Does Fusion (VMware) support 2D graphics hardware acceleration for Yosemite guest OS? I am disappointed to learn that the Parallels 10 (and earlier) does not support hardware accelerated 2D (nor 3D) graphics when Mac OS X is the guest OS.

This means Yosemite inside Parallels runs noticeably slowly in its screen rendering. Menus are delayed when dropping down. Highlighting menu items cannot keep up with the mouse movement. The Dock magnification appears chunky and delayed as you move the mouse across app icons. Windows in the Finder jump an inch or two at a time while dragging to move them. Generally it feels sluggishly delayed similar to screen-sharing over a very slow DSL internet connection.

In contrast, Mountain Lion performs so well in Parallels 9 and 10 that I forget I am using a virtual machine. Really! I set the Dock to the opposite side of the screen to remind myself that I'm using a VM. Apparently the difference is due to a "software emulation of 2D/3D acceleration officially supported by Apple" (per the tech note linked above). Apparently that emulation in provided in Mountain Lion as well, but not Yosemite.

Can anyone verify if Fusion by VMware (standard edition?, Pro edition?), or VirtualBox by Oracle, or any other solution can run Yosemite well as a guest OS on a host Mac including peppy graphics? Documenting their support for graphics acceleration would be ideal.

I'm not talking about gaming or running CAD/CAM systems. I asking about normal daily work usage such as email, word processors, text editors, programmers’ IDEs (IntelliJ, NetBeans), OmniGroup apps, LibreOffice, Apple Keynote/Pages/Numbers.

Using the latest version of VMware Fusion 7.1.1 (Professional) and running OS X 10.10.2 on a early 2013 MBPr 16GB giving the VM 2 GB or 4 GB, graphics are slow in comparison to running OS X 10.8.5 in a VM.  The performance with OS X 10.10 in a VM is IMO bad enough it's not worth using in a VM for production purposes.


Install Mavericks on second partition in Yosemite-only system? I have a 2012 MacBook Pro (so yes it's capable of Mavericks). I have only Yosemite currently installed on the drive. I have an app I need to run that does not seem to properly support Yosemite, so I want to install Mavericks on a second partition to setup a dual boot environment.

I do not presently have access to a spare USB drive that can be erased to create installation media nor do I have any blank double-layer DVD discs.

I have already used disk utility to resize and create my extra partition. However, I am not able to actually start the OSX Mavericks installation. The error is "This copy of the Install OS X application is too old to be opened on this version of OS X."

I need to get this done for a college project due in the next couple of days and won't have access to a flash drive that can be erased and used for install media within that time. Is there anything I can do, say from the terminal, to force the installation of Mavericks to proceed onto the second partition?

You have to cheat the Mavericks Installer by running it on a "pre-Yosemite" system.
The system version is determined by the key "ProductVersion" and the associated string in the file SystemVersion.plist. Replacing the 10.10.x string with 10.9.x or 10.8.x will do the trick.

Beware: After manipulating said file you can't open most of the current apps anymore.

Prerequisites:

a current backup of your Mac
already downloaded OS X Mavericks Installer
a Mac capable of running Mavericks

Age your system:

Log-out any other user and log-in with your admin account.
Quit any running app and open the folder containing the Mavericks installer.
Open Terminal.app.
Make a backup copy of SystemVersion.plist first by entering:

sudo cp /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist.backup

and hit ↵
enter your admin password and hit ↵ (the password won't be visible!)
Modify SystemVersion.plist:

sudo nano /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

change the both strings 10.10.1 (or 10.10.0) to 10.8.1 or 10.8.0

write the changes to disk with ctrlO followed by ↵
and exit nano with ctrlx
Recheck the successful change by entering:

cat /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

Enter exit, hit ↵ and quit Terminal.app.
Start Install OS X Mavericks and choose your already created second partition to install to. You may have to click "Show all partitions" if your second partition isn't visible initially.
After installation and configuration of Mavericks is finished revert the changes of SystemVersion.plist on the Yosemite partition:

Rejuvenate the Yosemite system:

Open Terminal.app in your Mavericks admin account and enter:

sudo rm /Volumes/NameOfYourYosemitePartition/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

and hit ↵
enter your admin password and hit ↵ (the password won't be visible!)

then enter

sudo mv /Volumes/NameOfYourYosemitePartition/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist.backup /Volumes/NameOfYourYosemitePartition/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

and hit ↵
Enter exit, hit ↵ and quit Terminal.app.

If the install fails and you are urged to boot to Yosemite (which probably fails), try to boot to Recovery Mode or Internet Recovery Mode, revert the changes of the file SystemVersion.plist on the Yosemite volume from the command line in the same manner as described for the successful Mavericks install in step 10.
Then restart from scratch.

(Tested in a Yosemite VM...works)


Apple MacBook Air mid-2012 A few days ago, I got my Macbook Air battery changed at an Apple store. Since then, about once a day, I've had a "kernel panic" crash, which seems to happen randomly while I'm working. (I've never seen this before.)

I did an extended memory test, which showed no problems, but a disk test on the built in 128 Gb SSD showed these errors:

Checking catalog file.(It should be 67667 instead of 67668)
Invalid directory item count(It should be 38 instead of 37)
Invalid volume free block countFile system check exit code is 8.

The popup advised repairing the disk using the Recovery HD (Command R on startup). I've done this, but, from the recovery screen, the disk shows no errors, and Verify says the disk is fine. When I rerun the disk check inside OSX, the same messages pop up.

Any idea what's going on here? Is it possible that the hard drive was damaged during the battery install?

There is some "corruption" on some of your files.  Since you already ran the Disk Utility and it came back clean it is telling you that there are no physical errors with your drive.  That's the good part.

You have a couple of options:

Run fsck
Do a clean install

Running fsck.  You will need to do so in single user mode (hold down Command-S during boot)

You will know that this worked because you will see a black background with a ton of white text scroll down your screen.

When you are done booting, you will see a command line prompt.  Enter the following command:

#fsck -fy

(Don't enter the hash tag)

It will complete and tell you that the file system was modified.  Keep running the above command until it tells you that the volume is "Ok."

When you are done reboot the computer by issuing the command

#reboot

Your MBP Air will reboot normally the error should go away.

If it dosen't it is time to do a fresh clean install.

There are third party utilities that "may" work here, but I have found they cause more problems than they are worth.

Oh...most important part:

Make sure you have a backup of all your data!!!!


Weird arrow icon next to Apple logo I am seeing this weird arrow icon next to Apple icon in OSX Mavericks. No idea what it is. The z-index is higher than the mouse pointer. (If I hover mouse pointer there, it goes behind the arrow).

I tried to take it's screenshot but it was not there. I took a picture using my phone.

Anyone has any idea?

It looks like one of the arrow cursors for when you hover over certain parts of the screen (resizing?). Sometimes the cursor gets stuck on certain parts of the screen. Even though I can still move my mouse, a copy of the cursor gets stuck somewhere.


How can I advertise my app on the App Store? When I released my iOS app on the App Store, how can iPhone user know that this new app is released?

I mean, I do not advertise my app anywhere.

So if my app is already released to App Store, I think no one can know about my newly released app. Is that right?

If they don't know my newly released app, my iOS apps are just useless.
I don't want to advertise with money for my app because I am just a beginner iOS developer. So I don't that much have money.

Is there anyway let user to know about my newly released app without money advertisement?

You can link to apps in the appstore. For example:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pinball-arcade/id455826958?mt=8

(This is just a random app I picked to serve as an example)

Now, if you have your link to your app, you can:

Write a blog about the app and link to it
Have websites review your app and they will link to it
Does your app serve the need of a particular community? Maybe they have a forum or mailinglist where you can link to your app and explain the benefits they will get from it.
Tweet, facebook or Google+ about the app


How To Resume OS X El Capitan download after shutting down MacBook Air? I went to download the OS X El Capitan on my MacBook Air. Yesterday I've downloaded 2GB with 256kbps download speed. After downloading it all day, time to let the MacBook Air rest. This morning I went to open my MacBook Air, to the Apps Store, clicked the Free Upgrade. That time I was thinking: "Why is it not the resume button? Uh oh, something's not right." Typed in my password, download started, but from 0% Help? D:

You can't resume the download after a shutdown. But your MacBook Air doesn't need to "rest". So start the download again and don't shut down the MacBook until it's finished, even if it takes days.


How to change colour of status bar? How can I change the colour of the status bar on my iPhone 4s? It is blue now and I want it set to default?

A blue bar is usually an indication something is using Location Services. It ought to say which app in the bar itself.

Check Settings > Privacy > Location Services to see which apps are allowed to do that & which have been checking recently.


Can I get Command-H to hide an Emacs window? I'm using GNU Emacs 23.4.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin, NS apple-appkit-1038.36) of 2012-01-29 on bob.porkrind.org on a MacBook Air.

Can I set Command-H to hide Emacs? I currently use M-x customize-group ns and set Command Modifier to no value. I already have a standard key binding to iconify-frame, but that is different from hiding; I'd rather use the native OS X hide capability so I can unhide by clicking on the Emacs icon in the dock.

If emacs is built with Cocoa (e.g via brew install emacs --cocoa), by default s-h (Cmd+h) should be bound to ns-do-hide-emacs

If somehow it is not, you can do this manually with:

(global-set-key [(super h)] 'ns-do-hide-emacs)


Extracting Voice Memos from iPhone to iTunes I am currently doing some coursework for my exams, and part of my IT project is to record some audio, and assess it. I recorded this audio on my iPhone, and I plan on using Audacity to edit it. I am having a problem with getting the voice memos off my iPhone, and that's preventing me from doing my coursework. Does anyone know what to do? I use iTunes 11.1.3

If you sync your iPhone with iTunes and have the voice memo syncing enabled, then the voice memos will be transferred to your computer when syncing. The voice memos will show in the Voice Memos playlist.


Pictures from photo stream back to camera roll? I recently had my iPhone wiped from keyboard issues so my pictures were backed up with the iCloud in photo stream. How do I place those photo stream pictures back to my camera roll? I've tried to select all my photo stream an move it to the camera roll folder but it wouldn't let me.

Yes, you can it save to the Camera Roll with the Arrow in the left corner and choose "Save to Camera Roll". It's the last Menu Point.


