Why does the file size change when you change the "open with" option in Get Info? Create a plain text file with the string ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.
Check the file size. It is 26 bytes, as expected.
Go to Get Info, and find the pane labeled "Open with..."
It says "TextEdit" by default.
Change it to something else. I changed it to "Microsoft Word".
Boom. The file is now suddenly 1,364 bytes (8 KB on disk) large.
Now I will change the box back to "TextEdit".
It stays at 1,364 bytes.

So my question is, what exactly happened here?

Why did the file size grow when I changed the program that opens it?
And why did it not revert when I changed it back to the default? How do I revert it?

If you open the file, the string content is intact. So, how exactly are all those extra bytes being used? If OSX says that it is 1kb large, then surely there is 1kb of stuff in it?

OSX Mountain Lion.

Not sure but it MIGHT be the MS Word icon that takes the extra space.

Try this, get info on the file after you have changed it back from an MS Word document.

Click on the icon in the upper left corner

Press COMMAND-X (cut)

close the window

re-open it and see what the size is....

Just spitballing here...


How to uninstall mySIMBLHelper service installed by SIMBL for MAC I wanted to install Atop which required SIMBL to be installed.
Nothing at the process stated that SIMBL 0.7.5 wasn't compatible with Mojave 10.14.
It started to pop confirmation if I want it to control xyz application.
I then started to check to uninstall it and loss a lot of time.

The process is commented in here https://github.com/w0lfschild/mySIMBL/issues/102
1. Disable SIP:

Boot into Recovery mode: Restart and hold cmd+r
In Menu -> Toolings -> Start “Terminal”
$ csrutil disable; reboot

Run the script and perform uninstallation. It deletes a list of files.
https://github.com/w0lfschild/mySIMBL/issues/102
re enable SIP

same as (1) change to "enable" to re-enable SIP

THE PROBLEM IS A DAEMON mySIMBLHelper IS NOT UNINSTALLED

I checked the files that it opens, and there are at least 2 places that are not deleted by the script:

"$HOME/Library/Caches/org.w0lf.mySIMBLHelper"
"/private/var/folders/tl/*/T/AppTranslocation/*/d/mySIMBL.app"

However the second one, can not be deleted because is a mounted file and it contains a copy of the original mySIMBL.

  I tried restarting in SAFE MODE holding SHIFT at boot to force the
  flush of temp files but didn't worked.

The to gather more information I got to dump with launchctl

launchctl dumpstate > dump.txt

It shows up dozens of services with the next line included

domain = com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.rg.w0lf.mySIMBLHelper.3734

while it also shows that service as well

com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.rg.w0lf.mySIMBLHelper.3734 = {
    type = process
    handle = 3734
    active count = 27
    on-demand count = 1
    service count = 26
    active service count = 0
    activity ratio = 0.00
    originator = /private/var/folders/tl/yytk78b9195dbtvrhmhvfn100000gn/T/AppTranslocation/D5C172B8-7F7A-4E7E-B147-18B24DD76FDA/d/mySIMBL.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/mySIMBLHelper.app/Contents/MacOS/mySIMBLHelper
    creator = mySIMBLHelper.3734
    creator euid = 501
    uniqueid = 3734
    external activation count = 0
    security context = {
        uid = 501
        asid = 100064
    }
...

I need help to uninstall it or to stop it from running.

I can't even find the file where it is fired.

Could you help me please?

Ok.. So I found the way myself.
The next are all the files that need to be added to the script.
I deleted them manually, so I am not sure if it will work without editing.

With this, mySIMBLHelper stoped starting and all the dumpstate shown with by launchctl.
Hope it helps.

"$HOME/Library/Caches/org.w0lf.mySIMBLHelper"
"/private/var/folders/tl/*/T/AppTranslocation/*/d/mySIMBL.app"
"/private/var/folders/tl/*/C/org.w0lf.mySIMBLHelper"
"$HOME/Library/Preferences/org.w0lf.mySIMBL.plist"
"$HOME/Library/Preferences/org.w0lf.mySIMBLHelper.plist"
"$HOME/Library/Caches/org.w0lf.mySIMBLHelper"

Don't try SIMBL !!


Mac - External hard drive backups I have two external hard drives, WD 320GB and a WD 1TB.

I would like to backup my WD 320GB on a regular basis. Please could you inform me of a good application which could provide these needs:

Backup compression (not just copy and
pasting the files)
Support for FAT-32
Possibly scheduling

The external hard drives are in a FAT-32 format because they are sometimes used on a windows computer.

I have used Get Backup and it doesn't seem to work, as it has an error about copying files with the same name but different extensions

Thanks

Have you tried Xupport?

  Xupport is a multipurpose system utility for Mac OS X. It provides many features to configure hidden Mac OS X and Unix options, to increase system security and performance, to maintain and backup Mac OS X, and to dig deeper into the world of Unix. Xupport 3 is fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard) and 10.6 (Snow Leopard), and is available as Universal Application for PowerPC and Intel Macs.

Available here


What are possible reasons for external keyboard input lag? I have a "Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic" keyboard, connected with USB to my Mac 13" (from 2018). The keyboard input starts to lag at some random times. I have been using the keyboard on my older Mac 15" (from 2015) for more than a year and never had a problem. Both Macs are with the same OSX version (Mojave 10.14.4).

I thought the problem is in the batteries (it uses 2xAAA batteries). Changed them with brand new ones. Issue persists.

I tried connecting a Magic Apple keyboard and at moments when the Microsoft keyboard lags, the Apple one does not.

Most often the problem happens within the browser, but continues persisting in Slack, IDEs and other apps. It is strange, thought, that the lag occurrences are not connected to higher load on the CPU or memory.

The lagging sounds like wireless interference to me.

Many devices can be the culprit; wireless routers, displays, other Bluetooth and WiFi enabled devices, and even devices attached via USB 3.0 cables with poor shielding.

The closer you can get your USB dongle to the keyboard, and the further it can be from sources of interference, the better. A good USB extension cable might be what you need to take care of this issue.


In macOS 10.14 (Mojave), can Finder remember previously opened tabs like Safari pin tabs? First of all, I am not asking to re-open Finder tabs on OS reboot, we all know it works.

I am asking for a solution when I accidentally clicked on the red-cross (aka close window button) on Finder window, it cause Finder to lose all currently opened tabs.

I know this is the expected behavior, but can I change it somehow? I have come to rely on it in macOS 10.12-10.13 (Sierra and High Sierra), when Finder window always remember previously opened tabs even if you close it yourself.

Some say the behavior in 10.12/10.13 is a bug, other argues it was working in Mavericks 10.9, but was broken by Apple in Yosemite 10.10, and later fixed then re-break. Both could be true. But is there a solution to get this behavior back?

The best I could find is a AppleScript that open tabs, but it doesn't really restore tabs as it simply doesn't have the information to restore a previously closed window.

Is there a solution out there I am not aware of?

Me too, also annoyed by this new behavior. Not really an answer, but here is a snippet of the AppleScript I'm using to save the opened tabs to an array fot

tell application "Finder"
    set windowCount to number of windows
end tell

set fot to {}

tell application "Finder"
    repeat with x from 1 to windowCount
        set tn to (target of window x as alias)
        copy tn to the end of the fot
    end repeat
end tell

The array can then dumped to a temporary file e.g. foo, where foo follows the Applescript format of posix file paths using colons, e.g. set foo to "full:path:to:file", then

try
    set dataStream to open for access file foo with write permission
    set eof of dataStream to 0
    write fot to dataStream starting at eof as list
    close access dataStream
on error
    try
        close access file foo
    end try
end try

You can then read the file (e.g. foo) at a later time to restore the tabs,

set foo to "full:path:to:file"
set readdat to (read file fphds as list)

repeat with i from 1 to length of readdat
    set tb to item i of readdat
    tell application "Finder"
        activate
        open tb
    end tell
end repeat

The order of the opened tabs might be changed (I think the order is current tab followed by tabs sorted by their creation date), and to my knowledge, unlike safari, finder does not have the tab properties accessible to AppleScript (to AppleScript, tabs and windows of finder are indistinguishable). I'm using the snippet with hammerspoon (a lua scripting tool) to manually save/restore using keyboard shortcuts. Hammerspoon also has api to detect window losing focus(deactivate) so this may be potentially automated.

If speed is not a concern, you may try doing the whole thing in hammerspoon (no need for temp file, keeping tab orders but can take a second or two. primitive code, may break in some edge cases):

get_finder_ctab = [[tell application "Finder"
    set tn to (target of the front window as alias)
end tell

get POSIX path of tn
]]

tab_save = {}

function h_save_finderTab()
    fapp = hs.application.get'Finder'
    hs.application.launchOrFocus("Finder")
    num_ftab = fapp:focusedWindow():tabCount()
    tab_save = {}
    for i=1, num_ftab do
        fapp:focusedWindow():focusTab(i)
        runokay,tab_save[i],_ = hs.osascript.applescript(get_finder_ctab)
    end
end

function h_restore_finderTab()
    for _,t in ipairs(tab_save) do
        hs.open(t)
    end
end

Alternative

If it's a one-time thing like clicking the red-cross by accident, you may also try hold down the option key then right click finder icon in dock, then choose "Relaunch", which can trigger Finder to read the saved state (I find sometimes it may be not up to date and may restore an old tab list)


If my top button on my iphone 4 doesn't work can I turn on my phone without connecting it to a charger? I know that if your top button doesn't work and you turn off your phone then you can turn your phone back on by connecting it to a charger but is there a way to turn my phone on when the top button doesn't work without connecting my phone to a charger ?

No, there is no way to do it. To make things easier,  you could turn on Assistive Touch, but it doesn't work when iPhone is turned off.


CPU completely occupied by strange programs with person names Anyone knows why this happens and how to resolve it?
they show up out of nowhere and stay until I kill each manually.
some of these names change to something new too.
I thought this might be because I left the root access open so I closed it later..

Immediately disconnect from the Internet!

A possibly compromised system should not remain connected to a network or the Internet so as to stop any possible data breach! Even if a data breach has already occurred, the first step is to disconnect as a step to mitigate damages.
Power down the system and boot it from an external source that is outfitted with the tools to examine the infected disk and take appropriate action.
Run a malware scanner on your computer as malware process names are often randomised from a list. One of these should give you some indication of whether anything is wrong from a malware point of view:

Malwarebytes for Mac
Sophos for Mac
Avast


Apple Watch won't unlock MacBook Pro unless watch is restarted My issue is unlocking my Mac with the Apple Watch feature.
I've read where turning off the watch and phone will then in turn allow me to unlock my Mac.  This works, the problem is, I have to do this every single day.  Since enabling this feature, I haven't gone two days in a row without having to restart my watch/phone to be able to use this feature.  Once I do this, the feature works great all day.  But it's very frustrating to have to do this on a daily basis.

