How can I un-jailbreak an iPhone 4? I have purchased an iPhone 4 about six-seven months ago. Roughly two weeks into using it I have decided to jailbreak the iPhone for ideological reasons (I am not a big fan of The Man telling me how to manage my stuff)

However, after all these passing months I can honestly tell that I have not even used any of the jailbreak features even once.

I recall jailbreaking erased my entire phonebook, SMS logs and all other data. Since that was only about two weeks without much usage - I didn't mind too much. This time it seems a bit more worrisome, as the phonebook and SMS contain a lot more information, some which I do not want to be lost.

I should mention that only part of my phonebook is synchronized with my google account (is there an easy way to transfer the rest?), and that I use Linux and a windows on VirtualBox where my iTunes fails to backup the data on my iPhone (this might be redeemable with some very hard work, though.)

My question, if so, is whether or not all my non-Cydia-and-otherwise-non iTunes-apps will be gone if I just run an upgrade through iTunes, and whether or not this upgrade is going to obliterate my phonebook and/or other databases?

As long as you backup your iPhone by syncing with iTunes, it'll restore every non-jailbreak thing just fine. The only exception being your login information for accounts and whatnot, unless iTunes is encrypting your backup.

You can verify your backup by going to iTunes' preferences and selecting the devices tab.

I'm not sure if it's still an issue, but if you happen to be using a tweak like "Five Icon Dock", you'll want to remove the extra icons from your dock, otherwise when you boot-up after restore, Springboard will constantly crash.


Rental Movie from Iphone to Apple TV I am wondering if my iTunes rental purchased from my iPhone is available on my Apple TV?

From Apple's site:

Can I play my rental on more than one device?

If you download a rented movie on your computer: You can transfer it to a device such as your Apple TV (1st generation), iPhone, iPad, or iPod if it’s a standard-definition film (movies in HD can only be watched on your computer, iPad, iPhone 4 or later, iPod touch (4th generation or later), or Apple TV). Once you move the movie from your computer to a device, the movie will disappear from your computer's iTunes library. You can move the movie between devices as many times as you wish during the rental period, but the movie can only exist on one device at a time.

If you download a rented movie on your iPhone 4 or later, iPad, iPod touch (4th generation or later), or Apple TV: It is not transferable to any other device or computer.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1657


iPhone SE locked and unable to unlock I forgot the pass code of my iPhone SE.
I have switched it off now.
Yesterday, I reset my pass code but now I can't remember it.

For iOS 8 and later, the only way to unlock the code is restoring from iTunes. Hope you already backed up your phone.

One more trick, ask your family member to see whether they knew the code. I once luckily got it back from my wife.


Programmatically creating mount points in macOS 10.12 Apple have confirmed to me (https://openradar.appspot.com/radar?id=4948585099558912) that with macOS 10.12, permissions to create a folder inside /Volumes require root access.

Using the mount command requires that the mount point exists first, so you're going to have to sudo to create that folder for the mount point.

I develop an app which presents a list of network shares to a the user, and allows them to selectively mount them. I handle this by firing off a command process in the background which uses mkdir and mount to mount the network drive.
Of course this now fails, as it doesn't have permission to create the mount point.

One option I am looking into is modifying sudoers to give all users permission to use mkdir.

Can anyone else think of a way to programmatically mount a network drive via Terminal without password prompts, or messing with sudo?

As I answered at macOS Sierra: AppleScript mount volume keeps asking for login, I think the way to do it now is to create the mount point somewhere the user does have write access to, such as the user's home directory:

mkdir -p ~/mnt
mount_smbfs "//my_username:my_password@my_hostname/share" ~/mnt


OSX Lion: Long press menu automatic selection I've recently upgraded to OSX Lion and I find the long press menu with accented characters very handy when I have to type in french. The only problem is that it's slowing me down a lot having to long press THEN select which character I'd like to have.

Therefore I'm looking for a way to automatically select the first option if another key is pressed. Example: the first option for "c" is ç but I have to long press then press 1 to get it. The behaviour I'm looking for is when I'm typing the word "ça" I don't have to press 1, I just long press "c" and type "a" but because I long pressed the key I get a "ç" and the word "ça".

Other questions have been concerned with changing characters in the popup list but I didn't find any concerning this. Is there an option I missed? Do you have any leads on how I could obtain such a behaviour (it doesn't matter if it involves programming or fiddling with the command line)?

UPDATE: I misunderstood your question and the answer is you can't. The way it works is kinda lame  but i haven't found a way to change that.
They way I do it, is I long press the key and then use the right arrow key to select the one I want, so a single right arrow key will put you in the first item. But then again, this is not the "automatically insert the first one when i long press" option that you want.
I will leave the rest of the answer just because it was too much writing and it may be useful for someone :-D
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The only solution for this is to alter the order of the chars in the corresponding language. If you're "familiar" with the Terminal, you can find how to do that in this answer.
Quoting:

The characters included in the popovers are defined in property lists inside the /System/Library/Input Methods/PressAndHold.app/ bundle.
I was able to change à to y by editing /System/Library/Input Methods/PressAndHold.app/Contents/Resources/Keyboard-en.plist and logging out and back in.

So, you should open Terminal.app, and type:
cd /System/Library/Input\ Methods/PressAndHold.app/Contents/Resources/

Then, perform an ls to see the contents:
ls -l

And find one that looks like the keyboard layout you're using (I'm assuming french) so it should be Keyboard-fr.plist
Backup the file now to your Desktop just in case:
cp Keyboard-fr.plist ~/Desktop

Finally, edit the current file by doing:
sudo vi Keyboard-fr.plist

this is going to prompt you for your password, the reason is that the file is protected so you need to be an admin. Type your password and press enter. The vi editor should open with the contents of the file.
If you scroll down (use the arrow keys), you will find this:
<key>Roman-Accent-c</key>
 <dict>
  <key>Direction</key>
  <string>right</string>
  <key>Keycaps</key>
  <string>ç c ć č</string>
  <key>Strings</key>
  <string>ç c ć č</string>
 </dict>

There are two key pieces here:

you can see that this corresponds to the lower case 'c' because it says: "Roman-Accent-c". If you wanted to modify 'a' you should find "Roman-Accent-a". You can even create new ones, like Roman-Accent-Q will be for upper case 'Q'. (so the popup will appear if you press-and-hold shift-Q. Neat huh?

You can see the sequence of chars: ç c ć č

There is a space between each char (you can add more, I don't know if there's a limit, I have one with 14).
Please note that you have to change it in both lines
I assume you're familiar with the 'vi' editor, but if you don't know how to do it, here's a 5 seconds crash course for this task.
Once you are positioned (using arrows) where you want to edit (i.e.: the cursor is over the ç in the  line), press "i" to enter insert mode. now retype your chars in the order you want them and delete the ones you don't want (move with the arrows if unsure, delete with "delete" key). It's a bit tricky.
Repeat the above for the other  line below, they must look alike.
Once you're done and happy, press ⎋ (That's the esc key) to exit insert mode, then type:
:wq

Yes, that's a semicolon, then a "w" and a "q" (for write, quit), then press enter.
You should be back at the terminal.
If you get a -- INSERT -- W10: Warning: Changing a readonly file or similar when you press "i" to INSERT, you forgot to do the sudo command and you have no permission to write to the file, so don't waste time and try to fix that first :)
If for some reason you mess up, don't panic. You can always exit insert mode at any time (by pressing esc) and then 'u' to UNDO or :q! (semicolon, q + !) to quit without saving.
Anyway, once you have saved your results, logout or restart your computer and you should be set to go.
Good luck :)


Create a recently added playlist? Is it possible to have a "Recently Added" as a Playlist on iTunes ? For example, I would like the recent 20-50 songs to be automatically added and renewed in that playlist.

Normally there is a default smart playlist with recently added items. If there is no such playlist you can easily recreate one with the following steps:

Creata a new smart playlist Shift+command+n
name it “recently added“
select match all rules
select date added is in the last 2 weeks
select media kind is not podcast
limit the result to 50 items

This should be it. Of course you can adjust the playlist to your likings (e.g. not last 2 weeks but last two month).


Flash without installation? Is there an option to enable a 1 time flash plugin on Mac? Possibly with portable firefox or something like that?

I don't want to install Flash on my Mac, but I do find some legacy sites where this is required.

Google Chrome has Flash built-in, you could use that for those sites without having to install the stand-alone version.


Rainbow Style Loading Cursor On MacBook Air 2017 Is It Normal To Get The Rainbow Colour Loading Cursor Sometimes While Using Safari On The MacBook Air 2017 i5 5th Gen. I'm A First Time Mac User. Sorry If It's Silly.

Yes, sometimes you will see that. The rainbow pinwheel means that an app is busy. Usually it will go away after a few seconds. If it doesn’t, there may be an issue, such as an app, or in some cases, the OS being locked up.

Also, since you are new to macOS, you might find this iBook helpful. It is a guide to MacBook written by Apple.
https://books.apple.com/us/book/macbook-air-essentials/id963295730


How can I hide a ramdisk from Finder? I'm creating ramdisks on MacOS following the usual procedure (ie: diskutil erasevolume HFS+ mydisk after hdiutil attach -nomount ram://SIZEINBLOCKS). They work, but they show up in Finder windows with the usual icon for external drives.

I'm using these ramdisks for development tasks (as disposable drives where I can try builds and easily discard them), so I'd prefer that they don't have a drive unit icon in Finder windows. Is that possible? How?

Try

chflags hidden "/Volumes/RamDisk"

And restart your finder with

killall Finder


How to pinpoint cause of disk I/O errors I am getting (seemingly random) disk I/O errors on my bootdrive. At first I thought it was caused by a faulty hard drive, but now I've replaced it and I still get those errors.

These are the steps I have followed beginning from the first time I noticed something was wrong:

Laptop hangs with just Google Chrome and Postbox (an e-mail application)
I restart the laptop, but it never gets past the screen with the grey apple.
Started Apple Hardware Test by holding "D" during startup. This came up with no errors
Through Verbose mode, and Disk Utility of the install CD I saw that it had disk I/O errors.
I switched the Momentus XT drive for the stock Apple HDD.
Installed a fresh copy of Snow Leopard
Recovered everything from a Time Machine backup

After a day it started giving disk I/O errors again in Console.
This makes me think that an app or a setting is causing this as it is unlikely that both the hard drives are corrupted.

