Can Touch ID for the Mac Touch Bar authenticate sudo users and admin privileges? Does Touch ID for the MacBook Pro Touch Bar support elevating admin privileges in macOS?
Somewhat differently, can the Touch ID give sudo access in Terminal?

I wonder this because I'm considering getting a YubiKey which can do string input to password fields, but Touch ID for Macs may render it unnecessary.

To allow TouchID on your Mac to authenticate you for sudo access instead of a password you need to do the following.

Open Terminal

Switch to the root user with sudo su -

Edit the /etc/pam.d/sudo file with a command-line editor such as vim or nano

The contents of this file should look like one of the following examples:

# sudo: auth account password session
auth       required       pam_opendirectory.so
account    required       pam_permit.so
password   required       pam_deny.so
session    required       pam_permit.so

# sudo: auth account password session
auth       sufficient     pam_smartcard.so
auth       required       pam_opendirectory.so
account    required       pam_permit.so
password   required       pam_deny.so
session    required       pam_permit.so

You need to add an additional auth line to the top so it now looks like this:
# sudo: auth account password session
auth       sufficient     pam_tid.so
auth       sufficient     pam_smartcard.so
auth       required       pam_opendirectory.so
account    required       pam_permit.so
password   required       pam_deny.so
session    required       pam_permit.so

Save the file. (Note: this file is normally read-only so saving your changes may require you to force the save, e.g. vim will require you to use wq! when saving)

Also note that pam_smartcard.so may not be present on older MacOS versions.

Exit from the root user or start a new terminal session.

Try to use sudo, and you should be prompted to authenticate with TouchID as shown below.

If you click 'Cancel,' you can just enter your password at the terminal prompt. If you click 'Use Password' you can enter your password in the dialog box.

If you SSH into your machine it will fall back to just use your password, since you can't send your TouchID fingerprints over SSH.

Note:
See answer by user Pierz below if you're using iTerm, as there's a setting you need to explicitly change to enable this feature.
Note:
Recent MacOS updates may remove the entry. If TouchID stops working for sudo then check if the entry was removed and add it back in, following these instructions again.


What is a Mac OS X equivalent of McAfee Security network mapping? We have multiple computers of different OS in a network. Mine is Mac OS X and most others are Window XP or 7.  I will need to help monitor what computer gets connected. In past, I use Windows and have McAfee security which products a real-time map of all connected computers including each IP and Computer name.

Now using Mac OS X, I find nothing I can use. I tried nmap and Zenmap, but neither provides computer name, and neither is real-time monitor and scanning takes forever. There is NetworkView but it only works on Window machines.

What can I use?

You can try ProteMac. I have no experience with this software bundle, but it looks like it does what you are looking for!


GarageBand - volume maxing out I have a multi-track mix in GarageBand. Each individual track has been recorded without clipping, and at no point during the song do any individual track volume levels go into the 'red area'.

However, at the loudest points the 'overall' track volume (on the bottom pane) goes into the red.

Is this a problem? Will it affect the quality of my exported track? If so, how can I deal with this except for individually lower the volume of every track?

Yeah, it does result in distortion or clipping. But you can also reduce the master volume:

If individual tracks were clipped before they were mixed to the master, they will still be clipped though. GarageBand always normalizes volume when you export a song, so you can reduce the master volume as much as you want.


iPhone screen zoomed without zoom accessibility feature My iPhone 6 screen is awkwardly zoomed in (not on the zoom screen function) and I can't access the edges of my screen. How can I fix this? I can't access my space bar when texting or my Notification Center. Tried restarting and charging but nothing has worked. Any tips?

Why do you say "without the zoom accessibility feature"? That's almost certainly what has happened; that feature has been activated. Try 3-finger tapping to unzoom your phone.


Activity Monitor is unuseable because it's freezing mouse cursor when launched A weird problem started happening on my system in recent days (can't remember exactly). When I launch Activity Monitor, mouse pointer freezes and can't move normally until I kill Activity Monitor by using keyboard.
It works OK otherwise.
OS X version is 10.11.6 (15G1108). I have also installed SmoothMouse.
EDIT:
I removed SmoothMouse by issuing command brew cask zap smoothmouse, now the mouse cursor can move while Activity Monitor is opened, but Activity Monitor itself is still freezing and is barely usable.

This problem went away after I rebooted the system. (It was running for several weeks without rebooting before).

This clearly indicates that OS X just can't handle long uptime, because Apple cares more about bells and whistles than stability. :(


Disk not readable message when using If I try to use either of the two usb ports on my macbook pro, I get the following message "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." and I don't have a disk inserted anywhere... I have the option to eject or ignore the message, and either option does not solve the problem. Can't use the usb ports without getting this message.

From your question it is not clear what you put into those USB ports. Memory sticks appear to the system as a disk, so the message you quoted might be caused by a memory stick that had been formatted in a file system your Mac does not know (possibly from a Linux computer?).
If you want to widen your possibilities, you might consider installing OSXFUSE. But I would appreciate if you first clarify what you mean by "use either of the two usb ports".


How to disable location services? (MacOSX 10.6.8) I just downloaded an application, that asked me permission to figure my location. I said "OK, let's see what happens".

Next thing I know, my lat/long with 4 decimal places and a pin on a Google map precisely show where I live, That's a bit too accurate for comfort. In 10.6.8, I didn't think it would know my location so well.

How did it do that? Did it look up my IP address?
How do I disable that? I definitely don't want any app to know my location (and send it back to god knows who), with or without my consent.

How did it do that? Did it look up my IP address?

It uses a database of WiFi networks your Mac can see and their approximate locations to triangulate your position. This Apple article says:

  Your approximate location is determined using information from local Wi-Fi networks, and is collected by Location Services in a manner that doesn’t personally identify you.

The location of WiFi networks is determined primarily using the GeoIP database and but well-established WiFi networks can report more accurate information to the system. For example, in my neighbourhood where only private citizen WiFi networks are visible to my Apple devices, my location is very approximate. It knows the town, but that's it.

  How do I disable that? I definitely don't want any app to know my location (and send it back to god knows who), with or without my consent.

In 10.6.8, the only way to get location services is via Safari. The OS didn't have control over location services, it was just a browser feature. To turn off location services for websites in Safari:

In Safari select Safari > Preferences… > Privacy (toolbar).
Select the "Deny without prompting" radio button in the 'Limit website access to location services' section of that tab.

If you're running a new OS X you can also turn off location services for apps by doing:

Apple () menu > System Preferences… > Security & Privacy > Privacy (tab).
Select Location Services on the left.
Uncheck the 'Enable location services' option to turn it off for all apps or uncheck just the apps you don't want to have access to location services.


How do I disable update warnings on my iPhone? I got a bought app (i.e. not a free one - be it given to me, bought by me or gifted, I don't know). It works great. Then some update for it comes along with many other updates for other apps. I press "update all" and every time this one app gives me a notification that I need to buy it because it's a new major version or whatever. Well, I don't want to do it, it works fine the way it is (probably because I was still in iOS 3.1.3)!

So, how can I just remove the future updates from the list? If there is any way to do it, that is.

P.S.: Now I upgraded to iOS 4, the app stopped working and I decided to just delete it along with another couple of apps which had a similar issue.

You don't get charged for app upgrades on iOS. You only get notification for free updates.


I want to downgrade from Yosemite 10.10 to Mavericks or previous operating system I want to downgrade from Yosemite 10.10 to previous operating system (i think its name was Mavericks).

I am not experienced in Computers so please explain to me in simple, step by step way.

Why i want to go back to Mavericks?

After installing Yosemite:
- My Mac is always very hot;
- The Fan is working as soon as it starts;
- Battery is getting half its normal time.
- Most important, the computer hangs a lot and became very slow.

With all this probe, I feel i am not using an apple computer any more..

Thanks to anyone who can assist.

If you have a recent Time Machine backup from before you upgraded, you can restore the backup and you will be back on Mavericks. You will lose any new files, changes, etc. that have been made since you upgraded to Yosemite, unless you back these up before you attempt to downgrade.
Follow these steps, from OS X Daily:

Reboot the Mac with Yosemite and hold down Command+R to enter Recovery mode (You can also hold Option and choose “Recovery HD”, or if you have a Yosemite USB installer key, you can boot from that too)

At the OS X Utilities menu, choose “Restore From Time Machine Backup”

Connect the Time Machine drive that contains the most recent Mavericks backup to the Mac (typically through USB or Thunderbolt), then click “Continue”

At the “Select a Backup Source” screen, choose the Time Machine volume used for the Mavericks backup and click Continue

Under “Backup Date & Time”, select the most recent backup made from OS X Mavericks – double-check the OS X Version menu to make sure it’s “10.9.5” (or whatever 10.9.x you had previously), then click Continue again

Choose the Destination drive (the Yosemite volume you want to downgrade) to restore the OS X Mavericks backup to – this will erase OS X Yosemite and revert back to Mavericks on that drive, be sure you backed up all files created between the most recent backup date and now or you will lose them – click on “Restore” to begin the downgrade process

...
The downgrade process can take quite a while depending on the size of the backup, the amount of files on the drive, the speed of the Mac, and the speed of the hard drive. Expect this process to take several hours if not many hours, for a very large hard drive of stuff, it could easily take overnight if not a full day to complete hundreds of GB of file transfers. Do not interrupt the restore process, otherwise you would need to start over.


Want to launch dnsmasq ony when Thunderbolt Ethernet is active dnsmasq is installed using homebrew. Currently dnsmasq is spamming my system.log with messages like this:

Sep 26 18:22:46 Laptop com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq[14526]): Service exited with abnormal code: 2
Sep 26 18:22:46 Laptop com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.
Sep 26 18:22:56 Laptop com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq[14527]): Service exited with abnormal code: 2
Sep 26 18:22:56 Laptop com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.
Sep 26 18:23:06 Laptop com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq[14528]): Service exited with abnormal code: 2
Sep 26 18:23:06 Laptop com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.
Sep 26 18:23:16 Laptop com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq[14529]): Service exited with abnormal code: 2
Sep 26 18:23:16 Laptop com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.

because i told dnsmasq to use only the Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter and when this adapter is not active, dnsmasq cannot find it, so it cannot start the service.

