Windows jump around when resizing I have a Macbook Pro (Retina) with an external 4K display.  I'm running it with the lid closed, i.e., the external display is the only display.  OS X 10.9.5.

Normally, it works fine.  The past couple days, when I try to resize a window, the window jumps to a different part of the screen, sometimes.

For example, Mail's main window puts itself in the top-right corner.  I can move it back to the left side of the screen, but when I try to resize it, as soon as I start to drag the corner, the entire window jumps back to the top right corner of the screen.

Simply moving windows, though, still works correctly.

Short of rebooting (ugh), is there any way to reset OS X's internal concept of how windows should resize?

UPDATE: I unplugged the external display, and it's still happening with the built-in display.

For me, a temporary fix for this is restarting the Dock. Open Activity Monitor, search for "Dock" and force quit the process. Some users in a thread in the Apple discussion forum also suggested hiding and un-hiding the Dock (press  Cmd ⌘   Opt ⌥   D twice) might fix it, but I haven't tested that.


Does the iPhone 4 geo-tag photos without a data connection? In a few weeks, I will have the iPhone 4. I won't take data with SMS-call hours. But I love taking pictures wherever I go, and the geo-tagging feature is a great thing.

Does the iPhone 4 geo-tag pictures usefully even without data?

Yes; The Geo tags are written into the images via the native Location Services within the phone, primarily via the GPS chip the phone contains.

Since the information written is merely latitude/longitude, you do not need to have a data connection in order for that information to be determined and added.

The need for a data connection in tandem with photos is the ability to place them on a map, when using iPhoto for example.


How to turn off notifications for a specific event in the calendar? I have a recurring event in my work calendar that occurs every day.  I would like to continue to get notifications for the rest of my events, but disable the notifications for only this recurring one.

I found instructions on how to disable notifications on the calendar for a number of different situations but not this specific one.  Is there any way to turn off notifications for a single recurring event?

There are two places where you will need to disable this.

As @howdytom explained, set alert to None when editing your event. Calendar will ask you to save this change for all future events.

Calendar creates automatic alerts for your events. To change those, go to Calendar → Preferences → Alerts and disable automatic alerts by setting them to None. Once you do this, this will affect automatic alerts for ALL events, and you will need to set them on an event-by-event basis.


Xcode environment not dark in Mojave beta's dark mode I feel really stupid for asking this, but here goes:

Is there a button or setting somewhere to make Xcode use dark mode for its environment in the Mojave Beta?

Searching for this renders a lot of questions about dark mode in High Sierra, or how to make your programs adjust to dark mode, but what I want is for Xcode itself to use dark mode, which just doesn't happen on my 2015 MBP with Mojave Beta. I guess Xcode, being an Apple product and all, should detect that OS X is in Dark Mode and adjust accordingly?

For Dark Mode to work, I needed Xcode 10 beta. Thanks to user128998 for helping me out!


How can I use a TV as a second monitor wirelessly (without a cable)? I would like to use a TV or other screen as a second monitor, not as a mirror, but a fully separate monitor the way it would work with an HDMI cable.
I usually use an HDMI cable for this but I'd like to be unattached and move freely. I travel frequently and this would be very useful for me to not have to carry around a long cable with me everywhere. Something like the Chromecast would work, but it requires extra software as far as I know to be used as a full separate extended desktop.
I don't know if this is possible, and am happy to buy some kind of dongle if it exists.
The closest I know how to get to this currently is using the Chromecast dongle, which allows you to either cast a tab, application or your desktop (mirroring). Unfortunately it doesn't function as a fully separate desktop/monitor, so this isn't quite what I'm looking for.

I assume that you are using a MacBook. If so, you can do it with an an Apple TV box, but since it works over WiFi, you will need to connect the AppleTV to the WiFi network. Use an HDMI cable to connect it to the TV. Then use Airplay on the McBook to connect wirelessly to the AppleTV and select "Use as separate display".
It would be much cheaper and easier to just use an HDMI dongle on the MacBook (mini display port, USB or USB-C depending on the model MacBook) and an HDMI cable to the TV.


How do I install Xcode if I'm getting this message "Xcode can’t be installed on “Mac HD” because macOS version 10.14.4"? So I'm programming on a MacBook from mid-2010, and I have the most recent update (10.13.6) but when I try to install Xcode it says I need to update again, but it's not listed as an update in the AppStore.

Recent versions of Xcode require macOS 10.14.4 or higher to run. Since you have 10.13.6, you can't run that version of Xcode. With 10.13.6 the most recent version of Xcode you can use is Xcode 10.1.

Also, Macs made in 2010 cannot run macOS 10.14.4, which is why that version of macOS is not available to you as an update. Your Mac can't be updated past macOS 10.13.x.

You can do one of the following:

Stick with Xcode 10.1. You can download it from https://download.developer.apple.com/Developer_Tools/Xcode_10.1/Xcode_10.1.xip (you'll need to log in to your Apple developer account).
Upgrade to a newer Mac that will run macOS 10.14.4. You can find a list of the system requirements at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Mojave


Public folder not readable I want to exchange files between two users on the same mac.

To do so, user one copies the file into ~/Public folder. I double checked that the folder and all files are readable and writable by all users.

If I change to the second user, the folder is empty.

Any ideas what's missing?

BetaRide. There is a difference between shared and public folders.

The Shared folder is located in the Users folder on your hard disk, with your home folder and the home folders of any other people who have accounts on your Mac. You can use the Shared folder to share files with other users on your Mac. The Shared folder is set up so that all users on your Mac can open files in the folder and copy files to it.

To view the Shared folder, click the desktop to make sure you’re in the Finder, choose Go > Computer, open the icon for your internal disk (usually named Macintosh HD), then open the Users folder.

The Public folder is located in your home folder. You can use the Public folder to share files with other people on your network. To share information in your Public folder, you must turn on file sharing in the Sharing pane of System Preferences. Your Public folder is set up so that others can see and copy its contents, but not make changes.

Your Public folder also contains a Drop Box folder. Other people can copy files to your Drop Box, but they can’t see its contents.

To view the Public folder, click the desktop to make sure you’re in the Finder, then choose Go > Home.


Is an iTunes card country-specific? If I buy a iTunes card in Europe, Holland, could I (or anyone who has the key) use it in Australia?

iTunes Gift Cards will only work in the same country they were bought in.

  iTunes Gift Cards are not available in Luxembourg, Portugal, or Greece. Gift recipient must have or open an iTunes Store account in the same country as purchaser to redeem gift. The iTunes Store is available only to persons age 13 or older in the U.S. and many other countries; see http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww for a list of countries. Requires iTunes 6.0 or later (7.0 or later for video), compatible hardware and software, and Internet access (fees may apply). Terms apply. See http://www.apple.com/itunes/store for more information.

Of course, if you buy a card for yourself, you’re both the purchaser and the recipient. So only buy iTunes Gift Cards in countries where you have an iTunes Store account.


How to send a looped video to video feed? I am having some trouble with my webcam on my Mac running Catalina.
I want to send a looped video of myself to the webcam feed so I can still seem present in meetings. So, like, when Chrome asks the computer for the webcam, I want to be in control of what goes there.
An ideal solution would be something I could run with python, free software would also be okay. What is the best way to do this?

Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is a free and open source video suite that is capable of cutting from a live feed to a pre-recorded source video.
In additional to OBS, you will need obs-mac-virtualcam to map the output to a virtual camera:

Creates a virtual webcam device from the output of OBS. Especially useful for streaming smooth, composited video into Zoom, Hangouts, Jitsi etc. Like CatxFish/obs-virtualcam but for macOS.


"File" NOT "App"... can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer got an mp3 via email from a musician friend of mine today. when i try to open it (in any app... itunes, quicktime, vlc, etc), i get this message as if it's a new Application that i just downloaded from the internet.

i KNOW what to do if it's an app (keep my system prefs security settings & secondary-click on it & choose open that way) that i trust, but i've never experienced this happening before with "Files" that i trust.

is this normal & safe to open as if it was an app? or could something have happened to it & opening could be bad? or could it have been intercepted & actually be some sort of trojan or something?

I have two guesses:

It is an application masked as an mp3 file. Yes, you should not open it.
Mac OS X gives warnings "blabla downloaded from internet" for anything, not just apps downoaded from Internet. If you are sure the file is fine, play it back.

By the way, mp3 files must be able to play back by just quick previewing them (Space bar).


Gnu-info page exists, but is visible from neither emacs nor terminal After installing gnuplot on Lion using 'brew gnuplot', the gnuplot info page appears at /usr/local/Cellar/gnuplot/4.4.3/share/info/gnuplot.info

But in the info index page (M-x info) in emacs, I see no gnuplot entry.

How can one point the "info system" (for emacs especially) to the newly installed gnuplot info page? If I missed something during brewing that would have connected the gnuplot info to the master info page, please point it out. If there is a direct way of reading the gnuplot page (again, through emacs) without going through the master index, please also mention it.

Is the info file symlinked in /usr/local/share/info? If not, a simple

ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/gnuplot/4.4.3/share/info/gnuplot.info /usr/local/share/info/

should solve the problem.

If not, look at the value of Info-directory-list in Emacs (C-h v). If "/usr/local/share/info" isn't included there, you can add it with

(push "/usr/local/share/info" Info-directory-list)

in the *scratch* buffer (and in .emacs of course).


Mac OS X Yosemite connectivity issue Every so often my MacBook Pro starts getting very intermittent network connectivity. I have a Virgin Media SuperHub.

Pinging my router gives me lots of request timeouts:

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=2438 ttl=64 time=2.000 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=2439 ttl=64 time=33.810 ms
Request timeout for icmp_seq 67976
Request timeout for icmp_seq 67977
Request timeout for icmp_seq 67978
Request timeout for icmp_seq 67979
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=2444 ttl=64 time=1.568 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=2445 ttl=64 time=1.633 ms

Sometimes the timeouts last only a few pings sometimes many.

