What hardware upgrade would be most beneficial for a Mac? Would it make more sense to buy a Mac with a better processor, or with a better graphics card, or a SSD?

For general computer use, mainly word processing and Chrome/Safari.

My suggestion is to always take the second fast processor available and invest the rest of your budget in RAM. The fastest processor is usually too expensive. You don't get much more speed for the price difference between the fastest and second fast.

And don't upgrade the RAM in the Apple Store. Find a local reseller, who delivers your System readily build with non-apple brand RAM with warranty. You could get twice the RAM for the same price. But never ever use discount RAM. It's not worth the hassle.

EDIT Oct 12:

bmike's comment is right. The SSD is right now the single most important component for your Mac's speed.

So take the SSD. Even if you can then only afford the slowest processor.

BTW. Are there still Mac models w/o SSD?


Import multiple-pages from a PDF as separate slides in Keynote I have a PDF with slides in it from someone else and I want to import all the separate pages of the PDF as separate slides in Keynote. The best answer I can find is this one on apple support, but it suggests splitting the PDF into separate 1-page files to drag them into Keynote individually and I'm sure there must be an easier way.

There’s a simple app called PDF to Keynote that does just this. From the developer’s description:

  PDF to Keynote converts PDF-based presentations (e.g., made using LaTeX and Prosper) into Apple's Keynote format.

I use it all the time for handling Beamer presentations, and it’s great. Free to download.

PS: This app does not suport current (November 2014) Keynote 6.5 file format.


Suppress TimeMachine Connection Errors I use a TimeCapsule that is on my home network for my Time Machine backup on MBP which I also use for work.  Ever since I've upgraded to Mavericks I get a "There was a problem connecting to the server "Time Capsule" every hour when it tries to back up.  This warning takes over my screen and grabs focus which is extremely irritating.

Is there any way to suppress these messages without having to turn off Time Machine every day when I'm in the office?

While I haven't been able to suppress the message I have found a solution to this and other location based problems.

I use an app called Control Plane, which is open source donationware, that senses where I am and changes any number of settings based on the location.

There is also a more fully featured app called Sidekick available for $29 US. Federico Vitti has a good overview of it here.


Missing menu items from the Apple Menu Somehow in the past 24 hours, I have only a basic menu for the Apple Menu and my early 2011 MBP running Yosemite 10.10.1 also always starts up in the Simple Finder. I especially miss the Recent Items in the Apple Menu. No idea what happened.

When I login as a different user the Apple menu is "normal". How do I repair the broken user  Apple menu? Both user accounts I have are admin accounts. I tried turning off Parental Controls for the affected user account but Simple Finder persists

I finally found a terminal command for changing the Simple Finder interface back to the Standard interface and it did the trick ;)

defaults write com.apple.finder InterfaceLevel standard;killall Finder

Got this from http://www.amsys.co.uk/2013/blog/how-to-quickly-enable-os-x-finders-simple-finder-mode/#.VI9WasZINv1

Thanks for the troubleshoot suggestions. It helped get me headed in the right direction.


How to force iMessage on iPhone to download messages stuck on Apple's servers? I have iMessage on my Mac and iPhone.

I treat iMessage on my phone as the primary tool. Mac iMessage is convenient to send messages occasionally, but my Mac is not always connected to the internet.

A message has been delivered to my Mac, and after several hours it has not appeared on my phone. I have tried logging out of iMessage. Turning iMessage off. restarting by holding down home and power. waiting ten minutes and reconnecting.

Can't make it budge. I have had an ongoing conversation since then.

I have no solid reference to back this up, but I have seen it empirically many times over many years & devices.

Once a message has been received & read by your account, no matter what device, other devices will no longer receive that message.

There may be a timeout period - as you can clearly see when you have your phone & Mac next to each other, receiving at the same time. The one that last 'spoke' will be the one on which an incoming message will actually 'ping' & the other will wait about a minute before also pinging...

...But if one is off [& this is the bit about which I have no real information ... how long it needs to have been off & remain off], & the message is received & read on the other, then the first will never receive the message at all.

The same can be seen if your phone is outside reception range & a message is received on the Mac [at home]. You only discover the message when you get back home.

See related: How to tell Messages "I'm not at home"?


Unlink app from brew cask I have an application, and it's listed in installed applications and when checking for upgrade. I don't want brew bask to handle this application. Is there a way to unlink it from brew without uninstalling and then reinstalling again manually?

There is no command in Homebrew Cask to forget an app.

However, there is a manual method: just delete the folder of the application you want to forget from /usr/local/Caskroom.


Can't connect to mobile internet on iPhone 4s The other day I noticed my mobile Internet was not working on my iPhone 4s. I thought I had used it all up.

Turns out I have 1 GB of data, so why is it not allowing me to access the Internet?

I have tried rebooting/restarting phone, resetting Internet settings, turning phone off and on, and still nothing works. I can't seem to find Cellular Mobile Data/Mobile Network Data! I am currently on the EE network.

For American iPhones, go into Settings, then in the first group of settings there should be a Cellular tab. Click this and you will be presented with a list of options to do with Mobile Data and Data Roaming.

If this tab is not present, it may also be called Mobile Data or may be located inside of the Phone tab.

If the tab is not located in any of these places, please contact your mobile phone operator for network specific instructions that may apply.


PPC Applications on Lion Is there any way to play PPC applications on Lion without running them in a VM?

The application in question is Halo Demo.

No, there isn't. And if there was an emulator, it probably wouldn't be fast enough for games (unless it was the equivalent of Rosetta).


Server Admin: How to set up multiple mail domains? I've got a co.uk domain set up in Server Admin on an OS X Lion server for mail. It's all running fine.

I'd like to also set up a .com domain to run through the same mail server.

Is this possible? If so can someone give me details on how to set it up - without losing the .co.uk domain?

Assuming you want the domains to be synonymous (e.g. richard@domain.com and richard@domain.co.uk both correspond to the same mailbox), it's pretty easy.  The trick is that the relevant configuration option is available in Server Admin.app but not Server.app.  To get Server Admin, install the server admin tools (v10.7.4 is here, be sure to get the version matching what you're installing on), then open /Applications/Server/Server Admin.

In Server Admin, connect to the server (if it doesn't autoconnect), then select the server name in the sidebar -> Settings in the toolbar -> Services tab -> enable the Mail service and click Save in the bottom right (note: the Save button doesn't highlight very clearly when there are settings that need saving; just get in the habit of clicking it after doing anything).

Once the Mail service is enabled, it should appear in the sidebar (although you may need to click the disclose triangle next to the server name).  Select Mail in the sidebar -> Settings in the toolbar -> Advanced tab -> Hosting subtab -> add the additional domain(s) to the "Local Host Aliases" list.

Note: this configures the server to accept mail for additional domain(s).  In order for this to do anything useful, you also need to add MX records to DNS for the additional domain(s), so other servers know to deliver the mail to your server.

EDIT: to handle non-synonymous ("virtual") domains, go to Server Admin -> Mail -> Settings -> Advanced -> Hosting, enable virtual hosting, and add the domain(s) to the "Locally Hosted Virtual Domains" list.  Then, add aliases to your user accounts for their virtual email addresses.  You can add aliases either in Server.app (right-click on a user account and choose Advanced Options), or in Workgroup Manager by adding aliases to the Short Names list.

For example, if you had domain.com as your primary domain, domain.co.uk as a host alias, and otherdomain.co.uk as a virtual domain, and your account was "richard", you would be reachable as richard@domain.com and richard@domain.co.uk, but would have no address at otherdomain.co.uk.  If you added "rich@otherdomain.co.uk" as an alias for your account, you'd then also be reachable at that address (but not at rich@domain.com or rich@domain.co.uk).

Note: you can also add aliases in the file /etc/aliases (e.g. add the line "rich@otherdomain.co.uk: richard" to get the effect I described above).  If you do this, run sudo newaliases and then sudo postfix reload to get the change to take effect.


Changing My Phone Number Help I want to change my cellphone number but I am not sure if that will erase the entire contents of my iPhone. Will it?

Not at all ! If your change your SIM card (which may not always be necessary if you change your number) , it may erase data on the SIM card, but usually there is nothing on it except some factory useless numbers. But all the data on your phone should be safe and sound.


After Security Update 2019-003, OpenLDAP is corrupted. How can I recover? I installed the Security Update 2019-003 this morning. The update went awry, and produced on (postgres) induced panic on the host, a second attempt succeeded. After the update, slapd will not launch anymore.

I've tried restoring /private/var/db/{krb5kdc,openldap,auth} from a Time Machine backup (through Cmd-R reboot, including temporarily turning SIP off) but whatever I do, I can't get it running again. db_recover won't help either. slapd testing produces:

bash-3.2# /usr/libexec/slapd -T test
5cdfeed8 bdb_monitor_db_open: monitoring disabled; configure monitor database to enable
5cdfeed8 bdb_db_open: database "cn=authdata": unclean shutdown detected; attempting recovery.
5cdfeed8 bdb_db_open: database "cn=authdata": recovery skipped in read-only mode. Run manual recovery if errors are encountered.
config file testing succeeded
bash-3.2# slaptest -v
5cdfef28 bdb_monitor_db_open: monitoring disabled; configure monitor database to enable
5cdfef28 bdb_db_open: database "cn=authdata": unclean shutdown detected; attempting recovery.
5cdfef28 bdb_db_open: database "cn=authdata": recovery skipped in read-only mode. Run manual recovery if errors are encountered.
config file testing succeeded

How can I recover this from my Time Machine backup without completely restoring the server and overwriting everything else?

