Why aren't any of my Folder Actions triggering? I'm running Mountain Lion (10.8.3). I have three or four folder actions set up which stopped working some time ago, and I can't figure out why.

Thinking it could be a problem with the scripts, I created a new folder named "Test" on my desktop, and attached the "add - new item alert.scpt" sample script. When I created a new text file in the folder, nothing happened. I checked the system log to see if there were any error messages being output, but I couldn't find any. (In fact, searching the system log using Console.app for "folder" didn't produce any results at all)

How do I figure out why none of my folder actions are working?

Folder Actions seem to have been buggy for a lot of people in Mountain Lion (myself included). There’s discussion elsewhere on Ask Different about the unreliability of Folder Actions in general, and there are quite a few threads on Apple’s support forums about the issue.

Reinstalling 10.8.4 seemed to fix the problem for the OP, but I’ll note here what seems to be a common fix. The following practice, quoted from Jehan Alvani’s blog, has been cited in quite a few places:

  Create ~/Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts/ and drop the folder action script you want to add in there.
  Strangely, open System Preferences → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts, and click the Reset to Defaults button.
  Scroll up to the Files & Folders section, and make sure that the Folder Actions Setup… listing is checked.

I think you want to go to the Services panel within the Keyboard preferences pane, but I’m not certain. I’m not willing to try it since I don’t want to reconfigure my keyboard shortcuts if I screw it up, and I don’t use Folder Actions anyway.

I know the OP’s problem has been fixed, but this may be of use to other people facing similar difficulties.


can an iPad be linked to two different iTunes accounts? Can I load the songs/games I purchased using my Itunes account to my husband's iPad?  My iPad is not working.

Yes you can. Just go to :

Settings > iTunes & App Store

Then log out and log in with your Id and you can redownload all the stuff your purchased thanks to iCloud. His data will be unaffected and remain on the device.

Alternatively you can turn on Family Sharing which does the same thing but a little more user friendly by going to :

Settings > iCloud > Set Up Family Sharing.


Is there a way to turn off the "iCloud Drive isn't compatible with Mavericks" errors? I installed Yosemite on one of my machines (and uninstalled it a short time later).

Now, running Mavericks, every time I open a program that uses iCloud (like Numbers), I'm greeted with this message.

After clicking OK, I can still read documents stored on iCloud, I really can't see any functionality differences. After I pick a file, I get the same dialog box again, and click OK again, and I can edit and save my file.

This is extremely obnoxious.

I would guess that I can't convert my account to non-iCloud Drive, which is fine, I don't really depend on "iCloud" for anything.

My question is, how can I get rid of the error message?

Guesswork, but the bad news is you should have switched it off before reverting, if at all possible.

Looking through the various QAs at Apple forums would tend to lead to the conclusion that once you have upgraded to iCloud Drive it cannot be reverted. You may be able to switch it off from https://icloud.com but I can't test as I have never enabled it on my machines.

Apple have never been too concerned about people wanting to rewind.

General iCloud Drive info from Apple doesn't cover it, nor does the switching off iCloud Drive FAQ


Restoring from Time Machine to different type of Mac I have been using a Time Machine for back ups for about 2 years now. Recently, I got a new iMac 27in and ‘restored’ it from my MacBook Air backup (most updated OS). I chose all the options as seen below:

I have noticed that my new iMac is running a bit sluggish, I am attributing this to the fact that it a Fusion Drive, but I am also being told that it could be because I copied over all the files (including Computer & Network Settings)

Is it advisable to restore a Mac from a different Macs Time Machine?

Actually that is, in most cases just fine.

I've been restoring my user profile on an older Mac to a newer Mac since the Migration Assistant was available on OSX. And I always do what you just did, restore everything.

That said, if you were having issues with your networking on the old Mac then it might carry over to the new Mac. But I have never seen restoring the network settings to a new Mac cause the new Mac to misbehave in any way.

That said, just because I didn't have any problems doesn't mean it can't happen. You could go through your ~/library/Preferences and /Library/Preferences folders, delete any networking related files and reboot. That would likely tell you if that was the problem.


Managing keychain from terminal I want to move my keys from login keychain to system keychain from terminal. Is that possible? I checked the security manual but I can not see the option there to do so.

Why?

The login keychain is for your user account. Moving that data to the system keychain would make your information available to all user accounts including 'Guest' accounts. Do you really want to do that?

I don't know if it is possible to do what you want, but if I look at my login keychain it includes my personal passwords, Apple ID, public keys (no problem), and private keys. These should never be made available to anyone. They are private for a reason.

Don't do this.


How to remove photos on my iPhone directly from iPhoto? I'm using iPhoto '11 (version 9.4.3) on a Mac running (10.8.5).

I often need to remove a lot of poor quality photos on my iPhone from within iPhoto (ex.: 50 photos to remove). I want to manage this process from within iPhoto because I have a global vision of what I'm destroying and the risk of error is lower.

I know how to remove photos within iPhoto, and this isn't my question.

I know that tranferred photo could be located within my library and then Photos > move to trash will really delete the selected photos.

But I would like to avoid the time waste and the risk of errors due to these 2 independant operations (total loss and duplicates).

Is there some hidden menu entry which permit to straight forward remove a bunch of photos without transferring them?

Perhaps not quite what you're asking, but Image Capture will quickly list the entire contents of the iPhone's library & allow single or multiple deletion [or indeed transfer] with shift/control select.


How can I get my videos from a digital camera to OSX and iPhone? I have Sony NEX 3N. I can find AVCHD file when camera plugged to the computer

that fires QuickTime

where I can export videos to different social services such as YouTube but I cannot find the video files itself. I want videos to directories such as Dropbox directories. Then I want to organise the videos by timestamps.

I have used Aperture for pictures and Final Cut Pro for editing videos. Now I want to get the videos as files without middlemen like QuickTime or Final Cut Pro. I need the videos from Sony NEX 3N to my iPhone where I have video collage creation applications and more videos. So my plan is to have the video files as raw in Dropbox and somehow get them to iPhone or is there any easier method?

How can I get videos from the camera to OSX? What about to iPhone? How can I manage this process?

This is the solution I am using for fast small improvisation

I create a new Aperture production library for each new project. I don't want to mess up the originals. I import all necessary videos and pictures to the new production Aperture library and then syncronise that production library through iTunes: clean and simple! Sometimes the syncronisation has some problems but then you just need to close your Aperture and close your iTunes. The syncronisation does not look to work most reliably that is a bit painful. To circumvent the syncronisation problem: the Time Capsule  may be a solution -- as suggested here.

Analysis

Community wiki answer where I am documenting solutions. Bruno here provided the solution fastest for finding the files in Quora but I am not able to get them into iTunes. I don't know yet how to syncronize things over OSX and iPhone now easiest, testing.

0. Create iMovie projects in OS X and iOS that you synchronise -question

I. Finding video files (found in MTS format)

  Go to the AVCHD file (that is actually a folder)

  click "Show Package Content"

  click "Show Package Content" again with something called B
  now the videos are *MTS files. Enjoy!

II. How to get MTS files to iPhone?

  MTS files do not work directly in iPhone. So you cannot transfer them just like that from the STREAM/*.MTS to DropBox and open in iPhone.

III. How can I get the videos from the camera to iTunes and sync to iPhone? Drag and dropping does not work from the video view to iTunes.

IV. How to get the videos easiest to iPhone from the Sony camera?

  I don't know the answer yet.

V. How to get the videos easiest to OSX from the Sony camera and iPhone?

  I don't know the answer yet.


Time Machine keeps validating backup, how to identify reason? I have a Time Machine backup of my Macbook running the latest MacOS (11.2.3) on my Time Capsule (so not a local drive).
Recently I've noticed that the "Validating backup"-step runs often, presumably daily, which is much more frequent than I expect.   (I notice the drive spins up and keeps running).   Time Machine reports backups are being done on a regular basis.
Is there a way to get more insight in how Time Machine is working on my machine, and why the validation step happens so frequently?

I was suspecting a broken file system on the Time Capsule, but needed proof.   After yet another mysteriously cancelling verification step, I found https://superuser.com/q/1126990/7401 which ended up in
log show --last 3d --style syslog  --predicate 'senderImagePath contains[cd] "TimeMachine"' --info|less

which in turn let me find this log line:
2021-04-05 00:48:38.359222+0200  localhost backupd[276]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:General] fsck returned an unknown termination status: 8

So, the file system check program reported an error message but Time Machine didn't let me know.  Apparently 8 indicates unrepairable error, which is a rather bad sign.  I then mounted the "Data" drive holding the backupbundle file on Time Capsule manually, and as Disk Utility did not want to mount the backupbundle, I found https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/39842/3157 resulting in
sudo hdiutil attach -nomount -readwrite /Volumes/Data/XXX.backupbundle

giving
/dev/disk2              GUID_partition_scheme
/dev/disk2s1            EFI
/dev/disk2s2            Apple_HFS

Now the Time Machine backup shows in Disk Utility, and I could run First Aid on the drive which slowly but successfully repaired the filesystem.


Apple Configurator 2 won't prepare Using Apple Configurator 2. I connect an IPad and hit prepare. It says that the device has already been prepared.

I erase the device, it restarts and goes through all the steps for setup (even though I chose to skip all steps for prepare).

On the apple configurator 2, during the restart process it tries to "Downloading activation records for device" and keeps going step 1 of 2, then 2 of 3, 3 of 4 etc.... It continuously fails and won't see the IPad as prepared.

The device restarts and appears like a regular device that I can setup as one usually would from the store.

I have no idea how to get the ipad to prepare so I can run it in single app mode.

Update
During setup it states the iPad is linked to my account (it was setup once before as a normal iPad).

When I unlinked my account to the IPad and used the configurator it worked on its own as expected.


Removing coloured icons in Finder There have been a number of questions for removing the muted sidebar icons and replacing them with the older coloured versions.  It's well documented that the coloured versions still happily exist and can be seen by simply looking in the Go menu of the finder app.

