How do I sync notes between two macs with the new Notes.app in Mountain Lion? I've tried the following to sync notes between two macs with the new notes.app in Mountain Lion:

System Preferences > iCloud and check the "document and date" service.
System Preferences > Mail Calendar, select the iCloud account and check the sync notes box, then click add. It unchecked itself after I quit system preferences.
System Preferences > iCloud and check the sync notes box. It asked me to specify or create a @me.com account.

How do I sync notes between two macs with the new notes.app in Mountain Lion?

Is the only way to do this is to create a @me.com account?

Yes. You have to have an iCloud account for iCloud syncing to work.


What is the API call that iPhone makes to check if a number has iMessage enabled I tried to sniff the http calls by setting up a proxy on my laptop in the same LAN as the iPhone. Once that was set up, I entered different numbers that I know have iMessage enabled into the number field of the Messages app, but couldn't see any calls being made.

Of course, the proxy was functional as I could see other calls go through such as Safari, App Store etc. Also, these numbers were not in my address book originally.

According to How does iMessage know that the recipient is an iOS 5 device? - iPhone makes a call to Apple servers to determine whether the recipient is an iOS 5 device or not.

What is this API call being made to see if a phone number has iMessage enabled?

When checking whether a recipient is on iMessage or SMS, iOS does not use http protocol.

You can use Wireshark on PC or tcpdump on Mac to sniff the entire tcp protocol.


Where is Preview storing the data to reopen a PDF at the last page ? OS X Lion I can see how to turn this behavior off in a previous question at How to set Preview to start on the last viewed page?

But what file is/was storing this persistent data about the last page read of a PDF in Preview ? I have experimented with deleting many cache, plist and other files associated with the Preview app, even its bookmarks and those in ~/Library/Containers and none of them seem to stop it remembering the last page read in a PDF document.

Can someone please name the specific file where this information is stored?

Thank you.
I'm still on Lion btw

I’ve got it. I think. Took me a long time but I think I have worked out what’s happening. Hopefully this might be helpful to someone else.

First of all I noticed locking the file in the Finder seemed to stop Preview remembering a different page. So if I opened the PDF on page 1 and then scrolled to page 10 it wouldn’t remember the PDF was on page 10 anymore when the file was closed then reopened. That was the first clue.

I then used  fseventer which monitors file changes in real time and I was surprised to see that opening a PDF in Preview, scrolling to a different page and then closing the PDF updated the file itself.  It doesn’t literally register a time change in the Finder, the date stays the same, but fseventer threw up the clue ‘Modified xattr’.

Ok, I dimly remembered some mention of this feature called extended attributes from years back, it seems to function like yet another kind of metadata but that’s quite separate from ‘normal metadata’, and now I'm reading was a replacement for the old resource forks in OS 9. Running $mdls (used for normal 'metadata') in Terminal won’t show extended attributes.

You have to use the command $xattr to see these attributes.

When I ran $xattr /Volumes/mydisk/mypdf.pdf I got this:

/Volumes/mydisk/mypdf.pdf: com.apple.Preview.UIstate.v1:
And another line about a quarantine bit

You have to do $ xattr -lv  to see the full data of these extended attributes. It produces a blob of hexadecimal output for com.apple.Preview.UIstate.v1.

So I ran $ xattr -lv /Volumes/mydisk/mypdf.pdf

And copied the output. Then I opened the PDF in Preview, changed the page and closed Preview.

Then I ran $ xattr -lv /Volumes/mydisk/mypdf.pdf  again

And then compared the blobs of hexadecimal output for com.apple.Preview.UIstate.v1, which were different between the two occasions.

The final test was to delete the extended attribute data:

$ xattr -c /Volumes/mydisk/mypdf.pdf

And that’s it! It’s back to page 1 when you open it in Preview

It appears the last page viewed of a PDF is stored in these extended attributes. I’m so happy!!


Photo wrong thumbnail In the Finder of my mac, it often happens that some photos in a folder are displaying wrong previews. The set of photos which have this problem is random and unpredictable: sometimes among 10 photos in a row there is one with a wrong thumbnail. The wrong thumbnail is always another photo in the same folder. Rebooting the machine does not help, which means the wrong information is stored somewhere. When I duplicate the photos (as an experiment), the new copy is OK.

I wonder if there is a way to force refreshing the thumbnails.

MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

I have also asked this question on https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6988345 but received no answer yet.

A couple of things you can try:

Open the folder in Finder - click on the Actions button- select Show View Options - put a check next to Show icon preview. If it's checked, uncheck it, close the window, open it back up and check it again
Head for your home folder - Library / Preferences - move the com.apple.finder.plist file to the desktop - log out and back in. If this fixes it, you can delete the file. This is going to reset all your Finder preferences to default.
the thumbnails are stored in a folder called com.apple.QuickLook.thumbnailcache in a subfolder of /var/folders. The quickest way to locate it should be to run sudo find . -name com.apple.Q*. You could move that folder to a different location and restart the Finder process (killall Finder) to force a recreation of the thumbnails.


is there a way for Menubar to display only battery percentage? is there a way to see only the percentage, I dont really care about the small battery image and I dont need it. Is there a way to remove it?

iStats Menus 5 has various monitoring widgets for the menu bar, one being a  battery indicator. Could be helpful?


Would upgrading to SSD solve my performance issues? My MacBook Pro specifications are:
Core2Duo 2.65 Ghz
4 GB RAM
320 GB HD

Performance is killing me literally. Really long response time.

Do you suggest to replace the Hard disk with SSD one ? Is it going to solve my MBP performance issues?

What is getting slow

I'm a software developer (code compiling, building, Xcode, IntelliJ, Sublime Text 2, tens of Chrome tabs, iTunes, Preview).

It could takes seconds to switch between running applications. A lot of spinning colored-balls.

It takes seconds to launch an application.

A RAM upgrade is inexpensive (~$70) compared to an SSD (~$1 per GB e.g. $250 for a 240GB) and based on your pagefile usage and available RAM I would start there.  That being said, an SSD is a massive performance upgrade and worth every dollar in my opinion.  I won't use a machine without an SSD anymore.

Links to: RAM and SSD.

Could you provide some more details as to what specifically is slow?


How to delete/remove custom ringtones (tones) from iPhone in iTunes 12.7? As of iTunes 12.7, Apple now advises manually adding custom ringtones to iPhone per their support article here.

Apple's instruction is to drag and drop tones from Finder to the "Tones" section of my device in iTunes. This method works to add tones to my phone. However, I can't discern how to remove ringtones from my phone.

I've tried clicking the tones in iTunes and pressing delete, without and with various modifier keys.
I've checked the contextual menu under control-click (right-click) of the tones in iTunes.
I've tried dragging the tones out of iTunes.
I've poked around in iPhone settings and iTunes menubar and prefs.
I've tried deleting files from my Mac at ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Tones/ and re-syncing my iPhone.

Any further ideas? Thank you.

If you tick the box "Manually manage music and videos", and click the "Apply" button, you'll be able to select a ringtone from your device (in iTunes) and hit your delete key (you'll be prompted for a confirmation to delete the file).


Install unsupported iOS version I am developing iOS apps with Swift, and don't want to buy an Apple device to test them, and have just got an iPod 4gen which supports iOS up to 6.1.

I just wanna know if there is absolutely no possible way for me to install iOS 8 or 9? or even 7? I am willing to take all risks, I don't care if it get's super slow or even bricks my device while trying.

PS. I understand why the simulator doesn't have app store and why I can't run pre compiled apps on the simulator. As the simulator is x86 and the devices are on ARM processors. But an old device is stil the same processor so it should be possible to try out and unsupported OS, if I then run into apps crashing and other stuff not working is something else and I don't care about how badly it will run. I just wanna test my code out on an actual device.

No, iOS 6.1.6 is the latest version your iPod touch will support. There is absolutely no way to install iOS 7, 8, 9, or (extremely) likely anything later. It just won't work.


Why doesn't my MacBook Air wake up from sleep when I touch the trackpad? Ever since I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion, my MacBook Air doesn't wake from sleep when I touch my trackpad. I have to physically click it in order for it to wake up, which can be quite annoying sometimes since I'd rather not have to press the physical button underneath the trackpad (and it's easier to just tap it when your finger or move your finger on it, as if you're moving the cursor around on the screen).

Does anyone know why it doesn't work the way it did on Snow Leopard?

In Mac OS X 10.7, aka Lion, Apple removed the ability to wake the Mac by moving the mouse. This stopped knocks to the table and pets moving the mouse accidentally from waking the Mac.

By clicking or pressing a key, you are being more deliberate about your intention to wake your Mac. Ideally it should help avoid waking your Mac accidentally and save a little power.

As ever, this improvement benefits some users more than others.


How does Back To My Mac work without UPnP or NAT-PMP? Back To My Mac (BTMM) used to require UPnP or NAT-PMP on your router to work, but at some point this changed and it can work (albeit slowly) without those.

BTMM (usually?) works by setting up an encrypted IPv6 tunnel over IPv4 between the two hosts, and with UPnP/NAT-PMP, the appropriate ports are forwarded on the router at each end, allowing a direct connection.

But how does it work when there's no UPnP/NAT-PMP?

I noticed that it's much slower if either end doesn't have UPnP/NAT-PMP (I get a ~40ms ping if both ends have the automatic config, and about 1000ms if they don't), so I'm wondering where the traffic goes — presumably it has to go via Apple servers if a direct connection can't be automatically negotiated?

But even with just plain old NAT, is it not possible for a 3rd party to arbitrate a connection between two NAT'ed hosts?

Is there a way to tell how that IPv6 tunnel is getting set up? I can't figure it out from the output of ifconfig, traceroute, traceroute6, netstat or lsof...

For bonus points, is it possible to set up static port forwards on a router that lacks UPnP/NAT-PMP in order to get BTMM working directly, rather than in this slower mode?

You probably already read did-you-realize-apples-back-to-my-mac-mobileme-service-uses-ipv6 by now. It has some of the answers.
Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KAME_project
I don't know how much was changed since MobileMe became iCloud.

lsof -i:4500
Shows that the process 'racoon' is handling the tunnel. This port is also opened on the router.

I wonder what it does with mdsDirectory.db.
Also, it would be nice if BTMM worked also without tunneling and instead used native IPv6 when possible.


Shortcut to insert / paste email address? Is there a way to setup a shortcut to insert my email address when typing?

