Does Apple's Open Source License permit static linking of a library? I have a closed-source project that I'm thinking of linking against one of Apple's open source libs, modified. As I understand it, I should publish my derived work under the same license stating the changes made.

But can I link it against my project statically, or is it limited to dynamic linking only?

According to APSL you are allowed to modify and use their library for profit uses as long as you A)Leave the apple copyright code intact and B)you include the modified code. You don't have to make your entire project open-source but the modified library does have to be open-source. Hope this helps!


Why is there an alarm clock badge on the YouTube app? I’m using iOS 11 public beta 1 and today I’ve noticed an alarm clock badge on the YouTube app. Now I’m wondering why it is there and what does it mean?

Right now the badge is just a normal red circle with a 1 inside.

Update

It also showed me this:

The icon is telling you why Siri is suggesting the app to you by placing it in the Dock. Siri's proactive abilities means it suggests apps it thinks you are likely to use for a variety of reasons:

Alarm icon: app suggested because of the time of day
‘Location’ arrow: app suggested because of your current location

You can disable apps from being suggested on the Dock by going to Settings → General → Multitasking & Dock and disabling Show Suggested and Recent Apps.


How can a malicious video get into my FaceTime call? Apple's recent update (10-Dec-2019) deals with fixing the following security issue:

  Impact: Processing malicious video via FaceTime may lead to arbitrary
  code execution

If I call somebody via FaceTime video, how can a malicious video get into it? I mean, my video call is a video but it is not malicious. Where from does some other [malicious] video come?

In cases like these, my presumption is always that the majority of the risk comes when someone is able to connect to you and send malicious data (in this case in the form of video) to you.

So, for example in this case, I would assume that the danger comes from someone who attempts to connect “via FaceTime” (meaning the FaceTime port and/or protocol) but not with the official FaceTime app. Instead they would use some nefarious tool which will attempt to overflow some buffer or otherwise send data that the FaceTime app on your device will not be able to handle.

Personally, I never use FaceTime on my Mac or iPad, so I log out of the FaceTime app on the Mac and iPad, which limits the “attack vector” to my iPhone. I do not do this primarily for increased security (although it is a nice side benefit). I do it because I don’t want all of my devices to “ring” for a FaceTime call, only my iPhone.


Do I need to do anything after upgrading my RAM? I just replaced a 1GB RAM stick in my 2007-era Macbook Pro with a 2GB RAM stick.  It already had Mountain Lion installed on it.

Is there anything I need to do like configuring something in System Preferences or running a command in Terminal in order to make sure all applications and behind-the-scenes stuff take advantage of the increased RAM?

I'm asking with the assumption that some applications might have made a note of the machine's original amount of RAM when the app was installed, and may still be optimizing itself to the old RAM amount.

Nothing other then checking  to see if the OS detected the change. To do that, click the Apple-icon (in the upper left corner), then About This Mac, then you should see your new RAM amount listed there. If not then I'm not sure how your computer is even working.


Can I reboot or reset AirPort Extreme remotely over wifi using my Mac? Internet connection at my home (provided by the housing company) — shared to wifi via Airport Extreme — nowadays quite often cuts off. When this happens, my MacBook is still connected to the wifi just fine, but access to internet is down.

The only reliable way I’ve found to fix this is to walk over to the  Airport Extreme, disconnect its power cord & connect it again, causing it to reboot. Soon, after the wifi becomes available again, internet connection is back too.

My question: is there any remote or "software" way of resetting or rebooting Airport Extreme to get the internet connection back up? (For example using AirPort Utility or something on the command line on my Mac.)

If it matters: AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th generation) running software version 7.6.9.

The AirPort Utility app has a Base Station Menu, with the option to restart.


External SSD won't unmount due to socketfilterfw When trying to unmount my Samsung T3, which I store various applications like Mathematica on, I am told it is being used by some software socketfilterfw

$ diskutil unmount /dev/disk2s1
Volume External on disk2s1 failed to unmount: dissented by PID=304
(/usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw)

This also shows when unmounting using the GUI and checking in Console.app

I think socketfilterfw is involved in the firewall, however I'm not sure how to fix it or why it is happening, and whether or not it is safe for the SSD to force unmounting.

What options do I have?

The easiest and safest thing is to log out of the account on the Mac. (Apple Menu - log out)

This does two things:

All applications are told to quit and you can identify any apps that are stuck / hung.
All drives are safely unmounted as part of the normal log out process (unless you have an odd setup where you installed software that mounts the drive before the user logs in).

Once you have done that, you can either power off the Mac (to ensure all possibility that the drive is safely shut down and open files are not corrupted) or disconnect the drive.

Pulling a drive that's journaled and HFS+ (or the new APFS) is safe in that you won't corrupt the filesystem. What is at risk is each data file that's still open - so you would lose your word file, your iTunes library that lists playlists / ratings, etc.. (but not the songs themselves).

As to the socket filter - you might need to dig a bit in activity monitor or terminal to know why that was identified as using the device. It's probably relating to the apps you run off that device - Google Chrome will run updaters, perhaps Mathematica runs some licensing software that connects to the network (a school license server or back to the vendor). If you can make this error happen on a newly rebooted Mac several times - then it should be easy to look over each running app and trace why the filesystem is blocked and active.


Software-level volume control for OSX? For logistical reasons, my current sound configuration is the following.
          USB-C            3.5mm
Macbook ————————➜ Monitor ———————➜ Speaker

While this configuration works well, there's no way to change the volume of the computer without changing the physical dials of the speaker.

Is there any way to set the volume by "software" instead of using the outputs controls?

I use an app called Sound Control, which allows you to configure sound settings in all sorts of ways, including individually for each app.
I use it to provide software volume for my Aggregate Output device, which is a Dell Soundbar and my Thunderbolt Display together as one.
It may work for your setup.


When searching for an app on my iPhone I get a black, blank screen On my iPad, if I want to search for a specific app, I pull down from the top of my homescreen. That brings up an input pane to enter the name of App i'm searching for. The same method should work for my iphone but instead of screen input pane, the entire screen turns black and there is no way to enter the name of the app.
I have an iPad Pro running 14.4 and an iphone 11 running 14.4
How do I search for an app on my iPhone?

From Use Search on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Swipe to search

Swipe down from the middle of the Home screen.
Tap the Search field, then enter what you're looking for. As you type, Search updates results in real time.
To see more results, tap Show More or search directly in an app by tapping Search in App.
Tap a search result to open it.

Emphasis added by me on step 1.

If the above default method is not working for you, then restart the iPhone and see if the issue persists.


iPad mini Wi-Fi in the UK My iPad Mini does not have GPS capabilities.  I would like Maps to show my location.  Can I attach a Bluetooth GPS receiver to enable this functionality?  If so, will any Bluetooth GPS receiver work or will it have to be an Apple compatible one?

As long as you're on wifi network it will actually show your approximate location. Or are you interested in using it outdoors?


What is the recommend location for storing compiled binaries for NON-admins? I know that administrators should be installing such binaries in /usr/local/bin, but what if a user doesn't have admin access? And/or what if a user wanted said binaries to travel with their home folder? Naturally, it would seem that any such location would have to be manually added to the $PATH, but I'm curious to know where other people are putting these?

Small programs and scripts in $HOME/bin, and larger packages in $HOME/local subtree (which includes a bin folder)


Nsurl error domain (1012) subscribing MDM Server I'm trying to manage iPads with an own MDM-server. I configured the ProfileManagement but it doesn't work (anymore).. I always get an Nsurl error domain 2012 when trying to prepare the iPad (on the device). I searched a lot on the internet.. It seems to be with https? Certificates? But nothing specific for Profile Manager / MDM.
So I don't have any idea what to do right now.

I'm preparing the iPads with Apple Configurator 2 (Version 2.2). I created a blueprint with the following settings for MDM:

Configuration: Manual
Server: https://mdmserver.domainname.be/devicemanagement/mdm/dep_mdm_enroll
(When I visit this URL in the browser, I get 405 Method Not Supported : GET)
...

There are a lot of certificates for the server, and maybe its because they aren't the good ones..

I don't have any Certificate for https://domainname.be..

Certificates of the server:

macServer > Messages (APN) (VPP appleid added):

mdmserver.domainname.be - apns:com.apple.calendar
mdmserver.domainname.be - apns:com.apple.contact
mdmserver.domainname.be - apns:com.apple.mail
mdmserver.domainname.be - apns:com.apple.mgmt
mdmserver.domainname.be - apns:com.apple.alerts

Under ProfileManager, I can add certificate.. But don't know how (where to download/find) and which one I have to use?

More additional information

Mac version: OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

OS X Server: Server 5.1

Hostname: mdmserver.domainname.be

Computername: macserver

Internet: Available on mdmserver.domainname.be

I opened port 80,443,2195,2196,1640 on the firewall (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202487)

The problem is solved. The problem was caused by the certificates.
I really needed signed certificates for "mdmserver.domainname.be" (Server > Certificates).

But keep in mind, it has to be with a CSR created by the os server, it's not enough to create a CSR with a CSR generator (like directadmin, ..). Thats because you can't add your own private key/csr, the server has its own.

More information about the certificates install: https://www.digicert.com/ssl-certificate-installation-mac-osx-mavericks.htm
SSL Installation Diagnostics Tool: https://www.digicert.com/help/


How to get my lost mail and accounts back after kernel panic? Today while working my system suddenly had a kernel panic.

I tried to restart in safe mode and the meter went to about 1/4 and no further (did this twice). Since that didn't work I restarted normally without any issues until I open Mail.app and all of my accounts and mail had vanished. I even looked for the kernel panic log and couldn't find any trace of it.

Does anyone know why? Is there any possible way to get my accounts and email back?

Click on the Finder icon, then press shift-command-g. This will open up a dialog where you can type a direct path.

Now type ~/Library/Mail/ and press return. You should be able to see a folder called something like 'V2', and possibly other folders with similarly cryptic names. Open them and look for your mail messages. If your mail messages are hidden anywhere on your computer, they will be somewhere in these folders. If they are not here, then I hope you still have access to the messages online, or have made a Time Machine backup of your computer, because they are gone from your mac.

If you have made a Time Machine backup, then keep the Finder window open and and go to the Time Machine menu and click 'Enter Time Machine'. You will be able to travel back in time through the folder looking for your messages.