I want to do it the other way around.  I want to find instances of the coloured icons, and replace those with the muted versions instead.  The most obvious place for them to appear is in the header bar of finder windows, but there is the aforementioned go menu too.

How can I make all instance of a coloured finder icons for default home folder locations use the muted monochrome versions as seen in the sidebar by default?

If you use CandyBar, you can change the icons for system folders. Selecting a monochrome set of icons will make all the finder icons monochrome. Note that you cannot change the icons for applications from the App store without breaking their code signature, and thus their ability to update.

You can find the sidebar icons and most of the other icons to which you refer in the folder /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources

If one doesn't mind mucking about in system folders (something one should do with a great deal of caution), one might duplicate some of the Sidebar* icons and use them to replace the corresponding icons without the word Sidebar before them. I wouldn't try this without a bootable backup in place, however, in case I messed something up badly.


Macbook Pro Mid 2010 NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M random glitch showing when scrolling, writing or watching videos I have have a MacBook pro late 2010 (now 4 years old), I use it everyday and there's a graphical issue where letters in the browser become blurry and broken, some kind of weird glitch happens all the time.
Problem
Whenever I scroll on a page or write content in an input, using google chrome letters become like this (click on the picture so you understand what happens).

This is very disturbing when reading.
What I tried
Other browsers
They work a bit better
I have tried on Opera browser and on Safari and this doesn't happen (at least, did not happen as often as chrome). I used firefox for a while now, went better, but Playing videos on firefox does the glitch too. I switched to Firefox Developer Edition and can't tell when was the last time I experienced an issue (see end of question and answers, may help too).
Disabling plugins
Nope. I created a new chrome user (with no plugin installed), still does that flickering.
Reinstalling Chrome
Nope. Tried this multiple times, still the same.
Trying other versions of Chrome
Nope. Thought it worked fine, used it for 30 minutes, does the same again.

Additional informations
I am currently running Yosemite but it's been doing this for a long time.
Hardware Overview:

  Model Name:   MacBook Pro
  Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,1
  Processor Name:   Intel Core i7
  Processor Speed:  2.66 GHz
  Number of Processors: 1
  Total Number of Cores:    2
  L2 Cache (per Core):  256 KB
  L3 Cache: 4 MB
  Memory:   8 GB
  Processor Interconnect Speed: 4.8 GT/s
  Boot ROM Version: MBP61.0057.B0F
  SMC Version (system): 1.57f17
  Serial Number (system):   ***
  Hardware UUID:    ***
  Sudden Motion Sensor:
  State:    Enabled

Intel HD Graphics:

  Chipset Model:  Intel HD Graphics
  Type: GPU
  Bus:  Built-In
  VRAM (Total): 288 MB
  VRAM (Dynamic, Max):  10
  Vendor: Intel (0x8086)
  Device ID:  0x0046
  Revision ID:  0x0018
  gMux Version: 1.9.22

NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M:

  Chipset Model:  NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
  Type: GPU
  Bus:  PCIe
  PCIe Lane Width:  x16
  VRAM (Total): 512 MB
  Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
  Device ID:  0x0a29
  Revision ID:  0x00a2
  ROM Revision: 3560
  gMux Version: 1.9.22
  Displays:
Color LCD:
  Display Type: LCD
  Resolution: 1600 x 1000
  Pixel Depth:  32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
  Main Display: Yes
  Mirror: Off
  Online: Yes
  Built-In: Yes

Things that seemed to help
These are taken from the answers below (thanks!), read them for details

I had some unusual cpu usage after upgrading to yosemite, I followed 6 Easy Tips to Speed Up OS X Yosemite on Your Mac (first one helped alot).

I disabled hardware acceleration in chrome about:config

I enabled subpixel font rendering for non-Apple LCDs:
   defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2

I have experienced the same glitch.

This seems to be the problem reported here: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=359108

They claim it's an issue with Mavericks, GPU-accelerated graphics, and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M. I also have a mid-2010 Macbook Pro with the same graphics chip

This glitch started happening on mine after I upgraded to Mavericks. Also my Macbook started rebooting spontaneously every couple of weeks, with kernel panic messages about the GPU.

The suggested workaround is to go into Chrome's advanced settings, and disable the checkbox for "Use hardware acceleration when available" (second from the bottom). Then restart Chrome.

I just tried that myself, so I can't report that it works reliably yet.


Is it possible to use a gesture to go back in Finder? I miss the ability to go back to previous directory via a gesture (swipe with two finger right like in Safari or Chrome) in Finder. Is it possible to enable it?

Edit: I'm on a MacBook Pro, and using the trackpad.

UPDATE

It looks like this has been broken in Mac OS X 10.9 (and wasn't fixed in 10.9.1)

This works again in the latest Mac Os X 10.10.1, and presumably also in 10.10.

Trackpad
Three-finger swipe left goes back and forth in Finder, just like in Safari.
You don't need 3rd party software to do this, simply make sure your settings are correct.

Go to System Preferences via Spotlight or Launchpad, navigate to Trackpad and click the tab More Gestures. The first option is "Swipe between pages", which enables swiping in Finder, Chrome etc. Make sure to choose one of the two Swipe options.

I've attached an image showing the screen for you here:

Make sure that you've chosen Swipe left or right with four fingers in the Swipe between full-screen apps so the two options don't overrule each other.

You also want to make sure there is no checkmark in the Three finger drag. They are mutually exclusive. You can check this in the Point & Click tab.

Magic Mouse
If you use a Magic Mouse and want to be able to swipe back and forth in Finder, you have to turn off the Swipe between full-screen apps and change Swipe between pages to either Swipe left or right with two fingers or Swipe left or right with one or two fingers (both options enables you to swipe back and forth in Finder when using both fingers.


Is there a way to know which Program sent some files to the trash bin? I have seen some files appearing miraculously in the trash bin on my Mac, and I would like to know which program sent them there to be able to contact the Support and give some feedback.

Is there a way to do it?

No, that info isn't tracked by macOS, HFS+ or APFS.


Apple Photos Library Error 1000 I'm running MacOS X Catalina 10.15.2 (19C57) and have a large Photos library on a NAS. When I attempt to open Photos, I get:

"The library could not be opened." "Photos was unable to open the library “Photos Library”. (1000)"

Quit and Open Other... are the options in the error dialog box.

The library worked OK before Catalina and Photos went through an extensive library update on first launch. It sorted the pictures, but never created the or displayed the thumbnails. Now, however, it won't open the library at all.

All you have to do is hold down the OPTION and COMMAND buttons while launching Photos. You’ll need an Administrator name and password for the computer to authorize running the repair tool.

It will allow an option to Repair Library. Try to repair it and it should work if it was working without any issue before upgrade.


Allow network user login via terminal I accidentally deselected "Allow network user login at login window" on my mac. I need to restore that setting. I have admin and access to every file via the startup terminal utility (but can't login with my user name). How do enable network user login from the terminal?

first:
sudo /usr/sbin/dseditgroup -o edit -a "com.apple.loginwindow.netaccounts" -t group "com.apple.access_loginwindow"

then:
sudo /usr/sbin/dseditgroup -o edit -a "yourAccount" -t group "com.apple.loginwindow.netaccounts"


localhost port mapped to website Is it possible to open a website, for example, http://apple.stackexchange.com with url http://localhost:8000 without changing hosts file?

This is quite easy if there's no back story to why you feel hosts file is not the right solution. You also might have problems if you're not used to pasting things in Terminal, but if that's the case - you can ask a second question for help on that too!

Copy and paste the following lines into Terminal:

cd
mkdir diy_proxy
cd diy_proxy
cat > index.html << EOF
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=http://apple.stackexchange.com/" />
EOF
python -m SimpleHTTPServer

To kill the python web server, press: Control-C

The lines do the follows:

get you in your home directory/folder
make a folder to hold the index file that will redirect your browser
go to that folder
send characters to the file index.html until you see EOF (and don't include it)
This is the magic that tells your browser to redirect
ends the content to save to file index.html
start a lightweight web server on port 8000 to serve up the index file


What are some good methods of recovering key function after a spillage? So a friend just gave me his Macbook Air 1,1 on which he spilt some water. He wiped it away immediately, turned it off and upside down but alas the "l" key is no longer functional. However all the others are.

PRAM reset, no luck. Lifted keycap off, nothing unusual visible but still doesn't work. I'm going to leave it off and evaporating for a little while to see if that changes anything, but any suggestions would be great.

Incidentally, he also is still covered under Applecare. Can we get away with a repair on this? There's no water damage marker is there?

Apple are very likely to repair this under Applecare with no charge. I have had several defective keyboards and stuck keys in the past. In all cases, Apple replaced the keyboards for free under Applecare.

Clearly your milage will vary, since if you have damaged the keyboard by misuse they are under no obligation to fix it, but in my experience, Genius bar engineers will always give you the benefit of the doubt.


How do I remove specific items from my "Open With..." menu in High Sierra? For certain file types (like PDF) my "Open With..." Finder menu has become uselessly long, and I would like to remove some specific items from it.

How do I remove specific items from my "Open With..." menu in High Sierra?

Note, this is not a duplicate of the many similar questions about how to reset the menu, nor (I hope) of the several very old questions with no or outdated answers on the same topic.

To prevent  a specific app from showing up under the "Open With..." for a particular file:

Go to your Applications folder and right click on the app you want
Right click and select "Show Package Contents"
In the Contents folder, open the file Info.plist with your favorite text editor
Under CFBundleTypeExtensions (there will be multiple), find the XML properties with <string>file extension</string>.
Delete the XML property that matches the file type you no longer want to associate. (i.e. <string>gif</string>) then save the file.
In Terminal, restart Finder (killall Finder)


How do I remove Finder tags from all files in a folder and its subfolders? How can I remove Finder tags from all files in a given folder and in its subfolders?

