iPad mini vs iPod touch 5g for developing I want to develop for iOS and I want to do some real testing of my apps on the cheapest device.

Looking at the hardware they are the same except for the screen. They are both IPS but the iPod has a retina resolution.

Here are my concerns: with the iPod touch I'm sure that my apps will run well on the iPhone 5, with the iPad mini I don't know if it will be fit to test for the Retina displays in both the 4th Gen iPad and iPhone 5.

Will one of them be better for testing apps?

I think it makes sense to go for the iPad mini. This is because you can simultaneously test both iPhone AND iPad apps. The iPad mini will run iPhone-only apps in a reduced-screen screen mode, and will run iPad apps as normal. An iPod touch will only run iPhone-specific apps.


Does the Mac mini (2018) support Intel Hyper-Threading? I am using a Mac mini (2018) with a 3.0GHz 6-core Intel Core i5 processor. My understanding is that this chip has 6 physical cores.

The Activity Monitor shows performance graphs for 6 cores. On other Macs with Hyper-Threading enabled by default, Activity Monitor shows the number of effective/virtual cores, i.e., twice the number of physical cores.

So does the display of 6 cores on this Mac mini mean:

Hyper-Threading is not offered by this chip?
Hyper-Threading is disabled by default by Apple now (likely because of the Intel CPU flaws)?
This chip really has only 3 cores, and 6 virtual?

Hyper-Threading is offered by some models of CPUs in the 2018 Mac Mini. The base-level 3.0 Ghz Core i5 does not offer Hyper-Threading however.

I'm writing this on a 2018 Mac Mini with the 3.2 Ghz Core i7 CPU - and it does indeed display 12 graphs in Activity Monitor indicating that Hyper-Threading is enabled and used.


How do I see everything ever installed on my Mac in one place? I install things in all kinds of different ways on my Mac...

App Store, DMG's, PKG's, Homebrew, Rubygems, Macports, etc etc.

Is there an app out there that can show me my entire history of installing things through all these different channels?

I'm not sure you'll get everything in one place across so many different installation methods, especially things like Homebrew, Macports and Ruby gems...

But for the 'standard' installations, you could check out CleanApp (or various alternatives). It tends to work best if you install it early on, since it monitors installations, but it can also detect, to some extent, what is already installed.

Another option would be AppFresh (or various alternatives), though AppFresh has gone commercial now, so no longer free.

Some of those (or the alternatives linked) should show you a good selection of App Store, manually installed Applications (DMG/PKG/zip) and the like, but I don't think any will go as far as Homebrew, Macports or Ruby.


Mac Photos: Change Date of selected photos I'm searching for a way to change the date of multiple photo in the Photos App on macOS.

The Photos app does not have a feature for changing the date of multiple photos to one particular date. You can, however, change multiple photos relative to their original date.

Select the desired photos by either holding Shift and clicking to select multiple adjacent photos, or holding Ctrl and clicking individual photos.

In the menu bar, go to Image -> Adjust Date and Time

You can now change the date relative to the date of each photo you selected. For example, if you selected two photos, the first being taken on Feb 13 and the second being taken on Feb 12, and then adjusted by 5 days, the photos would be changed to Feb 8 and Feb 7.


OS X 10.6.8 direct IP translation and DNS issues This is the situation:

I have a web server on my LAN that serves up beta versions of my documentation for my free software.

This web server, via my router, responds to an external IP address. Imaginary IPs for the purpose of explanation:

My web server is on my LAN at 192.168.10.100
My WAN static IP is 200.100.50.25

Externally, DNS is not set up so that some name resolves to 200.100.50.25. Nor will it be. So you can't get there the usual way.

So, I provide URLs to my beta testers in this form:

http://200.100.50.25/mybetadocs/webpage.html

This works fine. My testers out in the world can get to my server and all is good. For them.

Here's the problem: on my machine, if I try to get to that URL, for instance, when I click on a  link on a web page that contains it,  my machine tells the router to NAT to 200.100.50.25, and that's the end of that - it goes nowhere.

The router does not appear to have any loopback capability to let it know that indeed, 200.100.50.25 is, in fact, on my LAN (although frankly, I think it should know that already, since that's its external IP and that's where I'm trying to get to. It used to work fine on my old router. But anyway.)

So what I'm looking for is a way to tell OS X here on my local machine that when I reach out to 200.100.50.25, I'm actually trying to reach 192.168.10.100 so that my web server will respond to me here on my machine, directly via the LAN.

Simply put, on my machine only, I need the following,...

http://200.100.50.25/mybetadocs/webpage.html

...to reach here:

http://192.168.10.100/mybetadocs/webpage.html

Previously, I had my users set up a hosts file entry for an imaginary servername of the form someweirdname.com, like this...

200.100.50.25 someweirdname.com

...and then put all my links up in the form...

http://someweirdname.com/mybetadocs/webpage.html

...which actually works fine, but ran into a fairly severe user problem where setting up a hosts file was completely beyond them, hence no access to the docs.

Using the IP requires nothing of the user but clicking the link, and as I said, it works fine for them. But it locks me out, which is highly inconvenient for me - I can't follow URLs out on other web servers back  to various places in my beta docs without dragging out my cellphone, turning off its access to  wifi, and going after those links via 4G so my router sees the request coming in from outside the LAN.

When I'm just reading my docs here, I just use someweirdname.com to get to them, and it's all relative from there, and that works fine too.

I just can't to them from other server's web pages out on the net. And for... reasons... I need to test those URLs to make sure they go where they are supposed to go.

Is there a solution for this conundrum that doesn't involve buying yet another servername, costing me yet more money to expose my local beta docs, and dealing with the resulting DNS maintainance churn?

I can live with it as it is, and have been, but I hate it.

Arpanet: At Work Since 1969 - editing your own hosts file is the method of choice.

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1   localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost

->

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1       localhost
192.168.10.100  someweirdname.com www.someweirdname.com
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost
fe80::1%lo0     localhost

You might have to flush the DNS cache using sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder and sudo dscacheutil -flushcache.


Unable to reach server via local IP, only "localhost" For years I've been able to use my local IP to access local servers during development.  e.g. http://192.168.80.20:3000. It seems that after updating to macOS 10.15.4 this is no longer possible.  I can only access my projects with localhost e.g. http://localhost:3000. This is fine for when I am using a local client such as Chrome or iOS Simulator, but I also need to do testing across my local network from another device.  I'm not sure what changed!

Make sure NodeJS is listening on all interfaces.

:3000
localhost:3000
[::]:3000
127.0.0.1:3000

All the above are different but all are listening on port 3000. Only the first :3000 listens to every interface: IPv4, IPv6, and other interfaces like ethernet and WiFi.

Use sudo lsof -i show which ports, interfaces, and protocols your server is listening to.


emacs on console "can not load file, package In my .emacs file, I try to install el-get with this code:

(unless (require 'el-get nil 'noerror)
  (require 'package)
  (add-to-list 'package-archives
               '("melpa" . "http://melpa.org/packages/"))
  (add-to-list 'package-archives
                      '("marmalade" . "http://marmalade-repo.org/packages/"))
  (package-refresh-contents)
  (package-initialize)
  (package-install 'el-get)
  (require 'el-get))
(add-to-list 'el-get-recipe-path "~/.emacs.d/el-get-user/recipes")
(el-get 'sync)

and get this in Messages:

Loading /Users/koxmoz/.emacs...
if: Cannot open load file: package

How can I solve this?

Neither package nor el-get are part of a standard OS X installation, they need to be installed manually.

But unless you are really keen on running emacs in terminal mode, I would recommend to install Aquamacs instead which provides a much better integration with OS X. Also, package is part of the standard installation.


How can I change sound depth and frequency characteristics in GarageBand? How can I change depth (bits) and frequency (kHzs) characteristics when recording session in GarageBand?

If I can't then what are the default values?

You cannot change depth and frequency of the recorded samples, even when changing the input settings in the Audio MIDI Setup.app (this is the way to change playback and recording settings for sound devices).

The default values for Garage Band are 44kHz, 16 bit, stereo. They are kept in AIFF format. You can explore them by right-clicking your garage band project and choosing Show package contents. The recorded files are kept in the Media folder.

Edit (added Logic 9):
In Logic 9 you can change the sampling rate (frequency) from the Project Settings window, Audio tab. Explained in the Logic 9 Manual - Setting the Sample rate. To change the bit depth you should go to Preferences -> Audio and check/uncheck 24 bit recording (It's checked by default). It's covered in the Logic 9 Manual - Setting the project bit depth.


Why is there no menu bar in Keynote for iOS? Keynote for iOS doesn't show a menu bar, only buttons.

Is there a possibility to show a menu bar ?

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

iOS applications have no menus.

Menus are a feature of OS X applications.


How to enable “middle” click of Apple's Magic Mouse? Recently I bought a Magic Mouse from Apple & I want to enable the middle click to use it  in some apps like Chrome, Safari etc.

The native configuration include only left and right click, but is there any way to enable the middle click?

Thanks in advance.

MagicPrefs seems like the only solution currently available to enable a third button on a Magic Mouse.

From their website:

  MagicPrefs is a free application for OS X which aims to improve the
  functionality and configuration options of the Apple Magic Mouse,
  Magic Trackpad and the MacBook glass trackpad.

  It features the ability to bind a variable number of finger clicks,
  taps, swipes, pinch and other gestures to functions like Middle Click,
  Hold Down Both Mouse Buttons, Spaces, Expose, Dashboard, Recent
  Applications, Tweet, Read Tweets, Google Reader etc.


Any way to update OSX 10.4's Bash version? I'm running Bash version 2.05b.0(1)-release (powerpc-apple-darwin8.0) on a PowerMac (non-Intel) G5. I often connect to the internet, but not as a server and I believe my version of Bash is vulnerable to the Shellshock exploit.

Upgrading the OS past 10.4.11 Tiger is not an option as this computer can't be upgraded for reasons.

Can I recompile bash for my system or are there any users who may have devised a patch?

