How to properly set SSD Fan Control on iMac late 2009 after SSD upgrade I’ve upgraded my late 2009 iMac 27” with an SSD hard drive.

Because of the fan noise, I’ve installed SSD Fan Control, but I’m not sure how to set it properly, avoiding to reach high internal temperature that could damage hardware.

Using “SMART” mode fan are very quiet; using “Auto” mode are more noisy.

For now my settings are the following:

What does “1100 RPM @ 45 C” means? On the screenshot you can see that the temperature is 38°C, but the fan RPM is 1499...

Do you think these are good settings for me?

Thanks very much for the help

Francesco

The fan is running at 1499RPM at 38C, despite the settings of 1100RPM at 45C, because of a harmless bug in the SSD Fan Control app.

The bug is easy to reproduce:

Select Manual, and set the speed to 1500RPM
Select SMART, and the fan stays at 1499-1500 RPM

To "kick" the app back in to correct SMART operation:

Set the lower bound to a value below the ambient temperature (30C, for example), such that the fan speed increases
Set the lower bound back to 45C

Problem solved.

As for installing a temperature sensor, forget it. Francesco has a late 2009 model iMac 27" - these were not shipped with temperature sensors taped to the drive, rather with a proprietary cable connection direct to a special extra port on the drive.

The SSD Fan Control app works brilliantly on these old machines, once you understand the strange behaviour of this bug (and the workaround, described above).


how to force sync of calendars on iPhone? I have various calendars from iCloud and Google and it's very often that an event will be deleted from Google calendar but the iPhone will still show it.  The same calendar is on iCal on my Mac and it shows it correctly there. If it doesn't, I can ⌘ + R or ⇧ + ⌘ + R to update it.

Maybe I'm missing the place or configuration to do the same on the iPhone calendar application.

In iOS 7 and later:

Open Calendar app
Click Calendars
Drag down to refresh


Partition cloned disk I cloned a disk with dd on linux and want to be able to use the entire disk, but I'm not sure how as I don't think the OS is recognizing the free space that is unpartitioned. In Disk Utility, I can't select a size larger than 120GB (the size of my old SSD) despite the new one being 250GB.

diskutil list output:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *250.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            119.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

sudo gpt -r show disk0 output:

      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  232762432      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  233172072    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  234441608  253955560

Your GUID partition table lacks its backup part: the second GPT header and table.

Your gpt output should look like this:

      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  232762432      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  233172072    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  234441608  253955527
  488397135         32         Sec GPT table
  488397167          1         Sec GPT header

To repair this you have to recreate a new complete GUID partition table.

Preparation:

Backup your current Mac
Detach any external drive (especially your external Time Machine backup drive)
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.
The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot into a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an Apple/Akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (preferably El Capitan or Sierra) or a thumb drive containing a full system (preferably El Capitan or Sierra).

Repair partition table

Open in the menubar Utilities > Terminal and get an overview:

diskutil list

You will presented with at least 13 disks. Choose the disk identifier of your internal 250 GB disk. Usually this is either disk0 or disk1. Below I assume it's disk0 - use the disk identifier you have found in your environment in the commands below.
Verify/repair the main disk/main volume:

diskutil verifyDisk disk0
diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2

If the disk/volume requires repair use the same commands but replace the prefix verify by repair (e.g. repairDisk)
Get the partition table:

gpt -r show /dev/disk0

To modify the partition table of a disk, you have to unmount the main volume and the disk:

diskutil umount disk0s2
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0

destroy your current pt and create a new one:

gpt destroy /dev/disk0
gpt create -f /dev/disk0

add all previous partitions (as listed in the gpt list):

gpt add -i 1 -b 40 -s 409600 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B /dev/disk0
gpt add -i 3 -b 233172072 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0
gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 232762432 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

check that the secondary header and table exist:

gpt -r show /dev/disk0

Resize your main partition

Check if the disk identifier is the same:

diskutil list

Verify/repair the main disk/main volume:

diskutil verifyDisk disk0
diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2

If the disk/volume requires repair use the same commands but replace the prefix verify by repair (e.g. repairDisk)
Resize the second partition with diskutil:

diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 100%

Verify the resized volume/disk again.

Enter exit and quit Terminal. Reboot to your main volume.


Locally save photos and delete from iCloud So I'm trying to delete some photos from iCloud but keep them stored locally on my Mac (and ideally iOS devices but that doesn't really matter so much). Is there a way to do this?  All research I've done shows me how to delete the photos locally but keep them on iCloud!

Running El Capitan 10.11.6 and iOS 9.3.5

The easiest way to do this is to make an album into which you put all photos that you want to keep, then drag and drop them from Photos into a folder on your hard drive. After the copy has finished, right-click on the photos in the album then choose Delete (not Remove from Album as that won't delete them from the library). This will remove them from iCloud as well.

Keeping them on the iOS devices is trickier as there's no separate area to store them. You could create a shared album in Photos, copying the photos into it before deleting them from the regular album. (Shared albums are not included in your regular Photos library, so they won't be copied back to your iCloud Photo Library.) This would then make them available on the Shared tab of any iOS devices that use the same Apple ID, or any users you invite to the shared album for that matter.


Logging in automatically without removing the password Is there any way to have OSX log in automatically in a certain account when starting up, without asking for the password, while preventing remote (or even local network) connections without password?

I have a computer that I use both as a home server and a media center, so it has to be accessible from outside world in a secure manner (SSH + Screen Sharing), but at the same time I don't want to key in the passwords every time my media center boots up, or more importantly each time it wakes up from sleep.

Yes, this is possible. An automatic login option is available within the System Preferences.

System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Options > Automatic login

This ability may not be available if you are using FileVault.

When setting up this option, you will need to provide the user's password. See Does activating auto-login compromise secure password storage? for a discussion about how this feature works.


Easy way to see a list of all the apps I have installed on my iPhone I'm looking for an easy way to see a list of all the apps that are currently installed on my iPhone (running iOS9). In earlier versions of iOS it was possible to just type a '.' into Spotlight and all the apps would come up in a list, but I haven't found a way to do this easily on iOS 9.

if you're using a Mac install "Apple Configurator 2" from the Mac App Store. Choose your device while connected via USB and go to "Actions->export->informations" in the top menu bar. Then you can choose which details like installed Apps, serial number, etc. you want to export as csv list (you can open in Numbers e.g.)


Are there known bluetooth LE issues using OSX 10.12.5 that result in missing packet data? PROBLEM:

When two IMUs are sending data at the same time and are received in my debug script only one stream of data from one IMU sensor ever shows up in the log. The same script shows the expected results when run on other systems.

VERSIONS:

My laptop's related hardware/firmware/software versions

OSX 10.12.5
Apple Bluetooth Software Version: 5.0.4f18
Manufacturer: Broadcom
Transport:    USB
Chipset:  20702B0
Firmware Version: v137 c9260
HCI Version:  4.0 (0x6)
HCI Revision: 0x242C
LMP Version:  4.0 (0x6)
LMP Subversion:   0x4189

My test script's related software versions

Xcode 8.3
node v6.11.0
noble 1.8.1

DETAILS:

The above relates to a test script I'm using to debug a BLE problem. The script acts as central device that connects to BLE peripheral sensors (IMU) that broadcast data from a nordic bluetooth chip.

The hardware does not seem to be the issue. I can run the test script with expected results on a number of different systems so it seems to be something related to the hardware/firmware/software versions of bluetooth on my laptop but I can't find any related info.

I ran tests demonstrating expected result in other environments using the same node and lib versions.
Tested using same OSX version and also using different OSX version with expected results.
Tested on android with a different packet observation app with expected results.
The 2 IMUs have been independently tested and are confirmed to work.
When I observe a single IMU (not the simultaneous pair) I am able to observe the data correctly.
I tried restarting my machine with no effect.
I have reset the bluetooth module and restarted my machine as well.
I've observed BLE packets using xcode packet sniffer and the expected packets don't show up there either (i.e. independently observed so it doesn't seem to be node/noble issue).
I've also tried using different language implementations to connect to OSX bluetooth layer on my mac but there really aren't any working libraries that I could find.
I have not experienced any other regular bluetooth issues or BLE issues using the same machine.

Basically I'm desperate and don't know what else to try or how to debug this issue.

I'm looking for ideas identifying the issue or ideas to help me to debug the issue. If anyone has any insights please let me know. Thanks so much!

The issue of packet loss was due to the different minimum connection intervals allowed on different operating systems and the amount of data my peripheral was attempting to output. Due to the requirements of the project we need fairly high throughput. My original assessment of getting positive and negative results from the same operating system were incorrect due to some confounding variables. The same packet loss was occurring on all mac machines I tested. Greater packet loss was occurring using os x vs using ubuntu because there is a theoretical limit on the minimum connection interval of 20ms for all apple software interfacing with corebluetooth. I'm not sure if ubuntu imposes a similar limit but I was definitely observing less packet loss using ubuntu. My hunch is that there is no artificial limit and the connection interval could have been at the ble minimum of 7.5ms but I will have to do some more research to figure out what the number actually is.


How to assign to the "home" key the action "Go to the start of line" Globally Is there a way in which I can replicate the Windows way of going to the start of line by using home and not ⌘ + ← ?

I did it in Eclipse, but I'd rather do it globally. I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.8

If you don't mind a third party application, KeyRemap4Macbook can do it for you (and a whole lot more too).


Upgrading SSD on mid 2014 MB: which SSD? I have a pretty simple issue.

The SSD of my mi-2014 Macbook pro (retina - MacBookPro11,1) seems to be too short (256GB).

So I'm considering buying a 1Tb SSD for my Macbook, but I read, here and there, that not all SSD are compatible (because of its format, "blade" SSD or something).

So, do you know which 1Tb SSD I could upgrade my Macbook Pro with ?

Without having heard of this sort of incompatibility before, I'd suggest you check out Other World Computing, who have a great reputation for Mac aftermarket parts - including a great line of SSDs. I've been happy with one of their SSDs in an old MacBook Pro myself. Great product backed with a thorough understanding of Apple's product line and fantastic customer service.

And to be clear, I'm not affiliated in any way other than being a happy customer.

