Making Microsoft Office Reminders get your attention Does anyone know how to have Office reminders pop up in front of any application? Now, if I'm working on something, they silently pop up in the background.

It's one of the few features I miss from Outlook on windows, and I keep missing appointments.

It's driving me nuts (not to mention generating hate from colleagues whose meetings I miss).

Or should I just junk Office reminders, and use another application?

If you REALLY want to keep using Office you could sync office with reminders and iCal. But i'd recommend using iCal for this or if you're on office 2011 use the calendar in outlook instead of the reminder app.


Can Scrivener 2 import a TeX file? I've found the way to publish a TeX document with Scrivener 2.

Now I'm curious that whether Scrivener 2 has a capability of importing a LaTeX file and establishing a Scrivener style document structure or not.

I'm asking it because I'm writing a paper with other people who are not using Scrivener.

Scrivener 2 does import LaTeX files as RTF (see dialog box below).

I imported a sample LaTeX file into a Scrivener project, and the result was test-latex.scriv. See below.


Formatting picture in a mail message When writing an email, I want the picture I insert to be formatted (add shadow or border for example). How to do this ?

When right-clicking the picture, I only have basic options:

I found nothing more when looking in the menus.
Is this then even possible?

Mail.app just attaches pictures as they are. If you want to edit the picture, you need specific software for this. iPhoto and Preview provide some basic image editing capabilities. For more functionality you may want to look at Skitch or one of the many offerings in the App Store.


How to fix the iPad home screen being dark purple? My iPad Mini's home screen is really dark and I think it's because of something I have done.

I have removed emoji keyboard as I thought that was causing it but the darkness still remains.

brightness

It sounds like you have your brightness turned down.

To change your screen brightness, tap Settings > Display & Brightness and drag the slider to the right or left.

See: support.apple.com brightness


Reeder (RSS App from App Store) uses 60 GB of disk space. How do I clean this up? > pwd
/Users/seline/Library/Containers/com.reederapp.rkit2.mac/Data/Library/Application Support/Reeder/rkit
> du -sh * | gsort -h
8.0K    rkit-edit.db
 28K    rkit-edit.db-wal
 32K    rkit-data.db-shm
 32K    rkit-edit.db-shm
 32K    rkit.db-shm
1000K   icons
 55M    rkit.db
 69M    rkit-data.db
 19G    rkit-data.db-wal
 37G    rkit.db-wal

> du -sh .
 58G    .
> pwd
/Users/seline/Library/Containers/com.reederapp.rkit2.mac/Data

I subscribe to about 200 feeds, lots of Imgur feeds with pictures and videos.

Is this behavior normal? How do I clean this up?

Reeder's cache can get cleared in its preferences:

Unlike the iOS version you can't limit the number of articles in the cache though.


Flashing Folder on Mac Pro 1,1 after trying to Bootcamp So I bought a Mac 1,1 and it runs great, until I tried to bootcamp it the other day with an old windows HDD i had. I downloaded windows, and tried to bootcamp it and now it will not boot the Mac HDD, but if I hold option on boot the HDD shows up and then i can boot into it. I am on OSX Lion.

You probably killed the boot sector for the OS X.

Use the CMD-R to restore the OSX.


How to resize Safari address bar on macOS Sierra or newer? It seems that the Safari address bar width is locked to a maximum size that may make some URL impossible to read, especially if the domain part is longer, like in many intranets, or when the the of the URL is longer and when it  contains essential information near the end.

I fount no way to change the width of the bar using Customize Toolbar option.
I am using Safari 11 on macOS 10.13 (high-sierra) but I am pretty sure that the same problem would apply for macOS 10.12 (Sierra).

Right-click on an empty area at the top of Safari’s window and select Customize Toolbar.
You’ll see two “flexible spaces” on each side of the URL bar. 2 tranparent boxes.
Remove these boxes (by dragging them out of the toolbar), and you should wind up with a larger URL entry area.


How can I remove unwanted preinstalled apps from macOS? In macOS there are a lot of pre-installed bloatware applications. I know that I will never use them. Examples of such apps are: Chess, Stocks, Messages, TV and so on.
While some of them may not take up much disk space, they are cluttering the application list and Launchpad menu, so I wanted to get rid of them.
When I tried to delete such applications, I got an error saying that I have no permission to do it. So is it possible to remove apple bloatware from macOS?
There was the same question in 2011 and in 2012. They contains info that is no more actual. This question is an update for 2021. I am asking about macOS v10.15.7 (Catalina) or later.

On macOS 10.15.7 Catalina I needed to remount root volume as read-write first:
sudo mount -u -o rw /

Then I made a deletion with:
cd /System/Applications/
sudo rm -rf Chess.app TV.app ...


Charging a USB type-c equipped MacBook Pro with a non-Mac charger - would it harm the battery? I've realised that I'm able to charge my new USB type-c ported MacBook Pro using an iPad charger (with a 3rd party cable) and also I can use my old Google Nexus 5X fast charger which has USB type-c port too.

Using these charges keep my laptops battery on level - no charge, no discharge.

My question is, if I keep using them, would they harm the battery?

Update:
+ 1 question: What's the case when my power supply is just below the amount required by the system? I mean, the slowly gets depleted. Could this extend battery life by reducing cycle count?

There are two questions here:

Will using a non Apple USB-C charger harm the computer/battery?

No, as long as the charger is from a reputable supplier there is no reason to expect any physical harm from using other brands of charger, power is power, and the MacBook will only accept the amount of power it needs to fulfil it's need.

Will keeping my battery topped up at all times, no charing/discharging harm the computer/battery?

Yes and no, this is a particularly complex subject, but sufficed to say your battery like a person needs to remain active to be healthy, but equally overdoing it is going to wear it out prematurely.

So your device has a rated number of battery cycles, typically about 1,000 on modern devices. A cycle is one full discharge and recharge in however many little bits that takes, so limiting how much you discharge and recharge the device can prolong the life.

However the battery needs to remain active, and keeping it fully charged all the time can do harm as it's constantly keeping the battery topped up...

There is a really good article from Apple which I don't want to reproduce here that you should read:

https://www.apple.com/batteries/


Something's eating my disc space - Mac OS X So something's swallowing about 800gb of disk space on my mac.

I've ran Disk Inventory X and Omni Sweeper, and both show that my main OS drive only houses 30 GB worth of data. 10GB of that is Home folders from the network share, and the rest I'm guessing is OS based guff.

But where the hell is the other 200 or so?!

Any ideas?

Thanks.

The biggest issue here is that you need to run your analysis tools as root. If you don't do this, you'll only see the files that your account has access to, and so you won't see everything that is taking up space.

I like GrandPerspective personally. If it's in your Applications folder, the command to run it as root looks like this:

sudo /Applications/GrandPerspective.app/Contents/MacOS/GrandPerspective


Change url on safari search I'm trying to move from chrome to safari, but there is something which I'm not able to do so far.

I work with Jira, and when I try to browse a ticket for a known project, I can't edit the url to browse a specific ticket

For example this ticket, If I want to go browse VSGN-146, and previously I was working on VSGN-145 (known project), on Chrome I start typing "vsgn" and then I move to the end of the url and I can change the 5 for a 6.

If I try to do that in safari, the end of the line is "... - JIRA"

So the question is, is there a way to edit the url instead of the site description on safari? Btw, I'm using the version 10.1.1

Thank you in advance.

To show the full URL in what Safari calls the 'Smart Search Field', make sure the following is set in Preferences:

Go to Safari > Preferences (⌘+,)
Select the Advanced tab
Check the box "Smart Search Field: [✓] Show full website address"

Now you can edit the full URL by hand.

EDIT:
Notice how the URL is now displayed with first before the title?  Just the opposite of the OP's screenshot.  Now typing the right arrow ► will go to the end of the URL not the title as the URL is first.  (The URL and the Title are now swapped)


Control volume with right mouse button + mouse wheel Are there any programs that let me assign custom action such as changing the volume on mouse gestures (right click+scroll wheel), similar to Volumouse on Windows?

I haven't heard of a new tool for some time, but SteerMouse might be worth a look, but it depends on your current OS version. I'd verify it would work with you machine before you download/purchase.


Closing your Apple Activity rings when watch is being repaired (and unpaired from iPhone) Is there any way to be able to have Activity data tracked on the Activity app when you have had to unpair your Apple Watch from your iPhone so it can be repaired?
Using a third-party app to create a workout works when your Apple Watch is paired with your iPhone but not when it has been unpaired.
Is there really no wan to do this?

You can manually add workouts and other health data via the Health App directly or using 3rd party Apps. This will also apply the data to the activity app (and rings).

For a workout:

Open "Health"
Select "Browse" at the bottom
Scroll until you find "Workouts"
Select "Add Data" in the top right corner.


How to repair/recover Snow Leopard when the installation DVD has been lost? So I seem to not have my Snow Leopard DVD available anywhere.

I can't use a newer version like Lion.

What can I do to repair/recover Snow Leopard now that the installation DVD is not available?

If you computer not booting is the reason you need your Snow Leopard disc, there are several things to try and troubleshoot your issue.

Boot into single user mode (Cmd + S @ POST (chime)).  Once the command prompt comes up, type fsck -fy.  This will attempt to repair your disk.
If this is okay, hold down Shift at POST and see if it boots.  This disables kexts, fonts, etc.
If this does not work try verbose mode (Cmd + V @ POST) and see where your computer stops loading at and troubleshoot from there.

Good luck.


Lion hangs on boot with empty progress bar and then switches off Today as I was working on my MacBook Pro, it became incredibly slow and almost impossible to work with. I spent five minutes trying to restart it from the system menu, and eventually I did.

It took it another ten minutes to switch off, and then I got the booting gray screen with the wheel indicator. I expected it to boot after a while, but apparently 20 minutes weren't enough.

I had to switch it off while booting and try again. During subsequent boot attempts, I would get a gray screen with a wheel and an empty progressbar that never moves (tested—I left it for three hours).

I inserted the Snow Leopard DVD so I could launch Disk Utility (as advised on the Internet) but it gave no effect. I still see the empty scrollbar, and worse, the MacBook turns off after a while (about 5 minutes after the start).

What are my next steps?

