How to Disable Touch Bar Zoom on MacBook Pro 2016 I was accidentally able to turn on touch bar zoom, which apparently casts the touch bar and your actions to the bottom 1/2 of the screen. Now there is no longer an option to disable it in the 'zoom' section of 'accessibility'.  As this is a new feature, there is no documentation of this issue yet.

I would appreciate any help, as this makes the the touch bar near useless.

I got it to work.

Selecting the "System Preferences" from the top left "Apple" icon or just clicking the "System Preferences" icon directly both result in the "Enable Touch Bar Zoom" checkbox NOT showing up.

The only way to consistently get it was to right click or click and hold on the "System Preferences" icon found in the dock, then select "Accessibility", then select the "Zoom" tab.

No idea why it's any different, but it is.


Photo edits in iOS 7 do not save when exported to PC I applied some edits to my photo using iOS 7's default photo editor: red eye correction, auto enhance, etc.

It looks great when I preview the image on iPhone, but when I look at the image on my PC it looks the same as the original: all the edits are gone. I use the Dropbox app on iOS to sync my camera roll to my PC through the cloud.

What do I need to do to push the edited photo to my PC?

Try emailing the photos to yourself.

When you edit photos, iOS doesn't actually modify the JPG file. Instead, it saves an XML file with the same name that contains information about what edits were made—that's why edits "disappear" when you copy the JPG. They were never there in the first place.


Is it allowed to link to a site that contains a link to Facebook? The iOS and Mac OS AppStore terms are strict on links to outside sources and shops. If I would link from my iOS app to a page which contains a link to Facebook or Twitter, would that violate the store's terms?

Not unless you sell items on the page or make money from someone clicking on it. Pages that link to Facebook and Twitter are fine.


Why sometimes the charger for iPad Pro cannot charge for Macbook Pro Why sometimes the charger for iPad Pro cannot charge for Macbook Pro.
I use the charger for iPad Pro to charge Macbook Pro, sometimes it can be used to charge the Macbook Pro while sometimes it cannot work.

The chargers have different capacities.
So the ipad charger can charge the pro when it is idle but cannot meet the demand when the pro is working hard.


Xcode 10: Failed to create Provisioning Profile - There are no devices registered When I try to create a profile to build an iOS app by going to Project → General → Signing, and selecting my Team (Personal), I get two errors:

  Failed to create provisioning profile.

  There are no devices registered in your account on the developer website. Plug in and select a device to have Xcode register it.

And:

  No profiles for 'com.my.app.id' were found

  Xcode couldn't find any iOS App Development provisioning profile matching 'com.my.app.id'.

I tried to check many tutorials and questions but nothing helped me to solve these errors. Many URLs take me to the Apple Development website, but there I only have the option to pay for the membership, and as I understood that's not necessary to build and run an app on an iOS device.

Make sure you have connected your iOS device to your Mac and selected it as the run destination.

Yes, you do not need a paid membership to the Apple developer program. You can register for an Apple developer account for free and can build and run apps on a maximum of upto three devices.


MBP built in keyboard unresponsive until complete shutdown MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), running macOS Catalina 10.15.5.
Sometimes while working, the built-in keyboard becomes completely unresponsive, the only button that works is the power button. Logging-off, sleeping etc. does nothing, only shut down and fresh boot (with the chime) removes the issue.
While the issue is happening, the Caps Lock light is turned on.
Touchpad works fine, and plugging external USB keyboard also works (but doesn't unlock the built-in keyboard).
Mouse Keys, all this stuff is turned off.
I noticed, but have no proof, that this happens when I'm pressing various left-side modifier keys: shift, alt, ctrl, cmd, tab.
Is this a hardware issue? A software issue? A hidden shortcut? Is there some kind of logging that can be turned on to watch for this kind of things?

This is a hardware issue and more than likely you need to have the keyboard (top case) replaced.
The keyboard is on the USB bus; if you look for it in the device tree of the system report, you’ll find it there.  The fact that it stops working after a while says yo have a failing component - what exactly is impossible to know without putting hands on with proper diagnostic gear.
We know that it’s not your USB bus because you can plug in a different keyboard and it works - so the USB bus on your logic board is fully functional.
Hidden shortcut?  No.  With all of its complexity even modern computers are still pretty binary - it either works or it doesn’t.  There’s no setting to tell your keyboard to only work for a little while then stop, then start again after a reboot. Hardware functionality becomes intermittent when it’s in the process of failing (or failed).
You mentioned that the issue happens when your Caps Lock key is engaged.  If so, you may have narrowed down the issue however, the resolution is still, unfortunately the same - replace the keyboard.
Keyboard key stuck or not being recognized; how to fix


Is FileVault 2 + SSD + OverProvisioning possible? As the title says, could someone accomplish this?

I couldn't.
FileVault 2 wizard tells me that the disk isn't compatible with it.

I have only 3 partitions on main disk, and Recovery HD was cloned from original Macbook HD.

macbook-pro:~ $ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS MacOS                   200.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

...

macbook-pro:~$ sudo gpt -r show -l disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - "EFI System Partition"
     409640  390625000      2  GPT part - "Customer"
  391034640  107536528
  498571168    1269528      3  GPT part - "Recovery HD"
  499840696     277463
  500118159         32         Sec GPT table
  500118191          1         Sec GPT header

There are 2 places with unpartitionated space. One after my Macintosh "HD" and one that resulted from resizing a 700MB partition to on 650MB for the Recovery partition.

On Console.app the following shows up:

4/14/13 10:07:51.730 AM System Preferences[1868]: ***
  CoreStorage conversion failed with mainError: -69700; detailError: 0

... when the corresponding message shows up:
FileVault can't be turned on for the disk

PS: sorry I can't direct post the screenshot because I need more points in my reputation, you have to click the link to see it.

OK, I got it working.
I partitioned the disk completely from terminal.

disk0 is my internal drive, this is the one going be partitioned.
3 partitions specified, one for OS X, one for Recovery HD, and one with the remaining space for unallocated space/free space/over provisioning.
The size parameter (20G) for the last partition isn't really used because diskutil does assign to it the remaining space left unused by the previous two  partitions, ie. 256G-200.1G-650M=free space.

Here is how I did it:

macbook-pro:~ $ sudo diskutil partitionDisk disk0 3 GPTFormat jhfs+ MacOS 200.1G jhfs+ Recovery 650M "Free Space" free 20G
Started partitioning on disk0
Unmounting disk
Creating the partition map
Waiting for the disks to reappear
Formatting disk0s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name MacOS
Initialized /dev/rdisk0s2 as a 186 GB HFS Plus volume with a 16384k journal
Mounting disk
Formatting disk0s3 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name Recovery
Initialized /dev/rdisk0s3 as a 620 MB HFS Plus volume with a 8192k journal
Mounting disk
Finished partitioning on disk0
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS MacOS                   200.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Recovery                650.0 MB   disk0s3

...still 2 free space sections ->

macbook-pro:~ $ sudo gpt -r show -l disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - "EFI System Partition"
     409640  390558168      2  GPT part - "MacOS"
  390967808     262144
  391229952    1269536      3  GPT part - "Recovery"
  392499488  107618671
  500118159         32         Sec GPT table
  500118191          1         Sec GPT header

... cloned the original recovery partition to the partition for that purpose on the new disk ->

macbook-pro:~ $ sudo asr -source /dev/disk1s3 -target /dev/disk0s3 --erase
Validating target...done
Validating source...done
Erase contents of /dev/disk0s3 (/Volumes/Recovery)? [ny]: y
Validating sizes...done
Restoring  ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
Verifying  ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
Remounting target volume...done

...change the partition type ->

macbook-pro:~ $ diskutil unmount disk0s3

macbook-pro:~ $ sudo asr adjust --target /dev/disk0s3 --settype "Apple_Boot"
Fsck /dev/disk0s3 ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
Adjust completed successfully

...after that I cloned the booteable Macintosh HD partition to a new one on the new disk and then rebooted, went to System Preferences to enable FileVault. It worked! The disk layout after rebooting looks like this ->

macbook-pro:~ $ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         200.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS MacOS                  *199.6 GB   disk1
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk2
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            749.3 GB   disk2s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk2s3

Note: disk2 is an external USB 3.0 drive.


Deleting of photos on iOS When photos on iOS are added to an album, does that duplicate the amount of space being used? If I add the photos to another app, can I delete them from the camera roll?

No, when photos from the Camera Roll are added to an album, it does not result in double the storage space being used. The Photos.app just tracks those photos as being part of that album, in addition to being in the Camera Roll (which is the default album). Note that if you delete these photos from the Camera Roll, they will get deleted from the album too (because there's actually only one copy of the photos on the device).

If you add photos from the Camera Roll to another app and save, the other app receives its own copy of the photo. You can then delete the photos from the Camera Roll and have them only in the other app.


In Pages, trying to bold everything that is inside {curly brackets} I have a source document that I'm trying to clean up, it's essentially plain text. But the author has bold text indicated with { } brackets, and italics indicated with < > brackets.

I would like to be able to automatically convert these to the proper style. Is there a way to accomplish this? It's nearly 200 pages, and on some there are 30+ instances on a single page. This will be weeks of work at the rate I'm going.

I've got the latest Pages (and no older version to fall back on). Is there a way to do this?

I would recommend simply editing the file in .rtf, as it contains support for bold and italic but isn't anywhere near as complex as Pages files.

RTF uses a tag based system denotes certain properties with the backslash "\" as the control word, which is somewhat human readable.. Take a look at these two pieces: one the formatted .rtf and the other the plaintext (or code.)

  This is a test.

{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\cocoartf1404\cocoasubrtf470
{\fonttbl\f0\fswiss\fcharset0 Helvetica;}
{\colortbl;\red255\green255\blue255;}
\margl1440\margr1440\vieww10600\viewh10400\viewkind0
\pard\tx720\tx1440\tx2160\tx2880\tx3600\tx4320\tx5040\tx5760\tx6480\tx7200\tx7920\tx8640\pardirnatural\partightenfactor0

\f0\fs24 \cf0 This
\b is
\b0
\i a
\i0  test.}

Stripping out the metadata, we still have a valid .rtf file, just with less formatting (which we don't need anyways.)

{This
\b is
\b0
\i a
\i0  test.}

We don't even need those newlines.

