How can I launch a GUI app in Applications folder from command line? I would like to launch a GUI app that is in the Applications folder from the command line as opposed to clicking the icon in the Finder or in the Dock.  The reason I want that is to be able to launch it as root using sudo as opposed to launching it as my default user.

When I went into the Applications, this is what it looked like:

/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 13 CE.app@16:16:42>ls -la
total 40
drwxr-xr-x@ 10 myuser  admin    340 Dec 17 14:07 .
drwxrwxr-x+ 68 root           admin   2312 Jan 20 18:00 ..
drwxr-xr-x@  6 myuser  admin    204 Dec 17 14:08 Contents
-rw-r--r--@  1 myuser  admin  11358 Dec 17 14:06 LICENSE.txt
-rw-r--r--@  1 myuser  admin    127 Dec 17 14:06 NOTICE.txt
drwxr-xr-x@ 14 myuser  admin    476 Dec 17 14:09 bin
-rw-r--r--@  1 myuser  admin     10 Dec 17 14:01 build.txt
drwxr-xr-x@ 85 myuser  admin   2890 Dec 17 14:06 lib
drwxr-xr-x@ 29 myuser  admin    986 Dec 17 14:06 license
drwxr-xr-x@ 30 myuser  admin   1020 Dec 17 14:06 plugins

Funny thing is, in the Finder, IntelliJ IDEA 13 CE shows as a clickable icon which launches the app.  But at the terminal level, it is actually a directory with contents I do not know how to navigate and manipulate to emulate a GUI click.

Simply use open:

open "/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 13 CE.app"

open -a "IntelliJ IDEA 13 CE"

However, prepending sudo isn't enough to run as root. You'll need to run the actual binary:

sudo /Applications/ApplicationName.app/Contents/MacOS/ApplicationName


iOS 5 change AppStore language After upgrading to iOS 5 my AppStore language changed to German. Referring to that quesiton it is possible to change the language by selecting the country in iTunes like it is described in this apple KB.

My problem is the following : I have a Swiss AppStore account, as you may know Switzerland has many official languages (German, French, Italian, ...) that why a Swiss AppStore account could be in German, French or English as default language.

Before upgrading to iOS 5, the AppStore language was in English as I want it.

I've tried the solution given by the Apple KB. But even doing so, you can only select the country but not the language (German is the first language in Switzerland, that's why it falls back to german). By the way, when I go to the iTunes store the language is also German.

I have tried to set English as default language in the following places :

iOS's language in ENG
iCloud.com account in ENG
MacOSX Lion's language where I have my iTunes in also ENG

Where can I specify the language so the AppStore & iTunes Store language will be in english ?

Settings -> General -> International -> Language -> Make sure it's set to English.

If this doesn't work, SYNC to your computer and see if it goes back.


Can two almost identical apps be uploaded on Apple Store? I want to upload two apps just with color and name difference on Apple Store.

Is it possible, as I have heard that Apple blocks similar apps?

Similar apps can be uploaded if your app has (version based app) free, paid or in-app-purchase with clear description of each version of app will minimise the chances of rejection of the app.

Else the app can be rejected by Apple under:

  2.20 Developers "spamming" the App Store with many versions of similar Apps will be removed from the iOS Developer Program

App Store Review Guidelines


Shift scroll doesn't horizontally scroll with any external mouse I used to use Shift+scroll to scroll horizontally in the past. However, when I tried this on my MacBook running macOS Catalina, it didn't seem to work. I tried this with multiple external mouses—the result is only a horizontal scroll, irrespective of whether the shift key is held down. I tried this in Safari as well as some other apps.

I did some quick research, and it seems as shift-scrolling should scroll horizontally, as seen here, here, and here.

Could this possibly have been a removed feature in Catalina? If so, what are my options for getting it back?

The issue was that I was using Mos to enable smooth scrolling on my Mac.

However, it removes the ability to scroll horizontally using the shift key by default. To reenable this behavior, go to Mos Settings > Advanced and then select "Shift" as the horizontal scrolling key. That should do it!


How can I disable the music player on an iPhone 4S lock screen How do I disable the music player controls on the iPhone 4S lock screen?
I've tried setting the "triple click home button" to "off", but it didn't help.

I'm afraid this is not possible by default on your iPhone. It's a feature in iOS and there is no easy way to disable this.

You could jailbreak your iPhone, you can buy Springtomize for $2,99 which will allow you to do what you want. Just turn on the "Hide Top Bar" option.


Xcode word completion shortcut Xcode's code autocompletion is quite good, I am missing one thing though:
in vim I can press ctrl+n to autocomplete any word, even those in the comment.

Here is a screenshot from xcode to show what I mean:

I am wondering if there is a keyboard shortcut to achieve I am looking for.

Control–Space bar is used to either turn the Auto-Complete ON/OFF. You can read more about it here


iPhone backup error. What does this mean? The iOS was upgraded from 6.1.2 to 6.1.3 and the ADSL disconnected part way through the upgrade and I lost all my contacts, photos, settings etc. Below is the error message that occurs every time I try to restore from my iTunes backup. Even when I try to restore from older backups via Time Machine, this error message still occurs.

Error message:

  iTunes could not restore the iPhone "X iPhone" because the backup was
  corrupt or not compatible with the iPhone that is being restored.

Presuming you already have a valid backup of the iPhone, give phoneMiner a try (trial download on their site). It will scan for any previous backups and if they exist allow you to extract your contacts/photos etc.


After connecting 3rd external monitor typing lag starts, Macbook Pro 2016 Have macbook pro 2016 and connected 3rd external monitor. Then all monitors including macbook screen have typing lag. But let me clear about there is no mouse lag OR when I move the application window like chrome or jet brains IDE like pycharm no window movement lag.
But when I start typing in IDE or browser's search bar. I can see clearly that there is typing lag. And about the monitors and cables. I have a LG Ultrawide 5K and Apple Display 27inch (apple display connected VIA mini display port to thunderbolt by apple official tool)
I am not very sure why macbook pro 2016 having such a problem on? One of the cable is LG's original and the other one is apple's thunderbolt changer. By the way as grafic card Pro has Radeon Pro 460
Any idea what is causing this problem and how to solve this?

Had the exact same issue and the moment I connected my apple wireless mouse to the USB, the problem went away completely!!


Screen remains on after bringing it to my ear during a call While in a call with the phone at my ear the touch screen stays active instead of going off which I am sure it always used to do.

What is now happening is I keep activating the mute or hold button during calls.

This never happened before.  Any tips?

Either the software isn't seeing the proximity sensor or your hardware needs a repair.

I have had good luck testing the phone immediately after a normal reboot (slide to power off and letting it shut down) Then place the phone flat on the table, press sleep/wake to power it on and once it starts - just call 611 or another free call before starting any apps. Place your whole hand over the top half of the glass and play with the sensor that is near the receiver / front camera to see that the screen goes on and off as designed.

Restoring the phone (and sometimes setting up as new) is needed to reset the software when it fails. Calling or going to an apple store for assistance or repair is the next step once you've decided it's not fixable from simple software.


Unusual Shortcut, Menu Override in Evernote I've already approached the Evernote staff and it appears to be a local problem on my Mac (OS X 10.7.5), so I'm taking it to this forum.

The problem in a nutshell: the menu in my Evernote is different from that of the actual release. In addition to that, shortcuts are assigned mysteriously.

Things I've tried:

Cleared all global keyboard shortcut assignments.
Deleted and re-installed Evernote from app store: Same problem.
Ran AppCleaner and re-installed Evernote from app store: Same problem.
Deleted Evernote from my keychain and did all steps above: Same problem.

Here's the discussion on the Evernote Support site. Screenshot below for a quick view:

The latest Evernote release only has Paste (cmd-V) and Paste As Plain Text (cmd-shift-V). I don't know where my system is getting an additional menu Paste Without Formatting. What's frustrating is that this problem prevents me from using the Paste function through a keyboard shortcut (tried assigning a global one but it doesn't work).

There is nothing that overrides "Paste" in my Global Application shortcuts. I've even unchecked everything in the other shortcut tabs.

Any idea what's creating this problem, and how I can address it?

Update: It appears to be an account-specific problem. Created a second administrator account, there all the menus were right. Chances are, something in my profile continues to override the menu.

Final Update: The solution should have been fairly simple: assign a new shortcut to the ghost menu item, Paste Without Formatting so that it releases its link to Cmd-V. The problem was that Evernote was reading its shortcuts configuration somewhere else. I even did a full grep of my entire Mac for the phrase above, no result. What fixed the issue? I upgraded my OS to 10.8 and voila! Evernote started accepting new shortcut assignments. That allowed me to restore the original Paste shortcut.

Thanks to everyone who helped out on this problem.

I can replicate this if I set the Paste Without Formatting Menu item to have an hotkey using the system Preferences 'keyboard shortcuts'.

I set the shortcut in 'Application Shortcuts' and the chose Evernote.app rather than All Applications.

Removing the Setting will put things back to normal.

Update:

Since the OP. Confirms they once did set a global hotkey and since removed it. But the menu shortcut persist.

I re-did my global hotkey and  then deleted the reference from the com.apple.universalaccess.plist file.

This resulted in the global hotkey being removed from the System preferences global shortcuts. But in Evernote the global shortcuts still appeared.

This is what the OP. seem to have.

My simple fix for this was.

Re do the global shortcuts for "Paste Without Formatting" in the System preferences global hotkeys. Giving it a new shortcut.
Check to see if Evernote picked it up, which it did.

And then deleting it in the System preferences.

This removed it from Evernote.


iPhone 4 cannot be charged via power supply after iOS 7 update Using an iPhone 4 and a original power supply (a1357) + cable (usb) i am not able to charge the phone.

However connecting my phone to the pc (windows) it will be recognized and charge.

This behaviour occured after i updated to iOS 7.

I tried using another cable and another power supply (the 2nd is not original but certified for apple products).

I tried setting reduce movement to on because it was suggested in an apple forum.
This did not help.

This sounds like a problem with your power supply that just happened to coincide with iOS 7. "Reduce motion" setting will not make a difference. If it's under warranty, take it into the Apple Store and see if you can get it replaced. Otherwise, you may need to buy a new charger.

