15" rMBP (mid 2012) - screen won't turn on, fans full speed Since yesterday I've been having major issues with my 15" Retina MacBook Pro (mid 2012 model). When I boot it, the screen is black (no backlight: Apple logo doesn't light up). I do hear the startup chime, and it actually does proceed to boot, but the screen stays dark. After a while, I can hear ticks as I adjust the volume, I can adjust the keyboard backlighting, etc. After it boots, the fans stay on at full speed.

I did a PRAM and SMC reset, both to no effect. After lots of fiddling with plugging and unplugging an HDMI cable to an external monitor, I eventually got the screen to turn on. Most things seem functional, besides it being a bit sluggish and the fans still stay at full speed (and there seems to be a LOT of battery drain). I'm using gfxCardStatus and I notice it isn't really able to switch to the discrete GPU anymore.

Does anyone recognize this issue? I suspect it's a hardware issue (broken GPU? broken connection to GPU?), are there any more tests I can do?

I notice in the system report at Graphics/Displays, it only gives me something about the integrated "Intel HD Graphics 4000". Can anyone else with the same model rMBP verify whether this is normal?

Apple has launched MacBook Pro Repair Extension Program for Video Issues which can be found here

Apple has determined that a small percentage of MacBook Pro systems may exhibit distorted video, no video, or unexpected system restarts. These MacBook Pro systems were sold between February 2011 and December 2013.
Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider will repair affected MacBook Pro systems, free of charge.


How to see compass accuracy and recalibrate the compass in iOS 10? My compass is often wrong, which leads to all directional modes of maps being wrong (very annoying for back country trail following).   In old versions of iOS I remember the 'figure 8' popping up sometimes, but you don't see that anymore, nor have I found a way to determine if my compass is calibrated or not, other than checking the width of the blue cone in the Apple Maps app when you are in compass mode (it seems to get narrower as the compass is more accurate).

Is there any way to force recalibration in iOS 10, and/or see further information about current accuracy?

In troubleshooting this, I learned a few important things:

While there is no way to manually force a recalibration of the compass aside from toggling location services on and off, generally the compass attempts to recalibrate itself when an app requests it if it has not been in use.
The 'blue cone' in maps seems to be the best way to easily tell how accurate the calibration things it is.
Arguably most importantly (and most embarrassingly), my issues were entirely caused by a case that I was using that had a small magnetic clasp in it.  Everything worked just great after getting rid of it.


Why is Java SE 6 Legacy required to open Intellij? I currently deleted Apple Legacy Java SE6 on my macbook because I've already downloaded JRE8 on my machine and I think I no longer need the older version. After I deleted it, every time I opened Intellij it popped up a window and asked me to get Legacy Java runtime 6. In the meantime, Android Studio and Eclipse worked perfectly fine without popping up any window notifying me about the installing. So my questions are:

Is there any way I could use jre8 instead of jre6 to run Intellij?
Why does Intellij require me to install jre6 while Android Studio doesn't?
What is the benefit to install Legacy Java runtime 6?

Edit /Applications/<Product>.app/Contents/Info.plist file, change JVMVersion from 1.6* to 1.8*

<key>JVMVersion</key>
<string>1.8*</string>


stuck on 'loading' Tumblr in my app store I tried to download Tumblr and it got stuck on the 'loading' part in the app store and I've tried everything I can think blr

Firstly, have you tried restarting?

If so, you can delete the app while it is downloading and then re-download it from the store. To do this:

Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage > Tumblr > Delete App

I would advise a restart before trying to re-download the app.


Safari is using too much RAM. How can I reduce its memory footprint? I'm finding Safari (Latest - v5.0.2) to be even more of a memory hog than usual.  (Currently using 465mb of RAM with only this tab open, but having been running for a while)

Closing it and reopening it lowers it's memory footprint, but it always creeps back up over time.

Aside from disabling extensions, any tips to help troubleshoot/reduce it's memory usage?  I've been using ClickToFlash which helps by requiring any Flash entity to be manually enabled on each page view.

So it appears that Flash is still the main culprit - if you enable any flash in ClickToFlash it stays resident in memory.

Following Gruber's advice on Daring Fireball, I've disabled Flash entirely on all browsers except Chrome and this seems to have helped immensely


Alternatives to, or benefits of, AppleCare for a MacBook Pro? I have a 17" MacBook Pro. I bought it in November 2010, so it is still under the one-year warranty and thus I have the ability to buy AppleCare and extend the warranty. Thing is, I'm having second thoughts as to whether this is worth it, or if there are other third-party warranty services that might be just as good at parts replacement for a lower cost.

Everyone I've talked to has touted AppleCare as being great, just walk into the Apple store and they help you with anything, etc. etc. But I can say pretty confidently that I'm never going to have a software question for the people at the Apple store. So I guess the only thing I would ever use it for is if there is a hardware issue with my MacBook Pro. Is this worth buying AppleCare for?

What are my options in this regard, and what else would I get from AppleCare that I might care about?

In general, extended warranty plans are a healthy-sized profit center for the company offering them.  This implies that unless a product turns out to be less reliable than predicted, on average (mean average) customers will be better off paying for their own repairs without the warranty.  However, if one can't afford to self-insure for abnormal or even normal deviations from the average, something like AppleCare will lessen the downside financial risks.

Thus, I suggest (and buy) AppleCare only if an Apple product seems to be getting numbers of reports of below average reliability (e.g. the Duo 2xx and PowerBook 5x00 product lines).  For other Apple products, maybe put the money in a savings account instead, and there is a good likelyhood that you'll end up ahead after a decade or two of Apple products.


Why do programs run after I close them? I am more familiar with Windows and Linux where when I close the application window, the application is closed.
On Mac Big Sur, commonly, when I close an application, a small dot exists under the icon in the dock, indicating the program is still running. Why is this?
For example, while on Linux or Windows, when I close my sole Visual Studio Code window, the application completely closes. The process is completely gone. When I close vscode on mac, a small dot still exists in the doc, and when I open activity monitor, I can see the 'Code' process is still running.

On Windows or Linux an app's window usually is the app. However, macOS is different, as traditionally the app windows can be closed with the app still running (with few exceptions). The menu bar at the top of the screen shows you which app is currently active (there can be only one active app), and even if you close all windows of an app it will still be running and you will be able to control it with the menu bar.
The red circle closes the window and not the app, same is true for the ⌘ cmd+W shortcut (or ⌘ cmd+⌥ opt+W for closing all the windows of the active app).
To quit the app you can do one of the following:

pressing ⌘ cmd+Q to quit the active app
clicking on the app name in the top left corner of your screen (on your menu bar) and selecting Quit in the menu to quit the active app
right clicking (or ^ ctrl+click) on the app bar in the dock and selecting Quit
selecting the app in the Activity Monitor (Applications>Utilities>Activity Monitor) and using the Force quit button in its top left corner (useful for unresponsive apps)
pressing ⌘ cmd+⌥ opt+esc to open the Force Quit Applications window (useful for unresponsive apps)

You can read more about Mac window management here and about quitting apps here.


AppleScript to compare contacts in two groups and remove duplicate from one group I want to create an AppleScript for Apple's Address Book (Contacts) app that will look at two Groups, and if a contact is in one Group, it will remove it from the other Group.

Specifically, I add potential clients to my Address Book so I can color-code their messages in Mail.app. They are added to a "Work - Pending" group. Once the project goes forward, I add them to a "Work - Current" group. The AppleScript would compare the two, look for duplicates and remove them from the 'Pending' group.

Here is a  script written quickly. Should work. But I have not revised it down to be efficient.

tell application "Contacts"

    (*get the names of all groups *)
    set theGroupNames to name of groups

    (*choose you current group, the one to keep entries*)
    set text_returnedCurrent to choose from list theGroupNames with prompt "Choose Current Group" default items "Work - Current" without multiple selections allowed

    (*choose you pending group, the one to remove entries*)
    set text_returnedPending to choose from list theGroupNames with prompt "Choose Pending Group" default items "Work - Pending" without multiple selections allowed
    (*Get the people/entries of the Current group*)
    set the_peopleCurrent to people of group (text_returnedCurrent as text)

    (*Get the people/entries of the Pending group*)
    set the_peoplePending to people of group (text_returnedPending as text)

    (*iterate through the people of the Current group*)
    repeat with i from 1 to number of items in the_peopleCurrent

        (*get a person from the  Current group*)
        set thisPersonCurrent to item i of the_peopleCurrent

        (*iterate through ALL the people of the Pending group**)
        repeat with x from 1 to number of items in the_peoplePending

            (*get a person from the  Pending group*)
            set thisPersonPending to item x of the_peoplePending

            (*Check if the person from the Current group is the same person as thisPersonPending*)
            if thisPersonCurrent is equal to thisPersonPending then
                (* if they are remove them.  *)
                remove thisPersonPending from group (text_returnedPending as text)

                (*save the contacts changes*)
                save

            end if
        end repeat

    end repeat

end tell


Why are Apple Watch activity rings moving on by themselves? I am observing my Apple Watch activity rings are moving insanely. I did talk to customer service they were also unable to help me. Did anyone face the issue before?

What happened today?

I wore the watch to the gym and started the Aaptiv app in my iPhone 7 Plus. In the workout I did use my workout app.
After the workout was over, I found the watch using aaptiv app by itself, no idea how and why?
And my activity rings are increasing insanely.

I did unpair and pair the watch. I uninstalled the aaptiv  app from Apple Watch. But still the problem persists.  I don’t know how to factory reset the watch. I did not try this option.

How can I stop the rings from increasing without any movement?

Could be another app recording a workout automatically.
Check the Health app or the Workouts tab in the app you screenshotted, to see if you have any apps registering additional workouts in the background.


Which cable to use from iMac 5k to 30 inch Dell monitor? I have an iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015) and I'd like to attach to it a 30 inch Dell monitor  3007wfp[t]  at 2560x1600 px DVI input only.

I don't know where to look for if that resolution is supported.

I'd start with a dual link dvi adapter if you brought both to me.

Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter

If you have bought the display, dell support should have a KB article / manual explaining if dual link is needed for the resolution you want. If you haven't bought, make sure the pre-sales support can answer that.