Saving a filename with a special character in Mac? I'm using a MacBook Pro with Catalina 10.15.7 and keyboard is set to UK English.
I made a folder, mytest on Desktop, and the file test.html with CSS.
The character in question is https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+002F
I can use the character in HTML with no problems, but for filenames it's a bit more of a problem.
It's a test file, so not for public viewing or usage and wouldn't be in production files anyway.
I've done some light Google-ing, but would appreciate the help as I'm not sure; the only reason for this is simply to learn a bit more about something that I've learnt in HTML (characters / unicode).
Can I name a file with the unicode solidus with the name test/mytest/2021.html ?

Unicode U+002F is equivalent to ASCII 47, or the "slash"/soldus key on your keyboard. Calling it a Unicode special character
is a bit like maître Pathelin in the medieval farce discovering that he was speaking prose; it's just the unmodified output of the key next to the right shift key.
It's not so much that it's a Unicode special character as that it's a special character in the operating system. MacOS has long had a complicated relationship with the slash and colon symbols in path names.
In the command line, / is treated as the directory separator, and cannot be used in filenames. In the Finder, : has been used as the directory separator. A file with a : in its name will display as a / in the Finder, but may produce problems with some program's name safety checks.
If you type at the terminal prompt touch ~/Desktop/test:mytest:2021.html, that file will appear on your desktop as test/mytest/2021.html, but not all programs might be happy about it.


Does App Store Review Board allow Photoshopping a screenshot to show fake content? I am preparing to submit an app that records trails (like Runkeeper) to the app store, and I think that it would be great if the screenshots of my app shows it filled with trails on the main screen. But the problem is, it is very time consuming to record trails and save them in the iOS simulator, and heck, I've got to do this time-consuming task for every iPhone and iPad required. You may think that it is less time consuming if I recorded trails with real devices. But I don't have all the devices. So I've come up with a solution to use Photoshop to fill the main screen screenshot (only the main screen, only one screen) with content, but fake ones, but they look really real, and it's hard to differentiate between a real one and a fake one. But does App Store Review Board allow this? Thank you very much.

Only the App Store review staff can provide an absolute answer.

However, many apps in the store show modified screenshots. Providing mock content is common place when advertising document based applications.

Submit your app for review. If the review is rejected, they will provide a reason and you will have the opportunity to resubmit.


OS X Wi-Fi turning on and off, slows mac down while doing so My Wi-Fi is turning on and off every 5 seconds. It's not connecting to anything and just lagging my MacBook Air. Even when I click on AirPlay, it slows down and spins the loading icon. Seems like a bug with the Wi-Fi itself. I have reinstalled OS X and reset the SMC to no avail - still doing the same.
Any suggestions?

It happens—for reasons unknown—that the associated configuration files are corrupt. You find them inside of this directory:

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

A good indication of some of these files being corrupt is the configd process hogging the cpu. You can check it in Activity Monitor—making sure that “all processes” are displayed, not just “your processes” (you find this option in the View menu).

You can have the system regenerate the important configuration files that probably make your system go wild by walking through the following steps:

Open /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration in the Finder.
Make a copy of the following four files by dragging them onto your desktop:
  preferences.plist
  NetworkInterfaces.plist
  com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
  com.apple.network.identification.plist

Using the Finder (and being logged on as an admin user), delete these four files from the SystemConfiguration directory.
Empty the trash and reboot your Mac.

By peeking into the /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration directory you will notice all four files you deleted in the steps above have been regenerated.


Google Chrome - Flash on Youtube issue Here is the information about Flash plug-in in Google Chrome:

Flash - Version: 11.2.202.235
Shockwave Flash 11.2 r202

It's able to load & stream videos on YouTube but the problem is, after about 10 seconds, the videos paused unexpectedly, even when it was buffered a lot more. When I tried to move the seeker to an other position, it continued to play but again, paused after 10 seconds.

The video which I've encountered errors:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3tedlWs1XY&feature=g-logo

Highly appreciate any helps.

Honestly, I think that's just part of Flash on OS X.  You could test the same YouTube videos in other browsers, as Chrome contains its own Flash rather than use the /Library plug-in version, but every YT video I've played on a Mac has always had that buffering pause a few seconds into it.  (Vimeo is usually smooth.)

There have been some sorta-hacks to set Mac browsers to use HTML5 instead of Flash, however: you might start with Jon Gruber's always-excellent blog though that may be somewhat outdated.


Combining CharacterViewer with FontBook in Yosemite I used a OS X 10.5.8 system for several years and now I am using a new laptop with
the latest Yosemite.
 I find some features of the older system are much more powerful than the newest one.
 For example, the Character Palette of my old computer is like a combination of
strengthened versions of today's CharacterViewer and FontBook.

The CharacterPalette of old could display all the characters (with their Unicode
info) of a given font in a FontBook manner and still fully interact with any text editor.

Today’s CharacterViewer has practically no interaction with font information.
  It is not possible to give CharacterViewer a font and ask it to display all the available
characters in that font. CharacterViewer can only display all characters (without consideration
of any font) in their order according to Unicode (and a few other encodings, but I'm interested in fonts not encodings). Also, when CharacterViewer displays the font variants of a given character it only
displays the shapes and not the font names. The user has to click each shape drawing
individually to see what is the name of the font it corresponds to. The older interface
which automatically displayed the font name next to the glyph was much simpler and
user-friendly.

I found those now-disappeared features incredibly useful as I wrote articles on ancient texts
involving many unusual characters.
  Is there any reasonable chance to restore those features on a Yosemite system ?

UPDATE 18:16 : In answer to a comment below, here is a sample of characters that I often use :

Note that my problem cannot be solved by simply gathering "all the characters I need" in the favorites Section of CharacterViewer. To exaggerate slightly, every epigraph has its own characters and I need to update my set of characters periodically. The typical character I need is often in the "Private Area" of the Unicode standard. The most comprehensive font I found so far is ALPHABETUM, and with the old Character Palette I regularly discovered new characters from ALPHABETUM.

The problem you mention has existed since OS X 10.7 was released nearly 4 years ago, so it has been discussed a lot in various places.  I think the best fix is probably to use the 3rd party alternative palette, Ultra Character Map.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ultra-character-map/id520265986?mt=12

However if I remember right it cannot handle glyphs with no unicode codepoint assigned (i.e glyph variants).


How can I back-up my OS X instance and Restore from mounted drive? Synopsis

I have been having trouble With my MacBook Pro (Mid '12, 15")  I deployed tonnes of work Sunday evening/early hours Monday morning before I went to bed, leaving my MacBook running but locking screen.

Monday evening I returned home to do my personal weekly finance reports and start some work, where I clicked my mouse to get the screen on but it was white and nothing worked.  Simply a colour-wheel spinning infinitely.

I held the power button for a hard shutdown and turned it back on
The system booted up normally
I logged in and shortly after my MacBook started up all my desktop applications
When I pressed ⌘ + _ the search was slow and opening applications took minutes.
Click on the close button on any application lagged, with at least 3 minutes pause
My mouse cursor moved, the display was frozen and I couldn't do anything.

Debugging Steps

I decided to investigate, after the 3rd time of clean rebooting after shutting down my applications using Firefox instead of chrome, closing all of my start-up applications, I un-installed Flash too.

The Disk Utility application ran tests on my partition and my disk reporting everything was OK (I then read this is not a reliable test)
I rebooted my Mac and using ⌘ + ⌥ + P + R and ran extensive tests on the RAM, it took about 2 hours, everything reported OK and passed (no failures).
I attempted to run further memory tests from Apple over the net using ⌘ + shift + D again, everything passed.

I thought it's the memory and decided to remove a stick of RAM and test if it failed, it did, I left 1 stick of ram out running on 8gb from 1 crucial stick. The same problems occurred as above.

I therefore assume the problem is my Hard Disk, regardless, I still want to back-up my installation as an image which can be restored from a USB storage device.

Question

Is it possible to boot-up my Mac from a USB external storage device and  install my existing OS as it is on a new hard disk?
I have read it's possible for Disk Utility to clone  my partitions and disks as a .dmg to an external drive - but how does this work with FileVault/encrypted disks?

Yes, you can do this with disk utility.  When you try to access the FileVault encrypted disk it will prompt for a password. You can then select it as the source for a restore to another drive.


How can I clean up 'Other' storage on iPhone 3G? My iPhone 3G is currently showing 3.1GB of 'Other' disk space in iTunes, and this amount seems to be growing by about 0.1GB every couple of days.  I can't find any good references for what this space could actually be getting used for.

I've heard of doing a restore to clear it up, which works, for about a day, but then the 'Other' space starts to quickly accumulate again.

I've also done all the Internet history clearing, turning off of indexing and removing of disabled mail accounts, still no success.  I'd love to know how to either clear this stuff up, or see a decent explanation for why my phone is using all this extra space.

Here's a snapshot of what my disk usage bar in iTunes looks like:

UPDATE: My phone is not jailbroken.  It is stock IOS 4.2.1.

I had this same exact problem until 2 days ago followed the procedure outlined on this page: http://www.ipodrepublic.com/iphone/fixing-issue-other-files-iphone-memory/2010/03/31/ and it worked well.  Re-created below.  I haven't seen my Other size grow since.

Step 1: Turn of sync music in iTunes

When you have synced your iPhone and noticed that “other files” have taken up a lot of storage space on the iPhone, un-tick the “sync music” alternative in iTunes before un-connecting your iPhone.

Step 2: Install DiskAid software on computer/mac  (Instead of using DiskAid (paid), I used iPhone Explorer (which is free.))

DiskAid is a neat little software that allows you transfer files to your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, treating it as a USB drive. They offer a free trial of the software so no need to purchase it first time you have to use it at least.

Make sure your iPhone is connected with the USB when you open up DiskAid. When the program is running, at the bottom left corner it says “DiskAid folder”, click on the drop down list and choose “media folders”.

Step 3: Go into iTunes Control folder and then the Music folder

In DiskAid you will see an overview of all the folders and files on your iPhone. Go to the iTunes Control Folder and then the subfolder called Music. Under the Music folder you will likely see a lot of subfolders starting with “f”.

Step 4: Delete/remove all subfolders in Music

Delete all the subfolders under the Music folder. They include the files that are hogging your iPhone memory under “other files”.

