Can I charge my iPod Nano 2012 with the iPad USB plug? I have a brand new Nano, and was wondering if I can use the same electrical connector that I've received with my iPad2 to charge the Nano? Will it be armfull for the Nano?

The short answer is yes. The rule of thumb when dealing with DC power adapters is to ensure that the polarity and voltage matches and that the adapter can supply at least as much current as the electronic device requires. Incorrect voltage or mismatched polarity can damage an electronic device; insufficient current will only result in insufficient power to operate or charge the device.

However, all USB power sources provide 5 volts regardless of whether they are ports on your computer or AC chargers, and both the USB port and Dock Connector are standardized in terms of polarity and can only be plugged in one way. Therefore, your iPad, iPhone and iPod models all use the same voltage and the iPad and iPod adapters supply the same voltage, as do your computer’s USB ports and third-party USB power adapters. Basically, if it’s a USB device, it’s always 5 volts.

However, although all USB devices run at the same voltage, some like the iPad require more power (wattage) than others. Since power is a factor of voltage and current (amperage), and the voltage in this case is a constant, then the charger must be able to supply more current to meet the increased demand for power. In the case of the iPad, the USB charger is able to provide 2.1A of current (or 10W of power); by comparison, standard computer USB ports normally provide only 0.5A (2.5W), and most USB chargers provide between 1A (5W) and 1.5A (7.5W). Some computer USB ports can provide up to 1.5A expressly for charging purposes, and modern Macs can even provide the 2.1A required for iPad charging on at least some of their USB ports.

Regardless of the current available, however, electronic devices only draw as much as they need. This means that if you connect an iPhone or iPod to an iPad charger, it will still only draw around 1A of current—the charger effectively runs at a lower power level, supplying 5W of charging power. Conversely, when you connect an iPad to an iPhone charger, it will try to get a full 2.1A, but won’t be able to as the charger is only capable of supplying 1A. This results in a considerably slower charging time as the iPad is effectively draining the battery as fast as it can be recharged.

The bottom line is that you can plug any USB device into any USB charging port without having to worry about damaging anything. It’s worth noting, however, that many cheaper USB charging accessories do not properly comply with the USB Battery Charging Specification and as a result many electronic devices—including the iPad, iPhone and iPod—will not detect these as valid chargers and will refuse to draw any power at all. This will still not harm anything, however—they simply won’t work.

Now I did not wrote this myself so the credits go to ilounge
You'll find the article here


How can I hide the path bar in the Mac Terminal There's a bar under the title bar of the Mac terminal showing the path the terminal is open at. I'm pretty sure this has recently appeared and I'd like to removed it. Is there a way?

This is the tab bar (note the plus icon on the right to open a new tab).
As long as you only have one tab open in a Terminal window, you should be able to hide it by selecting "Hide Tab Bar" from the "View" menu.


If you add a USB WiFi adapter can you network share it over WiFi? I've connected to a wired network before and shared that over WiFi. I'm curious if I got a USB WiFi adapter if I could do the same thing with WiFi input. So the USB WiFi adapter would be the network / internet input, and the built in WiFi adapter would be the output.

Yes.  You can share any network device to any other network device using the Internet Sharing settings in System Preferences.


Apple App Store Currency I am buying the new iPad in US. I am going to be sending this to India for my mom. Now, what do I have to do to ensure that if and she purchases Apps from the App Store, the currency is in the local currency, i.e., INR and not US $. I understand it really does not make a difference other than the fact that the credit/debit card will be making the payment but it would still be useful for me to see the pricing in the local currency.

Is this based on the Country/ Region that I specify when creating a new Apple Id?

Is this based on the Country/Region we pick when we setup the iPad for the first time (I cannot remember exactly if we do specify the Country while setting up the iPad or just the language).

I believe it is dependant on the Apple ID that you log in with.  The location of this is what decides which store to serve up.  If you log in with an Australian or Polish Apple ID, then you should get the relevant associated stores.

To aid in this, don't do any setup that you have to subsequently alter later down the line, so don't install apps on your own ID, then send it over - updates to those Apps will fail unless the same ID is used.

You should be able to set it up as an Indian one from the start, even though you are in the US, if you already have the correct ID set up. Furthermore, Apple now allows you to change your country or region from within iTunes on a computer. It may work for some, but do some research to read if this is a rare event or something you can toggle back and forth at will.


Can I Add/Remove users from web interface (Profile Manager) on Lion Server? It appears as though you can do most things in the Lion Server WebUI (Profile Manager), but I can't seem to be able to add/remove users (or find an answer).

Is this possible?

Not yet. You can only do this through Server.app or Workgroup Manager, or System Preferences if you're not running Open Directory.

You can create Device Groups through the web interface however.

I highly expect Apple to add this to the web UI in future updates to Lion or 10.8.


Does Sparrow for iOS seamlessly integrate with Gmail's Send As feature? I just saw this blog post about Sparrow, and I was wondering about one of its features. On the website, it says that it has the following feature:

  Quick sender switch - switch sender account by tapping the top bar when composing a message.

I'm wondering if this automatically integrates with Gmail's Send As feature or not. For example, say I have 10 accounts already set up in my Gmail account so that I can send mail as them, do I need to manually enter all the credentials for these 10 accounts in Sparrow? Or does it automatically detect these additional "send as" accounts and let me use them?

Yes. Sparrow allows you to add "aliases" to each account so you can, from one account, send mail as a different user that's been registered as a send-as user in your Gmail account.

You click on the Preferences icon in the account view screen. Then click on the specific account. And then click on the 'Aliases' menu option to add new alises.

From one of my accounts I send mail as either me or my business account (which happens to be set at my business ISP to forward in to my Gmail account):

From the new mail composition window you click on the top bar to change who you're sending the email as and then you pick the account from the list Sparrow shows you:

It works the same way in Sparrow on OS X for what it's worth:


Songs dont finish playing Some of my songs do not finish playing on my iphone. I have tried enabling itunes match and syncing on the computer. Songs will shut off or stop with like 35 seconds remaining in the song. Help?

This has happened to me in the past. Seems like the download from iCloud may have been corrupted; try deleting it from your iPhone, and downloading/syncing again.


screensaver causes error "share does not exist on the server" to endless loop I've been trying to learn to automate my home Mac environment with Applescript.  I've had some success, but am running into seemingly inconsistent and troublesome errors.  In order to diagnose the errors, I've broken the scripts down into their component parts and narrowed the most troublesome issue down to the Screen Saver.  When I activate the current screen saver via a script, or if I access the Screen Saver control panel via the System Preferences, I get

I can click the "OK" button and it dismisses, sometimes for good, but most often it loops endlessly and my only option is to force a restart by holding down the power button.  I've tried force quitting all open apps, and relaunching the finder and the error message/dialog box loop remains running.

Oddly, starting the Screen Saver with the Hot Corner does not seem to trigger the error.

To me this indicates that the issue isn't with my script, but that there's a problem with my Mac.

For what it's worth, I've also had issues with connecting to my Time Capsule backup which is the only drive on that server.

The machine is a MacBook 13-inch Late 2007 running OS 10.7.5.

Thoughts?

Update -

I thought that the Screen Saver might have been trying to call up images from a drive that used to be connected to the Airport Extreme but that is no longer there.  I reset the Screen Saver control panel to one of the built in Screen Savers (after many tries at dismissing the irksome dialog box) and I deleted my user defined Screen Savers.  This did not resolve or change the issue in any way.  I've tried the same AppleScript on two other Macs without incident.  Both of these other Macs are running 10.9.5 though, so that may or may not indicate anything.

Is there a way to re-install just the Screen Saver, or should I try to re-install the entire OS?  Is there something else I should try?

Thanks!

Update 2

Well, re-installing the OS did not resolve the issue.  I tried deleting the preferences plist from both the user library folder and the library folder at the top level of the hard drive.  This didn't resolve it either.  Perhaps it's an issue with the Airport Extreme, though I can't imagine why the Screen Saver in a re-installed OS would need to access the Airport Extreme.  I'm really stumped here and beginning to wonder if I'm going to have to pay for more expert help.  Thoughts?

Update 3

It occurred to me that though the Screen Saver should not be trying to connect to some external volume, it still might be.  I used to have a number of hard drives connected to, and shared by the Airport Extreme.  One of those drives stopped mounting reliably, and as it so happens, it's the one with my pic archive and iPhoto files on it.  I took it to a local shop and they worked some low level UNIX magic on it and recovered my data to a new, larger drive.  This new drive is now connected to my RAID 1 server Mac Mini, not the Airport Extreme.  When I mount the volume with the pic archive to my desktop first, there is no error message.  Dismounting it and running the script or opening the Screen Saver control panel prompts the error message.  Help?

OK, I got it  solved.  I first mounted the disk with the image files from it's new, permanent location on the server.  Then I opened iPhoto and slowly, image by image opened them.  The bulk of them opened with no problem from the new location.  A fair number, 100 or so out of 10,000, had lost their connection to the actual file.  Most of these I was able to locate on the hard drive and re-link with no problem.  A few, perhaps 20, I seem to have lost completely.  None of them were of much importance.  I allowed iPhoto to take it's time quitting so that it could update it's library etc. Now, even without that drive mounted to my desktop, the Screen Saver will start with a simple AppleScript and opening the Screen Saver control panel works with no trouble and does not spawn any error messages at all.


How to set up dual monitor on a Mac? I have an iMac Retina 5k 27", late 2015 and I also have Dell monitor which supports VGA, HDMI,and  DVI inputs. I want a dual monitor setup by using this Dell monitor as the second monitor.

My question is how can i do it? Should I use a cable converter to connect it? Is there setting should I change in macOS?

I  bought a DVI to Thunderbolt converter. When I tried to plug it in, I just saw a blank screen in second monitor.

Here is the specs of iMac:

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)
Processo: r 3.2 GHz Interl Core i5
Memory: 8 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Startup: Disk Macintosh HD
Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 M380 2048 MB

You will find in System Preferences a control panel where you can set and control where menus appear etc.

Also, you can set the mirroring options to appear in the menu bar as necessary.

Personally, I would purchase adaptors to go for the HDMI input to the second monitor.


How can I port apps from OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to OS X 10.7 Lion? In Mountain Lion, many of the day-to-day apps like Preview, TextEdit have been upgraded with some very useful features. (For instance, you can now insert a page into a PDF document using your scanner in Preview - see here, and pinch the trackpad for zooming in on to a document - see here). However, as far as I understand, these apps are free, and features like these are features of the app themselves, not the OS.

