text:
How do I run VNC (any flavour) from the iPhone (Jailbroken/not jailbroken)
How do I run VNC (any flavor) from the iPhone (Jailbroken/not jailbroken)? I would like a solution to remotely manage my PC from my iPhone, I could even use an RDP client? (I'm running a number of OSes Windows XP and Windows 7 and Hackintosh 10.5.6 but I'm interested in remotely managing the Windows XP box first!)

Check out Mocha VNC. The lite version is free.

LogMeIn has an iPhone app, though it's not free.  I haven't tried it, but I'm a fan of LogMeIn (free) in general.  Secure connections to multiple computers from any browser, sorts out firewall and port problems itself, handles dynamic IP addresses, multiple users can have different permissions -- all in the free version.
(As always, be wary when using public PCs.)
Update: There is now a free version of the LogMeIn iPhone/iPad app.

Jugaari has Jaadu VNC and Jaadu RDP clients for the iPhone. I have both and they work well although the iPhone screen is a little small for my line of work.
You can also use Zinger-Soft's iSSH for tunneled VNC or X server over SSH. Works great even with RSA Key encryption instead of SSH passwords.

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


text:
Is it possible to change the dock icon of an application only?
Is there any way to just change the icon in the dock while still keeping it the same everywhere else? It's probably not going to be possible without tweaks, so are there any programs for that?

A workaround is to make an alias of the app, drag the alias to Dock and then change the icon for the alias ie. not for the actual app. Downside is that you get a small alias–arrow added to the lower–left corner to the icon.

Make an alias
Drag the alias to the Dock
Change the icon like you would for any Finder item.
In the following screenshot we have copied the icon of Chess app and pasted it to the newly–made alias of Automator. (NB, make sure you first copy the icon and then paste it; the screenshot accidentally is showing the opposite way.)

Okay, why don't you outline the process for the guy instead of just trying to cram it all in a screenshot?

Either because a picture worth 1000 words or because I don't have time to describe every bit. Everybody welcome to do that.

alternatively, create an AppleScript that just opens the desired app, change the AppleScript's icon, and then put that in the dock. The AppleScript could be as simple as "tell application "Firefox" to activate".

@DavidRouse And after application launched you've got two icons in the dock — one being AppleScript one and second for the launched app.

The problem with an apple script is that there are two icons and that the real application is always on the right.

The solution: Use IconBox (or CandyBar etc.) to make the alias arrow transparent.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to change the default gateway of a Mac OSX machine
I am familiar with the route add default gw command in Linux to add a default gateway, but this doesn't work on Mac OS. I can't find any appropriate example in the route manual. Can anyone help me find the command.

Or how to make the IP address of one interface the default gateway?

sudo route delete default
sudo route add default 192.168.0.1

or
sudo route change default -interface $INTF
sudo route change 192.168.0.0/16 -interface $INTF

is it possible to bind a route to a network environment ?

Can this also be reset to default afterwards?

@lony: If the default gateway is given by your DHCP server, it will get back to that on restart or when the network interface goes down and comes up again or when you change the Wifi access point.

Go to System Preference >> Network, and you can "Set Service Order" of the network interfaces and effectively change the default route order in the routing table.

Man, you are the best! That exactly I need :)

If you are intent on using route the man page for route will show you it's the same as most BSD route commands. You may need ip6config (and man page) as well if you care about IPv6 routing.
The "mac" way is to set it from the System Preference pane under network and is preferred over using unix commands since it honors location changes and other events such as a reboot.

But in that very screenshot, you will get an error message if you press "OK" since this method also require you to set a manual IPv4 Address, which might not be desirable.

@Fuzzy76 Yes - if you manually set an unworkable network, your network will not work. The Router here is fine though since that is the default gateway equivalent to the answer on how to change things from the command line.

What if you have multiple routes? Eg one straight to the internet and one via a VPN - How would you tell it to route all traffic over the VPN?

@Basic Set the VPN interface to be the default route. Then traffic to subnets that have other interfaces will still go elsewhere, but by default - everything else goes to the VPN. If you need everything to be VPN, disable the other network interfaces.

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

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


text:
Advice and information for installing a SSD into MBP with fresh Lion
Tomorrow I am going to buy a OCZ Vertex 3 (240GB) and then I want to upgrade my MacBook Pro (late 2011) and install a fresh Lion system without copying any files with SuperDuper etc. Now I would like to know, whether it is necessary to flash the SSD via Windows (as I've sometimes...) before plugging it in to the MacBook.
Furthermore I would like to know whether I can install Lion without the need to pay the 23€ in the "AppStore of the Installer" (wanted to create bootable USB stick with Lion Installer on it - otherwise I must do the "Packages"-hack to prevent from online-check/download) as I have bought my MacBook only a few days ago with Lion shipped on it.
Last but not least, any further advice or things I must pay attention of?
EDIT: I found the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant which seems to be vera cool... however I want to know whether I can reinstall Lion on my new SSD without having to log on to the AppStore which was necessary for a time to check whether I have purchased Lion properly. Can anyone tell me whether this will work how I expect it to do so?

In the case of OCZ, it will make your life monstrously less insufferable if you ensure the drive has the latest firmware revision before installing it in your Mac, as OCZ does not support OS X (they provide a mixed bag of solutions that require a decent level of computer expertise and Linux distributions which are rickety at best). They make great hardware but have deplorable Apple support even after all these years.
You can view the latest firmware for your drive here. The utility requires either Windows or Linux and a working networking connection. It is also recommended you back up your data as the update could wipe it, so naturally it is best to do on a fresh drive. v2.1.5 has been out for a while so it is quite likely you won't need to update. Support forums are available in case you do.
If Lion shipped with the unit, you are in luck. The computer is capable of using both the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant or the Online Lion Recovery process (hold COMMAND+R after you hear the chime. Both will download Lion and install it for you. All new machines have their unique identifiers registered with Apple, so barring a complete logic board swap, they will always have access to Lion without the need to pay for the OS. In fact, your copy of Lion operates entirely outside of the Mac App Store.
Note: Be wary of partitioning tools (like SuperDuper, etc.) as Lion has a Recovery HD (weighing in at 650 MB) installed alongside the OS. This is there to either help with the reinstallation or diagnose and repair your system. It does not house the entire operating system, but rather things like Terminal and Disk Utility. Currently, partitioning tools do not clone this partition and the one's that are including this feature, are still in the experimental stages. Be careful.
Personally, I would verify the drive has the latest firmware revision and then install it in your Mac. Use either the Lion USB stick you created via the Recovery Disk Assistant or the built in Online Recovery and install Lion. That's it.

I will try out to build the SSD into the Mac and install it properly. Thanks for your advice and long informative text.

You need to format and partition the SSD just as you would a hard disk. Use disk utility, give it one partition with GUID in prefs and install Lion.
I don't know what your current Lion situation is so I can't comment on how to install it but you do need to format an SSD just as you would a hard disk.


text:
iPhone 3G upgraded to iOS 4, does it now support multitasking?
Can anybody clarify the availability of multitasking on an iPhone 3G?
I went through several documents in Apple's HI guidelines, which state that:

Multitasking is available on certain devices running ios4 and later.

What does it actually mean? I have an iPhone 3G which doesn't support multitasking, so now if I upgrade my iPhone 3G to iOS4 or later, will it support multitasking?

Only iPhone 3GS and later support multitasking.  iPhone 3G does not, regardless of which version of iOS is installed, unless you jailbreak it.

The processor has nothing to do with multitasking capability.
It's a software feature that you can enable by jailbreaking the iPhone.

Easy way to check: double-press home button and if a bar slides up from the bottom, you've got "multitasking".

As Rob Mayoff said, Only iPhone 3GS and later support multitasking. iPhone 3G does not.
However there is a method to enable multitasking on iphone 3G.To enable multitasking on Iphone 3G. You have to download Red Snow on PC and after that download iphone Firmware 4.0(recommended) or later.Plug in your iphone to PC. Install Red Snow in your PC. Then install the iphone firmware 4.0 in your iphone. The iphone will be jailbreaked and will now support multitasking.

Iphone 3G does not support multitasking, even with iOS4.
It also does not support voicecontrol or even the last update to iOS4.3. My iphone 3G only updates to iOS4.2.1 :(

The key here is the processor the 3G uses. Only the 3GS and later have a processor capable of supporting iOS's multitasking. As noted, there are options with jailbreaking, if you prefer to go that route.


text:
How can I configure Mac Terminal to have color ls output?
How can I configure Mac Terminal to have color ls output?
I am using MacOS 10.5

This is a great question...  I've always expected ls --color (a la gnu ls) to just work everywhere.  MacOS doesn't accept --color, so I assumed that it didn't have colored output as an option at all.

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/apple-mac-osx-terminal-color-ls-output-option/

Edit:
~/.bash_profile

or
~/.profile

and add the following line to simply enable color output via ls:
export CLICOLOR=1

To customize the coloring shown by ls you can optionally add this variable, LSCOLORS.
Examples

Default
export LSCOLORS=ExFxCxDxBxegedabagacad

You can use this if you are using a black background
export LSCOLORS=gxBxhxDxfxhxhxhxhxcxcx

If you'd like to mimic the colors of a typical Linux terminal:
export LSCOLORS=ExGxBxDxCxEgEdxbxgxcxd

Once you've add the above to either ~/.bash_profile or ~/.profile you can either logout/login or source the file in your shell, for eg:
$ . ~/.bash_profile

NOTE: If you need help in selecting colors to use you can use this online tool called LSCOLORS Generator.

Is there a way to make the colored text not look bold?

I found this (and up-voted it) in July 2015, when running Mavericks.  Now on El Capitan (using the same .profile file, it no longer works.  I can check the values using echo $LSCOLORS $CLICOLOR and they are as defined but it no longer works.  Any reason this would be the case?

@JamieCook I find Mikulas' colors more linux consistent. Specifically, a broken symlink should be dark red. With your lscolors its blue... this is not a small issue.

Does not work on mac sierra and later

@RayFoss indeed, that is no small issue, but OS X cannot make a difference between valid and broken symlinks by default. The only viable alternative is to use gnu ls

@StevieG Works for me on High Sierra. Make sure you set it right: echo $CLICOLOR should give 1?

The default on Mac is actually LSCOLORS=exfxcxdxbxegedabagacad  Source: https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ls

Note that .zprofile can be used for the same two lines, if you are using zsh.