{This \b is \b0 \i a \i0 test.}

With this, it becomes pretty trivial to convert your text: all we need is find and replace. First, create a .txt with all the data and open it in your favorite text editor–even TextEdit will do. Simply find and replace:

{ with \b
} with \b0
< with \i
> with \i0

Note the whitespace (you may have to open the markdown code to see it.)

All we need to do now is add a curly brace at the start and the end, and we're done!

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, {consectetur adipiscing elit.} Donec placerat turpis in ligula ullamcorper, eget finibus ligula pretium. Etiam pellentesque {rutrum varius. Proin non} nunc quam. Pellentesque vestibulum quam enim, ac mollis metus venenatis eget. Vestibulum purus nulla, gravida quis erat ac, <luctus venenatis nunc. Pellentesque ac posuere dolor, sed tincidunt arcu.> Duis sodales magna justo, non porta turpis <aliquam eu. Etiam tempor, enim eget maximus tincidu{nt, orci justo} consequat erat, ac elementum justo enim ullamcorper ex. Nunc libero ex, efficitur eget neque commodo, tempus hendrerit ipsum. Ut id placerat> mauris, eu porta nulla. Donec ultrices lectus non elit condimentum sollicitudin. Mauris molestie felis eget hendrerit lobortis. Cras scelerisque et tellus nec ultricies. Nam nisi urna, vehicula eget posuere sed, interdum eu {sem.}

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, \b consectetur adipiscing elit. \b0 Donec placerat turpis in ligula ullamcorper, eget finibus ligula pretium. Etiam pellentesque \b rutrum varius. Proin non \b0 nunc quam. Pellentesque vestibulum quam enim, ac mollis metus venenatis eget. Vestibulum purus nulla, gravida quis erat ac, \i luctus venenatis nunc. Pellentesque ac posuere dolor, sed tincidunt arcu. \i0 Duis sodales magna justo, non porta turpis \i aliquam eu. Etiam tempor, enim eget maximus tincidu\b nt, orci justo \b0 consequat erat, ac elementum justo enim ullamcorper ex. Nunc libero ex, efficitur eget neque commodo, tempus hendrerit ipsum. Ut id placerat \i0 mauris, eu porta nulla. Donec ultrices lectus non elit condimentum sollicitudin. Mauris molestie felis eget hendrerit lobortis. Cras scelerisque et tellus nec ultricies. Nam nisi urna, vehicula eget posuere sed, interdum eu \b sem. \b0

Things to note: RTF doesn't support non-ASCII characters by default. If you need/want to use them, you'll need to do enter them specially using the \u control.


Remote Desktop Client perpetual update in App Store The App Store icon in my Dock always has a little "1" badge on it indicating that 1 app is available for update. That 1 app is "Remote Desktop Client Update 3.7.1" via "Software Update."

However, when I click either "Update" or "Update All," it seems to update, but the "1" badge doesn't go away and the App Store perpetually shows that the Remote Desktop Client is always available for update. FYI: I have two Macs and this problem happens on only one of them.

Why is this the case? How can it be fixed?

After a bit more searching, I found this where I manually downloaded ARDC from and manually installed it. After re-running the App Store app, it now no longer shows ARDC needing to be updated.


Possible to pause audio in browser using keyboard? I often listen to news/podcasts through my browser (Chrome) on my MacBook and I'd like to figure out a way to pause the audio that is playing using my keyboard instead of trying to hunt down the tab that it's playing in and pausing it there by clicking a button.  I can do this for native apps like Spotify, but not when it's playing through the browser.

Does anyone know of a way to do this?

I can't find a way to do it in Chrome, but in Safari it's easy.

Method as follows, in case it would provide a suitable alternative...

You can click on the speaker icon to the right of the address bar to mute either the current tab or all tabs - the Mute wording appears as you hover your cursor.
A single click will mute even if Safari is not currently frontmost, so long as you can see the icon. [It will then bring it to the front, though.]

You can also set a key command to Mute This Tab or Mute All Tabs in System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts >App Shortcuts - though this requires Safari to be frontmost to work.


Preserving the order of status bar icons between restarts I know I can reorder them manually using Command key and mouse drag and drop, but this order is not preserved between the restarts. The order seems to be according to the order the apps managed to load on system start, but this isn't always the same.
Is there any way to preserve the order of icons on the macOS menu bar between restarts of the system?

You can try using Bartender, which keeps the order of the icons fixed (and does much more). It's a paid software, but it has a free trial and is available in Setapp.


how to view Apple TV purchases in iTunes? I bought a TV series through Apple TV.  Watched the first episode, works fine.

Now I'd like to watch episode 2 on my MacBook.  I opened iTunes (11.0.2), logged in with my iTunes account, and can't find the TV series anywhere.

How do I watch a TV series I bought through Apple TV on my MacBook in iTunes?

Thanks!

Found the answer here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

I must say I found this all very confusing.

Apple devices normally work so seamlessly together.  Why hide this functionality by a checkbox deep inside a preference pane?


Default terminal icon accidentally deleted! I accidentally deleted my default terminal icon and I also unintentionally replaced the Terminal.icns file in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/Resources/Terminal.icns
So can anyone provide me with the original icns file?
This not a duplicate question the other question is regarding apps not icons and I have deleted the icon not app please red the question carefully

To do so would be copyright infringement; however, you could use Pacifist to extract the files from the Sierra install app.

(disclaimer: I'm the developer of Pacifist)


how can I recover a file overwritten in the .app directory inside /Applications on OSX I am using Android Studio and the application is stored in /Application/Android Studio.app.

I'm not sure why, but at some point my keystore file was stored inside this directory, in the bin directory. It is no longer there. I assume that an update occurred, and the entire directory Android Studio.app was wiped. And, the key was deleted. Since this is outside my home folder, I don't believe I have a backup of the keystore file.

Are these files backed up, or put into the trash? Is there a way to recover this file?

If you have Time Machine enabled as a local store option or backing up to an external drive, then that file would be backed up - perhaps several versions and stores.

The filesystems Apple ships do not have any archive or redo, so you would need to have backed up your application. It's odd that it would store things in the application bundle and not the user home folder. Did you check that perhaps it moved the files to the proper location as part of an update?


Inspect Element in Safari? I've tried Firebug Lite for Safari, but content wasn't editable. Is there an alternative to edit HTML, CSS, etc?

Just enable Show Developer Menu in Safari's Preferences, Advanced tab.

It will enable the option Inspect Element when you right click the page. You can also start it with Command+Option+I.

You can get more info about this option in Safari for Developers - Tools and Safari Web Inspector Guide: The Develop Menu.


How to create bootable installer USB for macOS in Windows? I purchased a 2008 Mac from a friend. It's now formatted and internet recovery option is not working for a fresh install. I want to create a bootable USB drive in a Windows machine. I am unable to download El Capitan without the Mac App Store. How do I install a fresh copy?

I doubt you'll be able to do this. Even if you could find a URL to the OS installer app outside of the App Store, you can't run the installer in a Windows environment.

2008 Macs didn't have Internet Recovery. However, it's usualy for them to have a  Recovery Partition on the internal drive, which you can access by restarting while holding Command and R.

Did your friend sell you the Mac without an OS on the drive? I'd go back to him, if he has another Mac, and see if he can help.

You can still buy OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) from Apple on a DVD. It's about US$20.


Reclaiming occupied space A MBPro with a 250GB running the latest Mojave suddenly went from 100GB+ of free space to 5GB and is warning us about running out. Looking at About>Storage>Manage, it seems most of the occupied space is System (168GB worth). Looking at things via the Finder, we only see about 90GB of stuff total and only 9GB in the System directory and 6GB in the main Library folder.  Running OmniDiskSweeper with the sudo command via Terminal, it confirms what the Finder is reporting…that there should be about 90GB instead of 245GB of stuff.  We also ran GrandPerspective and it does not “see” any inordinately large files.

Researching a bit, I found some possibilities that haven’t panned out.
1. it’s NOT local TimeMachine snapshots, as was the answer for some people
2. it’s NOT a runaway Spotlight index, as it was for some people
3. running TimeMachine did NOT clean things up, as reported by some
4. revealing hidden files did NOT reveal anything out of the ordinary
5. booting into Recovery Mode and running Disk Repair reported everything fine

Some have thrown their hands up wiped out their hard drive and reinstalled (which has fixed this issue for some).

The problem is, my friend with this laptop is traveling thru Europe and is not technically savvy. So, talking her through a full reinstall will be a big challenge.

There must be SOME way to see what’s occupying the space.   It would seem to me that perhaps there’s some that went wrong with the recent conversion from HFS+ to APFS when she installed Mojave.

Any ideas on how to reclaim the space without reinstalling from scratch?

Turns out the answer came out of left field. I had done a Spotlight rebuild, which didn't reclaim the space, but what it did do (I think) is change totals in About>Storage>Manage. The System went down to 90GB (which is still high but better), but Mail jumped up to 95GB. That gave me the clue to look in the ~/Library/Mail folder. From here it gets weird.

Turning on 'Calculate folder sizes' in the Finder, it calculated the Mail folder as 24GB.  However, underneath that folder were several "mail container" folders, one of which was 37GB besides another that was actually 24GB. Literally it didn't add up.

Inside of that 37GB folder was a Drafts mbox was 37GB all by itself!

Over in Apple Mail, she had no visible Drafts folders in any of the three accounts. I checked preferences to make sure each account was pointing to a server Drafts folder, and they were.  And when I created a new draft, it showed up properly.  So, the functionality was fine.

So, I figured out which Gmail account this huge Drafts folder belonged to (by watching the timestamps on the folders when I updated in Apple Mail), and then logged into that Gmail account via web. There I found a Drafts folder with hundreds and hundreds of emails with attachments (its normal for her to work with large PDFs).  These Drafts weren't getting deleting when she sent them.  So, I cleared all the Drafts off the server.  However, when I later launch Mail, the "cleanup" I was expecting didn't happen. Somehow, the Drafts mbox was a separate copy of these abandoned Drafts.

So I was left with quitting Apple Mail and Finder-trashing the 37GB Drafts mbox.  Even though the ~/Libary/Mail folder didn't gain any space, the overall hard drive free space did (as well as About>Storage>Manage).

