Configure Logitech G600 mouse on MBP Catalina I have a Logitech G600 mouse and have https://www.usboverdrive.com/ installed with the intention configuration of the G keys on the mouse.
usboverdrive works for configuring the mouse movement and speed but I can't figure out how to configure the buttons on the side of the mouse.
usboverdrive has a mode where I presumably can press the button on the side of the mouse and usboverdrive will identify it, but when I press the button it is not being identified.
This is the first time I am using usboverdrive so I am not sure if I am using it correctly.
[EDIT] I first tried to install the Logitech software (GHub) but could not find a way to configure the buttons.  I kept googling and was referred to usboverdrive as an alternative.  It is difficult to google for help with this mouse on mac because the links are dominated by windows oriented links.

This page has a video that shows how to configure devices with G-Hub. It should be very close on the Mac. It's far from intuitive...
https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/innovation/g-hub.html
Edit the Desktop: Default Profile
Click on the Assignments icon on the left sidebar
Drag & Drop the key assignment(s) to each button on the pictured mouse
You can create many different profiles for specific games but the Desktop: Default is the one you want to edit for everyday macOS use.


launchd run command every minute of a specific hour On man launchd.plist it says (emphasis mine)

  StartCalendarInterval  This optional key causes the job to be started every
  calendar interval as specified. Missing arguments are considered
  to be wildcard. The semantics are similar to crontab(5) in how
  firing dates are specified. Multiple dictionaries may be specified
  in an array to schedule multiple calendar intervals.

My plist file is /Users/enricozb/test.plist and contains

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.enricozb.test</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>date</string>
    </array>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/Users/enricozb/test.txt</string>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>21</integer>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Notice that Hour is set to 21, aka, 9PM. Also, notice that the command is just basically date > /Users/enricozb/test.txt. I ran

launchctl load /Users/enricozb/test.plist
launchctl start com.enricozb.test

This fires once right after the launchctl start command, and never again.

I was assuming that since the documentation says that missing arguments are wildcard, that the Minute field would be wildcard too. Why is this not running every minute?

Edit start

You got it all correct except for enclosing your <dict> element inside an <array> element. Your script will run every minute from 21:00 to 21:59 with the following as your StartCalendarInterval key :

    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            <key>Hour</key>
            <integer>21</integer>
        </dict>
    </array>

If you wanted your script to run every minute, every hour, every day, every year, the following would be the correct (but certainly not obvious)  syntax for that:

    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <array>
        <dict/>
    </array>

My original answer (below) would also work, but it's clearly much more tedious! OTOH, if one needed every other minute, or certain minutes, it might be useful.

Edit end

<key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
        </dict>
        <dict>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
        </dict>
        <dict>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>2</integer>
        </dict>
        <dict>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>3</integer>
        </dict>
        <dict>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>4</integer>
        </dict>

       ... ad nauseum ...

        <dict>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>59</integer>
        </dict>

    </array>

To answer your question, "Why is this not running every minute?", it's only because you failed to enclose <dict> inside <array>.  FWIW, it seems very odd to me also, and WHY it's designed this way is an answer I'd like to hear myself. But then I guess Apple could use the defense that "just because the semantics are similar does not mean the syntax is."


Migrate files from OS 9 software and hardware to OS X I'm trying to migrate some files from my old PowerComputing PPC computer(SCSI) that ran OS 9.0.4 to my current MacBook Pro running OS X (default 10.9.4 but 10.6.8 avail via external disk). I've gotten most of the way there. Short version of my quest below in case it helps others, but have been hit by what appears to be a TCP/network configuration issue between the two networks.

Tried the obvious but they don't have compatible ports so no USB(new system but not old - thumb drive, external drive), no Firewire (new system but not old - External drive, target mode), SCSI(on old system but not new).

I found a path that has high potential though, Ethernet. I have an old Farallon adapter on the PPC system that takes the AAUI port and converts it to 10-base-T.

Had issues with the TCP/IP config on the old system. But went to the TCP/IP control panel to update connection to use DHCP instead of the old static values I had.
Hooked them both up to the same router and got the IP addresses. Tuned on file sharing via the Control Panel on OS9( and made sure I had a user with access and a password I knew)
Pinged to make sure there was connectivity
Tried to connect from OSX 10.9 to OS9 but failed with message about software being incompatible; Did some digging, and it turns out that Apple had removed some needed components.
I had an external drive that still had 10.6.8 so I tried that. Yeah - it connected
:-) (Use AFP - afp:// 192.168.0.7 in my case)
Started to copy some files. It got a little ways in and died and then disconnected the remote OS9 system.
it said that the data could not be read or written and gave error code - 36
If I go back and try it in smaller chances from where it died the copies work.
During my earlier searching I do remember seeing a post (which I can't find again) that talked about modifying some of the block sizes in the TCP config. Does anyone have any ideas of what they might be?

Thanks for any clues/pointers

Update- I'm getting closer. While it still does fail. I can do it smaller chunks when I hit an error. Since these are OLD SCSI drives the file size/count isn't as large as it would be on a new drive. So while not quick its not as bad as it could have been. I'm going to make one friend very happy. I found an archive of the very first website I had made for her years ago. Some drives are having issues are are saying I need to update the Drivers on it. Going to try everything else I can before I take what might be an irreversible action.

ftp.  osx hosts it, os9 goes in as client.

ever faithful, ever sturdy.


Why does connecting a Macbook Pro to a 2160p external monitor via Mini-DP result in a mess of green/purple colors? When I connect my Macbook Pro to a 3840x2160 external monitor, the external monitor keeps going black and readjusting every 1-2 seconds. Some times it stops briefly, but the screen is just filled with green and pursple-ish colors, with the text "Use 3840x2160@60Hz for best result". I managed to take some pictures at the short breaks between constant readjusting and the text "No input source".

I checked which resolution the Macbook was trying to use for the external display, and it seems to be correct:

$ system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType | grep Resolution
          Resolution: 2560 x 1600 Retina
          Resolution: 3840 x 2160 @ 60 Hz

I have used the 4K screen a lot with a different PC and I know it works. I have admittedly not used the Macbook with an external display before, because I don't have the ability.

I have rebooted the Macbook, restarted the screen, reconnected the Mini-DP cable many times and tried using both Thunderbolt ports.

Has anybody seen something like this before, and could venture a guess as to what's wrong?

I'm using a brand new Macbook Pro retina 13" from 2015. The following is copied from its spec-sheet:

2,7 GHz dual core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3,1 GHz
8 GB 1866 MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM
128 GB PCIe-based flash storage
Intel Iris Graphics 6100

First thing I'd try would be a different cable.

Apple has this to say about non-compliant Display Port cabling, though not specifically in response to your particular issue, but Google brought me there whilst on that search...

  Certain cables advertised as being VESA 1.1a compliant may contain a construction issue that may result in the DisplayPort power pins at either end of the cable shorting together. VESA 1.1a compliant cables must isolate the DisplayPort power pins at either end of the cable.
  To learn more about the VESA 1.1a DisplayPort Interoperability Guidelines, visit www.vesa.org


After mounting a Windows SMB share, how can I determine the windows "creator" of a file? I've mounted a Windows SMB share to my Mac. On a windows machine you can open the "File Properties" dialog for folders in this network share and see different "Owners" for whoever created the file:

But on my Mac I'm not able to see this ownership information:

I've also tried mounting the share from the command line which works fine:

mkdir /Volumes/ShareName
mount -t smbfs //user@server/ShareName /Volumes/ShareName

But I'm not able to see any additional information via the Terminal when I look at the files in /Volumes/ShareName

> ll
drwx------  1 cwd  staff    16K Jan 22 14:04 .
drwx------  1 cwd  staff    16K Jan 25 11:16 ..
-rwx------@ 1 cwd  staff    11K Jan 22 14:05 Thumbs.db
-rwx------  1 cwd  staff    29B Jan 22 13:36 test.txt
-rwx------  1 cwd  staff     0B Jan 22 13:36 test2.txt

> xattr Thumbs.db
encryptable

xattr also doesn't show me anything useful in the extended attributes.

How can I find the "Owner" property on a windows SMB shared file?

AFAIK, you can't get the ownership properties of files on SMB/Samba shares on anything other than Windows. Mac OS / Linux implementations of Samba don't parse that info when reading the share, most probably because of the differences in how the extended attributes are stored between the OS's, and that the Share properties are determined by the hosting system and are locked down to prevent network users from altering the properties of the Share.


Can I install an App from the Spain App Store (US Store is my default)? I'm in Spain for a few months and I have an Orange prepaid SIM card, and I'd like to install Orange's "mi Orange" app for checking my balance, usage, etc. The app is only available in the Spanish App Store. Can I install it?

No, the iTunes account are country bounded. So you can't buy a Spanish app with your US account.

But if you'll be in Spain for a few months, I assume you have a Spanish address? So there is no harm in creating a new account for your few months in Spain.
All you need is an address or a gift card from Spain.


How to remove my Mac from iPhone call audio routing list? When I'm making a phone call with my iPhone, under the audio button typically I can toggle between phone and speakerphone. But recently a third option appeared, which claims to route the call to my Mac. I never want to use this option, and I want to be able to just tap to turn the speakerphone off and on. Is there any way to turn off the Mac connection so that it won't appear?

I have disabled Allow Calls on Other Devices on my iPhone and that didn't have any effect.

Note: related Apple Community question.

Try allowing all devices and then disabling Mac specifically in the "Calls on other devices" settings you posted.

Open FaceTime-> Preferences on Mac and uncheck receive calls from iPhone checkbox.

On the extreme, if you don't use continuity feature, (didn't see it in the question), could you turn Handoff off altogether in iPhone and/or Mac? It is in Settings -> General-> Handoff on both devices.  Either of the devices could be at fault. So check all combinations.


Apple VPP apps asking for user's password when updating applications I've got an issue with a pilot deployment of iPhones with VPP device licences assigned. These are iPhone 11s, running iOS 13.3, managed via a MDM solution that pushes VPP device licences to DEP managed devices that are enrolled into the MDM.

All sets up well and fine, and the user can take a fully deployed iPhone and sign into the MDM solution's management app, and then the Apple App Store works just fine. All the apps we push appear as expected and the iPhones work as expected.

However, some users are prompted daily for their (managed company) Apple ID if any application updates are pending for the apps that were pushed to their phone using VPP (Just to be clear, the user is being asked for their own managed Apple ID, not another person's Apple ID or the VPP token details).

It looks like this is related to automatic app updates, as these prompts cease if this is turned off in iPhone Settings app → iCloud → iTunes & App Store → Automatic Downloads → App Updates.

