OS X randomly asking for NAS login after using mount_afp on Terminal This is a very weird issue that is apparently so rare Google hasn't been any help in finding a clue as to why this happens or how to fix it.

I use mount_afp on Terminal to mount the music directory of my NAS into my user's home directory because my music library is too big to store it locally in its entirety. It is not permanently mounted whenever I use my MacBook and I don't always mount it after a reboot, only when I actually need my music library or want to start up iTunes.

I would use a command as follows: mount_afp afp://username:password@my_nas/Multimedia/[userdir]/Music ~/Music to mount the music directory of my NAS directly into the Music directory of my home directory (so iTunes can use its default paths and everything)

(I also get asked when I'm not in my home network)

Now, whenever I open the Photos app on my MacBook when the music directory isn't mounted the system keeps asking me to log into my NAS twice in a row and again two times after some time passes. As of recent, the issue is no more just restricted to the Photos app, it's asking me in random parts of the system to enter my NAS credentials. I can only assume it is somehow connected to me using mount_afp on Terminal to mount the Music directory of my NAS directly into my home directory when I want to listen to music via iTunes or Sync my iPhone. I'm assuming something wants to access parts of my home directory that the system is aware is on my NAS and asking me to login.

I don't understand why it's asking me to log into my NAS because the photo library is actually stored locally and iCloud sync is on and when the NAS isn't mounted it should fall back to the default Music directory which is empty on my hard drive.

Since OS X is UNIX based I thought mount_afp set a mount point in /etc/fstab or something but the file was empty and included a note not to edit it.

Somewhere the system has to record where to go in order to poll my NAS on its own. Since I also tried a complete reinstall of OS X the strange behavior was gone but it came back right when I used mount_afp again. Permanently mounting it is not feasible as I take my MacBook with me a lot when I'm out and about.

I'm out of ideas.

Might want to check /etc/auto_afp for your mount point and remove if present.
Sounds like your Mac is constantly trying (and retrying) to automatically mount that share unsuccessfully.

Try moving to using autofs so you don't need to manually deal with mounting your share and it should be seamlessly unmounting that share when you change networks: http://blog.grapii.com/2015/06/keep-network-drives-mounted-on-mac-os-x-using-autofs/

As for Photos requesting you mount your AFP share despite the Photos Library being stored locally I also don't have a clue there.
Maybe changing how its mounted as suggested may resolve your issue? I'll try and recreate your environment here and let you know if I have the same problem (with a possible solution).


How to backup photos from iPhone What should be the proper way to backup photos from iPhone. iCloud do not have much storage for it, any apps is recommended to use for backup photos? I heard a lot of users use Google Photos for backup photos, is that reliable?

Google Photos lets you store unlimited photos in high quality on their servers, just by downloading the Google Photos app. The app works great, and I've found it to be reliable. It gets 5 stars in the iOS App Store (which is really quite an achievement) and has nice extra features in the Assistant section, like auto-making videos from your photos/videos. Once your photos and videos are backed up to Google Photos, you can view them on phones, tablets, and computers, just by signing in to your account.

You can also spend $1 a month to purchase 50 gigabytes of iCloud storage, and turning on iCloud Photo Library lets you back up all of your photos similarly (though I've found this to be slightly less reliable than Google's solution).

Read more about backing up your photos with this New York Times article.


How dangerous is it to share my iTunes ID? Someone I one shared my iTunes library with, which contained purchased content from the iTunes store, contacted me and asked me for my iTunes ID because music they had copied from library in to their own library was causing iTunes to prompt them for this information.

It seems like I use my iTunes ID for so many things, I don't want someone else to have it.

What's the danger in sharing this information?

The danger is considerably high.

Sharing your iTunes ID with another person enables them to make media purchases from any of Apple's stores using the credit card information associated with the account. This includes, but is not limited to:

iTunes Music Store
iTunes Movie and TV Store
iOS App Store
OS X App Store
Apple's online store http://store.apple.com/

The would also be able to access your iTunes ID details and change billing information, address information, view purchase history, sign you up for any Apple-based subscription services like iCloud Storage or iTunes Match, etc.

It also allows the user access to your iCloud account and any email, documents, music, applications, purchases or address book entries you have stored there.

iCloud access could also be used, via Find my Mac/iPhone/iPad, to track your whereabouts if you've enabled the Find My services on any of your devices. They can also lock or permanently wipe the data from these devices, remotely, using the Find My services.

My advice to you is to tell your acquaintance to buy the tracks with their own money since they are, legally speaking, bound to you and your iTunes account by the terms under which you purchased them.


What is the difference between bootstrapping a service and bootstrapping a service into a domain? On macOS (Darwin, 4.4BSD derivative), you have this nifty process manager called launchd controlled by launchctl analog to systemd and systemctl.

Executing launchctl alone yields a list of subcommands. Among them are bootstrap and load. What is(are) the difference(s) between them?

Subcommands:
    bootstrap       Bootstraps a domain or a service into a domain.
    bootout         Tears down a domain or removes a service from a domain.
    enable          Enables an existing service.
    disable         Disables an existing service.
    uncache         Removes the specified service name from the service cache.
    kickstart       Forces an existing service to start.
    attach          Attach the system's debugger to a service.
    debug           Configures the next invocation of a service for debugging.
    kill            Sends a signal to the service instance.
    blame           Prints the reason a service is running.
    print           Prints a description of a domain or service.
    print-cache     Prints information about the service cache.
    print-disabled  Prints which services are disabled.
    plist           Prints a property list embedded in a binary (targets the Info.plist by default).
    procinfo        Prints port information about a process.
    hostinfo        Prints port information about the host.
    resolveport     Resolves a port name from a process to an endpoint in launchd.
    limit           Reads or modifies launchd's resource limits.
    runstats        Prints performance statistics for a service.
    examine         Runs the specified analysis tool against launchd in a non-reentrant manner.
    config          Modifies persistent configuration parameters for launchd domains.
    dumpstate       Dumps launchd state to stdout.
    dumpjpcategory  Dumps the jetsam properties category for all services.
    reboot          Initiates a system reboot of the specified type.
    bootshell       Brings the system up from single-user mode with a console shell.
    load            Bootstraps a service or directory of services.
    unload          Unloads a service or directory of services.
    remove          Unloads the specified service name.
    list            Lists information about services.
    start           Starts the specified service.
    stop            Stops the specified service if it is running.
    setenv          Sets the specified environment variables for all services within the domain.
    unsetenv        Unsets the specified environment variables for all services within the domain.
    getenv          Gets the value of an environment variable from within launchd.
    bsexec          Execute a program in another process' bootstrap context.
    asuser          Execute a program in the bootstrap context of a given user.
    submit          Submit a basic job from the command line.
    managerpid      Prints the PID of the launchd controlling the session.
    manageruid      Prints the UID of the current launchd session.
    managername     Prints the name of the current launchd session.
    error           Prints a description of an error.
    variant         Prints the launchd variant.
    version         Prints the launchd version.
    help            Prints the usage for a given subcommand.

Apple rewrote launchd in OS X Yosemite (10.10)

As far as I understand it, they added bootstrap | bootout as replacements for load | unload. load | unload are currently listed under LEGACY SUBCOMMANDS in the launchctl manual.

The main difference when you're just trying to load or unload an agent/daemon is that bootstrap | bootout forces you to be explicit about the target domain that the agent/daemon will be loaded into.

Check out this great Blog Post about some of the changes to the launchctl syntax in the OS X Yosemite launchd rewrite for more details about everything I just touched on.


Lost file when moving it to a "All My Files" Finder window By mistake, I moved a file in to a Finder window that I previously did a search in, so it was open on "All My Files" which is not really a folder.  Yet when I moved the file in to this Finder window, the file disappeared from its original location.  Now when I search for the file I cannot find it..

What happened to it?

The file most assuredly ended up in your home directory somewhere.  I was able to replicate your problem and the file I dropped there ended up in my Documents directory.

If you don't see it in Documents, try searching for the file by name with Spotlight. Lastly, if that doesn't work, try issuing the following command in Terminal.app:

find $HOME -name "filename"


Get messages that were sent in the last 7 days (Applescript) As part of my routine, I review all outgoing emails once every week to see if any of them need to be flagged for follow-up. I want to try a different approach and instead of going through my Sent Mail, automatically send myself an email every week that lists all emails sent in the preceding week.

I wrote an AppleScript that does this, but it contains an inefficiency that I'd like to remove.

repeat with myMessage in items 1 through theHorizon of (get messages of myMailbox)
if (currentDate - (date sent of myMessage)) div days is less than theTimeframe then

As my Sent Mail has tens of thousands of messages, I make the script only consider the first 350 messages (theHorizon). This should be enough, but I don't really know. To confirm the message was indeed sent within the last 7 days, I run every message through an if statement.

What I would like, however, is for the repeat statement to read something like this

repeat with myMessage in (get messages of myMailbox where date sent is less than 7 days ago)

This obviously doesn't work, I've tried a bunch of different formats but nothing seems to be working properly.

Any thoughts?

Yes, that's absolutely possible.  Here's an example using my IMAP mail account, the name of which I've redacted for personal privacy:

    tell application "Mail" to get the subject of ¬
        every message of mailbox "Sent" of ¬
        account "C*************.com" whose ¬
        date sent > ((current date) - days * 3)

This returns a list containing the subjects of each mail message that I sent within the last 3 days.