Through experimentation I've found that flushing the arp cache using

sudo arp -a -d

Immediately max ping start working but then after a bit the timeouts come back. I've confirmed this by doing:

sudo watch -n 1 arp -a -d

And the ping timeouts disappear and I can browse without any slowness as long as I leave that running.

Rebooting the computer also clears this problem for a while but it comes back.

I need a permanent fix for this.

Try this:

http://www.macstadium.com/blog/osx-10-9-mavericks-bugs/

Even if supposedly only applies to Maverick, I found a Macbook with Yosemite having the same problems and the fix seemed to work. Worth a try.


MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) Freezes/Lags when connected to TV via HDMI I've been trying to connect my TV to my Macbook via HDMI cable so I can use it as a second monitor. Every time I connected it, when I check 'Activity Monitor' a task called 'kernel_task' shoots up to like 500% CPU, the fan starts spinning really fast and the whole laptop lags/freezes. The bottom of the laptop feels like it could melt glass.

I've tried a few things like:

Different HDMI Cable
Unchecking 'Automatic Graphics Switching'
Resetting the NVRAM

None of these things have made a difference.

Details of my laptop are as follows:

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012)

Processor: 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory: 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB
Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

OS: Sierra 10.12.3

I have a much less powerful Windows laptop and it can be connected to the TV without any problems. I have also tried connecting when running Linux Distros and never experienced any issues. It appears to only be on this Macbook.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

One thing you haven't tried is resetting the System Management Controller (SMC). This is something I would definitely do, especially because of the fan speeds and high heat. However, even though you've already reset the NVRAM, I would do that first again and then reset the SMC. Below are the steps I recommend for doing both resets on your model of MBP.

Reset the NVRAM

Older Macs had what's called Parameter RAM (PRAM), newer Macs (such as yours)  use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). I would reset this again before resetting the SMC. Here’s how to:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Ensure you have nothing connected to your MBP (TV, external Keyboard, etc) - however you can keep the power cable plugged in.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

Reset the SMC

Shut down your Mac
Keep the MagSafe adapter (power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the built-in keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

After resetting both the NVRAM and SMC test to see if your MBP functions normally/better and let me know how you go.

Other factors to consider

Officially, your MBP is capable of an external resolution up to 2560 x 1600 pixels. So you will need to ensure that you're using the right settings to accommodate that.


How can I type quotation marks directly without hitting space in different app? Every time I want to use ", ', or ` I have to hit space to type a single character. In some apps, for example VS Code, this situation is worse where I cannot even type a single character. Here is a gif that shows what I mean:

https://i.imgur.com/GJE42BO.gif

So how can I disable this? I am using an external USB Keyboard with ANSI Layout. I am currently still on Mojave since I have to wait for updates on a few apps before switching to Catalina.

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources and get rid of the item called "US International PC".  Instead use US or ABC.

(US International PC is a special layout where those characters are deadkeys for typing accent marks used is various European languages).


‘unexpected error’ when opening Manage Family in iCloud When I click on Manage Family in the iCloud preference pane, I get an error saying

  There was an unexpected error
  Please try again later.

This error happens after restarting and I've updated my Mac to High Sierra version 10.13.6 in case I just needed to update my software or restart.

What can I do next so I can manage my family sharing account?

These "try again later" errors can be irritating since it's a failure of the fundamental handshake between your specific Mac and a cloud of sync servers that Apple operates. Sometimes it's just busy, sometimes your network isn't passing SSL/ encrypted traffic correctly, sometimes your account needs to be fixed on the server side.

You don't have to manage this from your Mac - you can go to https://www.icloud.com/#settings and it will show you the steps to manage it from iOS and from Mac so you can try your change and check on your status from iOS.

If you want to work this to a conclusion on the Mac, dpending on how technical you want to get, interacting with Apple Support is a quick way to narrow these things I'll mention below down. They'll go over a couple things to try and then escalate to engineering if needed.

If it were me, I'd try signing out and in from any device on the same network as the computer. This can remove a portion of your synced iCloud data and need to re-sync it up and down, so I don't do that without thinking about how I use iCloud and know I might wait a while for an iCloud photo library to sync.

If you only have the default 5 GB of storage space, I'd sign out from your Mac, then restart and then try signing back in. Support will really dig in when you can't get signed in in the first place as there's really only four things to fix there.

Your computer / network / time are off and need to be fixed
The network isn't set up correctly
Your account status is locked or needs a fix from Apple
You aren't following the steps to get logged in


Internet connection in windows after installing bootcamp After installing bootcamp on my MacBook, I installed Windows 7. Everything seems to work on the Windows side except for the internet. I have tried with an ethernet cable as well as wireless connection. The wireless connection works fine on the OS X side. Any ideas?

Have you installed the BootCamp drivers? You can download them using BootCamp assistant in Mac OS X. Installing them should fix up the network issue right up. All you need to do to is burn them to a CD and load it up in Windows.

Hope this Helps!


MacOS terminal switches computer name from “macbook-pro” to “huawei_p_smart”: should I worry? When opening a terminal, I noticed that the laptop's name displayed in front of the username changed from something like "myname's_MacBookPro" to "huawei_p_smart-XXX". Why did this change happen, and should I worry about this? I do not own a Huawei, nor did I change any of my laptop's settings myself. I'm running iTerm on MacOS Catalina v10.15.7.
Screenshot:

No. Your router tells your mac how to name itself and the Mac will take the name assigned to the router. Then you might decide to process those names or change terminal or decide to change your router setup.

OS X computer name not matching what shows on terminal

This is common that many DHCP servers don’t ask Mac what their name is or don’t record it uniformly. Apple OS provides many “names” for your Mac which complicates things as well. What happened is your Mac asked the router for an address and name and it assigned the old name from an old device that previously used the address your router assigned.
You would need to patch the router or log in to the router and follow the vendor guide to assign a Mac name to your MAC address for the name to be one that makes sense, I believe.


How do I take a screenshot on the iPad? How do I create an image, containing a copy of the current screen display, on the iPad?

Press both the sleep/wake and the home button simultaneously, and release quickly. The screenshot will be taken (in any app) and saved as an image, available within the Photos app.


How to remove boring message from itunes I try to remove from itunes this boring message window that appears periodically :

I have never had this message before and I don't know how to desactive it.
I have unchecked the following options into "itunes > preferences" :

Any help is welcome

My French is bit rusty, but if i understand it right, that message is from

  iTunes Store

, telling you the session has ended.

To stop that message do following.

In iTunes menu bar got to Account, then Sign out.


Pause notications in OSX whilst in a meeting I use the in built reminders application in OSX 10.10.5 which pops up notifications to my screen, this is also true for mail and iMessages.

This is great most of the time, but when giving a one to one presentation on my laptop or mirroring my screen to an external display via an mini display port to HDMI cable or via an apple TV, this has the danger of flashing up personal information to the screen.

Is there a "meeting mode" i can enable to temporarily pause notifications popping up to the screen. I still want to reminders, iMessages, mail etc to give me notifications but would like to be able to toggle / pause them without having to go through system prefs.

When you click on the notification icon in the top bar, you can select "Do not disturb" there by clicking the icon and scrolling up, the setting is hidden above the first notification. You'll see that the icon is greyed out to show the change in state.

As a shortcut you can click on the notification icon in the top bar whilst keeping ⌥ ALT pressed to go into "Do not disturb mode".

Notifications won't show up now!


Command "istats" gives "-bash: istats: command not found" after "gem install iStats" I wanted to use iStats in command line/terminal mode, so I did the following:

I installed iStats with the command gem install iStats as per this answer to an AskDifferent question;
However, when I issue the command istats I get a -bash: istats: command not found;
Issuing the command gem list shows me that iStats is installed (*** LOCAL GEMS *** and in second position it reads iStats (1.6.1);
I checked and the app resides in /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/gems/;
Issuing a gem environment command shows the following - INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0;
I uninstalled the Gem by issuing gem uninstall iStats;
Then issuing gem list shows that the app was indeed removed;
Then I issued gem install iStats that gave the following output:

Fetching iStats-1.6.1.gem
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed iStats-1.6.1
Parsing documentation for iStats-1.6.1
Installing ri documentation for iStats-1.6.1
Done installing documentation for iStats after 0 seconds
1 gem installed

Issuing istats command gives again -bash: istats: command not found.

Any ideas?

System used (just in case):

macOS Mojave Version 10.14.5
Ruby version: ruby 2.6.3p62 (2019-04-16 revision 67580) [x86_64-darwin18]
MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2018, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
Processor: 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3
Graphics: Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 1536 MB

Thanks to historystamp's comment here is how the problem was solved (for bash shell):

Open/Launch Terminal
gem uninstall iStats (source)
gem install iStats --user-install (source)
export PATH="~/.gem/ruby/2.6.0/bin:$PATH" (source)
source ~/.bash_profile (source)
istats

If you use macOS Catalina, the default shell is zsh. The adapted instructions are the following:

Open/Launch Terminal
gem uninstall iStats (source)
gem install iStats --user-install (source)
Open or create ~/.zshrc
At the end of the file (or where appropriate) insert: export PATH=~/.gem/ruby/2.6.0/bin:$PATH (source)
Save file ~/.zshrc
Source the .zshrc file: . ~/.zshrc (source)
istats


iterm2 first tab transparency differs from default I set up iTerm2 colours/backgrounds, however the first tab is always "lighter" (i.e. more transparent) than all the other tabs. When I set transparency in the profiles, I can see every tab except the first one adjusting. Is it some bug or some setting I'm missing?

In my case this was due to HotKey windows was created after pressing hotkey, but after CMD+T new tab was created with Default profile. So you can either set HotKey as default or rework your shortcuts. You can experience with this by clicking right mouse button -> New Window/New Tab and then Default /HotKey Window profile. After you will define what you would expect here it should be easier to configure


magic mouse vs other mouse for graphic design I've saw some review that the apple magic mouse isn't recommended by designers.