Is there anyway in which I can replace/upgrade individual apps in Lion, without having to install it as a whole (preferably as a dual-boot config!) ?

No.  Apple does not distribute these apps individually.
Even if you copy them from one Mountain Lion system to a Lion machine, they are very likely to not work as they are relying on system level framework (or functions in these frameworks) that won't be available in OS X before ML


Forward a thread of messages in Mail In Mail on Mac OS X Lion, is there a way to select an entire thread of messages and forward them to someone in a single e-mail?

Ideally I'm looking for a simple command in Mail (press ⌘ while selecting, or something like that), but I'm open to a more complex (AppleScript?) solution.

One thing you could do is start a new mail message to your recipient, then select the messages that you want to forward and drag them over to the new mail. They will be sent as attachments to your desired recipient.


Siri can not activate some alarms on iPhone 6S Plus with iOS 9.2 When I use the "Hey Siri" feature to enable an alarm it usually works. But recently I've encountered a problem. The conversation with Siri would go like this:

<me>   Hey Siri, wake me up at 7 20.
<Siri> Your, 7:20 alarm is on.
<Siri> (short pause)
<Siri> Sorry Jozef, there has been a problem setting up your alarm.

And indeed the alarm is not turned on for 7:20. It would work for other times, ex. 7:10 (regardless whether an alarm at desired date exists or not).

Is there any special case when Siri can not activate a specific alarm?

This is not a problem with Internet connection (I have one) or understanding of what I said (the text is interpreted correctly and Siri actually seems to have turned the alarm for a short moment).

Be explicit when you ask for an alarm:

  Hey Siri, wake me up at 7:20am."

Also, what version of iOS are you using? There were some issues with alarms not waking people up in iOS 9.1. If you are running 9.1, update to the latest version, 9.2.1, and see if the issue persists.


Recover data from partition showing as FFFF How can I get back my data from the FFFF… partition which is ~350 GB by fixing the partition table?

   977105059           1                     Sec GPT header
Riccados—MacBook—Pro:~ Riccado$ sudo gpt —r show /dev/disk0s2
       start        size        index        contents
           0   683645536
Riccados—MacBook—Pro:~ Riccado$ sudo gpt —r show /day/disk0
       start        size        index        contents
           0           1                     PMBR
           1           1                     Pri GPT header
           2          32                     Pri GPT table
          34           6
          40      409600             1       GPT part — C12A7328—F81F-11D2-6A46-00A0C93EC938
      409640   683645536             2       GPT part — FFFFFFFF—FFFF—FFFF—FFFF—FFFFFFFFFFFF
   684055176     1269536             3       GPT part — 48465300-0000-11AA—AA11-00306543ECAC
   685324712    49224610             4       GPT part — OFC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4
   734549322         694
   734550016     8073216             5       GPT part — 0657FD6D—A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F
   742623232   233212248             6       GPT part — 53746F72-6167-11AA—AA11-00306543ECAC
   975835480     1269544             7       GPT part — 426F6F74-0000-11AA—AA11-00306543ECAC
   977105024           3
   977105027          32                     Sec GPT table
   977105059           1                     Sec GPT header
Riccados—MacBook—Pro:~ Riccado$ diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1
Unmount of disk1 failed: at least one volume could not be unmounted
Riccados—MacBook—Pro:~ Riccado$

The disk is 500 GB in total. 350 GB is assigned for macOS, 120 GB for Windows and 30 GB for Ubuntu.

This morning when I woke up, I tried to boot my Mac but it didn't boot successfully as it is just showing the prohibitory sign. So I tried to fresh install macOS, pressing command ⌘-R when starting the Mac to enter Recovery Mode. But only the Windows partition (120 GB) is showing to reinstall macOS on instead of the original 350 GB partition. I reinstalled macOS on the 120 GB partition. Now I don't know how to retrieve my files back from the old 350 GB partition. They all are in same disk. Linux is not booting now too.

The second partition of your internal disk got the wrong partition type, your data probably won't be lost.

A bootable OS X partition (except the Recovery HD) either has the GUID 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC for a standard OS X partition or the GUID 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC for a CoreStorage partition. The FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF is an unknown partition type (but not no partition like the 000000-0000-0000.... one).

The first block of a standard OS X partition doesn't contain non-zeros, the first block of a CoreStorage partition contains some non-zeros. To get the first 3 blocks of a partition enter sudo dd if=/dev/diskXsY count=3 | hexdump.

The GUID can be modified with gpt. Modifying the GUID partition table with gpt requires to unmount the whole disk which can't be done if you boot to its Recovery HD or another boot volume on the same disk.

Boot to an independent OS X/macOS system providing hexdump. Here it was possible to boot to Internet Recovery because the disk contains a second OS X system (disk0s6) with hexdump. The (Internet) Recovery HD usually doesn't provide hexdump.
Open Terminal in the menubar Utilities > Terminal
Get an overview with diskutil list
Get an overview of your internal disk with the disk identifier found in the previous command. Below I assume the disk identifier of your internal disk is disk1 (replace it with the one you have found in your environment)

gpt -r show disk1

Unmount disk1 with diskutil umountDisk disk1 if booted to an external disk/thumb drive with a full OS X/macOS
hexdump the first 3 blocks of the FFFF... partition:

dd if=/dev/disk1s2 count=3 | hexdump

or (depending on your boot volume)

dd if=/dev/disk1s2 count=3 | /Volumes/2nd_SysVol_name/usr/bin/hexdump

The following result identifies it as a normal OS X partition:

0000000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000400 48 2b 00 04 80 00 21 00 48 46 53 4a 00 00 01 ff
0000410 d3 8c 77 d3 d4 33 3c b0 00 00 00 00 d3 8c 5b b3
0000420 00 00 02 a8 00 00 00 25 00 00 10 00 00 fe b7 f6
0000430 00 fe 1e fa 00 ed 80 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00
0000440 00 00 10 f2 00 00 5a 9d 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01
0000450 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000460 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 7d 9d b0 3a 02 31 62 f0
0000470 00 00 00 00 00 1f e0 00 00 1f e0 00 00 00 01 fe
0000480 00 00 00 01 00 00 01 fe 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000490 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
00004c0 00 00 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 00 06 00
00004d0 00 00 0a 00 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00004e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000510 00 00 00 00 03 10 00 00 03 10 00 00 00 00 31 00
0000520 00 03 ac 00 00 00 31 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000530 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000560 00 00 00 00 05 40 00 00 05 40 00 00 00 00 54 00
0000570 00 00 10 00 00 00 54 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000580 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000600

The first number is the byte count in hex: 0000000: 0; 0000600: 1536. The * denotes identical lines. This means: the first two blocks (0x000-0x3ff) are all zeros.

A CoreStorage partition shows some non-zeros in the first block (0x000-0x1ff):

0000000 0c 73 a1 a9 ff ff ff ff 01 00 10 00 07 14 d7 01
0000010 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000020 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000030 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000040 00 20 c1 cc 0f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000050 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 43 53 01 00 00 00 04 00
0000060 00 10 00 00 00 00 40 00 11 bc fc 00 00 00 00 00
0000070 11 c0 fc 00 00 00 00 00 11 c4 fc 00 00 00 00 00
0000080 11 c8 fc 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000090 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00000a0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 02 00 00 00
00000b0 62 02 98 59 ee a9 ab 51 9b 49 23 90 2e f8 8b 43
00000c0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000130 e4 6e f8 f2 63 99 45 c1 b2 13 86 28 a5 18 46 6d
0000140 c4 51 c0 f6 32 f9 43 ab 8e 59 42 d2 1a ef f6 50
0000150 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000400 48 2b 00 04 80 00 21 00 48 46 53 4a 00 00 01 ff
0000410 d1 98 a4 93 d4 33 8b d5 00 00 00 00 d1 98 88 73
0000420 00 06 07 53 00 01 82 39 00 00 10 00 00 fb 6a 00
0000430 00 c5 1c 55 00 25 73 c7 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00
0000440 00 0d e2 65 00 3e a2 fb 00 00 00 00 02 20 00 fb
0000450 00 00 00 31 00 06 b9 ef 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000460 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 31 fb 48 1e a0 6c 47 a2 9f
0000470 00 00 00 00 00 1f e0 00 00 1f e0 00 00 00 01 fe
0000480 00 00 00 01 00 00 01 fe 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000490 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
00004c0 00 00 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 00 06 00
00004d0 00 00 0a 00 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00004e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000510 00 00 00 00 0e 40 00 00 01 30 00 00 00 00 e4 00
0000520 00 00 10 00 00 00 e4 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000530 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000560 00 00 00 00 11 d0 00 00 01 30 00 00 00 01 1d 00
0000570 00 02 80 00 00 00 72 00 00 13 30 97 00 00 13 00
0000580 00 15 c5 aa 00 00 13 00 00 18 2d 23 00 00 13 00
0000590 00 19 d8 fb 00 00 13 00 00 1b 76 cb 00 00 13 00
00005a0 00 1c 34 70 00 00 13 00 00 1d 0e 4d 00 00 13 00
00005b0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000600

The line starting with byte 0x130 shows the UUID of the Physical Volume, the line starting with byte 0x140 shows the UUID of the Logical Volume Group.

The string 48 46 53 4a (= "HFSJ") in the first 16 bytes of the third blocks identifies a Journaled HFS+ volume.
First fix your Recovery partition:

diskutil umountDisk disk1
gpt remove -i 3 disk1
diskutil umountDisk disk1
gpt add -i 3 -b 684055176 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk1

Now remove the second partition:

diskutil umountDisk disk1
gpt remove -i 2 disk1
diskutil umountDisk disk1

re-add the partition with the proper type
either a normal OS X partition

gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 683645536 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk1

or (if you have found a CoreStorage partition)

gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 683645536 -t 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk1

Finally verify/repair the disk with diskutil verifyDisk disk1 and/or diskutil verifyVolume disk1s2. If a repair is needed use repair (instead of verify) as prefix in the above commands.

If you don't have an OS X/macOS volume with hexdump use this answer: How do I recover/fix my OS X partition?


How to display the MiniPlayer in iTunes with AppleScript? I use an Automator workflow to open iTunes at startup, etc.

I'd like it to open the MiniPlayer window.
I don't see a function to do that in Automator.

