text:
How to completely remove GoToMeeting.app?
I installed the GoToMeeting.app because a client used it. I no longer need it, but I can't seem to remove it. Its burrowed in worse than most malware found on a PC.
I tried a simple drag and drop from the Applications folder to the Trash, but that did not work.
I then dropped into the command line:
$ ls /Applications/Go*
/Applications/GoToMeeting:
GoToMeeting (3019).app  GoToMeeting (3356).app
GoToMeeting (3277).app  GoToMeeting (3499).app
$

Then:
$ sudo rm -rf /Applications/GoToMeeting*
$ ls /Applications/Go*
$

Finally, reboot and then:
$ ls /Applications/Go*
GoToMeeting (WWW).app  GoToMeeting (XXX).app
GoToMeeting (YYY).app  GoToMeeting (ZZZ).app
$

So I get another set of them.
Something is running in privileged mode, and it seems to be hiding itself:
$ sudo find /Library -iname GoToMeeting 2>/dev/null
$
$ sudo ps -A | grep -i GoToMeeting
13644 ttys000    0:00.00 grep -i GoToMeeting
$

The hit above is the terminal session searching for the process.
How do I completely remove this application?

Have a look at: How do I uninstall GoToMeeting on my Mac?

Thanks  user3439894. Based on the behavior I am seeing, I don't believe its a complete remediation. That is, I don't believe it will completely remove all the application components (otherwise, nuk'ing it from the command line would have worked). Where can I find a list of the malware included with their primary GoToMeeting.app?

It's in your user library. Try this:
rm -fv ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.citrixonline.GoToMeeting.G2MUpdate.plist

rm -rfv ~/Library/Application\ Support/CitrixOnline/

Thanks. That appears to be it. How did GoToMeeting re-install itself into /Applications? That's protected and requires privileges, but I was never prompted with a sudo. (And its the reason all my find's occurred in /Library, and not ~/Library).

If your user is an admin, it has explicit write permissions for  /Applications/:
drwxrwxr-x+ 79 root  admin  2686 Oct  2 20:17 Applications
Since the launch agent runs as you, it write to /Applications/.

Since the program run by the launch agent runs as your user, it can also write to /Applications/
I can't English today.

"Since the program run by the launch agent..." - OK, this appear to be another related issue. I use Loadables to track startup programs, but it never reported anything for my user account. Additionally, Apple's Users & Groups settings applet did not report it.

I'm not familiar with Loadables (although it looks useful), so I'm not sure why it didn't show up there. The items listed under Login Items in the Users and Groups prefpane are not launch agents. Those items are just entries in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginitems.plist.


text:
How can I review the most recently shown dialog box in OS X?
I was just typing a long string of text into an input field in Chrome. I saw my screen flash briefly and the shape of a dialog box appear, but before I could stop typing I had already hit some key that closed the box (I'm guessing space, but possibly a letter or even enter).
How can I find out what the dialog box said and what action I took to close it?
I'm using OS X Yosemite 10.10.5.

Unfortunately, I have to inform you, that there's no such possibility in OS X Yosemite. Operating system doesn't log this type of event for dialog windows.
The information you have - is not even enough to understand who fired this window to popup: was it dialog box, was it OSX window, was it another program with informational message which raised the popup, or it was simply styled popup/popover of the web-page you've been.
All OSX can do - is to reopen regular windows, programs, restore console, etc, when you reboot Mac OS X with a checkbox next to “Reopen windows when logging back in” that restores all of your currently open applications and windows. This state is stored, but not for dialog windows.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Would a bluetooth stylus guarantee that I can rest my hand on iPad?
I'm a student who rely on taking note on iPad. It's so convenient. My current stylus doesn't have bluetooth feature so I have to search for app that has hand resting feature. However, I also want to drawing and these apps don't have that. Some drawing apps suggest me which styluses I should use, but I want to use another one.
Q: Do I have to stick to the suggestion or is it guarantee that once I connect my stylus to iPad via default bluetooth channel (like connect to the keyboard), I can use whatever app I want, with hand resting feature? During the connection, can I use my finger?
I use iPad 2, but consider to buy a new one.

I can help you if you are more specific. I need more information from you. Images, exact hardware models and application particulars would be ideal.

What information do you need? The hardware is iPad 2

Edit the question to include your iPad 2, the styluses you're looking at, the drawing apps, the handwriting apps. Include anything and everything that might be relevant. The quality of your question and the manner in which it's presented is likely to have a huge impact on the outcome. If the facts are neatly presented and the style is easy to digest etc. chances are; even if nobody here knows the answer (yet), somebody will probably be able to figure something out using the data you present. Does that make sense? Also visual data goes a long way. Imagery of the main items will be most helpful.

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


text:
Reply from same address as mail was sent to in Mail.app
I have a single Gmail account that receives mails via forwards from 2 other addresses. The Gmail web UI allows me to reply with the address it was received on.
Is it possible to set up Apple's Mail.app to automatically use the recipient as the sender address in replies (without having multiple distinct Gmail accounts)?
I've set up aliases on the specific account, but Mail doesn't seem to automatically choose the correct one.

Apple Mail can only send replies from mail enabled accounts that you have set up in your system. I.e., you may have iCloud account set up in your system, but if you have mail option unchecked in System Preferences -> Internet Accounts -> iCloud, you won't be able to send any mail (including replies) from that iCloud account.
One possible workaround is to use 'Reply To' field which you can enable by pressing Alt+Command+R or from Main Menu -> View -> Reply-To Address Field. This will enable your recipients press reply button and send their reply to the address which you will enter into mentioned field.
Hope this helps.


text:
Mac User connecting to Exchange Server
I am a longtime mac user, and the world of Microsoft Exchange is totally foreign to me.  At my school I have an account on an exchange server where I have a few years' worth of email threads...  As my last semester is coming to an end, I am trying to archive my email history over my academic career there. I need to somehow get copies of my inboxes and outboxes to my mac.  Is there a script I can run to forward them all to myself or something?  what is the best way to go about getting my mail history over to my mac?

Please be aware that answers here will focus on the Mac side of things (and not on how to export from Microsoft Exchange for instance).

How do you access your e-mail now? Mail on Mac can connect to Exchange accounts easily and you could then save or export your e-mails from there.

@Lizzan: Actually I can access my exchange from my iOS device, which is great.  and I even have copies of my INBOX.  however my outbox (mails sent via the exchange server) are missing from my collection.  How can I get copies of these?

@patrix:  where would I ask on how to export from Exchange?

@kent Do you not have a "Sent"-folder in your account?

Super User might be suitable for Exchange question, but check the FAQ there.

@Lizzan: yes, I have a sent folder.  However when I am not connected to the exchange server it is empty.  So I am looking for a way to somehow get copies of the contents of my sent folder so that when I no longer can connect to the exchange server I still have an archive of my mail. A script which sends me the contents of sent mail I guess would be an ugly hack...

There is in Mail an export function in the menu under Mailboxes -> Export mailbox. I'm unsure of exactly what that does, but perhaps you could try that on your sent folder (while connected). There is an "Import Mailboxes..." menu choice in the File menu as well that might work to re-import your sent mail.

Exchange is just Microsofts version of IMAP.  Set your account up on your Mac, then copy the the messages from a server folder to a local folder.  iPhones don't typically synch the entire folder, instead using Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Mail Days to Synch


text:
How to run Macbook Pro retina on native resolution?
I have Macbook Pro 13.3 inches Retina display model. The max resolution am able to use is 1440X900. And default is even less. Why Macbook pro retina doesn't work in the native resolution?
Is there any specific reason for the same?

What do you mean by native ?

13.3-inch (2560 x 1600)

I think that is just a compromise between the screen capacities and the apple graphic rendering standards...


text:
Clear logs for specific apps?
I am running my boot drive off a SSD. I'm paying attention to try to keep it from filling up, and sorting folders by size, I notice the library/application support folder has logs generated by specific apps. For example, one program that creates an updated backup of my data drive shows a size of 4GB.
Is there any general rule for what can be deleted safely?
Edit - one that I just found, log.smbd.old is 8.9GB. It was created after a reboot, and there's a new log.smbd file which is small. Since I am running the OS on a smallish SSD, these files are troubling. Is there another way to keep the drive clean? e.g. a small app running in the background that will either quickly identify, or preferably, automatically remove these old log files? Note - I am running Snow Leo, 10.6.8 on a MacPro.

Which application is this?

I mean "specific apps" opposed to the system generated logs. When looking in the library folder, many apps generate logs.

Generally speaking logs can always be deleted.


text:
How to remove the spacing next to the last icon at the right of the menu bar that appeared after upgrading to Bartender 2
A spacing next to the last icon at the right of the menu bar appeared after upgrading to Bartender 2 (see the screenshot below). It was not there before. How can I remove it?

I already tried:

restarting Bartender 2 and my Macbook as advised on the support page
reinstalling Bartender 2 (curious: after the uninstall it still displayed the spacing!)
command-dragging the icon to the right (when letting go it reverts
to it's original position)
checking the .plist of Bartender 1/2 if something is wrong or different (couldn't tell)
contacted Bartender support (no answer yet)
upgrading from OS X Yosemite to OS X El Capitan (no change)

If the space is still there when Bartender is not installed then why do think this has to do with Bartender?  maybe the space was already there and you just didn't notice it.

