How to disable transpose shortcut? How can I disable the system transpose (Ctrl+T) shortcut?

Note: I'm using a MacBook Pro running High Sierra (10.13.1)

I've tried searching online, stack overflow, etc. and tried everything I could think of, but I haven't been able to find any way to disable the system keyboard shortcuts. For example, Ctrl+T doesn't appear under Preferences > Keyboard. I even tried manually editing ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist, but it doesn't appear there either.

For reference, here's what my ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist file looks like

These emacs-style shortcuts -- like ^T for transpose -- are defined for the entire OS's text system in /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Resources/StandardKeyBinding.dict.

To override the shortcuts, Apple suggests:

  To customize bindings, you create a file named DefaultKeyBinding.dict in ~/Library/KeyBindings/ and specify bindings to augment or replace the standard bindings. You may use the standard bindings file as a template. It is recommended that you use the Property List Editor application to edit a bindings dictionary. You may use another application such as TextEdit or Xcode, but if you do you must ensure the encoding of the saved file is UTF8.

Source: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/EventOverview/TextDefaultsBindings/TextDefaultsBindings.html


Three dots but no message in iMessages When I text another iPhone user I see the balloon with the three dots but sometimes no message appears after the three dots.

Is it possible they are typing a text to a different user?

The 3 dots indicator appears when a user is typing and they have enabled the "Show typing" setting. However, they may start typing and then decide not to send the message, or stop to do something else, and therefore the message is never sent. The 3 dots indicator is not an indication that a message is incoming, simply that the user is typing.

The indicator only appears when they are typing a message specifically to you. It does not trigger when they are typing messages to others.

However, the indicator can get stuck if there are network errors or slowness, if the server is overloaded or has stale data. In practice, it can remain stuck until you get another complete message from that sender or you decide to delete that conversation.


How reliable is Find My iPhone "Erase My Mac" feature? I recently had a Macbook Pro stolen. I used Find My iPhone "Erase" feature which after two days claimed to have worked. But how reliable is this? The computer had a 500Gb SSD in it, and warns that it could take up to a day to complete the erase. Does anyone know if the "Erased successfully" message is sent after the erase has complete, or at the start of it being instigated by iCloud, as presumably someone could pull the power / turn it off, and prevent the erase completing (if the message were sent at the start)?

NOTE: There was (stupidly of me) no security / encryption on the drive but I did set the passcode when I used the erase feature of FMi

This macobserver.com article details the procedure that is set into action when you click that big red 'Wipe Mac' button, and how that data could be recovered.

In conclusion...

  A remote lock state limits boot options on the Mac, but can still be circumvented by pulling the drive and mounting it on another computer.
  A remote wipe wipes all internal drives and, once complete, leaves access only to the Recovery Partition.

This Apple knowledgebase article also mentions that

  If the device is online, the remote erase begins within seconds (if the device is a Mac, it also restarts before it’s erased), and a confirmation email is sent to your Apple ID email address (the one you use with iCloud).


How to determine if my iPhone XS is Fast Charging? I recently got myself a USB Type C to Lighting Cable and a 30W USB Type C Adaptor(USB-PD). When I plug in the charger to my iPhone, I find my phone charging noticeably faster than normal but there doesn't seem to be any indication on the screen regarding the device being Fast Charged.

I read online about a "Double Ding" sounds when plugging in, but I don't think it seems to happen for my device.

I have a iPhone XS Max running latest version of iOS 12.

There’s no on-screen indication of the charging speed on current iOS versions.

The only way to really know is to time the charging, or use external hardware for USB-PD debugging that can show you the actual watts.


High Sierra - Why is Recovery HD inside the APFS container? I noticed a few days ago that the Recovery partition was inside the APFS container. Isn't it better for it to be a separate volume? For example, APFS containers sometimes get corrupted with an invalid partition type (FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF), so you can't boot to Recovery mode either, because that's inside the container! Why is this the case? Is there an explanation? Here is the output from diskutil list. You can clearly see that it's inside the container.

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         435.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:           Linux Filesystem                         25.0 GB    disk0s3
   4:           Linux Filesystem                         39.9 GB    disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +435.1 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            425.5 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 22.4 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                517.8 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      3.2 GB     disk1s4

Placing the recovery volume inside the APFS container allows space sharing. Instead of creating a fixed partition, the unused space inside Preboot and Recovery can be pooled with your normal volume. Only the actual space used by the Recovery files becomes unavailable.

This also simplifies issues if in the future, the Recovery volume needs more space. Instead of a risky resize operation to your data partition, it simply becomes a matter of adjusting the metadata for the Recovery volume.

Finally, any Mac that shipped with an SSD has Internet Recovery, so you have a reasonable solution if the entire drive gets corrupted.


DNS works in terminal but not elsewhere in Mac OS I have an issue similar to the one in this question: DNS not resolving on Mac OS.

Things out on the Internet work fine. Local machines in my company, however, fail to resolve, including the servers I'm trying to work on.

We use local DNS servers and my Network preferences show only those local DNS servers. (192.168.20.10, 192.168.25.10)

Trying to get to them via hostname.companyname.local or hostname.companyname.com fails in mac OS apps (Safari, Firefox, Chrome, RDC, etc). However, if I use dig or nslookup in the terminal, it comes back just fine:

dig hostname.companyname.local

; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> hostname.companyname.local
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 16841
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;hostname.companyname.local.        IN  A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
hostname.companyname.local. 1200    IN  A   192.168.25.24

;; Query time: 3 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.20.10#53(192.168.20.10)
;; WHEN: Thu Nov 20 11:36:49 2014
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 54

So, why does it work in Terminal and why doesn't it work in Mac OS? (Using Yosemite.) The answer from the previously linked thread about bouncing mDNSResponder sounded promising, but that doesn't appear to exist in Yosemite.

Why does it work in Terminal and why doesn't it work in Mac OS? The answer to your first part is in man dig or man host:

  The dig command does not use the host name and address resolution or the DNS query routing mechanisms used by other processes running on Mac OS X.  The results of name or address queries printed by dig may differ from those found by other processes that use the Mac OS X native name and address resolution mechanisms.  The results of DNS queries may also differ from queries that use the Mac OS X DNS routing library.

To answer the second part, I would run a packet trace and see if the query packets are going out, and if so, to where? tcpdump -i en0 -vnnt "udp port 53"

mDNS is for Bonjour discovery; I don't believe it has much to do with standard DNS but don't quote me on that.


Cannot use AirDrop on my Mac running Yosemite I am trying to use AirDrop to copy some files to my iPad Air 2 but have some problems.

In my AirDrop folder, it never asked me whether I want to share it with Contact or Everyone. I have my ipad AirDrop turned on but it does not appear on my Mac's AirDrop folder.

I have Wifi and Bluetooth turned on on both devices. This is what my AirDrop window looks like:

Can someone please help on this?

Your Mac may not meet the system requirements. At the bottom of this page, you'll see a list of the computers that support AirDrop.

(If your computer is one of the ones that should support AirDrop, please edit your question to say so.)


Macbook Pro 13" Mid 2014 disk defect? I just bought a MBP 13" mid 2014 with a 128 GB SSD.
When doing a disk speed test with the Black Magic Design-app, I only get about 210 MB/s write and about 510-550 MB/s read.

All the benchmark videos I have seen using the same app all get about 310 MB/s write and up to 700 MB/s read.

Is there something wrong with my disk? The computer seems fine in daily use but I want the performance I paid for.

Well if it is not the state of you disk it could easily be just a different SSD vendor. Those figures you have provided are from testing SanDisk 128GB equipped ones.

Apple has many different vendors for same part and some SSD chipsets are faster at sequential than other. It might just be the case. Here is an article on similar discrepancy over 2013 and 2014 MBAs

  For many years, Apple has used different suppliers for the solid-state
  drives (SSDs) in its MacBook Air models, with drive performance
  varying among manufacturer brands. A recent study by Macworld
  demonstrated rather dramatic differences in SSD read and write speeds
  between tested 2013 and 2014 models, but at the time it was unclear
  whether the poorer performance for the 2014 models was still simply
  due to drive brand variances or if there was something specific to the
  2014 machines causing an overall degradation in performance.

If it is the case then what you can do is either sell it and find SanDisk equipped one or bring it back to Apple if you are in 14 days window (you would have to pay restocking fee though. No you can't claim that you are not getting performance you have paid for because Apple is only advertising its performance as “up to” figures)

On the other hand if you are not working with high def video on this machine and SSD I wouldn't bother since those sequential speeds are only good for that. And that tool is from company that is creating pricey tools for movie production btw.


How to tell if the macOS Catalina install file was deleted once installation was complete? I want to make sure it's not sitting around somewhere taking up disk space.  In the past Apple has put installer files in the Applications folder, but I'm not sure if that is still the case.

In the past Apple has put installer files in the Applications folder

/Applications is still where the installer is placed after downloading.


How to toggle a button using URL? I am trying to create a Shortcut to turn off Location Services on my iPhone. For this, I am using the settings URL scheme to go into Location Services, but I cannot get a direction on how to toggle the button off.
Is it at all possible to toggle a button using a boolean value in the URL?
I see there are several Set actions like Set WiFi and Set Bluetooth. Can someone help me understand how these functions work in the background?
I’m running iOS 14 on an iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Apple does not provide the ability to change settings in the Settings app by a URL.
You can only navigate to a page within the app for you to switch the setting yourself as you've found. A URL that could toggle a setting could be a security issue in that the URL could be navigated to by a bad third-party and toggle a setting without your permission.
Actions in the Shortcuts app like the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth toggles use private APIs only available to apps with specific Apple private entitlements.


Why can't my Mac Pro connect to an SMB share over the network? I have a really weird problem. I have a Raspberry Pi running an SMB server that shows up in the sidebar of the Finder. I usually can just click on it and connect. Just today, it stopped working and gives me the error "Connection Failed". It has worked fine in the past. I'm running OS 10.8.4 on a Mac Pro. Our MBP (also 10.8.4) connects just fine, no problems. I see log messages in Console.app as such:

9/10/13 7:14:43.869 PM com.apple.kextd[12]: Request from non-root process 'netbiosd' (euid 222) to load /System/Library/Extensions/smbfs.kext - not allowed.
9/10/13 7:14:43.870 PM netbiosd[84]: Loading com.apple.filesystems.smbfs status = -603947004

Thoughts?

