How to change spelling library in Mac OS X with a shortcut? Since I'm a Hungarian, but I learn and work in English, I switch the spelling settings in System Preferences approximately 50 times a day, because I'm constantly working with both languages.

Is there any fast way to change the spelling without opening the System Preferences every single time with a shortcut?

You can set the Language spelling to look for spelling in multiple languages.

My example is English and Spanish.

In the Keyboard System preferences go to the Text tab.

Set the Spelling dropdown to: Automatic by Language

Then opening the Spelling dropdown go down to Set Up…

Drag your two (or more) preferred Languages to the top. And then hit the Done button.

Thats it.

Spelling will now recognise the language you are working in.


How to find program's Application Support folder I am wondering if there is a way to get the name of a program's Application Support folder, perhaps in a way similar to get the id of an app.

osascript -e 'id of app "Sublime Text"'

gives you com.sublimetext.3 which is the name of the Caches folder but the name of the Application Support folder is Sublime Text 3

Is there a way to do with osascript or something else?

AFAIK, applications can name their Application Support folder whatever they want—there's no requirement that it be the name or bundle id of the app. Heck, there's also no requirement that it be stored in ~/Library/Application support—an app could save all configuration data to your Desktop if it wanted to. Most Mac developers try to follow conventions, but I don't think there's a "rule" you can follow.

That said, one application that is surprisingly successful at finding these folders is AppCleaner. Intended to help you remove leftover files from an app you want to delete, AppCleaner also displays a list of these files prior to deletion:

What I will sometimes do is drag an app into AppCleaner, make note of the paths, and click CANCEL instead of delete.


How to go from clamshell to sleep I'm working with a 2013 Macbook Pro in clamshell mode using a 2012 Cinema display (on the display port) and magic keyboard and trackpad.  When I leave the office, I would like to put the computer to sleep with the minimum number of steps.  It's easy to see that just unplugging the display and power won't put the Macbook to sleep.  The next thing I have come up with is

Put the computer to sleep using either the apple menu or Launchbar.
Unplug power, Display port, Thunderbolt network.
Leave

This seems to not work. When I arrive at home the Macbook shows 95% battery remaining, indicating that it was running in the bag until it went to sleep due to inactivity.

If I, after unplugging everything, open the Macbook, it shows the password screen, indicating that it has at least locked.  If I then close the Macbook and leave, it seems to go to sleep (and show 100% battery remaining when arriving at home).

How can I put the computer to sleep without opening and closing the lid?

Your MacBook Pro is waking up when you disconnect the Display Port and Thunderbolt connections. This happens because OS X needs to re-evaluate its hardware situation.

Consider using a context-sensitive automation tool like ControlPlane. When you disconnect your display or thunderbolt network, have ControlPlane trigger sleep mode.

Alternatively, try reducing the required period of inactivity before sleeping: System Preferences > Energy Saver


How to fix com.apple.dock.extra? I'm a gamer and one day  i was playing mine craft when this blabbering thing just showed up. I went to activity monitor and there was a process called com.apple.dock.extra. From the first day there was a annoying voice all the time and when i went to internet pages, i could not scroll down as it would go back up to the top again. Just yesterday i was playing mine craft when my up key stopped working. After some investigating, i think it has to do with com.apple.dock.extra. Whenever i press up, the annoying little black box goes up to multiple links and says them out to me. Finally, there is a big black box that appears telling me where my system is. My computer is a 13 inch MacBook Air version 10.7.4 and i have Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4. I have a 1.8 GHZ processor. Could someone PLEASE tell me how to fix it, as this is my school computer.

You could try this fix:

In Finder use the Go to and go to /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/XPCServices

In XPCServices Folder and move the com.apple.dock.extra.xpc file to desktop.

Then go back to the activity monitor and force quit the process and test!

Source: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4263912 user jximo 07


Audio input/output splitter for MacBooks without changeable input/output jack? From what I can understand, in the latest iterations of the MacBooks, what former was an input/output 3.5mm jack, now only can be used for input. However, it's possible to use certain headsets (for example the one that comes as standard with the iPhone) and get both audio in and out.

Shouldn't it be possible to build an audio input/output splitter for the mini jack? That is, a cord that splits up into an input and an output part, resulting in two female 3.5 connectors, to which you can connect your headphones and your mic? Is there even such a product out there?

Yes, they are called 3.5mm 4 pin splitter, they separate a 4pin 3.5mm jack in 2 standard 3.5mm jack (1 for headphones, 1 for mic) as this one:

Startech.com 3.5mm 4 Pin to 2x 3 Pin 3.5mm Headset Splitter Adapter - M/F

you can read the comments, there are also some mac users that bought this splitter.


Is Time machine able to restore my Windows Partition? I have 2 partitions on my computer. One with mac os x, another for Windows XP. I want to replace the disk with another one and I  wanted to know if Time  Machine will be able to restore the Windows partition too?

Winclone 3 is the best way to backup/restore a Windows Boot Camp partition. I have used it numerous times to restore such a partition.

http://twocanoes.com/software.php?software=1


How can I prohibit network users from accessing other user's home folders using Server permissions? I have a 10.8 server, network users on a shared drive 'User Data' - used as a AFP for home folders, OD is on. All users are part of a group 'students 2013/14'.

My network user can login via OD over a network, however the permissions are not set correctly, since network user accounts can access all other users folder read/write on the sharepoint.

Question:
How can I set the permissions in Server.app correctly so that network users can login, use their server based home folder w/r but not access other network user home folders using the student 2013/14 group?

Launch Server.app
Click "File Sharing."
Click "Users."
Use Minus Sign to Remove Certain Users from Certain Folders.


Spotlight: Unable to index network SMB share I'm trying to turn on spotlight for my NAS drive. I have it mounted in OSX 10.8.2 as the following:

 /Volumes/Trogdor (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, mounted by soltrain)

mdutil returns the following:

mdutil -as (removed non relevent parts)
/Volumes/Trogdor:
    Indexing and searching disabled.

When I try to enable it I get the following:

Noahs-MacBook-Air:~ soltrain$ mdutil -i on /Volumes/Trogdor/
                              /Volumes/Trogdor:
                                  Indexing and searching disabled.

I've looked for a .metadata_never_index file on /Volumes/Trogdor/ but do not see any such file. I've also added/removed the volume from the privacy preferences in the spotlight pref panel with no effect. Any ideas? I'd rather not use a separate util if spotlight should be working.

Try going to System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy, then adding in the share to the list not to index, then removing it again. It helped with a similar issue I had.


Windows won't open from Mac Dock I use iTerm a lot and keep the app in the dock. When I first start iTerm, it brings up a terminal window.

If I minimize its window I expect to be able to click on iTerm in dock to bring the iTerm window back into view. But this doesn't always happen. Often it doesn't reopen the window. I'll try clicking on the icon several times but it never opens the window. If I right-click on the dock icon it'll list the open windows. I can select one but it still won't open.

This happen with other apps too. In Messages or Mail, when this happens, I'm forced to select a new message window to get a new window. I'm running High Sierra, 10.13.5 on my iMac. I've tried restarting normal and restarting in safe mod but nothing works. Does anyone have a clue of why this is happening?

These might help. Not known for sure.

Method 1 :

Go to ~/Library/Preferences.
Take a backup of the com.googlecode.iterm2.plist file.
Delete it from Preferences folder.
Restart iTerm.
Maybe it gets fixed. Else put back the backup file in the same folder.

Note: You may not need backup if you wish you may not need the user settings.

Method 2 :

Close the windows.
Right click and unselect Options -> Keep in Dock.
Restart iTerm from Applications folder.
Select Options -> Keep in Dock.

My References : Mail not opening issue in Apple Discussions, Details regarding .plist files, Similar issue in SuperUser


Deeper sleep on MacBook so it will stop connecting to bluetooth and draining battery I have the Sony MX1000 Bluetooth headphones, that can only connect to 1 Bluetooth source. So after work I put my MacBook to sleep, and would like to connect my headphones to my phone. This is not possible though, because my MacBook is still holding on to it, draining it's battery in the process.

To stop my mac from keeping its connections open, I tried this solution where I set stand-by mode as the default with sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25 and then invoke it with  Command+Option+Eject (Computer sleep), but it didn't work. The bluetooth stays on.

Does anyone have any other ideas?

You could install blueutil and SleepWatcher via homebrew and set a .sleep code to do "/usr/local/bin/blueutil -p 0" in order to disable bluetooth when going to sleep mode. I had the same issue and this did the trick !

To use SleepWatcher: make a shell script in your home directory named .sleep and give it permission with the command chmod +x ~/.sleep.

You also can do a .wake code to turn bluetooth back on with blueutil -p 1 when waking up.
You can find out how to use SleepWatcher here

You can do all of this with Keyboard Maestro too, if you prefer a GUI tool. You can have Keyboard Maestro call blueutil to control your Bluetooth. However, the first thing to do is make sure that “Enable Power Nap” is OFF in System Preferences under Energy Saver.


The command Line would not let me repair my disk permission on Mac (Mojave) Im on macOS Mojave on my Mac. I deleted my admin and made my user to admin. Now, I have problems with permission of files in the system. Yosemite was able to repair disk permissions by pressing a button. On the new system you must use the command line. I just got error when I tried to repair it. By the way, I'm uid 501.

sudo /usr/libexec/repair_packages --verify --standard-pkgs /
sudo: /etc/sudoers is owned by uid 501, should be 0
sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting
sudo: unable to initialize policy plugin

That command no longer exists since Sierra.

Apple recommend this as the current way to repair user permissions...

From Apple KB - Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder

  Reset permissions

  If the issue started after changing the permissions of items in your
  home folder, reset permissions:

  From the Finder menu bar, choose Go > Home. Your home folder opens.
  Choose File > Get Info. An Info window for your home folder opens.
  If the Sharing & Permissions section at the bottom of the window isn't open, click the triangle  in that section to open it.
  If the Lock button at the bottom of the window shows a closed lock lock , click the lock and enter an administrator name and password.
  Click the Action menu   in the bottom
  corner of the window, then choose “Apply to enclosed items.” Click OK
  to confirm the action. A progress bar appears at the top of the
  window.