Step 5: Open iTunes and sync your iPhone

With “music sync” still turned off in iTunes, sync your iPhone. This will remove all music files from your iPhone, but keep all other content. Don’t worry about this though, as in the next steps you will sync the music back onto your iPhone.

Step 6: Unplug iPhone and reboot it

Once the iPhone has finished syncing, unplug it and perform a reboot. The reboot is done by holding down the “power down” button at the top right at the same times as holding down the control button. Hold both of them until the iPhone has switched off and the Apple logo appears on the screen before releasing both buttons. This action will reboot your iPhone.

Step 7: Reconnect your iPhone to iTunes and recheck “sync music”

This will put your music back onto the iPhone, and you should not see any of the “other files” taking up any of the iPhone memory. Once the sync is complete your iPhone should be all sorted again.

If you still see “other files” taking up memory on your iPhone you have likely done something wrong or left out subfolders in step 4.

Also, delete the same type of sub-folders in the PWNTunes Itunes Control folder as well if you are jailbroken and have PWNTunes installed.


lost photos on iphone5 Had a problem with iphone 5 so took phone to Apple rep proceeded to put my phone in restore thinking my photos were all in icloud....well no majority were in camera roll and didnot make it upon the restore.
So can I get these photos back or are they gone for ever?

If you had Photo Stream enabled, as many as the most recent thousand will be available on there. Unfortunately, without a backup to iTunes or import from another app, they will no longer be on the device in an accessible way. I'm surprised the Genius who helped you didn't stress this point more emphatically.


Is there a karaoke trainer for OS X? is there an easy-to-use karaoke training software for Mac OS X?
My point is, I select the .kar file (or the vocals-only .mp3) and I sing against, then I listen to what I've actually sang?

FWIW, I'm no professional singer. I'm a software developer, but singing is my hobby, so I seek utility to help me train myself singing...

You could give UltraStar Deluxe a try:

  A free and open source karaoke game inspired by the Singstar™ game available on the Playstation®. It allows up to six players to sing along with music using microphones in order to score points, depending on the pitch of the voice and the rhythm of singing.

The content is somewhat limited though.

P.S. I'm thinking many usefull information could find out here


Newly-created SSH keys landed in my home folder rather than `.ssh` folder after creating with `ssh-keygen` I used the ssh-keygen utility bundled with High Sierra to create keys, as directed by this page title How to Create SSH Keys with OpenSSH on Linux or macOS at DigitalOcean.com.

Oddly, the prompt to save the new file for keys indicated the .ssh/id_rsa folder. Yet, the new keys were found in my home folder.

Here is my session, replacing a couple things with blah_blah_blah.

I entered a file name of acme. The pair of files named acme & acme.pub were saved to my home folder of /Users/basilbourque, not .ssh.

MacBook-Pro:~ basilbourque$ which ssh-keygen
/usr/bin/ssh-keygen
MacBook-Pro:~ basilbourque$ ssh-keygen
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/basilbourque/.ssh/id_rsa): acme
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in acme.
Your public key has been saved in acme.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:blah_blah_blah basilbourque@MacBook-Pro.local
The key's randomart image is:
blah_blah_blah

➥ Any idea why the destination path indicated in the prompt was ignored?

One possible issue: There is no id_rsa folder nested in my .ssh folder, only a known_hosts file is found there.

I ask for two reasons:

Mere curiosity.

Why would the ssh-keygen utility display a path in the prompt if it is going to ignore that path?
Why would the ssh-keygen utility display a path to a non-existent folder?

Wondering if this will result in the ssh connection tool failing to find and utilize the keys for logging into a new ssh connection session.

Is there some place I should move these keys so that will be found by the ssh connection tool? (I am new to using ssh.)

You are prompted for a file name, not a folder name (Enter **file** in which to save the key). So if you just reply with a file name the keys will be stored (with that name) in the current directory. You can just move them to .ssh/ manually if necessary. You probably also need to tell ssh to use your keys instead of the default ones (or you rename your keys to the default name).


youtube stops when i close ipad case I stream youtube meditation video on bluetooth earbuds while going to sleep. I close the case and it stops so I open it and restart. runs all night!!! until a few days ago. now when I reopen the case and restart it goes back to home screen and shuts off the stream.
I have not updated recently. I have made no changes nor have I done anything different.How do I resolve this issue?

YouTube prevents you from listening to music in the background unless you pay for YouTube Red.

You can circumvent this issue by using YouTube in Safari at youtube.com instead of in the YouTube app.


Re-upload or add back icloud backup apps Is there a way to manually re-add apps to iCloud backup. I subscribe to the 50GB service and I always have 37GB free, which seems a waste.

Is it possible to add some apps back into the upload process, seems useless you can't do from the phone.

Thanks.

According to this Apple Support page, you can add apps to iCloud backup on the iPhone this way:

  Select which iOS apps to back up

  Many apps automatically back up to iCloud after you install them. You can change which apps back up to iCloud and remove existing backups from your storage.

  Use these steps on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:

  1.Tap Settings > iCloud.
      *  If you're using iOS 8 or later, tap Storage > Manage Storage.
      *  If you're using an earlier version of iOS, tap Storage & Backup > Manage Storage.
    2.Tap the name of your iOS device.
    3. Under Backup Options, turn on any apps that you want to back up.


How to make a table editable in a keynote template? When adding Images, Text & Shape to a Master slide you have the option of Define as Media Placeholder.

No such option (appears to) exists if you add a Table to a master slide. This means that when someone adds a slide from a template which contains a table it is non-editable.

Is there anyway of adding a Table to a Master Slide which allows that table to remain editable?

No.

The only thing you can do is to add an object placeholder to the master so that the table gets inserted with the desired position/dimensions.

Plus a table style with the desired color scheme. If you then delete all the default table styles, your custom table style gets applied when inserting the table into the slide.


In iwork Pages, how to start a new line after the last row of a table? I evidently don't know the right thing to look for.  The last thing in my document is a table.  There is no paragraph after it.  I can go on adding rows to the table with the context menu, or add paragraphs to a cell of the table by pressing 'return'.

But I can't seem to add a paragraph after the table without doing something hacky like cutting the table, inserting to newlines, and then pasting the table back.

There should be a way to do this, but I can't find the key words to find it either in google or the pages handbook.

(Haven't used any ms or open document document things for a long time, so when I had a need for a document full of tables I bought Pages.  I like it pretty well).

Did you try clicking off the table (so you aren't in a cell) then click the table to select it, and then pressing the right-arrow when the table is lit as selected?


How can I remove photos from an iPad Min without having to restore it? My iPad mini is overloaded with pictures.  I would like to delete them without having to restore the device and lose years of my iBook annotations. Is there a way to get these photos off my iPad mini without having to restore the device? I wish Apple would make it easier to simply delete photos from an iPad mini, but until that day I hope you can provide some options for us.

What you ask it trivial on iOS 9. Enable cloud photos in iCloud settings if you haven't already. Once it's synced, turn of the library.

Select Remove and you are done.

If for some reason you can't or won't do that, connect to a Mac and you can use Image Capture app over USB to bulk delete. I suppose a PC version of the tool would exist, but that's not my area of expertise.

Also, you can select entire moments to delete on iOS 9 so even the manual method isn't a 1 to 1 tap to delete operation.


How to remove security notifications about unapproved software after upgrading to macos High Sierra? Upgrading to High Sierra is really painful. I cannot do brew upgrade, I am getting thousands of security notifications - see the attached file.  There are some recipes in Internet but they are not working, maybe the latest upgrade does not allow them.  I can approve files one by one but there are hundreds of them.  Maybe at least I can approve all files in a directory? Or run a script approving all files?

It appears you have an anti-virus application called Bit9. If it is causing more difficulty than help, you can always deactivate or uninstall it. If this is a institutionally managed machine, contact your system admin or help desk.

If you feel you need to have an anti-virus application, be sure to confirm that it will run correctly with macOS High Sierra. You may need to disable the anti-virus' blocking of scripts if you are intentionally running scripts for what you are doing.


iPhone 6 only charging when powered off My iPhone was only charging when turned off whether I used an original cable or not.

Today it stopped charging even when it is powered off.

Can a battery replacement fix this? If not, what else could be the issue?

Sent my iPhone to assistance and them have the answer: The problem is in the power management IC


How to stop the Anydesk application from opening at startup? I utilize this application called Anydesk for remote desktop very frequently, and while I was recently removing programs from starting up at login (because I wanted a faster start up speed) I noticed that Anydesk wasn't in the list of login items, even though it shows up whenever I login after I restart/shut down the computer.

How does one rectify this issue?

I am running OSX El Capitan on a 13" MacBook Pro.

After several attempts I finally found the file that is created during the installation process. So to prevent AnyDesk from starting at login, you need to delete the file,

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.philandro.anydesk.Frontend.plist

That solved my issues with autostarting AnyDesk at login.


Get Value of Variable stops appending on last call & sets result to only that last variable I have created a simple workflow in Automator to ask questions & send an email. I followed the tutorial at https://macmost.com/create-customizable-text-inserts-using-automator.html. This has worked for me in different usages, but in this workflow, I have an issue. Near the end of the workflow, multiple variables are retrieved using "Get Value of Variable" to create a message consisting of them all. As each variable is retrieved, it is added to the last variables. However, the last get value of the variable I use deletes all of the other variables which were previously shown in "results" and the result becomes only that variable.
I have attached an image for reference. As you can see it continues to increase (4 items, 5 items), but when the last variable is got, it deletes all of the other items & is set to 1 item.
I have tried deleting the ask for text/set variable for the last statement, and it results in the issue occurring on the "new" get value of variable.

