How to create iTunes smart playlist of playlists I'm using iTunes 12.5.3 on Windows 10. I am trying to create a smart playlist that selects songs from other playlists, limited by storage. (Much like in How do I configure a Smart Playlist to show songs not in other Playlists?)

I have a number of these lists already, which I created several years ago, with a previous version of iTunes.

My problem now is that I am unable to select any particular playlist in the smart playlist dialog. The playlist name is defaulted to "Music", as shown here:

Further, if I open one of my existing examples, the dialog will show the playlist(s) I'm harvesting, but won't let me edit the playlist names.

What is going on here? How can I fix things so this works?

I know that an alternative solution is recreate the rules that form the source playlists in a new smart playlist, with the additional size restriction. This is what I'm now doing as a work-around, but it would be preferable to just get the feature working like it once did.

Hi placed exactly the same question in one of the Apple forums, and I received this helpful reply:

  The playlist selection drop down has been broken in the last few
  builds and doesn't expand properly, however once you have selected it
  the up and down cursor keys should still let you chose a list to refer
  to.


Making Right Command and Right Option both work as Right Option without Karabiner or SEIL I have actually accidently done this when I first got my macbook and set both the right command and right option as an option key. I don't remember how as when I exit both SEIL and Karabiner it still happens.

Does anyone know another way to do this without karabiner and seil? I am using El Capitan.

After watching the response in Karabiner Event Viewer I reset a couple times the defaults for the external keyboard in the modifier keys. Resetting command and alt a couple times seemed to make it work properly again. I guess because I had switched them before and maybe the keyboard wasn't recognized properly. All is fine now.


Making a bootable USB Drive from an .iso I have a copy of the Windows XP install disk on my computer in the form of an .iso. I'm trying to install it to a partition using a bootable USB. I need to be able to make a bootable USB under Lion. How would I do this?

The USB is 4GB

EDIT: Got my VM working and I'm using a windows utility to make my USB drive bootable. I'll see how it works and post here when I'm done.

Also forgot to mention, according to Apple's Website my mac can handle XP. They just don't provide the software with lion to do so.

EDIT 2: Managed to get started, but not enough. Using my Windows XP VM and a program called "rufus" I made a bootable USB. Then using rEFIt I booted it up. But I got the following screen:

The simple process is to use Apple's Bootcanp to handle three problems you face in booting from windows:

Partitioning your internal drive (you can skip this - it's what Bootcanp wants, but purely optional)
Supply drivers - XP almost certainly won't have correct drivers for new Macs. Since you didn't mention your hardware, it might be old enough to not matter.
Ensure the Mac EFI sees and initiates boot - this is where making a bootable USB trips up most users.

You'll want to look at a tool like rEFIt, rEFInd or bootrunner since just burning the image onto USB is not enough to boot foreign OS like an XP live CD image.

If that image doesn't include an EFI aware boot loader, you'll need to modify that ISO and wrap it in a boot loader such as GRUB.


Slow progress of Time machine backup I am backing up my hdd with the Time machine. Even small incremental backups take several hours. For an hour or so I am in the state "50.3 MB of 496.3MB", while in Activity Monitor I notice that mds_stores has accumulated already over 116 GB data read, and it increases by about 50 MB/s.   My Hdd is this new pcie-sdd type, so it should be efficient with this sort of backup.
Moreover in Console it is written that about 2300 files constitute this 0.5 GB of backup.

I am backing up to external usb Toshiba drive.

Am I missing something obvious? This is not normal, is it? Can I see which of these 2300 files the Time machine is currently backing up? The "preparing" phase was not so long - took about 30 minutes.

I was having the same problem pretty regularly. I tried the usual tricks (stop backup, eject, mount, delete .inProgress files, stopping spotlight, changing the throttle priority (sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0). Sometimes, this works. Other times it doesn't and it keeps crawling along at a few MB per hour.

One additional trick, that works more frequently, is to force quit the backupd process directly from the Disk tab of Activity Monitor. Then tell it to start backup. This usually works for me. Heads up: this may be a terrible idea in other ways (e.g. maybe it could damage existing backups). In my experience, it hasn't so far.


Make Launchpad icons smaller again The 10.7.2 upgrade made the launchpad icons bigger which I'm finding incredibly annoying as before I could see all my icons at once, but now because of there being less space between icons my eyes just focus on one icon at a time.

How can I make the icons smaller again? Is there some hidden setting or string I can change (e.g. using terminal)?

I tried replacing the "dock" folder in System > core services with that one from 10.7.1, it actually made launchpad icons smaller again, but at every start up it takes some time to load the dock an the desktop background, and the dock is not working properly, I'm trying to figure it out changing something in the dock folder instead of replacing it whole.


How can I install Mountain Lion in a VMware Fusion VM? I've read that the EULA now allows to install Mac OS X in a virtual machine, and I'd be interested in doing it. However, since I forgot to back up the Mountain Lion installation program before using it, I'd like to be able to do it from the recovery partition. Apparently, Parallels can do that, so it's probably not impossible from VMware Fusion.

This is what I've tried with VMware Fusion:

Mount the Recovery HD partition, then find the BaseSystem.dmg file on it and assign it as an OS installation disk: the system boots, but it says "This copy of the Install OS X Mountain Lion application is damaged, and can't be used to install OS X" when I try to install it.
Dump the whole Recovery HD partition to a disk image and try to boot from it: does not boot, the Apple logo gets replaced by a Ø symbol.

Considering these two failed attempts, I'm not too sure how I should proceed from here.

How can I install Mountain Lion in a VMware Fusion virtual machine from the recovery partition?

You cannot install OS X Mountain Lion through the Recovery HD to VMWare Fusion. It doesn’t have the necessary files. An OS X Installer Image is required, which you can obtain from within the Install OS X Mountain Lion.app. It’s called Install ESD.dmg, and it worked for me, so it will most likely work for you.


Rule that applies to mails containing Outlook invitations I am using the Mail app for my work Exchange account. I am regularly receiving events corresponding to Outlook meeting invitations. I would like to filter these events and move them to a specific Mailbox, but I am not sure how to do that.

Here are some of the rules I have tried setting up:

Filter by "Any Attachment Name" = contains = .ics
Filter by "Attachment Type" = Document
Filter by "Attachment Type" = Executable

Thanks in advance

You can try the following option for it. I am using and it is working as expected.


Unable to log in to open directory account I'm in the process of setting up my Mac Mini with Lion server. Everything appears to be working fine on the server, but I'm having problems logging into any open directory account that has a network share set as the home folder. If I change the users home folder to just a local folder, I can log in fine. I've confirmed my client is correctly connected to the directory server, because if I enter the password incorrectly, I get the password incorrect error.

The error I get when I attempt to log into the account is this, in a message box: "You are unable to log into the user account "testaccount" at this time. Logging in to the account failed because an error occurred."

I can't even log into "testaccount" locally from the server, I get the same error.

Is there some step I'm missing?

I happened to solve this, though perhaps not the "right" way. Changing the server to a local server with the address myserver.local instead of myserver.com fixed the issue with me. I then just use a dynamic DNS service to point my domain to my IP. Now everything works correctly and I can login on both the client and the server.


icons not bouncing at all when I open them I was forced to do a fresh install of El Cap. Now when I click on an app to open it, it will not bounce, not even once to acknowledge that the app is opening.

How do I solve that?

You need to select Animate opening Applications option from Dock Preferences:


When applications are code-signed, what parts of the .app bundle does the signature cover? In Mountain Lion, I know that some applications, including all applications on the Mac App Store are digitally signed by the developer, so that if they are modified, the signature will not match, and it will raise all sorts of errors (and the situation will escalate with the next release of the operating system...).

My question is what parts of the .app bundle does the signature cover? If anything in Appname.app/Contents changes (including metadata, like the modified date for the Contents folder), does that break the signature? Is it just the binary in Contents/MacOS? Are the .plists included in the signature? The Resources? As an end user, what can I hack (if anything) without breaking the signature?

TL;DR It's up to the developer to pick which pieces of the app are signed and whether or not tampering with those pieces results in any actions when the app is launched. You have to use trial and error to figure it out on an app-by-app basis.

It is largely up to the developer to decide which components in their application bundle are represented in the seal that gets signed before they deliver their application. Anything in the seal is effectively tamper-proof as it's mostly impossible to modify these things without changing their hash signatures. But that's doesn't actually mean you can't tamper with them.

The Apple Developer guide has this to say about what you should sign:

  You should sign every executable in your product, including
  applications, tools, hidden helper tools, utilities and so forth.
  Signing an application bundle covers its resources, but not its
  subcomponents such as tools and sub-bundles. Each of these must be
  signed independently.

  If your application consists of a big UI part with one or more little
  helper tools that try to present a single face to the user, you can
  make them indistinguishable to code signing by giving them all the
  exact same code signing identifier. (You can do that by making sure
  that they all have the same CFBundleIdentifier value in their
  Info.plist, or by using the -i option in the codesign command, to
  assign the same identifier.) In that case, all your program components
  have access to the same keychain items and validate as the same
  program. Do this only if the programs involved are truly meant to form
  a single entity, with no distinctions made.

  A universal binary (bundle or tool) automatically has individual
  signatures applied to each architecture component. These are
  independent, and usually only the native architecture on the end
  user's system is verified.

  In the case of installer packages (.pkg and .mpkg bundles), everything
  is implicitly signed: The CPIO archive containing the payload, the
  CPIO archive containing install scripts, and the bill of materials
  (BOM) each have a hash recorded in the XAR header, and that header in
  turn is signed. Therefore, if you modify an install script (for
  example) after the package has been signed, the signature will be
  invalid.

  You may also want to sign your plug-ins and libraries. Although this
  is not currently required, it will be in the future, and there is no
  disadvantage to having signatures on these components.

  Depending on the situation, codesign may add to your Mach-O executable
  file, add extended attributes to it, or create new files in your
  bundle's Contents directory. None of your other files is modified.

Also from here it's not necessarily true that having an invalid signature for an application means it will fail to launch. The page says:

  It is up to the system or program that is launching or loading signed
  code to decide  whether to verify the signature and, if it does, to
  determine how to evaluate the results of that verification.

An application may choose to allow modifications.

