How can I allow incoming SSH (SCP) connections? How can I allow incoming SSH connections on my mac (Mac OS X 10.6.4) from other machines on the same network?
Every time I'm trying to scp something on the machine I get a Connection refused error.

In order to allow SSH incoming connections to your Mac, you need to enable Remote Login in Sharing Preferences pane.

Here’s a picture:


Is there anyway you can track the call history to someone who keeps on cancelling your calls? Is there any way to track the call history to someone who keeps on canceling your calls? I like to see how many times they've been called already. I'm using a iPhone 5.

Yes:

Open the Phone app and tap Recents.
Tap the "i" icon next to the desired number.
A list of calls will appear with information about them.

If the call was outbound and displays no duration, it would be reasonable to assume that they didn't answer.


Daily clock drift of several minutes In the recent weeks I've noticed each morning that my clock would be behind by 2-3 minutes. I've noticed that opening the 'Date & Time' dialog from System Preferences will trigger the clock to resynchronize to Apple's time servers. I am running OS X 10.7.4 Lion on an 8,2 MacBook Pro.

What might be causing this lack of automatic resynchronization?

EDIT: I compared my /etc/ntp.conf file to a peer's also running Lion, and we noticed that my file contained:

0000000: 7365 7276 6572 2074 696d 652e 6170 706c  server time.appl
0000010: 652e 636f 6d2e 0a                        e.com..

while his had:

0000000: 7365 7276 6572 2074 696d 652e 6170 706c  server time.appl
0000010: 652e 636f 6d                             e.com

His last modification date on the was mid-2010, while mine was last modified only a week or two ago (around when the issue started?). I certainly did not manually edit the file. Possibly related?

EDIT 2: I noticed that, if I change my time server in 'Date & Time' to, say, Asia, my /etc/ntp.conf file becomes:

0000000: 7365 7276 6572 2074 696d 652e 6173 6961  server time.asia
0000010: 2e61 7070 6c65 2e63 6f6d 2e0a            .apple.com..

complete with trailing 0x2e character. So, it seems that OS X adds the trailing . automatically, but a fresh Lion system does not contain this trailing character. Still unsure whether this is affecting the synchronization though.

EDIT 3: It's been 24 hours since I changed the time server to 'Apple Asia' and then back to 'Apple Americas' -- no time drift. Bizarre.

Looks like some special characters got inserted at the end (especially the 0x2e part which represents a simple .) and OS X now interpretes this as part of the server name. To fix, just run

sudo echo server time.apple.com > /etc/ntp.conf
sudo chown root:wheel /etc/ntp.conf

from the Terminal.

As to why you have this issue I have no clue.


How to recover a deleted book in iBooks? I deleted accidentally a book that I was reading and it already automagically synced to my iPhone as well.

It was a downloaded ePub. I added notes and bookmarks there.

Now that's gone. Is there any hope to get it back somehow?

I don't see anything like Recently deleted in iBooks.

Maybe we can get it from some kind of iPhone backups? In that case, I don't think my recent notes will be still there...

Happily, it seems that by readding the eBook file in the iBooks, the notes and bookmarks are back.

I had to redownload the eBook and open it in iBooks.


Windows print screen when using Boot Camp I have bootcamp installed on my Mac, and when on Windows, I need to frequently capture screens using windows shortcuts such as Print Screen.

Using virtualization is not an option, since I need to run a virtualized environment within Windows already.

On the Mac keyboard (I have a MacBook Pro, and an external think aluminum keyboard), there isn't a print screen key. Is there any equivalent when using a mac keyboard?

Follow these instructions in order to map the F13-F15 keys on an Apple keyboard to the functions, Print Screen, Scroll Lock, and Break commonly found on PC keyboards:

On your PC, copy the following lines into a text file.

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,46,E0,5F,00,46,00,5E,00,37,E0,5D,00,00,00,00,00

Rename the text file remap.reg
Double click on the file remap.reg and answer yes to the question about adding the information to the registry
Reboot

Function keys are now remapped to their PC equivalents

Source: MacWindows.com


Alternate to iPhone Configuration Utility for installing Certificates? I need to install .cer certificate on iPhone to enable certain SSL connections to websites.

I have searched and found that this was possible using iPhone Configuration Utility, but that has been discontinued now.

Also tried using Apple Configurator 2, but I can not figure out how to install a .cer using it.

I am using iPhone 6S having iOS 9.2.1

In Apple Configurator 2, choose File → New Profile. Fill out the General section and add your certificate to the Certificates section. Connect your device and choose the profile you just created to apply to the device.


Security risks of disabling "Find my iPhone"? I need to disable Find My iPhone function for the period of repair at Apple's authorized repair partner (which will last several days).

Can it impose any security risks to the on-device data and/or the accounts I logged into with the device?

I am not asked to disclose iOS passcode; I will disable FaceID unlock; all lockscreen features (entire Settings > FaceID > Allow Access when Locked section).

What else should I consider configuring? What risks can still remain?

The security risk you endure is that you won't be able to trace the device location, and use the functionality in Find My iPhone for erasing the device, adding a message and giving off sound.

In addition it is possible for others to format the device and start using it with a different Apple-ID. However this is not a risk to the confidentiality your data or your accounts - they would need to do a factory reset (i.e. delete everything from the phone) before doing this.

I would advise backing up the unit before handing it over for repairs at the very least. If you want absolute safety, make sure that your phone is completely emptied before sending it. You do that from Settings > General > Reset > Erase all content and settings.

Assuming that you trust the repair partner to not steal your iPhone, I would say that the only real risk associated here is what happens if someone breaks in and steals your iPhone from the repair partner's premises. In this case your data is not anymore at risk than it was before, but because you have disabled Find My iPhone - you cannot track your phone, and it can be repurposed for a different user.


Is it normal to have same user logged in twice but from another TTY? I don't know if this is something that is in macOS, but in Linux I normally see only one user if I run the who and w command.

Is it normal to have same user logged in twice but from another TTY?

I don't know where the second account with the same username came from.

jen-air:~ jen$ who
jen     console  Aug 22 20:56
jen     ttys000  Aug 23 08:39

jen-air:~ jen$ w
 8:43  up 11:47, 2 users, load averages: 1.51 1.60 1.70
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@  IDLE WHAT
jen     console  -                Wed20   11:46 -
jen     s000     -                 8:39       - w

Here's a little more information about what is happening, from a lower level Unix perspective. It's long and goes beyond what you asked, but might be interesting to you or someone else passing this page.

If you look at the w command's manual (man w), it says that "The w utility prints a summary of the current activity on the system, including what each user is doing." That's a little vague, and a little misleading. Specifically what w does is to tell you about current logins. Logins are recorded in a file named /var/run/utmpx. There are common library methods for updating utmpx entries, so that every program that needs to record or remove a login uses the same procedure.

w reads the utmpx file using those common library routines and displays information about current login sessions, along with the foreground process. A login session can be doing many things at once, but only one program is in the foreground. All others are background, which is what happens when you put an & on your command or press control-Z while a program runs in a terminal.

A login session is created when you log in to your computer on the built-in display. If you have user switching enabled, a login is recorded for each user, and remains active until logout. And if you remote login (e.g. with ssh), a login is recorded for that. Each of these should appear in w's output.

Most terminal applications, including Terminal.app and iTerm, as well as xterm if you're using X11.app, are able to create login shells in a window or tab. When you create a new window in one of these applications, you can get another login session, which appears as another line in w. But these applications don't necessarily create login shells! Whether a new window/tab is a login shell is usually controlled in the preferences. For example, in iTerm2, you can choose in Preferences > Profiles > General > Command whether to launch a login shell or some other program. If you just put "bash" there, you'll get a shell, but it won't be a login shell.

So what's the difference? It's subtle, but useful to know about.

There's a good discussion of login shells vs. regular shells here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/38175/difference-between-login-shell-and-non-login-shell. But we can summarize as: a login shell is started as the first process after something sets up a login in utmpx. A non-login shell can be run any time by any program, but is not the first process after an entry in utmpx. (More technically, a login shell is the lead process in a process group. The fact that it usually has a utmpx entry is descriptive, not necessary.)

If your shell is bash, as most are, every instance of it reads and runs the .bashrc file. When bash runs as a login shell, it also reads and runs the .bash_profile and .profile files. Those files can contain instructions that should happen only for all new sessions. That's the main practical thing to know about login shells. That, and login shells appear in w.

Here's an experiment to illustrate. Open a new Terminal window, and run w. You should see something like:

11:57  up 7 days, 59 mins, 5 users, load averages: 3.58 3.53 3.91
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@  IDLE WHAT
dgc      console  -                16Aug18 7days -
dgc      s000     -                11:57       - w

s000 is the name of the terminal that you're running w in. It exists on the filesystem at /dev/ttys000. Usually there's a one to one relation between login shells and terminals, but not always.

Now open a new Terminal window. Switch back to the first one, and run w again.

12:09  up 7 days,  1:11, 5 users, load averages: 5.35 4.35 4.05
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@  IDLE WHAT
dgc      console  -                16Aug18 7days -
dgc      s000     -                11:38       - w
dgc      s001     -                11:57       - -bash

You see a new login on s001 — /dev/ttys001 — that's running -bash. That hyphen at the beginning is a convention telling you that bash is running as a login shell. There's no foreground program in that terminal, so w shows you the shell itself.

Now switch back to your second window and run bash. What do you expect to happen?

12:13  up 7 days,  1:14, 5 users, load averages: 5.61 5.07 4.41
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@  IDLE WHAT
dgc      console  -                16Aug18 7days -
dgc      s000     -                11:38       - w
dgc      s001     -                11:57       - bash

The hyphen is gone. That's because the same login session (terminal) is now running, in the foreground, a shell that isn't a login shell. It's a child of the original -bash. If you flip back and type exit to quit the child bash, you'll see the -bash again.

Finally, note the console login. That one will never change in ordinary use. It's running the desktop/window system usually. If you turn on your Mac and don't log in, but then you ssh in from another computer, you won't see that line at all. It will always appear idle, and will always appear to be running nothing — except with the hyphen, because it's a login session.

When a program that created a login session ends that login, it goes back and removes the entry from utmpx using the common library methods for it. And because utmpx resides in the /var/run directory, it gets automatically removed whenever your computer reboots — so if you suddenly powered off your Mac while logged in, you don't continue to see fake logins forever.


