Log in as different user without logging out Is there a way to log in as a different user, leaving all of my open windows and running apps as they are?

All I can find is a way to log off, and then log on as another user.

You can perform Fast User Switching.

  Switch by using a password

  Click the fast user switching menu in the menu bar, then choose your user name.

  The fast user switching menu looks like either a user icon or the name of the current user, depending on the setting in Users & Groups preferences.
  Enter your password, then click the arrow.

macOS Sierra: Switch quickly between users

If Fast User Switching is unavailable, it can be enabled by an administrator.

  If your Mac has multiple users, an administrator can turn on fast user switching to let more than one user stay logged in at the same time. To switch from one user to another without logging out, users choose their name from the menu bar, and then enter a password or use Touch ID.

  Turn on fast user switching

  Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Users & Groups, then click Login Options.
  Click the lock icon  to unlock it, then enter an administrator name and password.
  Select “Show fast user switching menu as,” then choose how the fast user switching menu looks in the menu bar.

macOS Sierra: Switch quickly between users


Can I use OS X Server 4 to remotely manage an OS X Server 3.2.1? In other words: Do I have to update both my Macbook (from where I manage the remote OS X Server) and the Mac Mini (where the Server is actually serving) to Yosemite and OS X Server 4 at the same time?

What do you mean: "Nothing can go wrong: all your Keychains; SSH keys; Certificates; Open Directory settings; web apps; .... will migrate just faultlessly."?

I think my strategy will be to upgrade the Server machine first and only manage it locally until I am sure it's working perfectly. (Not an option for those without local access to their OS X Server.)

No you can't.

Server 3 won't run on Yosemite.
So management of remote Server 3 is not possible with Yosemite client.
Server 4 client on Yosemite alerts that it "will only connect to remote OS X Server running on OS X 10.10"
In other words: both Server client app and Server server need to be at Server 4 on OS X 10.10 if either end switches over to Yosemite.


Why is my wired keyboard's Eject key no longer working after OS upgrade? Though it sounds like a duplicate of this question, it isn't; the difference is that my eject key works when I connect it to another Mac, so the hardware is good.

The situation is that I have a MacPro3,1 tower with an optical drive that I recently upgraded to El Capitan. The eject key always worked before, but after the move to El Capitan it no longer works and I either have to use the menu bar command or press the physical button on the drive (it is an aftermarket BD-ROM from MacSales).

The keyboard is directly connected to the Mac, no USB hubs or anything in the middle. I have not changed any settings for Fn keys. I do have Karabiner installed to re-map the right-option key for Citrix sessions, but using its "display all keyboard events" tool, it seems that the eject key has no event associated with it. I would have thought this meant it is a hardware issue, but seeing how it worked with no problem on my other Mac, I'm guessing the key isn't mapped like the rest.

Any ideas?

In response to Allan's comments on the original question, I attempted safe mode and found that the eject key still worked and also realized that it worked before I logged in to my account. Obviously, it was something my profile was loading at login time.

While I'm not sure which item specifically helped, I did notice that I had an older "iTunes Helper" and also quitting iTunes (which is normally loaded all the time) did seem to correspond with the eject key working again, but I'm not 100% convinced that it was the precise culprit. While iTunes has always had a helper, I think this particular one might have been an artifact of an older installation that got carried over in the upgrade and caused the problem.


iPad Air 2 not turning on My iPad Air 2 was working fine until yesterday. Then I turned it off for a while, and when I returned, I plugged my headphones in and typed in my passcode to go to the homescreen. However, the iPad froze before the homescreen loaded, so I switched off the iPad to restart it. Since I turned it off, I have been unable to get it to turn on again (the screen is black). I plugged it in and it made the "I'm charging" ding but the screen didn't turn on to show my lock screen. I clicked the on sleep/wake button and home button a few times but nothing happened. It was fully charged before this happened. What can I do to turn on my iPad again?

My own iPad Air shut off by itself last month (with the charge reading at 80%) and wouldn't turn on, even when I plugged it in. After 30 minutes of it being plugged in, the screen was still black. However, I left the iPad charging for about an hour and finally the screen came back on.

Try charging it for an hour, and plugging it into iTunes to see if you get a response from it.


Is imklaunchagent virus or Apple system file? My client suspects the imklaunchagent damages his computer. I did some research but found two explanations. One is Apple's system file and the other is virus. Which one is true?
Apple System File?
claim 1

man imklaunchagent" in Terminal.app says:
imklaunchagent is automatically invoked to launch input methods that
are selected via direct user inter- action. It is not intended to be
invoked via other means and must not be terminated. imklaunchagent
monitors abnormal behavior and will disallow an input method from
launching if it repeatedly terminates unexpect- edly within a short
timespan.

(Reference: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251183015)
claim 2

Do you happen to write in, say, Chinese or Japanese? I think the
process you are mentioning is part of Apple's Input Method Kit
framework (
http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/Cocoa/RN-InputMethodKit/index.html),
which is used to support languages that use complex scripts.
The program itself is located in: /System/Library/Frameworks/InputMethodKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/imklaun
chagent
(Reference: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1463920)

claim 3 (see answer, not the question)

It's a standard macOS process. If you ever google a process name & all
you get are 'malware removal sites trying to sell you something'…
think twice about why. If the threat was real, the make-a-quick-buck
sites would be far far down the list, well below real issues faced by
real people.
The process is inside a protected area, in the System folder on the
System partition. You'd have to try very, very hard to overwrite it
with a malicious component - including rebooting to Recovery &
manually disabling SIP. macOS simply will not let a random process
anywhere near that area, even with admin permission.

(Reference: https://superuser.com/questions/1578763/how-do-i-remove-the-imklaunchagent-malware)
Virus?
(Reference: https://sensorstechforum.com/imklaunchagent-mac-remove/)

I think my research already answers the question. Just to let my client feel safe and make sure the result is correct. I will keep this thread for other users.


How do I close all tabs on Safari for iPad after the app crashes My wife went to a site that tries to load a PDF that crashes Safari for iPad.  After trying to load Safari again, it tries to open up all of the tabs again including the one that is crashing Safari.  While its loading the tab it locks everything up so I can't switch tabs.  How do I break this endless cycle?  How can I close this tab or have Safari not try to reopen this tab?  Is it possible to do this without losing the history?

Force-quit Safari (double-tap the home button, then tap and hold on the Safari icon until it shakes, then tap the red minus sign).
Go to Settings > Safari.
Tap Clear History.

This should clear out all open tabs.


Dictated input in OSX is underlined with Blue dots Dictation provides a great way of entering text. However, the documentation I found so far is scarce, and for instance I do not know what the blue dots underlying some parts of the text:

For instance, is it possible to chose an alternate text (solution)?

Note: I tried any possibility as right clicking, but no luck there...

Often, dictation hears wrong, but then looks at the context of the sentence and “changes its mind” by changing certain words. Those words get underlined in blue. So basically, words underlined in blue are the words that dictation decided to change based on the context of the sentence. Usually, they’re good changes. Hope that answers your question.


Persistent Ubuntu boot USB: macOS Sierra Short of figuring out how to achieve a dual boot configuration for my mid-2012 2GHz i7 MacBook Air to boot to a Linux OS, I've made a "live" boot USB with Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS using UNetbootin. I would, however, like a "persistent" boot USB. Can this be done? So far I have tried the following to modify the "live" USB but would I be better off making a persistent USB on Windows and hoping it runs on Sierra?

Per these Enterprise Installation instructions (from version 0.4.0), this seems like it might be an option:

  6) OPTIONAL! If you're going to be booting Ubuntu, you can create a persistence file on the root of your USB to save changes. You can do that with the following commands (assuming that your USB is named usb and is mounted under /media/user... obviously, set these to the correct paths):

 dd if=/dev/zero of=/media/user/usb/casper-rw bs=1M count=128
 yes | mkfs.ext3 /media/user/usb/casper-rw

  These commands create a 128 MB persistence file. You can change the size of the persistence file in megabytes by adjusting the count parameter. All values should be a power of two (e.g 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 ... 1024, 2056). Then, to activate persistence, when you boot your USB drive, select option 2 to go to the advanced options screen, highlight option 1 and make sure it activates, and then press 0 to boot the drive. You must repeat this process each time you wish to boot with persistence.

The "instructions" were written December 23, 2016... and there are a few things I notice which are different:

casper exists on the USB, is casper-rw where the persistent data gets written, or should I modify the command to casper?

Presuming casper-rw, this throws an error:

$  dd if=/dev/zero of=/Volumes/UBUNTU/casper-rw bs=1M count=128
dd: bs: illegal numeric value

...to which man dd offers no clarification regarding block size numerical values, except this (from 1994):

Where sizes are specified, a decimal, octal, or hexadecimal number of bytes
is expected.  If the number ends with a ``b'', ``k'', ``m'', ``g'', or ``w'',
the number is multiplied by 512, 1024 (1K), 1048576 (1M), 1073741824 (1G)
or the number of bytes in an integer, respectively.  Two or more numbers
may be separated by an ``x'' to indicate a product.

So... I tried this on a lark:

$  dd if=/dev/zero of=/Volumes/UBUNTU/casper-rw bs=1m count=128
128+0 records in
128+0 records out
134217728 bytes transferred in 29.537984 secs (4543903 bytes/sec)
...but now:

$  yes | mkfs.ext3 /Volumes/UBUNTU/casper-rw
-bash: mkfs.ext3: command not found
...to which I invoked brew install e2fsprogs and

$  yes | sudo $(brew --prefix e2fsprogs)/sbin/mkfs.ext3 /Volumes/UBUNTU/casper-rw
mke2fs 1.43.4 (31-Jan-2017)
Creating filesystem with 131072 1k blocks and 32768 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 4217a6de-e267-4cec-b4e7-f70acb9adb0c
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
    8193, 24577, 40961, 57345, 73729

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (4096 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
but still no persistence :\
per the SETUP section of the instructions, I also tried dropping these files into the live USB's /efi/boot/ directory to no avail...

boot.efi
bootX64.efi

Any known exits from this rabbit hole with macOS Sierra?

This following method installed a persistent boot USB with Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS on my mid 2012 2GHz i7 MacBook Air running macOS Sierra:

They offer it for like $5US, but I am a cheap S.O.B., so from their GitHub repo...

