Finding out property list (plist) attributes and/or processes Apple’s own web page indicates how to Edit property lists in Terminal on Mac. However is there a way to guess/find out an attribute or a process that I would like to modify but I don’t know the existence of?
In the case of the Dock position, I would have had to:

Figure out that such a plist file exists (in this case com.apple.Dock.plist),
Then I would have had to find the correct key (in this case orientation),
Finally I would have had to find out the possible values (in this case left but right and down would also have been possible).

Then the whole command would have been (or is, in this case): defaults write com.apple.dock orientation left (then in terminal type killall Dock in order for the change to take place).
My questions:

If I would not have known that the dock position on the screen could be modified with the Terminal command defaults write com.apple.dock orientation left, would I have been able to figure it somehow out?
Is there a way to find a plist attribute or process by searching say for keywords?
If yes, how/with what tool?
Is there (or could we figure out) some kind of a step-by-step procedure to do that (preferably in Terminal)?

Each application can choose what to store in their plist files. The names of the keys and the different possible values are determined by the application, which can be developed by Apple or by any third party, and there is no standard.
To find different combination of keys/values usable in a plist file, you can do the following:

Read the documentation. But often Apple doesn't provide full documentation.

Find existing plist file and modifiy them, by deducing and trying different keys/values.

Run the command strings on the executable to dump out all text. (Thanks to mmmmmm for this).

Look at the source code if the application is open source, reverse engineer it otherwise.


(Custom Build) Super Time Capsule - am I missing something I received an interesting request today. Namely, is it possible to setup a networked Time Machine to backup the Desktops of 11 workstations on a LAN.

While I'm familiar with OSX, I haven't attempted to setup Time Machine until today.

I work with a group of professional photographers/videographers/graphic artists that regularly produce a large volume of products. They already have a large (ie 30+TB) NAS they use to archive old projects but there are cases where some deliverables were accidentally deleted prior to backup.

The Hardware:

A Mac Mini loaded with Mavericks
OSX Server
5TB of SAN

The Setup:

Load OSX Server on the Mini
Mount the SAN via iSCSI
Partition the SAN with 2 Volumes, Storage & Backup with a 3:1 ratio
Setup OSX to backup using Time Machine
Create one folder for each workstations desktop on the Storage volume
Share the Storage volume via SMB

Note: iSCSI allows the OS to transparently mount a networked SAN as a local disk.

On the workstations I'll create symbolic links to replace the user's local Desktop folder with the Desktop folder on the network drive.

Then, if a file is lost somebody can remote into the Mac Mini and wind back the Time Machine to recover any lost files.

The Mini will be dedicated to this and sharing printers alone so I don't think the backups will overwhelm the server. The SAN will be configured in a of Raid50 array with 2 drive redundancy. This setup will reside on a trusted, private, air-gapped network so security isn't an issue. All network connections are hard-wired.

Are there any special Time Machine quirks/limitations that I need to look out for before I invest the time and effort to build this beast?

I don't think you need to have one folder per workstation - each backup will be created in a .sparsebundle file, that is mounted by the remote workstation that belongs to it, and used as the backup disk.

At home I have a Mac Mini running OS X Server, and I also back up my MacBook Pro and my wife's MacBook Pro to it over WiFi. It works well, and apart from the size of the disk I imagine it would scale just fine.


Is there a good replacement for the Dock? What are the best dock replacements?

  It's frustrating to keep track of
  windows in the dock unless they're
  minimized. For instance, I often have
  10-15 separate PDF documents open.
  It's a mess to keep track of them on
  the dock.

-- Harry Gindi

HyperDock gives you window previews for each running app in the dock, which helps tremendously.


What is the oldest model iPod Touch to support Airplay in browser I want to use an iPod touch as a common interface for the office music - streamed through Grooveshark in Safari.

The iPod will be glued to a post in the center of the office, so I'm looking for the cheapest option.

What is the oldest generation that supports Airplay from a browser?

The 5th generation iPod touch is the oldest device that is capable of AirPlay Mirroring.

The 4th generation can be jailbroken and can have AirPlay Mirroring enabled, but the hardware will mean that it may be laggy.


Clean up old iCloud videos without breaking iOS iMovies My daughter takes a lot of videos with her iPad. She has maxed out her iCloud storage, so we need to clean some up (deleting from Photos, maybe archiving to an external hard drive).

Unfortunately, some of them are included in dozens of iOS iMovie videos that she would like to keep. If I just delete the original footage, the iMovie videos will break. (Exporting the iMovies would preserve the final product, but she wants the iMovies to remain editable.)

What's the best way to identify the videos that are safe to delete, or otherwise preserve the iMovie videos? Transferring the footage directly to iMovie would be ideal, but doesn't seem to be possible (videos are linked, not embedded).

My best answer at the moment is a tedious process of manually identifying the videos to keep, one clip at a time. For each clip, we have to watch it and, by trial and error, figure out which item in the Photos library matches. Being able to directly apply a "Favorite" to a clip from iMovie, or even being able see the file name, would be a huge improvement.

The feature I'm looking for exists but was hard for me to find initially.

The Share menu will, for some destinations, allow you to choose between an iMovie Project and a Video File. The iMovie Project option, as a side effect, embeds all referenced video clips.

The ideal for me is to share to iTunes. This is a poorly-labeled choice, but what it actually does is make an archived copy of the project on local iPad storage. That archived copy can be restored later (no use of iTunes necessary).

So, my workflow:

For each iMovie project, Share to iTunes as an iMovie Project
Delete the unwanted older videos from iCloud Photos
If an iMovie is now broken, delete it and restore from the archived copy in the iTunes tab of the Project Import menu

The ideal would be a one-click embed videos command, but as a workaround, this isn't too bad.


Built-in Ethernet not working I am using a 13" MacBook Pro (mid 2012) and I have upgraded to OS X 10.11 El Capitan a while ago. Last night before going to bed I switched off the computer. Since this working the built-in Ethernet that was working fine does not seem to work anymore. I have deleted the network interfaces and rebooted the system, but still it does not show up in the network preferences. Is there a fix? What should I do?

For a very short window (a few hours) - Apple pushed an update that disabled the ethernet driver for some of the Macs.

If you can connect to WiFi and run this command:

sudo softwareupdate --background

That would fix the issue if yours failed to operate due to this bug. The details are covered at

https://support.apple.com/HT205956

Also some more details are on this post:

Ethernet not working on MacBook pro retina 13


2006 MacPro - Worth upgrading for use as a VM host? I have a MacPro 1,1 bought in early 2007. Earlier this year I was about to recycle it but tried installing an SSD as a boot/apps drive. It has been a great success, it now feels like a new machine and I'm contemplating souping it up to  16GB of RAM and using it to run Windows VMs (I'm a .Net developer) in Parallels Desktop or VMWare or similar.

The RAM is going to cost < $50. I was wondering if this is a good idea in 2014 or if I'm going to hit a load of constraints imposed by the age of the hardware. Any comments or observations very gratefully received. I cannot and will not pay thousands for a new MacPro.

Short answer, yes.

The MacPro 1,1 can run 10.7.5 as it's latest OS.  I have a 2008 Black MacBook which runs the same.  Despite being on an OS from 2011, you can still run the latest version (v7.1.0) of VMWare Fusion.  You can also jam 32 GB of RAM in there.  Plus, the Xeon from 2006 will almost be comparable to a Core i5 from a couple of years ago.

Like you, I also updated to an SSD.  Even though the RAM in my MacBook is only 2 GB, it is an amazingly fast machine considering it's specs.  SSDs are simply amazing, they are the best upgrades you can make.

I also have a 2012 Mac Mini.  I installed the maximum 16GB of RAM and a 240 GB SSD.  I am able to run OS X as well as a Windows VM and 2 Linux VMs with almost no degrdation in performance.

It's worth noting 10.7.5 might soon be cut off from receiving security updates, however I imagine you can configure some networking where the VMs have internet access yet the host machine only has access to the local LAN.

I'd say go for it.  That machine is far from dead, there are still some amazing things you can do with it.


Can't boot into Windows 10 after latest updating Mac OS to 10.15.4 I had Windows 10 installed, and everything was working great.
Updating my Mac OS installation to Mojave caused Bluetooth on my Mac to not work with any other devices except my iPhone.

I was hoping 10.15.4 would fix my Mac. I updated, and now I cannot boot into Windows 10. It either restarts, or it goes to a screen giving me the choice of Advanced Repair options or trying to continue to boot (which results in restarting).

Mac OS of course, still seems to work fine. How can I boot into Windows 10 again ?

You can try recreating the Windows boot files. This answer assumes you are UEFI booting Windows 10.

To rebuild the boot files you need to boot to Windows Recover Environment (WRE) of from a Windows installation flash drive. If you can boot to Windows and have a properly working WRE, then restart Windows while holding down the shift key. You will need to navigate to where you can open a Command Prompt window. Otherwise, to create a Windows 10 installation flash drive and then open a Command Prompt window, follow the steps below.

Create a Windows 10 Flash Drive Installer

Download the latest Windows 10 ISO.
ExFAT format a flash drive using the MBR partition scheme.
Mount and copy all the files from the ISO to the flash drive.
Use the Boot Camp Assistant to download the Windows Support Software.
Copy the Windows Support Software to the flash drive.
Boot from the flash drive.
Proceed as if you are installing Windows until asked for a product key.
Press the shift+F10 key combination to open a Command Prompt window.

Rebuild Boot Files

Once you have a Command Prompt window open, enter the following commands.

Mount the EFI volume and assign to drive S:.

mountvol s: /s

Remove any previous backup. If no previous backup exists, then expect error messages to appear.

rd /s /q s:\efi\Microsoft.old
rd /s /q s:\efi\boot.old

Backup exiting files by renaming folders.

ren s:\efi\Microsoft Microsoft.old
ren s:\efi\Boot Boot.old

Determine the existing drive letters. Determine by inspection the drive letter of the main Windows volume. Usually, this is drive C:. If you are using a different drive letter, then make the appropriate substitutions in the subsequent commands.

echo list vol | diskpart

Create new boot files.

bcdboot c:\windows /s s: /f UEFI

Delete the Boot Configuration Data file (BCD) created in the previous step.

del s:\efi\microsoft\boot\bcd

Rebuild the BCD. Answer yes to any questions.

bootrec /rebuildbcd

Close the window.

exit

References

Use Bootrec.exe in the Windows RE to troubleshoot startup issues
REAgentC command-line options
BCDBoot Command-Line Options
mountvol


"Self Destruct" script to remove certain directories and/or applications Let's say your work situation isn't going so well, and you suspect the end is near.

