Experience with booting on a Tempo SSD PCIe card? I have a MacPro 2009 reflashed as a 2010. I am considering to install a Tempo SSD PCIe card and then put High Sierra on it. This card is advertised to allow booting on it: would anyone have first hand experience with that? The background story is that my boot drive is a RAID 5 Softraid with 4 disks (the four internal slots of the machine) and I have just discovered that High Sierra can't be installed on a RAID. So if I could have put one SSD on that PCIe card and boot on it, the upgrade path would be very simple.

I successfully installed a bootable High Sierra system on a Samsung EVO 860 (1 TB) mounted on that Tempo SSD PCIe card I asked about. I kept the RAID 5 alongside for the big important data.


Which iOS features require two factor authentication? Today my iPad automatically updated its OS to 14.2 and it shows a prompt from Apple ID Security to enable two-factor authentication.
The message mentions that "Some iOS features require two-factor authentication", but I could not find which features exactly require it. The Apple's support page Two-factor authentication for Apple ID tells me what this two-factor authentication is and how it is important, but it doesn't say which features of the OS require it. There is only the same vague phrase without any details:

Certain features in the latest versions of iOS and macOS require this
extra level of security, which is designed to protect your
information.
...
You need two-factor authentication to use certain features that
require improved security.

I'd like to know exactly what features of iOS require two-factor authentication.

All of them if you don’t have a grandfathered AppleID. Furthermore, the matrix of services and features change routinely and also have more to do with geographic constraints and whether your account is managed or enrolled in some select Apple programs.

https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/manage-two-factor-authentication-iphd709a3c46/ios

I’m sure a Wikipedia list of what’s changing might be better for this than a Q&A site like this. The pragmatic answer is you will be prompted for each service you try based on your AppleID creation process and then only when the server side clears your account for enrollment.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204915

I would engage Apple support if you need this answer as they have the details about your Account and also can check with engineering on recent changes that might affect you specifically.


iPhone 6 Battery Expanding I have an iPhone 6, without Apple Care.

A few months ago I noticed it got unbelievably, incredibly hot during use, both on and off the charger. It would also use the battery quite fast, up to 2% a minute sometimes, and would often be completely depleted by midday from a full charge, after it being in my pocket at school with time and social media checks being the only use. It also was in mint condition, having lived in a Lifeproof case for its entire life.

However, I noticed the case started to bulge just underneath the left volume button on the side, pushing outwards slightly. Could this be a battery problem? Apple Support told me my battery health was fine (90%), so I should go to an Apple Store to get it looked at. As the closest store is 4 hours away, could anyone tell me if this is battery related or not?

If by Could this be a battery problem? you want to know whether it's where the battery is located inside the phone, then the answer is yes.

In an iPhone 6 the battery is located at left-centre of the device (i.e. if you're facing it with the home button at the bottom). I should mention that the top of the battery is roughly in line with the bottom of the mute switch, so it is quite possible that the battery could be the problem. However, it's impossible for us to say since we can't physically inspect it.

You really need to get it checked out, but make sure you make a full backup first!


Migrating macports from a backup location I recently had a Mavericks system die. The replacement is on Yosemite, so MacPorts can't be directly copied. Instead, I installed the macports base and now I'm trying to restore all the packages.

The migration instructions start with getting a list of installed ports on the old system:

port -qv installed > myports.txt

However, there doesn't seem to be any way to specify the location of the backup MacPorts registry file (which was placed in "/opt (from old Mac)" by the Migration Assistent). I've tried renaming the directories, but port fails with an error about mismatched platforms.

Is there any way to see the full list of packages from the backup version, or do I need to guess this based on the old bin directory?

It seems that the location can only be set when compiling macports from source (using the --prefix option).

Rather than going down that route, I copied my old macports directory from the backup location to /opt, I then re-ran the current macports installer, which overwrites the "darwin 13" binaries and updates the database file. Following this I was able to follow the steps in the migration instructions to reinstall all ports.


How to open firewall from terminal I am developing a go app on a server(mac-mini) where I connect via ssh. I  restart the app many times: go run main.go
Problem is, that I dont have access to the graphical ui - "Firewall Options...".
I really like to have the firewall on for security reason and poke minimal holes in it only when needed.
Is there any way to set and allow a port to be open, for incoming connections from the terminal?

Configure the firewall to be permissible for selected applications and services.

To turn the firewall on for specific applications/services :
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf globalstate -int 1

https://raymii.org/s/snippets/OS_X_-_Turn_firewall_on_or_off_from_the_command_line.html
Reboot for the change to take effect.

/usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw allows you to configure applications through the firewall. The tool provides its own help and documentation.
For example, to grant an application incoming connections, you can use
./socketfilterfw -t "/Applications/Foo.app/Contents/MacOS/Foo"


How to fix "macOS needs to repair your library to run applications" after High Sierra upgrade? After upgrading to High Sierra, I'm getting this error message about 30-50 times a day:

Is there any way to find out what is causing this error?  Any ideas how to fix it?

So none of the given answers works on High Sierra (OS X 10.16.x) and I don't have Clean My Mac 3. This Apple article did the trick for me and pretty easily: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203538.

This involves setting the permissions through the finder and then resetting the permissions by using the command

diskutil resetUserPermissions / `id -u`

Make sure you cd to the appropriate home folder (I did this logged in as myself for another user that was experiencing the issue) to avoid access errors.


Restoring Lion/iCloud iCal from Time Machine Well I managed to delete my calendar, which was being synched via iCloud with my Mac, iPad, and iPhone.

Can I repopulate my iCal calendar from a Time Machine backup?  ~/Library/ contains a folder called Calendars, but its contents look complicated and I don't dare simply restore the Calendars folder from yesterday's Time Machine backup.

Thanks.

From what I can tell, Time Machine doesn't allow you to restore iCal calendars through the iCal app. And actually, you should be able to restore that calendars folder.

While the directory contents are complicated, iCal should translate them back to what you had before. The only other thing I would bring over just to be on the safe side is your iCal's list file, located in ~/Library/Preferences. It should be called com.apple.iCal.plist. I would recommend moving this from your Time Machine backup to the same directory on your Mac.

That should do it for you.


What is alfUIplugin.plugin? I'm cleaning old 3rd-party stuff out of my /System/* subdirectories on 10.11. And I noticed in /System/Library/UserEventPlugins/ the following file: alfUIplugin.plugin. The file size is zero bytes! And the date modified is in 2012, three years ago; surely it's not part of El Capitan. Right?

I can safely delete this...right?

From Apple Support :

  I was chasing this down myself. It looks like this
  plugin is used for ALF - Application Level Firewall. ... like the
  System Preferences/security setting/firewall possibly.

_

  I too am seeing those errors after updating to Mavericks on my MacBook
  Pro.  And, I cannot find any info on what alfUIplugin.plugin is
  either.  However, upon going to /System/Library/UserEventPlugins
  folder, I noticed that the plugin file is 0KB.  On my Mac Pro, which
  is still running Mountain Lion, it is 20KB and on Snow Leopard it's
  like 50KB.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5505336


How to exercise a new hard drive by erasing multiple times with Disk Utility app? In El Capitan, in the Disk Utility app, I cannot find the option to rewrite bogus data (zeros or ones) across the entire drive multiple times.

I am using a spinning rust platter disk, not an SSD.

Some googling talks about doing this via command-line tools, and imply the feature has been removed from the Disk Utility app.

But the Disk Utility Help window includes step # 4 on the Erase a volume:

  To prevent the erased files from being recovered, click Security Options, use the slider to choose how many times to write over the erased data, then click OK.

Where can I find that slider?

The secure erase feature indeed seems to be gone (or it's a bug).

Open Terminal and enter diskutil list to see a list of your attached drives. In the following example, notice a pair of drives are identified: /dev/disk0 (internal) and /dev/disk2 (external) - disk1 is related with the Apple CoreStorage partition disk0s2.

your_prompt_here% diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Mars                    999.7 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Mars                   +999.3 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 E98790BC-D2CA-4FA8-AE28-9DB646C790E0
                                 Unencrypted
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS parallels_bu            999.9 GB   disk2s2

Unmount the disk you want to erase with (below I assume the disk idenitifer is disk2:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk2

Then erase the disk with:

diskutil secureErase level /dev/disk2

…where you replace that word level with one of the following:

0 - Single-pass zeros.
1 - Single-pass random numbers.
2 - US DoD 7-pass secure erase.
3 - Gutmann algorithm 35-pass secure erase.
4 - US DoE 3-pass secure erase.

Level 0 should be sufficient to rewrite bogus data or map out bad blocks.

If you want to erase the free space on a volume use:

diskutil secureErase freespace level /dev/diskXsY

Ceterum autem censeo Disk Utility 15 esse delendam.


Mac Location Services: Frequent Polling? I frequently see the Location icon in my menu bar despite not having any apps running that use it. When I click it, it says Maps is using my location, even when I don't have the maps open at all. Is this normal? Should I be worried about some kind of security issue?

Most probably it is significant locations, which might need maps to name the coordinates.

  Significant Locations allows your Mac to identify places significant to you in order to provide useful location-related information in Maps, Calendar, Reminders and more. Significant Locations are encrypted and can’t be read by Apple. Click Details to view a list of locations that have been identified. You can select and remove locations from the list or click Clear History to remove all the locations.

https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mac-help/mh35873/mac
https://osxdaily.com/2019/09/05/disable-clear-significant-locations-mac/


How to prevent the dialog that shows the available wireless networks to show twice? Whenever none of my preferred wifi networks is available and my Airport is turned on a dialog appears that shows all the available networks at the moment. That is as expected.
However, when I exit that dialog as I don't want to connect to a wifi network, it dissappears, the Airport menu icon shows that it's looking for networks again and the dialog appears again. This is annoying.