You can add
alias ls='ls -G'

to your ~/.bash_profile to get colored ls output.

Mine is alias ls="ls -Gp" — the -p adds a slash after each directory. For me, it provides that much more visual differentiation, which is helpful.

I see your -p and raise you a -F which in addition puts an * after executables, | after pipes, @ after symlinks, et cetera.

Just for fun, throw in a -h, which will format sizes in "human readable" units, i.e.  100b  10k,  23m, 4.2g

If you don't have a .bash_profile already at ~/.bash_profile, be sure to source it, so that it will work.  Do this with "source ~/.bash_profile"

Dunno if this has changed since 2011, but you can replace the alias with export CLICOLOR=1 to accomplish the same thing.

For the record, I usually prefer not to alias ls, because 1) If you actually memorize the command line parameters (which aren't that difficult to remember and type out), you'll be able to achieve the same behavior and output on multiple systems where you don't maintain an updated personal .bash_profile, and 2) because many times I like to pipe my ls output to other commands in order to execute operations on files/directories in the output, which always fails if there is a * or a @ included in the filenames (without first piping to tr or sed to remove the unwanted characters).

ok. then i advise to put  -t to sort by date

I find that all I need really is adding this to my ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc (for Bash) or ~/.zshrc (for Zsh, the new default shell in Catalina)
export CLICOLOR=1

Or ~/.bashrc.

doesn't appear to work on capitan ):

Worked like a boss in El Captian for me, thanks for posting @Filype

You have to either: 1. close you terminal and reopen, 2. resource the config file: . ~/.bash_profile,  or 3. logout/login

If you want a readable Mac OS X Terminal color scheme, you may want to look into this:

http://toddwerth.com/2008/01/25/a-black-os-x-leopard-terminal-theme-that-is-actually-readable/
http://toddwerth.com/2011/07/21/the-original-ir_black-for-os-x-lion/

I've been using this for over a year now, and I might not be able to function without it!
Here's an updated link:

https://github.com/justincase/IR_Black-OSX

As of Mac OS X Lion 10.7, Terminal allows customizing the ANSI colors, so using SIMBL or other extensions is no longer necessary. It also supports 256 colors.

Also you can customize the prompt color (and its format) by adding:
PS1='\[\e[0;33m\]\h:\W \u\$\[\e[m\] '

to ~/.bash_profile or ~/.profile file. Where 0;33 is regular yellow which looks nice in my black/semitransparent terminal window.
Here is a full list of colors and their explanations: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Color_Bash_Prompt

Personally, I'm using Oh My Zsh for adding color and other tricks to my Terminal. I think that is the easiest way.

oh-my-zsh is an open source, community-driven framework for managing
  your Zsh configuration.
It comes bundled with a ton of helpful functions, helpers, plugins,
  themes, and a few things that make you shout…

This is beautiful color theme. Can I use this color theme on my bash?

Hmm you should probably look at oh-my-bash

Super late to the party... but do you happen to recall what theme is being used in your screenshot?

@EricHarlan you got all the theme there https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/wiki/Themes

Another option is to use the GNU ls which is part of the 'coreutils' program.
You can get it via Rudix or Homebrew (brew info coreutils)or Macports or Fink. That might be preferable to using a "Mac OS X-only" solution if you use the same shell config files on different systems, or are already familiar with GNU ls.

https://github.com/gibbling/dircolors

UPDATE: I switched to Oh my zsh a year back and it is awesome. My favourite theme is lambda-mod and my version of it.

Combining all the answers here is what I use:
COLOR_RED="\033[0;31m"
COLOR_YELLOW="\033[0;33m"
COLOR_GREEN="\033[0;32m"
COLOR_OCHRE="\033[38;5;95m"
COLOR_BLUE="\033[0;34m"
COLOR_WHITE="\033[0;37m"
COLOR_RESET="\033[0m"

#git_color
function git_color {
  local git_status="$(git status 2> /dev/null)"

  if [[ ! $git_status =~ "working directory clean" ]]; then
    echo -e $COLOR_RED
  elif [[ $git_status =~ "Your branch is ahead of" ]]; then
    echo -e $COLOR_YELLOW
  elif [[ $git_status =~ "nothing to commit" ]]; then
    echo -e $COLOR_GREEN
  else
    echo -e $COLOR_OCHRE
  fi
}

#git_branch
function git_branch {
  local git_status="$(git status 2> /dev/null)"
  local on_branch="On branch ([^${IFS}]*)"
  local on_commit="HEAD detached at ([^${IFS}]*)"

  if [[ $git_status =~ $on_branch ]]; then
    local branch=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}
    echo "($branch)"
  elif [[ $git_status =~ $on_commit ]]; then
    local commit=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}
    echo "($commit)"
  fi
}

PS1='\[\033[01;32m\]\u\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]'
PS1+="\[\$(git_color)\]"        # colors git status
PS1+="\$(git_branch)"           # prints current branch
PS1+="\[$COLOR_BLUE\]\[$COLOR_RESET\]\$ "
export PS1

export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
export CLICOLOR=1
export LSCOLORS=gxBxhxDxfxhxhxhxhxcxcx
alias ls="ls -Gp"

Forget all those decades-old cryptic codes for gosh sakes, use the built in Terminal --> Preferences... Settings pane to set the default skin, and edit the ANSI colors to your liking. You can set the font, too. I prefer Menlo 12pt. This is how any regular Joe can do it, and avoid all the crazy command-line, unix-esque way of doing things as other posters have suggested.

I think anybody experienced enough to even know that ls can have colored output is also able to run a few Unix commands to configure it correctly.

But this just makes ls show in one colour it does not make links, directories, files show in different colours as ls can do

Simply add the following line to ~/.bash_profile file:
export PS1=" \[\033[34m\]\u@\h \[\033[33m\]\w\[\033[31m\]\[\033[00m\] $ "

Preview:

This is my preferred colors. You can customize each part of prompt's color by changing m codes (e.g. 34m) which are ANSI color codes.
List of ANSI Color codes:

Black: 30m
Red: 31m
Green: 32m
Yellow: 33m
Blue: 34m
Purple: 35m
Cyan: 36m
White: 37m

For the Catalina version, you need to add export CLICOLOR=1 in ~/.zshrc.
If you want to adjust the colour palette, change colours theme in terminal settings.

this is the most up to date answer for Catalina with zsh.

Absolutely nothing worked for me.
Eventually I found a very weird solution that fixed everything.
I opened ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist and searched for 'terminal' with Ctrl+F. I removed a section, that said 'DisableColor' or something like that.

plist is a binary format in MacOS 13.1, not meant for human eyes.

Problem is fixed and Mac still works, so I don't care.

For those who do care, VS Code has extensions to read plist files.

Terminal Settings -> Profiles -> Shell
Check Run command: and enter export CLICOLOR=1

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


text:
How can I set up a private virtual LAN for my laptop and its guest VMs
I have two VirtualBox guest VMs running Linux under a MacOS X host.
I'm using bridged networking mode but I am not in control of the DHCP server and can not give my host+guests static IPs. Any time a DHCP lease expires, or I join a different network, I have to deal with my VM IPs changing, and consequently change all my firewall rules and /etc/hosts entries, etc. which is a pain to say the least.
So I want to set up a virtual LAN on my laptop like 10.20.30.0/24. Then make my host OS (the laptop) be .1, and the guest VMs be .2 and .3. The VMs need to be able to access the Internet through the host's connection. Sometimes that would be out the wired interface, other times out the AirPort. It would be ideal if, when the host's internet connection changes from wired to wireless, guest internet access is not interrupted.
Can I do this on OS X? What commands do I run, sysctls to set, etc.

I haven't tried it on an OS X host but "Host-only networking" does what you want. See: http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch06.html


text:
How do I synchronize keychains between computers?
I have two Macs running Lion on a home network that I use regularly, and I would like to keep my keychain files synchronized between them.
I add keychain entries on both machines, so I need to be able to merge (rather than overwrite) keychain files.
Is there a way to accomplish this?

There used to be, as MobileMe did keychain syncing. Indeed, that was the only reason I was a subscriber.
Since iCloud, that feature is no longer available. I now use 1Password for my password syncing. It isn't quite as good as keychain syncing (non-browser applications can't really use it), but for most stuff it's dandy.


text:
Can I delete photos from iPhoto and delete originals that aren't in the iPhoto folder?
I like the simplicity of iPhoto and all the nice ordering features. But, since I like to manage my library myself (folder names etc) I have not selected the option to import my photos to iPhotos' folder structure, but rather prefer to import my photos to iPhoto but keep them where they are (in my own folders).
One drawback to this, is that when I delete a photo from my iPhoto Library, it won't also delete the original file (even if I empty its trash), which makes iPhoto useless for managing my photos (for example, checking a new batch an deleting the ones I don't like). Has anyone managed to work around this stupid feature of iPhoto?

iPhoto has an internal file storage system where it saves all the photos for the events, albums etc.
You notice this, when you select an event and click "Show in folder". Then you see the whole folder with all the pictures in it.
You should treat events or albums as your folders. You can give them custom names and everything.
What I have done is:

Import all photos to iPhoto
Delete original files
Just work with iPhoto (when I want to see the photos in a folder structure, I can choose "Show in folder".

Note: I have heard that you can have an external file storage for your photos with Apperture. This is iPhoto with more functionality for 200 USD, in case you do a lot of work with iPhoto this might be interesting.

I believe it's the same with iPhoto, you can choose to import photos in their current directory but if you choose that option you can't delete the actual files from within iPhoto and I assume it's the same with Aperture. I'll try it out.