About once a day I need to type my email address on some login form or order page. It would be really nice to have a kind of paste function that inserts my email address.

Of course this is also a feature request: Long (context) tap while typing - cut/copy/paste/select menu pops up -> in that menu I would like to have an additional item: "Insert email address". Even better: Allow me to define additional "paste items".

Built in to the operating system is text replacements, so if you open Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Text Replacement you can add your own text replacement shortcuts. For example, you might add "e@" and have it expand to your full email address, such as "email@domain.com". It will automatically expand when tabbing away from a field or hitting the space key on your keyboard.


How can we ensure that contact photos appear as either full-screen or as thumbnails on the iPhone? I've noticed that contact photos on the iPhone seem to appear in one of two modes:

Thumbnail: A small square image shown next to the contact's name or number
Full-Screen: The image takes up the entire display, overlaid by the caller ID and Swipe-to-answer controls

How the phone determines which mode to use isn't terribly clear. This question, for example, dealing with contact syncing, seems to have people experiencing different results depending on whether they set the photo on the phone, synced from Gmail, synced from iCloud, etc.

Does anyone know the canonical rules for when a contact image appears in full-screen or as a thumbnail? Is it related to image size / shape, or only to the source of the image?

In my testing1, pictures set on the iPhone itself consistently appear as full screen, and pictures set in Address Book on OS X and synced via iCloud appear as thumbnails. Any photos set elsewhere, but subsequently edited on the iPhone will also appear full screen.

I haven't tested other syncing methods, but from what I've read elsewhere, including the question you linked, I think the syncing method doesn't matter — just whether the photo was set on the device, or on a Mac.

It's hard to say why exactly without any inside information, but I suspect it's one of two reasons:

Different teams worked on the syncing and iOS Contacts app (or at least the user facing portions thereof). Some flag gets set somewhere in the data structure when you set a photo in the Contacts app that doesn't get set when a photo is synced over. Just something that got overlooked.
Intentionally left out. Since you don't get the opportunity to preview the cropping and alignment on the device screen when setting it, it was decided to make pictures assigned off-device just appear as thumbnails, to avoid any bad cropping or weird aspect ratios.

In any event, if you want consistency, you should set all your contact pictures on the same device — Mac if you want thumbnails, iPhone if you want full-size.

1 I tested on iOS 6.0.1 on an iPhone 4S, and 10.7.5 on my Mac.


Why is "popular near me" feature in my app store blank? I recently brought new iPhone. I'm not sure why the popular near me feature in app store is blank out..I have enable the location service for it and from the screen shot attached you can also see location icon on top of status bar.

What could cause this?

Had a similar problem, solved it by resetting Location and Privacy in " Settings > General > Reset". Wait for a while after resetting, then the list will appear.

Remember to allow anything related to the App Store.


How to name Safari windows? I usually work with multiple Safari windows open. Each has multiple tabs. Each window is a particular theme. Is there a way to name these windows so I can easily navigate between them?

Or is there an app that can do it or at least provide a work around?

Safari names the window according to what tab is the frontmost (or selected) tab. And it gets that info from the web page itself.

You may be able to go into developer mode, and edit the HTML title attribute on a current web page (not sure, never tried this) but as the name of the window changes with what tab is selected not sure you would find this acceptable.


How can I reset a disabled macbook pro 2010 The password was reset a long time ago, and I have no idea of it. I do not have access to the original owner of the macbook pro. When I turn it on, I have to enter the firmware password, but of course I don't have it. Is there anything I can do to reset the OS, or even install Linux via a USB?

Technically, NO

If you can't remember your firmware password or passcode, schedule an in-person service appointment with an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider. Bring your Mac to the appointment, and bring your original receipt or invoice as proof of purchase.


How to get VMware Fusion on Mac to use Logitech extra back/forward mouse buttons in Windows VM? Scenario:

I have a Mac running OS X Lion, and then VMware Fusion 4.x running Windows XP and Windows 7 as virtual machines.
I use a Logitech MX310 Optical Mouse.  It has 6 buttons and I think it's the greatest mouse ever invented and I own a few (one is at the office). What I especially like are the back and forward buttons.
If I use the MX310 under native Windows (I have a PC, too) the buttons naturally act as the back and forward actions in Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc. to navigate backwards and forwards within folders, web pages, etc.
When I use the MX310 on the Mac, I install the Logitech Control Center preferences pane, which makes sure the buttons also work as expected within Finder, Safari, Firefox, etc.

Problem:  When running Windows (whether XP or 7) as VMs under VMware Fusion, the MX310's back and forward buttons no longer work in Windows as they are supposed to.  Under Windows XP, nothing happens.  Under Windows 7, they have the effect of moving and resizing a window to occupy the left half of the screen, or the right half of the screen (depending on the button pressed.)  So, I think there is a signal getting sent to the VM, just the wrong one.

How can I get the back/forward buttons working properly within my Windows virtual machine instances under VMware Fusion?  I'd even be happy with some key/button re-mapping kludge running under the Windows VM that simulates what they're supposed to do in the first place .. but something that gets VMware Fusion sending the right message would be better.

To expand on what CajunLuke said about changing the configuration on a per app basis.

If you have Logitech Control Center for OS X installed you can use Advanced click settings for just VMFusion using the following steps.

System Settings > Control Center

Click the Plus button next to the global settings drop down and navigate to VMFusion and click select
Change Thumb Back button to Advanced Click with the button 4 option and Change Tumb Forward button to Advanced Click with the button 5 option.

I use win + left and win + right for screen snapping in windows, so key mapping was not an option for me.  Advanced click allowed me to keep the windows shortcuts intact as well as use my forward and back buttons on my Anywhere Mouse MX as intended. I have tested this in Win8 full screen and single window and it works beautifully.  I'm not sure about unity because I haven't used Win8 in unity mode so I did not test.  Hope this helps others.  I know it took me forever to find the anser I needed.


Can't edit .plist in /System I would like to edit the following plist file using XCode, so that I can change some screensaver effects.

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Slideshows.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Content/EffectDescriptions.plist

However I get a message from XCode that I don't have permission to change this file.

So I try to change the permissions

sudo chmod 664 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Slideshows.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Content/EffectDescriptions.plist

and I get this error

chmod: Unable to change file mode on /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Slideshows.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Content/EffectDescriptions.plist: Operation not permitted

I have given my Terminal "Full Disk Access" in system prefs. Now what should I try?

/System is protected by SIP (System Integrity Protection), which prevents writes made there.

It can be disabled, but you might be better off seeing if you can make modifications some other way, e.g. creating a duplicate screensaver effect that is saved to /Library.

Catalina is already doubling-down on system alterations by placing the system on a read-only volume, so any changes you make will be short-lived.


"No PDFs" in iBooks on ipad; i.e. PDFs don't persist in Library PDFs instantly disappear in iBooks after I click out of them.
In particular, I can read PDFs by going into the "Files" app, going to my icloud drive, clicking a pdf, then clicking "open in ibooks". The pdf shows up fine and I can read it.
However, as soon as I click the "back" button on the upper left corner of ibooks, in the "Library/PDFs" of ibooks, I see the book I just read appear for half a second, and then instantly disappear, and then it says

No PDFs. All the PDFs in your library will automatically be added to this collection.

What's going on? How can I get my Library -> PDFs screen in ibooks to actually show the PDFs that I have been reading, instead of having them instantly disappear? Currently, in order to read the PDF again, I have to go to the Files app, and click "open in ibooks" every time.
I'm using ibooks on ipad air 2, with the latest system upgrades as of late August 2020.

By default, PDFs don't persist in the Books app. In the Files app, opening a PDF with Books will make the Books app open the PDF from its existing location.
To copy the PDF into the Books app, with the book open in the Books app, tap the Share button, then ‘Copy to Books’. This will duplicate the PDF into the Books app container.


What are the most convenient keyboard/keyboard layout for programming? I do a bit of Objective-C, Matlab and Python, and start to get tired of the keyboard I use (AZERTY). It is far from being optimal as one need to press ALT+SHIFT+( to get [ for example. I think of buying a new keyboard for programming and QWERTY keyboards seem to be an obvious choice (my guess is that these language/environment were developed with such keyboards).

Which keyboard/keyboard layout allow a direct access to programming keys, such as [, { or | for example?

Most people use QWERTY, just because it is the most popular, but if you’re learning a new layout anyway you might want to try Dvorak.

If you don’t want to learn another alphabetic layout, you can use a tool like Ukelele to make a better programming layout for the special characters while still keeping AZERTY for the rest of the keys.


Why is the Force Touch "taptic" TrackPad not clicking/selecting on 2015 MacBook Pro? I have a 2015 MacBook Pro running El Capitan with the new taptic force touch trackpad thing. Which, I must add, is fantastic!

However, this morning I started it up to discover it would not click/select anything. What is this madness? How do I fix it? How do I stop it happening again?

Things that work:

Typing with the keyboard.
Moving the mouse around.

Things that don't work:

Touch to click (I had enabled that setting)
Press to click (track pad makes a clicky sound but does nothing)
Deep press (track pad makes double clicky sound)
Two finger press (for right click)

Have Tried:

Restarting the Finder
Restarting my Mac
Making sure it is pugged in at the wall
Vigorously tapping the trackpad in frustration
Using expletive language

Unfortunately, I had no success with the above.

Previously, there were no issues with the trackpad. This mac is relatively new, I cannot think of any installed software that could be causing this issue. Any help much appreciated. Thanks.

My trackpad (MBP Early 2015) was working, but there was no haptic feedback, or any indication that force touch was working. Other functions (trackpad, single tap, scrolling, etc.) were working. Here's what my settings looked like:

For me, it was fixed somehow by an SMC reset with the charger disconnected, while powered on. Basically, I pressed Control + Shift + Option + Power button. The system instantly shut down without warning. Force touch and haptic feedback were back when the system turned on.

Do I recommend this? No. It's an unclean shutdown. Did it work? Yes it did.


How are apps like Mail+ connecting to Exchange, while Apple's Mail.app is blocked by my IT dept? My IT department has this great idea: if you want to read your work email on your personal device, you have to give us total access to the device. Well, no. It's my personal device, you can't have it. So I can't have work email.

Then I discover there are apps for Android that really don't care what my IT dept thinks, and they connect to Exchange for the emails anyway. Then I discover Mail+, which does the same thing in iOS: Connecting to my company's Exchange server without the profiles installed, and allowing me access to my work email.