Expected behaviour should be to update the apps without the user having to sign in again.

Note that the VPP apps are correctly licenced to the device, and its possible to deploy a device, hand it to a user who does not sign in to the App Store, and app updates are pushed just fine.

If anyone else experiences a similar issue, I've just had a discussion with Apple and they have confirmed this is an issue in iOS 13 and that it is fixed in iOS 13.3.1


I'm planning to sell my laptop, and I need to know if I have my bases covered. Kindly confirm please? I have a 13 inch MacBook Pro (10.5.8 OS X - I think it's called Leopard). I do NOT have the installation CD - so I cannot reinstall the OS and thus ensure that I have securely deleted everything from my hard drive. By looking at the o/p from the System Profiler utility, I'm pretty sure my hard drive is NOT a SSD, although I cannot confirm this.

The reason I can't directly use the "Erase data" option under Disk Utility is because the 'Security Options' (as well as the volume format) button is greyed out. Volume format currently reads 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

I'm planning to securely delete ALL data on my mac using the following steps:

1) Using Disk Utility, I click the button titled "Erase Free Space" using a one pass method (or if I have time 7 pass method)

2) Once the above operation is complete, I plan to use 'secure rm' or 'srm' to remove all files and applications on my macbook.

3) Once step 2 is complete, I re-run "Erase Free Space" using whatever method I used in step 1 above (in order to remain consistent)

Once step 3 is complete, I assume that my macbook has been formatted and all data securely deleted. Could you kindly confirm whether this assumption is true or not? If not could you please point out steps I need to add to my existing process?

You will not be able to erase the entire contents of the disk, format/remove the partitions (securely or otherwise) while the volume is mounted. Because of this practical limitation, without having your original installation disc from which to boot into Disk Utility, you're stuck with a system that is in a vulnerable state to sell. While you can create a throw-away admin account from which to securely delete your user profile, OS X still splatters information, such as network connections, all over the place.

As Buscar correctly stated, the resale value on what I would I imagine is a circa 2008/2009 system is low enough already WITH all the original discs. Without them, the possibility of selling is fairly low. The biggest reason for this is that you need the original discs for running diagnostics. Apple Diagnostic software is mated to the particular hardware.

Although Apple no longer supports these systems and, therefore, does not sell replacement DVDs, you can purchase recycled installation DVDs from ifixit.com. I purchased original Leopard install DVDs from iFixit for an Early 2008 MacBook4,1 that was gifted to me without discs. Highly recommended.

With the correct DVDs, you can securely erase the HDD and let go of the system with complete confidence. Alternatively, you may consider simply replacing the HDD in the system with a new one and destroying the one you've been using. Your out-of-pocket cost is probably around the same, but the original DVDs would likely net you a higher resale value.


What is the Mac OS 10.7 (Lion) volume encryption standard? I have found countless blogs and tutorials how to encrypt an external drive using Mac's extended journaled encrypted format, but I couldn't find anybody stating the standard behind it. I know that FireVault 2 uses XTS-AES 128 encryption, but is that the same used for the external format or are the hard/flash drives simply assigned with a mounting password? Any link for clarification or simply a statement would be very appreciated.

Open Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) and type:

disktutil cs list

Then look for the entry of your standard drive, e.g.

Name:                    Macintosh HD

Look further down to find out the encryption type:

Encryption Type:         AES-XTS

The latter is what I see when using this command in OS X 10.8.2, so you can assume that AES-XTS stands for the AES-XTS 128-bit encryption used in Mountain Lion.

I expect Lion to use the same encryption model, but I can't verify it because I have no Mac that's running Lion. However, the diskutil command should help you to find the definite answer.


Is there a dock for switching between windows? Is there a feature or an add-on for OS X that lists the current app's open windows for quick visual switching?

The way I envision it is in the form of a second dock, say on the right-hand or left-hand corner of the screen.

A similar question was asked here, but the HyperDock answer doesn't work for me. I am looking for a visual list that is available always, not just on hover.

Another question points out Fantastisk. This looks perfect, but the product has been discontinued and it seems unclear whether it even supports 10.8.

  Edit: Witch seems to come close, I'll try it out. I would still prefer a permanently visible list.

You can use ⌘` to switch between windows in the current application and ⌃F4 to switch between windows on the current space. And you can use an application like Alfred to assign shortcuts to applications.

Witch is one of the most popular window-based Dock / command-tab alternatives. See these questions for other options:

Best app to switch between all open windows (alternatives to Witch)
Switch between windows on Mac OS X?


Hide the status bar on an iPhone Is it possible to hide the status bar (battery indicator, time, etc.) on an iPhone? I can't find any indication of this in settings but I can't figure out if it's just not possible or if I'm looking in the wrong place. I went into Settings and looked in General and Display.

When I search for this I keep getting StackOverflow answers about hiding (or showing) the status bar programmatically. I want to know if there's a way to do this on the device itself.

The phone I'm trying to do this on is an iPhone 5, if it matters.

No it's not possible to hide it on an unjailbroken iPhone.


Can I put memory from a 2.7GHz Mac Mini into a 2.4 GHz MacBook? A colleague has just upgraded the memory in his spanking new 2.7GHz Core i7 Mac Mini from 4Gb to 8Gb. This means he's got 2x2Gb PC3-10600 (1333MHz) modules kicking around.

I have a Mid-2010 model 2.4GHz Core 2 MacBook which has 2x1Gb PC3-8500 (1067MHz) modules.

So, my question: can I replace the memory in my MacBook with his spare modules? Does the speed mismatch matter? Will it just "downgrade" to the speed my MacBook's expecting, work but be worse (slower) than the memory I have now, or just not work at all? (Or, worst case, fry my MacBook?)

I've seen this attempted a couple times, each times putting faster clocked RAM into a machine designed for something slower - same machine as yours, the white unibody.

It might turn on, but it likely won't boot - just hang at the Apple logo.


What adapter(s) do I need to connect a Retina MacBook Pro Thunderbolt output to a 2560x1440 NEC monitor? I've got a 13" Retina MacBook Pro and an NEC PA241W 2560x1440 monitor.  What adapters do I need to connect them at full resolution?

Mini Display Port to Display Port.

http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/NEC_PA241W_Review#VIDEO_CONNECTIONS

Thunderbolt is in effect Display Port plus more functionality.


ndtrack prompt after macbook was upgraded from highsierra to mojave What shall I do to address this ndtrack issue? I did some research online but didn't find anything particularly useful.

This is actually a feature of of Mojave. It recognizes that the software you have installed on your Mac "ndtrack" will not work if you upgrade your Mac to (currently in beta) macOS Catalina.

You should seek out an updated version of ndtrack before you upgrade to macOS Catalina.

If you have no current intention of upgrading to macOS Catalina (the final version will likely be released in the Fall) then you can just ignore this warning. But this should be updated before you do that upgrade as it will no longer work after the upgrade.

Other than that you can ignore the warning.


Easiest way to access localhost from iPhone Imagine the following: I'm a webdeveloper and often have meetings with a client where I want to showcase my current work progress.

I want to showcase this both on my Macbook Pro and iPhone (to showcase responsiveness). I'm searching for a way to easily access the website on my localhost (Macbook) with my iPhone.

Possible solutions which don't work:

Using Ngrok - This comes close to what I want. I open the Ngrok URL on my Macbook and then open it on iPhone using the special feature 'Open safari tabs from Macbook'.
However, Ngrok is way to slow and buggy... If it weren't so slow this would be perfect...

Accessing localhost through network IP - I know it's possible to access your host machine with your iPhone by browsing to it's IP when the devices are on the same WiFi... But I don't always have the wifi-password of my clients, and it's a hustle to ask (they often don't know/have to search too long)... So not a reliable solution.

Other solutions? - What other options do I have? Isn't it possible to access my Macbook with my iPhone when I use my iPhone as personal hotspot (4G)? Or isn't something like this possible with Airdrop?

TL;DR:
I'm searching for the most easy and reliable way to open up my localhost (Macbook) with my iPhone. Without using Wifi. LTE Personal hotspot is allowed. Ngrok to slow.

Other than Ngrok, ssh.localhost.run is excellent for that purpose. You need to have the Openssh Client. Use :-

ssh -R 80:localhost:port ssh.localhost.run

Replace "port" with the port your server is running on. You will receive a link,  just like Ngrok, you can use that link. Other than localhost.run there is also serveo.net, use it the same way as localhost.run, but it is currently down, so localhost.run.


"Windows Date Format" in Excel on Mac our internal software based on Zend throws Date Exception Errors for Excel Files from Mac Users. Same File stored on Windows passes.

So someone told me that in both OpenOffice and Excel for Mac (some here use the 2011 version) you can switch to "Windows Date Format" somehow but i can not find anything about this on google nor can i find it in the settings.

Any idea?

The instructions for switching to Windows date format on Excel for Mac can be found here.

So the steps are:

On the Excel menu, click Preferences.
Under Formulas and Lists, click Calculation.
Under Workbook options, select the Use the 1904 date system check box.


iOS 11.4.1 Mail app w/ Exchange account keeps crashing “8badf00d” Summary: iOS 11.4.1 Mail app keeps crashing with a specific Exchange account. I didn't have this problem with iOS 10 on my iPhone 7 Plus. This all became an issue when I starting using iOS 11 and iPhone X.

I'm wondering is it something in my Exchange inbox that's causing the issue and if I can find out what it is, will deleting it help? Is this possibly due to a timeout issue? My exchange account has at least 300k emails in it. I'm in the process of cleaning that out.

I have done all the troubleshooting as far as deleting/adding the account again, restoring the backup of my iPhone, deleting read/delivery receipts from the inbox and it still crashes. I'm trying to decipher these logs/stack traces. I've attached part of a log below if that might help. Please let me know if this points out the issue and if I can fix it. Thanks in advance!