To apply this to your specific situation, you create a command that resembles this:

    tell application "Mail" to repeat with myMessage in (the ¬
        messages of mailbox MySentMailbox of ¬
        account MyAccount whose ¬
        date sent > ((current date) - days * 7))
            .
            .
            .
    end repeat


'Team Forestress 2' won't delete? It takes up a lot of storage(20 GB), and I can't locate it in finder either. I can only see it in storage settings, where it won't delete. I also don't have steam anymore.

macOS apps like Steam try to keep files you're not supposed to interact with directly (like the resource files needed to run Team Fortress 2) tucked away in the normally-invisible "Library" folder. You can either reinstall Steam, and tell it to uninstall TF2, or you can manually remove the files it left behind. To manually remove it:

Start in the app, Finder
Open the Go menu
Hold option—you'll see a new item appear; Library
Click Library to open it (then release
option)
Open Application Support
Drag the Steam folder to the trash

Note that there may be files you care about, like non-cloud-syncing game saves or other Steam apps, in that Steam folder. Almost everything in Steam can just be re-downloaded later, but in doing the above you naturally assume the risk of damaging or losing anything stored there.

Having typed all that, naturally I just found the Steam Support article saying the same things.


MacBook in bed: M1 Air vs. M1 Pro with fans disabled I work in bed a lot, and I'm undecided between the MacBook M1 Air vs. Pro. I have heard that fans in the bed will cause my MacBook to collect more internal dust. I’m not even sure how to determine if my bed has a lot of dust compared to other offices.
How can I research if having a fan/blower is better or worse in a generic environment?

Think different.
After surgery I needed some recovery time at home, so I had to use a rolling table that cantilevered over my bed for a few weeks. Amazon has a top 100 rolling & over-bed tables list to choose from.
One model (#92) actually looks like it can hold an iMac or perhaps even an external monitor and a laptop:

One added benefit is a real table capable of holding meals, books, and other essentials. Hot liquids are best consumed from a travel mug with an auto-closing top. Trust me.


Can Grapher plot periodic functions, other than trigonometric ones? That is, something like:

  f(x) = f(x+c)

Where c is an arbitrary constant. Examples:

How might I get grapher to chart this or select an appropriate tool to visualize these functions?

Yes, indeed it can:

Square wave: try something like y = (-1)^round(x)(but with proper formatting). Something like y = (round(x+0.5) - round(x)) - 0.5 would also work.
Sawtooth wave: try something like y = x mod 1 or, more elaborately, y = 2((x-0.5) mod 1) - 1. However, something like y = x - round(x) would also work. If you don't like any of these, try something like y = x - floor(x).

The triangular wave is left as an exercise to the reader ;-)

Of course, you can also use the truncated Fourier series, but that may be too wiggly for your taste.


How can i choose to boot from the second SSD harddisk for a mid 2011 iMac? I am planning to follow the instruction from MacSale to add an additional SSD to a mid-2011 27" iMac (https://youtu.be/eFHvIrdm9So)

It will be placed under the optical drive.

I want to make this drive the boot disk and do a fresh install of macOS to this drive. However the video did not touch on this area.

Based on what I know, I think I can

1) Start up the system after the installation is complete.

2) After chime, I will use Command (⌘) – Option (⌥) – R combination to boot into internet recovery

3) install macOS to the new drive

However I am not sure how to permanently boot from the SSD drive.

In summary, my questions:

a) Is my plan  of 'internet recovery ' going to work?

b) how to permanently boot from the SSD drive?

In system preferences, there is a selection for startup disk. You should be able to select your new drive.


Mac full size keyboards with built in trackpad I want to attach a full size keyboard to my macbook for at least a couple of reasons:

a) the macbook keyboard is slightly undersized.  It is enough so to give my fingers headaches (or something like that..)

b) I want to look straightforward at the screen but not use an external monitor. Thus I would position the keyboard 12 inches below a small pedestal for the mac

Having looked at numerous sites I can not find a full size keyboard with trackpad. There are very few options for keyboard with trackpad for Mac to choose from. Do any exist?

You can buy a wired Mac full size keyboard and a Magic Trackpad. Both are manufactured by Apple. Check Apple Store.


How to get started with interfacing USB devices to iPad? The iPad would be the perfect handheld device for controlling some USB devices. I would like to get started with programming iPad applications which would communicate with USB devices.

I guess I could use the dock port USB adapter to communicate with home made USB devices. How should one go about programming communication through that dock port and adapter? I need some directions. Don't know where to look, where to start. Not even sure if it is possible at all.

I ask because I know most devices are not recognized. The drivers are not automagically installed as on desktop or laptop computers. I want to get started with programming low level communication so that the application itself on iPad would possibly manage the whole USB communication with its device.

Thank you very much,

Any helpful input is welcome. Haven't found a lot of successful stories so far.

You cannot directly interface with generic USB devices from a stock OS iPad unless you are a manufacturer in Apple's MFi (http://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi/) program.  There appears to be a ton of paperwork involved to just apply.  The external accessories API is of no help on stock OS devices, unless you are manufacturing your own custom MFi-compliant device.

Alternatives

If your USB device can pretend to be a MIDI instrument or controller, you might be able to interface with it over USB by sending/receiving MIDI messages from the iPad.
Another option is to use a small inexpensive board, such as a Raspberry Pi Zero W, and use it to programmatically transfer USB data via WiFi to an iOS device.


Can I use my brothers old SIM card that's in an iPad he gave me? My brother just gave me his old iPad after purchasing a new one. He accidently  left his SIM card in there because he got a different SIM card for his new one. I won't be able to add to my current carrier plan for another month or so, but when I turned on and activated the iPad in order to get to home screen, my wi-fi picked up and asked for my password. It is now working wth my wi-fi with no problems. I turned the carrier settings off, because I know the SIM card is still activated thru his account. My question is by only using wi-fi with his old SIM card, and leaving carrier data off, (until I transfer on my account) is there any chance at all he would be charged or notified it was being used, etc.?

If you leave the carrier OFF the card should actually not be charged. At least that's usually the recommendation when using an iPad abroad. As far as I know you could actually even remove the SIM card and still use the iPad over wifi – and maybe that would be the best option if you want to be 100% sure your brother's account is not charged.


Can Spotlight be configured to search ALL files on the hard drive (or is there a powerful alternative) - like Windows' Start Menu search can be? On Windows - since Vista onwards - I'm used to an extremely powerfully configurable instant file/folder/setting search feature: namely its instant indexed Start Menu search. Having a powerful computer, I add every single file and folder to the index so that any little file or folder I'm after (including both file name and extension), is immediately, instantly searchable right from the Start Menu.

It looks like Spotlight is OS X's equivalent of this.

Is there a way I can achieve the same thing, to index every single file on the hard drive, in OS X? So far I see no in-built way to add custom/system folders (or indeed all folders) on the Mac outside the ones it offers, like on this screenshot:

If there's no in-built solution such as a set of Terminal instructions, is there a good third party solution for this? (As always, free options are more desirable than paid.)

I can recommend EasyFind and Find Any File (of which I'm the author, incidentally). Both search for file names on entire disks.

They search even in places where Spotlight never looks (e.g. in the System and Library folders).

In case of Find Any File, you can even easily search as root user, so that it even finds files usually not accessible to you. FAF also lets you save a set of preferred paths, either as a default or as a "search" document that you can open as a pre-configured search configuration.


Why aren't my songs from iTunes actually syncing to my iPod? I just put a bunch of songs on my iPod, and most of them worked. But now there’s two more that I need to download and when I drag and drop the files to the "Music" section of my iPod, the songs show up there, but they have that symbol next to them that suggests they are still syncing, and they are gray. But it's been like that for like three hours. So I know they are not actually syncing. Why is it doing this and how can I fix it?

You can also uncheck the songs in iTunes, sync with whatever device you are using, then recheck the songs in iTunes and sync again.  Worked for me.


Upgrading Catalina on non-supported hardware fails with "Install macOS Catalina Application Is Damaged" I'm attempting to upgrade from macOS 10.15.2 to 10.15.4 on a 2009 Mac Pro.  I previously used dosdude's macOS Catalina Patcher to successfully install 10.15.2, but attempts to install the current version all end in…

  This copy of the Install macOS Catalina Application is damaged, and can't be used to install macOS.

I'm able to create a bootable installer, but booting from it and attempting to reinstall macOS produces the error.

I've tried downloading a new copy of the installer, setting the date from Terminal, and deleting Install macOS Catalina.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallInfo.plist, all to no avail.

I'm using Catalina Patcher v1.4 and Install macOS Catalina v15.4.01.  I've both the app store version of Install macOS Catalina and the Patcher download versions.

Research led to the macOS tccutil, which in turn led to tccplus, a generously thorough implementation of the undocumented capabilities of tccutil, which provides the ability to manage the privacy database directly.


Why quarter step increment on brightness, volume and backlight is not working on a Touch Bar MacBook Pro? Previously on my MacBook Air 2013 I was able to increment/decrement screen brightness, volume and the keyboard backlight in quarter steps when pressing  ⌥+⇧ and a media key. This doesn't seem to work anymore with the Touch Bar on my 2019 MacBook Pro 16" running macOS Catalina.
It seems to work for some people as can be seen from https://youtu.be/_MQFS-0eqtk and https://youtu.be/dTCbKYIqLqs, but it does not work for me. I've tried on a 2019 15" on Mojave and on my personal 16" and work 16" on Catalina.
Okey, I have tried two of my colleagues 16" MacBook Pros and the feature works fine for them. This must be something just wrong with my system.

Tap the arrow on the left of the system area to expand the full list of system buttons, then use the brightness increase and decrease buttons from there.
(If you've removed them, you might need to go to View → Customize Touch Bar and add them back in.)
Since those buttons have the exact same function as non-Touch Bar models, you can use the alt + shift combination to get the quarter-step changes.


Why are Pages/Numbers/Keynote not free in the App Store on new iPhone 6s? I got a new iPhone in the US, but am using it abroad (Israel) and with my old Apple ID.

In the App Store I see the Apple Pages/Numbers/Keynote with a price tag on them (not free) when they should be free.

What is the problem here?

After taking it up with Apple Support, here is the answer:
The first user (AppleID) which activates a new iPhone gets those apps free. If the iPhone is reset to defaults and another user (AppleID) is used, which is what I did, then that user does not get them for free.