To recap my observations:

The first time I restarted the system via menu so apparently it saved the state
Second time I restarted it while booting
I do hear the chime
Then I see the spinning wheel, Apple logo and an ever empty progress bar
Now it turns off on its own after a while

Later Update

I tried holding D to launch diagnostics as described here. I heard the DVD slot make a sound about ten times, and then it spat out the Install DVD. I saw no diagnostics, and then it turned off again.

Holding C with the DVD inside gives me ten minutes of the optical drive sounds as if it were stuck (to clarify, I never had problems with it before). Then it rebooted and got stuck again.

One more thing to try:  Boot in Safe mode holding the Shift key at the startup sound.  If the internal drive is bad (failed drive or borked OS), this won't work.

If you have an external drive as a full bootable backup (and I hope you do), connect it a power it up. Then try booting the Mac holding the Option key, and select the external drive.

If you have another Mac, connect the sick Mac to it and boot the sick Mac in Target mode (hold the "t" at startup sound).

If either works, copy all critical data to the drive you are booted in.

I agree that there is at least one hardware failure involved.


Where does Mac OS X store contacts in my Address Book? Where does Mac OS X store contacts in my Address Book? Has this changed from Snow Leopard to Lion?

The path is ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/ on both Snow Leopard and Lion.

Note that you can't see the Library in your home folder (as it is hidden by default). You can type in chflags nohidden ~/Library in Terminal to make it appear permanently, or hold down ⌥ Option while in the "Go" menu of Finder.


How to upload the 4k videos taken to YouTube? iPhone 7 Plus can take 4k videos, but if you click on the Photos app and upload to YouTube, for some reason it is limited to 240p. If you click on the YouTube app and upload, then it is 1080p.

Is there a way to upload directly from iPhone to YouTube in 4k resolution?

I think one way that will work is to transfer the video to the computer first, and then transfer from the computer to YouTube, but is there a way to directly do it on the iPhone, I wonder.

This is a limitation of Apple's Photos.app as of iOS 10.3.1.
Photos.app limits video uploads to 720p/1080p.
To upload 4K videos from your iPhone to YouTube you can use Apple's iMovie for iOS. iMovie for iOS is free for all users since April 18 2017.
Unfortunately you have to use a second app to accomplish a 4K upload.


Is it still possible to purchase a license for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server from Apple? Mac OS X Server 10.6 Snow Leopard Server is no longer for sale at the Apple Store website. Mac OS X Server software licenses were sold as a separate full operating system from Apple until 10.7 Lion, though few realized that the client versions of Mac OS X could always be converted into the Server version product of the Mac OS X System Software (except for Rhapsody) simply by purchasing a license and downloading and installing the OS X Server pkg over the client software, even before the Mac App Store existed, just as it is now the only way to get OS X Server for Lion and subsequent versions of OS X Server.

If I purchase a license for and copy of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard from the Apple Store, and install this on a new Mac Mini, and I update the System to 10.6.8, can I then, through the Mac App Store, purchase a license for and a download a copy of the pkg installer for Mac OS X Server 10.6 Snow Leopard Server from the Mac App Store (which first appears in 10.6.7)?
Though there may not be the option through the Apple Store web site, in purchasing new hardware today from Apple, if you request it, Apple will sell you a license for and a copy of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and install it for you on the hardware you purchased. Will they sell a license for Mac OS X Server 10.6 Snow Leopard Server with it and install it for you, if you request it?

While I am aware that you can still download and install Server Admin Tools 10.6.8, even on the client versions of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, currently, my only Intel Mac is running a highly customized version of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and I am unable to check for myself (or I would) if the Mac OS X 10.6 Server Snow Leopard Server package is available for sale and download or not through the Mac App Store. Can a kind and very shrewd soul still running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard fire up their Mac App Store for me and see if they can even get to the OS X Server software package for sale on the Mac App Store, and at least comment if not answer, regarding whether they believe or know they can actually purchase, download and install it, converting their Snow Leopard System Software into a full retail version of Mac OS X Server 10.6 Snow Leopard Server? Thank you so very very much!

Snow Leopard Server was never made available via the App Store, it was only ever sold in the form of a separate OS install (or bundled with a server computer). While you cannot buy SL Server from store.apple.com, I believe you can buy it over the phone (1-800-MY-APPLE) (at least, you could last year -- I did) for $19.99 (maybe plus shipping, I don't remember). Note that you're purchasing the physical install DVD, not just a license code.


Can Chrome v.21 be used without freezing my Mac? Chrome throws many errors, and after a few minutes my Mac freezes. What can I do?

Here is the error message.

  Unsure about the internals of CFAllocator but going to patch them anyway. If there is a crash inside of CFAllocatorAllocate, please report it at http://crbug.com/117476 . If there is a crash and it is NOT inside of CFAllocatorAllocate, it is NOT RELATED. DO NOT REPORT IT THERE but rather FILE A NEW BUG.

 Google Chrome Helper[2839]: Failed to look up domain bootstrapper during domain extension: 0x44c

Chrome 21.0.1180.89 - no extension.

Remove chrome completely and reinstall. You can use appdelete or appzapper or something like that to make sure you get rid of everything associated with the app.


Water damaged mid 2014 Macbook Pro - SSD question My laptop got wet in my bag, and I want to try to retrieve the data from the hard drive. My old Mac computers used SATA II drives, and I have a cable that can plug right in.

Is there something similar for this generation Mac? If the SSD isn't damaged, I have some important things on there I need.

The model is a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014).

Yes, there is.  OWC makes a USB3 to PCIe Enclosure that will allow you to hook your drive up to a USB port so you can mount the drive and copy over your data.  These are a bit pricey (thanks to Apple's proprietary PCIe interface), but even the cheaper no-name ones are only a few dollars less - go with a trusted brand like OWC.

Another option, is where ever you take your MacBook to get repaired, they should be able to offer this service to you for free or even for a nominal fee.  Rossman Repair Group has the ability to save your data even if it's one of the SSDs that are soldered to the logic board.  (I'm not affiliated; just a very happy customer).


Where is "`" key on a physical Finnish keyboard using English layout? My Mac-Pro uses a Finnish keyboard by "hardware".
When I switched to the US keyboard layout, I cannot type "`" anymore.

The place where ` usually appears (below esc) gives
§ or ± (when Shift is pressed).

How to type "`" in my case?


Postpone reminders on iPhone XR On a phone with 3D touch it is possible to postpone a reminder from the lock screen (one hour, tomorrow) or mark it as complete.

iPhone XR lacks 3D touch, and if the reminder pops up when the phone is unlocked it is possible to slide down the reminder and the three options reappear.

When the phone is on the lock screen, even if unlocked with face ID, iOS shows the message but does not give the possibility to slide down.

If I then go to the home screen I cannot see the reminder anymore.

My question: is there a way to postpone a reminder on an iPhone without 3D touch as the iPhone XR?

Yes, it is possible. Press you finger hard against the screen over the reminder in the home screen and let go. If you have haptic feedback on, you will feel it. This will open the menu for snooze or mark as complete the reminder.


How to clean boot menu and check/clean mbr I had successfully installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview on my mac mini (bootcamp install) but Windows crashed during the upgrade to Release Preview and I removed it a result. But there seem to be some traces of it left.

How do i remove the efi boot entry from the mac's boot menu. I managed to mount the efi partition and deleted the windows folder in it but i still get an efi boot option when I press the option key at startup (of course selecting this entry does nothing now). Is there a boot menu file with the default entries ?

When I try to install windows 8 release preview with bootcamp again (bootcamp does the partition, creates the bootable usb key from the iso and download the windows software) I get the error message :

"The selected disk has an MBR partition table.  On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks"

Yet I see no mbr partition, so I assume there must be some traces left by the windows installer on the mbr of the disk. Is there a way to clean it up ? Or does the error message come from something else ?

EDIT : bmike's suggestion worked

Credit goes to @bmike for answering this one, but I wanted to answer it here so the question is closed. Marking as community wiki so that I'm not taking credit.

In this situation you will want to use the recovery tool built into the system's firmware, called "OS X Recovery". You can read Apple's documentation here. To start OS X Recovery, hold Cmd+R while you press the power button to turn on your computer.

This will download a full copy of OS X to install, so you'll probably want to hook your computer up to ethernet if it's at all available.


How to get Siri to dial my contact called "voicemail"? I have a contact in my iPhone called "voicemail" that dials my company voicemail service. If I ask Siri to "call voicemail" it just says "you have no new voicemails" as it's trying to check the mobile network's voicemail service (even though I've changed the voicemail shortcut in the Phone app to dial said contact).

I'm sure I've managed to get it to call the voicemail contact in the past by saying something like "call contact voicemail" but today that didn't work. Other than changing the name of the contact, what can I do to get Siri to dial this contact?

I know your question states: Other than changing the name of the contact, what can I do to get Siri to dial this contact?, but you don't clarify why you don't want to do it this way?

I'm not aware of another way to do this, and in my case changing the contact name works flawlessly. I just created a contact called "Company Name Voicemail" and Siri has no problems whatsoever.

I just say, "Hey Siri, call..." and she just dials the number and I go from there.


Thunderbolt monitor Ethernet adapter causes network preferences pane to crash I have a 2014 Macbook Pro 15" running 10.9.3, connected via Thunderbolt to two Apple Thunderbolt monitors.  Each monitor has an Ethernet jack.

The Ethernet seems to pick up an IP address, but doesn't work unless I turn of Wi-Fi, then disconnect my VPN, then pull the Ethernet and reconnect it.

When I plug in my ethernet cable to monitor, the Network Preferences pane crashes every time I open it.