Apparently the restore I tried (copy openldap over from a Time Machine backup) did not work as Postgres DB-recovery balks at what is in authdata:

bash-3.2# db_recover -cv -h authdata/
Finding last valid log LSN: file: 31 offset 174121
Recovery starting from [30][28]
db_recover: Log sequence error: page LSN 23 1709981; previous LSN 30 28
db_recover: Recovery function for LSN 30 8130 failed on forward pass
db_recover: PANIC: Invalid argument
db_recover: process-private: unable to find environment
db_recover: DB_ENV->open: DB_RUNRECOVERY: Fatal error, run database recovery
bash-3.2# db_recover -cv -h openldap-data/
Finding last valid log LSN: file: 1 offset 1754044
Recovery starting from [1][28]
Recovery complete at Sat May 18 13:45:46 2019
Maximum transaction ID 80000cad Recovery checkpoint [1][1754044]

I have been able to repair this. It may have been luck. What I did:

Copy all private/var/db/openldap/authdata from all Time Machine
backups to a working directory (for i in 2019*; do ditto $i/DumbledoreRoot/private/var/db/openldap/authdata/ /tmp/$i/authdata; done). My boot volume is called DumbledoreRoot.
Run crash recovery on all the authdata copies, to see which one are
recoverable (for i in 2019-0*; do echo $i; db_recover -cv -h $i/authdata/; done)
Most would report an error. This is not strange, Time Machine cannot
really backup this data as backing up a live database mostly gets
incorrect results in the backup. I do wonder how restore from a Time
Machine does this, though. There must be a better way.
Replace /private/var/db/authdata with what is in that backup. I
probably should have copied openldap-data as well, given what
happened next
Ran slapd -T test and noticed there still was some corruption (though different):

Output:

bash-3.2# /usr/libexec/slapd -T test
5cdff90d bdb_db_open: database "dc=Dumbledore,dc=local": unclean shutdown detected; attempting recovery.
5cdff90d bdb_db_open: database "dc=Dumbledore,dc=local": recovery skipped in read-only mode. Run manual recovery if errors are encountered.
5cdff90d bdb_monitor_db_open: monitoring disabled; configure monitor database to enable
5cdff90d bdb_db_open: database "cn=authdata": unclean shutdown detected; attempting recovery.
5cdff90d bdb_db_open: database "cn=authdata": recovery skipped in read-only mode. Run manual recovery if errors are encountered.
config file testing succeeded

Despaired. Then on a whim, started Open Directory from Server.app and to my surprise, it started and my network user accounts were back.

So, I'm probably just lucky and better answers may help future problems.


I accidentally touched my rMBP screen with sweaty hands So I accidentally touched my rMBP screen , I have to admit that my hands were a bit sweaty when I touched it, I immediately took a microfiber cloth and cleaned  the screen, did I caused any damage to it?

No, especially not if you cleaned it immediately. You have nothing to worry about.


Can iTunes gift cards be used to make in-app purchases? Does Apple allow the use of iTunes gift cards (in this case a Japanese iTunes gift card with a Japanese Apple ID) to buy an in-app purchase (for in-game currency)?

Why would it not be allowed by Apple?

If it's a Japanese iTunes gift card for an Apple ID with the Japanese iTunes Store, then that's what the gift card is for. You can use it to purchase Apple software, 3rd party apps, music, etc so long as they're from Apple's Japanese stores (i.e. iTunes Store, App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, etc). In-app purchases are included as well.

What you would not be able to do is use it to add credit to an Apple ID based in another country or connected to another store. For example, if you had another Apple ID for the US iTunes Store, then you wouldn't be able to redeem a Japanese iTunes gift card for that Apple ID.


MacBook Pro 13" (late 2011) gets extremely hot during normal usage I'm using a 13" (late 2011) MacBook Pro and it has been getting so hot that I cannot use it on my lap, even when barely any applications are running. I have checked Activity Monitor and there are no applications taking up significant Memory or CPU power. The heat is concentrated on the upper left corner of the body, around the power inlet. I have noticed some bending of the body in the same area. Having had a swollen battery before I suspected the same thing might be happening again (as sometimes—though very rarely—the battery is not recognized). However, the location of the battery is not the location of the deformation.

What could be the cause of all this and how could I try to reduce the heat and (if there is a connection) reduce further deformation?

EDIT: Here's a picture of the area affected by the mysterious deformation

EDIT: Here are some temperature measurements I have made (in degrees C):

5V/3.3V Proximity: 51
Battery TS1: 37
Battery TS2: 37
Battery TS_MAX: 37
CPU Die: 64
CPU Die - Digital Core: 62
CPU Die - Digital Core 0: 68
CPU Die - Digital Core 1: 68
CPU Proximity: 61
Palm Rest: 36
PCH-Thunderbold Proximity: 72 (!)
Right Fin Stack Proximity: 51

While I realise that none of these are high enough to do damage to the hardware, the surface is already painful to the touch although the device is basically idle or performing very basic tasks, such as browsing simple web-pages. Average CPU load was around 10% during this measurement while memory was at around 50%. The measurement of 72 degrees (C) around the thunderbolt port confirms my observation that the upper left corner is particularly hot; though I don't know what parts are located there that could cause such heat. I think that the heat originates from this area and the fans only turn on once it has warmed up the entire device. Note also that the heating up occurs whether I am charging the device or not.

There's nothing significant that could cause your Late 2011 MBP to swell in that area. In fact, that area has a fan mounted there, which makes it quite unlikely that something could get hot enough to cause frame damage.

My speculation:

If you've had swelling in the past then your frame is probably still bent from the swelling of the first battery. The initial heat and pressure could have caused the logic board to press against an opposite end. Furthermore, the heat damage could have created soft areas of aluminum that are slowly being modified by the heating and cooling caused by charging.

Here is the parts breakdown for curiosity sake.


Will my Mac Pro be able to run WebGL applications? I've got a 2007 MacPro, 8GB RAM, 2 x NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT (256 MB). I tried to look at a couple of Google's WebGL demos, for example this one but am unable to do so because my system is not WebGL compatible.

I'm running Lion and the latest version of Chrome - what else do I need to do? Will upgrading my GPUs work?

Or is my 'bleeding-edge' workstation now a relic of the past ...?

Here is the answer from Chrome help article:

You'll need Mac OS 10.5 and Mac OS 10.6 (recommended).
10.7 I believe is also supported.

If you have the following graphics cards, WebGL is unsupported and is disabled by default:

NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200
ATI Radeon HD2400
ATI Radeon 2600 series
ATI Radeon X1900
GeForce 7300 GT

So, yes, upgrade videocard for WebGL to work.


Tiny pop up window with a bar loading up randomly appears. Symbol: Grey house with a circle in it For the last couple of weeks I have this thing happening where every once in a while a tiny window will pop up with a bar that is loading and it says something like "Checking...". I can close the pop up or it will disappear once the bar loaded completely. It looks very sketchy that's why I am asking what this could be. I have not been able to find anything on the net. Also, next to the bar there is a symbol of a grey or silver house with a circle in it.
Can you guys please enlighten me?
Thanks

This specific window is actually the macOS application verification process, which is slightly different than Gatekeeper.
Here's some more info which may help describe what it's doing:
Apple's explanation of Gatekeeper can be found here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491
A high-level overview of problems with Catalina's application verification process can be found here: https://appletoolbox.com/why-is-macos-catalina-verifying-applications-before-i-can-open-them/
Catalina has had issues with this verification process, and random problems are not uncommon: MacOS Catalina Verifying app at bootstrap

Regarding the process / application named "Backup & Sync from Google" - I've personally never heard of that, and after a very quick search online, it seemed that all roads seemed to point to an app which should be called "Google Drive"  I would probably investigate to make sure it's actually a legitimate application from Google.

The icon is the same icon you'll find in System Preferences under "Security & Privacy" - it's supposed to be a combination padlock wheel on a house:


MacPorts: Install non-dependencies past error Introduction

At times, MacPorts fails to build something because of an error. Previously, @tyilo asked on AskDifferent how to ignore these error and continue installing the other ports (link). Although some answers suggested using the -p flag, MacPorts dev (@ClemensLang) said that this should not be done because it can mess up things later.

Fair enough: it makes sense to not ignore errors when building a package that depends on a failed update.

However, there are several packages that I imagine I could safely update because they do not depend on the package that failed to build. I expect that there is a way to update everything possible, but when an error is encountered, to skip that package and anything that depends on it.

For example

Suppose I have the following packages to update with the following dependencies:

apple depends on flower
tree depends on seed

Suppose that flower fails to update. Therefore, I should not use -p  because it would continue trying to update apple and the others, and building apple based on a botched flower could cause problems.

I expect there should be a way such that if flower fails, MacPorts can ignore apple and flower, but continue building seed and tree.

Is there a "best-practice" way to approach this situation? If not, why not?

I suppose that you could do this-

sudo port -v upgrade outdated and not rdependentof:flower and not flower

Which says in english, upgrade outdated packages but not those dependent on flower and not flower

Of course you would do this after making a copy of the failed install log then cleaned the tmp location and tried to upgrade again,and if that failed then file a ticket.


Cant enter firmware password on Mac Pro 5,1 I need to enter recovery mode and finally remembered my firmware password using the magic at https://www.cnet.com/news/use-the-calculator-to-reveal-a-macs-firmware-password/

but the padlock screen won't let me enter anything, not even move pointer with the mouse.  How can I enter my firmware password?

answered at
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/firmware-padlock-screen-wont-accept-password.2144758/#post-26602612

Removed a memory stick and rebooted into recovery and from there I was able to remove the firmware password (which recovery didn't see as being active, so I created a new one and then disabled it)


Can't unlink Apple ID We have an iPad 2. It is locked and can't be activated. We can't remember Apple ID and also the e-mail address which we used to create the Apple ID. We can't also find the invoice to prove to the guys at Apple support that the device is ours so they say they could remove the lock remotely.

Is there another way to unlink Apple ID from the device? Or shall I junk it?

iOS version on the device is 9.3.4.

Finally recovered the Apple ID by going to iForgot.Apple.com and then resetting e-mail password to reuse our e-mail which is linked to Apple ID. After that we reset Apple ID password and now we can use the device.


