leopard again (so that I may upgrade to Lion) or install Lion without downloading it (my connection is VERY slow, it would take over a week possibly). I tried using the Snow Leopard disc, which I confirmed to work on a Windows machine, to install it. However, it just ejects the disc on my Mac, going to the new Lion thing after boot (where you can install it by downloading from Apple's servers). It does the same with a Lion disc that I burned myself. Holding C won't help, and the discs won't appear on the option boot screen.
What should I do? Is there any way to revert the firmware back to pre-Lion, so that I may install Snow Leopard and then upgrade?
Note: I only have a Windows machine working, not another Mac.

Firmware shouldn't have anything to do with it. I was able to install SL while I had Lion on. Maybe there is some problem with your disk drive on Mac?
I haven't tried it but you might be able to use the disc from a network device but you will have to find more info on it. Also you might be able to revert the system sometime back using Time Machine. Have you looked into that?

I installed with the same disc before updating to lion, and putting it on windows shows it has files and folders in it (so it isn't scratched or anything). I could also put any DVDs on my mac before wiping out the OS, so the reader is fine. I don't use time machine (because I don't have anywhere to back up).

There is definitely something wrong, what you've described sounds like exactly the right steps to solve your problem, either you're doing something wrong or the disk is damaged or your Mac's optical drive isn't working.
Hold down the option key while booting your Mac, and insert the Snow Leopard install disk. It should show up after a minute (maybe you have to press "refresh"? I can't remember), and you can boot from it. Before installing, it's probably a good idea to use Disk Utility to repartition and erase your hard drive, specifically to remove the recovery partition that Lion has created for you (it will be recreated if you install Lion again later).
Failing that, you can try booting from the Snow Leopard install disk using another Mac to see if it's working, or try using someone else's install disk on your Mac. You might also try duplicating the disk on your Windows pc (using an app that does a low level/raw disk copy, not just a file copy — which will not work).
If none of that works for you, perhaps take your Snow Leopard install disk in to an Apple store or Reseller and tell them you can't get it to boot, maybe they will be willing to test the disk for you and perhaps give you a new one (for free if they're really nice).
You can also use someone else's Mac to download Lion (open the App Store on their Mac, log out of their account, log into your account, go to Purchases and click download on Lion, then log out of your account. Remember to log out of your account! otherwise they might accidentally buy apps with your credit card). Once you have the Lion install package on their Mac, right-click and Show Package Contents on it and drill through the folders until you find the InstallESD.dmg file. Use Disk Utility to copy that DMG onto a DVD or USB memory stick (use the "backup/restore" feature to copy the DMG's content onto the disk). Old Macs can't boot off a USB memory stick, but all recent ones can.
I've been told most Apple Stores are willing to do the above for you if you explain you've got a slow internet connection at home.

If I hold option to the selection screen (it takes several restarts for it to appear; most of the times it just skips to the lion instalation page) and then insert the disc, it will read for a few seconds and then eject it. I dont know anyone else who owns a mac. I might take it to an apple store (since Ive got apple care) later. Id like to avoid that if possible since, you know, its a 21.5 inch iMac which is heavy.

You have to restart several times to get the option selection screen to appear? There is definitely something wrong then. Sounds like you are having hardware problems. I don't think this is a solvable problem, more likely you need to get it replaced under warranty (or buy a new mac if it's out of warranty).

I know it's an hold post but I didn't found solution anywhere so I post mine here.
Apperently your Macbook (and my Macbook too ;) ) can't boot with the software in the live CD of Snow Leopard. What I did is that I took an external HDD, an old Macbook (not the pro) and install SL on the HDD.
The important step is to boot the HDD FIRST ON THE OLD MAC and do the software update.
After that you can boot your HDD on your Macbook Pro and copy it with Disk utility in your internal HDD.
Tought you could also do this procedure via Target mode ... but I didn't tested :)
Hope this post will be usefull for someone in the future.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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Set an alert for an event in a subscribed calendar in iCal
My meetup.com account allows me to subscribe to an iCal calendar that displays all meetups that I have RSVP'd "yes" to.
All of the events appear as expected, but none of them have an alert setting (e.g., display message 2 hours before).
Is there a way to set an alert for events in a read-only subscribed calendar?

Possibly related:  http://apple.stackexchange.com/q/30688/5118

Possibly related: http://apple.stackexchange.com/q/3325/5118

My workaround, annoying as it is, is to copy the subscribed event to my main calendar and set my alerts from the copy.

Very annoying! But apparently the only workable solution :S

As of iOS 13, Calendar's Default Alert Time setting will be used for alerts in the external calendar subscription.

Before subscribing to the external calendar, go to Settings > Calendar, tap Default Alert Times and select the desired alert (in user5118's case, "2 hours before")
Subscribe to the external calendar as usual

To change the alerts for a subscribed calendar (e.g. from "None" to "2 hours before"), unsubscribe from the calendar, change Calendar's Default Alert Time as described above and then re-subscribe. To unsubscribe from a calendar:

Go to Settings > Passwords & Accounts > Subscribed Calendars
Tap the calendar to unsubscribe from and enable Remove Alarms
Tap Delete Account, and then tap Delete Account again to confirm

it is simple, but I spent much time to get this answer, thanks!

How would this work if you are on macOS and not iOS?  I don't subscribe to calendars from my phone, I only use it to read them after subscribing on my mac.

I don't believe it's possible to add data/information to a subscribed .ics calendar. I've tried to make it work here using a calendar I'm subscribed to and my only option is to view the event.
Even if I try to delete an individual event within the subscribed .ics calendar I'm presented with a dialog saying You can't change items in calendars you subscribe to.
If you are sent an invite by someone then you can set an alert for that event.
If Meetup.com allows you to set an alert in the subscribed calendar that may be your only option.

@ M.W. There is a another way.
In the Calendar app on our Mac go to Preferences.
Select "Alerts"
Select the "Account" you want to modify alerts for.
Choose an  a selection for "Events", "All Day Events", "Birthdays"
You will see that "Use these default alerts on this computer only" is greyed out. That is because these are per-device/local setting.
Now every event in your calendar will be updated with those alert settings.
Another option is to download the Google Calendar app and allow it notify you for only those events.

You can Control click on the calendar in iCal and go to Get Info and enable 'Ignore Alerts'. I'm not sure if this preference syncs with the iPhone too, but it certainly works on the Mac.

He's looking for a way to add an alert to a subscribed calendar event, not a way to disable all alerts for the calendar.

Well, isn't that as simple as making sure that 'Ignore Alerts' is disabled?

That's wrong on two and a half levels: 1) you refer to enabling "Ignore Alerts", not disabling it. 1.5) The events would need to already have alerts, which they don't. 2.5) He's subscribed to it, so he can't add an alert with the native method.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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How can I rename music videos on my iPhone?
I want to find some music videos and rename them, but I can't figure out how to do that?
I am using iPhone 4S - iOS 5.0.1 - a jailbroken phone and using iFile And iFunBox.

I don't believe it is possible to rename the title of the Music video. The workaround would be this (NOTE: This does involve using a paid Cydia package, Bridge ($1.99)):

Open Cydia and search for "Bridge". Buy it, install it, respring.
Navigate to /var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/Music via iFile (or SSH Client of choice)

This is where your music, music videos and movies are stored on iOS.

Tap on the gear icon in the left lower corner, go to File Manager > Search Format and change it to Wildcard if not already selected.
Go back to File Manager and turn on "Song Titles" if not already on. Press Done in the upper right corner.
Swipe up to reveal the search field, select "Hierarchy" and type "*.m4v"

NOTE: If your video files are not M4V, then you would type their extension in it's place eg. *.AVI or *.MP4.
This should search all of the subfolders (F01, F02…) for any video files.

Unfortunately iTunes names them things like "AAWA.mp3", that is why we turned on song titles. It should display the title above the file name for the video.
Once you find the file, note it's location in case you mess up the next step:
Long press over it and choose "Select".
Tap the clipboard in the lower right corner and select copy.
Navigate to /var/mobile/Documents/Downloads and paste the video.
Go to Bridge on the home screen and navigate to /var/mobile/Documents/Downloads
Choose the video file to import, on the info page select "Music Video" and choose a title for it.
Tap import and you should be all set! :-)

It is quite a long and convoluted way to rename a video file, but it is possible (sort of!).

If you have jailbroken your iPhone, I would recommend installing openSSH.
I don't know how to locate the files using iFile or iFunbox, but you install openSSH you can log onto your device using a SSH/FTP client, and your movie files should be placed at:
/user/media/dcim/

I use WinSCP (http://winscp.net/eng/download.php) to FTP to my iPhone.

hi, thanks for answer | i checked it with both WinSCP and iFunBox and that folder was empty (/user/media/dcim/) but i have two music files in my vedeos area(i got them with celeste bluetooth).i want to transfer them to iTunes And Rename them. also i want to find them (folder location)

any other location?

any body home? is this area active? no comment, no new answer...

hello....
still no help...


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Can't downgrade or update jailbroken iPhone
I can't update or downgrade my iPhone 3GS, Firmware 4.3.5 tethered with redsn0w.
Whenever I try to update it, I get a "device isn't eligible" error. I researched on how to do that, like changing host files, but none of them worked for me. I use OS X Snow Leopard.
##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1   localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost
74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com

This is my host file – not sure if it's the orginal one or not.