Note: I turn my Mac off at night and turn in on in the morning at work.
Anyone else having this same problem, or know of a fix?

Apple Watch OS: 3.1(14S471) 1st Gen watch
iPhone OS: 10.2(14C92) iPhone 5s
Macbook Pro OS: macOS Sierra 10.12.1 15-inch late 2013

This appears to have been fixed in macOS 10.12.2.
From Apples release notes:
Improves setup and reliability of Auto Unlock.
Today was the first day I haven't had to restart my phone and watch!


iTunes permissions on second drive I upgraded my mac to use an SSD for System and Applications and moved Users to a second HDD. iTunes will not allow me to authorize.

Here are my paths:

/Mac/... (System, etc)

/Volumes/Pig/Users/
  /Volumes/Pig/Users/arrow
  /Volumes/Pig/Users/Shared
  /Volumes/Pig/Users/wildcat

Currently permissions on Pig are 755 system:wheel on /Pig, /Pig/Users, and /Pig/Users/Shared.

Error on starting iTunes:

You do not have enough access privileges for this operation

Error on authorization attempt:

There was an error storing your authorization information on this computer.

The required directory was not found or has a permissions error. Correct this permissions problem and try again, or deauthorize this computer if the permissions cannot be changed.

This computer was previously authorized. I've deauthorized everything in my account so now we're starting zero. I've also followed the Apple Support Article regarding this issue. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1277?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

I understand the gist of what's going on here, I'm just not sure how permissions need to be set up on the second HDD to accommodate iTunes.

Thanks~~

Here's the deal w/ iTunes in regards to moving your Users directory to a separate drive or partition; it turns out that the Shared directory must remain on the system drive. For example, in my context the path should be /Mac/Users/Shared where 'Mac' is my system drive. The other users stay in /Volumes/Pig/Users/..., i.e., arrow and wildcat.

I believe the permissions I listed above are incorrect and they've since been changed to:

/Volumes/Pig - 644 system:admin

/Volumes/Pig/Users - 644 system:admin

/Mac/Users/Shared - 777 arrow:admin

Correcting the permissions to their current settings didn't solve the problem on it's own, moving Shared to the same drive as the iTunes binary did.


My iPhone won't show any Discord iOS push notifications, yet it will show them from other apps I've already tried checking all of my settings, and everything is in order.
Notifications enabled both in and out of Discord, yet I still don't get any notifications.
Help? I've already uninstalled and reinstalled discord, and restarted my phone a few times.

This is a Discord “feature” that you can’t turn off. Discord will not send mobile notifications if the desktop app is open (official staff response). Here are some community posts requesting Discord to change this feature:

Allow 0 minute setting for "Push Notification AFK timeout"
Displaying Discord Notifcations on the Phone and the Computer at the same time.
push notifications not sent on android

Discord tries to avoid being annoying in the hopes that it reduces the chance that you uninstall it by not sending push notifications when it thinks you are active at your computer. There is a setting to set the number of minutes Discord waits after you become inactive at your computer prior to resuming push notification in the desktop app under Settings / Notifications. You can only set this down to 1 minute. So you won’t get push notifications until Discord thinks you’ve not been at your computer for at least a minute. But apparently Discord likes to think that many people are using their computers even when they aren’t much of the time.
People report that fully quitting the desktop app of Discord sometimes triggers Discord to start sending push notifications to your phone immediately. You can still use Discord from a web browser without affecting push notifications if you don’t need any features from the desktop app.


Why does my Asus PB277Q screen keep waking up while the Mac it is connected to is sleeping? Whenever I put my Macbook Pro running High Sierra to sleep my Asus PB277Q keeps waking up displaying a blue screen saying 'HDMI no signal' every few seconds, forever. Some other times it sleeps normally, and I can't tell what is causing the behavior.

From what I can tell the Mac itself is asleep. It makes no sound, Bluetooth is off, Wake for network access is off, sharing (internet for example) is off, removing USB devices changes nothing. The screen is connected to a Displayport to HDMI/DVI/VGA adapter, which in turn is connected to the screen over an HDMI cable.

Any ideas what else I can try?

This is because this monitor is for 75 hz but in high sierra or later I think this feature not work good now, I have this monitor and I have this problem, but you can use this monitor with your make, you go to display settings, select this monitor and change HZ 75 to 60 and it's works good.


Can one pan across a panorama photo that is longer than the screen in Keynote? The panorama photo is displayed in the center of the view area in Keynote, cutting off both the left and right ends. I would like to have the photo displayed first from the left and then pan across to the right.

What you're looking for is similar to the "Ken Burns Effect", so named for the documentary director that made the technique famous.

Steps to complete in Keynote:

Import an image larger than your slide, and resize as necessary, but ensuring it remains larger than the slide area.
On the Build Inspector, click on the Action tab and select "Move" from the Effect drop-down.
Increase the duration of the effect as desired.
Modify the movement path (represented by the red line over the slide) so that the end point is to the left of the start point, on a straight line.


27" CinemaDisplay with (non Bootcamp) Windows 7 I've seen various posts around the net that getting my 27" CinemaDisplay working with a native install of Windows 7 is apparently possible, but I cannot seem to get this working.

I have a Radeon HD 5770 in my PC: http://www.amazon.com/ATI-RADEON-VIDEO-GRAPHICS-0GCJ42/dp/B005F6SMOU

This card has a DisplayPort socket which I am connecting to my monitor with: http://www.frys.com/product/8001294?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Does anyone have any info on how exactly they have this working?

I've downloaded the BootCamp 3.1 and 3.2 EXE's, but they both require 3.0 to run. I cannot find 3.0 online anywhere.

I've used the Boot Camp Assistant on my iMac running Mavericks, and installed the drivers it downloads to a USB key.
Running the setup.exe in the WindowsSupport directory and also running setup.exe in the BootCamp directory both immediately
start, then error with: "The installed encountered errors before Boot Camp could be configured".

If I go to the Drivers/Apple/ section, under either dir I can install the "AppleDisplayInstaller64.exe" just fine and it says the Apple driver is installed,
but my monitor does not turn on.

Also downloading "BootCamp5.1.5640.zip" from the Apple website and trying to run setup.exe states: "This version of Boot Camp is not intended for this computer model"

Is there any way to fix this? This just seems to be a driver issue.

Is it because my card doesn't have a native Mini DisplayPort and the adapter is causing an issue?

Thanks!

It's hard to tell what is your problem connected with, I'd rather try connecting another monitor to the videocard you have so that it could be possible to check whether your DisplayPort is working or not?

As to the bootcamp install on Windows the following worked well for me:

in the folder BootCamp\Drivers\Apple BootCamp.msi is located.
Try launching it with Admin privileges using context menu


Is this "Security Info Required" prompt legitimate? I attempted to install an application this afternoon, and was presented with the below security screen stating:

Security Info Required
To help ensure the security  of your Apple ID,
you must confirm your password and answer your security questions.

I have never seen this prompt before, and wanted to confirm that it was legitimate and from Apple, and not something triggered by the new app (though it doesn't appear to have installed). I cancelled out of the prompt for now.

Yes it is. Here's Ars Technica reporting on the matter:

  "Apple has begun to ask iOS device owners for the answers to security
  questions as part of an effort to beef up Apple ID security. iPhone
  users began widely reporting the change on Thursday, though the
  changes actually began happening sometime in the last 24 hours. Not
  all iOS users have seen the request pop up yet, however, leaving some
  confused about whether the prompt is legitimately from Apple.

  The prompt that shows up on an iOS device says "Security Info
  Required." It proceeds to ask the user to select from a handful of
  security questions and provide answers."

The screenshot in the article is identical to yours:


No sound on after installing Big Sur Device: MBP 13 2017 no Touch Bar
Problem: can't hear anything. Sound is not working at all


How do I reset iPhone if hard reset (power + home) won't work I have an iPhone that is frozen while browsing with Safari (it happens all the time). I am aware that holding down the power button with the home button for 10 seconds is supposed to reset the phone. It does not. I have held down for 60 sec or longer at least 10 times, to no avail.

What other options exist to force the phone to reboot, other than waiting for the power to exhaust itself completely after several hours?

I finally got it restarted.

I pressed the home button first, for about 3 seconds by itself, then I came in afterward with a press of the power button, and it restarted within 15 seconds.


.xls file attachments in Gmail opens, by default, with Numbers I am using latest version of OS X, whenever I want to download an .xls file from email attachment, it opens, by default, with Numbers and the file is not downloaded on my machine. How can I change this default behaviour?

Right click on an Excel file.
Click: "Get Info"
Set the "Open with:" selector dialogue to whichever app you choose.
In the "Open with:" section, there is "Change All..." button to change all files with the same extension.


How can I get old instruments on Garageband so I can play my old files? I made a bunch of songs in Garageband a few years ago, on my old MacBookPro (ended up with Mountain Lion, I believe). When I open them on my new computer (a MacBookAir running Yosemite) some of the instruments (it's usually the drum kits) are not available. It gives me this pop up:

How can I get those old instruments so that these old files can be played and edited again?

The 4th column, Purchased. If it is empty that ends that unless you used a different Apple ID.


Using 2 themes in Keynote'13 Ok, so I've choose "white" theme while creating a presentation. Can I somehow add slides from black theme? Or can I change theme of my presentation?

It doesn't look like you can do it in Keynote 2013 as Apple has removed this feature with this version.

An idea that you could do is to make a new Keynote file with the secondary theme that you want, copy the slide, and then paste the slide into your presentation.


How to copy MP3 from PC to iPhone 4s without iTunes How can I sync my MP3 collection on my Windows 7 PC with my iPhone 4S without having to use iTunes?

Here are two alternatives both for free:

For Windows: SharePod

For Mac: DeTune


Multiple Wi-Fi Services on Mac At home, I have my own network. I have set up a DHCP fixed-address connection for that.

However, not all networks like that, and so I have set up another Service in Network preferences that just uses plain DHCP.

However, I can't set them to only connect to certain networks: changing settings in the Advanced window adjusts them for all Wi-Fi Services. This means I have both connections going.

How do I change the settings for just one Service, so I can set it to only connect to a certain network?