You can use Homebrew's tag:

brew install tag
tag -r /path/*

You can combine this with a find command to find specific files/folders + recursive.

find . -exec tag -r {} \;  -print


Drag with three fingers missing in OS X 10.11 Beta "El Capitan" (15A215h) I decided to try out the El Capitan Public Beta for fun by putting it on my external drive and booting off of it. However, one of the first things I've noticed is that the drag gesture in System Preferences->Trackpad is not to be found. Is this normal? I don't know what Beta version I'm running (a web search of the build number turns nothing up about the Beta version), I do know it was the current version about a month ago, anyway the build number is 15A215h. Having to press and drag the old fashioned way seems awful, especially after using the three finger drag.

Is the drag gesture present in newer Beta versions? If not, is there somehow that I can enable again (maybe with a Terminal command)?

The drag gesture has migrated. It is now present in the Accessibility Preferences, Mouse & Trackpad, under Trackpad Options...


Does the new Macbook Pro with Retina display have user-upgradeable RAM? I'm interested in purchasing the new MacBook Pro with Retina display, but it's not clear from the tech specs page whether the RAM is user-upgradeable or not.

Do I need to take into account future RAM usage when customizing my MacBook Pro order, or can I go with 8GB RAM and upgrade it later?

I called Apple to find out, and they confirmed that it is not user-upgradeable: the tech explained that they used the same process they used for the MacBook Air to save space: there are no sticks of RAM, and the RAM has been soldered directly onto the main board.

As Russell Borogove noted in the comments, this is now confirmed when you configure the MacBook Pro before purchase:

  Please note that the memory is built into the computer, so if you think you may need more memory in the future, it is important to upgrade at the time of purchase.

So if you were thinking you might want the 16GB RAM in the future, you'd want to choose it when you order the MacBook Pro, as you won't be able to upgrade later.


OSX El Capitan, DNS issue Yesterday everything worked fine. But tonight, I'm unable to access particularly a few particular websites on all the imacs, mbp and even iphones at home. Weirdly enough, a quick 4G access via my iphones show the sites are accessible, but when i get back on the home network (via wifi / ethernet), it becomes unavailable with these errors:

ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED
ERR_NETWORK_CHANGED
"...connection interrupted"
"This site can’t be reached.."

I've done all these tonight, but to no avail -- all on separate occasions on all imacs/mbp/iphone where possible:

cleared all cache, cookies and whatnots from google chrome..
updated osx to latest ElCapitan 10.11.6
restarted fibre modem, restarted router, restarted all computers/gadgets
tried sudo flushing my dns/mdns via terminal, but instead of receiving "say flushed" i got a "discoveryutil: command not found"
called the websites' web host techsupport and they're able to access the sites just fine.

& the best part about all this? Other websites work just fine. Only the few particular websites only. I'm bummed. Any pointers would be most grateful here.

IMHO, it's my router's DNS that's interrupting these few particular web addresses, but I am out of my wits to solve this. Heeeeeeelp~

Here's the particular site that can't be reached:  (www.mtggoldfish.com)

The very first thing to have tried would have been to change from your provider's DNS servers to a known public one.

Google is one of the most commonly known - also the numbers are easiest to remember

System Prefs > Network > [currently used] > Advanced... > DNS

The number currently in there will be the one assigned by your DHCP server, i.e. your router, so you don't really need to remember it, but write it down if you wish.

Hit the - button to remove it.
Hit the + button & add 8.8.8.8
repeat & add 8.8.4.4
OK
Apply

Reboot & test.

DNS issues usually sort themselves out in a day or two so if it works, keep it for a while, then swap back to your ISP's servers. You should be able to do that by simply removing both the Google servers & hitting OK, Apply. It will find the right one from DHCP.


How to nest folders in Finder based on columns in a spreadsheet? I have an Excel sheet with 2 columns of data (Feeder, Serial Number).

I have 2 separate sets of folders on my Mac labeled the same (Feeder, Serial Number).

Within the Serial Number folders, there's tons o' files.

I need to move the Serial number folders into the Feeder folders based on the corresponding order on the Excel sheet.

There are hundreds of feeders and thousands of serial numbers; many serial number folders will go into the same feeder folder.

I'm sure there must be a quick way to accomplish this using scripts but the answers are frustratingly buried in this laptop and unfortunately, not in my head.  :-\

Any help appreciated.

Export the Excel as a CSV (assuming there are only the two columns you've shown above, otherwise delete other stuff first), with the separator set to ,
Open Terminal
Run

while IFS=, read FEEDER SERIAL; do
    mv "/path/to/$SERIAL" "/path/to/$FEEDER/"
done < "/path/to/CSV"

(Replace the /path/to parts as needed)

PS: This assumes that the serial numbers are unique.


Connect Macbook Air with external monitor I have a MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013) that uses an Intel HD Graphics 5000. I also plan to buy the monitor that is supposed to have connectors for DisplayPort and HDMI with a resolution of 2560x1440 Pixel.

I would like to make sure that I can make use of the monitor's resolution with my Macbook Air.

If this is possible what cable do I need for that ?

P.S.: The monitor comes with two cables, DP and HDMI, so my guess would be I'd need an adapter. Yet this does not answer the question of the desired resolution. If you need more specific information please comment/ask below.

A quick google showed me that this MacBook supports:

  Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native
  resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an
  external display, both at millions of colors

So, yes it looks like the Macbook will support the full resolution of your monitor.


trying to restore contacts in yosemite with time machine ok -- so my wife lost her contacts on her macbook pro (and icloud as well), but we use time machine -- i was trying to look around for help in how to restore ALL her contacts using time machine -- is there a file somewhere that contains all the contacts on the system that by replacing it with a full batch of contacts would replace the empty one i have how???

thanks

keith

To add to what @n1000 said above, some more details:

connect your time machine backup drive
you may need to login as root to get access to that Library folder
choose Finder->Go To folder-> <path-to-library>, where <path-to-libary> is something like "/Volumes/MyTimeMachineDrive/.../Users/keith/Library"
in there you can then browse to Application Support->AddressBook (I forget the details of where exactly it is)
copy the AddressBook back to your MBP and change ownership on it (if you are root) so that it can be read/written to by "keith"
re-login as "keith" and move the AddressBook to same location on your MBP "/Users/keith/Library/Application Support" (I think)
you will be asked to overwrite - go ahead if you want to turf the old AddressBook
open your contacts and voila! all should be well after that...

Please note that I had to do the the above because I had to restore contacts from a time machine backup drive of an old MBP to a new one (and the old MBP was dead, so I could not simply export contacts from it...).


Connecting headset to iPhone's iPod player I have a Plantronics ML10 headset and after setting it up through bluetooth it can handle calls. But when I play music with my IPhone, the sound is not coming through the earpiece.

Is there anyway I could "channel" the sound to the earpiece whenever I play songs with the iPhone?

Sorry, but I don't think it will work. To send music over Bluetooth, the device needs to support the A2DP Bluetooth profile. Your headset (and most others not specifically intended for music) only supports the basic handsfree profile, so the iPhone can't send it music from the iPod app.


MacBook Pro 2018 in 24/7 nightmode - cursor on external monitor not in nightmode Just got a MacBook Pro 2018. Upgraded from the 2017 MacBook Pro

I use my MacBook Pros in nightmode 24/7 since the bluelight hurts my eyes. I enabled nightmode on my new macbook pro and hooked it up to an external monitor but the cursor is unaffected by the nightmode changes.

I checked my 2017 and 2012 macbook pro and both change the cursor as well on the external monitor, just not the new macbook pro...

Any ideas?

One quick thing you could try is resetting the NVRAM.

To reset the NVRAM on your model MacBook Pro follow these steps:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then immediately press the commandoptionpr keys.
Keep these keys pressed down for at least 20 seconds!
Let go of the keys and let your MBP reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).


Why does my son's name come up on my icloud messages when I use my mac to send one? I am the only user signed up on my macbook.  My son's name comes up as the sender when I message someone via the mackbook.  Also, why aren't texts to my phone coming through on my macbook?
Thanks, everyone!

More info would be helpful.

But assuming you are using the messages.app that comes with macOS.

Open messages, go to the messages menu and select preferences > Accounts.

It is likely that the account that messages is using is your son's. You can uncheck his account (or just delete it) and add yours. And by "yours" I mean the same account you use on your iPhone/iPad which is usually the email address associated with your AppleID.


How to find which shared library is loaded by a process on OSX? I am trying to compile and use a shared C library as a python module and I am observing that depending on the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH my code works or it crashes with a cryptic error message.

Jul 24 02:44:44 master
$ DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/local/lib  python -c 'import opengm'
OKAY

Jul 24 02:45:41 master
$ DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH= python -c 'import opengm'
python(86214,0x7fff70ccdcc0) malloc: *** error for object 0x7fff70177500: pointer being freed was not allocated
*** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug
Abort trap

I have tried to manually inspect which libraries are common between /usr/lib and /usr/local/lib and /opt/local/lib but I have not been able to find the cause of the crash. One way to figure out the cause of the problem will be to figure out which dylib files do the two processes use? I was not able to figure this using opensnoop or dtruss but maybe I was using those tools wrong.

How can I figure out the cause of this crash?

DISCLAIMER: I posted this same question on SO 2 days ago, where it did not receive any replies and only 8 views.

You can set DYLD_PRINT_LIBRARIES=YES in the environment to have dyld print every dynamic library that it loads into the process:

$ DYLD_PRINT_LIBRARIES=YES /usr/bin/true
dyld: loaded: /usr/bin/true
dyld: loaded: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
[ ... snip ... ]
dyld: loaded: /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib
dyld: loaded: /usr/lib/libDiagnosticMessagesClient.dylib
$


buffering location /tmp? I was a long time Ubuntu user before I moved on to a Mac; so I'm used to seeing videos on YouTube and copying the buffered files from /tmp to another place for later viewing, if I like the video.

I tried doing the same on my Mac but its not working. Are the videos being buffered to a location other than /tmp?

Likely they reside in the Application's Cache directory.

Look into (HOME)/Library/Caches and (HOME)/Library/Application Support


How to reset my terminal prompt to default - post mess-up Whether or not it was a mess up, this seems to be over my head, and further reading would only get me deeper in trouble. Hence am posting here:

What happened (verbose b/c I am not sure which is relevant):

I was doing "git push" when I was prompted to fix the author name and user email. I copied the command and did it. The command opened an editor (vi), but I didn't know how to close the editor's window. So I closed the Terminal window (w/o editing).

