text:
External monitor over the air with Macbook
I have purchased a second-hand MacBook (13 inch, white) which is quite cool. Now i want to connect it to my external monitor and i have got a Mini-DVI-to-DVI cable from a friend of mine:

However, my monitor's DVI input is damaged and i must use a VGA-cable with a DVI-to-VGA adapter on one end:

Furthermore, i can not connect this DVI-adapter to the Mini-DVI-to-DVI cable because it has somehow 4 pins more around the "bar" (hope you can see what i mean)... this is the reason why i am searching for a method to connect my Samsung 940 BW as an external monitor - prefferable via network. Is there any Tool/Program that will work with my OS X 10.7 on my MacBook and Windows 7 Ultimate on my PC and extend the "viewport" from the Mac to the monitor? Air Display does not support Mac to Windows and MaxiVista is only for Windows!

@bmike: The links are already included in my post :P What ideas do you have?

I added them - wow, they're big. Even though it's a nice story why you want a software solution, you might want to edit this to simply ask the question first. Then say you want a software solution since cabling is difficult / not optimal for you.

The solution was ScreenRecycler which is working as expected. It creates a virtual desktop which can be accessed via VNC on my Windows machine and i can work with that, althoug i have some problems connecting if i am not connected to the same WLAN but i will ask another question for that!

Those extra four pins on your DVI to VGA adapter actually carry the VGA signal; the adapter doesn't actually do any adapting. (The terminology is: DVI-D is digital-only like your mini-DVI to DVI adapter, while DVI-I carries both DVI and VGA, like your cable.)
The hardware solution is to get a mini-DVI to VGA adapter (from Apple or elsewhere).

RE: ".. Is there any Tool/Program that will work with my OS X 10.7 on my MacBook and Windows 7 Ultimate on my PC and extend the "viewport" from the Mac to the monitor? Air Display does not support Mac to Windows and MaxiVista is only for Windows!"
Correct me if I am wrong, But from the way you are wording this, I believe what you are trying to do is use one keyboard and mouse (plugged into either a Mac or a Windows PC) across multiple computer displays (so that you can move your mouse off the edge of your monitor running on Windows 7, and then see your mouse cursor pop up at the other edge of your monitor plugged in to your Mac?
If so, this sourceforge project should do the trick : Synergy
(Synergy has already had updates to work with Lion)

I do not want this. Here is an example: The screen resolution of my MBP is not that high and for Xcode I need more and connecting my monitor is not possible due to the mentioned problems. I want a software solution to move my "Mac"window (here e.g. Xcode) to my "Windows"monitor.

Ok, you can get a Mac desktop on a windows pc by using osx screen sharing on the Mac, and using ultra-vnc client on windows : http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1204794


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How to fix not working ⌘ ⎋ shortcut in Lion 10.7
I have a new MacBook Pro 15" early 2011 and use Lion.

For "Launchpad" I can't use the Shortcut F1.
For "Move focus to menu bar" I can't use the Shortcut Cmd+Esc (⌘+⎋).

Simply said, there are functions, which are not working with one specific Shortcut. I can assign it, but it does not work.
The Shortcuts works for all the other functions and the one function works with all the other Shortcuts.
Sometimes when I wildly clicked around and restarted, the shortcut Cmd+Esc (⌘+⎋) worked with "Move focus to menu bar" one time.
What could I do to fix the bug?

I can replicate this bug with my iMac mid-2010. It works when set to ctrl+esc (or any other shortcut), but not cmd+esc. I can use cmd+esc for any other function, but not for this one.

There are some bugs where the menu bar doesn't get shortcuts when an app is in full screen. Are your troubles happening when the display isn't in full screen mode?

The problem occurs in full screen as well as in normal window mode. The weird thing is: The Shortcut cmd+esc (⌘+⎋) works for the menu bar, IF I activated the menu bar with the Shortcut for MOVE FOCUS TO STATUS MENUS (also here the same in full screen or window mode) right before and a menu icon on the right side of the menu bar is highlighted

I've also encountered problems with assigning ⌘+⎋ as a shortcut or as a hotkey within an application in Lion.

With mountain lion the bug seems to be fixed.
Now I have no problem assigning the hotkeys as desired.

Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> and assign and enable the shortcuts you want.

Your answer works for many shortcuts, but there's something strange about ⌘+⎋ in Lion.

Yes. ⌘+⎋ doesn't work with all functions correctly.

I've realized that the ctrl-Fn shortcuts only work if I tick the option to use the function keys as "normal function keys".
This option is in Systems Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard.
I believe it is unticked by default (ie the Fn keys work as shortcuts for brightness, sound level, and music playing). Once ticked, Ctrl-F2 works like a charm. Alternatively, you can leave this option unchecked and instead hit CTRL+fn+F2 and the intended function will work fine.

Yes but F1 is F1 not the "lesser brightness" key. So I used F1, when the same key reduces your brightness then you have to hold down the fn key. The problem didn't go away ;(

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Finder does not show Path Bar and Status Bar, what to do?
I have OS X Lion and when I open a finder window everything seems OK.
But I can't see the Path Bar nor the Status bar.
When I activate one of the bars with View->Show Status Bar or View->Show Path Bar the Finder window gets bigger in height ( growing downwards ), nothing else happens.
Anyone have an idea what I can do to see the Bars?
(The Bars are working in other applications like Safari, ⌘+/ and it pops up)

If you create a new user account, do they appear in that account?

Remove the Finder plist. You can find it at ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist.
Then restart. This should reset any strange preferences keeping the Finder from showing the path and status bars.

I restarted it, nothing changed. Do you have the same problem or does it work for you?

I updated my answer to remove the Finder plist before restarting. Does that fix it?

In Lion you can't see the Library by default. If you option click the Finder "Go" menu you can see and select the Library and open it.

I used Houdine to toggle visibility of the Library folder :D

The error occurs sometimes now... but it disappears when I do your trick with deleting the plist

It may be Houdine or something causing these errors if they aren't fully compatible with Lion. You may want to check that too.

Is it just this you are looking for? Finder > View > Show Path Bar?
Also here: http://macs.about.com/od/usingyourmac/qt/findertip1.htm

I know what it is, it just doesn't show up sometimes, so I have to reboot :(. It's a bug, like the one not displaying the desktops in mission control. (and I have a new MacBook Pro)

The bug did come from BetterSnapTool. An app for resizing the windows.

And how did you solve it? Remove BetterSnapTool, upgrading to a lion-compatible version or something else?

I didn't solve it, right now with the newest patches for OS X Lion and Better Snap Tool the bug persists. I wrote an email with a picture to the developer 3 months ago.

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


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How to reload autofs on Lion without restarting?
I'm trying to get my host machine running Lion to automount an NFS export on my CentOS VM.
I was able to get this working on a system running Mac OS 10.5 by modifying /etc/auto_master and then restarting the autofs service per the instructions in http://alanlam.blogspot.com/2008/06/restart-autofs-in-leopard-without.html:

sudo service com.apple.autofsd stop
sudo service com.apple.autofsd start

However, in Lion, the service command appears to be missing.
How do I reload the autofs service in OS X Lion without restarting?

Does launchtcl show the com.apple.autofsd as a job that is loaded? Launchd really should be controlling this for you and logging why and when a halt / respawn or error happens.

this works for me:
sudo automount -vc

Forgot about that; thanks!  I like this better, since it is a 'reload' operation rather than a 'restart'.

You can use launchctl instead of service:
sudo launchctl stop com.apple.autofsd

You should not need to restart autofsdt manually; launchd will notice that it has stopped, and immediately start another instance.

this works under Catalina (10.15).


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How to turn off the iOS-style character picker menu
When I hold a key in Lion, I get this iOS-style character picker instead of a repeated character, as in previous versions of the OS:

I really dislike this (I rarely use those symbols as I only speak Dutch and English). I want to hooooooooooold a key. :)
Where can I turn this off? I can't find an option in the system preferences.

You can do it with Terminal:
http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2011/07/os-x-107-lion-getting-rid-of-character.html
Extract:

A new Lion feature taken over from iOS is the "Character Picker", which generates a popup menu of accented characters when you hold down the base letter on the keyboard. Some users detest this, as it stops the key repeat function which normally results when you hold down a key. To get rid of Character Picker, open Terminal and type
defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false
and then restart.

Logging off and on was enough (no complete reboot necessary). Apple should really add an option for this in the keyboard preferences.

Agreed.  Let Apple know via http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

For this kind of really short answers it is better to place the code snippet right here in answer along with the link. That way if the linked site goes down the snippet is still useful.

You have to open a Terminal window and type in the following:
defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

(from this article)

If you’re interested in more of these "secret preferences" check out the awesome Secrets website. Better yet, consider installing Secrets’ accompanying prefpane which will allow you to update any of these through a GUI and auto-populates from Secrets‘ authoritative database of these little nuggets.


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OS X Lion SMB shared folder lost execute permission
After updating from 10.6.8 to Lion 10.7.0, my shared folder (shared over SMB) begin having strange problem with my Windows VM.
When I create a .exe file from my Delphi compiler or create simple test file from the Windows VM, OS X doesn't inherit the permissions anymore and sets them to read/write not read/write/execute.
This also causes problems with Windows, which gives me the error "unable privilege for execute".

Samba was dropped in 10.7 in favour of new custom Windows/SMB code - the functionality might still look the same, but the software that enables it is very different.  I have seen various issues related to it, and this could be one of them.  You could always stop sharing via preferences, and install the "real" Samba sharing software and see if that helps - it's not the most elegant solution, but it may prove a point while you wait for a fix.