Do you have gcc and other tools installed?  You can check with which gcc and then gcc --version.  If you don't, you can install these from the Developers Tools DVD that came with the system, or you can download from Apple or gnu, but it might be tricky to get a version that will run.

Once you have gcc and the other command line tools installed, the next challenge is to obtain a bash source that will successfully compile and build on an old OS.  I'm going to try this myself for 10.5 and 10.6.

Note that you don't need to worry about having a vulnerable Bash if the machine doesn't run a web server and isn't running services exposed to anyone but you.  If you're the only user, and you don't run web sharing or other external services, you don't need to both.


I can t find my internal HDD drive (part of fusion drive) on iMac 27 late 2012 Hello as I wrote on the title I have an issue with my fusion drive .. After entering internet recovery mode I only see the SSD ... Here is the photo also from my diskutil list and diskutil cs list :

Before that I took a messages twice that the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer .. This is the reason I entered Internet Recovery mode ..

It could be a hardware failure. You could test that by installing the OS in recovery mode to an external drive (USB/FireWire/Thunderbolt are all supported for booting) and then seeing if you can wipe both the HDD and SSD or set up Fusion Drive again.

This delays spending time and money on a repair tech. Or spending the time to decide if you can attempt a DIY repair or want to get it to a certified / trained tech that has access to Apple repair parts and tools.


Dock is appearing too soon I'm using Remote Desktop app on the full screen and when I get my mouse too close to the bottom of the screen (in orders to interact with remote system), the Dock is shown.

The mouse pointer (annotated below) is not even close to the Dock edge or icons and the bar is already showing up.

So there is no way I can access the bottom icons on the remote machine.

How do I change Dock behaviour, so it's not so aggressive when it comes to appearing? Or disable it in the full-screen mode completely?

System Preferences application allows you to change the behavior of the Dock. The Dock preferences pane is shown below.

I would suggest moving the dock to the left or right side of the screen.


Safari: search producing unpredictable results I've observed something weird with Safari search. The search is unable to find words that are obviously present.

For example, I went to this page. I know that the phrase 'lincRNA' is present on the page, therefore I expect to be able to search for 'RNA' (which works), 'lincRNA' (which works) and 'ncRNA' (which fails).

Does anyone else have the same experience? Are you able to reproduce this?

Thanks,

Paul

I've just discovered a hidden feature in Safari search that solves my problem. The attached picture shows the solution.

Safari can search both for instances 'containing' the query or those that 'start with' the query. I imagine the default is 'starts with', which is why I raised the above question.


What prompts breathe reminders on an Apple Watch? WatchOS 3 included a breathe app that gives occasional reminders to "take a minute to breathe".

What prompts these reminders? Does it monitor your heart rate to know when you're stressed, or does it remind you at preset times?

By default, breathe reminders are set to display every 5 hours. According to Apple, you can adjust or disable the reminders by doing the following.

  Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and tap the My Watch tab.
  Tap Breathe > Breathe Reminders.
  Choose how often you get reminders.


The contents of a folder disappeared The strangest thing just happened. I accidentally moved some files around within a folder on my desktop. I pressed command Z to try and un-do the action (I may have accidentally hit some other keys in the process, I don't know,) but instantly the folder was wiped of it's contents and even the name of the folder changed to "Untiled Folder." It seems my files have just vanished into thin air and I can't get them back. They did not move to the Trash Bin.

If that isn't odd enough, the size of that folder now is 16kb and typically, the size of an empty/new folder is 0kb..? Before my content vanished, it was more than 16kb so I have no idea where that figure came from or what data it's referring to.

HELP Please, I just need my files back...

I'm on a 13" macbook pro running OSX 10.8.2

Do you remember some of the filenames?

Try to enable Spotlight to search documents, and use it to find the file you misplaced. You should be able to find it if it’s still inside your Documents folder.

Using Terminal

My last attempt would be using Terminal to list all the files containing your files content keywords. Run Terminal and enter command below (replace your file content with some of the unique keywords in your lost documents:

grep -R 'your file content' *

It should display all the file it can find on your User folder. If it still can’t find the files, they’re most likely gone forever.


macOS Sierra restarting download instead of resuming macOS Sierra is a whopping 4GB+ download and on my capped bandwidth ISP connection I've wasted already 10GB just trying to download it. App Store always restarts download instead of resuming from how much it had already downloaded. I frequently get logged out (am guessing its because of heating issues) so the download is interrupted.

Am running OS X 10.10 on Macbook Air mid-2011 11" model.

Any help to fix this?

Update Here's the output of syslog | grep -i "shutdown cause"

Oct  5 15:24:17 leh kernel[0] <Notice>: Previous shutdown cause: 3
Oct  5 17:05:43 leh kernel[0] <Notice>: Previous shutdown cause: 3
Oct  5 17:53:43 leh kernel[0] <Notice>: Previous shutdown cause: 3
Oct  6 18:06:44 leh kernel[0] <Notice>: Previous shutdown cause: 3
Oct  6 23:32:49 leh kernel[0] <Notice>: Previous shutdown cause: 3
Oct  6 23:35:42 leh kernel[0] <Notice>: Previous shutdown cause: 3
Oct  7 23:18:26 localhost kernel[0] <Notice>: Previous shutdown cause: 3
Oct  8 11:46:24 leh kernel[0] <Notice>: Previous shutdown cause: 3
Oct  8 11:52:36 leh kernel[0] <Notice>: Previous shutdown cause: 3

From googling the shutdown code, I saw that 3 stands for a dirty shutdown. How do I investigate which app is causing a dirty shutdown?

Try clearing the app store cache to see if that fixes the issue.
http://osxdaily.com/2016/10/08/mac-app-store-temp-cache-folder/


What is the exact behavior of Catalina verifying app? By 'verifying' I mean either

an explicit popup of 'Verifying'
or app launch stuck with XProtectService comsuming CPU in background

What I know

An app on local drive with com.apple.quarantine xattr will be verified on the first start, or after something changed in the app.

However I found some app on without the xattr will still be verified, especially app copied from (or directly run on) an external/network drive.

What is the exact behavior?
Anyway to avoid this (without fully disable SIP)?

I’m not sure that anyone knows the full extent of how Apple’s protections work, but if I wanted to understand them better, I would start by reading Howard Oakley’s site at http://eclecticlight.co as he has done the most thorough job writing about it.

I know SE likes answers that aren’t just links, but there's way too much to try to summarize here.

This would be a good place to start reading: https://eclecticlight.co/tag/gatekeeper/


View original full-resolution image in Aperture 2.0 I want to do the comparison of image quality of 2 lenses, with different settings. For this purpose I need to do the pixel level comparison.
But Aperture stores originals of the files internally showing to the user only previews, that are generated according to the Aperture preferences. Currently I have it set to maximum quality and half of original resolution.

But I want to compare not previews but originals, to see the difference most precisely, at full resolution. Is there any easy way to look at originals and not previews? Or do I have to change the Aperture preferences to full resolution and then regenerate previews? And if I change preferences, will the previews for my whole library get recreated, or only the ones that I manually force to regenerate previews?

I you can just go to the view Menu. And toggle the 'Show Original Image'

This will stick a label on the image so you know you are seeing an Original rather than a Preview.

The setting is global by the looks of it. And works in the compare mode.


Submit iOS app to app store on behalf of the team Me and my friend have developed an iOS app and we want to release it on App Store. Apple offers an Individual or Enterprise developer account which costs 199$. The problem is that we are not a legit company of any kind and we don't want to have any documents or registration. We jut want it to appear in App Store under our team name. An individual account is also not an option as we want us both to be mentioned as developers or none of us (just a team name). Is there a way to do it?

No, there's no way to do that. You'll have to either create a company (which is quite easy most places) - or use one of your names with Apple. You can mention both your names in the description of your app if you want to.

Most users probably couldn't care less who created the apps they're using. So in practice it is normally not a big deal to be listed as the developer or not.


Adding Facebook profiles to Address Book I see that Address Book has a field for entering a friend's Facebook profile. However, many of my friends don't have an actual facebook username (ie a profile at facebook.com/username), but just the old user ID (facebook.com/profile.php?id=blah). Is there any way to make it work with those?

Also, how can I sync information from Facebook (eg birthdays) with my address book? Is there a way to do that and veto updates, like with iSync? Sometimes people have fake information on Facebook.

You can copy the URL for your friend's profile on Facebook, and paste it into the Facebook profile field in the card editor.  Disregard the fact that the editor shows "User Name" placeholder text in this field; the URL works fine.  After saving the card, you can click on the Facebook label to the left of the URL, and you'll get a menu that includes "View Profile" and "View Photos".

I tested this on Lion both when using a profile URL, and when using a new Facebook username.  The "View Photos" action does not work when saving a profile URL, but both actions work when saving a Facebook username.


Application to launch specific applications, windows, and tabs I am a programmer. I'd like to improve my workflow by being able to have a "saved workspace". When I start my computer, or whenever I'm ready to resume a project, I want to launch a specific set of browser tabs, terminal windows, text editor, etc. and when finished, "save" the state of my tabs/windows so I can resume again later.

My current workflow is to never close any windows and never shut down my computer.

I don't know of an application like this but I would really like to find (or build) one.

Mac OS X has been trying to achieve something like this on a per-app basis using Saved Application State, however, that will only retrieve the last known state of an app, not some arbitrary one from the past.

I'm not sure of any app which can do that.

The closest that I am aware of would be a macro which could, for example:

launch a specific set of applications
open a specific set of URLs in a web browser
open a specific set of files in a specific app (or apps)

You could also add optional features such as

quit all of your currently-open applications before beginning (or quit specific apps, like your email and twitter client) when you know you are going to work

This is very simple to do in Keyboard Maestro, which has a free, 30-day demo on the site.

For example, in the image attached I have created a macro like this as an example. I will use numbers to correspond with the numbers on the image to show what each step is doing:

This macro (read simply as: "series of actions") will take place either if I choose the menu from the menu bar…
…or if I use the keyboard shortcut I have specified. (Other actions are also available
Quit all applications
Hide the Dock, if it is visible
Launch BBEdit
Launch Terminal.app
Launch Safari
Open the URL https://apple.stackexchange.com/?tab=featured in Safari.
Open the URL http://gmail.com in Chrome
Open a folder in Finder

this is just an example for illustration. I could have told Keyboard Maestro to run any sort of command, or open specific files in other applications.