Running your workflow unedited...
In the fifth Get Value of Variable action, when running the original workflow, its Results, with the list button selected, was, e.g.,:
(
  "<NSAppleEventDescriptor: [ 'utxt'("Hey") ]>",
  "What's Up?",
  "1-3",
  "<NSAppleEventDescriptor: [ 'utxt'("Full QA") ]>",
  "<NSAppleEventDescriptor: [ 'utxt'("aren't") ]>"
)

In the sixth Get Value of Variable action, when running the original workflow, its Results, with the list button selected, was, e.g.,:
(
  "<NSAppleEventDescriptor: [ 'utxt'("Thank you") ]>"
)

When it would have beed expected to be, e.g.,:
(
  "<NSAppleEventDescriptor: [ 'utxt'("Hey") ]>",
  "What's Up?",
  "1-3",
  "<NSAppleEventDescriptor: [ 'utxt'("Full QA") ]>",
  "<NSAppleEventDescriptor: [ 'utxt'("aren't") ]>"
  "<NSAppleEventDescriptor: [ 'utxt'("Thank you") ]>"
)

Just to test something out, I converted all the Ask for Text actions to Run AppleScript actions that did the same thing, and initially converted all but the last Run JavaScript actions to Run AppleScript action and everything worked.
I then converted the last remaining Run JavaScript action to Run AppleScript action and everything worked. I did this because of the differences in how each variable was being saved/returned. Thus by making all the variables the same type/class it worked.
In the fifth Get Value of Variable action, when running the edited workflow, its Results, with the list button selected, was, e.g.,:
{"Hey", "What's Up?", "1-3", "Full QA", "aren't"}

In the sixth Get Value of Variable action, when running the edited workflow, its Results, with the list button selected, was, e.g.,:
{"Hey", "What's Up?", "1-3", "Full QA", "aren't", "Thank you"}

As you can see in the example results what's returned is a plain list of text strings not mixed as in the output of the original workflow.
The end result was, e.g.,:

While I can not say for sure, nonetheless, it looks like there may be some sort of bug with the type/class count when stacking more than five Get Value of Variable actions and why it does not fail when all have been acquired, set and retrieved when done using the same type of actions.

Here is a link for the edited workflow: Send_QA_Mail_Test.zip

SHA1: dfdec5414d0d5e22c46ad444b7bb77f19b442a45


Stolen iPhone - check status of Find My iPhone My iPhone 4s was stolen but im not sure if the Find My iPhone was switched on.
The phone number is still the same and active.

Is it possible to check the status?

Go to https://www.icloud.com/#find to check the status.

From there you can track where it currently is or was last seen, make it play a sound, lock it by enabling Lost Mode [which includes adding another phone number to the lock screen you can be contacted at], or even erase it [though that would disable Find My iPhone]


Set time range for iTunes Recently Added Currently iTunes' Recently Added section only extends back around three months (I think) and I'd like it go back further than that, like 1 or 2 years, say.

Does anyone know how to change this?

Right click the playlist & Edit - it's a Smart Playlist, so you can set any parameters you like, including how far back in time it should look...


MBP major virus I think I am sure I have got some virus(s) in my Mac book & I have no idea what to do about it. I download torrents on a regular basis. When I am in Safari, every time I click a link of any kind a new, extra tab opens that has nothing to do with what I have clicked. Usually it opens to mackepper or similar type "junk sale" web site.

Help!

This sounds like you're experiencing MacKeeper and similar website ads.

What worked for me is a Safari extension called AdBlock Plus.

Click this text to install AdBlock Plus for Safari.


Developer program expires in 2 months, what happens if I publish a free app now? I have a 99$-paid Developer Program membership that expires in ~ 2 months. I'm not planning to renew it.

What happens if I publish a free iPhone/iPad app on AppStore now?

Will it stay online for many years? (but I won't be able to update it in 2 months if I don't renew the Develop Program membership)

or

Will it be removed from App Store in 2 months if I don't renew the Developer Program membership?

Once your Apple Developer membership expires, all apps published under that developer's name will be removed from the App Store, regardless of whether they're free or not.

If you publish an app today, assuming it's approved, it will go into the App Store.  Soon after your membership expires it will be removed.  This might not happen on the exact day but it shouldn't take more than a few days after expiration.

From the Apple Developer page:

  Expired Memberships

  If your Apple Developer Program membership expires, your apps will no longer be available for download and you will not be able to
  submit new apps or updates. You will lose access to pre-release
  software, Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles, and Technical Support
  Incidents. However, your apps will still function for users who have
  already installed or downloaded them, and you will still have access
  to iTunes Connect and free development resources.

  If your Apple Developer Enterprise Program membership expires, your
  apps will no longer be available for download and will no longer
  function for those who have already installed or downloaded them. You
  will still have access to free development resources.

  iOS Developer University Program memberships do not expire.


Microphone to use with OS X's Speech features I'm currently using the built-in microphone on my early 2007 MacBook Pro to access the Speech features.  I'd like to use an actual microphone that I can clip to my shirt or something (since Speech seems to work better when I'm closer to the mic).  What do you use for a mic?  Can I just use the mic on the default iPhone headphones?

I am not sure the iPhone headphones with the built-in microphone will work on older MacBooks, since I believe they do require a headphone jack capable of sending the microphone input. Headphone jacks on MacBooks shipped after the iPhone was introduced all have that capability.

As fas as microphone recommendations, the following two seem to be regarded as very good by different sources I trust, such as the Equipment Guide that 5by5's Dan Benjamin writes every year:

For beginners: Plantronics .Audio 655 USB Multimedia Headset
For pros:  Heil PR40 Dynamic Microphone

Hope this helps.


Why removed synched photo folders still appears on my iPhone 5S I removed the iTunes synched photo folders from my 5S and they no longer appear on my phone. However, they are still showing up as being stored when I look at the usage on my phone. I am constantly out of memory because of these photo files I can't even see on my phone anymore. Any ideas?

This happens from time to time. Not just photos but other files and storage. The cure is the same routine for all of the various situations like this.

Unpair your watch if you have one or more Apple Watch
Back up your phone
Erase all content and settings
Restore the backup
Set things up that didn’t get backed up by design - Touch ID, Apple Pay, pair watches, etc...

You can use iCloud or a passcode to get personal details (health data) and network passwords part of the backup.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203977


Remove all duplicates on iTunes library I want to remove all duplicates from my library, to consider a duplicate the song must have the same encoding, bits, duration.

You can use the default iTunes engine to find duplicates :

  File > Display Duplicates

Or, use a third-party software like TuneUp or TidySongs.


Which Thunderbolt dock should I buy for MacBook Pro13 late 2011, running High Sierra 10.13.6 My MacBook Pro includes 2 USB2 ports and 1 Thunderbolt port. The USB ports are becoming a bit unstable (according to a music software I'm using). I've never used the Thunderbolt port, so assume it would be stable.

Is there a Thunderbolt dock I could connect to the Thunderbolt port which would accept my USB2 devices? I understand that the Thunderbolt port I have is not the fastest or latest. What is important to me is that I can still use my devices ie: keyboard, audio/MIDI interface and external storage HDs, all with USB2 connectors and independent power.
Would the Thunderbolt dock also be able to connect to a newer Thunderbolt port should I decide to upgrade. (semi retired musician, so have to be very careful).

Starting off, it’s important to know that any Thunderbolt dock that you get will be obsolete by about five years (at the time of this writing).

You need a Thunderbolt 1 or Thunderbolt 2 dock.  They will support your requirements of plugging in your peripheral devices; hard drives, keyboards, mice, etc.  You may need an adapter for your MIDI interface, but it will be no different than needing the same adapter to connect directly to your Mac.

Thunderbolt is backward compatible meaning that it will connect to older Thunderbolt devices.  However, going from a new Thunderbolt 3 port to older Thunderbolt 1 or 2 port, will require an adapter due to the differences in needing an active (powered) cable versus a passive cable.

Do I recommend you going this route?  No!

This is a nearly decade old Mac with all obsolete tech and by your own admission, the ports are becoming “unstable”, likely from being  worn and the connections getting loose.  You’re throwing good money at something that will simply only get worse - you’d be buying already discontinued and obsolete tech (if you can actually source it).  Your better bet is to get a more modern Mac with reliable ports and support for new(er) operating systems.


Is Mac OS X in a VirtualBox VM suitable for iOS development? I have finally successfully managed to install Mac OS X in a virtual machine on my Windows 7 laptop using VirtualBox and a tutorial from Lifehacker.

Performance is very slow, with Mountain Lion reporting that it is seeing just 4MB video memory (I didn't manage to load the Intel HD3000 driver). Youtube is essentially unplayable, with even the audio potion stuttering. That said, the interface and general UI is pretty acceptable.

Even with such slow performance, does it make sense to download and develop with Xcode? I am allocating 3GB of RAM. What would performance be like under those conditions?

If this is a hobby and you are not planning on releasing any apps to the app store, and you can tolerate the slow performance and don't care about running on real devices, then don't worry about it. However, if you are creating a business the it is essential to run on real hardware. Any low end Mac (MacBook Air 11", is my current favorite) will blow away any virtual machine.

I have a fairly simple app that runs fine on my iPad and iPod Touch, but has all sorts of graphic anomalies in the simulator.


What is barred circle icon in dock after install to new HD? I just bought a SSD for my MacBook Pro and installed Lion on it and restored from a Time Machine backup. After a few updates and configuring a few things I am mostly good to go. However, Xcode and Aperture have a ghostly barred circle over their dock icons. I needed to download some components for Xcode to get it to run, but it seems fine, but the icon is wrong:

I assumed that it meant that there was a problem restoring the application, but I can't find any information on this. I guess I want to know what it means and how to get rid of it.

Somehow, there was an error while restoring your backup.

Some user blamed Norton Anti Virus (but I doubt you've installed this software), others just re-installed the app. Both cases seems to work for some users, so you could try both :)


Mac Mail application removes attachment when forwarding mails When I forward email having attachment the recipient is not getting the attachment file. Mail application removes it automatically before forwarding. How can I prevent this?

When you create a new Forward message, right-click the toolbar and Customise Toolbar... You'll see an icon for Include Attachments. Drag it into the toolbar. Click Done.

You can now toggle this button to include attachments or not.


How to check the type filter in file open dialog? In windows, we can check the type filter easily:

But in MacOS, it seems the file open dialog has no such thing:

The reason why I want to check it: sometimes the open button is unclickable, but I don't know the file type it is looking for.

The granddaddy of macOS modifications DefaultFolderX that has been around since "classic" Mac OS does not even offer this option. Making me think that is not something that is available.

And after 20+ years working on Macs I have not seen anything like that I would generally think that there is no mechanism available to end-users that allows you to do this.

It may be possible to add certain apps to the database of programs that can open a particular file but that is usually done by an App when it is installed.