This is the purpose of a Location. With only one Wi-Fi service, create a new location at the top of the window. Settings such as DHCP only apply to the currently selected location. Locations can be switched from this menu or from anywhere using the Apple menu once created.


How to setup a specific application to open all files with unknown extension I am trying to open some files with unknown extension and it always ask me to choose an application from local or AppStore.

The problem is, I sometimes need to generate some text file with extensions like ".backups",".config" or even some random text like ".abc123". It means on my Mac, in most time files with unknown extensions can be read by a text editor (personally I prefer Sublime Text).

Is it possible that all files with unknown extension can be automatically opened with a default application like Sublime Text?

This is different from Choose a default app for opening files with no extension? which asks about how to handle files without extension. Here I'm looking for a way to handle unknown extensions (kind of a wildcard rule).

I don't think that's possible. OS's usually needs register how to handle each file first.

But it's not all lost: here is a situation that Automator can handle easily.

Here I'll show you, how to create a item menu in the right click context menu, that you can easily select to open your file, better than Open With option.

Steps:

Create a new Service with Automator.

Set files or folders in the first field and Finder.app in the second.

Add an action called ‘Open Finder Items’ and select your application.

For last, save it and name it as you wish.

Now, if you need open a file with unknown extension, just right click and select your newly created service.

‘Define application for files’ action does not work for file extension, is just for a particular file.


How Does FileVault 2 Full Disk Encryption Affect SSD Garbage Collection I'm trying to learn how full disk encryption using Filevault 2 will impact SSD garbage collection.  My understanding is that garbage collection involves moving pages in blocks with free space to empty locations on the drive.  However, if Filevault 2 encrypts the entire drive, will the SSD recognize free space as free?  And if not, won't that dramatically increase write amplification and decrease the life of the SSD?

I've found a lot of posts on FileVault 2 and TRIM (consensus is it works) and FileVault 2 and SSD performance (consensus is so long as your SSD doesn't have a Sandforce controller - which uses compression - the performance impact is minor), but I'm having less luck learning about how FileVault 2 and garbage collection.

First off, SSD garbage collection and Trim are very different animals. Garbage collection is based on moving existing data, deleting stale data and creating empty blocks in which to write new data. The drive's understanding of the data is nothing more or less than data is there or it isn't. There is no concept of a file system in an SSD's controller. All writes are done at the block level rather than the page level and a block must be erased before it can be written. A drive's garbage collector knows nothing whatsoever about FileVault.

In basic garbage collection without Trim, when the OS deletes the file, it doesn't actually say anything to the controller about the data being stale and available for deletion. The OS merely tracks the address space. The drive will understand that the data is stale in that address if/as/when the OS gives the drive a write command for that address.

So, where Trim comes in is that when a file is deleted at the OS level, the controller on the drive is immediately given the information that the data at that particular address is stale. That enables the drive to handle its housekeeping as soon as convenient upon deletion. And that reduces write amplification.

The improvement of Trim on SSD performance is true even with SandForce. See:

http://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=345371&d=1340805193

The diagram clearly indicates that there is increased free space for garbage collection with Trim enabled even when using DuraWrite technology.

That out of the way, on to the meat of your question about FileVault 2: Because garbage collection occurs in the SSD without any knowledge of file systems, there is no difference to the SSD whether FV has been enabled or not. To the SSD, there is either valid data, stale data or no data at a particular address.

While whole-disk encryption gives the impression that the data is locked inside a suitcase. That isn't the case. FV2 is scrambling the bits being stored in the pages and blocks. The file allocation and structure of the file system itself remains the same whether FV2 is used or not. And this helps explain why a user can continue to use their system even when a disk is being encrypted or decrypted.

So, in summary, Trim is an enhancement to garbage collection and should be enabled regardless of the controller in use. FileVault 2 will not cause problems for SSDs and users can expect normal write amplification, performance degradation, etc. over time for FV2-encrypted SSDs versus non-encrypted SSDs of the same make on the same system with equivalent use. FV2 volumes will benefit from the use of Trim just as much as non-FV2 volumes.

My system: Early-2008 MacBook4,1; OS X Lion 10.7.5; Crucial M500 960GB SSD; FV2 encrypted; Trim enabled

Useful links for further reading:

http://blog.macsales.com/11051-to-trim-or-not-to-trim-owc-has-the-answer

Does FileVault 2 interfere with TRIM when using an SSD?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3202467?tstart=0

https://superuser.com/questions/315803/how-do-i-resize-a-filevault-2-encrypted-partition (not necessarily 100% related, but still interesting and relevant)


iPhone 5 and updates from my Hotmail.com account Just got my new iPhone issued to me at work.  When I put in my Hotmail.com address it automatically attached all those contacts to my phone.  Since that time I have gone into the Hotmail.com contacts and cleaned it all up by deleting many unused and old contacts.
How do I get the phone to now update the new contact list??

Nevermind,  I found my answer at How to Geek  howtogeek.com


How do I re-enable the Press and Hold character picker on OS X Lion? I disabled the character picker by reading this other question, but I want to remove that change and restore the picker.

When I type -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true into Terminal, it does not work.

How can I re-enable the Press & Hold character picker after disabling it?

The command to enable the Press & Hold character picker is as follows:

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true

Note the addition of defaults write which was missing from your command.

If it does not work in certain apps after performing this, restart/reload those apps (e.g. killall -HUP Finder). Alternatively, log out of your user or just reboot your computer.


How to get wiki and profile manager to run on different port Currently the wiki and the profile manager runs on port 443 (ssl).

We have other services using port 443 on our network, and therefore I cannot port forward that port to my Lion Server.

How can I get the wiki and the profile manager to run on a port other than port 443?

So I decided to research "Apache" without specifying "OS X" in my research.

I found that you can change the listen port in a conf file

$ mdfind httpd-ssl.conf

    # Found
    # /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-ssl.conf

$ cd /private/etc/apache2.extra
$ sudo nano httpd-ssl.conf

    # ctrl + w
    # 443

    # Change Listen 443 to Listen 4444
    # ctrl + o
    # ctrl + x

note: enabling root would allow you to listen on port 444


How to set a Reminder on iOS5 for a location AND date? I'd like to set a Reminder on iOS5 for my iPhone 4 for when I leave work on Friday... However, the app seems to allow only location OR date/time notifications (or you can have both independently). Is there any way to get them to work in conjunction with one another as I'd like?

This is not currently possible. The Location and Time conditions are applied in a disjunctive manner.


iTunes library pointing to completely wrong files Somewhere along the way, a significant portion of the songs in my iTunes library seem to be pointing to completely incorrect files (1640 of 9160, to be exact). I know there are tools and means for fixing files that are simply in a new/different folder and still have the same filename, but is there an easy/automated way to fix thousands of songs that are pointing to completely unrelated files?

Example from iTunes Library.xml:

    <dict>
        <key>Track ID</key><integer>13712</integer>
        <key>Name</key><string>Lover's Spit</string>
        <key>Artist</key><string>Broken Social Scene</string>
        <key>Album Artist</key><string>Broken Social Scene</string>
        <key>Album</key><string>You Forgot It In People</string>
        <key>Genre</key><string>Indie</string>
        <key>Kind</key><string>MPEG audio file</string>
        <key>Size</key><integer>11613871</integer>
        <key>Total Time</key><integer>382302</integer>
        <key>Disc Number</key><integer>1</integer>
        <key>Disc Count</key><integer>1</integer>
        <key>Track Number</key><integer>11</integer>
        <key>Year</key><integer>2002</integer>
        <key>Date Modified</key><date>2012-07-25T18:48:35Z</date>
        <key>Date Added</key><date>2010-10-20T18:39:51Z</date>
        <key>Bit Rate</key><integer>241</integer>
        <key>Sample Rate</key><integer>44100</integer>
        <key>Comments</key><string>Source: eMusic</string>
        <key>Play Count</key><integer>7</integer>
        <key>Play Date</key><integer>3427320429</integer>
        <key>Play Date UTC</key><date>2012-08-09T08:27:09Z</date>
        <key>Album Rating</key><integer>60</integer>
        <key>Album Rating Computed</key><true/>
        <key>Artwork Count</key><integer>1</integer>
        <key>Persistent ID</key><string>B664192E9854A1F1</string>
        <key>Track Type</key><string>File</string>
        <key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/Applications/_Productivity/Pages.app/Contents/Resources/Templates/Modern%20Photographer%20Invoice.template/Contents/Resources/zh_TW.lproj/</string>
        <key>File Folder Count</key><integer>10</integer>
        <key>Library Folder Count</key><integer>3</integer>
    </dict>

Notice the Location node, in particular. It's pointing to a Pages template file rather than its MP3 file: file:///Users/administrator/Music/Broken%20Social%20Scene/You%20Forgot%20It%20In%20People/11%20Lover's%20Spit.mp3.

Not even close to what it should be!

I've already tried the following things, to no avail:

Re-add Music folder to library — Unfortunately, this leaves me with duplicated entries. The broken item still remains, with play counts, ratings, etc. and the new item is started over from scratch. Not really ideal.
TuneUp and Rinse — I tried running it through the trials of TuneUp and Rinse, which didn't seem to catch on to the problem I was having.

My last resort idea is to setup a script that parses the XML and checks for non MP3 Location strings. When one is found, attempt to re-construct the filename based on iTunes's automatic filenaming convention (e.g. Lover's Spit above becomes 11%20-%20Lover's%20Spit.mp3. This likely would get me 90-95% there. The remaining items could be manually fixed.

Of course, that would involve a lot of scripting time and trial and error. I'm hoping there's a simpler solution to my problem.

Ideas?

I would suggest a combination of your first and last ideas. You could re-add your Music folder to your library, and then use a script to change the location of the old entries (correct metadata) to the new entries (correct locations).

Pseudocode rough draft:

for every song in the XML file (seek)
  search the rest of the XML file for other songs of the same name
  if only one is found (found)
    log seek's name to file1
    if found is newer than seek
      copy found's Location value to seek
      remove found
    else
      copy seek's Location value to found
      remove seek
  else if more than one is found
    log seek's name to file2 (for manual editing)
  else (no others are found)
    log seek's name to file3

This script design would assuredly be quite inefficient, but it would fix most problems itself, and you would (er, should) only have to review the songs with more than 2 duplicate versions.

See this answer for details on how to make these XML changes take effect on your library.


How to disable Lantern from startup? I installed Lantern a while back and I cannot find option to turn it off from startup and it is not in my Login Items list in my Users & Groups. I like to know how to disable lantern from startup.

OS X 11.11.1

You should be able to do it from UI.