So the free option is a one time thing.


softwareupdate shows 2 updates for Command Line Tools - get rid of one entry I am on macOS Catalina 10.15.6 (19G2021) and softwareupdate as well as graphical "Softwareupdate" in "System settings" show two updates for Command Line Tools:
$ softwareupdate --list
Software Update Tool

Finding available software
Software Update found the following new or updated software:
* Label: Command Line Tools beta 5 for Xcode-12.0
    Title: Command Line Tools beta 5 for Xcode, Version: 12.0, Size: 442912K, Recommended: YES,
* Label: Safari14.0CatalinaAuto-14.0
    Title: Safari, Version: 14.0, Size: 65417K, Recommended: YES,
* Label: Command Line Tools for Xcode-12.0
    Title: Command Line Tools for Xcode, Version: 12.0, Size: 429595K, Recommended: YES,

beta 5 was proposed to me for a couple of weeks now, but I did not want to install it.
Why did I end up with beta 5 and how do I get rid of the duplicate here?

I found one way to get rid of the duplicate by executing: softwareupdate -i "Command Line Tools for Xcode-12.0".
Now beta 5 is gone as well.

But how to get rid of entries I do not want there? "System settings" were nudging me once a day to install the beta.


Reviving iPad Air from the dead My iPad Air died a couple of days ago, I recorded its last dying breath >>
Youtube
Before it crashed for good my daughter was playing a disney game in Safari when she told me the screen turned blue than black. So I thought the battery was dead and plugged it in to not get it going again.
Later that day I tried al button combinations also plugged in (and out) of my macbook to get it going again. To no avail.
What would be the next best step?

Disassemble / reassemble
Send it of to Apple (is this expensive?)
Option 3?

Model A1474 (FCC ID BCGA1474 IC 579C A1472)
update
I've brought the device to a Apple certified service provider and they noticed the iPad was almost 2 years old and could be eligible for guaranty. They (Apple) replaced the device at zero cost!

The issue in your video looks like it could be the Digitizer that's going bad.

Disassembling iPad, especially the Air series, is a huge pain in the ass (it's Repairability score on iFitIt is 2/10). If you want to go that route here's the info from iFixIt:

https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iPad_Air_Wi-Fi

Unlike the iPhones Apple doesn't replace the screens/digitizers because of the complicated repair process. They will however offer you a new iPad (same kind as what you have) with a Out Of Warranty exchange:

https://support.apple.com/ipad/repair/other


Install 32bit Java 7 OpenJDK Motivation

I have a proprietary java application which used to work under Snow Leopard but fails under Lion with the following backtrace:

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Invalid display mode
    at apple.awt.CGraphicsDevice.setDisplayMode(CGraphicsDevice.java:472)
    at apple.awt.CGraphicsDevice.setFullScreenWindowSynchronized(CGraphicsDevice.java:363)
    at apple.awt.CGraphicsDevice.access$000(CGraphicsDevice.java:25)
    at apple.awt.CGraphicsDevice$1SetFullScreenAction.run(CGraphicsDevice.java:326)
    at apple.awt.CGraphicsDevice.setFullScreenWindow(CGraphicsDevice.java:331)

The call to setFullScreenWindow only passes null, i.e. it attempts to restore from full-screen to windowed mode. The error only occurs when a beamer is connected and thus the screen resolution is adjusted to 1024x768. Looks like a bug in the Java VM to me.

Looking at the code, it seems to me that OpenJDK 7 might have addressed this issue. So I want to give that a try.

Failed approach

However, even after downloading Java SE 7u7 from Oracle, I can't use it to execute the application, as the application uses some 32bit native code, which this JVM doesn't support:

> /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_07.j/Contents/Home/bin/java -d32 -version
Error: This Java instance does not support a 32-bit JVM.
Please install the desired version.

Core question

So my core question is this: is it possible to install a 32 bit build of a recent version of OpenJDK 7 on Mac OS X Lion? Preferrably as a precompiled package, but if that isn't available, then a well-written instruction how to compile that myself would serve my purpose as well.

It seems I found a source of precompiled OpenJDK:
http://code.google.com/p/openjdk-osx-build/
The OpenJDK 7 builds there are universal, and do indeed run in 32bit mode.
The latest version is 7u6, which is not quite as recent as the 7u7 available from Oracle, but should be recent enough for my requirements.

Alas, my original problem persists, so I might have to compile my JVM myself after all. I found there is a jdk7u-osx repository in the OpenJDK mercurial repositories, and its README-builds file provides reasonable instructions on how to build stuff. The part about source drops appears particularly important. I still have some troubles, but those seem to be bugs in the build process or similar, so I'll take them up with the macosx-port-dev mailing list.


How to make Mobile Safari open email links in the Gmail app? Is it possible to make a mobile Safari open email links directly to the native Gmail app, rather than open up to Apple's Mail.app?

There is no way (yet) to change that without jailbreak tweak. Apple forces you to use Safari and (in this case also) Mail.app.

You can find the tweak here: http://www.webpronews.com/jailbreak-tweak-lets-you-make-chrome-your-default-ios-browser-2012-06


Are iPhone Wireless Chargers Good for Batteries? I heard that the external wireless iPhone chargers for the XS MAX are not good for for the battery. Anyone know anything about this?

Wireless charging is neither good nor bad for batteries; it's just an alternate way of getting the magic pixies (electrons) back into their cage (battery).  This is analogous to asking whether the interstate or the turnpike is better for your car. Both will get you to the same destination, but there are trade-offs from one to the other (i.e. the turnpike may be more direct, but they charge a toll where as the interstate is free, but it meanders around)

Source:  Mouser Electronics

Above is a generic block schematic of a wireless charging circuit with an external charger.  Even though the charger is "outside" the device, it's still connected into the charging circuit to the Line Drop Out circuit/chip and the battery.  What that does is regulate where the device gets it's charge from - if it's "high", it will get the power from the charger.  If "low," it will get it from the wireless coil.  But in the end, there's only one destination - the battery charging circuit.

A better question is....What works for you?

Wireless charging is slower but more convenient.
USB/Power Adapter charging is faster, but you're tethered to something.
Wireless charging has an inherent cool factor
Wired charging is tried and true
There's no connectors to wear out with wireless chargers
Wired chargers securely connect (you don't have to put it in just the right spot) connect

Basically, it boils down to what is a better solution for your personal requirements.


Catalina and old application compatibility regarding new file system access rights I am trying to make Time Lapse Assembler work on Catalina but no luck so far. I can open the UI and input files etc but when it comes to writing a destination file it gives an error without giving much explanation.

My guess is that it has something to do with Catalina's increased per operation access rights but I am not sure.

I tried to give write access to Time Lapse Assembler on ~/Downloads, I tried to write on a SD card, tried to create a file with (chmod 777) everybody but no luck either.

I wonder if there is a trick to explicitly disable checks or if there is any other trick to make Time Lapse Assembler work on Catalina.

Exact error message on the pop up dialog is: "Error encoding file: There was an error accessing the destination file. File may already exist and be opened in another application. Close other applications and try again.

Have you tried with, for example, macOS High Sierra? If it works then it's not because of the APFS.

What changed with Catalina is that a part of the file system is mounted as write only.

First of all you can try giving full disk access on privacy and security preference.

If that doesn't help try disabling the SIP from recovery mode with csrutil disable and after reboot try sudo mount -uw /; killall Finder to mount everything as read and write.


Connect NAS with static ip over ethernet with MBP I have a WD MyBook World NAS with the set static ip 192.168.0.102 (subnet mask 255.255.255.0) - it might be also defined that the router ip is 192.168.0.1 but I can't remember. It works great on my home network.

Now I took the device with me somewhere else and want to connect it directly to my MBP (running Mavericks) with ethernet cable. I just can't ping the NAS.

I have tried sharing my internet connection from the wifi to ethernet. Nothing.

I have tried setting the manual ip on the ethernet port in NetworkSettings to 192.168.0.1 (subnet 255.255.255.0). Nothing.

Can anyone please help?

Does system preferences show a network connection?  You'll be counting on it switching to crossover mode - it's possible the NAS is interfering with that.  Are you defining a router IP within system preferences?  Make your machine ip 192.168.0.100, router 192.168.0.1, subnet 255.255.255.0, then try a ping.

If that doesn't work, post the output of this command:
route -v get 192.168.0.102


Screen Time: how to disable Downtime limitations in Safari? I enjoy the new Downtime feature in iOS 12 that’s been added as part of the broader Screen Time feature. I used it to set my whole workday as Downtime, so that I will be discouraged from using my iPhone while working.

I find that this feature makes it really hard to use Safari, however, as every website I visit shows a “Time Limit” screen. I can ignore the time limit for 15 minutes, which would be fine if I just had to do it once as I only use Safari for short breaks away from work. The “Time Limit” screen, however, appears independently on every domain I visit.

It’s possible to set time limit for each domain you visit frequently via the Screen Time overview for your device, however downtime seems to override this.

It’s also not possible to set Safari as “Always Allowed”, nor to manage this specific setting for any of the invidual domains.

Is there a way to whitelist domains, or preferably the entirety of web browsing using Safari, using Screen Time? I imagine a potential solution is switching to Chrome, but I’m curious about a solution that lets me use Safari.

Simple answer: it’s not possible. I don’t understand how anyone at Apple could release this feature with Safari missing from the list of apps


Textmate's Filter Through Command I run anything there on document or selection I get

  /bin/sh: pandoc: command not found

I installed pandoc by brew install pandoc
My pandoc's version is 1.13.2.1.

There is probably something broken in my $PATH.
Echo $PATH gives /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/texbin.

Both my $HOME/.profile and $HOME/.bashrc have export LANG=en_US.UTF-8 only.
Doing ls -1 /bin/sh gives /bin/sh so existing.

Why does this error message come?