The host file is not the original. That
74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com

resolves gs.apple.com to 74.208.10.249 (nginx.saurik.com) and not the real server by Apple, so that the SHSH trick works. Probably you have added it at some point. If you remove that you should be able to upgrade to iOS 5.1 using Apple's update. However, depending on the bootrom that you phone has, you may or may not be able to do a untethered jailbreak with Redsn0w, so be very careful before deciding whether you want to upgrade (although you say you have tethered jailbreak so probably you can live with tethered).
As for downgrading, I am not sure why you can't do this, chances are that you don't have SHSH for lower versions in Cydia.
Edit: for downgrading you may have to use another IP address in the hosts file. I've seen 74.208.105.171 used recently (check the recent tutorials for saving SHSH blobs, the IP address may have changed)

@lupincho is correct that you should remove the gs.apple.com line if you want to be able to upgrade to the latest version of iOS (5.1) using iTunes.
If you want to upgrade or downgrade to any iOS version other than the latest version, you'll need to have already saved SHSH blobs for that version. And more specifically, if you want to upgrade to iOS 5.x using SHSH blobs (such as to iOS 5.0.1), you need to stitch the SHSH blobs into custom firmware instead of using the host file trick due to changes in how Apple does the SHSH blob verification process. See here for a detailed guide to using SHSH blobs to restore to iOS 5.x.


text:
Stream iTunes TV shows to iPad?
Is it possible to stream television programs from the iTunes store to an iPad, like you would do with an Apple TV, or is it only possible to watch them by downloading first?

Do you want to avoid the download to your Mac/PC or the download to the iPad?

You could start the download of the TV show on the iPad and then start watching it after a few minutes (depending in your connection speed) once its buffered enough.
To do this start the download in the iTunes app and the switch to the videos app and you can start watching, as it downloads it will fill in the time slider bar in white.
Then delete it after you've watched it. This is effectively streaming.
Hopefully the rumoured upcoming iTunes revamp, will include more natural streaming. It's likely though that there is no traditional streaming because of licensing issues.


text:
Dropbox sync alike app, that use own web server

Possible Duplicate:
Dropbox-like client for FTP? or WebDAV? or CMIS?

Is there any Dropbox sync alike app , that can
-use own ftp server
-sync like Dropbox(if there is a change is local drive then auto upload to the ftp server)

Do you need GUI? Which OS?

If you have some to add to this to make it different than the other question, edit your question and flag for a second look.

macintosh operating system


text:
LaTeX- LaTable GUI did not show up on Mac
I downloaded a LaTable Mac Version but when I clicked on the file, the GUI did not show up. I am using MacBook Pro 10.6.  I am wondering if anyone is having similar problems or knows how to fix this?
This is where I downloaded the package.
http://mac.softpedia.com/progDownload/LaTable-Download-79088.html
I also downloaded Darwin that supposedly help Mac run some Windows based program.
http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/2009-April/040025.html
http://www.kronenberg.org/darwine/

Are there any error messages printed to the terminal you used to start the program?

No, nothing that I am aware of.


text:
Getting contacts from Microsoft Exchange on my iPhone
I recently brought an Android phone and I'm trying to move my contact list from my iPhone to the new phone. Someone suggested using Exchange so I added Exchange to my iPhone using my Gmail details and selected Mail, Contacts, and Calendars.
It asked if I wanted to delete contacts from my iPhone and I said yes thinking my contacts were backed up with iTunes.  Now I have lost my contacts from my iPhone and I don't know how to get them from Exchange.  I have also tried selecting Sync contacts with Google in iTunes but this does't seems to have done anything.  What should I do?

Although your phone and your exchange are now in sync, you did not merge both databases.
By 'deleting' you relpaced your phones contacts with those of the Google Exchange Server.
Your contacts are backed up inside the general backup of your phone and if you restore your iPhone from those backups you get your contacts back, though loosing everything new since then. You can extract the contacts directly from the backup with tools like iPhone BackupExtractor. You should be able to import those directly via the gmail webinterface.

You should not have clicked Delete contact rather Merge contacts. You might want to reside to other more straight forward ways to transfer and sync iPhone contacts.
To get your original iPhone contacts back: If you recently synced your iPhone with iTunes, the contact entries were backed up automatically by iTunes. The only way to restore them is if you restore your iPhone to factory settings via iTunes. iTunes will then ask you whether you wish to restore your iPhone from an earlier backup. Choose the latest entry. Your contact entries will be restored.


text:
Show context sensitive keyboard upper case or lower case characters on the iPad

Possible Duplicate:
Is there a way to configure the keyboard on an iPad

My Windows Phone's keyboard displays the characters on it depending on the context, i.e, if I am currently typing lower case characters the keyboard overlay is lowercase and ditto for upper case.
I just got myself a new iPad yesterday and found that the keyboard is always stuck on uppercase. I mean when I type it works fine but the overlay is always uppercase. Anyway to change this?

What os level is on your iPhone? That seems odd behavior

@bmike: You know I could have sworn thats how my iphone worked but I checked and realized that how my Windows Phone works!

The question still holds though.

Hmm... My iPhone overlay is always on upper case.

There is no way to change the way the iOS keyboard works, which is always uppercase.

Seems like the same question as http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/49886/is-there-a-way-to-configure-the-keyboard-on-an-ipad

No way to change that without jail breaking.

@bmike It's perfectly normal. The keys themselves always display uppercase, no matter what case they're actually typing. Just like a hardware keyboard!


text:
How similar is Microsoft Excel for Mac to Excel for Windows?
Like the title says - how similar is Microsoft Excel for Mac to Excel for Windows? Is it confusing when you have to keep switching from one to the other when working on a complicated excel file? (For example using a Mac at home and Windows at work). Are the formatting and formula inputs exactly the same? Thanks for any answers!

My Excel in the Mac doesn't open some password-protected files of my Windows ExceL: in Windows, the Excel passwords can have an almos limitless number of caracters, but in the Mac the password must be 16 or less.
The only solution I found was to reduce the number of characters in the password of the Windows files.
If you have Office for Mac 2011, there is a 100 percent compatibility ratio, as described on the BrightHub review.
I work with both and personally, I find Excel for Windows much more intuitive and more user friendly, but basically you can do (almost) the same with both versions.
But the most important part is, the two versions are 100% compatible with each other.

'Almost the same'?.. Could you possibly expand on that?

I meant qua lay-out. All functions and formatting are the same.

I have Excel for Mac 11 and also use Excel 97, Excel 07 and Excel 10 on various Windows machines.  Needless to say, there is confusion all over the place with the different menus, shortcuts, ribbons.  Shortcuts are different, keyboards are different.  They do the same things, and that really depends on how complex your spreadsheets are as I think even with newer software, most people don't get too complex with Excel, be prepared that it will have to be done differently from machine to machine.  I think MS will let you do a trial so can get get a feel for it.

Your mileage may vary depending on your requirements.
Visual Basic Applications (VBA) macros while supported in Excel 2011 don't always work when they were set up in Excel for Windows. Also ActiveX controls do not work in Excel 2011.
I wouldn't call that 100% compatibility but it is a lot better than previous versions of Excel for Mac.

I'm an advanced Office 2003/7 Excel user (Windows).  I've recently been using Excel for Mac 2011 and while you can do a lot of things with the Mac version, learning how to do them a different way for Mac makes it a royal pain in the proverbial.  Ultimately, all the design has gone into the first Windows version and in the Windows environment is an awesome tool.  On a complex file, you might as well be learning a new application. I don't have the time to effectively learn a new application, so will be Windowsizing my Mac solely to use Office.


text:
howto: limit movies displayed in itunes "in-app" movies folder to those in the itunes library
Itunes adds all movies to my itunes movies folder (not the actual folder in the filesystem, but the one inside itunes), including movies from trash and personal stuff I don't want in itunes. How can I limit the movies itunes display to the one's that are actually added to the library and/or "reside" in specific folders?

iTunes is going to display any files that are in its library. To avoid displaying files, don't import them into iTunes and don't use iTunes as the player for those files because they will be added to the library collection. To play those files use Quicktime Player or a third-party solution like VLC instead.
You can also disable iTunes's copying of files into it's own folder structure in iTunes > Preferences > Advanced, but this will apply to all media types and, in my experience, is a less-than-optimal way to use iTunes.


text:
How to transfer a movie (.avi) from pc to iPad without iTunes?
I'm trying to copy a .avi movie-file that I ripped from a dvd that I own from my PC to my iPad. I've tried doing this with iTunes, to no avail, and frankly I'm sick of iTunes so I'm looking for alternative methods. So far, I have found none.
Does anyone know an easy way to transfer a file (specifically an .avi file), from a pc laptop (with windows Vista) to an iPad without iTunes? (Preferably through the usb connection?)
ps.: Don't worry about the .avi format, I've installed the flexplayer app on the iPad, which should be able to deal with movie formats other than .mp4 such as the .avi I've chosen here.

Flexplayer should support iTunes File Syncing but based the reviews in the store it doesn't really work anyway. You may be better of with converting your .avi's to .mp4 before syncing.

What OS does your PC run? You'll need a program like PhoneView to copy the PC files into the documents folder of the flex:player app.

I cannot post a new answer, so I leave it as comment. Check i-FunBox. You will need to install drivers for iPad that come with iTunes though e.g. CopyTrans Drivers Installer.

There are a lot of alternatives for iTunes which will allow you to manage your iDevice.
Floola, Songbird and Yamipod are three popular alternatives for iTunes.
Then there is software which will allow you to treat your iDevice like a external hard drive, like iTransfer or SyncPod (not for Lion or iOS5).
But my overall favorite is Bigasoft iPad 2 Transfer. I've used it quite some time and I have no complaints about it.
If it's an option, you could try and stream it. Make an server out of your Mac and stream it with Air Video to your iPad.
And there is even an alternative by using the cloud. Dropbox is a great example of this. It's all listed in this article of MacWorld, which made me wonder if you even have searched far and wide enough :)

Bigasoft iPad 2 transfer only works with the iPad 2 right? I have an iPad 1 unfortunately. And iTransfer and Syncpod only run on macs (I have a pc).
As far as I can see, songbird, yamipod and floola can only manage audio files, and the article is (again) mainly about sharing files from mac to iDevice.
So that leaves me with dropbox, which is a good suggestion (although still very cumbersome and still not a direct solution). Frankly I can't believe apple is making it this difficult.. But thanks for the help!