{"bug_type":"288","timestamp":"2018-09-05 09:09:24.12
-0400","os_version":"iPhone OS 11.4.1 (15G77)","incident_id":"48A9DAF4-59EB-44BC-AC64-BBF1195ACEBF"}

{

"build" : "iPhone OS 11.4.1 (15G77)",

"product" : "iPhone10,3",

"kernel" : "Darwin Kernel Version 17.7.0: Mon Jun 11 19:06:27 PDT 2018; root:xnu-4570.70.24~3/RELEASE_ARM64_T8015",

"tuning" : {

},

"incident" : "48A9DAF4-59EB-44BC-AC64-BBF1195ACEBF",

"crashReporterKey" : "89795b7b062045b5c64fe92ace4ef37c954cc667",

"date" : "2018-09-05 09:09:24.10 -0400",

"reason" : "scene-create watchdog transgression: com.apple.mobilemail exhausted real (wall clock) time allowance of 19.69 seconds\n\nProcessVisibility: Foreground\nProcessState: Running\nWatchdogEvent: scene-create\nWatchdogVisibility: Foreground\nWatchdogCPUStatistics: (\n \"Elapsed total CPU time (seconds): 24.660 (user 24.660, system 0.000), 21% CPU\",\n \"Elapsed application CPU time (seconds): 9.590, 8% CPU\"\n)",

"frontmostPids" : [

722,

58

],

"exception" : "0x8badf00d",

"absoluteTime" : 315751083593,

Is this possibly due to a timeout issue?

The 0x8badf00d error code basically means an application is taking too long, so you're on the right track in terms of the most likely problem (i.e. it being a timeout issue).

  I'm wondering is it something in my Exchange inbox that's causing the issue and if I can find out what it is, will deleting it help?

That certainly could explain it, although with 300K emails it may not be so easy to identify the culprit.

As a workaround/test you could try using another email client (such as MS Outlook) to see if that also encounters the same issue.

Also, if all your emails are in your inbox, you may want to try creating some Outlook Data Files (which basically appear as folders or separate mailboxes) to move bulk amounts of your email to to see if that helps you isolate the problem.

[UPDATE]

Apple's Developer Technical Q&A QA1693: Synchronous Networking On The Main Thread provides some additional info on the 0x8badf00d error code, although this is an archived document written for Developers.

I suspect the issue you're having is a little more involved (e.g. Mail may be performing other tasks that Outlook isn't, etc), and is therefore more sensitive to any potential problems with your MS Exchange data. I know that many organisations are even rolling out VMware's Boxer app because of issues accessing MS Exchange Server accounts on mobile devices.


Move similarly named images into a folder with the same name I am trying to create an automator app which will take all the images which are similarly named and create a folder with that name and move the images then into that folder and then archive that folder.

Thus turing the following into three folders:
Some long or short name depending on what it was named by whomever 001.jpg
Some long or short name depending on what it was named by whomever 002.jpg
Some long or short name depending on what it was named by whomever 003.jpg
Some long or short name depending on what it was named by whomever 004.jpg
Short image name 001.jpg
Short image name 002.jpg
Short image name 003.jpg
Short image name 004.jpg
Short image name 005.jpg
Short image name 006.jpg
Short image name 007.jpg
Short image name 008.jpg
My Mom named this one - it's her parrot 001.jpg
My Mom named this one - it's her parrot 002.jpg
My Mom named this one - it's her parrot 003.jpg
My Mom named this one - it's her parrot 004.jpg
My Mom named this one - it's her parrot 005.jpg
My Mom named this one - it's her parrot 006.jpg
My Mom named this one - it's her parrot 007.jpg
My Mom named this one - it's her parrot 008.jpg
My Mom named this one - it's her parrot 009.jpg
My Mom named this one - it's her parrot 010.jpg
My Mom named this one - it's her parrot 011.jpg
My Mom named this one - it's her parrot 012.jpg
My Mom named this one - it's her parrot 013.jpg

would become:
Some long or short name depending on what it was named by whomever.zip
Short image name.zip
My Mom named this one - it's her parro.zip

After you launched "Automator" and created a workflow:

Select "Files And Folders" at "Actions".
Double click on "Find Finder Items" and setup what and where to find your files.
Which means: select the folder where the first group of pictures are stored. And enter the search condition (Name contains "whomever").
Run the workflow to see the result - you should see what you expect.
Which means: you should see all the files containing "whomever".
Double click on "Create Archive" and setup how to name the archive and where to save it.
Add step 2 and 4 for the other 2 file name groups.
Run the workflow.

But I can not see why you need the "Automator" for this. You could do all this very easy in the Finder:

Select the files of the first group: click on the first file of one group (named "whomever..."), hold down the "shift" key and click on the last file of the first group.
Select "Compress" in the File menu of the Finder. You will get an archive named "Archive.zip". Rename it to "whomever.zip".
Proceed with step 1.

It might help to set the "View" of the Finder to "List".


Can Java 5 be installed on any other OS other than OS X 10.5? I have a legacy application that requires Java 5. I am using OS X 10.6.8. When I try to install the Apple Java 1.5 update, I see a warning that says Java 5 can only be installed on a OS X 10.5 system. Is this the only OS X version that supports Java 5?

This thread indicates one might use the shareware package Pacifist, to unpack and then reuse old Apple installers for Java 5 on Snow Leopard.

Disclaimer: The original author of this comment has no known affiliation or vested interest with the software vendor for Pacifist, nor has actually tried this himself. Still, there seem to be a lot of happy users in the linked thread. :)


Changing from HDD to SSD with my Airport Time Capsule I will receive a new SSD very soon (Samsung 850 EVO 500gb).
My question is, will it be possible to transfer all my data from my HDD(I have a time machine backup of my computer on the airport time capsule).

Like lets say, i a) I insert my new ssd in the mac with absolutely nothing on and unplug the hdd. b) Booting my mac while holding (⌘-R or alt button???).

After that would it be possible to choose my network and choose the airport time capsule where i saved my time machine backup? Hope my question makes sense. Thanks!

As long as you're on your Wi-Fi network, you should be able to do that, but if I were you I'd just buy a SATA-to-USB cable ($30 at Best Buy), install the SSD as usual, connect the HDD over USB, make a disk image of it with Disk Utility (in Recovery), and then install the image on the new drive. I did this when I upgraded my MacBook Pro to an SSD and haven't had any problems with it.


Ethernet via Cinema Display I want Ethernet on a MacBook Air running in clamshell mode.  Will the USB<-->Ethernet trinket work from the Cinema Display?

I’ve seen people have an external powered Hub connected to the Air, then connect the USB to Ethernet trinket to the hub and have no problems with it. If the Cinema Display functions as a normal hub, then you should have no problems with it.

The USB specification doesn’t make distinctions from internal/external ports (in theory).


How to boot from ISO without USB stick or DVD on Mac OS X 10.4.11 Tiger I would like to know a way to boot from an ISO disk image on my iMac running MacOS X Tiger. I DON'T want to use a USB stick or a DVD. Is this possible?

It's technically possible if you have your hard drive partitioned with the ISO on said partition (and made bootable of course). Otherwise, you'll need to use a USB or disk in order to boot it. If you go with the first option, you can use either Disk Utility or Terminal. This should help if you're using Terminal: http://osxdaily.com/2012/03/13/burn-an-iso-image-from-the-command-line/


Flash firmware without CH341A programmer In this Answer, user @y-h-wong commented that he flashed the bootrom without using a programmer. I'm guessing this was done from terminal somehow. Not sure if this is done from within OSX or from recovery terminal. Does anyone have the steps to do this?

Is the extraction process the same as if you were using the programmer?

I would like to install the full NVME bootrom drivers on my macbook air 2014 to enable hibernation properly.

A guide on MacRumors provided the step-by-step instructions to upgrade your SSD.

I guess the flashing itself should not be that much of a problem (see https://gist.github.com/elvisizer/2dfa119e959ae6f35389d4d56054f067 for further description)
The main point AFAIK is to inject a newer NVME driver into the (pre 2015) SCAP EFIPayload file that needs to be flashed.

If I understand correctly, @y-h-wong raw-edited the SCAP file (with hex editor e.g.) and copied the NVME driver from a newer Bootrom into the update for your pre 2015 MBA/MBP. The SCAP files can be extracted from the latest Mojave InstallESD (Packages/FirmwareUpdate.pkg/Scripts/Tools/EFIPayloads).

Edit:
Ok I just learnt that you can replace the NVME part using UEFI-Tool. This means, a new SCAP file can be built like that.
I'm just not yet confident enough on this to flash it using the mentioned commands, as I don't have any flashing hardware available right now and don't want to kill my system in case something goes wrong.

Edit2:
Ok, I now understand the UEFITool will only provide cap files, not scap files - meaning the file is not signed. I guess that's the reason why simple injection of the NVME section of the scap does not work like this.


What is a keyboard shortcut in Keynote to edit a text object without clicking it? Suppose I have a text object currently selected on a slide. I'd like a keyboard shortcut that lets me edit the text without erasing it, just like F2 does in the Microsoft world. Return is close: it enters text editing mode, but erases the contents of the text object.

Anybody have any ideas?

If you press control-q and then control-e it lets me edit the text field.


Tools or scripts for tracking a stolen or lost Mac? Actually I do use the prey project but was wondering about other tools or scripts one could use to find back information about a lost/stolen Mac.

With features like:
-Getting the ip address or any other localization information.
-Triggering the webcam remotely.
-Protect/destroy personal files remotely

One of the more popular ones is Lojack, a pretty well-respected software program for both Mac and Windows.


How to solve "User is not in sudoers file, incident reported" I added

"Syammala Naidu" ALL=(ALL) ALL

to /etc/sudoers, rebooted and logged in as Syammala Naidu and run sudo -i. Sudo tells me: user not in sudoers file, incident Reported.

How can I fix this?

sudo exclusively uses account names, not the user's full name. As a hint, account names don't contain spaces, so "Syammala Naidu" is not correct.
To find out a user's account name:

Open Terminal and run:
id -un

or, alternatively:

Open System Preferences.

Select Users & Groups.

If necessary, click the lock on the bottom left corner of the window and type an administrator's name and password to unlock the preference pane.

Right-click the account and select Advanced Options....

Locate the Account name property:

Use that account name in /etc/sudoers. To edit the file, use visudo. For more information, check man visudo and man sudoers.


Pages: line break appears before end of line For some very strange reason, I cannot seem to fit the text on line 2 inside the empty space of the 1st line. I tried deleting the words and re-writing them, which didn't work.
I tried changing font sizes back and forth, still didn't work.

I couldn't find this bug being referenced anywhere...

In the animation below / screen cap, I am only using delete and text keys of the computer.

This might be Non-breaking space between the words. Please press ⌘ cmd+⇧ shift+i to enable non visible characters. Here's example:


Trying to install Windows 10 on early 2008 MBP without using the BootCamp Assistant I have an early 2008 MBP, where I installed El Capitan. However I would like to split my HD and install Win10 as well. Since there is no direct support, it is quite difficult.
I find this question "How do I get Windows 10 installed on my macbook pro (late 2008)" here with a logical answer which was "How to install Windows without using the BootCamp Assistant."
My issue is when I want to bless my HD in Terminal, I get the following error message "Could not set boot device property: 0xe00002bc" and thus the rest of the instructions do not work.