Update: Thanks to @enguerranws for doing the extra legwork; OWC indeed does have a solution available for the 11,1 in 240GB, 480GB and 1TB as of at least Dec 2016.


Why are the iPad games Epic Citadel and Gravity HD crashing on startup? I've got 2 iPad games that crash (vanish from the screen) on startup. The games are Epic Citadel and Gravity HD. Both apps go through the loading sequence then the screen goes black and returns back to the main iPad screen. I have tried reinstalling Epic Citadel with no luck. I don't want to delete and reinstall Gravity HD as I would lose where I am up to. I have raised a support call with the latter game but have not heard anything (2 weeks ago). Any ideas on what to do?

Try rebooting the iPad to free up some memory. Hold the lock button until the "slide to power off" slider comes on, slide it, then turn the iPad back on.


About This Mac > Storage shows 10GB Backups, but Time Machine is Disabled I'm trying to figure out what's going on with my storage.
About This Mac > Storage shows that there's ~11GB of Backups.
Disk Utility seems to sort the same files as "Other".

Googling tells me that the backups shown in About This Mac > Storage are part of Time Machine (and that they will be automagically deleted if the space is needed), BUT Time Machine is disabled, and has never been used (and there are no /.MobileBackups or /Volumes/MobileBackups folders).

Running Disk Utility's 'First Aid' from the Recovery Partition says there's nothing wrong with the disk.

Also, Disk Utility reports two different sizes for "available" (in the same window). The difference seems to be the size of the supposed backups.

The "backups" no longer show up. Afaik I did not do anything.


How do I get rid of this item in my menu bar on macOS So I have this "Citrix Receiver" item in my menu bar and I want to remove it. I have looked to see if I have an app in my system by that name and there is nothing. I did a search and nothing comes up. I have used "App Cleaner" to search for it and try to clean it and nothing.

Can someone please tell me how I can get rid of it? It won't even open when I click on "Open Citrix Receiver". It is unresponsive. Is there a way I can remove it?

To uninstall the Citrix Receiver for Mac, open the
  CitrixReceiver.dmg file and select Uninstall Citrix Receiver.

  After uninstalling the Receiver and rebooting the system, ensure
  that the files or folders listed in this section have been removed
  from your system. If they still exist, remove them manually.

  /Applications

  Citrix Receiver.app

  /Library

  /Internet plug-ins/CitrixICAClientPlugIn.plugin
  /LaunchAgents/com.citrix.AuthManager_Mac.plist
  /LaunchAgents/com.citrix.ServiceRecords.plist

  /Users/Shared

  /Citrix/Receiver Integration (entire folder)

  ~/Library

  /Internet plug-ins/CitrixICAClientPlugIn.plugin
  /Application Support/Citrix Receiver

  CitrixID
  Config
  Module

  /Preferences/com.citrix.receiver.nomas.plist
  /Preferences/com.citrix.receiver.nomas.plist.lockfile
  /Preferences/com.citrix.ReceiverFTU.AccountRecords.plist (added in 11.6)
  /Preferences/com.citrix.ReceiverFTU.AccountRecords.plist.lockfile (added in 11.6)

  ~/Applications

  Under this folder, you can delete any applications you previously added via the Receiver UI.

  /private/var/db/receipts

  com.citrix.ICAClient.bom
  com.citrix.ICAClient.plist

To get to some of these locations faster using Finder, hit Command+Shift+G (or use menu Go > Go to Folder...) and paste the location there.

More info on the Citrix website.


Where did the /proc directory go in Mountain Lion? I used to find the location of cached flash videos by lsof | grep Flash, the result is something like this

Google 38571 lamnk 74u REG 1,2 156826302 37061768 /Users/lamnk/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Pepper Data/Shockwave Flash/.com.google.Chrome.KNc63e

Pepper flash player deleted the files so you can not see or copy them, but the process 38571 still hold the files open. Normally I can save the cached flash video by copying /proc/38571/fd/74 to another location. However on Mountain Lion I find out that /proc is not there anymore!

Is it possible to get another process to use these file handles and read the files that exist but lack a proper filesystem handle / inode structure? Do I need to configure /proc in 10.8 if the native tools won't work?

/proc has never been included in any version of OS X (although Amit Singh wrote a version of procfs for OS X). You should, however, be able to get at it through /.vol instead. First, find the device number for the volume it lives on with something like stat -f%d /Users/lamnk (assuming you don't have your Library weirdly redirected to another volume). Then get its file ID (aka inode number) from the lsof command (370617680 in the example you gave). You can then reach it as /.vol/volumeid/fileid:

$ stat -f%d /Users/lamnk
234821716
$ lsof -c "Google Chrome" | grep "Pepper Data"
Google 38571 lamnk 74u REG 1,2 156826302 37061768 /Users/lamnk/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Pepper Data/Shockwave Flash/.com.google.Chrome.KNc63e
$ cp /.vol/234821716/37061768 rawfile

EDIT: Apparently /.vol does not find unlinked-but-open files, even though they still exist on disk.  Unfortunately, this means this trick won't work here. You might be able to do it with Amit Singh's procfs, but I haven't used it so I don't know if it'll do the trick either.


How do I search for Safari Extensions? I noticed that Safari has an Extensions Gallery page. I'm wondering how I would search all the extensions to find the one I want.

Does that page list all of the extensions available, meaning I should use Edit > Find...? Or are there many more which aren't listed on the page?

There are many extensions not listed on Apple's page. However, if they're not on the main page, they're not on Apple's site at all. Your cmd-f solutions is the best option if you want to search just the extensions that Apple has listed.

If you want to broaden your search to more of the extensions available, turn to third-party sites: http://safariextensions.org/, http://safariextensions.tumblr.com/, and http://www.pimpmysafari.com/category/extensions are all good, more-comprehensive lists.


Xcode problem with directory permissions I'm trying XCode4. I created a new project, told XCode to put in my ~/develop/ directory, but then I immediately get asked:

  “Test project” is locked for editing and you may not be able to save your
  changes. Do you want to unlock it?

  “Test project” is currently locked
  because you do not own the parent
  folder and have no write permissions
  for it.

  [Don't Unlock]     [Unlock]

...which isn't true: my ~/develop/ folder is owned by me (staff group) and has drwxr-xr-x permissions. I write to it every day. XCode is running as my account.

Is XCode right? What can I do to fix this? If I press “Don't Unlock” it seems to work fine.

If you navigate to that folder from Finder, you can click Get Info and manage the permissions from the bottom of the window. You can navigate there by using the Go To Folder menu item in Finder or directly navigating their.


My iMessages are still merging even though we have separate Apple IDs My phones messages are still syncing with my iPad's even though both devices have separate IDs. The only device I'm signed in on is my phone, yet everything is still synced? I was wondering how to unsync both devices completely?

Changing Apple ID won't remove previous messages received, only future messages. In the Messages app, you will have to manually delete each conversation to remove the message history.


AppleId, language always changes On https://appleid.apple.com/ I changed the preferred language to French at least 10 times now, but it always comes back to German. Not immediately thus I see I can save the French language preference, but then I receive the next mail in German, I check my account and language is set to German. I live in Switzerland and thus our languages are French German and Italian...

I have experienced inconsistencies at times in the language used in communication received from Apple. I am not sure there is a clear answer. While a single Apple Id may be used to authenticate separate systems (e.g. Developer, iTunes, MobileMe) may handle languages differently.

From my experience, the following appear to affect the language used in communication from Apple.

The language of the device that
initiated an interaction using an
Apple Id
The language of the
country for which you are registered
The language in the preferred
language setting

For example, when purchasing from iTunes on my iPhone (Spanish), I received a receipt in Spanish. But when ordering from my Mac (English) I received a receipt in English.

To isolate the problem it may be worth reviewing which systems you use with Apple and in which languages to see what may be causing the change. If you are near an Apple Store, with this information, they may be able to help you sort our what is causing the change. Or perhaps report it as a bug in there system.


Connect a Thunderbolt Display to windows 8 desktop I've been spinning around with this question but couldn't find the answer. Hope someone here could help.

I have been trying to connect my Windows 8 desktop to a Thunderbolt Display 27" without success. My desktop only has HDMI and VGA output. Hence, I naturally tried two options:

1, Desktop <==(VGA)=adapter=(Thunderbolt)==> Display

Result: Thunderbolt screen remains blank/black/not turned on when I plug it in. Also tried to restart the desktop while the two are connected, no luck!

2, Desktop <==(HDMI)=adapter=(Thunderbolt) ==> Display

Results: Exactly the same as above.

Any suggestion folks?

P/S:I've paid $2K for two of my Thunderbolt displays thus don't want to throw them away.

Thunderbolt is not backwardly-compatible with any other display technology. It is an active technology, all before it were passive. It is a combination of video & PCIe.

You can connect Thunderbolt to DisplayPort, but not the other way round.

From how do I connect an Apple Thunderbolt display to a PC?

  If the Wikipedia article is to be believed (and I do believe it is correct based on what thunderbolt is), then your configuration will not work.

  Compatability

  Apple Thunderbolt Displays, like the video input on Thunderbolt iMacs,
  drop compatibility with all previous standards, including VGA, DVI,
  and DisplayPort.[3] As such, they cannot be connected to computers
  lacking a Thunderbolt port, including pre-2011 Macs and the vast
  majority of PCs.

Thunderbolt is not the same as Display Port.  Therefore you can only connect thunderbolt equipped Mac's (or some PC's with thunderbolt hardware and appropriate drivers) to the Thunderbolt display.

From the Apple Mini DisplayPort FAQ

  My computer has the same connector but the symbol is different, what does that mean?

  Some Apple computer have a Thunderbolt port instead of a Mini
  DisplayPort. Computers with a Thunderbolt port will have the following
  symbol next a port although the port physically appears the same as a
  Mini DisplayPort:

  Thunderbolt ports:

  Are compatible with all of the Mini DisplayPort adapters referenced
  below in question 5 and with Apple Mini DisplayPort equipped displays.
  Support adapters like Apple's Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
  and Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter which are not otherwise compatible
  with Mini DisplayPorts. See Thunderbolt ports and displays: Frequently
  asked questions (FAQ) for more information on Thunderbolt.