She's got enough free space to work with now, but System still shows as 90GB and we don't know how she got into this predicament in the first place.  So, we don't know if this is the end of the saga.  (Perhaps because she travels a lot, she's "offline" a lot and Gmail is being ultra conservative saving her Drafts?) I suppose when she's back from her travels, I'll zap that email account and re-enter it, so it can download a fresh copy from the server.


Replaced iPhone 4S batteries, won't boot, won't recover (even in DFU), iTunes says "Waiting for iPhone" I've tried multiple machines, multiple iTunes versions, multiple cables, and ports.

My phone was originally rebooting randomly. Thinking it was an electrical short problem, I put in a new battery. That didn't help, but made it worse. I tried the old batteries again. No luck. Eventually the phone would just hang at apple logo.

Restoring it gets it stuck in "Waiting for iPhone" with an apple logo with an empty gray bar under it.

Likewise, DFU mode restore gets it stuck in "Waiting for iPhone" with an apple logo with an empty gray bar under it.

Not jailbroken. No water damage. Was not dropped.

Well, shave my whiskers, crumble my biscuit, and oil my gears, I'll be darned!

I let it sit there in that state for a literal hour (72 minutes) with no progress bar or evidence of activity [even over USB 3.0!] and it eventually restored and booted. I still had to go through some prompts to get it to connect, but it worked.


How to permanently change my MAC address in macOS? In macOS Sierra, for some reasons, I would like to change my MAC address and I would like that this change survive a reboot.

How can I do this?

If you have Homebrew, install SpoofMAC with

brew install spoof-mac

You can also install SpoofMAC with pip, or directly with:

git clone git://github.com/feross/SpoofMAC.git
cd SpoofMAC
python setup.py install

Add a local.macspoof.plist file in /Library/LaunchDaemons:

<?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>MacSpoof</string>
            <key>ProgramArguments</key>
            <array>
            <string>/usr/local/bin/spoof-mac.py</string>
                <string>set</string>
                <string>ca:fe:ca:fe:ca:fe</string>
                <string>en4</string>
            </array>
            <key>RunAtLoad</key>
            <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Adapt the interface name and address to your need then reboot.

Then load the launch daemon:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.macspoof.plist

P.S.: There is a similar question Change MAC address in OS X Yosemite but the question is not about permanent change and is only for Yosemite.


Is there a way to protect email using passcode in iPhone? I dont want to put passcode on phone, it is quite annoying, i just want to protect email. Is there any way to do so?

You will have to jailbreak your iPhone to password-protect the Mail app. Sorry, there's no other way. :-)

I ran across this article, which has three apps for password protecting iOS apps.

Lockdown Pro
FolderLock
Locktopus

All are paid apps.

This article mentions an app called iAppLocker. It is free. Hope this helps you!


What are the consequences of turning iCloud Document and Data syncing off? I have disabled Documents and Data syncing in iOS 7 to overcome the sluggish keyboard issue. But I wonder what the consequences of turning Docu and Data sync off are?

The consequence is data stays the same on your Mac and isn't kept in sync with other devices that use iCloud sync.

You can test if this is the cause of slowness by just disconnecting from the network.

Turning off iCloud documents is simple though and you can always turn it on again if you find something else was causing the slowness or you wish to have an easier time getting files back and forth.


Video Container for 1080p video for SD DVD (using Apple suite) This may be a bit of a stretch to post here (in terms of whether people will have an answer), since this is a fairly specific question about video work, although I am performing the entirety of this work within FCP 7, Compressor, and DVD Studio Pro.

I have 2 hours of footage edited from a HD Camcorder in FCP 7, and I need to get it onto a DVD. I want to use the highest quality container I can, and I want to be able to author and preferably burn the DVD within DVD Studio Pro. Unfortunately, DVDSP doesn't support MPEG-4, which is one of the nicest containers to put 1080p video into. It supports MPEG, which offers considerably less options for compression, and data rates.

Ultimately, my question is HOW can I export my video out of FCP (or Compressor) so that I'm sitting on a high quality file that will fit on one DVD and be compatible with DVD Studio Pro (4.7GB)? I just finished a 24 hour Compressor job with the default setting "HD DVD 60 minutes", but it gave me a 5.1GB file, which is of no use to me. The aspect ratio is also forced and it looks terrible.

HELP!

Just to get this 'answered' for anyone else who might come across this question.

There is no way to get 1080p or 1080i video onto a DVD. DVD's only support SD images (this goes for the disks themselfs, and the players).

You can however use BluRay to burn HD video, though this would require a BluRay burner and a BluRay player.

Have a look here for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Video


How can I process/read checkmarks on a paper form? I would like to process a large number of scanned paper forms (GUI or command line). I am only interested in reading (custom) checkboxes. The form looks like this:

every line has 6 circle-shaped boxes (one is marked)
form has has 45+ lines

After processing, I would like to have the checked value (1 … 6) of every line. I assume as there is no Optical Character Recognition involved (but OMR), this should be somewhat easier.

Is there a way to do this from the GUI or the command line? What would be the best approach?

UPDATED: scans come in PDF or JPEG (my choice). Sample scan (380kb JPEG).

Here is an anonymized version of the form:

If you want to avoid OCR, you can use ImageMagick (a CLI image-manipulation super toolset). But you need to be shure all pages are aligned exactly the same.
I hacked together this workflow, you need to alter it for your needs and create some loops, but it can help you in the right direction.

Make shure the position of each round is the same on each sheet

Extract each round and save it with the row_circle-nr (like 04_1.png, 04_2.png, etc)

x=$position_of_circle_on_x
y=$position_of_circle_on_y
w=$width_of_circle_area
h=$hight_of_circle_area
input=$input_image
output=$output_row_cirleNr
convert +repage $input -crop $wx$h+$x+$y $output

Calculate the area of red using histograms
(I prefer red, but you can also do this for blacks)

RGBO=$( convert $FILE -colorspace HSL -verbose info: | grep mean | awk '{print $2}' )
REDVALUE=$( echo $RGBO | awk '{print $1}'  | cut -d. -f1 )

The largest REDVALUE wins for each row

Well, this is about it.

How to install imagemagick?

The use and installation of ImageMagick can intimidating, but this image manipulation package is the most powerfull I have encountered so far. As the installation from source can be a hassle for native OS X users I advise you to use Homebrew.

To install ImageMagick using Homebrew run this oneliner in your terminal:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/go)"

Homebrew is now installed, it is wise to follow the installer's suggestions after installation. Now we install ImageMagick using brew.

brew install imagemagick

Now we can use imagemagick and its convert tool as in the examples above.


Debugger  on MacBook Air I was updating my iTunes and left my MacBook Air open to finish and restart. When I came back a few hours later my Mac was showing the grey apple screen with the apple and then black lines of code down the left side of the screen. It said debugger "Unable to find driver for this platform: ..." And then kernel version Darwin kernel version kernel UUID kernel slide and kernel text base.

I have no idea what has happened. I thought it was a kernel panic but my screen looks nothing like any screen that shows up when I research kernel panic. I've rebooted it in safe mode and just normally about 20 times. Nothing is changing it.

Can someone please help?

Did this happen after a system update perhaps?
It seems that a lot of people have similar problems after the "Thunderbolt update" from Apple.

check this  thread


CMD + space not working in the first try I'm having troubles with Spotlight.

Command Space isn't working in the first try, but when I try it again it does work. After few minutes I need to do it twice again for it to pop.
I don't see app result anymore. I tried to add it to the privacy section in the spotlight setting, than remove it so it will be re-indexed. It didn't work.

Somehow I think they tied together. I have the latest OS (macOS High Sierra)

Appreciate the help.

Since I got an answer for the first one, I'll post here the solution for the second one. Just add the whole computer (ShiftCommandC) to the privacy in the spotlight settings - then remove it.

i saw this on a user's machine lately.  it was acting very strangely with a couple command keys.

the solution here was to go to keyboard preference pane and clear out all shortcuts and restore defaults for each section.  it seems an app this user installed was grabbing the key-combo for its own purposes, and once removing the customizing it worked well.

it might be this simple in your case.


Is there an app I can use to automatically track screen time for each desktop on my MacBook? I usually forget to start/stop time trackers when I'm working on different projects and tasks.
So I think it would be better if there is an app that can automatically track my screen time on each desktop. That means I can create a separate desktop for each task, and when I switch to it, the time tracker would automatically start. When I switch to another desktop, or when I lock the screen, or when the computer sleeps, it should automatically stop the timer.

I don't know about a solution that tracks time per desktop but what I use is Observe (https://qotoqot.com/qbserve/). It tracks the time you spend in any application and you can add filters so screen time in one app is allocated to a specific project. You can even define working paths. So every time you work on a file in specific directory it also gets allocated to a specific project.


Path in .bash_profile is not recognized I have the following in .bash_profile:

export PATH="/Library/PostgreSQL/9.5/bin/:${PATH}"

I even tried it without the string:

export PATH=/Library/PostgreSQL/9.5/bin/:$PATH

I know for sure an executable lives in that bin directory:

$ cd /Library/PostgreSQL/9.5/bin
$ ./psql
psql: FATAL:  password authentication failed for user

However, when I add the path to .bash_profile and then source .bash_profile (and even restart terminal), I get the following:

$ psql
-bash: psql: command not found

What am I doing wrong?

To add /Library/PostgreSQL/9.5/bin to the path simply add the line:

export PATH="/Library/PostgreSQL/9.5/bin:$PATH"

to the file ~/.bash_profile. If you have a second similar line starting with export PATH... try to concatenate them.

After adding then line quit and open Terminal.app or enter source ~/.bash_profile to reload the modified .bash_profile.

Check the path with echo $PATH (which should yield: /Library/PostgreSQL/9.5/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin and the "existence" of psql with which psql: /Library/PostgreSQL/9.5/bin/psql.

Afterwards enter psql -d database_name -U database_user_name with the following result:

Password for user database_user_name:
psql (9.5.1)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=#

Simply entering psql is as futile as entering mkdir or ssh only.


Upgraded to Mavericks, mini-displayport vga no longer works So yesterday I decided to perform the free upgrade to Mavericks, but when I came back today to use my computer, my external projector no longer gets a signal from my iMac. I can verify that the signal is going out, as the display is black, rather than showing "no signal," but all it gets is a black screen.

It also only shows a black screen in the display preferences.

I've tried changing to a scaled resolution, resetting the PRAM, and simply switching mini-displayports, but nothing will make the display turn on.