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Why does the Network icon in the Finder sidebar in Lion have no function on my Mac?
Since installing Lion on my Late 2007 MacBook Pro, which cannot support AirDrop, an icon called "Network" has appeared under Favorites in my Finder sidebar. This icon seems to have no function. Clicking on it only reveals the error message

"Network" can't be opened because the original item can't be found.

There is also no option to disable its appearance in Finder Preferences.
The Network icon seems to disappear on occasion, only to reappear later.
I can find no documentation of this mysterious icon, and no reference to its existence anywhere.
Can anyone suggest what this icon is and why it is being displayed?

Addendum: Note that there are indeed other network computers visible on my LAN in the finder, whereas the little gray Network icon in the Sidebar does not display any of them.

Note that there is no item named "Network" for me to remove in my Finder preferences:

When I opened Finder's preferences under Sidebars there was no option to show  link called network; all my networked devices & computers are under shared

Did you used SIMBL for colorize the sidebar?
I'm the same problem, Basically that Icon (seems to be 3 computer: mini iMac and a portable) should appear under "SHARED"/All... as it is on another Mac I have. This network item should not exist.

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist
In Terminal, run the following command. You should find the word Network mentioned at least once in your .plist preference file:
defaults read com.apple.sidebarlists | grep Network
Applicability
As I can't drag Network to my Finder sidebar — and as sidebar takes a different approach to showing shared items — I guess that:

in Lion, Network is no longer applicable in the FAVORITES part of the sidebar
maybe for you, Network was amongst sidebar favourites in a previous version of the operating system.

Removing unwanted items from the property list
Probably easiest with Xcode.
If you don't have Xcode, then use TextWrangler or anything that's capable of editing this type of property list.
Identifying items in the .plist
Xcode views of the property list:

A TextWrangler view:

To view Network, with or without the sidebar
⇧⌘K
In the sidebar

show SHARED
click All…

If the option 'All…' does not appear
First try removing, from the property list, unwanted or redundant items relating to Network.
A guess: it may be necessary to quit Finder, or log out, before some types of change become effective.
If following removals and a log out you find that SHARED is still without All…, consider asking a separate question.

Thanks for this incredibly detailed reply. However, I followed your instructions carefully and it did not help. What DID make a difference was simply deleting the com.apple.sidebarlists.plist file and rebooting so that Lion created a new one. FURTHERMORE this Lion installation of mine was created cleanly from a virgin installation of Snow Leopard and NOTHING in it was copied from a previous installation. No migrated settings, no nothing. So for now, with a new blank .plist, the mysterious icon has gone away.

Curious. From 10.6.8 or an earlier version of 10.6.x? My guess was that removing something Network -related from within the favorites key (plus maybe a log out) would do the trick. Since you describe the cleanliness, there remains a puzzle. https://discussions.apple.com/message/8137918#8137918 (thanks to Alex for the link to that topic) suggests a major change between Tiger and Leopard, whether there's a comparable change between Snow Leopard and Lion I don't know. Has your computer even been amongst a network of managed computers? Is there a /Library/Managed Preferences/ directory?

No, and no. No /Library/Managed Preferences/ directory. It's never been on a network of managed Macs. It's been ON a LAN with a Windows Active Directory controller but it has not been joined to the Active Director network.I have an unsubstantiated suspicion that it has something to do with the fact that it's a Late 2007 MacBook Pro and several hardware particulars are not Lion-compatible. Atheros but no AirDrop, no multi-touch trackpad, unpredictable keyboard backlighting, and other quirks.

On this MacBook I do have VMware Fusion with Windows 7 Professional 32-bit, and it is managed by that Active Directory server on the LAN I mentioned on the two days a month that I take it to a certain company where I'm a consultant. When the VMware virtual machine is active and running, it shows up as another host under Lion's Finder sidebar under "Devices".

I know this is an old thread and I am unsure if you've solved this problem or not, but I thought I'd still post as it could potentially help others that come across this problem. I noticed recently that I, too, had this 'Network' appear on my Finder sidebar. When I clicked it, it did nothing at all and I could not remove it by right clicking. Pretty much I was in the same situation. As a solution to rid of it, I simply held [option]+[command] and dragged it on to the desktop, then poof, problem solved.
Ida

This icon is a gateway to all the networked storage devices, computers, and printers on your local network IF there are any. This can also be access from the GO menu of the finder, or using the shortcut ⌘⇧K. It might not have any function if no such devices are present. If the sidebar item is annoying you, you can simply remove it by right clicking it.

No, I CANNOT disable it by right-clicking on it, and I cannot drag it from the sidebar onto the desktop and make it go "poof".
There are other network storage devices and computers on my LAN, but the Network icon will not display any of them. I can display these devices under "Shared" and "Devices" in the Sidebar, and when I select the Sidebar icon for my MacBook, in the pane on the right there is the coventional Network icon, under which I can see all the devices on my LAN just like I could under Snow Leopard.
But on my system the Network icon in Sidebar remains non-functional.

huh that is weird :P

Was that really worth a down vote though? i spent time trying to answer your question, it's not like i'm posting spam or something

XAleXOwnZX, I am new here and I am still learning the proper site etiquette. Please forgive my impulsive move in voting your comment down. I am learning from my mistakes.

it's fine i'm not asking for a thumbs up it's just not necessary to vote down when i spent the time trying to help, you can undo the down vote by clicking it again :)

@XAleXOwnZX a vote may become locked until after an answer is edited.

From the root of your computer there is an item 'Network'. I assume this is a favorite to that. I've just been playing around and can't see it, but I so have various networked devices in Shared, and in Devices, so no idea what it's for. Remove it if it bothers you.
For me all the items in Network from my computer root appear on the sidebar in Shared.
When it is present does it match a time a device on your network is active or sharing something? Eg. someone using iTunes with sharing on. This might be linked to Bonjour.
To remove:
From Finder: File -> Preferences -> Sidebar. From there you can remove it if it has no use.

No, I cannot remove it. There is no item named "Network" in File: Preferences: Sidebar. Please see the screen shot above.

Odder and odder then. Perhaps wait until it is appearing and see if it's there in the preferences? That's the place to permanently remove it. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1719892?start=0&tstart=0 would imply you shouldn't have it at all.

For me, this shortcut was something that was brought over from Leopard/Snow Leopard days. My account has always been migrated, and I had the very same question as yours. I recently bought a new MacBook Air with Lion preinstalled, and I set this up as a new secondary account and there is no Network shortcut visible (even when I have other Macs on the same network as per your addendum).


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How can I remove dependencies recursively in Homebrew?
I'm trying out Homebrew, but I can't seem to figure out when uninstalling a 'formula', how to recursively remove the dependencies as well. I.e. Macports is:
$ port uninstall --follow-dependencies <portname>

How does this work with Homebrew?

A simple way to solve the problem of accumulating dependencies of deinstalled things is to periodically run brew leaves and compare it against a list of wanted leaves, and recursively remove everything else.
The following works, but of course is not very readable:
1) Show all the leaves minus the ones in your wanted list:
$ brew leaves | egrep -v 'bcwipe|brew-cask|lftp|mmv|mobile-shell|mplayer|node|octave|python|zsh'

2) Once you have adjusted the list (i.e. added new keepers), get rid of the rest:
$ brew uninstall `brew leaves|egrep -v 'bcwipe|brew-cask|git|lftp|mmv|mobile-shell|mplayer|node|octave|python|zsh'`

This usually has to be called a few times in a row to get them all, and the final call should be followed by a
$ brew cleanup

To beautify a bit, the list of keepers can of course be kept in a file somewhere.

If you assumed everything in /usr/local/bin was tied to a "wanted" item, you might be able to programmatically generate the wanted list. You'd miss pure library installations, but maybe easier than maintaining a hand list of wanted items.

Very simple solution

Like @Adam Vandenberg said, there's no easy way to do it.
However, I filed an issue on Homebrew's GitHub page, and it appears there's a workaround to solve this, until they add an exclusive command.
See my answer on StackOverflow for more info.

Is the exclusive command developed yet?

In 2021, you can now use brew autoremove:
https://docs.brew.sh/Manpage#autoremove---dry-run

Unfortunately, Homebrew does not track dependencies in this way.

I just wrote a small wrapper script to add this functionality to brew. Source it in your .bashrc and it will track which packages you install, then recursively remove unneeded dependencies when you uninstall.
https://github.com/DaemonF/brew-recursive-uninstall

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


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Mounting a "Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)" drive formatted in Lion on either Mac OS X Leopard or CentOS 6
I formatted a Seagate FreeAgent external hard drive on a system running OS X Lion (10.7) as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)".  Everything works great on the Lion system.
However, when I try to mount the drive on a system running Mac OS X Leopard (10.5), it can't mount the drive; it complains that the drive cannot be read (I do not have the exact error message in front of me ATM).
I've also tried to mount the drive in my CentOS VM using the hfsplus module, but it can't find the HFS+ superblock.  I've mke2fs -n'd it to see if it can find an alternate superblock location, but none of the ones it found seem to work.
Is there a way to mount a drive formatted by an OS X Lion system as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)" on a system running either Mac OS X Leopard or CentOS 6?

Unfortunately, Apple introduced a new technology called Core Storage to handle the new full disk encryption.  You can read about it in John Siracusa's review of OS X Lion.  This new type of volume cannot be read yet by other OS versions, but I'm sure some third party will eventually create some software that will enable reading these volumes on other operating systems.


text:
What is Mac OS X Lion's Finder Font?
What is the default font that Mac OS X Lion use in it's apps, more importantly the Finder window?

