My Mac is getting really slow, what should I do? I bought a Mac (13", early 2011) almost 5 years ago. When I first got it, it was running under OS X 10.7 and it was pretty fast. I've being upgrading it ever since and it's now running under Mac OS X 10.11.

I guess it didn't totally survive the upgrades because, today, there's a lot of bugs, freezes, lags, "spinning beach ball" appearing,... for example, when I write something on a normal program/editor, the cursor freezes for a few seconds, then catches up to what I'm writting.

As you can guess, that's really annoying! I've been thinkning about upgrading the hardware but I don't know what to do: should I change the RAM to 8 GB - 1 333 MHz (currently my computer has 4 GB - 1 333 MHz)? Or should I upgrade to an SSD (which is pretty expensive and difficult to install)?

Thank you very much.

I'm going on the assumption that you have a MacBook Pro Early 2011. There were no MacBook Airs with that designation and MacBooks stopped production in 2010 and resumed again in 2015.

It would still be helpful to know what specific model you had, however.

It came (usually) with 4GB of RAM, 320GB (spinning, 5400 RPM) hard drive. That's not anywhere "fast" by today's standards.

Here's what I recommend:

Max Out Your Memory.

The max you can put on this is 16GB of RAM.  You can use any of these 16GB kits (2 8GB SODIMMS) or go for this one by Crucial.  I have used this brand in 2 iMacs and 4 MacBook Pros with zero issues.  The iMac I am typing on right now has 32 GB and I can't tell you how much a difference it has made over the 4GB that came with it.

Upgrade to an SSD

Your 5400 RPM drive is slow.  They picked 5400 RPM over the faster 7200 RPM for one reason and one reason only - battery life.  Adding an SSD will not only give you tremendous speed, but also longer battery life.  I upgraded my iMac just two weeks ago from the 1TB Fusion drive to a 1TB SSD and this thing not only runs quieter, but faster as well.

I am partial to Samsung as they have never failed me in the past.  This is the Samsung 1TB SSD I purchased to replace my failing fusion drive

Swap out your DVD Drive for Another HDD (Optional)

While you are replacing drives, if your old 5400 Drive is still good, you can use it as a second drive for data, music, pictures;  create your own Fusion Drive or best yet, have an internal drive for super fast Time Machine Backups.

There is a universal optical bay hard drive conversion kit that you can use to install another HDD/SSD in its place.  I have used two of these already, one in a MacBook Pro and the other in a Dell Optiplex 745.  At under $15, it is a super cheap option to add.

How to Install all this "Stuff"

To do any of these upgrades, you will need to remove the back cover.  It's only 10 Phillips screws:

Once you're in, you can replace the drive:

or the memory:

and even install the optical bay kit:

You can get tutorials on how to do this from http://ifixit.com which is where I sourced all these great photos.

Last but not Least

You will want to make a Time Machine backup of your computer.  It will be the easiest way to transfer all your files and settings.  Personally, I like to start with a nice clean slate and just move over data.  Applications I like to re-install.  I have found that my computers are much more stable when doing clean installs rather than restoration of previously installed software.


I have 21.5GB free. Why won't my MacBook Air 2010 let me use Boot Camp? I'm trying to install Windows 7 on my MBA, 2010.

I open up Boot Camp and attempt to use it, but after the first screen it comes up with an error saying it can't install unless theirs 10GB of free disk space. Right now my HDD has 21.5 GB free. Disk Utility won't let me partition my drive either, so a manual install is out of the question.

I need help! My original thoughts were that my disk needed to be defragged to get 10GB of contiguous space. Is this a possibility?

To expand upon my above comment:

64GB is just not very much space, especially when you consider updates, your own programs, data, etc etc.

My recommendation, if it is possible and available, is to run Windows XP from a USB drive. There are a handful of documented procedures for getting WinXP on a flash drive and running it from there. I would recommend following this TechRepublic article to get it all set up for that.

This should negate the issue with Boot Camp, let you keep the 64GB of HDD space to your trusty OS X partition, and hopefully provide enough room on your flash drive for WinXP to grow with applications as well.

Hopefully there is nothing Vista or Win 7 specific that you need to do. Good luck!


AppleScript app is not recognized as default browser Target OS: Macos 10.15.3 Catalina

Goal: use apple script bundled to app as a default web browser

To debug I'm using very simple apple script, that just show passed url in dialog

on open location theURL
    display dialog "Passed url : " & theURL
end open location

I also added CFBundleURLTypes to Info.plist to claim binding to http\https url schemas

    <key>CFBundleURLTypes</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            <key>CFBundleURLName</key>
            <string>My test app url</string>
            <key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
            <array>
                <string>http</string>
                <string>https</string>
            </array>
        </dict>
    </array>

The problem: is that app is not showing up in 'Default web browser' combobox in System Preferences -> General

I've tried to dump Launch Service database
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -dump

And my app is present there.

Also tried force register
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -v -f ./MyTestApp.app

Also tried to sign my app by self issued signature.

Nothing helped.

What could I miss? Is there any additional configurations that should be done to let macos recognize my apple scrip app as possible default browser?

I do not think that you can build a browser like that, but I do know that there is a very simple browser out that which will take whatever URL it is sent and pass it to the clipboard:

https://github.com/alistairmcmillan/short/tree/master/Copy%20URL%20to%20Clipboard

Perhaps that might help.


How to make Spotlight ONLY index certain file types? I use my mac for development, and create/delete so many (big) files that I ended up turning Spotlight off, since it was taking so much time indexing these files.

I think it would be fine if I would only allow Spotlight to index pdf and doc documents, is this possible?

As there is no easy way (no GUI certainly) to exclude file types, your best bet might be to exclude specific directories from being indexed. Create/delete Your big files inside one directory (including subdirs) and go to Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy and choose Your excluded directory (You can also drag and drop it).


iPhone tethering not working via bluetooth I can successfully tether my Mac (10.7.3) to my iPhone4 (5.0.1) via wifi, no problem, been doing it for months.

However, when I try to tether via bluetooth instead, I can't seem to see the internet from my mac.  Network Settings reports a green light for Bluetooth PAN, but my browser can't connect to anything at all.

My Mac reports very similar IP addresses for both, starting with 172.20.10 and differing only in the last octet.

Any idea why I can't successfully tether via bluetooth?

This fixes what i presume to be a corrupt internet sharing preference file. It will also remove all other network settings such as wifi access-points and their passwords so keep that in mind. Other data such as pictures and contacts will be completely safe.

On your iPhone, go to Settings -> General -> Reset and choose Reset Network Settings.
The iPhone will ask you to confirm and then restart.
In Settings -> Internet Sharing reenable it and choose to turn on bluetooth if a dialog asking to do so appears.
Reconnect to your wifi-network if applicable.
You're probably done, try connecting. If it doesn't work go on.
In Settings -> General -> Bluetooth tap the blue arrow beside your computer and choose to forget the device.
On your computer go to System Preferences -> Bluetooth and remove your iPhone from the list.
Go to System Preferences -> Network. In the Location drop down choose Edit Locations.... Add a new location and press done.
Make sure the new location is selected and press Apply.
Go back to System Preferences -> Bluetooth and re-pair your phone to the computer.
Connect to your iPhone's bluetooth network.
Back in System Preferences -> Network if you do not have a Bluetooth PAN interface add it by pressing the + button in the lower left.
Press Apply and cross your fingers.

Doing the first five solved it for me, after one year of broken bluetooth-tethering.


Magnetic timeline in Final Cut Pro X optional? Is the magnetic timeline on Final Cut Pro X optional? I see the advantages of the magnetic timeline, but nonetheless still prefer dedicated layers as it gives me a much greater sense of control of specific kinds of resources. I have been considering Final Cut Pro X but if the magnetic timeline is imposed upon its users, or if it is optional but there are no significant layer controls when magnetic timeline is disabled such as hide/mute, etc., it's a complete showstopper for me. I'm coming from Sony Vegas Platinum HD 10 to which I migrated from iMovie, and right now Final Cut Pro X looks like going back to iMovie.

It's not optional. However, in use, I think you'll adjust and have the same sense of control very quickly. Have a look at the various online tutorials. I found this one exceptionally helpful http://www.izzyvideo.com/final-cut-pro-x-tutorial/ Also spend a little time with it and you'll soon see it's not anything like iMovie.


cmd + [num] doesn't change screen to go to app in fullscreen mode Consider the situation where I have two spaces screens. From the second screen I open a terminal and make it fullscreen.

By doing so I expected cmd+3 to take me to the terminal app, but it doesn't work.

Any ideas on how to make it work?

Thanks

You can simply do ⌃ → (default) to move one space to the right, which is where your app should be. You can change these settings in the Keyboard preferences:

An alternate is to use Cmd-Tab to bring up the applications list and navigate.


Protecting a user home folder using chmod and umask I want to create a standard (non-administrator) user on my Mac, and ensure that they cannot access my files.

Does the following make sense, and will there be any adverse consequences?

sudo launchctl config user umask 077 (when creating new files and folders, ensure group and others can't see them)

chmod -R go-rwx ~ (for existing files and folders in my home folder: remove read, write and execute permissions for group and others)

In particular, I'm worried about:

Messing up any extended permissions
Whether it's OK to alter permissions on my ~/Library and ~/Applications and ~/Applications (Parallels) and ~/tmp folders
Is there anything outside of my home folder I need to think about protecting?

Is there anything I'm missing, before I try this and potentially brick my system?

I'm actually shocked that what I've described above is not the default configuration for MacOS, as it would prevent different users from seeing each others' files.

macOS by default sets the permission on the standard directories (Documents, Pictures, Music, Library etc) to 0700. If this somehow got changed you can easily run

chmod 0700 ~/{Documents,Pictures,Music,Library,Downloads,Movies}

to fix it. And of course you can use the same command to change the access rights for other directories as needed.

To also protect any dot files etc you can also run

 chmod 0700 ~.

In any case you don't need to specially treat subfolders if the parent folder is already protected.


Mac OS X 10.6.7 freezes on restart I recently got a Mac running Mac OS X 10.6.7. I installed the software update that was available, and when I tried to restart it, it seemed to be going well until it froze on the original space background.

I tried turning it off and then restarting again, but I was faced with the same problem again.

How might I troubleshoot this further?