In iPhoto you're running a Referenced Library - where you store the originals in your own filing system and iPhoto refers to them in that location. In this scenario you've opted to take control of the file management suites, and just like you have to manually move the files to your chosen location for storage, you also have to move them away when you're finished with them.
While on the face of it Referenced Libraries seem attractive to some users, they offer no extra functionality and can be problematic if you migrate to a new system, or even want to move them to a new disk. You really want to think hard before running iPhoto in Referenced Mode.
Aperture has all the tools necessary to run Referenced Libraries, including the option to delete Masters stored elsewhere when trashing from the Library.
FWIW: A Managed Library, is the default setting, and iPhoto copies files into the iPhoto Library when Importing. The files are then stored in the Library package

For a fuller discussion of the implications of running a Referenced Library in iPhoto see
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3062728?tstart=0

I found a workaround. For instance you can look at your photos and while you are doing it "flag" the ones you want to delete (see iPhoto's Menu-->Photos-->Flag Photo for a shortcut). Once you have "flagged" all the photos you want to delete, then go ahead and select them all (in the left hand column of the iPhoto window there is a "Flagged" icon, right above the "Trash" icon - click on it and you'll see al your flagged photos on the display window). Do a simple Edit-->Select All and then mouse-right-click on one of them and select "Show File". This will open a window with the folder where your originals are located, and in this case the ones you want to delete will be already and conveniently selected for you. Then simply go ahead and trash them with your mouse or with the "Delete" icon on the Toolbar and voilá!. (if the Toolbar is not showing then simply select from the Finder menu View-->Show Toolbar). You can save your $200 from Aperture.

Does this still work with current iPhoto versions? I cannot really find the "flagged" feature in the toolbar, but anyway, if I select any photo in the library I can do "Show referenced file in Finder" on the context menu, but whenever I select 2 or more files, this option is grayed out :( Has somebody thought about using the "Edit with..." and just putting a "rm" shell command in it? Not sure how to do that in Mac though.


text:
Case-insensitive ls sorting in Mac OSX
How can I make the ls command in Max OS X Lion sort files and directories similar to how Ubuntu Linux does (case-insensitive, directories NOT on top, dot files NOT on top)?  Ideally I'd like to do this without piping output to another command such as sort.
For example, I want to see:
foo
Foobar
MyStuff/
.stuff/
test.txt

instead of:
.stuff
Foobar
MyStuff/
foo
test.txt

In Linux, ls sort order is controlled by the system's locale, specifically LC_COLLATE.  When LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8, ls will sort items like I want.  When LC_COLLATE=C, ls will sort similar to OS X.
LC_COLLATE is set to en_US.UTF-8 in OS X, but ls still sorts the old POSIX way.  Does anyone know how I can make this behave more like Linux?

If it helps: http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/22304/8546 observes that HFS Plus is usually configured to be case insensitive but case preserving.

Note for Googlers: macOS sort and ls also respects LC_COLLATE, but the LC_COLLATE definition for locales like en_US.UTF-8 is just a symlink that makes it behave like C locale. See mike's answer below for more details.

It might not be possible:

Taking a look at the source code for ls, it uses strcoll to sort
  the filenames, and so should respect LC_COLLATE.
Some postings online suggest that the locales in BSD (and Darwin/OS X)
  are somewhat broken compared to those in Linux. I wrote a quick
  sorting program of my own which explicitly set it's locale and tested
  it using both the en_US.UTF-8 and C locales on my machine (Mac OS
  10.6.3) and a university machine (Linux, FC11?). While sorting works as expected on the linux machine, ("a B c" vs "B a c"), the mac always
  sorts them as "B a c".

Source: http://ask.metafilter.com/130292/CaseInsensitive-LS-on-Mac-OS-X
ORIGINAL ANSWER
This command does not sort dot files, but shows additional directory listings
ls -f1

I got close to this:
.
..
.stuff
foo
Foobar
MyStuff
test.txt

Interesting that "disabling sort" with the -f option actually seems to sort it as expected. I assume this is the filesystem/HFS+ sorting entries with a more "natural" collation.

Recent Googlers note: ls and sort do indeed respect LC_COLLATE, but the definitions for LC_COLLATE are different in BSD/macOS compared to Linux. See the answer, which currently has many fewer votes.

Update as of Aug 1, 2021:
ls -alFG

Explanations:
-a      Include directory entries whose names begin with a dot (.).
-l      (The lowercase letter ``ell''.)  List in long format.  (See below.)  A total sum for all the file sizes is output on a line before the long
        listing.
-F      Display a slash (`/') immediately after each pathname that is a directory, an asterisk (`*') after each that is executable, an at sign (`@')
        after each symbolic link, an equals sign (`=') after each socket, a percent sign (`%') after each whiteout, and a vertical bar (`|') after
        each that is a FIFO.
-G      Enable colorized output.  This option is equivalent to defining CLICOLOR in the environment.  (See below.)

Old:
I know this has been answered but this work best for me:
ls -f1 -alFG

It lists all details and sorts them by ignoring case.

This doesn't seem to work with macOS 11.4 anymore (I get a truly unsorted listing probably reflecting the order in the filesystem).

@cbrnr Why downvote? I wrote this answer 7+ years ago. If you have a suggestion, suggest it.

I downvoted because your answer doesn't work anymore on macOS 11.4. However, the title specifically mentions OS X Lion, so I removed my downvote because it might still work there. The best solution on 11.4 seems to be coreutils and gls.

This has been bugging me for awhile now, and I finally got it sorted (heh). After trying a bunch of suggestions that didn't work, here's what did.
If you're willing to install MacPorts (or Homebrew, or Fink), the GNU version of ls does exactly what you want. I use MacPorts, myself, so that's the approach I'll explain:

Download and install MacPorts:
http://www.macports.org
Install the GNU Coreutils package:
sudo port install coreutils
You should now have GNU ls: gls. Try it in a directory that contains items that start with both uppercase and lowercase letters:
gls -U
(The -U option actually means "unsorted", but on OS X that has the desired effect of making it case insensitive.)
Add this alias in your .bash_profile so the regular ls will work the way you want it to (I like the color output, but you can omit that if you want; you only need the -U):
alias ls='gls -U --color'

Note that the -U option probably won't work on other platforms. In OS X, it always seems to do the right thing (maybe because HFS+ is effectively case-insensitive -- "case-aware", technically), but if you try it on a Linux box, the results will most likely just not be sorted at all.

does not seem to have the desired side-effect anymore (-U option) under macOS >= 10.13 due to the new APFS.

Yep…doesn't look like there's any way to do this with APFS.

Confirm does work on 10.12 though. Thanks!

Adding to  Mike's answer, I've taken it a bit further and found a way to define your own collation rules.
The locale definitions are located in /usr/share/locale/. Each folder is a locale and has a file (or a link) LC_COLLATE, which defines which symbols are "same" (for example, that U, u and ü should be considered the same when ordering). You can duplicate a directory and this will create a new locale definition:
$ sudo cp -R en_GB.UTF-8/ en_GB.UTF-8-CI/

Now you'll have a new locale called 'en_GB.UTF-8-CI' ('CI' for case-insensitive) and you can use LC_COLLATE from there.
Now, to change LC_COLLATE in the new locale you can download the locale sources from
http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/adv_cmds/adv_cmds-119/usr-share-locale.tproj/colldef/, edit the one that's closest to what you want and run
$ colldef < <new collation file>
$ sudo cp LC_COLLATE /usr/share/locale/en_GB.UTF-8-CI/

and now when you run
$ LC_COLLATE=en_GB.UTF-8-CI ls

you will have sorting according to your rules.
Yes, this is what it takes to make 'ls' sort case-insensitive.

perhaps consider using /usr/local/share/locale for your custom definition, which man setlocale indicates is also respected, and by default seems to only contain LC_MESSAGES for various locales.

@mmmmmm could you fix your edit -- you introduced a grammar problem

As a workaround you can use a function and an alias:
function lssorted() { /bin/ls "$@" | sort -f ;}
alias ls='lssorted'

This produces a case insensitively sorted output for the standard ls command.

I have to note: this will fail if for example -l is used. Then ls produces another line "total X" at the beginning, which will also be sorted.

ls is sorting according to LC_COLLATE, it's just that most all of the LC_COLLATE files are set to do case sensitive sorting.
http://collation-charts.org/fbsd54/
There are two that are set for case insensitive sorting:
cs_CZ.ISO8859-2 and et_EE.ISO8859-15
et_EE.ISO8859.15 doesn't sort "Z" the way english speakers would want.
cs.CZ.ISO8859-15 does a good job with the alphabet, I just wish it would sort "~" before alphabetic characters.
My solution is:
LC_COLLATE=cs_CZ.ISO8859-2 /bin/ls -FG
I wonder if a custom LC_COLLATE file could be made to handle "." the way you want and "~" the way I want.

indeed, if you look in /usr/share/locale, many LC_COLLATE files (e.g. en_US.UTF-8) are a symlink to la_LN.US-ASCII, which sorts uppercase before lowercase. cs_CZ.ISO8859-2 has its own LC_COLLATE file.

Inspired by Mike's answer, I added the following to /etc/bashrc, and it works beautifully in Mojave. It lists hidden files at the end, but that doesn't bother me.
export LC_COLLATE="cs_CZ.ISO8859-2"; alias ls='ls -AlhF'

You can see the new configuration by running the locale command. To revert, just remove the line from /etc/bashrc and log back into terminal.
$ locale
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="cs_CZ.ISO8859-2"
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

Note that neither ls -f1 nor ls -f worked for me in Mojave. I ended up with a truly unsorted list. Only the solution I have provided worked for me in Mojave.
UPDATE: Per user1561489's suggestion in comments, I had success with the following more efficient line placed in the /etc/bashrc file.
alias ls="LC_COLLATE=cs_CZ.ISO8859-2 ls -AlhF"

The best answer, but the example given does too much. It should be trimmed down to: put the following line into your .bashrc or .zshrc: alias ls="LC_COLLATE=cs_CZ.ISO8859-2 ls"

@user1561489, I tried your suggestion, but it didn't work for me.

I just tried it again and it works for me in Catalina. Try make a temp directory and put two files in it: README and dontreadme. Normally ls will show README first. if I enter alias ls="LC_COLLATE=cs_CZ.ISO8859-2 ls" on the prompt and do ls again it will list dontreadme first

You're right. Worked in Mojave. I put the following in /etc/bashrc: alias ls="LC_COLLATE=cs_CZ.ISO8859-2 ls -AlhF". Added your suggestion as an update to my post, @user1561489.

might want to alias the sort command in the same way, depending on what your goals are

Using
ls -f

works for me.
-f officially switches off any sorting, but it looks like then the original HFS sort shines through, which is exactly a case-insensitive sort.
I guess, it actually depends on whether you have your HD formated case-sensitive or not, but as case-INsensitive HFS format is the default for Mac OS X system disks, this should work for the majority of users.

This is definitely the right answer. The only issue with it is that it implicitly turns on -a as well, and there's no way to turn that off, which will show you files/folders beginning with a period, including . and .. .

The other problem (now) is that this doesn't seem to work anymore under macOS >= 10.13 due to the new APFS.