How would you prepare a script (or similar) to remove your personal files and applications from your work computer (OSX Lion) if you only had a few minutes to gather your things and leave the building? Of course, you want to leave the machine functional, and all your work files intact, because the situation is bad but you aren't a jerk.

Follow this guide to create a simple file path copier.
Open a new document in TextWrangler. Paste in the following:

#!/bin/sh
rm -rf

Note the space after rm -rf.
Open Finder, go to a file, press the keyboard shortcut you assigned in step 1, then press ⌘ cmd + V in TextWrangler.
Do this for all the files you want deleted. Make sure there is a space between two file paths and not an enter. That means all the file paths will be on the same line. Also, if there are any spaces in the file path, you need to enclose the path in quotes ('/path/with a space' or "/path/ with a space").
Save the file on the Desktop with the name anything.sh. Don’t check any other options while saving.
Make the script executable by typing in Terminal sudo chmod 755 ~/Desktop/anything.sh.
When D-Day comes, right click on the file, select Open With → Other…. Open the Applications → Utilities folder, in the Enable: field, select “All Applications.”
Double click on Terminal.
The script will finish its job in a few minutes.

Alternatively, you can open the file in Text Wrangler and copy and paste the contents in Terminal. This eliminates steps 6 and 7.


Disk I/O errors while reading journal during boot A few days ago my MacBook crashed after it got hot as it didn't go into hibernate and was stored in a backpack. No damage seems to have occurred apart from my corrupted HDD. After trying to get it out of hibernate, which wasn't successful, I forced the MacBook to shut down by keeping the power button pressed until it would shut down.

Problem I'm experiencing now is that the MacBook won't boot and shuts down after the grey loading bar passes the +/- 40% mark. The disk is also not recognized when booted from an external HDD. Starting in safe mode is impossible. Starting the machine in verbose mode shows that there is a problem with replaying the journal. The error reads as follows:

This morning I was successful in booting from my internal HDD, however, after putting the MacBook back to sleep, the problem returned. In order to fix the problem and get my machine to boot again I've tried to following things:

Boot into recovery mode (cmd + r) and use disk utility to verify and repair the HDD. The disk shows up, but my Macintosh HD partition is greyed out. Both show:

  problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting
  Error: couldn't mount disk

Install a fresh OS X version on my external HDD and try to use Data Rescue and testdisk to rescue data and analyze the disk. Data is safe-ish by now, although j would live to fix the problems without installing everything again and the data rescue output is a mess. Testdisk does recognize the disk. The disk also shows up in diskutil list, it returns:

/dev/disk0
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *160.0 GB     disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            799.0 GB   disk0s2
3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Seagate Expansion Drive 999.3 GB   disk1s2
3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s3

After running gpt -r show /dev/disk0 the disk will drop and not show up in diskutil anymore, OS X will say: Disk Not Ejected Properly

Testdisk says the structure of all three partitions is ok and the start and end do match the GPT results. The deeper search however shows some errors:

I have no idea if these are related.
In single user mode I've tried to do the following: Run fsck -f to scan the target disk/partition, results seem to be fine. However, after fsck saying that "The volume Macintosh HD appears to be ok." It says: /dev/disk0s2: I/O error

gpt -r show /dev/disk0 returns normal values, as in that my boot partition seems to be of the correct size and holds the correct values. Being:

      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  310902592      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  311312232    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  312581768          7
  312581775         32         Sec GPT table
  312581807          1         Sec GPT header

Any suggestions on how to tackle this problem?

Curious part is that I got the machine back to work earlier today but the problem showed up again after hibernation as mentioned earlier.

An io error during fsck / single user mode means inventory your backups, perform data recovery if needed, format and erase the drive.

At that point, you will either have a stable volume to reinstall the OS or continuing hardware errors meaning a repair or drive swap.

You could also buy time by installing the OS on to an external drive and postpone the data recovery / backup decision point. Often failing drives work well for read operations for far longer than any write operations.


Can I have an iTunes library on a hard drive connected only to my wi-fi router? I have both Windows and Mac laptop computers with hard drives that are too small to fit my music collection or backup iPhones.  I would like to purchase a hard drive that I can connect to my wi-fi router which can include parts of my iTunes library not on my laptop, and could be a place for me to backup my phone.  For example I was thinking about the Seagate Central 3 TB Shared Storage Ethernet External Hard Drive.  Does anyone know of a way to do what I want with this or any other product?  Thanks.

Yes, you can store your iTunes library on shared drive. Its not really any different than an external drive attached via USB or the like.

Apple KB: iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder

If you are looking to run home sharing, or stream to an AppleTV or the like you still need a computer to handle that.


Is there a way to access a previous version of a Note? I've been using Notes to keep track of billable time. I just realized that I accidentally deleted some text within a Note (not the Note itself, so it won't be in Recently Deleted) that I still need. Is there a way to recover this info? Command + Z won't take me back far enough.

Would restoring from Time Machine work? (I'm thinking not, since Notes are in the cloud?)
Could I maybe just access it somehow via Time Machine?

Assuming you have Time Machine backups, and assuming the text you recently deleted was in an earlier version of your notes that was backed up by TM, you should be able to recover your Notes data from an earlier backup.
However, you will want to make sure you have a current backup as well - otherwise any new notes you've added may be lost.
So, the way I would approach this is:

Disconnect your Mac from the internet

Make sure you have a current backup

Restore the entire Notes folder from an appropriate earlier backup - it's located at:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes/

Access the data you need

Copy the content you accidentally deleted and paste it into another file (e.g. a TextEdit doc, etc)

Restore your notes from the backup at Step 2 above

Edit the note to include the missing data you copied at Step 5

Once you're happy with everything, reconnect your Mac to the internet

NOTE: Steps 1 is necessary to ensure that iCloud doesn't sync old data across your devices.


Boot Camp makes unbootable USB drive I used Boot Camp Assistant to create a Windows 10 install disk. However, the disk is not bootable. I am confused as to why Boot Camp Assistant would make an install disk not bootable. Can someone please help me? I am looking for someone to either a) explain how to recreate the install drive in a way that will make it bootable or b) explain how to force the drive to become bootable.

Here is the information:

Your Mac Pro (MacPro4,1) officially neither supports Windows 10  nor booting from USB thumb drives.

The only Mac Pro model supporting Windows 10 installed with Boot Camp Assistant according to Apple is the Mac Pro (Late 2013).


Mail Immediately forgets SMTP Password I'm trying to set up Apple Mail to send through my web host's SMTP server (not Gmail, or any common email provider), and as soon as I save the SMTP settings, Mail forgets the password, meaning that authentication always fails. I type the password in the dialog below, click OK, and then reopen the "Edit SMTP Servers" dialog, and the password is gone.

This seems to happen only for this SMTP account. Others work just fine. I've tried removing the password from Keychain, repairing Disk Permissions, and completely removing all of my Mail data, but Mail still forgets my password immediately. Authentication doesn't even succeed once.

How can I get Mail to remember my SMTP password? I'd rather not completely reset my Keychain, so I'm looking for any other suggestions.

I'm experiencing a similar issue. I've been doing some reading throughout the morning, and one possible solution I've found was covered here: http://osxdaily.com/2015/07/05/resolving-mail-problems-os-x-update/

Disabling 'automatically detect and maintain settings' seems to have cleared it up for me, however I'm not 100% sure that this will be your solution, as your screenshot shows that box already unchecked.


Where can I get a copy of Mountain Lion that I can resell with my Apple hardware? I'm looking to turn over some older Apple hardware I have and all of the gear has been upgraded to the latest Mountain Lion using the App Store version of Mountain Lion and my Apple ID. Section 2.B of the EULA for Mountain Lion makes it clear the license I purchased for Mountain Lion via the App Store is non-transferrable:

  B. Mac App Store License. If you obtained a license for the Apple Software from the Mac App Store, then subject to the terms and conditions of this License and as permitted by the Mac App Store Usage Rules set forth in the App Store Terms and Conditions (http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/ww/) (“Usage Rules”), you are granted a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive license

Where can I obtain a transferrable license for Mountain Lion? I don't see any way to buy Mountain Lion outside of the App Store. Do Apple Stores carry Mountain Lion on DVD or USB thumb drives? I see no mention of this on their Canadian store web site.

I have Snow Leopard DVDs for these machines, but having them running Mountain Lion makes them more attractive resale units.

It's not at all clear that Apple will endorse the transference of an App Store account and it's clear they don't endorse transferring parts of the purchase history. Legally, you might be able to get away with this in certain parts of the world, but it's clearly not something Apple is keen to point out how to accomplish this or has built in a "gift my license" functionality to their stores at present.

Why not include a gift card for the App Store in question or some other cash equivalent with the sale?


Bought 2nd hand AppleTV, Privacy? I bought a second hand appletv. My main concern now is my privacy.

Will the person from who I bought it from see what I am doing with it? Will he see when I try to log in using my appleId and see where I live and what I buy?

I'd say it is very unlikely, but if you want to you can do a factory reset which will wipe the device settings, and also download and install the latest system software for your device.

Apple TV (2nd and 3rd generation): Restoring your Apple TV


Family sharing notifications I am in a family with other people, but I am not the family organiser. I know that whenever I make a purchase from iTunes or the AppStore, the family organiser gets sent the invoice, but are they also notified about free downloads I make, such as apps?

No, only purchases that are not Tier 0 (Free) will cause an email to be sent.


New photo library in Photos.app How can I create a new, empty photo library in Photos, separated from my current library.

When Photos.app starts, hold an Option Key ( ⌥ ). You will get a libraries manager.

