How to move from Aperture to iPhoto What's the best way to import my Aperture library to iPhoto?

There are no perfect solutions to the this. To maintain the full quality of the images in Aperture, your best bet is going to be exporting the Master files from Aperture, then re-importing them into iPhoto.

If you've done extensive edits to your images, you will also want to export versions of those files in the highest quality possible, and import those versions into your iPhoto library.

Another possibility—that I haven't fully explored—would be to export your Aperture library as a new library that uses referenced images (as opposed to managed) so that those images exist in an organized folder hierarchy on your hard drive. You can then import those images and keep some of your Aperture organizational structure. (This is unexplored by me because I've never used the referenced image option.)


How do you keep your macbook pro cleaned and polished? How often do you clean your macbook pro and what are you cleaning with?

When I bought my macbook pro last week it came with a special cloth/wipe and I've used it to wipe the dust off my screen and keyboard.

I know it would sound dumb, but what is the proper way to clean the cloth? Just wash it in water?

Thanks!

Several years ago I purchased the iKlear Complete Cleaning Kit which comes with:

1 - 2 oz. iKlear Spray Bottle
1 - 6 oz. iKlear Spray Bottle
1 - Large "Chamois" Cloth
1 - Travel Size "Chamois" Cloth
1 - Medium DMT Antimicrobial Cloth
1 - Travel Size DMT Antimicrobial Cloth
12 - iKlear Travel Singles

You can buy it on Amazon for just under $19 [prime eligible].

They claimed at the time that it was the exclusive product used at the Apple Genius Bar. I'm not sure if that's still true, but I've definitely seen it in use at Apple Stores. I've been very happy with it, and it has lasted a long, long time. ("How long?" you ask. Well, let me put it this way, I bought it for my PowerBook.)

The nice thing about it is that you can use it to clean the glass and the body of the Mac too.

(Non-Disclaimer: I'm not connected to the company in any way other than a paying customer.)


No audio when AirPlay mirroring from MacBook Air to Apple TV Air running Yosemite, played a video and turned on AirPlay mirroring to my Apple TV 4 running tvOS 9.1. The sound keeps coming from my Air, not the TV. I checked the Sound.prefPane and confirmed that the Apple TV is selected under Output. I've tried restarting the video as well as disconnecting and re-connecting AirPlay Mirroring, but the sound always comes out of the Air.

Found a solution on Apple forums, posting it here in case anyone else runs across this problem. I had to:

Turn off AirPlay Mirroring
Open Sound.prefPane and select Apple TV as the output
Turn AirPlay Mirroring back on

For some reason it appears you have to manually set the sound output before connecting AirPlay Mirroring

Source


Seeking for some advice of Mac Mini vs Macbook Pro both maxed out specs I am looking for some advice about getting a macbook pro or mac mini. Basically, the case with me is that I currently have a mid 2014 macbook pro that is a base model. I use the macbook pro at home and on the go, so it was inevitable that the ram and hard drive space was not enough for me. I am considering upgrading to the macbook pro model 13" with processor and ram maxed out along with 512 GB of disk space. However, I recently noticed that most of my heavy duty work (i.e.: running matlab/data analysis/VM at the same time, which are typically done at home and with my current set up at home, I have 2 27" monitors connected to the macbook pro). So, I recently thought about the mac mini and how it might be a better decision while using my macbook pro on the go. I just turned out to be a laptop guy so I never really thought about getting desktops but I really enjoy the portability of laptops but mac mini to be honest is also not to immobile also.

So I'm looking for some advice. I noticed that if I were to buy either, they both have i7 processors while macbook pro has turbo boost up to ~3.3 GHz with 3MB of shared L3 cache and mac mini has 3.5 GHz 4mb shared L3 cache. Though I'm unsure about the hyper threading capabilities of the Mac mini compared to the macbook pro. Seems to be a majority of the difference would be the disk space, if I'm correct.

Or the 3rd option is just to all out and go for a refurbished mac pro, which I noticed has 12GB of L3 cache + 10GB of memory for base, which is just insane but I do have a limited budget and can't afford to get upgrades for the mac pro.

What are your recommendations ? I appreciate any advice and thanks in advance.

The current Macbook Pro 13" (early 2015 model with i7-5557U) is faster than the latest available Mac Mini (late 2014 model with i7-4578U).

On paper the Mac Mini (late 2012 model i7-3720QM) is faster and more easy to upgrade (ram + hard drive) but it's probably not available for purchase any more.  In reality the new Macbook Pro will be much faster because of its insane fast SSD (AND its bus).  Yes you can upgrade the Mini with an SSD but you're still stucked with that bus.

Don't be fooled with the form factor.  Mac Mini's and iMacs basically are laptops in desktop casings.

I'd personally go for the Macbook Pro, any day of the week.  You state you are a notebook guy.  Stick with being one.  On top of that the Macbook potentially has better 2nd hand value if that's important to you.

The new Macbooks (Macbook Air from Mid 2013 and Macbook Pro's from Early 2014) have insane fast SSD's.  Remembering what every forum told thousands of times: if you want to get more speed out of your Mac, upgrade to an SSD before spending money on the RAM.  On a maxed out Macbook Pro you'll have both.


how to add few music files to iPhone which is "manually managed" by a different PC? I have an iPhone which is set up to "Manually manage" music on a PC that I don't have access to right now.

How can I add few more MP3 files to it with another PC/Mac, which will be available for listening offline? Ideally I want to have them all (1GB, 60 files), but even half a dozen will still help.

If you are manually managing via iTunes, there is no way to just add some songs to your iOS music library without deleting what is already there.
There are a couple workarounds that are only slightly unpleasant.

Use a iOS ripping software like the one by iSkySoft to copy the music from your iOS device to the computer, add that to the iTunes library of whatever computer you have, then sync all of that plus the new stuff. [40% unpleasant]
Put the songs in a cloud service like Dropbox or Box to store, and listen using the appropriate app. [10-25% unpleasant]


Restart an app if it is force quit I have the Freedom app installed to control my procrastination.

However, I can force quit Freedom from the Activity Monitor, and the remainder of the week just goes by without me getting anything done.

Is there any way by which I can restart this app if it is quit?

There is! launchd.info's cookbook has an example to keep Safari open. We can amend that to suit your, uh, anti-procrastination needs. Amending the original (Safari) version results in:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>local.freedom.keepAlive</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/usr/bin/open</string>
            <string>-W</string>
            <string>/Applications/Freedom.app</string>
        </array>
    </dict>
</plist>

Save that as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/local.freedom.keepAlive.plist. Check the last <string>... line - is that where Freedom is on your Mac? Edit the file if necessary and re-save it. Then use launchctl to load your anti-procrastination launch agent into launchd:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/local.freedom.keepAlive.plist

Check your launch agent is running with:

launchctl list | grep freedom

And finally - try quitting Freedom. If all goes well your attempt to procrastinate should be thwarted.


This email address is not available. Choose a different address I just reset my password and now trying to sign in w/ my email address, however can't pass "verification of your email address" step:
After entering verification code (got it through email), I get following message:

This email address is not available. Choose a different address.

Please advise.

This indicates that another AppleID has reserved your chosen email address as a secondary security, rescue, email alias or primary email for AppleID.
You have a couple options to fix this:

Go to each of your Apple ID you control and ensure no use of this email.
Contact Apple Support. They will generally never divulge the other account since they can’t tell you from someone trying to hack into your account so they may be able to help or they may tell you to choose another email or repeat step 1.


fix: mismatch between extentref entry reference count My MacBookPro 2019 (Catalina 10.15.4) recently started to show weird issues in disk utility:

When validating the internal startup disk (SSD) it fails various times with:

mismatch between extentref entry reference count

What can I do to fix this? Is this a serious issue?

Is this a serious issue? Maybe...

It is an issue with your disk that needs to be run in an environment where the normal boot volume is not the active startup volume. Fortunately that is built into all recent Macs.

FIRST, you have a recent backup, right? If not and you can make a backup, do so now.

Now boot into recovery mode by holding the ⌘ Command R keys during a reboot. Eventually you will get to a screen (if memory serves...) that asks you to pick a language and then you get the recovery environment.

Go to the (I believe) Tools menu and select Disk Utility. Now select the HD that you boot from and click on repair.

Depending on what is wrong and how fixable it is this might take a few minutes. It also might take an hour or more. Let it do its thing. Hopefully it can repair the error.

Note: as the OP mentioned sometimes running Disk Utility a few times will fix it on subsequent attempts. So try it again, and maybe again and again.

If it can't repair the error... Well normally I would advise using DiskWarrior (or other disk repair utilities) but I am not aware of any 3rd party disk repair utilities that work on APFS. Perhaps someone else in the AskDifferent community knows of one...

If there isn't one you basically should check your backup (make sure you have everything) and then reformat the disk and reinstall from scratch and then restore your backup. Why? Well if you have a disk error that Disk Utility can't fix and there are no 3rd party utilities then all you can do is reformat, reinstall and restore.


Keyboard shortcut for 'Clear filters' in excel in office 365 for mac How do you 'clear filters' in excel in office 365 for mac using the keyboard?

On PC I can do alt+d,f,s

or using the mouse I can go to Data > Filter > Clear


Is it possible to install only MongoDB command line tools on MacOS? I'm working with docker and containers and I'd like to install and use only mongodb command line tools (mongodump, mongorestore etc ...)

I unsuccessfully checked the docs.

Is it possible to install the command line tools only?

I tried all the proposed solutions but they did not work with me, I downloaded these tools by:
brew install mongodb/brew/mongodb-database-tools


Software differences beetween iPad 2, iPad Air and iPad mini (iBooks) I need to buy an iPad to see how EPUB files are displayed in iBooks app. It is very important to me whether iPad 2, iPad Air and iPad mini (both generations) work exactly the same when it comes to displaying EPUB files in iBooks app.

Is there any difference between iOS behaviour on 9,7' iPads an iPad mini? As far as I know, both have iOS 7.0.4 (or can be updated to that version), but it sometimes occur that even with same number version software works differently, so I need to make sure.
It looks like newest version of iBooks app is 3.2. Is this version available for both big and small versions of iPads? Is it exactly the same in a way how it renders EPUB files? For example iBooks for Mac is known for working a bit differently than iBooks for iOS hence a question.
Is it likely that Apple will support all of those devices the same with future updates of iOS and iBooks app?