The link of Bigasoft clearly stated It also applies to the new iPad 3 or the 1st generation iPad and there is a Windows version of iTransfer and SyncPod too. Just click on the links.

Not very clearly, but i see it now. And I did click on the links, I'm not a retard. But thanks for the condescending attitude!

No no no, it wasn't meant to be condescending! Really not. But I changed the links to windows links after I read in your question you had a Windows. So, maybe you clicked before and ended up with Mac versions. What I meant was, click again. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding!

Oh sorry, my bad. I think I clicked too soon then. My sincere apologies for my reaction, and thanks again for the suggestions, it's appreciated!

Great answer, but I no free software for iPad 3. Perhaps Buzz Player + FTP server is the only "lightweight" option though not so fast as direct USB connection.

Doesn't satisfy your "USB connection" criteria, but the Buzz Player app for iPad can play video files off any machine on your local network (provided you can reach it via SMB or FTP), and offers the option to copy them over to the iPad first.

I often use DropBox for this and either re-use an existing account or simply make a new account for just this purpose. Presumably you have WiFi when you are at your iTunes to USB to iPad location and can just dump all the AVI files into dropbox. The iPad dropbox app will hopefully see that flex:player has registered to play AVI files and offer to send the file to the app from within iOS rather than how the flex:player wants you to use iTunes to copy the documents into the app.
Alternatively, you could use a program similar to PhoneView to replicate the function iTunes serves by mounting the iPad so you can copy files directly into flex:player's documents folder on the iPad. That would totally bypass iTunes and still use the USB cable as you asked.

GoodReader supports file transfer from your Mac or PC using:

USB, using there own GoodReaderUSB app
USB, using iTunes file transfer
WiFi, using the in-app GoodReader webserver on your iPhone or iPad

Once your video is in GoodReader you can use 'open in…' to open it in whatever app supports the filetype. GoodReader is one of those 'swiss army apps' which does a bunch of things. It is considered an invaluable tool.
It supports both iPhone and iPad, and costs US$5.

This is something I found by thinking out loud what would happen if I connect my ipad to ubuntu directly since they are both unix-based.
If you connect the ipad by usb to your ubuntu notebook or desktop, it will show two drives in the ubuntu file manager - /documents, /ipad. In /documents you can find the folder for your apps (dropbox, vlc, acrobat, etc). You can just drag and drop your large files directly and it will be as fast as your usb can. The /ipad drive is for itunes folders and it doesn't seem to work adding files in there. But you can open the dcim folder in there and get your ipad photos and videos.
PS: Here's the caveat. I upgraded the ipad to iOS6 and now I cannot drag files into /documents drive.

There are many programs that mount iOS 6 devices so you can copy files into each app's documents folder. This answer would be great if you could list something that actually works on ubuntu...


text:
Using Automator or AppleScript to encrypt/decrypt with OpenSSL
I would like to know how to use Automator or AppleScript to create a droplet that would compress/uncompress (tar.gz) and encrypt/decrypt with OpenSSL files and/or directories dropped in it. The workflow on what the droplet will do to encrypt would be something like this:

Files/directory is dropped on droplet
Files/directory is compressed
A password prompt is presented
OpenSSL is used to encrypt file, file is renamed to *.encrypted

To decrypt:

File is dropped on droplet
If file is named *.encrypted, a password prompt is presented. If not, do encrypt workflow
File is decrypted, and renamed
Files is uncompressed

Anyone?

Actually, Automator is not a bad choice for this, as it allows you to combine AppleScript and shell scripting without actually having to mix them (which leads you straight to escaping hell, after a short stay in quoting purgatory) and pass values between them an orderly fashion. Also, besides a droplet application, Automator will allow you to create a Service with excellent integration into Finder:

Create a new Automator workflow.

either select “Application” when prompted what type of workflow to create – that will get you a droplet that processes files and folders you send to it, or
select “Folder action” and set “Accepts selected” to “files and folders” – that will get you an item in the Finder Services and context menu of files an folders (all translations approximate, I’m on a German system).

Add a "Run AppleScript” action and edit its contents as follows:
on run {input, parameters}
    try
        tell application "System Events" to set thePassword to text returned of (display dialog "Please input your password for OpenSSL encryption" default answer "" with hidden answer)
    on error errorMessage number errorNumber
        if errorNumber is -128 then quit me -- user has canceled
        error errorMessage number errorNumber
    end try
    return (thePassword as list) & input
end run

– this will prompt the user for the encryption password and pass it as the first argument to the next action.
Add a “Run Shell Script” action, setting it to get its input through arguments (not stdin, as is default). Make sure the shell is set to /bin/bash. Edit the script contents as follows:
[[ -n $1 ]] && password="$1" && shift || exit 0
for f in "$@"; do
    if [[ ${f##*.} = "encrypted" ]]; then
        fname="${f%.encrypted}"
        openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -salt -in "$f" -out "$fname".tar.gz -pass pass:$password || continue
        tar -xPf "$fname".tar.gz && rm "$fname".tar.gz || continue
    else
        fname=$([[ -f $f ]] && printf "${f%.*}" || printf "$f")
        tar -czPf "$fname".tar.gz "$f" || continue
        openssl enc -aes-256-cbc -salt -in "$fname".tar.gz -out "$fname".encrypted  -pass pass:$password && rm -f "$fname".tar.gz || continue
    fi
done

– this will decrypt and untar-gzip .encrypted files, tar-gzip and encrypt all other files and directories with AES 256-CBC encryption and the password given.

Caveat Empteor: error handling is primitive (basically, the for loop skips an iteration when it encounters an error), there is no logging and there is no failsafe against wrong password inputs (you might want to ask twice and compare the results, as the shell utility does). Disasters should not happen, though, as files are only deleted when the previous steps complete successfully.
Finally, you might want to investigate alternatives to prompting for a password – a passphrase file on a USB key, say (use -pass file:/Volumes/volname/passfile instead of -pass pass:$password, skip the Applescript step and remove the first line of the shell script), or storing your password in the OS X keychain and retrieving it programmatically (see this answer of mine on Stack Exchange for ways to do that).

Hi there Martin! I am getting this error.

@DavidCollantes: that is Automator throwing a hissy fit after trying to use its own, dumbed down display dialog (which is missing most of the needed options) – I always forget about that until it bites me in the itinerant. Edited my code to account for it.

I get this next, after testing the compiled and saved as program AppleScript. A password prompt comes, which I enter and OK, and then that error next. This is how the full Automator screen looks like.

@DavidCollantes: my bad again – I should have said the on run … end run block is to be left alone. Edited accordingly.

@DavidCollantes: if you experience other issues, I’ll be in chat to discuss them.

thank you very much - i would be awesome if you could add a failsafe against wrong passwords in your script above: like 2 inputs to compare the passwords or a checkbox to show the password! - thank you very much for the great script!

I built an applescript droplet to compress & encrypt a folder. You may need to switch cases on compress & decompress and change command to achieve the same.
https://github.com/palaniraja/PassArchive
look at the code - https://github.com/palaniraja/PassArchive/blob/master/PassArchive.app/Contents/Resources/Scripts/main.scpt
My script is basically a little more beautified version of
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20040923120629702

Yes, I saw your script (actually, I even sent you an email on this yesterday, asking if you could implement it). But the zip encryption is weak. I want OpenSSL AES-256 encryption, that is why I mention OpenSSL.


text:
Can I upgrade MacOS X 10.4 to 10.7 Lion?
I want to upgrade my OS to a new level so that I can download Google Chrome. My computer is pretty old and is running Version 10.4.11. The Mac store won't let me download Lion because I need a higher version than I already have. Where can I find that intermediate version so that I can then upgrade to Lion?

So you have a PPC machine? Lion is Intel only.

Processor says 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo.

You can buy Snow Leopard in the online Apple Store, install it and then upgrade to Lion via the Mac App Store.

Thank you! Do I have to order Snow Leopard by mail or is there a way to download it?

Order by mail (or visit an Apple Retail Store if available in your area)

Are you a MobileMe user? Then chances are that you get a free upgrade to Snow Leopard...


text:
Nook Comics on iPad?
I'm considering buying an iPad to read comics, so I am looking in to my options for purchasing digital comics.  I see Barnes and Noble sells "Nook Comics", and their site indicates these can be read on the color Nook tablets and the Nook app for Android.
Seems odd that they'd support reading the comics on the Nook app only for Android, not under iOS as well.  I was hoping someone who uses the Nook ecosystem and has an iPad could clarify if this is an oversight, or accurate.  Does the iPad Nook app really not support Nook Comics?

The newest release of NOOK for iPad and iPhone now supports comics and manga.

Please add in the version of nook that supports comics. Adding that will help people know if they have the "newest" once several months have gone by.

You probably need to convert from the Nook format (which I believe is special for the Nook) to one which is more general purpose. The first obstacle is, what exactly is the format they come in?
The chances are very good that you can find something to convert it to PDF, for free.
Once it is in PDF or CBZ or CBR or some more common format, there are lots of comic readers for iPad - my favourite is Comic Zeal but iBooks works pretty well too for PDF.

I'm not looking to break the DRM on the Nook comics and convert them into other formats.  I'm trying to find out if they can be read on an iPad.