If you are good with electronics, you can cut open a USB cable, plug it into the charger, and see if the voltages between D+, D-, and Vbus match this pinout.


How do I fix a blurry arrow in an alias icon? I keep an alias on my desktop. It points to a Terminal shell script .command file. The alias arrow appears enlarged and fuzzy. It's pictured here next to a normal icon.

How do I correct the look of the arrow in this icon?

I have tried restarting Finder (also my computer) and recreating the alias.

Solved! I was able to solve this problem by going to "Show View Options" (Right Click on Desktop Space) and adjusting the icon size. You can set it back to the size you had it originally but somehow making an adjustment refreshes the screen and the arrows come back sharp and clear.

Before I discovered this I tried making icons different resolution sizes thinking the arrow was trying to "match" pixel resolution - but that apparently isn't the case. I would have used the "change icon file name" but somehow I wasn't able to get "system" approval even though I'm the admin.


Install Xcode in OS X Tiger 10.4.11 So I'm attempting to install Xcode on OS X Tiger on my iBook G4 (It was a gift.) I needed Xcode because I was trying to install MacPorts so that I could easily install software, namely git.

However, when I attempt to install it via what MacPorts says to do: http://guide.macports.org/#installing.xcode.other via the link for 10.4, it just sits there loading… nothing happens.

Does anyone know of a better way to install MacPorts than via Xcode, because I can't download it. …or if anyone knows how to install Xcode for OSX 10.4.11, that would be great!

I had more success with downloading it from developer.apple.com directly

Point Safari to http://developer.apple.com/
Click on Mac Dev Center (on the left, in the OS X Mavericks box
Sign in (or create a free account if you don't have one yet)
In the "Additional Downloads" section at the bottom, click on "View all downloads"
Deselect all categories besides "Developer Tools"
Jump to about page 10 (of 11), the package is from Nov 2, 2007
Click on "Xcode 2.5 Developer Tools"


How to have a non-obvious encrypted partition on an external hard-drive with MacOS Sierra? MacOS Sierra asks for password whenever I plug in partitioned external drive which I do not want to happen.
I have Macbook Pro 2016 running Sierra 10.12.6 with a Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB Portable External Hard Drive.
I partitioned the drive with 1.2 TB for backups (Time Capsule) and 800 GB for other stuff that I can share with my friends (Tachyon).
I ultimately want to achieve the following:
(1) Have Time Capsule for my backups which is encrypted;
(2) Not make it obvious that there is an encrypted partition on the drive (e.g. not have my computer ask me to type in the password everytime it's plugged in and I don't want to save the password in the keychain); and
(3) When I am ready to do a backup or to grab something from the encrypted partition, make it available either via commandline or disk utility.
________________________________________________________
Right now, it asks me to type in the password everytime it is plugged in and I say cancel I don't know how to get the encrypted drive back unless I eject it and plug it back in.

How To Do It - Summary

What you need to do is prevent the file system from mounting that specific volume. This is typically handled by fstab, and configured via the /etc/fstab file. However, macOS (and OS X) specify a different command to correctly handle the editing of the /etc/fstab file - that is, vifs. Be warned that unless you have a default editor configured via the  EDITOR environment variable, the file editor which will be used is vi. There is additional information about vifs below, under the "Information About the vifs Command" heading, including how to use an editor other than vi.

Step by Step Instructions

The first thing we need to do is to get the UUID of the volume(s) we want to affect. To get the UUID, the drive must be connected to the computer, and volume must already be mounted. In this case, you would need to plug in the USB drive and enable access to the volume by entering the password.

Once this is done, which can be verified by seeing the volume in Finder, we need to get to the terminal. In the terminal window, type the command diskutil info /Volumes/<Volume Name> | grep 'Volume UUID'. In your case, you would replace "" with "Time\ Capsule". Note the backslash () is needed to escape special characters, such as space in this case. This should return a single line with a value similar to "Volume UUID:              AA2313FE-7C4A-340F-8293-D74EA0ED34DE". The UUID, which is "AA2313FE-7C4A-340F-8293-D74EA0ED34DE" here, is what we need. Select it, and copy it to the clipboard (⌘/Cmd+C).

We now need to edit the /etc/fstab file. By default, the
For the scope of this answer, I will assume that you are comfortable with whichever editor you are using to perform the following steps.

Start the editor by typing sudo vifs in the terminal window. This will prompt for an administrator password to get administrative access to edit the file.

With the editor open, and the volume's UUID in the clipboard, we will append a line at the end of the file as follows: UUID=<Volume UUID from clipboard> /Volumes/Time\ Machine hfs rw,noauto. You can use the terminal command man fstab to get additional options or values to use in the entry, but here, the following options and values are specified as:

/Volumes/<Volume Name - from above> Specify the mount point into which the volume is to be mounted.
hfs The file system type (Mac volumes are typically hfs - Hierarchical File System)
rw,noauto

rw Mount as read/write when mounting
noauto Do NOT automatically mount the volume

After you've added and updated the line(s) as necessary, save the file and exit the editor. To test that this has "taken", you can perform either a logout/login, reboot, or disconnect (eject) the disk and reconnect it. The volume should no longer be mounting or prompting for the password.

At a later time, when you need to mount the volume, you can return to the trusty terminal, and use the command mount /Volumes/<Volume Name>, or open Disk Utility, select the volume, and click the Mount button in the toolbar.

tl;dr

Get the volume's UUID, in the terminal, using the diskutil info /Volumes/<Volume Name> command
Use the command sudo vifs to properly (for macOS/OS X) lock and edit the /etc/fstab file
Add an entry to the /etc/fstab file for the volume, by its UUID, adding noauto to the mount options
To use/mount the Volume, use Disk Utility and the Mount options for the volume, or use mount /Volumes/<Volume Name>

Information About the vifs Command

Here is what you need to know about the what and the why of the vifs command. What this command does is simply lock the /etc/fstab file for editing to the calling user, and opens the file in vi (explaining the vi in vifs), or the editor (command) specified system's defined EDITOR environment variable. While we could directly edit the /etc/fstab file, using the vifs command is the only method recommended/approved by Apple.

References

Previous answer to a somewhat similar question
Example on iDownloadBlog
Apple's vifs documentation


Time Machine not detecting changes in certain folders I recently noticed that TM does not update its backup from certain folders any more.

I have a deep sub folder inside ~/Documents, and when I create new folders or files in it, they do not appear in the TM backup. The backup contains, however, lots of files created until Oct 2, 2013. Which means that TM used to backup the contents of this folder.

Now, before you suggest that I have probably disabled backup for this folder - nope:

When I check with tmutil isexcluded for paths of files that didn't get backed up, it says [Included].
When I then added another disk as a second backup destination, that backup does contain the missing files. This proves that the source is accessible and can be backed up. So, any suggestions that the path may contain invalid chars or is too long doesn't apply, either.

Somehow the existing backup got stuck, preventing it from updating these particular folder contents.

The system log does not show any messages related to this.
A disk verification with Disk Utility does not show errors, either.

I could just erase the entire backup and start over, but I would rather not lose my previous versions.

Any ideas how to possibly "reset" or fix the backup so that it backs up the missing files again? I suspect that there's some kind of database that TM maintains to be able to quickly browse its backup folders, and maybe that's corrupt somehow, but I cannot find one.

Here's another idea: If the source disk was modified without OS X watching over it (thru fsevents), e.g. by booting from another system, the TM detects this and starts a complete comparison again, right? I wonder if I can trigger that, and that this will fix the issue.

In the past I've seen knowledgeable people indicate that TM backups can get broken once the backiup gets full and needs deletion of old versions (this is the case here), but no one was able to explain what exactly goes wrong and whether this can be fixed. If you know more details, please comment. I just might write a tool for that in the end :)

(I am an advanced Mac user and programmer; I am using 10.9.3)

What actually helped was to identify the folder inside which no file changes were detected, and then rename that folder and force a backup. Then all new content inside it got added to the old backup. After that, I renamed the folder back to its original name, added another file inside and did another backup - again, the new file got backed up.

So, somehow, that folder got stuck, and by renaming it, I could reset the backup for it.

Still, I will keep an eye out for other folders that may not get backed up, using the tmutil compare command regularly.

You just can't trust Time Machine.

That's why I also use CrashPlan as a secondary, and offline, backup.


Are there any VR headsets for iPhone that feature positional tracking? There are VR headsets available for iPhone, like Google Cardboard, but Cardboard headsets only feature rotational tracking, not positional tracking like the Oculus Rift and the HTC.

My question is, are there any VR headsets available for the iPhone which feature positional tracking?  And if so, do they feature outside-in tracking like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, or do they feature inside-out tracking like the products I list here?

So far the only VR headset I've found for the iPhone that does positional tracking is the Occipital Bridge.  It's $399 and it features inside-out positional tracking that doesn't require w computer.  It requires iPhone 6 or later running iOS 9 or later.  It ships in March but it's available for pre-order now.  I wasn't able to find any information on when exactly in Marxh it's shipping.

Other answers are welcome.


Select a menu item in AppleScript without using "System Events" in 10.9 Mavericks I was just answering another question and was reminded of a new "feature" in Mavericks.

I used to have a number of small Automator Services that took no input but did something useful when tied to a keystroke. The perfect example was one to bring the Terminal to the front. Some of these required selecting a menu item in the application brought to the front such as Bring All to Front.

Now it seems you need to grant "accessability" to every single app so that a universal keystroke will work if the Service uses the System Events AppleScript library.

Anyone know a fix for this?

I don't know how to click menu items without using System Events, but if others get here searching for how to click menu items with System Events:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Finder"
    click menu item "New Finder Window" of menu 1 of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1
end tell

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Finder"
    set frontmost to true
    click (menu item 1 where its name starts with "Compress") of menu 1 of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1
end tell

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Finder"
    set frontmost to true
    tell menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1
        click
        click menu item "Open With" of menu 1
    end tell
end tell

You can allow all currently installed applications to use the accessibility API by dragging them to the list in System Preferences:


Disable Lock Screen and Control Centre while using Apps - iPadOS When I accidentally scroll down from top middle while working with apps, I go to the Lock Screen. When I scroll down from top right while working with apps, I go to the Control Centre. I am on iPadOS 13.3

How do I disable Lock Screen and Control centre while using apps?