Please note that pixel density (i.e. Retina display), speed differences and less processing power are not issue in this question. What matters is rendering of books.

I saw 'Other than size, what's the difference between the iPad Air and the Retina iPad mini?' question, but answers do not provide neccessary details about iBooks specifically.

I don't believe there are any software differences at all between an iPad mini and an iPad 2 or iPad Air. Both iPad minis use the exact same display resolution as their larger counterparts (1024x768 non-retina, 2048x1536 retina), just on a physically smaller screen. The whole purpose of this is to ensure that all existing software works identically on both device sizes.

In fact, I don't think it's even possible for an app to "know" which size device it's running on, since there's no technical way to differentiate them. Apple's own iOS Simulator doesn't even list the iPad mini as a separate device to simulate: the only options are iPad (meaning 1024x768) and iPad Retina (meaning 2048x1536).


Can I block ads on an iPad? I am about to buy an iPad, and was using a friend's device recently.  I noticed all these multi-colour intrusive square things I'm completely unused to seeing because I've been using Adblock Plus for years now.

What are my options?

No need for a jailbroken iPad, iCab can block ads http://www.icab.de/mobile.html
And it is a great browser.


Can I delete any of these items from library? I erased my hard drive and installed Big Sur from a bootable hard drive. I don’t know why it takes up almost 15GB on an erased hard drive.
Update: I just noticed on Disk Utility that 14.9GB is used for snapshot name: com.apple.is.update-{a long list of numbers}.
Any ideas if there is a safe way to delete a snapshot? I don’t know if these is stored with the VM.

Okay, apparently this is normal. Saw a discussion stating that the 15GB volume secured files from malware according to this discussion on an apple thread. So I guess it has to stay. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252032330


block "GET - On the App Store" link ads in Mobile Safari A lot of mobile optimised web sites display App Store links on the top of the page.

How to block this annoying ads? I already run and ad blocker for iOS.

I’m afraid the answer is you can’t block them, at least not through a setting in iOS or a Content Blocker extension for Safari. There are patches available for jailbroken devices though.

These ads are shown through the “Smart App Banners” feature of Safari. As far as I know, there is no setting in iOS to turn them off. Because of the way Safari Content Blocker extensions work, I also don’t think they can block the HTML tag that tells Safari to display the ad.

I might just be wrong, but other sources (see: blog post, reddit thread) also indicate these banners can’t be easily disabled.

At least Safari does seem to remember that you don’t want to see an ad for a particular app (or on a particular site, I’m not sure) if you close the banner using the “⨯” button on the left.


Recovering files deleted via sudo I deleted some files via sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/* - unfortunately I accidentally moved a folder from the Desktop into there and can't seem to recover it.

I only use this command now and then, when I need to; but how can I recover these files? I know it's a powerful command, but I cocked up this one, but at least I didn't delete system files... only a few personal JPG and PDF files.

I tried two data recovery utilities but it didn't seem to find the folder or its contents... why?

I have one backup of the folder with some of the contents on stored on an external HD, but that's not as up-to-date; the file was deleted 11 Apr 2014 - that's today.

How can I fix this?

Please stop writing to your hard drive this instant. That means turning it off if your system is running from said hard drive. The more you write on the HD, the more likely you are to write over the data you want to recover. And a running OS is writing on the HD.

Once you’ve done that, I can’t think of any reason why there would be any difference between files you’ve erased by emptying the Trash and files you’ve rmed1.

So the best solution you have is:

Boot from another disk.
Run a recovery utility such as Data Rescue.

1. By the way, why rm the Trash?


Sharing one IP address among multiple Apple devices Is it possible to share one IP address between two Apple laptops (both running Snow Leopard in my case) so that both devices can connect to the internet?

Yes, but with caveats.

MacOS X has an "internet sharing" mode in the "Sharing" control panel, but you have to use different network interfaces for the "internet facing" and "internal facing" sides of your network.

So if you're connected to the Internet over your ethernet port, you can share your connection to WiFi clients.  What you can't do is connect and share over the same port.


I brought a second hand I phone 5s tha is registered for beta updates Is it possible to go to normal updates or do I need to keep using the updates also how do I update when it wasn't done on my Apple ID

You can use iTunes to restore the device to the last shipping OS.

You could also delete the beta profile and keep the same OS. There's not much preventing you from keeping the beta updates as well.

Really - there's no downside to inheriting a device with beta other than you want to decide now before you put your data on it. You generally can't restore a new backup to an older OS.


How can I check ethernet card? I doubt a hardware problem with my ethernet device. I'm unable to connect to Internet. How can I verify if it's a hardware issue or not?

If you have access to a second computer, connect it to the same ethernet cable and port.  If that computer gets internet access (be sure to disable wireless, so you know it's connecting via ethernet), the first computer's ethernet device is faulty.  If the second computer does not get internet access, try swapping the ethernet cable for another (the first could be badly crimped or faulty in other ways), and try another ethernet port.


Why are there mainly entries of already uninstalled programs in the Console? When I look into Console (/Applications...), I see a lot of entries that talk about programs I have uninstalled a long time ago, for instance

01.08.12 10:31:29   com.apple.launchd.peruser.502[206
(de.novamedia.NML2NDeviceObserver[58300])
posix_spawn("/Applications/launch2net/launch2net.app/Contents/
MacOS/NML2NDeviceObserver.app/Contents/MacOS/NML2NDeviceObserver", ...):
No such file or directory

The "launch2Net" was uninstalled some years ago! The same thing for "Carbon Copy Cloner", a program I tested some time ago... how can I avoid the causes for those entries? Is there a cleanup?

It's trying to start the nonexistent apps.

From the console entry com.apple.launchd.peruser.502 we know it's trying to start on behalf of user (instead of system or administrator) that has UID 502.

You can get particular user's account name with id -u -n 502.

I'd look at following places:

Login items

Go to System Preferences->Users & Groups. Choose appropriate user and select Login Items tab.

Look if you recognize uninstalled applications in the list and delete them. You have to select the app and press '-' beneath the list.

Launchd

Start the terminal. Enter launchctl list and see if you find uninstalled apps in there. False entries can be removed by launchctl remove label, for example launchctl remove de.novamedia.NML2NDeviceObserver.

Repeat the process, but this time prepend sudo to commands, like sudo launchctl list, to catch all the apps executed in system context.

You can find out more about launchd and launchctl by entering man launchd and man launchctl.

Launchd configurations

Look into following directories (from man launchctl):

~/Library/LaunchAgents - Per-user agents provided by the user
~/Library/LaunchAgents - Per-user agents provided by the administrator
/Library/LaunchDaemons - System wide daemons provided by the administrator.
/System/Library/LaunchAgents - OS X Per-user agents
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons - OS X System wide daemons

If you find a file referring to uninstalled app, remove it (you'll need to sudo rm for items in 3, 4 & 5).

More about those files in http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/CreatingLaunchdJobs.html especially 'The launchd Startup Process'.


What would make an app incompatibile with OS X Lion? Good ways to test or check the compatibility with Lion is being asked in a different question: What tools are people using to check for Lion compatible software?

What, generally, would make an app—that works with Snow Leopard—incompatibile with Lion? Could I have an educated guess whether app works / doesn't work / works partially with Lion based on some features?

What does, for example, all the apps reported "Not working" or "Has some problems" on RoaringApps Compatibility table have in common?

My educated guess would be:

1) Any apps that deal with operating system files

2) Any Power PC apps

These guesses are just based upon the information given in the app profile on roaring apps and about what apple has told me.


Can not upgrade to iOS 5.1 When trying to update from iOS 5.1 I keep getting an error message reading "unable to check for update, an error occurred while checking for a software update". The update screen loads for a couple of minutes before showing this.

How can I upgrade to iOS 5.1?

It turns out you might need to set your DNS server to 8.8.8.8 as I found out Here.

To change DNS settings, go to the Settings app and then pick Wi Fi in the left column. Tap the blue arrow that's on the right of your Wi Fi network name, and DNS should be an option, and you'll see a number like 198.0.0.1. Tap this number and change it to be 8.8.8.8.

Try the update after changing the DNS setting (wait a minute as you'll have to reconnect your wireless connection) and the update should work now.


Trash files in the safe mode? I would like to ask you, do the trash files gets deleted from the safe mode if I put them in the trash in the safe mode (but do not empty the trash) and empty the trash in the normal mode?

Regards,
Arthur

Normally yes.

The safe-mode is only blocking certain features of Mac at the boot time.
See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

  It loads only required kernel extensions (some of the items in
  /System/Library/Extensions).

  It disables all fonts other than those in /System/Library/Fonts (Mac
  OS X v10.4 or later).

  It moves to the Trash all font caches normally
  stored in /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/(uid)/ , where (uid) is a user
  ID number such as 501 (Mac OS X v10.4 or later). It disables all
  startup items and login items (Mac OS X v10.4 or later).

Eg if you have a problem with a font, a corrupt driver/kernel, ... it's possible you wont be able to use your Mac, since the Mac can crash at boot etc, booting in Safe-mode is a chance to solve those problems.


How to jailbreak 3g version 4.2.1 with firmware 5.15.04? I was given a used 3g iphone and iTunes updated the phone. It is on 4.2.1 with firmware 5.15.04.

What do I need to do to jailbreak it, so that I can download apps?

Not going to tell you how to download apps, as it's in a grey area of legality.

Jailbreaking however, is perfectly legal...

I would suggest using an app called Redsn0w. I believe the latest version should still support older phones, though I have not tried it...

There are many guides on the web for doing this. A simple Google search found quite a few. Just find one thats uses Redsn0w and your good...


I can't update apps with new Apple ID I used to have an old Apple ID, and I have a specific paid app I purchased with that ID. I now have a new Apple ID, and I wanted to update the paid app from the old Apple ID with the new Apple ID.

I am wondering if I deleted the app, would it show up as "purchased" on my new Apple ID?