I also had the same exact problem with trying to update the software. I have a 2011 MacBook Pro 13 inch laptop running Mac OS X Version 10.6.6. I did a little personal troubleshooting and none of the things listed above seemed to work. I did manage to fix it, however. I did this by starting my Mac up normally, clicking on the Apple logo in the top left corner, clicking on software updates and I let it load to the menu where it gives you the option to install. Instead of installing immediately from there I clicked on the more details tab closer to the left side on the bottom and deselecting the Airport update from everything. After I did that it updated and ran perfectly fine. I am not 100% sure it was the cause but after several hours of troubleshooting and looking up fixes on the internet, that is the only thing I could come up with myself and it seemed to work. I wish you good luck if you have not fixed it yet and if you already have well then I guess i am wasting my time. Anyways, have a good day.


iCloud: Photo is locked due to account maintenance I'm trying to upload photos (~50K of them) from my MacBook to iCloud. The process is quite glitchy - getting "aw shucks, your connection has broken" even though I am sending them in batches (~4k at a time).

Now I have been stopped, again, with the message Photo is locked due to account maintenance. Is it perhaps a mistake to be using iCloud for this many photos?

There's nothing wrong in uploading a large number of photos to your iCloud storage. You are only limited by the available storage space and not the count of photos that you upload in iCloud.

The error message appears due to some temporary issues in the iCloud backend, network connectivity issues or some minor system/maintenance issue.

When it happens, check the iCloud System status here:

https://www.apple.com/ca/support/systemstatus/

To resolve the issue, retry after some time. If you are using a Web browser, try refreshing and reattempt upload.


How can I make Siri use non apple apps? Is there a general way extend Siri on iOS 8 to use other apps?

For instance, I am not using the apple E-Mail app but "myMail". I'd like to make Siri use this app when telling her to write an e-mail?

By extension, can non-apple apps for sending instant messages, listening to music be plugged into Siri?

This is currently not possible. Siri is only able to use Apple's standard apps, sadly.


Google Calendar won't sync after update on 9.2.1 I have recently updated to iOS 9.2.1, and now my Google Calendar isn't syncing anymore. If I add event on my desktop (Google Calendar App inside my browser), events are added and synced to my iPhone, but if I add event inside my Calendar app on iPhone, events are never synced to my Google Calendar, they only exists on my iPhone.

I have tried to restart phone, and reset network settings, but without luck.

EDIT: I have also noticed red exclamation sign on iCloud calendars, maybe is this issue?

I

Guess it has something to do with latest iOS update, removing account(s) which have shared calendars solve my problem.


Startup items no longer load in Lion When I first upgraded to Lion, my startup items loaded as normal. Now however, no startup items load (even though they all appear in the startup items preference pane as normal). I thought maybe it had something to do with Lion's behavior of saving the system state on restart, but that's not it.

Anyway to debug the startup process and see if it is getting stuck somewhere or aborting somewhere?

Looking in the console log is the first place to look for launchd errors to debug the process.

I use Lingon to look into the actual launchd configuration files - it automates finding the files and editing the plist files.

You can look in your (now hidden) ~/Library/LaunchAgents  directory to make sure the items are enabled.

Lastly ( or perhaps firstly ) try deleting all the items from the account pane, reboot and add them back to see if that helps.


Why is the number of unread messages in Messages negative? Occasionally, and with no apparent correlation with what is going on on other devices where I have Messages enabled, I get a negative count for my unread messages in Messages on OS X:

What could be causing this, and how can I prevent from happening in the future?

I believe that negative numbers show up when you read a message on another device before you read it on what ever device has the negative number. I had the same thing happen to me. I have a "-1" badge on my Messages icon.


Install Windows 10 on old Macbook Pro without optical drive I'm looking to install Windows 10 on an old Macbook Pro (13 inch, early 2011), which I've replaced the HDD in with a SSD. I was able to do this using a flash drive, and managed to get everything working except the audio (Windows wouldn't recognize my computer's internal speakers).  After doing some research, it appears that this problem occurs when you install Windows via EFI boot, so the recommended solution is to install Windows using a burned DVD.  Unfortunately the optical drive in my Macbook is broken, so this method isn't available to me.  I have to tried to install Windows on a partition of my SSD using Virtual Box, but it's not clear to me how to get around the fact that my drive is a GPT partition scheme. (Windows 10 won't allow me to install to my BOOTCAMP partition because it is a GPT scheme)

In short, I would like to install Windows 10 in BIOS (to avoid audio issues) on a partition of my SSD without using the optical drive.  Any suggestions for accomplishing this would be appreciated, thanks.

Try this method. If you have any problems or questions, post a comment below. BTW, this is not the only method that works. Other variations exist, so if this one does not work, I can suggest another.

Basically, you will be creating a virtual disk to replace the DVD or flash drive that you would normally use. You will be installing Windows to boot using the BIOS boot method. Good luck!


OS X Terminal "must have" utilities I've just read with pleasure, and learned a lot from these questions :

OS X Terminal Tips and Tricks
OS X Hidden features and nice tips & tricks
OS X Applications you can't live without

But I didn't find in these some of my favorites tools, which I use on a daily basis, and I think that's because these are OSX/Terminal intended tools, not fitting well in above questions.

My favorites are, by order of preference: oh-my-zsh, homebrew (but also macports), janus...

These tools having in common :

Terminal: install and use
OSX Intended: brew is, git is not!
Easy Install: one liner, ie. git clone; wget ... etc.
Extensible: possibly has extensions or simple API (eg. oh-my-zsh with plugins, brew with formulas, janus with bundled vim plugins...)
Often open source, free, hosted on github, scripted, mostly (but not only!) with ruby...

Do you know any other similar must-have tools?
I would love to discover new ones!

Please only include one utility per answer. Also, please don't add duplicates. Check first before posting. If you see a duplicate, kindly downvote the answer and inform the author by leaving a comment.

Homebrew

The missing package manager for OS X.

It is an amazing package manager, very light and easy to use. KIS Principle, that makes me think of archlinux. Its community is big and very active.
(see also macports which brew doesn't replace completely, I prefer installing packages with brew, but some complex ones are only on macports)
See also brew tap command which provides some missing formulas that can be useful like when you need latest php version > brew tap josegonzalez/php.
(Homebrew has a policy of not replacing system components, but hey, sometimes you have to)


View iTunes store in a browser I'd like to be able to get the same view into iTunes U in a web browser, instead of iTunes. Major reason - to be able to open multiple tabs, make bookmarks etc.

However when I open iTunes URL in a browser, it displays standard "One Moment Please.
Connecting to the iTunes Store." blurb (see for yourself here)

Is there a way to circumvent this 'iTunes detection', which presumably those pages do?

It would be great, IMO lack of tabs and bookmarking has always been a little bit of a failure for the iTunes store.
Now, unfortunately, the iTunes store is difficult for browsers to interpret, because it was written in a wacky XML format instead of a browser standard HTML.

About three years ago it emerged that a coder had written an app that decodes this XML into HTML, and therefore could be viewed in the browser etc.

This is the link for it, but unfortunately, for me anyway, it seems to be dead.

Apple released 'iTunes Preview,' where you can browse content, as a web based store with links over the iTunes, but I don't think this is quite what you were looking for.

iTunes Preview

Someone else may have a solution, but sorry I can't help more!

(Source)


Disable voice control on iPhone 4s, ios7.1 My partner has a hand-me-down iPhone 4s, and a few months ago, the home button started playing up and not pressing. She started using the on-screen home button instead, which has solved the problem of not being able to press the home button.

Now though, the home button is more responsive, even too responsive. We started noticing that she had called random people (totally random, not most recent or near the beginning of the alphabet or anything) while the phone was in her bag, and occasionally while locking the phone, it would issue a camera shutter button as if it had taken a screenshot. Now it is frequently activating voice control, even if it is just sitting on the table.

It's pretty clear that the problem is that the home button is sticking down sometimes, and is often opening voice control, and as a result, dialling random people (apparently the voice dial software is oversensitive and thinks anything is a name, rather than saying 'sorry, cannot find "hrrghgsh" in your contacts'.

Other people who have had this issue have said that you can turn off voice dial (but not voice control) via settings > general > passcode lock, however my partner's phone has no such setting for voice dial in passcode lock, or anywhere else as far as I can tell.

Can anyone tell me where voice dial has moved, or if voice control itself can be entirely disabled (as one would expect to be possible) or alternatively, if the home button itself can be entirely disabled?

There is a way to make home button not to work wheb the home is lock.
First activate Siri
setting >General> Siri > ON
Then
If iphone 5s (may be it work in iphone 4a)
setting >Id&passcode> there is an option where it tell to siri off when phone is lock.
make sure you put it off.
Thats it home button wont work when phone is lock.
Preventing voice control to make stupid random call


Restoring one system file from Time Machine backup I have this file that I want to restore, that is a system file, normally stored on /tmp.

If I open Finder, and select GO > GO TO FOLDER

I type /tmp on the window and it opens /private/tmp  (???? why ?)

Anyway, the file is not there, but the file was there 5 days ago. I open time machine and it shows me an empty window If I go back in type, but if I type the name of the file on the finder search box, I see several versions of the file (one day ago, two days ago, etc.). I select one of them, but the RESTORE BUTTON is disabled. I right click on a file and select RESTORE TO, but nothing happens...

How do I select a system file from days ago from a time machine backup?

Yes, I am sure the file is there.

thanks.

Unfortunately, you're not going to be able to recover that file using Time Machine. There are a number of files and directories that Time Machine does not back up—primarily cache and temporary files. This includes the files in the /tmp directory. The directory itself (minus contents) is backed up, because it is necessary for a reinstall.

The complete list of exclusions can be found in /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.plist

ᔥ Devin Lane: Time Machine Exclusions


Preview Cant Open Multiple PDF in same Window I have the option to open groups of files in same window setting turned on, and this works for pictures.

However, for PDFs this setting does not seem to work.

I know opening multiple PDFs in the same window was possible at least in Sierra, I have no idea if they changed anything for High Sierra that caused this to fail.

I went through ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.preview/..../com.apple.Preview.plist
and found PVImageOpeningMode = 1

so this should be the correct setting, at least from what I know.