You can avoid accidentally triggering Control Center by disabling Access Within Apps (Located in Settings > Control Center).

And if you want to disable both Lock Screen (or Notification Center) and Control Center, there is not a direct option to do that. However, you can use the Guided Access Feature (Located in Settings > Accessibility > Guided Access), and triple-click the lock screen button in the app you want to focus on.

What this does is keeping you in a single app. You need to set a 6-digit password for the first use, or use Touch ID or Face ID. By doing so, you also lose the ability to go to the home screen or switch between apps. To end Guided Access, triple-click the lock screen button again, input the password, and tap "End".


AD users are unable to log into web server on Yosemite server Active Directory Domain accounts unable to access the web server hosted on the Yosemite server. Local users can authenticate. I cannot find a setting to enable the Web services. I feel there is a setting to enable the website to recognize the AD users or AD user groups or Local groups with AD users.

The Yosemite is joined to the AD domain and the domain users/groups are visible.

Sorry that this question goes unanswered so far…..
However just updated my Server app to 5.0.3 and vow the domain users can authenticate to the web server hosted on Yosemite 10.10.5.

I will try to check what has changed…but as now it works. Really needed this functionality.

thanks


Windows File Sharing for Local Network Directory accounts in macOS Mojave I'm struggling with how directory services and local Mac accounts interact. I'm hoping to not have to specifically assign the 'Windows File Sharing' option to each user individually or Network Directory group access.

Is it possible to share files to Windows clients who have a Local Network Directory (Open Directory) account in macOS Mojave?

Think of macOS like a unix server. It runs it's own directory service and unless / until you bind it to another directory (like LDAP or NIS or AD) - you get any local account / password only when a SMB share tries to authenticate. It typically allocates user id number 501 to the first user so when a lot of Macs share files, the file server will see all the initial Mac accounts as the "same 501 account"

If you're OK setting up one Mac server - then I would go with Server.app to set up your small number of accounts but this gets unwieldy after a dozen to a few hundred accounts and you'll want to set the Mac to join an external domain. Then you could have people sign in to the shares using that scheme to issue unique ID numbers and accounts to each person to keep things straight.

For the Mac running LDAP/OpenDirectory there are several posts here that apply:

Authenticate Mac users by LDAP

So - to address the two main points:

You don't need to do anything specific to allow SMB sharing permissions - if the account exists on the Mac due to being a local account or part of a directory it subscribes to - shares that allow all users will just work when a correct user/pass is presented from windows SMB clients (or any SMB client for that matter)
You can have multiple directories of accounts - the Mac will order them in most preferred to last checked - as long as one user is found in one directory - that user can potentially log in.

Start small with this - you can set up two or three users and test easily. Once you figure out if you want server app or just normal sharing (you might not need server.app) you can find the log files that log errors and quickly suss out when there's a problem in most cases.


Cannot delete iMessages Ever since updating to new operating system I cannot delete iMessages from my iPad. I had an Ipad 2 and bought a new iPad Air 2 today, but I still have the same problem.

To delete one or more iMessages from a conversation, tap & hold one message until the Copy | More float appears, then tap More.
You can than add or remove checkmarks from individual messages in that conversation & delete using the trash can, bottom left.

To delete an entire thread, from the overview drag the thread name to the left - a delete button will appear on the right.


Can't shut down MacBook When selecting the Apple on the top bar and then 'Shut Down' or 'Restart', Finder won't show the alert that asks you to confirm that you want to restart or shut down the computer (the one with the timer). Spotlight not working, and no dots under active apps...

I tried relaunching Finder but that didn't work.

Any ideas?

You can still reboot your Mac even if the Shut Down prompt never appears: holding down the power button for at least 30 seconds will cause your Mac to force shut down, then releasing the power button and pressing and holding again until the Apple logo appears will allow you to start it up again.

If your Mac doesn't have a power button key, you can force  a shut down by pressing and holding control + option + command + eject .

Source and more info here.

tl;dr: Hold the power button for a while!


Can I sort finder results by multiple criteria at the same time? The last files I interacted with are usually the ones I want to find quickly, but the column view in Finder only lets you sort by one criterion; (date added, date modified, date created etc.) at a time.

The problem here is a file that I recently modified won't be at the top of the "date added" list, and one I just downloaded won't even show up on the "date last opened". I'm still coping with the loss of recent files thanks to High Sierra update.

Is it possible to sort columns by two criteria at the same time? For example, sort downloads folder by date added OR modified?

A decent example of what I'm looking for would be similar to the dropbox mobile app, where it sorts by date added, but recently opened files go to the top of that list.

Yes for some categories. At the top of the finder window, towards the middle, is an icon that lets you choose how to sort window. If you choose date added it will sort on that and divide the window into groups based on date added. You can then go to the column headers and click on the size, for example. Finder maintains the groupings but sorts on the size within each group.


How can I update and then restore? I've just been sent a replacement iPhone. I don't have a computer at the moment so I've gone to restore it during the set up. It shows the latest iPhone backup as 08:42 which is the one that I want to restore to but it won't allow me to restore to it as it says iOS 8.3 Required.

How can I update it so that I can restore it? I could set it up as a new iPhone and then update it, but when I wipe it to get back to the restore screen I'll be in the same situation surely.

I have realised that wiping the iPhone does not downgrade it, so it was as simple as setting it up as a new iPhone, updating it, wiping it, and then restoring.

This can all be done without a computer (as per my question), unlike the other answers.


Disable Apple Pay/Wallet spam How do I disable this annoying spam??

I've never used Apple Pay, nor do I have any intention of doing so. But apparently, after upgrading to an iPhone 6, Apple's gonna spam me every 24 hours?

There was some other garbage spam I had to disable too, but can't figure this one out... Pretty annoying that Apples so aggressively peddling their services these days. You'd think a simple opt in/out during onboarding would suffice.

Anyone have any ideas how to disable this? Thanks

You can disable the notifications for Apple Wallet. Settings > Notifications > Wallet. Toggle Allow Notifications to off.


How to use Mac Mini as an APNS server for Push Notifications I have looked for it everywhere, I can't find any clue where to start or how to do it.

I have an Apple Mac Mini with OSX Server that I would like to use as an APNS server to send push notifications for my iPhone application. I'm currently using my Macbook for the sandbox gateway through terminal running a php script.

What I did/have:

Generated development/production certificates.
pem/p12 files.
PHP Script for sending.

If it can't be done on a Mac Mini Server. How would I pull it off from shared hosting or dedicated server? Thanks!

I formatted the Mac Mini and reinstalled OSX 10.10, as deleting all files for OSX Server simply just doesn't work.

I followed the following tutorial : Mac OSX Apache Setup with PHP

Note: To make your Mac Mini a web server, don't install OSX Server at all, it's mostly designed for company workspace to setup calenders, VPN, email servers etc.


Why am I unable to change the password on my Mac? I recently purchased my Macbook Air from school and they said that they have disconnected it from their server. But when I try to change the password for the admin account it shows me the following message:

  The server is not available. Change your password when the server becomes available.

How can I fix this?

I looked around into this issue and there must have been an error when the computer was disconnected from the AD (Active Directory) and the domain controller. One thing I read is that reconnecting it back to the AD/server and disconnecting it again will allow you to change your password. That method was discovered from here. Another thing could be an error with the school's domain controller. The systems administrator setting a preferred domain controller can fix this issue as pointed out here.


Alternative for `fail2ban` on my server running OS X 10.6.8 I have dedicated my old MacBook as a home server. It runs, among other stuff, the following services:

Webserver (Apache, PHP, MySQL) i.e. OwnCloud/WebDAV
Torrent client
SSH server
VPN
Some game servers

Although a MacBook is not the best hardware for the job, this works fine for private use and I have my backups running for the inevitable crash.

To keep unwanted people out, I have a 'normal' firewall and  fail2ban running.

Fail2ban scans log files (e.g. /var/log/apache/error_log) and bans IPs that show the malicious signs -- too many password failures, seeking for exploits, etc. Generally Fail2Ban is then used to update firewall rules to reject the IP addresses for a specified amount of time, although any arbitrary other action (e.g. sending an email) could also be configured. Out of the box Fail2Ban comes with filters for various services (apache, courier, ssh, etc).

Setting fail2ban up is done by modifying different configuration files. In these files you can state 'which' log file to scan, what to look for (regex), and, if a match is found, what action to take. But setting it up can be a real hassle and takes hours for a normal guy like myself.

Is there a good GUI or alternative for fail2ban? The main purpose is to block unwanted users from my system. I prefer open-sourced solutions, but I am also willing to pay for good software.

note: I have the 'regular' OS X 10.6.8 running (i.e. I do NOT have OS X Server running)

You can use fail2web, but, as this is only a frontend to fail2ban, is not easier to use than modifying fail2ban's text files.


Remote Desktop Connection from Windows to Mac I have a Mac Mini I use occasionally. I use RealVNC to connect to it remotely, from my Windows computer. VNC works well, but it lacks a few useful features. The two main features I'm missing is the ability to match the Mac's resolution to that of my PC screen, and the ability to transfer files between both computers.
Is there a simple way to install an RDP server on the Mac (it can be a paid solution)? Or perhaps there is another solution?
Thank you.

There is a built in VNC server on Mac OS:
System Preferences -> Sharing -> Screen Sharing
It won't transfer files from another platform than Mac.
On PC side I used TightVNC in the past.
TeamViewer could be one solution.


Alter cmd-tab behaviour on OSX to group Parallels applications? When running a Parallels virtual machine (i.e. Windows 7), cmd-tab behaves as the Parallels icon showing the list of virtual machines (which can be closed) and a separate icon for each open Windows application.

It would improve my productivity for Windows to appear as a single icon that just switches to whatever is open on my Windows VM. How do I do this?

I am running OSX 10.9 and Parallels 9.

You must deselect the "Share Windows applications with Mac" option in the Applications pane of your VM's configuration.


How do I use the Logitech Webcam 9000 on my Macbook Pro? I have OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion installed on my Macbook Pro. I want to use my Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 webcam with it, but Logitech does not include drivers for OS X.

I need an camera that is not on the laptop.

Is there third-party software I can use to make this work on my MacBook?

I use the Logitech Pro 9000 webcam (which shows up as a Miscellaneous Device in System Profiler, see below) under Mac OS X 10.8.2.