How do you find the magic mouse in your daily graphic design work? Would you recommend it? If not what are some good alternatives you would recommend? I'm looking for a bluetooth mouse so I wouldn't keep plugging on my usb port. And since I'm using it on my MBP 15, I only have 2 USB ports. So I need to use those ports wisely.

Thanks!

I find the wireless trackpad (Magic Trackpad) to be a much better alternative. Its more responsive and truly supports the multi-touch gestures.


How to Install latest mac os catalina, to the older laptop How to Install latest mac os catalina

Mac Model : MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010), Processor 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7, Memory 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3, Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 512 MB Intel HD Graphics 288 MB

I know i cannot install it becoz my mac doesn't support it, but are there any other way to install it

Download the latest version of the Catalina patch here. Open the Catalina Patcher app.
Click Continue.
Choose Download a Copy.
The download (of Catalina) will start - since it's almost 8GB it is likely to take a while.
Plug in a flash drive.
Choose 'Create a bootable installer' from the options.
Plug the bootable installer into the Mac you wish to update.
Restart the Mac while holding the Option/Alt key. This will cause the Mac open in Startup Manager.
Choose the bootable installer drive and Enter.
Now your Mac should open in Recovery.
Choose Reinstall macOS and wait for the new version of macOS to install.
After the installation has completed, you should restart the Mac in Recovery mode again, choosing the drive that contains the bootable installer.
Now choose macOS Post Install and the required patches will be installed on your Mac so that Catalina can work.
When the patches have been applied to choose Force Cache Rebuild.
Restart.

I also suggest you go through this video.


Macbook Pro Late 2011 13" Display Issue I'm having a weird issue with the built-in display on a Macbook Pro Late 2011 13".

As the lid is opened, the display usually activates normally at its threshold for turning on. Everything works fine. But if the lid is then opened all the way, the display dies.

If the lid is closed and opened again just until the display starts, then VERY slowly opened (like, a couple mm per minute) I can sometimes get the lid almost completely open while keeping the display alive. If it stays on, the display keeps running with no problems.

Does anyone have an idea where to start with an issue like this? Thanks for any help!

It sounds like there is some problem with the connecting wires for the display. If you're okay how things are, then you can just leave things be. A repair would probably cost several hundred dollars.

I have the same model Mac and also have display issues. When it was almost one year old, I noticed that the display would often go wonky (not turn off but look all weird like a light show), often if I were to open it all the way, if I recall. (So some problem with the internal wiring, probably different wires than yours though.) This was mainly a problem when I took it to class and was more prone to open the display all the way. So I quickly bought an extended warranty as someone from Apple predicted that my display issue would get worse and require a repair. But the issue never got worse, and I was always fine the way it was. I've been using this laptop for almost five years (still snappy!), and only very rarely do I experience this problem again, and the problem goes away by closing the lid and opening it more normally.


How do I buy a MacBook Pro with a Russian keyboard in United States I am looking for a MacBook Pro MJLQ2RU, but there is no such model on store.apple.com. It's the same as MJLQ2LL but with a Russian/English backlit keyboard. I chatted with support, but they don't know such model.

Are there any stores that sell Russian MacBooks in United States?

The only way you can find out if some retail store might be able to get one of these for you is to contact them directly yourself.  I would try a store in a big city with a significant Russian community.  I have not heard of anyone finding it in the US, but you never know until you ask.

The online Apple store in the UK has them, if you are planning a trip there.


headset doesn't works on my iphone My headset doesn't work on my iPhone (4)
But it works on another iPhone.

Sometimes when I turned off my iPhone & unplug the headset it works but now.

How can I fix that?

I had the same issue. I used a broken paper clip to clean out junk that was stuck in the headphone jack.


Can I safely change my account's username? My Mac username is set to 'John', and I hate looking at the capital 'J' and would like to set it to 'john'. I see the advanced option in the Users & Groups settings, but I want to make sure that it won't break my setup? Do I need to rename my /Users/ folder? Would it break any programs depending on my home path?

Only if you are on a case sensitive filesystem (which OS X supports, but doesn't enable by default) and the program was coded poorly, would it capture the exact path to your home directory. The vast majority of programs use the proper manner to find files relative to your starting home folder and are immune to even more drastic name changes.

I say, back up your files and have a stab at changing the short name to your liking.


Is my iMac running Mavericks? I am looking for Mavericks on my iMac. I have looked in Finder but I do not see it there. How can I find out if Mavericks was installed on my iMac?

Go the to the Apple menu (top left) => About this mac.

The existing versions are following :

OS X 10.10 Yosemite
OS X 10.9 Mavericks
OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
OS X 10.7 Lion


Recover MS Word disappeared files Using MacOS High Sierra while had 6-7 unsaved word(V-16.23) document where I was working on. coz of my processor fan speed, I tried to check the 'Activity Monitor'. and found WindowServer is using almost 1gb so killed that process.
Then I realized all was for my unsaved word documents....I'm literally crying after losing all my data, Can someone please help me out?

You can hope that you had auto-save enabled in Word. If that is the case, you should be able to start Word again, and it will ask you if you want to recover those documents. You can also check the auto recovery folder manually for files:

/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery/

If you have Time Machine enabled, try starting it up and seeing if you have got versions saved of the documents there. Even when you haven't got the external backup drive connected, Time Machine will still save backups locally. However, it can ofcourse only do so if your documents were actually saved to files before Word were closed.

In regards to your actions: The usage of RAM (for example 1 GB) has absolutely nothing to do with processor fan speed. The WindowServer manages all application windows on screen, including for example Word and any other application. Killing it essentially kills all graphical programs, and you're logged out and will have to login again and start over.


MacBook Pro locked with Find My Mac and won't let me boot I was playing around with the Find My Mac iPhone app (just testing it out) and hit the "lock" option. My MacBook Pro is now locked and I have no place to enter the 4 digit PIN.

When I start it, it shows the Apple logo with a loading circle and it shuts down. If I start whilst holding alt it asks for the PIN, which I enter, then it shows three partitions: Macintosh HD, Recovery & Windows. If I select Windows it works perfectly, but the two others show the problem with the Apple logo and loading circle before it shuts down.

Boot into internet recovery. Hold down option + command + R at the chime.

Use Disk Utility to repair the volume and then reboot your machine normally. You should be able to unlock it now.


What's an SSD and does it help speed up a Mac? I see where someone recommended an SSD to help speed up a Mac mini but I do not know what an SSD is.

What's an SSD and what does it do?

SSD short for Solid State Drive is a recent evolution in hard drive technology. SSD's have many advantages over a conventional platter-based hard disk:

Improved read and write speeds: A typical SSD is multiple factors of times faster than a magnetic hard disk. This results in a much higher read and write speeds leading to faster overall user experience.
Much lesser chances of failure: There are close to no moving parts in SSD. SSDs is basically just an integrated circuit. This greatly reduces any chance of failure due to movement while in operation (common in traditional hard drive).
Unaffected by magnetic field interferences: SSDs are generally not susceptible to failure (compared to traditional platter-based drives) due to exposure to magnetic fields as there are no magnetic parts present. The core technology doesn't use magnetic state to store data.
Silent operation: SSDs are also dead silent while in operation.
Consume less power: Due to the absence of moving parts, SSDs consume much less power. Helpful when you are using a portable computer on battery power.

Since a hard drive's read/write speed is generally a major bottleneck in the overall performance of a computer system, it is recommended to upgrade to an SSD (if your computer supports it) to improve performance.

Mac minis were conventionally shipped without an SSD, so many recommend to replace the internal drive with a compatible SSD to see improved performance, especially when using data-intensive applications. Faster read-write also speeds up paging performance, thereby improving system responsiveness.

The current generation of Mac mini can be configured with an SSD while placing an order.


How to locate 32 bit apps in iOS 13 I know that 32-bit applications do not run on iOS since iOS 11. Prior to iOS 13, attempting to start a 32-bit application resulted in an

  “This app” Needs To Be Updated

alert. Now the screen becomes black for some seconds, and then the lock screen (where you have to enter your code or Touch ID) appears.

So I thought this might be a good time to remove all remaining 32-bit apps from my device. But how to find them all? Prior to iOS 13, “Settings > General > About > Applications” listed all incompatible apps. That list does not exist anymore.

Is there an alternative method to list all 32-bit applications, so that I can delete them?

Here is a possible solution. It is not as convenient as the “Settings > General > About > Applications” list (which does not exist anymore), but allows to determine all 32-bit (or otherwise incompatible) apps without launching all installed apps and check if they crash:

Open the “App Store” app and tap on the user profile icon:

Select “Purchased”:

Scroll through the app list. The incompatible ones have a grayed-out “Open” button:


How can I get the dev name associated to a Volume name? I am creating a bash script to unmount my usb drive after the backup is done.
To unmount the drive I use the command:

diskutil unmount disk4s1

But sometimes when I plug my usb drive it gets a different dev name, as disk3s1, or disk2s1.
I need add a line in my script before unmount the disk, to get the dev name associated to my volume name.

What command could I use to get the dev name given its volume name?

mount | grep /Volumes/foo | cut -d ' ' -f1

or

mount | awk '/Volumes\/foo/ { print $1 }'


How do I find out which folder an app is in in iOS 11? In older versions of iOS, if I searched for an app with Spotlight, it would tell me which folder the app was in. (E.g., this feature still works on my iPad, which is running iOS 9, but not on my iPod Touch, which is running iOS 11.)

This feature seems to have been removed at some point. When I search for an app under iOS 11 using Spotlight, it will find the app and let me run it, but it doesn't tell me which folder it is in.

How can I find out which folder an app is in now?

It works if you tap on it in the list of hits.  E.g if I search for "Pages", tap on my top hit in the highlighted list of hits, it shows me the app, Pages and to the right is the folder name "Office" (in my case).  Or "Stocks", tap the top hit, and I see the Stocks App, and it is in the indicated folder "Little Used".