As you can read in the first paragraph: "It was not there before." Meaning directly before I upgraded to Bartender 2. Directly after it, it appeared.

Then since this is apparently a know issue with upgrading Bartender I'd suggest you contact Bartender Support

@user3439894 Thanks for reacting so quickly. But the support page seems to address this question, but the resolution there doesn't work for me. The support question is also about upgrading from Bartender 1 to 2 and not a clean install. (Which I subsequently did. I'll edit my post to reflect the order of actions.) I already contacted Bartender Support, but they aren't answering (yet).

@user3439894 if you would know about a different cause then Bartender 2 it would also be appreciated of course!

Bartender 2 2.0.1 fixes this, adding a preference in Preferences → Appearance:

Right most menu bar gap
  Bartender 2 added a gap to the right of the menu bar when Notification Center was hidden, this is to maintain the default gap at the screen edge, a lot of users liked not having this gap, so this is now a preference under Appearance.

The developer of Bartender 2, responded the same to me with the solution:
"This is an issue we have come across in the new release and theres a fix for it in a test build update that came out yesterday. Please check for updates (you may need to adjust your setting for accepting test builds).


text:
A complicated script to automate functions in Safari

I can navigate a script to control specific "Menu" items... but I can not find information on directing a script to find and click a specific button on a drop down sheet such as the one shown
Im just too inexperienced to know the proper naming and path commands .. any pointers to relevant information is appreciated.
Here is some more information.
Using Automator and Script Editor I made two scripts, saved them as Applications and set them each with a command key.
The result was that I could quickly open and close Safari and have the browser reset each time...
works like a charm until Apple modifies Safari enough where the scripts need to be adjusted for the new path to the same function.
This time the control to reset is the "Clear History" function with I believe also clears the website data as well.
Safari can be set to open in Private mode by default now so that helps a lot for keeping the cache clean
So once the user hits the menu item "Clear History"... instead of a pop up anything... there is a drop down.??..sheet?
I have gotten the script to get as far as that... the script seems to have located the "sheet"... but can not locate the button I want it to click.
What I have so far that gets .. to.. the button that I want clicked:
tell application "System Events"
tell application process "Safari"
    tell menu bar 1 to tell menu bar item "Safari" to tell menu 1 to tell menu item "Clear History…" to click
end tell

end tell
I tried to insert something like:
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Safari" to tell sheet 1 to click (button whose description is "Clear History")

end tell
the error result looks like:
error "Can’t get button whose description = \"Clear History\"." number -1728
Now I’m actually surprise the script got this far as I’m just hacking lines I saw in other scripts that I thought might work.
So basically I just can’t make my script take the jump from controlling a few menu items to getting pointed to some type of drop down and making a button click for me.
Can I extend this to automate UI scripting in Safari?

With script you mean AppleScript? Can you please add a short version of what you have already tried and where it fails?

Have a look at my answer here: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/252253/not-able-to-clear-history-in-safari-using-applescript-in-os-x-el-capitan/252255?s=1|71.0702#252255

The following script works for me:
tell application "Safari"
    activate
    close every window
end tell

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Safari"
        click menu item 6 of menu "safari" of menu bar item "Safari" of menu bar 1
        delay 0.5
        click button 2 of window 1
    end tell
end tell

tell application "Safari"
    make new document
    set the window_width to 1680
    set the window_height to 1575
    set the bounds of window 1 to {0, 22, window_width, 22 + window_height}
end tell

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


text:
In Numbers, how can I sum only if adjacent cell is certain value?
In excel, as shown here, it is possible to find and sum only cells with have a specific value next to them.

Is there a way to do a similar thing in numbers?
Specifically, I have a very long table like this:
Type of Job | Amount Earned
------------+--------------
Labour      | 10
Labour      | 15
Office      | 27
Labour      | 10
Tutoring    | 20
Labour      | 5
Office      | 24
Tutoring    | 20

And I'd like to find out how much money I've made from jobs of type Labour, Office and Tutoring separately. I can't just sum the Amount Earned column, because that would only give me the total of all Job Types, instead I want their totals separately.
Any help appreciated!

I found out that you can use the SUMIF function to accomplish this:
SUMIF(test-range, condition, sum-range)


text:
How do I tell OS X to never include certain folders in Recent Places on Open/Save dialogs?
When I tried to save a document I noticed a recent section and folders listed I don't want people to see.

How I can either get OS X to never add these to Recent Places, or if that's not possible then turn off Recent Places period?

You cannot do it on a per directory basis. What you can do is:

Clear the current list with the following command in Terminal:

defaults delete -g NSNavRecentPlaces

Then repeat it each time you want the list to be cleared.
Disable saving the Recent Places history completely with:

defaults write -g NSNavRecentPlacesLimit -int 0


text:
How to tell total MacBook screen on time on battery?
I'd like to know the total screen-on time since I plugged off my MacBook from the charger, but apparently there are no easily found stats for it.
Do I need an external app? I'm using MacBook Air 2015 with El Capitan.

This question is a duplicate. See the original.
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/110780/how-to-know-the-duration-of-battery-usage-in-one-session

@JacoblovesRockstar there was already an answer here about that timer, but after my reply the person decided to remove it. The thing is, that shows the total uptime (including sleep), not screen on time.

I don't think that's something that Apple provides anywhere, however if you put in a little scripting work it's definitely doable. You can get the current brightness on the display with this command:
ioreg -l | awk '/ApplePanelRawBrightness/ {print $NF}'

A '0' result means the backlight is completely off. The upper limit depends on your specific hardware. You can get the highest possible number for your hardware with:
ioreg -l | awk '/AppleMaxBrightness/ {print $NF}'

You could set up a cron job to run that every minute, and record the result and current time, e.g. in a CSV file. You could then use a spreadsheet program to do the calculation. Or, you could use a higher level language like Python or Ruby to do the same thing and automate the calculation in your script. The latter would be my approach.
EDIT: I just noticed the 'on battery' part of the question - dunno how I managed to miss that. You can get a simple Yes or No answer to whether the AC adapter is connected using this command:
system_profiler SPPowerDataType |grep Connected | awk '{print $2}'

I would +1 you already, if my dazzling 6 total points allowed me to, but looks like you'll get the 100 points in 2 days anyway.

And there you go.

Go to Activity Monitor app on the Launchpad, then click on Energy tab. There, you will see the stats of your Mac's battery down below.


text:
"Glitched" pixels, El Capitan, formula box in numbers
Today I installed El Capitan on my Macbook Pro and noticed some weird graphical effects when I was editing my numbers document:

I know that this is entirely software-related, otherwise the screen shot tool couldn't have captured it, and it turns on and off randomly, with mouse-overs and hovers.
Does anyone know a possible cause and fix of this?
My Macbook:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)
Graphics Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB
OSX El Capitan Version 10.11

My Display:

Built-in Display
15.4-inch (2880 x 1800)
Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB

I have noticed a number of graphics related problems with El Capitan ranging from minor to severe (crashing).

What model, exactly, is your MacBook?

Hi there @Undo, I've added that info to the post ;)

You may want to submit a bug report to Apple.

@bjbk I haven't noticed this behaviour since I posted the question; would you recommend I still report it? Or could there have been an automatic update in-between which fixed it?

I'd do it only if it comes back.  Like you said, update may have fixed it.  Cheers!

Well, it doesn't happen to me anymore so if anyone else is having this problem I'd recommend:

restarting your computer (I did this)
Updating your OS (I am updating every time as soon as a new update comes out)


text:
Numbers SUMIF by dates within current week?
I have a table like this:

Which basically contains jobs I've done, the dates I did those jobs and how much that job made me.
I'd like to find out how much money I've made this week (current date is 09/10/2015), with Monday being the first day of each week and Sunday the last. Monday of this week was on 05/10/2015.

Above you can see the values I'd like to sum, because they were all jobs completed within this week.
I can't get anything closer than this:

which only sums the money I've made today, but I want the whole week; how can I sum all the money I've made in this week?

Of course there may be other ways of doing this, but here is one.
To accomplish this dynamically (so that it changes when the current week changes), one can use the WEEKNUM( ) function.

Create a column (you can hide this later if you don't want it to show. See edit below) with the calculation of:

WEEKNUM( A1 ) -- Where A1 is the first cell with a date.

Drag this formula down the column.

Now you can use this formula in a cell to get the sum for the current week.
SUMIF(Table 1::B,WEEKNUM(TODAY()),Table 1::C)
This should give you the desired result.
See the screen shot.  The Function Inspector pane has more information on these functions.

EDIT
To hide a column:
 - Highlight the column
 - Click the disclosure arrow (or control click / right click)
 - Select Hide Column
To show again, right click in an adjacent column letter and select Unhide.

Oh, I didn't know that you could hide columns; how do you hide a column?

See my edit showing how to hide.


text:
Why is 1280x800 the best resolution for my MacBook Pro Retina 13"?
When I go to display settings on my rMBP 13", it says that the "best for retina" resolution is 1280x800.
But when I go to display settings on a 13" MacBook Air it says that the native resolution is 1440x900.
Why would Apple put different display panels on two computers that are the same screen size?

Welcome to Ask Different. What's the underlying question? Are you looking to do something with this tidbit or opinion?