No drivers are required. Simply plug the camera in, then launch a video-enabled application (such as Skype.) You should be able to select the camera as a video device within the app without further ado:


Can we use two thunderbolt 1 ports as two inputs into a 4k monitor I'm wondering if an early 2013 macbook pro retina (so two thunderbolt 1 ports, each supposedly outputting up to 10gbps) can have both thunderbolt ports plugged into a Dell or LG 43 inch 4k monitor as two separate inputs to drive 4k @ 60hz.

Online, it says that these monitors support multiple inputs, so half of the screen can be driven by one computer and the other half by another.  Although thunderbolt 1 alone can't output 4k @ 60hz, I'm wondering if I can use one port to output 4k @ 60hz to the top half (or left half) of the monitor and use the other port for the other half, and thereby put two pieces together.

Has anyone tried this?  Is it even theoretically possible given the data transfer rates with thunderbolt 1 and the data necessary for 4k @ 60hz?

Thanks!

This is only possible on monitors that require two cables to run at full resolution. As far as I know this is only the Dell 5K monitor (http://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/cty/dell-27-ultrasharp-ultra-hd-5k-monitor-up2715k/spd/dell-up2715k-monitor).

Even if you were to connect a 4K monitor that supports multiple inputs to your MacBook, it would connect as two separate monitors with two separate spaces, so you'd see the menubar twice.


mount_smbfs: server rejected the connection: Authentication error on Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.6 On my ubuntu server i have a few shares that I can access from finder in the style:

smb://server.domain/share

successfully without having to type in a password.
When I try to mount the server shares from the command line with:

mount_smbfs '//share;user:@server.domain/share' /Volumes/share

I get

mount_smbfs: server rejected the connection: Authentication error

If i mount one of the shares from the finder all others can be mounted from the command line without this error to appear.

I searched the different stackexchange sites and found the following releated questions and links:

https://superuser.com/questions/1269386/why-cant-i-mount-shares-by-smb-since-high-sierra
Why mac smb connect fails with login from cli but works from finder and with guest account?
SMB connections throws authentication error after upgrading Mac OS X to 10.13
https://serverfault.com/questions/367950/secure-way-to-mount-a-password-protected-cifs-share-in-mac
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208209
Mac OS Sierra connected to SMB share keeps forgetting permissions at the folder level

Most of these have a few thousand views and quite a few upvotes. Most interestingly I found two comments where users express the frustration about this issue not being solved in a consistent way.

On the other hands there are lots of downvotes for answers and some of the questions - it seems as this problem is very well known and some enlighted users think it is very clear what to do.

Since this issue is annoying me daily I am daring to ask the question again with the specific context of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.6.

I fear that answers of the past do not work in this context any more.

The reasons I am asking the question in the first place is that the SMB connections get "lost" over night. This is a different behavior then on my other systems. The CIFS connection between my Ubuntu machines stay stable over time while Mac OS seems to have some disconnection policy.

So my issue could either be solve by making the connection stable or re-establishing the connection automatically with a script

How can a permanent or automatically-script reconnected SMB connection between a Mac OS High Sierra 10.3.6 client and an Ubuntu/Linux SMB server achieved?

According to its man page, mount_smbfs takes its share point argument in the form:

//[domain;][user[:password]@]server[/share]

Note the "user[:password]" part -- the colon and password are in the same brackets, indicating that they're optional but if included, they must be included together. Essentially, if you include the colon, whatever's after it (up to the "@") will be taken the password. But you have nothing after the colon, so you're explicitly specifying a blank password.

Also, the man page says you should never run mount_smbfs directly, but instead use mount -t smbfs.

You need to either include the password explicitly, like this:

mount -t smbfs '//share;user:password@server.domain/share' /Volumes/share

Or leave off both colon and password:

mount -t smbfs '//share;user@server.domain/share' /Volumes/share

...in which case it'll look for a password in ~/Library/Preferences/nsmb.conf, and if it isn't there it'll prompt for one. I had thought that it could look in the keychain, but apparently it doesn't know how to do that. This means that there is no non-interactive, secure way to supply a password to mount_smbfs.

Depending on the context this is running in, you might be able to use the open command instead:

open 'smb://share;user@server.domain/share'

I think this'll need to be running in a user session, and doesn't give you control of the mount point (it'll be auto-created in /Volumes).

Oh, one other thing: the "share;" part of the URL specifies an authentication domain to find the user in. Is that part actually correct? If it is, the open command should work interactively.


iPhone video app that lets you switch from front to back (in) camera mid recording? Does anyone know of any iPhone (6) camera apps that lets you flip from the front camera to back camera whilst recording a video please?

The standard camera does not, and I can't seem to find any apps that do! I don't mind paying for the app

There is an app called MoviePro. It has lots of video options. It allows you to switch between front and back cameras.

Find the app here : https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/moviepro-video-recorder-limitless/id547101144?mt=8


Apple Pencil 1st generation is not pairing/recognised by 7th generation iPad after installing iPadOS 13.7 update My 1st generation Apple Pencil (bought newly) is not showing in 7th generation iPad (bought newly) under Bluetooth devices. This is happening since after iPadOS was updated. The other devices gets easily recognised and shows pairing pop-up but this doesn't happens with Apple Pencil.
I tried all sorts of troubleshooting listed in article, suggested by Apple Support documents etc. but the issue is still unresolved. Before iPadOS updated it was working fine.
What could be going wrong and how do I resolve it?

The Apple Pencil won't show up in the list of Bluetooth devices unless it is paired with your iPad first. Physically connect your first generation Apple Pencil using Lightning.

Remove the cap and plug your Apple Pencil into the Lightning connector on your iPad. When you see the Pair button, tap it.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT205236
If that still doesn't work, make sure you've tried all these steps.

If your Apple Pencil won't pair with your iPad

Restart your iPad, then try to pair again.
Go to Settings > Bluetooth and make sure that Bluetooth is turned on.
On the same screen, look under My Devices for your Apple Pencil. If you see it, tap i. Then tap Forget this Device.
Connect your Apple Pencil into your iPad and tap the Pair button when it appears after a few seconds.
If you don't see the Pair button, wait for one minute while your Apple Pencil charges. Then try connecting your Apple Pencil again and wait until you see the Pair button.
If you still don’t see the Pair button, contact Apple Support.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT205236#pair-help


Are there any apps that convert files for iPhone 3G? So I have an iPhone 3G, and it can no longer be updated to the newer versions of software. So, I was just wondering if there were any apps that would be compatible with my phone to convert files and movies so I can watch/view them on my phone.

PLEASE HELP :)

iTunes can convert movies into an iPhone friendly format. If you have more specific needs, Handbrake is the video converter of choise on OSX.

For other files, applications like GoodReader or Air Sharing (link to iPhone version, there is also an universal version available) allow reading most "standard" document formats and also offer ways to upload files to your phone without using iTunes.


Leave superscript mode in Mac Grapher Mac Grapher has is a keyboard shortcut for entering superscripts: use the ^ key.  For instance, you can type x^2 to get the expression x2.

Once I've entered superscript mode, how do I leave superscript mode?  For instance, if I want to enter in the expression x2 + 3, what do I type?  If I type the characters x^2 + 3 on the keyboard, I get the expression x2 + 3, which is not what I wanted.

I couldn't find any description of this in the help pages for Grapher.

You can use down arrow ↓ or right arrow → (on navigation keys ⬌⬍) to leave superscript mode.


NTFS drive is not mounted after changing /etc/fstab I edited the fstab file in order to enable writing on ntfs drives and added all three of my external ntfs drives to it. Two of them work fine.

The third one which I added by label because it did not have a uuid, however, is not mounted after editing.
I am on El Capitan by the way.

Generally the mount command is not used under the OS X operating system. Apple has there own command called diskutil. This basically the command line version of the Disk Utility application. The command line version has more functionality than the UI version. If an external drive is recognized by OS X, it will show up under diskutil list as /dev/diskX were X is a positive integer. To mount a drive enter the following command.

diskutil mountDisk /dev/diskX

To unmount use the following.

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskX

Partition Y on disk X is denoted as /dev/disk/XsY as shown in diskutil list. To mount and unmount a partition use the following.

diskutil mount /dev/diskXsY
diskutil unmount /dev/diskXsY

The mount command can used to see if a partition is currently mounted. Just enter the command without any options.

Be default NTFS partitions are mounted as read only. I guess there is a way to mount without the protection of read only status, but from what I have read this is unsafe.

Companies such as Paragon offer software that allows OS X to write to NTFS volumes. I have never used such software.


How do you delete a column in TextEdit? Using TextEdit, I created a table in a RTF document.  Now I want to delete one of the columns in the table, and I see no option anywhere to delete a column.  How do I delete a column in a table in TextEdit?

RTF table support is quite limited in TextEdit.

If the column you want to get rid of is not the last column in the table (in which case grgarside's answer above is your best option) you can try the procedure below:

Let's say you want to delete column "c" below:

Hold down Option to mark the contents of the column (note that the cursor changes shape to a cross):

Now you can either:

Press Delete to delete its contents:

Position the cursor in every empty cell and press the fndelete key combination (you can also use the delete ⌦ key, but you will have to rearrange columns later):

until you have deleted all of them:

or:

Press Merge in Format > Table...:

Select the contents of the column and delete them by pressing Delete:

Place the cursor in the empty column and press the fndelete key combination (you can also use the delete ⌦ key, but you will have to rearrange columns later) to delete it.

I wish it were more straightforward, but unfortunately it isn't.


What does the "Flick only" setting of iPad's Japanese keyboard do? I've been using the Japanese keyboard layout for a while, but only recently I have noticed there are two options for the software keyboard layout, namely "Kana" and "Flick only". Can anybody tell me what the difference is, since they look and behave identical, as far as I can tell.

This is on a 1st generation iPad running iOS 5.1.1.

It's like this: With the "Kana" setting, you can reach the different kana of one group by either "flicking" in different directions, or by repeatedly tapping one kana. With the "flick only" setting, only the flicking works, not the tapping.


How to upload photos to iCloud Photo Library on iPhone without Wi-Fi? I just upgraded to OS X 10.10.3 and decided to try out the Photos app. So I enabled iCloud Photo Library on my iPhone to upload some photos.