How can I prevent the dialog from appearing a second time? Turning off the dialog completely would be viable as well as I almost never use it anyway and can have the same functionality through the Airport menu item.

I'm on a MacBook Pro 5,3 (Mid 2009) with Mac OSX 10.8.4.

Open System Preferences, go to networks, select Airport and make sure the "Ask to join new networks" check is not selected.

This will suppress the dialog all the time as there isn't an easy way to have it suppress a second dialog in a timeframe or after a disconnect event.


Installed Firefox Beta and now Bing is default search engine in location bar I updated from Firefox 31 to Firefox Beta (32) and when I now do a search in the location bar (the big one to the left) I get results from Bing.

How do I change this back to Google?

You can set it to Google in Firefox Preferences. Go to Search tab and select Google as default search engine.


How can prevent certain senders from going to Junk Mail without creating contact? I am running Mountain Lion 10.8 and use Mail.app for my email mostly.* I recently purchased a product from Amazon, somewhere I order from frequently, and noticed that I didn't receive the usual sales receipt - or so I thought. I looked in Gmail's All Mail folder and noticed it there. Mail.app had deemed it Junk and put it in the Junk folder (which I don't believe is accessible from iOS devices with typical IMAP email set up on them).

This is what my Junk Mail preferences look like when this happened:

Is there a way to tell Mail.app that a certain sender (preferably something such as "all senders from @example.com are not junk" vs. the actual xyz@example.com) is not Junk without actually putting the sender into my contacts?

* I now use AirMail because Apple Mail was using a lot of disk space (among other reasons).

Yes — by selecting "Perform custom actions" and then clicking "Advanced," you can configure Mail's internal rule that determines both what is considered junk mail and what Mail should do with it. Add a condition to this rule that reads "From does not contain @example.com", and no such mail will be considered junk.

As far as I know, this is the only mail rule that can determine whether something is marked as junk or not. Ordinary rules can only move messages into or out of the Junk folder.


if the startup disk is copied to external drive, can that external drive be used as a startup disk? If the startup disk is copied in its entirety to an external drive, can that external drive then be used as a startup disk?

Yes you can you can use disk utilty to clone the contents of one drive to another but  you can also use Carbon Copy Cloner.

You cannot use an external disk as startup disk if you drag and drop the system files as the permissions on the files might change leading to unbootable external disk.

So do not drag and drop the system files, only clone the disk into another disk as it preserves all the file attributes, permissions, owner, group, etc.

You can use Disk utilty 'Restore' feature to clone a drive. So suppose there are two drives A and B. I want to clone drive A to B so in Disk Utilty choose drive B then click restore option then choose "Restore from A"  That's it! let it do it's job but if you want to clone a lively booted up disk then you will need a third party app like Carbon Copy Cloner.


Swap SSD between two 2011 MacBook Pro 2011 machines I installed OS X on a 128gb SSD in a 2.3Ghz Core i7 MacBook Pro (2011) and I want to move the SSD instead to a 2.2Ghz Core i7 MacBook Pro (2011), all of the hardware is pretty much the same other than the different CPU.

Will this work WITHOUT re-installing OS X on the destination machine ?

Yes, it will definitely work. OSX comes with all the stuff you need to run on almost any Mac hardware (because they control it). In this case, the situation is better, because both machines are very similar.

You can safely switch them.


SNTP timeout after 15 seconds but default is supposed to be 68 sec Using sntp to query an NTP server times out after just 15 sec.

Stevens-MacBook-Air:~ Steve$ sntp -d time.nist.gov
Starting to read KoD file /var/db/ntp-kod...
sntp sendpkt: Sending packet to 2610:20:6f15:15::27... Packet sent.
sntp recvdata: select() reached timeout (15 sec), aborting.
sntp recvpkt failed: -1.
Server unusable
on_wire failed for server 2610:20:6f15:15::27!
sntp sendpkt: Sending packet to 216.229.0.179... Packet sent.
sntp recvdata: select() reached timeout (15 sec), aborting.
sntp recvpkt failed: -1.
Server unusable
on_wire failed for server 216.229.0.179!

According to sntp documentation and man page for sntp, default is supposed to be 68 seconds. Is this a bug sntp installed in OS 10.11.6?

Apple's manual page says the default is 5 seconds, but I'm seeing the same 15 second timeout as you in practice. I'd file a bug against the documentation to make it match (if you want) and then specify the timeout you want on macOS:

sntp --timeout 68 -d time.nist.gov


How to make a message appear on the screen? I'm trying to set up a kind of intercom system between Mac, Windows, and Linux boxes at home.

Question: How can I make an arbitrary message appear on the graphical screen of Mac OS X?

For instance, I'm looking for a command such as:

$ show-message "Time for dinner!"

which shows Time for dinner! on the graphical screen, maybe in a dialog box.

Yes, this would be fairly trivial with ssh to gain access to the Mac and then run whatever command you prefer.

Is there a way to add items to notification center through terminal or other means? - which covers SeNotifier and the more general purpose terminal notifier which both leverage OS X's notification center app for the GUI.
How can I trigger a Notification Center notification from an AppleScript or shell script? - which covers both AppleScript and Terminal scripts - either of which will work when called from ssh from Linux, Mac or Windows remotely. It also adds in Growl2 as a GUI for messaging on OS X.


macOS Mojave Beach Ball when saving a file When I'm trying to save or select a file in a web browser, or any other application the beachball appears and the app hangs for ±30 seconds.

I didn't have this problem in High Sierra. Is it a common bug or specific to my hardware?
I have MacBook Pro Retina 15 2014

Found it. SMC reset didn't fix it. It's an iCloud issue. One solution is to remove the iCloud tab from the finder sidebar through Finder->Preferences->Sidebar.

It's not perfect, but at least productivity is back. I hope they will run an update that will solve this.

Peter


How do I prevent my husband’s emails from combining with my Mail.app account? My husbands emails from his gmail account show up in my Apple Mail account.  We both have separate gmail accounts, but all his emails show up in my Apple Mail inbox.  How to stop?

You don't specify if this is on a Mac or an iPhone etc? Also knowing what version of macOS or iOS you're running would be helpful.

However, the solution is to remove his gmail email account from your Mail app. The steps for doing this will depend on whether you're using a Mac or an iPhone etc.

EDIT

Edited answer to provide some step-by-step instructions for removing gmail accounts from Apple mail in macOS and iOS.

Steps for macOS:

Open the Mail app
Go to: Mail > Accounts...
In the Internet Accounts window that pops up you will see a list of all email addresses being used by Mail
Click on the address you no longer want
At the bottom click on the minus (-) sign to remove the account
Click OK when you are asked if you're sure
Close the Internet Accounts window

Steps for iOS:

Go to Settings > Mail > Accounts
Tap on the account you want to remove
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and tap on Delete Account
Tap Delete Account when you are asked if you're sure
Exit your settings

Hope this helps!


2019 MacBook Pro 15 inch: Screen flicker randomly I purchased a MacBook Pro 15 inch 2019 just a month ago. The screen initially started flickering almost ones every week. It want noticeable at all. Now its increasing and happens almost every 2 hours. Many people ask to switch off automatic graphic switching. I don't think of that as an answer since battery drains really fast.

Reset NVRAM

If the screen flickers take effect particularly when viewing images while browsing the web, the best way around this might be resetting the NVRAM of your device. Resolving this issue involves rebooting you device. But because the NVRAM is a type of memory that saves data automatically, even when the device is forcefully switched off, this issue will not go away when you just reboot your device.

To resolve this issue, switch off your Mac and then turn it back on, pressing down "Command" + "Option" + "P" + "R" keys until you hear some chimes or see the screen blinking twice during the restart. If that still doesn’t fix the flickering screen with macOS 10.14, reset the System Management Controller (SMC) as decribed below.

Reset The System Magement Controller (SMC)

This method applies only to portable Macs with an inbuilt battery like MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Details of the steps for resetting the SMC of any other Mac device is also readily available on the web.

To reset the SMC, unplug the Mac's external display, and then turn off the Mac. Make sure the device is connected to the MagSafe power adapter. Press down “Shift” + “Control” + “Power” for a couple of seconds and then release them simultaneously. This resets the SMC of the MacBook Pro / Air instantly. Afterwards, press the power button to boot the Mac, and once the Mac is booted, plug back the display.


How does the Touch-Bar interact with HTML5 videos, and other media on the web? How does the Touch-Bar control an HTML5 video? When a video or other media plays a slider comes up with a slider that can control the timing of the video. How does the touchbar interact with an html5 video to change the time? Is it using javascript or what?

Thanks in advance!

The touch bar controller does not interact as such directly with HTML5 and it is not using Javascript.

It is instead the other way around. It is the browser that asks the touch bar controller to do something (i.e. for example to display buttons for previous and next page, open tab, etc.). This is done through the NSTouchBar class provided by Apple in AppKit.

The touch bar hardware in itself does not for example know that a button means to open a new tab in Firefox. Instead the application (for example Firefox) is told via NSTouchBar that the button has been pressed, and the application (Firefox in this example) must implement that functionality itself.

Therefore it is the browser that implements the action and thus controls the video – not the TouchBar.


Windows-Logo-Key + Left/Right Arrow -- Keyboard shortcut equivalent on Mac I have both a mac and a PC. One simple extremely useful feature on PCs that I can't find on a mac is the shortcut Windows+RightArrow to maximize the active window, but only take up exactly the right half of the screen (and vice versa with Windows+LeftArrow).

It's extremely useful to be able to quickly do side-by-side comparisons without having to manually resize the windows, but I haven't found a similar shortcut on a mac. Does this exist for mac? Or is there a utility that allows this?