  When the progress bar completes, open the Terminal app, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
  Paste or type this command in Terminal, then press Return:

diskutil resetUserPermissions / `id -u\`

  On U.S. keyboards, the ` character is just above the Tab key.
  After entering the diskutil command, if Terminal says that permissions
  reset on user home directory failed (error -69841), enter chflags -R
  nouchg ~ then enter the diskutil command again.

  When the process completes, quit Terminal.
  Restart the computer, then test to see if the issue is fixed.
  If the issue persists, reinstall macOS.


Enter on Zagg keyboard with iOS causes message to be sent I just updated my iPad and now when I hit the enter button it sends messages.  I was used to using it to scroll down. How do I change it back?

Have to use the "cmd" key and enter together for a line space when using message for texting.


iPhone Dies with 80% Battery Remaining My iPhone 5 runs out of power very quickly. First it was 50%. Then it was 60%, then 70%, and now 80%. At 80%, the phone will shut down like it would when the power gets to 0%. When it powers back on, it says 80%. It's almost like the limit of when to shut the phone off was, and still is getting to a higher percentage.

However, the phone is unusable. Not only does it run out of power quickly, it also drains power at a ridiculous rate. In half an hour, with wifi enabled and the screen off, it takes about half an hour to turn off. When I'm using it, it takes 10-15 minutes after a full charge to die. What's the cause of this issue, and how can I fix it?

While the iPhone 6s has a service plan - reduced cost replacement1 for having an issue where the battery reaches an end-of-life state after around a year of use (causing the battery to die at ~30%), older iPhones normally reach this state when their batteries grow old and tired (lithium-ion batteries can only be recharged so many times before they become unable to hold most of the original charge). Your iPhone 5 has a 3-3.5-year-old battery2, and thus it's the battery's fault that the phone is dying so quickly.

The only fix is to replace your iPhone's battery, something you can safely attempt yourself following this video or bring your phone to the Apple Store to have them do it (cost is usually 80-100 dollars without AppleCare).

1 The battery malfunctions are blamed on a manufacturer leaving the batteries exposed to ambient air too long; note that it is not a safety issue, merely a convenience issue. Recall information here.

2 Based on a release date of September 2014.

tl;dr: It's the old battery's fault, bring it to an Apple Store and get them to replace the battery to fix the issue.


Applescript - opening file inside app bundle I have used Automator to create an app bundle that activates an app ("Fuse") within the Resources directory of the bundle, which then opens the file "Exolon.tzx" (also located in Resources).

However, I can only get this to work when pointing to the full location of "Exolon.tzx" while the app is on my Desktop. Obviously, when I move the app it no longer works.

What do I need to change in this script to have it point to and open "Exolon.tzx" regardless of where I keep the app (in particular, I want it to work when I transfer the app to another Mac).

My script:

tell application "Fuse"
        open POSIX file "/Users/almeath/Desktop/Exolon.app/Contents/Resources/Exolon.tzx"
    end tell
    tell application "System Events"
        set frontmost of process "Fuse" to true
    end tell
    tell application "System Events"
        keystroke "f" using command down
    end tell

When I run the app from the Desktop it activates the Fuse app, opens Exolon.tzx and then executes the specified keystroke. If I move the app to another location (i.e not the Desktop) then an error is produced: “The action Run AppleScript encountered an error: “Fuse got an error: Connection is invalid”

You can use path to resource to get the pathname of the  file that's in an App's Resource folder.

Example AppleScript code:

set resourceName to "Exolon.tzx"

set filePathName to quoted form of POSIX path of (path to resource resourceName) as text

tell application "Fuse"
        open POSIX file filePathName
end tell

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors.


Cannot install application via OTA I have created an iOS app that I want to distribute over the air. I have create a website that links to the itms-services url with the mainfest.plist file. When I try to download the file on my iOS device, it prompts me asking if I want to install it, and then it says "App name could not be downloaded at this time". Here is an example:

I have tried re-signing it,editing the manifest plist file, and much more. Is there a way to fix this?

Make sure that you have exported the app for "Enterprise Deployment" (or "Ad Hoc Deployment" if this is what you're trying to do).

Then make sure that you have the correct provisioning profile in the package (.mobileprovision).


Inserting shell script into .app bundle I'm trying to shoe-horn a shell script into an application bundle so that the shell script will be run when I open the bundle, as opposed to the executable put in there.

Specifically, I'm trying to do some environment setup before running the binary, e.g. setting environment variables (I already tried just putting the environment variables into the Info.plist, which didn't work, presumably because MATLAB is stupid), and when I cd into the bundle and manually execute my script, (./StartMATLAB) it works; The program launches, and the environment variables are recognized.

When I double-click on the .app in Finder, or call open MATLAB_R2011b.app however, it fails.  When calling open from the commandline, I get:

LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -10810 for the file /Applications/MATLAB_R2011b.app

I've tried playing around with the Info.plist to no avail, but I'm not too familiar with how they are put together.  Does anyone know why I cannot open this bundle?

Thanks!

EDIT:
The Info.plist for the program I'm trying to edit seems to have a lot of java-related stuff.  I've tried to remove it, but no luck so far.  I'm thinking the problem may be with the .plist file, as it is expecting a java-based program as opposed to any other executable

This won't work for a signed app, but here's how I was able to get this to work:

Create a copy of the app you're trying to modify in case something goes wrong. (⌘D in Finder) For my example here, I modified the non-app store version of  VectorDesigner
In Terminal, cd /Applications/VectorDesigner.app/Contents/MacOS
mv VectorDesigner VectorDesigner\ copy (substitute the name of your app here
pico VectorDesigner (or your editor of choice) and add the contents of your script.

I used this script

 #!/bin/sh
 osascript -e "tell Application \"Finder\" to display alert \"Hello World\""
 /Applications/VectorDesigner.app/Contents/MacOS/VectorDesigner\ copy

The important thing is for the last line to call the renamed executable.
chmod a+x VectorDesigner

Now, when I double-click the VectorDesigner icon, I get the "Hello World" window, then it launches the original program.


OS X Yosemite spotlight search wikipedia and web content missing One of the new features in spotlight was supposed to be information from wikipedia, web when anything was searched. However, I don't seem to be getting this information when I search in spotlight. Is this feature only available in certain countries? (Im in India, and all the reviews I've read about Yosemite are US or Europe based websites).

This could be related: https://www.apple.com/ios/feature-availability/#spotlight-suggestions-spotlight-suggestions

It's a list of countries that have Spotlight Suggestions enabled in iOS 8. If this is true, this is a pretty bad move from Apple.

Source: macrumors discussion

UPDATE: Apple confirms that

  Spotlight Suggestions may not be available in all regions.

on the Spotlight support page.


Identify square icon with filled triangle up icon in iOS status bar There's an icon just to the left of the battery percentage icon in the Status bar of my iPhone, which I am unable to identify.

I have tried looking for it in the Apple Support document, but was unable to find it:

Status icons and symbols on your iPhone

Does anyone know what does it represent? How can I remove it?

The icon represents AirPlay, Apple's technology that lets you mirror screen content from one device to another.

The icon indicates an active AirPlay session where your iPhone screen is mirrored on an AirPlay compatible device (Apple TV for e.g.).

You can learn more about AirPlay in the Apple Support article:

How to AirPlay video and mirror your device's screen to Apple TV

Turning off the AirPlay session will remove the icon from the Status bar.


front light blinking and beep sound Just two days back, I bought a MacBook Pro. I have just decreased the resolution of the display and started one game. Suddenly, my MacBook made an annoying beep sound and the front light was also blinking. After I restarted the system, everything seemed fine.

I just want to know what the problem was?

Edit: So the problem is reproducible. Whenever I start the game, the MacBook Pro starts flashing the front light and beeping.

You need to let us know how many times the light blinks, because they are diagnostic indicators. If it's blinking 3 times then pause, then 3 times again then it's an indication of a bad RAM. If it beeps 3 times, it's also an indication of bad ram.
However, if it blinks 5 times and pauses, then the battery might need diagnostics or replacing. So check.


Is it possible to stream audio via AVB between two Macintoshes? I have two Macs that I am trying to stream AVB between. Both machines are running Mavericks and can see other AVB devices and stream with them. However when trying to stream from one Mac to another Mac it does not function. We have tried with an iMac, two Mac Mini, a Mac Book Pro, and a Mac Air.

Is it possible to stream between two Macs for just audio? Under Audio Midi Setup the network devices is empty.

Thank you.

You need an avb switch, like the one from motu or presonus.


How to connect wireless keyboard on login screen My keyboard has discnnected from iMac when I used it on linux system and iPad.
I cannot find a way to connect it because there is no Bluetooth option on login screen and I cannot login because I cannot enter the password. Mac doesnt have on screen keyboard.

Is it possible that Ill need a separate hardware (keyboard) to fix this issue??

See if this works:

Unplug ALL USB devices, have your wireless keyboard and mouse turned on, and restart. The system sees that there are no input devices and searches for them. Then asks you to type a passcode and hit return.

If you have the Apple Keyboard 2 which has the Lightning port on the back of the keyboard, all you need to do is connect the USB -> Lightning cord to the computer and it will just like a normal wired keyboard.


How to reverse the F keys default functionality I am newbie Mac user and I recently stumbled upon this annoying F6 problem: when I debug in Xcode or Eclipse, I must use fn+F6 to run the debugger. By default, F6 is the function key to adjust the keyboard light. How can I reverse its functionality, in order to use F6 for the debugger and fn+F6 for the keyboard light?

