Samsung G9 not working with MacbBook Pro 2012 I was using M1 Apple Macbook Pro but had to sell it for some reason but now I am back on my Macbook Pro 2012. I tried using the display port to HDMI on SAMSUNG - Odyssey G95 but my MacBook seems to freeze and when I take the cable off the MacBook it is working. But the monitor doesn't even display.
Why is it happening

Older Macs will often require two cables and Picture-by-Picture mode for it to work. On a newer mac, Thunderbolt ports can handle the connection.
Try to use two DisplayPort cables to accomplish this, not HDMI of any sort.
Macbook Pro 2012 info.


What is the benefit of macOS dropping support for 32-bit software? It has been hinted at in the past but now we're starting to see solid notice from Apple that it is dropping support for 32-bit macOS programs in the near future. While I can see how this makes sense in the walled garden of iOS, the macOS / OS X environment has always been a bit more flexible in that you could run older software.

We dealt with this when Apple dropped PowerPC and Rosetta, but the change of CPU architecture was a bit more obvious since it was apples-to-oranges. However, the difference here is that our x86_64 platforms can still natively run 32-bit x86 code. It is simply a decision by Apple to cut off 32-bit code. Sure, it is great to get rid of old stuff but it also cuts off useful software which might not be maintained anymore.

I'm curious what benefit actually comes from dropping support for 32-bit software. Is there any measurable performance gain that we would see from there no longer being support for 32-bit apps running next to 64-bit ones? Or is it simply that Apple doesn't want to maintain the 32-bit APIs and support libraries anymore and this is simply cleaning house?

Apple's explanation for the transition can be found here: 32-bit app compatibility with macOS High Sierra 10.13.4

  All modern Macs include powerful 64-bit processors, and macOS runs advanced 64-bit apps, which can access dramatically more memory and enable faster system performance. The technologies that define today's Mac experience—such as Metal graphics acceleration—work only with 64-bit apps. To ensure that the apps you purchase are as advanced as the Mac you run them on, all future Mac software will eventually be required to be 64-bit.


How can I zoom in with Mac Mail on a message I am composing? I am familiar with the Command+ option to zoom in on text within messages received in Mac Mail.

However, this command does not seem to work when composing a message.  Is there another zoom functionality so that I could avoid making the text larger while I am typing only to resize the text before I send the email?

This isn't exactly what you want but may be a viable workaround if no one comes up with a way just to zoom the text in the composition window. In the Accessibility Preference Pane (on Yosemite, don't know if it's the same in El Capitan) there's a Zoom subpane. There you can set up various ways to zoom the whole screen. I have "Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom" checked and Command as the modifier, so I can hold down the command key and scroll and the screen zooms in and out.


Why are these date-stamped docs sorted by name length, not numerical order? Here's a list of docs with date stamps at the end of the filename.

Some contained typos (which I'm about to fix) causing them to be one character longer than the others. This extra character changed the sort order in a surprising way.

Why is some name 2015xxx before some name 2014xxxX (when it is after some name 2014xxx)?

I'd expect the length of the filename to make no difference, and for it to sort by first character then second character then third etc. I'd expect all the 2014s to be together, followed by all the 2015s, regardless of length.

This is Finder on Lion. The sort is the same whether it is set to "Name" or "None". Fixing the typos caused the order to behave as expected (2014s then 2015s).

Is this some kind of feature designed to make files like version 9 come before files like version 10?

It is sorting numerically. An eight digit number is always going to come before a nine digit number.

It is a feature of Finder, so that Something10 shows up after Something9 and not before Something2, provided that all of the "Something" is always the same.


sync calendar and contacts without iCloud in Mavericks How can I sync calender and contacts in Mavericks and iOS 7 without using iCloud (or any cloud for that matter)? Is the only option really to setup a CalDav and CardDav server in my local home WiFi network? If so, how do I do it? Will I be needing a dedicated machine for the server (I just have one iMac)? Will all my devices automatically be able to sync once they are connected to the local WiFi? Do you know of any good step by step tutorial?

I wrote a small open source app for iOS and OS X to do basic calendar synchronization over USB on Mavericks. The iOS app has been submitted to the AppStore and is currently waiting for review.

Update:

I had to rename the app to get accepted, but it is in the iOS AppStore now:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/devicesync-for-ios/id737867459?mt=8

Please read the AppStore app description before using it!

You have to get the corresponding OS X app from here
(Hold ctrl key while double click to open and to get past the "unregistered developer" error).

See DeviceSync-for-OS-X and DeviceSync-for-iOS at github.

This app is open source and hence a collaborative effort. If you are a developer or know some iOS developers, feel free to add missing functionality (send a pull request at github).


How does a family with multiple idevices and multiple laptops share music and digital movie copies? My wife and I both have our own laptops with our own iTunes accounts. Then we have a shared desktop. In the past, this was fine as all we had for iDevices was an iPod each.  So we just managed our own music.

Now we each have an iPhone, and we have one iPad and we are looking at getting my daughter a iPod. So we still have our own iTunes accounts, but now we are getting digital copy movies which can only be associated with one iTunes account, and as you know a iPhone or iPad can only sync with one iTunes account. However, it would be nice to have our selection of movies and be able to say, hey I want this on my iPad for now, but have the option of later not having it on the iPad, but then on my iPhone.  I want to stay legal, so I would only have the movie on one device at a time, but want to be able to move them around.

Now I know if I associate all my devices to one shared iTunes account that is easy enough to do. But what if we want to maintain separate accounts so I have all my iTunes music available on my laptop instead of our shared desktop?

Then if my only option is to have one shared iTunes accounts, can I merge our accounts so I can get all purchased music and apps from each account into one?

Here's our setup:

Computers:

iMac x 1 (wife's primary computer & used by the kids)
MacBook Air x 1 (my primary computer)
MacBook Pro x 1 (wife's)

iOS Devices:

iPhone 4 x 2 (wife's and mine)
iPhone 3G x 1 (Younger Daughter's, used in airplane mode)
iPod Touch x 1 (Older Daughter's)
iPad 2 x 1 (mine but can be used by all when it's at home)
Apple TV 1st Generation x 1 (used in kid's playroom)
Apple TV 2nd Generation x 1 (used in main living room)

The Setup:

We use one Apple ID for all iTunes purchases (music, videos, books & apps) across all devices. Each user of an iOS device also has their own unique Apple ID used for iCloud.

The iMac is our main hub. All music and videos are stored on it. All iOS devices with the exception of any that are mine sync with the iMac. I maintain my own music on the MacBook Air that I manually manage (I will copy over items from the iMac that I want on to the Air and will copy over times that I have added to the Air back to the iMac - I believe that this can be automated with the use of Home Sharing when both computers are on the same network). All iOS devices that are mine sync with the my Air.

Music on the kids's and wife's iOS device are managed individually via syncing with the iMac. This goes for videos as well, however we usually only access videos when we are at home and therefor rely on the built-in Home Sharing ability of each iOS device to stream content from the iMac to the device. This is also how we use the 2nd gen Apple TV.

We have no iTunes setup on the MacBook Pro as my wife uses the Apple TV or her iPhone to listen to music and only uses the laptop for web browsing.

The 1st gen Apple TV has been jail broken and has had its hard drive upgraded. I manually copy over videos to it for the kids (only non-iTunes purchased videos).

More info on Home Sharing: http://www.apple.com/support/homesharing/getstarted/

On Merging Apple IDs:

This cannot be done: http://support.apple.com/kb/HE37 (5th question down).


Trying to boot up on Mavericks USB Install Drive, receive prohibited sign on screen I have a late 2011 Macbook Pro and I had Mavericks, which ran just fine, but I upgraded to Yosemite after hearing some good reviews. I didn't back it up in time machine. It made my laptop extremely slow and glitchy, it's practically unusable now. I followed this http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/revert-back-mavericks-from-yosemite-3581872/ to try to downgrade back to Mavericks, and I believe I successfully made a bootable Mavericks Install Drive. Everything worked just as it should have, I shut down my computer, pressed alt while turning it on, and chose the USB drive. It loaded for a few moments but then in place of the apple symbol, it just showed a prohibited symbol (circle with slash through it).

I tried to repair the drive in disk utility but I had no luck. If anyone could help me figure out a solution or find an alternative I'll be very grateful!

I've had mixed success using that bootmaker utility.  Try Apple's instruction here

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Assuming a) the 'install osx mavericks' file is in the Applications folder and b) your USB drive is named MyVolume, open Terminal and run this command.

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app


APFS/High Sierra - tmutil deletelocalsnapshots will not delete snapshots - Error parsing argument This is kind of an addendum to APFS/High Sierra - `tmutil deletelocalsnapshots` not deleting snapshots as I've discovered a new quirk in tmutil

My snapshots all have am or pm appended. I have no idea why & no-one else seems to have this from what research I've done.

This gives a new problem...

TetsMac:~ glee$ tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
com.apple.TimeMachine.2018-07-26-93812 am (dataless)
TetsMac:~ glee$ tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2018-07-26-93812
Error parsing argument 2018-07-26-93812
TetsMac:~ glee$ tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2018-07-26-93812 am
Usage: tmutil deletelocalsnapshots <snapshot_date>

It can't find it if you leave the am/pm off & it thinks the format is wrong if you add it.

What else can be done to delete this errant snapshot?

I discovered, after hints on the linked thread, that quotes will do it...

TetsMac:~ glee$ tmutil deletelocalsnapshots "2018-07-26-93812 am"
Deleted local snapshot '2018-07-26-93812 am'
TetsMac:~ glee$ tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
TetsMac:~ glee$

& it's finally gone.


Uploading a minor new build must wait for review every time? I just fixed a few bugs and minor things after the initial version of an application was released into the app store. I've uploaded the binary to iTunesConnect but I see nowhere to change over the build version. Is it correct that every time a new version/build(1.0.1 -> 1.0.2) is uploaded it has to go through review?

Yes.  Apple requires that every new build, regardless of how small, go thru the App Review processes.  If you have a bad bug and need to get a fix out there quickly, you can request an expedited review.


How to sync two ipods to one mac? so, my sister and I both just bought the ipod touch 4G. She installed and downloaded her apps from the Itunes. I've purchased some items in my ipod in the store where I bought my Itouch. Then, the problem is that when I try to transfer purchases of mine to the Macbook (that my sister use),

it kept give a warning "Some of the purchased items on the Ipod "my name", including "name of certain apps", could not be transfered to your Itunes library because you are not authorized for them on this computer"

Then, I try to choose "Store > Authorize this computer" with my Apple ID. the next warning pop out "This computer is already authorised"

So, how to sync my apps to this Itunes?