Your best bet is a trial-and-error approach with any application you're trying to modify. It may work, it may not. There's no always-true answer that can be given.

If an app has been signed you can look for a Contents/CodeResources file or a  Contents/_CodeSignature/CodeResources file in the bundle. This file lists all the signed components and their expected hash values in the bundle. It's a good place to start understanding what pieces of the application a developer deems critical enough to watch for changes.


Can not reduce size of an inserted image in Numbers I have done Insert |Image Gallery and cut and paste a single Image. I can only reduce its size a certain amount: it is still much too large.

It is strange to do Image Gallery for a single image: is there another/better way?
Why is it restricted from reducing the image size further?

Image Gallery is a special tool that allows more than one image to occupy the same space while allowing the user to view all of those images one by one. An image inserted via the Image Gallery into Numbers can not be edited as freely as other images. See this short video if you wish to learn more about how to better use Image Gallery (the video is for Image Gallery in Pages but its functionality is the same in Numbers.)

If you simply want to use a picture in a Numbers table resizing it freely, either copy and paste it from Finder or click on the Media on the toolbar at the top of Numbers and then click on Choose and then find and select the picture you wish to insert.

You can also drag and drop any compatible picture from Finder into a Numbers cell and Numbers will automatically resize the picture to fit the cell that it is dragged into.


How can I learn which SSD model compatible with my 2010 mid MacBook 13" Unibody (White)? I guess this one (Crucial BX100 500GB) is compatible but I need features of it to search for the proper one. Could you guys help me?

All SATA SSDs will work with your MacBook. There is actually no such thing as an SSD only suitable for Mac however a few companies do advertise like this.

So basically any SATA SSD from any brand and with any capacity will work with your MacBook, just make sure that it is a 2.5" internal SSD :)

Before you do actually change to a SSD I recommend you creating either a bootable USB with OS X on it or make sure you've backed up your system via Time Machine on an external hard drive so you can actually install Mac OS on the SSD.


Placing finger twice on Finger Scanner on iPhone 6 plus changes view I was fooling around with iPhone 6 plus and found that when you place finger twice on finger scanner or rotate your finger on the scanner the currently running app or the menu views move down to half for the screen.

I'm not worried of this behavior but I am curious why such thing is happening.

This is called "Reachability" and is Apple's way accommodating allow for one handed use where the thumb can reach the top of the screen.

It exists on the iPhone 6 line where few people have hands large enough to reach the top of the screen when holding the device from the bottom. Smaller devices such as iPhone 5s and older do not have this toggle. iPads also lack this control.

It is described here: https://www.apple.com/iphone-6/design/


After upgrading to Mojave lpass-cli fails to execute properly? After upgrading from High Sierra to Mojave I started encountering the following error:

$ lpass login <username>
lpass(1773,0x10e0ec5c0) malloc: *** error for object 0xec83485354415541: pointer being freed was not allocated
lpass(1773,0x10e0ec5c0) malloc: *** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug

This issue appears to be with lpass itself, after upgrading to Mojave. The issue was reported in various forms on the LastPass Github project page for lastpass-cli. Specifically this issue: Segfaults on macOS Mojave Beta #427.

The solution is pretty straightforward. Simply upgrading lastpass-cli via brew like so:

$ brew upgrade lastpass-cli

Resulting in this version being installed which fixes the malloc issue mentioned.

$ brew info lastpass-cli
lastpass-cli: stable 1.3.3 (bottled), HEAD
LastPass command-line interface tool
https://github.com/lastpass/lastpass-cli
/usr/local/Cellar/lastpass-cli/1.3.3 (10 files, 216.6KB) *
  Poured from bottle on 2019-04-15 at 15:15:05
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/master/Formula/lastpass-cli.rb
==> Dependencies
Build: asciidoc ✘, cmake ✘, docbook-xsl ✔, pkg-config ✔
Required: curl ✔, openssl ✔, pinentry ✔
==> Options
--HEAD
    Install HEAD version
==> Caveats
Bash completion has been installed to:
  /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d

zsh completions have been installed to:
  /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions
==> Analytics
install: 2,555 (30 days), 5,077 (90 days), 18,589 (365 days)
install_on_request: 2,378 (30 days), 4,832 (90 days), 17,108 (365 days)
build_error: 0 (30 days)

Version details from CLI:

$ lpass --version
LastPass CLI v1.3.3.GIT


Any way to sync only music with ipod classic 160gb Is their a way to sync just the music from my iTunes library to my iPod classic? Right now it also syncs videos and I don't want them taking up space on my iPod.

I found it by accident.

If you click on your iPod in iTunes, and then you select movies at the top, you can uncheck "sync movies".


How do I change the locked screen wallpaper on iPhone 4S? I'm trying to use a custom wallpaper as a lock-screen wallpaper on the iPhone. Can I do that without jail breaking the phone?

Yeah you sure can! Find the picture in the Photos app, press the menu button in the bottom left corner and press Use as Wallpaper.


Apple Photos has given the same name to dozens of photos, as if they were different people Photos of "Patricia" are now listed as if they were dozens of different "Patricia" -- even though the name for each "person" is exactly the same. How can I combine all of these into a single record?

You can simply merge people.

On iOS:

Go to People folder in Photos app
Click on 'Select' (top right corner)
Select the people you want to merge
Click on 'Merge' (bottom right corner)
It shows an alert, you choose 'Merge'

On Mac:

Go to People tab in Photos app
Select the people you want to merge
Right mouse click and choose 'Merge'
It shows an alert, you choose 'Merge'


How to view Chrome browsing history on ipad? There is no item 'History' in 'Chrome menu' as suggested here:

http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en-GB&answer=95589

A new iPad version of Chrome has this feature where you can type chrome://history into the search field / address bar to retrieve history.

Currently the iOS version of Google Chrome is 28.0.1500.16 so presumably older versions of the app do not have any way to get history, but newer versions do.


Big Sur - Logging in after sleep sometimes doesn't work I have a MacBook Pro 2018 and after upgrading from High Sierra to BigSur, I sometines can't log in after putting my Mac to sleep with ControlCommandQ.
I don't always have the issue and can't exactly reproduce it, but sometimes, after locking my Mac with CtrlCommandQ, when I enter my password and click Enter, the login screen freezes. I can move the mouse, can interact with the Touch Bar (for example, play music).
Does someone have any idea how this issue could be fixed without a fresh install?

I am also having this issue. So far it looks like giving it more time to “wake” before entering password helps a bit for me.
And there are already other people seeing the same problem with old macOS releases, so I guess Apple will fix it.  see here: Macbook Pro stuck after I enter my password


How to create a new Snippet in TextMate 2's Bundle Editor? I'm looking at an existing Bundle in TextMate 2's Bundle Editor. How do I create a new (editable) Snippet in the currently selected Bundle?

Seems like this should be obvious, but I am stumped. Searching the Main Menu contents doesn't reveal any menu commands which would obviously allow Snippet creation. Right-clicking in various related areas of the UI (in hopes of opening a context menu) has proven fruitless.

Isn't there a way to create a new Snippet inside the TextMate 2 app itself (presumably in the Bundle Editor)? Or do I have to edit plist .tmbundles to create Snippets? I could have sworn you could easily do this in TextMate 1.

The official TextMate docs seem to be version 1.x-specific.

In the bundle editor window, choose File › New (or Cmd + N) and you'll get a sheet like this:

Just choose 'Snippet' from that drop down.


How to make Finder search within the contents of files In Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard through at least Mac OS X 10.11 El Captain, when you typed in the search box in Finder, a silver bar would appear below it. Starting from the left side of this bar, there is the text Search: and next to it there are two buttons that say This Mac and the name of the current folder in double quotes. In Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and possible Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, there were two more buttons all the way over to the right that said Names (or maybe it was Filenames) and Contents. If Contents was selected, then Finder would look inside files for the text that is typed into the search bar.

I'm on Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan right now and there is no such choice of buttons (i.e., between Names and Contents). This has bugged me for several years, but now I'm done ignoring it. How can I make Finder search in files' contents? I presume that on the older version of Mac OS X, when Finder searched file contents, it didn't change the Last opened date of each file, too (which is how I want it). I don't want to use grep or another application. I want to make Finder behave like this. I will only accept an alternative browser application if it is sufficiently like Finder in terms of features and design.

I'll put some pictures to the reply answers given.

Add something to the search field to get the search options to show up. I just used a space in this example.
Click the + button to the right of save.

Choose contents from the left drop down menu and then type in your search term. You may need to clear out whatever you added in the main search field to not limit your results.

You can instead type content:search term in the main search field.


Is there a remote desktop app for iPad that works well with a bluetooth keyboard? I am a programmer and I like my new iPad because its screen is fantastic.

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Adonit Writer Plus for the new iPad in the mail.

Here's what I want to know: Which iPad remote desktop apps have the best bluetooth keyboard support? The keyboard has most of the standard keys and I'd like to be able to issue Ctrl, Alt, Windows (and the *nix and Mac equivalents) keypresses to the host machine seamlessly. This will allow me to use a proper IDE (among many other things) when on-the-go.

I'll of course be able to get light-duty work done in the wonderful Textastic app when not connected.

In addition to this can anybody tell me if there is the possibility of running a full 2048x1536 resolution remote desktop session? It will probably not prove useful due to monstrous network lag. But it would be cool.

Screens is probably the best app for that. Works with OS X builtin screen sharing but can connect to all VNC sources. It has a really smart way of translating touch to mouse events but also has bluetooth keyboard support, including modifier keys. And tons of other features. It runs 2560x1440 sessions smoothly on my side, you can pinch-zoom to get the scale you like.


Does Mountain Lion (10.8.4) come with SharePoint plug-ins, or did I just install these? I did a custom installation of Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac on my MacBook Air running 10.8.4., but I changed my mind and decided to uninstall it.

I only installed Word, Excel, and Proofing Tools (English only).

I'm reading up on how to fully remove all the tidbits Microsoft sprinkled about, and I noticed a couple files on my system:

/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/SharePointWebKitPlugin.webplugin

I didn't include SharePoint in the installation, so I'm not sure that's where these files came from. It's a new machine, so the only alternative is that they were included with OS X 10.8.4, in which case I'm inclined to leave them be.

Does anybody know more about these files, where they likely came from?

Those two files are not part of Apple's installed software on 10.8.4.