System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard tab -> check "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys"

UPDATE: If you have a touch bar Mac you'll want System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard tab -> "Touch Bar shows" -> "F1, F2, etc. Keys"


Can we add formula (tool) in brew list? According to brew document(https://docs.brew.sh/Manpage) we can install tools which Apple didn’t include with macOS.
Can we add our custom (third party) tool in brew list (https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/) and if yes then what is procedure for it.

The rules limit what is an acceptable formula so having your own tool accepted would seem to depend on its popularity.

  Niche (or self-submitted) stuff

  The software in question must:

  be maintained (i.e. the last release wasn’t ages ago, it works
  without patching on all supported macOS releases and has no
  outstanding, unpatched security vulnerabilities)
  be known
  be stable (e.g. not declared “unstable” or “beta” by upstream)
  be used
  have a homepage

  We will reject formulae that seem too obscure, partly because they won’t get maintained and partly because we have to draw the line somewhere.

  We frown on authors submitting their own work unless it is very popular.

You can however create your own tap containing whatever you want. See How to create and maintain a tap

  Taps are external sources of Homebrew formulae and/or external commands. They can be created by anyone to provide their own formulae and/or external commands to any Homebrew user.


Theft of MacBook running El Capitan: Security Implications My MacBook running El Capitan just got stolen. It was in hibernation, and will display a password prompt on opening the lid next. Assuming a not-very-technical attacker and a solid login password, how likely is it that my account passwords from keychain will leak?

Your keychain is encrypted with your login password, so the passwords stored in it should be pretty safe as long as they aren't somewhere else, too. Unfortunately, information sometimes leaks, so there may be notes, password reset emails, etc lying around unencrypted and potentially readable by whoever stole the laptop (or their fence, or...). So in theory your passwords are safe; in practice, you should reset them all.


Mute volume of macbook on sleep I was wondering if there was any way to mute my macbook whenever I physically close it, so if there was anything playing prior to closing it that it does not continue to make noise when I open it later.

Seems like a weird request, but I have a bad habit of forgetting to pause my music/youtube  when I leave for class, than when I open my laptop in class it disrupts the class.

The easy answer would be, "just pause your stuff", but I thought it would be nice if there was something that could accomplish this.

Download SleepWatcher (free, source code included).
Install it using the instructions included in the download.
Have your 'sleep' script call osascript (AppleScript)

/usr/bin/osascript -e 'set volume with output muted'

Now your Mac will be muted anytime your computer goes to sleep.

If you want to make extra sure that it is muted when it wakes from sleep, add

/usr/bin/osascript -e 'set volume with output muted'

to your 'wake' script as well.


Monitor HTTPS traffic on an ios device or maybe remotely on the Internet I want to monitor HTTPS network traffic on the Internet and not Intranet.  I would use a tool like Charles or Fiddler and setup a proxy but I could only host through Intranet. Plus, I have the issue of decrypting https traffic.

Ideally, I would like to monitor all http requests on the ios device, log to a file and then I can monitor the full data in that file.  Also, I am working Cordova/Xcode ObjectiveC code to create webviews, so the application I want to monitor is not a full browser like Safari.  I would be monitoring webrequests through that webview.

Is there a way to do this?  What applications in iTunes/Store are available to print out decrypted https requests.

...

If you set the IP-address where Charles is running as a proxy on your iPad you should be able to catch all traffic going to your iPad.

For HTTPS you need to install the Charles Certificate on your iPad and let Charles decrypt your HTTPS traffic en encrypt it again before sending it to your iPad (man-in-the-middle). In the Charles application it's called SSL-Proxying.

http://www.charlesproxy.com/documentation/proxying/ssl-proxying/


Why does the News app lose the article you're reading when restoring This is super, super annoying.  If I open the News app on my phone, start reading an article and then, say, reply to a message; every time I restore the article the News app just goes back to the home screen.

I'd expect this if my phone was running out of memory but it's not.

Is there anything I can do to prevent this?  Seems like a bug.

The Apple News iOS app does go back to the home screen if left inactive, I can't comment as to what triggers this and why - but I can offer a solution:

You can find the "History" of your viewed stories within the "Following" tab (bottom right).


Creating A Folder From Any Number Of Selected Items In Finder? Is there a quick way to select several items and place them into a new folder?

Two ways to achieve this:

Select the files, compress them into a zip, and then uncompress them into a folder that will be named whatever you named the zip in the first place.

Select the items you want in the Finder, right-click (or two-finger tap) on them to bring up OS X's contextual menu, and choose the first option: New Folder with Selection (shown in the gif below). The Finder will then create a new folder with those items stored safely inside, removing at least one step from the process for you automatically.


Can i change the App availability multiple times? Can i change the App availability date multiple times?. i.e Making it available for sale and changing it to future, again making it available etc.

Example:
I make an available today, its get on to the sale, people download it and use it.
I realize that there is a use case missed, but to confirm that i need more time, i immediately change the App's available date in Future, may be like 10 days and then test the use case and again make the app available.

If this can be done, i.e making it available and moving it to future, again making it available... Is there a restriction on number of times that you can do it, is there any Apple policy around it?

There doesn't seem to be a limit on how many times you can change an app's availability date. Note that there's a 24–48 hour delay for your change to the availability date to be reflected across every App Store.


Is there any way to backup and restore your iOS apps *without* re-downloading all of them? I've got a problem. The first step, as they say, is acceptance. My problem, is apps.

I've got over four hundred on my phone, generally. It floats around that count, anyway. I think, perhaps, it comes from when I was a Boy Scout: “be prepared, zing-zing bong-bong,” and all that.

But in all seriousness: waiting two or three days, without leaving WiFi range (meaning, since I travel a lot, two or three days being phone-less while it sits at home) for all of my apps to re-download themselves … is painful, at best; and lifestyle-restricting at worst.

I'm a techie. I know quite a bit about these things, generally; and I know that there must be some way, complex as it may be, to backup the actual .app folders and restore the same, without excruciatingly-slowly re-downloading dozens of gigabytes of apps every single time I drop my phone, or update to a new iOS beta, or suffer some other data-calamity.

Anybody know?

You can backup the iphone from itunes from a mac/windows pc and the when you need to restore choose to restore from an itunes backup.


Sanding off a MacBook's sharp edges The edges of both the MacBook Pro (aluminum case) and the MacBook (polycarbonate) are exceedingly sharp. Depending on my typing position, they dig in my wrists, an unpleasant and painful experience. Can you suggest a solution?

Sanding is one option. Did you perhaps sand-off the edges by using fine-sanding paper made for wood? Could you post an image of the result? It's understood it will not be as pretty afterwards, but being plain ugly is not an option either.

Guards are another idea. People sometime use guards on furniture with sharp features to save their kids when bumping into them. Can you think of a similar product (off-the-shelf or homemade) for the edges of a MacBook?

Addendum

Looking back at this old question years later I'm puzzled at the critiques of ergonomics. It's a laptop (FHS). You can switch it on anywhere and start typing. It may be the least ergonomic desk and typing positions ever. Coffee shops, for one, do not appear to particularly choose heights for tables with an eye to typing positions, understandably.

Whether polycarbonate or aluminum, the hard edge is painful on bare skin. The simplest solution (maybe this should technically be an answer, albeit a cheeky one) is to wear long sleeves. (If it's just too warm, ) The second-simplest solution is to carry a handkerchief along with the laptop and fold it to protect your skin. Either mimics the suggested glue-on solutions, but avoids ruining the clinically clean closure of a Macbook's screen.

Apple, if You're reading this, chamfer the (expletive) sharp front edges.

I posted this DIY solution to the Apple Discussions thread here as well with a bit more "story line" as this isn't the place for that.

I created a vinyl wrap for the front edge with some sort of "padding" under just the corner! This is just a prototype and I intend to have my wife use her Cameo to cut a custom design for the vinyl wraps.

Here you can see that the vinyl is very thin and adds almost no thickness to the wrist area:

You can see the slight padding I have under the vinyl that just wraps the edge. For this "prototype" I just cut about a 1/4 inch strip of a paper towel. I used a "towel" type paper towel, not that harsh rough stuff. I had Viva brand on hand:

It's not impacting closing the MacBook at all as you can see here:

I've used this for 2 days now working for approx 12 hours each day and I have no more harsh edge lines on my wrist. And she happened to have some scrap black vinyl that happens to match the keyboard perfectly. Looks pretty sweet. Of course I could find a brushed or just aluminum color so they would virtually be unnoticable.

Also, these are completely removeable without leaving any residue. If there is any left, it's very minor and removed by just slight rubbing of the residue. This is the same vinyl used for signs or crafts.

I may have my wife cut these on her Cameo with the theme of the OS releases. Lion (would have been) lion paws, Mavericks will be waves and Yosemite will be silhouettes of El Capitan and maybe Sentinel Rock. But who knows, maybe they will be flames or something else fun. We'll see.


Option-Left/Right Arrow doesn't work The keyboard shortcuts Option-Left/Right Arrow is made for moving the cursor by words, as Apple described here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236 , but doesn't work on my MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010, OS X 10.11). They fail to work everywhere I can try, including but not limited to Notes, TextEdit, Mail, Google.com search field and iMessage text field. Meanwhile on my friend's MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013, OS X 10.11), they work damn well! Anyone can help?

Note:

An Apple Wireless Keyboard is paired to my Mac, but it doesn't help.
System has been restarted several times, doesn't help.
Including Option-Delete and Option-Shift-Up Arrow, all the Option related shortcuts in the "Document shortcuts" session of https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236 doesn't work.
The Option key is fine, I have tested it by shortcuts like Command-Optiono-H which works.

The problem has been solved by switching the input source from "Unicode Hex Input" (my major input source) to "U.S.". I think some option based shortcuts can't function as usual with "Unicode Hex Input". You can update the input sources by searching "unicode" to be directed to system preferences -> Keyboard. Click "Input Sources" and remove other input methods that might be causing the error. Then open a new window for the program you want to test.