Any ideas?

If you reset the NVRAM and then boot to the recovery HD you should be able to tell if the problem is hardware or software without needing to boot from the older OS.


App Store on Mojave: "We could not complete your purchase. cancelled" Whenever I try to Get then Install any app from the App Store, I get this message:

  We could not complete your purchase.  cancelled

I did some searching online, but barely found any useful hits. What is this about?!

From https://ericasadun.com/2020/05/22/broken-app-store-downloads-on-mojave-we-could-not-complete-your-purchase/:

Quit App Store
In Terminal: open "$TMPDIR/../C/com.apple.appstore/"
In Finder: trash everything in that folder including any pending updates / stuck items.
In Terminal: killall -9 appstoreagent
Relaunch App Store
Done

If you feel confident with Terminal you can also quit the App Store and then run
rm -r "$TMPDIR/../C/com.apple.appstore/"*
killall -9 appstoreagent


How to access LAN devices and files from iPad, iPhone? Are there any free iOS applications that let us browse LAN devices, so we could access files from devices in same network.

I use ES File Explorer to do the same in Android phone but I didn't find any free application on iOS. Most of the file explorer for android mobiles include this functionality.

Any such free app?

iFileExplorer may be what you need. It is free on App store. I am using it.


Erase Data on my stolen phone without password I’ve lost an iPhone without a passcode and had put it in lost mode at the moment. However, I would like to erase the data too as I do not want the thieves to see the contents on my phone. But when I press ”erase data” on Find iPhone，I was prompted for my iCloud password and phone passcode even though I had no passcode set. I suspect that the thief has probably set a passcode himself. How do I erase the data on my phone this way? Thanks.

It's sad you learned a lesson the hard way.

Because the phone had no passcode, the thief (or anyone else who happens upon it) can see contacts, photos etc. When you get a new phone, it is highly advised that you add a passcode. The time and inconvenience of unlocking when you use the phone is worth the security.

As for the stolen device, It is recommended that you should at least change your Apple ID password.  Instructions can be found here at Apple Support.  I is unlikely that the thief will guess your old password, but if the current password is weak or can be easily guessed (or worse, you have it plain to see in the Notes app) he could do even more damage to your personal data.  If you have any other Apple device that uses your Apple ID this could be a serious problem.  He could even purchase apps at your expense, change the password himself and lock you out.

If you are still concerned and you have your original proof of purchase, a call to Apple Support may be an option.


How to copy all conversation from iMessages to Mac without using Apple ID? Any app to do that? So I have a long conversation on my iPhone in the iMessages app. It is a long text message conversation with a friend. Now I want a copy of the whole conversation so I can send to another friend.

Right now I do: take a screen shot of every block of the conversation and send to my friend ⇒ 20 screenshots. Not practical for me and my recipient.

I know you can have iMessages in your MAC by using your Apple ID but I don't want to use my Apple ID with iMessages. I want to continue to use my phone number. If I change to Apple ID people will see my Apple ID when I send a message to them using my phone. And I don't want to share this private information.

So is there some app that will allow me to just copy the whole conversation of my iMessage app to someplace else?

Thanks!

Yes, there are apps such as BackupTrans, which will copy all messages from an iPhone to a Mac.  I have used that one with some success.  There are several others in the same price range.


Can OS X be configured to avoid seeing a WiFi log in window when joining some networks? In Mountain Lion (10.8), when you connect to a wireless network with a default login page - a special window pops up showing that page.  This pop-up is set to always in front, and also doesn't store any passwords / login information (unlike chrome, firefox, etc).  This is really annoying.

Is there anyway to make this popup window store passwords and login information or just disable that visual step altogether?

According to this thread, you just need to rename the following file:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Captive Network Assistant.app

to something else and it will not show up anymore.


iMac - can't eject CD, metal part blocking CD slot, how to fix this? I have a 20" iMac (white, Core Duo 2.0 Ghz, one of the first Intel iMacs).

Lately I've had a problem where the iMac won't eject a CD.  It attempts to eject it, makes all the eject-related noises, but the disc seems to hit a piece of metal and then falls back into the drive.

I can see the little metal piece when I look in the slot (pushing the rubber stuff aside with a paper clip).

It's like the little metal piece is supposed to retract but it's staying put.

Eventually it just starts working again -- maybe if I unplug the iMac?  Not sure.

Anyone know what's wrong or how to fix it?  Do I need a new disc drive or something?

Thanks,
Rob

#

More info:

The metal piece keeping the disc in appears to be some kind of lever that's part of the drive.  I turned off the machine, unplugged the power, laid the machine on its back for a while, then stood it up, plunked it down a little hard, and the little lever thingy must have fallen back into place correctly because now the disc ejects again.

The thing is, this is going to happen again because it's a recurring problem.

Is this a problem with the hardware?  Any idea how to fix it?

It looks like the optical drive is dying.

iFixit has instructions to change it.


How to change speed of podcast playback on iPad running iOS 5's Music app? It seems the option to enable double, normal, or half speed playback is gone from the Music app on iPads running iOS 5.

Anyone ran into this? Workarounds?

It seems the speed controls are available in iOS 5.1. They just are not there in 5.0.


clipboard not working after Security Update EDIT: The update had the Security and Privacy icon (steel home with vault lock), while the last installed update (2017-001) has the High Sierra icon. So may not be 2017-001. Yet this is the last installed update.
So Installed the security update 2017-001 for mac OS X High Sierra on a MacBook Air 13" 2016 and my clipboard is broken now. Update 10.13.1 is installed.
I am admin. It is systemwide (except for GarageBand). The following were tested:

reset
check the 'V' and cmd button work and use the menu option.
echo "hello" | pbcopy; pbpaste
disable CopyClip app at start-up
enable guest user, log-in as them
safe mode
killing and pkilling pboard process (sudo too). Actually using paste kills the process anyway (the launch daemon reloads it).
freeing HDD memory as it was getting very low. Now 10/256 GB.
zapped P-RAM
reset SMC
removed as many launch agents as possible
snooped in /private/tmp

It works in recovery mode —I do not have time machine enabled or the spare memory to backup ATM.
 Launch control status –6
The best lead I have is an abort signal for the launch control:
 $ launchctl list | grep pboard
 1234 -6 com.apple.pboard
 $ id -u
 501
 $ launchctl debug gui/501/com.apple.pboard
 Configuration failed: 150: System integrity Protection is enabled

That is the launch deamon cannot start it (-6). In recovery mode, where it works, the status is 0. System integrity protection was always enabled.
The pasteboard service (pbs) has a normal status. Dragging text works (no idea of what that service is). Another user (see below) has Sys' int' prot' disabled and has a copy paste issue.
Update environment
This section is here solely in the offchance someone has the same problem and happens to have the system similarly configured.
The install of the update was only slightly odd as in it did not ask to reset the machine. After accepting the update request, I proceeded to shut down stuff and Matlab was crashed. The terminal was ssh'ed into a pi and office and pycharm were open.
The previous time the machine crashed was the day before with Kerbal, a videogame that does not really work on an Air.
On the update to HighSierra my Office had the unicode bug, which was fixed by a reinstall. After which all worked fine.  My Office 365 was first a pirate version then a legitimate version.
Other Microsoft related stuff are Parallels with Win 10 (untouched in months) and Paragon.
Last launch control tinkering I did was to get a NFC card reader to work.
CopyClip is an clipboard extension app.

I had a similar situation, though it was caused by a sudden power-down in my case. Copy did not work in any of the apps I tried - viewing clipboard showed it to be empty. Restarting or logging out and logging in did not help. After several hours I stumbled onto an answer, which helped me.

In short, run in Terminal command, which rebuilds a cache of shared system services.

sudo update_dyld_shared_cache

Probably I restarted my Mac after that.


Unable to format sandisk ultra 16gb usb3.0 pendrive in mac I have been using Sandisk Ultra usb 3.0 pen drive since Jan, 2016. I live in Mumbai. But previous month, I created bootable usb with mac os Mojave. Then I formatted pen drive. Dont know what happened, since then the pen drive is not appearing on the desktop screen. In the disk utility, the pendrive is showing but its main partition is faded out. In the info box, it is showing,  Mount Point: Not Mounted. I ran first aid, it is showing good condition. Then I clicked on mount in the diskutility selecting the faded out partition, nothing happened.

when the faded out partition of the pendrive selected, I tried to erase with mac os journaled, it says, can not create file system on /dev/disk1s2 and below it, it was written 'permission denied' and at the bottom, it was written, file formatter failed.

I tried to erase the disk with erase disk but no result, some error message is appearing.

If I try to format in windows 10 then error message says the disk is write protected.

Note: Currently I am using mac os x, El capitan IMAC.

Please look into the picture for more details.

Please guide me to get back the pen drive functioning properly. Thanks in advance.

Your USB stick may be defective.

  How do I fix a Write Protect error?

  Write protection errors occur when a flash drive detects a potential
  fault within itself. The drive will go into write-protected mode to
  prevent data loss. There is no method to fix this. To verify the issue
  is related to the flash drive and not your computer we recommend that
  you try plugging the USB drive into another port on your computer. You
  should also try the drive on another computer if possible.

Source: https://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8656/~/write-protect-error-on-usb-flash-drives


Use a network Time Machine drive locally I typically backup over a network to a networked hard drive on another machine. For some unknown reason, backups tend to get incredibly slow over the network (the first few backups work fine and timely, then it gets crazy slow.) I let the backup run over gigabit for a night, and I came back to find 300 MB of 10 GB backed up.  Anyway...

I'd like to plug that networked HD into my notebook over FireWire directly, and backup to it's sparsebundle locally.  I tried mounting the sparsebundle (which was successful-- I see the past backups), but I can't select it as my backup volume in Time Machine preferences. It would seem I either need to:

Trick OS X into letting me backup to the sparseimage as a volume.
Trick OS X into connecting to my external firewire drive at afp://localhost/Drive/

Any other suggestions are more than welcome, but those seem to be the most logical options.  It's worth noting 1 isn't easy because TM doesn't want to backup to sparse disks.  2 isn't easy because AFP can't connect to localhost, it just tells you to access the shared files locally.

Suggestions appreciated!  Thanks.