Download Mac Linux USB Loader from the good folks at SevenBits.
Install Cocoapods (gem install cocoapods).
cd into the GitHub directory and pod install.
Launch "Mac Linux USB Loader.xcworkspace" in XCode (require XCode 8+ and registration as a Developer) and run the app. in the sandbox.
Insert and mount a USB drive & use Disk Utility to Erase to MS-DOS(FAT) and GUID Partition Map Master Boot Record.
In the "Persistence Manager" set the allocation of storage for the persistent memory (this creates the casper-rw file).

(source: sevenbits.io)

In the "Create Live USB" menu, point the "Create Live USB" to the Ubuntu ISO...

Deselect the "Skip the boot selection menu" option and let 'er rip!
Once finished, restart and hold the alt/option button, then select the EFI boot disk. Note the boot procedure here: https://github.com/SevenBits/Mac-Linux-USB-Loader/wiki/Using-Persistence-with-Mac-Linux-USB-Loader and after the drive is selected, boot to persistent by selecting from the menu options: 2, then 1, then 0.
Of note: once booted into Ubuntu, I created an admin user account, changed the desktop, then ran touch test.txt and sudo apt install valgrind to see if the changes would stick. When I logged out and logged back in, the b.g. reset to default, but the user account, text.txt file and valgrind install remained. When I rebooted, the changed desktop picture had stuck... A little funky, and it might not be a "dual boot OSX & Linux" lappy, but so far it's persistent Ubuntu on a stick!

NOTE: I reconfigured the persistent USB by formatting the USB using Master Boot Record instead of GUID. It feels like the startup is snappier. Both USB drive formats result in the console displaying the the command "applesetos" is not found. Not sure what this means. Per the maker, "The applesetos message is an oversight from me, but won’t affect the boot process." Similarly, with Master Boot Record I had to first create an admin account, and restart before system changes started taking hold.


Where to install Kibana (and tools like it) I'm following the guide Install Kibana with .tar.gz, and not sure where I should put it on a Darwin/OS X system. I know I can probably put it where I want, but wondering if there is a designated/standard place on my system for such tools. On this tutorial, they use Yum which puts it into a Yum repo, but I'm not sure if that's what I want to use. My Elasticsearch is installed at /usr/local/elasticsearch-6.0.0 with a symbolic link to it at /usr/local/elasticsearch.

On macOS the canonical place to install Unix software is /usr/local/, with the usual set of bin, lib, etc etc. beneath it. Going with this your installation of elasticsearch would seem to be bit odd but that is probably easy to fix.

You could also go with Homebrew which allows an easy installation of a lot of Unix software (and which uses /usr/local as a base as well). Both Kibana (4.4) and Elasticsearch (2.4) are available through Homebrew.


How did this ominous file end up in my Application Support folder? Deleting this file will break the whole internets, for the sake of our children don't do it!.

The above quotation is the content of a text file called STR8369805638PUB6932583035105 that I found today browsing the ~/Library/Application Support using a terminal.

I've found a thread on the Apple forums of somebody having exactly the same issue. It is also discussed on a german forum.

The file is not visible using the Finder, I discovered it because I've done an ls while in ~/Library/Application Support.

This is how the file look in a binary editor, the only odd thing may be that the file ends with a CR (0D) although it's quite recent (it's been created in October):

Does anybody have any idea where this file may come from ?

I found the culprit !

Thanks to the suggestion of @Mark Thalkman I made a DTrace script to monitor applications accessing that file.

The application that creates the file is called AppWrapper. The way I discovered it was to look at the folders created in October in /Library/Application Support. There were only two, appWrapper and eSellerate. So I downloaded AppWrapper again and after launching it the script detected that it was accessing the file.

I'm sure the developer made a mistake and instead of saving the file inside the appWrapper folder he saved it in ~/Library/Application Support.

For those interested, here's the script:

#!/usr/sbin/dtrace -s

\#pragma D option quiet

BEGIN
{
  printf("\n   Timestamp           gid   uid   pid  ppid execname     function           current directory file name\n\n");
}

syscall::open:entry,
syscall::unlink:entry,
syscall::rename:entry
/strstr(stringof(copyinstr(arg0)), $1) != NULL/
{
      printf("%Y %5d %5d %5d %5d %-12s %-10s %25s %s\n", walltimestamp, gid, uid, pid, ppid, execname, probefunc, cwd, stringof(copyinstr(arg0)));
}


Recover Corrupt SSHD I had an old 2011 13" MPB with a 250 GB Samsung Evo 840 SSD and, using the OWC expansion bay mod, a 1 TB Seagate SSHD. The SSD was the boot drive and the SSHD was just for Time Machine backups, file storage, and a boot camp partition. Unfortunately, I spilled water on that Mac and it subsequently died. Yesterday I finally got around to getting a new Mac. I now have a 2013 15" Retina model with 500 GB flash storage. I used Migration Assistant to transfer all my files from the SSD as it was the boot drive and the drive with my user account on it. However, after that I hooked up the 1 TB SSHD but the Mac gave me this error:

"The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer"

So I opened Disk Utility and ran First Aid, but to no avail.

Usually I am very technical and can fix almost anything myself but this time I think I am over my head. Please help me resolve this so I can get my files from the drive. Originally the drive had three partitions: 2 of them were either GUID or HFS+ (I don't recall... I did use rEFIt if that matters) and one was NTFS (my Boot Camp partition).

Here is a screenshot what Disk Utility reported:

Output of diskutil list:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
       0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
       1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
       2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh SSD           499.4 GB   disk0s2
       3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
       0:                            Macintosh SSD          +499.0 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 F0B49497-24EC-4A50-818C-A7897F573B5D
                                 Unencrypted

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
       0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
       1:                       0xEE                         1.7 GB     disk2s1
       2:                  Apple_HFS                         998.5 GB   disk2s2

Jons MacBook Pro:~ Jonathan$ gpt -r show disk2
gpt show: unable to open device 'disk2': Permission denied

Output of sudo gpt -r show disk2:

gpt show: disk2: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
gpt show: error: bogus map
gpt show: unable to open device 'disk2': No such file or directory

Output of sudo fdisk /dev/disk2:

Disk: /dev/disk2    geometry: 15200/255/63 [244190646 sectors]
Sector size: 4096 bytes
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
 2: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 - 1175509584] HFS+
 3: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [1176181368 -  292707720] HFS+
*4: 07 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [1469151232 -  484372480] HPFS/QNX/AUX

Your SSHD is not corrupt in the sense that you lost any data but parts of the GUID partition table can't be read properly.

The SSHD either lost its GUID partition table or the USB/SATA controller in the external case reports a device block size of 4096 Bytes while your disk has a block size of 512 Bytes. In case of the latter you have to use another external case to mount the SSHD.

A common 512 Bytes Device Block Size GUID compared to a 4096 Bytes Device Block Size GUID differs like this:

             512 size number  4096 size number ("in block(512) numbers")
pMBR                1      0          1      0         0-7
Pri GPT header      1      1          1      1         8-15
Pri GPT table      32   2-33          4    2-5        16-47
1st "used" block          40                 6        48

If you mount a "512 Bytes device" in a "4096 Bytes case", the system expects the primary GPT header in block(4096) 1 (which "translates" to blocks(512) 8-15) and the primary GPT table in the blocks(4096) 2-5 (which "translates" to blocks(512) 16-47). This will fail because the primary header of the disk(512) is in block(512) 1 and the primary table starts at block(512) 2.

It's obvious that you can't rewrite a GPT(512) to a GPT(4096) because the last block of the GPT(4096) table would overlap the first useable block of the GPT(512) disk.

Try the following to restore the GUID partition table:

Open Terminal.app and enter the following commands to get an overview and fundamental data to recover previous partition tables if the following commands fail:

disktutil list
diskutil info diskX | grep "Device Block Size" # with diskX: the disk identifier of the SSHD

If the command returns: Device Block Size:   512 Bytes continue, if 4096 Bytes are reported stop here and get a 512 Byte-capable external case:

sudo gpt -r show diskX # with diskX: the disk identifier of the SSHD
sudo fdisk /dev/diskX # with diskX: the disk identifier of the SSHD

In your case diskX: disk2
Unmount the external disk (just to be sure that it is unmounted). Below I assume diskX is disk2:

diskutil umountDisk disk2
sudo gpt destroy disk2
sudo gpt create -f disk2

Now enter sudo gpt -r show disk2 if a new GUID partition table was created. It should look like this:

       start         size  index  contents
            0            1         PMBR
            1            1         Pri GPT header
            2           32         Pri GPT table
           34   1953525102
   1953525135           32         Sec GPT table
   1953525167            1         Sec GPT header

If you get an error or no GUID pt was created you have to force-destroy the MBR:

sudo if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk2 bs=512 count=1

The command directly overwrites the first block of disk2 (the MBR of the disk) with zeros. If entered wrong (e.g without the "count=1" or the wrong disk identifer), it overwrites the whole disk. The command above should completed after milliseconds. If not, enter ctrlC to stop the command immediately.

Then repeat:

sudo gpt create -f disk2

Recheck if it was successful now.
Add the partition one by one in the GUID partition table with gpt:

To add an partition with gpt use the following command

sudo gpt -i index_number -b first_block -s size -t partiton_type diskX

with index_number: ~the partition number; first_block and size in blocks (either 512 or 4096 blocks) and partiton_type: a special GUID

In your case that's:

sudo gpt -i 1 40 -s 409600 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B disk2
sudo gpt -i 2 409640 -s 1175509584 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk2
diskutil umountDisk disk2
sudo gpt -i 3 1176181368 -s 292707720 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk2
diskutil umountDisk disk2
sudo gpt -i 4 1469151232 -s 484372480 -t EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 disk2

Now the "lost" volumes should reappear. Check the disk and the volumes with diskutil verifyDisk /dev/disk2, diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk2s2 and  diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk2s3.
Repair everything if necessary - but report back before starting the repair.

If you don't have an external case(512) but a second empty disk with at least 1 TB you should be able to recover each partition on disk2 by dd'ing each to a separate file (e.g sudo dd if=dev/disk2 of=/Volumes/Disk3/efi.rawdevice bs=512 skip=40 count=409600 to copy the EFI partition) on the empty disk. After dd'ing all four partitions to an external volume, repartition disk2 properly and restore  each of the four rawdevice files to its "new" partition.