Run:
$ type ls

You'll probably find that your ls command is aliased.

On linux: ls is /bin/ls.  On OS X: ls is hashed (/bin/ls).  Either way, even if I call /bin/ls directly it still doesn't sort according to LC_COLLATE.

That's surprising, I would have wagered that your ls command was aliased to include --group-directories-first. It may still be done somewhere else, just not an alias.

If you are mainly concerned with the sort order of the dot files, you can sort by extension: Use the ls command from the GNU Fileutils with the option --sort=extension.  (You can install the GNU Fileutils e.g. through macports.)


text:
Is it possible to disable Versions for all applications?
I've never used Versions, and the extra step needed to Save as are enough reasons for me to downgrade to Snow Leopard.
Is it possible to disable Versions in all apps and have a Save As… menu item instead of a Duplicate one?

I guess you're rather referring to Autosave. This post describes the difference.
To disable Versions, I posted the (maybe risky) procedure here:
How to disable Versions in OS X Lion
However for Autosave the easiest work-around might be to use "System Preferences" → "Keyboard" → "Keyboard Shortcus" to define a keyboard shortcut (I used  ⌘ ⇧ S) for the programs that have Autosave support and the "Duplicate" option in the menu:

For Textedit it will then look like this:

So you would press ⌘+⇧+S, which gives you a new duplicate window and then ⌘+S to save as new filename.
However, you original document will also (continuously) be saved and end up in the state where you created the duplicate - and without Versions (or Time Machine) you won't be able to recover earlier states as soon as you close your original document or the program.


text:
How can I fix Firefox's jagged scrolling on Lion?
I noticed that scrolling in Firefox on Lion is not very pleasant experience.
Is there a way to optimize it for better performance?
I tried smooth scrolling setting - but it didn't do anything.

How are you scrolling? I use FireFox, on 4GB iMac with Magic mouse, no problems.

I use built in track-pad

Works fine for me: Mac Air trackpad, 10.7.4, FF 15.0.1.

Go to configuration by type about:config in address bar and press enter key then enter scroll in filter box, now you can change all scroll options.


text:
Mac terminal cd to folder IN current directory
Let say my current directory in terminal is ~/Users/Desktop. On my desktop, there's a folder called "sample_dir". How can I cd in this "sample_dir" folder with typing: "cd ~/Users/Desktop/sample_dir"? There's gotta be a shorter way that looks at your current directory and appends that path to the directory you pass in to make things faster.
Thanks

There is. Type:
cd sample_dir

It checks for you. If for some strange reason that doesn't work, type:
cd ./sample_dir

I usually type cd, then drag the folder (from Finder) that I want to open in Terminal, and drop it in Terminal. This will add the full directory path, then press enter to change to the dropped directory.

The path you are using cd ~/Users/Desktop/sample_dir is wrong.
If you have a folder named sample_dir in you user's Desktop directory then the full path to the directory is:
cd /Users/YourUserName/Desktop/sample_dir

Where YourUserName is the the short account username. Using the tilde ~ shortcut to your home directory this can be shortened to
cd ~/Desktop/sample_dir

When you open a new terminal session you start in your home directory, so:
cd Desktop/sample_dir

Typing cd sample_dir should work... check "pwd" to make sure the current path is what you expect.

Found an even easier way with MacOS Ventura 13.0.1.

open Finder and navigate to the folder you want to cd to
ensure you can see the Path Bar (Finder > View > Show Path Bar)
right click the folder you want to cd to in the Path Bar
select 'Open in Terminal'

Et Voilà!

This does not answer the original question which is about navigating to a certain directory when someone is already in Terminal.

cd Desktop/sample_dir
should work :)

Dude you should do a simple step if you are using mac type cd and then use space and then drag the file you wants to open in terminal(most probably for git hub purpose).

This has already been provided as an answer https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/34325/237


text:
Typing in safari all of a sudden moves to a new textbox

Possible Duplicate:
Why is this bar appearing in Safari?

Sometimes when I'm typing in (Japanese) a text box in the safari browser, all of a sudden a new thin text window appears in the bottom left corner and my typed text is transfered there. This box has no title or anything, just a minimize icon.
After that I can't type anywhere else. I have to close this text box and the tab I was working on. Only after I open a new tab does this problem to go away. What the heck is going on and how do I stop it?
You can see why I've had trouble googling this >_<

Can you please post a screenshot of the problem?

Does it happen on specific sites only or on all sites? Are there any plugins installed? If yes, does the problem persist after you disable all of them?

Does it look anything like the problem here: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/22468/why-is-this-bar-appearing-in-safari ?

Thanks @Mahnax that is totally the problem. I was looking for that on app stack exchange. I still have no idea how to stop it though.

@Slamice Does it happen whilst typing in English?

This can be closed as duplicate I guess.

No it's in Japanese I forgot to add that.


text:
Migrating from Time Machine without Migration Assistant
I want to change my mid-2010 iMac with the latest iMac of my parents. Because we both use Time Machine, well, the easiest way would be to restore both of them from the backups.
However, there is a bug in Lion that causes my mac to hang just before completing the file transfer. Is it possible to just drag all contents of the backup to Macintosh HD without problems or are there any workarounds?
Thanks in advance!

You can drag documents, but you have to reinstall your applications, setting up again mail accounts, etc.

Using OSX 10.9.2, Migration assistant kept crashing when trying to transfer from my old Mac. The Apple Tech Support dude said to just do a Time Machine backup of the old computer, then use Migration assistant to transfer from that TM backup to the new computer.


text:
Why are cursor keys in Excel moving the viewport rather than the active cell?
Excel for Mac (2011) should move the currently active cell when I use the cursor keys. Currently, it is moving the viewport in the document. Is there a way to switch this back to the default setting? I cannot find anything in Excel's preferences.

This sounds like Scroll Lock is somehow activated on your copy of Excel. IF you have a large keyboard with an F14 key, ShiftF14 can turn on and off Scroll Lock. If you don't have such a keyboard, or access to such a keyboard, it gets more complicated.
Microsoft support posted this article about the various methods of deactivating Scroll Lock. They either involve connecting a keyboard with a F14 key or removing your Excel preferences file.

If you don't have an F14 key, you can use the on-screen keyboard. In Windows click the Windows key and type "osk" and then press enter. Works like a charm.

My original question was about Excel for Mac. Funnily enough, OS X doesn't have a Windows key.


text:
How to make global keychain in Mac OS X Lion
I need to create a keychain that can be used by any user.
When I check a keychain as shared in Keychain Acess->Edit->Keychain List, it just disappears and I can't see this keychain in the list anymore.
What's the problem? Thanks.

how did you create this keychain? if you did it in code, can you modify your question to show your code?

Create the new keychain in
/Library/Keychains/
like the System.keychain, this way any user can access the keychain.


text:
Lost all my iPhone contacts
I wanted to send my iPhone contacts to Google mail and transfer back to my new Samsung Android.
After changing iTunes setting "sync address book contact"-> "sync google contact", no new contact appear in my new Google Mail account and all my contacts on iPhone have been ERASED.
Why has this happened?

You have changed the settings in iTunes to sync from Google contacts rather than sync from Address Book, so iTunes has done exactly that. It synced your Google contacts to your phone, and replaced the ones you already had.

What you have done is chosen to include "only" your Google Contacts for syncing with your iPhone via the iTunes sync.
What I would recommend is that you look at setting up the Google Calendar sync within the Address Book application on your computer, and then copy the records manually between accounts (either via a drag and drop or copy and paste) on your computer.
Once this is done, the contacts on your computer should reside on your Google Contacts, as well as be synced back to your iPhone the next time you sync it with iTunes.
Additionally, you can set up your gmail account under your iPhone using the Microsoft Exchange connector (server name: m.google.com) with your Google credentials, after which your contacts will automatically be synced between your iPhone and Android devices without having to sync via your computer.


text:
Remove useless files from a Mac
I want to find a way to delete all the useless files: binaries, log and cache files, duplicate files and app's leftover.
How can I do that?

Onyx (free)

Verify the Startup Disk and the structure of its System files, to run misc. tasks of system maintenance

Configure some hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, QuickTime, Safari, Mail, iTunes, Login window, Spotlight, and many of Apple’s applications

Delete caches, to remove a certain number of files and folders that may become cumbersome, and more.

...

Removing duplicate files is not supported by Onyx.

I use Macaroni by Atomic Bird http://www.atomicbird.com.  Cost $10.  Installs as a login item, with a pane in System Preferences.  Automatic daily, weekly and monthly cleaning.
2014: I would also recommend "Duplicate Detective", currently $3 in the Mac App Store.  It finds files with duplicate hash values, not relying on file names or just file sizes alone.

One of the oldest and popular app is CCleaner. It is most popular app for PC. And it works perfectly on Mac too.

https://www.piriform.com/mac/ccleaner

I use CleanMyMac, which has the following features:

reset outdated cache files to zero
remove log files
remove the binary files that are not executed on your computer, from applications with an executable for PowerPC and Intel
remove useless files created by applications
remove leftovers, and clean the trashcan
keep the trashcan under control, and delete the files when the size of the files contained in the trashcan reach a limit you can set
uninstall applications

Not sure why you were voted down. I use an application called MacKeeper which is quite similar.

I'd also like an explanation for the downvote.

Having used both CleanMyMac and MacKeeper, I have to say they are both dubious applications. They run constantly, and are extremely hard to remove.

I downvoted for 3 reasons. One was touched on by @spudwaffle: the product is not entirely safe. The second is because the guys that run MacPaw (makers of CleanMyMac) exploit the review system of sites like MacUpdate to artificially inflate their rankings (by giving out licenses in exchange for favorable reviews). Therefore, it's not a product I feel deserves any support (and when I hear something favorable about the app, I'm always wary that it's disingenuous). Lastly, the answer is really just a glorified promo for the app and doesn't address the full scope of the question.

@cksum The OP didn't ask for a free application, and I am not affiliated with who developers the application.

I have found CleanMyMac 2 to be very easy to use and worth the price.


text:
How can I stitch a set of images together?
I have a set of images that are named foo-N.jpg, where N is a number from 0 to 100.
I'd like to stitch them together such that I have one long image, where foo-0.jpg is at the left and foo-100.jpg is at the right.
I can do this manually in Photoshop or Fireworks, but it'd take forever.
Is there a way to do this in bulk, like perhaps with Automator, Terminal, or an app?