I would chalk it up to Microsoft's installer.

You can research this in depth with a tool like Pacifist by http://www.charlessoft.com


usb mouse freeze on mid 2007 macbook with lion 10.7.5 installed I bought a mid 2007 white MacBook used with Lion 10.7.5 installed. My usb mouse freezes after using it for about an hour plugged in. I tried both usb ports and the mouse will work for about a min. but then freezes again. Could it be a driver issue? If so where would I download the drivers?
The mouse works perfect on my W8 computer.

The first thing to do is to try another USB mouse, perhaps a different make and model, and see if it also locks up on your Mac. If so, then it's pretty certain that your first mouse is defective or incompatible with Lion for some reason. If several mice lock up, then perhaps there is something wrong with the USB controller on the motherboard of the MacBook. But it is much more likely that the fault is with the mouse.


How do I do a Windows-Left or Windows-Right on Apple? I want to have 2 windows next to each other using a shortcut. How do I do that?

On the top left The Green Button for full screen / maximize have three ways:
short click -> app goes to full screen, creates a new desktop
long click -> app goes half full screen and you can choose from open windows for another half for the screen (that's a new desktop workspace too practically)
option+click -> app goes "old style maximize"

If I get your question well, the "long click" is what you are looking for. Only works in El Capitan 10.11, this is new feature. For older versions there were plugins to emulate Aero snap


Black screen when installing Boot Camp? I recently did a complete wipe of my late 2009 MBP and restore using a Time Machine backup, so I would have uninterupted space at the end of the drive for creating a Boot Camp partition. The Boot Camp tool runs fine now, so I insert my Windows 7 DVD when it tells me to, reboot the computer, it appears to start running off the DVD… but then I just see a black, blank screen. I left it in that condition for over half an hour with no changes. There shouldn't be anything else weird with my system.

Has anyone else experienced this? Apple's website has a downloadable fix for an iMac attempting to install Windows 7, with the same symptoms. I tried that fix even though I have a different Mac, but it didn't work either. Help?

Yep, this is something that can happen, and there are two Apple articles to address it.

Boot Camp: iMac displays a black screen during installation of Windows 7
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3173

Download the autounattend.xml and updated graphics drivers

Boot Camp: Start up to black screen after installing Windows
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2600

Reset PRAM
Reset SMC

You mentioned that you did already download a fix from Apple, so I am assuming you may have followed the first article already, and if that is the case there are some instructions floating around the net to try to resolve the graphics issues by removing an ATI driver pre-reboot.

Run the Boot Camp Assistant in OS X as normal and create a partition when asked, then insert your Windows 7 disc to reboot and begin the process proper.
Windows 7 requires the NTFS file system, so once in the installer just select your new partition (labelled BOOTCAMP), click on Drive options (Advanced) and choose to format it. Then select the newly formatted partition and continue.
Windows 7 will begin installing, and once it gets almost to the bottom of its checklist, it’ll try to reboot. Now, if you leave it here, you’ll get so far and see the black screen. Any further attempts to reboot will bring you to the same dead end.
Instead, restart and press a key to boot from the Windows 7 disc when prompted. Rather than running the installation again, choose the little option at the bottom to Repair your computer. Decline any suggestions that pop up until you see a list of options with Command Prompt at the bottom. Choose that option.
At the Command Prompt, type DEL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ATIKMDAG.SYS to delete the default ATI driver, then close the window and reboot.
This time, Windows should successfully initialise a more appropriate display driver, allowing you into the desktop. From here insert your OS X disc to install the relevant hardware drivers as you normally would, then run Windows update to clear up any leftovers.


kernel_task uses up over 50% cpu usage until I open Activity Monitor My mac is slower than it used to be a week ago. I may have downloaded some sort of malware, but I did a Malwarebytes scan and it found absolutely nothing on my computer. I also personally scanned through all the files and found nothing suspicious.

The problem is that when I open Activity Monitor, it displays a very high cpu usage for a second, then it immediately goes down. I have seen examples of this where the virus only activates when the cpu usage is not shown.

I am completely up to date with my OS and software updates, so I am very certain that the operating system itself is not the problem.

Maybe you could get a CPU monitor to check the status beside the Activity Monitor. This way you could tell if its really tied to activity monitor. I have an app called  CPU LED which shows a string of colors indicating CPU usage but there are several in addition to this. Doing an app store search on CPU Monitor brings up about 50 hits. You can scan through these to find one that suits your needs. Then if it is tied to Activity Monitor you could download a mac virus checker with a free trial period and run it on your machine.


Can't shift+select in Finder in Lion 10.7.1 In previous versions of Mac OS X, to select a whole row of files, you select the file which comes first in the row and then select the last file with a shift+click.

When I try this procedure in icon view in Lion, it behaves as if I would select the files separately.

What changed? Is there a way to restore the old behavior?

Problem solved: Seems to be a feature when you try to shift+select files in icon view


Triple Boot Mac/Win10/Ubuntu: how to restore original copy of Windows EFI to ensure boot to Windows still works Not a duplicate - this is a new, sub-question regarding the steps in the answer here: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/375863/4018

I followed the steps in that question, however, after completing them,  selecting the Windows drive on the standard mac boot menu no longer works, what happens is that the screen goes blank and it never boots into Windows.

Also, there is not option shown in the apple boot manager for Ubuntu - video to follow.

Possible lead to explore: instead of step 6 using mv Linux command to rename the Windows EFI folders - to stop GRUB altering it, make a copy - cp -R EFI EFI.win, for later to restore back at end of steps, instead. My theory is that macOS bootmanager doesn't find Windows on a subsequent reboot after I did step 6, it adjusts itself to ignore it. By having the original there, it wont do that - AND - at the end we can restore the copy, overwriting what GRUB did. I haven't tried this yet. I also haven't tried bootrec yet.

I don't know how, yet, to solve the other problem whereby the option for booting into Ubuntu is not shown in the Apple boot manager.

Machine: 2016 MacBookPro 15" touchbar, 2.9GHz Quad-Core Intel i7, AMD 4g graphics, 16Gb RAM, 1Tb SSD.

Running: macOS Catalina 10.15.2

Windows 10 Pro 64bit installed OK with BootCamp

Attempting to install 3rd operating system, Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS 64bit, to be an option along side macOS and Windows in the standard Apple Boot Manager boot selection screen. DO NOT want to use reFind.

Here are my screenshots of some of the key steps I followed in that answer (from above):

Differences in my setup:

that my partition name identifiers are different from the original question, but I believe I've worked out the equivalents for my case
My Bootcamp Windows has only one (1) partition, unlike the (answer mentioned above) which has three partitions.

Screenshots from step 6

steps 08-13

steps 15,16

Step 16

Step 17

Possible Reason Windows Will Not Boot

The Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS 64 bit installation software changes the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table on the installation drive to cause hybrid partitioning. This would prevent Windows from booting on 2016 model year Macs. In 2012, Apple started to phase out the need for hybrid partitioning. Evidently, the Ubuntu installer does not check for this. The answer you reference has been changed to add a step where gdisk is used to remove any hybrid partitioning imposed by the Ubuntu installer on the installation drive.

You can also remove the hybrid partitioning by booting to the live version of Ubuntu from the installer flash drive. The steps are given below.

Download the latest Ubuntu installation ISO file from the Ubuntu Home Page. The file download and used in this answer was named ubuntu-18.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso.
Use Etcher to create a bootable Ubuntu flash drive installer, then boot from this flash drive. A tutorial can be found at the Ubuntu website Create a bootable USB stick on macOS.
When the menu below appears, select Try Ubuntu without installing.

When the Ubuntu desktop appears, press the control+option+T key combination to open a terminal window.
Make sure the drive is not using hybrid partitioning. This can be accomplished by entering the command given below.

sudo gdisk /dev/nvme0n1p

This command is interactive. The interactive commands you will need to enter when prompted by gdisk are given below.

x
n
w
y

Finally, enter the command exit to close the terminal window.

Possible Reason Ubuntu Will Not Boot

Below is a copy of an image you posted as part of your question with respect to steps 15 and 16.

The image shows the following message.

Warning: Filesystem is FAT32 according to fat_length and fat32_length fields,
  but has only 51068 clusters, less than the required minimum of 65525.
  This may lead to problems on some systems.

This warning occurred because the drive on your Mac has a sector size of 4096 bytes. However, the answer referenced an example Mac with a sector size of only 512 bytes. In other words, the new EFI partition you created was too small. The instructions have been changed so the new EFI partition is at least as large as the original EFI partition. In your case, this should be about 315 MB.

To create a larger new EFI partition, you will have to reinstall Ubuntu.


How to download command line tools in xcode 4.5 I just installed xcode 4.5 and need to install the command line tools.  The apple documentations says (with very little detail) that there is a download section in the preferences pane.  I have yet to see anywhere that allows you to download anything, specifically the command line tools.

Did Apple change xcode drastically, I do not have a downloads section.

On Xcode:

Preferences > Downloads > Components

DMG's directly from:

https://developer.apple.com/downloads


Cannot shutdown/restart properly, force-quit fails, wunderlisthelper does not die Alright, I had another initial post draft written, but then I just found something:

wunderlisthelper will not die...

kill -9 will cause it to reopen with another pid.
I keep hard killing it, and it keeps jumping to a new process.

91617 ??         0:00.55 QA2G25RMZ4.com.wunderkinder.wunderlist-helper

What is this?

The initial prob is that shutdown/restart will work if not logged in, but will not work if logged into any account. I've tried MANY methods to solve the issue - nothing yet. All other diagnostics (hardware and software) are good.

Also fwiw there is some trouble with force-quit other apps, but maybe unrelated.

wunderlisthelper runs in the background and restarts automatically due to the loaded launch agent. You can disable it from Wunderlist preferences.


How do I setup Python3.3 and Sublime Text 2 correctly on OS X 10.8.2? I am trying to setup Sublime Text 2 so that the build command correctly runs Python3 / Python3.3 scripts.

I have installed Python 3.3 via the installer obtained from python.org and installed Sublime Text 2 via the Sublime Text 2 installer.