6/3/14 2:38:36.962 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: assertion failed: 13D65: liblaunch.dylib + 25164 [38D1AB2C-A476-385F-8EA8-7AB604CA1F89]: 0x25
6/3/14 2:38:36.971 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: assertion failed: 13D65: liblaunch.dylib + 25164 [38D1AB2C-A476-385F-8EA8-7AB604CA1F89]: 0x25
6/3/14 2:38:37.130 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: Bogus event received by listener connection:
<error: 0x7fff785aab50> { count = 1, contents =
    "XPCErrorDescription" => <string: 0x7fff785aae60> { length = 18, contents = "Connection invalid" }
}
6/3/14 2:38:37.235 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: Could not find image named 'InvalidDataIcon'.
6/3/14 2:38:37.318 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: -[__NSCFString count]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x7fb8fb502670
6/3/14 2:38:37.319 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: An uncaught exception was raised
6/3/14 2:38:37.319 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: -[__NSCFString count]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x7fb8fb502670
6/3/14 2:38:37.320 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: (
    0   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8c04425c __exceptionPreprocess + 172
    1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x00007fff887dee75 objc_exception_throw + 43
    2   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8c04712d -[NSObject(NSObject) doesNotRecognizeSelector:] + 205
    3   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8bfa2322 ___forwarding___ + 1010
    4   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8bfa1ea8 _CF_forwarding_prep_0 + 120
    5   Network                             0x00000001117ea6fd Network + 50941
    6   Network                             0x00000001117ea35d Network + 50013
    7   Network                             0x00000001117e8b6b Network + 43883
    8   Network                             0x00000001118284e7 decryptOldStylePassword + 130098
    9   Network                             0x00000001117e7549 Network + 38217
    10  CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8c012e0c __CFNOTIFICATIONCENTER_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER__ + 12
...
)
6/3/14 2:38:37.320 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '-[__NSCFString count]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x7fb8fb502670'
*** First throw call stack:
(
    0   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8c04425c __exceptionPreprocess + 172
    1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x00007fff887dee75 objc_exception_throw + 43
    2   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8c04712d -[NSObject(NSObject) doesNotRecognizeSelector:] + 205
    3   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8bfa2322 ___forwarding___ + 1010
    4   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8bfa1ea8 _CF_forwarding_prep_0 + 120
    5   Network                             0x00000001117ea6fd Network + 50941
    6   Network                             0x00000001117ea35d Network + 50013
    7   Network                             0x00000001117e8b6b Network + 43883
    8   Network                             0x00000001118284e7 decryptOldStylePassword + 130098

...    )

I had this same issue (10.11.1). It was triggered in my case by plugging an ethernet cable into a 5k iMac that had previously only ever used WiFi. The network preferences pane would hang and com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice was shown as taking 100% CPU and "(not responding)" in Activity Monitor.

I tried deleting several network related files in /Library/Preferences but the one that seemed to do the trick was /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist. Deleting that file and rebooting allowed me to load Network Preferences, and everything seems good now.


Syncing my iPhone with iTunes restores music I previously deleted from the device One of the new features in iOS 5 is the ability to delete music in the Music app directly on the device, by swiping to delete like you do in Mail. This is great for me because my iPhone is generally pretty full, so as I add new music/apps/podcasts, I can go back through and delete stuff I no longer listen to in order to free up space.

However - when I sync my iPhone with iTunes, it copies everything I deleted right back! It must see that I have music on the computer that I've told it to sync, recognizes that those files aren't on the device, and copies them back over.

Is it me, or is this a bug? What would be the purpose of being able to delete files directly from the device if they get copied back over every time you sync?

You will need to use the manually manage music and videos option - otherwise, as you've already experienced, a sync will restore the deleted music to your device.

Steps for doing this are available at this Apple Support KB:

  Connect the device to your computer.
  Open iTunes.
  Select iPhone, iPad, or iPod in the Devices list.
  Click the Summary tab and select "Manually manage music and videos".
  Click Apply.
  Even when you have enabled manual management, you can still sync some content automatically. Select any content tab, such as Video, to enable automatic syncing for that type of content.

Another KB shows how to use this option to sync music for an iDevice with multiple computers. It also shows a picture of the screen that you'd see:


Restore Downloads icon to Finder Sidebar So I symlinked my Downloads folder from my boot drive to an external HDD I always keep connected to my mac. I deleted the original downloads folder from my home folder and replaced it with a symlink to a new folder on my HDD.

This works perfectly, except that in Finder, the sidebar icon is now a folder:

When it should look like this:

Operating system is High Sierra 10.13.6

Even though what you need is very little, there seems to be no easy workaround except for the SIMBL plugin:

How can I change Finder's sidebar icons in OS X El Capitan?

As an experiment I uploaded my downloads folder to google drive. You can try downloading it and see if it works:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1U3dY4N_ZDLtnq93yoKVYVi4F5WqBaa8i?usp=sharing


What is the best replacement battery for iPhone 5s My battery is 300+ cycles on my iPhone 5s, and it is draining very quickly, even though I do not have much applications running, and not many of them use background app refresh. Where and/or how can I find a decent replacement battery for iPhone 5s?

I would buy an replacement battery for your iPhone 5s from iFixit. They provide also the tools to replace your battery. It's a trustworthy company. Worked with their parts/tools many times.

  COMPATIBILITY

  All iPhone 5s Models (Not iPhone SE, 5 or 5c)

  SPECIFICATIONS

  Voltage: 3.8

  Watt Hours (Wh): 5.92

  Capacity: 1558 mAh

  Apple Part #: 616-0718, 616-0719, 616-0720, 616-0721, 616-0722,
  616-0728

  WARRANTY

  One Year Warranty - This iFixit product is guaranteed to
  function for one year.

I do not have financial ties with iFixit!


How can I install Windows 10 64-bit in El Capitan Boot Camp? I'm running OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 on an early 2015 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro (MacBookPro12,1) with Boot Camp Assistant 6.0.0 (519).

I have downloaded Win10_EnglishInternational_x64.iso from Microsoft.

When I select this ISO and click Install in Boot Camp Assistent I am presented with the message below and I'm not able to continue.

  Need 64-bit Windows 8 or later ISO file.

  Boot Camp only supports 64-bit Windows 8 or later installation on this platform. Please use an ISO file for 64-bit Windows 8 or later installation.

What do I need to do/change/download for Boot Camp Assistant to accept Microsoft's official Windows 10 ISO as a valid "64-bit Windows 8 or later ISO file"

I also tried en_windows_10_multiple_editions_x64_dvd_6846432.iso that I can download from MSDN as a subscriber. This ISO file is also not accepted by Boot Camp Assistant.

I think because you download an iso and mounted it (open it) and that silly error pop out. I just unmount and it's work


Apply Options > "Assign to" - "All Desktop" only to 1 chrome tab? I keep my task list with rememberthemilk.com and I would like to have keep that chrome tab opened at all spaces all the time. Is there a way to achieve this?

Right now if I go to chrome and Assign to All Desktop for it I am seeing other chrome windows being brought to the front when I switch spaces.

This is not possible natively. The desktop assignments are on a per-app basis, and not customizable by window.

A workaround could be to use Fluid, whereby you could create an actual application for the web app. This application could be assigned to all spaces.


Use Google speech to text instead of Apple's Google currently has much higher quality speech transcription. You can try it easily by going to doc.new and pressing Cmd-Shift-S and talking. Compare to using the built in system from Apple (pressing Fn twice).

Ideally there would be a good way to do this, but if that doesn't work, hacky is the next best thing. An AppleScript or Hammerspoon script that instantly pops up a Google Docs window, and then inserts the result is better than nothing.

Given that things like this https://dictation.io/speech exist, or this jsfiddle it seems like it should be possible to at least have an extension that can interface with other applications to enable dictation input, but I haven't found any yet.

Is there any way to somehow use this instead of the built in transcription, e.g. with a keyboard shortcut?

Check out the Voice In Speech to Text Chrome Extension. It builds on Google's speech to text to allow you to dictate directly on many websites like Gmail, Wordpress, Zendesk, Facebook, etc. Note: it works only in the Chrome browser.
You can download from the Chrome Webstore


Which program installs *osxfuse* files in / (root folder)? $ ls -al /*fuse*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   25400 Dec 17  2011 /libmacfuse_i32.2.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   25400 Dec 17  2011 /libmacfuse_i64.2.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  388048 Dec 17  2011 /libosxfuse_i32.2.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     990 Dec 17  2011 /libosxfuse_i32.la
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  388080 Dec 17  2011 /libosxfuse_i64.2.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     990 Dec 17  2011 /libosxfuse_i64.la
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel     332 Dec 17  2011 /osxfuse.pc

Is it ok to delete them?

After some investigation, the *macfuse* files were mv'ed to root folder by a mis-configured bash script.

The script was supposed to move the *macfuse* files to somewhere else and ln from /usr/local/lib/*.macfuse*, to kill some homebrew warning. Too bad, the destination path of the script was missing and so files were mv'ed to root folder.

It's now fixed by:

rm all symbolic links of *macfuse* from /usr/local/lib/
mv *macfuse* files to a proper folder
ln each file from /usr/local/lib/


How to set an iTerm2 startup command How do I set a command on a profile so that when I start a new terminal window, it fires off that command.

Specifically, I'd like to be able to set my virtualenv with:

workon ENV

So that it starts automatically into my virtual environment when that I use that profile.

Profiles -> General -> Command

Everytime you open a new tab your bash profile will be sourced.


How to make an Image of my Solid State Drive I have installed macOS, Linux and Windows to my MacBook Air. It was hard installing a triple boot system because each of issues with their boot loaders, but now everything works fine.

I want to save the image of my SSD to an external hard drive. How can I do that?

You can use the program dd to create a disk imgage of an entire disk (including hidden boot partitions etc.)
I use a GParted live CD (linux) to boot from so the disk I want to clone is not in use.

Once booted I go first go to GParted to get the deviceid (/dev/sda or something like that).
Then I open terminal to use dd. Be careful dd will erase your disk if you use "of=/dev/sdX" with the disk you want to copy.

To create an uncompressed img I use: (do not forget to change the drive letter!)

dd bs=4M if=/dev/sdb of=/mnt/bla/image1-`date +%d%m%y`.img

but you can also zip

dd bs=4M if=/dev/sdb | gzip > /mnt/Raspberry/test_dd/image1-`date +%d%m%y`.img.gz

"if=" is the source file or disk
"of=" is the destination
if no "of=" is used it will stream it to std. out with you can pipe thru (|)


How to clear the cache or do a hard refresh in Safari? I am used to doing this in Windows with FireFox or IE by pressing Ctrl+F5.

Is there a way to do this for Safari on a Mac?

Go to Safari > Empty Cache, or hit ⌘ Command+⌥ Option+E. To refresh, click the refresh button on the addressbar or press ⌘ Command+R.

Another tip. If you want to restore Safari, like completely clear all the caches, or parts of it, go to Safari > Reset Safari. I use it usually when I need to clear a lot of memory from Safari, for it will clear the webpage screenshots, the cookies, the favicons, etc.

Edit: On the latest version of Empty Cache isn't on the Safari menu any more. It's now on the Develop menu. To show the Develop menu it, go to Safari > Preferences..., click the Advanced tab, and check Show Develop menu in menu bar. The keyboard shortcut remains unchanged, though.