That iMac can drive far higher resolution at 60 Hz:

  single-stream 4K (3840x2160) - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206587

You might even get by with single link dvi - it will certainly work, just possibly at lower resolution if your overriding concern is saving $$


Function keystrokes 'ate' by host when running Win7 in a VirtualBox I'm a recent Mac convert, but still need to use Windows for work related tasks. A man's gotta eat & pay for internet access.

I have VirtualBox setup w/ a Windows 7 VM. The VM has Visual Studio 2008 installed, along w/ various needed utilities. Everything works great or as expected except for the fact that pressing most of the F keys (F1-F12, excluding F5 & F6) are intercepted by the host OS and processed. I know you can press Command+Fn+F to accomplish this; however, a lot of quick access commands are assigned to the F-keys. (Especially F9-F11 for debugging). These are accessed quite often and the 3 finger combo gets old, fast.

Question:  Is there anyway w/ VirtualBox to, perhaps only in full screen mode, to have the host OS pass those through or otherwise not process them w/o the need for Command+Fn?

I've tried googling but haven't had much success.

TIA

With 10.6 and a USB keyboard, the Fn keys pass through to the app; OS-X only intercepts the media functions.

In your OS-X's Keyboard SysPrefs pane, is:

  Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard
  function keys

selected?

With this selection, my (unshifted) F-keys pass straight through to my VBox VM.  With it unselected, I need to use the Fn key to generate type them (even within OS-X).


iPad mini will not turn on I can not get my iPad mini to turn on. I have tried to press the home and power button simultaneously but that doesn't work and when it is attached to the charger I hear the charge ding sound. What went wrong. It worked the night before and I did turn it off like I do every evening.

Try this sequentially:

Plug this iPad to the charger and leave it there for an hour or two. Should it be depleted of its battery this will recover it.
Plug the iPad to your computer and attempt to enter the DFU mode. If your device shows up in iTunes in recovery mode and if you are willing to lose all data on it, restore with latest version of iOS and you may put it back into service.
If none above worked, pay a visit to Genius Bar and have the Geniuses have a go at it.


Is it possible to put ios 10 on an ipod touch 4? I want to put ios 10 on my ipod touch 4 so that I can get the podcast app on it. Is this possible? How do I do that? I went into settings and saw if there was an update to ios and it says its up to date at ios 6

Unfortunately, no.

You can look on Wikipedia and see the oldest generation iPod that goes past iOS 9 is the 6th generation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Touch_(6th_generation)

See if your web browser can stream podcasts while you decide what to do. Apple support pages are a good resource as well for what hardware supports which iOS.


macOS, delete profiles that need password There is a profile I installed many days ago and I forget the password, how can I delete it?

You can back up the Mac and then boot to recovery and erase it. The MDM profiles are designed to resist cracking so erase and restore is often the fastest method.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904


Does the 27-inch iMac (MC511LL/A) have a true thunderbolt port or just a mini-display port? I'm trying to connect a thunderbolt external drive to my Mac:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac-core-i5-2.8-27-inch-aluminum-mid-2010-specs.html

However, the disk is not being recognized. I suspect that the "thunderbolt" port on the back of this iMac is really a mini-display port.

Thank you.

There's an FAQ on the Apple Support page: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5219?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US#4 Since your Mac is Mid 2010, it does not have a thunderbolt port.


Can I back up one external hard drive to a smaller external hard drive via Time Machine? So I've just had an external hard drive (5TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable) fail on me, the 3rd such time in 5 years. This is not unexpected behaviour in my experience: each of these hard drives has been read & written from basically 24/7, has failed at a point with less than 10% free space available, and I am always adding more data to them.
I back up all of my data via Time Machine to a second external hard drive (8TB Seagate Backup Plus Desktop), which I've had for about 5 years now; it is still working, despite having run out of storage space on two prior occasions, necessitating some cleaning up of old backups. A checkup with Disk Utility reveals no problems.
I am looking at replacing the failed hard drive with a larger one, which will necessitate buying a desktop drive, since no manufacturer currently makes a 6TB+ USB powered hard drive (except LaCie, but that drive is USB-C powered, and I only have regular USB 3.0 ports). My plan is to purchase a 10TB desktop drive, as 8TB desktop drives are not available in stores where I live at the moment.
The question is:

Can a 10TB drive be backed up via Time Machine to an 8TB drive if it is only partially full (in this case, roughly 4.5TB of data)?
If so, how long can I expect the 8TB drive to last if it continues to be used almost entirely for backups? (In the best case scenario, I would need to be able to continue using it for 2 to 3 years until data needs force me to get a larger one.)

Question 1:
The short answer is 'yes' so long as there is room for the data.  But:
Time Machine will backup your system disk plus your 10 GB disk to another disk which has is large enough for the data you have plus space for future changes.
You might consider benefits of using Time Machine for just your system disk, but to use something else for backup of your external 10TB drive.  Examples I would recommend are Carbon Copy Cloner and Chronosync. Using Chronosync in a one way sync is appropriate if you occasionally (or frequently!) reorganise your data - this is not Time Machine friendly.
Question 2:
Only you can answer that as it depends on how much data you expect to add.
A longer answer is that you would seem to be a good candidate for using a NAS.
Caveat: I have attempted this answer with the assumption that your only disks are internal system disk and the two externals.
Aside: For always on continuous use I prefer a mains powered disk (desktop) over a bus powered (portable) hard disk drive.


How should you say an app is coming to the app store prior to being approved? This is likely a silly question, but I can't seem to find anything official on this subject.

Often on pages for upcoming games and applications, you'll see an image that states "Coming to Apple Store" (Along with similar mentions of FaceBook, Windows Phone, Android, etc).

My application is currently in development and I intend to being it to the app store, however, I am not yet an approved developer.

So, on the application's webpage, should I simply mention that I intend to port it to iOS, or is it alright to use an 'official' "available on the app store" image accompanied by a "coming soon" overlay banner? I wouldn't want to step on anyone's toes, but likewise, I'd like to let it be known that the game will more than likely be available on iOS upon completion.

You could state that your game is under development for iOS, and if you are waiting for approval you can state it is submitted to the App Store or that it is Waiting approval for the App Store.

In Apples documentation it is known as 'Submitting Your App to the Store'


No folder triangles on desktop only - OS Sierra This just happened tonight.  Without warning and for no reason at all, the little triangle next to the folders on the desktop just disappeared.  So I cannot easily see the contents of the folders, I have to double click them.
  But it's only on the desktop, all other folders have the triangles.
  I only have one display.  I checked all the settings I could and did not see anything.  I don't even know what those triangles are called.

I am SO STUPID.  It's already answered, and it's because I had the "arrange by" set to "name."
  Someone please delete this!


Can an iPhone be restored from an iPod Touch backup? If I have an iPod Touch backup on my computer, can an iPhone restore from it? How about vice versa?

According to this forums post, somebody did it with success.

  Worked flawlessly for me
  I just activated my new iPhone 3GS and then iTunes offered to either set it up as a new iPhone or to restore it from my iPod Touch backup which I did. No problems so far...


MacBook Pro Retina 15" (Early 2013) randomly shuts down I've been having issues with my MacBook Pro randomly shutting down for about 2 weeks now.

I tried taking it to a local Apple reseller and here's what they told me:

The main cause of my problem was because I was using f.lux
They tested the battery and it apparently said that "the battery
test failed". I'm not even sure what that means.

I tried all the different tools to check my hardware and software, I ran the Apple Hardware Test and the only thing I got is:

  4HDD/11/40000000 SATA(0,0)

I checked if there were any malware or viruses on the computer but every program I used points to the same conclusion: everything is going fine. I tried SMC and PRAM reset, I even formatted the SSD and reinstalled macOS High Sierra but the problem still occurs.

Here are my console logs, I took the first 25 lines just before the BOOT_TIME: https://pastebin.com/QMjiwx72

I tried the syslog | grep shutdown command in the terminal and here's what I get:

Nov  4 21:39:15 macbook-pro-de-sylvain shutdown[939] <Notice>: SHUTDOWN_TIME: 1509827955 280191
Nov  4 21:39:37 localhost com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (org.cups.cupsd) <Warning>: Service has increased maximum shutdown time to 60 seconds. This will create a poor experience for the user.
Nov  4 23:55:06 localhost com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (org.cups.cupsd) <Warning>: Service has increased maximum shutdown time to 60 seconds. This will create a poor experience for the user.

I really don't know what to do anymore... I've been looking for a solution all over the web but I couldn't find any fix.

Does anyone have any idea about what could be going on? :(

Thanks in advance,

Sylvain

I realize it's been a long time since the initial post and unfortunately I don't have a solution, but I'm going through what appears to be the same problem and, as there seems to be scant documentation,  I thought I'd report a couple more details to see if they jog any ideas in anyone and if they line up with your original report. On running syslog | grep shutdown I get the same response:

localhost com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (org.cups.cupsd) <Warning>: Service has increased maximum shutdown time to 60 seconds. This will create a poor experience for the user.

On contacting support, Apple is also presuming this to be a battery issue, but they (or anyone else for that matter) can't explain how/why the spontaneous shutdowns would occur when on AC power.

So, a couple things I've noticed:

Running yes > /dev/null & in terminal prevents the random
shutdowns. I've seen this workaround in a couple places but not
connected to the 'maximum shutdown time' we're both getting
While running gfxCardStatus to lock the graphics card to either
integrated or the discrete nVidia card, I get different shutdowns.

On integrated graphics:
 - I get a black screen, but with the LED
       panel clearly still on and the keyboard backlight stays on (if it
       was on before). The fan runs loudly and the black screen remains for
       about 10 seconds, then the computer shuts down.
 - to my best recollection, this only happens on battery power.

On discrete cards:
 - rather than going black, the screen freezes. The rest is the same
    (fans, shutdown after about 10 seconds)
 - happens on both ac and battery power

Anyways, hopefully that spurs some idea in someone. Seems like everywhere I look or anyone I talk to has different advice on cause and solution, but your original question is the only one I've seen that's exactly the same as what I'm going through (with the minor exception that my laptop is a late 2013 15" model).


MacBookPro10,1 goes to gray screen when a USB is inserted This is a follow up to my other question.