So with your adaptor you can drive a DisplayPort based monitor to your PC, but not a thunderbolt display as it lacks support for DisplayPort.  That's why it didn't turn on and work.

Some Googling and I haven't yet been able to find a USB based thunderbolt adaptor, it seems there is talk of such a device using USB 3.0 to thunderbolt although at reduced speeds.  There are a few thunderbolt PCIe cards available and some PC motherboards support thunderbolt.


Will iphone 5s convert text emoticons in SMS? Text emoticon for Rose emoji I don't have iphone myself and that is why I ask this question. Also I don't have a smartphone and don't think that my cellphone is able to send Unicode SMS.

I would like to know whether iphone 5s automatically converts text emoticons to emoji pictures in SMS. If it does, then what text emoticon will be converted to "Rose emoji" (http://emojipedia.org/rose/).

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons)
lists several strings for Rose:

@};-
@}->--
@}‑;‑'‑‑‑
@>‑‑>‑‑

Will one of this strings be converted to "Rose emoji" if sent via SMS to Iphone 5s?

Thank you.

None of these are converted for me by my iPhone on iOS 9.3.3.


What is the difference between macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Update and macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Combo Update? According to this table, both pump up the version to 10.12.2, both have exactly the same changelog:

macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Update
macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Combo Update

The only difference I was able to see was the file size (1.94 GB vs. 2.05 GB).

AppStore seems to mention only the "standard" update, not "combo".

Can somebody explain what are the differences? Thank you.

I believe that the "normal" update only has the changes from 10.12.1 to 10.12.2; therefore, you need to have 10.12.1 already installed.

The combo one, OTOH, has all the changes from the last major release (10.12.0).


What are ".com.apple.backupd.mdmv" files for and which tool creates them? I am comparing on macOS El Capitan via diff -r a directory with a the corresponding directory of a time machine snapshot (Note: the backup is made under macOS High Sierra.)

diff reports a few files which are only present on the backup: The filenames all start with

.com.apple.backupd.mdmv

(followed by some numbers). The files are XML text files.

I searched for these files via Google, but couldn't find much about them (the only (weak) reference I found was "MDM" - Apple's Mobile Device Management - But I though this is just an iOS thing).

Which tool creates these files and why? Also, I assume I can ignore these files when checking the backup - is this correct?

They're generated by backupd which is the main process for Time Machine for handling backups. The files themselves track items that have been moved or renamed, to prevent them from being backed up multiple times, and to track a file's history no matter how much you move it around.
I can't find a reference to what mdmv stands for exactly, but I'm confident it has nothing to do with Mobile Device Management; my best guess would be that it stands for something like "MetaData MoVed", rather than a proper acronym.
As for the file's content, it's actually fairly straightforward. For example:
<?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>DateStarted</key>
        <date>2020-07-09T21:00:07Z</date>
        <key>FileID</key>
        <integer>174035141</integer>
        <key>NameSpaceID</key>
        <integer>2140396991</integer>
        <key>NewPath</key>
        <string>Movies/TV/TV Shows/Vikings/Season 5/02 The Departed.mp4</string>
        <key>SourcePath</key>
        <string>Movies/TV/TV Shows/Vikings/Season 5/2 The Departed.mp4</string>
</dict>
</plist>

This has the following important elements:

DateStarted: Appears to be the time that the move was detected (presumably by fseventsd which is the process that tracks file system events)
FileID: Seems to be a unique ID for a file, it doesn't appear to be an inode number so is likely specific to Time Machine.
NewPath: This is the current location of the file, or at least where the file was located the last time that Time Machine was run.
SourcePath: This is where the file was previously located, probably in reference to its location when Time Machine ran before last.

In this example, I have an episode from the TV Show Vikings which was stored under the name 2 Departed.mp4 but was renamed (by consolidating my library in TV.app) to 02 Departed.mp4.
When Time Machine was new, this would have been enough for it to see 02 Departed.mp4 as an all-new file and create a full new copy, wasting a load of space on my Time Machine disk, however over the years Time Machine has gotten a bit smarter and no longer does that.
I'd actually never encountered these specific mdmv files myself until today, which is how I found your question, but Time Machine has had an "events database" for a while now which also seems to track these kinds of changes, if you look at hidden files inside a backup directory (e.g- /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/My Mac/Latest) then you'll find one or more .eventdb files, and probably a .clonedb if any of your volumes are using APFS (they probably are if you're on macOS Mojave or later).
At a guess I expect these mdmv files are a finer-grained alternative so Time Machine doesn't have to trawl through events to figure out where a file came from. You should only see them within your Time Machine volume and nowhere else, though if you copy entire folders out of Time Machine from the Finder you may end up copying these as well by accident.


Why can't I see some chinese characters (eg: ) on macOS BigSur 11.2.1? For example, when this character: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%A6%B3%8A#Chinese
On Chrome, I see nothing on the web site render:

and on the address bar:

If I copy-and-paste the "invisible" character on my Terminal, I see a question mark:

Finally, I'll copy the character here in case it helps: .
The same happens for many other Chinese characters, as you can see here:

source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Index:Chinese_radical/%E6%9C%88
Any way I can install something to make this work? Thanks!! 谢谢！

The display of any unicode character requires that your machine has a font installed which contains the glyph for it. Apple doesn't provide fonts for all 130000 unicode characters, so when there is one you can't see it normally means you have to download and install an extra font.
This page gives you a list of fonts that will show the example you give, U+26CCA.


Macbook Air hard drive - nearly full warning I went to upload some photos and videos onto my macbook air and was told there was not enough free space, so removed some things onto an external hard drive and emptied my trash. I now have over 30 gb free but I still get the warning saying my hard drive is nearly full. How can I fix this?

I would recommend looking at using a utility like CleanMyMac 3 to go through and perform some system maintenance and free up extra disk space. The first time I ran it on my system I freed up about 20GB of hard drive space by getting rid of language packs that weren’t needed by my system. It will also go through and clean out duplicate and unneeded version of photos from your iPhoto library.

There are several other apps around that can do the same thing (MacCleanse, Dr. Cleaner), but I’ve found CleanMyMac to be the best of the bunch.

Also, make sure to reboot your system at least once a week. This will let the Mac OS do it’s own system cleanup that doesn’t happen until you reboot your computer.


WiFi keeps turning off (logging out) automatically I own an iPhone 5 running on iOS 6.1.2. It is jail broken.

I connect to the internet via the university WiFi system, which provided each of us a unique username and password, and we have a set download limit.

After logging in through my iPhone, after about 10 minutes, the iPhone disconnects itself and reverts itself to my data plan.

I do not understand the cause for this. How can I rectify this? Are there any jailbreak tweaks availabe from cydia?

One possibility is that your phone is determining that the data connection is stronger/faster than the wireless connection and is purposefully changing to the more powerful connection. To test if this is the case, you can disable Cellular data on your phone when you want it to be connected only to the wifi. Not an optimal solution, but one that guarantees your data plan is saved.

Disabling the Cellular Data is under Settings > General > Cellular > Cellular Data and disable the option.

If the phone continues to disconnect with Cellular Data disabled, it's possible that your phone is experiencing the access points in the area having a channel conflict either with each other or with other wireless broadcast points in the area. This can happen if someone has one of the portable wireless access points broadcasting or when the access points in the area are not properly configured (or are on automatic channel select). There is also a possibility that the access point nearest you is on channel 1 and iOS devices really tend to prefer channel 6 or especially 11.

I work for a company that provides public wireless access at various locations and have experienced all of the above possibilities at various points with customers on iOS devices. If you feel like any of the above possibilities are what's occurring, you'll have to contact your college's wifi tech support or IT ops department because the


iCloud, created @me.com email with wrong Apple ID, how to claim it with correct Apple ID? I logged into iCloud with an old Apple ID (abc@mac.com) because I was hoping I could use that old email address with iCloud.  However, it told me I had to create a new @me.com email address in the iCloud setup tool so I did (abc@me.com).

The thing is, my preferred Apple ID is actually different (abc@gmail.com), that's the Apple ID I've been buying iTunes music with for years, so I want to keep using it for iCloud too.

So I logged out of iCloud, and logged in with the "correct" Apple ID abc@gmail.com

Then I went to configure Mail for iCloud to use my newly created abc@me.com, but it's prompting me to create a "new" @me.com email.  It won't let me use the abc@me.com that I just created under the abc@mac.om Apple ID. :(

Since I already have and like abc@me.com, I want to use that one, but it won't let me.  It insists on creating a new @me.com

Is there any way to associate the newly created abc@me.com email address with a different Apple ID than the one I created it with?  Or am I stuck creating yet another @me.com email address?

If I understand correctly, you would like to change the primary email address associated with your apple id, this is not only possible but fairly easy to do if you have the right site.

Click "Manage your account" about halfway down http://appleid.apple.com and you should be presented with an option to edit "Apple ID and Primary Email Address".


New iPhone 6 - hints in Notifications I have been receiving new iphone 6 hints in my Notifications but when I go to try one out and go back to read it again it is gone.

How do I retrieve them and where do they do they come from?

They are from a new app called Tips, added with iOS 8.

It will post occasional tips & tricks on your lock screen, but you can launch the app itself & browse through them any time you like.


Risks of upgrading from OS X 10.5.8 to 10.6.3 Knowing little about OSX, a friend has asked me to help upgrade their machine from OS X 10.5.8 to 10.6.3; what are the risks of doing so, if any, and what is the best way to mitigate them?

As with any major change to an OS I'd recommend taking a backup of the machine before the migration. TimeMachine is the Apple's built in backup software. If your upgrade goes poorly you'll be able to restore from a TimeMachine backup without supplying OS media. To ensure that you have a complete and consistent TimeMachine backup I'd recommend running the backup with all applications closed. Preferably get a few different backups so you have multiple points to roll back to.

Secondly, I'd check the installed third party applications and their compatibility with 10.6, some applications might not support 10.6 and will need to be updated to continue to work. You could install a third party program that will track application that will inform you of application updates. I use, and would recommend, AppFresh for this purpose.