No - purchases are not transferable, but you could set up your new account as family share and if the purchases are eligible for sharing, you would then get to use the new appleID and password to download for free the "purchase" from the 'family member"


How to Stop Showing OS X Beta Software Updates in iOS I would like to stop installing beta versions on my iPhone. Without rolling back to an old version (as described by Apple) but something similar to http://osxdaily.com/2014/12/05/stop-os-x-beta-software-updates-showing-app-store/

In this particular case I would like to wait for iOS 9 and do not try the 9.1 beta.

You can simply hide those beta updates notifications through Apple's developers console.

Also if your iPhone is currently on a beta version you may not be able to hide them unless you upgrade via iTunes to a public release of iOS ( i.e. IOS 9 GM ).


Migrated to new Lion, how to share Time-Machine? I just got a new MacBook Pro since I was due for a new machine and needed Lion for the new Xcode. I also got an Apple TV with the idea of centralizing all the digital media in my house by hosting it on my old Snow-Leopard MacBook Pro using iTunes.

I set up the new machine using my USB drive's Time-Machine partition and fixed up a few odds and ends and am now happily using Lion there. But I want to use the USB drive on the old machine as a Time-Machine drive for both machines.

But the new Lion machine doesn't see the shared drive from the old machine and I don't want to swap the drive around, I just want it to work as a backup when I connect to my home network. I've spent the afternoon reading articles on how to do this for various flavors of OSX but none of them address my configuration and now I feel over-saturated with information.

So, my questions are: First, can I do this? Second, where can I find good documentation on setting this up? I'm fairly technical and am not afraid of getting deep into the details if it will give me a painless way to do backups and I've grown to like the simplicity of Time-Machine. (Plus I use VCS systems for all the critical files in my day to day work).

Thanks!

No. Most technically minded people have stopped trying to hack together AFP as Apple have changed the code to tighten up and only show legitimate sources not connected as direct attach storage.

Apple provides two products that let Mac Clients see a hard drive as a Time Machine backup when they are not connected DAS but instead NAS (network attached storage) which facilitates the sharing of one drive with multiple macs simultaneously and without reconnecting cables:

TimeCapsule - only the internal drive is supported for Time Machine.
OS X Server - can mark any share point as being available for Time Machine use.

Yes, anything is possible in software given enough money, time or ingenuity, but for reasons I can only presume is enough smart people breaking TimeMachine and blaming Apple for lost data when using DIY Time Machine targets, this has been tightened up in Lion to preclude any easy solution that is documented at present on the internet from working.


Safari not prompting for basic authentication Our website provides hyperlinks to third-party software which requests basic authentication.  Previously a user would click the link, they would be taken to the new URL, and an authentication prompt would be shown.  On the recent update Safari no longer prompts for authentication, and users are given a 401 Unauthorised error immediately.  If you reload the page, it will prompt.  Pasting the URL directly into the address bar works correctly.

This is not due to caching or cookies.  I can confirm it was working fine in macOS Safari 11.0.1 and is broken in 11.0.2.  Chrome does not exhibit this behaviour.  I have also confirmed the same issue affecting iOS Safari, but I have not isolated versions.

Loading a test page from my local HDD does not give the same problem, but when hosted via IIS (on our web server or on my development machine) it fails every time.  An example page is hosted here:

https://go.itelescope.net/auth_test.html

It links to a test authentication server here (this test server does not display a 401 error, but it still should show the authentication dialog):

http://httpbin.org/basic-auth/user/passwd

Has anyone seen this before, or found a solution?  I'm also reporting this to Apple but since I'm not an Apple Developer I expect it to get lost in the noise.

Update

A user on the Apple Communities forum post I made has said this is a design decision by Apple, but I have yet to get any more information (or confirmation) on this.  However the evidence seems to corroborate his information: the error only occurs when linking from an HTTPS site to an HTTP site.

StackExchange is hosted securely, so linking to the secure site works:
https://httpbin.org/basic-auth/user/passwd
While the non-secure does not:
http://httpbin.org/basic-auth/user/passwd

I have also reported this via the Apple Bug Reporter tool.  My first report has mysteriously disappeared.  I have re-logged, but have also heard many accounts of bug reports never being responded to.  If anyone here has a reliable reference that this is an intentional change, that would be great.  Otherwise I still consider it a bug.

Well since I can't find a definitive public answer, I'll do the next best thing.  This is the response I got on a private bug report through Apple:

  This behavior is expected. Following the fix per another bug. We do not prompt for credentials whenever navigating to an insecure web page that requires authentication from a secure web page. Moreover, we do not prompt for credentials when loading an insecure subresource (say, an image) that requires authentication or a secure subresource that requires authentication through an insecure redirect on a secure web page. The motivation for these restrictions is to prevent phishing attacks by a networking attacker who could have replaced the contents of the insecure resource HTTP response with a secure redirect to their own server that prompts for credentials. Although the authentication prompt shows the URL being accessed, a person may not read the prompt closely or, more likely, an attacker can purchase a domain name that could lull a person into falsely believing that the URL is legitimate so that the person submits their credentials to the attacker.

I'm still looking for a public statement from Apple that can be linked to.  If someone can provide that I will mark that as the accepted answer.

UPDATE

Someone with authority at Apple got in touch with me about this.  They finally linked me to the official release document showing the changed behaviour:

  Changed to only allow non-mixed content protected sub-resources to ask for credentials.
  https://webkit.org/blog/8035/release-notes-for-safari-technology-preview-44/
  https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/release-notes/#r44

We worked with Apple to address the broken user experience caused by this security fix. Apple listened to our feedback and fixed the credentials dialog for links from an HTTPS resource to an HTTP hosted resource. It works correctly now in Safari on Mojave onwards.


Disable system-wide ctrl-click as right-click in Mavericks Disabling ctrl+click as right-click is useful because:

Many web app rely on ctrl+click (typically for multiple selection).
There is little use for this combo (mice have 2+ buttons and trackpad emulate right-click with two-finger click or clicking in the right zone).

Can it be done in OS X Mavericks?

This question has been asked before for Lion and answered negatively (i.e. a third party utility is needed). Has this improved for Mavericks?

In my VMWare Windows 7 guest, I have found (after reading this post) that using Ctrl+Command+LeftClick works the same as Ctrl+LeftClick would in a hardware Windows machine.


How can I remove the Reading List column in Safari? How can I get rid of the Reading List column in Safari when I read a webpage?  It takes up too much space on the page.

Select View > Hide Reading List, press ⇧⌘L, or press the button on the bookmark bar.


Use Macbook Pro's single audio jack for both input and output at the same time? Basically, the Macbook Pro 13inch (early 2011) has only one audio jack, but I need two.

What I want to do is to plug in my electric piano (I have a male-to-male audio cable, I plug one end into the piano, the other in the microphone jack) into the computer, then play some backing track on the computer, and finally plug in headphones into the computer so that I can listen both to what I'm playing and the backing track.

This worked perfectly fine when I used my netbook. However, now I would like to use my macbook, but it has only one jack, so I can't plug both the piano and the headphones in.

Is there some kind of a splitter I could use so that I can plug in both at the same time? I found some threads online, such as this one, but some of the posts seem contradictory, so I thought I'd post here.

I would also welcome any answers that could explain the rationale Apple used for not including a second jack. Please do not use size as an argument; 10 inch netbooks fit 2 jacks just fine.

Thanks!

Yes - the good splitters mix the pins correctly to provide mono microphone and stereo output in the same jack. You can of course get breakout boxes like the Griffin iMic and have the benefit of a cleaner D/A circuit at the expense of carrying another device that's plugged into USB. Just like everything - some of the expensive products are over priced and some of the cheap ones are worthless. I'd go with a name brand - especially if their products are carried on the Apple Online or stocked in the retail stores.

Lion does add a control where you can select the speaker icon in the menu and switch from input and output.

As to the rationale - unless an engineer from Apple steps up, we'll have to speculate.

Here are the reasons to have fewer ports. (They're not al good, but they are reasons)

Simplicity - the iPhone / iPad / iPod touch all have one port. Many people don't need or want the confusion of knowing which port they plugged in to their mac. Just as you really appreciate having two, many appreciate having only one stereo jack.
Internal simplicity - one less switch, one less moving part, several solder points.
Internal spacing is far more important than external space. If you look at iFixit's excellent take apart manual - you will see there actually isn't room on the logic board for another connector. The design would have to sacrifice an USB port or the SD card slot to make room for a second package without reducing the space for the battery. These macs are packed incredibly tightly and despite the clean appearance of excess external space, inside they are packed like proverbial sardines in a can.

This lack of space likely cuts features from the smaller macs like a redundant mini headphone port.


Delete all backups of specific file/folder with tmutil I'm trying to delete all backups of specific items through the command line. I can accomplish this using the GUI through the following steps:

Enter Time Machine
Navigate to the file to be deleted
Right click (or click the gear icon in the finder) and choose
"Delete all backups of ..."

How can I replicate this on the command line using tmutil? Especially, when using Backup Loupe to detect large files it'd be easier to use the Terminal (since I don't have to enter TimeMachine at all each time I want to delete a particular file and can navigate to it using the Finder, and then drop it onto Terminal for a command to delete it).

I was hoping I could use something like this:

sudo tmutil delete /path/to/file

however it gives me the error:

  "Invalid deletion target (error 22)"`

This works fine:

sudo tmutil delete /Volume/Backups.backupdb/<machinename>

and this too:

sudo tmutil delete /Volume/Backups.backupdb/<machinename>/<specificbackup>

According to man tmutil the delete command should also be able to delete specific items.  However, I've been out of luck so far. While there are numerous answers on this site (and elsewhere) to delete specific backups with tmutil and to delete specific backup items through the GUI (using the method described above) I was unable to find any non-GUI way to delete specific backup items.

I found this SU Q&A titled: How can I delete Time Machine files using the commandline
 which demonstrates a method for deleting specific files from the CLI. This answer highlighted a method that sounds like what you want:

  My backup disk is full. I have a very large file (many gigabytes) that
  has been backed up for months. There is one physical copy of it, but
  many snapshots with hard links to that copy. To actually get rid of
  that file, I need to remove the hard link from every backup.