First, try to restart File Sharing in the Sharing Preference Pane.

There is a bug in OS X that still lives in 10.8.5, where a race condition can cause File Sharing to start before an auth configuration is done, causing it to fail any SMB connection to network shares with any sort of privileges.

If this solved your problem, one way to automatise this process is to create a launchd agent with the following contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.mcdado.restart_smb</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
        <string>/bin/bash</string>
        <string>-c</string>
        <string>sleep 60;touch "/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.smb.server.plist"</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Save this file to ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.mcdado.restart_smb, then load it by running the following command: sudo launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.mcdado.restart_smb

Source: SMB and Lion | Oceanside Coding


Lion Server LDAP gone after restart - Error -14006 Similar to slapd daemon can't start but despite being accepted, the answer didn't really work for the asker.

Shut down Lion Server 10.7.5 (on a 2011 Mini Server) today after Time Machine got itself in a tizzy and failed to backup for several hours while claiming it was "stopping" (presumably unrelated to problem, just the why of restarting it.)

Shut down hung - after 15 minutes or so I powered it off.

When it came back up, there was a red ball at the right of the username box with a nastygram indicating that network accounts were not available. Logged in the local administrative user - when trying to get to LDAP from workgroup manager "The node .LDAPv3/127.0.0.1 couldn't be opened because an unexpected error of type -14006 occurred" is the helpful, friendly response.

Server Alerts indicates self-signed certificates expired. Offers to repair/recreate. Doesn't seem to help. Reboot after that - still doesn't seem to help. Presumably the problem occurred at first reboot after they expired; That does not actually seem to be true however, looking at the expiry dates. Server has rebooted many times and LDAPv3 has been happy up until today.

This topic at AFP548 (first I've heard of that forum) seems related, but applying it may be difficult given that my self-signed certs are expired rather than removed.

It's going to be a late night trying to get my fileserver back in shape before other people arrive and want to use it. At least I have the files, but any better insight than that provided by the linked topics would be appreciated.

The moment LDAP and Open Directory get themselves into a tizzy I always look towards Kerberos.

Have a prowl with kadmin and ktutil and see if Kerberos is working nicely. Have a good look at getting your certificates A-OK. Check that DNS and reverse DNS are giving valid responses.

Copy the LDAP database then blow it away and start again to see if it's a problem with that. If slapd is up then try doing some searches with ldapsearch.


Archived Messages Reappear in the Mail App Inbox I'm using Gmail on my iPhone 6 (IOS 9.1). When I archive some messages (by swiping left on the message in the Mail.app), they disappear from my Inbox, then get added right back a second or two later. This has been going on since IOS 8.1 and still isn't working right since upgrading to IOS 9.1 I figured it would have been fixed, but it's not.

I tried archiving to different folder than All Mail but that didn't solve the problem. Also, there is no pattern to the messages. This is happening regardless of who the message is from or its content.

I gave up after a year of dealing with this annoyance and using Outlook for now, but I'd really like to use the Mail App on my iPhone again.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

One other possibly related and interesting note, the mail app in OS X also does the same thing (click the archive button, message disappears for a few moments then pops back in the inbox, then disappears again). Perhaps IMAP commands are being queued up, then mail refreshes and notices the message hasn't been actually moved yet, and adds it back to inbox... just my theory.

This could be an issue with your iPhone settings.

Go to settings > mail, contact, calendar > Gmail

Here you will see you gmail account, select it.
On the following view, there is an option for advanced settings.

Here you can change to with folder archived mails should be placed.

Please let me know if this solved your problem.


Reconnect to network drive on connection to network I have a NAS and I connect to it as a network drive, however when I leave the house with the MacBook Pro and come back I have to manually remember to reconnect to the network drive. Is there anyway to do this automatically?

ControlPlane is not a solution as it currently has problems with macOS Sierra.

System version: macOS Sierra 10.12.5

I've been having the exact same problem and search for a solution. Eventually I found a few apps in the app store (I never normally look for software there!) that claim to be able to reconnect network drives after sleep:

Drive Mounty - I tried the pro version of this (£2.99) for a few weeks and it seemed to mostly work ok but suddenly started hammering the CPU and failing to mount the drive and also adding random suffixes to the mount point. The free version is restricted to 1 mount point and limited remounts. Was promising at first but sadly became unreliable.

Auto Mounter - Currently trying this (£9.99) with the Pro options pack too (£2.99). Looks good so far and has lots of features and the ability to create rules. Can mount drives in /Volumes using a separate helper utility that overcomes the App Store sandboxing. It's a shame there is no free trial version available.

Drive Mounter - Not tried this because Auto Mounter is holding up well so far. Has a free version too to try.

If you try any of these let me know how they work out.


How to install WhatsApp on iPad mini? How can I install WhatsApp on iPad mini (cellular)? It's not jailbroken and I am using iOS 7 but I cant install WhatsApp on it.

WhatsApp Messenger is currently not optimised for iPad, and therefore you will need to search for iPhone apps in the App Store search using the filter at the top.


Homebrew permissions & multiple users needing to brew update I'm using Homebrew to manage package installs on Lion (Lion Server actually but this shouldn't matter).

Homebrew was installed under one user. Now a different user would like to add a package and Homebrew isn't happy:

$ brew update
fatal: Unable to create '/usr/local/.git/index.lock': Permission denied
Error: Failure while executing: git checkout -q master

Is this considered bad? I thought one of the advantages of using /usr/local/ for your installs was that you don't need sudo. But clearly we do.

All users who would need to modify Homebrew are members of admin group. So, I could chmod -R g+w /usr/local/ but afraid this will bork something or create security issues?!?

Advice?

$ ls -al /usr/local/.git/
total 432
drwxr-xr-x  14 ladmin  admin     476 Feb 24 11:48 .
drwxrwxr-x  14 root    admin     476 Feb  9 15:27 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 ladmin  admin      94 Feb 24 11:48 FETCH_HEAD
-rw-r--r--   1 ladmin  admin      23 Feb 24 11:48 HEAD
-rw-r--r--   1 ladmin  admin      41 Feb  9 15:28 ORIG_HEAD
drwxr-xr-x   2 ladmin  admin      68 Feb  9 15:27 branches
-rw-r--r--   1 ladmin  admin     218 Feb  9 15:27 config
-rw-r--r--   1 ladmin  admin      73 Feb  9 15:27 description
drwxr-xr-x  12 ladmin  admin     408 Feb  9 15:27 hooks
-rw-r--r--   1 ladmin  admin  200272 Feb 24 11:48 index
drwxr-xr-x   3 ladmin  admin     102 Feb  9 15:27 info
drwxr-xr-x   4 ladmin  admin     136 Feb  9 15:27 logs
drwxr-xr-x   4 ladmin  admin     136 Feb  9 15:27 objects
drwxr-xr-x   5 ladmin  admin     170 Feb  9 15:27 refs

Is this considered bad? I thought one of the advantages of using /usr/local/ for your installs was that you don't need sudo. But clearly we do.

Homebrew, by default, sets itself up for single-user access to /usr/local. So you need to open up the permissions on the directory tree for it to be administered by more than one person.

People don't need to run sudo here to administer homebrew. You just need to change some permissions. Since you already have:

  All users who would need to modify Homebrew are members of admin group.

You need to do two more things:

Make sure everything under /usr/local belongs to the group admin; and
Make sure anyone from the group admin can write to anything under /usr/local.

In this case the changes to make are:

chgrp -R admin /usr/local
chmod -R g+w /usr/local
chgrp -R admin /Library/Caches/Homebrew
chmod -R g+w /Library/Caches/Homebrew

And any user from the admin group should be able to manage the homebrew installation on the machine.  If you need to add a user to the admin group this can be accomplished like this:

 dseditgroup -o edit -a <username> -t user admin

(that user will need to login again to have the privileges granted).

For sanity on the machine, you may want to consider creating your own fork of Homebrew and have your local homebrew git repository point to the local fork. That lets you customize Homebrew for your environment and control the versions of packages that people are able to install with the brew command. With multiple people doing installs you could run in to version issues or dependency issues.


Can I use an iPhone 6s in Sri Lanka if I purchase it in Dubai? I am going to purchase an Apple iPhone 6s 16GB from Dubai. And I'll use it in Sri Lanka. The carrier I'm going to use is 'Dialog' in Sri Lanka. They has 4G LTE(band 3-1800MHz). There are variations in iPhone models. And also I've heard that there are locked and unlocked iPhones. This is really confusing for me. These are my questions:

What variation should I buy(which works in Sri Lanka)?

Unlocked or Locked one?

If you buy a LOCKED phone, you can only use it with the carrier to which it is locked. An UNLOCKED phone is usable on any carrier in any country, assuming it uses the same frequency bands. You would need to purchase a local SIM card for every network on which you need to use the phone.

Fortunately the iPhone 6s supports more bands than almost any other phone, so it should work in almost every country.

For this flexibility, there is a price - an unlocked phone is usually much more expensive than a locked phone. But for the ability to use it anywhere in the world, that additional price might be worth it.


X11 applications don't open after XQuartz update (OS X 10.10.4) I updated X11 by installing the most recent XQuartz package, 2.7.9. Now, when opening an application that is supported by X11 (e.g., emacs), my terminal throws an error (while X11 starts in the background):

[lap0988:~] user% emacs test.txt &
[1] 14071
[lap0988:~] user% Error: Couldn't find per display information

Needless to say, the application doesn't open. My hunch is that this has to do with the DISPLAY environment variable.

[lap0988:~] user% echo $DISPLAY
/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.p7v5k8pNT7/org.macosforge.xquartz:0

Has anyone come across the problem? Can you suggest a straightforward fix for this?

I'm afraid you'll probably need to rebuild emacs.  I expect that the one you have is looking for libraries that aren't there any more following the XQuartz update.

I had the exact same problem, and solved it with brew upgrade emacs --with-x11 --with-ctags --with-glib --with-gnutls.  The relevant command-line for you will differ according to your choice of package manager and build options.