When you select Create New... and save library, Photos will open a empty window and it is ready to use.


Triggering an Automator script upon text selection Is it possible to trigger an Automator script upon text selection on Mac OS X? I.e. if I select some text in any application (e.g. Safari, Eclipse, etc.), it should trigger an Automator script.

I'm open to suggestions using other languages / automation programs.

If the applications are scriptable like safari is, then you can possibly have a Applescript application running and checking if there is a selection. Then respond by running you task or calling the Automator workflow when there is.

Afaik Applications do not send out notifications when text is selected so this would have to work using a periodic check. Which means wthere ould be a delay in when you Applescript Application reacts

Example of Applescript App. (save as Application with stay open checked)

    property oldSelectedText : ""

on idle
    try
        tell application "Safari"

            set selectedText to (do JavaScript "(''+getSelection())" in document 1)
            if selectedText is not "" then
                if oldSelectedText is not equal to selectedText then

                    (* DO STUFF*)

                    set oldSelectedText to selectedText
                    display notification with title "Safari Selection" subtitle selectedText

                end if
            end if
        end tell

    end try

    return 5 -- seconds idle before next check
end idle


Is it possible to upgrade Mac Pro 2.1 to 5.1 firmware? Is it possible to upgrade Mac Pro 2.1 to 5.1 firmware? Does it also make sense -- is the hardware different? Has it been done before?

No, it is not possible, so it doesn't make sense and hasn't been done before.

Yes, the hardware is different (considerably). It's a completely different board and layout where the CPU and RAM are. The difference on the cases is around the FireWire 400 ports.

The 1,1 could be flashed to 2,1, and the 4,1 to 5,1; that mainly buys you newer CPU support (well, newer compared to the original firmware's capabilities).

The 1,1 and 2,1 have 32-bit EFI firmware; many have searched for ways to change that without much success (see MacRumors' forums).  One answer I read suggested swapping out the motherboard.

All three (1,1-3,1) use older DDR2 frame-buffered DIMM's, whereas the 4,1/5,1 use DDR3 DIMMs.  The supported CPU's are also different.


Does PressAndHold automatically combine region with general language? The .plists in PressAndHold.app for en and en_US have different sets of <key< definitions with no overlap.  Some have a different naming style.  Do they get combined if a US locale is selected?

OR where is there any Apple documentation to explain the gory details of how this thing works?  (searching developer.apple.com found nothing useful)

There are a lot of things here in Apple.SE and elsewhere that talk about specific edits, but I haven't found anything that explains some of the odd differences between the two files.

The biggest reason I'm interested is that all the pop-ups I can find a key for are specified as &lt;key&lt;Roman-Accent-[key]&lt;/key&lt; but I'd like to find a way to get the pop-ups specified with UI.

   <key>UI-Currency-$</key>
   <dict>
      <key>Direction</key>
      <string>right</string>
      <key>Keycaps</key>
      <string>$ ¢</string>
      <key>Strings</key>
      <string>$ ¢</string>
   </dict>
   <key>UI-TopLevelDomain</key>
   <dict>
      <key>Direction</key>
      <string>left</string>
      <key>Keycaps</key>
      <string>.com .net .edu .org .us</string>
      <key>Strings</key>
      <string>.com .net .edu .org .us</string>
   </dict>

I can’t be sure, but I suspect the answer is NO.

I finally found some pages about how “firmlinks” can be created. One said I would have to specify them in /usr/share/firmlinks. Another said that file is only for directories from Apple and users must specify them in /etc/synthetic.conf.

Neither method worked, using the syntax in the pages’ examples.

But then I learned that the file I should modify is not actually in the read-only area.  So I made the changes I wanted and tried it out.  Didn’t work!

A little more investigation revealed that Apple put an identical file in the read-only area which overrides the one in the data area.  Copied the one I had edited into the read-only area, and the pop-ups I had added worked.


What is the rsync command to restore from a TimeMachine backup I couldn't get my TimeMachine backup to restore, so I just used rsync. What are the flags I should use? I just used:

rsync -av /path/to/backup /path/to/restore

Can it be that simple?

My backup was on a USB disk, which appears to have preserved the disk structure. Does TM still do that multiple hard-links to files/dirs to save space? Does that affect what flags I should use.

It's not that simple as the Time Machine may or may not store the files in a flat folder structure. Network backups are stored as a sparse disk image and furthermore rsync doesn't respect all the ACL and permissions that are possible or deal with special permissions on the User folder, user subfolders, Applications and other special cases.

If you can narrow down which files are being copied and confirm your machine directory is not stored in a disk image, rsync might be acceptable in limited circumstances to copy user files that lack special permissions.

In your specific instance - the files are indeed hard linked which will not make any difference to rsync. When you point rsync at a specific instance in time on your backup - it doesn't really matter how many other hard or soft links point at the files you are restoring. The storage system will read the data from the external drive just as if the files were the only copy on the USB drive. That's the magic of hard links - two directory entries point to the same file so that you can't tell when reading the file that it's a link or a file. Only if you query the link count can a program tell, and rsync cares not about the hard link count when reading.

You should be good to go for any restore of files like documents or pictures.


Disk diagnostic and repair utility for Mac that works with all kinds of storage devices? There are some nice and useful utilities for testing disks for bad blocks like MHDD, Victoria, HITACHI Drive Feature Tool etc. But these utilities have some limitations.

For example, MHDD is the best utility I've ever seen for both surface diagnostic and repair:

it can sometimes fix sectors which were mistakingly marked as bad (soft "bad"s)
it finds other read errors (sectors with long read time for example)
it works with host protected area which used on some non Apple notebooks
it allows to erase whole disk or only areas with slow access time (which sometimes 'heals' them)
it allows to
during surface scan it shows access time:

But it has some serious issues:

it's dos utility so it's tricky to use on Mac (but it's possible)
it may not work with Intel SATA controllers,
you may need to put the HDD in an external enclosure to make the utility see that drive.
latest version is dated 2006 and it's probably abandoned by author

Please recommend a utility which can be used to repair and check a disk (HDD, SSD, flash drive, etc.), find bad blocks and other surface problems. Can your utility check the entire disk surface, including the system partition?

Of course there are official warranty and authorized service centers, but software like this is always useful anyway (for example in a case of void warranty).

Drive Genius

A personal favorite of mine, Drive Genius will do everything you're looking for with style. It's also used by the Apple Store folks, just so you know.


MacBook Pro WiFi keeps shutting down for no apparent reason I've got quite a problem with my Macbook Pro (late 2010, running OS X Lion 10.7.3).
Since a few days ago, my wifi frequently keeps shutting down. It starts by the network not being functional and then when I switch AirPort off/on, it does not want to switch on. It keeps being switched off. Only a restart fixes the problem. But it keeps coming back.

I already reset the SMC and P-RAM, nothing helps.

Is anybody familiar with this problem and might be able to help me out? I would appreciate it.

Best regards!

Here's what I could discover in Console that might have something to do with it:

3/7/12 6:15:24.000 PM kernel: AirPort: Link Down on en1. Reason 8 (Disassociated because station leaving).
3/7/12 6:15:25.657 PM UserEventAgent: CaptiveNetworkSupport:CaptivePublishState:1211 en1 - PreProbe
3/7/12 6:15:25.664 PM configd: network configuration changed.
3/7/12 6:15:25.667 PM applepushserviced: <APSCourier: 0x7fb0e9d0c3f0>: Stream error occurred for <APSTCPStream: 0x102d294c0>: The operation couldn’t be completed. Socket is not connected
3/7/12 6:15:25.682 PM applepushserviced: <APSCourier: 0x7fb0e9d0c3f0>: Stream error occurred for <APSTCPStream: 0x102d294c0>: The operation couldn’t be completed. (kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork error 2.)
3/7/12 6:15:25.685 PM applepushserviced: <APSCourier: 0x7fb0e9d0c3f0>: Stream error occurred for <APSTCPStream: 0x102d294c0>: The operation couldn’t be completed. (kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork error 2.)
3/7/12 6:15:28.192 PM applepushserviced: <APSCourier: 0x7fb0e9d0c3f0>: Stream error occurred for <APSTCPStream: 0x7fb0e9e17270>: The operation couldn’t be completed. (kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork error 2.)
3/7/12 6:15:31.000 PM kernel: VendorID check timed out ! Issuing secondary bus reset
3/7/12 6:15:32.000 PM kernel: WLAN adapter not yet powered or is not in the system (stateNumber = 1)!
3/7/12 6:15:32.000 PM kernel: wl: syncPowerState called when card is down.
3/7/12 6:15:32.000 PM kernel: WLAN adapter not yet powered or is not in the system (stateNumber = 2)!
3/7/12 6:15:32.000 PM kernel: wl: enable called when card is down.

I've had the exact same problem before with my Mid-2010 MacBook Pro. I took it into the Apple support people on campus and, after running quite a few tests, they found out that the cable connecting the AirPort card to the motherboard had gone bad. It sounds like this is the same thing that you're experiencing, so your best bet is to see about getting that cable replaced.


Shuffle by album on iOS-devices? In iTunes and on iPods (excluding the most recent Nano) there is an option to playback a playlist shuffled by album. This option does not exist in "Music.app" on iOS-devices. However, since you can play a playlist in order I was thinking that it would be possible to emulate the shuffle by album-behaviour if you somehow managed to sort the playlist in a random by album order and then just play it from the first track with shuffle disabled. This raises two questions:

What determines the sorting order for a playlist on an iOS-device?
Can you somehow (maybe with an Applescript) sort a playlist in iTunes in a shuffle by album order?

This is not possible in music.app.

From this Apple Discussion:

  The Foobar2000 music player app available in the App Store respects albums and supports 'Shuffle Albums'. It is a competent, comfortable and convenient music player with full Gain Management and many other useful features. It will work with your iTunes library as well as many other music file formats (via iTunes App File Folders). At time of writing it is free.


Is disk image encryption slower than partition encryption? I am considering two options to encrypt some data:

add a new encrypted partition
add an encrypted disk image

Which option is faster in terms of disk read/write speed? I suspect that an encrypted disk image would have a worse performance than using an encrypted partition, but I am not sure.

