text:
Nano: how to obtain syntax highlighting?
I have a default installation of nano under /usr/bin/, and I am trying to make nano highlight the bash scripting language code.
I have been searching around, but I had no success: I got always some errors, or simply doesn't work. For example, I have tried to download the following repository from Github github.com/nanorc/nanorc.git with the following command:
git clone https://github.com/nanorc/nanorc.git

and then follow the steps in this post, but I have had errors because some command inside the files are not recognised. In particular, if I add this line include ~/nanorc/shell.nanorc to my file ~/.nanorc, where the file shell.nanorccontains:
syntax "sh" "\.sh$" "\.bash$" "bashrc$" "bash_profile$"
header "^#!.*/(env +)?(ba|k|pdk)?sh[-0-9_]*( |$)"

FUNCTION: "^[A-Za-z0-9_+-]+[[:space:]]*\(\)"
KEYWORD:  "\<(case|do|done|elif|else|esac|fi|for|function|if)\>"
KEYWORD:  "\<(in|select|then|time|until|while)\>"
FUNCTION: "\<(echo|exit|export|let|local|read|return|set|shift|umask|unset)\>"
FUNCTION: "\<(source)\>"
OPERATOR: "[{}()<>!=&|;`$]|\\|\[|\]|-(eq|ne|gt|lt|ge|le|s|n|z)\>"
STRING:   ""(\\.|[^"])*""
VARIABLE: "\$\{?[A-Za-z0-9_!@#$*?-]+\}?|`[^`]*`"
STRING:   "'(\\.|[^'])*'"
ESCAPE:   "\\.?"
+HASHCOMMENT
+TODO
+LINT

It seems that these previous commands, such STRING, ESCAPE, etc, are not recognised.
How would you set syntax highlighting for nano, at least for bash?

What happens if you copy the text into ~/.nanorc and not use an include?

Install the latest version of nano with homebrew:

Install homebrew: https://brew.sh/
Install nano: brew install nano
Add this line to ~/.nanorc. That directory has all the syntax highlighting definition files.
include "/usr/local/share/nano/*.nanorc"

For Apple Silicon this needs to be include "/opt/homebrew/share/nano/*.nanorc"

From the Nanorc(5) man file:

The configuration file accepts a series of set and unset commands, which  can be used  to  configure  nano on startup without using the command line options.  Additionally, the syntax, color, and icolor keywords are used to  define  syntax  highlighting rules for different text patterns.  nano will read one command per line.

Your nanorc lacks that.
From the git read me from that repo:

Why do I get weird errors when running nano < 2.1.5 on *BSD systems?
  In order to reliably highlight keywords, this projects makes heavy use of the GNU regex word boundary extensions (\< and >). BSD implementations also have these extensions but use a different, incompatible syntax ([[:<:]] and [[:>:]]). Since version 2.1.5, nano can automatically translate the GNU syntax to BSD syntax at run-time, but for the benefit of people running a pre-2.1.5 version of nano on OS X or *BSD, the .nanorc file itself can be translated by installing with make BSDREGEX=1.

What is happening is that you did not actually follow the full install commands. If you cloned the git, cd'd into the directory, and ran make install, your syntax files would look different. For one, the default version of nano on OS X (I'm on 10.10.5 Mavericks) is nano 2.0.6. It does not support the header in syntax in this older version. The makefile for the git repo would remove that. And it would add in the color options.
You have 3 options.

Ensure you have the OS X command line tools (or full X Code)
installed and run all of the install commands.
use precompiled nanorc syntax files compatible with the preinstalled nano 2.0.6 with BSD regex.
Install a newer nano, and use the nanorc that come with the full install.

As a bonus, I found and edited a single nanorc for sh/bash. Edit as you like:
syntax "sh" "\.sh$" "\.bash$" "bashrc$" "bash_profile$"
icolor brightgreen "^[0-9A-Z_]+\(\)"
color blue "[[:<:]](case|do|done|elif|else|esac|exit|fi|for|function|if|in|local|read|return|select|shift|then|time|until|while)[[:>:]]"
color green "(\{|\}|\(|\)|\;|\]|\[|`|\\|\$|<|>|!|=|&|\|)"
color green "-[Ldefgruwx][[:>:]]"
color green "-(eq|ne|gt|lt|ge|le|s|n|z)[[:>:]]"
color brightblue "[[:<:]](cat|cd|chmod|chown|cp|echo|env|export|grep|install|let|ln|make|mkdir|mv|rm|sed|set|tar|touch|umask|unset)[[:>:]]"
icolor brightred "\$\{?[0-9A-Z_!@#$*?-]+\}?"
color cyan "(^|[[:space:]])#.*$"
color brightmagenta ""(\\.|[^"])*"" "'(\\.|[^'])*'"
color ,green "[[:space:]]+$"


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MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) Dual External Monitor Performance
According to the MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) Technical Specifications, the Graphics and Video Support for the 2015 Retina MBP 13-inch is:

Intel Iris Graphics 6100
Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 3840 by 2160 pixels on up to two external displays, both at millions of colors.

There exist answered questions here on the Apple Stack Exchange about what's possible in terms of dual external monitors for this MBP. I understand that, as shown by the above quoted text, it is possible to run two 4K monitors with the MBP.
My question is concerned with the actual performance of using two full 2160p/4K external monitors with (at least) a Mini DisplayPort connection - has anyone had any problems (flickering, or really anything negative) with this setup? Similar to  this question, but for the 2015 MBP.
I guess the performance may vary with the brand of monitor, but I'm just looking for a general idea of how well it does. I'm interested in knowing about how it would function before I make the costly investment.
I know the Intel Iris Graphics 6100 are integrated and use up to 1.5GB RAM of the MBP, but I don't know if that will mean a stable, reliable experience with two 4K monitors. I also know the Retina 15-inch 2015 MacBook Pro uses a discrete graphics card, which may be more suitable, but I'm not interested in the 15-inch screen.

I had this exact same question, and found the answer on Apple's discussion forums:

A final update - I got my hands on two Dell P2715Q's which support 3840x2160@60Hz over SST. I'm happy to report the new 13" RMBP happily drives both displays at their native resolutions with 60Hz refresh in single stream mode (the default).

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6868583

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
iTunes 12.2 import playlist issue
I branched Exportify to output in an iTunes friendly format, and have used it to move my Spotify playlists over to iTunes.
It mostly works, except the import process seems incapable of adding songs from Apple Music which are not already in my Library. After running an import, I get a message saying "Some of the songs in the file “exportify.txt” were not imported because they could not be found.", which suggests it's only looking in my Library for songs to add.
It's possible to do this manually, so I don't see why letting the import process do it would be a problem...
Does anyone with experience with the iTunes importer know how to work around this (or has an alternative way to migrate playlists from Spotify)?

Following the steps in http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/193731/sync-transfer-spotify-playlist-to-apple-music worked ok for me in getting the songs into my library, I've created the playlists manually afterwards. What exactly are you doing differently?

Ooh, that looks promising - no, so far I was only using exportify to generate an iTunes formatted txt file, but your link seems to be able to take that and insert songs int my Library. Once that's done, I should be able to import the playlist the old fashioned way :) I'll try it later and post my results here, thanks!

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


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How to use previous iTunes icon?
I'm have a MacBook Pro (x86_64) with OS X 10.8.5 (fully patched). When I got the MBP, the iTunes icon was a cool blue icon.
Recently, Apple changed it to red. The psychologist tell us red indicates anger, defiance and hostility, and its a bad color. Its why USAir changed their color scheme from the shades of red to shades of grey. I did not like red, but I did not feel compelled to move.
I got updates this week (July, 2015), and Apple changed the icon again:

I despise that cartoony look, and now I am compelled to move. That cartoony look is one of the reason I have held back from OS X 10.9 upgrade for my personal equipment (and even one of the reasons to abstain from iOS upgrades). This is a personal preference, and I understand only a subset of folks feel the same way.
I've been through iTunes preferences, but I don't see a way to change the icons.
How do I change the iTunes icons? Or how do I use the previous, blue icon?

Related, other reasons to abstain from the upgrade includes all the untested features and broken features that got added to 10.9. Quod erat demonstrandum: iCloud Keychain and CVE-2015-1065. My keychain was never at risk through this vector, and it was a conscious decision to avoid the risk.

There are many ways to do this. Here are a few...
IMO The best way is to replace the actual AppName.icns file with the one from the older version, in this case it's: /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/iTunes.icns
Select the application bundle and control-click (right-click) > Show Package Contents, then navigate to the AppName.icns file shown in the pathname above.  Note:  After replacing the AppName.icns file one may need to run killall Finder in a Terminal to force the updated AppName.icns file to show properly everywhere.  If it's not showing properly in the Dock afterwards run killall Dock in a Terminal.
Another way is to paste an image into the App's Info Sheet after selecting its icon at the top left of the Info Sheet.  Select the application bundle then control-click (right-click) > Get Info or  ⌘ -I.
Or use a third-party app that can assign an new image/icon to the application bundle.

Does Apple make the past icons available? If not, where do I get the old blue icon that Apple probably claims a copyright or trademark over?

/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/iTunes.icns - that's kind of a neat trick, but kind of scary too. That means code signing can be bypassed for the package. More correctly, its a lack of semantic authentication. Lack of semantic authentication was one of the causes of Android's Master Key flaw. It was even a problem back in the 1990s, with SSLv2 and SSLv3. Its too bad we are not learning from our mistakes....

I routinely replace application bundle .icns files, using scripts I've written, for many application that I do not like the icons for whatever the reason and have never had any problem afterwards running those applications.  So I'd have to say code signing either doesn't come into play at this level or it's broken.  Now I'm not redistributing anything, this is just for use on my own system.

As to getting old AppName.icns files, I get them from the Apps themselves either from a copy I have running in a virtual machine or if need be download one of the OS Updates or Application Updates (where applicable) and extract them from the package.  The latter method is kind of a waste of bandwidth so it just depends on how much you dislike the new icon as to what length you'll go.


text:
HDMI display behavior on startup
I have a display connected to the HDMI port of my laptop. When I start up the computer with the display plugged in, the built-in display does not turn on, and the external display becomes the primary. I can fix the issue by removing and reconnecting the HDMI cable, but I am curious as to why this behavior is the default.