This is off topic, try http://photo.stackexchange.com/

@GraemeHutchison I'm asking how to automate a repeated action in OS X using OS X tools. I'm not quite sure how it's off-topic or how a site for photography would be able to answer an OS X automation question: can you elaborate?

OK its fine, thought you might get a better response from people who may do this all the time. i.e photographers. Seems you have the answer you were looking for so thats good.

You can do it with Imagemagick from a terminal. If you have Homebrew, installing it is as easy as:
brew install imagemagick

Once you have it, open the terminal and go to the folder where you have the pictures, then do:
convert foo* +append result.jpg

And there you have it, your 100 pictures in a row. You can also make a column with them, instead of +append use -append.


text:
How do I scan for hardware changes?
I have had the times where I have used a usb networking card, or other device, and it didn't show up, although I was not sure if it was compatible with OSX. I just was not sure if OSX had a way to scan incase it did not recognize it, or if you needed to install a driver.
Is there a way to see what hardware is on the machine, like a device manager?

Hit the  in the far top-left hand side of the screen, choose About This Mac, then click More Info.... System Profiler is the most Device Manager-like thing on the system. It doesn't have actions (update driver, roll back, uninstall, etc.), however. Oh, and if you're on Lion, you'll have to click System Report... on the More Info... window.

Generally speaking there's nothing you have to do except launch the application that supports your hardware.
If you add a new network device, it is immediately listed the next time you open the Network preference pane in System Preferences.
If you add a new sound device, is it immediately listed in the Sound preference pane in System Preferences. (You can also Option+Click the volume icon in your menu bar within seconds of plugging your device in and see it in the list.)
You don't need to "add new hardware" to use it. If it is compatible, it generally just shows up.

" just shows up." really means that OSX does the scanning for changes itself

True, but "just shows up" also means there is no step 3. (Step 1 is plug it in, Step 2 is use it.)

Step 3: Profit!


text:
How to quickly scroll to top of long list in iOS?
I've recently hooked my MS Exchange account into Mail.app in iOS, and consequently, the list of email in my inbox is extremely long. iOS has the unfortunate habit of scrolling the mail list to the middle of the list whenever I rotate the iPad, and it takes me a very long time to scroll back up.
I'm wondering if there's a way to quickly scroll back up to the top of the very long inbox list in iOS Mail.app, so that I can see my unread messages?

Tap the Status Bar at the top of the screen.

In Safari, Mail, Contacts, and many other apps, tap the status bar at
  the top of the screen — which displays the network information, time,
  and battery level — to scroll quickly to the top.
Source: http://www.apple.com/iphone/tips/

option and the up arrow.  If you are using outlook on a mac, this is the fastest way to get to the top.  I hope that helps because I had the same problem.

How do you press Option-Up on an iOS device?

iOS, the system in the question, is for portable devices such as iPhone and iPad.


text:
How can I find the free app of the day?
I'm a Mac user. I want to know which software will help me find the free app of the day in the App Store?
App store always lists the free apps, but it doesn’t display the original price of the applications.

I use Store News which is excellent for finding out price drops and discounted apps.
If you have an iOS device, try AppZapp - allows you to set watch lists, and push notifications and has the ability to track Mac Apps too.

AppShopper is my personal favorite . Notifies you change of version bumps and price changes if the item is in your Want list.

i think we didn't need version bump? App Store can do itself right?


text:
why my Mac disk size become zero while Mac running long time?
While my my Mac starts, it shows about 2GB free size but after running about 5-6 hours, I use Firefox and other apps at that time, then only leave the FF running (not close), other apps also in stop working mode I think. I close my Mac not shutdown. I do this because I am lazy to reboot my mac ... after about 5-6 hours, Mac report my disk size is full. I am confuse by this, anyone also face this type problem before?
My Mac is Mac OS X v 10.6.8.

This should probably get migrated to Super User. Anyhow, you could use something like Disk Inventory X to find out which files are taking up space.

A lot of temporary files and pages of virtual memory were paged to RAM. I know this could take up quite a bit of space, so it's non impossible that it used up the last few gigabytes with those processes open.

If you have your home directory encrypted it is in a sparse-bundle. This can only be shrunk when it is unmounted - that happens only when you log out.
So if you like me keep logged in all the time it will grow till all space is used up. (and logging off takes an eternity)
btw. just 2 GB free is kinda little free space anyway.


text:
Is there a way to change a short name in OS X
I am trying change the Short Name for an account on my computer. Is there an easy way to do this?

Use these steps to change the short username of an account on your computer:

Open System Preferences
Choose the "Users & Groups" preference pane
If the padlock at the bottom left is locked, click on it to unlock it with an administrator password
Control-click on the account in the users list
A menu will appear with "Advanced Options…". Select that and you will get a sheet where you can change the account name.

There's a good knowledge base article, HT1428, on how to change the short name of an account.

Welcome to Ask Different! Answers on Ask Different need to be more than just a link. It's okay to include a link, but please summarize or excerpt it in the answer. The idea is to make the answer stand alone. Please take a look at the FAQs for more info.


text:
Why do newly added or edited contacts float to the top of my iPhone's contact list?
Any newly added contacts, or contacts that have been edited are immediately sorted to the top of my contacts list on my iPhone 4 running iOS 5.0.1 using iCloud. The iPhone has not been jailbroken, or tampered with in any way. I'm not even able to use the quick select letters on the right that are above the letter R (See Example Photograph). I've deleted the contacts, and have re-entered them multiple times. I have even restored the iPhone 4 to see if that would fix the issue, and have even tried using an iPhone 3GS to test on with no differing results. Needless to say that this issue is occurring across the board, which makes me think it may be a setting that I'm unable to find. Has anyone else come across this issue? Does anyone know of a solution? Thanks a lot in advance!
Example Photograph:

Do you sync your contacts with any other service (Exchange, Gmail etc)?

Negative. Just iCloud.

It appears something has become corrupt in your contacts backup.
When you say you've deleted contacts and re-entered them, do you mean you have restored them from backup, or manually created new ones?
If the latter, you can try rebuilding your contacts on a desktop and then re-syncing them. Are you using a Mac or PC?

Manually created new ones. It seems like it has been corrupted, and I'll have to go through and edit each contact for them to "restore" to a situation the contacts/phone applications like. I was hoping for an easier solution, but this seems to be the only way to go. Thanks for your help!

You can try exporting all your contacts to a .csv file on the desktop, deleting them all from the app, then re-importing the .csv file. This should restore all your contact. You can then sync, and hopefully resolve your issue.


text:
What does the "aapl,panic-info" output from "nvram -p" mean?
When I run nvram -p I get the following:
$ nvram -p | cut -c1-30
aapl,panic-info %f0%b0;=F%8d%e
BootCampHD  %02%01%0c%00%d0A%03
boot-image  %02%01%0c%00%d0A%03
SystemAudioVolume   W

The line with panic-info is actually ~9000 characters long. What does this mean? Should I be worried, as the word 'panic' implies?

The line panic-info is the details of the last kernel panic registered and stored by the system.  If you do a PRAM (or NVRAM) reset, those details will be removed.
For example, I just ran nvram -p and I had no panic-info line because I did a PRAM reset since my last kernel panic.  I can't even remember the last time I had a kernel panic.
Hope that clears it up for you.


text:
How can I disable the suspend to disk function on my MacBook Pro
Whenever I close the lid of my MacBook Pro it takes over a minute to write out my memory to disk. This is part of the Mac's safe suspend option, which allows it to restore your memory from the hibernation file if the Mac loses power (say you change batteries or they go flat) while it is asleep.
I prefer my machine to go to sleep as soon as possible and am willing to take the risk of an unclean shutdown should my battery go flat.
A long time ago I disabled this behavior, but have recently reinstalled my machine and OS X has reverted to the default behavior.
How can I disable the hibernation action when I close the lid?

To disable Safe Sleep:
$ sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
$ sudo nvram "use-nvramrc?"=false

Further details can be found at http://www.normalesup.org/~martinez/macosx/, Including how to enable it again.

I use the SmartSleep preference pane.

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


text:
iPad secretly syncing iTunes U slides to my books
Here's the setting: I am syncing my entire books library on my MacBook with my iPad. On my Mac, there are 122 books (both .epub and.pdf). I also use iTunes U on my MacBook, and some of the courses I download have .pdf slides in addition to videos. However, I am not syncing iTunes U courses on my MacBook with my iPad.
And here's the issue: somehow, all the course slides from iTunes U appear in my books library on the iPad. That is, my books library on the iPad now contains 129 books, and the number is growing with every slide set that I download. So these slides appear in iBooks, but not in my books library on my MacBook. In short, I say sync all books, and it laughs into my face by syncing to different numbers.
How do I turn this feature off? Is it some setting that I've missed, a weird feature, or an annoying bug?

Have you tried resetting the iTunes U data on the iPad by letting it sync one small portion of iTunes U and sync to completion. Then disable iTunes U syncing. It should then offer to let you keep or delete all the items. As a long shot, be sure manually manage music isn't also set and look to clean out any "manually" added items. Even if you didn't add them, it doesn't mean the device's database hasn't corrupted and marked some items as manually synced and thereby think it shouldn't touch them.

Thanks for the suggestion, but nope, that did not work.


text:
Where can I find a user forum for the brand-new Apple iBooks Author application?
Apple has just released the free
iBooks Author
application for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Where can I find some information about its capabilities. Yes, this is a "Jeopardy" question.

I say you've found a darn good one right here where you're asking.

Yes, but since iBooks Author was released just today, the Apple discussion forum was the first place to go to get impressions from several different people trying out the software.

There is a new Apple Support Forum for iBooks Author
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_app_store/ibooks_author

This is not a direct answer to your question, but it does offer places to find information about its capabilities. I found this collection of links so useful, therefore I want to share it here:
Support Documents for iBooks Author

Publishing and distribution FAQ
Use iPad-safe fonts when authoring books
How to make your iBooks accessible
Best practices for using 3D models
About the Keynote widget
Add video to your iBooks


text:
Syncing Jailbreaked Ipod Touch
As the title says, I jailbreak-ed my iPod touch for about a week by myself and now I want to sync it to iTunes without unjailbreaking the iPod.
After I plug my iPod touch into the computer, I opened iTunes manually and nothing happened. I then looked for information on how to unjailbreak it. I found out that I need to press the sleep/power button and the home button, after the steps, on my iPod there's a picture saying to plug the iPod onto iTunes and I did so. Then I pressed for the iTunes to restore my iPod, and it said that an error happened.
Please, can anyone help me either to sync my iPod without unjailbreaking? But if there's no way, can anyone teach me how to jailbreak my iPod Touch safely?
Also, now my iPod screen is stuck on the image that tells me to connect to iTunes.

