Suspended (tty output) when launching editors like vim, vi, emacs, or nano I've been using Oh-My-ZSH for a few weeks now and it's been a great experience. Just today, though, terminal started acting strangely. When I try to run an interactive terminal editor like vim, vi, emacs, or nano, the process is suspended:

$ vim
[1] + 3515 suspended (tty output) vim

Of course, I can open it back up with fg, but this is incredibly annoying.

I wasn't experiencing this issue yesterday. Since then I haven't restarted my computer, iTerm, or even closed terminal tabs (from which I successfully ran vim yesterday without it being suspended).

Additionally, I temporarily reverted my shell back to bash. It now exhibits this same suspending behavior as ZSH. This problem occurs both in iTerm2 and the native osx Terminal.app for both bash and zsh, so presumably this isn't an issue with my shell.

I've been through every solution on the first 10 pages of Google for this issue, but haven't found one that resolves it. I'm approaching the point where I no longer understand why this is happening and therefore can't debug it.

Is there any way that I can get interactive processes like vim to stop suspending themselves when I try to run them from terminal?

Edit: Since this post I've tried new iTerm & Terminal tabs, relaunched iTerm & Terminal, and restarted my computer. All of these have failed to resolve this issue.

Turns out I misread the first result on Google. I incorrectly assumed that they were referring to the terminal shell (and when they said shell later on I assumed they meant $SHELL, although I should've been tipped off by the fact that shell wasn't capitalized). Instead they were referring to the vim shell setting, which incorrectly had the -i flag instead of the -l flag.

So in case anyone else has this issue, go into your .vimrc and change make sure the line that sets your shell looks like this:

set shell=/bin/zsh\ -l

(Replacing /bin/zsh with the value of which zsh if it's installed in a non-standard location, of course).

Reference commit: https://github.com/devx/vimified/commit/772e130c9c359ac87927a963e00a9cc6597cd170


Can HomePod be controlled using anything other than Siri? Siri seems to be targeted as the primary method to interact with HomePod other than some rudimentary touch controls that it has. Are there any other ways to interact with it? I'm specifically hoping for some sort of remote control app for iOS. I don't have a particularly good track record with Siri playing the correct song when I ask her to on my iPhone, partly because my music collection contains stuff in many languages; so I prefer to choose the right track manually from a list. I'm aware of the option to AirPlay to it, but I'd prefer the functionality the iTunes Remote iOS app offers: remote-controlling the device through a graphical UI. Any chance for that on HomePod?

I'm specifically hoping for some sort of remote control app for iOS.

The standard Music app can be put into a mode where it acts as a HomePod remote control: the user can queue individual tracks and playlists, and the HomePod will play them using its own connection to Apple Music and the iTunes Music Library.

It is a little tricky getting the Music app into that mode.

One way is to open the Control Center, then long-press or force-touch on the music control. This reveals separate control panels for your iOS device and any other controllable devices, including AppleTV and HomePod. Tapping the HomePod will open the Music app in HomePod-control mode.


Will Mountain Lion's Time Machine read data from a NAS and back it up to an external USB drive? So, I have most of my data on a NAS.

Can I configure time machine to backup both my iMac's internal drive as well as my data stored on a NAS? All of the backups are to be stored on an USB drive attached to my iMac.

I'm running Mountain Lion. The NAS I have is here:

http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/home-and-small-office-nas/linkstation-pro-duo-1

I'm not sure which protocol I'm using right now, but it supports AFP.

While Time Machine always backs up all mounted volumes connected to the Mac via USB/FireWire/Thunderbolt, it can't backup network volumes like a NAS.

As it seems, this is not mentioned anywhere in Apple's support documents, but here's a good Time Machine FAQ made by a user.


FaceTime on an Iphone 6 bought in UAE How can I make FaceTime appear in the iOS with an iPhone bought in UAE and used in another country?

No, you can't activate FaceTime service except by jailbreaking.


How to ssh and remotely manage GUIs on my iMac with Remote Login/Management? I am having trouble being able to fully control my computer remotely. By fully, I mean being able to {manage files, access the terminal, access GUI, login} all while not allowing a local user to take over.

I need to be able to control the screen, to run an installer program, for instance. The problem that I'm having with screen sharing and remote desktop is that the local user can see me log in then take control with the mouse. Then they are logged into my administrative account. They also cannot use their account while I'm logged into mine. How do I avoid this?

Another problem I am having is that while the remote computer can be accessed via a public ip and it is listed in Finder on the LAN, there doesn't appear to be a way to simply find the computer remotely via iCloud. Remote login is an example program that does this. Even if I kept track of where the computer was plugged in to the internet, the ip may change. Is there a way to find the computer based on the account instead of the network address?

In summary, I want to:
1. Be able to run a GUI installer safely isolated from local users.
2. Be able to ssh into the admin account safely isolated from local users.
3. Be able to locate my computer to connect as dependably as "Find my Mac" does, using something dependable like my iCloud account instead of a network address that may change.

Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) has a Curtains mode that blocks the local user from seeing what's happening on the screen. It may meet your needs.https://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/remoteassistance.html


How to introduce a list object that is stored in a .txt file to an AppleScript? I have an AppleScript .scpt file, triggered by a key combination in FastScripts.app, that functions as a thesaurus. The script looks up the selected word in a pre-formatted list, and, if the word is found in this list, it displays the synonyms of this word to the user1.

This list is contained in a plain text (.txt) file. The list is already formatted in the AppleScript list format. I would like my .scpt file to be able to accept this text as a true list2.

It is important to note that the .txt file contains 2.5 million words3.

This is why I am not simply copying the contents of the .txt file into the .scpt file itself, despite the fact that the text file is 100% static and will never be altered. Inserting the text directly into my script would bring with it considerable lag and sluggishness as I edit and compile my .scpt file in Script Editor.app.

Script Editor.app froze every time that I tried to read the .txt file. The problem is that Script Editor reads into the memory a given text file in its entirety, instead of streaming the contents in a more efficient manner. So, I broke this text file up into 10 smaller text files4, each new .txt file containing about 250,000 words.

At 250,000 words, of course, the text files are still extremely large (by any standard).

Here is a (severely condensed) example of what the contents of each text file looks like:

  {{"exaltation","accolade","adulation","advance","advancement"},{"exalted","winnowing","winsome"},{"exam","audition","blue book","examen","examination","final","examination","test","trial","tripos","viva","written","written examination"},{"examination","Pap test","Socratic method","airing","analysis","anatomic diagnosis","appraisal","work-up","written","written examination"},{"examine","air","analyze","appraise","archetype","asleep","assess","canvass","case"},{"examiner","analyst","analyzer","asker"},{"examining","analytic","examinational","exploratory"},{"example","admonishment","admonition","alarm","archetype"},{"exasperate","bedevil","vex","work up","worry"},{"exasperated","aggravated","amplified","angry","annoyed"},{"exasperating","annoying","bothering","bothersome"}}

As you can see, the contents of the text file is a nested list5 that is organized in the same way that AppleScript formats a list. Each text file contains no line breaks or paragraphs.

I am looking for a method to get this list into my AppleScript, with as little latency as possible6. This is why I pre-formatted it. So, speed is key.

Footnotes:

1. My thesaurus script is similar to the built-in thesaurus feature that exists in Microsoft Word. One notable difference is that my script works system-wide.

2. By true list, I mean that I can call, for example, item 12 of this list later on in my AppleScript.

3. My source for the thesaurus data is Grady Ward's "Moby" Thesaurus. I found this database from this answer: Looking for Thesaurus Data - Stack Overflow

4. I had to use Hex Fiend.app to cut from the text file and paste into a new text file. I could not edit the file in TextEdit.app, without TextEdit freezing on me.

5. The outer list contains each thesaurus entry. The inner lists contain all of the synonyms for that entry. The first item of each inner list is the entry title. Both the outer list and each inner list are ordered alphabetically (with the exception of the first word of each inner list, because, again, this word is the entry title).

6. I understand that even the fastest method will still have several seconds of latency, since the text file is so large.

Obviously, I do not know the total scope of what you're doing or how you have other things coded, as you have not supplied all the details and code, however, I would take a different approach.

I downloaded the Moby Thesaurus from the linked page in your question and preformed the following actions on it.

Extracted the contents of the mthes.tar.Z file.
Opened the ./mthes/mobythes.aur file in TextWrangler and noticed two things to change.

Change the line endings from Classic Mac (CR) to Unix (LF).
Removed unwanted trailing commas from 6 lines.

Note that while I could make these changes in TextWrangler, nonetheless I prefer to use Terminal, and did so using the following command:

tr "\r" "\n" < mobythes.aur | sed -E 's/[,]{1,}$//' > mobythes.txt

Which took but literally a second to do (as I actually prefaced the above command with time, out of curiosity). With the mobythes.aur file having now been processed, saved to mobythes.txt and copied to my Documents folder, I will use this new plain CSV file as is, to query the search string for a match to the first field of each record and return the record, sans the first field, as a list to choose from in AppleScript. I found this method to be extremely fast, while searching for "zoom" the last record in the CSV file, it took but a second to return and create the list for that record on the fly.

In AppleScript Editor I use the following code to test against the plain CSV file as a single file containing the 30,260 lines with 2.5 million synonyms and related words.

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
set theMobyThesaurus to POSIX path of (path to documents folder) & "mobythes.txt"

set theSearchString to the text returned of (display dialog "Find synonyms for:" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "Search"} default button 2 with title "Search Moby Thesaurus")

if theSearchString is not equal to "" then

    try
        set theSearchResults to (do shell script "grep -i -m 1 '^" & theSearchString & ",' " & theMobyThesaurus)
    on error
        display dialog "No match for \"" & theSearchString & "\" available." buttons {"OK"} default button 1
        return
    end try

    if theSearchResults is not equal to "" then
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ","
        set theSynonymsList to items 2 thru -1 of text items of theSearchResults as list
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

        choose from list theSynonymsList with prompt "Choose a synonym for: " & linefeed & theSearchString
        if the result is not false then
            set theChosenWord to (item 1 of the result)
        end if
    end if

end if

In this example, assuming a search match was made and nothing canceled, then the theChosenWord variable now contains what was chosen from the displayed list and can be processed further as needed/wanted.

