zless exits when reaching EOF I run the command

zless some.log

in OS X 10.11.5 El Capitan.

It closes when reaching EOF.

I checked aliases and I do not have LESS env variable set up but still it looks like zless runs with -Q or -q parameter on.

less command runs just as expected not closing after reaching EOF.

Any help would be appreciated.

zless/zmore will use /usr/bin/more as the default PAGER unless PAGER is set. Add the following lines to your shell login/env file (bash, ksh, and zsh).

PAGER=/usr/bin/less
export PAGER

For tcsh:

setenv PAGER /usr/bin/less


How can I speed up the Open With menu? Whenever I right-click on a file and go to the Open With> menu, it always takes forever to  load. I know I'm not the only one with this problem (at least I think so), so I was wondering if anyone has figured out how to speed it up. Is there a way to speed it up or to remove certain application from the menu?

There is a free utility called Open-With Manager that helps you clean out the unnecessary apps associated with certain file types:

  Open-With Manager lets you edit the list of file types a given application thinks it can open. This is most useful with regard to the Finder's "Open with" context menu; and it also affects the way applications behave when you drag files to their Dock symbols.

  Behind the scenes, Open-With Manager works in a way that's quite similar to Service Scrubber. And to be perfectly honest, Open-With Manager is in fact Service Scrubber's well-hidden, slightly older twin brother. That's why the restrictions detailed for Service Scrubber in this blog entry apply to Open-With Manager as well. When running on Mac OS X 10.5 or later, Open-With Manager will not edit signed applications.

I use this on Snow Leopard, but I haven’t tested it on Lion. Also, it may take a while for the Open-With menus to reflect the changes made in Open-With Manager, so try waiting or just reboot.


How can I search for meeting invites in Microsoft Outlook for Mac I occasionally want to search through my Outlook inbox for emails containing Outlook calendar meeting invites (and updates).  There is no obvious search option for this, even under the advanced search options.

I do see that it is possible to set up a rule for new incoming mail ("Kind" is "Meeting Request"), but that doesn't help me search through existing mail, nor does it help if my intent isn't one of the rule trigger options.  There does not appear to be an analogous "kind" option for email search.

How can I search through existing mail messages for meeting invites and updates?

The "Raw Query" search option can be used for this purpose.  Just search use the following raw query:

com_microsoft_outlook_has_reminder == 1

From what I have been able to determine, the raw query field uses the Spotlight file metadata query expression syntax.  I haven't found an authoritative source that states this, but various online posts and manual testing confirms this to be the case.

As mentioned in this gist, it looks like the list of raw query options can be found in the following file within the Microsoft Outlook app:

/Applications/Microsoft Outlook.app/Contents/Library/Spotlight/Microsoft Outlook Spotlight Importer.mdimporter/Contents/Resources/schema.xml

Based on the name and list of attributes, it looks like the com.microsoft.outlook15.message type is the one that applies to email messages.

<type name="com.microsoft.outlook15.message">
    <allattrs>
        kMDItemTitle
        com_microsoft_outlook_recordID
        kMDItemContentCreationDate
        com_microsoft_outlook_messageSent
        com_microsoft_outlook_messageReceived
        com_microsoft_outlook_priority
        com_microsoft_outlook_flag
        com_microsoft_outlook_unread
        kMDItemContentModificationDate
        kMDItemCoverage
        kMDItemKeywords
        kMDItemProjects
        com_microsoft_outlook_has_text_content
        kMDItemTextContent
        kMDItemAuthors
        kMDItemRecipients
        com_microsoft_outlook_folderID
        com_microsoft_outlook_junkLikelihood
        com_microsoft_outlook_size
        com_microsoft_outlook_newsAccountID
        com_microsoft_outlook_accountID
        com_microsoft_outlook_repliedTo
        com_microsoft_outlook_forwarded
        com_microsoft_outlook_redirected
        com_microsoft_outlook_toRecipients
        com_microsoft_outlook_toEmailAddresses
        com_microsoft_outlook_ccRecipients
        com_microsoft_outlook_ccEmailAddresses
        com_microsoft_outlook_bccRecipients
        com_microsoft_outlook_bccEmailAddresses
        com_microsoft_outlook_attachments
        com_microsoft_outlook_has_attachments
        com_microsoft_outlook_has_mentioned_me
        com_microsoft_outlook_projects
        com_microsoft_outlook_categories
        com_microsoft_outlook_primaryCategory
        com_microsoft_outlook_flagged
        com_microsoft_outlook_author_email_addresses
        com_microsoft_outlook_recpient_email_addresses
        com_microsoft_outlook_isFromMailingList

        com_microsoft_outlook_hasStartDate
        com_microsoft_outlook_startDate
        com_microsoft_outlook_hasDueDate
        kMDItemDueDate
        com_microsoft_outlook_has_reminder
        com_microsoft_outlook_completed
        com_microsoft_outlook_completedDate

    </allattrs>
    <displayattrs>
        kMDItemContentCreationDate
        kMDItemAuthors
        kMDItemRecipients
        kMDItemCoverage
        kMDItemContentModificationDate
    </displayattrs>
</type>


How can I delete a custom ringtone exported from Garageband, after Garageband has been reinstalled? A year ago, I downloaded the Garageband app to my iPhone 6S for the sole purpose of exporting a custom ringtone. I followed the instructions listed on Apple's website and then deleted GarageBand, as I no longer needed it.

I now would like to delete this ringtone. Apple's instructions say this can be done within Garageband, but after redownloading Garageband and following the instructions, I am told I have no previously-exported ringtones!

I assume this is because I previously deleted Garageband? Something else? How can I delete this ringtone?

FWIW I created a test ringtone using GarageBand on iOS 12.2 using the directions linked in your post.

I then use iExplore to delete the file under Media > Purchases where there were three files on my device at that location, a Ringtones.plist file that had information about the .m4r file which had a GarageBand icon and a com.apple.ToneLibrary.lock file which was zero bytes in size.

Since this was the only file I've created with GarageBand and was indeed the file I created and was the only one in the Ringtones.plist file, I deleted both, leaving the com.apple.ToneLibrary.lock file, and then checked the iPhone and the ringtone was no longer available to be selected in Contacts or System Preferences in iOS.

Note: I am not affiliated with the developer of iExplore, Macroplant, simply a user of the product.

This was also done with just downloading and installing iExplore without purchasing it, as I currently do not need the paid functions.


iPhone contacts not syncing with Gmail or Windows anymore I have an iPhone 4s with iOS 7.0.3.

I am trying to sync my iPhone contacts somewhere safe, besides the backup in iTunes. I was burned in the past with iTunes backup when contacts all got lost on my phone and the backup deleted the contacts as well.

I am trying to avoid iCloud because I want to be able to easily extract the content as a flat file.

I used to have iTunes sync my iPhone contacts to Gmail.  But suddenly, iTunes no longer gives me an option for sync with Gmail - it only gives me an option to sync contacts to Windows Contacts.

Windows contacts would be ok too - except this also doesn't work anymore.  I'm on Windows 8 and when I run wab I only see an old copy of my contacts from a previous sync - this used to work, and doesn't work anymore.

How do I get either of these syncs working again?  I'm on iTunes 11.1.3.

Try syncing  from your iPhone Settings to Gmail Contacts using [OTHER >> CardDAV]

Do this:

On your iPhone select SETTINGS
Mail, Contacts, Calendars >>
Add Account... >>
Other >>
Contacts: Add CardDAV Account
Server = google.com; user name = [fullEmail]; pw = [gmailPw]; desc = [optional].

Tested 1/14/2014 on an iPhone 5 running iOS 7.0.4

Here's Google's documentation: http://support.google.com/mail/answer/2753077?hl=en

[Note: iOS7 requires clicking SAVE, iOS5/6 does not]

This cuts out iTunes entirely and provides you with options for flat-file delimited export via Gmail's settings menu.


How can I make SwiftKey the default on iOS 8? I've recently upgraded my iPhone 5s to iOS 8, and installed SwiftKey. I really like it, and I'd like it to be the default, but my keyboard keeps switching back to the default. I can switch back to the SwiftKey keyboard with the "globe" icon, but this is annoying, especially since the two look similar.

Is there a way I can either make SwiftKey the default, or remove the standard Apple keyboard?

My Keyboard settings page looks like this (note that SwiftKey is already at the top, which is how I assumed the default was set, but the default doesn't seem to be sticking):

Settings>General>Keyboard>Keyboards sets the keyboards you wish to use. The top keyboard in the list is the Default. "Edit" will allow you to edit, remove keyboards or move a keyboard to the top of the list.  To get Swiftkey as the default keyboard, move it to the top of the list.  I tried it and it works for me, of course as per below there are instances when Swiftkey wont be the default keyboard.

However, there are instances where your default keyboard will NOT be used, no matter the settings. Examples include when security settings, passwords etc are required, the standard Apple keyboard (now referred to as 'Quicktype') will launch. So do not expect the 3rd party keyboard to function exactly as the built-in one does...there will be places where it refuses to launch, usually due to a security issue.

As of Sept 2014, this is a new feature, so it is likely that there are refinements that will happen over time to help make the use of 3rd party keyboards more seamless.


Access Fast User Switching from a script in Big Sur In macOS Mojave, I found that you could make an Automator app that allowed fast user switching by a hot key.  The command run was
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -switchToUserID `id -u XXXXXX`

With the Automator App, I could assign a hot key which would then run the command easily without any mouse interaction.
I'm now setting up a Big Sur computer and trying switch to a different user by a hot key. The script above does not work now and gives a no such file error. I'm wondering if there is another way to switch to a userid or a different command to use in order to do this?

User.menu along with other menu items were incorporated into Control Center in Big Sur, which removed the menu item package from Menu Extras. Gone with it is CGSession.
There does not appear to be an immediate replacement, and while workarounds for some of its other functionality have been developed, nothing for fast user switching yet.


Is it possible to ask Siri to read dictated text? Speech recognition is very useful - when I'm driving I always use it for dictating text to my iPhone 5.

However, before sending the message I like to check that the text was recognized correctly. Reading the text while I'm driving is not safe.

Is there a way to ask Siri to read the dictated text?

Are you just using the dictation feature (the microphone button on the keyboard), or sending email or texts/iMessages through Siri (holding down the home button, telling Siri to send a message…)?

If you're using the Siri function, when it prompts you if you want to send it, you can ask Siri to "read it to me" or "review it" and it will be read back to you.