Jailbreaking does not stop iTunes syncing. The sync should work as normal - no need to unjailbreak. Please can you describe your problem more precisely. Jailbreaking should not have changed sync behaviour at all.

It sounds like your iPod is now in DFU mode.Try holding down sleep and home while connected to your PC/Mac.

You can unjailbreak an iPod or any other iDevice by restoring the device from a previously unjailbroken backup or you can download the latest update from Apple for your device and install that. IF there is one.
Apple doesn't want people jailbreaking so all you have to do is update the IOS or restore to an old non-jailbroken copy and it will 'unjailbreak' it.

The OP does not want to unjailbreak, he wants to get his syncing working.

You might try pressing the power and home buttons again and try to get it to boot back into iOS.  Then, try the restore process again.


text:
Is it possible to disable the audio of a specific application using Jailbreak?
I have a game on my iPhone that always interrupts my music even if I turn the volume down to zero (every 30 seconds or so). Is there some kind of a workaround that lets me continue playing music? Thanks!

If you're JailBroken, install and open up iFile from Cydia. Navigate to /var/mobile/Applications/, tap the gear in the bottom-left corner and make sure "Application Names" is set to On, and then find the app you mentioned inside that folder. To completely disable audio from that app, you're going to need to delete every audio file inside that folder (and subfolders). It might take you a while, but that's the only way to do what you want without writing your own JailBreak tweak. If the app you're muting is written poorly, it may  crash when it cannot find those files you deleted. If this is the case, just reinstall the app, and you won't be able to mute it until somebody nice comes along and writes a tweak.

yes. replace them with empty audio files

That would require a bit more work, but that's another great solution.


text:
Does a black screen save battery on an iPhone 4?
Where can I found information about the power consumption of an iPhone 4 display? Which technology is used? Does it save battery lifetime when the screen displays black or dark pixels?
Additionally, there is a brightness control in the settings. Does this setting really affect battery lifetime?
I'm asking about the hardware to learn the details so I can develop iOS applications and be sensitive to power consumption based on the settings I apply in our applications.

not sure where you can get the specs for it. But yest. Black pixels are non initialzed pixels, and need to be pure black rgb(0,0,0). This however does not save much power as the adjacent pixels need to be set on the same line, so it has to refresh the whole line. You will notice power saving when the brightness is down at 20%.. extends battery up to 40%. But setting 100% black, and turning backligh off will imitate screen lock

LCD displays need continuous refreshing. Depending on the technology it may use slightly more energy making black, or slightly more making white (normally-transmissive or not.)

http://www.usenix.org/event/atc10/tech/full_papers/Carroll.pdf That article gives you a good breakdown of the components of a smartphone and their respective power consumptions. While they didn't specially test an iPhone, it will follow a similar pattern.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "black = nothing = power saved" was relevant for CRTs, but has not been relevant since the invention of the LCD screen and beyond.

Yes - brightness is the major thing you can change to save power if the screen is prevented from dimming. Having the screen off entirely significantly extends the runtime of the battery across the iOS platform.

I haven't found a good reference to determine if the natural state of the IPS transistors that control whether the pixel is open (colored) or closed (blocking or black) but the amount of power needed to activate all of the transistors and let all the backlight through is certainly dwarfed by the amount of power needed to run the backlight itself.
Since the backlight is dimmable, it could be more of a factor when the backlight is set at the lowest light level, but I would expect the actual panel itself to still be negligible compared to the backlight (and more importantly negligible compared to the CPU / GPU and radio power usage)

If you take a look at the official specs you can see for the iPhone 4S:

6 hours: 3G Internet - screen on all the time
8 hours: 3G Calling - screen off most of the time
9 hours: WiFi Internet - screen on all the time
10 hours: Video Playback - screen on all the time
40 hours: Audio Playback - screen off most of the time

It would be interesting to see how long the audio playback test would last if you had a simple app to keep the screen on the entire time...

Setting a black background will probably not make a big difference on battery life on an iPhone (see some tests with large monitors: http://techlogg.com/2010/05/black-vs-white-screen-power-consumption-24-more-monitors-tested/17).
Reducing the brightness probably will be much more important. That is because the LCD screen is led-backlit all the time and leds are eating up most of the energy.

LCDs (which the iPhones use) use virtually the same amount of power no matter what color is being displayed.
So, no, a black screen will make no practical difference whatsoever. (Although, as someone else mentioned, brightness of the screen definitely will. However, note that brightness is NOT the same as color being displayed).
AMOLED screens DO use less power when displaying black, because when they display black they actually turn that pixel off, and so it uses almost no power. LCD does not behave like this. All LCD does is block the light the pixel emits. Some would even say that it wastes energy in this way.


text:
Mac keeps on asking for password to delete files
I have renamed my Mac username from root login.  It was done successfully and I can see the new name of my home directory but certain folders in Mac HD have a red dot with a - symbol.
I tried to change permissions using Get Info and added my user name after which I can view the files but when I try to delete the files it keeps on asking for my password.
How do I resolve this?

You "changed" the root username?
Can you elaborate on the process you use? I suspect you created a new account and then copy and pasted the files from the previous directory, roots home directory, to your new user. If this is the case you will likely need to use Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal) to restore the permissions on them as root is probably still the owner. Assuming your username is bob execute the following commands in terminal.
Change the owner of the files to your user:
sudo chown -R username:staff /Users/bob
Change the permissions of your home drive to 600. (Owner read/write, everybody else denied):sudo chmod -R 600 /Users/bob
Let us know how you go or if you need more detailed instruction.
If you have a copy of the OSX DVD I believe there is a utility on it to repair home drive permissions but I can't remember it offhand, sorry.

I followed the steps mentioned here. Which means i renamed the existing user directory with new one. When i login with new user i created i face this problem..

I realized that i only followed till step 10, thinking its done i logged out. I made so many changes after logging with new user, like changing the full account name.Can i continue from there now??

Step 10 doesn't even have the copying done yet; are you sure you meant 10? That being said it looks safe to pick-up on any one of those steps, I can't see anything that you could do by interrupting that would break it. Step 23 has my suggestion above, as well.
I suggest you follow from Step 23 onward.

Alright then i'll start from step 23.. hope the problem will be resolved.

Should i proceed with the steps with the root login??

Yep; use the root login. Or you can use your account and put 'sudo' in front of the commands as I did above if you made your new account an Administrator.


text:
SSD in iMac 21.5" Mid 2011
I'm not sure if I should buy an SSD for my iMac 21.5" Mid 2011 alongside the internal 500GB hard drive. First Question: Should I replace the CD drive with an SSD or use an external (Thunderbolt) one? Is that hard, and is it easy to keep all the applications and system data on the SSD, while storing media on the HD? And should I buy an SSD now or wait for maybe a year until cheaper and better SSDs come out? Thanks!

The iMac I'm sitting at reboots in 12 seconds with the current entry level SSD that Apple installs. That's from the time I click the reboot icon on the log in window until it's shut down, rebooted, and back at the log in window. This is the 21 inch model with stock RAM and the 2.7 GHz i5 middle CPU. They are silent and scream with no HDD. We'll drop a thunderbolt drive on them should we need to carry more than 200 GB on the boot volume.

What did you end up doing?

In the Mid 2011 iMacs (both 21.5" and 27") Apple left enough room for an extra SSD. So if you want to put an SSD inside your iMac you can do that without replacing the DVD drive and/or original hdd. If you're going for an external one you should indeed opt for a SSD with a Thunderbolt connection, otherwise you kinda loose the speed advantage of a SSD.
If you want to separate the OS and application data from your media files, that's entirely possible and there's more than one way to achieve that. Read this and decide for yourself wether it's easy:

http://www.tuaw.com/2012/01/20/ask-tuaw-how-do-i-setup-a-mac-with-both-an-ssd-and-a-regular-hd/
http://mattgemmell.com/2011/06/21/using-os-x-with-an-ssd-plus-hdd-setup/

SSDs will only get better and cheaper over time so it can make sense to wait, but since they'll keep getting better and cheaper you could also wait for the rest of your life but SSDs are becoming mainstream now so it is safe to make the jump.
Remember that if you install a SSD in your iMac yourself you will loose your warranty so it may be worth to let an Apple Authorized Service Provider do the upgrade for you. If you insist on doing it yourself you might find the following link useful:

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-iMac-Intel-21-5-Inch-EMC-2428-Dual-Hard-Drive-Kit/6434/1

Good luck!

I can tell you that unless you have extensive experience working on iMacs and have all the right tools, it's a huge pain. Even for Apple technicians that have all the right tools and training, it's not the easiest machine to work on.
I would recommend using an external solution if you can. However, using an external SSD to boot from isn't the most ideal solution since it's not going through the internal SATA connection. Configuring it this way will cause you to erase your internal iMac hard drive, which isn't the best idea. My recommendation would be to take your iMac to an Apple Authorized Service Provider and have them perform the SSD addition since they'll have the right tools and training, plus they'll be liable if they mess it up. As for the waiting to purchase the SSD, we are unable to make shopping recommendations on Ask Different.
Good luck!

Voted up for TRUTH.

Certified Apple repair shops can install an SSD in your iMac without voiding your warranty or Apple Care, its their job.


text:
how do I disable preview autosave?
Today I was scrolling through my photography gallery with Preview app. I was playing around with files rotating them etc, only to discover that it was actually saving those files (overwriting originals) without giving me a notice!
Is there any way to make it ask me for changes everytime? not only when file is locked...

Preview only used to rewrite the EXIF tag to indicate the rotation, but left the image data itself intact. So if you rotated it back again in Preview, you'd get the original image back at its original quality. Is this no longer the case?

(Which doesn't help anyway if you'd also cropped them or edited them some other way, of course...)

Are you using Lion?  If you are, you can check your versions by clicking the file title on the top of the window, then select Browser all Versions to revert back to the previous save.