Solution here.
Click the box in settings for $PATH


My Windows 7 Lenovo laptop won't detect my iPhone 4S but it will charge it? For the last 5 months my iPhone 4S won't connect to my Windows 7 Lenovo laptop or iTunes. It will charge in 2 of my USB ports, and I've tried 3 different cables.

I've tried following tips off Apple support and also from Google but still no joy.

Normally that would be a question for our friends at Microsoft, but lets try to help you here.

Charging using USB is a dumb function!, so do not pay to much attention to that.

The question is,

Do you have the right driver in your Win7 for the ihone?

How to do that can be read here:

iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows

Symptoms

Your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch may not appear under Devices in iTunes after you connect it to your Windows PC.


How can I pass something like "--yes" to brew in order for it to avoid asking for confirmations? I haven't found if there's a possibility to pass something like "--yes" to brew so that I won't ask me for confirmations. Is there any way?

There does not appear to be such a "--yes" parameter, nor something similar for the brew command.
You can consider doing something simple like running the following command:
yes | brew <...>

However be aware that this will answer "y" to everything automatically.


AppleScript to connect Magic Mouse on iMac I'd like to write an AppleScript that will connect my Magic Mouse 2.  Basically, in words, I'd like a script that will show up in "Services" that opens system preferences, goes to Bluetooth, finds the Magic Mouse 2 device and connects this device.  Note that in my Bluetooth Devices I have both a Bluetooth Mouse 4.0 and a Magic Mouse 2.

I have tried to use Automator via the record command, but the process doesn't work well.  I think if I wrote an AppleScript to do this, I could compile this as a quick action and allow me to do this action from my Touch Bar.

Have researched this and can't seem to find an existing script so I want to try to write one myself.  New to both the Mac and AppleScript so taking a long time.  I have ordered an AppleScript book, but in meantime wanted to see if I could get some pointers from this site, which is so very helpful.

It sounds like you know how to create a systemwide Service or Quick Action, and just need a script to open the actual bluetooth connection.  Test the script below initially in Script Editor, which requires any device you wish to connect to have already been paired (it sounds like this is the case).  All being well, you can be reasonably confident it will work if you transplant it into an Automator workflow (if you first get rid of any sample code that appears, i.e. on run {input, parameters} etc.

use framework "Foundation"
use framework "IOBluetooth"

property this : a reference to the current application
property nil : a reference to missing value
property _1 : a reference to reference

property IOBluetoothDevice : a reference to IOBluetoothDevice of this
property NSPredicate : a reference to NSPredicate of this

property pairedDevices : a reference to IOBluetoothDevice's pairedDevices
property text item delimiters : linefeed & tab & "- "

to deviceWithName(name as text)
    local name
    NSPredicate's predicateWithFormat:"name==[c]%@" argumentArray:[name]
    tell filteredArrayUsingPredicate_(result) of pairedDevices
        if |count|() > 0 then return its firstObject()
        error {"No device by that name. Available devices:", ¬
            getDeviceNames() of me} as text
    end tell
end deviceWithName

to getDeviceNames()
    (pairedDevices's valueForKey:"name") as list
end getDeviceNames

try
    if deviceWithName("Magic Mouse 2")'s openConnection() ≠ 0 ¬
        then error "Could not open connection."
on error E
    return E
end try

true

NB. This script has only been tested in High Sierra

I'm afraid the error messages are not especially forthcoming with information should something not work as expected.  But, if the device can connect, the script should be manage it.  If it fails to connect, test that you are able to establish a connection manually.


Can a minor attend a Genius Bar appointment alone? Can someone under 18 attend a Genius Bar appointment alone, if the device is in their name and they know the Apple ID details?

No, you need to be over 18. They might accept a minor with ID but it is not guaranteed:

  1.7 No Sale to Minors. Purchase under these terms is available only to those who have reached the age of majority.

(Source)

Also confirmed by a recent live chat.


What is the keyboard shortcut to focus this textfield in Xcode 4.1? What is the keyboard shortcut to get focus inside the textbox pointed in the screenshot below?

I am new to Xcode 4.1. I use Eclipse a lot.

In Eclipse if we want to jump over any file we can use Command + Shift + R and we get a popup box and we can start typing filename and it shows suggestion, something similar to it I am looking in Xcode.

Its filter Navigator..

And Its shortcut is Command+option+j


Purchase from iTunes Store in Spain when travelling in Spain I have an Australian iTunes account, but am travelling in Spain and would like to download an app from the Spanish store

You'll have to change the country on your Apple-ID in order to login to the Spain iTunes Store. The process is described here:

https://support.apple.com/bg-bg/HT201389

Remember that you can just continue to purchase from the Australian iTunes Store while visiting Spain. There's nothing preventing you from doing so. So ordinarily there's no reason to switch iTunes stores when travelling in a different country on holiday.

There are drawbacks when changing country on your Apple-ID, such as for example ahving to deal with subscriptions, store credit and/or payment methods requirements of either store.


Setting and getting the system-wide default newline character Is there a system-wide way to configure the default newline character? If so, is there a way to query what this character is?

No, there is not any way to configure the newline character system wide.

Modern macOS applications typically use \n (Unicode character U+000A) as the line separator.

Applications developed for Classic Mac OS (i.e, Mac OS 9 and earlier) often used \r (Unicode U+000D) as a line separator, but this usage is extremely rare nowadays.

A good text editor will let you choose your line break:


How to install tar.gz file directly from URL efficiently from terminal? Suppose we have a web url to a .tar.gz file.

We could download it, unzip/tar it, and install it.

Is there an elegant way of doing all of the above from terminal, preferably with a one-liner?

Example tar.gz file: https://cran.r-project.org/src/base/R-3/R-3.5.0.tar.gz

Note: I don't mind using a program to do this, but much prefer everything done from the terminal, mostly for efficiency, fewer steps, and being able to give reproducible instructions to others

If you don't want to keep the tar file, do

curl https://cran.r-project.org/src/base/R-3/R-3.5.0.tar.gz | tar zxf -

This uncompresses and extracts the tar file while downloading it.

The commands to install vary with the package, but you can do this after the download has finished:

cd R-3.5.0 ; ./configure && make


Apple Store Amazon app has an update but is not available anymore This is quite weird. Amazon had a recent update and when I tried updating it a message popped up saying that it is not longer available. However, the badge icon is always visible and it's stuck there waiting to be updated. Clicking on the app in the update page will prompt a message that asks to change store location because this item is not available in my country. But when I switch, it says I don't have an account/payment option for that country, and changes back to my home country.

I tried the following :

logging out and in from iTunes
deleting the app and reinstalling
restarting phone
updating app to another version released today
enabling/disabling automatic downloads
clearing cache in App Store

None of these mthods solved the problem. I still have a badge icon in the App Store. Any ideas how to fix this?

iOS 10.3.1 - iPhone 7 plus

Updating to the new iOS fixed my problem.


Safari redirecting to http instead of https When using Safari 14.0.3 on Mojave, if I paste https://gramhum.com in the address bar, I am redirected to greatfon.com, but the "https://" part disappears and the query is sent unencrypted via port 80. It is blocked by the firewall, so it fails.
I have to manually retype the URL to make it work. Same thing happens if I click the link inside an HTML file.
The option "Show full website address" is enabled, and if I replace https://gramhum.com with https://greatfon.com, it works.
I have no problem with Firefox and Chrome (these browsers redirect properly to https://greatfon.com).

I wonder if you may be seeing a feature that was a bit controversial when Apple introduced it, namely, not showing the full website address.
If you go to Safari > Preferences > Advanced and check "Show full website address." and then once you are on "https://anywebsite.com" just click once in the address field. That should show everything including the http/https string.
Does that solve your issue? If not please edit your question and add some more details so we can assist.


Do Lightning EarPods sound different compared to 3.5 mm EarPods? I recently purchased a pair of Lightning EarPods, and was a bit annoyed by their sound. They pan out the L and R channels a lot, and it sounds like someone has slapped a low and high EQ on the audio so that the mid is most pronounced.

I'm concerned they are defect, because I feel the 3.5 mm EarPods that I also have sound much better, even when connected to the same phone with a 3.5 mm–to-Lightning adapter.

Are the Lightning EarPods and the 3.5 mm EarPods supposed to sound identically or very close? If so, then the Lightning EarPods must be defect, because the 3.5 mm sound is what I recognize from having used them the past few years.

I don't think they are supposed to be the same, the lightning ear pods are supposed to sound better than the 3.5 mm ones.


"The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items." when moving OneDrive files OneDrive has a feature called "Files On-Demand", I'm playing arround with it and trying to figure out how it works. It looks like OneDrive uses sparse files as placeholders before the really file is downloaded to local. I found that I can't move those sparse files out of the OneDrive folder when OneDrive is not running. The system asked me to enter password to allow this operation then it failed with message "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items.".

I've changed file permissions to rwxrwxrwx and ACL permissions to Read & Write but still doesn't work.

I like to understand what is going underneath. Why those files can not being moved when OneDrive is not running. I appreciate your help!

I had the same problem. What worked for me was the open the source file, which probably triggered the on-demand download. Then I was able to move/copy it elsewhere.

You could probably also go to OneDrive Preferences and click "Turn Off Files On-Demand"


How can I monitor the FPS in OSX? I'm looking for a solution to monitor the refresh rate of the OSX.

In several reviews like this one about the retina Macbook Pro by Anandtech they report actual fps to discuss the performance of scrolling in Safari in Lion vs Mountain Lion.

What tool are they using to monitor the fps? What similar tool like this can you recommend?

The tool being used in the screen shot is "Quartz Debug"

It is part of Apple's free Graphics Tools for Xcode.

To get this app:

download Xcode from the Mac App Store.
Open Xcode and select Xcode > Open Developer Tool > More Developer Tools...
This takes you to Apple's developer download site.  You will need to register a free developer account to proceed.
Select "Graphics Tools for Xcode" to download a disk image with the tools.
Open the dmg and you can copy out "Quartz Debug" to your computer.