The explanation on the Preferences panel is wrong and confusing. The Retina display doesn't actually run at 1280x800. Instead it just "looks like" it does.
A 13.3 inch screen running at 96dpi (pixels(dots) per inch) has a resolution of about 1280x800 and the 8pt font and other on screen elements are big enough for the eye to see. When you run a 13.3 at retina resolutions 2560x1800 the fonts are much much smaller and hard to look at, so OS X makes them as big as they were at 1280x800 but more detailed. You get to see the same thing as one would at 1280x800 but at much greater detail 226dpi instead of 96dpi.
Resolution is just a big "carpet" of dots, you have a fixed amount of them and you can make the dots bigger to cover more area. For example a 3840x2160 4K TV that is 48 inches wide diagonally has about 90 pixels per inch comparable to a normal desktop monitor. A 15 inch Retina Macbook Pro has 2800x1800 (a little less than the 4k tv) but they are packed smaller and closer together on a much smaller surface area, 15 inch wide instead of 48.

The newer MBP is a retina display macbook. The pixel density on 1280x800 is 4 times higher than traditionally, which makes for a very sharp and clear image.
I also rather prefer setting the monitor to a higher resolution, makes working so much easier - but to show off, 1280x800 really looks best.

I'm not sure this really answers the question. As I understand it, OP is asking why the Pro and Air have different resolutions.

13" rMBP screens has 2560 x 1600 native screen resolotion which by default is set to scaled to improve picture quality so OSX is running at 1280 x 800 with double scaling
13" MBA screens are native 1440 x 900 (not retina to apple) and it is running at native screen resolution

They put 1440x900 as the default resolution on 2016 MacBook Pros since GPU got better.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/5dopnu/why_does_the_2016_macbook_pro_have_a_different/

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


text:
Automatic incremental bootable off-site online backup
I'm looking for a way to clone my hard disk and have that clone be stored online. If my house burns down I could then download the disk file and mount it, so I could pick up from where I left off.
Currently I have set up Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable incremental image (sparsebundle) and store it on disk mounted over wifi (the disk is connected to a Time Capsule).
How do I incrementally upload my sparsebundle located on network disk to Dropbox or any other off-site service?
What I have tried
The Dropbox app was a no-go, because it doesn't support network disks.
CrashPlan simply didn't work at all (app wouldn't start).
Arq can do the job, but it doesn't just copy the file, instead it frames the disk image in its own backup structure. I guess I could compromise and use this, but then the restore process will have the additional step of remembering to use Arq. Would be better if I just had a disk image file in Dropbox directly.
Closest I came was to set up a cron job that would use dropbox_uploader.sh which could otherwise do the job, but it doesn't support incremental uploading, which makes it impractical (the backup is about 300GB).
I happen to prefer Dropbox, but only because I already have a lot of space there, but I can consider any other option as well.

Why not also copy direct to a sparse bundle on dropbox as well as your NAS?

@Mark How would you copy to Dropbox?

Copy (or rsync) to the local shared areal

@Mark There wouldn't be enough space to have a clone of the disk on the same disk itself.


text:
Share vmware network with other host and other computers
I have a USB NIC (Bear Extender) that does not work under Yosemite or El Cap.  I have a VM running Mavericks that can use the NIC.  How can I share the internet out of the VM so that my macbook pro can use it?
The USB NIC works in the VMWare Fusion Pro 8.0.1 guest running 10.8.  I just need to know if there is a way to share that network link with the host so it can access the internet.

So VMWare product X Y Z version is up to guessing? Also - to be clear, you want the VM to be configured to get the USB port directly (are you aware how to do that) and then you want the client OS to be Mavericks and then to enable internet sharing (are you aware how to do that) and then have the host OS somehow use a second network connection to the NIC from it's main network connection to then access the rest of the network that it already has access to? I don't mean to be negative, just I'm looking for some details so this doesn't get closed as "too broad"

@bmike I have updated the question.  The basic question is how can I share my internet out of the guest into the host using VMWare Fusion 8.0.1 Pro.


text:
Remove a single tab on a new Finder Window (Yosemite)
I'm wondering if anyone else has had this problem? It's kind annoying, and I can't figure out how to fix it.
THE PROBLEM IS whenever I open a new finder window, it also creates a single tab that I can't close. This tab takes up some screen space and is kind annoying. I can't figure out how to make it go away. I've looked in View Options and Finder Preferences.
Here is a picture:

 Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   T  will show/hide the tab bar (if there is not more than one tab already).
It appears that if you close a Finder window with the Tab bar open, then subsequent window will start with it open, even for a single tab.
So I guess the trick is to always close tabbed windows one tab at a time, or remember the above key-combo for when you forget.

Me neither... ;)


text:
Apple Wallet (formerly Passbook) - Best way to add links
Does anyone have any experience with Apple Wallet (formerly Passbook) - I'm interested to know if it's possible to add hyperlinks on the reverse of the wallet?
It looks like you can simply add web addresses and apple auto applies a link tag to this but ideally I want to have the link address hidden behind the link title so it doesn't look messy?

Since iOS7 you can add hyperlinks to the back of a pass and format the text that is displayed.
Simply add an  tag to the content of a field and the Apple Wallet app will render it as a clickable link.
For example: Click here
If you do not use an  tag but include a valid URL the Apple Wallet app will display it as clickable address.


text:
Recording bar shows up in chat bar; can't remove
Ever since I upgraded to 9.0, a recording bar sporadically shows up in my text input window:

It overlays on text that I try to type.
I know I'm doing it, but I don't know how I'm doing it; nor do I know how remove it.
I cannot select it, changing keyboard layout via "123" or ":)" doesn't changing anything.
The only way I know how to remove is by turning the phone off and back on.
How do I remove this bar?

I had this bug on a iOS9 beta... I didn't find how to fix it :/ You are in 9.0 or 9.0.2 ?

@MrMojoRisin 9.0.2


text:
How to disable accidental trackpad input in Yosemite?
The solution to this problem in previous versions of OS X was a checkbox in the trackpad preferences that said "ignore accidental trackpad input." That option is no longer there in Yosemite.
Is it still possible to enable it, and if so how?

If you have a multi-touch trackpad Mac, the option no longer appears in System Preferences because it as enabled automatically. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201822.
Update 2016-04-03-1007
You may want to give BetterTouchTool a try. It enables fine grained control of trackpad behavior. Three items that may interest you in particular:

Disable trackpad gestures after hitting a keyboard key to prevent accidental gestures while typing
Thumb recognition (filters out thumb and palm . . .)
Reenable gestures only after touching the center area of the trackpad

Interesting...I guess the problem is it thinks my input is not accidental then. Maybe it's the new hardware because my hands haven't changed and I did not have this problem after enabling that option on previous macbooks. Thanks for the answer regardless.

@tubes I am having the same issue, I am typing then my palm taps the trackpad, the new trackpad with force touch, and then I am typing on a different line.  I was really hoping to fix it

@tubes Does this command work for you?
defaults write -g com.apple.trackpad.setWantsRestingTouches -bool TRUE

I changed "Click" to "Firm" in the menu.
System Peferences > Trackpad > Point & Click
It seems to have helped.

I had that setting but still it sometimes jumped on me.  Electrical tape method works like a charm! :)

Definitley helps a bit versus the default setup.  I still have issues sometimes, but it does seem to reduce the frequency of the issue.

I was having similar issues after purchasing a new MBP.
What seemed to fix it for me was to go into System Peferences > Trackpad > Point & Click and disable the following items:
Look up & Data (Tap with three fingers)
Force Click and haptic feedback

Since I don't need any of those features I just disabled all of them.  I code and don't use a lot of fancy trackpad features.  Try playing around with those options to see what works best for you.  If you need those options some of the time, you could probably make a script to quickly toggle them on and off.
UPDATE: Non-technical HACK:
While some of these tricks seemed to have helped, I found a very easy way to eliminate accidental thumb clicks while typing.  Place a 1/2 inch width strip of electrical tape across the top of the trackpad.  It may not look pretty but it gets the job done with no further hacks required!
To insure the area of electrical tape is not trackable, use 2 layers of tape with a thin strip of aluminum foil between the layers. You probably could use clear or scotch tape for the top layer for a thinner profile. Just be careful the foil doesn't make direct contact with the trackpad itself as this will disable the trackpad. I recommend cutting the foil to be slightly smaller than the electrical tape.

Touches passed through two layers of electrical tape when I tried it. A middle layer of aluminum foil stops that, but that's getting pretty thick. Why is it bad for the foil to touch the trackpad?

As mentioned, you can try 2nd layer with clear tape for thinner profile.  If foil touches pad, the pad just won't work.

I've been using one layer of aluminum foil covered by one layer of electrical tape. The aluminum touching the trackpad hasn't caused any problems for me. This works pretty well because it's almost exactly the same thickness as the drop from the case surface to the trackpad surface. I put it all the way around (all four sides) because I found it difficult not to touch the bottom of the trackpad with the palm of my mousing hand or the side of the trackpad with the hand that remained on the keyboard.