At some point, I was prompted to switch to zsh from bash. I copied the prompt and did it.

Problem is: the prompt became myName@MacBook-Pro % (used to be My-MacBook-Pro $). To remove the % and set the prompt back to default, I read some and followed a tip and did export PS1="\W \$" which resulted in my prompt becoming \W \$. So I did export PS1="$", thinking at least I could get rid of the clutter. But whatever I did, it didn't stick. When I open a new window, the same myName@MacBook-Pro % reappeared.

Set aside what git wants me to do regarding username, how do I get my prompt to get back to default, with username (or MacBook-Pro) and current working directory--most importantly, ending in $ (and not %, which is driving me bananas)?

So you're using zsh now not bash?

The following applies to zsh:

To make your change persistent you have to include the export PS1 line in your ~/.zshrc file. If you already have such a file, open it and check for an export PS1 line and edit it to suit your needs.

If not, run:

echo 'export PS1="%M $ "' >> ~/.zshrc

which will change your prompt to include the full machine host name followed by $ as requested (see here for more details).

To see the effects of this change you either need to open a new terminal window or source the .zshrc file (in every terminal that was open when you made the change):

source ~/.zshrc

You can achieve the same results in bash but using either the ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc files (and not forgetting to source them).

A little aside:

I'm sure you've done your research by now but if you get stuck in vim again, the following key combination will help: ESC : q <CR> (where <CR> is the enter key). If you've made changes though this won't work. You can either discard the changes:

ESC : q! <CR>

or write the changes to file:

ESC : wq <CR>

If your experience didn't scare you off from vim, here's a great cheat sheet I'd recommend: https://vim.rtorr.com/


Not able to search installed Apps anymore I use iphone 6s. whenever I need to run an app on iphone, I just search for the app. (using flashlight).

Off late I have noticed that whenever I search for an app, it doesn't show the installed app anymore.

I am pretty sure that this earlier the search on iphone used to show installed apps as part of search results.

Now it only shows
* suggested websites
* wikipedia
* twitter
* itunes store

Why did this behavior change?

I was able to solve it by reinstalling IOS on my iphone. It wasn't a very good solution, but sadly nothing else worked for me.

Apple is not very different from Microsoft after all.


Programmatically check if "Share iTunes Library XML with other applications" is disabled iTunes update (10.2.0.145) seems to have added new advanced feature "Share iTunes LIbrary XML with other applications" which if disabled no longers outputs the Music Library.xml.

Our applications is highly depended on that file, which by this documentation states the file will be available. Anyone know how to set, or check if that preference is disabled? I have looked at the com.apple.iTunes.plist, but nothing there seemed to reflect that setting.

I have a solution for mac.
mac solution "ShareiTunesLibrary.applescript"

activate application "iTunes"
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "iTunes"
        keystroke "," using command down
        repeat until exists toolbar 1 of window 1
            delay 0.2
        end repeat
        tell window 1
            if title does not contain "Advanced" then
                click button "Advanced" of toolbar 1
            end if
            repeat until its title starts with "Advanced"
                delay 0.2
            end repeat
            tell checkbox "Share iTunes Library XML with other applications" of group 1
                if value is not 1 then
                    click it
                end if
            end tell
            click button "OK"
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

stuck in windows


How to debug child's El Capitan login hanging? My son has an account on our 2013 Mac mini running El Capitan, guarded by Parental Controls. Every few days or so, he has a login failure that causes his login to hang on exactly the second attempt.

Most logins work as normal. However, if we're going to have a bad day, the first login appears normal until about ten seconds after I authorize his time with my login. The screen turns black with a still visible mouse pointer, and about ten seconds after that, he's kicked back to the login screen. The second login thereafter (which doesn't require parental authorization) gives the rainbow beachball for at least ten minutes, at which point I just reboot the machine.

No other account on the machine is affected, so I assume he's done something or installed something that's causing this. It's also possible that Parental Controls are wonky.

The problem seems to be caused (or, at least fixed) by his Preferences; I delete everything in ~/Library/Preferences/*.plist and he can log in again.

I've actually gone so far as to recreate his account several times, and, annoyingly, the problem reappears after a while.

What can I do to debug this and get to the root cause? I've been through system logs and kernel logs, but there are literally hundreds of various "error" messages, all of which seem to be being thrown by any user logged in and aren't unique to his account.

Known to be broken in El Capitan up through .3.  Apple is supposed to be 'on it'...we'll see.

Referenced in https://discussions.apple.com/message/29704747#29704747


How long will an Apple SSD last? Like all tools, an SSD will wear out from use and eventually fail. Are there data on roughly how long the SSD's that Apple ships in it's portable line last?

From my research, it seems that the Toshiba OEM drive that comes on Apple MacBook Pros is much slower than the others on the market, but might this have an advantage in terms of longevity?

Basically, is Apple SSD durability longer than third party drives like Crucial, OWC, or others?

A simplified answer to SSD lifetime would be:
SSD is a Semiconductor devices build to last minimum 10 Years. Some of us still have computers from year 2000 or even before, thus older than 14 years.

With that said, looking closer at the SSD, it is a flash memory type semiconductor device and could develop leaking currents (means the cells loose they charge (memory).

There is difference in life (quality) of SSD's depending on manufacturer (Intel, Samsung ect.). To my knowledge, Intel is still the front runner on quality = life time, but Samsung is chasing them. It is really difficult to say who is the best, but one can use the warranty as a guide. For example Samsung gives 5 Years on the 840 model. That means it will last minimum 7-10 years, otherwise they would be out of business replacing all dead SSD's.

Just to clarify, I am talking about the most common type of SSD (using the Single layer memory cells), the dual layer lasts even longer but it is much more expensive.

Apple, Crucial, OWC ect. do NOT make the actual memory chips. The buy them from Semiconductor manufacturer like Samsung or Intel ect. and make the SSD boards with they name on it.

However, do not panic, the drives have a self repair capability!

They do that by simply replacing the dead cells.

The problem is there is limited supply (reserve) of new cells.

One of the biggest life limiting factor is the amount of data stored. Let's say when the SSD is 90% full, it will become a problem soon, since the drive tries to rotate the cells to preserve/avoid memory leakage.

Second life factor is the daily usage (read/write). Again, do not panic, a "normal" user will never see that problem.

All in all the SSD should last you longer than your computer screen or keyboard!

SSD are sensitive to heat (as any Semiconductor device) and will loose life if operated at elevate environment temperatures, means they love cold environment. Does not mean you have to move to Alaska :).

Just to give you an idea. Why do you think Intel invented the so called "I" processors they call it Intelligent CPU. Great Marketing by the way. The actual reason is the CPU becomes too hot if it operates at 100% all the time.
Same applies to the SSD chips, so keep them cool and do not overload your drive and it will last and last.

And!, try not to use to much of the SSD health test softwares.
That just stresses you SSD unnecessary.

It would be the same if you would constantly go to a doctor to verify if you healthy and he would give you a xray scan each time, just to tell you you are fine (but to much xray exposure will kill you).


Bidirectional Charging on Macbook Pro (2019) I am using a bidirectional USB-C to Displayport cable (CableCreation PN: CD0738) to connect my 2019 Macbook Pro to a BENQ PD2700U monitor. The description stated that this would allow not only video and audio through the display up to 8K, but also would allow charging at the same time due to the bidirectional function of the cable. So far the image and audio are great and as described, but the charging is not working.
Does anyone have experience with this? Is there a way I can enable my Macbook Pro to allow the incoming charging through this? I needed a good cable anyway, so if it only does the single function that is fine, but was hoping to limit my usage of the ports and charge and display through a single connection.
Any help is appreciated!

Is there a way I can enable my MacBook Pro to allow the incoming charging through this?

There's is not setting to allow incoming charging because charging is, by design, allowed.  It's a defacto function of the port.
I think you're misunderstanding how the Thunderbolt port works.  It's a multiplexing of several signals - DisplayPort, USB 3.2, PCIe, and Power.  It doesn't stop doing one when it's functioning as another.  In other words, it doesn't lose the ability to charge and be charged if you plug in a monitor.
For your Mac to be able to be charge while your monitor is plugged in, you need the following:

A monitor that supports it (i.e. the LG UltraFine monitors that were designed for Apple/macOS)
An active Thunderbolt/USB-C cable.  Note that all Thunderbolt 3 cables are USB-C cables, but only quality USB-C cables are Thunderbolt. Active cables support 40Gbs transfer at 2m (6.5 ft.) while passive cables, which are less costly are limited to .5m (1.6 ft.).

A quick review of the technical specifications page for your monitor makes no reference to "power delivery" or "charging."  It's also not mentioned in the product description.  If you look at the LG UltraFine specifications page from the link above, you'll notice it specifically mentions "Thunderbolt 3 with 94W PD."

If your monitor doesn't send power to charge your computer, no cable in the world will make this work.


Why do my earbuds keep changing the volume up and down whenever I move the wire? I've already tested my earbuds out on my computer and my guitar amp by moving around and constants flapping the wires and pushing them, so the problem is isolated to my iPhone only (I have the iPhone SE). It's weird because the sound almost cuts out for a second, then the volume turns down to a very quiet setting, and after a second or so the volume will turn back up to what it was originally.

Notes:

I'm not using Apple earbuds.
I have an iPhone SE.

My guess would be that you are in a noisy environment, using your earphones, as you say, plugged into your phone.

This happened to my while riding my motorbike with earphones on. The built-in microphone is being hit by a lot of noise, and then the signal is sent and your phone OS tries to protect you by lowering the volume.

Try the same earphones with some tape on the microphone (a tiny hole somewhere on the earphones), or try them in any situation without a lot of outside noise.

If they work ok, your problem is what I'm telling you about.

There is a few choices you can take to fix your problem. I'll state them so the first options are the cheapest or more reasonable ones.