Are you using the same login (system user account on the mac) as your sister?  The easiest thing would be for you to create a 2nd Mac (user) login, and then associate the iTunes account under that login with your Apple ID (not your sisters).


Safari does not restore saved tabs when I exit via X icon When I quit Safari via its Menu or CMD+q, it properly restores saved tabs.

However, if I close it via X icon (top left) or by quitting it via right click on its icon in the desktop bar, it does not restore any tab.

What am I making it wrong? I already set it to restore the tabs in its Preferences.

Closing the window is not the same as quitting the app.

Clicking the red X closes the window, telling Safari that you've done with the contents - leaving nothing for it to remember.

It's not clear from your question quite what you are selecting from the right click menu, but anything other than quit - or quitting after all windows are already closed, will do the same.

Note that, if you do forget & close the windows before quitting, that you can use History menu > restore all windows from last session to get them back again.


I tried activated the option to partition a disk, instead all my drive data disappeared in a few seconds I read online that there was a command line to activate the partition option on Disk Utility:

diskutil partitionDisk disk4 1 GPT HFS+ newdisk

Which is just supposed to unlock the possibility to partition THEN chose the partition size or erase. Instead it renamed the disk but it also made all my data disappear!!

Please tell me there's a way to retrieve it or I'm going to smash the Mac to pieces...

diskutil partitionDisk command does exactly what you described happening.  Partitions a disk, removing all volumes.  All volumes on the disk you ran the command on are destroyed.  So you partitioned disk4 and renamed it newdisk using GPT HFS+.  I'm not sure where you got the command information from but the command you entered did exactly what it was supposed to do.  I would recommend looking into data recovery services if you need anything that was on that drive.


Mac OSX and enabling user root All I am running OSX 10.6.8 I have enabled root login through Directory Utility. I have assigned a password.

I get an error when I try to ssh root@localhost.

ssh -v root@localhost

OpenSSH_5.2p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8r 8 Feb 2011
debug1: Reading configuration data /Users/rrazavipour-lp/.ssh/config
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config
debug1: Connecting to localhost [127.0.0.1] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /Users/rrazavipour-lp/.ssh/identity type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/rrazavipour-lp/.ssh/id_rsa type 1
debug1: identity file /Users/rrazavipour-lp/.ssh/id_dsa type 2
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.2
debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.2 pat OpenSSH*
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.2
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none
debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY
debug1: Host 'localhost' is known and matches the RSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /Users/rrazavipour-lp/.ssh/known_hosts:47
debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,keyboard-interactive
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Offering public key: /Users/rrazavipour-lp/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,keyboard-interactive
debug1: Trying private key: /Users/rrazavipour-lp/.ssh/identity
debug1: Offering public key: /Users/rrazavipour-lp/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,keyboard-interactive
debug1: Next authentication method: keyboard-interactive
Password:
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,keyboard-interactive
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,keyboard-interactive
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,keyboard-interactive
debug1: No more authentication methods to try.
Permission denied (publickey,keyboard-interactive).

What I am doing wrong? I know I have the password correct.

Root login over SSH is not enabled by default for good reason.  Since you are not connecting remotely in your example, I recommend:

sudo su

to switch to root user if you need to run several commands in a row.  This keeps you from needing to do the much safer

sudo commandname

where you need to prefix every command with sudo. If ssh is a requirement, you can simply:

ssh user@host

and then

sudo su

to switch to root user. This is a much safer approach from a security standpoint.

Lastly, if you really think you must enable root login over ssh, see this link for instructions.


Why does Automator not see new files in subdirectories on a Flash Drive? I've created an automator app to find all the csv files on a flash drive, then modify and copy those files to a directory on the hard disk of my MAC. The automator app uses a shell script to compare the files found on the flash drive to those already on the hard disk, and it only copies the files that do not already exist in the destination directory.

For the first 21 files (they are numbered) this worked just fine, but now files 22-30 do not get copied over to the hdd. After some debug, I found that automator is not seeing the complete list of csv files that exist on the flash drive.

The way things are supposed to work is, I insert the flash drive into the MAC SD card slot. Then I drag the icon for the flash drive on top of the icon for the automator app. The automator app steps are:
    “Get Folder Contents” (‘Repeat for each subfolder found’ is checked), followed by
    “Filter Finder Items” (which looks for files with the extension “.csv”).
    Then that list of files passes to my Shell Script (which compares the names of the files it receives to the names of the files in the destination directory, and acts on those files that do not exist in the destination directory).

With debug I have found the problem happens before the Shell Script, the list of files passed from “Filter Finder Items” does not include the newest files on the flash drive.

Through another step of debug I found that if I open one of the csv files using Numbers (while the csv file is still on the flash drive), then close the file (no editing or saving involved), then when I drag the Flash Drive icon onto the automator app icon, THAT csv file which I have just opened DOES get passed to the script and the file ends up in the destination directory.

When I was developing this automator app the first 21 files already existed on the flash drive. Everything worked fine. A week later, the new files were added to the flash drive (by an external, non-MAC device), and now for some reason the MAC files system (or at least automator) does not “see” the new files.

I have some ideas as to how to fix this, but I am wondering if there is some caching feature of the Flash Drive that might be intervening, or some other MAC OS idiosyncrasy that I am missing.

Power-down and rebooting the MAC did not fix it.

Any thoughts on this?
thanks,
michael.

"The Filter Finder Items action uses Spotlight. Having success after using an item with Numbers.app would suggest that the (newer) external files have not been indexed (yet)."

Thanks!!  I modified the Automator app to remove the "Filter Finder Items" action (I put this functionality into the Shell Script)
so now I have:
   “Get Folder Contents” (‘Repeat for each subfolder found’ is checked),
    followed by a Shell Script (which compares the names of the files on the flash drive to the names of the files in the destination directory, and acts on those files that do not exist in the destination directory).

And this works just fine, no files are left out.


CPU frequency in Intel Power Gadget Which core's frequency and temperature are shown by the Intel Power Gadget tool?
How can I observe the frequency of all the independent cores on my MacBook?
Can the Intel Power Gadget be configured to do so? (I was not able to find the required setting/extension)

There's already a discussion on observing CPU frequencies using the Terminal here:

Is there a way to see current CPU frequency in macOS from terminal (not Intel power gadget).

However, I cannot draw any conclusion/method of achieving this from the above. An equivalent for cpu-frequtils would have been nice to have on macOS.

I'm the owner of Intel Power Gadget on macOS.

  Which core's frequency and temperature are shown by the Intel Power Gadget tool?

On any Intel processor prior to Icelake, all cores run at the same frequency. In the current version of Power Gadget, frequency is read from a package scope register, so it's not reading a specific core's frequency. A future version of Power Gadget will measure frequency on all cores.

At present Power Gadget measures temperature at the package scope, although there are core scoped temperature readings provided by the hardware. I haven't seen any particular need for core scope temperature readings, but let me know if you have a justification for that.

  How can I observe the frequency of all the independent cores on my MacBook?

Because you are running on a pre-Icelake system where all cores are running at the same frequency, there is no need to observe the frequency of cores independently.

  Can the Intel Power Gadget be configured to do so?

In the current and older versions of Power Gadget there is no mechanism for reading frequency on all cores, even if you were to use the public API. However, a future version of Power Gadget will provide this capability.


Accidentally ejected External drive while downloading file, now having problems reading I'm hoping someone can help! I recently downloaded a torrent directly onto an external hard drive, (using a 2009 MacBook Pro and 1TB Seagate Expansion portable Drive) somehow during the download the drive was accidentally ejected, since this incident when I plug the drive back in it’s having problems reading.

The drive works fine for about 10 minutes, I can read/copy/paste and access files but then starts to wreak havoc; apps hangs, it hangs the Finder, etc.

I’ve tried repairing it in Disk Utility, which reads and repairs this disk but problems inevitably continue as described above.

I’ve deleted the Torrent file also. All my files on this external drive so re-formatting is not an option until I can retrieve them.

More than likely, the drive is failing.

There are several symptoms that point to this (downloading of the Torrent is just coincidental, not causal):

The drive "accidentally" ejected.  By itself, this is not an indication of a failure as it could have been any number of factors that caused the drive to eject; from a power failure to user error.  However, in addition to the other symptoms, it lends credibility to the theory.
The drive works for about 10 minutes then hangs the system.  Good drives don't hang your system.  Additionally, if you system is fully functional (no hangs) until after you plug in the questionable drive, it's a good bet that the drive is the issue.

As a test, try a different external drive.  If the problem goes away, you've (through the process of elimination) identified the issue.
It's a Seagate.  (IMO) Seagate drives are some of the most unreliable devices in IT.   Based on reviewing tech support reports for our departments activities, a vast majority of the hard drive failures were Seagate.

Though, that is my personal experience, it appears I'm not the only one judging by this PC World article from 2016:  Seagate slapped with a class action lawsuit over hard drive failure rates

Data Protection/Recovery

Your best bet right now is to focus on data protection and recovery.  I have personally used Disk Drill for both diagnostics and recovery and it has worked extremely well.

Additionally, you should

Make an image of the drive and work off that:

sudo dd if=/dev/rdiskX of=~/Desktop/external_drive.img bs=1M

Stop using the external drive for daily use until you can recover the data.

Personally, I recommend Western Digital Passport drives.  I have one that I have been using a daily Time Machine back up drives for over 4 years with no issues.  In comparision, I had a Seagate that was given to me I was using to back up my Synology NAS, died about 18 months in; even free, they're (Seagates) not worth the trouble.


Early 2011 MacBook Pro 17" to 30" cinema display I have a 17" MacBook Pro and a 30" Apple cinema display.  The best resolution I can get on the cinema display is 1280x800.  Is there a way to get better resolution?

Your particular model of MacBook Pro was equipped with an AMD Radeon HD 6750M dedicated graphics card and on-board Intel HD 3000 graphics card. In terms of VRAM you have 1 GB available on the AMD and 384 MB on the Intel (shared with main memory).

This combination is capable of up to 2560 x 1600 pixels on external displays that do not require a dual-link DVI connection.