You can try mounting that volume and then use the tmutil command to tell Time Machine where do you want backups to go to. Just make sure that nobody else is using the sparsebundle from the network

Stepwise:

Mount the .sparsebundle disk image
Open Terminal
In the Terminal command line, type:

sudo tmutil setdestination /Volumes/{mounted-disk-image}

Be sure to replace {mounted-disk-image} above to the drive's mount point name.
Open the Time Machine menu and force-start a backup.

Watch the contents of the Backups.backupdb folder in the disk image as Time Machine runs and ensure that it is creating your new backup set.

Note that you'll need Lion for this. Enter the command man tmutil in the Terminal for more information.


How to start with launchd a bash script that calls fswatch with `&` Manually it works

I have a bash script called git-watch.sh (gist link) that calls fswatch in a loop like this:

while read -r line; do
  {
    fswatch -r "$line" | grep --line-buffered -v '.git' | xargs -n1 -I{} git-commit-unattended.sh "$line";
  } &
done

(Note the ampersand. I had to use it because fswatch blocks waiting for change, so the while wouldn't get past the first iteration otherwise. It could be interfering with launchd though, not sure.)

It works fine if I call it from the command line passing it a file, like

git-watch.sh < /Users/kbdluv/Dropbox/dotfiles/git-watch-paths.txt

Running ps aux | grep fswatch yields:

kbdluv           9629   0.0  0.0  4278008    920 s001  S+    5:46PM   0:00.00 grep fswatch
kbdluv           9415   0.0  0.0  4299876   4912 s001  S     5:37PM   0:00.01 fswatch -r /Users/kbdluv/Dropbox/org
kbdluv           9414   0.0  0.0  4315736   4944 s001  S     5:37PM   0:00.01 fswatch -r /Users/kbdluv/Dropbox/dotfiles

Which is what we want.

Launchd doesn't

But now I want it to start automatically on login, and I haven't been able to get launchd to cooperate.

Here's my com.user.gitWatchMyPathsOnLogin.plist so far:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
   <key>Label</key>
   <string>com.user.gitWatchMyPathsOnLogin</string>
   <key>ProgramArguments</key>
   <array><string>/Users/kbdluv/Dropbox/dotfiles/scripts/git-watch-my-paths-on-login.sh</string></array>
   <key>RunAtLoad</key>
   <true/>
   <key>StandardOutPath</key>
   <string>/tmp/com.user.gitWatchMyPathsOnLogin.out</string>
   <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
   <string>/tmp/com.user.gitWatchMyPathsOnLogin.err</string>
</dict>
</plist>

It loads without error. It starts without outputting anything to stderr or stdout either, but here's what ps aux | grep fswatch gives me:

kbdluv          11550   0.0  0.0  4267768    888 s001  S+    7:56PM   0:00.00 grep fswatch
kbdluv          11545   0.0  0.0  4298088   4932   ??  S     7:56PM   0:00.01 fswatch -r /Users/kbdluv/Dropbox/org

It runs fswatch only with the last line in the git-watch-paths.txt file. (The fswatch for dotfiles is missing.)

And it doesn't auto-commit when a change happens, so I guess the parts fswatch is being piped to aren't getting called.

What am I doing wrong, or how could I debug this further when launchd isn't throwing any error or outputting anything?

What happens if you amend git-watch.sh to use the "wait" command to wait on the background processes?

while read -r line; do
  {
    fswatch -r "$line" | grep --line-buffered -v '.git' | xargs -n1 -I{} git-commit-unattended.sh "$line";
  } &
done

wait


Activate the frontmost Safari and run Javascript I'm trying to run Javascript on the Safari, whose frontmost is true.

tell (application "Safari" whose frontmost is true) to do JavaScript theScript in current tab of first window

But I get an error like this:

execution error: Can’t get application "System Events" whose frontmost of it = true. Access not allowed. (-1723)

where I'm making mistake?

Your script is trying to tell s.th. to a Safari application allegedly already "frontmost". Is it?!?
You can only identify or activate an unknown element by property ("whose ... is ...")
This will do: the first application whose ...

If you WANT "Safari" to become "frontmost" you'd  better write:

tell application "Safari"
    activate
    do JavaScript theScript in current tab of first window
end tell


iTerm2 output broken since upgrade to El Capitan Since I upgraded my OS X to El Capitan (10.11) the output of iTerm2 is completely messed up. See this example screenshot (iTerm2 on the left, Terminal.app on the right):

Update

I'm using iTerm 2.1.4 which should be the latest version.

.

The problem is independent from tmux, I just started it to show it's broken output.

I tried to play with TERM but without any luck. How to fix this?

I found the setting that was causing the problem. I don't know why but its the "Treat ambiguous width-characters as double-width". See screenshot:  Disabling the setting makes the terminal work normal.

I'm using DejaVu Monospace for Powerline which might contain those ambiguous width character and I guess that the output of doge also contains those chars. So anyone using those should disable the setting.


Easy way to execute shell script I want to be able to search in Spotlight for a shell script (or something that calls a shell script) and that such shell script opens a Terminal window so the output is shown live (and I can interrupt with ctrl + C).

Right now, I have a backup.sh

#!/bin/bash
caffeinate -s \
  rsync -hva --progress --stats --delete "/path/to/source/" "/path/to/destination"

that I've renamed to backup.command so I can doubleclick in Finder and it works perfectly. But I cannot search for it in Spolight because I want Spotlight to only search for Applications, System Preferences and Contacts, and if I mark Developer then it shows backup.command but also a lot of unwanted files that are just unnecessary.

What can I do?

I tried to appify it but then it runs on the background, and doesn't open a new Terminal window so I can't see the progress of how is it going, and also I can't stop the progress with ctrl + C. Any suggestion?

Appifying with Platypus:

Download Platypus and create an app from the shell script.

Example:

The settings above create an app with a progress bar (including details) and it can be quitted - the rsync process has to be canceled (killed) manually though.

The app itself can be found with Spotlight.

Simple AppleScript solution:

In Mavericks (and probably later) you have to allow the AppleScript app to control the computer in "System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Accessibility"

Open ScriptEditor, enter the code snippet below and export it as an application with a unique name:

tell application "Terminal"
    delay 2
    set newWindow to do script "caffeinate -s rsync -hva --progress --stats --delete /path/to/folder /path/to/folder2"
    activate
end tell

If you need root permissions prepend sudo -> "sudo caffeinate -s ...."

You can refine the AppleScript app by checking if Terminal already has open windows and create a new one to run the shell script:

set myScript to "caffeinate -s rsync -hva --progress --stats --delete /path/to/folder /path/to/folder2"
tell application "System Events"
    if exists (window 1 of process "Terminal") then
        tell application "Terminal"
            set newWindow to do script myScript
            activate
        end tell
    else
        tell application "Terminal"
            delay 2
            set Window1 to do script myScript
            activate
        end tell
    end if
end tell

The AppleScript app can be found with Spotlight.

In Mountain Lion you have to enable "System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Enable access for assistive device" and change it a little bit to get the AppleScript app solutions running properly:

set myScript to "caffeinate -s rsync -hva --progress --stats --delete /path/to/folder /path/to/folder2"
tell application "System Events"
    if exists (window 1 of process "Terminal") then
        tell application "Terminal"
            reopen
            activate
            set newWindow to do script myScript
        end tell
    else
        tell application "Terminal"
            reopen
            activate
            do script myScript in window 1
        end tell
    end if
end tell

AppleScript with "external" shell script (backup.sh):

This is the final approach the OP is using. Taken from here. In Mavericks (and probably later) you have to allow the AppleScript app to control the computer in "System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Accessibility". One can load the full .sh (placed inside the app in Contents/Resources/backup.sh) with:

set bashFile to path to resource "backup.sh"
tell application "Terminal"
    delay 1
    activate
    set newWindow to do script "bash " & quoted form of (POSIX path of bashFile)
end tell

You can refine the AppleScript app by checking if Terminal already has open windows and create a new one to run the shell script:

set bashFile to path to resource "backup.sh"
tell application "System Events"
    if exists (window 1 of process "Terminal") then
        tell application "Terminal"
            delay 1
            set newWindow to do script "bash " & quoted form of (POSIX path of bashFile)
            activate
        end tell
    else
        tell application "Terminal"
            delay 2
            set Window1 to do script "bash " & quoted form of (POSIX path of bashFile)
            activate
        end tell
    end if
end tell


Anaconda macOS GUI installation changes - should I remove the old folder in the current user account? I have updated Anaconda by doing a fresh download and install of the macOS Graphical (GUI) version.  Anaconda is a package the makes it easier for GUI users to access python packages and use them, rather than doing so from within Terminal.

For reasons I can not identify the Navigator application would no longer open, leading me to reinstall with the latest version of the Anaconda package from the Continuum website at this webpage. I have not updated my macOS recently or made any other changes that might trigger this.

The newer updated Anaconda package would not install in my user folder as it has in the past. Rather it would only install on the HD, top level. That is the new Anaconda folder sits on the same level as the Applications Folder, and Master Library Folder.

The question is, should I delete the older Anaconda folder in the User account folder structure?

As a test I have removed that folder to the Desktop, and Anaconda appears to load normally.

Naturally I should remove any saved older Jupyter or other files so as to not lose them.

The program I use the Anaconda package for is GLUE. I note my past glue project files will not open anymore in GLUE.

I am also puzzled as to why this change in installation location? If you have any thoughts, perhaps leave a comment.

I removed the old folder. All seems to be working.


Mac Pro 2008 graphics card crashing I have a mac pro 2008, and the graphics card (nvidia 8800GT) has started to lock up - I can still move the mouse but cannot do anything in Windows 7 (I hardly use OSX latelly so dont know if it happens there).  The entire screen goes all garbled (various colours, flashing) and I have to reboot the machine.

The latest nvidia drivers for windows 7 have been installed, and until now everything has been rock solid.

Does this sound like the graphics card is failing?  Or do I just need to tweak the cooling / fan speed on the card itself?

If I do need to replace the card, can anyone recommend a decent replacement that would handle most current-gen PC games?

It does sound like the graphics card is failing. The garbled display is a symptom of this.

If you only run Windows, any PC graphics card in your Mac Pro will work fine.

What's more, the PC Radeon 58xx and 68xx cards work in OS X too, out of the box.

I would recommend one of Radeon 5850, 5870, 6850 or 6870 if you want Mac compatibility, or any good graphics card within your budget if you only want to game in Windows.