Downloading apps stuck after updating I just updated my iPhone from iOS6 beta 4 to the final release, I restored via iTunes.

I made an iCloud backup right before doing this, seeing this is what iCloud is for I figured I didn't need to backup using iTunes.

The restoring process went fairly smooth, but after I started restoring from iCloud the problems begun, restore my settings took almost 2 hours, even though the Time Remaining said it would only take 45 min.

Once my iPhone booted up all my apps popup up, waiting to be downloaded, now I'm not sure what they're waiting for, but they've been waiting for hours.

I noticed a few apps started downloading, I also saw a few apps which downloaded very quickly and then just got removed from the screen ...

Now one app is just stuck on "loading", preventing other apps from starting.

I've already tried all the solutions given online, but nothing is helping.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Yes, the answer is simple.

You are downloading something else like songs from iTunes match.

Open the Music app, click on store and after that on transfers and you will see what is delaying the apps.


looking for something more modern than X11 "streaming" with local Vagrant Linux VMs I have a similar question like Alternatives for XQuartz?, because XQuartz is discontinued since 2016 and X11 feels in general obsolete.

I use vagrant to spin up Linux VMs and connect with ssh to the VM. It's very fast way to test Linux stuff, but it's commandline only.

I wish to test also stuff like XFCE and LXDE, but using the Virtualbox Console is slow and the usability bad.

What are the different ways of using GUI apps and full desktop environments?
The site alternativeto.net lists Wayland as an XQuartz alternative, but there seems no macOS client.

X11 in general is not really "obsolete".

You compare it to Wayland, but Wayland has only very recently become something that can be used in a standard install of Linux for example. It still has rough edges and use cases that are not implemented at all - so many Linux distributions has X11 as the default, or if they default to Wayland they have an option to use X11 instead.

For connecting to Linux VMs with desktop environments like XFCE and LXDE, I would still recommend X11 as the best option.

You can use XQuartz, or you could use for example the xorg-server package from MacPorts, which has a more recent version of basically the same software as XQuartz).

Perhaps a better alternative would be use the X2Go (free) or NoMachine NX (commercial) software for accessing your X11 system from macOS.

Another option would be to use VNC. Many VNC clients exists for Mac, and Linux has software like x11vnc that exposes X11 software (such as XFCE and LXDE environments) over VNC. The VNC protocol works substantially different than the X protocol, and I wouldn't recommend it if you're using this on a more permanent basis, as you probably will see some degradation of graphics quality, and you would loose the ability to have individual X11 apps appear as individual windows in macOS.

Considering Wayland on macOS. You would actually not need a client as you write, it is the server you're after. However, as you're trying to access a Linux VM over a network (even though it is locally on the same machine) - this is not natively supported by Wayland. The standard Wayland setup requires the clients (individual applications) and the server (what actually handles the composition of all the applications onto the displays) to be on the same computer. There are some, very new, attempts at accessing Wayland remotely over the network - but currently they actually just work like a VNC server would. I.e. there's no advantage to using Wayland here.


Context menu got empty separator I’ve got empty lines in context menus, what is it and how could I get rid of it?

Got it, it was an outdated TotalFinder plugin. Installed the newest and context menu is OK now.


MS Remote Desktop on MacBook running Yosemite I am running Yosemite 10.10.5 on my 13" MacBook (Early 2014) and I want to make remote connections to a Windows PC. When I go to the App Sotre and try to install the Microsoft Remote Desktop app I get this messgae:
"Microsoft Remote Desktop can't be installed because OS X version 10.13 or later is required".
Since I am stuck with Yosemite how can I obtain an older version of the Remote Desktop app. Presumably it worked previously when Yosemite was the latest version?

There is no Macbook "Early 2014". There's a Macbook Air Early 2014, which is perfectly capable of running Catalina 10.15 & is not 'stuck' with Yosemite.
Microsoft have removed RDC v8 from the app store so your best chance  if their support won’t help you is from a 3rd party site - google "microsoft remote desktop 8 mac" for a few sources… however, whether or not these can be trusted is another thing entirely.
As your OS is so far out of date that it's already insecure, I wouldn't be rushing to download other potentially insecure things to it.


How do I remove /etc/nologin I was perusing man pages for fun, as I often do when bored, and happened to be playing around with login today. The login man page mentioned that creating a /etc/nologin file would prevent a user from logging in. I decided to try it.

The good new is it works as advertised. The bad news is I can no longer use the Terminal. I can't remove the file with rm for obvious reasons, and I can't even delete it from Finder because I can't see hidden files.

How do I regain control of my system?

Power down the system (using the standard Shut Down in the Apple menu) and then start it up again. Shutdown should remove the nologin file for you.


iPhone photos are low resolution (640x480) I have an iPhone 4 with which I take lots of photos. The default resolution tends to be pretty high, usually around 2500 X 1900.

Lately some of my photos have come out with a very low resolution, 640x480, rendering them useless for my purpose.  I have not been using HD, nor have I changed any settings. I don't even see an option to change the resolution.

Why would this be happening?

Have you shot any of those images with the "other" camera? The "face time" camera will only shoot a resolution of 640x480 and the "regular" camera shoots the higher resolution (5MP). Apple specs of the iPhone 4 states the face time camera shoots VGA (see http://support.apple.com/kb/sp587).

The high res camera shoots frontward. The face time camera shoots backwards (it is located near the ear speaker in the top of the phone above the screen). When using the camera app, if you press the icon that has the circular arrows, the camera changes to the one facing you (you will see yourself in the screen). That is the "face time" camera and shoots low res.


How do I access my old files from an old Macbook HDD with Lubuntu? I wasn't sure if I should put this on the Apple or Linux stack exchange but here's my problem. So my old Macbook died a while back and I realized that it might have had some important information. My main PC now is a Lubuntu Desktop. So what I did was I bought a SATA with an HDD power connecter to USB cord and I plugged the SATA side into the HDD and the USB into my PC. I was able to get into the HDD's files, but when I was getting into the documents file it said that I could not access it due to permissions. So I changed the permissions and when I clicked apply it said "Error setting permissions: Read-only file system". Can someone tell me how to save the information on the HDD while being able to access it?

This is probably due to your FS type and your old disk which is probably HFS+.
You need to add extra packages to read it.
Try this link: https://askubuntu.com/questions/332315/how-to-read-and-write-hfs-journaled-external-hdd-in-ubuntu-without-access-to-os
Here's the copy paste of the answer :

First, make sure that you have hfsprogs installed. Example installation command:
sudo apt-get install hfsprogs

Next, mount or remount the HFS+ drive; commands need to be as follows:
sudo mount -t hfsplus -o force,rw /dev/sdXY /media/mntpoint

or
sudo mount -t hfsplus -o remount,force,rw /mount/point

Finally, if the drive was improperly unmounted or has otherwise become partially corrupted run fsck.hfsplus ... as such:
sudo fsck.hfsplus -f /dev/sdXY


Is there any reliable, repeatable way to find a folder on MacOS? I have a folder full of Logic projects on my local drive. Finder offers no way to get to it. It's a constant frustration. I can get to iCloud, Downloads, Applications -- but not my own files on my own disk drive.

I understand that Apple has strict usability standards, and I respect that, but is there any way to work around them and conveniently access my own files only own computer, other than a keyboard shortcut that I'll forget and have to Google every time? (It doesn't work anyway -- the first time I tried, there was no folder named "Logic" in whatever unknowable scope it's searching in; the second time I told it to open "Logic", it opened Downloads. I can take a joke as well as the next guy, but sometimes I just want to get to my files).

Is it possible to create a link to a folder on the desktop, or something functionally similar? Something I can easily find when I want it, and click on it?

To clarify: I'm coming at this from a Windows/UNIX based expectation that all the folders are in a unified tree that's rooted somewhere, and you use one application (bash, DOS prompt, Windows Explorer, whatever) to navigate that whole tree: Some branches of the tree are on the local disk and "real", others are "virtual", but they all have a chain of parents starting at the same root.

But I'm starting to think I may need to learn a different way of thinking about this stuff in order to use MacOS.

The actual problem I have here is: I shared three Logic projects via iCloud with a pianist. We recorded many takes of his parts at his apartment. Then I needed to copy the projects from iCloud back to my local disk. "Open three projects in Logic and Save As for each one" is a very slow and awkward way to copy three files from one folder to another (or archive, or whatever a "single file" Logic project actually is).

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH13433?locale=en_US explains better about file save location for the app. If you're doubtful, open Logic, try to Save a new project and remember the location.
Replying to your: "whatever unknowable scope it's searching in", there are two places where it is written that "This Mac" is being searched. So see there to find the scope.

You can add the folder Logic(if and when you find it) to the sidebar by dragging the folder to the Favourites.
You can go to Finder Preferences and set the folder under General -> "New Finder window shows" as your folder Logic. But you'd have to open a new window for that, so remember that shortcut as per File Menu in Finder.


Why is CTRL + = shortcut blocked? When I'm e.g. in the Terminal and press CTRL^= I get the "invalid key sound". I need to bind this shortcut to a Terminal app, but it doesn't work. Just get this sound and it's not evaluated.

What's blocking it?

That's because <CTRL-=> is an invalid key combination in a terminal interface.

(Hint:  There's no such corresponding ASCII character.)


How to type fraction symbols on iPad? Many character sets provide single special characters for fractions like 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, etc. Can these be typed on an iPad?

I have found GlyphBoard that lets you paste them in but it dates back to 2009 and I wondered if native support may have been added in the interim.

The built-in iOS keyboard does not support this, but you can add a shortcut from Settings > General > Keyboard. This way you only have to copy/paste once.


FileVault Encryption Issues On High Sierra (APFS) I've recently updated to High Sierra and am now having issues with the encryption of my SSD.

When upgrading I was prompted to create a new password for my user account, the dialog saying that I couldn't use the same password as my iCloud account anymore. This led to when I restarted my MacBook Pro, I had to log in twice. Once for the disk encryption, and one for the user account. This wasn't ideal for me, so I contacted Apple support to ask about the issue. They were only able to help me roll back to a previous Time Machine backup from before I updated, so now I'm running Sierra again.