Overcoming random slowness with my home Wi-Fi and 2015 13″ Retina MacBook Pro I've had issues where the Wi-Fi seems to slow to a crawl sporadically. This only happens on my home network; I've not seen it happen anywhere else. No other devices are affected while this is happening and I can fix it by restarting the machine.

I know there are issues with Wi-Fi after upgrading to Yosemite, but this was brand new with Yosemite already installed. The Wi-Fi settings were imported through iCloud if that makes any difference.

The issues aren't with upgrading to Yosemite, they're with a component of Yosemite - every Yosemite machine runs the risk of having them. The issue's been resolved in the latest version of the OS X 10.10.4 beta, which you can download by joining the Apple beta program and following the instructions to put the beta on your computer.

Here's an article explaining more about the bug in question, if you're interested.


some songs removed from my iTunes libary not always automatically removing from iPhone when using Match When I decide I no longer like one or more songs from my iTunes library I remove it in iTunes (and not just the download).

they then disappear out of my iTunes library and computer. All as expected

Then i go to my iPhone and Often i will still find some of these removed songs on my phone.

Not all but some songs never disappear slowly filling up my iPhone. this happens to songs that had been downloaded to the iphone but also to songs that remained in the cloud while they are long gone from my computer and iTunes.

(I use iOS 9.3.1 on an iphone 5 64gb and iTunes 12.3.3.17 on win 10 64bit)

i just erased all data on my iPhone and restored it through iCloud. The songs that had been removed long ago finally left my phone. I suppose this is a solution but i really hope i wont have to do this too often.


Launchd to only run on schedule, not restart? I have a script that I want to set for 3:30am daily and it does run at the set time but it also runs on every restart of the computer which I do not want.

How do I make this work with just the schedule in place and not run on every startup of the computer?

Here's my plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.xxxxx.xxxx</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Library/Scripts/script.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>30</integer>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>3</integer>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

You will need a add a "Run at Load" key and set it to false.

<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<false/>

This will prevent running at startup and only at your manually specified time.


Using a MacBook Pro Retina Display with USB3 external drives I am trying to find out if working directly from a USB3 external hard drive will slow down the Mac's performance in using software such as Photoshop CC. I realise this is not purely a Mac specific question, but I can't find the answer elsewhere.

Basically I need to free up disk space on my Mac, and want to work with files stored on the USB drive. Is this acceptable practice or is it better practice to keep the files I wish to work on stored on the Mac's internal drive, and then only use the USB drive for storing files and backing up?

The most common files I work with are large resolution photographs, and the software I use most is Photoshop CC.

The answer to your question depends on your setup, how you've configured Photoshop, and the actual external drive.

Typically one would have Photoshop configured to use the internal drive for its scratch disk location, so in that sense you won't overly slow your work down.

However, it's highly likely that you'll notice read/write speeds to be slower when saving and opening files from the external drive, although how much will depend on the actual drive and what you have installed as an internal drive.

For example, if your internal drive is an SSD the difference will be quite noticeable, especially with larger files. However, if your internal drive is only a 5400rpm drive you probably won't notice any difference. And of course it'll be somewhere in between for 7200rpm drives or fusion/hybrid drives.

Regardless of what you do, make sure you have a backup regime in place. So if you use the external for your Photoshop work, then invest in another drive for Time Machine (or other) backups!

Some tips:

the more RAM you have, the better. Make sure your Photoshop preferences allow as much memory as possible.
make sure you have a reasonable amount of free space on your internal drive, not only for scratch disk purposes, but also for virtual memory usage.
you can work with a few files off your external USB as a test before moving everything across
once again, make sure you have a backup regime in place!


What kinds of files can be added to Documents in the Cloud? I already know that Pages can add .doc files too, but my knowledge ends at that. Does anyone have an exhaustive list of files that can be added to Documents in the Cloud through Apple apps (Preview, iWork, TextEdit, etc) only?

If you consider the Finder to be an Apple app, the answer is any arbitrary file.

From my experimentation, it appears files dropped into folders in the ~/Library/Mobile Documents hierarchy get synched to other computers using the same iCloud account, regardless of type.


Playing a 3 note chord on GarageBand performs an UNDO function I have a 1st edition iPad Pro 12.9" and I opened GarageBand. It loaded an old song automatically, and the instrument was a synth. I switched it to a Grand Piano and began to play a 3 note chord. As I played the chord a couple of times, the instrument switch back to the synth.

I tried a few more times and the same thing happened. I finally tracked it down to it performing an undo function, and I was able to select redo to change the instrument back to a Grand Piano. Every time I play a 3 note chord, it does this undo making it very hard to play what I am trying to play. It happens for any chord I play and on both sides of the screen.

I am running the beta of iPadOS as well, if that matters!

Is this normal? I've not really used GarageBand on my iPad much...

In iPadOS 13 undo and redo are three finger gestures. Undo is supposed to be a three finger swipe to the left and redo a three finger swipe to the right. The movement to or from a three finger chord certainly may be recognized as a quick swipe. Try disabling gestures in Settings. Because this is in beta the location of settings like this may change between releases. I'd look in Settings->General and disable gestures to start.


Bonjour not working behind a switch I have a router, two devices (amongst other things) named device1.local and device2.local & 2 switches. Each switch is connected to the router. The two devices are not connected to the same switch. With this configuration, the devices are not able to communicate with each other through Bonjour. Using their IPs, on the other hand, works like a charm.

Now if I connect one of the devices directly to the router, everything is working fine.

Is this a Bonjour limitation? If so, it doesn't make much sense to me. What's the rationale behind this? Is there any to make this work at all (using additional configuration, in the switches or anything else)?

Bonjour is two systems running together: mDNS (Multicast DNS) and DNS-SD (DNS Service Discovery).

mDNS allows hosts (devices/computers) to be identified, while DNS-SD allows them to publish what services they are running.

Multicast DNS, as the name suggests, relies on IP Multicast, and specifically the multicast IP 224.0.0.251 (IPv4) or ff02::fb (IPv6) (in your case, most likely the former). It seems DNS-SD works over unicast between clients.

I suspect the problem is likely in the forwarding of multicast packets. Some switches/routers will not pass broadcast/multicast packets between some network interfaces.

In the simplest case, for example, you don't want broadcasts/multicasts from your own local network going out to the web. In a large corporate environment, you may want to limit such traffic to defined organisational units or groups of computers.

At a guess I'd say your switches/router are configured to either block multicast packets going 'upstream' (to the router) or (possibly) limit the number of hops (not actually sure if that's possible). I'm not familiar with the Netgear switches, but a quick google search suggests there's a configuration option called 'Block Unknown MultiCast Address'. You may want to try disabling this in the switches, and/or specifying 244.0.0.251 as a 'known' address if that's possible.

It may be that in the specific configuration (device1 - switch - router - switch - device2) the switches don't think the router is participating in the 244.0.0.251 multicast, and so doesn't bother forwarding out that port. The router may be doing the same for the switches, or may not be multicast aware.

It could be educational to try connecting one switch to the other, rather than each via the router. They may 'play nicer' when directly connected together (just a guess though, and probably not helpful for your intended deployment).

This discussion could also be helpful to better understanding the multicast limitations of those switches too.


Is a quad-core i5 or i7 27" iMac a viable upgrade from a 2008 2.8ghz octacore Mac Pro 3,1? I currently have a 3,1 Mac Pro with dual quad xeon CPUs, 20GB RAM, 1TB SSD (8x256gb in two RAID 10 groups), ATI 5770, running Lion.  I currently have every DVD and BluRay I own ripped to a set of eSATA direct attached storage arrays at about 38TB (76TB in RAID 1).

I'm looking at the new (2011) 27" iMacs and wondering how they would compare.  I'd probably buy a non-SSD version and migrate some of my existing SSD into the new machine, and I'd do the usual "minimum amount of Apple RAM" and max it out on my own.  I'd put the noisy Mac Pro[1] in the basement and use it as a file server as well as a xgrid compilation node, remote Mathematica kernel, and random server.  My main concern is compute speed.

I use a lot of RAM and fast disk for Java/Scala/Erlang/Mathematica/Haskell/R/Rails/Mono/iOS development (often 3-4 of these at the same time), along with a bad habit of keeping too many Safari and Chrome tabs open (Chrome to sandbox Flash, which is otherwise uninstalled on my system).

I've reached a point where I feel as if I've topped out on this machine, and need to upgrade.  Even with 4+ GB RAM free, it can't keep up with my "needs".

The 3,1 was pretty magical in that the price variance from the low-end quad core to the top-end octo was only about USD1k-1.5k.  Now, to get a "hot" Mac Pro, I'd be looking closer to $5k.  With that, I'd still have a machine without Thunderbolt ports, which require motherboard support, according to Apple.  (Take that as you will.)

I'm not up to date with the advances in Intel CPUs over the past few years.  What comparison could I draw between the i5 and i7 options?  Clock for clock, are they significantly faster than my Xeons?  Would the 3.1 or 3.4 ghz i7 zoom past my 2008 (westmere?) CPUs?

I do use all eight cores very frequently, as I write and use a lot of parallel code.  I've been using multiprocessing systems for about 20 years now, so it's my native mode of developing.

Thanks for any/all help!

[1] It's not loud, but it hums at about 35dB at a frequency that causes my ears to ring when I leave the room.  I often wear noise-canceling headphones or ear plugs, but I am oversensitive to noise.  I can still hear the transformers in CRTs from 50+ feet away and behind walls at the doddering age of 39.

It would be a lateral move in terms of processing performance. The following are scores taken from Geekbench (how fortuitous that they were right next to each other?):

As you can see, it's a slight downgrade in processing power, and I stress slight, if that is indeed your current model (3.2 GHz). The other variants (3.0 GHz for example, which can be seen if you scroll down the list) clock in at slightly lower numbers (~9000). While you would gain the use of an additional Thunderbolt port, the 6 Gbps controller, and a faster FSB, they may not offset the cost of buying a new machine.

It really doesn't look like it would be a significant upgrade from your current Mac.