Running Quartz Debug should show the FPS meter.  It has various options which allow tweaking of Quartz settings.


pkgbuild productbuild requires admin privilege during pkg installation I am trying to build a Mac application using xcode for use in OS version 10.8 and above. I've created the product archive(.pkg file) using pkgbuild and productbuild commands.

My main goal is to create an app that can be installed without requiring admin password and displayed in launchpad for ease of access.

But the problem with my .pkg is that during installation it asks for admin password.

Precheck:

No part of the code works on or requires sudo permission.
No explicit copy commands made to root directories.
The pkg is signed with a valid certificate.

I understand that it is trying to install by default for all users. So I set installation domain using enable_currentUserHome=true in distribution.xml file which installs the app for a particular user. The app is now installed in /Users/username/Applications instead of /Applications. This does not show the app in launchpad but is accessible through spotlight search.

When I try to force the app install-location to /Applications with enable_currentUserHome=true in distribution.xml, it is not asking for any password, but the installation fails saying unable to copy files from source to destination.

Is there any way to script the installation without requiring admin password and also it must be available in the launchpad?

Or is there any alternative package builders that can guarantee the above requirements?

Update: I've seen other similar questions of this sort but those seem to be outdated and applicable for older versions of the OS which had PackageMaker (now deprecated).

I think you have more developer skills like me, in this particular case the SIP could be the reason for this. Try to log in as root.

And it is stupid question: did you enable in System Preferences > Privacy > Allow apps downloads from  „anywhere“??

Fastlane is an alternative for building pkg files.


Is my computer infected by the Recycler virus? I installed Parallels Desktop for Mac and installed Windows 7. It seems like I loaded an infected file and now there are some $RECYCLER.bin folders around some places. Is this the Recycler virus? How can  I delete these files? Do I just delete the Parallels VM or do I have to do something else?

I presume you're referring to folders called $RECYCLE.bin and not RECYCLER (the latter is the recycler virus created folder).
These $RECYCLE.bin folders exist because they're created by Windows (through Parallels) because of the shared folders feature in Parallels (using which you can access folders on the other OS directly). These are not from a virus and you should just leave them as they are - they hold files/folders you delete.
This thread titled "$RECYCLE.BIN folder created?" in the Parallels forum provides a concise answer from the support team:

The $RECYCLE.BIN folder is created due to the shared folders and shared profile of Parallels.
You can disable it under Virtual Machine -> Configure -> Shared Folders.

To make things simpler in your usage of Parallels, you may also want to explore the "Levels of integration - Like a Mac or Like a PC" knowledgebase article.


How to show command of a process in activity monitor? I want to see the exact commands of some processes in activity monitor, as most linux process monitor can do. Is it possible with activity monitor?

I could not find such functionality in the Activity Monitor, but we can use following bash command to get the same outcome:

ps -eo pid,ppid,%mem,%cpu,args -r | head

Sample output:

  PID  PPID %MEM  %CPU ARGS
  215     1  0.1  50.4 /usr/libexec/sysmond
81699 81694  2.4  27.8 node /Users/pongli/my/git/shroogal-dev2/node_modules/.bin/tsc -w
81662 81657  0.9  19.0 node /Users/pongli/my/git/V2ServiceApp/node_modules/.bin/tsc -w
81702 81700  0.3   6.9 gulp
27827 27796  5.2   6.6 /Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Frameworks/Code Helper.app/Contents/MacOS
76036 72939  0.0   5.3 /Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Frameworks/Code Helper.app/Contents/MacOS
  217     1  0.9   3.3 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SkyLight.framework/Resources/WindowServer -daemon
83975  1641  1.3   2.8 /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/63.0.3239.84/Google Chrome Helper.app
36742  1641  8.1   2.2 /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/63.0.3239.84/Google Chrome Helper.app


How do I boot into Internet Recovery on a iMac? i have this problem i tap on COMMAND+OPTION+R and I want to boot into Internet Recovery on a iMac and for some reason it just continues the screen and boots onto OS X Utilities. Someone help me?

Taken from this support article:

  OS X Recovery includes a built in set of utilities as part of the
  Recovery System. To start your computer from Recovery, restart your
  Mac and hold down the Command key and the R key (Command-R).
  Press and hold these keys until the Apple logo appears.

The recovery feature is limited to OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, and El Capitan.


iPhone security question I think I made a rather stupid mistake

My iPhone battery was getting old, so I went to a local repair shop to get it replaced. It's not an Apple Store, just a  couple of guys who fix PCs and do odd jobs like that.

They agreed, and said I could come back in an hour. When I came back, they said the phone was ready but asked me to provide my PIN. I don't know why this was necessary, but stupidly, I gave it to one of the guys. He turned on the phone, then unplugged it and gave it to me.

I now realise that in the time I had been gone they could have taken an entire image of my phone onto their PCs. They now have the PIN too, so is this  a massive security risk for me?

I have changed all the passwords to all the emails, facebook, and Apple ID. No idea what else could I do? I feel really stupid for giving up the password to them.

What could they do with the the data they (might) have? What is the possible damage? Any steps I could take to minimise any possible harm?

From your description, they had the PIN for only the time it took to unlock it, check it was working & hand it to you - a matter of seconds.

There's nothing else they can do with it unless they also still have your phone.

The PIN itself doesn't provide access to anything other than the phone, has nothing to do with your iCloud account, App Store, iTunes, email... or anything else.

In you post you mention both the PIN & the password. These are two entirely different things. You ought to edit your question to clarify which you actually mean.


Windows Installation on MacBook Pro I am keen on installing Windows 8.1 or 10 on my MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013). Some say Windows don't work well as OS X interferes with it. Is it so ?

Windows runs on a Mac independent of the Mac operation system (OS X). Included in OS X is a utility called the Boot Camp Assistant which aids in installing officially support versions of Windows. In your case, both Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 are supported. You will need a 16 GB or larger flash drive to install Windows on your model Mac. While I personally have only installed Windows 10 on iMacs, I would assume you should not have any problems installing on your MacBook Pro.

Once Windows is installed, you will be able to boot between the Windows and OS X. Windows can be selected from the OS X System Preferences application. OS X can be selected from the Windows Control Panel or directly from the Desktop.

More information can be found at the Apple web site: How to install Windows using Boot Camp.


Can *all* files on an AirPort Extreme be encrypted with FileVault? I have a Macbook Pro (Mac OS 10.10.2, late 2013 model) and am considering to buy an AirPort Extreme 2TB. I want to use it not only for TimeCapsule backups, but also as a general-purpose storage disk (as discussed here Can I use a Time Capsule as an all-purpose storage disk?).

Can the data, which I save on AirPort Extreme not in the context of TimeCapsule, be encrypted with FileVault?

My question is not if TimeCapsule-backupped data can be encrypted - as I understand this is possible - but my question is if the other data, put onto AirPort Extreme outside of the TimeCapsule functionality, can be encrypted with FileVault?

I.e. can the entire AirPort Extreme be encrypted with FileVault?

Yes, just create an encrypted disk image on the Airport Extreme. That has nothing do do with it being an Airport, or having Time Capsule functionality; you can do it on any disk that you can mount. It's not technically FileVault, but it is 128- or 256-bit AES encryption.


How to number pages in pdf document? How can I add numbers to pages in pdf document?

Is there a free software for this?

I found in google only full version of Adobe Acrobat, which can make it.

This works, but I need to add number in right corner for each odd page and in left corner for each even page.

You can use Preview. Tools Menu/Annotate/Text, or it's the top right icon next to the search box, then icons appear below for annotation choices.


Revoking and requesting a new distribution certificate in apple dev center I'm trying update our iOS app through itunes connect. However, I'm having an issue with the iOS distribution certificate when I try to submit to the appstore.
This is the error that appears to me:

  Your account already has a valid iOS Distribution certificate. You
  have a valid iOS Distribution certificate in the Member Center, but it
  is not installed locally. If your signing identity is installed on
  another Mac, you can export a developer profile on that Mac and import
  it on this Mac. You can also revoke your current certificate and
  request a new one.

In the dev center, the distribution certificate and the adhoc profile appears to be invalid. So I'm wondering how to revoke and request a new certificate. If I revoked the certificate, what's going to happen? are there any additional fees?

I had this exact problem just today (Aug 13 2015)

Go into the member center, find the certificate, and revoke it.  Leave the member center.

xcode 6+ will automatically find the certicate has been revoked and will create & download a new one when you carry out an action that requires it.

I sometimes find it also helps to delete your account from Xcode->Preferences->accounts and add it back in.

Indeed it scared me the first time I tried it.


Would the battery from a 13" MacBook Pro (2010) work in a 15" MacBook Pro 2011? The battery of my MacBook Pro 15" (early 2011) died recently and I happen to have the battery from a 13" MacBook Pro (2010) handy.

Does anyone know of any reasons why this battery would not work?

I'm not concerned about battery life - I just want to be able to power the thing up.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Nope. They're different sizes. Compare iFixit's guide to replacing a 15" early 2011 battery to their guide for a 2010 13":

15":

13":

Both batteries are roughly proportional to their cases, and the 15" has a substantially bigger case than the 13". Additionally, they're shaped differently - see the little notch in the top left of the 15" battery, which isn't there on the 13" battery. It physically won't fit.


Does iOS 6 or any other iOS OS have drivers or kernel modules for an HP printer? I want to print via USB, but iOS does not mention the interface when I connect directly to my non-Wi-Fi printer.

REALIZE: I do not want to print wirelessly I want to do so via USB, but iOS apparently does not have drivers/kernel extendablr modules to support printing like this, such as with Lion.

Any workarounds? Any device drivers?

I will write one myself if there is no program to help with this.