If you're just using the dictation (which technically isn't Siri), your best option is to use VoiceOver, as Andrew Ferrier suggests.


Calendar event becomes invite iOS 9 I installed iOS 9 (then 9.1). After that when i edit a calendar event on my iPhone (6 plus or 5s) it appears as a Invite in outlook (2013) on my PC. Got Office 365 that i manage myself. Really wierd. I got full rights read/write (set to owner) so it doesn't seem to be a owner issue...

Any ideas why this happens?

I tried with an old iPhone 4 (iOS 7.1.2) and that does not change the event.

I've been experiencing the exact same issue.  Outlook 2013 which synchronizes with Office 365, I-Phone 6S Plus with IOS 9.1

If I modify or create a calendar entry on my I-phone, it changes the calendar entry to an invite in Outlook.  In Outlook the calendar entry is shown with a semi-colon and followed by my name.

If I open the calendar entry, the To... field is displayed empty and an information message: "You haven't sent this meeting invitation yet."

If I click on "Cancel Invitation", the entry becomes a calendar entry again and the Invite disappears...  Until I edit it with the I-Phone.

Hmmm...


iBooks: how to sync PDF only? I use my iPad as PDF reader, so my iPad contains many PDFs which I'd like to sync.

It should be the steps below:

You need to login with correct Apple ID on every device you want to sync
Plug in iPad/iPhone to your Mac (my situation)
Open iTunes
In iTunes go to File → Devices → Transfer purchases from <iOS device>.

But iTunes copy all my apps, not only books or PDFs.

In Yosemite, this is now possible using only iBooks. On your iOS device (in my case an iPad 3rd Gen running iOS8), enable 'sync collections' in the settings for iBooks (within the iOS Settings app).

On your Mac, create a collection and add a PDF to it. It should then appear on your iDevice.


Will my Apple MacBook Air run Counter-Strike: Global Offensive? The specs are:

OS X Yosemite (10.10)
MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2011)
Processor: 1.7 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory: 4 GB 133 MHz DDR3
Video Card: Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB

I can't find any good websites, can anyone help me please?

When you are purchasing software, you need to review the System Requirements before making the purchase to ensure that it works with your hardware.

Per the Steam Store the Mac OS X Requirements are as follows:

However, if you are still not sure, you should direct your question to the Steam folks.


My iPhone cannot connect to the internet on cellular data and wifi My iPhone 5 with iOS 9.2.1 suddenly cannot connect to the internet, neither via cellular data or wifi. All applications that requires internet connection are unable to reach their server. I was in the middle of texting using WhatsApp when this happens, and this is my 2nd time experiencing this (the previous one I was able to get my connection back after restarting iPhone).

I can confirm I have an active internet connection on from my telecom provider and ISP. Tried restart/force restart/reset network connection but without success.

Check to see if you have a VPN connection set up. Settings > General > VPN.


How to recover my texts on Pages? I just made a big silly mistake
in the newest Pages Version on Mac air, I clicked "setup", then I clicked "Document Body", and then Pages asked me"Are you sure you want to remove the body of the document?",and I said "Yes",and all my stuff just disappeared. There was nothing left.

And I quickly quit the Pages, hoping that there will be a sign asking me "Are you going to save the changes?" and I will click "No"

But such thing did not happen.

How can I recover my texts now?

I found the answer.

File → Revert to → Browse All Versions, and there you go.


Open XML support in Pages It looks like iWork's Pages supports Open XML - however, I can't find any good information on this on either developer.apple.com or on the web. Is there a good resource for this that I'm not aware of? I see http://openxmldeveloper.org but this is clearly MS-specific. Is there a comparable resource for Pages?

I'd like a trivial example of how this would work such as a "Hello World" type document. Does this exist?

Office Open XML is a standard invented by Microsoft - their documentation would be the go-to resource. Pages simply uses the built-in OS X ability to read them. TextEdit can read OOXML (i.e. .docx) as well, and is included (with source) with Apple's developer tools as a sample.


Disable Thunderbolt ports in macOS Mojave to mitigate the Thunderclap vulnerabilities Due to the Thunderclap vulnerabilities we need to disable all Thunderbolt interfaces (except the DisplayPort signal). We are using Late 2015 iMac running macOS Mojave 10.14.5.

Currently there is a secondary Apple Display connected via a Thunderbolt Port.

I already tried to unload kernel extension by running:

$ sudo kextunload com.apple.iotkit.IOThunderboltFamily
$ sudo kextunload -b com.apple.iokit.IOThunderboltFamily 6.8.4
$ sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/IOThunderboltFamily.kext

I found the right process using:

$ kextstat -a

 75    3 0xffffff7f8198f000 0xf000     0xf000     x86_64             com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltDPAdapterFamily (5.6.4) C6AEB6E6-AFFC-355F-8073-73E21E8BC49E <65 12 6 5 3 1>

Every time I try to unload, I get the messages that there was a problem terminating the services.

The best way to do this is to move away those kernel extensions completely. This means that they're never loaded during boot - and thus you do not have a "gap" where the computer is vulnerable during the time between boot and the time where you run the kextunload commands. In addition you do not have to deal with dependencies for unloading them.

The necessary steps are:

1) Boot the Mac in Recovery mode (boot the Mac with cmd-R pressed).

2) Open Terminal

3) Disable SIP by running:

  csrutil disable

4) Create a folder to contain the disabled extensions:

  mkdir /Users/<username>/ArchivedExtensions/

5) Move the kernel extensions you want to disable away by running:

  mv /System/Library/Extensions/<name>.kext /Users/<username>/ArchivedExtensions/

6) Re-enable SIP by running:

  csrutil enable

Note that  should be substituted with your username, and  should be substituted with the extension you want to disable. You can run the command multiple times with different names to disable more extensions.

The relevant extensions you can disable are:

AppleThunderboltDPAdapters.kext
AppleThunderboltEDMService.kext
AppleThunderboltIP.kext
AppleThunderboltNHI.kext
AppleThunderboltPCIAdapters.kext
AppleThunderboltUTDM.kext
IOThunderboltFamily.kext


iTunes 12.3 doesn't recognize iPad 1 with iOS 5 I've upgraded my MacBook to El Capitan and my iTunes 12.3 doesn't recognize my iPad 1 with iOS 5 nor my iPhone 4s with iOS 9.1 any more.

I thought it was because my iPad 1 is too old and can't upgrade beyond iOS 5.1 but my iPhone 4 has the newer iOS 9.1.

So, any advice?

Try using a different usb port and a different cable.
Failing that, go to settings and reset
Jo


Applescript to hide print queue Running a Processing sketch which saves .txt files to a folder. Have a folder action attached that prints new files in this folder to a thermal receipt printer.

However, I had to update to Yosemite, and since then the print queue window opens up over the sketch and has to be closed manually before continuing with the sketch.
When I print a document normally the printer proxy behaves and stays in the dock, and doesn't change focus from Processing.

I have no Applescript experience, but I think I need a script that I could include in the folder action, so these .txt files print automatically, without intervention while Processing is running.

One idea that comes to mind is to use the command line tools to print the files. If the files are sent to the printer without any pre-processing - in other words raw - then the following command should do it...

lp  somefile.txt - if your printer is the default

or

lp -d MyPrinter somefile.txt - for non-default printer

Use lpstat -a to get a list of printers and their Unix names.

From applescript you would have to do it this way...

set pFile to POSIX path of txtFile
do shell script "lp " & quoted form of pFile


Symlinks became files, containing relative paths, within an app bundle, why? How to fix? I discovered an interesting form of corruption within some application bundles which had been stored on a file server for months and years.

The application bundles were installers for various macOS versions, if it matters. I attempted to run Install macOS High Sierra.app. It ran for a few seconds, then hung. I had to Force Quit the installer from Activity Monitor. The relevant clue in the Console was:

  2019-09-02 05:44:29.222 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]:
  (com.apple.install.osinstallersetupd[11106]) Could not find and/or
  execute program specified by service: 2: No such file or directory:
  /Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Frameworks/OSInstallerSetup.framework/osinstallersetupd

Using the Terminal to explore the contents of the installer app (which is of course a Application Bundle directory), I found this where the installer was looking for osinstallersetupd:

% cd /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Frameworks/OSInstallerSetup.framework
% ls -l
total 16
-rwxrwxrwx  1 jdlh  admin   33  9 Jul  2018 OSInstallerSetup
-rwxrwxrwx  1 jdlh  admin   26  9 Jul  2018 Resources
drwxrwxrwx  4 jdlh  admin  136  9 Jul  2018 Versions
% more OSInstallerSetup
Versions/Current/OSInstallerSetup
% more Resources
Versions/Current/Resources

So interestingly, OSInstallerSetup and Resources were plain files, containing relative paths as text. I looked in the corresponding place in a freshly-downlowed, and correctly running, installer:

% ls -l /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Mojave.app/Contents/Frameworks/OSInstallerSetup.framework
total 16
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   33  2 Sep 05:23 OSInstallerSetup -> Versions/Current/OSInstallerSetup
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   26  2 Sep 05:23 Resources -> Versions/Current/Resources
drwxr-xr-x  4 root  wheel  136  2 Sep 05:23 Versions

So it seems OSInstallerSetup and Resources were supposed to be symbolic links ("symlinks"), not files.

I had downloaded this installer in mid-2018 to my MacBook Pro, then copied it using Finder to the file server. The file server presents an AFP volume to my Macbook using netatalk software. I would expect the Finder to copy symbolic links correctly.

What might have caused this corruption?  How can I detect other instances where it occurred, in this app and in others? Can I repair the corruption? It seems like it ought to be possible, given that the file which replaces the symlink has contains the relative path the symlink should have. How can I prevent it from happening again?

You might have been using Apple network-transport protocols, but the underlying file-system your server uses is not HFS or APFS, and probably isn't n-fork capable either. Symlinks in both of Apple's file-systems rely on inode referencing, and if the file-system doesn't have some form of compliance capability then items with metadata as fork references and inode lookups doesn't really have much chance of surviving intact.

This is why non-app-store software is often distributed in .dmg format, because they are a wholly self-contained island of Apple compliance stored as a single contiguous data-block, allowing it to pass through hostile servers and deadly file-systems with impugnity.

That's the cause – as for detection, only trying to run the suspect to see what happens. macOS installers are vastly complex, the bigger the app the greater the chance they'll rely on internal symlinking and thus the higher the possibility that they're now little more than useless bytes .... because you can't repair apps that have been damaged in such a manner.