Mixing Two MP3s in GarageBand 09 I have two MP3s. One is an instrumental and one is an acapella.

I want to mix the two in GarageBand, but I can't seem to find a way to change the tempo of the tracks individually.

It looks like the new GarageBands Flex Time would work, but I would really like to be able to do it in '09.

Ideas?

What you're asking could be done but chances of failure are too high. The reason is you could use a plugin to alter the tempo of one of the MP3s but that will introduce two big problems:

If you change it beyond certain threshold, pops and clicks will start to be heard.
It will be really hard to sync them. It may look in tempo at the beginning, but a very small tempo difference will be noticeable as the tracks advance, which will require lots of micro adjustments (not good).

My advice is to take the tracks to an Apple Store and ask the guys there if you can use a Garageband for a couple of hours. They will rarely have any problem with that. There you can use Garageband or even a Logic Express (or pro!), that have a better Flex feature.


Can you recover deleted photos from the recently deleted section in your album? I recently deleted all of my pictures and backed them up on an app called Shoebox. I did it to save space on my iPhone 6s. I decided it wasn't for me and everything was out place. It was making things complicated and I didn't want it anymore. I now have all my pictures backed up on the app, but don't know how to sync them all back. I don't know if it's possible, but if it isn't I was wondering if I could recover my recently deleted section? If I can, how do I do it?

If you have a backup you had made before deleting those photos, you can restore from it and you would have all your photos. Restoring photos from the 'Recently deleted' section, however, is impossible as of now.

You can find more information about restoring from an iTunes or iCloud backup here.


Force Spotlight to index a normally un-indexed folder Spotlight only indexes a limited number of folders and doesn't index all of the files on your system. This makes sense and for the average user this usually isn't a problem. However, I recently discovered an annoying side-effect: Image files in a a non-indexed folder do not show their image dimensions in the Finder!

Screenshot shows that a image which was non-indexed does not have any dimensions.

Is there any way of telling Spotlight to include a normally un-indexed folder in it's index to ensure that the dimensions are shown in the Finder?

Well, in order to answer the implicit question stated in your headline: You can force Spotlight to index unindexed folders by creating a link to them in an indexed folder. Say you want to index something under ~/Library/, you'll be able to do that by creating a link under your home directory.

Unfortunately, I can't answer your question proper: While this makes Spotlight comments etc. accessible, it still does not cause image dimensions to appear in Finder. But perhaps this is a starting point.


Mac OS X Java megazoomer: no matching architecture in universal wrapper Whenever I try to run a Java program with a GUI through Terminal using the `java' command, I get the following error:

2012-09-17 11:37:35.287 java[2486:2617] Error loading /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/megazoomer.bundle/Contents/MacOS/megazoomer: dlopen(/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/megazoomer.bundle/Contents/MacOS/megazoomer, 265): no suitable image found.  Did find:
/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/megazoomer.bundle/Contents/MacOS/megazoomer: no matching architecture in universal wrapper

Note that this doesn't affect the program at all (as far as I know). It compiles and runs fine, but it just blurts out this error as it boots. I tried a bunch of different things, such as re-installing Java or changing permissions for that file, but nothing worked.

I've done some more research in the mean time, and correct me if I'm wrong here, the megazoomer thing has to do with the green magnification button of windows, right?

I run on OS X 8.1, with my Java version being:

java version "1.6.0_33"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_33-b03-424-11M3720)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.8-b03-424, mixed mode)

So yeah, if any of you know what this is, what's causing it, and how to fix it, then any and all input would be greatly appreciated!

Anything in /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins has been installed after SIMBL which is is a way of injecting code into a Cocoa app using an Input Manager. SIMBL is a third party add in, the link to megazoomer from the SIMBL page gives a Not found so I would assue it is not maintained.

I would guess the actual error is that megaxoomer does not have a 64 bit Intel version.

Unless you want the extra functions of megazoomer I would delete all the SIMBL plugins ie delete /Library/Application Support/SIMBL and unsinstall SIMBL as per SIMBL docs.

  You can run the SIMBL Uninstaller app included with the installer.

Basically unless you know exactly what you are running SIMBL for I would uninstall it.


Uninstalling JAMBOX by Jawbone I've uninstalled the Jawbone Updater software by deleting it from /Applications. However, I'm still seeing the JAMBOX by Jawbone as a Bluetooth output and input in the System Preferences panel.

I tried to delete these using the command:

$ sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/jawbone.kext

But received the error message:

(kernel) Kext com.aliph.driver.jstub not found for unload request.
Failed to unload com.aliph.driver.jstub - (libkern/kext) not found.

How can I delete these Bluetooth inputs and outputs?

Delete the JAMBOX from the Bluetooth Prefs Pane in System Preferences.


Export pdf annotations only using preview? I use Preview on OS X and GoodReader on the iPad for reading and annotating pdfs. GoodReader allows me to 'view summary' which is a plain text list of all highlighted sections and comments added to the pdf.

Preview allows you to view annotations in a sidebar but I can't find a way to export them. I really want to create a .txt file of just the pdf's annotations.

Does anyone know of a way of doing this, either with Preview or another app whose annotations can be viewed on GoodReader and vice versa?

I'll second that answer. I'm doing the same with PDF Expert instead of GoodReader. It is really important that you do the conversion in Skim on a COPY of the original PDF, as otherwise the PDF expert (or GoodReader, I assume) will lose the annotations, once converted (e.g., if you have your PDFs in Dropbox, which you then open either on the iPad or Mac). There is a slightly more elegant solution though. It's trivial but it avoids making a copy of the PDF:

Open the annotated PDF in Skim, convert to Skim notes, export notes to text or RTF, an then close Skim without saving. Your original PDF with notes will stay unconverted (and thus still annotated for GoodReader), but you will have your notes and highlights exported and saved.

As I said, trivial...


Is there an app for iphone that can notify me whenever my mac powers on? I would like to know if there was an app that can notify me whenever my mac is powered on. like IFTTT app. example if mac powered on then send a message to iphone.

You could certainly script this. There are many approaches that would work. It depends on how comfortable you are with the various tools, and if your Mac automatically logs into a user account.

If your Mac automatically logs into your account on powering on, consider using Automator or AppleScript, and Twitter.

Automator and Twitter

Consider combining this article on Automator and Twitter. You could send a private tweet when your account is logged in. Save the workflow as an application and add it your account's Login Items: System Preferences > Users & Groups

Alternative Approaches

If your Mac does not automatically log into a user account, you will need to use a shell script approach. Automator and AppleScript both require an active user session.

You could use AppleScript or shell script for sending a messages or e-mail. Add launchd or a third party tool for scheduling the event on start-up or login.

This can all be integrated into IFTTT as a trigger.


Accessing WhatsApp iCloud backup? I have WhatsApp set up on my iPhone with iCloud backup. I don't want my WhatsApp media polluting my Photos stream, so I've disabled "Save to camera roll", as I didn't see a way to keep WhatsApp images/video separate to my own photos.

How can I access this backup and see the contents? I don't want to restore to a new phone, I want to actually view the content (specifically I want to import the videos and images into Lightroom).

I've tried searching Google but there are so many spam articles from people offering dodgy apps
I don't see any data on my Macbook in iCloud Drive
I do see the WhatsApp data in my Macbook iCloud settings pane when I click "Manage" in the bottom right corner. This storage screen shows 1.3Gb of WhatsApp data but only lets me delete the data, not access it.

How can I get access to my data?

The short answer is via iCloud Drive.

Your WhatsApp backup(s) are stored in a hidden folder of iCloud Drive on your MacBook (if you signed into iCloud and turned on iCloud Drive).

To find your WhatsApp backup(s):

Launch Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities folder)
Type the following commands

cd ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/
find *whatsapp*

You should see all the files related to your WhatsApp backup(s).

If you don’t see anything, then make sure that iCloud drive is turned on.
If you only see *.icloud files, then turn off “optimize mac storage” in the icloud system preferences.

To my knowledge, you can’t access directly the messages as they are stored in an encrypted SQLite database.

The documents, pictures and videos are stored in separate, unencrypted archives:

Document.tar (PDFs and other attachments)
Media.tar (pictures)
Video.tar (videos)
To extract what’s in there, copy those files to your desktop via the following terminal command:

cp *whatsapp*/Accounts/*/backup/*.tar ~/Desktop

Then, double-click on the .tar files to extract a folder structure containing the files organised by conversation.

Note: If you have multiple WhatsApp accounts backed up to the same iCloud account, you’ll need to replace the ‘*’ between “Accounts/” and “/backup” by the desired phone number.

Hope this helps!


Mac makes beeping sound every five minutes without pop up notification. Origin unknown My Mac (Macbook pro 13 early 2011, running 10.13.6 (High Sierra) makes unknown sound exactly every five minutes. I already tried rebooting and PRAM reset. Didn't help.

The sound it makes:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vkuE5VEGzaZYtVF1X_V4tQh5ADb2W1qe

If anyone could help, I would extremely appreciate. Thank you very much.

console: (10:33:38)

Thank you all for commenting.

Finally, I managed to identify the culprit. The sound (beeping) was actually an alert by the app (Effortless). (I quit app by app, when the sound suddenly stopped). The alert got probably turned on by a recent update, as I don't remember turning it on/off.

Here is the preference I needed to turn on to mute the sound.


100% Delete U2 from iPhone? I've looked up many ways on how to deal with the U2 songs on my phone, but they will not go away what ever I try.
The most common solution for this problem is to "Show all" music, go to the Music, click the iCloud download button to download it and then turn off "Show all" button again. Generally, this would work but in my situation, it says I haven't purchased the song and I can't download the song again. The song still plays when I click on it, but I can't swipe left to delete and I can't hide it. And yes, I am signed into iTunes. And no, it is not under my purchased section.
Is there any other way to rid of this song?