Click on settings icon on the bottom right of lantern browser window:

You can disable auto-startup there.

If that doesn't work, try the following:

Try setting autolaunch to false in lantern config

~/Library/Application\ Support/Lantern/lantern-2.0.10.yaml

version: 3
cloudconfig: http://config.getiantem.org/cloud.yaml.gz
cloudconfigca: ""
addr: 127.0.0.1:8787
role: client
instanceid: 9b965155-2908-4292-b379-69f968f890f1
cpuprofile: ""
memprofile: ""
uiaddr: 127.0.0.1:16823
autoreport: true
autolaunch: true
stats:
  reportingperiod: "0"
  statshubaddr: pure-journey-3547.herokuapp.com
server:
  unencrypted: false
  country: ""
  registerat: ""
  portmap: 0
  frontfqdns: {}
  waddelladdr: ""


Cannot use VPN after install Charles web proxy I installed the Charles web proxy, now if I start VPN and without starting Charles, I cannot browse the web. The web browser says proxy error. But i unchecked all the proxy in web connections.

I wonder what Charles has done to my computer. Right now, I have to run Charles simultaneously with VPN, which is annoying. Anyway to solve it? Thanks.

Fixed.

Charles use itself as a web proxy to sniff on every request passing through the network interface. Besides turn off Charles in its proxy settings, you still need to check if the web proxy is turned of in your mac's network settings.

As every VPN has its own proxy settings, don't forget to turn off web proxy in VPN.


Finder sort order not alphabetical (again) I know you might be annoyed by those questions, but here is my specific problem:

A list of PDFs, which is in no explaineable way ordered non-alphabetical. It is consistent between list and column view. Does anyone see the logic behind this or knows a fix?

The naming pattern is Konto_cccccccc_Auszug_20XX_NNN.PDF where cccccccc is the account number, XX is the corresponding year, and NNN is the number of the statement, padded with leading zeros. The visible part is Konto_ccc and XX_NNN.PDF. All statements are from the same account (thus have the same number).

As visible in the image, the last two statements from 2017 are at the top. This happens with no other 10th and 11th statement though. Also 2018_001 is at the top, below the last 2017 statements (wich is correct, relatively).

This was an easy fix... The naming scheme of my bank actually changed, from Konto_cccccccc-Auszug_20XX_NNN.PDF to Konto_cccccccc_Auszug-20XX_NNN.PDF, which is kind of invisible to the human eye. Thanks for @Tetsujin for the recommendation to eliminate typos by copying one name to another!


Yosemite install stuck and I need help! My iMac is stuck after downloading Yosemite and opening the install.  It is stuck on the dark grey screen with white box in the center labeled Install OS X with the X in a circle below the text.  Status bar shows all the way blue, but no prompts.  I've tried shutting down, even unplugging for several days before restarting, and still stuck on the same screen.  Help!  This computer is essential for school.  Any words of wisdom would be appreciated!

Have you tried rebooting and pressing cmd+R (while booting), to get to your recovery partition and reinstalling Yosemite there?


Could not read LR from frame at 0x0000700005dc3ca8 My MacBook locks up and shuts down. I have read numerous threads but haven't been able to get the info to fix this.

I do get this error;

Root disk errors: "Could not recover SATA HDD after 5 attempts. Terminating."

I have an aftermarket HD. I installed this a few years ago. so other than the HD going bad not sure what else it could be.

I had El Capitan installed when this originated. I just recently installed Sierra.

Anonymous UUID:       DB85C25A-DACB-9477-FE00-F424E6DDED2F

Fri Aug  4 14:19:36 2017

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff801336b46f): initproc exited  -- exit reason namespace 2 subcode 0xa description: none

uuid info:
 0x110bb6000    uuid = <322c06b7-8878-311d-888c-c8fd2ca96ff3>
 0x10791a000    uuid = <0ac314b8-c89c-3912-8bb7-e3f92c847169>

Thread 5 crashed

RAX: 0x000000010791a000, RBX: 0x00007fffcc0eb108, RCX: 0x00007fffcc0eb108, RDX: 0x0000000110bf5978
RSP: 0x00007000060527e0, RBP: 0x00007000060527e0, RSI: 0x00000000000016f7, RDI: 0x0000000110bf8b18
R8:  0x00007fffcc0eb139, R9:  0x0000000000000000, R10: 0x0000000004001080, R11: 0x000000010795e188
R12: 0x0000000110bf8b18, R13: 0x00007ff8b202fa00, R14: 0x00000000000016f7, R15: 0x0000000110bf5978
RFL: 0x0000000000010206, RIP: 0x0000000110bc9fd4, CS:  0x000000000000002b, SS:  0x0000000000000023

Thread 0: 0xffffff801f0c34e8
    0x00007fffcc216386
      Could not read LR from frame at 0x0000700005dc3ca8

Thread 1: 0xffffff801f5e5050
    0x00007fffcc21e1e6
    0x00007fffcc0c724f
    0x0000000000000000

Thread 2: 0xffffff8020c0ddf0
    0x00007fffcc21f6ae
    0x00007fffcc0cea16
    0x00007fffcc0c4a6c
    0x00007fffcc0bc13b
    0x00007fffcc0cf7db
    0x00007fffcc0c2306
    0x00007fffcc0bb6b5
    0x00007fffcc0bb48c
    0x00007fffcc3085a2
    0x00007fffcc30807d
    0x0000000000000000

Thread 3: 0xffffff8023349b90
    0x00007fffcc308070

Thread 4: 0xffffff8023c19510
    0x0000000110bc9fd4
    0x0000000110bd2f8b
    0x0000000110bba86d
    0x00007fffcc0eb282
    0x000000010795e188
    0x00000001079459cd
    0x00007fffcc0b98fc
    0x00007fffcc0cea16
    0x00007fffcc0c4a6c
    0x00007fffcc0bc13b
    0x00007fffcc0cf7db
    0x00007fffcc0c2306
    0x00007fffcc0bb6b5
    0x00007fffcc0bb48c
    0x00007fffcc3085a2
    0x00007fffcc30807d
    0x0000000000000000

Thread 5: 0xffffff8023c14b90
    0x0000000110bc9fd4
    0x0000000110bd2f8b
    0x0000000110bba86d
    0x00007fffcc0eb282
    0x000000010795e188
    0x0000000107929510
    0x00007fffcc0b98fc
    0x00007fffcc0cea16
    0x00007fffcc0c4a6c
    0x00007fffcc0bc13b
    0x00007fffcc0cf7db
    0x00007fffcc0c2306
    0x00007fffcc0bb6b5
    0x00007fffcc0bb48c
    0x00007fffcc3085a2
    0x00007fffcc30807d
    0x0000000000000000

Mac OS version:
16G29

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 16.7.0: Thu Jun 15 17:36:27 PDT 2017; root:xnu-3789.70.16~2/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: D3314D98-5D40-3CD8-98A4-F1DD46C20E03
System model name: MacBookPro6,2 (Mac-F22586C8)
Root disk errors: "Could not recover SATA HDD after 5 attempts. Terminating."
Model: MacBookPro6,2, BootROM MBP61.0057.B1C, 2 processors, Intel Core i7, 2.66 GHz, 4 GB, SMC 1.58f17
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics, Intel HD Graphics, Built-In
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M, PCIe, 512 MB
Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 2 GB, DDR3, 1067 MHz, 0x802C, 0x384A53463235363634485A2D314731443120
Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 2 GB, DDR3, 1067 MHz, 0x802C, 0x384A53463235363634485A2D314731443120
AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0x93), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.106.98.100.26)
Bluetooth: Version 5.0.5f1, 3 services, 27 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Wi-Fi, AirPort, en1
Serial ATA Device: SanDisk SDSSDXPS960G, 960.2 GB
Serial ATA Device: MATSHITADVD-R   UJ-898
USB Device: USB 2.0 Bus
USB Device: Hub
USB Device: Card Reader
USB Device: Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
USB Device: BRCM2070 Hub
USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller
USB Device: USB 2.0 Bus
USB Device: Hub
USB Device: USB Receiver
USB Device: IR Receiver
USB Device: Built-in iSight
Thunderbolt Bus:

so other than the HD going bad not sure what else it could be.

The first rule of diagnostics is to not overlook the obvious.  So, the very first thing that you should do is diagnose the hard drive.

Run Apple Hardware Test (AHT).  Hold the D key while booting from a powered off state with the AC adapter connected and run the tests associated with the disk drive
Boot into recovery mode or with a USB installer (preferred) and via terminal issue the command diskutil info diskX | grep -i smart where diskX is the identifier of the drive in question.  To get this issue the command diskutil list

Once you have determined the viability of your drive, then you can move on to what the other ailments could possibly be.  Chances are, you will need to replace your hard drive because it's failing..  You mentioned that you already changed the HDD to an aftermarket one "a few years ago."  Depending on the brand and quality of the drive you may already be outside it's useful life.


Feasible to check out XML file from QuickLook? How can I use QuickLook to check out XML file? I just want to quickly check out the contents of a file and don't have to open it in a format that can be subsequently modified, such as in TextEdit or Vim or whatever other editors out there. I even don't like to open it in Xcode using drag and drop - just want to push Space and glance at the contents there.

And it looks like QLStephen doesn't support XML/plist files. So is there any alternative way to glance at it from QuickLook?

I use OS X 10.9.2.

When installing Textmate 2 you get QuickLook support for a bunch of data files including XML, Json etc.


Automatic (or a quick) way to add page numbers to a pdf document I have a macbook and am running Big Sur 11.2.2. I have some pdf documents with over a hundred pages that I need to put in page numbers. I'd rather not have to do this manually for every page, and was wondering if there's a quick way to do this?
Note that the pdf documents weren't originally word files, in which case I could just go into the word file and put in the page numbers and re-output it as a pdf.

I do not know of a current possibility for the matter.
There is a website for this
https://www.ilovepdf.com/de/pdf_seitenzahlen


MacBook updated to OS X Yosemite version 10.10 and experiencing problems with hard drive & iPhoto I updated my MacBook to OS X Yosemite version 10.10. Everything seems to be fine... apart from:

My WD hard drive won't open now - it appears on screen, allows me to enter the password to unlock and then give me this message:

NTFS-3G could not mount /dev/disk2s1
at /Volumes/My Passport because the following problem occurred:

/Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext failed to load - (libkern/kext) link error; check the system/kernel logs for errors or try kextutil(8).
the MacFUSE file system is not available (71)

My iPhoto's has a 'no entry' symbol over it and it won't let me access it... does this mean I have lost all of my photos!?!?