If you still have the messages available online, then you should be able to setup your accounts again and re-download the messages. (If you are using IMAP, then the messages should all download automatically when the account is setup, but if you are using POP you may have to go online and change your POP download settings to allow all mail to be downloaded.


AppleTV 3 wakes iMac every 10 minutes Until recently, I left my iMac (27" late 2009) on all the time. I now want to sleep it when not in use, but also wake it remotely via my AirPort Extreme. All this is working fine. The iMac is set to sleep after 6 minutes.

I have an AppleTV 3 and when powered on (but sleeping) it causes the iMac to wake every ten minutes. greping for wake in system.log shows a bonjour service connection approximately every 10 minutes. After lots of mDNS debugging I narrowed it down to the AppleTV (there are iPads and phones and other Macs around, it wasn't my first thought). Unplugging the AppleTV proved this - the iMac has been asleep for 8 hours now.

I do have home sharing enabled. This is pretty much all it's used for.

Has anyone come across this before and know what's going on?

After Apple TV Software Update 5.1, I comfirmed this issue was resolved.
Try to update your FW!

The following my old comment is for old FW. I leave it just for knowledge.

I had have same problems. I know Snow Leopard's mDNSresponder wakes a Mac every 2 hours during sleep. So a similar thing occurs on AppleTV every 10 minutes, I guess.

In my case, AppleTV woke my Mac If I set Home Sharing on it. So, 1st option is disabling HomeSharing.

However, I didn't want to do that. So now I avoided this to kill iTunes before Mac sleep. This means it doesn't register Home Sharing service for sleep proxy.

Note:
 1. You have to wake up your Mac by some method(http, ssh, magic packet or something) when you want to use your Home Sharing.
 2. You cannot use sleepWatcher to make 2nd option because it's too late for killing iTunes after sleep trigger. So you must check IDLE time and sleep timer.


File Name Bubble Hovering on Screen? I'm not sure what just happened...
I was just about to rename a file, and just mis-clicked off. - After that point there was a constantly floating yellow bubble with the file name in it, on the finder window. I couldn't click it or drag it, however if I showed desktop it would float off screen along with the finder window.

I force closed Finder, and it was gone when I re-opened. Just very intrigued as to what this was? As it didn't seem like a bug (As it tended to float and act in unison with the finder window).

Any ideas?

iMac
OS X 10.8.2

Well I've managed to replicate it myself, seems like a bug.

If you start to edit a filename, right click, click "look up "File name here"", then quickly click off, the yellow look up box will stay floating on the screen.

Screenshot here:


How to fix no backlit keyboard on BootCamp Windows 8 partition I have a Retina Display MacBook Pro with the latest OSX and also installed Windows 8 RTM on BootCamp.

I hadn't logged into BootCamp in a few weeks, so I dont recall if the backlit keyboard ever worked on bootcamp or not. The thing is, I haven't been able to make it backlit.

I installed Power Plan Assistant (and Trackpad++), and the "Turn Off backlit keyboard" option doesnt do anything. I thought if I clicked on it, it'd toggle whatever setting it is it uses to actually turn it off, and I could use that to turn it on.

As far as I know, I have the latest bootcamp drivers (i update anytime I get an alert about that), and the latest windows drivers on the bootcamp install.

I've googled extensively about how to manually turn the backlit keyboard on on a bootcamp partition, but haven't find anything. I tried dimming the display to 0, then to the max, and that doesnt work.

If it helps at all, my function keys don't work either on bootcamp.

Any ideas?

Keyboard lights work perfectly in both W7 and W8. (and Fn F5 and Fn F6 control the intensity)

Try reinstalling the WindowsSupport files (which reinstalls the keyboard driver), you should not lose T++ functionality, but if you do just reinstall it (Power Plan Assist reinstallation is not needed)

Sometimes after some sleep-wake cycles the dimmer function stops working (Pressing Fn F5-F6 brings up a gray panel with a disabled sign), rebooting fixes the problem.


I bought a used iPod touch 5th gen on eBay, but it's connected to their iCloud! Is there any way I can sign out without their password? They refuse to tell me (would you tell someone your iCloud password?), and I can't disable Find My iPod. I'm on the latest iOS (8.3). Thanks for your help!

If you have access to the iPod, go to Settings -> iCloud and then press Sign out. I think that should work without having to enter any password. Then you can add your own or do whatever you want.
If you don't have access to your iPod because they're locking it using Find my iPhone, there are either two ways
1. They tell you the password to access the device
2. You force your iPod to enter DFU/Recovery mode so you can restore it using iTunes.
Hope this helps :)


iTunes fails to sync with iPod Touch, suggests I should reset it to factory defaults I'm unable to perform a backup from my iPod Touch to iTunes because it says it's failing to read data from it and that I have to reset it to factory defaults. This will erase all data on the device.

I have, however, over 2000 songs on it that I don't want to lose, and thousands of contacts that I'd rather not lose as well. I tried to backup them with PodTrans but it gives me the same bad news that the device's database is corrupted.

From the device's side though, all is well and it's working normally.

The device was working fine with iTunes until it was halfway through a backup and now it won't sync again.

I've tried several different cables with no success, it doesn't seem to be a cable issue.

I've tried rebooting and restarting iTunes background processes several times with no success.

Is there anything else I can try to save my data from this device?

Can you tell us what version of iOS you're running? Unless it's really old, you can sync contacts to your iCloud account, and if you go to iCloud.com and log in with your Apple ID you'd see them. You can also do an iCloud backup. Regarding songs, how did you get them on your iPod initially? If they were already on your computer then you should be able to put them back again after the restore. If you purchased them through iTunes you should be able to re-download them for free.


Files display only ^@^@^@^@ I have some files I was hoping to open and look at. I usually open files of the same extension them on a server in a UNIX environment. These files as far as I can tell have been plain text but attempting to open this particular set with nano on my Mac displays the following ^@^@^@^@^@^@.... Is there a way to change the encoding so I can read them? Also the files are old and some that I do not believe should be empty are empty, is there a good test to see if they are corrupted?

Update:
Moving the folder onto the UNIX server does not fix this issue. Contents are still ^@^@^@^@^@....

File extensions can usually suggest the type of contents a file might have, however, sometimes files are misnamed, and sometimes files are corrupted.  I presume that if you're accustomed to opening filenames with a similar extension with a text editor like nano, you're expecting this file to be plain text as well.

Give the command 'file' a try; that could tell you what the contents are.
Also, if it's mixed text and data, the command 'strings' can help pull out some interesting text in an otherwise unreadable (to the eye) file.


Catalina import iTunes Library.xml from Music app I formatted my Mac Catalina beta, because I expected the redesigned Music app to successfully import iTunes Library.itl file from Time Machine Backup.

However, when I import > select the file, nothing happens and even if I manually add ~/Library/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Media/Music file into Music app, some of the music files are missing.

Is there any way to completely reset Music app's preferences, thereby re-initiating iTunes Library import sequence from OS update? Or, is there a way to properly import previous iTunes Library from Music app?

Take a look at ~/Music/Previous iTunes Libraries/. There are old copies of your .itl file stored there.

See: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203225


How to completely disable password saving in Safari? Safari keeps asking if I want to save passwords whenever I submit a login form.

Is there any way to disable this password saving feature completely?

If AutoFill is disabled, Safari won't ask to save passwords either.


Locked iPhone 4 — What specifically can I access? I’m purchasing several iPhone 4 models for an art project. However they are being listed by the seller as “iCloud Locked.”

I only need them to power up so I can upload a single video via USB to play it on the screen. Can anyone tell me if this is possible?

I don’t need any other connectivity resources, and I have no intention to ever use the phones otherwise.

The seller is most likely referring to Activation Lock, which will prevent you from using the iPhones entirely unless you know the Apple ID and password of the legitimate owners.

You will not be able to copy data onto those phones, or view anything on the screen other than the Activation Lock screen:

Pretty much the only use you could have for those iPhones would be for spare parts. However as @bjbk mentions, they were most likely stolen. I would advise you stay away from this merchandise.


Is it possible Select and Autocopy in Mac I would like autocopy for every text that I select to avoid to do several CMD+C.

Is there any way or application to do this?

I don’t know of any software that does that at a system level and apparently, neither do these guys at SuperUser. ;)

The reason why there’s no extension that does this for Safari yet is because the API for Extensions on Safari doesn’t support Clipboard mechanism at this time.


Opening pdf over ssh in Mac terminal As the title says, I do

> ssh user@host.de
Password:
> cd documents/
> okular example.pdf
QXcbConnection: Could not connect to display
Aborted (core dumped)

I connect to an OpenSUSE machine over SSH from a MAC OS.

I understand it wrongly first. Try first

export DISPLAY=:0

And run your ssh, this might help.


How can I find the serial number of my Apple Keyboard USB on a mac programmatically from the terminal? I would like to retrieve the Apple USB Keyboard's serial number from a command to use in a script.

What command can I use ?

I don't think you can. The information that you can get is available via System Profiler: system_profiler SPUSBDataType, which on my Macbook returns:

    Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad:

      Product ID: 0x0259
      Vendor ID: 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.)
      Version: 2.24
      Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
      Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
      Location ID: 0x14400000 / 3
      Current Available (mA): 1000
      Current Required (mA): 40
      Extra Operating Current (mA): 0
      Built-In: Yes


MacBook Pro Retina not charging So my MacBook was on 2% so I tried charging it but it worked at first ,but then a little later another message came up saying that the macbook was low battery and then I realized that the cord was not plugged in so I plugged it in to my MacBook but it won't charge this time. I figured since the computer was kinda overheated I decieded to shut it down and then charge it but now it won't charge, I even used a different charger (that works) but nothing and using a different outlet as well. When I try turning it on it just has simple of needing to be charge but when I plug in a charger it won't charge my MacBook at all. Can someone tell me what to do?????

It is possible your Power Management got messed up

Reset the SMC following this instructions:.

That should fix the problem, unless your battery is fried.


iPhone Backup Restore Ate 30 GB of HD Space - How to Clean Restoring my iPhone backup ate about 30 GB of hard drive space. I had to keep up with it deleting files the whole time it was running. Not much fun.