If you're finding that the highest available resolution is 1280 x 800 instead of 2560 x 1600, this is likely due to you using a single-link DVI connection on a display that requires a dual-link DVI connection. Unfortunately, the 30" Apple Cinema Display is one such monitor.

You would need to connect this display to a dual-link DVI port to access the higher resolutions available on the 30" display. However, your model MacBook Pro does not provide a dual-link DVI connection without an appropriate adaptor and that is why it's not supporting the 30" Apple Cinema Display at its native 2560 x 1600 resolution.

For best results you will need to use a Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter.

You should refer to this info on Apple's website. Also of interest may be this Mini DisplayPort adapter FAQs page.


Do my original photos move to iCloud if imported to Photos? I have a large collection of photos (80Gb) stored on my Macbook and I've imported them to Photos, these are now available through Photos on my other devices with the same iCloud account. Does Apple move the originals into the cloud and free up the 80 Gb space on my Macbook?

No - You don't initially save any space on your Mac if you choose iCloud storage.
Yes - if you set "optimize" in Photos preferences, then once you fill your storage with other files, the Photos library will shrink itself.

You can choose to store the original size images in the cloud and let the Photos app "optimize" and resample/recompress images to reduce the storage space burden on selected devices.
For example, if your 80 GB library is half RAW files and/or very large JPEG files, you might save a substantial amount of space by selecting Optimize and then filling up your storage with other files to trigger the optimization.

As you can see from Photo preferences, only when you run low on storage space will the optimization start to take place. I've not tested this yet, but hope to try it on a second Mac with limited storage to see how the library looks when space runs low and "optimization" kicks in.


Disk size keeps shrinking I am not a pro at Mac / OS X. But I know my way around.

I just installed OS X El Capitan. However when I first started up, my harddisk used 30GB with 'other'. With time the capacity just keeps shrinking. If I just stare at the screen, I just see the available space drop and drop. Until it hits Zero Bytes at capacity.

Does anyone know what I can do about this? I cannot seem to find anything on this on Google.

The only thing it returns on my keywords are things like how to remove temporary files, re-index size with Spotlight, Startup in safe mode. None of these things seem to work.

@Edit 22:02 06-04-2016

I have checked Activity Monitor and got the following results:

I have sorted on Bytes Written, that does not seem very strange.

However if I check the Graph Data Written below it gives:

As you can see the data Written is around 8.33 GB and a few minutes later already 10 GB,.. I checked; 'sudo fs_usage -f filesys' this keeps trying to get some attribute lists from mdworker? Don't know if that is normal?

@Edit 20:30 07-04-2016
With 'sudo fs_usage -f filesys' I see that the following processes write;

nsurlsession
nsurlstorage
IMRemoteUrlC
cfprefsd

With using Daisy Disk App I see the following:

So the private and library grows a bit, however the Core grows massively. I see that it produces a 'core dump' of around 528 mb every now and then. This tells cores is a folder for a core dump;

OS X El-Capitan - /cores directory taking up a lot of space?

What/why is this happening? (Like the post I have set the core dump limit to 0 and it seems to have stopped generating.)

PS: This is not a duplicate of Over 25 gb of Space Disappeared, I do not have time machine / Backups turned on.

Ah, these are core dumps. You can find more information on why they happen and how to prevent them here. In a nutshell, they are generated for debugging, but shouldn't be kept on disk by default. Either the system setting is wrong, or some buggy process is choosing to save them. Running

sudo launchctl limit core 0 unlimited

in Terminal will disable the system from saving them by default, but still allow processes to make them if they choose to, or running

sudo launchctl limit core 0 0

will disable them entirely, both in the system by default, and by disallowing processes from creating them. There should be no issue if you disable them completely.


Installing High Sierra on OWC Aura SSD - missing firmware partition I have an early 2015 Macbook Pro running Mac OS Yosemite.  Last year I replaced the Mac's internal 500GB SSD with a OWC Aura 1TB SSD.  Everything has worked fine up to now, although the OS still recognizes the SSD as an "external" drive.

I am now trying to upgrade to High Sierra.  The installer won't run on this drive, complaining that that it's missing a firmware partition.

I'm not sure if this is related to other posts (e.g.) I've seen about OWC SSD drives installed internally but appearing as external.  Or, if it has to do with attempting a three-version leap in the OS.

I have an external Time Machine drive with a recent backup, so I guess I could attempt reformatting the OWC drive, installing High Sierra, then restoring from Time Machine.  But that takes so long I'd like to avoid it if I can. Also, if the fault is in the drive itself I'm not sure it would work.  Anything else I should do?

Update: I have spoken with OWC customer service, and they say I will need to reinstall the OEM SSD.  Then upgrade to High Sierra, which will update the Mac's firmware.  Then re-install the OWC drive, and upgrade that to High Sierra.  I hope I can find the old drive...

I finally did get this to work.  Here is my process with the non-functioning loops edited out.  It's inspired by, but slightly different from, this process outlined by MacSales in How to Format a New Internal SSD in macOS High Sierra.

For this process, you need not just the original (OEM) Mac SSD, but also the enclosure that OWC sends with their upgrade kit.  The screwdrivers (P5 and T5) come in handy too.  And a spudger tool, sold separately.  Also, this process wipes both the original and the new (OWC) SSDs clean, so you need a recent backup, for instance Time Machine.

Open up the Macbook, and replace the OWC SSD with the OEM one.
Boot into recovery mode (command-R at startup).  Use Disk Utility to erase and reformat the internal drive, and install a clean macOS on it.  It will be an old version; in my case Yosemite.
Reboot, and using an administrator account, install macOS High Sierra on the OEM SSD. You now have High Sierra, but on the wrong drive, and none of your data.
Open up the Macbook again and remove the SSD.  Install the OEM SSD in the external enclosure, and the OWC SSD in the MacBook.
Plug in the external, reboot, and hold down Option at the chime.  You will have the option to boot from the internal (OWC) SSD into the old MacOS version, or the external (OEM) SSD into High Sierra.  You want the latter.  It will slow down a bit, but it will work.
Use Disk Utility to erase and reformat the internal (OWC) drive.
Go to the Mac App Store and redownload the "Install MacOS High Sierra" application.  It should be about 5.2GB large.  Run the installer, and use it to install High Sierra on the internal drive.  Remember, everything's running off the external drive with the OEM SSD.  You now have High Sierra on both drives.
Use the Migration Assistant to restore your files from the Time Machine (or whatever) backup back to the Mac.  Repeat with any other backed-up data not stored in Time Machine (e.g., Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, etc.)

The linked article says that you can replace steps 5–7 by booting into Internet Recovery Mode (option-command-R at startup).  I believe this is what OWC told me in tech support chat, too.  The idea is that upgrading the OEM SSD to High Sierra will update the firmware, so that internet recovery mode gives the option to install High Sierra.  That didn't work for me; I could only install Yosemite in Internet Recovery Mode.  If it did work, I would not have needed the enclosure, since I wouldn't need two SSDs running at once.  One of the commenters says it worked for them, so maybe I screwed up.

Also, you may wonder why you can't skip step 4, put the OWC SSD in the enclosure, boot from the internal OEM SSD, and install High Sierra on the external OWC SSD.  I tried this several times, and it would error out at various stages.  There is a sticker inside the enclosure that says "Mac SSD only".  I finally believed it.

At least this process eliminated an annoyance that I had when I originally installed the OWC SSD.  Even though it was installed internally, it showed up in the operator system with an orange "external drive" icon.  I think this is part of the reason the update process was so complicated—the Mac knew this drive was an impostor of sorts.  But now it's got the same icon as the original one.

--

Edit 2018-04-13: OWC has published a firmware update (beta as of this writing) for their OWC Aura 6G SSD's which purports to deal with this very issue.  Thank you to new user mauple for this suggested edit.  It would have been nice if tech support had alerted me to this beta at the time I contacted them, since it did exist.


Access encrypted Ubuntu disk on macOS I'm trying to access a disk, from macOS, that has an Ubuntu installation on it. I was able to mount the disk with Paragon ExtFS tool but I don't know how to go about the encryption part. I do have the passphrase.

Unfortunately, there is no native method to access an encrypted Linux volume on macOS.

A technique that may work for you is downloading VirtualBox (a free and open source virtual machine program), installing a Linux distribution in a VM, setting the host (macOS)'s /dev directory as shared to the VM, and then try to mount the disk on the virtual machine, through the shared /dev file. The likelihood of this working is not great, but it might work. Can't hurt to try.


Configure Preview to auto reload pdf and stay at the same location System: OS X 10.10

Preview version: 8.0

When a pdf file opened by Preview is updated by another program (such as pdflatex), Preview will automatically reload it, which is good.  However, Preview always shows the first page of the updated file, which is inconvenient.

Is it possible to configure Preview such that after reloading the same page gets displayed?  This seems to be the behavior of one older version (at least for the one on 10.7).

There seems to be no way to make Preview.app do this, but Skim offers this feature.

On my system, using pdflatex, Skim will 'jerk' for a split second as it reloads, but it does return to the right position on the current page.


Song artwork does not appear on album? Ever since upgrading to the new Music app on Catalina (or maybe was it when I copied my music in from a backup?) all of my album artwork is not visible on the album views:

The art is still attached to the individual songs, as evidenced by viewing the song information:

How do I get this song art (which clearly exists and is available) to show up on the album view?

I'm still not sure exactly why this happened, but I was able to find a solution in via one of Doug's AppleScripts. Once again this man saves my day.

It is his Re-Embed Artwork script. It takes quite a while to run, but I can already tell that it is working:


Why am I not getting notified by email when my Find My iPhone is used? I am not getting notified when the Find My iPhone app is used or even if I try searching via iCloud. How can I enable them?

You only get notified if you:

Play a sound on the remote device
Put the remote device on Lost mode
Ask to be notified when it comes back online if the device is offline

Just watching the location of the device on the app or iCloud does not trigger a notification.
There may be ways of finding out, they are discussed in this question:

However, your son could enable Status Bar Icon so that the device shows the location services icon in the status bar when the location tracking is active.
Settings → Privacy → Location Services → Find my iPhone → Status Bar Icon
This shows the normal location services icon (and not a special icon for Find my iPhone) if the device's location is being obtained through Find my iPhone.