I want to run the dnsmasq service ONLY when the Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter is active. I CANNOT run it on all interfaces.

My current plist looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/usr/local/opt/dnsmasq/sbin/dnsmasq</string>
      <string>--keep-in-foreground</string>
      <string>-C</string>
      <string>/usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf</string>
    </array>
    <key>Requires</key>
    <array>
      <string>Network</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

I cannot find any documentation on how to start dnsmasq ONLY when a certain network adapter is active.
Any ideas?

Not possible....

From https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/Introduction.html

Network Availability
If your daemon depends on the network being available, this cannot be handled with dependencies because network interfaces can come and go at any time in OS X. To solve this problem, you should use the network reachability functionality or the dynamic store functionality in the System Configuration framework. This is documented in System Configuration Programming Guidelines and System Configuration Framework Reference. For more information about network reachability, see Determining Reachability and Getting Connected in System Configuration Programming Guidelines.


Needing FTP Software with editing and hides system files? I am looking for FTP Client software for Mac that

Doesn't show hidden system files on the server
Can edit files using MS Office and then save them back onto the FTP site automatically without the user having to download the file, edit the local copy and then upload the local copy and replace the remote copy.

I have tried various FTP software and only a handful don't show hidden system files on the server which is good, and some automatically open files when they are double clicked using the correct software (Word, Excel etc..) but then when you save it doesn't update the remote copy.

I believe that Transmit from Panic Software will meet all of your needs.

There is a menu option that toggles the visibility of dot (.*) files. View menu (Hide/Show) Invisible Files.

To edit a remote file in Word, right click on the remote file and select "Open With..." and select Word from the context menu to edit the file. Edit and Save the file within Word and the file will be uploaded as soon as the save completes. There is nothing else to set up.

I usually use this method with BBEdit and Text files, but I tested and it works with Word files.


Can you view a shared iTunes 11 library from iTunes 7, or use iMac as an Airplay target? I picked up a beautiful old G3 Tangerine iMac.  Works (and looks!) great.

It has iTunes 7 installed on it.  I popped a music CD in it and it's a great little music player for my den -- sounds surprisingly good.

What I'd like to do now is one of two things:

1 - share my iTunes 11 library (from my MacBook) and play songs from the shared library on iTunes 7 on the G3 iMac

2 - or even better, use the G3 iMac as a sort of "Airplay" target, make song selections in iTunes 11 on my MacBook and have the music play on the G3 iMac

Any suggestions are helpful.

Install Airfoil Speakers on the G3.  They have a legacy version that runs on 10.4.

http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/speakers.php

  Run it on any Mac and it will immediately be able to receive audio.
  Airfoil Speakers for Mac receives audio from Airfoil for Mac and
  Airfoil for Windows, as well as iTunes, iOS devices, and other
  third-party software. See it in action.


Segues will not run on IOS 4 now what? I have a project on Xcode and I am pretty beginner so I started designing my code of course using segues and now I realized that this project will only work on IOS 5!

I guess I will give up before I even started! What am I gonna do now? Is there anything I can transform my project to IOS 4? I am so disappointed and wish I didn't have to design for IOS.

Actually the concept of segues was introduced first in iOS5, however it is also stated in the library documentation.

Nevertheless, you can try to create standalone nib files and copy your UI*ViewControls from the storyboard into the nib file(s). Of course you are still not allowed to use segues but you can easily reintroduce IBActions to handle transitions between the views. It's still some effort to migrate, but not an impossible mission.

In order to avoid such a situation, I would suggest you to make a short requirement analysis (functional as well as non functional) before coding.


How to resize main partition to full available physical space? I had two partitions:

Machintosh HD with 250 GB space
BOOTCAMP with 750GB space

Later my Machintosh HD had a problem where it went into a boot loop. So to recover, I went into recovery, erased the BOOTCAMP partition and installed another macOS in it, and named it macos2, hoping that I can delete and merge macos2 with the original Machintosh HD.

However, after erasing and deleting Machintosh HD with Disk Utility, it turned into a container disk, which disk utility was unable to delete again. So I deleted the container disk using Terminal. Then, now I am unable to see that 250 GB in Disk Utility and Terminal, but still says the computer has 1 TB in it.

How do I find that 250 GB, and how to merge it with macos2, considering macos2 is my main startup disk.

This is my diskutil list:

I am running macOS Mojave 10.14.4 on a 2017 iMac with 1TB hard drive.

One way to do this is to completely reformat the drive. This will collect all sub-volumes together back to the original. This would, obviously, erase all data on the drive, so back up your macOS with Time Machine (so you can migrate the data back in easily).

Start by navigating to Disk Utility in macOS Recovery:

Change the view from "Show Only Volumes" to "Show All Devices":

Finally, select the drive at the root of the tree shown, then reformat it using the "Erase" button in disk utility:

Once you have a fresh drive, you can reinstall macOS using your backup drive and then continue from there.

Hope this help! Please let me know if you have any more questions!


Problems with Bonjour WiFi on iOS devices I have an app that uses Bonjour Wifi to connect to my iPhone app from an iMac. I also have 2 SSIDs. However the iOS app will work for some hours and then cannot connect to one SSID. If I toggle to the other SSID I can connect again for a few more hours before I have to repeat the process. I also have an iPad and it behaves the same way.
Has anyone an idea of why this is happening.

Apple uses Bonjour to establish WiFi connections. It is an Apple bug and caused by the most recent version of iOS in June. One workaround is to turn WiFi off and back on.


OS X 10.9 Screen Sharing: disable file transfer On OS X 10.7 or newer (10.8, 10.9) simply drag'n'drop files between
  your desktop and remote desktop to transfer the files between
  computers

How can I disable this?
I have made restricted account just for Screen Sharing, and I don't want remote user to be able to copy files from my machine without any serious effort.

You can just remove Screen Sharing server's helper tools from here:

/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/screensharingd.bundle/Contents/Support/*

Quick check didn't show anything bad for the rest of server functions.

Please note that after an OS X update these helpers might be resurrected.


How do I mount a Synology remote folder on iPad running iOS 13.3 I have a number of shared folders on a Synology drive which I can mount without any issues on a couple of different Macbooks running different versions of Mac OSX. I am assuming the folders are published using CIFS/SMB but I cannot mount them on my iPad using the file app browser. The iPad puts up a generic and not particularly helpful error dialog "There was a problem connecting to the server. Check the server name or IP address and then try again..."

I can connect to the Synology home page using a browser so network connectivity between it and the iPad is OK. Running "nmap -p139,445 --script smb-enum-shares " indicates that shares are up on both ports 139 and 445.

Try connecting manually.

In the top left portion of the screen, select the menu button at the top (three dots in a circle) and then select “Connect to Server”. Try using the IP address first.  Make sure you firm the URL correctly:

smb://<Synology IP Address>

You should be asked for username and password.

If that works, try it with the DNS name next.


Installing Snow Leopard on external drive with newer iMac version I have two computers running different types of OS X. One is an iMac with Mavericks (10.9.5) and the other is a Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard (10.6.x).

My Macbook Pro isn't working (HDD problem), so I have bought another HDD for it. I've tried to install Snow Leopard (CD) in my newer HDD connected via USB to my iMac (cause if I try to install via Macbook Pro, it stuck in Apple logo), but when I try to install SL on external HDD it shows: You can't use this version of the application "Install Mac OS X.app" with this version of OS.

Is there a way to bypass this message and install the OS on the external HDD?

Additional info

Macbook Pro model: A1278 (EMC 2326*);
iMac model:  iMac is MB417XX/A (2009).

Both Macs support 10.6.6 (the MacBook Pro probably was delivered with a Snow Leopard 10.6.6 DVD) as well as any later system up to at least 10.10 and both contain a DVD-drive. The MacBook Pro's optical drive seems to be damaged or malfunctioning.

Without manipulating the innards of Mavericks you usually can't install an older system over a newer system even if you install it to another volume. To circumvent this restriction use another method:

Here is a straightforward guide how to clone the Snow Leopard DVD to a thumb drive, then boot a second Mac from the thumb drive and install the OS. You can use a modified guide to accomplish the same on your iMac without needing to manipulate your Mavericks system.

Format the external drive:

Open Disk Utility and format the external drive.
Click the Partition tab
Under the Partition Layout header click on the 2 Partition option in the drop-down menu. One big partition and a second smaller one with at least 8 GB at the end. Use the options button to choose GUID partition table.
Click the Format drop-down menu and select Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
To format the external drive finally, click the Apply button in the lower right-hand corner of the Disk Utility window.

Restore the Snow Leopard DVD or a Disk Image:

Locate a Snow Leopard disk image or DVD on the Mac
If you're using a disk image, mount it to the desktop
In the Disk Utility window, click the Restore tab in the external's drive's menu

In the center of the window you'll see two boxes: one labeled Source and another Destination.

Drag-and-drop the second partition of the external drive into the Destination box
Drag-and-drop the Mac OS X Install Drive disk into the Source box
At the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and click the Restore button

Disk Utility will restore the OS X Install DVD or disk image to the external drive; this process may take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour depending on how quick the Mac is.

After the process has finished quit Disk Utility and try to reboot the iMac to the external disk. If the reboot is successful disassemble the external drive and move the disk to the MacBook Pro.

Boot the MacBook Pro to the second partition and install Snow Leopard to the first partition of your MacBook Pro disk.

After installing and rebooting to the first partition, open Disk Utility remove the second partition and expand the first partition to the full size.

If you have a spare thumb drive with at least 8 GB you may use this one instead and follow the guide in the link.


Screen video capture application OS 10.5.8 (Leopard) Are there any freeware/shareware application to make a screen videocapture compatible with OSX 10.5.8?