Prevention: Turn apps & installers back into .dmg files (with a handy drop tool like QuickDMG for archival purposes.


Notes has Google Notes. But Google has no such service. Where are they stored? If you go to System Preferences -> Internet Accounts and add a Google account, you can see Google has Notes. If you open Notes (OS X app), it somehow retrieves the notes I had put long long time ago on a different Mac. So, I am sure those notes are not locally stored. Not only can I see old notes, but I can also add new notes to Google Notes.

Google had Notebook service, but it was discontinued long time ago and existing notes were imported into Google Docs. But I cannot find the notes I see in Notes in Google Docs.

So where are the Google Notes stored and Notes is getting the notes from? Is it that Google discontinued the web interface of the Notebook service but somehow still provides an interface to Apple especially? Can I access the notes I saved to Google Notes in Notes outside the Notes application, in a web browser for example?

The notes created in OS X can be found in GMail under the label "Notes". If you create a folder with [name] in OS X Notes app, the notes will be synced to Google Inbox unbundled label "Notes/name".


problem with high sierra multiple users simultaneously I'm trying to connect from windows to high sierra with another user on my mac that is working on it's own mac

I'm trying to make my mac to have two users to work with it at the same time.I have tried high sierra screen sharing but the problem is that when the first user(mac owner) is logged in to his account and I'm trying to connect to my own account on the mac by using VNC,The first user aromatically logout and both user start to use the same account.
But How can I make both user have their own account And use it simultaneously ?So each user can access his/her account at the same time?

I searched a lot and find out that lion Has this ability (per user share).Is it available for the mac ?Or any other solution to this problem ?
By the way ,the second user is from windows and is connecting through VNC.

Thanks

First item, you get two sessions max. If you are struggling with the first or second session, then the issue could be your VNC software that connects to the mac isn’t following Apple’s conventions to allow the second session to start. Since you didn’t specify versions of software you use on the connecting side, I’ll guess and give general advice.

There is no change I’ve needed on the mac that’s sharing the screen, just your client needs to be updated or you need a different client, but some people from Windows report you need specific settings.

Screens iOS app works to open a second session
Screen Sharing app on the Mac (connect to server Finder menu - use vnc://whatever to connect) and Screens app on macOS all work with multiple sessions.

Apple Remote Desktop doesn’t open a second screen by default. It might have that option, but I only use it in the way you don’t - to share one session together.

Based on what os you are connecting from - these might help:

How to use Mac OS X "Per-user screen sharing" from a Windows PC?
Force screensharing to open new session
Are the changes to Lion's screen sharing documented anywhere publicly?


iOS9 Email Push Still Not Working There seems to be a general iphone issue with mail.app not pushing correctly atm. I've tried every trick I could find online, but to no avail.

What I've done so far:

Reset network connections. Did nothing.
I've deleted and re-set up my email accounts in mail.app. Did nothing.
All of the notification settings are correct, including push, and background update is on.
Re-entered email account passwords, nothing.
Both mail.app and gmail.app refuse to actually push mail and notify me unless I manually force a refresh. Even fetch doesn't work.

I'm not sure why this happened all of the sudden. I updated to 9.1 couple weeks ago, but the issue started a couple days ago. It's terrible for work, I'll get emails 2-3 hrs later when I randomly check.

Any help is appreciated.

this worked for me

Go to Settings >> Notifications.
Scroll down and find Mail section. Tap on it.
Select your mail app. For example, I am using Exchange.
Turn on “Show in Notification Center” and “Show on Lock Screen”.


How to search for a file by a hash value with bash script (terminal)? I am writing a script for Mac OS X Lion 10.7 and I would like to know how I can search for files based on their SHA1 hashes. I would like to search the whole file system for the file(s) I will be looking for.

For example the SHA1 value 0d882ff2d5edd7d045c1b57320d2e046793868f8 corresponds to the file MacOSXUpdCombo10.7.2.dmg How can I search the hard drive for the file with its SHA1 value without needing to compare the file?

You can use the find command:

find / -type f -exec md5 {} \; | grep 0d882ff2d5edd7d045c1b57320d2e046793868f8

However, since you're running this on all files, it may be extremely slow — try limiting the search directory by replacing / with the path to a specific directory you want to search.


Java 100 % CPU usage I am using IntelliJ IDEA compiler for Java programming on my MacBook Pro 2015 Retina (Yosemite). When I run some Java program in my activity monitor appears Java process and takes 100+% of CPU. The fans start to run loud since it's starting to heat up. Sometimes there are 5 and more same Java processes and couple of them are using 100%. Those processes are turned off when I quit IntelliJ or when I quit them manually.

Can somebody tell me why is this happening, or how to fix this if it is possible to fix?

You're running a program. It's using resources. If you want a program to run, it runs using any resources it needs as available. This is the intended behavior.

If you want to limit the resources available to your IDE, you can do that. Limiting the resources provided is pretty easy (provided you're willing to work with a little bit of third-party software.) You can use cputhrottle to limit the usage at the system level (better explained here.)


Unable to Open TV app I have iOS 10.2 on my iPhone. I can't access TV app. It is not getting opened at all. It struck for 2-3 minutes and even after that it is not getting opened.

Do anybody have idea how to solve it?

Tv App is only available in US Store, if you are residing out side of US, and trying to open the tv app it will not open.

For example: I'm resident of india and i used US APP Store to download TV App. After downloading i tried to open it, but no luck. Then i switched back to indian store and Videos app appeared instead of TV app.


Why does my iPod Classic cut off the end of certain songs? I have an iPod Classic from 2007 (Generation 5.5, 80GB hard drive).

Something that I've been noticing happening more and more is that some songs will play just fine but then at some point they'll just stop. The little time counter will jump to where it appears there is two seconds left in the song. And it will just sit there for several seconds and then then proceed to the next song.

And what I've noticed is that it tends to happen consistently with the songs that are problematic.

I've searched all over to figure out what might be causing this but I haven't had much lock, possibly because the symptoms are so vague ("some songs cut off", etc.)

My music collection, which is always pretty much filling the device, is 100% MP3 from a wide variety of sources (ripped, bought from Napster, etc.) and everything plays fine in Winamp on my PC so it doesn't seem as if the files themselves are completely corrupted.

My guess is that there is something about the files that the iPod is choking on but I can't figure out what that might be. If I'm lucky it's some weird tagging quirk (i.e., can be fixed in the individual files) but I really just don't know, and it seems to be happening on an increasing number of files, including files that played just fine before. Sometimes an entire album or artist will consist of files that cut off.

If this is just some known issue, do the latest iPod Classics (Generation 6, 160GB hard drives) still have this issue? I'm almost hoping that this is a sign of a dying iPod so I can upgrade :)

The first thing to check is to see if iTunes has marked those specific songs to end early. Next, try re-encoding the song at a lower or different bitrate and syncing it to the device. Often a glitch in the file can cause iPods to skip to the next song, but the same binary file plays through on macs with better code for handling errors. Lastly, it could be error creeping into the filesystem structure on the iPod. Once you're sure you've backed up everything from the iPod, you can enter disk mode and use Disk Utility (on the mac - on Windows there are lots of disk formatting tools) to zero the drive. That will test the actual hard drive for errors and spare out any bad blocks.

Feel free to edit this or comment if you find none of these helps narrow down the cause.


PyCharm packages issue I'm using PyCharm as Python IDE, on macOS High Sierra and my default Python version is 3.6.5,

I have a big issue within packages using PyCharm. As an example of my issue, I have installed Pillow using pip3 install Pillow

But, in PyCharm I'm not able to use it and PyCharm is thinking I did not install the Pillow package, and I had to install it through PyCharm package management.

But I don't like to continue developing like this, my question is, how should I force PyCharm to use packages that I installed through pip3 ?

Goto PyCharm > Preferences (COMMAND+,) > Project > Python Interpreter.
There should be a dropdown to select the required version of Python interpreter. Select your version of Python interpreter from the dropdown. If the required option does not exist, click show all and select your required version (Check to see the exact path of the python interpreter).


How do I take a picture of the login screen? I've seen quite a number of login screen screenshots. I've tried Cmd + Shift + 3, but to no avail. How do I take a picture of the login screen or the boot screen of OS X?

You can SSH into another Mac and use screencapture in the shell.

Enable remote login in the sharing preferences on the other computer
ssh username@other_computers_ip
sudo screencapture ~/Desktop/screenshot.png


Is upgrading to iOS 5 faster on a Mac? As I've mentioned in another question, I want to upgrade an iPod 4th gen to iOS 5. It's currently on iOS 4.latest.

I'm interested in doing this in the fastest possible time. However, I right now all I have are 2 PCs around. However, I'll soon get access to a Mac.

I know (edit:Okay, it apparently is) it's  that iTunes on a Mac is not the bloated, slow, ugly monstrosity it is on a PC. In fact, it's quite decent on a Mac. Tons of features are faster and cleaner-looking.

So, my question: Will updating to iOS 5 on a Mac be faster than doing it on a PC?

For what it's worth, iTunes is probably exactly the most bloated and slow software that Apple includes on a Mac, as it's pretty much the only built in app that isn't 64 bit, and until very recently it wasn't even using Cocoa but Carbon APIs which Apple have been telling people not to use for years now.

Having said that, the largest bottleneck is the speed of the USB transfer along with the ability of the iphone to process the update and write to its flash memory and validate it etc, so really I wouldn't expect to see a massive difference.


Cut-Paste files or folders on Mac OS X Is there anyway to move some files/folders on Mac OS X as easy as in Windows?

The only way I know is to side the two source and destination folders, and drag and drop the files from one to the other. However in some cases we like to cut them when only the source folder is  open, and paste them later.

The shortcuts to Cut and Paste files or folders in Lion (or later) are:

Command-C to copy
Command-Option-V to paste


Get the total size of selected folders I have many files and folders inside a certain folder. I wanna get the total size for the files and/or folders I select select inside this certain folder (because when I click Get info I get the size for each one).

Select the folders and press optioncommandI (the letter i)
This will show a "get info" window for the combined items.


Unable to access neither Partition Layout nor Option tab in Partition tab on Disk Utility I have a problem that I cannot select Option tab in Partition tab as shown in above screenshot. I wanted to convert my external hard disk to GUID partition table.

Thank you in advance for your help.