I would say that you are likely out of luck in situations like this.

However I have been known to drag 'n drop a file onto a program icon that will open pretty much any file (I'm lookin' at you BBEdit) and that, I have found, is a useful workaround, at least for me.


Can someone explain what 'diskutil cs revert' does? so I was following some instructions to get my windows bootcamp partition to resize in disk utility, because after upgrading to Yosemite I was unable to resize my partition to give one side more space (although I had free space).
I followed the commands I saw on multiple different support links and they all seemed to be the same and worked for those who had problems, so I followed it through and it did indeed work. It was to find the logical volume id though the

  diskutil cs list

then to use

  diskutil cs revert

However, In disk utility my main disk (the one at the top) has been renamed to the name of the SSD hardware with my two partitions underneath, rather than just 'Macintosh HD' with the two partitions.

So I was wondering, what does this command do, are there any effects of it changing the name in disk utility and are there any consequences of this command?
Thanks in advance!

--
MacBook Pro 13" Late 2013 Retina 2.4Ghz Intel Core i5 256GB SSD OS X Yosemite 10.10.3

diskutil cs revert turns off the Core Storage volume manager for that volume. The Yosemite installer turns it on in case it's needed later (mostly for FileVault), but if you don't actually need it (e.g. for FileVault a Fusion disk) it doesn't do anything useful.

If you aren't using FileVault or a Fusion disk, what Core Storage mostly does is confuse Disk Utility, limiting its ability to dynamically resize and rearrange volumes, and preventing it from displaying the disk structure properly. That "251 GB APPLE SSD SD..." thing is what Disk Utility should be displaying there, because "Macintosh HD" and "BOOTCAMP" are both volumes within the physical SSD. With Core Storage, it was showing BOOTCAMP as somehow part of Macintosh HD, which it isn't at all.


Why would Exchange account work in Lion Mail and not Snow Leopard Mail? My wife's corporate e-mail is on an Exchange server. Everything — Mail, Address Book, and iCal — used to work fine on Snow Leopard. Then they changed some things, including the URL. Now Snow Leopard is having difficulties autodiscovering and setting up new accounts. If I'm persistent, Address Book and iCal will work. But Mail won't — it finds and tries to set up the account, seems to connect, even reads all of her mail folders on the server, but no existing messages appear. New messages received after the account is set up on her Mac will show up, but they will not be marked as read if read another way (Entourage/Outlook, webmail, etc.).

The weird thing is that all of this works seamlessly on Lion. If I set up her account through the Mail, Contacts, & Calendars system pref pane, everything just works. Incidentally, it was using the settings in the Lion apps that allowed me to force Address Book and iCal on Snow Leopard to connect correctly. But I can't get Mail working no matter what I try.

Can anyone offer any suggestions? What would cause an Exchange server to talk to Mail on Lion correctly and not to Mail on Snow Leopard, even when I manually copy every possible setting?

SnowLeopard was the first version of OS X to have built-in support for Exchange 2007. Lion Mail officially added support for Exchange 2010 (according to the Lion Wikipedia page). If the Exchange server is running Exchange 2010, it's possible that contacts and calendars were compatible enough on Snow Leopard to just work, but Mail was not.


What could fix Calendar.app when one calendar does not show all events that should be synced with iCloud? I use iCloud to sync 4 calendars between my iPhone 4 (running iOS 6.0.1), iPad 2 (running iOS 6.0.1) and MacBook Pro Mid 2012 running Mountain Lion (10.8.2).

All events for 3 of the calendars sync correctly across all devices, however for one calendar:

All events show at https://www.icloud.com
All events show in the calendar app on the iPhone and iPad
Hardly any events appear in Calendar.app on the MacBook Pro, some future events appear until after the date of the event and disappear from this calendar while remaining on the iOS devices and iCloud.com.

I noticed it happening in the last few weeks. Previously it worked OK. I usually add events to the calendar from either my iPhone or MacBook.

So far I have tried:

Removing the calendar from my MacBook Pro (signing out of iCloud, then deleting all calendars from ~/Library/Calendars)
Restarting OS X
Re-adding the calendar

– but there are still events missing.

In Console I see no messages when I force refresh the calendar.

My Apple ID is a custom email, not the typical @me.com address (not sure that should make a difference).

Does anyone have any other suggestions for what could be causing it or how to fix Calendar syncing?

Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and then Sync and all events that should get all your events to show.


What's the best way to share and edit documents between iPhones with separate Apple IDs? My wife and I both have iPhones, we also have separate Apple IDs, but we'd like to be able to share and edit documents. We've looked at a couple of options:

Google Docs - Since it's lacking a native app, it seems to be difficult to edit on the phone especially for spreadsheets.
Page/Numbers iOS app - It appears that documents created by one user can not be shared with another one.

We both have dropbox accounts that we could use to share the docs, but is there app to edit them?

Short answer: Dropbox (preferably with Dropbox-aware apps).

Longer answer: It depends a lot on what type the documents are, and what apps you use to edit them.

Anything that only has iCloud as a sharing mechanism won't work, without exporting via email or some other means (which would seem to defeat the point). For the foreseeable future, iCloud documents are tied to individual accounts.

Dropbox is probably your best bet - either a shared account, or shared folders between individual accounts. The app itself can open files in whatever application supports them, but then you're dealing with multiple versions again. If at all possible, use apps that have built-in Dropbox support to avoid this.

If you're dealing with plain text, there is a vast selection of Dropbox-enabled text editors out there. Brett Terpstra has a heavily detailed comparison here.

For other formats, it may be a bit more hit and miss. For Office documents, Office2 HD and Documents to Go both advertise Dropbox sync, but there may be more out there.

For PDFs, PDFPen does Dropbox sharing, and is a great app. PDF Expert has similar functionality.

If you narrow down what sort of document support you need, I'm sure others can chime in with suggestions.


9 Monitors connected to a Mac Pro I'm researching the best way to make a 9 monitor video wall (3x3 grid).

Anyone have any experience doing this with a Mac Pro?

Anyone know the maximum amount of monitors I can hook up to a Mac Pro?

When setting up nine displays some kind of monitor stand/s that can manage that many displays will be handy, unless you want a sprawl of monitors. Something such as a 9 monitor stand/mount  will be helpful to keep the displays in a usable area of space that fits on one desk. VESA display mounts and stands will be your friend to make this process flow nicely.  Regardless of which stand or wall mount option you get just make sure your displays support VESA mounting before ordering them.

Also pay attention to size and weight requirements for the mounts and stands making sure it will support the size and weight of the displays you want to use. For example a typical 9 monitor stand may only supports up to 19" displays. So be sure to coordinate what you purchasing so that it will all work together, fit, and remain safely standing.

For max monitors it depends on your Mac pro. According to the EveryMac specs the maximum number of displays for 2010 Mac pros is 6 displays. 2006 - 2009 Mac Pros are noted as 8.

According to Apple's specs for the Macs that have 2 PCI Express X16 slots the other 2 are X4 but can accept an X16 card, which means that you can install 2 other X16 cards but they will run at  X4 speeds and hence be a little slower than the other cards, same is true for Mac Pros with only one X16 slot hence why Apple/EveryMac has 2009 and prior Macs listed as eight displays max by using 4 cards.

For some reason Apple will only sell you 2 graphics cards for a 2010 Mac Pro as a BTO option, hence why the 6 display limit is noted on the Mac Pro technical specifications and on EveryMac.

After further observation it appears that the reason why only two cards is that the Apple ATI Radeon HD 5770 is a double height card., more than two will simply not fit in the case (see picture below).

Since all of the current Mac PCI express graphics cards that support 3 displays are double height, you really can only use one of them in a Mac Pro to achieve the goal of 9 displays.

If you use two 3 port video cards such as the Apple ATI Radeon HD 5770, then you you can add one additional single height card (if the 1 single height card does fit) for a setup of 3+3+2 setup, keeping power demands in mind too.

One way to achieve 9 displays is with one three-display card and three single height dual-display capable graphics cards such as the Apple Nvidia Geforce GT 120.  So a 3+2+2+2 should be possible with the current 2010 (Mac Pro 5,1). It looks like the 2008 and 2009  Mac Pros also allow for double height graphics with out the card blocking the other slots, if the double height card is installed in the bottom PCI express slot. Using a ATI Radeon HD 5770 in the bottom slot, and then adding three single height dual-display capable cards in the above PCI express slots, specifically the Apple Nvidia Geforce GT 120 (as pictured below) it all should work and also be within the maximum power limitations for the Mac Pro's PCI express slots, at about 225W which is less than 300Watts.

So when you choose your array of graphics cards keep in mind the power limitations of the Mac Pro. As noted in the Mac Pro 2010 User Guide, the combined draw for all the installed PCI express cards must not exceed 300W.**

For reference the Watts per card for the mentioned /available cards (Note that for the AMD cards the Watts may very since the specs may not be for the Apple OEM cards):

1 x Apple Nvidia Geforce GT 120 - 50 Watts

1 x AMD ATI Radeon HD 5770 ~ 75Watts

1 x AMD ATI Radeon HD 5870 ~ 150W


LaunchBar script that returns the path of a folder "dropped" on it I want to make a LaunchBar script that displays in a dialog the path of a file or folder that's chosen in the first pane and then "dropped" on a script. But I can't make it work.

I've got a couple of working scripts that almost do what I want:

Return contents of first pane (used with a shortcut):

tell application "LaunchBar"
   set x to selection as text
   return x
end tell

Display text written in the first pane and "dropped" on the script:

on handle_string(textFromLaunchbar)
   tell application "LaunchBar"
       display in large type textFromLaunchbar
   end tell
end handle_string

The latter uses the handle_string() handler but I can't quite make the open() handler work for files and folders:

from the LaunchBar manual:

http://www.obdev.at/resources/launchbar/help/index.php?chapter=SendingItems

Sending items to AppleScripts

To pass a selected file, URL or text to an AppleScript, press the Tab key to trigger the “Send to…” action, select the desired AppleScript and press Return. Files will be passed to the script’s open() handler, URLs will be passed to the handle_string() handler.

The open() handler gets passed an alias (which is a kind of a pointer to a file or folder). You can then simply convert the alias to text, but it will show you the path with colons as separators (e.g. "Macintosh HD:Users:Username:Documents:Folder:").