Can't connect to Server.app local sites My development server is Server.app. After having to reinstall macOS in recovery mode, browsers can no longer connect to my local sites. I can't select the text of the error that Safari gves so here's a screenshot...

Other browsers give errors of the same substance.

Update: Looking elsewhere I found mention of Stealth Mode. On checking I found that was switched on during the reinstall. Turning it off now allows me to ping 127.0.0.1 & my local host names in Terminal, but I still can't reach my local hosts in a browser.

The Server.app webserver is on, & all my sites are still there. I've checked the configuration of the ones that matter most right now & they're still correct. My hosts file is still as it should be.

Update 2: Expanding as a result of answer by Tom E, what I get when running the command suggested is...

Europa:~ pedro$ host volhq.mmf.yii.dev
volhq.mmf.yii.dev has address 127.0.53.53
volhq.mmf.yii.dev mail is handled by 10 your-dns-needs-immediate-attention.dev.

I have always used a hosts file rather than DNS, taking the former to be simpler & sufficient for my needs, & that has worked until now. However if setting up a DNS is the medicine, I shall take it.

Update 3: I think the question now becomes, how do I get the IP address on my host names from 127.0.53.53 back to 127.0.0.1? For more than 10 years I have used a hosts file with entries like 127.0.0.1 volhq.mmf.yii.dev & it has worked.

Stealth Mode is a feature of the built-in firewall. If enabled, it simply keeps the firewall from responding to ”ICMP echo requests“ (aka Pings). It doesn’t keep browsers from connecting to a web server.

In your case, the reason could be a problem with your DNS configuration. Please check both the client’s and the server’s DNS setup. Try to resolve volhq.mmf.yii.dev from the client’s command line:

host volhq.mmf.yii.dev

and see what reply the command gives you. Get back here if you don’t receive an error…


Is it possible to reserve exact amount of space for the indexing and virtual memory? Is it possible to reserve exact amount of space for the indexing and virtual memory?

I have Macbook Air with 128 GB SDD (with OS X Yosemite). When I run out of memory (free space less than 1 GB) the computer slows down and even hangs up.

I suspect that this slow down is due to the impossibility of indexing to be written on the disk and due to a lack of space for the virtual memory.

Is it possible to single out a place to be used only for paging and indexing? For example, to reserve 10 GB for that purpose?

In Linux systems there is a /var folder where these kind of stuff are written. It can be  put on a separate partition and this way to reserve certain amount of space only for itself. Is it possible to do something like this on a Mac in regard to indexing and virtual memory? I would sacrifice 10-15GB for it, if is needed.

As SSDs age, it takes more and more work for them to store data.  This is only made worse by having less than 1GB of space available.  In my experience (with a 2010 Macbook Air, with the 250GB SSD), performance GREATLY improved when I had >10% free space.

Do what you can to give your computer some breathing room!  Delete some files now!

Here's a classic article on how SSDs work.  Probably TMI, but...
   http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/inside-the-ssd-revolution-how-solid-state-disks-really-work/


iOS6 on iPod: Facebook Messenger doesn't show notifications I have both Facebook and  Facebook Messenger installed on my 4th generation iPod Touch, and Facebook messenger doesn't seem to receive push notifications. The setting is on in the iOS settings, but it doesn't seem to affect anything.

The notifications for my messages show in the normal Facebook app, but this is the opposite of the behaviour I want. I want messages in Facebook chat to show in messenger instead.

How should I go about fixing this? I'm not very used to iOS so I'm not sure what other places I should check.

You'll have to install the standalone Facebook Messenger app (different app in the app store from the facebook app) to get push notifications working with Facebook messenger.  Notifications from the main Facebook app don't seem to work at all for messages.


Keeping emails on the server when using an iPad 2 for email I am considering buying an iPad 2 mainly for email on-the-hoof. I use my main PC as the central machine for email, so does the iPad have the option to mirror what is on the email server, rather than download and delete? That way I can get emails as I travel but the originals would still be on the main PC when I return home.

The iPad supports 2 Mail mechanisms that allow you to do this, IMAP and Exchange.

Both of these mechanisms allow the server to control the status of mail messages, whether they are read/unread etc, what folders they have been moved into.  If you use either of these mechanisms then you can expect to see basically the same content no matter what you use to view the mail on.

The key is what email service you use, as to whether it supports IMAP or Exchange, or something older like POP3 that will now allow such consistent mail states.

iCloud accounts from Apple effectively use IMAP behind the scenes.  GMail can be configured to use pretty much any mechanism, and so can also be happily used.


Everytime I start my MacBook Air there is a blank interface window When I start my MacBook Air, an empty/blank window appears. Does anybody know how to get rid of or repair it so that when I boot up it doesn´t appear? There is nothing else wrong with it, I can just close the empty window and everything is fine.

I have solved the problem by reinstalling latest OS. Follow these steps to do it :

Shut down your Mac first
Restart and keep cmd+R buttons pressed until Apple Logo shown
Choose from the menu reinstall OS (in my case : Reinstall Sierra)
Follow on screen instructions.

Reinstalling latest OS doesn't change or delete your current settings or installed softwares.


Macbook Pro in 2-screen setup Is it possible to use a Macbook Pro 15" (latest) in a setup where an external LCD is connected and used as the primary screen while at the same time the Macbook's own screen is used as the secondary screen (= extends the primary screen to the right)?

(I'd like to work on a big monitor and use the Macbook screen for auxiliary stuff like Terminal windows.)

If You have Mavericks installed it's not a problem at all to quickly switch between the primary/secondary screen, because the menubar is present on both screens.

To move the Dock You only need to move your mouse cursor to the bottom of the second screen and then move the mouse down again.

EDIT:
On previous OSs you can also change the primary screen in Preferences -> Displays -> Arrangements and move the Menubar (white stripe) to secondary screen. Here you can also change the position of secondary monitor.


How to update external iSight firmware? Apple released several firmware revisions for the external iSight camera:

iSight 1.0.3 Update

Improved audio performance

iSight 1.0.2 Update

Improved auto exposure
Improved auto white balance
Enhanced IIDC compliance
Better overall performance

How can I update my iSight to the latest firmware revision?

Apple released an iSight Updater software package, which is still available online:

iSight Updater 1.0.3
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL502

The problem is that the software download requires Mac OS X v10.3 Panther to run.
iSight can also be updated on OS X 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard. The updater on those systems is located at:
\System\Library\CoreServices\iSight Updaters\iSight Updater
So, find an OS X 10.3, 10.4, or 10.5 machine or VM to run the iSight Updater software.


Do 2.5" SATA HDDs in an external enclosure need extra power over USB with Windows? MacBook Pro 2008 motherboard failed. Upon sending it to an Apple authorized repair center, they confirmed this. They gave me the laptop back so I could open 'er up and get the hard disk out, which I did. The hard disk should be undamaged.

However, upon plugging it into an external enclosure – and connecting the enclosure to a computer running Windows – there's power, but nothing seems to happen. I'm just powering over USB. I wouldn't expect the HDD to be dead as well as the motherboard.

Does the 2.5" SATA HDD from a 2008 MacBook Pro need extra power when connected in that way?

What is the exact make and model of external enclosure you are using? Some of them require an external AC adaptor. Some of them come with a duplex (two-headed) USB cable and require that both of them be plugged in to powered USB sources to provide enough voltage to run the enclosure and the drive.

Of course it is possible that your hard drive itself is damaged. If that is the case, you will need to pay a lot of money to a specialty hard disk data recovery service.

Finally, do you not already have a Time Machine backup of your Mac's internal hard drive to an external disk drive? When this current situation is resolved, it would be wise to invest in an external backup system using Time Machine.

UPDATE:

Have you tried this drive in a different external enclosure? until you do that, you can't rule out that it's the external enclosure's problem and not the drive's problem.


Error correction disabled. Will iTunes report errors it encounters? Environment: Windows 7 and iTunes 12

Situation: I want to import a 33-disc audiobook.

In Import Settings, there is a checkbox for correcting errors (such as due to dust and scratches).

I know that using error correction will slow down the import process on older computers.

If I disable error correction, will iTunes alert me in some fashion either during the process or at the end, such as "Import complete but with errors," at which point I can choose to import again but with error correction enabled?

I've never known it to report errors, unless the read fails totally.

On any reasonably modern machine, error correction takes so little extra effort that it's not worth switching off.
All it does is compares a checksum on the CD itself with one it calculates on the fly. If they match, job done & on to the next track.  If they don't match, then it will try again.


Screenshot a specific dimension, by default I would like to do a screenshot/grab of a specific size, is there a way to set this on Yosemite, or is anyone aware of a software tool/app to do this?

I currently have to draw the shape, but often start at the wrong place so have to go through the motions two or three times, when if I had a fixed size i could position it over the area to screenshot to make sure it is correct.

Unlike the related question, The exact position on the screen may differ as I'll be taking a screenshot of my own web site but the browser window might differ in its location.

I am open to all possibilities whether programmatically, workflow, app or website.

On Windows there is a tool called MWSnap that allows settings a default fixed area.

thanks

A popular capture tool that I'm aware of is SnagIt.   SnagIt does have an option for capturing a fixed region (pre defined size).

SnagIt isn't the cheapest of the capture tools out there...   just a popular one (and I also use it frequently for work).


is there a way to disable update notifications in iWork apps (Pages, Keynote, Numbers)? Even with App Store Automatic Updates set to OFF, all of the iWork apps pop up a modal dialog box on startup to inform you there is an update. Is there a way to disable this behavior (in El Capitan)?

Yes, you can disable this. It is very easy, although completely unsupported and undocumented by Apple.

Install the PrefsEditor application. (You can also do the following steps with Xcode… but ew.)
Open PrefsEditor and select the com.apple.iWork.Pages.plist bundle.
Find the TSAAUNPersistedState dictionary and click its disclosure triangle.
Edit the nextAlertPresentationDate field to some date far in the future (for example, change 2018 to 2030).
Save with Cmd+S.
Repeat for com.apple.iWork.Numbers.plist and com.apple.iWork.Keynote.plist.
Profit! (No more obnoxious popup dialogs.)