Monitor DNS queries by IP I'm running DNS on a Mac Server V2.4. I want to log all DNS queries made - is there a way of doing this? TCPdump only shows me whats happening at a moment in time and is difficult to read, what other options do i have?

If I were running bind on a Unix server, I'd add this to the config file at /etc/named.conf. Not sure how much access Apple gives you to customize the configuration though:

channel query_log {
    file "/var/log/named/query.log" versions 5 size 1m;
    severity dynamic;
    print-time yes;
};
category queries { query_log; };


Setting and using a "language" property of an audio file in iTunes? I'm a linguaphile, and I have lots of audio files in different languages in iTunes.  I would like the ability to tag a file with the language code, and to see and/or sort by that tag.

I have no use for Grouping or BPM, so I could use one of those.  But it would be nice to be able to set it in the Get Info window, and to actually see the word "language" in the column headings.

Is there a way to add a column to the list of available columns?

Is there a way to add a column not shown, or an ID3 tag not shown, to the Get Info window?

Any search method I can think of is just going to give me a zillion pages about the user-interface language.  If I change the user interface to Canadian English, and add a localization for grouping → language, will that break anything?

The set of available columns appears to be fixed, and there is no language column.  But the way to change the set of displayed columns is by contextual menu (right-click) on the column headers.  (At least in 12.1—Apple seems to take pleasure in making sure we can't ever get accustomed to any particular UI for iTunes.)

There is a "category" column which I will use.  Not ideal, but better than usurping BPM or grouping.

Update: Changed my mind.  I can put lang: es; in Grouping and search for that in a "smart playlist."  That still allows me to put other things in Grouping.


How do I rename the Boot Camp partition? The partition is currently called BOOTCAMP, and I would like it to be called Windows.

When I try to rename the partition is Disk Utility, no error is displayed, but the change is not persisted (i.e. I am allowed to type a name, but after I hit Enter, the name is unchanged).

I tried the following three commands in Terminal:

diskutil renameVolume disk0s4 Windows
diskutil renameVolume /dev/disk0s4 Windows
diskutil renameVolume /Volumes/BOOTCAMP Windows

The result is always:

  Failed to rename volume: Invalid request (-69886)

The name of the partition can not be changed using Finder.

How can I successfully rename this partition? Is the name a property of the partition (e.g. recorded in the GUID_partitioning_scheme on disk0)? Or is a property of the mount in macOS (e.g. its name is BOOTCAMP because it is mounted at /Volumes/BOOTCAMP).

If it's the first, maybe I can change it with a tool that works with the GUID_partitioning_scheme directly? (This seems dangerous though...)

If it's the latter, where can I change the way macOS mounts this partition? (And is that safe?)

Under default conditions, you'll need to rename the BOOTCAMP volume from within Windows.

In macOS, when the Boot Camp Assistant sets up a partition to install Windows it creates a FAT32 volume named BOOTCAMP.

During the install of Windows, the user is supposed to reformat the volume as NTFS.

By default, NTFS volumes are read-only under macOS and why the renaming, after the install, needs to done from within Windows, unless one has enabled NTFS write support under macOS. This typically requires the installation of third-party software, e.g. Microsoft NTFS for Mac by Tuxera.


How can I update my jailbroken iPhone 3GS to iOS 6.1? How can I upgrade my iOS version to the latest version of iOS that I can have on my 3GS? I'm new to jailbreaking and to iPhones. I want to upgrade it to 6.1, but I really don't know how. My phone is already jailbroken.

Your best bet is to use iTunes to update it:
(WARNING: this will factory reset your phone. You will need to ensure all your data is appropriately backed up - you'll also have to re-jailbreak afterwards.)

Put the phone in recovery mode and plug it into the computer.

Next, open iTunes. It will tell you it has detected an iPhone in recovery mode and give you the option to update and restore it. Do this. (It will download about 700 MB of data and then factory reset the phone.)

Boot your phone up and it will be running iOS 6.1.6! You'll need to re-jailbreak.
An iOS 6.1.{3+} jailbreak needs a tool called p0sixspwn to be untethered - be sure not to forget that! (I won't go into detail here, but there is plenty of info online about this extremely simple step.)

Enjoy!


iPhone app to point me back to a waypoint (like a computer game) I'm looking for an app which I can use to find my camper in the desert after going for a walk, or find the b&b i left my bags in after exploring a new city. I'm hoping for something really simple which just points in the right direction and perhaps tells me a distance, like your next target on a computer game. I'm imagining opening a compass and clicking a button to record a place then having a needle pointing north and another arrow point back to the waypoint.

Does this exist?

Motion-X GPS Lite is free, and lets you set waypoints and navigate back to them.  Reviewed here.

Tap Menu > Waypoints to save or select a waypoint
Tap Menu > Compass to see the heading


Terminal behaving differently since updating to Lion Ever since my company updated to Lion, terminal.app has been behaving differently. When I click on the dock icon, it sometimes opens several terminal windows at once, instead of a single one, and all of them display my previous session's activity, rather than just opening to a shell prompt.

What can I do to make the terminal go back to behaving the way it used to? I can't find anything in the prefs that would account for these changes.

This is the resume feature of OS X Lion.
Undo resume for a specific application
Type the following command in the Terminal. Then restart the specific application.
In general the syntax is:
defaults write com."producer"."program-name" ApplePersistenceIgnoreState YES

Thus, in your case (Terminal.app) it is:
defaults write com.apple.terminal ApplePersistenceIgnoreState YES

If you want to set the resume feature again, simply write NO using the same syntax.
Undo resume for all applications
In order to disable this for all applications do this:
go to System Preferences->General


A way for whole Calendar to show after swiping down in Iphone I want to see the whole calendar after swiping down. The part where the widgets are. Basically, when you swipe down, you can see the current date but when you try to click it, nothing happens. When you click the weather, the weather shows up so I was wondering if there is a way for the whole calnedar to show in the widgets page are.

If you have any events scheduled for today there's going to be a text in the Notification Center (when you swipe down) right under the current date saying "Your first meeting today...". Tap that and it'll bring up the Calendar.

If you don't have anything scheduled for today, you can scroll to the bottom of the Today view and tap the Tomorrow section instead.


Dell External Display suddenly stops working - Puzzling I have an early 2013 MBP, with Mavericks installed.

I always used my Dell U2771 external display connected with a mini Display Port to Display port with no problems

Except for the last one month.

When I come to work the external screen works perfectly but after approximately one hour it suddenly goes black and whatever I do I cannot get it back to work again. I have to wait until the next day to make it work again in the morning.

When the external screen turns black the laptop still recongnizes the external display, and if I disconnect the cable and reconnect it the laptop enters the multi display mode. but without actually sendind the output

I know that the problem is not on the screen alone as I can connect other computers to it.
I know that the problem is not on the cable as different cables show the same problem.

What do you think might be the problem and why this strange behaviour?

I have a suspicion that maybe the problem is a temperature related one, maybe something in the pin of the mini Diplay Port expands when it gets hot and breaks some connection.
This would explain why it stops working after the laptop gets warmer, and this would explain why the laptop still thinks it is outputing for the display.

Or maybe this is just my head.

I think I should also mention that I have had an Apple authorized repair shop replacing my logic board 3 months ago. It is still in the warranty, so what should I do?

EDIT: after 5 months and a substituted logic board the problem remains. So this discards the temperature hypothesis.

Your issue is in Macbook's powering.

If you unplug the power adapter and then reinitiate connection to the monitor by either turning the monitor on/off or replugging the Display Port cable, you'll see signal restored.
After that you can plug the Macbook's power adapter back again and it won't turn black for hours or even days (unless you use cheap "Chinese" power adapter -- that can blackout every 30 minutes or so). The only issue remaining is that if you use custom calibrated color profile after such reconnection the color profile resets and you have to open Monitor settings and just open the Color tab to reapply settings -- you probably can make an Automator script for that routine and bind a keyboard shortcut.

I've noticed that monitor can go black when my fridge in the next room turns on, so it's definitely about power. Seems like Macbook passes some bad electricity signals from charger to the Display Port.

"source": my comment to this thread http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3515/p/19658656/20922700#20922700


Finder dragging hang / stuck Sometimes when dragging files from folder to another, or moving a folder, the items being dragged are stuck in the dragging mode and it hangs. I can see Finder use 30-35% CPU at that moment.

Anyone facing the same problem?

I'm on 10.7.2 also using FlexiGlass for Window moving/resizing.

I would say restart you Mac if you have not done so in a while.
Try repairing the disk and repairing permissions in Disk Utility.
Next try deleting your Finder preferences. Your looking for a file called:

com.apple.finder.plist

Note you might want to back this file up before deleting, if you spent a lot of time configuring Finder view, etc and this turns out to not fix the issue.

This file will be located at /Users/YourUSERname/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
Restart and see if it happens anymore.
Try installing Onyx and use it to reset Finder related settings.
Try removing FlexiGlass if you suspect that is causing issues.
Try logging in as another user and see if the issues comes up while logged in as another user.
If all else fails, back up your stuff and reinstall Lion.


When I use cmd-R on boot to restore a computer, what version OS does it go to? I have a Macbook Pro with El Capitan installed, but it originally had Mavericks on it.

If I use the cmd-R on reboot method to restore the disk, will it restore to El Capitan or Mavericks, or some other version?

If the latter, is it possible to upgrade this restore disk to use the latest operating system so that when I restore it will use El Capitan?

It will restore the current version installed on your Mac, unless you do Internet Recovery (command+option+r), which restores the first OS installed on that computer.


Copy DVD to iTunes for watching on Apple TV I have quite a collection of DVDs which is slowly getting smaller and smaller thanks (in part) to crappy Wal-Mart binder style DVD cases scratching the discs.  After purchasing an Apple TV, I'm wondering if it is possible to backup DVD's so that they can be watched in iTunes, and subsequently on my Apple TV.  I'm running OSX.6, if this helps any.

I would prefer FOSS, but I wouldn't mind paying for something that works, and will be around for a while.


Can folder actions be inherited? If I set up folder actions on a folder, is there a way to ensure that those actions would be also there for all subfolders of that one?

In other words, if folder actions are set for ~/bar, is there a way to ensure that they are there also on ~/bar/foo as soon as I have created the folder?