Any advice on these 2 things would be much appreciated.
Many thanks

Unsigned kexts are no longer allowed to run by default in Yosemite.

Solutions include...

upgrade to one of the [paid] NTFS apps that still work - Tuxera or Paragon
Requires you to fully uninstall NTFS-3G first
disable the Mac's kext policy - easiest way might be to install TRIM Enabler, which will do it for you [though I don't know if it would install with no SSD present, never tested]
or the long way - [this is untested, method from cindori, the makers of TRIM Enabler - it might only be for that app]
Boot your Mac in Recovery Mode by holding  ⌘ Cmd   R   during boot
Open the Terminal from the menu bar
Run these commands, replacing YourDisk with the name of your Mac disk

rm -rf /Volumes/YourDisk/System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext
cp -r /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext /Volumes/YourDisk/System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext
touch /Volumes/YourDisk/System/Library/Extensions
kextcache -u /Volumes/YourDisk

Wait until it finishes (can take up to 1 min)


Change Click Firmness of Apple Magic Trackpad 2 I just started using a Magic Trackpad 2 with my 2013 Mac Pro running macOS High Sierra (10.13.6). I expect to be able to change the firmness required to click and activate Force Click. However, in my System Preferences Trackpad preference pane, there's no slider for the firmness, only for tracking speed:

According to Apple's online documentation, there should be a slider in that blank area in the lower left for firmness, like so:

But, as shown in the first screenshot, the slider for click firmness doesn't show up on my Mac Pro.

How do I adjust the click firmness on my new Magic Trackpad 2?

Not an answer yet, but I came across the same issue earlier this week. I tested it on a variety of Macs (two MBPs and one iMac Pro) running El Capitan, Sierra and High Sierra respectively.

In all cases the Trackpad settings provided no click pressure options, or Force Click/haptic feedback option.

I've got a case open with Apple Engineering and will update this answer when I hear back.

Update

I've spent the last week troubleshooting this with Apple and we've confirmed this is an issue with how macOS High Sierra interacts with the Magic Trackpad 2.

In our testing we found the following:

A Magic Trackpad 2 connected to any model MacBook running El Capitan or Sierra will display the Click pressure slider and the two checkboxes relating to Force Click/haptic feedback and Silent clicking
A Magic Trackpad 2 connected to any desktop Mac running El Capitan or Sierra will display the Click pressure slider and the two checkboxes relating to Force Click/haptic feedback and Silent clicking
Any model MacBook running on El Capitan, Sierra or High Sierra will display the Click pressure slider and the two checkboxes relating to Force Click/haptic feedback and Silent clicking when there is no external Magic Trackpad 2 connected
Any model Mac running on High Sierra will not display the Click pressure slider and the two checkboxes relating to Force Click/haptic feedback and Silent clicking when there is an external Magic Trackpad 2 connected

The above results are repeatable regardless of the connection type (i.e. the results are the same via Bluetooth or USB).

Below is a screenshot showing how the preference pane looks with a Magic Trackpad 2 connected to a Mac running El Capitan or Sierra:

END RESULT

This has been marked as a known issue with macOS High Sierra and is unlikely to get resolved in High Sierra's software cycle. Look for a fix during macOS Mojave's lifespan.

In the meantime, I would go to the How to use the Force Touch trackpad page, scroll to the bottom and select the No box so you can provide feedback about how the content doesn't apply to macOS High Sierra when using a Magic Trackpad 2.

UPDATE - December 2018

I've just tested the same Mac with the same Magic Trackpad 2 connected. First booted from macOS High Sierra, and then within minutes booted from macOS Mojave.

Below is a side-by-side comparison:

As you can see, the Trackpad System Preferences in macOS Mojave show the Click pressure slider and the two checkboxes relating to Force Click/haptic feedback and Silent clicking. Same computer, same trackpad, different OS.

This confirms that Apple has fixed the bug that was present in macOS High Sierra so that the Trackpad preferences work properly in macOS Mojave, but that no fix is likely to ever come to High Sierra itself.

Interestingly, for some reason macOS Mojave reads the trackpad as having 74% battery level remaining, while macOS High Sierra displays this as 72%.


Email addresses contain @HOSTNAME.domain.com when mail is configured using Profile Manager I'm setting up a Lion server environment for an entire office full of MacBook Pros, all running Lion. Lion server is 10.7.2, running Open Directory, DNS, and Mail.  I have successfully set up the mail server to relay mail for two domains.  Let's call them domainA and domainB.  Everything works if I set it up manually from the Mail client, but I'm trying to use Profile Manager.  Now, this requires quite a bit of explanation, so apologies in advance for the long post:

The "Settings for Everyone" profile, when auto-populated via the "Include configuration for services" setting in Server.app > Profile Manager seems to use the setting from Server Admin > Mail > General > "Host Name:".  If I set the hostname to one of the two domain names, the "Settings for Everyone" profile works fine, populates the user's Mail configuration with an address username@domain.com.  However, if I use the actual host name for this setting, it populates the email address as username@hostname.domain.com.  This is regardless of what is set in the "Domain Name:" setting on the same page.  This leaves me with an issue.  I can't choose the address / domain the user will use, as it would be defaulted to domainA or domainB via the "Hostname:" setting, not to mention that it just does not seem right to have to use "domain.com" as the hostname, and have DNS records pointed at a mail server.  (I would usually point the .domain.com DNS record to a web server, like many domains are set up)

So, I have set up a Group and Group Profile called MailTest, where I have specified the settings for the mail server.  I cannot use the "Settings for Everyone" because of the issue I mentioned above, which is why I thought I could just have two profiles, one for each domain.  I found this doc on Profile Manager variables, and used a few of these to set MailTest up so that it would dynamically configure Mail the way I wanted it.  Everything seems to work, EXCEPT for the Email Address setting.

I have tried using %email% for the Email Address setting, and verifying that the user's OD account has the correct address.  When I used %email%, it seems that the Incoming Mail > Mail Server and Port setting from the profile is actually used.  I also tried using %short_name%@domain.com, and experienced the same behavior.  The only time this setting seems to be recognized is when it is left blank.  Then, you are prompted for the email address when installing the profile.

For those of you that are still with me, has anyone experienced this issue?  Are there others that found that they could not use a hostname in the Mail server's settings or else their mail users would have a user@hostname.domain.com address?  Does anyone know why the "Email Address" profile setting seems to be overridden by the "Incoming Mail Server" setting?

I can certainly work around this by having multiple Profiles, and by using A records for domain.com that point to my mail server, but this is not desired.  I would like to use the %email% variable in my Profile so that I can use a single profile, in hopes of controlling users' email address from their OD account settings.

Another update...  I started fresh with a new install of Lion.  Updated to 10.7.3 first, having read about everyone's nightmares after this update.

Anyway, my Kerberos realm is now set to domain1.com, but Profile Manager still insists on using the incoming server name (hostname.domain1.com)as the email address.  I tried using both variables, %email% and %short_name%@domain1.com.  No luck either way.

What I find aggravating is that if you view the Profile when it is installed, or in Systems Settings > Profiles, the email address is correct.  This was also the case before I started over.  This leads me to believe that the profiles are somehow not implemented correctly by either Mail or the profile installation process.  I looked at the XML in the profile, and do not see any settings that would be responsible for the behavior.  Everywhere I used a variable, the resulting values were precisely as I expected.

I again tested the default "Settings for Everyone" profile that is configured automatically based on your server settings, and the Server Admin > Mail > General > "Host name:" setting still takes precedence.  So, if you put your actual hostname in this field (i.e. mail.domain.com) your users will all end up using user@mail.domain.com as an address.

I am admitting defeat for now, and just set up A records for domain.com that point to the mail server.  This way, I can set my two profiles up, one for each that use domain1.com and domain2.com, respectively, as their incoming servers.  The email address will then default to %short_name%@incomingserver


Boot Camp Assistant cannot be used I am running macOS Sierra 10.12.4 Beta (16E144f) off of an external SSD connected to my 13-inch retina MacBook Pro. I am trying to install Windows 10 on it.
When I open up Boot Camp Assistant and press "Continue," I get the following error:

Boot Camp Assistant cannot be used.
The disk is not journaled. You must enable journaling using Disk Utility before using the Boot Camp Assistant.

Can anyone help me solve this rather cryptic problem? I tried searching online to no avail.

Your problem is that your boot disk is not journaled. Go to Disk Utility, press on your boot disk (the parent, not the child partition), and press the information icon in the Toolbar. Look for the "Journaled" option in the list. It probably says "No". That's the problem! You need to enable journaling.


Google Authenticator on iPhone 7 can not edit/remove entries I have been handed this phone from my workplace and have to use it. In the past I installed the Google Authenticator app on Android Nougat and it was working in all aspects.

Now I added some accounts on the iPhone side and removed them from Android to prevent confusion. But I accidentally moved one of my personal accounts to my work iPhone. I need to delete it from iPhone and relocate it back to Android instance.

For the life of me, I can not find a edit button or any other gesture that can help me edit/remove entries on the iPhone side. Can someone help ?

In the blue top bar with the "Authenticator" title, on the right you have the two buttons, one with a plus sign to add entries and one with a stylized pencil that allows you to edit the list.

Tap the pencil button, tap the circle on the left side of any entry you want to delete (the circle will fill red) and at the bottom of the screen a button to delete the selected entries will appear.


iPhone 6 - Dictation mispelled When using dictation, I can't make it spell my wife's first and our last names correctly.  I have tried entering phonetic & pronunciation fields, to no avail.
Wife's name is Rindy, but dictation ALWAYS writes Randy.  Last name is Hoke, but it always writes one of 3 other variations.   Grrr...very annoying

Any suggestions?

Make sure that your wife has her own card in your address book. Then open up an email message and start dictating, saying things like:

"Rindy is my wife period."

"Rindy is a person period."

"I am meeting with Rindy today."

"Where is Rindy questionmark"

Each time the computer misspells Rindy's name, go back and correct it. Eventually you will show the computer whose boss, and it will start to spell Rindy's name properly. (Really: there appears to be an algorithm that looks at spelling corrections and uses this as feedback on dictation.)


macbook pro 8,3 crashes I have been having sporadic crashes for 2 weeks now; mouse simply disappears from screen while surfing the net and everything locks up; BUT, the restart causes the big problem: I get the pink screen while the apple logo is displayed, but then when the screen turns gray, no mouse icon appears and everything freezes. The Apple Hardware Test shows this fault:
4SNS/1/40000000: VD0R-18.711
But I can't find out anywhere what failure that signifies. HELP please!