Screenium app supports 10.5 and higher
http://www.syniumsoftware.com/screenium/

Old versions of ScreenFlow supports 10.5
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/26915/screenflow


Using ANT+ accessories in the iWorld I'd like to track my fitness more automatically than I do now, because now it's not automatic, so I don't do it.

In particular I'm interested in getting an ANT+ odometer for my bike. I understand that the iPhone can read these, but it is not clear whether that means it reads it into the Health app, or I still have to use some 3rd party solution. Does anyone know of a meter that goes directly into Health?

And then there's the Apple Watch. Can the Watch talk to any of these devices directly? That would certainly be wonderful because then I wouldn't have to carry my phone on bike rides.

No iOS device has native ANT+ communication support built in. For the iPhone 4 & 4s, Wahoo makes a 30 pin ANT+ dongle. Newer devices can also utilize this dongle with a 30 pin to Lightning adapter.

http://www.wahoofitness.com/devices/wahoo-key-16.html

Once your setup with the ANT+ dongle, you'll need a 3rd party app to read the data. Some, like Strava, can push data to the iOS Health app:

https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216917527-Health-App-Integration-iPhone


Apps not installing/updating instantly on iOS 5.1 I noticed a strange thing since updating iOS to 5.1.

Pretty much none of the apps I buy or update get installed instantly. They are often left hanging in "Waiting..." mode for several hours until they get installed. I can stop the "Waiting..." process by removing the app and trying to install it again, but it still waits for a while until it installs.

This never happened before as apps used to get installed instantly. Is this normal in newer iOS version or is there something wrong?

PS. This is happening on WiFi.

I had the same problem after upgrading to iOS 5.1. In addition to the issues you mentioned, the Music app got really slow after start up, taking up to 10 seconds to respond to my taps and touch gestures.

As I couldn’t find a simple solution to the problem, I ended up restoring my iPhone to factory defaults (this is basically a clean iOS 5.1 install) and started over. This fixed my problem.

Update: Seems like there is a workaround:

  If you’re trying to install a handful of iOS apps and your entire home
  screen is filled with app icons labeled “Waiting…” without any of the
  progress bars moving, downloading, or installing, you can fix this
  fairly easily with the two methods below. Try the first method before
  going nuclear with a reboot though:

  Tap a single app icon so that it says “Paused” and then tap that app
  icon again to see if it resumes downloading If pausing and resuming
  didn’t work: Reboot the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch You may notice a
  related issue where apps from the App Store will say they’re
  “Installing” though they aren’t appearing on the iOS home screen yet,
  that is also resolved with a reboot.

  It’s not totally clear what causes this, though it seems that a lot of
  people are encountering the problem right now when moving from an old
  iPad to a new one. It could be that Apple’s servers are just
  overloaded with downloads from the App Store, or it could be a bug.


The terminal on my Mac does not work anymore after installing Python & Sublime Text I was trying to install Python3, and Sublime Text 3 in order to learn and run Python. Unfortunately, I watched some videos on youtube and tried to follow their instructions, I did something with my Terminal and now it does not work at all. Please explain and show me how to fix it!

In Terminal it shows:

Last login: Sun May  1 18:44:16 on ttys000
Lances-MacBook-Pro:~ lancedang$ touch
-bash: touch: command not found
Lances-MacBook-Pro:~ lancedang$ python
-bash: python: command not found
Lances-MacBook-Pro:~ lancedang$ python3
-bash: python3: command not found

Your PATH environment variable seems to have been changed somewhere.

Type the following command at your Terminal prompt:

echo 'PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:~/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile

Exit terminal and the shell by typing exit and closing the Terminal app. Relaunch.

Everything should be working now.


Why is [dos] sometimes in the output of a save in "vim". such as: "foo.txt [dos] 38L, 193C"? In certain text files, after doing a save in vim with :w, the output mentions [dos] as such:
"foo.txt" [dos] 38L, 193C

Why is [dos] displayed?

As a simple test, I've created a new file with vim on a FAT32 disk attached to my Mac. Those files don't display [dos] after a save in vim. I copied that file to /tmp (native MacOS format). Opening it there does not display [dos] upon a save in vim either.

So, foo.txt has Japanese characters. A portion looks like:

  臣
  区
  ...
  草
  早
  古
  谷
  "foo.txt" [dos] 38L, 193C

some testing:

  /tmp$ file -I foo.txt
  foo.txt: text/plain; charset=utf-8

foo.txt life cycle:

On XP I created lots of text files using TextEdit that had Japanese characters and saved to FAT32 file system (usb drive).
They were archived into a ZIP format.
That usb drive was attached and copied to my MacBook (MacOS Extended / Journaled).
/usr/bin/unzip unarchived them, and here I am.

Text files are such a basic cross-platform file format. Obviously, "something" is different with those [dos] marked files... What flags a file as being a [dos] file?

What flags a file as being a [dos] file?

Line endings. Windows uses CR (carrage return) and NL (newline) characters. Old Mac plain text files use CR and macOS command line editors use NL.


Terminal app Tabs, how to position next to current tab instead of at the end I use Cmd-T all the time to open new tabs, and it's set to use the same directory.

However, it positions the new tab as the last / far right tab in the window, instead of next to the current tab that I'm in.  Since it's often related to what I'm working on, I'd like to appear right next to the current tab.

Is there a setting for this?  (found lots of things about Terminal and Tabs, but not this specific question)

Thanks

It is possible in nightly release of the alternative terminal program iTerm2 via Preferences → Advanced → Tabs: New tabs are added at the end, not next to current tab set to No.


Scrivener app crashing on macOS Sierra because of growl.framework I recently upgraded to macOS Sierra and moved over my El Capitan stuff over via a Time Machine backup. Everything works fine on Sierra except for Scrivener, a writing app. The app constantly crashes, and here is the beginning of the crash log:

Crashed Thread:        0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type:        EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes:       KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal:    Segmentation fault: 11
Termination Reason:    Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0xb
Terminating Process:   exc handler [0]

VM Regions Near 0:
-->
    __TEXT                 0000000000001000-0000000000370000 [ 3516K] r-x/rwx SM=COW  /Applications/Scrivener.app/Contents/MacOS/Scrivener

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   com.apple.CoreFoundation          0x945d6172 CFDictionaryGetValue + 34
1   com.growl.growlframework          0xc0001e67 +[GrowlApplicationBridge isGrowlRunning] + 81
2   com.literatureandlatte.scrivener2    0x002d7a67 0x1000 + 2976359
3   libobjc.A.dylib                   0x9ee491b2 CALLING_SOME_+initialize_METHOD + 31
4   libobjc.A.dylib                   0x9ee3c927 _class_initialize + 479
5   libobjc.A.dylib                   0x9ee3c587 lookUpImpOrForward + 117
6   libobjc.A.dylib                   0x9ee3c50d _class_lookupMethodAndLoadCache3 + 30
7   libobjc.A.dylib                   0x9ee3c074 objc_msgSend + 116
8   com.apple.Foundation              0x95d42ad8 __57-[NSNotificationCenter addObserver:selector:name:object:]_block_invoke_2 + 32
9   com.apple.CoreFoundation          0x94665844 __CFNOTIFICATIONCENTER_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER__ + 20
10  com.apple.CoreFoundation          0x94665734 _CFXRegistrationPost + 452
11  com.apple.CoreFoundation          0x94665486 ___CFXNotificationPost_block_invoke + 54
12  com.apple.CoreFoundation          0x94623753 -[_CFXNotificationRegistrar find:object:observer:enumerator:] + 1699
13  com.apple.CoreFoundation          0x9462258d _CFXNotificationPost + 637
14  com.apple.Foundation              0x95cfd8e4 -[NSNotificationCenter postNotificationName:object:userInfo:] + 71
15  com.literatureandlatte.ScrAppKit    0x00525028 -[KBTextStorage replaceCharactersInRange:withString:] + 556
16  com.apple.AppKit                  0x92702f9b -[NSTextView insertText:replacementRange:] + 1744
17  com.apple.AppKit                  0x92702748 -[NSTextView insertText:] + 272
18  com.apple.AppKit                  0x92919c9a -[NSTextView(NSKeyBindingCommands) insertNewline:] + 473
19  libobjc.A.dylib                   0x9ee40d1e -[NSObject performSelector:withObject:] + 59
20  com.apple.AppKit                  0x9281e435 -[NSResponder doCommandBySelector:] + 71
21  com.apple.AppKit                  0x9272009d -[NSTextView doCommandBySelector:] + 181
22  com.apple.AppKit                  0x9271ffc6 -[NSTextInputContext(NSInputContext_WithCompletion) doCommandBySelector:completionHandler:] + 107
23  com.apple.AppKit                  0x9271ff51 -[NSTextInputContext doCommandBySelector:] + 46
24  com.apple.AppKit                  0x9271fe7f -[NSTextInputContext _handleCommand:] + 83
25  com.apple.AppKit                  0x92700a45 -[NSKeyBindingManager(NSKeyBindingManager_MultiClients) interpretEventAsCommand:forClient:] + 1490
26  com.apple.AppKit                  0x92f324d2 __84-[NSTextInputContext _handleEvent:options:allowingSyntheticEvent:

I contacted Scrivener's tech support, and they said it's crashing because Growl is installed.

I checked on my computer, and I don't see Growl running. I don't remember having installed it or ever having used it; I just use the default notification system on macOS.

I checked my ~/Library/Preferences and ~/Library/Application Support, and there is nothing named Growl or growl in there.

I checked via an app remover, and it didn't find anything named growl/Growl on my system either. Neither could I find growl as a running process in the Activity Monitor.

Anybody have a clue what might be happening over here? Thanks!

I had the same issue with NetNewsWire (yea, yea, I know). Download Growl Version Detective (http://growl.info/downloads) and it allows you to update the version of the Grown framework within the app to a Sierra compatible version. Boom, it should start working again (hopefully). Give it a try :)


I would like to delete all the contents on my Iphone but the LCD and touch sensitivity is gone. What should I do? I already did a back up before and now I would like to delete all the contents on my iPhone, but the LCD and touch sensitivity accidentally went gone and blacked out. What should I do? Before the exchange of the new Phone from the Phone company to the old broken one. I would appreciate it if someone could teach me on how to delete all the contents. :)

I don't really know what you mean by the LCD and touch sensitivity is "gone", but try this:
- Connect your iPhone to your Computer
- Open iTunes
- Select your iPhone
- On the Overview Panel select restore
- Follow the instructions

I hope it works.