How to convert non-utf8 encoding to utf-8 encoding during unzip? I have the same problem which described here.

The only difference is I need to do this in MacOS.

Basically, all files are encoded in non-utf8 and zipped on Windows. When I unzip it on MacOS, they won't be readable at all. I need to convert the encoding to utf-8 during unzip.

I tried the command unzip -O GB18030 gb18030.zip which does not work on MacOS. I think it might because the unzip command in MacOS does not have the option -O.


AppleScript: Is it possible to check if Speech is currently running? I want to exactly recreate macOS's built-in Text To Speech keyboard shortcut feature with AppleScript. When I say "exactly," I mean "exactly."
The built-in option can be found in System Preferences → Dictation & Speech → Text to Speech:

Here is the description of this feature:

Set a key combination to speak selected text.
Use this key combination to hear your computer speak selected text. If the computer is speaking, press the keys to stop.

The reason that I want to recreate this feature (instead of simply using it) is because it is buggy; sometimes it works, but, other times, I press the keyboard shortcut and nothing happens. If I code it manually in AppleScript, I hope that the process will be more reliable.

I understand how to start and stop Speech in AppleScript, as explained here.
But I would like to use the same keyboard shortcut, and thus the same .scpt file, to both start and stop the Speech, mirroring the functionality of the built-in Speech keyboard shortcut.
I am using FastScripts to run the .scpt file by a keyboard shortcut.
If the same .scpt file is in charge of both starting and stopping the Speech, the script requires an if statement at the top of the AppleScript, or something similar, to immediately check if Speech is currently being spoken or not, before the script can proceed. I do not know how to implement this check, or if it is even possible.
But, here's what I have:
if <This is where I need your help, Ask Different> then
    say "" with stopping current speech
    error number -128 -- quits the AppleScript
end if

-- Back up original clipboard contents:
set savedClipboard to my fetchStorableClipboard()

-- Copy selected text to clipboard:
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "c" using {command down}
delay 1 -- Without this, the clipboard may have stale data.

set theSelectedText to the clipboard

-- Restore original clipboard:
my putOnClipboard:savedClipboard

-- Speak the selected text:
say theSelectedText waiting until completion no

use AppleScript version "2.4"
use scripting additions
use framework "Foundation"
use framework "AppKit"

on fetchStorableClipboard()
    set aMutableArray to current application's NSMutableArray's array() -- used to store contents
    -- get the pasteboard and then its pasteboard items
    set thePasteboard to current application's NSPasteboard's generalPasteboard()
    -- loop through pasteboard items
    repeat with anItem in thePasteboard's pasteboardItems()
        -- make a new pasteboard item to store existing item's stuff
        set newPBItem to current application's NSPasteboardItem's alloc()'s init()
        -- get the types of data stored on the pasteboard item
        set theTypes to anItem's types()
        -- for each type, get the corresponding data and store it all in the new pasteboard item
        repeat with aType in theTypes
            set theData to (anItem's dataForType:aType)'s mutableCopy()
            if theData is not missing value then
                (newPBItem's setData:theData forType:aType)
            end if
        end repeat
        -- add new pasteboard item to array
        (aMutableArray's addObject:newPBItem)
    end repeat
    return aMutableArray
end fetchStorableClipboard

on putOnClipboard:theArray
    -- get pasteboard
    set thePasteboard to current application's NSPasteboard's generalPasteboard()
    -- clear it, then write new contents
    thePasteboard's clearContents()
    thePasteboard's writeObjects:theArray
end putOnClipboard:

(Originally, I had wanted the AppleScript to speak the clipboard, but then I realized that this was overwriting the original clipboard contents. So, I actually want the AppleScript to speak the contents of the theSelectedText variable, as demonstrated in the above code.)

It's possible with the say command in a shell, not with the AppleScript say command.

Info for the AppleScript say command:

you can stop the speech of say command from the same script until the
script run, not after that the script exit.
Example:

say "I want to recreate macOS's built-in Text To Speech" waiting until completion no
delay 0.5
say "" with stopping current speech -- this stop the first say command of this script
delay 1
say "Hello"

This script use the say command in a shell to speak the contents of the pbpaste command (the clipboard), and it put the PID of the say command to a persistent property:

use AppleScript version "2.4"
use scripting additions
use framework "Foundation"
use framework "AppKit"
property this_say_Pid : missing value -- the persistent property

if this_say_Pid is not missing value then -- check the pid of all 'say' commands, if exists then quit the unix process
    set allSayPid to {}
    try
        set allSayPid to words of (do shell script "pgrep -x 'say'")
    end try
    if this_say_Pid is in allSayPid then -- the PID = an item in the list
        do shell script "/bin/kill " & this_say_Pid -- quit this process to stop the speech
        error number -128 -- quits the AppleScript
    end if
end if

-- Back up original clipboard contents:
set savedClipboard to my fetchStorableClipboard()

-- Copy selected text to clipboard:
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "c" using {command down}
delay 1 -- Without this, the clipboard may have stale data.

-- Speak the clipboard:
--  pbpaste = the contents of the clipboard , this run the commands without waiting, and get the PID of the 'say' command
set this_say_Pid to do shell script "LANG=en_US.UTF-8 pbpaste -Prefer txt | say > /dev/null 2>&1 & echo $!"

-- Restore original clipboard:
my putOnClipboard:savedClipboard

on fetchStorableClipboard()
    set aMutableArray to current application's NSMutableArray's array() -- used to store contents
    -- get the pasteboard and then its pasteboard items
    set thePasteboard to current application's NSPasteboard's generalPasteboard()
    -- loop through pasteboard items
    repeat with anItem in thePasteboard's pasteboardItems()
        -- make a new pasteboard item to store existing item's stuff
        set newPBItem to current application's NSPasteboardItem's alloc()'s init()
        -- get the types of data stored on the pasteboard item
        set theTypes to anItem's types()
        -- for each type, get the corresponding data and store it all in the new pasteboard item
        repeat with aType in theTypes
            set theData to (anItem's dataForType:aType)'s mutableCopy()
            if theData is not missing value then
                (newPBItem's setData:theData forType:aType)
            end if
        end repeat
        -- add new pasteboard item to array
        (aMutableArray's addObject:newPBItem)
    end repeat
    return aMutableArray
end fetchStorableClipboard

on putOnClipboard:theArray
    -- get pasteboard
    set thePasteboard to current application's NSPasteboard's generalPasteboard()
    -- clear it, then write new contents
    thePasteboard's clearContents()
    thePasteboard's writeObjects:theArray
end putOnClipboard:

It's possible that the first script will not work, if the value of this_say_Pid variable doesn't persist across runs, it depends how the script will be launched.
In that case, you must write the PID to a file, so use this script:

use AppleScript version "2.4"
use scripting additions
use framework "Foundation"
use framework "AppKit"

set tFile to POSIX path of (path to temporary items as text) & "_the_Pid_of_say_command_of_this_script.txt" -- the temp file
set this_say_Pid to missing value
try
    set this_say_Pid to paragraph 1 of (read tFile) -- get the pid of the last speech
end try

if this_say_Pid is not in {"", missing value} then -- check the pid of all 'say' commands, if exists then quit the unix process
    set allSayPid to {}
    try
        set allSayPid to words of (do shell script "pgrep -x 'say'")
    end try
    if this_say_Pid is in allSayPid then -- the PID = an item in the list
        do shell script "/bin/kill " & this_say_Pid -- quit this process to stop the speech
        error number -128 -- quits the AppleScript
    end if
end if

-- Back up original clipboard contents:
set savedClipboard to my fetchStorableClipboard()

-- Copy selected text to clipboard:
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "c" using {command down}
delay 1 -- Without this, the clipboard may have stale data.

-- Speak the clipboard:

--  pbpaste = the contents of the clipboard , this run the commands without waiting, and it write the PID of the 'say' command to the temp file
do shell script "LANG=en_US.UTF-8 pbpaste -Prefer txt | say > /dev/null 2>&1 & echo $! > " & quoted form of tFile

-- Restore original clipboard:
my putOnClipboard:savedClipboard

-- *** Important *** : This script is not complete,  you must add the 'putOnClipboard:' handler and the 'fetchStorableClipboard()' handler to this script.


Is it possible to downgrade to an older minor version of macOS? I have a system running macOS 10.14.6, and I'd like to downgrade it to 10.14.5. Is there any way to do that? I can't find an installer for 10.14.0 - 10.14.5, only the latest.

Generally, no.
You would need to have made a bootable backup of the system and wipe / restore from it. Or you would need to have retained that specific build and/or an older Mojave installer layered with the delta installers to get from that lower MacOS version patched only to 10.14.5.
The combo updates are generally searchable and downloadable after they are no longer the latest at https://support.apple.com/kb/index?q=combo&src=globalnav_support&type=organic&page=search&locale=en_US
Here is 10.14.5 - https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2000


Is there a way to remove the preview icon of a gif or jpeg file? Is there a way to remove the preview icon of a gif or jpeg file ?

I made very little image file for the web, but they weight 45 Ko ! I guess this comes from the preview icons

Edit : I've added a screenshot to show you the informations i've got. Preview.app seems to be the most accurate...

As you can see, i used 3 ways to get the size information :

from the finder, in the folder himself (45 ko)
from the Get Info dialog box (45 ko)
from the preview.app, General Info Box (0,5 Ko)

As mankoff said, the large size is probably a resource fork (with things like previews).  To confirm this, use the Terminal command ls -l@ /Volumes/Database/WebFolder/imgs/confirm.gif -- you'll probably see something like this:

$ ls -l@ /Volumes/Database/WebFolder/imgs/confirm.gif
-rw-r--r--@ 1 www  www  539 Nov 18 09:39 /Volumes/Database/WebFolder/imgs/confirm.gif
        com.apple.FinderInfo     32
        com.apple.ResourceFork  40748

If it doesn't show a 40kb resource fork, report back so we'll all have a better idea what's going on.

As long as the image is just for web use, a big resource fork isn't really an issue, since the web server will only serve the data fork (which is just 539 bytes long).  If want to compact the file anyway, use the command xattr -d com.apple.ResourceFork /Volumes/Database/WebFolder/imgs/confirm.gif to remove the fork.


Bootable USB without an OS shows as Windows in Startup Manager I was going to do a clean install of El Capitan and I created a Bootable USB drive. After making the drive I done the usual, I restarted while I held down the option key to white I was presented a screen with startup disk option screen and predictably I found my usual HDD that my OS is on, my backup drive, and my bootable USB which is called "Windows".