How can I pinpoint which application is the cause?

Below are my system details:

MacBook Pro 5,3
2.66 Ghz / 8GB RAM
Snow Leopard 10.6.8
First HDD: Seagate Momentus XT 500GB
Second HDD: Stock Apple Hitachi 320GB

I've had my MacBook Pro repaired. They changed the SATA cable, and everything is working again.


Hosts file in OSX Lion not blocking as expected In Snow Leopard I blocked malware sites by editing the hosts file - /private/etc/hosts. I cannot get it to work the same way in Lion, in spite of reading up on the various issues people are reporting for Lion and hosts. For example, to block 0fees.net:

sudo nano /private/etc/hosts then add 127.0.0.1 0fees.net to the beginning of the hosts file (instead of at the end, which was the usual way pre-Lion).
dscacheutil -flushcache (though most authors say this is not required).

To test:

ping 0fees.net

... which then looks up the DNS and pings the host instead of returning 127.0.0.1. Rebooting seems to have no effect. How can I get blocking working again?

This is from a clean installation, not an upgrade from Snow Leopard.

One more thing to check - is the hosts file still in native unix format? It's quite possible within Nano to accidently save it as MSDOS or ye-olde mac format in which case it won't be parsed properly and just ignored

(This was originally an answer, but converted to a comment by a mod, and requested to be an answer again by the OP so they can accept it.)


How to determine what is intercepting mailto: links and disable the interception to have the default Apple Mail handle the mailto: links At some point way back in the past, I set up some utility to intercept mailto: links in web pages and have Chrome compose a message in Gmail rather than having it open the Apple Mail app.

Now, I'm trying to remove it and have Apple Mail open mailto: links, but I can't figure out the utility I used to intercept them.

I thought it might have been Webmailer, but I checked System Preferences, and it's not in there. Also, I looked in my Chrome and Safari extensions, and no extensions that are currently installed have anything to do with redirecting mailto: links. Though it may have been a browser extension I installed and later removed.

I'm on Mac OS 10.7.5

Copy and paste chrome://settings/handlers into the address bar in Chrome and check for an active protocol handler for Gmail.

If you don't find something there, you could try installing RCDefaultApp which should list any system wide protocol handlers.


Extract an image file of my signature from Preview? The Preview application in OS X Lion includes the ability to take a screen capture of your written signature and save it for later application in to any PDF file.

Where does Preview store the image file for this signature? Is it possible to extract the signature for use in another application like Adobe Reader?

You can alternatively try to insert your signature in a blank pdf document, crop to take only your signature and then save the document as a PNG file.

FYI, it's seems that the signature is stored in a .plist file.
The file name is "com.apple.Preview.signatures.plist" and it's in folder : /Users/YourAccount/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Preferences/

Hope this helps !


Problems charging older iPad The iPad was bought 5 years ago, it runs iOS 9.3.5 and claims to be up to date.

The battery is fine - it does hold the charge, and it does charge fast (when it decides to charge).

The cable is also fine - I bought a new thick cable and plug it into a "travel adapter" which outputs 5.1V/0.7A (same behavior with a 5V/2A adapter).

Problem: when I plug the cable into the iPad and adapter, the charge indicator (lightning next to the battery icon) does not come up.

However, after I

Unplug the cable (either from the iPad or from the adapter)
Turn off iPad
Plug the cable back

the iPad turns on right away, and usually starts charging (and then it charges fast and holdw the charge fine, as mentioned above).

What do I do to get the device to charge reliably?

I suspect the output of the travel adaptor is too low.

I admit that I've had several iPads from that era, and on occasion ignored Apple's guidance (they would list groupings that would work, but didn't have a "don't do this list of combinations).

But .7 is pretty low. If the model is using lightning (iPad original (4th gen) and iPad Mini (original)?) then you might want to check the both sides of the connector for lint or material that is interfering with the connection. (This was a big improvement over iPod/style, but it is more prone to contact problems over the lifetime of the unit).

There's a very good discussion about iPads and charging here ->
Can I use my iPhone charger with my iPad?


How can I run multiple Skype accounts in one computer? I would like to run multiple Skype accounts in one computer at the same time. Is there an option to do that?

It is just to separate personal Skype from business Skype.

Run your first instance as usual, by clicking the icon.

Run the second one from terminal;

sudo /Applications/Skype.app/Contents/MacOS/Skype /secondary


Using Node.js without admin rights - sh: node: command not found I've been following this guide (https://theshravan.net/blog/how-to-use-node-and-npm-without-installation-or-admin-rights/) to try to use Node.js on my work computer. The guide is for windows but most of the steps are the same for mac. I don't have admin rights so I'm using the binary to use node. When I run npm -v and node -v, i get the versions so it looks like everything is working. But, when I try to install packages with npm I get sh: node: command not found

My PATH looks like this: PATH=$PATH:Tools/nodejs

The linked guide doesn't really help for macOS or Linux because of the different file & folder hierarchy compared to Winodws.

I recommend the followwing:

Download either the LTS or the latest version of node.js (both are direct download links!). Node.js download site: Downloads (no direct link).
Extract the node-v(ersion)x.y.z-darwin-x64.tar.gz and rename the resulting folder to node
Create a new folder bin in your home folder
Move the node folder to the bin folder
Add the following line to your .bash_profile:

export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/bin/node/bin"

There is no need to download npm additionally because it's already included in the node archive.

If you want to install a newer version simply download the new node-v(ersion)x.y.z-darwin-x64.tar.gz file, extract it and move its content to ~/bin/node/ replacing the old files and folders.


How to configure a Trackpad to connect automatically to two different Macs? I have a private Trackpad, which I use at work also. I want that the Trackpad connect itself automatically to both computers.
If I use the Trackpad only on one Mac it connects itself automatically (on power on), but since I connected it to my Work-Macbook I have to connect it every time I change the Mac manually!
Is it possible to configure the Trackpad to autoconnect to both Macs?
Edit
It's a bluetooth trackpad and the internal memory is empty... where can I configure the double-connections, or find out if it could connect to both Macs?

Unless your device can handle multiple connections, the answer is no.

Whether it's a Bluetooth track pad or one with a receiver (like Logitech unifying receiver), you can only have as many connections as the "memory" in the device will allow.  Most mice/keyboards/track pads are 1:1 devices.


iPhone battery life continually worsening I purchased my iPhone 4S on November 8th, 2013, now the iPhone first started having problems in summer, maybe in July.

The phone first died at 15%, eventually the problem got even worse. The phone then frequently died at 50%. Now don't stop reading yet. The phone then died at 60, then 70, then 80, then 90. When I plug the phone in the outlet the phone will zip all the way back up to 100% in 5 mins, then the phone will go down to 92% and die. Then i charge again, take the phone out and it goes down too 82% and dies. Can someone please give me some healthy, useful, advice so I can get my phone up and running perfectly again?

The symptoms you report are common of lithium power cells that are failing.

Why not have it looked at by Apple as they have online battery diagnosis available from web support and if you bought it from an Apple Reseller or Apple Directly, the warranty should cover the problem if the battery isn't performing correctly.


iMac Will not Recognize its HDD I have been using a late-2009 iMac (21.5") (it was running the latest pre-Sierra update, I do not remember the exact OS version) for somewhere in the area of six months now and have, overall, had no issues with it. However, two weeks ago, it failed. The story surrounding this apparently sudden failure is that I was running an update of Safari that involved needing to do a restart. Immediately after doing the restart, the electricity for our home went out, it was only out for around a minute. Luckily the computer was plugged into a surge protector... Or not.

Later that day, when I tried to turn it on, it turned on but wouldn't boot passed the Apple Screen with the small, gray progress bar.

It is still basically in that same state. However, after some reading on the internet and trying a variety of things booting to "Command+S" as well as "Command+R". What happened when I ran "Command+R" was somewhat depressing. The Mac is completely unaware of the fact that it has a 500GB Western Digital HDD in it (which I can hear turning) and if I run Disk Utility, it will spend hours looking for that drive.

What I tried today was reinstalling the OS (failed), booting it with SpinRite and booting it from a 64GB external drive (worked). Once I booted to the external drive, I ran disk utility which I started at around 1400 hours, it is now 1500 hours and it just now found its hard drive. A warning popped up and indicated that the drive could not be repaired. I am now running First Aid on it, just curious to see what if anything it can do there.

I do not totally know what my question here is. Other than, if what I am trying right now doesn't work, what should I do? Should I just give up and drag the thing to an Apple Store? I have data on it that I must recover (sadly I had nothing backed up).

To Summarize: If what I am doing right now doesn't work, what - if anything - can I do next? Are there any other at-home fixes I can try before taking it to an Apple Store?

Note: I own one other Mac that is exactly the same as the one that is not working, I also own portions of 38 other older Macs and part of a broken one that is also this computer's twin. (I added this in case anyone recommends any form of testing, or needing certain parts).

I just had a hdd fail in my imac last week. So I know this method works:

Get all important files off of the hdd with Lazesoft Mac Data Recovery. You'll have to copy the files to another disk. If you have enough space, the one you used to boot with might be enough. It takes a LONG time to copy files off of a disk that will not mount in the OS! Be patient.

From there it's up to you. Personally I'd replace the failed drive. If it failed once, it will fail again. But if you have the luxury of time and patience, you can try to erase/reformat it yourself then copy the files back... hope for the best.

Otherwise, take it to Apple. They'll replace the drive and copy the data for you (if possible). They'll also break your bank =) They won't even give you a price over the phone!

I went with UBreakIFix. $100 got the replacement done. But I had to copy the files myself as described above. Also they didn't do the jumpers right so the fans come on at 100% until I put in a software solution to fix that. A lackluster experience for sure. But if you go in there with the knowledge of the SMC/fan situation, they'll probably set it up correctly for you.


Can't select Photos library. Click Choose Library, nothing happens I have 3 iPhoto Libraries. Have already converted 2 of them. Went back to open the first converted and it would not open. Nothing.