If you hold down the green fullscreen button, it gives you the option to split/share the screen with a second window


Ridiculously Slow Macbook Pro 15inch Early 2013 I stumbled on other posts about the Ridiculously Slow Macbook pro 2013 That were remedied by replacing the harddrive cable. I am dealing with agonizing sluggish behaviour on my mac, It seems to be the same issue  however as you know 2015 macbook pros have SSD's.. do you think its about replacing my SSD as opposed to a cable swap.

I am desperate for help, I can't use my computer...

can you help me figure out what to do?

I have yet to see a horrible, measurable slow down, but that is exactly what is expected as SSD wear out.

What happens at the user/OS level when an SSD finally wears out?

If you have an easy SSD handy to swap, I would get a black magic disk test benchmark before and after the swap.

If you don’t, perhaps get a benchmark of disk IO and then erase the drive after backing up and repeat the test in a fresh os install that is mostly empty of user data.

Once you can post some specific read and write speeds, that would let other people chime in if you're in the same ballpark for speeds.


Does supervised device mode prevent restore on another computer in recovery mode? I know this is a long post but please bear with me:

I have an iPad Mini (A1429) / 7.0.6 which has been wiped, and set up as supervised and locked to my individual laptop with Apple Configurator 1.4.3

I have a custom app (enterprise licence) that the iPad is locked into using the supervise pane in Configurator.

Now, according to the documentation I've read, supervised devices automatically disable the ability for activation-lock to be used by the end-user of the iPad (I'm assuming to prevent disgruntled employees locking iOS devices with personal apple IDs).

My assumption is that because of the activation-lock prevention, supervised mode should prevent the iPad from synchronising with any other computer - especially if the device is stolen, so I tested this theory...

I plugged the iPad into another computer running iTunes. 'This device is supervised by another computer'. Working as expected.

So I placed the device into recovery mode, then plugged it into iTunes, which detected an iPad in recovery mode. I proceeded to restore the iPad, and it got half-way through the process before realising it was supervised, and bounced me back into the locked app. This worked as expected too.

Then I placed the device into recovery mode a second time, plugged it into iTunes which detected an iPad in recovery mode, and then tried to restore the iPad a second time.

Then something happened I didn't expect. The restore worked. And it presented me with the welcome screen. And it didn't present me with any activation-lock particulars. I was left with a pristine restored iPad free of all restrictions, pass-codes and activation locks.

My question to you all: IS THIS A BUG? or is this standard behaviour that is allowed by apple? Because I would assume that there are supervised devices out there that admins don't want wiped by another computer.

I think the answer to this question is No, supervised mode does not prevent restoring on another computer when put into Recovery Mode.

When tested, in recovery mode, it acted like the device wasn't supervised at all.  It proceeded with restoring back to defaults as if it was nothing.

BUT, a strange thing happened when the iPad was plugged back into the original machine that put it into supervised mode - the iPad went back into recovery mode. I opened up Apple Configurator and it started a "refresh" process.  This seems to be the same thing as preparing a device, as it restored it back to what it was like after putting it into supervised mode in the first place.  During this refresh process, it re-installed iOS 7.1.1 and re-applied the profile that was setup initially with Apple Configurator.

Tested with an iPad 2
Apple Configurator 1.5 (424)
Mac OS X 10.9.2


Code Signing of App with bundled JDK7 on Mavericks 10.9.1 I have a Java 7 application which I turn into a MacOS App following the instructions on http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/jweb/packagingAppsForMac.html.

This is no longer working. The signing still works (I use a "Mac Developer" certificate) and codesign verification claims everything is fine. spctl on my machine or trying to run the application on someone else's machine however results in rejection. (spctl only says "rejected" no further information even on verbose 4)

I tried adding --deep and --force to the code signing, but this did not solve the problem.

I also tried additionally signing the JDK plugin inside the App, but it did not help.

How does the process on the Oracle page above have to be adapted to work on 10.9?

My certificate was of the wrong type. Turns out it has to be of type: "Developer ID Application: "


Missing a lot of options from Finder's right click context menu No idea what caused this or why it's happening, but when I right click something in Finder  I'm missing a lot of the standard options that should be there (dropbox options, labels, etc). I've restarted several times, relaunched Finder, repaired disk permissions, and nothing's worked.

When I right click on my Desktop:

When I right click a file in Finder:

From your question it looks like your Dropbox is misbehaving.

Do you have the latest version of Dropbox? Reinstall Dropbox with the newest version.

  Dropbox uses a "hack" which extends the Finder (in an unsupported way) to provide this "sharing" link.  Because these "hacks" can cause crashes, Apple tends to disable them when newer versions of OS X ship. There's probably a newer version of DropBox that gets around these restrictions that you'll need to download.

Source: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5577081


Resetting OS X Password Without Having The Installation Disc? In the event that you have forgotten the login password to your Mac (for whatever reasons). What possibilities exist to reset the password without having the OS X installation disc(s) ?

Recovery HD

The simplest way may be to use the Recovery HD.

Boot into the Recovery HD (hold ⌥ alt/option at boot and select the Recovery HD).
Once it has booted, click Utilities, then Terminal.
Type resetpassword then ↩ enter.
Follow the instructions.

Restarting Setup Assistant

In addition to using the Recovery HD, you can also restart the Setup Assistant, create a new Administrator account, then use that account to reset the password to the original account.

You can restart the Setup Assistant by performing the following:

Boot into Single User Mode (hold ⌘ cmd + S at boot).
Mount the drive by typing /sbin/mount -uw / then ↩ enter.
Remove the Apple Setup Done file by typing rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone then ↩ enter.
Reboot by typing reboot then ↩ enter.
Continue setup, making sure not to transfer data.
Setup a new administrator account. You can use this account to reset the password to the original account (through System Preferences → Users & Groups).

The new account can then be deleted once the original account has been recovered.


On iTunes for Mac, download all music from iTunes Match Is there any way to download all of my iTunes Match music in one go on iTunes OS X?

I've tried selecting all then clicking the little iCloud Button.

I've also tried generating an Automator 'Watch me do' script, but that fails because the iCloud buttons have not been given a namespace selector, meaning the script errors out.

Does anyone know how this could be achieved? I have over 2,000 songs and don't want to click the button individually for each one.

To download all your music from iCloud:

Select all or select the tracks you want to download
Right click on the selected items
Click Download

NOTE: iTunes 12.2 does not have a "Download" option.  When you right-click on the selected items you will need to select "Make Available Offline" to download the items from iCloud


Accessing iOS iCloud app data from a Mac? I want to peek around where I'm not supposed to, specifically, I want to have a look at what "documents & data" is being stored in iCloud by some of my apps. I can see them in Manage Storage on the iCloud preference pane, but not in ~/Library/Mobile Documents or anywhere else on the system. The app is iOS only, does this mean that the Mac doesn't store this data, or have I just not found it yet?

Try this:

Go to the ~/Library/Mobile Documents folder. Type anything in the search field in your Finder window. Make sure that Mobile Documents is selected in the Search bar, not This Mac.

Next, click on the + icon, and choose Kind is Document. Go back to the search field and erase what you typed. Now all your iCloud documents will display.

Click on Save, and check Add to Sidebar to add this search to your Finder window sidebars.

Note: one submission said to type a period (.), and, while this starts the search, this may not find all your documents if extensions are not visible. So it's best to start a search, then choose Kind is Document and delete the search.


Remove malformed iOS app from device I incorrectly edited the plist that goes with an .ipa file and tried to install this .ipa.
Thereafter the app shows with a missing icon:

So now I'm not able to delete application that incorrectly installed.

Long press on app, selecting ✕ and Delete option does nothing.
Have tried to do it through iTunes with no result.
Rebooting doesn't help.

I can remove all other applications on device.

UPDATE 1:
After fixing plist, installation goes with success, but old application remains:

I'm using iPad mini with iOS 7.0.3.
I know how to correctly install my app, my question is about how to remove aftermath of my last try.

Go into Settings > General > Usage

From there find and tap on the app in the list of installed apps and select delete app.


AppleScript choose file with Terminal action I would to choose a file/an image that is being mounted in the Terminal

set pathelection to POSIX path of (choose file of type {"sparsebundle", "sparseimage", "dmg"})

do shell script "hdiutil mount" & " " & pathelection

Well, I have no clue what you want, but your code isn't guaranteed to work, which may be your problem. Try this:

set image to POSIX path of (choose file of type {"sparsebundle", "sparseimage", "dmg", "cdr", "iso"})
do shell script "hdiutil mount " & quoted form of image

Source: Part-time work as a prophet


Can I still use a damaged Magsafe power cable? My rabbit chewed on my Magsafe 2 power adapter. I can see the silvery wire where the rabbit peeled off the isolation yet it still works.

Can I just duct tape it and continue using it or is there any danger of damage to my laptop?

Edit:
Rabbit was objurgated otherwise he is fine.

With the looming possibility that any advice you get from here could cause damage to your machine, I'll prefix my answer with a disclaimer that you should probably confirm with an official source or advice from Apple directly.

So long as the visible damage is limited to the insulation, you should be fine with electrical tape (as opposed to duct tape). The silver wire you see (likely braided) is used to prevent interference and is used as a ground.


Connection Apple TV to the analog audio stereo speakers I have a projector with HDMI connection and speakers with analog audio jack.

I've bought Apple TV and I'm going to connect the projector with HDMI.

However, I'm afraid I need to buy an adapter for the Apple TV optical audio interface to connect the jack of my stereo.

Could you give me more info about it ?

HDMI to VGA + Audio:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/H9139VC/A/kanex-atv-pro-hdmi-to-vga-adapter-with-audio-support

Digital Coax / Optical Toslink to Analog Audio:
http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Optical-Toslink-Analog-Converter/dp/B004C4WPXA

I like the HDMI solution - it's an unpowered device; however it's considerably more expensive.  Maybe try dx.com for a slightly cheaper alternative (search hdmi vga audio).