Safari > Reset Safari isn't an option any more. To clear history you can use History > Clear History... and to clear cookies/local storage data, go to Safari > Preferences..., click the Privacy tab, and either click Remove All Website Data... or Details... to view and remove it for individual sites.


Applescript changing value on plist I have a script which is passing values to a plist, it's work fine, but I would like to change some of the values without removing everything else.
I used to have a script for that but can't found it at all.

Here is my script which creating the value

tell application "System Events"
    set the parent_dictionary to make new property list item with properties {kind:record}
    set the plistfile_path to "~/Desktop/MY_DATA.plist"
    set this_plistfile to ¬
        make new property list file with properties {contents:parent_dictionary, name:plistfile_path}
    make new property list item at end of property list items of contents of this_plistfile ¬
        with properties {kind:string, name:"thename", value:theName}
    make new property list item at end of property list items of contents of this_plistfile ¬
        with properties {kind:string, name:"creationDate", value:creationDate}
    make new property list item at end of property list items of contents of this_plistfile ¬
        with properties {kind:string, name:"serialNumber", value:serialNumber}
    make new property list item at end of property list items of contents of this_plistfile ¬
        with properties {kind:string, name:"Email", value:fullEmail}
    make new property list item at end of property list items of contents of this_plistfile ¬
        with properties {kind:string, name:"IPAddress", value:IPAddress}
end tell

here is what I wrote for changing the value, but the issue is the plist will only have the new value and all the other properties would be removed

set theName to "demo"

tell application "System Events"
    set the parent_dictionary to make new property list item with properties {kind:record}
    set the plistfile_path to "~/Desktop/MY_DATA.plist"
    set this_plistfile to ¬
        make new property list file with properties {contents:parent_dictionary, name:plistfile_path}
    make new property list item at end of property list items of contents of this_plistfile ¬
        with properties {kind:string, name:"thename", value:theName}

end tell

how can I change some of the value without removing the others ?

Firstly, you can simplify your initial script—the one used to create the property list file—to this:

    set plistR to {theName:"name", creationDate:"date", serialNumber:"serial #", fullEmail:"@", IPAddress:"1.2.3.4"}

    tell application "System Events"
        set plistf to make new property list file ¬
            with properties {name:"~/Desktop/MY_DATA.plist"}

        set plistf's value to plistR
    end tell

Then changing a value is as simple as changing an item in the record plistR, and setting plistf's value to the new plistR:

    set plistR2 to {theName:"name2", creationDate:"date", serialNumber:"serial #", fullEmail:"@", IPAddress:"1.2.3.4"}

    tell application "System Events"
        set plistf to the property list file "~/Desktop/MY_DATA.plist"
        set plistf's value to plistR2
    end tell

If you don't want the hassle of writing out a whole new record declaration (imagine you had, say, 1000 items and only needed to change one), you can adjust a single plist item also like this:

    tell application "System Events"
        set plistf to property list file "~/Desktop/MY_DATA.plist"
        set the value of the property list item "theName" of plistf to "name3"
    end tell


iPad photo editing app that exports edits as XMP to reuse in lightroom? Basically, I'm looking for Lightroom for iPad :) but until then, I'm trying to find an alternative.

To organize and tag pictures I'll be using Photosmith which integrates with Lightroom.

Now, I need an app to do basic editing of pictures (cropping, exposure, saturation). But I need an app will do this in a non-destructive way and that will make the edits available as XMP so that later, I can just copy the XMP as sidecar files and load them in Lightroom (or better, it could load them via a lightroom plug-in the same way Photosmith works).

PS: I posted the same question on photo.stackexchange.com, see here.

Have you tried Adobe Revel?

Basically you can edit photos on your iPad, store them on your computer and the edit them there as well.

It's a subscription service with many of the features of Lightroom.


How to find out why it takes so long for the sign in form to appear after opening the lid on my Macbook Air Whenever I open the lid on my Macbook Air running Lion and and try to sign in, it takes a really long time for the sign in form to appear. (This is the sign in form you see when the Mac is on but the lid is closed, not the one you see after turning it on after being powered off.)

I see a black screen with the normal arrow cursor for nearly a minute. Sometimes the form shows up, and sometimes the screen just goes black, at which point I have to close and reopen the lid for the sign in form to show up.

This is a corporate machine, and a coworker thought it was waiting for Wi-Fi to reconnect, but the problem still exists when I turn Wi-Fi off. What's really going on? I would imagine that not all Macs have this problem. How can I figure out why this is happening? Could installed software be preventing the computer from waking quickly? If so, is there a way to track down the culprit?

The MBA goes into hibernate mode after several hours of being asleep. Also, if you close it and then open it again rapid the computer will be mid-cycle in going to sleep and will want to finished that before attempting to wake up (which can take some time also). In general Macs today take longer to boot up than they did, but they sip much less power when not being used.

A similar post is here:

MacBook Air takes an eternity to come out of sleep

And some solutions are posted


Bought a new MacBook Pro, how do I transfer the OS X Lion license to my Apple account? I would like to install Lion on a different MacBook Pro in my house, but I can't download/install OS X Lion as it hasn't been linked to my Apple ID. Any suggestions?

I think there is a part on booting up a new mac for the first time where it asks you to register with an apple id. If you haven't done that, check in your home folder for something that is a shortcut to register with an apple id. If you already deleted that, or it isn't there, try adding a apple id in the "Accounts" section of system preferences (under your picture and name). After you register, Lion should appear under "Purchased" in the Mac App Store, which you can redownload on other machines.


OS X Not Booting into Internet Recovery I own a iMac 2007 (Mid).

I've realised that whenever i try to boot onto internet recovery, it doesn't. It boots onto OS X Utilities. I wiped my drive to re-install OS X but i currently don't have a install disc. I'll be getting a install disc in 1 month because the shipping got delayed due to the weather.

I want to use a faster way to somehow install OS X on my iMac. I thought of using Internet Recovery but it doesn't boot into Internet Recovery. I can't wait 1 month. Does my iMac not support Internet Recovery or it's just not working? It can't  be the key's because i have 2 apple keyboard's and tested the keys.

Can anyone help me out?

This question also relates to the problem : Installing Mac OS X Mountain lion Apple iD Error

Your iMac : 2007 (mid) doesn't support Internet Recovery. You can wait 1 month or use the faster way = Head to a Apple Store near you.

Well if there's no apple store near you, I think you should use a friend's computer to create a bootable OS X Install USB flash drive.

The steps to install OS X using a USB are here : http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/apple-in-the-enterprise/how-to-create-a-bootable-usb-to-install-os-x/


Is it possible to change Calendar.app's color scheme to give today a more distinct background color? I'm running 10.8.5. I use Calendar.app pretty heavily (it's hooked up to the Exchange server at work) and my only continual beef is that the current day doesn't stand out enough visually.

I don't see any preferences to tweak this. Am I missing something?

There is currently no way to do this, either through the app's visual or hidden preferences.

You can provide feedback to Apple regarding this at the following page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ical.html


Time Machine Backup to drive shared on BTHomeHub3? I have a Freeagent GoFlex Drive hooked up to my BTHomeHub3 router. My Desktop PC is backing up to it fine but I'm having troubles with Time Machine.

My Mac can mount the drive perfectly fine and use it but it won't show up in time machine's list of disks.

I've enabled showing unsupported volumes on my Mac to try and make it appear but it won't appear.

Any ideas how I can get it to show up in Time Machine?

For Time Machine to back up to a disk, the disk must be formatted as Mac OS Extended to allow for the hard links and other special metadata that Time Machine uses. However, the BT Home Hub doesn't let you share such a disk over the network (haven't tried the new 5, but I know the 3 doesn't let you). This means you need to set up a sparse bundle on the disk to contain the backup. This should be done automatically, but as with everything relating to the awful BTHHs, it won't happen—afaik the Home Hub uses a non-standard method for sharing network disks. Whilst you may be able to get it working by creating your own sparse bundle using Disk Utility, then mounting that and using that as your backup destination, I wouldn't trust my backups over it.


terminal -bash: command not found I'm trying to compile a c++ program on the Mac terminal with gcc then the source files path. I've found some short term fixes on the Internet but I want it so it works every time. Also I hardly know anything about the Terminal so can the solution be explained very simply.

echo $PATH gives:

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:’/usr/local/bin:??

/bin/cat ~/.profile prints no such file or directory,

/bin/cat ~/.bash_profile prints:

export PATH=’/usr/local/bin:??
# Setting PATH for Python 2.7
# The orginal version is saved in .bash_profile.pysave
 PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:${PATH}"
export PATH

When I use gcc to compile the program I get "-bash: gcc: command not found"

However if I run the commands

export PATH="/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin"
export PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:$PATH"

…the terminal works. I'd like to know how to make it work without running those commands.

Modify the file .bash_profile with nano or another appropriate editor:

Replace:

export PATH=’/usr/local/bin:??
# Setting PATH for Python 2.7
# The orginal version is saved in .bash_profile.pysave
PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:${PATH}"
export PATH

by:

# Setting PATH for Python 2.7
# The orginal version is saved in .bash_profile.pysave
export PATH=/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:$PATH

Explanation:

The first line of your current .bash_profile

export PATH=’/usr/local/bin:??

modifies the standard value of $PATH given by /etc/paths from

/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

to ’/usr/local/bin:?? - which is no valid path.

The fourth and fifth line of your current .bash_profile modifies $PATH to

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:’/usr/local/bin:??

Since ’/usr/local/bin:? is no valid path the finally effective PATH is

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin

which completely breaks your standard PATH. You can still execute all executables in the above directories but you can't omit the superior directories (e.g. to execute nano you have to enter /usr/bin/nano instead of nano).


How do I remove the source (base) from my terminal? I created some new aliases in my .bashrc file and did

source ~/.bashrc

Now, everytime I open my terminal it always comes with the (base)

How do I remove that?

That's the "base" environment from Anaconda or Miniconda. It means the Python environment from conda is enabled by default.

There're two solutions.