Now the problem is sometimes when inserting a USB stick, the computer freezes and goes to a complete gray screen(kernel panic). It seems to only happen if the USB is plugged in after it boots up.

It has been through two AHT runs, first run through was not extended and it gave only the error 4SNS/1/40000001: ID0R-0.000, which according to here that means a problem with an electrical sensor for DC power. That site recommended to reset SMC, so after that, another AHT was run, this time extended, and it gave the only error 4SNS/1/C0000008: TPCD-- 124 which apparently is a temperature sensor for the power bus.

I'm not sure what those would have to do with plugging in a USB though, maybe they could be related, idk.

Here is a kernel panic log right after an USB insertion http://pastebin.com/q3LWSWbS. Which I believe pretty clearly says it was indeed the USB that was problematic on line #33

32. Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
 33.    com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageClass(3.6)

Based on this post and the other one at MacBookPro10,1 had problems booting, now some system images are pink and fuzzy :

I would say that you're probably looking at a faulty logic board. The system should be taken into a Genius Bar or an authorized Apple repair centre for further evaluation and/or repair.


Do third-party USB ethernet adaptors work in Macbook Pro Retinas? There seems to be conflicting information on the web, so I wanted to check if there are any problems buying a third party ethernet adaptor (eg this one). This is for a current (mid 2014) 15" rMBP.

I'd just like to save a few dollars ove the Apple Thunderbolt one.

As very every electronic devices, there are good ones and there crappy ones.

Apple does not forbid the use of third party USB adapters.

Most of the time if the device does't work, it isn't Apple's fault but the device/driver problem.

So yes they should work.


Visualizing Keychain Item Details I'm a developer working on doing some keychain related features. A piece of my application changes / looks for items in the keychain. However, visually verifying some of these changes can be difficult because the Keychain Access.app doesn't show all of the fields. For example, the kSecProtocolItemAttr attribute for internet passwords is not displayed in the Keychain app.

Is there a better way (Command line or other) to visual items that are in a .keychain file, that show all of the properties associated with that item?

The CLI for keychains is: security.

It lets you do many things such as…

Getting item info:

security find-generic-password -a <item-name>

Getting passwords:

security 2>&1 >/dev/null find-generic-password -ga <item-name>

Read the man page for more info or do security help.


Will this RAM work for me? (Late 2009 iMac) I have a 27-inch iMac late 2009 desktop computer and i'm looking to upgrade my ram. The best RAM I can find is a Kingston 2GB, DDR3-1066, PC3-8500, CL7, DIMM.

What I currently have is 4GB 1067 MHz Ram

Will this be suitable? Or is this the wrong one?

You can find out the memory summary by going to:

 > About This Mac > More Info > Memory

Screenshot example

You can also go to Technical Specifications, click "Browse by Product", and enter the serial number of your Mac to see the specs.

It's always a good idea to read the return policy from the vendors, in case the RAM that you bought was not compatible with your computer.


iTunes, Proxy Authentication and NTLM I am attempting to use iTunes through a work proxy.

When loading iTunes, it prompts me to enter a username and password for the http and https proxy servers, but fails, saying the password was incorrect.
The pattern is that, the dialog will appear, details entered, and it will then ask for the http or https details, then repeat again and again.

I have tried DOMAIN\username, like, NTADMIN\bob
My network account is not locked
Sometimes, after entering my username & password on the first few times, I'm able to see some album art start to load.  So, on some instances, I'm getting through the proxy.
My password is definitely being entered correctly....  Yes, I'm sure, and yes it works.
Network Connectivity Tests show:

Network interfaces verified
Internet connection verified
Secure link to iTunes Store failed.

(Technical) I have deleted my keychain & even deleted all settings and installed.
(Technical) iTunes is one of the only applications that don't work with the proxy.
(Technical) I have managed to get it working if I specify my proxy as my local CNTLM application.  But I don't want to set my Windows system level proxy to always go through that.

Is there a way to force iTunes to use a specific proxy, rather than use the Windows system one?

Try CNTLM to convert your NTLM proxy to a local proxy without authentication. In this way iTunes is able to connect to the internet.


iTerm2 does not take the focus with the hotkey window I have setup a new Mac with iTerm and the hotkey window shortcut (MacOS Catalina).

It all works well, except that the hotkey window does not take the focus when it opens. I mean that I can type commands rightaway, but the active application does not change.

E.g. if I am in Firefox and hit the shortcut, then the Firefox menus are still active.

The problem with that is that my IDE (Intellij) does not register that the focus changed to another app, and does not save file changes or refresh files from disk, which makes programming very difficult.

I know it used to work on my former machine. I suspect I need to configure iTerm correctly.

Here is how the hotkey shortcut is configured:

This one had me too. Just untick "Floating window" and restart iTerm2.

Full directions:

MENU: iterm2
MENU ITEM: Preferences...
TAB: Profiles
LIST ITEM: [Your Hotkey Profile Name]
TAB: Keys
BUTTON: Configure Hotkey Window
CHECKBOX: Floating Window <= UNCHECK THIS


Where are my iPhone Photos? My iPhone states that my photo library is 8GB.  However, I can only access about 100 photos from the phone or my Windows PC file explorer.  I want to clear up space on the phone by moving photos to PC.

Thank you!

Try Microsoft Essentials Photo Gallery

The iPhone's folder hierarchy was never meant to be human-readable.


How did TechCrunch get in my notifications center? I have begun to see notifications from TechCrunch when they publish articles.

My notifications center is full of the settings for extremely useful applications (Calendar, Evernote, Maps, Skype, Dropbox), and then… a website I sometimes read.

I can easily set their notifications to "None" but I want:

To know how they got there in the first place. I'm sure I never opted in to this.
How to completely remove it from my system

Anyone?

You can check if you have desktop notifications enabled in Safari. Go to Safari Preferences > Notifications. If the site is listed in there, remove it.


How can I save iOS Notes that maintain remain formatted? I have an iPhone 5 running iOS 8.4.1. I have many Notes that are formatted using bold, italics, carriage returns, etc.

How can I save these Notes off to my Windows laptop via iTunes or some third-party software, while preserving the formatting of my Notes? Such software would need to be able to sync those Notes back to my iPhone, while still preserving all the rich text.

I want everything to remain local to my devices, so I don’t want to use iCloud.

Thank you.

The new version of iCloud Notes, available at https://www.icloud.com/#notes2, supports viewing rich text notes with formatting.
Notes in OS X, besides viewing and editing rich text notes, supports exporting notes as PDF. Select the note you wish to export and choose File → Export as PDF….


Is there any way to check the availability of iOS app names? Is there any way to check the availability of iOS app names?

NEW INFORMATION (2018)

Please see this question on the relevant site, Stack Overflow:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/17748195/2684

tl;dr: there is no time restriction on how long you can reserve, but it’s not guaranteed.

OUTDATED ANSWER

I haven’t seen that option in the Apple Developer Program, but you can reserve a name.

After you reserve it, you have 120 days to upload a binary (You have to create an app in the iTunes Connect system). After 90 days, you receive a notification from Apple, saying that you  only have 30 days left to upload the app. Once the 120 days are past, "the app name will then be available for another developer to use.”
I also believe that if you do not upload anything, bad things happen to your account, but I can’t verify this.

Other than that, I haven’t seen a mechanism like “google” for name searching. (Apple might as well do that at some point!).


iPhoto 10 : is there still a way to subscribe to rss feed? I thought there was a menu entry in iPhoto to subscribe to RSS feeds.

I can't find it anymore. Is there still a way to do so in iPhoto 10 ?

This appears to have been removed. There's no mention of it that I can find in Apple's support documentation or iPhoto help (⌘?) and the only reference to subscribing that I can find is subscribing to a Shared Photo Stream.

You can provide feedback to Apple regarding this here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html


Headphones that look good on a desk next to a MacBook I'm looking for some headphones that will be aesthetically (and acoustically) pleasing when combined with my MacBook Pro (2011, aluminum unibody).

Requirements:

Over-the-ear style (not earbuds or ear-canal buds)
Closed design (in order to block out some outside noise and avoid leaking noise.)
Pretty (I realize this is subjective)
Great-sounding
Durable
Under $400
Wireless optional (I'm not sure if there are any great-sounding, great-looking wireless headphones)

I'm currently considering:

V-Moda Crossfade, ~$175
Sennheiser RS-160 (wireless), ~$195
Bowers & Wilkins P5, ~$300
Denon AHD2000, ~350

Notes:

The transmitter for the Sennheisers takes batteries, so there's no extra wire or wall wart, but it is kind of bulky.

I haven't seen any nice Bluetooth headphones that support A2DP (stereo audio profile for bluetooth). That would be ideal -- no wires, no transmitter required.

Bottom Line:

If you have experience with any of the headphones I'm considering, I'd love to hear it. If there are headphones I've overlooked, please let me know!

Beats by Dr. Dre SOLO HD

They sounds amazing, looks nice and got a clean look. Here is a review.

Price: ~229.95 USD.


Need help understanding  coins in Coin Dozer on iPhone I have been playing the game Coin Dozer on my iPhone which is a free game.  When I can no longer play without having to wait 30 seconds for a new coin, I just delete the game and reinstall, I have been receiving more coins than the original starting point. Are these coins from bonuses or am I being charged for them?  I have not purchased more coins, that's why I delete then reinstall, so  I don't have to buy coins.

You will know if you are being charged an in-app purchase fee for extra coins by checking your purchase history from within the Account Section of the iTunes App on your PC or Mac.  Just log into the store, check your account, and look in your history.  Even free purchases are listed, so you will see if you are being charged.

Ordinarily just noting that a password request for your Apple ID would be required for any purchases would be a good hint if you are being charged or not, but in your specific case because you are downloading the game each time from the App store and playing immediately, it may be that the stored credentials from when you downloaded the item are being kept valid - it will not re-ask you for your password for a small period of time (I think 15 minutes).  It's hard to say, so you should just go and confirm.

As for specific gameplay details, I am not familiar with it, so I cannot comment.