Use POSIX path of to convert it to a UNIX-style path with "/" separators, and if you want to paste it into Terminal, especially if the path has spaces in it, you should use quoted form of to properly enclose it in quotes.

The following script works with both folders and files for me, when an item is passed to it via LaunchBar:

on open (thisItem)
    display dialog (thisItem as text) -- alias
    display dialog quoted form of POSIX path of thisItem -- POSIX path
end open


Catalina Update Fail Purgeable Storage Catalina update failled mid-way and is stuck due to lack of available disk space. Booted from network drive and deleted files but this only increases purgeable storage and not free disk space. How to turn this purgeable storage into free storage while booted from network drive.

The purgeable storage is stored in a local snapshot. Apparently you can use the tmutil in terminal to delete these. Not sure how exactly but will update later today after speaking with the genius who fixed my mac.

Update:
This is what was explained to me:

List IDs of local snapshots: tmutil listlocalsnapshots /Volumes
Delete local snapshots: tmutil deletelocalsnapshots [date part of ID]
Repeat for all snapshots.

Haven't tested so try at your own risk. Let me know if it works. Worked for me but wasn't there went the steps were preformed.


Can't select Time Machine disk I've had Time Machine set up on my OSX Server for quite a while, but now that I upgraded my USB storage I can't seem to connect to the server. When I go to Time Machine preferences and click Select Backup Disk... I can see the share as usual. After I select the drive, turn on encryption and click Use Disk, I get asked for my credentials. If I enter the wrong credentials, the dialog shakes as it's supposed to, but when I enter the correct username and password, I'm thrown back to the disk selection screen.

I've tried turning the Time Machine service on and off, removing and adding the backup location to the service, deleting /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist on the client, but every time the same happens. No info can be found in the console on the client, and the only possibly related lines on the server are from kdc regarding encryption and this line: 26/06/17 23:24:04,130 AppleFileServer[25122]: Logged out 0x7f86da033600.

Any ideas would be appreciated. Screenshots here.

Almost forgot: the client is running 10.12.5, and the server is 10.10.4.

This happens with the user does not have permission to write to the share. You can verify this by connecting to the share in the normal way and trying to copy a file to it. The copy will not be allowed, conveyed by the mouse pointer changing to a no-entry sign. To fix, run the Server app and go to the File Sharing section and select your backups share. Then click edit (the pencil) and change "Everyone Else" to Read & Write (see screenshot). Now you will be able to successfully copy a file to the share and also the Time Machine setup problem will be fixed.

You would think that the Permissions for Backup Service ACL (also shown in screenshot) would take into account the users selected in the Time Machine section but it didn't in my case. Perhaps after adding a new user you need to restart File Sharing or reboot the server then maybe it would work without requiring this extra setting but I haven't tried it.


Syncing podcasts between devices I watch video podcasts on my iPad and listen to audio podcasts on my iPod.  Both podcasts sync to each device.  If I delete audio podcast from iPad, I lose it on the iPod as well and vice-versa.

How can I stop this from occurring?  I don't have enough space on the iPad for all the audio podcasts, and can only download one or two episodes of the video podcasts for all the room the audio podcasts take up.

In iTunes, select your iPad, select Podcasts, then select "Automatically include (smaller number) episodes of (selected podcasts or all podcasts)"

For your iPod you can set it to all or a larger number.

Alternatively you can manually sync your iPad's podcast episodes in the same location.


Macbook model A1342 randomly freezing I have a Macbook white model A1342 that I'm fixing for a friend of mine.

The macbook will freeze up totally randomly (usually while surfing the net but it happened even when no browser was opened). Freezes are usually 2-3 per day, but once it starts freezing it will freeze again in due time
It freezes without any beach ball spinning up, the cursor remains where it is and the only solution is shutting it down via the power button.
When I took it from my friend for fixing, it had only 2gb of ram and mavericks installed, and was painfully slow. I thought that was the culprit and installed 4gb of RAM, but it freezed again, today, just after installing the RAM, like nothing changed.
AHT and memtest won't report any errors, and the system log reports warning like disk swapping but nothing too dramatic. Tried etrecheck too, apple support's app for checking your system and nothing wrong reported here too.
Here is a list of what I tried so far:

upgraded to 4gb of RAM
clean reinstall of mac os lion
tried swapping disk, Mac freezes the same.
opened up the bottom lid and checked if fan is on, it seems to be
working ok.

I should add that the macbook has an erratic airport card. It often won't get detected by the system. Could a faulty airport card be the culprit of these freezes?

I'm pasting what the system.log reported just before this morning's crash (I don't know if it helps):

Apr 29 12:30:44 macbook-di-luca iBackup[376]: "download and install new plugins"
Apr 29 12:30:54 macbook-di-luca mdworker[327]: (Error) Import: Couldn't recover plist from xattr com.apple.metadata:kMDLabel_xjx7qauyg5mltgjdmyyeartz4e
Apr 29 12:31:41: --- last message repeated 5 times ---
Apr 29 12:33:16 macbook-di-luca KernelEventAgent[43]: tid 00000000 received event(s) VQ_LOWDISK, VQ_VERYLOWDISK (516)
Apr 29 12:33:17 macbook-di-luca Finder[125]: _GetISImageRefFromIconRefInternal: could not retain image ref 0x213c0055 (err=-2580)
Apr 29 12:33:17: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Apr 29 12:33:17 macbook-di-luca UserEventAgent[11]: Cleaning up local snapshots on volume file://localhost/Volumes/WD-GIGI/
Apr 29 12:33:20 macbook-di-luca Finder[125]: ISGetIconFamilyFromStorage: seed mismatch for 22c20010, actual seed is 109cf92e
Apr 29 12:33:20 macbook-di-luca Finder[125]: ISGetIconFamilyFromStorage: seed mismatch for 213c0055, actual seed is 39386575
Apr 29 12:33:22: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Apr 29 12:33:22 macbook-di-luca xpchelper[481]: for uid: 501 -- timeout while waiting on FSEvents flush; clearing cache.

After that it freezed up for good like usual, without any warning.
Thanks a lot for any suggestion and help in advance. I'm quite discouraged and can't seem to find the solution to the problem, and I don't want to start swapping parts randomly.

new SSD and new RAM didn't help similar problem here. Also missing airport on reboots occasionally. Suspect it's a current leak problem on the system board. No easy solution to that. Good thing is the fast reboot with the SSD.


After installing Mojave, my previous username/password combination does not work I just installed Mojave on my MacBookAir, and now my username/password (under Yosemite) are not accepted. I called Apple support and they told me to restart and immediately push down command-r giving me a MacOSUtilities window. I, then, chose the DiskUtility option that was offered, but the advisor didn't know what further to do, and scheduled me for a further call tomorrow.

Any immediate advice (somewhat disappointing--one would seem to expect smoother installation behavior from Apple)? Perhaps I'll have to take it to an Apple store for assistance.

Do I need the original "admin password"? (The laptop was purchased several years ago. I don't know if offhand.)

Easiest: boot from another installation that has good admin access and delete this file:
/private/var/db/.AppleSetupDone
(It supposedly can be done via Single User Boot (Command-S) and deleting with the "rm" command, but that did not work for me.)
You will then get options as if installing OSX the first time, which will permit you to add a good Admin User – which should remain unaltered (in case of future problem) – and that user can change any other user back to an admin…


Why is email being downloaded every time I (dis)connect VPN? I've noticed that every time I connect to or disconnect from a VPN connection, Apple Mail downloads all sorts of old email, email that's already been downloaded locally.  I don't believe it's resulting in any duplicates, but I'd like to know what's really going on.

For what it's worth, I have 6 email accounts and I'm using OS X 10.9.2.  The attached images are indicative of typical behavior.

After connecting to VPN:

After disconnecting from VPN:

It does that likely because you told it to do and it has lots of work to do before actually disconnecting.

For example with those settings:

Since you have 6 accounts with lots of activity, that can take a while.

To see more details for what it is doing, use the menu bar Windows and Show Activity.

A new window will pop up showing you exactly what is going on.

Sometimes using the Activity window you can see which one of your 6 accounts is doing it.

Your email will open 12 communication channels in network (Internet).
2 for each email account, one for sending and one for receiving, as you can imagine that's a lot of traffic than needs to be shut down orderly.

You can use the Connection Doctor- located in the Windows tab in mail (i do not know why is it called Doctor), but there you can see the communications going on, and maybe the one that is having trouble.

The pic you are showing is typical for a email account that has not been give a chance to finish updating, but once it is done it should stop doing that.


Exporting all pictures from iPhone keeping all features I have an iPhone full of pictures and videos (approx 80 GB). I want to export them to free up space (and have a backup if possible). I am looking for a solution, e.g. a software running on Windows or a personal webserver or a cloud, sorting by preferred option. The point is I want to keep all or most of the following useful features provided by iPhone Photos:

People (face recognition)
Places
Search by date
Live photos
Panoramas
Albums

In other words, I want to be able to "browse" just like I do inside my iPhone. I hoped iTunes could support it. I know I can buy iCloud space ($3/month) but I'm looking for a free alternative.

EDIT

Let me clarify even more: I want to know how do you deal with this problem. How do you free up space without losing Albums, live photos, search by places, etc.? Is iCloud the only solution?

In order to keep all the functionality you mention, your options are really only to have either a Mac with the built-in Photos app, or an iPad or similar device that you could offload your content to.
As far as I know, there's no free software that provides these features in exactly the same way as Photos on the iPhone, but on a webserver or on Windows.
You could export your Photos to a Windows PC and then use any PC photo management software, but the feature list would vary from program to program. For example the only free, Windows-based photo management software I know that does face recognition is mylioX. It doesn't do it exactly the same way as Apple, nor does it has the same list of features.
Here's Apple's guide to exporting your photos to Windows or Mac computers:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201302#importpc


Sync bookmarks between iOS8 and OS X 10.10 without iCloud iCloud is not on option. Sync via Google solutions is not an option for the same reasons. Looking for a local sync solution.

How can I locally sync bookmarks between iOS 8 and OS X 10.10? I cannot believe this is not possible and Apple did indeed kill off this important functionality in regards to privacy with iTunes 11 and newer.