Source of everything I'm about to say: I'm an iOS developer.
No.
Your iOS device does not contain the necessary drivers to print via USB - and here's why:
Developers
We are kind of, well, lazy. We don't want to write more code than we have to - we want to write one thing once and have it work.
Now imagine all the iOS devs now have to take into account that you can print from USB. Now we might have to write code to take that into account, there might be subtle differences in the drivers, etc.
The nice thing about AirPrint is it just works. Not just from the user's standpoint, but also from the developer's standpoint. Developers can basically 'layout' the paper just like they would a bunch of views onscreen, send it to a print controller, and let it handle everything else.
Nice and easy.
You
You're a user. You want things to just work, right? Even as a developer, I want the stuff I'm using to just work (See Stack Overflow for thousands of examples).
If Apple put in kernel drivers and USB printer drivers and all whatnot, the user now has to manage that, and Apple has to conform to HP's, Canon's and Brother's requirements.
With AirPrint, the manufacturer conforms to Apple - a much better experience for you and me, the users.


DNS resolves servers external IP instead of internal IP I'd like to access a web server from both inside and outside my home network.  I then have my firewall (pfSense) named as example.com. From within my network, I can access every machine by it's fully resolved hostname (webserver.example.com, jenkins.example.com, nas.example.com, etc). This works great on all my machines.

The issue comes into play when I try to add external access, specifically to my gitlab server. I own a domain and use dynamic DNS to update it to always point to my residential IP address. I've then opened port 443 to point to my internal gitlab IP and added a CNAME entry for gitlab.example.com to point to example.com. This works as expected, I can now access gitlab.example.com from both inside and outside my network.

The issue is that OS X now has a problem resolving the proper IP address. gitlab now resolves to both 192.168.1.XXX and whatever my external IP address is. OS X inconsistently chooses the wrong IP to access. When I ping gitlab.example.com, sometimes I'll see my internal IP, sometimes my external. nslookup always seems to show the internal IP, while Network Utility's lookup function seems to show either both IPs (76.xx.xxx.xxx, 192.168.1.xxx) or just the external IP. This only seems to be a problem when accessing my server from the command line via git. The connection times out because it can't seem to find the server.

Using Chrome, I seem to always be able to access the web client, regardless of which IP get's resolved. Safari can only access the server if the internal IP is resolved. When the external IP is used, Safari notifies me that it can't open the page "because the server where this page is located isn't responding." I can "force" the OS to forget the external IP by flushing the DNS cache (sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder), which works for a few minutes, but then it goes right back to the external IP.

I'm confused about why this issue is happening. Ideally, I'd like OS X to always use the internal IP if it has the option. But even if it's using the external IP, why wouldn't it be able to access the server? Is my ISP blocking loopback traffic from my IP back to my IP?

The reason I'm posting this question here, is because only OS X seems to have this problem, and I can reproduce it reliably with multiple Macs. Neither Linux or Windows seem to have this problem. Each of those always resolve the internal IP when inside the network, and the external IP outside the network. This is on multiple machines too. I'm not exactly a networking or DNS expert, so any help would be appreciated. It's quite likely that I just have a setting wrong somewhere, but I have no idea where to begin looking.

It sounds like what you're trying to do is called Split Horizon DNS, and it can be quite tricky. That said, it sounds like you have quite a bit of it already set up but that the internal DNS is not authoritative for your domain.

If you have not already done so, you need to modify your internal DNS to create a primary zone for example.com. Then, when you query for your domain, the DNS should not look outside for an address.


Unable to mount an NFS share I'm trying to access my (Synology) NAS share through NFS and always get the same issue.

First, I activated NFS support in my NAS:

Then I set the permissions on the NAS:

My MBP has the IP 192.168.1.109.
From there it seems OK. a showmount -e 192.168.1.2 shows the list:

Exports list on 192.168.1.2:
/volume1/video                      192.168.1.109
/volume1/homes                      192.168.1.109

But unfortunately, my mount always fails:

GroundControl:/ ludo$ sudo mount -t nfs -o rw 192.168.1.2:/volume1/homes /Volumes/home
mount_nfs: can't mount /volume1/homes from 192.168.1.2 onto /Volumes/home: Operation not permitted

The /Volume/home directory is created upfront.

Trying with a non-existing share on the NAS, for example /volume1/qwerty gives a Permission denied error, which is OK.
But what is this Operation not permitted error?

Trying through DiskUtils>NFS Mounts gives the same result.

What did I miss?

Or just use the "resvport" option with the mount command.

mount -o resvport nasbox.local.com:/try /mnt


Set a screensaver as a background for Desktop? I have a really nice Matrix  inspired screensaver. I would like to have the moving screensaver to be placed as my Desktop background image.

How can I set my screensaver as a background image for the desktop ?

You have to open terminal and type cd /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources
and ./ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background. It will take a lot of resources though, so to quit it, you have to quit the terminal window.

source: TUAW and Lifehacker


Download Xcode from developer site vs install from app store I signed up for the (free) Apple Developer ID and downloaded the latest Xcode release from here. Is it any different from the App Store download/installation? If it's the same, why does the App Store keep asking me about billing information (credit card and other details) every time I try to use the App Store to install Xcode?

Is there any difference between the two? I.e., download from developer.apple.com with Developer ID vs signing into the App Store with an Apple ID and subsequently giving your billing information?

Small note: The App Store info page puts the Xcode 4.4.1 app size at 1.46GB while the Apple Developer site puts the Xcode 4.4.1 dmg file at 1.81GB. The difference in size caught my attention and I wonder if they are two different things (new to the Mac). Plus I would rather use some sort of download accelerator (DTA on my Firefox will do just fine) in order to download this monstrous thing!

As far as I can tell, they are the same. The size difference might be due to additional files Xcode from the App Store doesn't download by default, that Xcode from the site might have.

I have Xcode from the App Store; the first time I opened it it asked to download the Mobile Device Framework to proceed.

I suppose this must come bundled with Xcode from the website. It wouldn't surprise me if it were, as this framework seems to be needed before Xcode can start. I suppose Apple distributes its MAS Xcode with users with stable internet connections and single-install in mind, while the website version for users who might want to deploy it to several machines, in which case it would be a drag to have to download any extra-crucial elements that don't come with the installer package.

Why wouldn't Apple just put everything that is needed on the MAS installer? Probably an issue with permissions; MAS applications aren't supposed to ask for your password to install. These Xcode components, installed later through the app, might touch delicate areas of the system which the MAS installer has no access to.

My suggestion: If you plan on using a download assistant/accelerator and have trouble with your billing for the MAS I suggest you download from the website.  I doubt there is any difference at all regarding the app itself.

PS: If you do, maybe come back and comment if you had to download any additional components or if it was a full installation straight out of the disk image, as to increase the knowledge of the community for any further reference.


How do I change what's returned by /usr/libexec/java_home $ echo $JAVA_HOME
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_66.jdk/Contents/Home
$ /usr/libexec/java_home --verbose
Matching Java Virtual Machines (2):
   1.6.0_65-b14-468, x86_64:    "Java SE 6" /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home
   1.6.0_65-b14-468, i386:  "Java SE 6" /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home

$ ls /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines
1.6.0.jdk/
jdk1.7.0_17.jdk/
jdk1.7.0_71.jdk/
jdk1.7.0_80.jdk/
jdk1.8@ -> jdk1.8.0_66.jdk
jdk1.8.0_66.jdk/

How do I get /usr/libexec/java_home to return my Java 1.8 VMs?

The problem here is that Oracle have chnaged the meaning of JRE on Macs.

The Apple and Sun definition is JRE is the runtime for apps and web applets.

Oracle's definition of JRE is for webapps only. This means that it does not change /usr/bin/java

The JDK definition had not changed. Oracle has this at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index-jsp-138363.html#javasejdk

Oracle does also have a old style JRE that changes /usr/bin/java but have hidden it


How to get the first name of the recipient to be auto-added to new messages in Mail.app? I'd like new messages that I create, including replies to messages I receive, to automatically get a "Hi <name>," inserted in their first line. <name> should be the first name of the first recipient.

How can I create such an automation?

You can implement a mail merge using AppleScript. Gianugo Rabellino shared his initial AppleScript for creating such messages in Poor man’s mail merge in Apple Mail.

The comments on Rabellino's post suggest improvements and other approaches.

tell application "Mail" to set allAccounts to name of every account
choose from list allAccounts with title "Choose the Mail account to use..."
set theAccount to result as string

set subjectDialog to display dialog ¬
    "Enter the subject of the email to send" default answer "no subject"
set theSubject to text returned of subjectDialog

set sendOrPreview to the button returned of ¬
    (display dialog ¬
        "Send the messages right away or preview and send manually?" with title ¬
        "Send or Preview?" with icon caution ¬
        buttons {"Preview", "Send"} ¬
        default button 1)

set theText to (choose file with prompt "Pick a text file containing the email text")

set theContent to read theText

tell application "Finder"
    set addresses to paragraphs of ¬
        (read (choose file with prompt "Pick a text file containing email addresses, one by line"))
end tell

tell application "Mail"
    activate
    set activeAccount to account theAccount
    repeat with i from 1 to (the length of addresses)
        set newMessage to make new outgoing message ¬
            with properties {account:activeAccount, subject:theSubject, content:theContent}
        tell newMessage
            set sender to ¬
                ((full name of activeAccount & " < " & email addresses of activeAccount as string) & ">")
            make new to recipient at end of to recipients ¬
                with properties {address:(a reference to item i of addresses)}
            set visible to true
        end tell
        if sendOrPreview is equal to "Send" then
            send newMessage
        end if
    end repeat
end tell


How to fix very slow server performance on OS X Lion? I have a 2008 Mac Pro (MacPro3.1 -- dual 3 GHz quad-core Xeon, 6GB memory) running Lion (10.7.3) that I'm using for as a server for a business (files, print, media, etc.) as well as a development server for a pretty standard PHP stack.  From time to time, but most of the time, other machines take a VERY long time to reach the machine over the network -- ten seconds to display a trivial html page, for instance.  The problem seems to be one of reaching the machine -- if I watch the apache server logs after making a request, I'll initially see nothing happen, and then a burst of activity once (I'm guessing here) the request reaches the server and gets handled.  But there are other times when performance is fine.