I'm guessing it extracted a bunch of files somewhere. I want to get rid of these files while still having my iPhone backups. It doesn't seem normal that iTunes wouldn't clean up after itself but oh well.

-- Edit --

The first time I tried the restore process it ate about 10GB and I never recovered that after it failed.

The first thing to try is to delete any extra backups that might have been made in iTunes. Open the Devices tab in iTunes Preferences, see if there are any extra backups (it should list the device name and date it was backed up. Any backup that has a timestamp in the Name (i.e. "Device Name - 2012-07-03 3:12PM") was created during a device restore.

Select the backups you want to delete, click Delete Backup…, then confirm, then click OK in the Devices Preferences window. If you don't click the OK button, the files don't actually get trashed from the Finder.

If after that, you still haven't recovered all your space, check the ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup folder (~/ means /Users/your_user_name/) folder. That's where the iTunes backups are stored. They're named using hashes, so you have to guess based on the dates which is which, but if you see more folders than there are entries in the Devices Preferences in iTunes, they didn't get deleted properly. You can delete them directly from the Finder, but make sure you know what's what before removing it.

Finally, if you're still low on space, try a tool like GrandPerspective, which will scan whatever folders you specify (I suggest starting with your user folder), and give you a graphical representation of the sizes of all the subfolders and files within. Pretty easy to find big files or folders taking up space. A likely culprit after a restore is .ipsw files laying around that didn't get cleaned up - that's the system image for iOS devices.

It's also worth checking to see if during the restore, your iPhone sync settings changed - it may have synced apps or media that wasn't previously synced to your computer.


"Select CD-ROM Boot Type:" error during Windows install Which version of bootcamp 4.x do I need to install Windows 7 (64 bit) on an iMac7,1 with Yosemite?

Specs: 64 bit Core 2 Duo, 4GB, 16GB Flash, optical drive, Windows 7 install DVD

Everything goes fine until during the install process Mac reboots to install windows then:

1
2
Select CD Rom boot type:

I can't enter anything because keyboard and mouse are unresponsive and I assume the correct drivers were not loaded.

iMac is mid 2007 24" 64 bit (says profiler/other internal monitors).  Have downloaded various boot camp versions, followed documented instructions, stood on my head and spit nickels, and still get same error (Select CD Boot ROM type).  Made ISO file with Mac Disk Utility (create and change .cdr to .iso)  Didn't work either.

After further review, seems that I misread Apple support table which show this model uses Boot Camp 4 for 32-bit Windows 7.  Genius - bought install DVD for 64-bit :-o  So I guess that's why it won't install.

Going to try suggested method of creating ISO from W7 store-bought DVD on Windows machine just for giggles and see what happens.  Then probably go buy the correct DVD for 32-bit  :-(  Thanks for the info :-)

The problem you encountered occured before the Boot Camp drivers are installed. So, the drivers are not the problem. The correct drivers for Macs can be found at Boot Camp: System requirements for Microsoft Windows operating systems. In your case, the drivers can be downloaded from Boot Camp Support Software 4.0.4033. Also, the drivers can be downloaded using the Boot Camp Assistant. By the way, I used the same drivers to do a clean install Windows 8 (64 bit) on my iMac7,1 (20-inch, Mid 2007).
Your actual problem is with the DVD itself. As you might guess, it came with two ways to boot. You need to remove one of them. You are using a Windows 7 DVD. I was having the same problem with a Windows 8.1 (64 bit) DVD. The procedure to repair should be the same.
I used a windows 8.1 machine and a copy of the program oscdimg.exe from Microsoft. The procedure should work just as well using a Windows 7 or 10 machine.
To begin, you will need to copy oscdimg.exe to your desktop. There are many web sites where a copy of this file can be found. I used oscdimg.exe Version 2.55 (x86). If you want to be sure you are using the same one I used, follow the steps below.

Go to the web site The Windows® Automated Installation Kit (AIK)
for Windows® 7 and download the iso. This iso file is 1.7 GB in
length.

Open the file Neutral.cab. If you are using a Windows 7 machine, you
will need to burn the iso on to a DVD. The instructions can be found
here. Open the new DVD to find the Neutral.cab file. It is
faster to copy the Neutral.cab file to the desktop before opening
it. If you are using a Windows 8.1 or 10 machine, right click on the iso
icon and select Mount. Neutral.cab will be one of the files in the
opened folder. (Note: Opening the file can take a while.)
One way to avoid burning a DVD would be to copy (or download) the iso file to a machine running OS X. The iso file can then be mounted by double clicking on its icon. Neutral.cab will be one of the files in the opened folder. You will need to copy Neutral.cab back to a Window machine. I tested this using OS X 10.6.8. I assume this procedure would work using any newer version of OS X.
Another way to avoid burning a DVD would be to copy (or download) the iso file to the ~/Downloads folder of a machine running Kubuntu (or perhaps some other Linux). The following commands can be used to extract the Neutral.cab to the ~/Downloads folder. You will need to copy Neutral.cab back to a Window machine. I tested this using Kubuntu 18.04.5 LTS.
cd ~/Downloads
mkdir windowsiso
sudo mount -o loop,ro KB#AIK_EN.iso windowsiso
cp windowsiso/Neutral.cab .
sudo umount windowsiso
rmdir windowsiso

Using a Windows 7, 8.1, or 10 machine, extract oscdimg.exe from the
Neutral.cab cabinet file. The x86 (32 bit) version is named
F1_oscdimg. The x64 (64 bit) version is named F3_oscdimg. Right
click on the file of your choice and select Extract. Place the
extracted file on your desktop. Rename the extracted file to
oscdimg.exe. (I did verify the correctness of this procedure by
installing the entire package and binary file comparing the
installed x86 and x64 oscdimg files with F1_oscdimg and F3_oscdimg,
respectively.)

Next, make a new Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 installation DVD, follow these steps. The procedure was tested using a Windows 8.1 installation DVD.

Make sure a copy of oscdimg.exe is on your desktop.

Place the original Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 installation DVD in the optical drive. If using a Windows 8.1 or 10 machine, then a Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 installation iso file  could be mounted instead.

If you are using a Windows 7 machine, open a Command Prompt window
by clicking the Start button , clicking All
Programs, clicking Accessories, and then clicking Command Prompt. On
a Windows 8.1 machine, look for the Command Prompt icon on the Apps
page.  On a Windows 10 machine, look for Command Prompt under Windows System on the Start menu.

Change your working directory to the desktop by entering the
following command in the Command Prompt Window.
cd  %homepath%\desktop

Assuming D: is your DVD drive or drive letter assign to the mounted Windows installation iso file, enter the following command. Be sure
to replace the letter before each : with the drive letter of your
DVD drive or mounted file. The file new.iso will be created on your desktop.
oscdimg  -n  -m  -bD:\boot\etfsboot.com  D:\  new.iso

Note: For more information, see the Microsoft website Oscdimg Command-Line Options.

Using this command, on a Windows 8.1 (64 bit) DVD, produced the following output.
C:\Users\David\Desktop>oscdimg -n -m -bD:\boot\etfsboot.com D:\ new.iso

OSCDIMG 2.55 CD-ROM and DVD-ROM Premastering Utility
Copyright (C) Microsoft, 1993-2007. All rights reserved.
Licensed only for producing Microsoft authorized content.

Scanning source tree (2000 files in 803 directories)
Scanning source tree complete (2094 files in 867 directories)

Computing directory information complete

Image file is 3277371392 bytes

Writing 2094 files in 867 directories to new.iso

100% complete

Final image file is 3277371392 bytes

WARNING: This image contains filenames and/or directory names that are
 NOT COMPATIBLE with Windows NT 3.51. If compatibility with
 Windows NT 3.51 is required, use the -nt switch rather than
 the -n switch.

Done.

C:\Users\David\Desktop>

Burn new.iso on to a DVD. The instructions for a Window 7 machine
can be found here. The same instructions can be used for a
Windows 8.1 machine. For a Windows 10 machine, find the new.iso file in the File Explorer, then right click on the new.iso file and select Burn disc image.

Note: The current 32 bit Windows 10 (20H2) release can be burned to a DVD or a rewritable (RW) DVD. However do to the larger size, the current 64 bit Windows 10 (20H2) release can only be burned to a dual layer (DL) DVD.

You can also transfer the new.iso file to a OS X machine and burn to a DVD using the Disk Utility.

Finally, install Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 using the new DVD.


Downgrading from Yosemite to Mavericks I have recently bought a new Mac which contains Yosemite. Unfortunately i have problems with some of the programs I'm trying to run so i want to downgrade back to mavericks. i have constructed a USB flash drive that consists of Mavericks, however every time i select to boot from the Mavericks install USB a circle with a line through it appears on the screen. is there ways past this?

It really depends on exactly when your Mac was made. Right down to the week. If the hardware contains things that Mavericks doesn't know about, then it won't run Mavericks, period.

Your model may have been available before Yosemite, but that doesn't mean it's got the same components - just the same specifications. Foxconn might, for example, have run out of Mavericks-compatible USB bus chips but Apple said go ahead with the new chips and a driver will be included in Yosemite.

If you are sure you created your bootable USB correctly (it boots other computers into Mavericks) then you are stuck.


Can't email a certain PDF in iBooks I am trying to move a PDF that I opened in iBooks on my iPad, to Dropbox, however whenever I try the share option it will only allow me to print the PDF and not email it. How can I get it out from iBooks?

I'm using an iPad Pro 9.7" with iOS 10.

There seem to be a number of people on various forums in your same boat, dating back even to when the iBooks app was first introduced. The only theories I was able to find explaining why this might be happening (large PDFs, file protected PDFs, non-searchable PDFs) are all easily disproven. So I can't help you there.

However, if all you're trying to do is get the file out of iBooks and into your Dropbox, this is doable with the help of a computer. I've included instructions for two methods below. If you have a Lightning to USB cord and a computer that you use iTunes on, it's probably easiest to transfer the file the first way. If not, you can also do it wirelessly with iCloud Drive.

If you don't mind buying software, you can also accomplish this with a third-party computer program such as iMazing or PhoneDisk.

iTunes

Connect your iPad to a computer using a USB cord (or Sync over Wi-Fi, if you have that set up) and open iTunes. Wait for the device icon to show up near the top left of the window, near the <> buttons. When it does, choose File > Devices > Transfer Purchases from [your iPad's name].