Is it possible to unlock a CDMA iPhone 4S (from Virgin Mobile) to use another SIM in it? My friend has an iPhone 4s, it was bought from in the USA from Virgin Mobile. I want to do a factory unlock (unlock the SIM). I already know how to jailbreak, would jailbreaking work? Any help would be appreciated.

I read this answer, but was told the following:

  Virgin Mobile USA iPhones are CDMA. If you need a refresher - CDMA
  means the phone is locked to the network forever.

  You will never be able to unlock your iPhone from Virgin Mobile USA.
  They do not use sim cards - so there is no way to unlock it.

Is that correct? My question is, is it possible to unlock CDMA iPhone 4S from Virgin Mobile?

Of course, it's possible!

Simply buy a Gevey Turbo SIM ultra S CDMA.  Note: type "geve" into google and watch it autofill with "gevey sim".  Good news- You're in luck because the price is not bad for the CDMA Gevey SIM turbo at this time.

sometimes, they're close to $100.  only $35 right now.

also, i've included some other links to help explain

http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Gevey_SIM  (Personally been using iphonewiki for iOS firmware for years, totally legit.  NOTE: the reference to musclenerd possibly the most knowledgable mofo on baseband, unlock, JB etc.)

http://www.applenberry.com/unlock-cdma-iphone-4s/


Is there a keyboard shortcut for the AC button on Yosemite calculator? Is there a keyboard shortcut that will trigger the AC button on the OS X Yosemite calculator? Escape key triggers the Clear (C), but hitting escape again does NOT trigger the AC. Only a mouse click does.

On my MacBook Pro, AC/All Clear can be achieved by fn + esc.


Bootcamp won't start after resizing partition My system is divided in two and shared using Boot Camp feature. Recently I needed more space on the Mac partition and whiled loaded only in the Windows partition, I have shrank my Windows partition by 10 Gb using Windows disk management tool.

Now I can no longer start up the Boot Camp bridge while in the Mac OS X side to access the Windows partition. I suspect the Boot Camp file no longer recognize this modified Windows partition.

Is there a quick to solve this issue without having to reinstall everything?

This error occurred because in a Boot Camp setup, your hard drive has a hybrid GPT/MBR partition table, which is unsupported by Microsoft.  When you resized the partition in Windows, it only modified the MBR partition table because it was unaware that the GPT table existed.  You now have a situation where the GPT partition table and the MBR partition table disagree about the start/end boundaries of the Windows partition.

To fix this, you will need to use the gpt command line tool, and for that you must boot from OS X install media (either a USB flash drive, or Internet Recovery if your model supports that feature -- the recovery partition will not work for this).

Boot from OS X install media and open up a command prompt.
Type fdisk /dev/disk0 to see the MBR partition table. Write down
the partition number (it's usually 4), the start sector, and the
size of the Windows partition. The start sector and size will be big
numbers so make sure you write them down correctly.  This is
critical.
Type diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0  This will unmount the disk
so GPT can write to it.
Type gpt remove -i 4 /dev/disk0 NOTE that the '4' here
references the partition number of your Windows partition you got
from fdisk earlier.  This will delete the GPT partition entry for
your Windows partition (but not the MBR entry)
Type fdisk -d /dev/disk0 >/Volumes/fdisk.txt  This will  make a
backup of the MBR partition table.
Type fdisk -e /dev/disk0  This will put the fdisk command in
interactive edit mode. You will need to enter the following input.
NOTE that the '4' here references the partition number of your Windows partition you got from fdisk earlier.  This will delete
the MBR partition entry for your Windows partition.

e 4
0
q
y

Type diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0 again because the gpt
command caused OS X to remount the disk and we need to modify it
again.
Type gpt add -b <start sector> -s <size> -i 4 -t windows
/dev/disk0 where 'start sector', 'size', and '4' are the values you
wrote down from the fdisk command earlier.
For good measure, type gpt show /dev/disk0 to view the GPT table.
Make sure the partition number, start sector, and size match the
fdisk output from step 2 EXACTLY.
Type diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0 again because the gpt
 command caused OS X to remount the disk and we need to modify it
 again.
Type fdisk -r -y /dev/disk0 </Volumes/fdisk.txt This will undo
 the changes made in step 6.
For good measure, type fdisk /dev/disk0 to view the MBR table. Make sure the output matches the fdisk output from step 2 EXACTLY.

You have now repaired your GPT table.  You should be able to reboot the Mac into either operating system now.


How do I disable iCloud without losing all my photos? I foolishly enabled iCloud hoping that I could sync photos between my apple devices. However, I do not want the same photos on all my devices and I do not want ANY at all stored long term in my cloud. I had hoped I could delete the ones that were not wanted from individual devices. Can I do this, and if so, how? I can't find any way of manually deleting them from the cloud without them disappearing from my phone, or from my phone without them disappearing from the cloud.
If this isn't possible, is there any way to delete my iCloud without deleting all my photos?

In short, disabling iCloud should keep your photos on your device. To turn it off, navigate to "System Preferences" > "iCloud" and click the "options" button next to "Photos". Deselect "iCloud Photo Library" and "My Photo Stream" (as below).

Note: On iOS turn this off under the iCloud setting, not the Photos & Camera settings.

To answer the question

  ...is there any way to delete my iCloud without deleting all my photos?

Turn iCloud Photo Library off. I have tested this on my Mac and all my photos are still there. You can not delete iCloud because it is a service, not a place or thing. Hence you just stop using it.

If the Mail Man stopped delivering letters, you still get to keep the ones you already have.

  Can I do this, and if so, how?

By definition synchronisation (sync) means to make the same. So iCloud will do whatever it can to make sure all your devices have the same content for everything. This is obviously not what you want.

However, there are three main parts to iCloud photos, not just the syncing bit.

iCloud Photo Library (the syncing one I assume you have enabled – a.k.a sync everything)
My Photo Stream (upload only new photos you have taken to all devices)
iCloud Photo Sharing (upload selected albums).

Think of these as three different services. You want to enable iCloud Photo Sharing so that you may select only the albums you want to keep in sync. As far as I'm aware, iCloud Photo Sharing does not store pictures in iCloud like the photo library does. It says below, this is for sharing with other people, but you can just add yourself when sharing the album.

To share albums

On Mac, select an Album you which to share, then click the share button. Click "iCloud Photo Sharing", then the big plus to add the album. Now just add yourself as a contact in the "invite people" section.

On iOS, there is a little cloud symbol at the bottom of the screen in the "Photos" app labeled "Shared". If it is empty, it will guide you though it.


Does iTunes in the Cloud/iTunes Match have any effect on syncing ratings between devices? With iTunes Match, I tend to pull songs down to either my phone or my Mac whenever I feel like listening to them, and delete them from the device afterwards at will. What's the story, then, with play counts and - more importantly - ratings?

If I rate a song on the phone, will the rating propagate to the Mac (or vice-versa) through iCloud, or is the only way to sync that data between the devices a wired/wi-fi sync through iTunes?

And if an iTunes sync is required, what sync settings are necessary such that my ratings and playcounts will be copied across devices without having to sync the songs themselves, as we had to in the pre-iCloud days?

I'll check my computer when I get home, but everytime I update the ratings on my iPhone there is definitely network activity (The network spinner is displayed everytime I change the rating). So it is definitely updating the iTunes Match library. Whether it updates the PC at home I'll have to see.

I'm still waiting for it to upload about 600 songs.

Edit:  I confirmed that ratings and play count  definitely are updated right away. PC to device changes take a little longer. I had one song disappear from my phone on my way to work because I accidentally removed it from match the night before and it took some time to propagate.


Connecting MacBook air to a Samsung monitor using a thunderbolt I own MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015), I bought a Samsung C24F396FHU 24 inch monitor to use a bigger screen and prevent headache. But now that I connected the laptop to the monitor using a Thunderbolt to HDMI cable , the font is not smooth at all and the text is not as readable as it used to be on the original display.

The cable:

Is the issue due to using non-Apple product (Samsung monitor)?
The monitor is FHD 1920x1080 and there's not much settings to adjust the resolution (picture below).

Yes you can use a Samsung or (almost) any monitor with a Mac.  You don't have to use Apple monitors.

What does "1028" mean?   What is the native resolution of the monitor?  For example it might be FHD 1920x1080 or 1280x1024 or 4K etc.   If you don't know then what is the make and model?

If possible, connect your monitor to another computer or to a TV device like a Roku, cable box, etc to see if the monitor works nicely with those or if it shows the same problems with any device, in which case it might be defective.

Go into System Preferences --> Displays and see that the resolution is set to "Default for Display".   The preferences tool may look like one of the following.   Note I have not chosen "Default for Display" for one of my monitors .... but you SHOULD choose it as a starting point to get the best results.


Using magic-trackpad for simple play/pause interface for movies or music Backstory...my mother-in-law fell and has a spinal injury (C5), and she has no finger use, just her arms.  I want to give her some control over her iPad to play or pause movies and music.  Anyone have a script to assign the play/pause button as a single tap to the magic-trackpad?

Also, any other simple yet clever scripts for handicap use with the trackpad would be most appreciated.

Thanks,
Don
donroy (at) gmail.com

Not sure of the level of ability, but you could try the

Voice Control http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201936

or the

AssistiveTouch http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202658


Should I use raid 0 with my optibay drive? I installed a 120gb SSD today. My optibay currently holds my MBP stock drive (5400 RPM HD 320GB). Since they have different memory sizes, should I put them in raid 0? The only reason why I want raid 0 for convenience. I want to store all my music and photos in the optibay drive, but it seems like there would be a ton of configuration nuances with iTunes and iPhoto. If one drive were to fail, however, then I would lose all my data. Could someone please correct me on this? Any help and instructions are appreciated.

As the saying goes: "The difference between RAID 1 and RAID 0 is that the zero stands for how many files you're going to have after a hard disk failure."

Putting your 320 GB hard drive and your 120 GB SSD will allow you to share the space in between the two drives, but the risk in doing so is that you may have a failure at some point that makes your data unrecoverable.

If you want to set up your hard drives in a RAID 0, I would recommend also setting up a backup solution that regularly backs up your files to a location that is outside of your laptop. That makes sure that your data can be recovered in the event of a failure.