How to remove disabled Google account from Macbook? I had a work Google account. When I left my job, the account was disabled, but whenever I try to use my Google account for accessing something, it asks me to choose between my personal account, and this disabled account (which doesn't work, because it's disabled). I want to remove this account completely, so it doesn't keep suggesting I use it.

Both iPhone and Mac use iCloud so they could be sharing account setup information. my iPhone does not see the disabled account, but my MacBook still does.

How do I remove it from my MacBook so that I no longer have to choose between my current Google account and my old disabled account?

One simple means would be to make a new user account on the Mac.

You can verify the undesired account isn't in the systems preferences and then start using the google services you wish.

If the accounts are still tied together, you know it's coming from google and the servers in the "cloud" and not your settings.

If everything is good on the new account, then start going app by app and removing saved passwords, saved accounts, cookies and session caches until you clear up all the automation you have accumulated for the old and now undesired account.

App by app might start with: Safari, Keychain, Chrome, System Preferences (accounts)


watchOS battery drains quickly I have a GPS-only Series 4 Apple Watch (44mm) running watchOS 6.1.2 (17S796).  I bought the Watch new in November 2018.

Prior to updating to updating to 6.1.2 (Jan 28, 2020), I had no problems with the battery.  On a typical day using v6.1.1 I would use ~30% by the end of the day.  I use the Watch often and keep it on during exercise and sleep.

After updating to 6.1.2, I noticed my Watch would often lose 50% or more of its charge by the end of the work day.  This would cause me to have to charge it more than once a day, something I've never had to do prior to the upgrade.

To troubleshoot the problem, I did a reset and unpaired the Watch from my iPhone.  I set it up as a new Watch (not a restore from my iCloud backup).  Without adding any of my apps back to the Watch, the battery performance was still terrible so it's not an app that's causing the battery drain.

Similar problems are reported on this site and the Apple forums.  The only answer provided is to do what I've already done (reset and setup again).

On iOS you can see the battery usage of specific apps in Settings.  watchOS doesn't offer this feature, all you can see is storage space and time since last full charge.

Is there any way to see what's killing my battery?  I have Xcode so I think I can see the device logs but I wouldn't know what to look for.  I'm open to install any apps that would show the same info (I don't want to jailbreak).

Update: Updating to watchOS 6.1.3 hasn't fixed this problem.  It hasn't made the problem worse, which is something, I guess.

You can try to log Battery Life using these instructions and this profile - you need an Apple Developer account to do so.
It's long to do and you may not get many results (I've never tried with this kind log), but if you have the time to try. If you need help analyzing the results you can post them here.


When does iCloud suggest a file can be stored cloud-only? Can I force iCloud to not keep the downloaded copy of a file? My intention is to store movies. First I tried adding them to iTunes but if I'm not mistaken, those movies will never be cloud-only unless they were bought through iTunes itself.

My next approach is to store them in iCloud. I know from other files on my computer that they are only a "proxy" for the actual file and that the actual file will be downloaded when needed.

However since the files I'm moving around are movies, they're quite storage-intensive, and I'd love if I could tell iCloud "please just upload them and don't mind the local copy", but I can only choose to force-download them, and not force-delete-the-local-copy, as far as I can tell.

Is there a way to make this happen more readily?

I'm using Mojave 10.14.2 (18C54).

macOS and iOS make the decision for you. The OSes use a combination of factors such as file size, how recently used files are, and quantity of free space on your device's storage in order to determine which files become cloud-only. Here's the description from Apple's support page on the topic:

If you need more space on your device, iCloud Drive can help. On your Mac, go to Apple menu → System Preferences → iCloud. Next to iCloud Drive, click Options and turn on Optimize Mac Storage. Then your Mac keeps all of your recent files on your computer, but keeps your older ones only in iCloud, ready for you to download when you need them again. If you want to free up more space on your Mac, follow these steps. On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you can search and browse files from all of your devices and download them only as you need them.

There's no way to explicitly tell iCloud Drive which files should have local copies and which should be cloud-only.
:: Update 2020.12.09 ::
I've run across an app named Bailiff that purports to provide the requested functionality: it can evict specific iCloud files from local storage and make them become cloud-only. More info is available at the developer's website:
https://eclecticlight.co/cirrus-bailiff/
(Note: I have no relationship with Eclectic Light Co., the developer of Bailiff. Nor do I have direct experience with this product.)


iPhone 4 boot loop, no DFU possible please excuse, I am new to iPhone, as I repair it for a friend.
It's an 4S from USA that some other friend of him wanted to unlock for germany.

So I don't know what he did exactly, but:
When I restart by holding home+power, it restarts like expected. The apple appears for 2 minutes, then the (respring?) turns 180 degree and then stops.
There's also no way to get it into DFU mode, it boots no matter if I hold the home button.
Also when I hold vol+, it won't boot.

I'm out of ideas to get this to boot.

I could fix it with some luck now.
I didn't restart by holding power+home for 7 seconds.

I pressed them for about 5 seconds, until the screen turned off.
Then I held the home button, and connected it to a pc withouth iTunes installed. (This didn't work with a pc with iTunes!)
Now it asked me to connect to iTunes, so I connected it to another pc having iTunes installed.
After iTunes finished restoring, the phone worked perfect again.


How to recover apple id without having apple id and email that associated with that apple id I forgot my apple id and email that associated with this apple id, but i know the password of my apple id.

how can i find my apple id?

note that this apple id doesn't set on any other devices.

You can’t typically brute force a missing email through https://forgot.apple.com website for several reasons. If I understand your question correctly, to rephrase the situation, you have the pin code to get to your voicemail but you forgot the telephone number. It may not make sense to start dialing every number possible and keep trying your pin code on each unless you have some idea what “number” you chose.
Unless you used that email and saved receipts, wrote things down, used that ID for other services, you’re out of luck. There is no reverse lookup possible to show all the emails that used a specific password.
I’m not sure why you would even want back an ID you didn’t use, but maybe there’s more backstory or a different problem you’re solving but didn’t include in the body of your question.


CGI scripts won't execute on website I have a website up and running on the Apache webserver, but the CGI scripts in /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables will not run.  Instead, the text of the file loads in the browser instead.

I made the following changes to httpd.conf:

Added the following line to the LoadModules group:

LoadModule cgi_module /usr/libexec/apache2/mod_cgi.so
Uncomment the following line (by removing the #):

AddHandler cgi_script .cgi
Added this to the virtual host file for the specific site:

<VirtualHost *:81>
    DocumentRoot "/Library/WebServer/Documents/"
    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/"
    <Directory "/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/">
    AllowOverride none
    Options +ExecCGI
    AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

I am able to run the Perl scripts from the command line without an issue.

Note: this is on High Sierra.

Most probably you're running into one of the following problems:

Wrong handler name: In your question, you wrote that you had the following line:

AddHandler cgi_script .cgi

The underscore is supposed to be a hyphen here, so change that to:

AddHandler cgi-script .cgi

Wrong file extension: Your have specified in your configuration that your Perl scripts are named something.cgi. Some actually have their files named something.pl instead. If that is the case for you, you'll need to extend both of your AddHandler lines to the following:

AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl

Permissions: The Perl scripts needs to have the executable permission bit set in order to be executed as a CGI-script. This means that you have to run a command such as this:

chmod a+x /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/yourscript.cgi

You would have to replace "yourscript.cgi" with the actual filename of your script.

Restart needed: You need to ensure that the Apache webserver program is actually reloaded or restarted after you change your configuration files. Do this by running the following command:

sudo apachectl -k restart


Is there any way to get a generic (country-unrelated) iTunes link? When copying links to stuff in iTunes or Mac App Store, I always get a countrycode-specific link. Is there any way to get a generic one?

If not, will those links resolve to national-specific iTunes destinations when people from abroad click on it?

E.g, might this lead to some other store except the Swedish one?

http://itunes.apple.com/se/artist/nash-the-slash/id160526527

You can remove the country code from the URL, so it reads http://itunes.apple.com/artist/nash-the-slash/id160526527. That gives you a valid iTunes URL, that if opened in a browser (that doesn't auto-open iTunes), appears to be the same as if the link were a US link.
However when any iTunes link is opened in iTunes itself, it will attempt to redirect to the version in the user's local store. I.e. when I click on the link you posted, I get sent to the same item in the Canadian store.
If the item isn't available in the Canadian store, I get a message like this:

So, you should be safe using country-specific store links, and iTunes will handle the redirection as appropriate.


Is backup mandatory for upgrade to iOS 6 in iPhone 4S? I know that it is recommended that I backup my data, but if I upgrade to an iPhone 4S to iOS 6, does everything in my iPhone get deleted? Or does it keep original data, except when some errors occur?

If everythings runs smoothly (as is usually the case) you won't lose anything, nothing will get deleted.

But even the best engineered update process can fail. So it is best practice to back up an iPhone on a regular basis and specially before updating (like with any other device/computer, for that matter). Why? Because sometimes things go wrong. And a backup is like an insurance policy on your data.

Luckily Apple makes it easy: iTunes always backs up your iPhone before updating. If you prefer an over-the-air update, you can back up you iPhone to iCloud.

(I prefer backing up to iCloud, a friend of mine overwrote the iTunes backup after a failed update and lost all data.)


ls: : Operation not permitted - Mojave security? Is this directory protected by Mojave's new security features?

$ sudo ls -laR /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/
ls: Operation not permitted

It works in High Sierra but not Mojave. How do we view the contents of this directory?

A less drastic way:

Go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy and give Full Disk Access to Terminal.

Adapted from https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8637915


Secondary click opens Mission Control I have nothing against Mission Control but don't use it much except now when my secondary click opens it every the time.