However, it says that I need Wi-Fi to upload photos to iCloud. The problem is I don't have a Wi-Fi connection, I only use the cellular connection for all my Internet needs.

Is there a way to upload photos to iCloud via cellular?

Unfortunately, the answer is no:

  When you turn on iCloud Photo Library on your iOS device or Mac, your photos and videos will upload after you connect to the Internet with Wi-Fi and your battery is charged.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT204264#upload [emphasis mine]


Does Google access my iCloud email through Gmail app If I use the Gmail iPhone and iPad apps for my iCloud email, can Google access my iCloud email that is shown in the Gmail app?
Do they and can they?

If you enter your iCloud password into any app or code (including safari or Apple OS devices), it surely can act on your behalf. Whether that app saves the password securely or not or retransmits any or all of the data or has a switch or timer to enable this periodically is a lot harder to discern.


Change owner for all files owned by x I copyied files from my MacBook, mainly files from /usr.
The one and only user on my computer is called 'Julian' (like on my MacBook).
A lot of the copied files are now owned by '501' (id of "Julian" from the MB).

drwxrwxr-x@  28 501     admin   952  8 Jul 23:02 man/

Is there a way to change the owner of all files owned by '501' to 'Julian'?

Sure, with the near-magical find command. The simplest way is like this:

find . -user 501 -exec chown Julian {} +

The "find" command is explained in the manpage, and in a number of tutorials and howtos like this one, nut the short idea is "find everything that matches these criteria, and do this command with each one".

. means to look in (and beneath) the current working directory.
-user 501 means to only find files owned by user 501.

Note that this is BSD-specific; in some other POSIX systems, user takes a username, and a separate uid flag takes numeric user IDs.

-exec … {} + means to run whatever's in the "…" (in this case, "chown Julian") repeatedly, passing it as many of the found files as possible.

So, if there are 5000 files, it may end up calling chown 4 times (on the first 1203, then on the next 1888, and so on).
Note that this is a BSD extension (although GNU has a similar extension); there is a portable equivalent with ; instead of +, but this will call chown once for each file, which will generally take a lot longer. (The standard solution is to use -print0 and pipe the result to xargs -0. But, since you're doing this on a BSD system, you don't have to do that.)
Note that if you're typing this in the shell, some shells will require you to escape the braces, but bash (the default shell on modern Macs) does not.


Best practice to connect two monitors with my Macbook Pro currently i am asking which is the best practice to connect two HDMI monitors on my Macbook Pro. I have on HDMI slot and one Display Port. It is possible to chain the monitors via one display port or i have to connect one via hdmi and one via the mini display port?

Thanks in advance.

You need to find DisplayPort to HDMI adaptor and connect one monitor over it and another one over HDMI.

Besides I wonder how exactly you gonna chain two HDMI monitors?


How to hide computer name and user name in terminal command prompt How can I hide username and computer in terminal command prompt?

In Terminal it says

Last login: Mon Jan 13 00:00:14 on ttys000
Whatever:~ UserName$

Is it possible to show just the current folder and $ sign?

Change your prompt in your ~/.bashrc file. The example you asked for would be:
export PS1="\W \$"

It would result in the current folder you're in being shown plus a $ for the regular prompt and a # if you're root. Check out this guide for more examples of what you could show in your prompt.
Edit:
As per one of the comments below, you might need to source your ~/.bashrc from your ~/.bash_profile or even put this code in your ~/.bash_profile instead. You can read this article for a better explanation on which file to use.


Removing thousands of group folders from Contacts I have thousands of "Group" folders in my Apple Contacts, something went haywire in a sync years ago.  No way to get them out other than 1 by 1. Any suggestions?

I suppose that depends on how many you want to keep...

Let me esplain... It might be easiest to select the entries you want to keep. Hold Command and click, in turn, on each entry needed to be kept. then drag them to the desktop. You have now saved a backup.

Select everything in the address book and delete everything. Once that is done and it has synced across devices, drag the backed up contacts back into address book.

No it is not automated and depending on how many entries you want to keep it may still be a bit on the labor intensive side but it has the benefit of being simple...


DELL U2515H-display and Mac Mini (Late 2011) We're trying to get a DELL U2515H (2560 x 1440) running on a Mac Mini (late 2011). Currently it's connected with HDMI.

Unfortunately it seems like resolutions only up to 1920 x 1200 are supported using HDMI on the mac mini:
HDMI port with support for up to 1920-by-1200 resolution
https://support.apple.com/kb/sp632?locale=en_US

However, resolutions up to 2560x1600 are supported using Thunderbolt:
Thunderbolt port with support for up to 2560-by-1600 resolution
https://support.apple.com/kb/sp632?locale=en_US

So the question is:
which cable should we get to get to connect the Display -> Thunderbolt?

You should be able to use a Thunderbolt cable to attach the Mac Mini Thunderbolt port to the Dell Mini DisplayPort.


What size is my iPhone 4? I always thought my iPhone 4 was only 8GB in size, does this mean it is 16GB?

Yes, you do have a 16 GB iPhone. The other 2.2 GB are taken up by iOS, etc. See here for more information.

Your model, MC676LL, confirms this: it indicates that you have a Black 16 GB iPhone on Verizon. See this Bestbuy page for more info. The 8 GB phones have different model numbers.


How to access an external drive I plug in a flash drive to my USB port. How can I access it through bash?

($ cd  / takes me to the directory called Macintosh HD, but through Finder, I can go up one more directory called <myname>'s MacBook Pro. However,

$ cd /
$ cd ..

doesn't allow me to go to the directory <myname>'s MacBook Pro.) How can I get to the files on my flash-drive?

All volumes on internal or external hard disks/thumb drives/DVDs etc. are mounted to the directory /Volumes by default. The boot volume itself is linked as a soft link here.

Example:

user$ cd /Volumes/
...
dr-xr-xr-x   2 user      admin  -     12936 23 Nov 16:45 Audio-CD
drwxrwx---  14 user      admin  -       544 27 Okt 09:43 ExternalDrive
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root      admin  -         1 23 Nov 07:59 MacintoshHD -> /
drwx------   1 user      staff  -       296 21 Nov 07:56 NetworkShare
drwxrwx---  14 user      admin  -       544 14 Okt 16:22 ThumbDrive
...

To access your thumb drive you have to enter cd /Volumes/name_of_thumb_drive.


How can I use Terminal to copy all files of a certain type from a failing hard drive? I need to use terminal to copy my Pictures folder from a failing harddrive onto another drive, but I can't actually change into the folder and use just cp *.jpg ~/Documents. Is there a way to do this without having to navigate into the source directory?

Doesn't need to be copy obviously, just whatever that can get my files out of the drive.

Edit:
Found a way around my current problem, so I figured I'd add it. (The answers below did work on other folders, just not on the one I was having problems with. I guess nothing can handle the nightmare that is iPhoto.)

I couldn't see the subfolders of my /Pictures/ directory (and couldn't change the permissions on the folder since the disk is broken).
But, using terminal, and

sudo find /Volumes/Olddisk/Users/me/Pictures/ -type d

I got it to print the subfolders (and could probably use the trick in the answers on the individual folders, I guess) so within the mess of iPhoto I found my pictures at

/Volumes/Olddisk/Users/me/Pictures//iPhoto Library/Masters/2010

and just resorted to grabbing each year with

sudo cp -rpv "/Volumes/Olddisk/Users/me/Pictures//iPhoto Library/Masters/2006" ./

I use rsync to do this sort of copy

for example

rsync -aE source_dir/*.jpg target_dir

The option E copies the ACLs and a does the unix permissions and times ad recurses down the directoty tree

rsync can also be setup to copy to remote machines without mounting drives.

There are some GUI front ends for rsync e.g. aRsync.

Note Applke supplies an old version newr versions can be got from packae managers and see the current rsync man page Note the command line -aE seems to be -AX now.


How do I get my iPhone 8 to fast charge? I have an iPhone 8 and so far it’s been great, except for one thing. I was sure that the iPhone 8 supported fast charging, like up to 80% or something. but I barely notice much difference in terms of how quick it gets a charge compared to my iPhone 6s. I’ve checked Settings/Battery and tried Low Power Mode when on charge but that made no difference either. I looked elsewhere in Settings but didn’t see anything I can change to make it fast charge. So now I question myself and wonder:

Was I wrong about the whole fast charging thing?
Is it only the iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X, or maybe just the iPhone X that supports fast charging?
Or is there just something I have to do to get it to fast charge?

Your assistance would be great!

Yes, all of this year's newly released iPhones (8, 8 Plus and X) support fast charging. And no, there’s no setting you need to enable for it to work.

And, just to clarify, by fast charging you can recharge your iPhone up to 50% (not 80%) within the first 30 minutes.

However, for fast charging to work you need to use a charger that provides enough power for it to fast charge, and the chargers bundled with your iPhone only deliver 5 watts of power at up to 1 amp. By way of example, an iPad charger delivers 12 watts of power at up to 2.1 amps. Note: I am not saying that an iPad charger will fast charge your iPhone 8, although it would certainly charge it quicker than the standard iPhone charger.

Instead, I refer to what Apple says you need for fast charging your iPhone:

  Fast charging gives you a quick and convenient way to recharge your
  iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus. Your iPhone fast charges up to 50 percent
  in 30 minutes when you use an Apple USB-C to Lightning cable and one
  of these adapters:

  Apple 29W, 61W, or 87W USB-C Power Adapter
  A comparable third-party USB-C power adapter that supports USB Power Delivery (USB-PD)

For more info refer to: Fast charge your iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus.


Obtaining windows menu from the dock with a quick click In OS X (and in Mountain Lion, in particular) when you minimize a window and you want to retrieve it, you can press on an icon in the dock and wait 1 second to get the menu with the opened windows. Is it possible to change this setting so that this menu opens on a mouse click immediately (preferably, the menu would appear when there is more than one window and, as it is currently, the click maximizes the minimized window if there is only one window instance of that program)?

If you mean this menu

you can show it immediately by just secondary-clicking (which usually means right-clicking) the Dock icon.


Mac Apps Store wont download any apps on computer I have successfully downloaded apps on a laptop, but when trying to download on a desktop mac, whenever i click install, it says 'put password for billing info', as it would normally. I do so, click enter, and nothing happens.  No error message, nothing.