Following this I added a custom build entry called:

Python3.sublime-build

into Sublime Text 2's Python folder with the following contents:

{
    "cmd": ["python3", "-u", "$file"],
    "file_regex": "^[ ]*File \"(...*?)\", line ([0-9]*)",
    "selector": "source.python"
}

I'm getting the following error when trying to run the script:

[Errno 2] No such file or directory
[cmd:  [u'python3', u'-u', u'/Users/user/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 2/Packages/Python/Python3.sublime-build']]
[dir:  /Users/user/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 2/Packages/Python]
[path: /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin]
[Finished]

I have read somewhere that symlinkng python3 from /usr/bin might fix the issue but after creating the symlink in /usr/bin through Finder, Sublime Text still cannot build as it gets a permissions error.

What is the best way to set Sublime Text 2 up to allow for running Python3 scripts?

[edit]

If I place the PATH for the python3 simlink generated by install, Sublime Text 2 can build the script,

    {
        "cmd": ["usr/local/bin/python3", "-u", "$file"],
        "file_regex": "^[ ]*File \"(...*?)\", line ([0-9]*)",
        "selector": "source.python"
    }

But when I tried adding the PATH to the ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist as advised without the defined PATH I get the error. Could anyone point out why this is not working?

Add "path": "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.3/bin/" to your Python3 build file. Mine looks like this:

{
    "cmd": ["python3", "-u", "$file"],
    "file_regex": "^[ ]*File \"(...*?)\", line ([0-9]*)",
    "selector": "source.python",
    "encoding": "utf8",
    "path": "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.3/bin/"
}

Note: Make sure the path to Python3 is relative to your machine - that was true for mine


how to upgrade iPad 1 to iOS 6 I am having trouble with installing apps from App Store,  it pops up "this app requires iOS 6.0 and later".. I've been trying to upgrade the iPad to iOS 6.0 and it is saying iOS 5.01.is the latest version..  What to do?

The latest supported version for the 1st generation iPad is iOS 5.1.1. That means it's not possible to upgrade it to iOS 6 (or higher). You'll have to buy another one. Even if it would run iOS 6, it would be terribly slow. Modern apps are developed with way more memory and CPU power in mind.


Migrating OS X Server from Macbook Pro to Mac Mini We are running Mac Server version 5.1.5 on a MacBook pro running the latest version of El Capitan. We want to migrate this install to our MacMini running the same exact OS and Server versions.

What is the quickest and most efficient way to accomplish this?

Thanks,

Tony

Tony, you might want to have a look at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202848

Migrating your Server
You can migrate from OS X Server on Mavericks or Mountain Lion to another >computer using OS X Yosemite. Use the Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant >included with Yosemite to transfer your data before you open Server app.
You can migrate server data using one of the following methods:
A server connected in Target Disk Mode
A local hard drive or partition with OS X Server installed
A local Time Machine backup of OS X Server
Migrating over a network connection, either from an existing server or a Time >Machine backup, is not an available option for OS X Server.
To migrate your server:
Use Setup Assistant on a new Mac, or open the Migration Assistant from the >Utilities folder.
Follow the onscreen instructions. Select a supported connection method when >prompted.
When migration is complete, download and install Server from the Mac App Store
Open the Server app and follow the onscreen instructions to complete
the server setup.
If you open Server app before migrating your server data, remove Server app >before migrating and then reinstall it after migration is done.


Macbook pro crashed, only displays file with a question mark I have a late 2008, 15" macbook pro, which used to run os X 10.11. I have been having minor issues for a couple months, so I figured I would backup and  reinstall the OS to see if that would help.

After backing up, I booted into recovery mode to erase and reformat the hard drive. After which, I attempted to reinstall os X through the internet. After two attempts (each of which didn't succeed, it seemed to download just fine, but never installed. I saw no errors, the computer was off wen I came back to it) The computer started to show the file with a question mark on bootup.

From this point on, nothing has worked on the computer. Recovery mode wont start. Internet recovery mode wont start. Both simply show the aforementioned file and question mark. If I try to select a boot drive, it doesn't show the file, but it only displays the mouse on the whitish/grayish startup background.  The mouse moves, but I cant't actually do anything; there is nothing to click on.

I have reset the SMC, and the NVRAM. I have also tried reformatting the hard drive, again (Using a windows desktop, formatted to exFAT, but it changed nothing) While I had it in the windows desktop, I also used Seatools (the hard drive is a 1TB seagate SSD/HDD combo) to run diagnostics on the drive, but it showed no problems, from a 'Long Generic' or a 'Short Drive Self Test'.

What else can I try to fix this? I have an osx 10.11.5 disk image on a thumb drive, but I haven't even been able to see that hardware has been connected, much less choose a boot drive.

I have access to ethernet, another macbook (about 2013-ish), a usb connector for my hard drive, a windows desktop running windows 7 ultimate, and whatever other resources a university might offer to their students in terms of tech support (However, being an electrical engineering student, I can't say I've ever been impressed by their ability to help)

Your MacBook Pro cannot find a system to boot from, hence the question mark.

In addition, your troubleshooting was partly in error because you shouldn't have formatted the drive in exFAT format if you intend to install OS X on it.

Since you have access to another MacBook and since it appears your USB thumb drive with OS X 10.11.5 on it isn't a bootable disk, I suggest you startup your MacBook Pro in Target Disk Mode and install OS X using the other MacBook. This approach assumes the following:

the other MacBook has a Firewire port
you have access to a suitable Firewire cable

If not I'm hoping you can get access to either or both of these from your University's tech support.

Assuming you can proceed, follow these steps:

Reconnect the hard drive inside the MacBook Pro.
Connect the two MacBooks via Firewire cable.
Startup your MacBook Pro while pressing the T key down until you see an icon floating around the screen.
Startup the other MacBook normally.
The MacBook Pro's hard drive will appear just like an external disk to the other Macbook.
Run Disk Utility to erase the MacBook Pro's hard drive so that it's formatted in Mac OS Extended format.
Now run the the OS X Installer from the other MacBook to install OS X on the MacBook Pro

NOTE:

If you haven't actually got an installer, you can use the Mac App Store to redownload it. In doing so you'll have to log into your Apple ID account (under the Store menu) on the Mac App Store and go to the Purchased window to find the installer you want to download again. This assumes you have previously used your account to downloaded the installer at some point.

Hope this helps. Let us know how you go.


Shutdown Cause: -102 My mid 2009 15" Macbook Pro (2.53 Ghz) has recently been shutting down at random. Doesn't matter if plugged into battery or not.

Terminal has diagnosed the shutdown cause as -102 (there are also a few -128 causes). I can't find what this cause means, does anyone know?

The -128 cause is fairly well known. It's not a precise indicator as there's a number of possible causes for this. However, the most common relate to:

problems with RAM
that your battery is past its life cycle
the SMC initiating a shutdown due to a sensor reading (e.g. excessive temperature)

Now, as for the -102 cause, I don't ever recall seeing that as a shutdown cause before. In fact, the only times I've seen a -102 error of any sort is either relating to Scrap Manager errors (which would be unrelated to your situation as it's related to carbon programming), or relating to a memory parity error.

I would run Apple Hardware Test (AHT) to see if it finds any obvious hardware problems.

Run Apple Hardware Test

Your model MBP uses Apple Hardware Test. It would have originally shipped with AHT on a DVD, so you'd need to insert this into your optical drive and follow these steps:

Shut down your MacBook Pro
Restart your MacBook Pro
Press and hold the D key before the gray startup screen appears.
After a while, Apple Hardware Test (AHT) will start.
When prompted, select your language and click the right arrow.
When the AHT console appears, you can choose to run Basic tests by clicking the Test button. However, I suggest you select the "Perform extended testing" checkbox before you click the Test button.
Your test results will appear in the window in the bottom-right of the console.

Note 1: that the extended test will take some time. Take a note of the results and report back.

Note 2: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, or you can't find the DVD, then at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.


iOS 5 Upgrade: Massive Battery Drain and Crashing Phone App I upgraded to iOS 5 a few days ago. Although the installtion was a bit bumpy, everything completed successfully. However, since the upgrade, the following symptoms have occurred:

Phone battery life dropped dramatically. Locked handset warms up while the battery life drops by 30% per hour.
The Phone app closes as soon as it's opened. Calls can still be made via Contacts, but hanging up or using keypad tones is virtually impossible.

Actions Taken So Far:
1. Deactivated every location service, syncronisation, ping setting, and push notification I can find. No difference.
2. Deleted my iCloud account. No difference.
3. performed two complete restores. No difference.
3. Switched off Mobile Data. Success: battery life and Phone app restored! Although renders the 'smartphone' pretty useless.

Question:
Does anyone else have this combination of problems since upgrade, or have any suggestions to help me. I'm visiting the Apple Store at the weekend and will look forward to being reminded that my warranty is 6 days out of date.

Turn off Wi-Fi Sync.

I did it and voilá!

It seems that iPhone is constantly looking for an iTunes and tries to connect to it permanently. In fact If I had WI-FI Sync on, iPhone would appear on iTunes for a couple of seconds and then disappear.

To turn it off just plug your iPhone to your computer, open iTunes, click on your iPhone on the left bar and uncheck Wi-Fi Sync.

Good luck!


Wake sleeping screen with mouse move not click? Prior to Lion I believe moving the mouse woke a sleeping(powersave) screen, and now in Lion you have to click. Often I am in the situation where I am about to go to bed and want to sleep my imac, but am unsure whether the machine is already fully asleep or just the screen. Previously I would simply move the mouse to find out. Now I have to click, which means I wake the machine either way i.e. if it was already off, and then have to shut it down straight after.

Is it possible to bring back waking power saving screen with mouse move?

I believe the wake on click issue has more to do with the pointing devices shipping with the preponderance of new Mac systems: wireless keyboards, mice or trackpads for desktops and laptops.

There are two potential reasons for a click:

To maximize battery power, wireless keyboards, mice and trackpads power down when not in use--just like computers.
Today's mice are all optical (laser or otherwise) and they turn off the light sources when asleep. The device does not register a movement until awakened. Wired mice might still wake a computer on movement.

I also don't believe the computer sees a difference when "waking" from any of the low power states available to it, be it a dimmed screen, a screen in lowest power state, or the computer "sleeping". A device "click" initiates full power mode.