I tried getting my old ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.preview/fluff and replaced whatever setting I have right now ( it worked before ), and unfortunately I still cannot view multiple PDFs in the same window ( without using tabs ).

This is pretty vexing, right now im leaning on the conclusion that apple had some how changed how preview app works, unless there is another hidden preview setting location some where.

Has anybody found a solution to opening multiple PDFs in the same window in High Sierra?

You can open multiple PDFs in the same window, but the UI is different. Multiple PDFs will now open in separate tabs rather than the old way of segmenting them by scrolling.
Here is a link to the Apple support site if the following steps are not clear: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206998
To ensure all documents open in tabs follow these steps:
Big Sur
(Open) System Preferences > (Select) General > (Go down to 5th option) Prefer tabs: > (Select from option menu^) Always
Older versions of macOS
(Open) System Preferences > (Select) Dock > (Go down to 5th option) Prefer open tabs when opening documents: > (Select from option menu^) Always
Now, when you open multiple PDFs they will open within the same window, segmented by different tabs.
^From the option menu, you have the following options:

Always: When you open another window in your app, it automatically opens as a tab in your current window.
In Full Screen Only: When you open another window in your app, it opens as a tab only if you're using the app in full screen. Otherwise, it opens as a new window.
Manually: Manually choose when to use tabs, whether or not you're using the app in full screen.


Is it possible to delete a monitor or change the name as shown in Display Preferences? I have a pair of the same model and size monitors at home, as I have in the office. They're all named "Company Model (1)" and "Company Model (2)".

It seems like the setup I have at home has them physically arranged from L -> R: 1 -> 2, but in the office, however, it's 2 -> 1.

The result is when I work from home, or work from the office, I need to constantly set the Display Arrangement in Preferences.

Is there a way to delete the displays, so I can reintroduce them to the computer in the right order, or just rename them so the one physically on the left is always 1, and the one on the right is always 2?

It turns out it's the dongle with which the monitors are connected. I have two different brands (Satechi and Anker) at home, and (Apple and Anker) at work. When I plug the monitors into the different dongles, it changes orientation. The reason the physical swap didn't work, was because I also unplugged the cables from the monitors in the office, and reconnected them to the different dongles. I tried unplugging the monitors from the dongles at home and swapping them, and and they indeed switched.

This is probably the most trivial of information, but it's at least answered!


Restore Safari browser on MacBook Air Yosemite OSX 10.10.4 How do I restore my Safari browser.  I accidentally deleted it. Now I have to use Google or Bing.  Whoops!

Many who are new to the Mac and OS X mistakenly think they have deleted something if they accidentally or purposely remove a icon from the Dock.

If that is what you have done, restoring it to the Dock is easily done.

Find your Applications folder
Locate Safari
Drag to the dock

Or, double click on it and it will open.  There you can pin it to the Dock. By long pressing the icon or right clicking and select options.  See screenshot below.  The other way to keep it there is simply to drag it to a new location on the Dock closer to the Finder icon.

If you dragged it to the Trash from the Applications folder, the open the trash folder by double clicking on it and restoring from there.

If you truly deleted it, which is very hard to do "accidentally", a restore of your OS may be in order.


Duplicate 'Unknown Album' listings for the same artist in Music app I am trying to group all songs with no album title (i.e. the 'Album' field for the songs' metadata is empty) for the same artist into one "Unknown Album"

Each song with no album title should be grouped in the same "Unknown Album" album for the artist. Instead each individual song for the artist is split into multiple "Unknown Album" listings (see image)

What I have tried to fix this:
In iTunes, adding an album title for every song with no album title, then removing the album title.

Since you've got access to iTunes on a Mac, the way I would try to achieve what you want is as follows:

Launch iTunes on your Mac
Ensure you have your music library selected
Choose Songs in the lefthand pane
You should now see a list of all your songs
Filter your list by Artist
Now scroll your list so you have the particular artist in view
While holding the command key down click on each of the songs you want to group together - this should highlight them all
Now right-click on one of the highlighted songs and select Get Info (or just use the commandi shortcut)
You'll should get the following prompt:

Click on the Edit Items button
Now start with the Details tab and ensure all fields are blank to begin with and then enter details for Artist, Album and Album Artist) - for album I would replace 'unknown album' with the correct album name (if it exists) or something appropriate like Cryptic's Freddie Gibbs Compilation)
Then select the Artwork tab and if artwork already exists right-click on it and select the Delete Artwork option
Now move onto the Options tab and make sure the media kind is Music (I imagine it already will be)
Finally check the sorting tab to make sure that the metadata you completed at Step 11 is reflected within the fields under the Sorting tab
When you've finished with all the metadata, click on the OK button
Now sync your iTunes library as you normally would to see if the changes are reflected on your iPhone

NOTES:

If the above doesn't work then try again but at Step 11 ensure you select the Compilation option
If you have iCloud Music Library and/or iTunes Match enabled, it's unclear how those services may impact what you're wanting to achieve, so please report back using comments below to let us know how you go.


How to compile apps with g77 on OS X Lion? I am running Mac OS X 10.7.3 (Lion)

I have a problem in using the fortran compiler g77: any program I try to compile, it gives me this message: "g77: installation problem, cannot exec `as"

I've downloaded and installed the latest release of Xcode, but nothing changed...

Thanks in advance for any help,

Marco

g77 is not part of Xcode. You may have a look here http://hpc.sourceforge.net/ which provides a version compatible with Lion and XCode 4.x.

  On LION, with XCode 4.3 you will need to download the command-line tools as an additional step. You will find the option to download the command-line tools in XCode 4.3's Preferences


Find the size of a given Time Machine backup I'm interested in determining the size of a given Time Machine Backup. This seems possible with tmutil using either uniquesize, compare, or calculatedrift, but I've been unable to figure out the precise command to find the size of a given backup image. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance.

There is no such thing as a given backup image in Time Machine. Practically speaking only changed files get backed up each time but the snapshot volume also contains links to the most recent version of all unchanged files on the backup drive. So each snapshot volume represents a backup of your whole hard drive (also summing up the size of all snapshot volumes together will give you a number significantly higher than the size of your whole backup disk).

To find out how much data was added/changed/removed during one Time Machine backup, tmutil calculatedrift /Volumes/Time\ Machine/Backups.backupdb/NameOfYourMac is the way to go:

pse@Fourecks:~$ sudo tmutil calculatedrift /Volumes/Time\ Machine/Backups.backupdb/Fourecks
[...]

2013-06-02-131853 - 2013-06-02-164246
-------------------------------------
Added:         807.2K
Removed:       5.0M
Changed:       100.7M

2013-06-02-164246 - 2013-06-02-174230
-------------------------------------
Added:         9.9K
Removed:       0B
Changed:       43.8M

Drift Averages
-------------------------------------
Added:         715.6M
Removed:       535.5M
Changed:       571.5M


How can I select text in Terminal.app using Ctrl+Shift+a and Ctrl+Shift+e? I'm on Mac OSX Catalina (10.15.3) and find that while I can use the emacs keybindings CTRLe and CTRLa to move to the end and beginning of a line respectively, I cannot use those command in combination with the SHIFT key.

My expectation would be that it would move the caret to the end/beginning of the line while selecting characters.

In other related answers I see the suggestion to move to iTerm2. However, I would like to minimise the number of "duplicate" applications on my mac.


How can I manually lock an iPhone X screen I have my iPhone X configured to auto-lock in 30 minutes. But sometimes I want to manually lock sooner, is this possible? By lock, I mean require the passcode.  I know that I could set the phone to require a passcode "Immediate" but, I would like to keep it set at 15 minutes for general use.  I only want to force it to require a passcode when I'm out for a run which is just 3 times a week.

I run with the iPhone, and sometimes find it's unlocked and in some unwanted state, due to unintended touches.

I don't have Face ID enabled I just require a Passcode. I know I can press the Side button to make the screen go dark. But for the next 15 minutes, all I need to unlock is swipe up. I want to lock it so that a Passcode is again required. That way when I'm running, nothing will happen other than me accidentally pressing the wrong numbers for the passcode.

You can press the side button once to lock your iPhone X screen. This puts your iPhone to sleep mode and locks the screen (you'll be required to verify with facial attention or input passcode to unlock).

For more details, refer to the Apple Support article:

Use gestures to navigate your iPhone X and later

  Wake and sleep

  Raise to wake or tap to wake your iPhone X.

  To put your iPhone X to sleep, press the side button.

As pointed by @ernie, it's worth noting that an iPhone X with Face ID enabled unlocks as soon as you look at the screen when it is in awake state. To test that the screen was locked using this approach, you'll need to wake the device while not directly looking at the screen.

If you are not using Face ID

If you have turned off Face ID for your iPhone X, you'll need to enter your device Passcode to unlock. However, there's an additional setting which could prevent your device from going into lock mode after turning off the display by pressing the Side button. It is possible to set a time duration until which the iPhone is not locked (when you have turned off Face ID). To lock your iPhone immediately after putting the display to sleep after pressing the Side button, go to Settings app → Face ID & Passcode → Require Passcode and tap on Immediately.


Using two different drives with Time Machine I have two drives that I want to utilize with Time Machine.
Every week, one is rotated offsite.

Week 1 - Drive A is utilized for Time Machine.
Week 2 - Drive B is introduce, and utilized for Time Machine.

Rotation:

Week 3 - Drive A is used, Drive B is offsite
Week 4 - Drive A is offsite, Drive B is used

So at most, one week of work is at risk.
When I introduce Drive B at week 2. It has no backups. Time Machine present option, "Do you want to use both?"
Just select "Use Both". Thats is all that is required. Both Drive A and Drive B will have full backup, one week apart?

You can have Time Machine backup to several drives, it will rotate among all configured and mounted drives. Two caveats

if you disconnect a backup drive, Time Machine will alert you the next time it‘s up for backup
If you disconnect a backup drive for a week it‘s next backup most likely requires a full scan of the source drive

It might be better to keep the two drives connected all the time and do alternating disk image backups to two other drives (and store those offsite).


Is there any way to use a 2011 iMac as a monitor for a non-Thunderbolt PC? With a 2010 iMac I would be able to connect an HDMI to mini DisplayPort cable from a GPU to the iMac and have the iMac act a monitor using Target Display Mode. However, after some research I found that the 2011 iMac cannot do this and its Target Display Mode only works if you are connecting from a Thunderbolt device.