I can select the other two, but when I try and select the 3rd, nothing happens. I click, the button registers the click, but nothing happens.

Here is a screenshot - I click Choose Library and nothing happens.

I can select the other libraries, no problem.

That Library is showing as a .migratedlibrary file, which means it's already been 'translated' to Photos format & can no longer be opened in Photos.

The contents must be in one of your other libraries in the list, or if on a remote disk, you may have to open it fro the `Other Library…' button.
By default, the new Photos Library will be in the same location as the old iPhoto Library it was imported from.

From How Photos for Mac handles iPhoto imports

  So, when Photos migrates an iPhoto library, it changes the file extension on the iPhoto library package to .migratedphotolibrary and makes a hard link to all iPhoto media assets in its own library package, using the same directory structure as iPhoto.


How to open a new Terminal tab in current working directory? I want to create and run a bash function that:

cd into a project's directory
Open a new tab in Terminal in the same directory
Open my dev tools and start dev services

Item #2 doesn't work as expected, the new tab doesn't change directory.

Here is the script (both functions residing in my .bashrc file:

# Open a new tab (needs a path as an argument)
new_terminal_tab(){
    osascript -e "tell application \"Terminal\"" \
                        -e "tell application \"System Events\" to keystroke \"t\" using {command down}" \
                        -e "do script \"cd $1; clear;\" in front window" \
                        -e "end tell"
                        > /dev/null
}

# Set up workspace
affiliatesForm(){
    # cd into the project's directory
    cd /Users/iamuser/Documents/path/to/project\ file
    # Get the working directory
    pwd=`pwd`

    # Open a new tab in Terminal and cd into project's directory
    # The idea is to have a tab with Rails server output, and another tab in the project's directory
    new_terminal_tab $pwd

    # Open the project in Sublime Text 2
    subl $pwd

    # Start the Rails server
    rails server
}

What am I doing wrong? What is this code doing that I don't know?

Update

The path for the directory I am trying to access has spaces in it. But escaping the space is not helping at all. The script works with paths that do not include spaces.

Opening a new tab in Terminal should by default retain the current directory. If it doesn't, you may've broken the $PROMPT_COMMAND.

Also remember to not replace the previous value if you intend to add custom behaviour by adding ; $PROMPT_COMMAND at the end.

PROMPT_COMMAND="my_custom_function; $PROMPT_COMMAND"

For reference, here's the default from /etc/bashrc (OS X 10.9):

# Tell the terminal about the working directory at each prompt.
if [ "$TERM_PROGRAM" == "Apple_Terminal" ] && [ -z "$INSIDE_EMACS" ]; then
    update_terminal_cwd() {
        # Identify the directory using a "file:" scheme URL,
        # including the host name to disambiguate local vs.
        # remote connections. Percent-escape spaces.
        local SEARCH=' '
        local REPLACE='%20'
        local PWD_URL="file://$HOSTNAME${PWD//$SEARCH/$REPLACE}"
        printf '\e]7;%s\a' "$PWD_URL"
    }
    PROMPT_COMMAND="update_terminal_cwd; $PROMPT_COMMAND"
fi


Is it possible to develop for iOS10 and deploy to a personal iPad for testing without a developer account? I know that there is one way to do this with XCODE 7, however this doesn't seem to be working for me, possibly because I'm on iOS10? I have an app that I'd like to deploy on to my iPad before I decide to sign up for a developer account. Is there any way to achieve this.

You don't need a developer account but you do need a Mac.  These points are taken from this blog:

In order to take advantage of this, you’ll need three things:

Xcode 7
iOS 9 (minimum)
A free Apple ID

To start, you’ll need to set up a provisioning profile to code sign your apps:

Open Xode preferences (Xcode > Preferences…)
Click the ‘Accounts’ tab
Login with your Apple ID (+ > Add Apple ID…)
Once you’ve successfully logged in, a new ‘Personal Team’ with the role ‘Free’ will appear beneath your Apple ID.

There's a few more details that you can view on that site.


How can iOS 11’s screen recording not record the control center screen? We can start the screen recorder in the control center but this part also goes into the recording. How can we skip this part?

EDIT: As of the GM release, a 3 second timer has been implemented allowing time to dismiss Control Center.   The end of the clip may still require editing, however.

Disclaimer: As of this posting, iOS 11 is in Public Beta and may change before final release.

As of writing, it does not appear that a 'timer' can be set to indicate when to start the recording.

The recording does indeed start when the button on the control center is tapped.  This can be edited out of the final recording by trimming the video.

Go to the video in the Photos app.
Use the yellow handles (indicated by the <> symbols) to trim the beginning and end of the video as desired.


How to map "Spacebar + 1" to "⌃1" on Karabiner Elements? I'm looking for a way to remap Spacebar as a modifier for only the number row. For example, Spacebar + 0 = ⌃0, but for anything else Spacebar is just Spacebar.

I found this post which does what I I want through the example of M + N. Unfortunately, it's for an older version of Karabiner, and I don't understand how this code translates to the current way the program works.

It was actually quite easy. From an example given on the page, I modified it so that Spcebar + 1 = terminal command. Works fairly well. Use Karabiner Event Viewer to know the name of the key you want to add, and place this as a .json file on .config > karabiner > assets > complex_modifications

{
    "title": "Spacebar + 1",
    "rules": [
        {
            "description": "Spacebar + 1",
            "manipulators": [
                {
                    "type": "basic",
                    "from": {
                        "simultaneous": [
                            {
                                "key_code": "spacebar"
                            },
                            {
                                "key_code": "1"
                            }
                        ],
                        "modifiers": {
                            "optional": [
                                "any"
                            ]
                        }
                    },
                    "to": [
                        {
                            "shell_command": "open /Users/"
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}


Saving files on lost focus in console Vim I have been trying to setup the console version of vim to save any changed files when the Terminal window loses focus.

Following these instructions does not work.

Am I to assume that maybe the reason why this does not work for a console version of vim is because it's only intended to work with GUI versions, i.e. MacVim?

Is there a way to get this to work for a console version of vim?

I'm using the latest version of vim available in homebrew.

:help FocusLost says:

  …
  Only for the GUI version and a few console versions where this can be detected.
  …

Poking around in the code revealed the function ui_focus_change whose comment says:

  Used for the GUI or for systems where this can be done in the console (Win32).

Based on searching for callers, that statement seems accurate (it is only automatically called (asynchronously) from the GUI code for various platforms and (synchronously) from the non-GUI Windows code).

An answer to a related question (“Can I make Tmux tell Vim when its pane loses focus?”) over on Unix & Linux pointed out a new Vim plugin called Vitality. The plugin makes a series of Vim configurations to enable FocusLost and FocusGained autocommands for instances running under iTerm 2:

It configures Vim to send a special control sequences that cause iTerm 2 to send “focus out” and “focus in” control sequences when the iTerm 2 window loses/gains focus (though apparently iTerm 2 currently fumbles these sequences a bit when switching tabs inside a window).
It configures Vim to recognize the “focus out” and “focus in” sequences as rarely used keys (F24 and F25).
This is done instead of just mapping the sequences so it is possible to enable ttimeout and use a short ttimeoutlen to avoid causing delays when pressing Escape by itself.
It maps those keys to trigger FocusLost and FocusGained (via doautocmd).

Vitality is only designed to look for iTerm 2, but other terminal emulators also support the same “focus notification” control sequences:

xterm from 10.6 supports them (probably xterm from most other platforms, too)
Terminal from 10.6 does not support the sequences
I do not know about 10.7’s Terminal

If you have some other terminal emulator that supports the same focus control sequences as iTerm 2/xterm (for the details, see doc/vitality.txt, or search for “Focus” xterm’s ctlseqs), then it should fairly easy to extend Vitality to detect your terminal emulator (or you could just fake being iTerm 2 by setting the ITERM_PROFILE environment variable (export ITERM_PROFILE=not-really-iTerm)—the environment variable is the only thing that Vitality uses to check for iTerm 2)


How to record video stream with VLC on OSX? The recommended Linux/Windows way is to use command line:

cvlc --run-time=5 --sout file/ts:stream.mp4 htsp://@ip:5050

I would like to do the same on OSX, but it doesn't have command line. I tried the same, but replaced cvlc with /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC, but it doesn't work:

filesystem access error: cannot open file /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/rtp://@ip:5050

I would avoid VLC if you want to record streams off the Internet.  After many months of trying to figure it out, it came down to an issue with with their codec not working propertly via command line.
However, because of this problem, I found a better solution (it works with audio and video):
FFmpeg
It's a command line tool and is the source of the libraries that other app developers use (like Handbrake).  It's available as a source or binary - whichever you are more comfortable with (I personally recommend the binary).
The command to record a stream is is actually very simple:
ffmpeg INPUT [options] OUTPUT [options]

For example, if I wanted to record a streaming video for the next hour and place it on my Desktop:
ffmpeg http://foo.bar/stream -t 3600 ~/Desktop/foo_bar_stream_mp4

For more info, see the full documentation.


Listen to a specific song on iPhone What is the easiest way to stream/listen to a specific song for free, that's not in your iTunes library from an iPhone?

On a PC, I'd go on Deezer.com, launch spotify, try Hype Machine... But on the iPhone the "no-flash" policy makes it much harder.

I know some applications do this (i.e Deezer), but there's a price tag on it. And I sometimes use YouTube, but:

It requires the screen to be turned on
It's slower due to the loading of video (which I don't need)

I miss seeqpod.com, which had a mobile version that did exactly what I describe :( The solution should work outside the U.S. as well (which rules out Pandora).

GrooveShark's HTML5 mobile site is the only way I know of.


Mouse clicks not working on MacBook Pro, with both track pad and USB mouse This evening the left mouse button on the track pad on my MacBook Pro stopped working.

Rebooted.  No change.
Zotted PRAM.  No change.
Reset SMC.  No change.
Connected USB wired mouse.  No change.

I've found various discussions of the trackpad mouse buttons not working, but many of the suggestions suggest using a physical wired mouse.  But right now it's ignoring both.

Hardware:
Macbook Pro 1,2 (17" 2006)
External Mouse apple small roller ball middle button (Mighty mouse?)