1. Search for a setting on you IOS, or an app to make volume not depend on outside noise. There is some apps that lock the volume level I think.

2 Put some tape or whatever you consider to make your microphone deaf.

3 Change earphones to ones without built-in mic.


Macbook Pro will no longer detect external display My MBP will no longer detect external displays. It was working fine a few hours ago at work, I got home and plugged in the external display as usual and turned on the machine and nothing. Using the "Detect Displays" does nothing. I have tried re-plugging the mini DVI display port adapter and have tried using a different monitor with a different monitor cable. I have tried shutting down and booting without the adapter plugged in and then plugging in the adapter. Nothing works. Is there some trick to force my MBP to see and use the external monitor?

More Information: When I plug in the display port the LCD screen goes blue for a moment. Checking the Graphics and Displays display connecter shows
Status: No Display Connected

Try resetting the parameter RAM using these instructions

You can also try resetting the SMC using these instructions


Is there some kind of app that will allow other people to make my iPhone beep while in silent mode So first here's the problem.  I used to be a Blackberry user and could selectively turn things silent/off/loud but with the iPhone it seems to be an all or nothing deal.  I run a small company so I need to be able to be reached in the event something goes wrong and I'm sleeping.  My old system for this was to turn everything to silent except for voice calls which would play a loud ringtone to wake me up.  I don't get many voice calls except for work related stuff so this worked perfectly.

The question is can I replicate this somehow on the iPhone?  Even if there was some kind of app that could play a noise and notify me when someone needed something.  I know it's possible based on this StackOverflow question but short of writing my own app is there anything out there that can help?

You can use Find my iPhone to remotely play a sound, even if your phone is in silent mode. Requires someone to trigger it in the web interface or iOS app.


Why does Skype 5.7 on Lion require Adobe Flash? Does anyone know why Skype requires Flash? Is this new? Are there any "recent" versions of Skype that do not?

I'm guessing it requires it solely for it's "Skype Home" section, which is pretty annoying since I don't need that section in Skype and it makes me have to run flash (which in turn makes me sick and my battery unhappy).

thanks!

I am running Skype 5.7 on a Mac without Flash installed. It does not complain about its absence. The 'Home' screen initially showed a blank box which was clearly a Flash video with a demo for something. That has now disappeared. It looks like Skype will use Flash if its installed but it is not required.


How do I search PDFs in Acrobat in Safari using command-f, without an extra buttom press? I like using Acrobat within Safari as a convenience. But when I try to search in a PDF with command-F, it first brings up the Safari search box, which steals the focus from Acrobat's own search box. This amounts of a lot of annoying extra clicks or button presses to search in PDFs from inside the browser. How can I short-circuit this behavior?

And if there's another in-browser PDF reader that avoids this problem (and is also free and is light/fast/safe), I'd take that as an answer as well.

You are oping the PDF files using the Safari PDF reader.

You need the AdobePDFViewer.plugin to replace the Safari build in PDF reader.

Here are the instructions how to do that.

Update:

Based on our discussion and your very specific needs here is a proposal.

Reassign the Safari default for "Find" keyboard short cut.

Open sys pref- keyboard - shortcuts.

Click on app shortcut

Select Safari

Type "Find..." (the 3 dots are important)

Select new short cut "shift + cmd + F"

Now when you use the "cmd -F" only Adobe search will show

When you use the shift- cmd -F the Safari search will show up.


Spotlight preview broken in Yosemite I recently discovered this nice little spotlight feature in that you can convert a number of bytes into a human readable format. E.g you can type 2147483648 bytes and it will give the corresponding number of "gibibytes" in the preview window. (I think it's documented somewhere that it can do conversions "like" calculator, but the standard calculator doesn't have a conversion for bytes, so this feature seems to be undocumented).

But the strange thing is that now the preview on the right pane of the spotlight window is fixed to the last conversion I did. That is if I do a new conversion (that is any conversion like $ in € not just byte conversions) I see the result in the preview pane, but I cannot see any previews of selected search results anymore even when I change the search term:

I'm not sure when it got broken, I don't think it was right after I tried my first conversions. But anyhow this is a pretty annoying bug so how can I fix this?

Try deleting the spotlight cache folder at ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.spotlight


iPhone 4s running iOS 7 displays pictures taken with filter as white I have an iPhone 4s and am running iOS 7 on it. When I take a picture with the "process" filter, it then displays in place of the photo a blank screen. It doesn't happen when using the camera without a filter. Why is this happening, and what can I do about it?

If you have tried all the above with resetting your camera settings and iPhone settings you might need to restore the whole iPhone. I used to see this a lot in iOS 3 and 4 where you could take pictures but they save as blank/white images. Fix was in those OSes and iDevices to DFU restore the sucker without restoring from a backup sorry to say.


What can I do when my Time Machine password is not accepted, although it's correct? Having troubles with a botched system upgrade on OS X 10.10.3, I tried to restore my MacBook Pro, 15" Early 2011 version, using an encrypted Time Machine backup made on an external USB drive.

The backup is in working order; I can boot from it just fine. However, when I try to restore from a previous backup version through the system restore feature, I am asked for my Time Machine backup volume, and when I click the external drive, and enter the password, there's a dialog saying the password is wrong.

But it isn't.

I am a hundred percent certain it's the correct password. It can't be copy-pasted, unfortunately, but I've typed it often enough to know it's correct. And when I finally got to boot the Mac after the – what I thought was – a botched update, I checked my Keychain to verify that the Time Machine password was actually the one I had used previously.

Has this ever happened to anyone, and is there any solution to this, apart from maybe creating an entirely new Time Machine volume and, gasp, not encrypting it?

I would delete the existing keychain entry for your backup and re-enter.  It is very possible that you have saved an incorrect value to your keychain.


Mac book air is not turning on and getting cricket noise when press power button My Mac book is not turning on when pressing power button . I can hear a cricket sound when ever I press power button.
Initially it was turning on when I do SMC reset . But now power is full and getting green light when I plugin power cable. So if I do SMC reset now , I couldn't see the flickering from Amber to green . Now it's not working after SMC reset. Suggest me some solutions to turn on mac book air .

Chirps/Beeps might indicate a hardware failure on disk or RAM or the power supply. It likely needs to be serviced by either Apple or an authorized Apple repair center if it's under warranty. You can check the warranty and AppleCare coverage here
PS: If it's an older MacBook Air that is out of warranty or out of AppleCare coverage than a 3rd party repair might be the most cost effective.


Mid 2010 MacBook Pro Won't Wake Up I recently purchased my first Mac. It's a mid-2010 MBP (bought it off craigslist). At first, I absolutely loved the simplicity of the OS. When I decided to upgrade to Lion, I began to loathe the system. More times than not, the machine won't wake up from sleep. The keyboard lights up, the HDD spins up, but the screen is dark.

I've Googled for weeks. It seems that many people are experiencing the same issue, and no one seems to have a fix. It also appears that Apple is completely ignoring this issue (I can say confidently that this will be my last Mac).

Any idea(s) what I can do to solve this issue?

Note: Reverting to Snow Leopard is not an option - I did not receive the OS disks when I purchased the machine.

If you can get your MacBook back on make sure it's completely up to date, so that there are no more updates in Software Update.

Specifically make sure your Firmware is up to date, Software Update should catch this. If Software Update doesn't show a Firmware Update, then you can try downloading this Firmware Update directly from the Apple website: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1098 If it's already installed or doesn't apply to your system it will tell you this and prevent you from installing it.

If that fails you can try reinstalling Lion. This is not as big of a job as it sounds. Turn off the Macbook and turn it back on, as it starts hold (before you get to the white screen) the alt key, and choose to boot into the Recovery Partition.
When you reinstall Lion it will download the latest copy of Lion (this can take a while depending on your Internet Connection*), and install it without deleting your files (the equivelant of Repairing Windows), though to be on the safest side you might want to backup at least your most important files, however I have reinstalled Lion in this way quite a few times without any loss of data. The actual instalation will take about 1/2 hour.

*If your connection is too slow, then go to an Apple shop, connect to their WiFi and do the reinstall there. They have local copies of the latest Lion OSX, so the download should be very fast.

Otherwise, the best thing you can do is to take it to an Apple shop, you can just go there with the MacBook and tell them and show them whats wrong (don't worry if it suddenly starts working as you walk in the shop, they will still believe you). They will do their best to help you.

You will receive the best service if you don't go in accusing them and hassling. Also try to avoid the busiest times of day if you can.

Even if you're out of warranty, they will help you, although you may have to pay for repairs if it's extensive and not a problem with the model, but sometimes you can get them to do it for free.


How safe is it (and what precautions should I take) if I want to transport my Macbook from class to class? So, last week my hard drive died. I took it to a repair shop, and the person said the hard drive died. I asked why, and he says it just happens (even though my Macbook Pro is only 1.5 years old). Talking with him, I mentioned that I transport my Macbook in sleep mode; he said I should not do that. Always shut it down, before transporting; he said, the hard drive failure may be unrelated though.

Now, I checked the internet, and the online consensus seem to be it's ok to transport while asleep (though you should wait for the hard disk to stop spinning), but I'm not too sure.

Can anybody here give me a qualified, confident answer? I would love to transport it, have a quick startup, but I don't want to damage my Macbook in the least bit.

Macbooks are designed to be transported around in sleep mode. When the machine enters sleep mode, the hard drive stops spinning, and because the hard drive is basically the only mechanically moving part in the Macbook Pro (aside from the optical drive which shuts off as well), there is no risk of damage to the computer.

Here are some other questions that you may find helpful

Does closing the lid put a MacBook Pro to sleep? Would it hurt the computer if I carry it around without shutting it down?
Transporting from home to work (~10 min by car), should I just make my MacBook Pro sleep, or shut it completely down first?
https://superuser.com/questions/449629/is-sleep-mode-harmful-for-a-computer


Connect dual displays to MacBook 2011 I have Macbook Pro 15 Late 2011 with single Mini DisplayPort. Now I use MacBook display with external FullHD display via Mini DisplayPort->HDMI adapter. Is it possible to connect 2 external FullHD displays?