You can't partition disk1 freely because it contains a Core Storage Volume Group (disk1s2 -> disk2).

You can revert to a non-CoreStorage by booting to Macintosh HD (disk0s2) and opening Terminal.

Enter the following to get all necessary infos:

diskutil cs list

Example listing:

      CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
    |
    +-- Logical Volume Group A629E051-D7B0-4B8C-A803-074F62704636
        =========================================================
        Name:         System
        Status:       Online
        Size:         53946696192 B (53.9 GB)
        Free Space:   16777216 B (16.8 MB)
        |
        +-< Physical Volume 90C09FC0-4215-4871-901B-70E2C9C7D464
        |   ----------------------------------------------------
        |   Index:    0
        |   Disk:     disk0s2
        |   Status:   Online
        |   Size:     53946696192 B (53.9 GB)
        |
        +-> Logical Volume Family F6962E38-50E4-4458-BFE6-CF2E179352F5
            ----------------------------------------------------------
            Encryption Status:       Unlocked
            Encryption Type:         None
            Conversion Status:       NoConversion
            Conversion Direction:    -none-
            Has Encrypted Extents:   No
            Fully Secure:            No
            Passphrase Required:     No
            |
            +-> Logical Volume BD36C73D-860D-4DC6-B125-AD624F448B88
                ---------------------------------------------------
                Disk:                  disk2
                Status:                Online
                Size (Total):          53496696192 B (53.5 GB)
                Conversion Progress:   -none-
                Revertible:            Yes (no decryption required)
                LV Name:               System
                Volume Name:           System
                Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

If your Logical Volume is revertible enter:

diskutil cs revert lvUUID

(lvUUID is the UUID of the Logical Volume)

with the UUID of the example above

diskutil cs revert BD36C73D-860D-4DC6-B125-AD624F448B88

If the Logical Volume is encrypted you have to enter a passphrase.

After the conversion repartition the drive as needed.

If the LV isn't revertible you have to copy the content of the volume 21Tech to another volume and delete the Logical Volume Group with:

diskutil cs delete lvgUUID

(lvgUUID is the UUID of the Logical Volume Group)

with the UUID of the example above

diskutil cs delete A629E051-D7B0-4B8C-A803-074F62704636

Then repartition the drive as needed.


Does the H1 chip (in Airpods 2 and PBP) support streaming from one device to two sets of earphones? I remember reading somewhere that the new H1 chip supports streaming to two sets of earphones simultaneously from a single device.

That is, you can have one source device that's playing audio, and two sets of airpods would be able to hear that audio at the same time.

Is this a feature of the H1 chip?

I think you’re referring to Airplay 2, which now allows compatible devices to Airplay to multiple devices (such as both your HomePod and your Smart TV).

AirPods use Bluetooth, so this does not apply unfortunately (Airplay uses Wi-Fi).


Shell script to restart a certain process if it is not responding I need an java application to run 24/7 on my mac. Unfortunately the JVM process sometimes gets stuck and thus the java application does not respond anymore.

Is there a possebility to detect if a given process has crashed (or at least is not in a proper running state) and restart this specific process subsequent?

I found

ps aux|grep java

which lists the java process (/usr/bin/java)

Now I need to know how to watch the process state codes and how to restart this particular process in e.g. a shell script.

BTW, the process state is T which means stopped as far as I know.

EDIT:
Unfortunately four suggestions didn't work on my machine. I configured an global agent and the jar is starting properly but the process still fails after a certain period of time. Strangely enough the process in activity monitor is not marked as not responding, whereas the context menu of the dock item does (see figure)

Look at the launchctl which is an interface to launchd daemon.

This daemon main task is to take care of all the system and users
daemons. This care includes the possibility to restart a daemon whenever
it quits or crashes.

To start with, I advise you to read:

man launchd
man launchctl

Then have a look at one of the simplest plist files used by the
system to help you writing your own one to survey JVM and restart it if needed:

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.autofsd.plist


How to start pfctl at boot Before El Capitan I used to enable pfctl at boot by adding -e to the start up parameters.

In /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.pfctl.plist

<string>/sbin/pfctl</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
    <string>pfctl</string>
    <string>-e</string>                <---- this line
    <string>-f</string>
    <string>/etc/pf.conf</string>
</array>

Now I am not able to edit the file anymore (because of System Integrity Protection).

Is there a way to achieve the same without disabling System Integrity Protection?

Is there a way to achieve the same without disabling System Integrity Protection?

Yes*, in System Preferences / Security & Privacy / Firewall Options..., check "Enable stealth mode" and turn on Firewall.

Somehow this enables PF. You can check by running sudo pfctl -s info.

*Tested on High Sierra and Mojave


Extracting Data from a Broken Hard Drive I need to extract data from a Hard Drive of a 2011 MBP that usually won't boot because of a seemingly broken drive. The computer booted on some attempts, but it usually shows a gray question mark logo and holding CMD+R boots internet recovery.

The MBP can be booted through an external USB hard drive with a copy of OS X installed on it, but only the external drive does shows up in Disk Utility.

I think it can be concluded that the main hard drive is damaged. This can further be supported by the fact that the SATA/SATA Express tab in the system report shows Unknown under the first Intel 7 Series Chipset where the Hard Drive is meant to show up. Is there any way to extract data from this hard drive? Are there any special tools necessary? If so, then are they cheaper than bringing the laptop to the service shop?

At this stage it is normally not a job for amateur to extract data from the drive.

If you highly value the data on the drive, I wouldn't recommend bringing it to a standard service shop, as they wouldn't have the means to do anything. I would hire a specialized data recovery company to recover the data.

If you have no such option, one of the cheapest and easiest ways to recover after such a problem is to replace the electronics on the drive. Buy a 100% identical hard drive (new or used), replace the PCB on the old drive with the PCB from the new drive. If this works, copy over your data straight away to a backup drive.

Note: This only fixes some types of disk errors. If for example the drive heads or platters themselves are damaged, replacing the PCB won't help. But it also means that you have to have very special tools and facilities to be able to read data from the drive.


Finder Enhancement - Customize Icon for filetype Is it possible to customize the icon that's used for certain filetypes in Mac's Finder?

I have a folder with a bunch of .mobi files. In finder, If I view by icon or coverflow, it just shows a generic .mobi icon for all the items. I'd like to instead see the covers for each of the books. PDFs seem to already do this by showing the first page of the document as the icon.

This works for PDFs, and many other types of documents because the OS X Quick Look Framework can natively read those filetypes. All other filetypes get just an icon rather than a preview. Best guess is that that framework doesn't support .mobi files.

Without native support from Apple, your best bet for .mobi (and any other unsupported file format), is to look for a plugin. A quick Google search turned up this. I don't have any .mobi files to test it on, but it's worth a shot.

Generic QuickLook Plugin installation guide here. Good luck!


If I mess up the EFI System Partition, will Mac OS X be unbootable? I forgot to make a backup of my EFI System Partition (ESP) and  have installed grub onto it.

If I happen to accidentally mess up the partition, will OS X be bootable? If not, how would I restore the EFI System Partition without having a backup?

If it happens you mess it up, you can download it from Apple.

EFI and SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Macs

This article lists firmware updates that were released for Intel-based Macs. They update the firmware that originally shipped from the factory. If your computer isn't on this list, then you don't need an update to the factory firmware.


Apple Magic Mouse is discoverable, but not pairing Just got Apple Magic Mouse from eBay. I cannot figure how to pair it with my Mac Mini: it's discovering fine, but when I click on Pair button, my Mac is thinking for a little while and says: "Couldn't connect to the device".

When I'm trying to pair the mouse with Windows 7, I get a different error: Authentication failed. The code I entered is default 0000.

The mouse was described as New (other), but it seems not. It already has a name: Cora's mouse.

Is there any way how can I get it working?

My issue was that my Magic Mouse was discoverable through the Bluetooth Preferences pane, but when I clicked 'Pair', it couldn't connect. After an hour, I found a solution that worked:

Turn off the Magic Mouse
Open the Bluetooth Preferences
Delete your mouse's profile
Be sure the Bluetooth Prefs pane is searching (indicated by the spinner)
Hold the mouse button down, then flip the switch to turn it on (it should blink green during this time
While still holding down the mouse button, click 'Pair' in the Bluetooth Prefs pane


How to Permanently Delete Photos from iPhone I have so many photos on the iPhone. And my iPhone's internal space is not enough now.

Presuming you're not looking to securely delete these photos, just recover space that they're consuming, as suggested by your original question, let's just start simply...

Aside from the suggestions by superriku11, including using iPhoto to transfer them off with the delete option and Image Capture, you do realize that you can, in Photos in your Camera Roll select Edit and then proceed to select a series of photos and then Delete them. This is time consuming for lots of photos, but does allow you directly on the iPhone to get rid of images you may no longer want to keep. This is the obvious solution to getting rid of multiple images at once but some people forget about it. Realize that if you delete a photo in the Camera Roll that's in an Album it goes away there too. You can delete albums using the Edit button, but this keeps images in the Camera Roll.

If you want to get rid of all the photos in your Camera Roll all at once, go into Settings > General > Usage under Storage click Photos & Camera and the right swipe Camera Roll to bring up a Delete button. Give it some time and it will delete all your photos in the Camera Roll. Likewise you could delete all the photos in your Photo Library and/or Photo Stream the same way.


Upgrade an application through itunes instead of directly downloading the update inside iPad There is an application (a game) I have installed on iPad through iTunes, now I want to download an update for that game, but since my Wi-fi is not working is there someway I can connect the iPad to my PC and download & install the update through itunes or through some other way (apart from fixing my wi-fi :-) ).

Thanks

From iTunes, enter the iTunes Store, and search for the app you want to update in the App Store. Once you have found it, redownload it (with the updated version). Then connect your iPad to your PC with the USB cable and sync it. That should do it.


Set up flash drive with multiple OS X Installers Working in a tech shop, and being an Apple fan, I deal with ALL the Apple-related products. I'm seeing products from 10.4 to 10.7, and I have made a bootable flash drive from 10.6 (since it's the most popular). I have the disks (and a disk image for 10.7) for each of these that we will use if the OS ever needs reloading. Is it possible to put a disk image of all these disks onto a flash drive so when we boot with the single flash drive, it asks which OS X version to install?

I have an external hard drive with several installers on it. All you need to do is make several partitions, each large enough for the disc you're imaging. (My drive has 10.4 Tiger PPC, 10.5 Leopard PPC, 10.5 Leopard Intel, and 1.6 Snow Leopard on it, and I have a Lion USB flash drive.)