Lucida Grande 13pt.

Size depends upon your display options in the Finder. But it is Lucida Grande.

Here are the default font settings for Mac OS X

as displayed by the Bresink TinkerTool utility. TinkerTool also permits the user to change these defaults, within certain parameters, as explained in the screen shot. I am posting this screen shot here because it provides a nice chart of all the fonts and sizes and how Mac OS X uses them.

When I use quicklook on an html page that lacks formatting (i.e. the formatting is in an external css file), I get what appears to be Times New Roman. I don't see any reference to that in the above list of default font settings. Where is this decision made?

That is a specific setting in your Web browser, be it Safari, Firefox, Chrome, etc. That has to do with the display of HTML and it is not a global system parameter in Mac OS X.

The default system font in OS X is Lucida Grande, below is a screenshot that compares a TextEdit window and Finder. Also, this Wikipedia article describes all the fonts included with Mac OS X 10.7 and notes that Lucida Grande is the default main system font.

In response to mockman: Quick Look applies the same styling that you'd see by opening the html file in Safari.  Like any browser, Safari has a set of default CSS rules which define how un-styled content is rendered.  The typeface you're seeing then, is likely derived from Safari/webkit—and not OS X.

(I'm still new here, so I'm not sure if it's appropriate to respond to questions raised outside of the original question—which has now been answered.  Please feel free to remove this post and/or set me straight if need be.)

usually you would just leave a comment on their post, or as in this case, a comment after their comment.

@jmlumpkin New users can't comment on things other than their own questions until they reach 50 rep.

I thought about that after I posted my comment. Although, making another answer isn't really the right method either.

Welcome - let's see if we can find the question to your answer and then link it back here in response to @mockman. Did you know you can ask a question yourself and then answer it. It's totally good form as long as the question is sincere and you keep the answer in the answer an open mind about the question if someone else wants to edit it.

I know this question is old, but for folks coming from the future (like me): the current macOS system font (since 10.10) is San Francisco.


text:
How to hide folders on a windows portable disk when viewed on mac os x
I have a portable disk with NTFS format, and use it keeping my private data in windows xp. Recently I connected it to Macbook and found that the folders I set "hidden" in windows still can be seen and read in mac os x. So, what can I do to hide these folders in Mac OS X? Also, I want these folders still to be hidden if the disk connected to other Macs.

What precisely are you doing to "hide" these files? Are you using the NTFS hidden attribute on the files, on the folders containing the files, or something else?

There are two ways I know of.
You can start the folder's name with a ".", as in ".folder". This will hide them on any Mac, though other Windows can see them.
Or you can use the Terminal command "chflags hidden ~/Documents/folder", replacing that place with the path to whichever folder it is you want to hide. But I don't think this would hide them when connected to another Mac.
You might want to look into using an encryption service like TrueCrypt.

chflags hidden relies on HFS+ filesystem storage and doesn't map transparently to NTFS hidden attributes. Your . suggestion is the only workable alternative.

Oh, that's unfortunate.

The simple answer is that macs will read NTFS disks since Mac OS X 10.3 Panther and later.
The default behavior doesn't hide any files that NTFS has marked as "hidden". You could theoretically try to install software on all your macs to ensure they respect this hidden attribute (Tuxera makes such software)
The same problem will happen when you take your "hidden" files to any Linux or Unix
This sort of "security by obscurity" can be useful to put something out of sight, but you will need to encrypt these files more strongly to hide them from other OS that don't abide by the Windows convention to not show certain files.
Macs have the same problem - the hidden attribute for HFS+ filesystems doesn't translate to other OS. Macs do follow the Unix convention to automatically "hide" files that start with a .
Perhaps you could rename your files to start with a . and also do whatever you currently do to make them be hidden on NTFS.
That would keep them hidden on Macs and Windows alike.

The easiest way would be to add a period (.) to the front of the filename - this will hide it in the Finder.
You could also run this in terminal: chflags hidden path/to/file but I'm not sure if this will work on an NTFS formatted volume, as I've not tried it on one.

The NTFS hidden attribute isn't equal or mapped to the HFS hidden attribute, so even though that works fine for "hiding" a file that resides on a HFS+ volume, it doesn't translate to files on NTFS volumes.

Thanks for clarifying this - I figured it wouldn't work, but wasn't 100% sure.


text:
I can't find otool on my jailbroken iPod
From what I understand is that when you change your settings in Cydia to developer you should be able to access extra utilities. Otool being on of them.
However, when I attempt to use otool it tells me that the command isn't found. So I look in my bin file and can't find it there. (i'm attempting to use it via ssh from my computer)
Can anyone offer suggestions on where to find the tool for my ipod?

When you change your settings to Developer in Cydia, what you are actually doing is changing the package list filter. This means that certain packages will only be shown as available to download and install in the package list according to which filter you select.
Having set your filter settings to 'Developer' you'll then need to find and install the package you want.
otool is included in the package called: BigBoss Recommended Tools

Hi, I jailbroke my iOS 7.1.2 using Pangu. I have Cydia 1.1.23 and have installed BigBoss Recommended Tools 1.3.2 as suggested above. However, I am still unable to find otool on it. I checked in /usr/bin as well and could not find otool there either. Also, although there is class-dump but I would like to use class-dump-z. So any pointers on how can I get that on my jailbroken device ?

If you have a mac, you could use otool there on iOS binaries, should work with ARM-based code as well. (otool is installed with Xcode's command-line tools.)
Update: Based on this answer to a related question, you can now find otool in the "Darwin CC Tools" package from the Cydia/Telesphoreo repository. Doesn't seem to be in "BigBoss Recommended Tools" package anymore.

Just install BigBoss Recommended Tools, oTool is included there.


text:
How can I use iMac internet in my iPod touch?
I don't have a Wi-Fi connection here. Is there a way to connect to the internet from my iMac with my iPod touch?

How does your iMac get its internet connection? Over a router with a network cable? Can you help us a bit here?

iMac is connected via a network cable

Yes !
You can share you internet connection via Wi-Fi in the "Sharing" preference pane of System preferences. Once activated, your iPod touch will detect a Wi-Fi network that you can join to share the internet connection of your iMac.
(if you're on Lion, replace "Airport" by "Wi-Fi")

Open System preferences
Click on "Sharing"
Click on "Internet sharing" (but don't check the checkbox yet)
Select "Ethernet" in the dropdown menu "Share your connection from"
Check "Airport" in the list "via"
Click "Airport options" to configure wireless network security
Check the checkbox in front of "Internet sharing" in the list on the left to activate it.
If Airport is turned off, it'll ask you if it can turn it on, say yes.
Connect to the created network with you iPod touch as you would do for any wireless network.


text:
iPod app of my iPhone connecting to internet
On iPhone 4 IOS 4.3.5, if I start playing music the iPod app is getting or sending information from internet.
To reproduce it :
kill the ipod app using the "taskbar"
then play some music
your will notice the turning "wheel" of data transfer during a few seconds
I am not using Genius or Ping.
I have already the song cover.
I don't have any vocals
Do you have an idea of what kind of info is sent or received ?
Update : I am trying to connect through fiddler on my PC
Fiddle is acting as a proxy and will let me inspect the data
BUT the wifi proxy settings is returning from manual to disabled all the time !

The iPod app is contacting iTunes server to get some encrypted keys. Three of them actually, respectively called "signature", "certs" and "bag". All of them are part of an xml (plist) file located at http://ax.init.itunes.apple.com/bag.xml?ix=2.
There's no POST data, just some cookies and HTTP headers giving information about the device and the context. These informations are part of many request made to Apple servers by iOS.
I have no idea what this "bag" can be nor what it's used for.
Details
Here's the request headers :
User-Agent : iTunes-iPhone/4.3.4 (4; 32GB)
Accept-Language : fr;q=1.0,en;q=1.0[...]
X-Apple-Store-Front : [cut]
X-Apple-Connection-Type : WiFi
X-Apple-Cuid : [cut]
X-Apple-Software-Cuid : [cut]
X-Dsid : [cut]
X-Apple-Client-Application : MediaPlayer
X-Apple-Client-Versions : iBooks/1.3

The cookies names :
mz_at1
s_vi
dssid2
mz_pc
mz_at0
ds01_a
Pod
s_vnum_us
s_vnum_befr
mz_if
mz_pt
a
s_vnum_fr
s_cvp35b

And the XML scheme :
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>signature</key>
        <data>[encrypted string]</data>
        <key>certs</key>
        <array>
            <data>[encrypted string]</data>
        </array>
        <key>bag</key>
        <data>[VERY long encrypted string]</data>
    </dict>
</plist>

The "certs" part seems to be constant, even with a standard browser and none of the special HTTP headers or cookies.
(I don't want to publish too many details as I don't know what they contain about me or my Apple ID.)

It's probably searching for local shares.  In the latest versions of iOS, the iPhone has gained support for Home Sharing with iTunes.  So, when you launch the iPod app, it's searching to see if there are any available network shares to stream music and video files from.

It can be : I used "Local Share" before But the user id and password are currently empty

If you still see the thumbs up and speech bubble in the iPod app's UI while playing the song, it's talking to Ping in the background. Those icons are only visible if the app knows the song is in the iTunes catalog.
Assuming I'm right so far, it's asking Apple's infrastructure whether it should show the Ping UI for a particular song.