It is possible to use 2 exteral monitors via 1 mini displayport > HDMI adapter. You will need a special converter. Have a look at this youtube proof. Also Macworld wrote something about connecting more screens to your mac.


How to make truly single spaced bullet items in Keynote Although I have selected

  Spacing 1.0 - single

in the Text Style, we can see that there is still large space between each bullet item. How to compact them?

Notice the disclosure arrow "▶" beside Spacing?  There you can reveal the paragraph spacing.

Change the Before Paragraph and After Paragraph to 0 pt or the desired amount.

Hope this helps!


Sort Contacts Marked As Company I found an Applescript at apple's support site to sort any contact with the "Company" checkmark checked into a "Business" group:

property groupName : "Business"
tell application "Contacts"
    if (name of groups as list) does not contain groupName then
        make new group at end of groups with properties {name:groupName}
    end if
    repeat with singlePerson in people
        if company of singlePerson is true then
            if (people of group groupName as list) does not contain (singlePerson as list) then
                make new person at end of group groupName with data singlePerson
            end if
        end if
    end repeat
    save
end tell

It fails on:

            make new person at end of group groupName with data singlePerson

With error:

error "Contacts got an error: AppleEvent handler failed." number -10000

Does anyone know of a method to sort out all contacts checkmarked as "Company"?

For example I do NOT want anyone who has a company name but is an individual card:

But I DO want companies with the Company box checkmarked:

Update:

I originally thought You don't need Applescript to do this.

And you could create a Smart Group that does it for you.

BUT  the 'Company: is set' is not for the checkbox. Its for the actual Company text field.

So you cannot use the above for this as it does not care if the checkbox for company is ticked or not. It only cares if there is text in the Company field.

So Applescript IS the way to go. And using  company is true which refers to the checkbox.

    property groupName : "Business"
tell application "Contacts"

    if not (exists (group groupName)) then
        make new group with properties {name:groupName}
    end if
    set the_people to people whose company is true
    repeat with i from 1 to number of items in the_people
        set this_person to item i of the_people
        add this_person to group groupName
        save
    end repeat
end tell


ssh_config changes not taking effect My ultimate goal is to disable password login, as seen here:
Disable password authentication on SSH server on OS X Server 10.8

But I suspect the changes I'm making to /etc/ssh/ssh_config aren't taking effect. Here are my steps:

sudo nano /etc/ssh/ssh_config
Just change the port from 22 to 2222 with this line:
Port 2222 (not commented out)
sudo launchctl stop com.openssh.sshd
That should stop the service and start it again, but it's still on port 22.

Thoughts? Thanks!

I believe you need to edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config for that


How to enter internet credentials using terminal? After attaching the ethernet cable to my Mac I need to enter username and password to access the Internet:

The problem is that I would like to perform a system recovery using cmd+R at startup. There I need Internet, but I don't get any dialog which suggests me to enter my credentials.

Is it possible to enter the credentials using Terminal.app? Or does a better method exist to solve this?

I have MacBook Pro 2012 with El Capitan installed.

The short answer is "Yes."  You can enter your credentials within Terminal.  You have to use the networksetup command

That's if you can get to terminal...  If you can, then the following will help get you connect.  But, if you can't, scroll down the bottom for an alternate...

However, you have to have a create an 802.1x profile for which to connect to your network.  This is as straight forward as just entering in a username/password

Here is the man page for the networksetup command on Apple's website: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man8/networksetup.8.html  You can view this in Terminal by typing man networksetup

Since you mentioned plugging in your Ethernet, it's safe to assume you are using 802.1X Port Based Authentication.  Basically, there is a server, most likely a RADIUS server, but possibly another type of  AAA server (authentication, authorization, and accounting) that allows your computer onto the network.

Basically, before you are allowed to go anywhere, the network is checking to see if your device is authorized to connect, to where you can go, and (who/what) should be charged (if applicable).

So, how do you set this up?

This can get a little complex, so normally the IT department will supply you with a config file for you to import.  You would do so with the command networksetup -import8021xProfiles Ethernet <filename of profile to import>

From what I have seen, you need OS X Server to create the profile, however, it is not hard to edit one once it has been created.  Here's a link to one created for the SMU network:  https://blog.iphoting.com/blog/archives/817-Lion-Wireless-Access-in-SMU.html

Disclaimer:  Don't expect SMU's profile to work in your environment.  It is most likely configured completely different than what your environment is configured for.

Alternate Method

Use another computer and share the Internet Connection

You can use virtually any other computer (Apple, Windows, Linux) to connect to your institutions network whether it be wireless or wired.  Once you have that computer up and running, just share the Internet connection.

Since this is an Apple thread, you can use this example as a basis for sharing Internet.  The connection is WiFi, but it is exactly the same for Ethernet.

If both your computers are connected to Ethernet, you will need a USB to Ethernet adapter and a crossover cable (or a switch).  The onboard Ethernet on the working computer will go to the institution network, the USB to Ethernet adapter will go to the computer you are trying to connect.

Once you have the working computer function, you turn on Internet sharing which effectively turns it into a router.  You can then connect to the Internet on the computer you are trying to boot into recovery mode.


make textedit the default app for new file types Often I download files with funny extensions, like .wnd, .npy, .dat, etc. Is there some way I can make the default app for all files like these, as in files that the system does not already recognize, to be TextEdit?

Edit  Is there some way to at least let the "open with" prompt include TextEdit?

macOS is a derivative of Unix, in which all things are represented as a text file, and which program is used to open those files is determined by a "mime type". On macOS mime type associations are stored inside of the corresponding .app file. For example, the data that describes a Microsoft Word Document's (.doc) attributes (i.e. what type of file it is, what the default icon is, etc.) is stored in Word.app>Contents>Info.plist.

The problem this creates is that in order to make all unknown mime types associate with Text Edit.app you would have to manually add their attributes to the Text Edit.app>Contents>Info.plist file, and any new file types you hadn't added would continue to go unrecognized, and would still have no default app to open them.

The benefit this has is that since all things in Unix are represented as text files, you can simply Right Click>Open With>Other...>Text Edit.app, and they will always open as a normal text file, regardless of what extension it has. This is of course less convenient than the solution you asked for, but I'm afraid it is, to my knowledge, the closest thing you will be able to achieve.

Edit: For example, lets say the file type is .foo, you can use Get Info on file.foo, and under the Open With tab use the drop-down menu, and choose Other.... Select TextEdit.app in the Choose Application dialogue. After file.foo's default app has been set, click the Change All... button. From now on all files with the .foo extension will open in TextEdit by default. However, this method presents the same problem as editing the mime-type information directly, in that you will still have to do this for every unknown file type.

For TextEdit to show up in the Open With dialogue at all there has to be information about the file type in TextEdit's Info.plist file. When you open the Open With dialogue it reads "Fetching..." for a short moment. This is because the system is scanning the Info.plist files of all the apps it knows are installed (or rather, it is scanning the index of those files it made the first time each of those apps were run.) to see if any of them contain info about the type of file you clicked on. It then makes a link to each of the apps whose Info.plist files were found to contain that mime-type, which is the list in the Open With menu.

Unix systems do not have the ability to set all unrecognized file types to open with a certain app, because by its very nature this would include files with no extension at all. As previously mentioned in Unix all things are seen by the system as text files, meaning if you set all unknown file types to open with TextEdit.app this would include things like the system programmes stored in the /bin/ and /sbin/ folders, and even certain hardware like the HDD. Now suddenly whenever you try to do anything involving system programmes that don't have an extension at best it just opens a TextEdit window full of gibberish, and at worst the system outright stops responding to any input (locks up), stops booting at all, and has to be reinstalled.


How do I get rid of errors for disconnected networked drives? Every time I log into OSX 10.9.4 (and several slightly older versions since I've been updating) I get several pop-ups asking me to connect to a remote/networked drive that I've previously configured, yet deleted:

Enter your name and password for the server "my_remote_server".

..followed by the error about connecting, but that's fine because the drives have been deleted on the server side, so there should be no way to actually connect.

There is a pair of pop-ups per drive/server (each drive has its own server, and I configured several drives). I also get a similar message when opening my Chrome browser.

I removed these drives (using Finder->Go->Connect to Server) and the problem is still there. I've also checked /etc/fstab, /Volumes, and used the df command although that's pretty much the same as checking fstab.

It appears that the drives are completely disconnected/unmounted, so the problem is that I'm still getting the error pop-ups. I tried this but it didn't work: http://whatsamknows.tumblr.com/post/37368603810/get-rid-of-server-connections-interrupted

How do I fix this?

If it's every time you log in, it could be in your login items. Check System Preferences → Users & Groups → Login Items for links to those volumes.


Ulysses on macOS - share local content between user accounts [without iCloud] Does anybody know how to share local Ulysses content across Mac user accounts?

I can see the local content is not stored at a user-specific directory:
~/Library/Containers/com.soulmen.ulysses3

I have a Admin account and a Standard account.  I want to share all of my files between these accounts.  But when I open my Ulysses on my new Admin account, I cannot see or specify the location of local files.

You can add external folders in the sidebar:

For your use case it's probably easiest to create a shared folder in /Users/Shared and use Unix permissions/ACL to give read/write access to all users in question.


EU volume limit on Apple Watch / AirPods combo With an iPhone (currently 11.3) there’s an option under Settings / Music / Volume Limit / EU Volume Limit to limit the maximum volume the headphones will produce to reduce potential damage to your hearing. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a similar option on Apple Watch (currently 4.3) when leaving the phone behind. Am I missing something obvious here?

No, you're not missing something obvious. At present there is no way to do this within watchOS (as of v4.3).

While Apple hasn't officially commented on whether it's a feature that may be added, it's probably something that will eventually come since the Apple Watch will continue to develop as a standalone device.

In the meantime, Apple states:

  Hearing loss  Listening to sound at high volumes may damage your hearing. Background noise, as well as continued exposure to high volume levels, can make sounds seem quieter than they actually are. Turn on audio playback and check the volume before inserting a Bluetooth connected headset in your ear. For more information about hearing loss, see www.apple.com/sound.