I have checked whether the folder actions are transferred when I duplicate a folder, but that's not the case, and this makes me think I am out of luck.

When creating the Folder action you will have to add all sub folder in folder action set up and

chose the folder action for each.


trying to delete an app found in 'system information' but it wont delete I'm trying to free up some space. From the apple icon in the top left corner I went into 'about this mac'. from there I went to storage, and then clicked 'manage'. In the applications part the app at the top is a game called 'Dota 2' - 23.42 GB but it's not anywhere when i search in find nor if I follow the pathway at the bottom (User->library->application support->steam->games etc).

Is this game on my computer or is it a glitch? It doesn't do anything but freeze for a second when I hit delete in 'System Information'.

thanks if anyone knows something of this nature

I figured it out, it was part of the Steam app. You need to remove it from there. In the end it was not fully downloaded so it didn't take up 20+ GB but only a few MB. So I guess this estimation is not always entirely accurate. Stay safe everyone


How to type pipe with the ABNT2 layout? I'm used to the ABNT2 brazilian portuguese layout, which is very nice for both programming and typing with accents, but my apple keyboard lacks keys that are standard for such layout, like one on the left of Z and a fourth on the right of M. As a result, slashes and question mark need extra work to type, namely pressing alt-q, alt-shift-q and alt-w. But nothing for pipe.

So I wondered how I could type a pipe without messing with ukelele as suggested here?

You could set up a shortcut for it in system prefs/keyboard/text/replace with

Minimum 2 characters I think.


Which distance sensor to lock screen if I leave my seat? This is follow-up to this question: Automatically lock screen if I leave the MacBook

I want to get some signal from a sensor if I leave the seat.

Background: I change the job and in the new company you need to pay pizza for the whole team if you forget to lock your screen :-)

I want it to be automated: I walk away and the screen should lock. No additional action should be required. Keyboard shortcuts, special mouse movements or unplugging devices from USB are not valid answers.

I never worked with sensors before.

Which sensor could be used to detect that I left my seat?

Which sensor could be used to detect that I left my seat?

There is no sensor in any Mac that can be used to detect if you left your seat.

Rhetorically speaking, how would this hypothetical sensor work?  How would it differentiate between not being in your seat because you left and not being in your seat because you have a standing desk?

The answer is it can’t.

The closest you can get to automating the locking/unlocking of your based on your physical position is through proximity.  There’s an app called Near Lock that purports to achieve this, however, it requires an iPhone; it’s implied that you use an Android as you mention a Huawai smartwatch in your linked question.

Further, you’re looking to automate something that by design should be a user interactive process.  As someone responsible for security and IT governance in my organizations, I can clearly see why they have the policy they do.  They are trying to develop security minded habits.


Decrypt with FileVault I recently turned FileVault off because I really saw no need for it on my home computer (Mac Intel i5 16GB RAM w/Maverick).  However, I noticed when I tried running Mac Booster 3 (a cleanup/performance app), it took forever (9+ hrs) to run and I'm wondering if it's because the files are still encrypted?  Does turning FileVault off leave the files encrypted or not?

No, your disk is decrypted when you turn off FileVault.

From the Apple Knowledgebase:

  When you turn off FileVault, encryption is turned off and the contents of your disk are decrypted. The decrypting of your disk could take a while, depending on how much information you have stored. However, you can still use your Mac to do other tasks while the decryption is occurring.

It could be that FileVault was still decrypting your hard drive while you were running Mac Booster.


How to circumvent a forgotten encrypted iPhone local backup password? I forgot my Encrypt Local Backup password for iPhone4S.

I tried to transfer contacts, photos, etc. to my new iPhone5 through iTunes with operation "restore from backup" but it always asks for a password that I can't remember.

How I can transfer contacts, photos, etc. to my new iPhone5, or do I have to enter all contacts manually?

I knew that you need the backup password to get your contacts, photos, videos, etc. I have the same situation before. You can find a tool to unlock the backup password, or go to Google Search: "iPhone Backup Unlocker"


Can two apps in one iPhone can be connected to same peripheral? I have to connect two apps to Bluetooth band (peripheral) at the same time and in same device. Please Guide.

The Bluetooth connection is established between the phone and the device - the device does not exclusively connect to an individual application.

To answer the question a Bluetooth device can be used with multiple apps that are designed to work with it. For example, a Bluetooth speaker works with the Music app, it also works with YouTube etc.

Your device may have limitations that I am not aware of but without more information I can only tell you know Bluetooth works


How to fully automate video conversion to mp4, iTunes friendly format? I am looking to implement a fully automated solution that will pick video files from an incoming directory, process them and put the result to iTunes special "Automatically Add to iTunes" directory.

Before starting to propose different products do read the requirements:

Command line interface, so we can use it with a cron
Do Pass Thru for video and audio streams if the source is already compatible with target format
Download subtitles from an external service (optional)
Embedding existing SRT files into the output video
Fixing metadata from an external service (optional)

Initially I would say that Handbrake should be able to do this, but I discovered that handbrake will never do Pass Thru for video (that's a statement that I got from the author).

z264

z264 will look at every file, but will only touch avi, flv, mpg, mpeg, wmv, vob, mkv and mp4 video files, copying video and audio streams and rewrapping if possible, transcoding just the audio if necessary, and transcoding only what video is necessary, and leave you with iTunes friendly, atom optimized mp4 files, leaving the originals in your Trash. It makes reasonably intelligent decisions for you about how to transcode files based on how you set its HandBrake variables (set at lines 312-333).

  check file for AVC encoding and flv, wmv, or mkv wrapper and rewrap in mp4 container otherwise, if not already am mp4, transcode to AVC mp4

  z264 has several dependencies (mediainfo, rmtrash, ffmpeg, SublerCLI, and HandBrakeCLI)

copy and paste binary install section into a new bash script and use it to download and install the dependencies into /usr/local/bin/ (create /usr/local and /usr/local/bin/ if not there already)
create 2GB ramdisk called 'Two' using command in ramdisk section

diskutil quiet erasevolume HFS+ 'Two' `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://4194304`

double-check command definitions (locations of dependencies), and correct locations (to "/usr/local/bin/")

change line 231 to read:  mediainfo="/usr/local/bin/mediainfo"
change line 236 to read:  rmtrash="/usr/local/bin/rmtrash"
change line 238 to read:  ffmpeg="/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg"
change line 239 to read:  SublerCLI="/usr/local/bin/SublerCLI"
change line 262 to read:  mediainfo="/usr/local/bin/mediainfo"
change line 263 to read:  rmtrash="/usr/local/bin/rmtrash"
change line 265 to read:  HandBrakeCLI="/usr/local/bin/HandBrakeCLI"

save as z264 in /usr/local/bin/
make executable

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/z264
use Terminal to call z264 on single file, directory of files, or call it from a cron to crawl entire file systems periodically

z264 directory.full.of.mixed.video.filetypes/*

minor issues: user needs to be able to read, debug, and use bash. z264 does not yet count how many background_transcoder processes it spawns, meaning if there are a lot of transcodes, it will take awhile for them to complete, but they will complete. You also need a lot of memory (8GB is ok). Snow Leopard users will need to install purge command from xcode developer tools.


Window management app on mac os x? I currently use "Stay," and have tried other tools (haven't really loved any of them), but I am looking for a window management tool that does the following:

Store my window locations
Have a separate profile for different monitor setups
Allow me to quickly modify the location with hotkeys
Automatically load my default settings when I attach/detach a display

Any help would be great!


iphone 6 super duper hard Why is my iphone 6 english in languange but on apple app store it is chinese?

It could possibly happen if you have your language set to English, but your region to China:

System Settings>General>Language and Region


How to optimise my script, a script for opening new a new emacs instance only if no instance is present I use emacs and I have written a script which is half in bash and half in AppleScript in order to do the following (first I write the code and then the pseudocode). We assume that a emacs daemon is running.

pseudocode:

if (no emacs GUI process is active or a process is active but no window is present)
then
    open a new emacs window using emacsclient
    and
    put that window in foreground
else
    open the app Emacs.app (so no new instance is created and we simply put
                            the focus on the existing emacs window)

code for "switchToEmacs.sh"

#!/bin/bash
openedWindows=$(/usr/bin/osascript ~/emacsWindowsCount.scpt)
if [ $openedWindows -eq 0 ]; then
    /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin/emacsclient -n -c -e  "(select-frame-set-input-focus (selected-frame))"
else
    open -a Emacs
fi

code for "emacsWindowsCount.scpt" (used in the previous script, I have compiled the code with osacompile for performance)

tell application "System Events"
    if exists (process "Emacs") then
    else
        return 0
    end if
    tell application "Emacs"
        set numberOfWindows to (count windows)
    end tell
    return numberOfWindows
end tell

I have mapped switchToEmacs.sh to a shortcut using Alfred 3 and it does what I expect it to do, but it is slow! Not extremely slow but the switch is not immediate and I have to wait about 0.3 seconds. Conversely if I have an emacs window opened and type "emacs" in the spotlight, then the transition is immediate, so I would like to remove that unnecessary waiting.

Since I hate that waiting time (it seems very short but when you need to navigate a lot trough applications it becomes awkward) for now I am doing the following:
I have removed the emacs deamon, every time I log in I start emacs.app, when I need to close the emacs app I don't use CMD+Q but CMD+H, when I need to recall emacs I simply launch emacs.app (trough an Alfred 3 shortcut) so I get emacs focus.
With this workaround the transition to emacs is immediate, but I would prefer my script for two reasons: first, with the script so I can use emacs from terminal before having launched an emacs instance opening emacs.app, but the real reason is that using this method if I type "emacsclient -t myFile" in terminal and then I close the buffer returning to the terminal, then the emacs windows (the emacs.app) will get the focus, even if I have not given it to it. This is really awkward.

IMPORTANT EDIT:
I noticed that opening a new instance is immediate, what takes time is open -a Emacs. I have tried to replace it with tell application "Emacs" to activate window 1 (compiled) but it is still slow. Any ideas?

EDIT:
I have achieved perfect performance using this free tool https://sabi.net/nriley/software/#appswitch
Now there is still a little delay but it is due to the rest of the code.

I usually just run

emacsclient -a emacs FILE

or

emacsclient -a SHELL-SCRIPT-WHICH-STARTS-EMACS-WITH-PARAMETERS FILE

and let emacsclient figure out the rest.