My question is this: How are these apps connecting to the Exchange server? What is different about the way the iPhone connects with native email accounts? Is there a way to make the native accounts work without the profiles installed by my IT dept?

There are certainly a lot of variables here, some are.

The way traffic is 'managed' on the network that you are on.

There are many ways an IT department could prevent their network participants from accessing certain resources, I will explain a few.

DHCP & DNS.
  Your specific device may be configured by reserved DHCP to use a different DNS server than everyone else. This may prevent external email services (possibly OpenDNS). You could try manually configuring your DNS to 8.8.8.8 (Googles service) and test again.
 *This will still fail if for instance the IT department have also restricted DNS traffic on port 53 to their own DNS service exclusively.

Level 7 Firewall capability.
  A firewall can specifically see email traffic and through the creation of rules 'shape' traffic to fit an IT policy. This firewall could then 'see' Apple mail type conversation and block it, another email application may not behave the same way therefore failing to trigger the 'shape' match and ignoring it.

Mail servers can also be configured to use custom configurations, alternative port's could be used or your application may even use a proxy service or VPN (that could be hardcoded into the app)

That said and if your specific corporate IT policy permits, you could always 'investigate' using a VPN of your own if you wanted to 'experiment' (internet search 'personal vpn service') This would enclose your port 25 activity within a VPN tunnel.

Incidentally, I think it's worth mentioning.  When your IT department ask for you to accept an Android or iOS device management policy, they do not actually have access to your personal email accounts. They can enforce certain policies, for instance forcing a device to have a lock code, password complexity, length. Other capabilities depend on the device but neither currently have native support for location tracking.


AFP can't write because of locked volume I'm trying to write contents to my shared folders on my Raspberry Pi over AFP.
However I keep getting the same error/warning regarding permissions and locked volume:

I'm fairly sure permissions are right, I'm logged and as the default pi user and used chown -R pi /mnt/seagate on the pi to own my HDD mount for the pi user.
This didn't work so I tried setting permissions for my /var/www folder with chmod -R 777 /var/www, resulting in the same error pictured above.

Checking the permissions in the Finder for the home folder (which should be no issue, being logged in as the pi user) I see that everyone has RW permissions.

I think the issue isn't my pi's fault (hence why I posted this here and not on raspberrypi). I think there must be something wrong with my AFP configuration on my Mac (also note that I used this method of sharing folders from pi with AFP to mac before and it always worked before).
I attached a screenshot of my afp configuration below since I have no clue what could be wrong. If needed to help, I can also provide the configurations for netatalk (afp protocol on the pi).

Probably some permissions and/or the settings are set wrong on your Raspberry.
I suspect the external drive or a shared folder on the external drive to have wrong permissions set. Compare that with the your home folder on the Raspberry where you probably have full r/w access.

Please try this as a first step. You may apply special settings/configs later.
Below i assume that your external disk is sdb and contains one ext4 volume sdb1 with the name seagate. The volume/partition itself should not be owned by pi but by root!

First stop netatalk with:

sudo /etc/init.d/netatalk stop

Unmount your external volume after checking the the mounted volumes with df or cat /proc/mounts to get the identifier of your external disk:

sudo umount /dev/sdb1

First we have to fix your mount point:

The following permissions should apply (check this with ls -la on the Raspberry):

For /mnt

drwxr-xr-x  3 root root  4096 Apr  6 13:52 mnt

Check that the folder /mnt contains a folder seagate with ls -la:

drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Apr  6 13:52 .
drwxr-xr-x 22 root root 4096 Apr  6 11:21 ..
drwxr-xr-x  8 root root 4096 Apr  6 14:14 seagate

Add the folder if necessary with sudo mkdir /mnt/seagate and change permissions and ownership accordingly with chown and chmod.

Get the UUID of all volumes with sudo blkid. You should get a similar output like that one:

/dev/sda5: UUID="7a7dd5de-758e-4488-b78d-dd7f7c61cfbc" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda1: UUID="9b4285a8-3290-469a-91f3-7517f286856e" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="seagate" UUID="522e7f4c-ee90-4265-82c1-e46f48f969b5" TYPE="ext4"

sda1 and sda5 are your internal main and swap partition. sdb1 is the first volume on your external disk.

Check with sudo nano /etc/fstab if your fstab file mounts the volume of the external disk at /mnt/seagate. Replace the UUIDs below with those found in your setup.

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=9b4285a8-3290-469a-91f3-7517f286856e /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=7a7dd5de-758e-4488-b78d-dd7f7c61cfbc none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/sr0        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
UUID=522e7f4c-ee90-4265-82c1-e46f48f969b5" /mnt/seagate/     ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1

Remount sdb1 with sudo mount /dev/sdb1 and check the mountpoint with df. It should look like this:

...
...
/dev/sdb1   8256916  170156   7667332    3% /mnt/seagate

Now create a base folder for the user pi:

sudo mkdir /mnt/seagate/pi

Move all your personal folders to pi with:

sudo mv /mnt/seagate/folder sudo mv /mnt/seagate/pi/folder

Example:

sudo mv "/mnt/seagate/Film - 1" "/mnt/seagate/pi/Film - 1"

Then apply ownership recursively with

sudo chown -R pi:pi /mnt/seagate/pi

Reapply ownership and permissions of /mnt/seagate/lost+found with

sudo chown -R root:root /mnt/seagate/lost+found
sudo chmod 700 /mnt/seagate/lost+found

Now you have to check netatalk and fix it if necessary:

Locate the following startup options and change them as noted below in /etc/default/netatalk with sudo nano /etc/default/netatalk:

ATALKD_RUN=no
PAPD_RUN=no
CNID_METAD_RUN=yes
AFPD_RUN=yes
TIMELORD_RUN=no
A2BOOT_RUN=no

Go to the end of the file /etc/netatalk/afpd.conf. It should look similar to this:

# default:
- -tcp -noddp -uamlist uams_dhx.so,uams_dhx2.so -nosavepassword

Now configure the shared volumes in /etc/netatalk/AppleVolumes.default near the end of the file:

~/              "Home Directory"
/mnt/seagate/pi "pi-seagate" allow:pi

The first is the directory to share, the second is the name visible in the "Connect to Server" -> "Volumes to select" window and later on your desktop and the third is/are the allowed user(s).

Restart netatalk with:

sudo /etc/init.d/netatalk start

Try to connect to the share(s) with your Mac OS X 10.10 client by entering: "afp://ip-address" in 'Go to...' -> 'Connect to Server'.


Activity & Hardware Audit I have an iMac running OS X 10.7 that stands in a public space. Recently, someone stole a Mighty Mouse that was connected to it. I know the time period when it happened so I was wondering if I can find out what sort of activity was going on during back then. For example, what users were logging in, what apps were they running and when was the last time when this USB mouse was connected. I already went through system and kernel logs and they provide just a bit of useful info. What are the best practices of auditing Mac usage?

Thanks!

If you didn't install system accounting on this Mac, there isn't any way
for you to get the processes back at the time of this bad event.

You can find when this mouse was connected for the last time by searching in the /var/log/kernel.log.
On more recent versions of OSX (Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra) /var/log/kernel.log is merged in /var/log/system.log.
Within a terminal or xterm just type:

grep -i usb /var/log/kernel.log

or on more recent versions of OSX:

grep -i usb /var/log/system.log

If you need to search back further, just use the compressed and saved previous versions with:

bzgrep -i usb /var/log/kernel.log.[3210].bz2

or on more recent versions of OSX:

zgrep -i usb /var/log/system.log.[3210].gz

To check who was connected on your system, just use the last command.

If you want to have a basic auditing function on your system, you may easily start by turning the system accounting on. Here is how to turn it on.
All these commande have to be typed with the root account. (Be carefull any typed letter, even a space counts).

/usr/bin/sudo -s
[...]
mkdir /var/account
touch /var/account/acct
accton /var/account/acct
exit

You can immediatly check that from now on and forever the kernel is registering any program launched:

lastcomm

As a simple example of use, the following command will show you which commands where used since the startup of the kernel accounting:

lastcomm root


Mirror iPad Pro to MacBook Air I use the PDF Expert app on iPad Pro to annotate documents using the Apple Pencil, and it works brilliantly. Now, I'd like to mirror the same work flow to my MacBook Air (so I can still look straight down at my iPad, which makes annotation easy), and ideally, run a screen capture program on my MacBook Air.

Two primary questions: 1) how do I most efficiently mirror (app suggestions), and 2) is there a way to run a screen capture program or any program that would accomplish the same thing on my laptop if I'm using my laptop as a mirror?

Thanks ahead of time. I open to any suggestions outside what I've proposed. Essentially, I need a way to screen capture (video) my iPad Pro workflow.

If you connect your iPad to your computer, you can natively display and record the iPad's screen on the Mac, answering both your questions at once, if I understand you correctly.

Connect the iPad to the computer and open QuickTime Player.
Select File > New Movie Recording (⌥⌘N)
Click the dropdown arrow to the right of the record button and select your iPad's name from the list. (see below—“Seagull” is the name of mine)
If you want to record the screen, simply press the record button.


"A recovery key has been set" but remains invisible with macOS FileVault I have just turned on FileFault on macOS High Sierra with option "Allow my iCloud account to unlock my disk." While encryption is running, macOS informs me that "A recovery key has been set".

Is it correct to assume that with this option set macOS handles the recovery key internally (and securely) and that there in no need (even no way) for me to recover it for writing it down?

Yes, it is correct to assume that macOS handles the recovery key internally and securely. There's no need for you to write something down.

In case you need to do recovery because you have forgotten your login password, you can use your iCloud account to unlock FileVault. Just make sure you can remember your iCloud login details!

When you choose to use iCloud as your recovery mechanism, the settings will still show that a recovery key has been setup - so that's perfectly normal! There's no option in the settings to display the recovery key to you.


USB game controller not detected Since upgrading my version of OSX, my computer no longer detects a USB game controller.  I know the controller is in working order because my Linux machine can talk to it.  I don't know which version broke it, but I have photo evidence of the controller working about a year ago and I'm currently running 10.11.3 (Mid 2014 MBP).  I can't divine anything useful out of /Applications/Utilities/System Information, maybe you can.

How do I debug the onset of incompatibility with my USB game controller?

I would suggest using the answer from this question to debug your USB devices. If it doesn't even show up there I'd assume the issue was on the controller's end. If it does show up there, it might tell you something about the controller that could help identify where the problem lies.