EDIT:
I'm running iOS7.1.2 on a iPhone5c
And the song(s) aren't in my iTunes. It says I have zero items in my iTunes library and it isn't under my purchased songs. The song is only on my iPhone, and I can't redownload it (to delete it again) because then I'd have to purchase the song again.
Thanks.

The source of th songs is likely that they sync from iTunes on a PC or Mac.

Apple released a 'Songs of Innocence deleter' about a week after the album was released...

  Remove iTunes gift album "Songs of Innocence" from your iTunes music library and purchases

  Learn how to remove the iTunes gift album "Songs of Innocence" from your iTunes music library and purchases.

  Follow these instructions to remove U2’s "Songs of Innocence” from your iTunes music library and iTunes purchases. Once the album has been removed from your account, it will no longer be available for you to redownload as a previous purchase. If you later decide you want the album, you will need to get it again. The album is free to everyone until October 13, 2014, and will be available for purchase after that date.

  To remove this album:

  Go to https://itunes.com/soi-remove.
  Click Remove Album to confirm you'd like to remove the album from your account.
  Sign in with the Apple ID and password you use to buy from the iTunes Store.
  You'll see a confirmation message that the album has been removed from your account.

  If you downloaded the songs to iTunes on your Mac or PC or to the Music app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you'll need to delete them manually.


Huge number of anonymous.xpcd? When I list out launchctl, I'm seeing nearly a hundred instances of iterations of:

Command: sudo launchctl list | grep --invert-match com.apple yields:

1   -   0x7fb4b0f38e50.anonymous.launchd
711 -   0x7fb4b3e4dd70.anonymous.xpcd

What might these be or how would I go about prying open these to see what they are precisely and why there are so many instances of these?

From Apple's launchctl manual page (emphasis added):

  Note that you may see some jobs in the list whose labels are in
                the style "0xdeadbeef.anonymous.program".  These are jobs which
                are not managed by launchd, but, at one point, made a request to
                it.  launchd claims no ownership and makes no guarantees regarding these jobs. They are stored purely for bookkeeping purposes.


Manually force sync on AppleRAID 1 I'd like to force a sync or repair on my AppleRAID set as part of a regular maintence. Under Linux (md) I can do this by writing to control devices. Diskutil does not seem to offer me such an option.

Open Disk Utility, select the RAID set and then click on RAID. Then click on Rebuild.


iChat keeps silently going offline I've been using iChat, and it tends to switch itself into "offline" mode from time to time. It will make no notification of this, so I often only discover it after I miss some messages, especially since its "connected" and "disconnected" menubar icons are nearly identical.

Sometimes this happens multiple times in a short time-span (sometimes even right after the other), other times it might just happen occasionally. But in general it's pretty frequent. It has happened during chats as well.

My internet connection throughout these disconnects is pretty stable: everything else seems to be working well, and the connection is wired.

I've looked at this related question - iChat periodically disconnects - but the situation described is a bit different, as I don't get any notice about "disconnecting", it just silently becomes offline. In addition, the proposed work-around in that question - using Chax - does not work for Lion.

Is there any way to solve this, or do I have to find an alternative IM client?

Adium can be good alternative. Lifehacker calls it best IM client for Mac:
http://lifehacker.com/5802325/the-best-instant-messaging-application-for-mac

iChat is buggy, I had same problem and other problems too.


Where did "URL Access Scripting.app" go in Lion? I have AppleScripts that run on a schedule to download files from URLs. They had been using URL Access Scripting.app's download event, which now looks to have disappeared from Lion.

I can't find any documentation telling me what happened to it, or what the way forward is. The AppleScript release notes cover Snow Leopard, but not Lion (not yet, at least), and Mac OS X Automation's Lion Applescript page only mentions new features. Is URL Access Scripting.app still hiding someplace, or do I need to find a new way to download a file to disk?

Apple eliminated URL Access Scripting.app in Lion for unknown reasons, and obviously hasn't released any documentation on why they did so or workarounds. Additionally, if you copy over the app, it will appear but it still won't work.

Likely the best workaround until documentation is released (although I wouldn't be surprised to see others recommend this) is to change your scripts to use curl. Editing the scripts should be fairly simple, and curl is actually quite reliable and useful.

If you don't know curl, you should be able to figure it out fairly quickly, it's nothing too challenging. Here is an example of a script that was converted (by another user) to curl. My apologies if it isn't exactly the same as your scripts, but you should be able to get a few ideas from the block of code.

-- Using URL Access Scripting
set myFile to ((path to temporary items) as string) & "url_access_file.xml"
tell application "URL Access Scripting"
download "http://whateverlink.com" to file myFile
end tell

-- Using curl
set myFile to (POSIX path of (path to temporary items)) & "curl_file.xml"
do shell script "curl -L " & "http://whateverlink.com" & " -o " & myFile


Mac OS X disk performance monitoring Which tools to use for detailed performance analysis of disk access?

per disk
per process
queues
latency
data volume/throughput
errors
characterisation (read Vs write, burst, etc.)

Tried iostat, iopending, could use a syste

Instruments (which is part of Xcode) and dtrace are the heavy hitting analytical tools for most disk measurement jobs. Both are free and both take a little training to use unless you find someone to set up your traces for you to match your above criteria.

Look for errors in system.log or the console app.


Macbook pro keyboard randomly freezes after upgrading to Catalina I am using a Macbook pro 13" with touchbar late 2016. Before upgrading to Catalina, everything works fine. After the upgrade, the internal keyboard will randomly freeze while typing (no response, caps lock light won't change). The trackpad and touchbar still works after the keyboard freezes. Pressing Fn will still change the touchbar. External keyboard works if plugged in after the internal one freezes. The   only way to unfreeze the keyboard seems to be restarting (also the only way to dim out the capslock light). I have tried reset NVRAM and SMC, but the problem is still there.

Let me explain what i'm having, I'm Macbook pro early 2015 user, and i updated to macOS Catalina 5 days ago, on the first day the keyboard was working fine, but they keyboard started freezing at random times (Only the power key works, others don't work).

So later i resetted the PRAM, SMC, NVRAM and it doesn't solve anything.

So i decided to downgrade to macOS Mojave, after downgrading the issue still continue as i was faced in the catalina also.
Then i decided to replug the battery and i did that also along with re plugging the track pad flex connector. but nothing is fixed.

Later i was digging for a solution for this issue over the internet. I found that there is a common issue with the 2015 models, and the touchpad flex is causing this issue, and after replacing it will get rid of this issue, so i decided to go with replacing it.

If you like you can downgrade to Mojave and recheck the issue still continues incase you want to be sure. I've posted this issue on multiple forums, and if theres a fix ill inform you for sure.

Thanks,


How do I delete an iCal event without sending notifications? If I try to delete an event on iCal, it offers me these options:

Cancel
Delete and Notify

What if I want to delete without notifying?

I'm running iCal 5.0.2 on OS X 10.7.3 using an Exchange account.

Edit: Using an Exchange account.

You can move the event to a local calendar. When deleting you will then get the additional option "Delete & do not notify".


Layout broken across all websites in Safari Every websites layout is messed up. An example of BBC News can be seen above. I have attempted multiple troubleshooting methods recommended online such as uninstalling AdBlock however none of these have resulted in a fix.


Can Mountain Lion bridge two network adapters for Parallels VM use? I need bridged networking under Parallels for a VPN from the Windows VM. However, this conflicts with my main OS (Mountain Lion) using the same adapter. I'd be happy to direct the mac to wifi (AirPort) and the VM to Ethernet, but how do I do that?

I know this option probably isn't convenient enough, but if this is a deal-breaker problem…

You might consider switching your VM host software to Fusion, which supports this (and is somewhat more advanced than Parallels generally) use case natively.  The Network Adapter control panel in VMWare Fusion:


Applying Mac firmware updates manually Recently an important change regarding Mac firmware installation was introduced.
Apple does no longer provide up-to-date standalone firmware updaters.
(Older firmwares are still available.  (Note the addition of: "This article has been archived and is no longer updated by Apple.")
Instead one has to heed this advice:
Upgrade macOS on a Mac at your institution:

If you're the system administrator for your business or education institution, use these methods to upgrade macOS High Sierra.
Apple doesn't recommend or support monolithic system imaging when upgrading or updating macOS.
Monolithic system imaging can only be used to re-install macOS, not to upgrade to a new macOS version.
If you try to use a monolithic system image, required firmware updates will be missing from the installation. This causes the Mac to operate in an unsupported and unstable state. You can use system images to re-install the existing operating system on a Mac.

That seems to mean that the answer given here:
Is it possible to reinstall MacBook firmware? might no longer be valid for those firmware upgrades (needed for APFS) in macOS High Sierra 10.13 coming within the installer for High Sierra and that they are only applied during the installation process.
How can these firmware updates extracted from the installer or the system and applied manually? Are there other triggers to apply the latest firmware on affected Macs?

It is necessary to obtain the installer application for macOS High Sierra. Once that is available in /Applications one can use the following script to extract the firmware data and install scripts to produce a standalone firmware installer package:

#!/bin/sh
# Based on investigations and work by Pepijn Bruienne
# Expects a single /Applications/Install macOS High Sierra*.app on disk
#
# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
# You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
#      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.