Touch bar disappeared in Macbook Pro 2019 Bought a new Macbook Pro 13 Inch 2019 with touch bar. It came with Mojave, I upgraded to Catalina after initial setup. Touch bar was working fine before and than after installing some applications, I noticed the touch bar disappeared and it was dark black.
I did SMC reset and everything and it didn't came back. So I did Factory reset by erasing the drive and installing back OS. After erasing Catalina was the again the OS and touch bar didn't came back.
I tried to start the processing again of factory reset again with the process to reintall OS that came with the device but again it showed me to reinstall Catalina instead of Mojave so I did this and again there was no touch bar.
I tried to search for Touchbar in running processes and its not there.
Can anyone please advise what could go wrong and if there is a solution for this?

The Touch Bar on Apple's MacBook Pro line of laptops is a capactive touch display not unlike the screen in an iPhone; it's just much longer and thinner.  This means it's susceptible to all of the same ailments that plague every other touch screen display - cracked/broken LCD, touch no longer functioning, blank display, etc.  Some are obvious (i.e. a cracked screen) and others not so obvious; like a blank or non-responsive screen.

In this case, a blank Touch Bar could be either software or hardware.  So, to determine what the issue is, you need to go through a process of elimination.

Eliminate software as the cause. (See link for steps).  The idea here is to get to a "clean" environment by eliminating as many 3rd party apps, kexts, configurations, etc. that could be causing an issue.  You want to follow these steps so you don't go through the trouble of reinstalling macOS.  There's no point in expending the time, effort and risking data for something that won't work.  Booting into Safe Mode or Recovery Mode has the same benefits of reinstalling without the extra hassle.
It's likely hardware.  There a very good chance that the hardware has failed in some way.  It could be the display itself, the  driver (not software), or even the T1/T2 chip (drives the Touch Bar). Unfortunately, there's no easy DIY way to diagnose it.  Since the entire top case assembly must be disassembled to get to it, the usual fix is just to replace the top case with a new one.

Bottom line, it needs to go in for service.

Note:  the fingerprint reader (Touch ID sensor) is located adjacent to the display and both are behind a single pane of glass.  It's not uncommon for folks to believe that the Touch Bar must be working because Touch ID still works.  No; they are two completely different components, but since the T1/T2 chip handles security, it's a good bet that the chip is not at fault for the ailing Touch Bar.


Why isn't my iPhone automatically adjusting its brightness? On my iPhone 4S (iOS 5), I've set Auto-Brightness to on (in Settings -> Brightness).

I haven't, however, seen it do anything. As far as I can tell, my brightness has never changed automatically. The screen is equally bright when I'm outside on a sunny day, or inside reading in a dark room.

Am I misunderstanding what this option does? Otherwise, am I doing something wrong that's preventing it from working, or is this just a bug?

My brightness slider is set all the way to the right; Auto-Brightness is set to On.

Try turning your iPhone's brightness slider to the middle or slightly lower, but leave auto-brightness on.  The phone will usually auto-adjust its brightness after it gets locked (display turned off) and then turned on, maybe a minute or so later, in different lighting conditions.


Install a new SSD but keep all the files and everything I bought a new SSD for my Macbook Pro Retina 2014. I want to be able to insert the new SSD but keep all my files, setting and etc. I am not sure what to do how can I clone my existing SSD to the new SSD?

You need to make a complete duplicate ("clone") of your existing internal SSD module onto the new SSD.
You can do this with Disk Utility, but the third-party apps  SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner are actually better at it.

However, the real problem is having both SSDs attached at the same time to make the transfer. You either need to buy a USB enclosure for one of them, or you need to have an additional USB drive to copy the clone to as an intermediary. You also need to have MacOS on this USB drive, because you'll need to boot up to it.

(Having a standard USB drive may be more use to you in the long-run,; or you may already have one.)

First step is to copy the clone onto the USB drive. You can either make the entire disk a clone, or copy the clone as a disk image (file) onto the USB.

Next, you need to install the new SSD in your Mac so you can copy the clone back onto it, but of course you need to be booted to another volume in order to run the cloning app!

Boot to the USB drive, and then run the cloning software in the other direction.


Python stopped working after Mountain Lion upgrade I upgraded my Mac from Lion to Mountain Lion and ever since then, Python stopped working.
So I re-installed Python and his setup-tools. Now everything seems to work fine except for iPython. iPython requires readline, which in his turn requires the Mac OSX 10.6 SDK.

How can I install the MacOSX 10.6 SDK in my current confuguration (Mountain-Lion)?
Or is there an alternative solution to get things working again?

MacOSX SDK 10.6 is a component of Xcode. It is at least available in Xcode version 3.2.6.

Xcode is available for download from Apple after registration as a software developer.

The file is named MacOSX10.6.pkg and is located in the /Volumes/Xcode and iOS SDK/Packages folder.


How can I restart an iPhone 4S with a broken lock button and frozen springboard? My springboard has frozen and the lock button is broken (two months out of warranty and it's not classed as a hardware failure).

How do I restart the phone given that I can't access any apps or settings?

Waiting for the battery to drain will take days, so that's not an option. Is there a way through iTunes to force a reboot or is there a program I can download to force a reboot?

Go to settings general then accessibility. Turn bold text on and it will reboot your iPhone and fix a springboard crash. I was having the same problem and lucked out and found this!


Shortcut key to special characters I'm developer from Belgium, so I'm using an AZERTY keyboard,  and for some reason Apple has a reduced AZERTY keyboard compared to the QWERTY keyboard, some special charters like {} & [] The {can be made with the ⌥ key and (, but for the `[]' isn't such a key available, so is there a way to make a keyboard shortcut to those? Could be helpful since I'm a PHP developer, otherwise I'll consider to buy an QWERTY keyboard.

Thanks

For the Apple French or Belgian azerty layouts, [] should be at option plus shift plus ().


Download speed of an app at the App Store? I think the title is self-descriptive, but I'll describe it more precisely here: What I mean by "Download Speed of an app" is when you click in the download button of an application, at the Purchases tab we'll see the app downloading, like this:

Where can I see the download speed of OS X El Capitan, in the case of this image?

This might have been asked before, but I don't find it anywhere.
I tried clicking the progress bar, but nothing is displayed, the only thing that the Purchases tab displays is the app, downloaded size, and time remaining.

This question takes me to another question: How do I know what's all that's being downloaded? I ask this because I feel the download speed is very slow sometimes, and I'd like to know what are the apps that are downloading stuff...

The download speed on the App Store depends on two things: speed and size. If you have a DSL connection (the average connection is around 128kbps to 3000kbps (3mbps)), it is going to be very slow to download an app. If you have fiber optic internet (which can range from 10mbps to a Gigabit) it is going to be a hell of a lot faster.

If you are downloading El Capitan, which is 6.2GB, and you are downloading on a 5mbps connection, then it will take almost 3 hours to download.

You should take a Speedtest here and see what your speed is, you can also see if you are getting what you paid for. Go to this link and input your download speed here.

I have found that if you have inputted DNS servers in System Preferences, remove the DNS servers and that should make it a little faster.

Happy downloading!

Cheers

EDIT: If you want to see how fast it is downloading, try Rubbernet which shows how much bandwidth a process or an app is using. Another app (which I use), is iStat Menus. It only shows processes that are using most of the bandwidth. The process that you are looking for is "storedownloadd" which downloads apps on the App Store. Sorry for misunderstanding you.


Unable to connect to Exchange on iPhone An iPhone has previously been connecting to Exchange email without any problems.  Two days ago it stopped, generating an error:

  Cannot get mail.  The connection to the server failed.

I confirmed the password was correct.
I confirmed that webmail was working.
I confirmed the phone was connected to the carrier, Telstra.
I deleted and recreated the account, but this issue remained.
I created my own account on the iphone, and received the same error.

Settings > General > About says:

Version: 4.2.1 (8C148)
Model: MB489X
Firmware: 05.15.04

Any ideas how to resolve this?

Faced same issue and found it is with Exchange server's user account settings. Initially Active Directory's authentication is successful but unable to retrieve emails. Issue sorted when went into exchange user account and Inherit AD permissions for my user account. Ola!


How to use EasyFind (or a similar application) to search inside ~/Library? I would like to use EasyFind to search inside the folder ~/Library/Application\ Support/Anki2/. Unfortunately, the Library subfolder is not listed under the home folder in the Select A Folder... dialog box. Is there a way around it? Alternatively, is there another file-searching GUI-based application that will enable me to search inside said folder?

The simplest way is to just tell EasyFind to search the entire drive for invisibles.

It's not very efficient, but it's very easy.

Alternatively, it will search any folder you drag to the 'location' drop menu.

For a folder which is normally hidden, such as ~/Library, there are several methods to reveal it.

Finder > Go Menu - hold  Opt ⌥  & the User Library will be revealed in the menu
 From comments, this may be yet another of those commands that changes by System Language. Adding Shift may apparently be necessary in some languages.
Use the Go To Folder... command from the Go Menu or  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   G   & type ~/Library
You can always go to any invisible folder this way, however deeply it's nested, for instance ~/Library/Application Support/Anki2/. Note it doesn't need the space escaping.
Permanently unhide by going to Finder,  Cmd ⌘   N  for new window;  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   H  to go to Home folder;  Cmd ⌘   J  for View Options, then check the Show Library Folder box.
Permanently unhide using Terminal & the command
chflags nohidden ~/Library
Revert with hidden
Unhide all hidden files & folders using Terminal &
defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE;killall Finder
Revert using FALSE


hotspot stops being detectable I have an iPhone 4 and a MacBook Pro. If I turn 'Personal Hotspot' on my iPhone to on, then I can connect with my laptop fine and everything is great.

If on the other hand I then disconnect the laptop and leave 'Personal Hotspot' switched on, the signal appears to vannish after a while.  So if I come back later and try to connect my Mac to the network again, the Mac can't even see the network.
If I open up the settings on the iPhone and switch 'Personal Hotspot' off and then on again (good old technical training) the signal reappears and everything is fine.

I'd like to be able to just leave the 'Personal Hotspot' available at all times because it's a extra bit of bother to switch it off and on again.  Can anyone suggest a fix or tell me what's happening here...?

Actually, this is what happens for hotspot.

If there is no active WiFi connection, and you're not in the screen that says "Personal Hotspot", it turns off WiFi hotspot feature completely.

To connect your FIRST device, you MUST be in that Personal Hotspot settings page.

After that, it won't turn off until the last device is disconnected.