In that answer it was shown that one could use this method to delete a file:

$ cd /Volumes/WD\ 500G\ USB/Backups.backupdb/csm-laptop
$ ls -li */Macintosh\ HD/Users/csm/vm.img
...
2740350 -rw-r--r--@ 28 csm  staff  42949672960 Feb 17 16:12 2015-05-08-005636/Macintosh HD/Users/csm/vm.img
2740350 -rw-r--r--@ 28 csm  staff  42949672960 Feb 17 16:12 2015-05-08-015812/Macintosh HD/Users/csm/vm.img
2740350 -rw-r--r--@ 28 csm  staff  42949672960 Feb 17 16:12 2015-05-08-030036/Macintosh HD/Users/csm/vm.img
2740350 -rw-r--r--@ 28 csm  staff  42949672960 Feb 17 16:12 2015-05-08-041307/Macintosh HD/Users/csm/vm.img
2740350 -rw-r--r--@ 28 csm  staff  42949672960 Feb 17 16:12 Latest/Macintosh HD/Users/csm/vm.img

The method to delete the file uses a helper CLI tool included with Time Machine called bypass:

$ sudo bypass rm -f */Macintosh\ HD/Users/csm/vm.img

bypass's location

Since bypass is considered a helper script to Time Machine, it's location is not typically on your $PATH. Therefore you'll need to specify the full path to the executable. Additionally Apple has relocated it for different versions of macOS.

$ sudo /System/Library/Extensions/TMSafetyNet.kext/Contents/MacOS/bypass \
    rm -rfv /Volumes/[disk]/Backups.backupdb/[path]

  In 10.8 Mountain Lion, bypass moved into 'Helpers':

$ /System/Library/Extensions/TMSafetyNet.kext/Helpers/bypass

  In 10.10 Yosemite, bypass moved here:

$ /System/Library/Extensions/TMSafetyNet.kext/Contents/Helpers/bypass

References

How can I delete Time Machine files using the commandline


Create stacks on dock and rename category in `Lauchpad` How can I create icon stacks on dock? For example, I want stack the icons of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.

Next is can I rename an application category in Lauchpad?

When I drag & drop an application icon onto another, a new category will be created named Production(or Product? I can't remember exactly, and no Macs at hand currently). I want to rename the category to something meaningful.

You can rename a category by opening it and clicking the title:

Stacks are just folders. Put aliases to a folder and then drag it to the Dock:


My battery died toward the end of Yosemite installation. Now login screen freezes My Yosemite installation was at "less than a minute remaining" for about 5 mins. Then my battery died. When I charged and turned on the power, I got to the Yosemite login screen. When I log in, the password succeeds, then the login screen reappears but the screen freezes.

I've tried it about 20 times now. Same thing happens every time.

Access OS X Recovery by holding Cmd ⌘+R from the time you boot your system until you see the Apple logo. Further instructions:

After your computer finishes starting up, you should see a desktop with an OS X menu bar and an OS X Utilities window with the options listed above.
In order to reinstall OS X, you need to be connected to the Internet using Ethernet or Wi-Fi. If you're using a wireless Internet connection, click the Wi-Fi menu in the upper-right corner of the screen to select a nearby Wi-Fi network. Choose your preferred network name and enter a username and password to join the network if needed.


System hangs when creating bootable disk drive I followed the instructions provided in this answer which explains how to make an El Capitan bootable disk from a system running Catalina

I copied the commands exactly as prescribed, reproduced here:

pkgutil --expand /Volumes/Install\ OS\ X/InstallMacOSX.pkg ~/Desktop/El\ Capitan
diskutil eject Install\ OS\ X
cd ~/Desktop/El\ Capitan
hdiutil attach InstallMacOSX.pkg/InstallESD.dmg  -noverify -nobrowse -mountpoint /Volumes/esd
sudo asr restore -source /Volumes/esd/BaseSystem.dmg -target /Volumes/MyVolume -noprompt -noverify -erase
diskutil rename OS\ X\ Base\ System Install\ El\ Capitan
rm /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/System/Installation/Packages
cp -rp /Volumes/esd/Packages /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/System/Installation
cp -rp /Volumes/esd/BaseSystem.chunklist /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/
cp -rp /Volumes/esd/BaseSystem.dmg /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/
hdiutil detach /Volumes/esd
sudo bless --folder /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/System/Library/CoreServices --label Install\ El\ Capitan
cp /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/InstallAssistant.icns /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/.VolumeIcon.icns
diskutil eject Install\ El\ Capitan

However it hangs at the last line. Here is the output:

pkgutil --expand /Volumes/Install\ OS\ X/InstallMacOSX.pkg ~/Desktop/El\ Capitan
diskutil eject Install\ OS\ X
cd ~/Desktop/El\ Capitan
hdiutil attach InstallMacOSX.pkg/InstallESD.dmg  -noverify -nobrowse -mountpoint /Volumes/esd
sudo asr restore -source /Volumes/esd/BaseSystem.dmg -target /Volumes/MyVolume -noprompt -noverify -erase
diskutil rename OS\ X\ Base\ System Install\ El\ Capitan
rm /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/System/Installation/Packages
cp -rp /Volumes/esd/Packages /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/System/Installation
cp -rp /Volumes/esd/BaseSystem.chunklist /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/
cp -rp /Volumes/esd/BaseSystem.dmg /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/
hdiutil detach /Volumes/esd
sudo bless --folder /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/System/Library/CoreServices --label Install\ El\ Capitan
cp /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/InstallAssistant.icns /Volumes/Install\ El\ Capitan/.VolumeIcon.icns
diskutil eject Install\ El\ Capitan
Could not open package for expansion: /Volumes/Install OS X/InstallMacOSX.pkg
Unable to find disk for Install OS X
/dev/disk3              GUID_partition_scheme
/dev/disk3s1            EFI
/dev/disk3s2            Apple_HFS                       /Volumes/esd
Password:

    Validating target...done
    Validating source...done
    Retrieving scan information...done
    Validating sizes...done
    Restoring  ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
    Restored target device is /dev/disk2s1.
    Remounting target volume...done

asr: Couldn't personalize volume /Volumes/OS X Base System - State not recoverable
Volume on disk2s1 renamed to Install El Capitan

Does anyone have any idea why that might happen?

The asr command can be replaced by using the Disk Utility to restore to a sparse image. Since the sparse image is using a MBR partitioning scheme, image can then be cloned to the external drive by using the dd command. The updated procedure has been added to the answer given as a link in your question.


Does OS X Calendar (née iCal) support RDATE? I have an application that produces an iCalendar feed (RFC 5545). The calendar feed works on Google Calendar and on Android but I have been getting reports that it isn't working on OS X Calendar (aka iCal). The calendar feed currently uses the RDATE element extensively and validates.

Does iCal support the RDATE element?

UPDATE

I have managed to get recurrence working on Apple devices by using RRULE with EXDATEs.  The problem is this does not work properly on Android devices. (Argghhh!)

I have not run exhaustive tests but empirically I have concluded that Apple products do not implement the RDATE recurrence rule.

Apple products do appear to implement the RRULE but only a limited subset of this.  The extent to which the RRULE is supported might be deduced from the options available for setting recurring events in Apple apps.  It should be possible to support simple patterns (every day, every week, every 2 weeks, every month, every year) but probably not more complex patterns using BYMONTHDAY, BYYEARDAY, BYWEEKNO, BYMONTH, BYSETPOS.

I've noticed that Google Calendar might display a full recurrence set whereas an Apple device that is synced from that calendar will only show the first event.

I would welcome a more authoritative answer.


I think, I screwed up the color profiles on my macbook as you can see in the example shot, the color in the image are not consistent on my macbook. In the finder the image looks nice, but in Quick Look and iPhoto there is too much red in the images. The effect happens with photos I downloaded from the net, like this one, and with pictures I have taken with my camera.

Do you have an explanation?

Thanks for your time in advance!

[added info]

I experienced this problem on my 2008 macbook with photos I shot myself as with images I downloaded like the example image. Furthermore did I put my macbook to sleep and attached it via dvi to a dell P2411H trying what mspasov suggested. So I am not sure if my playing around with the color calibration ( I ended up using the existing Color LCD profile) actually fixed or that it was only a coincidence that the images looked normal again.

One idea I had was that maybe OSX/iPhoto/Quicklook sometimes get 'confused' on how to treat color profiles in images when another monitor is attached. I know, that sounds very far fetched. What do you think?

This is probably caused by bad color calibration profile. You could load the default profile for your hardware, or try to calibrate your monitor.

Try loading the default profile of your display. This is done by opening Preferences -> Displays, Choose the Color tab and select the Color LCD (I'm asuming MacBook PRO, on other machine or external monitor this will be different).

If this doesn't help - try calibrating your monitor by pressing the Calibrate.. button and following the onscreen instructions..


Is it possible to virtualize PowerPC... FOR a PowerPC? (absolutely not Intel-related) As my question states,

Is it possible to virtualize PowerPC... FOR a PowerPC?

Consider that you're using Linux for PPC.  You want to run apps written specifically for Mac OS 7.x through 9.2.2, all of which require PPC (let's say).  Let's also say that you don't want to set up a dual-boot configuration on your PPC Mac because... well, you're lazy.

Emulators like Sheepshaver (for Linux on PPC) are fine for most basic needs, but for more intensive programs like games, complex math software, and pretty much anything that requires the MMU (memory management unit) will simply NOT run.

A PPC virtualizer written FOR the same PPC machine could allow those complex programs access to all the appropriate system resources it needs.... because its ALREADY THERE.  There is nothing to be emulated!

So, even at least hypothetically... is it possible?

Hypothetically, it may be possible, but the tools may not exist. The best tool I could find though was QEMU and Mac on Linux. It says it can virtualize, but I have not tested it or used it. Qemu also says its for embedded PPC - which would be like the Xbox 360, and not an older Macintosh - so therefore still not allow PPC virtualization.