My answer is no, not without breaking DRM. It's a shame but that's DRM - http://paidcontent.org/2012/04/24/breaking-drm-publishing-exec/ - if I buy it I need to know I can un-DRM it, because it is very unlikely I'll read exclusively on a Nook for the rest of my life.

Reading more about the Kindle, Nook, and Comixology digital comic options available, I'm not sure this answer is feasible.  All these platforms require you to view the comics on an app, so you'd need to get the files by rooting/hacking/jailbreaking the device and digging through the file system.  Comixology is the only one that lets you view the comics on a computer, and you do so inside a Flash program.


text:
Is there a standard uninstall procedure on Mac OS X?
I've seen advice on an per-application basis, but is there a standard approach like Add/Remove Programs in Windows?

There is no such fantastic API to cleanly manage applications installation in Windows or in MacOS X. You approach this paradigm with port environments as MacPorts and similar on other Unix systems.

None that I know of (as advertised by Apple, I mean).  I found this on my bookmarks: http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/uninstallingapps.html, which might give you a better idea of what to do before and after installing applications.
There are a few apps that take care of this too like: AppCleaner which tries to find the documents and settings the application uses (though it's debatable how efficient/reliable this apps or any app of this nature really are)

+1 for AppCleaner. As to its effectiveness, seeing what it finds and deletes makes my think it, and similar, does a pretty good job. At least as good as a windows uninstaller, which leave stuff behind more often than not.

+1 for AppCleaner too. For anyone reading this answer, I have been using this app for a while and it works like a charm on macOS High Sierra.

How does AppCleaner find the files? I would prefer doing this stuff using the command line rather than using a closed source app that requires root privileges.

Remember that (most) Mac OS X apps are installed self-contained; i.e., you simply drag a copy of the *.app folder into the Applications directory of your choice.
Once reason for this is to simplify the uninstall - delete the app folder; simple.

This is not correct. spotlight will show you what is left behind.

It is correct, it says most apps.

The vast majority of OS X programs are actually bundles; if you open the terminal and navigate to the application folder, you'll find that your applications are actually directories (folders). Inside are various libraries, executables, resource files, etc.
To uninstall you usually...usually...just drag the application to the trash and empty it. Then do a search from the Spotlight textbox (think it's a dropdown from the magnifying glass in the corner) and look for the application name to find any .plist files in the library folder(s); those are the preferences. You can drag and drop those into the trash as well. Then the application should be gone.
I say usually because some applications did use installers when you put them in, and sometimes those installers can when re-run uninstall the program. The majority, though, can be eliminated as described above, especially if you installed it by dragging it to the application folder in the first place.
If you screw up somehow you could always just reinstall the application and look for a README file in the installer DMG volume. I've seen a lot of applications that come with a README just to tell you to drag the application to the trash to uninstall it.

Use Spotlight.
First drag the app to the trash. Wait.
First background:
 man hier   # get an idea of where that stuff should be.

Then run:
 mdfind -name AppName      #identify all the stuff that got left behind.

Then to actually remove all files, which is what you would want:
 mdfind -name AppName | parallel rm -rf {}      # xargs works as well, but not as cool

There is something I just don't get about uninstallers i guess, on OSX.  Files have a place to go, it's all very well documented, I do not understand why 9/10 uninstall scripts leave preferences, and Cache and Application Support directories around.

Nope. The installer framework in OS X (.pkg files) does not actually support uninstall. So it's manual cleanup on a case by case basis.

The other comments here are right on for uninstalling applications, however you may want to try something like Hazel which has functionality for deleting an application's related/support files when you have dragged the app to the trash.

I've used AppZapper with good results

I use a one liner borrowed from a user somewhere else on this site, or related sister site, or from macosxhints (I no longer remember the reference or I'd post a link), that I turned into a script (called "uninstaller") and adjusted slightly by changing the rm command to using a safer command line program installed using macports, rmtrash. The user provided bom receipt file should be in /private/var/db/receipts if the application to be removed was installed using an installer and the dev included one. The script will place all files installed into the user's Trash.
 #!/bin/bash
 #uninstaller /private/var/db/receipts/com.url.name.of.app.bom
 #uninstall os x application installed with installer -pkg
 #using (user) provided bom receipt
 #place all installed files and directories in user's Trash

 lsbom="/usr/bin/lsbom"
 cd="/usr/bin/cd"
 sudo="/usr/bin/sudo"
 xargs="/usr/bin/xargs"
 rmtrash="/opt/local/bin/rmtrash"

 lsbom -fls "$1" | (cd /; sudo xargs rmtrash -u $USER)
 exit

Installing MacPorts and rmtrash is simple enough, however, once xcode (for Mavericks 10.9 xcode_5.1.1.dmg) is installed:
 curl -Ok https://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/MacPorts-2.2.1.tar.bz2
 tar xf MacPorts-2.2.1.tar.bz2
 cd MacPorts-2.2.1
 ./configure
 make
 sudo make install #not war!
 cd ..
 rm -rf Macports-*
 sudo /opt/local/bin/port -v selfupdate
 export PATH=$HOME/macports/bin:$HOME/macports/sbin:$PATH
 export MANPATH=$HOME/macports/share/man:$MANPATH
 sudo port -vsc install rmtrash
 diskutil quiet repairPermissions /

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


text:
How do I restrict Internet access while still being able to make calls/receive messages?
Is there any way I can restrict my iphone from using the internet? Basically all apps should be blocked from using the internet, in one go, but I should still have the provision to make/receive phonecalls/messages.

Turn off Wi-Fi (in Settings > Wi-Fi), and turn off Mobile Data (in Settings > General > Network).
This will keep the phone off the internet, but still allow phone calls and texts. (iMessage and MMS won't work, however).


text:
Can the iPad Mail app show the message list full screen?
I just got an iPad (not an iPad 2) and I would like to see the list of messages in the Mail app full screen and not just in the side bar, like they are now. Is this possible?

Sorry no, Mail.app on iPad only has two views.
In Portrait mode, the message list slides in from the left.  You can swipe left and right to change the view to account and folder list and back again, however you cannot resize the pane, although it feels like you should be able to in this view.
In Landscape mode, the message list is permanently fixed in position and width; you can no longer swipe to change the content.

this is not a solution but I just noticed this behaviour.
if the email has a link in it, click it to launch safari. At top left corner of the screen there is in small font an triangle/arrow you can click to return to the mail app. When I click on that it returns to the email in full screen without the email list pane on left side. Mind you the mail msg still does not span the full width of the screen in landscape. And I'm not sure if this is replicable in all emails with links.

I had the same question. Just by chance I gave a good tap to the message and it popped up without the sidebar.

no, you can't. I have an iPad and I can't access all messages at once, sorry.

No that is incorrect, at this time it cannot be swiped away or hidden or resized etc. however I did find a patchwork solution for the moment that accomplishes full page reading until Google execs use their own app & see the glaring design flaw & do an easy code fix. Here it is: simply tap on forward or reply & then when the email opens full screen for sensible reading, just tap the lowest right iPad keyboard key that closes the keyboard & when thru reading your email full page just hit cancel & delete the "draft" message you created. Just a few seconds really & one feels slightly foolish in this techno age & with Google to have to do this at all, however it works great....

The question was about Apple's built-in Mail app, not Gmail.


text:
Strain relief of MagSafe cord and safety
My MagSafe adapter has suffered from strain relief and the insulation is completely frayed off near the tip (it is the newer L-shaped adapter rather than the old T-shaped adapter). It still seems to charge the computer. Is there any risk to my physical safety from continuing to use it?

Which part of the insulation, the white one covering the whole cable or the insulation of the individual wires?

add a picture of the damaged area - internal wires if possible..

Frayed jacketing represents a potential fire hazard if the wires themselves become exposed and overheat, short, and/or arc. Provided only the jacketing is frayed, you could use electrical tape to provide protection to the internal wires or you could add a sleeve or heat shrink tubing.
A safe answer is to order a replacement from Apple in order to protect yourself, your device, and your property.

The same voltages that you find on those wires will also be present on the contacts of the magsafe connector itself. Since these are accessible to a finger, you can be pretty sure that there are no harmful voltages there. I think the biggest potential danger is if the wires short out and enough heat is generated to start a fire. Even that possibility sounds rather far fetched to me, but I won't totally rule it out. The power adapter ought to contain circuitry to protect against that, however.
(I don't usually add disclaimers to my scribblings on the net, but one seems in order here: I am not an expert, just a moderately competent amateur in the field of electronics.)

It's the amperage that'll kill you. A 16.5VDC/85W MagSafe charger would have ~5A going thru it. Would that kill you? Probably not. Also the adapter requires the center pin to be activated prior to power being run thru the two positive pins.


text:
SSH, passphrases, keychains, Could not open a connection to your authentication agent
I will be very surprised if anyone has the answer to this. I have googled for a long time but no luck.
As an iOS developer who will shortly be welcoming a new team member I want to set up a continuous integration server so that anyone who checks in code will kick off a build, which will in turn set the status of a build light providing a visual indication of code status. If the build breaks it won't stay that way for long because we'll see a big red light.
The ingredients I picked to make this work are Jenkins, Git and a Mac mini. Day to day I won't have physical access to the mini but the build light is controlled by ethernet - no problem.
The first step in getting Jenkins to manage a build is to clone the git repository. For obvious reasons it discards any old code and grabs a copy of the entire repository. I'm using a git "Repository URL" of gitfella@boardroom.local:repo/ProjectName.git. Naturally I did 'su - jenkins' and become user jenkins, then going through the process of scp id_rsa.pub gitfella@boardroom.local. As gitfella I appended that public key to authorized_hosts.
The surprise came when I went back to being user jenkins and tried ssh gitfella@boardroom.local - I was asked for the passphrase for jenkins. At this stage I realised the repository clone was failing because the passphrase could not be entered while Jenkins was running without an interactive shell.
The way to get the passphrase into the keychain is ssh-add -K (and prior to Lion I don't remember having to do this ever) but this does not work in a ssh shell, it fails with the message Could not open a connection to your authentication agent. Executing ssh-agent shows the environment variables that need to be set to allow this to happen, and once that's done ssh-add -K works. Then the git clone is OK. Then I thought the problem was solved but next ssh login I'm asked for the passphrase again.
I now have the git clone phase of the build working but I would rather not have to remove the passphrase for Jenkins entirely...
How can ssh-agent values be set on every invocations of this Jenkins build process? Jenkins is started by executing launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist - would it be possible to set the ssh-agent environment in here somehow? Would these settings persist as long as Jenkins does (per boot)?  I'm reluctant to mess with this now I have this little problem mostly sorted, but maybe some expert knows the right fix.