Any suggestions, recommendations, idea how to solve it?

I already made a brand new OSX install, but the error is still the same.

Any help is appreciated.

Just a thought, but can you install Win 7 using the bootcamp that is designed for your system and then once installed upgrade to Win 10?

Note that the Windows 10 bootcamp drivers will not likely support your hardware but I have had some moderate success updating bootcamp drivers on Windows installations from within Windows by identifying any unsupported hardware by their hardware ID (in device manager) and then downloading the driver directly from the manufacturer.


Alternate DNS resolution for Safari on macOS? I use a Pihole on my network to provide local DNS service to block ads and various websites. I've noticed recently (maybe since Mojave) that Safari seems to bypass this. The Pihole device also functions as my DHCP server, and is configured to broadcast to clients that they should use its IP as the DNS server.

Running nslookup from the console indicates that the OS knows that the Pihole's IP is its DNS server.
Looking up known advertising domains via nslookup properly returns the Pihole's IP address (indicating that an ad coming from there would be blocked).
In the Network preferences pane, under DNS for the network interface, the Pihole's IP address is shown under DNS Servers.
Other web browsers (Chrome & Firefox) on the same MacBook Pro do not display the ads that Safari displays.
I have outbound port 53 blocked at my router for any device but the Pihole - switching nslookup's server to 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS) results in a connection timeout (which I'd expect with the outbound port blocked).
No other device on my network exhibits this behavior - including iOS devices.

networksetup -getdnsservers Wi-Fi reports "There aren't any DNS Servers set on Wi-Fi." If I manually set it via networksetup -setdnsservers Wi-Fi 192.168.1.22 the situation gets better but Safari's behavior still doesn't match Chrome's. And that's not really a viable solution long-term as I'll have to unset it every time I leave my home network.

Does Safari have some other means of doing DNS lookups that's hidden? How could it be bypassing DNS settings?

It sounds like you've done a pretty good job of covering all of your bases... as far as IPv4 is concerned. Maybe it's IPv6 that's causing you headaches? I believe that disabling IPv6 on the connection will fix the problem.  IIRC IPv6 can autoconfigure itself without DHCP.  If the rest of your network works with IPv6 then the queries could still be working over IPv6.


Is remote wipe of a Mac content possible? I was gifted a MacBook Pro but the giver rescinded the gift and has locked the laptop;  I agreed to return it providing I was assured the laptop would be unlocked long enough for me to download my research, manuscript and a screenplay.

So far the person has refused to unlock it and has threatened to wipe 6 months of my work from the laptop.  I have the device.  Can the person do that remotely?

The person does have the ability to remotely erase it via Find My Mac.


Can sleep password and screensaver password timeout settings be different? In El Capitan, is there a way to separate the request for password when the computer wakes from sleep from the request for password for stopping the screensaver?

See System Preferences --> Security & Privacy --> General tab: checkbox for "Require password  after sleep or screen saver begins."

I would like to keep the password request after the computer wakes from sleep, but I don't want a password to stop the screensaver.

No this isn't possible.

Nonetheless, this would be a great general security improvment for MacOS X.
For example since I type it pretty regularly but in a safe context, I would like to have an independant password to unlock my screensaver.

I suggest you to make your question a good proposal of security improvment
on the Apple feedback web server, section about MacOS X, since they didn't yet put in place a section about security feedback.


Is there an app for running Go code on an iPad? I know that there are multiple compiler apps for iOS, such as Pythonista. There are also apps to compile programs in other popular languages, like C++, C, and Java. However, as much as I have searched, I cannot find anything that runs Go code. As far as I can tell, there is only one app that is even Go-related on the App Store: Go By Example, which doesn’t compile code.

Is there any other way to run Golang code on an iOS device? Or is there an app that I am missing?

As far as I am aware, unfortunately, there are no iOS apps for running Go. You could try to add a shortcut to https://play.golang.org to the homescreen; this effectively emulates the functionality of being able to type and compile Go code. However, needless to say, this requires an Internet connection and so is of limited use if you really need to edit "on-the-go" (no pun intended).

There are a plethora of developers who have created apps for large varieities of languages, but, as you acknowledge, Go is consistently omitted from their repertoires. If you search for a popular language, like Python, for example, then choose one of the apps for it and look at more by the same developer, there is usually a large range of associated apps, each dealing with its own programming language. In searching for Go apps, I repeated this process many times, and found apps for Lua, Groovy, Haskell and other not-so-mainstream (by which I mean less popular according to TIOBE) languages, but no Go. My search however, was by no means exhaustive, and this seems to be a much better avenue than simply using the built-in "search" feature on the App Store, so, if you are really desperate for offline functionality, I would consider carrying on along these lines (if you have not done so already).

If you can wait to compile your code until you are online (on play.golang.org), then there are several text editors with Go syntax support (Coda for iOS is a personal favourite).


Keynote converter to pdf I'd like to hide some parts of the pictures, that I import to keynote presentation (I use version 6.2 (1861)). To do this I overlay white rectangles without shades on top of these parts of the images and use white color as a background color of the slide.

However, when I convert a slide with an overlaid rectangle (although the background is white and the rectangle is filled with white) I get an artifact: thin edge line of the rectangle in black on my pdf. How can I get rid of it?

I would suggest to use a simple app like Paintbrush.

Modify, crop or cut the image to your liking.

Save it with new name (to keep the original).

This way you wont have the problems of trying to hide it in Keynote.


un-sync iPhone and iPod Touch I bought an iPod touch first. I registered it with iTunes, gave it a name, etc. All was well, it synced when I connected it, made backups, etc.

Eventually I got an iPhone. I didn't need to register it with iTunes, it found my iPod touch data somehow. I don't think it ever asked me to give it a name. And the most annoying part, is that it syncs all the apps I put on the iPod Touch with the iPhone, and vice-versa.

How do I separate these two devices?

If the two devices are named the same it will backup/restore the same items. My recommendation is to rename one of your devices and a new profile will be created for it.


Charge MacBook 12" while connected with Google's USB-C to DisplayPort cable I have a MacBook 12" that I connect to my Dell 4K screen with a Google USB-C to DisplayPort cable (this one)

It works perfect. But now I am not able to charge the MacBook while connected because the cable takes the only USB-C port available.

So I need some kind of USB-C or a adapter that puts voltage on the cable back to the MacBook. Both I did not find yet.

Take a look at these two multiport adapters from Apple:

USB-C VGA Multiport Adapter (USB-C to USB-C/VGA/USB)
USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter (USB-C to USB-C/HDMI/USB)

There's no technical reason why third parties won't come out with adapters since all of this is standard. USB C charging, video formats, the connector type are all non-proprietary. Only time will tell if businesses invest in making these products, but Apple's two adapters work very well for the use case you describe.

Also keep an eye out for cables and monitors that send the required USB charging current over USB-C most higher quality displays should soon be able to charge your computer like Apple's previous generation displays now that the proprietary charge connection is gone from the MacBook (and others).


Does the time machine backup include the backups of my iPhone? I have taken a full backup of my iPhone on my MacBook (about 200GB), which has taken my MacBook storage to 90%! Then I have taken a backup of my MacBook using Time Machine on my external hard drive. My question: does the time machine backup in my external hard drive include the iPhone iOS backup?

I want to know because I want to delete the 200GB iOS backup from my MacBook. Both my iPhone and MacBook are running the latest OS.

Time Machine makes a backup of everything in your computer, and since your iPhone backup is in your computer, it will back it up too.

To make sure, you can locate your iPhone backup in your Mac and then open your Time Machine drive and look for the same files in the corresponding location, and see if they have been copied.

According to https://support.apple.com/bg-bg/HT204215, your iPhone backups are located by default in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/. Open that location in your Mac, have a look at how many files are there, how much space they take, etc. Then, once your Time Machine backup is done, open the backup drive, go to the current backup's folder, navigate to the same route (it should be Users/(your username)/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/) and see if you have the same files. This way you'll be sure.

EDIT: be warned: if you delete the files in your Mac, the next time you use Time Machine it will delete them in the most recent version of your Time Machine backup too (though it will keep them in your previous version).


How to update company's MacBook Pro with OS X Lion? How a company I work for should update my MacBook Pro to Lion? I have some options but I'm unsure which way to go?

Note: volume license is not an option (not that many Macs at my company).

Update to Lion using my Apple ID and ask for reimbursement. Cons: not
quite the right thing IMO as license is on myself then. Pro: pricing (€23.99)
Ask company to buy an USB stick with update. Pros: seems the
easiest way. Cons: pricing is at €59.99, so the company may not be willing to go that way when the update is cheaper in App Store.
Maybe a company can update via App Store by logging in with
company's Apple ID?

What you recommend? What's your experience?

The company should have an Apple ID set up. I would recommend that this is registered to a member of the IT team who is most responsible for software purchasing.

Then they can download OS X Lion from the app store, and have the license.

Is there a business requirement to be running Lion or is this user preference?


Software to track income and spending on OS X and Android There is this other question that asks about What OS X and iOS software combination tracks finances?

But most of the software listed there is much to powerful (and complicated) for me. I just tried out the demo for YNAB, but I can't get my head around that software. What the hell is a budget, anyway?

All I want is a very simple tool that allows me to:

begin with a starting balance
enter monthly income (salary)
enter monthly expenses (rent, health insurance, telephone)
optional: with date
optional: quarterly / yearly payments
optional: enter an end date for these monthly monetary flows (e.g. a loan that will be paid at a certain date)
enter spendings on my mobile phone as they happen
calculate a live balance and display it

I don't want to:

track stocks
create a savings plan
connect to my bank account
any other stuff

Plus:

looks nice
exports / saves to file in a format that other software can read (e.g. csv, MySQL database)

I would use an Excel sheet, if I didn't want to use it on my mobile phone.

Any suggestions?

It's not mac specific, but I'd recommend checking out Mint.com.  I was originally skeptical of letting a service connect to my bank accounts, but after using for a little while I am now a believer.   If you categorize your transactions for a month or two it learns, and you'll find that you need to spend less and less time manually entering data.


iPhone: Upgrading from 3.0 to 4.0.2 I have a quick question regarding upgrading to 3.0 to 4.02. To me this seems like common sense but I just want to double check before moving forward with the upgrade. Will he update wipe everything on my phone and then grab my backup in order to repopulate photos, contacts, sms, phone log, etc?