How do I move all my apps, and my Apple ID to another iPod that has already been used? Ok, so my iPod Touch (its the 4th generation) is totally destroyed; a cracked screen and the screen is messed up, so I cant see anything. And my mom sad I can have hers, and she has a 4th generation like me. What I'm wondering is that if there is some way that I can switch all my apps and my ID to her iPod she gave to me, and I can get rid of her account, or at least take it off..? If anyone knows how I would REALLY appreciate it if you told me.
Thanks :)

Best way is to do a restore, when the ipod touch boots back up do a restore from iTunes and enter your appleID and you're good to go.

Back up her ipod touch to her iTunes though she'll miss having one in a few weeks and probably end up buying one again :).


Install macOS Big Sur using Terminal This command was working previously in macOS High Sierra to install the OS via Terminal:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall -applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app

But I'm getting:

"--applicationpath" is deprecated in macOS 10.14 and greater. Please remove it from your invocation.

This seems to work:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --agreetolicense --nointeraction --forcequitapps


Having problems with Mail and a few other programs freezing I have a brand new macbook. I don't  really know a ton about macs...I'm newly switched from a life of windows pc's.  I keep reading about how you can unintall and then reinstall your OS. I can't get my head around how you would do this, bc w/windows you would have no way to get on the internet to access the program without an OS on the computer. I can imagine getting a drive to put it on, from which you could reinstall, but that seems to defeat the point if you think your version could be corrupt and want to ditch it and get a clean copy.

My computer is the Macbook(not an air or pro), so it has no drives and only one port. I do not have any external drives.

When I bought this machine I asked the genius bar to transfer my files, music and photos only. They  ended up transferring my entire drive, which included windows folders.I've deleted most of this, but am not sure if I've removed everything and do not know if this could be the source of the problem. Could these files have corrupted anything?

Any thoughts greatly appreciated. Sorry if I appear ignorant! It's only bc I am when it comes to this :~)

First off, congratulations on upgrading to a Mac, I'm a Windows "switcher", too, and will never go back. Secondly, as far as reinstalling a fresh copy of OS X (pronounced oh-es-ten NOT oh-es-ex) you will want to turn your MacBook off, then turn it back on, but while holding the Option key. Release it when you see two icons of hard drives, whatever you named your startup disk ("Macintosh HD" by default) and one labeled Recovery. Select Recovery by highlighting it with the arrow keys, and then hitting the enter key. Once there, you should see the option to "Reinstall OS X" select it and just follow the on-screen instructions from there. Make sure to select your start up disk, again named "Macintosh HD" by default, where it asks which drive to reinstall it on.


Configure and personalise external keyboard buttons on Mac? Ok, in fact what I am trying to customise and personalise are mouse buttons. As seen from my previous question here, I use SteerMouse to successfully configure the buttons on my Logitech M545 mouse.

However, there are two buttons, the side buttons, that cannot be detected by SteerMouse. After testing, I find that these two buttons, when pressed, actually correspond to keyboard operations. That is why SteerMouse is not able to configure them two.

Therefore, my question is equivalent to configuring two buttons of an external keyboard. How may I do this?

The first step might be to discover what key codes they are putting out. Key Codes will do this for you.

Then you will find that KeyRemap4Macbook will allow you to map those keycodes to something useful.


32gb of RAM on a 2011 or 2012 15/17-inch MacBook Pro using Crucial's 16gb single DIMMs As far as I can tell, that appears to be the correct RAM for the MBP, correct?
https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Single-PC3L-12800-SODIMM-CT204864BF160B/dp/B0123BRIDK

Has anyone tried this 32gb option on their 2011 or 2012 15-inch MacBook Pro?
IIRC the two higher-tier Early 2011, Late 2011, and Mid 2012 Unibody 15-inch (and 2011 17-inch) models support 32gb theoretically.

For example, the processor specs suggest 32gb over two slots is possible, but I'm not sure if the logic board would pose a limit or not...Apple says 16gb is the max, but I think much of that material was created before a single 16gb DDR3l DIMM existed.
https://ark.intel.com/products/52227/Intel-Core-i7-2820QM-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_40-GHz

I doubt it would work. Macs are picky about RAM, and the RAM you listed isn't what is specified by Apple. Apple requires DDR3 RAM. You have listed DDR3L RAM. It's an easy mistake to make. DDR3L is low-power RAM, requiring 1.35V instead of 1.5V. It is very possible that the RAM will not be compatible.

Also, officially, Apple says that the MBP only supports 8GB RAM. However, it is widely recognized that the MBP can support 16GB RAM.

Why wouldn't it support 32GB? Because while 16GB DDR3L RAM sticks are available, 16GB DDR3 RAM sticks don't exist. There is no such thing as a 16GB RAM stick that matches Apple's specifications (PC3-12800 DDR3 1600 MHz type 204-pin RAM).

Edit: Although crucial says that the 16 GB RAM stick can be used in place of DDR3, it says it is not compatible with the Mac:


is an iPhone bought in the US compatible with Germany? I'm travelling to the US soon and I would like to buy iPhone 7 (unlocked) from an Apple Store.  However, I live in Germany.

Without AppleCare, can I go to to an Apple store here in Germany in case something happened to the iPhone?
Are iPhones in the US are compatible with Germany's? Power/Energywise.
Do I need extra/different adaptors?

Yes, the service coverage of Apple products is worldwide. Though having AppleCare+ will save you some money because you may only have to pay for shipment of parts, etc. Refer to section 6.2 here.
Yes, as all Apple products come with standard power adapters and they're compatible anywhere voltage-wise, you may just have to use a universal power adapter in Europe. Otherwise, you can just use the USB to Lightning cable and use your own power adapter there in Germany.
See answer above.


Discounts for Christmas on Ipod Touch? I am planning to get one iPod Touch from one of my friends who is coming from US this december end. The current price of iPod 32GB is around $299. How much discount can I expect this christmas?

I recommend heading on over to AppleInsider.  They keep some really neat matrices of all the major Apple products and their prices at various online retailers.

For example, the pricing matrix for the iPod touch shows this for 2 Dec 2011:

The best price is bolded.  It looks like you can get anywhere between 5 and 10% off an iPod touch, depending on which store you buy it from.  I'll also throw out there that if you have a friend who works for Apple, you might want to talk to him/her to see if they could help you get a discount as well.


Software Recommendation for iOS app to wake Ubuntu computer with MAC Address I have an Ubuntu media server set up. Currently, I can only wake it up remotely from a Terminal command on my Macbook Pro:

  alias wakeserver="cd ; ~/bin/wakeonlan -f ServerMACAddress.txt ; cd -;"

This works perfectly and starts up my server every time.

Is there an iOS app (preferably free) that will allow me to enter in the Ubuntu server's MAC Address and then wake up the server from the iOS Device?

Either one of these apps should work:

iNet WOL ($1.99)

I use this app, and it works very well.

Mocha WOL (free)

I haven't tried this app, but it looks like it should work just fine.


How to download Firefox via command line FTP I am attempting to install Firefox on my Mac, which currently does not have a browser. From a bash terminal I have ftp installed and am currently connected to the internet. However, I have been unsuccessful in connecting to their FTP server.  How do I go about installing Firefox for my Mac via the command line?

You can skip the download step, and mount it directly over the internet like so:

hdiutil attach https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/43.0.4/mac/en-US/Firefox\ 43.0.4.dmg

Saves a step, time, and storage space!


Cannot execute this binary file appreciate any assistance, I'm a Mac Noob

Im trying to upgrade MySQL in MAMP to 5.6 according to the these instructions

When I try to run the .command script as per #2 I get the following output:

Sandies-MacBook:~ sandie$ /Users/sandie/Downloads/Install_MySQL_5.6.25.command ; exit;
-bash: /Users/sandie/Downloads/Install_MySQL_5.6.25.command: cannot execute binary file

I have found this post, but I still get the "Cannot Execute" error.  I checked the file type as per the instructions, and the result is:

Zip archive data, at least v2.0 to extract

The instructions suggest I need to unzip it but I have no idea how?

Any help appreciated :)

Remote/delete the downloaded file
Download it again, it should get a .zip extension
Double-click the downloaded file to unpack it
In Terminal, run

cd ~/Downloads
chmod +x Install_MySQL_5.6.25.command
./Install_MySQL_5.6.25.command


IDERepositoryViewer damaged or missing resources causes Xcode 5 to crash. Why? I recently updated my OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion from Xcode 4.6.3 to Xcode 5 using the App Store upgrade.

As I mentioned here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19051461/does-embarcadero-rad-studio-firemonkey-work-with-xcode-5, every time I tried to start Xcode 5, it would crash before I clicked or did anything.  The console log told me that a crash log was created at myusersfolder/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Xcode_2013-09-27-16245...

That log said that "The bundle \U201cIDERepositoryViewer\U201d couldn\U2019t be loaded because it is damaged or missing necessary resources.\".

So, I went to Xcode, Show Package Contents, and in Contents/Plugins, I found and renamed IDERepositoryViewer, by adding an "X" to the end of its name.  Now, Xcode 5 runs without problem.

I have not used the IDE Repository Viewer -- it appears to work with SVN, whereas I use git.  However, in the Xcode menu, the Source Control/Checkout window opens (although I have no servers defined),

Does anybody have any idea why a fresh Xcode install, on the very first run, would have a plugin that is missing resources, causing Xcode to crash?

(My related question on SO was about app development.  This question is why Apple's app, Xcode, does not run correctly for me, so it seemed more appropriate here).