I made the images using Disk Utility's Restore feature. Select the source disc (in the optical drive), choose the "Restore" tab, and make sure the selected disc is in the "Source:" field. Drag the intended destination partition to the "Destination:" field, hit the "Restore" button, and wait.

There are several caveats to keep in mind:

A FireWire disk is preferred to a USB disk, as not all Macs can boot (or boot easily) from USB.
Pay attention to the partition scheme on your hard drive: PowerPC Macs boot from Apple Partition Map and Intel Macs can boot from APM and GUID, so APM is preferred if you intend to repair PowerPC machines. You might want to have two drives, one for PPC and one for Intel Macs.

One good thing about having the installers on a drive is that hard drives are much faster than optical discs.


4K HDMI output from MacMini (late 2018) to LG C8 (OLED55C8PLA) The LG TV just says "no signal". I'm connecting the Mac Mini to another TV just fine (1080p though). I'm using the same cable to connect a Windows 10 machine and it works over 4K just fine.

Is there some setting I need to set in order to make this work?

Here's what I had to do to make it work:

Upgrade WebOS to latest version
Switch to appropriate HDMI input (HDMI2 in my case)
Turn ON "ULTRA HD Deep Colour" for HDMI2 (pictured below)


OSX, different keyboards with different input methods possible? I was wondering if it were possible to tie in a different input method for each keyboard on a computer with multiple keyboards?

The reason I ask is I use a wireless keyboard with my macbook pro and thus have two keyboards available, and I use both English and Chinese for input.

One hassle I have switching between the input methods, even with an assigned hotkey.

Since I have two keyboards, wouldn't it be nice to have one keyboards input for one of the input methods and the second keyboard for the second input.

Is there a way to do this so I can change input methods by typing on a different keyboard?

Thanks.

Based on Tom Gewecke's input, I've done the following:

Installed Karabiner from: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/index.html.en
(note that Karabiner 10.22.0 does not work with macOS 10.12.x at the time of this reply)

Installed this mapping into private.xml from: https://gist.github.com/ylorn/43b589daf6d621a7fc47
(I've changed it to left shift key and control space to match my preferred international input keybindings)

This approach does not allow me to set default language inputs per keyboard, but does allow me to more quickly switch between them.  An acceptable compromise until I can find something better.

After asking Karabiner to reload the xml files, I can now tap the left shift key to switch inputs quickly.

--

In macOS 10.12, you can achieve the same functionality with the caps log key, without Karabiner, by enabling the "Use the Caps Lock key to switch to and from US"


Force Click Not Working on Macbook Recently got a new Macbook Pro. It has Force click technology where you can lookup the definition of words by clicking hard on the trackpad. It worked bon day1 but it does not seem to work anymore and I am not sure why.

The feature itself is definitely enabled, although I am not getting any feedback / popup with info.

Any idea why this is? I appreciate any advice on how to troubleshoot as this is a great feature and I would like to make use of it

I had the same exact problem.  Drove me crazy trying to figure it out.  Simple Solution.

Open System Preferences, Trackpad

Under the Point & Click tab make sure that the Look up & data detectors is set to Force click with one finger.  Some how, mine got changed to tap with three fingers.  I know I didn't change it and I'm the only one that has access to it so its a mystery but now it works so thats all that matters.


iPhone hotspot prioritized over ethernet In Yosemite, when I connect my iPhone to my Macbook Air through USB the iPhone becomes a internet hotspot for my Mac, even though I've connected the MBA via ethernet. If I enable Wifi, then Wifi is prioritized.

Can I change so that ethernet is prioritized over the iPhone?

Open System Preferences
Select Network preferences pane
Click gear menu in lower-left corner of Network pane and choose "Select Service Order..."
Drag the services into whichever order you want
Click OK


Is it possible to trim a workout from an Apple Watch? Sometimes I forget to stop my workout and end up with a long running "workout" in the health app. Some apps (i.e. Strava) have a method for trimming down a workout if you remember what time the workout ended.

Is there a way to do that from the Workout watch app? Or in the Health.app on the iPhone?

As of watchOS 4.0 and iOS 11.0 there is no way to adjust the length of a workout with Apple Watch or iPhone.

I experienced the same issue in the past and the only known way to do this is by

creating an encrypted backup with iTunes and to
edit the Health.app SQL database's entries
Restore the backup to your iPhone.

You should let Apple know that this is a feature you want to see in future releases:

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


How do I copy a partition of an Image to a partition of a physical disk? I finally had a bootable usb key working with a windows 7 install ready to go, when I realized that once the Language selection came up, my Macbook Pro's keyboard and trackpad no longer functioned and I had no way to actually proceed with the install.

I decided to setup a VirtualBox Windows 7 x64, install the keyboard and trackpad drivers from Bootcamp Support Software package, and shutdown the VM.

I used VBoxManage internalcommands converttoraw ... to turn the virtual disk into an .img . For those unfamiliar with virtualbox, it creates a full image of the virtual harddrive as if it were a physical harddrive, and works just the same.

I used fdisk to view the image:

sh-3.2# fdisk WINDOWS7.img
Disk: WINDOWS7.img  geometry: 2610/255/63 [41943040 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
     Starting       Ending
#: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*1: 07    0  32  33 -   12 223  19 [      2048 -     204800] HPFS/QNX/AUX
2: 07   12 223  20 - 1023 254  63 [    206848 -   41734144] HPFS/QNX/AUX
3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

I then used the following in an attempt to skip the System Reserved partition and just copy the windows data partition to the designated slice of my Macintosh HD:

sh-3.2# dd if=WINDOWS7.img of=/dev/disk0s4 skip=206848 bs=65535

Leaving me with the following:

sh-3.2# fdisk /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 60821/255/63 [977105060 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
#: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
2: AC 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -  684395032] <Unknown ID>
3: AB 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 684804672 -    1269536] Darwin Boot
4: 0B 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 686074208 -  290768672] Win95 FAT-32

Which seems correct, but leaves me with an Uninitialize-able disk that I can't mount or access with disk utility, when I click mount, nothing happens, even if I try mount -t ntfs /dev/disk0s4 /Volumes/Temp-Dir-Made-With-mkdir

What could be the problem? Am I doing something wrong? Is this impossible?

Does slice 4 of disk0 not inherit the filesystem of the partition I wrote to it?

Thanks in advance for any insight!

Edit 1:

@David It's a MacbookPro11,3 which should tell you everything you need to know about it. As far as bootcamp I downloaded it directly to windows from the following Apple Support Document kbDL1720

@klanomath (Comment 1)True, but it's good information to know! Out of curiosity, why is 65535 a bad block size? I thought the block size specification only had to do with the number of blocks that were processed and dumped to the drive/image at a time, basically allowing you to DD faster with more RAM (with the law of diminishing returns coming into effect at some point of course.) Am I just completely wrong in my understanding of the bs= parameter?

@user3439894 I thought about that, shouldn't need the MBR if I'm using a different bootloader, but I did neglect the System Reserved partition. The problem here is that I already have 4 partitions on the hard drive... I forget what partition 0 is (not in front of my mac), partition 1 is Mac, partition 2 is mac recovery partition, and partition 3 is the one I made for windows. Maybe I'm going about this all wrong... Boot camp has turned into quite the nightmare, would have been nice if it just took my image and did the job for me, but I digress.

The proper command to dd a part of a raw file to a partition in your case is:

dd if=WINDOWS7.img of=/dev/disk0s4 skip=206848 bs=512 count=41527296

The bs in the dd command can be interpreted as an artificial block size of the input and the output "file". For historical and technical reasons the default block size of dd is 512 Byte.

The reason to use 512 (or an appropriate integer^2 multiple/divider) as bs is the block size of your image and the partition disk0s4 – which is either 512 or 4096.

The (logical) block size of disk0 can be calculated (even without knowing if fdisk works with 512 or 4096 Byte internally): 977105060 * 512 = 500 GB or 977105060 * 4096 = 4 TB. A 4 TB SSD still doesn't exist for MacBook Pro's therefore the block size has to be 512 byte. The same is valid for your img file.

Now you may take speed reasons into account: the bigger the bs is, the faster the image will be copied.

So one valid dd command in your case may be:

dd if=WINDOWS7.img of=/dev/disk0s4 skip=X bs=2 count=Y

Since bs is 2 Byte only, you have to modify skip (skips X blocks à bs of if) and count (Y blocks à bs are "written"). Since skip is 206848*512, X is 206848*512/2 and count is 41527296*512, Y is 41527296*512/2 and the above command is:

dd if=WINDOWS7.img of=/dev/disk0s4 skip=52953088 bs=2 count=10630987776

A quick test reveals:

dd if=/dev/zero of=~/Desktop/output.file bs=1 count=1048576
1048576 bytes transferred in 1.593527 secs (658022 bytes/sec)
dd if=/dev/zero of=~/Desktop/output.file bs=2 count=524288
1048576 bytes transferred in 0.800444 secs (1309993 bytes/sec)
dd if=/dev/zero of=~/Desktop/output.file bs=4 count=262144
1048576 bytes transferred in 0.384188 secs (2729331 bytes/sec)
dd if=/dev/zero of=~/Desktop/output.file bs=1024 count=1024
1048576 bytes transferred in 0.001932 secs (542700705 bytes/sec)

The larger bs is, the faster the dd command is executed.

BTW: The largest bs working for you is 1048576 (the greatest common divisor) because 105906176(=skip-size in Byte)/1048576=101 (and 21261975552(=count-size in Byte)/1048576=20277). 101 is prime!

So far all bs values are multiples of 2. If bs is uneven this may collide with the (block-)sizes of if/of. At least in your case if and of have even Byte sizes because they are multiples of 512.

Now it should be obvious why using bs=65535 fails: skip and count block numbers are determined by bs and not by the natural block size of your image or partition. A proper command may be

dd if=WINDOWS7.img of=/dev/disk0s4 skip=1616.024... bs=65535 count=324436.950...

At least for me this fails because 1616.024... is an illegal numeric value. So one may assume that all numbers have to be integer values!

A bs of 65535 only works if the total size of if/of and any skip or seek "boundaries" are multiples of 65535 Byte.

If your dd command doesn't contain any skip/seek/count part you may use arbitrary bs sizes though.