Try signing out of your iTunes account then signing back in.


Is this external DVD drive Mac compatible? I am thinking of purchasing a Mac Mini but the lack of optical drive, makes me hesitant. I have an external super-multi DVD rewriter by Liteon (Model GP08LU10). Will this portable drive be compatible with a new Mac Mini?

The best way to know for sure is to check for yourself. If you have access to an Apple store, you can just bring it in and try it on any of their Macs there. (All Macs have the same standardized OS with the same drivers available)

That being said, the answer is most likely yes. Generic USB devices like this are typically fairly standard, and usually have great plug and play support on Macs.


What does the blue point before app name in lauchpad mean? As the arrows point, the little blue points before Evernote and MS OneNote.

The recommendation system of stackexchange really helps, I got this when I asked the question.

It turns out the little blue point shows I haven't opened the app since the app's last update.


MRT Process using large unbounded amount of memory Today my machine ran out of memory. I went to Activity Monitor and it showed a process called MRT using lots of memory. I restarted my machine hoping it would help, but even after a restart I see the memory on MRT climbing by about 0.01 GB every few seconds.

I'm on macOS Sierra 10.12.6 on MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), 16 GB RAM.

Seems like there are reports of MRT using high CPU and how to remove it here. But I'd rather not remove it because it scans for malware.

UPDATE: I even tried the steps documented in the link above under "Manually remove MRT" but it didn't seems to work, the MRT process is still running and growing in memory usage.

Three systems that work together to protect your Mac from malware are:

gatekeeper
XProtect
MRT (probably stands for malware removal tool)

So, these are Apple processes and if they are busy, the likely cause is you are infected or compromised. It could be a false positive, but you might consider enabling gatekeeper and sip if you disabled them and see if you can clean your system. If not, you might need a clean install that’s patched and then carefully get data back but not any programs or malware.

As a developer, I would use the gear icon in the window you show and while MRT is selected, run System Diagnostics... and file a bug report / radar / escalate a support case to Apple Engineering so they can investigate if MRT has a memory leak - that's also very likely scenario if you are sure you're not needing malware removal every moment your Mac is running.

Assuming you just want to see if you need cleaning (or for others that aren't developers and have similar issues), continue below

A great place to start if you don’t typically remove malware is MBAM - https://www.malwarebytes.com/mac/

As always, be a little skeptical / aware of free tools since scam / snake oil software “protection or cleanup” tools are in fact compromising and malicious and untruthful about what they do. If you download something from free aggregators, you could even be tricked by something that isn’t the name it says on the file or description.

I would not disable MRT if you have it running hot unless you’re sure you’re not compromised.


Can I repair my system disk (10.6) by booting off a 10.5 install CD? I'm running Snow Leopard (10.6) and OnyX told me I need to boot from my install CD and use Disk Utility to repair my drive. (It wasn't any more specific as to what the actual problem was.) I can't find my Snow Leopard disc anywhere, but I've got a 10.5.8 disc here. Will it work too?

(Just to be clear, I'm talking about a filesystem repair, not a permission repair. Repairing permissions with a Disk Utility from an older version of the OS won't work.)

Can you boot into Snow Leopard at all?  If you can, try this command from terminal:

sudo diskutil repairPermissions /

Broken down this does the following:

sudo - run this command as superuser/admin
diskutil - run the diskutil program
repairPermissions - obviously this means to repair the permissions
/ - act on the whole file system

If you can't get into Snow Leopard, you might be able to get into single-user mode by holding ⌘+S on boot

You can run Disk Utility from within Snow Leopard but whether it can repair it will depend on what's wrong.

You can do a Repair Permissions on any disk, or a Repair Disk on any disk which is not your startup disk. If you need to do a Repair Disk, you will need to do that from your CD and I think the 10.5 disk would be OK to use for a Repair Disk when booted from, it may not do a Repair Permissions though.

It's worth trying the Repair Permissions first from Snow Leopard. That solves a lot of issues


iPhone 8: Home button doesn't move inward when pressed, but iPhone makes a click sound I recently upgraded from an iPhone 5s to iPhone 8.

Whenever I use my iPhone 8, the Home button doesn't move inward when pressed. It sure works, I try a bit hard to press, but it doesn't move inward like it used to on iPhone 5s. Instead I feel a different kind of buzz/vibration in my iPhone.

Is there anything wrong with my iPhone 8? There is no visible physical damage on the device, the iPhone is working absolutely fine, but I am concerned that something may be wrong with my iPhone 8 and the button isn't pressing fully, possibly due to some manufacturing defect.

I bought the iPhone around a month and a half ago and have original warranty, so I can ask Apple to replace the unit.

What should I do?

You need not worry. Since your iPhone is functioning fine, most likely there’s nothing wrong with your iPhone 8.

With the iPhone 7/7 Plus announced in September 2016, Apple introduced a new style of Home button which no longer physically clicks. Similar Home button is built into iPhone 8/8 Plus.

The click that you experience is a form of tactile feedback to let you know that the button press is successfully registered by the iPhone. You need not press it too hard under the assumption that it is damaged and requires a harder press.

You can read more about the new Home button in the Apple support article, How to use the Home button on iPhone 7 and iPhone 8.

  The Home button on your iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, or iPhone 8 Plus is unlike the Home button on other iOS devices. Instead of moving inward when you press it, the Home button detects the presence and pressure of your finger. When you press the Home button, you feel a slight click.

What you are experiencing is called Haptic Feedback produced by the built-in Taptic Engine. You can read more about the new Home button in iPhone 7/7 Plus/8/8 Plus in the linked articles:

The iPhone 7's new home button isn't a real button

  As well as killing off the headphone jack, Apple has dropped the mechanical home button from the new iPhone 7, replacing it with a static version that's force sensitive. Instead of a button that physically moves, the new home button will use Apple's "taptic engine" to click back at users. Vibrations delivered through the home button will be used as notifications, with unique buzzes for things like text messages and calls.

  The new home button, which uses a "taptic engine" to give you physical feedback when you press it — it's pressure sensitive, too, so it can tell if you really mean to press it or just tap it.

Daring Fireball: The iPhones 7

  The home button on both iPhones 7 no longer physically clicks. Instead, it’s a force touch sensor, and it uses the improved Taptic Engine to provide simulated click feedback.

Note: The linked articles are mostly talking about iPhone 7 as it was with this iPhone that the new Home button was introduced for the first time. As far as the Home button is concerned, the contents are equally applicable to iPhone 8.

Additionally, this style of Home button is exclusive to iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. It hasn't appeared in any of the iPod touch and iPad models so far. The last released models of iPhone have completely phased out the Home button and have instead started incorporating Face ID for authentication.


Transfer Video to iOS iMovie I have an iPad 2 running 5.0.1 and I want to transfer a video file from my iMac to edit on the iPad with iMovie. The movie was filmed on my friends iPhone 4S and I imported it to my iMac, then used iTunes file sharing to put it on my iPad. When I go to iMovie on my iPad and create a new project, there are no video files there for me to use, but the iPad says iMovie has 600MB worth of documents and data in the usage screen(I don't have any other clips in iMovie). Why can't I edit the video, and how should I transfer video in the future?

Bare in mind only footage shot with an iDevice can be edited on iMovie for iPad. That being the case, it's just a matter of finding the correct format.

Wired has dedicated a whole article to this specific matter.
Basically it comes down to convert the video to a specific MP4 with the H.264 codec. You can do this by following these easy steps.

Convert your movie to .mp4 on your Mac (if it isn't already in this format)
Convert your movie to an iMovie movie with the 264 codec
Use iTunes to transfer you movies to your iPad

Normally your files should appear in the iMovie project dashboard.


iPhone 6 restored from encrypted iPhone 5S backup doesn't retain passwords I have a new iPhone 6. It is replacing an iPhone 5S. I plug this into my iMac every day via an original Apple Lightning cable, and iTunes automatically creates encrypted backups.

I have successfully restored half-a-dozen iPhones in the past from encrypted backups. However, this time the iPhone 6 is requiring all my app and email passwords to be manually re-entered.

Why were my passwords not retained when I restored from the encrypted backup?

Any ideas how I can force a successful restore including passwords?

Possible quirks which may have contributed to this problem:

I had upgraded the 5S to iOS 8.1 before I first tried restoring. The 6 was shipped with an earlier version, so I needed to update to 8.1 before I could attempt to restore my backup to it.
When I tried to restore from a backup the transfer process would hang when transferring apps. I was eventually able to avoid that problem by disabling sync over Wi-Fi first.

(For reasons that leave me completely bamboozled, when I have tried to manually enter email account passwords by copying the passwords stored in my iMac's Keychain, some of them are being rejected. I presume this is simply operator error, but can't work out whether it's a failure to transpose correctly, or a failure to identify the correct password in the first place.)

I just have had the same issue when I try to restore 5S backup into 6. After a few attempts, it eventually worked fine. Here's what I did for the successful try:

Take old iPhone backup with encryption on
Reset all content / all settings on new iPhone without connection to PC / Mac
Go through startup config on new iPhone until you see "Set Up iPhone" screen, which let you select the options to restore from iCloud / iTunes backup
Select "Restore from iTunes backup"
Connect to PC/Mac and select backup you want to restore
Done!

It wasn't successful when I tried to restore without reset, or without going through startup config. Hope this helps


How can I programmatically rotate all the pages in a PDF using native macOS tools? Given a file path, I need to rotate all the pages in a PDF at that file path using nothing that isn't included with macOS. The wrapper for this will be AppleScript, so I also have access to the command line and therefore all of the scripting languages installed by default with macOS, but nothing that would require brew or, for example, Python's pip.

To my knowledge macOS does not have any one native command line Unix executable that can rotate all pages in a PDF (while keeping text based ones text based). sip can rotate a single page PDF however the resulting PDF is an encapsulated image, not text if it was text base to begin with. Also, not sure if there is a way with just plain AppleScript, other then via UI Scripting the default Preview application, without going to AppleScriptObjC (Cocoa-AppleScript) and or Python, etc.

Using third-party command line utilities is probably the easiest, but you said it has to be done only using what's a default part of macOS. So, I'll offer an AppleScript solution that uses UI Scripting the default Preview application, that can be used in the event there isn't another way with AppleScriptObjC or without third-party utilities, etc.