The command gpt usually only writes to the first 34 and last 33 blocks and fdisk only to the first block on a disk with a block size of 512 Bytes. This will not destroy or modify your data. So everything you do is reversible.


Can I retrieve an Xcode project I installed on my iPhone? I recently executed a stupid "Discard All Changes" on my Xcode project that resulted in the project being deleted.

I haven't found a way to recover it yet, but I was wondering since I had installed the Xcode project on my iPhone for testing, if there is any way I can take the project from the phone, or if it simply doesn't work like that.

The app still runs on my phone.

It should appear in the trash folder on your Mac. To access it click the trash icon in the dock.

You should be able to recover it there if you didn’t empty the trash.


Is it possible to replace the GPU in this 2006 iMac? Is it possible to replace the GPU in this 2006 iMac? If yes what kind of models fit in there under the cooler?

It is not possible to upgrade the GPU on the iMac you described because it is integrated into the Main Logic board (pictured in your post).

In theory it might be possible to buy the GPU from another iMac Logic Board that is higher specification, however you'll likely have to buy it with the Logic Board from that computer and so would just be swapping the logic boards.

Short answer: No

EDIT: Confirmation that it is upgradable but the only options are those that were available when the product was released: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2268642


Is it possible to enable shift+click in icon view in the Finder? I would like to use the shift+click selection method on windows within the Finder that are using icon view.  Unfortunately, whilst it works fine in the other views to block highlight all files between the first and second click, its behaviour changes to operate the same as cmd+click in icon view.

I have a few hundred images in the folder and I want to select a big range to move it to a separate folder. The range is higher than my screen, so it needs be scrolled down - to a point. This is one of the most frequent situations in dealing with images. I don't know which images are which just by their filenames. I need to see them to select them. I don't want to drag the mouse/trackpad to select the range, as I need to be extra cautious about the scroll speed that way. It's infinitely more convenient to use the Apple's all-glorified trackpad (two-finger scrolling) that admittedly does work great. Then, when I find the last picture, I want to shift-click it and have the range selected.

Is there any way to get this working in icon view, or can anyone at least attempt to explain why it does not work, and if it's perhaps a bug or maybe a conscious decision to implement it in this way?

Here is a workaround. In Icon View, select the first and last items using Command-click.  Change to List View.  Command-click the first or last item to de-select it, and then Shift-click the same item to select the entire range.


How can I simply and reliably track my computer usage? I'm not after time tracking for the purpose of invoicing. I'm not even interested in which apps I use. I just want to know how much time I spend each day at my computer. One big pitfall I see is that many apps will suspend tracking when the user is watching a longer video or reading a long article. Are there any apps that work around this successfully, maybe by using the FaceTime camera as an additional source of data?

I've used RescueTime for years and it's been an informative little app.

They present your time consumption on a nice dashboard and you can categorize it and rate the productivity of your activities from "Very distractive" to "Very productive", set goals, etc.

If you wish they can send you a weekly digest email.

From what I've read on their forums –I don't watch movies on my computer– YMMV with movies; VLC seems to have problems being captured after the defined idle time, which is 5 minutes and other similar activities may have the same problem. Hangouts appeared as problematic while searching for "movies" on their site to answer this.

This is what they say regarding idle time:

  When RescueTime detects that your computer is idle (no keyboard or mouse activity), it begins a 5 minute timer. At the end of five full minutes of inactivity, RescueTime will close the most recent record and subtract 5 minutes of time from that record.

If you are willing to pay, they offer a premium subscription that allows you to edit your idle time:

  If you are a Premium user and have offline time enabled, you will get a pop up after becoming active again that will allow you to enter what you were doing when away from the computer, unless this time exceeds 4 hours. If your time away is greater than 4 hours, you can enter time manually on the Offline Time Entry page

It works on OS X and Windows.


Stop notifications from a deleted app I got the app Baby Story for my iPod Touch a while ago, and then decided I didn't like it and deleted it. Part of the reason I got rid of it was because it would pop up random messages with things like, "Your baby is hungary!" The app appears to be completely deleted, and I can't find any reference to it on the iPod anywhere, but I'll still get random notifications with things like, "Your baby is sick." Is there a way, short of reformatting the iPod, to stop these messages?

Removing an app should disable all of the Push Notifications. Try rebooting your iPod, and making sure that iTunes did not re-install it.

Also, you can try disabling all Notifications, then -re-enabling them.

Maybe post a screenshot of the message. You may have another app installed (mBox for example) that displays messages from apps that send emails as well. (of course this is just a far fetched scenario).


Disable warning message in Safari 5.1.2 I got a weird warning message in Safari 5.1.2 :

Safari support is very limited and should be considered experimental.
So there is no need to even submit bugreports on this early version.
You can disable this message by setting: safari_warning option to false

Where i can find safari_warning option to change it to false ?

This error message is not coming from Safari.  It's coming from the content management system of the website: the SLAED CMS, in particular from the editor this CMS uses, TinyMCE.  There isn't anything you can do.  The website author needs to change this setting on their site or upgrade the CMS/TinyMCE version.  The site you refer to is running a version of TinyMCE from 2005 when Safari support was new.


Does the 2015 Retina MacBook have firmware target disk mode? I've read the user manual and FAQ on ports for the new 2015 Retina MacBook and can't tell if it supports target disk mode.

Apple's article on target disk explicitly says Firewire and Thunderbolt are required for target disk mode but the excellent iMore review article says:

  You can transfer data at up to 5 Gpbs over USB 3.1, USB 3, or USB 2, or over ethernet with a USB adapter. (Including target disk mode.)

For the purposes of this question - target disk mode is exposing the internal MacBook storage using firmware and not the OS X installed on the computer itself.

What is needed to place this Mac in target disk mode and connect it to another computer that would presumably see it as a USB 3.1 Gen 1 hard drive?

Yes - you need an USB C data cable to use this and the power cable Apple ships isn't a data cable for these needs, but the firmware and hardware support target move over USB.

Apple's MacBook ports article now has a section titled "USB Target Disk Mode":

  USB Target Disk Mode
  Your MacBook with USB-C port supports USB Target Disk Mode. Enable Target Disk Mode for use with the following USB-C cables:
  1) USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 USB-A to USB-C Cable
  Target Disk Mode can be used with this cable to manually transfer data from any Mac notebook with USB-A port(s) to your MacBook with USB-C port. This cable cannot be used to migrate data using the Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant application.
  2) USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 USB-C Cable (USB-C to USB-C)
  Target Disk Mode can be used to migrate data from any MacBook with a USB-C port to another MacBook with USB-C port using the Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant application.
  Note: These cables are not currently available from Apple.
  To enable Target Disk Mode, hold down the T button on your keyboard while starting your MacBook. Then connect either USB-C cable described above. Note that the USB-C Charge Cable (2m) that comes with MacBook does not support Target Disk Mode.Your MacBook supports USB Target Disk Mode when you use it with a compatible, full-featured (“super speed”) USB-C cable. Note that the USB-C Charge Cable (included with MacBook) does not support USB Target Disk Mode.

  To enable Target Disk Mode, hold down the T button on your keyboard while starting your MacBook. Then connect the USB-C cable. Use a full-featured USB-C to USB-C cable to connect to another MacBook, or a full-featured USB-A to USB-C cable to connect to a Mac with standard USB-A ports.

Since this section was still available two days ago, and the MacBook launched on April 10, 2015 — I would say the answer is almost certainly yes, but not with the cable it comes with.


Will updating my iPad to iOS 5 cause me to lose media? (the answer is YES) I need help with understanding what will happen with all the content if I'll agree to iPad's request (which I see every time I connect it to the computer) to update the iOS from 4.3.5 to 5.0.1. Every time I make an attempt to start that process, I interrupt it scared with all those warnings that all the apps and content will be removed. It suggests to synch, but when I'm starting the synch process — it looks like synch works only one way: from Mac to iPad, not the other way around. It frankly drives me crazy.

I do have Apps which I bought directly to the iPad; books which I uploaded as epub or pdf files from various locations on my hard drive into the iPad, avi or mkv videos converted to m4v and drag-and-dropped into iTunes, etc. Nothing is kept in the iTunes Library.

I don't understand what is the suggested procedure to upgrade the iPad software without losing all my apps and media files.

Could someone, please, explain what to do to make this upgrade the way it won't remove my files and apps?

Here are screenshots of warnings I see and don't get what should be done about it:

I clicked the Update button:

It says there are items that should be transfered to iTunes Library, but does not say how.
Drag-and-drop in iTunes from iPad to the Library doesn't do a thing.

Next screen (assuming it'll offer me to do the transfer) is:

It says "Updating to iOs 5.0.1 will delete..." basically everything, and suggests to apply this update on the computer where I synch apps, etc. I am on my only computer now. I don't synch, because I don't understand what synch does, except the warnings that it will remove everything from the iPad. I don't want to "synch" empty Library with lots of content on the iPad by removing this content.

When I'm attempting to synch the apps, it shows:

Not all of the apps were bought sitting behind this computer. Some were bought directly into the iPad, while it wasn't connected to any computer. Some were bought with my previous Windows computer which I don't have access anymore.

When I'm trying to synch books, it talks about removing "songs":

I found an application which was supposed to copy books from the iPad, but it turned to be so buggy, and copied not all the files, randomly skipping some.

So, the big question is: how can I back up my iPad completely, so I can restore everything after the iOS update?

iDevices are designed to be linked to an iTunes library where they get their content. If you've never trusted iTunes before and been manually copying items onto your iDevice then you're just making it hard on yourself.

Synchronizing your files and upgrading the iOS are separate steps. I would recommend you get the iPad linked to your iTunes library properly and synchronization figured out before trying to upgrade lest you lose your iPad content in the process.

First, make sure your iTunes and your iPad are registered to the same AppleID you used to download your apps and other iTunes store items. (This may already be the case if it's telling you about purchases, but check.)

Next, download your past purchases to your Mac.

For other items like your own music and video files, the synchronization is one-way. If they're not in your iTunes then they won't sync back from your iPad.

Try using manual mode for those items if you're happy leaving well enough alone with keeping those items on your iPad.