Update
Karabiner Multitouch extension no longer works on newer versions of MacOS so I recommend turning of tap-to-click when typing.
Use this Apple Script to toggle "typing mode" if you want be sure your trackpad wont mess you up during frenetic typing sessions
open Applications > Utilities > Script Editor and paste the code from this script:
tell application "System Preferences"
    reveal anchor "trackpadTab" of pane "com.apple.preference.trackpad"
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences"
    click checkbox 3 of tab group 1 of window 1
end tell
quit application "System Preferences"

Then select File > Export and save in Applications but also make sure to select File Format > Application before saving.
If you want to make it very easy to run the toggle on and off, you may want to add a custom keyboard shortcut which would just run the toggle application
Outdated
I'm currently on El Capitan but this should work with any supported version of https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/
You can actually play with the settings and disable thumb clicks on the top part of the trackpad.   so this more or less does what my tape hack does sans the tape!
UPDATE: I was not able to get this do completely fix accidental tap while typing. So here is my final advice:
For $6.50 you might wanna purchase Better Touch Tool For Mac which improves accidental thumb taps but not 100% perfect.
Try these advanced settings:

How do you get that window w/ touchpad adjustment in Karabiner? I downloaded it but cannot find it anywhere, is it a separate extension or something ?

@AlexVPerl from karabiner preferences select Misc & Uninstall > Launch "multi-touch extension" > Area

thanks for reply, but latest version I dl'ed does not have that button, what version are you using?

@AlexVPerl probably I'm using a very outdated one. I'm still on El Cap.

I created a project to address exactly this problem.
Allow you to adjust size of ignored area on Trackpad,  The ignored area won't respond to any touches. It’s as if it’s not part of trackpad.

I created TouchGuard to address exactly this problem. TouchGuard disables the touchpad while typing on macOS. It is distributed as a pre-compiled, binary executable and a plist file and, when installed, runs as a system-wide daemon.
You can download and install the TouchGuard binary and the plist file as follows:

Download the repository from GitHub:

Extract ZIP file to Desktop.
Run this command in Terminal to make the TouchGuard executable:
cd Desktop
chmod +x TouchGuard

Copy TouchGuard to /usr/bin/ folder.
Copy org.amanagr.TouchGuard.driver.Daemon.plist to /Library/LaunchDaemons.
Reboot.

Note: source code from: https://github.com/thesyntaxinator/TouchGuard

While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes.

@lacostenycoder What makes you think this answer is more dangerous than any other answer recommending to download a binary without public source code?

@lacostenycoder There are a lot of answers on this site which recommend binaries. Not everybody favors open source.

YOU RUN THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK. I opened an issue on github asking to show the source code and the user just closed the issue and removed issues from public view. How can you trust it?


text:
Diagnosing why a mac needs safe mode to boot
"Fresh" install of snow leopard 10.6 needs safe mode to boot. It's a 2006 24" iMac and I can't upgrade the software to lion since it's not availiable on app store (I don't really want to shell out any money on it if I can help it) and the other OS's are too new to run on it. I've fully updated the computer but I have to hold shift to start it up otherwise it just loads to a white screen.
Is there anyway I can find any sort of information on what is causing this. Are startup errors logged anywhere that I can go into afterwards, or is there any sort of diagnostics I can run?
Apple have given up on it, but I haven't! Any help would be appreciated.

The problem with 10.6 is that safari is way to out of date to be useful. Have you considered running Windows 10? You may laugh, but the computer I am using right now is a mid 2007 iMac running Windows 10 Pro 64 bit.

@DavidAnderson I appreciate the feedback but I'd rather stick chrome on it and be done with it.


text:
Changing Input Language in iOS 9 with External Keyboard
When using an external keyboard, is there a new key combination to change the input language? It used to be ⌘-cmd+space, but since iOS 9 that combination has been assigned to Spotlight Search, same as OS X.
My external keyboard has a  key that also invokes Spotlight Search starting with iOS 9, since I suppose it's a simple macro for ⌘-cmd+space.

Found it: it's now ^ctrl+space. I think that's the same as on OS X now.

Yes, it's same as the default for OS X starting with El Capitan.  But there of course you can change it via system prefs if you want.


text:
I uninstalled Dropbox but still have .dropbox listed when I do ls -a. Why?
I have uninstalled Dropbox from my Applications on OS X but it is still showing as .dropbox in my home directory.  Why is that please?

Since this is a question about the Dropbox sync client rather than the web interface, this question belongs on [su] or, since it's about OS X, on [apple.se].

Removing Dropbox doesn't delete its preferences/cache/etc, which is stored in ~/.dropbox. You can delete this yourself.


text:
copy the link of the current played video/stream in iOS
Is it possible to copy the link of the current played video/stream in iOS in the Safari or another 3rd party Browser? Have a look at the screenshot below in the bottom left corner.
In OS X I'm able to do it with a right click on the video/stream and then Copy Video Address.

Does someone have an idea?

It looks like this URL is displayed for convenience only. Is the URL not available for capture from the browser which initiated the video/stream?

Unfortunately not. I can't figure it out. In OS X it's possible with a right click and then Copy Video Address, but in iOS it looks like there isn't such a function. I tried to tap and hold and some other gestures. Nothing worked out for me.

Sadly, there is no such feature in Apples APIs at the moment. I solved it writing a short script which searches the HTML code for video URLs.
UPDATE:
But there's the possibility to view the url. Look at Josh Newman's answer. https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/268156/153006

Would you care to share?  I'm looking to do the same thing.  Thanks

Unfortunately, there's no script which works universally. Mine is just for one website.

I wasn't able to copy the URL, however if you want to view the entire thing to transcribe it, start playing your video and then lock your iOS device.  The full URL should scroll by on your lock screen.

Yeah that's correct. I'll update my answer.

Only known way to me — you can find it and copy it from the website html source.
The source AFAIK cannot be shown in safari, so you can Google “view page source online” and paste your website url to the web app. Search for <video tag in the source.
I found my mp4 video url that way.


text:
Finder randomly changes language in sidebar favourites
I have a pretty weird problem.
I have an iMac and have just had my old HDD replaced with an SSD. The old HDD is now in my optical drive's slot.
I have a clean installation of El Captain on my SSD. Unfortunately, the guys who swapped the drives for me installed El Captain in Polish. Now I changed the OS language to English as I'm more used to it, and this is what my Finder does.
I still have an old OS installed on the other disk, which is not formatted yet. I thought that it might be by some miracle conflicting with the new installation, but Finder does this even after unmounting the old HDD.
I have absolutely no idea what to do with this, and it gets very annoying.
Has anyone had this problem before? Uncle Google brings no answers on this one :|

This is not a programming question, and would be better off asked on a site related to using/configuring OS X.

Your best guess is at http://superuser.com ... look for tags osx and finder

you guys are right. thx.


text:
What are Apple's Update and End-Of-Life policies in 2015?
I have a couple of Macs that are required to be held back from upgrade. The requirements are due to (1) use of earlier iPhone/iPad devices, (2) operational requirements, like a particular piece of non-Apple software needs a particular version of OS X, (3) personal preference, like I don't like the color scheme and "cartoon-ish" look of the themes on later OS X versions.
This week, Apple released a number of security updates. Confer, the APPLE-SA-2015-10-21-XXX security bulletins. However, it appears Apple has partially abandoned my operating system (which is less than a few years old). The OS has known outstanding security issues that have not been fixed.
I can only say "appears" because I don't believe Apple announced the OS is no longer being supported or is at End of Life. In fact, trying to search for the information on Apple's site results in mostly useless fodder and other's similar questions: end of life policy site:apple.com. Broadening the search to the web produces more fodder. And I can only say "partially" because because Apple patches some of the OS's applications, like iTunes. Below is an image of iTunes being updated to 12.3.1 in October, 2015.
What are Apple's current Update and End-Of-Life policies? And why is iTunes being updated, when its a non-essential app?
I'm specifically interested in policy related to security updates, and policy related to non-security related software updates.
Thanks in advance.

Generally speaking, Apple release security updates for the current version of OS X and the two previous ones. Since new versions are released annually, that means that any particular version has three years from first release to end of life.

Thanks. Does Apple publish that policy, or are they your observations? Sorry to split hairs. I'm trying to determine where/why my expectations are not being met; and I am I'm interested in Apple policy related to it.

This is from observation; to the best of my knowledge Apple don't have a published policy, presumably so that they don't have to backport complex fixes to earlier versions as in the case you linked in your question.


text:
External monitor for Macbook Pro Retina 13" 2015 laggy (UHD like P2415Q)
I have a Macbook Pro Retina 13" 2015 and I'm searching for an external monitor to use with it.
Until now I tried two external monitors: DELL UltraSharp U2515H (25") and Dell P2415Q-C (24").
The first one (U2515H) is 4K monitor and is amazing. A lot. But, there is a but.
The monitor is not sharp (retina, splendid, beautiful) like the second one, the P2415Q that I tried.
The second one has 185 PPI (pixel density: 3840x2160 on 23.8") that make this monitor amazing, beautiful, excellent, LIKE A RETINA DISPLAY!
But, another but.
My Apple Macbook Pro Retina 13" 2015 (yes, the last one, the one with 8Gb of RAM) is crappy and lag a lot using Chrome, Safari and other software in any resolution, INCREDIBLY!!! except the last one (3840x2160). I think
because my Mac at the 3840 (4k) resolution doesn't have to manipulate and recalculate any pixel and so it is fast and usable. In other resolutions, also in the Full HD (1920x1080), it is crappy and unusable like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBgLMls-f6I
I hope this is not a fail of my own Mac, of my own graphic card. Because if just a my problem I have to fix this. Can you confirm this is not just a my problem? Just my pc makes like this? Can you post a scroll on a website with your 13 rMBP?
So, for this reasons, now I'm looking for an external monitor to use with my Macbook Pro Retina 13" 2015 which is at least 21" (max 22!!!) and Full HD (so my mac have just to be a division by two: from 3840/2=1920 and 2160/2=1080, and it will suffer less that a mathematical operation with height like 1440p or 1600p) but the monitor have to be an UHD one, at least high resolution like DELL P2415Q which have 185 PPI.
There is something like this? Thanks in advance.