How could I do this with an AppleScript script?

AFAIK you can only do this using UI scripting, here are some ways to switch to the miniplayer :

Simulating a click on the button in the interface :

tell application "System Events" to tell process "iTunes"
    click button 4 of window 1
end tell

Using the keyboard shortcut :

tell application "System Events"
    tell application "iTunes" to activate
    keystroke "m" using {option down, command down}
end tell

If you want to display the miniplay AND the fullsize player (your request isn't clear) use :

tell application "System Events"
    tell application "iTunes" to activate
    keystroke "3" using {option down, command down}
end tell


Symlink dotfiles to Documents/Dotfiles I have a setup script which creates links between my dotfiles repo and the files at the root of my Home directory. Generally speaking, the process looks like this for each file:

ln -s ~/Documents/Dotfiles/.bash_profile ~/.bash_profile

Is this linked in the correct direction? E.g, I want to be able to keep my customizations in Documents and just point to them. Most of the documentation I've read seems to assume a traditional Unix or Linux environment, so I'm not sure this is correct.

The relevant part of my setup script is below

#!/bin/bash

set -e

function makeLinks() {
  ln -s ~/Documents/Dotfiles/.bash_aliases ~/.bash_aliases
  ln -s ~/Documents/Dotfiles/.bash_profile ~/.bash_profile
  ln -s ~/Documents/Dotfiles/.bash_prompt ~/.bash_prompt
  ln -s ~/Documents/Dotfiles/.gitconfig ~/.gitconfig
  ln -s ~/Documents/Dotfiles/.gitignore_global ~/.gitignore_global

  read -rp "This may overwrite existing files. Are you sure? (y/n) " -n 1;
  echo "";
  if [[ $REPLY =~ ^[Yy]$ ]]; then
    makeLinks
  fi;
}

man ln clearly says:

ln [-Ffhinsv] source_file [target_file]

So yeah, your command seems reasonable.

The script, however, is odd. makeLinks is never invoked and the prompt asking for confirmation would just cause recursion. You probably meant to place it outside the function definition.


Using a virtual machine as a network tap on a mac server hoping for the virtual machine to be a 'network tap'.

configuration is an intel mac with an airport card and several usb nics. The airport card is for connectivity to the internet. the usb nics provide connectivity to the local lan. internet sharing is used on the mac to distribute internet access and the mac is also a file repository.

Internet sharing on the mac results in a dhcp serving addresses in a different class c for each nic-so one nic for example will get 192.168.2.x, the next nic gets 192.168.3.x, etc. This allows each nic to service a whole lan segment. Wireshark installed on the mac sees all interfaces and allows monitoring of traffic. I do not want to run wireshark natively on the mac. It's a production machine and messing around with the bare metal is discouraged. A virtual appliance is perceived as safer (even though it may not be, i cannot convince the responsible higher ups)

So, vmware fusion is set up on the mac to run an instance of windows xp sp3. wireshark is installed on windows.in this configuration, wireshark only sees the airport but not the usb nics. The network adapters are set up in bridged mode on vmware. Is there a tutorial that clarifies setup for the nics in fusion and the proper ip addresses they should have in windows? Should they be bridged there as well? If i use the same ip as that used on the mac, obviously i get an ip address conflict.

I was hoping for the virtual machine to be a 'network tap' but it's having trouble seeing the nics, let alone the traffic that is not even destined for it. i guess another way to solve this problem is to get the traffic to go through the xp instance. XP would need a dhcp server running. This dhcp server would service the nics. i tried tftpd but that is a little too rudimentary- it does not see the virtual interfaces. i'll keep looking but need some enlightenment.

please be gentle.

In bridged mode, the VM's port gets its own Ethernet MAC address. If VMNet acts like a switch, you might not see packets destined for the Mac's network node, which I assume is the point of this exercise.

Yes, the virtual port needs it's own IP address as well.

Internet sharing just passes along traffic not destined for the machine that is sharing. It is not a network bridge (it runs as a NAT IIRC), so it won't pass along broadcasts either.


What is the impedance of the line/headphone jack on MacBook Pro Retina? I want to buy headphones that I will primarily use on my MacBook Pro Retina. I read that I should not buy headphones with high impedance because the volume will be really low. I want something I can use with my MacBook and my iPad. I looked at these headphones, but I'm afraid they will not work well for my purposes:

http://www.amazon.com/Beyerdynamic-770-PRO-250-ohms/dp/B0006NL5SM/ref=pd_cp_e_0

Does anyone have experience with this stuff?

I couldn't find the specific details for the new MacBook Pro Retina machine, but these specs are pretty universal across the whole MBP lineup and should help you match a pair of headphones:

  Line/Headphone Output

  The line/headphone output is automatically selected for audio output if no external device is detected at the S/PDIF optical digital output port. The line/headphone output supports a stereo data stream at bit depths of 16, 20, or 24 bits per sample and at sample rates of 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, or 96 kHz. The line/headphone output volume can be adjusted from 0.0 dB to -95.25 dB.

  During playback of a 1 kHz, full-scale sine wave (44.1 kHz output sample rate, 24-bit sample depth, 100 kΩ load, unless otherwise specified) the audio line output has the following nominal specifications:

  Jack type: 3.5 mm stereo
  Maximum output voltage: 2 VRMS (+8.24 dBu)
  Output impedance: < 24 Ω
  Frequency response: 20 Hz to 20 kHz, +0.5 dB/-3 dB
  Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR): > 90 dB
  Total harmonic distortion + noise (THD+N): < -80 dB (0.01%)
  Channel separation: > 75 dB

  Note: For best results, equipment plugged into the line/headphone output jack should not connect the audio ground to other grounds, such as the chassis or “green-wire” ground.

The answer to that post doesn't contain a reference link I'm afraid.

I did find a link on the Apple Support page that says the Mac Mini's headphone jack is 10 Ohms.

All this is to say: yes, you're correct. Those headphones are far too high a load for the limited-power amplifiers in your iDevices and your MacBook Pro.

You want a lower impedance headphones. They're more efficient at converting the electrical signal they're passed in to sound you can hear. More efficient means, for the same power electrical signal, higher volume reproduction.

Aim for something the less-than-or-equal to 64 Ohm range if you can.


Access back-up of Pictures folder on network drive I backed up the contents of an old Macbook which was probably running 10.5.8 by copying ~/Pictures and ~/Documents to a network drive, right before the laptop died with the click-of-death, which probably indicates a failure of the hard-drive.

Fortunately all I care about on the old machine were the documents and pictures, but sadly, when I try and view the contents of those back-up folders in finder I get a pop-up window that says:

  The folder "Pictures" can't be opened because you don't have permission to
  see it's contents.

I can open the directories in the terminal app and even dump the contents of the files to the console, so I don't think it's a unix permissions issue.  And none of my googling has found a fix to my problem.   Specifically, I get these errors when I try the various proposed solutions I've found so far:

>sudo chmod -N Pictures
chmod: Failed to clear ACL on file Pictures: Operation not supported
>sudo chown jdthorpe Pictures
chown: Pictures: Operation not permitted

And if I highlight the file in Finder, click cmd-I to view the file info and try and modify the Sharing and Permissions, I get a error stating:

  The operation cant be completed because you don't have the necessary permission.

Finally, DiskUtil won't reach the back-up folders since they're on a network drive.

In case it's useful, calling ls -lash yields this entry:

0 drwxrw-r--@ 1 jdthorpe  staff   264B Apr 16  2011 Pictures

Any help is greatly appreciated!

UPDATE:

The network drive in question is a Western Digital My Book Live.  This share that the data were stored on was set to serve media and the directories I'm unable to access contained media files.  Disabling serve media did not fix this issue, but I can't help noticing that I do have access to backups of a different OSX machine stored on the on the same WD drive that were placed in a share that did not have serve media enabled. The mystery continues...

As it turns out, trying to set the permissions  via the command line does not work on NAS drives, as pointed out in the response to this question.    The mystery user ("daapd") that has ownership of the Pictures on the WD My Book LIve (MBL) is the name of the streaming service that streams the pictures, video, and  music on some shares of the MBL -- and this "user" appears to have exclusive read & write access to directories containing music, pictures and video on shares that are set to allow streaming.

I came across a solution stating "Just copy the contents to a windows computer" which works because the extended unix permissions do not prevent windows machines from accessing the data.

MY SOLUTION:

Since the extended *nix permissions prevent any user not named "daapd" to access those files, I created a user on my Mac named "daapd" and voilà, I could accsss the Pictures folder.  I then created a new share on my MBL with streaming disabled, and I copied the contents from the old share to the new share and I now have access to my data.


Why does Car Play disconnect when I go in/out of WiFi range? On my 2018 Honda CR-V, when using Car Play from my iPhone 7, it frequently disconnects when entering or leaving WiFi signal range. The head unit then says "No Device Connected". Usually, I have to unplug and re-plug my iPhone to bring Car Play back up.

This problem can occur at some non-obvious places around town, because my phone can connect to my ISP's WiFi access points which are all over the place.

I finally found a solution to this. I removed the CloudFlare 1.1.1.1 app from my phone.

That app provides fast, secure DNS connections. It looks like a VPN profile to your phone, although it is not actually a VPN. Apparently 1.1.1.1 (and maybe some other VPN apps) are breaking CarPlay. I don't know why there is an interaction between networking and CarPlay, but in my before and after tests, it was rock solid once I got rid of the CloudFlare app.

The DNS app seemed like a good idea, but it was not worth all the trouble it caused.


launchd plist with large StartInterval never runs I'm trying to run a command once per day like so:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>local.borgmatic</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/borgmatic</string>
        <string>--syslog-verbosity</string>
        <string>1</string>
    </array>
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
        <key>HOME</key>
        <string>/Users/mike</string>
    </dict>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>86400</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

The problem is this job never seems to run on its own. If it was just failing, I'd expect to see an error message from launchd in system.log, but I don't see anything, even after leaving my computer running for several days with hibernation disabled. The job shows up in launchctl list and runs fine when I start it manually via launchctl start. It also runs automatically when I reduce StartInterval to something smaller, like 10. Does StartInterval have some undocumented maximum?
Incidentally, this looks like the same problem reported at OS X launchd.plist.

Can you try placing the following in your launchd file.
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>

See how that works after you start up as well.


Why do external hard drives run so hot while mounted and idle on a Macbook Pro? When my external drives are mounted and idle on a Macbook Pro, they run hot.  Why?  I do not have the same experience with NTFS volumes on my Windows box, where's the difference in idle disk usage?