How can I find out when a USB device was disconnected without ejecting? I had a USB flash drive plugged into my MacBook (running Yosemite), but that drive is now missing. Somebody must've taken it (unplugged it) from my computer while I was at work or while carrying it in my backpack.

When I now opened my MacBook, it showed the message that the disk wasn't ejected properly.

Can I find out when it was unplugged? What sort of message am I looking for in the event log?

Try the Console log at var/log/asl/2015.04.08.U0.80.asl or similar
(there will also be a G80 & a U501 with similar dates but it's the U0.80.asl you want)

Apr  8 17:38:35 macname kernel[0] <Notice>: disk6s1: media is not present.
Apr  8 17:38:35 macname kernel[0] <Notice>: msdosfs_fat_uninit_vol: error 6 from msdosfs_fat_cache_flush

Tested empirically on a disposable USB key ;-)


Where has the "define" ability gone when selecting a word in an SMS message or email? When selecting a word in an SMS message or email, how do I access the "define" ability?

It's now labeled as "Look Up" in the menu.


Why is the partition button in Disk Utility disabled for my new SSD? What I really want to do is copy all the data from a possibly dying Seagate 1 TB HDD to a new Samsung 2 TB SSD. I thought restore would do the trick, but that gives me operation failed:

I thought I could partition the new device to be like the old one and manually copy the files across but that gives me the disabled partition button:

As Gilby suggested, here is the output from diskutil list:
mark@Marks-Mac-mini ~ % diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         1.0 TB     disk0
   1:             Apple_APFS_ISC                         524.3 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         994.7 GB   disk0s2
   3:        Apple_APFS_Recovery                         5.4 GB     disk0s3

/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +994.7 GB   disk3
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            15.1 GB    disk3s1
   2:              APFS Snapshot com.apple.os.update-... 15.1 GB    disk3s1s1
   3:                APFS Volume Preboot                 292.4 MB   disk3s2
   4:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk3s3
   5:                APFS Volume Data                    72.3 GB    disk3s5
   6:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk3s6

/dev/disk6 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk6
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 MARK-XFAT               500.1 GB   disk6s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS MarkHFS                 500.1 GB   disk6s2

/dev/disk7 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB     disk7
   1:                  Apple_HFS Samsung2T               2.0 TB     disk7s1

There are multiple parts to the question.  This answer is mostly advice (with a few facts).
Disk Utility is not able to modify the partition scheme on a disk which is using the Master Boot record (MBR) partitioning scheme. Hence the Partition button is not available for a previously partitioned MBR disk.  Disk Utility can only erase the disk.  There are command line tools to modify MBR partitions, but I will treat them as out of scope.
That answers the title question.  But there is more worth saying.
For macOS it is best to use the GUID Partition Map scheme (as Disk Utility calls it).  This requires erasing the disk, creating a single partition.
With a GUID partition scheme, the Partition button in Disk Utility becomes active.  This allows the creation of more partitions.  That allows duplication on the Samsung T5 of the partitioning of the old disk with one HFS+ formatted partition and one exFAT formatted partition.
But, unless there are pressing reasons (e.g. compatibility with a Windows computer) it is best not to use exFAT format with macOS.
Further, and assuming this is just for use on a Mac, there are advantages to using the APFS format with recent versions of macOS rather than the HFS format.
My recommendation is to use Disk Utility to erase the new Samsung T5 to have a GUID partition scheme and the APFS format.  This creates an APFS formatted container with a single volume inside.
If additional volumes are required they can be added to the APFS container. The volumes will share the container.  New partitions do not need to be created.
Folders and their files can be copied from the old volumes to the new volume on the T5 using Finder.
From experience, I have found that Disk Utility's Restore is tricky to use for disk to disk transfers.  Better to limit its use to restoring a disk from an image file.


Write ntfs file system in el capitan I have a hard disk which is in NTFS.
I want to make it writable without formatting.

I have gone through some solution for it but its working in previous version not in el captian.

I tried this link
but when doing this step

sudo mv /sbin/mount_ntfs /sbin/mount_ntfs.original
sudo ln -s /usr/local/sbin/mount_ntfs /sbin/mount_ntfs

its says its not permitted.

It is writeable when you use a ntfs driver: it is not the disk but the OSX that you should "help".
 There are several: the most experienced (in my opinion) are Tuxeira NTFS (opensource) and Paragon NTFS. Lately Tuxeira is the fastest update when the OSX is updated/upgraded.


How to spoof Firewire MAC address or hide Firewire and Ethernet - Need to add more than 2 Google Play Music accounts to machine Google Play Music Manager app (GPMM) doesn't allow connecting to more than 2 accounts from the same machine. Apparently they limit it based on the MAC address of your network adapter. I tried to disable adapters and change MAC address, worked for Wifi and Ethernet but didn't work for Firewire device. I assume this is the reason why GPMM still can see the device and machine ID and gives me message saying "Only two accounts can be used per computer".

I went through these resources already..

https_____linuxundich_____de/gnu-linux/musik-per-google-music-manager-zu-mehr-als-nur-zwei-accounts-hochladen/

(asked same question here:)

https_____thomashunter_____name/blog/google-music-manager-only-two-accounts-can-be-used-per-computer/#comment-368381

https____linuxundich_____de/gnu-linux/musik-per-google-music-manager-zu-mehr-als-nur-zwei-accounts-hochladen/

Here is what I have done...

I am on OSX. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get it working. I am on iMac, disabled all adapters (Network prefpane in System Preferences), including Network adapter, Bluetooth adapter, Firewire, only Wifi active. Changed the Wifi MAC using WifiSpoof app and made sure the new MAC is changed (checked in Terminal) starting with a number 12 (e.g. MAC address changed is 12.a1.. etc), disabled network adapter for all virtual machines created in Virtual Box.

I also deleted the settings configuration file for GPMM app and still getting this error.

I also disabled bluetooth completely to check if any difference, but that wouldn’t affect it because Bluetooth is virtual interface so it’s enough to disable from the Network prefpane and it gets disabled.. see the log below.

To change the Ethernet wired adapter MAC I used sudo ifconfig en1 ether 12:xx:xx…. Same doesn’t work however for the Firewire adapter, so I can’t spoof that Mac address. Confirmed through ifconfig en1 | grep ether and ifconfig en0 | grep ether, both wired and wireless adapters are now spoofed. But the Firewire adapter still has the real MAC address.

I tried reboot the machine and again reassign the spoofed MAC addressed to see if there is any difference to check if the network devices are still listed with MAC address after I disabled them as network adapters in the Network prefpane.

Issue continues.

I see is that even after I disabled the network devices in Network prefpane, I still see them when I type "networksetup -listallhardwareports" in Terminal....

Hardware Port: Bluetooth DUN
Device: Bluetooth-Modem
Ethernet Address: N/A

Hardware Port: Ethernet
Device: en0
Ethernet Address: XX:XX:XX..... MAC address present

Hardware Port: FireWire
Device: fw0
Ethernet Address: XX:XX:XX..... MAC address present

Hardware Port: Wi-Fi
Device: en1
Ethernet Address: XX:XX:XX..... MAC address present

Hardware Port: Bluetooth PAN
Device: en2
Ethernet Address: N/A

I can’t find way to disable to Ethernet and FireWire devices. Even with “ifconfig en0 down” I can’t get the network card to disconnect the MAC address.

Some non-native devices on the network don’t get listed at all, but I don’t think Google counts these towards the hardware imprint in the GPMM counter e.g. routers, switches, it’s just the native built in devices. For that reason I can’t simply use an iPhone to thether to be able to connect additional accounts. So it must have to do with the native hardware which is still showing up.

The only last thing I can see is need to hide ethernet and firewire adapter completely so it doesn’t show the MAC address (or change the Firewire address) but I am not able to hide this hardware or change Firewire MAC address.

I suspect this could be reason why GPMM is still seeing them so marking it as same device.

Question:

So I assume I need to find way to disable these devices (Firewire and wired ethernet). Any ideas? Am I on the right track... I am running out of options here.

Spoofing MAC address is not straightforward if you do it all by yourself but there is one great package to do jus that. If you don't already have npm installed do so by following the link. Then install spoof package. By doing npm install spoof --global. Then it's very easy to change you MAC address, do spoof --help for instructions.


Does airplane-mode disable GPS? According to

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1355

airplane-mode on the iPhone shuts off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ...GPS.

My understanding is that GPS-devices only /receive/ GPS
signals, they don't transmit anything, so I don't
understand why this needs to be shut down.  [Of course, if
the iPhone is running at all, then /it/ is emitting some
RF, but I don't see why receiving GPS signals should cause
an additional problem for the airplane.]

I tested on an iPhone 3GS (IOS 6.1.3):  Enabled
airplane-mode, then turned-off the phone.  Rotated the
phone 180-degrees.  Turned it back on (with airplane-mode
still enabled).  The compass-app still seemed to find North.

Would someone be willing to do an independent test of this?

Yes, airplane mode shuts down the radios that amplify all antenna circuitry. Compass isn't affected by airplane mode other than not being tuned by GPS location. Your observed relative changes will be mostly unaffected but absolute accuracy could suffer between one and ten degrees on much of the globe.