Unfortunately, depending on how much content you have on your iPad, this may be fairly overkill... using this method will sync all purchased content from the iTunes Store to your computer, as well as "all podcasts from your device's Podcasts app and copies of all PDFs, books, and audiobooks from your device's iBooks app" (source).

Once the transfer is complete, your PDFs and other ebooks will appear in the Books app on your Mac, and you can drag and drop the file into Dropbox or wherever else you want it.

iCloud Drive

First, you need to make sure that the following things are set up properly, both in iCloud settings on your iPad (Settings > iCloud) and on your Mac  ( > System Preferences > iCloud):

You are logged into iCloud
iCloud Drive is turned on
iBooks is turned on within iCloud Drive settings

Having checked that, open iBooks on your iPad and wait a moment. If there is a cloud icon in the top right, that means it's busy syncing your documents. (You can tap on it to see what it's currently syncing.) Wait for it to finish.

Now open iBooks on your Mac and wait patiently for the PDF to appear. Make sure that View > Hide iCloud Books is not ticked.

Once the PDF is synced to your computer, simply drag and drop the file into Dropbox or wherever else you want it.

Note that this method can be a bit temperamental and may not work, even if it seems like everything is set up correctly. If it doesn't, and this is your only option, try rebooting your devices and follow the steps again.


How do I use a PC keyboard on a Mac I have a very nice and expensive mechanical keyboard. It was designed for a PC and not a Mac.

How do I set up the mapping, so it works like I am used to. For example, I want the Ctrl key on the PC keyboard to act like the Command key on the Mac, so when I press Ctrl-C to Copy, I get the action I am used to.

I too, have a "PC" keyboard, and here's what you have to do (see attached image).

Open System Preferences and go to Keyboard:

Once there, click in the "Modifier Keys"
Select your keyboard.
Change your keys to reflect your change. (I have it changed too!)


Regarding email attachments from gmail app on iphone I have iphone 5S. I want to know:

How to save a doc or pdf attachment from gmail app locally on an iphone?
How to view this attachment (from step 1) on iphone?
How to send this attachment to someone else using gmail app from iphone?
The attachment icon only gives the option for photos and google drive link.

I have earlier used gmail app on Android phone and there it was very simple to download or send an attachment but iphone seems to be tricky. Am I missing something here?

For PDF files, you can import into iBooks and simply access it from iBooks. From there you can also send the PDF as an attachment for someone else by clicking on share.

For other files, I think your best bet would be using the Google Drive app or iCloud in order to keep on viewing it on your phone. Another thing you can do is save the files in the notes app and then you can also view it and send it out from there.

For the 5S, I'm sure that you can use iBooks for PDF but I'm not 100% sure on if you can put other file types into notes (although I don't see why not).


Copying formatted text from a web page to an Applescript input dialog I have an Applescript which - simplified - looks like this:

...
display dialog "foo" default answer ""
...

One of the users of this script runs Lion. Whenever he tries to copy/paste a string to the input dialog, that won't work if the origin of the copy has got some formatting (e.g. the string is copied from a web page).
Everything works fine under Snow Leopard.

Any hint on why this happens?

I tried to reproduce the problem with
on run
    set dialogResult to display dialog "foo" default answer ""
    set newText to text returned of dialogResult
    display dialog "Text entered: " & newText
end run

but at least at first sight it appears to be working ok. Which specific issue did you run into ("won't work" is a bit broad)?

Update
The problem has been fixed in OS X 10.8, just got a mail from devbugs@apple.com:

14-Sep-2012 07:40 PM Apple Developer Bug Reporting Team :
We believe this issue has been addressed in OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) GM Seed (Build 12A269).  This pre-release version is available now on the Mac App Store to Mac Developer Program eligible members.  Please verify with this release and update your bug report with the results.


I'm wondering if my 13 inch MacBook Air is having battery issues? This is my current battery information. Could someone please let me know if I need a new battery or what might be wrong with it?

Battery Information:

Model Information:
  Serial Number:           D86221701NNDKRNA5
  Manufacturer:            SMP
  Device Name:               bq20z451
  Pack Lot Code:           0
  PCB Lot Code:            0
  Firmware Version:        406
  Hardware Revision:       000a
  Cell Revision:           162

Charge Information:
  Charge Remaining (mAh):  6098
  Fully Charged:           Yes
  Charging:                No
  Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 6331

Health Information:
  Cycle Count:               60
  Condition:               Normal
  Battery Installed:       Yes
  Amperage (mA):           0
  Voltage (mV):            8293

I would recommend using coconutBattery to monitor your battery life and record degradation statistics. For example, my MacbookPro is 21 months old, 142 cycles and has 94% of original capacity (6519 out of 6900). But Pro batteries are different from Airs, they degrade slower.

Here you can see how Air battery degrades over a year (recorded daily). Yours does not look different.


What's the specific cause of the headphone/built-in speaker switch? So for a very long time this question has been asked and asked again: How can you play audio from the built-in speakers with the headphones plugged in?

When other people's Macs are dual booted (including mine), into Linux, or Windows, it is very much possible to switch between the built in speakers and headphones. The same with the startup chime, which sounds through the speakers with the headphones plugged in.

It's not hardware [or at least, not always], so where is the cause found in software? Is it at the kernel level? Is there a private API for sound management?

option click on the speaker icon in the menu bar. There you can select the output:

The screenshot doesn't list a headphone, because I don't have a pair on me at the moment..

Alternatively go to System Preferences --> Sound --> Output and select you prefered output:


Alfred searching through directories and filenames at the same time Lets say I have the following structure:

~/DOCUMENTATION/UBUNTU/CHECKINSTALL reference.txt

Is there a way to configure Alfred so that when I type in the search bar "ubuntu checkinstall" it would find this file?

One of Alfred's example workflows is Dynamic File Search. Here you enter the keyword or press a hotkey, then enter the folder, then the file. In the images, I've used the default keyword activation of ‘ff’, however you can set up a keyboard shortcut to go directly to dynamic file search. Once a folder is found, press enter to start searching for files within.

To activate this workflow, open Alfred Preferences → Workflows, click the + at the bottom to add a new workflow and select Examples → Dynamic File Search.


Macbook sometimes drops my wifi connection and can't reconnect for a few minutes Every now and then my macbook will drop my home wifi connection and the network will not be visible in the list of available networks for a few minutes leaving me unable to reconnect. Eventually my network reappears and I reconnect and it works again. I don't believe it to be a router issue as my iPad and iPhone never have this problem and I still have a working connection on them even when my mac cannot see the network.

I live on a street where there are quite a few neighbour's wifi networks within range of my PC. I have experimented with a number of different wifi channels on the router but it hasn't solved the issue. Any ideas?

The router is a Virgin Media "Super Hub" (some sort of Netgear)

If you were to run the Wireless Diagnostic tool each time the network dropped, you might be able to look over the logs once you have 5 to 10 events and see if you can determine a pattern. It's hidden in the folder /System/Library/CoreServices/ and also available if you hold the option key and click on the wireless icon in the menu bar.

Once the tool runs and deposits the diagnostic data on your desktop - you might run it a second time and use the Utilities window to see if you can see interference or other issues on the Performance view.

That section where the noise jumped up was when I turned on our Microwave.


Does Xcode 7 Require Admin Account to Build and Sign App In order to build an ipa archive for Enterprise Distribution in Xcode 7, must I log in as an Admin user of the Enterprise Program to perform the build and code sign, or is it sufficient to have the Distribution Certificate, private key and Enterprise Distribution Provisioning Profile in Xcode?

Thanks!

Apple describes the roles in this document:

https://developer.apple.com/support/roles/

You won't be able to create the needed certificates as a non-admin / non-agent user - but reading your question indicates that you just need to have them delivered to you, so if you already have valid certs and keys you should be good to go signing in as a team member account.

Just set a reminder to leave enough time to remind the admin to renew the certificates since your builds and apps will fail at a known date based on the expiry for the certs you have for the build today.


Will I receive all the SMS on my iPhone although it has been disconnected for some time? After having my iPhone disconnected for some time, will all the text messages people have sent me, arrive to the phone once I reconnect it?

Usually SMS messages have a 'lifetime' of around 9 days - this is set by the carrier.

iMessages should be delivered the next time you connect your iPhone to a network.


Connect two 30" ACD on a 17" MacBook Pro (early 2011) My setup is a 30" Cinema Display (2560x1600, DVI) from around 2007, and a 17-inch, Early 2011 Macbook Pro. I'm wondering if I can add a second external monitor via a USB adaptor or any other solution. Ideally another monitor of the same size and resolution.

Yes, you can add another monitor if you use a USB video adaptor.  No, there are no USB video adaptors that support dual link DVI monitors such as the 30" Cinema Display.

Many USB video adaptors will support 1920x1200, some a little bit higher.

However, you will find the USB video to be slow and annoying if you are used to high performance video.

I suggest you consider using two Apple Thunderbolt displays which are a bit smaller and a bit lower resolution at 2560-by-1440, but you can connect two of them, and you'll actually find as good as your cinema display is, technology has improved noticeably since its release, and the thunderbolt displays are absolutely stunning.

You might be able to connect one thunderbolt display, then attach the thunderbolt-DVI adaptor to that display and attach your cinema display.

To that end, you might find some of the information in this question useful:

How to connect two non-Thunderbolt displays to the Macbook Pro 2011 via Thunderbolt?


Locate phone with Find My iPhone without locking it Can you use the Find My iPhone app without it locking the phone your trying to find? I only want the location, not to lock it.

Yes, sure - so long as the phone can currently find a net connection.

Either from another iPhone, using the Find my iPhone app & entering your own Apple ID, or from the website - https://www.icloud.com/#find

It will show on the map & give you options to Play Sound - useful if it's somewhere near you, down the back of the sofa, in a coat pocket etc, or more seriously if it's been stolen or lost you can set Lost Mode or Wipe all data.


scheduled account lock Mac OS X You can set your Mac OS X account to automatically lock the screen so that the password is required after a certain amount of time of inactivity, but can you do the same thing using a schedule (say at 5:30 PM every day)? Kind of like how you can have the computer turn on/off or go to/wake up from sleep at a certain time.