Yes, it will wipe out everything, install new OS and restore from backup (if you choose to do so). So, make sure you back up before upgrading.


How to sync two iPhones to the same Mac and to Nike+? The two iPhones appears in iTunes but the run data is not synced with Nike+

Humm, this is weird, mine does ok, but I never tried with both on iTunes... always one of a time.

I did found several forum discussions regarding the out of sync with Nike Plus, and this is from Aug 26th and already have 8 pages :o

it describes plenty of out of sync workouts (maybe it's an app bug)

http://forums.nike.com/thread.jspa?threadID=28016

probably is a good idea to post on Nike forum as well.


How can I change the metadata of my songs all at once? I have a bunch of songs for which I'd like to change the metadata (really just want to change capitalization for all of them). I'm not changing a field in all songs to one value, so selecting them all in iTunes won't work. They are AAC files. Is there an easy way to do this? Not having to download a third-party app would be nice, but I doubt it'll be that easy (maybe someone can prove me wrong :)).

You could also run a script like this in AppleScript Editor:

tell application "iTunes"
    repeat with t in selection
        tell t
            set name to my titlecase(name)
            set artist to my titlecase(artist)
            set album to my titlecase(album)
        end tell
    end repeat
end tell

on titlecase(x)
    do shell script "ruby -rubygems -KUe 'require \"titlecase\"
    print ARGV[0].titlecase' -- " & quoted form of x
end titlecase

The titlecase gem can be installed with sudo gem install titlecase.


Access Genius Bar history and notes online? I just had a Genius Bar appointment where the very helpful bartender(?) made some notes about the problem I was having. He said that the info would be emailed to me at my associated email address. I never got an email at that address... nor did I at my iCloud address.

Is there a place online that I can log into where I can access my Genius Bar history and notes?

Today (with some recent changes to the apple.com web site) You can access basic repair data at:

https://checkrepair.apple.com

Once you sign in, you may find that some case notes are not associated with your AppleID depending on how you initiated service and what was typed into the repair database system.

The functionality at https://supportprofile.apple.com also is spotty recently, but in the past that was a reliable source of repair and ownership information of devices registered to a specific Apple ID.

In general, the answer to your question is No - the full contents of Apple's repair database is only accessible to people that are trained in Apple's privacy policies. Your detailed notes also are not generally available to you - just summary information about some cases. If you need more data than you can access, contact AppleCare - online, phone or the genius bar to retrieve a case history and/or request information from case notes.

In specific, businesses can get added details through the Joint Venture program or as a self-servicing AppleCare account. Both cost money whether you pay annually or have 1,000 deployed devices across your business.


Printer Drivers for old models of Samsung, Xerox or Dell printers ( like Samsung ML-1520) I've got a quite old Samsung printer, model ML-1520. I can not find any drivers for it. Samsung seems to have stopped supporting OS X, and Apple only offers drivers for models not older than ML-1630.

I've tried to install the drivers by Apple and setup my printer as 1630 and other models, but it doesn't print.

Where can I find proper drivers?

(I'm writing both Q&A. For the purpose of search optimization I've added extra vendors in the header. My solution is applicable to all those vendors).

First to do: check if your printer is supported by Apple. It was not true in my case, but may be true in yours.
There are at least two opensource driver packages, supporting the printers which are abandoned by their vendors:
SpliX.

a set of CUPS Printer drivers for SPL (Samsung Printer Language) printers. If you have a such printer, you need to download and use SpliX.

Supported Printers

Dell 1100, 1110
Samsung CLP-200, CLP-300, CLP-500, CLP-600, CLP-610, CLX-216X, CLX-2170, CLX-3160, ML-1510, ML-1520, ML-1610, ML-1630, ML-1710, ML-1740, ML-1750, ML-2010, ML-2150, ML-2250, ML-2510, ML-2550, ML-2571, ML-3050, ML-3560
Xerox Phaser 3115, 3116, 3117, 3120, 3121, 3122, 3130, 3150, 3420, 3425, 5500, 6100, 6110

Samsung-GDI for Mac OS X
Supported Printers

Generic GDI Printer
Lexmark
Samsung ML-200, ML-210, ML-1000, ML-1010, ML-1020, ML-1200, ML-1210, ML-1220, ML-1410, ML-1430, ML-1440, ML-1510, ML-1520, ML-1610, ML-1710, ML-1740, ML-1750, ML-2010, ML-2150, ML-2250, ML-2550, ML-4500, ML-5080, ML-6040

Personal experience
I first installed SpliX and it worked well with documents printed from MS Word or PDFs. But it failed with printing .jpg images from Preview app or command-line lpr utility. So I switched to Samsung-GDI, which handles .jpg well.
Also, if a printer is set up twice with different drivers it doesn't work with any of them. So you should only have one printer in Settings > Printers (per each device). You can have both driver packs installed on your system, though.
Similar problem was discussed in Xerox 3117 driver for OS X Yosemite


Is there a way to reset search in Mail? I'm not sure how everyone is doing this. But I do roughly 20-30 mail searches a day.

But when the search is done and now I want to see the top of my most recent email (for new emails and whatnot). How do I get there?

There's no keyboard shortcut to do this. And if I were to do this manually I have to press the X in the search field. Scroll the email list to the to top by using the scroll bar. It's really cumbersome.

I hope someone comes up with something better than this, but…

X-out the search - this awkwardly leaves you in the now empty search box rather than in the mail list.
Select any mail in the list. [Or hit Tab until you get back into the list. Depending on how you have your tabbing set up that could be three presses, or about 10:\ ]
Press Home [or Fn/Left Arrow if you don't have a dedicated Home key]
Select the top mail.

Basically, with this method all you're gaining is the Home key-press to get you back to the top. The rest is still very manual.


Should I install new drivers on Bootcamp? I installed Windows on my Mac and Bootcamp installed NVidia Control Panel. Today I received a notification in the Control Panel about a new driver.

Should I install it or should I wait for drivers from Apple? I mean, does it install the first basic drivers and then I'm free to install new drivers or is every new driver provided by Apple?

Since you didn't mention you had a backup of the system or if you are equipped to troubleshoot a driver issue, you should probably not update things unless you have a problem.

Apple vets the drivers it provides to be sure they work well with Mac hardware - so although you are free to update drivers, you are skipping that vetting process. Unless the driver manufacturer messed up, you will should be as fine as any other user updating the driver so it's more an edge case of them not testing the new driver on Mac hardware than something that should break.

Apple's drivers are typically for the screen resolution, trackpad, system sensors and it's unlikely those need a change since your Mac hardware hasn't changed in most cases.


Is winSCP available for mac or only windows? I need a ftp for mac since my current viper ftp is corrupting my xml files. So just wanted to know if we have efficient FTP for mac users.

No, there is no native WinSCP.

Cyberduck is a free option.

Transmit (Paid) is the FTP client for macOS.


iOS App Store will not update apps unless the Update button is pressed many times This happens on Wifi and Cellular with iOS 9.1 on an iPhone 6. Clicking the update button results in the App Store somewhat ignoring the action where it seems to try updating for about 0.1 seconds (there's no way it can detect a real network failure that quickly), and then reverts back to the button as though nothing were pressed.

Repeatedly pressing the update button eventually results in the update going through, where it finishes without any issue (once it finally makes a real attempt to download it)

No other apps show any signs of having network issues and all other devices work fine on the WiFi network.

Auto-updates have been failing for a long time as well, not sure if related. "Unable to download software update" messages frequently pop-up randomly while I'm doing other things.

Not sure what caused the issue, but it was finally resolved by using "Reset Network Settings", which seems to do some kind of deep purge that requires rebooting the device (with a progress bar for some type of process that runs).


Hide invitations on work calendar, only show imminent events I have an Exchange work calendar syncing with my iPhone (iOS 11.3) and often I have many new work invitations appearing on my iPhone notifications and subsequently on my Apple Watch too.
For all of these invitations, I manage the replies (Accept/Decline) on my work computer. The only reason I have my iPhone syncing with my work calendar is to see which events are coming up in the next 15 minutes, and to see which room they're at.

Is there any way to hide all work event invitations from my iPhone? I only want to see the events as part of my iOS calendar.
I don't want any work events appearing in my notifications (except event reminders shortly before the event happens; those are fine). Lastly, I'd like to keep my personal event invitations, so turning off all calendar notifications doesn't seem to be a good solution.

You can manage these notifications in Settings > Notifications > Calendar. This will allow you to configure your notification preferences individually for both invitations and upcoming events. There isn't a "turn notifications off" toggle for them individually, but you can manually disable all of the alerts (sounds, badges, banners etc.) for invitations alone.

I misread the last part of your question. My mistake. I don't know if it is possible to adjust notification preferences for individual accounts. I ran into this issue a while back and never found a solution.

So, in summery this is a no, you can’t have some notifications and not the rest.


How can I map keyboard keys to mouse axes in Terminal? How can I map the mouse axes to my keyboard keys in the Mac OSX 10.6 Terminal? For example, moving the mouse up (positive x) triggers a keypress of W. Is this built in, or do I need a software package? The only search results I found were for mouse-driver, which I don't have on my system.

You could also use KeyRemap4MacBook.

You can assign other keys to the mouse key actions by creating a private.xml. The test folder has an XML file with all the predefined remappings.


How to replace rather than add tags in MacOS? I've been scratching my brain on this one for a while. In macOS, it's easy to add tags to a file (whether right-clicking on a file, using the toolbar shortcut button or using the File menu). In each case, this opens the Tags menu which allows you to choose a tag that you want to add (for example, the default color-based tags). It's equally easy to remove any currently assigned tags.

However, I can't find a way to replace all existing tags with a new one. Let me explain my case scenario:

I add a tag "ToDo" (Blue) to a file.
Once I begin work I have to replace the "ToDo" tag with an "In Progress" tag (Orange).
When I complete the work, I have to replace the "In Progress" tag with "Completed" (Green).

Currently, for steps 2 & 3, I have to open the Tags menu, manually remove any tags assigned to the file/folder, and finally add the new tag.

Is there a way to simplify that process by removing all assigned tags and replacing them with the new tag, all in one go? I assumed that holding down the Option key (or another modifier) may change the "Add Tag" action to a "Replace Tag" action, but no success.

I know I could achieve this with Terminal Scripting or Keyboard Maestro, but I'm trying to see if there's a native way to do this.

Thanks!

A native solution:

Define a custom keyboard shortcut for the Finder.app in Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts. Map the menu item “Tags…” to some keyboard shortcut, I used ⌘ CommandS.
Now, selecting any file and hitting ⌘ CommandS brings up a little window where you can enter your tags.