How can I prevent iPhoto from opening everytime I plug my iPad/iPhone? How can I prevent iPhoto/Photos/Image Capture from launching everytime I plug in my iPad/iPhone?

Do this:

Plug in your iPad/iPhone
Open Image Capture
Select your device ("devMikePad")
Press the triangle in square symbol in the lower left corner.
Select "No application" in the menu.

Here is a picture showing what to look for on Snow Leopard or Yosemite.


How to change your primary device for receiving the verification code? My MacBookPro(primary device for receiving verification codes for other devices) crashed and I have to replace the hard drive.
How do I make my Mac-Mini my primary device?

After doing some research online, I was unable to find any mention of a "Primary Device". Any device that is registered to receive Two Step verification codes will receive the code.

I think what you need to do to receive the codes on you Mac-Mini is register the device to receive Two Step Verification codes.

Step Up device to receive Two Step Verification Codes:

Go to Apple () menu > System Preferences > iCloud > Account Details
Click Security.
Click Turn On Two-Factor Authentication.

Instructions from Apple KB - Two-factor authentication for Apple ID

Hope this helps


Mac Pro Tower, 1 or 2 CPUs I'd like to know whether a 4,1/5,1 Mac Pro with dual processor board can actually work with just one CPU installed.

It will work, but it will make the CPU fan on the installed processor run at full speed. When I upgraded the processors in my '09 I made sure I had one running correctly before adding the second and discovered the issue. Fan noise is quite loud. You might be able to limit it with a third party fan control app, like 'Macs Fan Control', but I'm not positive and am unwilling to test it by removing one of my processors. :)

Also, you will be limited to the four RAM slots of the installed processor.


Sudo askpass not working on macOS Sierra I use askpass to run commands as root. In file pass.txt I have this written:

#!/bin/bash
echo mypassword

And then I run it like this:

export SUDO_ASKPASS=pass.txt ; SUDO_ASKPASS=pass.txt ; sudo -Ak true

Before Sierra this worked just fine, but now I get an error:

sudo: unknown defaults entry `askpass'

But askpass actually works. BTW, I get this error every time I run sudo. That's the end of shudders file after exports:

Defaults:ALL askpass=/Users/username/pass.txt

How to fix this?

Remove the line Defaults:ALL askpass=/Users/<username>/pass.txt from the file /etc/sudoers. I don't know the purpose of the line – at least it seems to be malformed compared to other Defaults entries and reading man sudoers.

A proper line may be: Path askpass = /Users/<username>/pass.txt. I can't test this though.


Install Macos from recovery using Bootable USB I have replaced my broken HDD with a new SSD and I can't install Mac from recovery (Command+R) no matter what connection I try to connect to, I tried different networks (router via Wifi, router via Ethernet, 4G Hotspot) I mostly got Error -1005F and sometimes -2105F.

The only option left was that I download High Sierra 10.13.2 dmg file from a trusted source and I created a bootable USB using TransMac, with the only problem being, it doesn't recognize the USB (though formatted as GPT), if I restart the Macbook holding option key, it only shows a box to connect to Wifi, there are no disks to choose to boot from, I tried a USB 3.0 and a USB 2.0 devices, both didn't work.

Any idea how I can troubleshoot?

Is there a better way to install mac on my macbook pro 2011? (High Sierra compatible)

I also removed the optical drive from Macbook a while ago, installing Mac from a DVD wouldn't be an option for me.

Note: These instructions assume that the only internal drive is a SSD.

The procedure given below may seem lengthy, but once completed, you will not have to preform this procedure again. After installing 10.13.3, you will be able to reinstall the current version of macOS directly from Internet Recovery.

Boot to  Internet Recovery
Use the Disk Utility app to initialize the SSD for Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Install 10.7.5.
Boot to 10.7.5.
Download 10.13.3 installer app from the App Store. If this is not possible, then first upgrade to 10.11.6.
Transfer the 10.13.3 installer app to a USB flash drive.
Boot from the flash drive.
Use the Disk Utility app to initialize the SSD for APFS or APFS (Encrypted).
Install 10.13.3
Boot to 10.13.3


FileVault2 effect on speeds I would like to know what kind of speed implications using FileVault2 would have on my MBPr (late 2013). As there are much faster SSD's in these machines I want to know whether there is a noticeable speed difference compared older generations.

I've used FileVault 2 on my mid - 2012 retina MBPro. It's been awhile since I activated FileVault 2, but I've seen little to no real performance hit once I activated FV2.

There are some more objective tests available such as here.


What is up with IP address? Getting bizarre results I'm trying to limit my teenage son's access to certain websites (like Discord) during school hours only. The only solution I've found is to use something like https://www.dnsfilter.com. They require our public IP.
But while playing with different DNS settings, I'm getting bizarre results for our (dynamic) IP and confused what is causing this.
If I just Google "My IP" I get our true IP.
If I go to any of the "what is my IP" websites (like myip.com) I get different results, like 138.199.9.198
In Terminal, curl ifconig.me and other hosts I get the false IP as well.
Changing the DNS server on the Mac results in different results.

Given your description, it sounds like your Mac is accessing the Internet via a rerouted/controlled connection, such as a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
Please contact DNSFilter and ask how their product works on Mac and if this is expected.
138.197.142.28 looks to be operated by Digital Ocean. This is a cloud computing service and is probably being used by the DNSFilter service installed on your Mac to route your traffic.


identity.apple.com/pushcert not loading I'm trying to renew my Apple Push Notification Service certificate per the 30 day notification email I received. The email instructed me to visit http://identity.apple.com/pushcert to renew the certificate, but this page has not successfully loaded at any point I have tried. I'm not receiving a first byte from the server when attempting to load the URL.

It is rapidly approaching the 30 day deadline and I need to renew the certificate. Is there anywhere else I can go to renew the certificate or some way to fix the connection?

I've tried in Safari and Google Chrome, on two Wi-Fi networks, and just tried loading the page in Internet Explorer in Windows on a third network. I'm in the UK if there's any regional effect.

It's not loading for me either on my Mac in the US. However, if you request directly to https

https://identity.apple.com/pushcert/ - works for me
http://identity.apple.com/pushcert/ - fails without much of an error message

If you need the non-https link to work or both are failing for you, I would perhaps try on a mobile network just to make sure it's not a routing issue between your ISP and Apple. Mobile safari should work to test the connection and it gives a more friendly user error message IMO.

https://developer.apple.com/system-status/
https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/

Since you have an issue that's not covered, I would open an actual ticket with main support and ask them if you need to contact developer support instead for the push cert renewal.


ipython/python broken after upgrading to OS X Mavericks After upgrading to OS X Mavericks, it seems Python broke. I get the following when I try to run ipython:

~ $ ipython
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/ipython", line 5, in <module>
    from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
ImportError: No module named pkg_resources

Similarly I noticed that some other packages seem to be missing, even when using the default python (as opposed to ipython):

~ $ python
Python 2.7.3 (v2.7.3:70274d53c1dd, Apr  9 2012, 20:52:43)
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import numpy
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named numpy

numpy definitely worked before the upgrade. Any ideas on what could be causing this?

Update: Just noticed that running sudo easy_install numpy makes numpy work again. It gives the following output:

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.

To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.

Password:
Searching for numpy
Best match: numpy 1.6.2
Adding numpy 1.6.2 to easy-install.pth file

Using /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python
Processing dependencies for numpy
Finished processing dependencies for numpy

I am 100% sure I had numpy installed already when the machine was still running OS X Mountain Lion. Do I need to reinstall all of my python packages now? If so is there an easy way to do this automatically?

OS upgrades from Apple tend to wreck havoc on Python installations, usually resulting in the re-installation of whatever packages you had installed. There is no way to fix it at this point, but going forward you could consider running virtualenv to keep your Python installs and packages separate from the OS.

A little more info can be found here.


RDP connection manager for Mac Does anyone know if there are any RDP connection managers similar to Terminals or Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Manager for the Mac? I'm aware of Royal TSX but $35 seems a bit steep for an RDP client.

CoRD is my current go-to but it does not allow for organization of connections within folders and is just a big long list. It also ends up always being fuzzy if I don't do full screen with it.

iTeleport manages both VNC and RDP connections, and is available on iOS and Mac, as well as Windows even.

Link to Mac App Store is here.

If cost is a consideration, try CoRD. (EDIT: Missed the fact that this was in the OP. My apologies.)

Other alternatives I've tried include iTap and Jump Desktop.


How to completely disable backupd-helper? I am using macOS High Sierra 10.13.5, and with iCloud enabled.

I tried to kill backupd-helper many times, and I didn't have Time machine running, but it keeps use my disk IO:

Even after I kill the process, it will automatically start again. How can I completely disable it? Thanks!

You could try navigating to '/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-helper.plist' and changing 'RunAtLoad' to NO. I haven't tested this out, but I suspect it would work.

This (editing the plist) can also be done from the command line, but I won't get into that here.


How & why do "0.0.0.0" connections get a response? I have a lot of bad guys in /etc/hosts pointing to 0.0.0.0

If I use host to check the domain name, I get an actual IP address instead of 0.0.0.0

What I expected the resolver to give me is the same thing that is in the hosts file.  What I expected from any other access is a failure (timeout).

But when the resolver provides the real IP, I would expect a browser to show the bad guy's website.  Instead, both Safari and Firefox show "Blocked!!" with the same font, font size, positioning, etc.  The HTML is identical:

Blocked!!

suggesting that it comes from somewhere/something else.  Where does this HTML come from?  What would happen if the Mac tried to go there on some other (non-http/https) port?

This is the latest MacOS update on a 2012 MacBook.

As I said in a comment, host is misleading because it bypasses the system resolver  (and /etc/hosts) and queries DNS directly. The 0.0.0.0 entries are probably working normally.