I usually want the secondary click to open a context window like I now have to do with the ctrl single click.

On my trackpad I use the two finger tap as secondary click as per below settings. With a mouse it's the right button. In both cases Mission Control is opened instead of a context window.

For full disclosure I mention that I make use of BetterSnapTool and Alfred3 but when I unload them the issue persists.

As a troubleshooting step I would start with booting into Safe Mode to see if the behaviour is replicated there, and also to see if the behaviour continues again afterwards when you've logged back in normally.

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your Mac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. does secondary click still opens Mission Control?)
Now exit Safe Mode by restarting your Mac as normal
Log in normally and test again

Once you've booted into Safe Mode, let me know how you went and we'll go from there.

Trash your Mission Control preferences

Now that we know the problem isn't caused by a 3rd party extension etc, let's trash the preferences for Missopn Control and see what changes that maes.

Go to Finder
In the menu bar click on Go > Library (Note: If the Library option doesn't appear, hold down the option key while clicking on the Go menu)
Within the Library folder, look for and open the Preferences folder
Now look for com.apple.spaces.plist and move it to Trash
Restart your Mac
Log back in and empty your trash

Now test again and let me know how you went and we'll go from there.


How do I combine separate cells in a Numbers spreadsheet and paste the result as text into a TextEdit document? I have a Numbers spreadsheet. Column B contains first names, column C contains surnames.

I need an easy way to combine and reformat this data so that it’s in the format Surname, Firstname. I then need to get this data into a TextEdit document in text format.

My first step was to try this formula =C2,", ",B2 to combine the data, but this produced an error and I'm stuck.

Does anyone know how I can combine the cells in the order I want?
Once combined, how do I get the result as plain text into a TextEdit document?

This answer assumes:

you have a header row and, because of that, the first row containing your data is Row 2.
that Column D is empty

Please see my notes at the end if the above assumptions are incorrect.

Solution

Following these steps will solve your problem:

In cell D2 enter the following formula: =(C2&", "&B2)
Press enter
Cell D2 should now produce the result you’re after (i.e. if cell B2 contained the name John and cell C2 contained the name Doe, cell D2 should now show Doe, John)
Now copy the formula from cell D2 down all the rows in Column D
The other cells in Column D should populate with the data you want
Now select and copy all cells containing data in Column D
Select cell E2 and press shift command V (or go to Edit > Paste Formula Results)
Now select and copy all cells containing data in Column E
Open your TextEdit document
Go to Edit > Paste and Match Style

Now you should have all the data you wanted as text and in the format you need.

NOTE 1: - If your next blank column isn’t Column D, then at step 1 enter the formula in the next blank column (i.e. if your next blank column is Column F, then enter the formula in cell F2. This also means you’d adjust the other steps accordingly.

NOTE 2: - If you don’t have a header row, then at Step 1 you would enter the following formula instead: =(C1&", "&B1) into cell D1. This also means you’d adjust the other steps accordingly.


How to convert AppleScript URL type to string? In AppleScript, I can cast some variables (e.g., the clipboard), to the built-in URL type:
set theURL to the clipboard as URL

If my clipboard contains an RTF link to https://temochka.com/, theUrl will be assigned a raw value like this (which can be seen in the Script Editor replies window):
«data url 68747470733A2F2F74656D6F63686B612E636F6D»

This last part (68747470733A2F2F74656D6F63686B612E636F6D) is a hex-encoded string that can be decoded as "https://temochka.com". Is there a way to extract just this value? Or maybe get the full URL value out?

If set theURL to the clipboard as URL returns:
«data url 68747470733A2F2F74656D6F63686B612E636F6D»

Then if you are set on working with that class, you need to first write it to a temporary file and then read it back, as in the following example AppleScript code:
set tmpFilename to "/tmp/theURL.txt"

set theURL to the clipboard as URL

writeToFile(theURL, tmpFilename, true)

set theURL to read tmpFilename

on writeToFile(theData, theFile, overwriteExistingContent)
    try
        set theFile to theFile as string
        if theFile contains "/" then
            set theOpenedFile to open for access theFile with write permission
        else
            set theOpenedFile to open for access file theFile with write permission
        end if
        if overwriteExistingContent is true then set eof of theOpenedFile to 0
        write theData to theOpenedFile starting at eof
        close access theOpenedFile
        return true
    on error
        try
            close access file theFile
        end try
        return false
    end try
end writeToFile

Notes:
The writeToFile(theText, theFile, overwriteExistingContent) handler is a slightly modified handler from Reading and Writing Files
The handler from the linked Apple support document was modified to handle both POSIX and HFS+ file paths.
When the clipboard returns what's show herein, it also can return https://temochka.com directly by using, e.g.:
set theURL to the clipboard as text


FaceTime Video Calls on multiple devices I want to receive Facetime video calls on my MacBook Air and my iPhone at the same.  They are on the same apple id and I have it set up on my phone to use multiple devices and I cannot get it to work.

Is this setup possible?

FaceTime audio and video route to one device by design. You would need to add a second account on the second device to get two seats at a FaceTime meeting with your two devices.


What tiny thing in iOS 5 makes you smile, or has caught you off guard? iOS 5 is here! Geofencing, new Voices in Voice Command/Siri, and Notification Center for all!

We all know how heartfelt iOS makes you seem (Cards), how much control it gives you for managing your network (Airport Utility), and how it will easily turn you into a stalker (Find Your Friends), but what about all the day-in and day-out things that truely make the upgrade process worth it?

Please post only one tip per answer, and check to see if your answer has already been posted - duplicate answers will be deleted. To search answers for this question use inquestion:27761 (or inquestion:this, while viewing this question specifically) in addition to your search terms in the search box in the upper right hand corner of this page.

Usage shows how much space each app is using

Settings -> General -> Usage

iOS 5 now collects the space used by apps and the data in the app - sorted by the largest size. If you need to free up some space quickly, this is a great way to easily identify and remove the largest burdens on your storage space.

Of specific tiny note, the edit button in the top right allows you to delete selective content from apps like Music.


How can I mix multi-channel input device down to mono? I have a microphone and Soundflower installed, and an aggregate device set up in Audio MIDI setup to mix the two together. My mic has two channels, and Soundflower has both a 2 channel and a 64 channel device. I just put them all together.

The problem is, I'm trying to use this as a "mic" input for Microsoft Teams (which does not support multi-channel input audio), which seems to only use one channel. With the settings as my screenshot shows, people can hear only my microphone; but if I swap the order of the devices so that Soundflower is first, people can hear the Soundflower output, and not my mic.
I'd like to mix these channels down to a single channel that I can use as the mic input. Is this possible (without external hardware?)

Been a while since I have played with Audio Hijak but I do believe it may do what you need it to do, and a lot of other audio tricks handy for people who do podcasts and audio mixing, though not for free.
https://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/


Retina display resolution and 1080p videos There is something I don't understand.
I have a macbook pro 15' retina display.

The information says it has a 2880 x 1800 display but when I open a 1080p video it covers the whole screen. How come?

This was probably done so that videos, especially those that are lower resolution than 1080p, don't look absurdly small. If you want to play your video at the native resolution on your screen, (and you've selected "best for retina" as your display resolution), you could always tell VLC to play it back at half the size.


Where does a large file go when I delete it from a volume? I deleted several files around 1 GB or more from an external drive with Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I cannot see them in ~/.Trash and Finder refuses to go to /Volumes/<volume name>/.Trash by saying it does not exist, and it refuses to complete the location starting with /Volumes/<volume name>/.Tr.

Where did the files go?

List the volume's hidden folders in the Terminal with:

$ ls -laht /Volumes/
...
d-wx-wx-wt    3 mmorin  staff   102B 12 Sep 09:35 .Trashes
...

The directory .Trashes is what you're looking for, which is why .Trash does not exist.

In my case, I needed sudo to view the directory, which explains why /Volumes/<volume name>/.Tr did not complete. Nested under the directory 501 are the deleted files:

$ sudo ls -lahtr ../.Trashes/501
total 15943672
-rwxrwxrwx@  1 _unknown  _unknown   1.0G  3 Jan  2018 some file.MP4
-rwxrwxrwx@  1 _unknown  _unknown   999M  3 Jan  2018 another file.MP4
...


memory footprint of 4k monitor on 2018 13" Iris 655 I'm thinking of getting a 2018 MBP 13" to connect two 4k displays simultaneously.  I assume that once that happens, the system memory footprint is going to increase in order to buffer these displays, reducing the amount of unswapped/uncompressed RAM I have available for other tasks.  Please contribute with practical measurements of memory usage before and after plugging in the extra 4k display.

There's not really any significant amount of extra main memory usage for buffers due to having dual 4k-displays.

Indirectly the total main memory usage might increase because some will tend to run more programs at the same time, have more windows and documents open at the same time, etc. - and that will lead to higher main memory usage.

It is correct that the Intel Iris Plus 655 in the MBP uses main memory for its video memory (i.e. up to 1.5 GB of main memory is shared between the CPU and the GPU). However, it is not actually a specific process using more memory in Activity Monitor, but rather a case that there's less main memory available in total.

The size of that extra memory usage for buffers is so little that it is not really noticeable in common usage. For example a video buffer for a 4k display will take up something like 32 MB of memory. That's less than half a percent of even the 8 GB on the MBP with the least amount of RAM.

Again, the indirect usage might be bigger, because you might be loading up more advanced games than you would have done with the extra monitors - and they might use up much more video ram (for textures, etc.) than just the buffers themselves.


How to change language of facebook interface in ipad2 I have ipad , I want to change language of facebook interface to Arabic
I tried to change (Settings >> General >> Language & region >> Region) to Iraq and now its Iraq , then I uninstall facebook application and re-install again but interface still in English.

If you look at the page for that app in the App Store and you will see that Arabic is not on the list of supported languages.  So you cannot change it the way you want.


Stranger using my Apple ID for FaceTime/iMessage My iPad said someone is using my email to FaceTime and iMessage. I have no idea who the person is. How can I block them from using my email?