An encrypted partition would likely be faster. With a disk image, you're actually accessing two filesystems, one within the disk image, and the one on which the disk image is stored, as well as the technologies needed to read the disk image itself. It seem unlikely that a disk image could ever be faster than full-disk encryption, but you would have to run benchmarks to be certain.


iMessage stuck in Notification Center I have this weird situation where I was using the reply-from-Notification-Center Messages feature and it got stuck in the write-the-message state, as in the screenshot below.

The message was sent, but ever since it got stuck and it’s unusable.

How can I reset it without restarting the computer or logging out?

(I’m on Mavericks.)

I was able to fix this by killing Notification Center with the following command:

killall NotificationCenter

You could also force-quit it from Activity Monitor.

Source.


To install GNU Strings in OSX I run unsuccessfully brew search strings giving only Caskroom/cask/stringsfile.

I want to run this commmand strings -td -3 <file.raw.

How can you install GNU Strings in OSX?

Run

brew install binutils

which install binary tools of GNU, which strings is a part of.


How to make autocorrect to correct "i" to "I" "i" in english is always "I". Is there a preference to autocorrect that auto corrects  small "i" to capital "I" in macOS?

Try System Preferences/Keyboard/Text/  check Capitalize Words Automatically

(Only available starting with Sierra)


Checking for existence of hidden files in AppleScript I can check to see if a file exists using AppleScript. But I am having trouble with hidden files. Is there a special way to do this?

set home_path to (path to home folder as text)
set hiddenFile to home_path & ".test"

tell application "Finder"
    if not (exists file hiddenFile) then
        display dialog ".test does not exist."
    end if
end tell

Replace Finder with System Events:

set home_path to (path to home folder as text)
set hiddenFile to home_path & ".test"

tell application "System Events"
    if exists file hiddenFile then
        display dialog ".test does exist."
    else
        display dialog ".test does not exist."
    end if
end tell

and it works.


iPad won't accept Verizon SIM I have an iPad 4 model #1459(wifi/cellular) tied into AT&T/T-Mobile
 my carrier is Verizon. Is there anyway to change my ipad to Verizon?
I dropped in a Verizon sim card but got an error message "Sim is not Valid". It states insert SIM card from a supported carrier or request that this iPad be unlocked by your carrier and to contact Apple for more info.

Why not work through this checklist from Apple before contacting either the Carrier support or Apple Support?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201415

Since you have a specific error message, you might also jump to one of the last steps first. Back up the iPad and restore it to factory new settings and re-test the SIM card that you think should be active.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201252

I've needed to call Verizon to get a SIM card to be part of a shared pool of data, but any active Verizon SIM should work, so once you rule out the iOS software - re-verify that the SIM you have is truly active.


Is there a way to perform integer division in the iOS Shortcuts app? The Calculate shortcut-let provides floating point operations & Modulus is available as an option. I guess I can cobble something together with rounding (provided in Round Number) but was hoping there was a native div hiding somewhere.

I haven't found any other way than your suggestion with the module round numbers. I personally think it's a good compromise, because you only need one additional module to the calculation module for your routine.

In the routine you define the method to always round down with 0 decimal places.


Getting error code -128 on a late-2015 iMac Late 2015 iMac is rebooting on its own. Only Finder running, OSX 10.11.6. (2) 8GB RAM sticks. Got to catch it in the act today.

After reboot I find
kernel: Previous shutdown cause: -128

That doesn't appear to correspond to anything useful in the old MacOS error codes documentation from 1998:

-128  userCanceledErr         User canceled an operation

http://www.macwizard.com/errors.html

The is a refurb unit, hoping it doesn't need to go back for another refurbishment.

thanks

The precise meaning of the shutdown cause codes is not publicly documented, so linked error about userCanceledErr isn't correct, as these are different list of codes.

The shutdown cause -128 in general is related to the unknown hardware issue (e.g. RAM). If it happens repeatedly, you should take it to the repair.

See also:

Shutdown Cause -128
Are OS X shutdown cause and sleep cause numbers listed/explained anywhere?


Why is ad still briefly playing after a restart? I’m playing this game on an iPhone and, every 3 rounds there’s an Ad playing that you can usualy skip after 5 seconds.

However, it takes shorter to just kill de app when the Ad appears and launch it again than to wait those 5 seconds. + I don’t have to see the ad this way.

However, after the app relaunches, the ad still plays for a second before the app launches normally. It’s like that part was cached or something.

How can iOS allow that? It’s clearly not something the app developer intended, or that the devs could even control.

I should mention though, the ad only plays if I quickly relaunch the app. If I wait a bit before relaunching the app, I no longer see the ad.

iOS has a feature to make "unpausing" apps seem faster when they are not in memory anymore. Your device keeps a screenshot of your app and if it has to be purged from memory (put on pause) it will show the screenshot until the app is ready.
This usually works very well but can look unexpected when you force quit the app which leads to it not taking off at the same point but showing the initial screen again.


Multiuser GNU screen sessions I am attempting to set up multi user screen sessions on Mac OS 10.7.3 and I run into the error Attach attempt with invalid pid(xxx)!.

If set it up as follows:

Initial configuration of system:

Make the proper permisions for the screen command

sudo chmod u+s $(which screen)
sudo mkdir /var/run/screen/
sudo chmod 755 /var/run/screen/

Screen setup

From <user_sharing_screen>

Initialize the screen with specified session name:

screen -S <session_name>

Make the screen multiuser:

C-a :multiuser on
C-a :acladd <user_to_share_with>

From <user_to_share_with> on the same system connect to the shared screen

screen -x <user_sharing_screen>/<session_name>

Then I get the error message Attach attempt with invalid pid(xxx)!

[Update]The screen utility is broken according to a superuser.com post starting from Mac OS X 10.6.

I was able to compile a working version of screen from MacPorts.org. If you're familiar with MacPorts I could provide you with an updated screen x86_64 binary or the source code patch file (changing one line in socket.c).[/Update]

Update2 Add diff of socket.c

--- screen-4.0.3/socket.c   2003-09-08 16:26:50.000000000 +0200
+++ /Users/fluffy/screen-4.0.3/socket.c 2012-03-10 22:58:57.000000000 +0100
@@ -745,7 +745,7 @@
   if (eff_uid == real_uid)
     return kill(pid, 0);
   if (UserContext() > 0)
-    UserReturn(kill(pid, 0));
+    return 0;
   return UserStatus();
 }


Is it possible to bring up or tear down an iOS OnDemand tunnel based on a site accessed by mobile device? Say, if accessing one.example.com should always bring up the tunnel, how can this be expressed with OnDemandRules? Or if two.example.com should always tear down the tunnel?

The Configuration Profile Key Reference states that the latter case could somewhat be handled by using a DomainAction with value NeverConnect that would "never trigger a VPN connection attempt". Which would be, although better than nothing, not exactly what I'm looking for – except that even this does not work as expected (if I've understood the documentation correctly):

<key>OnDemandRules</key>
<array>

  <dict>
    <key>Action</key>
    <string>EvaluateConnection</string>
    <key>ActionParameters</key>
    <array>
      <dict>
        <key>DomainAction</key>
        <string>NeverConnect</string>
        <key>Domains</key>
        <array>
          <string>two.example.com</string>
        </array>
      </dict>
    </array>
  </dict>

  <dict>
    <key>URLStringProbe</key>
    <string>http://a.url.that.returns.a.two.hundred.ok/</string>
    <key>Action</key>
    <string>Connect</string>
  </dict>

</array>

My understanding is that as the OnDemandRules array of dictionaries is evaluated at every connection attempt, and if the device is accessing two.example.com, the first dictionary would match and the tunnel would not be brought up. If the device is accessing another domain, for example one.example.com, the first dictionary would not match, the second dictionary would match, and the tunnel would be brought up. This does not work, however, and the tunnel is never brought up. If the order is switched and the Connect dictionary is on top then the tunnel is always brought up (including when accessing two.example.com).

Is my understanding of the whole thing way off, or is Apple documentation or/and implementation somehow broken? Has anyone come up with OnDemandRules that can be used to selectively bring up or tear down a VPN connection based on the sites the device is accessing?

Edit: The tunnel can be brought up "by-domain" by using the following rules (this assumes that there is no local resolver present):

<key>OnDemandRules</key>
<array>

  <dict>
    <key>Action</key>
    <string>EvaluateConnection</string>
    <key>ActionParameters</key>
    <array>
      <dict>
        <key>RequiredDNSServers</key>
        <array>
          <string>127.0.0.1</string>
        </array>
        <key>DomainAction</key>
        <string>ConnectIfNeeded</string>
        <key>Domains</key>
        <array>
          <string>one.example.com</string>
        </array>
      </dict>
    </array>
    <key>URLStringProbe</key>
    <string>http://a.url.that.returns.a.two.hundred.ok/</string>
  </dict>

  <dict>
    <key>Action</key>
    <string>Disconnect</string>
  </dict>
</array>

This however suffers from the fact that resolving the domain name first fails, causing the initial page load to fail in Safari. After a page reload the page is shown, and the tunnel is brought up. This happens even if instead of 127.0.0.1 a real, working behind-the-tunnel DNS server address is provided. Is there a way to not fail the initial lookup?

Also, the latter dictionary (Disconnect) is never reached, and the tunnel stays up for some time. How can I do the "opposite" of the above and tear down the tunnel for some domain names? The DomainAction of NeverConnect does not do this.

This however suffers from the fact that resolving the domain name first fails, causing the initial page load to fail in Safari. After a page reload the page is shown, and the tunnel is brought up. This happens even if instead of 127.0.0.1 a real, working behind-the-tunnel DNS server address is provided. Is there a way to not fail the initial lookup?