Note that this is of course strictly example code for testing purposes and will need to be adapted to your use case scenario while incorporating appropriate error handling as needed.

I believe this is going to be the fastest way while leaving the Moby Thesaurus as a single CSV file, and is probably faster then whatever methods you tried thus far.


Thunderbird Notifications I updated my iMac to Catalina today and most things seem OK.

I use Thunderbird as my email client (updated to latest) but this seems unresponsive.

I get notifications of new messages, but there seem to be no unread messages. There seems to be no way to force downloads - even Get Messages doesn't seem to work.

My Gmail account is set to use IMAP and checks for new messages every 30 minutes.

If I access Gmail in Google Chrome the messages are there.

Everything worked OK in Mavericks.

Further Part of the problem seems that Unread Messages are no longer shown in BOLD although this does not seem to be the whole problem as QuickFilter Unread did not initially show any messages.

Apparently this is a known issue.

I stated "Thunderbird … (updated to latest)" - BUT I was mistaken! The Update only updated to a version of 60. There seems to be no Update option.

There is apparently a version of 68 which does NOT have this problem BUT disables most of my Add-ons.

It seems I have a choice of displaying unread email OR working Add-ons (which is the whole point of Thunderbird).

Maybe I should try another email client (I find the side by side display of Mail unusable)


How do I change my apple ID on my iPad My apple ID on my iPad is not the same as my ID on the App Store. How do I change the ID on the iPad for the App Store?

You just need to go to the iTunes Store and App Store section in the Settings app and change the used Apple ID by tapping the Apple ID button.

Note that this capture is on a french iPad but button location are pretty much the same whatever the language used.


Lion: Switching an Application's launch preference off of Rosetta (PPC) I have a case where a machine was upgraded to Lion. Prior to Lion the user was running Photoshop CS4 (a Universal Binary) under Rosetta which required hitting a checkbox in the application's "Get Info" dialog. With the advent of Lion and the removal of Rosetta, the checkbox is gone but the OS still tries to run Photoshop as a PPC binary and fails.

Is there a way I can reset the "Launch this UB as a PPC binary" flag?

Application launch preferences are stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist, including whether or not to open using Rosetta.

Opening up this file (easier to parse if you have Property List Editor installed from the developer tools) will allow you to find the entry for the specific app that's set to open in Rosetta, and you can strip out the PPC-relevant bits. Make a back up first, just in case.

More info is available here.


My "Show Desktop" no longer functions I'm running Sierra 10.12.6 on a 2010 17" MBP. My "Show Desktop" no longer functions, no matter what key combo I have selected in Mission Control, or whether or not I use fn, or have fn checked in the keyboard control panel. All the other shortcuts in Mission Control work fine. This makes no sense, it all works right for other users on the same machine. How can I fix MY OWN user prefs?

Tried trashing user pref com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist, that did no good. Finally used a scattergun approach which lost all the shortcuts in my Dock, but that's no big deal, it's easily repopulated. Here are the ~Library/Preferences that I trashed:
com.apple.dashboard.plist
com.apple.dashboard.plist.lockfile
com.apple.desktop.plist
com.apple.desktop.plist.lockfile
com.apple.dock.plist
com.apple.dock.plist.lockfile

Replacing the com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist may or may not be necessary as well. Then reboot, or log out and back in. Voila- everything reset to defaults, and it works for the first time in months.


Best USB hub to match the Thunderbolt display? I just got a spanking new Apple Thunderbolt Display to work with my Macbook Air and I'm  loving it. The one thing I'm missing from my iMac is the 4 USB ports at the back (the Thunderbolt display only has 3). I realize I can use the 2 USB ports on the MBA but it's just not very convenient (plus I don't like the idea of a laptop being bogged down by earthly constraints such as a dangling phone charger cable).

I'm looking for a USB hub with the following features:

good-looking (admittedly subjective)
can hide behind the display that I'd use to plug in the immobile equipment such as scanner, wireless dongles, etc.
Ideally, no AC power needed (but I get the feeling I won't be able to be too picky on this one).

Is there hardware out there that meets these requirements? If your answer includes a link please link to manufacturers' sites, not to sales sites, which change more frequently.

There's always the various Mac mini stackable USB hubs - those usually look pretty nice.

If you can't find a hub you like the looks of, you could always hide it:

A shelf that goes on the monitor stand to hide items behind the monitor
Or you could just tape (or velcro, thanks to @jaberg) the hub to the back of the monitor to keep it out of sight.


weird .part files in download folder I'm using Mac OS X 10.7.3.
It happens sometimes that there are .part files in my download folder, with the length of 8 characters and 0kB file-size.

Could this be a virus?

Examples I see are like these 2: 3dOsdT+d.part and utYYNFFo.part

It's not a virus. The ".part" files are partially downloaded files seen during a download or seen later if a download has been interrupted.

Once a download completes successfully, the ".part" file will be renamed to the actual name of the downloaded file. Any (older) ".part" file can be deleted and the deletion would not cause any issues.


Catalina Notes.app draining battery? After upgrading to Catalina, I noticed that my MacBook Pro (13" with touchbar) would go from 100% battery to nearly zero in just about 30 minutes. The fans would be running like crazy. Using Activity Monitor, I tracked the culprit down to Apple Notes:

What the heck is going on here? Any idea how I can resolve this? I should also mention that this is reproducible every time… just open up notes and the fans will start going berserk.

UPDATE 1: I just installed the October 15 Supplemental update for Catalina, and there's no difference.

UPDATE 2: Booted into safe mode (hold shift at start up) and this was still the case. Energy Impact of Notes.app spiked to 300+ right away.

UPDATE 3: I reset SMC and PRAM/NVRAM. No difference.

All seems to be resolved by toggling off and then back on the iCloud sync for Notes (In Catalina, this is found in the Apple ID section of System Preferences):

Turn off Notes iCloud sync
Turn it back on
Open Notes.app
Be momentarily terrified because all your notes have vanished
Watch as they trickle in from iCloud

Running Activity Monitor now lists Notes as barely having any energy impact whatsoever. Hooray!

BONUS: Back Up Your Notes

I was reluctant to try this method because I was terrified that I would introduce some sync problem and wipe out my notes. As Apple provides no easy way to make a local backup/export of your notes, I felt that this was a reasonable worry.

Eventually, I found this little utility that makes .txt files (with HTML inside) of all of your notes (WARNING: it omits any images or attached files). It ain't great, but it worked and helped to put me at ease.

Apple also provides a way of downloading your iCloud data on their Data and Privacy site… which I initiated, but have yet to receive the download link. According to Apple, this could take up to 7 days.


How do I put music not eligible for iCloud on my iPhone without turning off iTunes Match? In short, I have an audio file that is too large for iTunes Match (This item is not eligible for iCloud), but I'd still like to listen to it on my phone. In days past I was still able to drag the track to my iPhone in the sidebar, but that feature now seems to be disabled.

I made the file kind "audiobook," and then they seemed to sync fine, as audiobooks. Since they were lecture files, that's just fine with me.


How to type backslash in Russian on Macbook pro I can't find the backslash key
either in low case or upper case(by holding shift key)
in Russian input method( I chose it on input source) on Macbook pro.

But if I choose russian pc input method, there is no "e with two dots above",
but in the place having slash and backslash.

Any one has the same problem?

Thanks,

Try Russian Phonetic, option/alt + shift on the rightmost key on the bottom row.

I think to have the ё on Russia PC, you need to have an ISO keyboard (one with an extra key between the z and shift).

Some time ago I made a Russian PC layout where that character is more accessible.  If you want to try it (not sure it still works), go to

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/46870715/k/RussianPC2.keylayout


sudo: setrlimit(8): Invalid argument After updating to Mac OS Catalina some months ago, I followed the prompted suggestions and changed my shell from BASH to ZSH.

Since that time, whenever I use sudo in Terminal, I get sudo: setrlimit(8): Invalid argument. The sudo'd command runs fine, but this error shows every time.

I don't have any plugins or modifications to my shell - it's vanilla ZSH in default Terminal.app

Can't upgrade sudo to new version. I download the file sudo-1.8.31.mac1015.pkg and install it, but remain the same version
Sudo version 1.8.29
Sudoers policy plugin version 1.8.29
Sudoers file grammar version 46
Sudoers I/O plugin version 1.8.29

Have you checked your PATH?

I just installed sudo-1.8.31.mac1015.pkg and found out that the package installs sudo to /usr/local instead of the default /usr.

If you are not sure, run which -a sudo, the one at the top will be used. To override, just add

PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"

to your ~/.zshrc


App download on mac? If users download my App on their Mac, would it count as a "download"? Also, does Apple track each download by the device or by the iTunes account?

Yes, downloads from iTunes on a desktop computer will count
By account


How to allow my Mac OS X 10.10.4 to download from sourceforge.net? I'm trying to install QUCS(Quite Universal Circuit Simulator) to my Macbook.  Following link, http://qucs.sourceforge.net/build.html , I used Homebrew and follow the instructions in the section, Build instructions for MacOS,   I got an error msg saying:

curl: (22) The requested URL returned error: 404 Not Found
Error: Failed to download resource "adms"
Download failed: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/mot-adms/adms-source/2.3/adms-2.3.4.tar.gz?r=&ts=1437800272

After some investigation, I found out my Mac doesn't allow me to download any types of files from source.net.  Although I changed my preferences in "Security & Privacy" to "Allow apps downloaded from: Anywhere," but it doesn't help.   I also turned off my firewall, but nothing changed.   Does anyone have an idea what's going on?

SourceForge is having issues right now. Others are having trouble downloading also. You may end up having to request the author upload the binaries to another source.

I am pretty sure if it was an issue with your configuration, you'd still be able to download just not run, or not have access to the internet at all.


Syncing an iPad to my desktop iMac I have an iPad which I would like to sync with my desktop Mac.  I don't know where I should go to see the icon which shows the iPad is connected.  (It used to be easy; I could look on the finder and see it, but now the iPad doesn't show up in the Finder at all.)