EDIT: Although I am not certain of why cron fails to work for this specific use-case, this answer is superceeded by the (currently more correct) answer using launchd.

Use crontab -e in the terminal application to add /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend to the Crontab at the appropriate time, like so (for 5:30 PM):

30 17 * * * /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend


How can I remove a song from options for creating an alarm? iOS 6 added the ability to use a song from your music library as the "Sound" for an alarm.  Whenever you use a song - it stays in the list of songs to select in the future.  Is there anyway to clear this list or remove a song from the list?

You can’t clear this list or remove a song, unfortunately, but the list is limited to 5 songs, so adding new songs will clear previous ones.

I noticed this so I said, dammit, I might as well set one song for each workday. :)


I get the grey screen after startup on 2006 macbook pro. no keys work. Just a few days ago ( I have actually been using another computer for a while ) I started up my 2006  macbook pro and and after a few minutes I got the white diagonal lines, although I could still see the desktop pic with the top menu and dock but hitting keys did nothing.

Well after a few more startups in the last few days, that desktop disappeared with just the white lines across a grey screen, then the next start up the apple logo had diagonal lines and then black lines and just now I fired it up again and I got the black lines and then right to the grey screen.

I've seen this issue posted about before and I cannot remember what it means and I hope it is fixable.

It's a 2006 15" MacBook Pro. I had the video chip replaced a few years back.

So, cuz it's 9 years old and otherwise works perfectly - except that I am maxed out at OSX 10.6.8 - I wonder if it is worth fixing - depending on what needs to be done.

If it's the hard drive, I am wondering if it is worth removing it and replacing with a solid state?

Any thoughts? O and previous to this the start up sound was like a car battery that was almost dead when you start it up. really slow.

Sounds very much like the graphics chip is on the blink again, it's pretty common to see these units fail again and again...

Unfortunately you won't be able to get it serviced any more as it's classified as obsolete by Apple now so no parts are available, although maybe eBay etc...

There is a chance you could do an OS reinstall to verify it's a hardware fault and not software, but the diagonal lines is symptomatic of a hardware graphics chip issue like you would see on this range of machine.

I would be looking to replace the machine at this point sadly. It might be worth going to the manager in an Apple Store and indicating that it's failed for a known fault again and asking if they would give a discount on a new machine as they may well do this as a gesture of good will.


What steps can troubleshoot OS X when some sites do not resolve on Snow Leopard? I cannot access www.lubuntu.net from my Macbook Pro running OS X 10.6.8. I have an idea as to what the problem is (see my opinion), but I did all the usual things anyway (see basic troubleshooting), just to check.

Basic Troubleshooting

I can access almost any other site from my macbook (for example this one). I can access lubuntu.net from my other laptop which is on the same wifi, meaning it's not a network, ISP, or router issue. Also the site is up, and this issue is persistent for several days.

I can successfully ping the site. The site resolves to an IP (thus not a DNS issue). The problem occurs using three different browsers - Chrome, Firefox, Safari. I never use Safari, so it's not an extension issue, either. I cannot access the site even if I paste its IP into the address bar.

My IP is likely not banned, since (1) there is no reason to ban me and (2) my other laptop is able to access the site over the same network, going through the same router.

Rebooting does not solve the issue.

My Opinion

I installed (and quickly uninstalled) a program called PeerGuardian, which blocks "suspicious" IPs. It is mainly used for blocking unwanted peers when downloading torrents. I think that it messed with one of the config files to block the Lubuntu site.

Which files should I check? I've taken a look at /etc/hosts, and that looks fine. Also /etc/resolv.conf looks normal. No idea where to go from here.

EDIT: Here are the contents of system.log for my most recent attempt:

  Oct 18 21:44:11 albatross com.avast.proxy[50]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer

  Oct 18 21:45:20 albatross com.avast.proxy[50]: Defective HTTP request!

  Oct 18 21:45:20 albatross com.avast.proxy[50]: Unexpected AV CHECKURL response code (501)!

  Oct 18 21:46:24 albatross [0x0-0x165165].com.avast.AAFM[2093]: 18 Oct 21:46:24 ntpdate[2133]: no servers can be used, exiting

  Oct 18 21:46:27 albatross avast![2093]: event_master_disconnected

  Oct 18 21:46:38 albatross com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[322] (com.avast.helper): Throttling respawn: Will start in 5 seconds

  Oct 18 21:46:45 albatross com.avast.proxy[50]: Error reading receive buffer: read(): Connection reset by peer

Do you think this is a problem caused by Avast? But I installed avast after the problem started, because I thought it might be a virus, so that doesn't make much sense...

EDIT 2: added contents of /etc/hosts below

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.

127.0.0.1   localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost ::1             localhost
 fe80::1%lo0    localhost

In agreement with the original poster, in this answer I put together the comments above that describe the troubleshooting steps that helped solve the issue.

Realize that PeerGuardian uses a KEXT.

As strangelydim commented, PeerGuardian (an open source privacy oriented firewall software) uses a kernel extension (KEXT). The KEXT is used to block connections to "dangerous" servers specified in so-called blocklists.
Find out whether the KEXT was the culprit.

The original poster booted his Mac into Safe Mode by pressing Shift during startup (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1533).

Safe Mode does a lot of things (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564), among them it loads only required kernel extensions, so PeerGuardian's KEXT wouldn't be loaded.

The original poster could successfully connect to www.lubuntu.net, so the KEXT was the offender.
Disable the KEXT.

The first try was to move the KEXT from /Library/Application Support/PeerGuardian to /tmp and reboot. That didn't help. The original poster then deleted the KEXT. I also asked him to check in System Preferences>Users & Groups>Login Items whether PeerGuardian was listed and remove it.

After a reboot he could sucessfully connect to www.lubuntu.net.

So the bottom line is that, unfortunately, some programs cannot be uninstalled by simply dragging them to the Trash.


Can I rename the "Pictures" folder without "Full Disk Access"? Our application needs write access to the user's Home directory, specifically to Pictures, Movies, Music, etc., so it can redirect them to our cloud support. But, on Mojave, renaming Pictures (to some back-up folder) fails with EPERM without the Full Disk Access right, which seems too much and too hard to acquire (cf "Unfortunately, Apple has intentionally designed the process of granting Full Disk Access to be difficult, so that users are discouraged from granting Full Disk Access unless absolutely necessary." seen here). Is there another way ?

If you want to do this as a regular user running in standard mode, then no - you have to ask the user to grant permission via Full Disk Access.

You can do it through other means by booting the Mac in Recovery mode for example, but I assume this is not something you want to do as part of a standard process. Granting the correct permissions is way easier.

Note that it is possible to grant the permission, make the change, and then remove the permissions again. This will help if you feel that it is too permissive to allow this software Full Disk Access forever.


How can I hide the onscreen keyboard in the iOS messaging app? When I enter the text message / SMS "app" and tap on the input field a keyboard pops up. When I'm done writing and have sent the message I would like to dismiss the keyboard again. I haven't found out how to so this.

The best work around I have found is to leave and enter the conversation.  But surely there must be a better way. How can you do this or is it even possible at all? I have tried almost everything.

This is not possible at all right now.
Like you said, you can back out and go in again to dismiss keyboard.
Other option is to tap the 'edit' button on top right. That will dismiss keyboard but it will go in edit mode. When you cancel out of edit mode keyboard will come back.

Apple should do something to easily bring up and dismiss keyboard...

Update: With iOS 5, you can swipe messages down all the way pushing the keyboard downwards. Initially I thought, "why not just swipe down the keyboard itself to dismiss?" But now it makes sense because you start scrolling down to see previous messages and keyboard naturally goes away when you do that.


Issue with MacBook on Boot I have a 2012 MacBook Pro 13" with a 500 gb SSD

the SSD is about 1 year old and it was performing excellent, but now i dont know

Sometimes when i turn off the Mac and turn it on again im experiencing the Prohibitory sign on boot, i usually wait and sometimes the apple logo reappears or flashes a few times and then prohibitory sign appears again, sometimes i wait a few seconds and then it boots as normal

I have performed a Hardware test and it doesnt show any problem. I have reinstalled the OS a few times, SMART status is OK and i checked the disk with First aid on Disk Utility

Altough it always boots up, the prohibitory sign is making me nervous because im about to sell the MacBook and i dont want anything  to spoil my selling, i want to sell an excellent product.

The RAM is also in good shape so it is not that.

I checked SATA cable to see if something was loose, but nothing.

Any other suggestion?

EDIT 1

Also, sometimes it stays black after a wake up and i have to power it off and on to be able to use it

You might be experiencing an HDD cable failure.  I've had to replace a few of them from 2009-2012 laptops.  They run about $40CAD on Amazon; you'll need your exact model number to find a compatible one.  To find that, hold option, and go to Apple > System Information.  Look for the Model ID, it'll be something like

  MacBookPro11,2

Good luck!


iPhone 5 screen does not activate after a phone call One of the permanent features on an iPhone turns off the screen (display and the touch receptors) when during a phone call you press the screen against your ears and cheek. The screen would almost instantaneously turn itself completely "on" when the phone would move away from the cheek and ears.

This at least was the case before iPhone 5. On my iPhone 5, the screen sometimes does not turn off or turn back on. I can confirm that iOS6 has nothing to do with this --my old iPhone 3GS on iOS6 does not face this problem.

Following the recommendations of this post, I went to the Apple Store but they just replaced my iPhone 5 when I demo'd the problem to them. The new iPhone 5 unfortunately has the same problem --even with factory settings.

Does anyone know of a way to solve this problem or am I just unlucky to get two defective iPhone 5s in a row and should try my luck again?

P.S.:- I am not using any cases, covers, screen coats or any other accessories.

Sadly - you might need to take it back. The proximity sensor is a small part and if it doesn't sense that your head/ear/face has moved away from the receiver slot - the screen will not light up again.

You can save yourself a trip by backing it up (yet again) and restoring it in iTunes  - but it seems you have already ruled that out.

One thing I have seen in practice is that some people's ears have openings large enough for the proximity sensor to sense the space when the phone is pressed next to their ear as actually being away from an object.