How can I hide spam emails in my inbox of OSX Apple Mail app? I label my emails as spam or better "Junk email" in my iPhone and MacBook Air but the emails continue to stay in my inbox. I want to get rid of them without removing them so I can later improve my spam filtering with SpamAssistant in my server. How can I hide spam emails in my inbox of OSX Apple Mail app?

I don't know whether the OXS settings will propagate somehow to iPhone. Anyway I could find the following settings in OSX.

Preferences > Accounts > Mailbox Behaviors

Preferences > Junk Mail


Is there quick access to network settings such as Wifi, 3G and bluetooth? As titled, is there any way to access settings mentioned in the title without going into Settings app everytime?

iPhone not jailbroken, running iOS 5.0.1

There is a website ( http://brdrck.me/settings/ ). But this will only work with iOS <= 5.0.1.


Create hotkey to insert text I want to create a hotkey command that insert this text "/" in whatever application I'am

The reason is because I'm a developer and I use the / symbol a lot, the problem is with my keyboard layout, that symbol should be made with SHIFT + 7, and thats not easily done with one hand.

Keyboard Maestro can type text per hotkey:


Should in-app purchases transfer between devices? Should in-app purchases transfer between different devices that use the same Apple ID? Is it up to the developer?

My situation: I have two iPads. I purchased Monument Valley and installed it on both iPads. No problem. I only had to buy it once. Now there is the expansion, Forgotten Shores, which is implemented as an in-app purchase rather than a new game. I purchased it on one iPad, but the other iPad still shows it as something I would need to buy.

I've tried deleting and re-installing from the second iPad. I've also tried syncing both devices to iTunes on my laptop. It still shows the expansion as something I would need to buy.

If I click buy, is Apple going to realize that I've already bought the expansion, and just tell the game that it is purchased? Or is it actually going to charge me again for the same expansion?

I'm not sure how this is supposed to work... I haven't tried to do in-app purchases across devices before.

Most apps with in-app purchases have the ability to redownload those purchases if, for instance, you delete the app & need to reinstall it, or if you are loading the app on another device with the same AppleID. Below, the Restore Purchase button in GarageBand which allows me to download loops I have purchased:


How can I know if my macbook is hacked? Today when I turned on my macbook I could see that the Desktop Background has been changed to Yosemite picture.
Then right after clicking on Change Desktop background... the background changed to the one I had, which was a green background with a dog in the center, except for the dog picture, it was only the green background.
After this I clicked again on Change Desktop background... and it changed again to the Yosemite picture.
Finally I went to finder file to see where the picture of the dog was, and when I clicked to see it, it was opened but at the same time 2 more pictures were opened.
After all this, I clicked again on Change Desktop background... but nothing happened. The Yosemite background didn't change this time.
All the time when this happened, my mac didn't have connection to internet.
Why? Is my mac hacked? Does it have a virus? What do I do?
Notes.

Every once in a while I see a message on the upper RHS (in the corner of the screen) telling me that I should update something related to the system but I always click on later and then the message vanishes.

Update
More details of the situation above.
3 pictures were opened by itself at the same time. I did not chose to open 2 of them, had I chose them then they weren't be displayed in the way they did because there is a standard way when one open several pictures at once. There 3 pictures displayed like  if I were selected 1, then the other and then the other within milliseconds.
That above plus the change of desktop background, it's 10000% strange.
I know that is stupid to think that I am hacked but have I another option than to this so?
So, how can I know if someone,  from another part in the world, is in my macbook?
Footnote. Related question of mine Why did my desktop background changed and why pictures were opened, if I did nothing to do so?

No.  You are not hacked.
Hackers do not operate in this manner.  There's this common misconception about hackers being in the dark recesses of their parents basement consuming copious amounts of Red Bull and Hot Pockets in an effort to brute force their way into your computer to change the background picture.
Hacking is 90% social engineering - it's exploiting vulnerabilities to get you to "give up the goods" like passwords, security questions, or any other sort of credential to gain access to a system.
So, what do they do when they gain access?
Try to find more credentials to gain access to other systems. Maybe they get a treasure trove of identity "stuff" (drivers license info, credit card or banking info, etc.) that they can sell online, but what they're looking for is more keys to get into other systems.  It's about a lateral move to the next system(s), not breaking the one they're currently on.
Changing your desktop picture and drawing attention to their activities would be a colossal waste of time because if you know they're there, you're going to cut them off (i.e. wipe the drive and reinstall the OS and/or change passwords, etc.).  If they were going to do something that called your attention to them, it would be to hold your computer/information for ransom; in other words install ransomware.
Is it a Virus?
Unlikely. Again, this would be a waste of time for a virus writer to infect your computer to change your background.  And technically, it would be called malware because a virus is a type of malware that self-propagates much like the flu.  Those are few and far between now and most malware is self inflicted (by downloading/installing software of questionable origin).
What do you do?
If you're concerned someone has access to your computer - change your passwords. Change the passwords on all of the accounts on your Mac.  If you've got three, change all three.  Change your iCloud password.  Change whatever account password you feel may have been compromised.
Now, if you Netflix account uses the same password as your Apple login, well, shame!  Get a password manager and start using it put different passwords on every online account.

Keeper Security (Free for single device, $30/yr for unlimited device and passwords)
Dashlane - (Free for 1 device and 50 accounts, $60/yr for unlimited devices and passwords)
1Password - (Free trial, $36/yr for unlimited passwords, items and 1GB secure document storage)
KeePass (Cross platform and free but requires a bit of tech savvy to sync across all devices)
McAfee TrueKey (Free for 15 passwords/unlimited devices; $20/yr unlimited passwords/devices

Still not certain you have malware installed?
Install security software like Malwarebytes, Webroot, or McAfee Security
However, if you do have an infected computer, I've always subscribed to the "nuke it" and reinstall philosophy.  This is where having a backup really comes in handy.
What about my changing background and open pictures?
Check your desktop settings - see if set to rotate (change every so often).  Change it to something else or turn it off altogether.  Then come back and reset it to what you want.  As for your open pictures, you may have inadvertently opened two pictures at once.  It's happened to me while using the trackpad; it’s happened to all of us at one time or another.
Keep your software updated

Every once in a while I see a message on the upper LHS telling me that
I should update something related to the system but I always click on
later and then the message vanishes.

If it's the left of the screen, it's not coming from the Notification Center.  Track down what it is and either uninstall the software (if not using) or update it.   Know the software you've got installed.
If it’s showing up on the right side of your screen, per your edit, check your notifications!  This is like taking your temperature, ignoring the reading and then jumping to the conclusion that you’ve got Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (it presents with a fever).  The point is, read and respond to the notification, that’s why Apple implemented it.
Probably the most controversial thing I'm going to advise here is that you should stop (if you're doing it of course) looking for and putting a priority on free software over known titles/developers.  Nothing's free.  It's much better to install an app that costs 5 dollars/euros/pounds/seashells from a developer that registers with Apple than finding a free app that requires you to bypass Gatekeeper to install.
IT is my profession for over 30 years now and even though I posses the skills to overcome malware, I will opt for the paid version over the free one 99% of the time.
Bottom Line...
If you skipped over everything above and take only one thing away from this it should be to have a backup.  Catastrophic things are going to happen - I guarantee it.
Even if you actually get hacked and your data is being held for ransom you can recover everything simply by wiping your computer, reinstalling, and restoring your data.
A Time Machine backup is the cheapest insurance policy you can buy.


Alcatraz - Xcode command line tools are not currently installed I'm managing Xcode plug-ins via Alcatraz.

Everything was alright until I installed and then uninstalled Git following instruction in the uninstalled.sh file in official git.zip file:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/git/
sudo rm /etc/paths.d/git
sudo rm /etc/manpaths.d/git

I have no idea what I've done with git would affect Alcatraz.
Once I click Package Manager in Xcode I get this error:

Even re-install the Alcatraz it's still there.

Update

I did install the Command Line Tool following Xcode Command Line Tool tutorial

Here's the message I got:

myMacBook-Air:~ me$ gcc --version
Configured with:--prefix=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple LLVM version 7.0.0 (clang-700.0.72) Target: x86_64-apple-darwin14.5.0
Thread model: posix

The Warning still pops up.

How could I fix this?

After installing git-2.5.3-intel-universal-mavericks you have at least three git executables on your Mac:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/git (v2.3.8 (Apple Git-58))
/usr/local/git/bin/git (v2.5.3)
/usr/bin/git (which is a stub only)

If you've followed the instructions in the README.txt inside the git-2.5.3-intel-universal-mavericks.dmg you probably renamed the original git stub:

sudo mv /usr/bin/git /usr/bin/git-system

Renaming or removing the stub already breaks Alcatraz.

You may now whether rename git-system:

sudo mv /usr/bin/git-system /usr/bin/git

or reinstall git-2.5.3-intel-universal-mavericks and link the GIT-git to /usr/bin:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/git/bin/git /usr/bin

to fix your issue.


Disable MacBook Pro 2018 Mojave Keyboard Simply put, I was wondering how I could disable my MacBook's keyboard temporarily.

It used to be possible in earlier versions of macOS by following this answer. This no longer is the case.

I have a MacBook Pro 2018 on macOS 10.14.6.

If all you need is a quick disabler to, for instance, clean your keyboard without pressing random keys, then there's a lovely bit of freeware called KeyboardCleanTool for precisely that purpose.


Late 2013 Macbook Pro turns off at random times I have a late 2013 15' MacBook Pro I've had since it was new.

Starting about two weeks ago it randomly shut down without any notice. It has since shut down multiple times. Sometimes 5 minutes will go by and sometimes it will be multiple hours. The screen goes black and when I turn it back on there are zero notifications about it shutting down improperly or having a critical issue. It happens while using an external HDMI display or not, power adapter plugged in and not.

I have tried:

SMC reset
PRAM Reset
Diagnostic mode boot up

I recently tried booting up to Windows 10 through boot camp and it hasn't powered off once, which is odd.