This looks like it might provide a decent solution: How to Install the Older Preview App from Snow Leopard in Mac OS X Lion.


text:
Can I save an HTML file to my iPhone and open in Safari?
Does anyone know if its possible to save an HTML file to your iphone and then open it with Safari so that you can then favourite it and have it appear on the launcher as an icon?

If your iPhone is up-to-date (iOS 5.x), check out these tips: http://www.apple.com/iphone/tips/

Did you mean copying an HTML file from a computer to the iPhone's home screen? There is no official way of doing this. There may be a way to do it if your iPhone is jailbroken, since you have access to the file system.

Yes, that is what I meant. I have html file that does multiple cross site xmlhttprequests, which for most browsers are only allowed if the file came from a local file system and not from a server.

Are you still looking for an answer to this question?

It'll be a text only html as images are not loaded.
Fixes?  Upload html to Messenger app.  FB provide the content delivery network cdn.fbxbs.com and html, remote linked url gifs work.   Alternatively,  download html, open, print to PDF works on iphone.

I do it using the 'Notes' app on my iphone.
Quick and free download.
I emailed the file to myself, then opened it on my phone via email.
Inside the email, I clicked the html file.
This opened it. I then clicked the download button on the top right of my particular iphone. After that I clicked "Add to Notes".
Inside the notes app, my html file is there and also all functions work as there is also javascript involved.

Once the page is opened on your iPhone all you have to do is tap the Sharing icon, middle icon on bottom, and select 'Add to Home Screen'
If you want to load an html file that you've created on you Mac to your iPhone you'll need to do the following. From System Prefs > Sharing > Enable Web Sharing. Place the html file in your ~/Sites folder. Go the the URL listed in the Web Sharing panel from your iPhone, while on the home network, and open the html file. It will load in Mobile Safari.
If you want this to stay on your iPhone you'll need to have the page written in html5 and have a properly setup CACHE MANIFEST. This includes the appropriate tag in the html file and have the proper manifest file. Then you can follow the first step and add it to your home screen and always have it on your iPhone.

Are you trying to copy an html file that you've created or just add a link to the home screen?

An explanation for a downvote would be appreciated.

I've done this using Microsoft OneDrive to generate a URL for an uploaded file. iframe embed code can also be used to display and interact with an Excel spreadsheet online.

I just put the HTML file in my DropBox and then opened it in my iOS DropBox app and then touch the ThreeDots and MakeAvailableOffline. It then opens thru the DB app while I am in airplane/offline or outside cell coverage.

HTML file I'm assuming you are talking about some pages on the web.
If so yes you can by pressing on the:

and you will have the icon on your homescreen to use it next time.
But for your information this is not the actual saving of that page it just like a favorite bookmark icon which can make you easily access to that page with a touch!.
But if you want to really save that page in an offline mode then you have to jailbreak your phone and get a tweak from Cydia which will give you an option to save it as an offline to open it next time.
And last thing if I was wrong for the above answer. And you were talking about actualy HTML code page and you want to save them and open to view the code [Source codes]
then you probably need an app from appstore [or even from cydia] or tweak from cydia to do that otherwise you can't.

The only way I know of without jailbreaking is to use Dropbox.

Or any other file syncing app like SugarSync, Air Sharing, Good Reader and more.

What works for me is to actually save the desired web page as a Web Archive from within Safari on the Mac, then have this file emailed to myself. On the iPhone, the only software I have that managed to open this Web Archive file successfully is GoodReader.

To get the Page to your Phone there are a lot of ways to do this. You can use any Cloud Drive App you like (iCloud, OneDrive, Dropbox) it will also Work via Mail or if you have an App that Supports in App Transfer via iTunes etc.
To open/view thre Page you can use any HTML Editor App on the Phone but i have found none of them beeing able Preview the Page in Safari all of them had their own HTML Preview.
A Second Downside is that if you are somehow able to Preview the Page inside of Safari from within an App the actual File of the Page is just put to a temp Folder and when you exit the Editor App the File will get deleted.
Now if you later open the Page again over the in the Homescreen saved Icon it won't work cause it isn't there anymore.
If you don't mind opening a App before opening the HTML File you can use one of the Editors or even GoodReader which can also handle HTML Files.
If you really need it to be a Icon i recommend you to write a Simple App with Just a UIWebView in it which displays your Page. If you don't know how to do a iOS App there are many Sites out there which can help you just Google for "iOS App + UIWebView".


text:
Two windows on Mac OS X full-screen
How can I open related windows of the same app in the same full screen workspace? For example, in Safari, when in fullscreen mode, if I click on Preferences it opens the window in another desktop.

You can't. Fullscreen Mode in Lion moves the given window to its own Space to be presented full-screen. Any other window created by the same application defaults to the Primary ("Desktop") Space.
An obvious workaround while browsing in Safari is to open new pages in tabs rather than windows, but that doesn't apply to the Preferences (or any other app-) window.

Is there a third party ext that does this?

Not that I'm aware of / I doubt it.


text:
List the extensions *enabled* in Safari for Mac OS X

Possible Duplicate:
List the extensions installed in Safari for Mac OS X, and state whether each one is enabled

I'd like a list, from which text can be copied.
(Not a screenshot of preferences.)
This information does not appear in any of the following:

Safari
System Profiler in Snow Leopard
System Information in Lion.

Please do not close this question. My recent edition to the other question explains why the two are separate. Thanks.

Actually they ain't different, the answer is the same in both cases. And looking forward, future users will be better served by one question covering both aspects.

Moderators: I'm now very pleasantly surprised by the answer from patrix in the other question. The other question is adapted, please go ahead and close this one. Thanks.


text:
Pages: can I style space before a set of characters?
I wish to add space before a span of characters:

As an afterthought, I may realize this isn't a job for Character Styles, since those
operate on single characters, not spans/groups of characters.
Neither does it look to be a job for Paragraph Styles, since those
operate on blocks of text (paragraphs); not inline blocks.

I'd suggest using the space bar.

This is the option I wanted to avoid, since the document may be handled by others than me and they most likely won't understand that they should type "09 40" instead of "0940". Even more importantly, the REAL reason I want to avoid such styling is because adding a space between "09" and "40", in this case, would extend the dark gray background …whereas I want the light gray to be the one extended. (I want the same distance on Time - Minutes' left side to be the exact same as on the right side, from the "0" to the edge of the light gray background, if I'm making any sense).

This still wouldn't fix the first reason, but couldn't you have the space styled as "Time - Minutes" rather than "Time -Hours"?

@Timothy re: adding a space and styling it with "Time - Minutes". That's a considerable idea in terms of achieving the look I'm after (thanks for pointing it out!). Although I'm a bit sceptical about the fact that typing "09 ␣ ␣ 40" (using two spaces between) is required to achieve the effect, and adding salt to injury, having the person editing person remember to switch the appropriate style (to "Time - Minutes") for the added space. :(

I don't think two spaces are required... if you type one space, select it, and style it, does that not do the trick?

But yes, I see what you mean.


text:
Apple Lion OS X 10.7.3 Update Wifi
As soon as I restarted the system after installing the 10.7.3 update, my wifi stopped working. It wouldn't connect. It would get a private ip assigned to it.
So, I switched on and off the wifi, changed the network settings several times by removing the wifi and adding it again, restarted the system, and when all of these didn't help, I phoned Apple support. After asking me to fiddle with the router, computer and several other things, he accepted that the new update was having issues. And I needed to roll back to the old version. Has anyone run into the same problem? Is there anyway to fix this?

Many times the Combo Update will resolve problems.  Download that update (on another system if you have to) and install it, then restart. I have not seen generalized WiFi issues after the 10.7.3 update, so it is very likely the combo update will help.

I had the same problem even with the combo update. I was able to find a thread on Apple's support forums that described the solution as turning off and on the OS X firewall, however, after booting from Windows (Boot Camp) back into OS X, I found that the issue had resolved itself without further intervention.

I saw exactly the same report about wifi and 10.7.3 in a greek forum.
My opinion, after trying many 'tricks' to deal with this lion problem, is that the only final solution to this problem is to buy an airport express.
Since I bought it, some months ago, I can't remember a single problem with the wireless connection between my macbook pro and the airport express.
If internet is critical for your job (I am a professional developer) the only 100% solution so far is to buy airport express.

Airport Express is a nice product; however, I would add that an ethernet connection is far closer to 100% in terms of reliability, etc., than wireless.

when waking from sleep tap the power button on the back and it will not lose the internet.  Do not touch the keyboard when waking from sleep.   This is a temp. fix.  Waiting for a solution. Easier than going to system preferences > network> choosing network each time.


text:
How do I prevent widgets from moving around on the dashboard?
Is there a way to disable moving widgets around in the dashboard? I have a neat layout all set up, and would like to prevent accidental widget movements.

In Finder, press ⌘ShiftG and type ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dashboard.plist and press Enter. Press ⌘I to bring up the file information pane. Click the Locked checkbox.
This will not prevent you from moving widgets around,opening new widgets, etc., but will preserve the arranged state of widgets at the time of locking such that any future time you launch Dashboard (rebooting, logging in, restarting Dock, etc), they will be preserved in their state at the time you locked the Dashboard.

Nice tip. Coupled with a restart dock extension for Alfred, I can restore my layout if I mess it up. But I would infinitely prefer not being able to move widgets at all...

Working on it. But I thought this was a helpful start.

I am using Doc Unlocker 2 for this
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/networking_security/dockunlocker2.html

This locks the position of items in the Dock, not the position of items in the Dashboard.


text:
How can I report security vulnerabilities for open source OSX applications?
In the event of finding a security vulnerability in the Linux world, the procedure involved would be to report the vulnerability...

...to the developers or the maintainers of the package in a particular operating system.
...to the security team of that particular operating system.

Then patches are made and CVE's are released.
I'm curious about how does open source vulnerability reporting work in the OSX world? Do the developers release CVE's if a security issue is brought to their notice?

You can contact Apple about this at product-security@apple.com (or you can open a Radar report if you're a developer), or you contact the maintainer of the package.
Often the mail addresses can be found in the README (or AUTHORS) of the source code, or on the project's website.
Yes - both Apple (specifically) and the open source developers (in general) do reference CVE in patch and security emails and participate using that mechanism for tracking reported vulnerabilities.

Yes - making sure Apple is directly aware of problems in code they bundle is very important. I like the two pronged approach of letting Apple and the original maintainer of the open source know to reinforce the message and ensure both parties can evaluate your report.