These instructions are summarized from a wonderful post on MacRumors.


Does Time Machine change file permissions while doing a backup? I use Time Machine to make backups of my computer. Now I would like to mirror the complete backup to a remote machine for added security.

Here's my rsync command:

rsync -azvH --progress --partial --delete -e ssh /Volumes/2tb/Backups.backupdb/ user@remote:/backup

I use -a to preserve timestamp, -z for compression, -v to get verbose output, -H to preserve hard links (essential to copy Time Machine backup), --progress to see what's happening, --partial keeps partially transferred files, --delete removes files on remote that are deleted locally.

When I run this, I get a lot of file permission errors. Apparently, I'm not allowed to access a lot of files in my Time Machine backup. This is not only for files in /private, but also files in /usr/ which should have read permissions.

Does Time Machine change file permissions while doing a backup?
How can I use rsync to mirror my complete Time Machine backup without using sudo?

This site is devoted to answering questions about Apple Products, but it's aimed more towards comsumers than power users. That doesen't mean your question is "wrong" in any way or you should remove it, but I strongly reccomend to ask it at the Super User Stackexchange site, which is devoted to power users like you. I think you might find there someone who can answer your question much sooner than here.


What did I do wrong - Safari 6.0.5 on 10.8.4 ... has recently taken a turn for the worse. Constant beach-balls, and after an hour's browsing, that damned Safari Web Content is running between 2 and 3GB, between real and virtual. If I leave tabs sit, Safari says it must force reload all pages.

A little memory-freer app helps release some "Inactive Memory," run frequently, but doesn't seem like a real answer.

Have 8 GB RAM in a 2.8GHz MBPro, and lately big page-out numbers. Did the RAM needed to run all this get ahead of me ... or is this all really Safari? Or Flash, which runs at high memory, but not so high as that "Web Content" - which is what? Another name for Flash?

On broadband, we used to say, Disable caches. Maybe not a good idea anymore. Or turning off pre-fetching?

Restarting Safari returns things to normal, for a while. I run a few extensions, not many. Keep machine in good maintenance. Do not have a problem with keeping many apps open. I just wanna surf!

For what it is worth, I generally recommend to people who don't want to update their OS that they use chrome. Apple only updates safari when they update the entire os, so you are better off with a third party solution for a browser.

(Mavericks came out after this question was posted, so this answer is only effective for people looking for an answer to the question now that it has been released.)


Is it possible to bypass the activation on an iPhone 5c that has "No SIM" issue? I have an iPhone 5c with a No SIM issue.  I DFU restored it to no avail, still shows "No SIM".  I wonder if there's a way to bypass the activation so I can use it even if just on WI-FI.  Could jail-breaking it help anything?  Any other means?


Display Dock on the main screen on left when second screen is arranged to left I've this arrangment of screens, and I've set the dock to stay on the left side.

The problem is that the dock goes on the second screen, while i want to keep it on the main one (the one with the white bar basically).

Any idea?

With the screen arrangement below you can accomplish what you want. However, with this arrangement it is not that intuitive to move with the mouse from one screen to the other. I have my MacBook sitting to the left of, and slightly lower than my monitor so it did not take too long to get used to it.


Panic Coda 2.5.1 SFTP No longer connects "Could not connect to server _____. Failed to open file" Since upgrading to Yosemite, I'm unable to connect via SFTP to any site.

It allows me to open a terminal and connect... so the credentials are good.

I have reinstalled Coda (including removing the Library files and using "app delete" to remove all references - then re-installing)
I have performed a "repair permissions" from the disk utility
I have added new sites to the site manager, and they all fail

Any ideas or suggestions?

here is a screenshot:

The SSH known hosts file had the wrong permissions (which were not fixed by "repair permissions" from the disk utility)

to fix, run the following in terminal:

sudo chmod 644 ~/.ssh/known_hosts


iPhone Security When Showing Pics Is there a way to keep my iPhone 5 secure when passing it around to show photos?

Yes, even in 2016 some people still behave like they did in High School:  you pass over your phone so they can see a couple of pics and they sift thru your other pics or worse, they start snooping thru other apps.

Perhaps there is a photo app into which I could place selected pics - AND that doesn't allow access outside of the one app.

Any suggestions appreciated!

Use Guided Access

Open Settings.app -> General -> Accessibility -> Guided Access (On)
Open your Photos app and choose the album you want to show your friends.
Triple-click the side lock button (or home button, if applicable).
Select Guided Access if menu appears
Choose to deactivate certain areas of the touch screen to prevent them from accessing navigation.
Set a password when prompted
Start guided access and hand your phone around.

To End:

Triple-click side button
Tap Guided Access on menu if prompted
Enter Password
Select "End"

Tips: Restarting your phone will circumvent Guided Access so you will want to have a password on your phone. On iOS 9 you can swipe down on a photo to go back to the album view. To take care of this, make sure that you have only the photos that you want to be visible in a folder. Then disable the top, left, and bottom sections of the touch screen. Disable the left to prevent a swipe from moving them back to the main album photo listing.
After you setup Guided Access, it will remember your settings. If you just want to show one picture, just disable touch altogether.


Time machine freezes while copying files with no error message (on Catalina 10.15) I updated to Catalina 10.15 about a week ago, and I noticed the Time Machine backups do not seem to work properly. Yesterday I thought I'd try to make it work again, but the problems I face are so weird!

The backup goes through the "Preparing backup..." with no errors, and then it starts copying files. When it has gotten about two thirds of the way through the 17 GB (I'm guessing it's so large because of the update) it just quietly stops, without any error message. If I check for the backupd process in activity monitor, the CPU usage is at 0.0 and never increases. Also the drive will stop spinning after a while, so clearly nothing is written. I figured out how to print the log from the process in a terminal, and there are no messages when the process shuts down.

I tried sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0 but it doesn't make any difference.
I have reset NVRAM and SMC. No change.
I ran a First Aid on the backup drive. No issues.
Deleting .iprogress files to start over does not solve the problem.
When running in safe-mode, the backup becomes smaller and it stops earlier. But the issue remains.

I'm using a 2018 MacBook Pro, 13 inch, with Catalina 10.15 (as mentioned), and I have two external hard drives for backups (one is encrypted and one is not). They have both worked fine with Mojave, but now I have the same problem with both.

Edit 1: I updated to Catalina 10.15.1 and the problem persists.

Edit 2:
Since I am getting so little response, let me ask some more specific questions.

How can I tell which file(s) is being copied when the backup process freezes? If I know which file, perhaps I can just delete it and the process will run.
Can I restart the backup from scratch? Perhaps if I rename the folder which holds the backup on the disk, Time-machine won't find it and start from scratch. And if I then want to access my old backups I can take back the previous folder name? Could this work? And which folder should try to I rename?

Edit3: I have recently started to believe that there is some issue with backupd initiating too many threads. Whenever it freezes it shows 67 threads in the activity monitor.

Okay, my Time Machine backups work now, and I can post this answer to my own question.

To print out what files are currently being copied there is a nice command in the terminal:

sudo fs_usage -wf filesys backupd | grep HFS_update

Doing this I could see that my backup froze at certain files, and CPU was at 0.0 usage. However, even after it had frozen, intermittently it made small steps of progress before freezing again (as I could tell from the terminal printout). And even though CPU usage showed 0.0, the total number of CPU hours were very slowly creeping up. So there was some activity in backupd, but so little it rounds to 0.0. Thus I left the computer on over night, and in the morning it had finished. It took 14 hours to finish, including several hour-long pauses when no files were written to the backup drive.

I was using Catalina 10.15.1, but using the newly released 10.15.2 for my second backup disk I can tell that the problem persists. I then reformatted the second disk to see if that would make it any faster. But no, it takes even longer to create a new backup (20.5 hours).

However, after one painfully slow backup has finished it seems to work normally, with much shorter backup times.

Read more here:
https://eclecticlight.co/2019/11/11/time-machine-and-backing-up-in-catalina/comment-page-1/?unapproved=42377&moderation-hash=3183957ce67228fdfbd8a9b757b038dc#comment-42377


Where is my missing drive space? I have a 2012 Mac mini running the latest Yosemite that I use as a server for file sharing, FileMaker, calibre, Time Machine and Plex. The Finder reports that the internal drive has a capacity of 499.25 GB with 48.03 GB available.

Listing the drive's contents with all folder sizes calculated looks like the following (having used defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE in the Terminal):

Adding all that up brings me to a total of less than 350 GB. Running sudo du -sh .DocumentRevisions-V100/ reveals that that folder is only 17 M, contributing very little to the total.

So I seem to be missing about 100 GB of space. This isn't an emergency, I'm just trying to figure this out. Why am I seeing a discrepancy between the amount of space reported as available from the Finder and the amount of space I expect there to be given the size of the files and folders I see?

If you don't have view permissions it will report itself as taking zero space to the directory that encloses it. This is especially visible with the "Users" folder. Take another User's folder.

Notice how oddly small this folder appears. Yet it is reporting a valid file size, as I have read permissions to the folder.

Now look at the contents of this folder.

Notice the variety of folder that I don't have view permissions for. As a result, when viewing the overall user folder, it simply assumes they take no space instead of reporting an error of some sort. Thus, the folder size is deceptively small.

If you want a more accurate report, I would recommend using something like DaisyDisk or a free alternative to scan the entire disk as admin so you can properly see what's taking up space.


macbookair 2014-15 model yosemite macos 10.10.5 external DELL HDMI monitor sound and brightness control I need to control brightness and sound volume in external monitor DELL 2420HS connected thru HDMI cable from thunderbolt port. I downloaded MonitorControl. image (dmg file) is showing 'corrupt image' when trying to open. Tried all versions starting 2.0.0...1.7.1, 1.7.0, thru to 1.5. The same error message. Please help.

Minimum OS requirement, according to the github page, is Sierra, macOS 10.12
A MacBook Air from 2014 is perfectly capable of running 10.15, Catalina.


Browse and Select unsupported files A website is asking me to upload pdf documents but once I browse to upload all the files (pdf format) they are greyed out and not selectable.

I have tried Chrome, Safari, Firefox but there is no change in the behaviour.

It's not only one pdf, in which case I would think the file is corrupted or something.