I've read around the net and a number of posts on this site, I don't see any solid solutions yet and I haven't brought it into Apple or an authorized repair center.

try booting into safe mode and test out the machine and see if it powers off. To boot into safe mode, hold down the Shift key when you power it on. Test it and see if it happens again. If not, it could be a third-party application or extension.


Automatic certificate creation? To add 3rd party plugins in Xcode, one should create their own certificate and to sign Xcode with it. But self-signed certificates expire after 1 year. How can I make specific code to be executed every year? Probably there's a way, but then I have another problem -- is there a way to create certificates with terminal, not through Keychain Access app?

Also is it unsafe? I don't see any difference between manual certificate creation and automatic, so if it is unsafe, then creating such certificates is overall unsafe.

Yes, you can use command line tools to issue your own self-signed certificates. These need not be limited to one year.

There is no difference between Keychain Access created certificates and those you create using command line tools.

openssl

With openssl you can create certificates of any duration. The question and answers for how to create a self-signed certificate with OpenSSL will get you started. The command is effectively:

openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem -days 730

The command above will result in a two year self-signed certificate.

Automatic versus Manual

Regarding safety, there is no difference in safety between certificates created by Keychain Access's graphical interface and those by command line tools.

The safety of self-signed certificates can be an issue. Self-signed certificates are not signed by a trusted third party. This third party signature typically only matters when the certificate is being used outside of your immediate environment – which it is not for this situation.

Ad-Hoc

You can also ad-hoc codesign an application without a certificate:

sudo codesign -f -s - /Applications/Xcode.app


How to connect an iPad 3 to 27" Apple Cinema Display (Mini DisplayPort) How can I connect my iPad 3 (30-pin dock connector) to my 27" Cinema Display (MiniDisplayPort)?

You'll need 2 different adapters :

iPad 3 => Dock to HDMI adapter => HMDI to mini displayport => Cinema Display.


Cannot install apps via macOS Big Sur App Store Since upgrading to macOS Big Sur (11.1), my system has been slow and laggy. Many applications upon first action seems to require a 2-4 second load to become responsive - once they've recovered that first time, things seem to be about as fast as they were on Catalina (no measurements, just perceptual observation).
Recently, I tried to update Xcode to the latest (12.4) via the Mac App Store (3.0). The download seemed to complete, but the install wouldn't finish. I restarted the computer after 4 hours of not completing. Upon restarting, the install did not finish, so I thought I may need to reclaim some disk space. I went to download "Cleaner One - Disk Clean" from the Mac App Store. The app seemed to download but, too, could not finish the install. I restarted the computer again and tried to install the app again.

This time, it doesn't seem to even start the download, it just hangs at what appears to be 0% - the Launchpad says "Waiting". After this I decided to try, another app that I've never downloaded before (Just a random featured free app) "MindNode - Mind Map & Outline". This time the download starts and seemingly finishes, but stops at the end of the download and fails to install (the same thing I saw with the first attempt of installing "Cleaner One").

Something is obviously pretty borked here. I'm hoping someone knows somewhere to look to clean out whatever caches are preventing these from completing. I would go back to Catalina, but I think I need the latest macOS for the latest Xcode to develop for the latest iOS.

Okay, I found the solution. I found an Apple Developer forum (that I had to access via Google cache for some reason) that discussed related issues.
To re-iterate here:

Sign out of Mac App Store

Store > Sign Out

Navigate to ~/Library/Caches in Finder

Keyboard Shortcut Cmd+Shift+G (Go to Folder)
Enter ~/Library/Caches

Click "Go"

Find the following folders in the Finder window and move them to the trash

com.apple.appstore
com.apple.appstoreagent

Reboot

 > Restart...

Launch Mac App Store & Sign in

Testing App Store downloads/installs after the above steps seems to have resolved the issues.


How to Test Stability of your USB Connections? I have a Macbook Air 2013-mid which has been now 5 times in Apple care: new motherboard 1x and new SSD 3x.
It cannot read anymore two USB devices: etc one phone and USB stick impossible. Only one device at the time.
I think the power system may be in bad shape.
Battery is good according to battery softwares.

I can also feel the accumulation of electricity in some parts of the corners of the computer. Touching a computer with one finger gives you a little electric current anywhere in the computer after computer being untouched a short while.
This is a second evidence about the power system.

I am considering getting this device back to Apple because I have still warranty (5 years in total). However, I should have some sort of evidence that there is some problem.

The observation is just that you cannot use two USB devices at the same time, and the accumulation of the electric current. Sometimes, strange read/write errors.

How can you justify dysfunctional USB connections?

Look in:

Apple Menu > About this Mac

Then click "System Report" button

From USB in the sidebar you can see for each device "current available" and "current required" if you plug in a device and it needs more than 500MA then it need an external power source!

If however you are plugging in two and each one requires more than 500MA they will need an external power source!

If this is not the case and each device is 500Ma or less you have youre proof!

I think static on the case alone should warrant Apple fixing the device.


Separating EFI partitions of Ubuntu 20.04 and Mac OSX on Macbook Pro I installed Ubuntu 20.04 alongside OSX on my early 2015 Macbook pro by following this answer. And somehow I messed up.
I created a separate 400MB EFI partition for Ubuntu but, the system automatically selected Mac OS EFI partition. Can I transfer the Ubuntu boot files to the separate Partition without reinstall? I recently started using Linux. please someone help me out?
$: fdisk /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 233.78 GiB, 251000193024 bytes, 490234752 sectors
Disk model: APPLE SSD SM0256
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: E25C4B1F-9E64-4BCB-B346-07F1727F45F3

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1         40    409639    409600   200M EFI System
/dev/sda2     409640 234784639 234375000 111.8G unknown
/dev/sda3  234784768 235567103    782336   382M EFI System
/dev/sda4  235567104 362520575 126953472  60.5G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda5  362520576 391817215  29296640    14G Linux swap
/dev/sda6  391817216 392595455    778240   380M Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda7  392597504 490233855  97636352  46.6G Microsoft basic data

$ gdisk /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 490234752 sectors, 233.8 GiB
Model: APPLE SSD SM0256
Sector size (logical/physical): 512/4096 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): E25C4B1F-9E64-4BCB-B346-07F1727F45F3
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 490234718
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 3045 sectors (1.5 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00
   2          409640       234784639   111.8 GiB   AF0A
   3       234784768       235567103   382.0 MiB   EF00
   4       235567104       362520575   60.5 GiB    8300
   5       362520576       391817215   14.0 GiB    8200
   6       391817216       392595455   380.0 MiB   0700
   7       392597504       490233855   46.6 GiB    0700

I am not sure why the Ubuntu installer allows the user to select which EFI partition to use, then ignores the setting and installs to the first EFI partition. Below are the step to move the boot files to the second EFI partition.

Boot to Ubuntu.

Press the control+option+T key combination to open a Terminal window.

Enter the command below to become the root user.
sudo bash

Enter the command below to format the second EFI partition.

Note: This command will erase the contents of this partition.

mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n EFI2 /dev/sda3

Enter the command below to mount the second EFI partition.
mkdir efi2
mount -t vfat /dev/sda3 efi2

Enter the commands below to copy the boot files from the first EFI partition to the second EFI partition.
mkdir efi2/EFI
mv /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT efi2/EFI
mv /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu efi2/EFI

Enter the commands below to get the UUID of the two EFI partitions.
blkid /dev/sda1
blkid /dev/sda3

Edit the /etc/fstab file to change the UUID value for the mount point /boot/efi. This can be accomplished by replacing the UUID of the first EFI partition with the UUID of the second EFI partition. Below is the command to open the file in the nano editor.
nano /etc/fstab

Enter the command given below to output the contents of the /etc/fstab file. Visually confirm the changes to the file.
cat /etc/fstab

Enter the command given below to unmount the second EFI partition.
umount efi2
rmdir efi2

Enter the commands given below to close the Terminal window.
exit
exit

Restart the Mac.


Removing Air Watch without removing WiFi/Exchange profiles Is it possible to do either of the following:

Remove Air Watch from an iOS device without deleting WiFi/Exchange profiles
Backup the profile and restore it after removing Air Watch?

Apple signs the profiles cryptographically so this would most likely require a jailbreak to even attempt modifying the OS code that handles chaining MDM enrollment with MDM granted Apps, profiles, shared secrets, and MDM delivered trust certificates.

Unless there is an exploitable bug in either the MDM (AirWatch in this case) or iOS, you won't be able to accomplish either of your goals. Apple restricts the MDM technical documentation to enterprise level developers and to selected partners - even paid developers cannot generally see the details of the implementation, so I can't link to an official Apple page listing how this works.

Now - here's what you can to to learn more about the certificates and the profile you (the end user) can control:

Open the Settings app
Tap General
Scroll to below Date & Time and tap Device Management
Tap your MDM Enrollment profile (and yes, this is just a file that gets emailed to you or downloaded from a web page, so you could probably download it with a computer to inspect it if your MDM endpoint is publicly available)

You should be able to see who has signed the profile and whether your device trusts / can verify the cryptographic chain used to sign that certificate for the date/time your device reports. These profiles generally have a start and end time bracket that automatically invalidates the profile except for a window of time.

The system is designed to keep you from changing anything in the file - and you can either opt in to keeping the restrictions or Remove Management which removes everything that depends on this profile in a cryptographic/mathematical sense.

Now for the good news, you can try this management for free with one MDM solution I'm familiar with: http://www.bushel.com

You'll also want to watch some introductory presentations about certificates. I'd recommend the "Let's Talk about Certificates" by Ben Toms (a.k.a. mac mule)

http://www.jamfsoftware.com/resources/all/jamf-nation-user-conference-2015/
http://www.jamfsoftware.com/resources/lets-talk-about-certificates/

Warning, the last link contains humor since there are a lot of acronyms and technical jargon to be cut through that dryness with some levity. Skip to 2:30 to learn about trust and identification and whether you want to watch the entire presentation or not. And, what you ask would be like Apple and AirWatch being crew there to catch the woman in her "trust" fall.