Source: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8102281

Also confirmed on my own iPhone 7 Plus ios 11.3.1


My number is associated with iMessage on other phone, how to remove it? Good day everyone. For only 1 hour (!) I used my relatives iPhone with my sim card and that's it, he keeps receiving all of my iMessages. I tried checking in iTunes all devices associated with my account and his device is not listed. I tried to log in and log out to/from iMessage on his phone with his apple ID, still won't help. How can I stop this nightmare!?
When I go to iMessage settings>Send & Receive on his device, there is only my phone number listed, how do I remove it without smashing phone to the wall?!
Thanks and have a great day

EDIT. After talking to apple support for some time, they removed my phone number from my friend's iMessage. So I guess if you are facing same problem you have to contact support.

Following the instructions on Apple's Deregister iMessage should help you resolve this issue.


Is it possible to upgrade Mail without upgrading the whole operating system? I have Apple Mail version 9.2, but I would like to have the version 10.3. However, I don't want to download the 10.12 mac OS (Sierra) if I don't have too. I currently have mac OS 10.11.3 (El Capitan).

There is a discussion here involving a much older OS (tiger) in 2010:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2502383?tstart=0

I can't find many other resources discussing upgrading mail.

Sorry but my guess would be that this is very unlikely if not impossible.

Mail isn't a single self-contained piece of code like a third-party application. Big chunks of the functionality that make up Mail as stored in frameworks that reside in places like /System/Library/Frameworks for example Message.framework.

So as well as the binary that sits in the /Applications folder you'd also need to upgrade any relevant frameworks from the /System/Library/Frameworks folder, and you wouldn't be able to just swap them out because that would break other functionality in the operating system that expected the native El Capitan versions.

There is likely a way to do it, but it's such a ridiculously complex task I wouldn't recommend pursuing it.

Sorry.


Where is Remote Desktop Connection for Mac in Office 2011? I've just installed Office for Mac 2001 (v14.3.3), on this page (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/remote-desktop-client) it says "Remote Desktop Connection for Mac 2 is included with every edition of Office for Mac 2011." but I can't find it anywhere.

Well in my case it is right here

In your case it might be waiting for you in the "Downloads folder" to be installed.
If not get it from MS here http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=1350


Disable Command-Control-Q shortcut I've a MacBook w/ the following specs:

Very annoyingly, CommandControlQ locks the screen. I can't even remap it to anything else; trying to do so in Keyboard locks the screen instead of registering the key combination.

Is there a way to get rid of this shortcut?

It's a system-reserved key combination so you won't be able to remap it.


How to backup iPhone without first deleting all data? So I bought a new iPhone 5 64GB and I enabled iCloud backup. For a while now it has not been able to backup my iPhone, since the 5GB of iCloud storage quickly ran out. I didn't feel like upgrading my storage plan, since there's anyway no storage plan that is able to backup 64GB. So I decided to store the backups on my computer.

I connect my iPhone to my Mac and iTunes 11 opens up. Nothing is where it used to be and when I finally find my iPhone in the top right corner I'm presented with two options:

Set up as new iPhone
Restore from the backup of ...

(My itunes is in Swedish, so this is what I think it would say in English.)

So whatever I choose I lose all my data, which is really stupid, since the point of doing backups is to not lose data.

Is there any way to backup my iPhone without first deleting all data?

Note:
This question seems similar, but it's for iTunes 10:
How to set up new iPhone without deleting its data?

Don't worry, you don't loose all your data. You can choose "Set up as new iPhone".

  Nothing gets synced or deleted after clicking this option.

After that, you can backup your iPhone.

Choose "encrypted backup" to also backup your settings and passwords.


Apple ID. Problem with iCloud I took a video on my iPhone 3GS, and I don't want anyone seeing it because it's personal to me. Now I'm worried because of iCloud. I sold my friend my 2-3rd gen iPod about a year ago, and in worried he might be able to see this video through iCloud.

When I sold it to him, I gave him my Apple ID to share. I have changed it several times but I'm worried he might still be able see this video even though I gave changed pass.

If you have changed your password since you gave your friend your Apple ID, then he/she will be unable to access iCloud, or any other service that uses your ID. (Unless they are a great hacker, but that is unlikely)

Unless you give them the new password, they will have lost access to your apple account completely.

From this, I am fairly sure your video is safe.


Is there an iTunes Visualizer that displays the full song's waveform? Is it possible for iTunes Visualizers to access the entirety of song data in order to display a full, un-animated waveform of the currently playing song? Perhaps the extent of the visualization would be a progress bar that sweeps over the song as it plays.

Assuming this is even possible, does something like this already exist?

I don't think it exists, since Quartz provides limited input for the iTunes track, and mostly real-time.
Quartz is the graphic layer of Mac OS X. Quartz Composer is a tool used to easily create animations, transitions, filters, visualizers, etc that work with this technology. As far as I know it is the only way of making an iTunes visualizer.
When you attempt to create a new visualizer in the latest version, you get a pretty straight-forward of the input you'll get from iTunes:

Here´s a closer look:

There is no file input of any kind. Not even the filename/path, and even if there were Quartz are graphic libraries, thus it's ability for processing data, including sound waveforms is limited. All this input is received in real time, sent by iTunes: Quartz can only receive the numbers/text it is being given in real time, but not actually call any read operations on the sound file, and decode it to a sound wave.
I'll have to say, at least with Quartz Composer, no, it is not quite achievable. I don't think you can create iTunes visualizers in any other way, and I haven't seen a visualizer with such functionality.
Hope it helps!
Kevin


App Store can't verify purchased applications This morning, when launching an application I purchased from the App store some time ago, I was greeted with a sign-in box telling me that Apple needed to verify the application.  I signed in using my iTunes password (which I've since double checked, and I know I entered accurately), and was greeted with the following message in reply:

Your device or computer could not be verified. Contact support for assistance.

Some poking about online shows one thread from a couple years ago where someone says he called Apple and they told him to delete "the plist", but that's all the information given.  Deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AppStore.plist did nothing to change the issue, however.

A couple of these applications are required for work.  Any ideas on what the issue is or how to fix it?

Short of calling Apple Support (or web chat or twitter @AppleSupport) you could check a few things:

date and time are correct and set automatically
sign out and in to the App store with your Apple ID
delete the app in Launchpad and download it again (make a backup in case the app has been pulled from the store)
make a new user account - delete the app and re-install it from the new user
restart the OS


How can I find what swcdn is trying to download? I have two mac computers. One of them is constantly downloading from swcdn.apple.com, the other does not. My guess is that swcdn stands for SoftWare Content Delivery Network. I have a limited internet connection and swcdn.apple.com is often consuming my connection preventing other work. Using Little Snitch, I can see nsurlsessiond is making connections to mesu.apple.com and swcdn.apple.com. I have disabled automatic software updates.
How can I find what my computer is downloading or streaming from swcdn.apple.com?

Apple documentation describes these hosts as follows:
Network access to the following hostnames are required for installing, restoring, and updating macOS, iOS, and tvOS:

Hosts
Ports
Protocol
OS
Description

mesu.apple.com
443, 80
TCP
iOS, tvOS and macOS
Hosts software update catalog

swcdn.apple.com
80
TCP
macOS only
macOS updates

So this should be about updating OS. If you unselected "Automatically keep my Mac up to date" you should also click on "Advanced" and check what is selected. On my machine, when I unselected automatic updates then under Advanced there were still following options selected: "Check for updates", "Download new updates when available" and "Install system data files and security updates".


How do I get system_profiler output from a lot of machines in a network? I need to have a script that will execute "system_profiler -detailLevel full" command in a remote mac machine. While this is going on, the user on the remote machine should not know that there is something happening.

I tried the following applescript:

tell application "Terminal" of machine "eppc://<ip address of remote machine>"
    activate
    do script "system_profiler -detailLevel full >> /$HOSTNAME.txt"
end tell

This activates the terminal app on the desktop and hence a bad idea, as user working on that remote machine is interrupted. I want this to happen in the background.

I want a shell script (not an applescript) that will take the name of hostnames from a text file stored on the same location where the shell script is. It will then go to each host from that list of hostnames, execute the system_profiler command and copy the text file having the output of the command ($HOSTNAME.txt file) back to the machine from where the shell script was executed.

The file copying should be done without ssh,scp etc.

For reading a text file of hostnames into an AppleScript list, see Read textfile into list in Applescript.

For looping over hostnames within your AppleScript list see An AppleScript list iterate/loop example:

set myList to {"Hello", "Goodbye", "I must be going"}
repeat with theItem in myList
  say theItem
end repeat

do shell script

To avoid launching Terminal.app, use the do shell script command:

tell machine "eppc://<ip address of remote machine>"
    do shell script "system_profiler -detailLevel full > /tmp/sysprofile.txt"
end tell

This can be run without launching a supporting graphical application.

I am assuming you can not access the remote host via secure shell, only via Remote AppleEvent access eppc.

Returning the File

Read the contents of the file within your AppleScript's tell machine block and save it locally outside of the tell machine block.

Alternatively, have you considered transferring back the system profile file via ssh or scp? Consider having your AppleScript to connect to your Mac and copy back the collected system profile.


Trying to click a button in safari I'm trying to click a button in a webpage with AppleScript, but it only seem to work 1/10 times. I copied this code,

to clickID(theId) --creates a function that we can use over and over again instead of writing this code over and over again

tell application "Safari" -- lets AppleScript know what program to controll

    do JavaScript "document.getElementById('" & theId & "').click();" in document 1
    do JavaScript "document.getElementById('" & theId & "').onclick();" in document 1
    do JavaScript "document.getElementById('" & theId & "').submit();" in document 1 -- performs JavaScript code that clicks on the element of a specific id

    end tell -- tells Applescript you are done talking to Safari

end clickID -- lets AppleScript know we are done with the function

I added in the .onClick() and .submit() lines because I saw them in some other code snippets and figured it might help for backup. But it didn't affect it at all. Is it a weird button or am I doing something wrong?

Thank you!

I would recommend trying Keyboard Maestro.

It has a built-in feature to "Click Safari Link" or "Click Google Chrome Link" and also has a feature to click buttons too.