For my old iPod, it was visible in iTunes, but this iPad is not visible anywhere that I can see.

It should show up in the latest version of iTunes like so:

OK, that's an iPhone, but my iPad is all the way downstairs.


How do I delete data for one game in the iPad Game Center? I have one particular game that saves data through the game center. Somehow the saved game data got messed up which causes the game not to work properly when I a connected to the internet (I.e. When the game center is accessible).

Is there some way to delete all the data belonging to that game only?

The simplest way is to delete the game from your iPad, which will destroy any local stored game data, and will prompt you to remove the app from Game Centre (which I assume you want to do if it's corrupt on the Server). Then redownload the app (or re-add it in iTunes in your computer). This should allow you to start with a clean slate.


iPad DEP asking for credentials - Cisco Meraki MDM I have been using Cisco Meraki for my MDM and it has been working great. I just bought a bunch of new iPads and am setting up DEP for the first time.  I have done all the steps required: Added the order to my Apple DEP account, pushed them to my Cisco Meraki MDM and assigned settings.

Now on the iPad during initial setup I get to a step that says that my organization is going to automatically setup this iPad (which is good).  The next step asks for credentials in a Username and Password.  I have tried my organization ones, my MDM ones but do not know what this password would be for.

Watching this YouTube video, the iPad here does not have this step. I have done everything the same in this video.

Any suggestions?

EDIT: Adding some photos from the iPad setup:

After "Setup iPad as New iPad"

The blanked out bits are my organization name.

After ringing Apple support (1.5 hours on hold...) they were able to help me find a configuration error in Cisco Meraki.

Under Systems manager --> Configuration --> General --> User authentication settings.  I had it set to Active Directory authentication.

This is an extra level of security you can add to the DEP process where users must enter their credentials against an AD or OD server.  However for me the link to my AD server was not valid.

After fixing it was all good.


Big Sur on Macbook Pro M1 does not allow to add an Administrator account to a file So, I'm trying to install MPlayer X on my new M1 Macbook Pro (http://mplayerx.org/download.html), and I get the now classic "You don't have permissions to open this file" or the like.
Previously I had some issue with another file , I opened the 'Get Info' Window, unlocked permissions and added the Administrator user besides my own user already added, and was able to run the file.
Now, I'm trying to do the same with the MPlayerX app to no avail. I already tried unsuccessfully the sudo upx -d path_to_app and the xattr -d -r com. apple. quarantine. I also tried chmod 777 etc, nothing.
Everytime that I tried to change the permissions for the users staff or everyone, from Read only to Read & Write, I get the 'The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have the necessary permission'
So it looks that even though that my own default account is an admin account, it doesn't have full permissions, it's not a real admin.
What could be a workaround of this? I tried booting, entering in recovery mode and creating a new Admin account, but it was not possible (using rm /var/db/.applesetupdone)
Other ideas?

I actually had the same problem for some of my downloaded apps outside of the appstore .
Try this :

Press command + space and type terminal and press enter to open terminal

Paste this code in terminal and press enter .

sudo chmod -R 755 /path/to/app
Note : to get the path to app simply drag the file you can't open because of permission issues to terminal .
sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /path/to/app

Next paste this code with the path of the app and press enter .

You can open the file now with no permission problems .


iMac 5k 2014 won't boot/turn on Looking for ideas on how to fix my iMac, it's a 5k 2014 that will no longer boot. It all started one morning when I'd put it to sleep the evening before, when trying to wake it, nothing happened, and the power button did nothing too.

Randomly managed to get it to boot later that day, would reboot fine, but when I turned it off it no longer would switch on again.

Took it to the apple "geniuses", were able to replicate the error in the store, and said they'd run some test, but suspected it would be the power supply unit. Had a call the next day, with them saying they could no longer replicate the issue, and all of the status lights inside were fine. So I picked it up, when I got home, no power, and same issue… tried a different kettle cable and different sockets, no joy… later that evening I again managed to get it to boot (pressed power button, then it booted about 10 seconds later, as I was walking away from the machine). I upgraded to High Sierra, just to make sure it wasn't software related, restarted a few times, all seemed fine, but again when I shut it down, it refused to boot up.

Took it back to Apple, again were able to replicate the issue in store (wouldn't boot), but once again they called the next day saying they couldn't replicate the issue, but would replace the PSU. I've just been to pick it up, and guess what… exactly the same issue, no power when pressing the power button! The shops now closed as it's Sunday, so will have to wait to let them know i'm still having issues, but wanted to check if anyone had any bright ideas on what else I could try? I've tried:

Taking power lead out for 15 seconds, putting back in, waiting for 5
seconds, then pressing power (doesn't work)
Removing all RAM from the system, won't boot
Tried 3 different sockets in the house
Tried 2 different power leads

Any other ideas?

Ended up having the PSU replaced, but the issue still presented itself (wouldn't boot). Fixed in the end by replacing the motherboard.


All my music has been deleted off my phone, and I don't know how to get it back! I put all my music on a playlist seperate from the rest of the music on the iTunes library, so I could easily get to what music I wanted to listen to, instead of my brother or sister's music. My brother recently got an iPod nano, and didn't know how to use iTunes, after explaining it to him, he deleted my whole entire playlist. I didn't know, so when I hooked my phone up to the computer to sync some songs I was going to buy, all the music on my phone disappeared. I've tried re-doing the playlist and syncing all of it to my phone again, but it won't work. I've also tried turning off my phone for certain periods of time, still nothing.
I lost about 200 songs (thankfully not more), and I don't know how to get it back.

If your brother deleted the songs themselves they are gone unless your computer is backed up.

If your brother just deleted the playlist you need to recreate the playlist and then re-sync it.  Here is a how to article on how to do that. - http://www.ehow.com/how_2214496_sync-playlists-iphone.html


How can I email a document from iWork without the recipient seeing the intermediate saved versions? It looks like we don't need to keep different files like on Windows 7:

speech 2012 rev 01.doc
speech 2012 rev 02.doc
speech 2012 rev 03.doc

So on Lion, we can just use "Save a version" and all versions will be there later on to "revert" to any version...  The functionality introduced with Lion's "Save a Version" is cool, but what if we want to email somebody but don't want the earlier versions to be sent?

So are all the old version separate files in the hard drive? (then what if I want to clear those versions out to make space?)   Or are those version embedded within the document?  What if I want to email speech rev final.pages to somebody and don't want to include all the versions then?

The versions are not embedded in the files, but instead get stored elsewhere.

Due to the nature of how Lion stores versions, small files get saved entirely, but larger files can track only the parts of the file that changed in fairly snazzy ways to reduce the chance that some trivial change to a very large file uses more than a trivial amount of version space.

When you mail any file, you don't send the version, just the last saved copy.

When you delete a file, the system checks and cleans out versions so you are generally never going to see a large amount of space tracking files that no longer exist.

If you are curious - this terminal command will tell you the sum total of the tracking and storage on your main drive: sudo du -sm /.DocumentRevisions-V100/

I have yet to see a mac with more than 200 meg of storage here, but post a new question if you ever find a bug or situation where this storage seems out of line. Lots of good information on this is on the site as well as elsewhere:

Do OS X Lion's Versions and Resume features store the cached data for encrypted .sparsebundle images in a secure way?
John Siracusa's very nice Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: the Ars Technica review : Versioning Internals


Create an El Capitan rescue USB using a Modern M1 Mac I am trying to rescue my dad's 2008 iMac. It is running Snow Leopard but the most recent OS it supports is El Capitan. It won't boot past a spinning progress bar on a grey screen, and will not boot into Recovery Mode or Safe Mode.
It seems to me next step is to try a bootable USB stick. I am running into walls trying to make the stick from my own computer, which is an M1 MacBook Air running Big Sur.
An El Capitan .DMG is downloadable directly from the Apple Support page, which provides instructions on how to make a bootable volume, with a major caveat On a Mac that is compatible with El Capitan, open the disk image and run the installer within, named InstallMacOSX.pkg
I used a utility to extract the Install OS X El Capitan.app file from the .dmg and then ran the terminal command from that support page:
sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyUSBVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app
But this yields /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app does not appear to be a valid OS installer application.
When I google this error some results indicate it is due to an expired file, but changing my system date to 2016 does not fix it. I assume the real problem is a system incompatibility.
Surely there is just an ISO I can get and write without all these hoops?s

Start by downloading the El Capitan dmg from this link : https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683
Then open the dmg and copy InstallMacOSX.pkg on the Desktop.
Then, from the terminal (Applications/Utilities) un-compact the InstallMacOSX.pkg file in a directory (Installer for example) which will be created by the following pkgutil command:
pkgutil --expand ~/Desktop/InstallMacOSX.pkg ~/Desktop/Installer

Then position yourself in the InstallMacOSX.pkg "package" created by the pkgutil command
cd ~/Desktop/Installer/InstallMacOSX.pkg

Then un-compact the structure using the tar command:
tar -xvf Payload

Finally move the InstallESD.dmg file created by the tar command above to the Desktop
mv InstallESD.dmg ~/Desktop

You must then format a GUID partition scheme USB key of sufficient size (8 GB for El Capitan) named KEY in the example and execute the following instructions :
hdiutil attach ~/Desktop/InstallESD.dmg -noverify -nobrowse -mountpoint /Volumes/install_app
hdiutil convert /Volumes/install_app/BaseSystem.dmg -format UDSP -o /tmp/Installer
hdiutil resize -size 8g /tmp/Installer.sparseimage
hdiutil attach /tmp/Installer.sparseimage -noverify -nobrowse -mountpoint /Volumes/install_build
rm -r /Volumes/install_build/System/Installation/Packages
cp -av /Volumes/install_app/Packages /Volumes/install_build/System/Installation/
cp -av /Volumes/install_app/BaseSystem.chunklist /Volumes/install_build
cp -av /Volumes/install_app/BaseSystem.dmg /Volumes/install_build
hdiutil detach /Volumes/install_app
hdiutil detach /Volumes/install_build
hdiutil resize -size `hdiutil resize -limits /tmp/Installer.sparseimage | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $ 1}' `b /tmp/Installer.sparseimage
hdiutil convert /tmp/Installer.sparseimage -format UDZO -o /tmp/Installer
mv /tmp/Installer.dmg ~/Desktop

Here you have to plug the USB key named KEY, then :
sudo asr restore --source ~/Desktop/Installer.dmg --target /Volumes/KEY --noprompt --noverify --erase

Test the key and if ok, delete the working directories and files of this operation from the Desktop.