If you suspect someone has access to your Apple ID, change the password immediately. If you can no longer access your account, attempt to reset the password.


Macbook a1181 stopped working and commands doesnt work after installing windows I installed windows 10 in my macbook a1181 model but then my mac Os has stopped working even i could not switch to it. But i mistakenly made clean the entire hdd without having backup and tried to internet recovery. after that nothings shows even not any command works. It  looks like windows. Help!

This message is not from Microsoft software that should have been installed in the MBR. Most likely you did not correctly install Windows 10. Apple does not support Windows 10 on your Mac. This does not mean Windows 10 can not be installed. However, adding more information on how you installed Windows 10 would be helpful. For example, the I would at least have the following questions.
Which version of Windows 10 are you using?

Currently, an updated Windows 10 is released twice a year.
Most users install the Windows Home or Windows Pro. Many others exist.
There are 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

Where did you acquire the installation media?

There are ISO files that can be downloaded.
There are ISO files and flash drives that can be created after downloading the create installation media on a machine running Windows.
You can burn a bootable DVD from an Windows ISO file.
You can create a bootable flash drive from a mounted Windows ISO file.
Some Macs can create the Windows 10 installation flash drive using the Boot Camp Assistant.

Where did you acquire the Windows Support Software (Boot Camp Support Software)?

Did you download the Software using Boot Camp Assistant.
You can download Windows 7 versions from an Apple website.
You can use Brigadier or manually directly from Apple servers.
You could not not used any Windows Support Software.

Did your installation involve the use of refit, rEFInd or GRUB?
Did you BIOS or EFI boot the Windows 10 installation media?
Did you install Windows 10 to BIOS or EFI boot?
Did you use the GUI or CLI (or both) to install Windows 10?
How did you install Windows 10?

One method is to modify the Boot Camp Assistant.
You can use the DVD drive.
Some Macs can use a USB flash drive.
There are many methods where a virtual machine is employed.
There are methods where you first boot from the Windows 10 installation files stored on the internal drive.

How did you bless the Mac?

This is done automatically when using the Boot Camp Assistant.
In some cases, this can be done from OS X by using the bless command.
This can be done from OS X Recover by using the bless command.
On some Macs, you can do this from Windows after installing the Windows Support Software.
On some Macs, this can be done from the Mac Startup Manager.

Note: In some cases, knowing the version of OS X would be helpful.


Suspicious NTPD Connection I use Little Snitch on Mac OS X 10.6.8 and noticed a connection that seemed suspicious to me.

The snitch reported ntpd trying to connect to:
  "$host 94.23.243.53
  53.243.23.94.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer asgard.syari.net."

Why would NTPD try to connect to this host instead of time.apple.com? Is this something to be concerned about or is this an expected event?

NTPd can be configured to get time from any host. Notably many use http://www.pool.ntp.org

That IP is running a ntp server with accurate time; and a http server, the page is mostly invalid HTML with Google Ads. It doesn't look terribly nefarious, so I'd guess that something else is going on here. Check your configuration and see if it's set to use that IP (or a hostname other than time.apple.com).

Update:
Checked pool.ntp.org, and ntp.syari.net (94.23.243.53) is a member. Your computer must be set to use the pool. You should update your configuration to use pool members from the US (use 0.us.pool.ntp.org for example).


Uninstall/ disable php 5.6.9 osx Yosemite I´m running osx yosemite with homebrew, apache, php5.6.9 and have installed php 5.3.
I need php 5.3 to run a certain api which known to have complications with ph5.6.9.
But how can I disable php 5.6.9 to use the 5.3?

To switch versions:

brew unlink php56 && brew link php53

There are complete instructions for managing and using a specific version of PHP at the Github repo for homebrew-php:

https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-php

Setup the homebrew/dupes tap which has dependencies we need:

$ brew tap homebrew/dupes

Setup the homebrew/versions tap which has dependencies we need:

$ brew tap homebrew/versions

Then, run the following in your command-line:

$ brew tap homebrew/homebrew-php

Usage

Note: For a list of available configuration options run:

$ brew options php53

Once the tap is installed, you can install php53, php54, php55, php56, or any formulae you might need via:

$ brew install php53

…


How to save an iTunes Podcast to a USB stick? I have downloaded WWDC 2010 podcast from iTunes. How can I find the Podcast file and save it to a USB Memory stick so people who doesn't have iTunes can play it using quicktime?

Right-Click on the file in iTunes, then select "Show in Finder"

There you have your Podcast-File. You can copy it on your USB-Drive or wherever you want!


Does iPhone 5s slow down with iOS 8? I am pondering whether it makes sense to install iOS 8 on my iPhone 5s.  I've seen articles like this, that advise you not to install the new OS on the 4s.

However, I've seen nothing about the 5s experiences.  Those with 5s phones upgraded... did the phone slow down at all?  Was it worth it?

My 5s didn't slow down at all after the upgrade. I did disable a few features that annoyed me (quicktype prediction, spotlight suggestions, etc.) and you may want to if you're concerned about performance, but I didn't notice any speed issues at all. Much, much better than my experience with the beta on an iPod Touch.


Word stop when navigating text with option-key I use option and command to navigate text (which is awesome). I've read somewhere that you can specify the characters that constitute a word stop (underscores for example). However I can't find this anywhere.

Does anyone know where to set this?

You can choose between a few settings in System Preferences, but I don't know any way to customize them.

The standard setting treats period and colon as part of (some) words.

ASCII special characters that are part of words:

'.:_ in Standard
'_ in English (United States, Computer)

ASCII special characters that are not part of the start or end of words:

$+<=>^` in Standard
$+<=>^` in English (United States, Computer)

aa.11 and aa'11 are never single words. 11.11 and aa_11 are always single words.


Ugrading to a new iMac? I have a 2017 21" iMac, I'm thinking of getting a new 2019 27" model in a few weeks, are all the programs that I have bought on the app store saved to my Apple ID? so if I go to the app store on the new machine, I just need to re-download them again (for free), or would the best way to do it, by making a backup using time machine and installing that from the ext HDD to the new Mac? doing it that way, would it fully install all the programs I already have (inc ones not from the app store)....and would it install all my saved passwords etc? I'm fairy new to Macs, so what would be the best/easiest way to do this? The instructions for time machine seem quite straight forward.

All the apps which you have previously purchased, and which are running on your present iMac, are available in the App Store for re-download. However, the best method for transferring your present user account(s) and apps to your new iMac is through Time Machine Migration Assistant, which will be one of the first options when you set up the new iMac out of the box. Make sure you have a current backup of your present machine and that the Time Machine device itself (External USB drive, etc) can be physically connected to the new iMac.

Just recently I upgraded to a 2019 iMac myself, and because I have loads of Thunderbolt drives, including my main Time Machine drive, I had to purchase Apple Thunderbolt > USBC adapters to do the migration and continue to use the drive as the Time Machine backup disk.


Is it possible to "update" iTunes? Is it actually possible to update iTunes running on Windows 7 Ultimate?

Because every time I've tried, it fails with an error about one service or another. The error is usually related to not having sufficient permissions to modify the service, even though my account is configured as Administrator, and the service varies.

The only way to get the latest version installed consistently is to manually uninstall everything, reboot, then run the installer.

Just remove the iTunes app and redownload it from apple's website. If you just remove the app it should leave your media files untouched but take a backup just in case.


How do I add the Applications folder to the terminal PATH? For example, I have Sublime Text that I can open from Spotlight. However, sometimes I'm navigating with the terminal and I want to do sublime source.php, but since I don't have the sublime app accesible from the Terminal, I need to do all the way from opening the app to navigating in finder to the location I already have opened in the terminal.
Is there a way to include applications installed in the Apps folder in the terminal PATH?

You can easily add the Applications directory to your PATH but it will not do anything useful as it is a collection of OSX apps which are bundles and can't be run from the command line.

There are several alternatives

Use the open command which will open any OSX app e.g. open -a Sublime\ Text.app source.php This works for all apps
Find the unix executable in the app bundle usually in Contents/MacOS and with a similar name to the app.
Some apps e.g. Sublime provide a specific command line tool and use that. This is what is suggested in Sublime's documentation However I would just create an alias to the full path "/Applications/Sublime Text 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" and use the full path in the EDITOR environment variable


Bash History missing from Terminal After an OS update, my bash history is suddenly gone - typing "history" at a terminal window (sudo or standard) yields only the commands entered after the upgrade.

What could have happened here?

In this particular case, I found that the history had gotten into a strange state.

Nothing was present in the .bash_history file, however, there were plenty of saved sessions in the .bash_sessions folder of the user root (e.g. ~).

Once inside the .bash_sessions folder, I found there was a file with a GUID and a .historynew extension.

Ex:

~/.bash_sessions/{GUID}.historynew

That file contained the lost commands, but somehow was no longer attached to the saved history for the user. From there I simply piped the output and appended to the .bash_history file, and started a new session and everything was back. One way to do this:

cat {GUID}.historynew >> ../.bash_history


Yosemite cannot detect SD card I know their is a flood of these questions but I have a late 2013 macbook pro with yosemite 10.10.5 installed on it.

My problem is it won't read some of my SD cards, i've run disk util with the pny sd card inserted and I get this

bash-3.2$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         120.5 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *120.1 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 F57E540D-B47C-40C6-BDE1-F9EEB04734AB
                                 Unencrypted
bash-3.2$

Whats strange is when I insert another sd card (a samsung card) It comes up OK

bash-3.2$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         120.5 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *120.1 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 F57E540D-B47C-40C6-BDE1-F9EEB04734AB
                                 Unencrypted
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *8.0 GB     disk2
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 NO NAME                 8.0 GB     disk2s1
bash-3.2$

I've tested the PNY cards in my iPad with an sd card reader and the photos come up OK, and all the photos appear on my camera as well so the SD card themselves seem to be OK

It's fairly common for recent MBPs to have somewhat glitchy SD card readers. With certain cards, and especially with cheaper microSD adapters, I have to make sure I don't push the card all the way in or it might either not show up at all, or show up but keep getting ejected mid-write.