The ssh-add -K  command add the key to the Apple's Keychain, but there is a SSH specific keychain, unrelated do the Apple's one.
It runs as a deamon and interacts only with SSH.
I don't know if this will help you, but I have strong feeling that it will.
Keychain is available as a homebrew package so if you get nomebrew available at your system to install it just type brew install keychan. After that a man keychain will help a lot.

As far as I understand, your problem is, when you logout from the session starting jenkins with your ssh-agent environment, jenkins looses the authentication credentials, right?
Did you try to start jenkins in that way in your launch-agent setup?
ssh-agent jenkins (just as an example)

That means you invoke starting jenkins from the ssh-agent, setting all needed environments and loading the necessary keys from the keychain.


text:
How to automount SMB share in OS X
I am running OS X Lion.  I have the following line in my /etc/fstab:
//darren:q@acid/home   /acid   smbfs   nodev,nosuid,auto
If I run mount -a, the share mounts correctly, but if I just reboot the computer, the drive does not mount.
The drive in question is an Ubuntu SMB share.
Can anyone advise?

I ran across this today which is one way to do it.
In summary for Mountain Lion:

Edit the file /etc/auto_master
Within add /- auto_smb
Create /etc/auto_smb
Within add /Volumes/mount_point -fstype=smbfs,soft ://user:pass@smbserver/share

The author goes onto mention a second method using the vifs command, but I've never tried that one and it seems to do something of a pre-mount at bootup. You still have to touch the Volume for it to completely mount.
Lastly, the author states that "soft" should be used in step 4 above because failures to mount will cause the bootup to hang.

Thanks for the answer. Would you mind summarizing the instructions provided in the link? It is often good to include a link with your answer, however, links can break over time, so it best that they are not solely the answer.

will mount -a work if for some reason it didnt mounted on startup ?

You need to mount the drive once, then go to Settings Panel and Users & Groups. There you can add it. If you hide it, it will mount but don't open the finder screen upon logging in.

He's not talking about Amazon Cloud Drive; your response does not apply to regular filesystem mounts.

It does. Screenshot only show the screen where you should do it, not the program.

OK.  How then do you automount an SMB drive via Settings > Users & Groups > Login Items  I've done it via the accepted answer (/etc/auto_master and /etc/auto_smb), but I don't know what program you would put into Settings > Users & Groups > Login Items to make it work.  A bash script of your own devising?  If so, what would the script say?

Just use Finder to mount it, then you can add it to the screen above.

oh, now I see what you mean (when you just said "then you can add it" it wasn't clear you meant "drag the mounted volume onto the Login Items list"). I didn't know that volumes could be added to that list ... but, clearly, they can.  That's a great tip, thanks!


text:
OSX control over MacBook Pro 17 line out minijack - Can I play music out to a device and throught the loudspeakers at the same time?
I am trying to connect an analog subwoofer to the line out of my MacBook Pro 17. Apparently, contrary to the smaller models, the 17 inch's line out minijack switches between analog or digital, depending on software control from OSX. When you plug in some earphones, contrary to all other computers I have used, there is a lag between the moment in which the electrical connection is made and when the signal is sent to the phones (and loudspeakers muted).
That leads me to believe that there must be a way to tell OSX not to mute the speakers and to play audio through the minijack at the same time. But I have not been able to make it happen.
As soon as the analog external device (let us call it "headphones") is detected, in the "sound" system preferences, the choice switches from "Internal Speakers" to "Headphones", both of type "built-in".
I have examined options like installing Audio Hijack Pro, with the SoundFlower plugin and the Griffin iMic DAC dongle to trick the MBP into sharing a sound source between the speakers and the "line out" of the dongle, which may work, as the article in http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=725870 suggests, but sure looks like a square peg in a round hole.
All I would need is somehow to find a way not to turn off the speakers while the signal is also routed to the minijack (as it happened to someone else, who considered it a fault), so I may send an audio signal to my subwoofer.
I wounder if there is anyone who can illuminate me with a simple software only solution that may be a batch file to enter in terminal (and another to bring things back to normal) or an app that may do the trick.

This isn't really a programming question, is it? Probably better suited for Super User.

I need this too.


text:
Configuring OS X Lion as server (without server.app)
I purchased a Mac Mini Server (2x500 GB) with Snow Leopard Server. I upgraded to Lion (not Server).
The Mac Mini should act as a Homeserver for my development. My needs are:

Time Machine on HD2 for the Minis HD1 and for my MacBook (I'm sure 500GB are sufficient)
MAMP installed from macports.org
24/7 uptime
ssh from dynamic DNS
screen sharing from local network

I use Lion Server at work and figured I don't need it for the Mini at home, since I have no user management, don't want to use the built-in Apache and have read numerous discouraging reviews.
My question is, is there any advice available how to configure Lion for my purposes? It's hard to google for that, any search query containing "Lion" and "Server" will return references to Lion server - even finding tags for this page is difficult :)
For example, do I have to configure Time Machine in a certain way, or is there anything special the Server app has for time machine?
How should I configure admin access?
I would appreciate advice or pointers to websites.
Thanks in advance!

This site is probably not the right one for you. There is however apple.se which I will move the question to; they should be able to help more.

I don't know, in my opinion it is a server question which happens to regard Macs. But I got 2 answers, so I guess it doesn't matter.

fwiw, I found a similar question on su: http://superuser.com/questions/127822/advantages-of-mac-os-x-server-over-mac-os-x-client

I would do it this way

Configure Time Machine in you Mac Mini Server
Share HD2 or create a shared folder in HD2 to save the backups from your MacBook
Configure Time Machine in your Macbook to save on a Network folder (The shared folder in your MacMini)
In your Mac Mini enable screen sharing and remote login (this last one for SSH)

Make sure your firewall in your Mac Mini is set up correctly to allow incoming connections

Thanks for your help. I did in fact do it that way, but Freds advice is important.

Actually, even though you CAN use a shared drive/folder on a remote machine to use as your  Time Machine destination, it never will really work as expected, and is not reliable. Automatic hourly backups probably won't work (but can be fired off manually) and navigating through your Time Machine snapshots in the Time Machine GUI is very flaky and problematic.
Spending the whopping $50 however changes your Mac into a full fledged Time Machine server, and then it will act reliably. This is one of several features that make this "upgrade" a no brainer, in my opinion.

Thanks Fred, that was the kind of info I was looking for.  May I ask, where can I read up on this and other differences between Lion + Lion with Server.app?

Also, what are the other features you mention? Thanks, m


text:
Reading PDFs on iPad without iTunes syncing
I am trying to read for an exam and I want to download exercises to my iPad. I have downloaded the exercises from here. I have no Mac laptop or desktop computer. I am tired of clicking every pdf one-by-one.
Trial 1: I bought the GoodReader app for iPad, but its developer said that I need a Mac computer (or something with iTunes) to download the folder like above. I have no Mac computer.
Trial 2: I am now trying things with iBooks software on my iPad:

How can I easily get them to iBooks without Mac?
How can I edit iBooks (iPad) directory on Ubuntu?
Is this easier with Amazon Kindle rather than with iPad?

I am not much interested in how you really get the PDFs from such directory structure to the iPad or other device, I am just trying to get more paperless because my printer is broken and not comfortable to read just with laptop.
Perhaps related:

How can I study efficiently and paperlessly?

Do you have access to a Windows machine? That can be used with iTunes the same as a Mac. (I assume it's too much to hope that iTunes for Windows could be used in Wine.)

GoodReader syncs entire folder trees recursively via SCP or DropBox. You don't need a MAC. The developer is mistaken.

Use iCAB MOBILE -app to do this, more here, and then open the files from DropBox in some program such as PDF Expert.

Put your PDFs in a folder structure on your computer, in DropBox, or on a computer somewhere online that you have FTP or SCP access to.
Then, in GoodReader, sync that folder. You can do it locally over WiFi and SCP or WebDav, remotely over SCP, or through DropBox.
Once the PDFs are in GoodReader, you can read them offline, mark them up, etc. If you set up bi-directional syncing, then when you are back online you can sync your notes back to your laptop.

How does the SCP access work? I use scp daily but cannot see how it works here.

+1 anyway, this is on the right track -- just wanting to get the scp working :P

$ scp tt http://19x.xxx.1.142:8080/My%20Documents/Test ssh: Could not resolve hostname http: Name or service not known lost connection what is wrong? I clicked something called WiFi-transfer, right thing?

GoodReader > Connect To Servers > Add > SFTP. Then, fill in the details, either hostname (maybe won't work) or IP address (should work) of wherever the PDFs are. It looks like you are trying something different which is when GoodReader makes itself a webserver that you can connect to and upload with your browser, or AFP. This won't do 2-way syncing. You want SFTP from GoodReader to your computer.