Just disable the base environment, make sure your conda >= 4.6. Whenever you wanna use Python, enable an environment from conda manually with following command,

# run this in an interactive shell
# enable environment called "base", the default env from conda
conda activate base
# deactivate an environment
conda deactivate

Enable the base environment, which is the default behavior of conda, but don't modify your prompt. Run the following command in an interactive shell once.

conda config --set changeps1 false


Getting PCIe attached SSD to show up as internal drive for BootCamp I purchased the OWC Accelsior S PCIe to 2.5 SSD Host adapter to install Windows on my 2009 Mac Pro. However, Boot Camp sees the SSD as an external device and doesn't allow it.

I've read that some users have used the Apricorn Velocity Solo with some success but others have reported the same problem with this card as well. I have this card on order and will be testing it too. More on this to come.

I can install an OS (in my case, FreeNAS, based on FreeBSD) on a SSD while connected to built in SATA channel, then move it to a PCIe adapter, but it won't boot. It only boots if connected to one of the 6 built-in SATA channels.

Is is possible to get an SSD to show up as an internal device with ANY PCIe card? If so, do you know of a list of cards that do work?

Apparently it is not possible to have neither a PCIe flash nor PCIe-attached SSD drive show up as internal on a Mac Pro. I tried multiple PCIe flash and PCIe SATA cards and none showed as internal, even those claiming to be bootable on Mac.

On a side note, even though I could not get FreeNAS (FreeBSD based NAS software) to boot from a PCIe add-on card, I was able to install Windows 8.1 on a PCIe flash drive and it shows up in the boot menu when holding down the Option key as EFI.


/Applications/Preview.app no longer exists but is visible in Finder? I think this happened after Catalina.

sudo ls /Applications/Preview*

claims there is no such file, even though the file is perfectly visible in the Finder.

I have a script that relies on it:

function manp(){
  man -t $1 | open -f -a /Applications/Preview.app
}

which I can fix by abbreviating to open -f -a Preview but still ... where did Preview.app go?

Did you try to explore over on the following path:

/System/Applications/Preview*


no key repeat in Xquartz (x11) I don't think I've used x11 since switching to Mountain Lion (and thus Xquartz).  I recently tried to use it and my key repeat isn't working.  When I press a key, it inserts the corresponding character once, then a second time after (very roughly) a quarter second, then never repeats again.  I've tried xset r and xset r on from both my x11 terminal, and normal Terminal.app --- neither has any effect.

Any suggestions?

From @jaykru on SuperUser.SO (https://superuser.com/a/414513/152522):

  Did some more searching and discovered in recent updates the key
  repeat rate for x in OS X is set at some odd value. Anyway, to whoever
  else may have this issue, run this in your shell:

    xset r rate <milliseconds_before_repeat> <repeats_per_second>

  Or just xset r rate to reset the keyboard repeat rate to default X
  settings (i.e: something sane.)


Problem with empty spaces when executing shell commands in AppleScript The following code to purge a directory recursively does not work because I cannot get past the Application Support folder.

try
    do shell script "rm -r ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Pepper Data/Shockwave Flash"
end try

If I use ~/Library/Application Support/Google... nothing happens. Which is expected.
If I use ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google... I cannot save the script due to the error message: Syntax Error Expected “"” but found unknown token.

How can I work around this error?

Try:

set pathwithSpaces to "/Users/John/Desktop/This is a test.docx"
do shell script "rm -r " & quoted form of pathwithSpaces


How to search for empty emails in Apple mail? How can I filter email messages with no content in Apple mail?

It's not possible to make a rule with an empty field in Mail.app on OS X apparently. The solution I found is to list all vowels as necessarily missing in order to process the message (in this example case, move it to the trash).
Note: this does not deal with images or attachments of any type as the sole content of the message body however. An attachment does count as 'content' in the message body. The rule(s) and criteria would have to be quite extensive to deal with attachments in addition to non-character message content.
See image:


How to put or move downloaded files in different folders depending on file type? Is there a good plugin that automatically saves downloaded files via Safari in different folders depending on the file type? Or maybe a plugin that let's you put a few destinations in the context menu? So that you could choose "Save in Pictures" "Save in Music" etc. right in the right click menu.

I don't know of any Safari extension doing this but you may use Automator to create a folder action attached to your preferred download folder sorting files according to their extension or kind to various folders. That's even independent from the browser you usually use.

The article here outlines the workflow which sorts *.dmg and pictures:

  Create the workflow
  In the Finder, create two folders on the Desktop. Name the first Disk Images and the second My Pictures.

  Launch Automator (in your /Applications folder) and in the workflow template that appears choose Folder Action and click Choose. In the resulting window, click the Folder Action receives files and folders added to pop-up menu, select Other, and navigate to the Downloads folder inside your user folder. Click Choose. Select the Files & Folders library and drag these actions, in order, into the workflow area: Filter Finder Items, Move Finder Items, Get Specified Finder Items, Get Folder Contents, Filter Finder Items, and Move Finder Items.

  In the first action (the first instance of the Filter Finder Items action), leave the first pop-up set to All. Then, configure the next row of pop-up menus to read File Extension is dmg.

  In the second action, Move Finder Items, drag the Disk Images folder onto the To: Desktop pop-up menu.

  In the third action, Get Specified Finder Items, click the Add button and navigate, once again, to the Downloads folder. Click Add. Click this action’s Options button and enable the Ignore this action’s input option.

  Leave the Get Folder Contents action alone.

  In the next Filter Finder Items action, leave the first pop-up set to All and then configure the row of pop-up menus to read Kind is Image. Finally, in the last action (Move Finder Items) drag the My Pictures folder on top of this action’s To: pop-up menu. Save your workflow and give it a name.


Playing Hoopla movie's on iPad 4 On my husband's iPad 2, we are able to play Hoopla movies on our Apple TV (using AirPlay and mirroring) with no problems, however if we try to use my iPad 4, all movies are fuzzy.  We have compare all settings on both devices and they are the same.  If I play a Hoopla movie on my iPad4 screen only, it works just fine, very clear, not fuzzy at all.

Any help would really be appreciated.  Thanks

Bartye

This is because your iPad has a lower resolution. It has to stretch the iPad's screen to fit onto your TV, while losing some resolution during the streaming. There is no way to fix this because with current software, this just isn't possible.


Apple Id Reactivation I am trying to re-activate my Apple ID which I have not used for about 1 year. The issue is to be able to re-activate my Apple ID (after being de-activated), I need to answer my security questions or  enter my old mobile phone number. The only issue is I have forgotten them.

How would I go about re-activating my Apple ID again?

The only way then is to call the Apple-support which can be found here: http://www.apple.com/support/contact/

Please be aware of possible extra phone fees.


MacBook Pro, external display black screen with 1680x1050 I have bought a new monitor Samsung SyncMaster 2243. I have been using it normally on windows with 1680x1050 resolution for almost a year now. I tried to connect it to my MacBook Pro via VGA to Mini display port adapter. It worked fine but 1440x900 resolution showed up. So I tried to set it to native display resolution 1680x1050 and now only thing I see is black screen. It works only for a few seconds per minute approximately. There are flashes. I cant lower the refresh rate, there is 60Mhz and no option to select lower.

Do you have any ideas what to try? Apple documentation says that Mini display port to VGA adapter supports 1920 resolution.

Thank you

Apple today released an update that addresses external display support in Macbook Pros.  Give that a try.


Create Context Menu Items in Photos app I have seen several blog posts and articles about how to create context menu items in Finder and have been motivated to try creating a Context Menu (right-click) Items inside the Photos app.

Using Automater, I created a workflow using an Applescript to find what albums include the image selected. In the workflow header I say that the Workflow receive current 'image files' in 'Photos.app + Finder.app' Please see picture below.

The result is that the new context item is shown in the Finder.app (at the bottom = "Find Albums") but not in the Photos.app as can be seen in the other pictures below.

I don’t know how to save this script into Photos.app to get it to activate.

What setting allows my script to be seen in Finder and not in Photos?

As far as I know, applications handle the right-click context menu on their own and there is no way to modify it. The general way of registering a service or having an application add a context menu entry only works for Finder (possibly also for other system contexts, but not Photos), which allows extending the menu.


Using Siri for commercial purposes? Does anyone know what the rules are on using Siri for unintended purposes?  I would like to actually hook it up to my company's phone number so that when someone calls in, I can have them routed to Siri.

Questions of how this would work technically aside, are there any Apple terms-of-use that say this isn't allowed?

Since Apple doesn't offer an API to use their Siri services, you might be limited to coming up with some Rube Goldberg machine that presses the home button of your iPhone and rubs a buddha belly for luck (or whatever else you desire to have happen simultaneously with the incoming call) so that Siri will work at the exact moment your caller is speaking to her.

Again, there is no API to do anything except listen to what Siri responds sonically so it's not clear how this might be useful for anything but a fun youtube video.

Now, your business might very well be able to license a voice like Siri (or the same exact voice for enough $$) by contacting Nuance or some other computer speech vendor - but their product likely won't run on iOS since other custom hardware is likely to be more capable for an automated PBX.


When an iPhone app is updated and the minimum required iOS increases, what happens for customers who still have the lower iOS? For example, I'm a developer, and my app is released with a minimum iOS of 3.0 required.  If I release an update requiring iOS 5.0, what happens?
Can existing customers running 3.0 attempt to update?  What error message (if any) do they receive when attempting this?
Will customers running 3.0 get the 'Update' notification in their app store app?

When the user tries to install the update, the app store will alert the user saying something like "you must have iOS5 to install this update.". The user will still be able to use the current version they they have, though.


Quick Look video scrubbing on macOS High Sierra Previously, when previewing a video in Quick Look, scrolling right and left on the trackpad would scrub forward and backward, but after upgrading to macOS High Sierra, this seems no longer to be the case.

Is there any way to re-enable this setting? Or, if not, are there any alternative ways to scrub? (Dragging the line on the progress bar is not nuanced enough, especially for longer videos.)

As of macOS 10.13.2 (17C88) it is working correctly once again.


is data stored in iphone encrypted by default? according to the following website:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/stop-thieves-recovering-data-factory-reset/

it is stated that iphones encrypt all data stored in them:
The iOS operating system on Apple iPhones and iPads has to deal with a similar problem. To ensure a user’s data can be quickly and completely wiped when the device is factory reset, it has a trick up its sleeve. All data on the device is encrypted by default using the hardware encryption feature. When you choose to set up encryption, the device is protected with your own encryption key. Even if you never set up encryption, the files are stored on the device in encrypted form so any bits of deleted files appear as random gibberish on the device’s storage after it’s reset. The data can’t be recovered.

im confused.

is all data stored in iphones encrypted by default?
specifically iphone 5s

Yes, the data is encrypted by default. However it is not "secure" in the sense that if you do not set up a sufficiently good pass code, it is easy to read the data if you have access to the phone.