I suspect the option to use your iCloud password in conjunction with your user account (and other things...?? FileVault?) is what has caused the issue. Now that I'm up and running again on Sierra 10.12.6, I don't even see it as an option when I go to system preferences.

My question is, what is the best way for me to proceed to:

Have an encrypted SSD
Run the latest version of macOS (High Sierra)
Have as few passwords as possible (though I can use 1Password to store them if I need many separate passwords, it's just more messy.)

If you have an encrypted drive before installing the OS you get that multiple login issue. If you do an install on a standard drive, then turn FileVault on, you won't have to double log in, as the user login will 'decrypt' the drive on its own.

I believe that's what solved a similar issue for me. I did a second clean install, this time formatting APFS (without encryption).


Factory reset my ipad but app store still logged into another account I recently factory reset my ipad through my usb cable connected to my iMac via iTunes. I went through the setup tutorial and logged in using one of my apple IDs. I then went to the app store on the ipad and went to search for an app to download. However, when I was trying to download it, the apple ID that popped up was my old apple ID. Does anybody know how to get the app store to ask me to switch to a different apple ID?

I also checked under Settings. My icloud, iTunes & App Store are both logged into my correct apple ID but when I run the app, it is asking for the password to my old apple ID.

I also checked Mail, contacts, calendars and all are using my new apple ID. Same thing with messages and facetime, both using my new apple ID.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

In the App Store app, be sure to scroll to the bottom of the main page and sign out.  Then tap Sign in and log in as the correct Apple ID.


Receiving push notifications for another user that was removed from my app A friend logged onto their Facebook on my phone with the Facebook app and they also added their Messenger account. I'd open the app and it'd have both of our profile pictures to choose from.

I deleted their account from the Facebook app and Messenger, but I am still receiving push notifications when they start a new conversation in Messenger.

How do I stop receiving these push notifications?

The easiest thing to do is remove the Facebook and Messenger apps from your device and reinstall them.

To ensure that the settings causing you to be signed in with both users are erased, do a hard reset (hold Sleep + Volume Down [iPhone 7] or Sleep + Home [iPhone 6s and earlier] until the Apple logo appears) between deleting the apps and reinstalling them.


How to package an app with sqlite3 database I'm a new Mac user trying to create a *.pkg file which should hold an *.app (let's call it MyApp) and a corresponding sqlite3 database(let's call it MyAppDB.sqlite3). This application has been written in Python and transformed into a Mac application using Pyinstaller . It is hence not a 'native' Mac app.

The *.pkg instalation process should copy the MyApp.app into ~/Applications/MyApp and the related database into ~/Library/Application Support/MyApp/MyAppDB.sqlite3

For this purpose I've used Packages, however the program seems no to copy the db into the ~/Library/Application Support/ folder since no new folders or files are created there after the installation process, only the ~/Applications/MyApp folder is correctly created where the app gets copied.

Without the database the program crashes. I've added a bash script which creates in a post-installation manner the missing folders into ~/Library/Application Support/MyApp/ and copies there the MyAppDB.sqlite3 file. Unfortunately the file has only read persmissions and I cannot change that.

Hence my question:

any expierience with Packages and how to sucessfully add files to other folder
than ~/Applications ? Maybe I'm doing something wrong... ?

Many thanks in advance for your help!

Check the Installer Log

Have you checked the Installer log file, /var/log/install.log, for errors or problems? Maybe the package is working but not installing where you expect.

A Better Approach

As Mark comments in your other question, try to avoid needing to install files in multiple locations.

Apple's developer tools for creating packages are:

pkgbuild
productbuild

Quick Fix using pkgbuild

Try the following approach for a quick fix. Note this installs to /Applications and not ~/Applications:

Prepare the files for packaging:

~/installer/
~/installer/Applications/
~/installer/Applications/YourApp.app
~/installer/Library/
~/installer/Library/Application Support/
~/installer/Library/Application Support/YourApp/
~/installer/Library/Application Support/YourApp/MyAppDB.sqlite3

Create the package with pkgbuild using a command like:

pkgbuild --root ~/installer/ --install-location / ~/Desktop/MyApp.pkg

Avoid this approach! Why?

This approach is not recommended because the install-location is root /. A robust installer will never install directly to root.

Problems include, what if the package's Applications, Library, or Application Support permissions differ from the user's permissions or ownership? What happens if the user has symlinked one or more of these files?

Instead a distribution package containing two standard packages should be used. One standard package will have an install-location of /Applications and the other with /Library/Application Support. This approach tells the installer tool to handle all the ownership, permissions, and symlink problems for you.

Ideal Approach

Ideally, a Mac application will be distributed as a self contained application bundle. If the MyAppDB.sqlite3 needs to be modified, a well behaved Mac application should copy a default database file from within the application bundle to the appropriate Application Support folder and use the copy as needed.

Be aware that if your application is sandboxed, the Application Support folder at /Library/Application Support/ will not be visible to the application. The application will be given its own, contained, support folder. This means that installing a database to /Library/Application Support/ will not behave as you expect.

If you can bundle everything in to the application, then a single call to productbuild will create a safe ready-to-distribute outside the Mac App Store installer package. Better yet, you could avoid an installer package entirely and distribute via a disk image or zip file.


Bookmarklets on IOS 8 I can't find anything about this on Google, but it appears Safari on IOS8 no longer supports javascript: bookmarklets.

Can anyone confirm this?

Is there a workaround?

I'm using iPhone 6 plus if for some reason this matters.

I cannot confirm this. Have just tried with a bookmarklet from Instapaper and it had no problem posting a link to the page viewed. Is there a particular bookmarklet that causes you grief?


How can I restrict access to certain Preference Panes? Several of the preference panes on my Mac at work have are translucent and when I hover over them I get the following message:

  Your system administrator has not given you access to this preference pane.

How is this configured? I'd like to do the same for my machine at home that my niece and nephew use.

Clarification: On my Mac at work: National IT for my organization created the original image (I'm with local IT). I'm guessing when they created the image they used some admin configuration tool (similar to Group Policy on windows?).

Parental controls looks like a good answer for my needs.

However, what my work has used for restricting accounts is MCX policies applied through Workgroup Manager.


Trouble with IMovie? My friend can get iMovie for free on his iPhone, but I can't. I still have to pay $4.99 for the app. I've asked 3 other friends about the app and all of them get it free. Why can't I get this app?

Here is what Apple says:

Feb 3, 2015 - To qualify for these free apps, you need a device that was activated or purchased on or after September 1, 2013.

When you upgrade to iOS 8 on a qualifying device or buy a new device with iOS 8, you'll have access to these apps for free: iMovie


Weird problem with file ownership I recently had to move server drives from an OSX 10.6 server to a new Mac mini running Yosemite (10.10.4) and Yosemite server (4.1.3) - meaning I physically unplugged them from the old server and plugged them into the new server.

I am in the process of uniformly reassigning owner:group and ACLs.

I have a few folders that seemed to be locked and do not respond to 'sudo chown newOwner:newGroup'. Cannot chmod 777 either. On the command line these appear with numbers for owner and group (probably metadata from the old server environ) and with permissions set to 755. ls -le does not show an ACL associated with the folder.

Any ideas of how to modify permissions? I have already tried to unlock this in the Finder with no luck.

Alternatively, does anyone know where to find out how Yosemite (and server) handle permissions?  What is the pecking order? Do ACLs trump POSIX permissions?

Oh, one more thing. Pretty sure this folder was copied over from a PC originally. Not sure.

Just in case anyone stumbles upon this question, I did figure it out:

sudo chflags -Rv nouchg

This command recursively strips finder file locks from a directory.


Which OS X programs can rapidly find and replace text in very large files? I am looking for a macintosh program that can find and replace text in a very large text file (7MB). I've tried TextMate, TextEdit and nano (command line) but both take a very long time (I've waited over an hour and still didn't finish). Am I being impatient, or is there a more efficient solution?

My question was solved by AllInOne: Download BBEdit. The time to search and replace went down from 1 hour+ to about five seconds.


Batch exporting metadata from Finder I have a folder containing over 2,000 web pages I've downloaded. Most of the file extensions are .html, though some are .pdf or .webarchive. My OS is Mojave.

When I highlight an icon in Finder, it lists a variety of metadata, including the source URL, the page title, author, and the date I downloaded it.

Is there a way to grab all that information - each file name, along with the source URL, page title, author and date downloaded - so I can put it in a Numbers spreadsheet?

I can do it manually, one file at a time, but that will take days.

ExifTool might be able to do it.  You would need to extract them by name (see the MacOS tags page) or you could add the -api 'MDItemTags=1' option, as they are not extracted by default.

A command such as this will extract your tags and create a CSV file for you
exiftool -csv -filename -MDItemWhereFroms -MDItemTitle -MDItemAuthors -MDItemDownloadedDate /path/to/files >Outfile.csv


A file exists in guest Windows XP (under Fusion), can I open the file in an OSX program? So the text editor on Windows is crap.  I realize I could find a fancier text editor that works within Windows but I'm happy with TextMate on my Mac and I'd rather not have two "fancy" text editors (one for the windows guest and one for the mach host).

Is there a way I can right-click a windows (again, I'm running Windows XP as a guest operation system under Fusion) txt file and have it open in TextMate on my Mac?

I woudn't mind if I had to do this manually each time but a permanent association would be even cooler...

In case it helps the guest is Windows XP (latest SP) and the host is OSX 10.7.3 with the latest Fusion.  Also, I've got several directories mapped from the Mac to the Windows installation (as Z: drive or something) in case this helps and can add more shares.

PS - I don't expect anything crazy like that TextMate would show up "within" Windows XP.  I'm happy have TextMate launch outside of the guest OS window with the file in question.  More bonus would be if I could edit the file and save it (the save going to the Windows guest).

If you keep your files in the OS-X file system and share those folders with your guest - as in your Z: drive example - you can access them from either OS (or both, if you're careful), plus however you backup OS-X will also back up your changed XP files without its having to backup your entire guest VDD for a (e.g.) one-line edit.