Sorry but 'scp!=sftp', I have no sftp/WebDav configured -- not sure how easy it is to configure them to *ix server, investigating.

Are you sure SFTP won't work to a machine where you have a SSH account? I think it does...

sftp, scp and ssh are different protocols: fs P, transfer P and network P. It depends on your host which protocols they support but in practise yes -- it seems that the latter ones are supported by most distros by default or not hard to get working. But hey by your a bit ignorant comment, I realized that I could get SFTP working (and that my sysadmin does not support FTP -protocol)!

...it took me a while to understand how to use the odd GUI...had to just concentrate and think what the odd fields mean...

...btw very very useful this SFTP, no middle-ware such as DropBox :P

While you can't just download the whole directory into GoodReader you can still enter each individual URL and load that.
Or more easily, browse into the directory with Safari, open each PDF and from within the PDF select "Open in..." to open and save it in GoodReader.
Or email them to a mail account configured on the iPad and open them from there.

I do this currently but when I want to go offline, this is pain and not working -- very time-consuming (i.e. I am not getting the files because I do not have time to click everything one-by-one). Basically this mean that I use iPad only at home where I have the internet with WLAN. When I go elsewhere, I read documents with my laptop.

If you go the above route including opening them in GoodReader, they get downloaded to GR and are available for offline reading.

...this is slow, not easy/fast to get things offline many files.

I think @mankoff has the right answer here, and the OP may be struggling with an implementation detail. The solution is going to be Goodreader in some way or another.
When I want to move a lot of files between my computer and Goodreader, I use the "WiFi-transfer" mode in Goodreader. In my hands, this only works with an ad-hoc local network, but that's pretty simple to start. I can then mount my iPad's Goodreader folder onto using a desktop computer, and then interact with the iPad just as with any server's filesystem.
This is, for me, easier than Dropbox when I have a lot of local PDFs I want to transfer. I also think it's a very platform-neutral approach.
The other way to do it, of course, is to run a little FTP server on your Ubuntu machine, and serve your own files to Goodreader from there. Or, even better, get FTP access to the server you linked to originally, at koti.kapsi.fi.

Well to copy a PDF file to GoodReader, just download iTunes for Windows and install it. After installation, open iTunes and connect you iPad to your computer you'll find your iPad listed in iTunes. Just click on it and your iPad detail will be listed on the main windows. Click on app tab can scroll to the bottom of the page. You will find the GoodReader directory. Drag and drop your files there and you will find it on your iPad.

The OP mentions Ubuntu, so I'm not sure they have access to a Windows machine.

If you download all the PDFs on your Windows/Mac/Linux/whatever machine and email them to an account you get in Mail on the iPad, you can open the attachments in Mail and it will give you the option to open the messages in GoodReader or iBooks. These apps should then save the files so you only need to send them once.

Can the downvoter provide any explanation?


text:
How can I disable the music player on an iPhone 4S lock screen
How do I disable the music player controls on the iPhone 4S lock screen?
I've tried setting the "triple click home button" to "off", but it didn't help.

I'm afraid this is not possible by default on your iPhone. It's a feature in iOS and there is no easy way to disable this.
You could jailbreak your iPhone, you can buy Springtomize for $2,99 which will allow you to do what you want. Just turn on the "Hide Top Bar" option.

On a iPhone 6, hold the right side button and the home button for at least 10 seconds, until the apple logo appears. When the phone restarts it should be gone.

Just like questions, the quality of answers matter. Please edit your answer and explain why it is better and correct over the rest. We are looking for more than just two sentences here.

On my iphone se I held the home button and the start button at the top of phone, the phone turned off, and when it restarted it was gone


text:
Installing snort on OS X
I am on the lookout for an IDS/IPS solution for OS X 10.6. I tried compiling snort for 10.6 and I'm having trouble compiling a dependency, DAQ.
The error I get is:
mv -f .deps/daq_ipfw_la-daq_ipfw.Tpo .deps/daq_ipfw_la-daq_ipfw.Plo
/bin/sh ../libtool --tag=CC   --mode=link gcc -DBUILDING_SO -g -O2 -fvisibility=hidden -Wall -Wwrite-strings -Wsign-compare -Wcast-align -Wextra -Wformat -Wformat-security -Wno-unused-parameter -fno-strict-aliasing -fdiagnostics-show-option -pedantic -std=c99 -D_GNU_SOURCE -module -export-dynamic -avoid-version -shared  -o daq_ipfw.la -rpath /usr/local/lib/daq daq_ipfw_la-daq_ipfw.lo ../sfbpf/libsfbpf.la -lpcap
libtool: link: gcc -Wl,-undefined -Wl,dynamic_lookup -o .libs/daq_ipfw.so -bundle  .libs/daq_ipfw_la-daq_ipfw.o   ../sfbpf/.libs/libsfbpf.dylib -lpcap
libtool: link: dsymutil .libs/daq_ipfw.so || :
sed: 2/sfbpf/libsfbpf.la: No such file or directory
libtool: link: `2/sfbpf/libsfbpf.la' is not a valid libtool archive
make[2]: *** [daq_ipfw.la] Error 1
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make: *** [all] Error 2

Any hints on how I can solve the problem?
Any links you can point me to where I can get a build for snort that works on OS X?
Any other IDS/IPS solutions you might point me to? Thanks!

Could you use macports (or homebrew or fink)? rather than do your own compile. Theses ports will have produced build scripts that work

Use MacPorts. It's machine work to chase dependencies, not yours.


text:
How can I move my iPod music to an iPad?
How can I get the songs out of my iPod and move them to an iPad?
I thought I could just copy the music to my computer and then transfer it to the iPad, but didn't work (I couldn't see any music file on my iPod). Any other methods?

iPod --> iTunes ---> iPad

What kind of ipod?

Can we presume you have an iPod that isn't an iPod touch, that you want playlists transferred and you didn't buy the songs from iTunes store?

Are you using Mac or PC?

Check this out: How-to: get music, videos, and photos off your iPod or iPhone.
After you get the music off of your ipod and into your computer/itunes you can just sync it normally to your ipad, or any other idevice for that matter.

First of all, please make sure that iTunes is set to manually manage music. Then follow these steps:

Connect iPod to computer, go to My Computer, double click iPod drive, choose Tools > Folder Options > View, then select Show Hidden Files & Folders and click “OK”
Right click iPod Control folder, select Properties, deselect Hidden and click “OK”. Then select Apply Changes To This Folder, Subfolder And Files and click “OK” .
Click iPod Control folder and open Music , did you see folders labeled F00, F01, F02, F03…? Now Place iTunes side by side with this window, and make sure that Music Library is displayed.
In iTunes select Edit > Preferences > Advanced, and check: Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized and Copy Files To iTunes Music Folder When Adding To Library, then click “OK”.
Drag and drop all of the above “F…” folders into Music Library of iTunes.

This might be a little complicated, but it definitely works well, and it’s totally free. Some aspects may not apply to Mac users.

Try synchronising your iPod to your computer through iTunes and then synchronising your iPad to iTunes on the same computer.
Music files on the iPod are usually seen as jargon and you cannot usually tell which song is which. It is a safer bet to sync using iTunes.


text:
I want to run an applescript whenever a certain person signs onto my Messages buddy list
I want to run an applescript whenever a certain person signs onto my Messages buddy list
I am aware you can run applescripts for messages events, however I don't know how to check if it was that person who signs in.

There is a buddy became available event, that passes in a buddy object. You can use one of the attributes on this object to see 'who' it is (handle, name or full name, for instance).
You can attach an arbitrary script to an event, in the way described at bynkii.com

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
FileVault 2 Login Issues on OpenLDAP Network with Admin, Managed, Mobile Account on Lion 10.7.4
This issue occurs on any machine with Lion in my environment. I install Lion and connect to OpenLDAP for authentication. I enable FileVault.
Some users were reporting that when they'd wake their computer from sleep or reboot, the only available account to unlock FileVault was Administrator (not their local cached OpenLDAP account any longer).
In an attempt to reproduce this issue, I shut down all network interfaces on my test MacBook Pro and rebooted -- sure enough FileVault will only allow me to unlock my hard drive by using the Administrator password, just as it occurred for my users.
Also, when I tried to check to see if my user account was still enabled in FileVault (by accessing System Preferences -> Security & Privacy), System Preferences crashes.
I found a workaround that sometimes works: Open any other System Preferences pane (for example, Users & Groups), and authenticate by clicking the lock icon. Then click Show All to go back to the main System Preferences UI, and access Security & Privacy again. It will work. In the FileVault tab, the text "Some users are not able to unlock this disk" appears (presumably my Admin, Managed, Mobile Account). I click on the "Enable Users" button and it brings up a dialog, but in this dialog my user account is the only one listed, and it has a green checkmark badge, as though it's set up properly (even when it isn't). If I click the "Done" button here, it appears to process something for a moment. If I reboot after doing this, it works, and I'm able to authenticate as myself.
I think what is happening here is that the network is shutting down on MacBooks that are in sleep mode or shut down, and FileVault is then removing any accounts that authenticate with LDAP from the Enabled Users. I presume something is broken too here, due to the crash that happens when trying to investigate the FileVault configuration.
Steps to Reproduce

Install Lion.
Connect to my OpenLDAP server.
Enable FileVault 2, enable LDAP-authenticated user to unlock FileVault.
Reboot.
It works!
Log in, and disable network interfaces, with the goal of forcing Lion to use the cached LDAP credentials for user authentication in FileVault.
Reboot.
The only user that is available for authentication is Administrator.
After logging in as Administrator, then logging out, and logging back in as the LDAP-auth'd user, I try to access System Preferences -> Security & Privacy. This causes System Preferences to crash with the crash dump pasted below. The only way to prevent this crash is to authenticate by clicking the lock icon on any other System Preferences pane (e.g. Users & Groups), then click "Show All", then click "Security & Privacy" again. This time it will work. Details are noted in the above Summary section of this bug report.