External (Thunderbolt 2) drive keeps changing to read-only randomly I'm running macOS 10.14.2 on a 2018 Mac mini. I have an Akitio enclosure, connected to the Mac via a Thunderbolt 2<->3 adapter. At random, one of the drives in the enclosure becomes read-only (the other drives are fine). I'm not really sure where to begin troubleshooting this. This also happened on my 2013 Mac Pro running High Sierra.

I assume you've already done this, but I would check my connectors.  Additionally, the one drive may not be getting as much power and/or can be beginning to fail.  If you have a way to test it externally on another device, I think we would learn a lot more about the cause.
I hope this provides some helpful ideas/thoughts.  Keep us posted!


How to hide xattr lines from "ls -l" output When I list files in the command line with "ls -l",  I get all the xattr lines also and this clutters the output, making it hard to find the files I want.  How can I list a directory without printing the xattr lines?

Here's an example of what I get when I type "ls -l"

drwxrwxr-x@ 461 root    admin  -   15K Aug 31 19:54 bin/
    com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot    50B
    com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot    50B
drwxr-xr-x@  13 walter  admin  -  442B Jul 18 08:56 etc/
    com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot    50B
    com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot    50B

Edit:
I figured it out. See answer below.

The ~/.bashrc file had an alias that made that the default. I removed the alias and the extra lines were gone.

The line in my .bashrc file read: alias ls='ls -FGhO@.

Remove the "@" and problem is solved.


"There are stopped jobs." when exiting bash When I'm in the terminal (either iTerm or Terminal.app) and have jobs running in the background, then typing exit or logout gives me:

There are stopped jobs.

which is fine and expected. The problem is that if I run exit or logout again (and repeatedly), I get the same thing.

isbadawi@astaire:~$ exit
logout
There are stopped jobs.
isbadawi@astaire:~$ exit
logout
There are stopped jobs.
isbadawi@astaire:~$ exit
logout
There are stopped jobs.
isbadawi@astaire:~$ exit
logout
There are stopped jobs.
isbadawi@astaire:~$ exit
logout
There are stopped jobs.
isbadawi@astaire:~$ exit
logout
There are stopped jobs.
isbadawi@astaire:~$ exit
logout
There are stopped jobs.

I've used bash on linux, and the behavior there was for the second invocation of exit or logout to go ahead and terminate the stopped jobs. Instead, I have to do this manually. Why is the behavior different, and is there a way to make it the same?

If you have jobs that are stopped (with CTRL-z) or happened to be in the background but are stopped waiting for input, you can see what's there with the 'jobs' command.

If you only have a job, then a 'fg' will bring it to the front for you to interact with it or kill with a 'CTRL-c'. If you have multiple jobs, you can bring individual or specific ones with 'fg '.


2018 MacBook Pro won't let me install macOS High Sierra 10.13 from USB installer I've got a 2018 MacBook Pro (Model ID : MacBook 15,1) that shipped with macOS Mojave 10.14, that I need to downgrade to run macOS High Sierra 10.13.

I've tried reformatting the main drive using Disk Utility and then re-installing the OS from recovery mode, which from past experience loads the lowest OS the machine shipped with (for the 2018 MBP that is 10.13.6). But for some reason when I do this it keeps loading macOS Mojave 10.14.

So I've gone for another solution: I've created a USB installer of macOS High Sierra 10.13, wiped the MacBook Pro drive again, gone to the Startup Security Utility, and set medium security and allowed boot from external drive. I then restart the computer holding the Option key and booted using the USB installer.

After a loading screen, I keep getting a Install macOS Mojave menu. Any ideas why this would be, and why it's not letting me install macOS High Sierra 10.13?

Although the 2018 MacBook Pro originally shipped with macOS High Sierra 10.13, could it be that I have a later model of 2018 MacBook Pro, that only has drivers for macOS Mojave 10.14 and later? Or do all 2018 MacBook Pros work with the same drivers?

Original answer

As described in this support article, there are different ways to load macOS Recovery:

  cmd+R: Install the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac.
  alt+cmd+R: Upgrade to the latest macOS compatible with your Mac.
  shift+alt+cmd+R: Install the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available.

I suggest you try the last option and see if it lets you install macOS 10.13.

Update as per OP comments

Apparently the key combinations from my previous answer did not work for you and you receive the message "/Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app does not appear to be a valid OS installer application.", when creating the USB installer.

It seems you face exactly the issue discussed here. The AppStore downloaded only a down-sized version of the installer image. Try the solutions offered in the answers over there. Basically you have to first download the full image / SharedSupport folder before you can create your USB boot installer.


How to login to a network account on a MacBook without network? I currently have a MacBook with Lion (fully updated), using the network account from a Lion Server (also fully updates) and I'm able to login to the network account just fine.

However, when I'm offline (away from my home network), I can't login to my account. How do I make the MacBook cache the network account login information for posterior offline use?

I'm able to login at home, put the mac to sleep and use it without any network, but if I reboot it for any reason, I'm locked out (only local accounts are "loggable").

According to this answer in the Apple Support Communities, I'm needed to create a mobile account on my server:

In Workgroup Manager, select your username in the list of users.
Click the Preferences button.
Click the Mobility button.
Turn it on using your desired settings.

Thanks to HopelessN00b for pointing me to the right direction.


How to check Apple ID store balance without iTunes or iPhone? How can someone check their balance without an iOS/OS X device and without installing iTunes?

For example if you lost or disposed of an old Apple device or simply left it at home... There must be a way to find out if you have any credit left

You can call apple support provide your Apple ID and once the advisor verifies your identity  they can find out for you


Different output for number of processors using system_profiler When I'm executing the command system_profiler SPHardwareDataType, I'm getting the shell output below:

Hardware:

    Hardware Overview:

        Model Name: MacBook Pro
        Model Identifier: MacBookPro14,3
        Processor Name: Intel Core i7
        Processor Speed: 2.9 GHz
        Number of Processors: 1
        Total Number of Cores: 4
        L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
        L3 Cache: 8 MB
        Memory: 16 GB
        Boot ROM Version: MBP143.0178.B00
        SMC Version (system): 2.45f0
        Serial Number (system): C02VD9KVHTD6
        Hardware UUID: 795D777F-F037-57A4-8B26-45112AD9D63B

However, when I'm executing the command system_profiler SPHardwareDataType  -xml for getting output in XML format, I'm getting an incorrect count for the number of processors property:

<array>
    <dict>
        <key>SMC_version_system</key>
        <string>2.45f0</string>
        <key>_name</key>
        <string>hardware_overview</string>
        <key>boot_rom_version</key>
        <string>MBP143.0178.B00</string>
        <key>cpu_type</key>
        <string>Intel Core i7</string>
        <key>current_processor_speed</key>
        <string>2.9 GHz</string>
        <key>l2_cache_core</key>
        <string>256 KB</string>
        <key>l3_cache</key>
        <string>8 MB</string>
        <key>machine_model</key>
        <string>MacBookPro14,3</string>
        <key>machine_name</key>
        <string>MacBook Pro</string>
        <key>number_processors</key>
        <integer>4</integer>
        <key>packages</key>
        <integer>1</integer>
        <key>physical_memory</key>
        <string>16 GB</string>
        <key>platform_UUID</key>
        <string>795D777F-F037-57A4-8B26-45112AD9D63B</string>
        <key>serial_number</key>
        <string>C02VD9KVHTD6</string>
    </dict>
</array>

Can anyone explain what is going on here?

To me it simply looks like the xml output is using the number of cores as the number of processors. You can see that the number of cores property simply disappeared from the xml. It is a common conception on Linux systems to call a core a processor. I'll even go further by saying that the "packages" value is the number of processors, and number of processors the number of cores.


iOS 8 Safari SharePoint 2013 Windows Authentication Support I would like to support SharePoint 2013 with default out-of-box settings on iOS 8 devices. I see a lot of forum discussion on both Apple and Microsoft sites regarding IIS Windows Authentication being broken with Safari in iOS 8. Without bypassing Windows Authentication, I'm looking for details on any scheduled software fix in iOS 8, or workarounds like using Chrome on iOS 8 as mentioned in some of the forum posts. Unfortunately the Chrome workaround is a partial fix as iOS 8 does not allow Chrome to be the default browser for links opened from email or elsewhere on your mobile device. Here are the relevant discussions and links I used while attempting to find a solution or verify the problem.

Cannot see Sharepoint with iOS8 (Apple Support Communities)
iOS 8 Safari not working with [...] Windows Authentication (Apple Support Communities)
SharePoint 2013 is not compatible with iOS 8 (Microsoft TechNet Forums)
sharepoint 2013 ios 8 safari (Google Search)

A note regarding Windows Authentication (NTLM/Negotiate) authentication default configuration for SharePoint 2013. For compatibility with various Microsoft products including the SharePoint Search Crawler, Microsoft Field Engineer Brian Pendergrass says "the crawler requires Windows Authentication [NTLM or Kerberos] in whatever zone your [sic] crawl …meaning your Default zone should include Windows Authentication)". Microsoft Office integration also seems to be optimized for SharePoint Windows Authentication. Based on this rationale, the default zone should always be configured for Windows Auth and only alternate zones should be used for alternative authentication like Forms Auth. Our organization chooses to deploy only one zone to require all SharePoint URLs to have the same form (SSL + Fully Qualified Domain Name) - thus we're stuck on a default zone with Windows Authentication.

Have you tried implementing the ADFS solution? Using client certificates

It's described here:  https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/38086/sharepoint-repeatedly-prompting-ipad-users-for-credentials

And goes in to more detail here: https://paddleshift.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/authenticating-to-sharepoint-from-iphone-and-ipad/


View the file names and directories of eBooks in iTunes I added eBooks from various directories to iTunes (without storing the books inside iTunes in Windows XP).  Is there a way to view the list of file names and directories?  Thanks.

If your files are not in \iTunes Media\Books\ which is the default place to be when you tell iTunes to keep your media organized the they're in their original place.

How to know where that place is?

Go to books section in your library
Click the book you want
Get Info. You can right click or use your keyboard (control+I in Windows / command+I in Mac).
In the summary tab (first one loaded by default) you'll find a "Where" section at the bottom. with the path to the file.