The only thing which is not possible, as far as I am aware in any app, is the ability to say: "Ok, save everything that is on my screen right now and remember it for later."


Stocks app crashes on launch after moving from iPhone to iPad on iOS 6.1.3 I want to port the Stocks app from iPhone to iPad. I transferred Stocks.app and the relevant frameworks files from iPhone 4 iOS 6.1.3 to iPad 2 iOS 6.1.3. The files are zipped via iFile on iPhone and unzipped into the right directories when the files are on iPad 2 so that the proper file permission can be preserved. Weather, compass and voice memo works, however this Stocks always crash at opening.

The crash log shows that /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Stocks.framework/Stocks can't be loaded because it can't be found. Make sure you have copied the entire Stocks.framework into the correct location with identical permissions applied (unzipping in iFile will not preserve permissions so you'll need to set them yourself recursively).


How do I restore my lost contacts? How do I restore the contacts that my kids deleted from their ipods but is connected with my Mac so I lost them too.

You can restore contacts with a Time Machine Backup.
You may be able to restore from iCloud, using your iCloud account, if it had not been deleted there -- though, by the sound of the question, this seems to be how they were deleted in the first place.

Edit: I agree that a more complete answer may be desired, however one cannot ascertain what the OP knows about restoring a file from Time Machine, not to mention different OS X versions may store files in different places.  That said, I would think a simple search would find results -- I much rather encourage self-exploration than laziness.

https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/answers/how_to_restore_os_xs_address_book_data_from_a_time_machine_backup
The following is copied word-for-word from this link, so be sure to click to link to contribute to MacObserver's ad revenue:

Yes, there is a way to restore Address Book content from a Time Machine backup. However, it’s important to note that Address Book data is used by many applications throughout OS X, so before we begin, make sure to quit all open applications to make sure we minimize the possibility of introducing problems.

Location of Address Book Data
Next, to be on the safe side, make a backup of your existing Address Book library. That information is located in [home]/Library/Application Support/Address Book.
Now, hop over to your Time Machine drive in Finder and navigate to the same location under “Latest” in the Time Machine backups folder. Copy the entire contents of the Address Book folder from the backup and overwrite the contents of this folder on your system drive.
Once the copy is complete, relaunch Address Book and you should see your contacts listed, current as of the date of your last backup.
Note that in this case, the listener had performed a clean installation of OS X and her Time Machine backup was no longer linked to her system. If you have a current backup that’s still linked to the OS, simply navigate to the Address Book folder on your system drive, launch Time Machine, and restore the files from within the Time Machine interface.


does going to the itunes store app to sign out also sign you out of your icloud account? I have an iPhone 4 with an IOS all the way up to date and I got it from my older brother as a birthday present. He moved to college and isn't in contact. I have my own Apple I'd and thought about using it but I don't want to go to the iTunes app and sign out of his account from the bottom where the balance is shown because I don't want it to be signed in but asking for the old password. What should I do?

Also will that sign me out of his cloud account? I have a broken iPhone and want to get the stuff off of my cloud account

if you sign out of iTunes / App Store, than won't disconnect you from iCloud and vise versa


SSH with key passphrase not working I am just trying to do a simple ssh into a VPS using the terminal. It asks for me to enter my passphrase three times then says "permission denied (public key)."

I've tried:

ssh -i [key location] user@xxx.xxx.xxx

I'm able to SFTP into the server in Cyberduck, and have also tried their 'Open in Terminal' command, which again just asks me for the passphrase three times then says permission denied.

I am able to connect using PuTTY in Windows, WinSCP and Cyberduck, so I am pretty sure I have the right key and passphrase. What am I missing here? I have a feeling it's something stupid, but I just can't figure it out.

PuTTY is using different key format than the OpenSSH and OpenSSH is failing to report correctly the errors about unknown format in some versions.

If you want to use the PuTTY key in OpenSSH, you need to convert the private key to OpenSSH format in PuTTYGen (as described on SO):

Open PuttyGen
Click Load
Load your private key
Go to Conversions->Export OpenSSH and export your private key
Copy your private key to ~/.ssh/id_rsa


Can Find My iPhone still locate a device if it is restored with DFU mode? How does this work? You can restore phones in DFU mode but you're faced with Activation Lock if you have enabled it. Will you still be able to locate it?

You can't locate the device with an active Activation Lock.

Any restored device can't be located with Find My iPhone:

If I remote wipe my iPhone, can I still locate it remotely?


How to show iOS screen on a projector like Steve Jobs did on his keynotes? How to show iOS screen on projector like Jobs did? Too many people ask me how to do this... They also want iPhone frame image like exactly Jobs did. (the iPhone frame image is optional)

About the iPhone/iPad frame images - they are available when you're a registered iOS developer: http://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/marketing/
They are a very high quality Photoshop files (for printing and for screen use).


Screencast Video Stream Our school radio station is currently supplementing the audio based lessons with a slideshare meeting-based slideshow. Unfortunately slideshare has been pretty buggy and any time we want to stream video (say off youtube) the video fails because of the traffic generated by 20 devices loading the same video stream at the same time.

We could mitigate this if we could stream a screencast live on the local network - we could literally stream a keynote presentation off the radio mac's screen and any video content straight from the browser. We don't need to worry about bandwidth internally - it's our external internet connection that causes our lag problems.

I've tried QT Streaming Server but it's not so well supported and I can't stream a screencast, only a webcam video stream.

Is there an easy way to stream a live mac screencast locally to more than one mac client?

To live stream your desktop, you will want to get two pieces of software:

Software to capture your desktop as a stream and redirect:

1) CamTwist - http://camtwiststudio.com/download/ - does desktop live capture and turns it into a video stream that is compatible for "webcam" input applications. I've used this to live stream my desktop to ustream.tv, Google Hangout, etc. (free)

AND

2) SoundFlower - https://code.google.com/p/soundflower/ - Allows you to redirect the system sound output so that it can be routed as an input for your stream (free)

Software to publish from your desktop:

1) EvoCam - http://www.evological.com/evocam.html - does a local http streaming server to serve your "webcam" stream out to the local area network. ( $30 )

OR

2) VLC - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/streaming.html - VideoLAN streaming component of VLC to livestream your "webcam" produced from your camtwist/soundflower combo.  (free)

Can post more details, if this solution path works for you.

Edit: Note, a few test runs of VLC to export a stream crashes on my Mac. Looks like recent VLC builds support streaming the desktop, which is cool. With soundflower, you can also redirect the system output as well as the mic so that output from the apps and programs are livestreamed as well... provided your copy of VLC is running stably. :)

EDIT:

CamTwist is 32bit. So you will need to download the 32bit version of VLC for Mac OS X:

http://get.videolan.org/vlc/2.0.6/macosx/vlc-2.0.6-intel32.dmg

Fire up CamTwist
Select Desktop (not Desktop+) by double clicking it. This will add it to the list.
Select "Save Setup", and give it a name.
Go to [tools]->[Studio], which will pop up a new window showing a list of "sources", a preview pane, and a program pane. Your new stream probably shows up in "Program", which is the "live webcam" indicator. You can select another source via the buttons and it will show up in the "green preview" window. Hitting "cut" will cut over from preview to program.
Fire up your 32bit VLC
[file]->[open capture device]
Under Capture Device, choose CamTwist.
check the [streaming] radio box
Choose the streaming settings
Choose the [stream] radio button
Leave most of the options as default
Hit OK
Hit Open
This should start the stream.

On my box, my copy of VLC happens to crash at this point, but then again, my version of VLC (2.06 and 2.10) both seem to crash when I try to stream anything. So it might be a problem on my system.

But the above is how I get CamTwist setup and VLC to see CamTwist.


Detailed Wi-Fi menu by default When you hold down the option key before clicking on the wi-fi menu, you get all sorts of detailed stuff about your current connection.

Is there any way of making this the default behaviour? A terminal command perhaps?

This is quite a workaround to go through and unfortunately involves paying for a software (unless you're aware of free alternatives)  but thought I'd throw it out there while looking for more details:

Using a program like Keyboard Maestro, you can record a Macro that will be the result of a string/hotkey.

I recorded as follows:

Hit record
Pressed and held option key.
Clicked on Wifi menubar
Stopped recording.

I then set up the trigger to be a hotkey (like CMD+,) or a string like wifio. Both worked. Detailed Wifi menu was opened and waited for my choice.


Is there a way to see overall status of iCloud Drive in macOS? I have moved a large folder with many subfolders to my iCloud drive. If I dig around I can catch a status bar next to a file name (same as during a download), but it seems to be taking a lot longer to upload than I would think. Besides catching an upload in progress I don't see a way to tell what has been uploaded or is waiting. Is there anything I am missing?

Dropbox had a nifty menu bar icon that would display progress and pending files.

Yosemite
You can watch individual files in Finder, but there's no GUI for the progress of iCloud changes.
El Capitan
In El Capitan and later a progress bar can be accessed by clicking on the wheel in the Finder sidebar.

https://georgegarside.com/blog/macos/all-the-little-things-osx-el-capitan-hidden-features/#icloud-drive-upload-progress-indicator (my blog)


What can be done to use iMessage when it is stuck on "Waiting for Activation" I bought an iPhone 3GS and tried to activate iMessage on it, but it won't work. I tried everything to activate it, but it still says "waiting for activation". What should I do?

A few of the things that are under your control are as follows:

Undo the iMessage settings, power off the device and try again in 5 minutes.
Check that iCloud isn't having system-wide problems
Same as step one, but wait 20 to 200 minutes. (sometimes the problem is in the network or the activation servers or the SMS network to tie your phone to the Apple system with the one time activation message and waiting is easier than working with all of the above parties)
Rather than wait - work through the steps to Troubleshoot iMessage and FaceTime Activation
Contact Apple for support

It's hard to guess what exactly is wrong, but you also can edit your question to list what steps you have done to troubleshoot this and perhaps someone can guess or point out a missed step.


iPod service cannot be installed Since time immemorial (at least 12 years) installing a new version of iTunes on Windows has been a ritual to get around the installer's seeming inability to replace the iPod service.