Chrome find bar closing on macOS Sierra Previously on Chrome, I could use ⌘+F to bring up the Chrome find bar, then esc would close it. However, on macOS Sierra, esc now exits full-screen mode if the Chrome window is in this mode (which I commonly use).

What is the shortcut to close the find bar? Alternatively, how do I disable esc closing full-screen mode?

A simple workaround to close the find bar is to use Fn + Esc, rather then Esc.

However, you can easily prevent Chrome to close the full-sceen mode by pressing Esc through this script (following this post):

// ==UserScript==
// @name           Keep Full Screen
// @namespace     https://superuser.com/q/315949
// @description    Prevents Escape key from leaving full screen.
// @include      http://*
// ==/UserScript==
document.onkeydown = function (evt) {
    if (evt.keyCode == 27) evt.preventDefault();
}

To run this, you can use the NinjaKit Google Chrome extension.


Make chart series rise when number of rows rise I have spreadsheet that I'm updating every day with new numbers. Each day I'm adding new number to new row.

I need to create chart that has series from those rows but I don't want to edit data series every day. I want that my chart update dynamically when I add new rows with new data. Is there any way to add formula in Series Value field (look at screenshot)? So far I see I can only add range. When I try to write in this field e.g. Indirect function I just can't write it there. I think this is silly question and this is easy to solve but I just cant figure it out how to do this with Numbers. I'm moving from Excel.

The trick is to refer to your Value set by name rather than cell-address-range. Example procedure, starting from your example chart:

Ensure Table 1 row 1 is a Header Row
Put a cosmetic name in B1, naming your column B series, say… Series
Change the Chart's Data Value field from a cell reference to the new column header name, e.g. Table 1::Series

Since the chart is now set to simply reflect all of that column's data, it will update live as new data appears.


Jailbreak app-mini browser What was the name of the jailbreak app/tweak that allowed you to open web pages in a popup web browser instead of going directly to safari? I remember it in iOS 7 but can't find it now.

Figured it out on my own. Pro widgets comes with a mini browser. Not yet available for iOS eight.


What (un-)documented multitouch gestures exist in Lion and common applications? Safari allows to go back to a previous website using the two-finger-swipe gesture. All of the standard multitouch gestures are very nicely documented in the More Gestures section of the Trackpad system preference:
I was looking for a similar gesture in Finder. During my research I stumbled upon a MacWorld article to discover:

Use ⌥ + three-finger-swipe to go back/forward in finder.

Question:
This feature is not documented anywhere I looked.

Are there any other gestures implemented in Lion and common applications (e.g. iLife) besides those in the System Preferences?

Are these "hidden" gestures documented by Apple in a help file or knowledge base so I can look for them as I wish to learn more?

Let's collectively maintain an answer listing of which apps have specific functions controllable by gestures or gestures and keyboard keys.

The best resource I have regarding gestures in OS X is: http://www.danrodney.com/mac/multitouch.html


Lightweight SQL server to serve .sql content I have a python project that needs to access sql data. I actually have the contents of this database as .sql files and I'm wondering what's the fastest/lightest way to run my project

The python project uses the import MySQLdb statement.
This led me to install pip install MySQL-python and brew install mysql-connector-c and then I'm trying to set up a MySQL server so I can finally run the program
If possible I'd like to avoid the huge official MYSQL editions I can find on the internet
I'm rather looking for lightweight alternatives

It it actually possible to find some lightweight (my)SQL server that would successfully let me connect from python or is there no avoiding the heavy official MySQL editions ?

I use DB Browser for SQLite. It's free and has the feature I need, but it's pretty lightweight, so you won't have some features like SQL Procs, etc. I think it supports triggers though, so I guess you can get around the no-sql-proc issue by writing some triggers.

The database runs on SQLite, which is a pretty popular free version of SQL, so you should be able to find compatible Python packages for it. Like these for example: 11.13. sqlite3 or 12.6. sqlite3, but I don't use Python so I haven't tried either of them.

Anyhow, it works well for me. I use it for managing data that's too messy to parse with excel. For doing analysis I use the Julia programing language (but Python should work just as well).

Edit:
If you do decide to try SQLite and are wondering how to get your MySQL data into SQLite, here is a StackOverflow page that talks about exactly this.


How to sync usernames/passwords between Mac Firefox & iPad Safari? I use Firefox on my Mac and have hundreds of website passwords saved in its password store. I don't even remember my passwords half the time for the various sites that I use. How can I sync the usernames/passwords between the two devices? I'd also like to be able to sync my bookmarks if possible. I use Firefox Sync to keep my various computers in sync, but of course this will not work with the iPad.

For passwords, I highly recommend 1Password.

It will enter the passwords into Safari for iPad and it will sync your passwords with your Mac (if you setup the sync), and then you can search for what you need on the iPad.


How to make fullscreen windows appear next to the current space with "...rearrange spaces based on recent use..." disabled I keep a lot of apps running at the same time. I keep some apps in fullscreen next to the first desktop for general usage, and some other fullscreen apps next to a second desktop for "work" stuff.

The problem is that when I put an app in fullscreen it is placed next to the last space. I know that enabling "Preferences > Mission Control > Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use" would make apps to be placed next to the desktop I'm in, but I chose to disable it because I don't want spaces to move.

I noticed that there's a (bad) workaround:
- keep the green fullscreen button of an app clicked until it is presented the choice for placing it in the left or the right side of the screen;
- release the mouse in order to assign the app to a side;
- click anywhere on the side of the app; the app should now be fullscreen and should be placed in the next space (not at the end).

Is there a way to keep that option disabled while at the same time be able to open apps in fullscreen directly next to the desktop I'm currently in?

The workaround seems to have some unnecessary length. If one holds the green button, then clicks in the app itself, it will become fullscreen right away in the next space, not at the end. It is a two step process. Just like methods like this hypothetical one: Go to view menu -> "Full screen in the next space, not the end". Also the option about rearranging the spaces was turned off in my Mac.

MacOS 10.14.5

MacBook Air 2017


How can I use my iPhone 3G economically in China? I'm traveling to China and would like to use my iPhone there. I would not like to pay AT&T's crazy and predatory charges. What should I do? I don't have much time and want something low on the 'things can go wrong' scale. Oh, and I have a dinosaur 3G, and a 4G.

You can turn on airplane mode, but enable WiFi (Or you could get an iPad with only WiFi), then make calls through FaceTime, or Skype equivalent.

Impossible that you could be charged, but you would have to be near a Wi-Fi source for it to be useful.


Why paste from screenshot into Mail will save as TIFF format? I use ^ Control⇧ Shift
⌘ Command4 first, then I paste it into Mail, when I double click the image that I pasted, it is TIFF format.
I try to change the screenshot format to PNG; it works. But when I change back to JPG or BMP, both of them will be saved as TIFF format.
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg

How can I save it as JPG format?

It Has to do with the Clipboard; not Screen Capture
Screen capture can obviously support more than these two file formats; obviously it supports GIF and JPEG/JPG, but it also supports PDF.  However, the issue here isn't what Screen Capture is capable of handling, it what your clipboard is capable of. Why?  Well, you're going directly from your clipboard to pasting an inline image into a mail message.  Once Screen Capture "hands over" bitmap to the clipboard, it's work is done.
Now, your clipboard stores images as a RAW format so it can preserve every single detail.  How it gets saved (when Screen Capture writes it to disk), the clipboard simply doesn't care if you use a high quality format like PNG or TIFF or a lossy format like JPEG or PDF; basically, you chose it, you'll get it.
But why PNG or TIFF?
The very short answer is both are image formats that support lossless compression.  In other words, they can make the images much smaller than their RAW format without losing an ounce of quality.
Apple chose PNG as it's default and I can only speculate as to why...

PNG (Portable Network Graphic) was to be a replacement for the GIF format
It's web friendly
It was designed for transferring images over the network/Internet

TIFF on the other hand...

Acquired by Adobe in 1996 for desktop publishing
It was an attempt to standardize scanned (and faxed) documents into a single high quality file format
Built in support for meta data
Could hold multiple pages as a single document like a PDF

Why you get TIFF when pasting to your App
Coming out of the clipboard, you've got two ways to go - PNG or TIFF.  Since you specifically told screen capture you didn't want PNG, it went to the only other choice available - TIFF.

How can I save it as JPG format?

Don't use your clipboard.  Save to your Desktop (or other location) and just manually convert to JPEG.  Then drag your item over to the app you're using.  If you do this through the Preview App, you will have the opportunity to set the quality/size of your JPEG in case it's still too large for some receiving email systems.  (Preview) File → Export → Format

If this is something you do quite a bit, you can easily create an Automator action...but that's another question for another time.


How can I transfer music from one iphone to another if it has NOT BEEN purchased from iTunes (ie., songs that were put on there from cd's I own etc.) Is there a way to transfer songs from one iphone to a new iphone that were NOT purchased from iTunes?  I am talking about songs that were from cd's that I or my son own.  They are on my old phone but will not transfer to the new phone because they weren't iTunes purchases.  If this is a "feature" of an Apple iPhone, I can understand peoples frustrations.

Only one "library" or subset of one library can exist on a single mobile  device. You can manage your non-iTunes purchased music and move it to your device through iTunes.  But you can not move it from device to device, or device back to PC.  Why not?  Doing so could promote piracy of songs (media).

You can only normally transfer music in one direction: iTunes -> Device. The reason for this is to limit music sharing, this follows the model apple created to satisfy the recording industries demands as apple demanded an end to DRM encrypted files.