OS 10.10.4
MacBook Pro Retina 15" mid 2015 (model 11,5)

It sounds like you have the external display set as the primary display.  Take a look at this article on how to set your primary display.
Set the Primary Display on a Mac

I'm curious how having the display set as the primary would cause this problem. I have many users setup with their external monitor set as the primary that do not complain about this problem.

Try reconfiguring and see what happens.  Also what is the make/model/settings of the external monitor?


text:
iOS 8.4 Apple Music App: How to shuffle all songs by an artist?
With the complete redesign featuring the new streaming mixin (which I don't use), it seems that when listening to music from my library (stored on my device) I can only shuffle songs within a single album for an artist.
This is not a dupe of this question, in that I'm not asking how to shuffle all songs in the library.

Instead of selecting the artist to display the albums and songs of the artist, tap the image of the artist and the artists songs will play shuffled.

They will only play shuffled if it was already activated.

Answer: Siri > Play " artist " songs shuffle

These seem to be the current ways to shuffle in the new 8.4 Music.app: About.com "How to Shuffle Music on the iPhone" - Updated 7/8/2015

Shuffle All Songs
To shuffle all the songs in your Music app library, which will give
  you the greatest variety and a roughly random order of songs, follow
  these easy steps:

Open the Music app
Tap My Music
Make sure the menu just below Apple Music is set to Songs
Find a song you'd like to listen to and tap it to begin it playing
Tap the playback bar just above the buttons at the bottom of the
  screen to reveal the album art and full set of Music app controls
At the bottom of the screen, tap the Shuffle button, which is two arrows crossing over each other. You'll know it's enabled when it's
  highlighted.

With that done, your next song will be randomly chosen and you're off
  on a shuffling adventure. Use the forward arrow to skip to the next
  song or the back arrow to return to the last one.
To turn off shuffle, just tap the two-arrow icon again so it is no
  longer highlighted.

Context added and quoted.

This is an indirect method, absent an actual shuffle button on the artist's page, that works for me:

Tap For You at the bottom of the app
Tap Apple Music at the top
Search for an artist
In the search results, tap on Songs
Tap on a song to begin playing
Tap the banner at the bottom for the currently playing song
Tap the shuffle button

You'll now be listening to a shuffle of all songs by that artist.  Definitely less convenient, but it seems to work.

Thanks for the feedback.  I realize what I did wrong and updated the steps.  I also changed the steps to a numbered list.  Note that the search-based approach is not without a margin of error.  It's possible that searching for oft-covered artists like "The Beatles" will return non-Beatles versions of songs.

Tap My Music
If it doesn't say "Artists" in red under the recently added section, tap the label and select Artists
Now select the artist you want to shuffle
If they have one album, the shuffle button is there in front of you
If they have multiple albums, tap the three dot icon (...) to the right of the share button (the square with the up arrow).
Tap "Play Next"
use the control center or other method to skip to the next song

To confirm that you added all the songs you want, click the now playing banner and click the "menu" icon to the right of the "next song" arrows, this will bring up all the songs that are up next.
If that's too lengthy, you can use Siri to play songs by an artist - one tap to accomplish.

Siri play songs by U2 shuffle

You can also make a playlist with the artists you desire and play those by tapping or by voice control.

Good thing there are two options @janaspage :-)

@janaspage Intuitive is a matter of practice, expectation and opinion. Apple is famous (some say notorious) for cutting visual clutter and the old option clearly saw the cutting room floor instead of shipping. I think embracing siri if you can will free you from UI changes and obsolete (for many or most) edge cases like this one. Also, you don't have to manage the queue. Just stop listening or queue up new songs.

NOT IMPOSSIBLE to shuffle all your music unless you have an Internet connection.  (i.e.  It IS possible to shuffle all songs, though it's not exactly intuitive.)
Procedure:
1) Open music app.
2) Open My Music (left button at bottom of screen).
3) Press Songs in middle of screen (in list of Artists, Albums, etc.)  You may need to scroll to top of page.
4) Press album cover icon at far left of any song in the list.
5) Press "now playing" bar near bottom of screen (directly above My Music, Playlists, Radio, etc.) at very bottom of screen.  Album cover and full transport controls will appear.
6) Press shuffle button at bottom left/center of screen (below horizontal volume bar).
7) Press Next transport button (on right side of Play button).  All songs in phone will play in random (shuffled) order.

If you are willing to use alternative players I found this app on the App Store called Ecoute.  It seamlessly works with your iTunes music library and you can shuffle on artist, genre and more.  It is a basic, easy and intuitive player...
"

Ecoute seems to be an app for iOS (it appears to have had an OS X version on the past). Anyway, this does not answer the OP, it offers a general alternative but not a solution to the specific question asked.

From my point of view, the answer does offer a solution to the problem described by the OP.

FOund this in another forum, by another person and it works:
Go into your music, type the artists name in the search bar and make sure that 'my music' is selected. then the artist will come up, their albums will come up, then their songs will come up. Click on songs and once you play one you can press shuffle and it will shuffle all of the songs from that artist.

As with many of the other responses, I have found the easiest method for shuffling all songs for an artist with multiple albums:
-My Music
-Make sure Artists is selected
-Scroll to your artist
-Tap the icon to the left of the name of the artist - this will usually be a thumbnail graphic of an album cover
-Tap the song bar towards the bottom of the screen
-Tap the "shuffle" icon at the bottom - this will look like two crossing arrows

It's impossible to shuffle all your music unless you have an internet connection, which is the most ridiculous thing in a long line of bad design moves from Apple.
I've moved across to this free app https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/musis-a-simple-music-player/id849003298?mt=8
which works very nicely with your existing music library, has very intuitive controls, shuffles, and no it's not in Korean despite the screenshots!

tell Siri to play my music on shuffle.


text:
Applescript Producing Error when Sending Messages
I have this Applescript code that sends a message to a given contact. However, I get this runtime error:
Can’t get «class pres» "a_name@gmail.com" of application "Messages".

The important part of the code:
tell application "Messages"
    set theBuddy to buddy theName
    repeat theTimes times
        send theMessage to theBuddy
    end repeat
end tell

theBuddy is the email address, theTimes is the number of iterations, and theMessage is the message to be sent. So why is producing this error, and how do I fix this?
Thanks

Can't repro using that snippet. Working fine here. Are you using an email address as 'theName'? Should be a contact name, as listed in your address book, I'd think - like 'Fred Bloggs'

Can't reproduce either. Strange.

Were you perhaps (I don't assume you remember for sure, since this question is so old) attempting to also log theBuddy or similar?  I get this error when doing something similar and trying to log it...  Will post an answer if I figure that out.


text:
Dislike track or playlist recommendation
On iOS I have the option to tell Apple Music that I don't like this recommendation. In iTunes this functionality doesn't seem to be present. Is this indeed not possible within iTunes or am I missing something?

Where are you seeing this don't like option?

@unknowndomain tapping and holding on a suggestion on the for you section opens up a menu that offers the "dislike" option.


text:
I get the grey screen after startup on 2006 macbook pro. no keys work.
Just a few days ago ( I have actually been using another computer for a while ) I started up my 2006  macbook pro and and after a few minutes I got the white diagonal lines, although I could still see the desktop pic with the top menu and dock but hitting keys did nothing.
Well after a few more startups in the last few days, that desktop disappeared with just the white lines across a grey screen, then the next start up the apple logo had diagonal lines and then black lines and just now I fired it up again and I got the black lines and then right to the grey screen.
I've seen this issue posted about before and I cannot remember what it means and I hope it is fixable.
It's a 2006 15" MacBook Pro. I had the video chip replaced a few years back.
So, cuz it's 9 years old and otherwise works perfectly - except that I am maxed out at OSX 10.6.8 - I wonder if it is worth fixing - depending on what needs to be done.
If it's the hard drive, I am wondering if it is worth removing it and replacing with a solid state?
Any thoughts? O and previous to this the start up sound was like a car battery that was almost dead when you start it up. really slow.

Sounds very much like the graphics chip is on the blink again, it's pretty common to see these units fail again and again...
Unfortunately you won't be able to get it serviced any more as it's classified as obsolete by Apple now so no parts are available, although maybe eBay etc...
There is a chance you could do an OS reinstall to verify it's a hardware fault and not software, but the diagonal lines is symptomatic of a hardware graphics chip issue like you would see on this range of machine.
I would be looking to replace the machine at this point sadly. It might be worth going to the manager in an Apple Store and indicating that it's failed for a known fault again and asking if they would give a discount on a new machine as they may well do this as a gesture of good will.

Hi and thanks for the quick reply. I just started it up once more holding down the ALT key and it worked just fine and now on sleep.

The folks downtown who did the video chip replacement do free diagnostics. So i think I will take it in and see what they find and if it is replaceable. I cannot afford to get another Mac now.

What about the idea of replacing the hard drive with a solid state?

Oops! Well, it did. I lifted the hood to check and it looked fine for about 10 seconds, then the white lines and then the black lines.

Wait a sec, you are saying the video chip and the graphics chip are the same chip?

@sunny i wouldn't replace the disk with a solid state, yes it is faster than your current disk but i don't think that if has any benefits thanks to te processor and the current OSX you're on

Ok. It was a thought. If the video chip is the same as a graphic chip then the problem is on the logic board, not the hard drive. So putting in a solid state drive is not about this problem. And that was what was replaced two years ago. ( I found the receipts. )

Well, someone told me to start it up with Shift key in Safe Mode and it seems to be working.

Graphics/video card/chip/controller are the same.


text:
Unfortunate deleting binary command file
I deleted "chmod" by mistake using "sudo rm chmod".
What is the way to recover the chmod command?
Is it 'a no way to do it' operation?
I'm using Mac OS X Yosemite.

There's a recovery partition; you may be able to use that.  However, I think the question is more appropriate for Ask Different — or possibly Super User.  Also, if you have Time Machine backups running, you should be able to use that to recover a copy of the file, and then carefully use sudo to copy it back to /bin/chmod.  And, in future, make sure you are paying attention when you're working as root.  Removing a single binary is fairly innocuous compared with the damage you could have done.

Thanks to reply. However I didn't have any backups, so i need another way.