The beginning of the stack trace follows:

Process:         Xcode [284]
Path:            /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/MacOS/Xcode
Identifier:      com.apple.dt.Xcode
Version:         5.0 (3332.25)
Build Info:      IDEApplication-3332025000000000~2
App Item ID:     497799835
App External ID: 38302662
Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:  launchd [142]
User ID:         501

Date/Time:       2013-09-27 16:24:54.365 -0700
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.8.5 (12F37)
Report Version:  10

Crashed Thread:  0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type:  EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000

Application Specific Information:
ProductBuildVersion: 5A1413
UNCAUGHT EXCEPTION (NSInternalInconsistencyException): Error getting value for key 'delegateClass' of extension 'Xcode.RepositoriesViewer.MenuDefinition.HelpContextualMenu' in plug-in 'com.apple.dt.IDE.IDERepositoryViewer'
UserInfo: {
    NSUnderlyingError = "Error Domain=DVTPlugInErrorDomain Code=2 \"Loading a plug-in failed.\" UserInfo=0x7ff6b1ec5430 {DVTPlugInIdentifierErrorKey=com.apple.dt.IDE.IDERepositoryViewer, DVTPlugInExecutablePathErrorKey=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/PlugIns/IDERepositoryViewer.ideplugin/Contents/MacOS/IDERepositoryViewer, NSLocalizedRecoverySuggestion=The plug-in or one of its prerequisite plug-ins may be missing or damaged and may need to be reinstalled., NSLocalizedDescription=Loading a plug-in failed., NSFilePath=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/PlugIns/IDERepositoryViewer.ideplugin, NSLocalizedFailureReason=The plug-in \U201ccom.apple.dt.IDE.IDERepositoryVie
wer\U201d at path \U201c/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/PlugIns/IDERepositoryViewer.ideplugin\U201d could not be loaded.  The plug-in or one of its prerequisite plug-ins may be missing or damaged., NSUnderlyingError=0x7ff6b
1ec2630 \"The bundle \U201cIDERepositoryViewer\U201d couldn\U2019t be loaded because it is damaged or missing necessary resources.\"}";
}
Hints: None
Backtrace:
  0  0x00007fff82a7faee __exceptionPreprocess (in CoreFoundation)
  1  0x0000000101080c23 DVTFailureHintExceptionPreprocessor (in DVTFoundation)
  2  0x00007fff8142f3f0 objc_exception_throw (in libobjc.A.dylib)
  3  0x000000010100ebd2 -[DVTExtension valueForKey:] (in DVTFoundation)
  4  0x00007fff825e85a9 -[NSFunctionExpression expressionValueWithObject:context:] (in Foundation)
  5  0x00007fff82670578 -[NSComparisonPredicate evaluateWithObject:substitutionVariables:] (in Foundation)
  6  0x00007fff82670493 -[NSPredicate evaluateWithObject:] (in Foundation)
....(much more follows .. if more is needed, let me know)

Thanks for your post of the problem, it helped me to work out what the issue is. That offending plug-in is NOT part of Xcode 5 at all. Like you, I had this happen after upgrading from Xcode 4 to Xcode 5. I did a clean install of Xcode 5 on another computer and it doesn't have that plug-in.


Notifications and quick settings panes stop working on iPhone After some time the notification slidedown and quick controls slideup(?) suddenly stop working. IOS8, iPhone 6. After reboot they work again and then again don't (after maybe several days). When the phone is locked, both panes work correctly.

What could it be and how to fix it?

This sounds like a software fault, the best solution is to backup and reinstall our phone.

This guide on Apple.com will explain how.


Per-application selection of correct spell checker language on Mac? I am Norwegian, but I set up my new iMac with English as the primary language.

My question is this:

  Can I configure Mac OS X (possibly through a 3rd party application, free or not) to pick the right spell checker language depending on which application I'm typing in?

I went and downloaded a Norwegian spell checker file, and for some reason, when I opened up Trillian (IM/chat) directly afterwords, and started typing, it gave me Norwegian spell checking hints. ie. Any Norwegian word I mistyped, and right-clicked on, it showed up a list of other, correct and similar, Norwegian words.

After a few reboots and whatnot, Trillian is apparently back to English and will only list English words when I misspell them.

Now, after this I've discovered how to pick which language to use the spell checker against, it's under Language & Text in System Preferences, Text tab, Spelling setting.

However, when I'm in Chrome, as I am right now while typing this question, I rarely type in Norwegian, and when I'm in Trillian, I rarely type in English. Most of the time when I'm typing in Chrome, it's for emails or Stack Exchange-related posts, all in English, and only 1-2 of all my IM-friends are English so I only ever type in Norwegian there.

Thus, my question; can I configure Mac OS X to automatically use the right spell checker when I'm typing in a particular program, so that when I'm typing text in Chrome, it uses the English spell checker, and when I'm typing in Trillian, it uses the Norwegian one, and so on and so forth?

You can't set it per application, but you can set it to support multiple languages and detect them automatically.

To do so (in Lion - although I've been using this at least since Leopard), open System Preferences, go to Language & Text, select the Text tab, set Spelling to Automatic by Language, then open the Spelling dropdown again, select Setup... at the bottom and check the languages you want to enable.


External harddrive changes name sometimes I have bought a new external harddrive to use with my Macbook Air running OSX 10.8.2. I renamed the device to "750GB External" and started using it, for example to store some photos which I edit with Picasa. This worked fine for about a week. Suddenly this morning when I plugged in the drive, Picasa could not find any of my photos, because the device now have the name "750GB External 1".

The drive has format: "Windows NT Filesystem" which I guess is standard NTFS. Since I would like to use this drive for Windows computers as well, I do not want to partition this to HFS+. Is there a way to make sure the harddrive will always get mounted with the same name?

If your hard drive mounted with a "1" at the end, that means the system was somehow holding onto the volume before you had plugged it in again, making it think another volume with the same name was plugged in. Since it can't give an identical path to two items, OS X will add a "1" to the end (which shouldn't be permanent).

As far as the NTFS question goes, I recommend reformatting your drive in a FAT format. If you are sharing with WinXP, use FAT-32. If you are sharing with Win7, use exFAT. Be sure to backup all data first as the reformat will wipe the drive. NTFS is read-only on a Mac which has obvious limitations for you.


Why are my plists in ~/Library/Preferences accompanied by a matching lockfile in Lion? $ cd ~/Library/Preferences
$ ls -1 | grep plist | head -10
AddressBookMe.plist
com.adiumX.adiumX.plist
com.adiumX.adiumX.plist.lockfile
com.apple.AddressBook.plist
com.apple.AddressBook.plist.lockfile
com.apple.BezelServices.plist
com.apple.BezelServices.plist.lockfile
com.apple.BluetoothAudio.plist
com.apple.Console.LSSharedFileList.plist
com.apple.Console.LSSharedFileList.plist.lockfile

what are these lockfiles for?

Apple supplies a Core Foundation Preference Services API to developers that makes it easy for them to manage preferences. Apple uses the same API and these lock files help the system know what programs are writing to the files and it helps the system notify the running program when a setting gets changed.

The system will keep track of a file that's open even if you trash and delete it, but it's probably best to leave these alone (like most of ~/Library) as there's no undo for things that are stored there - they are there to support the "undo" of the rest of the system.


Cannot export private key from System.keychain with Keychain Access or command line I'm trying to export a private key from System.keychain in Keychain Access. I've tried running Keychain Access as a root. No matter what, I always get the following error.

When I try to export the private key via the command line I get the following.

security: SecKeychainItemExport: The contents of this item cannot be retrieved.

Most likely, your key was imported with -x option for security import:

<...>
-x      Specify that private keys are non-extractable after being imported.
<...>

When you try to export a key, Security Framework checks whether this attribute is set and refuses to export the key.

Of course, the key is still there and you might be able to find a way to extract it (see this question).


Is it normal for the Finder to be slow when many files are in a folder? I have a maxed out MacBook Pro (end of 2013, 1TB SSD, Quad Core Haswell) and collect a lot of ripped mp3 files from viny, move them around in a folder structure. The problem is that Finder is incredibly slow and laggy, dragging files from one folder to another seems almost broken. I also noticed the same stuttering when scrolling through my apps folder.

Is it normal for Finder to react so slow, when many files are in a folder or might this be a hardware problem? I'm on 10.9.5 and can't upgrade at the moment.

Bulk file & folder moves/copies using the Finder are more easily accomplished at the command line in Terminal. A benefit is that the process executes faster.

The mv and cp commands are what you need. Use wildcard file selection on the source side of the command, and create target paths from dragging the associated Finder icons into the Terminal window. Take a look at the myriad options available at man mv and man cp.


Change routing priority on iMac Our home phone/internet is down; dug up by council contractors, and won't be fixed for a week.
I am using an iPhone hotspot in the interim.

This works, but when I plug the Ethernet connection to my router into my iMac I can no longer access the internet.
I use the local network for file sharing and printing.

How can I stop the iMac from using the Ethernet connection for internet, or PREFERABLY set the priority for the hotspot to be higher when connected?

172.20.10.1 is the Hotspot IP

~$ netstat -nr
Routing tables

Internet:
Destination        Gateway            Flags        Refs      Use   Netif Expire
default            10.1.1.1           UGSc           53        0     en0
default            172.20.10.1        UGScI          13        0     en1
10.1.1/24          link#6             UCS             2        0     en0
10.1.1.1/32        link#6             UCS             1        0     en0
10.1.1.1           78:a0:51:16:bb:56  UHLWIir        31      156     en0   1192
10.1.1.9/32        link#6             UCS             2        0     en0
10.1.1.255         ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff  UHLWbI          0        1     en0
127                127.0.0.1          UCS             0        0     lo0
127.0.0.1          127.0.0.1          UH              1      300     lo0
169.254            link#6             UCS             0        0     en0
169.254            link#7             UCSI            0        0     en1
172.20.10/28       link#7             UCS             1        0     en1
172.20.10.1/32     link#7             UCS             1        0     en1
172.20.10.1        3e:2e:f9:2a:33:64  UHLWIir        15       12     en1   1181
172.20.10.5/32     link#7             UCS             0        0     en1
172.20.10.15       ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff  UHLWbI          0        1     en1
224.0.0/4          link#6             UmCS            2        0     en0
224.0.0/4          link#7             UmCSI           2        0     en1
224.0.0.251        1:0:5e:0:0:fb      UHmLWI          0        0     en0
224.0.0.251        1:0:5e:0:0:fb      UHmLWI          0        0     en1
239.255.255.250    1:0:5e:7f:ff:fa    UHmLWI          0       10     en0
239.255.255.250    1:0:5e:7f:ff:fa    UHmLWI          0       10     en1
255.255.255.255/32 link#6             UCS             1        0     en0
255.255.255.255    ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff  UHLWbI          0        2     en0
255.255.255.255/32 link#7             UCSI            0        0     en1

You can set the service order in the Network preference pane in Preferences.app.

Open Network preferences, click the small cogwheel icon below network connection list (next to the + and – icon), choose "Set Service Order…" in the menu.

Then you just drag the entries in the dialog (w/o typing all the interface names).