I had a similar problem - it is due to your MBP not being able to "drive" the larger monitor.  It also has to do with how you are connecting to your monitor.  When I tried to go from mDP (mini DisplayPort) to DVI, there was lag.  But when I went to mDP to DP, the lag was gone.
The UltraSharp monitor that I am using is this model:  U2312HM UltraSharp IPS Monitor
I found this on Apple's Support site.  If you notice the resolutions and frequencies for HDMI go down as the resolution goes up.  This also applies for the other display formats.  You really can't drive anything more than 1080p at 60Hz  the more Hz, the smoother (less choppy) things look.

I will bet that if you tried this monitor on a PC with dedicated graphics, you would see no performance lag.

P2415Q has only two display port, not a DVI and i'm using them. Laggy, 20, 30 fps in 1440 or 1600. Only smooth 60fps on 3840x2160. Is it normal?

The two DP ports is for daisy chaining.  Most of the time I have seen lag is because the graphics card couldn't drive the monitor at a specific resolution.

is this normal on a mac pro 2015 such expensive?


text:
KeyChain Access and GPG Keychain - should those be running simultaneously?
I have installed GPG Suite and found out also during this time that my OS X has some app that stores all my passwords under my screenlock password - total news to me.  Can I get rid of Apple app if I now have GPG? Really need help with this Apple app.. Thank you.

No.  You have no reason to remove Keychain Access and doing so would break important parts of the OS.

Given that it is dependent on one single user password, I do not want to use it.  It's terrible security.  What can I do?


text:
Is it possible to run Android on iOS?
Ok so I was thinking, Can you run Android on a iOS device? I did some research and Android could run on ARM (Most apps would not work) but how come no one has tried to run it. Whats holding them back?

Many reasons

You cannot create another file system
No firmware exists for this
It would void your warranty
Android device developers spend a lot of time developing their hardware and software to work together, just like iOS.
The amount of effort required (boot ROM firmware  modifications, bricked devices, etc) makes it much easier just to buy an Android if you really want one.

There is no tool or way to do this by yourself. Theoretically, you could run Android on iOS but it would be near impossible. To do this, someone would have to reverse engineer Android and figure out how to dual boot an iOS device. It has been done in the past with the iPhone 2g and the iDroid project so it is possible but it has not been continued. If you have a computer, you can run Android on your computer using Bluestacks. However, at the moment, there is no way to run Android on your iOS devices.


text:
Remnants from package installation
I'm on Yosemite 10.10.1
I was trying to install the Tor browser, but instead I mistakenly installed some general Tor proxy or something, which didn't come in the form of a normal application.
Basically I first installed MacPorts and then I sudo port install tor which didn't give me the Tor browser, but some other Tor thing (I think it's something that allows you to use Tor proxy with any application, but I don't need that.)
So anyway, that command installed a bunch of components that I don't want or need on my system. How can I purge all these components from my system?
Here is the output from sudo port install tor (I have ran sudo port uninstall tor now, but I'm thinking some of the other stuff is still left behind.)
Fiksdals-iMac:~ Fiksdal$ sudo port install tor
Error:
Error: No Xcode installation was found.
Error: Please install Xcode and/or run xcode-select to specify its location.
Error:
Warning: xcodebuild exists but failed to execute
Warning: Xcode does not appear to be installed; most ports will likely fail to build.
--->  Computing dependencies for tor
--->  Fetching archive for tor
Warning: Your DNS servers incorrectly claim to know the address of nonexistent hosts. This may cause checksum mismatches for some ports. See this page for more information: <https://trac.macports.org/wiki/MisbehavingServers>
--->  Attempting to fetch tor-0.2.6.9_1.darwin_14.x86_64.tbz2 from http://mse.uk.packages.macports.org/sites/packages.macports.org/tor
--->  Attempting to fetch tor-0.2.6.9_1.darwin_14.x86_64.tbz2.rmd160 from http://mse.uk.packages.macports.org/sites/packages.macports.org/tor
--->  Installing tor @0.2.6.9_1
--->  Activating tor @0.2.6.9_1
--->  Cleaning tor
--->  Updating database of binaries
--->  Scanning binaries for linking errors
--->  No broken files found.
Fiksdals-iMac:~ Fiksdal$

Edit: I opened MacPorts.txt and found the following. Was this added during my installation of Tor?
libevent @2.0.22_1 (active)
  openssl @1.0.2d_0 (active)
  zlib @1.2.8_0 (active)

What makes you think that some files are left behind?

Are you saying there probably aren't any? I mean, the installer seemed to install more than one thing, and when I uninstalled it was only Tor.

Your log output only shows tor.

Actually, this is from when I ran the same command again later, the first time I ran it there was a bunch of stuff happening.. This is kind of silly really.

I added some more info to the question, this is what I am talking about.

Please read the MacPorts Guide- port deps tor . You need to fix the problem with XCode before worrying about crud left after an uninstall.


text:
Assigning icons system-wide based on filename without extension
I'd like Finder to display a particular icon for files based purely on its filename, not its extension. For instance, for a web project I have a Makefile sitting amidst PHP files, which all display the Atom logo:

The file already opens with Atom when double-clicked, even though TextEdit is technically my system's default text editor (which I never use, because Atom rules).
Is it possible to automatically assign an icon to makefiles system-wide, without manually copy+pasting an icon into it through the properties pane? Preferably without installing any third-party software, as this is really a cosmetic thing that's not worth having system bloat over.
I'm hoping there's some defaults-related thing I could tweak, or an entry in a plist file somewhere.

Setting Atom icon via command line for Makefile
There is no direct way to set icons based on filename only, but one can set them via command line and then apply to all makefiles on the Mac.
Here are the steps to set Atom's icon to a specific Makefile via command line (assuming you Developer Tools are installed).

Get the Atom icon file from /Applications/Atom.app/Contents/Resources/file.icns
Convert the image to icon
sips -i file.icns
Extract the icon to its own resource file
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/DeRez -only icns file.icns > tmpicns.rsrc
Append this resource to the file you want to icon-ize
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/Rez -append tmpicns.rsrc -o Makefile
Use the resource to set the icon
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/SetFile -a C Makefile
Restart your Mac

you can run mdfind -name makefile to get all the makefiles in your system and write a script to do the above on them.

Thanks! Although I'm guessing there's no way to apply the icon to all future Makefiles as well...? (I'm tipping the answer is "no", but that wouldn't surprise me).

Also, what does step #2 do? Isn't the icns format already an icon file?

in this case it is. But I have added that step so that you can convert other files to icons using this command, if required.


text:
Thunderbolt 3 compatible with Apple Thunderbolt Display
Is it possible to connect a Thunderbolt 3 equipped Mac (I know there isn't one at present) with the 2011 Apple Thunderbolt Display?
I'm just curious. Maybe there's an adapter which works?

Looking at the Thunderbolt 3 FAQ, it states the following which should apply to all Thunderbolt-labeled Display Port displays.

Thunderbolt 3 ports are fully compatible with DisplayPort devices and cables.

and

Products built to Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 specifications will work with Thunderbolt 3 via an adapter.

I also read this on the Thunderbold Intel homepage. I hope the adapter works with the Apple Thunderbolt Display also.

Yet this is just an educated guess.


text:
Are Mail rules still applied when a Mac is in Power Nap mode?
I understand that when a Mac is Power Napping it will periodically check for new emails via Mail. Will Mail rules still apply to any new emails that are received when the Mac is in Power Nap mode?


text:
'Cannot connect to App Store' on mobile network
When I try accessing the App Store when I'm not connected to a wireless network, it shows 'Cannot connect to App Store'; I've already re-applied the settings for mobile data, but that didn't help. The weird thing is that it seems to be downloading update info (this morning I downloaded all the updates via wifi, and right now it shows me two new ones although I haven't been connected to wifi for a few hours).
Any ideas on how to fix this?
[iPhone 5s, iOS 9.2 beta]

It's likely because you are on a Beta program.

Try logout and login into iTunes & App Store on you phone.

I've already tried that, and just did it again, sadly it still isn't working.

hmm, as it is beta you'll probably have to apply the current updates on wifi.

Well, I think I'm actually able to do updates when I'm not connected to wifi, but the tabs line Highlights/Charts say 'Cannot connect to App Store'

hmm, any reason for not trying updating using iTunes on Mac?


text:
Stopped sync of photo's with iTunes, iPhone still claims little storage is used due to sync
I recently stopped the synchronisation of photo's with iTunes on my iPhone. My iPhone removed all photo's it was still showing thanks to this synchronisation, but it still claims some storage is used due to synchronisation of photo's with iTunes.
I'm talking about 0.7 kB. I know it's not much, but nevertheless I'm wondering what it is used for.