That's weird since I've never installed Boot Camp on this machine.

When I boot from the "Windows" drive there's just a blank screen and the letter "J" flashing on it and nothing else happens.

Just a "J" in the top left of the screen.

What is this?

Obviously something went wrong in making the bootable USB stick.
It should be 8GB.
Why not use a little tool that does it for you:
Diskmaker_X,  see http://diskmakerx.com
You have to have the OSX installer on your disk: if you already installed it and it is gone, download it again from the Purchased tab of AppStore.


How can I restrict data use on an iPhone? I need to know if there is an app for iPhone 5 that would control the data (or lock it down entirely)?
Also need to control who is called and what callers can be received.

The full information on use restrictions in iOS is here. It doesn't include the ability to restrict the use of phone calls or data, but you can restrict apps like Safari that use the data. Third-party apps are not permitted to modify fundamental iOS functionality like this.


iOS 10 app restrictions Is there a way that I can make it that you have to put a password or fingerprint when opening apps on my iPhone?

For instance, if I give the phone to someone and they want to try to open apps that I do not want them to use, the owner's passcode or fingerprint would required to use that app?

This has been a long "want" of iPhone users. The closest thing you can do to this is:

Go to Settings > General > Restrictions

Enable restrictions.

You can then enter a password, (can be different from your regular pass code), and you are able to restrict certain apps and features, but not everything. It has a small list of apps (all 1st party) and a slightly larger list of features / settings.

Source: Just did it on my iPhone 7.


Is a Boot Camp partition in Parallels Desktop still natively bootable? I am wondering if its possible to use Parallels Desktop with a Boot Camp partition while still being able to boot into Boot Camp natively if I need that last bit of performance?

Yes. I do it all the time.

The only thing to remember is you have to properly Shut Down the Parallels version before trying to boot the Boot Camp version.

Full instructions - Parallels KB - Can I run my Boot Camp partition with Parallels Desktop?

One thing it notes is that it only works if your Boot Camp is on the same drive as your Mac partition. Mine isn't, it's on another drive entirely, though still internal. I can't remember whether I moved it before or after setting up Parallels; it was initially on the same drive when I first made the Boot Camp.


Is it possible to find or wipe a lost iPod Touch if Find My iPod was not previously activated? I lost my 3rd-generation iPod Touch. How can I find or remove the personal info on it? The password feature was disabled at the time I lost it. Is there a way to activate Find My iPod or wipe out the data on it?

In short, it is, unfortunately not possible to activate Find my iPod on a device that is no longer in your possession.

If Find My iPod was actually enabled, you can go to www.icloud.com and login to your Apple ID to see more information on the device and to set it so that the data is erased after being connected to the internet (if it wasn't already). If you log in to the iCloud web portal and the iPod isn't shown, then it was likely not enabled. In this situation, it would be impossible to activate it.

Remember, either way, the iPod must be connected to the internet in order for any changes to be made.


Can I download xcode 6 without dev account? I don't want to download iOS 8 or so, but I want to start learning Swift without paying 100$. So, is there a way to download xcode 6?

Apple won't provide freely a beta of Xcode. Only Yosemite is available for non dev-members. Xcode 6 will be free once it reached a release version.

Though, you'll be able to find XCode on non legal downloading site...


I want to change login type of a local user to a network (AD) user I am using macOS 10.12, Sierra, and I've two local accounts (the one created during unboxing and a backup one).

This is a work laptop and I would like to use my Active Directory credentials to login instead of the loca account. I would also like to get integrated network login etc... but this would be a bonus, it's not a requirement.

I've followed Join your Mac to a network account server and read Best Practices for Integrating OS X with Active Directory.

I can easily join the Mac to the domain and can use AD Utilities to browse objects inside the domain so I assume it's working.
Now I cannot find how to 'link' my existing local account to a specific AD account.

The accounts are:

local account: simoneavogadro  (/Users/simoneavogadro)  display "Simone Avogadro"
Active directory account: simoneavogadro  (simoneavogadro@wiselab.it) display name: "Simone Avogadro"

Currently, if I logout & login I must use the local password to login.  The AD one will not work.  This makes sense to me since I can't find how to 'link' the two things (how to  tell the Mac which AD Object to bind for login)

Once AD logins are working as expected I think the best answer here is to re-use your current home folder rather than trying to link accounts.

Since you're using a local home for the AD user you can shuffle the home folders and update the ownership. Be sure to do this from another account- not the local user or the AD user (you may have to create a temporary admin user).

To be clear, don't do this until you have AD logins working properly...   :)

For example:

sudo mv /Users/aduser /Users/aduser-orig
sudo mv /Users/localuser /Users/aduser
sudo chown -R aduser:staff /Users/aduser


Where are iCloud documents stored in the file system? Where are iCloud documents stored in the file system?

Under Finder you can find the iCloud directory, however 'Get Info' gives absolutely no clue as to where these files are located in the file system.  So if your in a terminal / commnad-line prompt, its not clear where to find these files.

Its useful to know if your trying to create soft links to files under iCloud OR have scripts that need to access those files.  As opposed to just finding them under Finder.

The following website suggests iCloud documents are stored under:

  ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents

https://www.macworld.com/article/2310807/how-to-access-icloud-files-from-your-mac.html


How to connect to MacBook to a Windows 7 machine that is connected to a Ubuntu machine via VPN? I don't know if I at the right posiution with this task.

I have ubuntu running on a server. A notebook has Cisco VPN Client installed and is connected to this ubuntu server. Because I dislike working through putty I want to use my more beautiful terminal of my MacBook. Is it possible to connect to this ubuntu server through the Windows 7 NoteBook without having to establish a VPN connection on the MacBook?

This might work by using putty as a tunnel on the Windows machine, and allowing remote hosts to connect to the tunnel. If the cisco vpn connection is set to disable local network traffic (which is quite common) then it almost certainly won't work. Also Cisco VPN client doesn't support Internet Connection Sharing. It seems like a complicated way of doing things - why not just enable the VPN directly from the Mac - the client is built-in to the OS and takes way quicker to connect than Cisco's own client.


Why does About This Mac show different values for storage? On my MacBook Pro, the Storage section on about my Mac shows that I have 730.21GB free out of 999.7GB, but it also says that my apps take up 545.33GB.

Why is this happening? How much storage do I actually have available?

This seems to be quite a common problem. To fix it, you need to tell Spotlight to re-index your hard drive.

There are two ways to do this, depending on how comfortable you are with the command line.

Open a Terminal window and first of all check that Spotlight indexing is enabled for Macintosh HD with the following command: sudo mdutil -i on /, then tell it to re-index Macintosh HD with sudo mdutil -E /.

or

Open System Preferences from the Apple menu and select the Spotlight preference pane. Select the Privacy tab and add the Macintosh HD drive into the tab. This will remove the existing index. Then remove the drive and close System Preferences after which Spotlight should re-index the drive.

Re-indexing may take a while but once it is complete the figures should match.

A handful of sources that talk about this solution:

https://www.macissues.com/2014/05/27/fix-about-this-mac-not-showing-proper-disk-space/
https://www.cnet.com/news/what-to-do-when-about-this-mac-lies-to-you/
https://www.maketecheasier.com/fix-wrong-hard-drive-data-usage-calculation-osx/
http://www.macworld.com/article/2997252/storage/the-case-of-the-missing-el-capitan-hard-disk-space.html


Shortcuts failing constantly I am using Adobe Audition. I have defined a few shortcuts for functions I use the most. These shortcuts work sometimes, sometimes don't.

This is also true for shortcuts I have defined for other applications.

When these shortcuts fail, I click on the menu where their respective functions are and then if I try the shortcuts again they work but seconds later they fail again.

Is there a way to make they always work?

That would happen if you set up Shortcuts to work in "All Applications"

Try setting them Application Specific.

Example

Alternately monitor the com.apple.systempreferences.plist

located in ~/Library/Preferences and sort by date, to see if it changes without your interaction.


Mojave - Some Apps Lose Internet Connectivity Scenario
I recently installed Mojave and I've noticed that after an undetermined amount of time that many apps complain of not having a connection to the internet eg Mac Mail and Spotify. Meanwhile chrome works the entire time.
Tested Solutions
Turn off WiFi, reconnect WiFi
Current Solution
Restart Computer
Question
Why is this happening? Is there any way around it other that completely restarting my computer?

I had same issue like that, my solution  was restart the mac. Maybe, it will be solved by apple on the next updates.


How to troubleshoot web errors on the Apple developer forum? I have an AppleID and paid $99 dollars to enroll in the iOS Developer program. I tried creating new thread in iOS Developer Forum but end up in blank white screen. I couldn't see anything on the screen.

Has anyone a suggestion on what the requirements (or how to troubleshoot) the developer forum web page when you run into issues?

Usually things like that are caused by browser extensions or an odd interaction between a specific browser version and the code on the site.

Have you looked over the basic support page for the Developer Forums?

https://developer.apple.com/support/resources/developer-forums.html

It has a "contact us" form if you can't solve this by ensuring an up to date (and unmodified) version of Safari isn't rendering the web site properly for you.


iPhone 5 stuck at Apple boot logo after screen replacement My girlfriend smashed her iPhone screen. Being technically competent and after looking at YouTube videos of how to fix it I thought I would give it a go.

After replacing the screen and moving the front facing camera and speaker to the new screen I now get stuck on the Apple boot logo (hard resetting the phone doesn't help). I quickly then changed back to the old cracked glass screen without putting the front facing camera back and speaker and the phone booted up fine.

Therefore I presumed it was a faulty screen, so went to put the front facing camera back and speaker on the old cracked screen so that she can use it whilst a replacement arrives, but now the broken screen will only boot to the Apple logo screen.

Is it possible that there is something with the camera or speaker preventing the phone from booting?
Would restoring help as I can get into DFU mode?
Is there anyway to debug this kind of issue?

I would say to try to back it up, then restore and see what happens from there. No idea why this would really happen. The restore will rule out iOS being bugged, and you'd know the issue purely lies with hardware.


Photos App does not show in search I have an iPhone 7 and the Photos App is on my phone and it works just fine, but I have a few issues with it:

1) When I search for it in the iOS search tool, it does not show up.