At least a fix for this in Chrome will be dragging and dropping the file to the fileupload control on the page.

Drag the file to "Choose file - no file selected" and drop it there, it will be ready for upload.


Safari appending .EXE to the end of .PDF I have had reported on occasions when Safari on Mac is downloading a PDF from one of our sites it will append .EXE to the end of the file. The MIME type is correctly set to be pdf but it still does it occasionally.

I have found http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24293 which seems to indicate that this is a known issue with Safari on Mac however as official as this is (Since it is from Apple themselves) our clients don't seem to want to believe it. So I want to know if there is a solution to this problem?

I say "occasionally" because we have some Macs that this is happening on and some it's not. So maybe it's a setting or something, it downloads perfectly fine in IE, Firefox, Chrome and even downloads fine on mobile Safari. It is just Mac Safari.

HTTP Header: Content-Disposition

Have the server include an additional Content-Disposition header when serving the PDFs:

Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="<MyPDF.pdf>"

This provides the browser with a strong suggestion for the desired filename and suffix. See How to encode the filename parameter of Content-Disposition header in HTTP? for a discussion about limitations and implementing this feature.

MIME Type

Additionally, make sure the server's PDF mime type in the Content-Type: header is set correctly. There are variations in use. application/pdf is the recommended type.

  The standard MIME type is application/pdf. The assignment is defined in RFC 3778, The application/pdf Media Type, referenced from the MIME Media Types registry.

Test with curl

Use curl -I http://example.com/mypdf.pdf to test and ensure the correct headers are returned by your server. curl can provide credentials to work as a logged in user.

Potentially related question: When sending headers to download a PDF, Safari appends .html


MacBook Pro boots to black screen I have a Macbook Pro, model A1502.  While watching videos, the screen just cut to black.  Now it won't do anything on boot - the MacBook screen just comes up black.  I've tried zapping the PRAM, (ahem, NVRAM), an SMC reset, nada.  It seems that the backlight is working - it's "LCD black" black, meaning it's not truly dark it looks like the backlight is working.

Safe boot, boot to recovery, verbose safe boot, nothing happens.

I have an external monitor.  On the external, it shows the apple boot screen, the progress bar gets to about 40% across, then even the external monitor goes black.

My guess is, hardware issue, Genius Bar time?  I hope not... don't feel like buying a new board.

EDIT: it needed an SMC reset. I didn't do it properly, and it did work, eventually.

EDIT2: 1) you don't want a full battery for an SMC reset. I always had it charging. I unplugged from power and plugged in some spinning-rust hard drives to sap power. This helped. 2) I found mirror mode. Command F1 mirrors the main login screen to the external monitor. I can then login do a backup and wipe the drives

It honestly seems like you have already tried everything a genius bar would try themselves. However I think I might have some attempts here to help you out.

All boot-up key combinations can be seen from here:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255

Remove all connected USB, HDMI, or other plugged in devices including power cable. Try booting again with holding option to select a disk. I recommend doing this after steps 2 + 3, but remove cables first.
Lets ensure you are indeed resetting the SMC. This works best without 100% battery, because the light will be orange when charging and the computer is off. While off and the light is orange, hold down shift+control+alt/option and then after holding those three keys hold the power button a moment and release and watch the light change from orange to green to orange again. Volume should also get reset from this. (This can be done without any issues involving firmware password)
Clearing NVRAM by holding Command-Option-P-R. NOTE: This will require your firmware password to clear it, but I don't think it will clear with one as I've noticed it doesn't for my MBPr mid 2012. So if you can, remove the firmware password and then try this. But from a command-line terminal the following command will also clear your NVRAM.

Requires Administrator privileges! This is also funky with MacOS Sierra due to new restrictions with their attempts for a new secure system meaning it'll require you to be in safe mode to run it.

sudo nvram boot-args -c

I have more info on boot-arguments if necessary. Just ask.

Boot into Internet recovery by holding Command+option+R (Differs from normal recovery because this downloads your original factory release OS recovery rather than using the partition of your current OS on disk.)
If it is hardware, lets try Apple's Intel CPU check by holding down 'D' while booting up. This is a hardware test and takes a while.

Let me know how you make out.


What external HD can I use to my Airport Extreme Base Station for use of wireless Time Machine? The title pretty much says it all.  I currently have an Airport Extreme Base Station and I want to be able to use the USB port on it to hook up an external hard drive and use it as a wireless means of backing up my hard drives, and have Time Machine act just like it would with Time Capsule.

Has anyone had success in setting this up? Is there a specific hard drive that has had success? Any spec I need to be looking for in shopping for a hard drive? Any help is appreciated.

Unlike the Time Capsule, the Airport Extreme doesn't support being a backup destination, no matter what drive you use. It is possible to force Time Machine to use unsupported destinations, but this is unsafe - the AEBS lacks features that help protect data, and without them, the slightest network error can make your backups useless.

Some of the technical reasons for this have been explored here: Why won't Time Machine work with a drive connected to an Airport Extreme?

However, you can look for a network-attached drive that supports Time Machine, such as WD's My Book Live. These are drives that attach by ethernet instead of USB, and they implement the file-sharing features that Time Machine requires.


|OSX 10.10.5] Script execution stops when screen locked? I was running a script that takes ages in Terminal.

I wanted to run it unsupervised while I was working away from my MacBook, so I chose from the menu (top right) username > Login Window..., which is NOT logout, but the lock screen.

I was expecting the script to run. When I returned hours later and unlocked the screen (by typing in my password), I had to find out that while the screen was locked the script was paused all the time, and just continued where it set off when I unlocked the screen.

The expected behaviour (known from other UNIX derivatives) would have been to run while the UI was locked and secure.

How can I achieve this?

EDIT: With macOS High Sierra (as of beta 5) you can achieve the same "lock screen" behaviour mentioned by @Phong simply through the  status bar menu:

What I think is happening is that your computer goes to sleep after a certain amount of time after you switched to the login window which causes your script to stop.

To prevent your system from sleeping while your script is running you can run caffeinate -s in Terminal (note: only works on MacBooks if AC power is connected) or include it in your script. To stop the command hit CTRL+C.

The way I go about securing my account while I'm still logged in is to enable the "require password" option in system preferences:

Then, as soon as the display (not the system) goes to sleep (also configurable in preferences) you have to enter a password in order to access the account.

You can also manually trigger display sleep by hitting CTRL+SHIFT+EJECT (if your keyboard has an eject button) or by running pmset displaysleepnow.


How to extract/rip audio contents of an .exe? I'm not sure if this is possible, but I've looked around for a solution, but never got any where by chance.

Basically I need to rip or extract audio files from an PC executable file (.exe), there is Resource Hacker for PC but there isn't an equivalent one for the Mac.

It would be great if there's a decent app that can do what I wish to achieve - so, is there an app out there that can do this?

I'm using OS X 10.7.3.

Try File Juicer - it extracts images/text/audio/video from many types of files (see this list of supported inputs/outputs). The PC executable type (exe) is specifically listed as a supported file type. It's not a free app, but can be used in trial mode.


Mini Ipad stolen. Have two iPads with the same iCloud I have two iPads with the same iCloud. One of them was stolen. What happens if I clear the data? Both iPads will be cleared?

No - when iCloud sends an erase message, it is targeted to a specific device and not all devices in one account.


Problem with Windows 10 Installation on Macbook Pro Late 2011 I have deleted my OS X partition and installed Windows 10 to my Macbook Pro Late 2011. I also downloaded Boot Camp drivers (5.1.5621) and installed. When drivers installation is done, I restarted my computer. Until restart process, everything (except Audio driver) seems perfect. After the reboot, there is a problem. Please see the image. Desktop and taskbar icons not show and programs windows not open. I can right-click on desktop but when I choose something (like New Folder) on context menu, nothing shows on desktop. I can run a software or open a .txt file from Start Menu, windows of them are not showed, but only icons of them are showed on taskbar. One more thing, when I move the mouse cursor to corners of screen, it disappears. I rebooted my Macbook Pro many times, still no luck. I re-installed Windows 10, this time I didn't install bootcamp drivers. But I connected the internet. I guess it installed some of drivers from internet automatically. So, same problem has been occured. Any idea?

Thank you.

The problem is that Windows thinks you have two screens attached. You aren't seeing any icons or windows because they're opening up on the "other" screen, which you don't have (you're seeing the "secondary" screen).

Short story:
Because you nuked the macOS partition and installed Windows from scratch, Windows likely installed in EFI mode, which is not supported on non-Retina (i.e. pre-2012) MacBook Pros.  It also explains why audio doesn't work.  If you had used the BootCamp Assistant to install Windows, it would have correctly prepared the hard drive and BIOS compatibility support for Windows.

The easiest, fastest way to fix this would be to attach a 2nd screen (you'll need a miniDP adapter) and configure Windows to ONLY use whichever screen the panel corresponds to.  Otherwise, you must take additional steps to get Windows installed correctly without the BootCamp Assistant:

Option+Boot your MacBook Pro with the Windows media attached.  You should see two boot options. One says "EFI Boot", and the other just says "Windows".  Choose the one that says "Windows"
Once you are booted to Windows setup, hit Shift+F10 (Note that you may need to also use the Fn key). This will open up a command prompt.
From the command prompt, enter the following commands, one-by-one:
NOTE: THIS WILL ERASE YOUR HARD DRIVE!

diskpart
select disk 0
clean
create partition primary
exit
exit

NOTE: Yes, you really need to type exit twice.
Reboot the computer again (just for good measure) and Option+boot to the "Windows" option again.
Install Windows normally from this point on, selecting the partition you created in step 3 when it asks.

Long story (TL;DR):
Apple was the first to market with a laptop that could switch between CPU-integrated and discrete graphics controllers.  Because Windows and the hardware of the era did not support this configuration at the time, Apple implemented some clever hacks to get it to work.  Firstly, they used custom video drivers that could copy the contents of video memory between the CPU's reserved system RAM and the GPU's dedicated RAM. The display is connected via a dual-channel LVDS connector. And finally, both GPUs (along with the mini-DisplayPort and optical audio) are wired to a hardware GMUX chip that can dynamically switch between the two.  MacOS handles the coordination and synchronization of the switch when it needs to happen, so it appears seamless and transparent to you, the user.  All of this was horribly unsupported by Windows at the time.