Expected Results
I would expect FileVault 2 authentication to work for the user it is originally set up under.
Actual Results
This isn't happening, and the users end up not able to unlock their machine (and thus, can't work without me (the sysadmin) coming over and unlocking their machine as Administrator, then logging out and letting them log into OS X under their account). I have filed a bug report with Apple, but heard nothing from them. I'm going to get in touch with phone support to see if it is of any use, but I'm curious if anyone here has encountered and somehow overcome these issues.
Notes
Here is the crash log produced when trying to access Security & Privacy after the issue occurs:
http://pastebin.com/2ewfZCUP

FileVault 2 uses the GeneratedUID user attribute to save who is permitted to unlock an encrypted volume. If the GeneratedUID of a user differs from what was generated (or pulled from LDAP) when FileVault 2 was enabled, the user will not be permitted to unlock the machine, as their account will appear to be unavailable at the EFI menu. Also, this causes the crash of System Preferences on their Mac whenever they try to access the Security & Privacy prefpane.
This problem arises when /usr/bin/mcxrefresh runs and pulls a null value or a value different than what is stored locally from LDAP (if the attribute isn't defined for the user in question or is defined incorrectly, respectively), overwriting the GeneratedUID stored locally (which is generated and only stored locally when FileVault 2 is enabled without a matching LDAP attribute).
In other words, if an apple-generateduid value exists in LDAP for a user and is mapped properly on the users Mac to the GeneratedUID attribute, FileVault 2 will not generate a new value, but will instead use the value stored in LDAP.
I was able to resolve this issue by adding an attribute called apple-generateduid to the LDAP entry of any user experiencing this issue.  I could generate a random value for this attribute in Python by running the following one-liner from my terminal:
python -c 'import uuid; print str(uuid.uuid4()).upper();'
This isn't the only step, however. You must also add a mapping for this attribute on the client side. This is easily done using the following steps:

Open System Preferences.
Click Users & Groups.
Click Login Options.
Click on the Unlock Icon.
Under Network Account Server, click Edit.
Click to highlight your directory server.
Under Services, double-click on your directory service (in my case, it was LDAPv3)
In the window that slides open, highlight your configuration name, and then click the Edit... button.
Under Search & Mappings scroll down and single-click on Users to highlight it.
Click the Add button (the left one).
Choose GeneratedUID from the list of available Attribute Types.
In the right column, click the Add button, and type apple-generateduid. Click OK to save the changes until you're back at the main System Preferences dialog.
At this point a mapping from GeneratedUID to apple-generateduid has been created. Now when OS X looks up the GeneratedUID value it will get the value of apple-generateduid from the user in questions LDAP entry.

Finally, it's important that the locally stored value of GeneratedUID and value stored on LDAP match. Run the following command and make sure the two GeneratedUID values match:
dscl /Search search /Users GeneratedUID $(dscl . read /Users/$(echo $USER) GeneratedUID | cut -d " " -f2)

Assuming they are mobile accounts (which should cache required user information locally on login) and there's a possibility of the network connectivity to the LDAP server not being immediately available / available at all, I'm highly suspicious of this log line:
2   libcsfde.dylib                      0x00007fff8565af1f CSFDEGetUserEntryForUUID + 134
This is the thread that's crashing in your log and right before it crashes, it's attempting to get the length of a string returned as the result of that particular (private) library call.
The name of the call seems to imply: CoreServices Full Data/Disk Encryption (aka FileVault2) "GetUserEntryForUUID" - note: This is a function asking FileVault for user information based on a UUID, not the Collaboration framework, Identity Services, DirectoryServices / OpenDirectory, etc.
This bit of code is asking FileVault to provide details about a user with only UUID information, which sounds like FV is tracking user information separately (possibly) from the rest of OS X. This is accurate, because the FileVault2 procedure, as part of marking users available to unlock the boot OS partition, writes some information to the recovery partition.
However, it sounds like there's a breakdown somewhere with OpenLDAP / mobile / "alternative" directory account authentication mechanisms and the necessary information isn't being written to be able to unlock it without network access to the OpenLDAP server.
This is just a shot in the dark - but maybe an Apple rep would be able to help more with this. Sounds like a legit real bug to me.


text:
Making all application windows stay fullscreen on relaunch
I usually have 4+ fullscreen windows open whenever I use Xcode 4. When I quit Xcode, and reopen it, only one or two of the windows open as fullscreen, and the rest all open in a single desktop as normal windows. (I think the behavior is the same with Chrome and probably other apps to.)
Is there anyway to fix this?

I haven't tried this yet, but did a quick search and there is a free add-on called Maximizer available.
It may not be build into Lion yet (as far as I know) but this will get you close for what you want :-)
http://chpwn.com/apps/maximizer.html

How would this help? Xcode 4 has built in fullscreen support, and I don't see how this software would fix the problem with reopening Xcode.


text:
Homebrew PATH error Mac OS X 10.6.8
So I've found this wildly helpful blog (http://blog.wyeworks.com/) and managed to muddle my way to step 5 (after leaving ridiculous comments after getting stuck on step one)
    $ brew install memcached mysql postgresql

I've gotten the "your system is raring to brew" message. However, when I entered the string to install the rest of the libraries, I got a fatal error message and when I ran the brew doctor code again I got the error message:
Error: /usr/bin occurs before /usr/local/bin
This means that system-provided programs will be used instead of those
provided by Homebrew. The following tools exist at both paths:

memcached

Consider amending your PATH so that /usr/local/bin
is ahead of /usr/bin in your PATH.

Which seems simple enough, but all of the instructions I've found online are horribly contradictory and not helpful at all.  The most common advice seems to be to change the path via creating a new file (and then referencing it in terminal through various and vastly different code strings), but no where states where you create this file. I think I am going to bug people with my lack of knowledge but any help would be appreciated. Would this page help at all?? http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14363/plistedit-pro
I have Xcode 3.2.6, Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and I'm trying to use Homebrew (and I have run the update) and rbenv.
Simply put, I am looking for a way to edit my path, for what to edit it to, and how to get homebrew running with no errors.

Look in your home directory ('cd ~' to get there, 'ls -a' to look) for a .bash_profile or .bashrc file.
If you find one of them, open it up and you should see a line like this:
export PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH

Cut the "/usr/bin:" and paste it after the "/usr/local/bin:"
If you don't find either of those files, create one called .bash_profile and put this line inside:
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

Thank you so much for your answer- but  where do I look in my home directory or type cd ~ or Is -a ?  I tried typing those into Terminal and they didn't do anything...
And where would I go about creating a new path file?  which program?

hmm, the 'cd ~' and 'ls -a' should be typed into the terminal. The 'cd ~' changes the current directory to your home directory, and the 'ls -a' should list all the files in your current directory.

try typing this into your terminal: 'nano ~/.bash_profile'. That should open up the .bash_profile file in a text editor, whether or not it is empty. You can save and exit the text editor by hitting control-x, then hit 'y', then hit 'enter'.

The 'nano ~/.bash_profile' opened up the editor, and I entered 'export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH', saved as .bash_profile  and when I use the nano command it comes back up, but I typed  .bash_profile
and it returned : -bash: ./.bash_profile: Permission denied
Did I miss a step?

Once you have saved your .bash_profile file, which it sounds like you did, quit Terminal and restart it again. Then go ahead and try your brew install memcached mysql postgresql. The PATH variable tells your Terminal where to find its commands. Every time you start your Terminal it looks in your .bash_profile for your PATH.

Probably related issue here http://apple.stackexchange.com/q/177594/15504 but this answer is not working in OSX Yosemite.


text:
Built-in text editor in Terminal
Is there a built-in text editor in the terminal on Lion?
(Like, for example, nano on Linux.)

umm... like vim, emacs?

@Jay Did you even try running nano in the Terminal?

@CajunLuke No, for some reason I thought it wasn't there. Oh well.

I disagree with the heavy down vote penalty you've incurred. This is an easy question to answer if you have a Mac in front of you. But if you don't have a Mac at hand or don't own one yet and are wondering what the command line experience is like this is potentially useful information. Just because something seems obvious or is well known to you doesn't mean that's the case for everyone else.

When Apple stopped shipping their current OS with GNU Emacs, they replaced it with mg.

@WHO'sNoToOldRx4CovidIsMurder Out of curiosity, do you know which mg Apple is shipping?  It calls itself 'mg 2a'... the common ports of that are the ibara, the bootes, and the troglobit.  It's not the ibara, as far as I can tell.

vim, emacs, nano and pico are all available by default with OS X 10.7.4:
/Users/ian
> which nano
/usr/bin/nano

/Users/ian
> which vim
/usr/bin/vim

/Users/ian
> which emacs
/usr/bin/emacs

> which pico
/usr/bin/pico

They've been on every Mac I've ever used since the 10.2 days, and I'd be shocked if OS X had ever not included them.

And for hard core users there is even /bin/ed :-)

@CajunLuke: actually, nano was added in 10.4 (although pico, the editor it's based on, was in at least 10.3).  I can't say for certain about emacs, but I'm pretty sure vi was there in Rhapsody Server.

@GordonDavisson Nano was definitely around in 10.2 and 10.3. I remember using it (and I've an old 10.3 Mac I can check on if needed).

@CajunLuke: I just checked under 10.3.9 computer (server version, but that shouldn't matter) and it has pico but not nano.  I don't have a 10.2 machine handy anymore...