2) There are photos that will not open on other devices and cannot be shared any other way. The other devices will read them as corrupt or unreadable.

I have tried restoring my phone and then restoring it from backup, and I have the exact same issues. I also had this issue in both iOS 12 and 13. My phone is currently up-to-date (As of September 26, 2019, iOS v13.1) because I have been trying to fix this issue.

Spotlight uses a system process to index all files on the storage, so if you have a corrupt search or the process is crashing, the only true fix is to back up the device and erase/reinstall it if it's not a setting you can toggle.

That setting would be in the settings app - navigate to Siri & Search and then below the main settings is an alphabetical list of apps.

Toggle off all the photos items and then power down the phone. Then power it up and navigate back to re-enable them.

If after 30 minutes on charge, the index isn't working you'll want to prepare to erase and wipe the device.

If you are hesitant to do that (since you have to unync an Apple watch - get your health data on the iOS device - then back that up securely, then wipe and restore and then set up things like wallet, fingerprint if the restore doesn't work perfectly) you might try some other things.

Reset all settings on the iOS device
Consider asking Apple Care if there's anything else we missed or a known issue in your version of iOS.

If the version of iOS you're running has a bug, no amount of fiddling will fix that and you'll have to wait for a patch to apply.


Iphone call forwards when using phone and someone calls So my mum recently called my iPhone, she uses a Samsung I think, and I was using it at time and was on the Skype app typing, but then she called at the same time and she said that her call stopped and a voice answer said that I was online or unavailable to pick up a call, but then she called again straight after and it went through. Is this true? If so how can this be turned off?
If its locked she can call, and even if it's unlocked it rings, and I've tried it with my brother while it was locked and when I was using an app and it went through.

Depending on your carrier and the data connection used at the time a call comes in, it may not be possible to use both data and voice at the same time. This is a constraint imposed by the specific mobile protocol in use (Edge and GPRS for instance) and happens on all (smart)phones.


Remembering window position/size At work, I have a 27" iMac with a 2560 x 1440 display. I have my windows all laid out as I like them.

On Fridays, I telecommute, using my Macbook Pro (1440 x 900) to connect to my work iMac using screen sharing. I use SwitchResX to change the resolution of the iMac to 1440 x 900. I then rearrange all of my windows to the new resolution.

I have Optimal Layout and it helps in positioning the windows, but it does not support any mechanism for remembering groups of window positions and sizes.

Is there any alternative program that will allow me to configure my windows for 2560 x 1440 and save the sizes and positions for all of them as a group, then reposition them for 1440 x 900 and, again, save them as a group? Then on Fridays I will only need to tell the application to lay the windows out for 1440 x 900 and on Mondays for 2560 x 1440.

I found a nice application, Stay, that seems to do exactly what I need. I'll try it out this next Friday when I telecommute.


Is it possible to use a Mac Pro as four different PC's simultaneously using the multiple display output Wondering if it would be possible to take the following Mac Pro...

Mac Pro 3.5GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5

Originally released December 2013

3.5GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5

16GB memory

1 TB PCIe-based flash storage

Dual AMD FirePro D700 graphics processors with 6GB of GDDR5 VRAM each

...and have it run 4 displays and use each display independently of the other - thinking of partitioning the drive into 4 250gb sectors and running 4 copies of Parallels and 4 copies of Windows (i.e. 4 Windows virtual machines).

Could they all run simultaneously?  Would you just need to do it off a single non partitioned disk?  If so - how to assign a copy of windows/paralells/mouse and keyboard to each monitor and be able to run and use them simultaneously?

Yes, this is possible to do. However, you will probably find that you'll need a lot more than 16GB RAM to make this practical.

16GB RAM is more than enough to simultaneously run macOS and a virtual machine. But in your case you're wanting to run macOS and four virtual machines. Remember that you will need to allocate both RAM and VRAM to your virtual machine from the 16GB of RAM you have on board.

My recommendation would be that you have a minimum of 32GB RAM installed so as to make the setup workable. Ideally, you'd install more than that. Officially Apple supports 64GB RAM in these machines, however users have found that they work just as reliably with 128GB RAM installed.

If I was going to do this, I'd actually have 64GB RAM installed and probably share one of the VMs with a Bootcamp installation. However, that's just a suggestion.

Either way, you only need to install Parallels once and then use it to create 4 virtual machines. If you do share one of these with a Bootcamp installation, then you'd obviously need a partition for that, but otherwise there's no need for multiple partitions.

In terms of the four displays, you would just move your VMs around to assign each of them to a different screen.

Finally, since you're using Parallels, you could even use it in 'Coherence' mode so you can have any app you're running on any of the screens without having to worry about which VM was running it.


Can I move data from old to new Time Capsule through USB? The Apple knowledge base note on this question says to hardwire the Time Capsules and a computer together through ethernet, and transfer the data from TC1 to the computer to TC2, all through ethernet.

I can see how getting 1 GB across this way will be monumentally slow.

However there are these lovely little USB ports on both Time Capsules.  Is there a way for me to get the Time Capsule to copy the data from its internal hard drive to a USB external drive?  And then vice versa on the other Time Capsule, connecting to it the USB drive with the data from the first Time Capsule?

A related question here might cover one direction, but not the other?  And only then if I can find an old version of Airport and the function is still supported by the old Time Capsule with upgraded software.

I am trying the wired ethernet approach, and I see this when copying one of the sparsebundles:

That is with everything wired, and airport on the laptop and the old Time Capsule turned off.  I am sharing the old Time Capsule hard drive on the WAN, which is wired to the new Time Capsule LAN.  That laptop is on the new Time Capsule LAN.

The wired transfer ended up running at about 48 Mb/s or 6 MB/s.  The reason is that the USB-Ethernet dongle I used only supports 10/100 Base-T.  No GigE.  48+48 maxed out the 100.

When I went to a Thunderbolt-GigE dongle, the rate went up, but only to 106 Mb/s (13.3 MB/s).  The drive in the new Time Capsule can average 1200 Mb/s (150 MB/s) writing.  The drive in the old Time Capsule can average 400 Mb/s (50 MB/s) reading.  So the GigE is still well shy of what I might expect from USB3, or even USB2.

I'd suggest using rsync from the terminal. It may still be slow, however:

It should be faster than finder.
You can stop the transfer any time. It will resume from where you left the next time you issue the same command.

So, it should both reduce required time and also make it possible to stop it and resume if you actually need to use your computer.

sudo rsync -avPh --delete-after /path/to/original/gromit.sparsebundle/ /path/to/copy/of/gromit.sparsebundle/

Explanation:

-a: Archive (be recursive, preserve timestamps ownership etc).
-v: Verbose.
-P: Show progress and real-time transfer rate.
-h: Human readable output.
--delete-after: At the end of copying remove any files at the destination that don't exist at the source. This gives you the freedom to continue making backups on your old time capsule without worrying about excessive files being copied to the new one.

Important: The trailing slashes in the two paths are important! If omitted a new dir may be created when you resume the sync (i.e. /path/to/copy/of/gromit.sparsebundle/gromit.sparsebundle).

Also note that the transfer rate displayed with the -P parameter is not accurate when small files (a few KB) are transfered.


Retrieve data from individual app after iOS 7 update? This what I did:

Installed various apps onto my iPad (before the iOS 7 update was released) using another Apple ID.
Used the apps, so they had data in them that I would really like back.
Backed up my iPad 4 (still on iOS 6) onto both iCloud and my computer. (Those backups have now disappeared).
Installed both the latest version of iTunes and iOS 7.
Found that the apps were greyed out and needed the password for the old Apple ID.
Couldn't remember the Apple ID password (or the Apple ID) that was used to install those apps, and I only really need one, so I entered billing info, changed my mind at the last moment and set card type to none.
All of the greyed out apps disappeared. I changed my mind again, and bought and installed the app, hoping that I'd be able to restore it from the backup.
Tried to restore it, but the message said the backup was corrupt or incompatible.

I don't want to delete the backup, because it has my data on it. Is there any way to get the data back? For example, extracting an individual app's data from the corrupt backup, or could there possibly be some secret stash of backups that that I don't know about?

You will need to use the original Apple ID with which the apps were purchased. Only then restore from the backup made (preferably the backup made via iTunes). This is the only way to retrieve the app data associated with the given application.


Remember WiFi but don't autoconnect on iPhone? I have 2 WiFi networks I can connect to at home. There is one that I prefer but is not the strongest signal, so my iPhone will usually connect to the other network.

On occasion I need to connect to that other WiFi, so I'd still like to be able to easily connect to that one when I need to (not that often). Because of this, the Forget Network option on the WiFi connection settings isn't really suitable as I'd have to reenter the password to connect each time.

How can I remember a specific WiFi connection without having the phone automatically connect to that network when it finds it? I still want to autoconnect to other networks as normal.

Forgive me if I'm missing the point of your question, but if you've connected to both SSIDs and your iPhone remembers them (and their passwords), then why wouldn't you just go to Settings > Wi-Fi to manually choose and connect to the network you want when you need to?

My point is, according to your question, you'd still like to be able to easily connect to that one when I need to (not that often), and wouldn't this approach achieve that? It's easy to do and since it's not something you need to do often, it's not cumbersome. Your iPhone will remember the password and once you've manually selected a network it'll remain connected to it while the signal is strong enough.


How to avoid erasing iPad content when using different iTunes library? I have the new iPad and I'm using at work and home.

When I sync something at work (by adding some books or music) and after that at home I want to sync games but the iTunes shows me the warning when I plug in the iPad.

How to avoid this ? Are there some way

Syncing to the home PC iTunes would lead to the iPad data(Music and books from work) getting backed up to the iTunes and you can keep both the data. And again when you attach it to the work PC iTunes, the backup of the iPad(games from home) would get backed up. The total data would be on iPad as well as the both(Home and work) PC iTunes.


HDCP Error on MacBook Pro with no External Display I occasionally receive the infamous HDCP error (as seen below).

However, I don't have an external display connected. It happens on the MacBook's built in display. This happens MID VIEWING. It starts playing fine, then randomly I get this error. I can always restart it, but it's become a pain. Any ideas?

What programs are you running?  This can happen if, for instance, a VNC session is started, or one of the many airplay applications (servers) runs, or if a screen capture utility runs.  They create a third virtual monitor which isn't HDPC compliant, and if they happen to do it while you're watching your movie, you'll receive this error.