To successfully upgrade iTunes on Windows 7 (and previously on Win2K and XP) one has to manually terminate all Apple services (iPod Service, AppleMobileDeviceService, iTunes Helper, mDNSResponder) and then be sure to run the installer using the "Run as Administrator" option, even if your login is a member of the local Admin group.  Failure to do any of these steps results in "iPod service cannot be installed" late in the installation, at which point the only solution is to cancel, reboot and reinstall.

Lately (12.4) even following all these steps still results in failure to install the iPod Service.

Does anyone have any insight as to why this problem has gone uncorrected essentially since the initial release of iTunes for Windows, and if there is a foolproof way to upgrade iTunes?

The most common source of this error is that Sysinternals Process Explorer is running. Check systray / taskmanager and close it if its running.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2776689?start=15&tstart=0


How to revert the intial decision for not saving username/password in OS X Firefox? A couple of times I clicked NO (or closed the pop-up) on Firefox suggestion to save username/password for a particular form.

How to revert this decision and force Firefox to ask again.

If you go to the Security tab of Firefox preferences, to the right of the checkbox labeled “Remember passwords for sites” there will be an “Exceptions…” button. This will show a dialog from which you can select and remove the websites you told Firefox to never save passwords for.


Is there ANY way to edit, or at least view a MobileMe gallery on iPad? So I have a MobileMe account.  (Yes, I know that there are free alternatives; my wife hates change.)

So I post galleries of photos on MobileMe, and then from a computer I can either:

Log in to my MobileMe account as the owner, where I can see my gallery, and edit it (delete photos, etc.)
Go to the public, shared, gallery url, which allows me to view or download pics, but not edit the gallery, just like the folks I share the link with can.

But from my iPad, I can't really do either:

If I try to go to login to MobileMe (at me.com), the MobileMe site sees that I'm on a mobile device, and won't open, routing me instead to the app store to get the mobileme gallery app, which is for the iphone, and scales pictures in a totally ridiculous way on the ipad.  There is no option to open the "normal" full website.
If I try to go to the shared gallery url from my iPad, I can see the pics, but the thumbnails on the side use some kind of web tech that the iPad doesn't have, so I cant scroll.  I can only open the pics from the thumbnails that fit onto the ipad screen.  (Yes, I tried two finger scrolling.)

Any ideas?

MobileMe Gallery App is now an universal app.


How to change photo upload size in Dropbox iPad app I'm going overseas and will be taking a lot of photos. I'm not taking a laptop, just my iPad mini. I understand that the default setting for photo uploads in the iPad app is medium. I can't see any option in setting to increase the default size to large.

How can I upload full or large size images?

I've used Files Pro to upload/download full-resolution images to/from Dropbox.  My need isn't quite the same as yours (I need to do this for accurate graphics when I'm developing apps), but perhaps this might help you.


Common Charger/Alternate Solution for iPad (new), Macbook Retina, iPhone5 I just recently did an upgrade to all apple products and have a retina Macbook Pro, an iPhone 5, and an iPad.

I hate having to carry around 3 different chargers. I was wondering if there is an adapter, or something else that I can carry around instead. I wouldn't mind having 2 adapters that go into 1 charger, since that is better than 3 chargers. Basically

iPad ----------Ad
iPhone----------|-------------Power
Macbook--------Ad

Any help on this is greatly appreciated, since I haven't really found anyone else with this problem.

While an iPad typically charges very slowly on a regular USB port, you could still use your MacBook Pro's USB ports to charge your devices. You definitely can charge your iPhone using your computer's USB port.

There also exists an accessory to "plug" a 10W USB port onto your MacBook Pro power adapter called PlugBug. This should be fine for charging your iPad.


Google Chrome on OSX will not open .desktop files created in Ubuntu I have recently collected & saved a large volume of internet links on my Ubuntu 14.04 machine that I wish to share with my other computer that runs OSX, but have come to realize that Google Chrome will not open these files on OSX as it does in Ubuntu.
The files are.desktopfiles. An example of the file's contents is as follows:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Link to Lifehacker Pack for Chrome: Our List of the Essential Extensions
Type=Link
URL=http://lifehacker.com/
Icon=text-html

OSX does not know natively what to do with this file type, and prompts me to choose which application to use to open the files. If I choose to use Google Chrome it will simply display the contents of the file in a tab, but will not navigate to the url in the file. Opening the file with Firefox loads the URL fine in a new tab.

How can I get Google Chrome to open these files normally?

My primary OS is OS X, however I do have a Linux Mint system I use and run into similar situations in which I want to do the same thing on both systems, and when it's not directly supported I have to find another way. In a case such as this, if there wasn't a Browser Extension for .desktop files, like in your other question about .url files, here is what I'd do.

I'd convert the .desktop files to .webloc files and or .url files and use the Default Apps Preference Pane, RCDefaultApp by Rubicode, to change which application opens any given file extension.

Here's a bash script, that I modified from a similar script I wrote years ago, which will create .webloc files and or .url files from .desktop files that have URLs in them.

In a Terminal cd to the directory containing the .desktop files.
Issues the following commands:

touch d2wu
open d2wu
Copy and paste the code below into the opened d2wu file.

#!/bin/bash

clear
echo
echo " Create .webloc/.url files from .desktop files."
echo " ----------------------------------------------"
echo "              Choose File Type(s):"
echo
echo " [1] Create .webloc & .url files."
echo " [2] Create only .webloc files."
echo " [3] Create only .url files."
echo " [Q] Quit."
echo
echo " Press 1 to 3 or Q then press Enter..."

Create_WEBLOC () {
    for f in *.desktop; do
        if [[ ! -f  ${f%.*}.webloc ]]; then
            url="$(awk -F '=' '/^URL=/{print $2}' "$f")"
            if [[ ! -z $url ]]; then
cat <<EOF >"${f%.*}.webloc"
<?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>URL</key>
    <string>$url</string>
</dict>
</plist>
EOF
            else
                echo "  No URL found in $f file."
            fi
        fi
    done
 }

Create_URL () {
    for f in *.desktop; do
        if [[ ! -f  ${f%.*}.url ]]; then
            url="$(grep -e '^URL=' "$f")"
            if [[ ! -z $url ]]; then
                printf "[InternetShortcut]\n${url}\n" > "${f%.*}.url"
            else
                echo "  No URL found in $f file."
            fi
        fi
    done
 }

read  keypress
echo

case "$keypress" in
    "1")
        echo "  Creating .webloc & .url files."
        Create_WEBLOC
        Create_URL
    ;;
    "2")
        echo "  Creating .webloc files."
        Create_WEBLOC
    ;;
    "3")
        echo "  Creating .url files."
        Create_URL
    ;;
    "q" | "Q")
        echo "  No files were created."
    ;;
    *)
        echo "  Pressing \"$keypress\" is not a valid choice... Try again!"
        echo
        read -p " Press Enter to continue..."
        "$0"        # Run the Script again.
    ;;
esac
echo

Save and close the d2wu file.
Make d2wu executable:

chmod u+x d2wu
Execute d2wu:

./d2wu

Example script output:

Create .webloc/.url files from .desktop files.
----------------------------------------------
             Choose File Type(s):

[1] Create .webloc & .url files.
[2] Create only .webloc files.
[3] Create only .url files.
[Q] Quit.

Press 1 to 3 or Q then press Enter...
[]

Note: You can use the Default Apps Preference Pane, RCDefaultApp by Rubicode, to change which application opens a given file extension.

Also, if you need modify other default methods of file types, Apps, URLs, UTIs, etc. the the Default Apps Preference Pane is a great utility for it.

Note: As coded it will not overwrite existing .webloc files and or .url files even thought when selecting 1, 2 or 3, it reports "Creating ... files.".  This was done to both not step on existing files and minimize output to the screen while only outputting which .desktop files do not contain a URL=... line, as can be the case depending on what type of .desktop file it is.


Mac OS X Terminal: Commands not found I really don't have much experience with Terminal and I believe I may have caused a problem when trying to download and use wine on my Mac. If I try to type in anything I simply get "Command not found". After reading many forum posts I believe this has something to do with my PATH, but again, I don't really know exactly what that means.

Looking at the link and also your path it looks like you have installed Macports. Its installer will change in ~/.profile the path but not in the way you show. See macports document for the correct way to do this.

Editing /etc/profile is not the correct way as it affects all users and is also more complex to deal with as requires root permission and is also an Apple supplied file that could be changed in Apple system upgrades

This explains two of your /opt/local/bin ... etc in your path (/etc/profile and ~/.profile) More and the PATHnexport imply that yor editing of files has gone wrong.

I would restore /etc/profile from a backup to be as Apple set it up, and check that .profile has the lines as per the macports document. Also check to see if you have ~/.bash_profile or ~/.login and check they do not have any alterations to the PATH

If you are not used to Terminal (e.g. if you do not understand what these .profile files are) then it mght be better to install wine via a GUI method e.g. Wineskin or Crossover (Even if you do understand Terminal and shells t is easier to use these)


how to install ubuntu and triple boot with high sierra and legacy booting win10 with dual disk drive? I have a mac mini (5,1) with two disk drives, right now one is installed with macOS High Sierra, one is installed with Windows 10 as shown below:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:               Windows_NTFS System                  104.9 MB   disk0s1
   2:               Windows_NTFS Windows                 499.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:                       0x27                         602.9 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *128.0 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         127.8 GB   disk1s2

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +127.8 GB   disk2
                                 Physical Store disk1s2
   1:                APFS Volume macOS                   32.7 GB    disk2s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 21.8 MB    disk2s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                512.1 MB   disk2s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      20.5 KB    disk2s4

I want to partition some space(40G) on the disk which macOS is installed(disk1) to install ubuntu 20.04 server, and triple boot all three OS without install third party boot manager, what should be the right steps to do this properly, or is it possible?