IDENTIFIER="com.foo.FirmwareUpdateStandalone"
VERSION=1.0

# find the Install macOS High Sierra.app and mount the embedded InstallESD disk image
echo "Mounting High Sierra ESD disk image..."
/usr/bin/hdiutil mount /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra*.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg

# expand the FirmwareUpdate.pkg so we can copy resources from it
echo "Expanding FirmwareUpdate.pkg"
/usr/sbin/pkgutil --expand /Volumes/InstallESD/Packages/FirmwareUpdate.pkg /tmp/FirmwareUpdate

# we don't need the disk image any more
echo "Ejecting disk image..."
/usr/bin/hdiutil eject /Volumes/InstallESD

# make a place to stage our pkg resources
/bin/mkdir -p /tmp/FirmwareUpdateStandalone/scripts

# copy the needed resources
echo "Copying package resources..."
/bin/cp /tmp/FirmwareUpdate/Scripts/postinstall_actions/update /tmp/FirmwareUpdateStandalone/scripts/postinstall
# add an exit 0 at the end of the script
echo "" >> /tmp/FirmwareUpdateStandalone/scripts/postinstall
echo "" >> /tmp/FirmwareUpdateStandalone/scripts/postinstall
echo "exit 0" >> /tmp/FirmwareUpdateStandalone/scripts/postinstall
/bin/cp -R /tmp/FirmwareUpdate/Scripts/Tools /tmp/FirmwareUpdateStandalone/scripts/

# build the package
echo "Building standalone package..."
/usr/bin/pkgbuild --nopayload --scripts /tmp/FirmwareUpdateStandalone/scripts --identifier "$IDENTIFIER" --version "$VERSION" /tmp/FirmwareUpdateStandalone/FirmwareUpdateStandalone.pkg

# clean up
/bin/rm -r /tmp/FirmwareUpdate
/bin/rm -r /tmp/FirmwareUpdateStandalone/scripts

This is part of the Scripts of possible interest to macOS admins
from the munki project.


What are "nwnode:" URLs, and why did Lion break them? After installing OS X 10.7, Dropbox presented the following error upon loading: "URLs with the type "nwnode:" are not supported". I also got this error from Path Finder (although I don't know what I did to cause it).

Both applications only gave me the error once and have not done it since.

What are nwnode: URLs? What purpose did they serve? And why did Lion stop supporting them?

The error occurs when an application using Python symbol mappings in Mac OS X is not able to connect to a (previously) networked drive, Time Machine, Bonjour, shared or remote drives, etc. (nwnode). It's a depreciated method, which mostly is why Lion displays the error. Even if you don't use Time Machine, this error can occur, either from an os upgrade or app that uses Python (Dropbox in this case).

Usually the issues can be resolved by following these steps (via Apple):

Resolution

In the Finder, double-click on your hard disk.
Open the folder named System.
Open the Library folder.
Open the Filesystems folder.
Drag the folder named "URLMount (from old Mac)" to your desktop as a precautionary backup.
Once the copy is complete, control-click the original "URLMount (from old Mac)" folder (not the one on your desktop) and choose "Move
to Trash" from the contextual menu.
Enter the name and password of an administrator if prompted. The first user account created on your Mac is an administrator account.
Restart.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1736

*note: The question above was posted six months ago, although I decided to answer it today simply because nobody seemed to know the answer. Hopefully someone who reads this will understand what the error means now.

And just for Bryson, here is just one of it's strings in symbol_mappings.py:

'__ZN17SharePointBrowser18setConnectionStateE21NWNodeConnectionState' :
 'SharePointBrowser.o',


iPhone X Bottom Speakers Not Working? I recently got an iPhone X and noticed it has the same issues with its speakers at the bottom of the device as my older iPhone 5s.

On both sides of the charging port there are grills for the speakers, however there is no audio coming from the left one. When I place my finger over the right, I can feel it but not on the left.

Since this was on both iPhone X and 5s, I have to wonder if this is poor design or by dumb luck, they both have the same fault. Since my futile attempts at finding anything on this have come up short, could someone please help me.

It may look like both are speakers, but in fact the speakers on the iPhone are top centre & bottom right - you get the best stereo impression with the phone in landscape orientation.

Pic from Apple -

Rather more blatant pic from youtube...


What can be done to rename two conflicting applications that have the same name? Is there a way to rename an application? I like to use the desktop app from getpocket.com which is called Pocket. I would also like use the app from lastpass called Pocket. I can't use both with out overriding the other. Is there a way that these two apps can live in harmony?

Since pocket for Mac comes from the Mac App Store, you might let that exist in /Applications. The other app from Lastpass might be better if you place it in a folder ~/Applications or perhaps /Applications/Lastpass so that you don't have a collision.


Microsoft Arc Touch mouse doesn't want to connect in MacOS High Sierra I've been able to pair a Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse Surface with my MacBook ever since Yosemite, but when I updated to High Sierra the mouse stop connecting. When I turn on the mouse, the Bluetooth sensor just flashes and the LED light below the scroll turns green and then red. Normally this is an indication that I need to change the batteries, but I have already changed them by new ones. What else can I do?

After a while, the mouse starts working with the next solution, but still, I don't know if it will fail again.

In System Preferences > Bluetooth at the devices list, delete
mouse and keyboard pairing (maybe keyboard was in conflict, I
don't know)
Pair the mouse. Turn on, press the Bluetooth button, wait for the device to be identified and connect.
Then turn on the
keyboard and connect.


Single Keyboard Maestro keyboard macro, but different action depending on active application? In Keyboard Maestro I want to create a list of keyboard shortcuts, and then under each keyboard shortcut an action to be performed on a per-app basis if that application is active.

For example, when I press ⌘Left, I always want to switch to the tab to the left.

I want this action to apply in Chrome, Safari, Xcode, and other apps. The actions in each app may have different menu bar item names, but I want to save them as a single Keyboard Maestro macro for easier grouping.

The Select or Show a Menu Item action menu item titles I need to activate are:

Chrome: "Select Previous Tab"
Safari: "Show Previous Tab"

But when I set up Keyboard Maestro as seen in the screenshot, this activates all of the actions. Regardless of which app is active, both Chrome and Safari run that action.

How can I set it so that only the active application performs the action, and give it a list of all possible application/action pairs?

A fairly simple solution: if-then-else actions. See this one for Finder:

If you nest each application-specific action within an If statement that checks whether the relevant app is at the front, it should work.


Preferable way to ship a command line tool with my OS X *.app I'm working on an Electron based application to write OS images to removable drives, which is being packaged as an *.app for OS X.

Along with the GUI application, I'd like to ship a CLI version bundled with the app, that does the same thing, however I'm not sure how to make it accessible to the users.

I guess I could put the binary in Contents/MacOS and ask the users to add this to the PATH, however this would be a very bad experience for the users.

What is the recommended way to ship an command-line tool along with your *.app?

Alternatively, I could add another *.app for the CLI tool inside the DMG I distribute to users so they optionally install as well, but having two separate *.app would be a bit confusing, and in any case, there doesn't seem to be a way to instruct an *.app to make its binary accessible to the PATH.

You can place a link to the contents/macos/app in a location that is in the users path.  You don't need to have a separate binary with this approach but your app does need to handle command line arguments.  That is not hard to do, but the details of that are beyond the scope of this site.


Numbers app on iPhone not syncing with iCloud tl;dr;
It appears Numbers documents I create on the iCloud web interface do not populate to my new iPhone. Numbers documents I create on the iPhone will show up on the web iCloud interface. Why doesn't it sync the other direction?
Background: I have extremely little Apple experience. I've been on Android forever and am trying to switch, but am frustrated at nearly every turn. I've tried to take a Google Sheets document I had available on both sheets.google.com and my Android and move it to Numbers so I can use it both from my iPhone and the iCloud web interface. I've updated the formulas on the web interface and it functions just fine, but the iPhone won't see it. Can you help me? I think all the settings are correct to allow for syncing.
Notes created on iCloud seem to sync just fine. Numbers documents do not. Why?
It's a fully-upgraded (as best I can tell) iPhone 12.

In your iCloud Settings on your iPhone, System Preferences > Your Name > iCloud, there should be an option for Numbers (and Pages, and Keynote as well, if they're installed), which should be set to 'on'. The option is likely under iCloud Drive.
If you disable any of these for any reason, say something like Reminders, iCloud won't sync that data between your devices.


How can a user reasonably project data usage before buying a new iPad? Apple announced the new iPad Mini models, and they look spectacular. I've never owned a device with a cellular data plan before, and the idea of near-ubiquitous connectivity sounds truly amazing. But buying a model locks you in to a particular carrier, and the carriers have very different pricing structures when it comes to data.

How would someone who has never used a device with a cellular data plan determine the amount of data they likely would need? Are there web sites with use cases of "this set of uses uses approximately this much data"? Ways to track data use from an iPod touch or MacBook Air to get a comparison? Without having used one of these before, what resources could help a consumer make an informed decision about how much data s/he is likely to consume before purchasing a device and thus locking into one carrier's pricing structure?

Addressing your query head on - several US carriers have very nice planning tools:

Verizon Wireless Data Calculator
AT&T Wireless Data Calculator

Both are quite close to what I'm seeing for my usage patterns (one calculates 2.5 GB and the other 3.15 GB) in practice.

I would say to take these with a grain of salt since with iOS 7 - you now have exceptionally good information on exactly which app used exactly how much data. That coupled with automatic data alerts that you can configure from the carrier to alert you at whatever levels you want, you can easily shut off parts of cellular data (or all cellular data) to shape your usage without having to downgrade your cellular service.

In effect, iOS 7 makes it easy to steer your usage to fit your budget if and when you find yourself using more data than planned.

Also, in the US - you are not locked into any level of data as the service is month to month. I often have months where I tether 2 or 4 GB extra data for business reasons. I have a shared data plan between my phone and iPad so a quick online session upgrades that month to the next higher tier of data. I set an alarm to undo that change at the end of my bill cycle and there are no fees to increase and decrease - just fees for the data (and overage should you go there for a month). For me, the extra $10 for a month is far less than the overage of $15 per GB and simpler for me to manage when bursts or overages happen (I'm looking at you iTunes match streaming all night on an iPad while in my bag with the smart cover closed :/


How do I remove video noise & grain in iMovie '11? I'm attempting to remove some video noise/grain in iMovie 11 taken in low-light but haven't found a way to do this within iMovie itself. I've looked for plugins but the only ones I've found don't have free trials and I don't trust paying for software if I can't be assured it will work.

Is there a way to remove video noise/grain in iMovie?

Unfortunately iMovie doesn't take plugins.

Best bet is external software OR Final Cut Pro 7 has numerous plugins that reduce noise and grain, but they are all very expensive.