I see two problems that make this a bit harder:

It depends on the chip you are trying to virtualize - the chip needs to have some virtualization instruction sets to allow this. Some of the G5s had this, but since I don't know what machine you have, its hard to verify. Thats what allows Intels to virtualize all types of OS now. This is pretty much what you are talking about 'its already there', but its not always there in all cases - the processor needs to know how to virtualize itself.
Power of the machines today - even when the first Intel Macs came out, some were just as powerful or even more powerful than the G5's of the time. Now that years have gone by, many of the tools (like MoL) look like they haven't been updated in a while, probably due to community involvement. Thats probably because too, if you really needed to run a much older machine, you could emulate the older machine faster than the older machine could virtualize itself.

For most of the people that I have seen in your situation, the easiest route is to just get another machine in most cases (and thats what I have done before, years ago). You can even get pretty powerful G5's for pretty much nothing today. I had a friend about 2 years ago just give a dual proc G5.


Display problem with macbook pro mid 2015 Recently my macbook pro 2015 has screen problem as the picture below.
Could anyone help me identy find the problem?

Looks like the connectors to those columns of pixels are coming loose.
I had the same problem with a 2009 model MBP, about 1/2 the size of your problem and not at the very edge but in roughly the same position. It was intermittent at first but got worse over time until that column of pixels stopped displaying properly at all.
Apple would want to replace the top of the macbook. Possibly an electronics repair should could fix the cable instead of replacing the whole display section.


How to wipe a thoroughly secured old computer I have an old computer of mine (the first MacBook Pro model) that I'm trying to wipe clean and repurpose.  But back in the day, I was quite security conscious, and my own barriers are foiling me:

The account I used daily was not the administrator
The admin account used a different password
I set a firmware password on it

I can log into my old account that I used every day, but I can't remember the admin password or the firmware password.  This means I can't boot to target disk mode or to an OS X install DVD.

My goal is to reinstall the OS.  I've already saved all the data I need.  I know I can remove the hard drive, put it in an enclosure and wipe it with another computer, but I'd rather not go that route until I have to, since it's a big pain with that model of MBP (I did it once before).  Any ideas?

You can remove the firmware password by changing the RAM configuration, booting up to the startup menu, shutting down and changing it back. Basically, if you have two 1GB chips of RAM in there now, you can remove one of the chips, start up holding alt/option, shut down and put the other chip back in. This will remove the firmware password.

Now, you can follow these instructions for doing the erase and install.

Good luck!


Can Apple decline my iPhone warranty just because my phone has dent even without looking inside the phone? I went to power mac service center to get my phone which is still under warranty fixed. They were not able to restore my phone and told me that in the event that it is hardware damage the phone will be replaced but because my phone has a small dent at the corner and had small cracks on the screen it is not under warranty anymore that is why I have to pay a big amount.

I'm puzzled because they didn't even check if the problem is caused by the dent or if it is manufacturing issues and now they are declining me of warranty.

If your iPhone is still under warranty then Apple will not reject a warranty repair unless they can determine that any damage is the cause of the issue.

Of course this will depend on how much damage there is to the phone, what the issue is, etc. Unfortunately your question doesn't specify what the actual issue is, and without a photo of your phone we don't really know what you mean by a small dent at the corner and small cracks on the screen.

Also, how do you know they didn't even check if the problem is caused by the dent or if it is manufacturing issues? In most cases there is no need to physically open the phone to determine if there is a fault.

If it was me I would be calling Apple directly and discussing it with them.


How to find lost ipod touch that's offline. Bluetooth is still on and can connect to my headphones My 3 year old niece was playing with my ipod touch and she can't remember where she put it last. It's still in the house somewhere but i can't find it.

The wifi is off but the bluetooth is still on and connects to my wireless headphones when i turn them on.

I've tried to switch off the headphones while playing a song so it plays through the ipod speaker but it automatically pauses the song.

Is there're any way i can turn on the wifi? what are my options?

Unfortunately, you can't turn on WiFi via the Bluetooth connection.  You're headset simply doesn't have the control.  Even if paired to a computer, you can't "remote control it;"  that function simply doesn't exist.

Additionally, even if you were to use Find My to locate it, the resolution would be a few meters (about 30-40 feet).  Unfortunately, it's not "sharp" enough to tell you, "it's 10 feet from you behind the couch).

You're within range, so it's not that far.  Time to start going though the furniture with a fine tooth comb.


How can I remove a "shared" drive from my Mac? How can I remove a "shared" drive from Finder left bar (and my Mac mini late 2012 computer) under macOS Sierra 10.12.6?

I've tried all the suggestions I can find online, but nothing seems to work. It is a drive called “intel_ce_linux”, and I first saw it after my new Internet Service Provider technician "installed" and checked my new Internet modem. How can I get rid of it completely (i.e. not just hide), please?

I think the guy mentioned something like Bonjour (pardon my French…) while checking the modem, but I am not sure…

After much investigation, ultimately this worked for me:

Go to OSX/Preferences/Sharing/
Toggle 'File Sharing' on-and-off in the sidebar
Go back to Finder and see what happens

This seems to force a refresh in Finder, removing old stuck Shared computers. How they get stuck, I don't know. In my case it happened after buying a refurbished Mac and transferring admin rights to my new local user account. The stores' old network computer got stuck in my Shared list.

Some solutions out there involving Finder/Preferences, only serve to hide the unwanted shared computer from the sidebar, not actually removing it.


Can iOS devices be connected to the Thunderbolt port on Macs? I saw an image on a rumor for a new Apple connector to attach the new iOS devices to my Mac using the Thunderbolt port.

This would be great because the one port on my MacBook Air that isn't in use all the time is the Thunderbolt port. The image looks badly doctored, however, and I can't find any substantiated evidence that this product exists.

Is there a way to connect new iOS devices to the monitor port on new Macs?

Nope. I don't know where that came from, but it's certainly not a current product, and it's unlikely to be a future one.

Thunderbolt requires expensive chips relative to other connector technologies, which take up a fair bit of PCB space, which is at a premium in iOS devices and iPods (just look at the iPhone 5 teardown). In fact, reducing the size internally is a big part of the reason they went to the Lightning connector in the first place.

Additionally, chips are required in the connector itself. The Lightning connector is much too small to contain the required chips in their current incarnation (the two connectors aren't to scale in that picture, the Thunderbolt connector is much bigger than the Lightning connector).

Finally, there wouldn't be much benefit to using a Thunderbolt connector with iPods or iOS devices. The flash memory in them is not particularly fast, certainly not to the point that it would come close to making use of Thunderbolt's 10 Gb/s connection. USB 3 is a far more likely evolution for Lightning based devices, and would still provide plenty of bandwidth.


MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014) 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5 Intel Iris 1536 MB Mac OS Sierra 10.12.5 (16F73) How can I get rid of the WINS NetBIOS Name MacBook-Pro Workgroup is currently being used? It would be great if someone could help me understand what this is exacly.
The devices I see in finder are
1. Macintosh HD
2. Network - Neighborhood (Why do I have to see this)
3. Remote Disk - Remote Volume ( I am not sure what this is exactly)

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014)
2.6 GHz Intel Core i5
Intel Iris 1536 MB
Mac OS Sierra 10.12.5 (16F73)

The NETBIOS name can be edited in the Network Preference pane: Select the network connection currently in use on the left, click the "Advanced..." button then the "WINS" tab. Edit the name there.

Specifically it is there so that you can share files with Windows-based PCs via SMB. You can turn that option off under the Sharing Preference pane, then click on File Sharing and the Options button and uncheck "Share files and folders via SMB."

I have the same OS and see no "Network Neighborhood." That is Windows Nomenclature and might be that you are seeing a Windows PC or PCs on your local network. Some people have file sharing turned on and don't realize it.

Remote disc is a way of sharing an optical drive from a Mac that has one to a Mac that doesn't. You can choose what you seen the Finder sidebar by going to the Finder (I just usually open a new Finder window) and tap COMMAND , (or go the the Finder menu and select preferences). Then click on the sidebar tab and check or un-check the items you do or do not want to see.


chmod 760 or 777, could this be a security problem? I'm trying to build a local PHP server using XAMPP.
When I'm trying to run one of the PHP files, I get an error about the fopen command in the file.
From a quick search in the web, I've seen that in order to solve it I need to run this command on terminal:

sudo chmod 777 file.extension

On the comments to this article, I've seen that I should use 760 instead of 777.

My question is what every chmod command can do? Can it be a security problem? What do you recommend me to do?

See man chmod for what the command does. Basically it sets access permissions on files and folders, with the three digits standing for user, group and other permissions. So the first digit defines the permissions for the user owning the file, the second for the group owning the file, the third for anybody else.

In your case

chmod 777 gives everybody read, write and execute rights which for most problems is definitively too much
chmod 760 gives all rights to the owner, read and write to the group owning the file and no rights to users which neither own the file nor are part of the owning group

Granting too many rights might be a security problem, depending on whether other people can access your computer and/or your computer is accessible from outside.

To resolve apache/PHP issues, granting 777 seems to be rather broad. I would go with 664 (or even 660) first.


How to back up two internal hard drives using Time Machine? I upgraded my macbook pro and have now two internal SSD drives (I removed the old drive and also the DVD drive).

I have been using Time Machine to back up the 1st drive to an external drive, and I now wonder if there is any way I can also use Time Machine to back up the new second SSD drive.

Hope it makes sense..

so I back up my main SSD-1 drive to an external drive called Backup1.

and now would like to back up my second drive called SSD-2 to a second drive called Backup2.

Is it possible to use Time Machine for that?

No, you cannot do this with Time Machine unfortunately.

What you can actually do is backup both internal SSD drives to the same external drives - or backup both internal SSD drives to two different external drives.

However, you cannot setup it up so that SSD #1 only is backed up to external drive #1, and SSD #2 only to external drive #2.


How can I Change Letter Cases in iTunes? I have some iTunes music files that are all capitalized letters and others that are normal small case letters. Instead of me going through and renaming each capitalized music file’s data is there a way that I could make iTunes default all music files and their data to small caps? …a way in Terminal or through and the iTunes Music Library.xml file, or…?

I have swapped out the iTunes Music Library.xml file and the iTunes Library.itl file with new fresh files from an unused iTunes from another computer, but when I reinstall music files back into the Music folder it goes right back to being capitalized letters even though I had changed those large caps to small caps earlier.