Can't restore latest WhatsApp Backup to new device My iPhone 11 went in for damage assessment on 9 January, which is when I did an iCloud backup of everything. The same day I pulled out my iPhone 7 and restored from iCloud to get all my WhatsApp messages onto that phone. Today I received a replacement iPhone 11 and restored the new phone from the iCloud backup of my iPhone 7.
My problem is that WhatsApp will only restore the messaged from 9 January - the iCloud back I made on the previous iPhone 11.
I don't want to lose all the messaged that I received between 9 January and today.
I have tried deleting the WhatsApp backup on iCloud and recreating from the iPhone 7, but somehow the backup restore that the new iPhone 11 finds is from 9 January.
I deleted the old phone from iCloud and re-attempted above, with no differents.
I reduced the size of the WhatsApp backup on iPhone 7 by removing a lot of media and then confirmed on both phones that the WhatsApp part of iCloud storage is the reduced size.
Research indicates that there are 2 backups for WhatsApp - one for the application itself stored on iCloud and another for iCloud backup. I think that my problem is the previous iPhone 11's iCloud backup.
Guidance, help, please.

Resolution: Delete iCloud backup for my previous iPhone 11, then reset new iPhone 11 and restore from the iPhone 7 backup, which is now the only backup. This worked.


Running a command line tool based on its extension I use Leo for structured editing of my code, and Leo has the extension of .leo.

In order to run Leo, I use the following alias

alias leo='arch -x86_64 /usr/bin/python2.6 /Users/bin/Leo-4.7.1-final/launchLeo.py --gui=qt'

It works well to launch leo with leo file as follows.

leo -f hello.leo

However, I need to find a way to launch Leo by clicking the leo file in the Finder/Path Finder.

What might be the solution to this problem?

ADDED

Mankoff's advice on using Automator works.
For running PyQt with -f option, I set "Pass input : as argument", and have the following bash code, which launches with/without -f option depending a file is dragged on or not.

if [ -z $1 ]
then
  arch -x86_64 /usr/bin/python2.6 /Users/smcho/smcho/bin/Leo-4.8-b1/launchLeo.py --gui=qt
else
  arch -x86_64 /usr/bin/python2.6 /Users/smcho/smcho/bin/Leo-4.8-b1/launchLeo.py --gui=qt -f $1
fi

I would use Automator. Make an app that takes an argument (file dropped on it, file double-clicked associated with that app, whatever), and runs the command you have above.


guest access to samba shares on 10.8 Is there any way to allow public (ie no user/password prompt) access to samba shares using the mountain lion built in server?

Even with Everyone set to read/write in System Preferences and the guest account enabled for sharing a password is always required when trying to connect from a windows computer (I've tried both 7 and xp).

Yep!

Go to 'Users & Groups' in System Preferences
Select the 'Guest User'
Tick 'Allow guests to connect to shared folders'

Done :)


Make "move item" a default right click option Is it possible to get the option (⌥) + right click move item here command to show up by default on right click when copy pasting items between different locations in finder. Rather than having to hold the option key ?

Im using OSX 10.10

Sam, I don't think it's possible without a third party app. As mentioned by @Tetsujin, there is a native shortcut for moving a file Cmd+C and Cmd+Alt+V, but if you don't wish to use shortcuts, you may have to use a third party app.

I guess you could make an Automator Service, but you'd have to access it from the  "Services" submenu thing and I feel it would be more of a hindrance than a real solution.

3rd party applications that add "Cut" to the context menu:

All of these applications use the same logic as Windows, when it comes to moving files this way, which is to say backwards from how it works in macs: You start with the intent to "Copy" or "Cut" file(s) and then just normally "Paste" to complete the action. Cutting = Moving.

Should be noted that from 10.11. onward XtraFinder and TotalFinder become more difficult to run, as they need to inject code to Finder and SIP is not into that. I believe both support disabling SIP → installing → enabling SIP. I know TotalFinder does.

XtraFinder - Free app.

Adds "Cut" to the context menu.
XtraFinder Preferences > Features > Cut & Paste

TotalFinder - Paid app.

Adds "Cut" to the context menu. It's on by default.

There's an alternative Finder Preferences > TotalFinder > Menus > Show CutPaste buttons in Context Menus, which turns Cut Copy Paste into buttons all in one line in the context menu.

Though I'd highly advice against it, you can disable the tabs if that is not your thing.
More or less the same as XtraFinder with some differences.

Path Finder - Paid app.

Path Finder Preferences > Features > Contextual Menu.

Commands list on the left contains all possible context menu items, Cut being one of them and the Contextual Menu list on the right contains all the current items in the context menu. You should be aware that these are contextual... Like for example, you won't see "Copy Dropbox Link" in the actual context menu if the file is not in your Dropbox folder.

Finder replacement. The other two apps extend Finder functionality.
Has a fully customizable context menu.
In general is more customizable than the other two.
Should be noted that many things that irritate people when they first start using Path Finder can be changed from the View > Show View Options. Some of them being "Bold folders" and "Smart Sorting".

All of these application have shortcuts too:

Cmd+C = Copy
Cmd+X = Cut
Cmd+V = Paste

Path Finder and XtraFinder both have Move to... and Copy to... context menu items as well.


FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in) detected on USB hub, but no picture? `sudo Killall VDCAssistant`, restarting, etc does nothing Why does my laptop camera keep losing picture? Is this possibly just a hardware failure? Specifically, this is in regards to a mid-2012 MacBook Air running macOS Sierra 10.12.5 with a 2GHz i7 & 8GB RAM. The laptop has led a pretty sedentary, suburban life (not banged around a lot or used on the go). Maybe it's just five year old ribbon cables from the camera through the laptop hinge finally giving up?

As of today, the camera picture just isn't coming back. None of these get me picture again:

zapping the PRAM:

hold down ⌘+option+p+r while booting/restarting...
let the mac chime 3-4 times, then let go.

Disk Utility's First Aid in recovery mode (or internet recovery mode):

⌘+r, or,
⌘+option+r at bootup

resetting the SMC (System Management Controller):

shut down, unplug power, hold SHIFT+CTRL+option+POWER for ten-fifteen seconds then boot up.

Apple Hardware Test:

Restart holding down d
Running the basic test, and, running the extended test just result in the message: 4HDD/11/40000000: SATA(0,0) for a computer which does not have an HDD...

note: invoke these commands until the return msg appears
$ sudo killall VDCAssistant
No matching processes were found
sudo killall AppleCameraAssistant
No matching processes were found

... no picture, but the camera is still detected on the USB hub:

After zapping PRAM, resetting SMC, recovery mode Disk Utility:

After sudo killall VDCAssistant:

OF NOTE:

I'm not sure, but I don't think AppleCameraAssistant is a thing
anymore in macOS Sierra?
Also, takes a couple invocations of $ sudo killall VDCAssistant to
get the No matching processes were found return message. I have no
apps open which use the camera, so I am not sure why this happens.
sudo Killall VDCAssistant does nothing except, for example,
PhotoBooth.app or FaceTime.app change from a completely black screen
to a black screen with the "There is no connected camera." message.
The camera still detected on USB 2.0 bus and after restarting, the app displays a black screen with no "...no connected camera" message.
Even when the picture is missing (with or w/o the "no connected cam"
msg) and there's no green indicator light, the device is still
detected on the USB bus. There's no picture in PhotoBooth,
FaceTime.app, or meeting software like zoom.us.
Restarting in Recovery mode and using FirstAid in the Disk Utility
used to resuscitate the camera, but after a couple uses, launching an app that accesses the camera would result in nothing but
a black picture and no green indicator light.

Any suggestions for troubleshooting would be very welcome.  Thanks you.

UPDATE: the camera functionality has "magically" reappeared and is now consistent. I think it might be the connecting wires. I noticed after traveling that the camera went away. I gently tapped on the hinge side of the laptop with the Air book closed, and that got it working again.

You most likely have a hardware failure of the Facetime camera.

It doesn't have to show up in AHT for there to be a problem.  Like any test, AHT isn't immune to false positives/negatives.

To truly verify if it's your hardware or software, install a generic USB camera (FaceTime camera is technically a USB camera) which uses the same underlying software as the FaceTime cam.  If it works, it's a hardware issue.

Regarding your AHT error code indicating a bad drive; just because it uses the code "HDD" doesn't mean it's not applicable to SSDs.  An SSD or HDD uses the exact same ATA command set to interface with so if you are getting an error code it is valid and applicable.

Again, AHT is not the definitive answer, but a tool to help you diagnose problems.  If it's giving you an error code, it's something you should start looking into.


How to cd into my local git repo from an AppleScript? I am running a Mac using OSX Yosemite v10.10.5.

I want to push my local git repo to my remote using AppleScript.

So the git code would be:

shell

git init
git add README.md
git commit -m "first commit"
git remote add origin https://github.com/myusername/my-project.git
git push -u origin master

But in order to run this from the terminal, first I need to cd into my local directory.

cd my-directory

So how would I do all this from an AppleScript? Or the JavaScript option in the Script Editor would also help.

Basically you can use

do shell script "cd my-directory && git init"
do shell script "cd my-directory && git add README.md"
...


iOS Icon Update Delay I installed the update for the official iOS Twitter icon a couple of days ago and noticed that even though the update advertised a new icon, the icon didn't change when the update installed.  Today I just looked at my phone and the new icon is there.  Is there usually a delay between update installation and icon update?  If so, how long is it supposed to be and why does it occur?

There shouldn't be any delay. It's likely it's just a bug - perhaps one of the graphics files in the app file didn't get swapped out. It happened with Reeder for iPhone recently. Or the release notes were in error (I note they don't seem to mention any icon update now).


Is there the way to resolve RAM problems? I have Macbook Pro 13" Late 2011. It has 4GB RAM, i bought 2x8GB Corsair, CMSO8GX3M1A1333C9. It works cool in 98% of time, but when i play games or use very heavy apps like Photoshop, i always get crashes and reboots. I try to use only one slot with 8GB in there – the same problem. On 4GB (2x2GB) no crashes or reboots but it's mush more slower...

The questions are:
– how to resolve that problems?
– may it be that my Mac can't use more than 4GB in one slot?
– what memory will make work with my Mac stable?