If you are using a real DNS server, the initial lookup will not fail on iOS 9.2. It is a bug introduced from iOS 9.3 and Apple haven't fixed it on iOS 9.3.2 release version.

iOS 9.3 beta VPN On Demand ignores useDNSServers


Where do I put my app's privacy policy and when do I display it? I  am going to submit my first iOS app in the next few days and I am a little unsure about what to do with the privacy policy. Is it enough just to have it on the App Store page or do I need to include it in the app? Do I need to display it to the users from within the app before the register for an account? Finding it hard to find any information on this.

Having a link to the privacy policy in the relevant field in iTunes Connect has been sufficient for me in the past. Obviously having a link in the app may allow users to find it more easily, however just the link in iTunes Connect seems sufficient based solely from personal experience.

Privacy Policy URL (optional)
A URL that links to your company’s privacy policy. Privacy policy URLs are required for all apps that offer auto-renewable or free subscriptions and for apps that are set to Made for Kids. Customers see this URL on their invoice and on the subscription confirmation email they receive. The URL can specify a localized site.
Include the entire URL, including the protocol.
Note that if your app is set to Made for Kids, you need to specify a Privacy policy URL for each localization provided for the app.

Source: iTunes Connect App Properties


Dock and Menu Bar Disappear in OS X El Capitan When in App Window I have a Macbook Pro 11,1 running OS X El Captian. Recently, whenever in an application such as Firefox my menu bar and dock disappear. This is really annoying, as in system preferences both my dock & menu bar are set to not autohide. If I click the desktop, suddenly the dock and menu bar pop back up.

Any suggestions?

It turns out this is a bug with Firefox. These instructions I found fixed the issue.

  In Finder right click on the Firefox app and select “Show Package Contents”
  Navigate to Contents and open “Info.plist” in TextEdit.
  In this file, near the top, there should be a piece of text that says < dict >, underneath this add the following making sure all of the
  text is present.

<key>LSUIPresentationMode</key>
<integer>0</integer>

  Save that file
  Restart Firefox
  Happy browsing again

src: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3096551?tstart=0


Weird .download files keep emerging in Downloads folder It's a while some random files with .download extension are emerging inside my download folder and I can't find what are these and what creates them, even I can't open them.

These files are like this:

And when I get their info it's like this:

There is no running download at the moment.

Apparently, Telegram Desktop generates these files during "failed" searches when using the @gif command. The ones that Telegram generates are easily identified by being named with a series of 18 digits (e.g 532576936841446647.download), usually similar to one another, and always at zero-bytes length.

You can replicate the issue by trying some @gif searches after removing all files and seeing them being generated again.

They're safe to be removed; watch out not to remove the Safari ones, though, unless you'd like to restart your ongoing downloads.


Difference between charging icons - does it mean anything? Sometimes I see this:

instead of this:

is there a difference? do they mean different things? One is filled in dark, the other is more transparent - the battery/charge icon..

Empty battery icon with lightning bolt means the device is plugged-in and using power but the battery is not charging.  Your Mac is using power directly from the cord.

Full battery icon with lightning bolt means the device is plugged-in and the battery is charging.  Your Mac can use power from both the cord and battery.


Lauchd - Run task multiple times between time interval I want to run a script every 15 minutes between 12:00 AM and 4:00 AM.  Is there a way to do that with launchd?

I know you can specify and array of dictionaries using StartCalendarInterval to accomplish this, but I would like to easily be able to change the interval if I so desire.  I was thinking something along the lines of combining StartCalendarInterval with StartInterval, but I don't know how I would specify a stopping time.

The other alternative is to check the time in my script I'm running, but once again, I think I'd rather use launchd to accomplish the task in case I want to add more scripts.

I'm pretty sure this can be done with cron as well (We could put it here for reference if anyone knows how), but I want to stick with launchd since Apple seems to be phasing out cron.

You can print the StartCalendarInterval dictionaries with something like this: for h in {0..4}; do for m in {0,15,30,45}; do echo "<dict><key>Hour</key><integer>$h</integer><key>Minute</key><integer>$m</integer><key>Second</key><integer>0</integer></dict>"; done; done.

You could also run the script every 15 minutes but exit it depending on the time:

h=$(date +%-H)
m=$(date +%-M)
[[ $h -gt 4 || $h -eq 4 && $m -ne 0 ]] && exit

Or run EDITOR=nano crontab -e and add a line like */15 0-4 * * * ~/bin/script.


How to delete app data from iCloud? I had an app called Ulysses classic. I'm not using it anymore, so I want to delete it. I select Delete documents & data under System Preferences → iCloud → Manage, but it didn't work and app remains in the sidebar showing 63 KB (same in my iPhone).

How can I remove it?

Welcome to AppleSE!

What you are seeing in that image is what is backed up in iCloud. You have to delete the app on iPhone by holding down its icon and then pressing the cross which appears when the icons start wiggling.

Then you'd be able to delete its data from iCloud by going to iPhone settings-> Account (First in the list with your name and photo)-> iCloud-> Manage Storage-> Ulysses classic-> Delete documents and data.


How to stop sound output switching to a monitor when it gets plugged in? When I plug my (HDMI) display into my laptop, the sound output switches to it. I can switch it back, but is there any way to stop this automatic switch?

(I've found many people complaining, but no answers. A script which reversibly disabled HMDI audio would be acceptable.)

I have multiple devices I connect to my mac and for some they had the same issue.

The work around (or actual fix) is to open 'Audio MIDI setup' in your Applications>Utility and:

Click + in the lower left corner.
Click Create Aggregate Device
Turn off/on the inputs/outputs sound based on needs.


Date arithmetic formating in Bash I have a script that creates previous week's folders with the week number in the name. Here's how I'm getting the value of the current week number and assigning the previous week's number.

WEEKNBR=$(date +"%V")
PREVWK=$((WEEKNBR-1))

The value of WEEKNBR is in a two digit form eg. "Week05" but the PREVWK would be "WEEK4".
How would  go about subtracting 1 from WEEKNBR and have the result be preceded by 0 when applicable?

You can use date to do the arithmetic for you. With BSD date:

$ /bin/date +%V
03
$ /bin/date -v-1w +%V
02

From man date:

-v   Adjust (i.e., take the current date and display the result of the
     adjustment; not actually set the date) the second, minute, hour,
     month day, week day, month or year according to val.  If val is
     preceded with a plus or minus sign, the date is adjusted forwards
     or backwards according to the remaining string, otherwise the
     relevant part of the date is set.  The date can be adjusted as
     many times as required using these flags.  Flags are processed in
     the order given.

In case you have installed and are using GNU date:

$ date -d '-1week' +%V
02
$ date -d '-1 week' +%V
02
$ date -d 'now - 1 week' +%V
02
$ date -d 'last week' +%V
02


I see thousands of these in my Console log 8/5/11 5:21:37 PM   kernel  FireWire GUID ffffffffffffffff is invalid!

I have a Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo running Snow Leopard. Any suggestions?

This could happen for a number of reasons, one of those could be that you unplugged a FireWire drive while spotlight was indexing it. You may have to reset spotlight indexes to stop the error appearing if this has happened. You can do so with the Terminal command below.

sudo mdutil -E /

Spotlight will need to reindex all your drives which will take some time, allow it to finish indexing each drive before unplugging it and that may solve the problem

See the link below for an article from someone with a similar issue who solved it performing the steps above

http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/209838/the-case-missing-firewire-port


How to display google calendar "reminders" on macOS calendar app? So google recently implemented reminders on both their web application and their mobile applications. This is a nifty little feature that instead of creating events on your calendar it creates these entries which, if not marked as done, will stay there until you complete them.

When you add reminders a new "Reminders" calendar now appear under "My Calendars" list, however, I noticed that the macOS calendar app does not display this calendar, hence, no reminders there.

Is there some way to also see reminders within the calendar app on macOS?

You can use Fluid to make a stand alone Google Calendar app using https://calendar.google.com as URL.


How to get MacBook Leopard installation disks? We bought this computer second hand without the disks. Some of the applications were accidentally removed. The trash was emptied before realizing they were in there.

We are trying to find someone with the disks to recover what was lost.

Where to find the installation disks or if we can use other disks that are more available?

Apple doesn't technically sell operating system software discs anymore. If you call AppleCare will often mail you replacement DVDs for what shipped with the system depending on how old it is (1-800-APL-CARE).

If you are looking for the DVDs for third party software AND you have the valid serial numbers for said programs, sometimes the software manufacturers will send you replacement DVDs.  That is as long as this system is the only one that they will be installed on.

Otherwise you can look on ebay/amazon for slightly out of date software that may well work for your needs.

If you need a very capable free office package you can try http://www.openoffice.org.  There are many very capable open source programs that you can use on the Mac as well: http://opensourcemac.org


Why don't pinned tabs in Chrome save when the browser is closed? In Google Chrome on both Windows and Ubuntu, pinned tabs are saved upon closing and reopened automatically the next time Chrome is started. With OS X, pinned tabs are not saved properly in Chrome and disappear with new browser sessions. Why is this behavior different and how can I get my pinned tabs to save?

I'm not an expert on OS X, but it seems that if you use the red 'x' to close the window, the application itself is not closed, only that window of the application. If you were to use Command + Q or quit via the application menu, the pins do save as expected.


Can't see imported pictures on my iPhone I copied the pictures from my USB to the 100APPLE folder where my pictures are. I copied them succesfully, but I cannot see the pictures on my iphone.

Why is this and how can I fix it?

You haven't imported them—just copied them into the folder. The Photos app doesn't know that the photos are there. You need to import them properly, through iTunes or saving them manually on the device.


How to change the default login account on a NAS Share I have a Synology NAS which is connecting with the NAS admin account when I log into my Mac. I would like to change the account to a user account. I have tried to disconnect and reconnect with the user account but reverts tot he admin account when I restart my system. How can I change the default login account when connecting to a NAS share via SMB.

Login mounts are stored as startup items, so you need to do the following:

Open System Preferences
Select Users & Groups
click on the "Login Items" tab
find your NAS login in the list, select it and
delete it with the '-' button
If your NAS admin SW has a method for setting an automount, use that, and ignore the following
Mount your NAS volume
In the Finder select the mounted volume (or a folder on that volume)
Drag the volume icon into the Login Items list (in system preferences)
Log out & log back in to test


Link tables for auto new rows - Numbers Is there a way I can "link" tables in Numbers so that when rows are added to the "master" table that the identical rows and containing data are added in a linked table? I know I can "link" cells using Sheet1::Table 1::A1 but this doesn't work for new rows added to Sheet1::Table 1.