No... time machine is not running on these drives.

External HFS+ Drives I use:

Seagate 3.5" 7200rpm in Seagate USB enclosure
WD Green 3.5" 7200rpm in rosewill USB dock
WD Black 2.5" 7200rpm in rosewill USB dock
Seagate 2.5" 7200rpm in macally firewire 800

It's simple. Heat comes from the drive motors spinning - so more heat implies more time spinning. (And since these drives spin at constant rates - it's more the duty cycle that the motors are on, then how the motors are being controlled that affects heat generation.)

I will assume you have selected "Put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible." in energy saver since that needs to be checked for Mac OS X to tell the drives they are no longer needed. When they are idled the heat generation is less.

If you asked to idle the drives by selecting the choice above, then you need to find what process is polling the drives which keeps them in a non-idle status. The fs_usage command would be a great place to start to monitor what writes/reads are happening.

Once you know what processes are responsible, you have a chance to change things.

Alternatively, you can use Disk Utility to unmount the drives. They should sleep well but at the cost of not being mounted.


Cannot manually delete favorites in Safari in iOS 10.3.2 I've got an iPad 4 that I use irregularly, so I was a bit slow to update it to iOS 10.3.2. Since doing so, I've found that Safari takes a few tries to start up normally, and, when I try to delete a site from Favorites after accidentally adding it twice, it freezes up for a moment, and may or may not close, but does not delete the bookmark.

Two attempts so far have successfully deleted a bookmark, but in both cases it was the most recent, and not the one targeted. Hard resetting doesn't seem to help.

Frankly, I'm a n00b when it comes to Apple devices, so any advice would be appreciated.

It's going to be very difficult to troubleshoot this based on the info you've provided.

Honestly, the iPad 4 is considered 'old' (introduced in 2012).  It does support the iOS version you're using but, like a 102 year-old man, it will struggle with some seemingly basic tasks like putting his pants on and using a spoon, simply because it's old.

If a reset didn't help, your only option might be to buy a new(er) device.


Why doesn't Mail.app ver. 4 recognize Google Apps accounts as Gmail IMAP When I add a gmail account with a username of @gmail.com, Mail.app ver 4 recognizes this as a Gmail IMAP account. However, if I try to add a Google apps domain email address ending in @google-app-domain.com, Mail.app does not recognize this as a Gmail IMAP account. Instead, I have to manually select IMAP.

Is there a difference between Gmail IMAP accounts and IMAP accounts in Mail.app ver 4?
Why doesn't Mail.app ver 4 recognize Google Apps accounts as Gmail IMAP accounts?

The Gmail IMAP accounts are there for convenience: Gmail is popular and the possible in & out servers are the same for the lot of users. Having ugly technical data filled upfront makes the user experience more laid back and minimizes the possibility of typoing wrong data.

The domain itself doesn't tell if it is a Google Apps domain or not. Yes, (any) mail software could try to retrieve the info through some channels, but that would lead to extra traffic. Also using your domain with Google Apps is rather marginal versus not using your own domain with Google Apps.

Furthermore, it would be rather dubious if Apple tried to check every non-gmail.com domain if it is a Google Apps domain or not. Every query leaves a footprint.


Why won't my AppleScript run as a Service? I have a simple AppleScript that works exactly as expected when run on its own, ether as an app, directly from within ScriptDebugger or Script Editor, or as an element of an Automation from within Automator:

However, when I attempt to run this Automation as a Service, for example by saving it as a Service and running it from the Services menu

nothing happens. The Service fails to run whether I use a "Run AppleScript" action in Automator, or create an application from the script, and use a Launch Application action.

Why won't my AppleScript run as a Service, when it runs perfectly in all other circumstances?

This is weird, but I have seen at least three people on Apple Support Communities who had this problem when a of process "x" and a tell application "System Events" to are on the same line.

Try this.

on run {input, parameters}
  tell application "System Events"
      tell process "TextWrangler" to set visible to not visible
  end tell
end run


How to manually add an artwork to the iTunes Artwork directory? I would like to add an artwork to an album which has files saved in .wav format. I know that it is not possible to attach an artwork to a wave file, so I'm trying to add a standalone artwork.jpg file to the album in iTunes.
I found out that:

it is not possible to attach an artwork to a track or an album directly
placing an artwork.jpg file in the album's directory doesn't work.
I learnt from other sources like this that there iTunes saves artworks somewhere in the Album Artwork folder (probably here: /Users/user/Music/iTunes/Album\ Artwork).

My questions are:

Is it possible to add an artwork manually somewhere in that Album Artwork folder?
Is there any other hacky way to make iTunes actually load an artwork to an album in .wav format?

Note: The album is not available on the iTunes store, so the album hasn't got the official artwork which could be downloaded by iTunes on its own.

Note 2: the traditional way of adding an artwork using Get info does not work for .wav files.

Major update:
It turns out that it is possible to add an artwork to any album in iTunes. The format doesn't matter.
There is one more problem however: it is not possible to add an artwork to an album which has only one track.
Is there a way around it?

Just find the track [or the entire album] in iTunes, select it then hit  Cmd ⌘   i  to get info.
Select the Artwork tab then drag your picture from Finder into there.

Unfortunately, this appears to work for just about any format except WAV.
This also applies to an overall 'album' artwork added to the folder rather than files. It will only work if they are not all WAVs.

I'd suggest perhaps converting to AIF, which would be a completely lossless conversion.


How do I stop people reading my iMessages as they come in? I don't want anyone to be able to see from whom I am receiving iMessages or text messages or the content of those messages.

Can I hide both!?

If you mean from the Lock Screen or Notifications Centre, then
Settings > Notifications > Messages
switch off Lock Screen &/or Notification Centre

.. or if you simply want the content of the messages disabled, lower down the screen [out of sight on this image] uncheck Show Previews - though that will show who sent a message, but not the content.


Is it safe to turn the iPhone 4 off for over a week I am going away on holiday for a week but don't want to take my phone with me because I'm afraid of running up a huge bill, is it safe to turn the phone off for this long? Or can it damage the battery?

This answer is somewhat outdated as Apple has added very robust and intelligent overcharging, over rate charging, temperature controls and adaptive charging to extend the life and avoid many of the situations where 2010 to 2015 era battery and charge system tech could result in less service length than ideal.

Even for 2010 era, what is described is still certainly safe - just turn it off and enjoy your trip. Newer gear makes this even more safe to do. You really have to go out of your way to exhaust batteries - and only random failures result in swaps in my experience now.

iPhone and all other Apple Products shipping in the last 5+ years (excepting the Apple Battery Charger which are NiMH AA cells) have lithium polymer (lipo) batteries. The MacBook Pro and Air batteries are a bit more sophisticated than the iPhone/iPod/iPad batteries but the underlying chemistry is the same.

It is safe to store them for months and it's best to charge them 50% and turn off the device for long term storage. All lipo batteries work best when they get a normal serive charge and discharge cycle once a month, but slowly draining from 50% to 0% over 6 to 12 months and then getting charged back to 50% is quite safe for several years of storage.

I wouldn't worry about leaving it off even 5 months if you starting over 50% but less than 70% charge in a not-hot location.

The worst thing for a battery is to
use or charge it above 95 degrees F.
The next worst is deep, deep
discharge (well past when the device
shuts off) - make sure you charge up
the battery past half before long periods of
storage.
Repeated long storage while full.
(don't make a habit of leaving it
100% full and off for months at a time)

I still have my original iPhone going strong (for occasional testing) by waking it up every 6 months at a minimum. If I leave it around 2/3 full and wake it six months later - it's usually got more than 1/4 battery left. I then use it for a few days charging and discharging fully before shutting it off again.


Apple ID Sign in issue I recently updated to Catalina. Now, it seems that I cannot properly sign into my Apple ID on my MacBook Pro. My system preferences page looks like this.

Has anyone else encountered this?

Addendum: It seems that I am actually logged in, I can see everything on the Apple ID page.

This was solved by logging in and out, for anyone else asking.


Help "Rebuilding" a Mac Pro G3? I've got a gutted Mac Pro G3 tower which I'm thinking of building a machine into. What form factor should the motherboard be and what are some good starting points for parts?

I'm not necessarily looking into Apple parts per sé. I'd be fine installing Windows in there too.

EDIT:

The tower looks like this, except the front drive and panel is missing.

I don't know what motherboard setup they used, but it might be ATX. Can you post some images of the innards and the backside? Then we might be more able to say what would be doable.

(Edit: it'd definitely possible: here's instructions from someone doing essentially what you're talking about: http://www.inventgeek.com/projects/p4mac/OverView.aspx.)

I have a Sawtooth PowerMac G4 and it has a fairly standard ATX motherboard. I'm planning on pulling its innards out and putting a microATX board in there. I'd recommend getting the ATX specifications and a ruler and seeing if all the holes are in more or less the right place. So what you're thinking of is definitely possible.


iOS 9.1 beta 3-4 eating up my wifi downstream I just run into a strange issue. My iPhone 6 Plus 64GB (updated today to 9.1 beta 3) started eating my wifi downstream (not upstream) after I plugged it to my macbook for charging. I tried disabling any feature (I was aware of) that could download stuff in the background. Every app is updated on my device. There is also no indicator at the statusbar. Every app is terminated. When I unplug the device from charging and reenable the wifi connection the download process starts again.

Rebooting the device while unplugged does help but if I start charging the device it happens again.

Any suggestion what that could be, maybe I missed something here. The free space is gone from 6GB down to 3GB already.

Version: 9.1 (13B5130b)

UPDATE:

Version: 9.1 (13B136) behaves the same. I deleted almost all apps I don't use atm and searched trough every setting that could use background downloading. The device is downloading non stop (it should be 4-6GB already).

I would do three things to narrow down the culprit:

Connect to Xcode and look at the console logs for the phone - activity might be logged
Connect to Instruments and profile the network activity
Connect to iTunes and make snapshots of the storage sizes (or use storage and usage on iOS) to see what bins are growing over time.

You can turn off iCloud to reduce many downloads, but it really depends on which apps you have installed, how they background data load and what data stores they are configured to pull. Since you are on the betas, you have many options to pick apart the data flow using diagnostic profiles provided by Apple and the developer tools similarly provided.