Additionally, related but not part of your question, you are essentially prohibited from transferring songs from someone else's iTunes library directly to your phone.  If you attempt to do so it will warn you that you are about to replace the existing library on the device with a new one, meaning all song currently on the device will be wiped if you continue.

If the original iTunes files are not available on the computer, you can't just transfer them from the device back to iTunes. There are however apps in the app store that allow you to transfer music back to a PC, at that point you can use iTunes to put it on the new phone. I can't personally suggest any of these as I've never used them. Google the term iphone transfer music to pc to learn more and read reviews.

Another method if the original CD's are still available you could use iTunes to re-rip them to iTunes on the computer, and then move them to the new phone.

Apple also sells an add-on called iTunes Match that will allow you to download songs in your ripped library directly to your device.  However this service isn't a necessity at all, it just adds convenience over managing your library directly thru iTunes.

This is my opinion on the subject, but if a person understands how the system works, it's not hard to follow the rules, but it does seem confusing when a person is replacing their phone and doesn't know the rules.  I would also rather have this system in place than DRM encoded music downloads from the app store.


Can I use TimeMachine only when on wired connection? I have a server to which I am backing up a single MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion, via TimeMachine.

I would like to only back up when the MacBook Pro has a wired connection to the network. The wired and wireless connections are to the same router and all devices are on the same subnet.

How can I configure my Mac so that it will not start the TimeMachine backup process when operating wirelessly, but will allow backups when connected via wired connection?

The only idea I have had is manually disable TimeMachine when operating wirelessly. I see the TimeMachine has an option to not back up when on battery power, but it is possible that the laptop is plugged in to power, but not to wired ethernet.

I use this: https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/26341/timemachinescheduler

Solved all of my TM and corrupt sparse bundle issues (backing up to a Synology NAS)


Keyboard goes blank when trying to type special character on iPhone I type Polish a lot on my iPhone, requiring special characters.  At some point, this started happening: when I try to type a special character, press and hold brings up the menu, but before I can get to the character, the keyboard goes blank, and I have to give up.  I think the phone vibrates once, and it seems like it happens when my finger slips a little off the row of characters.  A screenshot looks like this:
What the hell is the phone trying to do, and how do I stop it?

EDIT: This is purely intuition, but I think this is supposed to be a feature, not a bug, though I admit, I cannot figure out what the feature is.

It's part of the new 3D Touch feature.  Try putting it on the "firm" setting and don't push too hard when trying to get special characters.


What's the Mac equivalent for CTR+ALT+Backspace on Linux? I need to regularly shutdown brutally my Mac, due to program misbehavior (Starcraft 2 and EVE Online), which take control of the graphics and never surrender it back.

While I admire the tenacity of those embattled programs... I'd rather nuke them with a single stroke, as I would on Linux by killing the X server.

The irritating part is, the underlying OS runs fine, since I can move the mouse around, change luminosity or sound. I just can't switch back to anything, work, email... so I have to fully reboot.

How do I do that? What's the secret key combo?

Command ⌘  + Option + Esc opens the "Force Quit Application"
dialog, which lets you select and kill running applications.

If that does not work,

Command ⌘ + Option + Shift + Esc held down for 5 seconds kills the foremost application.


Is it possible for a Macbook Pro to pop out a window and / or give some sound a few minutes before sleeping? Is there a way to pop out a window and / or to give out some sound a few minutes before it goes to sleep?
There is one warning, but I hope to get another warning a few or a couple of few minutes before it would go to sleep.
Sleeping involves writing all data to the hard drive and reloading all data afterwards, and also any external SSD drive would report not being ejected properly.
One way I can think of is to run a script either continuously or as a cronjob, and every 3 minutes, use some Unix command to get the battery level, and when it is 3% or lower, give out audio bell for 30 seconds.

The free option is to use a Launch Agent in the ~/Library/LaunchAgents which uses launchd to run your script on a set interval and when the condition is met, take the desired action. I'd give it a try and see how it works for you. Otherwise...
A paid option is:
There's a product called Power Manager which has a Run a scrip on battery remaining event, although the lowest you can set the script to trigger is 5%. Has a fully functional free 30 day trial. Its  license costs from 12.95 USD for 12 months.
(A bit steep if you as me, and I don't like yearly licensing schemes!)
Note: I am not affiliated with the developer of this product.


Bash script to click button on an HTML page I'm trying to write a Bash script that opens a browser, clicks an HTML button on a webpage, and closes the browser after getting response. I need this script to be executable from within Terminal. If not a Bash script, then maybe a Python script.

Form is:

<form method="post" action="duophones?yc=sasv1S2f8mXKITRJS1XrenZ30SA-" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded">
<input name="phone" value="+15551231235" type="hidden">
<input name="action" value="dapact" type="hidden">
<input name="session" value="0" type="hidden">
<button class="c01 c01v0" name="action" type="submit" value="Activate +15551231234 over SMS (recommended)" override="true">Activate +15551231234 over SMS (recommended)</button>
</form>

Script I have is:

curl -d value="Activate +15551231234 over SMS (recommended)" www.testpage.com

Any help or direction would be appreciated!

You should consider using opensource Selenium.

With a Selenium IDE plugin to Firefox you can record your actions (opening a page, clicking on a button), replay these songs, and generate Python or Ruby scripts rich you can customise and call from CLI.

Sample script testing default Apache availability might look like this:

#!/usr/local/bin/python

DEST_URL='http://webserver.dev/'

import unittest
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.proxy import *

class WebInterfaceTest(unittest.TestCase):

  def setUp(self):
     self.driver = webdriver.Firefox()

  def tearDown(self):
     self.driver.quit()

  def test_web_interface(self):
    self.driver.get(DEST_URL)
    self.assertIn('Apache2 Debian Default Page: It works', self.driver.title)

if __name__ == "__main__":
  unittest.main()


Bash script not working on Automator but working from terminal I have this bash script that works perfectly on terminal

#!/bin/bash

for f in "$@"; do

  DIRNAME="$(dirname "$f")"

  filename=$(basename "$f")
  name="${filename%.*}"
  extension="${filename##*.}"

  /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i "$f" -filter_complex 'scale=1920:1080, pad=2134:1200:107:60' "$DIRNAME"/OUTPUT_"$name"."$extension"
  /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i OUTPUT_"$name"."$extension" -vf 'scale=1920:1080' FINAL_"$name"."$extension"

 done

I am trying to create a service for finder that accept movie files and process them using this script. The service is setup to pass input to stdin. When I select movies on finder and run that service, nothing happens. Like I said, the script works perfectly from terminal.

Any clues?

This question appears to similar to ffmpeg working from command line in Terminal but not in an Automator shell script! but applying the answer (full path to ffmpeg) did not solve my problem.

In addition to specifying the full path to ffmpeg two additional problems needed to be solved:

The path to the output files are also needed.
The pass input option of the shell script action has to be set as arguments.

The final script is then this:

#!/bin/bash

for f in "$@"; do

  DIRNAME="$(dirname "$f")"

  filename=$(basename "$f")
  name="${filename%.*}"
  extension="${filename##*.}"

  /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i "$f" -filter_complex 'scale=1920:1080, pad=2134:1200:107:60' "$DIRNAME"/OUTPUT_"$name"."$extension"
  /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i "$DIRNAME"/OUTPUT_"$name"."$extension" -vf 'scale=1920:1080' "$DIRNAME"/FINAL_"$name"."$extension"

done

Notice how the path was added to ffmpeg and also that $DIRNAME was added to the output files, that was not mentioned by the other question.


Running a cleanup of icloud desktop on load I have the following launchd saved as an agent in: /Users/my_name/Library/LaunchAgents
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>local.desktop.cleanup</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>zsh</string>
            <string>-c</string>
            <string>/usr/local/bin/trash ~/Desktop/Screen*</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>StartInterval</key>
        <integer>3600</integer>
        <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
        <string>/tmp/local.desktop.cleanup.err</string>
        <key>StandardOutPath</key>
        <string>/tmp/local.desktop.cleanup.out</string>
        <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <dict>
            <key>NetworkState</key>
            <true/>
        </dict>
    </dict>
</plist>

It runs a very simple program that moves, instead of removes, the selected files to the bin. I've only been testing the launchd's success with RunAtLoad and I cannot get it to work. I get the following error in my log file after each time I log in:
zsh:1: no matches found: /Users/my_name/Desktop/Screen*

My Desktop is actually one of those icloud folders that I suppose MacOS just has symlinked. My theory is that maybe these files do not exist locally at the point the program is run. If this is the case, or not, I would appreciate any ideas or solutions to make this specific use case work.
N.B. You'll noticed I left KeepAlive NetworkState in to show I attempted to delay the run until the network was "alive", however, this wouldn't account for downloading any files.

Okay, I managed to work out the problem. Unfortunately, it was the usual culprit: The heavy privacy permissions system MacOS has been relying on since Catalina!
Since I was running the command from zsh in order to effectively get the correct user context for relative directories I had to the following:

Now, I am concerned that these somewhat defeats the purpose of this hardened security. I would really appreciate any information as to how it might be best to allow this to run without opening up my whole OS to zsh... Perhaps launchd or launchctl? I fear those are still quite open.


Preventing automatic backtick ` When I type a backtick ` it's underlined and I can press space to make it this character ´. This is annoying because I never need this when I type in markdown I only need the backtick. So I wonder how I can turn this off?


Email on Iphone tries to send thru old account I have set up two IMAP email accounts on 1 Iphone. Both accounts are set to send via their respective outgoing email server. The first account sends emails properly. The second account tries to send outgoing email via an old mail server that no longer exists.

I have deleted the 2nd account multiple times and re-added it from scratch each time but it still insists on sending via the old non-existent mail server. Is there some other place where this is stored? Any suggestions on how to fix this?

If using the default mail app,

Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > (pick account) > (click account again) > Outgoing mail server

You should be able to configure which SMTP server will be used for the account.