This solution, as offered (and coded), assumes that Preview is the default application for PDF documents and uses it to rotate all the pages in the PDF document. It is also setup as an Automator workflow. (Although there are other ways to incorporate the AppleScript code shown below.)

First, in Finder, make a copy of the target PDF documents and work with those.

In Automator, create a new workflow document, adding the following actions:

Get Specified Finder Items

Add the copied target PDF document to this action.

Run AppleScript Script

Replace the default code with the code below:

AppleScript code:

on run {input}
    set thisLong to 0.25 -- # The value of 'thisLong' is decimal seconds delay between keystrokes, adjust as necessary.
    set theRotation to "r" -- # Valid values are 'l' or 'r' for Rotate Left or Rotate Right.
    set theViewMenuCheckedList to {}
    set theMenuItemChecked to missing value
    repeat with thisItem in input
        tell application "Finder" to open file thisItem -- # By default, in this use case, the PDF file will open in Preview.
        delay 1 --  # Adjust as necessary. This is the only 'delay' not defined by the value of 'thisLong'.
        tell application "System Events"
            perform action "AXRaise" of window 1 of application process "Preview" -- # Just to make sure 'window 1' is front-most.
            delay thisLong
            --  # Ascertain which of the first six 'View' menu items is checked.
            set theViewMenuCheckedList to (value of attribute "AXMenuItemMarkChar" of menu items 1 thru 6 of menu 1 of menu bar item 5 of menu bar 1 of application process "Preview")
            repeat with i from 1 to 6
                if item i in theViewMenuCheckedList is not missing value then
                    set theMenuItemChecked to i as integer
                    exit repeat
                end if
            end repeat
            --  # Process keystrokes based on which 'View' menu item is checked.
            --  # This is being done so the subsequent keystroke ⌘A 'Select All'
            --  # occurs on the 'Thumbnails', not the body of the document.
            if theMenuItemChecked is not 2 then
                repeat with thisKey in {"2", "1", "2"}
                    keystroke thisKey using {option down, command down}
                    delay thisLong
                end repeat
            else
                repeat with thisKey in {"1", "2"}
                    keystroke thisKey using {option down, command down}
                    delay thisLong
                end repeat
            end if
            repeat with thisKey in {"a", theRotation as text, "s"} -- # {Select All, Rotate Direction, Save}
                keystroke thisKey using {command down}
                delay thisLong
            end repeat
            keystroke theMenuItemChecked as text using {option down, command down} -- # Resets the 'View' menu to the original view.
            delay thisLong
            keystroke "w" using {command down} -- # Close Window.
        end tell
    end repeat
end run

Notes:

As this script uses UI Scripting, when run from Automator (or Script Editor), the running app must be added to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Accessibility in order to run properly. Saved as an application, the saved application would need to be added.
Also with UI Scripting, the value of the delay commands may need to be changed for use on your system (and or additional delay commands added as appropriate, although in the case additional delay commands should not be needed). It should go without saying however test this on a set of a few document first to make sure the value set for thisLong works on your system. On my system this worked as coded.
When using UI Scripting in this manner, once the task has started, one must leave the system alone and let it finish processing the files. Trying to multi-task will only set focus away from the task at hand and cause it to fail.
If you need to rotate more then one time, add additional theRotation as text, to:

  repeat with thisKey in {"a", theRotation as text, "s"} -- # {Select All, Rotate Direction, Save}

Example:

  repeat with thisKey in {"a", theRotation as text, theRotation as text, "s"}


Replacing DVD with SSD - What is the best way to test SSD reliability? There have been some reports of specific SSD versions/speeds not working appropriately in specific MacBooks.  Depending for example on SATA chipset etc.  (e.g. saga-3 drives in old early 2011 MBP?).

If the SSD does appear on the desktop and seems to be functioning correctly based on copying a few files back and forth - is there a good way of fully evaluating its reliability?
(I'm not talking about speed - I'm talking about risk of corruption due to hardware incompatibility)

I installed a Samsung 840 Pro 120GB in my Early 2011 MBP.

I have had no issues with it so far.

DriveDx is a good tool which gives health statistics on an SSD and I would also make sure you are running Trim Enabler which will prolong the SSDs life.

As said in other answer stick to big name brands and generally stay away from OCZ or Kingston as they have been reported to fail more often.


Remove Mac maximize window left margin When maximizing a Mac window with the green button, it will not maximize to full size, but have a little left margin from the left side.

I guess there is no setting to change that, but that margin has to have a specific size defined. Is there any kind of terminal command I can run to decrease the left margin to 0?

I know there are apps which can position windows to any prefered position and size, but I is there a way to do it without one?

The strange thing is, that it does maximize to full size without a margin on the right screen when you've got a second display connected.

The 4 pixel margin is shown on the side of the screen the Dock is on.

I don't know any way to remove it other than to disable Dock:

launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Dock.plist

However that also disables Mission Control and the application switcher, and it makes full screen windows stop working.


Server balks at reading the web settings I have a lightly used server that no longer will show me the settings for Web services in the server app.

I see the progress spinner when selecting "web" from the list of services - but after a little while, servermrgd logs an error message and I see "Error Reading Settings" displayed where the Server app normally shows the web settings and controls in the main pane.

Here is what's logged to /var/log/system.log when select web...

Apr 25 12:00:32 www servermgrd[15799]: xswebconfig failed: Exception:
    undefined method `downcase' for nil:NilClass
Apr 25 12:00:32 www servermgrd[15799]: servermgr_web:  Error Domain=XSServerFoundationErrorDomain Code=4 "Failed to read settings: Exception:
    undefined method `downcase' for nil:NilClass
    ." UserInfo=0x7fc7c1def3d0 {NSLocalizedDescription=Failed to read settings: Exception:
    undefined method `downcase' for nil:NilClass
    .}

Where do I look next for a clue as to what is wrong or what might need to be fixed so I can resume using Server to manage the web sharing service?

10.7.3 build 11D50b - The server is a pretty simple setup - hosting one domain / one site - isolated server (all in one). The service is running (it serves up web pages), but I'd like to get control back of the settings or at least know what has broken to prevent the Server app from reading the settings.

I finally have had the chance to blow away this pesky server and no amount of digging yielded a clue how to avoid a reset of www - so that's what I did. I had since updated it to 10.7.5 Build 11G63 and the errors persisted on managing the web service.

I shut down all services except for File Sharing, DNS and Open Directory and did the following steps to force down apache and force a reset. Even trying to stop the web service using sudo serveradmin stop web kept failing with the errors above about xswebconfig and undefined methods of nil classes.

sudo apachectl stop
sudo serveradmin command web:command=restoreFactorySettings
sudo serveradmin start web

At this point refreshing the Server app corrected the errors reading the settings. Thanks to this hint on cleaning up apache to get me most of the way to my solution.


how to keep two iMac's in different locations completely synchronized I alternatively live in two different places, a few month in Europe and then a few months in Asia.
In both places I have an iMac with OSX version 10.8.5

I started by copying the complete content of one of the iMacs to the other one; so at that moment they were identical.
Now I will be in Europe for some time and work on my machine there.

Once I move back to Asia, what can I do to make my iMac there identical to the one I just left in Europe and vice-versa ?

You could probably configure something with DropBox.

Create symbolic links for preference files for your programs, and save all of your documents to the DropBox folder for syncing.

The downside to this is that if you have more than 2GB of data, it will cost money.


Why Apple partitions the SSD drive this way, and which partition should I removed? I am planning to reformat both of my drives in my 27 Inch iMac (mid 2011), and I have a question about the way the SSD is partitioned by Apple.

Why are there are three tiers in my SSD?

I don't want to accidentally erase any recovery partition and don’t see an explanation of these in the Apple Support website.

If I am to reformat the SSD drive, should I erase at the 'Mercury Electra' level?

The WDC WD100... and the Mercury Electra are devices. They represent the physical drives that are attached to your Mac.

Devices contain one or more volumes. Macintosh HD is a volume on the WDC device. There will be other volumes on that device that aren't displayed.

The Mercury device uses Apple's new APFS format. This uses a structure called a Container to 'contain' the volumes. That's why there are 3 objects.

If you just want to wipe your existing volume of data, then erase Macintosh SSD and Macintosh HD. That will maintain any other existing volumes, such as Recovery partitions.


Why is this command not found? I have a simple shell script:

#!/bin/bash
echo test

I can execute script successfully as:

./test.sh

and

source ./test.sh

However, the following throws an error:

. ./test.sh

error:

.: Command not found.

What could be causing the error? This works on el capitan but not on sierra.

I'm running macOS 10.12.3 with the default terminal.

Thanks!

EDIT: I've rewritten the question in order to simplify it with a small test script rather than my actual production script - this shows that the issue is the execution environment rather than the script.

It turns out that my default shell was set to CSH which does not support:

. ./

I have switched the default shell to bash and this now works. I think the default shell as changed when my company imaged the MacBook or this is now the default with a fresh install of Sierra.

I will accept this as the answer after the 2 days stackexchange waiting period.


Microsoft Excel not working on macOS Catalina I have Microsoft Excel 2011 installed on my MacBook Air. It worked on Mojave’s but no longer works on Catalina.

When attempting to open an Excel file on my desktop it usually opens but now archives it instead.

Why is this?

The issue is macOS Catalina no longer supports 32-bit apps, and Microsoft Office 2011 is 32-bit. Support for it was stopped a few years ago and it won’t be updated.

You will either have to buy a newer version of office or use an alternative software like G Suite by Google.


How can I make calculations based on smart category summaries in Numbers? The latest version of Numbers has a great feature called Smart Categories that are kind of like Excel's pivot tables. I'm using it to group a table by a label and then sum up spending and revenue numbers.

The next thing I'd like to do is calculate the ratio between these two, i.e. a new column that has the value revenue / spending. How do I do this? If I create a new column, the only options are to use built-in summary functions (see below) - I can't enter my own formula.

Example of smart categories:

Options for "Ratio" column:

While it's not (currently) possible to place custom values in the column you desire, it is possible to refer to the operands elsewhere, such as by using a secondary table to refer to the cells in question. To make a formula point to a certain category’s subtotal, hold ⌥ option and click on the desired cell.