Though the dd command at the beginning of answer will work, you probably won't be able to boot to the Windows To Go (or Windows Installer Ready-To-Go?) partition. The MBR of disk0 won't contain the necessary boot entry.


Password protect removal of apps on iOS I have had instances of people deleting my applications (purposedly or unpurposedly) and it's a real annoyance to get them back, plus you lose all of your data.
Is there a way to password protect the removal of applications, maybe through the use of a Cydia tweak?

No need for a jailbreak. Simply go into Settings>General>Restrictions and don't allow "Deleting Apps". Restrictions are protected using a password just like your lock passcode (although it can be a different code if you would like).


Stuck Apple Mail - how to reset? i received a message with my Apple Mail that was obviously too "heavy" for my hardware (no malware just too many nested and forwarded mails inside one message -  bad luck in a way)

And now Apple Mail freezes each time I start or restart it (after rebooting the complete machine, or/and the program) and shows me the folder "trash" where this particular message that occured the freezing is into.

Is there any chance that I can (re)set the default folder that is shown when opeining mail to inbox e.g. instead of the last folder open ?

How would I do that without putting all settings to blank?

Thanks for your help!

You could perhaps try deleting the saved state files, then on next launch it would return to a default view.
The advantage is that no other settings would be changed - nothing lost.

~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.mail.savedState

Because it's an alias, don't delete the folder itself, just the contents.

That would potentially allow you to empty the Trash folder without having to first open it.


OpenOffice multiple launcher in launchpad/dock I recently installed the OpenOffice 4 on my Mac and I use it also on Linux (CentOS 6.5 / Gnome2).

On Linux, after the installation, I got a specific shortcut (launcher) for every Office application (Spreadsheet, Text Document, Presentation, and so on) but on MacOSX I have only one launcher and I have to select the type of application afterwards.

Is there any way to install all shortcuts individually in the Launchpad and in the Dock as well like it is in the Office menu of Gnome under Linux?

Unfortunately, I believe this isn't possible, not because of a Mac issue, but because the OpenOffice team chose to have it work this way.

I had found this site here which provided some app launch icons, though it seems it may be out of date and these may no longer work.

The site does have a "workaround" posted...  which is the following:

Just an FYI. I have found that in OpenOffice 3.2 running on Windows there is an openoffice icon in the system tray that when right clicked allows you to open any individual application directly. On a Mac simply keeping the openoffice icon in the dock and then right clicking it gives you the same capability.

Given this... it seems OpenOffice decided that the "right way" to access a specific app from the dock is right-clicking and then picking the one you want.

Not exactly what you are looking for...  but might be the closest you'll get.


How to sort a table in Pages? Few hours ago I am trying to sort a table! I don't know where is this think but is so annoying that I can't find with ease this thing.

I saw many articles saying that you have to go to Inspector, table tab and there is an option there, but this is the old version, I own the new one 5.5 and there is no such option.

Do you know guys where is this thing?

Click the down arrow on the column header and select Sort Ascending or Sort Decending.


Enabled FileVault with disabled SSV possible with Big Sur? My Hardware is a 2019 MacBook Pro 15" has the T2 chip and runs macOS 11.0.1.
After disabling SSV via csrutil authenticated-root disable and rebooting I can not enable FileVault. Unfortunately the error is very generic: "FileVault Failed An internal error has occurred."
Is it possible to have signed system volume (SSV) disabled but FileVault enabled?

According to user experiences - this is not possible.
Disabling SSV will leave the system stripped out of  both SIP and File Vault.
https://eclecticlight.co/2020/06/25/big-surs-signed-system-volume-added-security-protection/#comments


Is firefox hiding from the energy monitor? Since Firefox 38, it is no longer showing in the activity monitor in the energy tab, are other people experiencing this?

How can a process hide from the energy monitor in the first place? I think this can be abused by apps which are trying to hide the fact that they are using lots of energy.

In the image note that 1) Firefox is running as indicated by the Dock 2) The energy tab should show all apps, not only big energy wasters which it does, except for firefox.

Crossposting: Mozilla support forum

Nope. For one, Fx 38.0.1 shows up in my Yosemite 10.0.3.

Energy tab only displays at most 23 items. That could be why.


Move iPhone notes to iCloud I have OS X 10.8, and there is an empty list of notes on my Mac. But I have some notes on my iPhone, which are not in iCloud. Instead, they are local notes in the "On My iPhone" folder. How to move them into iCloud?

Using OSX 10.8 it is simply not possible at the moment, what you need to do is to access a Mac running 10.7 or lower and sync them to that Mac and move them to an IMAP notes account. Then, you can access the IMAP notes in 10.8 Notes app and drag them all to iCloud. The only manual part necessary is to remove the duplicate notes left "On your iPhone" - they need to be removed one by one (or simply left alone).

Details:

Turn off iCloud Notes sync (Settings -> iCloud -> Notes switch to Off)
Set up an IMAP account in Mail on both computers (running 10.7 and 10.8)
Set up iTunes synchronization with the Mac running 10.7 (Make sure to select to synchronize Notes in iTunes)
Synchronize with iTunes
Go to Mail in 10.7 and drag the notes "On your Mac" to the IMAP notes folder
Turn on iCloud Notes sync (Settings -> iCloud -> Notes switch to On)
Open the Notes app in 10.8 and drag the notes from your IMAP notes account to the iCloud notes account
(Optional) Switch to your "On my iPhone" notes account and remove all notes, one-by-one, in order to avoid confusion later.
On your phone, make sure that you are using the iCloud notes account (Notes -> Accounts -> iCloud) when using notes


Access application submenus with AppleScript I am trying to learn to access any menu item within an application with AppleScript. I can orient to the actual menu tab, and then access clickable menu items, but I can't access menu items within submenues that appear if they are hoovered over or RightArrow is pressed.

In the code below, "Zoom" is this type of menu item, and can't be found using the term 'menu item'. What term should I use instead so I can access "Zoom in"?

1 tell application "Firefox"
2   activate
3   tell application "System Events"
4       tell process "Firefox"
5           click menu item "Zoom in" of menu item "Zoom" of menu "Tools" of menu bar 1
6       end tell
7   end tell
8 end tell

Note: "Zoom in" has, by chance, a shortcut "CMD" and "+", but this is not a solution.

Additional question: How do I pick "the first", "the last" or the "n:th" menu item?

There are a couple of things.

First you will need a delay between the Activation of the App (Firefox) and the click action.

If you do not,the click action will be fire way too soon for the application to pick it up.

Secondly, in my FirfFox the Zoom in Menu item is under the View menu.

So the code needs to work back from the Zoom in menu item back to the initial Menu item taking in all the nodes in between.

click menu item "Zoom In" of menu 1 of menu item "Zoom" of menu 1 of menu bar item "View" of menu bar 1

activate application "Firefox"
delay 1
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Firefox"
        click menu item "Zoom In" of menu 1 of menu item "Zoom" of menu 1 of menu bar item "View" of menu bar 1

    end tell
end tell

Each Sub menu item must have a controlling menu

So you could even use.

click menu item "Zoom In" of it's menu of menu item "Zoom" of it's menu of menu bar item "View" of menu bar 1


Problem Installing Windows 7 via Boot Camp I've recently created a DIY Fusion drive (240GB SSD & 1TB HDD) using the core storage commands on my mid 2012 MacBook Pro, I've restored from a time machine backup and everything works great. Now I'd like to install bootcamp (Windows 7) on it, but I'm afraid it messes up the Fusion Drive, any Idea on how to do it?

This is what I get when I run diskutil cs list on terminal:

    CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
    |
    +-- Logical Volume Group 5514A5B9-7A26-4F41-96A7-7AD1294DD4B5
        =========================================================
        Name:         Fusion
        Status:       Online
        Size:         1238542315520 B (1.2 TB)
        Free Space:   6454693888 B (6.5 GB)
        |
        +-< Physical Volume 37A1BA39-C697-4FDF-A32E-14F1EB0BA813
        |   ----------------------------------------------------
        |   Index:    0
        |   Disk:     disk0s2
        |   Status:   Online
        |   Size:     239713435648 B (239.7 GB)
        |
        +-< Physical Volume 579BA9DF-9EE6-46EC-A2D2-1312F394183B
        |   ----------------------------------------------------
        |   Index:    1
        |   Disk:     disk1s2
        |   Status:   Online
        |   Size:     998828879872 B (998.8 GB)
        |
        +-> Logical Volume Family 4F0EB09B-49E3-41A7-9B12-A3A54C19FD73
            ----------------------------------------------------------
            Encryption Type:         AES-XTS
            Encryption Status:       Unlocked
            Conversion Status:       Complete
            High Level Queries:      Fully Secure
            |                        Passphrase Required
            |                        Accepts New Users
            |                        Has Visible Users
            |                        Has Volume Key
            |
            +-> Logical Volume 46534E51-D59A-4D26-A3C3-AE134E1E057C
                ---------------------------------------------------
                Disk:                  disk2
                Status:                Online
                Size (Total):          1225582444544 B (1.2 TB)
                Revertible:            No
                Revert Status:         Reboot required
                LV Name:               Macintosh HD
                Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
                Content Hint:          Apple_HFS
                LVG Type:              Fusion, Sparse

Edit: FIXED I've tried to do it via BootCamp, I get to the Windows installer without any problem, I format the BootCamp partition but it still says that I can't install Windows on it (error 0x80300024). How can I fix it?

EDIT: I've installed Windows 7, but when I try to boot from the partition I get a "no bootable device" error

New Question:

What if I just swap the drives and leave them swapped? Does the SSD get slower if put in the DVD caddy? Because if not it is probably the best and easier solution.

Answer to the New Question

  Your new question: What if I just swap the drives and leave them swapped? Does the SSD get slower if put in the DVD caddy?

From the menu bar you can select "About this Mac". From the pop up window, you can click on "System Report...".

Part of this report for a iMac (20-inch, Mid 2007) is given below. (Click on the image or open in a new window for a better view.)

The image shows the "Link Speed" of the SATA controller on the logic board to capable of 3 Gigabit per second transfers. The actual transfer rate (Negotiated Link Speed) with the connected HDD is also 3 Gigabits per second. I happen to know the HDD is a replacement 1 TB drive capable of 6 Gigabits per second transfers. So the controller is limiting this new disk to half of its capable transfer rate.

Part of the "System Report" for a iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) is given below.