From my tests it appears connections to 0.0.0.0 actually connect to localhost (specifically 127.0.0.1), so that
Blocked!!
 message must be coming from a web server running on your own Mac.

You can confirm this by running sudo tcpdump -Aqns0 -ilo0 port 80 to watch the raw connection. Note that it'll ask for your admin password, but will not echo anything as you type. Also, you'll have to use Control-C to exit it. In the output, you'll see traffic back & forth between two different ports on 127.0.0.1 (ports 80 and whatever your browser is using), but in the request you'll see a "Host:" header indicating the site name the browser is trying to reach.

So... why is a web server running on your Mac, and why is it serving a "Blocked!" message? I have no idea, do you?


Macbook: Flashing Folder with Question Mark At Startup So, I've been hearing a clicking sound coming from my macbook for about a week now. The last few days the system has just been locking itself up when I try to type anything.

Now, at startup I see this:

I'm assuming that the clicking was "the click of death" and my hard drive is fried. Or am I wrong?

That's the most likely scenario.

Have you tried booting from a system disc? I'd recommend doing that, and then running Disk Utility and see what it says about the drive.


diagnose possible issue with MBpro 2012 running very slow tl;dr Can a MacBook Pro become unbearably slow because of hardware issues, e.g a hard-drive failure? How can I best diagnose this?

I own a MacBook Pro from 2012, which recently has become unbearably slow: typically any action, such as clicking on a tab or typing, is followed by a spinning beach ball for about 30 seconds, even though I am not running any intensive process (e.g. only the web browser is open, with a couple of tabs; the same thing happens while browsing files in the Finder, or even typing my name at the login screen after rebooting).

What worries me is that I cannot decide whether it's hardware or software related. I upgraded to El Capitan a few weeks ago, and after a couple of days of decent experience (it wasn't very fast, but at least remained usable), I figured after a few patches and/or spotlight doing its background work, things would improve, but no: the computer became so slow that I was forced to format the disk and make a fresh install. Things have not improved one bit, however.
One thing I noticed is that the battery is drained very quickly: I had it replaced less than 2 months ago, yet after only a couple of hours sitting idle the machine runs out of battery.

So, I have two options: try the painful process of re-installing an older OS version, and hope this will make it usable again, or give the machine to a repair service to check for hardware problems. This is quite costly here, even if they don't find anything or are unable to fix it, so I'd like to check first wether those symptoms are compatible with e.g. a hard-drive failure (in which case it would be worth getting it changed).

Edit: Following the suggestions offered below, I tried the following:

check the activity monitor: I do not see any process with high CPU load; typically the Finder or Web browser (Safari or Chrome) with a maximum of a few % of CPU usage. During the beach-ball freeze every minute or so, I am unable to focus on the Activity Monitor window to get updates, so it may be that a process appears and disappears during that time.
reset the SMC. For a little while it seemed to be more responsive after reboot. Unfortunately, after 10 minutes or so just browsing the Web, I'm back to the beach ball every couple of clicks.

It seems that regardless of the task -- web browsing, file browsing, text editor, there is a periodically recurring lag that freezes the system for a few tens of seconds every minute or so.

Yes. It was the dodgy cable that connects CPU and hard drive, apparently too brittle and a known source of issues. Replacing it fixed the issue (but was previously mis-diagnosed as hard-drive failure, so also changed it for a SSD).


iCloud doesn't allow me to backup So I want to backup my Ipod Touch 5 because I'm gonna have to exchange it for a new one and I have tons of photos and notes I would like to back up. I tried backing it up to itunes but its taking a long time and nothing seems to be moving. I deleted all my apps and all the non important photos and decided to try icloud instead. Most websites said I needed to make sure I was under my 5.0GB mark and my Ipod said I had 5.0GB available but when I try to back up it said there wasn't enough available storage. I deleted more photos but it still couldn't backup. I dont want to buy more storage or contact the Apple Support until I'm sure of what's happening..can someone please help me?

In order to fit within the 5GB limit for the iCloud backup, you need to have the used space on your device be less than 5GB. Technically, Apps don't count against this, although their documents/data does. There are other items that don't count, as well, you can read more about iCloud backups here.

You stated that your iPod had 5GB available, but the space used for the backup is the 5GB that you have in iCloud, it is not on your device.

If you have more than 5GB used, as is likely given that it has told you there is not enough available storage, then you will need to either pay to add more iCloud storage, or just use iTunes for free.

If it is your first time backing up to iTunes and you have lots of data, it will likely take quite a while, so you should be patient when letting it complete that first backup.


Can I use an iPhone with no service for iOS development? Will an iPhone with no service plan be usable as a development device?

I don't need any functionality except a working device running iOS that is a GPS receiver. Since GPS is passive, I would think it would still work without a service plan.

Unless iPhones get locked down or something, which is why I ask.

You should be able to use an iPhone with no service for development purposes.

There seemed to be a problem with this in the past due to the activation screen showing up, but there was a workaround even back then. I don't think Apple wants to force you into a $70 contract just for development purposes. One of the workarounds mentioned was to develop on an iPod Touch (if you don't need GPS functionality), but the others specifically mention how to bypass the activation screen on an iPhone.


Any way to temporarily allow insecure SSL on Safari in High Sierra? Apparently High Sierra has changed the way Safari handles untrusted SSL certificates.

In the past you could bypass an SSL warning and visit a site. But if you visited that site again in a new session, you'd get the warning again.

But now, asking Safari to allow you to visit a site with an untrusted certificate apparently requires that you add the untrusted certificate to the system trust store.

To me this is actually less secure. Here is just one scenario where there could be a problem: Suppose you're setting up a new server and, initially, it has a self-signed certificate. You know this is going to happen, but you have to get in to do some initial setup or testing. You bypass the SSL warning and go on your way. Now, later that day or the next day, you try to setup the server with a proper SSL certificate but somehow mess things up and your site is still serving its self-signed certificate. You visit the site in Safari and... everything looks good! No warning. So you're now confident that you setup your cert properly. But you haven't.

Yes, of course you can go into Keychain Access and manually remove the certificate, but that just seems to be not only many extra steps but also something easy to forget to do.

So my question is, is there a way to get Safari to temporarily, without adding anything to the system store, allow a connection to an untrusted SSL website, other than adding the certificate and then remembering to go manually remove it afterwards?

Although there is no longer a button, you can still call CertificateWarningController.visitInsecureWebsiteWithTemporaryBypass() in the Safari Web Developer console to bypass the warning and visit the insecure site.

If not enabled, go to Safari > Preferences > Advanced and select the "Show Develop menu in menu bar" option at the bottom.

Develop > Show Javascript Console.
Paste CertificateWarningController.visitInsecureWebsiteWithTemporaryBypass() in the console.
Press enter to run the code and bypass the warning page without adding the untrusted certificate to your keychain.


with magic trackpad, time lag between when i droped a something and when it actually dropped I'm using a magic trackpad.
There is a time lag for about 0.5 second between when i dropped a something, for example desctop icon, and when it actually dropped.

I can drop immidiately by touching after I drop something.
But I don't want to touch every time I drop something.
Magic mouse can drop immidiatelly without any extra operations.

What is this time lag?
And how can I solve this problem?

Do you have one-finger drag enabled? I believe the delay is there so when you "run out of runway" on a long drag, you have time to move your finger to the other side of the pad and continue dragging.  The mouse doesn't need that delay because you can hold the left button (or finger sensor) while you carry the mouse. You may need to use the click-drag instead of one-finger drag.


Is it safe to create a tarball of a Time Machine backup? Is it possible for me to create a .tar.gz, .tar.xz, etc file of a .backupdb? Are there any precautions I need to take to ensure that all permissions, hardlinks, etc are preserved? Will tar destroy the de-duplication used in Time Machine's backups?

tar does not preserve all the information in the HFS filesystem.

I would look at having it converted to a image file instead.  I believe Disk Utility can do this for a folder.


Disable gatekeeper notarisation check without disabling SIP I am running into this issue where MacOS does security checks on new executables over the network. This introduces a significant delay when first running a new executable. It's very annoying when developing code because the executables are almost always new.
Is there any way to disable this check without disabling SIP?

Aha, I didn't find a way to disable it system-wide for all apps, but you can disable it for specific apps in System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Developer Tools


eGPUs to enable utilization of (even) more monitors with MacBook Pro? I know this is not the primary use case for using external GPUs, but I drank the Space to Think kool-aid in a serious way. Can anyone find a source or share personal experience that confirms that I could potentially use e.g. 2 additional (to the spec below) 4K or 5K monitors with a new MBP (so e.g. 4 5K monitors: 2 powered by internal MacBook Pro GPU and 2 powered by an external GPU)?
According to Apple, the new MacBook Pro (MacBookPro14,3 A1707, sans eGPU),

Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display at millions of colors and:
Up to two displays with 5120-by-2880 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colors
Up to four displays with 4096-by-2304 resolution at 60Hz at millions of colors
Up to four displays with 3840-by-2160 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colors
...

Unfortunately Apple hasn't made any comments about this yet. I think no one will be able to answer your question at this time.


How can I tell which SSL ciphersuite Safari is using? Qualsys tells me that current versions of Safari on OS X don't support AES-GCM for the SSL/TLS cipher algorithm.  I'd like to verify this by observing which cipher suite is selected when visiting my website.  However, the only technical information Safari seems to provide is related to the certificate, not the connection itself.

I'm also interested in being able to find this information because I like to check the key exchange algorithm on sites for forward secrecy.  I don't generally use Safari for day-to-day operations, but, y'know, sometimes it's necessary.

Is there a way to determine the ciphersuite being used for a particular connection in Safari?

The information you are looking for is easily available in Chrome (v35).  Just click on the lock icon in the browser location bar and the cipher suite details are there.