My application is that I have a "master" customer database sheet and I want to make an auto-updating filtered table from this "master" table in new tabs. To the best of my knowledge, this requires a new linked table that has a filter applied.

Numbers as a spreadsheet operates very well for its intended design, calculating, storing and displaying (in a pretty way) tabulated data.  However many people try to use spreadsheets as databases.  When emulating a relational database, of sorts, using a spreadsheet is clunky at best.

Making links to individual cells in different tables on different sheets is easy, but filtering entire rows remotely on a separate table is quite another task.

Databases use a unique ID in so as to reference data between tables.  You can use this to do so with formulas in Excel and Numbers but to automate this process may require scripting.  (In the case of Excel, VBA.  Numbers can be scripted with Applescript.)  iWork Automation has several tutorials and examples on how to script Numbers.

What I have used to good success in referencing data from a master sheet or table is the following formula:

Index ( Match ())

There is a plethora of information on the Internet as to how to use this formula, and there are many ways to implement it.  Getting the Nth row based on criteria without a filter is tricky, however.

This answer for Excel VBA on Stackoverflow may be a start that can be used as a base (with proper syntax formatting of course) for an AppleScript service that may work.


Which presentation remote controls are OS X compatible with Powerpoint? I'm looking for a remote control to use for controlling a Powerpoint presentation, and want it to be compatible and reliable w/ OS X.  Any recommendations on one that functions well with Powerpoint?

Logitech's R800 remote works. They aren't officially supported, but they allow you to flick back and forward between slides.


How to enlarge the status bar font size? Can the status bar font be enlarged? Is this size hard-wired and unique? Is there any other (configurable) font size anywhere which could correspond to this one on user space?

Some time ago, I asked how to configure the status bar (How to configure the status bar?). The answer was that it couldn't be done. I sent that as a feature request to Apple. They didn't answer (of course) so I thought that, maybe, that font could be linked to some other one (for instance, though this is not the case to the one on View Optionson the Finder.

There is actually an easy fix for this, as it turns out.

Abilitynet.org has a nice clear description at https://mcmw.abilitynet.org.uk/apple-os-x-10-10-yosemite-making-text-larger/

I didn't discover that source until after I'd called Apple Support, where I was given the same very simple answer, which is:

On the Apple Menu, go to System Preferences.  In System Preferences, go to Displays.  Change from Default to Scaled, then click the box to the left of the Default box to choose larger font or gigantic font.  (Unfortunately, the Scaled display options are not available with a slider, which would have been perfect as then you could choose exactly the size that works best for you.  However, the next size up from Default will probably work well for almost anyone who's been struggling to read the menu bar.)

Making this change not only fixes the visibility of the menu bar, but also carries over to other application menus.  For example, I use WORD, and was having to peer at my 27-inch screen from 2 inches away to see where to navigate the cursor in order to change the font size for my document.  In Google, if I wanted to read an url, I had to copy and paste it into WORD, then zoom the text display. It was VERY frustrating, and now all of that's just a bad dream.

((As an aside, as a "newbie" to the Apple world, this was my first contact with Apple Support and they earned top marks from me for response time, courtesy, and giving me precisely the info I needed.  Thank you Apple Support!)


How do I get Messages on OS X to text to a phone number? I recently rebooted an OS X machine on which I had an ongoing conversation in Messages via text with a phone number on a non-iOS phone. Now, though I am able to continue sending texts from Messages on iOS to exactly the same number, I can no longer send texts to that number from Messages on OS X, instead messages fail to send, the two conversations are no longer synced between OS X and iOS, and I'm told that the "phone number is not registered with iMessage".

How do I get OS X Messages to remember that I can, in fact, text that number?

Check "Text Message forwarding" under phone Settings > Messages > Text. This must be on (and your iOS device and OS X machine must be on the same network) for text messaging from Messages on OS X to work.

(It's possible this was disabled disabled for his Mac after a reboot.)


How can I stream tv shows on my iPhone 5s (without downloading)? I've looked everywhere for an answer to my question but I can't seem to find one:

I'm trying to watch a tv show on my iPhone 5s that I bought on my account via the computer. However, the only way it lets me watch them by downloading the episodes, and I want to just stream them on my iPhone because downloads use too much data. How do I fix this problem? Is it possible to stream tv shows on your iPhone?

I'm sure there is an answer for stuff downloaded from iTunes, but since you didn't specify, then the standard solution you are looking for is PLEX MEDIA SERVER -- https://plex.tv.

They offer a Plex Pass, which you have to pay for in order to receive extra features, but I believe the free version has everything you need.

Setup the media server on your home computer.  You can even setup a NAT port on your router to access it externally, and it can either support authentication via Plex Pass or there is a hackish script somewhere on Github that allows authentication without having to purchase a Plex Pass subscription.

Then download the app on your smart phone, and you will be able to stream all of your downloaded movies that you are sharing from your Plex Media Server.  I do this all the time, and it works perfectly.  It supports transcoding on-the-fly, so you never have to worry about buffering and such.

XBMC, which is called something else now, is also an alternative, as well as OpenElec.  I've done my research though, and Plex is the definitely the most full-featured of them all.

The setup is even simpler if you only plan to watch on your own wireless network and not over the Internet.  Your mobile app (or smart TV) can find the server on its own, and it's pretty much set it and forget it.

There are multiple apps that you can download for Plex as well that integrate with Couch Potato, Sickbeard, etc.  I do this all the time for my kids in the morning when I'm making their breakfast and they want to watch something that's not OnDemand or DVR.  I just have all of their favorite shows downloaded to a folder on a Mac Mini running Plex Media Server.

I fire up the app on the iPad and get a few minutes of morning peace and quiet while getting breakfast ready.  It's pretty much perfect in all aspects.

Also, to answer your question in regards to using data, if you stream over your wireless network, you will not use any additional mobile data, as long as your mobile device is connected to WiFi.

I know your question is regarding watching on your mobile device, but here's some additional helpful info for other users:

It should be known, that not all smart TV apps offer full integration with the free version of Plex.  For instance, my parents Samsung smart TV has full Plex app integration, no problem (as does Google Chromecast).  However, my Vizio smart TV requires a Plex Pass subscription in order for the app to even work at all.


Apps rearrange themselves after iPhone restart Occasionally, after i do a forced reboot on my iphone (holding power and home) all the apps rearrange themselves to alphabetical order and it removes all my folders. Is there a way to fix this?
I have a jailbroken iPhone 3gs 4.1.2

Since your phone is jailbroken, there's no telling what's installed on the phone, so getting help for the issue may be problematic.

That said, there is an option in Settings to reset your Home Screen, which is what you're seeing. My bet is there's a flag somewhere that does that when the phone is reset.


Moving files from Desktop to another folder and vice versa using AppleScript (and bash inside of Applescript) inside Automator I need to move files from my desktop to a folder ~/Documents/Desktop migration and I have tried to code a script which will do that. Unfortunately, (and the reason why I'm asking here) it doesn't work.

I am using a service (so that I can go to any application's menu bar > Services > (insert name of service here) ) and need to store the variable data, so I think automator is suited for the job, and I'm using AppleScript and Terminal to move.

What doesn't work is it only transfers files to the desktop from the Desktop Migration folder and not back from the desktop to the Desktop Migration folder, so how can I achieve this?

What I've come up with so far:

on run {input, parameters}
    set theQuery to input
    if theQuery = 1 then
        do shell script "mv ~/Desktop/* ~/Documents/Desktop\\ migration"
        set output to 0
        return output
    else if theQuery = 0 then
        do shell script "mv ~/Documents/Desktop\\ migration/* ~/Desktop"
        set output to 1
        return output
    end if
end run

Thanks!

So it looks like you'er trying to set a flag that toggles each time the Service runs, and there is more than one way to accomplish this.

In this example, I created an Automator Service named Test Service, with the settings shown in the image below, and added a Run Shell Script action, as this is all you should need to accomplish the task since you were using a do shell script AppleScript command anyway to do the work.

As presently coded, each time the Service runs it says what the flag is set to, 0 or 1, and sets it to the opposite. You'd of course remove the say... commands replacing them with the code you want to run based on the setting of the flag.

#!/bin/bash

file="$HOME/Library/Services/Test Service.workflow"

flag="$(xattr -l "$file" | awk '/com.TestService.flag/{print $2}')"

if [[ $flag -eq 0 ]]; then
    # Do something...

    say "flag is currently set to 0, setting flag to 1"

        # Set flag to 1.
    xattr -w com.TestService.flag 1 "$file"
else
    # Do something else...

    say "flag is currently set to 1, setting flag to 0"

        # Set flag to 0.
    xattr -w com.TestService.flag 0 "$file"
fi

This uses xattr to set an extended attribute on the Automator's Service .workflow file and it is this that is read each time and changed each time the Service is run and this is the flag to determine which branch of the if statement runs in the script.

You can either manually set the com.TestService.flag using xattr in Terminal before you run the saved Automator's Service so as to have the extended attribute applied to is .workflow file or if you just run the saved Automator's Service the first time is will set it to 1 as it reads the empty flag variable the first time as being equal to 0.

The following output from Terminal shows the extended attributes of the Automator's Service .workflow file when it was first saved, it just had the com.apple.FinderInfo attribute set, and then the Service was run a couple of times to show that the com.TestService.flag attribute was set and changed each time the Service was run. (I manually ran the xattr command before and then in-between each time I ran the Service to have this output to show.)

$ xattr -l "$HOME/Library/Services/Test Service.workflow"
com.apple.FinderInfo:
00000000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000010  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000020
$ xattr -l "$HOME/Library/Services/Test Service.workflow"
com.apple.FinderInfo:
00000000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000010  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000020
com.TestService.flag: 1
$ xattr -l "$HOME/Library/Services/Test Service.workflow"
com.apple.FinderInfo:
00000000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000010  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000020
com.TestService.flag: 0
$

Obviously you can change the name of the flag from com.TestService.flag to whatever you'd like however remember to change it in the script in all three places, in the awk command and in each xattr command in each branch of the if statement. Also change the name of the file variable as appropriate for the actual name of your Automator Service .workflow file.