Installing ghostscript on MacPorts failed I am trying to install ghostcript on Macports 2.2.1-10.0-Mavericks. I get the following message:

**checking for gcc... /usr/bin/clang checking whether the C compiler works... no configure: error: in `/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_print_ghostscript/ghostscript/work/ghostscript-9.10':
configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables See `config.log' for more details Command failed:  cd
"/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_print_ghostscript/ghostscript/work/ghostscript-9.10"
&& ./configure --prefix=/opt/local --disable-compile-inits
--disable-cups --disable-dbus --disable-gtk --without-luratech --with-system-libtiff --with-x  Exit code: 77 Error: Failed to configure ghostscript, consult
/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_print_ghostscript/ghostscript/work/ghostscript-9.10/config.log
Error: org.macports.configure for port ghostscript returned: configure
failure: command execution failed Warning: targets not executed for
ghostscript: org.macports.activate org.macports.configure
org.macports.build org.macports.destroot org.macports.install Please
see the log file for port ghostscript for details:
    /opt/local/var/macports/logs/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_print_ghostscript/ghostscript/main.log
To report a bug, follow the instructions in the guide:
    http://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets Error: Processing of port ghostscript failed**

Any ideas how to solve this?

You either didn't install the Xcode Command Line Tools (use xcode-select --install to do that), or didn't accept the Xcode License agreement (that can be achieved using sudo xcodebuild -license).

Once you've completed both of these checks, configure should correctly pick up the working compiler.

MacPorts 2.3 will contain checks to detect and warn you about these problems.


CCID installation El Capitan I am trying to install ccid-1.4.20 (command line) in an El Capitan enabled MacBook Air, but I am facing some issues. Instructions says that after uncompressing the file, in the generated folder I should do:

./MacOSX/configure
make
sudo make install

However at the end of the process, I get the following error:

configure: error: libusb.h not found, install libusb or use ./configure LIBUSB_CFLAGS=...
+ rm -f src/Info.plist

So I figured that libusb was missing.

I went to the libusb SourceForge project and downloaded libusb-1.0.19 and proceeded installing it. Here I get no error message(s).

Then I proceeded to retry installing, but I still have the same error. Any ideas?

Material and software used:

MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013)
1.7 GHz Intel Core i7
8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Mac OS X 10.11 Beta (15A278b)

You may need to tell the configure of ccid where libusb can be found. Install libusb by downloading it and then running

./configure
make
sudo make

Then do the following for ccid:

.configure LIBUSB_CFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include/libusb-1.0 LIBUSB_LIBS="-L/usr/local/lib -lusb-1.0"

(check the version number first).


Retrieve folder's name for Automator's shell script action For the sake of concatenating video files, I've assembled bits of code found online into a ffmpeg bash script on Automator. It works. However, I'd like for the output file to be named after the folder the videos are in.

I've found solutions online, but none of them follow a shell script workflow. My workflow is just (with an added demanded "Get Specified Finder Items" when tested within Automator):

current_path=$(dirname "$1")
cd "$current_path"

for f in "$@"
do
    /usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/4.1_1/bin/ffmpeg -i concat:"$(pipeize() { local OLDIFS="$IFS";IFS='|';echo "$*";IFS="$OLDIFS";}; pipeize *.VOB)" -c copy -map "0:v?" -map "0:a?" -map "0:s?" "THIS_SHOULD_BE_THE_DIRECTORY_NAME.VOB"
done

I'm assuming $1 is e.g. "/path/to/filename.VOB" so $current_path would be: /path/to

So, for $filename use filename="$(basename "$current_path")" placed after: current_path="$(dirname "$1")" and then ext=".VOB" afterwards. You can then change .VOB to other extensions as needed.

Thus, change "THIS_SHOULD_BE_THE_DIRECTORY_NAME.VOB" to "${filename}${ext}" as shown below:

#!/bin/bash

current_path="$(dirname "$1")"
filename="$(basename "$current_path")"
ext=".VOB"
cd "$current_path"

for f in "$@"
do
    /usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/4.1_1/bin/ffmpeg -i concat:"$(pipeize() { local OLDIFS="$IFS";IFS='|';echo "$*";IFS="$OLDIFS";}; pipeize *.VOB)" -c copy -map "0:v?" -map "0:a?" -map "0:s?" "${filename}${ext}"
done


Is there a usb c dock with USB and thunderbolt 2 connectors? I have a 2017 13" Macbook Pro.  Sadly, there are only 2 USB type C ports and 1 of them is for charging.  I need at least 1x USB and 1x Thunderbolt 2 (for external Monitor).  I bought a USB C -> Thunderbolt 2 adapter for $50 bucks...and honestly it feels like a complete rip off.  I'm hoping for a similar product at this price with more than 1 connection.

Bonus for a dock with a charging light.  The closest thing I've found has no Thunderbolt 2 and terrible reviews.  I'd like to at least obtain parity with my 2014 MBP before I consider keeping this laptop.

I am basing my answer off this statement in your question:

  I need at least 1x USB and 1x Thunderbolt (for external Monitor)

What you need is a USB-C Multi Port Adapter with Power Delivery.  This will connect via the USB-C port, give you an HDMI port for video, USB 3.0 ports for expansion and another USB-C port for charging.

As far as the adapter that you previously bought is concerned, you bought a "Thunderbolt 2/3 converter."  What you needed was a Thunderbolt or USB to display (HDMI, DispayPort, VGA, etc.)

It's important to note that the ports on your MacBook are Thunderbolt 3 ports with USB-C connectors.  USB-C is the physical specification of the port while Thunderbolt is the protocol.


Why there is a large lost+found folder on external disk I brought my MacBook Pro 1 year ago, at that time it runs OS X 10.9 . At that time I connected an external 2TB HDD (HFS+ single partition, not connected all the time) to it via USB as a Time Machine backup destination. Later I turned off Time Machine and use the HDD to store some pictures. Months after that I upgraded to OS X 10.10 and now 10.11 Beta 1.

Today I noticed my disk space not enough so I scanned the disk for big files, only to find there is a lost+found folder in my external HDD, which takes nearly 1TB of space. The content of which is files I deleted during the days, most of them originated from internal SSD (And I never put them into that HDD), the create time of which are all in 2014. All the files are named like iNodexxxxxxxxxx and directories dir_xxxxxxxxxxx .

Why are my deleted files now found in an external disk? Is it safe to delete the whole folder without affecting anything outside?

The name is historic from unix. The filesystem is designed to track files and when there is a problem, the filesystem will under some repair operations, lose files to remain workable. (hence the need for backups)

Those files that would be lost in this operation are stored in the lost+found folder so that you could perhaps use them if they are undamaged or at least inspect them to know what files are now corrupt or missing.

The program that moves files into lost+found and repairs the filesystem is [fsck][1]

You should delete the folder and all it's contents once you decide you don't need to learn anything from it. Also, you should run Disk Utility or fsck to see if you can get a clean run or if you need to erase that volume and start over/replace it.


Wikis on OS X Server - How do I include or embed content from one wiki page on another? How do I include or embed content from one wiki page on another in Wiki Server on OS X Server?
The other wiki page resides on the same server.

This is known as an "include", Redmine has it:

Include a wiki page. Example:
!{{include(Foo)}}
or to include a page of a specific project wiki:
!{{include(projectname:Foo)}}

MediaWiki has it under the name of "transclusion":
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Transclusion

Commercial wikis like Confluence have it:
https://wiki.mq.edu.au/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=79103996

Edit: The pages are in the same wiki, actually. I don't want external content, it's just that a lot of information in one page has to appear exactly in other pages.

Ok. To anyone running up the same wall I did... I switched to an OpenSource Ruby on Rails app called WAGN http://wagn.org

It does this exact thing and much more.


How can I download iCloud app data to PC? I have app data in iCloud. I would like to download it to a PC laptop. Specifically this is the Audio Memos app, and I would like to save the recordings to computer and delete them from iCloud. I do not have access to the device.

If you have an Apple developer account, you can access your iCloud data from developer.icloud.com.

Since it's behind developer authentication, I'm not going to say any more, other than behind this button is what you're looking for…


Is there any way I can set up a Brother HL2030 to print on MacOS Sierra? The brother supported Apple printers site shows the HL2030 model as unsupported on MacOS Sierra. I have tried Gutenprint which says it supports the HL2030, but it doesn't work, I think due to this bug. Is there anything else I can do?

In the end I found that the official driver from the Brother site for the next model up - the HL2130 - worked fine. I don't know why they say they don't support the HL2030, but it seems to print OK so far.


Change date format for column of existing non-US format datetimes in Numbers I can't believe I have to ask this, but here I am.
I have a Numbers (Numbers version 6.0 (6194)) sheet with data from an imported CSV file.  One column is date/time info, formatted like so:
21.05.2018 12:00

This is the correct date format in the country I am in.  My Mac knows this, so I assume Numbers ought to.
I need to get rid of the time from this col.  You'd think that would be pretty simple.  I select the cells in that col (not including the header, in case that single plain text cell confuses things), then click Format, then Cell, then under Data Format I choose Date & Time.  No matter what Date or Time option I choose ... absolutely nothing happens.  My selected column of dates does not change - the displayed text is in exactly the same format as it started as, as shown above.
I know there isn't, but it is as if there is an "Apply" button I am missing, so my chosen settings aren't actually applied.  If I click another cell in the sheet, then back to one of the ones I just tried to format, the Data Format has gone back to Automatic, not whatever I just chose.
Searching for help turns up the official Apple guide which, AFAICT, tells me to do exactly what I am doing.
I also found this old question and answer right here on Stackexchange which seems again to be exactly what I am doing - though the answer suggests that typing in new dates will result in them being formatted as required.  Maybe I can't reformat existing dates in the sheet?  That makes no sense!
What am I missing?
Edit
I tried adding a new col and using a formula to generate a date without the time:
YEAR($A2)−MONTH($A2)−DAY($A2)

But it just shows an error:

The function “YEAR” expects a date, but cell A2 contains a string.

I suspect your date is simply not in a format Numbers natively recognizes. To test this failure-mode and see the same symptom, try typing in something else it may not recognize, like 999999999999, and set it to a date format. Again, it doesn't change, because Numbers doesn't want to assume how to parse it, and risk outputting incorrect values.