Verified that the external mouse worked on another computer.

Verifed that the battery is not swelling.  Track mouse clicks.  Just doesn't do anything.

What do I need to check next?

Here is what worked for me.

I am on a MBP Retina 13" Late 2013 and macOS Sierra. The pointer started to have erratic movements and generated automatic clicks. Then this stopped but the left click would not work at all, even with an external mouse (only the right click of the mouse worked).

I tried everything (NVRAM reset,...) but nothing worked.

Then I found a post (here) linking it to an issue with an external monitor - I plugged the HDMi of the external screen I use from time to time, turned the monitor on and voila !, the left click worked again !

The post is 3 years old but he bug seems to be surviving...


Does iTunes have a limit on the number of movies it can list? I have a very annoying problem. Using HandBrake I have been able to rip and hereafter metatag all the family's 1500 movies for our iTunes library.
Once, I couldn't find the movie I was looking for, even though I knew it was tagged and stored. I also knew that it has been watched before through the Apple TV.

I went to our iTunes Application and saw that only 814 movies were shown. (That's what it said in the bottom) I got afraid that all my movies were gone, but after looking in the files folder, I realized that all movies actually still existed. I tried to import some of the movies again and iTunes actually showed them, but then some of the existing movies disappeared. Still only 814 movies.

My question is: Does iTunes have a limit for the amount of movies able to list in the application? I know it can't be about RAM and HDD since there is about 1,5 TB HDD left and the computer has 16 GB RAM..

I also tried to update the iTunes version, but it didn't seem to work.. Any suggestions?

EDIT:

Just to inform you.. I am able to continue importing music and tv-shows without problems.

Be careful about creating a new library - make sure you have a backup first of the Library files first!

I've "lost" things in iTunes too.  Try creating a new playlist, and drag one of the missing movie files from the Finder right into the new playlist.  Even if it's already in iTunes, this will add it to the playlist.  If it's not in iTunes, this will add it to the Library and the playlist.

If it shows up in the playlist, but it's still not in the Movies section, check the "Media Kind" value on the Get Info -> Options tab.  Make sure it's set to "Movie", not "Home Video" or something else.

If it can't be added to the playlist at all (and really isn't somewhere else in iTunes already), it's probably in a format that iTunes doesn't support.  I know you said most of the HB-encoded movies are there, but that doesn't mean that some of them aren't somehow encoded (or maybe tagged) differently, and iTunes is choking on that.  Check the encoding settings carefully in QuickTime and VLC, and the tags in MetaX or the equivalent.


Does apple automatically sign out all connected devices when you change the apple id password? Yesterday, I got a bunch of emails from Apple, sent to one of my unused gmail addresses (which still has forwarding to my regular one). I do NOT have an appled ID associated with that address, but it seems like someone was trying to create one.

They were (all in English unless otherwise noted):

10-12 identical "Verify your Apple ID." emails from appleid@id.apple.com, some in English, some in Greek (I'm Greek and in Greece, so this makes some sense).
"Your apple ID has been used to sign in to iCloud from an iPhone 4s." email from noreply@insideicloud.icloud.com (not sure about wording, because this one was sent in Greek: Το Apple ID σας χρησιμοποιήθηκε για σύνδεση στο iCloud από iPhone 4s.)
"Your apple ID information has been updated" from appleid@id.apple.com
"Welcome to iCloud" from noreply@icloud.com

I was alarmed by this. I'm 99% certain I did NOT ever create this apple ID, and 100% certain I didn't use it yesterday, from an iPhone or elsewhere. I went to the apple site, clicked on "reset my password", got a password reset email right away, and changed the password.

I checked ALL my gmail accounts (the one used for the ID, the regular one & a secondary one I have) and there has been no sign of breaching - no connected devices or recent sign-ins I don't recognize, no auto-forwarding or suspicious labels created.

Today, I received another email from apple

"Your recent download with your Apple ID." from do_not_reply@apple.com

I therefore realize that the device has somehow not been disconnected, although I believed that, as with other services eg. Google, whenever you change your password, each device asks you for the new password when automatically signing in. Is this not the case with Apple?

To rephrase, does Apple automatically sign out all connected devices when changing your password?

I also had to install iTunes, so that I could deauthorize the devices already connected, but the option does not show up on the list, which seems to mean there are no devices associated. The only method I found for doing that without using iTunes did not work properly.

The details which the person has entered to the account associated with my email seem legitimate (as in, non-spam/scammy) but it looks like they're not tech-savvy enough to even realize they're using the wrong email, so I don't think contacting them (they've even listed their phone number) would have any benefit.

Is it really possible for someone to register for an Apple ID and continue using that ID without verifying the email? Because this is what seems to be happening. I never clicked on those "verify" links, they even look unread in my inbox, but it seems like this person is still using that ID.

My goals here are

To make sure my email account is safe
To stop receiving annoying emails every time this person does anything related to their apple id.
To ideally stop this person from signing up for apple IDs or other accounts using an email that doesn't belong to them (and can possibly be a typo, judging by their name).

Any help/feedback at all will be greatly appreciated.

does Apple automatically sign out all connected devices when changing
  your password?

If they are still signed in (at the time you change the password) it will not sign them out, but next time they will have to use the new password to sign in.

Your problem is clearly with someone who cracked your old gmail account.

Now they have created NEW apple id and can verify it since they have access to email.

go to that gmail and change the password to a strong one.

You only got a copy of that email since you have the forwarding turned on.

You must have created a apple id once upon a time since it is needed for basic service like system software updates.

Your original apple id might be still OK and not compromised (but change the password on it anyway).


Emacs Ctrl-x ctrl-s command not working in Terminal.app I am having issue when connecting to my school's unix remotely via Terminal (SSH) and attempting to edit code in emacs on my Mac. I have a Macbook Pro running Mac OS 10.6.

I use the emacs that is installed on their Unix operating system (not emacs installed locally on my Mac). I made sure that Terminal is running vt100 emulation, as that is the setting that I was told to run it at.

Everything works fine except for some keyboard behavior issues. When I attempt to save in emacs (Ctrl-x Ctrl-s), it doesn't seem to accept it and and makes the "bump" error noise, as in bad input. However, when I attempt to do this on another Mac (with a full keyboard), the save command works fine. It also works fine when I am running a virtual installation of Ubuntu on my Mac laptop. And when I use a Windows machine, running PuTTY, the save command works fine. So I am thinking it has something to do with my Mac's keyboard (since it is a laptop keyboard, and not the full keyboard)? Or is there a setting that may be wrong?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I just ran into what I think is the same problem when trying to use Ctrl-S under Vim in Terminal.app. I found a related tip indicating that by default, Terminal.app reserves Ctrl-S for old-fashioned XON/XOFF flow control.  Adding this line to my .bash_profile -- or just entering it at the prompt -- freed up Ctrl-S and Ctrl-Q for use with Vim:

stty -ixon -ixoff


Upgrade Macbook air OS X Yosemite I am trying to install Skype for business and Microsoft office on my MacBook Air 2015. but need to update to macOS 10.11 for this.
I don't have any installation updates pending, how can I upgrade?

Major releases need to be downloaded from the App Store. Just go there, it probably is shown on the main page (otherwise search for "Big Sur").
It is recommended to make a backup of your system first before starting the upgrade. Apple has more details in https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201475.


Prevent employees from using anything else but my proprietary application I will be getting several mac minis for different branches that will have installed my software application which I need my employees to use. I need to make sure of the following:

When the computer starts for my application to be on in full screen mode
For the user to not be able to exit the app
For the user to not be able to start plugging in their personal usb sticks and try to hack/view movies on the computer - one solution would be to lock the computer away and expose only the touchscreen graphic display. I suppose if my application automatically covers the full screen then the user would not be able to go into the finder app and browse through their files.

Most elegant solution is preferable, as long as the solution gets the job done effectively without any round about ways to by pass this setup.

You will likely want to look at the Parental Controls (System Preferences). While it won't prevent them from moving around in OS X, it will prevent them from running other applications that you have not explicitly authorized.

A detailed view rundown can be found here: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-limit-the-capabilities-of-a-user-in-mac-os-.html


Will a Airport Utility archive action delete files on the target disk? Will an Airport Utility archive action delete files on the target disk?

I have an older Apple Time Capsule 2TB and I have a Laccie 6TB USB3.0 drive connected to it in "safe 3TB" configuration. In my Airport Utility app, it shows both disks.

The Laccie disk is already half full of stuff I put on it. I want to move 400MB of files from the Time Machine disk over to the Laccie disk but it says it will take over 24 hours.

So, I was thinking about using the Airport Utility "Archive" function to backup all the files on my Time Capsule over to the Laccie but I am afraid it might overwrite existing files already on that target disk.

Should I worry about when the "archive" function occurs, does it create a time-stamped folder?  I could find no information on exactly what happens when the "archive" function does its work.

EDIT:

I found a partial answer to my question:

When the "archive" backs up files from the source disk, it puts the files into a sub-directory called "Time Capsule Backup" on the destination disk.  There is no timestamp on the destination folder name.  The files are not zipped up in an archive either.   Now I understand how the backup is able to generate a backup without deleting any files on the destination disk.


What does Apple's new App Store requirement mean This message came in my App Store Connect:

  Upcoming Submission Requirements As a reminder, starting March 27,
  2019 all new apps and app updates for iPhone or iPad, including
  universal apps, will need to be built with the iOS 12.1 SDK and
  support iPhone XS Max or the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (3rd generation).
  Screenshots for these devices will also be required. All new apps and
  app updates for Apple Watch will need to be built with the watchOS 5.1
  SDK and support Apple Watch Series 4.

What does the line will need to be built with the iOS 12.1 SDK mean? Does it mean that minimum supported iOS version need to be iOS 12.1?

I have already an app in App Store with minimum iOS as 10.0. Do I need to change that to 12.1?