I prefer not to rename 100’s of music files so I’m hoping there is a simpler way of doing this via some forced code somewhere. Any suggestions?

You asked specifically about defaulting all music files and their data to small caps. I think you mean "title case," like this:

This Is Title Case

Assuming that is what you want, and considering that you mention you already have some files that are all caps and others that are all lower case, perhaps you will get the result you want by changing the names-- automatically-- inside of iTunes. Not quite "on the way in" but easily and quickly afterward.

iTunes is very AppleScript-able and it can solve your problem. Here is a script that I wrote to do it. Note that it operates on whichever tracks are selected. I was using iTunes 12.4.1.6 to test, with "My Music" clicked at the top and "Songs" clicked in the sidebar to the left. I select multiple tracks and then ran this script in the Script Editor:

-- Uses the satimage osax
-- Get it at http://www.satimage.fr/software/en/downloads/downloads_companion_osaxen.html

tell application "iTunes"
    set the_tracks to the selection
    repeat with a_track in the_tracks
        set the_old_name to name of a_track as string
        set the_new_name to titlecase the_old_name
        set the name of a_track to the_new_name
    end repeat
end tell

Very important: you must install the Satimage OSAX as indicated in the script. Plain vanilla AppleScript does not do "titlecase" out of the box. There are ways to do it but the Satimage OSAX is the fastest and easiest.

I wrote the script to be self-explanatory and it could be sped up a little. Still, this should do the job for you. I applied the script to 100 tracks and it finished in less than three seconds. You might try it on just a couple of badly-formatted titles to see it work before selecting a large number of tracks. Test the script and be sure it does what you want before making wholesale changes to your iTunes library.

Yes you would have to run the script again if you imported more songs. But, you could make a Smart Playlist based on Date Added and run the script once a month or so on whatever new tracks you'd imported (and they would be in that Smart Playlist).

AppleScript can "get" and "set" a lot of information for an iTunes track. Title, Album, etc. Here is what you get when you run this script (with some track or tracks selected in iTunes):

tell application "iTunes"
    set the_tracks to the selection
    set my_track to item 1 of the_tracks
    set x to properties of my_track
end tell

{class:file track, id:32579, index:23, name:"Agnus Dei", persistent ID:"23958CCD4BBB2A10", database ID:11459, date added:date "Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at 10:01:56 AM", time:"6:06", duration:366.471008300781, artist:"John Rutter", album artist:"", composer:"", album:"Requiem", genre:"misc", bit rate:128, sample rate:44100, track count:0, track number:5, disc count:0, disc number:0, size:5864189, volume adjustment:0, year:0, comment:"", EQ:"", kind:"MPEG audio file", media kind:music, video kind:none, modification date:date "Thursday, June 16, 2016 at 8:28:57 AM", enabled:true, start:0.0, finish:366.471008300781, played count:0, skipped count:0, compilation:false, rating:0, bpm:0, grouping:"", bookmarkable:false, bookmark:0.0, shufflable:true, lyrics:"", category:"", description:"", show:"", season number:0, episode ID:"", episode number:0, unplayed:true, sort name:"", sort album:"", sort artist:"", sort composer:"", sort album artist:"", sort show:"", loved:false, album loved:false, cloud status:matched, location:alias "CB SSD:Users:cboyce:Music:iTunes:iTunes Music:John Rutter:Requiem:05 Agnus Dei 1.mp3"}

You can see Name, Artist, Album Artist, Album, Comment, etc. Lots of info that you could get, change the case, and set.


Why can't I forward from my host port 8080 to guest port 80 (Mojave)? I'm running a virtual machine so I can work with Wordpress; I have a database on my VM Linux machine in VBox and I'm using a Mac. I have to be able to use my mac to go to localhost/wp-admin so I can test code changes to my WordPress templates.

I have created a pf.anchor called com.user.forwarding and it says

rdr pass inet proto tcp from any to any port 8080 -> 127.0.0.1 port 80

my pf.conf file says:

scrub-anchor "com.apple/*"
nat-anchor "com.apple/*"
rdr-anchor "com.apple/*"
rdr-anchor "org.user.forwarding"
dummynet-anchor "com.apple/*"
anchor "com.apple/*"
load anchor "com.apple" from "/etc/pf.anchors/com.apple"
load anchor "org.user.forwarding" from "/etc/pf.anchors/org.user.forwarding"

in my VBox, with NAT, my settings are:

and in my hosts file is:

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting. Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1   localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
127.0.0.1   mywebsite.com
::1     localhost

when I go to localhost:80/wp-admin, I get 'Safari can't open the page "localhost/wp-admin/" because the server where this page is located isn't responding.' My VM has nginx and mariadb running.

I've searched for the sysctl.conf file on my mac and it doesn't exist. I've done everything in here (except play with sysctl file which doesn't exist on my machine)

What's going on???

You have created the forwarding rule the wrong way around - i.e. you have reversed it.

Instead of:

rdr pass inet proto tcp from any to any port 8080 -> 127.0.0.1 port 80

It needs to look like this:

rdr pass inet proto tcp from any to any port 80 -> 10.0.2.15 port 8080

In regards to the sysctl.conf file, you'll absolutely need to make that change. It doesn't matter that the file doesn't exist on your computer - just create an empty file (/etc/sysctl.conf) and add those lines.

If you can't get the sysctl.conf file working, you can run the sysctl command manually on the command line:

 sudo sysctl -w net.inet.ip.forwarding=1


MacBook Pro 13Retina -- dropped and screen won't work I dropped my computer no more than 3 feet. The screen wouldn't turn on at first. I tried rebooting with pressing shift right after the power button, then I tried NVRAM restart. At that point I started hearing the booting sound (the chime), which I wasn't hearing before. But screen is still black (on but black). An SMC restart did nothing. Connecting the macbook to an external screen worked only in safe mode but not normal. Help?

You've already executed all maintenance tasks. Take your MacBook to your local Apple dealer for a in-depth hardware check. Maybe it's just a broken cable connection. However it could be a heavy display defect.


iOS 6 - does it save my location? I recently found out that the iPhone keeps (at least on older versions) your location data in a data file:

http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/#faq

I have an iPhone on iOS 6 but my consolidated.db doesn't have the CellLocation table. The only table that has Lat / Lon information is Fences, but it's empty.

Has Apple fixed the security hole and stopped recording the data?

UPDATE

I found this article saying that Apple promised to keep the data for a shorter time:

http://www.yourdailymac.net/2011/04/apple-the-iphone-is-not-logging-your-location/

I'd like something more certain about which iOS versions are affected.

Ok, I think I found the answer. It was fixed in 4.3.3. Data is only saved for a week, along with other safeguards.

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Apple-to-shortly-release-iOS-4.3.3-update-deals-with-location-tracking-bug_id18571


Applescript to output UTC Datetime at cursor without SystemEvents It would be enormously helpful if I could bind a script that outputs the current UTC timestamp to keybindings and have the output magically appear at my cursor in whichever application I was using. This is pretty easy to do with Automator using a script like this:
on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "System Events"
        keystroke input
    end tell
end run

However, macOS Catalina's security permissions trigger the following alert for any application I use this in for the first time.

Not only is this a nuisance (you have to do it every time),  the security implications seem to be pretty wide ranging.
My best alternative is to just copy my input to my clipboard and manually paste each time, but I would like a single keybinding to just dump  my script output at the current cursor in any application.
Is this wildly insecure? Is there a way I can just paste at current position without a security pop up and be safe?
Related:

https://superuser.com/a/457238

Don't use System Events to do this.  As well as the difficulties you've discovered, it's also a pretty unreliable way to do this, a potential security risk, and—thankfully—not at all necessary.
Here's an outline of how to use Automator to insert the date at the cursor's location in the currently active application:

Create a new† Automator workflow, selecting Quick Action as the type.  Enter the name you wish it to go by, but try and be sure because changing it later in this particular instance could be irksome.

When you're presented with the newly-created, blank workflow, there are options at the top that allow you to dictate what sort of input you can pass to the workflow, and in which applications the service will be available.  Set these to the following:

Workflow receives: no input

in: any application

The third option you need to select is this one:

This—as the name suggests (in a slightly misleading way)—causes the Quick Action to run as normal, and at the end of its run, the final result—assuming it can be represented as text—will replace the currently active text selection, much like when one pastes the contents of the clipboard into their document.  If a text object permits highlighting of its text content, then it will always contain a text selection object, regardless of whether or anything text is highlighted.  In this instance, i.e. most of the time, it is located wherever the cursor is, and contains zero characters.

Create a Run AppleScript action.  Delete any default script text that it contains so you have a blank editing field, into which you can paste the following code:
tell ((current date) - (time to GMT)) as ¬
    «class isot» as string to return the ¬
    contents of [text 1 thru 10, space, ¬
    text 12 thru -1] as text

This produces an formatted date and time derived from the ISO-8601 international standard, and looks like this: "2020-07-26 14:21:11".  It's basically the order that date and time parameters should have been dictated from the very start, but most countries unfortunately didn't think hard enough, and ended up with the year in third position, and the date and month in some arbitrary choice between the first two positions.  How ridiculous.

Save. Quit. Assign a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences.  Done∗.  Here's the finished workflow:

∗(Almost done) Whilst the keyboard shortcut you set via System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services should work in all appropriate situations, it seems to be buggy in web page text entry fields.  The menu option appears in the services menu, but without a shortcut seemingly assigned to trigger it. Therefore, create an additional shortcut via System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts > All Applications and assign it the same hotkey as the other.  Now it works.
†Usually, editing a workflow and saving it will effect the changes more-or-less immediately so that it works outside the Automator environment, as you'd expect.  This isn't necessarily the case with the option to replace selected text, which can take quite some time or require a system reboot to work outside Automator.  Therefore, two things I advise you get correct to help avoid starting all over again are: 1) The name you wish your Quick Action/Service to have; and **2)**That you check the box to allow output to replace selected text. If something doesn't work, delete it all and start again.


Send Barcode Scan to URL I have a Bluetooth barcode scanner connected to my Mac.  I'd like to have a scan open a URL, something like: http://example.com/page/?barcode

I was thinking I could somehow direct inputs from the scanner particular input device to a terminal script and figure the rest from there, but I can't seem to find any solution to this.