AppleScript to return condition depending on audio file length I'd like to use Hazel (a rule-based file system automator) for macOS to automatically move mixtape audio files from one folder to another, if their duration is longer than 30 minutes.

Hazel doesn't provide a built-in method of checking for audio file length (that I know of), but it provides the ability to run rules if an AppleScript condition is passed, i.e. return true.

Judging from the screenshot below, I think it works if length of theFile > 30*60 seconds: return true (pseudo code).

I'm not however sure how to accomplish this via AppleScript. Any ideas how to do it, or where to start? A search online didn't provide many basic ideas, but it seems to be possible.

Note: Giving advice on AppleScripts is outside the scope of the Hazel support AFAIK, so I can't get any help from them.

Okay, I've downloaded Hazel and tested the following AppleScript code on a New Rule to validate it works. The following code when used in an embedded script will set theResult to true on theFile, an audio file that is longer than 30 minutes. Any file 30 minutes or less, or a non-audio file will set theResult to false:

set theResult to (do shell script "[[ $(afinfo -r '" & POSIX path of theFile & "' | awk '/estimated duration:/{print int($3/60)}') -gt 30 ]] && echo 'true' || echo 'false'") as boolean
return theResult

Note that from my first comment before posting this answer, I've changed theFileName to POSIX path of theFile, and as you can see in the image below, it validated the rule. It then also processed the rule, as I defined it, successfully.
To change the number of minutes, change the value on the right side of the operator, e.g. -gt 30 to the desired time, e.g. -gt 20. The operator can also be changed to any one of the following: -eq, -ne, -lt, -le, -gt or -ge

Understanding, a little bit, the content of the do shell script command:

afinfo doesn't have much in the way of an manual page, so just type afinfo in Terminal and press enter for its options.
afinfo -r - {-r --real} get the estimated duration after obtaining the real packet count
Example output of afinfo -r:

 $ afinfo -r '09 Karn Evil 9.mp3'
 File:           09 Karn Evil 9.mp3
 File type ID:   MPG3
 Num Tracks:     1
----
 Data format:     2 ch,  44100 Hz, '.mp3' (0x00000000) 0 bits/channel, 0 bytes/packet, 1152 frames/packet, 0 bytes/frame
                    no channel layout.
 audio bytes: 85117515
 audio packets: 81460
 estimated duration: 2127.935 sec
 bit rate: 320000 bits per second
 packet size upper bound: 1052
 maximum packet size: 1045
 audio data file offset: 275530
 optimized
----
 $

The above output gets piped (|) to awk.

awk '/estimated duration:/{print int($3/60)}'

awk finds the record (line) containing estimated duration: in the output of afinfo piped to it and prints the third field, $3, 2127.935 as an integer, having been divided by 60 to get the number of minutes, as the time value is in seconds. In the example output, awk returned: 35

$(...) The command substitution portion passed 35 to the test [[ $(...) -gt 30 ]], so it equated to [[ 35 -gt 30 ]] and as a result, using logical operators, echoed true. Had the value been equal to or less than 30, or a non-audio file, it would have echoed false.

If you want the content of do shell script command to run faster, then use the following:

set theResult to (do shell script "[[ $(afinfo -b '" & POSIX path of theFile & "' | awk 'FNR == 3 {print int($1/60)}') -gt 30 ]] && echo 'true' || echo 'false'") as boolean
return theResult

afinfo -b - {-b --brief} print a brief (one line) description of the audio file

This runs faster then using -r as it's not counting the packets, but getting the info from embedded data. Note that while the help says "(one line)", the output is actually three lines, but still faster then the long form, especially if not using -r.

Example output of afinfo -b:

$ afinfo -b '09 Karn Evil 9.mp3'
09 Karn Evil 9.mp3, MPG3, Num Tracks:     1
----
2127.938 sec, format:   2 ch,  44100 Hz, '.mp3' (0x00000000) 0 bits/channel, 0 bytes/packet, 1152 frames/packet, 0 bytes/frame
$

The above output gets piped (|) to awk.

awk 'FNR == 3 {print int($1/60)}'

awk prints the first field ($1) of the third record (line) of output piped from afinfo -b, 2127.935 as an integer, having been divided by 60 to get the number of minutes, as the time value is in seconds. In the example output, awk returned: 35


How to find "intersection" of two strings? Simple question for all you experts:

String A: "I like cherries, apples, berries"
String B: "I like cherries, apples, berries, cookies"

I would like to find the text in string B but not String A(the odd one out)

I am trying to find-> ", cookies"

Is there an AppleScript that can solve this for me?

In the absence of any other examples or formal criteria for how matching ought to be performed, I've just given an example here of the simplest way to obtain the difference between two strings:

    set A to "I like cherries, apples, berries"
    set B to "I like cherries, apples, berries, cookies"

    set the text item delimiters to {null, A}

    return text items of B as text --> ", cookies"

This works if one string is contained entirely within (i.e. is a substring of) the other, as was the case with your given strings.  If string A were to be `"But I like cherries, apples, berries" or "I like cherries, apples, berries.", the above method will not work.

It also won't work if string B contains the word "null" where string A does not.


Apple Remote + Spotify? I have a 2010 MBP on Lion, and use Spotify pretty heavily - is there any way that I can have my remote control spotify, rather than it waking up iTunes every time (which would be fine but I don't have any playlists)?

Thanks!

You could try SpotifyIrRemote which works on Lion.


Back up my Photos library from Recovery Mode in macOS Sierra My 2012 MacBook Pro will not boot up properly. I decided to start it up in Recovery Mode, using Command-R. There, I can access Disk Utility, Time Machine and Reinstall macOS, and Seek Help Online. Being the idiot that I am, I did not back up my important data on Time Machine or on an external hard drive.

I managed to save my important stuff onto Dropbox by using Safari in "seek help online". However, I would really like to keep my Photos from the Photos app, but these seem impossible to move anywhere, mainly because it is a .photoslibrary file.

Does anybody know a way to do this, for example opening Finder from Terminal, which I cannot seem to manage to do?

.photoslibrary is actually a package (i.e. a folder) which is why Dropbox has difficulty uploading it in one go. Instead, try zipping it first in Terminal using the following:

zip -r /path/to/zippedphotos.zip /path/to/yourlibrary.photoslibrary


2013 iMac + Bootcamp + Windows 8.1 = BSOD I have a 2013 model iMac at work with Core i5 processor (the first generation with the thin edges). It is running OS X Mavericks - the IT department here at work states that I can't upgrade the system to Yosemite due to some "open directory related integration issues." But I was given the green light to install Windows 8.1 in Boot Camp.

I performed the installation as normal. Boot Camp prepared my USB drive from our company provisioned ISO image, installed Windows to the partition, and the Windows OOBE ran. Immediately after, the Apple Boot Camp installer appeared so I allowed it to complete. Upon rebooting after installing Boot Camp, the system can no longer load Windows. A blue screen with the ":(" symbol appears every time.

It flashes by fast enough that I can't recover any information from it. I have found extremely limited information about this, but one post suggests that it is a KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK exception - sounds like an unsigned driver was installed (?)

Is there something I am missing? This seems very un-Apple. Windows 8.1 has been out for long enough that it should be pretty well supported by now, or at least I'd think. The machine is new enough, and even though the Mac OS side is a bit old, the Windows partition shouldn't be affected by this.

Anyone have any advice?

I found the culprit. It seems the Apple HFS driver isn't compatible with Windows 8.1. I booted a rescue disk and removed the AppleHFS.sys and AppleMNT.sys files from C:\Windows\System32\drivers and rebooted, and Windows 8 booted fine.

I obviously lose the ability to have read-only access to my Apple filesystems, but this is not a big deal to me because since I work on a lot of Windows boxes anyway I use external ExFAT-formatted SSDs and flash drives to transport data around.

For others, if having some sort of HFS access was a deal-breaker, there are other solutions out there that can mount HFS partitions. Can't think of any, especially that are free, but in any case, at least Windows now boots on this machine and works as expected.


Why is News.app greyed out in the Finder? I just noticed today that the icon and name for /Applications/News.app is greyed out in the Finder.  The appearance is consistent no matter which view I use (icon/list/column), and it persists after restarts and system updates.
News.app is the only app on my system that has this appearance.
I can still launch the app, and it seems to work, although it doesn't load any stories.
Why is News.app greyed out in the Finder?

Screenshot

Figured it out:  I live outside of the regions where Apple News is available, so the app would normally be hidden in the Finder.  However, I have "Show hidden files" enabled in the Finder, so the app is visible but greyed-out.
Per Wikipedia:

During the 2018 WWDC, Apple announced that the Apple News app would be ported to macOS and be available to users in Australia, United Kingdom, and United States starting in macOS 10.14.[9] The app is installed by default in every region but is not made visible to users outside those three regions.[9]


How to transfer an App Store app after developer enrolment ended? I want to transfer an app from iTunes Connect. App was previously approved for Apple and was on sale. Now my developer license has expired. And now I can not find Transfer App and even Delete App button. Is there a way to transfer an app in this case?

You can't do it until you renew your developer account.

But, I know a couple of cases where calling Apple and explaining the case, Apple renew the account for 10 days to let users delete apps (don't know about transferring, but you could try).


Partition/Volume grayed out but full read/write access i have a Mac Server and a partition only for files. The volume is grayed out in the Finder sidebar, but if i go to the folder via CMD + G (go to folder) and type "/Volumes/Server_Daten" the volume opens and i can read and write. If i go to informations (CMD + ALT + I) i can't change the permissions (little lock symbol is grayed out too).

I have the root user enabled, but even as root i can't change the permissions and have to go to the folder via CMD + G.

How can i fix the grayed out volume in the sidebar?

I figured it out:

The partition was hidden (i don't know why...) so i made it visible again:

chflags nohidden /Volumes/MY_PARTITION


Missing lock icon in System Preferences->Sharing on El Capitan See attached image below. I have a few macs and on one of them, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to lock the Sharing tab under System Preferences. The lock is present and working on other panes that support locking. I also went to Security & Privacy advanced and could not find anything there. How do I re-enable the ability to lock this pane and does anyone know why or how it got that way? My other Macs don't have this problem.

Edit: I am including another screenshot from my other Mac to show that there is indeed a lock on that pane.

I am running OS X El Capitan 10.11.2 on a Macbook Pro Retina (late 2013)

There is no lock on this screen.  There is only a lock if the setting requires an Administrator (someone with the role of Administrator) to make the changes (i.e. Security).  If anyone can make the changes then there's no need for a lock.