Is there any cable or converter or even a GPU with a Thunderbolt-output that I can use to get around this?

Sorry, no. There are some PCs and motherboards coming out now that support Thunderbolt, but because of how Thunderbolt works, it's not something that can be added on later to something that didn't initially support it.


Large (800 GB) Disk Image on Time Capsule as pseudo-NAS? I am considering getting a new Time Capsule (2TB) as a basic/pseudo NAS, in addition to a target for Time Machine for two macs.

My macs each have a 500 GB ssd. Neither are currently even half full, but at some point down the road, I assume they'll each have 400 GB. I think I've read that Time Machine should have storage for at least 1.5x the amount of data being backed up, so 400 x 1.5 = 600, x2 macs = 1.2 TB needed.

With the 2 TB Time Capsule, I'd have 800 GB available for NAS, but I need to LIMIT the space used by Time Machine, since it otherwise continues to grow, using all available space on the disk. But the TC disk can't be easily partitioned, so the solution I found is to put my NAS files in a blank Disk Image on the Time Capsule -- which prevents Time Machine from using that space. (See Can I set up quotas on my Time Capsule?)

When creating a Disk Image in Disk Utility, the largest preset is 8.3 GB. But this would require an 800 GB Disk Image. So finally, my question...

QUESTION -- Is an 800 GB Disk Image (and this strategy in general) ok, or is it a very bad idea? Why?

This is a bad idea on a Time capsule. It is possible, but it will be extremely slow to set up and very slow in use.

See Pondini's Time Capsule Q3

You can use Disk Utility to create a custom-size disk image (normal, not sparse) and specify it to be 800GB size, but you have to create that empty 800GB file locally first, then upload it to your Time Capsule. The Time Capsule's disk and network connections are not built for speed.

Even if you reserve 800GB of space on your Time Capsule, there is no quota to shared the remaining 1200GB fairly between your users.

For example - One user could repeatedly fill their SSD with junk, back it up to the Time Machine target on the Time Capsule, delete the local junk and download fresh junk to the SSD. They could repeat this until the 1200GB space is used up. Only at that point would their oldest junk be automatically deleted from their Time Machine history. The other user would not be able to prompt any clear-out of the junk, they would only be able to lose their own oldest material.

Shorter answer: Time Capsule is great, but it is a backup device not a NAS: it is too slow and has no NAS functions. Don't try to use it like a proper NAS. It is handy for storing a few shared files like a very very basic NAS can, but that is very limited.


How do I find the sha256 hash of text on a Mac? I found tutorials on how to find the sha256 hash of files, but cannot seem to find one on simple text (not a text file). Does anyone know how to do that?

You can echo the text and pipe it to shasum. You'll want to use the -a 256 option to calculate sha256:

Thanks to JMY1000 in the comments: Since echo adds a newline by default, -n should probably be added in order to get the proper shasum of the text without this newline.

echo -n "simple text" | shasum -a 256

If you want to get the hash value for a text which is already open in an editor, copy it to the clipboard and run

pbpaste | shasum -a 256


Is it necessary to "Restore" files from a Time Machine backup if I can already access them directly from the backup disk using Finder? I have an external hard drive that I've separated into two partitions: one that I use for additional file storage, and one that I use as a dedicated Time Machine backup disk. Something has gone wrong with the Time Machine partition, such that it will no longer mount, cannot be repaired, and cannot be erased on its own, neither by using Disk Utility nor through the command line directly, so I've decided to just erase and reformat the entire drive.

I used Time Machine to backup the file storage partition onto a second external hard drive (by selecting the second external hard drive as my backup disk and excluding all volumes other than the file storage partition of the first external hard drive from the backup), with the plan of then restoring this backup onto the first external hard drive after it's been erased and reformatted.

Having never restored anything using Time Machine before (at least aside from after upgrading to a new version of macOS), I was expecting that the backup would be stored on the second hard drive in some sort of archive file-esque format, with the individual files being inaccessible until the backup has been properly "Restored" somewhere else using Time Machine. However, when I opened Finder after the backup had completed, I saw that the result was a lot more like I had just copied and pasted everything from the file storage partition onto the second external hard drive.

Aside from the fact that everything is stored within a folder called "Backups.backupdb", it really seems like I've effectively just transferred everything from the file storage partition of the first external hard drive onto this second external hard drive; the backup folder on the second drive is approximately the same size (just a few MBs larger) as what was stored on the file storage partition of the first drive, and every file I've tried to open from the second drive (pictures, pdfs, mp3s, etc.) has worked fine so far.

So, my question is, is there any reason I should bother "Restoring" this backup to the first hard drive, or can I just start using the second hard drive the same way I was using the file storage partition of the first hard drive before, and then just use the first hard drive for something else after I erase and reformat it?

The only potential issue I can currently see with doing the latter is that the backup folder on the second drive does seem to be in a sort of "read-only" mode, as I'm prompted to "Authenticate" with my password when I try to transfer a file into one of its subfolders, and maybe this is reason enough on its own to bother going through with "Restoring" the backup to the first drive. However, I don't really know much about the specifics of how Time Machine works, so I'm also interested to know if there are any other issues associated with using a Time Machine backup folder like a regular storage folder that I'm not aware of.

No - you don't need to have two copies of the files you backed up.

I think it's a good idea to restore all the files you want to have a backup copy of, however. Spotlight search will let you read / search all the files, but you have no safeguard for when the backup disk dies or fails, so your retention policy for everything you don't copy back is until that disk has a problem.

Files within Backups.Backupdb are intended to be read only, so you shouldn't expect to ever make changes there (or even be able to delete them) so if you can modify them - you have a backup that's disabled or malfunctioning and making a restore so you can set up a new backup is highly advisable.


Password managers for iOS With the whole Heartbleed mess, I figured it was about time to start using a password manager. After doing some research, here is the list of things that I want and don't want in this kind of software:

I want:

Open source, or at least with source code available, so that people can check for themselves for security holes (though Heartbleed
happened in another piece of open source code, so who knows now...).
Iphone support. My phone is the one thing I always carry with me, no matter what desktop computer I'm using.

What I DON'T need:

Dropbox syncing. I don't want my passwords to be on any cloud, thanks.
Form autocomplete. I can type my own passwords, thanks.

After searching for a bit, it looks like miniKeePass is the software that fits my needs best. Can anyone comment on its security track record, or suggest alternatives?

Thanks.

I personally love 1Password, it is a great solution for iOS and Mac, they have an really good and fast syncing option (you can choose if you want to use iCloud, Dropbox or you can sync with the Mac app via wifi), the Developer just updated the app for iOS 7.

The only disadvantage per your requirements is that it is not open-source.


Facebook Contacts disappearing from contacts I am using the iOS Facebook Integration, which adds my Facebook friends to my contacts in the phone app.
Yesterday I noticed that some of these Facebook contacts have been disappeared, despite being still 'Friends' with them on Facebook.

Is this maybe due to some Facebook privacy feature?

It seems Facebook did this on purpose. Facebook tries to only sync contacts which include useful information.

Friends without contact information other than a '@facebook.com'-email are no longer synced.

[Source]


Installing bbcp on OS X Yosemite I'm trying to install bbcp (which is a fast scp alternative) on MAC, I tried with brew:

$ brew install bbcp
Error: No available formula for bbcp
==> Searching formulae...
==> Searching taps...
homebrew/head-only/bbcp

It looks like the bbcp binaries are not available for OS X! Any idea how to port them?

There is no need to port it. bbcp for OS X is available here. After downloading and moving it to an appropriate folder (e.g. /usr/local/bin) modify ownership and make the file executable.

Version number is: 15.02.03.01.1


how can i get url of the application is connected to server? I want to grab server url of each application that is online with that.
Ex. twitter app -> http://twitter.com/...
Ex. Tweetdec app -> http://client.tweetdec.com/...
Ex. itunes app -> itms-apps://itunes.com/...

every app transfer, post and get data with special url of a host. i want a tools show their.

Consider using a proxy server such as squid or Charles. Most proxy servers can be set to log every connection and the content passing through it.

To see open connections, including TCP connections, use the command line tool lsof.

For detailed network debugging, get a packet trace. Apple's Q&A1176 walks through how to obtain a packet trace on Mac OS X.


tmutil and full disk access, run as root or give access? I tried running tmutil and after waiting about 5 minutes it spit out this message

$ tmutil listbackups
tmutil: listbackups requires Full Disk Access privileges.
To allow this operation, select Full Disk Access in the Privacy
tab of the Security & Privacy preference pane, and add Terminal
to the list of applications which are allowed Full Disk Access.

My question is, can I just run it as root as in

$ sudo tmutil listbackups

Or do I have to give it Full Disk Access permissions? I'd prefer running as root as it's more temporary but I'm worried something might break (some permisisons get set incorrectly etc...) Of course I can give it permission and revoke it later. I'm sure curious, can I run as root instead?

Running the command as root does not give it the necessary permission to bypass the "Full Disk Access" prompt.

You will need to actively give it the "Full Disk Access" privilege as described in the message, you have cited. Afterwards you can take away the privilege to ensure it is a temporary thing.


Best way to share all photos with partner I want to create a comprehensive cloud photo archive together with my girlfriend, for all our mobile devices and laptops.

This is what we want:

Photos should be archived in full resolution
Photos should be automatically uploaded from iPhones

I’m a bit desperate because everything I tried so far failed:

Dropbox: uploads everything into one folder and would mix up the sources of the photos; plus it would require sharing my Dropbox ID
iCloud: it’s only possible to share albums, so sharing the entire collection is cumbersome. Plus, backing up shared albums seems difficult (I’d need to manually save them and would create redundant copies for all photos I uploaded before to the shared album)

I’m now eyeing at Google Photos. It seems to be best at sharing libraries and - of you pay - allows you to upload full scale pictures. While I’m worried about Google’s tendency to grab data, I’m willing to accept that.

Now my questions:

What so you use for sharing entire photo libraries from different devices with your family?
Would you recommend using one account for our collection, or two separate ones? With two separate accounts, can you share full resolution photos using the Shared Library function? With ohne, is there a way to separate between sources (i.e. what she uploads from her iPhone / why I upload from my iPhone / why she uploads from laptop / ...)