Check through your services and background apps to see what is running that might need or use display access.  If you don't notice anything, see if you can disable all your background apps and test it again.  If it's still happening you might need to reinstall OS X to get rid of any old drivers left behind from an installation of an old USB display adapter, for instance, or screen sharing application.


Documents in Word need to be saved in a 'Recent Place' first I have Word 2011 for Mac. When I want to save a document for the first time using Save As, in the 'Where' box I have 'Documents' showing. When I click the arrows to the right, I thought all Word folders would then appear but they don't—only 'Recent Place' appears. The only way I can get round this is to save the document in a 'Recent Place' then go into 'Finder' and move it into the correct Folder before I forget where I put it.

If you click the disclosure triangle next to the filename, you'll see a Finder-like window. That will let navigate to any folder (or disk) that you want.


Set bash_profile to open with Sublime Text 2 by default I'd like Sublime Text 2, not TextEdit, to be the default program to open my bash_profile file when I call open ~/.bash_profile in Terminal. Normally I would just control-click on the file in Finder to set the default program, but given that bash_profile is hidden I'm not sure how to go about this.

You can temporarily show hidden files. In terminal write:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

and then killall Finder to restart Finder.

Change what you need and then hide hidden files again by changing TRUE to FALSE.

Edit: Making this more explicit. In Finder, locate .bash_profile, open up the properties by right click + "Get Info". Then change the "Open with" to Sublime Text 2. This works, I just tried it.


Change keyboard shorcut for switching desktop workspaces I am working on MacOS Sierra and wanted change desktop workspaces quickly.
For this, I used the keyboard shortcut under Mission Control and selected all the tick boxes for Switch to Desktop N.

The shortcut key for this was ^1.

Another shortcut is ctrl+ ->/<-. But,  I wanted to change it to alt+->/<- so that it can be done single-handedly. How should I do this?

EDIT:  I want to use only the right alt and not left alt for the above purpose.

As you said, you can go to the Preferences System, then Keyboard, then to the Shortcuts tab.

From here,

You select the line you want to change the shortcut of
You click on the icon showing the current shortcut
You execute the new shortcut to record it

PS: I'm not sure if this is what you intended to do.


How do I open Outlook .msg files on my iPad I work with a Document Management System that has my Outlook email archive stored as .msg files...  which is nice and all, but I can't get my iPad to actually open them up properly.

A search through the App Store results in two apps that claim to support this:

MSG File Viewer ($0.99) - doesn't seem to associate itself properly with .MSG files in Safari/SkyDrive/etc.
Klammer ($0.99 + $0.99 in-app purchase) - shows up in Open With... dialog, but shows up empty in the app.

However, neither seems to associate itself with .MSG files in Safari/SkyDrive/etc . Also, support for inline images and formatting seems sketchy at best.

I also noted that if I forward a .MSG file in an email, Mail will sometimes open it properly by converting it to .EML on the fly. I just can't figured out how to use that to open .MSG files on any other location, though.

Are there any other solutions I'm not aware of? It would be really nice to be able to access these files on the road.

You don't need an additional app. You can either sync your email messages to your iPad from your computer - instructions are in the user's guide as well as here:

  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1386

or you can set up your iPad to connect directly to your email provider - instructions also in the user's guide and here:

  http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/mail/

If your email service is an Exchange server, I'd recommending setting up your iPad to talk directly to the server. Then your mail, calendar and contacts, if you wish it so, will synchronize automatically without you having to sync with your computer.


Can I pair 2 Bluetooth headsets to my iPad simultaneously? We watch tv on it when traveling We own 2 pairs of the same headsets and wish to pair them simultaneously to watch tv on the iPad.  Only one at a time seems to work.  They have the same name which may be the issue, but I can't find an answer online.

Is it possible to send audio to two Bluetooth headsets simultaneously? If so, how?

iOS will only output sound to one device at a time, and that includes the internal speakers. So no, you can't pair multiple Bluetooth headsets and listen through both simultaneously.

Your only options would be to:

Each use a single earpiece from the same headset.
Purchase a Bluetooth splitter.


Open a single Pages document in two windows? In Pages is it possible to open a single document in two windows?

Example:

I have a 10 page document called "Recipes."
I want to see pages 3 & 8 of the "Recipes" document on screen at the same time.  I can then scroll from page 3 to 4 and onwards, while page 8 remains on screen.

There are lot of work arounds (such as open the document in Word or Preview). But I would like to be able to do it all in Pages.

Hopefully, there is some terminal command or something that I have missed.

(I know I can send Feedback to Apple, but who knows how long before they create such a feature).

It's pretty clear to me that the ask is for two views into the same document, either two windows, or a split screen — as has been offered in Word and many other word processors and text editors for a long time.

I believe the short answer is no.

See https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1972415?start=0&tstart=0


Periodically deleting cookies in Safari It seems as though extensions in Safari can't access cookies. In firefox there is a great add-on that immediately deletes cookies from a site after you close its tab. This is really helpful for viewing sites that require cookies, but that you don't want following you all over the internet.

Is there any approach I could take to mimic this behavior in Safari? I was thinking some sort of watcher on the cookie folder or linking it to /dev/null/, but I'd still like to whitelist some cookies that I don't mind keeping around and I wouldn't want to add much cpu or battery usage either.

If you open Safari in private browsing mode, all cookies you may have are not accessible. Feel free to log in to whatever site you want and the cookies only persist for that session as you are familiar with from Firefox.

If you want to script a periodic purging of all cookies, that is trivial if you use Automator to record the action of launching safari, selecting preferences and selecting the clear all cookies button.

That's probably overkill, since private browsing does about all you ask already.


How do I monitor the total physical and virtual memory usage of a process and all of its descendants? From the command line, how would I get the total physical and virtual memory usage of a process and all of its descendants (not just 1st-level children)?

This is useful when you want to monitor the memory usage of applications that are not monolithic. For instance, Google Chrome spawns a whole bunch of workers and renderers, even though to the user, it's all in only one GUI window. Another example is Firefox, which has separate processes for its plugins.

The Activity Monitor application can display the processes in a hierarchy. But I find it not good enough, for two reasons:

It's not command-line;
It doesn't sum the numbers for me.

If using third-party applications is a possibility, I would suggest that you install the htop process monitor, perhaps from Macports. This tool extends top with a nice layout, and most relevant for your use case, it has an arbitrarily deep thread tree view that can be turned on with the F5 key.


Applescript : Only run the script if specific input is entered Is it possible to run an applescript ONLY if a specific input is inserted If I put in my attempts at the code i might be clearer at what Im getting at

set x to display dialog "What is your password?" default answer "" with hidden answer
set y to (text returned of x)

display dialog (text returned of x)
display dialog y

if (text returned of y) is 3232 then
  display dialog "Hi" buttons ["OK"]
end if

All the in-between stuff is just testing and making sure everything is working properly

First, you're trying to check against text returned of y, where y is text returned of x – a string, not a dialog result so text returned of y won't work. Just use y.

Second, you need to be testing your string stored in y against another string, not a number. Wrap 3232 in quotes:

set x to display dialog "What is your password?" default answer "" with hidden answer
set y to (text returned of x)

display dialog (text returned of x)
display dialog y

if y is "3232" then
  display dialog "Hi" buttons ["OK"]
end if


Virtual Box error "Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Hadoop" on MacOS Big Sur M1 chip Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Hadoop.
The virtual machine 'Hadoop' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 (0x1).
Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: MachineWrap
Interface: IMachine {85632c68-b5bb-4316-a900-5eb28d3413df}
I tried the below things.
sudo su
csrutil clear
reboot

Uninstalling and then re-installing Virtual Box multiple times.
I did not receive any permission request to enable the blocked loading extensions in System preferences-->security.
csrutil enable
reboot

I tried on a Mac intel chip 2017 and it runs perfectly fine.
Not sure what to change for the M1 chip here.

VirtualBox does not run on an ARM chip such as the M1.
There's a long discussion on it here - https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=98742
Parallels have a functional beta & VMWare say there's one 'on the way' but as far as I know the only one that claims to be fully functional is UTM, which I haven't tried myself.
There's a setup guide on OWC's blog - UTM: Run Virtual Machines On Your Apple Silicon M1 Mac


Diagnosing iMac hard crashes OS X 10.7.x, (updated to 10.7.2 when it became available last week); Quad Core iMac.

Hard crashing about every 2 or 3 weeks, except had one yesterday and another today, 5 times total so far. Mouse and keyboard go dead.  Screen frozen. Doesn't respond to LAN ping.  Dead.

Reboots fine.  Nothing at all about the crashes in the console all-message log.  No evident problems, operating normally.

Note: This machine has had no kernel panics at all in about a year, since I bought it, by the way.

My two suspects are

Add-in-RAM -- maybe I should have bought the most expensive instead
of moderate-priced 4GB modules , a few weeks before the first
crash.
Firefox 7.0.1, as that was the active app when the last 2 crashes
occurred.

I'm keeping notes on the date, time, and front-most app when the crashes occur.

Any ideas? Any instrumentation to add?  Tests to run? (Given the time between crashes, I doubt a memory diagnostic is going to find anything.)

You could try testing the hard drive with Smart Utility, but it sounds like to me that it is your Ram that you installed. I have personal experience with bad/incompatible ram and the symptoms you are describing are exactly what happens if the ram is the aforementioned.


View web page source code on iOS Is there a way for non-jailbroken iOS to view the source code for a web page? Does Apple's web API allow this?

Add the following as a bookmark. I call mine View Source. It will open up a new window with the HTML source.

javascript:(function()%7Bvar%20a=window.open(%22about:blank%22).document;a.write(%22%3C!DOCTYPE%20html%3E%3Chtml%3E%3Chead%3E%3Ctitle%3ESource%20of%20%22+location.href+'%3C/title%3E%3Cmeta%20name=%22viewport%22%20content=%22width=device-width%22%20/%3E%3C/head%3E%3Cbody%3E%3C/body%3E%3C/html%3E');a.close();var%20b=a.body.appendChild(a.createElement(%22pre%22));b.style.overflow=%22auto%22;b.style.whiteSpace=%22pre-wrap%22;b.appendChild(a.createTextNode(document.documentElement.innerHTML))%7D)();


Macbook Pro Retina 15" (mid 2012) screen is glitching in specific situations The display of my macbook is glitching as you can see in image below. However this is happening only if I'm trying to do some on graphics heavy tasks, just like opening big Rhinoceros project. The second occasion is when I wake up computer (from Sleep mode) and it was NOT pluged in. This glitching stops after a while, but it is at least disconcerting.