VNC Server for Mac OS? I'm looking to run a VNC server on some of my Macs running Mac OS so that I can access them from other machines. Google searching for generic terms was useless, for example "VNC Server Mac OS" only gets you results about Mac OS X.

More specifically, I'm looking for VNC server software(s) that would run on both 68K and PowerPC. What VNC server software is available for Mac OS?

Just to clarify: this question is about Mac OS, not Mac OS X or macOS (Sierra/High Sierra).

There is already VNC-server software builtin to the macOS. Go to System Preferences > Sharing and tick the box for Screen Sharing on the left. Notice the Computer Settings… button on the right. Click that and you will get a drop-down dialogue with an option for "VNC viewers may control screen with password:" Enable that, and you should be able to use whatever VNC-client software you choose. I am not very experienced, but my research led me to choose TigerVNC, which I've used with success on Linux to control my Mac.


How to show hidden files on mac using mouse (without Terminal or Keyboard shortcuts) I want to see the hidden files in all the directories of mac. Also, I want to change this setting so that even after restarting mac I should be able to see these hidden files/folders

If you use the 'old-style' Terminal command, the view ought to stick through reboots.

The simple Terminal command is

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE; killall Finder

However, as you want to do this by mouse only, you will need to wrap this into an Applescript, saved as an application.

From my own answer at How to set ⌘ + H to enable show hidden files if you use the following script, saved as an application, you can invert the hidden flag by simply double-clicking the app.

set newHiddenVisiblesState to "YES"
try
    set oldHiddenVisiblesState to do shell script "defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles"
    if oldHiddenVisiblesState is in {"1", "YES"} then
        set newHiddenVisiblesState to "NO"
    end if
end try
do shell script "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles " & newHiddenVisiblesState & "; killall Finder"


App Store not allowing me to upgrade to Sierra I'm trying to upgrade from El Capitan 10.11.6 to the latest version of Sierra 10.12.x.

I'm following this tutorial which recommends getting Sierra through the App Store.

However when I open the App Store and go to the Updates tab, I do not see Sierra as an option, only upgrading security patches for my existing 10.11.6 installation:

What's going on here? How can I find 10.12.x and upgrade to it?

Forget that guide. It is incorrect at this point and giving you misleading instructions.

The Update tab is only for updates for your currently running system.

As you phrased correctly in your question title, you want an upgrade.

That means a completely new system.

Currently, the Sierra installer – or upgrade – is on the first tab. The Featured-tab marked with a star. Top link on the right. Text only.

You may also search for "macOS Sierra" in the search box, upper right corner.

All respecting the prerequisite that your machine is supported for this kind of upgrade.


Does Spotlight search work with a Time Capsule? I would like to use a Time Capsule as a file server for 3-4 Macs in a small network.
I've 600 GB of data, and a lot of small files. My colleagues work a lot with Spotlight to find files. I would like to ask you: does Spotlight search work if I use a Time Capsule as a file server?

Yes.
Per default, it will be indexed. You can opt-out any location in...

System Preferences → Spotlight → Privacy

If you add and remove a location in the privacy tab, it will be re-indexed.
Also see Apple's support document Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes.


Where does the upgrade to macOS Catalina move root "/" directory files? After updating to macOS Catalina, all the folders I had saved in the root directory, "/", were missing.

I read that the system is now read-only, but didn't see a notice on where previous files have gone.

Are they on the system or do I need to restore them from backup?

This took me a long time to figure out, but any file that was formerly at, e.g., /my-cool-directory was moved to /Users/Shared/Relocated Items/Security/my-cool-directory.

I ended up moving the directories by running this command from the terminal:

cd "/Users/Shared/Relocated Items/Security"
sudo mv my-cool-directory ~/
# enter your system password when it asks you

After doing that, my file is then located in my home directory, e.g. ~/my-cool-directory

After a subsequent Mac OS X update, the files may be in /Users/Shared/Previously Relocated Items.


Search for page number with PDF Expert and Applescript I'm trying to write an Applescript script that will open a pdf agile.pdf with PDF Expert and search for a page number.

I'm getting close with the following script:

do shell script "open agile.pdf"
delay 1.0

tell application "System Events"
  tell application process "PDF Expert"
    click menu item "Go to Page..."  of menu 1 of menu bar item "Go"  of menu bar 1
    keystroke "42"
    key code 76
  end tell
end tell

The problem is my script as it is will only work if I've already "clicked into" a PDF Expert window.

Is it possible for me to tell Applescript to "click into the PDF Expert window after it opens?

Also, it is possible for me to tell Applescript to "wait until the window exists?

I was reading another answer that makes it look like the following will work but it doesn't:

repeat until window "agile" of process "PDF Expert" exists
end repeat

I've done some poking around with UIElementInspector as recommended in another answer. This is the output of the PDF Expert window:

<AXApplication: “PDF Expert”>
 <AXWindow: “agile”>
  <AXSplitGroup>
   <AXScrollArea>

Attributes:
   AXHorizontalScrollBar:  “<AXScrollBar>”
   AXParent:  “<AXSplitGroup>”
   AXChildren:  “<array of size 5>”
   AXFocused (W):  “1”
   AXSize:  “w=892 h=649”
   AXRole:  “AXScrollArea”
   AXTopLevelUIElement:  “<AXWindow: “agile”>”
   AXHelp:  “(null)”
   AXChildrenInNavigationOrder:  “<array of size 5>”
   AXPosition:  “x=292 y=-803”
   AXWindow:  “<AXWindow: “agile”>”
   AXRoleDescription:  “scroll area”
   AXVerticalScrollBar:  “<AXScrollBar>”
   AXContents:  “<array of size 3>”
   AXFrame:  “x=292 y=-803 w=892 h=649”

Actions:
   AXScrollLeftByPage - scroll left by a page
   AXScrollRightByPage - scroll right by a page
   AXScrollUpByPage - scroll up by a page
   AXScrollDownByPage - scroll down by a page

PDF Exper and keystroke "42" doesn't work for me.

However, using Skim and key code works:

do shell script "open -a Skim agile.pdf"
delay 0.1

tell application "System Events"
  tell application process "Skim"
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "Skim" to click menu item "Go to Page…" of menu "Go" of menu bar 1
    delay 0.1
    key code {21, 19, 36}
  end tell
end tell


How to move app bundles safely on the command line I need to copy/move a bunch of macOS apps from some directory locations to another location. I know I can do this safely via the Finder. (By "safely" I mean that the app still starts up and works after copying/moving.)

However I would like to do this via the command line. Can I just use cp and mv like this:

$ cp -pr /path/to/old-location/myapp.app /path/to/new-location

$ mv /path/to/old-location/myapp.app /path/to/new-location

What about resource forks of files in the bundle? Or do other considerations warranting a better command line tool for copying/moving apps safely?

I am using macOS 10.13, High Sierra, in this particular case, but of course I'd be interested in a solution independent of the macOS version.

The copying of files on the Mac command line is a curious thing.

If both the source and the destination are on HFS, HFS+ or APFS file systems then cp will preserve special macOS attributes and since fairly early versions of macOS all extended attributes.

If you want to be slightly more secure you can use the -a option to cp which preserves absolutely everything including modification time, access time, file flags, file mode, user ID, and group ID, as allowed by permissions.  Access Control Lists (ACLs) and Extended Attributes (EAs), including resource forks, will also be preserved. It also copies, rather than follows, symbolic links. Personally, this is what I use for copying apps.

For a total guarantee, including copying to other file systems such as FAT or NTFS you should use ditto —-rsrc which saves all the neat stuff in .AppleDouble files on those file systems.

If you want more information I heartily recommend a close reading of the man page of both.

mv is safe as houses so long as you are on the same volume and fine if both source and destination volumes are macOS formats.

By the way, you mistyped your example. It should be cp -pR, which is essentially the same as cp -a.


Problem loading images on Cultofmac.com in Safari and Chrome I have had a problem with the cultofmac site for a little while now.

The pages will load the text, video and some ads. But does not load the main images for the articles until about a minute. This is per page load.

I did at one point have a beta Safari 6.1 running when I first had the problem start. But only after a couple of weeks of using the beta.

I have switched back to Safari 6.0.5 and still have the same problem.
Checking the site in Chrome gives me the same problem. But takes even longer to load if at all.

This does seem to me to be a problem at cultofmac's end with badly constructed javascript and cross domain irregularities.

(All other sites are fine.)

Looking at the Console Log (Safari): which stay blank for the first minute.
Then exactly as the page images start to load I get. errors like these:

From Safari

  Unsafe JavaScript attempt to access frame with URL
  http://www.cultofmac.com/ from frame with URL
  http://rs.gwallet.com/r1/axbanner?winprice=UkG3IgAE7WQKwo3kAABZub0c2HP1BDKsTDxKew&clickurl=http://adclick.g.doubleclick.net/aclk....kcbkkng41.
  Domains, protocols and ports must match.

(Above http middle content is trimmed. It was very very long)

  Failed to load resource: The request timed out.
  https://app-stacksocial.netdna-ssl.com/assets/dealOfTheDay.js

and

  Unsafe JavaScript attempt to access frame with URL
  http://www.cultofmac.com/ from frame with URL
  http://bsa.adsrv.us/1278819/backfill5.html. Domains, protocols and
  ports must match.

From Chrome:

  Blocked a frame with origin "http://w.coin.scribol.com" from accessing
  a frame with origin "http://www.cultofmac.com". Protocols, domains,
  and ports must match. ScribolTemplate.min.js:1
  ScribolTemplate.parseUrlScribolTemplate.min.js:1
  ScribolTemplate.trackImpressionsScribolTemplate.min.js:1 (anonymous
  function)5?hpage=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cultofmac.com%2F247370%2Fios-7-mail-now-lets-you-view-files-inside-zipped-attachments%2F:111
  njquery.min.js:2 o.fireWithjquery.min.js:2
  e.extend.readyjquery.min.js:2 c.addEventListener.Bjquery.min.js:

I have tried to contact their web support with no response.

1, can anyone confirm if they are also getting this issue with the site.

2, Is there any fix anyone can think of my end.
(Blocking the ads does not work. It just makes the matter worse by stopping the whole site loading)

Details.

iMac 27" 2011.
Safari - Version 6.0.5 (8536.30.1)
Chrome - Version 29.0.1547.76

Someone at work Suggested I change my DNS servers to openDNS and see if that resolves the problem.

As it may be that the DNS server from my provider is what is slowing down the page load due to the cross domain calls.