The image shows the "Link Speed" of the SATA controller on the logic board to capable of 6 Gigabits per second transfers. The actual transfer rate (Negotiated Link Speed) with the connected HDD is 3 Gigabits per second. So the HDD is limiting the controller to half of its capable transfer rate.

These examples should aid in answering your question.

You should also consider the cable between the controller and the drive. Most SATA optical drives operate at 1.5 Gigabits per second transfers. So, if replacing the optical drive results in a "Negotiated Link Speed" of 3 or 6 Gigabits per second, the cable may not be able to accommodate the high speed transfers. To determine what was the "Negotiated Link Speed" with the optical drive, you would have to temporarily put this drive back in your Mac.

Here is another image from the 2011 iMac.

This image shows the optical drive to have a transfer rate of 1.5 Gigabits per second. More important is the controller with has a maximum "Link Speed" of 3 Gigabits per second. This is half of the maximum "Link Speed" the the controller connected to the HDD. So there can be a difference between which way you connect your SSD and HDD. At least this is true for the 2011 iMac used in this example.

  Note: From your comments, I see the opposite is true for your Mac. For the HDD (in the primary slot) you reported a "Link speed" of 6 Gigabit and a "Negotiated Link Speed" of 3 Gigabit. While for the SSD (in the caddy), you reported a "Link Speed" of 6 Gigabits per second and a "Negotiated Link Speed" of 6 Gigabits per second. So the "Link Speed" of both controllers is the same.

Answer to the Original Question

Basically, there is no reason Windows can not be installed on your Mac. Your problem is that you want to install in BIOS mode on the HDD, which is /dev/disk1. Normally, the Windows installer creates a small (100 MB) System Reserved partition on the same drive as the rest of Windows installs. The Boot Camp Assistant forgoes this partition scheme, opting instead for a installation that mergers the contents of these two partitions into a single partition.

So far we have learned:

The USB Windows installer can be created using the Boot Camp Assistant.
We can not boot Windows from the HDD because it is the second drive
in the computer.

What I propose is to return to Microsoft intended design where there are two separate partitions for the Windows 7 operating system. The first small 100 MB partition will need to be created on the SSD, which is /dev/disk0. As before, you can keep the much larger main Windows partition on the HDD.

These partitions will need to be created using OS X and be MS-DOS (FAT) formatted. Later, when installing Windows, these partitions will be reformatted NTFS. It would be best if the partition number assigned to each of these partitions is 4 or less. While this is not an absolute requirement, the steps to installation increase dramatically when the value is greater than 4.

If you can create these partitions while still maintaining your Fusion drive, let me know. I will update the instructions with the rest of the steps. If you succeed, it would help if could post the output from the following commands. These command will not change your computer. Some may ask for your login password. This is normal.

sudo  gpt  -r  show  /dev/disk0
sudo  gpt  -r  show  /dev/disk1
sudo  fdisk  /dev/disk0
sudo  fdisk  /dev/disk1

Below is an outline of the rest of the steps.

Boot from the Windows USB flash drive installer.
Open a Command Prompt window.
Execute the diskpart command.
Mark the FAT formatted partition on the SSD (disk 0) as active.
Exit the diskpart command.
Enter the command setup to continue installing windows.
During the installation you will need to select the partition to
install Windows. Before selecting the partition on the HDD, reformat
both FAT partitions as NTFS.

The idea here is that Windows will start booting from SSD and finish from the HDD. I tested this boot method using VirtualBox with two virtual drives. At least in this virtual environment, I know the idea is sound.


How can I change scroll direction in Snow Leopard? I've gotten so used to the Lion natural scrolling that using (for lack of a better term) unnatural scrolling in Snow Leopard and earlier is very annoying. Is there any way I can reverse it for OSes before Lion?

Yes you can, with Scroll Reverser. It's a free app that sits in your menu bar (you can hide it if you want). It works all the way back to OS X Tiger.


How to delete message from iPhone lock screen? When a SMS come in, it is shown on the lock screen with part of its content shown. If it is useless, how to delete the message directly from the lock screen without unlock the phone?
There are ways to clear the message notification on the lock screen without unlocking the phone like Mark message as already read from iPhone lock screen, but not to delete the message, clearing the notification doesn't delete the message.
Online search result are complaints about not having this feature and using 3rd party software.
Does iOS really not support this feature?

No, iOS really doesn’t have this feature. You can only delete messages from the notification area of your Lock Screen, but deleting something without unlocking the phone is not possible. It is the same with photos you take while your phone is locked, and then delete them, while it is still locked, they still show up in your gallery, although they are already in the bin folder. As there is nothing like this for messages, deleting them from your Lock Screen is a feature anybody could use, not only the owner, so it is not supported.


From a technical standpoint, why can't Night Shift be supported on 32 bit hardware? As referenced in this comment, Apple doesn't remove features without a significant reason, but other 3rd party apps like f.lux and GammaTool can do colour changes on 32-bit devices just fine. What are possible reasons Apple might not have been able to do this?

The simplest explanation could be one of two things:

Simple limited resources - finite time to QA and test. This is always something to consider - for each device that runs code, you need to provide devices to the coders, test during development, test during QA, support over the 2-3 year period that OS will be under mainstream support, etc... Basically, technically feasible features lie strewn across the cutting room floor all the time due to the fact that resources are not infinite, timelines exist, and budgets exist.
The framework Apple uses to implement this simply doesn't support or hasn't been written for the older hardware. Yes - you can write code in the basic 1+1=2 for just about any chipset or framework. My educated guess is night shift is written in metal or a lower level API. Apple's documentation explains the hardware needed to support metal and OpenGLES v 3.0:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/DeviceInformation/Reference/iOSDeviceCompatibility/OpenGLESPlatforms/OpenGLESPlatforms.html

If you look at all the OpenGL2.0 and non-metal devices that now don't support night-shift it might be a compelling technical reason to not ship that feature without the metal/3.0 capabilities of the graphics API and hardware support to back up what the code describes.

My hunch is solidly in Hardware + API limitation camp, but it's worth stating that there is a large cost to every change and every decision in the iOS ecosystem at this point with most of the 1 billion active users of Apple products being iOS users.


Delay in screenshots and cursor issue on MacOS after update? I'm running 10.14.6 (18G6032) Mojave on my early 2015 macbook pro. There was some kind of software update in the past week, and I've noticed 2 issues since I updated that I suspect was due to the update.
(1) The screenshot option Command + Shift + Control + 4 seems to now be delayed. By this, I mean when you press those 4 keys and release, you get this "target" looking symbol that shows up to select where you want to start the screenshot. This target used to pop up instantly, but now there seems to be a 1 second delay.
(2) My mouse cursor seems to randomly disappear sometimes, especially when I go into full screen mode on a video. The cursor still works, but I can't see it on the screen. I have to move the "invisible" cursor to the top left apple logo and click on it, and that makes it reappear.
Has anyone experienced these issues?

The first thing to check is if a process is taking much CPU. Are you familiar with the Activity Monitor?

https://support.apple.com/guide/activity-monitor/welcome/mac

I like to give it a try and make sure you have a backup if you are quitting processes you don’t usually start yourself (like Chrome or Safari or FireFox) in case stopping the process interrupts some work it needed to do. It also prepares you if you decide to reinstall the OS. Sometimes an update doesn’t complete its steps to be ready to run properly and just reinstalling it sorts out a newly slow machine.


Returning iMac to iSpot when bought from online shop I bought an iMac from the online Apple Store and now, 2 days after purchase, it broke down. I want to return it/exchange it, but would like to avoid the tremendous waiting time, as this used to be my working tool (I work at home) and make the exchange at an iSpot, is this possible or must I bear that waiting time?

You should be able to get any Mac repaired (including warranty repair) at any Apple Store or Apple Authorized repair shop, regardless of where you purchased the machine.

If you're actually looking to return the Mac, you should call Apple Customer Support to see if you can return it at the store.


How can I change the colors of calendars on iOS5 Supposedly, you can change the colors of calendars from the iPhone now. How!? (In particular, I'm trying to do it for google calendars synced via exchange, but I can't see how to do it with iCloud ones, either.)

You can do this in the Calendar app.

1) Tap Calendars in the upper left corner:

2) Then tap Edit:

3) Select the calendar you want to change the colour of:

4) Pick the colour you want. If you want a more extensive selection than what's in the list, you need to do it from iCal on your Mac.


What is a syncstatus.plist I have some actions I see on a Mac computer,
specifically----> Move "syncstatus.plist".

What exactly is syncstatus.plist

Is it an iPhone backup or something???

A .plist file is just a "preference" file that contains your preferences for whatever application the preference file relates to.

Your question doesn't provide any details on why your performing these actions, but typically by moving a preference file (i.e. the .plist file) for a particular application and then relaunching that application you are starting afresh as none of your previous settings are kept.

That is, when the .plist file is not where it's supposed to be, the application will create a new one from scratch. So, moving the .plist file is often a troubleshooting step used to correct problems a user may be having with an application.

Note: Many guides recommend you trash the .plist file, but it's actually best to just move it somewhere first (e.g. to your desktop) and then to test whether that has actually resolved the problem. If it hasn't, you can then quit the application and move the original .plist file back so that you don't need to reconfigure everything again for the application.


How to clear description of more than 100 songs in a step I want to clear description of more than 100 songs. It is tiring to clear one by one. Can I clear the description in other ways?

Select all tracks at once
Open information window
Tick mark on (empty) description field (or any other field you want to clear on all tracks)
Click OK


Can a child's device be controlled by multiple family members? Surprisingly, not all children live solely with one guardian. Is there any way that a child's device can be controlled by more than one adult?

The situation: My ex-wife and I have 50/50 custody of our kids, and our 13-year-old has an iPhone SE. He has an Apple ID linked to my own and Family Sharing is set up for the two of us. To help reinforce healthy phone habits, I have all extraneous apps (Instagram, Youtube, etc.) restricted by default, and only turn them on when he is specifically allowed to be using them. However, he's at his mother's place half the time, so if he wants to use his phone she has to contact me to allow them, then again when time's up. Fortunately, we are co-parenting fairly well and have very open communication when it comes to the kids, so it's not a big deal in that regard, but it's extremely inconvenient, and I'm not always able to stop what I'm doing and turn on his apps immediately.

Is it possible to associate his Apple ID with hers and add him to her Family Sharing group as well? Alternatively, if I add her as a family member to my group, can I give her the same full parental control access as me?