I'd be happy if someone could recommend an app to achieve this.

Most scanners have a programming interface in which you can not just setup how the scanner works and how the data is formatted, but you can also configure what keystrokes it sends (like Control sequences and extra text such as a URL)

I just grabbed a random programming guide for a random Symbol scanner to use as an example

So, from the Table of Contents, we can configure it to send "Control characters"

What you would need is to set up a global shortcut with Karabiner, Keyboard Maestro or ControllerMate (I personally use this) to launch a browswer with URL and barcode number as the address.  You can even program in the Return keypress to go to the website automatically. It may have to be done in with some AppleScripting, depending on the complexity.

You could set it up so it sends a CtrlB, wait to allow your browser to loaunch and then and the text http://example.com/?xxxxxxxxxx


Has "bounce" been removed from the Apple Mail AppleScript dictionary? (Running Mavericks 10.9.5)
I have followed the instructions here on How to Bounce Emails in Mac OS X Mail. I am able to select the service and it runs without error but I don't see an email sent out in the Apple Mail Activity window and in a few tests bouncing mail to myself, I never receive the bounced mail.
I am looking in the Mail app's AppleScript dictionary for "bounce" and have not been able to find it. Has Apple removed the "bounce" feature entirely (and not just as a UI command)? If so, should I presume that the AppleScript "bounce" command below is failing silently? The message does get deleted
(Before anyone advises about not bouncing spam – I don't need this for spam, or at least typical spam. I need this because of having been added to some "BCC" mailing lists which it would be politically awkward for me to request removal from – such is my digital life. . .)
on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "Mail"

        repeat with eachMessage in input

            bounce eachMessage

            delete eachMessage

        end repeat

    end tell

end run

Yes. I searched the dictionary for Mail.app and it's been removed. I would love to find the code and put it back. This just creates more misery for people dealing with non-technicals who 'don't get it'.


Can't boot to macOS anymore after resizizing macOS partition After installing Ubuntu as a second system on my Macbook following this tutorial https://www.maketecheasier.com/install-dual-boot-ubuntu-mac/ everything was just working fine and I was able to boot into either macOS or Ubuntu via rEFInd.
Then I resized macOS's partition again to create a partition to share data between macOS and Ubuntu. Unfortunately rEFInd does not find the macOS Partition anymore and I am therefore not able to boot into macOS.
My partitions look like this at the moment:
sda             489,1G
├─sda1 vfat       200M /boot/efi                    EFI
├─sda2 apfs       351G
├─sda3 swap       3,7G [SWAP]
├─sda4 ext4     115,5G /
└─sda5 vfat      18,6G                              SHARE

Any help would be highly appreciated.
Edits:

I used the builtin Mac Program to resize the partition

Output of sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda:
 GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.5

 Partition table scan:
   MBR: hybrid
   BSD: not present
   APM: not present
   GPT: present

 Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.
 Disk /dev/sda: 1025610768 sectors, 489.0 GiB
 Model: Crucial_CT525MX3
 Sector size (logical/physical): 512/512 bytes
 Disk identifier (GUID): 2AA86904-096B-4D1C-9DD0-3C8B1FD84B37
 Partition table holds up to 128 entries
 Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
 First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1025610734
 Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
 Total free space is 1653 sectors (826.5 KiB)

 Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
    1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition
    2          409640       736548223   351.0 GiB   FFFF  tichan
    3       775612416       783423487   3.7 GiB     8200
    4       783423488      1025609727   115.5 GiB   8300
    5       736548864       775612415   18.6 GiB    0700

The type GUID for partition 2 of /dev/sda is wrong. The commands below will correct the problem. Enter the commands in an Ubuntu terminal window.
sudo gdisk /dev/sda
t
2
AF0A
w
y

Note: I realize the gdisk output shows hybrid partitioning. However, both macOS and Ubuntu should ignore the 2nd, 3rd and 4th entries in the MBR partition table.


Phantom iCal calendar subscriptions won't go away after deleting and iCal missing from Mobile.me I had subscribed to my meetup.com calendar via iCal and after a week decided to delete the calendar subscription by right clicking on the subscribed calendar name and clicking delete.  However, I still get popups to add events to my calendar for meetup even after I deleted it.

I thought I'd resysnc my data from Mobile.me and overwrite my calendar data on my mac with the data from Mobile.me and the calendar data doesn't even appear in the Mobile.me preferences, though everything else seems to still be there.

Has anyone else had this problem and know how to:
get the phantom calendars to go away forever
get iCal to re-appear in Mobile.me sync preferences

-- Brian

This got answered for me on https://discussions.apple.com/message/15816044#15816044

Turns out that it wasn't enough to delete the calendar in iCal, I also had to change a setting at meetup.com.


Time Machine - can it share external drive with Windows backups? I just got a 2TB external hard drive, and I want to use it to backup my 3 Windows computers and my MacBook Pro. If possible, I would like to create 4 subdirectories on the external drive - one subdirectory for each computer. Can I tell Time Machine to put my MacBook Pro backups into one subdirectory, so that it doesn't affect any of the other stuff on the external drive?

BTW, I will be installing one of those NTFS drivers for the Mac OS X, so that it can write files to the NTFS-formatted external drive.

Your preferred setup is not possible: OS X can't share an NTFS disk with Windows for backup because Time Machine needs HFS+ (from http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427):

  Manually preparing a new disk for Time Machine

  (...)

  If you want to partition the disk, click the Partition tab and
  select a layout. Make sure "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" is selected
  in the Format menu for the partition that will be used for backups.
  Click Apply.

Luckily, you don't need two separate drives. Using partitioning you can trick your computer into thinking it is connected to more than one drive, although there's only one. In this case, two partitions will suffice, one HFS+ and one NTFS.

(Why only one NTFS partition although you back up 3 Windows computers? Because Windows stores backups in folders named after the computer name  so there are no conflicts whatsoever (see this post). You can use one NTFS partition to store backups of multiple Windows computers.)

I'd recommend that you create the HFS+ partition on your Mac first, then, on your Windows computer, format the other partition to NTFS:

Plug your drive into your Mac.
Open Disk Utility (in Applications/Utilities).
Select the drive and select the Partition tab.
Create two partitions. Format the first partition as HFS+ (and give it a name like "Time Machine"). Leave the other partition as "Free Space". See  here for more details.
Eject the drive and plug it into your Windows computer.
Format the second partition as NTFS.

When you're done, plug the drive again into every Mac/Windows computer and select the corresponding partition as backup drive (see here for OS X and here for Windows).

To prevent the NTFS partition from being mounted every time you connect the drive into your Mac add this entry to /etc/fstab (as explained here):

LABEL=BACKUP_WINDOWS none fusefs_txantfs noauto

Replace BACKUP_WINDOWS with the NTFS partition name.

This setup works like a charm.

I have a very similar configuration:

My external 1 TB drive, which I use for backing up my Mac and my wife's Windows PC, has two partitions called "Time Machine" and "BACKUP_WINDOWS":


Using an external microphone with iPad Air or the new iPad Mini I have an external USB microphone that works fine with the iPad 3 using the Camera Connection USB adapter and a USB hub for power. Can a similar setup be used for the new generation of iPads?

Edit: Just to be clear, an answer with practical experience or a link to someone who has verified this setup is preferred.

Theoretically, yes, it should still work fine. However, as I'm sure you're aware the iPad 3 does not have the Lightning connector. You will need to purchase a Lightning to USB Camera Adapter so that you can connect your USB device to the new iPads with Lightning connectors.


How to remove known networks from Mac? I wanted to try the solution from there (and many other sites point to this solution) but the preferred network list and all the buttons (shown in the step 4) are greyed out on my Mac (10.9.5).

How do I remove a known network from my Mac?

Just unlock (bottom left) the network prefs before hitting the advanced button.
You have to enter a login name with admin rights and the respective password to do so. If it's your personal Mac usually the one and only existing account has admin rights (though the login name doesn't contain 'Admin'). An office/school/university Mac has - depending on the internal guidelines - often several accounts: non-privileged standard user accounts and one or several admin accounts. Only the admin accounts are eligible to change network preferences.
Choose your WIFI-interface and click the advanced button
Remove any unwanted networks


Paste HTML into Pages I'm trying to copy stuff (including tables) from a web page and paste it into a Pages document, retaining html formatting (as much as possible). With Pages'09 this used to work using OpenOffice as intermediate pasteboard: copy html - paste in OO - copy in OO - paste in Pages. Quite silly, but at least it worked.

However, after I've upgraded to the newest iWork, this doesn't work anymore. Table cells come out as ordinary paragraphs.

Is there a way to get formatted HTML into Pages?

There seems to be no way to get formatted html tables into Pages, though other kinds of formatting will work. On Firefox, you're out of luck unfortunately. I just tested this now, using the latest version of Pages.

Firefox to Pages: unformatted
Firefox to TextEdit: unformatted
Chrome to Pages: unformatted
Chrome to TextEdit: formatted with tables
Safari to Pages: formatted, no tables
Safari to TextEdit: formatted with tables
TextEdit to Pages: formatted, no tables


I want to show a file in an AppleScript bundle, but shell returns: file not found My Bundle File: reference.txt

My Code:

set bashFile to path to resource "reference.txt"
set the reference_data to do shell script "type " & quoted form of (POSIX path of bashFile)
display dialog reference_data

shell returns:

type: file not found (but the file exists)

How i can show this file on a dialog (or in TextEdit)?

The type shell builtin is used to see how it's arguments would be interpreted as a command.

Try replacing type with cat and see if that does what you expect.


MacOSX Maverick 10.9 - How do I stretch a window across both of my dual screens on my dual screen setup? I have two monitors on my Mac. I have just installed Maverick and I notice I can no longer stretch a window from the screen on my left to the screen on my right. Mac OSX Maverick 10.9 seems to pick one screen and it does not show the stretched window on the other screen anymore.

This is a problem because I like to use one particular program (VMWareFusion) to do my software development in full screen mode. No longer can I see my guest operating system in both screens anymore when I full screen it because of this problem... at least that is my hypothesis.