Seeing discoveryd error: Basic DNSResolver Return Code is 9 and we are treating it as an error! Seeing this repeated pretty frequently in the Console logs for on my Macbook Pro running 10.10:

10/24/14 9:59:04.175 AM discoveryd[57]: Basic DNSResolver  Return Code is 9 and we are treating it as an error!

Any ideas why?

This seems to do the trick although not a perfect solution my any means...

Primary DNS is the local machine -- Yosemite Server Running --
Other DNS are Google, OpenDNS, ISP

DHCP on the server... all other DHCP shut-off


How can I diagnose an iPad that seems super slow to recharge? I've had my iPad 1 for almost a year now.  For the past few months it has been charging EXTREMELY slowly.

Last night I plugged it in with 54% remaining on the battery life.  This morning it is only at 81%.  It charged for 17 hours!  Is this normal?  The battery seems to last just about as long as it used to (once it's finally charged).

I am using the standard wall charger.  I have also tried using my friend's charger and had the same result.  Any suggestions?

Be sure you are using an iPad charger. If you are using a standard USB charger or an iPhone/iPod charger then it will take a very long time to charge.


What's the right way to backups photos when using iPhoto? I have a folder called My-Photos where I have all my family photos.

Now I opened iPhoto app and import all those photos. Then I have the photo file in 2 places: My-Photos folder which I have created and in user/images/iPhoto Library which is the location where iPhoto storage all the information.

My question is. which folder should I backup to be sure that the originas photos are backup?

If the answer is that I have to backup user/images/iPhoto Library then my question is which folder, because there are many folders in it... and some of them have a huge size.

Your iPhoto Library is contained within a database file on your computer. This file is located here:

/Users/(yourusername)/Pictures/iPhoto Library.photolibrary

That is the file (or technically, package file) that you will want to ensure is backed up to backup your iPhoto pictures.

As mentioned previously in comments, I recommend that you backup your entire hard drive instead of just your pictures. You can use a tool like Time Machine to backup to an external hard drive, or a service like CrashPlan to backup to the cloud.


Yosemite gray screen no startup keys working I restarted my macbook pro this morning and it started up with a chime and now is stuck on the grey screen. I have tries holding any different key combinations, none of them work, except resetting the pram, which does cause the computer to restart.

I have tried option, r, s, d, command shift v, command v, shift (before and after the chime), command option d r.

FYI I have been running yosemitr for a while with no problems. I shut my computer last night and it was working fine. This happened when I turned it on today.

Disconnect everything from the Mac and then power it off.

Perform recovery according to these steps.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT4718

If that fails, then you may need support from Apple to determine the version of OS X that shipped with the Mac so you can restore that and start over/restore from a backup once the hardware is known to work. Or it needs a repair for hardware issues.


How to get the Column Browser in iTunes 11 on the left side? In iTunes 10, I had the Column Browser (the list of Artists/Albums) going down the left side of the main iTunes window.  With the install of iTunes 11, it is back to the top.

I tried going View>Column Browser>.... and the option is not there, and its not in the preferences either. Anyone see a way to get it back on the left side?

You cannot bring back the left-side column browser. It is not possible in iTunes 11. The closest approximation I have found is to go to "Artists" view and enable the Sidebar (under the View menu). You can also downgrade to iTunes 10, depending on your system but that can present its own problems.


Cannot delete windows partition from mac I want to remove Windows from Mac and the I know the simple way is through the Boot Camp Assistant. But that doesn't work for me as follows:

However, when I try to merge the partition of windows through disk utility, all buttons are inactive, and I cannot press either '-' or 'option' button, like follows:

Then, I try to reinstall a new Mac osX from the internet by pressing and holding the [command]+[alt]+[R] when starting the computer, and it doesn't work either. I am informed that the system cannot be installed in either the BOOTCAMP partition or Untitled partition since they are not GUID partition table format.

I am a newer to Mac and I just want to delete the Windows partition and add the space back to my osX partition. I wonder what should I do next?

Thanks for help!

First of all, try both repair disk (if grayed, then verify), and repair disk permissions. If you are still unable, boot to single-user mode (Command +S  on boot) and type in the following.

/sbin/fsck -fy

Press enter, then type reboot.

If it still does not work, then do the following, but be sure to backup:

Hold Command +R  on boot to start Recovery mode, select disk utility and do it from there. If it is grayed out, select the partition scheme to 1 (or 2 if you need Untitled)

Warning: There have been reports that setting the partition scheme to 1 or 2 can erase all your data. Be sure to backup before attempting to do this.


Revoke the permission to run an application from an unidentified developer Few weeks ago I've installed a CLI application from Homebrew that wasn't signed or notarised (what's Apple calls from an "unidentified developer").

To run this application I've followed the well know steps from Apple and called it a day.

Now I want to revoke this exception to be able to test the new version of the same CLI application that will come signed and notarised by the developer.

I've tried to follow the instruction from posts that suggest the change Gatekeeper rules using spctl like this question without success.

It looks like the rules managed using spctl are not involved in this context, because I've tried to do:

$ spctl --reset-default

$ spctl --list > list.before.txt

and then I've authorised the app to run using System Preferences > Security & Privacy > 'Allow'

$ spctl --list > list.after.txt

and after run a compare between the two:

$ diff list.before.txt list.after.txt
(no differences)

The CLI app continue to run no matter what I do with the spctl utility.

How can I revert the permission to run to this unidentified developer's CLI app?

The permission is actually persisted by removing a specific attribute from the file's metadata.

You mentioned in comments that you were having this problem with jtool from Homebrew Cask. When you install that program, you'll see the attributes listed by running:

xattr -l /usr/local/bin/jtool

It will display something like this:

com.apple.quarantine: 0291;5df6a9fa;Homebrew\x20Cask;1E71AF5A-2719-340C-9A49-DDB4D10769BE

You can remove that attribute with the following command:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /usr/local/bin/jtool

Now you won't get the prompt.

Add the attribute again to restore the prompt:

xattr -w com.apple.quarantine "0291;5df6a9fa;Homebrew\x20Cask;1E71AF5A-2719-340C-9A49-DDB4D10769BE" /usr/local/bin/jtool


How can I rebind Caps lock to delete/backspace? I tried using DoubleCommand, but it doesn't let you hold down caps lock, and pressing it causes caps lock light to be enabled/disabled. Ideally I want caps lock to never be enabled and for the key to behave exactly as though it were the delete key.

Another problem that DoubleCommand has is that every second press just toggles the light, and doesn't delete a character.

You may want to try Seil (formerly PCKeyboardHack).
I use it to bind Caps Lock to Right-Ctrl (not plain Ctrl), so that I can bind Caps Lock to Meta in Emacs (while Ctrl remains Ctrl, and other keys are kept to the usual behavior).


When Does High Sierra Reach EOL/EOS? I recently confirmed that Apple has dropped support for my mid-2010 MacBook Pro (i.e., I cannot upgrade to Mojave.)

Does anyone know when Apple will drop support for High Sierra? I'd like to know how long I have to come up with a solution before my MBP is exposed to security vulnerabilities.

From comments...

Best guess, another 3 years.
No-one really knows, but they tend to keep updating the last 3 versions. They claim 5 years active, 5 years passive support for any device, so another 3 years would exceed that.

MacSales supported OS list would seem to corroborate that - Mac OS Support Guide


Music app on Catalina gets stuck I have a weird problem with the Music app on Catalina. When I want to play a playlist, sometimes it only plays one song and then it stops. The "Up Next" list has other songs listed but the app doesn't play anything, and even when I press play still doesn't play anything. It somehow gets stuck. Sometimes when I play with the Repeat button it gets fixed temporarily but then it comes back again after a while. This is a new issue I have after upgrading to Catalina. Any ideas?

Try this, which worked for my colleague while he also had a similar kind of issue after upgrading macOS to Catalina:

Move your music out of the Music folder and delete everything left in it.
go to ~/Library and remove any folders that have Music or iTunes in the name
go to ~/Library/Caches and delete any folders with Music or iTunes in the name
Reboot
Put your music folders back where you had them before. You may need to Import your music again to let the Music app organize them in a way that makes sense to it

After doing this, it should fix your issue.


DST adjustment error in iOS 7 Weather app? Is anybody seeing a DST adjustment error on their Weather app?
The time adjusted just fine (see top), but the times for other cities in my time zone (like Chamonix and Zermatt) have not been updated. Is this a bug (or a feature) or have I missed something?

iPhone 5, iOS 7.0.3, all location services for system services are off (switching on the "setting time zone" option makes no difference).

Well, this morning everything was sorted and correct!
I did not do anything special, but my problem is solved...
Bjorn


Can I change the default music player app on my iPhone? If so, how? I want to change the default music app on my iPhone from Music to Spotify. Is this possible?  My first guess is that I would have to jailbreak my phone. Is there anyway to do it without jailbreaking?

Uninstall the default music app in iOS 11.
Restart. voila.

My headphone control now works with wynk music app.
control center also shows wynk music.


Torrent clients for Mac other than uTorrent Can someone recommend a good torrent client for the Mac, other than uTorrent?

[The only problem I have with uTorrent is that occasionally it doesn't respect the upload limit. This is a known issue, and no setting seems to fix it in my case.]

I am looking for these features:

Ability to select files to download (in case of multi-file torrent) BEFORE the download begins
Show transfer rates in the dock icon
Assign relative priorities to files within a torrent
Good, clean UI (optional)
No bloatware/adware like a built in media player, ads, yahoo-search-plugins, etc (optional)

I highly recommend the open source client Transmission.

Features:

  The Mac OS X interface is written in Objective-C
  Shows transfer rates in the dock icon
  Uses Growl notifications and dock badging to keep you informed.
  Download/Upload Prioritization

Other:

  Doesn't bundle toolbars, pop-up/flash ads, social tools, or any other useless crap.
  It doesn't hold some feaures back for a payware version.
  Its source code is available for anyone to review.
  Doesn't track users, and their website/forums have no third-party ads or analytics.