Unfortunately, this method does require the categories to be entered manually, so it may not be suitable for all situations.

Here is a demonstration using your example table, with a secondary table holding ratio values for each of the categories:


How does one downgrade TextMate Bundles? Today I lost many hours of work trying to recover from a recent update to various TextMate Bundles that broke my TextMate installation (I had TextMate set to automatically update bundles, am using the current nightly build TextMate 2.0-alpha.9547 and recent changes asked /usr/bin/env for ruby18, which it didn't know).

So the question arises: Is there an "easy" way to downgrade TextMate Bundles to previous revisions?

I'm also running Textmate 2.0 alpha.9547 so am quite interested in hearing which of the bundle updates caused the problem!

But to your problem, one simple way would be to restore the offending bundle from your backups.

On my system I find the bundles in:

/Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Managed/Bundles

The harder method would be to locate the download site for the bundle and grab an older copy.  The textmate bundle repository is at: https://github.com/textmate/

To find a particular bundle, just append the bundle name, including the file extension to this path.  For example, the TODO bundle source is at https://github.com/textmate/TODO.tmbundle

From there you would need to clone the git repository and then use git commands to checkout the older version of the source.

I do see that there appears to be a global change to add a "ruby1.8 shim" 6 days ago and bundles have been modified as you noted. I did some quick checking and I appear to be running with the same modifications and as far as I can tell so far, the bundles are working OK.

(would have done this as a comment to the question but I don't have quite enough reputation yet.  ;)


Is there a way to mirror to HDMI display on FileVault login screen? I have a MacBook Pro Retina & Mavericks, with FileVault 2 enabled. I also mirror to an HDMI display, but it doesn't show anything on FileVault 2 login. This is an issue, because I'd like to get a docking station where MacBook is actually closed (clamshell mode). But then I can't see the login screen. Is there a solution? As far I've seen at this point, I need to boot up and login with the laptop open; and then close it and put it in the dock.

Is the laptop plugged in? If not, it has to be plugged in in order to output to a display while closed


How do you delete a page in Notability for iPhone? How do you delete a page within a note in (specifically) Notability for iPhone? This information seems to be missing in the app's Help documentation.

UPDATE:

I asked Ginger labs and they said:

  Yes, you are correct. You can only delete pages on iPad and Mac. We see how adding this to iPhone would be helpful. We'll add this to the list of possibilities for the future. Thanks for your feedback!

On the iPad, if you click on the top right icon (the one that looks like pages, not the paintbrush one), you'll see a bunch of thumbnails. (My screenshot is from the Mac app, but the layout is similar.) This is the "page navigator icon".

Now you should see red "x" circles on different pages. Tap those and you can delete a particular page.

Ginger Labs Support: Can I Insert, Delete, or Clear a Page?


Why is Keychain behaving erratically? I got my Mac back from a repair shop that recovered my files from a corrupted partition and then reinstalled Snow Leopard.

When I booted it up Keychain complained about my password. I know my old password but it said it was incorrect. I canceled and that logged me in. I went into Keychain Access and tried Preferences > Reset My Default Keychain. It asks for a new password, which I gave, but it responded that it was “incorrect” as well.

I am somehow able to unlock the login keychain with my original password. I clicked delete, but the message that popped up scared me, talking about deleting references and files or just references. I tried just references. It didn’t seem to do anything.

I right clicked and went to Change Password. It changes it, it accepted it, but it didn't work for future login attempts.

I try to change my account password. It won’t accept my original password as old password or the “new” one I tried to set before.

I ran Keychain First Aid. Here’s the red text:

User differs on ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain, should be 501, owner is 502
Permissions incorrect on ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain, should be -rw-r--r-- , they are -rwxr-xr-x
Owner not corrected on ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain, reason: The operation couldn’t be completed. Permission denied
Permissions not corrected on ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain, reason: The operation couldn’t be completed. Operation not permitted

I went to Terminal to do some black magic. sudo didn’t like my passwords. Then Keychain pops up every few minutes to nag me.

Can anyone explain this?

Edit: Booted into single-user mode and tried to fix the permissions, and it doesn't nag me anymore, but now my desktop has gone back to the factory default and it says the login Keychain is missing/permission denied, so I still can't do any administrative tasks.

Edit 2: I can no longer troubleshoot this as I gave up and reinstalled OS X. Much more straightforward than messing around with permissions that were clearly botched beyond repair. Anyway, this should be closed.

Sounds like this was due to them creating a new user (502) and naming it the same as the old user, and copying all your old files in.  The problem is that the new user account ID doesn't match the old user ID.  What needed to be done was a chown -R 502 on your whole user directory.  Too bad you started afresh.  Sidenote: Trying to restore in this fashion almost never works well.  Wipe the disk, re-install a good OS, and then restore from a TM or other backup if available.  I've never had a problem using that method, but I've definitely had problems using the method you describe.  Better luck next time.


802.1X Management on the command line I have a set of laptops I'm using as a testbed and need a way to remotely configure their networking settings when I install new ones.

I'm hoping to avoid a solution that scripts the GUI via AppleScript to simulate mouse/keyboard actions.

Is it possible to change 802.1X settings in OS X from the command line?

With EAP-TLS, manipulating certificates, identity preferences and a single password entry all in keychain access can be done from the command line.

Something like:

security import ${PK12} -A -x -k login.keychain -P ${PW}

security set-identity-preference -c ${CN} -Z ${FINGERPRINT} -s com.apple.network.eap.user.identity.default

security set-identity-preference -c ${CN} -Z ${FINGERPRINT} -s com.apple.network.eap.user.identity.wlan.ssid.${SSID}

security add-generic-password -a ${USER} -D "802.1X Password" -l Default -s com.apple.network.eap.user.item.default -T /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/EAPOLController.bundle/Contents/Resources/eapolclient

security add-generic-password -a ${USER} -D "802.1X Password" -l ${SSID} -s com.apple.network.eap.user.item.wlan.ssid.${SSID} -T /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/EAPOLController.bundle/Contents/Resources/eapolclient

com.apple.network.eap.user.item.default and com.apple.network.eap.user.identity.default are for wired 802.1X.

com.apple.network.eap.user.item.wlan.ssid.${SSID} and com.apple.network.eap.user.identity.wlan.ssid.${SSID} are for 802.1X on wireless SSID ${SSID}.


My battery is not charged. The only way to operate is to plug the computer in My battery says 0% charge, there is no x over my battery icon. The MacBook runs fine on corded power but dies as soon as I unplug.  What could be the problem?

Is your MacBook a plastic one made before 2008? Did you buy a new charger for it at some point after 2008? If so, the issue could be an outdated System Management Controller (SMC).

For some reason, the SMC's in the pre-'08 MacBooks will not allow charging via a Magsafe cable made after 2008. It will run off of it, but it will not charge.

Fortunately, Apple has a patch. Download the SMC firmware updated located here, and your MacBook should start charging from the newer charger.


Oxygen25 MIDI keyboard won't work with Pro Tools 9 I have Pro Tools 9.0.2 and a third Gen Oxygen25 MIDI keyboard connected by USB. Both are made by Avid, yet I can't get them to work together.

The keyboard even works with Logic Pro 9, just not Pro Tools 9.

I'm running OS X 10.6.8 on a MacBook Pro (15-inch).

You should contact the technical support people at both Avid/M-Audio and at Avid/Pro Tools (and unfortunately, in my experience, even though both companies are now owned by Avid, those divisions don't talk to each other much).

This is not the sort of problem that you can easily troubleshoot in a discussion forum like this one.

One thing that the tech support people at Avid will ask you: Did this combination of hardware and software ever work correctly, and now it is not working? Or have you never been able to use these together successfully?


IPhone 6 Cell antenna works intermittently I have an iPhone 6, and the cell antenna does not work at all, except right after it's re-assembled.

I replaced the battery and it worked for about 15 minutes (I activated it and made a call).

Batteries Plus changed the antenna and it did not work, then when they put the old antenna back in and put it back together it worked for a few minutes, similar to my experience.

Is there any hope for this?  I have done at least 6 factory firmware resets with itunes, and am looking for any suggestions for other things to try.

The battery is right up against the antenna and some delicate ribbon connectors that connect to it. It is possible that in the swapping of your battery you might have mis-seated it (at best) or damaged something (at worst).

Did the antenna stop working after you changed the battery and that led you to bring it to a shop? Or was it already getting flaky before you opened it up?

Given that you said that it only worked for about 15 minutes, it is possible that it is either slightly out of place or the ribbon is damaged and the heat of the device is cause expansion/contraction which is causing the antenna to fail; i.e. after a few minutes of using the phone it heats up enough that the connection breaks. No guarantee that cooling it down would reestablish that faulty connection.

Assuming you're comfortable opening the device given that you've already attempted the battery, you could look at loosening and then carefully tightening the antenna screws and see if that helps anything. Step 14 on the iFixit teardown guide gives a closeup of the antenna.

The inside of the phone is delicate and very sensitive to static electricity, things getting bumped, etc. Sure, they're always around static electricity but they're designed to mostly keep that stuff outside of the case. Regardless, given that you mention intermittent behavior you might be able to get away with wiggling / reseating the antenna to bring it back to life. Just make sure to be properly grounded first!


El Capitan won't resume download Yesterday I downloaded El Capitan partly via the Appstore. I didn't have the time to finish the installation, so I cancelled the download. Today I want to resume, but the download buttons don't work, and in the update tab I see "waiting..." and a pause button that is greyed out. I restarted and tried again, but nothing changed.

Is there a way to reset this installation or to resume it?

Follow these steps

App Store > purchased > check for any unfinished apps that didn't finish downloading, in my case it was Yosemite, then just click download on the app that didn't finish downloading and all your other apps should start to download including OSX EL CAPITAN. Cheers


Table Formating in Numbers 3.0 In Numbers 3.0 is there a means to have a dark or heavier line every (5) lines for both the columns across and rows down?

This can be accomplished manually.

Changing cell border line weight

Select the desired row(s) [Multiple rows can be selected using the ⌘
+Click method.]
Select Cell tab in the Format inspector pane
Select the desired border [i.e.: Top, bottom, left, right, all]
Change the line style and thickness (weight)

Repeat for each desired row.  The Copy Style / Paste Style buttons can speed up your work as well.