Of course the GPS signals still hit the iPhone case and antennas, just the hardware doesn't do the work to fix a location from those signals while in airplane mode. (Nor does e software do any processing of the location updates which is a big part of the functionality for many people as opposed to the hardware side of the radios being idle / off / silent)


Applescript to highlight text in Chrome using Javascript I can't figure out how to adapt this script, which highlights text in Safari, to get it to work with Google Chrome:

set myList to {"AppleScript", "2018", "demo@apple.com"}

tell application "Safari"
    'window.find()' command change the scroll position when it select the founded string
    set scrollPos to do JavaScript "document.designMode = 'on'; [window.pageXOffset.toString(),window.pageYOffset.toString()]" in document 1
    repeat with thisText in myList
        do JavaScript "var sel = window.getSelection();\n                sel.collapse(document.body, 0);//------    To start at the beginning of the document, not after the selectioned text\n                while (window.find('" & thisText & "', true)) {document.execCommand('HiliteColor', false, '#5cdf64');}\n                sel.collapseToEnd()" in document 1
    end repeat

    -- restore the scroll position
    do JavaScript "document.designMode = 'off';  window.scrollTo(" & (item 1 of scrollPos) & ", " & (item 2 of scrollPos) & ")" in document 1
end tell

Here is my Google Chrome version :

set myList to {"AppleScript", "2018", "CLOSED"}

tell application "Google Chrome"
    tell tab 3 of window 1 to set scrollPos to execute javascript "document.designMode = 'on'; [window.pageXOffset.toString(),window.pageYOffset.toString()]"

    repeat with thisText in myList
        execute javascript "var sel = window.getSelection();\n                sel.collapse(document.body, 0);//------    To start at the beginning of the document, not after the selectioned text\n                while (window.find('" & thisText & "', true)) {document.execCommand('HiliteColor', false, '#5cdf64');}\n                sel.collapseToEnd()"
    end repeat
    execute javascript "document.designMode = 'off';  window.scrollTo(" & (item 1 of scrollPos) & ", " & (item 2 of scrollPos) & ")"
end tell

Reply :

tell application "Google Chrome"
    execute tab 3 of window 1 javascript "document.designMode = 'on'; [window.pageXOffset.toString(),window.pageYOffset.toString()]"
        --> {"0", "0"}
    execute current application javascript "var sel = window.getSelection();\n                sel.collapse(document.body, 0);//------    To start at the beginning of the document, not after the selectioned text\n                while (window.find('AppleScript', true)) {document.execCommand('HiliteColor', false, '#5cdf64');}\n                sel.collapseToEnd()"
        --> missing value
    execute current application javascript "var sel = window.getSelection();\n                sel.collapse(document.body, 0);//------    To start at the beginning of the document, not after the selectioned text\n                while (window.find('2018', true)) {document.execCommand('HiliteColor', false, '#5cdf64');}\n                sel.collapseToEnd()"
        --> missing value
    execute current application javascript "var sel = window.getSelection();\n                sel.collapse(document.body, 0);//------    To start at the beginning of the document, not after the selectioned text\n                while (window.find('CLOSED', true)) {document.execCommand('HiliteColor', false, '#5cdf64');}\n                sel.collapseToEnd()"
        --> missing value
    execute current application javascript "document.designMode = 'off';  window.scrollTo(0, 0)"
        --> missing value
end tell
Result:
missing value

Make sure you've enabled JavaScript from AppleScript in Google Chrome

  Executing JavaScript through AppleScript is turned off. To turn it on, from the menu bar, go to View > Developer > Allow JavaScript from Apple Events.

I've made a few changes to your script for it to work, with the changes highlighted in bold.

The scrollPos variable and its associated handling of scrolling by getting and setting window position was superfluous, so all references to it have been removed.
All execute verbs need to tell window 1, not just one verb. I've added to tell window 1 to the enclosing tell of the application.
The execute verb takes a reference and a JavaScript string, not just JavaScript. You are missing the reference on all your execute verbs.

set myList to {"AppleScript", "2018", "CLOSED"}

tell application "Google Chrome" to tell window 1
    execute active tab javascript "document.designMode = 'on';" -- scrollPos and page offset removed

    repeat with thisText in myList
        execute active tab javascript "var sel = window.getSelection();
                    sel.collapse(document.body, 0);
                    while (window.find('" & thisText & "', true)) {document.execCommand('HiliteColor', false, '#5cdf64');}
                    sel.collapseToEnd()"
    end repeat
    execute active tab javascript "document.designMode = 'off';" -- scrollPos and page offset removed
end tell

To run it on all tabs, wrap it with repeat with atab in tabs:

tell application "Google Chrome" to tell window 1
    repeat with atab in tabs
        execute atab javascript "document.designMode = 'on';" -- scrollPos and page offset removed

        repeat with thisText in myList
            execute atab javascript "var sel = window.getSelection();
                    sel.collapse(document.body, 0);
                    while (window.find('" & thisText & "', true)) {document.execCommand('HiliteColor', false, '#5cdf64');}
                    sel.collapseToEnd()"
        end repeat
        execute atab javascript "document.designMode = 'off';" -- scrollPos and page offset removed
    end repeat
end tell


MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010) Does not Enter Recovery Mode I am booting up by CMD + R.

Internet recovery globe icon appears. It downloads something for 2 minutes and then restart the macbook pro.

After restart nothing happens. It tries to boot up normally. But because I am trying to install onto an empty formatted Sandisk SSD drive, obviously no help.

After another CMD + R attempt, the internet recovery globe downloads for 2 minutes and then internet recovery globe dismiss. After that without restart, gray Apple icon appears with a loading bar under it. Tries to progress but halts at 70 percent and progress freezes. Waited 15 minutes without any progress change and hard quitted. Not sure if it is downloading a big OS ISO image or something.

Also I am trying to boot up by C key with a Snow Leopard DVD that comes with the Macbok Pro. After 5 minutes, the throbber under Apple icon just halts and screen freezes.

May it be because the SSD drive is not recognized?

How can I fix this issue?

Is it possible to see the verbose output of CMD + R recovery attempt?

Why don't you try bootable disk drive utility method;
Here is how this process works. First, it's necessary for you to prepare a USB flash drive. With that you can create and install a bootable OS X installer drive and then to fix Mac not working in recovery mode issue.
For that;
1.Reboot Mac and keep taping “Option” until you hear the sound.
2.Attach your bootable installer drive to Mac and choose it from the pop up list.
3.Then your Mac will restart and you are able to fix Mac.


Two Calendar alerts not working since iOS 9 update Since the iOS 9.0.x update, I can't set two different alerts on calendar entries.

Whatever I put in for the first or second alert overwrites both time periods.

Is there a fix or workaround for this?

I was able to duplicate this issue on iOS 9.0.2, and these steps worked for me:

Tap "Second Alert"
Set it to "None" (at the top)
Tap "Second Alert" again
Set it to the desired time.


How do I send files from one Mac to another via Terminal? Is there a way to send a file in Terminal from one Mac to another? If I have a file on Mac A and I want to send it to Mac B via Terminal on Mac A, how do I do this?

Enable "Remote Login" in the preferences of the target/remote mac. Then use

scp file user@remotehost:

with user being the short name of the remote user. You will be asked for the password of the user on remotehost.

If you want to avoid using passwords, you can set up ssh key pairs. See here for details.


How to deter full screen mode moving window to a new display? If I use that green button to maximize a window

it will enter full screen mode and move my window to a new "virtual" display to the right (those which you can switch by swiping with three fingers on the touchpad). If I click the green button again, it will leave fullscreen mode and move back to the initial display.

I'm wondering if there's a way to make the fullscreen application stay on the same display it used to be before maximizing (or even better to disable multiple displays per monitor at all).

The reason I would like to do that is that if I e.g. watch a video with the VLC media player I usually do so in fullscreen mode. Then I close the program with CMD+Q and it switches back to the first screen. After opening another video it will start playing the audio only but the video is being displayed on a different screen which is rather confusing, because I have three physical monitors attached and each of it got multiple virtual displays.

If you hold the 'option/alt' key the green button functionality will be changed to fullscreen.


Continuity/Handoff Issue I upgraded my iPhone 5S and my iPad (Model #MC769LL/A) to the iOS 8 operating system.  Both are on the the same WiFi network. Bluetooth is on on both devices.  The iPhone Handoff app setting is on, but not found in iPad settings.  I am able to answer phone call on iPad and use iPad to make a call via the phone.  However, I cannot handoff from one device to another when using Pages, Mail, Numbers, etc.  There is no activity app icon in the lower left corner of the locked screen on either device.  What is wrong?

Be sure that the two devices are connected via wifi and bluetooth. If Bluetooth has lost the link, go into settings and find the other device, touch 'connect'. Check both ways.
I am not sure if handoff will work on your iPad. At least update to the latest systems. Good luck!


Backing up Homebrew Cellar I decided to reinstall my Mac from scratch recently, and since then I've been working on ways to more effectively organize everything, image/partition my data and do recovery.  I discovered Homebrew and have fallen in love (I'm very used to apt/aptitude).

One thing I've discovered is that building many of the things I need from source is painfully slow ( for instance I've been building thrift for more than an hour and a half ) since my Mac is not high-end.

What I would like to do is be able to create a disk image that Carbon Copy Cloner can sync to, containing just my homebrew cellar & library so that if I reinstall my Mac again next week (likely) or at any point in the future, I don't have to build all of these larger brew installs from scratch again (at least the same version).

I guess what I need is some advice/reassurance/tips to ensure that I won't have major headaches upon restoring a CCC image of these files to a fresh build of OSX.  I'm envisioning permission concerns, problems with file vault, plist entries not in the /usr/local hierarchy etc.

Things you might need to know.

OSX Snow Leopard (Up to date)
File Vault Encryption
No Time Machine.  Never.

Homebrew developer here: everything should be under /usr/local. Anything not under there would have required manual intervention by you to be put somewhere else (most likely your home directory). Worst case you just read the caveats for the packages that don't appear to work correctly any more.


Make /usr/bin/security ask for Touch ID verification I can add a password to the keyring like this:

security add-generic-password -a $USER -s my-password-entry -T /usr/bin/security -U -w

... and read it like this:

security find-generic-password -a $USER -s my-password-entry -g -w

But is there a way to make security ask for Touch ID verification every time I ask for my-password-entry?

References:

accessing Keychain Access from terminal - OSX
http://www.manpagez.com/man/1/security/osx-10.5.php

Yes, you can modify your command line to look like this when adding the password:

security add-generic-password -a $USER -s my-password-entry -T "" -U -w

This will ensure that no application is trusted to access the data without warning.


remove homebrew apache2 fails On a new Macbook Pro, I installed apache2 with homebrew, but now want to switch back to native apache2 server.

I removed the homebrew package with:

brew uninstall apache2

I also removed any homebrew launch links from these directories:

ls /Library/LaunchAgents/ /Library/LaunchDaemons/ ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
/Library/LaunchAgents/:
com.microsoft.update.agent.plist
com.teamviewer.teamviewer.plist
com.teamviewer.teamviewer_desktop.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons/:
com.microsoft.OneDriveUpdaterDaemon.plist
com.teamviewer.Helper.plist
com.microsoft.autoupdate.helper.plist
com.teamviewer.teamviewer_service.plist
com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.helper.plist
/Users/jd/Library/LaunchAgents/:
com.google.keystone.agent.plist com.jetbrains.toolbox.plist

But even after reboot, I believe Homebrew apache is still running:

sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl
Password:
httpd: Syntax error on line 67 of /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf: Cannot load lib/httpd/modules/mod_mpm_prefork.so into server: dlopen(/Users/jd/projects/lib/httpd/modules/mod_mpm_prefork.so, 10): image not found

This module is referenced from /usr/local/etc/httpd/httpd.conf, which I believe is homebrew. Instead the configuration I want apache to use is in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

This was fully my fault because of a misconfiguration. I had inadvertently changed ServerRoot, causing it to look for the configuration files in the wrong folder.