Again, it's often best to lie the phone flat on the table and call some sort of automated help system and use a pencil eraser or your finger to test how and where your particular sensor is sensitive. Once you've spent a handful of minutes discovering how narrow the beam is and exactly how many mm the range is to engage and disengage the sensor, can you take it in for service and know the unit you have is working according to specifications.


How do I customize the alert sound for an iPhone timer? When the countdown timer ends I would like to set the IPhone to play a custom music file. is that possible?

If you're able to save the file you'd like to play as a ringtone, then the iPhone can play it once the timer hits zero. The big limitation here is that it'd need to be ~35 seconds in length, but depending on your specific need, that might be enough.

There are a few apps on the App Store that will allow you to create ringtones from music files, or you could do it yourself in Garageband. The linked instructions are for Garageband '11, but searching "garageband ringtone" at Apple support will yield links for various other versions of Garageband - the process is pretty much the same.


How can I make Caps Lock work like it did prior to Sierra? Downloaded and installed macOS Sierra (10.12) on 10/1/16.

Since then, my Caps Lock key is behaving weirdly different (I'm an OS X user since Mavericks).

Note: This only seems to affect users with more than one language as their input source.

Explanation: Caps Lock simply does not work when a (update: Non-Latin language) language other than English (in my case, Hebrew, an RTL language) is set as the input language. When that's the case and Caps Lock is pressed, it simply blinks for a second and then turns off again, but then and turns off. Even when I am able to turn it on, it doesn't have the same effect (all keys behave as if Caps Lock is off)

Why is this bad: Just a small example — take a look at the bottom-right key, which is ? (or / when Caps Lock is on). When Hebrew is selected, it's actually a period (.) and that is normal. Prior to Sierra, I could press the Shift key to get a ? and hold Caps Lock to get /. Right now I can't use  / when I'm typing in a language other than English because Caps Lock doesn't work.

Note that Caps Lock works just as expected when English is set as the input source.

I think I may have found the solution:

It appears that in Sierra, the "default" behavior that I described above is possible, and is now "a feature". Only problem is it's turned-off by default (which is plain ludicrous).

There is now a new option in the input sources screen, which, when turned on, reverts the behavior to the desired one.

The Caps Lock key longer turns green when non-Latin languages are used, but the keys behave as expected. There's the annoying symptom of accidental switching between languages for those who use Caps Lock to Capitalize in English. Luckily for me at least, I switched to Shift for that early on.


iTunes suddenly will not let me add manually album art I am running High Sierra, updated, with iTunes 12.7.2.  My Music and Album Art is on an external HD.  I rip my own music into AIFF files, then manually add the album art.  This afternoon all of a sudden it will allow me to go through the motions, but the album art does not appear in iTunes.  I have checked the permissions for some of the files and they say I have read write permissions.  Please do not suggest downgrading my music.

Sure, it's a year late, but I had this problem which lead me here, so someone else might, too. I had been adding cds to iTunes and manually adding covers, then one day it would not save the cover image. Here's what I did:

I turned off the Airplay on my iTunes.

This worked. I could save cover art again. Also changes I made to album info (fixing the album title, etc.) reverted back. Apparently, even though it showed these edits as changed, they were not saved when my speakers were set for airplay.


Does google drive work with Finder integration? I know there is an app from google, but it is to automatically upload files from macos to drive. I would like to be able to see the files that are in my drive from the finder, open then and when saved have them be uploaded directly, so pretty much the same as google drive in a browser.

Is it possible to have access to my google drive documents directly from the finder?

Yes, the Google Backup & Sync app does exactly that.


How do I control the image display duration in the Mojave screensavers? How do I adjust the display duration of images used in the Mojave screensaver?

You'll need to disable System Integrity Protection first(see here)(only need to do it temporarily)
Open Finder and hit ⌘-Shift-G to open the "Go to..." window.
Paste in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Slideshows.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Content and hit "Go".
When changing system files, it's always a good idea to have a backup, so make a copy of the file EffectDescriptions.plist before editing it.
Open EffectDescriptions.plist in a text editor of your choice.
(Use ⌘-F to find it faster) find the key entry JustASlide, then find the child entry mainDuration below it.
The default entry should be 3, and you can change this value to whatever you want.
Save the file(you may need to provide your username & password because it's a system file).
IMPORTANT: Enable SIP again by following the same steps to disable it, except instead of typing csrutil disable, type csrutil enable.

If you are unable to open/save the file after disabling SIP, try opening the application from the terminal using sudo(ex for TextEdit: sudo /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit)


iPad case for toddlers that hides the home button? My 18 month old son loves to interact with my iPad.  I have explored some apps that I would think he would enjoy, but he finds it hard to resist the device's home button.  (Perhaps because this is the most obvious way to interact with the device that always yields some kind of visible result.)  He hits the home button almost compulsively.

Are there any solutions to this problem?

Ideally, it would be nice to buy some kind of a slip-case for kids that was specifically designed to hide the home button.  I have seen some child-proof cases on the market, but they all appear to be geared towards protecting the device from the destructive forces of the child, or for making the device easy for the child to grip.

None of them appear to offer a solution to the home button, and this is unfortunate because I can imagine him interacting with something educational without that distraction.

Is there an off-the-shelf case out there that I have overlooked?

If not, does anybody have any thoughts about any other off-the-shelf cases that could be modified/hacked into hiding the home button?

Can you put the iPad in the case upside-down?

I don't mean with the screen facing in the other direction, but with the device rotated 180 degrees. on the plane of the screen.

This should make the home button inaccessible, though it may also obscure the volume, rotation lock, and power buttons (which may be desirable as well).


Uninstalling PyGTK from macpkg on Mac OS X I downloaded the pygtk pkg file from macpkg.sourceforge.net.

I want to remove this installation and instead use the version
that is provided by homebrew.

What files do I need to remove?

Find the BOM file in ~/Library/Receipts or /Library/Receipts
refer this article you can uninstall a pkg easily http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100107090139622

if you can not find that, download the .pkg file again if you already delete

following these steps you can see what and where all the files install by this pkg

put the .pkg into temporary directory, /tmp e.g.
cp XZ.pkg /tmp  for example, "XZ" is the .pkg filename
cd /tmp
expand the pkg file
pkgutil --expand XZ.pkg /tmp/XZpackage
Go ahead and cd in the directory
cd /tmp/XZpackage
go into the directory XZ.pkg or local.pkg
cd local.pkg
list the install files
lsbom Bom

PS: simply you can use the Pacifist, this App will show you the result


Why I have 12 GB of "cancellable" space even if I am not optimizing space with iCloud? I am not using iCloud drive, and I am neither optimizing disk space with iCloud. But the disk utility app shows that I have 12.62 GB of "cancellable" disk space. I thought that this space was due to the fact that some files could be safely deleted from the disk because they're backed in iCloud. But why do I have "cancellable" storage if I am not using iCloud to optimize disk space?

This is a new feature in macOS Sierra called "purgeable space". Aside from files safely stored in iCloud (when the "Store in iCloud" option is enabled), purgeable space can also include cache and temporary files that are no longer required by the system.

It can also include other files that aren't entirely necessary, like iOS software updates, local Time Machine data, older email attachments, and others.


If I uploaded a file to a website, is it saved somewhere in the Safari application? Or elsewhere in the computer? I scanned a file to my desktop, uploaded it to a website, and then deleted it from my computer. Now this document seems to be gone forever but I need some information from it.

Is there any where it may be stored on my computer? In an application, in a log somewhere. I just need an image of it, I don't need to regain full access to it.

In general, once a Unix file is deleted, it's deleted. That said, there are certain 3rd party utilities that may be able to scour your HD for file signatures that match the file format you used (PDF?) and recover the file. Here is a review of the 3 biggest titles for you to choose from:  http://www.techrepublic.com/article/3-data-recovery-applications-for-os-x/

One issue that is critical: Stop using the Mac.  The more you use it and save/alter files, the more likely the disk sectors that contained your scan will get overwritten.


Where Do I find the file? ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.microsoft.Word.savedState I am not a tech person, and found this answer to fix Word closing with Mavericks?
Where do I locate and delete the file
~/Library/Saved Application State/com.microsoft.Word.savedState?

In Finder, type Shift-Cmd-G
Enter/paste ~/Library/Saved Application State
A new Finder window will open listing the content of that folder
Locate com.microsoft.Word.savedState and delete it


locationd on iOS iPhone crashing every 3 secs (Location jumps) I am having a weird issue that my location on the map keeps jumping around.
Navigation and tracking my location became impossible since most apps are very confused when this happens.

Model:
iPhone 7 Plus 32 GB

What I've tried so far ...

Turning iPhone off/on (also leave it off for several minutes)
Turning off/on location services (also leave it off for several minutes)
Turning off/on flight mode (also leave it off for several minutes)
Turning off/on wifi (also leave it off for several minutes)
Resetting location service
Updating to latest iOS 10.3 Beta (was running 10.2.1)
Make a full reset of my iPhone and set it up as a new iPhone
Restoring it from backup
Downgrade to 10.2.1 and clean iPhone install

So I guess pretty much everything one could try ...

There is a video showing the problem:

http://imgur.com/DWTyIsU

Also here some of the crash reports if you are interested.

http://pastebin.com/Na3Hq3ap

http://pastebin.com/c340Eat0

Contacted apple now, will send my iPhone for repair.

This post is mainly for providing information for someone who tries to google this issue because I wasn't able to find anything helpful.

locationd is pretty annoying because 92% of tasks on your phone use it, along with the lack of awareness for this problem (barely any search results)
even with location services off, locationd is still being used in apps such as Camera, Photos, Reminders, Alarms, Maps, Weather, Notifications, Dialpad, Messages, and anything else that can use location services

I happened to experience locationd going over 110%, which took up all the memory, forcing apps that use locationd to freeze, resulting in having to restore a backup file, after restoring it says to 'upgrade' but does not actually upgrade, my guess is that locationd became defective after using too much memory and the restoration failed to validate it, thus replacing locationd

What I try to do is keep memory and storage AS LOW AS POSSIBLE, turn off background usage in all applications, and remember to use that app switcher every now and then.


How to harden user/login password? In High Sierra or Mojave, is it possible to harden our login password so that the hash is more difficult to crack? I'm not a crypto person, but can we increase the iterations, transforms, hashing algo strenth or something... to make the CPU work harder when using sudo and such? I know Debian/Ubuntu distros are capable of such hardening and keepass has a similar feature. Is it possible in macOS?