Note: This installation procedure was tested by using VirtualBox. Both High Sierra (macOS 10.13.6) and 64 bit Windows 10 (1909) installers were used to create the partitions. Nether macOS or Windows were installed prior to installing Ubuntu Server.

Create a Linux Partition

The output from the macOS command diskutil list disk1 is shown below.

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *128.0 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         127.8 GB   disk1s2

To create the Linux partition, first you need to calculate the new size for the APFS container partition. Since you want 40 GB for linux, the new size would be as follows.

127.8 GB - 40 GB = 87.8 GB

The macOS command to create the unformatted linux partition is given below.

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk1s2 87.8G %linux% none 0

The result is shown below.

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *128.0 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2          87.8 GB   disk1s2
   3:           Linux Filesystem                          40.0 GB   disk1s3

Install Ubuntu Server

  Note: I assume you following Ubuntu's instructions for creating the bootable Ubuntu Server USB flash drive or burned a DVD.

When the image below appears, highlight Update to the new installer. Next, press return.

  Note: To get a better view of an image, click on the image or open the linked image in a new window.

When the image below appears, select Custom storage layout, then highlight Done, as shown below. Next, press return.

Highlight partition 3  existing, unused, as shown below. Next, press return.

Highlight Edit, as shown below. Next, press return.

Select ext4 as the format.

  Note: Mount should appear as /.

Highlight Save, as shown below. Next, press return.

Highlight Done, as shown below. Next, press return.

Highlight Continue, as shown below. Next, press return.

Proceed with the installation.

Notes

I encountered synchronization issues when booting to the operation system. Often the prompts for input occur before all the messages have been output.

References

Complete recipe for installing single-boot Linux
Dual-Booting OS X or macOS with Linux without rEFInd
What is the difference between grubx64 and shimx64?


Can MacBooks backup when in hibernation mode? Can MacBooks (late 2010 Air in particular) backup when in hibernation mode?

The reason why I am asking this is because I want to backup my MacBook air at midnight however I am not sure if my computer will be in hibernation mode when its midnight. I want to backup at midnight because I cannot back it up when using it during the day.

If your MacBook Air has flash storage, supports Power Nap and is connected to a power adapter at night, then it will back up to Time Machine when in sleep. If any of these criteria is not met, then the backup will not take place.

A firmware update is required for the late-2010 MacBook Air to support Power Nap. Make sure that all updates are installed in the Mac App Store and you can check for Power Nap functionality in System Preferences → Energy Saver → Enable Power Nap….

For more information on Power Nap, see:

OS X Yosemite: About Power Nap


On iPadOS 14, what does this box on the today view do? 2019 iPad, running the new release of iPadOS 14. When adding widgets to the today view, there is a box at the top that says:

Drag your favourite widgets here to pin them on the Home Screen.

Any widgets I place in this box behave no differently to the ones underneath, so what is this box supposed to enable? It doesn’t matter if I have the “Keep on Home Screen” option checked or not.

Widgets placed in the ‘favourites’ section remain on the home screen when other widgets below are hidden.
To see the difference between the widget sections, place a widget in the favourite section, tap Done, then scroll the list of widgets beyond the top to push the bottom widgets off screen. Let go and the bottom widgets will remain hidden while favourite widgets will remain. Scroll the list down to show the other widgets again.


Why does my volume adjust bezel not show properly in macOS Catalina? I recently updated to macOS Catalina (10.15.3), and the "volume adjust" bezel that pops up in the center of my screen when I adjust the volume via touch bar no longer looks correct.  Specifically, it is missing the ticks that demarcate the volume level, instead just showing an empty bar.  Other similar bezels (e.g., display brightness) have the same issue.

I have already tried restarting, as well as disabling the bezels entirely and then re-enabling them.  Any other ideas how to fix this?

I think we're facing similar issues. There's no real fix, if you want to run with those settings, but at least you know what is going on.

If you're using the dark appearance (Settings -> General) and enable reduced transparency (Settings -> Accessibility -> Display) you end up in a situation like this.


Retina Macbook Pro with External Display (Samsung BX2440) I have just switched to a rMBP from a Windows 7 laptop.  I use an external 24 inch monitor (Samsung BX2440) via the HDMI port on the rMBP.  It seems that due to some scaling, the text on the external monitor (particularly fixed width text) is a lot blurrier than what is was via my Windows machine.

Is there any way I can improve the text quality on the external display?  I've tried all of the standard things people have mentioned on forums.  The display is set to its native resolution (1080p) as per:

Neither Best for display nor Scaled at 1080p make a difference.

Will a Thunderbolt->DVI cable help at all?

haven't tried myself, but according to this blog post if you press option key when selection Scaled radio button, you will get more resolutions.


"New Tab with Settings - Basic" Mac Maybe a Dash? I am trying to edit the terminal new tab command "New Tab with Settings - Basic" in Terminal on my Mac.

It doesn't seem to change to anything.  Other commands edit fine.

I was able to verify your issue, initially I thought it might be there is a hidden character or an unusual type of hyphen, but it isn't I found the strings file and the original string for this menu is:

New Window with Profile - %@

Testing these options didn't work:

New Window with Profile - %@
New Window with Profile - Pro My theme is called Pro not Basic
New Window with Profile

None of these work, but as you said any other item in that menu works so this appears to be an artefact of the fact macOS generates that menu item by concatenating two strings.

There is a relatively old guide on almost exactly this issue which you could try to follow, but this appears to be a bug and should be reported to Apple: https://radar.apple.com

EDIT: Image of menu item


What happens when put a Finder alias in a Dropbox folder? I have several folders and files that I would like to link to a local folder that happens to be a Dropbox folder. Specifically I'd like to put Finder aliases to some files and some folders into a folder that is on Dropbox. What happens when I do this? What is synced to Dropbox? Is it just the Finder alias itself (a special kind of file only meaningful on macOS) or are the linked-to files or folders copied to Dropbox?

The Finder alias will appear as a zero-byte file in Dropbox. Any files linked to it will not be uploaded.

If you would like to have Dropbox sync the contents of the alias, you can instead use what's called a symbolic link. Basically, it's an alias that the operating system (and Dropbox) treat as indistinguishable from the actual folder. This question on SuperUser answers how to create a symbolic link.


Terminal: command to show application folder I recently discovered that I can open application from Terminal like this:

$ open -a TextEdit

Is there any command that would just show the application folder instead of opening it? Such that I could do this:

$ alias vmrun=\"`some-command 'VMware Fusion'`/Contents/Library/vmrun\"

I need that some-command to print the folder of VMware Fusion application.

UPDATE: I don't know where the application is installed, otherwise I could just hardcode it in the script

I have just created and uploaded a GitHub Gist GitHub Gist which may help you out.

The main functionality is:

function get_apps_folder () {
    mdfind -0 -onlyin / \
        'kMDItemKind=="Application" && kMDItemDisplayName="'"${1:-TextEdit}"'"' \
    | xargs -0 -I{} dirname {}
}

function open_apps_folder () {
    open $(get_apps_folder "$1")
}

You could take that and add the two functions to your ~/.bash_profile and they would be available for any interactive shell sessions you are using. (And yes, getting around mixed and embedded single and double quotes can be messy.) :-)

But, to give a better explanation, the main part is:

mdfind -0 -onlyin / 'kMDItemKind=="Application" && kMDItemDisplayName="VMware Fusion"' | xargs -0 -I{} open {}

The -onlyin /path limits the search to just the root volume, otherwise any “Spotlight-searchable” volume attached will most likely be searched as well, including Time Machine, which can get unwieldy and/or verbose, hence using -onlyin /.

In the Gist, each line output by mdfind is fed to xargs which calls open on what is passed to it. Note that there is no particularly robust checking of what is passed to xargs (ie. it is assuming it is getting a directory).

mdfind and mdls can be pretty handy for things like this, although they can take a little getting used to. I usually use mdls /path/to/file to get an idea of what metadata that type of file has. I can then take those keys and values to search using mdfind. You can find a lot of pages, examples and documentation out there, BTW.


Per-App VPN for a third-party app: possible? How? I need to set up per-app VPN as a way to ensure that several apps I installed from App Store are using only internet traffic over VPN, but not using non-VPN traffic at all. I'm not a corporate user, so I'm considering to setup an MDM profile.

Am I reading the official docs from Apple correctly that I can only set up per-app VPN for the app I developed, not for a third-party app from AppStore?

The "App to Per App VPN" section requires DesignatedRequirement and SigningIdentifier, both of which seems to be available only for the developer of an app in question. If not, how can I find out both of them?

You can find the DesignatedRequirement and SigningIdentifier like this:

Start by installing the app on a device. On your Mac make sure you have the app downloaded in iTunes as well. In the folder "~/Music/Itunes/Mobile Applications/" you'll now find an .ipa file for you app.

Assuming that the app you want to target is "SomeApp" then copy SomeApp.ipa from that folder to a temporary folder. Rename the file and change the file extension from .ipa to .zip. Double-click to unzip the file. When unzipped you'll find that you have a folder named "Payload" in which a "SomeApp.app" folder exists.

Open a Terminal window and cd to the temporary folder. Run the following command:

codesign -d -r- "Payload/SomeApp.app"

This command will output the designated requirement ("anchor apple generic...").

Then run the following command:

codesign --display --verbose=1 "Payload/SomeApp.app"

This command will output a line starting with "Identifier=". The rest of the line is the SigningIdentifier.

Note that you mention the "App to Per App VPN" section of the linked manual - this specific payload is only supported on macOS. On iOS you do the same thing by sending the Settings command with an ApplicationAttributes entry over the MDM protocol.


size of OSX Yosemite, don't understand who only 40 GB let on HD I installed Yosemite 10.4 on my 500 GB MBP hard drive.
I only have 40 Gb left.
Though i have :
Pictures 88 GB
Music 60 GB
Movies 5 GB
Documents 4 GB
Dropbox 6 GB
Desktop 0 GB
Downloads 1 GB
for a total of 164 GB out of 500 GB.
I have 40 GB left so this sum up 204 GB.
What is taking the rest of my space 500-204=296 GB?
Can't imagine that Yosemite+Recovery HD takes 296 GB inlcuding Library and System folders.