@GordonDavisson I'll bet nano is symlinked to hard-linked to pico. I learned to use the command-line when I was using 10.2, and the editor I used was nano.

Emacs was removed in Catalina. It can be installed with Homebrew. I guess vi won the war at Apple. :)

Since ed has not been mentioned yet, even thought I'd choose to use nano over it and the others mentioned, let me offer it as an addition to the cumulative list.
The manual page for ed states:

The ed utility is a line-oriented text editor.  It is used to create, display, modify and otherwise manipulate text files.

The ed utility does not recognize multibyte characters., so it's use may be rather small nowadays.

Since this question is about "built-in" editors "like" nano, this question needs an updated answer:
The command pico is just a symlink to nano, vi is actually vim as is ex and not counting awk or psed, cat, xargs, constructions and the like, thats about it, since ed is indeed present but very unlike nano (depending on the definition of "editor").
Three CLI text editors (like nano) are present in the default of Sierra:

nano (installed:  2.0.6, current:  2.8.7. "Of course, you should always check the nano homepage to see what the latest and greatest version is.")

GNU nano is designed to be a free replacement for the Pico text editor, part of the Pine email suite from The University of Washington. It aims to "emulate Pico as closely as possible and then include extra functionality".

vim (installed: Vi IMproved 7.4, current: "Vim 8.0 is the latest stable version")

Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient. It is included as "vi" with most UNIX systems and with Apple OS X.

emacs (installed: GNU Emacs 22.1.1, current: "Emacs 25.3 − latest release
Released September 11, 2017 Emacs 25.3 fixes a significant security hole.")

An extensible, customizable, free/libre text editor — and more.

In addition to ones listed above there is also xedit. It's opened from the terminal by just typing xedit. Opens an editor window where you can edit a file with keyboard and mouse.

It might be worth mentioning that xedit requires XQuartz/X11 to be installed (and that launching X11 just to edit a file might be kind of overkill).

Yes, nano and vim for example are installed with Mac OS X.


text:
Does the new Macbook Pro with Retina display have user-upgradeable RAM?
I'm interested in purchasing the new MacBook Pro with Retina display, but it's not clear from the tech specs page whether the RAM is user-upgradeable or not.
Do I need to take into account future RAM usage when customizing my MacBook Pro order, or can I go with 8GB RAM and upgrade it later?

The non-upgradeability is made explicit on the page where you configure your machine for purchase.

@RussellBorogove Interesting: that wasn't there when it was first placed on sale. Added that to my answer.

Anything else we can explain to get you to accept one of the two answers? It's fine to accept your own answer if that's the one you prefer.

I called Apple to find out, and they confirmed that it is not user-upgradeable: the tech explained that they used the same process they used for the MacBook Air to save space: there are no sticks of RAM, and the RAM has been soldered directly onto the main board.
As Russell Borogove noted in the comments, this is now confirmed when you configure the MacBook Pro before purchase:

Please note that the memory is built into the computer, so if you think you may need more memory in the future, it is important to upgrade at the time of purchase.

So if you were thinking you might want the 16GB RAM in the future, you'd want to choose it when you order the MacBook Pro, as you won't be able to upgrade later.

That's what I thought after I saw the interior picture on http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/design/

iFixit has posted a tear-down of the new Macbook Pro with Retina display and on step 17 you can see that the RAM is soldered to the back of the logic board (red rectangle):

Picture from iFixit.com

All iFixit content is licensed under the open source Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.


text:
Is it possible to completely disable the keyboard backlight on a MacBook Pro?
I have a new MacBook Pro 13-inch (mid 2012). I have never liked the backlit keyboard. I am completely a touch-typist and I never look down at the keys. I just find the light going on and off to be annoying.
I have heard about Lab Tick, which provides a slider to control the level of the backlight, but what I really want is a command-line defaults write to simply turn the lights off.
Does anyone know of a means to do this?

The updated answer should be the one given by @PaulSmith

Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard and, in the Keyboard tab, turn off (uncheck) "Automatically illuminate keyboard in low light". Then, if you turn the brightness down all the way, it should never turn on. If you then want it on (say, a friend who is not a touch-typist), just use the brightness keys on the top row.

Good enough. The lights still come on whenever I log out, and until I log back in again, and when I boot up. I suppose that's the best I can do.

@WheatWilliams That's odd. I keep my backlight off nearly all the time, and I've never seen that happen.

New for 2014:
You'd think you should be able to take care of this in one location but, no.

Open System Preferences, then open Keyboard, and in the first 'Keyboard' tab panel, uncheck "Adjust keyboard brightness in low light".  Also here, be sure to check the "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys" checkbox so that your 'fn' key works.  Close the panel.
While holding down the fn key, press F5.  You should see a semi-transparent control with a setting sun icon.  Tap or hold until the bars go down to 0.

If you don't check the "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys" box, you can just hit F5 without using fn.

This worked for me on OS X 10.9 Mavericks - the accepted answer was not enough.  Fairly poor UX to have to Google this much just to find this out.

This should be the accepted answer! As an addendum: make sure you press F5 or Fn+F5 in the MacBook Pro keyboard — I was using an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard to do that and obviously it wasn't working.

Click on the fn button at the bottom left and then click F5, you can completely turn off the backlight by turning it low.

Pressing fn+F# is incorrect based on default settings. 2. This answer has already been taken into account in the first answer back in 2012, and doesn't help if auto-enable is turned on.


text:
Any free software for writing HTML?
I've written some Objective-C in Xcode before, but I can't find any free software for writing HTML! I need to create a small website for an online course I'm taking, and figured that HTML is the way to go. Thank you for your help!

Well, you said you've already used Xcode... I've never done Web Development in it, but try it?

HTML is a simple markup language and doesn't, arguably, require an IDE like Xcode. I'd recommend anyone starting to learn HTML (and related web tools like CSS and JavaScript) to start with a simple text editor. Learn your skills manually before relying on an app to speed up the process. Most of the time you'll find you can do a lot faster with a really good text editor than an all-in-one IDE. For something free on Mac try TextWrangler.
To be honest there aren't that many amazing and free editors/IDEs for websites on Mac OS. For some money there are a lot of amazing tools such as Sublime Text, Coda and Espresso to name a few. If you just need it for a short time it's not likely worth it however all of them currently provide some form of trial period.
Edit: Changed scripting language to markup language. Not sure what I was thinking.

TextWrangler is great, I use it all the time to code HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP.

TextWrangler is free, but packed with a lot of features.

Now I'm using Aptana- there is a stand alone version, and also just a eclipse-plugin.
For HTML you don't need a special software, you can write it on every text editor. but it's really better and faster using a IDE

Personally I use a basic text editor with syntax highlighting, Tincta is my favorite, but try and find the best fit for you. Any text editor that can save plain text files would work, anything from echoing into a file to a commercial product like BBEdit or Textmate. If you're hunting for a free editor I'd check the Mac App Store, check out some classics like Emacs and ports (Aquamacs and Emacs for MacOS X), Vim, and GEdit, try TextWrangler, a stripped down version of BBEdit, and test out your google-fu. I'd put links in, but it only let's me put two per answer.

As noted you can use any editor for html but ones like Kompozer also provide some form of interactive GUI layout as well as text editing. (For more complexe text manipulation I would also use Aquamacs with the nxml-mode or other css/html modes)

Mozilla SeaMonkey
which is based on FireFox, and is free, has a Composer mode, which is a fine basic WYSIWYG tool for HTML authoring with some code-editing tools as well.
SeaMonkey is kept up-to-date and receives updates whenever there is a new version of FireFox. It is much more up-to-date than Kompozer, which has not been significantly updated in several years and has always been referred to as a "beta" product.

Technically, HTML can be coded using any plaintext editor, like TextEdit (which — strictly speaking — is a Rich Text editor, but can be forced to save as .html). While that's all well and good, it's really no fun. In fact, it's terrible. You don't see what your design looks like, and believe me when I say that coding without visual feedback is the worst.
If you want an alternative with a preview, I'm not sure there's a free one. There are some cheap ones, like Coda; while I've never tried it, apparently, it's quite good.
If you just want an alternative with code hinting, MonoDevelop has an HTML document creation mode, with appropriate code hints, and HTML5 compatibility.
Best f luck!

Personally
I try:

Smultron, also known as Fraise – version 3 is free and open source (for greater compatibility with features of Lion, there's more modern version 4 at low cost in the App Store) – not a fan, just nice preview and clip
Komodo Edit – not beautifull but a lot of functions for free
jEdit (in java) – not really fast but open source!

I use Coda 2, it's not perfect but really smart!

More generally
A comparison of HTML editors on Wikipedia with an option to sort by cost and software license. Some of the comparisons are with titles that are both free and open source.

Why "not useful" ?
Try komodo edit or jedit, for free it's not so bad, it's an alternative!

The down vote was not from me, but my suggested edition to your answer may help to bring it closer to the essence of the opening question.


text:
Is there an alternative to Application Switcher with search?
On Windows, I've been using Switcher and the one feature that I really like is being able to switch to applications by typing in portions of their title. Is there an application for Mac OS X (10.7) that provides similar functionality?

Alfred (free)

find any application or file
this app will learn and prioritize your searches
system commands and extended features (google search, bitly...)
you can get more powerful features when purchasing the powerpack

Quicksilver (free)

find any application or file
this app will learn and prioritize your searches
lots of free plugins with extend the functionalities

move files
execute bash commands
...

Spotlight (built-in)
...which is part of the OS and be triggered using ⌘+space (default shortcut).

Not to be too picky, but all of these apps only switch by Application Name, not Window Title. Ideally, I would like to use document names or web page titles to switch between apps.