Which Mac for Web development + iOS development I'm a Windows user, but I'm looking to get a portable Mac for web development and iOS development.

I will be running sublime 3, Xcode and probably Nginx or XAMPP as my server. Would the 11-inch MacBook Air be a suitable machine? If not, what would be the minimum spec machine.

The 11-inch MacBook Air would more than suit your needs as far as specs go.

But, the screen size makes it hard for developers who are used to multiple monitors or windows side-by-side.

On my 11-inch Air, I normally use apps in full-screen mode and use gestures to switch between them quickly, but I sacrifice being able to have side-by-side applications.

You might consider an 11-inch Air with an alternate monitor (or more than one) for when you can sit at a desk and get serious.


Podcast speed - Can't find adjust button I have (probably accidentally) changed the speed on my podcasts, so that they are now playing at (I believe) double or 1.5 speed.

I want to change back to normal speed.  I have searched Google for some time, but every 'answer' references a speed button that it meant to be near the 'time bar'.  I can't find any speed (1x or similiar) button anywhere on the podcast screen or in podcast settings.

Help!

Here it is]1 In Podcasts native app this option is not very accurate, by the way.


What the difference and usage of encodings UTF-8 and UTF-8-MAC in iconv? What the difference and usage of encodings UTF-8 and UTF-8-MAC in iconv?
I thought it was the difference between \n and \r(MAC OS 9) at first.
But I tried iconv -f UTF-8 -t UTF-8-MAC filename > filename2
The file content doesn't change in hex view.

As explained here, utf-8-mac is the utf 8 version of a text after application of Unicode normalization NFD (e.g accented characters are represented by the base character plus a combining accent character), with certain codepoint ranges excluded from the decomposition operation.

For example character é can be represented in two different equally valid ways in Unicode:

"\x{00E9}" - single codepoint, LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE, utf-8 C3 A9, "composed".
"\x{0065}\x{0301}" - two codepoints, LATIN SMALL LETTER E and COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT, utf-8 65 CC 81, "decomposed"

UTF-8-MAC will ensure that the second, decomposed form is always used.


OneNote's box-outlines and text caret randomly become unresponsive on Sierra and High Sierra When you hover your mouse over a "box" in OneNote, it should look like this:

Instead, randomly, the application stops responding with the box outlines (my mouse is in the same place both above and below, i.e. where the caret is):

The box outlines don't matter that much, actually. It's the fact that the caret disappears, so you have no visual cue as to where you're typing, and also that when you Backspace, you start deleting from some other place (the previous line, I think).

No amount of clicking anywhere else in the application (menus, other notebooks) or clicking out and back fixes the problem. It's really frustrating!

Is there a workaround?

I found a consistent workaround for myself:

Three-finger-swipe up (or any equivalent, to see your Spaces), select any other application, and OneNote should be normal again when you come back.

This issue may (or may not) be occurring due to using multiple desktops (Spaces), and possibly due to having multiple OneNote windows open (on different desktops).


How to get rid of remnants of a user profile in /var/folders? I created a user, TestUser1, via System Preferences > Users and Groups on 22 April 2021, deleted it, didn't let it create a backup (since it was a test profile), but I noticed in /var/folders possible remnants of it.
This is on Catalina 10.15.7, 2020 Macbook Pro.
Would disabling SIP temporarily and/or sudo'ing to remove the files be a way to get rid of this?
I'm not sure what to do about this, and how to, in future, deal with remnants of user accounts created.

"I'm not sure what to do about this"
My overwhelming instinct is to leave it alone. There's no personal data there, and it's not taking up significant space. The OS will probably tidy it up at some point.
There's a very very tiny possibility that the OS may actually need these files for something and get confused if they're not there.
Yes, you probably could find a way to delete the files manually; -- or you could do something useful with your time instead! IMO, the less maintenance I have to do, the better.


Automator workflow to print 4 copies of 1 image on 1 page How do I get Automator to print 4 copies of the same image on 1 sheet? I have zilch knowledge about scripts so would appreciate any help!

Set up your Automator Recipe

Try doing this to set up Automator:

Create a folder named "Photo Booth To Print"
Open up the Automator app

Now inside automator...

Go to File->New and choose Folder Action.
You'll see this bar inside your newly created (still blank) automated workflow:
Activate the dropdown menu, and find the Photo Booth To Print folder you created in step 1, and select that.
On the left side, you'll see a search bar. Search for "Print" and choose "Print Finder Items". Pop that into your workflow (i.e. drag Print Finder Items into the center part)
Press Command-S to save this Folder Action, and give it a name. Automator will save the Folder Action, attaching it to the selected folder. Now whenever you place anything into this folder, the document will print automatically. (Be careful with your newfound powers, you don't want to accidentally print stuff!)
Double-check you did this right by two-finger-clicking on the Photo Booth To Print folder in Finder and choosing Services -> Folder Actions Setup. (If you only have a few Services, you may not have a Services menu and will instead see the Folder Actions Setup menu item at the bottom of the contextual menu.) The dialog box that displays will show all the folders to which you have attached Folder Actions. When you click on the folder name, you’ll see the Folder Actions assigned to them.

Now use this with Photo Booth

Now, at your party, pull up Photo Booth and take your photo (I recommend taking using the first mode of three listed (the leftmost in the photo mode selector options) to get four photos taken at once, put into one compiled photo. Once you take this photo, it'll show up in the bar beneath the photo frame; from there, two-finger click on the just-captured photo, choose export, and export it into the Photo Booth To Print folder, at which point it will print automatically.

Sources and see also

Lifehacker's guide to making a DIY photo booth with Automator and the Photo Booth app: http://lifehacker.com/5689177/diy-photo-booth-using-a-mac-and-automator
Source of Automator Information: http://www.macworld.com/article/1167277/software-utilities/three-great-folder-actions.html
Learn more about what Automator can do: http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/what-automator-can-do-for-you-3605538/


Why are Mac files able to have multiple owners? Regarding Unix file permissions, which Macs use, why are Mac files in particular able to have multiple owners? For instance, you can view the "Get info" panel of a file, and under the Permissions section at the bottom, add another owner by clicking on the plus sign "+".

How does this work? I don't think vanilla Unix is able to do this?

You are right, vanilla Unix doesn't support this. But there is this thing called ACL (Access Control Lists) which allows for a much more granular definition of access rights than the usual user/group/world rights. From Wikipedia:

  Most of the Unix and Unix-like operating systems (e.g. Linux, BSD, or Solaris) support POSIX.1e ACLs, based on an early POSIX draft that was abandoned. Many of them, for example AIX, FreeBSD, Mac OS X beginning with version 10.4 ("Tiger"), or Solaris with ZFS filesystem, support NFSv4 ACLs, which are part of the NFSv4 standard.

By default every file only has the user/group/world rights

pse@Fourecks:~/Downloads$ ls -le UML_Plakat_8_2012_Web-Download_V1.pdf
-rw-r--r--@ 1 pse  staff  4914537 Jun 21 09:56 UML_Plakat_8_2012_Web-Download_V1.pdf

If you now add an additional owner

Finder automatically creates a corresponding ACL entry for this:

pse@Fourecks:~/Downloads$ ls -le UML_Plakat_8_2012_Web-Download_V1.pdf
-rw-r--r--@ 1 pse  staff  4914537 Jun 21 09:56 UML_Plakat_8_2012_Web-Download_V1.pdf
 0: user:jonnyenglish allow read,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity

You can also modify ACL entries directly from Terminal by using chmod (which gives you significantly more details to manipulate than the Get Info dialog in Finder). For details it's probably best to run man chmod in Terminal and read the ACL MANIPULATION OPTIONS section.


Can you provide further input after running one script over SSH in iOS I have a Linux server that can be accessed through SSH.
I'm using the iOS shortcuts app to try and run scripts over SSH. If I try to do a Linux command like sudo apt-get install package, the shortcuts app returns no output from the server. However, if I run a command from my phone that doesn't require elevated permissions (like ifconfig), it does return the output.
I assume that when I try to run sudo commands from my phone via the shortcuts app, the reason nothing is being returned is because it requires the password (because those commands require elevated permissions), however the shortcut ends as soon as nothing is returned from the SSH server.
I've tested the same SSH server on different computers, and it all works fine, so I think it's something I need to add additionally for the shortcut on my iPhone to work.
So my question is - Is it possible to then enter the password fro a command like sudo apt-get, etc so then the script can continue to run as normal?

No, you can't enter a password. The only thing that I can think of is adding the commands you want to be able to run to the sudoers file.
I'm not sure how to works in Linux but on macOS you put a file in /etc/sudoers.d/something using the visudo command.
There seems to be an example page for Linux here: https://phoenixnap.com/kb/linux-sudo-command that might be useful as a starting point.


Where is "search" on the iPod nano 6th gen? I just won a 6th generation iPod nano at an auction, so I didn't get the box or the instructions. I've mostly figure it out, except I can't figure out where they hid search. I had it on my old nano and it was handy. Is there some arcane double tap or funky gesture I need to use? Unfortunately, trying to search for "search" on the web hasn't been super fruitful.

It looks like this iPod doesn't have this feature: it's not mentioned in the manual (http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPod_nano_6thgen_User_Guide.pdf) - even in the index.

However, you can go to all items starting with a certain letter.  From the manual (on page 20):

  If the list you’re browsing has an index, drag your finger down the
  index to show a large letter superimposed over the list. When you
  reach the letter you want, lift your finger.


Prevent external speakers in monitors connected via HDMI being used I sometimes run into an issue where I connect an external monitor via HDMI, and my Macbook Pro's sound is now routed to the monitor instead of my headphones or the internal speakers. Worse, sometimes this means that the volume control buttons stop working (even mute!)

I never, ever, want sound going through an external monitor. The internal speakers are better than most monitor speakers, anyway.

Is there a way to prevent this happening?

In the sound section of system preferences, make sure that "Internal Speakers" is selected.


Unable to add Google account (G Suite) to Mail.app While adding a new Google account (G Suite account) to Mail.app (Mac OS High Sierra, 10.13.6), I am able to authenticate successfully but the account is never added to Mail.app. It remains stuck at the screen shown below:

Appreciate any help on this issue.

I found a solution myself. Go to KeyChain --> login --> All Items and search for "google" keys. Deleted all and then tried adding the account once again when it worked.