Btw., in the Network pref pane you can also delete unused network interfaces (– icon) or make them inactive (cogwheel menu).


Syncing contacts with iCloud So I just upgraded to iOS 6 and have two questions:

Is it possible that my updated contacts (using Facebook integration) will uploaded to the cloud so the same info appearing on iPhone will be available on OS X contacts?
On any contact in iPhone, when I tap on the Facebook category, it opens my Lloyds bank app. Why?

A clarification on the first question: many of the contacts imported from Facebook were already in my iPhone although with less info (usually just the phone number). Instead of combining the info, I get two contacts with same name and different set of info. What I want is have them combined on iCloud. If I manually use "Link cards" they will be displayed as one, although changes are not reflected on iCloud.

For part 2, I've had the same issue. I thought I'd fixed it by deleting the Lloyds app. I checked my contacts and it took me straight to Facebook. I then reinstalled the Lloyds app, however the issue of the Lloyds bank app stealing the contact reference when they were accessed returned.

Today, after installing the updates for both Facebook and the Lloyds apps has solved the part two problem.


Show categories in the sidebar of Outlook? Is it possible to show Categories in the Navigation Pane (left sidebar) of Outlook 2011? If so, how?

You could create a Smart Folder for each of your categories to accomplish this.  In the search bar, search for "category:yourcategoryname" and hit enter.  The Search tab in the Ribbon will appear.  There, you can select "Save", which will save your search as a Smart Folder.


802.11 physical mode in command line How can I find which 802.11 protocol (e.g. 802.11ac) my network card is using from the command line?

This provides several ways of doing this using GUI utilities, but I want to be able to do it programmatically.

I have tried airport, netstat, and many other things but haven't found an option that would give me this information.

One correct method seems to be:

system_profiler SPAirPortDataType | awk '/PHY Mode:/ { print $3 ; exit }'

The awk script (between ' ) means:

on first expression 'PHY Mode:', print the third field and exit the script.


Keyboard shortcut to focus application's search bar (not Spotlight) in macOS? If keyboard shortcuts are enabled in gmail, pressing / will focus the search bar from anywhere, so that I can simply type /stuff to search for "stuff" no matter what is currently focused.
Is there a similar keyboard shortcut to focus the search bar within applications (not spotlight)?

Note: I'm looking for an alternative to hitting tab repeatedly.

I don't believe there is a system-wide shortcut for this, as the definition of Search Bar may not be standard across apps. But hitting ⌘+F focuses the Search Bar in many Mac applications.


Is there a way to temporarily enlarge the mouse pointer like Apple's "Shake to find" does? I'm aware of Apple's "Shake to find" feature, which enlarges the pointer (too briefly for me), and I occasionally use it.

I'm also aware of (increasingly unstable and out-of-date) third-party programs like "Mouse Locator" and Mouseposé, both of which suffer from lack of upgrades to keep up with Mac OS versions.

I'm looking for a way to trigger the temporary big cursor effect of "Shake to find" without shaking the mouse - as I want to keep the cursor near the thing I want to highlight.

There is way to increase the size of your cursor, but it will stay that size until you change it again. Maybe making the cursor a little bigger will help?

Go to System Preferences and click Accessibility. Then on the left click on Display. Click on the subsection called "Cursor", then use the slider to set the cursor size. You can also turn off the feature where your cursor expands when you shake it by unchecking the box.


AppleScript to set clock I need to set the Mac clock to a specific date and time, to perform some testing.

I'm new to AppleScript.

Is it possible to write a double-clickable script to set the clock?( By “double-clickable”, I mean a script that appears to be an app, double-click from the Finder to launch, run, and quit. No need to open the AppleScript environment/tools. )
Does anyone care to post some example code?

The follow example AppleScript code uses the state of the NTP Daemon to toggle the Date/Time settings between two Date/Time states. By default, ntpd is running and needs to be turned off if a changed Date/Time is to stay and move forwards normally from that point. Otherwise, with ntpd running, the Date/Time will be reset to the correct values rather quickly.

You can save this AppleScript code as an application and when run, does one of two things after entering the proper credentials. It either sets the Date/Time to the values specified, or turns the NTP Daemon back on so the system will update the Date/Time to the correct values.

set ntpdPID to do shell script "pgrep ntpd; exit 0"
if ntpdPID is not "" then
    do shell script "systemsetup -setusingnetworktime Off -setdate '01:24:1984' -settime '03:00:00'" with administrator privileges
else
    do shell script "systemsetup -setusingnetworktime On" with administrator privileges
end if

This is the no fills version and the code can be modified as needed/wanted, however, since those needs/wants have not been defined, this is all I can offer.


How do I prevent other wifi networks from showing up on my computer? I understand that I can prevent my computer from connecting to networks automatically under System Preferences > Network > Advanced, but I want to not even be able to see networks other than ones I have specified.

I don't want to see this long list:

You can’t really prevent other networks from announcing themselves so until and unless Apple adds a filter, you can just join the networks you care about and save them in the keychain and try to avoid looking at the list.

The filter would be a check mark or other item to only show “trusted” networks so you can choose amongst them and not all of the networks.

To learn more why these are showing - go grab the lite version of WiFi Explorer - https://www.adriangranados.com/ - I use the paid versions for work, but most of what you need to understand how far from these devices you’d need to move to not see their advertisements is in the free version (or using the airport command line interface)

What OS X signal strength test apps exist to measure Wi-Fi networking?


Is there a Mac OS X Command Line application that can convert text encodings from one type to another? (Specifically to convert Mac OS Roman to utf8) I would like to call a command line utility in Mac OS X 10.8 that gives me the ability to convert a text file saved in standard Western Mac OS Roman encoding to the more generic UTF-8.
I will be calling the utility from an AppleScript that I have created.  AppleScript is extremely slow when working with very large text blocks.  As such, I want to do my text parsing and conversion using the OS X command line.  I have found a tool called, "sed", which allows me to do the text parsing.  However, there are still many elements of the file that need to be cleaned up, characters that appear as garbage if the file is opened as utf-8 (e.g. smart quotes and ellipses).
I am thinking that forcing a text encoding conversion may help to eliminate all non-utf8 characters in the file.  However, I cannot see how "sed" can easily convert the text encoding.
I will have already saved the temp txt file, as MacRoman, to disk using the built-in AppleScript routines.
Requirements:

Command-line for performance
Prefer native tools since other users of my script won't necessarily have the proper toolset if it's not built-in. (Although I could add a check to my script and abort if a needed tool isn’t present)

Do any of you have any ideas as to a built-in command-line tool that can convert text encoding or an existing package that is superior for this task?

iconv is definitively the tool of choice here:

iconv -f MACROMAN -t UTF-8 your-roman-encoded-file.txt > utf-8-encoded-file.txt

Run iconv --list to see a list of all supported encodings.


Whatsapp calls: where are they logged? I am using an Iphone with iOS 8, and just installed the latest version of WhatsApp, which allows for voice calls from inside the app. Everything is fine... except that I don't see where are the calls logged. They don't appear in the calls log of the Phone app, nor there's any icon in that person's chat history. Where are they?

Answering my own question: there's a new tab in Whatsapp called "Recent", which I hadn't paid attention to. It's the second one from the left, and it has the log of your recent Whatsapp voice calls.


Is there a way to specify artist artwork for Music in iOS 7? I've been a big fan of the redesign of the music app in iOS 7. I noticed that on the Artist list, certain musical acts have a thumbnail of band/artist next to them. This image is independent of any album art that I might have, and definitely comes from iTunes.

I was wondering if there was a way to set this image manually. I have a lot of bands that aren't covered by this feature, and I think it's a cool way to visually identify the music  I listen to.

In the screencap below, The Moody Blues, The Mountain Goats and Neil Young all feature this custom artwork.

I know this is extremely late but I was just wondering the same thing. In settings under music I unchecked "group by album artist" and well it worked, I'm assuming from that option.


Plugging iPhone gives IP address on a new network interface Plugging my iPhone on my MacBook Pro shows me a new network interface en7 and allocates an IP address.

$ifconfig
en7: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    inet 169.254.134.xxxx netmask 0xffff0000 broadcast 169.254.255.255

Why is this and what is it for?

This is for tethering. Your iPhone can share its cellular data connection over USB (or Bluetooth) to your Mac, so your Mac can use your iPhone to connect to the internet. You can see the network interface appear in System Preferences → Network.


Can’t delete "com.avira.scanservice.systemextension" leftover from AVIRA Free Antivirus I uninstalled AVIRA Free Antivirus program (under current Catalina macOS), but one file "com.avira.scanservice.systemextension" couldn't be deleted because I don’t have the necessary rights.
After uninstalling and reinstalling AVIRA several times and trying many other tips from the support site, the "com.avira.scanservice.systemextension" process is still running.
I've already wasted many hours. Please help me, dear experts, to delete this stubborn "com.avira.scanservice.systemextension"!
Many thanks in advance.

I am very displeased with this software. It litters the Mac with a
lot of files all over the place. I work in enterprise IT and I thought
the expensive security tools were insane. This is just plain terrible
software with sloppy packaging and removal.
I suspect you ran into trouble because you installed this prior to upgrading to Catalina. Then decided to remove it afterwards.  For future reference, if you install security tools you need to take note and verify they are compatible before you upgrade the operating system.  It is not uncommon to brick your Mac when upgrading the operating system with an incompatible security tool.  Especially those that use kernel system extensions.

The Avira support site provides a script you can download, decompress and run but the file will be initially blocked as it's from an Unidentified Developer. You'll need to allow the script to run and then execute it in Terminal via the sudo (Super User Do) command. I've analyzed the script and it doesn't do anything it is not supposed to be doing.
https://support.avira.com/hc/en-us/article_attachments/360001695365/Avira_Uninstaller.zip
I recommend not running this tool in the GUI but from Terminal manually as below:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine ~/Downloads/Avira.Uninstall.command
sudo ~/Downloads/Avira.Uninstall.command

The Avira support pages seem to indicate there is an uninstall tool located in /Applications/Utilities/Avira-Uninstall.app/Contents/MacOS/Avira-Uninstall and that you may need to run this from Terminal instead of clicking the App in the /Applications/Utilities directory.