The save would not go to your guest file system though, so if that's a hard requirement, this suggestion won't help.  If you just need the guest to have access to it, this would be the way to go.


Install X11 version of Firefox on OSX 10.8.2 I'm trying to install a x11-enabled version of Firefox on my OSX 10.8.2, so it can integrate nicely with xmonad.

My problem: Firefox in macports is extremely old (7.x) and building 17.x from source fails with some cryptic error:

/Users/wherr/Downloads/mozilla-release/_virtualenv/bin/python ../../config/pythonpath.py -I../../config ../../config/expandlibs_gen.py --depend .deps/libi18n.a.desc.pp -o libi18n.a.desc nsI18nModule.o  ../lwbrk/src/liblwbrk_s.a ../unicharutil/src/libucharucomp_s.a ../strres/src/libstrres_s.a ../locale/src/libnslocale_s.a ../locale/src/mac/libplatlocale_s.a ../hyphenation/src//libhyphenation_s.a
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "../../config/pythonpath.py", line 56, in <module>
    main(sys.argv[1:])
  File "../../config/pythonpath.py", line 48, in main
    execfile(script, frozenglobals)
  File "../../config/expandlibs_gen.py", line 43, in <module>
    print >>outfile, generate(args)
  File "../../config/expandlibs_gen.py", line 27, in generate
    raise Exception("File not found: %s" % arg)
Exception: File not found: ../locale/src/mac/libplatlocale_s.a

Any idea what can I try now to get firefox working with x11?

I'm using the same configure switches as firefox-x11 from macports, namely:

./configure --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2  \
--with-xulrunner-stub-name=xulrunner-stub --disable-static \
--enable-shared --disable-official-branding --with-branding=browser/branding/unofficial \
--with-distribution-id=org.macports --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2 \
--enable-libxul --disable-system-lcms --disable-system-cairo \
--disable-system-sqlite --enable-oji --enable-plugins \
--enable-mathml --enable-extensions="default,spellcheck" \
--enable-permissions --enable-cookie \
--enable-image-decoders=all --enable-image-encoder=all --enable-canvas --enable-jsd \
--disable-xpctools --enable-crypto --enable-pango --enable-svg \
--enable-svg-renderer=cairo --enable-xinerama --with-pthreads \
--disable-gnomevfs --disable-gnomeui --enable-postscript --enable-safe-browsing \
--disable-crashreporter --enable-optimize='-O2' \
--disable-prebinding --enable-strip --enable-install-strip \
--disable-debug --disable-installer --disable-updater --disable-pedantic \
--disable-tests --disable-mochitest --disable-necko-wifi --enable-llvm-hacks

The complete config.log is available here: http://knping.org/~herself/config.log. After the configure I proceed with typing gmake.

It doesn't matter.  X11 is no longer available, it was completely removed from the Mac OS after Snow Leopard.

Best bet is to run an older version under a virtual machine.


How to find a missing track in iTunes? Missing as in, if I do find it and try to do something with it, iTunes will say "The file is not there; want to look for it?"

I suspect there are two of them, because every time I sync iPad, I get two pop-ups of "one item failed to sync, ask iTunes for the reason"  But there are never any pop-ups on iTunes.

iTunes will put an exclamation mark in a circle against any tracks it cannot find the source file for.  It doesn't do it during sync, but if you select all and then Get Info, the ones missing will be flagged.

You could perhaps scroll down & look for that.
View by My Music > Songs if you can't narrow it down to a specific playlist.


How to stop multiple httpd instance in macOS Catalina I am not well experienced with macOS yet and need some help to understand why there are multiple instances of httpd running on my macOS Catalina 10.15.4

Question:

If it is not required then how can I stop it all but the only one
which I am using for the development?

Updated

Result with App Processes - Hierarchically

Apache Location

Here is my apache location

➜  ~ which httpd
/usr/local/bin/httpd

apache files path

/usr/local/etc/httpd/httpd.conf
/usr/local/etc/httpd/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

In the default config httpd starts a parent process usually owned by root which binds to port 80 (a port < 1024), opens log files and spawns child processes. The child process(es) serve http requests. Depending on the number of requests and the level of concurrency they are dynamically added and released. It's completely normal to have several httpd processes in the process list.

You can tweak this by modifying several aspects of httpd.

Further reading with an explanation and pros & cons:

Apache docs: Apache MPM Common Directives & Apache MPM prefork
Liquidweb: Apache Performance Tuning: MPM Modules

The number of possible child processes in the apache installed by brew (currently Apache/2.4.43; Server MPM: prefork) can be managed in the Supplemental configuration chapter of the config file. The relevant item is the Server-pool management (MPM specific) part. The number of child processes can be determined in its config file in the Prefork MPM section:

Modify Server-pool management (MPM specific) (~line 488 of /usr/local/etc/httpd/httpd.conf) from

# Server-pool management (MPM specific)
#Include /usr/local/etc/httpd/extra/httpd-mpm.conf

to

# Server-pool management (MPM specific)
Include /usr/local/etc/httpd/extra/httpd-mpm.conf

Modify the prefork MPM config (starting at line 21 of /usr/local/etc/httpd/extra/httpd-mpm.conf)

from the default

# prefork MPM
# StartServers: number of server processes to start
# MinSpareServers: minimum number of server processes which are kept spare
# MaxSpareServers: maximum number of server processes which are kept spare
# MaxRequestWorkers: maximum number of server processes allowed to start
# MaxConnectionsPerChild: maximum number of connections a server process serves
#                         before terminating
<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
    StartServers             5
    MinSpareServers          5
    MaxSpareServers         10
    MaxRequestWorkers      250
    MaxConnectionsPerChild   0
</IfModule>

Process list:

to e.g.

# prefork MPM
# StartServers: number of server processes to start
# MinSpareServers: minimum number of server processes which are kept spare
# MaxSpareServers: maximum number of server processes which are kept spare
# MaxRequestWorkers: maximum number of server processes allowed to start
# MaxConnectionsPerChild: maximum number of connections a server process serves
#                         before terminating
<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
    StartServers             1
    MinSpareServers          1
    MaxSpareServers          1
    MaxRequestWorkers      250
    MaxConnectionsPerChild   0
</IfModule>

Process list:

Restart apache:

sudo apachectl -k restart

Speedtest (with ab -c 100 -n 1000 http://localhost:8080/index.html):

default prefork MPM config (StartServers/MinSpareServers/MaxSpareServers 5/5/10):

    Server Software:        Apache/2.4.43
    Server Hostname:        localhost
    Server Port:            8080

    Document Path:          /index.html
    Document Length:        45 bytes

    Concurrency Level:      100
    Time taken for tests:   1.075 seconds
    Complete requests:      1000
    Failed requests:        0
    Total transferred:      289000 bytes
    HTML transferred:       45000 bytes
    Requests per second:    929.81 [#/sec] (mean)
    Time per request:       107.549 [ms] (mean)
    Time per request:       1.075 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
    Transfer rate:          262.42 [Kbytes/sec] received

    Connection Times (ms)
                  min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
    Connect:        0    3   5.7      1      50
    Processing:     3  103  68.3     82     310
    Waiting:        2  101  67.1     81     309
    Total:         10  106  69.4     83     317

    Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
      50%     83
      66%    116
      75%    150
      80%    180
      90%    216
      95%    225
      98%    260
      99%    307
     100%    317 (longest request)

modified prefork MPM config (StartServers/MinSpareServers/MaxSpareServers 1/1/1):

    Server Software:        Apache/2.4.43
    Server Hostname:        localhost
    Server Port:            8080

    Document Path:          /index.html
    Document Length:        45 bytes

    Concurrency Level:      100
    Time taken for tests:   1.325 seconds
    Complete requests:      1000
    Failed requests:        0
    Total transferred:      289000 bytes
    HTML transferred:       45000 bytes
    Requests per second:    754.55 [#/sec] (mean)
    Time per request:       132.529 [ms] (mean)
    Time per request:       1.325 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
    Transfer rate:          212.96 [Kbytes/sec] received

    Connection Times (ms)
                  min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
    Connect:        0    4   8.9      1      55
    Processing:    10  125  56.4    116     231
    Waiting:        1  124  56.2    116     231
    Total:         20  129  53.1    119     232

    Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
      50%    119
      66%    136
      75%    170
      80%    186
      90%    214
      95%    221
      98%    229
      99%    231
     100%    232 (longest request)

This won't work for all apaches. I didn't get this to work with for example MAMP/MAMP Pro's apache!


Does AppleCare cover physical wear on MacBook Pros? I have a Mid-2010 MacBook Pro with AppleCare. I've had a few minor/cosmetic hardware issues:

My power cord recently started coming apart. The rubber/plastic coating around the MagSafe end of the cord has begun to fray a little bit. I've covered it with electrical tape for now. I did find this question which seems to have a satisfactory answer for this particular issue. But more interestingly:
The right-front corner of the body is scuffed and losing its silver coating. I haven't put any particular extra stress on this part of the body, but the silver coating is coming off. The left side is fine.

My left command key is starting to wear through. A layer of the material seems to be chipping away slowly; here's a picture where you can see the backlight shining through a few tiny holes. The right command key is fine.

Is it possible that I could get these issues repaired since I have AppleCare? Is it even worth taking in to an Apple Store? If they wouldn't do this for free, how much would they be likely to charge me?

Is it worth taking it in? Absolutely! Apple have legendary customer service and will likely fix things they have absolutely no legal obligation to fix.

The power cord is absolutely covered. Apple will replace it free of charge under your warranty. As for the weathered keyboard key, they may likely do the same as that shouldn't be happening and a replacement key (which they will likely have a plentiful supply of in the back) costs next to nothing and is trivial to swap.

As for the scuffing on the case, they may shy away from that as that is a) a considerable amount of work to do and b) not cheap. But press them and you'll find that they may just acquiesce. The unit should after all retain its coating and they may tell you it's a "one time cosmetic replacement," but will still do the servicing.

I have personally had them replace my iPhone even though I couldn't reproduce the problem I had reported. My friend had his replaced, free of charge, after he dropped it and admitted to such when bringing it in (he is not alone here, as I have had other friends receive the same treatment). They also overnighted a new battery when my MacBook Pro was 6 months out of warranty!