Does anyone have any advice?

Very likely your MacBook has a defective GPU. You are lucky however, since there is a recall for your specific model.

Check your eligibility here and contact AppleCare.


After update (to 4.2) iOS says I have 723 songs, but iPod.app says "No Content" I have just updated to 4.2, and the space for my music is still taken according to iTunes, and the device "About" screen says I have 723 songs, but I cannot see it in the iPod app. I assume that another sync is required to activate the content again or something to that effect?

iTunes can see the content on my phone and even allow me to play it. I will attach some images to illustrate the issue. My photo library was updated and seems to work. I have also tried closing all apps, which did not help.

I am speculating, that this is what happened: I did the update on another computer (not the one my music is synced to), which invalidated the copy protection of my music library, so when I plugged my phone back into the machine where my music library is stored it did the deed for me. That is what seems to have happened anyway.


Magic mouse USB cable I LOVE my Magic Mouse.  Unfortunately, at a new job, I can only used wired mice, NOT wireless (security issues).

Is there anything equivalent to the Magic Mouse, but uses a USB cable (for Emission Security)??  I'd really like something with a touchpad feel (NO scroll wheel!) in a mouse, that works for Mac and Windoze 10.

I would recommend using a wireless USB mouse (uses 500 Hz or so) and comes with a little mini USB that you can use to plug-in to the PC. Logitech has a couple like this, you may have to look around for some.

But if you are looking for one for a Magic Mouse, you won't find one.

If you are concerned about accessing all of the Magic Mouse features with a wired/wireless (USB) mouse then I recommend finding one that uses gestures or has multiple buttons (like a gaming mouse).


App store account sign in When I open the App Store on my iPhone, it opens my Australian account by default. How can I change the settings so it opens my US account (which I do own legally).

Click to open the App Store,  sliding to the bottom of the page, you can see your AU account, click on it, select log out.Then you can log in the US account.


Problem downloading photos from iPhone Photostream to Windows Why doesn't my iCloud panel on my Windows 8 computer always download the photos from Photostream on my iPhone?

I have an iPhone 5, on iOS 7.

It seems that Apple dropped the ball with the new iCloud services for Windows. I've had the exact same issue on 3 different machines and iPads/iPhones from different family members.

What worked for me:

Make a backup of your PhotoStream folder on your PC.
Open the Windows Task Manager (CTRL-SHIFT-ESC) and kill the following processes if they are listed:

iCloudService.exe
iCloud.exe
AplePhotoStreams.exe
ApplePhotoStreamDownloader.exe
APSDaemon.exe

Then go to the following locations and delete the whole folders (or move them somewhere else for backup):

Your photostream folder:
C:\Users\<YOURNAME>\Pictures\My Photo Stream
Mediastream Data folder:
C:\Users\<YOURNAME>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MediaStream

Then run iCloud directly:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Apple\Internet Services\iCloud.exe

In theory, things should sync again with the following caveat:

Only pictures taken in the last 30 days will be synced.
At most 1000 pictures will be synced (if you took that many in the last 30 days).
Try some of the other solutions from the Thread My Photo Stream is empty with iCloud Control Panel 3.0 from the Apple forums.


Clean Install of Lion OS X / Optimizing My Machine I downloaded Lion OS X (an upgrade on top of Snow Leopard) but my MacBook pro is becoming quite slow now. I'd like to install a fresh new copy of Lion OS X. I know how to do that, I can just re-download Lion from the App Store and there are a ton of tutorials online on who to do a fresh install.

My question is, how would I back up my documents? Logically, I would like to keep almost all my files and apps. I do have Time Machine. Can someone suggest to me how I should back up and then restore my apps and files and all that? That also includes apps I purchased not through the App Store, like Office and Mailplane. I'd like to continue to use those..

If someone knows of a way to optimize my machine without going through all this, could you please suggest to me what to do? It's becoming really slow and I hate it.

Thank you!

The best way to back up your documents is to back up your entire hard drive (aka "clone").

I use SuperDuper for this (you can use it for free, although the SmartUpdate feature is worth paying for, IMO. CarbonCopyCloner is another program which many people like).

Once you have a bootable backup of your hard drive (verify this by actually booting from it!) you can make a clean installation of your computer. From there you should be able to use "Migration Assistant" (/Applications/Utilities) to copy files and applications from either Time Machine or your clone.

Ok, now, having answered the question that you asked, two comments:

10gb free isn't a whole lot of space, especially if you are on a non-SSD drive.
If you are having problems with your current installation, I would highly recommend that you do not use Migration Assistant or any other method to automatically copy files from your current setup to your new one.

Instead, I would recommend that you keep the clone handy, and if/when you need files from it, then copy them. If you need an app, go make sure that you are downloading the latest version from the website, and install that version.

Most applications will run from the backup drive (some which use installers might not) so if you need quick access to some program, you can probably just run it from there in an emergency.

You can get a 500GB bus-powered USB drive for about $50 from Amazon [note: I just picked that one at random, it's not a specific recommendation] which will fit easily into your laptop bag.


Auto-launch apps at iDevice startup In another question I asked, Graeme suggested using alternatives like Skype instead of FaceTime for its support for audio-only calls.

Skype has the advantage of being cross-platform, but is there a way in which I could actually make Skype auto-login when my iPad starts, and keep it running continuously like FaceTime? Or is this functionality restricted to in-built apps only?

Skype is a VOIP app so it is in the class of apps that actually do run in the background. However you need to start it manually. There's no facility in iOS to start a non-Apple app every time the device starts.


iPhone: How to continuously play unplayed podcasts? I am on an iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 10.3.3 and the Podcasts app (the default podcast app by Apple) does not continuously play unplayed podcasts that I've already downlaoded. It plays one at a time and every time I must manually click on the next one. Very annoying.
It's been like this for 6+ months now. I've restarted the phone, I've checked the moon button at the bottom of the screen to make sure it is marked as "Off". I also tried setting it to 1 hour and then back to Off...all to no avail. Curiously enough even after setting the moon button to one hour, and then scrolling to the end and letting it finish, it still does not even auto play the next unplayed podcast.

Any ideas?

I have had the same issue since iOS 11 update. I can’t find a way to do this in the app other than constructing a playlist manually which is ridiculous. However, if you ask Siri to play unplayed podcasts, it will play them all continuously. Bit of a hack while waiting for Apple to fix.


Transfer mp3 files from Mac to iPhone Music app using iTunes 12.0.1 I have not done this for a while.  The iTunes version 10 or so was quite intuitive to do this task.  The current iTunes version does not seem so obvious anymore.

Any instructions would be appreciated.

Plug your iPhone and click the device icon in the iTunes bar.

Select Music on the left side bar.
From there you can select whatever music you want from you library (by artist, album, etc.).
Select what you want and hit Sync button in the bottom of the screen.


Unlock Mac from Terminal or Automator In my attempt to start iPlayer and BBC News every morning, I have scheduled Automator to open a page. It does work, however my Mac stays locked, therefore I need to get out of my bed and enter the password and then set iPlayer to run fullscreen.

The second can be probably overcome by setting to click at x,y coordinates. However, I wasn't able to find anything on how to authenticate the user. Perhaps I should send sequence of key presses?

I am running 10.8.

Thanks.

It is not possible anymore in OSX 10.8 the only option I can think of is to disable your password from the lock screen manually in:

  System Prefs > Security > General > Require password

But you have to have fileVault disabled as well maybe below then does work for 10.8?

Edit: I've tested the code below in OSX 10.8 and below doesn't work for 10.8 :(

So make sure this runs before the rest ( and maybe even add a location check to disable authentication when you are at home or connected to your wifi network )

In applescript:

tell application "System Events"
    set require password to wake of security preferences to false
end tell

or

do shell script "defaults write com.apple.screensaver -int 0"

To enable the settings again use true or 1.


Disable video preview/quicklook in Finder Playing video within QuickTime or "Finder preview" crashes my OS X (10.9, Maverick).

I simply want to disable this feature, even if it means disabling all filetype preview (picture, video, mail, pdf...)

Is there a way to disable preview in the finder (right pane) and quicklook (space bar) ?

Is there a daemon (com.apple.*), kernel extension that I can disable or a preference (plist file) that I can edit to achieve this ?

You can turn off the preview pane in Finder windows (column view) by going to Veiw: Show View Options (⌘+J) and unchecking Show Preview Column. This will disable video auto-play but I think your real issue is with a corrupted QuickLook or QuickTime preferences file. To find out if the root cause is as I surmise, create a folder on your desktop and move these files from /Library/Preferences (if you have them) into it
com.apple.quicklookconfig.plist
com.apple.QuickLookDaemon.plist
com.apple.quicktime.plugin.preferences.plist
com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX.LSSharedFileList.plist
com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX.SandboxedPersistentURLs.LSSharedFileList.plist

then restart & see if the problem persists. Let us know the results please.


What is "Software Update"  doing when it says "Checking for new software"? "Software Update" seems to take a long time.  What's it doing?

Utilities -> Activity Monitor yields:

CPU usage low ( 1% - 2% ) by the
"Software Update" process.
+ network traffic inbound,

[picture of Network activity after starting "Software Update"]

[Network activity after ~30 seconds to ~90 seconds]

[Network activity after ~90 seconds]

*note: pictures modified to remove "Data received: [total] and Data Sent:[total]".  Network activity recorded after shutting down all other applications.

Todays Date - Tue May 15 2018
By Philscbx Mpls Mn

This Question ( Software Update ) was stated incorrect ~
Activity Monitor lists only one term - Titled ( Softwareupdated ).
It's not a CPU concern of near Zero -
It's the Memory it holds at 460MB.
This memory load is needed just to run a normal moment at average web site, when only 4GB is available.

This is totally un-necessary load just sitting there when an updater process can randomly access applications when system is idle,, and report, and only report any needed, then owner can access list before going to sleep, and pick from list their choice.

There was a time one could trust Apple Update, not anymore.
As for security updates,,, thats fine, but forcing OS updates is underhanded world order of destroying high end image apps at several thousand dollars each. Thinking it was safe to upgrade to Yosemite last month,
but was wrong again, as it wiped out some of the finest software made to force merge Pro Devices to clone themselves as iPhones & iPads.