⌘ CommandA selects all existing tags, you can then write your new tags and confirm with enter.

This means you can replace all tags of a file with “Important” by typing ⌘ CommandS, ⌘ CommandA, “Important”, ⏎ Return, ⏎ Return.
The window also does completion of tags, so a (case-insensitive) unique prefix of the desired tag name is enough.


Display iPhoto library name in application title bar I am working with multiple iPhoto libraries and it isn't always clear which one is currently open when launching iPhoto. How can I display the name of the iPhoto library in the application title bar so that I always know which library I have open?

Doing a bit of searching, it seems that iPhoto Library Manager will do this if iPhoto is launched from that application.

As an alternative, is there a way to force iPhoto to prompt to select a library every time it launches?

Holding ALT/Option when you start the app provides a dialogue on startup to choose your iPhoto Library.  Someone may be able to suggest an AppleScript that replicates this on a click, so you can replace your iPhoto dock icon with a scripted alias instead.


Make the enter key send message on iPad I use a Bluetooth keyboard with my iPad. When I am sending messages through the Messages app, the enter key does not initiate a "send" the way I expect (it, instead, just returns down to the next line). Is there a way to make the "enter" key send the message instead of dropping down to the next line? Some magic key combination perhaps?


ImageMagick - Convert multipage pdf to animated gif I have a two-page PDF file that I would like to convert to an animated GIF file.  A post on the TeX StackExchange gives the following ImageMagick one-liner:

convert -verbose -delay 50 -loop 0 -density 300 file.pdf file.gif

If I try this on a linux box (convert --version gives 6.5.4-7 2012-04-10) I get this log:

"gs" -q -dQUIET -dPARANOIDSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dNOPROMPT -dMaxBitmap=500000000 -dAlignToPixels=0 -dGridFitTT=0 "-sDEVICE=pnmraw" -dTextAlphaBits=4 -dGraphicsAlphaBits=4 "-r300x300"  "-sOutputFile=/tmp/magick-XX30a4nG" "-f/tmp/magick-XX690OkA" "-f/tmp/magick-XX3GCKhu"
/tmp/magick-XX30a4nG[0] PNM 1512x1134 1512x1134+0+0 8-bit DirectClass 9.811mb
/tmp/magick-XX30a4nG[1] PNM 1512x1134 1512x1134+0+0 8-bit DirectClass 9.811mb
file.pdf[0] PDF 1512x1134 1512x1134+0+0 16-bit DirectClass 9.811mb
file.pdf[0] PDF 1512x1134 1512x1134+0+0 16-bit DirectClass 9.811mb
file.pdf=>file-linux.gif[0] PDF 1512x1134 1512x1134+0+0 16-bit Palette PseudoClass 111c 2.620u 0:03

[gs is GPL Ghostscript 8.70 (2009-07-31)] and it works as expected.  But if I try this on my mac, using the ImageMagick suite installed by macports (6.8.0-7 2013-01-04), I get this log:

"/opt/local/bin/gsx" -q -dQUIET -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dNOPROMPT -dMaxBitmap=500000000 -dAlignToPixels=0 -dGridFitTT=2 "-sDEVICE=pngalpha" -dTextAlphaBits=4 -dGraphicsAlphaBits=4 "-r300x300"  "-sOutputFile=/var/folders/kf/t7750q1w8xjcjy0059bpyx180000gq/T/magick-15750GLLaATgky5I1" "-f/var/folders/kf/t7750q1w8xjcjy0059bpyx180000gq/T/magick-15750ljasKifrwJcW" "-f/var/folders/kf/t7750q1w8xjcjy0059bpyx180000gq/T/magick-15750w8mj9AZrkJA8"
/var/folders/kf/t7750q1w8xjcjy0059bpyx180000gq/T/magick-15750GLLaATgky5I1 PNG 1512x1134 1512x1134+0+0 8-bit sRGB 64.5KB 0.050u 0:00.049
file.pdf PDF 1512x1134 1512x1134+0+0 16-bit sRGB 64.5KB 0.000u 0:00.000
file.pdf=>file.gif PDF 1512x1134 1512x1134+0+0 16-bit Palette sRGB 106c 0.410u 0:00.409

[/opt/local/bin/gsx is GPL GhostScript 9.06 (2012-08-08)]
This time the resulting GIF file has only one frame, the first page of the PDF.

My workaround so far has been to use pdftk file.pdf burst to split out each page of the PDF to its own file, then convert [options] pg_*.pdf file.gif.  This works fine, but I'd prefer a one-line script.

The mac versions being more recent, I would guess it's a matter of implementation.  The only major difference I see between the two is -sDEVICE=pnmraw for the linux version and -sDEVICE=pngalpha for the mac.  Can I tell convert to pass options to gsx?

The following command worked well for me from a paper PDF I've worked on. The only difference from your original command is deactivating the alpha channel:

convert -alpha deactivate -verbose -delay 50 -loop 0 -density 300 paper.pdf file.gif

I'm using Version: ImageMagick 6.8.3-3 2013-02-21 Q16 http://www.imagemagick.org and homebrew.


How to run multiple instances of Firefox? My Firefox ESR installation has just updated itself to Firefox 68.2.0esr, from the previous version, and now I no longer seem to be able to run multiple instances of Firefox (using different profiles) the way I used to be able to before.

I could start the first Firefox instance from the dock, having previously set it up to ask me which profile to use when it started, and then, when I needed to start an alternative profile, I could do so via the terminal with:

open -n -a 'firefox'

However, this now just seems to open a new window of the already running Firefox, rather than a new instance (which the -n option is supposed to (and used to) start).

Is it still possible to run multiple instances/profiles of Firefox somehow?

Assuming you already have the proper profiles setup, try:

open -n -a /Applications/Firefox.app --args -no-remote

Mozilla seems to have recently unified behavior of the no-remote argument across all platforms.


What does it mean to sync apps to iPhone What does it mean to sync apps to iPhone? I don't understand exactly what this does, or why I'd want to turn it on. What are the advantages/disadvantages of enabling "Sync Apps" in iTunes to my iPhone?

This Apple Support article provides a quick summary of what syncing does. Basically, as XAlexOwnZX mentions, a sync copies applications, music, and other information between your iTunes account and your iDevice. This process backs up the content (apps, etc.) on your computer.

The advantage of syncing is that if your iPhone gets corrupted, you'll be able to restore it (or its replacement) to working condition, with all of the purchased content that is installed.

The disadvantage is that syncing takes time - however, with iOS 5, you can choose to sync over WiFi and you don't need to tether your iPhone to your computer.


Do I need to reinstall OS X after accidentally removing Python? I managed to delete my python in usr/bin by foolishly doing sudo rm /usr/bin/python and now it seems like I need to reinstall my OS.

First off is this necessary? And secondly is there an easy way to do this without having to erase everything on my disk?

In other words ideally I would like my programs I have installed to remain there after reboot saving me the trouble of having to install everything again to date. Is this possible?

This question probably has all the answers for you. In short there is no easy way. Your options are:

Recover the files from a (Time machin) Backup, if existent.
Reinstall OSX, e.g. from the Recovery mode pressing  Command+R at the startup screen
Copy the missing files from the Recovery partition (check if the partition is up to date first). E.g. by doing cp -a /bin /Volumes/<your disk name>


two click to minimize window I got my new mac and when I maximise the window (with the upper green button) and I want to minimize  it I need to click on two buttons(since the minimize button ,middle button is greyed out...)
 why is that ? and how can I fix it that when I max the window I can min it in one click

when I click on app to close I still see the app in the dock with black dot under it, and I need to right click and close it , how can I avoid that ? I want that when I click on close the will close also from the dock...
I mean something like command Q

Here is chrome after I click on the upper red button to close it

I use the latest version of osx 10.11.6

This is really two separate questions, but as both are very much Mac Basics, let me have a go at both in one...

The green dot is not Maximise, it is Full-Screen. Full-screen moves an app into its own Space & removes the menu bar, unless you hover the cursor near the top of the screen. You can escape from this by hovering at the top & clicking the green button, or often the  Esc   key will perform the same task.

Maximise will preserve the Menu Bar & share the screen with any other app also open.
To specifically Maximise, rather than Full-Screen you need to hold  Opt ⌥  [sometimes labelled  Alt ⌥  the same as Windows] as you click the green button [you will see the twin arrows in the dot change to a + sign instead, see below]. Opt/clicking again will then Restore, same as Windows & you will also still have the yellow button available to Minimise.

Full Screen

Maximise

Your other issue, with applications remaining in the Dock is that Mac, unlike Windows, does not quit an app when the last window is closed. (There are some exceptions to that, System Prefs, for example, will quit if you close the window.)

This is an essential difference between the two platforms.

If you want to quit an app, use  Cmd ⌘   Q  or Quit from the File menu.
This allows your current workspace in that app to be remembered & restored the next time you launch the app. Windows cannot do that.
If you close all windows first, then Quit, that workspace will be forgotten.

It would be well worth spending an hour or two going through the Apple knowledge base on Mac Basics to familiarise yourself with how it works.
I would especially have a look at Spaces & Mission Control [multiple desktops] because that may be your ideal way to work without having to maximise/minimise all the time


How can I burn a CD from iTunes and include CD track names and cover art image I want to burn a CD from iTunes and include a picture of my own as the cover art. So then when people stick the CD into their computer, it shows a picture in iTunes in the cover art section.

You can't.

CD do not contain any image anywhere. What happen when you insert the CD is that iTunes looks at the number of songs, their length, the length of silence between song and derives a number from it. It then asks the iTunes Store to find if a CD with this pattern exists. If it does the iTunes Store returns the cover art and all the metadata about the CD (Artist, album name, song names...).

For CDs you burned yourself you can't provide this information to iTunes just from the CD. Unless you find a label to release your CD to the masses and then Apple will add it to its list.


What is the best way to make a conference call/broadcast video from an iPhone? This is the scenario: there's a wedding and a couple of friends can't make it, because we're in different countries. One friend is willing to transmit the wedding live with his iPhone, but we haven't found anything that allows us to conference call (Facetime and Skype conference call seem to not be supported on iOS devices, but I'm not sure).

There's five of us that want to be connected simultaneously, perhaps the best option is to "broadcast" the call to a service such as justin.tv?

For broadcasting the video, you can use Qik. It will allow for live interaction during the broadcast over chat. Here's the iOS app.


What happens if you have more than 1 apple id associated with 1 account...? I have an iPhone with my own Apple ID and my daughter has an iPod Touch with her own Apple ID. Am I able to set iMessages syncing so I get my messages AND all of her messages sent to my iPhone, without having any of MY messages sent to her iPod Touch? (shes 8)

Would I just add her apple id and password on my phone? Will I then get messages for both accounts? And would she still only  receive her messages like normal, but would NOT receive any of my messages?

How would I set that up on my iPhone so all the texting done by me with my contacts are sent from my iPhone, but so that I am also able to view and monitor all her iPod Touch messages?  What will happen if I add her Apple ID to my iPhone?

Will that work?

I understand you want to keep an eye out... but all messages?  and no privacy? ;-)

That said.

What you could try is setting up a extra account (user) on your iMac/Macbook. Hookup her iCloud account there. You can swap between your own account and 'her' account on the fly.

When you then open iMessage on the desktop i think (and expect) that you would find all copies of her iMessages. That is, Apple iMessages, true SMS are not delivered (only on the iPhone). But since she has a iPod Touch... i think you should be safe. Give it a try.


Post a file from pages.app to a Yahoo! group My wife and I can't figure out how to post a file from the Pages.app on her iPad to a Yahoo! group.  From Pages.app, she can email the file to herself, but can't post it to the file sharing section of Yahoo! groups.

Since she got it, my wife has been working diligently to ditch her laptop and go iPad only.  Until now, nearly everything she needs to do has been doable.  Some things are harder, but almost always, they are "doable."  This is the first time we couldn't find a solution without using a laptop.

The file that needs to be posted are PTA meeting minutes (taken directly on the iPad in Pages.app) and the Yahoo! group is one that was created years ago and is already well established for the PTA (i.e., We can't move the whole PTA over to another service like iCloud).

Any suggestions out there?

Did you try exporting as ms word files or PDF files and then uploading that to yahoo!group? If all things fail there is still the snap shop option of taking a screenshot of the document and uploading as a jpg graphics file. You can take screenshots by holding down the on and home button *at the same time.


macOS Big Sur - Where is the icon file (.icns) for System Preferences.app? On macOS Big Sur, I believe this is the location for the Sys Prefs app: /System/Applications/System Preferences.app, but I cannot find a .icns icon file for the app anywhere in this directory. So where is the icon file for Sys Prefs app?
Command I use to find .icns file in the current directory (fd can be installed with brew):
fd -e icns

The System Preferences icon...
In macOS Catalina the System Preferences icon, PrefApp.icns, is located at:
/System/Applications/System Preferences.app/Contents/Resources/PrefApp.icns

However, in macOS Big Sur it is now included in its Assets.car file:
/System/Applications/System Preferences.app/Contents/Resources/Assets.car

In Finder, you can right-click on the application bundle and select Show Package Contents to navigate to these files, or copy them using Terminal.
The image below is a third-party utility called Asset Catalog Tinkerer, to which I have no affiliation. You can use it to view the contents and drag and drop out of it the image you want.


How to Rescue a Scratched CD/DVD on Mac OSX I have a scratched DVD and can't copy its content to my hard drive on Mac OSX. When trying to copy, I get error 36: "can't complete the operation because some data can't be read or written"

How can I fix this issue?

Step 1: Install Homebrew

In case you haven't heard of Homebrew, it's a software manager that can install all sorts of professional tools (actually, it can install almost anything) on your mac using the terminal.

For instructions on how to install homebrew, visit the Homebrew Website.

Step 2: Install ddrescue

ddrescue is an open source disk recovery tool. It is capable of copying your damaged digital media (hard disk drives / CDs / DVDs) without getting stuck on the "bad" parts of the media. It will simply replace the "bad" parts with blank space.

To install ddrescue, open Terminal and type:

MyMBP:~ MyUsername$ brew install ddrescue

Step 3: List the existing disks

Notice the last disk - /dev/disk2 is the physical DVD drive and MyDVD is the name of the DVD inserted to the drive.

MyMBP:~ MyUsername$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            250.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +249.7 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 197F2F12-3300-4DD1-8DB5-F14532F3D0B8
                                 Unencrypted

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            MyDVD                   *4.7 GB     disk2

Step 4: Unmount the DVD

To be able to rescue the DVD you should unmount it like so:

MyMBP:~ MyUsername$ diskutil unmount /volumes/MyDVD/
Volume Oct 31 2013 on disk2 unmounted

This action does not eject the drive, only makes it so other parts of the operating system won't be able to use it while the recovery is in progress.

Step 5: Recover the DVD into a .iso file

This action will try to read the entire DVD and write the recovered bytes to a .iso file which can then be used to burn a new DVD or mount directly into the operating system:

NOTE: Wait for it to finish - it can take quite a long time.

MyMBP:~ MyUsername$ ddrescue -n -b 2048 /dev/disk2 MyDVD.iso MyDVD.log
GNU ddrescue 1.22
     ipos:    2736 MB, non-trimmed:   131072 B,  current rate:    1985 B/s
     ipos:    2758 MB, non-trimmed:   327680 B,  current rate:       0 B/s
     opos:    2758 MB, non-scraped:        0 B,  average rate:   1840 kB/s
non-tried:    9223 PB,  bad-sector:        0 B,    error rate:    1260 B/s
  rescued:    2757 MB,   bad areas:        0,        run time:     24m 58s
pct rescued:    0.00%, read errors:        5,  remaining time:         n/a
                              time since last successful read:         52s
Copying non-tried blocks... Pass 1 (forwards)

Step 6: Mount the recovered .iso file and copy its content

Use this instruction to mount the .iso file to the OS. You should then be able to open this file as if it were the original DVD and recover your files. Do note, that some of the files may be broken because of the "bad sectors" but hopefully the majority of your files will be ok.

Step 7: Upvote this answer :)

I hope this process worked for you. If it didn't write a comment and I'll try to help.


Connect a Bluetooth keyboard as a game controller to an iPad? Is it possible to connect a Bluetooth keyboard as a game controller to an iPad?

Go to settings - accessibility - switch control, then set up switches using external devices and use the keyboard buttons. Then create a recipe and add all the buttons as taps on the screen where the buttons are located. To make it easier, set the preset recipe as your controls, and when you triple press the home button it will turn on the keyboard taps.


Cannot boot recorvery I am trying to re-install our Mac Mini. Looking around Apple's website, it seems the Recovery Disk Assistant is the way to do it.

I have followed the instructions for the OSX Recovery Disk Assistant 1.0.

When I boot, no matter what key combination I try, the boot selection screen does not appear. I have tried holing down the Alt, Ctrl, C and Windows+R keys.

I installed the assistant on an external hard drive and am using a Windows keyboard.

If you're using a Windows keyboard, the Windows key is usually synonymous with option. Hold just the Windows key as the system boots and you'll get the... Options (get it?).

Failing that, if you have an internet connection, try Windows+r. If you don't have a recovery partition it should go to internet recovery and download what it needs from Apple.


3 Monitors in a row and I want the dock in the middle I have an iMac 27 inch with a 22 inch monitor to the left and a 23 inch monitor to the right. I want the dock to be in the middle and want all monitors to be arranged from left to right. I keep my dock on the left hand side of my monitor. So when I position my monitors left to right it moves to the most left monitor.

Is there a way I can force the dock to stay on the middle monitor and not move to the left monitor?

Software version 10.11.1

Switch off 'Displays have separate Spaces' in System Prefs > Mission control.

Then set the middle monitor to be the primary in
System prefs > Displays > Arrangement
by dragging the menu bar to that monitor

After the question edit -
I'm afraid if you want the Dock on the left edge there is no way to achieve this. The above solution only applies if you have the Dock at the bottom, otherwise it has nowhere to 'sit' & will always go to the first 'edge' it can find, which in this case is the left side of the left monitor.

You could try looking at something like DragThing instead, which can be anchored anywhere. I actually anchor mine to the right of my left monitor on a 2-screen setup, which effectively puts it where the red bar is on this image.

Late Edit
DragThing, after 20 years of sterling service, will no longer be supported after Mojave & is no longer available for purchase.


Which of iOS apps allow customizing font size? Which of iOS apps that allow customizing font sizes:

either through support of DynamicType / LargerText system settings (and BoldText that can be helpful to improve readability)
or have their own settings for font size--and how broad is the size range available?

One of the goals for such a list is to help understanding how font sizes can change when switching between devices with different DPI and resolution--given current variety: iPad Mini/Air, iPhone 6/6+, earlier iPhones.

Ideally I'd be happy to compare screenshots, but doubtful how it can be achieved here at SE with reasonable efforts.

(please contribute to the list with any other apps, and feel free to edit to make the list more accurate--this is a community wiki answer)

Notation for the list below:

With few exceptions, any app falls into on of these categories:

it supports System Settings > Dynamic Type and Bold Text (I mark it as "Dynamic&Bold" below)
OR also supports System Settings > Larger Text (I mark as "Larger Text")
OR has its own app-specific font size settings ("App settings")
OR has NO font size customization whatsoever ("No customization")

For each app, I also specify how its maximum text size compares to standard system apps at maximum Dynamic Type setting if different (the app font is Smaller or Larger than in system apps)--to make it easier for a given app to understand its text size limit, given only few minutes with built-in apps only at Apple outlet.

Social networks

Facebook:
 - all UGC (News Feed, User Timeline, Individual post and comments): Dynamic&Bold (since 2015-Nov-06); much Smaller
 - app interfaces: No customization; smaller

Twitter:
 - timeline: App settings (3 sizes); smaller
 - settings screen: Dynamic&Bold

Google+: No customization; Much smaller

Instagram: No customization; Much smaller

VKontakte (both iPad- and iPhone apps): No customization; Smaller

Email apps

Mail:
 - plaintext emails: Dynamic&Bold
 - HTML emails: font scales only with Larger Text, but not with Dynamic Type(!); but can be much smaller than for plain text emails / than in other apps

GMail:  No customization; Smaller (both for plaintext and HTML emails)

Google Inbox:  No customization; Smaller (both for plaintext and HTML emails)

AirMail: Dynamic Text, App Settings; no LargerText support (text gets smaller instead)

Calendar (by Apple): Dynamic&Bold

Task managers

OmniFocus:
- Dynamic&Bold throughout the app
- LargerText for leaf-level outline items and Note editing only; No for outline groups

Things: No customization; smaller

Instant Messengers

Messages (iMessage):
- history of chat with a contact: LargerText
- list of contacts on left sidebar: Dynamic&Bold

Skype: No customization; Much Smaller

Telegram:
- history of chat with a contact: Dynamic Type (no Bold Text); smaller
- list of chats: No customization; Smaller

Web browsers

Safari:
- regular browsing: No customizaion; pinch to zoom leads to horizontal scrolling. Smaller.
- has a special Reader Mode with App Settings: wide range of sizes, comparable to the range of Larger Text. Works only for article-type web pages, not everywhere.

All other browsers tried (Google Chrome, Opera, Yandex Browser, iCabMobile): No Customization; pinch to zoom leads to horizontal scrolling. Smaller.

Office documents

Google Drive: No Customization

Google Docs: No customization: only document zoom, leads to horizontal scrolling. Smaller

Google Sheets: No Customization: only document zoom, leads to horizontal scrolling. Smaller

Maps

Google Maps: No customization; Smaller

Apple Maps: Dynamic Type only

Other built-in apps

Settings: Dynamic&Bold

Notes: LargerText

Reminders: LargerText

home screen: No customization

built-in keyboard: Bold Text only

Other third-party apps

Pocket:
- list of articles: Dynamic&Bold
- aricle body: App settings: wide range of sizes, comparable to the range of Larger Text

Google Keep: No Customization. Much Smaller.


How to access web dev servers running on localhost with non-standard ports from the network? On one Mac in my household I develop applications with various tools like Jekyll or Meteor. They usually have their own default ports for their development web servers; Jekyll uses 4000, Meteor 3000, and so.

So on that Mac I'd go to 127.0.0.1:4000 (or localhost instead of the IP address) to access my application. I have another Mac on the same LAN and I'd like to see that too. I thought it'd just be 192.168.0.164:4000 (for example), but that's not working. Pinging that IP works fine though, and so does SSHing (if I enable it in Sharing). I thought the 192.168.0.164 therefore would just translate to that Mac's localhost and the ports and HTTP would work fine.. I'm clearly missing something.

They're both pretty much fresh Macs: not much installed software. The firewall was off by default. I couldn't see anything in System Preferences > Sharing that seemed appropriate. How can I get 192.168.0.164:4000/3000/whatever port working?

This may be considered a duplicate question as I arrived at the solution from this answer.. I didn't give up searching, sorry about that.

To help others I'll mention what I got wrong.

I didn't have to change any firewall or sharing settings - it was to do with where the application was being hosted. I assumed that when I viewed 192.168.0.164 from the other Mac, it'd magically map to the host's 127.0.0.1... that is not the case!

So instead I explicitly hosted the application on 192.168.0.164 instead of 127.0.0.1 and it worked fine!


Allow only specific AD users/groups to login I've been doing some testing as my company is planning to integrate our mac users into the windows active directory environment.

Joining/removing computers from a windows domain is cake, everything can be done via the Mac's Directory Utility.

Is there a way for us to control which active directory users or groups can login to this mac?

After joining a mac to a windows domain, anyone with a proper domain account can login to the computer. And by proper, I mean anyone from the domain by default.

Thanks!

You can modify the properties of com.apple.loginwindow.netaccounts and com.apple.access_loginwindow to create custom login access.  This can also be achieve through third party vendors.  Centrify is a good third party mac AD plugin that allows to set Zones(AD Users/groups) for login access.  There are also MCX and profile options to set login window access.  Below is the way I have gotten to work using the modifying com.apple files for custom access.

Centrify Link

Original Link to guide I used   ---> Answer is about half way down in the comments.

You can manually edit and add AD groups with dseditgroup.  First check to see if the two files exist:

/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/groups/com.apple.loginwindow.netaccounts

and

/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/groups/com.apple.access_loginwindow

If those files exist then move on to "Adding the groups to the access_loginwindow" below.  If they don't exist you will need to create them with:

dscl . -create /Groups/com.apple.loginwindow.netaccounts
dscl . -create /Groups/com.apple.loginwindow.netaccounts PrimaryGroupID $GID1
dscl . -create /Groups/com.apple.loginwindow.netaccounts Password \*
dscl . -create /Groups/com.apple.loginwindow.netaccounts RealName "Login Window's custom net accounts"

dscl . -create /Groups/com.apple.access_loginwindow
dscl . -create /Groups/com.apple.access_loginwindow PrimaryGroupID $GID2
dscl . -create /Groups/com.apple.access_loginwindow Password \*
dscl . -create /Groups/com.apple.access_loginwindow RealName "Login Window ACL"

You will need to change $GID1 and $GID2 in the above script to a free GID number, for both the com.apple.loginwindow.netaccounts and com.apple.access_loginwindow files.  You can use this script to check if a GID is being used by the system.

dscl . -list /Groups PrimaryGroupID | grep $desiredGID

Change $desiredGID to a number you want to check is free. (I used 206 for netaccounts and 235 for acess_loginwindow from the guide linked above, and they were always open)

"Adding the groups to the access_loginwindow"

dseditgroup -o edit -n /Local/Default -u admin -p -a ADgroup -t group com.apple.loginwindow.netaccounts

Change ADgroup to the name of the Active Directory group you want to allow access to at the login window.  (ex. "Sales Team").  Also change admin to your local user admin account.  It will prompt for password.

Then add the com.apple.loginwindow.netaccounts to the com.apple.access_loginwindow file.

dseditgroup -o edit -n /Local/Default -u admin -p -a com.apple.loginwindow.netaccounts -t group com.apple.access_loginwindow

dseditgroup -o edit -n /Local/Default -a localaccounts -t group com.apple.access_loginwindow

Again change admin to your local admin account.  The first one adds the file that holds the AD groups nested in it, the second line allows for your local accounts on the computer to log in.  Now if you go to System Preferences-->Users & Groups-->Login Options-->Options  next to "Allow network users to log in at login window".  You should see the AD groups listed that you want allowed to access the computer.


Getting started with jailbroken iOS development? What do I need to code on a jailbroken iOS device?

I think I've already got all of the programs that I need - Xcode 4.3 (and iOSOpenDev), the iOS 5 SDK, theos, ldid and dpkg.

The Cydia FAQ is probably the best source of information on this topic. See http://cydia.saurik.com/faq/developing.html. Here’s an excerpt:

  Q: Where do I get started with developing for jailbroken iOS?

  A: It helps to know something about developing for normal iOS. You might also check out the iPhone Dev Wiki.

The wiki it points to has several “Quick Start” articles: http://iphonedevwiki.net/index.php/Main_Page#Quick_start


Edit commands in iTerm2 with standard OS text keyboard/mouse controls I'm a heavy terminal user, but I'd like to be edit commands like I would in any other mac app, e.g.:

select a portion of a command with the mouse and press backspace to delete it
use shift+up to select all of a command to the start
use the mouse to click and place the cursor (not in conjunction with holding modifier keys)

I've tried Preferences > Profiles > Keys > "Natural Text Editing" but it doesn't seem to work.

I appreciate that many people prefer to use terminal-specific bindings, e.g. vim/emacs modes, but I'd just like to be able to interact with a terminal like I'd interact with any other app.

I use the bash shell and do much of what you want. I use the mouse to select something and command-c to copy or command-v to paste. I can place the cursor wherever I want with mouse. Well it doesn't really move the cursor but I highlight what I want to copy or cut. The up and down arrows scrolls thru previous commands. Typing tcsh adds more functionality.


Clock problems with dual boot mac system:- 10.6 and 10.8 I have a dual boot mac pro 3,1 : one hard drive with Snow Leopard (10.6.8) and one with Mountain Lion (10.8.?). When I boot up with Mountain Lion it unfailingly resets the clock to about 4 am. This results in my editing software 'Lightworks' not responding to my attempts to access it. Could anyone help with this problem? It is driving me nuts!

The fact that it resets the clock is usually an indication that the PRAM battery needs replacing. Without the PRAM battery keeping things running right, the clock can get messed up plus there can be all sorts of other wierdness that can be difficult to track down. With a machine of this age, it is a good idea to replace it anyway, and it seems pretty cheap to do so:

http://www.newertech.com/products/pram_3v.php

As a short term work around, make sure that the "System Preferences" -> "Date & Time" settings are properly adjusted with your proper time zone and the "Set date and time  automatically" boxes selected. This should help with the clock, but fixing the battery issue will make sure nothing else is bad.

After replacing the battery, resetting the PRAM would be a good idea.

OS X Mountain Lion: Reset your computer’s PRAM
http://support.apple.com/kb/ph11243

http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2010/12/04/how-when-why-to-reset-the-pram-smc-on-your-mac/

http://www.macexpertguide.com/2012/11/18/reset-pram-mac-troubleshooting/

http://macs.about.com/od/usingyourmac/qt/Reset-Pram.htm


Browser Custom Protocol unsafe Using other helpful answers on the StackExchange community I have a custom URI protocol registered on a client's machine. It points to a simple AppleScript that we can then change as needed. In testing on our Mac here, it works without issue with a link formatted like:

oururl://path/here

However, when trying to click that url on their machines, in Safari, Firefox, and Chrome, the URL is automatically changed to:

unsafe:oururl://path/here

So far I've been unable to find any additional information on why the "unsafe:" prefix is being added or how to address it. Any insight or workarounds?

Version info:
OSX 10.6.8
Safari 5.1.10 (6534.59.10)
Firefox 26.0
Chrome Version 30.0.1599.101

Thanks.

It turns out this was much simpler than I thought (as usually happens in software development). Somehow I didn't catch this until user testing, which is what threw me in the direction of thinking it was a Mac issue. It is not a Mac issue.

I'm using the AngularJS framework and one of its "features" is to mark unknown protocols with an unsafe prefix. I used this answer to configure it to recognize mine and now all is well.


Spring loaded folder settings missing in Yosemite My spring loaded folder settings are missing from the Finder prefs in Yosemite.

What might be the cause of this and how do I get all my options back?

FYI, I do have XtraFinder 0.25.4 installed but the option didn't move to the prefs there.

It appears that these settings have been removed from the Finder preferences window.

The slider is now located in System Preferences → Accessibility → Mouse & Trackpad

You can change the spring-loaded delay by writing the setting manually:

defaults write -g com.apple.springing.delay -float 1.0 && killall -HUP Finder

Replace 1.0 with the delay in seconds before springing.


How can I change this name? This xue drives me crazy, I don't know where it come from, how can I change it?

It's the current user's home directory. It should correspond to the currently logged in user (shown in System Preferences > System > Accounts). The name xue is the short name for the currently logged-in user.

If it's on your Mac and it isn't you and you don't recognise it, then you'd have to wonder who has an account on your Mac that you don't know about. Did you buy it secondhand maybe?

You can rename user accounts - see Apple's support website for more info.