On top of this, Apple began using the UEFI firmware spec back in 2005 when they switched to Intel processors, but this feature didn't commonly begin appearing in PCs until Windows 8 got released back 2012 (although Windows 7 supported it).  This has nothing to do with graphics switching, but Apple had to write a BIOS Compatibility Support Module (CSM) into their firmware (which emulates a legacy PC BIOS) to run Windows XP on Macintosh hardware.

Apple was already accustomed to supporting Windows on incompatible hardware through the CSM since 2005, so when graphics switching came around, they just extended the CSM to play nice with Windows and ignored UEFI support since Windows didn't support it anyway.

The CSM provided the following hacks to Windows:

UEFI is disabled.
The discrete GPU is powered on.
The GMUX chip switches to the correct LVDS channel to drive the display off the discrete GPU, locks the Thunderbolt port into mini-DisplayPort mode (no Thunderbolt support in Windows on 2011 models), and locks the audio to the analog output so the internal speakers will still work (no S/PDIF support in Windows either).
The discrete GPU's video ROM is copied to the correct RAM I/O ranges that Windows would expect.

This allows Windows to boot with the integrated graphics, Thunderbolt port, and optical audio-out ports completely invisible to it.  The CSM is invoked when an MBR partition table is detected on the hard drive (Macs also used GPT long before Windows did). And the BootCamp Assistant makes a hybrid GPT/MBR partition table for you that satisfies both Windows and macOS.

Now we get down to your situation:

Windows 10 fully supports UEFI and GPT partition tables, so it happily booted in UEFI mode and installed to your GPT-partitioned hard drive just fine.  But without the MBR partition table present (which Microsoft ONLY supports in legacy BIOS mode), the CSM did not get invoked, and therefore the hacks it provides do not get used.

Your Mac does not have a discrete GPU in it (you would've gotten no video at all if it did), but it DOES still have that GMUX and dual-channel LVDS.  Without a discrete GPU, the video ROM and memory I/O ranges map correctly for an Intel-integrated GPU, and it uses both LVDS channels.  Windows is correctly seeing an Intel-integrated GPU, but is incorrectly seeing each LVDS channel as a different screen.  Also, it has no access to audio because the GMUX never switched the speakers to the analog audio output.

Long story short, you MUST use BIOS Compatibility Support to run any version of Windows on a 2011-model MacBook Pros.  And the only way to kick the CSM into action (without the BootCamp Assistant's help) is to manually create an MBR partition table on the hard drive so the firmware sees it when you power the machine on.  And the only way to create an MBR partition table in Windows is to completely destroy the GPT table first (that's what the clean command to Diskpart does in the instructions above).

Got it?  :-)  Sorry if all that was too technical.


Is it okay to use the cord from a Magsafe adapter with a different wattage? I have a 2011 Macbook Air.

The original Magsafe cord was getting flimsy, so I cut the old cord, got a spare one from eBay and soldered it to the power adapter.

However, I realised the wattage rating information built into the connector's chip is 60W in the new cord (which was probably obtained from a dead 60W adapter), as reported by "System information" and CocoaBattery, while my adapter's actual rating is 45W.

So far the Air seems happy with this new cord, but I wonder what risks this might incur, especially since 60W adapters are supposed to deliver 16.5v, instead of the 14.5v the Air needs.

If I'm reading your description correctly, then the replacement cord has a higher rating (60W) than the 45W that is drawn by the 2011 Macbook Air. This is fine because all it means is that the cord has a thicker gauge to handle a higher wattage (than what you are are actually using).

The replacement cord would not affect the voltage, so your adapter would still be delivering what it is specified for, namely the 14.5 V.


Stream iPhone radio to Mac mini I have at Mac mini hooked up to a plain stereo amplifier + speakers and would like to stream some of the radio apps I have installed  on my iPhone to my Mac mini and play the music through the speakers without having to turn on my tv. Is that possible?

Rogue Amoeba's AirFoil and AirFoil Speakers applications will allow you to do this.


How to clear the cache or do a hard refresh in mobile Safari? On OS-X it's Opt+Cmd+E or Cmd+R or certain menu options (How to clear the cache or do a hard refresh in Safari?).

Is there a way to do this for Safari on an iPhone or iPad?

This seems like a duplicate? What do you think? I really don't like force-quit: Can I force a cache refresh in Safari running on iOS?

This sounds better: How to clear browser cache for just one specific site in Mobile Safari?

This can be done through the Settings: https://www.imyfone.com/iphone-space-saver/how-to-clear-cache-in-safari-on-ipad/

Launch the "Settings" app on your iPad through the home screen.
Scroll down the menu and select "Safari".
Scroll down to the bottom of right hand panel and tap on "Clear History and Website Data".
Confirm by tapping "Clear" from the pop-up window.

Warning: this wipes every data, save form field values, bookmarks, etc.


How to add user to Administrators Group I am using OS X Mavericks Server. I want to add a user to the Administrators group but none of the built-in groups show up under Accounts -> Groups on OS X Server.

How can I manage users in the Administrators group?

The most common use of admin with Server.app is to run server.app and administer the server itself.

If that's what you want, use Server.app to tick the administer this server box:


ITunes on my work computer I have ITunes on both my work computer and my Mac at home and my IPhone.  I am retiring and want to know if I can delete my ITunes off my work computer and not affect my Home Mac and my IPhone.  I have heard if I delete a song on my work computer it will come off of all my devices.  Is this true and if so is there a way around this?

If you've subscribed to Apple Music, or if all the music you own is purchased, then all the music you have is the same on all of your Apple devices and yes, when you delete them from your Apple Music library then you'll lose the download of that song but it will always be available to you for as long as your subscription lasts.

If you've ripped CDs (or obtained content by other means) you'll need to copy those files from your work computer to external media and put them on your home computer. Usually iTunes stores its files in the Music folder on Windows and macOS (OS X), you can check where music is stored by going into Preferences in iTunes on the Advanced tab. Just place the music you copied from your work computer to your home one , then restart iTunes.


What is the fastest/most efficient way to transfer 50GB data folder from SSD to thumb drive? The details may be of some interest:

The 50GB folder (with fragmented files of various types and sizes) is sitting on a mid-2015 MBP 2.8 GHz i7 with 500GB SSD.
The thumb drive is a garden variety of 64GB Lexar™

What settings allow best transfer?Bluetooth on/off; Wifi on/off; Screen on/off; USB port right/left; etc. Is there anything I should do first to prepare the files for better transfer. For example, I would de-frag a hard drive before a data-transfer in the olden-days when computers were steam powered.

… Or, does it matter since the bottleneck is the USB flash drive?

Bluetooth, WiFi and your screen have absolutely nothing to do with the transfer speed of USB.  Tweaking these settings in the hopes of making USB transfers more efficient is like waxing your car to get better fuel efficiency.

  The thumb drive is a garden variety of 64GB Lexar™

Is it a USB 2.0 or 3.0 thumb drive?  You can tell if it has a blue tab in the USB connector. That'll be the kicker.  If it's a 2.0, the maximum throughput you're going to get is 480Mbps.  Going downhill. With a tailwind. On greased skis.

If it's USB 3, you'll get at most 5x the rate of 2.0, but more like only 3x.

As far as defragging your drive, that won't make any difference on an SSD with HFS+ format.  Plus PCIe drives run about 24Gb/s or 4x faster than SATA III at 6Gb/s


Will Parallels be safe while upgrading to El Capitan? The new update seems pretty legit, so I am considering updating my macbook.

I have Parallels installed on my computer, and I don't want it to be removed or damaged during the installation of El Capitan.

If I use time machine to back up my macbook, will it back up everything and keep Parallels and the files on it safe? Or, will it only store original Mac files, ignoring parallels?

If you haven't set Time Machine to exclude any files from the backup, you should be fine.

If you want to be really cautious, you can find the Parallels virtual machine file and manually copy it onto your external hard drive, free space permitting. Put it at the top level of the drive, not in the Backups.backupdb folder.

This will keep your files safe on your external hard drive no matter what happens on your computer. To make sure you can keep actually using Parallels, though, you'll need to make sure you're on Parallels version 10 or 11. Version 9 will not be supported in El Capitan.


iTunes videos on a different harddrive? since the TED HD podcast and iTunesU my iTunes library is getting bigger and bigger and thus free space on my MacBook HD smaller and smaller. I'm getting an iPad2 soon and would like to sync my TV shows and some movies as well, but this just doesn't fit into the library any more.

I already tried to have two libraries, one on an external HD, one on the internal for on the go, but this is kind of complicated and not really 'the apple way'.

Is there any way to outsource the movies and podcasts to an external library or HD and leave the music on the MacBook?

Thanks!

In your Music directory, go to iTunes/iTunes Media/Movies - copy the Movies folder to an external drive.  Then replace the Movies directory in iTunes/iTunes Media/ with an alias that points to the Movies directory on the external drive.

What you'll end up with is iTunes thinking the same directory structure exists, but the Movies alias will point to the external drive.  You may not even need to re-add anything to your library - the file paths should remain the same.

I have had my iTunes library set up like this for years for the same reasons you list.

Instructions on creating an alias can be found here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TA26514?viewlocale=en_US


Connecting external display turns both screens black I updated from 10.8.1 to 10.8.2 for my MacBook Pro Retina with my external 27" Thunderbolt display. When I connect to my Thunderbolt display both screens are black. I can only see my mouse pointer and sometimes little boxes of display. Any idea what's wrong?

The solution explained in this Apple Discussions thread worked for me.

Delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist.
Delete ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.windowserver.XXXXX.plist.
Reset NVRAM.


How can I download e-mails w/ Mozilla Thunderbird onto my hard drive & upload to new server? My family's company is moving from an old, washed up server to a new cloud server with a different web hosting company.

I need to download emails from the current web host's server for 14 email boxes to my hard drive, so they can be uploaded to the new web host's server!

I have searched different add-ons for Mozilla Thunderbird, but I am unable to figure out the proper way to download individual e-mail profiles and save them on my hard drive.