Please is there any explanation?

Thanks!

DiskInventoryX will allow you to view a diagram of every file of your Mac and parts will be larger relative to file size. You can find it here: http://www.derlien.com/ This should allow you to find what's taking up so much space on your Mac.


How can I find an exact string in file contents across many folders from the command line on macOS? I tried all the recipes (double quotes, escaped double quotes etc.) in vain. I'm not interested in files containing any or all of these words, only the exact string. (EasyFind does the job.) I'm using macOS Catalina with zsh.
Is there a way to have mdfind detect an exact string, say "what I look for", in the content of files?

Spotlight allows this and is my favored tool, despite how painful it is to learn how to do this from Apple's documentation alone. The man page for mdfind is almost criminally negligent for not mentioning how to search for a string, but I shall not rant too much more on that here.
mdfind 'kMDItemTextContent = "this exact string"'

Pay attention to the double quote and single quote and also, when you are looking for help online - if the article mentions NSPredicate or that spotlight uses two different languages, you are on to the good stuff. If the article says "x can't be done" consider that perhaps "The author hasn't needed to learn how to do x, yet".
Here are some great places to start with predicates - the log man page, excellent programming references like https://nshipster.com which glosses over how hard "natural language" search expressions are - especially when you mix pcre/regex with SQL baggage.

NSPredicate is a Foundation class that specifies how data should be fetched or filtered.  Its query language, which is like a cross between a SQL WHERE clause and a regular expression, provides an expressive, natural language interface to define logical conditions on which a collection is searched.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30271328/how-do-i-get-mdfind-to-include-folder-matches-in-addition-to-files
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Predicates/Articles/pSpotlightComparison.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40002370-SW1

Basically, for reasons, spotlight can be very hard on newcomers, very confusing syntactically, but mostly gets it right for some easy things and finding a string in a file is more challenging than you might expect. The system was designed by programmers and then a second language was patched on and there's a lot of easy to search information that's just wrong or incomplete.
Thankfully there are some great explanations how to learn this powerful tool.

https://www.macworld.com/article/3264653/macos-how-to-use-spotlights-query-language-to-create-an-all-my-files-like-feature.html (Glenn writes very well)
https://support.apple.com/en-am/guide/mac-help/mh15155/mac (Narrowing your search help)


How to detect that my iPhone has been backed up with iTunes? I'm concern that someone with physical access to my iPhone as well as knowledge of my PIN could have done that.
By looking at my iPhone, is there a way to figure out if my iPhone has been imaged / accessed or backed up to a third party computer (via iTunes) ?

Does that person know your passcode?
If not, then no.
You need passcode or fingerprint before the phone will trust the computer.
From comments - If they did know the passcode, there is no way to tell.
Giving someone your passcode or Apple ID password is almost the same as giving them your ATM card & PIN, if not worse. They can do what they like, because every system they interface with will think it is you.


Turning off Require Password on a filevault enabled MacBook Air 2011 I am trying to use the product form soma-zone.com called RedHand.  The only catch is you must have Require Password turned off in the Security Preferences Pane.  RedHand won't start until it is turned off, but I have filevault 2 enabled which automatically sets Require Password to true and immediatley.  I can trick it for a few seconds using

sudo defaults write com.apple.screensaver askForPassword 0

This only works for a few seconds then the default is changed back automatically to 1.  Is there a cache file or another work around to disable Require Password when FileVault 2 is enabled?

Link to product RedHand

MacBook Air 2011 running 10.9.5

There is another piece of software similar to RedHand called Watchmac (from bloo7). I suggest you try using Watchmac as a work-around to this issue.


Force an app for macOS 10.12 Sierra and later to run on OS X Yosemite 10.10 I have an application that wouldn't start on OS X Yosemite and throws the following message

  This application required OS X 10.12 or later.

The application itself is fully functional. I can easily run it via Terminal

/Applications/My\ App.app/Content/MacOS/My\ App

It does start perfectly fine.

The old method was to edit app's Info.plist file and set LSMinimumSystemVersion to the version of OS X you are running. However, my app bundle's Info.plist doesn't have any LSMinimumSystemVersion specified at all.

I tried to spoof the OS X version by editing: /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist and it works for My App.app but breaks a few other apps.

Somehow, just by reading app bundle the Finder knows, it's incompatible and draws the white crossed sign over the app icon.

How does it know that Info.plist file does not have this information?

One possibly explanation is that the other apps are built using the newer macOS SDK, and have their minimum deployment target set which is higher than OS X Yosemite. In such cases editing/adding LSMinimumSystemVersion key won't work.

Also, manually editing the Info.plist file may break the integrity of the app and may curtail it from running.

You need to check with the developers of the apps and see if they still support the older version of OS X or if they have builds targeting the older OS X releases.


How to convert .dmg to Directory-folder I just Create one Directory to .dmg file using Disk Utility. Can anyone Please Tel me how to convert .dmg file in to older Directory-folder.

Mount it, and then copy?

Why won't that work?


How do you disable the iOS Storage full alert? I've been getting close to filling up my 16 GB iPhone 4 with iOS 5. I have freed up some space and have 1.5 GB available, but I keep getting alerts that are annoying.

Is there a way to disable the alert or change the threshold for which it is triggered? Here's what the alert says.

Apple do not provide any way to stop what it perceives as important alerts.

That said, for those with jailbroken phones, popup blocker provides the required functionality

Edit: the original question is answered in the most part, but i think the real question should be 'Why am i getting the ios Stoage almost full" alert.

this is either a bug, or you've got a lot of mail stored on the phone...

There appears to be a few users with the same issue over on the Apple support forums here


Virus infected boot camp If the boot camp partition of my mac gets a virus, will the macOS part be safe? If the macOS part gets a virus, will the Windows part be affected?

Most viruses (like 99.999% of them) are unable to transfer between operating systems for many different reasons, but theoretically a virus could spread between the two operating systems. What is more likely is that the virus would corrupt the partition table itself.

Take a look at the following links for more info:

Quora: https://www.quora.com/Can-a-Windows-virus-infect-Mac-OS-X
MacRumors: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/can-windows-viruses-acquired-in-os-x-infect-the-boot-camp-partition.1075192/

Please note my percent is not based off of any legitimate statistics, it is exaggerated.


Is there any way to change the output filename for qlmanage? Is there any way to specify the output filename and directory that qlmanage uses?

We are using qlmanage to convert word documents to HTML, and it writes Preview.html to its temp directory.  You can specify the output directory with -o, so right now we create a new directory for each file we write, which works fine, but... not optimal.

No mention of such a facility in the command line options, but i thought i'd ask in case there is some undocumented trick.

thanks,

ian.

You can use textutil to convert Word documents to HTML and specify the output filename; it uses a different converter, though, which may not be acceptable for your uses.

With regard to qlmanage, you're abusing Quick Look here already.  The output is a directory, not a file, which is only designed for Quick Look to consume.  That Preview.html is a fixed filename is by design; otherwise the Quick Look displayer wouldn't know where to start.  That you're able to extract the HTML output yourself is a nice side effect, nothing more.


How do I force send a text message in iOS 10? When I'm out of the country and don't have wifi or data and I want to send a text message to another iPhone back in the UK, it won't let me send a standard text message . It wants me to send an iMessage as it recognises I'm sending to another iPhone , but I do not have any data allowance or wifi so it won't let me send an iMessage anyway and I can't find a way for forcing it to send a text SMS message.

I've looked in settings and turned off my iMessage, and the option to send text SMS only is not there anymore. I used to be able to do this before iOS 10.
Is there a way I can send a standard text?

Go to settings and turn off iMessage.
Send your message.
(Optional) go back to settings and turn iMessage back on.

I just verified that this works in iOS 10.


The document “Example.dmg” could not be opened. Disk Utility cannot open files in the “Disk Image” format I've been having trouble with my Mac since I installed Yosemite, where I open an .dmg file, and it would go to the Disk Utility, then I would have to open it from there.  My MacBook running Yosemite did not do this, and would give the normal graphic to drag the file over applications to execute it.

Now I've upgraded to Sierra, and I get an alert that says "The document “Example.dmg” could not be opened. Disk Utility cannot open files in the “Disk Image” format".  I try to right click the file, but it does not give me an "open with" only an "open" which gives the same error.  Again, my MacBook just opens the installer program just fine.  I verify the images on Disk Utility, and I get an "operation successful", but the file still won't open.

I am sure there is a way to get round the problem and open the .dmg files, but I would like to adjust the settings so that the installer opens as designed.

So, this solves the problem of how to get the file to open. I don't know why the "open with" was not working, but after several hours of trying different search strings in Google, I found this article that explains how to change the default to the disk image mounter instead of the Disk Utility: How to change default apps on the Mac.

Steps are copied below:

Go to the Mac's Finder.
Find the file type you'd like to open with a specific app, and select it.
Click on the File menu and select Get Info.
Expand Open with: by clicking on the triangle to the left.
Select the Open with: menu, then choose the app you'd like to use to open all documents like that one.
Click the Change All... button.
You'll get a dialogue box asking you to confirm your choice. Click Continue.
Close the Get Info window.

Worked like a champ.  I don't know how this got changed in the first place (my Macbook did not change), but that is another question.


Add and remove multiple tags at once from a file or a folder Using OS X Mavericks I want to add multiple tags at once to a file or a folder and I also want to remove multiple tags at once. There are different ways to add tags to a file, one of them would be to drag the file on top of the 'tag label' (image).

I want to set my 'File' to "In Progress" and "Important" at once using one combined label. Is it possible to add multiple tags at once using OS X Finder only? Maybe using folder-actions or smart-folders? Or maybe by a (unknown) 'copy tags from other file' option?

If no OS X Finder solution is possible, what would be a valid solution for this problem?