Open Terminal
Type the following command

sudo /Applications/Utilities/Avira-Uninstall.app/Contents/MacOS/Avira-Uninstall

Enter your Mac user password and I would recommend rebooting when it's finished.
If this does not work, then you can manually remove the AVIRA system extension. It looks scary and complex but it's not as bad as it looks it's just tedious.
Manual Process:
Fortunately, Apple provides a developer tool to fix this problem called "systemextensionsctl". Unfortunately, it is complicated by needing to disable SIP (System Integrity Protection) as well as enabling the root user account then retrieving the AVIRA system extension developer TeamIdentifier and Bundle Identifier information then uninstalling the system extension and finally turning SIP back on and turning off the root user account. All this in the name of improved security...
Prerequisites:

macOS Catalina (you have that covered)
Disable SIP (System Integrity Protection)
Enable root account

Disable SIP:

Restart the computer while holding CMD + R to enter Recovery Mode
Click on the Utilities pull down menu and select Terminal and enter
command below:

csrutil disable

Click the Apple pulldown menu and restart
Follow this Apple Support document to enable the root user account
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204012
Don't forget to sign-out and back on as the root user with the password you created when following the Apple Support document. Do not reboot, but logout and back on instead

Open the Terminal (CMD + Spacebar type Terminal then press Return
You'll need to find the Team identifier of the certificate used to sign the system extension as well as the Bundle identifier for the system extension as you will need to supply them to the systemextensionctl tool so you can uninstall the AVIRA system extension. There's another tool from Apple called codesign that will give you that information.
Copy this command and paste into Terminal to return the TeamIdentifier code for the AVIRA system extension
codesign -dvvv /Library/SystemExtensions/511A3B18-B8D9-4324-A145-25F85A6CA02/com.avira.scanservice.systemextension 2>&1 | awk -F= '/^TeamIdentifier/ {print $NF}'

It will return the TeamIdentifier which will be a alphanumeric code something like:
AVY94IG3PA (sample result, use the result you receive)
Now copy and paste this slightly different command to obtain the Identifier for AVIRA
codesign -dvvv /Library/SystemExtensions/511A3B18-B8D9-4324-A145-25F85A6CA02/com.avira.scanservice.systemextension 2>&1 | awk -F= '/^Identifier/ {print $NF}'

This one should return something like:
com.avira.scanservice.extension (sample result use the one you receive)
Once you have both of these pieces of information displayed in the Terminal you can enter the actual command to remove the system extension: (enter the TeamIdentifier and Bundle Identifiers you retrieved earlier. The codes below are only an example do not copy and paste the command below)
systemextensionsctl uninstall AVY94IG3PA com.avira.scanservice.extension

IMPORTANT: Do not forget to Enable SIP and Disable the root user account when you are done. These two items are important to keep your Mac protected from truly nasty security threats.


Can I send my location in an imessage directly from the messages app? I know I can go to the Maps app, and then click on the pin for my current location, and then select to share it, and then pick to send a message (vs. an email etc.)

But I can't find any way to send my location from the messages app, the way I might send a photo.

Which is silly - how often are you hanging around in the maps app when you want to tell someone where you are?   It makes sense when you're sending a location where you aren't, say the restaurant you'll meet at tomorrow, but you'd think a solid percentage of shared locations are "here's where I am", and in almost all of those cases, you're starting in the message app, not the map.

A I missing anything?

Edit: Sorry, I skimmed a bit and missed that you figured this part out already. I don't believe it can be done directly from the Messages app. In conceptual terms, the iOS model for data sharing is typically such that you send data from an app, but the "sending apps" generally can't grab data from elsewhere. This is true for most things except photos, i.e. you can send a contact from the Contacts app, but you can't directly attach one from the Messages app.

Original post:

You can do this by tapping the blue arrow (blue i on an iPad) on any location (dropped pin, current location), and tapping Share Location. It will give you the option of sending via email, Message or Tweet. Your recipient will get sent a contact with a maps url and address.


Can I snapshot an OS X Application installation? I would like to:

take a snapshot of my OS X system
install an application
and take a new snapshot.

Comparing both snapshots (file hash) would show me what settings(plist files) and files were created/edited during the installation.

It is very popular on Windows (VMware ThinApp, RegShot, Symantec Endpoint Virtualization Suite... etc.).

Is there an OS X tool or software to do this ?

File Buddy for OS X has a snapshot feature: Just create a snapshot before and after the installation and first launch of the app. Then open them in compare mode and you will get three text files of added, modified and deleted items.


Jailbroken iOS 10.3.3; iCleaner won't open; can't reinstall/turn on tweaks A couple of days ago, I disabled all tweaks (with iCleaner), and then upgraded it to v7.7.2. I have tried downgrading it and installing it from different sources, but I can't open it to enable all tweaks. Now with my phone fully jailbroken (instead of semi), I am still unable to open iCleaner. Is there any way to manually revert whatever iCleaner did (or delete all of iCleaners data so I can launch it)?

Fully fixed, iCleaner also works, but for some reason when I downgraded rocketbootstrap to v6 everything re-installed and worked properly (except for KarenLocalizer stuff, but that was fixed by borrowing libkarenlocalizer.dylib off of a different device)


El Capitan: 2 displays but keep dock to Laptop display Hey I live at 2 different locations, both of which offer an external display at different places on the table. Whereas everything is perfect with the display that is located above the laptop screen (Dock stays on the laptop screen) the other display forces the Dock onto it (off the laptop screen) as it is located left from my MacBook and I think that is the reason why the Dock moves there.

Unticking "Displays have separate spaces" deactivates other stuff like split-view and placing the monitor that is physically on the left to my MacBook above my MacBook in the arrangement window is simply too confusing for me to handle.

Putting the dock to the right is out of question as my "Touchpad mobility" is quite restricted which makes every move to the right side of the screen extremely uncomfortable.

Any ideas?

EDIT: Just wanted to clarify the dock position. Below is the working one where the dock is on the side to the external screen, the one above shows the rather awkward position right now.

As your monitors slightly overlap to the left, the Dock moves there.  The only way to change this, to my knowledge, is to move the dock to the bottom.

Open System Preferences
Select Dock settings
Select the Bottom radio button in the Position on screen: setting


Need to connect multiple 3.5" hard drives to the Thunderbolt port of a 2012 iMac I have a 2012 iMac that I'm currently using as a file server. I need to connect several 3.5" hard drives to it, and its USB 3 ports are currently used up with other devices. So what I'd like to do is connect something like  an external enclosure with multiple drive bays (as many as four) to the Thunderbolt 1 port of this iMac.

So far I haven't been able to find a singular device that'll let me do it, and I'm not sure if I can pull it off with adapters. For example, there are now many USB-C multi-bay hard drive enclosures, but I'm not confident I'd be able to use it with a 2012 iMac.

Is there either a) a device, possibly an old one I could get used, that connects multiple hard drives to a Thunderbolt port, or b) an adapter I can use to connect a more modern multi-bay enclosure?

I ended up getting an OWC ThunderBay 4 and an Apple Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter. It's been working great with my 2012 iMac, and I feel future-proofed in case I update to a computer that has Thunderbolt 3 ports.


What happens if you plug more than one charger in the new MacBook Pro (2016)? Apple's controversial decision to convert all the ports on their 2016 MacBook Pro lineup to USB-C ports contributes to blur the difference between ports that supply power (such as a power adapters) and ports that can power external devices (such as USB keys, mice or other gadgets).

This made me think about the following scenario: you sit at a table where your laptop is plugged in on the right, and don't notice that it is plugged in, so you decide to charge it with a second nearby charger that is laying around (i.e. belonging to someone who lives with you and who recently sat at the same spot).

What would happen then?

Would the computer charge twice as fast, would one of the chargers be dismissed by the system (which one?), or would it generate a surcharge that would destroy the computer?

I couldn't find anything about this online, but since I am always trying to force a USB in the MagSafe charger of my MacBook Air, I think that I could easily end up making this kind of mistake.

Note: My question asks what happens when two chargers are inserted into a MacBook Pro, but I am also wondering what would happend if 3, or 4 chargers were inserted. Although this scenario is unlikely to happen by mistake, it would constitute an obvious vulnerability to an exposed device, i.e. in a public space.

The system will choose the power source that provides the most power, and it will not draw power from the others.
Apple has released a support article (and another one) describing this:

Your MacBook Pro draws power from only one power supply, even if more
than one is attached—so using multiple power supplies will not speed
up charging.

If you connect multiple power supplies to your MacBook
Pro, the one that provides the most power will be used, regardless of
the order in which you connected them.

You should not connect any
power supply that exceeds 100W, as it might damage your Mac.


Never ask about Parallels registration Is there an option to prevent the Parallels Desktop 6 registration permanently?

This was bugged me too, so changed some values in the preferences.plist, but not absolutely sure what one. So make a backup first.

open with Property List Editor.app the next file:

$HOME/Library/Preferences/com.parallels.Parallels Desktop.plist

search for the key:

Register.Show Welcome Dialog.{some-hex-numbers}

and uncheck the checkbox. Or, here is the

Register.Welcome next show time.{some-hex-numbers}

what is the date, when you will get the next regitration window. Try change this to the far-future, e.g. 2015 or so.. ;)

Ps: don't forget: make a backup from the plist file.

And if you haven't installed the Developer Tools (for the Property List Editor.app) you're probably out of luck, because the plist is binary. While it is possible convert it into ascii, edit and convert back - this is not safe...

Maybe someone know the easier solution. ;)


Automator and/or AppleScript to automatically Command-F2 to enter Target Display Mode I'm trying to use Automator with AppleScript to automatically hit Command + F2 to enter Target Display Mode. The script runs but I just get a beep/tone with no action. I don't know if there's an error in the script or if it's not capable of hitting a function key.

on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "System Events"
        key down {command}
        keystroke "120"
        key up {command}
    end tell
return input
end run

Once I get this working I'll need to somehow schedule this to run on startup or maybe on a schedule. I've seen some threads on this but never an actual solution. I'm using a 2011 iMac as a secondary monitor and hate hitting Command + F2 every day.

keystroke "120" is not the same as key code 120; the former taps the keys 1, 2, and 0.

I've had success with the following AppleScript, but you can also try key code 120 and key code 113.

tell application "System Events" to key code 144 using command down