I've been using Transmission for many years and can't imagine using anything else.


Apps crashing on one user only Random apps are crashing as soon as they open, such as Acrobat, Word, Distiller and a few other smaller apps. I tried opening the apps on a 2nd user account and they open fine. I have also tried deleting my preferences via ▸ Users ▸ imac ▸ Library ▸ Preferences, but that has not helped.

This is getting very irritating!

I'm running Yosemite on an iMac.

Since Mountain Lion, OS X is also caching preferences, what I personally think is an bad idea. :) It's like "Oh we made the Library folder visible again since Lion, let's make another hurdle against over-intelligent users deleting files and configuring on their own so we do not need to support their problems and to protect us!"-idea. :)

Back to topic. :)

On your path to delete the dark side app preferences, did you try:

defaults delete -app <YOURAPPNAME>

in Terminal.app? For instance, for deleting even the cached preferences of Apple Mail, you would invoke

defaults delete -app Mail

That resets all the preferences for Apple Mail and puts default values in the prefs file.

If you did, then try to load the default prefs you created:

defaults read -app <YOURAPPNAME>

BEFORE that, you could do displaying the prefs file for debugging that everything is ok:

defaults read -app <YOURAPPNAME>

If you see some binary trash, you can be sure the problem is there...


New 2013 MacBook Air connects to routers everywhere but home, older MacBooks connect fine A different situation from what most people experience on here: A new Air will not connect to the Internet via our home router (though other MBs will) and the Air will connect to the Internet via other routers at other locations.

We bought my mother a new 13" MacBook Air (so: purchased May 2014). From the start, it's had issues connecting to our LAN. Other computers, including my 2011 MacBook Pro, connect fine.

I've tried multiple times running the Wireless Diagnostics and connection wizards that come with the Air, which offer no help. The Air also can connect to the router via Ethernet and gets the Internet connection, but obviously we don't want to do that all the time.
My mother brought her Air to her work today and connected to that Wifi network without issue.

At home, our computers connected to the Internet run an IP address in the range of 173.195.x.x. Hers runs at 166.x.x.x whenever it doesn't connect properly, but if I renew the DHCP lease a couple times and keep switching settings randomly then I can connect the Air to the network until the Air sleeps. It's an unreliable method.

Specifically, the Air has this IP address but does not say this address is self-assigned. It also does not tell me that I 'won't be able to connect the Internet'.

My suspicion is currently with the router. It's about 3.5+ years old at this point, a Netgear WND3400 N600. I think it may just be that it's a wireless-n and the Air is wireless-ac, but the Air should be backwards-compatible.

I haven't updated the firmware on the router, I'm about to do so now.

Does anyone have any ideas for me to try out?

Lets try to manually connect to your Network

In Terminal copy paste following:

To turn On MBA wifi

networksetup -setairportpower en0 on

Find networks (displays the list of networks

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport scan

Connect

networksetup -setairportnetwork en0 WIFI_SSID_I_WANT_TO_JOIN WIFI_PASSWORD

You can skip 1 and 2 if you already know the information


Shared Google Calendars are not synced to iOS Calendars In Google Calendar I have a shared calendar called "Public Holidays". I can see all events of this calendar in Google Calendar and macOS Calendar app:

On iOS 10, I imported the Google account with all calendars. I can see the "Public Holidays" calendar in iOS calendars list. I don't see any events of the "Public Holidays" calendar in iOS calendar view and neither in the calendar widget.

I deselect shared calendars here https://calendar.google.com/calendar/syncselect and saved the settings. Then I select them and save it again and now it works.


Lion adding an empty desktop when full-screening an application I've noticed the following:

I have 1 desktop and a couple of applications open

I drag an application to a new desktop (2 in this case)

I 'full screen' both applications
A blank desktop is automatically added before both fullscreen apps.

Anybody know a way to stop it from doing this?

Full-screening an application puts that application on a new "desktop" to the right of the desktop it was on.  You started with Safari on desktop 2 and Sparrow on desktop 3 and fullscreened both, which left desktop 2 and 3 blank (they don't get closed just because they are blank) and the fullscreened apps to the right of where they were.

If you don't want the blanks, just fullscreen from your original desktop directly.

This is working the way it should as far as I can see.


How do you rip a VCD on a Mac? What's the most popular way of ripping a VCD to an .m4v file? I also need to pick a particular audio track (Chinese vs. English).

Handbrake is a nice program that you can use to convert videos and DVDs. Since VCDs are nothing more than mpeg files (with .dat) extension, you can easily use Handbrake to transcode them to m4v.

Handbrake also allows you to select which tracks you want to keep, although if each track is its own file, you may need to use MP4Box to merge them together.

Handbrake is available at http://handbrake.fr, and MP4Box can be downloaded from http://gpac.wp.mines-telecom.fr/downloads/.


rm does not support long-form --recursive, --force on Mac? This seems crazy, but I just checked in a build script that switched from rm -rf to rm --recursive --force, since it would be more readable. And a collaborator who uses a Mac is reporting this breaks. When I ask him to run rm --help, he gets

5gt2:html-build annevk$ rm --help
rm: illegal option -- -
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file

5gt2:html-build annevk$ rm --force
rm: illegal option -- -
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file

This seems crazy to me that such a basic thing would not be supported across different *nixes. Does anyone have a workaround, or at least an explanation?

OSX is Unix and uses the BSD tools. The extended names are a GNU extension.

You just need to use the standard parameters e.g. -r -f
(These are in the POSIX standard)

The error is in the build file using non standard Unix commands


How to prevent MacBook Pro from sleeping with turned off external display? I have two displays connected to my MacBook Pro Retina 2015, running 10.10. It is connected to power, so it will not sleep once I close the lid.

However, if I am doing long during calculations over night I want to power off the external displays. This is not possible, since as soon as I shut down the last display the system stops to calculations, compression tasks etc.

Is there a way to keep OS X awake on a power book with a closed lid and turned off displays while connected to power?

Move all windows from your external displays to the mbp's display
Remove your display connector/s
Voila, It works!

If it doesnt work, Try Resetting the SMC and PRAM/NVRAM. Google about how to do that..


Replacing Retina Display with non-Retina Display? My retina display in MacBook pro 2013 model broke. Part Number: 661-8153. Apple store said it will cost me $430 to get it replaced. I don't want to spend $430 on this old MacBook pro. What are my options? Can I instead put 2012 non-retina display or any other display to it which will cost me less? Right now, I removed the display assembly and connected it to an external monitor via HDMI port and using it like a desktop.

No, you cannot unfortunately do that. The rest of the graphics hardware inside the MacBook Pro (up to and including the cables) are meant for that Retina display. You cannot just replace it with a non-Retina display (unless you connect it via the external ports with for example HDMI).


Install new apps on iPad 1st (first) generation with max iOS 5.1.1 As a Mac hardware lover, I bought an old 64 GB iPad 1 with iOS 5.1.1 on it. Data wiped.

Nice hardware, but ended up stock with no new application not being iOS 6, iOS 7 or more in requirement.

Thought I would have to jaillbreak it to have new apps.

Is there any other way?

To install new apps really requiring iOS6+, I don't know.

But after a lot of search I found:

You install iTunes if you haven't already.
You pair your hardware with an Apple account, again if you haven't done already.
You find apps with older version of it existing and working on iOS 5.1.1.
You associate it (get it, download it) to your account on iTunes on Mac or PC.
You find the same app on the older hardware (iPad 1 iOS 5.1.1).
Instead of download, you will see Install. Select Install.
A popup will appear offering downloading older version of the app. Click Yes.
Enjoy your new old 5.1.1 compatible app.

Would love app update for older iOS by developers but don't expect it.


ITunes Connect Review of an app with an incompatible API I have a global strategic problem which resembles a philosophic issue (well, sort of ;-)).

I have an app interacting via REST/JSON with a django webserver. The web [front|back]end is rapidly and gradually evolving, but, in case of severe changes, we introduced an in-app mechanism to manage API breakages (a popup is presented to the user, inviting him/her to install the updated app from the store).

What I never thought about before is how to manage the review process, considering that, if I upgrade the backend just for the purpose of the review process:

old applications won't be able to speak the new API language;
they will be presented with the upgrade message without being actually able to find it on the store;
people will see the upgraded frontend before being able to interact with their own app with it.

The only thing that came to my mind is to let the existing users suffer from this change until the moment in which they will be able to download the new version.

How would you handle this empasse?

Just in case any other person should look for a solution to a similar problem: made through Apple's reviewing process through the setup of a /2.0 subdomain for the backend.

Every old user is still pointing to the old url and, whenever the switch is ready, we will make the old uri point to the new backend (so that we will have two simultaneous groups of URIs address the same backend).

All the old applications will still point to the old URI and get the "Invite to upgrade" message. When upgraded, all the applications will point to the /2.0 subdomain.

From a web browser people will still be able to use the old URL and get served by the new backend.


How to enable TCP/IP for Postgres on OS X 10.7 Server? The default configuration in /var/pgsql/postgresql.conf says that listen_addresses defaults to localhost, but it doesn't let me connect over port 5432.  Connecting (as root, using sudo) over a Unix domain socket works fine, but I need to enable network connections.

I tried uncommenting the listen_addresses = 'localhost' line (to make it explicit), and restarting the Postgres process (with sudo serveradmin stop postgres, sudo serveradmin start postgres), but that didn't help.

The Postgres process started by "serveradmin" has command-line arguments added by /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postgresql.postgres.plist.  The default includes -c listen_addresses=, which turns off TCP/IP.

Changing it to listen_addresses=localhost, and restarting Postgres, solved the problem.  (I suppose I could probably also remove the -c argument entirely.)

(One comment I found somewhere suggested that in 10.8 Server, the file you need to edit is /Library/Server/PostgreSQL/Config/org.postgresql.postgres.plist, but I haven't upgraded to 10.8 yet so I can't confirm this.)