A solution is to pre-parse the input by field. Here's a demo using MID to extract the year, month, and date fields by their position in the string, and hand them off to the DATE function.

=DATE(MID($A2,7,4),MID($A2,4,2),MID($A2,1,2))


Surface Pro to Apple thunderbolt display 27 Want to display the Surface Pro in a second monitor that is a Apple Thunderbolt Display 27.

Surface has Mini Display port
Apple has Thunderbolt cable

both are physically the same but the tech is different.

What can i do to send image to the Apple Display ?

tks for the help !

Nope, not possible, Apple Thunderbolt Display requires a Thunderbolt port which the Surface Pro and Pre-2011 MacBooks don't have (even though mini-DisplayPort have exactly the same connector).


How do I make in-app purchases appear within my apps on all of my devices? I have purchased an in-app purchase for flightradar24 on my iPhone, and the in-app purchase has not appeared on my other devices.

The app itself has synced to my other devices, however, when I purchased the add-on 'Arrivals & Departure' for £1.99 it only appears on the device I purchased it from, not on my other devices.

How can I get the 'Arrivals & Departure' in-app purchase to appear on my other devices as well?

Assuming you've used the same Apple ID on all devices you shouldn't have a problem. However, you will need to restore the in-app purchase on all devices you didn't originally use to make the purchase.

To do this, you will need to navigate around the app and look for an option labelled something like restore in-app purchases (or similar). Many apps will put this option within their own settings page, but I can't advise you exactly where it will be for this app (as I don't personally use it).

If you can't find an option anywhere to restore the in-app purchase, I would go to their dedicated iOS forum page and ask for help.


Best surgical way to archive, wipe and clean install Catalina on a 2017 MacBook Pro Long story short.

My MacBookPro has become bloated with files that I either can't trace back to originals or have no real memory of three years later. It’s got a 2tb SSD and i am constantly running out of space - yet fearful or deleting system files

(btw feel free to edit if I am not asking this in the most effective way.)

I am getting constant errors in console such as

<private> worker reports error after processing object <private>, error: Error Domain=com.apple.photos.error Code=47001

My question, is there a way to safely back up either via Time Machine or via individual files the things I would like to save i.e. photos documents, movies, Snippets of code, BBedit files etc. And then reinstall them without potential he re-infecting my machine with malware which I believe there to be present although I have not been able to track it down.

Model Name:    MacBook Pro
 Model Identifier:  MacBookPro14,3
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Core i7
Processor Speed:    3.1 GHz
Number of Processors:   1
Total Number of Cores:  4
L2 Cache (perCore): 256 KB
L3 Cache:   8 MB
Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled
Memory: 16 GB
Boot ROM Version:   ****

If you believe that macOS has been infected by malware, then you can try reinstalling macOS from macOS Recovery without losing personal data and settings.

If you believe that malware has infected your personal files, then I would recommend backing up necessary personal files to your external hard drive by copying and pasting them. Doing a Time Machine back up will bring your problems along with you because it backs up every single thing.

After you have your files, boot into macOS Recovery (reboot then Command + R). From there, go to Disk Utility and Erase Macintosh HD (and Macintosh HD - Data on Catalina). If you are on Catalina, then you will get an error when attempting to erase the contents of Macintosh HD (system files). To fix this, go to Terminal and type 'rm -rf /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD'. Then follow through with the erase. If you want to make sure that nothing on the disk exists after the erase, then choose Security Options and increase as needed. This will erase everything. Then, use macOS Recovery to reinstall macOS.

Good luck!


Apple Watch for Workouts Without Phone In short, I'd like to be able to complete a workout without having to bring my phone along. The introduction of native apps for the Apple Watch seemed like it would open the door to this, but I've not been able to figure it out. I would need:

Heart Rate Monitoring
An Interval Timer
Music via BT Headphones

Can the Apple Watch do this? If not, any alternate suggestions?

The current Apple Watch does all that you've asked about.

However, I would recommend waiting until WWDC this June to see what new Watches will be made and what the new costs will be.


Can I take a screenshot on one Mac and instantly paste it into a document on another Mac or iPad? I’ve recently started using Universal Clipboard across my Macs, iPads and iPhones. So far it works very well and I’m very happy with it.

My one complaint is that my work requires me to take a lot of screenshots for placing into documents. My current workflow involves me taking the screenshot on one Mac and then having to transfer it to another device. At present I use a mixture of file sharing, AirDrop and iMessage for doing this, but it would be so cool if I could just take the screenshot on the Mac and then paste it into a document on another Mac, iPad or iPhone.

Is it possible to take a screenshot on one Mac and paste it into another device using Universal Clipboard?

Yes! There is a way for you to do this. In fact, it’s probably the main thing I use Universal Clipboard for!

In a nutshell, when you’re taking screenshots on your Mac they’re instantly saved onto your drive (typically on the Desktop). The problem with this is that they’re not captured onto your clipboard, and therefore they’re not available for pasting on your other devices.

To get around this all you need to do is add the control key to whatever keyboard shortcut you’re using to take your screenshots.

Example

For example, if you’re using the commandshift4 keyboard shortcut to take a screenshot of an area you’re selecting with the mouse cursor, then you’d use the controlcommandshift4 keyboard shortcut instead.

By adding the control key you’re capturing the screenshot directly onto your clipboard and can then instantly paste it into documents on your other devices, including your iPhone.

NOTE: For this to work, both devices must meet the Continuity requirements. For details, refer to Copy and paste across devices.


Why is Java virtual memory reservation so high?  Bug? On my Mac Os 10.5.8 Server, Java is reserving 16,777,216TB (about a third more then the sum of all human knowledge -eek!) of virtual memory. I know it's not really reserving this (it would be pretty amazing if it was!); is it something to worry about (i.e. a bug / glitch), and if not, what does it mean?

16 Mebi TebiBytes (16 ExbiBytes) is 2^64 Bytes.  Your machine must be using 64-bit addressing, and your JVM (Java Virtual Machine) probably wrote something to address 0xffffffffffffffff within its own virtual address space (possibly by accidentally writing to the address that's one less than 0x0000000000000000), causing the Mac OS X kernel's virtual memory subsystem to consider that process to be using that process's entire virtual address space.

Don't worry, virtual memory is sparse. That is, it doesn't allocate memory pages (or swap space on disk) for every mapped address, just for the memory pages your process has actually written to. But I guess that's obvious already unless you happen to have a 16+ ExbiByte RAID mounted at / or at /var/vm/ where your virtual memory swapfiles are located. :-)

Seeing a process cause its entire virtual 64-bit address space to become mapped is an oddity, but shouldn't cause any problems.


What's netbiosd? I must block netbiosd? I was asked to block netbiosd, but do not know what is. I must to block all connections from netbiosd?

From Apple's netbiosd man page:

  netbiosd is responsible for interacting with NetBIOS networks.  netbiosd registers and defends one or more NetBIOS name, depending on the set of configured services. It also browses and scavenges names from the NetBIOS network, making them available to the system through mDNSResponder.

Simply put, no, netbiosd is a perfectly safe daemon included in OS X by Apple.


Moving iPhoto and iMovie libraries Wife has been using iPhoto/Photos and iMovie for storing family photos and videos for roughly 5 years. Have about a 300 GB iMovie library and 100 GB iPhoto library.

MacBook Pro is getting full (less than 10 GB free) which is obviously beginning to effect performance. Have always used a NAS for Time Machine to back-up but not doing anything offsite.

Not sure what to do to move these libraries or archive them to a) an external HD or b) an offsite storage. Is it possible to just "close" the library and move it to an external HD for archiving. From what I understand in iPhoto/iMovie, if you wanted to access that library later you could simply load that library.

Is there any how-to on this or a better method? Also moving forward should I be keeping the libraries on an external an just accessing them with Photos/iMovie?

Yes, it is possible to just close the libraries and move them to an external HD. This will take long time to copy across (leave it overnight) but will work.

Moving them to an offsite solution is not supported by iPhotos/Photos/iMovie and so your mileage may vary. There are some third party software solutions that can help with the management of large libraries. Bear in mind that something cloud-based will be very much slower to access unless it also uses local disk space - which was what you were trying to avoid. It's great for offsite backup, but not for browsing, editing, etc.

After you've moved to the external hard drive, if you then run iPhoto/Photos while holding the ALT/option key, you can choose to create a new library to start fresh. We do this on Jan 1 each year and put the whole year of photos and videos in one library so that it keeps to a manageable size.


Filter RSS feeds on iPad I'm looking for an app to read my rss feeds from my favourite websites but with a filtering feature by keywords. For example every article from a website that contains the word "pluto". On my mac I use RSS Bot to do so, but now that I have an iPad I don't know how can I do that again. Any help?

I highly recommend the newly updated Net News Wire for iOS (and Mac if you choose the extra bonus ability to have one unified feed synced across both OS).

http://netnewswireapp.com
http://netnewswireapp.com/ios/

The original author is a long time renowned developer and the current owners are equally respected in the community for doing top notch work.


PPC emulator to run MacOSX 10.5 Is there any PPC emulator (for either Intel Macs or any Linux) which can run MacOSX 10.5 PPC?

My current research only points me to PearPC and the latest post/release was from 2011. On the homepage, they say that they have support for MacOSX 10.3 with some caveats. Also, it doesn't seem to emulate a soundcard which is relevant for me. Some totally outdated forum posts are asking about MacOSX 10.5 but without any real answers, e.g. here or here.

To do a 100% accurate test your best bet would be to get an actual PowerPC Mac. Alternatively, you can install 10.6 (Server) in a Virtual Machine, which can test PPC Applications through Rosetta.


Using NFS between OSX and Ubuntu with mis-matched uids I have a fileserver running Ubuntu 10.04 I'd like to access via NFS from my Mac running 10.6.8. Problem is, while the usernames are the same, the uids are different.

Googling suggests that the past method of dealing with this was static uid mapping on the server end, but that seems to have been eliminated in NFSv4, which is the only version on 10.04 that I can find.

Is there any way to map the uids so I can get proper NFS read/write access? Or do I have to change the uid on one of the machines? If so, what's the best and most fool-proof way to go about it. I'm concerned about borking permissions all over the place.