This question probably has all the answers for you. In short there is no easy way. Your options are:

Recover the files from a (Time machin) Backup, if existent.
Reinstall OSX, e.g. from the Recovery mode pressing  Command+R at the startup screen
Copy the missing files from the Recovery partition (check if the partition is up to date first). E.g. by doing cp -a /bin /Volumes/<your disk name>


text:
Can't boot after graphic error
Specs: MBP 15-in late 2011 running Yosemite 10.10.3
Background
I have an external monitor that I've been using for about a year, but recently the Thunderbolt-to-HDMI adapter I have has been giving me problems (bad/fuzzy connection) so I bought a new one from amazonBasics. I used it for about a day with no issues, but while I was streaming a video, the monitor went gray and the audio started skipping. The keyboard and trackpad were frozen so I did a manual shutdown. When I tried to reboot, it would always get stuck at about 25% of the loading bar. I tried booting in safe mode, but pressing "Shift" at/before/during/after the chime didn't activate it. After pressing "alt" and choosing my secondary HDD and some dumb luck, I managed to finally boot my laptop. Everything worked perfectly. So I stupidly tried to troubleshoot the problem and found that both my old and new Thunderbolt-to-HDMI adapters cause this graphic glitch and break the reboot. However, if I run the laptop with no external monitor, it works fine (surfing and streaming). Then the battery died and I had the same issues trying to boot:

Sometimes there would be no progress bar (just a gray screen) and then the fans would speed up.
Sometimes the bar would get stuck at 25%.
And sometimes it would boot fully and have no problems afterwards.

I want to do a recovery from my Time Machine or reinstall OS X, but Recovery Mode doesn't work either.
TL;DR: I can't boot into Safe or Recovery Mode and I would like to recover from Time Machine or reinstall OS X.
Any ideas on how to permanently fix this booting issue?

Do you have a boot USB

I have one for Mavericks, but I'll make one for Yosemite. That will work differently than trying to boot from a Time Machine drive?


text:
Is there a way to automatically update a folder in external hard drive without deleting missing files?
I have a 250GB macbook air. I do a lot of photography, so my SSD gets filled up with photos really quickly. I've been using a 2TB external hard drive to archive the older photos that I no longer need to store in my SSD, moving the folders with the photos manually to the external hard drive, and then deleting them in my SSD. I was wondering if there is a way to do this automatically? The process should backup all the sub-folders in my Pictures folder to the hard drive, but without deleting the sub-folders that I have already deleted in my SSD.

If you are not afraid of using Terminal, you can run
rsync -a --progress /PATH/TO/Pictures /Volumes/EXTERNAL/Pictures/


text:
When using the default British keyboard layout, some apps won't let me input #
For some reason, on my iMac, [alt]+3 will enter the # symbol as it's supposed to in some applications (e.g. Xcode), while in others (e.g. Safari, Terminal...) it just makes a little error 'beep'.
It's not a major problem, since I can use a different key layout and the problem is resolved, but it's always bugged me that I couldn't determine the source of this behaviour. It has persisted through Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite.
I also have a Macbook Pro with mostly similar configuration and things installed AFAIK, but it doesn't have this problem.

I do not have this problem on my MBP as well. In Terminal, you could perhaps go to Preferences > Encoding and enable UTF-8 etc. You can do the same in Safari > Preferences > Advanced > Default Encoding

Thanks for the suggestion; doesn't seem to make a difference in Safari, Terminal already had UTF-8 along with lots of others (the defaults)... I haven't tried unchecking others. The thing is, they're willing to accept the character, but not via the standard alt+3 with the standard keyboard layout.

Also make sure that you don't have alt-3 as some sort of shortcut. You can check in System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts

A workaround would be to chnage the keyboard setting to Australian see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3977069/emacs-question-hash-key/3977314#3977314

Checking keyboard shortcuts was another good suggestion, but no dice (I think I'd already looked there a while ago). I am now using a custom keyboard map which is identical to standard British but with § mapped to #, so it's working ok, just would still like to understand why this happened.


text:
Is there any way to reattach an 'orphaned' Windows installation?
I have a Windows installation in a partition on my hard drive. The problem is, it's not showing up when I startup holding alt.
I installed Windows through VirtualBox, linked to a physical partition on my hard drive. It all fully installed and boots in VirtualBox, but it doesn't show up on the boot drive selection.
I installed through Vbox because my Optical drive is broken, so I can't use the actual Windows installation disk I have. I tried creating a 'bootable' Windows installation USB key with Boot Camp Assistant, but when it actually came to installing Windows, it wouldn't work.
So yeah, is there a way to tell EFI that the Windows partition actually exists?

That's a good idea. Eventually, I just installed rEFInd, which detects the partition automatically.

I can think of lots of reasons why that should not have worked, but if it did for you, great.

Just curious, why should that not have worked?

Well, I suppose with all the different Mac models, you must have found a way to install on your model that I have not yet encountered. i would need more information to answer you question. For example, what model is you Mac? Did you do a EFI/GPT or BIOS/MBR install? Which version of Windows 7? Does all you hardware work after installing the Boot Camp Support Software?


text:
How to find command line program with which
I am trying to remove all traces of Ureka. I followed the instructions in the link to do this, but when I test if it is gone with $ur_setup I see that the terminal does know what it should be looking for, because it says:
-bash: /Users/myname/.ureka/ur_setup: No such file or directory

But when I type $which ur_setup nothing is returned. And I have deleted the directory in the above code with
rm -rf /Users/myname/code/Ureka
rm -rf $HOME/.ureka
rm -rf $HOME/.ureka_tmp

How can I delete all memory of this program so that terminal does not know where it should look for the program?
As a note, when I $echo $PATH I get:
/Users/myname/code:/Users/myname/anaconda/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin

Between removing Ureka and running $ur_setup, did you restart terminal? If not the variable would be in memory…

Also, might be worth checking it’s not set in your shells rc file (probably ~/.bashrc or maybe ~/.profile)

You removed the application according to the documentation. Now unset the variable ur_setup
    unset ur_setup

You are good to go.

Try this:
for i in `echo $PATH | sed 's/:/ /g'`; do
    printf "\033[1;103;30m        $i\033[0m\n"
    ls "$i" | grep "ur_setup"
done

This will iterate through directories included in PATH, print them in yellow and then if there's something in there matching ur_setup pattern, print it. It can be done cleaner, but it's not worth creating a big function for a small need.
Also, if there's no result from which ur_setup (neither not found nor like /usr/bin/spiderd), you should try type which.


text:
iPhone 6 lockscreen message preview
I just got my iPhone 6 and everything works fine. It's just that whenever I recieve a text message, the notification on the lockscreen pops up and says who it's from and then  "to you"  right below it.
I know that the notification is to me so how can I turn this off so I don't have to read this before every message preview in my lockscreen? Any response would be greatly appreciated.

the reason to have it there it could a group message or a forwarded message or "to you".

Settings --> Notifications ---> Messages
Then just click the "Show on lock screen" button to turn it to off mode (no green showing).
Edit: As far as I know there is no way to turn off this feature with stock iOS. You may be able to find a specific app to change this feature with a jailbroken iPhone.

I know how to turn off the message previews. I want to keep them on-- I just don't want to see "to you" after it says who it is from. I know that it is to me. I want to be able to read the message preview without reading that phrase before it everytime.

I don't believe you can turn off the setting and I edited my answer to reflect that. This is a very specific change and so it may be some time until someone can answer this with full confidence.


text:
Filter by column in Numbers
I have blanks in each row.  Can I hide them?
I want to be able to select a row and gather it together by getting rid of the empty cells.

Your question is a bit unclear to me.  Do you just want to hide the empty cells or find and delete them altogether?  What is the reason you have blanks?  Is it due to imported data such as from a CSV file?  If the data is not sensitive, could you modify your question with a screenshot?  More information would be very helpful in assisting you with a solution. Cheers

It is a spreadsheet of passwords.  First column is website addresses.  Different sites require different details, therefore some cells ACROSS are empty.  I want to select a row and amalgamate the information so that there are no blanks across the row.  This is possible with "Filter Table' option, vertically.

Please add your above comments to the question for the benefit of clarity and perhaps to aid others with similar issues to find your question too.

Perhaps the simplest way to accomplish this is to use the CONCATENATE
Function in a new column and then hide the others.

At an appropriate place in your table, add a new column.  (Perhaps at the end)
Add a formula such as = TRIM ( CONCATENATE( A2, " ", A3 )) adding in the calculation as many cells as needed.
Drag the formula down the column.
Now, hide the columns.

The Trim function removes the blank space you add in the formula in the event the first row is blank.
See examples below.

Hello, this is exactly the effect I am looking for, but without the formula.  I want to obtain the row information without the blanks as quickly as possible.  It is a spreadsheet of passwords that has to work quick.  I think this won't be possible unless there was an option to gather populated rows horizontally within the Numbers program.  Thanks for the long answer; the result is what I am looking for.

Well, even with Excel this has to be done with formulas due to the very nature of spreadsheet data display and design.  There are more robust ways of accomplishing this if you are willing to explore.  Once the formulas are in place, the data is formatted very quickly.  Hope you find a suitable solution. Cheers

Yeah, I think it's formula that will need to be used as even vertically Numbers displays the data in the column via drop down from the menu that pops out when you click the arrow at the top of the column.  Thanks anyway.


text:
Why can't I type lower case 'a' in Safari when entering text in a field?
If I open Safari and go to www.google.com and type in a search the letter 'a' can't be typed.  I have to press shift+a in order to type a capital letter a but can't type a lower case 'a'.  I'm typing this message in Firefox so clearly the key on my keyboard is functioning correctly.
I can type lower case a in the url bar area but not in other text boxes.  I can't type it on apple.stackexchange.com or on duckduckgo.com.  No text areas on any website seem to let me type lower case a.  However, it works fine when I use Firefox.
Any thoughts?  I'm using OS X 10.10.4 and Safari 8.0.7.

I had exactly the same problem, and after disabling extensions and restarting Safari it went away.  I then looked more closely and found that I had set the letter lowercase-a as the keyboard shortcut to allow flash in ClickToFlash.  Apparently this made it not work as a character in any text boxes in Safari!  I now have all the extensions back on but without that key shortcut, and everything is working fine!
BTW, this is clearly a bug in ClickToFlash, since the default key to make flash full-screen is lowercase-f, but I can type that fine in any text box.

I uninstalled all extensions in Safari and the problem went away.  I've not re-installed 2 of the 3 extensions I had and the problem has not come back.  Possibly there is something wrong with AdBlock Plus.