Problem after cloning a Mac with dual boot I bought an SSD to upgrade my MacBookPro (late 2011) and have cloned the HDD with CloneZilla. I have dual boot with OS X Yosemite and Windows 7 Pro.

However, now on the SSD, I can't boot into the windows partition. It doesn't show when I hold the option key, and if I try to restart with the windows partition as the target disk, nothing loads.

I have created a Windows startup repair disk using the HDD Windows partition, but it says that the version is not compatible.

Here are the outputs from a few commands which may be useful:

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE   IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            400.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data Windows HD              99.2 GB    disk0s4

also

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 60801/255/63 [976773168 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
     Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE    0   0   1 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -  976773167] <Unknown ID>
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
*4: 07    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] HPFS/QNX/AUX

and

sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0
gpt show: disk0: mediasize=500107862016; sectorsize=512; blocks=976773168
gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
gpt show: disk0: Malformed MBR at sector 0
gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 976773167
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         MBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  781249984      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  781659624    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  782929160        760
  782929920  193843200      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  976773120         15
  976773135         32         Sec GPT table
  976773167          1         Sec GPT header

Can this be fixed so I can boot into the Windows partition?

Your MBR table is messed up. One way to fix this would be to download and use the gdisk command.

In a Terminal application window, enter the command sudo gdisk /dev/disk0. If prompted, enter your login password. Next, enter the following commands. (If the line is blank, hit the return key to use the default.)

r
h
2 3 4
y

n

n

y
o
w
y

An example of what to expect is shown below. Some values, that may be different from what you will see, have been replaced with X's.

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.0

Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Partition table scan:
  MBR: hybrid
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): r

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): h

WARNING! Hybrid MBRs are flaky and dangerous! If you decide not to use one,
just hit the Enter key at the below prompt and your MBR partition table will
be untouched.

Type from one to three GPT partition numbers, separated by spaces, to be
added to the hybrid MBR, in sequence: 2 3 4
Place EFI GPT (0xEE) partition first in MBR (good for GRUB)? (Y/N): y

Creating entry for GPT partition #2 (MBR partition #2)
Enter an MBR hex code (default AF):
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): n

Creating entry for GPT partition #3 (MBR partition #3)
Enter an MBR hex code (default AB):
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): n

Creating entry for GPT partition #4 (MBR partition #4)
Enter an MBR hex code (default 07):
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): y

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): o

Disk size is 976773168 sectors (XXX.X GiB)
MBR disk identifier: 0xXXXXXXXX
MBR partitions:

Number  Boot  Start Sector   End Sector   Status      Code
   1                     1       409639   primary     0xEE
   2                409640    781659623   primary     0xAF
   3             781659624    782929159   primary     0xAB
   4      *      782929920    976773119   primary     0x07

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): w

Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/disk0.
Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Warning: The kernel may continue to use old or deleted partitions.
You should reboot or remove the drive.
The operation has completed successfully.

If after entering the o command, the values displayed do not match what is shown above, then a mistake has been made. In this case, enter an q instead of w to quit without making any changes.

If successful, then the output of sudo fdisk /dev/disk0 should be similar to what is shown below.

Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 60801/255/63 [976773168 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE    0   0   2 -   25 127  14 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
 2: AF   25 127  15 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -  781249984] HFS+
 3: AB 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 781659624 -    1269536] Darwin Boot
*4: 07 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 782929920 -  193843200] HPFS/QNX/AUX

Note: You may need to restart your Mac after using the gdisk command.


MacBook Pro disk utility - disk0s2 not mounted I am trying to erase all data from my laptop and reinstall OS X before I trade in.

I erased all data on Macintosh HD but now when I go to reinstall OS X there is no hard drive appearing when prompted to select a hard drive to install OS X.  I go back to disk utility and Macintosh HD is gone, it has been replaced with disk0s2 which is not mounted.

Here is a picture of my disk utility.  I am not sure how to fix this issue so I can get OS X reinstalled.

Here are the results of running diskutil

Select the parent of disk0s2 in Disk Utility and try the erase operation again, at least twice if it doesn't work first time. If that works, proceed with the reinstallation of OS X.


Generalizable guide to convert .dmg to .iso bootable for Lion to Sierra OS installs are now distributed as .dmgs.  Is there a generalizable guide to converting .dmgs to bootable iso's on macOS?

Related

How can I convert a DMG to ISO on Mac OS X (preferably for free)?
Install Sierra as guest OS in VM with Parallels 12

There's a script for that:

https://github.com/rtrouton/create_macos_vm_install_dmg

It's a pretty straight forward process, finding the bootable portion of the installer, making temporary files, calling asr to restore to the temporary image, convert to ISO, and then name the files with the version of the OS. With all the changes from 10.7 to 10.12 - there are some special cases in the script, but it's quite general in that it works and you can see what it's doing should it break in the future and Rich and the team that collaborate don't find and fix things before we do.


Apple Watch message: "Sign Into Complete Purchase" My Apple Watch 4 keeps showing this message asking for an Apple Id authentication that is my email but not my apple id really.

  Sign Into Complete Purchase

  Enter the password for you Apple ID "email@example.com".

I did a lot of research already of what it could be trying to do and no luck.

Here is the fix!

Open your Apple Watch app on your phone and go to “My Watch”
Go to Settings/General & turn off Automatic App Install.
Now go back to “My Watch” and scroll to the bottom to see “Available Apps”.
Any apps you see that are trying to install are the culprits causing the notifications!
Delete those apps from your phone, and if necessary reinstall them with your Apple ID used currently.
Turn Automatic App Install back on if necessary.

You now won't receive any more of those annoying notifications!


What does the "Transfer Using Quick Start" do? Apple offers several methods to transfer settings from an old phone to a new one. A particularly promising sounding one is the "Quick Start" approach, which begins promisingly enough with some cool automatic recognition of the new device. But things pretty much end there. Nothing about actually transferring seems to be any different than any other method: one still has to restore from either an iTunes or and iCloud backup as far as I can tell.

What does the "Quick Start" method actually transfer? Is restoring from a separate backup still necessary to complete the process of transferring settings, apps, and keychain info from the old iOS device?

Despite the description on Apple's website, Quick Start is not a distinct method for transferring content from an old to a new iOS device. It's simply a way of skipping a couple of the more laborious screens in the setup assistant on the new device. It is still necessary to perform the usual steps to ensure that the backup from which you choose to restore is fully up to date. (In particular, the instructions to first unpair any Watch because this "automatically backs up" the Watch, are incomplete at best.)

Using Quick Start, you will skip the following setup assistant screens on the new device:

Choosing a Wi-Fi network
Entering your Wi-Fi network password
Entering your Apple ID for iCloud
Entering your Apple ID for iTunes and App Stores, if you use a different one

Using Quick Start, you will need to complete the following additional screen on the new device:

Entering your old device passcode (which you may have to do anyway depending on your setup, regardless of whether you use Quick Start or not)

Quick Start has no effect on how data is restored. You must still have first created an up to date backup, and select that as the source from which to restore.


How do I take screenshots of the Touch Bar? How do you take a screenshot of the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pros?

Specifically, I need a way to take a picture similar to using Grab or the shortcut Cmd+Shift+3.

From this article by OS X Daily:

The new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar has replaced the standard Escape and Function keys with a little dynamically changing screen called the Touch Bar. Some Mac users may wish to take a screenshot of the Touch Bar, perhaps for developing, testing, or sharing purposes, similar to screenshotting displays on any other Mac or iOS device.
There are two different keyboard shortcuts to capture screen shots of Touch Bar on a Mac. One saves the Touch Bar screenshot as a file on the desktop, and the other copies a picture of the Touch Bar to the Mac clipboard instead. You can also take screenshots of the Touch Bar with the Grab application in Mac OS.
Take a Screen Shot of Touch Bar as a File on Mac
Command + Shift + 6
The Touch Bar screenshot will appear on the desktop like any other screen shot would.
Copy a Screen Shot of Touch Bar to Clipboard on Mac
Control + Command + Shift + 6
The Touch Bar screenshot will be copied to the clipboard, which can then be pasted elsewhere as needed. This functions like a Touch Bar specific version of Print Screen in that the picture is not saved as a file but instead goes to the clipboard, a bit like Command+Shift+Control+3 on Mac.

The “Grab” app also supports taking screenshots of Touch Bar, if you prefer to use Grab rather than the standard Mac OS keystrokes for snapping screenshots. Grab is found in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder.
Another option would be to run a virtual Touch Bar with an app like Touche or Touch Bar Demo and then screenshot the Mac directly, but that’s more work than necessary for most users with a Touch Bar, though it would be the only way to snap a Touch Bar screen shot for Mac users without a Touch Bar on their keyboard.


Finder can’t find a way to work Finder and Safari seem to have this weird problem. A pop up will appear asking “Finder was unexpectedly quit. Do you want to reopen your windows?” This window will freeze (spinning wheel, not able to click, touch bar also doesn’t work) and reopen no matter what. This is the same for Safari, except Safari will stop when force quit. I have tried force quitting Finder, restarting, updating, killing the process in the Terminal, clearing the saved state in the Terminal, and force quitting in the Application Monitor. I am on High Sierra, and will get version number soon.

Edit: Recent hangs seems to be increasing by a rate of 1 a second.
Edit: Safari works in restore mode (cmd+r)

Generally speaking this should happen rarely. That it happens with great regularity points to something wrong with the system. The easiest, first step, would be to use a utility like Onyx. Run the automate tab with no apps running and reboot. It will clean caches, do maintenance scripts and verify files.

If that did not fix it I would then look at the possibility that the Finder and Safari preferences files are corrupt. Look for said files in ~/Library/Preferences and /Library/Preferences. Move anything with safari and finder in the name to the desktop and reboot.

If you are still having problems I would find and download the latest "Combo updater" for your version of macOS. Run it, and reboot when asked. That should repair any problems with the Safari and Finder apps.