How to recover all stored text message data on old iPhone (A1241) to external drive? I managed to import all the photos off an old iPhone 3G I recently rediscovered while going through my junk drawer. I used Image Capture, but now I’d like to get all the texts.

I'd like to use only the terminal, ie. no downloads of third-party software, and I'd like to NOT use iTunes or iCloud. My Mac is running Sierra. Would like to get the notes off too if possible. Is this doable?

For anyone not bound by the strict “no third party” requirement - go get a copy of Phone View.

http://www.ecamm.com/mac/phoneview/

It does everything asked for and you can use it on all devices for one license. The free trial let’s you install and be sure it will work before paying for the software.

If I discover a way to get started or accomplish this using only Apple terminal and free Mac App Store apps, I’ll edit that in here as well. I would start with Apple Configurator and the command line tools it installs since that can read log files and get past the “trust” steps that iTunes and iCloud typically perform when getting data from iOS to macOS.


work-around for the absense of "save-as" in OS X 10.7 Is there a more convenient work-around for Apple's decision to drop the "save as" command than clicking on duplicate, then save the copy which then displays the file structure?

I have tried the app "Default Folders" and it does not solve the problem (at least in my hands).

thanks for your assistance

I'm afraid not. You could, though, add a shortcut to the Duplicate command, to make it more like the Save as. To do so just:

Go to System Preferences / Keyboard / Keyboard Shortcuts.
Select Application Shortcuts and click the add button.
Set it to All Applications and enter Duplicate as Menu Title. It's case sensitive, so make sure it's written with a capital D.
Choose a keyboard shortcut and hit Add.

Mountain Lion, by the way, has the Save As command back. Holding down Option while clicking the File menu, will turn the Duplicate command into Save as....


Mail.app rules - how to write the following requirement I cannot seem to get the following rule working.

Requirement: I want to run a mail filter which says:

If the mail is in Account X, and has subject Y, was received less than 10 days ago, and has no MailTags, I want to move it to the Trash folder.

It seems to work partially - it moves some mail to trash and not some other.

Can anyone suggest assistance? The rule is located at the top of the rules list, so it should be applied first?

thanks.

Please be aware that mail only applies rules to new messages. So deleting old messages may not work as expected, since the rule is checked once when the message is new the "date received" test fails. From the doc:

  Rules are automatically applied to incoming messages, but you can
  apply a new or modified rule to selected messages you’ve already
  received.

You may apply rules to selected messages by:

  Select the messages and then choose Message > Apply Rules.

You may be able to write an applescript to automate the last step.


iPhone 5 locked out from previous user I bought a used iPhone 5 today. When I insert a Nano SIM and try to activate it, it says the previous user has locked the phone and that I need to insert a number to get it unlocked.

I bought the phone through an online site olx.com so I am not able to get in touch with the person to get it unlocked.

I hope that the phone was not stolen and sold to me. I have the bill of the phone, the charger, and knowledge that the device is still under warranty.

Any idea on how I can gain access to the device?

Activation Lock has no documented bypass, so your primary course of action will be to file a claim with whomever received your payment to reverse the transaction if they cannot locate the person who has the lock on the device.

How can I bypass Activation Lock?

The Apple ID that has the lock can simply log into the web interface at iCloud and remove that device - so this is purely a contract law / human engineering issue where you will need to expend some effort to recoup your costs, get the seller (or agent that processed the funds) to reverse things.

Depending on how you paid and your local laws, a chargeback for false sale might be relatively straight forward for you.

Ideally, sellers read the first article and buyers the parts of the second that cover purchasing a used iOS 7 device. You might find something in these articles to help build your claim if needed to the bank or seller if the ad you responded to was factually incorrect, misleading or otherwise false.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5661
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5818


Recurring prompt to confirm Style Sheet when opening Safari - How can I get rid of it? Every time I open Safari, I'm asked to choose a style sheet.  I haven't ever chosen one.
I've tried to find one it suggests (webguard.css from an old application long removed) but it doesn't exist on my system.
I've done the Safari/Preferences/Advanced/Style sheet setting with none selected but it doesn't work.  It reverts every time to the same old question.
If I cancel, it works fine until the next time I start Safari.
I've referred this to Apple who have been through the whole diagnostics process and can't find anything.
Ultimately, it's not a show stopper, but where can I find the place to remove any reference to a style sheet in Safari?

One solution might be selecting a css file that does exist. Any plain text file with a .css extension should be fine. This might fix whatever setting is corrupted.


Changing country or region without spending the remaining apple balance from gift card What will happen if i change my country or region to another country without spending the remaining balance i have in my apple id which i redeemed from gift card?
Can i still buy subscription from another country using that remaining balance?

You can’t use credit from your Apple ID’s previous country’s iTunes store in its new country. Because of this, you have to fully deplete the credit on your Apple ID before changing its country by purchasing stuff or giving it out as a gift to someone with an Apple ID with the same country. If the amount is too small to purchase anything or to give it out as a gift, you can contact Apple support.


How do I find a list of available printers on a specific print server? Is there a way to find a list of available printers on a given server like you can on a PC?

For example, my school hosts all of their printers on one server.  When I run windows, I can do a run command for the address of the server (ex. \server.school.edu), and it will open up an explorer window with all of the printers that are available.  However, when I try and connect to the same server via OS X, it simply asks what drives I would like to mount and there is nothing there.

go to System Preferences > print& fax.
create new printer. Depending on yor version of Mac OS X,either ("+") below list of existing printers,
or "Set up Printer button" at top of window then click "Add".
Choose printer connection type. Either "IP Printer" in the toolbar of "Printer Browser" or "IP Printing" from dropdown menu.
In the "Protocol" dropdown menu select "Internet Printing Protocol -IPP".If this does not give you expected results try "Line Printer Daemon-LDP".
Enter hostname of printserver in "Address" field,or browse for network printers.

If you are using Mac OS X Leopard

as above
as above
Right click on the toolbar at the top of the window and select "Customize Toolbar"
drag the "Advanced" icon to the toolbar and select "Done"
click on "Advanced" icon and wait.in a bit you can select "Widows" from the "Type" dropdown-menu.
enter in the URL textfield
 smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@WINDOWSDOMAINNAME/PRINTSERVER/PRINTERSHARENAME
 or
 smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@IPADDRESS/PRINTERSHARENAME
 or
 smb://USERNAME@IPADDRESS/PRINTSHARENAME
fill out the other "Name" and "Location" as you prefer
You might be asked for a "USERNAME" and "PASSWORD" firts time round.fill these and enable the  "Add this to your keychain" checkbox.

Did this help? You can view other Related Q&As.


Possible to record audio output streaming from other apps? Looking to record any audio that streams on my device. Are there any apps that are capable of doing this for ALL audio? (Im not interested in radio station apps that record radio stations only).

I am willing to jailbreak the phone to make this work.

Running ios 10.2 on iphone6

I don't know of anything on the phone itself but getting audio out of an iphone and onto something that can record is possible.

Using AirPlay and Airfoil Satellite (or your Airplay receiver of choice) you can get the audio to your Mac. Then using Audio Hijack (as mentioned by Kalamalka Kid) on your Mac you can record it.

Not the most ideal setup but it works.


Continue moving files when process stopped I was transferring (moving) files from one drive to another. Then the computer was out of battery and it did a shutdown.

Now I see the group of files I wanted to move "50% opacity" in the destination folder. I can do nothing with them. And if I try to move again from the source, it says that the files are in use.

How can I resume the move?

Did I lose any files in the source drive? I ask this because some of them moved, and now they are not in the source folder... but the destination folder is "untouchable".

If the source has the same number of solid files as the destination has translucent, it is safe to manually resume the move. Drag and drop to move from source to destination, and select "replace" when prompted. Translucent files are just empty placeholder files.

My personal practice always involves copying, then deleting once done. To insist on a copy, hold down Option. It's a bit more tedious but it's saved me much frustration over this sort of matter.


What is kernel_task reading and writing? On my machine, kernel_task has a very large number of reads and writes compared to my usage. I spend almost all my time online on google chrome.

Over the past month, Activity Monitor shows kernel_task having written over 300 GB, launchd having written 30 GB with Chrome 10 GB. kernel_task dominates my total disk i/o. And every day it seems to be writing something. About 20 GB or so every day I estimate.

What is it writing? Is there some way I can check and maybe disable some option? Time Machine is disabled on my machine so its not that. My total disk space is not increasing so it seems to be temporary writes which makes it worse. Some sort of log?

Thanks

As the name suggests, kernel_task is like a task master and does a lot of system tasks for the macOS kernel.

Reading and writing to disks is one of the tasks it performs, so a lot of system data or app data may be read and written through kernel_task. So obviously it will show a high count. One thing to particular check is RAM usage - if you don't have enough RAM for some task, macOS will create swap memory on your disks and that also will count towards the high read and write in disk activity for kernel_tasks. This can explain what you are experiencing - swap memory read / write are temporary writes and so don't show up as using your disk space.

Chrome is known to be both a CPU and memory hog. Dump it and switch to Safari or Firefox which use less resource.

Note that kernel_task also plays a role in managing the CPU temperature, which may show it as using high CPU in Activity Manager. So if it is showing as using a high percentage of CPU, you can temporarily kill other apps or processes using most of the CPU as they are the cause why kernel_task kicks in (higher CPU usage = higher CPU temperature).


External hard drive with iPhoto library doesn't open My son pulled out the USB cable while iPhoto was running from the external hard drive and a message came up when I plugged it back in that said there were inconsistencies that needed to be repaired. So I followed the instructions to complete it but it didn't work.

Next I used a new external hard drive to make a back up of the MacBook and a copy of the iPhoto Library.

Then the iPhoto Library msg said that it was either being used by another user or unreadable. I saw that there were 4 other options if you opened iPhoto while pressing command-option.