Why is Firefox randomly reopening itself after quitting? I've had a strange problem that's been bugging me for awhile.  It seems that every couple times I quit Firefox, it will reopen itself automatically.  Basically:

I'll hit cmdq
Firefox will shut down
the little 'open' light underneath its icon in the dock will disappear
suddenly the FF icon will start bouncing and it will open back up

Usually when this happens, my previous session will appear to be loading but all the tabs will stay blank.  However, this is not always the case, sometimes my tabs will load.  Another thing I just noticed is that after it reopens, Firefox is 'hidden' (like when you click 'Hide Firefox' from the main menu) until I click on it.

If I quit FF a second time, it stays closed.  The next time I open FF, my original session will be restored and everything works normally.

This has happened on two different Macs for me, and my wife has occasionally seen this behavior as well.  Any ideas on what might be happening, and has anyone else had this happen?

I had the same problem ! I downloaded version 3.5 for mac & it works fine for me now.

Please Take Note of following.
Even in FireFox version 3.5, I faced a strange behavior.
When I try to open a new tab sometimes it goes adding new tabs in bulk, I mean infinite loop of adding new tab. In that case, I used to quit fireFox by force. ( force-Quit ).
It happens quite frequently, even though I couldn't determine the exact steps to produce that bug. So, If you face same kind of behavior, please let me know by comments.


Undo use of F5 which added a thick black line around fields and buttons I have searched the user manuals and can find no information on using F keys and how to cancel a command I have done.
macOS 10.8.5

I foolishly followed some advice and used F5 button for something. Now there is a permanent open field on all windows and Excel won't let me input into individual fields.

I don't remember what I did, why I did it, and don't know how to undo it. Thick black line flashes round a field box, or any button.

How can I undo this action?

You appear to have enabled the Accessibility shortcut.

To toggle it back off, option+command+F5


Is it possible to run lion, ubuntu, and backtrack on my imac? Would it be possible to do this? To run lion, ubuntu, and backtrack all on the same machine?
Or even just lion and backtrack would do the trick. If so, how would I go about doing this?

It will be easiest to run Ubuntu and Backtrack in virtual machines rather than setting up a multiple boot configuration, and you'll be able to run everything simultaneously (assuming enough RAM). You'll need a copy of Parallels or VMware Fusion (which cost money) or VirtualBox (which doesn't).


Can i tell if i am being observed by an admin using apple remote desktop? Is there a way i can tell if i am being observed by an admin who is using apple remote desktop (ARD) ?

Is there an icon that will pop up in the dock / top bar ? Or is there a port I could check to see if there is traffic passing through it ?

For someone to be able to observe you using Apple Remote Desktop, Remote Management needs to be enabled in the Sharing Preferences, on your computer.

Clicking on the Computer Settings opens a window to enable options for showing the icon in the status menu when someone is connected to you.


Logitech Webcam HD C270 not properly recognized by macOS I purchased a C270 (in early February) that I use with my Mac. However in Zoom and other software it identifies as USB-camera #3 and the microphone identifies as Unknown USB Audio Device. When I plugged it into a Windows 10-laptop it was immediately identified as HD C270. I tried searching on the Logitech website for a new driver or anything but there isn't anything like that.

I find it a little annoying, especially since I also have a cheap USB microphone that identifies as USB MICROPHONE, I find it annoying that I can not see the proper labels in selection dialogs.

This is how the device shows up in system_profiler SPUSBDataType:

                Miscellaneous Device:

                  Product ID: 0x0825
                  Vendor ID: 0x046d  (Logitech Inc.)
                  Version: 0.12
                  Serial Number: A2CC4DD0
                  Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
                  Location ID: 0x14132100 / 20
                  Current Available (mA): 500
                  Current Required (mA): 500
                  Extra Operating Current (mA): 0

Is there any way I can add my own labels to this device?

Many Logitech webcams have only the bare minimum support on Mac. From their descriptions…

  SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
  Compatible with:
  Windows® 10 or later, Windows 8, Windows 7

  Works in USB Video Device Class (UVC) mode with supported video-calling clients:
   macOS 10.10 or later

The only way I've ever been able to leverage any better behaviour from mine was to get WebCam Settings available from the App Store at $8. There's no free trial, so you'd have to take a punt, but the C270 is listed as supported.

From comments - apparently Logitech do now make software for Mac support.
The C270 can use the Camera Settings app.
My older C920 has a beta Logitech Capture

You are probably best going through from the front page for your own camera if it's not one of these, to see what's specifically on offer.


How to print a selection of a PDF document: Safari on Mac using MS Word I’m using Safari on Big Sur, and need to capture a small section of a document to send off to someone. In Safari you cannot print just a selection of a page. Suggestions on how to do this?

Take a screenshot of the part you want to share using CtrlShiftCmd4 (puts it into the clipboard)
Create a new mail to someone and paste the picture


Emulating lower speed CPUs on Mac mini I would like to ask whether it is possible to develop OS X application (especially for Lion) on a Mac mini, being able to test how the performance would be on a lower speed CPU. For example: development machine is a Mac mini (Intel Core i5 dual-core at 2.3 GHz); emulated test machine similar to a MacBook Air (i5 dual-core 1.7 GHz).

One way to accomplish this would be to test the performance in a virtual machine configured to represent a more limited processor.

Assuming you're using a Mac which came with a pre-installed OS, you'll probably need to buy an additional Mac OS license, but the virtualization can be done for free with VirtualBox, or for a moderate cost with Parallels or VMWare Fusion.

In the case of VirtualBox, when you create a virtual machine, you can adjust the amount of RAM, the number of CPUs/cores, and the Execution Cap to limit the virtual CPU to a percentage of a real CPU. I believe Parallels and Fusion offer similar functionality.

Most virtualization use cases for Mac involve running a virtualized Windows OS, so you will find a lot more information about Windows licensing with these products, but virtual Mac OS is a legitimate option, as long as you comply with Apple's licensing requirements.

Apple allows virtualization of many of their operating systems as long as the hardware platform used is an Apple one, but the specific details vary depending on the operating system version and how you got it.

For example, if you buy a Mac with Yosemite pre-installed, you don't get virtualization rights for that OS, but if you get your Yosemite license from the App Store, you are granted the right to run two additional virtual instances of Yosemite on your Mac, as long as it's for "personal" or "development" use.

Because there are different rules for different versions, the best way to ensure you're complying with Apple's legal requirements for virtualization would be to contact Apple directly and explain your requirements.


How to change key bindings on MBP By default I have to hit fn+up arrow and fn+down arrow for page up and page down actions, but those buttons are on opposite sides of the keyboard. I want to be able to do rshift+up and rshift+down.

I already tried System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> App Shortcuts, but it only lets me map to menu items.

You can set system-wide keybindings via the ~/Library/Keybindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict file (more info) however it doesn't appear to be possible to distinguish between the left and right shift keys, so I think what you want to achieve is not possible.


Do uploaded-photos on an iPhone have a local URL? (iPhone 3GS, IOS 6.1.3).  I've uploaded a photo -say, "dog.jpg"-
to the iPhone from an iMac.  On the iPhone, I can view it using
the built-in PhotoApp [I don't know its official name].

On the iPhone: Can I access this photo via a local URL, e.g

file:///Uploaded/dog.jpg

?

More Generally:  I'm looking for a way to put several links in
a single Contacts entry.  Each, when clicked, will pull-up a local
photo [with no cell-phone service needed, no internet], either
by

somehow directly invoking the PhotoApp on the photo, or
by pulling up Safari using the "file://" protocol, to access the local photo.

No, the filesystem on iOS is secured by sandboxing, so even if you had the exact path the the file - arbitrary apps could not even read the file. Of course each image is stored at some path, but it's better for apps to use the photo API to access photos than to depend on a file URL as you describe.


Listing only Mobile Accounts in terminal I have a way to list all the accounts in Mac via terminal using the dscacheutil command. Is there any way to get to know if a particular account is a mobile account or not from the terminal?

Finally i figured out that there is a way to list down all the local accounts. And this includes the mobile accounts of the network users. This command gives the above info:

dscl /Local/Default -list Users


Send iMessage from Firefox Ubuntu + Firefox has become my daily driver. I would like to be able to send iMessage from Firefox. I am able to login using my Apple ID in Firefox. Is there a URL that can enable me to send iMessage from Firefox?

No. iMessage (rebranded as Messages) service is only implemented on Apple hardware and it is not available for other desktop/mobile/web platforms. Apple does offer web apps for other parts of iCloud but not iMessage or FaceTime.

You need an Apple device, specifically running either iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch), macOS (Mac desktops and MacBook portables) or watchOS (Apple Watch) to access Messages via native app available for each platform.

Messages is not accessible using other Web browsers such as Firefox, and not available even using Apple's own Web browser Safari.


iPhone 6: Unable to find service and only displays "Searching" I have an iPhone 6 with the most recent iOS software installed. Recently (about 2 weeks ago) it started struggling to find mobile connection, while family on the same network get great connection. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth still work fine, so I am unsure as to whether it's a hardware or a software problem.

Can it be fixed or do I need a new phone?

I would try to put the phone in airport mode then back to normal and see if that helps.  Next try to reset network connections under general and reset then reset network connections.  you can also try toggling cellular data on/off and/or roaming voice data&data and data roaming on/off.