Make sure you're logged-in with the role of Administrator to see the preferences that you can lock/unlock.

EDIT: based on OP's new comments:
  - Log in as a user with Administrator rights.
  - Open System Preferences and select Security & Privacy.
  - Click the lock icon and authenticate.
  - Click the Advanced button at the bottom and enable the Require an Administrator... in the popup window.
  - OK the change and then lock the S&P preference pane.

Now when you open the Sharing preference pane you will have your lock back.


Data written to USB to Serial adaptor differs from data received – regression in OS X 10.11.2 After I update to OS X 10.11.2, El-Capitan, from 10.11, my Aten USB to Serial UC 232A no longer works properly.

When I send hexadecimal data, for example client send : 02 01 10 30 30 30 03 CB, the server will receive 02 01 10 FF 82 8A 03 CB 00. Server always receive different data even when I send same data twice. Somebody can help me? Thanks.

Note :

I use MacBook Pro - Mid 2014
I use CoolTerm to send data and the Adaptor is Aten USB to Serial UC 232A.

This explanation on how to install USB serial drivers works for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zuRukW7o0A


Mail.app: Warning while pressing "Reply" instead of "Reply all" This happened to me a number of times: sometimes, when I reply to an email with multiple recipients, instead of replying to all, I reply to the sender. Is there any way to prevent to do it? e.g., a Mail.app plugin that warns you about such an issue?

A quick-fix way to avoid this error is to Control-click on the Mail toolbar, select Customize Toolbar ... and instead of accepting the Apple default where Reply, Reply All and Forward are joined in one big button, choose each one singly, dragging them to the toolbar as a single button, spacing them widely and not contiguous at all ... and Show Icon and Text makes it even more obvious which is which.

If Reply All is the one you use most often, set the spacers so it shows up in the middle, and place Reply to one side. I do the same with Junk and Delete as well.


iCal compatibility on Mountain Lion I just upgraded a MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion.

On Snow Leopard I was running iCal and had 10 years of history inside.

Now on Mountain Lion, this application was renamed Calendar, and I find all my 9 calendar names but they are empty.

I just get all the Birthdays and 2 subscribed calendars filled.

Looking at /var/log/system.log I found 2 hours of error messages like:

Sep  2 18:41:01 localhost mdworker[759]: UTF8 encoding failed for ÃloÃ¯se @ Juterbog
Sep  2 18:41:02 localhost mdworker[759]: Date validation error: EXDATE = ' 20020916T220000Z'
Sep  2 18:41:02 localhost mdworker[759]: Date validation error: EXDATE = ' 20021022T220000Z'
Sep  2 18:41:02 localhost mdworker[759]: Date validation error: EXDATE = ' 20020620T220000Z'
Sep  2 18:41:02 localhost mdworker[759]: Date validation error: EXDATE = ' 20010414T220000Z 20010415T220000Z'
Sep  2 18:41:02 localhost mdworker[759]: UTF8 encoding failed for vacances scolaires Ã©tÃ©
[...]
Sep  2 18:41:02 localhost mdworker[759]: Invalid char : (58) for mParamName in line 432
Sep  2 18:41:02 localhost mdworker[759]: Invalid char . (46) for mParamName in line 432
Sep  2 18:41:02 localhost mdworker[759]: Invalid char   (32) for mParamName in line 432
Sep  2 18:41:02 localhost mdworker[759]: *** WARNING Invalid component, discarding: Error Domain=com.apple.iCalendar Code=1000 "DTSTART is required for VEVENT." UserInfo=0x7fada22d24a0 {NSLocalizedDescription=DTSTART is required for VEVENT.}

These error messages look like they are clearly related with the migration failure of my calendars.
Unfortunately no explanation no error message was displayed to explain how to fix this.

What is the way to recover all my iCal personnal calendars?

On Mountain Lion the calendar files are stored in /Users/USERNAME/Library/Calendars/.
If all is correct you will find a bunch of folders that end in .caldav or .calendar, that contain another folder named Events which contains the events in the form of .ics files.


Slow internet speed with an ethernet adapter on my Mac With the internet connecting to my windows laptop, the ping/download/upload speed is 16ms/157.15Mps/10.21Mps. However, when I connect the same internet cable to a USB 2.0 ethernet adaptor and then to my MacBook Air (2017 model), the ping/download/upload speed is just 24ms/30.07Mps/10.00Mps. This speed is even slower than the internet speed when I connect to wifi.
In this post, I see some comments suggesting that only Apple's brand of ethernet adapter works for MacBooks. Can anyone give me advice if that comment is right or any other possible solution to fix the slow internet speed when using an ethernet adapter? Appreciate!

You can’t evaluate adapter performance by measuring Internet latency and throughput because those things change - like the Network congestion and load of your service provider at that tine.  You need to do this internally where you control the variables.
Your question is very similar to this one: What dowload speeds is the Apple USB Ethernet Adapter capable of?
You need to use the iPerf3 utility to measure the performance internally. It’s free snd simple to use.
As for differences in performance, it comes down to the quality of the USB bridge in the adapter and the quality of the Ethernet chip itself; they’re not all created equal.  High quality USB to Ethernet adapters will have low latency (ping results) and higher throughput (iPerf3 results).
In your example, the variance in your ping results - 12ms vs 24ms could be due to the quality of your adapter and/or inherent latency of your internet connection.  USB speeds and feeds have nothing to do with this.  Same for your transfer speeds - what you’re seeing is well below USB 2 throughput.  However, it can be affected by the quality of the adapter and/or the inherent throughput inconsistencies of the Internet.
I actually address the “quality” issue in this post: AX88179 ethernet adapter keeps dropping connection. As far as the comment re: Apple branded Ethernet adapters, the answer is any quality adapter with a compatible chipset will work and perform just fine.  Avoid the inexpensive off brand adapters and stick to brands like Belkin, Anker, Netgear, etc.
Setup a small test environment as described in the linked answer so you can eliminate the unreliability of the Internet connection and limit your test to variables you can control.


Any suggestions to get an Audio CD to load I just purchased four albums with a total of 6 CDs.  Four of the CDs work just fine.  Two of them will not load on both of my laptops.  When I push them into the CD slot, I hear the drive spin up and down a few times and then the CD is kicked back out.

Both of the troublesome CDs work in my truck.  If it was just one, I'd assume it was just a bad CD but two out of six plus the fact that they work in my truck leads me to assume that Apple's software is goofed up somehow.

One laptop is an early 2007 15" MBP with 10.6.8.  The other laptop is early 2011 17" MBP with 10.7.5.  Both have the latest iTunes 11 and all of the updates, etc.

I tried even booting the 2007 MBP in safe mode but it had the same issue.  I've tried setting the CD / DVD preferences to various settings (e.g. ignore) but no change.

Has anyone else seen this?  Does anyone have a work around?

I had the same pb with CD's or DVD's that are a little thicker than normally. Perhaps some sticker on top of the CD/DVD. In my case I was using CD who are labeled and my MBP. If you are using new CD then there is a quality pb with it.


identityservicesd IP resolving to non-apple IP - possible man-in-the-middle? When I dig init-p01md.apple.com using Google DNS 8.8.8.8 returns A name of 219.88.192.83 (SPARK NEW ZEALAND TRADING LIMITED)

Then digging init-p01md.apple.com using Kloth.net (again with 8.8.8.8) returns A name of 2.20.189.156 -- an Akaimai address that Apple uses as a cloud provider.

Kloth.net dig of init-p01md.apple.com on 8.8.8.8#53

 >> Non-authoritative answer:
     init-p01md.apple.com   canonical name = init-p01md-lb.push-apple.com.akadns.net.
 >> init-p01md-lb.push-apple.com.akadns.net canonical name = init-p01md.apple.com.edgesuite.net.
    >> init-p01md.apple.com.edgesuite.net   canonical name = a1051.b.akamai.net.
     Name:  a1051.b.akamai.net
     Address: 2.20.189.123
     Name:  a1051.b.akamai.net
     Address: 2.20.189.156

Any ideas why it would be resolving to a local NZ IP address?

This is intended behavior.

Content Delivery Networks such as Akamai work by getting the data closer to the user so that downloads and other interactions perform better.

The way this is done is to have multiple servers located all over the globe. You will in general then be using a server that is near you - i.e. if you're in France, you could be using a German server while if you're in New York you might be communicating with a server in Washington D.C.

There are multiple ways of achieving such a system up. A simple one, which is the one you're have come across here, is to use the DNS (domain name system). The DNS system is responsible for (amongst other things) to resolve a name (such as  init-p01md.apple.com) into an IP (such as 219.88.192.83). Akamai simply makes their DNS server reply with different IP addresses according to who asks it. That way they can redirect traffic intended for the same service to various servers across the globe.


MacBook Pro now asking to login with password, but can't do this via built-in keyboard I have read a number of threads including this one
How can I reset the PRAM if Recovery Mode keeps overriding the PRAM command?

Where Adriano says "PRAM reset is not working because you turn on Password Firmware Protection"

My daughter's Macbook Pro (around 2011) has never asked for a login, now it asks to login either her or guest. She has not changed any settings - I believe.

She cannot login because Caps Lock is always on causing $%£%£^ characters and backspace key does not work.

Looking online, it seems I need to reset PRAM.

Pressing PROptionCommand   always loads Recovery utility. I have tried many times, and all variations in timings before and after pressing power.

Based on Adriano's comment I need another way to reset PRAM, as I cannot log in to turn off Password Firmware Protection.

Any Suggestions

Thanks Colin K

After reading your question a few times I've made an assumption (dangerous, I know). My assumption is that the only password you're being prompted for is your daughter's User Account password and NOT a firmware password. The reason I assume this is because the only reason (it seems) that you think it's prompting for a firmware password is because of Adriano's answer to another question.

So, if my assumption is correct, then my first thought was the same as that offered by n1000 in the comments - Have you tried an external keyboard?

However, if you haven't got an external keyboard handy, and since you're booting into Recovery Mode anyway, you can actually change your daughter's password from Recovery Mode and then log in using that and change the settings so a password is no longer required.

Why would this help? Well, since your Caps Lock key is stuck, creating a password with how your keyboard is right now will mean that you will be able to log in using that keyboard.