I had the same issue with lower case p on my mac and then when googling and saw elsewhere reference to keyboard shortcuts in the Accessibility prefs, the light went on.  I had installed Telestream Screenflow (screen capture) the default keyboard command to pause recording was something esoteric and hard to remember so I changed it to 'p' assuming that was only for when Screenflow was the active app.  Nope. Disabling that in Screenflow fixed my 'broken' lower case p


text:
Formatting of a web page messed up when using proxy
Background
For academic purposes I have to use an university proxy from my home in order to access some contents online available only with this method (PUBMED, a medical research database).
I have configured Firefox to connect through this proxy as explained in my faculty website.
The problem
However when accessing PUBMED I notice the proxy is working properly regarding the contents, meaning I can access contents usually unavailable without the proxy, but at the same time there are errors in how the page is formatted.
Everything happens to be in column in the left side of the screen.
I tried to disable all addons I had, but did not work.

I presume it all works correctly when using Firefox on campus? Do you need to go through a VPN first? (I know I did for my uni)

Yes, it works correctly when using Firefox on campus. No I just need to configure how FF connects to the web by "automatic configuration": http://proxy.cad.univpm.it/proxy.pac


text:
How can I avoid different windows of the same app get folded in at the dock?
Some times I have apps opened with more than one windows, like Chrome. How can I see in the Dock one icon per each windows (even they are of the same app) that I have open?
Would be nice know how to switch using command+tab or something like that between all the windows opened.

Depending on how your System prefs are set,  F3  will do a variety of window-juggling tasks…
If Prefs > Keyboard > Keyboard is set to default, with "Use all F1, F2…" unchecked then they will work as stated, if it's checked you will need to add the  Fn  key to each of these commands.
 F3  will toggle Mission Control - all windows of all apps & Desktops spread out so you can see them.
 Cmd ⌘   F3  will toggle desktop view only.
 Ctrl ⌃   F3  will show all windows of only the frontmost app *[this is likely to be the closest to what you need.]
 Shift ⇧   F3  will do the same as just  F3  … only really really slowly [for presentations etc]
 Opt ⌥   F3  will bring up Mission Control prefs, where you can tweak other behaviour.
You can also go directly to a given tab by right-clicking the app icon in the Dock, though it only shows the frontmost tab's title for each window.

Thanks for your reply. Is really frustrating don't have this feature on Mac.

Ahh… a late thought, I'll add to the answer - you can go to a specific window if you right click the icon in the Dock - but the label only shows the frontmost tab's title

Yes, already realize that. Thanks again, I'm really impressed that OS X don't have this feature, very uncomfortable ;)

Horses for courses, I guess - personally even on Windows I consolidate to stop it doing the, imo, irritating one-window-per-icon thing ;)

The dock does not shows the windows but the applications.
But once you choose an application you can switch among windows with command+`
To see all the open windows you can use exposé: press F10 to show all the windows of the current application or F9 for all the windows. You can also configure a gesture in the system preferences.

Thanks for your reply.  So no way in Mac of have an easy to access list of all the windows I have opened? or a shortcut to switch between all the windows no matter if they are of the same app or not?

See my edit. Not the same but could maybe work ...

None of those keys worked.


text:
Quick application switch (Command-Tab) messed up
My quick application switching, using Command-Tab, isn't starting at the most recently opened/focused application. Instead it does the opposite. It goes to the application I opened least recently. How do I fix this?

Remove any "utilities" like Alfred or Candy Bar. Restart your Mac.

I don't have any of those

Did you tried restarting your Mac?

These errors are now worse on Sierra.


text:
Startup very slow (10.6 / 10.9)
My dev workstation (MBP 2012, 2.5Ghz i5, 16Gb, 500Gb HDD) is incredibly slow booting up to the point I'm terrified of rebooting it. Every now and again it crashes or refuses to wake (maybe once every 2-3 weeks), and the reboot is required. When OS or other app store updates are involved reboots are also necessary then as well.
Roughly the boot up time comprises of 3 visible phases:

10-15 minutes after the initial turn-on/login on, on the grey background with spinner/throbber
1-2 minutes for the desktop background to appear and icons, app windows to appear. The windows are generally blank and not usable, although I can drag them around.
10 minutes for apps to actually become responsive and for the OS to be usable.

I had the problem on the old install of 10.6, and I have it now on 10.9 which I've been running for probably a year or so.
Once the system has booted, it is generally quite usable, although I do get slow downs if I run too many VMs and apps at the same time, but this isn't anything I wouldn't expect given the lack of solid state.
While I fully expect to upgrade to an SSD any day now, I'd love to be able to diagnose this issue and understand what's going on. The fact that it affects multiple stages of the boot process tells me it's probably not just one specific item, and really feels like a massive fragmentation issue. As I understand it though, OSX should not be susceptible to fragmentation? Alternatively I suppose it could be a massive page file? Given I'm running 16Gb though, I'd like to think I'm not thrashing very much.
UPDATE:
Thanks to @CML's comment about Disk integrity, I ran a Verify Disk, and got the following:
Checking extended attributes file.
Volume bitmap needs minor repair for orphaned blocks
Checking volume information.
Invalid volume free block count
(It should be 12269746 instead of 11497979)
(It should be 12269746 instead of 11497979)
(It should be 12269746 instead of 11497979)
The volume Macintosh HD was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired using the Recovery HD. Restart your computer, holding down the Command key and the R key until you see the Apple logo. When the OS X Utilities window appears, choose Disk Utility.

UPDATE 2:
Ran Repair Disk, this alters the boot up phase times to:

2-3 minutes (down from 10-15 minutes)
1-2 minutes (no change)
10 minutes (no change)

So a marked improvement, but it still seems as though something is pretty messy somewhere.

how many StartUpItems do you have?
maybe something wrong with the harddisk? did you run disk utility's repair disk?

Thanks for prompting me to verify the disk, issues found, OP updated. My startup items are pretty minimal: Growl, Skype, Divvy, Chrome.

I'd 'give it a whirl' now - while you still can. All the time you leave it running, it could be busy writing more & more cross-referenced files to an already damaged drive.

Run Disk Utility's Repair Disk while you still can.

I needed to reboot to Recovery mode to do it, which I did. It made a large impact to the first phase of the boot up, down from 10-15 minutes to 2-3 minutes. However phase 2-3 seems unaffected.


text:
Using (Shared) Reminders on iPhone - Any Way to Recover?
So, my wife created a Reminders list on her phone and added me.  When I accepted the share and went into it, it wasn't loading the list items, so I deleted the list and she removed the share and readded me.  But now I can't get the list.
If I log into iCloud it says that I've already accepted the share.
Any thoughts?

Your wife needs to recover it from her last backup - then let it share in its own sweet time ;)

I don't think there is a backup.  But it works fine on her phone.

Ah, sorry - wasn't reading properly. Maybe if she renames it, or something to make iCloud think it's something different.


text:
How to avoid external display going off after I unplug a MacBook from the AC Power?
When I have my MacBook Pro 10.10 connected to the AC Power my external display connected through HDMI works fine.
As soon I disconnect the MacBook from the AC Power and start running on battery, my external display turns off, even the MacBook is not sleeping.
How to avoid external display go off after I unplug my MacBook from the AC Power?

I unplug the power connector and external display goes off immediately if I have the lid closed.
The laptop is still awake, I can test that because it responded to the ping.
I plug in the power connector and the external display turns on immediately, but the screen is locked, so I have to type my password.

Does It goes off and STAYS off ? or goes off but then goes on again  automatically! like a cycle.


text:
Where can I find the official OS X 10.10 documentation?
I'm a programmer and system administrator with more than 15 years of experience on Windows and Linux. I recently switched to OS X, using a MacBook Pro. Can anybody point me to the OS X documentation where I can find everything about OS X, from the files system and utilities, up to philosophy and architecture?

See also http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/93409/where-can-i-find-a-comprehensive-and-detailed-technical-software-manual-for-os-x?rq=1

Here is the OS X Yosemite v10.10 Documentation.
You can always find developer resources on the Apple Developer sites. You can find other OS X documentations there, as well as iOS documentations. Other resources, such as feature descriptions, revision histories, upcoming changes, and user agreements can be found there, also.
The best of luck in your programming endeavours!


text:
Access to refunded in-app purchases
Is it normal that refunded in-app purchases (on the Mac) can still be re-downloaded without charge?

This is a known bug with the App Store.

Do you have any sources for that?

@kirby123 Only behind developer program membership login—should I add the link anyway?

It might be helpful for others who have a developer account, I suppose. But it's good to know that Apple is aware of this issue.


text:
Yosemite Installation Error

Okay, so every time I install Yosemite on my iMac, it gives me the same response. I delete the copy, and reinstall it, but it still gives me the same error...

You may want to try running a disk verification to make sure you don't have any issues with your hard drive that could be causing the error

I have, nothing is wrong with the hard drive. Are there any other websites that provide a clean installation of Yosemite? It's either that, or no Yosemite for me...

Have you tried any possible fixes on Google, such as http://www.needhelp4mac.com/2014/10/this-copy-of-the-install-os-x-yosemite-application-cant-be-verified-it-may-have-been-corrupted-or-tampered-with-during-downloading/ ?

I've tried some, but none have helped so far... I'll try that Website, however.

Do check the validity of your Yosemite download, in Terminal paste following "shasum /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg" after waiting for a minute or so it will come up with a answer "4b93ff2cef88220a116fbce7c5707c9c57442bd0  /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg"

I'll try that if http://www.needhelp4mac.com/2014/10/this-copy-of-the-install-os-x-yosemite-application-cant-be-verified-it-may-have-been-corrupted-or-tampered-with-during-downloading/ doesn't work out for me, thank you!

Neither of the two have worked for me. As for shasum... I did that, with no response at all...

Did you copy the installer of a drive? If you did, it's no good, as it will only work on the Mac that installed it. You will have to download the installer from the Mac App Store on the specific iMac you wish to install it on.

Okay. This is what I do. I go to the iMac's App Store, and I install Yosemite. When it's installed, I go to the Launchpad and look for the Yosemite. I open the Yosemite installer, then the error shows up. I delete, and re-do the entire process over again. In the Apple's forums, I asked the same thing, and someone answered to either download Yosemite from some other website (Third-party) or to report it to Apple's Service. Now, I don't want to pay for something that might be so obvious, so I'm hoping that the solution would be easily solved by doing something!


text:
Search for files in external storage in Finder (and if possible, Spotlight as well)
I have an external drive connected to my computer, as well as a home server.
I'm trying to search for a file that is on the server, but when I do a finder search, it only looks into the internal drive. I've tried it with my external drive, and same thing happens -- it does not look there.