Macbook Air 13" (2017) keeps shutting down I'm aware this has been asked before, but didn't find for my specific model. Anyways, the problem started a couple weeks ago when the battery was below more or less 50%, but in the last couple days this worsen and it turns off when the battery is at any level below 80%.
When I connect the charger and start again, it shows a battery level of 60-70%, sometimes the battery level jumps weirdly from one level to another, like 42% to 64%.
I'm aware that the battery has had a lot of uses, my cycle count is around 740 cycles, and system report notifies "Service Recommended". Nevertheless Apple page says expected life for this battery model is 1000 cycles, and really didn't expect to start failing this early and with this extreme behavior.
Here comes my question, will a calibration of the battery hopefully solve this issues? (until obviously it reaches >1000 cycles). Tried resetting SMC (as here), didn't work (but also I'm not sure how to verify that I did the reset correctly).
I purchased the macbook new in march 2019 in official premium reseller (since in my country Apple does not have direct representation). Also I know that I might have to replace the battery, but I live in an EME country, and do not know if this is going to be very expensive, so in the short term it's not an option.
Thanks!
PD, here's my battery system report:
  Charge Information:
  Charge Remaining (mAh):   3057
  Fully Charged:    No
  Charging: Yes
  Full Charge Capacity (mAh):   4130
  Health Information:
  Cycle Count:  745
  Condition:    Service Recommended
  Battery Installed:    Yes
  Amperage (mA):    1954
  Voltage (mV): 8429

If helpful, I noted that "Full charge capacity" changes sometimes dramatically  when I check it from time to time (this is the same symptom as the battery level jumping from one to another completely different, I think)
Exact model: MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017)
Running on: Catalina 10.15.7

You can first read this : https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/if-your-battery-wont-charge-mh29198/mac here is a link to do a Reset SMC.
To have more infos on your battery download and use CoconutBattery


Anyone know of a Finder replacement? I am starting to dislike the Finder. Does anybody know of a good Finder replacement, something Unixy or Nexty which will still work with all Mac OS X applications?

When it comes to alternatives of Finder, there are two major alternatives.

First, you have TotalFinder. It looks a lot like the normal Finder, but it can do so much more. You can copy/paste across windows, you can work with tabs or dual screen,... It's my personal favorite. I've been using it for many months now.

The second alternative is PathFinder. I don't have any personal experience with this software, but when I take a look at their website, it has some cool features too.

So, my advice is to check those two options and I can suggest you TotalFinder!


Trying to copy archive from one network share to another while ignoring the tilde character I've been trying to copy an archive volume from one network share to another.  Because most of these files are Mac files, I am using Mac Terminal to do so.  I've tried every combination of cp, rsync, and ditto that I could come up with.

The problem lies in the fact that many of these files have a similar name and every once in a while I'll come across one that has a tilde character in the file name.  Depending on what variation of cp or rsync command I use, when it comes across this it either fails, stating that file already exists, or, skips the file with the tilde all together and continues on with the process.

For example: "28910 BP Umba Show.SIT" is treated as identical to "28910B~1.SIT" and therefore will not copy to the new archive location.

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

The filename 28910B~1.SIT looks like an MS-DOS abbreviated file name that has more than the 8.3 characters (long file names).

It's important to note that from Windows 2000, both the long name and the shortened 8.3 name were retained (the file had both names)

  ...when an application saves a file on a computer running Windows
  2000, both the 8.3 file name and long file name are retained.

For example, 28910 BP Umba Show.SIT is automatically abbreviated to 28910B~1.SIT and duplicates are incremented (28910B~2.SIT, 28910B~3.SIT, 28910B~4.SIT, etc.)  You can read more about this naming convention on Microsoft Tech Network

There's a good chance it's a dupe of one of your files, but the only way to know for certain is to open both and verify.

From the comment:

  Either way, I need some magic that will copy the archive and ignore
  the tilde.

It can't ignore the tilde - it's there and it must be dealt with;  as far as macOS is concerned, the two files have identical names (because they do).

To copy both files but not overwrite the one already in the destination folder, you can to a quick test in your command to see if the file already exists in a for/do loop:

for file in /source/directory; do $time=date +%s; if [[ -f /target/directory/$file ]]; then cp $file ${file}-${time}; else cp $file /target/directory/$file; fi; done

This command will parse through your source directory, check if the file exists in the target directory, if it does it will copy the file over appending the current time in seconds (to ensure no multiple dupes); if no dupe exists, it just copies the file over.


Magic Mouse not working in macOS Mojave I update my Macbook Pro* today to macOS Mojave 10.14 (18A391).

I have a Magic Mouse that I've been using for years and that has so far always worked.

However, now the right click with that Magic Mouse does no longer work. I can do a right click with two fingers on my Trackpad but not using the mouse.

I checked the settings and Secondary click is enabled.

Double-tap to zoom does work fine.

* MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (13-inch, 2017, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)

I resolved it by deleting:

com.apple.AppleMultitouchMouse.plist, and
com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse.plist

files from user ~/Library/Preferences/ directory.


Why is Wake-On-LAN not working on my MacBook Pro with LogMeIn? Hey guys, as of this date (2011-05-24) I have the:

Latest version of LogMeIn Free running on my MacBook Pro
The Latest version of Snow Leopard
I have the mid 2009 17" unibody MacBook Pro

On my MacBook I have the "wake up from lan" box checked in the energy savings settings.

My MacBook is also plugged in, and the Ethernet cable is plugged in. I always leave the Airport on on the macbook so that's on too.

It's now in "sleep" and the lid is closed.

When I go to the LogMeIn dashboard it says offline... is this because the Wake-On-Lan is not working? Has anyone had this issue or know how to fix it?

cheers

It is not possible for the Macbook to go out of sleep when the lid is closed and no external display and input devices are connected. Your best option therefore is to keep the lid open.


How to ensure connections to certain hosts are routed via ethernet? We have a mac that acts as a CI-server.

It needs to connect to our git-repositories which can only be connected to via ethernet.

All other servers, apple.com, github.com, etc. need to be connected via wifi, because our ethernet is running a MITM-scheme for all SSL-connections.

I thought about setting routes manually, routing certain IPs to specific gateways. However, the IPs themselves are changing, too.

So to connect to our git repo, at any time, I would have to do the following:

Turn off wireless adapter
Resolve ip of git server using nameserver in ethernet network
Turn on wireless adapter
Add static route

Is this correct?

Is there a better way to do it? Perhaps with some UI-tool?

Use VLANs. Put your wifi on one VLAN, and your internal network on another VLAN. Don't allow wifi users to access the internal VLAN, and make sure hard wired connections are on the internal VLAN.

This lets your switch/router handle the job, instead of setting up individual routes on employee machines.


I am trying to disable Game Center on El Capitan How do I disable, delete, or hide Game Center on El Capitan?

I have already tried Terminal deletion, but to no avail.

To disable Game Center on Mac OS X:

Open Game Center. In the menu bar, select Account > Sign Out. If you don't want to sign out, you can instead click Account > Settings, then uncheck "Allow Invites", "Nearby Players", "Contacts", and "Facebook". After you've done one or both of these two things, go to System Preferences > Notifications > Game Center > Game Center alert style > None.


Start the process WindowServer per Terminal I have to start the WindowServer Via the Terminal:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Resources/WindowServer

I can not use

killall -HUP WindowServer

because the process is not running.
Can it without reboot the system?

Found it by:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3466991?tstart=0

launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer.plist
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer.plist


How can I improve the positioning of new windows? Is there a setting to improve the positioning of new application windows?

I'm not looking to specify the location of a window and have it open there every time. I'd much rather have an improved default placement.

For example, if I open a new terminal window from here:

there is a bunch of "free" space available for the new window, so ideally something like this would happen:

but instead a new window will be placed like this:

which is pretty terrible in my opinion, since I'm losing the context of the first
window and there is still a ton of empty space.

Any tips and improvements are much appreciated, if possible without installing
3rd party apps.

Writing a new window manager or hacking finder is hard to override this very intentional design decision that's baked into the system.

Third party window managers are much easier to implement than to change existing code that Apple intends to own/patch/update. Also, you don’t have to fund (in time, expertise or $) all the development effort yourself as many are window managers are inexpensive or free (even though you expressed the desire to not add a third party solution).

I really like divvy for the use case I think you are seeking (and liked it as well as Moom in the past)

What Window Management Options exist for OS X?

Also, terminal lets you save window sets, so if you just want one layout to start, that’s something easily done without a third party app.


MBP Headphone Jack Doesn't Work in OS X but does in Windows I bought a brand new Mid-2012 MacBook Pro 13" from Apple. Ever since I've had it, it's had this quirky bug where headphones are only recognized if they're plugged in before the computer is woken up: the computer has to be either turned off or put to sleep every time I want to plug in my headphones. I called Apple Support and went through all the usual stuff and some not-so-usual stuff, but the problem still persists. I, along with multiple tech support guys from Apple, finally just concluded it was a hardware issue. I never bothered to take it into the store to get fixed, and the problem never went away (no surprise there).

Today, after living with this and doing nothing about it for months, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise using BootCamp, and in Windows, headphones work perfectly all the time. I've just been living with this issue since I've had a workaround, but this makes me think there must be some way of making the jack work properly in OS X, too.

Any ideas on what could be causing this problem or how to fix it? What would be different about Windows 7 that would make it act differently?

Here's what I've already tried:

Resetting the PRAM and SMC
Ensuring that no weird audio drivers or services were installed (the Apple Support guy and I went through my /Library and ~/Library with a fine-tooth comb)
Re-installing the OS fresh (in fact, since then, I've changed hard drives and installed fresh a second time)
Cleaning out the headphone jack itself
Using a different set of headphones (any of them that use the 1/8th inch jack don't work in OS X but do in Windows; Bluetooth and USB headphones work fine)
Ensuring that everything is attached correctly inside the MBP (no frayed wires, no loose connections, etc.)

It's entirely likely you have a situation where the drivers on Windows are not detecting a faulty hardware condition and thus continue to send signal to the copper ports. Your Mac may be sending the audio to the TOSlink (optical) portion of the jack.

See this other question for details and a similar answer by @chico on his experience getting around this hardware failure by using different OS / drivers.


What is the ApplicationsStorageExtension process on macOS? I heard my MacBook Air's fan running loudly, so I opened Activity Monitor. I see that a process named "ApplicationsStorageExtension" has a high number for % CPU. How do I kill that process?
Duplicates:

Process group "ApplicationsStorageExtension" eating my RAM? : MacOS - Reddit
applicationstorageextension on big sur eating up memory - Apple Community

Did you leave About This Mac open with Storage selected?
I think ApplicationsStorageExtension calculates how much storage your Mac is using.
To stop it:

Choose About This Mac from the Apple menu  (located in the top-left corner of your screen).
Close the window that appears.


Can Notification Center be made black/dark in macOS Sierra beta? How do you get Notification Center to be dark/black in macOS Sierra beta? I had it that way in OS X El Capitan but cannot find how to do it in new beta.