Some details:

I mostly see this with web access, but I sometimes also get long delays in opening up a Screen Sharing or ssh connection to the machine.  Thus I don't think it's an Apache problem.  Restarting Apache also doesn't have any effect.
If the problem is happening and I hit the same website from the Mac Pro, performance is OK.  This makes me look towards the network.
I have another server -- a linux box -- on the same network, and it does not have these problems.  So, unless there's something weird about the domain name, it doesn't seem like it's a problem with my internet service.
The machine is typically not under significant load -- top reports the load average as around .3, and my attempts to crank up the load (screen sharing, playing videos, etc.) don't seem to have much impact.
I've disabled IPv6 in the Network control panel.
There's nothing of obvious (to me, anyway) interest in the log files.

I realize this isn't a lot to go by, but does anyone out there have any insights?  This is starting to be a real issue.  Thanks!

If it is not responding to pings (meaning ping is returning "Request timeout"), then the problem is definitely not DNS or anything at the application level.  I see two possibilities:

Hardware failure: either a switch or network interface is failing.  Since you have another machine working (presumably) on the same switch, perhaps your ethernet port or ethernet cable have problems.  Try a different cable.  Try setting up another interface (perhaps via WiFi, or better yet via USB ethernet dongle) just so you can ping it and see if it ever goes down.
Configuration jitter: something may be causing your network settings to change unexpectedly, similar to if you changed the Network Location.  Check your system.log and console.log.  See what is happening around the times of these outages.

I have not seen OS X suddenly change its network configuration since 10.5 Server, so hardware failure seems more likely.  But definitely look in your system.log and console.log.


How to backup a Mac running Tiger? I need to do a full backup of a Mac running Tiger. If I use Time Machine will it capture everything I need to restore a user's data after a clean install of Lion? Are there other better mechanisms I can use to perform the backup?

You have two main options. Depending on what you want exactly and how much of your current user information/settings you want to migrate.

Manually

This is the method I prefer. i believe that when doing a clean install the point is to get rid of all the extra junk that is just sitting on your computer. To do this you need to manually backup your stuff data. Just go through all your folders and copy the stuff to an external HD. (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Movies, Music, Pictures, Public, Sites, Bookmarks, Adress Book, Mail, etc).
You leave all your settings/preferences behind. This makes for a real clean install.

Using backup utility

I would suggest using CarbonCopyCloner. It's free and works on Tiger. With this clone your current hard drive and after doing a clean install Lion will ask you if you want to import your stuff from a previous installation and you can select the clone you just made. Keep in mind that this will also copy back all the preferences/settings and junk you might have accumulated. Thus in my perspective defeating the point of a clean install.

Combination

This is probably the best option. Make a clone with CCC and then instead of having Lion automatically bring back your data, do it yourself manually. This way you will have everything saved from the clone and you will be able to bring back only the important data you want and not any overhead.


Is there a reason to not use VPN all the time on iOS? I have setup a VPN connection by using my FritzBox WLAN Cable Router. I'm using this on my iOS devices to protect me from Wifi honeypots. Just by coincidence I switched VPN on on my device while on the 3G network and didn't notice it. Now I'm wondering: why would I if I want to switch off this great feature? Does it have a negative impact on performance, battery life or network speed?

When you use a VPN to send all your traffic to another network, you are reducing the ability of the internet to route your packets directly from your phone to the servers and instead are forcing the network to put the packets the VPN embeds to travel first to another network and then to the destination.

In the case where you need to hide / encrypt traffic, this downside is clearly worth bearing. For general purpose use, you will almost always add latency and perhaps bandwidth constraints that make the network response slower - even assuming all the encryption is done in hardware and has no effect on battery life on the device nor on performance due to delays in the encryption / decryption.

Also, your network is far less resilient and you have introduced a single point of failure (the VPN termination) into your path to the internet.

These downsides can be mitigated when you apply VPN to some traffic as opposed to all traffic and ensure your VPN is well connected to the internet.

In some cases VPN speeds the network if the traffic you send elsewhere is throttled and the traffic to the VPN is not throttled, but this is an edge case and worth considering, but rarely a reason to use VPN exclusively.


Trim MP4 video downloaded from YouTube in Keynote I have downloaded a YouTube videoclip (using Firefox), it's a MP4 file. I have inserted it in a Keynote slide.

Can I trim this MP4 file in Keynote? I can do that with my music from iTunes library.

I am running macOS Mojave 10.14.5.

Open the MP4 video file with the built-in QuickTime Player app. It contains fine grained controls to easily trim a video. The trim command can be found under Edit menu, or can be invoked using keyboard shortcut Command + T.

Once you have trimmed the video as per your liking, insert it into the Keynote slide. You may want to create a copy of the video if you wish to keep the original one intact.


Why Is My Picture Thumbnail Not Showing when I dragged a folder to ⌘I (info) it displayed

Does the image open and appear in Preview.app? If not, the Finder will also not be able to open and create a thumbnail.

Show Icon Preview

Assuming the file is a valid image and does open in Preview.app, make sure Show icon preview is enabled for the Finder's view:

Select the file in the Finder
Select Finder > View (menu) > Show View Options
Enable the Show icon preview checkbox:


Manually cleaning up a threat detected by Sophos Anti-virus? I was viewing another answer on this website and one of the links lead me to a malicious website. I have Sophos Antivirus installed, and a warning immediately popped up telling me that a threat was detected:

  Threat: Mal/Badsrc-M
  Path and Filename: /Users/USER/Library/Caches/Google/Chrome/Default/Cache/f_000e36
  Action Available: The threat cannot be cleaned up. Please click the threat name above for manual cleanup instructions.

On the website, there are no instructions as to how to cleanup the threat. Even though this seems to be only a Windows virus, I still want it removed on my Mac so that it can't infect any other computers. Is it as simple as manually deleting the file listed above, or is there anything else I need to be worried about?

Minus the fact that Sophos is just a giant waste of resources and space on your mac. The easiest way to clean it up would be to close chrome and go to that path in terminal and delete the file.

Open terminal and type the following:

rm -f /Users/USER/Library/Caches/Google/Chrome/Default/Cache/f_000e36

That should delete the file forcibly.

Personal Note:

Having to run antivirus on your mac to protect windows machines is like wearing a helmet at your desk cause the guy on the bike outside might get hit by a car....


Permanently deleting trashed files after 30 days Gmail has a nice feature that permanently deletes e-mails after they've been in the Trash folder for 30 days. This is pretty clever, because if I don't need a trashed message back after 30 days it's very likely that I won't ever need it again.

I want to do the same for my Trash folder in OS X to make the best use of my disk space. Is there an easy way to automatically delete trashed files after 30 days?

Meta note: I don't think this is a duplicate of another thread because there the trigger is "disk space drops below X GB" and the effect is "the entire Trash folder is emptied". I only want to autodelete files older than 30 days.

This can be accomplished natively in macOS Sierra. Go into the Finder’s preferences, and on the “Advanced” tab pick “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days”.


Photos.app creates blank images after importing iPhoto library I imported a not very large (40 GB) iPhoto library into the new Photos app. Photos created a bunch of white images when importing some photos in that library:

The metadata on these blank photos matches the photo next to it, I can tell that it is supposed to be a duplicate.

I ran the repair database option in iPhoto before importing, and it didn't find any photos in the iPhoto folder that weren't in the database. So a bad iPhoto library shouldn't be the issue.
I also tried repairing the Photos.app library. While that got rid of many blank photos, it didn't remove all of them.

Searched all over but couldn't find anyone else who had this.

What is a good way to get rid of these? They're harmless but super annoying

I have the same problem. It turned out that the photos were gone, recovery had to come from a backup.

You can check if you have the same problem by right-clicking a white photo. Then copy the photo name. Then open a terminal and execute the following commands: cd ~/Pictures; find . -iname <photo name>. If nothing is found, you'll know the photo is gone :(


How to tell what time I sent a text? Is there any way to find out when exactly an un-timestamped chat was sent?

My friend Max swears I didn't promptly inform him of my whereabouts this past weekend. I remember the exchange differently.

A  screenshot:

Is there any way to know for sure?

(I am using iOS 6 on an iPhone 4S.)

One way of doing this:

Delete the texts above the un-timestamped text until the relevant message is assigned a timestamp. In this case you will just have to delete one message.


How to stop messages from opening when I touch the icon When I only have one unread message (or all from the same person), it opens that thread when I open the Messages app. I don't want the thread to open automatically when I touch the message icon, and would rather it opens the list of message threads. What can I do to stop this automatic action of opening the thread?

Silly answer: don't touch it.
Sensible answer: presume you are not wanting to send read receipts until you are ready? If so, note that it should return you to the same view you left it in, so to avoid this have a new conversation to a blank sender and select this conversation before minimising/quitting.


Cannot bind 127.0.0.123 to tcp socket python I'm trying to learn TCP sockets for my project. I will be using them to transfer files between computers.

The server client combo copied from some tutorial runs fine as long, as the ip I'm trying to bound is 127.0.0.1. When I change it to anything less standard, like 127.0.0.123 OSX says, that I cannot bind to this address:
socket.error: [Errno 49] Can't assign requested address

I have no problems on debian tough.