No I don't see the thumbs and speech bubble. I never activated Ping. It's disabled it in restrictions


text:
Configuring sshd on OS X Lion
I'm trying to set up some (rudimentary) ssh security on my workstation behind a router on a home network. It's running Mac OS X Lion (10.7).
As I understand it, what one would normally do under such circumstances is change the appropriate parts of an /etc/sshd_config file. For example, I might have
# akil@computerA:/etc/sshd_config
Port 12345
Protocol 2
PermitRootLogin no
PasswordAuthentication no

And this would, respectively only listen on port 12345, accept authentication method "2" only, disallow root logins, and only allow key logins. I would then restart the ssh daemon and then everything would be great.
Apparently this worked Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6), but it does not seem to work for Lion. Lion seems to ignore anything in the sshd_config file.
For changing the port, you can follow the advice of some blogs and forums posts (1,2) that direct you to change (a) add a new ssh service by editing /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist and (b) defining the port of the new service in /etc/services.
This works -- doing ssh akil@computerA.local refuses the connection, but now ssh akil@computerA.local -p 12345 works fine.
The problem is that I have no idea how to use similar steps to change anything else: how do I disable root logins and/or password authentications?
1: Changing sshd port on Lion
2: Changing sshd port on OS X 10.4

You cannot change the port sshd listens to by changing it in sshd_config since sshd is not yet running when the connection comes in. sshd is instantly launched by launched when a connection arrives. So you need to change the port in the appropriate launched item, or create another one to have a second port listening for incoming ssh connections.
You can find the correct file in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
Copy that to /Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh-alternative.plist and change the following part:
            <key>Listeners</key>
            <dict>
                    <key>SockServiceName</key>
                    <string>ssh-alt</string>
            </dict>

Notice that the SockServiceName has been changed from ssh to ssh-alt.
To make it work you need to add a service named ssh-alt to /etc/services
For example like this (to match your example) add this line:
ssh-alt         12345/tcp   # ssh-alt
You can then load your new ssh-alternative config with
sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh-alt.plist
If you're running ipfw make sure to allow tcp connections to the new port. The Sharing.PrefPanel will only allow you to turn on and of the standard port 22 listening sshd (Unless you change ssh in /etc/services which I do not recommend).
In addition you can prevent this service to be advertised by Bonjour by removing the corresponding part from the launched item.
        <key>Bonjour</key>
        <array>
            <string>ssh</string>
            <string>sftp-ssh</string>
        </array>

If this was already running you need to unload and load the item again.

OP here...unfortunately I didn't create an account when I originally posted, so I don't have the reputation yet to comment here generally or to mark something as resolved. At this point, I think my router does not have the port mapping functionality, so I have to map ports the hard way described above.

Good info.  I always thought sshd was "always running", but it definitely isn't, these days.  Is this new to Lion? If so, where do you find "that kind" of stuff?  Apple is so stingy with the technical details, these days..

@alexgray This is a result of lauchd - rather than needing to start everything, you tell it how to know when sshd needs starting and it starts the daemon just in time rather than all the time. See the developer pages for mode launchd technical details. http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/CreatingLaunchdJobs.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/10000172i-SW7-BCIEDDBJ

As for the port, I've always found it easier to remap it in my router than in OS X.  That's not always possible, but if your router supports it, it's trivial.
As for authentication, sshd is reading the configuration file, there's just more than one kind of mechanism being used.  In your case, in addition to setting PasswordAuthentication you need to set ChallengeResponseAuthentication to 'no'.


text:
How do I get the Mac Terminal to show the gray font color
I am running on a Mac with Snow Leopard.  Up until now, the default Terminal.app has served me well.  I have installed the IR_Black theme mentioned here: http://blog.toddwerth.com/entries/show/6.
However, I noticed in a particular program that the gray font doesn't render.  In other words, it's invisible.  I ran the script listed here: https://gist.github.com/1099707 and every color shows except for COLOR_BLACK (which makes sense) and COLOR_GRAY.
There are other coworkers on a Windows box that run putty and gray shows up for them just fine on a black background.  Is there anyway to get the gray color to show up in Terminal and still have a black background?
(If I used the Basic white-background theme, and run the colors script, then Gray just looks like a bold version of black.)

I don't know the answer but did you try Xterm 256 colors?

@lenardgabor - Terminal.app didn't support xterm-256color until Lion, and Daren says he's using Snow Leopard.

On Snow Leopard you can install the TerminalColours plugin, which lets you modify the default colours.
On Lion you get a thoroughly updated Terminal.app that lets you do this out of the box and also supports 256 colours by default.

That script isn't guaranteed to display gray for "COLOR_GRAY":
"\033[1;30mCOLOR_GRAY"

"1" means bold, "30" means black. That script is assuming that bold text is displayed brighter than normal text, which is not the case by default.
To make Terminal display "bold black" as "gray" (technically, it displays it as "ANSI Bright Black"), enable:

Terminal > Preferences > Settings > [profile] > Text > Use bright colors for bold text

However, as Ingmar Hupp mentioned, as of Mac OS X Lion 10.7, Terminal supports 256 colors, and the sixteen ANSI colors are now customizable in the Settings preferences. So you should be able to either customize the ANSI colors or configure your application programs to use 256 colors to achieve the desired appearance (e.g., Vim supports 256-color color schemes; search for the "tir_black" color scheme).


text:
cannot find iTunes Connect Mobile app when searching iTunes store
I am searching for "iTunes Connect Mobile" app by Apple from my iPod touch (has OS 4.0) in the Apple Store, without any luck. Also tried "iTC Mobile" (a name used in some articles about it).
Opening iTunes on mac brings "iTunes Connect Mobile", and the description says it's working on iPod touch OS 3.2 and up. Any clues why iPod touch is not finding it?

Is this a programming question?

Open this on your device:
http://itunes.com/apps/iTunesConnectMobile

Thanks, this worked. It's weird though that it's not showing in iTunes search.


text:
Mac Lion - copy and paste leads to files not showing
When I copy and paste a file from one folder to another in Finder on my Mac (running Lion), I don't see it. This isn't the first time. I've had lion for a while now and it works fine. But for some reason today, when I copy and paste. I go to paste, and the files just don't show up after I paste. Is my Mac hard drive full or something?

Can you please give us some more details? Is the pasted file lost, or still in its original place? To check your hard drive, launch a Finder window and tick the menu-option View / Show Status Bar. Disk space will be displayed in the status bar.

also having a similar problem with copying and pasting files, not text. example:
buy music online. zip goes to download folder. unzip, and copy folder (with songs) to music folder, using command+c, command+v. only copies the directory, not the files inside. after restart, empty directory is still in music folder. go back to downloads, copy, and paste to music folder. now files inside directory are included in the copy paste.

on a side note: my roommate is having a similar issue, although his mac copies the files, then immediately after, the files disappear. although his issue seems to revolve more around Xcode, then just typical copy and pasting.


text:
Can I install OSX Safari 5.1 for one user and Safari 5.05 for another user - same CPU?
I'm running OSX 10.6.8 with Safari 5.01 with my main user account, which is an admin account.
I would like to do some testing with Safari 5.1 before I fully commit to it.
Can I install Safari 5.1 in another user account (non-admin) and keep the Safari 5.05 functional in my admin account?
Can I just install it in the ~/Applications directory of the non-admin user?

As you see - there are several ways to go about this. I'm curious why you are looking to stick with Safari rather than use the nightly webkit development build for testing. It's much less hassle than maintaining two versions of safari.

The person behind Multi-Safari has documented the procedure to create a Safari application with a self-contained WebKit framework here.
Basically it involves duplicating the Safari application, opening the contents and creating a Frameworks folder inside, copying the Framework from /System/Library/Frameworks and then performing some jiggery-pokery to get the application to prefer to use the self-contained framework over the one in the Library folder.
(I decided not to copy his instructions word for word, as his website didn't use Creative Commons.)

Well done - I was looking for someone who documented this. Thanks so much for this link.

Why don't you install a Webkit beta? It will be similar to 5.1 (or probably 5.2!) and you can install it alongside your older version of Safari.
You can get it here:
http://nightly.webkit.org/
In case you haven't encountered them before these betas are the truly cutting edge versions of Safari as it is developed.
TBH I have been using 5.1 since the Dev betas (months ago!) and have found them very stable and fast - better than 5.0 IMO.

While they don't have version 5, you could install Safari 5.1 as your main browser and then use Multi-Safari to access an earlier version. I hope this helps a little bit.

No, I don't think so. Reason is that Safari updates replace the whole webkit framework which is a part of OS X, so you can only have one version at a time.

Apple certainly doesn't make it easy to do this, but it's doable on several levels with some advanced tinkering and learning a bit how safari actually works. For many, the right answer is "NO" - but for testing it is workable without needing to maintain a whole OS with older browsers.


text:
Why do I have to source ~/.bash_login every time I open Terminal
When ever I close and open Terminal.app, it never loads my ~/.bash_profile. I have my RVM setup at the top of the file but it never loads it.
As you can see, when I type rvm into Terminal, it says command not found this is a pain as I have to run source ~/.bash_login every time I open Terminal.

Am I the only one with this problem? What am I doing wrong?

Out of curiosity, what does your Terminal preferences window, under the 'Startup' tab look like?

They show this:  http://i.qyk.in/loD8A.png

Strange, considering the bash man page:
When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes commands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists.  After reading that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable.  The --noprofile option may be used when the shell is started to inhibit this behavior. And that /usr/bin/login setting is self-explanatory...