Otherwise, you'll have get these from your original source (ideally) or use a third-party utility to extract the files from the device. It's been a while since I've had to do that myself, but as I recall it was a bit messy since the files lost their original filenames when they were stored in the device's filesystem/database. At least I think you can get them out somehow, but yes, it might be buggy.

The key is to have everything in iTunes before allowing the iOS upgrade to remove anything from the iPad. In my own experience, everything was right back where it was after the iOS upgrade, even though I had some similar warnings, but if you don't already have the items in iTunes then it might be a different story.


Are there "TecTiles" for iPhones? I just read this review in the New York Times about the Samsung Galaxy S3. Apparently, the phone comes with the ability to communicate with TecTiles:

  small, embedded-circuit stickers ($15 for five). When your phone gets near a sticker, it activates some task that you’ve selected from a list of dozens in the free TecTiles app: make a call, send a text, adjust a phone setting and so on.

This seems like a tremendous idea with a near-unlimited capacity for customization. Does such a product or capability exist for the iPhone or iPad? If not, is there any evidence that suggests Apple is developing such a product?

No and no. The TecTiles rely on NFC (Near Field Communications) to work. No iOS device yet shipped has NFC, and it's not particularly likely that any iOS device will come with NFC1. It would be possible to make an iPhone/iPad case that had NFC built-in, but, as iOS has no NFC drivers, you'd have to use a specialized app to use the hardware, and apps have limited ability to perform non-in-app actions for the user (i.e., if it were to compose a text or tweet for you, you'd still have to tap a send button for it to go, which kind of obviates the utility of tapping your device to the tile).

1 If you believe the rumors and rumor-analysis, Apple's planning on using Bluetooth 4.0's low-power mode to do what Google's trying to do with NFC.


Yosemite Finder Column View Modified Timestamp Upon updating to Yosemite, My finder column view preview window displays the Modified and Last Opened options as "Today" or "Yesterday" etc. I need to see what time yesterday in the column view without the extra step of having to Get File Info. Is there a way to get an actual timestamp to display in the column view? I see no option in settings for this.

I see now that enlarging the preview area allows room for the timestamp to show.


How do I prevent my photos from automatically syncing from my iPhone to my Mac? I need help. so the photos from my iPhone 5S, when connected to the iMac, will automatically sync and the photos from my iPhone 5S can be seen on the iPhoto on iMac. how do I stop this ? I don't want anyone to check my photos when using yhe iMac. I want privacy.  I want to set a lock on the iPhone to prevent the pictures from being synced and connected to iPhoto.

Firstly, you can't prevent your iPhone from doing things on the user end of tasks. Thats the user's job. Secondly if your concern is privacy, automatic sync to iPhoto is the lesser of your worries. iCloud automatically syncs your photos to the cloud which can be seen from any device using your apple ID. If your computer is a publicly used computer a specific password protected login account would be a better fit for you.

Regardless, to answer your question is a quick and easy method. Go to your spotlight search and type Image Capture or you can find the application in your 'Applications' folder.

When the device is plugged in you will see its title populate in the left sidebar. Click on it. This is what your screen will now show:

You may or may not see the bottom bar, if not just expand it to show more options and your screen will now look like this:

Simply change your method to No Applications. Alternatively, this can be done within iPhoto preferences, however, I just wanted to point this option out to you for future references.


Kill all terminals so they don't reappear If I open up terminal with ⌘Space terminal and hit ⌘n a bunch of times, I get many terminals.

I can get rid of all of them using killall Terminal, which sends the signal TERM by default.

However, when I open the terminal application again, all of the previous sessions are restored instead of creating a fresh session.

Is there a signal I can use to kill terminal applications in such a way that they aren't restored when I launch the terminal application again the same way that ⌘Q works?

I'm no Terminal guru, however it appears to respond in the same way as any other app.

If you quit it, then at next launch it will restore all previously open windows.
This is a global pref, set from System Prefs > General > Close windows when quitting an app.

If you don't want to change this pref globally, then the simplest solution would be to close the windows manually before Quit.

 Cmd ⌘   Opt ⌥   W  is the system-wide shortcut to do that.

As far as I'm aware, killall Terminal is the same as  Cmd ⌘   Q   in that respect, i.e. a 'polite' quit command.


Removing pages from a sub-document I have ten documents, 01.pdf to 10.pdf, that I would like to print. But some have cover pages that I'd like to remove. I'd like to avoid doing this manually ten times.

I'm halfway there. I can open 01.pdf using Preview, mark 02.pdf to 10.pdf in the Finder and drag to Preview's thumbnail section. Now printing will indeed print all pages. The trouble is that ⌘⌫ will not delete the occasional cover page, but the entire sub-document. Solution(s)?

I'm comfortable with any method (Terminal, MacPorts, ...), though using just Preview would be nice.

One solution is to print the document after assembling the sub-documents, and to then choose "Open PDF in Preview". The subdivisions between sub-documents will disappear.

At this point it's possible to delete individual pages using ⌘⌫.


iPhone 11 with Exchange accounts does not have the "Never" option under "Auto-Lock" I bought a new iPhone 11 and restored the backup from my iPhone 6.

It's great except for this issue; I can't get a longer auto-lock than 5 minutes.

I spoke to an Apple support rep and we worked out it's something to do with the exchange accounts I have set up on it.

I have one Office360 exchange account and 6 AWS exchange accounts, all used for email only.

If I disable the AWS exchange accounts, for some reason I get the "Never" option back. The Office360 account doesn't affect anything.

However we weren't able to work out much beyond this.

Why could this be?

I logged into my AWS WorkMail dashboard and noticed that there is a "Mobile policies" menu item.

When I chose this, one of the policy options was "Enable screen lock" with a value of 300 seconds - or 5 minutes, co-incidentally the maximum value in the iPhone's Auto-Lock drop-down.

After I disabled this and cycled the exchange accounts on the iPhone, the "Never" option re-appeared.


Can i swap memory modules between mac I have 3 mac's

Mac Mini 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo , 2GB 1067 MHz DDR3,
Macbook pro (15", Early 2011), 2GHz Core i7, 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Macbook Air (13" Mid 2012), 2GHz Core i7, 8GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Is it possible to use 4GB memory modules from Macbook pro and put it in Mac mini, thus upgrading its memory size.

If that works, then i was thinking to taking 8 GB memory module out of Macbook Air and put it in Macbook Pro.

And finally get new 16 GB memory modules for Macbook Air.

Considering that all of them require DDR3 , does clock speed cause any issues with working on macs.

No, this will not work. Only the RAM for the MacBook Pro and Mac Mini are compatible, as MacBook Airs have their RAM soldered to the logic board.

While you will be able to move the MacBook Pro memory to the Mac Mini, the speed would be slower. Because the RAM is soldered to the logic board of the MacBook Air, this memory can't be moved at all, so you'd still be short new memory.

If you want to upgrade your memory in both the Mac Mini and the MacBook Pro, move the sticks from the MBP to the Mini, then buy new ones for the MacBook Pro. If you just want the upgrade in the Mini, buy new sticks for the Mini's specs.


Stuck at full bar, in logo screen after system restore from TM backup My machine is a 2015 13" MB Pro.

A couple of days ago, out of the blue, while it was operating normally, suddenly it got the "Black screen with a folder icon blinking"

I got a new compatible SSD, fresh installed Catalina, and everything worked fine.

Then I proceeded to restore the system from a TM backup. The restore process went fine, and completed successfully.

The problem is that when the system boots, with the backup external drive removed, the bar in the logo screen loads really slow in the last 1/3, and then after it seemingly fully loads, it gets stuck there.

I have tried disk repair, which completed with no errors, I even tried to restore from an older backup, but the problem remains. Note, that new installations of the OS work fine.

Right now I have booted in verbose mode and the last lines are these:

ALF, old data swfs_pid_entry <ptr> updaterules_msg <ptr> updaterules_state <ptr>
DK: AppleUserUSBHostHIDDevice-0x100000382 user server timeout
DK: AppleUserUSBHostHIDDevice-0x100000385 user server timeout
IOUSBHostInterface(0x100000385): matching deferred by IOUSBHostHIDDevice

I got a new compatible SSD, fresh installed Catalina, and everything worked fine...Then I proceeded to restore the system from a TM backup...The problem is that when the system boots...loads really slow in the last 1/3, and then after it seemingly fully loads, it gets stuck there.

This is key.  If after a clean install everything is great but you subsequently restore from Time Machine, you may have a corrupted backup from the failing drive.

Instead of a restore, try doing a data migration Using Migration Assistant instead.  This will copy over your data and settings over but leave the OS untouched.  I prefer this method especially when upgrading to a new OS.


iTunes arbitrarily cuts imported tracks From some versions, importing tracks to iTunes and playing them, iTunes cuts the song.

I mean: I download it on my Mac then I drag it to iTunes. I write author, title, genre, etc., then I play it. At minute 2:44, iTunes will jump to the end of the song the to the next song. It's not a setting issue because songs are set to end at their end and file plays fine so they aren't corrupted.

Syncing these songs to iPhone, they will have the same issue.

I noticed that it happens just with "high quality" songs (256/320 kbit/s),  low quality songs (as 128 kbit/s downloaded from YouTube) are played fine right to the end.

Played counter get updated.

I think it's an iTunes bug from, around, October 2016. Songs imported before this bug works fine.

Am I the only one having this issue? Is there any way to fix it?

This problem borns during importation, importing lot of songs (as an entire album) with just one drag on iTunes will brings iTunes to "overwork" and it will import tracks "cutted". The only solution I've found is to delete this songs from iTunes and reimport them in iTunes one to one and now they play correctly!


Multiple languages and Emoji button on iOS keyboard I'm using German and English keyboard on my iPhone and want to insert emojis easily. The problem is when you have 2 languages and emoji, it only jumps to the next keyboard. This is very annoying.

Is there a possibility to have a language button (German/English/…) and a emoji button?

No, this is not possible.

You can quickly switch to a specific keyboard by holding down on the keyboard language button and sliding your finger to the specific keyboard.

Also, the keyboard order is always fixed, so you know to double-tap the keyboard language button to go to a specific keyboard from another specific keyboard.


Is it possible to disable cellular data use? If I buy the 250MB monthly data plan and share with my wife, but use WiFi for 98% of the monthly usage, will this work for us? We are retired and home all day.

I keep hearing that the iPhone will use cellular data regardless of WiFi, can I keep this from happening?

The iPhone will prefer Wi-Fi over Cellular data, so if you are connected to Wi-Fi your iPhone will use that connection instead of Cellular.

To completely disable Cellular data, go to Settings → Cellular and disable Cellular Data. This will prevent your device from using Cellular data at all.


Antivirus not prominent on iOS devices How come there are no antiviruses for iOS devices like iPhones and iPads while Android has many available?

Update
The article here shows that there have been attacks on the iOS Devices as well
http://www.informationweek.in/informationweek/news-analysis/277157/researchers-breach-apple-famed-ios-security-wall

Due to application sandboxing in iOS, which restricts applications to just their individually allocated areas on the filesystem (and prevents access to any other application's or the OS' files as well as memory, network communication, etc.), an app written to be like an antivirus cannot really read anything outside of its own sandbox.

Due to limited multitasking in iOS, an app written to be like an antivirus cannot really run in the background for a long time to scan the system continuously.

Both these factors together make it impossible to make an antivirus like app for iOS unless the device is jailbroken.

Any antivirus, if at all deemed necessary, would have to be made by Apple. Third party app developers are limited to the restrictions mentioned above.

Further to the comments on the question, it may be worth one's while to look at this presentation titled "The Android vs. Apple iOS Security Showdown - July 2012" (especially slides #20 through #33).


Problem with iTunes Store and updating WhatsApp So the problem is that I have an iPhone5 from my cousin, and yesterday I got a messages in WhatsApp from friends but I couldn't open WhatsApp. It said that I need to update WhatsApp. I went to the App Store and it required the password of iTunes Store but old email and password from my cousin, and I don't know the password.

Does someone have a solution for this? I also don't want to delete my WhatsApp because I cannot backup my chat history and also will not see the new messages that come in my WhatsApp.

It sounds very much like the phone wasn't wiped & set up as your own new device.
This means that you will need the old login data for everything you need to do on the phone - this is not good.

You will need to get your cousin to make sure the phone is removed from his iCloud account, then you need to wipe it & start afresh.
You will lose all existing data, but currently, nothing on the phone belongs to you.

See What to do before selling or giving away your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch


Why do iPhones sometimes forget battery usage by app (Settings > Battery)? I've noticed that iPhones sometimes don't show the battery usage by app in Settings > Battery. The iPhones are otherwise working perfectly fine.  I'm seeing this happening in iPhone 6 and 5s at least.  The iPhone has not been erased or restored yet it sometimes doesn't show this information sometimes.  The next day you check and it shows the usage for the last seven days, then another moment it shows nothing.  The iPhones have lots of free storage space. There're no panics reported in Settings > Privacy > analytic data.  This happens regardless of having just restarted the iPhone or not.  Why does the iPhone have these memory losses?

Power usage logs are a low priority item and if that subsystem crashes or the device runs low on space, I've seen it nor populate until a restart. If you restart and the battery isn't 100% - that also suppresses the usage.

In dire cases - a backup and restore is needed to remedy the software and filesystem issues that could cause this function to not work at all.


How can I make my Macbook Pro's headphone jack stop "humming"? Switched recently from a Lenovo PC and one thing on my mac bothered me. Headphones plugged into my Macbook pro 13" (latest version) "hum" with static when there is no audio playing. Then after a short period of time, they stop humming, as if all power to the port is turned off. When any sound plays, it starts again. Anybody know of any setting in the Mac "bios" (or whatever they call it) or with drivers or software to get it to stop humming? It's rather annoying.

I found the solution to my problem. For some reason (who knows why) the headphone output was set to 16-bit. Of course that's going to sound awful.

To fix this, head to 'Audio MIDI Setup' (can be found with Spotlight) and change the 'Built-in Output' to 32-bits.


Shiny new Macbook Pro -- can oils and sweat damage the screen? I have a brand-new Macbook Pro. As I'm almost certainly going to eventually spill something into the keyboard, I picked up a keyboard skin. It only took me a few hours to get used to typing with it; skins have come a long way since the last time I had one on a Mac.

I'm noticing that there's now a faint residue left on the screen, possibly the sweat or oils from my fingertips and palms. (I notice that I lean on the edge of the skin as I type.)

Is this anything that could eventually cause screen damage?

The screen is glass, so it's highly unlikely that sweat can damage it.


why wont my macbook pro mount my disc I have been using my macbook pro since 2013. Around early 2017 I got a 275gb crucial ssd and installed it. It was working fine until about a month ago my macbook would no longer turn on. Took it to the repair store and they told me the motherboard had to be replaced. After replacing the motherboard my mac no longer uses my ssd to start up. After starting in internet recovery mode I looked at disc utility. My macbook recognizes my ssd, and it even passes verify/repair checks. However it will not let me mount it. After pulling up the command line and running:

diskutil list

I see:

/dev/disc0
    #:         TYPE NAME                            SIZE       IDENTIFIER
    0:       GUID_PARTITION_SCHEME                  *275.1 GB    disc0
    1:       EFI                                    209.7 MB     disc0s1
    2:       7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC   274.9 GB     disc0s2

as well as a few other discs that seem to be other local storages (all < 600KB)

I have tried running

mount /dev/disc0

and gotten

mount: /dev/disc0: unknown special file or file system.

when i run:

mount force /dev/disc0

i get:

mount: you must specify a filesystem type with -t.

So finally I try:

mount force -t /dev/disc0 and mount -t force /dev/disc0

and both return what seems to be a verbose/usage instruction message

Any ideas on what else i can do to get this disc to mount? It worked fine with the other motherboard! I'd like to avoid wiping it if i can but I am really not opposed to it as I backup most of my files to an external hard drive every now and then

Which part of the

mount: /dev/disc0: unknown special file or file system do you not understand.

7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC is unknown disk format it should be Apple_APFS or Apple_HFS

Hope you have a back up and can reformat the disk.


Vertical stripes on 30" Cinema Display In the middle of using my laptop hooked up to my 30" Cinema Display (circa 2004) via a Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter, vertical bands appeared on the screen, with horizontal pinstripes. They also appear with another laptop. Nothing happens if I wiggle all the cables hooked up to the display; the striping is consistently there.

I fear this means the display is toast and it's time to get a new one. Do I have any repair options? Any chance it's the adapter?

I had a similar experience with an ACD30 (circa 2006, refurb) connected to a MacBook Pro via Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter. Fought display anomalies for about 18 months with Apple unable to identify any problem with display nor laptop.

In 2015, I finally found the following article on Apple's support site.
Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter: Resolving flickering and wake from sleep issues

I confirmed the adapter I was using had a firmware of 1.01 and thought it worth a try to have it updated or replaced.

I took both the adapter and a copy of the page from Apple's site to the Genius Bar. The representative argued that he could find no such page on Apple's support site (Though the link still works today, it has been updated and archived.) and that it wouldn't fix my display problems. I firmly insisted that based on the page he at the least upgrade the adapter's firmware. He told me that wasn't possible and finally agreed to order a new adapter at Apple's expense.

The good news is a week later a new adapter with firmware 1.03 fixed all my display problems. I'm still using the same 11 year old display two years later.

Hope this helps.


Restored iOS 10 with broken Home button I restarted my iPhone 6 running iOS 10 and the home button is broken, so I was using Assistive Touch. But at the first launch, Assistive Touch is disabled.
On iOS 10, we have to "Press home button to unlock".
What can I do?

There is a way to unlock an iPhone running iOS 10 that has a broken home button and no access to Assistive Touch. Try the following:

On your Lock Screen, swipe right.
You should see the Search field at the top.
Type Settings in the Search field.
Your 'top hit' should be the Settings app. Tap on this.
You should now get the Touch ID or Enter Passcode screen.
Enter your passcode.
You should now see your settings.
Go to General -> Accessibility -> Assistive Touch and turn it on.
Also, while your still in the Accessibility settings, scroll to and tap the Home Button setting
Change the Click Speed and/or Rest Finger to Open settings to see if that also helps.

Good luck!


Sierra Finder aliases appearing as generic icons Since updating to macOS Sierra, many Finder aliases appear as generic document icons rather than as the informative icons that were available in previous versions of OS X.

Is there something I can do to fix this?

It is a bug in 10.12.1, there is no current permanent fix.


Google Drive File Stream syncing forever Google Drive Files Stream is stuck syncing since installation. I tried waiting a few days, I tried a clean install, nothing seems to work. It's especially annoying since the Activity Monitor on my mac lists the Google Drive's process as using 90% of the CPU.
I'm on OSx Catalina 10.15.1 - mbp 15" 2018

Try disabling spotlight for the newly created Google Drive Volume. It worked for me. Go to Preferences -> Spotlight and then to the Privacy tab. Add the Google Drive volume to the ignored volumes.

The problem is that the spotlight indexing process tries to access all the files in the cloud.

Any process that visits all files inside a drive might trigger this situation, e.g. an antivirus or similar stuff.

Hope this helps.


Registered my iPhone on my ex's Mac and now I have a ton of overages When I first got my iPhone 6+, I registered it on my now exhusbands MacBook. Since the divorce and the separation of accounts, I still have horrible "gaming" data overages. I've never played a game on my phone. I have no games downloaded. He has also stolen money from my credit card once I used it on my phone.

Does this mean he is still accessing it? I have changed my number and my Apple Id. (the password reverted back though). All the "usage" is done in the wee hours of the morning when im not even on my phone. Can he be causing it?

Probably not, considering there is no way to access your plan or wireless service from a macbook, you shouldn't have to worry about that.

I would check the settings (view and adjust data use https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201299) on your phone and ensure that someone isn't swiping it when you are not around and playing games (like some smart kids.)

If that doesn't fix the problem I would recommend calling your phone provider and investigating, someone else may have access to your plan via calling up your service provider and adding additional phones, or you may be billed on accident.


Newly installed Debian stuck on loading on MacBook Pro "Core 2 Duo" 2.16 I made a successful installation of Debian 10.6 32 bits on my 2007 MacBook Pro "Core Duo" 2.16 GHz (T2600). 2007 MacBook Pro 15-Inch "Core 2 Duo" 2.16 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo (T7400)
Intro.  October 24, 2006
Disc.   June 5, 2007
Order   MA609LL
Model   A1211 (EMC 2120)
Family  Core 2 Duo/Late 2006
ID  MacBookPro2,2
RAM 1 GB    (upgraded to 3GB)
VRAM    128 MB
(MacBook Pro model includes an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics processor with 256 MB 128 MB of GDDR3 video memory and dual-link DVI functionality)
Debian version is: i386/iso-hybrid/debian-live-10.6.0-i386-gnome.iso.
After some fixing such as installing the firmware-linux-nonfree packages,
I now boot and get the following message:
"fb: switching to radeondrmfb from EFI VGA"
Once this message displayed,  the system is stuck.
What does this message mean?
Is there something I could do to unblock the situation?
Any help is greatly appreciated.

I also have 2007 MacbookPro2,1 and have found that the Linux Radeon driver does not work.
Without recompiling your kernel your options are extremely limited - you could try an extremely old kernel (before 2009 KMS introduction) which would be hard to find and insecure  or try passing nomodeset kernel parameter (which will mean no graphics at all).
To get graphics to work need to do the following:

Extract the vbios as described in comments in this 2010 bug report Radeon KMS fails with inaccessible AtomBIOS on systems with (U)EFI boot:

boot from latest ubuntu live CD (hold alt, or c, at boot)
dump the bios
dd if=/dev/mem of=vbios.bin bs=65536 skip=12 count=1
move it to your partition's /lib/firmware/radeon/vbios.bin

Based on this Archlinux forums thread Load custom Radeon firmware for Macbook Pro thread I saved vbios.bin to /usr/lib/firmware/radeon/vbios.bin.

Check it as described in link above:

b) You can verify the correctness with:
hexdump -C vbios.bin | head -n 1
00000000  55 aa 7d e9 7f 02 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |U.}.............|
the first two bytes must be 55 aa, also later in the dump you see some copyright
notices. :-)

Patch radeon_bios.c source to read this file and recompile kernel.

This method has worked for me for the last several years.  Occasionally radeon_bios.c changes and the patch in the links above is outdated.
As of last month (October 2020) the following patch will work with kernel.org kernel.  For others you may need to manually adjust it.
--- archlinux-linux/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_bios.c.orig   2020-04-08 13:12:37.572725381 +0200
+++ archlinux-linux/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_bios.c    2020-04-08 13:26:48.700908967 +0200
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@
 #include <drm/drm_device.h>

 #include "atom.h"
+#include <linux/firmware.h>
 #include "radeon.h"
 #include "radeon_reg.h"

@@ -60,15 +61,18 @@ static bool igp_read_bios_from_vram(stru
    vram_base = pci_resource_start(rdev->pdev, 0);
    bios = ioremap(vram_base, size);
    if (!bios) {
+       DRM_ERROR("No bios\n");
        return false;
    }

    if (size == 0 || bios[0] != 0x55 || bios[1] != 0xaa) {
+       DRM_ERROR("Invalid bios\n");
        iounmap(bios);
        return false;
    }
    rdev->bios = kmalloc(size, GFP_KERNEL);
    if (rdev->bios == NULL) {
+       DRM_ERROR("alloc fail\n");
        iounmap(bios);
        return false;
    }
@@ -77,6 +81,41 @@ static bool igp_read_bios_from_vram(stru
    return true;
 }

+static bool radeon_read_bios_from_firmware(struct radeon_device *rdev)
+{
+   const uint8_t __iomem *bios;
+   resource_size_t size;
+   const struct firmware *fw = NULL;
+
+   request_firmware(&fw, "radeon/vbios.bin", rdev->dev);
+   if (!fw) {
+           DRM_ERROR("No bios\n");
+           return false;
+   }
+   size = fw->size;
+   bios = fw->data;
+
+   if (!bios) {
+           DRM_ERROR("No bios\n");
+           return false;
+   }
+
+   if (size == 0 || bios[0] != 0x55 || bios[1] != 0xaa) {
+           DRM_ERROR("wrong sig\n");
+           release_firmware(fw);
+           return false;
+   }
+   rdev->bios = kmalloc(size, GFP_KERNEL);
+   if (rdev->bios == NULL) {
+           DRM_ERROR("alloc fail\n");
+           release_firmware(fw);
+           return false;
+   }
+   memcpy(rdev->bios, bios, size);
+   release_firmware(fw);
+   return true;
+}
+
 static bool radeon_read_bios(struct radeon_device *rdev)
 {
    uint8_t __iomem *bios, val1, val2;
@@ -663,7 +702,9 @@ bool radeon_get_bios(struct radeon_devic
    bool r;
    uint16_t tmp;

-   r = radeon_atrm_get_bios(rdev);
+   r = radeon_read_bios_from_firmware(rdev);
+   if (!r)
+       r = radeon_atrm_get_bios(rdev);
    if (!r)
        r = radeon_acpi_vfct_bios(rdev);
    if (!r)


Destination of merged PDFs in Automator? Where can I find the PDF merged by the automator?

It is placed in a temporary file, with some random name, such as:

/var/folders/mt/k2_g0s2x3dl9jpx009p14nmw0000gm/T/JbtgKP.pdf

In general they are placed somewhere under /var/fodlers directory.

If you want to find where it is, you can open a Terminal and type something like:

sudo find /var/folders/ -name "*.pdf"

But probably, you'll want to rename and move it where you need, adding Rename Finder Items and Move Finder Items steps.


How to open .dmg file or install XCode on Windows? I am mostly windows developer and had to step into iDevelopmentWorld.
Went to apple to get XCode, downloaded it, however file extension is .dmg. Windows does not recognize it as executable and throws following dialog.

I am guessing that ether
1. I need some additional software to open it (like mounting an image).
or
2. .dmg is not for windows but iOS and I am out of luck.

You can not install XCode on any version of Windows, it only runs on OS X.


yosemite upgrade error couldn't unmount disk single user did not work.

rescue boot did not work.

usb bootable installer via terminal diskutility did not work.

is there any other way to format the disk of Macbook pro for a clean fresh yosemite install? It does not have firewire to try the remote boot.

thanks

Late-model Macs that do not feature a Firewire port can still be placed into Target Mode via the Thunderbolt port. This will require the use of a Thunderbolt cable between the two Mac computers for the connection and is available from Apple.

Models that do not support booting to Target Mode are:

iMac (Tray-Loading)
Power Macintosh G3 (Blue & White)
iBook ("Clamshell")
Power Macintosh G4 (PCI Graphics)
MacBook Air (2008-2009)
MacBook (Unibody)

It's possible to mix-and-match ports, e.g., Firewire-to-Thunderbolt, so it is not necessary to have the same port types on both computers. Putting your Target Mode-compatible Thunderbolt-equipped Mac into Target Mode is done the same way as with older Firewire systems: Turn off the Mac, connect the cables then turn on the power and depress the T key until you see the Thunderbolt icon displayed on the screen. The drive should mount automatically on the other Mac, which should then make it possible for you to access the drive.

Note that in Disk Utility, you'll want to select the Thunderbolt-/Firewire-mounted drive rather than its partition when you go to erase it. When you do erase the volume, be sure to give it the same name as currently used. This ensures that existing Time Machine backups can be analyzed and appended to with the new OS installation rather than discarded as belonging to a different system. Since Lion, OS X has been pretty good about being able to figure out when a Computer Name (set in Sharing) and volume Name (set in Disk Utility | Erase) are the same from installation to installation.

Best of luck with it!


Fix accepted invitation with "floating" timezone? I'm using OS X 10.8.2, iOS 6.0, and an iCloud calendar shared between the two. I have timezone support enabled. When I accept an emailed ics calendar invitation, it shows up in iCloud calendar with "timezone: floating". The invitation originated from EST and I am on PDT, so it shows up on my iOS and OSX calendars three hours late.

None of the calendar apps will let me change the timezone of the event. Looking at the ics raw data, I see that it was created by MS Exchange Server and I see that it specifies a timezone:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
METHOD:REQUEST
PRODID:Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:(UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:16010101T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=1SU;BYMONTH=11
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:16010101T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=2SU;BYMONTH=3
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT

Possibly something could be done by the originator or by the Exchange admin, but it's a serious imposition to ask folks to go hunting for configuration problems because of what will look to them like a problem on my end.

How can I fix this? Is there a way to force iOS, OS X, or the iCloud web site to correct the timezone?

The answer is yes. I've written an AppleScript that will convert the incorrect Exchange produced TZID to a properly formatted one. This means the fix is only on Mac OS.

I've a post on this, https://thefragens.com/ical-exchange-time-zone-fix-chapter-3/

Let's start at the beginning. Sometimes integration of a Mac in the corporate environment is a bit difficult and takes a bit of ingenuity. This is especially true when dealing with Exchange. The current versions of iCal and iCal Server are CalDAV and iCalendar compliant. Only Outlook 2007 is said to be CalDAV and iCalendar compliant. Previous versions of Outlook are not compliant and don’t play well with other calendar applications. Here’s the actual time zone (TZID) spec and the spec for how it should be formatted. You can see by looking at it that the TZID that Outlook produces is non-compliant.

A quick Google search shows an article or two that explain this very well.

I've found that there are at least 3 different types of invites that can be sent by Exchange/Outlook.

METHOD:REQUEST - This is the usual email requesting that you attend a meeting.
METHOD:PUBLISH - This is essentially a publication notice for an event. It doesn't ask you to reply.
METHOD:CANCEL - This is a cancellation notice for an event.

Additionally, I've found that the emails that contain these invites are formated in at least 3 different ways. Sometimes the calendar event is within the body of the message and is encoded with Content-Transfer-Encoding in either 8bit or quoted-printable. Always the .ics file is attached.

My script does the following:

It parses the message to either extract the calendar data from the body of the message or from the .ics attachment.
It then figures out if the invite is of type METHOD:REQUEST, METHOD:PUBLISH or METHOD:CANCEL.
If the invite is one of the first 2 types. The time zone is fixed and the event is imported into iCal. You might have to select into which calendar the event will be imported.
If the invite is of type METHOD:CANCEL then the script will locate the corresponding event and set it's status to cancelled.