If you can link to an example page, I can give more specific advice.


Can one's iMessage/FaceTime identities be hijacked at a public Wi-Fi? I'm logged in on "Joe's MacBook Pro" at a public Wi-Fi.
I get an alert window (apparently from no program in particular). It says:

Your Apple ID is now being used for iMessage and FaceTime on a new Mac.
If you recently signed into “Joe's MacBook Pro” you can ignore this notification.

What does this mean? I use several development tools (Emacs, …) but neither iMessage nor FaceTime.
I never use the same password twice as suggested as an answer to FaceTime hijacked, nor do I otherwise have a reason to believe my Apple (macOS or iCloud) account is compromised.
Is this a security risk? The message does not indicate what to do if I had not "recently signed into".
Please provide some back-up or reference for your answer, so as not to trigger extra caution when none is needed. The point is to understand what's happening, not to be prudent just to be on the safe side.

Yes, this may be a security risk. But it's unlikely that someone hijacked your Mac using Wi-Fi alone.

In order for you to receive this message someone needs to login with your Apple ID credentials with a device that supports FaceTime (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, any Mac).

Change your Apple ID password

Go to Manage Apple ID
Log in with your Apple ID
Go to Security > "Change Password..."
Change your password
Also turn on two-factor authentication if it isn't already

Check your Devices

Go to Manage Apple ID
Log in with your Apple ID
Scroll down to My Devices
Click any device that looks unfamiliar to you
In the new window click the blue circle with an x to remove it.

You may need to sign in with your new Apple ID password on your other devices in order to use all iCloud services again.


MacBook without battery kernel_task 100% CPU utilization After removing the battery from a MacBook late 2009 following a battery fault, the computer always runs kernel_task at 100% CPU utilization. I assume the process ends up in some kind of spin lock when looking for the battery and failing to do so. Is there a work around to prevent this issue? While waiting for a new battery, I would like to use the computer in a useful way on connected power.

The procedure mentioned here, involving the removal of one specific system file, will probably disable the sensor check and prevent the kernel task from gobbling up your CPU, while waiting for your battery: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/146381/226332


OS X - How to disable the opening file animation? Does anyone know of a way to disable this animation:

I recall being able to in previous iterations of OS X.

You can disable all animation in Finder with:

defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool true && killall -HUP Finder

I don't recall a preference just for this animation though.


Can iOS 7 app get rejected due to custom popup? I've submitted my first app to Apple and waiting for approval.

I've created a custom popup and used it within my app. The popup looks similar to alert view. Below is the screenshot. Are there any chances of app being rejected because of this?

I've seen various apps with their own system. I don't think they will decline or deny you app for having it customized as there are many different kinds of views around.

It's not your pop-up is doing something it shouldn't as just displaying info, with an option to click something, right?


Can Airport Time Capsule encrypted backups be hacked open from internet? Can Airport Time Capsule encrypted backups be hacked open from internet ?

How secure are the encrypted Airport Time Capsule backups exactly ?
Any official docs anyone knows of ?

Thanks !

Well first of all everything can be hacked. However you can make it as hard as possible. Use a strong password! Not abc123, password, your name, date of birth (easy to guess or find out on Facebook stuff) etc.

Time Machine uses the same encryption as FileVault 2, Kerberos, Keychain Services, Software Update Services etc. Encryption used is XTS-AES-128 encryption with a 256-bit key.

You can find more info on this page Product security certifications, validations, and guidance for macOS


How do I combine two or more images to get a single pdf file? Say I have some image files (for instance, the result of scanning some sheets) and I want to combine them into a single pdf file, each image on a different page.
Is there a faster / more convenient way than converting each one to a pdf file and then combining those (say, as explained here)? Or, if this is more or less how it is to be done, which is the most intelligent and less tedious possible way to do it?

Here are the steps to save multiple images in Preview into a single multi-page PDF.

Select all of the images you want in your PDF, right-click and choose open with Preview
In Preview's Sidebar drag the images into the order you want them to appear in your PDF
Select/highlight all the images to be included in the PDF document; otherwise only a single image may end up the PDF document
Then from the "File" menu choose "Print Selected Images" (or "Print..." in recent OS X versions) and then "PDF > Save as PDF"


Running Leopard on a MacBook Pro that shipped with Snow Leopard I have a MacBook Pro with 10.6 pre-installed. Is there a way to use this machine to test my software on 10.5?

Do I need 10.5, or is there is a mode within 10.6 with which I can run 10.5?
If I need 10.5, how can I get it?

Do I need to buy the 10.5 OS? (if so, where does one do that?)
Does 10.6 somehow include 10.5 with it?
Do I already have a license for 10.5 by buying 10.6?

How do I install 10.5 once I have it?

Will it work in Virtualbox?
Do I need to dual boot?

No, this will not work. You can have multiple versions of OS X on one machine, but you can only install newer versions than the one that came pre-installed. For example, if your machine came with 10.6.4, you can't run 10.6.3 or older.

When Apple releases new hardware, the drivers for that hardware get rolled into a special build of OS X that comes only on that model. They don't get added to OS X in general until the next point release. (That means that drivers for the hypothetical machine I'm talking about wouldn't be added until 10.6.5.)

Apple doesn't release drivers as standalone software, which effectively makes it impossible to install and older version of OS X than what your Mac shipped with. You'll find that if you put the install disc for an older version in the drive, it either won't boot or it will refuse to install.

However, you can go the other direction. If you have an old Mac running 10.5, you can use Disk Utility to make another partition (HFS+ Journaled), then boot the install DVD for 10.6 and install it to that partition. To switch between the two after installing, hold alt when you boot up. (You can also select the default boot partition through the Startup Drive pane in System Preferences within either OS X install.) Boot camp is not required for this. Boot camp is only required for installing non-Apple operating systems like Windows and Linux.


How can I use a lower sample rate for songs on an older iPhone, in order to fit more songs? I have a first-generation iPhone that I use for playing music at work (connected to Bose Wave Radio). It only has 8GB of flash memory.

Is it possible to have iTunes transfer music to this iPhone at a lower sample rate than the default? I know that there will be some quality loss, but I would like to fit more music on it.

I would rather not resample my whole library because I want to sync full-quality music onto my iPhone 4.

There's an option to downrate the sample rate within iTunes when you sync to iDevices, however this has it's issues and advantages:

songs are reencoded on the fly during sync
the original sync will take a long time (in order of hours)
only songs needed to be synced will be re-encoded so choose your music carefully

This option is only available when your iDevice is connected.  Select your device from the iTunes left hand side bar, then choose the Summary section from the main window.

The option is labelled (in the English locale) as "Convert higher bit rate songs to..." as in the image below.

In current versions of iTunes, the Capacity bar at the bottom will resize to show your savings if you choose to sync.


Is it possible to restart an application using AppleScript? I want to restart Safari and reopen it with some tabs that I specify.

An alternative method is to use Safari's built-in "Reopen All Windows from Last Session" feature:

tell application "Safari"
    quit
end tell

delay 2 -- Wait for Safari to close

tell application "Safari" to activate
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Safari"
        click menu item "Reopen All Windows From Last Session" of menu "History" of menu bar 1
    end tell
end tell


Setting Global Volume / Track Keyboard Shortcut with Non-Apple Keyboard Where is the option to set the global keyboard shortcuts for volume controls.  I have a non-apple keyboard and by default none of the F keys work as media controls.

You can use BetterTouchTool to set Your custom keyboard shortcuts and many more. It's free! Here's an example:


What phonetic language an dictionary is supported by Siri on iOS? I want to convince Siri to properly pronounce and recognise some of my contacts.

I know that I need to tweak the 3 fields: Phonetic First Name, Phonetic Last Name and Nickname for that.

Still, I am missing some very important information:

What phonetic language does it use as it does not seem to be IPA
Where can I find the list of possible sounds and their letters


Mac mail slow due to 65gb of email? Ive got 8 email accounts which i manage in mac mail.

The largest one of these accounts is 30GB and the others are each c. 5GB. So 65GB in total. Most of these are google apps for business accounts, and one is a private imap system.

I feel that the size of the email accounts is making the mac mail programme slow.

Is there anything i can do to make mac mail run better with these large files.

I have seen some other email clients that have a feature where you can only sync the last X years of emails to the desktop client whilst keeping the rest of the older emails on the email server, dose mac mail have something similar ?

Mac Mail saves the emails on the hard drive. I would try to find A mail app that doesnt save the mail to the hard drive but just sees the mail from the cloud email server.

If you use Gmail as a mail client for those emails then I recommend Mailplane. Others like Spark, CanaryMail, Mailspring and Polymail are all good alternatives along with others in the Mac App Store.

Other email clients should offer an option to store less emails offline and limit the size of your cache to a manageable size.

While there are steps to clean out the space for Mac Mail, I personally think signing out of it altogether and using an alternative might be best.


Create a new (.txt) File in Finder - Keyboard Shortcut I wanted to know if there is way to set keyboard shortcuts to make new files in Finder. For example, by default, you can create a new folder using CMD+Shift+N. Is there a keyboard shortcut to create a new text file? I'm a programmer so this would be extremely useful

I would also be interested in creating other file type using keyboard shortcuts.

I have attempted to use automator but I'm finding it quite confusing and I'm not sure how I would connect a keyboard shortcut to it.

Well, here you go with an AppleScript for that.

First, create the AppleScript:

Open Automator
Create a Quick Action
Set the input to no input
Drag and Drop the Run AppleScript workflow element onto the grey space.
Paste the code from below into the AppleScript
Save the workflow as Create new file
If you have iCloud Drive activated, make sure you are saving the file under Library/Services/ in your Home Folder.

try
  tell application "Finder" to set the this_folder ¬
   to (folder of the front window) as alias
on error -- no open folder windows
  set the this_folder to path to desktop folder as alias
end try

set thefilename to text returned of (display dialog ¬
 "Create file named:" default answer "filename.txt")
set thefullpath to POSIX path of this_folder & thefilename
do shell script "touch \"" & thefullpath & "\""

To add it as a shortcut:

Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Services
Scroll down until you find the Service Create new file
Assign a shortcut to it by clicking on the right side none, which turns into a Add Shortcut.
Click the Button and type the shortcut you wish to use.
I use ⌘ Command+⌥ Option+N


Creating New Keyboard Shortcots fur Lock Screen and Spotlight search I know the defaults:

control+shift+power : Lock screen
command+space : Spotlight

I do NOT want to change these -- they must continue to work.