You can add the Volume to your Spotlight index.
Go to System Preferences then to Spotlight.

Click on the Privacy tab Click the + button and browse to your
external drive to add it
Now, remove the drive you just added by selecting it and clicking
the minus "-" button. (Yes, I know, crazy right! But this tells
Spotlight that the Volume exists.)
Close Spotlight Preferences.

Source: Apple Support - Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes.

Looks like it's currently indexing (I'd assume it takes a bit of time), however, I have a follow-up problem regarding the server. It seems like I have to do your procedure for every group, and I can't just do the whole server.

Check out the command line link in the other answer. But yes, it appears you are correct.

Sometimes you might need to have Spotlight reindex the target location.
You can add and then remove the target location to the Privacy pane of Spotlight under System Preferences.  The action of adding and removing the target will force Spotlight to reindex that location.  You can add either by drag and drop or the [+] button and then remove with the [-] button after selecting the target location.
You can also use mdutil in a Terminal.  See the man page for mdutil. Also have a look at: Reindex Spotlight from the Command Line

Looks like were were working to answer at the same time! ;)  Thanks for adding the Terminal tip too.


text:
Multiple user accounts in Safari like in Chrome?

Note: creating a separate system user is not an option for me.

In Google Chrome, I can create separate "users" and launch a new Chrome window. Tabs that are opened in this window have their own sessions (cookie jars) that I can keep separate from other user's sessions.
This is great for me because, as a developer, I have personal and work "users" with separate logins for many of the same services.
E.g., I have a personal and a work gmail account - instead of combining them in gmail, I prefer to keep them separate. In my personal Chrome window, I login to gmail to read personal email. In my work Chrome window, I login to gmail (Google Apps for your domain) to read work email.
Another common one is digitalocean, github, and bitbucket. I have personal accounts for each, and work accounts for each. Keeping these things in separate Chrome windows is very helpful for me.
Another great thing about it is Chrome will save my tabs for me. When I'm at work, I can close my personal user window and open my work user window. All of my tabs from the last time I was working will be there. When I'm done with work, I open my personal user window and all my personal tabs are restored.
That said, Chrome is a bloated pig and hogs my RAM and battery. On a brand new Macbook Pro, with Chrome running, I'll get around 4 hours of battery life. With it closed, I can get much closer to 8 hours.
I'd like to ditch Chrome and try Safari, but without such a user profile feature, I'm afraid it will not be useful for me. If it's not natively possible, is there a plugin/extension available?
Thanks for any information.

I, too, have looked for this ability in Safari, but it just doesn't exist. I've submitted an enhancement request at Apple's Safari Feedback page every time a new version has come out.

Thanks for the suggestion. I submitted a feature request.

It's that time of the year again, I hope you submitted your feedback, I did :)

SwitchUp is no longer actively supported, unfortunately but I have a recommendation which I am using just now –
https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/
Run a second safari :-) Technically, this would be beta software so you may run into issues, but it's the closest I can see to accomplishing this (and yes, you'd only be limited to 2 profiles with this).
Good luck!

This doesn't really help much, since bookmarks are shared between blue safari (standard) and purple safari (tech preview). If you want to have two completely separate identities this doesn't help.

I like it, that everything is still shared, like iCloud tabs, etc. But that's definitely up to personal preference/needs. For me this is a really awesome workaround!

Nice. This should work great for me. Appreciate it!

Running Safari Technology Preview as a workaround to get a separate user profile is a great tip. The "cookie jar" for different accounts is the biggest win for me. I like shared bookmarks between accounts and I actually end up using Pinboard.in for things I really want to remember later.

Open another tab in private browsing. It lets me log into one tab with my own Facebook, and another tab as my wife's Facebook.

Useful for many cases, but many sites (e.g. Netflix) won't run in private browsing at all. Plus you might want your history etc.

Or different sets of passwords, bookmarks, extension configurations, privacy settings, etc.

Maybe SwitchUp is a solution for you. I'm using it for some time now and I like it.
SwitchUp makes it easy to create separate profiles so you can use an application for both home and work with different accounts, settings and data. It's like a multi-user environment for every application.
Not only for Safari but also for other apps :-) Although you can use it only for Safari...

Can we use all the profile at the same time with SwitchUp, like in Chrome?


text:
Protect changes to plain text file written by standard user's execution of bash script
I have written a simple bash script that I want to use as a time clock for employees (work-studies) in my computer lab. The script works great.
1. Each work-study has two icons (two separate bash scripts) on their desktop, one to clock in and another to clock out. They both write to the same .txt file.
2. When they click the clock-in icon, the script writes CLOCK IN and the current date and time to a plain text file in a shared Dropbox folder (shared between me and the work-study computer).
3. The script pauses for five seconds so the .txt file can update on Dropbox.
4. The browser opens with the work-study's updated time clock log. This is done via a Dropbox share link.
Here is the script for clocking in. The clock out script only says CLOCK OUT instead.
#!/bin/bash
# Write to .txt file
echo " CLOCK IN - $(date '+%x - %r')"  >> /Users/Username/Dropbox/Joe-Time-Clock.txt
# Give Dropbox a chance to sync.
sleep 5
# Open in browser so student can see clock in time.
open -a Google\ Chrome "https://www.dropbox.com/s/7vbgpc9x29d0z98/Time-Clock.txt?dl=0"
exit 0

Here is the plain text output:
Joe Smith - Time Clock
 CLOCK IN - 08/17/2015 - 06:00:25 PM
CLOCK OUT - 08/17/2015 - 06:00:48 PM
 CLOCK IN - 08/17/2015 - 06:00:52 PM
CLOCK OUT - 08/17/2015 - 06:05:14 PM
 CLOCK IN - 08/17/2015 - 06:14:51 PM
CLOCK OUT - 08/17/2015 - 06:15:11 PM

As of now, the student can simply open Joe-Time-Clock.txt when they are late and change the information. The work-studies are on a regular account on the Mac (10.6 Snow Leopard), and I have an admin account to which they do not have access. I would like for them to be able to execute the script on the desktop that writes to their time-clock file. However, I do not want them to be able to edit the script or edit the clock-in / clock-out log (Joe-Time-Clock.txt).
I fiddled with the permissions today. If Joe-Time-Clock.txt is synced by Dropbox and has root ownership enabled, then Dropbox, being a per user application, would not be able to sync it because it would lack the permissions. Otherwise, I would try this solution. Any ideas are welcome. Much thanks in advance.
Side note: I am much more used to working with permissions and command line in Linux. Today, when I spent a bit of time on CLI in OS X it felt a bit foreign, so the more details the better. Thanks!

Use a LoginHook and LogoutHook to record the time and a user's  LaunchAgent to open the browser. Link- https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/CustomLogin.html

@fd0 I ended up using a web form instead to do the same thing, only it also includes the client IP address to make sure there is no clock in from a different location than in the office. Thanks for the idea though.


text:
Xcode 4.2.1 installation problem
After I opened the dmg file there's an app called Install Xcode which asks me to agree. After entering administrator's password, it starts installing but then it stops and says it encountered an error and to consult /var/log/install.log.

What version of OS X are you trying to install this on?

Well, what did it have to say in the install.log file?

@kenorb, I am not the author of the OP, user142164 is.

@user142164 Please paste the full error or screenshot.

@user3439894 Similarities are too confusing:)


text:
Why does this cause Mac OSX to print over SSH?
While screwing around and breaking things I came across these stupid commands (if executed in order it causes what I got):
cd / && cat vmlinuz
cd /boot/ && cat init*
It causes special characters that aren't recognized by the system like ��� however, for some reason it causes weird effects like causing iTerm2 to send a bell (a notification to the system) like the screen shot:

However, the weirdest this is that is causes Mac OSX to print (screenshot):

Can someone explain to my why this happens, especially over SSH?
Thanks in advance!

Terminal.app probably implements the "media copy" (printer) escape sequence from VT100s.  You can read about those control sequences at vt100.net, or in the XTerm Control Sequences, e.g.,
CSI Pm i  Media Copy (MC).
        Ps = 0  -> Print screen (default).
        Ps = 4  -> Turn off printer controller mode.
        Ps = 5  -> Turn on printer controller mode.
CSI ? Pm i
      Media Copy (MC, DEC-specific).
        Ps = 1  -> Print line containing cursor.
        Ps = 4  -> Turn off autoprint mode.
        Ps = 5  -> Turn on autoprint mode.
        Ps = 1  0  -> Print composed display, ignores DECPEX.
        Ps = 1  1  -> Print all pages.


text:
How to access previous support articles?
I picked up an older G5 with a PowerPC for software testing. Its not booting, and I am experiencing the issues described at 3 Beep on Powermac G5 on the Apple Forums. Unfortunately, the links provided for support articles were broken by Apple's webmaster. For example, this was cited at least 5 times, and it appears to be the canonical reference for this issue on the G5:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302527

Now, here's the best part. On the new support site, there is no search box. So it appears I can't even search for it based on the previous article number.
How do I reference previous support articles on the redesigned site?

If you are lost on the Apple support globe and its new appearance and older forum links are leading to nowhere, the wayback machine may be helpful:
About the Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) diagnostic LEDs
This support article doesn't mention beeps but only flashes and colors.
BTW the Apple support site still features searches:

The result is not very helpful though, despite the fact that the article is still available in the archive. I haven't been able to find it in the 100 listed results.

There's always archive.org's Wayback Machine. Of course, the archive doesn't necessarily have a copy the site or page you're looking for, and sometimes images and other resources are not available, but it's worth a shot.
In this case, it looks like you're in luck!

I'm with you, though -- Apple's support content not as well preserved as it ought to be.


text:
What are the services Apple's Firewall considers essential?
I'm trying to determine what Apple's Firewall considers essential services. Apple's Firewall has the following settings available:

A search of Apple's site does not reveal a support document on the topic: http://www.google.com/search?q=firewall+"essential+services"+site:apple.com.
What are the services Apple's Firewall considers essential? And which of those services will be allowed to receive incoming connections, and make outbound connections?

Not really an answer, but this Macworld article says:"If you’d like to block all nonessential traffic, you can select Allow Only Essential Services, but beware: doing so will break some applications. You’ll still be able to browse the Web and use e-mail, but other inbound connections will be blocked."

Essential services are those in the Core Services layer. When that option is checked, only the incoming connections to the below services will be allowed:
From https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/OSX_Technology_Overview/CoreServicesLayer/CoreServicesLayer.html

The technologies in the Core Services layer are called core services because they provide essential services to apps but have no direct bearing on the app’s user interface.