Ultimately, the proper solution is to use a directory service (like NIS or LDAP) to provide consistent UID/GID mapping for all users.  Of course, this is a very heavy solution for a smaller and/or home network.

The easiest thing to do is to simply make the UIDs/GIDs consistent on all the hosts involved.


Possible to use iMac Pro as a monitor for a variety of devices? I am interested to know if it possible to use normally an iMac Pro and then switch on the fly between several different devices connected to it (through a dock for example).

I am mostly interested in connecting:

MacBook Pro (late 2014 model)
MacBook Pro (latest model)
Mac Pro
Windows Desktop

What are the necessary dongles, devices, equipment required?

What is your experience with that setup (bugs and problems)?

This question maybe sound like a duplicate but I am asking specifically for the iMacPro (2018 model) and not just an iMac.

I don't think you can use the iMac pro as monitor for other devices natively.

However there are ways that may achieve what you need.

Screen sharing. Macos has build in screen sharing capability. And Microsoft has free Remote Desktop in the app store.
Synergy keyboard and mouse sharing software from Symless. It works across Windows, MacOS and Linux. The core is free and open source, but you will have to paid if you want the GUI.


GNU version of locate - gupdatedb fails with "gfind: failed to read file names from file system" I try to test GNU version of locate command. First, I have to create the database like this :
sudo gupdatedb --prunepaths=/Volumes --output=$HOME/locatedb_gupdatedb

Unfortunately, 1 minute after launching the command, I still get the following error :
gfind: failed to read file names from file system at or below '/': No such file or directory

I don't understand where this error could come from ?
UPDATE 1: I replaced gfind by find commad and correct path of find which is /usr/bin/. Unfortunately, I get embarassing error messages like this when I launch the gupdatedb command like this :
sudo gupdatedb --prunepaths='/private/tmp /private/var/folders /private/var/tmp */Backups.backupdb /Volumes /System' --output=$HOME/locatedb_gupdatedb

Here the error messages :
find: /System/Volumes/Data/.Spotlight-V100: No such file or directory
find: /System/Volumes/Data/.PKInstallSandboxManager: No such file or directory
find: /System/Volumes/Data/.PKInstallSandboxManager-SystemSoftware: No such file or directory
find: /System/Volumes/Data/.cleverfiles: No such file or directory
find: /System/Volumes/Data/mnt: No such file or directory
find: /System/Volumes/Data/.DocumentRevisions-V100: No such file or directory
etc ...

I tried to modify into /usr/local/Cellar/findutils/4.7.0/libexec/bin/gupdatedb file, the option :
: ${FINDOPTIONS="2 > /dev/null"}

But the issue is this option is set in front of the command find, not at the end, so it is not correct in the following of the file.
Given the fact there a lot of find commands after in the script, I can't add manually each time the 2 > /dev/null terminal option.
Anyone could see how to suppress all these error messages from find command when I launch a gupdatedb command ?
UPDATE 2: I finally managed to create a database with gupdatedb (GNU version of MacOS updatedb command) by doing :
sudo gupdatedb --prunepaths='/private/tmp /private/var/folders /private/var/tmp */Backups.backupdb /System /Volumes' --output=$HOME/locatedb_gupdatedb

The issue now is, when I do a research on a substring of a file or directory, the informations seems to be duplicated in results (sub_string  is simply the part of a file or directory name) :
For example, if I do a : glocate -d ~/locatedb_gupdatedb sub_string
Then, I have duplicates results like :
/System/Volumes/Data/Users/fab/sub_string.dat
/Users/fab/sub_string.dat

I don't know how to exclude '/System/Volumes/Data/' from these results : however, I have well specified in --prunepaths option the directory System, why isn't it taken into account in database created by gupdatedb ?
Or maybe I should perform a :
sudo gupdatedb --prunepaths='/private/tmp /private/var/folders /private/var/tmp */Backups.backupdb /System/Volumes/Data /Volumes' --output=$HOME/locatedb_gupdatedb

??
Any help is welcome to exclude this directory
/System/Volumes/Data

from indexing database.
UPDATE 3: Here is an example of quickly generating a database with updatedb on Debian 10 Buster. Few modifications of normal using have been done between the timestamps of the 2 commands updatedb.

So I conclude there is a really a difference betweeen GNU/MacOS and GNU/Linux implementation.
Any explanation is welcome.

The problem here is that you are running GNU's updatedb with the macOS's find. gupdatedb is a shell script that expects to be running a GNU-compatible find. In particular, it converts --prunepaths to a GNU-compatible basic regular expression.
--prunepaths='/private/tmp /private/var/folders /private/var/tmp */Backups.backupdb /Volumes /System'

converts to
PRUNEREGEX="\(^/private/tmp$\)\|\(^/private/var/folders$\)\|\(^/private/var/tmp$\)\|\(^*/Backups.backupdb$\)\|\(^/System$\)\|\(^/Volumes$\)"

GNU BRE (basic regular expressions) treat \| as an "alternative" operator:

‘foo\|bar’ matches either ‘foo’ or ‘bar’

This is a GNU extension to the BRE syntax, and the macOS find operator does not accept it. So the whole prune string fails to match anything.
The macOS (and POSIX) BRE does not have an alternative operator, so it is not a super easy fix. The macOS updatedb script converts the alternative into explicit -or operators in the find command. You can modify the GNU script to do that. Or get gfind to work.
By the way, GNU's updatedb script builds a completely new database from scratch on every run, just like macOS's.
Your Debian installation is using mlocate which is a completely different implementation than GNU locate, not as widely ported, and not available on macOS AFAIK. And even though mlocate runs quickly on your Debian installation, that does not mean it runs a lot faster than GNU locate. Both run in under a second building the entire database from scratch on my Debian installation when all the disk metadata is in RAM (which is usually the case).
Apple provides mdfind, which uses the incremental database created by mds, which is largely triggered by file system events. This makes it (theoretically) much more efficient than even mlocate, which still has to traverse the entire directory structure looking for changed directories. The problem is that incremental builds accumulate errors. That is why locate, with its full rebuild every time, is still around and preferred by many.


Trying to Determine if MacBook Pro 2011 projects in 4:3 or 16:9 format during presentations The company I work for is hosting a corporate presentation next month. We have hired outside A/V services and he is asking me if I will be projecting in 16:9 or 4:3 and if we will need a 5k or 10k projector. From what I have found, I believe the 10k projector is necessary for the 16:9 aspect ratio.
Is there anyway to determine which aspect ratio my MacBook Pro 2011 (OS X 10.9.5) would project in?

Your native aspect ratio is 8 : 5. If you are using Keynote for Mac to present, click wide when picking your template, which can be blank. When being chosen as wide, it sets the ratio to 16:9.


Rsync filter: "OS X label" On OS X, can I rsync selectively based on the file label as set in the Finder?

e.g. rsync all files and directories labelled "green".

Not with rsync alone. rsync doesn't know how to read or act on OS X file meta data, which labels happen to be. But, you can pass rsync an explicit list of files to sync. Combine this with the fact that you can use mdls to read label information on files from the command line and you could build a list of files and send that list to rsync.

> mdls -name kMDItemFSLabel Amanda\ Palmer\ \&\ The\ Grand\ Theft\ Orchestra\ --\ Do\ It\ With\ a\ Rockstar.mp3
kMDItemFSLabel = 4


Does using a macbook with an external monitor damage the health of the battery? I have an (oldish) MacBook Pro that I use with an external monitor, which requires that the MBP power adapter be plugged in all the time. Does that damage the health of the battery? I ask because my battery, replaced about a year ago, will now hold almost no charge after being used almost exclusively with the external monitor during working hours and plugged in all that time.

While the external monitor itself is not the cause of the 'weakened' battery, leaving your MacBook Pro on AC power all of the time will definitely affect the battery's performance.  It is essentially under a constant state of charging, even though this is regulated by the charging circuit, which will eventually cause the battery's chemistry to begin to break down.

Current batteries will typically last the longest when used regularly, but not completely discharged with each use.


Apple Activity March Challenge can anyone explain calculation? The March Challenge in the iOS Activity app is making no sense. At the beginning of the month it started out telling me I needed 719 Calories a day. And my average at the start of the month was:

(Never mind the fact that I'm in Australia and my local setting is kilojoules, and that it should localise like every other app in the world does. Has no trouble showing me activity in kilojoules but the challenge can't show kilojoules?)
Obviously that figure is wrong. First mysterious number right there. 20,263 kilojoules, would that even be possible?
I decided I wanted to get this badge so I converted the required daily average (719 calories) to kilojoules and got 3008.3. So I set the daily move goal to 3000 and planned to exceed it. And I have been, getting to around 4500 a day. So if I exceed the daily average goal the calculated average should be trending UP, right?
Not so. Now it tells me I am under the daily required average (today it reports 699) and the figure is trending down though I am still exceeding it by 50% a day and have been well above it all month.
Possible explanations I have considered....

the USA uses a different kind of calories from the rest of the world
and my conversion of cal-kj is wrong (seems ridiculous but U.S.
gallons are different to imperial gallons)
this challenge is as broken as February's
the decreasing daily figure shown is how much I would need to every day of the rest of the month? But then the ridiculously high figure
from the start of the month makes no sense. -

So can anyone explain this?

Your phone’s math looks off. I’d contact support in case they have a unit error in your locale. In the US I can confirm from three different people, we have pretty aggressive goals set. One person is far less active than me and far less calories on their goal. Another works out a lot more and has a much higher increase needed in their daily burn.

My goal was 25,015 calories and I’m barely going to make it tomorrow on the 29th having worked out at least once a day which is far more than I did all year.


Sharing local Apache vhost over lan without Hosts/DNS change? I'm freelancing somewhere and want to share a local (on my MacBook) site with some LAN users via IP. The network structure, time and technical ability here don't allow me get everyone to add host entries or setup proper DNS..

So.. say I have http://devsite accessible on my own machine, is there a way that I can access this from the LAN via IP like: 'http://10.1.2.3/devsite' ?

I see that 'http://10.1.2.3/~mbp/' works for the default site (where 'mbp' is my machine name) but not sure how to get other sites working?

Cheeeers.