I always encourage people to make use of their warranty. Apple's customer service is bar none the best in the world. Truly. They will make you feel like you own part of the company. I cannot express here how good it really is.

While you may not find precedent for them to fix any of those issues, you'll soon find that you won't need to. Apple works to make you happy, and not just to meet some legal requirement.


Name of Home directory of previous owner of MacBook Pro I purchased this MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard which I upgrade to El Capitan. Then changed the previous Account name to to my name, but still have the previous owner name under:

  System Preference > Users & Groups > UserName > Advance Options, Home directory

What is the correct thing to do with this since I want my own home directory. Thanks

The correct thing to do is wipe the machine & start over.
That way you would at least own the OS.

Right now, everything on there is registered to its previous owner, which is going to cause problems for updates, even OS updates, unless you also know the previous owner's Apple ID & password [which I sincerely hope you don't]

Apple & Microsoft run opposite paradigms, Windows essentially ties everything to the machine, Apple ties it to the owner.
This makes moving machines very easy on Apple, but changing owners much more difficult, & in many cases impossible.


Specifying DNS: Router or PrefPane? OSX Lion (10.7.5). Network preferences has an option to set up (and order) DNS adresses. My router (Bell Connection Hub - Bell Canda) also has an option for specifying DNS addresses. Which takes precedence in ordinary, vanilla browser requests? In other requests? Are there special situations/considerations? Thanks!

If you specify DNS entries in your router's configuration, then any DHCP client of that router will receive those DNS addresses and perform lookups against them.

If you only specify DNS entries on your own Mac, then your lookup requests will be handled in the order listed.

You might want to consider running the excellent and free namebench to find the best DNS entries for your location and Internet connection.


Use Siri to play currently selected podcast in Overcast Is it possible to use Siri to play the podcast that's currently open in Overcast? Saying "Hey Siri, play Overcast" opens the app, but doesn't start playing the audio.

As of now Overcast does not have support for Siri functions.


Image dimensions not showing in item info on second drive On my second drive image dimensions do not show. On my main drive they do.

Is there some way to enable that?

Thanks a lot.

EDIT: The second drive is 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)'. If i make a new folder on the drive and paste a pic in it works, but others it not. Yes, i have checked "Show Item Info" in View Options.

it shows item count and some file size info but not image dimensions

EDIT2: its just a folder tree on a drive that not show it... if i rename the tree they show, rename back and they stop showing. if i copy a file to a new dir or root it shows

how to change or reset what shows where? i tried adding and remiving from spotlight privacy window but

As with thumbnails for movies, dimensions of images lots of times don't load until they are either opened, or left highlighted for a bit. I went through my images and found many didn't have dimensions either. After highlighting them for a minute or opening them with preview however, the dimensions showed. So chances are Finder doesn't open the file to find the dimensions until it needs to.


why does holding 'd' on startup initiate internet recovery rather than hardware test? I'm using a 13" mid-2012 Macbook Air (yes, it's an old machine:)). It's running MacOS Catalina, 10.15.6. It works fine (if sluggishly, no surprise there!), but I'm getting sudden battery shutdowns, and I'd like to use the hardware self-test to see how many cycles the battery has been through. It appears to me that I should be able to start the "Apple Hardware Test" on this machine by holding down 'd' during startup, but instead, holding down 'd' takes me to "Internet Recovery", which isn't what I want at all.
Any idea what's going on, and how to access Apple Hardware Test on this machine?

Just because you hold d doesn’t mean the signal is correct. Also, I wouldn’t put any effort into running home diagnostics. That only tests for things like “One of the four tires on your car is missing.”
My move for this symptom is to call Apple or chat with them online. Ask for them to send you a link to test your battery remotely while the OS is running. That will tell you far more. Also, if you can’t get the os running or erase, reinstall it from recovery, then you have larger issues than even getting diagnostics to run.
They will either fix your issue or offer a flat rate repair so you know how much worst case a repair will be.
In the end, you’re in the correct screen you need to decide how to move forward despite your wanting a quick diagnostic. You need to get to system information and have the battery specific diagnostics run by Apple at this point.


How to enable OpenSSh on iOS 10.2 I have sucsessfully jailbroken my iPhone 6s runing on iOS 10.2.

I have installed OpenSSH through Cydia and changed my default password via MobileTerminal.

The only problem is, when I run ssh root@my_iPhone_ip_addr, it just hangs and never connects.

I have tried the SSH toggle springboard application, however it still hangs.

Is there a how I could enable SSH on my phone via a terminal command or some other way?

OpenSSH is not compatible with iOS 10.2 and will break things in later releases of the jailbreak. You should uninstall both OpenSSH and OpenSSL (dependency).

yalu102 comes with dropbear.


document.querySelector with AppleScript / Safari I need a script to open each tab in safari when I get "valueIneed" from an internal website

here is the HTML tag

        (My Certificate)

here is what I tried this but this is failing

tell application "Safari"
    do JavaScript "
        var forgiveStatus = document.querySelector('class[details\"(My Certificate).innerHTML;
        " in current tab of first window
    set checkvalue to (do JavaScript "theStatus;" in current tab of first window) as string
end tell

for more information it's could have multiple instance of the same tag, and I need to open each one in a new tab, or even better click on them one after one

You haven't closed any quotes or brackets. You need the following four characters.

var theStatus = document.querySelector('class[details="(valueIneed)"]')
                                                                   ^^^^

This is now syntactically correct JavaScript. I still doubt it'll do what you need, but without seeing the DOM of the page you're running this on and a full problem description I can't say for sure.

Given the update to your question with a snippet of HTML, the code you're trying won't work. To get the inner HTML of the element, use the following JavaScript:

document.querySelector("td.orderDetails .details").innerHTML;


How to get everything from terminal mail(1) sent to my email address? I'd like to be notified by email whenever a message gets sent to my terminal mail, how could I achieve this?

I see some information about cc'ing in this documentation, but I don't know how to use it in this regard.

I assume you are referring to the notice that comes up in Terminal "You've got mail"

Create a file .forward in your home directory.  (that's a period and the word forward with no space.  In it write the address you want the mail forwarded to.
This file has to be owned and readable by your userid.
Jobs run by cron by default mail their output to the owner of the crontab file.  This can be overridden by specifying the option MAILTO=userid@somewhere.com at the top of the file.  See man crontab for details.

The second only forwards the details of jobs run from that particular crontab. If you have sandboxed services that have individual crontabs on a user basis (E.g. You have a database service that runs a consitency check on the database at 2:30 every morning, and runs that service as user mysql, then you have to add the line to mysql's crontab.

General best practice for email that goes to non-real users is to forward it to a role first.  E.g. All the machines in your network send their system email to sysadmin@mydomain.com  Then on a central server you forward sysadmin's mail to a real person.  This makes it much easier at vacation time to temporarily forward email to your temp sysadmin.


AirPort Extreme between two VLANS - intermittent response to ping I have a network topology I'm trying to set up with some TP-LINK switches with 802.1Q VLAN support.

A technical detail is that I have two of these switches with an aggregate of two gigabit links set up as a trunk for 802.1Q to bind the two together.

I currently have two VLANS: a DMZ and the LAN. My intention is to have one gateway between the modem and the DMZ and another gateway between the DMZ and the LAN. The latter is shown on this diagram:

I have an AirPort Extreme for the second gateway. However, when both its LAN and WAN are connected to the same physical switch (though on different VLANS), it intermittently responds to pings (I.e. About 25% of the pings return). If I unplug either of the wires, it responds 100% (on the appropriate interface, of course).

If I put another gateway (some cheap Netgear thing) at the point labeled A in the diagram, suddenly it works exactly as expected.

So, why does the AirPort Extreme behave so strangely?

Yes, everything is set up correctly. Also, I have tried both with an AirPort Extreme and an AirPort Extreme and both with IPv6 set to Native and set to Local Link Only with no changes in behavior.

I have the same issue. After putting wireshark on the switch it is clear regardless of the VLAN config the management IP is being arped on all ports. that means the apple extreme is seeing the same arp on both its lan and wan port. It basically puges seeing that,cannot handle it and you have your issue. putting the router in between prevents the one arp hitting the apple.


How are iOS apps actually opened from their sleep state? I have noticed that when I open an app from the App Switcher it actually shows me a screenshot of the latest state of the app instead of showing me the real app.

Can someone clarify the process of opening apps from the background?

Because the action of quitting an app actually uses some battery power in the process of doing so (e.g. clearing it from RAM, etc) and then again later when the app is launched again, iOS is designed so that it’s usually best to leave apps open.

Now, even though they’re open, they’re really just sitting in a type of suspended mode that isn’t using any battery power whatsoever. So, while the app is still loaded in RAM and taking space, it’s not actually doing anything - it’s just lying there dormant.

For this reason you only need to quit apps if they're not working properly (e.g. an app has frozen, it isn't displaying properly, etc).

So, usually apps listed within the App Switcher are not necessarily running - in fact most of them are not running at all. Most apps in the App Switcher are in a suspended state - this means they're not: visible on screen, executing code, using the CPU or GPU, or using the battery. However, they are still resident in memory until they are purged (if necessary) by the system to free up memory.

Now, what happens here is that the last screen displayed by most apps is what's stored in this suspended state. So, the screenshot you're seeing is not really a screenshot per se, but the last known state displayed by the app prior to it being suspended.

See below reference for further info:

  Suspended - The app is in the background but is not executing code. The system moves apps to this state automatically and does not notify them before doing so. While suspended, an app remains in memory but does not execute any code. When a low-memory condition occurs, the system may purge suspended apps without notice to make more space for the foreground app.

Source: See Table 2-3 in Apple's App Programming Guide for iOS: Execution States for Apps.


Chrome on Mac hands off to Safari on iPhone When I am using Chrome on my Mac (OSX Yosemite 10.10.2), it shows the handoff symbol on my iPhone. But when I open it, it hands off to Safari, not to Chrome on my iPhone (iOS 8.2).

How can I make Chrome on my Mac hand off to Chrome on my iPhone?