Homebrew apache2 was actually fully removed

This linked answer https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/270848/132798 helped me to figure this out


Advantages/disadvantages of having AirPort/Time Capsule between ISP router and LAN devices? I have fibre 100/100 Mbps WAN via my ISP, which has provided me a router of the brand "Technicolor". The router can create a Wi-Fi network, the 2GHz band uses 802.11/b/g/n and the 5GHz band uses 802.11a/n/ac.
I also have an older Apple TimeCapsule 2011 model with 802.11a/b/g/n on both bands.
I'm not proficient at networks, so I have for the past few years had the ISP router on the network at 192.168.1.1 where it does NAT and DHCP — and downstream I've had my TimeCapsule at 192.168.0.1 also performing NAT and DHCP to which I've had all my other network devices connected.
This configuration is Double NAT, which I have understood is bad or sub-optimal for P2P applications like BitTorrent, gaming, etc.
My reasoning has been that I don't trust the ISP/router manufacturer completely and that I would be safer with my devices behind the Apple router. But to be honest, this has been a loose assumption and I didn't have any facts to back up that a double NAT/DHCP configuration would be any safer than connecting all the devices to the first router.

Primary question:
Is there any benefit to having my devices connected to the second router; the Apple TimeCapsule? My primary concern would be security and any Apple "convenience" aspects such as Back to My Mac support, etc.
One disadvantage is of course that the TimeCapsule's Wi-Fi speeds are dated, and I have devices that can use ac speeds.

Secondary question:
If there in fact are advantages to having an Apple router behind the ISP router, how should I configure the network to avoid Double NAT? It seems that the ISP router can't be set in Bridge mode, and I think the ISP wouldn't like it bridged as they sometimes access it for diagnostics and pushing firmware updates.

My reasoning has been that I don't really trust the ISP/router
manufacturer completely and that I would be safer with my devices
behind the Apple Router.

If you don't trust the ISP router (I agree with this), use your own router.  Also, your Time Capsule is dated as you guessed so I would recommend replacing it with something newer and more modern.
What you will need is the following:

Put your Technicolor Router in Bridge Mode
New router/wireless access point(s)

Bridge Mode
This mode "bridges" two networks together, in this case, your network (which you will create with your router) and the ISP's network.  This will require you to have your own router because it turns of router/firewall functionality of the Technicolor (including NAT).

It seems the ISP router can't be set in Bridge mode, and I think the
ISP doesn't prefer that as they sometimes access it for diagnostics,
etc.

It can, it's just a feature they would rather you not use (you take them out of the loop for your internal networking).  As for diagnostics, they don't need it in firewall mode to service your modem - they work with it by addressing the MAC address, not the IP.
New Router
You could use the Time Capsule, but (IMO) you should get a new router with newer features, security capabilities and Wi-Fi protocols.  The Time Capsule doesn't give you any benefit other than having an all in one solution for your router and Time Machine backups.  You can still turn off the router/firewall function and just use it for network based backups if you like.
Which router?  Pretty much any router you buy off-the-shelf will work fine.
My recommendation
I would use a pfSense router (open source and free) that's installed on a cheap PC.  There's an excellent YouTube video on this very build which you can follow.   Then for Wi-Fi, I went with a Ubiquiti access point.
Is this overkill for a home? Yes.
This is a more "enterprise" grade setup than a consumer grade setup you would get with a router purchased from your local electronics retailer.  What I have found is that this is much more stable and reliable.  The off-the-shelf stuff (like Netgear, Linksys, Asus etc.) would die within 18 months.  I've been running my pfSense for 3 years now with no issues.  Updates are about as easy as updating your Mac.


Formatted an NTFS partition to Mac extended Journaled by mistake I was creating a bootable Mojave usb for a friend on my Mac and by mistake instead of formatting the USB drive I formatted an NTFS partition on an internal disk to macOS Extended (Journaled). The format did not complete though and ended with an error but the damage was done and the partition is just greyed out in the Disk Utility and is not visible in the Finder. The disk in question is a GPT 1TB drive which has a Windows 10 partition of ~225GB, one that Windows makes itself during installation, while the rest was the data partition which got wiped. I haven't touched the partition in any way except running testdisk analysis on the drive.

This is the output from the testdisk analysis

The selected partition is the Windows 10 partition I think. I cannot find the ~700-750GB partition in this list. I don't have linux installed on this system although I had 2 images of backed up Ubuntu on this partition.

Can you guys please help me in figuring out what the safest way to recover this partition is?

The best software for this problem in my opinion has been EaseUS Data Recovery. It almost even maintained the folder and file structure as before. I think this was because macOS did not successfully complete the reformatting of the partition and gave an error, anybody looking at this in the future, your mileage may vary. In my case ~200GB of data is a mess while ~500GB has been preserved.


Existing 3rd party software migration Did Apple mention/provide a way to upgrade existing 3rd party software once systems with the new CPU are released or are we expected to buy from scratch? Does anyone remember how they handled this during transition to Intel?

Two notable differences between 'old' Rosetta and 'new' Rosetta are:

Rosetta 2 will 'pre-compile' its translation before the app is launched. The old Rosetta would 'translate' PPC code to Intel anew each time the app was executed.

PPC CPUs were 'Big-endian' (the order in which multi-byte words were stored), whereas Intel and ARM chips are both 'little-endian'. That removes one of the major headaches and causes of problems in translation.


Compressed hidden files are not hidden anymore when uncompressing on Windows When I zip hidden files and folder and unzip on a Windows PC, they do not remain hidden. I tried to hide them with dot and also with the command chflags hidden.

Is there anything I can do? It happens only when sending Mac to Windows, Mac to Mac works fine.

The filesystem running on macOS and Windows handles hidden files differently. The two approaches, i.e. prepending a dot . character to filename or using chflags hidden won't work as it will set the file as hidden on Mac and not on Windows.

The filenames prepended with . will remain hidden on any UNIX/Linux system.

You can hide files on Windows by getting properties on a file and checking the "hidden" box on the general tab. This will only hide a file if you don't change the default behavior of Windows Explorer to keep hidden files hidden.


Missing Faces When Creating iPhoto '11 Smart Album I am having trouble creating a Smart Album based on Faces in iPhoto '11. Whenever I set up a Smart Album condition using "Face IS" the third drop-down menu is populated with a list of my Faces. This list contains many of the names of faces I have set up, but there are names missing from the list that always appear if I go directly to the Faces corkboard.

Any idea why some of my Faces are missing from this drop-down list?

The other weird thing is that there are several duplicate listings in the drop-down list that I have merged within the Faces corkboard and are now listed as a single person. Is there some way to force the Smart Album list to update?

Have you tried rebuilding the photo library?  Launch iPhoto while holding opt+cmd - I will generally select all options except to restore from a backup.


What tool can I use to manage notes and/or bookmarks for a collection of PDF files? I am doing some research and I do put lots of notes and bookmarks in the books (PDF files).

I am looking for a tools that will allow me to see and search inside all these notes.

I supposed that this tools should be able to scan a directory with PDF files, for notes and keep them in sync.

You should try Mendelely, a Reference Manager with Dropbox-like sharing/syncing. It reads Comments from PDFs, but sometimes mixes them up. In my example i had saved an Article as a PDF with the Headline as the Filename, but Mendeley indexed my Comment as the Filename.

You should also take a look at Eaglefiler, as the name says more Archiv-oriented.


My Mac Book Pro Safari and Settings Icon Disappeared Upgraded the os last night and this afternoon my settings and safari icons disappeared.  help!!  how do I get them back?

This has happened to quite a few people, myself included.

I tried various methods of fixing it, but in the end the only way I managed to get any results was to reboot a few times.

It happened to me on various icons over about a week but then after one certain reboot they all came back and I’ve had no issues since.

You’re more than welcome to try methods discussed online or on other questions here, but none of them worked for me personally.


stty device baud-rate resets once no longer being used -late 2013 MBP, with Yosemite 10.10.2
While using a USB --> Serial cable(FTDI chipset), I am unable to get a set baud-rate and get it to stick while the device is not being open/wrote/read.
For example:

If I execute, "stty -f /dev/cu.xxxxxxxx 19200" while not doing anything software related with it, it will reset the baud back to 9600 instantly after.

However, if I run "cat -u < /dev/cu.xxxxxxxx" and THEN set the baud to 19200 while the cat is running, the baud rate will stick. This is also the case when I write some test code and execute the C system command open("/dev/cu.xxxxxxxx") and freeze the program.

Under the old BSD roots, this seems to be standard behavior. When I attempt this on a Debian box, the baud-rate sticks. This hints to me that it's system dependent, but is there a way to get the baud-rate to be the default/stick forever?

For anyone who stumble upon this (yes, another...), here a shell solution (Bash at least):

The 'trick' is to open a file descriptor for the serial port before using stty. And keeps it open during all the reading/writing.

Example:

exec 3<>/dev/cu.xxxxxxxx           # open a file descriptor
stty -f /dev/cu.xxxxxxxx raw 19200 # configure the serial port
cat /dev/cu.xxxxxxxx               # do stuff...
exec 3<&-                          # close the file descriptor

Thanks to @crasysim for his comment on the same question.


Upgrade RVM and now PATH is broken My PATH no longer includes /usr/local/bin even though it is the first line of /etc/paths:

#/etc/paths
/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin

$PATH:

$ echo $PATH
/usr/bin:/bin:/Users/meltemi/.rvm/bin

What changed? Well all was working fine until:

Recently updated RVM from 1.24.8 -> 1.25.13 on an OS X 10.9.1 machine with rvm get stable

RVM warned me that there was "old stuff laying around" and to run rvm cleanup all, so I did.

Then I upgraded Ruby rvm upgrade 2.0.0-p353 2.1 migrating gemsets along the way...