Since the macOS Sierra update (Including Betas) the Notification Panel no longer uses the Dark Mode option, therefore it is permanently in light mode. This is an intended feature.

When Dark Mode is enabled on macOS Mojave or later, it will appear dark:


How to remove chrome app icons from launchpad? I uninstalled Google chrome by deleting it from the Applications folder and I also deleted the associated profile data from ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome

But I have failed to remove all the chrome apps icons from launchpad.

I would greatly appreciate it if you can point to the location where google is keeping those app launchers. I have looked for them in the hidden folders as well as Google folders in ~/Library but I have had no luck.

Thanks in advance.

Open Finder, select Go/Go to Folder... (⇧⌘G), paste in:

~/Applications/Chrome Apps.localized

Delete the apps from there.

(Note that ~ means your user folder, not the regular Applications folder which is at /Applications without ~.)

Finally, empty the trash to remove from launchpad.

If you use Chrome Canary: it will have its own additional folder in ~/Applications.


Why is there no 'Recovery HD' listed when holding 'option' on startup, however, 'Recovery HD' is shown in terminal with 'diskutil list' command? When I hold 'option' during boot I only am shown a 'Macintosh HD' disk to boot from. There is no 'Recovery HD' available.

Using the 'diskutil list' command in terminal reveals that I do have a Recovery HD partition.

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            250.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +249.8 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 36DB2BF6-94A5-4FAA-8D39-94E622E2597F
                                 Unencrypted

Why is the 'Recovery HD' not displayed when I want to choose my startup disk by holding 'option' on boot?

MacBook Pro Retina running OS EL Capitan 10.11.6

Note I found this idea while searching, that suggests converting my Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD with virtual Apple_HFS drive into a physical Apple_HFS drive using the command $ diskutil corestorage revert /dev/disk1. The OP couldn't boot into Recovery mode but was also having problems booting into any HDD with OS X (while I can boot normally into my HDD just fine). https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/solved-cannot-boot-from-os-recovery-disk.175254/

Holding down the Option Key during boot allows you to choose from "user controlled/defined" startup disks (e.g. your Mac O/S, a Bootcamp O/S, a bootable USB, etc.) whereas holding down Command-R during boot boots from a Recovery Partition that was created during an O/S install. It would be nice if all the boot options were available together, but alas, they are not.


Install old version of Homebrew on Snow Leopard So I have a computer that is stuck on Snow Leopard.

How do I install Homebrew on such a old computer? Is this even possible?

I tried the following command:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

However this gives me an error about needing git and I don't know how to install an old version of that.

Apparently the way for Snow Leopard is to "install as normal" however that gives me this

...
curl: (35) error:1407742E:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:tlsv1 alert protocol version
Failed during: /bin/bash -o pipefail -c '/usr/bin/curl -fsSL https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/tarball/master | /usr/bin/tar xz -m --strip 1'
rogers-macbook:temp rdp$ curl https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/tarball/master
curl: (35) error:1407742E:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:tlsv1 alert protocol version

Work around:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install > install

now download https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/tarball/master in a browser, ex: to this filename ~/Downloads/Homebrew-brew-1.5.8-16-g1ca2ee6.tar.gz

now edit file named install, replace /usr/bin/curl -#{curl_flags} #{BREW_REPO}/tarball/master with cat ~/Downloads/Homebrew-brew-1.5.8-16-g1ca2ee6.tar.gz

next download https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/tarball/master in a browser, ex: to ~/Downloads/Homebrew-homebrew-core-bd37905.tar.gz

now edit install file, replace /usr/bin/curl -#{curl_flags} #{CORE_TAP_REPO}/tarball/master with cat ~/Downloads/Homebrew-homebrew-core-bd37905.tar.gz

now run it ruby install

You'll probably still need xcode installed, and use the steps in Brad Bell's answer to use it to install curl.

Another option (untested) might be to install xcode, then build curl locally from source (ex: download https://curl.haxx.se/download/curl-7.59.0.tar.bz2 with a browser, unzip it, build as normal to some temp location), put that location's bin folder first in your PATH, then run the normal homebrew installation instructions.

Tigerbrew might be an option as well.


Does the bootcamp with Windows 10 use the same kernel that the MacOS uses on a Macbook Pro? I am just wondering how the boot camp on the macbook pro works? Does it use the same exact kernel as the one that the MacOS uses? Or does bootcamp switch over to a kernel for the windows 10?

Windows works on a Mac that same as a PC. The words "Boot Camp" are associated with the following.

There is a Boot Camp Assistant application included with macOS that can download the Windows Support Software and aid in the installation and removal of Windows.
There is the "Boot Camp Support Software" (which has been renamed "Windows Support Software") which contains the Windows drivers and other software to be installed in Windows.
The name of the volume where Windows is installed is labeled "BOOTCAMP".
There is a Boot Camp application which is accessible from the Windows Control Panel and System Tray.

When you boot to Windows on a Mac, you are running an entirely difference operating system from macOS. If fact, once Windows is installed on your Mac, you could remove macOS entirely.


how can I add photos from an external drive to the new Photos I have a large library of old photos stored on my External Hard Drive (EHD). I would like t bring these old photos into Photos (Mac OS X Yosemite). How can I do this, what's the best way to do this?

Open the Photos app, go File -> Import, and navigate to the folder with the photos.

If the photos can't be imported using the Import feature in Photos and are in an iPhoto library, you could first open the library with iPhoto, go File -> Export, and export the originals. They could then be imported using the Photos app.


Safari bookmarks to CSV or excel is there a way to import or convert the bookmarks.html generated by safari bookmark export menu into a CSV that can be imported to excel with 2 columns, URL and Description?
The way it works actually is that the HTML file contains only descriptions with a clickable link and whether you import it to excel, you get only one column with the same theme: clickable links.

Export bookmarks from Safari into bookmarks.html
Open Terminal and run

sed -n '/
<A HREF/s/^.*
\(.*\)<\/A>/\1;"\2"/p' bookmarks.html > bookmarks.csv

This will create a ; separated list containing the URL and the name (in "").


Macbook Pro stuck booting after Sierra 10.12.1 update I have an MBP mid-2010, which had Sierra 10.12 running. I updated to 10.12.1 and now the MBP gets stuck booting at the screen with the Apple logo with the progress bar at 100%.

I have already tried recovery mode with first aid disk repair, but the MBP gets stuck booting afterwards as well.

What can I do to fix this?

my MBP is a Mid-2012 Retina, and I have had this issue with both the HP Printer Update 5.0 and 5.1. I successfully ignored the update for a while, but tried today and ended up with the same problem. Here's a step-by-step fix that helped me get back on the road:

The Fix (if this sounds scary, don't do it - find someone who is comfortable with  this process to help you):

Hold the power button until your machine shuts off.
Hold the 'command' and 'R' keys simultaneously, then start your machine. Wait
for the chimes before you let go.
You will boot into the recovery partition.
Open the 'terminal' application (hint: it's in a menu)
cd /Volumes/'your volume name here'/Library/Extensions (to figure out your volume name, type 'cd /Volumes', then type 'ls' to see the list of available volumes. The one you want to use is the one you normally boot into.
type 'ls - l' when you are in the Extensions directory of your boot Volume, and confirm that you see the directory 'hp_io_enabler.kext'
type 'rm -rf hp_io_enabler.kext' this will recursively delete the directory and all contents. the f means 'force'.
if you like, type 'ls -l' to confirm that the 'lil guy is gone.
quit the Terminal and reboot your machine to the normal Startup.
get on with your life!

To hide specific updates in Sierra, right-click (Command click) on the specific update, and select the convenient 'Hide Update' that appears. How easy is that?


Boot Camp Windows partition lost after El Capitan upgrade I upgraded through App Store, and after the upgrade, the boot select screen no longer shows my Windows partition, nor the recovery disk. Running diskutil list yields the following:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *320.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            222.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data                         39.0 GB    disk0s4
/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +221.6 GB   disk1
                             Logical Volume on disk0s2
                             9678D097-D642-4108-813B-E10AF9578FE3
                             Unlocked Encrypted

Disk Utility first aid passed with no error.

As far as I can remember, I allocated 100GB or so for the Windows partition. Now I wonder how I can get that back without reinstalling a clean Windows.

Running gpt shows the following:

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         MBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  433593744      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  434003384    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  435272920  113699624
  548972544   76169216      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  625141760        655
  625142415         32         Sec GPT table
  625142447          1         Sec GPT header

Since I need to work with both operations urgently, I have wiped out the entire 320GB drive using an OS X Yosemite startup USB.


How do I eliminate SMTP servers in the settings that I no longer use? Earlier today, I asked a question about SMTP server settings on my iPhone (iOS 11.2.5).  I've more or less figured that one out.  I realize that it doesn't really matter, but how do I get rid of all these extra SMTP entries that I no longer need?

From the same screen as your screenshot, click each of those smtp servers.  On the next screen at the bottom in red “delete server”.


How can I install Snow Leopard on a new iMac or install FCP6 on Lion? I'm in a situation where I purchased a new iMac and need to install my editing software (Final Cut Pro and After Effects).  Only thing is I have FCP 6 (Studio 2) and also FCP 7 (Studio 2) upgrade install DVDs and Lion won't install FCP 6 because it containts PPC code.

I'd like to either:

install Snow Leopard on this computer, but I'm not sure if I need certain firmware drivers (anyone know where to get them and create a brand new Snow Leopard install DVD?)
or, at the very least, I would like to be able to install my video software on Lion.

The problem is that new iMacs probably don't support Snow Leopard. Perhaps upgrading a Snow Leopard installation with all the apps you need already on it could work.

Well, I see 1 possibility: install Snow Leopard on an external HD (using a computer that supports Snow Leopard) with all the latest Apple updates, then install FCP. Once that's done, use Disk Utility or Carbon Copy Cloner to clone this external HD onto your iMac, then see first if it's starts and behaves correctly, then try the upgrade to Lion.

This is the jist of it, but if you need more instructions, let me know.