Apples official security posture is Apple Product Security.
But I would say that your best bet would be to submit vulnerabilities via the Apple Bug Reporter and their  product-security  email address . Additionally, if the part with the vulnerability is an open-source project, you should also notify the open source project as well.

The procedure for reporting security vulnerabilities varies but the place to report would be directly to the open source project.  If the application is hosted in the app store then you could report directly to Apple.


text:
Mac Ports keeps on re-installing Perl, Python, etc
Every time I want to install something, mac ports keeps on re-installing Perl, Python, etc. although the same packages are already installed on the system. Is there some setting to avoid this?

Have you tried removing them completely (and their dependencies) and then reinstalling?  What you are seeing is certainly not normal.  I've installed both Python and Perl as dependencies of another package and neither have been updated since.

What are some of the things you are installing that are causing the repeated installs of Perl, Python, etc...?

What you are seeing there are most probably upgrades for your ports. MacPorts will automatically upgrade all dependencies before installing new ports. Check port outdated to see a list of available upgrades and sudo port upgrade outdated to install them.
It is usually recommended to let MacPorts upgrade dependencies before installing new ports to get the latest fixes. However, if you really need to install a port quickly, you can use sudo port -n install to avoid this behavior and just install the new port only.

It also might be worth your while checking out Homebrew. Unlike MacPorts it tries to work with the unix software that comes with your Mac rather than installing alternative versions.


text:
iPhone and iPad apps have gone missing since update
When I updated to the most recent iPhone software last year, my phone had trouble getting the update and after resetting it and trying to restore it, I still have a number of apps that I can't find. These apps:

don't show in my "purchase" list in the iStore
do show as downloaded if I try to repurchase (even the free ones)
are not hidden
show as an unchecked app on the list of apps on the left if I open the iPhone in iTunes, but when I check it, it does not allow it to be synched because it says it can't be found

I have an iPhone 3GS and iPad 2 with a MacBook Pro as the mothership. Any way to redownload apps that the store clearly knows I already own (wouldn't label them 'downloaded' if it didn't).
I have checked under my two diff identities (a me.com account and another one that I owned from way back) and have same issue in both.

Apps that have been removed from the App Store can no longer be downloaded, regardless of having been purchased or free. If you can confirm that you cannot find them in the App Store, then, sadly, this is the case.

If you performed a  backup of your phone prior updating the firmware you can locate the missing apps in  directory "Mobile Applications". Firstly you you have to drag and drop the needed app to your library in iTunes and after that you can drag and drop it from iTunes' Apps to your iPhone.


text:
Connecting to a remote machine with a public key using Fugu
How do I connect to a remote server with a public key using Fugu? I'm using Amazon EC2, so I have .pem public key, but I'm totally new to Fugu and I can't see any form or input for the public key. In the "connect to" text input shall I enter in my public DNS?

Note: I found entering -i ~/PATH/TO/ec2-keypair.pem didn't work for me, but another workaround in the same field worked.
In the "Advanced SFTP Options", in the same Additional SSH Options dialogue enter:

-oIdentityFile=~/PATH/TO/ec2-keypair.pem

So, for example, if your EC2 instance looks like

root@ec2-123-45-678-910.compute-1.amazonaws.com

with your key being at the root and named

ec2-keypair.pem

then the relevant input is:

Connect to: ec2-123-45-678-910.compute-1.amazonaws.com
Username: root
Additional SSH options: -oIdentityFile=~/ec2-keypair.pem

Hope it works for you!

Fugu is really just a graphical front-end to the built-in ssh/sftp commands you could use in Terminal.  I found a nice write-up for getting started with EC2 for MacOSX users by Robert Sosinski: Starting Amazon EC2 with MacOSX
Note that he walks you through some Terminal commands, including generating a new ssh keypair to connect to your chosen EC2 image.  When you get that ready and can successfully connect to your EC2 server via ssh in Terminal, then you can use Fugu for further file transfers.
In the main Fugu window, if you expand "Advanced SFTP Options", you'll see a field where you can enter Additional SSH options.  You could enter something like:
-i ~/.ec2/ec2-keypair
to indicate the appropriate ssh key to use.  And in the example he gives, you would connect to root@ec2-xx-xxx-xx-xx.compute-1.amazonaws.com.


text:
Will having too many running programs slow down my Mac?
If I have movies, music, document, Photoshop...running on my Mac. I wonder to know whether they will slow down my Mac. I use Magican to monitor my Mac, it displays the programs are take high CPU usage.
If they will slow down the Mac, should I need to cut down some process?

You've answered your own question.

No matter what platform you are on, if you have multiple programs all running at once, they are using resources and therefore yes, will slow down your computer. There is a big difference between many applications running, versus actively doing something.
For example, if you are watching a movie, playing music, and working in Photoshop, all are actively using resources and the system will have to share them.
If you are not actively using something, the a large amount of its resources are given back to the OS, and therefore while still running (and consuming resources), they are not consuming as much. For example - on a Mac you can close all the windows of an application, and most of its resources are released, but it is still consuming 'something'.
OS X Lion (10.7) takes this a step further with a new feature, called Automatic Termination. According to some of the dev documentation:

When an application that supports sudden termination goes unused or
  has no open windows, Mac OS X may terminate it behind the scenes. When
  a user wants to use the application again, it usually relaunches
  instantly. Users who want to quit applications manually can still do
  so, but it is no longer necessary.

With Lion, applications that support this Resume/Automatic Termination feature will quit for you behind the scenes to gather resources back for the system if it starts running low. Preview and TextEdit are two apps I have seen this actually happen too. They won't do this if you are working in them, but if you leave TextEdit running and go off to other stuff, eventually it will quit itself for you.
So, the takeaway is this: Yes, too many processes running will slow down your Mac (and any computer for that matter). This is because resources are limited (obviously more RAM helps you run more stuff, but still a limit somewhere).

On average, I run 10 to 12 apps simultaneously, all day long.  Photoshop, ScreenFlow, Citrix, Keynote, Dreamweaver, Safari, MS Messenger, Twitter, Illustrator, and iOS simulator.  Also, quite a few utilities.  My Mac runs fine, but it would run even better if I wasn't multi-tasking so much.  In short, get as much RAM as you can 8GB and you will be fine, but less apps means more speed in general.
4 years ago (OS 10.4 Tiger) I posted a video to YouTube that demonstrated my app madness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh8TQr68iaM&context=C39a2431ADOEgsToPDskLtuBrV7mTwMYkeXh-EnOnN


text:
Can't relaunch Finder and the menubar is missing
I booted up my MacBook Air (running Mac OS X Lion) and the desktop doesn't have a menubar.  I used option+right-click to relaunch Finder and there isn't an option to relaunch it.  When I launch an application the menubar shows up.  When I cmd+q to quit the application the application's window closes but the menubar then defaults to the last currently open application.  Even if it's on a different virtual desktop.
When I reboot the computer I notice that the keyboard is no longer backlit by default.  The keyboard only becomes backlit after I correctly enter my password.  I don't know if this is related to the problem stated in the first paragraph.  It may or may not be relevant.  I don't know.
Any thoughts or ideas?  I've never seen a desktop in Mac OS X that didn't have a menubar.
To recap: No menubar, no date, time, Spotlight icon etc. when all applications are closed.  They show up when I launch an application.  Option to relaunch Finder is gone.

I've seen this recently. I don't know how to resolve it any other way than restarting sometimes more than once.

Well, I've rebooted about 10 times now and to no avail.  I created a new user and the problem exists for the new user.

try restarting the process called "System UI Server" (or something like that with an _ i think_)

When this happens, does a Finder process appear in Activity Monitor, or (via Terminal) in ps waux | grep Finder?

@XAleXOwnZX: +1 for SystemUIServer. This is the process that encompasses the Spotlight, Clock, etc. process icons. Killing that in Activity Monitor will cause it to restart automatically.

I've killed SystemUIServer.  An new SystemUIServer process starts right away.  Problem persists.  No menubar when all applications are closed.  No option to relaunch Finder when pressing option+right-click.  I've killed Finder too and same result.  Problem persists.

Do you have a display connected and/or an external keyboard?  If so, try removing both.

No peripherals are attached.

@bneely:  Finder shows up and I have killed it and the problem persists.

Try quitting Finder using Activity Monitor (in Utilities). It's in Launchpad there too. Scroll down the list of processes till you see Finder, click it and then choose Quit Process from the toolbar. Choose "Force Quit" at the dialog.
If Finder isn't in the list of applications in Activity Monitor, you can manually start it. It's located at /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app. If you can't get to it by browsing (because Finder isn't running!) you can always use Terminal. It's in Utilities too. Just type
open /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app

into the window and hit return.

I did this and the problem persists.  There is no menubar when all applications are closed.  When I open a folder (getting a Finder window) the menubar still doesn't show.  There is no option to relaunch Finder when I option+right-click the Finder icon from the Dock.

Sounds like the problem described at https://discussions.apple.com/message/17644065 it's possible you've got something nefarious installed by 3rd party software too.

That's me!  I'm going to reinstall the operating system.  Thanks for your help.

try restarting the process called "SystemUIServer" and post what happens as a comment to this answer. I'll update my answer with any possible insight i can give.

I've restarted SystemUIServer.  Nothing happened.  It just started again right away with a new process id.  I've killed Finder too with the same result.  I've booted in safe mode.  Same problem but now the keyboard is backlit at the login screen.  I've created a new user and the new user experiences the same problem.  When no applications are running there is no menubar.

i've never heard of that before =/ that's unfortunate. I think reinstalling lion would be the easiest way to fix it

Yeah, I think I'm going to have to do this.

i'm looking into a way of clearing the gunk clogging up systemUIServer but i can only use AppZapper to do it if it's closed, which is tough since its autolaunched by launchd

I know a really easy way to fix this(if you have an Apple TV). Go to someone else's laptop and duplicate finder and put on a USB flash drive. Put the flash drive in your computer and turn on the Apple TV and aim and press the button on the remote at your computer (iTunes should open up). In iTunes, go to the Apple icon in the top left corner and open System Preferences. Go to accounts and press the plus sign next to the minus sign. Something should come up that has your USB drive on the sidebar. Go to your flash drive drive, select Finder and click "add".
Once you have done that, select Finder in the list of things to open up once you log in. Log out of your account and log back in. If you do not know your password, try leaving it blank.
Notice: Use Finder from a laptop with the same version as yours.