Your child's account can only be associated with one Family Sharing group at a time. The best solution would be to add your ex-wife to your Family Sharing. There's an option to mark an account as a Parent/Guardian, which gives that person authority to approve requests from a Child account in the Family.


Google Chrome won't open URL files by double click I recently tried to open a URL link I saved onto my desktop by double clicking it, but it will not open correctly. If I DRAG & DROP the file into chrome works fine.

The code of the file is as follows:

[InternetShortcut]
URL=https://www.textnow.com/login

the file is saved with a ".url" extension

If I double click on the file I'm prompted by finder to choose which application to open it with (Chrome is greyed out, but I choose 'All Applications' and then choose Chrome), it will then simply load a page in Chrome and display the code on the page, instead of opening the url specified in the code.

running Version 50.0.2661.94 (64-bit) on OSX 10.9.5

This is a known issue with Google Chrome. See:Chrome doesn't recognise .url files properly

The workaround it to use an Extension such as .URL Handler

Once installed you need to go to Chrome > Preferences... > Extensions (chrome://extensions/) and check the [✔] Allow access to file URLs check box.


How can Mountain Lion be prevented from reorganizing app layout in Launch Pad? I organize my 100+ apps in a very particular order, only to find out that a few days later they are completely out of order. Imagine your iPad or iPhone doing that - would be very annoying.

Is this a bug or can this "feature" be turned off?

While from my experience this bug seems to be resolved since OS X Mountain Lion, it might be that your Launch Pad database already was corrupted when upgrading, and upgrading does not necessarily repair it.

You could try rebuilding your database and see if that resolves your problem, but please note that this will remove your current ordering and grouping of apps in Launchpad completely.

To remove/rebuild the database, you can execute this command from the Terminal:

rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db; killall Dock


How do external storage devices work with the iPad? The Apple iPad is a sexy little device, but I have no clues on how the OS on that thingy works, and since it does not come with a USB connection I'm having some problems with how data is moved around on that thingy.

Apple sells a USB converter that you can plug into the iPad so you can connect it with a camera. But could I do the same with a portable drive like Western Digital Passport? Can I move images back and forth between the IPad and the Passport?
Can I connect the iPad to a NAS and do the same: move images/stuff back and forth between the NAS and the iPad ...

Two topical scenarios would be:

Take a image from my canon camera, fix red eyes on the iPad and then store the image on a usb/mass storage device.
copy over the latest episode of my favourite show from the NAS, watch it on the IPad and then delete the copy. In some cases also be able to transfer files over the the NAS

Is this possible? Someone has told me the iPad is only a "viewer", and I understand it is not a creational device... the the simple scenarios described are my minimum spec

You'd need a computer to do those things.

I.e. you're be able to load the image directly from the camera, and edit them in an appropriate app, but then cannot move the image to the external drive (at least not with another app that allows you to do that). You can transfer the image back to your computer using iTunes, or share it e.g. using Dropbox and access it from there.

Regarding NAS access -- this might be possible (again) using an app that connects to the NAS and allows you to browse and open files there. The iOS itself doesn't expose any file system to the user, be it internal or external.

You'd need to use iTunes Home Sharing to do this without any additional software, requiring the NAS files being added to iTunes and your computer to be running.

What's possible on iPad (and any iOS device) is rather closely tied to the applications available for it. The system itself doesn't expose a lot of "power-user" features like (gasp) file system access to the user.


Desktop notifications doesn't appear at all when Mirror Displays option is checked When the "Mirror Displays" option is not checked, I am getting desktop notifications on the display which has the "white bar" in System Preferences/Display/Arrangement - and that's working fine, but when I turn on "Mirror Display" option, although both displays do have the "white bar" in Arrangement settings, I do not get desktop notifications on any of them.

Is there a solution for this?

This is how my System Preferences/Display/Arrangement settings look like - two displays, both with white bar on the top, but still not getting any notifications:

By default, Do Not Disturb is enabled when your display is being mirrored. This is to prevent personal notifications from popping up during a presentation. :)

You can disable this in the Notifications section of System Preferences:


Laptop drops wifi when moving from one WAP to another one, with same SSID I have two WAPs in my house with the same SSID, different channels, far apart from each other to offer coverage.

When I physically move my laptop, while on, from one to the other it loses the wifi connection. I have to turn wifi off then back on to get it to work again.

I have other devices, iphone and Android, which manage to work seamlessly across the house. The only problem is with the Mac laptop. Also, it used to work. This might be just a problem since upgrading to Yosemite, but I'm not sure.

i have had this exact issue with 2 SSID's with the same name.  i believe airport uses some kind of UUID for each AP, and gets confused wehn it see 1 ssid with two different id's.  you can do it with cisco (etc) gear where the ap's are part of a managed network.  but i never got it to work well when there were 2 with the same name.

you could try deleting both from the known networks and try to clear out some of the old info.


Clipboard manager that syncs to iPhone? There are many clipboard managers for Mac, but I'm looking for one that immediately makes my clippings (text, at least) available on iOS. Is there such an app?

CloudClip

  Automatically or manually sync to the cloud whenever you copy text to the clipboard, in any app.
  Automatically syncs through iCloud.


Renaming Bluetooth device not working I run 10.12.6 and I'm wondering how I can rename a Bluetooth device. The function Bluetooth Preferences > Right click > Rename seems to be a no-op, see below gif.

Is there a configuration file that I can edit manually with a text editor? I don't mind getting my hands dirty in .plist files and stuff.

Of course there is a .plist file to (backup and) delete.

First of all close your Mac's Bluetooth
Open Finder
From toolbar select -> Go -> Go To Folder
Copy paste this path /Library/Preferences
Locate the file com.apple.Bluetooth.plist and rename it to
com.apple.BluetoothOLD.plist
Then do the step 3 again and
Copy paste this address ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost
Locate a file that starts with com.apple.Bluetooth... and rename
it.
Restart your Mac
Re-enable your Bluetooth and try again


How can I use a pre-existing AppleID with Mac App Store without a billing address? I dont have a credit card, and so I am unable to complete the Apple billing address, which means I can not download anything from the App Store. It there a solution for this?

If you want to use an existing Apple ID, you're out of luck. You need a card to be entered and accepted, so you'll have to pay for one or get a friend to trust you to add it and then remove it immediately after confirming your account for the store.

You probably also can pay a US bank to provide you with an account and debit card, but that can be more expensive than many find ideal. Many businesses sell addresses as well if you can't use one from an acquaintance.

You can usually make a brand new Apple ID following these steps:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204034

It's generally a bigger pain to have two Apple ID, so I would encourage you to not set up a new ID just to avoid the temporary delay of getting a legitimate address and card for temporary use.

Once you have your account verified, you can use store credit for just about everything on the Mac App Store. One note, that if you do this too many times on one device, Apple usually blocks new account creation on that device without a credit card. Unscrupulous people took advantage of that to manipulate app store ratings in the past.

Also, lots and lots of relevant details:

Can I download a free app from the App Store without a credit card?
How to use an existing Apple ID to download free apps from App Store without using Credit Card?
I have an Apple ID but it is not associated to App Store. I have tried to associate it, but it wont let me without a credit card. How to proceed?
How do you use an existing AppleID on iOS App Store without providing a credit card number?


Itunes wireless sync between iPad and Macbook Air Is there any way to iTunes sync an iPad with a MacBook Air using a wireless connection (either WiFi or bluetooth). If so, how?

I managed to bluetooth pair my MacBook Air with my iPad, but I can't see my iPad on iTunes

From the Apple support page: iOS: How to transfer or sync content to your computer

Syncing over Wi-Fi requires iTunes 10.5 or later and iOS 5 or later. Also, your computer must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your iOS device.

Open iTunes.
To set up Wi-Fi syncing, connect your iOS device to your computer with the included USB cable.
Click the device button in the upper right corner. (If you are viewing the iTunes Store, click the Library button in the upper right corner. The device button will then be visible.)
In the Summary tab, select "Sync with this [device] over Wi-Fi".

Whenever the computer and the iOS device are on the same network, the iOS device will appear in iTunes, and you can sync it. The iOS device will sync automatically when all of the following are true:

The iOS device is plugged in to power
iTunes is open on the computer
The iOS device and the computer are on the same Wi-Fi network

While the iOS device appears in the upper right corner of iTunes, you can select the content tabs and configure sync options.
Click Apply or Sync to sync the iOS device.


How does Safari get updated on OS X? How is Safari updated in OS X? I know this seems like a simple question, but I cant find any good documentation on it. I know of a software update tool that would prompt you for updates on windows, but I would like to know how this is currently done on OS X.

The reasoning for my question is I am comparing browser auto-update functionality and am working on documentation to support plans to guarantee certain extents of browser compatibility for a product. The documentation for Safari seems a little lacking so pointers to an authoritative source would be most welcome in addition to an answer from experience.

In OS X, Safari is updated via the normal system bundled software update process. On Lion, this is the Apple Menu, Software Update tool which can be scheduled or disabled.

On Mountain Lion, this function remains in the Apple Menu, but runs through the Mac App Store app

http://www.apple.com/softwareupdate/

In the end, both tools call softwareupdate binary that you can also run from the command line.

This differs from your Windows experience where the Apple Software Update tool runs to update all Apple software (Safari, QuickTime, iTunes, etc.) since it is not part of Microsoft's software update process.


Disable notification center on lock screen (or prevent it from clearing notifications) One of the must utterly infuriating problems I have on recent iOS versions is the fact that swiping down from the top of the screen while the phone is locked will bring down the notification center and clear all of my lock screen notifications.

This happens all. the. time. I usually keep my phone in my pocket, and if I get a message or feel it vibrate, I will reach into my pocket and with my thumb and forefinger pull it out. Perhaps 50% of the time when I do this, my thumb ends up pulling the notification center down when I pull my phone out.

This alone isn't a big deal, I can just swipe it up again. The problem is that when the notification center comes down, for some god-knows-why reason, it clears the notifications that were just on the screen, meaning I'm now prevented from doing precisely what I pulled the phone out of my pocket for in the first place.

There has got to be a way to fix this horrible UX.

Naturally, I ended up solving this shortly after I posted the question. This article ended up solving it for me.

In summary:

Open Settings
Go to Touch ID & Passcode
(Enter passcode)
Scroll down to "Allow Access When Locked"
Disable both "Today" and "Notifications View"

Now there is no swiping down from the top at all on the lock screen (but still available if unlocked). Thank goodness!