Best regards,
Sergey

Did you buy the RAM from a provider that guarantees it for Macintosh systems? I've gotten RAM from a big box store that has met the exact specifications, but wouldn't work in my Mac Book Pro without crashing all of the time. I ended up returning that RAM and getting it for about the same price from a vendor that guarantees it will work in my specific system.

Apple specs say that this machine is capable of a maximum of 8GB of ram, but third parties have found, that with the right modules, 16GB works fine.

I'd recommend returning your current RAM modules and getting new ones from a Mac specialist. I don't think that the modules you have will ever work with your hardware.


How do I run virtual machines in Parallels Lite on Mojave? I downloaded Parallels Lite from the App Store. Even though Parallels Lite claims to be free if you want to run Linux virtual machines, the only thing I see is this:

This is what the help says:

  Choose How to Use Parallels Desktop Lite

  When you launch Parallels Desktop Lite for the first time, you need to
  choose how you're going to use it. Choose one of the following:

  Windows & Support. If you choose this option, you will be able to create and run virtual machines with Windows, Linux and any other
  supported operating system. You will also be able to contact the
  support team for assistance.

  Note: This option is free during a trial period. If you want to continue using Windows or other virtual machines after the trial
  period expires, you need to purchase a subscription.
  Linux only. If you choose this option, you will be able to create and run only Linux virtual machines. This option is completely
  free of charge. However, telephone support is not available.

  Important! Please note that Windows and its license are not included.

Transcribed from this screenshot provided by OP.

but I never saw the window described in the help page. Instead, it took me straight to subscription.

What am I doing wrong? Why am I unable to add a virtual machine?

According to this Parallels forum, Parallels no longer offers free Linux, even though their Help document says they do...


How to get Windows Adobe Web Premium CS3 to run on a Mac? I spent about $1,600 for Adobe Web Premium cs3 (Windows version) back in the day. How can I get this to run on my Mac without having to buy a Mac license?

Sorry, I refuse to pay a subscription for new versions of stuff I bought and it still does the job.

The only way to do this is to pay for a Windows license and either dual boot or run in an emulator like Parallels or VMWare. Even if you could get trade for a Mac-specific version of the software you bought, CS3 isn't going to work well on anything other than older versions of OS X.


Zoom in on photo in Quick Look on macOS Mojave In versions of macOS before macOS Mojave (10.14), one could press the Alt/Option key when viewing an image in Quick Look to zoom in to the "actual size" of the photo.

When the macOS Mojave beta came out, it seemed as though that feature was removed. I asked a question about it on here, and it turned out that the shortcut key was changed to Control.

In the last few beta versions of macOS Mojave as well as the public release, unfortunately, this does not seem to be working anymore. I tried all combinations of modifier keys that I could think up of, but nothing seems to work.

Is there any other new shortcut for zooming an image in Quick Look on macOS Mojave?

Is there any other new shortcut for zooming an image to actual size in Quick Look on the latest version of macOS Mojave?

In the public release of macOS Mojave 10.14, Command + 0 keyboard sequence appears to achieve the desired function.

To zoom back out again use the keyboard shortcut Command + 9.

You can use Command+ and Command- to Zoom in and Zoom Out, like you can do at Preview app.


Should I stop using my Mac while the hard disk is being cloned? As one of my backup solutions, I use an app (SuperDuper!, if it makes any difference) to make a clone of my Mac at the same time every evening. Sometimes I am still working at that time. What I want to know is: should I stop using my Mac while the clone is in progress? Why or why not?

Intuitively it seems that if a file is being modified while it is being copied to the clone drive that could affect the integrity of the backup. However, it would be good to have a definitive answer from someone who knows.

Thanks for reading.

I don't know if this applies to SuperDuper!, but here's a KB entry from Carbon Copy Cloner's website:

Can I run a backup while I'm using my computer? If I have open files, will they be backed up?
Yes and no, it really depends. Performance will be affected during the clone (especially the first one) as CCC reads the entire source volume and writes to the destination volume. If your work is "disk bound" -- that is your applications are reading or writing to either the source or destination, then you'll notice a performance hit. If you're just reading email or writing a Pages document, then you probably won't notice the performance hit.
Affecting the accuracy of the backup task is something else that should be considered. Typically it's OK to work from the source volume while you're copying it, with the understanding that if CCC copied a file, then you open it, make changes, save it, then CCC completes the backup task, the modified version of your document is not backed up (this time around). Typically that's no big deal, the modifications will get backed up the next time the backup task runs. More importantly, though, if you're working with large files (mounted disk image, Entourage email database, VMWare/Parallels container) during the backup operation, it is possible that those large files could be modified while CCC is backing up that file. This won't affect the source file, but there's a good chance that the backup version of that file will be corrupt. For this reason it is a good idea to stop using applications that may be modifying large files.


How to get rid of iCloud music on iPhone I have an iPhone 4s with iOS7 and somehow I see iCloud music which I haven't downloaded yet on my iOS device.
How can I get rid of these, I do not need to see them.

You might also have videos visible in the Video.app. You can remove them following the summary below.

If you go to:

Settings
iTunes and App Store
Uncheck Show All Music (and videos)
Done, they’re gone!


Bulk SMS App for iPhone on Schedule A friend who runs a spa wants to send out a reminder to all her customers four weeks after their last appointment. It is a small number, half a dozen per day. But I need an app that can send an sms to a group of customers that a separate program generates. (Separate program runs on a PC, phone is an iPhone.)

Does such a think exist?

I know I can use an SMS gateway for this, problem is that when the message goes out, the reply has to come back to HER phone number. So if the message says "Would you like to schedule an appointment", when the customer his reply they want to say "How about tomorrow at 12pm?" and that go to the spa onwer's phone. SMS gateways don't seem to be able to do that reliably. So I wanted to go through the phone directly.

Any other suggestions to achieve the same goal would be appreciated.

You'll have far better luck doing this on Android as opposed to iOS due to restrictions on sending SMS from applications is something that's not even kosher for App Store apps AFAIK.

There are SMS providers that allow voice and SMS from the numbers - you can check out Twilio for that. Also Google Voice offers SMS to email, so your business could switch to using that and use an email program to queue the SMS for bulk delivery as required.

Sorry to give you a no answer, but there just isn't a market for this sort of app to run natively on iOS.


How to fix a damaged user account? So I'm riding the Mavericks, I mean I'm using OS X 10.9.2. :)

I played around with the account settings and now the account is damaged.

Below is exactly how I damaged it.

I wanted to change my username.

According to http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1428,
I first created a new account, then went to the directory "/Users" and changed the name of the folder "/Users/mac" to "/Users/Air".

Then I went into System Preference -> Users & Groups, and entered the "Advanced Options" of the account named "mac".

I happily disregarded the "WARNING".

I deleted "User ID".

And deleted "Group", which automatically turned to "wheel" after the cursor was moved to the next field.

I Changed "Account name" from "mac" to "Air", and changed "Home directory" from "/Users/mac" to "/Users/Air".

I clicked "OK", restarted and logged in the newly-named account. Then it says the resource library was damaged, and the system stopped responding (that beachball spinning!)

Any help is greatly appreciated!

-- Frax

You need to put the User ID and Group entries back the way they were. If the screenshot is right, the User ID should be 502, and the Group should always be "staff" on normal accounts.

It's possible there's something else wrong as well, but this'll solve at least part of the problem. One thing to check (after fixing the User ID) is to use the Finder's Get Info to check the home folder -- in the Sharing & Permissions section, make sure the correct user account is listed. If it isn't, do not try to fix it in the Finder; there's a way to fix home folder permissions in Recovery mode that's much less likely to break anything.


Why is it that my MacBook Pro Retina's resolution is detected as different based on the application? The actual advertized resolution is 2880 x 1800.
Taking a fullscreen, screenshot gives me an image that is 2880 x 1800.
Going to this site tells me my resolution is 1440 x 900.
The built in Digital Color Meter tells me my resolution is 1440 x 900.
This bit of Java code:
Dimension screenSize = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
double width = screenSize.getWidth();
double height = screenSize.getHeight();
System.out.println(width + " x " + height);

has an output of 1440 x 900.
So why is this and how do I fix it?

I am an iOS developer, so have a bit of an idea what is causing this.  Apple measure screen size in points rather than pixels, and depending on whether your screen is a retina display or not, will change the scaling factor between points and physical pixels.

In your case, because you have a high-resolution Retina display, OS X is applying a scale factor of 2.0.  This means that a webpage that has been designed with an element 500px across will still appear the right physical size (however it will in fact be 1000px across).

It's not a bug, it's a feature that means the retina display can still show the "old-fashioned" normal resolution content.


Two phones on one account I have two phones that are both on one Apple account in Itunes. Now that I am on ICloud updating the two phones are merging information. How do I separate the two phones into distinct accounts?

You can use different Apple ID's with different services. Create a new Apple ID for the second iPhone and use that ID for iCloud, while still using the same iTunes/App Store login.

There may be a way to manage how the devices sync (using the same account), but I have been using the above method successfully.


Cannot configure xdebug; "Operation not permitted" error when trying to cp I'm trying to configure xdebug, but when I run the command

cp Downloads/xdebug-2.6.1/xdebug-2.6.1/modules/xdebug.so /usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20160303

I get a "Operation not permitted" warning from the terminal, even when I use sudo

I checked the security and privacy settings to make sure the terminal had full disk access and made sure the files in question were unlocked.

What else could be prompting this error?

You need to temporarily disable System Integrity Protection

https://www.howtogeek.com/230424/how-to-disable-system-integrity-protection-on-a-mac-and-why-you-shouldnt/


Other ID's appearing in my Mac Store account Just bought a refurbished Mac Mini, with new SSD and fresh instal of Yosemite. After setup, using my existing IOS Apple account details I updated to El Capitan, added Little Snitch and Firefox. All seemed well, until I started to get notifications that updates were available for software I didn't recognise. Being new to Mac I thought this might be OS based and clicked to upgrade, only to be informed that such upgrades were not authorised for this user. I also saw two unknown e-mail addresses. How do I fix this? Also, if as I suspect, ID's are still associated with the machine, why did the updates (to apps not installed) only show up now? HELP!

Just in case anyone is interested, I think I solved this. Still not sure why it should be the case, but it seems related to an external USB drive. When that is mounted, I get the notices about app updates I haven't bought and therefore can't  download. Even when the drive is ejected, this persists. However, if I clean boot without the drive or re-boot, all is well.