  WARNING: To prevent possible hearing damage, do not listen at high volume levels for long periods.”

Source: Apple Watch User Guide


Did the recent Safari 5.1 upgrade break my Vienna display styles? I recently installed the latest round of system updates to my Snow-Leopard MacBook Pro (10.6.8), and my Vienna reader is afflicted with ugly.  Example:

And also

For reference, these are FeedLight and Bohemian Broadsheet styles.

None of the styles (all 15 installed defaults) allow changing from anything but this default HTML-from-1996 styles.  It used to use CSS, I think, to format the feeds.  Anyone else having issues like this?  Is there a simple fix?  I've obviously tried restarting the apps, both Safari and Vienna, and nothing seems to make any difference.  I'm sure it's possible some /Library file is responsible, but I don't know which one or how to determine which one.  Anyone?

Short answer:  Yes.

Due to complications with Sparkle updates, according to this thread, the 'check for updates' process did not find the latest version.  Webkit2 has some additional security considerations, apparently.  Upgrading to 2.5.1.2502 is the solution.


Is there a way to change the font color of the current path in termial? I'm styling my Terminal and what I need is to change the color of the path, if you still don't understand what I mean, here's a pic:

There you can see the shaded area (Jonathans-MacBook-Pro:~ feniixx$), That is what I want of other color than dark yellow, is it possible?

The text you highlighted is the prompt. It is stored in the PS1 shell variable.

You can read the current value with

echo $PS1

and then set it with (for example)

PS1='\[\033[1;32m\]\h:\W \u$\[\033[0;39m\] '

where

\[\033[1;32m\] starts colouring in green
\h shows the machine name
\W the current path
\u the user
\[\033[0;39m\] stops the colouring

The backslash-escaped special characters are described in the bash manual page

PROMPTING
       When  executing  interactively,  bash displays the primary prompt PS1 when it is ready to read a command, and the secondary prompt PS2 when it needs more input to complete a command.
       Bash allows these prompt strings to be customized by inserting a number of backslash-escaped special characters that are decoded as follows:
              \a     an ASCII bell character (07)
              \d     the date in "Weekday Month Date" format (e.g., "Tue May 26")
              \D{format}
                     the format is passed to strftime(3) and the result is inserted into the prompt string; an empty format results in a locale-specific time representation.  The braces are
                     required
              \e     an ASCII escape character (033)
              \h     the hostname up to the first `.'
              \H     the hostname
              \j     the number of jobs currently managed by the shell
              \l     the basename of the shell's terminal device name
              \n     newline
              \r     carriage return
              \s     the name of the shell, the basename of $0 (the portion following the final slash)
              \t     the current time in 24-hour HH:MM:SS format
              \T     the current time in 12-hour HH:MM:SS format
              \@     the current time in 12-hour am/pm format
              \A     the current time in 24-hour HH:MM format
              \u     the username of the current user
              \v     the version of bash (e.g., 2.00)
              \V     the release of bash, version + patch level (e.g., 2.00.0)
              \w     the current working directory, with $HOME abbreviated with a tilde (uses the value of the PROMPT_DIRTRIM variable)
              \W     the basename of the current working directory, with $HOME abbreviated with a tilde
              \!     the history number of this command
              \#     the command number of this command
              \$     if the effective UID is 0, a #, otherwise a $
              \nnn   the character corresponding to the octal number nnn
              \\     a backslash
              \[     begin a sequence of non-printing characters, which could be used to embed a terminal control sequence into the prompt
              \]     end a sequence of non-printing characters

       The  command  number  and  the history number are usually different: the history number of a command is its position in the history list, which may include commands restored from the
       history file (see HISTORY below), while the command number is the position in the sequence of commands executed during the current shell session.  After the string is decoded, it  is
       expanded via parameter expansion, command substitution, arithmetic expansion, and quote removal, subject to the value of the promptvars shell option (see the description of the shopt
       command under SHELL BUILTIN COMMANDS below).

While the colours can be changed with escape sequences. See http://bluesock.org/~willg/dev/ansi.html for a list.


How to get all options for com.apple.finder.plist in ~/Library/Preferences? how people know what's possible to be changed via CLI in OSX / macOS if com.apple.finder.plist is a binary file and calling cat command for that file  shows only a binary gibberish output?

cat ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

I've found great option in macOS Sierra:

  Keep folders on top when sorting by name

What's the name of it's defaults write so that I can add it into my settings script?

Basically instead of guessing I would like to know where to find all possible options. Does Apple provide it somewhere? I know this site but it's not up to date...

To read/write .plist files, use the defaults command.

The key that gets set when checking the [√] Keep folders on top when sorting by name check box under Advanced in Finder Preferences is named: _FXSortFoldersFirst

To set this in Terminal (or script) use the following command:

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXSortFoldersFirst -bool YES

To unset, use the following command:

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXSortFoldersFirst -bool NO

Note that in previous OS versions, Finder needed to be restarted using killall Finder to have some settings, when changed by defaults, work properly. In macOS 10.12, this is not necessary for this particular setting, however the Finder window does need to be refreshed by some means, e.g. toggling from list view to icon view and back.

If you want to toggle between List view and Icon view in the bash script vs. using killall Finder after using defaults write ..., use the following code block:

osascript <<END
tell application "Finder"
    set theWindows to every Finder window
    repeat with i from 1 to number of items in theWindows
        set this_item to item i of theWindows
        set theView to current view of this_item
        if theView is list view then
            set current view of this_item to icon view
        else
            set current view of this_item to list view
        end if
        set current view of this_item to theView
    end repeat
end tell
END

Note: This method may not work with all setting changes made to Finder, although it works for _FXSortFoldersFirst, nonetheless killall Finder may be required for some settings. It's just to early to tell with macOS 10.12.


Problem with installing grunt (lodash@0.9.2) I have iMac (ElCapitan) for few days and I try to install all needs for my work (templating for WordPress).

I try to install grunt, but I got WARN messages in terminal and I am absolutely out of what they mean:

npm WARN deprecated lodash@0.9.2: lodash@<3.0.0 is no longer maintained. Upgrade to lodash@^3.0.0.
npm WARN deprecated lodash@2.4.2: lodash@<3.0.0 is no longer maintained. Upgrade to lodash@^3.0.0.

I have no idea, if that is problem in my computer, or grunt. I try to search by google, but I did not find any suitable answer or better answer which can clear this for me.
...will I need upgrade lodash@?

so it is just warning and grunt is installed. Yesterday was not present in system, but when I check now by grunt --version, I got answer about version of installed grunt.

I got confirmation on Github.


Encrypt Documents folder without using Filevault in Catalina I have a 2012 Mac Mini running Catalina (10.15.7) that has been suffering Bluetooth issues for the last month or so leading me to try most things on the Internet that I could find to fix a disconnecting keyboard / mouse  and crackling sound.
The Mini has one SSD (boot and user space - APFS) and one HDD (old, clunky, Journaled / Encrypted) for file backups and odd files.  I do not really want to move the whole Documents folder here (some of the VMs really suffer on the tin disk) so the using System Prefs to move the home folders article may not be a solution in my case.
After many frustrating days, I found a note that Filevault could be the issue and in my case turning this off does seem to have solved my drops over the lat few days but at the cost of leaving my main data unencrypted if the disk is removed from the Mac (user and disk passwords are complex but still an acknowledged weak point in this).
For most of my files this is not an issue but for others (work related / bank etc) this is not good practise and kind of goes against my instincts.  The only way around this I could think of is:

Encrypt the second disk in the Mac using 'Mac OS Extended' format rather than APFS
Create a symbolic link in Documents to a folder on this encrypted disk
Store any 'sensitive' documents in here but away from the normal folder structure.

I did wonder about using VeraCrypt but never used it and could not work out if I could encrypt the Documents folder or hard disk as most fo the instructions are for Windows.
Can anyone think of another way?

I like making an encrypted disk image to store documents. Step 6 covers the choice of encryption. The guide has a selector at the top for Catalina version of macOS.

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/create-a-disk-image-dskutl11888/mac

If you’re not sure which type of image, I recommend starting with a sparse image and avoiding sparse bundle or Read+Write.


Sharing mounted FreeNAS volume We have a FreeNAS in the office which we're using as an FTP server, but the speeds are incredibly slow for clients trying to download from it.

When I tried downloading directly (via OS X ftp server) from one of our OSX machines it was much faster.

So I'd like to try using the Mac as the FTP server, and the FreeNAS for storage.

But when I mount the FreeNAS with AFP, it cannot be shared via OSX ftp service.

What can we do?

Or is there a way to fix the low speed of the FreeNAS?

Thanks!

Before giving up on a standalone FreeNAS machine, try the included speed testing tool iperf to determine the best protocol for your network:

  Iperf is a utility for measuring maximum TCP and UDP bandwidth performance. It can be used to chart network throughput over time. For example, you can use it to test the speed of different types of shares to determine which type best performs on your network.

  FreeNAS® includes the Iperf server. To perform network testing, you will need to install an Iperf client on a desktop system that has network access to the FreeNAS® system.

Do you know which alternative protocol your clients could use to connect to your FreeNAS box? Are you restricted to only File Transfer Protocol (FTP)?

This recent discussion talks about the some factors affecting FreeNAS, FreeNAS Poor Network Performance.


Speed up AppleScript I have some very simple applescript's that I run frequently and they seem to sometimes take less then second and sometimes like 2.

Is there an alternative that would be faster?  My guess is no.

tell application "System Events"
    set frontmostProcess to first process where it is frontmost
    delay 0.01
    key code 121
end tell

As I mentioned in my comment, what you're trying to do is a system wide event that you want activated by a keyboard shortcut. These factors combine to reduce the overall response time.

To help reduce the response time, you could try using a different script to achieve the same thing and test that for a while to see if it runs more efficiently.