Some of the notable core services are

accounts & Social media integration
identity service
time machine
keychain services
notifications
iCloud storage
cloudkit
file coordination
bundles and packages
internalization/localization
bonjour
security services
address book

And from http://www.macworld.com/article/1131116/firewall.html#configure

The second option, “Allow only essential services,” will block anything except a few default services that support networking, such as Bonjour. Only use this option if you want to block everything; this will prevent any file sharing, remote access, or other services activated elsewhere on your Mac.

You can switch your firewall settings and run nettop in Terminal to monitor the network activity of each process that is running.

Oh, man... that's worse than I expected; like why is the Keychain responding to incoming requests. I'll have a few more questions now that I need to tune that list...

To be honest, after looking into this, I also have more questions.

@jww Just because a service is a core service doesn't mean that it will have network functionality ;-) Or maybe I just misunderstood your comment.

Thanks David. I'm going to back off on accepting this answer. Sorry about that, Sinan.

No problem! I learned something as well :)

@DavidMulder would you be open to elaborating on your comment? Id appreciate it, I'm confused  I can't find any info besides what points to the core services as having network functionality on "allow essential services


text:
Permanently disable Apple's OpenSSH?
I have an older OS X 10.5 PowerMac (PowerPC) that needs to be online for testing software under the processor. It needs to be online because others want to use it for testing, too. I've updated OpenSSL and OpenSSH with new binaries placed in /usr/local. I also added a new Launchd plist at /System/LaunchDaemons to enable the new OpenSSH daemon on port 1522.
Now I want to permanently disable the existing Apple provided OpenSSH located at /usr/sbin/sshd. I don't want to delete it or replace it because that often causes more trouble than its worth. A search with http://www.google.com/search?q=apple+disable+sshd+site:apple.com appears to reveal no support documents on the subject. I found lots of discussions about updating OpenSSH and disabling it through the UI, but nothing about permanently disabling it.
I tried removing the execute bit, but that did not work. After reboot, Launchd still managed to start sshd. Other thoughts include a filesystem extended attribute to deny access to it.
How do I safely and permanently disable the existing OpenSSH daemon?

The most simple way to disable the Apple provided sshd without removing or replacing it is just renaming it:
sudo mv /usr/sbin/sshd /usr/sbin/sshd.old

Additionally you may add a symbolic link at /usr/sbin/ to the /usr/local/sbin/sshd with
sudo ln -s /usr/local/sbin/sshd /usr/sbin/sshd


text:
How do I play a Keynote slideshow without going fullscreen?
I am running Keynote 6.5.3 on OS X 10.10.5.  Is there a way to play a slideshow in Keynote in non-fullscreen mode?
Edit: I have edited my question slightly, since the suggestion to convert my Keynote files to Quicktime does not answer the question I had intended.
Edit2: I would prefer to not have to deal with the complexity of multiple file formats and apps for the simple task of reading through a large set of Keynote files, some of which I need on the screen at the same time due to diagrams etc.

You may want to see this answer.  It is for the older version but this still works.

Could you elaborate on why converting the slideshow to Quicktime movie doesn't meet your needs. That would be enough for me to case a reopen vote - as written, this is a duplicate. Also list explicitly if you can connect a second monitor and describe the problem - what having a window allows you to do. Perhaps there are clever alternatives you might not be seeing.

I asked, what I believe was a simple question. "Can 'App X' be prevented from going fullscreen when I click on 'Y'?.  If there is no way to do this, please say so instead of claiming that my question is a duplicate of something that does not really answer my question.

Based on your "Edit 2" do you need to play the slide shows to read through the Keynote files?  You can open several at once in several windows.  Playing and opening are two different things.  Please elaborate.  Having trouble following your logic.  That is my fault, I want to help if I can.

@bjbk quite a few of these Keynote files have animations. It would be really convenient to just hit a key to advance through.


text:
Why do I have IPv6 listeners when IPv6 is disabled?
I'm working under OS X 10.8.5, fully patched. I have IPv6 disabled under Network Settings:

I also have unneeded network interfaces disabled:

While troubleshooting an OpenSSH server issue, I performed a netstat -an and noticed there were IPv6 listeners:
$ netstat -an | grep -i listen
tcp6       0      0  *.1522                 *.*                    LISTEN
tcp4       0      0  *.1522                 *.*                    LISTEN
tcp6       0      0  ::1.52698              *.*                    LISTEN
tcp6       0      0  ::1.23053              *.*                    LISTEN
tcp4       0      0  127.0.0.1.23053        *.*                    LISTEN
tcp4       0      0  127.0.0.1.631          *.*                    LISTEN
tcp6       0      0  ::1.631                *.*                    LISTEN

How is it possible to have IPv6 listeners when IPv6 is disabled?

Because not setting up your network card to use ipv6 does not prevent applications of opening such sockets.
The sockets displayed as *.<port> are not bound to specific ip addresses/interfaces of your machine. They will simply listen to any incoming connection on any interface. Of course, no ipv6 connections will come in through your ethernet card if ipv6 is not set up.
Besides that, I'm pretty sure that another interface on your machine is set up to use ipv6: your loopback interface. Hit up a terminal and type ifconfig lo0 and you'll see it having an ipv6 address assigned to it. You can also use ping6 ::1 :). In fact, the ipv6 sockets listed as ::1.<port> are bound to this interface and will only receive connections from your local machine.

Thanks, I forgot abut the loopback. I'm going to have to try harder to completely disable IPv6.

@jww Disabling IPv6 on the local loopback is likely to cause more trouble than it solves.


text:
Logging for SSHD when started from Launchd with `-d` option?
I'm working on OS X 10.8.5, fully patched. I have an updated OpenSSH server installed in /usr/local/sbin listening on port 1522. Connection attempts result in ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host. sudo grep 'sshd' /var/log/* 2>/dev/null at the server is returning almost nothing, so I'm trying to gather more information at the server on the cause.
According to man sshd(8), -d is debug mode and it sends verbose debug output to standard error. I added -d to ProgramArguments in the plist, but the plist also sets StandardErrorPath to /dev/null. So I'm guessing the debugging information is being discarded.
I checked launchctl(1) man page, but I don't see what I should do to modify StandardErrorPath so that its logged somewhere. The man page does not even discussed the name/value pair.
How should I change the configuration so the debug logging is logged somewhere, and I know where that "somewhere" is?

$ cat /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh-7.1.plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Disabled</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.openssh.sshd-v7.1</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/usr/local/sbin/sshd</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>-i -d</string>
    </array>
    <key>Sockets</key>
    <dict>
            <key>Listeners</key>
            <dict>
                    <key>SockServiceName</key>
                    <string>1522</string>
            </dict>
    </dict>
    <key>inetdCompatibility</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Wait</key>
        <false/>
    </dict>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/dev/null</string>
    <key>SHAuthorizationRight</key>
    <string>system.preferences</string>
</dict>
</plist>

To add the -d argument to sshd, it should be added as a new element to the     array:
<string>-d</string>

The section should look like:
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>-i</string>
        <string>-d</string>
    </array>

Instead of editing the plist files directly, you can use /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy (-h to show help).
There is a utility script ssh-util.rb that can turn logging on/off. It is part of the OpenSSH-189 package found at: opensource.apple.com.
Link to ssh-util.rb
Here are the required commands to run (as produced from the ruby script):
/usr/bin/ruby ./ssh-util.rb -l on -v --debug --dryrun

or manually:
sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "add :ProgramArguments:2 string '-ddd'" /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
sudo touch /var/run/com.openssh.sshd-asl-enabled

When finished debugging,, you'll need to run either:
/usr/bin/ruby ./ssh-util.rb -l off -v --debug --dryrun

or manually:
sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Delete :ProgramArguments:2" /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
sudo rm -f /var/run/com.openssh.sshd-asl-enabled

Notes on OS X Logging

I think the debugging information will still be discared because something needs to be done with StandardErrorPath.

The 'magic' is done in the last line (creating the file in /var/run).  I've just turned on logging (via the ssh-util.rb script) and /var/log/sshd.log was created.

In my answer,  I linked to "Notes on OS X Logging".   Look in /etc/asl and also have a look at /etc/asl.conf.  (@Jakuje's comment concerning syslog is correct.)

To proper logging events from sshd you should not set -d swiches, since this is reserved for debugging, but you should user sshd_config (not sure where is located in OSX).
In sshd_config, there is option LogLevel, which you can adjust to your needs, basically the most verbose level is DEBUG3, which gives you a lot of information helpful for debugging.

If I set LogLevel=DEBUG3, then won't it be discarded because StandardErrorPath=/dev/null? (Sorry to have to ask. I don't usually administer OpenSSH. Usually it "just works").

It is not logged on stderr (at least on other *nix), it is logged using syslog or other logger provided by system (usually using /dev/log socket).


text:
Why I'm led to an another email account in my IPhone 6 Plus(IOS 8.4)?
There are three email accounts on my phone. A standard account(gmail) and two additional accounts.
When clicking on the email icon on the bottom bar my phone opens sometimes my standard account and sometimes another account. It seems that it does not matter what account is the standard account because my phone opens any account randomly. Is there a way I can make my phone open my standard account or make my phone open the list view of all accounts but not a non-standard account.
Thanks in advance.

Surely it opens the last one you looked at. On mine you then page back to the main page that lists all accounts and main mailboxes. Also what is a non standard account? gmail is not a standard account for me (it is one of the ones I use infrequently) :)

You are right but i want my phone open my standard account that i adjusted in the settings, there is an options to set one of my account as standard. Is there no way to open the standard but not the last account you looked at? Even after stopping the email app by double clicking on home button and drag it upwards it does not open my standard account :(

You mean your default account? That setting is used to define which account will be used by the system when sending mail from other apps, not to establish which account will present itself when you open Mail on iOS, I'm afraid.


text:
What is the user name associated with the Guest Account?
I'm trying to clamp down SSH access to a OS X 10.5 machine. Its a PowerMac used for testing software under the PowerPC.
SSH servers have a "Deny" configuration option that allows us to explicitly deny access based on a user. For a defense-in-depth measure, I want to specifically deny Guest access.
I'm having trouble finding information on what the actual user name is for the Guest Account. The Settings → Users & Groups app does not list it:

Following How can I list all user accounts in the terminal?, the dscacheutil command does not list the account.
And there is no man page on it:
$ man guest
No manual entry for guest

What is the user name associated with the Guest Account?