However, due to severely ingrained muscle memory and the fact that I work on many other sensitive systems in the same day, I need to create two new shortcuts that do the same thing:

command+L (or similar) : Lock screen
control+space : Spotlight

How can this be accomplished on OS X?  (simple settings change, or editing DefaultKeyBinding.dict , or via 3rd party software )

You can use KeyRemap4MacBook to map key combinations to other key combinations:

<autogen>__KeyToConsumer__ KeyCode::L, VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE, ConsumerKeyCode::EJECT, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L | ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L</autogen>

<autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::SPACE, VK_CONTROL | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::SPACE, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L</autogen>

See the source for the key code values and predefined settings.


Transfer between iPod users My son would like to pass off his iPod to his brother since he has a phone now. I switched to my other son's Apple ID from his iPad but how do I get rid of the stuff on the iPod while keeping it on the iPhone? And also keep the stuff on the iPad while putting it on the iPod?

Thank you!

Plug it it up to the computer and if it's set to sync stop it,and set the settings to manage manually. This makes it possible for you to content on the device without loosing anything.


How to get the PID of every window of every process? I'm using the following simple script:

tell application "System Events" to get the title of every window of every process

Which works by printing titles of every window (the same with position). Is there any similar way of printing process id (to which it belongs) of each window, using AppleScript?

You want unix id. Like this...

tell application "System Events" to get unix id of every process

PS: Realize that not all "windows" returned by your original code are visible. So depending what you are trying to do you may want to also look into

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14551419/listing-all-windows-of-all-applications

Google will give you other examples...


How to prevent the media keys from waking the MacBook Pro screen? When I'm putting on music I sometimes turn off the screen with the shortcut Shift + Ctrl + Eject. However, when I use the media keys the screen wakes up and I have put it to sleep again.
Ideally the media keys would not alter the state of the screen, is it possible to achieve this?

There is no way to disable the screen from waking on keyboard input, unfortunately.


Keychain: ask for certificate from command line Is it possible to ask for certificate (.certificateRequest file) from command line?

I want to mimic behavior like Keychain -> Certificate Assistant -> Request for Certificate in Certificate Buro from command line.

Good tool /usr/bin/security does not provide requests to Certificate Buro. Maybe I wrong here.

Could anybody help with it?

Use the supplied "certtool" program. The "r" option allows you to generate a new certificate signing request (CSR).


Is Secure Empty Trash still necessary after maverick? With Maverick, hardware is encrypted by default, do we still need to secure empty trash?

Can files still be retrieved after deletion since the entire hardware has been encrypted?

Mavericks does not enable encryption (FileVault 2) by default -- it may (if several requirements are met) offer to enable it during the initial setup process, but it's not the default. Also, even if the volume is encrypted, insecurely deleted files can still be recovered by someone who knows an enabled password (usually any user with an account on the computer).

So, I'd consider Secure Empty Trash to still be relevant (in at least some situations) in Mavericks, even when FileVault is enabled.

However... Secure Empty Trash is not really enough, and hasn't been for a long time. In many apps, when you edit a file, it saves changes by deleting (insecurely) the old file and writing the new version. Securely deleting one version still leaves any older (deleted) versions lying around the disk. So you really need to use the Erase Free Space feature in Disk Utility to go back and make sure they're overwritten.

Oh, and neither Secure Empty Trash nor Erase Free Space really work right on SSDs, just on magnetic HDs. So ... it's complicated.


How to create a record at the runtime in applescript? I would like to create a variable of type record at the runtime, I found this could work:

set bcd to run script ("{" & "abc" & ":" & "def" & "}")

But it doesn't:

error "The variable def is not defined." number -2753

I would like to use this in the sub-routine, where abc def will be substituted with a variables.

How to create a record in applescript in the run-time if you have a key and a value?

Try:

set def to "My Text"
set bcd to run script "{" & "abc:\"" & def & "\"}"


Attaching external mic to MacBook Air Mid 2011 I have a Mid 2011 MacBook Air that I want to connect an external microphone to. It looks somewhat like the first picture below, except that it has one ring on the audio jack instead of the usual three.

So, I have purchased a splitter cable, like the second picture below, with three rings so that my MacBook would recognize the mic.

When I go into System Preferences > Sound > Output it says Headphones are inserted into Headphone Port, which is correct. Unplugging it turns it back into the default Built-in Internal Speakers. However, under audio input it still says it is using the Internal Microphone. Other sound programmes such as Adobe Audition also do not recognize the mic, but recognize the speakers plugged in. Why is this so?

Note: The cable and the microphone work perfectly on a PC, so there are no problems with the splitter cable and/or the microphone.

The splitter in your photo has a TRRS jack, which is often called "4-pole" or "4 position" because of its 4 metal sections separated by 3 bands.

TRRS enables both stereo output as well as microphone input.  (Earbuds from iPhone 6 use this type of jack.)

Your MacBook Air (although I'm not familiar with yours in particular) probably has a TRRS port (rather than one port for microphone and a separate port for headphones).  So you could plug iPhone earbuds (which have a mic) into that port.

The lavalier mic shown in your photo appears to have a TRRS jack and so would probably work with your MacBook Air without even using an adapter.

However, you said that you own a different one and that yours has only "one ring".

I would agree with your assumption that plugging a 1-pole mic jack into that adapter and plugging the adapter into your MacBook Air should work.

Many people online are reporting problems with this MacBook Air port, however.

See my unanswered question here: External mic not working anymore on Macbook Air

By clicking the links mentioned in my question and comments, you might stumble onto some hacks relating to:

Putting your computer to sleep after plugging your mic in
The order in which you plug your mic into your adapter and your adapter into your laptop
Whether and when to plug headphones into the adapter
and more

I have not yet found a reliable repeatable solution but wanted to share what I've come across so far, and I hope it helps you (and others).


How to automate renaming a file based on its parent folder? I have done a lot of research and cannot find a simple solution for renaming a file by its parent folder.

Basically I am zipping a bunch of files from an online file manager and I receive them in a ridiculous structure. (see below) the first column is the extracted parent folder which names itself after the last folder in the set when I zip it. The second column is the actual order numbers for each order. The third column is what seems to be randomly named folders which each contain ONE customer uploaded file. So, each file a customer uploads for an order gets put in a randomly-named folder, then into the order number folder.

I would like to make an app or service with Apple Automator to rename the customer files like this (and get rid of all the subfolders)leaving them all in the parent folder named sequentially .

3587915_1.PDF
3587915_2.PDF
3587915_3.PDF
3587915_4.PDF
3587933_1.PDF
3587933_2.PDF

any help/insight?

You can do this with an AppleScript. Use the Script Editor in the Utilities folder. Here is a script I wrote for you just now. It works on one folder at a time-- not the top level folder, but the one in your example that is 3587915.

When you run this script it asks you to choose a folder. In this example you would open 3587915 and then click "Choose." Very important: don't choose your 3589919. We are only working on one folder at a time here. If this works for you we can expand to looping through the folders in the top-level folder.

tell application "Finder"
    set the_folder to choose folder
    set the_folder_name to name of the_folder
    set the_subfolders to every folder in the_folder
    repeat with I from 1 to count of the_subfolders
        set name of every file of item I of the_subfolders to the_folder_name & "_" & I & ".pdf"
        move every file of item I of the_subfolders to the_folder
    end repeat
    --
    -- optionally delete the subfolders
    delete every folder in the_folder -- put two dashes in front of this line to comment it out
end tell

Here are screenshots showing you how it works. You should practice on a set of folders that don't matter at first. You can see my starting set-up in the first picture and the result in the second. The captions on the pictures are not showing up (for me) so here is what they should be:

Picture 1: Automator Service, with slightly modified AppleScript.

Picture 2: folder_1, folder_2, folder_3, folder_4, and folder_5 each have a single pdf in them. Only folder_1's contents are shown here.

Picture 3: This is the result. The subfolders are gone. The files are named after the parent folder.

You can save the script as an app. Or, you can run the script within a step in Automator since Automator can run an AppleScript. That's in the Utilities section of Automator, "Run AppleScript." I would include a picture but I am new here and am only allowed two pictures until I am upgraded.

If you want to do it with a service, you use almost the same script, but you have to pass the control-clicked folder. Rather than using the AppleScript step "Choose Folder" you tell your Automator Service to "receive selected folder in the Finder" and you set "the_folder" to item 1 of the input. See the first picture. Works like a champ here!


SafariBookmarksSyncAgent makes new iMac freeze For the past few weeks my new iMac kept freezing. After many, many hours with Apple tech support, both in the store and on the phone, we narrowed it down to something called SafariBookmarksSyncAgent which is sucking up all my memory, putting the memory pressure into the red, then off the scale.

To use my computer, I have to keep the Activity Monitor up on the screen so I can force quit SafariBookmarksSyncAgent when it pops up every 3 to 5 seconds.

No one at tech support has been able to figure it out. We've tried safe mode, we've unchecked Safari (I use Firefox, not Safari as my browser) under iCloud in all devices in my house. The Apple tech people say they never even heard of SafariBookmarksSyncAgent. Right now, the engineering department is supposed to be looking into it.

How can I solve this issue?

I found a solution that worked for me.  It involved updating the permissions for my home directory, as indicated in the following article:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203538


Activating unlocked iPhone 4s with SIM but without contract? I'm in a research lab where we're looking to get an iPhone 4s to use as a speedier iPod touch.  We don't want a cell phone contract, and we want to avoid jailbreaking or borrowing a SIM card just for activation (unless it's the only option).