I just tried googles 8.8.8.8 and  8.8.4.4  DNS servers.

It turns out that this is indeed the case.
The images load as one would expect. And changing back to the IP's DNS the Problem reoccurs.

But I do not really want to change my DNS servers. So will be asking a separate question related to this.


Is it possible to change text size & formatting of Numbers' formula input field? Is it possible to set the text-size and possibly other formatting of the actual values/formula input field in Apple iWork Numbers?

Comparing these two screenshots, it seems possible to set the size of the text to something larger.

Too small text-size for my taste:

Easier to read (screenshot originally posted here):

When I click in the formula entry bar I get an additional toolbar that has a "Formula Text Size" field. Does this appear on your screen?

Here's a screenshot from the Numbers '09 User's Guide:

I haven't found a way to make it larger than 14.

Edit

I figured out how to make it larger than 14.

Quit Numbers
Run Terminal
Type the following command:

defaults write com.apple.iWork.Numbers LSFormulaBarFontSize 80

When you run Numbers again your formula bar is plenty big:

You can use a number smaller than 80 in the Terminal command for a more reasonably-sized formula bar.


Garageband—how to change volume of a region (not whole track)? In garageband I have one audio track with many regions. I'd like to adjust the volume for each region. Is there an easy way to do that, or do I have to make a new track each time, and adjust the tracks volume?

Finally found the answer, not very intuitive but cool once you know.

There's a button to toggle 'automation'. Once that's on you can select from a dropdown whether you want to change volume, echo, reverb, etc. Then you click on the actual waves on the track and a coloured line will appear. Clicking along the line creates break points, and you can move either points or the line segments between points to shift the volume. It's not based on regions—you can adjust it anywhere.

For more information:
https://www.howtogeek.com/238649/how-to-use-automation-in-garageband/


Keyboard shortcut for Downloads folder? I use ⌘ + D whenever I go the the Desktop folder. Is it possible to add a shortcut for the Downloads folder?


How to forward local DNS queries to a VM when macOS is in offline mode? For a project I need to intercept/redirect DNS queries to a VM, which in turn runs dnsmasq. This VM is hosted by xhyve and when connected to the network, the setup works well; I have an file in /etc/resolver.conf/test.io which has:

nameserver 192.168.64.20
search_order 1

Doing dig node.test.io @192.168.64.20 or dig node.test.io give the expected results.

But when going offline, there is a problem. It seems that when macOS is not connected to a network, it only allows /etc/resolver.conf/* entries to work when they use 127.0.0.1.

I tried setting up a port-forwarding, like:

$ echo "
rdr pass inet proto udp from any to 127.0.0.1 port 53 -> 192.168.64.20 port 53
" | sudo pfctl -ef -

and changing /etc/resolver.conf/test.io to:

nameserver 127.0.0.1
search_order 1

However, the domain test.io can not be found when I try to do a nslookup or dig node.test.io @localhost. The VM is still reachable as dig node.test.io @192.168.64.20 still gets resolved.

scutil --dns gives the following:

resolver #9
  domain   : test.io
  nameserver[0] : 127.0.0.1
  flags    : Request A records, Request AAAA records
  reach    : 0x00030002 (Reachable,Local Address,Directly Reachable Address)
  order    : 1

Note: nslookup does not seem to handle resolver well, so I have also tried to use curl/wget and the browser to see if queries got resolved correctly. Also, no difference with dns-sd. All failed...

In disconnected mode there is no DNS query going at all... We solved this by adding a TUN/TAP device to the macOS node and 'pretend' with this that it is connected.


Help Unmouting disk if UUID is mounted until a Specific Time Every morning I have the same routine.

I come into work and plug in my peripherals including my Time Machine Backup. I have my Time Machine scheduled to only run one daily backup at 3:30pm.  I would like to run a script or a .plist LaunchDeamon to check all inserted external hard drives automatically and unmount if the

UUID = 32E89C07-FFDB-36F3-8CE8-5DC0560AFEC4

And then mount it at 3:15pm.  I just do not want my drive to be plugged in all day just to use it for 30 mins to back everything up.

I know this could all be resolved if I just manually plug in the drive at 3:15. However, some days I am in a meeting or away from the desk and what-not.

I was able to find documentation on how to auto eject the device at a specific time so I do not have to remember to safely remove the drive.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
            <string>com.diskejector.Backup</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/usr/sbin/diskutil</string>
            <string>unmountDisk</string>
            <string>32E89C07-FFDB-36F3-8CE8-5DC0560AFEC4</string>
        </array>
        <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
        <dict>
            <key>Hour</key>
                <integer>16</integer>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>45</integer>
        </dict>
    </dict>
</plist>

I would like some help with auto launching a .sh script that could also include the previous code I have to eject the drive at the end of the day.

There is no shell script needed if you use two launch agents.

You need the UUID of your Time Machine backup drive:

diskutil info $VolumeName | grep "Disk / Partition UUID:"

Replace $VolumeName by the actual volume name of your TM drive. If the name contains spaces use double quotes (e.g. "Time Machine backup drive".

Create two files usr.tmvolume.unmount.plist and usr.tmvolume.mount.plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/:

nano ~/Library/LaunchAgents/usr.tmvolume.mount.plist

with the content

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>usr.tmvolume.mount</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/sbin/diskutil</string>
        <string>mount</string>
        <string>$UUID</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            <key>Hour</key>
            <integer>15</integer>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>15</integer>
        </dict>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

and

nano ~/Library/LaunchAgents/usr.tmvolume.unmount.plist

with the content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>usr.tmvolume.unmount</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/sbin/diskutil</string>
        <string>unmount</string>
        <string>$UUID</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            <key>Hour</key>
            <integer>8</integer>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>30</integer>
        </dict>
        <dict>
            <key>Hour</key>
            <integer>15</integer>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>45</integer>
        </dict>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Replace $UUID in both plists by the UUID of your Time Machine volume found previously.

Load both plists with:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/usr.tmvolume.*

Now the TM backup  drive will be unmounted at 8:30am, mounted at 3:15pm and unmounted again at 3:45pm. Adjust the dates as needed.


How can I download the macOS Big Sur installer on a Mac which is already running Big Sur? I'm trying to create a Big Sur installer flash drive. All the tutorials tend to gloss over how to download the installer, but I'm finding that since this Mac is already upgraded, I can't download it again. How can I get ahold of the installer file? Only looking to download from Apple, not a third party. Thanks!

You can download the official macOS Big Sur installer from Apple  by using the following steps:

On your Mac, open the Mac App Store app, search for Big Sur and click on the Big Sur app to access the macOS Big Sur app page.
You can also use this link to directly access the macOS Big Sur app on the Mac Appe Store:

https://apps.apple.com/app/macos-big-sur/id1526878132

If the App Store app doesn't launch automatically, you can click on the View in Mac App Store button on the above webpage.

Click on the GET button.

Clicking the GET button would automatically open the Software Update preference pane under System Preferences app.

Click on the Download button to download the macOS Big Sur installer.

The Software Update preference pane would start downloading the installer. You can view the download progress here. If you wish to cancel the download, you can do so by clicking on the circular button with a cross shown just ahead of the progress bar.

One the installer is downloaded, the same can be found under the /Applications folder with the name Install macOS Big Sur.app.


My MacBook Pro doesn't sleep when lid closed Normally,

When you close the lid of your MacBook, it goes to sleep. There's no system setting you can tweak, and no command you can run, to change this

But, just like reported here -- My MacBook Pro doesn't sleep when its lid is closed. I'm sure because I have an external monitor:

when my Mac is plugged in and I close its lid, the external monitor goes black immediately, then goes all the way to sleep (takes about five or six seconds), the orange light turns on, but that last only for about two seconds, after that power light become green again, and the monitor eventually lights up. It'll response to my mouse move/click, even the lid remains closed.
If is on battery, when I close the lid, MacBook goes to sleep.

I hope this is a well known issue and there is an easy fix, because this is a brand new MBP, and I'm really really new to Mac and don't know much about it.
System Version: macOS 10.15.7 (19H2)
Kernel Version: Darwin 19.6.0

This is expected behavior and it’s called clamshell mode. With an external display and mouse/keyboard, closing your laptop lid allows you to continue working on the external devices. The momentary blackout is due to switching graphics modes. To put the machine fully to sleep, simply choose Sleep from the Apple menu.


Create a file which when opens and writes a line in Terminal Is there any way to create a file which, when clicked, opens up Terminal and types in and executes a specified line? (eg: say hello world)

What you are trying to do is write a "shell script" (in case you need to google it later on).

The first line of a shell script needs to specify what interpreter to use. In your case, use sh for the regular Bourne shell. You write this with what's called a 'shebang' like so:

#!/bin/sh

after this write whatever commands you want to run, in your case, say hello world. The shell interpreter will read this the same as if you had typed it in terminal.

In your case, your final file should be:

#!/bin/sh
say hello world

If you write this in TextEdit.app make sure you are saving in plain text mode (which is toggled through Cmd + Shift + T). You can choose to save with either the extension .command or .sh.

If you want to run it by double clicking I recommend the .command extension.

And that's it!

Possible error: if when running it you receive an error saying:

  The file “[filename]” could not be executed because you do not have
  appropriate access privileges.

you need to give yourself execute permission. To do this run:

chmod u+x path/to/my/file

If you don't know what the file-path is just type:

chmod u+x

type a space, and drag the file into the window.

If you're curious, u+x means give user (owner) execution rights.


How to undo Terminal tweaks to the computer's factory settings? I've been playing around with Terminal.

I used the following command.

defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool NO

I'd like to go back to the way the computer was when I first bought it. Is there a command that performs an undo or resets all the settings?

The delete command will remove that setting. However, you would need to know if it existed and was true. What you did was write a false value to a true false setting. If your mac was already false, the command did nothing and there’s nothing to undo.

If the default state is false, deleting it won’t matter either. Here’s how to delete a variable:

defaults delete -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled

All settings would be hard to accomplish. You could erase everything and restore from backup. Or just reinstall the OS. I would focus on just looking at things you have and want to change unless you really have written tons and tons of things and an erase install would be good. Just copy back your documents from backup and reinstall apps if you are worried settings you changed come back from Time Machine or your backup.


Keychain sync on Mac and iPhone I have a MacBook (10.12.6) and an iPhone  (IOS 10.3.3).

I configured Safari to save my passwords on websites, and I changed the default password of 'login' on keychain.