Added for clarity: the name 'devsite' is added in /private/etc/hosts by me, and the vhost is added to /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

When you turn on Web Sharing from the System Prefs there will be a LAN IP that will point to your local ~/Sites folder. All you would have to do is have those on the LAN point there browsers to http://myLANIP/~username/devsite where devsite is a folder inside of your ~/Sites folder.


How long are deleted text messages saved on the phone after they have been deleted DO they automatically get deleted from the iPhone hardware or iCloud?  The phone is not activated with cellular connection only wifi, does this make a difference.

If you delete a message it will be deleted permanently.

Hardware

Messages save in the memory. So once you deleted a message or any kind of file, it will be deleted permanently. But there are softwares to recover them and it is possible sometimes. The explanation of that is not suitable here since you have asked a simple question.

iCloud

If you have made a backup using iCloud and if the messages you were deleted, existed in that particular moment when that iCloud backup was made, then messages are still in the iCloud. iCloud keeps backups until you run out of iCloud storage. So you can restore those messages from iCloud anytime you want (by restoring entire backup) if those were backed up properly. If you don't need them in iCloud, you have to delete that backup.


Sierra stuck at boot screen, upgrading to mojove will create new bootup files? I am facing some issues in High Sierra . Since few days it's stuck at boot screen and load very slow, mac doesn't start even after completing the load progress bar. But when I charge it fully and after some time it start accidentally, and then after some time when i try to open it's not booting up.

Other problems are Command + R is not working on this OS and i am not able to recover when it's not booting up, even I tried netboot but globe was spinning and after completing the progress bar, it doesn't show any option instead apple logo appears again and then stuck at boot screen.

I am now going to upgrade High Sierra  to Mojave, I want to know if I am installing or upgrading to Mojave will it correct the bootup files and solve this issue and Command + R will work?

My os details :

MacOS High Sierra
Version : 10.13.4
MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017)
Processor 1.8 GHz intel Core i5
Memory 8 GB

I also suggest better to upgrade and mostly it might fix your issue. Kindly use the following keyboard combination as per your requirements.

Basically, as per Apple Guidance:

Command (⌘)-R Install the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac.

Option-⌘-R Upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac.

Shift-Option-⌘-R Install the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available.


Apple Music streaming subscription - add own CDs? I have one question concerning the Apple Music subscription. I have a largish collection of ripped CDs which I would like to add to my Album section in Music. Is there a tool which can help me with this, i.e. I don't feel like manually searching for hundreds of Albums - is there a batch tool which I can use to add these local albums? I only want them as streaming and not as the music matching service from apple (if it still exists).

Any suggestions?

I found an answer. If I add the albums on y Mac running Catalena to the Music library, they will be synced to the other devices for streaming.


Change "reply with message" text I know how to change text for RELY WITH MESSAGE option, however
"Can't talk right now" part can't be changed in setting.

Is there an app or a modification that can change "Can't talk right now" part?

To change text for RELY WITH MESSAGE OPTION go to

Settings->Phone->Reply with Message

If your device is jailbroken, you can use this solution to change the default reply message prefix:

  iFile will let you edit the .plist strings. How ever you do it, the .plist file is in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/TelephonyUtilities/English.Iproj folder (if you use English. What I don't know is if this changes anything in the sent text


Protect privacy on my Mac What is the best way to protect my privacy when using my Mac?

Assume I am a privacy-sensitive user, with Mountain Lion.  What software configuration should I do, to protect my privacy?  Is there any software you would recommend to protect my privacy, e.g., when using the web or other applications?  Which web browser is best, and what extensions are available to protect privacy while browsing the web?

What extensions are available to protect privacy while browsing the web?

I'm using Safari and there are a number of useful extensions for security.

Google SSL

This extension makes it so every time you use the search bar, instead of searching www.google.com, your search is redirected to the Google SSL encrypted search site.
Do Not Track Plus

Do Not Track Plus blocks tracking technologies that advertisers and other companies use to track your browsing behavior. Easily see who is tracking you at each website you visit and block any or all of them.
Google Disconnect

Google is notified whenever you visit one of the more than 25 percent of sites on the web that include Google widgets (see http://j.mp/dcdefcon). Google Disconnect blocks traffic from third-party sites to Google servers but still lets you access Google services.
TrafficLight

TrafficLight is taking the security-while-browsing concept where it belongs: in the browser. This extension will add a strong layer of security over your browsing experience without inducing speed penalties or system resource consumption. Part of the processing is done in the cloud with some intelligent small engines that make various checks on pages you're visiting enabling you to have top notch antiphishing and antimalware protection.

You can check out some more security extensions here.

DuckDuckGo

Google is widely known to track and store personal data, so it's not a good search engine for maintaining anonymity and privacy. A good, secure alternative is the DuckDuckGo search engine. Here's a short comparison by AffiliatePrograms:

  DuckDuckGo strongly believes in privacy. Currently, the company does not record any user information. As you probably know, this is a sticking point with many people when it comes to Google. Company founder Gabriel Weinberg had this to say:
  “By default, DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information. That is our privacy policy in a nutshell.”
  It is often times described as a “hybrid” search engine thanks to results that are pulled from multiple sources including: Yahoo Search, Wolfram Alpha, Wikipedia, and its own crawler.

Incognito

Incognito is Safari web extension focused on Security. Here's a description from their site:

  When browsing the web, you are continuously being tracked. Not only by the websites you are visiting, but also by major companies that embed their 'content' into other websites through ads and analytics. As a result, companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook have an almost complete picture of your online activity.

  Incognito protects your privacy by blocking Google Adsense and Google Analytics on non-Google pages. In addition, it allows you to optionally block Facebook and Twitter content on third-party websites as well as embedded YouTube movies outside of the YouTube website.

Hope this helps!


Apple ID Two-Factor Authentication: Can't Approve This Mac I tried to turn on two-factor authentication on my Apple ID. I did it from my Mac and all went well, until I got to the point where I had to verify my Mac from another device signed into iCloud. Well, the only other one of those was my iPad, which was out of battery power, so I plugged it in to charge and successfully verified it using my Mac. However, no approval dialog ever appeared on it and now I can't approve the Mac for the iCloud account. See screenshot:

When I click "Can't Approve", I have to reset all End-to-End encyrpted data. I don't want to do that. How can I approve my Mac for use of my Apple ID after setting up two-factor authentication, without resetting encrypted data, when I don't receive the approval dialog on another device?

(Solution for macOS 10.13.6 High Sierra; YMMV with other OS versions.)

Hoo boy, it was a looong process, but I just got it working! First I'll share some general useful tips that might help, and then I'll attempt to walk through the exact steps I went through to resolve the problem. If you're struggling with this, too, then you can do it. I believe in you!

So, first, some useful things to try in general:

Restart your devices. This will force them to ask the Apple ID servers for re-authentication, and might clear up any erroneous cached data.
Turn it off and on again. No, seriously, turn off 2FA. This is your best bet at resetting things. Best in combination with the above. But how? Good question. The only way to turn it off nowadays is right after turning it on, from the email they send to every email address associated with your account when you turn it on. Click the link in the fourth paragraph entitled "return to your previous security settings":

From here it will ask you to reset your password, and you'll have to answer your security questions again next time you log in, but two-factor auth will be completely off—server-side, anyway, your devices might still be confused. See below.

Now, I'm going to go though the exact steps I followed to get out of this mess. Here, I'll refer to the Mac as, well, the Mac, and also a "Second Device"; this is the device that the Mac wants you to approve itself from. The Second Device can be an iPhone, an iPad, or any other Apple device that can receive 2FA verification codes. Here we go:

First, turn off 2FA as outlined above. This is required. If for some reason you can't access the email they sent you, I'm 99% sure you're out of luck and will have to reset encrypted data. Please link multiple email addresses to your Apple ID in the future.
This whole issue seems to be caused by the Second Device being completely off when the Mac attempts to enable 2FA. That said, restart both the Mac and Second Device and make sure you are signed into iCloud on both.
Go to System Prefs on your Mac again. It will probably still have the "approve your Mac" nag, or some other text saying that you have to "update your Apple ID details" or whatever. Just click the "Continue…" button next to that.
Since 2FA is now definitively off on your account (even if the text on that previous screen might have suggested otherwise), it will prompt you to enable 2FA as if it were the first time. Click through the dialogs, saying yes, you want to enable 2FA. Enter your phone number and follow the standard steps.
After this is complete, it may ask you to log in again on both your Mac and Second Device. Do so on both now. If the Mac prompts you for the login password, don't enter it yet, you'll do that in the next step. If the Second Device needs verification (not "approval") with a 2FA code, click Allow on the Mac and enter the code on the Second Device as usual. If it requires "approval", you need to turn off 2FA and start again (because at this point, both devices want approval from the other. Turning off 2FA will stop the Second Device from asking approval, breaking that loop of death).
Make sure the Second Device is logged into iCloud. Make triple-sure.
Now, crossing your fingers, eyes and toes, enter your login password into the prompt on the Mac.
If the stars are aligned and all is well with the world, your Second Device has just asked you to approve your Mac for use with your iCloud account. Enter your Apple ID password and say "Yes, I Approve" or whatever.
The Mac should receive the message that it's been approved from the Second Device and stop nagging you.
If you got here following step-by-step, then congratulations, you've just done it! Two-factor authentication is enabled on your account and both devices are approved and ready to go. If you have any other Apple stuff signed into iCloud then you'll have to verify those, too, but this'll just need the standard SMS-able 2FA codes. It's only the one device on which you set up 2FA that's special and requires this "approval" step. If you ask me, Apple really needs to get their act together here with this special one-time step that has no easy or obvious "out" option; I'm no security architecture expert by any means, but… sigh.

If you're still struggling, just know that this took me four attempts involving turning 2FA off and on again, and trying different patterns of restarting and re-enabling 2FA on different devices, to finally get this solved. So, I ask you to keep trying. You might just get it. Good luck. :)


I uninstalled an app. How do I get it back? Possible Duplicate:
  How can I find out which apps I have already downloaded on my iPhone?

The knowledge base mentions that you get to reinstall the app for free... once you find it again on the store, which is no easy task. There are dozens of apps, all alike the one that was installed.