I guess google developed a feature that is exactly what you have been looking for:

Share your Google Photos library with a partner
https://support.google.com/photos/answer/7378858?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DiOS

I've just enabled it with my wife and so far seems to work greata


Is the thunderbolt 2 port reversible? Although i am able to plug thunderbolt 2 and mini displayport devices into my macbook pro either way. They only seem to function if i plug them in one way and not the other.
I was wondering if my macbook is defective and that the connector is reversible? or not?

If not can you please elaborate on why a connector design that allows for a cable to be plugged in upside down is used?

Mini-DP is not meant to go in either way up, it's strictly a one-way-up connection - like USB, not like Lighting.

If you made it fit upside down, then excessive force was used & the socket is distorted.

Ref: Wikipedia - Mini DisplayPort


Why won't USB Mount to Desktop? I have a Mac. I plugged in a USB stick and I realized that I couldn't find the USB in my Desktop folder through the command-line. Turns out USB is mounted to ~/Volumes.

If there's an USB icon on the Desktop, why can't I see it in the terminal? Also since they put a USB icon on Desktop, why not mount the USB to Desktop?

The usb icon you see in your 'desktop' is a finder's option, it has nothing to do with your actual desktop directory.

You can link the usb to your desktop directory :

ln -s /Volumes/"usb" ~/Desktop/"usb"

this way you'll have the usb folder on your finder's desktop and you desktop directory


Is there a way to randomize or shuffle clips in iMovie 10? I've got hours of footage from a wedding reception.

I have about 100 short 5 second clips in a movie.  They are all in sequential order.

I would like to shuffle/randomize all the clips so they are in a more unexpected order.

Is there an easier way to do this than manually dragging and dropping clips around?

You cannot shuffle clips once added to the media library. However, you surely can shuffle the sequence in which you are adding the clips to media library.

To shuffle pics when I try to create a slideshow, I do this:

Assuming all your pics are in my_pics folder

Open Terminal, then:

cd my_photos

mkdir -p random

for filename in *
do
   cp "$filename" ./random/"$(( $RANDOM % 1000 ))_$filename"
done

This will randomize the list of photos in your mu_pics/random folder, which you can then drag into your iMovie.

Shameless plug... if you like this answer, please do check out my photography website : http://makuchaku.in


How to know where file is going to be saved? I have an application that is going to save a file to my MacBook Air El Capitan.  Trouble is, I cannot seem to find a way to determine where it's going to save the file in the dialog.  How do I find the FULL PATH of where it's going to save it?

The file save dialog appears to give me no way to determine this:

Where is it going to save the file?

Click on position indicated by the red arrow in the figure below:

This will allow you to choose which folder/path you need. You can also use the Command - Shift - G to open the dialog to explicitly paste / type in a path.

Enter a filename in the File Open dialog
Save file to hidden directory with standard OS X save dialog


White iPhone 4 vs. black iPhone 4 Other than the color, what exactly are the difference between the black and the white iPhone 4?

There are two changes that I've read about, both related to the color change but not just that the color is different:

The rear camera positioning has been slightly modified to reduce the amount of light that leaks into the area; it's said to be recessed slightly deeper into the device, though other reports indicate a slightly different casing. Makes sense, since the black glass and plastic would absorb light that the white glass and plastic would let through, likely causing washed-out pictures (or the software adjusting the white balance incorrectly, losing details in lighter and/or darker areas of the image).
Reports also indicate that the proximity sensor has been modified. Though it's quite possible, if the iPhone uses a capacitive proximity sensor such a change shouldn't be necessary (if it uses an infrared proximity sensor then the same light change issue would require a change). It seems more likely that the change was made for the ambient light sensor which is right next to the proximity sensor, since the ambient light sensor would have light change differences as well.

Other than the the phones are identical. The new one is no faster, for example.


Why does Image Capture crash when downloading pictures from my iPhone? image capture crashes when I try to download photos from my iPhone to my MAC. It works OK with my wifes iPhone, but not mine anymore. I don't know why as I have been able to download from my iPhone previously.

You may have a malformed/corrupt image on your phone.  Have you tried with alternative software like iPhoto?  It may simply be a case of identifying the culprit and removing it.


putting windows 7 on a flash drive using bootcamp I'm thinking of changing to a new MacBook Pro 15" (the one with an 256GB SSD), 256GB is enough for my files and OS, but I also want to have about 50GB for a Windows 7 (BootCamp) partition. So, taking note of this extra requirement, 256GB will be rather small..

I was thinking, because I don't use the Windows 7 that much, I can install Windows on a 64GB SanDisk Cruzer USB flash stick and then boot from that.

Is this solution compatible with BootCamp?

As far as I know, Boot Camp doesn't support external drives (with a possible exception of some Thunderbolt devices and CD/DVD drives). The Mac's boot loader only supports booting via EFI on USB and Firewire, whereas Boot Camp is BIOS/MBR emulation.

Windows 7 x64 apparently has a UEFI mode. I don't know if this is compatible with the Mac implementation of EFI. It certainly requires a 64-bit EFI - so only Macs that are compatible with Mountain Lion are even candidates for this. In any case, I haven't managed to pull this off myself, and the information I've found on the web is conflicting. Even if you can get the Windows install DVD to boot in EFI mode (how?), Windows will probably refuse to install to a USB drive.

So in summary, there's certainly no straightforward way to do this. It might be possible with some effort, but I haven't seen any reliable reports of success. (and I haven't had the time to try it myself with Win7 - I tried and failed back in the Windows XP days)


Change update frequency of App Store in Yosemite? Similar to Change update frequency of app store in Mountain Lion?

Is there a way to change the frequency the App Store checks for updates in Yosemite?

The same command still works in Yosemite:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate ScheduleFrequency 3

The integer represents the check interval in days.


How can I reset SSD on MacBook Air I changed the motherboard of a MacBook Air A1465 11" mid 2013 because the previous one had a problem with the RAM.
I boot the device in recovery mode in order to install the OS but the SSD is not recognised by the disk utility, so I search online and I find that I can see if the terminal recognises the SSD, in fact it does.
I use the command diskutil list and It appears a list of disks with my SSD in it.

Then I try to use the commands "diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ mySSD /dev/disk22", "diskutil eraseDisk /dev/disk22", "diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk22 GPT JHFS+ New 0b" and each time the process starts but after a while I receive a Error saying: "Error: -69877: Couldn't open device". After this error the disk disappears from the disks list.

I found out that when I use the command "diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk22" I can actually see the disk in the disk utility interface, but when I try to erase it as I did before, the same error occurs.

Some disks (like Transcent Jetdrive disks) need specific drivers and do not function under and OS older than 10.12.. Try and boot into the different options for recovery (like Command-R / Option-Command-R / Shift-Option-Command-R) and see if the disk is recognized in any of the versions.

Apple gear boots from external drives easily so you can always get a usb connector to test if the drive will work and do an erase install. Only when you have the OS loaded, put the drive in the machine.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904


How can I set up my iPad so I don't have to type in my password every time I try to download an app? I have an iPad 4 and I've searched everywhere for the answer to my question. And every website I've been to has given me the exact same answer. I've tried over and over, but it's not working. I've tried resetting my iPad, and I even bought a new iPad recently, and it's doing the same thing. I couldn't figure out how to add an image to my question, so I set my profile pic as a screenshot of my password settings.

You can only remove password authorization for free apps. You can set it so it only asks for it after 15 minutes on paid apps, that is, if you purchased one, it will only ask you for your password if more than 15 minutes have passed when you try to buy a second one.

This restriction does not apply for Apple TV.

Check this Apple Support document for further information: Manage your iTunes Store and App Store password preferences


Problem - 'DNS address could not be found' I've been trying to access the Myspace website and am receiving this message - 'www.myspace.com’s server DNS address could not be found'

I've tried using Chrome and Safari and keep getting the same result.

This is happening on my phone as well.

From the description of your problem you encounter a generic DNS misbehaviour.

If your Mac and your iPhone are within the same network, the origin of your problem is at your network router level. Either of thrre causes may lead to this no DNS servers:
 - the DNS servers of your ISP have changed and your router configuration
   wasn't upgraded,
 - the DNS servers of your ISOP aren't reachable,
 - your router was hacked and a bad DNS server IP address was provided to
   route all your traffic toward booby trapped web servers.

To analyse further this problem, just check what is the IP address configured at your router level. You might include its complete configuration within your original question, so as to get further help.

If you see that your router configuration was changed without
your knowledge, change its default password ASAP, and
restore its correct configuration.


Unable to install from downloaded disk image file My Mac G4 (running OS X 10.3.9) won't install from any .dmg file I download. It keeps popping up a message: "name of setup & no mountable file system" or "application file cannot be found". Is there some setting I need to change to get around this problem as I need to install some extra programs urgently.

It is likely the disk images do not support Mac OS X 10.3.9.

The command line tool used to create disk images is called hdiutil. This hdiutil manual page documents the DMG format's history and compatibility with older editions of Mac OS X.

hdiutil manual page


My MacBook Pro just froze, any advice? So, my MacBook Pro froze three times today, two of which about two minutes after startup. I could hear fans making noise. When I say 'freeze' I mean that both input an UI don't work.

I tried Apple Hardware Test (not the extended test, the quick one). The first time it reported an error, then I detached all the peripherals (that is, an iPhone), retried it and it said "no trouble found". Tried it a few times again and it reported nothing, even with the iPhone attached.
The error code was 0xae81a618, but apparently it doesn't show up on Google, so I can't do much with it.

A while ago I had to use iDefrag because the computer was slow as hell. Apparently the hard disk was very fragmented; after using iDefrag it got fast again.

And by the way it just froze again, I'm now using an iPhone to write this. This time there was no fan noise, and I only had Chrome running. What do you suggest? Do you suspect it is an hard drive problem? Or a RAM problem?

Meanwhile I'm doing the extended hardware test, I'll post the result here as soon as it's done.

Update The extended hardware test 'froze' (input still working though) at about 25% so I just shut down the computer. Then turned it on after a while and it still hasn't frozen since then.

Update 2 Here's a copy and paste of the latest lines (which I think may be relevant) in system.log after a freeze (and subsequent hard-reboot). This time I had just put it to sleep.