When You recall 10.6.8,, this software OS was perfect.


How do I control Macbook volume when a DP display is connected? When I plug my Mac  into a DisplayPort monitor that has loudspeakers, the Mac's volume controls become disabled.

Is Apple assuming that if I have external speakers I am so much better using their own volume control that I have to be forced to do it?   That is annoying because the monitor's volume controls are buried in terrible menus accessed by terrible buttons on the back of the monitor.

Also, if I am inside an app where I can select the audio device and I select the Mac's internal speakers, the volume controls are STILL disabled.  Is there no way to control the volume of an app when an external speaker is connected even if the app is not using the external speaker?????

Some additional info: It's a Macbook Pro 13" 2018 version.  Using a Thunderbolt to Displayport cable, plugging in to a Dell monitor with speakers.    In another location I use the same cable to plug in to Dell monitors with Displayport but without built in speakers in the monitors.   At that location the volume controls remain active and they control the internal speaker in the laptop as they should.

MonitorControl Control your external monitor brightness & volume on your Mac. It does not require installing a driver.
SoundFlower MacOS system extension that allows applications to pass audio to other applications.


changed user path and lost aliases in .bash_profile I reinstalled mountain lion recently and had to reset my git path. Everything was working fine until I realised I had to do it for every project so I tried to change the default system path by sudo bash -c '( echo /usr/local/git/bin > /etc/paths.d/git )'

Apparently I should have left it alone as I don't really know what I'm doing. My command prompt is now unknown-00-26-bb-0e-a8-1f:~ mantismamita$ (mantismamita is my username so that part is normal) and I have lost access to my aliases located in .bash_profile I'm also back to square one with my original problem as my git path is no longer correct. I should mention that I'm at a different IP address as I'm on holiday so that may have influenced the prompt.

I would be eternally grateful if someone could help me get out of this muddle.

I think these are not related. What you're seeing is the default bash prompt, which is defined in /etc/bashrc:

$ grep PS1=  /etc/bashrc
PS1='\h:\W \u\$ '

From the bash man page:

 \h     the hostname up to the first `.'
 \u     the username of the current user
 \W     the basename of the current working directory, with $HOME abbreviated with a tilde

What's happened is that your hostname is not being set correctly. It related to your network settings. It was discussed on superuser: https://superuser.com/questions/318509/hostname-issue-in-mac-os-x-lion

And on the /etc/paths.d/git file, what you did is correct. If you have git installed in /usr/local/git/bin, then the install usually creates that file for you. But the contents are trivial, so you can create it yourself. It should have a single line, containing the path to the bin directory you want added to PATH for all users:

$ ls -l /etc/paths.d/git
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  19 Sep 17  2009 /etc/paths.d/git
$ od -ta /etc/paths.d/git
0000000    /   u   s   r   /   l   o   c   a   l   /   g   i   t   /   b
0000020    i   n  nl
0000023
$ wc -l /etc/paths.d/git
   1 /etc/paths.d/git
$ cat /etc/paths.d/git
/usr/local/git/bin


Unfortunate deleting binary command file I deleted "chmod" by mistake using "sudo rm chmod".
What is the way to recover the chmod command?
Is it 'a no way to do it' operation?
I'm using Mac OS X Yosemite.

This question probably has all the answers for you. In short there is no easy way. Your options are:

Recover the files from a (Time machin) Backup, if existent.
Reinstall OSX, e.g. from the Recovery mode pressing  Command+R at the startup screen
Copy the missing files from the Recovery partition (check if the partition is up to date first). E.g. by doing cp -a /bin /Volumes/<your disk name>


Import data from old HDD (on a PC) to new MacBook I'm planning to buy a new MacBook Pro for school next month, and I wanted to know if I can use Migration Assistant or any other tool to get all data from my old hard drive to the new one.

The problem is: My old MacBook doesn't work anymore and its not worth repairing it or something like that.

I took the HDD out of the notebook, and I can access it on my PC.

The OS version it contains is Lion (probably 10.7.2).

You should be able to access your hard drive like any external hard drive with a kit that can turn it into an external. Like $30 at best buy. After accessing said drive take the information that you need off of it and then you can either keep it as a back up for those files or reformat it and use it as an external hard drive.


How to add a Japanese name that does not appear in the Kotoeri registry? (OS X 10.11) On OS X 10.11 El Capitan, I am trying to add a word to the Kotoeri lookup dictionary. It is a name that does not come up when you type the Hiragana. The way to do it pre-10.10 no longer works. How can I add the word?

Edit and use your user dictionaries (For OS X 10.11 El Capitan (and 10.10?))

  While using a Japanese input mode, choose Edit Text Substitutions from the Input menu in the menu bar.
  In the Text pane of Keyboard preferences, click the Add button .
  In the Replace field, type the hiragana reading of the word (up to 32 characters).

  If you add an adjective, enter the reading in its dictionary form. The ending must be 〜い (~i). For example, あたらしい (atarashii) or たかい (takai).
  If you add an adverb, don’t include inflective endings, such as 〜な (-na) or 〜だ (-da).

  Click the With column, then type the replacement word (up to 64 characters).

See the question mentioned as duplicate for methods for older versions of OS X.


How can change broken file permissions of Time Machine backups? My MacBook Pro needed repair so I backed it up using Time Machine and erased my data before bringing it to an Apple Store.

Meanwhile, I purchased a temporary MacBook Air to keep working. I then used SuperDuper! to create a bootable backup from which I could quickly restore my data on my MacBook Pro when it came back from repair which I did (wanted to do a clean install for a while vs TM restore).

For context, I could access my Time Machine backups on the MacBook Air, but now I can’t access some folders on my MacBook Pro (they have red circles with a white dash in them).

My current username is sunknudsen with uid 502. It used to be 501 before the clean install (same username).

whoami
sunknudsen

id -u
502

ls -l /Volumes/G-DRIVE\ USB/Backups.backupdb/Sun’s\ MacBook\ Pro/2019-07-15-144502/Macintosh\ HD/Users/sunknudsen
total 16
drwxr-xr-x@  3 501  staff   102 21 Jun 15:41 Creative Cloud Files
drwx------+ 26 501  staff   884  6 Jun 08:59 Documents
drwx------+ 89 501  staff  3026 10 Jul 14:00 Library
drwx------+  8 501  staff   272 30 Apr  2017 Movies
drwx------+  8 501  staff   272  7 Feb 21:55 Music
drwx------+ 26 501  staff   884 12 Jun 15:00 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x@  4 501  staff   136  3 Jul  2015 Public
drwxr-xr-x@ 21 501  staff   714 11 Jul 10:45 Sites
drwxr-xr-x@  5 501  staff   170 21 Dec  2018 Software
drwx------+  7 501  staff   238 10 Jul 11:31 VirtualBox VMs
-rw-r--r--@ 15 501  staff  3134 24 Jan 11:06 sunknudsen.asc

So the folders in question have the wrong uid... how can I change their owner to 502?

Tried chown -R sunknudsen:wheel but getting "Operation not permitted".

Using macOS Mojave. Thanks!

Ok, this might break Time Machine so only follow these steps if you don’t plan on inheriting the backup on the new computer (my MacBook Pro in the above use case).

Step 1. Navigate to a folder with broken file permissions in a terminal as root (let’s call the folder Things).

sudo bash
cd /Volumes/G-DRIVE\ USB/Backups.backupdb/Sun’s\ MacBook\ Pro/2019-07-15-144502/Macintosh\ HD/Users/sunknudsen/Things

Step 2. Press enter. (If the cd command fails, you probably need to enable Full Disk Access for your terminal, I use iTerm).

Step 3. Once in the folder with broken file permissions (confirm you are in the right folder by running pwd), run the following command.

sudo find . -user 501 -exec sudo chmod -h -N {} \; -exec sudo chown -h `whoami` {} \; -exec sudo chmod -h +a "group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown" {} \;

sudo find . -user 501 will find all files owned by user with uid 501 in the current folder.

-exec sudo chmod -h -N {} \; is the secret sauce. It will remove access-control list (ACL) rules which prevent us from running a familiar chown -R `whoami` . command to change file ownership.

-exec sudo chown -h `whoami` {} \; will change the ownership of the files found by find to the user who is running the command.

-exec sudo chmod -h +a "group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown" {} \; will restore the default Time Machine ACL rules (which is optional).

You should now have access to the Things folder!


Prevent pages form automatically linking to email addresses and urls Is there a way to prevent pages from automatically turning anything that looks like an email address or a url into a hyperlink?

Go to the menu found at "Edit" > "Substitutions" > "Smart Links" and you can edit automatic hyperlinking.

More information can be found in the Apple knowledge base.


What is the meaning of an icon that appears next to the Location field in Calendar app? It only appears when the event location is entered for an event which lives in a Google calendar. (I have a Google CalDAV account set up in my Calendar.app) If I make the event go to a local or iCloud calendar, the icon disappears.

The icon appears as soon the field loses focus and the location text becomes "tokenized" (like someone’s name and email in Mail.app for example). It is a tiny exclamation point inside a yellow circle. The tooltip just repeats the location text when hovering over the icon

.

You can find what the exclamation point means in Calendar Help>View events>Calendar symbols:

The explanation "the item isn’t recognized as a valid entry by the server" is somewhat misleading. Even when the event is created using Google's web interface (so you would expect the server validated your location information) Calendar complains about the location and shows the dreaded exclamation point.

There seems to be some kind of mismatch between the information Google calendar exports through CalDAV and what Calendar expects. This is probably also the reason why location information in an imported Google calendar is shown inside a bubble:

That's not the case for iCloud Calendar events.

A Google search shows many posts of other people who have the same problem. Nobody seems to have found a solution, though. I don't think you can do much about it.


Get Dragon Dictate to move cursor to The end of the current line? How do I get Dragon Dictate to move to the end of the line after correcting something on the Mac?


CCC Lion HD to larger Drive, Advice I'm running CCC (carbon Copy Cloner) beta 3.4.4-b1

I would like to change the Hard Drive in my iMac and wanted to know if there are any hurdles, steps I should take in cloning my current Hard Drive

UPDATE:

Looks like my HD Dock stops the hard drive disk after a long period while backing up, Here is what I have:

http://www.sabrent.com/category/hard-drive-enclosures/DSH-USB2/

It's generally a good advice not to run beta software for critical operations. Use a stable version. I use SuperDuper personally.