"it never loads my ~/.bash_profile" "I have to run source ~/.bash_login" Which is it? Are you using ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bash_login? Only one of them will be run.

Does it have to be .bash_login? Try renaming it to .profile.

Or .bash_profile - which works

This is very surprising. ~/.bash_login should work just as well as ~/.bash_profile. It works for me. You can put an echo .bash_login at the start of ~/.bash_login to see whether it gets run. Of course, it won't be run if you also have ~/.bash_profile.

Bash only reads the .bash_login file if it's started as a login shell (was passed the --login flag). Try renaming it to .bashrc instead, which is evaluated when bash was invoked as an interactive shell without the --login flag.

I have tried .bashrc but it does the same

Prior to Lion, Terminal creates login shells unless you provide a custom command in Preferences > Startup or Preferences > Settings > [profile] > Shell. As of Mac OS X Lion 10.7, Terminal always creates login shells, even for custom commands, if they're listed in /etc/shells.

Make sure your .bash_login script doesn't contain relative paths like
source .profile
Change to
source ~/.profile
Lion changes the directory to your current tab or where your last session is, so all paths have to be absolute now.

For me bash in Lion does not load ~/.profile either.
Adding source ~/.profile command to run at startup in shell preferences helped, but is quite unelegant.

Check your preferences to ensure you haven’t done something to suppress the creation of a login shell. Is anything in Terminal > Preferences > Settings > [profile] > Shell > Startup or Terminal > Preferences > Startup > Shells open with customized?

Changing .bashrc from
source .bash_profile

to
source ~/.bash_profile

did the trick for me.

I recommend going the other direction: Have ~/.bash_profile source ~/.bashrc. Put all the stuff you want to be common to login and non-login shells into ~/.bashrc. ~/.bash_profile should only contain configuration commands for login shells.

The default behavior on my MacBook running Sierra (I don't know about High Sierra) seems to be that Terminal will run .bash_profile on login.
Only if .bash_profile does not exist will Terminal go and run .bash_login instead.
Check to make sure that you do not have an empty .bash_profile sitting around in your home directory. If you do, delete it and re-login; then you should see Terminal running your .bash_login.
(Empirically: my MacBook does not open or run either .profile or .bashrc. But indeed, I can disable my .bash_login by running touch ~/.bash_profile, and restore it to working order by running rm ~/.bash_profile.)


text:
Create a wireless network while connected to another
I am looking for something like the hostednetwork on Windows, which lets you create a wireless connection at the same time as being connected to another.
I have a widespread enterprise wireless network, which, for security reasons, blocks all communication between devices on the network. However, in order to test mobile websites and such, I need my devices to connect to my MacBook Air.
I can create a wireless network from the Wi-Fi menu, but that knocks me off the main wireless connection, so both my MacBook and my iPod have no internet. I used to be able to create a second wireless ad-hoc network in Windows that my devices could connect to, while my laptop would remain connected to the main wireless network, but I am unable to find a similar option in Mac.
Is there any such feature in mac at all? If so, how can I use it?
I am not against using the Terminal. Also, feel free to migrate to SuperUser if this may be a better fit there.

Nope, not possible with Mac.

That guy is talking about simultaneously connecting to two wireless networks. I want to connect to one, and create the other. Windows can't join two at the same time either.


text:
Remove 2nd partition, reclaim space
If I have a dual booting computer (os x 10.7 and Linux), and would like to remove the Linux partition and return it to one single large disk running os x, how is this done? Is there risk to messing up os x? Do I need to clone the os x side, repartition, and reclone, or is there a simpler method?

It's easily done, but for safety you should always backup your data as there is a small chance that things can go wrong.  Check your Time Machine or equivalent is up to date, then open the Disk Utility application.
Select the disk from the list of mounted drives on the left that corresponds to your internal disk.  If you look at it's partitions you should see 2 that correspond (roughly, this is the size of the partition, not the filesystem, so don't expect the figures to be 100% exact) to your Mac and Linux areas.  To remove the linux one, it should be as simple as selecting it, and hitting delete.  This will leave a linux shaped hole and leave your Mac partition as it stands.  Next, you can expand the Mac area by dragging it's size in the reference diagram, or manually changing it's size by clicking on it and changing the value in the box.
When you click Apply (sorry, I am not at a Mac and cannot recall the exact wording) it will make the changes which could take some time depending on the size of the partitions.
Turn off any disk intensive applications including Time Machine for the duration of the operation, and note that you should not reboot or do anything that you may think likely to cause a crash etc (if you use any unstable programs) until it is complete.
EDIT: An encrypted MAC partition cannot be resized, this is a backup, recreate, and restore scenario.

Can you really resize the boot partition while it's on?  I would have thought you could only complete this task from a boot disk.

Yes, you can do this on the fly, at least for HFS filesystems.  I wouldn't like to vouch for FAT32 or similar.

I just did it according to his instructions, like 2 clicks and it is quite fast. Thanks.


text:
Learn OS X hacks/tweaks and resources
I bought a MBP a month ago and as a developer and a first time Mac user I want to get my hands dirty with the OS, I found a lot of tweaks and hacks for example:
$ defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock

Instead of just coping commands I want to learn and understand these commands, any recommended resources - books, sites, etc.  Running OS X Lion.
Thanks,
T

There is a book called "Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach" by Amit Singh. It is a little bit old and covers 10.4 (with the occasional outlook on 10.5) but is very detailed about the core stuff. I learned a great deal from it.

Get the secrets presence pane here. It's a preference pane that acts as GUI for all these various hidden preferences.

Please do not link directly to downloads; link to the project page next time.

Thanks, though I'd rather learn the commands and type them myself, just to get more familiar with the OS and the terminal.

All that'll do is make you more familiar with preference list files that you won't otherwise encounter. If you still wish to see which keys are modified and in which preference list files, go to the project's website where all preferences are listed


text:
Can you use the command line on a Mac to get to a networked Mac?
I have a networked mac desktop and a wireless laptop.   I would like to use the desktop mac to test web pages from the laptop.   The mac desktop has a php/mysql/apache server outside the router for testing.
How do I get to my network using the command line from the laptop?
I do cd ~ and I get my laptop hard drive
I do cd / and I get one level higher
I do cd Network and get no directory
Is this only possible with a Mac Server? It seems like the CLI should see the other mac on the network since I have logged onto it from the network and have the other mac hard drive visible on the desktop.
thanks,

When you say "get to it" do you mean you want to access its disk shares?

Use the mount command to show the various mounted shares. You'll see something like this:
$ mount

//GUEST:@betafat/tmp on /Volumes/tmp (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, ...
afp_0h2ueA0008BK0000oM0000VU-2.2e000005 on /Volumes/admin (afpfs, nodev, nosuid, ...

The first line is a Windows SMB share from an XP computer, the second line is an AFP share from another Mac.
Note the mount points after the word 'on' above.
You can access the mounted shares using mount point just like you would any other directory, i.e. ls /Volumes/admin

+1: It seems as if OP already has the other filesystem mounted (through the GUI), so this is the appropriate answer for what he's looking for.

Another option would be using ssh to "remote" into the machine.  To enable ssh go to System Preferences -> Sharing Preferences -> Remote Login.
Then you would login by typing ssh <username>@<hostname (or <ip_address> instead of hostname).  After connecting, you're working in a shell that's executing all commands on the remote machine.

I confess to being slightly confused by the original question.
Are both of the computers behind the same router and on the same network (LAN) or are they on two separate networks and you want to connect from one to the other?
ssh is the first step
Regardless of what you are doing next, the first step is to enable ssh (System Preferences » Sharing » Remote Login, which is OFF by default).
If different networks…
Assuming that you want to connect to your personal computer on a different network, the easiest way is to use DynDNS which you can find at http://dyn.com/dns/dyndns-free/. They will give you two hostnames for free, use one for the desktop and one for the laptop.
If same networks…
If you are both on the same network, you should be able to connect to other computer using hostname.local where 'hostname' is whatever the computer is named in System Preferences » Sharing. I think the default is usually like "John Smith's MacBook.local" or some such. I always change mine right away.
If they are on the same network, you can use File Sharing (although it's still not 100% clear what you are trying to do) or any of the 'remote' options below…
If different networks…
If you are on different networks and want to mount your hard drive, you could use Back To My Mac and file sharing, but I've never found that reliable. You are much better off trying ssh mounted with either ExpanDrive or Transmit.


text:
Manually move iCal into Lion
How can I import iCal event into Lion from either an iPhone or Snow Leopard?
I have a Time Machine backup from Snow Leopard, and an iPhone, each with up-to-date iCal calendars. I have a clean Lion install with no iCal events. I would like to get the iCal in Lion up-to-date, either from Time Machine or the iPhone.
I have tried syncing the phone, but nothing happens to either device. I have tried manually moving files from Time Machine, but the Lion iCal does not recognize anything.

The best chance of success it to make a new user account and try syncing the phone to the new empty calendar. Just sync the iCal data.
Then back up the lion iCal data to one file in /Users/Shared and import that to your proper account.
Should that fail, trash that temporary user account and make another temporary admin account.

Turn off time machine ( to prevent an automatic backup slowing things down )
Set lion to back up to your snow leopard time machine ( stop any backup if it commences)
Start iCal
Browse backups from the iCal menu
Restore your calendars one by one
Back up calendar data to /Users/Shared
Set Time Machine to your preferred destination and clean up the temporary user.

Just found out a way to restore it, I had the same problem.