Here's two commands that lets you copy tags from one file to another.

xattr -wx com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags \
"$(xattr -px com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags /path/to/original)" /path/to/copy
xattr -wx com.apple.FinderInfo \
"$(xattr -px com.apple.FinderInfo /path/to/original)" /path/to/copy

You can iterate through various files to copy the tags to multiple destinations. For applying the above to various files based on the results of a find command (which lets you automatically iterate through results of various searches), see my answer here:

How to tag files (with Finder tags) using parts of a file name?

Here is a small bash script using the previously mentioned commands. You can use it, for example, in Automator.

#!/bin/bash
# copy Tags from 1 file folder to the next

TAGS_FROM="$1"
TAGS_TO="$2"

if [[ -e "$TAGS_FROM" ]] && [[ -e "$TAGS_TO" ]]; then
  xattr -wx com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags "$(xattr -px com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags "$TAGS_FROM")" "$TAGS_TO"
  xattr -wx com.apple.FinderInfo "$(xattr -px com.apple.FinderInfo "$TAGS_FROM")" "$TAGS_TO"
else
  echo "Unexpected input, usage:"
  echo "$(basename "$0") /path/to/original /path/to/copy"
  exit 1
fi

Here is an example of an automator/apple-script (still using the bash commandline...). First set some attributes for this automator.app, then drag a file onto the app. The file will then copy the attributes from the automator.app to itself. I am no Applescripter, so improvement is always welcome.


Can not login to MacBook Pro... strange boot screen Problem: My 2015 retina MacBook Pro is currently stuck booting up to this screen. It happened after I tried following some troubleshooting tips as my MacBook started to freeze up. I’m afraid I made it worst. This occurred after trying SMC reset and I can’t get back any other screen.

It seems to be asking me to turn it off with a switch? But I don’t have a switch on the side of my Mac. Is there a way to fix this before I take it to get checked out at the store? ;(

This means your keyboard and mouse are not being recognized by the operating system. Try plugging in an external USB mouse/keyboard to do some troubleshooting.

You could also try resetting SMC/NVRAM again.

See
MacBook Air boots to strange screen showing Magic Mouse and TrackPad


Can two apps be tied so that when one opens or closes, the other does so? Can triggers be set up so that when "App A" starts, another "App B" gets started automatically? Ideally, the solution would send a quit message to "App B" when "App A" quits, but the important part is the launch sequence.

Save a plist like this as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/test.plist:

<?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>test</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>bash</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>while sleep 5; do
  if pgrep -x Preview; then
    pgrep -x TextEdit || open -jga TextEdit
  else
    pgrep -x TextEdit &amp;&amp; osascript -e 'quit app "TextEdit"'
  fi
done</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
  <key>KeepAlive</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Then load the plist with launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/test.plist or by logging out and back in.

open -jg is supposed to open an application hidden and without raising any windows. For some document-based applications like TextEdit, it opens a new visible window if the application is open but has no visible windows.

pgrep and the -j option for open were added in 10.8. The -j option is only shown in the help message and not on the man page.


How do I determine what is waking my machine up? Recently my Macbook Pro has been waking up from sleep at undesirable times (middle of the night) without any user interaction (nobody has touched it).

Is there a log on the machine that records the reason a machine woke from sleep?

Apparently the machine wakes up because:

1/26/14, 1:21:20 AM PST  Wake  Wake [CDNVA] due to EHC1/HID Activity: Using AC (Charge:99%)

What is [CDNVA] due to EHC1/HID Activity: Using AC (Charge:99%)?

You can find a lot of information in the system log.

Open the Console utility and this will allow you to easily search the system log for "sleep" and "wake".

The information is not easy to understand but if you do find some lines in the system log you can't understand feel free to update your question.

EHC1 is usually something to do with a USB device. Do you have an external drive attached to the machine? Is it powered via USB?


How to prevent warnings like No xauth data when doing ssh from OS X to other machines? I get Warning: No xauth data; using fake authentication data for X11 forwarding. when I do ssh to other machines from my OS X machine which has X-server installed.

echo $DISPLAY returns something like /tmp/launch-4eEyr6/org.macosforge.xquartz:0

Inside ~/.ssh/config I specified XAuthLocation xauth but I still get the errors.

If I replace the line with full path to xauth (/opt/X11/bin/xauth), I stop getting the errors but the problem is that I do share the ssh config file between several machines, so I cannot put a path that is specific to Mac on it.

I would prefer a solution that would not require me to create a symlink on Mac from /opt/X11/bin/xauth to /usr/bin/xauth.

Put XAuthLocation=/opt/X11/bin/xauth in /etc/ssh/ssh_config.


Can't sync a song purchased with an old iTunes account that I don't use anymore Is there someway I can get this song to sync onto my iPod?

I think that technically you are able to solve this problem.

If you can't use your old iTunes account to download DRM-free version of this song and you don't want to purchase this song again using your current account (this in my opinion, is the fastest and best solution), maybe you would like to export this file e.g. using iTunes Export app (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/export-for-itunes/id880764359?mt=12&ign-mpt=uo%3D4).

As says app description from Mac AppStore:

  Export your playlists and albums from iTunes to any local folder, external storage, SD card or USB drive! You can transfer easily your playlists to your car stereo or any other media player. Convert aac/m4a files to mp3 for best compatibility with most sound systems.

But you have to remember that this app:

  *Can not convert DRM protected files.

So:

In iTunes, you have to add this this problematic song to a new playlist
you have to check this playlist in iTunes Export App
next you have to click Export button
you will see export options

In here you can choose conversion options etc
Next
you have to choose export location
and finally, after a few seconds you have a new copy of your song

Now you can import it to your iTunes library, and try to sync it with your iPod.

But... iTunes Export is a paid app (quite expensive for such a little task), so if you won't be using it regulary to perform similar actions, all above soulution is not worthy your attention;-)

I'm curious if anybody will suggest a better (cheeper) way to do it.


RAM module compatibility between two similar MacBook's If a RAM module is removed from one MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011) and inserted into another one of the same model, will it work?


How to output results of an AppleScript image resizing script and display in automator I am currently using an automator flow that copies finder items, changes them to jpeg, reveals them, and then runs an applescript that presents a dialog for batch resizing by image width. Every now and then, the script misses a couple of files or I prematurely move them from the folder before they have finished. I added a couple of pieces to the automation to

Set value of variable: output
Ask for confirmation: output

This doesn't really output anything useful, but it does notify me when the script has finished running. Is there some way to output whether or not there were any issues with the script or is this way too crazy of a question to be asking on stackexchange? In advance... No, I'm not very familiar with AppleScript.
Here's the script - I appreciate any & all advice/help :)
tell application "System Events"
    activate
    set theWidth to display dialog "Enter the width" default answer "2000"
    set theWidth to the text returned of theWidth as real
end tell
global theWidth
tell application "Finder"
    set some_items to selection as list
    repeat with aItem in some_items
        set contents of aItem to aItem as alias
    end repeat
end tell
repeat with i in some_items
    try
        rescale_and_save(i)
    end try
end repeat

to rescale_and_save(this_item)
    tell application "Image Events"
        launch
        set the target_width to theWidth
        -- open the image file
        set this_image to open this_item

        set typ to this_image's file type

        copy dimensions of this_image to {current_width, current_height}
        if current_width is greater than target_width then
            if current_width is greater than current_height then
                scale this_image to size target_width
            else
                -- figure out new height
                -- y2 = (y1 * x2) / x1
                set the new_height to (current_height * target_width) / current_width
                scale this_image to size new_height
            end if
        end if

        tell application "Finder"
            set file_name to name of this_item
            set file_location to (container of this_item as string)
            set new_item to (file_location & file_name)
            save this_image in new_item as typ
        end tell
    end tell
end rescale_and_save

Give this a try:
use scripting additions

global target_width
global selImgs, chgList -- list of selected images, list of scaled images
global ctr, imgCt -- processed image counter, progress bar image total

set selImgs to {}
set target_width to 2000
set chgList to {}

display dialog "Enter maximum width" default answer "2000"
set target_width to the text returned of result as integer

-- Close scaled list (if open from previous run)
tell application "TextEdit"
    if exists document "scaled.txt" then
        close document "scaled.txt"
    end if
end tell

-- Selected images > list of alias
tell application "Finder"
    set selImgs to selection as alias list
end tell

-- construct progress bar
set imgCt to length of selImgs
set my progress total steps to imgCt
set my progress completed steps to 0
set ctr to 0
set my progress description to "Scaling images..."
set my progress additional description to "Preparing to process."

-- the horror…
repeat with ei in selImgs
    rescale_and_save(ei)
end repeat

-- Notification of changes (filenames if < 4, otherwise count)
considering application responses
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to space
    if length of chgList > 4 then
        set imChg to length of chgList as text
    else
        set imChg to chgList as text
    end if
    display notification imChg with title "Images scaled"
end considering

-- Publish list of scaled images
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to return
set chText to chgList as text
set scFile to (((path to desktop) as text) & "scaled.txt") as «class furl»
close access (open for access scFile)
write chText to scFile as text
tell application "TextEdit"
    open scFile
    set bounds of front window to {30, 30, 300, 240}
end tell

-- the horror….
to rescale_and_save(this_file)
    tell application "Image Events"
        launch
        -- before each test run, I duplicate the images, so I won't have to re-fetch the originals
        if name of this_file contains "copy" then

            -- open the image file, increment progress bar
            set this_image to open this_file
            set ctr to (my progress completed steps) + 1
            set my progress additional description to "Scaling image " & ctr & " of " & imgCt
            set my progress completed steps to ctr

            -- process image (measure, scale, save, collect name)
            copy dimensions of this_image to {current_width, current_height}

            if current_width is greater than target_width then -- wide enough to process
                set txName to name of this_image as text

                if current_width is greater than current_height then -- when landscape
                    scale this_image to size target_width
                    save this_image with icon
                    copy txName to end of chgList

                else -- when portrait
                    -- figure out new height
                    -- y2 = (y1 * x2) / x1

                    -- NB as 'scale to size' requires integer, round up
                    set new_height to round (current_height * target_width / current_width) rounding up
                    scale this_image to size new_height
                    save this_image with icon
                    copy txName to end of chgList
                end if
            end if
            close this_image
        end if
    end tell

end rescale_and_save

Notes:

For looping through the files, it is simpler to make some_items a list of aliases

When scaling with size rather than factor, new_height should be integer

Save within if…then block, otherwise every selected file will be re-saved, even when not scaled

Use Image Events to save the files

If your folder is a subfolder of Pictures, you can enable 'Dimensions' in list view, which displays something like '2097 ×
3014', letting you see which images will be scaled. It doesn't
update rapidly so it won't typically display the changed dimension,
instead, it displays '--', which at least has the virtue of
identifying which files have been changed.