Once copied I tried to open the copy but kept saying it was unreadable still. Restarted etc., didn't work again. Tried the first option, repairing permissions... didn't work, next tried option 3, but then the message came up saying that it would only be available once Time Machine had finished. But Time Machine isn't on!

I'm not sure what to try next.

It sounds like you made a copy of the library after it was corrupted. Your only option I suppose is to grab the images and start a new library.

Find the original, if possible, right click on it and choose "Show Package Contents".

In there navigate to "Masters". In there, run a search for Kind=Image.

Copy all of the results out of there, to a safe location.
Then do another search for Kind="Movie", and copy those as well.


Some queries about device compatibility on a Mac Do normal card readers like these detect automatically on a Mac
or a separate app should be installed ?
Do DSLR camera's SD card detect on a mac just like a normal SD card
or should I install a separate app for it ?
Will the Mac detect my Motorola G when I connect it via USB ?
If files from Mac are copied to pendrive, will Windows detect the files from the pen drive ? Or should I format my pendrive to use it on a windows laptop ?

Just a side note: all these answers could have been very easily found by just typing them into Google.

The majority of card readers will just work out of the box on OS X. If they don't you either need to install a driver or it just isn't compatible. Big brands like Kingston or Sandisk will work 99% of the time.
If you're using SD cards there really is no difference if you're using it on a DSLR or a Mac. The storage medium itself is what is taken into account when using it. You shouldn't need to install an app for hardware like SD cards.
It should connect out of the box. But this question isn't really related to Apple since it's really dependant of the smartphone your using and what software or drivers the manufacturer provides
To have cross platform read/write support on your pendrive on both OS X and Windows the drive needs to be formatted as FAT32 or NTFS/ExFat.
ExFat is only supported starting from OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and NFTS has no out of the box write compatibility on OS X.


3 monitors on a Mac Mini (Mid 2012) I would like to have three screens connected to my Mac Mini, so far I have one screen connected via HDMI and one screen connected via thunderbolt. The only ports I have left are USB and firewire, would there be any way for me to connect a third monitor?

For the 3rd monitor you'll need an HDMI to USB converter but make sure that the converter is Mac compatible, if it isn't I'm not 100% sure but you may be able to find a software to make it mac compatible with the type of converter like I did.


iPhone 3GS won't let iMessage show my number; only email On my iPhone 3GS, iMessage recently started sending it via email. I've tried everything and I've checked Send & Receive and it won't even let me click on my phone number as an option. It also says "waiting for activation", under the option of turning iMessage on. How do I fix it to where it says my phone number and not my email?

I've found the best solution to these iMessage and Face Time woes is to just turn the service off, then back on again. That causes it to re-activate with Apple's servers, which should register your phone number as a usable iMessage sender.

The "Waiting for Activation" message suggests that this process wasn't completed properly, and/or there's some issue with Apple's servers. Try toggling it, and if it still doesn't work, try it again later, as it may be a server side issue that you need to wait for Apple to resolve.


How to turn off iOS Calendar Notifications for iCloud shared calendars How can I turn off alerts for iCloud calendars that have been shared with me? I just want to see alerts for my calendar.

Example: My girlfriend has a haircut today, and she set an alert to appear 15 minutes before the event. I don't want to see that alert.

Background: Here is the procedure for iCal: http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57562853-285/turn-off-ical-shared-calendar-messages-in-notification-center/?_escaped_fragment_=

This is different on iOS 8.

As described on iPad Academy, the option is located in Settings → Notifications → Calendar → Shared Calendar Changes.

1. Settings > Notifications

2. Calendar

3. Shared Calendar Changes


Looking for a decent time-tracking application for Mac I am a freelance graphic designer and need to track the time spent on projects so I can bill my clients accordingly. There are a ton of services and applications out there but somehow none of them really fits.

Here's what I am looking for:

A stable desktop app. I don't want to do my time tracking in the browser.
Stop recording when screensaver or sleep mode starts.
A product I can buy, not a subscription service. I feel more comfortable and in control if I pay $100 upfront than pay $10 a month
An easy-to-use UI that tracks time by client, project and task.
Billing support is a bonus, but not necessary.

Here is what I don't need, so if the solution contains it, at least is shouldn't interfere with a simple workflow and efficiency:

Not necessary: Smartphone app, team collaboration, cloud.

All I want is a pay-once, stand-alone, well-supported and nicely designed time-tracking app. Do products exist in this space for OSX?

I am listing the apps I have looked at so far. I must emphasize that none of them really solves the problem stated above perfectly.

Here's what I have looked at so far based on my google doc list

On the Job looks great, but the developer seems to have abandoned it. At least he does not really fix bugs and is very slow to respond to his user base.
Timings light-weight but the UI to create clients, projects and tasks can be confusing. I am testing it right now. A friend uses it and says it crashes sometimes though it has not happended to me yet.
Harvest looks good, it does have a desktop client itself and an API that is used by lots of apps. But it is subscription-only which is a no-go for me and costs at least $12 per month.
The same goes for Toggl: looks good, but is subscription-based and costs $5 per month
iBiz and timeEdition have been discontinued
Klok is an Adobe Air app. The UI feels weird. Small typography, limited support for keyboard shortcuts and complex interface.
OfficeTime feels like the best match so far but the UI is very cluttered (see this screenshot of the Generate Bill dialog as an example). It feels a bit like a Windows app that has been ported to Mac but I am not sure if that's true.
Timecop is a very minimal approach. There is no way to test it without paying the $6.99 price. Has not been updated for 9 months, twitter account has been inactive for 5 months.
Tictoc seems very similar to Timecop. No way to test without buying either.


Disable Services in OSX (services.msc) Is there a Services.msc or ntsysv utility for OSX? I just want to harden my OSX by disabling any unwanted service and it's ports.

The OS X equivalent of Windows services is Launchd. The OS X equivalent of services.msc on Windows is launchctl. The daemons managed by launchd can be on demand or can be triggered periodically (this is configurable in launchd.plist)

You can manage the daemons from the command line (from Terminal.app under /Applications/Utilities/) or by using a tool like Lingon.

From the command line:

List agents/jobs loaded using

launchctl list

Disable and enable an agent using (persists between boots)

launchctl enable <name> or launchctl disable <name>

Stop and start an agent immediately using

launchctl kickstart <name> or launchctl kill <name>

The next commands are deprecated commands, which you might see on the Internet:

Remove an agent/job using

launchctl remove <name>

Disable an agent/job for the currently booted session alone using

launchctl unload <name>

Load an agent/job manually using

launchctl load <name>

Additional references:

Daemons and Services Programming Guide
man launchctl in Terminal.app (or the online manual for launchctl)
man launchd in Terminal.app (or the online manual for launchd)
man launchd.plist in Terminal.app (or the online manual for launchd.plist)
launchd on Wikipedia


Process owned by a user remains active after the user logs out I share my MacBook Air1 with my son. When he is logged out2 of his user account and I look at the activity monitor in my account, there are several processes owned by his user that are still running:

When I took the screenshot3, the processes were all at 0% CPU, but I noticed them because com.apple.geod briefly rose to the top with around 5% or 10% CPU.
In fact, I only startet up the activity monitor to check whether another process owned by my son was active again. He is playing Fortnite on this MacBook and a few days ago, after he had logged out and I had started using the computer, the cooling fan became very noisy, so I checked the activity monitor and saw that a process called EpicWebHelper owned by his account used a lot of CPU, until I killed it. I edited the launchd plist for that process to keep it from starting every time the computer was turned on. I guess it's nice for my son to have his game running when he logs in, but what I don't understand is:
Why does a process owned by a specific user remain active when the user logs out?

Notes.

MacBook Air, mid 2012, macOS 10.15.7
My son logs out via the Apple menu.
All the processes shown in the screenshot are owned by my son's user account. I just cropped his username to protect his privacy.

macOS is technically a multi-user system, there is nothing „wrong“ with having processes running which are owned by users not currently logged in. The processes you list seem to be usual things, don‘t see anything malicious.
PS: Of course sometimes things just get stuck due to bugs :-)


Missing Canon Printer driver for OSX Mavericks? I hooked up a Canon Pixma MP160 printer/scanner to a machine running OSX Mavericks and it complained that there was no driver.  Scanning through the list of possible drivers, there were only 1 or 2 Canon drivers and none looked close to right.  Canon's website said the driver should be built into OSX.

Is there an MP160 (or compatible) driver for Mavericks?

I'll try to look for what you need, if you are looking for a driver for the Canon Pixma MP160 printer / scanner to a machine running OSX Mavericks come in here, and if there is no, please see here, hopefully useful


Fixing a broken hard drive's partition map I have a drive that is corrupted. Disk utility could not repair the disk, so I attempted to follow some tutorials and repair the partitions using pdisk and testdisk, but things have gone south. Now the drive no longer shows up at all in Disk Utility, and diskutil info gives this output:

diskutil info /dev/disk1
Device Identifier:
Device Node:
Part of Whole:
Device / Media Name:

Volume Name:              Not applicable (no file system)

Mounted:                  Not applicable (no file system)

File System:              None

Partition Type:           None
OS Can Be Installed:      No
Media Type:
Protocol:

Total Size:               0 B (0 Bytes) (exactly 0 512-Byte-Units)
Volume Free Space:        Not applicable (no file system)

Read-Only Media:          Yes
Read-Only Volume:         Not applicable (no file system)
Ejectable:                No

Whole:                    No
Internal:                 No

This is a 3TB external Seagate drive. Is there anything I can do, or is this drive a paperweight? At this point I don't even care about the data on the drive. I just want to know if it can be reformatted and be usable, or if I need to go out and get a new drive.

Have you tried asking disk utility to redo the partition map? Click on the disk, go into the "partition" tab, set it from "Current" to "1 Partition", click "Options", change the partition table to anything else, then repeat the process and set it back. If the issue is the partition table, that will fix it. If the issue is the drive, then it won't. Either way, you'll have your answer.