 Jun 11 16:56:02 pt2ph8 SubmitDiagInfo[963]: Cleaning up expired diagnostic messages database at path: /var/log/DiagnosticMessages/2011.05.12.asl
Jun 11 16:56:02 pt2ph8 SubmitDiagInfo[963]: Cleaning up expired diagnostic messages database at path: /var/log/DiagnosticMessages/2011.05.11.asl
Jun 11 16:56:04 pt2ph8 system_profiler[964]: could not convert interface name
Jun 11 16:56:05 pt2ph8 SubmitDiagInfo[963]: CFReadStreamCopyError() returned: The operation couldn’t be completed. (kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork error 2.)
Jun 11 16:56:05 pt2ph8 SubmitDiagInfo[963]: Failed to submit crash report: /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/HWNetCfg_2011-06-09-234746_localhost.crash
Jun 11 16:56:05 pt2ph8 SubmitDiagInfo[963]: CFReadStreamCopyError() returned: The operation couldn’t be completed. (kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork error 2.)
Jun 11 16:56:05 pt2ph8 SubmitDiagInfo[963]: Failed to submit crash report: /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/HWNetCfg_2011-06-11-140841_localhost.crash
Jun 11 16:56:07 pt2ph8 SubmitDiagInfo[963]: CFReadStreamCopyError() returned: The operation couldn’t be completed. (kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork error 2.)
Jun 11 16:56:07 pt2ph8 SubmitDiagInfo[963]: SubmitProblemReport() failed with error (2)
Jun 11 16:56:07 pt2ph8 SubmitDiagInfo[963]: SubmitDiagInfo failed to submit diagnostic messages!
Jun 11 17:01:57 pt2ph8 loginwindow[46]: loginwindow SleepWakeCallback WILL sleep
Jun 11 17:04:43 localhost com.apple.launchd[1]: *** launchd[1] has started up. ***
Jun 11 17:04:51 localhost DirectoryService[11]: Improper shutdown detected

Update 3 Yesterday I was running Windows (installed through BootCamp) and it froze again. Then I rebooted with Mac OSX and watched a movie for about two hours, then after about half an hour it froze again. So I guess it must be an hardware problem, right?

Update 4 it has been working without freezes for about three days now. Played games, watched movies from both Mac OSX and Windows. Should I still send it to Apple? And if so, now that I'm unable to reproduce the problem, what should I tell them?

some basic things - but you probably already done them:

Console.app (check log-files)
ActivityMonitor - check activity for HDD, memory, swap etc...

here are other helpers (command line) - but 1st you should check the above two...

Start with "all messages" or "system.log" and try search for repeated messages what can suggest something. But you will see much cryptic (but otherwise harmless messages) - it is hard to advise. Simply read thru - maybe you got some idea.

Here is an nice dashboard widget - iStat Pro - what show your fan speed, HDD activity etc.. Maybe can give an idea what is doing inside...


Contacts deleted when setting up e-mail on iPhone 4S New iPhone 4S.  When I set up my e-mail exchange account all my contacts are deleted.  I have restored from back up twice and turned off the sync with contacts, calenders and reminders but it still deletes the lot.  Help?!  The prompts on the phone are insufficient to resolve.  Currently I can either have my contacts or my e-mail working but not both.

If you have synced your iPhone with iTunes before, you can restore from backup.


Similar to TextExpander App but simulating typewriting text effect I'm looking for an app similar to TextExpander but I need that the expanded snippet to be shown simulating typewriting text effect.

Something like shown in this YouTube video.

If not posible, can I do it with Automator?

If you mean write something in monospace font, I use TextExpander for inserting the clipboard in a specific font, where I choose a monospace font (I chose Monaco since it seems like it's available on many platforms/OS). Handy for when citing a block of code in an email for example.


I want to change clock from 12h to 24h mode via terminal So I'm looking for the command to change from 12h to 24h. Is there even such a command? I mean I can do it with the GUI but I need to be able to do it via terminal so I can put it in a bash script.

Here I want instead of the 12h format a 24h format.

This is stored in the plist located at ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.menuextra.clock under the key DateFormat.
Here's a quick primer:

12 Hour Mode with AM/PM:
EEE MMM d  h:mm:ss a

12 Hour Mode without AM/PM:
EEE MMM d  h:mm:ss

24 Hour Mode:
EEE MMM d  H:mm:ss

To apply any of these formatting strings, you can either use the defaults command at the Terminal, or if you're looking for a more programmable method, you can use the do shell script1 directive within Applescript.
To apply these via the Terminal, open it up and run the following command:
defaults write com.apple.menuextra.clock DateFormat -string 'EEE MMM d  H:mm:ss'

Substitute the string between the quotes with the version from above that you want.
For the changes to take immediate effect, kill -SIGHUP SystemUIServer will do the trick. Otherwise they will take effect the next time you log out and back in or restart.

1 CyberCiti Primer on Shell Scripting via Applescript


Cross Platform GUI-compatible Encryption I am looking for an encryption tool that is completely cross platform - effectively like FileVault or BitLocker but compatible with both operating systems.

My use case is that I'd like to encrypt a drive that is used heavily between two sites (it travels, hence the encryption) - one Mac and one Windows. Ideally, I'd like to encrypt the whole drive and when I plug it into either machine, it prompts me to enter a key of some form to decrypt it.

I understand that TrueCrypt used to be a great way of doing this - but unfortunately it is no longer supported / developed (ref). I'm not at all adverse to using a command line to unlock and relock the drive provided it is fast enough to be relatively transparent.

Has anyone else encountered this kind of thing / have any suggestions? I'm running Mavericks on all Macs and 8.1 on all Win machines.

Thanks!

TrueCrypt 7.1a has gone through at least two audits. They found a couple of high-severity issues were found, but there are no known exploits against them, and one only affects the Windows version. And the one that affects Mac OS, like many exploits, requires physical access. Unless you are worried about your macbook falling into the hands of the NSA or Russian hackers (note: I'm being hyperbolic), I wouldn't be too worried. I'm pretty concerned about security myself, and I'd have no problem using TrueCrypt. The only concern I would have is future compatibility as operating systems evolve and drop support for older stuff.

But there are two active forks off of 7.1a, only one is ready and stable, and has a Mac version: VeraCrypt.

Once you set up an encrypted volume - essentially a loopback file - you still have to format it with something cross-platform. I'm guessing you already understand this part, but if not, this is going to be your biggest cross-platform issue. Or at least, it has been for me having done this kind of thing many times.

FAT32 is really the only rock-solid cross-platform filesystem. It comes with a so-called 32GB partition size restriction, but this can be overcome, for example with Fat32Formatter.

NTFS "should" work, in the form of NTFS-3G, but in practice it never has for me! This could be just my experience, but every time I've tried it I've had issues: either lost data or had concerning enough file integrity issues that it worried me too much to trust important data with. NTFS-3g claims that they comply with NTFS rules better than Microsoft, and that any integrity issues that arise are Microsoft's fault. Which seems plausible to me. But the bottom line is that whenever I used NTFS-3g on a volume, then used it natively in Windows, it had oodles of integrity issues using Microsoft chkdsk. And like I said, I've lost data before, more than once. Personally I just don't trust it.

But in the last few years, I've not had to worry about cross-platform issues. Because, if I need to use NTFS from Mac or Linux, I just use it natively in a VM and share it via CIFS. I've even used Windows 2000 (with no licensing issues) in a VM to access NTFS volumes from Mac or Linux.

But any more, the only "cross-platform" file system I use is ZFS. I used to use two small 1tb USB drives velcro'd to the lid of my Macbook (running Windows), with a Linux VM sharing the ZFS volume via CIFS.


Can't backup broken iPhone 6 without entering pin I have recently broken the screen on my iPhone 6 and want to back everything up before I take it into apple to be repaired.

My problem is when I go to back the phone up in iTunes, it wants my pincode. I can't put my pincode in as my screen is broken!

The screen seems to be responding to key presses as it vibrates when I touch the screen where I think the numbers are, but this still doesn't work.

Does anyone know a way I can get a backup of my phone despite this issue?

As far as I'm aware, entering the pass code is a security feature when you backup for the first time to a different iTunes/computer. You can't get around it, however its possible that Apple will be able to repair the screen without wiping the phone. Maybe even mention you haven't backed up the phone when you take it to get repaired and see if they can do anything for you


Snap feature for Mac? Coming from Windows I have gotten extremely used to the Windows Snap feature, which resizes a window when it's dragged to the screen edges.

However, it's not built into OS X. Are there any 3rd party utilities that add this functionality?

For window arranging:

SizeUp  $13
Divvy  $14
Breeze  $8
ShiftIt  Free
Mercury Mover  $20
Optimal Layout  $14
Cinch  $7
Moom  $10


Numbers: How to escape the "+" character for a phone number I am working on a document in Numbers where I have to write a phone number starting with a plus character +, like +33553379412, but as soon as I press enter, the plus is going away. Is there any way to show it?

Thank you

I solved this by adding the ' character (i.e. the single quote) before entering the +33553379412.


How to make iPhoto library back into bundle I recently recovered from a disk failure and while most of my files are ok, I'm having trouble with my iPhoto library.

While it appears that the data fro the iPhoto library is intact in the recovered files, the library now appears as a folder rather than a bundle.  As a result, iPhoto will not recognize or open the library.

Is there any way to make it back into a bundle either from the GUI or via the Terminal?

EDIT: Changed my answer.  :-)

I copied my iPhoto Library, and removed the extended attributes (a piece of metadata called com.apple.finderInfo). It then showed up as a folder rather than a proper iPhoto Library. I then fired up iPhoto holding option, and selected this folder as my iPhoto Library. It accepted it and changed the type, putting the metadata back, and all was well. I suspect this is what needs to happen in your case as well, it looks like as long as the files are there, iPhoto will do the work for you.

Old answer: I think you can rename it to 'iPhoto Library.bundle'.  It will then take the form of a bundle.  You can then remove the '.bundle' from the file name and it should (still) act bundle-like.

Not really sure though.

EDIT: or .app


Moving .bash_profile to Dropbox I'd like to move my .bash_profile to Dropbox to have my custom Terminal functions available on all my Macs. Is this possible and are there possible implications?