Pink screen is typically VRAM / GPU and much less often a cable or screen issue. If you can’t afford a flat rate repair ($300 in the US typically) that will fix everything wrong with your portable - you’ll want to do an erase install to be 100% sure it’s hardware and not software.

Get a backup of course since with hangs and crashes - Time Machine with hourly backups will save a large amount (as well as covering recent changes) of data loss when this instability eventually makes the system unbootable or you lose the file system.

Also, don’t overlook that with crashes and hangs and various hardware symptoms, you may have several issues going on making it hard to know which one to attack first. This means getting it to Apple or an authorized technician with better tests than AHT a good use of your time.


How to create a Case Sensitive filesystem in 10.11.1? How to create a Case Sensitive file system on a Mac?

Here is a simple test:

echo 'you should see this' > abc ; echo 'not just this twice' > ABC ; cat  abc ABC
you should see this
not just this twice

I'm on Mac version 10.11.1 and even with a "Case Sensitive" filesystem on a DMG image, I get:

not just this twice
not just this twice

It looks like there is a bug in the newly-rewritten Disk Utility application in El Capitan (as of 10.11.2) where it can't create case-sensitive disk images. As your answer mentioned, you can use the hdiutil command-line tool as a workaround; alternately, in Disk Utilty, you can erase the disk image after creating it, selecting a case-sensitive format.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7395900


Lion upgrade on early 2009 MacBook (2GB RAM, 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) Is it advisable to upgrade an early 2009 MacBook (2GB RAM, 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) from 10.5.8 to Lion?  Under 10.5.8, the user is complaining about some 'slowing down' (especially after a few days w/o restarting).  If we upgrade, how strongly is it recommended to increase the RAM (to 4GB? to 6GB?).

I'd love to hear from people answering based on either the specs or first-hand experience.  Thanks.

I have a late 2008 MacBook Pro 5,1 2GbRam 2.4GHz When I updated to Lion, I had no major problems. I had always planned to upgrade my Ram so after one month I did 8GB When Apple said my MBP can only take 4GB. 8Gb of RAM cost $40 on Amazon, best investment I made this year.


Netcat UDP command not working? From one Terminal:

echo "test" | nc -u -l 127.0.0.1 10000

From another Terminal:

nc -u 127.0.0.1 10000

But the Terminal just hangs, it doesnt return the "test" output. It seems to work fine without the -u argument. What am I getting wrong here?

You seem to have accidentially reversed which one is the listener and which one is not. I.e. you'll need to change the commands to the following:

Open the listener first:

nc -u -l 127.0.0.1 10000

Then the sender:

echo "test" | nc -u 127.0.0.1 10000

Then you'll see that the listener outputs "test" on the console.

You can stop the nc program by pressing Ctrl-c.


Mac OS Installer Error I've formatted my old laptop in order to install Lion 10.7.3 version on it. During the installation process it came up with a weird looking error message, similar to the one in the next picture:

I'm wondering what's causing this issue and what can I do in order to solve the problem. It's a bit hard for me, a veteran Windows user, to get along with this type of OS.

Thanks in advance.

The error message "Mac OS X Lion couldn't be install, because the disk Macintosh HD is damaged and can't be repaired." in the photo above would indicate that there is either a  problem with the physical hard drive of your Mac or the Mac's "Macintosh HD" volume is damaged at a software level.

While you're in the installer you can click on Window > Installer Log to view a log from the Lion installer.  This may give you some clues as to what is causing the error.  For instance, any mention of "Disk I/O Error" would be an indicator that there is a communication problem with the hard drive at a hardware level.

You can also attempt to repair the Macintosh HD volume using Disk Utility (should be accessible from the Lion installer's Utility menu), or reformat it again if the repair fails.  Once repaired or reformatted you can attempt the installation again.

Hopefully that helps.


Fix permissions in Apache I'm trying to use the built-in Apache server in MacOS mojave.

In my browser, accessing http://localhost/~myusername/mypage.html (in case of user dir) or http://localhost/mypage.html (in case of default dir) both throw the same error in the browser:

Forbidden You don't have permission to access /mysite/ on this server.

I' trying to make both the default dir /Library/WebServer/Documents and an user dir ~/myusername/Sitesworks.
I tried 2 solutions:

I tried to add a vhost in /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName localhost
DocumentRoot /Library/WebServer/Documents/
</VirtualHost>

I tried to add a myusername.conf file in /etc/apache2/users with the following content

<Directory "/Users/myusername/Sites/">
Options Indexes MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

Is there a guide to understanding permission errors on Mojave using Apple shipped Apache?

EDIT: It looks like the accepted answer here solved the reading permission for me.
From the answer:

  Load the module mod_userdir in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
  At the end of the httpd.conf make sure to load httpd-userdir.conf
  In httpd-userdir.conf include a local file in /etc/apache2/users/<username>.conf
  Put a directory section into that file, containing the rules for the directory where your webserver files are located:

  <Directory "/Users/<myusername>/Sites/">
      AllowOverride All
      Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
      Require all granted
  </Directory>

Writing access to files is still a problem: Apache cannot edit a file if the ownership is mine (the admin user). I'm still wondering if there is a proper way to fix the permission without messing up each directory permissions every new project.

This is the script I'm using for testing write permission:

<?php
    echo 'Current script owner: ' . get_current_user();
    echo 'Current user:' . system('whoami');
    $current = file_get_contents('people.txt');
    $current .= "John Smith\n";
    file_put_contents($file, $current);

I get the error:

  Warning: file_put_contents(people.txt): failed to open stream:
  Permission denied

Apache in macOS Server runs as the _www user. Try granting this user write access to the directory with an ACL entry.

chmod +a "_www allow list,search,add_file,add_subdirectory,delete_child,write,append,file_inherit,directory_inherit" "/Users/<user>/Sites"


When I try to reinstall Mac OS (after wiping the partition with ubuntu) all i get is a blinking folder I try to install mac os cause I didn't know what I was doing when I installed Ubuntu... I want mac os back but everytime i insert the install dvd and hold option or c all i get is a blinking folder looking back at me. What do I do?

The Ubuntu installer probably reformatted the whole drive using ext2 or ext3, whereas current versions of Mac OS X will only install on HFS+. To fix this, boot up with the Mac OS X install CD, then run Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Disk Utility will let you check to make sure the drive has at least one HFS+ volume on it, and if it doesn't, create one.


How do I migrate my Keychain's "Local Items" to a new Mac? After preforming a Mavericks-Mavericks migration using Migration Assistant, I have a "Local Items" Keychain on my new machine in which many (perhaps most) items are out of date (using old passwords), and some are missing altogether. While I have access to a copy of the entire contents of the ~/Library/Keychains/ directory from my old machine, which presumably contains all the information I'm missing, I see no way of importing that information into my new machine.

How can I import the "Local Items" from my old Keychain into the Keychain on my new machine?

I just managed to get my keys to my new mac (this only works if you still have access to the old Mac and can boot it up):

(on the old mac) Remove your current user's password
Create a new keychain (without a password)
Copy all keys in "Local Items" to your new keychain
Copy the keychain to the new mac
(on the new mac) Remove your current user's password
Add the new keychain file
Copy all keys in the new keychain to "Local Items"
Delete the new keychain
Don't forget to set a password again after that

It's a bit annoying as you have to click "Allow" for EACH item in the keychain but well, it's the only thing I found that works.


External HDD unmounting unexpectedly An externally-powered WD My Book Essential, 3TB, which I use for Time Machine and other file storage, recently began "ejecting itself" from my iMac. In an attempt to repair the disk from Disk Utility, I came across these logs:

kernel[0]: jnl: disk1s2: replay_journal: from: 99262464 to: 99508224 (joffset 0x2bae000)

kernel[0]: jnl: disk1s2: journal replay done.

fseventsd[47]: Events arrived for /Volumes/My Book after an unmount request! Re-initializing.

fseventsd[47]: creating a dls for /Volumes/My Book but it already has one...

diskarbitrationd[15]: mds [38]:23343 not responding.

kernel[0]: USBF: 670537.390 AppleUSBEHCI[0xffffff802439f000]::Found a transaction which hasn't moved in 5 seconds on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 3, EP: 0)

kernel[0]: USBF: 670543.393 AppleUSBEHCI[0xffffff802439f000]::Found a transaction which hasn't moved in 5 seconds on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 3, EP: 0)

kernel[0]: USBF: 670543.798 The USB Family found a device at  port 2 of hub @ 0x26000000 with a bad USB device descriptor (0x0, 0x0 )

kernel[0]: USBF: 670549.396 AppleUSBEHCI[0xffffff802439f000]::Found a transaction which hasn't moved in 5 seconds on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 0, EP: 0)

This began happening shortly after I've been accessing a movie file from the drive to encode and burn to a DVD from iDVD, but I wouldn't expect this to be the issue. Each time the drive unmounts itself, the error when not ejecting a disk properly appears. Note that in the log, the third entry from fseventd, I believe the "events arrived" was me attempting to repair the volume.

What could be sending the unmount request? diskutil is. The problem, I believe, lies in the journaling. (see update, it's not this)

Update (for clarification also)

I know that repairing the volume requires the partitions to be unmounted, I meant it's ejecting by itself. Just repaired the volume from another Mac and it checked out OK...must be the Mac that uses it for Time Machine.

I'm convinced that it's this error message that is the issue, but I can't figure out what it means.

kernel[0]: USBF: 670537.390 AppleUSBEHCI[0xffffff802439f000]::Found a transaction which hasn't moved in 5 seconds on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 3, EP: 0)

Update 2

Just finished an archive-and-install of the iMac in question, but I'm still getting the same logs and can't access the files. I can't blame it on a corrupt USB driver anymore, so I really am at a loss now.

This is symptomatic of a hardware failure in most cases. You'll want to isolate the various components:

disconnect all other USB devices
try a new cable
try a different port on the Mac
try that drive on another Mac (or another drive on your Mac)
try another power source for that drive

It's likely the voltage supply to the controller chip in the drive (or the chip itself is faulty or getting power spikes from the drive motor) so I'd consider backing up that data and contacting WD to see if they have newer firmware or if more power is needed to run that drive.


List of all packages installed using Homebrew Is it possible to and how do I get a list of all the packages installed on my Mac using Homebrew?  I am not interested in packages installed outside of Homebrew.

brew list and brew list --cask
Running brew list will show a list of all your installed Homebrew packages.
In addition, brew list --cask will provide the items installed using Homebrew Cask.