Help Me Remember: A Developer Reference App everyone. I'm trying to remember a macOS application that I used to use. It could be opened with a keyboard command within almost any application or the Finder, and it would pop up a dialog to search reference material for different developer languages, frameworks, tools, etc. I thought it was Alfred, but looking over the website, that doesn't look familiar. Any ideas? Thanks!

It sounds like you're talking about Dash. It has a global search keyboard shortcut feature as well as a host of others for searching developer documentation.
Here's an overview of the app from its website:

Dash is an API Documentation Browser and Code Snippet Manager. Dash instantly searches offline documentation sets for 200+ APIs, 100+ cheat sheets and more.

And a summary of the global shortcut feature:

The global search shortcut is an easy way to activate Dash in a similar style as the Spotlight shortcut. You can assign a search shortcut in Preferences > General and then use that hotkey in any app when you want to bring up Dash. You can also assign a shortcut to search using the selected text.


Typing shortcuts in MacOS Sierra One thing I recall about my parents' old iMac (Mac OS X Tiger) was the ability to set a custom shortcut for a particular character or deadkey. While I did take advantage of that, I mainly used it in a frivolous manor.

However, regardless, I've realised that there are a couple of characters in the Hebrew type case that don't come on any of the built-in keyboards for the Mac, namely the meteg, a character used to mark syllabic emphases in certain situations. My need to access this character reminded me of the above anecdote and got me wondering whether there still exists a way to create such a shortcut.

Is it possible to create a typing shortcut as described above? If it makes a  difference, I'd be using it mainly in Pages.

Based on your question, you're probably familiar with much of this process but I'll lay it out from start to finish just in case.

In System Preferences > Keyboard > Text, add an item. On the left, pick a shortcut sequence. On the right, you need to enter the desired character. There are a variety of ways to do this here but one straightforward way to do so would be to Show Emoji and Symbols†, enter the character name (e.g. meteg) in the search field and then double-click on the result‡. This will place the character wherever the cursor would be, which in this case, should be in the 'With' field in the Text preferences.

From within Pages (or TextEdit) enable Edit > Substitutions > Text Replacement. When done, there should be a checkmark beside the option. As far as I can tell, this setting will stick as long as it's a standard Cocoa app.

To use in Pages, open a doc and type the shortcut and hit space (or some punctuation character).

† I have 'Show Input menu in menu bar' checked in the Keyboard > Input Sources preferences so I typically grab the 'symbols' from there. But if you don't have that enabled, and don't want to, you can select 'Emoji & Symbols' from the Edit menu of most standard apps.

‡ Other methods might be to enable the appropriate script in the Symbols and Emojis window, or to paste the character from wherever you might find it.


"The name you entered can't be used. The name is not available. Enter a different name." I'm installing El Capitan on a MacBook Air that I aquired with no internal drive, so no previous OS.

I proceed through several steps fine until "Create a Computer Account".

But it doesn't like the details I enter and shows this cryptic error box:

  The name you entered can't be used.
  The name is not available. Enter a different name.

The worst part is that it now does not allow me to edit any of the text fields! I can click on them and drag and select them, but I cannot type new letters or delete existing letters, etc.

Is this a known problem? I can't find a solution to it via Google though I do find a tiny number of people asking about it. If not, what am I missing?

I ran into this issue today. Apparently the error message is trying to tell you that there is an existing person with the same "Full Name" as you. Hence it cannot let you add another username with the same "Full Name". In my case, I was recovering from Time Machine and getting this error msg. So I just changed the full name to my last name. Was able to create an account using that and proceed further.


Does the iPod Touch 5th Generation have a magnetometer sensor? The title says it all: I wonder, does the 5th iPod Touch generation have a magnetometer? There was an Availability matrix for iOS devices up to iPhone 4 / iPad 2 / iPod touch 4G — The 4G didn't have a magnetometer sensor.

Here is table about which device has which sensor.

Look to magnetometer compatibility.

So sensor is absent on iphone + iphone 3g + any iPod including iPod 6 gen.


Problem starting Mac Mail on Big Sur I have just bought a new Mac Mini (M1) with Big Sur.
When I start Mail I get a screen headed "Message Import" , "Welcome to Mail". I have 2 options Continue to import messages or Cancel to import later.
If I select either option Mail closes down.
Any ideas please.

Problem solved by re-installing clean copy of Big Sur


How can I change an NTFS Volume UUID? I just upgraded my Mac to Mac OS X El Capitan and I wanted to update my Windows 7 to Windows 10.
But, before that, I need to make a backup of my Windows partition.

As I've done it before, I have a Windows (NTFS) partition on a backup HDD.

The thing is, I want to make a new backup with Carbon Copy Cloner, but it tell's me it can't be done because there are two volumes with same UUID.

OK, then, I fight with my Windows backup partition to have it a different UUID from the one I got for my "local" Windows partition... and I'm loosing the fight !

I have this when using diskutil info /dev/disk0s2 :

   Device Identifier:        disk0s2
   Device Node:              /dev/disk0s2
   Whole:                    No
   Part of Whole:            disk0
   Device / Media Name:      Windows_NTFS_Untitled_3

   Volume Name:              Win

   Mounted:                  Yes
   Mount Point:              /Volumes/Win

   File System Personality:  NTFS
   Type (Bundle):            ntfs
   Name (User Visible):      Windows NT File System (NTFS)

   Partition Type:           Microsoft Basic Data
   OS Can Be Installed:      No
   Media Type:               Generic
   Protocol:                 SATA
   SMART Status:             Verified
   Volume UUID:              24D65D1E-43E8-4FF0-BBBF-A82CC6B45D20
   Disk / Partition UUID:    D5C23E74-E658-45E1-B9B3-44681D0D02C2

   Total Size:               85.0 GB (84999667712 Bytes) (exactly 166014976 512-Byte-Units)
   Volume Free Space:        34.1 GB (34093342720 Bytes) (exactly 66588560 512-Byte-Units)
   Device Block Size:        512 Bytes
   Allocation Block Size:    4096 Bytes

   Read-Only Media:          No
   Read-Only Volume:         No

   Device Location:          Internal
   Removable Media:          No

   Solid State:              No

... and I have this using diskutil info /dev/disk1s4 :

   Device Identifier:        disk1s4
   Device Node:              /dev/disk1s4
   Whole:                    No
   Part of Whole:            disk1
   Device / Media Name:      WindowsB

   Volume Name:              Windows

   Mounted:                  Yes
   Mount Point:              /Volumes/Windows

   File System Personality:  NTFS
   Type (Bundle):            ntfs
   Name (User Visible):      Windows NT File System (NTFS)

   Partition Type:           Microsoft Basic Data
   OS Can Be Installed:      No
   Media Type:               Generic
   Protocol:                 USB
   SMART Status:             Not Supported
   Volume UUID:              24D65D1E-43E8-4FF0-BBBF-A82CC6B45D20
   Disk / Partition UUID:    C8E2A2D5-6065-4903-8BB6-AC02698323A6

   Total Size:               84.7 GB (84655734784 Bytes) (exactly 165343232 512-Byte-Units)
   Volume Free Space:        44.0 GB (44012474368 Bytes) (exactly 85961864 512-Byte-Units)
   Device Block Size:        512 Bytes
   Allocation Block Size:    4096 Bytes

   Read-Only Media:          No
   Read-Only Volume:         No

   Device Location:          External
   Removable Media:          No

As you can see, the "Disk / Partition UUID" is different, but not the "Volume UUID".

Does anybody have a solution to change the "Volume UUID"?

Usually NTFS volumes don't contain UUIDs. The visible UUID in diskutil is derived from the NTFS Volume Serial Number.

Get the disk identifier of your backup disk and the volume:

diskutil list

Unmount the external disk:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk1

Copy the NTFS superblock:

sudo dd if=/dev/disk1s4 of=~/Desktop/superblock bs=512 count=1

Change the mod bits:

sudo chmod 777 ~/Desktop/superblock

Create a backup of the superblock (just in case!):

cp ~/Desktop/superblock ~/Desktop/superblock.backup

Modify the file superblock with HexFiend:

The NTFS volume serial number is highlighted in violet (eight bytes beginning at offset 72 or 0x48). Modify at least one byte. After saving the file check the size which should still be 512 Bytes.

Write back the superblock:

sudo dd if=~/Desktop/superblock of=/dev/disk1s4 bs=512 count=1

Reboot your Mac and verify the new UUID of disk1s4.


Set a keyboard shortcut to clear all tracks from the Up Next queue in iTunes I am looking for a way to assign a keyboard shortcut to clear all the tracks from  Up Next queue of iTunes. Does anyone know a way to do this?

Using Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4

This following script will work on OSX < 10.7.

activate application "iTunes"
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "iTunes"
        click (first button of scroll area 1 of window "iTunes" whose description is "up next")
        delay 1
        click button "Clear" of UI element 1 of row 1 of table 1 of scroll area 1 of window 1
    end tell
end tell


How do I disable the Google Translation bar when using iPhone? Some websites offer the Google Translation Bar hard-coded into their pages so when I visit those this bar appears on top. Like in this example:

The problem with this bar however is, is that it's not scrollable. So when viewing the page on an iPhone, I can't get to the Options button of it at the far right. So I can't select Options to disable Google Translate for this website.

In Chrome you can go to Settings to turn Google Translate off for all websites. But in Safari for iPhone you can't do that. And I can't swipe the bar or something like that to get to all options. So how am I supposed to disable that translation bar when I can't get to it?

Using IOS, open google homepage. Tap on 3 buttons tab in upper right. Tap Settings, then tap Content Settings. Slide bar left to turn off function.


How do I wirelessly connect my iPad with iTunes? I want to connect my iPad wirelessly with iTunes. Can it be done?

If it can be done, please explain on how it can be done.