Is the guest acct even enabled? It's not checked in your screenshot.   Also read the text about guest under that enable check box, it says users can't use guest remotely which would include ssh.

I think the easiest way to know Guest user name would be login to the system as guest and in terminal type id
My guess is that user name for Guest is guest

I beginning to think its a noble cause but a moot point. When I added a Deny for Guest,  sshd_config failed to validate with a "unknown user" error. I despise it when the god damn window manager, rather than the system and its user database, try to manage users. Nothing good ever comes of it.

According to the info on the Guest user in the Users & Groups panel, it states that Users cannot log into the Guest user remotely.
Additionally, there is this question on SO: Is there a default SSH password on Mac OS X?, specifically the accepted answer:

Having no password on the OS level effectively means that ssh is disabled for that user. The protocol insists on a non-zero password and thus the hashes of whatever password is supplied fails to match the absence of a hash.

From the question: "For a defense-in-depth measure, I want to specifically deny Guest access."


text:
Is Photo compression-ratio for JPEG exports too high?
Despite selecting the High option when exporting JPEG images from Photo, I am finding the file size at destination is around 3MB - 60% smaller than when I exported the same images from iPhoto with the High option. Image size is unaffected. If Photo is compressing JPEG images more during export than iPhoto, I fear the image quality is also being reduced. Is this correct?
There is a possibility that Photo is actually extra-compressing images at the import stage, not during export. Or both!

You can export unmodified original photos from the Photos.app from File > Export > Export Unmodified Original.
You can also select a higher resolution when exporting from File > Export > Export or cmd + ⇧+ E; and select "Maximum" from the drop down menu.
I suspect it is still recompressed, so it is expectable that the image will be smaller.
Also, check this question and answers.


text:
Set custom date format on iOS
I am using the iOS 9 beta and I am trying to change the date format to
dayofweek-dayofmonth-month-year.
For example today would be:

Tuesday, 25 Aug 2015

In Settings I have looked under ‘Language & Region’, and at the bottom of the page there is something that shows ‘Region Format Example’, but I cannot find a way to set a custom date format without changing my region (which still doesn't allow custom, but it will change it).
Under ‘Date and Time’ there isn't anything either.

If you’re in the US, check out New Zealand. It also changes the short date format to d/m/y, though.

It's currently not possible to set a custom date format on iOS, unlike macOS. On iOS you can only change the date format by changing the region as you discovered.

Does anyone know which country used the Date format:  m/d/y?  E.g. 9/15/18.  Many thanks.  I tried the UK and Canada, no dice.

@Penny11 Is the USA m/d/y?

My bad for not being more specific. If I choose United States, the iPhone uses this format: Sep 17, 2018. Because of screen space limitations, only Sep 17, 20.. is visible. If I could change to a numbers-only format, e.g., 9/17/18, then everything would fit.


text:
Quote a filename in a script passed to chmod?
I'm having trouble quoting a filename that's eventually passed to chmod. The script was originally written for SSH's StrictModes and authorized_keys, but I had to expand it due to a bad UMASK that caused some filesystem discomfort. The script is below, and its producing boatloads of:
chmod: /Users/<user>/Library/Application: No such file or directory
chmod: Support/TextMate/Managed/Bundles/HTML.tmbundle/Macros/Delete: No such file or directory
chmod: whitespace: No such file or directory
chmod: between: No such file or directory
chmod: tags.plist: No such file or directory
...
chmod: /Users/<user>/Library/Caches/com.operasoftware.Opera/Media: No such file or directory
chmod: Cache/index: No such file or directory
cut: stdin: Illegal byte sequence
...

I've tried a few workarounds, but none of them have helped. I tried double quoting like ""$file"", but the issue persisted. I also tried the back ticks (that are discouraged in this case), but the issue persisted.
The closest I got to actually quoting was the dysfunctional "\"""$file""\"". But then chmod complained the filename (with quotes) was not a real file:
$ sudo ~/fix-perms.sh
chmod: "/Users/Shared/.localized": No such file or directory
chmod: "/Users/<user>/.CFUserTextEncoding": No such file or directory
chmod: "/Users/<user>/.lesshst": No such file or directory

How do I quote the filename that comes out of find that gets passed onto chmod? Or how do I get chmod to take the filename as a single argument?

$ cat ~/fix-perms.sh
#!/bin/bash

# Directories
find /Users/* -type d -exec chmod 0700 {} \;
find /Users/Shared -type d -exec chmod 0777 {} \;

# Files
for file in `find /Users/* -type f`;
do
    if [ `file "$file" | cut -d":" -f 2 | grep -i -c executable` -eq 0 ];
    then
        `chmod 0600 "$file"`
    else
        `chmod 0700 "$file"`
    fi
done

for user in `ls -A /Users`;
do
    if [ -e "/Users/$user/.ssh/authorized_keys" ];
    then
        chmod 0600 "/Users/${user}/.ssh/authorized_keys"
    fi
done

Are you invested in bash scripting or are there other options you would accept? If you're bash, I might be able to rework things to be find | xargs sudo chmod instead of unrolling everything in a for loop where spaces are causing you grief to iterate over the variable.

I was able to resolve the issue by changing IFS to IFS=$(echo -en "\n\b") and not quoting the filename. IFS is Internal Field Separator, it is used (among others) for word splitting after shell expansions, and it includes a space by default.
I found the IFS trick at nixCraft's BASH Shell: For Loop File Names With Spaces.
$ cat fix-perms.sh
#!/bin/bash

SAVED_IFS=$IFS
IFS=$(echo -en "\n\b")

# Directories
chmod 0755 /Users
find /Users/* -type d -exec chmod 0700 {} \;
find /Users/Shared -type d -exec chmod 0777 {} \;

# Files
for file in `find /Users/* -type f`;
do
    if [ `file "$file" | cut -d":" -f 2 | grep -i -c executable` -eq 0 ];
    then
        chmod 0600 "$file"
    else
        chmod 0700 "$file"
    fi
done

for user in `ls -A /Users`;
do
    if [ -e "/Users/$user/.ssh/authorized_keys" ];
    then
        chmod 0600 "/Users/${user}/.ssh/authorized_keys"
    fi
done

IFS=$SAVED_IFS

I can't really recommend this method, since it'll fail for filenames with linefeeds (or bells? why's that there...). Suppose a user created a file named a\n*\nb -- it'll be parsed into three words: "/Users/something/a", *, and "b"; then the * will get expanded into a list of files and subdirectories in the directory you're in, and the script will then change their permissions (maybe wrong, since the subdirectories aren't executable). But your users probably won't do this. Probably...

@Gordon - I did not look up the shell meta characters, but I meant to. Thanks for telling me about the bell... Why in the world is \b there, but not \t? Naively, I thought \b was either the tab or backspace. I kinda understood the backspace, but the bell makes no sense to me.

@Gordon - apparently, the Bash page uses an incorrect assumption for OS X. On OS X under HFS+, filenames can contain \0; see Mac OS X Lion: What are invalid characters for a file name? on Super User. A leading \0 is probably a good way for a virus to hide itself...

fwiw, find [options] -print0, when used in conjunction with (piped to) xargs -0 [options], handles filenames with spaces, without messing with for loops or IFS:
find /Users ! -path '/Users/Shared*' -type f -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} \
    bash -c 'if [[ "$(file -b --mime-type -- "{}")" = "application/x-mach-binary" ]]; then
                 chmod 700 "{}"
             else
                 chmod 600 "{}"
             fi'

thanks @patrix, that's better than what I would have come up with.

Yeah, there's so many ways to do things with the shell.... (I find it frustrating at times).

Slight alternative: find /path -type d -maxdepth 1 ! -perm 0700 -exec chmod 0755 {} \;  The -maxdepth # is arbitrary, sometimes you don't need or want to go too far down tree.

find can handle spaces in file names. Your for loops are causing the problems. You can put your logic in multiple find commands. Not every directory in a user's home folder should be accessible to only them self. Public and Sites come to mind. You can fix them separately in another find command.
find /Users/* ! -path '/Users/Shared*'  -type d ! \( -name Public -o -name Sites \) -exec chmod 0700 {} +

The command excludes the Shared directory along with Public and Sites directories then changes the permissions on the remaining directories.
You can use + in your find statements to have find act as if it were xargs.
find /Users/Shared -type d -exec chmod 0777 {} +

Assuming that the executable files in a user's home folder are application bundles then you could do this.
find /Users/* ! -path '/Users/Shared*' type f ! perm -755 -exec chmod 0600 {} +

Thanks fd0. "find can handle spaces in file names. Your for loops are causing the problems." - OK, good, I'll take your word for it. Now what? You don't tell really me how to fix it. (Don't worry about Shared or $HOME/Public. That's icing on the cake. The primary concern is permissions on home directories).

mtklr's (and Patrix') solution will work, but I find it's simpler to use a while read loop when dealing with a file list from find ... -print0:
find /Users '!' -path '/Users/Shared*' -type f -print0 |
    while IFS= read -d '' -r file; do
        if file "$file" | grep -iq ": .*executable"; then
            chmod 700 "$file"
        else
            chmod 600 "$file"
        fi
    done

read -d '' uses nulls as a delimiter. I also used  -r to prevent it from trying to parse escapes, and IFS= to prevent it trimming whitespace at the end of the filename (and since it's a prefix to the read command, it only applies to that one and you don't have to set it back afterward).
BTW, I also used if ... | grep -q ... -- the -q tells grep not to output anything, but its exit status will only succeed if it found at least one match. And since if just tests the exit status of the command in it, that's all that's needed.
BTW, this is mostly based on BashFAQ #20: How can I find and safely handle file names containing newlines, spaces or both?. I recommend giving it a look...


text:
Preview.app custom keyboard shortcuts broken after Yosemite upgrade
While running Mavericks, I added Control-P and Control-N as shortcuts for Preview.app.  Sort of Emacs-like page turning.  It worked fine.
After upgrading to Yosemite, these keyboard shortcuts no longer work.  Deleting them from the Shortcuts list in System Preferences and creating them again does not fix the issue.  As you can see in the second screenshot, the shortcuts ^N and ^P do not appear in Preview.app's "Go" menu.  I seem to remember that when the shortcuts did work, the "Go" menu showed them.
If there is a shortcut conflict, I haven't been able to find it.  Thanks!