In Snow Leopard or Time Machine, get your calendar files (/Users//Library/Application Support/iCal /Sources/Calendars) then exit Time machine/put the files on Lion.
(or)
1(a) Open calendar on Snow leopard, and export a Calendar Archive to a convenient location (eg usb stick)
Open Calendar on the Lion machine and export a Calendar Archive to your desktop or wherever
right click the Lion / Mountain Lion .icbu file, show package contents, and then replace the "Calendar" folder with the one retrieved from Time Machine/Snow Leopard or the one that is inside the package contents of the Snow Leopard calendar .icbu file.
Import the file in Calendar, and boom. Old calendars and events are back.

Do you still have the iCal calendar on Snow Leopard? Select File > Export and then import it onto your Lion Mac, which should sync it to your iPhone.
Another easy is to sync it to your google calendar. You need an account with Google, and you may need to activate your Google calendar here: https://www.google.com/calendar/
Once that's done, just import your exported calendar into Google Calendar. Now on Lion iCal, go to iCal > Preferences > Accounts and add a new account. Type in your Google credentials and it should appear. I like this method because it can be setup on the iPhone too, for complete wireless background sync of everything.

The following did work for me and my 16GB+ mails:

Copy the following files (e.g. from your Snow Leopard backup) prior to first opening ical:

~/Library/Keychains/ (folder "Keychains")
~/Library/Calendars (folders "Calendars")
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.* (ical preferences files, com.apple.iCal.helper.plist, com.apple.iCal.plist)
~/Library/Preferences/iCalExternalSync.plist

then open iCal in Lion...import/update will follow

If you have opened iCal prior to the above steps, these files have already been created, so you have to replace them with your backups from Snow Leopard described above
If you have set up calendar accounts in system preferences "Mail, Contacts & Calendars" you might have to delete them before applying the above steps
P.S.
I'm not quite sure if the following steps are necessary (or did help me) for iCal import because MobileMe sync works now different in Lion (there isn't an option for syncing calendars anymore within System Preferences—>MobileMe)...
I did a MobileMe sync in Snow Leopard (within System Preferences—>MobileMe) prior to the clean install of Lion.

Calendars
Mail Accounts
Mail rules, Signatures, and Smart Mailboxes


text:
Lion Terminal remembers sudo password after quitting
I've been using Lion since its release, and I noticed today, for the first time, that Terminal did not prompt me for a password when I typed in a sudo command, if I close and reopen Terminal within the five-minute window, but wait longer than five minutes after reopening the application to enter another sudo command.
Is it being cached somewhere as a result of Lion's new "remember the state of the application" feature? Can I turn off this setting? It seems rather insecure.
I've also tried using the Command + Option + Q combination, as well as exiting Terminal before quitting the application, to no avail (also within the five minute timeout window).
For the record, I don't recall seeing this behaviour before I updated to 10.7.1, but I may be wrong.
Can anyone else replicate this for me and confirm my suspicion, before I log a bug with Apple?

EDIT: Apparently my question isn't clear. I want to know if this is normal, or a bug:

Issue sudo command. I am prompted for a password.
Close Terminal before sudo timeout takes effect (within five minutes).
Open Terminal again, and wait more than five minutes before issuing sudo again.
Issue sudo command. I am not prompted for a password.

This is normal, and an inherent consequence of the way sudo handles its 5-minute don't-need-to-reauthenticate window.  When you authenticate to sudo, it records your account as having authenticated.  Because the authentication is tied to your account (not a Terminal session or something like that), it's still valid if you quit & reopen Terminal, log out & back in, or even switch to a different session type (e.g. console login vs. SSH session vs. cron job running as your user ID, etc). I'm not certain offhand if it survives a reboot -- if not, it's because there's a step in the system startup process that wipes the timestamp files.
BTW, you can clear your own timestamp file with sudo -K.

It has been this way since at least the first beta version of OSX I have used..

@cftarnas: even longer than that, since OS X's implementation of sudo came from earlier unixes which worked the same way.

@Gordon: I would suspect so! More recent Linux distros that I have used like RHEL require the password at every invocation, but that could be that I've only been using the enterprise linux distros for the last 10 years or so.

By default, sudo retains authentication state for 5 minutes (this is not new to Lion). This default timeout can be controlled with the timestamp_timeout setting in /etc/sudoers (use visudo to edit). See man 5 sudoers for more.
It can also be reset individually by removing the timestamp directory for the user, e.g. sudo rmdir /var/db/sudo/username
This is not related to the application state feature introduced in Lion (controllable via System Preferences -> General -> Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps).

I'm not asking about the default timeout. I'm asking whether it's normal that the timeout seems to stop until another sudo is performed after opening Terminal.

Ah, I missed that part. The timeout is actually measured when sudo runs, based on the difference between the current time and the timestamp on the time stamp directory (/var/db/sudo/username). So unless your clock stops ticking, the timeout should never pause. It does however also get refreshed when another sudo is executed from the same user, so check for that (by monitoring the timestamp directory to see if the timestamp gets refreshed when you don't use sudo yourself). Good luck in hunting that down :)

That's the behaviour I'm seeing: it seems to pause and only starts going once someone issues another sudo, whether me or another user. So is it a bug on mine or everyone's computer?

Cannot reproduce this here (Lion 10.7.1), seems to work as intended: I run sudo ls, quit Terminal, wait 6 minutes and sudo asks for a password again, as expected. As I said, the most likely cause is another process refreshing the timeout by running sudo as the same user. To find out which process, run sudo fs_usage -wf filesys|grep /var/db/sudo (while not actively using sudo anywhere else).

If you open Terminal within the five minute window and then wait six minutes after it is open, can you repeat the behaviour?


text:
Is there an iPhone application same like MS Office Suite?
I am wondering if there is any iPhone application same like MS Office suite, I mean Spreadsheet, Word Processor and so on.
If you know a free app it will be better if not so what is the best pro payed one

Not exactly MS Office but Apple has just released Numbers (SpreadSheet), Pages (Word Processor) and Keynote (Presentations) for iPhone.
Each of them is priced $9.99


text:
Is there a practical ePub book reader program for Mac OS X?
Adobe Digital Editions has some capabilities but is essentially an orphaned product with no support.
Stanza only displays text in ePub books, and again, is an orphaned product with no support.
Calibre is mostly for building e-books. It has a text-only ePub reader but it's even more primitive than Stanza for Mac.
Scrivener can compile and output ePub format, but I don't think it can display them for reading on your Mac.
There are various apps for iPad and iPhone, but I already know about them.
And let's not discuss DRM issues; what we all want is a reader that will let us display ePub books (without DRM, or perhaps certain forms of DRM), one that supports displaying significant formatting and graphics and photographs if present.
Is there anything out there at present other than what I've noted above?
Let's exclude Window, Linux, or anything that would require X11. I'm hoping somebody knows of a native Mac app, or something you can run in a Web browser.

Calibre's ebook reader has improved

I haven't used it - so I can't say if it's any good - but I noticed that you didn't include the Barnes & Noble app in your list. Have you tried using that to view your ePub books?

YES! I was able to use this app on my Mac to read a free ePub from Apple Inc. (with no DRM) that I obtained from the iBook Store and copied off of my iPod touch to my Mac desktop. And it has a lot of formatting and graphics, and it looks fine.

I'm surprised at how good the Barnes & Noble Nook for Mac reader is, considering that the Nook for iPhone is miserably bad! And yes, you need a Barnes & Noble log-in account to use it. I have one, and I believe it was free--at least I haven't bought any books. Once you get an account, you can then load non-DRM ePub documents from your Mac hard drive. I think this is a fine solution.

Doesn't seem to work anymore :(

RE: ".. Let's exclude Window, Linux, or anything that would require X11. I'm hoping somebody knows of a native Mac app, or something you can run in a Web browser."
Sorry, there are no native Mac epub readers that work any better than Stanza or Calibre (which, in my opinion, don't work very well at all as an actual "reader" app).
The best I can find is the Firefox extension, ePubReader (which works quite nicely, if you have Firefox installed).
Hope this helps.

Um, I just accepted glorifiedHacker's answer above, where he pointed me to Barnes & Noble Nook for Mac beta. It works great.

Hey, ePubReader for FireFox seems to work well also. Bonus. I learned about two programs where I feared none existed.

@ Wheat Williams, no problem.  I have tried Barnes & Noble Nook for Mac, but I wasn't happy that they required me to create an account before I could even read any of my DRM free epub format books on my Mac, which is why I instantly discounted that app.

At least it can read the content, but the navigation seems to be broken

BookReader
I can't vouch for this guy because I haven't bought it yet.  But you might want to try this app store variant if your willing to spend a little money.  Price is usually $10, but it appears to be on sale right now.
It supports 10.7 Lion, gestures, and appears to be well supported.

I'm using BookReader. It is really good and smooth with an iPad-y taste.

Ehon is intended to manage comic books and ePub and is available on the Mac App Store. (It used to be paid, now is free)
It seems a bit buggy though and to me, the Nook software might be a better choice.

There is a new free epub reader available for OS X: Kitabu (free)

Thanks for your answer, zak! Answers on Ask Different need to be more than just a link. Can you please add more information about the application you linked to? How does it answer the OP's question?

Kitabu claims to work on OS X 10.6 or later but once installed, requires 10.9!