How can I burn a slideshow to a DVD in its present form in iPhoto 2011? Using iPhoto 2011. I was going to export my slideshow as a Quicktime movie, then burn it to DVD in iDVD.

However when I get 3/4 of the way through my 20 minute slide show presentation, the video goes white. I have figured out that the slideshow ends but the export keeps on going. I think it has something to do with the synchronization between music and photos.

My slideshow is approximately 22 minutes long, and I have a playlist of songs attached to the slideshow. The option to sync the pictures to the songs is checked. The slideshow works perfect in iPhoto. But my exported video is longer than the pictures.

Have you tried exporting the slideshow without the audio, then re-adding the audio manually in iMovie? This way, you can make sure they both end at the same time by cutting the audio out early. Then, you can burn that to DVD.


Applescript or automator to print only 3 first pages of a pdf I'd like to automate printing the first 3 pages of a PDF. It's fine if the document has to be split.

I have Adobe Acrobat Pro installed as well.

This will prompt you to select the PDF file, then print the first 3 pages of it(change the sourceFile variable if you want to choose the PDF in another way):

set sourceFile to (choose file with prompt "Choose a PDF file:" of type {"PDF"})
do shell script "lpr " & quoted form of POSIX path of sourceFile & " -o page-ranges=1-3"

If you want to have a drag-and-drop application:

on open droppedItem set sourceFile to POSIX path of droppedItem
do shell script "lpr " & quoted form of POSIX path of sourceFile & " -o page-ranges=1-3" end open


iCloud keeps signing in after I sign out iCloud always... ALWAYS crash all my apps (Pages, Keynote, SimpleText, etc) that use iCloud so if I turn off iCloud, the apps run fine. Apps just cannot open documents at all.

Here's what's getting my goat: I signed off iCloud in System Preference on Mac OSX Mountain Lion but every time I open the System Preference, it shows that it's already signed in! That's how I know apps aren't working if I use them again in few minutes. Something is wrong. I have to keep signing out every time I open System Preferences.

I want to totally disable iCloud and removed from MacOSX if possible. I don't want photosteam, I don't want data shared in the cloud.

Rather than fuss with each of the settings within iCloud, you might want to delete the entire account using System Preferences:

Open Mail, Contacts & Calendars and delete all iCloud accounts.
Open iCloud Preference Pane and press Sign Out

The first step won't delete anything that's already stored in the cloud, only items on the local computer. The second step will also only delete local content and erase any of the certificates, keys and other things that tie a computer to iCloud servers. At that point, I would reboot and then check your Mac for other issues (disk utility to check the disk catalog once you boot into Recovery HD) and then decide if things are stable again.

Specifically, you might have corruption in the preference file that stores iCloud log in credentials. You can test this by making a new account on the Mac and then signing in and out of the same iCloud account.

That will isolate the error to either your iCloud account (meaning you contact Apple support to get the account cleared up) or the error is the user account on the Mac (meaning you back up the Mac and set that user up / restore the files that are not corrupted).


If I temporarily remove an external HD from my Mac, then re-introduce it a few weeks later, will Time Machine back it all up again? If I remove an external hard drive from my Mac, then re-introduce it a few weeks later, will Time Machine back it all up again as if it were a new drive, or will it just back up the changes that were made since the last time it backed up the drive?

If this is a Time Machine disk, disconnecting it and then reconnecting it in the future will simply make Time Machine update it when it is plugged in as normal, meaning it will back up whatever has changed. It will not erase the drive and start from scratch. It will simply resume where it left off.

Or do you mean that this external disk was one of the drives that Time Machine was backing up onto another, separate drive? If so, it seems that if you use that drive on another computer and then try to back it up with Time Machine again, it may cause some problems (or may not. Just depends.) Also, in a case where TM hasn't backed up a drive in a while, it may lose much of its cache for that disk and appear to be backing everything up again when you plug it back in. However, in this case it seems that it's not actually backing it all up, it's only really keeping what has changed.


How do I stop my iPhone from telling me by voice what keys I press and instead respond to them How do I stop my iPhone 5s from voice identifying what keys impress and actually respond and accept the keys I press?

Your device currently has on a feature called voice over which is made for people who are visually impaired.
One touch tells you what you have pressed, two touches will actually perform the intended action.

Triple clicking the home button typically turns off the voice over feature unless you have the magnifier enabled.

Once you have unlocked your device:

-go to settings, use the tap sequence
-three finger scroll to get to general than use the tap sequence
-three finger scroll to accessibility ,use the tap sequence and turn off the voice over, once again using the tap sequence.


Word for mac: shortcuts to access Quick Access Toolbar and Ribbon I am wondering what is the shortcut to access the Quick Access Toolbar and Ribbon in Word for Mac (Office 2019, 16.29.1). In windows you press Alt. How do you do it in Mac?

Unfortunately, the Mac version of Office/PowerPoint doesn't have nearly the number of shortcut keys that the Windows version.

However, On Mac, The option key on many Mac Keyboards are double-labeled Option / Alt. Try Holding down option Key in place of the alternate key.   On a Laptop Machine, you might have to use the Fn (Function key) then the rest of the shortcut.

If the above suggestion doesn't work for you, it's likely that you've run into shortcut keys that just don't work on Mac.

Other Alternavites are:

Alt Key Shortcuts on Office for Mac
Shortcut key on Words for Mac
Shortcut key on Excel for Mac


Disable App Store Update Notifications - All Users Exactly as title says, I want it to stop telling me I have updates etc in the notification bubbles, but no option to disable in sys prefs.

If you go to System Preferences there an icon for AppleStore. Click on this and a panel opens with several settings. There is a checkbox to notify you when an update is ready to be installed. Uncheck the box to turn off the notification.


How do I reset Apple's Mail, in Lion, to default settings? I have been having a bunch of email problems and want to start over.  I have deleted all the IMAP accounts from Mail.  What other files do I need to delete, hidden and otherwise, to make Mail (and only Mail) just like a clean install?

The following directories should be empty:

~/Library/Mail
~/Library/Mail Downloads
~/Library/Application Support/Mail
~/Library/Caches/Mail
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.mail

The following files should be removed:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist*
~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.mail.savedState


How can I change the VoiceOver language for a song on my 6th gen iPod Nano? Is it possible to change language used for reading song album/artist/title for certain songs? I.e. when I use slovak as default iPod nano language, but I have songs with english titles, I would like to hear those in english. I think this was available for previous iPod nanos, but I cannot find it in iTunes when syncing songs to 6th gen nano.

Update: This is how Options panel looks when I right-click on song stored on my iPod Nano (6th gen):

VoiceOver language is not there :-(

Right click on the song (you can select more than one), select "Get Info", choose the Options tab, and pick English for the voice over language.

If you don't see this in your info panel it means that the VoiceOver Kit is not installed: Follow the instructions on this KB Article to download and install it.

However those instructions do work on the Shuffle and the 5th generation Nano, but I just tried my daugther's 6th generation Nano and the check box is not there. Sorry.


iMessage message freeze I have an iPod Touch 4G and my software is updated to iOS 6.1. I was messaging someone then suddenly it gave me an error saying the message was not sent and I had to re-try sending the message.

After that my iMessage freezes if I go into that same conversation. I cannot delete that conversation because if I go back (does not freeze if my screen is not in a conversation) and press edit then delete, it reappears every 5 seconds.

How can I troubleshoot iMessage on iOS?

The same exact thing is happening to me. I opened my imessage app and it's just blank white. I tried deleting from task bar, resetting, shutting off, logging out from imessage on settings, resetting wifi, but nothing seems to work. It's even updated to 6.1 and it's just frozen there.

The only option is to restore your device to reinstall the OS.


Why does my MobileMe email account have a Junk mailbox? My MobileMe email account has a mailbox named Junk (first letter capitalized), and I don't know why.  I created a mailbox called junk (all lowercase) into which I manually move junk messages.  I see both mailboxes everywhere I view the account (Mac, iOS, me.com web interface).

I use one Mac with the MobileMe email account, and junk mail filtering is disabled.  I also use the MobileMe email account on an iPhone (iOS 4.3.5), an iPad (iOS 4.3.5), and occasionally the me.com web interface.  Within iOS settings, I don't see any setting specific to junk mail filtering.  I have no mail rules that move messages to a Junk folder on my Mac or on the me.com web interface.

Something is automatically moving messages to the Junk folder, and is getting some false positives with its junk detection, so I want to stop that.

How do I find out what's responsible for this mysterious Junk mailbox, and prevent it from automatically moving messages identified as junk?  I am trying to get rid of the Junk mailbox and only manage junk messages manually.  I have deleted the Junk mailbox in the past, and it came back, although I don't remember the specific circumstances related to its reappearance.

I've already viewed this knowledgebase article (which offers the opposite of what I want): http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mail/4.0/en/15591.html

Log into the MobileMe website and disable Junk mail filtering in the Mail preferences.

Edit:

Well, at least there used to be an option to disable Junk mail filtering. It seems that Apple permanently enabled junk mail filtering without the option to disable it about a year ago.

See here: http://www.appleinfocus.com/2010/07/cant-turn-off-mobileme-junk-mail-filtering/

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.


Is there an iOS app for quick switching of the wifi network? On my iPad, I frequently need to switch between two wifi networks due to different access rights on those networks. It's quite cumbersome having to navigate to the Settings App, find the network settings page, and switch networks there. I'm looking for an app that helps me speed up the network switching, by either:

offering a list of available networks, ideally as a notification center widget, and allows me to select a network there; or
offers a quick link to opening the relevant page in the Settings App.

No, iOS applications do not have access to Wi-Fi settings and basically all other settings.


What (hardware/software) projector setup is needed to project both displays? I have a (non-Thunderbolt) 17" MacBook Pro connected to an external display. I want to project both screens (from MBP and external displays) each onto separate screens.

Is there a way to do this?
And how to set it up?

You basically need to have your macbook output to two displays, which it won't do easily/willingly.

There are a couple hacks...either doing the display output over USB or using a matrox display. See more info: here

One really hacky solution might be to output via air display to and iPad (hooked up to a projector)for the 2nd monitor. I'll buy you a beer if you make that work. :-)


What Version of Bash comes with OSX 10.9 / Mavericks? Trying to decide if I want to bother upgrading my bash shell to v4.x; if it comes with Mavericks, I probably won't, but I can't find much information on what versions of bash come with what versions of OS X, let alone with Mavericks specifically.

Anyone running a Mavericks beta want to bash --version for me?