On MacOS you can use PBKD2 (Password Based Key Derivation 2) to create secure password verifiers. This is an accepted method by NIST. Supply a random salt (you can save it with the hashed password) and an iteration count such the the derivation takes around 100ms.

When saving a password verifier just using a hash function is not sufficient and just adding a salt does little to improve the security. Instead iterate over an HMAC with a random salt for about a 100ms duration and save the salt with the hash. Better yet use a function such as PBKDF2, Rfc2898DeriveBytes, Argon2, password_hash, Bcrypt or similar functions. The point is to make the attacker spend substantial time finding passwords by brute force.

See NIST Digital Identity Guidelines

See this How to use CommonCrypto for PBKDF2 in Swift 2 & 3
 or example code.


Will I still be able to buy and install Lion after Mountain Lion is released? I own an Early 2008, white MacBook (MB403LL/A) which still has Snow Leopard, 10.6.8, installed.

My understanding is Mountain Lion will not support my MacBook. If this turns out to be true then I would probably want to upgrade to Lion since it will be the last supported (for a bit longer) release which I could use.

Previously, before the App Store when OS X was sold on optical media, it was always possible to purchase an older version of OS X. The media was still "out there".

With Lion I am not sure what my options are. Does anyone know if I would still be able to buy and install Lion from the App Store after Apple releases Mountain Lion?

I'm just trying to better understand what my options might be. I really have no desire to install Lion unless and until I feel I have no other choice.

Update: July 26, 2012

Copying the link to MacWorld article Apple pulls Lion from the Mac App Store into this question. (The link was in one of bmike's comments below.) The article seems to sum up my question/concerns about this matter rather well.

I also found the excerpt from this article quoted below interesting. Apparently not even Apple knows how to respond to this?

... Apple spokesperson Monica Sarkar told Macworld that, while Lion is no longer available for sale from the Mac App Store, customers can
still purchase it from the legacy products list via Apple phone
sales. But when we called 1-800-MY-APPLE, sales representatives there
said Lion was not available.

I called 1-800-MY-APPLE and bought Lion 10.7 for only $19. I told the automated machine that I wanted to buy OS X 10.7 Lion. I was transferred to a sales representative, and he looked it up and said it was $19.99 plus taxes. I was surprised because I was expecting a $29.99 price tag. So I made him double check to make sure it was indeed 10.7 Lion and not 10.8 Mountain Lion. He said that it was for sure and that I would be emailed a PDF with a redemption code to get it.

I went through with the purchase last night (November 6, 2012) and got the email today. I was able to redeem the code in the App Store and download it from there!


How can I change the target resolution of a VNC Server Here is my question: How can I change the geometry of a VNC Server on MacOS? All I want is to get some benefits from the fact that I'm connecting to remote 13' MacBook using 27' iMac.

As far as I understand, neither default MacOS VNC server nor Vine VNS does not provide a possibility to set the geometry.

The closest thing related to the issue I've succeeded to find so far is this discussion. So, I guess, the question can be boiled down to how can I change the resolution of the screen (and, to be honest, I believe that such thing should be done for free in a decent OS :).

Of course, more elegant rather than hacks with switching current resolution
solutions will be favored.

I had a similar issue years ago using VNC with an ancient Power Mac 7100.  The 7100 was headless and the video defaulted to 800 x 600.

I discovered that the VNC server doesn't care what the resolution is but that it is limited to resolutions that the remote machine will support.

In my case, after connecting the remote 7100, I then using the Displays Control Panel to crank the display to the highest resolution the remote machine could handle.  The VNC screen then changed to match the new remote resolution.

Unfortunately, this means you can only use the maximum resolution that the remote machine's hardware will support.


My iMac won't boot ( internal and external ) My iMac won't boot from an internal drive, even when I completely wipe it and reformat it and start up with command shift R.
Then I tried booting it from an external drive, but even then it wouldn't boot at all. I even tried other RAM so it shouldn't be the problem in this case.
It's a 27" iMac 2012.
Are there other things I can try?

Repair or restore a Mac in Apple Configurator 2
If there is no way to get the Mac working again, you will need a second Mac.
The firmware must be restored and the internal flash memory must be deleted if the following situation occurs:

The Mac cannot start from Startup Disk or RecoveryOS.
The firmware repair failed.

Repair or recovery process
The repair or recovery process consists of the following steps:

Start Apple Configurator 2 on the second Mac and connect the Mac computers.
Restart the Mac using a specific key combination.
Use Apple Configurator 2 to do one of the following:
Repair firmware and reinstall the latest version of RecoveryOS
Restore firmware, erase all data, and reinstall the latest version of RecoveryOS and macOS

Step 1: Configure Mac with Apple Configurator 2 and connect the USB-C cable

Make sure of the following:

You have installed the latest version of Apple Configurator 2.
Your Mac is connected to the electrical outlet.
You can connect to the internet.

Connect the USB-C cable (along with any necessary adapters).

Step two: prepare your Mac

Connect a monitor so you can see when the process is complete.
Unplug your Mac  from its electrical outlet for at least 10 seconds.
Press and hold the power button.
Reconnect to the power supply while continuing to hold the on / off button.
Release the power button.

Note: You will not see any Mac activity on the screen during this time
Step 2: prepare your Apple notebook computer

Press the power button.
Hold down your power button while simultaneously pressing the following three buttons for about 10 seconds:

the right shift key
the left option key
the left Control key

Immediately release the three buttons after 10 seconds, but keep holding the power button until it appears in Apple Configurator 2.

Note: There is no activity on the Apple notebook computer on the screen during this time.
Step 3: Repair the firmware and install the latest version of the RecoveryOS
In the Apple Configurator 2 device window, select the Mac whose chip firmware is to be repaired and whose RecoveryOS is to be updated to the latest version, then select
Actions > Advanced > Repair device and click on Repair.
Note: Hold down the "Control" key and click on the selected device, choose "Advanced" > "Repair Device" and click "Repair"


Wifi internet issues on iPad I have a wifi internet router (via an ADSL modem) which i use to connect internet on my iPad. For some reasons, the connection seems to break in between (and more when idle).
The same connection works fine on my desktop.

Is there any setting i need to make on the iPad ?

Perhaps there is something wrong with the wireless portion of the router. Do other wireless internet devices have the same problem? (By desktop I am assuming that it is a wired Ethernet connection)

Regardless, there is nothing that you can do on your iPad to fix the problem.


How to import dashboard stickies from an old hard disk without using migration assistant? I recently installed a new hard drive in my Macbook Pro for a fresh installation of OSX Lion.

How can I get my dashboard stickies from the old hard disk without using migration assistant?

You'll need to copy two files from the old installation of OSX:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dashboard.plist
~/Library/Preferences/widget-com.apple.widget.stickies.plist

The first tells Dashboard which Widgets to show, the second contains your notes.

Copy these to your new ~/Library/Preferences and you should be good.

You'll need to restart, logout and login, or kill the Dock, for example by opening Terminal and running killall Dock.

It worked for me - but I should warn that my home path was the same on the old install and new install.


current leakage of MacBook Pro? I can feel current leakage on my MacBook Pro when it is being charged. And it seems a lot of people in my country report the same problem.

Is this because of the voltage(220V) we use?

What's the solution?

UPDATE I went to Apple Store(Shanghai, China) several hours ago and they refused to do anything. weird company. I bought my MacBook Pro 3 months ago.

The solution for me was to use the adapter with a three pin extension cord.

Then your notebook is earthed and no more charges stay on the cover that shock you :-). Some Macbooks suffer from insulation failure of the casing. A third contact provides for a connection to earth ground so that net charge can escape the cover. This requires a wall socket with proper earthing.


How does one get iPhone to recognize wifi network of choice, as first choice? I am working in an office that has its own wifi network...but there are also cable company hotspots around. Every time I come in the office, leave the office, come back to the office...my phone goes on Optimum hotspot. I want it to choose the local office wifi network. I would like to prioritize my iPhone wifi networks, not just "forget" one network.

I have adjusted this for my macbook but not sure how to do it for the iPhone. Probably an easy answer but i do not know it so I appreciate any help. Thx.

If you have iCloud Keychain enabled, the prioritized list of networks from your Mac will sync to your phone, including the order.

If you don't want to enable it, though, I do not know of any way to arrange networks on the phone by priority, except by forgetting them all and adding them in order of desire (the ones added earlier in the process will be preferred.)


How to make two internal SSD drives work best on a Mac I have a mid-2010 17" MacPro with two internal 1TB SSD drives, running Catalina.
My hope was that I might be able to figure out a way to make them work effectively as one by pointing the  "Documents", "Pictures" or "Movies" main folders to wherever I have space, much in same way as you can by setting up preferences in, for example, an app like iTunes. Not being able to do so means I have one SSD drive almost full and the other largely empty.
My question is: Has anyone else found a way to organize files in such a way that the Mac treats the two internal SSD drives effectively as one?

I haven't tried this myself but you should be able to create an APFS volume group from your two drives to effectively create one "Fusion" drive. You would use
sudo diskutil apfs create

or
sudo diskutil apfs createContainer

to accomplish this. You can run those commands as-is to read usage. Also see the manual page for diskutil (man diskutil).
The advantage of a Fusion drive is that you don't have to manually manage which files get put onto which drive; the whole thing behaves like a RAID 0 array (i.e., JBOD, "Just a Bunch of Disks"). The downside is that you're now multiplying your chances of total data loss if there's corruption on either of the drives. So before beginning, you are very strongly advised to create AND maintain a backup of your data.


Messages going to the Mac from my iPod Every time I have a message sent to me, it's sent to my family's Mac and my iPod. How do I get them to stop going to my Mac? I have already tried looking into Settings and "Send and Receive" but all I have in there is my Apple ID and email.

Sign out of FaceTime and Messages on the device that you want to control better.
Write down on a piece of paper all the Apple ID that are logged in to messages and FaceTime on the affected pool of devices.
De-register your cellular number from other people's AppleID at https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage
Sign in with your AppleID on only the select devices you want to receive messages.

Test. At that point, you can ask a follow-on question with a short list of the unique accounts and unique devices and/or ask if there is an Apple support article similar to the one that documents how to remove a phone number from an email (for instance) if that's not the sticking point.