Server code

#!/usr/bin/env python

import socket

TCP_IP = '127.0.0.123'
TCP_PORT = 50050
BUFFER_SIZE = 1024  # Normally 1024, but we want fast response

s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
s.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_REUSEADDR, 1)
s.bind((TCP_IP, TCP_PORT))
s.listen(1)

conn, addr = s.accept()
print 'Connection address:', addr
while 1:
    data = conn.recv(BUFFER_SIZE)
    if not data: break
    print "received data:", data
    conn.send(data)  # echo
conn.close()

Client code:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import socket

TCP_IP = '127.0.0.123'
TCP_PORT = 50050
BUFFER_SIZE = 1024
MESSAGE = "message sent from client to server"

s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
s.connect((TCP_IP, TCP_PORT))
s.send(MESSAGE)
s.close()

On a Mac the loopback interface only has the 127.0.0.1 address configured. You could always add an alias to the IP you need:

sudo ifconfig lo0 alias 127.0.0.123

Your python code worked for me then.

To delete the alias do the following:

sudo ifconfig lo0 -alias 127.0.0.123

To make this persistent over reboots create org.local.localhost.plist in /Library/LaunchDaemons/.
Change the permissions with:

sudo chmod root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.local.localhost.plist

Open the file with

sudo nano /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.local.localhost.plist

and add the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.local.localhost</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/sbin/ifconfig</string>
        <string>lo0</string>
        <string>alias</string>
        <string>127.0.0.123</string>
        <string>up</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Finally load the launch daemon with:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.local.localhost.plist


How do I fix an iPhone 6s plus that has lost apps? My iPhone was not working, so I decided to force reset it (pressing the home button in sync with the power button)

After this most of my apps were gone (including the settings, phone, messages, Facetime, etc).

How do I fix this?

A normal shutdown is in order. Press the sleep wake and slide to power off.

If that doesn’t help and you have an iCloud backup and can erase all content and settings, I would try that. If not, restore when you connect to iTunes and then restore a backup.

If you don’t have a backup, you might attempt one via iTunes first and hope you don’t lose all data.


How do i know exactly what is taking up space in iCloud? Got an email from Apple saying that my iCloud account is almost full. I'd like to know with what exactly

On your iPhone/iPad, go to Settings->iCloud->Storage and Backup->Manage Storage.

On your Mac, go into System preferences ->iCloud and click on the button labeled "Manage…" to see an overview of the usage per app / service.


Dropping items "in place" on Mountain Lion desktop I run a multi-monitor setup at home with OS X ML as my main driver. Sometimes for a task I need to be able to drag-and-drop items from a folder to a particular spot on the desktop.

The problem here is that when I drag and drop an item on the desktop, it doesn't fall where the cursor is. It automatically gets moved over to the main monitor in the right column.  And I have to drag it back where I want it on the desktop. This is annoying.

How can I get osx to let me drop files precisely where the cursor is on the desktop?

Check that the option Snap to Grid is not enabled.

Right click on your desktop to activate the window displayed in the screenshot.

I'm not running OS X Mavericks by the way; I'm just using the background :)


Copying greyed out files between drives I am trying to copy data from an external NTFS drive to an exFAT drive.
However, some files are greyed out and give me this error when I try to copy them:
One or more items in “IMGP0029.AVI” can’t be changed because they are in use.

Even after clicking Continue and typing my password, it doesn't copy.
Following this answer I tried to run SetFile -c "" -t "" path/to/file.mov but I get:
ERROR: Write Permissions Error. (-61)  on file: /Volumes/Seagate Backup Plus Drive/IMGP0029.AVI

Running sudo chmod 777 gives me:
chmod: Unable to change file mode on /Volumes/Seagate Backup Plus Drive/IMGP0029.AVI: Read-only file system

Where do I go from here?

My workaround (which might not be suitable for everyone) was to copy the data onto a Windows PC, and then onto the destination drive.


Trackpad and keyboard of MacBook Pro unresponsive My MacBook Pro (2014 model) trackpad and keyboard suddenly became unresponsive few days ago and I took it to the apple repair shop.
Today they informed me it's a top case problem. I am curious, why would a top case cause problem in the trackpad and keyboard. Also, I have been taking great care of the MacBook, why is there a problem in the top case ? Is it because it is a defected unit and can I get a replacement?

While I agree with Tetsujin that you need to ask the repair shop for details, it probably helps to understand some terminology.

"Top Case", at least to me, is a bit of a misnomer.  You would think it would be the "top" or the case around the screen not the part that has the keyboard assembly...but hey...it is what it is.

Anyway... the top case is the general term for the entire assembly that has the top cover of the Logic board, the keyboard, track pad, and power button.

When there is an issue with any one of these components, people generally say "it's the topcase" because it is royal PITA to change the individual components out.  However, on the MBP 2014 model, you can replace the trackpad w/o disassembling the topcase.  It still is a PITA, though.

Here are some instruction on that repair for your reference.

Now..... "why did it go bad?"  Any number of reasons from liquid damage, hitting it too hard, or it just wore out.

Is it defective and can you get it replaced?  Yes.

The follow up question is "is your MBP under warranty or AppleCare?"  If not, then you will be paying for the repair out of pocket.

I hope that sheds some light on the problem.


Search in a particular folder and subfolder through Spotlight As the titles indicates, I would like to search a file in a particular folder, and its subfolders, through Spotlight. Is it possible to do that in Spotlight? If so, how can that be done?

Short answer: No, you can not.

Spotlight is designed to be the "central search hub" of your Mac. So whenever you type in something, it will search everything (except "blacklisted" folders and file types that you can set within System Preferences as well as any data from all other user accounts and connected servers unless your account has permission to view them) on your Mac internal storage as well as any additional connected media storage devices.

If you want to search into a specific folder and its subfolders, you will need to go to the actual folder in Finder first. In this example, the selected folder will be "Treehouse"

Then, click on the search bar (typically on the top-right corner of the window) and type in whatever you need to search for. In this example, the term will be "iTunes".

Finally, you will see a gray bar below the Finder toolbar. Select the folder name within the gray bar (if it hasn't been selected already) and it will limit the search to just the files and folders within the said folder.


Manually add shared Windows printer in macOS In OS X one could manually add a printer using the Advanced tab of the printer system preferences dialog with an smb address.

How can I manually add a printer in macOS now that the tab is gone?

You can access the advanced tab by right clicking just to the left of the word Add, selecting Customize Toolbar, and dragging the advanced tab onto the tool bar.


What happens if I format my iPod Touch 2G? Because when you connect it to Ubuntu, it sees iPod touch as a usb device and I think it allows to format it also. So, I wonder what would happen if I format my iPod Touch?

iOS doesn't expose a "real" filesystem over USB. On my work Windows PC (without iTunes installed), one can see only the photos, and Windows recognizes it as a camera. (Also, it won't let you format it.)

So, since it's a fake filesystem, it probably won't accept the formatting commands.

If you try it, please tell us what happened!


Xserve CPU Status LED's under Mountain Lion I have a dual Xeon Xserve, and a nagging issue.  The Xserves have 2 small 8 LED arrays on the front, which show real-time cpu utilization (one array per CPU).  Under Lion, these LED's would not become active until after you installed the Server.app.  Currently under Mountain Lion, these LED's do not work at all, regardless if the Server.app is installed or not.

I figure that there has to be a way to see, or find out what in the Lion Server app is enabling these (a kext or something perhaps?), but I cannot figure it out.  I tried comparing the system installed Kexts (/System/Library/Extension) before and after the server.app install, but did not find any new kexts.

Does anyone happen to know, or can provide any assistance in a way to dig down deeper on this?  I know its not a show stopper, but its one of those things thats bugging me and I cant stop thinking about it.

It is possible to re-enable the front-panel LED array on the Xserve when running 10.8. It appears that the process responsible for displaying/updating the readout on the front panel is the hwmond process. Unfortunately, hwmond is not included with OS X v.10.8. However, it is possible to use the hwmond executable from a 10.7.5 system.

The hardware that I tested with was an Early 2009 Xserve. After copying hwmond from the 10.7.5 system into /usr/sbin, I copied the com.apple.hwmond.plist launchd configuration file from /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.hwmond.plist, and installed into /System/Library/LaunchDaemons on the 10.8.5 system. After a reboot (or a launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.hwmond.plist), the system identifiers are working normally.


Cmd-` with full-screen windows on one monitor Command-` switches between windows of the active app, but it doesn't work if the windows are full-screen.

According to this question, this was added in Yosemite if the windows are on separate monitors. Great!

Is there any keyboard shortcut that switches between full-screen windows on a single monitor?

To summarize the set of keyboard shortcuts with the addition of @soulshined's input:

If I have two windows from different apps I can switch with ⌘ Command-Tab.
If I have two windows from the same app I can switch with ⌘ Command-`.
If I have two full-screen windows from the same app then ⌘ Command-` doesn’t work, but I can switch with ⌃ Ctrl-← or → (or ⌃ Ctrl-← or →; I chose ⌃ Ctrl-← or → to
avoid conflict with browser back/forward shortcuts).
If I have two full-screen windows from the same app on different
monitors then ⌃ Ctrl-← or → doesn’t work but ⌘ Command-` does.
If I have two full-screen windows from the same app on different
monitors and the target window is currently not in front then ⌘ Command-` and ⌃ Ctrl-← or → both fail to work. I have to ⌘ Command-Tab to another app that is on the target monitor, then ⌃ Ctrl-← or →  to the target window. Correction: ⌃ Ctrl-← or → scrolls through spaces on the original monitor, not the target monitor, so there's actually no way to do this that I know of.

Aside: if I enable the keyboard shortcuts for “Switch to Desktop 1” and “Switch to Desktop 2” and use two monitors, the shortcuts won’t work if the specified desktop is not assigned to the current monitor.

I've entered a usability bug with Apple, number 19363102.


How to disable the docked Finder monitor pop-up on OS X? Attached is the screen shot of annoying screen monitor round cornered box, not sure what thats called. I dont know how it appeared!!! I wanna disable it. The Command+option+escape window doesn't show the Force Quit button for that 'Finder', instead its Relaunch.

Edit: Its called Voice Over

Looks like you have activated VoiceOver mode. To disable either press Cmd-F5 or go to System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Voice Over and turn it off there.