But you asked about Safari. Clicking on the lock icon in Safari 7.0.4 only gives a fraction of what you get in Chrome.  I thought there might be more in Safari Developer Tools but came up empty.

What worked for me was to use a network packet inspector (I used WireShark installed through Homebrew).

WireShark will allow you to examine all the network traffic including the "Client Hello" message where Safari lists the cipher suites it supports (the list is 37 items long and matches the list you linked to from Qualsys).

A little further down you can see the "Server Hello" message. In this response the server will respond with the name of the best cipher suite that they both share.

The screenshot below is from WireShark.  I have set up a filter to only show packets to and from IP addresses corresponding to 'www.google.com'.  Then I started recording and then loaded the google home page under https in Safari.

You can see that the negotiated cipher suite between google and Safari is TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA.

Further down in the transcript (not shown) I found packets relating to to "Change Cipher Spec", but this doesn't appear (from what I can tell) to change the selected suite.


MacOS High Sierra: Remove the lag when resizing a window quickly I've been facing this issue since El Capitan. Basically, when I resize a window manually, it lags or whatever you want to call it. Here's a video in real time showing this problem.

A gif slowed down 50% can show the mouse pointer leading the entire window redraw as it calculates the layout and then resizes the window with live layout changes.

Notice how the mouse pointer leads and the window lags when you resize the window fast.

My specs:

Processor: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 - 1536 MB
Disk: 250GB SSD

CPU is not constrained when the lag is present:

Although this doesn't occur on Windows 10 (Same specs), it is still really annoying to deal with, and I'd really like to know if there's anything I could do or change to get rid of this issue...

The question:
Is there a way to remove the lag when resizing a window quickly?

That response looks entirely proper and the only thing I could see would be to have chrome somehow do less calculation of the content inside the frame and just resize the window and redraw / re-layout the text and content at a lower rate.

This seems like an intentional tradeoff - you can see the content is responding almost as fast as the mouse pointer. I'm not up on css / html enough to know if there's a hint you could embed to tell the web layout to not worry about layout changes so much and instead wait for you to pick a window size and then refresh.

My guess is the software isn't optimized for your use case at all. If chrome and safari and Firefox all work the same, you might simply see a decision to use CPU and cap frame rates due to energy consumption considerations and not for inherent limitations in the hardware. It could also be that all the responsiveness and resources are committed to making the content move inside the window so you know you are dragging and less about trying to track a window size change.

Dissecting this would make for an interesting research project or possibly a thesis for someone on software design tradeoffs and implementations. Which is a long way of saying, I don't think there's an easy solution for you to make a meaningful change other than use another browser or OS.


Is Geotag Location Sent for iMessage Photos? When I send a photo to a friend via iMessage and not MMS, will the geotag location be sent along with the photo? If so, is there any way to remove the location before the photo is sent for privacy reasons.

The location data is definitely sent with images sent over iMessage; I've saved an image sent by another person and itappeared on the "Places" tab in Photos. A trick you could use to remove the location data is to open the picture, take a screenshot (press home and sleep together) and then send the screenshot. The downside though is that it might be lower quality.


iTunes 12.4.1 cannot sync music to my iPad I have tried syncing mp3 files I downloaded from a youtube converter (youtube-mp3.org), imported them to iTunes and then tried unsucessfully to sync them. My school has requested that I download a certain list of apps to use at school, i don't have an Apple ID so my dad synced the apps using his computer. Problem is that my iPad only syncs to his computer ever since he synced the apps. Are there any FREE solutions to fix this?

First of all, you had better create a free Apple ID.

I think iFunBox is what you need. A tool for iOS management from Mac/PC(without syncing iTunes and using an Apple ID). iExplorer is another app that is a little bit easier to use.


How do I copy my Mac library / iTunes / iPhoto to my Transcend Jet Drive I just got myself the Transcend Jet Drive to upgrade my MBP 13" retina with another 128 GB.

Read a lot of reviews on that, still can't seem to understand how it actually works. I am not a tech geek and pretty average when it comes to that. Connected it and it appears just fine and any regular files are copied, but when I come to copy my Music folder and my iPhoto library it crashes in the middle and says there is an error.

How does this exactly work? I mean, will iTunes/iPhoto understand that it the directory is different now ?

Another thing I discovered is, that it takes so much time to copy the files, never calculates less than 5h to transfer 17 GB.

Can anyone help me?

First things first:  As I understand it, you want to put all your iTunes music and your photos onto your new 128Gb JetDrive rather than store them on your computer.  Yes, you can do this, and it should work just fine.

To your computer, your JetDrive is simply an additional drive in addition to what is already inside your computer.  I suspect your JetDrive is either defective, or it wasn't formatted properly.

I suggest you begin by erasing/reformatting your JetDrive using Disk Utility.  (All the data on your JetDrive will be deleted, so plan accordingly.)  If you aren't familiar with Disk Utility, be extremely careful—you can easily do a whole lot of damage to the data on your computer using this utility.  I've never used a JetDrive myself, but it should have come with detailed instructions on how to do this.  If not, or if the instructions aren't clear to you, I recommend you get someone with OS X experience to personally help you do it step-by-step.

If after erasing your JetDrive, it still takes hours to transfer your data, you likely have a defective JetDrive.

As for how to get iTunes to use your new JetDrive after successfully copying the iTunes Media Folder to it, you set iTunes to use your new JetDrive & iTunes Media Folder Location instead of the one on your computer.  This option is located in Advanced Preferences of iTunes, in iTunes>Preferences...>Advanced.  There you will see the current iTunes Media Folder Location and a button to change it.

Your photos work in a manner similar to iTunes, but instead of using iTunes Media Folder for its data, Photos uses Photos Library.photoslibrary.  Unfortunately, getting Photos to use a new library isn't as straightforward as is iTunes. After copying Photos Library.photoslibrary to your new JetDrive, you must then either delete or rename the old library.  Doing so will cause Photos to prompt you for the name/location of the library when it starts (since the one it is supposed to use cannot be found because you deleted or renamed it.)

Lastly, after you have successfully put your music and photos on your new JetDrive, be sure Time Machine is set to back it up from there.  You do back up your data, right?


Is there a way to enable Two-factor authentication for my apple id without any physical device? Apple has stopped publishing my apps in appstore, because my appleId has to be enabled with "Two-factor authentication" first. Now I have no MAC nor any iOS Phone / Tablet anymore.

How can I enable "Two-factor authentication" without to be bounded to any physical device. I can still manage the disabled apps in "Apple Store Connect", but I am forced to enable "Two-factor authentication".

No, you require a physical device to set up two-factor authentication.

  Two-factor authentication is available to iCloud and iTunes users with at least one device that's using the latest iOS or macOS.

Availability of two-factor authentication for Apple ID


Apple ID locked - reset password So my son forgot the password of email and Apple ID password.
When we go to reset, after we enter the Apple ID, it says it will send instructions by email to ****@icloud.com
He can't get in his email and it's the only option we have.
Is there any way of doing this still or is he basically out of luck?

You'll need to contact Apple support about this, as they have tools to help recover Apple IDs like security questions, backup emails, and simply verifying your biographic information against your Apple ID.


iPhone does not get detected on older MacBook Pro I had to switch temporarily to a MacBook Pro 13 early 2011 model and when I'm connecting my iPhone 7+ or iPad, it's not getting detected nor charged.

Other USB devices like thumb drives or USB-microphones are working just fine.
If I put a voltcraft USB power converter between the iPhone/iPad and my MacBook Pro, the device is getting charged but it's still not getting detected in iTunes/duet.
I already reset NVRAM (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063) as suggested in similar posts here but that didn't fix anything and I don't know what else to try.

Any ideas?
Thanks

I've had the same problem before, and the following steps solved it for me:

Open iTunes
Plug the phone into the computer, and unlock the phone (Either with TouchID or Passcode Unlock)
A notification should popup on your phone saying "Trust This Computer?", click "Trust"
And finally, in iTunes and after a couple of seconds it should show up


Is it possible to disable iPhone sounds and vibrations when the phone is unlocked? I have been chatting extensively on my iPhone via text messages. I always have my phone on silent and the vibrations seem to really run down the battery. It's a waste because a lot of the time I have the person's text window open already and I don't need a non-visual alert. But if I have the phone locked in my pocket I want it. I assume the answer is no but is there any way to disable sounds or vibrations when the phone is unlocked? Even though Apple can be stingy with settings this seems like a worthwhile one to add doesn't it?

When it's unlocked, you could simply mute it, and remember to unmute it when you remove it from your eyesight - Turn off "Vibrate on Silent" in Settings > Sounds.  Only a workaround, but perhaps useful.


Hide all files with a specific extension from Finder I have an application that creates MANY .log, .upload, and .json files each day, so that when I go to my "Today" smart folder, it's all clogged up with those. I'd like to hide all three of those file extensions from finder, but I'm not sure the best way to do so given that I'd need the solution to work on new files with those extensions as well as existing ones.

Alternately, I could hide all existing and new files in a particular folder since that folder houses all of those, but I want them also to be invisible to my smart folders.

Thanks for any help you can provide. I'm confortable USING scripts and automator and such, but I don't know the commands myself, so the more specific you can be in your answers, the better.

Thanks!

If you just want to modify the saved search, copy it somewhere from /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/CannedSearches/Today.cannedSearch, show package contents and open search.savedSearch in a text editor, and add this to the first RawQuery key:

&amp;&amp; kMDItemFSName != *.log &amp;&amp; kMDItemFSName != *.upload &amp;&amp; kMDItemFSName != *.json

You can drop it on the sidebar by holding command.


How to open another Account's User folder using Terminal? I used to be able to use one of these commands to switch to another user account (my own) to work on it.
john$ login admin
password:

admin$ open .
LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -610 for the file /Users/admin/.