For example I have a command for doing a git add and commit in one go:

function gax() {
    git add .
    git commit -m "$1"
}

I've been unable to find any information about this.

You can have additional file in Dropbox folder and then on every machine inside your .bash_profile file put this:

FILE="/path/to/DropboxFolder/shared_bash_profile_file"
if [ -f $FILE ];
then
    source $FILE
fi


Parallels video memory I have a new 27" iMac with 1 GB of video card memory. I'm trying to play The Witcher 2 in Parallels. (Boot Camp is just too much of a hassle.)

It appears I can allocate only 256 MB of video memory to the VM?

Is that the limit? Am I out of luck if I want Windows to have more video card memory?

Parallels will intelligently cap you at what the Mac OS can operate on, so if that's where it maxes out, and you're running the proper, up to date version of Parallels and Windows, then yes.

You can also make adjustments to the Windows OS itself to free up memory (ie. reduce visual elements and effects).


open dict://“$word” stopped working for Chinese after upgrading to Big Sur Not sure if this question is appropriate for this forum. If not, please let me know, and I will remove it (if I can).
I have a shell script open dict://"$word" that worked well in Catalina for both English and Chinese. It will open the Dictionary.app and look up the word for me.
Problem:
After upgrading to Big Sur, it now works only for English, not for Chinese anymore. If I try to look up a Chinese word, say, to execute open dict://"中", it will give an error in the Terminal.app: The file /Users/USERNAME/dict:/天 does not exist. Looking up an English word, say open dict://'hello', acts normally (i.e., it opens Dictionary.app and looks up "Hello" in the app). I can still look up Chinese words using Dictionary.app's interface.
I'm an amateur in programming. I don't know what I can try to solve this problem.
Any help appreciated! Thanks in advance!

This seems to be a bug with the open command when handling certain characters—for instance, open http://www.google.com?q=中 gives a similar error message. It might be worth reporting this bug to Apple; in the meantime, you can use the following (admittedly less than elegant) workaround:
osascript -l JavaScript -e "(a = Application.currentApplication()).includeStandardAdditions=true; a.openLocation('dict://' + encodeURIComponent('中'))"

This uses JavaScript for Automation to encode and open the URL, just as open does. To use the generic $word format, you would just make the following substitution:
osascript -l JavaScript -e "(a = Application.currentApplication()).includeStandardAdditions=true; a.openLocation('dict://' + encodeURIComponent('$word'))"


How to bend a path in Keynotes? I can not find the 'curved path button' in the Build Inspector which allows me to curve a path.
Can anyone tell me where to find it?

You can find it in the Build Inspector under the Action tab.


Buying an iPad through an iTunes account? Is it possible to use the iTunes account to buy an iPad?

I'd like to build up credit using iTunes prepaid cards with 20% credit to buy a new iPad Mini Retina. I think there is no restriction to what you buy through the store.

Am I correct?

This assumption is wrong. You can only buy Apps from the iTunes Store, App Store, iBooks Store, and Mac App Store.

All cards work on the iTunes Store, App Store, iBooks Store, and Mac App Store.
Select the gift card that's perfect for your lucky recipient.
You can include a personal message, and you always get free shipping.

Source


Trying to use a mid 2011 iMac as a display screen for my 2016 MacBookPro I have the two computers connected with the Thunderbolt cord. But when I hit F2 on the 2011 iMac, nothing happens. Well I shouldn't say nothing happens, the screen flashes as if I were taking a screen grab.

I am using the Thunderbolt Cable, connected by the Thunderbolt 3 USC-C to Tunderbolt 2 Adapter, but am not having any luck.

The 2011 is running on El Capitan and the MacBook is running on Mojave.

Thanks for your help!

According to Apple you have to press CommandF2 to enter target display mode, not just F2.


alert if application isn't running I'm currently having a bit of a nightmare as the company secretary's Mac has failed to run OneDrive since June. I use this to sync a Sharepoint document store that is effectively the company file server. The secretary has been working on a fairly significant number of files (and some pretty important ones regarding finance/invoices, recruitment, payroll, etc,) and did not noticed/mentioned that OneDrive hasn't been running.

Because of this problem, I've got ~500 files that I need to identify and work out how to sync/merge without over writing other people's changes... :/

I've effectively fixed her OneDrive for the time being -- it starts at startup and logs in and syncs as expected. I'm nervous, however, that OneDrive will stop again and we'll be back in the same boat, and I don't feel that asking her to keep an eye on it is a long term or a reliable solution.

What I was thinking of doing was to write a script that monitors for the OneDrive process and will fire an alert of some kind if it's not running. I am not a Mac expert however so I'm at a bit of a loss as how best to achieve that.

I guess AppleScript and a cron job is my best option. Can anyone advise if there is a better method, and can anyone help me getting started with AppleScript to detect a process and send an email warning if it's not detected?

EDIT : Process name is OneDrive

IMO your best bet would be to use launchd to make sure that OneDrive is always running no matter what.

(launchd is a bit like cron but much more powerful.)

Save this file as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.tjluoma.keep-onedrive-alive.plist (where ~ is the home directory on the secretary's computer):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.tjluoma.keep-onedrive-alive</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/Applications/OneDrive.app/Contents/MacOS/OneDrive</string>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Then load it in launchd using this command:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.tjluoma.keep-onedrive-alive.plist

That will:

a) Launch OneDrive

b) Re-Launch OneDrive if it is quit or crashes. Basically anytime it stops running, it will automatically start again.

Note that you should UN-check the option in OneDrive's preferences to open at login, because launchd will be in charge of running it.


Mapping special G-keys in OSX I have a Corsair keyboard K95 on OSX High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G5019).

I already mapped the windows key to make it work as the Command key in osx. Right now i'm trying to map the G-keys (macro keys at the left of the keyboard). Is it possible through an external app? The manufacturer doesn't support drivers for OSX.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

Generally speaking you need a Keyboard driver from the manufacturer. However a developer has made a "Universal" USB device driver for the Mac which might do what you need to do. Check out USB Overdrive

NOTE: might, I have no specific experience with this software, but have heard people using and recommending it for years and years, so I am guessing it will work for you.


Missing CoreAudio process in Activity Monitor I have always had the buzzing audio issue that comes with the 2018 MacBook Pro Models (I'm still convinced its an audio buffer size mismatch error). Up until now, I have always used the Kill CoreAudio in Activity Monitor trick to reset the audio and stop the buzzing.

Recently I have discovered that the CoreAudio has actually gone from my Activity Monitor! I still have audio and still have the buzzing issue. I'm just concerned that something will trip up along the ways because the CoreAudio is missing? Can someone shed some light on how to get it back please?

The process coreaudiod runs under the system user _coreaudiod, not your own user. Activity Monitor in your screenshots has been filtered by processes running under your user, denoted by the ‘My Processes’ title. Choose View → All Processes to remove this filter, then your search for the process will return it.


How to delete a trusted s/mime certificate for a contact in iOS7 How do I remove a s/mime certificate for a contact in iOS7 mail.app?

I'm using s/mime for two-way encrypted emails with several colleagues. A new colleague tried to install s/mime in Outlook for Windows and he sent me a signed email which I opened in iOS and trusted the certificate.

Then he changed his mind and stopped using s/mime (trouble with Outlook). iOS still tries to encrypt the email messages I send to him so he sees blank messages. I can find no way to list the certificates I have trusted for my contacts so I can remove this certificate.

Where do I have to look?

You should be able to view and remove certificates or S/Mime if you go to:

Mail, Contacts and Calender
Go to your mail account
Click advanced
Uncheck S/Mime or remove the certificate

Please also check out this Official Apple Guide
By clicking the name in the Mail.App you should be able to revoke the certificate.

Check this image:


How to stop Terminal from opening instead of Finder functions, such as New Folder, Open File, copy, paste, trying to move a folder to Desktop? When trying to open new folder on Desktop from Finder-menu Terminal opens instead. Also I cannot move documents and folders onto Desktop- get a "forbidden" sign (= white circle with slash through it).
When accessing the computer as other user Finder works fine.
Was running Mac OS 10.7.5 and it did not help to upgrade to El Capitan which I downloaded a few days ago.
After repairing permissions the report stated

  Warning: SUID file “System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent” has been modified and will not be repaired.

Disk Utility says the disk is OK.

I have tried to remove my user-systempreference-plists for Desktop and Finder, but everything got worse (spotlight could not find the right files, etc.) so I put back the plists.

Is this a sign of a "damaged directory"? Can it be fixed by Disk Warrior? Please help!

Found a solution to the problem here:

  Enter the following command in the Terminal window in the same way as before (no typing):

xattr -c ~/Desktop

  Try the action again. If the same thing happens, relaunch the Finder by selecting Apple menu > Force Quit... > Finder and pressing return or clicking Relaunch.


Lost mail from Outbox in Mail 7.1 (1827) I was having trouble connecting to my smtp server to send mail and had multiple emails (7) in my outbox.  I made a configuration change that I thought would work, selected all messages in the Outbox, right-clicked and selected "Send". Mail confirmed that I wanted to send the selected messages now, I clicked "Send" and the messages disappeared from my outbox.

However, the configuration change did not fix the issue and the emails were never delivered, and now they appear to have disappeared.  Is there any way to recover them?

I, too, lost my Outbox, but for a different reason.

I composed 15 messages on an airplane and "sent" them, which put them in the 'Outbox'.  When I arrived home, I:

Cmd-A (to select all 15 messages from Outbox)
tried to send them (via Cmd-Shift-D)
answered 'Yes' to "Send all these messages?"
noticed that they were gone.  G-O-N-E.  Nowhere to be found.

I eventually found them in:
  ~/Library/Mail/V2/Mailboxes/Outbox.mbox/some-UUID-here/Data

By selecting a time that was an hour (or so) before their disappearance, I was able to restore them from my online backup service to a different location (e.g. ~/Desktop/mail_app_message_restore).  I'm betting that TimeMachine could do something similar.

The messages were distributed (hashed, actually) among many directories, but when I issued this command from the command line, I found all 15 missing messages:

$ cd ~/Desktop/mail_app_message_restore    # or where you restored them
$ find Outbox.mbox -type f
Outbox.mbox/14D01FAB-9E5D-420D-8507-240D11CEC6D4/Data/5/4/1/Messages/145098.emlx
[ 14 other files ... ]
$

Notice that the hash directories (e.g. Data/5/4/1) are just the reverse of the top few digits of the message filename.  All of mine were in this 5/4/1 directory, but your numbers will be different.  It's a big directory structure, but there were only a few messages sprinkled through it.