If you're looking for a way to stream music from iTunes to your iPad, you can use Home Sharing in the Music app:

If you're looking for a way to control iTunes from your iPad, you can use the Remote app, available from the App Store:

Finally, if you're looking for a way to wirelessly sync your iPad with iTunes, that is an announced feature of the next version of iOS, due out in the fall.


mac terminal displaying other name than host name I have recently been in terminal and somehow I lost my Mac name.  It's showing a strange IP followed by some numbers.  My computer's name is "my-xxx-macbook-pro."  When I type hostname I receive:

ip-10-xx-xx-xxx.us-west-2.compute.internal

I have been working in AWS a lot to try to develop some products.

How do I get back to my computer in terminal?

Somewhere, whether it be in a virtual network created in AWS or your company's own network, you are being assigned a hostname through a DHCP server (and possibly in conjunction with a RADIUS server).

Looking at the format of the assigned name, it's too specific (us-west-2.compute.internal), and the IP address and domain both point to internal networks.

You can manually set your hostname with the command:

sudo scutil --set HostName "YourHostName"

However, when you reboot, it will revert back to whatever has been assigned to you.  Your best bet is to check with your network manager.


How do I insert radio buttons in Numbers for iPad? I need to insert radio buttons on a Numbers spreadsheet. I tried importing an Excel document with form radio buttons, but it did not pull through. Advice would be appreciated.

You can instead radio buttons by double tapping the cell you wish to enter one and then under either the '42' or '=' option you can select true/false. When you check this it will add a radio button or tick box, you can choose which one under the 'i'

I have done this on my iPad so will edit later when I can upload a screen shot.


Why doesn't my MacBook recognize my USB keyboard when it wakes from sleep? I have 13-inch, early 2008 MacBook running OS X 10.7.3, and recently, the trackpad started developing some problems, so I attached an external keyboard and mouse.

It works great, except that when the computer wakes up from sleep, about 50% of the time the keyboard is unresponsive until I unplug and replug the USB connection. Any idea why this would be?

The keyboard and mouse are attached directly to the computer, not going through any USB hub.

I sometimes have this problem with my built-in keyboard (and trackpad).  It seems to be related to static electricity build-up (in me).  In dry environments prone to static generation (e.g., carpeted offices, fabric-covered chairs, etc.), I always try to ground myself on something (say, a filing cabinet or a metal wall) after I sit down but before I touch the mac.  If I forget and I zap the keyboard when I start to type, there's a very good chance that the keyboard and trackpad will be unresponsive. Based on my recovery action, I'm guessing that the macbook's internal USB controller has sensed the transient voltage spike as an over-current condition and has shut down (suspended) the offending devices on the associated port.

To recover the keyboard and trackpad, I either plug in an external keyboard (or vnc in via an ssh tunnel) and run the USB Prober app (part of the Developers tools, under /Developer/Applications/Utilities).  Inside Prober with the Bus Probe tab selected, I then check Probe suspended devices and hit the Refresh button; my built-in keyboard and trackpad immediately start working again. My assumption is that the probe causes the suspended devices to re-negotiate their bus membership --which, if I remember the USB protocol, means that they are essentially new devices and not subject to the previous suspension -- and lets things go back to normal.

This doesn't happen often enough for me to automate the recovery, but I'm guessing there are associated system events/messages that could be used to drive an applescript-controlled probe.


How do I increase size of Virtual Memory in Mac OS Catalina? I am running Mac OS Catalina 10.15.6 with APFS formatted disk on an unsupported MAC using dosdude1 guide. My experience from windows is I had to make careful calculations on pagefile.sys and run into limits on swap and memory. Since I’m new to Mac, I wish to avoid any mistakes and learn how to manage things properly.
This is the view of my disk

I have 4 Gigs of RAM on my system.
I want to increase the sizeof the Virtual Memory VM (which is 3.22 GB currently).
I have searched the internet in vain. Even a question in Ask Different has not been answered. My terms to solve this on windows aren’t helping me on Mac.
How do I achieve  my goals and choose which size I should allocate?

The short answer, is you do nothing. The system decides what memory gets swapped to disk and allocates space as needed. The system allocates virtual memory addresses up to ~18 exabytes so that it can then swap as needed.

Note: Unlike most UNIX-based operating systems, OS X does not use a preallocated disk partition for the backing store. Instead, it uses all of the available space on the machine’s boot partition.

You may just have to choose programs that use macOS better if your system is in memory pressure and you can’t wait for things to work. Virtual memory and swap guarantee that programs eventually run when you over load the actual resources available. There is no need to change any tuning or limits on iOS or macOS.
Even better, containers let you share space and not get jammed with pagefile.sys blocking space. I recommend exactly what you propose, APFS containers to share all possible space. Add an inexpensive external drive and let time machine back everything up so you are free to experiment without losing any games or data.


How can I ensure that my iPod Classic lasts as long as possible? Word on the street is that Apple is very close to discontinuing the iPod Classic for good. I bought a brand new 160GB iPod Classic in June 2010 (during the last iteration of this rumor). I am an iPhone and iPod Touch user, but for music, I don't think anything beats a simple, dedicated device. I want to keep my iPod Classic going for as long as I can.

So, how should I treat it? I will avoid bumps and drops, and protect the case as much as possible. Will it be happier long-term if it lives plugged in, or if I cycle the battery? What temperature should I try to keep it at? Are there any concerns I should have about stress on the headphone jack if I leave a set of headphones plugged in all the time?

Update almost three years later: it looks like Apple has finally pulled the plug on the iPod classic. Time to keep mine in a hermetically sealed box.

The battery is your primary concern - it is a consumable part. You may only get 300 to 500 complete charges before it will not take a useful charge. Additionally, as a Lithium Polymer battery with no adaptive charging, it fades every year once it's made. The lower the average temperature, the less it fades. Try to always keep it less than 75 degrees and time above 95 is exceptionally bad for long term health (think 20% loss of capacity in one year). Even if you store it perfectly, you can expect to lose 25% capacity within 3-4 years.

For long term storage, it's best to charge it to just above 50% and let it self discharge down to maybe 40 or 35% and then charge it back up to over 50. Having it always full isn't the best - but you also want to use it, so just assume you will pay for a battery sooner or later.

You have to decide - do you want a museum piece that is under perfect storage conditions (battery not too full and not too empty - both of which are bad)?

The extremes can damage a battery significantly - damaging the chemistry:

totally low voltage - drained past all the low limits (leaving it in a drawer when discharged)
excessive heat past 115 F is also very bad - even for a few hours

The rest of the failures are more about chance of random failure since you won't be dropping it or crushing it :-)

The hard drives in 4G and older iPods were designed for occasional use, so running them in disk mode or running a mac on an OS installed on the iPod was likely to cause them to fail after months or years of that use. You might avoid running an OS - but for normal syncs and play, the drive spins down most of the time and this shouldn't be a big concern. Physical shock when the hard drive is spinning would of course be bad.

I suppose the spring in the headphone jack would rather be out than in (some tiny amount of less stress) - but also less duty cycles is also good. I say, as long as you won't jam the plug / crush the internals - leaving it in all the time might be better than always putting it in/out/in/out.

You've got 5 years of swap service from Apple and you can always get a third party estimate if it ever dies, knowing that Apple will seal a new case in the factory. Any other repair (or DIY) can result in a bent/damaged or less than perfect case seal (As hard as it is to open them, the latest classics are even harder to close again properly than the old ones that you could use a nylon spudger or a flat razor blade to crack open.)

Good luck! I plan to get one of the last classics - once they go on sale as a discontinued product and treat it with kid gloves.


Burning Folder to DVD I've only been a mac user for a little while so I'm still getting used to OSX so bear with me ...

I find some things OSX does to be inexplicable frankly.  I'm a software engineer and very technical but some things I find myself presented with by this OS I just cannot rationalise.

I've connected my SuperDrive and I have a folder on my external G-Drive that I wanna put on the DVD, it's got 3.09Gb of data in there.  Should be simple enough, right?

Why then when I double tap on the folder I'm presented with this message?

"Are you sure you want to create an empty disc? ..."

If I sit here and wait without pressing anything another box then pops up over this offering to burn the folder with options for the burn speed ...

I mean ... What??  What on earth is it going to burn?  Am I going to end up with a coaster?

Articles online talk about creating a burn folder, why on earth would I want to create another folder just to put these files in in order to put them on a disk?

I know I'm still thinking in "Windows" speak but this is just ridiculous ...

I'm assuming a "G-Drive" is an external (USB or Firewire) hard disk, right? If it's some online solution (Google etc.) you'll probably need to copy the files to your local disk first (e.g. to your desktop). Downloading speed would never match your DVD burner speed anyway.

The normal procedure of burning files to CD or DVD is extremely simple. You create a "burn folder" much like you create a "project" in Windows burning software, only the paradigm is far simpler, you do not need to learn (or buy) another application just to burn files to disk, everything is in Finder. Burn folders are just normal folder except for that they

only contain aliases (links) to the files that are to be burnt (just like your "burn project" in Windows)
contain some extra attributes for the disk like burn speed, volume label and so on
are treated specially by OS X when it detects a burnable disk is inserted
automatically calculate the space required and warn if the files don't fit

Try not to think so much, it helps losing all the complicated workarounds you were used to in Windows ... :-)

Do this:

Open Finder, in its menu select File > New burn folder
Drag all items to be burned into this folder. Finder will create aliases, not copies. If you only have one folder to burn, drag its contents into the burn folder. Rename the burn folder how you want your disk to be named.
In Finder, open the burn folder. You'll see a button at the top labeled "Burn". Click.
Insert DVD, follow instructions.

Alternatively, you can also just insert the DVD and OS X will ask what to do with the empty disk: if you select "Open in Finder", it will automatically create a burn folder for you and show it in the sidebar. Drag items into it, select "burn" like above and follow instructions.

Here's a tutorial with screenshots (showing outdated OS X versions, but visually, not much changed since then): http://www.macforbeginners.com/page.php?id=187

If this procedure doesn't work as expected, maybe you can share some screenshots showing what exactly went wrong.