This way, the only way to see the saved password on Safari is using this master password I set on 'login' item on keychain.

My problem is the iPhone's Safari does not know the password I saved on my MacBook's Safari.

Both my MacBook and iPhone uses the same iCloud account, and the bookmark and history is in sync.

The only thing is not working is the password.

Is it a limitation on IOS or it should work with that setup?

The login keychain is a local keychain on your Mac and doesn’t sync to iOS. To use iCloud Keychain, you need to store passwords in the iCloud keychain which should be shown next to the login one in Keychain Access if you have the iCloud service enabled in System Preferences.


Time Capsule will not allow allow a guest network in Bridge mode. Why? My 2 terabyte Time Capsule used to allow a guest wifi network but since I had to switch to bridge mode to accommodate my cable internet provider (while installing an Exchange server w/o a static ip address) I no longer have the guest option.

Why?

Is there a workaround?

When placing the Time Capsule in Bridge mode, you are turning off NAT, and IP operations.

The ability for guests to be able to get to the Internet but not be able to access the home network was a result of access rules that stated the IP range that supports the guest network are not allowed to talk to the other internal network.  It is possible to do such a thing using a technology known as private-VLANs, but I don't think the Time Capsule has that sophisticated of code.  So, when we put our router into bridge mode, we become one layer 2 ethernet bridged network - that is bridged to the Access Point - within one IP network.

There does not appear to be the code necessary to do layer 2 (ethernet/wireless ethernet) separation and security.  It is doable, but apparently not in the Time Capsule.


Use 'mv' command to move files except those in a specific directory In Linux, I know the command mv !(folder1|folder2) folder1 if I want to move all files in current folder, excepted folder1 and folder2, and move they in folder1. But these commend, doesn't work in mac terminal!

Where is the equivalent command in mac?

Looks like the version of bash on recent versions of macOS is a bit older than you'll find on some new Linux distros. I see version 3.2.57 on macOS High Sierra and Mojave and version 4.2.46 on RedHat Enterprise Linux 7.

Here's some syntax you can use to exclude the directories, as you've specified:

# move everything but dir1 & dir2 into dir1
mv *[^dir1dir2]* dir1

And, the nice thing is, the syntax above ought to work in bash on both macOS and Linux.


Connecting Logitech Gaming Mouse - Not Connected in G Hub I have a Logitech G600 gaming mouse which I am hoping to use on my MacBook Pro running macOS Mojave. This mouse has a lot of buttons to which I am planning to assign shortcuts.

I have installed Logitech G Hub and when I plug in the mouse it sees it, but it says "NOT CONNECTED" and it doesn't allow me to configure it at all. The basic functions of the mouse work fine even without any software.

I've also tried using Logitech Gaming Software but this doesn't detect my mouse at all.

How can I configure my Logitech gaming mouse on my MacBook?

Here's an example of the problem showing in Logitech G Hub for a G502 mouse:

After a few frustrating hours I found the solution.

You need to install the Logitech Control Center as well. Once you've installed it, restart your machine and it should now show up as expected in Logitech G Hub.

Notes:

If macOS discovers it as a keyboard, close the window and do not try to configure it as a keyboard.
If you configured it as a keyboard as above, you can try running this to reset it: sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist
If you're using Karabiner-Elements, this might register it as a keyboard as well, causing issues. Open Karabiner -> Devices -> Basic Configuration and untick your mouse in that list.


Mac Mini won't start, shuts down on startup chord My Mac Mini bought early 2013 won't start. I get half the Apple startup chord and then it shuts down again. It doesn't even get to the gray screen, apparently no video output. I tried the different keyboard commands and also pulling out all cables to see if there is any external devices that is the cause but no luck. Reading from a suggetion I also held down the power button for 20 seconds after pulling out the power cord. But the problem remain. After pressing power I hear the sound coming and then goes out after less than a second.

Is there anything I can try except taking it to the Apple repair guys?

Have you added/changed any of the internal hardware at some point?

If your Mac Mini has more than one RAM-block, you could try booting it up with only one block inserted (if it doesn't work with the first block, try with only the second block). That could eliminate faulty RAM as the cause.

The problem is most likely hardware related, and could be for example a defective power supply.


How to script "add to iTunes Library" I'm trying to deliver as a download a collection of audio files such that the user (preferably Win and Mac) would be able to double click on the file (perhaps a DMG? / ZIP)  and launch a script that would then add the media to the users iTunes library.

I realize that's big on concept and thin on detail --- At the moment I see it as a number of different problems.

How to create a DMG file
how launch a script for the user to do the add to library when the open the DMG (or zip on Win)
how to actually do the scripting (again obviously different for Mac than Win)

I'm not expecting anybody to do the work for me, but I would appreciate pointers to suitable resources.

On the Mac side, you can create a DMG file with Disk Utility. Once started you can either select "New Image" to create a an empty one or use ⇧⌘N to create an image based on a folder.

To copy the audio files to iTunes, it's probably easiest to just move/copy them to ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Automatically Add to iTunes (may be called differently, just look at the folder first) and let iTunes (which must be running) do the rest.


Set Safari 7 dv tools console to clear on reload? I use Safari 7.03 for web development.

One thing I noticed is that the console log doesn't re-set on a reload of the page.  You need to clear it manually.

So if you run a page with a JS error, it shows, then you fix the error in your JS code and reload the page and the error is still in the log -- but it's from the LAST time.

Chrome clears the error log every time.  Is this a setting in Safari somewhere?

Either inline in your HTML, or in an external Javascript file.
Call the function console.clear();

Now, every time you go to reload your page, the console will be cleared.


Apple Photos and iCloud So from what I understood, if I have Apple Photos on my Mac set up with iCloud it will upload Photos to iCloud and only store a representation locally, thus free local disk space.
I have now importet a bunch of folders and my disk only has 112 MB of free space, so I'd assume there is enough "storage pressure" for deleting local copies but I cannot see any upload status nor does it appear that Photos wants to reduce local disk space.
Edit:
It appears Photos stopped uploading for lack of local disk space, which will be the primary reason why it cannot upload and it cannot free local disk space.

How can I fix this?

Storing the photos in iCloud only and not on local disk is possible, but it’s not the default. In the Photos app go to Preferences, select the iCloud tab and make sure that “Optimize Mac Storage” is selected.


How well does the Apple Magic Trackpad perform as a mouse replacement? I'm planning to replace my mouse entirely with the Apple Magic Trackpad on my desktop Mac. My work involves lots of typing (both code and prose). I also use Aperture quite a bit for processing photos. I don't play games; other than chess (Yes, it's that sad.)

Is the Apple Magic Trackpad capable of totally replacing the mouse?
How does its ergonomics compare to let's say the Apple Magic Mouse? Better or worse for the wrist.
Is it accurate enough for touching up photos with Aperture?
Thanks.

I've found the trackpad to be great for general purpose use (particularly the 3-finger swipe-to-drag gesture and the wonderful inertial scrolling) but I've found it too inaccurate for GUI development work.

When I'm laying out screens for software development, or creating graphics for said software, it's too awkward to exactly position things with. I suspect you will find a similar problem if you are touching-up images etc.

I've found the ergonomics to be good, to be honest - I mostly use the Magic Trackpad and when that's not suitable for a job (see above) I switch to a Magic Mouse for a couple of hours. I have relatively small hands and find the Magic Mouse to be a really comfortable mouse, with no strain on fingers or wrist even after prolonged use. The trackpad gives you less to 'lean on' but I haven't found myself with any wrist ache or strain even when I've been using it solid for a day, etc.


Macbook Pro 2015's screen flashes up and down I got my Mid-2105 15" MacBook Pro a year or two back. It worked great, and I even got a free battery replacement from Apple. However a few days ago it was dropped on the floor. At first, the Mac was not taking touch pad input and most of the keyboard (although at least some functions keys worked) wasn't working, even after restarting.

However, a bit later the keyboard and touch pad started working again. At that point I noticed that the screen was "flashing". Basically the image on the display would randomly flash to some point below on the screen, then flash back to it's normal position, and so on. This flashing happens as soon as the Apple logo is displayed at startup, and applies even to the dead battery logo.

I Googled the symptoms, but all of the results seemed to be for software issues, not hardware. I might've gone to the Genius bar, but they're all closed due to the pandemic, and with everyone quarantined at home, now is not a great time for the computer to not function.

I also noticed that when you look closely, there are also random pixels that get turned on to full brightness after the screen flashes.

So please, if anyone has any idea of went wrong or how to fix it, I'd really appreciate it. I do have some very basic experience in opening up mobile devices, so if a fix isn't too far out of my realm I might give at try.

Here is a video of the problem in action.

Basically the image on the display would randomly flash to some point below on the screen, then flash back to it's normal position, and so on. This flashing happens as soon as the apple logo is displayed at startup, and applies even to the dead battery logo.

This is a hardware issue - it's likely the LCD or back light is damaged in some way.  If you're seeing this on startup that means it's happening prior to software being (fully) loaded.

  ... a few days ago it was dropped on the floor.

That would be the cause.  I've seen this (well variations of this) numerous times.  The best way to confirm this is to "remove" the LCD from the equation - plug in an external monitor.  If there's no flashing there, it's the LCD.

Fix

You need to replace the LCD. It may be the back light, but I doubt it. You'll need an LCD Assembly.  iFixit.com has an excellent step by step guide on replacing it.  If this is not your cup of tea, I definitely recommend taking/sending it in for repair.  You may need to source this from eBay or similar to get the best price - these run in the $4-600 (USD) price range


Disable Wifi Hotspot Popup Window Is there a way to disable the wifi popup window that was introduced in OS X Lion.

I know I can remove it from known wifi networks, but sometimes I do use this connection (It's the Starbucks free wifi next door). The problem arises when I am using Ethernet and maybe it flakes out, or OS X is doing something else, but It pops this window up to let me connect to the free wifi hotspot. I'd much rather have to do this manually (Using my web browser) rather than the "always on top" popup window it gives me.

I've looked around on the internet and have found no solutions, I was kind of hoping some network guru for sound defaults write blah.blah to disable it.