Progress bar

Track scaled images and raise a notification when done, as well as create a text file log on desktop

Optional: Have a dry run script — tests each image's dimensions and reports back (e.g. count of images to be scaled, filenames of
images to be scaled). You could even have it change the selection to only those files in the Finder when complete. Then when you run the
final script, it will be clear which files will change.

FWIW, I tried using factor to scale but I found that after working for a while, it became erratic, and would often lock up the script (and overheat my mac, and require me to manually quit sips). I grew bored of that and used size (but with forcing new_height to be an integer). After that change, it became more reliable. You may find the tracking unnecessary.


What's wrong with the Weather widget on OS X 10.10 Yosemite? I have a little problem with the Weather widget in Notification Center in Yosemite. It appears to be missing some of the info from the server.


Why is python's "easy_install" installing into the wrong directory? I've installed python 2.7 with the dmg-installer of the official python page. After typing which python in terminal, I get this:

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python

But when I want to install a package with easy_install, for example like this easy_install pycassa, I get the message Installed /Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/pycassa-1.1.0-py2.6.egg, what is obviously the wrong path. So when I try to use the installed package with import pycassa I get the error "no module named pycassa".

So how can I fix this issue best?

Find out where easy_install is by in terminal

which easy_install

I suspect that it will be /usr/bin which is Apple's python 2.6

EDIT: I don't have the python.org python so this is from memory.

To use easy_install for the python.org 2.7 use /usr/local/bin/easy_install or /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/easy_install

Also easy_install is not in the Python standard library so you would have to install a package either setuptools or distribute I think the latter is now the preferred one.

To check what easy_install does look at the first line and see what python is used in the #! line


Can I use HDMI for audio only without video? When I connect an HDMI display to my computer, it uses it as a display. I can't figure out how to use the HDMI cable for audio only and only use my laptop monitor. Is this possible?

If all you want is to have your desktop confined to your computer's screen, go to System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement, and check Mirror Displays. That'll make it so that your HDMI display only acts as a mirror of the desktop you already have, rather than an extension of it.


Showing Windows apps in Parallels Coherence with mac-style title bar with red/yellow/green dots on left? On my Mac, I need to use some Windows-only apps in a Windows 10 Parallels 11 VM. One thing I find annoying is remembering to click in the upper-right to close Windows windows but clicking in the upper-left to close Mac windows.

Does anyone know of any Windows 10 solutions that will move the close/minimize/maximize buttons in Windows titlebars to the left side of the window like on Mac OS X?  There used to be an app called LeftSider but I don't think this is compatible with Windows 10.

I don't particularly care whether the buttons look like Mac buttons or not-- just want them in the same spot so I can rely on muscle memory and won't have to think where to click depending on the window.

I run in Coherence mode on Parallels 11 in the latest El Capitan Mac OS, if that's relevant.

I always found changing between Mac and Windows extremely annoying for that reason as well, and was totally excited to find out that you can close any Windows window that has an X, by simply double-clicking the far upper-left-hand corner.

I cannot say about Win10 specifically, since I don't have that installed anywhere, but I know it worked from XP, all the way through Win8.


Can I delete photos off Camera Roll after transferring to iCloud? I need space on my iPhone. However I can not sync photos to my computer. If I want to delete photos off my Camera Roll after transferring them to iCloud, will those photos be lost permanently?

Deleting photos from the Camera Roll has no effect on photos already in your PhotoStream and vice-versa.

Photo Stream is temporary so if you don't access your PhotoStream on your computer where the photos can be saved locally on your computer (there is an option to do this automatically with iPhoto on a Mac), you should import the phtoos from the Camera Roll with your computer. You can delete the photos from the Camera Roll after the photos have been imported by your computer as with any other digital camera.


How to ignore Spotlight index for a volume contain another macOS Volume A: macOS A
Volume B: macOS B

How can I ignore Spotlight index of Volume B when using macOS A, while keeping index data and use index when switching to macOS B.

Launch System Preferences
Select Spotlight
Select the Privacy tab
Add the tab of the volume that should not be searched (NOT the one you've booted from)
Wait a minute - ensure the change gets written to disk
Reboot


How can you forward long headers in Apple Mail 8.1 using Yosemite (needed when reporting suspected fraud) also wondering if any way to have a return of incoming mail being individually numbered as existed in mail used with 10.6.8

To forward with all headers intact, for phishing/fraud reporting etc, use
Message > Forward as Attachment.


Can Mountain Lion be used as a guest OS under 10.7 Lion? I'm installing Mountain Lion on one of my Macs and I'd like to test it (under virtualization) on another. This other (for a variety of reasons) will continue to run Lion.

Can I use VMware Fusion to virtualize Mountain Lion (client) under Lion (client) legally? Does the virtualization section of the license allow this?

As far as the license says, no.

You have the right to:

(iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances
of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments on each
Mac Computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software,
for purposes of: (a) software development; (b) testing during software
development; (c) using OS X Server; or (d) personal, non-commercial use.

So, as far as the license goes, you must already be running Mountain Lion in order to virtualize it.


Restore whole system on 10.10 with time machine I realized that I somehow deleted some very important files on my computer. I am working with QGIS and I deleted (in my python system's native folder) some eggs and other things which led to the inconvenient outcome that my QGis is not working anymore...

Luckily, I have a backup from yesterday night.

My question: Can I restore my whole system from that backup?
Basically, I want a clean set up with 10.10 and then, all my installed C++ compilers, libraries for Python, plug ins and so forth back on it again..
Is that possible? If so, how?

Restart, hold down Command + R while booting to get to the restore screen. You can pick your backup from there.
From support site


Can I change the resolution of a png from 120x120 to 180x180? I have a 120x120 png and I need it to be converted to a 180x180, is this possible using iPhoto or other Apple software for a mac? I do not care if the picture turns out good or not I just need it to be that size. I am running OSX Yosemite.

Open the file in Preview

Now Click on Edit

In Edit menu bar click on the last icon looks like a square with line from corner to corner.

In the new window you can adjust the size and the resolution.


Obtaining 2560 x 1600 on a 3840 x 2160 with surrounding bands When you pair a MacBook that supports only up to 2560 x 1600 on an external display with a Dell 28" 3840 x 2160 monitor, is it possible to request precisely the resolution 2560 x 1600 on the monitor with empty bands on the four sides, or are you stuck with (the awful) 2x scaled 1920 x 1080?

I see that there is yet another hidden feature. If you click Option in the display settings, you will see additional modes. But it seems that if this method will show you any additional modes, you already need to have the monitor in question connected just to run the experiment.

You cannot request this from the computer, as it would have to support the full resolution in order to do that. This is a feature that would have to be provided by the monitor.

You’ll have to check the manual for your monitor to see if it can do this. Most monitors cannot.

On the other hand you’re not stuck with that one specific setting. You can choose to use the full 2560x1600 resolution, but it will typically fill up the entire display.


My macbookair tried to drink my coffee and now, everything is upside-down A few days ago, some coffee went on my MBA(4,2).

I immediately took it down, unplugged it from the magsafe, and started to open it to dry it the faster I was able to.

After a few days in rice and putting the piece back together I booted it. It was working quite well given what happened but now the fan are going full speed, even after SMC & NVRAM reset. The SMC Fan Controller can see the speed of the fan (6500rpm) and I can't change it. Which is annoying.

But what is way more annoying is that now my trackpad & keyboard are dead. Well, almost dead. Because I can still boot my mac. By the way, the keyboard backlight is still working as usual, enabled when a key is pressed (just the power key) and disabled after 10 secs)

How can I fix theses two issues (preferably with a lot of time and the less money as possible)?

(ps: I didn't find better tags, please, feel free to fix this :) )

For the fan, you need to differentiate between a fan problem or temperature problem. You need to see if the laptop is over heating when running the fan at full speed. Use something like TG Pro.

For trackpad and keyboard, you need to be able to see input live, so that you can tell if the trackpad/keyboard is in fact dead or working randomly. BetterTouchTool gives a live view of the trackpad. Karabiner does the similar thing for keyboard.


Where can one find the meid of an iOS Device? (in particular an iPad) I'm getting 4G on my iPad 2 and the Sales Rep for Verizon said that I needed to text him the meid, where in iOS might I find this meid?

Settings app > General > About

The various ID used for cellular networking and services are listed immediately above the Modem Firmware field.


What is the quickest and/or easiest way to infrequently type non-KeyLayout provided characters? I've recently been writing a lot of documentation and would love to be able to type native superscript characters (⁰, ¹, ², ³, ⁴, ⁵) to call out caveats/annotations. The writing environment I'm in does not support markup such as <sup> or LaTeX-like ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5.

My current solution for inserting these characters is to;

Permanently enable the "input menu in menu bar" in Keyboard.prefPane -> Input Sources
Mouse over to the input menu icon, click it, then 'Show Character Viewer'.
Once the Character Viewer is shown, mouse to the character search box, and type either the number to superscript, or literally enter the word 'superscript' which will helpfully give me 0-9 that I can quickly use if necessary.

How can I shorten the time necessary to input these characters?

I had thought that the command + control + space (⌘^␣) picker was emoji-only, boy was I mistaken. Or perhaps it's changed since I last looked inevitably 1-3 releases of macOS ago?

This is absolutely the fastest way to enter any character, provided it's unicode name isn't overly esoteric.