Best of luck!!!
Michael

P.S.  Notice the side benefits of automagic backups?  What a great feature!  I'm so glad that it got a snapshot as soon as I got online, but that there was time before I tried to send them.  I think TimeMachine would have been even better about taking offline backups before I reconnected to the network.


Shared section does not show on finder Even checking all entries in the finder preferences, the section SHARED never shows up.

So far this is what I tired: I killed the daemon running the preferences, cfprefsd, then I removed com.apple.sidebarlists.plist  and com.apple.finder.plist. After rebooting, the finder sidebar changed (all my settings were gone) but it still did not displayed SHARED. Any suggestions?

For screen sharing via Ethernet cable read this

OS X Mavericks: Connect two computers using Ethernet

You can use an Ethernet cable to connect two Mac computers to share files or play network games.

Connect a standard Ethernet cable from the Ethernet port on one computer to the Ethernet port on the other. You don’t need to use an Ethernet crossover cable.

If your computer doesn’t have an Ethernet port, try using a USB-to-Ethernet adapter.

On each computer, open Sharing preferences and note the computer name for each computer.

In the Finder on one of the computers, choose Go > “Connect to Server,” or cmd + K then click Browse.

Double-click the other computer in the window, then enter your password, if necessary.


How to connect a detached earbud back to Apple Earphones? I have ~3 year old Apple Earphones that come with iPhones. One of the earbuds, the one with volume controls, broke off with ~1 inch wire attached to it.

Can I get this physical damaged earbud be repaired to a working state by connecting the wires and then using heat shrink wrap over it to protect the wires?

Yes, you can do this but the wires are very fine. I rely on a twisted joint without soldering.

One method to improve this is to use the “pre”glued heatshrink.

Some more info can be found at:

How do you stop headphone wires from breaking?
Possible to cut Heat Shrink tubing lengthwise and reattach?


My iMovie trailer clip is too short. Is there a way to make the clip longer?  I thought of maybe looping it or duplicating it but I can't figure out how.  The slow motion option won't work either.  Do the presets in the movie trailers stop you from doing this?

Looping is a function of the player (i.e., QuickTime). You can copy the clip and paste into the timeline of an iMovie project several times to create a loop effect if you want, but it will only play as many times as the clip is copied into the iMovie project.


Can't update from OSX 10.9.5 to OSX Yosemite 10.10 I bought my 13 inch non-retina MacBook Pro on December 2013. It's got...

4 GB of 1600 MHz DDR3 SDRAM

500 GB 5400-rpm hard drive

To update to OSX Yosemite 10.10 takes 5.64 GB. So does it mean I CAN'T update from 10.9.5 to 10.10 OSX Yosemite with my MacBook Pro?

I think you are misreading the numbers.

Yosemite takes a little more than 5 Gig.

Your Hard drive is 500 Gig. Even if you have used (consumed) lots of it, if you still have about 10 Gig of free space you can upgrade to Yosemite.

To look how much space you have on your Hard drive:

Click on the top left Apple symbol and then on the About this Mac.

In the new window click on "More Info", now click on the Storage Tab.

It looks like this on my Mac, showing I have 108 Gig free.

The other storage is called RAM (that is not your hard disk). Yosemite needs minimum 2 Gig and you have 4 Gig, so no problem there.


Can I inherit a Time Machine backup if I clone my HD? I have an old Power Mac G5 running OS X 10.5.8 (The newest OS it can run). It is backed up regularly using Time Machine to my Time Capsule.

The main drive is 500 GB but I would like to replace it with a 1 TB drive by cloning it, possibly with SuperDuper. Is it possible to trick Time Machine to continuing on with the same sparsebundle rather than starting a fresh, new backup? I don't have much space left on my Time Capsule so a whole new backup would be difficult.

Time machine uses the UUID (drive ID) to identify the source disk. So, inheriting time machine backup to continue with the swapped Mac machine is not possible rather you can use this command:

sudo tmutil associatedisk -a

Moreover, you can create an image of time machine partition and restore the data from the created image.


Service Battery Warning I have a 13" Macbook Pro (2009) and I randomly get the "Service Battery" warning. I haven't noticed a huge decrease in battery life but the cycle count is at 725. I'm out of warranty, and so I'd like to do it myself, but I couldn't seem to find a replacement battery on Apple's web site. All I could find was this article, but I'm out of warranty. Where can I get a new battery? Also, if I don't notice a huge decrease in battery life, should I even be that concerned over this? I've included a few of my stats from system profiler.

  Charge remaining (mAh): 4102
  Full charge capacity (mAh): 4102
  Condition: Check Battery
  Amperage (mA): -477
  Voltage (mV): 12271

ifixit.com sells a battery replacement (and almost any other part for your laptop), you might want to check it out. Here's the link http://www.ifixit.com/MacBook-Parts/MacBook-Pro-13-Inch-Unibody-Mid-2009-Battery/IF163-003

The part is out of stock, so you might want to be notified when it is available, it's all in the link.


Force Mac App Store to Install to Applications Folder I recently purchased a copy of my own Mac App Store app (using promo code) so that I could experience it the way my customers do.

I've discovered that downloading the app from the App Store will not just install in the Applications folder, but will instead overwrite the first app it finds on my hard drive that matches the corresponding bundle ID. I found out the hard way when I noticed that it overwrote the contents of my Xcode Archives for a previous version.

So, does anyone know a way to prevent this from happening? Thanks.

OSX stores details of all downloaded files and applications in a database per user, which you can find here: -

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.QuarantineEventsV*

I expect that if you were to find the relevant entry and delete it from the database, it would solve your problem.

You can read more about that here.


What version of iOS is my iPhone capable of running? I currently have iOS 6.1.6 on an iPhone 3GS. What is that the highest, supported version of iOS my iPhone is capable of running?

iOS 6.1.6 is the highest supported iOS version you can install on an iPhone 3GS.

Here is a handy iOS compatibility chart for iPhones (and other iOS devices).


How to use TL-WN823N USB adapter on Mavericks So after a long search on the webs I've found some questions regarding this specific USB adapter on a Mac. It appears some people were using the driver of a D-Link and other guy made it work by using the drivers on the Tp-Link website.

The problem is that when downloading the latest driver from the website, it doesnt work! the Installer asks me if I want to install for all the users and then the "Install" button is unclickable.

Also trying the "Standard Install" returns the same result:

Hope anybody can help me.

You can either wait for TP-Link to update its driver,

Or use something like Pacifist to extract those kext folders, and move it to /system/library/extensions


Numbers app: how to change x axis position + change chart's line width I have a regular linear graph and have y values running from negative to positive, enabling x axis shows the line at the bottom of the graph. How is it possible to set it to show at zero, i.e. running from the origin (0,0)?

I also wonder how to change the width of the line? I can change the size of the "data symbol", but can't find for the line itself.

UPD: This is easily possible to do in Excel, so it will be surprising if Numbers can't do it.

To answer the first part of your question, please see this Answer to Force line chart to show axis at point (0, 0)

Second part:
Select the line to highlight it.  Then under Style in the Inspector the Connection Line and weight can be adjusted by point.


Messages gives message not delivered warning, but recipient says they received it I have an iPhone 7 running iOS 10. When I send a text message in Messages, I get a message from the application saying it has not been delivered.

Yet the recipients tell me it has been.

Why is this?

I have noticed this only when there are multiple addressees.  I have assumed that the message was not delivered to one of the addresses.


Date and time settings disabled My date and time has suddenly become  1 jam 2013

In date and time preferences the setting "set date and time automatically" is disabled by which I mean it's greyed out. It's ticked and set to 10.2.0.90

How can I reenable this setting to change the date?

MacBook Pro with Mavericks

Generally speaking you must be an administrator to change this setting. If you are using a non-admin account you can click on the lock at the bottom of the pref window and enter any admin credentials to enable the setting.


How to create a 'New Email with Attachment' option in Finder? With OS X Lion, the 'New Email with Attachment' option is missing from Finder. It is supposed to be replaced with the new "Share Button". Unfortunately, the only two ways I can share a file are Airdrop and iMessage. I use Mac Mail and this isn't present.

I checked 'Services' under 'System Preferences' and didn't see any option to add email to the share menu.

How do I customize the share to items?

Is the service present and enabled in the Services section of Keyboard Preferences?

You should see this:

If it's not there for some reason, you can recreate it easily in Automator.

Create a new Service in Automator, add the "New Mail Message" action to the workflow, and change the first drop down at the top so it reads "Service receives selected files and folders in any application". It should look like this:

Then save it, and you should have it available in your services menu.


Change Date Created based on the filename I've downloaded a bunch of my Instagram images but the Date Created of the files is set to the time that I initiated the download. What I do have though is the Date Created in the filename. What I want to do is take the date in the filename, which I've changed to YYYYMMDDhhmm, and set that as the creation date of each file.

I changed the date in the filename into the YYYYMMDDhhmm because this is the format that the touch -t command likes. Now all I need is a way to take the first 12 characters of the filename, pass it to touch -t as the date to touch the file with and follow that with the full filename.

I imagine this could be accomplished with a combination of Hazel and a shell/AppleScript so that the date could be passed on from each individual image.

Cheers for any help :)

So after some hunting I stumbled on this little AppleScript on Mac OS X Hints. Thanks Krioni! I'm sure with some tinkering I could modify it to work with my filenames, but I just batch edited the image filenames to fit in with the script.

on open files_
    repeat with file_ in files_
        tell application "Finder"
            set file_name to name of file_
            set od to AppleScript's text item delimiters
            set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"_"}
            set new_creation_date to second text item of file_name
            set new_creation_date to new_creation_date & "1000"
            set file_ to POSIX path of file_
            do shell script "touch -t " & new_creation_date & " " & quoted form of file_
            set AppleScript's text item delimiters to od
        end tell
    end repeat
end open

It simply looks for the second text item of the filename in between underscores and uses that as the date. It then adds "1000" as the time to the touch command. Hopefully this will help someone else out there.

The original thread can be found here.