See image below for the popup window I'm seeing:

While littlerock's answer works, there are better options. Specifically, you can do one of the following. The order is what I would recommend:

Change the system setting. This is preferred, as it's using the OS as designed. Do this on the console and provide your password:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.captive.control Active -boolean false
Prevent OSX from detecting the fact that we're on a captive portal, by editing the hosts file. Apple uses their domain to test whether we are on the Internet or not. To do this, edit the following file as root with a text editor:

/etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 captive.apple.com
Last, you can follow littlerock by renaming the following file (as root) to whatever you like:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Captive Network Assistant.app


Can I have my iPhone play sound for MacBook? Say I am playing a video on my MacBook Pro, and I don't want to distract others with the sound. The problem is, I don't have a 3.5 mm Headphone or AirPods at my hand, but I have an iPhone 8 Plus and its EarPods with Lightning Connector. Can I play the sound from the video playing on macOS with the iPhone, preferably without connecting the iPhone to the Mac so that I can plug in the EarPods to the iPhone's socket?

This is basically the reverse of Can I play audio from my iPhone on my Mac?

This can be done using an app called Airfoil.

Description of Airfoil app:

  Stream any audio from your Mac all around your network. Send music services like Spotify or web-based audio like Pandora wirelessly to all sorts of devices, including the Apple TV, HomePod, Google Chromecast, Sonos devices, and Bluetooth speakers. You can even send to iOS devices and other computers.

This supports sending audio to iOS devices and is also available for Windows.

The corresponding app for iOS to revive the audio is Airfoil Satelite.


MacBook Pro resale value -- should I replace the battery? Non-technical question here, sort of. I'm planning on selling my old MacBook Pro on Craigslist. It's in great physical condition, with the exception of the battery, which is nonfunctional. It's never been replaced, but after use and age it can no longer hold a charge.

Should I replace the battery before listing the laptop? That is to say, would the cost of cutting the price to list it "without battery" be greater than the cost to buy a new one? (Not to mention then I have to decide between a $20 hit-or-miss generic replacement or a $120 legit Apple battery.)

I think if the rest of the laptop is still in good condition, then replace it.

For one thing, it leaves a bit of a bad impression with a potential buyer. You're giving them a machine which works only with the plug and if they wants to use it on battery they'll have to go out and work it out with Apple himself. Personally I'd expect a pretty hefty price reduction for that.

If you replace it on the other hand, you can clearly state so in the description (eg "battery was recently replaced for $120 and should now allow you to work for a full X hours while not plugged in" or whatever) which actually increases the price and the value of the laptop.


Macbook Pro 15" mid 2012, external display @ 2560 x 1600 on 4K screen via DisplayPort? I have a Macbook Pro 15" mid 2012, and I want to add an external display running at 2560 x 1600. Given that I want a future proof display, I purchased a 4K monitor. (LG27UD88)

Of course I know it will not run 4K resolution, but I was hoping to would at least allow me to run 2560 x 1600 as supported by the NVIDIA GT650M.
Turns out I only achieve 1920 x 1080 :(

I connected with a purchased mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable.
Could it be a limitation of the cable?
Will connecting via a mini-DP to HDMI cable change anything?

The 1920 x 1080 resolution is really superb and crispy, but it's a bit an expensive HD monitor...

Anyone any tips ?

Well looks like I found the answer to my problem.
All I had to do was press the Option button when selecting "Scaled" from the Displays setting; this allowed me to select 3840 x 2160 (30Hz) and 2560 x 1440 (60Hz)

Well, to be more precise, the 2560x1440 resolution is not 60Hz but for a weird reason it shows 59Hz in System Information. Does anyone know how come?


MacBook uploading data over the Internet on Wi-Fi connection I can see upload traffic to the internet being generated by a MacBook once it connects to our LAN. The owner states he's not using iCloud and doesn't know why this occurs.

I am not a Mac expert but I may give it go to fix the issue.

What should I check for, apart from viruses? Is there a well known functionality in Macs once they connect to the Internet?

Activity Monitor
To see the number of sent packages you can use "Activity Monitor".
Open it and choose the "Network" tab. Click the "Sent Bytes" column to sort all applications by data sent.

Little Snitch
You can use a firewall software like "Little Snitch" to monitor any incoming and outgoing network connections. It can display a detailed traffic history which you can filter by application.
It is a paid software but you can use the trial for a few days and remove it afterwards.
Keep in mind that this requires you to install the software on the client's machine.


Is there a way to list the largest files and folders in Time Machine backups? I would like to clean up my backups since there are a lot of files which I don't need to access anymore (e.g. videos, podcasts and installation packages). The problem I am facing is however that I don't know which snapshots contain these large files and in which directories I used to store them. Is there perhaps a way to list the largest files in the Time Machine backup, similar to Grand Perspective or Disk Inventory X?

Yes - you can find large files in many ways.

In the finder search field type size:>9000 and add a size field if you wish in the list view to sort descending. Add zeroes to the number to get less results back for your file sizes.

This doesn't work well for network backups in my experience due to lag or incomplete spotlight databases. If that doesn't work, get a tool made to analyze Time Machine backups like BackupLoupe. It is crafted specifically to efficiently scan time machine backup drives and network volumes. It creates a comprehensive backup database of all the files and revisions that would make your size query a snap.

http://www.soma-zone.com/BackupLoupe/

Install the app
Let it index one or more intervals
Use the app's find window to sort on size after setting the search criteria as follows: Type is directory and match type of none of the following is true

It also helps to reveal the files in Finder so you could decide to remove that file across backups or just to delete that interval entirely.

Remove unnecessary backups from TimeMachine to get space
How can I manually delete old backups to free space for Time Machine?

Since Time Machine stores each backup in folders, you could unleash any other tool (DaisyDisk, Grand Perspective, WhatSize or other) on the backup, but they don't know how to interpret hard links and may take days or months to make a picture that doesn't represent the actual storage allocations.

BackupLoupe is smarter than the existing tools and doesn't double count hard linked files. It also runs in the background if you wish. Lastly, it reads a database file summarizing the backups so the results are near instantaneous and you don't even need the backup drive mounted to do the reporting.


How do I import an MP4 video created using the GoPro Hero Camera into the iPad? I have recorded some videos using the GoPro Hero Camera set at 960p resolution and 48 frames per second. These videos come out in MP4 format and I an play them on my computer (PC) just fine. However when I try to import them into iTunes and sync with the iPad 4 it says that the video is not in the correct format and can't be played. This is surprising because I was able to do this before on an iPad 2 with no problems. How can I fix this?

From Apple iPad 4 tech spec:

  MPEG‑4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second

So based on that info, FPS and resolution for mp4 are too high. Use Handbrake and convert to H.264 that supports HD on iPad.

Otherwise you can try Azul media player for iPad that can play almost all formats.


How can I stop earpods from falling out in the cold? I have a nice set of Apple earpods, but I have a problem with them falling out of my ears. All earbuds have some tendency to fall out, but the Apple ones, while comfortable and nice sounding, are particularly slippery. I can't use the in-ear variety because they give me painful ear infections.

Some earbuds I've used have a stickier rubber layer around the circumference that help them not to fall out. Especially in very cold winter conditions when my ear skin is less supple and sticky the rubber holds on well enough to keep the buds in my ear.

I wonder if there is any kind of mild adhesive I can wrap around or apply to the earpod to make it stickier. I'd really like to have a nice reliable way to use these otherwise wonderful Apple ones through the cold months.

One solution, wear them under a pair of earmuffs. (Wikipedia article)  The pods would need no modification and your ears would stay toasty warm.

There are several brands out there that fit snugly on the ears so they would hold the earbuds in place.  It may even improve sound quality.


How to re-open a Messages conversation? So I can close a conversation in Messages on my Mac and it handily disappears.  I can't seem to figure out how to re-open that conversation manually (as opposed to getting a new message in that conversation, that is).

Closing means on the left panel of Messages. Hover over a person. An X appears in the middle of their "card" on the right. Click it. This closes the conversation and does not delete it.

Does anyone know if reopening these conversations is possible?

Late Edit:
This is all dependant on you having "Save history when conversations are closed" checked in Messages prefs - otherwise you can find the conversation, but not rejoin it to your main chat window.
Very Late Edit
It appears as of Jan 2021 that the 'Save history' option can not only uncheck itself, but also then grey out, leaving you completely & utterly stuck.
This is apparently done, without informing the user of the consequences, if you enable "Messages in Cloud" in prefs.
Doing so destroys your chances of simple recovery, as the conversation is simultaneously deleted on all devices.
One more bitter lesson in never trusting iCloud to keep your data safe.

The fix for this grand & glorious mess is to:-

Log out of Messages then quit the app

Navigate to ~/Library/Messages/

Enter Time Machine & navigate back in time until before your error.

Select the chat.db file & restore
[alternatively grab this file from any other backup, Backblaze etc.]

Reboot [relog is supposed to work but doesn't.]

If you're lucky, you should be back to sanity.
It took me about 8 attempts before it worked. At one point I had a totally empty Messages & iCloud was refusing to accept my password. That's the point at which I rebooted rather than relogged.
After the reboot it stopped asking me to login & simply went back to as it was before the error, ready signed-in, all messages back.
If you didn't have iCloud Messages switched on, see below.
Recovering the conversation to my iPhone is still work in progress. Switching Messages in cloud & forcing sync has so far been unsuccessful.
I'll check again tomorrow, give it some time….
… Nope:( 24h & a lot of prompting with 'Sync Now' later, it seems the conversation is permanently lost on the phone.
Phone eventually recovered from a 3-week-old iTunes backup. Better than nothing.
iCloud, of course, has thrown the whole conversation away & saved only the very last incarnation of the backup, from last night.

You cannot directly re-open the last conversation you had from the app itself, if you already closed it by hitting the x.
You need to dig in history, it's located at ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.ichat/Data/Library/Messages
Conversations are stored by date. You only need to find any one instance of the conversation you are looking for.
Double-clicking that file will reopen it in a separate window in Messages.
Keep that window open, or the next step fails.
To persuade it to reattach to the main window…
Scroll down your conversations list - it will have reappeared in last place.
Select it, it will appear to be empty, but will fill as soon as you click it.
You can now close the extra window.


Issue upgrading to iOS 10.0 or later on an iPad 2 I have an iPad 2 running iOS 9.3.5.  I would like to install the kindle app. But that requires me to upgrade to iOS 10.0 or later.  If I go to General->Software Update, it says "Your software is up to date".  Unfortunately, I am not able to find any other way to upgrade the iOS version. Can you help me ?

iPad 2 does not support iOS 10. The last version of iOS you can install on an iPad 2 is iOS 9.3.5.