Link to the news:

https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=03202019a

Minimum SDK ≠ minimum OS version.
You will have to compile your app with the SDK ≥ 12.1, but your Deployment Target can be lower than that. Apple wants to "force" you to prepare the UI for iPhone XS Max.
Here's more info about the SDK and Deployment Target on StackOverflow.
Simple explanation from Big Nerd Ranch:

SDK stands for “Software Development Kit,” which is the set of libraries and headers for a particular OS version. This is the version of Apple’s APIs that you compile and link against. The SDK describes the set of API available to you. Linking against the iOS 9 SDK means you can use any API that comes with iOS 9. You won’t be able to directly use stuff introduced in iOS 10. Modern Xcodes are tightly coupled to the SDKs for the latest OS versions, so if you upgrade your Xcode, you will be linking against a newer version of the SDK.
The other version number is the Deployment Target. This declares the oldest OS version your app will support. How far back you decide to support is a business decision based on how much work you are willing to do for customers on older versions of the OS.


Upgrade time machine storage? I'm going to buy 2T external HDD to replace my already full 1T HDD external. I want to keep the time machine backup data. In this case, is it just OK to copy all the time machine backup data in 1T HDD to 2T HDD?

I know this might be old, but here are the right steps to perform a Time Machine hard drive replacement preserving old backups, without having to use CCC or SuperDuper! (which I love, but are not needed).

I have a Mac Pro so to make things more complicated I added Two drives and created a RAID-1 (Mirror); once the mirror was working, I proceeded with these steps (sans the “plug drive”) ;)

The above comment is to demonstrate that the volume composition doesn’t affect this.

Like with any other Hard Drive operation, always make sure you have a backup or a way to restore your information in case something goes wrong. Read before you click “ok”. Use common sense and be careful.

You need to be familiar with Disk Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app). It’s a very simple and straightforward application, but also very dangerous if you go coo coo and start clicking things without reading.

TIME MACHINE HARD DRIVE MIGRATION TO A NEW DRIVE PRESERVING BACKUP HISTORY

Plug your new (presumably bigger) drive. Using Disk Utility, create the HFS+ Journaled partition (make sure you use GUID to avoid problems). Give it a name like: NewTM (you can change that later). (This may be obvious but if you have a Mac Pro, turn it off before inserting the drives…)
Open the Time Machine configuration and turn off Time Machine.
Unmount the Time Machine drive (the ‘old’) and mount it again. This causes the drive to be mounted as a regular drive and not have the “Time Machine” Green Icon. (This is important). You can do that from Disk Utility.
Now go back to Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app) and click on the restore tab.
You will see two boxes to type, but you can also drag and drop, so drag the “TimeMachine” (old) to the source box (the upper one).
Drag the new “NewTM” partition to the target box (lower one).
IMPORTANT: select “Erase Destination” so there’s a block level copy.
Click restore and make sure that you have the right partitions (i.e.: read what you are being shown in the popup, it’s your last chance or you could erase your data.) When you’re satisfied, click ok to the popup and go cook. My 750gb took over four hours (and it was a SATA drive). Consider that USB drives (and even Firewire 800) are slower than any SATA internal drive. Some people reports this to take over five hours over USB for much smaller drives, so be patient.
Here’s how mine looked:

If everything went right, you should see two identical drives on your desktop, that is because the old drive was “fully duplicated” in the new one. The difference should be the free space, the new one should have more (if you are using a larger drive of course).

We’re almost done, but we need to activate Time Machine again.

Unmount the old Time Machine drive. If you are unsure which one it is, check the free space and/or physically disconnect it; don’t worry, you’ll be able to use it again soon.
Open the TimeMachine configuration screen again and press Change Drive. Select the new one (should be the only one called Time Machine). The disk should now turn “green” with the Time Machine icon. Congratulations, you’ve migrated your Time Machine.

What now?

Test it. Use Time machine to see if your files are there, recover some old files to see if they come, make sure everything is ok, you can reconnect your old drive and format it, or use it for furniture if you want.

If you previously had Spotlight configured to exclude your Time Machine, you might want to make sure that everything is ok. Maybe you’ll have to drag the Time Machine drive again. Just check it.

And that’s all. I hope you don’t destroy your data in the process. I came up with these steps by googling, experimenting and using common sense :) Hope it helps.


Trackpad on Late 2016 MBP Stops Working When USB Gamepad Is Attached or ControllerMate Is Running I have been user ControllerMate to optimize my workflow when using an external keyboard to trigger macros with Keyboard Maestro.

This worked very well until recently, when I installed an update for ControllerMate.

Now, when ControllerMate is running, the built-in trackpad of my MacBook Pro (late 2016) stops working. When I quit the application, the trackpad is functional again.

I thought it was an issue with ControllerMate, so I posted on their support forum, so far without any useful feedback.

Then I noticed that the same thing – non-functional trackpad – happens when I attach a gamepad controller via USB (GameSir G3).

Can somebody give me advice how to troubleshoot and perhaps find a fix for this problem?

Fixed

The problem was that apparently installing the new version of ControllerMate somehow checked the preference “System Preferences > Accessibility > Mouse & Trackpad > Ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is present”. I turned it off again and everything works fine now.

Thanks @toma for pointing it out in the comments!


What to do when Time Machine backup is taking forever? Yesterday I bought a 500Gb external USB drive for the sole purpose of backing up my laptop, which has 45Gb of data. After turning on Time Machine, it began the first backup, but after an hour or so reported there was still 4 hours to go. I had to pack up, so I aborted the backup.

This morning I requested Time Machine to do a backup, and now 3 hours later it tells me it has backed up only 156Mb, and there is 42 days to go!?!

I can't believe this is right, so the questions are:

What is going on?
What is the best way to deal with it?

Aborting a backup like that sometimes has unfortunate consequences. If this is your initial backup, consider erasing the backup drive and starting over before you go to sleep. That way, the drive can run overnight without you having to worry about leaving before it's finished.

Also make sure that the drive is correctly formatted as as HFS+ extended journaled, with a GUID partitioning scheme.


MacBook Pro 2010 won't boot after EFI upgrade I have updated my MacBook Pro (Core i5, early 2010) with system update to new EFI version, and now after startup it just shows the gray screen and doesen't react on keyboard (just plays the boot sound).

I cannot open boot menu (Option key) and cannot boot from other device.
Command+S does not help.
Only thing that it reacts is Command-Option-P-R, but then it still won't boot.

Tech details:
Installed 8 GB memory and 120 GB vertex2 SSD drive

Removed vertex2 SSD - Mac booted.

Looks like the SSD has failed, because if I install the SSD to other SATA slot, the MacBook does not boot, either. Also, this drive is invisible with external SATA to USB adapter.

It's Good to have a backup solution.


MBA mid-2013'' total freeze; hardware issue? Update (22nd September, 2014): Ever since I upgraded above a certain developer preview version of OS X Yosemite (DP4 or thereabouts) a couple of months ago, the problem described below has not recurred.

I've got a mid-2013 13" MacBook Air (Model Identifier: MacBookAir6,2) currently running Mavericks 10.9.2. that doesn't have any problems except (a potentially major) one: Sometimes when I'm playing a Flash video on Firefox (currently version 28.0), suddenly the screen will freeze completely - by "completely" I mean even the mouse pointer won't move. Usually the audio plays for maybe a second and two after the screen freezes before it stops too. (I'm guessing that just might be some kind of audio buffering in action.) The system goes completely unresponsive. I have to force a reboot by holding down the power key for several seconds.

This happens intermittently but frequently enough to be a cause of concern. I guess it must have happened around 3-4 times in the last month. The latest incident was last night.

I have not experienced this problem except when I'm viewing a video online. I'm running the latest version of Adobe Flash Player (which, btw, has annoyingly frequent updates) and Firefox 28.0. but it has happened with previous versions of both. I mostly view only streaming videos on this laptop - only rarely do I play a downloaded video file with a media player app, so in that respect it's hard to say whether the problem is Firefox/Flash specific or more general. But I'm pretty sure it's never happened when I wasn't viewing a video. I believe it also happened on lower versions of Mavericks.

I checked the system log in the Console app, and have not found any suspicious looking messages that could indicate what the problem could be, which makes me think it's something that happens all of a sudden - making it likely to be a hardware problem with the video subsystem. But I'm just guessing here. (There are also no log messages generated after the time of the freeze until I force a reboot, which would indicate that the system has in fact completely halted, rather than a case of unresponsive UI.)

I have run "Apple Diagnostics" more than once and it reported no issues.

How can I diagnose this problem? Is there a more severe battery of hardware tests that I can run? Or should I look into using DTrace?

Sounds like bad sectors on the harddisc/SSD. I have had similar experience. My Macbook air 2012 froze when I was playing music, everything else worked fine, then one day it totally stopped working (lookup Mac OSX grey folder for more information). I went it by the Apple store and they replaced my SSD.


USB-C Dongles killing Wifi on 2016/2017 MacBooks – Who’s to blame? I recently switched from my beloved MacBook Pro Retina (Late 2013) i5 2.6/16/512 to MacBook Pro (2017) Non-TB i5 2.3/16/512.

I purchased what from the build-quality looked like a good USB-C-to-DisplayPort cable with 4k/60Hz support, just to run into the very problem the Logicboard repair guru Louis Rossmann had described in one of his videos: As soon as you plug in the USB-C dongle, the (2.4 GHz) Wifi stops working despite full antenna signal. Unplug the USB-C connector and you are immediately back in the game.

The big question I'm asking myself now: Who is to blame? Is this a design flaw in the current generation MacBooks with improper shielding or is it a design flaw in the various dongles?

I mean the fact that even Apple’s very own USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter is causing these WiFi issues (as you can learn from the many horrific customer reviews; but AFAIK have been fixed through a software patch), show that there’s something going horribly wrong.

One customer got a good USB-C Hub and after plugged it to their MacBook Pro then appears the same wifi interference problem.

He solved the interference by covering the Hub with aluminum paper

(Thanks Faraday!)


Missing saved files after updating iPod to iOS 5 I updated my iPod to iOS 5 and all my apps and their save files are missing. I backed them up to my computer but can not find them.

How do I restore the backup?

Backups are managed by iTunes, there's no need for you to know where the actual files are (This is the beauty about Apple things).

To restore your backup connect your iPad, right click it in iTunes' sidebar and select restore from backup (Sometimes it helps to restore from backup twice).