Still not working? Hmmmm.... well try those first


How can I backup Outlook for Mac 2016 on my mac? I am in need to clean up my outlook for mac 2016 and looking forward to an organized mailbox. But before that, I need to backup all my email database from outlook mac so that I don't lose any emails. The Outlook for mac export is taking a lot of time to export the mailboxes as they are quite large in number. Is there any other way around to backup the outlook for mac 2016?

Let the export complete. The internal storage of mails in Outlook 2016 for Mac is a cached version for all imap / google accounts that changes internally from version to version.

The export yields a far more standard and stable data dump which serves the purpose of being importable at a later date.

If you have local folders - on my Mac then things are slightly more complicated. Perhaps that's part of the slower export?


Internal IMAP server - Lion behind firewall I have the following (already given) scenario:

The primary question is - how to setup IMAP and SMTP server on the Lion for the "mydomain.com". Lion suggesting to use the ".private" domain for the server not directly in the internet, but in the mail-server config i shoudl enter domain for what i need handle emails - so i'm confused a bit...

Can someone post a step-by-step instructions, or at least point me to some helpful docs? I'm pretty new in Lion-server config...

This is a very common setup. In general, never use .private and .local since you end up (eventually) in a world of hurt and doing it "right" isn't that hard.

Basically, you will tell the world that your mail server resides on the public IP address (or set up it's own real routable internet IP address and have the Proxy/Firewall forward traffic to the internal fixed IP 10.1.1.20)

Then, you will add two zones to your internal DNS so that all queries for mail.whatever.com resolve to 10.1.1.20 and a reverse zone resolves the IP to the name.

This way your clients will get the right address when on the local LAN or VPN in, but can still access the server from the public internet when DNS gives the public address.

Also look out for your server certificates. Most people issue certificates for the public IP address and have a profile to allow internal clients to trust a self-signed cert for when they hit the server locally.

There are no silver bullets here - the choice you make to have a more complicated routing will complicate your SSL and other server setup steps, but this is a common situation for people deploying lion server so I've seen it work well in most cases.


Booted to Windows how do I enable access to a Mac CoreStorage volume? I've installed Windows 8.1 with the Boot Camp Assistant on a solid state drive with a CoreStorage volume. Booted to Windows I can't see the files on my Mac volume anymore.

I'm confused since this is the same setup steps I used to install Boot Camp on an iMac previously and that Windows install has no problems to see the Mac volume and read the Mac files.

How do I regain at least read-only access to my Mac files on the SSD MacBook Pro?

Output of diskutil and gpt:

 -bash-3.2# diskutil list
/dev/disk0
 #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         234.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data JZ81p64                 265.0 GB   disk0s4
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *1.3 GB     disk1
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         30.7 KB    disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS OS X Base System        1.3 GB     disk1s2
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS JZYsmyt                *234.0 GB   disk2
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 E21EC611-3794-4B0D-BFDB-299510FCDFAB
                                 Unencrypted
/dev/disk3
...

-bash-3.2# gpt -r -vv show /dev/disk0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=500277790720; sectorsize=512; blocks=977105060
gpt show: /dev/disk0: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 977105059
          start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  457756312      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  458165952    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  459435488        544
  459436032  517668864      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  977104896        131
  977105027         32         Sec GPT table
  977105059          1         Sec GPT header

Instead of a default/classical Mac volume like your iMac, your MacBook Pro contains a CoreStorage volume.

Booted to Windows, CoreStorage volumes cannot be mounted and consequently the contained files can't be read - until now.

You would need to revert the CoreStorage volume wrapper that contains HFS+ back to a straight HFS+ volume to regain read-only access.

I'm surprised Apple doesn't have KB article on this, but look here:

Why I can not see mac partition under windows installed with bootcamp?
Can't make more than two partitions

Basically, boot to Recovery HD (or another external Mac volume) and then issue the command:

diskutil cs revert E21EC611-3794-4B0D-BFDB-299510FCDFAB

That would take partition 2 on disk0 (the Core Storage part) and revert it to the HFS+ or classic disk layout that Windows knows how to read.


"scheduled tasks" - what's the OSX equivalent Possible Duplicate:
  OSX: Is there a built-in scheduler program?

I'm a "born again OSX user", coming from 20 years of Windows ;-)

I'd like to run a batch file that does maintenance for me - backup, some other stuff every night at a given time. On windows you have something called "Scheduled Tasks" what allows you to handle that. Couldn't find something equivalent on OSX. Is it not implemented on the GUI Level and you have to go to command line for that? something like "cron jobs" on linux?

They are called cron jobs in Unix-like systems. From the terminal man cron and man crontab.


Recording both sound and video on my screen via my Macbook Pro? So I learned that on the Macbook Pro, the default Quicktime Pro has the ability to record video from your computer screen. This is great, but it doesn't have the ability to record sound unless it's from the actual mic picking up sound from the speakers literally playing the sound.

Is there a way to get it to record sound regardless of what my hardware volume settings are at (in particular, even if I have muted the sound)? As in, record sound + video even after I've pressed F10 to mute.


What will Dropbox do when I boot my external backup drive? My MacBook just died and I brought it into the store to get it fixed. Luckily I have a recent backup (from last week) that I made with SuperDuper so I can actually plug it into my wife's Mac and boot it up -- the drive is a bootable clone -- and continue my work. Since I made the backup of course there were changes that I made to files, most of which were uploaded to Dropbox. When I boot up the external HD, what will Dropbox do? Will it automatically update the files to the most recent version?

Yes. Dropbox uses the modification dates of files (among other items) to determine the most recent version. Once you restore your drive and enable Dropbox, it should replace your local files with more recent versions it has available.


Macbook Pro Order of RAM Loading This may be a silly question because I'm not fully sure how RAM works and is loaded, however I'm trying to figure out a potential configuration here.

I have two RAM sticks that are both spec matched for my MBP. One of them is a 8gb gskill  stick, and the other is a 4gb Samsung stick. I rarely use more than 8gb of RAM, however it does happen on occasion.

I would think that it would be best for me to fill the entire 8GB stick first, and then load data onto the 4GB stick if the 8 overflows. This said, I'm not sure if it's possible to load the sticks "one and then the other" like this, or if it would be beneficial.

Is the order that info is loaded into RAM determined by the slot that the stick is in? If so, which slot (top or bottom) should I stick my 8GB stick into in order to make sure that it's used before the 4gb stick?

Typically you want to install memory in pairs (i.e. two 8 GB "sticks" or 4 GB "sticks") to make use of something called the dual-channel memory interface. What that in essence means from your perspective is that the computer can use two memory modules at once, one in each "channel," if they are matched. That gives better performance than using one and then the other.

The way Mac OS X works, your computer will use all of the available RAM when it can to cache things that it might need later--even if you don't need them in RAM right at the moment. The price of RAM what it is today, I would try to order another module of the exact same type as your 8 GB.

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/TA38415?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US


Right-click for Creating a New Document - How? I am comfortable with creating new documents from command line on OS X (in my case El Capitan), but I wanted to explore the possibility to have Windows-like option to create a new document on right click. I have found the below script and I know that it needs running from Automator > Workflow > Run AppleScript:

set doc_list to {"Add new..."}
tell application "Finder"
    if not (exists folder "NewHere" of folder (path to application support from user domain)) then
        display dialog "This is the first time you've run NewHere." & return & return & "Files added to the list are located at" & return & "~/Library/Application Support/NewHere" & return & "Removing a file from this folder removes it from the list."
        make new folder at folder (path to application support from user domain) with properties {name:"NewHere"}
    else
        try
            set doc_list to doc_list & name of every file of folder "NewHere" of folder (path to application support from user domain) as list
        end try
    end if
    set my_file to choose from list doc_list with prompt "Choose a document to place here"
    if result is not false then
        set my_file to item 1 of my_file as string
        if my_file is "Add new..." then
            set new_file to choose file
            duplicate file new_file to folder "NewHere" of folder (path to application support from user domain) with replacing
            set my_name to text returned of (display dialog "Enter a name for the new file." default answer (name of new_file as text))
            my do_it((name of new_file as text), my_name)
        else
            set my_name to text returned of (display dialog "Enter a name for the new file." default answer my_file)
            my do_it(my_file, my_name)
        end if
    end if
end tell

on do_it(my_file, my_name)
    tell application "Finder" to set my_dest to (folder of the front window) as text
    set my_dest to my_dest & my_name as text
    set my_origin to (path to application support from user domain) & "NewHere:" & my_file as text
    do shell script "cp " & quoted form of (POSIX path of my_origin) & " " & quoted form of (POSIX path of my_dest)
    tell application "Finder" to open my_dest as alias
end do_it

It prompts me with a windows saying, "Choose a document to place here". What am I supposed to do to have the script working?

Here is an AppleScript I use as an AppleScript application so I can assign it the TextEdit icon and place it in the Toolbar of Finder. Then it's available to create a new text document at whatever location Finder is set to, that one has write permissions to. In other words, if one tries to create a new text document at a location that is only write accessible to e.g. root or any location one does not have specific write permissions to, then one is notified upon trying to create the new text document.

The code checks to see if a file of the same name already exists and if so notifies and brings back the Save As: dialog box.

Open (Apple)Script Editor and copy and paste the code below into the empty window and save it as Create New Text File Here.app. Make sure you select Application for File Format: in the Save As: dialog box.

Before adding it to the Toolbar of Finder, you'll want to change it's icon to that of which is used by TextEdit. You can open the Get Info sheet for each app and then copy and paste the one from TextEdit.app to the one in Create New Text File Here.app. Note that this is the icon displayed in the top left corner of the Get Info sheet.

Now that it has a nicer icon, drag and drop the new app to the location on the Toolbar of Finder you'd like for it to be. Note that depending on which version of OS X / macOS you may need to press the Command ⌘ key while dragging the app to the Toolbar of Finder.