Zephyr:~ ats$ bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.2.51(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin13)
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Zephyr:~ ats$ which bash
/bin/bash


Is Speech Synthesis protected by copyright or patent law? What does Mac OS License protect? I know that according to a question asked by another user here Are the Apple text-to-speech voices copyrighted?

  "No other use of the System Voices is permitted by this License, including but not limited to the
  use, reproduction, display, performance, recording, publishing or
  redistribution of any of the System Voices in a profit, non-profit,
  public sharing or commercial context."

But what is that License? Is it a patent or is it copyright? What kind of protection does the license include?
At what point do these protections actually limit use?

I am considering Radiohead's Fitter Happier song for instance.

The License that is referred to is the Software License Agreement for macOS. It is not a patent or a copyright, it is a software license.

The license agreements protects the licensor in the sense that he has given the licensee permission to use the product in a limited form - for example as in this specific example only for creating original content and projects for personal, non-commercial use.

The license agreements limits use by making it possible for the licensor to sue the licensee for infringing their rights.

Note that the licensor does not have to offer everyone the same license rights. It is perfectly possible that you have bought a license to use the product only for personal, non-commercial use - while other's have bought licenses for global distribution of their project with commercial intent. The price would probably be higher in that case.


iWork Pages Converting to PDF I am using a template from Pages for a document. When I convert it to PDF, it loses its style and font.

I've tried exporting it as a PDF as well as printing it as a PDF.

Any suggestions on how I could keep its format and font intact when conveying it to PDF?

Thanks

What sort of styling is gone wrong when converting to PDF? And which version of iWork and Mac are you running atm?

From experience (under 10.6) I can only say never to have had problems with converting to PDF or printing as PDF. If your iWork is messed up, you may want to consider reinstalling. (Use CleanApp for that) or install a newer version (do you have iWork '09? have you fully updated it?).


AppleScript - Add userinput to text file? How can I add a user input variable to a text file?

This is what I have right now:

-- ask user
display dialog "Enter Cheat" default answer "99 Gold, super health, unlimited Grenades.."
set cheat1 to (text returned of result)

-- create text file
    set newText to "I am now
    adding
    a few
    test lines"

 do shell script "echo " & quoted form of newText & " >> ~/Desktop/test.txt"

I want to somehow put 'cheat1' inside the text file and not come out as cheat1, but as the text the user gave

any help?

Try the following:

set cheat1 to the quoted form of text returned of (display dialog "Enter Cheat" default answer "99 Gold, super health, unlimited Grenades..")

set newText to quoted form of "I am now
    adding
    a few
    test lines"

do shell script "echo " & newText & " >> ~/Desktop/test.txt"
do shell script "echo " & cheat1 & " >> ~/Desktop/test.txt"

Results:

I am now
    adding
    a few
    test lines
99 Gold, super health, unlimited Grenades..


OSX 10.5.8: spurious "cannot be copied because there is not enough free space" I'm trying to rehabilitate my G5 tower

OSX 10.5.8
two HD in the bays.

The problem:

Both the boot disk (1TB) and the second disk (300GB) have a lot of space on them.
The 1TB has 800GB free, the other has nothing on it (290+GB free).

Yet when I drag a file "foo" from the 1TB to the empty drive, it fails with:

  The item "foo" cannot be copied because there is not enough free space

Copying from the 1TB to the same 1TB drive (in another place) works fine!

I've run Disk Utility on both and repaired all the permissions, but I still get this error.

What is the deal?  Any ideas?

I'm willing to erase the startup volume, but I have to find a Leopard disk somewhere!

It may sound strange, but this can be caused by incorrect date and time. I have had the same problem and after setting correct date and time, problem doesn't exist anymore.


What's a good Picasa upload app for iPhone? Android has "Instant Upload" with the Google+ app. I'd like something similar for iPhone: an app that takes all my photos and uploads them to a private album on Picasa Web Albums. Jailbreak alternatives are fine too.

Searching the App Store for the word "picasa" gives me far too many results. There are some Picasa album-browsing apps, and a few uploading tools (mostly paid; free versions only upload thumbnails). Rather than testing out all 59+ apps myself, perhaps some fellow users here have personal experiences and recommendations?

I'm using Linux on my pc. This means that iTunes is not an option. (Yes, it's a hassle...) I am looking for something that can upload straight from iPhone to web, without requiring a computer as a middle step.

Bonus points for operation in the background, but I'll accept an app that requires to be foreground -- as long as it can upload.

I use Web Albums and it works well. It's currently $2.99 on the US store.


Aperture vs Photoshop I already have a lot of experience in Photoshop because I normally use it to edit my photos, but I've heard that Aperture is far better (or easier to use) than Photoshop. I started using the trial version but it's not that good. It's just like Lightroom. Is there any difference if i buy the full version? Also, does Aperture support plugins?

I'm currently making the transition from Lightroom over to Aperture. You are right in that Aperture is more like Lightroom than Photoshop. Its primary use is as a digital library for managing your photos, and videos. Much like iPhoto.

Lightroom and Aperture both have good editing functionality and both have the ability to use plugins for expanding the editing functions.

Both applications also allow non-destructive editing. Meaning you can always go back to the original image no matter what changes you do to the image within the application.

Aperture, like Lightroom, is designed with the photographer in mind. Digital assest management, photo editing, and exporting abilities for printing etc...

It's best to use either (or both) of these alongside Photoshop. I use Photoshop when it comes down to the heavy editing, or when I"m trying to do something more creative with the image outside the abilities of the other two applications.

I'm still learning Aperture so I cannot comment too much on its strengths and weaknesses vs Lightroom. Here is a post by Scott Bourne as to why he uses Aperture over Lightoom.

Hope some of what is here helps.


How can I type ` character when using Chinese input source? I'm looking for a way to type in ` character by pressing the top-left key (below the Esc key). This works when I use the English input, but on Chinese input it changes into ·, and Shift + ` key gives me ～.

Is it possible to type in ` even on Chinese input source, using Karabiner-Elements? Or can I achieve it on other apps?

You can enter ` character, even without using Karabiner-Elements.

Just turn on Caps Lock and simply press the ` key (The one below the Esc key), and it will enter ` character, while in Chinese input mode.


How to remove apps that are remembered by App Store? Over the past few years, I have downloaded various apps onto my iPhone from the App Store.  I have noticed that the App Store remembers the apps that I have downloaded.  So, for instance: If I download an app and then delete it from my phone and go back into the App Store, the download icon is different (it doesn't say "+Get" like apps that I have never downloaded before, instead it will have an icon of a cloud with an arrow pointing downwards).

How to I get the App Store/iCloud to forget these programs?

This will not be possible. You will see an cloud icon when you previously "purchased" an app. This will notify you that you could download the app without any costs.

It is not possible to delete those apps from your Apple ID.

If you don't want to see the cloud icon, you could sign out from the appstore via settings > iTunes & App Store > sign out. This will hide the cloud icon but you have to log in each time you want to download an app.


Is there a way to easily move between albums/artists when listening to music on iPhone/iPod touch In the iPhone, whenever I select an artist or album to listen to, the play ends (or repeats) whenever the end of that artist or album is reached.  I would like a way for the music to continue to the next album/artist.

Or, what would accomplish the same purpose is if I could choose to play all songs, but sort songs by album and/or artist.

In other words, I would like to play my songs the same way I do on iTunes, in which I can simply play an album, and it will move to the next album or artist (depending on sort) after that current album is done.

I'm running iOS 6.

The best way I have found to do this is to create a playlist on iTunes on my Mac and sync my iPhone with that Playlist.  If I sort by Artist in iTunes before syncing, it is synced that way on my iPhone.  I then scroll through the playlist on my phone to select an album or artist, instead of selecting the artist or album directly.  This way my music app will go to the next artist or album after my current album is finished.


I updated to Mavericks — now my G5 is so slow I can't stand it! Everything takes time now since I upgraded to OS X Mavericks. Starting applications, switching from monitor to monitor, sending mail, downloading mail, typing... you name it, there is a beach ball for that.

I'm no programmer, just a simple graphic designer so I can't read processes or error files. I just need to know what to do to fix my Mac so I can work again!

Please! When Mac is sad, Hanna is sad.

Mavericks System Requirements
Mavericks requires an Mac with an Intel processor (system requirements), so I don't know how you installed it on a G5. Can you provide more information on the model of Mac you have, including the year?
Simply Overview for Reverting to an Previous OS
There are two ways to revert to a previous OS version, both require erasing the computer and starting over. The difficulty and time required will depend on the status of your system backup(s), or for that matter if your even have a backup. Below is a simple overview of the steps required. Further assistance can be provide once we determine your situation.
Made Backup Before Upgrade
Hopefully you created a backup before the upgrade. If so, you should make a separate second backup of any files/documents that you have worked on since the upgrade (if possible, make a second complete backup). Reinstall from your pre-upgrade backup and then copy over any files/documents from your second post-upgrade backup.
Did not Backup Before Upgrade
If you didn't make a backup before the upgrade, you'll need to make one now. Once you have the backup complete and tested that you can boot from it, you can reinstall the pervious version of the OS that you were using. Once the system is backup and running, you can use Migration Assistance to move over all your Apps and documents from your post-upgrade backup.


Can I re-download the default keyboard (iOS 8) after deleting it? I'm planning on making SwiftKey my default keyboard and deleting the "stock/default keyboard" provided by Apple. But first, I want to make sure I'll be able to get that keyboard back if I need to.

Will I be able to get it back after deleting, and if so, how?

iPhone 6 Plus (iOS 8.1)

Yes. You can get back the keyboard without having to redownload the keyboard, It's never gone. You cannot delete the stock keyboard, you are only removing it from the default set of keyboards. The native keyboard can always be added from Keyboards > Add a new keyboard > English whenever you want.


Early 2013 Macbook Pro with 4K From what I'm reading online it sounds like 4K displays like Seiki displays will work correctly with a late 2013 MBP or later. I have an early 2013 MBP and am not finding much of any evidence that a 4K display will work with this model. Will a 4K display work at 3840x2160 with at least 30 Hz on a early 2013 MBP? Does anyone have this or a similar setup that could provide feedback or any issues that have? I'm interested in an external display with a high resolution and 4K seems like the best option.

Yes, it is possible to drive a 4k Display with an early 2013 and even 2012 Retina Macbook.
1. Download SwitchResX
here
2. Create a new custom profile for your monitor
Simplified Settings: CVT-RB
Active: 3840x2160
Scan Rate vertical: 30

Hit ok and press cmd-S to save.
3. Reboot and select custom profile

Based on this thread