I have Googled, but tutorials I have followed are too convoluted or have not worked.

Any guidance in this regard would be greatly appreciated!

The two best tools for shifting email from one server to another would have to be imapsync and offlineimap. Of these offlineimap probably has the best instructions and assistance.

You could either transfer the emails directly or, with a little setup, download them to your Mac and then back up to the new server.


How can I turn on my iPhone using assistive touch? How do I turn on an iPhone back after turning it off using assistive touch? My lock button on the top is broken so I have no other way of turning on my iPhone.

By default, charging will turn the phone on. You can try charging the phone.


Accidentally deleted Applications link in Favorites in Finder I accidentally deleted the Applications link in Favorites in Finder.  (I dragged it into the Terminal hoping to do a cd to the Applications folder---not that that matters.)

How can I restore it?

Go to Finder → Preferences (⌘,) → Sidebar and check Applications.


Apple TV Resolution in Full HD Is Apple TV Full HD?

I need to stream video to my TV wirelessly, but necessarly need to be Full HD to use all the TV resolution.

I think Apple TV is not Full HD, but I don't know if it exist some hardware like it, with same features, but that supports Full HD. What your recommend?

I've researched if Apple is planning to release Apple TV that supports Full HD but I found nothing about.

The apple TV is full HD, this is why you can rent and view full HD films and video content.

However if you are streaming from an iPad, and the video on the iPad is not HD the the content streamed to the TV will not be HD.

Edit

This applies to the previous version of the Apple TV with a built in HD. not the current one. Here is a comparison of the two.


How to drag folders from Finder into Final Cut without mouse [automator/applescript] Hello guys I'm trying to create a Service to do some repetitive tasks that I have to perform every day. Most of the things I figured out how to automate, but there is one move that seems to be impossible: dragging two folders into a Final Cut Pro 7 project.

I tried using Applescript to tell Final Cut the menu commands File/Import/Folder... But apparently the program is not scriptable. Furthermore the parent folder always change, so I can't hardcode the location, although I can tell the current path to the script using automator.

I can't upgrade to Final Cut X for professional reasons, so that's not an option.

Any insight would be appreciated, even to say "You can't do that".

I think you should try keyboard shortcuts through which you can drag folders from Finder into Final Cut without mouse    https://support.apple.com/kb/PH12724?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US


Create an iCloud account on my friend's iPhone I don't have an Apple device, but I'd like to try iCloud Mail on my PC. Can I create an iCloud account on my friend's iPhone, then sign out on his device and use the account on iCloud.com? If so, doesn't it erase his iPhone data or cause any problem whatsoever?

If all you need to know is whether it will erase your friend's iPhone data, the answer is no.

What your friend will need to do is sign out of their iCloud account via Settings > iCloud.

After signing out, what happens depends to some degree on what version of iOS your friend has installed, whether they have other Apple devices, etc. However, the worst case scenario is that when they sign back into their iCloud account all their iCloud data will sync back to their device with the exception of any photo stream photos older than 30 days. (Of course, if you're only going to use it for a very brief period to create the account, and then sign out of it, this won't be an issue as they'd be signing back in not long after signing out).

However, I do strongly recommend that your friend does a manual backup of their device to iTunes (on their computer) first. This is just an extra precaution in case something unexpected happens.

Also, your friend may get some emails from Apple (e.g. about Find My iPhone being disabled, etc).


AppleScript alternatives I've recently discovered AppleScript. AppleScript affords a simple, natural way to programmatically simulate keyboard-and-mouse interaction with Mac applications. AppleScript is great, however it suffers from the following problems:

The latest stable release is from 2014, and last year the AppleScript product manager was laid off and his position was eliminated.
The official documentation has not been updated since January 2016, and all of the tutorial and reference books that are dedicated to AppleScript date no later than 2010 (with the exception of this one, which seems to be a copy-and-paste of some stackexchange Q&A with the AppleScript tag).
Script Editor, the built-in AppleScript development environment, has no debugging capabilities. There seems to be just one commercial IDE for AppleScript*. It looks amazing and has all the debugging features that one would expect from a modern IDE, but it costs $100, which would be too expensive for my pocket even if Apple did not seem to be phasing out this programming language (see bullet point #1).

Are there any alternatives to AppleScript? Is there an actively developed and supported programming language with a good, cheap IDE, and good, up-to-date documentation, that makes it possible to simulate keyboard-and-mouse interaction with Mac applications in a quick and easy way? Something, maybe, like the Apple counterpart for Microsoft's VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) for their Office suite on Windows?

* It appears there's another third-party AppleScript IDE: Smile. Unlike Script Editor, Smile is free of charge.

Since Yosemite, OS X/macOS also supports JavaScript as an inter-process scripting language--officially known as JavaScript for Automation, also referred to as JXA. The documentation (and some would say, the implementation) is somewhat lacking compared to AppleScript, but if you're already more familiar with JavaScript than AppleScript, then it might be an option.

Like AppleScript, JXA also offers an ObjC bridge allowing you to use Cocoa APIs in your JavaScript.

One advantage is that there are many more editors and IDEs out there designed for JavaScript coding than there are for AppleScript, though Script Editor and Automator probably still have the edge for debugging JXA-specific stuff.

Official resources:

Mac Scripting Essentials (covers AppleScript and JavaScript)
JXA Release Notes

Some unofficial resources:

https://github.com/dtinth/JXA-Cookbook/wiki
https://www.macstories.net/tutorials/getting-started-with-javascript-for-automation-on-yosemite/
https://hackmag.com/coding/getting-to-grips-with-javascript-automation-for-os-x/
https://tylergaw.com/articles/building-osx-apps-with-js
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/javascript-automation


How to record audio from terminal in macOS Mojave? Since macOS Mojave apps now need to ask for permission to record audio. I want to record it from the built-in microphone of my Macbook.

This means that a lot of old tools are broken. For example, sox and ffmpeg don't work anymore.

With ffmpeg I tried ffmpeg -f avfoundation -i ":1" -t 10 output.mp3, which results in no file being even created.

With sox I tried sox -d output.wav, which produces a file but with no sound in it.

So does anyone have a workaround or other CLI utility that can do this?

They have restricted access to the microphone from the terminal by default after the update.

You need to go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Microphone and tick the box for the terminal and it should all work again.


ipad 1 GSM 4.3.3 firmware I have an Ipad 1 GSM (it takes a 3g sim) and i've been looking for the IOS 4.3.3 firmware but cannot find it anywhere online.

i found this

iPad1,1_4.3.3_8J3_Restore.ipsw

but it does not work. Itunes says "The ipad "main ipad" could not be restored. this device isn't eligible for the requested build."

So i'm guessing that ipsw is for wifi only devices. Where do i find gsm version then?

Try this website: http://www.felixbruns.de/iPod/firmware/

But it might not work because 4.3.5 is out. iPad 1 wifi and 3g firmware are the same.


Firefox problems when remapping Copy to ctrl-c I remapped Copy to ctrl-c via Preference>Keyboard>Shortcuts and it works pretty good. But when I have the find dialog open in Firefox, when I try and Copy I actually end up toggling "Match Case". I don't care if I have a shortcut for "Match Case", could someone please help me keep my Copy functionality while the Find dialog is open?

You can use a tool like BetterTouchTool (or some similar shortcut remapping program for Mac) to remap Control C to Command C. This will prevent Firefox from knowing that you pressed Control C at all, and thus it won't enable the "Match Case" option in the find dialog box.

Alternatively if you are interested you can read up the documentation on Karabiner Element's new complex modifications feature to remap Control C to Command C in Firefox. This is similar to doing it with any other program, although I suspect that it is more reliable. However, it requires a bit more knowledge of how to add modifications to Karabiner Elements, because (as of writing this answer) the feature is quite new to Karabiner Elements, and there is no GUI method of creating complex modifications (apart from importing one from the website, but you might not find the one you are looking for).


Increasing the number of reminder snooze options in MacOS This is an issue I've faced for such a long time on both macOS and iOS, though for the purpose of this question I'd like to focus on macOS as that is where, I hope, manually editing settings files might even be a possible solution to this problem.

If a calendar alert pops up on macOS, we're presented with some quite usable snooze options: 1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, 1 day, or 1 week:

On the flip side, if a reminder alert pops up on macOS, one only has the option to snooze it for 5 minutes, 1 hour, or until tomorrow, with nothing in between. This has obvious implications: if there's something you want to do in 15 minutes or 30 minutes, you don't have that option. You can only push the reminder to 5 minutes over and over, or push it a whole hour and risk not getting to it in time:

On iOS, its even worse. If a reminder pops up, a user can only choose between "mark as completed", "remind me in 1 hour", or "remind me tomorrow" with a hard press on the iPhone 7.

I feel like Apple has decided that a reminder is for something to be done NOW (or in 5 minutes max) and doesn't want people postponing reminders in, say, 15 minute increments. If anything, it's Calendar time slots that might be marginally more immediate and fixed in time than reminders, aren't they? I think it's crazy to only have a choice between 5 minutes and a full hour to postpone our reminders, while being forced to go into the reminders app to manually change the time for each alert!

I've read through prior posts on here and other forums, skirting this topic, but there doesn't seem to be a conclusive answer.

Is there any way to manually edit the native list of reminder postponement duration options to at least match the calendar snooze options, or are we totally out of luck save for downloading software such as Snoozemaster which doesn't natively sort the problem, or having to specify a reminder snooze time via Siri (difficult in a quiet office environment)?

Those notifications are managed by the Notification Center App Extension inside of Reminders.app: /Applications/Reminders.app/Contents/PlugIns/com.apple.RemindersNC.appex
and displayed by Notification Center. Sadly none of the information used to create the window is editable by the user.

Interestingly, there were more options when this feature was introduced in Mavericks. http://www.mactricksandtips.com/2013/11/change-the-snooze-time-of-a-reminder.html


Can I make mobile Safari open YouTube links in the browser? YouTube has a pretty decent mobile website, however any link to YouTube I see on the web always opens the link in the YouTube app, not there in the browser.

Is there a way to change that? It would be nice not to have to keep switching apps all the time. I checked in Settings and couldn't see anything. Echofon actually does it in its built in browser so I'm sure it must be possible.