To use, just click the Create New Text File Here.app icon in the Toolbar of Finder and you'll be prompted for a name and the a new text document file will be created and opened from the current location of the Finder window.

on run
    my createNewTextFile()
end run

on createNewTextFile()

    tell application "Finder"
        activate
        set the currentFolder to (folder of the front window as alias)
    end tell

    tell me
        activate
        set fileName to ""
        repeat while fileName = ""
            display dialog "Save As:" with title "Create New Text File Here" default answer fileName buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button 2
            set fileName to text returned of the result
        end repeat
        if fileName ends with ".txt" then
            set newTextFile to POSIX path of currentFolder & fileName
        else
            set newTextFile to POSIX path of currentFolder & fileName & ".txt"
        end if

    end tell

    tell application "Finder"
        set itExists to (exists newTextFile as POSIX file)
    end tell

    tell me
        activate
        if itExists is false then
            try
                do shell script "touch \"" & newTextFile & "\"; open \"" & newTextFile & "\""
            on error
                display dialog "Cannot create the \"" & newTextFile & "\" file at this location!..." with title "Cannot Create File" buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with icon stop
            end try
        else
            display dialog "The \"" & newTextFile & "\" file already exists!..." with title "File Already Exists" buttons {"OK"} default button 1 giving up after 5
            my createNewTextFile()
        end if
    end tell

end createNewTextFile

Note that this code could also be used in Automator for a Service workflow, however I've found that I'm already in Finder when I want to create a new text document and it's just easier to click the Create New Text File Here.app icon in the Toolbar of Finder then to right-click and choose from the already over populated Services context menu that I have.

Additionally, if you modify the code once the script is saved as an application and placed in the Toolbar of Finder, then you'll have to remove the icon from the Toolbar and then drag and drop the newly saved Create New Text File Here.app in order for it to work properly.


Can't find 68GB local backup folder (regular backups on an external hard drive) A few days ago my local hard drive shows 68 GB of backups.

 I regularly backup with time machine on an external disk and even after running a backup these file stayed.
I tired using SupaView and DaisyDisk to look at the files but both do not have access even while using then as an admin. Therefore I don't even know where this folder is or what i contains.
I have OSX El Captain (10.11.6)

Has anyone had the same issue or know what and where this folder is?

It's likely your Local Time Machine Snapshots.

In Sierra, these are stored in /.MobileBackups/Computer, but it's not advisable to manipulate this folder directly. Either use the Time Machine application to delete individual snapshots, or disable local snapshots altogether by running the following Terminal command:

sudo tmutil disablelocal

I can't say why MacOS isn't cleaning them up after you've run an external Time Machine backup. EDIT: On my MacBook Pro, I also see some old backups that pre-date my last external backup.


How can I fix the iTunes 11 mini player that won't show the track name? When I start the mini player in iTunes 11 on Mountain Lion, I do not see the expected track information which, when moused over, is supposed to change to playback controls:

Instead, the playback controls are permanently displayed and I can't find a way to show track info (aside from album artwork). Also, as shown in the screenshot below, whenever the mini player is the active window, the rewind button has a blue highlight.

The reviews that have appeared on the web, and Apple's keynote, suggest that this is not normal behaviour. Is it a bug that others are experiencing and is there a way of fixing it, apart from waiting for an update?

The answer is in the comments on this TUAW post. The keyboard focus on the mini player (indicated by the blue focus ring) is on one of the playback controls, which prevents them from hiding. Click the mini player background to bring it to the foreground, then press tab until the focus ring moves to the Up Next or Search icons, and track information will appear whenever the mouse is not over it.


MacBook battery/replacement battery does not work My MacBook battery failed a few months back. For a few weeks, my computer would go to sleep a few seconds after removing the power cord. (It could be awoken by re-attaching the power cord, and it would be in the same state as I had left it.) After a few weeks, it would shut down instantly after removing the power cord.

(Note: This happened a few months after I began heavily using a dual-boot of Ubuntu on my MacBook, as well as upgrading the Mac OS to Snow Leopard. This is a 2008 black 13-inch MacBook.)

I assumed this meant that the battery was completely shot, so I just recently got around to buying a new one. (I know, I should have dealt with this sooner.) It just arrived today—I bought it from a respected eBay seller—but it does not appear to take a charge. One thing that I have noticed is that my computer now stays on for a few seconds after removing the power cord, then goes to sleep; when I attach the power cord, I can wake it up again and it hasn't been powered down. (Just like the way my old battery acted at first.) However, my battery indicator still shows just an "X" where it should show a charge.

I've done some research and found that resetting my computer's PRAM and resetting the SMC have been known to fix these problems. However, I have done both—to no avail.

One last thing: For the past few months or so, whenever I do software update, I always have a firmware update (pictured below) that never seems to actually be applied.

I have pretty much deduced at this point that it's probably not a problem with the battery, but rather something with the computer or how the computer interacts with the battery. If someone could shed some light on this, I would be eternally grateful.

I'm thinking it has something to do with the failed SMC update.

Can you do an update of the SMC  Firmware independent of Software Update.  Download the update here http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1312

Once you are satisfied that the update has been applied successfully, keep your new battery on charge for 24 hours.  Let us know if it fixes the issue.


El Capitan Remove Finder from Application Switcher (cmd tab) I'm having trouble removing the Finder icon from the application switcher in El Capitan.  The guides seem to be all from 2012 - I get permissions errors (even using sudo) when I try to update Info.plist.

Is there a way to edit /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Info.plist, or a completely different way to remove the Finder that I'm unaware of?

The file is protected by System Integrity Protection as outlined here.

By disabling SIP you will be able to edit the info.plist again.

So boot to Recovery Mode by pressing cmdR while booting.

Open Terminal.app (menubar -> Utilites -> Terminal)
Enter csrutil disable
Reboot your Mac
Edit the file /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Info.plist
Reboot again to Recovery Mode and enable SIP again: csrutil enable
Reboot your Mac

You should also be able to edit the file directly after booting to Recovery Mode without disabling SIP:

/Volumes/name_of_main_volume/usr/bin/nano /Volumes/name_of_main_volume/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Info.plist

You may have codesign Finder.app afterwards:

sudo codesign -fs - /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/


What are the maximum temperatures for my MacBook Pro? I have this MacBook Pro (3,1). I know there are maximum temperatures at which the system will shut itself down in order to prevent damage. I know this because I have seen it happen a couple of times

When I run Windows, apparently the OS doesn't care to throttle power in order to reduce dangerous heat like Mac OS X does. I now have a program that monitors CPU and GPU heat when I run Windows 7, and it will sound an alarm if they reach a pre-set ceiling.

My question is, how do I know what the emergency shutdown temperature is so I can set the alarm limit appropriately (low enough to trigger before catastrophe, but high enough that it doesn't trigger when things are still okay)?

This page from Intel seems to be telling me that the CPU should not go above 100°C ...does that seem like the number I'm looking for?

Nvidia doesn't seem to say anything about temperatures on the product page. User forums seem only to speculate on what is or isn't safe with no real specifications to back them up.

How can I find these numbers, either from Intel & Nvidia, or from Apple? Or, is there a general ceiling that I can go by to make sure my alarm warns me before an emergency shutdown?

I have a pre-2009 Unibody MacBook Pro. My Mac went over 105°C and still worked.

Typing was about 200% slower—around one word per minute—but I was playing a Flash-based game and have noticed the game raises the temperature to around 90°C in about 5 minutes of playing.

So I think the maximum temperature is around 110–120. Then it shuts off automatically.


Should I clean iMac fan ducts? Should I try to clean the fan ducts at the top and bottom of my five year old iMac? I have seen people say vacuuming or blowing air may mess up the innards.

I replaced some memory in my friend's iMac of 3 year old recently and there was loads of dust on the modules. I blew the dust off the modules but didn't go in to major cleaning as it wasn't my machine. However with my own machine I would be reluctant blowing the dust off the inside of the iMac, but putting a vacuum cleaner at a very low speed shouldn't be harming much (provided the iMac is fully disconnected from the power socket.

Hope this helps.  All the best!


On find my iphone, if my 'pending: Lock Mac' is not there, does that mean it has been locked? My mac was stolen and I went on find my iphone to take the next steps :

I tried to locate it, but it was offline (probably because there was no battery at the time it was stolen).
So next, I decided to Lock it. The Lock was 'pending' for another day or so.
After that I decided to erase it. So I pressed erase and then it said erase was 'pending', however the 'lock is pending' was not there.

Both the lock and erase buttons are faded out.

Does this mean my mac has been locked?
If it was locked, would the location have been sent to me right before?
Can I locate/erase it now?
If it has been locked, is it possible for people to access my information?

I think your mac is just out of juice and all those things like locking/erasing/locating will happen when your mac gets power or when someone turns your mac on.

So normally no one will be able to access your information.


Mac mini incompatibility with HDMI to VGA I was reading about what is happening to me now with a Mac mini and many people report it, what I understood is that from HDMI to VGA, it does not send a signal since it is analog and it does not work.
My question is could I go from HDMI to DVI, then from DVI to VGA; would it work?
Guiding question
It should be noted that my first port which is the mini DisplayPort I am already occupying it; this would be for my second screen.

I understood is that from HDMI to VGA, it does not send a signal since it is analog and it does not work.

No.  HDMI sends a signal, but as you've already noted, one is digital and the other is analog.  The signal is there, but it may not be sufficient enough to be detected.

My question is could I go from HDMI to DVI, then from DVI to VGA; would it work?

No, I don't advise this at all (note:  it may "work," but it won't be reliable). A general rule is more conversions = more points of failure.   You are better off making a single conversion:  HDMI → VGA.  Less complexity = better reliability.
Your best bet is to get an active HDMI to VGA adapter.
The key to getting a reliable signal is using an active adapter. (The above link described a similar question regarding a Mac mini as well).   The difference between an active and a passive adapter is that the former recreates the actual signal whereas the latter only "reorganizes" the pins outs.