I have tried other methods as well.
john$ su - admin
john$ exec su - admin
john$ sudo -u admin bash

They all result in the same error. I understand it's a security restriction. The question is what rules are restricting this? I do have the password shouldn't I be allowed, once signing in, access to those files?
What can I do to gain access as if I am in that user account?

EDIT
Also tried:
john$ ssh admin@localhost
Password:
admin$ open .
LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -610 for the file /Users/admin.

Jump Desktop will allow you to log in to the same computer you are using as a different user. You will have access to all of your files and apps.
I have not done this extensively, but I did test it and it worked in Jump Desktop.
The default macOS Screen Sharing.app will not do this.
Screens 4 seemed like it was going to work, but it did not successfully connect.


Can iOS apps read your clipboard, and can it be stopped? An article says that iOS apps have been caught reading data from user's clipboards:

researchers found the following iOS apps were reading users’ clipboard data every time the app was opened with no clear reason for doing so:

ABC News — com.abcnews.ABCNews
Al Jazeera English — ajenglishiphone
CBC News — ca.cbc.CBCNews
CBS News — com.H443NM7F8H.CBSNews
CNBC — com.nbcuni.cnbc.cnbcrtipad
Fox News — com.foxnews.foxnews

(51 more apps not shown for brevity)
Question
Are all iOS apps able to read the iPhone clipboard, and if so, how can I get a list of which apps are doing it, and be notified each time they do it?
Also note
By extension, macOS's 'handoff' feature allows apple devices share clipboards when within 10 feet of each other. So in addition to being able to read the iPhone's clipboard, are these iOS apps also able to read the user's MacBook's clipboard (whenever it's within 10 feet, as demonstrated in the youtube link below)?

This demonstrates how an iOS app with access to the clipboard can read not only the clipboard on the iPhone/iPad, but also on any MacBook or Mac within 10 feet (via 'handoff', which is 'On' by default on macOS devices).

Any iOS can always access the clipboard, there isn't really a way to prevent this from happening. Recent iOS versions show a little info box at the top of the screen when this happens so you should be at least aware if an app does this "in the background".
PS: An app can not access clipboards on other devices. What happens with Handoff is that the clipboards are synced across devices by the OSes (macOS and iOS) in the background so that at the moment an app access the clipboard it may get the content you just copied into it a few seconds ago on your Mac.


Arrow cursor hotspot off by a few pixels On my MacBook Pro i have realised that the default mouse cursor (black arrow) has its hotspot a few pixels off the top left corner. It becomes obvious if I move the cursor slowly to a button in the browser. While the tip of the arrow is already like 3 or 4 pixels in the button it does not highlight it yet. When I move it one pixel further the cursor turns to the hand cursor and the tip of the finger is exactly on the edge of the button.

Is this on purpose? Can I change that somewhere?

After closer inspection I figured out that the white border of the arrow cursor is not considered part of the cursor, only the black part is, then it seems pixel perfect. It is very confusing to me but I guess its working as intended.


Auto close windows that pop up? I have some apps that keep popping up ad windows. I want to find a way to automatically close certain app windows as soon as they appear. On Windows, I normally make a simple app in AutoIt and run it. What are my options on OS X?

You could save a script like this as a stay open application in AppleScript Editor:

on idle
    tell application "TextEdit" to close windows where name contains "Untitled"
    return 1
end idle

You can open it at login by adding it to login items. return 1 waits one second before running the idle handler again. killall applet terminates the process.

Closing windows with System Events:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Preview"
    repeat with w in (get windows where title contains "pdf")
        click (button 1 of w where description is "close button")
    end repeat
end tell

I use this function to connect to a 3G network:

mlk() { pkill -x EasyConnect; open -ga Mobiililaajakaista && sleep 30 && pkill -x EasyConnect && osascript -e 'tell application "Safari" to close (tabs of windows where URL is "http://www.elisa.net/slmobi/")' & disown $!; }

open -g opens the application on the background. Without disown the shell shows a message like [1]+  Done after the background job finishes. pkill -x is like killall but it doesn't show an error message if it doesn't match any processes.


Where can I buy a replacement Mac pro 2013 SSD drive? Having acquired a second hand Mac Pro (A1481) I want to upgrade the internal SSD drive from 256GB to at least 500GB.

I have spent hours searching online, and can't find a provider other than OWC The one I have in place is Samsung, is there no online provider of these drives? furthermore, a few ebay auctions suggest that a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air SSD drive would be suitable.

Can any one point me to a reputable source for these Samsung drives?

The MacPro uses a proprietary interface - at least when it was first designed - for their SSD's It is a PCIe 2.0 x4 spec.

It was called "proprietary" because no other "workstation class" computer used these types of drives.  They typically went with SATA or SAS (enterprise class of course)

The best price you are going to find for these drives is through Amazon. You may be able to win an auction on ebay, but for the time and hassle, I usually just went with Amazon.

These drive only work with the "grey" cylinder MacPro.  You can get more info from everymac.com

What you might want to consider at this point is sticking with the SSD that you have and adding a thunderbolt drive.  I personally use the WD Thunderbolt Duo 6GB with my iMac (iMac has 256GB SSD).  It is super fast and expandable.  It has user serviceable drives so you can upgrade anytime you want.  There are other options out there, but after all my research, I picked this one and I have been extremely happy with it.

Update (3.31.16)

A year later and this hasn't changed much.  OWC is apparently the only aftermarket manufacturer of these SSD with the PCIe 2.0 x4 interface.

As far as SSD options, they seem to stop at 2013 for the MBA. I know, I have a relative that spilled milk on an MBA and have been looking for a USB to 2014 MBA SSD enclosure to transfer data and I can find none under $100.

It seems that the 2015 MBA SSD will work in the Mac Pro as they use the same SSD model (see below).  Source:  EveryMac.com

The 2014 MBA uses the PCIe 2.0 x2 so I cannot say if it will work or not (and I would be unwilling to test out this theory given the high cost of the components).  Source:  EveryMac.com


How to disable the message notifications of skype on mac? It is annoying that every time a message arrives, a notification pop up in the right corner of the screen, untill you click the close button. How can I disable this?

I found that a software named growl may help, but it is not a free solution.

System Prefs > Notifications

Set alert style to None, or Banner, which will disappear after a few seconds.


PDFs always open in Photoshop on Macbook Pro 2015 even when I change default program Without my intervention, pdfs just open up in Photoshop. I've never told them to open in Photoshop, even once, but the computer decides to change the default program to Photoshop. I change the default program back to Preview but a day later it changes to Photoshop again.

I have the same problem with Grab and Preview. The computer wants Grab to handle jpgs and I constantly change it to Preview and somehow it changes back again without me doing anything.

EDIT: basically the only steps I've tried are to right click on the file and go to get info, then change the default app to preview and then click on "change all."
I've also done: right click on file and choose to "open with" preview, but that won't permanently change it either

Because 1.) You are experiencing persistent and unrequested filetype association changes and 2.) Both third-party software and Mac OS system utilities are being set--again, without request and persistently--as first-responder applications for major filetypes, I therefore believe you have a corrupted Launch Services database. (While there is a known issue with Adobe CC2017 being the cause of .pdf files opening in Photoshop rather than in Preview.app, this does not explain the behavior of Grab doing the same to .jpg files.)

[NOTE: The following paragraphs are taken from The Eclectic Light Co. site. I include them here to provide a backup set of instructions for attempting a solution should the link die, but I recommend visiting the actual site if possible.]

There is no simple way to rebuild your Launch Service database, unless you have a utility such as OnyX which includes this as a feature. Restarting in Safe mode (with the Shift key held) flushes quite a few caches, but does not touch the Launch Services database. Even if someone were to tell you where to find the files, you cannot just trash them.

The tool which maintains the Launch Services database is lsregister, which is tucked away in /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support.

It has no man page, but typing /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -h in Terminal will return its usage information.

To reset the Launch Services database, you should use its -kill option. You want this to be applied through a recursive directory scan, so also need the -r option. It’s wise to watch its progress in verbose mode (-v option), and you need to specify the domains to which this will apply. Generally, the command advised is:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain u -domain s -domain l -v

to which some add the option to scan default locations to seed the database, -seed.

There are some issues with that command as given. It covers three domains – system, local, and user – which makes it very extensive, perhaps more so than is required. It also uses a different syntax from that given for the command in Sierra 10.12.6. Instead, I suggest that you try in the first instance

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -v -apps u

That should do the trick. If it doesn’t, then widen the domains with
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -v -apps u,s,l

and finally try
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -v -all u,s,l

which should wipe everything from the database.

It is also not impossible that you find you have to use the older syntax with
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -v -domain u

The snag with resetting the Launch Services database is that your Mac will take time to gradually rebuild it, during which its functions will run much slower. After a while, though, it will have been rebuilt, and the right app should be associated with each document type.

As to how the database was corrupted, there are dozens of ways. Here's an example involving a recent cause (not necessarily related to yours): Firefox version corrupts MacOS file association database.


Is there a good SQL Diagram Editor/Drawing Mac App Tool? Does anyone know a comprehensive Mac app to create SQL Diagramms?
I think http://ondras.zarovi.cz/sql/demo/ is quite good, but it's a little bit too basic.

I would like to create the database schema, the relations between the tables (including labels for e.g. n:m relations), add comments, export to SQL, and so on to run from my Mac.

MySQL Workbench is good enough for most programming demands. You can create EER Model and can also synchronize the model with DB Changes or vice versa. You can use it with no cost as it's a open-source application. I have been using MySQL for a year and it is very useful for me. I recommend it to you if you don't need any enterprise features and performance.


macOS Catalina beta could not be verified I'm trying to install the latest beta on my MacBook and always get the message at the end:

  macOS Catalina beta could not be verified

Any suggestions how to solve this?