Your current Apple Script (based on what you've linked to in your comment to me) is:

tell application "System Events"
    set frontmostProcess to first process where it is frontmost
    delay 0.01
    key code 121
end tell

Basically the above is designed to have the frontmost app to do a Page Down (key code 121) after a delay of 0.01.

However, you could try this one line code instead:

tell application "System Events" to keystroke (key code 121)

This should achieve the same outcome and be more efficient. You could test it for a while and see if that's what you find. Of course, to page up you would just change the key code from 121 to 116.

However, as I mentioned previously, the fact you need to activate this via a keyboard shortcut will add to the time it takes for the whole thing to run. That is, you need a keyboard shortcut to be registered that then runs an Automator Service that in turn runs the script, so this isn't going to be as efficient as say just using the built-in keyboard shortcut for Page Up and Page Down.

Regardless, you may find that if the script is more efficient that it reduces the response time enough to satisfy you.


Installing command line GNU utils I've recently started using MacBook Pro with OSX, after years of developing under Ubuntu.

I often use GNU command line tools like make and watch. How do I install these on my Mac?

Have a look at these two links:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1469994/using-make-on-osx (Installing Xcode will also install make)
http://osxdaily.com/2010/08/22/install-watch-command-on-os-x/


Effective uid is not 0, is sudo installed setuid root? I copied a file named class-dump to my /usr/bin folder, then neither Terminal.app nor iTerm2 work properly on my MacBook. There is something wrong with the sudo command.

Here is what I did based on some online searching:

sudo
sudo: effective uid is not 0, is sudo installed setuid root?
type sudo
sudo is hashed (/usr/bin/sudo)
ls -@@eil /usr/bin/sudo
1485457 -rwxrwxrwx  1 root  wheel  168448  7  9  2016 /usr/bin/sudo
md5 /usr/bin/sudo
MD5 (/usr/bin/sudo) = 7d986f7707c0f11264989cd7105ea80d

Does anyone know how I can make sudo work again?

Boot to Recovery Mode(cmdR)/Internet Recovery Mode (altcmdR).
Get the name of your main system volume: df
Usually it's the "Mounted on"- name of the device disk0s2 (e.g Macintosh HD) - simply check the sizes.
Enter chmod 4511 /Volumes/Name_Of_Sys_Vol/usr/bin/sudo

Replace Name_Of_Sys_Vol by the volume name found in the previous command. If the name contains spaces, escape them with \. Example:

chmod 4511 /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/bin/sudo

Check with ls -l /Volumes/Name_Of_Sys_Vol/usr/bin/sudo which should yield:

-r-s--x--x  1 root  wheel  168448  7  9  2016 /Volumes/Name_Of_Sys_Vol/usr/bin/sudo

In Sierra with SIP enabled you wouldn't have been able to modify the permissions of sudo to 777. Therefore I assume Sierra isn't installed or SIP is disabled.

If Sierra is installed and SIP is enabled you have to disable it before applying changes to sudo..


Can my admin manage my iPad without me knowing? Can my admin manage my iPad (download programs, change settings, etc.) without me knowing? (Configuring it so that I cannot tell that it's managed.)

My iPad is running iOS 12, and there are no messages in settings telling me that it is managed. It was set up and purchased by me, by the way. It's already connected to my personal Apple ID.

Edit: Can they manage my iPad if my only connection to them is that I'm signed into a managed Google Account (example@company.com) in Chrome? (sync)

You can tell if the device is supervised (i.e. managed) by opening Settings. Right at the top it says "This iPad is supervised and managed by xxxxxxx". If you do not have this message, your device is not supervised.

Your iPad cannot be supervised/managed merely by signing in to a managed Google Account in the Chrome browser.


Mountain Lion: How do I see the description of a software update after I've installed it? When OS updates are available in the app store, there is usually a short description near the update button. Is there a way to see this description after I've installed the update?

If you go to the Purchases tab in App Store and click on a software title, the description of the app is presented in all its full glory, with screen shots, customer ratings & everything else.


AirPlay on Apple TV 2 failing more often than it works I'm finding that when streaming video or audio from either my iPad 1 or iPhone 4 to my Apple TV 2, it more often than not fails (although it does occasionally work). I'd say 6/10 it fails.

I'll:

Start playing the media
Press the AirPlay button (either from within the app or on the task bar)
Choose the Apple TV receiver

and after a few seconds it'll revert back to displaying on the local device.

I select the AirPlay option either before the media starts, or during it. It doesn't seem to make a difference.

Some times it'll look as though Apple TV tries to load it, other times it does not.

This happens with any application I use (eg. Safari, Spotify, Downcast).

My setup is as follows:

My iPad and iPhone 4 are connected to an Airport Express
My Apple TV is wired to a Netgear DG934G (a Sky Broadband router).
The Netgear and Airport Express are wired to each other.
I also have a laptop running XBMC which is acting as a AirPlay receiver. This is connected wirelessly to the Netgear. This too is flakey in terms of supporting AirPlay.

Is it common for AirPlay to fail this frequently, or do I have problem?

Thanks.

No - that is not at all common.

Something is certainly causing the instability so you might need to isolate the potential causes one at a time.

network issues (the most likely culprit but by far not the only one)
Apple TV needing a restore or perhaps just a reboot.
iOS device needing the same (restore or reboot).

Before restoring your iOS device, you might try the other steps first or also you could take your device to another network / Apple TV such as a retail store to test and make sure that's not the cause.


What is this fancy L with a curl on top, and how could I type it? I have encountered a very strange, L like letter that I couldn't found in the ASCII table, nor in the Greek alphabet. Do you have any idea what this could be, and what its name is? I would like to type it.

That character is SCRIPT CAPITAL L (Unicode U+2112), usually seen in by documents typeset with LaTeX for Laplace transforms or Lagrangian mechanics.

\mathcal{L} results in: .

In macOS, the closest you'd get is searching for the character L in the Character Viewer (option+command+space) and looking under Related Characters for SCRIPT CAPITAL L.

It's included in the STIX set of fonts, which comes with MacOS since OS X Lion.

Copying the character results in: ℒ


Prepend folder names to file name and flatten file structure I have a bunch of folders with various names, for example

2013-02   Snow and birds
    PICT0001.jpg
    PICT0002.jpg
2013-06   Bicycle trip
    edited_panorama.jpg
    From phone
        DCIM0001.jpg
        DCIM0002.jpg
        DCIM0003.jpg
    From camera
        DSLR
            PICT0001.raw
            PICT0002.raw
        Compact
            S0000001.jpg

As you can see, the general structure is a varying level of nested subfolders containing images. What I want to do is to flatten the structure, adding the name of each level of subfolders to the filename, like this:

2013-02   Snow and birds_PICT0001.jpg
2013-02   Snow and birds_PICT0002.jpg
2013-06   Bicycle trip_edited_panorama.jpg
2013-06   Bicycle trip_From phone_DCIM0001.jpg
2013-06   Bicycle trip_From phone_DCIM0002.jpg
2013-06   Bicycle trip_From phone_DCIM0003.jpg
2013-06   Bicycle trip_From camera_DSLR_PICT0001.raw
2013-06   Bicycle trip_From camera_DSLR_PICT0002.raw
2013-06   Bicycle trip_From camera_Compact_S0000001.jpg

How can this be achieved by using either a Terminal script or any other kind of script? I have found some similar solutions, but they all seem to rely on a fixed level of subfolders, whereas my folder structure is varying.

Tricky one, especially if you want to keep all the spaces etc. Run the following in the top directory (the one which contains 2013-02   Snow and birds etc):

find . -type f -exec sh -c 'for f do x=${f#./}; echo mv "$x" "${x////_}"; done' {} +

The assignment to x gets rid of the leading ./ from find, the ${x////_} replaces all (remaining) occurrences of / with _.

Also, I've protected the actual mv with an echo so you can verify first whether the commands look ok. Rerun the command without the echo to actually rename/move the files.


Does TechTool Deluxe still come with AppleCare? I have always purchased AppleCare with new Macs, and I seem to recall TechTool Deluxe being an important part of the bundle. I bought an iMac at the beginning of the year and neglected to pop in the AppleCare DVD at that time since I knew I was already registered for support and the TT app was migrated from my old computer.

However, today when I got the urge to investigate some drive integrity issues, the migrated version of TT wasn't compatible with the current OS and I couldn't seem to find my AppleCare DVD. Some Google searching shows that as recent as last December, the app was available for download from apple.com, however, those links are now dead and Apple's product page makes no mention of TechTool Deluxe whatsoever. (Micromat's own website has a sneaky past-tense "was" in their product description now.

So, what's the low-down? When did the bundle expire--did the AppleCare I purchased in January contain this on the DVD? Am I screwed if I can't find that DVD, or are there other download options? Any reasons I might not want to use that software?

Here's all the details:

http://www.macgasm.net/2011/03/03/tech-tool-deluxe-longer-included-applecare/

I totally agree with their recommendation of Drive Genius and Disk Warrior. I use them daily and could not do my job without them.


Is there a way to sync Google Calendar with iCal without CalDAV or EAS? As part of the spring cleaning announcement in which Google announced that they would be killing off Google Reader, they also mentioned winding down the CalDAV API.  Given that Google's Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync support was killed off in January, will there be any way to sync Google Calendar with iCal (on iOS) after CalDAV is shut down (September 16, 2013)?

I just thought I would add to this question, given that it was posted in March, with no further activity. Google originally posted this to the Google Blog:

  CalDAV API will become available for whitelisted developers, and will be shut down for other developers on September 16, 2013. Most developers’ use cases are handled well by Google Calendar API, which we recommend using instead. If you’re a developer and the Calendar API won’t work for you, please fill out this form to tell us about your use case and request access to whitelisted-only CalDAV API.

Shortly thereafter, they added this:

  We worked with the developers who provide 98 percent of our current CalDAV traffic to assure access to the CalDAV API, which means many popular products will not be impacted. We remain committed to supporting open protocols like CalDAV.

As I've heard nothing to lead me to believe otherwise, I presume the current state of things at Google is to continue to support CalDAV. Of course, as with anything else, this could change.