802.11b/g clients in an 802.11n bridged network I have an Time Capsule set up in 802.11a/n - 802.11b/g/n Automatic mode. I have an Airport Express set up to extend this network.

Does the Airport Express just share the 802.11n part of the network or the 802.11b/g too?

I ask because I have a set of Airplay speakers with 802.11b/g which are much closer to my Airport Express but insist on joining the Time Capsule which is further away. AirPlay to these speakers is awful. If I could convince it to join the Airport Express bridge instead then I believe it would work, since there would be fewer hops from my phone which is already connected to the Airport Express.

Is there a way to have the 802.11b/g speakers join the nearer Airport Express?

It depends on the rev of Airport Express. The older Airport Express' only extended the 2.4GHz band.

The last Airport Express (before the change that makes it look like a white AppleTV) could extend either band.

The latest rev (looks like white AppleTV) will also extend either band. From what I understand,  if your 2.4 & 5GHz band have the same network name, it will extend the band that has the strongest signal (since there isn't a way to select it in the Airport Setup).

If you have separately named 2.4 and 5GHz network names, then it will extend the network you specify.


How to remove metadata from image files using AppleScript? I am using Catalina. I want to create an application using Applescript which which will remove metadata from dropped image files (onto its icon) using the unix utility exiftool.

I tried the following application in Automator but the AppleScript doesn't work (doesn't remove the metadata):

on open myFiles
    set bash_path_file to the POSIX path of myFiles
    do shell script "/usr/local/bin/exiftool -all= " & quoted form of bash_path_file
end open

I've researched many applescripts using google search and over here but none seem to work. So I'm doing something wrong. Any help would be appreciated.

To make an ApplesScript droplet app, save the following example AppleScript code in Script Editor as an application:

on open droppedItems
    repeat with droppedItem in droppedItems
        do shell script "/usr/local/bin/exiftool -all= " & ¬
            quoted form of POSIX path of droppedItem
    end repeat
end open

Now drag and drop the target file(s) onto the app's icon to process the file(s).

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors.


Need El Capitan installer. Any Apple official link won't work. Need alternatives I have a mid 2012 MBP. Came with Mountain Lion, upgraded to Mavericks in 2013 and never touched the OS X again. Long story short: I need El Capitan to run some work apps and it can't be newer because an essential piece of hardware won't work on Sierra or later. I installed High Sierra yesterday to confirm and because I didn't install El Capitan at the time, I can't do it now that Sierra/High Sierra are out. Is there a safe source here to download the installer (torrent)?

Thanks in advance.

If you visit https://itunes.apple.com/app/os-x-el-capitan/id1147835434?mt=12 on a newer macOS version, you should be able to download it via the App Store.

Source: MacPaw: Download old macOS versions


How to move from text to text by keyboard in Powerpoint? How do I move from text item to text item using the keyboard in Powerpoint? (Apologies for the Windows keyboard terminology in the following)

tab just adds a tab, as does Shift + Tab, Control + Tab, and Alt + Tab. Windows + Tab switches application.
enter adds a newline, as does Shift + Enter and Control + Enter. Alt + Enter starts a presentation, as does Windows + Enter.

I tried looking at http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/powerpoint/item/13dfdf52-4ce3-4ec5-aeff-5b49f8392aea, but couldn't find what I wanted.

Use altwindowsenter to indicate you've finished a piece of text and want to move on to the next section, possibly creating a new slide.

Use esc to escape from whatever you're editing, then use tab to move from text to text within a slide, and use Page Up and Page Down to move from slide to slide, and use Enter to start editing a text.


How Do I Batch Convert Hundreds of ClarisWorks Documents to a Modern Format? I'm running the current version of Sierra (10.12.5). The documents appear in Finder without extensions and the system has given them exe icons despite categorizing them as Documents. They are unviewable with QuickLook and mdls identifies their type as CWWP.

LibreOffice is able to open the documents without all the weird crud and formatting issues that appear when opening them with other applications [Word/TextEdit/Atom/OpenOffice/Etc.]. And the "soffice --headless" commandline tool allows one to attack entire directories. Great. But I can't find an option to retain the original Date/Time Created stamps to the converted files.

I did find some freeware that will convert old WordPerfect docs to modern formats, but it doesn't work with my ClarisWorks docs.

I attempted to use the app DocumentConverter, but it crashes every time I try to export anything.

I've, also, attempted to use unoconv in conjunction with LibreOffice but have slammed against the brick wall of an unfixed bug from 2012.

Additionally, I found this bash script, which purports to do exactly what I need. However, in practice, the batch function doesn't work and the script has no setting to retain the original Date/Time stamps.

What I'm hoping to find is a simple commandline tool that I can aim at entire folders of these documents to convert in place, with the ability to retain the Date/Time Created stamps.

What are my best options?

Thanks.

08.05.17 - EDIT:

I'd like to thank @patrix for his bash script. It should come in very handy.

& I'd like to let anyone who has come across this while searching for a solution know that the developer of the libmwaw library (& associated tools) very nicely updated the source and his mwawOSX app to enable created date/time inheritance for converted ClarisWorks files.

Taking most of the relevant stuff from the bash script you've linked to and adding some commands to copy the timestamp from the original file to the newly created one will give you

#!/bin/bash

SOFFICE="/Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/soffice"

[[ -x "$SOFFICE" ]] || exit 1
[[ -r "$1" ]] || exit 2

$SOFFICE --headless --convert-to docx:"MS Word 2007 XML" "$1"

ts=$(stat -f "%Sm" -t "%Y%m%d%H%M.%S" "$1")
docx=$(basename "$1" .cwk).docx
touch -t $ts "$docx"

This will convert one file (passed as an argument, including a path if applicable) from cwk into docx, store the docx in the current directory (which may be different from the place of the source file) and apply the "last modified" date from the original file to the converted one.


Can't lock Profile Manager devices outside of server WiFi network I've got a few devices enrolled in my server's Profile Manager service. To test that this works on an outside WiFi network, I opened ports 443 and 1640 on our firewall (and ignored the others, as our firewall does not block outbound traffic), but when trying to send a Lock command to the test device (an iPhone connected through 4G LTE, no WiFi network), the command just stalls in Profile Manager, listed as "pending".

The interesting thing is, I can connect to my server's public IP in Safari on that iPhone and connect through HTTPS. However, when I try to access anything in a sub-directory, such as /mydevices/, I get a 503 error (Service Temporarily Unavailable).

I had thought DNS might be at the heart of the issue, but if I can connect directly through my public IP, I wouldn't think that would be an issue.

Can anyone offer any hints as to how I can tackle this issue and allow Profile Manager to do its job for devices on other networks? Thank you!

Please enabled all the applicable ports.

Apple's documentation (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5302) also lists the service needing TCP ports 2195, 2196, and 5223 for the service to send/receive push notifications, which AFAIK is how the service communicates with clients.


HiDPI on external monitor (Dell u2515h) with Macbook Pro So I have Dell U2515H connected to my Macbook Pro 15" Mid 2014 (integrated graphics) and when I try to run it in 16:9 1280x720 HiDPI (I'm using switchresx) resolution it has no effect. However, when I choose any other 16:10 HiDPI resolution like 1280x800 it works just fine but obviously it cuts the screen. Does anyone know what could be the problem? It is very weird that 16:10 resolutions are OK but 16:9 just don't work, given that native monitor aspect ratio is 16:9.

I encountered the very same problem while setting HiDPI mode for my Macbook Pro with SwitchResX. As the HiDPI resolutions didn't fit, I made my own ones.

Here's how it goes:

Follow the instructions on SwitchResX's website on how to temporarily disable "System Integrity Protection"
On the SwitchResX panel for the DELL screen, go to the "Custom Resolutions" tab and create your desired resolutions under the "Scaled resolution" category.
The pixels x lines you scale to are 2 times the "feeling" you want to get, e.g. 3840 x 2160 for a Full HD (1920 x 1080) feeling.

Disabling the SIP made the 720p resolution you mentioned work for me as well.


List of connected users Sometimes, when need restart my Lion server, it warns me about the "connected users".

How is possible to show who is connected?

Using the serveradmin command-line utility, you can send a command to the smb or afp file sharing daemons.  Running the following will return an array of users, including their ipAddress, login time, and account name.

serveradmin command smb:command = getConnectedUsers
serveradmin command afp:command = getConnectedUsers

A typical line of output (for the user name) would appear as

smb:usersArray:_array_index:0:name = "user_foo"
...
smb:usersArray:_array_index:1:name = "user_bar"

If all you are concerned about is the user names,

serveradmin command smb:command = getConnectedUsers | awk -F '"' '/:name/ { print $2 }'

awk -F splits lines on the " , while  /:name/ only operates on lines matching :name.  The $2 takes the second column of text (divided by "), which is the user name.

user_foo
user_bar


Hidden features of Safari? While using Safari, I accidentally three-finger tapped on a link and Preview of that web page popped up, like below. I think it's pretty useful.

Do you know any other hidden features of Safari?
I also, know that if you three-finger tapped in a word a dictionary definition pops up.

OSX 10.10.3 Safari 8.0.5

The same gesture, over any selected word [in most apps] will pop up a dictionary definition, with additional Spotlight options since Yosemite.

Keyboard equivalent is  Ctrl ⌃   Cmd ⌘   D


How do I download .ipa files to iTunes/Mobile Applications during sync? I just reinstalled iTunes for the first time in about a year (was having Config.Msi permissioning issues on install) and synced it with my computer. In my iTunes directory, I have a "Mobile Applications" folder with the .ipas of my older apps. How do I get my iTunes to download the rest of my iPad apps into this directory?

Connect your iPad to iTunes, then select File → Devices → Transfer Purchases.


Simple remote access to another Mac or PC I frequently get asked by various poeple to fix or help them with their computers (Windows XP, Windows 7, OSX Leopard, OSX Snow Leopard, OSX Lion). What is currently the best secure, free (or cheap) and most imporantly simple way to remotely access the desktop of another Mac or PC over the internet from my Mac (OSX Lion).

It should be especially simple for the person at the other end asking for help because often they are not too computer-savvy. It should invlove nothing more than starting an application or enabling a checkbox in the settings. It would also be really nice if I could do remote access from my iPhone while I am on the go. It should also be possible to exchange files.