When purchasing the unlocked iPhone, there are options for 'No SIM' and 'T-Mobile SIM (without contract)'.  Searching the internet has shown that unlocking without a SIM isn't possible.  If we get the T-Mobile SIM, will we be able to activate even without a contract ?

If you use the T-Mobile SIM it will only activate the device, it will not create a contract.  If you feel safe you can get it without a SIM, head over to the closest Apple Store and ask them to activate the phones using AT&T dummy cards.

Once you activate the phones, I suggest putting the phones in airplane mode and turn on Wifi, otherwise the phone will constantly be searching for signal which will cause the battery to drain.

Good luck.


applications for converting gif to image sequence, and vice versa I'm looking for a simple application that i can use to turn image sequences into gifs, and split gifs into image sequences for mac OS. i know there are online resources but i need something i can use when I'm not hooked up to the internet. I also use the application processing for various things, so if anyone knows where i can find a simple java scrip for this, that would also help. It would be an added bonus if it can also do the same back forth conversion for video too but not necessary since i already have tools for this.

You can use Gifrocket.app or Drop to Gif.app, both work offline. If you want to edit the sequence/pictures that make up the gif, you can just open your Gif in Preview.app


Need a good way to crash OS X Is there a "good" way to crash OS X? I need it for testing particularities.

It needs to be good enough not to cause permanent/ unrecoverable damage to the OS and hardware. I know I can just pull-plug (force shutdown via power button), but it seems dangerous to the hardware if done often.

I'm thinking possibly an app that has a ≪Crash OS≫ button? Anyone know of such a thing?

I assume you mean kernel panic:

  Kernel Panic, though sounding scary, is simply an occurrence when your Mac restarts for no obvious reason. Your Mac’s screen goes black giving you various warning messages like “You need to restart your computer.” Note that the presence of the warning message is what distinguishes Kernel Panic from usual Mac restarts and app crashes. In other words, Kernel Panic is just a Mac version of “blue screen of death” on Windows.

To start a kernel panic, you can issue the following command from Terminal:

sudo dtrace -w -n "BEGIN{ panic();}"

You will need to disable SIP if you have El Capitan or later. You can find instructions to do it here. It works for any version of macOS that has SIP, but you should NOT do it unless you really need to, since it is a security risk. If you do, you should re-enable it when your work is done.

Or an even better option is to test your software in a virtual machine using a virtualization software like Parallels or VMWare. This way, you won't damage your computer in any way.

This is not completely harmless if you try it on your actual machine instead of a VM. There is no completely harmless way of crashing your system. In my case, it didn't do any damage to my system, but you have been warned.


Updates impact on /usr with SIP Disabled I have a very complex application that needs a directory in /usr. By complex, I mean it would take thousands of changes to rid the code of /usr references. It has to be done, but I need a newer OS X immediately. When I attempted to upgrade an older OS X system, it wiped this directory as part of the installation. If I run the csrutil disable on the system, place the /usr subdirectory back where it goes, will ongoing OS X security updates within the Mojave version (10.14, not OS major upgrades) purge the directory when applied, or leave it in place?

There is no way of knowing in advance. Security and minor upgrades replace these parts of the system which Apple considers relevant/in need of fixing. While the chance that the whole /usr gets replaced is probably small it may not be very wise to rely on it.


Remotely Wipe Drive For IT Dept My IT dept will not let me use my Mac (personal computers in general) due to the inability to wipe my drive if I am let go/leave.

So I'm looking for option to offer them. I see iCloud has that ability, but obviously the computer is using my iCloud and such so this does not seem like an obvious solution.

Is there any standard way or software that can give them this control?

There are a lot of Third Party Software for this purpose. One of them is Prey. Prey offers Remote Wipe data for its Home and Personal plan. You could just head over to their site and take sneak peek https://preyproject.com/. I hope I solved your problem :-)


App Store receipt email, forwarded as attachment, won't open New user--just switched from Windows to an iMac running Yosemite. In the Mail app I use 'Forward as Attachment' a lot, with no problems.

However, I just forwarded an App Store email receipt as an attachment, and the recipient couldn't open the receipt. OS X identifies the attachment as a generic document (rather than an email) and can't find an app to open it. So far, this has only happened with the App Store receipt.

Is this problem likely due to something odd about the format of App Store receipts? If that's the case, I'll simply export those receipts to PDF and attach those files. Or is there something fundamental about attachments in Mail that I don't understand?

App store receipts are multipart mails, first part is text/plain, second is text/html. So in theory forwarding them should work just fine, in practice I see the same behavior you are seeing.

So either forward them directly (not as attachment) or print a PDF first (which might be kind of hassle depending on how often you need to do it).


zsh: Can't set DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH in ~/.zshenv to get ImageMagick working under MacOS Catalina Goal: Install ImageMagick on my iMac 27" 2017 running Catalina 10.15.3 (install failed under Homebrew). Plenty of RAM & disk space.

Second line below doesn't execute, so echo $MAGICK_HOME yields expected results but echo $DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH results in a nil value.

file ~/.zshenv:

export MAGICK_HOME="/usr/local/bin/ImageMagick-7.0.9/"
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="$MAGIC_HOME/lib/"

This is a simple typo!

The definition of the variable DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH  refers to the variable set in the previous line: MAGICK_HOME:

So add a K and the respective lines of .zshenv look like this then:

export MAGICK_HOME="/usr/local/bin/ImageMagick-7.0.9/"
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="$MAGICK_HOME/lib/"

Other source: Mac OS X Binary Release


Safari has a problem displaying certain images Safari does not display certain images properly.

The latest example is http://i.imgur.com/GqQchYM.jpg which is perfectly loadable in firefox.

In Safari however the picture is displayed properly while it is loading/as long as it is only partially loaded. When it should display the whole picture all I get is black or white box. It can be clicked to zoom in though.

Safari

Firefox

I've had the same problem once before. That time I found this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3796427

and was able to get it working by deleting:

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db

I've tried that this time as well, but the picture is still failing.

The system is updated. My version of Safari is 7.0.3 (9537.75.14). The operating system is  OS X 10.9.2 (13C1021).

What can I do to get the browser working again?

EDIT:

I've tried removing all extensions from the browser.

I only had Reddit enhancement suite installed before cleaning.

EDIT2: problem persists after updating to Safari Version 7.1 (9537.85.10.17.1)

EDIT3: Problem solved in Safari Version 8.0 (10600.1.25)!

It does work on my MBA 10.9.2 Safari 7.0.3 ?

At the moment I do not know what is causing it on your computer.

Here are some initial findings:

That site has some bad formatting to begin with:

For example if you change the Margin to 3 instead of 0 the magnifier will no longer go outside of the image area, which is the first indication of a problem with that link.

The image is set to display in width=166 , height=222, while the Natural size is 3120x4160.

UPDATE:

Since It works on my computer I would say it is your specific Safari installation.

We could go in to trying to repair your Safari (I do not know a quick way to do it)!?, but to be honest, if you have that problem on a bigger scale, I would recommend to reInstall Safari. Unfortunately that means reInstalling Mavericks. So the choice is yours.


Archive mails in Apple Mail plus Office 365 setup I am using my company mailbox since 2011. It has 18gb and >120.000 emails. I feel it very slow since several weeks and would like to archive a bunch of mails. Whats the right approach for archiving in an Apple Mail + Exchange (Office365) environment?

I would prefer to keep the mails online, not on any of my machines
I would like to automate it
I expect to significantly increase search speed on normal searches...
... but to be able to search through archived emails as well

Looking forward to your input. Thanks!

Sorry for not explaining much in detail considering that the questions are self-explanatory and the links I added had the rest of the solutions.
As been already explained, the mails have heaped to a huge bulk, probably, thus filling up the inbox and slowing down your account. Archiving them all is definitely a good option.
This article will explain you how to archive your mails for Apple mail:
https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mail/use-the-archive-mailbox-mail35918/mac
Avoiding machine storage leaves you to options like Dropbox and Google drive.
I recommend Google drive for its unlimited storage capacity. You need to install google drive on your system.
This thread speaks how to save your emails to google drive:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/gmail/gCc99XgqMzw;context-place=forum/gmail/categories
This manual process carries the chances of losing out some of your mail contents. You can use Mail Backup X for the job. It sets the right sync between your mails and the storage location.


What happens when I select "new station from song" in iTunes 12.2? When I click "new station from song" in iTunes 12.2 the currently playing song stops playing and as far as I can tell nothing else happens. Does a station get created somewhere? I can't find any radio stations except for the official Apple ones in the tab "Radio". I am subscribed to Apple Music and signed into my iTunes account.

Seems like this is a bug in iTunes, happens to me as well as others. There's a few posts on the apple support forum:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7106282
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7115175
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7112080

There's more if you search there, but no solutions available.
UPDATE:
Bug is fixed for me in iTunes 12.2.2.25


What do the Software Update options do? In Yosemite the App Store System Preferences pane has automatic updates for a few separate items:

"Install App updates"
"Install OS X updates"
"Install system data files and security updates"

App updates would include 3rd party software as well as Pages, Numbers, iMovie, etc.

I'm not clear on the other two. My guess is OS X updates includes things like 10.10.3, iTunes, Safari, Remote Desktop Client Update, Camera RAW, etc. My guess for system data files and security updates may include things like XProtect definitions, Security Update 2015-001, etc.

Are those assumptions correct?

Would 10.11.0 when it released be considered an "OS X update" and be automatically installed?

I've found these articles (one two) with conflicting info, but an haven't located an official knowledge base article from Apple with definitive answers.

You're correct.

I have "Install App updates" and "Install system data files and security updates" checked in System Preferences and "Install OS X updates" deselected, and exactly what you describe is what I observe.

OS X Updates are user-facing updates that directly affect the user, regardless of whether the user actually uses the respective app (e.g. RAW updates).
The system/security updates are the Security Updates and File Quarantine (XProtect) definitions.