After cloning the drive, you should be able to just hook up the new cloned hard drive to your iMac and the computer will be just like when you cloned it. If you do any work after cloning it, the cloned drive won't have that changes.

Every Lion installation creates a recovery partition for when you want to reformat the drive or when something bad happens to your OS.

If you just clone your main hard drive partition, your Lion recovery partition will not be cloned.

This means that you will not be able to boot into your recovery partition in your cloned drive. There are a few ways to get around this, but I haven't tested this myself:

Install Lion on your new drive before you clone your old data to it.
Install Lion on your new drive and use Migration assistant instead of cloning.


What is the difference in resolution and quality between SCART, VGA, and HDMI? For my old MacBook (2,1) I have a mini-DVI to Video adapter that I use to connect to the TV (mini-DVI-to-Composite-to-SCART). It works, but I cannot seem to get the right resolution for the TV display (no wide screen resolutions available at all).

I see there are other options to connect to as well on the TV: VGA and HDMI. How do each of these options perform differently in terms of resolution and quality?

For example, I'm planning to buy a HDMI adapter and would like to understand if this will make it possible to use a wide resolution for the TV from the MacBook.

I'd be very happy if someone can give a detailed explanation what resolutions and qualities each port is capable of.

First: The maximum resolution of your TV is important. Your TV have probably a resolution of 1920 * 1080 Pixel (FullHD).

  A (Mini) Display Port can display about 3840×2400 Pixel

  VGA is an older standard, an was created for an Analog connection
  between devices.
  HDMI was created for a Digital connection.

So, the HDMI option is the best, because HDMI fully supports FullHD resolution.

VGA could probably be display FullHD or HD Ready (1280x720 Pixel), but it's not recommended.

So, the best decision is to buy an Mini Display Port - to - HDMI Adapter.

It is hard to give a detailed information of the cababilities of each Video-Output, because there are many differnt version of each one out there.


How do I clear the application used to open a file, i.e. set it to none When you double click a file the finder will select an application to open it with.  What it's going to do can be viewed in the file's info panel.  You can change it there too.   Viewing some files you'll notice that they report the selected application as None.

I want to set a file's preferred application to none.  But how?  The option of clearing the preference back to None is not offered in the Info panel.

The two files I want to do this to are part of a set of files N files, half with no extension and half with an extension for which no application has registered any interest.  So presumably something set a preference for the two files.  I want to remove that preference.

Maybe this is done with lsregister, but I think that's only handling the wildcards.  Maybe this is done with an extended attribute on the file; but xattr doesn't show anything.

The few files I had this problem with all happened to have their executable bit set, and the application the finder wanted to use was Terminal.  Turning off the executable bit resolved the problem.


Empty /home directory, and I can't delete it? I have got a /home directory with no content. When trying to delete it by sudo rm -rf /home, OS X warns "rm: /home: Resource busy" and refuses to do it.   Tried reboot. lsof returns nothing related.

Does anyone know why could this happen, and, especially, how can I remove it?

it is set up by the system for scenarios with network home directories, which are mounted at /home. we use network homes for a number of our Mac desktops, and, in our case, if a user has a home directory specified in Active Directory, and the AD plugin is set to use it, it will mount under /home.

my guess would be that the system doesn't allow it to be deleted because of that (at minimum).


Will AirDrop use the data allowance from my phone and wifi modem? I'm successfully able to transfer files from my iPhone to my MacBook Pro using AirDrop, when connected to my home wifi network. But I'm unable to determine how AirDrop is creating the connection between the phone and laptop.

This page says:

  AirDrop uses Apple's Bonjour technology to listen in on a wireless
  connection for another Mac to announce AirDrop capabilities

and this page says:

  AirDrop uses Bluetooth to create a peer-to-peer Wi-Fi network between
  the devices.

When my laptop is connected to a wifi modem, and my phone is using 4G data, will AirDrop use the wifi and 4G connections, eroding my data allowances on both devices? Or are the phone and laptop directly connected to each other ("peer to peer wireless network"), and therefore not eating up my data allowances?

With airdrop it is always a direct connection (usually wifi or a mix of wifi + bluetooth) between the 2 devices. No internet connection is required at all. So you can transfer as much as you like and it will all be local between the devices; "peer to peer" like you say. Your internet quota won't be used at all.


power mac G5 won't boot past the logo - shuts down to a black screen I think the HD is full? When I power up it chimes and I get the logo screen and whirling ball then after a 20 seconds it shuts down to a black screen and powers off. I tried to start in Safe Start Mode but no go.

Insert the Install Disc 1 DVD to start the Apple Hardware Test that came with your computer into the cd drive. Holding down C as soon as the computer boots.


Will "never auto-lock" affect the life of the iPhone? I've my iPhone set to "never auto-lock":

I am aware that this will mean I'll have to recharge the phone more frequently. But besides the inconvenience, will the "life" of the iPhone be affected in any way?

Yes - since the battery is not user-replaceable and it has limited charge cycles, anything that causes you to recharge the device more often than needed reduces the lifetime before it needs a battery service.

Now, it's quite easy to replace the battery on an iPhone for a technician and Apple offers their service if you want a warranty or feel uneasy with yourself or a local shop doing the work.

The rest of the device is likely to last years before aging causes the backlight to dim or the other parts to fail, so in that case I would say no - you can't really run out of the rest of the phone's life by preventing the screen from locking.


Can the clock speed of my 2011 MBAir i7 be slowed to conserve power? Most of what I do with my 2011 i7 MBAir could be done with 10% of the available processor power. Is there a hack to slow the processor to conserve battery for the 95% of the time I don't need it?

The Intel i5 and i7 processors have a number of features that will definitely conserve power or optimize it for those peak moments. You can't slow it down programmatically but you can be sure that the OS is doing all it can.

It's a good question, though, because an i7 processor running at 1.8Ghz doing nothing could be running at 1.2 and save power. In any case, I'm sure that one of the worst battery hungry things is the display. Make sure you dim it often when not using, use a lower brightness setting, turn off bluetooth if/when you don't use it, if you don't need network connectivity, turn wireless off, etc. Basic obvious ideas.

I have a free handy tool, similar to App Tamer mentioned by @ioi, that I occasionally use, Freeze Frame. You can simply stop certain processes from using any CPU at all, therefore letting the CPU to slow down. (Remember that with Turbo Boost it can go up!).

But I am not aware of a specific way to slow DOWN the processor. I'm sure Intel did its job there and the processor is clever enough to save as much as it can.


Unable to locate cgi-bin for nginx on Mac OS X I am trying to locate cgi-bin folder for Nginx, which I installed on Mac OSX on my iMac. I am not sure where is it located? I saw another post but it was about the Lion Server. Can somebody tell me where is it on Mac OSX?

Try finding it by typing this in the terminal:

 sudo find / -name cgi-bin | grep nginx


OSX El Capitan reset the number of Spaces Is there a way of "resetting" the number of desktop Spaces in Mission Control in El Capitan?
I'm working on a previous co-workers Mac Pro, and somehow mission control has....325 desktop Spaces...

I have already tried disabling/re-enabling Spaces via terminal with...

defaults write com.apple.dock mcx-expose-disabled -bool TRUE
killall Dock
defaults delete com.apple.dock mcx-expose-disabled
killall Dock

...however the previous number of spaces persists. I have also tried disabling all of the Mission Control System Preferences but to no avail.

Is there a terminal command that will set the number of spaces available?

The list of spaces is stored in the following file.

/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.spaces.plist

For example on a machine with the dashboard and three desktops:

<key>Spaces</key>
<array>
    <dict>
        <key>ManagedSpaceID</key>
        <integer>3</integer>
        <key>id64</key>
        <integer>3</integer>
        <key>pid</key>
        <integer>59241</integer>
        <key>type</key>
        <integer>2</integer>
        <key>uuid</key>
        <string>dashboard</string>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>ManagedSpaceID</key>
        <integer>1</integer>
        <key>id64</key>
        <integer>1</integer>
        <key>type</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>uuid</key>
        <string></string>
        <key>wsid</key>
        <integer>1</integer>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>ManagedSpaceID</key>
        <integer>4</integer>
        <key>id64</key>
        <integer>4</integer>
        <key>type</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>uuid</key>
        <string>514D761A-D08B-402E-BF8E-FFB607A340EF</string>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>ManagedSpaceID</key>
        <integer>5</integer>
        <key>id64</key>
        <integer>5</integer>
        <key>type</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>uuid</key>
        <string>CF552E87-9A59-41C7-B0AF-7AEFFB1DFB43</string>
    </dict>
</array>

Unfortunately OS X holds a copy of the file in memory, so if you just delete it or modify it, it doesn't make any difference as it just recreates the file with the same number of spaces.

You could log into another account, delete the file from the Terminal, and then log back into the affected account.

Or you could just create a new account for yourself and use it, and leave the 325 spaces for your colleague if they return. Each user account has its own com.apple.spaces.plist file.


Call using Facetime audio only I would like to be using Facetime for audio calls only. When I open some contact on my iPhone I can see something like on the picture attached. The intuition tells me those two buttons within Facetime row should call using either video call or audio-only call. However it doesnt matter what button I click, it always starts the video call.
How can I start the audio-only call from contact card, like the one below? Many thanks

Are you sure you're hitting the 'audio' button correctly? I found that it needs to be tapped very precisely.

Sometimes iOS incorrectly assumes that the tap goes to the whole FaceTime row, which is then highlighted in gray during the tap and starts a FaceTime video call.


Is it possible to sync a Photos library hosted on external HD with iCloud? I have a ~90 GB Photos library on an external hard drive. Every time I want to access those photos, I need to have access to and to connect this hard drive. I was thinking about syncing with iCloud so:

I can access a copy of the photos wherever I have an Internet connection.
I would also have an offsite backup.

My question: Is it merely a matter of going into System Preferences → iCloud → and ticking the Photos box? If it is, I’m guessing I must have the external hard drive (where the Photos library it) connected when I do it, and must be ready to leave it connected for a while (maybe overnight) while it syncs with iCloud?

Is it merely a matter of going into System Preferences → iCloud → and ticking the Photos box?

Yes.

  If it is, I’m guessing I must have the external hard drive (where the Photos library it) connected when I do it, and must be ready to leave it connected for a while (maybe overnight) while it syncs with iCloud?

Yes,