I haven't tested it myself, but according to John Siracusa's review at ars, if you disable the "Displays have separate Spaces" checkbox in the Mission Control preference pane, the old behavior (including ability to split a window between displays) returns.


Enroll Apple Developer Program under 18 I've seen a lot of questions like this throughout the web but they're mostly from 2 or 3 years ago, so I decided to ask to have some updated answers.

I'm 16 and I want to start publishing and using the benefits that comes with the Developer Program. In the legal agreement says that I should be over 18, and I'm not so, i can't do it. I've contacted the apple developer support and they told me that I should use a account in my father's name. We reside in Brazil. With that, I had some doubts:

Will the name on the App Store be mine or my father's?
In the future, when I'm 18, this account can be transferred to my name?

Besides that, if someone has any advice or (legal) workaround I'd appreciate it, thanks

The person that registers is the owner. They can of-course enter a contract to give you control of their goods or form a corporation. You'd need to consult a lawyer if you want help forming a corporation and they'd need to know Brazil law as well as US law.

I wouldn't let any of this hinder you. You'll do the work, you'll start with as much responsibility as your father allows and when you're 18 you can transfer the account to your Apple ID or keep using the one you share. You can transfer accounts today - so unless that changes between now and when you're 18 that should be a non-issue.

Most developers that have commercially viable apps are a team, so if you can start with that - no worries. I believe you can even associate any Apple ID with the developer program once Apple is convinced that the primary legal account can accept the terms and conditions under a legally binding framework. Basically US law and presumably Brazilian law prohibit minors from entering into many binding agreements.

So, your father's Apple ID would accept the legal responsibility to be bound by the terms and then allow your account as little or as much authority as the iTunes connect allows (quite a good deal of freedom can be delegated thusly).


How can I use OSX and/or iOS to wake up in the morning depending on calendar events? I'm not a morning person however occasionally I have to do things in the morning.  Currently it's up to me to adjust my alarm clock based on the events in my calendar for the next day.  I'd like to stop having to do this.

So here are my dream requirements and I'd like to know if through a combination of apps and/or just basic configuration it would be possible to do.

Lets me set a general wakeup time for weekdays and weekends.
Adjusts wake up time based on what events I have the next day.
Lets me set a time I have to be at work by and makes sure I don't snooze too long.
Integrates with home automation systems so I can either open blinds or slowly turn the lights on
Doesn't require me to open an app or anything in order to use it.
Makes it simple to add one off exceptions to this.

I know this is somewhat subjective because people have different needs but I think at least everything except the Home Automation is useful to everyone.

There is an application for OS X named Power Manager. You can schedule your Home, School, Work or Office times and assign triggers and actions. This application runs as a daemon in the background. It can wake up or sleep your Mac, open other applications, interact with other OS features, or even extend its functionalities with making and running external scripts.


Downgrading from iOS 7 to a recent full backup of iOS 6.1.3 I have a device (iPhone 4S) that is running iOS 7, but I was wondering: Is it possible to restore a full backup of the same device running iOS 6.1.3.

I'm not worried about losing data from the iOS 7, but I would like to restore the device to its previous state under iOS 6.

Is this possible?

Again, to reiterate: I'm not looking for clean downgrade/install of iOS 6, I wish to restore a full back-up containing an earlier iOS. Thanks.

Note: this will only work if downgrading from a prerelease beta OS to a regular version.

You can only ever restore an iOS device to the latest public version.

Downgrading is super easy: Just put your iPhone into DFU mode (plug into iTunes, power off, hold down Sleep/Wake and Home button for 8 seconds, let go of the power button and continue to hold down the home button until iTunes alerts you. The screen should be black) and follow iTunes through there.


Text-To-Speech to read websites in Chrome? I am using the Chrome browser and I know OS X has built-in voice synthesis that can speak to assist visually impaired users.

Can I use this feature to have the computer read contents of websites for me? Eg., I'd like to select a couple of paragraphs and have them read.

I know Safari has that built-in, but for one, there I don't know how to change the voice (e.g. I'd prefer a male voice), and secondly, I'd prefer to have it with Chrome.

Is it possible?

OS X's built in screen reader, VoiceOver, works in Chrome.

To enable it, go to System Preferences-> Universal Access-> Seeing and toggle the VoiceOver: radio group to On. You will also be able to check the shortcut key for easily enabing/disabling VoiceOver.

I recommend you take some time and familiarize yourself with VoiceOver; it's very powerful but takes some getting used to.

Click the VoiceOver Utility button to configure VoiceOver. This lets you change, among many other options, the voice and speaking speed.


Access Time Capsule's files from iPhone Is it possible to access Yime Capsule's files from iPhone? On my Mac I'm simply connecting to afp://10.0.1.1/ and I have my data.

But on my iPhone, when I try to connect (e.g. from Safari) I get an error.

Is it possible to browse AFP servers from iOS? Or maybe there's a way to enable WebDAV on it?

It is not possible to access server shares from Apple's iOS. iOS does not have a Samba or AFP client, and thus, cannot handle these requests.

Time Capsule uses modified AirPort Extreme firmware and supports AFP and SMB file-sharing protocols.

Unfortunately, this is the extent of your capabilities of accessing files on Time Capsule from iOS. Sorry :(


How to disable a floating right arrow button that makes FaceTime calls My mom keeps accidentally FaceTiming me and we think it's because of a floating gray button with a left angle bracket on it:

I've been trying to help her remotely turn it off. She must have accidentally activated it somehow today, but she is unaware of how it happened.
Assistive touch is turned off (confirmed via screen share*). Nothing in control center is highlighted. I've tried searching for it on my phone to figure out what enables it, but I cannot figure it out. I have googled and all I find is suggestions to turn off assistive tough, but that is off. I don't even know how to google it. I've been trolling through assistive access, FaceTime, and phone settings and can find nothing related to that button.
What is this button and how do you disable it?
*UPDATE: I screen shared with my mom and had her go to settings > Accessibility > touch > assistive touch. It was off. I had her turn it on and a second floating button with a white circle appeared. I had her turn it back off and the circle button went away, but the arrow button remained.

Apparently, the ">" button did seem to have something to do with Assistive Touch, despite attempts to turn that setting on/off not affecting it. That was Apple Support's thought, but something was screwed up, causing that button to exist when it shouldn't, so they had me force-restart the phone and that made it go away. I.e. We held down the power and home button (iPhone 6s plus) until the apple logo appeared in the center of a black screen. Once it fully booted back up, the ">" button was gone.


Self-Assigned IP on Ethernet (en0) Past few days my internet has been automatically getting a Self-Assigned IP on en0. I heard it does this when it can't retrieve a DHCP Server from the ISP.

I've tried these solutions below.

Deleted com.apple.alf.plist
Deleted NetworkInterface.plist
Reset Ethernet Configurations

When I connect to my ISP to get the Router, Subnet and IP settings does it take the system's Mac Address? because changing the last digits of my Mac Address always did the trick but not anymore.

I connected the same Ethernet wire to another MacBook and it connected successfully.

This looks like a basic networking issue where you might need some knowledge to sniff the packets on en0 using tcpdump.

The things that are known to prevent DHCP from reaching the OS are:

Firewalls (OS X, Little Snitch type, malware, and/or internet firewall like Symantec and others)
Network setup where the DHCP server only sends addresses to machines that are cleared for the network

You seem to have done some of the easy troubleshooting, and I personally don't ever like deleting some plist but not all plist since there are many keychains, system plist, ByHost plist and others so you could actually make a problem partially deleting information on networking.

The one thing I would do is re-connect the known machine and record the IP address that gets assigned and swap in the "suspect" machine and force the IP to be the same. If you get network connectivity then you are on the right track with DHCP issues.


How to access recent files or folders in Finder or in file dialogs? Most of the time I spend in Finder dialogs is trying to find the file or folder I accessed a few minutes ago.

Examples

I use an image editing program to create a funny picture. Then I go to a website to upload the picture. Now I have to find it all over again in the upload dialog.
I'm making a game. Say first I create a sound effect to use in the game and save it to the project folder. Next I create a sprite in an image editing program. When I save it, I want to save it in the same folder. Now I have to find the folder again.
I download a zip file. After it has downloaded I want to go to the folder to which it was downloaded to extract it.

In other words, this happens all the time.

Is there any way to access recent files or folders in Finder or in file dialogs?

Yes, there is a way, although a commercial one. It will cost you $34.95 and AFAIK there are no competitive solutions.

The Default Folder X program wraps the dialog boxes with it's own frame allowing you to navigate to: a recent file or folder, a folder you configured as favourite, a folder that you used recently with a particular application.

So it fits into all of your three scenarios. Additionally you can open recent and favourite places in Finder by using the icon in the menu bar.


Will upgrading to Mountain Lion allow USB Boot? One problem I have with my 2009 MBP running 10.6.8 Snow Leopard is that I can't boot from USB (well, I can, but only OS X in certain formats). I would really like to be able to boot linux from USB at will. I have heard this is possible on newer macs. Would this be possible for me if I were to update?

I have a MacBook from 2007 and it's possible to boot from USB without a problem.

Simply hold down - Option Key / (Alt) on Windows Keyboard on Boot and select where to boot from.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1310

If it doesn't work you might have to do a EFI Update

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3260


Is Jailbreaking And Enabling Bluetooth File Transfer On iPhone 4 Financially Secure? I want to use iPhone 4 for sensitive information. Will jailbreaking, downloading unofficial apps (not registered in Apple's App Store) and enabling Bluetooth file transfer cause a chance of sensitive data theft? Can unofficial app turn out to be malware?

Is sim free iPhone already jailbroken?

Will jailbreaking, downloading unofficial apps (not registered in Apple's App Store) and enabling Bluetooth file transfer cause a chance of sensitive data theft?

There's a chance, but if you download from verified sources and check the repository you're going to be downloading from (google searches, etc.) you should be okay.  There's always a risk, but as with any risk, if you're vigilant about things you'll be fine.

  Is sim free iPhone already jailbroken?

If you're talking about an iPhone without the sim card, no, that doesn't mean that the phone is jailbroken already.  It just means it's the phone without the sim card.  iPhones have removable sim cards in them.