While I am unsure of the EXACT details of what may be left in that 0.7KB I  know your phone saves information about what computer it connects to so it knows it can trust it for syncing files, updating software, backing up, and so on. Along with information about what you do and do not want to be synced on the phone. All of that information is still needed whether you sync everything or nothing but would take up a very tiny amount of space, as you can see.


text:
how do I fix incorrect autocorrect in Safari?
Whenever I type my email into Safari, (Safari only) whether it's in a text field or filling out a form it misspells it and it's incredibly annoying. The weird thing is that it isn't even my whole email, its just part of it, that it wrongly autocorrects. I can't find anywhere where I've ever typed it in wrong. Any suggestions?

When I type: "MyName@gmail.com" it autocorrects to "MyNam@gmail" before I can even type the ".com"

I have already tried to go to: System Pref. > Keyboard > Text  as well as Right-Click > Spelling and Grammar > Show Spelling and Grammar > "Learn"  but neither have worked.

Sounds a bit like the system dictionary has accidentally learned the wrong spelling at some point. In other apps, you can right-click on the mis-spelled word and there's an "Unlearn Spelling" option. For some reason, this option doesn't appear in Safari, but if you type the mis-spelled version into another app -- e.g. TextEdit -- and right-click on it, does it appear then? (A bit of testing here suggests it might!)

Alternatively, you can have a look at ~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary (it's a plain text file), and see if the mis-spelled version is in there.

Type it in once correctly - backspace/delete the last letter then you will get the correct one in the list + the old one


text:
How to setup DMZ with Airport behind a router (double NAT issue)?
My cable provider shipped a new modem which includes WLAN, and thus also a router. It hands out 192.168.0.X adresses via DHCP.
My Airport's WAN side is connected to this router, and gets an address out of the above range. The ISP's router has no address reservation facility, so the address that the Airport gets can vary.
The Airport is configured to hand out 192.168.243.X addresses via it's own DHCP server. As expected it complains about "double NAT". For the moment I have fixed the issue by disabling the ISP's router and WLAN completely (bridge mode).
However, I'd actually like to use the feature. My desired setup would be:

ISP's Router
Airport, using e.g. 192.168.0.10
Web Server, opening port 80, using e.g. 192.168.0.20. The ISP's router supports port forwarding, so I can do this.

On the Airport's LAN side, I'd like to span an independent 192.168.243.x subnet, that cannot be reached from the web server. In a way, the web server would be in a "DMZ", isolated from the rest of my home network.
The problem is: The Airport doesn't let me do this! When I connect any device to the LAN side of the Airport, I get a 192.168.0.x address from the ISP's router, and not a 192.168.243.x address from the Airport. The Airport acts like it is in bridge mode, even though it isn't.
How can I set this up the way I want to?

Out of the box, the Airport (and Apple's Time Capsule) insist that there not be two NAT/DHCP devices chained in a row. You're trying to do this, one being your broadband router, and the other your Airport. In this situation, the Airport will insist on being in bridging mode and letting the broadband router be the DHCP server.
The Airport detects this situation by looking at the IP address it gets. If it is one in a number of known ranges like 192.168.x.x, 172.x.x.x, or 10.x.x.x, it will balk.
So the way you get around this is by having your broadband router give out addresses in a range that's safe but not knows as a "private" address range. I found an article [1] recommending a block of addresses designated for "testing" purposes in the Amateur Packet Radio network (AMPRNet). The range is 44.128.x.x.  I set up my broadband router to use that range, and my TimeCapsule is happy to provide NAT as well. Problem solved.
[1] http://www.wa4dsy.com/robot/ooma-airport-hack

Thanks, good hint! I can't test it, unfortunately. I got a new router from the ISP which has very limited settings. It only allows 192.168.0.x, nothing else. Maybe it's time to start dealing with IPv6...

I suppose you could put a vanilla router in between the broadband router and your Airport to solve that problem... :) (you'd suffer some extra latency.)

Turn of the DHCP server on your ISP's router. It might be answering faster than the AirPort DHCP server.

Thanks! The ISPs DHCP server would not be reachable by the clients behind the Airport, so it couldn't answer at all.


text:
How to create an ISO from a file (not a directory)
I'm trying to perform some testing on old platforms. In this case, its Fedora 1 (circa 2002 or 2003). The VM software (VMware and VirtualBox) can't handle distros that old, so the guests don't have a network card.
I found I could transfer stuff to them through the CD Rom drive. However, when I attempt to build an ISO with a file I am trying to transfer:
hdiutil makehybrid -o ~/image.iso ~/make-4.1.tar.gz -iso -joliet
Creating hybrid image...

hdiutil: makehybrid failed - Operation not permitted

I also tried with create, but that result in an error, too:
hdiutil create -ov ~/make-4.1.tar.gz  -iso -joliet
hdiutil: create: unknown option "-iso"
Usage:  hdiutil create <sizespec> [options] <imagepath>
    hdiutil create -help

I've also tried with and without the option makehybrid.
How do I create an ISO of a file (and not a directory)?

I want to avoid unzipping and then building the ISO because filenames and permissions are changed (This is older software that's not as stable as it is today).

Did you try wrapping your command with sudo? It may be that hdiutil is trying to write temp-files to a place were it does not have access.

The source for hdiutil -makehybrid needs to be a directory or disk image (see manpage); maybe try extracting the archive with -p option passed to tar to preserve permissions/owners.

You can't create an ISO image from a non-image file. hdiutil and especially hdiutil makehybrid expect an image or a directory (not necessarily containing files!).

But you don't have to unzip/unarchive anything. Just create a folder with the name MAKE, move the gz file into it and then enter hdiutil makehybrid -o ~/make.iso ~/MAKE -iso -joliet. The resulting mounted image just contains the file make-4.1.tar.gz.
The permissions of the iso mounted to the file system of the Fedora VM should then be:
# ls -al /dev/cdrom*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 [date] /dev/cdrom -> devicename #e.g. sr0 or something similar, it depends on your distro and the /etc/fstab file inside the VM

and the file make-4.1.tar.gz "inside" is world readable.
After copying the gz file to your user folder in the VM, unarchive/unzip it.

To reduce Klanomath's answer to a recipe:
mkdir -p /tmp/MAKE
rm -f ./make.iso
cp make-4.1.tar.gz /tmp/MAKE/make-4.1.tar.gz
hdiutil makehybrid -o ./make.iso /tmp/MAKE/ -iso -joliet

Then, mount make.iso in the virtual machine.
Be aware of the race conditions when using /tmp. They are not a worry to me because this is for local testing, and not production.


text:
MacBook Air - No internal speaker sound after boot (icon not greyed out + no red light)
I don't know when I've started having this, but with my MacBook Air 2015 13", the volume icon only shows "Headphones" as an output device option.
The icon is not greyed out, nor is there any red light coming from the headphone jack. The startup chime works fine as well.

Resetting NVRAM - didn't work
Resetting SCM - didn't work
Re-plugging in the headphones (multiple times) - didn't work
Twirling the headphone plug (multiple times) - didn't work
Blowing in the headphone jack (multiple times) - didn't work

The problem fixed itself, by having the MacBook sleep overnight.

You may skipped the softwares for headphones or sound device. It was happened to me and i booted it again. It was fixed.

Rebooting doesn't help..


text:
Kindle books (.azk) and iPad
I have the Kindle reader app for iPad and was just wondering the following:

What does a download link look like for an .azk/.azw file?
Where do the files get stored on the iPad once they are downloaded?

Why are you concerned about these things? The kindle app has a store where you can download our previous purchases as well as buy new books.

first off I am not concerned I am simply asking a question
secondly are you telling me that these files aren't stored on any of amazon's servers?

They are on Amazon's servers. What part of my comment makes you not think that? They're somewhere deep in an encrypted part of Amazon's kindle store servers. I really don't think it's possible to get a direct URL, but you may be able to download it by using Amazon.com and logging into your account

"The kindle app has a store where you can download our previous purchases as well as buy new books"

I've figured out my first problem anyway. now I need to know the file directory I need to access on my PC to see my downloaded files

Well you can't access your iPad's file system. But the Kindle app may allow iTunes file sharing


text:
Brew process leak
Since I upgraded to El Captain, I'm having trouble with Homebrew, specifically when exhausting the resources by spawning dozens of process from time to time.
I get this error:
fork: Resource temporarily unavailable

And with the output of ps -ax | grep ruby, I get:
 8394 ??         0:00.15 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 8503 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 8611 ??         0:00.17 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 8719 ??         0:00.14 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 8827 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 8935 ??         0:00.14 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 9043 ??         0:00.14 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 9152 ??         0:00.14 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 9260 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 9368 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 9476 ??         0:00.14 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 9584 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 9698 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 9807 ??         0:00.15 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
 9915 ??         0:00.15 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
10024 ??         0:00.15 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
10132 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
10242 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
10350 ??         0:00.14 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
10458 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
10566 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
13963 ??         0:00.06 ruby /Users/pedropaulo/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p481/bin/gem env gemdir
34035 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
34142 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
34249 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
34356 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
34465 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
34572 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
34679 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
34786 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
34893 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
35000 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
35107 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
35214 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
35321 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
35428 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
35535 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
35643 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
35750 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
35857 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
35964 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
36071 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
36178 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
36285 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
36392 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
36499 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
36606 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
36713 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
36821 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
36928 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
37035 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
37142 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
37249 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
37356 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
37463 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
37570 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
37677 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
37784 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
37891 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
37999 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
38106 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
38213 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
38320 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
38427 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
38534 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
38641 ??         0:00.12 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
38748 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
38855 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
38962 ??         0:00.14 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
39069 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
39177 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
39284 ??         0:00.14 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55
39391 ??         0:00.13 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin/ruby -W0 /usr/local/Library/brew.rb --prefix homebrew/php/php55

Does anyone know a fix for this problem?