You could look at TeamViewer and it is free for non-commercial users.


Is it possible to block access to Safari's extensions? I'd like my son to have access to Safari but not to the extensions, as these provide content blockers to innapropriate material. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks

Instead of blocking Safari Preferences you can turn on Parental Controls to restrict precisely time slots or what site content should be blocked.

Open System Preferences
Choose Parental Control
Create a new user account with the restrictions you want for your son


localhost / userdir on macOS Sierra I've always used: Setting up a local web server on OS X to set up my localhost and userdirs.

After upgrading to Sierra, yesterday, my localhost web server wasn't working anymore.

I tried following the tutorial again but I'm not able to get into my userdir.

localhost works:

user shortname - fails:

Are there any other configurations that need to be made on Sierra to get userdirs to work?

There is an updated tutorial here: How to Set up Apache in macOS Sierra 10.12

It includes extra configurations like uncommenting the following lines by removing the "#":

  #LoadModule userdir_module libexec/apache2/mod_userdir.so
  ...
  #LoadModule vhost_alias_module libexec/apache2/mod_vhost_alias.so
  ...
  #Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-userdir.conf
  ...
  #Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

and uncommenting:

  #Include /private/etc/apache2/users/*.conf

in /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-userdir.conf

and restarting apache: sudo apachectl restart

It should work.


How to convert a RAW 16-bit audio file to something else on Mac? I plan to write a little program that will output a RAW audio file  let me convert RAW audio format files to WAV or AU or anything else?

Unless I'm mistaken, you can download pre-built SoX binaries for the Mac direct from Sourceforge. I just tried it on Lion and it seems to work for me.

Alternatively, afconvert is built-in and can be used to convert a wide variety of audio file formats.

Usage:
afconvert [option...] input_file [output_file]
    Options may appear before or after the direct arguments. If output_file
    is not specified, a name is generated programmatically and the file
    is written into the same directory as input_file.
afconvert input_file [-o output_file [option...]]...
    Output file options apply to the previous output_file. Other options
    may appear anywhere.

General options:
    { -d | --data } data_format[@sample_rate][/format_flags][#frames_per_packet]
        [-][BE|LE]{F|[U]I}{8|16|24|32|64}          (PCM)
            e.g.   BEI16   F32@44100
        or a data format appropriate to file format (see -hf)
        format_flags: hex digits, e.g. '80'
        Frames per packet can be specified for some encoders, e.g.: samr#12
        A format of "0" specifies the same format as the source file,
            with packets copied exactly.
        A format of "N" specifies the destination format should be the
            native format of the lossless encoded source file (alac, FLAC only)
    { -c | --channels } number_of_channels
        add/remove channels without regard to order
    { -l | --channellayout } layout_tag
        layout_tag: name of a constant from CoreAudioTypes.h
          (prefix "kAudioChannelLayoutTag_" may be omitted)
        if specified once, applies to output file; if twice, the first
          applies to the input file, the second to the output file
    { -b | --bitrate } total_bit_rate_bps
         e.g. 256000 will give you roughly:
             for stereo source: 128000 bits per channel
             for 5.1 source: 51000 bits per channel
                 (the .1 channel consumes few bits and can be discounted in the
                 total bit rate calculation)
    { -q | --quality } codec_quality
        codec_quality: 0-127
    { -r | --src-quality } src_quality
        src_quality (sample rate converter quality): 0-127 (default is 127)
    { --src-complexity } src_complexity
        src_complexity (sample rate converter complexity): line, norm, bats
    { -s | --strategy } strategy
        bitrate allocation strategy for encoding an audio track
        0 for CBR, 1 for ABR, 2 for VBR_constrained, 3 for VBR
    --prime-method method
        decode priming method (see AudioConverter.h)
    --prime-override samples_prime samples_remain
        can be used to override the priming information stored in the source
        file to the specified values. If -1 is specified for either, the value
        in the file is used.
    --no-filler
        don't page-align audio data in the output file
    --soundcheck-generate
        analyze audio, add SoundCheck data to the output file
    --codec-manuf codec_manuf
        specify the codec with the specified 4-character component manufacturer
        code
    --dither algorithm
        algorithm: 1-3
    --mix
        enable channel downmixing
    { -u | --userproperty } property value
        set an arbitrary AudioConverter property to a given value
        property is a four-character code; value is signed 32-bit integer.
        A maximum of 8 properties may be set.
        e.g. '-u vbrq <sound_quality>' sets the sound quality level
             (<sound_quality>: 0-127)

Input file options:
    --read-track track_index
        For input files containing multiple tracks, the index (0..n-1)
        of the track to read and convert.
    --offset number_of_frames
        the starting offset in the input file in frames. (The first frame is
        frame zero.)
    --soundcheck-read
         read SoundCheck data from source file and set it on any destination
         file(s) of appropriate filetype (.m4a, .caf).

Output file options:
    -o filename
        specify an (additional) output file.
    { -f | --file } file_format
        use -hf for a complete list of supported file/data formats

Other options:
    { -v | --verbose }
        print progress verbosely
    { -t | --tag }
        If encoding to CAF, store the source file's format and name in a user
        chunk. If decoding from CAF, use the destination format and filename
        found in a user chunk.
    { --leaks }
        run leaks at the end of the conversion
    { --profile }
        collect and print performance information

Help options:
    { -hf | --help-formats }
        print a list of supported file/data formats
    { -h | --help }
        print this help

Also, typing afconvert -hf will show you the supported audio formats


Safari, iTunes, Chrome etc. won't recognize root certificates after recent update to Safari 7.1.5 (Mavericks) After installing the most recent security and Safari updates (7.1.5) on Mavericks, Safari and other applications (those using NSURLConnection/CFURLConnection) no longer recognize any root certificates as valid. The root certificates in the System Roots keychain seem to be fine, as far as Keychain Access is concerned. However, Safari, iTunes, Chrome, etc. fail to validate all root certificates ("This certificate was signed by an unknown authority"). Already tried deleting the /var/db/crls/crlcache.db and /var/db/crls/ocspcache.db to no effect. System time is correct. Any ideas?

Were able to solve the issue myself. For some reason, there were a few root certificates in my login Keychain, which have been revoked and replaced with newer certs in the System Roots keychain. Deleted those certs from my login keychain and everything works fine again.


Terminus font looks crooked/skewed I like this font and it's my default on Linux, so I tried to start using it on macOS (Sierra) too. The result is pretty awful and I don't understand why, in particular what puzzles me most is the fact that the lines are not parallel/perpendicular.

I suspect that this concerns the fact that originally Terminus is a bitmap font, but I don't know what to try next.
Do you have any ideas?

Update: As an alternative font similar to Terminus that appears to work out of the box you can try GNU Unifont.

What type of font is this? -> Which Terminus font are you using?

If you are using indeed a font copied from somewhere that macOS can not deal with properly, and you are just looking for a version that displays OK under macOS, then you might want to take a look at a TrueType version of Terminus.

The actual outlines are very crooked in that font. Take a look at these with e.g. fontforge:
It displays OK in small sizes. Turn antialiasing on and off to see which version you like better. But a size >14Pt is almost unusable anyway.

In larger sizes it gets ugly fast.
The autotrace/potrace process, as used by the linked font, would need a lot of cleanup manually. If you insist on using this font and that it better upscales uncrooked you might need to clean it up. With FontForge or similar software that is a tedious process and will take a while.

Or you can try another conversion yourself. Starting with the xfonts-terminus package from your Linux installation in .pcf.gz-format might get you there a bit faster (/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc/ter-u12b_iso-8859-15.pcf.gz).

You really have to love that font very much to do so. Another font will perhaps be the better option. But try this conversion if you do not need that many sizes.

Update:
A much better, ready made version of Terminus can be found here.

When using these fonts the so-called "OS-X-optimized versions" seem to be problematic.
The actual fonts to use are the "regular" ones at
http://misc.nybergh.net/pub/fonts/terminus/ttf/Terminus.ttf and
http://misc.nybergh.net/pub/fonts/terminus/ttf/TerminusBold.ttf

Unfortunately the bold variant has several issues that prevent a successful validation of the fonts. However they are accepted by the system and used for display. Only some characters have their glyph position misinterpreted by the system. To fix this one might simply save the bold variant as a newly generated font. That automatically reduces the most egregious character misplacements.

Using FontForge the visual improvement from a simple re-generation is obvious (but still not perfect and the validation issues are inherited):

This is done by installing FontForge, opening the bold version of the font, and simply choosing "File>Generate Fonts" from the menu (ignoring the validation error). If using the bold variant is important, a manual cleanup of the newly created file is still strongly advised.


Use external USB 3.0 SSD with 2012 iMac for the OS? So it is possible that I can get a good deal on a 2012 iMac. The only thing that scares me is the slow 1tb hard drive in it. I searched on how to replace it but it is extremely complicated because the iMac is glued together, I'm not ready to go down that road.

So my idea was to take a SATA3 SSD, put it in a SATA USB 3.0 HDD enclosure and then connect that over USB 3.0 and install MacOS on it.

Q: Is it a good idea to run your OS on an external hard drive? Does anyone have experience with this or alternative solutions?

Yes, it's totally fine to install and run macOS on an external HDD/SSD.

Especially since USB 3 you can get the same speed as the internal drive – or even faster in the case of an SSD.

The only downside is the fact that you will have one USB-port permanently occupied. It may also not be as pleasing to one's eye if there's an external drive permanently attached.

Enjoy your new iMac!


How to open .CSV file with Microsoft Excel? I was told that I could open a .CSV file with Excel. However, my Microsoft Excel refuses to recognize the file.

I have tried my different ways to open it in Excel but the program didn't give me a choice to click the file open.

I am using Mac 10.4 and the Excel version is Microsoft Excel X for Mac.

Assuming you have a valid/consistent CSV file, create a new workbook and then choose File -> Import.  The first option on the list is "CSV file":


Repartitioning after Bootcamp problems When I first got my MacBook Pro, I installed Windows 7 via Boot Camp.