Resetting password from Recovery Mode

To reset your daughter's password password from Recovery Mode, follow these steps:

Power off your Mac
Boot into Recovery Mode by pressing the power button while holding down CommandR
Select Disk Utility and press Continue.
Choose Utilities > Terminal.
Enter resetpassword (all one word, lowercase letters)
Press Return
Select the drive with your daughter's account (typically the main hard drive)
Choose your daughter's account using Select the User Account.
Enter a new password
Re-enter the same password
Enter a password hint
Click Save
Ignore the warning about the password changing
Click OK.
Shutdown the Mac using Apple > Shut Down
Restart the Mac normally and use the new password to log into your daughter's account
Once logged in, go to Apple > System Preferences
Click on Users & Groups
Click on Login Options
From the Automatic login pop-up menu, choose your daughter's account

This will ensure that whenever your daughter's Mac is booted it will automatically boot into her account (which it sounds like you want to do).

If I've misunderstood your question, or you have any questions/issues, let me know by posting a comment.

[Edit]

Now that we've got you logged in, let's try sorting out your keyboard issue. Since you can't reset the PRAM as per usual, it's actually worth resetting the SMC instead. Sometimes this will resolve the issue preventing a PRAM reset.

For your MacBook Pro, here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Keep the MagSafe adapter (power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol
(on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

Once you've done this, log back in and see if there's been any change to your keyboard and report back.


No port forwarding on air port Hello I have two routers in my net. One is from my ISP and secound is air port. I want to do port forwarding. If I forward port on air port it doesn't work I have to also forward ports on router from ISP. I have a static ip address on airport. I also tried to turn on DMZ on router from ISP and add an airport ip address. On http://www.canyouseeme.org/ I got success when I have turn on DMZ, but I cannot connect to disk on airport using external ip address. I don't know what should I do :/

You should only be using one router/firewall.

The problem with using two routers is you set up a double NAT scenario.  What is basically happening is that you forward one port from the edge router (the one from your ISP) to the internal router (Airport) which then has to port forward again.

For instance, using ssh port 22 as an example, you would have to forward port 22 on the ISP router to the Airport which then needs to forward port 22 to the host that's accepting the incoming connection (like your Mac).

Can things work in the above scenario?  Sure, but it adds several layers of complexity.

What you should do is one of the following:

Disable the firewall on the Airport and let the edge router handle all of the port forwarding
Disable the firewall on the edge router (turn it into a gateway) and use the firewall services on the Airport

You should also avoid the use of a DMZ.  This is an exposed area of your network that allows all connections/ports to pass.  It's analogous to the front porch of a house - it's part of the house but nothing is secured behind the front door.


AppleScript / Automator to sort files based on filename I want to select a folder of QuickTime movies and copy each one into separate sub folders depending on the filename (by copying not moving).

I have a folder that I want to contain sub folders called XA and XB, but I only want them to copy across the h264 versions.

Example file names are as follows:

XA0000_v001_h264.mov
XA0000_v001.mov
XB0010_v002_h264.mov
XB0010_v002.mov

What would be an efficient way of coding this?

Apologies in advance if you only wanted a script. I would have commented, but I'm 5 rep short. This isn't an applescript/automator, but it still might help.

You can use Find any file. Website description:

  Find Any File is a program for Apple's Mac OS X that lets you search
  for files on your disks.

  Contrary to Spotlight, it does not use a database but instead uses    the file system driver's fast search operations, where available. This lets you search for file properties such as name, dates, size, etc., but not for file content (that's what Spotlight is best at!) — unless you want to find plain text only).
  Find Any File can find files that Spotlight doesn't, e.g. those inside bundles and packages and in inside folders that are usually
  excluded from Spotlight search.
  Finally, it is quite fast. A search only takes a few seconds    on an internal hard disk or SSD. Try for yourself!

Basically, it's like "Everything" for mac. But what you could do is search for any file that ends with "_h264.mov" within the folder (whatever folder you feel like. If you want to automate, I suppose you could do a GUI script of find any file, but you might find another solution.

Example image:


Synching without erasing songs on my iPhone I managed to lose all my songs in my iTunes Library and cannot recover them, meaning that my iTunes Library is completely empty. I still have the songs on my iPhone however. I know I will have to upload songs into iTunes eventually. For the time being, I would simply like to add a few new songs to my empty iTunes and then upload them to my iPhone, but without doing anything that will cause me to erase the songs that are already on the iPhone. Is there a way to ADD songs without erasing the songs on my iPhone? I just cannot figure out how to sync without erasing existing playlists and songs on the iPhone.

I suspected that there was no way to get around it ... I guess I'll just have to start the laborious business of reconstructing my iTunes database by restoring all 3,000 songs ...

Thanks for the responses.


How can I reduce the time it takes to sync my ipod touch I have a 64 GB ipod touch with about:

20 GB of music on my external hard drive
20 GB of photos on my external hard drive
About 50 apps

It now seems to take over 40 minutes for my ipod-touch to do a full sync regardless if there is anything new or not (pics, etc) to sync

How can i find out what is taking so long?  Is there anyway to view a log file or something to highlight if a specific app or something else is driving this slowness
I see things going on (like copying Genius results, etc).  Is there a way to control the sync process and turn any of these features off) to try to make it faster.

Also, itunes.exe basically runs at 95%+ CPU during the sync process.

From everything I've read, photos do seem to be the biggest factor in long sync times.

Exhibit A: This blog post suggests to not sync photos:

  If I have photos unchecked, everything syncs and it's fast (7 seconds).

You can give that a shot to see if your sync time improves (as a troubleshooting measure)

Exhibit B: Apple Support suggests that importing the camera roll can improve sync times

Worst case, as @hobs mentions, you can restore your device as a new device from a backup (see this Apple Support page for details).


How to change the vibrate pattern for Messenger and GroupMe? I have the iPhone 6s and I do not like the default Facebook Messenger and GroupMe vibrate pattern, whereas I like the default one provided by Apple. Is there a way to change the vibration for non-native iOS apps on the new iPhones / iOS 9?

Apps specify their own vibration patterns, and unless they offer a way to customize it in-app, that's what you are stuck with. Sadly, most apps do not.

The same goes for notification sounds, with most apps only offering an on/off switch while the app is open (iOS controls the on/off switch for global notification sounds while the app is closed).


MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) Thunderbolt 2 port for small second display (ASUS MB169C+ Portable USB Monitor for eg) MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) Thunderbolt 2 port for small second display (ASUS MB169C+ Portable USB Monitor for eg)

can I get a bidirectional adapter like the Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter? I believe the thunderbolt port puts out 9.9 W max and this display Power Consumption(Typical):<7.5W* *measuring a screen brightness of 200 nits without audio/ USB/ Card reader connection)

basically I need a second portable screen 13" - 15" preferably type C like a large variety of modern displays available as mentioned above, preferably powered from the adapted thunderbolt 2 port etc, that way when I update the Macbook Pro later the screen will be usable on any updated model with Thunderbolt 3...

It doesn't have to be the above mentioned Asus screen but it looks the goods and no less then 1920x1080. I am not against the idea of utilizing the two thunderbolt ports one for display and one to power said display if required OR even use the HDMI port etc...  just as long as it works and powered by the Macbooks ports as the Macbook can be running from the wall charger as required...

Again a portable setup preferably single cable.    recommendations and ideas much appreciated.

No.  This will not work.  You will need to get a display with its own power supply.

Thunderbolt 1/2 doesn’t support power delivery.  Even though Thunderbolt 3 does, connecting an adapter doesn’t magically make power appear.

The (up-to) 9W of power is bus power - you can’t  assume that because it’s there, it can be utilized, especially to power a device.  Remember, Thunderbolt can support up to 6 devices, so it wouldn’t make sense that a single device allocate most or all of the bus power.


Is there a proxy testing application on OSX? I remember I have used a Windows proxy testing software a long time ago. The software allows me to input say 100 proxy at a time, and I could set a destination url (for example, Google.com or Facebook.com/messages/) and then test how many proxies in the list can visit the destination url (and at what speed). I am wondering if there is a similar application on OSX can do the similar thing. Thanks!

And it runs on linux, windows, android, or even iOS. It's a npm tool called proxy-checker (https://www.npmjs.com/package/proxy-checker). Enjoy.


MBP15-mid2102 External Monitor framerate/resolution I'm looking for an external Monitor for my MBP15 mid2012 (GeForce GT 650M, 1 GB). I'm looking for high resolution 2560 x 1440 minimum / high framerate (60 Hz minimum) - and it should also work under Bootcamp Win7.

I've been researching for 2 weeks now. AFAIK my MBP has Thunderbolt-ports that I can use as DisplayPort (but NOT v1.2) to achieve my goals.

Can I run a 2560 x 1440 screen at 60hz with a Thunderbolt 1 to Displayport-cable? Or is Thunderbolt 1 even compatible with DP 1.2?

Short Answer:The short answer to your question is:

Yes you can run a 2560 x 1400 @ 60Hz on an external monitor.  Thunderbolt compatibility doesn't matter since the only interface you need to and can work with is the mini display port (mDP).

The question now is, what are your "goals?"  Maybe we can direct you to a different solution.

Background

The MBP Mid-2012 only came with 512MB VRAM, not the 1GB you are specifying.  In any case, the maximum resolution you will ever get will be 2560 x 1600 MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012) - Technical Specifications

That said, there is no "thunderbolt to display port" adapter.  Below is a snipit from another answer where I addressed this very issue:

  Now, there is no "Thunderbolt" to DVI/HDMI because Thunderbolt is an extension of PCIe. So, in a very basic sense, this would be like trying to plug your monitor in directly to the logic board and not go through the video adapter; it cannot happen.

  However, Thunderbolt "multiplexes" the DisplayPort signal on that
  single cable. You are going to get both. Now, if you use a a
  Thunderbolt compatible cable, you can daisy chain additional TB
  devices off your monitor, albeit at a reduced data transfer rate. This
  is why monitors are the last in the chain. If you use a non-TB cable,
  you will only get display and no TB signal.

The mini display port (mDP) on your MBP isn't going to give you any more resolution than your GPU is capable of delivering.  mDP 1.2 can support up to 4K video at 60Hhz; it's just your MBP can't deliver it.  Changing your cable to one that supports more bandwidth isn't going to give you more resolution the same way changing out your cat5 cable for cat6 will increase the bandwidth of your 1GB NIC.