Maybe you can try the eBook reader, Ehon, which is a native Mac app but it is not free.  You may download the trail version from http://ehonapp.com/en/index.php

Other alternatives:
E-Book Preview, http://macbookreader.com/wp/bookviewer (v.5.7 is the last full-featured free version)
Bookreader Free, http://macbookreader.com/wp/  (there's also a paid version)
Kitabu, www.kitabu.me
Clearview, Canoe Software (App Store)
Stanza was freeware, copies are still lurking on the Internets.

I'm using a free program called Calibre for Mac OS - works like a charm on Lion.

The OP specifically excluded Calibre.


text:
In Safari 5.1, how do I disable Top Sites and the caching of thumbnail images of Web pages?
There were methods for doing this in earlier versions of Safari but I don't know of one that works with 5.1.
The reason I want to do this is that it takes up a great deal of disk space, and I suspect it slows things down on my older, slower Mac running Lion because of all the extra caching going on. I never use the feature anyway.
Here is the link to an earlier question on Ask Different with regard to Safari 5.0.
How can I disable "Top Sites" in Safari/Webkit completely?
I am creating a new question because apparently any methods that would work for Safari 5.0 will not work for 5.1.

Haven't found a specific answer, but if you're having performance issues with 5.1, try one of the WebKit nightlies. I've switched recently and it improved a lot a of the performance problems introduced with 5.1, and so far haven't seen any problematic bugs.

TinkerTool 4.7, a free utility for system customization, has just added a new feature for Safari 5.1, "Disable storage of preview images for web pages."

While not a clean solution and not properly preventing Safari from creating the thumbnails in the first place, this apparently works to keep them from taking up disk space:
rm ~/Library/Safari/WebpageIcons.db && ln -s /dev/null ~/Library/Safari/WebpageIcons.db

Incidentally, even going to Safari → Reset Safari… and ticking Remove all webpage preview images will apparently leave this hack intact.
As for Top Sites, there are a few places you can remove it from:

Safari → Preferences → General → New windows open with
Safari → Preferences → General → New tabs open with
Safari → Preferences → Bookmarks → Bookmarks bar

I don't believe the menu item can be removed this easily.


text:
iPhone Mail displays the wrong number of drafts
I recently cleaned up my email drafts folder.  I had 62 messages, and now I have only 6 email drafts saved.

My iPhone, however, still shows a count of 62! Only the 6 that really exist are available, but the count is still off.

How can I force the phone to re-count the number of drafts?

I used the iPhone to create a new, 7th junk Draft.  That action corrected the count.

Try opening the Drafts folder; that will start synchronizing the folder with what's in your Gmail folder.
I've noticed this happening for some of the Gmail folders on iPhone. As long as you don't access them, they don't all update.

I thought it might be a synchronization setting. But the phone is and has been set correctly to store drafts on the server, and not on the phone.

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


text:
Install Bootcamp Windows7 off external USB optical drive on Lion system
I got my new MBP today and I plan to use MCE's OptiBay to place a second harddisk in the drive bay and put Windows via Bootcamp on it, but I heard / read that, at least with Snow Leopard, it was not really possible to install via an external optical drive with the Windows7 DVD. Has this changed lately or anyone done this successfully? rEfit pops up as a solution, but I wanted to know whether it's possible with the stock bootmanager/bootcamp assistant in Lion?

I have a new MBP 17 with my SuperDrive replaced with a hard drive, and with the SuperDrive mounted via USB externally.  I have not been able to install via BootCamp, due to what I understand is some new issue with USB and EFI.  I haven't heard of people having success with rEFit with the latest machines.  The one solution that seems reliable is to open the machine and put the SuperDrive back into the second bay.  The secondary drive can be put into the primary bay for Windows to be installed to it, and then the SuperDrive again removed and the drive with the BootCamp partition moved back to the optical bay.  I can't verify the
Please note, I have yet to do this myself with my machine, though I plan to attempt it as soon as I get a few free hours.

Thanks for the answer, despite being a 'negative' one, it'll save me some extra trial and error, thanks!

I can confirm that it's impossible to install Windows with BootCamp on a late-2011 MBP from an USB SuperDrive or flash stick. rEFIt won't help either, the only solution was to put the SuperDrive back into the Mac.

Dealing with this hell right now myself. When trying to install Windows with SuperDrive attached as USB, or from a USB stick using rEFIt, you just get a black screen with a cursor when it should be booting from the media. This is all despite the fact that the bootable media (DVD or otherwise) shows up in the boot loader. I have a mac mini; perhaps I can clone a bootcamp install.

So I have an update. It seems my second drive, a Crucial M4 SSD, did not like being on the second SATA channel, where the SuperDrive was connected. Swapping the position of the stock and the M4 SSDs fixed it.

I do not believe this is an issue of Windows 7 or OS X Lion, but rather an issue with Boot Camp itself. I believe that Boot Camp is designed to be used with the Mac's internal hard drive (or drives).
While I have never owned a Mac with more than one internal hard drive, I don't see why Boot Camp would not let you partition additional internal hard drives as well.
As far as external drives go, I  now from experience that the Boot Camp Assistant in OS X Lion (and previous versions of OS X) does not even give you the option to modify the partitions of external drives. Hope this helps.

I believe he's asking about installing from an external optical drive, not to an external drive.
You are, though, correct in your guess that you can partition secondary internal drives through Boot Camp, but not external drives.

Thanks! Good point. So, to further clarify and make sure I get what he's saying: His OptiBay is one of those kits that will replace his optical drive with a second hard drive, right? If so, another way to look at his question is "can Boot Camp install Windows from an external optical drive"? If that is his question, then I do not know the answer. My experience with Boot Camp is limited to using the internal optical drive to install Windows.

I was thinking about this some more. In theory, there could be a limitation that would keep the Mac from having access to the USB port when rebooting from the Assistant into the Windows setup. And you would need the USB port to use something like Apple's external USB optical drive. Interesting question! I'll vote it up.

Christian / Matthias: I tried installing from an 'external' USB Stick once (this works for normal 'PCs' usually if they support booting off USB devices and is a common way to speed up Windows 7 installation) and this did NOT work. However, for the Air Apple has a KB that suggests using an external USB drive, other reports around the web say, it does NOT work. So I am basically wondering whether anyone knows this for a fact (yay or nay). Replacing the optical drive with the OptiBay is somewhat of a hassle to do it back and forth, hence the question.


text:
Set up OSX to act as router via Internet Sharing
I have the following network setup:
LAN====OSX++++Machine A
        +
        +
        ++++++Machine B

OSX is currently sharing an ethernet connection with A and B via an ad-hoc wireless network.  This works great, except that Machine A and Machine B can't see each other.  They can see the LAN and OSX, and OSX can see both of them.  I'm convinced some combination of ipfw and/or natd configuration options can solve this problem, but my networking knowledge is limited enough that I can't seem to Google effectively for a solution.  What do I want ipfw/natd to do for me?  How do I get them to do it?
(Obviously, I could solve this problem much more easily by the expedient of purchasing a switch, but I feel like I should know how to do this sort of things regardless.)

Can you clarify how the two machines are supposed to see each other (e.g. are they OS X computers with file sharing turned on but not showing up in each others' Finder sidebars)?

You need to enable routing.  I'm pretty sure on OS X this is a sysctl(like FreeBSD):
http://securityreliks.securegossip.com/2010/10/enabling-ip-forwarding-on-mac-osx/
doing:
# sysctl -w net.inet.ip.forwarding=1

as root should enable this.

Try to enter each computer's address manually in the Network System Preference panel.
eg.
Machine A:
IP address: 192.168.1.1
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

Machine B:
IP address: 192.168.1.2
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

"Try to enter each computer's address manually in the Network System Preference panel" I utterly fail to see how that could help - the machines already have IP addresses from the Mac. "You need to enable routing." [09:47:02][bmanica@ariel:~]$ sysctl net.inet.ip.forwarding
net.inet.ip.forwarding: 1 Already is enabled, and /etc/hostconfig contains IPFORWARDING=-YES-. Still can't ping through the Mac.


text:
iPad as a wireless webcam
Can I use my iPad as a wireless webcam for my PC? I think the solution would be an app streaming the video captured by the iPad's camera from the iPad to the PC where another app would decode it, emulating a local webcam like ManyCam does (ManyCam could very well be part of the solution to this problem). Kinda like Air Video but reversed. I haven't been able to figure out how to do it; has anyone else figured it out?
Thanks!

How about PocketCam?  It's only 5 dollars, and it does the job-even optimized for iPad.  Never used it before, but it sounds useful.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocketcam/id316512204?mt=8


text:
Sharing Internet with Mac and Buffalo WHR-HP-G54?
I have enabled internet sharing with ethernet. I try to share the internet with "automatic DHCP" to my Buffalo. I can access the buffalo but I am unable to share the internet from mac to buffalo and from buffalo to other machines. How can I do that?