A couple months later I wanted to install Ubuntu and have a triple boot. I followed this tutorial: triple-boot

After I finished following the steps in the tutorial, Windows would not boot (everything else worked fine), so I opened up Disk Utility and decided to remove the Windows partition (because it was setup with Boot Camp). Doing this only created a huge free space where my Windows partition used to be.

Now anything I try to do in Disk Utility displays the error: "Mediakit reports no such partition", even when trying to split up my Mac HD.

How to fix this?

The easiest way I can think of would be to clone the Mac partition and the Ubuntu partition, then repartition the drive, and restore those partitions back.

I don't have any experience with using rEFIt, but I can't think of a reason why this wouldn't work.


Vibrating Bluetooth Bracelet/Watch I'm looking for a device in the form of a bracelet/watch that vibrates when I receive calls and text messages; any recommendations?

Have you looked into the Pebble watch? The company already ships an android/blackberry model and the iPhone version is getting prodigious funding but isn't expected to ship until September 2012.


Does `dtruss -p PID` list system calls made before dtruss was run? I'm trying to diagnose an intermittently slow command. When I run the command and see it hanging, I press control + t to get the PID, then in another tab, run diagnose [PID] - eg, diagnose 123. I've defined diagnose as a function in my zsh configuration:

# See system calls of the process with a given PID
function diagnose() { sudo dtruss -cade -p "$1" 2>&1 | tee /tmp/dtruss_output }

Obviously, since I'm reacting when I notice a hang, I run diagnose several seconds after the process started. The output lists many system calls, but I wonder whether I'm missing anything important.

Does dtruss list commands retroactively? In other words, does the output of dtruss -p [PID] include system calls made by that process before dtruss was run?

No

I've just run an experiment to test this. I wrote and ran this Ruby script:

puts "going to read foo"
puts File.read('/tmp/foo.txt')

sleep 5
puts "going to read bar"
puts File.read('/tmp/bar.txt')

sleep 5
puts "going to read baz"
puts File.read('/tmp/baz.txt')

After it started, I ran diagnose on its PID, as described above. I only saw one call to open:

20309/0x4a7118:     34082      41     34 open("/tmp/baz.txt\0", 0x1000000, 0x1B6)        = 7 0


Should I buy a Hardware Firewall for my Time Capsule 4th Gen Router? For my home network, I am still using the Time Capsule 4th Generation Router, from 2011.
I realized that I may have overestimated the security of this device, as it apparently does not have a Firewall – it only has NAT.
I am concerned about the security aspect, since my Time Capsule is connected immediately to my apartment building's fiber optic network, which provides Internet access.
Behind the Time Capsule, I have several computers with software firewalls, and iOS devices which I assume also have software firewalls. I have recently added some Philips Hue IoT devices.
I am not proficient enough in networks, to know how good protection the Time Capsule and NAT offers.
Question
Is it advisable for me to buy a Hardware Firewall to complement the Time Capsule for security reasons – especially when having some IoT devices?
About getting a new router
I haven't been planning to buy a new Wi-Fi router with better security features or integrated firewall, just yet, because I've been holding out in anticipation of getting a new MacBook Pro with Wi-Fi 6 probably within the next 2–3 years.
So I would ideally keep my Time Capsule for a while longer.
However, if Hardware Firewalls are hardly worth it for home users, I would perhaps consider getting a Wi-Fi 6 Router solution already – even though I can't use Wi-Fi 6 yet – if there are any ones available that also provide good security features or at least a basic firewall.

Is it advisable for me to buy a Hardware Firewall to complement the Time Capsule for security reasons – especially when having some IOT devices?

Yes.  Absolutely.  Unequivocally Yes.
Threats have evolved significantly since 2011 when that Time Capsule came out and quite frankly, are woefully ill-equipped to deal with the current threats.
I don't use "retail/consumer grade" routers that you get at your local big box house.  I use pfSense running on a USFF Dell machine (Core 2 Duo, 8GB RAM and 32GB SSD) configured with an Intel Quad Gig interface.  The total cost was under $150 (the quad gig adapter was the most expensive part).

I can drop traffic from certain global regions (i.e. China, Russia, India, etc.). Any traffic that originates in a particular area is literally dropped.

I can add on any number of enhancements to my router

Run my own VPN
Add my on SSL certificates
Add DNS whitelists/blacklists (pfBlockerNG)
Install a Squid caching Proxy
Configure High Availability with cellular fail over

There's a cornucopia of features you can add to this type of router to customize the level of protection you need.
Such overkill!
Yes, there's a ton of features, many of which you'd probably never need unless you were setting this up for a corporate entity.  However, what's important about having a hardware firewall is that

being hardware, it's performance is that much greater.  The more hardware you throw at it, the better it works
Stateful Packet Inspection.  This is a technology that analyses the "context" of each packet and whether to allow it or to block it.  Your TC is stateless meaning it will either allow or disallow based on a simple rule.  This also requires CPU cycles

Is it really overkill?
IMO, no, it's not.  You can start with a cheap PC you pick up on eBay, Craigslist, Gumtree, etc.  For home, it doesn't need to be fancy.  2GB RAM is more than enough but the more RAM, the more "states" the router can handle.  You'll need a NIC since the computer will come with one, you just need another (one for WAN the other for LAN).  I found (on eBay) SSDs used in thin clients and bought 5 for under $40 (good to have extras on hand).  Spend about an hour putting it together and going through the setup and you'll have an enterprise grade hardware based firewall protecting your network.
TL;DR
Yes.  You absolutley need one.  Whether you build it yourself (I like pfSense or you purchase one (go for a "business class" not fancy "consumer grade") put something capable of handling today's ever evolving threats between the Internet and your network.


How can I extract video clips from a non-encrypted DVD? I have a non-encrypted DVD (of my wedding, if you must know) and I was wondering if I could extract clips from the DVD into files in some standard video format (i.e. clip1.mp4) so I can look at them on my iMac and perhaps upload them to YouTube.

I suppose I would be willing to install software for this, but I'm especially curious to know if the software that shipped with my iMac (i.e. iLife) can do this.  I clicked around under "File -> Import" in iMovie but haven't been able to figure it out.  I regularly import video from my video camera into iMovie, but I've never imported video from a DVD before.

Here's a listing of the DVD contents:

imac:~ pdurbin$ cd /Volumes/ClickToDVD
imac:ClickToDVD pdurbin$ find .
.
./AUDIO_TS
./OpenDVD
./OpenDVD/ClickMe.htm
./OpenDVD/opendvd.pvm
./OpenDVD/Sources
./OpenDVD/Sources/Sources
./OpenDVD/Sources/Sources/MOV19d5d1.mpg
./OpenDVD/Sources/Sources/MOV19d5d1.ses_V011
./OpenDVD/Sources/VTS_01_1_VOB
./OpenDVD/Sources/VTS_01_1_VOB/VTS_01_1_VOB.ses
./OpenDVD/Sources/VTS_02_1_VOB
./OpenDVD/Sources/VTS_02_1_VOB/VTS_02_1_VOB.ses
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources001
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources001/AUD19d5c8.ac3
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources001/AUD19d5c8.ses_V011
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources002
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources002/MOV19d5d0.mpg
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources002/MOV19d5d0.ses_V011
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources003
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources003/AUD19d5c6.ac3
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources003/AUD19d5c6.ses_V011
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources004
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources004/MOV19d5d3.mpg
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources004/MOV19d5d3.ses_V011
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources005
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources005/AUD19d5cc.ac3
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources005/AUD19d5cc.ses_V011
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources006
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources006/MOV19d5d2.mpg
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources006/MOV19d5d2.ses_V011
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources007
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources007/AUD19d5ca.ac3
./OpenDVD/Sources/_Sources007/AUD19d5ca.ses_V011
./OpenDVD/Untitled.dvd
./VIDEO_TS
./VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.BUP
./VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO
./VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB
./VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.BUP
./VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.IFO
./VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.VOB
./VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB
./VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_2.VOB
./VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_3.VOB
./VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_4.VOB
./VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_0.BUP
./VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_0.IFO
./VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_0.VOB
./VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB
imac:ClickToDVD pdurbin$

I would look into using Handbrake, the iLife suite is good for some things, but not this scenario - it will let you create and edit films that are already in a decent file format, or burn them to a DVD, but not take from a DVD with ease (or at all).

While it is possible to snip a portion of a DVD, it's not desirable for a number of reasons, mainly file size.  A DVD is encoded in Mpeg2.  Good for DVDs, or it was when it was when DVDs were new, but woefully poor compared to a modern codec like H.264.  A 3-hour film might take up 8Gb of space on a dual layer DVD, but perhaps as little as 1Gb in a more modern format.  Certainly, if the intended recipient is YouTube, then reducing the quality and resolution can easily also reduce file size 20x +, which makes for quicker uploads.

So, considering that, what you will end up doing, regardless of what program you use, is decoding the Mpeg 2 and re-encoding it into something else rather than snipping out (Could be h.264, DivX or any number of others, all of which provide the same quality or better (You can't improve a bad source) at massively lower file sizes).  h.264 is a good choice, YouTube use it directly for delivery to mobile devices.

Handbrake lets you choose by DVD chapter, DVD Chapter Episode, or just a section of seconds and quickly re-encode it into something more modern and more suitable for computing use rather than brown box DVD player use.  It will do loads of other things, including messing around with subtitles and multiple audio channels (think directors commentary) which your wedding video is unlikely to have, but it's nice to have the ability if you need it for something else later.

Handbrake is free, works on Windows/Mac/Linux, and is actively developed & updated, so a popular choice.


How to diagnose the SMC? This article from the Apple Knowledge Base:
Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac

describes very well which kinds of events are symptoms which might
be related to an SMC in need of a reset. But the relationship isn't
clearly established.

Is there any simple method to diagnose clearly the SMC state:

is it OK?
does it need a reset?

Something like (for NVRAM):

nvram -p

or

nvram -p | diff /etc/nvram.backup -

Your best bet is to go through Apple's diagnotic utilities, but be prepared for it to tell you everything is fine.

Put you machine on a flat stable surface and plug it in.  Perform a restart or a power on and immediately hold down the 'd' key (d for diagnostics).  It should at least test your power adapter which is goverened by the SMC chip.