You will have to manually delete the event. It will appear in iCal to have a white strike-through font style.
Repeating events all seem to have the same UID (Unique IDentifier).

I don't know why. Every repeating event will be thusly marked as cancelled. You will then manually delete the specific event and manually run the script again while the cancellation message is selected. This will reset the remaining repeating events back to confirmed. Yes, I know this is a bit of a kludge but I don't have a better method.

It will parse the message to allow for invites from multiple Exchange servers.

My script, now re-named iCal-Invite-Fix.scpt, will need to be customized for each Exchange server from which you receive invites. There are 3 properties at the beginning of the script. They are exchange_fragment, ical_tzid and myCalendar. These first two properties are lists and the order of the items is crucial. The specific item (position in list) of each list must correspond to each other.

exchange_fragment is a unique fragment of the TZID that your Exchange server sends.
ical_tzid is the time zone of the Exchange server in proper format.
This means no spaces, though spaces are replaced automatically with the underscore '_'.
For instance, I'm in Southern California and the correct time zone should be written as US/Pacific or America/Los_Angeles. You can find this information by selecting the time zone drop down menu in the upper right corner of your iCal window and select Other.... If you look in iCal's upper right corner for the time zone menu bar the last example will appear as America/Los Angeles.
myCalendar is the name of the calendar that normally receives the events. It is needed for the cancellation to function.

As the image above shows there are now only 2 properties, both of which are lists. These lists work together as an array; which means the order of the list items is crucial.

exchange_fragment contains unique fragments of the TZID that the Exchange server sends.
ical_tzid contains the tzid info that iCal expects to see.

Save the script and either set it up to run from a mail rule or as I do call it from the System AppleScript menu. You will need to save the script in ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail/ folder. Create this folder if it doesn’t exist.

To set the script up to run automatically you will need to create a new Mail rule as follows.

Mail -> Preferences -> Rules -> Add Rule
Description "iCal Invite Fix"
If "any" of the following conditions are met:

"Any Attachment Name" "ends with" ".ics"

Perform the following actions:

Run AppleScript "~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail/iCal-Invite-Fix.scpt"

Click "OK" and then "Apply"

You can also run the script manually from the system-wide script menu. To install this menu. Open up the /Applications/AppleScript/AppleScript Utility.app and check the Show Script menu in menu bar box. If you put the script in the folder location indicated above it will now be visible when Mail.app is the current application.

Download the iCal-Invite-Fix script.

Please let me know if there are any problems or you need help setting this up. The script was not entirely my creation and credit also goes to others. I’m quite certain any errors are likely mine. ;-)

Updated 12/28/2008: Added ability to use single script with multiple Exchange servers. The trade-off is a slightly more complex set up.


How to force the Mac to not expire passwords? This morning, when I logged into my Mac, it forced me to change my password. Because I'm unlikely to remember a new password, I had to choose an insecure password that will be easier to remember.

It also won't let me change the password back.

I went to the Security & Privacy settings and found NOTHING that can control this behavior.

Everything on the Internet that is even remotely related is about Active Directory, but I'm sure this thing isn't using Active Directory.

How do you make a Mac NOT do this?

The feature is controlled by a tool called pwpolicy. Running pwpolicy -getaccountpolicies outputs an XML document. One of the things found in this XML is this:

<key>policyCategoryPasswordChange</key>
<array>
        <dict>
                <key>policyContent</key>
                <string>policyAttributeCurrentTime &gt; policyAttributeLastPasswordChangeTime + (policyAttributeExpiresEveryNDays * 24 * 60 * 60)</string>
                <key>policyIdentifier</key>
                <string>ProfilePayload:deadbeef-b187-1337-1ee7-abcdef123456:maxPINAgeInDays</string>
                <key>policyParameters</key>
                <dict>
                        <key>policyAttributeExpiresEveryNDays</key>
                        <integer>90</integer>
                </dict>
        </dict>
</array>

Delete that from the XML document and then consume the altered document using:

pwpolicy -setaccountpolicies <file.xml>

and the problem should go away. But there is a pitfall. If you dump the XML using the shell's > operator, edit the file, and pass it back to pwpolicy, you'll get this error:

Error: The data is not in the correct format.

The reason for this error is that pwpolicy -getaccountpolicies prints the following before printing the XML:

Getting global account policies


SQL to extract messages from backup We know that iPhones will backup Messages in a SQLlite-accessible database called (of course) 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28.

So I'm browsing that using DB Browser for SQLlite, and it's not obvious what fields I want to best reconstruct to and from whom each message was sent.

So far I've gotten this, which at least gets the timestamp right, but which doesn't make it clear whether the message was sent or received on the phone in question:

SELECT datetime(message.date, 'unixepoch', '+31 years', '-6 hours'), handle.id, message.text
   FROM message, handle WHERE message.handle_id = handle.ROWID;

The following will add a column indicating whether the phone user was sending or receiving each message:

SELECT datetime(message.date, 'unixepoch', '+31 years', '-6 hours') as Timestamp, handle.id, message.text,
    case when message.is_from_me then 'From me' else 'To me' end as Sender
FROM message, handle WHERE message.handle_id = handle.ROWID;


Does the iPhone 5's bundled Lighting connector / power adapter charge the phone faster? I have had the iPhone 5 for couple of weeks now. I am looking to confirm whether or not the iPhone 5's new 8-pin lighting connector when used in conjunction with the 5W USB power adapter that comes with the iPhone 5 charges the phone faster then previous iterations of the iPhone and their legacy 30-pin connector. I can go from a 12% remaning charge to a 53% charge in less than 60 minutes. This seems substantially faster than my previous iPhone's (4, 4s) with the legacy 30-pin connector. I understand that Lighting actually cable itself is obviously architecturally different but does the iPhone 5 itself have a different type of battery charging mechanism, the Lighting cable, or some combination therein?

The charger supplies the power that is demanded from it (up to it's rated output), not the other way around.  So it's entirely possible that the same unit will charge different devices at different speeds.  It's entirely possible that a newer battery will charge faster than an identical but older battery, and also possible that the new phone is allowed to pull more charge because it runs a little cooler (charging generates heat, and one of the metrics for deciding how fast to charge is the heat generated as well as the batteries capacity to drink it up).

Basically, it's really hard to measure, without you do a from flat to full charge with the same unit to different devices with batteries of the same age and condition.  Even then, be aware that the phone doesn't stop charing when it says 100%, that's an artificial figure and your phone will continue to charge a little (the equivalent of a little over 5% more logically speaking), then run from battery a little, then charge a little, then run from battery etc - this is to keep your battery in good condition (the same is true for 0%, it will go lower in order to perform a clean shutdown - the battery figures are only an indication, not an accurate gauge) - the actual methods for each device may also vary as to how they handle this.


Spotlight can't find m4a files I used to use Spotlight to directly start iTunes at a track I wanted to listen to by searching for it.  However since upgrading to Lion I've not been able to do this with .m4a music files (mp3s still work).  They never show up in spotlight even if I type their name exactly.  Has something broken in Spotlight in Lion?

Try opening up the Spotlight Preferences and re-ordering the position "Music" by dragging it higher up in the list. In Lion when you search via Spotlight it prioritizes the most relevant items according to the order you see in the Spotlight Preference Pane.

Another thing that will save you some frustration is to do a Spotlight search (any file will do) and select "Show All in Finder", from there select "Show View Options" and change Arrange by to "None" and Sort by to "Name".

If those two things don't work then I would recommend rebuilding your index. (Do I need to re-index my Volume?)


Print PDF as-is, no scaling, no added margins I have a generated PDF with precise dimensions. I verified the dimensions in Preview.

When printing on my HP Officejet Pro 276dw I cannot get it on the paper with the same dimensions. When choosing "A4" I get it scaled down too much. When choosing "A4 borderless" I get it scaled up too much.

The PDF is in A4 dimensions without a crop edge.

Is there any way to force printing directly as-is?

A few examples of the behaviour:

A4 at 100% is reduced slightly (about 98%), but placed at the correct height on the paper.
A4 at 102% is slightly enlarged, and placed about 2mm too high on the paper.
A4 Borderless at 100% is enlarged just slighly an placed about 5 mm. too high on the paper.

Print settings, scale 100%

Ok, I read your question, I have read your comment on @user2236575 answer. Still I am going to point you in the same direction.

This is what you need to do for printing without resizing:

Open your PDF in Preview.
Select 'Print...' in the File menu, or press CommandP
Within the 'Print' settings window, set the scale to 100%
and press 'Print' to print at 100% of the original PDF

To check this, I have added a PDF file containing a ruler: download PDF ruler

Print this PDF with the instructions above.

Test your print like this if you do not have got a ruler. An A4 size 29,7cm long and 21,0cm wide. Overlay the wide side of an A4 paper over your ruler, it will measure 21cm exactly.

If not, you did print it correctly, but your printer does something wrong or overwrites these settings.


Homebrew installed libraries, how do I use them? I'm a bit confused.

I've installed a bunch of libraries (e.g. vtk, gsl,...) that I need for a  c++ project for school. I used homebrew to install them (luckily there were formulas available).

My question is, does Homebrew link these into /usr/include or something comparable? Or is this something I would need to do manually?

Homebrew usually does this kind of stuff for executables, yet I can't seem the find the libraries anywhere other than in the /usr/local/Cellar/... directories. I have a bunch of libraries installed so I can't simply use -L/... for each of them.

They are usually linked in /usr/local/lib. If they are not there, try brew link <library-you-are-installing>; that should solve it.


I have an Apple ID but it is not associated to App Store. I have tried to associate it, but it wont let me without a credit card. How to proceed? I have got guidance on how to create a new Apple ID that wont use a credit card, but could not find a way to associate my existing Apple ID (with my main email) to App Store without inserting a credit card. I have tried the OS X App Store software, the OS X iTunes software, and logging into the Apple Site.

I believe this is the intended behavior on Mac OS X. On iOS, you can establish App Store use of an Apple ID without requiring payment information so you could borrow a friend's (or a store's) iOS device for a moment and just establish your account as valid for App Store use.

From there, you could of course load a gift card by redeeming it or just log out and then try again. This has worked in the past for many corporate ID where we didn't want to have billing information on individual accounts.