Examples of apps in the Mac App Store not made with objective-c/c/c++? Are there any apps in the store made using mono, ruby or lisp or put together in another alternative way.

Do you know of any?

The reason I'm asking is because I'm already making apps using cocoa/objective-c, and I really love ruby and obscure languages.

It looks like Briquette is written in MacRuby and made it into the MAS, so it looks like there is at least one alternative to Objective-C for MAS apps.


macOS overall slow UI when running (Adobe?) apps I do have an almost new iMac (27", i9, 32gb ram, 512gb SSD, middle of the GPU options, 5k display + fullhd second monitor, Catalina, all up to date).
using it to do graphics design (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat, all CC2020 versions) and webdesign (code editors, FTP, browsers of all kinds).
after a fresh boot, everything is fine and responsive. opening some code editor, finder, browser, ... is good.
doing some work in acrobat, InDesign, illu, photoshop and having some more complex files open, the whole interface (including finder, typing text in the editor, animation or scrolling in browsers, opening save dialogs, ...) gets very unresponsive, like low frame rate in macOS animation, spinning wheel when selecting text, and the Adobe apps themselves too are slow on display changes.
I can't see big CPU loads in the activity monitor, but it's hard to see what's going on on the GPU level.
closing the bigger apps again seems to make things a bit better after some minutes, but only a reboot cleans everything up.
currently it's so bad its inhibiting my will to do work - I'd expect that kind of computer to run some mid-level graphics design tasks smoothly ... the documents are not simple, but they are nothing exceptional (and my older Mac from around 2015 actually did manage that, but but it was not with Catalina).
As it is a problem even when the Adobe apps are only waiting in the background while I'm in a browser or code editor, it may be connected with macOS itself, not only an in-application performance problem where Adobe would be the clear culprit. Something to do with the graphics subsystem (driver, ...?) that is under some stress when using the Adobe applications?
Any idea is welcome ...

okay, today I tried to solve this with a hint from the Adobe forums: some people said the performance gets significantly better when using the colour profile "apple RGB" for all attached monitors (instead of using "iMac" or some real colour profile from a calibration tool).
and indeed, that worked, I can now have InDesign or acrobat open and still use a browser or finder or text editor without spinning wheels. this seems to be Catalina+cc2020 only, every other combination seems to work with profiles.
it's no real solution as I need profiling and color management, but at least I've found the cause.
Who is the culprit is hard to tell - apple changing color management methods (64bit? other layer in the display stack?) or Adobe not able to cope with it after now 8 months of CC2020 on Catalina ...
Adobe forums thread: https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/inddesign-2020-slow-performance-on-macos-catalina-10-15-1/td-p/10715300?page=1


How to properly ground a MacBook Pro I have a MacBook Pro 4.1. In the past - from time to time - you could feel a bit of electricity close to the aluminium case when working in AC mode, but now things are getting worse. I can feel the electricity all the time, especially close to the opening button and to the corners. Talking with other MBP users, I have been told that the whole MBP 1.4 series has got this problem and that it is due to the presence of the aluminium case. Is it a known issue? Is there any workaround to properly ground the laptop?

tl;dr

Use the extension cord! It is grounded.

Apple's grounding madness

You need your device to be grounded. The charger can be grounded because the metal pin that holds the adapter is (subtly) also the ground:

You need the plug to be grounded too. Obviously a 2 pin/prong plug is not grounded, you'll need one with 3 of them, but even in this case you have to check if the adapter's socket/shoe has metal in it (AKA is connected to the ground), because you can't take that granted at Apple! Just check out this picture from this article:

This is a 3 prong UK plug that has a grounding prong, but they haven't connected it! Fortunately at the extension cord there is a connection. You have to carry that extra 1.8 meter of cable tho...

So at Apple, the rule of thumb is that if it is an extension cord, then the socket is connected to the ground pin so it is probably grounded, if it is the small adapter, then there is no connection in the socket so no grounding for you:

The left picture from this answer shows the difference. The metal is more visible in the magnified picture on the right.

Hacky solution

Technically you could hack the not grounded 3 prong UK (Type G) adapter (that I mentioned before) to connect the ground prong to the grounding pin as shown in this tutorial. Of course, unless you want to use it with a Type G socket instead of the many other types, you will need to use another (grounded!) adapter to convert it to your desired (grounded!) wall socket.


iPhone not reacting when connected to electricity today in the morning when my phone woke me up i couldn't turn off the alarm clock (you just have to swipe to the left and everything is fine). It didn't respond to any touch gesture till i disconnected the phone from the power supply. After that everything went well!
What was that? Could it be that the phone got too much power??

What type of cable are you using? I've seen similar behaviour with

Poor quality third-party Lightning cables
A poor quality USB charger

I think there must be some form of 'leakage' which affects the working of the touch screen when using some sub-standard chargers/cables. I'd suggest either changing your cable or charger and seeing if that helps.


iPhone 7 has magnetic area next to flashlight I put my phone down on a table before where I had some nails on and has stuck to my phone.
Does anyone with an iPhone 7 and if so can they see if their phone has a magnet next to the flashlight on the back of the device?

All Apple cameras that have motors in them are magnetic.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208747

The permanent magnets are how battery power runs the image stabilization and focus mechanisms. Look for OIS and AF in the documentation to learn more.


Yosemite: Cannot Music / iTunes - black screen and won't accept password I am trying to open Music. Instead of opening as usual, it does this bizarre slow animated slide-open into a fully black background with a password prompt stating that I've been logged out of iCloud and need to reconnect. See below

From here, if I try to enter my password, nothing! It won't let me type anything in the field; it will not allow me to cancel; it will not allow me to close without a force quit  as the black screen does not have the normal red close button on top left. I have force quit 3x and tried to start over to no avail. I have done a restart and a hard reboot. Nothing has worked.I just want to play some music. Has anyone seen this? If so, please let me know and if there is something I can do to stop this and open iTunes.

By way of other info:keyboard registering characters everywhere else. It says that my iCloud session has expired, which is why it wants my password, but it hasn't. I went to iCloud through settings and I am logged on. So, while I may have been logged out of iTunes, I am not logged out of iCloud as this states. Lastly, this is a new Macbook; only a month old. I recently signed up for Apple music, but that was 2 weeks ago and has worked fine, so while this may be culprit, it's not been a problem until just now. Just tried getting on iTunes on my phone and i'm on no problem.

Wondering if this could be a virus. Note,the
"expired session"  message referring to iCloud being logged out does not make since. First off, I am logged in to iCloud Music is not even an affected app as iTunes controls Music.

Ugh!

I'm afraid I've got the same problem.

I restarted the Imac yesterday. The close down took more than 3 minutes. This happend before. I forced the closing down by pressing the power button. After normal start up I could not start iTunes anymore. All other apps function properly. The desktop shifts left and a black screen appears. I can operate the dock and other programms though. I can only get out by forced stop of iTunes.
If I attach my iPhone and start iTunes, a screen prompting me to update it appears (on top of the desktop). I cannot operate it however, as it it is complete dead!

I also tried other option as close full screen, launchpad, ect.

Strange thing is that this occurred about the samen time as my wife synced an iPad which belonged to me before. She was asked to enter ID's of which one was my ID related to buys I suppose.
I checked my iCloud account. It is still active.

PS!!
I just cracked it! I moved (not copied!) the itunes library to a temp folder.
I restarted iTunes and it immediately came up with the familiar screen. Probably a new library was created. I then imported the info from the temp folder (trough the menu). The new library was updated. I could notice by syncing the iPhone. Also my music is back and available.


How can I read full song title on my iPod touch or iPhone? When I play or select songs on my iPod touch 4G I often can not read the full title of the song when it is very long. In all views (Coverflow front, coverflow back, now playing portrait mode, playlist) it is always truncated. Especially for classical music this is really annoying because the titles are something in the lines of "Beethoven: The Complete String Quartetts" -  "String Quartett #3 in D Op. 18/3 - 1. Allegro". Is there some trick to view the complete title?

As of iOS 5, this problem is even simpler. Many views will scroll overflowing information, but you can also simply tap and hold on many sources of text in order to view them in a significantly smaller font size in a back pop-up tooltip, which greatly expands the amount of text that can be fit in the width of the iPhone's screen size.

Note that my previous answer still applies (below), but this tooltip is usually quite a bit faster and much more direct.

For all iOS versions before iOS 5:

My answer on the View Full Podcast Title Question covers this as well. You can use Cover Flow view (rotate your device to Landscape while in the iPod/Music app after selecting a song) in order to greatly increase the amount of room used to display song information.

Your title is particularly large, I don't know what the landscape/Cover Flow view limit is. I don't have any songs that exceed it yet :).


Have recent updates caused the iPad battery to not last as long? I'm noticing my iPad battery seems to be going down very rapidly, even when not in use. Has anyone else seen this behaviour and what would be the most common causes?

Try several things:

Close suspended apps. Double click home button, the screen items should raise and there is an extra row of apps appear at the bottom of the screen. Press and hold one of the apps that appear at the lower part of the screen (these are the apps that were suspended). When they start to shake/wiggle, press the red X on all of them to close them.
Check your email settings and make sure "push" is enabled and the "Fetch" is set to less frequent options
Your screen might be set to 100% brightness comparing with your previous usage settings
If you don't use any Bluetooth device with your iPad, you could turn the Bluetooth off by going to Settings > General > Bluetooth. That saves some power.
Try a hard-reset - full power off and on


How to download the SMS messages in my iPhone to a Windows Machine? What is the way to download the SMS messages from my iPhone to a Windows machine? Is there some apple cloud service that I can access for SMS messages?

SMS is a strictly cellular service, meaning all text messages use cellular connection. There is no way to access your text messages from the Internet(or by any other means that does not use the phone where he text messages are located). If you could clarify what purpose you need these messages, we could help find a solution.

EDIT:
After clarification, it seems you would like the raw text content. If you have a Macintosh computer running OS X 10.10 "Yosemite" or higher and your iPhone is running iOS 8 or higher, you can use continuity to sync all SMS messages with your computer, then allowing you to manually copy/paste all of the content.

For a guide on how to set this up, see Apple's guide on Continuity