Go to Settings > General > Restrictions and untick the Youtube button. After that Youtube links will open in Safari and the app icon will disappear from the home screen.


iPhone 6+, Find my iPhone in lost mode I lost my iPhone 6+ and and turned on the lost mode. However, my password is very easy to figure out.

Since the location services automatically turns on, will it stay on (unless he/she turns it off) even if he/she unlocks it?

Based on this article from Apple:

  Turn off Lost Mode or change your contact info

  You can turn off Lost Mode by entering the passcode on the device, or by following the steps below. You can also follow the steps below to change the contact information displayed on your lost device.

  Note:   If your credit and debit cards for Apple Pay were suspended
  because you put your iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus in Lost Mode, when you
  turn off Lost Mode and sign back in to iCloud, you can resume using
  your cards.

  Go to Find My iPhone on iCloud.com.

  If you don’t see Find My iPhone on iCloud.com, your account just has
  access to iCloud web-only features. To gain access to other iCloud
  features, set up iCloud on your iOS device or Mac.

  Click All Devices, then select the device that’s in Lost Mode.
  Click Lost Mode, then change the information or click Stop Lost Mode.

So if the person who picked up your phone is able to unlock your phone (using the correct passcode), they can disable Lost Mode. However, they won't be able to use your credit card information unless they also know your iCloud password.


Open a specifc URL in Fluid.app I use Fluid.app for particular websites, such as a bug tracker, or a Wiki. However, when I receive notifications in an e-mail with that URL and click on it, I'll get the page opened in the default browser.

Is there a way to open a website in the Fluid.app instead?

P.S.: I have looked at RCDefaultApp, but could not find a way to do this.

I had the same problem and wrote a little AppleScript to handle this. You can find the app here: https://github.com/biafra23/Default-Fluids

You need to make this script your default browser.
This can be achieved with Safari:
Menu -> Safari -> Preferences -> General -> Default web browser

The source is in https://github.com/biafra23/Default-Fluids/blob/master/default_browser.app/Contents/Resources/Scripts/main.scpt

It contains sections like this:

if this_URL contains "facebook.com" then
  tell application "/Applications/Fluids/facebook.app"
    activate
    open location this_URL
  end tell
else if
...
else
  -- default browser here
  tell application "/Applications/Firefox.app"
  activate
    open location this_URL
  end tell
end if

You need to make changes to those according to your setup with the AppleScript Editor.

It is not as convenient as choosyosx but its free.


Saving GPS Coordinates in Contacts I live in a country which has few registered Apple Maps addresses.
All that i want is to store GPS coordinates in contacts to use those at the Reminders app.
I came from diverse forums like this and this
but it seems that there isn't a final answer to this issue.

This is what i tried so far.

If i set an URL field with the following text maps://=&q=35.000000,-119.000000 it seems that solves the problem since if i tap on that url it redirects me to that specific coordinate in the apple maps app. But it doesn't work at reminders since reminders looks at the address field instead of the URL one.
So i set the coordinates at the address field then (street section) like the following 35.000000,-119.000000 which seems that solves the problem but there is a mandatory country name that breaks everything because when i tap it finds the coordinates plus the country which returns a completely different location.

Any extra help is appreciated. Is simple, all that i need is to use the Reminders app location feature with specific contacts GPS coordinates, not geocoding address ones.

Thanks in advance.

According to Apple's developer documentation about their MapLinks  iOS/macOS supports map urls via a web link (using http or https) to maps.apple.com - so to link to GPS coordinates one uses:

https://maps.apple.com/?ll=50.894967,4.341626

Also just to add it seems that 'geo:' maps scheme standardised in RFC5870 sadly doesn't appear to work on iOS/macOS. Although according to the geouri.org there is some support in Android, and other applications.


Taking clearer pics in dark arena? On iPhone 4 - I was at a wrestling show - low light, except for strobe/laser lighting in the distance - and I was unable to take clear pictures. I had to zoom in 100% as I was sat far away. The pics came out blurry at best (with or without flash) What can I do to get clearer pics?

Aside from getting more light in the room, there's not really anything you can do. You can try using a third-party camera app, like Nightcap, to try and boost the capabilities of your phone, or Camera+, to modify your photos in post-production and possibly increase their fidelity (just as you could take your pictures into your PC/Mac and edit them in Photoshop). You will, however, be limited.

Until cell phone capabilities increase substantially, your options are few. My best advice is to try to get as close to your subject(s) as possible and attempt to capture as much light as possible. If you can rest the phone on something stable to minimize shake during long shutter speeds, do it. As rough as it can be, those are still the best ways to get good pictures in your situation.

Oh, and avoid zooming. You're usually better off taking a full picture and cropping in post.


2008 Mac Pro Won't Shut Down (Black Screen - Gray Loading Wheel) One of our Mac Pros at work is having issues shutting down. On shut down, the screen will turn black and a small gray loading wheel will come up in the center of the screen. It will stay like this no matter how long you let it sit until you physically press and hold the power button. We've already let it sit like this over the weekend so I know it's not just a waiting game.

I've tried just about everything I can think of including resetting the PRAM and SMC. Tried force quitting all apps before attempting to shut down..

These issues started randomly one day while the computer was still running Yosemite so I figured it has something to do with the OS. Did a fresh install to El Capitan and the same thing keeps happening on shut down.

Now I'm thinking it's something hardware related.. Does anyone have any experience with an issue like this?

The Mac Pro is a 2008 2.8GHZ 8 core 3,1

EDIT Booted into verbose mode and this is what we got:

Booted into verbose mode and we have the following:

Failed to send exception EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY. error code: 5 for pid 436

Failed to send exception EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY. error code: 5 for pid 455

continuing

process_svrmsg_items: disabling svrmsg notify, error: 60

EDIT #2

The PIDs change every time we shut the computer down so it doesn't seem like there is just one program causing this issue. We did some tests with swapping out ram, taking ram out, and nothing has made a difference so far.

Today on shut down, we got a couple more random and different PIDs but got this for the first time..

smb2fs_smb_change_notify: smb2_smb_change_notify failed 57

This just kept continuing to pop up until we manually shut the computer down..

Have you tried booting it in verbose mode? i.e. when the startup sound is playing, hold down Command-V so that it scrolls a text-mode view during startup and shutdown. During shutdown, it'll probably get stuck on what you're looking for and then you may have a better idea of what is causing troubles...


Internet won't work but still receive iMessage. My cellular data is on and I can receive iMessages and post notifications but when I get on and app that requires internet it does not work. What is wrong?

There are two things that you need to pay attention:

First: Having Cellular Data ON allows a user to select apps that can access the internet via a cellular connection.
So first check whether the app with which you are trying to access the internet is allowed to use Cellular Data or not. The list of apps can be found here:
Settings > Mobile Data > Use Mobile Data For:

Second: iMessage sends messages via Cellular Network when Cellular Data or Wifi is not available. So maybe you are getting your messages via cellular network and you are not connected to the internet even though your Cellular Data is ON.


Is it safe to eject an SSD running your OS while the computer is asleep? I have macOS Sierra installed on a external SanDisk SSD. I use it for school & work related stuff. I plug it into my MacBook Pro via USB and I boot into instead of the actual HDD that is installed in the laptop. At the end of the day I pack up my stuff and go home. What I do is turn off the laptop and then unplug the SSD. This is getting quite annoying and I was wondering if it was okay to put the macbook to sleep and then disconnect the SSD. Once home I would plug back the SSD again and wake the macbook. Would that cause any errors?

I decided to TOFTT and put things to the test. I closed all applications running and clicked the apple icon and set the MBP to sleep. Once the screen turned black I closed the lid. I waited approximately 4-5 seconds and then unplugged the SSD (via USB) and re-connected on another USB port. When I opened the lid, it woke right away (As in it didn't go into the login screen). The OS was frozen. I couldn't click on anything. I just saw the desktop. I had to force shut down the MBP. So I am guessing what I am trying to accomplish is not possible. My only other thought is that maybe I didn't let the computer sleep long enough and I opened it right away which caused that error.


Keyboard shortcut to insert text - Keynote I'm new to Keynote and am disappointed by the lack of shortcuts for basic actions like "insert text". Any idea of how to attribute a single key such as the letter "T" to insert text action?

If for any reason a single letter without cmd/opt/whatever modifier key is not recommended, I'm happy with other possibilities..

Have you tried adding keyboard shortcuts through System Preferences? See this article on the Apple Knowledge Base.


Shortcut for vibrate activation on iPhone I've just switched from Android to iPhone and there is something I'm missing: is there a way to get a shortcut in the notifications or control center to switch vibrate on and off ?

I don't want to go to Settings>Sounds> but access this directly

There is no such shortcut available on iOS.

The closest thing to it is the mute button on the side of the iPhone.
You can disable the vibration on mute.


Software not available from update server when installing Windows 8.1 on Mavericks I am trying to install Windows 8.1 on OS X Mavericks via Bootcamp. I have a Macbook Pro mid 2010 model.

I'm running Bootcamp assistant 5.1.0 (473).

Unfortunately, I am getting the following error message when the installer tries to download Windows support software:

Any ideas why?

You can try manually updating the software. Here's a link that you can use. Be sure to follow the instructions.


Public Library downloads My question is where to place Audio book download from Public Library in iTouch and keep chapters in order?

I have done easy download from Overdrive but it is placed in Music and the chapters shuffles.

I think what you are asking is how to turn off the Shuffle.

Navigate to the “Now Playing card. You can access the “Now Playing” card from anywhere by swiping up from the bottom of the screen to bring up the Control Center, then swiping left.
Select the name of the song (Audio Book)
select the crossed arrows to toggle the Shuffle setting. The arrows will show with a darker box when enabled.

  To the right of the Shuffle icon is the repeat icon. Tap it to repeat
  the current playlist. Tap it again and a number 1 will appear next to
  it and the device will repeat the current song. You can also drag the
  ball on the song timeline to skip forward or backward on the current
  track. This feature comes in handy if you’re listening to an audio
  book or a long compilation.

Source:

I little trick I use is to add a number (1, 2, 3...) in front of the chapter (file name) so to keep them in order.