In the last 30 days according to my App Store Updates tab, the following was not auto-installed for me with "Install OS X updates" disabled:

Command Line Tools (OS X 10.10) 6.3
Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 6.04
Remote Desktop Client Update 3.8.4

OS X 10.11.0 would be considered a separate app on the App Store, so it wouldn't be automatically updated from a version prior to 10.11.0 regardless of the settings.


What are the secret options of the PDF convert tool from OS X? I recently discovered the /System/Library/Printers/Libraries/convert tool that is able to convert HTML, DOC, ... to PDF.

It works great but it has some optional arguments that are not documented: -a 'name=value ...'. I am really interested about them because these are supposed to control more of the 'printing' process.

/System/Library/Printers/Libraries/convert
Usage: convert [ options ]

Options:

  -e                   Use every filter from the PPD file
  -f filename          Set file to be converted (otherwise stdin)
  -o filename          Set file to be generated (otherwise stdout)
  -i mime/type         Set input MIME type (otherwise auto-typed)
  -j mime/type         Set output MIME type (otherwise application/pdf)
  -P filename.ppd      Set PPD file
  -a 'name=value ...'  Set option(s)
  -U username          Set username for job
  -J title             Set title
  -c copies            Set number of copies
  -u                   Remove the PPD file when finished
  -D                   Remove the input file when finished

The options for the CUPS system are mainly for specifying borders, margins, how many pages per sheet, etc. They are documented on the CUPS website:

http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/options.html


Transferring data from old macbook to new macbook Is there an easy way to transfer my applications and data from my old macbook pro to my new macbook pro?  I vaguely recall a service or utility that transferred "everything" from an old macbook to a new macbook.

You probably mean the Migration Assistant.


Headphones not detected when connected to MBP When I plug headphones into output of MBP (15-inch Early 2008) with Mavericks - nothing changes, sound comes from internal speakers, nothing in System Preferences too. SMC reset, NVRAM cleared, sleep/wakeup - same situation:

UPDATE: Upgraded to 10.9.1 - no change

If you see red glowing light coming from it try the toothpick approach: take a toothpick and poke around in the jack until light turns off.

Source from: Apple inc

OS X Mavericks: Audio ports


Mac Pro Memory - Should I use 8 RAM slots in dual-channel mode or 6 RAM slots in triple-channel mode? I have a Mac Pro tower with a 2 x 2.66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon chipset, and 8 RAM slots. I have been told because of the processor's triple-channel memory capability that I should be installing RAM modules in sets of three. I do a lot of compiling on this machine and want to maximize all the hardware I've got. Does it follow that I should avoid installing RAM in the last two slots?

The direct answer to your question is you will get marginally higher peak memory bandwidth with 6 matched memory modules running in triple channel mode than you will with 8 matched memory modules in dual channel mode.  However, there are no guarantees that your machine will perform the tasks you use it for any quicker in either mode.  You need a more in-depth analysis than that.  Firstly, here are the memory replacement instructions for your Mac.  In summary, the instructions for your model go like so:

  Dual-processor computers have eight
  memory slots, four per processor. You
  can install 1 GB, 2 GB, or 4 GB DIMMs.
  Each processor’s memory controller has
  three memory channels. DIMM slots 1,
  2, 5, and 6 have their own channels;
  slots 3 and 4 share a channel and
  slots 7 and 8 share a channel. For
  optimal memory bandwidth, all six
  memory channels should be used, and
  memory should be balanced across the
  six channels. Note: Populating slot 4
  or 8 slightly drops maximum memory
  bandwidth, but depending on the
  applications used, overall system
  performance may benefit from the
  larger amount of memory.

If you have          Fill in these slots
Two DIMMs            1 and 2
Three DIMMs          1, 2, and 3
Four DIMMs           1, 2, and 5, 6
Six DIMMs            1, 2, 3 and 5, 6, 7
Eight DIMMs          1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, 6, 7, 8

To determine whether you would benefit from more total RAM or from keeping your RAM in triple channel mode would require benchmarks.  It's difficult without measuring usage to say whether there will be any benefit from adding more RAM.  If you run a compile with Activity Monitor running are you using all the RAM you have?  Is disk I/O particularly high?  If disk I/O is high but your RAM is not fully utilised you may be better off with an SSD hard drive to run your compilations from rather than adding RAM, check for paging to disk during the compile.  The important thing here is to find the bottleneck rather than hoping that adding RAM will make things run quicker.  It may even turn out that the CPU or the compiler is the bottleneck.  If you have two 6-core CPUs, can your compiler use all that processing power?

I know I've probably raised more questions than I've answered but it's worth considering them if you're looking for a performance improvement for your investment.

If you are a programmer you probably understand these concepts anyway but here's a link to a codinghorror article just explaining the process of finding bottlenecks which I think is easy to read.  The OS in this case is windows but the principles are the same.  You can use Activity Monitor or a third party resource monitoring tool to determine the bottleneck.

For example, to determine whether your system is running out of RAM, fire up Activity Monitor.  Near the bottom of the window, select the tab button labelled 'System Memory' and take a look at the pie chart and figures listed beneath.  Here's an example from my system.

The figures in this screenshot you should be interested in are Free and Page Outs.  Free shows how much RAM is currently available, Page Outs is an indicator that your system is running out of RAM and has had to write temporary data to disk.  Anything above 0 in Page Outs means you could potentially benefit from more RAM.  You could perform whatever activity you expect to push your system with Activity Monitor open and monitor these figures throughout.  This should help you determine whether you will get any benefit from more RAM.  For completeness, here's what each item represents.

Free: Memory not in use
Wired: Data which must remain in RAM and can't be moved to disk
Active: Data which is currently in memory and has been accessed recently
Inactive: Data which is currently in memory but is no longer being used.  For example, if you recently quit an application, its data is kept in memory for faster relaunch but it will be used by other application if you run out of Free memory.
Used: The sum of Wired, Active and Inactive memory

Here's a really nice link too for Mac performance questions http://www.macperformanceguide.com/


What iPad PDF reader can I use to highlight text? What iPad PDF reader can I use to highlight text? I don't really care about annotations, saving, or transferring. It just helps me read better if I can highlight things.

It does not look like I can do anything other than bookmark pages with iBooks.

I use GoodReader for this. It can do highlighting, different kinds of underlining, annotating and save annotated copies to preserve your originals.

It's a great general purpose file management and viewing app as well. Sort of like a "Preview.app" for iOS. Costs $5 in the App Store. Well worth it IMHO.

I've heard that iAnnotate is far superior at annotating tasks, hence the name, but it's $10. I already own GoodReader, and it fulfills my needs, so can't see a reason to spend $10 more just to markup PDFs.

Hope that helped.


Charger with burning smell The MacBook charger has frayed/ broken plastic near the connection to the box on the charger. It will only charge while in certain positions and gets hot and has a burning smell. How can I fix this? I'm hoping wrapping it with electric tape will be enough?

It's not worth the potential fire hazard. If you go to Apple.com and look at the reviews on the MacBook chargers, people are very frustrated with the need to replace the chargers so frequently due to wear exactly where you described it. I would highly recommend replacing the charger over repairing it.


Are there iOS/iPad apps that work well to edit XML? I'm surprised that a google search doesn't turn up dozens of XML editors for ipad. All I can find are generic code text editors that happen to "support" XML. Well duh.

I'm looking for an ipad app that lets me edit arbitrary XML as something other than a generic text box with code completion. It could at least give me an expandable tree view of nested tags for example. And it could allow me to add a child tag or duplicate an existing one. Or do a structured search of the document based on identified symbols, or even some automated manipulation based on symbols. One of the main impetuses for creating XML in the first place was to enable a diversity of kinds of manipulation tools.

Does anything exist on ipad specifically for editing XML?

Diet Coda, and Koder support XML syntax highlighting also. I use them both for editing XML, JSON, etc.


What options does Terminal pass to bash on startup? In the Terminal preferences, I'm able to configure the Terminal to "Open shells with:" -> "Command (complete path):" /opt/local/bin/bash.

What options is the terminal passing when invoking this command?  Terminal appears to run each shell as a login shell, so I'm assuming --login is being passed?

Is there any Apple documentation that gives an overview of exactly what is being run when you open a terminal window?

The command:

/opt/local/bin/bash

essentially instructs Terminal.app to load an interactive bash shell (the path for your example is likely the macports version). Initially when you open Terminal it starts a login shell session (in bash). Login shells can read files such as ~/.profile, ~/.bash_profile that setup environment variables for your session, so what is being run is mostly indicative of what is configured within those files.

In general, by default when opening a bash shell from Terminal these things would be run:

Processes

bash
login

Open Files and Ports

/bin/bash
/usr/lib/dyld
/private/var/db/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_x86_64
/dev/ttys000

More Information:

  Official Bash Website

  Apple Man Page: bash(1)


Can't get my photos and videos from iPad Here's the situation.

My sister went to Australia to visit our aunt and uncle there. She had my camera, and took a lot of photos and videos. Unfortunately, the camera ran out of memory, and she was forced to get creative.

She used our aunt's Windows 7 PC, and, through iTunes, stored some videos and pictures on her iPad, creating a new folder for it.

Upon getting back home, she tried to extract the pictures and videos from the iPad, but couldn't. She tried:

Importing it using Windows without iTunes - it's not in any of the folders.
Importing it using Windows with iTunes - it's also not in any of the folders.
She also tried it using a Mac with iTunes. She backed it up, and all the photos from the iPad did get copies on the Mac, except the folder she created.

The pictures cannot be edited or deleted in the iPad. She duplicated the album, and found out that the duplicated items can be edited and deleted, but still could not be found from the PC / Mac, backup or otherwise.

Amy suggestions?

For some reason iTunes photo sync (iOS Device -> Photos) is quite restricted regarding what you do with those photos after they are on the iOS device. Even Apple specifically says that you can't sync those photos from your iOS device to your computer.

As a result, I suggest trying iExplorer to copy the photos from the iPad to your computer.

If you had AirDrop on both devices, you could use that to transfer the pictures, but it would be a little painstaking as you would have to tap every picture to transfer.