What options do I have? Jailbreak, iFile and manipulate the file where iOS stores it's bookmarks manually? Really?! Considering Tim Cook held a strong speech at the recent cybersecurity summit, it would be great to not only do the PR talking but also provide key functionality to restore privacy.

Answering my own question: no this is not possible. The non-free workaround is to buy the 40$ SyncMate from Eltima Software: http://www.sync-mac.com/

I'm not affiliated with that company. It's just all I found to solve this problem. If anybody has a better solution please post it.


Macbook pro 13" OSX Mavericks F3-Key Function? Whats this F3 on the Macbook pro 13" with MacOs Mavericks on it? If I press it, there is my desktop big and above from it, my open programs with thumbnail. But this is feature is senseless, because from there I cant switch through my programs with shortcuts.

Greetings.

That is called "Mission Control"

If you prefer to use the keyboard rather than the mouse to switch to a different workspace, you can use control + ← or control + →


Emptying trash slow on external HDD? macOS Catalina.
Emptying trash on the internal SSD is normal, but very slow on external HDD (USB 3.0, 5400rpm).

If you can measure the iOPS in activity monitor you will likely see the trash is constrained by the access speed of the hard drive over the USB bus. The Mac is capable of asking for thousands of changes and it waiting for the physical drive to answer back.

This is expected, as solid-state drives (SSDs), are significantly faster than traditional hard drives (HDDs). The reason for this is that HDDs rely on writing data to a physical disk that spins around at an extremely fast rate, similar to a DVD. SSDs are able to be much faster since they instead store data digitally in chips which are written through electrical currents. These electrical currents are much faster than a spinning disk, which will make computer operations faster on SSDs and slower on HDDs. Because of this, processes such as emptying the trash will be slower on HDDs.

Fast for a hard drive is 100-300 iops and fast for an SSD is 10x as many operations per second or more in the Pro models.


Copy file from Terminal and paste in Mail I would like to

copy a file to the clipboard in terminal (as a reference like Finder does it) and then
when writing an email, paste it into Mail as an attachment (CMD + V).

I posted an example solution below but I'd prefer a script that does not need to open Finder.

The following script works but it needs to open (and close) a Finder window.

Save this to maccopy:

#!/usr/bin/osascript
on run args
  set theFile to (POSIX file (first item of args)) as alias
  tell application "Finder"
      reopen
      activate
      set selection to {}
      reveal theFile
  end tell
  delay 1
  tell app "System Events"
      keystroke "c" using command down
  end tell
  tell application "Finder"
      close window 1
  end tell
  tell application "iTerm2"
      activate
  end tell
end

and chmod +x maccopy.

Use with maccopy PATH-TO-FILE.


iOS mail app opens links in safari, not Facebook I am trying to figure something out for my mom. She receives emails whenever someone posts something on Facebook, and her only computing device is an iPad mini. She has no computer. She wants to be able to click on the link in Mail on her iPad and have it open in the Facebook app, not in  safari. How does one do this?

There's no way, at the current time, to open links in anything other than Safari from iOS.  Apple has not provided a way to set the default application for opening links, it's always Safari.

I'm assuming she's using the default Mail app (you didn't mention if she's. using a 3rd party app).  One way might be to have her try a to tap and hold the link.  This could bring up a share sheet.  If Facebook is in that share sheet, she can tap Facebook to send the link to the Facebook app.

Another option is to you an app like Opener.

This app lets you open a copied URL in different applications but it's more of a work-around to the problem.  You know your mom best, these additional steps might be more than she's willing/wants to do.


Restore Default settings Apple TV, how do I pair a new remote? I lost my remote for my Apple TV, and we were using the Remote App, but we recently downloaded a new update for the Apple TV and the update kept us from watching Movies.  I did a restore on the Apple TV, but now the Remote App cannot find my Apple TV.  How do I fix this?

Have you deleted the original pairing from your Remote app to the Apple TV? I know I have had issues with my iTunes library not connecting after a OS reinstall even though I was connected to the same library, deleting the pairing and then reconnecting fixed my issue.


Is MacBook Pro 13 2015 able to run YouTube’s 4k 60 FPS videos? On their new TestTube page, YouTube writes:

  And if playing 4K videos at 3840x2160 isn't enough to melt your
  device, try doing it at 60 frames per second.

Is the latest MacBook Pro 13 able to play such videos smoothly?

I'm under the assumption that you may have stumbled across reports such as this one in a casual Google search. I quote:

The Air correctly identified the attached monitor at 4K resolution, switching the user interface into HiDPI mode.
Subsequent refresh rate tests confirmed that it was running at 60Hz, and the publication said that interface components were "more than smooth enough for desktop use." Problems cropped up when performing animation-intensive actions, like entering full-screen mode, with "clearly visible" frame lag, showing that the display pushes the Intel HD 6000 graphics chip near its limit.

Notice that the first emboldened snippet says that you have to switch the user interface. This likely means usage of 3rd-pary software, such as SwitchResX, to enable changing system setting and entering this configuration. This is not recommended. Changing the resolution settings to something that cannot be enabled via System Settings can cause problems. Trying to push your hardware over the limits set by Apple can cause the system to overheat and consequently be damaged. Your MacBook is not ventilated very well and you have an integrated GPU which relies in part on the CPU. The additional overhead will cause complications.

I've read that full 4k at 60 fps is supported over DisplayPort. –  Šime Vidas 3 hours ago

Refresh rates in the article above confirmed 60Hz. Is it able to play videos at 60Hz? The answer is likely yes. It is officially supported? No, their support page shows a limit of 30Hz at the resolution you stated.
As per your quote, can DP support 4k @ 60Hz? Yes, the DisplayPort 1.3 standard supports it. Does Thunderbolt 2 support DisplayPort 1.3? No. Remember that through the Thunderbolt port there is backwards compatibility with a mini DisplayPort cable, but with Thunderbolt 2 there are still some limitations as it uses the DisplayPort 1.2(a) standard.

To summarize this:

Is the latest MacBook Pro 13 able to play such videos smoothly?

Objectively speaking, yes, it is able to.
Will the system play it at 60Hz on a 4k 60Hz monitor? No, it will not. It does not natively support it.
Also see DisplayPort 1.3 and Thunderbolt 2 on Wikipedia for sources and more detailed info.


After iOS 5 update can't open Photos.app Camera works and stores somewhere photos. But I can't open Photo.app...
I have tried many things to solve this problem:

Quiting Photo.app
iPhone restrat
iPhone restore

Image Capture doesn't sea any photos as well.

All the same.

Do you have any ideas how to troubleshot this.

Thank you in advance.

Symptoms of what happens when you attempt to open the iOS Photos app would be helpful in troubleshooting this issue. If it opens and then immediately closes, it's crashing. If you've tried an actual restore of the OS, the only way that app will continue to crash is if you continue to restore from the backup, which will preserve the problem. Restore the unit, decline restoring from the backup, and test further.


How to join the files into a similar directory tree? I've two similar directory tree in different HD, but inside many groups of subfolders named e.g. B and C (note inside B and C there are others subfolders) there are different files (e.g. file 1,2 in the first and 3,4 in the second) . I would like to join the different files and substitute them if they have the same name. So at the end I would like to have in the folder B: 1 and 3 and in the folder C: 2 and 4. In windows I simply drag inside the old folder A the folder B and C from the second folder A then I click to substitute all but if I do the same thing in OSX I delete file 1 and 2, because OSX substitute folder and not the files inside. How can I solve the problem?

Please note, I have many folders and subfolders inside my A folder so I would like to do it as quick as I do it in Windows.

Finder has supported merging folders since 10.7:

If the target folder has at least one file that is newer than the corresponding file in the source folder, Finder merges the folders by keeping the newer files, and the Merge button is shown as Keep Newer:

The dialog with the Merge or Keep Newer button is shown if you copy a single folder but not if you move a folder or copy multiple folders.

Another option is to use rsync:

rsync -aE ~/dir1/rootdirectory ~/dir2/

Options:

-a: archive (-rlptgoD or --resursive --links --perms --times --group --owner --devices --specials)
-E: preserve extended attributes, resource forks, and ACLs
-nv: show what files would be copied (--dry-run --verbose)
--ignore-existing: don't replace files that are older in the destination
--delete:  delete files from the destination that don't have corresponding files in the source


AsciiDoc viewer for Mac OS X Is there an AsciiDoc viewer for Mac OS X? Preferably one that views the document live, much like MacDown for markdown documents.

There’s nothing on the App Store, and I’ve done rounds of the search engines.

I would prefer a solution without Java if that's possible.

The Google Chrome browser can render AsciiDoc files.  Just open an AsciiDoc file from Google Chrome using the menu item File -> Open File or the keyboard shortcut Cmd-O, and you should see the "live" file.

(Edit: I forgot that this requires the Asciidoctor.js Live Preview extension for Chrome).

In your editor, when you make changes and save the file, Chrome will automatically update its view.

Also, some editors (e.g. Atom - see https://atom.io) also have plugins that do live previews.


How to create custom Mountain Lion Installer Is it possible to create custom image of the Mountain Lion with the certain third party applications (Chrome , Adium , Firefox) pre-installed with the operating system. This will not require me to separately download and install these software. This should be similar to installation of the iLife along with the OS installation from the DVDs which came with Macbooks.

You could do a clean install of OSX on a drive, install your base software, and set up any user accounts you use by standard (or just one "admin" account). Then use a tool like Disk Utility to copy that install over to a USB drive as a DMG file (in disk utility you use the backup/restore tool).

Or you can just install the OS on that thumb drive and use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone it to any systems you need it on.

Naturally you would need to follow all the terms of the EULA and not install this on anyone's machine who asks.


How can I script the bootup disk in macOS Catalina without disabling SIP? I'm on Catalina 10.15.6.
Previously, you could write shell scripts that would set the boot volume and restart the Mac, either by using bless --mount X --setBoot or by using systemsetup -setstartupdisk, but neither of these commands seem to work now when System Integrity Protection is enabled.
There must be some way to automate this, since the System Preferences app is able to change your boot disk without SIP being disabled, you just need to provide an admin password. What mechanism does the pref pane use to set the bootup disk now? Can we invoke it in a shell script?