Lastly, the Apple support might be able to guide you if things have changed with them being more protective of accounts to prevent fraud, false reviews in the App Store or whatever else motivates Apple to change policy around the online stores they run.


How to automatically import new songs from iTunes media folder on different devices? I have a few different computers that that use the same iTunes media folder on a network drive. The media folder contains the iTunes library file and thus all my computers share the same iTunes library.

When I make an iTunes purchase, the purchase is downloaded into this media folder, but will only show up in iTunes on the computer I made the purchase. On the other computers, I have to add the file to iTunes using the file location on the network drive.

Is there some way, that when a file is added to the iTunes media folder, instead of adding the files manually, for all the computers automatically have the file show up in iTunes?

I'm afraid not. It is one feature that personally I feel is sorely needed.

I keep one machine as my 'master' & every so often I port the iTunes Library.xml file across to the other machines.
In order to not make this take the entire day, there is a trick to 'break' the .itl file, which makes the import process take far less time. It does lose playlist info from the recipient machine & a few album covers always tend to go missing, but it's the best workaround I've discovered, after many years of trying.

Remove the existing .itl file from ~/Music/iTunes/ then create a new, 'broken' one from Terminal [copy the old one for safety if you prefer, but I've never found a way to manually insert data from one into another]
Open Terminal & enter this touch ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Library.itl That will create an empty ITL file, broken enough for our purposes.

Next time you launch iTunes, it will see the corrupt .itl & rebuild it [it will claim to be importing]. This is very much faster than having an .itl that doesn't match what the .xml thinks it ought to be, minutes rather than hours.


OpenAFS client configuration I can't find any detailed guide on how to setup a client OpenAFS on Mac OS X.

I downloaded OpenAFS 1.5.78 from OpenAFS.org but I can't make it works.

I read that a panel for the system preferences should be installed, but I don't see anything.

My goal is not configure a server but just to connect to a cell as a client.

Any help would be very welcome.

Did you download http://www.openafs.org/dl/openafs/1.5.78/macos-10.6/OpenAFS-1.5.78-Snowleopard.dmg ?

Upon opening it I was presented with a window with a few options, one of which said "Click icon to install".

I ran through this installer, entered my password, entered in a false cell name as I do not have a cell to connect to at the moment, and finished the install.
I do now have a system preferences area called OpenAFS.

It has all of the options though upon first running it does tell me there is an error with a config file not existing, I assume because I would create it and save it.

Could you post any error messages from the console when you install OpenAFS? Are you an administrative user? Any other information would be useful in troubleshooting this.


How to share a very large voice memo to Dropbox from iPod? I am a college student and have recorded an interview for a speech assignment on my iPod. It is too large to email (about 24min). I have Dropbox on my iPod but when I try to "share" the voice memo, Dropbox is not an option. I don't have a computer to sync my iPod either.

What can I do to get this turned in?

Since you only have two sharing options in Voice Memos (Email, Message), you are obviously limited to those two things (clearly excluding a computer which you don't have access to).

Caveat: the following steps worked for me, but I didn't have a super-large voice memo to test it with.

Turn off "Send as SMS" in Settings.app -> Messages (if enabled).
Open Voice Memos.app and select the memo you want to share.
Tap "Share", and select "Message".
Type in a bogus number.

This shouldn't be hard because we just limited our playing field to only iMessage users by turning off SMS alternate. The goal is to not reach someone obviously.

Hit send.
You should receive an error message that the message failed to send. (Perfect.)
Tap the memo, and then select the "Share" icon in the upper right corner.
Select "Open in DropBox".


Replacing MacBook Air SSD with another MacBook Air's SSD What would happen if you were to replace the SSD of your MacBook Air with an SSD directly taken out of another MacBook Air , same generation, same everything. Stock.

It will be as if you swopped Macbooks. It will work perfectly as it was in first Macbook.

Side note:

You can restore your internal "Macintosh HD" hard drive to an external hard drive using Disk Utility in Recovery Mode, then boot from your external drive on ANY Mac. This is ideal if you want to switch between your home Mac and work Mac with only carrying 1 external hard drive which you can even encrypt before it gets lost or stolen. (Enable FileVault in System Preferences before restoring/cloning)


How does Preview calculate to display PDF when I select View / Actual Size? I switched from a Samsung 2493HM to a Crossover 2720MDP monitor. In testing, I opened PDF in OS X Preview (I am on Mountain Lion) and found that by default, the display size is very small, like this:

Notice that I chose View / Actual Size (command-0). Normally the Preview tries to render the page to sized like a piece of paper.

On this new monitor, a page renders to a size around 2 credit cards.

Where can I find the controls to get OS X to understand display pitch correctly and therefore allows Preview to view actual size correctly?

There is a setting in Preview > Preferences, in the Images tab which might be relevant:


With WebDAV provided by Microsoft SharePoint, how can users of OS X minimise risks of corruption and multiuser overwrites? There are various OS X approaches to using the WebDAV service provided by Microsoft SharePoint.

Integrity of data

Answers to this question focus on integrity:

when a file is used by a single user
when a file is used by multiple users.

Whilst some parts of an answer may be generalised to WebDAV servers in general, this question focuses on SharePoint – where Microsoft's server and client restrictions cause people to seek alternatives to Microsoft Document Connection.

Some overlap with an earlier question:

Is it possible to mount SharePoint as a volume in 10.6?

Reference

Drafted in May 2012 a table:

File open/lock protection for multi-user use of Microsoft SharePoint

Key points from that draft:

restrictions in SharePoint make Microsoft Office 2011 incompatible with file system integration
Microsoft Document Connection lacks file system integration.

If any reader can draw a conclusion that differs from what's tabled: I'll welcome discussion in Ask Different Chat, or add your answer below.

Some parts of that table will become answers to this question …

Use the web interface provided by SharePoint

Tested with the following apps:

LibreOffice
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Word
NeoOffice.

Pros

For multiple users of SharePoint, protection through the web interface seems good.

Cons

No file system integration.


Does a M.2 2280 SSD fit in a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)? I have a standard 256GB SSD right now. I would like to upgrade that to a 512GB or higher. When I was looking around I found this SAMSUNG 950 PRO 512 GB SSD that has a huge performance in write and read speed.

This SAMSUNG 950 PRO 512 GB has a M.2 2280 connection.
Is it possible to fit this inside my Macbook?

The Samsung 950pro has the same connector and the same chipset.  In fact, both the 950pro and the Samsung manufactured Apple SSD of this type share the same exact PCB and chips.  Initially the 950pro was manufactured as an OEM drive especially for Apple.

However the 950pro retail version has minor hardware differences and a complete different firmware.

While they indeed fit physically, they are NOT compatible.  There are currently no aftermarket drives for this range.  If someone would release a compatible drive in the future, the OWC Envoy range would be my best bet.


What is this iPad app name? Below are screenshots are of an iPad screensaver, the screensaver appears to be showcasing an application. The store staff were not aware of the name of this app. It appears to be a drawing app ?

This application is the freemium app Concepts.


Chrome notifications not appearing on both monitors (dual monitor)? When using Chrome notifications on OS X, how can I set the notifications to appear across two monitors simultaneously?

I'm using a Macbook Pro and a Thunderbolt Display, and Chrome notifications - for example, a notification of a new message on Meta Chat - only display on the Macbook Pro. I would like the notifications to display on both monitors.

I have tried:

Going into the 'Settings' of Chrome Notifications, which only allows
users to change what sites can send them notifications.
Apple's Notification Center looks to control Apple's native notifications, rather than Chrome notifications.

This is currently not possible.

Google Chrome uses its own code for displaying notifications which Keyboard Maestro doesn't seem to be able to interact with. There appears to be no AppleScript for even detecting notifications and Google Chrome seems to refuse to provide the content of the message to Keyboard Maestro for any sort of macro.

Also, sending Chrome notifications to Growl also doesn't help since Growl still can't show notifications on multiple displays:

How can I show Growl notifications on both displays?


Creating an installer (.pkg file) from the command line I've seen multiple tutorials in how to create an installer to distribute a MacOS application, but they're all very simple examples (just installing an application and placing it in /Applications).
To do that, they use :
sudo pkgbuild --install-location /Applications --component application-path ./Desktop/installer.pkg

My situation isn't that complex either, but I can't find out how to do it. I want to install an application to /Applications, but I also want my .pkg to place a .dylib in a specific folder.
I've tried doing this :
sudo pkgbuild --install-location /Applications --component myApp.app/ --install-location /destination/for/my/dylib --component myLib.dylib ./myInstaller.pkg

but it says that it doesn't accept my .dylib because it's not a "valid bundle component".
How can I do this?

I found an alternative, while not the most ideal, it does the job for me. It's using packagesbuild commandline that comes with Packages (http://s.sudre.free.fr/Software/Packages/about.html). It lets you create a .pkg file through the command line, but you need to create a .pkgproj file, which you create with the Packages application.


Turn off MacBook Air screen rendering but maintain running applications? I would like to completely turn off the screen rendering on my Mac for some time as I have some processes running in the background but I don't need to use the monitor. I'm expecting that this measure will save some battery consumption, but that's beyond the goal of this post.

I've been using Control + Shift + Fn + Power Button to sleep the display. The problem is that the background processes stop running.

How can I keep my background processes running but display nothing on the screen?

I'm using a Macbook Air if it makes a difference.

I could be missing something in your post, but you should be able to set your Energy Saver preferences so that your display goes to sleep, but your computer doesn't.

Since you haven't specified the exact version of macOS you're running I can't give you step by step instructions or include a screenshot, but essentially you need to go to Apple > System Preferences > Energy Saver.

If you take a look there you should see you can set your display to go to sleep at a certain point and your computer to go to sleep at another point in time (or never, if that's what you need).

Doing so will save you on battery power as your display is asleep, but of course your MBA is still running otherwise.

If you're going to have your MBA plugged into an AC power source when you need the processes to run you'll need to ensure your settings are configured on the Power Adapter tab (as opposed to the Battery tab). Likewise, you'll need to set your Battery tab settings appropriately if you're also going to be running these process while running off the battery.

You'll also see other settings here (depending on your Mac and version of macOS), so you may want to familiarise yourself with the Use the Energy Saver settings on your Mac page on Apple's website.