What was the command you ran to start this?

I didn't. Not that I know of.

So you have a process in LaunchAgents or Daemons -


text:
iTunes' music sharing disconnects when Macbook sleeps
My Macbook Pro, OSX El Capitan 10.11.1, disconnects from my Windows PC's shared iTunes library whenever it (my Macbook) sleeps.
To reconnect it I have to restart music sharing from the Windows machine.
This is a pain, and I'd like to stay connected all the time.

For those who enjoy reading...
I've turned on music sharing with iTunes on my Windows PC by following these steps:

opening preferences (Edit > Preferences)
Going to the sharing section
Checking the box "Share my library on my local network"
Checking the box "Home Sharing computers and devices update play counts"

which I got from here. At the end of the process I follow, my preferences screen looks identical to the one shown in the article.
Then, when I open iTunes on my Macbook Pro Retina, 15", OSX El Capitan 10.11.1,

I can see my Windows Computer's iTunes library and access it and play songs from it.
However, when my macbook falls asleep, it seems to somehow disconnect from the Windows machine, and I can no longer access the remote library.
I have to restart music sharing from my Windows machine in order for my macbook to reconnect.
How can I keep my Macbook connected?

Force it to always stay awake?

Try the following. On your Mac, click System Preferences > Security&Privacy > Firewall > Advanced > Deselect Log out after xx minutes of activity. This will stop iTunes switching off even though your Mac is in sleep mode. If the number of minutes in the prior selection equals the time at which the connection is lost, this is probably your problem.

This is not a complete answer, and I will update it once I have a Mac in front of me, but basically you will need to take a good hard look into your System Preferences, specifically the Energy Saver options.
There should be an option in there called Wake for Network Access, and it may help to check this box, however, I think that mostly has to do with accepting a "magic packet" for WOL (Wake-On-LAN) access -- but I could be wrong, and it could solve your issue immediately.  Not quite sure on that specific option, but...
There are a few other things you can do in order to prevent this type of behavior:
You can edit your power preferences so that your computer never sleeps, however, this will obviously decrease your battery drastically if you are not connected to power.
You should also be able to create a custom power profile (I'm sure it's available is OS X, although I have personally never created one like I have in Windows)
Download a third party application to run only while you need this functionality available -- which is keeping your computer awake -- the root cause of your issue is that whenever you computer goes to sleep, WiFi access is automatically turned off until the computer is woken up.
The third party apps that I know of are called InsomniaX and Caffeine.  I used to use InsomniaX with Snow Leopard, and it worked great.  Caffeine is available in the Mac AppStore or the developer's website, which I linked in the name, and I think InsomniaX is available in the HackStore or from the developer's website, which I also linked in the name.
That being said, the best solution, IMHO, would be to double-check your Energy Saver options, and then whenever you want this functionality available to your other computers, just hook your MBP up to power and Ethernet.


text:
Message about Apple ID used in another Mac
I have received this message in the screen:
"Your Apple ID is now being used for iMessage and FaceTime on a new Mac."
I indeed updated OS in another Mac, which would be an explanation for this message, according to previously solved questions on this matter.
... but I updated it three days ago, and that machine is supposed to be switched off, far away from here.
Should I worry?
Does the expression "is now being used" mean that it is being used at this precise moment?

The message you got is to notify you that you have singed in on the mac you updated with your apple ID.
Normally you should receive this message on other devices that are connected with your apple ID.
That you received the massage after 3 days could have something to do with the recent outage of some apple services, but I'm not sure about this

Jules is correct: the message was held underway by server(s).
Check the headers: Mail->View->Message->"raw source"

This can only be used when you received an email from apple saying that your apple ID is used for FaceTime and iMessage.


text:
How to avoid ghost folder from encrypted drive?
I have an encrypted drive on my mac - it's a dmg file under my home directory.
I mount it when I need to work on the files inside (obviously).    In reality, this is "almost all the time".  IE after I log in, I mount the drive, and there it stays.
The problem that I'm having is when for some reason I reboot my mac (and, possibly other times that I have not diagnosed yet) this drive appears to not get unmounted cleanly, and leaves a ghost folder in /Volumes.
That becomes a problem because when I mount it the next time, a folder with a different name is created in /Volumes, and then any paths I had that were pointing to the original no longer work (email client's email folder, for example).
How can I avoid this?

Note: I do not have the option to say "oh, my whole mac drive is encrypted, so I don't need this separate encrypted drive for this work".   Practical realities aside, a policy dictates that I must have it

you can edit this to your question instead of adding a comment.

Would mounting the DMG with a script work for you? It could automatically check for the directory before mounting, remove it, and then mount. Wouldn't be hard to write. I've had issues with this in the past, and my resolution was to just throw a script together as a workaround. Not pretty, but it works.

I guess you're saying "have a script that removes the ghost first, then mounts".   I could do that.   Was kinda hoping to avoid the problem in the first place :)


text:
Mac is freezing. How to find the problem?
I have Macbook Pro Retina (Late 2013) with installed El capitan.
Sometimes OSX just freezing and I can do nothing, but to reboot (by holding power button for a few seconds). All apps are continue running, for example media player or torrent client. But keyboard or trackpad doesn't respond.
I read lots of manuals, I tried reset different settings, clear user's cache. I even tried reinstall OSX (without formatting the drive). It's not helping.
I don't have much experience with OSX, so I don't know where to look for a problem. Any thoughts what should I do?

I don't have any special software installed. Just regular stuff, like Chrome and Skype. Plus some apps for webdev - Jetbrains software, plus homebrew with php/ruby, etc. I checked the list of software, and don't see anything unusual. I also can't find the pattern here, because this problem can happens any time, when different apps are launched

Did you check this? https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21879

Try using Apple Diagnostics to check for hardware issues:
Restart your computer, then hold down the D key while the Mac restarts.
Check Apple knowledge base on this subject - https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21879
If you get an error-code, check this page for how to follow it up:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203747

yes, I did it, it doesn't shows anything

hm, I run it second time and I got this error: PPT004 The battery requires service. The battery is not functioning normally, though you may not notice a change in its behavior or the amount of charge it holds. You can continue to use your battery before its checked without harming your computer.

It seems that your macbook is somewhat unstable. Check this link for suggestions on what to do for this error-code:  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203747

Diagnostic tool offered to bring my Mac to Apple Care, but I'm away now, will do it next week. It said I have coverage for it. But can this battery issue, cause freezes?

I do not know much about power-handling in on portable components, but I would guess that if a component get irregular voltage input, it may cause the system to freeze. Some components may be more tolerant than others.

yeah, but all apps are still working, for example when I watch movie and osx freezes, I can continue to watch the movie, but I can't interact with laptop anyhow. That's why it looks weird to me. Anyway, I will visit Apple Store as soon as I'll get a chance. Thanks


text:
Reinstalling Mac Mini
Basically, I bought a used Mac Mini and I had to reinstall it. Trying to do so following a tutorial and it told me to boot into the recovery, remove the partition and then use the Reinstall Mac OS X option.
I did that, entered the details for the Apple ID I created to do this and it just shows me this: (http://i.imgur.com/5jrNiId.jpg)

Is there any way around this? I don't have access to the previous owner's Apple ID and I created mine just to do this. The partition is gone so there's no way to restore it to that either.

& did you go review your information?

When you click Review - what happens? (It makes sense if you just made a brand new Apple ID, you might have to add some details to make the account active.)

Oops, sorry. When I click Review the entire thing closes, putting me back into the 'main menu' where I have to enter my details again (doesn't even automatically pop up the login window immediately). The Apple ID is filled with all the details it asked for and all the extra details I coild find in the Apple ID website


text:
How to determine the specific rule Mail App used to move a given message?
I have dozens of filter rules in my Apple Mail (under Mavericks).
(the SyncedRules.plist file is  110460 bytes long)
99% of my rules move spam mail to the trash.
My criteria are somewhat loose, and sometimes it happens that
legitimate messages end up being moved to the trash.
I have a case where I can't find manually which rule applied
to a specific message. This message is moved to the trash,
but I can't figure out which rule it responded positive to.
How can I get the info of the rule which was found as a match
to a specific message, so that I can tighten it and avoid it
apply in the future to alike messages ?

2 ways I can think of, neither particularly 'fun'

The 'one rule' method

Disable all rules bar one
put the 'mistreated' email back in the inbox
Run the single rule
see if it moves the email
rinse & repeat

the 'sounds' method

Add a new line to each existing rule - Play Sound
repeat for each rule, using a different sound
move the email back to the inbox & Apply Rules

a late posible 3rd… eliminate by halves [based on 1, but better for a large number of rules]
but this requires that no rule will halt the entire process with "Stop evaluating rules".

Add a rule halfway down the list that will play a sound if it processes that far.
test by halves, disabling rules & moving the sound to the 'silent' half each time

I will try out the 3. which sounds (sic) very nice idea indeed. Methods 1 and 2 are not really applicable, I have too many rules. Thanks !