Edit:

I'm using zsh:

#~/.zshrc
# Path to your oh-my-zsh configuration.
ZSH=$HOME/.oh-my-zsh
...
source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh

# load RVM
[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && . "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm"

## from brew info zsh
#Add the following to your zshrc to access the online help:
unalias run-help
autoload run-help
HELPDIR=/usr/local/share/zsh/helpfiles

It is not an issue with rvm, but with homebrew:

Since 15th of December 2013 zsh is not longer build with the --enable-etcdir flag by default. Therefore /usr/libexec/path_helper is no longer used to initialize $PATH and all path in /etc/paths as well as in /etc/paths.d are completely ignored. (I know, I just found out myself and am speechless as well.)

Therefore either run brew update; brew reinstall zsh --enable-etcdir or add the following to your .zshrc:

if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
    eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi

For more information on why this was removed, check this ticket on github.


Accidentally clicked restore backup instead of backup! Can I still recover my recent photos? I accidentally clicked "restore backup" on iTunes when suddenly all my latest photos were deleted instead my past and deleted photos and videos were restored back and I wasn't able to backup my latest photos.

Can I recover my latest photos?

Your photos are probably gone from your phone, but there are a couple other places to check.

Were you backing up to iCloud? If so, you may be able to restore a backup from iCloud to your phone and with it your camera roll. Apple KB article PH12521.

Were you syncing your photostream to iCloud? If so, fire up iPhoto or the windows iCloud tool and download the photos. Apple KB article PH13693.


How to copy my iPhone contacts to my sim card? (without Jailbreak) How to copy my iPhone contacts to my sim card? (without Jailbreak)

I want to go back to my Nokia phone but I was using iPhone for a Year so i have many contacts in it. Now I want to copy my all iPhone contacts to my sim. and I will use same sim in my nokia phone.

Ok Just tested this. if you have an iCloud account, which you can get one free using your iPhone. You can sync your contacts to it. Then export all your contacts out as a vCard file.

You should then be able to send or export that file from a Mac or Pc to your Nokia phone using either the free Nokia software (Mac/PC) or the Built in Bluetooth of the Mac.

To Start.

Once you have synced your contacts to iCloud, You can login to the web interface for iCloud on a web Browser on a desktop or Laptop.  Got to the Contacts view.

In the All contacts view. Select the very first contact.

Then just like any other list, hold down the shift key, and use the scroll bar within the contacts view to scroll right down to the last contact. And  Select it. Doing this should now highlight all the contacts in the blue selected colour.

Now you can use the Action button to export to vCard.

The file will download to you download folder, And will be named after the first contact. But the file will be a multi-contact vCard which can be sent over bluetooth of via the Nokia software to the Phone.

Slight UPDATE. I forgot to mention..
Of course if you have a Mac you can sync the contacts straight to the AddressBook.app, and either do the same select and export as vCard. Or again use the Nokia software for the Mac to sync to the Nokia phone.


Mac Pro 1,1 (2007) Not Updating To El Capitan I recently purchased an old Mac Pro, from eBay to use it as an advanced CPU performance computer as opposed to my 2012 MacBook Air that can't endure much. So far it is working, I have gotten a wireless dongle to connect, and I thought all was good until I went to my App Store to upgrade to El Capitan. When I click "Get" on it's page. I get this error:

We could not complete your purchase.
This version of OS X 10.11 cannot be installed on this computer.

I checked the Apple Upgrade page and it is all good. A quick look at the forms, still all good. Even a Google search on other locations on the internet did not help me. So, I have decided to present your ever so luxurious minds with my preposterous issue. I was wondering if any of you knew how to get my Macintosh to update. Is there some stupid mistake I am missing, is it seemingly unfixable? If you need my computer specifications, here they are:

Processor:  2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Memory:  4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Graphics:  NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB
Software:  Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63)

Thank you for your efforts in advance.

Firstly: putting your serial number up for all to see may not be the best idea.

Your Mac Pro is an original Mac Pro. This means that it is not compatible with El Cap by default (I'll explain more later.) So yes, there's an error on your part.

Your MacBook Air is also (sadly) likely about as powerful as that Mac Pro. If you upgrade it, it's possible that you may find a different story, but regardless, that Mac is reaching end-of-life. Depending on your use case, it may be fine to upgrade it, but there's not a lot you can do. Instead, I'd recommend that you save up for either a more powerful PC or Mac.

With that said, you can make your Mac Pro work on El Cap if you really want to. It's a little tricky, but possible.

Your Mac is incompatible because it has a 32-bit EFI firmware and an outdated GPU. Both of these are fixable issues. I would recommend reading this article, but I'll summarize here. By using a different bootloader, you can circumvent issues. Follow the instructions on said page. Your GPU is also unsupported. This means you'll need a new GPU. This is more complicated then you think however. Some cards will require being "flashed" as though they're Mac GPUs, while others can do most (but not all) things without it (and can be flashed for more compatibility.) Again, follow the guide in the article.

I hope this was helpful. Again, this machine–unless it's a fun project–probably isn't worth your time or money. But hey, if you want, go ahead.


Add languages to OSX dictionary The native OSX dictionary (hover + 3-finger-tap) does not work for the Hebrew language.

The example below shows its reluctance to interpret the word פרסומת, a valid Hebrew word.

Any ideas how to add extra languages to the dictionary?

This site has a number of extra dictionaries:

http://clasquin-johnson.co.za/michel/mac-os-x-dictionaries/index.html

and this article provides links for Hebrew/English and English/Hebrew

http://blog.jle.vi/post/72464439746/get-the-look-up-dictionary-feature-in-os-x-to-work


How to fully export and import the VPN settings on OS X Lion? I discovered the export option from OS X does not export things like: proxies, or DNS settings from the VPN configuration.

How can I export all of these?

Well I found a thread here that seems to accomplish what you're asking.  I can't put it any better than forum poster himself, so here's what he said in case the page isn't working:

  I figured out a way to do this, so thought I would post for anyone
  following me that has a bunch of VPN settings and doesn't want to
  manually key them back in. You will basically have to copy & paste a
  few GUIDs to make your old prefs data match your new system. This
  worked for me going from one Mac OS X 10.6 SL system to another SL
  system. I would imagine similar steps would work for Mac OS X 10.5
  Leopard and possibly 10.7 Lion. Here we go:

  First, go to Network Preferences on your new machine and add VPN (L2TP), VPN (PPTP), or whatever VPN "interfaces" you need. Do not
  create any new VPN configurations at this time. Close Network Prefs.
  Open System Profiler, select and copy to the clipboard the Hardware UUID from the Hardware tab.
  Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost and find your old NetworkConnections prefs file. It will have the form of
  com.apple.networkConnect..plist. Make a copy of this
  file. Replace the  portion w/ the one you copied in
  step #2. Don't forget to remove any spaces and the " copy" tag. You
  should now have a new file called
  com.apple.networkConnect..plist.
  Open 2 files in an editor that can handle .plist files (I used TextWrangler): the com.apple.networkConnect..plist file
  you just made, and
  /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist.
  In preferences.plist, look for the GUID of each VPN interface that you've created. The "UserDefinedName" string at the end of the key
  will tip you off:

  <key>14A4B264-C231-41FE-857B-EE5557B69851</key> <dict> <key>DNS</key>
  <dict/> <key>IPv4</key> <dict> <key>ConfigMethod</key>
  <string>PPP</string> </dict> ... <key>UserDefinedName</key>
  <string>VPN (L2TP)</string> </dict>

  The first long string ("14A4B264...") is the part you need. Copy this
  to the clipboard.

  Now move over to your com.apple.networkConnect file. Find the key that has all of your old VPN settings for that VPN type contained
  w/in it. Select all of the key name (which is the GUID of your VPN
  interface on your old Mac), then paste to replace it w/ the new GUID.
  Repeat steps 5 & 6 for each VPN interface you need. In my case, there were 2: L2TP and PPTP.
  Save your changes and close the com.apple.networkConnect file. Close the preferences.plist file WITHOUT saving anything.
  Open your Network Preferences, select your VPN interface(s), and you should see your past configurations.

Hope this helps you!


How do I share an optical drive with Windows? I need to install something from a CD on my PC, but it doesn't have an optical drive.  I have an optical drive on my Mac.

I have enabled "DVD or CD Sharing" from System Preferences:Sharing.  However, when I browse to my Mac on the Network (e.g. \\OSXHostName I don't see the optical drive show up.)

If I add the drive as a shared folder, then I can see it under (e.g.) \\OSXHostName\OFFICE12 but when I double click on it, I get a dialog box telling me it "is not accessible. You might not have permssion to use this network resource..."  But in file sharing everyone has at least read-only access.

I did find one trick mentioned, whereby one creates a symlink from the mounted optical drive to one's home directory, e.g. ln -s /Volumes/OFFICE12 ~/OFFICE12.  But when I do that it doesn't show up (it seems to be hidden) and if I try to manually enter the path into Windows Explorer it says "This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action..."

I have no problem accessing the home folder on my Mac.

All the instructions I seem to find mention sharing an optical disk on a Windows PC to a Mac, or sharing an optical disk from one Mac to another.  How do I share an optical disk from the Mac to Windows?  I expected it to "just work".

It would appear tubedogg is correct. Or at least I know of no reason he/she is wrong. HOWEVER, while you may not be able to share the optical drive, it does appear you can share the content (CD or DVD) in the drive. This means you must insert the disk into the optical drive before enabling the sharing of the content with the Windows machine. I have verified this for both a data DVD and music CD.

Setup with Empty Optical Drive on the Mac

The Finder shows the following. The Coelacanth and Marlin are the only visible internal drive partitions on the Mac named Marlin.

Sharing under System Preferences shows the following. The only shared folders are each user's default public folder. The "File Sharing" box is checked off, as well as, all boxes in the "Options..." popup window. The "DVD or CD Sharing" box is not checked off.

Note: "Screen Sharing" is only checked off, because the two computers are currently connected using VNC. I verified this has no effect on this answer.

On the Windows PC side, the machine named Shark displays the following. Here, the Mac is already sharing its folders with the Windows PC. The internal drive partitions "Linux HFS+ ESP" and "rEFInd" are flagged as hidden so they did not appear in the Finder window shown above.

Setup after Inserting a Data DVD Into the Optical Drive on the Mac

The DVD now appears in the Finder, as shown below.

I clicked the + symbol and added the DVD to the list of shared folders shown on the Sharing window of the System Preferences. The result is shown below.

This results in the DVD automatically appearing on the Windows machine, as shown below.

I can now open this folder and access the files on the DVD.