Is there a way to have a list of apps you have bought? At what point of the purchasing process does this dialog appear? Does a price tag appear for already purchased items? If so, does this message appear after you single tap on the price tag, or do you need to risk a double tap?

On iTunes, under iTunes Store > Account > Purchase History, you've got a list of all your iTunes Store purchases.

If you already bought an app, it still appears with the price on the Store. Last time I checked, I had to risk re-buying to see it was free since I already bought it.

Hope that helps!


How do I know the Apple ID associated with a particular device (Macbook Pro)? How do I know the Apple ID associated with a particular device (Macbook Pro)? How do I change it?

One of my friend gifted me a Macbook Pro as a gift, and we don't know how to change its Apple ID. He has his Apple ID and password which works perfectly with this Macbook. After changing it, will updating to OS X 10.7 or reinstalling online possible?

Does this process completely disconnect from the previous Apple ID and connect with the new one?

System Preferences -> iCloud will tell you what Apple ID is currently being used on that computer and give you the option to sign out and change it if you wish.

I'm unsure about the matters of updating ML. I think it will still work, but I can't say for sure.


What happens to photos that you edit using iPhoto for iOS? If I use iPhoto for iOS to edit a photo from my photostream or one of the albums which is synched from my desktop iPhoto library, it shows up in a special "edited" album in iPhoto for iOS.

Is there a way to have the edited version sent back to my computer? Or accessed from the iOS Photos app?

If you tap the "Share" icon, you have the option to send photos to the Camera Roll or to share them with iTunes:

This interface is quite flexible, you can send the currently selected photos, all the photos, or choose the photos you want to share. Sharing with iTunes creates a folder in the "Apps" section of your device in iTunes that you can save from:


Turning off keyboard popup When I connect a bluetooth keyboard to my computer, it pops up this icon:

Can I get rid of that?

DISCLAIMER:  I have never tried this - though it should not hurt your system.

You could remove /System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin... but removing this package would take all the bezel style interface items with it.  (volume up/down, brightness, remote paring, etc.)

Removing this package could have undesired effects, beyond just removing the bezels, but I can't think of any specifically...   It should work...  However, keep a copy of it, make note of the permissions, and put it back if it dorks other stuff up.

Also, expect later updates of OS X to replace this package...

Some may suggest viewing the contents of the package and removing just the bezels you don't want from /System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin/Contents/Resources/BezelUI/HiDPI but I notice there is a _CodeSignature directory here: /System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin/Contents/_CodeSignature and that may invalidate the entire package.

After making whatever changes you want to the BezelServices.loginPlugin you should probably restart your computer, or at the very least log out and back in - before you will see the desired effect.

Sorry for not providing a clearer answer.


iPhone 3GS doesn't react on remote control (headphones) from iPhone 4S Because I lost my iPhone 3GS headphones (those with microphone and remote control), I now tried to use the latest ones (from iPhone 4S). The microphone is working, but somehow the iPhone doesn't react of the remote control (Accepting calls, stopping the music, or changing the volume doesn't work at all). Are the new headphones generally incompatible with the iPhone 3GS, or is it a different problem?

I had this issue with my iPhone 4.  Turns out some debris got in the headphone jack.  As the 3GS is an older device, the contacts may be dirty.

Try taking a cotton swab with most of the cotton removed and dipping it in rubbing alcohol. While it's off, clean the sides of the headphone port on the 3GS.

Let it sit for five minutes and turn it on.  See if that helps.

Another thing you can do is quickly and forcefully insert and remove the headphones in question to (hopefully) clear anything blocking the contacts.

Personally, I'd try the first option first.


Touch ID when "wants to make changes" How can I use Touch ID for messages like this?

For sudo to accept Touch ID for authentication, you'll need to configure your Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) system to accept the Touch ID authentication module.

Edit /etc/pam.d/sudo and add the following to the top of the list:

auth    sufficient  pam_tid.so

When osascript ‘wants to make changes’, likely because of a ‘with administrator privileges’ modifier, it uses the same authentication as ‘sudo’.

This affects how authentication will work for sudo, not just when using AppleScript. You'll now see the Touch ID prompt when using sudo on the command line, such as in Terminal, or when using other applications which request elevation using sudo.


Can Safari's download popover window be made wider? How can the max. width (fixed width≈425) of Safari's download-popover-window be made wider?
Is there a way to get at Safari's "download pop over window" in any way so its max-size is larger than 425 px and longer file names are no longer abbreviated?
Maybe via AppleScriptObjC?

[[ Answers:
So far (w/o use of AS-objC) just three "workarounds" have come around...

Original Workaround #1 ... a mixture of (do) shellScript (cat/sed), AS, Html and Automator
Workaround # 1 ... uses only Automator modules but also contains the above shell script
Workaround # 2 ... with direct AS access on Safari's plist file, a dialog & a "button" in Safari

WA #2 is my favorite; the others' "windows" are more flexible. Both use Automator shortcuts. ]]

Original Workaround #1:

The first one here has got the advantage to use only one Automator action and allows quite precise settings of the resulting Safari-owned window. Its end results are a "service" in Safari's menus plus a keyboard shortcut.These components are involved:

Safari's "Download.plist" (in: Library/Safari)
A shell script running cat & sed, filtering the plist-file's input into "Downloads1.html"
An Html file "Downloads2.html" holding Html tags of your choice (w/o finishing tags: </...)
An AppleScript containing a "do shell script" command, "telling" Safari to open an
... Html file "Downloads.html", generated by shell script, in order to at last get …
Automator to place a workflow in Safari's "Services" menu.

This code runs as an Automator Service (without "run" commands it's plain AppleScript):

on run {input, parameters}
 -- [Only if needed, place: "LANG=C; LC_CTYPE=C; LC_ALL=C;" in front of "cd"]

    do shell script "cd ˜/Users/[myName]/Library/Safari/;
             rm Downloads.html;
             cat Downloads.plist | sed -n ' { s/.*Downloads/
D`load => /; ¬
                     s/.*Trash/
Trashed => / ; s/.*Movies/
Movies => /; ¬
                     s/mp4.*/mp4
/ p; }' > Downloads1.html';
             cat Downloads2.html Downloads1.html > Downloads.html;"

    tell application "Safari"
        make new document at end of documents with properties ¬
            {URL:"file:///Users/[myName]/Library/Safari/Downloads.html"}
        set bounds of window 1 to {700, 62, 1280, 450}
    end tell
    return input
end run

(The shell script and "make new document…" are meant to be one liners each.)

Integrated are two "filters" to the sed part (.*Movies & .*Trash) so my browser window looks like this (you may edit these filters or/and add Extensions to your needs):

+----------------------- Toolbar -------------------------+
|                                                         |
|  D'load => /Some_sinster_TV_series_S02E01_15.11.21_00-  |
|  40_BBC3_93_TVOON_DE.mpg.HQ.avi.otrkey                  |
|                                                         |
|  Movies => DS9.4.07_Little_green_men.mp4                |
|                                                         |
|  Trashed => /DS9.3.09_Defiant.mp4                       |
|                                                         |
|  Trashed => /DS9.3.07_Civil_Defense.mp4                 |
|                                                         |
+---------------------------------------------------------+

(Those leading slashes suck… hard to filter out, though.)

The commented out second line may be needed, or may not…
Replace [myName] with your own user name.
To use this code as "service" in Safari, you have to paste it inside a "Run AppleScript" field in automator. Save it as "workflow".
You can then create a shortcut (e.g.: opt-cmd-d) that will run it instantaneously (System-Prefences / Keyboard / Shortcuts / Services).
My solution is not really sophisticated, but I learned (glimpsed) a lot about sed, awk, cat and AppleScript/Automator.


iCloud Keychain sync: How to determine current sync status or force a sync (without removing and adding)? Short version:

Is there a command-line or GUI method of determining when the local copy of the iCloud keychain has been syncronized (at least on a Mac) or, short of deleting the keychain and re-adding it, force it to sync with the iCloud copy?

More details:

I'm currently running iOS 12 on multiple devices macOS High Sierra on my MacBook. While performing some cleanup, including deleting items via  Settings → Passwords & Accounts → Website and App Passwords on iOS, I observed that the changes did not appear to be syncing back to the Mac. To be clear, changes made in the normal method (i.e., organically through Safari) also are not making it back.

Note this is on a Mac where the user had only been recently created (so there should be no corruption). The Mac had full network connectivity.

I know my changes are going to iCloud because nearly all my iOS devices are synchronized nearly instantly.

Again, I know I can work around by deleting the Keychain, and re-adding it, but this is not a real solution.

Does Apple even document how the process should work?

There are no built-in OS X tools designed explicitly for showing you iCloud synchronize information. In easy to read way.

However, you can track connections to Apple's iCloud servers, measure traffic flow, and disk access.

These metrics will provide some insight but they will not provide expected duration's or percentage complete measures.

To explore the data flow, explore the OS X's built-in tools like lsof and netstat.


Pictures attached to messages "vanishes" I get a notification on the main screen of a picture that was messaged to me and can see the picture, but when I go into the message the picture isn't there.


Edit TCC.db to bypass "'Foo.app' wants access to control 'Bar.app'" on own machine I make extensive use of Apple Events to control a wide variety of applications on my machine. The new security prompts introduced in Mojave are crippling.

In previous versions of macOS, once an app was granted permission to "control your computer", it was able to send Apple events to any other app on your machine. In Mojave, this permission must be manually granted once for each app being controlled.

Once a user grants access, their selection is stored in one of two sqlite databases:

~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db
/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db

Note that #2 is only visible to the root user.
Note that System Integrity Protection is disabled.

Would it be possible to edit these sqlite databases directly to automatically grant permissions and bypass these security prompts?

To access the TCC.db database directly is no longer supported by Apple, even if you disable SIP, because of their policy of protecting users from big companies that like to track everything you do online, and also used to do this stealthy bypass without asking permission to users. However, even in Mojave, there is a way to circumvent this, but with a catch: that only works if a given computer is enrolled in an MDM program. To know more about the MDM program go here.
In order to bypass this for several computers you can use the python script tccprofile.py available at GitHub.
As far as I know, this is the only way to bypass the need to ask user permission from Mojave onwards.