On another note, when I use Chrome on my iPhone, it successfully hands off to Chrome on my Mac.

Currently it is not possible to open automaticaly another browser than Safari because Apple does not allow to set a custom browser as default on iOS.


How to stop Google Photos from launching at system startup? Google Photos starts every time I turn on my Macbook Pro. It is annoying and I believe it slows down the OS' startup speed. Is there a way to turn the launch at startup option off? I do not see it in Google Photos' preferences. It seems the only option is to uninstall it:

If it's listed in System Prefs > Users & Groups > [yourname] > Login Items,
select & hit the minus sign  -   underneath.


Is there a way to connect a SAS to an iMac 2011? I am searching for an accurate way to start using storage tape drives for backing up my data. The only people I know of using tape drives on Macs are Mac Pro users. I'm an iMac user (2011, 27") and the choices of cables are very limited.

Some of the tape drives use SCSI (many different kinds) and some use SAS. Any ideas on how to connect something like that to the iMac?

I know of drives that have Thunderbolt capabilities, but they're pretty expensive. I'd love to start with something affordable, if possible.

Thanks!

And this is the answer, after careful research:

There is NO possible way to do this. SAS cannot be installed on an iMac. Apple likes to surprise its users by making an aluminum shell that cannot be altered. There are SCSI to USB converters, all discontinued, expensive and unreliable. There is the ATTO ThunderLink, which uses the Thunderbolt port, but this costs over a thousand. Likewise, SCSI cannot be installed on an iMac.

The simple solution is that serious computer users who like to perform surgery should purchase a Mac Pro, which can accept SCSI/SAS installations. These computers will work with storage tape. As for iMac, external hard drives (though I would prefer something that won't crash on me after a year of operation) are the only method of huge data storage. $60-$100 will get you a few TB.

Any suggestions on a reliable brand?


IOS 8 blocked my phone I just downloaded IOS 8. When I turned my phone on and completed the setup it just restarted the setup process and went back to the screen that says hola. I've tried everything and just can't seem to get my phone to complete the setup process. Right now my phone is useless

No error came up, it just went back the the begginging slide

Phones can and do crash and need help from iTunes to be restored even if no software change has happened. The most common cause of a failure to update was that the phone was already missing a system file and the update just was the "messenger" that checked that file for the first time in a long time.

Why not connect it to a computer with iTunes and then restore the OS to clear out any errors? That will rapidly determine if your problem is a temporary software issue or a deeper hardware problem:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414 - Use iTunes to restore your iOS device to factory settings


Microsoft 2011 for Mac For school I have to create a Powerpoint presentation and I am experiencing a problem. My teacher asked me to use a Text Effect of Gradient Fill - Black, Outline - White, Outer Shadow and when I try to hover the mouse over the text effects it will not show me the name of the effect.

Is it a problem with my mac? Should I report this to Microsoft? Any help will be appreciated.

Select the text and right click to select "Format Text…" from the contextual menu.

Click "Text Fill" to find the "Gradient" settings.
Click "Text Line" to set outline colors.
Click "Text Shadow" to set shadow settings for the selected text.


Safari slow on Catalina Beta Since installing macOS Catalina Beta, Safari takes 5 minutes or more to load google.com.

I've cleared History but the issue remains.

I also have a related problem in that my FTP software fails to connect now with Catalina Beta (Transmit & FileZilla).

How do I troubleshoot this please?

Checking the network settings I saw a hide.me VPN active.

Disabling this resolved the issue.

No idea how it got installed.


How can I install macOS on the second hard drive inside a computer? I just bought a 2011 Mac mini which has two hard drives inside. One of the hard drives had a Mac Recovery I was able to transfer my data to with Time Machine, the other one is called "Windows" so I'm assuming it's formatted differently.

Can I format the Windows drive to install a Mac system on it without opening the computer?
Edit: After reinstalling twice, I am not sure there is a second hard drive inside the Mac anymore. I updated the question here. I will edit further this question once I understand what is going on inside this machine.

Yes, you can. You should 1st check if you can read the windows disk. If so, make sure there is nothing on it you want. If you don't care what's on it skip that and go to disk utility. Using disk utility you can erase the windows disk and reformat it in a format you want. Then you can load the Mac System on the disk.


Will downloading Mountain Lion from Mac AppStore resume if I restarted/shut down the computer? I'm about to download OS X Mountain Lion from Mac AppStore, and I wanna know if downloading Mountain Lion will resume if I restarted/shut down the computer?!

Thanks...
Muhammad.

I'm not sure if this is done automatically when shutting down, but you can manually pause downloads in the purchases tab:

The Mac App Store allows to pause and resume downloads.

Also see the Apple support documentation:Mac App Store: How to resume interrupted downloads


How to create a bootable Windows 10 USB with a Mac to boot/install on a PC? I have no access to a Windows machine at the moment, but need to create a bootable Windows 10 USB stick from a Mac that can be used to boot and install on a PC (not a Mac).

Microsoft provides the ISO file

Can I just copy that ISO file to the USB and boot to it? I would use the Media Creation Tool, but you can't if you're on OS X.

For reference, my Mac is on High Sierra.

You can try "MS-DOS FAT" formatting with "Master Boot Record" scheme a flash drive. Next mount the download of the current version of Windows 10. Copy all the files from the mounted ISO to the flash drive. Try booting on a Windows machine.

If this does not work, then you could install VirtualBox. This is a free product. You can install Windows as a virtual machine, then use the Media Creation Tool to create the flash drive.


Stop Finder from Opening in 1st Space When I have an application that I use the contextual menu for 'Show in Finder' it opens finder, but it always opens it in the 1st space, never in the current space i'm in. For example, I have Xcode in space 3 always, and when I right click and show item in finder it opens the finder window in Space 1 always, same across all other applications and instances. Even worse, it doesn't autonomically teleport to the 1st space I have to manually do it. I'm running 3 monitors which makes it a little more aggrevating

Heres my settings :

Altering any of the group choices etc don't have any effect.

I would love to have it open in the active or current space i'm in.

You may need to try a little experimentation to get closest to what you need [also it may not always work as expected since Yosemite]

If you right click the Finder icon in the Dock you get the options of

All Desktops
This Desktop
Desktop n [only shows if it is currently assigned to another Space]
None

Each has advantages & disadvantages.

All - will carry every Finder window with you to every Space - can be irritating.
This - ought to return you to the assigned Space with any move that brings the Finder to the front, i.e. click on Desktop. [This has been a bit broken since Yosemite & doesn't always work]
None - should give no specific focussed Space & I think might be the one you need. Any new window should open on your current Space.


Can an admin account on Mac access user's data? I am using a Macbook pro (Sierra 10.12.1),  under a non-admin account and I do not have the admin password. I was wondering how much of my data (passwords, files, etc) is accessible by the admin?

A user with administrator privileges can read all your unencrypted files. And you have to assume the access to your data can happen without you knowing it (an administrator can simply take backup of the system and access the backed up files offline leaving no trace on the system).

One exception is the keychain file (the one containing all your saved passwords). It is encrypted and, by default, protected with the same password as the one you use for login. An administrator cannot access the contents and cannot change the password to this file without knowing the current one. Thus the administrator cannot access your saved passwords, credentials, and other data which you store in the Keychain etc.

The above applies only to passive "attack". A rogue administrator can install a key logger and simply learn your password by  sniffing


Paste clipboard data as plain text Service? Is there a Mac OS X service that takes clipboard data and pastes it as plain text? Or an easy way to create one?

A couple options, gleefully swiped from Mac OS X Hints:

Applescript, converting pasteboard contents to plain text and pasting:

tell application "Finder" to set frontApp to (name of 1st process whose frontmost = true)
tell application frontApp
    activate
    set clip to «class ktxt» of ((the clipboard as text) as record)
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke "v" using {command down}
end tell

Shell script, save it in your Scripts folder and chmod 755

#!/bin/sh
pbpaste | pbcopy
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to keystroke "v" using {command down}'


iCloud not syncing all the contacts? So, I saved my contacts from a .vcf file to my iPhone, then I created an iCloud account to back up my contacts. The iCloud only saved contacts that I had manually created in my iPhone but not the ones I save from the .vcf file. Help please!

Got to Settings
Go to iCloud
Slide Contacts option to Off (You'll get a warning, make sure you choose to save the Contacts on your phone)
Close out of Settings
Wait 5 minutes or so
Go back to Settings\iCloud
Slide Contacts option to On (You'll get a message asking to merge Contacts, say yes)
Go to Settings\iCloud\Storage & Backup
Select Back Up Now


How to move contacts from one group to another? i have three emails addresses in my Iphone and need to delete one of them. i need to move the contacts that have been added to that account to another one. how can i do that?

Add the same accounts to you Mac and make sure you have the "Contact" selection checked for each account.

This will sync all your contacts in the Contacts app for each email account. Open the Contacts app and you will be able to see each individual email account (on the left side) and its associated contacts.

Click on the account you wish to transfer from. Drag-and-drop desired contacts from one email account to the other. This effectively transfers your contacts to the account you want. Deleting and adding to old and new email accounts respectively.

As far as I know, there is no way to do this in iOS.


May I delete cache and application support for Xcode? I'm using App cleaner I downloaded Appcleaner from App store and want to clean up to get some more space.

I have two versions of Xcode; 7.3 and 8.0. So there's no problem with two executable files but I'm wondering what that 'Application support' files are for. The bigger one takes up almost 19 gigabytes..

May i delete that one?

Cache: Sure. Haven't noticed anything bad. (You can do this yourself, as well – just trash everything in ~/Library/Caches.)
Application Support: Do not do this without knowing what's in there! Apps often use this to store configuration – for example:

Xcode puts color themes and key bindings there.
The Dock puts your spaces configuration there.
GIMP uses it to hold all sorts of things like gradients and palette images.
Steam uses it to store your entire game library. (If it's taking up way too much space, try uninstalling some games.) Not sure if progress is there too, but it seems likely.

Deleting Application Support won't break the app (it'll just create it again the next time it starts), but you might lose configuration and other data, like key bindings for Xcode. You also might want to make sure the app is closed before you take its folders out from under it. (: