Apple ID Switch/Split Here is some background knowledge...
My Apple ID is also used by my brother. This originated back when the iPhones came out and it was necessary to plug them into a computer to start in order to house the music, apps, etc, that existed on my laptop. However, I no longer utilize this laptop or any other ones.

Since we share an Apple ID we receive phone calls, texts, and voicemails for the other person EVEN THOUGH we've both gone into our settings and opted to receive only our own via our respective phone numbers and emails.

I've recently received my upgraded phone.  I feel like now is the perfect time to split into two Apple IDs.

My question:  How do I do this without losing all of my information? I use the iCloud extra storage for $.99 per month so all of my data is backed up, but i can't view it due to my lack of laptop (no need for one- until now).  What I am most concerned about is I want to retrieve my data from my current Apple ID and place it on my new one, while also being careful to not transfer his shared device to my new phone, which would result in the same issue as before.  Can I do this using iCloud without plugging into a computer?

I hope this rambling makes sense..  Also, I really do like my brother, I'm just tired of having double the contacts and messages, and a constantly full voicemail box.. I think you get the point.

Thanks in advance!

An operation may be needed to separate the 'siamese' twins ;-)
It is not going to be totally painless.

Start by investigating Family Sharing - which will enable you to keep the apps/music/books etc you have purchased.

Family sharing also necessitates designating one of the accounts as 'payer', so you may still have to negotiate who pays who for what, going forwards.

However, any data within each app, including anything like game progress, web & other history, contacts etc is going to end up belonging solely to one brother. The other is going to have to start from scratch.

Contacts can be downloaded as .vcf files from the iCloud web page.
Calendars can be shared between family members.
...but I think just about everything else is going to be starting over from scratch.


How can I adjust keyboard backlight on the new M1 MacBook Air? The 2020 M1 Macbook Air lacks keys to adjust keyboard brightness and F5 and F6 don’t appear to have any effect.
Is there a way to adjust - especially to turn off - the keyboard backlight?

From Control Center, choose Keyboard Brightness and adjust the slider.


Why does my iMac go to sleep while I am using it? My iMac (2014) running OS X 10.11.3 goes to sleep every now and then several times a day while I am using it.

I do not lose any work, but it is very annoying.  I do not have any hot-corners for sleep, or Energy Saver settings that cause the behavior.

After monitoring my machine using Terminal:

pmset -g pslo
2016-03-08 17:52:48 -0600 IORegisterForSystemPower: ...Sleeping...

When the event happens, I checked out the logs:

Console.app > System Log Queries > All Messages

  3/8/16 5:52:48.206 PM CommCenter[299]: Telling CSI to go low power.

Why is CommCenter telling CSI to go to low power while I am actively using my iMac?

Well, that did not work.  Now I'm going to try this in Terminal.app for 5 hours of "don't go to sleep on me":

caffeinate -t 18000

Info on that command is:

man caffeinate


CrashPlan requests network connection on startup Since upgrading to Mavericks, CrashPlan requests incoming network connections each time my MBP is restarted. I always click "Allow" and I've ensured that my firewall settings allow it, but I still get the alert.

I've followed the instructions from Code42 support, but the issue persists.

My previous response confirmed that the status had not changed since June (4 months ago). I also confirmed that the problem still exists in Yosemite. ie this is still an open issue without a known resolution.

I've looked a bit further into this issue.  The current version of CrashPlan is 3.6.4.

To resolve this issue:
 - Download the current version
 - Use the 'uninstall' script on the disk image to remove your current installation.
 - Reboot.
 - Install the new version

This also resolves some issues with display and Wireless network detection under Yosemite.

I've not tested to see if just upgrading over the top of the old installation also fixes the issue.


Professional Data Recovery solution: what to use? I have a LaCie P9227 2TB drive partitioned 500GB for Time Machine and 1.5TB for Archive purposes. Two days ago the disk started failing (DriveDx utility indicated it as Failing), the TM partition unmounted during the First Aid trial via macOS Recovery mode and, since then, I have kernel panics every time I attach the disk to my 2016 MacBook Pro and try to do anything with it. The repair failed with "Error at -8".

I would purchase DiskWarrior but if I have only a 2-minute window I fear that will not be enough (Seagate Recovery software ended in a kernel panic before completing the first scan).
Seagate asked me EUR 850 for recovery and I do not want to discuss the price here, just assume I cannot pay.

Professional data recovery is still done by humans—I guess—so I would like to know what I can do on my own: what software / hardware do I need? It should be possible to learn.

If you think you might be able to afford professional data recovery, and that is a path you want to try later, then I would advise doing that sooner rather than later as the chance of data recovery diminishes over time.

If you're sure you do not want to go with professional data recovery, but rather want to try do it yourself, I would strongly advice that you stop your attempts with file system repairs, mounts, etc. right away. These tend to do more harm than good. Instead the best way to proceed is to take a copy of the disk and only work on that copy - never touch the original hardware.

In order to take the copy, I would recommend using the program "ddrescue". First install Home Brew, and then run this command in the Terminal:

brew install ddrescue

The ddrescue program allows you to take a bit-for-bit copy of the drive. Compared to ordinary dd, the ddrescue program can skip unreadable sections of the drive, and it is possible to do multiple attempts at reading problematic parts of the drive.

Familiarize yourself with the documentation here:

https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/manual/ddrescue_manual.html

You can find the device name of the disk in Disk Utility. For example it might be /dev/disk2. First ensure that all partitions on the drive are unmounted.

Then the ddrescue command to copy the disk could look something like this for doing maximum of 3 retries on each read:

ddrescue -d -r3 /dev/rdisk2 mydiskimage mydiskmap

Make sure that you have enough disk space on the location where you want to save the "mydiskimage" file.

Now that you have the copy of the disk, you can use various disk recovery / forensics tools to try getting your data back.

In regards to your question about the hardware needed to do professional data recovery yourself: Even though I can confirm that it is done by humans, it is not something the ordinary home user can do themselves. It requires special training as well as special hardware and environment. In theory it is of course possible to arrange for that yourself, but building your own clean room, buying microscopes, etc. is going to cost you a lot more than the professional data recovery company charges for their services.


How to recover a corrupted external exFAT hard drive This is a 3 TB external Seagate hard drive formatted in Mac's Disk Utility as a single non bootable exFAT partition. It got unplugged from the computer and now the computer is unable to read it.

sudo gpt -r -vv show /dev/disk4:

gpt show: disk4: mediasize=3000592977920; sectorsize=4096; blocks=732566645
gpt show: disk4: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: disk4: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: disk4: Sec GPT at sector 732566644
    start       size  index  contents
        0          1         PMBR
        1          1         Pri GPT header
        2          4         Pri GPT table
        6      76800      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    76806        250
    77056  732489472      2  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
732566528        112
732566640          4         Sec GPT table
732566644          1         Sec GPT header

Is it possible to recover the hard drive?

Update: I had to unplug and plug the external hard drive back in. It takes about 5 mins for computer to recognize the hard drive. The following screen pops up.

I ran the first aid from the disk utility app and the operation was successful but it still show the disk as uninitialized.

diskutil list:

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:                GUID_partition_scheme               *3.0 TB     disk4
1:                        EFI EFI                      314.6 MB   disk4s1
2:       Microsoft Basic Data SEA_EXFAT                3.0 TB     disk4s2

The hard drive doesn't show up in finder.

diskutil verifyVolume disk4s2:

Started file system verification on disk4s2 SEA_EXFAT
Verifying file system
File system check exit code is 1
Error: -69845: File system verify or repair failed
Underlying error: 1: Operation not permitted

I think the drive is already unmounted, if not then unmount it and do this

try mounting in read only mode by doing this

diskutil mountDisk readOnly /dev/disk2s1

Check if the drive is hijacked by the system

ps aux | grep fsck

If you see your disk there hijacked then use this to kill this process

sudo pkill -f fsck

You should immediately see your drive at the finder's sidebar.


Does a Mini-DVI to DVI cable exist that's more than 6 inches long? I have a plastic MacBook that I like to use both on the go and at home, where I have a monitor, keyboard/mouse, speakers, etc that I hook up to use it more or less as a desktop. This works great, for the most part, except for the adaptor - it's constantly getting snagged on my desk due to the sheer size of the DVI-DVI connection.

I've tried looking online for a 3 foot Mini-DVI to DVI cable so that I can eliminate this bulk, but without success. It seems that both Apple and a number of third parties are more than willing to sell adaptors for the Mini-DVI, but none sell actual cables.

Have I missed something in my search? Or do manufacturers simply not produce the product I describe? If the latter, is it due to restrictions on using the Mini-DVI connector, a technical problem that requires the adaptor to be no longer than 6 or so inches, or perceived lack of demand?

I think the idea would be to use the Mini-DVI to DVI adapter at one end of a DVI to DVI cable.
The specs should be checked for maximum workable length (example)


Difference between sleep, hibernate, etc Recently I've been googling about a problem with my MB and got very confused by the use of these terms on the internets:

sleep mode
hibernate mode
safe sleep
idle sleep
standby mode
poweroff mode (autopoweroff setting in $ pmset -g)

I think some of them just mean the same thing, but could someone please clarify which terms are the correct ones, and what is the difference between them?

I have El Capitan on MacBook Pro 2012

Sleep refers to when the machine pauses processes and such but with the RAM still powered.

  What happens when the Mac goes to sleep (not just into idle mode or display sleep)?

  On all Macs:

  The microprocessor goes into a low-power mode
  Video output is turned off, and a connected display may turn off or enter its own idle state
  Apple-supplied hard disks spin down; third-party hard disks may spin down

  On portable Macs:

  The Ethernet port turns off, if applicable (see note below)
  Expansion card slots turn off
  The built-in modem, if present, turns off (see note below)
  An AirPort card, if present, turns off (see note below)
  The USB ports only responds to the power key on an external keyboard (see below)
  The optical media drive, if present, spins down
  Audio input and output turns off
  Keyboard illumination, if a feature of your portable computer, turns off

  A computer uses considerably less power when in sleep mode than when awake. The computer will continue to power RAM in sleep mode, so that whatever was in RAM when the computer went to sleep will still be there when the computer wakes. This also means that computers with more RAM use slightly more power in sleep mode.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201714

Hibernation is called Safe Sleep in macOS. This is where the contents of the RAM is saved to disk.

  OS X includes a deep sleep mode known as safe sleep. Your Mac may enter safe sleep if your battery begins to run low, or your computer is left idle for a long time. Safe sleep copies the contents of memory to your startup drive, and powers down the computer. This helps you when your battery is depleted on Mac notebooks. All you have to do is connect your notebook to AC power again to pick up where you left off, without losing your work.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT202824

  Safe Sleep ensures that data stored in the main memory of your Mac isn't lost when the computer shuts down due to its battery being drained completely.

  Before your Mac enters sleep, Safe Sleep automatically saves the contents of its main memory — like desktop settings, open applications, and other work in progress — to the hard drive.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201635

Idle sleep is not a sleep mode, but rather a description of how Sleep can be activated: through the machine being idle for a set period.

  When you leave your computer idle, OS X automatically turns off or powers down features that you aren't using. When the computer needs to perform a task, related components are powered back up.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT202824

Standby mode is similar to Safe Sleep but used when your machine has an SSD.

  For Mac computers that are started from an solid-state drive, OS X includes a deep sleep mode known as Standby Mode. Mac computers manufactured in 2013 or later enter standby after one to three hours of regular sleep. A computer with a fully charged battery can remain in standby for up to thirty days without being plugged in to an AC power source.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT202824

  Mac notebook and desktop computers have a power standby feature that conserves energy. During standby, the state of your session is saved to flash storage (SSD). Then, the power turns off to some hardware systems such as RAM and USB buses.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT202124

pmset's autopoweroff sets the time it takes from Sleep starting until Safe Sleep is initiated.

  autopoweroff - Where supported, enabled per default as an implementation of Lot 6 to the European Energy-related Products Directive. After sleeping for <autopoweroffdelay> minutes, the system will write a hibernation image and go into a lower power chipset sleep. Wakeups from this state will take longer than wakeups from regular sleep. The system will not auto power off if any external devices are connected, if the system is on battery power, or if the system is bound to a network and wake for network access is enabled.

https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/pmset.1.html


Can I Recover an Erased Time Machine Disk? I erased (not deleted) the entire Time Machine disk by accident in Disk Utility instead of another disk.  Under "Security Options" it was set to "Don't Erase Data", so I would think that it means the data is there, but the directory and information of where/how everything is stored is gone.

Is it possible to recover my Time Machine disk?

EDIT:  In looking at disk recovery programs, some seem to be able to recover entire partitions if nothing has been overwritten (which is the case for me).  I'm using Disk Drill as an example, which appears to have this function.  So, I am wondering if recovering the erased disk to a new disk would be a way to get my Time Machine disk back?

UPDATE:  Here is what I've been able to do:

-I used Disk Drill to scan and recover all of the files to another disk, but as expected the file structure and names are all gone.  I also tried Disk Utility and Disk Warrior to try and repair/recover the directory with no luck.

-I've created an full backup of my system on another disk to cover me for now.

-I also have a disk I keep offsite that has just a couple of backups starting 6 months ago, but not as far back as my erased disk.

It just seems strange the way that Time Machine is set up, where basically everything is there, but no way to identify anything.  Someone should write a program that compares all of the nameless files against files on the machine itself to at least rename those files, and then the files that are related to it would have to be older versions of it.  Anyone have any other ideas?

The chances of recovering the directory structure & therefore the data intact in its original form are minimal.

Time Machine uses a complex structure of links to files in order to reduce disk usage & preserve the actual timeline.

You may be able to recover specific individual files if you absolutely need something recovered from the history - though I'd be inclined to think that any recovery software will get confused by the linked structure & think it can recover 10TB from a 1TB backup.

If you feel you are safe enough with only a backup from today onwards, with no history, then I would say that would be the best plan.
Start over, let Time Machine make a full fresh backup.


Automatic WiFi sync to iTunes not working I just upgraded to iOS 5 and am having trouble with the automatic sync to iTunes. Sync works fine if I go into Settings -> General -> iTunes Wi-Fi Sync and press "Sync Now" or trigger the sync from the Device menu in iTunes, but when I plug in my phone overnight sync doesn't happen.

Am I forgetting a setting? Or is there a known-issue that I haven't been able to uncover?

My setup:

iPhone 4 with iOS 5
iTunes 10.5 on MacBook Pro running 10.7.2
Time Capsule for Wi-Fi

EDIT: For clarification, I do have the "Sync with this iPhone over Wi-Fi" checkbox enabled in the Summary screen, and the prevent syncing box in Preferences is not checked.

I had a problem with AUTOMATIC wifi sync not working. Wifi sync worked when initiated from my iphone, but there was no automatic sync.

The fix I found was to:

Ensure "Enable Wifi sync" in checked in the iPhone summary page of iTunes
Ensure "Open iTunes when this iPhone is connected" is checked in the iPhone summary page of iTunes
Ensure that "Prevent iPods, iPhones and iPads from syncing automatically" is not checked in the Preferences - Devices settings of iTunes.

I was missing step 2. Once I checked this box, I gained automatic wifi sync every time my iPhone was connected to external power within range of my wifi network.


How can I prevent turning off the locations services on managed iPhones? Is it possible to disallow iPhone/iPad users to turn off the location services on their iDevices?

E.g. by configuring profiles, software or system settings, etc.

I have a client that needs to track the GPS location of their employees and doesn't want them to be able to turn off the location services in the iPhone settings.

well, the only way that I could find out was to use password protected Restrictions. Looks like I have to manually set the Restrictions password on each device and then turn on the Location services restriction. If anyone comes up with a better solutions, please let me know.


How can I incorporate LaTeX into an iBook created with iBooks Author? I'm interested in writing a text in the sciences that requires some mathematical notation, but I see no way to incorporate LaTeX into iBooks using iBooks Author.

Am I missing a feature? Is there an add-on plug-in architecture (e.g. using "widgets") that would allow me to add a tool for LaTeX editing. Are there any existing LaTeX "widgets" or add-ons?

Ideally, I'm seeking something other than a "one-way" static PDF- or image-generation approach.

LaTeXiT
...is the solution I'll go with now. You can export your Latex as a picture which can be very easily copied into iBooks Author.


cannot write image to sdcard After every attempt when the process is finished I get an error saying my mac cannot read the card, when putting it in my cubieboard it says the card is damaged. So obviously something went wrong during the process on my mac.

However. The card isn't damaged. It's new and working for everything else and can be read and formatted just fine.

This is the line I use to "install" the image onto my sdcard

sudo dd bs=1m if=Cubian-base-r1-arm-a20.img of=/dev/rdisk1

According to all the guides I find out there I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, but it fails. Any help? :)

sync

I forgot to run the command "sync" after :P

sudo dd bs=1m if=Cubian-base-r1-arm-a20.img of=/dev/rdisk1;sync

Also works perfectly


iPad Mini 3 - Removing standard built-in apps How can I remove the built-in music app from my iPad, or at least remove the icon.
 My daughter uses the iPad and I don't want her to have access to some of the music and radio stations.

You cannot uninstall or hide the default Apple apps.

You can set up Restrictions [parental controls] to prevent access to particular apps or age-related content.

Word of warning - don't forget the passcode or you'll have to wipe the phone & start over.

Settings > General > Restrictions. Enable Restrictions & enter a passcode.

When an option is on, or you see a checkmark next to an item, that means you're allowing access to that item. Turn options off to restrict access.

Apps and features
Safari
Camera (also disables FaceTime)
FaceTime
iTunes Store
iBooks Store
In-App Purchases
Siri
AirDrop
CarPlay (available only with iPhone 5 or later)
Installing apps
Deleting apps

Types of content
Ratings (select the country in the ratings section to automatically apply the appropriate content ratings for that region)
Music and podcasts
Movies
TV shows
Books
Apps
Siri
Websites
If you don’t use Touch ID for paid and in-app purchases, you can choose between two options for how often you need to enter your password for these purchases.

Changes to privacy settings
Location Services
Contacts
Calendars
Reminders
Photos
Bluetooth sharing
Microphone
Twitter
Facebook
Advertising

Changes to settings and accounts
Accounts (you can prevent changes to Mail, Contacts, Calendars, iCloud, Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, Flickr, iTunes, App Store, iMessage, and FaceTime)
Background app refresh
Find My Friends (available when you install the Find My Friends app)
Volume limit
Cellular data use (available only on cellular-enabled iOS devices)

Features within Game Center
Multiplayer games
Adding friends

Source:Apple KB About Restrictions (parental controls) on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch


List Local and Global Key Bindings in Mac OS X Can someone help with a solution to list key bindings being used by an OS X application, as well as global bindings being used by all applications?

Ideally, there would be a way to specify bindings for a single key combination, such as:

Ctrl-P or Opt-Cmd-Z

as well as getting a comprehensive text dump of current bindings for all keys.

For my purposes this doesn't need to be fancy: A Bash or AppleScript would be fine. Of course, a dedicated GUI utility would be great, if such a thing exists.

I recommend KeyCue, if CheatSheet is not quite enough.

As Phill already mentioned, CheatSheet is great, because its fast, free and simple. But I noticed that for some applications (like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom) some shortcuts are missing from CheatSheet. KeyCue takes the shortcut game more serious, by showing shortcuts and their context more detailed. It helps you to create your own shortcuts and lets you exactly specify how and when they should trigger.


External hard disk use I have a question: when attaching my external hard disk to my Mac, there seem to be a little ghost that deletes my files.

Can anyone please give me some information on this, please note that I am not a Mac expert, I do use the maximum security allowed by Apple and my network but I have the feeling something is not right and would appreciate it very much if someone could help?

Well it appears that the files are cache files and are deleted regularly as part of keeping the drive clean and not cluttered with random thumbnails/logs/whatever other cache files are stored. Its pretty obvious from the entry that operation run is CACHE_DELETE so I wouldn't worry too much.

Also, from the image it says "category: daemon". If you are not aware, a daemon is a background process that takes care of small nitty-gritty things for you, like starting services, clearing unneeded caches, and many many more. You can utilise certain daemons to regularly run tasks for you like cron for example. Its nothing to be worried about and its vital to any operating system.

If you are suspicious of malware, you could regularly check the files on your drive by running du -sh every so often to see the space used on the drive. If there is space free that you did not delete, then it may be the case. There are many other ways to check for malware deleting files theoretically (antivirus, disk space, running processes etc) - but if you do have malware on there without your knowledge, then you have much larger problems than it deleting your cache for you :)


i have a macbook - 2012 and the ssd is full - only 32mb free - i cannot boot up . need to delete files but how? My 2012 MacBook has a 240gb SSD, will not boot up.  I can get into disk utility, and it cannot verify disk or repair disk.  I can see that there is only 32mb free. I think this is the problem.

If I can free up some memory it may boot.  I'm a user but not an expert.  Help pls

yes, space is certainly an issue.

can you put this into target disk mode with a fireire or thunderbolt connection to another mac?  this is relatively user friendly if you have another mac around and a connection between them.

do you have a recovery partition on this machine?  is that how you got to disk utility without being able to boot?

you could boot into this and use terminal to remove some unneeded files to make it bootable/repairable.


Yosemite (> 10.10.x) randomly freezes and crashes on my MacBook Pro 15" Early 2011 I already had a similar problem before and after more than two years of struggling (I had this problem long since the Yosemite) I am still being daily annoyed by the same problem.:

Is this crash normal?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3358689

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2768351?start=1650&tstart=1369#discussion-16646143

However this time it is slightly different. The thing is, it newer "randomly shut downs" while I'm on Windows, doing stuff, playing games, etc. - it only happens on Yosemite, and it is a fresh copy on the new SSD and all that. Therefore, I really don't think it's a hardware problem. There is even nothing in the logs at that time (???)

After I installed the new Yosemite OS with Boot Camp (Windows 8.1 Pro) on my brand new Samsung 840 EVO 1TB SSD, my MacBook Pro randomly froze and after a few minutes - shut itself down.

I even thought it could do something with my USB ports, because of this (only a few keys worked on login when external USB hub with Yeti mic plugged in): Some keyboard keys are not working on login to Yosemite but after some more testing, I can rule that out. It's reproducible with no devices connected over USB.

This problem occurs more frequently when I'm watching videos or working with Photoshop and Illustrator at the same time but sometimes it's totally random (but then, why it's not shutting down when I'm playing games on Windows?) I thought this could be a GPU issue, so I installed gfxCardStatus, but no luck here.

Could this be an "Automatic graphics switching" issue or is it something else?

I had the same problem since a couple of days. Here's what I've done to (apparently) fix it:

Created another Administrator account. Logged onto that account. Removed DropBox, Skype, Viber, Evernote.
Why? Those where the only applications my new account did not run, and my new account never experienced any crashes.

I then got back to my primary account and downloaded the latest version of Skype (7.1) and Viber. I am now running Skype and Viber as before. I had no use for DropBox or Evernote anyway.

I used to have crashes shortly after restarting. I am now on my second hour with a solid machine. I don't know if this will stay so, but at least you can see if it is any help to you.


Apple Watch: Ring Close Notifications even on Silent and Do Not Disturb When I do my workout in the morning I don't want to get any notifications. I put the watch on Do Not Disturb, Silent, and Theater Mode.

This silences all notifications from my phone ...

Except, at some point during my workout it vibrates me letting me know I've closed my daily activity goal and then again that I've closed my daily workout goal.

This seems like a bug.

I don't want to to turn off those notifications completely. I simply don't want them when I've told the watch not to disturb me.

I'm not 100% sure what you want to do can be done via the Do Not Disturb function, but the place to check is within the Watch app on your iPhone.

Do Not Disturb

On your iPhone launch the Watch app
Swipe up and tap on General
Tap on Do Not Disturb
Now make sure you enable the Workout Do Not Disturb option
If it's not already, you may also want to try disabling the Mirror iPhone option

If the above doesn't work, then try manually disabling Activity Notifications as required (see below).

Activity Notifications

Before your morning workout:

Launch the Watch app on your iPhone
Tap on Notifications
Tap on Activity
Disable the Goal Completions option
Disable anything else you may want to

I think this should work, but then you'll need to remember to enable it again after your workout. Of course, you could just keep it disabled and use one of the Activity complications to monitor the status of your rings throughout the day.


Using at&t iphone 5c in India Would an unlocked AT&T iphone 5c work well with 2G/3G in India? AFAIK, India doesn't have 4G yet. So, I am not too worried about 4G/LTE. Would it latch onto 3G in India? I bought the phone in USA.

I assume you bought it in the USA.  I have the same phone, it works in the US with AT&T, Australia (Telstra), Europe (LeBara-France) and India (Orange), picking up 3G with no issues.

Yes, your unlocked phone will work in India.


iPad 1 apps keep crashing My father-in-law has an original iPad and is having trouble with apps crashing. He lives 6 hours away and is not at all tech savvy so it's difficult to troubleshoot over the phone and email. So far, though, I've had him do a restor through iTunes and that didn't seem to work so I'm unsure what to do next. Any ideas?  It seems to be all apps, not just a specific app.

Have him sign out of the App Store in settings, then sign in again, then purchase a free app.

This resets the digital certificate that tells the device it can run apps for that account. Often these certs expire if you don't download anything for a year or more and renewing them happens when you request a new app.

When this is done, also check on iCloud backups and enable them if you can. An ounce of prevention, etc....


Airport IPv6 Router Advertisments? I have a working HE.net IPv6 tunnel configured on my Apple Airport Express but the rest of the machines on my LAN aren't picking it up automatically.  Connected machines work fine if I configure IPv6 on them manually.

Sniffing the network appears to show that there aren't any RA packets being sent.

I seem to recall reading that the Airport will only send RAs if it has a private (RFC 1918) address on its ethernet port.  Mine doesn't - I have public IPv4 addresses.

Can anyone confirm this, or offer a work around?

Make sure your Airport Express is updated to the latest firmware. Up until recently the Airport Express would get an IPv6 address for itself but would not issue them via DCHP which is why you needed to do it manually. This may be what's happening for you. The Airport Extreme only gained DHCP support for this at the last firmware update so I'd assume the Express did too but I don't have a newer AE to know for use and the older model doesn't support IPv6 at all.


Is there a keyboard shortcut for launching Activity Monitor? I can't seem to find a shortcut for launching the activity monitor. Does it have one?

Not by default, but you can create one in System Preferences --> Keyboard --> Keyboard Shortcuts.  Or you can use spotlight:

type ⌘ + space
start typing "activity monitor"
as soon as activity monitor is highlighted in the spotlight list, hit return


Remap function key on external logitech keyboard I am using a Logitech K250 keyboard on my MacBook Pro.  I have already switched the cmd and opt keys in system preferences, but I would also like to remap the function key to option to make it more consistent with the default Mac keyboard. How can I do this? Thank you for your help.

It is possible to do with the Karabiner-Elements app.
As you have completed the installation, head to the app. In the very first tab choose the input device you wish to make a key remap for, then add a new item and define the initial key and target key (they are in the top section of the drop down).
This is it, no need to reboot. It effects immediately.
PS. it also allows you to remap the Eject key, which becomes useless if DVD drive is taken out for an extra HDD/SSD.


How do I gift a book from the iBookstore? On the iTunes Store, you can gift people music, apps, etc. by clicking on the down arrow next to the buy button and choosing Gift This ....

That option, however, is not available on books in the iBookstore:

How can I give someone a book from the iBookstore?

Updated 17 Dec 2013.
As reported by Macworld, the iBookstore now allows you to gift books:

Gifting in the iBookstore works identically to Apple’s iTunes and App Store counterparts: Just choose the book you’d like to gift, then tap either the dropdown arrow next to the price (on a Mac) or the Share button (on an iOS device).

More details are in their article, but by-and-large it seems to behave exactly as you would expect.

My original answer:
You can’t; iBook gifting isn’t supported yet.
From Apple’s iBooks FAQs page:

Can I gift a book?
No, you cannot gift a book in the iBookstore at this time.

The phrase “at this time” suggests that it’s coming in the future, but Apple haven’t announced anything yet.


Where are the default (system) wallpaper folders located on OS X? Possible Duplicate:
  Where are Apple's default desktop images stored?

Does anybody know where the folders containing the default (i.e. system) wallpapers are located on OS X Lion? (it may not have changed from previous versions of OS X, so please also tell me if you know where they are on a previous version of OS X). Thanks!

[EDIT:] Indeed, a dupe. What threw me off was that I was looking for "Wallpaper", not "Desktop Pictures". Maybe add a tag synonym [wallpaper] for [desktop], to aid searching people who make the same mistake.

Its on:

/Library/Desktop Pictures/

Notice though this is the system library, not the user library, so its right on the root of the drive and not inside your user folder.

Its hidden by default. Go to terminal and type open /Library to open it.

Hope it helps!

Edit: On Finder, you can hit CMDShiftG and paste the path to go to the folder. (thanks Sjoerd)


Trackpad issue with 2010 MacBook Pro While I was using my MacBook Pro, I went to setting and ironically I disabled all the finger touch option from Trackpad. Now I can't click anything just the icon is moving around. I tried to plug in another keyboard and mouse in the USB drive was showing press to continue. Sadly I can't click at all.

Anyone with the idea how to restore the option as I am having lots of difficulties.

First try to restart the computer.

If the keyboard still responds try to get to terminal from quick search. (cmd space normally)

in terminal you can try to change the preferences via the command "defaults"
the folling command outputs the various settings.

defaults read com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad

The output for me is here. 1 means active (or true), 0 means not ative (or false).

{
    Clicking = 1;
    DragLock = 0;
    Dragging = 0;
    TrackpadCornerSecondaryClick = 0;
    TrackpadFiveFingerPinchGesture = 2;
    TrackpadFourFingerHorizSwipeGesture = 2;
    TrackpadFourFingerPinchGesture = 2;
    TrackpadFourFingerVertSwipeGesture = 2;
    TrackpadHandResting = 1;
    TrackpadHorizScroll = 1;
    TrackpadMomentumScroll = 1;
    TrackpadPinch = 1;
    TrackpadRightClick = 1;
    TrackpadRotate = 1;
    TrackpadScroll = 1;
    TrackpadThreeFingerDrag = 0;
    TrackpadThreeFingerHorizSwipeGesture = 2;
    TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture = 0;
    TrackpadThreeFingerVertSwipeGesture = 0;
    TrackpadTwoFingerDoubleTapGesture = 1;
    TrackpadTwoFingerFromRightEdgeSwipeGesture = 3;
    USBMouseStopsTrackpad = 0;
    UserPreferences = 1;
    version = 5;
}

to set any of these keys type

defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad KeyFromAboveList -bool true


Is there an alternative to "Everything" on OS X? Spotlight does pretty much, but it lacks two critical features.

It cannot search arbitrary locations. It excludes system locations for a better user experience I guess.
It cannot index external drives.

For example I often search the ID of a chrome extension to get to its folder. That's way faster than typing the path. Unfortunately, I do not know how to do this on OS X

Is there an alternative on OS X that includes the features of Everything?

In your case probably the

  mdfind

will do great job.

It is not a GUI but a Terminal command, and it will search everywhere and everything.

Once found you can triple click on the line (to select it) and Right Click and use the "Reveal in Finder".


Homebrew - brew docter command not working When I installed wine I followed all the instructions, but then when I went to type 'brew docter' into terminal a error appears saying
Error: Unknown command: docter I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling it but the same appears.
what should I do?

Check your spelling

it is not "docter"

it is "doctor"

So, you can try /usr/local/bin/brew doctor


What does the "EU Internet" switch do on my iPhone 5s? I have an iPhone 5s. I recently noticed that my Settings/Mobile page has a "Data Roaming" switch and an "EU Internet" switch:

The first I understand (enable data when roaming in foreign countries), but what does the second do? If I disable "Data Roaming", the "EU Internet" switch is greyed out. I assume it's related to the EU roaming regulations, but what does it actually do? Restrict data roaming to those countries?

In case it's relevant, my SIM plan is provided by Three UK. I have a plan with Feel at Home, (which allows me to use my data/call/text allowance for free in 16 countries - not necessarily EU ones though).

I believe it allows data roaming, but only within European Union countries. See http://www.cultofmac.com/288360/europeans-new-roaming-options/:

Inside cellular settings, Apple has added a dedicated “EU Internet” switch alongside the existing data roaming toggle. It gives users the ability to active Internet connectivity when they visit countries inside the European Union, while in other parts of the world in will remain inactive.
Presumably, this change follows new European legislation that says carriers can no longer charge customers for data roaming when they visit other EU countries. The rules don’t officially come into effect until 2015, but a number of carriers have already begun abolishing roaming fees.


Download large file to selected location I was given the http://some_url/file.rar address of a very large file (8 GB). I want to download it directly to my external HDD. I haven't found any way to do this other than opening a terminal and typing these commands:

cd /Volumes/ExternalDisk
curl http://some_url/file.rar > file.rar

So the good old Unix solved my problem. But is it possible that OS X hasn't got such a capability?

I know I can type the URL in Safari and then option-click, but I need to change the default download directory. Similar approach with Firefox.

Another possibility I found is to create an Automator script made of two steps:

select URL
download to...

It works, but is not a built-in solution as requires the user make the script and package it in an app.

Is there a better a more Mac-style way to do this (without using external applications)? To see such a feature in the Finder would be nice.

According to Apple Support, you can change the default Download directory in Safari:

  If you like, you can change the default folder for storing downloads
  by using your browser’s preferences. To specify a different folder in
  Safari, choose Safari > Preferences, and then click General.

You should then be able to switch to use your external HDD by default.

As other posters have noted, Firefox and Chrome can also be configured to use a different download directory.

It might be possible to directly save a file (if a link is provided) by right clicking and selecting the Download Linked File As... option. Select your desired location and save the file.


Is it possible to install Chrome OS on a PowerBook without VM? I'm interested in throwing Chrome OS on an old Powerbook just for the hell-of-it.

Does anyone know if it's possible to install it as the only OS? I'd rather not have to run a VM for this.

Based on reading this page, it appears to be technically possible to build Chrome OS for PowerPC. (They do mention that V8 won't work, but that implies that most everything else does.) Getting it to be the primary OS and boot, however, is the tricky part. I suggest partitioning the hard drive to dual-boot between OS X and Chrome OS (at least initially) so you have a known-good system. You may also have trouble with the drivers.


Enable mouse wheel autoscroll feature in Chrome Is it possible to enable autoscroll (scrolling on mouse wheel press) in mac os? In windows it works out of the box, in mac id does not. Macos 10.6.8, Chrome v21

There's an extension called AutoScroll that enables scrolling while pressing a middle button.

You can also enable it everywhere in OS X with Smart Scroll. See this question.

To make middle clicking work with a Magic Mouse, you'd also need to install an application like BetterTouchTool or MagicPrefs.


To convert GNU paste to BSD Command in GNU

echo "Masi,hello" | paste -sd,

which I want in BSD paste.
I am reading this answer here.

How can you write this in BSD paste.

On OSX you'll have to add an extra "-"

echo "Masi,hello" | paste -sd, -


Fastest way to migrate an application between Mac's? after using the Migration Assistant each time arrives a new OSX or i buy a new MacBookPro, its time to tidy up my work machine,

Since upgrading my current MBP(mid2009 2.8GHz 4GB DDR3) to Lion many applications stall randomly, i got a new 7K2 rpm HDD (no budget for the ssd yet...) but they still go slow.

Last week i Reinstalled Lion from scratch in the New HDD, and right after installing the OS was incredibly fast, like it should be with a laptop like this, then i ran the Migration Assistant for my Profile stored in a TM Backup, and the performance went back to what i had before reinstalling lion,

My conclusion is that somehow theres a bunch of preferences in my profile that are making my system slower, and after trying to fix that myself (looking at logs, Daemons, Launch Services..)  and cleaning them manually, i still have no performance improvements.

So, i will reinstall Lion from scratch and then, go App by App (only the ones i use which are 20% of the ones i've installed) migrating the .app itself and their preferences.

Which is the easier, faster, and maybe programmable via Automator or AppleScript to migrate a simple application?
Ideally i would like to end up with some workflow where you introduce the App name in one side and all related files are copied to the new Volume.

Thanks for your Help.

Fastest way and best way may not be the same in your case, based on the info you provide.

Since you have found that Migration of apps bring the slow performance back, I'm not sure I'd do any more migration, but would try re-installing the apps instead.  This would create new preferences, eliminating an "bad, old preferences" that may have been the cause of the slow down.

Re-installing will take more time, and apps like those from Adobe that require key #s are going to be a pain, but the end result of a properly performing Mac is your goal.

The problem with Migration is that it can bring the problems with it, as you have seen.

The problem with re-installing is that you will never know which caused the problem.  You won't be able to avoid creating the problem again.  It may not have been anything you did, but a built-in glitch that is going to occur whenever a particular set of apps and actions are present.

Perhaps a faster way to solve the problem of what causes the slow down:

Make sure all 3rd party apps are in the Applications folder, or have aliases there, so all User accounts have access to them.  Then log out of your account and into another account and test for performance problems.  I have an account called "Test" (non-Admin) just for this purpose.  This account will have its own preferences for those apps, different than yours.

Now, in that Test account, start using the apps and your Mac, watching for slow-downs.

Whatever you do to solve this, please come back and report it- what worked and what didn't.  We all can learn something from it.


Contacts app on new iPad incorrectly assumes default country code After doing a restore from an old iPad to a new iPad, and syncing up iCloud, contacts stored without a country code are displayed incorrectly.

In Australia, the mobile number format is 04xx xxx xxx, or +61 4xx xxx xxx (with country code).

The result of this is that text messages (or iMessages) received are not matched up to a contact. Additionally, the phone numbers appear in the incorrect format in the Contacts app (04x xxxx xxx), suggesting it is maybe assuming an American country code or something.

The iPad does not have a SIM card in it. I tried putting a working Australian SIM card in it, and it immediately fixed the problem... until I removed it and everything went back to how it was.

Does anyone know how to change this default without having a SIM card permanently installed? Seems like there should be a setting for this somewhere, but I cannot find anything. I've googled and the closest I can find is a setting called "Internationale dial assist" inside Settings > Phone but this area doesn't exist on an iPad and I cannot find anything similarly named. Any help would be very much appreciated!

Please check the settings under

Settings > General > Language & Region:

iPhone Language: English (Australia)
Region (Australia)

Ideally your iPad should detect your contacts' numbers correctly now, but it doesn't hurt to restart your device.

Also, after setting the settings above you may need to sign out of iMessage and log in again.


Extremely Smart Calendar app needed! Does anyone know of a calendar app that could handle a bunch of iCal events, each dependent on their timing for the placing of the final one, so that the final date could be copied and moved and all the others would stay the same distance apart?
For example I might have an irregularly recurring event which is a concert. Two days before that I need to hold a rehearsal and book a hall three weeks before the rehearsal. Five days before the rehearsal I need to have all the music notated and send it out to the performers. At least a fortnight before that, on the nearest Monday afternoon, I need my calendar app to invite my performers to take part and then report back to me whether or not they are available. I then have to start notating music to suit the line-up I can get. I need to allow 50 hours of free time to do this task, so it needs to slot in with spare time I have from other events I might be managing.

Having spent hours setting all that up once I wouldn't want to do it again. I would like an app that can take all that and call it one event which can be kept in a library and assigned with the final event to any date of my choosing. It would then work out everything else backwards and tell me when I need to do all the tasks on my calendar.

Does anything like that exist?

Plenty of Calendar apps, such as Fantastical, can parse your needs with natural language, but I am not aware of any that can string together all your events as you have stated.

However, you can certainly do this with Automator/AppleScript and iCal. There are many resources on the web that will give you instructions and snippets that you can string together with Automator without any programming knowledge. Many of those scripts can be found here on AskDifferent.


Apple Mail 8 shows welcome screen on every launch I recently upgraded from Lion to Yosemite. Now using Mail 8.2 the welcome screen shows up with every launch of the program. Dis- and reenabling the IMAP account like proposed here did not fix it. What can I do?

As there were no other suggestions, I fully deleted ~/Library/Mail/V2 as well as ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist, rebooted the system, re-added my IMAP account and had my ~50k mails re-indexed. This took about two hours but now Mail.app behaves as expected (at least in this case).


Reinstall MacOS Sierra I've already installed macOS Sierra.
But I've also performed a "general" cleaning and I suspect some files were gone.
Now the whole system is slow, some things doesn't behave the way they used to.
Is it possible to download again macOS Sierra from AppStore and simple reinstall it?
I mean, install macOS Sierra over macOS Sierra that is already up and running (not so well...).
Thanks a lot for your help.

The short answer is YES.
It is possible to install Sierra over Sierra.  The procedure is no different than installing one OS over another.  Personally, I would wipe/format my target drive (using Disk Utility) first.  Be sure you have a backup of anything you don't want deleted forever.
There are a couple ways you can do this:

Internet Recovery (Hold Command R while booting)
Download Sierra from App Store and create a USB installer (preferred)

Both methods will utitimately work identically once you have the installer loaded.  With option 2, if you choose to restart or want to do it all over again, you won't have to download the image repeatedly.
To create the installer, you just need an 8GB or larger USB flash drive and the installation image.  Once downloaded, format the USB drive with a GUID partition, Journaled and call it Sierra (or something easy for you to remember).  Then, issue the following command:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Sierra/ --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/ --nointeraction

Re-install to your hearts content.


Is there a Safari extension to provide a drop-down menu listing all tabs, or shows all tabs in the tab bar? Safari used to have a dropdown on the right-hand side of the tab bar listing tabs. In Safari 9, that's gone, and instead all tabs are present in the tab bar, with many being almost or completely obscured. It seems to keep a few visible and then the ones on both sides are compressed or "behind" others. (From a UI point of view, this is very frustrating and makes clicking to select a tab very difficult.)

Is there an extension that provides either:

A drop-down menu listing all tabs, so that clicking it will show that tab
All tabs are always shown on the tab bar, and their size shrinks as more are opened? (This matches Chrome's behaviour.)

There used to be extensions to do the first in the Safari 5/6 era, but the ones I googled for haven't been updated since. Ideally, though, I'd prefer to copy Chrome's behaviour - it is useable and clear.

The TabList extension provides a dropdown list of open tabs (also recently closed ones).


How to enter home address so that Siri recognizes it and can direct me home It asks for me to touch my name and then there is no place to put it. I added it as a note on the contact page but this does not work.

Siri knows who you are and where you live based on an contact card in your Contacts application that you keep up to date for yourself.

Open the Contacts application on your iPhone. Add yourself as a contact. In the address section add an address and set the type to home. Save the contact information.

Open the Settings application a go to General -> Siri. In that settings page there's a field that says My Info -- click on that field and select your contact entry from your Contacts application.

Now when you ask Siri to find a route home for you, it will use the home address saved in the contact that you said was you.

You can add other places to this contact card and Siri will recognize them like work. You can also set up relationships in this card. For example: if you create a contact card for your spouse, you can in your contact card link to this other card as a relationship with type spouse or wife or husband. Now when you Siri to "Call my spouse" it will use this relationship in your contact card to determine who your "spouse" is and what numbers are available to be called.


Preventing Volume Unlock Prompt I have an encrypted APFS volume that I do not wish to be unlocked automatically, however, every time a user logs in on my system they are prompted to enter a passphrase for the volume, every single time.

What I want to know is, is there a way to prevent macOS from trying to unlock specific APFS volumes when a user logs in, or even better, to only do-so if a password is found in that user's keychain (so I can have it auto-mount for some users but be ignored for others)?

I've already tried adding the volume to /etc/fstab with the noauto option, but while all other settings are respected when the volume is mounted, this one is ignored, presumably because unlocking of APFS volumes occurs before the volume is mounted.

If it asks for multiple passwords when a user logs in, probably you did not enable that user in FileVault.

You can do that from the System Preferences:

On the Mac computer, open System Preferences > Security & Privacy.
Click the FileVault tab, and if necessary, unlock the padlock.
Click the Enable Users button and an account list pops up.
Click Enable Users to add and enter the password of that user.

or from the command line:

on the Mac computer, open the Terminal application.
Run the following command: sudo fdesetup add -usertoadd user1 and if prompted, enter the sudo password.
When prompted, enter the primary FileVault-authorized user name —
this is the user who you specified to manage FileVault 2 (in Assign an Active Directory user who is authorized to manage an encrypted disk).
When prompted, enter the password for the primary
FileVault-authorized user.
When prompted, enter the password for the new user who you specified
on the command line (user1 in this example).

Regarding your other question, to prevent Volume unlock Prompt, I think you can combine some things since on MacOS there is not a native utility to do what you asked (like libpam-mount for deb systems). More specifically:

You can disable an APFS volume to automount. You can follow the second answer to this question.
You can write a script to mount a volume, instead of typing the command line command every time you need it. You can read more about this here.
You can launch the script at startup. You could use launchd. You can check some approaches in this thread.
Obviously, you'd want to launch the script on a user basis. Here, you can read the official documentation for it. Additionally, in the thread linked at point 3 there are some mentions about launching a start-up script on a user basis.

I hope it is useful now in some sort of way, and sorry for misinterpreting the question.


I received a call about my iCloud account and I need to know if it is a scam I just received a call stating my iCloud account has been compromised.  They want me to go on my computer with them.  Is this a scam?

Yes, you will never receive an unexpected call regarding your iCloud account, so it is a scam.


Multiple Apple Developer Accounts I've read multiple messages on the subject, but I wondered if anyone had first hand experience (or genuine knowledge one way or another), if it is possible to more than one Apple Developer account?

As far as I know, you can create one for each Apple ID that you have, but I have not been able to find anything that suggests this is not possible (or breaches any rules). Are Apple likely to be bothered as long as you pay the $99/year for each Developer Account?

There is a link here that seems to suggest that it is possible

Would appreciate any comments on the subject.

Thanks.

Business Entities and Individuals

If you operate a legally recognised business entity, the business can have an account and you can have a personal account. You will need to associate each account with a separate e-mail address.

Consultants and Clients

If you are a consultant, you should consider one account for yourself and one each for your clients.

Personal Experience

I use multiple Apple Developer Accounts. They are associated either with business entities I am associated with, or are personal developer accounts.

As you mention, each account needs to pay the annual fee.


Backing up a RAID experiencing I/O issues I recently began working for a company that has an OS X Server with a PROMISE Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID (RAID 5) attached as a file server. Within my first couple of days, it became apparent that users were having performance issues reading from and writing to the file server (which had been a problem for several months before I started.)

After a quick investigation, the RAID was near capacity (4.99 of 5TB used, 14GB free.) We decided to purchase an additional RAID system and are expecting it within the next two days.

Meanwhile, I have been unable to successfully back up the data files. I have tried using Disk Utility to create disk images of the entire volume, as well as images of individual folders within the volume. It never completes and returns a generic error:

"Unable to create [folder].dmg. (Input/output error)."

Console shows hundreds of the following error:

kernel: disk3s2: I/O error.

I ran diskutil -list in Terminal and confirmed that disk3s2 is the RAID volume. I have also tried to manually copy (or even drag and drop) important folders to another volume, but that has also been unsuccessful.

Does anyone have any other ideas that may help? This data is mission critical, so any and all advice is welcome.

Thanks in advance!

The kernel: disk3s2: I/O error is indicative of a disk going bad and you'll need to replace the disk and rebuild the disk array in order to retrieve the data.  Consult the user manual for the product on how to rebuild the array so you don't loose any data.


Changed user name but files are now unaccessible I changed the home user name using http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1428 and now search in Mail and Finder only show me files I've accessed since the change. This is a major issue for me.

How can I fix this OR revert back safely?

I use Time Machine but my attempt to restore to the time before I made the change did not work.

Make sure that all the permissions are correct on your home folder.
You can use the ACL tool on the Recovery HD to do this:

Boot into the Recovery HD using ⌘R.
Run resetpassword in Terminal (available from Utilities → Terminal).
Select your account from the drop-down list.
Click the Reset button for Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs.


Is there a practical ePub book reader program for Mac OS X? Adobe Digital Editions has some capabilities but is essentially an orphaned product with no support.

Stanza only displays text in ePub books, and again, is an orphaned product with no support.

Calibre is mostly for building e-books. It has a text-only ePub reader but it's even more primitive than Stanza for Mac.

Scrivener can compile and output ePub format, but I don't think it can display them for reading on your Mac.

There are various apps for iPad and iPhone, but I already know about them.

And let's not discuss DRM issues; what we all want is a reader that will let us display ePub books (without DRM, or perhaps certain forms of DRM), one that supports displaying significant formatting and graphics and photographs if present.

Is there anything out there at present other than what I've noted above?

Let's exclude Window, Linux, or anything that would require X11. I'm hoping somebody knows of a native Mac app, or something you can run in a Web browser.

I haven't used it - so I can't say if it's any good - but I noticed that you didn't include the Barnes & Noble app in your list. Have you tried using that to view your ePub books?


Why do I get "Operation Not Permitted" when I try (as root) to delete a file that does not have the `restricted` flag set I know about SIP, so when I could not delete a file as root from a Mac running El Capitan, I checked for a restricted flag using ls -lOd and saw that the file had no flags. So why is it that I still cannot delete it? The ls command also ruled out the uchg and schg flags and I'm doing this as root so I don't need to worry about chown.

Turns out that in addition to the restricted flag, SIP protection can be invoked on a file by giving it the com.apple.rootless attribute. Attributes are not shown by ls -lOd, you need ls -l@d to see them. (Strictly speaking, the d option is not necessary, it is there so that when you do ls on a directory, you only get information about the directory itself without also getting info on everything in the directory.)

Much more information on this is available here.


How can I block ssh brute force attempts in OS X 10.11? My system running OS X 10.11 is constantly getting hammered by failed ssh login attempts by bots. I'm using a secure password and the root account isn't accessible via ssh, but even so it's still a drain on CPU time and it makes me nervous.

Is there a good way I can ban IP addresses that guess the password wrong too many times while still allowing myself to ssh in? Even better if this tool has a nice GUI so I don't have to use the command line.

I tried using sshguard, but I simply cannot get it to work. There's threads in various places about it not working properly in OS X 10.10, and I haven't found any solutions.

Other places have recommended using a VPN so that outsiders can't ssh into your system, but that's not an option for me. It's important that I be able to ssh in from arbitrary systems out in the world, and setting up VPNs on them is generally not feasible.

I've been researching opening up SSH like this on other *nix based systems, and most suggest two things. I'm sorry but I don't know how to do either on MacOS.

Fail2Ban - Which bans IPs that have too many failed login attempts
key rather than password based SSH logins. I believe you can take your key around with you if you want to use public machines.


Swift is not available for OS X Application? I just had a clean install of Yosemite Version 10.10 (14A389), and my Xcode is Version 6.0.1 (6A317). When I create a new iOS project, I can choose languages from Swift and Objective-C. However, when I create a new OS X project, the only option of languages is Object-C. Swift seems to be missing from the OS X Applications. So does Swift only work on iOS, not OS X, or am I missing something and I have to do something to enable it?

Thanks,
Elgs

Swift for OS X comes in Xcode 6.1. It has not been released outside the developer program yet, as the 6.1 build comes with the 8.1 SDK. I expect that it will come with the iOS 8.1 release on Monday.


make keyboard shortcut screenshot include cursor The cmd shift 3 screenshot doesn't include the mouse cursor.

How can I make it (as in, cmd+shift+3) capture the mouse position also?

One way of accomplishing this is to create an Automator Quick Action  with a Run Shell Script action, using screencapture with the -C option and assign it the ⇧⌘3 keyboard shortcut, after unchecking it for [] Save picture of screen as a file in: System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Screen Shots

The image below shows the Automator Quick Action  with a Run Shell Script action, its settings and the screencapture command formatted to produce the macOS default naming as on a US English install with the Region set to United States. This of course can be modified to suit ones own needs/wants.

The following command:

screencapture -C "$HOME/Desktop/$(date "+Screen Shot %Y-%m-%d% at %H.%M.%S %p.png")"

Creates a PNG image on the Desktop, named as in this example:

Screen Shot 2019-06-03 at 3.45.30 PM.png

Before assigning the e.g. Full Screen Shot Including Mouse (Quick Action) the ⇧⌘3 keyboard shortcut, first uncheck it for [] Save picture of screen as a file in: System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Screen Shots

Then in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services, give the e.g., Full Screen Shot Including Mouse the ⇧⌘3 keyboard shortcut.

Note: Sometimes a newly created Automator Quick Action, which has been assigned a keyboard shortcut, doesn't trigger the first time the keyboard shortcut is pressed. If this occurs, usually triggering the Quick Action by the Services menu will enable the keyboard shortcut to work going forward.

If you want a different image format for the saved screen shot, you'll need to use the −t  option. For a JPEG image use, e.g.:

screencapture -C -t jpg "$HOME/Desktop/$(date "+Screen Shot %Y-%m-%d% at %H.%M.%S %p.jpg")"

See the manual page for screencapture for additional information.

The filename uses the date command within command substitution $(...) which allows the output of a command to replace it. See the Command Substitution section in the bash manual page for additional information.

See the manual pages for the date command and strftime Standard C Library for additional information and an understanding of the operand used to format the date and time portion of the filename produced within the command substitution.

Hint: An easy and more user friendly way to show the manual page for any given command is to, in Terminal, type the command and then right-click on it, selecting: Open man Page


MacBook Pro not responding to power button My Mac wont start up even with full battery and charger plugged in... There is no sound, no screen or any disk movement.

The same thing also happened a few weeks back and when I took it to the repair guy; he fixed it in a matter of minutes.

He held down the power button for 10 seconds, removed the charger and did something else and the system started working but I don't exactly remember what he did.

Can anyone tell me what those magic steps are?

I am currently out of town and can’t take it there again.

Any help please?

Maybe it was an SMC reset:

  Resetting the SMC on portables with a battery you should not remove on your own

  Note: Portable computers that have a battery you should not remove on your own include MacBook Pro (Early 2009) and later, all models of MacBook Air, and MacBook (Late 2009).

  Shut down the computer.
  Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
  On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
  Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
  Press the power button to turn on the computer.
  Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.


Why does the Internet stop working after upgrade to iOS 8 So I upgraded my friends 1st generation iPad from iOS 4 to iOS 8.1 on my MacBook Pro. Now he's complaining that the Internet sometimes doesn't work and when it does it works extremely poorly and he's blaming me that it's due to the iOS 8 upgrade. Was the iOS 4 version 1st generation iPad not supposed to have been upgraded to iOS 8.1?

The 1st Gen iPad can only use up to iOS 5.1.1

so… either it's not a 1st gen or it's not running iOS 8


How to retrieve a password from Keychain command-line? According to many pages, it should be easy to retrieve command line a password using security.

I tried several options without success:

$sudo security list-keychains
    "/Library/Keychains/System.keychain"
$sudo security find-generic-password -s "proxy_test"
    The specified item could not be found in the keychain.
$sudo security find-generic-password -s "proxy_test" -a "collector" -g
    The specified item could not be found in the keychain.
$sudo security find-generic-password -s "socks://proxy_test"
    The specified item could not be found in the keychain.
$sudo security find-key -s "proxy_test"
    The specified item could not be found in the keychain.
$sudo security unlock "login"
...
$sudo security find-key -s "proxy_test"
    The specified item could not be found in the keychain.
...
long etc. with sudo/without sudo.

Seems proxy as part of internet, require another command:

security find-internet-password -s "proxy_test" -g


Will iOS upgrade require me to enter iCloud password? I am using an iPhone 5s which is associated to an iCloud account with Find My Phone turned on that for various reasons I won't be able to get the password for. This hasn't really been a problem so far as the iTunes and App Store account has been changed to my account so except for iCloud everything seems to work just fine.

I'm scared to update iOS to version 10 though (it's on 8.3 now) as I'm worried that for whatever reason it might require me to enter the iCloud password after upgrading and leave me with a brick. Any idea if this is the case?

Looks like this answers my question:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/ios

Quote:

  Apple ID

  You'll be asked for your account name and password after updating.


iOS restore causes downloading issues I restored my iPad today. The first, say, 30 apps redownloaded fine after the restore, but now my screens are filled with "Waiting..." icons. I've tried downloading something else and entering my Apple ID password, I've tried restarting, but nothing seems to get the other apps to download. What can I do?

Plugging it in to iTunes again and re-restoring it did the trick.


Harmonic noise introduced when using an iPhone dock extension cable connected to a mic peripheral I am using a Tascam iM2 stereo mic connected to the dock of an iPhone 4S. When the peripheral device is connected directly, there is no problem. Hoever, when I use a dock extension cable, a strange harmonic noise is introduced. I have tried extension cables from different manufacturers, and even the highly rated dockXtender extension cable made by CableJive introduces the noise.

This is somewhat strange as the analogue-to-digital (bear with my British English) converter is built into the peripheral device. This is not analogue noise picked up in the cable as the signal is pure digital on route to the iPhone. The noise seems to be introduced in the digital domain. I recorded a sample of audio in my office and analysed it using Matlab. The noise fluctuates in amplitude, but it is clearly a harmonic complex with a very precise 1-kHz fundamental frequency. The ADC reportedly samples at 44.1 kHz, so it is particularly strange that the harmonic noise comes in with a periodicity that is not even an intiger multiple of the sampling period. As a side note, I have heard a similar harmonic noise in the past emitted from some laptop sound cards (specifically Vaio C1s models).

Given that the noise never fluctuates in frequency, testing has shown that I can remedy the problem by pre-processing with a fractional delay filter based on the information here . . .
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=951433
. . . but this is a computationally expensive filter to implement.

Prevention is better than cure. My question is, what is the origin of this strange harmonic noise and if possible, how do I remedy it so that I do not have to waste processing power implementing an additional filter?

What you are picking up is EMI from USB frame sync (most probably through the ground wire):

  Every millisecond (12000 full-bandwidth bit times), the USB host transmits a special SOF (start of frame) token, containing an 11-bit incrementing frame number in place of a device address. This is used to synchronize isochronous data flows. High-bandwidth USB 2.0 devices receive 7 additional duplicate SOF tokens per frame, each introducing a 125 µs "microframe" (60000 high-bandwidth bit times each).

  USB 2.0 added a PING token, which asks a device if it is ready to receive an OUT/DATA packet pair. The device responds with ACK, NAK, or STALL, as appropriate. This avoids the need to send the DATA packet if the device knows that it will just respond with NAK.

This could be avoided with a properly shielded extension cable. Note that even dockXtender only shields some of the wires:

  A revolutionary 2-tier shielding system puts all video and audio signals inside a separate shielding to reduce interference from the other signals traveling through the wire.

If you're the DIY type of person it should be quite easy to make your own extension cable using high quality shielded wires. You will probably only need to connect just a few of the 30 pins: USB (power, gnd, data+/-), all GNDs and maybe accessory/serial (enable, rx/tx). Make sure you also shield the soldering on the connector.


Macbook air booting from external hardrive stuck on startup wifi screen I'm moving over my old macbook computer to a 2010 macbook air, I replaced the hard drive in the macbook air prior to this so there is nothing on the hard drive that is currently in my macbook air. I have my hard drive with everything on as an external drive and I am attempting to boot from that drive so I can copy all my files over. However when I boot from it I get stuck on a screen (first) asking for wifi (there is no exit or skip to this screen it is part of the start up) when I select my wifi and enter my password it brings me back to the screen I was previously on asking for my wifi. I have tried booting via a snow lion software cd but I still have the same problem. Is there any way to bypass this screen??

P.S. I have restarted my wifi router, this clearly isn't the problem here.

You will not be able to boot from an original retail copy of Snow Leopard (10.6) as your Air requires 10.6.4 or later. Your old drive should boot your Air as long as the installed OS is 10.6.4 or newer.

If your old Mac is still accessible and the external drive has 10.6.8 or newer you could do worse than download the Mavericks installer and create a USB installer for your Air.

To do this first download the Mavericks installer from the App Store. This will be placed in your Applications folder. Once downloaded do not run it or move it.

Next open Disk Utility and erase an 8GB USB memory stick, naming it Untitled. If you name it anything else be sure to modify the command below.

Open Terminal and enter the following command-

sudo /Applications/"Install OS X Mavericks.app"/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/"Install OS X Mavericks.app" --nointeraction

When complete you will have a full standalone installer, ready to roll.


How to play all songs except classical and movie soundtrack music using the Music app on an iPhone? I have bought a lot of pop music and classical music on the iTunes store. Some classical music album is like $9.99 for 100 songs, and I think I have about 500 of them in total.

When driving a car, I tend to like to listen to some pop or rock, but since there are so many classical songs, they would play often than not.

Is there a way simply to play all songs except classical, or except classicalm, movie soundtrack, and opera songs?  Perhaps by using something in the Music app or by Siri. (I tried "Play rock music" using Siri, and what I got was "Starting Facetime with Rutso, mobile" and immediate calling at 6am in the morning.)

Playlists shouldn't be used, because if I set up a playlist for current pop and rock music, and then if 15 other songs are purchased later, the playlist will again need to be updated constantly.  Besides, it is a lot of routine work to add 200 rock and pop songs to a playlist.

The iOS version I have is 10.0.2.

You can use an app like SmartPlaylist to create smart playlists on your device.

You can also create a smart playlist on a computer in iTunes then sync it to your phone. Even though you can't create smart playlists on the device, they do still update automatically as new music is added to the device. No manual maintenance is needed.


Run Automator workflow or shell script at application launch/shutdown As the title says, I'm looking for a way to run an Automator workflow (or a shell script) when I launch a specific application. When I shut down the application, I want to run another workflow/shell script. How do I achieve this?

Any help is much appreciated!

To keep tracking if an app is running you need to use a background loop. I don't know if there is another method but this will work, although it will eat a little bit of your memory. The loop will keep waiting until you open the application, and then it will wait for you to quit.

Save your workflow as an application and set it to run on startup. As your first action run an Applescript like this:

repeat until application "TextEdit" is running -- change for the app you want
    delay 1 -- it will check every one second for the app
end repeat
delay 3 -- you can change this value if the app will take some time to get ready
if application "TextEdit" is running then
    -- Your code for starting here
end if

you can set other actions after this or just use applescript.

At the end of the workflow place another action running Applescript:

repeat until application "TextEdit" is not running -- change here too
    delay 1 -- it will check every one second if the app is gone
end repeat
delay 3 -- you can change this value if the app will take some time to vanish
if application "TextEdit" is not running then
    -- Your code for quitting here
end if

Again you can set other actions below.

Let me know if you have specific goals and we can work to improve this workflow.


How to move an iPod or iOS device from one computer to another without losing anything? I have a new (Windows) PC and I am fed up with booting up my old computer just to sync my iPad and iPod, so I have just decided to install iTunes and sync with my new one.

Music, Pictures and Podcasts are not a problem to sync, I have them all on my NAS and they are in my library.

However, Applications are another matter.

I have right clicked the device (My iPad) and done Transfer Purchases. I have authorised my computer and all the apps that were on my iPad are now on my iTunes.

However, when I did sync, it still will not copy any new apps in my iTunes. I went to the device/Apps page and clicked the Sync Apps button, but I got the message that it is synced with another library and to sync apps will wipe everything.

I proceeded because I don't have anything important on my iPad... The only thing that was annoying was it lost the order/groups.

It did lose all the app data, but apart from a few high scores, I do not mind.

(I then performed an update and it did this again... I really don't understand that).

Anyway, Now it is time for my iPod and I really do not want to lose the order, grouping or the app data and I was wondering if anyone knows how I can sync with my new computer without losing anything?

Your question can be rewritten in short form:

iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
Where are my iOS backups stored? - expand the section About Syncing and Backups and you'll see

iTunes places the backup files in the following places:

Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
Windows XP: \Documents and Settings(username)\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
Windows Vista and Windows 7: \Users(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\

I linked to the official articles since things do change and cutting and pasting the steps today might not be right if things change in a month or two. Don't worry - the article about music moves everything except the iOS device backups. If your device is working, there's no need to move backups unless you want to keep older ones or save time the first time you sync with the new iTunes.


Blur all images in Safari, unless clicked I know that the 'Develop' menu allows me to block all images in Safari, however I have a couple more requirements:

Blur, not block, all images from all webpages
Click to show blurred images

I don't like to see images by default, yet still want to retain the ability to selectively 'unhide' them. Blurring the image makes the selection process (of which to show) much easier.

Is there a way to do this in Safari? Perhaps as an extension?

As a bonus, if there is a way to whitelist a set of images or sites (e.g.: the voting buttons in Stackexchange), that would be great.

The following approach comes pretty close, but it does not (nor can it) cover images that are set as background. It might also slow down page loading a bit.

The goal is to inject custom CSS into the page. I'll use the add-on Stylish for that (theoretically you could do it without any external add-ons, but you need a free Safari developer ID to do so - see here - I was wrong, see @markhunte's answer). After installing Stylish, you will see a great 'S' button next to the URL field. Click it and select 'manage'. In the new tab, select 'Edit' to create a new style. Give it a title (perhaps 'Blurred images'), and paste the following CSS into the 'CSS' field:

img {
  -webkit-filter: blur(10px);
}
img:active {
  -webkit-filter: blur(0px);
}

Under 'Applies to:' select 'global (if you want, you could narrow it down to specific URLs, URL prefixes, domains etc.), then save the style to enable it.

If you load a webpage, all images (except for background images) will be blurred. If you click an image it will be un-blurred as long as you hold your mouse-button down. You can customize the degree of blur by editing the pixel value in the first selector as the second selector un-blurs the image.

This is all you can do in plain CSS. If you want a selective whitelist that persists across sessions, you definitely need to write your own extensions. This still comes down to applying the CSS posted above, but the whitelist and the 'click-to-add' part may be a bit more complicated and I do not have enough experience to give you a helpful answer in that case.


Macbook Pro Mid-2014 trackpad not working My mid 2014 13" macbook pro (retina) has been acting really weird.

Two days ago, after I powered it up, the mouse started going crazy, moving all over the place, and eventually stopped moving, and my trackpad hasn't worked ever since. I'm using an USB mouse which works flawlessly.

My keyboard is also strange ever since, often not registering my key presses. After searching several forums, I found some users who reported this happening when their battery started swelling, but my trackpad still clicks fairly normally, which didn't happen in some of the cases I've seen. My battery is infact in 'Replace Soon' condition, with 1200 cycles. I've posted a screenshot of CoconutBattery bellow.
I've ruled out sending it to Apple, since they charge me 300€ because they have to replace the entire bottom frame.

I'm thinking about ordering a battery from iFixit. Do you think this might fix my issue? Do I also need to replace the trackpad/keyboard cable? Any experience regarding similar situations is highly appreciated.

I would remove the battery and rely on the power adapter. You can try resetting your SMC, this fixes a lot of hardware and power related issues.

◦   Shutdown the MacBook/Pro and remove the battery
◦   Disconnect the power adapter, hold the Power Key for 10 seconds
◦   Release the power key and reconnect your battery and power adapter
◦   Turn your Mac on
◦   Let boot as usual


How to check is Chrome is running in incognito mode using Applescript? Is it possible to find out if the Chrome is running in incognito mode?

if application "Google Chrome" is running then
    tell application "Finder" to display dialog "Chrome is running"
    // --> some condition here to check if it is in incognito ?
       tell application "Finder" to display dialog "Chrome is running in INCOGNITO mode"
end if

Also, I want this script to keep running. That means as soon as user opens Chrome in incognito mode I will show alert. Like this:

set chromeRunning to false
repeat until application "Google Chrome" is running

    if not chromeRunning then
        tell application "Finder" to display dialog "Chrome is started in INCOGNITO mode"
        set chromeRunning to true
        #may be quit the script now..
    end if
    delay 10
end repeat

If this the correct approach?

P.S.  Can someone please close the question here @ https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26916480/how-to-check-is-chrome-is-running-in-incognito-mode-using-applescript

You can check the mode property:

tell application "Google Chrome"
    if exists window 1 then
        if mode of window 1 = "incognito" then
            -- insert your code here
        end if
    end if
end tell


Does installing Xcode 5.0 with iOS 7 SDK remove my iOS 6.x SDKs? I have Xcode 4.6.3 with iOS 6.0 & 6.1 SDKs. I want to install Xcode 5.0.

Does it remove iOS 6.0 & 6.1 SDKs or it will just update my previous Xcode to latest with iOS 7 SDK keeping iOS 6.0 SDK?

I am running OS X 10.8.4.

Whenever we install newer version of xcode, it ask "Do you want to replace the last version or to keep both", than we need to choose the Both Version option. It will keep both.


Mac OS X 10.8 crashes after Thunderbolt display disconnect and sleep At work I run my MacBook Pro 15" Retina (with Mac OS X 10.8.3 Snow Leopard) lid-closed with two Thunderbolt displays.

If I disconnect the power and displays, walk to a conference room, and re-open the lid, everything works as expected.

If I disconnect the power and displays, drive home, and re-open the lid after about an hour, the Mac crashes. The screen and keyboard light up but are unresponsive. The only way out is a long-press of the power key.

Any ideas how to diagnose or solve this?

UPDATE 1 (per Bravado's question): There aren't any useful logs in /Library/Logs or ~/Library/Logs, but the syslog (via Console.app) contains a single interesting line amidst everything else which looks normal:

kernel[0]: DarkWake thermal limits breached. Going to sleep!

UPDATE 2: I remembered that a long time ago I had run sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 in an attempt to disable deep sleep which results in lengthy resumes. I've set it back to the default using sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3... let's see if that helps...

Did you look in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/  if there are new entries that date from the crash?  Or look at the syslog (Utilities, Log-Viewer) if anything shows there prior to the hang?


How to manage company Macs? What is the "Apple" way of managing Macs in company environment? I've red about macOS server and Apple Remote Desktop which seems to share some management features. The later seems a bit dated, at least judging by it's website that didn't receive revamp like the rest of apple.com pages.

What I need is

ability to manage software updates
some network config like VPN
Active Directory config (yes it's mainly windows environment)
e-mail is provided by company's Exchange server

And what about apple ids? Is there any option to have company controlled apple ids? We don't want private apple id's flying around ;)

macOS Server and Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) are just two of the tools used to administer Apple computers in or organization.

You could use macOS Server to sync up with Active Directory, but in my experience, you can simply join each machine directly to your AD server without the intermediary (in other words....it's not required)

As for ARD....YYMV, but personally, I would rather use custom scripts to push out applications and updates

Apple has an excellent service called Apple Deployment Programs which helps you manage everything from AppleIDs to macOS and iOS deployments.  Contact your Apple business rep to help you set up this and your AppleIDs specific to your organization.


Tracking a Powered off iPhone My husband misplaced his iPhone and then he left out of town and I found it. I turned it off and sent it overnight to him and it is now lost in the mail.  Can I track his iPhone if it is turned off?

You cannot track it if it is not connected in some way to a data network, either over your mobile connection, or WiFi.  If it's turned off, or out of reception, you cannot track it.

Depending on what version of the OS is installed, then when the phone is turned on again and gains reception it should start to be traceable, and you can put it in Lost Mode in the Find my iPhone app so that it will alert you and optionally display a message on the device, however you need to have turn this feature on in the device first for this to work.

If the unit is running iOS6, then anyone who eventually finds it will be able to wipe the device and restore a blank OS without having to turn it on thus bypassing this security, but if you are on iOS7 then this is not possible, and the unit is worthless to anyone finding it.


Can't change photos in Preview.app – permission problems only in ~/Desktop After upgrading to Sierra I can't change any document with Preview if it is saved under ~/Desktop. I get the error "The original document can't be chnaged, so a duplicate with your changes has been created."
However, if I copy the same file to my Documents or Dropbox folder I can edit it.
The folder permissions for ~/Desktop my Documents folder are the same:

drwx------+  54 myname  staff   1836 Oct  4 10:41 Desktop
drwx------+  26 myname  staff    884 Oct  4 10:40 Documents

Permissions for the file is

-rw-r--r--@   1 myname  staff      247097 Aug  9 09:45 picture.jpg

Even if I change the picture and Desktop folder to 777 I can't edit it.

Right click on the Desktop icon in finder, show info. Is the the folder selected as 'Locked' for some reason (little padlock bottom left corner of icon in Info window)?

Expand the 'Sharing and Permissions' section, should say 'custom access' and the privilege should show Read & Write.

Click the little padlock bottom right of Info window, enter admin details and click the little cog, and select 'Apply to closed items'.

Could also open Disk Utility, select the drive, click 'First Aid' and check the volume for errors. This last may not have any effect, and should come back showing as all good. The 'Repair disk permissions' will be completed automatically whenever you run any software updates and does not require you to do it manually any more.


How do I add words to the OS X user dictionary? If someone has a word that they commonly use, but OS X Lion keeps "correcting" to something in it's dictionary, how does the user add the word to Lion's dictionary?

Right click on the word and choose Spelling and Grammar from the list. Then select Show Spelling and Grammar.

You'll see the option to "learn" the word (see picture).

The learned words are stored in ~/Library/Spelling/. ~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary applies to all languages and for example ~/Library/Spelling/en only applies to U.S. English. When you press the learn button, the word is added to ~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary if the spelling language is set to automatic or to ~/Library/Spelling/en if the spelling language is set to U.S. English.

If you edit the files in ~/Library/Spelling/ directly, you can apply the changes by terminating the AppleSpell process. Just quitting and reopening applications does not apply the changes.


If i sign out of the find my iphone app will the sound still go off? If I have pressed the "play a sound" button in the app will the sound still play even after I sign out of the app?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: The app is an interface for the FindMyiPhone service. This service is controlled in the iCloud menu of settings. So unless you disable Find My iPhone in the phone's settings, the sound will play.


Safari - AppleScript does not move to the next section of a bookdown online book I am writing a script to print a section of a bookdown online book as PDF, then move to the next section, and so on.
The print part works (the key codes are from this page):
tell application "Safari"

    activate

    tell application "System Events"
        key code 35 using command down -- activate print menu item
    end tell

    delay 0.5

    set i to 0
    repeat while i < 15
        set i to i + 1
        delay 0.1
        tell application "System Events"
            key code 48 -- press tab 15 times
        end tell
    end repeat

    tell application "System Events"
        key code 49 -- press space
    end tell

    set i to 0
    repeat while i < 2
        set i to i + 1
        delay 0.1
        tell application "System Events"
            key code 125 -- press down key twice
        end tell
    end repeat

    tell application "System Events"
        key code 36 -- enter
    end tell

    set i to 0
    repeat while i < 16
        set i to i + 1
        delay 0.1
        tell application "System Events"
            key code 125 -- press tab to get to "save"
        end tell
    end repeat

    tell application "System Events"
        key code 36 -- enter to cleck on save
    end tell

end tell

Problem
Now that I have printed the current section and I am back on Safari, I can click manually on the right arrow and move to the next section, but I can't manage to have the script to do that.
I have tried to add the following to the script above:
tell application "System Events"
        key code 124 -- right arrow to enter the next page
    end tell

Or even to "reopen" Safari, but nothing happens.
tell application "Safari"

    activate

    tell application "System Events"
        key code 124 -- right arrow to move to the next section
    end tell

end tell

How can I have AppleScript "turn the page" and move to the next section?
Also, I welcome suggestions to improve the script! I wonder if it would be easy to avoid repeating "tab" 15 times. I have looked at the Accessibility Inspector and found that "PDF" in the print menu corresponds to NSPopUpButtonCell. I have tried to use select NSPopUpButtonCell of its sheet but it did not work.

I can click manually on the right arrow and move to the next section, but I can't manage to have the script to do that.
How can I have AppleScript "turn the page" and move to the next section?

If you are trying to programmatically click the right-arrow, as shown in the image below, then the following example AppleScript code can do that:
tell application "Safari" to ¬
    tell document 1 to ¬
        do JavaScript ¬
            "document.getElementsByClassName('fa fa-angle-right')[0].click();"

Notes:
This requires Allow JavaScript from Apple Events to be check on the hidden Develop menu.
To unhide the hidden Develop menu:

Safari > Preferences… > Advanced > [√] Show Develop menu in menu bar

Update to address:

Also, I welcome suggestions to improve the script! I wonder if it would be easy to avoid repeating "tab" 15 times.

Here is how I'd use the JavaScript from above and coded to avoid using the key code and or keystroke System Events  commands, especially tabbing around the UI.
Example AppleScript code:
tell application "System Events"

    tell application process "Safari"

        set frontmost to true

        set i to 0
        repeat until (its frontmost = true)
            delay 0.1
            set i to i + 1
            if i ≥ 20 then return
        end repeat

        click menu item "Print…" of ¬
            menu 1 of ¬
            menu bar item "File" of ¬
            menu bar 1

        tell its front window

            set i to 0
            repeat until (exists menu button "PDF" of sheet 1)
                delay 0.1
                set i to i + 1
                if i ≥ 20 then return
            end repeat

            click menu button "PDF" of sheet 1

            set i to 0
            repeat until (exists menu item "Save as PDF" of ¬
                menu 1 of menu button "PDF" of sheet 1)
                delay 0.1
                set i to i + 1
                if i ≥ 20 then return
            end repeat

            click menu item "Save as PDF" of ¬
                menu 1 of ¬
                menu button "PDF" of ¬
                sheet 1

            set i to 0
            repeat until (exists button "Save" of sheet 1 of sheet 1)
                delay 0.1
                set i to i + 1
                if i ≥ 20 then return
            end repeat

            click button "Save" of sheet 1 of sheet 1

            set i to 0
            repeat while (exists sheet 1)
                delay 0.1
                set i to i + 1
                if i ≥ 100 then return
            end repeat

        end tell
    end tell
end tell

tell application "Safari" to ¬
    tell document 1 to ¬
        do JavaScript ¬
            "document.getElementsByClassName('fa fa-angle-right')[0].click();"

Notes:
Since this type of AppleScript script is using UI Scripting, I have included an error handling in the form of a repeat loop to wait up to two seconds for the target UI element to become available to be acted upon for most of the targets, however the last repeat loop waits longer because it has to wait until the Save as PDF to complete. A simple delay command with an appropriate value could be used instead, but with the include delay of a tenth of a second in the repeat loops it shouldn't have to wait any longer than need be. In other words, I'd only use simple delay command if I want to slow the script down from going through the various events of the UI. It's doubtful that it would need to be adjusted, but obviously do so as/if necessary.
If the timeout is reached, the script aborts at that point without any error message. The single-line if i ≥ 20 then return statements can be turned into a full if block and include an error message via the display dialog, display alert, or display notification command as wanted.


Where is "Get Info" in Xcode 4.2? I have problems publishing my Application in the App Store.

It seem that the UI has been updated, but the tutorial I use still uses the old version of Xcode, and I can't follow the instructions to publish my application.

Where can I find the Get Info window in Xcode 4.2?

Select your project in the right sidebar, then select the project in the main area above your targets. You'll find the configurations under the tab 'info'.