The designers macOS pick which commands that are constrained by SIP. To be more precise, certain commands are given the ability to bypass the constrains of SIP. The bless command is not one of the commands that is contained by SIP. To use the command to set the default to boot would require disabling at least part of SIP.
An alternative would be to use a boot manager which can be configured from a macOS script or application. An example of such a boot manager is rEFInd. If installed in a EFI partition, then a password would be required to first mount the partition. If installed to a FAT of ExFAT partition then no password would be required, but would be less secure. The default_selection token can be use to choose the default operating system to boot. Typically, this token and parameters are stored in a file of your choosing. The name of this file is then given as the parameter to the include token stored in the refind.conf file.


How to find how long a Mac App Store app installation will take When installing something via the Mac App Store, Launchpad will happily show a progress bar but it's a very limited view.

Is there any way to see how long, even if the estimate is inaccurate, the app will take to download and install?

The App Store tells you how long something that you have just purchased will take to download.

Once the purchase has been made, just switch to the Purchases tab, and see the progress bar and the time estimate.

Obviously for large files, the estimate is based on how much more data is left to download divided by the current download rate; so your estimated download time will vary as the transfer of the file progresses.

The same is true for downloads on the Updates tab also.


Can I hide the toolbar in Safari while in Full Screen mode? When in non-full-screen mode, Safari lets me use the ⌘+| shortcut or View > Hide Toolbar to hide the URL and search bar, etc. However, when I'm in Full Screen mode, this option is greyed out. Is there any way I can hide it without exiting Full Screen?

In Safari 10.0.1 on macOS Sierra it is quite simple - you have to uncheck View > Always Show Toolbar in Full Screen to hide the toolbar.


How do I kill a nameless process that won't die? My activity monitor is showing me a nameless process ("Process Name" column in activity monitor is blank) - which seems to keep spawning new, extremely short lived, nameless processes

Neither top nor ps -fu seem to list the process.

kill -9 <process id> tells me there's no such process id.

Yet I keep seeing the process in activity monitor, it keeps spawning short lived children there, and the thrashing of my CPU seems to have led to my (otherwise idle) laptop to start up its fans.

Suggestions/ideas?

Things to try:

check info button in Activity monitor - it may show you what this process actually is
if it's spawning new processes, that looks like something got stuck in infinite loop
you can also check the sample of the process (in Activity Monitor click on System Diagnostics Option -> Sample process
if you have such rogue process and are unable to kill it reboot should help (unless that is some malicious app doing it on purpose)
if none of the above helps and you've installed some new app recently, try to uninstall it, reboot, check if it's still there and maybe reinstall
check system.log (it's a regular file, you can check it using Console.app, or any other terminal emulator app) - you can do
cat /var/log/system.log
or start this command and check what is being logged:
tail -f /var/log/system.log (Ctrl+C to stop)


application for iPhone to read bar codes I need to read different bar codes, and would be great that I can use my iPhone for that.  Currently I have an application to read QRCodes but I'm looking to read PDF417 too.

Red Laser has just updated to read more types of barcode. Plus it's free.


How to disable visual display of modifier keys? Somehow I have gotten my Mac Mini into a state where every time I press a modifier key - shift, option, command or control - it shows an image of the symbol of the modifier key around the upper right of the screen. This is quite annoying and I do not know what this feature is called so it is difficult for me to find information about it. How can I disable this "feature"?

It sounds like you have the “Sticky Keys” feature enabled.

To control the setting, open the System Preferences application ( > System Preferences…), load the Universal Access preference pane, goto the Keyboard tab. You can turn “Sticky Keys” Off (or On) there. You may also want to disable the “Press the Shift key five times to turn Sticky Keys on or off” feature. Or, if you want the sticky feature without the display, just disable “Display pressed keys on screen” and leave it enabled.


How to identify the largest files in a directory including in its subdirectories? I have a directory with a lot of files and subdirectories. I know there are a small number of large files contained somewhere within. What is a quick/easy way to identify one or more large files in a directory, including throughout all it's sub directories?
I tried this:
find . -printf '%s %p\n'|sort -nr|head
find: -printf: unknown primary or operator

and this:
find -type f -printf '%s %p\n' |sort -nr | head

find: illegal option -- t
usage: find [-H | -L | -P] [-EXdsx] [-f path] path ... [expression]
       find [-H | -L | -P] [-EXdsx] -f path [path ...] [expression]

and this:
find . -type f -printf "%s %p\n" | sort -nr | head -1
find: -printf: unknown primary or operator

I like spotlight better than crawling the filesystem for speed reasons. This doesn't directly report sizes so you can sort top 10, but you can quickly (fraction of a second) locate places where large files exist.
mdfind 'kMDItemFSSize > 2000000000' | grep "$(pwd)"

More options are on this thread. Add or remove zeroes or pick your size threshold for finding large files.

As to your syntax errors and other problems you'll face is handling spaces in files and directories, hence the " " around $(pwd) so you can quickly get in territory where you need to learn a bit more about shells, pipes, white space and escaping words / variables. Worst case, isolate each one element above so you can learn what the output of the find command is telling you and they layer back the filters / processing once you have valid results.
If all you are after cleaning large files and you don't need a script and want to learn that later. I recommend system information, storage management or Daisy Disk. Finder also can calculate all sizes well for me in preferences if you want to interact as you navigate.


Completely Disable Safari Only Mode in Lion I'm wondering if there is a way to completely disable Safari Only mode so users cannot access it at all. I administer a network here at this business and we have internet filters on all/most of the computers here. The problem is that Safari Only mode would pose an obvious loop hole in that. I really need to be able to completely disable that before upgrading the computers to Lion. I would secure the internet at the network but I don't want to workers taking work computers home with them without filters.

I'm very willing to go beyond "settings" if I need to. Is there a good way to more or less "delete" this feature from Lion?

I've heard that if the Recovery Partition fails to load that Safari Only mode will also not work, but I think the Recovery Partition is read only, and I don't think I can change that.

Thank you!

Figured it out today!

Here's what I did.

I downloaded and installed Lion from the Mac App Store.
I then used the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant to put the recovery partition on a USB flash drive. You can test it by restarting your machine while the flash drive is plugged in, holding option and selecting the USB drive on the boot menu. This should take you to the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant on the flash drive.
Since Safari Only Mode uses the built in recovery partition, removing it resolves this issue. This guide shows you how to delete the recovery partition.

And voila! Everything should boot up nice and pretty.


Time Machine and the dreaded negative sign I am about to modify the file ownerships in my Time Machine disk, which uses ACLs.

Since it is my (only) backup disk, I thought I'd solicit comments on the script before I run it. The objective is to fix file ownerships so that /Vol/TM/Back/2012-xx-yy/Users/bob is owned by user bob, to make it possible for Bob to browse his TM history.

#!/bin/csh
# Replace Foobar, Bob, and Brand.
set PREFIX="/Volumes/Foobar-Time-Machine/Backups.backupdb/Bob’s MacBook"
set SUFFIX="/Brand/Users/"
set USER="bob"

foreach dir ($PREFIX/*)
    chmod -R -a "group:everyone deny chown" "$PREFIX$dir$SUFFIX$USER"
    chown -R $USER "$PREFIX$dir$SUFFIX$USER"
    chmod -R =a# 1 "group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown" "$PREFIX$dir$SUFFIX$USER"
end

Do you spot a disaster waiting to happen? The first chmod is meant to remove minimal ACL and the second is meant to restore it. Can the script be made safer? Needless to say, the script would be run as sudo.

Yes, it's scary, and yes I'd be worried.  Why doesn't bob already own his own backups?  If it's because of a UID or UUID mis-match, what's preventing recreating this problem (perhaps in reverse) in the future?  If you can risk damaging the live machine I'd rather change Bob's UID and UUID on the live machine than on the backups, on the theory that there are probably other UUID mis-matches lurking on other disks.

In any case, scary as it is, if I were to try to fix I'd use the Finder if it were just a few folders that could be fixed with "Apply to enclosed items...".  If that was impractical, next thing I'd try would be to find files owned by whoever currently owns Bob's stuff and change only those files.  Going off of file path seems kind of risky to me.


Magic Mouse - Scroll Area I would like to reduce the scroll surface area on my Magic Mouse. I tend to engage the scroll just by resting my index or middle finger on the surface. Thoughts?

There is a free third party app called Magic Prefs which allows you to adjust the scroll area and a bunch of other things

http://magicprefs.com/


Uninstalling applications on Mac Possible Duplicate:
  How do I uninstall a program completely on a Mac?

How is the correct way to uninstall applications on Mac OS?
I've noticed that almost zero of them have a Uninstall utility...

Currently I'm just Deleting the shortcuts of the dock, and removing the app files of Application folder, but I think this is not the best way, because many apps install libs on other system folders.

What is the best approach?

There is a reason for Applications not to have uninstaller in most cases. This is because they don't need one. OS X apps are generally containing all necessary libraries in the *.app package. If that's not the case, then an app should have an unistaller.
So generally speaking just deleting a shortcut from dock and removing *.app package is enough if there is no uninstaller.

On the other hand apps also need to store data like preferences, etc. These are located in Library folders (/Library and/or ~/Library). If you want to get rid of these too, your best choice is to use a 3rd party unistaller. A great example would be AppCleaner, which is free or commercial AppZapper. If you use ForkLift, it has a built-in tool for this as well. All these basically go through Library area to find all files and folders created by the app you want to delete and allow you to choose whether to delete them or not.

You may want to have a look at this thread too:
Any recommendations for a before&after software installation scanner/uninstaller?


Mac slow down after xcode update My mac is going very slow after I update xcode to 8.2 I checked activity monitor which is showing a process name ibtoold many times with huge memory consumption. Can anyone help please?

Did they finally disappear?  I suspect it was updating/recompiling your Xcode interface files and once done, these processes should go away.


Does Time Machine make a backup of Windows if using Boot Camp? I'm using Windows 7 on my Mac. On the Lion OS I installed Time Machine to keep a backup of my Laptop. Does this backup also cover the Windows partition?

No, Time Machine does not do this. The only reliable way to back up your BootCamp partition is to boot into Windows and run Windows-compatible disk backup software from within Windows, to back up to a separate external hard drive formatted with NTFS.

Winclone has not been updated in a long time and is not a useful solution.