Sorry.  I don't mean that the screenshot shows the conflict.  The screenshot only shows that the new keyboard shortcuts are unknown to Preview.app.  I also mean to say there may be a hidden conflict with ^P and ^N that prevents these key combinations from being used for Previous Item and Next Item.  Does this clear up my question?  Thanks

Yes, sorry.  Had a brain cramp


text:
Installing Windows 10 Bootcamp on 27 iMac (2015): USB 3.0 problem
I'm trying to install Windows 10 on my iMac. I've gotten to the part where Windows setup asks for the bootcamp drivers, before Windows is installed ("Collecting information"). I've tried having the bootcamp drivers on both a usb 2.0 and a usb 3.0 external hard drive, and I still get the following error:
"No device drivers were found. Make sure that the installation media contains the correct drivers, and then click ok"
I've digged a bit and found that the issue is a USB 3.0 issue, according to many. All the iMac USB's are 3.0, so what is the solution here ? I don't have an SD card or a thunderbolt drive.

I must be missing something. I thought you have to use the Boot Camp Assistant to create a USB flash drive containing the files from the Windows 10 iso and the Boot Camp Support Software. If so, then why don't you copy the Boot Camp Support Software to the internal disk before installing Windows 10? That way you would not need to get them from a USB drive later in the installation process.

that's what I ended up doing. it works now.

Actually if you look on Apples website they have updated about bootcamp 6.0.1 on El Capitan.  All 2015 models do not need a USB stick to put Windows 10 ISO in.  All 2015 Mac models from Macbook, Air, Pro, Mac Pro, and iMac do not need USB with Windows 10 ISO.  You can simply download Windows 10 ISO file, put it on desktop, open bootcamp.  Apple website says that all 2015 Macs have the install Mac bootcamp uploader files for Windows within a private partition that uploads after installing Windows and gets to start menu desktop.  If you want to read more of what I just told go to https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201468  It states right on there that 2015 Macs do not need USB for Windows 10 install on bootcamp anymore.


text:
Downloads folder grid view showing artifacts
When expanding the Downloads folder from the dock, in grid view, tooltips shown for long file name are leaving graphical artifacts after they disappear. There is a link below with a screen recording showing the issue.
If you have any hint on how to fix this, please leave a comment.
Screen recording

It looks like you have a problem with a Spotlight importer specific to mobi files.  By dragging a 'folder' containing at least one mobi ebook file onto the right end of my dock I duplicated the behavior (OS X 10.10.5, Macbook 5,1).

I don't think it's related to the file type, I could reproduce this with a folder containing just pdf files. It just shows those artifacts whenever I expand the grid view of a dock folder.

I've only got two mdimpoters/qlgenerators installed and don't get anything but .mobi files to do this.


text:
Microphone level too low on iMac to use it for Google Docs dictation even at max setting
Encouraged by a story I saw the other day I am trying to learn how to use Google Docs via voice dictation.  I can get it to work, but only if I speak into the iMac internal microphone from about three inches away from the screen.
If I'm sitting the usual distance away the internal mic can't pick up my voice at all.  I checked in System Preferences and I have the internal mic at its highest input setting.
To get around this I bought a cheap used microphone and headset but discovered that my iMac has no separate mic input plug and I gather I need a special four-wire connector that uses the headphone jack to do both headphone and mic together.  I can't find that locally.
I'm hoping someone can tell me if this is normal behavior for an iMac or if there's some other volume setting to adjust so I don't have to lean over my computer to talk to it. Thanks!

Here's a quote from Apple. This is easy for you to fix.

Audio in: Some Mac computers include built-in microphones, or an audio in port. If your Mac doesn't have an audio in port, you can use an adapter like a USB-to-audio adapter to connect an external audio source.

Source: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201736

When quoting content from elsewhere, make sure to include a link to the original source.


text:
osx 10.10 force 32 bit
I am trying to start my OS X 10.10 in 32 bit, but with no success:

First I tried it by keeping 3 + 2 pressed during start up
Then I tried by the following command: sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture i386

In both cases all I get RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64 by running uname -a
Is it possible at all to force 32 bit on OS X 10.10?

This is my processor: i7-2675QM
I have hardware drivers that only support 32 bit for AWUS036H

Is there another way to use that hardware with 10.10?

Would appreciate to know the reason for the down vote

Don't know why you were down voted as your question is a legitimate one, although you probably could have Googled and found out that 10.6 was the last 32-bit version of OS X.  Anyway, I up voted strictly on the basis there appeared to be no valid reason for the down vote.

What's the real problem to be solved? Once you get booted in 32 what are you trying to do? What makes you think the kernel is even compiled as a 32 bit executable anymore?

I think it would help if you clarified what "AWUS036H" is.

According to http://www.alfa.com.tw/products_show.php?pc=34&ps=92, AWUS036H is only supported up to OSX 10.6. If you need a kext or similar to use the device, you will be out of luck with 64bit only versions of OSX (which means 10.7 and higher).

I wonder if you could run 10.6 in emulation and pass the USB port directly to the virtual machine and use the hardware? It would be a lot of work and probably cheaper to just buy another device, but sometimes doing this "for reasons" is a learning journey.

Why?
All OS since Snow Leopard are 64 bit only.

I have a piece of hardware which is only 32 bit compatible AWUS036H.


text:
MBPr Yosemite – USB speakers to external (mini displayport) display not showing as an output option
I have a Bose USB 2.1 system. When I plug it into my MBPr directly, I have the option to output sound to "Bose USB Audio" and it works beautifully. I just got a new monitor, (a Dell U2415,) and if I plug the speakers into the USB ports on the monitor, it doesn't show up as an output option. I'm trying to set up a home workstation that I can plug in and out of easily – I would love for both the speakers and monitor to work with just the mini displayport plug instead of having to plug/unplug both the mini displayport and a USB every time.
Why don't the speakers work when plugged into the monitor USB, and is there a way to fix this?

Do you have the initial USB cable from computer to screen? Did you try connecting after boot? My Dell monitors' USB is slow to startup at boot & won't even recognise keyboard & mouse at that point.

@Tetsujin I don't have a USB from the computer to monitor, just mini displayport. (is that necessary? kind of defeats the whole purpose of having USBs on the monitor, doesn't it?) I just tried connecting after boot and no luck.

Ah, I see now that you have to have the upstream USB connected. Bummer. Thanks though! http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/SLN145032/EN


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How to Create a VPN server on an iPhone or join another machine to a LAN via the web
Is it possible to create a VPN server on an iPhone so that I can connect to it with Linux box and bring the Linux box onto the iPhone’s LAN?
I’ve been looking all day and everything available for iOS seems to be a client. Jail breaking isn’t an issue.
Any other alternatives to a VPN to bring a Linux box over the web onto the iPhones LAN are also very helpful. Not direct SSH as I need to use software on the Linux box. Could I use proxies or OpenSSH?

No;  What is possible is you connect to a VPN server and then create a Hotspot. Apple wouldn't approve a VPN server on the App Store.

A hotspot won't help with this, I'm trying to bring an out of the network Linux box, that isn't located near the iPhone onto the LAN.

You wanted to connect a Linux box to the iphone, using a Hotspot iPhone feature, would make that possible.  At the end of the day this question does not seem to be on topic at Superuser.

Which stack exchange section would you suggest?

Its not clear what you are trying to do (or for that matter why you need it to be an OpenVPN server, not a client).

@davidgo I want to connect the Linux Box to the iPhone over the internet so that it creates a virtual network/tunnel so that the linux box can 'join' the network that the iPhone is part of. Is it possible to do that with both the iPhone and linux box as 'clients'?


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What is the maximum supported resolution of the MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013) for an external monitor at 60hz
I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013). It has 8GB Ram and Intel Iris 1536 MB .
I want to buy a good external monitor, but I can't find a straight answer as to what this model supports with either Thunderbolt or HDMI.
What is the maximum supported resolution of this model for an external monitor at 60hz ?
(Please note that I don't care about any answers for the 15-inch model or 2015 versions. I only care specifically for the Late 2013 13 inch)

According to Apple's MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013) - Technical Specifications...

So it looks like 1080p is the 60Hz limit.

1080p would be a resolution of 1920 x 1080, which would match my existing external monitor, so great to know.

That last line should add the qualifier "on HDMI". I believe DisplayPort through the Thunderbolt port will give better support for higher-than-HD resolutions.

@BasilBourque, Since it's directly under HDMI video output, in bold no less, and it is external which it was the OP was asking about, I don't feel it needs additional qualification.

I know I am late to this question, but I own the "MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013)" with "Intel Iris 1536 MB". I am currently using the macbook with the "Samsung SMS27A850" according to the system preferences it is currently running at 2560 x 1440 @ 60 Hz using the DisplayPort/Thunderbolt connection (not HDMI).

@Tetsujin thanks negative troll. except that my answer contradicts the accepted answer, because it only specifies HDMI.

@vossman77 - thanks for adding this answer, it was a help to me.


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What are the weights of the San Fransisco font?
What are the weights of the San Fransisco font?
More specifically: standard (not compact)
I'm pretty sure it's different for the two types (display and text).
I'd like to know both.

Ah, I've got the solution:
In text:

Light
Regular
Medium
Semibold
Bold
Heavy

In display:

Ultralight
Thin
Light
Regular
Medium
Semibold
Bold
Heavy
Black


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Can gamecenter friends see what apps I've installed on my iPhone?
I'm pretty new to iPhone. I was using Android for years and there was the problem that everbody could see if I've installed a app or not. How is this with the iPhone?
Can anyone (for example friends on gamecenter) see what apps/games I've installed?

Your friends can see the games that have access to your Game Center account (this works accross multiple devices since you can have a single Game Center account for multiple devices).
The access to the game center needs an explicit autorisation. Most of the time on the first start of the game it will prompt you if you want grant access to the game center (or not).

First thx for the quick reply. Just one last question: How is it with apps?


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Can Spotlight search for text within Safari for iPhone?
Is there a way to search text within Safari by doing a Spotlight search on an iPhone? There currently is no such way to run a find/search within Safari (boo), so I need a work around.

No, Spotlight doesn't search the current page from within Mobile Safari (but it does search Reading List and other saved/bookmarked pages) but you don't need a workaround since this function exists in Safari.
It used to look like this.
On iOS 9, it's integrated with the main search field - begin like you're searching for a new web page and then scroll down to "On this page"

Once you tap that, you get this interface to pan to each instance of the search results with the term highlighted.