What RFID options exist for iOS devices? If I wanted to use an iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad) to gather data from RFID chips on equipment in a motor pool, what would I need? Is it even possible today?

What type of RFID tags are you trying to read?  For a motor pool, I would expect you are looking for UHF Gen 2 RFID or even active tags (like Bluetooth LE) as opposed to NFC where you would need to be standing right at the tag on the auto to read it.

We are developing a UHF Gen 2 RFID system for iOS/Android.  The device, unfortunately, needs to be larger than a square since the 10' read range of UHF Gen 2 RFID requires a bigger antenna. Our dev site explains this.


How to access Safari 7.0.6 with Sierra 10.12.1 OS 2013 MacBook Pro logic board died. Removed HD and connected to Desk Mac, can access everything but Safari, want to get bookmarks, says "7.0.6 not supported". Can anyone suggest procedure?

In Safari 10, bookmarks are stored in ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist. I'm assuming they were stored the same way in v.7

You can open the file as text in BBEdit or TextWrangler, or use some sort of XML editor and extract the bookmarks from there.

The file doesn't neatly list the bookmarks for easy viewing. The bookmarks are embedded in xml code and will need to be extracted. Fortunately, the bookmark URL is just a text string. Here's a sample of a single bookmark for www.themachelpdesk.com:

                    <dict>
                        <key>ReadingListNonSync</key>
                        <dict>
                            <key>neverFetchMetadata</key>
                            <false/>
                        </dict>
                        <key>URIDictionary</key>
                        <dict>
                            <key>title</key>
                            <string>MHD</string>
                        </dict>
                        <key>URLString</key>
                        <string>http://www.themachelpdesk.com/</string>
                        <key>WebBookmarkType</key>
                        <string>WebBookmarkTypeLeaf</string>
                        <key>WebBookmarkUUID</key>
                        <string>606385FA-CF10-11DA-B301-000D93547AFA</string>
                    </dict>


Disable visual bell animation in Terminal The title says everything, how can I disable the visual bell animation in Lion?

It is annoying and useless, visual bell should be fast, not fancy!

I don't want to disable the visual bell, just the fadin/fadeout animation.

Go to the "Terminal" menu
Select "Preferences"
Select "Settings" at the top
Select "Advanced" at the right
Uncheck "Visual Bell"


Access iCloud emails on an Android without Mac or iPhone I want to access my iCloud emails on my Android phone.

Using a browser doesn't work; iCloud.com just says: Your browser is not currently supported. (Tested with Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Chrome).
Using a regular Mail app requires an application specific password, which in turn requires Two-Factor authentication. But I don't have a compatible device (iPhone, Mac, etc.) for enabling Two-Factor authentication.

How can I access my iCloud email (and calendar, if possible)?

You can try to request the desktop site of icloud.com within your Android browser (don‘t know too much about Android, but there should be an option for that). If this doesn‘t work, visit a friend with a PC/Mac/Linux machine, an Internet cafe, etc to log in to iCloud.com once and generate the password needed. Don‘t forget to do this in private mode so any login details get deleted afterwards.


MacBook will read USB drives with no problem, but will not see the USB drive as boot drive I am trying to install OS X Lion on a Macbook 4,1 which I've upgraded to 4 GB of RAM.

It should support this OS, however I cannot get my Mac to see the USB drive as a bootable option. It's a SANDISK Data traveler 16GB

So far I've tried

Flashing the drive initially to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Partion the drive as GUID
Restoring the install DMG which should according to most guides make the drive bootable

However even though the drive mounts in my OS (10.5.8) it won't show in the startup disks as a bootable option.

I've tried using two permissions reset programs, another USB stick and even reseting the NVRAM. But still no joy. Does anyone know of anything else it could be?

Try resetting the PRAM settings. First, restart your Mac, and before you hear the "bing" sound press option key (alt) + command + r + p, it will restart your Mac, after you hear the sound twice just plug in your USB stick and press the option button and boot from there. It worked for me. Hope this helped you out.


What are the differences between these two mail preferences within iCloud settings? In the System Preferences, we see a checkbox option for Mail.

If we click the Options button on the iCloud Drive item in that same list, we see another checkbox option for Mail.

➥ What is the difference?

What happens if I turn off the Mail checkbox in the iCloud Drive > Options dialog? iCloud has a habit of suddenly deleting all documents, so this makes me quite nervous.

The first option, System Preferences → iCloud → Mail, controls whether the iCloud Mail account is available in the Mail app. Unchecking this option will remove the account from Mail, along with all the associated email. This won’t permanently delete the mail: it will still be accessible on iCloud.com, and in Mail if you switch the option back on.

The second option, System Preferences → iCloud → iCloud Drive Options → Mail, controls whether Mail can use iCloud Drive. This is used when you try to send a file that is too large for email; you will be prompted to use Mail Drop, where the attachment is uploaded to iCloud Drive and transferred senselessly to the recipient.


Is there a native terminal in OS X, without having to load the desktop, window manager, etc? FOr example, in linux you can boot to a terminal, you don't have to load a desktop, window manager, etc. Is there something like this in Mac OS X? And like in Linux, is it possible to switch to one of these from in the desktop?

I don't think Single User Mode is really what you want.

A better idea is to use a console login.

To do this, first you have the login window set to show “Name and Password”:

Then you can login as ">console" as the username (no password) and get a terminal prompt.

It's not very pretty, but it's handy if you need it.


Deleted system and no entry sign I just set up my new MacBook Air laptop, however I set it up towards the wrong Apple ID. In order to just start the laptop from scratch again so I could make a new Apple ID, I reset the laptop.

By doing so I had to delete the system drive, then re download it as macOS Sierra, which took around 10 hours to download, and then it said download failed. I tried again and it didn't work. I then pressed "help" or whatever it was, the Safari icon, but after I closed it I was left on a blank grey screen, nothing I could do or press. I pressed the power button to turn it off, the only option I had, and when I turn it back on, a no entry sign appears.

With the machine off, hold alt-cmd-R as you turn the computer on to launch Internet Recovery. This will download and install a new copy of macOS.


mac screen goes sleep mode even I set never sleep I want my mac screen never dim, never sleep, never turn off.

below is my power setting

Problem: my mac goes log out and goes screen saver mode if it idles for 15 minutes.

It sounds like your Mac will indeed never go to sleep, but the Screen Saver is set to activate after 15 minutes.

You can disable the screen saver by opening the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane in System Preferences then selecting Never in the drop down box in the bottom left corner of the window.


How graceless is shutdown? Shutting down the machine from the command line with e.g. shutdown -h seems as if it would not be particularly graceful, but on a scale of "Pulling the power cord out of the wall" to "Going through the standard shutdown procedure from the  Menu", how graceless is shutdown -h actually?

Absolutely prefer shutdown -h to pulling the power cord out of the wall. shutdown provides an opportunity for macOS to cleanly exit important underlying processes and flush file caches to storage.

Avoid shutdown

Having implemented a gentle shutdown programmatically, experience taught us that you should try to avoid shutdown -h when you have logged in users and running graphical Mac applications:

  shutdown is a blunt tool that will in most cases shut down your Mac. It works at a layer below the Mac's user interface and is roughly the equivalent of force quitting everything.

  With shutdown, Mac applications that would have quit nicely are not given the chance. In most cases using shutdown should be fine but care needs to be taken about denying applications of the opportunity to quit nicely.

– Shutting Down Your Mac Safely, dssw.co.uk

Prefer kAEShutDown

If you are able, follow Apple's advice in Technical Q&A QA1134 - Programmatically causing restart, shutdown and/or logout. This advice can be summed up as: issue an kAEShutDown AppleEvent to the system.

Be aware that using only kAEShutDown has its limitations, these are discussed in How to Shut Down Your Mac Using AppleScript.

By AppleScript or Command Line

You can use an AppleScript snippet to issue the kAEShutDown using:

tell application "Finder"
    shut down
end tell

Or using the command line tool osascript:

osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to shut down'

Counter to the macOS Approach

In terms of non-graphical processes, shutdown is reasonable. For anything graphical or at the user level, you should avoid it. Issuing shutdown is not appropriate for regular use on macOS; as an emergency measure it is fine but not as a pre-considered solution.

Users would quickly learn to avoid an application that simply issued shutdown instead of issuing the request through the AppleEvent.


Download App Store app on one Mac to install on another? I am working with a client who lives in the country, and has absolutely poor Internet speeds. Even though the connection is "high-speed wireless" (I believe it's WiMAX based), he routinely receives about 20 KB/sec on a good day, and almost always less. In other words, think a dial-up modem with even higher latency. Normally, all this guy does is some basic Email and web browsing, and he's just the sort who's patient enough to deal with it. Not to mention, monopolies and ISP business dealings mean he's unable to get any better speed to begin with unless he went with a capped LTE link.

Anyway, this guy recently got a Mac, and is now beginning to enjoy the advantages. He just now discovered the App Store, and has been downloading some small apps. Apps that are say 3MB or so will download in 5-10 minutes for him, but as I said, he's pretty much fine with that.

Now, however, he made the "mistake" of buying a game that weighed in at 3.8GB. He's now looking down the barrel of a 8-day solid download, during which (due to latencies and such) he won't really be able to do anything else with his connection.

He asked me if there was any way I could possibly download the app (on my nice 100Mbit connection!) and give it to him on a burned DVD or USB drive. Of course, Windows vets will be used to this method for dial-up dwellers - the traditional "sneakernet". I explained the issues with the App store being intimately connected to the Apple ID, and he said he'd be glad to share his Apple ID password with me and then just change it afterwards.

I do have a spare Mac that could volunteer itself to be temporarily registered to his Apple ID to download the app. The only thing I am not sure of is if downloading the app on my machine, transferring the .app package to a flash drive and copying it to his machine will work.

I would just try it but since we're dealing with "live" data here (i.e. his account) I don't want to do too many "experiments", and also I would like to be reasonably sure before I schedule another trip out there, only to find out it won't work.

I do know Apple's crypto technologies are pretty deep and intense, and it's conceivable to me that each app download is somehow uniquely encrypted, to prevent obvious piracy.

Has anyone else tried something like this, and if so, can it be done?

Thanks!

I've tried it, and it works, provided that the app's makers don't put in their own special encryption system. There isn't even a limit of 5 computers per account on the Mac App Store (only iTunes and iOS), so you won't have to worry about that.

Edit: There's another question like this here. The answerer agrees with me.