Short answer: you're doing it wrong.
The Buffalo device you've got is a wifi router. Normally this kind of thing sits between your cable modem (or whatever you've got connected to the wall) and the rest of your home network, and redistributes your Internet connection to multiple devices in your home.
If you turn on "internet sharing" on your Mac, you're essentially turning your mac into a wifi router as well. There is no reason to do this. And you're probably creating a "double-NATing" situation as well, which is undesirable.  I'm not sure how you've got your network wired up physically, but that could be part of the problem too, I imagine.
So, in short, either get rid of the Buffalo entirely and rely on your Mac's internet sharing to do the same thing, or use the Buffalo to distribute your Internet connection and turn off Internet sharing on your Mac. I would do the latter. So your setup should look like this:
Wall socket -- Cable Modem -- Buffalo -- Computer
                                      -- Another Computer
                                      -- Yet Another Computer

This is the case both on a physical level and on a logical level—the Buffalo sits "upstream" of your computers in terms of networks traffic, whether it connects to them over an Ethernet cable or wifi.


text:
Combining multiple small DMGs into one large "virtual" DMG
I created 50 small (1GB) encrypted DMGs using DiskUtility, and want to
combine them into a single 50GB "virtual" drive but still have 50 1G
images on disk. How? Why:

I want to encrypt my files (even the filenames) before backing
them up without using half my disk space just for encrypted files.
I use an external backup service that'll backup 1G disk images
(files), but not 50G files. The smaller the individual disk images,
the better.
I'm running Mac OS X 10.4.11, so I can't use cryptomfs (plus, I'm
not sure if cryptomfs creates several small files or one large
file). I have MacFUSE installed, so I tried installing cryptomfs anyway,
but it failed (both 1.0 DMG and 1.1 pkg file).
Since upgrading is neither free nor easy, I'd prefer to avoid it.
I've considered other options (eg, a directory of hard links to
the files with encrypted names for the hard links and relying on my
backup service for content encryption), but they get fairly complex.

If you are on Leopard (OS X 10.5 or above) you can do this by having one encrypted disk image containing all the files.
The dmg to create in DiskUtility is a sparsebundle. This creates one bundle that mounts as a disk to OSX but actually is a directory and all the files in it are of a much smaller size. In Finder select the sparsesbundle and then Show Package Contents.
I just created a sparsebundle of capacity 1TB and copyied a 400GB vieo file onto it. The structure of the bindle had many files none of which were above 9MB
The band size can be controlled see hdiutil. But I have not done or worked out how do do this.

My only options in 10.4.11 are "sparse disk image" and "read/write disk image". As http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparse_image#Sparse_bundle notes "Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard) introduced the concept of the sparse bundle."

Sorry missed that part re the OS - so yes will not work

Can't you upgrade the OS?

I'm guessing that upgrading is neither free nor easy?

Upgrading is easy but not free but possibly cheaper than the time you spend on sorting out the backups etc

Unfortunately I don't think there's anything that will do exactly what you're looking for. I think your best option is to symlink them all to a location of your choosing, and make an Automator or shell script that mounts/unmounts them all in one go.

I can keep them all mounted at once, but the problem is always figuring out which one is empty enough for what I'm doing. Ick!


text:
Monitor remains grey after Apple logo during boot on Mac Pro
The Mac Pro here (2008 model) started acting up as of yesterday during booting - when I turn it on, I hear the typical sound, the Apple logo appears, it disappears.. and the monitor remains in that grey tone.. forever - nothing else is happening. This machine has Snow Leopard installed. When I try to e.g. boot from my Lion USB Recovery HD, i plug in the USB stick, press alt during bootup, both systems (the SL one on the disk & the Recovery on the USB stick) appear, I select the Recovery HD.. and again, the same (logo, then grey forever).
What's going on here and what can I do?
Update:
following the numerous suggestions below (thanks!), I checked the verbose boot logging, but nothing too troubling appeared, well sort of. Right before the monitor turns grey again, the color of the logging font turns from white to pink?
This:

to this:

.. (the image is kinda off, somehow it doesn't capture the pinkishness of the color) then grey forever again.
Additionally I could enter safe mode, but the same is here.. colors seem strange & not entirely correct (I suppose it's not intended that way, right?):

I put the Nvidia 8800GT in the other slot on the mainboard, the same again. Is this a sign of a failing graphic card (the boot manager menu looks just fine)?

This happened earlier this year to a friend. The cause was disk
    directory damage. Upon start (during the Gray Screen of Doom) the
    Mac was trying to repair the damage automatically, but failing.
    Here's how I talked her through it.

Power down the Mac.
Boot in Safe Mode (press Power button, listen for startup
tone, immediately press and hold Shift, release Shift when you see
Apple logo).
Let the computer boot in Safe Mode. It may take longer  than
normal.
If the computer eventually reaches the desktop, simply reboot
    normally and see if that fixed your problem. This is the point at which this procedure worked out for my friend.
If the computer is still having problems, boot from a Mac OS X
    Install DVD (insert DVD, power down, restart hiding down C key).
When you reach the Installer screen, use the Utilities menu to
run
    Disk Utility, then choose Repair Disk under the First Aid tab (if the hard disk doesn't show up in the sidebar in Disk Utility, the disk is likely irretrievably broken).

If these steps don't work, I'd suggest that you either a) Wipe the disk and do a full restore from your most recent backup; b) invest in a heavy-duty disk utility like Disk Warrior; c) take the computer to the nearest Apple Store for support help.

I could enter safe mode (thanks!), but it is somewhat.. off - colorwise. I've updated the original error description with screenshots but basically entering safe mode & shutting down didn't change a thing. Running Disk Verify in there says - drive's OK.

Generally with this kind of problem the first trouble shooting step is to reset the PRAM by holding down  ⌘  +  ⌥  +  P  +  R  on boot. Also reset the SMC might help, but doing this requires a process specific to your machine, which can be easily found out on Google.

Neither PRAM nor SMC reset helped, I've updated the original description to show a little more info what is going on.

Do you have any external drives (or peripherals) connected? I had this problem sometimes due to an external hard drive (I thought it was the enclosure, but it turned out the drive was itself failing and had to be RMAed). I disconnected it, and the boot sequence resumed.

Everything but the USB Apple Keyboard and the display (it is a dual-dvi one, but also tried standard vga). Regarding nternal drives I removed all drives but the system one, same. Put in any other drive just to see whether I could then boot into the installer/from snow leopard cd - same. grey forever

Judging by your updated post, it looks certainly like a graphical issue. But I'm not inclined the think the card is failing as if it was a hardware issue, it should be present all the time (that is, it should be pink from the moment it boots)... unless OS X is just then loading the graphics driver. What happens when you boot without the monitor connected? Try that. See if it still stalls (just give it time and reconnect the display and see where it's at in the boot process/still pink).

Unfortunately this didn't help as well. I also tried the 2nd dvi port on the graphic card, again. same.

Based on your screenshots, it may indeed be chocking on your graphics card. You could take it to Apple for diagnostics, or if you can get your hands on a new card, try that. Sorry, couldn't be more help :(


text:
Can you add a specific link to IOS homescreen?
I have a vbulletin forum I frequent in which I'd like to place a link to the "new posts" search on my homescreen.  Anyone familiar with vbulletin knows this is a url with search.php?do=getnew , once you access that URL it redirects you to a search ID which is cached for easy access later.  Thing is, you can't add that to your home screen as it wil just pull up the old search results rather than returning the newest posts.  I'd like to add a link to the new posts link on my homescreen but it seems there is no way to edit the homescreen links.

So what would the URL be? Maybe you should host your own .html file, and redirect to that URL when it gets hit?

Short answer: yes!
I faced the same issue and basically tricked my iPad, you simply turn on airplane mode, you don't hit the redirect, you store the "server not found" page on the home screen and you are done :-)
Hope you can now resolve your 4 year old question.

this is a terrific idea, thanks! this fixed a similar problem of mine on latest iOS (iPhone)

Is there a way to do this and still get the favicon used as the app icon? I used your tip and it worked, but a side effect is I no longer get the nice icon from the site (nodered.org).

Yes - this works just fine for many web sites.
For example, these two links work very well when saved to the home screen on iOS.

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions?sort=active
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions?sort=newest

Each will reuse an existing window and refresh the content to be sorted as specified (active versus newest) and they also work if you don't already have a "tab" open to this site on Mobile Safari.
Not all websites will allow you to embed these codes, so you might have to shoot off an email to the webmaster asking if they have an URL that will set the proper cookies or yield the desired results. This is the sort of technical thing most web sites will provide for users with the smarts to take advantage of - even if they decide to hide that URL from most of the users that are browsing the site normally.

Short answer: No!
There's only one possibility to add a website to homescreen: Tell the user to add it. It's also not possible to change the link for this.
So the user needs to navigate to your search.php and add this page to the homescreen.
Maybe you could write a webapp with dashcode which creates a page for new posts..?

The OP is navigating to the page he wants and is attempting to add it to the home screen, but the URL he's getting is not the one he navigated to (as is my case). The added home screen shortcut (at least in my case) ends with .org. Everything after that is chopped off for some reason. Turning off WiFi does seem to get around this issue. The only downside is you don't get the favicon icon in the shortcut when you do that - but you do get the whole url.

I was also wondering how I could create a Safari icon on the home screen of my iPhone with the http://vbulletin-forum/thread-name-new-posts.html URL, which will take me to the latest page in a forum thread.  The problem is when you go to that URL in Safari, it will redirect you to a URL for a specific page in the thread (e.g. http://vbulletin-forum/thread-name-page-number.html).  If you try to add that to your home screen, you are adding the URL for that specific page, not the "new posts" URL.  There is no way to edit the URL for an icon already on the home screen.
But I found a free app called App Icons that lets you create a Safari icon with a URL and put it on your home screen.  After installing the app, do the following:

Touch "Create Icon"
Under "Common Tasks", touch "Go to Link"
In the "TYPE URL" field, paste or type in your desired URL
In the "Go to Link" field, type in a name for the icon
Touch "Install" and touch "Install" again
Touch the square icon with the up arrow
Touch "Add to Home Screen"
Touch "Add" and a Safari icon with your desired URL will be on your home screen