BTW, in order to avoid this specific scenario, I have a self-made folder called z-Spam, into which all the detritus goes, per rules & also via  SpamSeive. Every day or so I just go through it, finger on Delete. It's pretty easy to spot anything misfiled. This leaves my Trash folder for actual trash; things I have actually deleted.

It worked ! a great many thanks, I didn't know rules could play sounds. Here is how I proceeded: I created a rule "play sound Ping and stop". I also used two identical rules "play sound Purr", let's call them top and bottom which I use to delimit the borders of my dichotomy. Placed these two at the extremities, the "ping and stop" at middle, tried out to see if the message was trashed. If yes, I moved up the bottom, if no, moved down the top, and iterate. As per your comment, does the Mail trash gets emptied without the user asking it ? Anyway, again many thanks.

it is a bit of a miracle that I still had the message triggering the rule, the problem dates back to one month ago, and on a mail account which I regularly reduce because it is subscribed to a number of mailing lists which are anyhow archived on the net.

Nice interpretation - kind of a reduce by 2 alternative - glad it worked for you. Re the Trash folder, there used to be a Trash pref 'empty Trash on Quit', but I don't see it anymore. I'm pretty certain it's emptied at user command - but I am not 100% certain, as I never need to check it for 'errors' I just periodically have to remember to empty it, manually.


text:
Why were my notes deleted when I permanently deleted emails on gmail site
Why were my notes deleted when I permanently deleted my emails from gmail account.  Can I get my notes recovered? My notes on Apple phone were lynced to Mac I am told.? Can you help

I assume you where syncing notes via your mail account (standard before iCloud sync was introduced in iOS9 and OS X 10.11) and deleted the notes when cleaning your mails on gmail. Can you perhaps recover the deleted mails (from trash)? If not, do you have TimeMachine backups from your Mac that could be used to recover the deleted mails?

If you were syncing your Notes via your Gmail account (and not via iCloud) then Gmail treats them like a plain text email. If you delete your email, then you also deleted the notes.
Restoring from backup is your only bet - either a Time Machine backup or by recovering lost email.

PS to avoid this in the future, I keep Notes turned OFF for email accounts and ON for iCloud. This separates my Notes from my email accounts.


text:
No sound (speakers/jack) + microphone's dead after spilling water
Sadly, yesterday I've spilled some water on my MacBook Pro (El Capitan).
Before you yell at me - it was closed, turned off and it wasn't a lot of water, the laptop was wet only on the top and under - not inside.
Today I've turned him on. At first battery wasn't recharging for some reason, but SMC reset fixed the problem.
At the first booting speaker was like talking to me, hard to explain but it was weird. Also only right speaker was "talking", despite the fact that only left side of the laptop was watered. Then there was no sound at all, not from the speakers, nor from the headphones. Also microphone's not working. USB ports are okay. The water was spilled from the left side of the laptop.
I know this is hardware issue, and something's broken, but I want to be 100% sure. No it's not muted.
I've also tried NVRAM reset a few times, but it doesn't fix the problem :(
There might be one factor, before spilling, my laptop "died" for the first time (battery energy ran off), but I doubt it's the case. (but hey, every info matters, right?)
It wouldn't be weird for me, if only left speaker wouldn't work, but built-in microphone not working is kinda weird in this case, isn't it?
I just want to ask you guys, what else can I check, before I'll be 100% sure it's dead inside?
I've plugged in external microphone - it's not working too.

I repair Macs for a living, and have seen just about every possible WRONG way of handling a liquid spill.
the answer is water.
If you inject water into your mac, you've f'd it up.
Consider 1 drop of water in a Mac to be the equivalent of ingesting 2 pints of JackDaniels in your body.
Drink 2 pints of Jack, and let us know how predictable you are... yeah.. it isn't going to end well..IF you end up with a hangover instead of an ER trip, you're lucky..
Water in your Mac is the same way. It is lethal.  as in, deadly. as in, if you do it, STOP everything and fix it. or your Mac could very well die.
General stupid ways of handling spilled water could include:

crossing your fingers and hoping that nothing got hurt
inserting your Mac into a gallon of rice and hoping that it dried out with no damage
inserting your Mac into a microwave to dry it out
restarting your mac (or plugging it in) without having disassembled it and cleaning out the water.
logging onto the internet with the mac and querying others to see what they'd do.

General intelligent ways of dealing with spilled water would include:

IMMEDIATELY shutting it off
NOT restarting it
NOT plugging it in
removing the battery (if removable)
fully disassembling the laptop (or taking it to a shop which does the above)

Water leads to all of the following actions:

shortouts (chips burning up)
corrosion
blown circuits
battery failure
fire
permanent damage
mold

IF you spill water in your Mac, shut it down. do not reboot it. remove the battery. disconnect power. Take it to a professional shop who repairs issues like this.
letting it simply sit for a few days will only prolong the damage, because water causes corrosion.
The ONLY correct action after a liquid spill is to fully clean the boards, dehydrate them, then reassemble.  and if you don't know what you're doing, you're likely going to cause MORE damage.
Based on your explanation, your Mac got water in it. and your running of it has likely blown the ADC circuit on the logic board, or possibly part of the USB sub-circuit.

The last part of your answer was enough.

Worse - capillary action pretty much guarantees that a thimble full of water in the right place can travel along cracks and joints in the parts and move just about anywhere. Just because the water went in by the P key - it might not stay there and could really go anywhere. I’ve seen cases where this happens and also cases where a lot of water (cups) were spilled on the keyboard, yet once you open - none went anywhere that was hard to clean and no damage was done.

Well. Everything's working fine now.
I just had to hit it hard (no jokes)
And it's working like charm, even after all the time.
I found out that this Mac is pretty old, maybe water wasn't even the case.

You got lucky. The answer above is a better lesson to be learned.


text:
How can I create bash_profile and bashrc
OS X 10.11.2 El Capitan
I want to create some alias, so I go to ~/ folder and there is no .bash_profile or .bashrc.

I have been looking for some info and I learn that .bash_profile is only read when bash launch an interactive login shell (default type of terminal in OS X) and .bashrc is only read when bash launch an interactive non-login shell. But I don't find how to create .bash_profile and .bashrc for my user. How can I do it?
After @klanomath answer:

You may want to create a .bashrc that contains:-
[ -r ~/.bash_profile ] && source ~/.bash_profile so that all shells will share the same settings.

Open Terminal and enter:
touch ~/.bash_profile
touch ~/.bashrc

To edit the file(s) use:
nano ~/.bash_profile
nano ~/.bashrc

Instead of nano you can use any decent text editor (e.g. BBEdit, TextWrangler).
To immediately enable any changes in the file .bash_profile use source:
source ~/.bash_profile

I already try that but didn't work :(
Please, look the new photo that I attach to the question. Thanks for the help.

I try source  ~/.bash_profile …didn't work.

@raaowx the correct expression is alias lsa='ls -a | egrep "\.[a-zA-Z0-9]"'instead of alias lsa='ls -a | egrep '\.[a-zA-Z0-9]'! The inner ' are wrong and you are missing one finishing '


text:
Freetype Code Signing Error (Xcode 7.1) App Upload Issue
I'm wondering if anyone can fix my problem? I'm trying to upload a project to the App Store. I'm using Xcode 7.1. I'm getting the following error related to code-signing freetype.
CodeSign /Users/me/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/SFML_App -xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/Build/Products/Debug/SFML_App.app
cd /Users/me/Documents/cplusplus/sfml/SFML_App
export CODESIGN_ALLOCATE=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/codesign_allocate

Signing Identity:     "Mac Developer: me (xxxxxxxxxx)"

/usr/bin/codesign --force --sign xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx --timestamp=none /Users/me/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/SFML_App-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/Build/Products/Debug/SFML_App.app

/Users/me/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/SFML_App-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/Build/Products/Debug/SFML_App.app: code object is not signed at all
In subcomponent: /Users/me/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/SFML_App-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/Build/Products/Debug/SFML_App.app/Contents/Frameworks/freetype.framework
Command /usr/bin/codesign failed with exit code 1

Any Ideas on how to fix this?

This question would attract more answers on StackOverflow because it involves software development.

The error suggests a subcomponent is not signed. Use the --deep flag with codesign:

--deep
When signing a bundle, specifies that nested code content such as helpers, frameworks, and
  plug-ins, should be recursively signed in turn. Beware that all signing options you specify
  will apply, in turn, to such nested content.
  When verifying a bundle, specifies that any nested code content will be recursively verified as
  to its full content. By default, verification of nested content is limited to a shallow inves-tigation investigation
  tigation that may not detect changes to the nested code.
  When displaying a signature, specifies that a list of directly nested code should be written to
  the display output. This lists only code directly nested within the subject; anything nested
  indirectly will require recursive application of the codesign command.

Apple's Technical Note 2206: OS X Code Signing in Depth provides more insight.

Good to hear. Please could you mark this question as accepted.

I still can't upload to the App Store. whenever i try i get the following error:
An error occurred during validation
Couldn't find platform family in Info.plist CFBundleSupportedPlatforms or Mach-O LC_VERSION_MIN for A.   is this still related to freetype?

Please can you ask a new question for this. Feel free to mention the question's link in the comments to help others link the two questions.

new question: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/219349/mac-app-store-upload-fail-validation-error-cfbundlesupportedplatforms-or-mach