I just retied and it worked out of the box.
Don't know what the error was, I did not change nothing.


How do I remove songs from the cloud I have removed my son's death metal junk from my library but the devices still pick it up from the cloud.  How do I delete songs from the cloud if they no longer appear in the host ITunes library?  I have deleted the unwanted songs from the host PC which should have removed them from iTunes Match but when I synch my iPad mini to iTunes Match the files still appear and can be played on the iPad when I have access to the cloud thru WiFi.   The songs are gone from the host PC but apparently are still in accessible to my other devices thru iTunes Match.

Right click on the item and select delete.    The popup will look like this:

make sure to click the *Also delee this song from iCloud box.

must be on Computer with Itunes Match enabled.

Check http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4915?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US


Macbook display black on boot up with external monitor It's probably a minor thing but since I'm new to Apple I can't really figure this one out. I have an external monitor plugged into my 15' MBP Retina via Thunderbolt - VGA adapter and when I turn on the computer only the external monitor turns on. The notebook display stays black. I have to unplug the external monitor, turn on the computer and then plug it in for them both to work at the same time. Do you guys have any ideas how to set it up permanently?

OS X remembers the configuration for each individual external device you plug in and should restore the last setup.

You should get an extra icon in the top menu bar when you have an external display plugged in, and clicking on this will give you the options to rearrange the displays and choose which are on.

It may be that you are booting up into 'closed screen' mode (see this Apple support article).

You don't say which version of OS X you are using. Before Lion the behaviours were different and if so things might improve after upgrading.


itunes connect app analytics - number of app updates We just released a new version of our app and I wanted to see how many users have updated to the new version.

In the past it was fairly straightforward to see the number of app updates for your users. You could set a filter to see updates and then download a csv etc. I have been digging around in the latest version of itunes connect and I just can't find a way to see the number of updates. I was reading through the documentation here and a few of the categories specifically say they don't include updates but nothing about what does include updates.Does anyone know how to get this report out of itunes connect app analytics?

I was looking in the wrong place. Sales and Trends is the place to check for number of app updates. To check how many users have updated go to itunes connect >sales and trends. Click Add Filters > Transaction type > updates.


Mac keeps searching for networks even when it's already connected to a network My 2013 MacBook Air keeps searching for networks when it is already connected the to internet. This is causing unstable connections which slows down my speed. Is there a remedy for this problem?

It is not a problem and it does not search for network unless you prompt it to.

Only if you click the AirPort menu bar item to look at the list of networks will it start searching to show you what is out there, since it rightly so assumes you wanted to search for networks.


Mac mini 2012 (2.3 quad core) Vs late 2014 (2.8 dual core) I'm on my way to buy my new mac mini for my IOS development and I'm a bit unfamiliar with Apple products so I just want an advice from experts about that.

my budget is not that high so I have 2 options and need to know which the best i can buy for IOS development :

1) used Mac mini 2.3 quad core 16 GB of RAM with HDD 5400 1 TB (But it almost used for a year)
2) New Mac mini 2.8 dual core 8 GB of RAM with 1TB fusion drive.

Both are the same price and I'm a bit lost to decide. Any help would be much appreciated !!

Go with the older model.

The quad core i7 can run circles around the dual core i5 in multithreaded applications, which Xcode is (especially for code compilation tasks). You've seen that on the Geekbench scores.

The hard drive's speed is not really going to make much of an impact on your intended use.

The graphics chip is completely irrelevant.

The additional RAM will be a big boost especially running Yosemite.


Do not want my iPad to sync w iPhone. Why can I not stop sharing iCloud, as opposed to deleting it, which I believe will affect other device? For example, my apps r showing up on his phone, but his stuff is not coming to mine. If I delete my iCloud, am I also deleting his? All under same account.

If you are talking about the App Store, the important thing is the AppleID you used to sign in. Assuming two devices both signed in with the same id, the default behavior is: when you make a purchase on device A, it is installed on device B at the same time. Downloading an already-purchased app does not propagate. Deleting an app does not propagate. iCloud data associated with the app is not deleted if you delete the app from only one device.

You can disable the "purchases installed everywhere" choice from the Settings > iTunes & App Store page.


How to Switch Startup Partition without entering password For testing purposes I frequently want to restart my iMac in El Capitan, Sierra, or High Sierra which I have on separate disk partitions.  When using System Preferences/Startup Disk, I have to enter my password to do that.  Is there any way to avoid this requirement?

You can press the Alt-Key on startup to choose from the different booting devices... So you can just restart the Mac and when it "chimes" hold down the alt-key until you can see the partitions.

If you were searching another way, ask again... maybe you could turn off the password protection via System Preferences>Security>More Options>Systemwide... but I can't test it right now, I am sorry


Why do I get "double greater/less thans" instead of double quotes in Word? I am using Word 2011 on my Lion iMac.  Sometimes as I write, when I hit the "double-quote" key, I don't get double-quotes, but another symbol that looks like "double-less-thans" or "double-greater-thans" (see the word "gains" in the screen capture below).  My work-around is to delete the unwanted symbols, use the "copy-formatting" command and copy the format from some other paragraph, and then add the double-quotes back.

Why am I getting these unwanted symbols?  How do I stop them from coming back?

This probably happens because Word uses language settings for a language that uses “chevrons” (double angle quotation marks) as quotation marks, such as French. By default, Word auto-corrects Ascii quotation marks (") to language-specific marks, e.g. to “smart” curly quotes for English. The fix is to change the language setting (click on the language indicator for this). It won’t change the quotes already entered, so you need to fix them separately.

By default, Word uses language guessing: it tries to infer the language of text from the text itself. It sometimes guesses wrong. I don’t see why this would have happened here, as the text looks like normal English. But maybe the language setting was originally e.g. French and language guessing was off?

It’s odd that Word uses «gains», because by French rules, the quotation marks should be separated from the word with fine spaces. The Windows versions of Word therefore insert normal spaces: « gains ». This isn’t quite correct, as the spaces should be fine, narrower, and maybe the Mac version therefore doesn’t introduce the spaces. Or maybe it is applying the rules of some language that uses chevrons without spaces.


"This certificate was signed by an untrusted issuer": what's causing such an error? I am having trouble with a specific financial services provider;  every time I try to visit myvisaaccount.com to check my card balance etc, I get the dreaded Chrome red strikethrough https and x-ed out padlock, with dire warnings about an insecure connection.  If I try Safari or Firefox I get different visuals but the same message:  invalid security certificate.

However, tech support for VISA does not see this problem from their own home or office computers.

So I am trying to find out why my OSX Lion laptop hates this web site so much.  I have got into the Keychain Access tool and I have no personal certificates:  empty list.  System (and Root) Certificates are all up to date, with no anomalous descriptive text.  And yes, my system date/time is correct and I am in the right time zone, and I am getting my date/time from Apple N America timeserver.

[]

I am thoroughly out of ideas and very frustrated with this problem.  What more can I do to diagnose or fix it?

Too much to post in a comment so I posted as an answer.

The reason that you are being told the certificate for https://www.myvisaaccount.com/ is not safe is that the root certificate that has been used to sign the www.myvisaaccount.com certificate is not valid on your system.

If you open the Keychain Access application and enter "Entrust" in the search box you should be present with something like seven certificates. Check the expiry date on the one titled "Entrust Root Certification Authority - G2". My guess is that it will have expired.

If the certificate has expired (or does not exist at all), a potential fix for this is to just download and install a new "Entrust Root Certification Authority - G2" certificate. You can find the certificate on Entrust's website here. Just click the "Download" button under the G2 part of that page, this will download a "entrust_g2_ca.er" file to your Mac. Open that and it should automatically open the KeyChain Access application. By default it will likely offer to install to your "login" keychain, change that to add it to your "System" keychain.

It looks like you'll need to install the L1K certificate as well. Install both and then the certificate for the www.myvisaaccount.com should be validated as trusted.


Trying to get music out from my iPod first generation, IOS level 1.1.5 (4B1), model MB376LL I have som music on my iPod touch, first generation which I want transferred to my current iTunes/iPhone (latest version). I am running windows 10 (64 bit).
My problem is that the old version of my iPod touch (IOS 1.1.5 (4B1), model MB376LL), iTunes will not accept it due to the very old version and cannot upgrade from iTunes.
If have tried to upgrade IOS version on iPod touch 1 generation by means of 'Whited00r' and Redsn0w, without success.
So hoe can I access the music stored on that iPod?

There is no official way to extract the tracks from an iDevice to a computer.
iTunes was always designed to be the master, any iDevice as merely a slave to that.
On Windows, however, it's much simpler than on Mac, because the device can be mounted to the computer like an external drive.
From Wondershare - Top Ways to Extract Music from an iPod touch
Note: they'd rather you bought their software to do this, but they include a manual method at the end.

Extract Music from the iPod on PC
Open "Computer" and you can see your iPod is displayed as a removable
disk. Click Tools > Folder option > Show hidden files and folders on
the ribbon and click "OK". Open "iPod-Control" folder in the removable
disk and find the music folder. Add the folder to your iTunes Library.


iCloud locate last tracked position? I've lost my iPhone, and its power has run out.

Is it possible to use iCloud to locate where it was last detected?

That is only possible for the last 24 hours

  If the device was recently online, you also see the time it was last located. If the device has been offline for over 24 hours, you see “Offline.”

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH2698?locale=en_US


How to buy multiple Lion licenses from the Mac App Store? I need to install Mac OS X 10.7 Lion on about 10 company workstations.

If those were my personal computers, I could simply buy one license and then log into the Mac App Store on each workstation to download the installer.

But since according to the EULA I need to purchase 10 licenses, I wonder how to do that using a single Mac App Store account (Apple ID)? Is it at all possible to buy multiple licenses for an app on the Mac App Store?

App Store Volume Purchasing for Business