How to stop iTunes from automatically downloading purchased TV shows? I was running out space on the drive where I stored my iTunes media, because every time I opened iTunes, the application would immediately begin downloading TV shows I had purchased on my Apple TV.

How can you stop iTunes from downloading purchased TV shows whenever you open it?

See my answer below

Note: Though it may or may not be entirely relevant to the problem (this bug has bit me across versions of iTunes and OS X), the bug was reproduced and eradicated using iTunes 11.1.3 under Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks

Possibly related detail: I write possibly, because I've modified where my iTunes media lives outside of the iTunes defaults.

This is a common thing to do, when you realize the space on the meager 128 GB drive that came with your computer will no longer suffice.

This detail also warrants mentioning, because the use case deviates slightly from the norm, and pathing often emerges as the culprit in software-related bugs.

Another possibly related detail: I've moved the location of my iTunes media a couple of times, but didn't delete the old location's directory, which is also a parent directory of my current iTunes media location. I've been meaning to re-organize, but there were music files I didn't want to lose at the time I made to the decision to change the media location a second time.

I mention this, because as a software engineer I've run into stupid bugs and relative vs. absolute path issues simply because a user chose to nest directories awkwardly or carelessly.

Good luck!

Ultimately, I was able to stop iTunes from automatically downloading TV shows with the following steps:

With iTunes open select iTunes > Preferences... and click the Store tab
If checked, uncheck checkbox Always check for available downloads
If checked, uncheck checkbox Download pre-orders when available
Click the OK button, and close iTunes
Remove the contents of your Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Downloads directory. You should be able to do that through Finder or by following these steps:

Open Applications > Utilities > Terminal.app
Type rm -rf ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Media/Downloads/* then press <Enter>to delete the plist file along with all of the downloads of TV shows. (Note: this method removes the files permanently, which is fine since the next step re-downloads them.)

Re-open iTunes. There shouldn't be TV shows automatically downloading any longer when you open iTunes. Breath. Relax. Rejoice.


Problem opening Word (docx) file with images in Mac (Fusion) I need to open files with images that come as Word (docx) files. I couldn't see the images if I open in Pages or Mac Office. Had to get VMWare Fusion, Win7 and Windows office, and still having problems opening these files in Fusion Virtual Machine ... Files open fine at work in a Windows PC.
Any ideas? Would Boot Camp work better than Fusion Virtual Machine?
Thanks...

Starting with Lion, Preview can open docx files and does a good job. Much better than TextEdit or Pages.

In Snow Leopard, I found quick look to be very good as well — but you can't do much with the file inside quick look.

Obviously I can't test the documents you're having trouble with though.


Streaming video from shared Mac folder to AppleTV? I just bought a new AppleTV and will be getting it soon, and I want to know how I can stream my movies which are located on a shared drive to it?

Right now, my videos are in a folder which is shared by my MBP (which is running SL) and have various formats. I've been trying to find a way to show these on my ATV without having to convert them.

I've heard about AirFlick, but I'm running Lion and apparently it doesn't work (someone tell me I'm wrong). I also vaguely remember a way to stream it to my iPhone4, and then stream that to AirPlay on the ATV?

You are right about streaming to the iPhone (or iPad) and then to the ATV. Check out the VLC streamer. The application is installed on iOS, and a companion app goes on the computer. VLC Streamer will transcode non-native video (e.g., AVI) from the computer, pipe it to the iOS device, and then pipe that to the ATV via AirPlay. I have tested this and it works exactly as described. The quality of your results will be dependent, of course, on your LAN bandwidth and processing speed of the machines. You can set some of these parameters in VLC Streamer, though, which maximizes output. Enjoy!


Why can a user on OS X open some directories of other users? I run OS X Yosemite (10.10.3). From the sysadmin account, I created a standard account. This account can't open standard directories like Documents or Pictures in the admin’s user folder. It can access however every single folder and document that does not belong to this preinstalled standard folders. Changing folder permissions in the admin account does not change anything. What am I doing wrong?

The simplest way to prevent the access is by Get Info.. (or ⌘+i on directory and setting the permissions there.

To prevent other user from viewing your files, settings should look like:

username(me) read / write
everyone no access

Note: remove all the other positions like group etc.


"Picture Frame" mode on modern iPad I have an iPad 1 with iOS 5. This is a "Picture Frame" mode which sports the following features:

Start slideshow from lock screen ("Flower" icon)
Show photo on whole screen with calm dissolve effect
Show photos in random order

A friend has a modern iPad with iOS 11. Here, the "Picture Frame" mode seems to be gone. However, there is a "Play" button in the photo album. This is how it works:

Start slideshow from inside photo album
Show collage of photos with various hefty effects
Show photos in sequential order (Starts at beginning every time)

How can I make a modern iPad show photos like the old iPad, ie. on the whole screen, with a subtle transition effect, and most importantly, in random order?

For the built-in Photos app, you can get subtle effects (dissolve, specifically, is available) in full screen of iOS 11, but I can’t find a way to randomise it, unfortunately.

Since I never used the picture-frame mode on my iPad 1, I can’t picture it (heh) in my head, but if you go to Photos → Your Album and choose Start Slideshow, you can tap on the slideshow and on the bottom right an Options button will be revealed, allowing you to change the speed of the transitions, toggle Repeat , choose or disable an accompanying musical theme, and choose the transition type (which includes Dissolve)

I’m not familiar with other slideshow applications, so I can’t suggest any.


See IP address of stolen phone My iPhone got stolen and I can still see it under my devices on iCloud.
I can see the location of the phone as well with Find My Phone.

Is it possible to see the IP address of the stolen phone?  How could I see that?

Is there any other information I can get about the whereabouts of the phone?

I would be interested in the IP because it might help the police.

Is it possible to see the IP address of the stolen phone? How could I
  see that?

Yes.

If you want to get it from Apple, you'll have to subpoena them for it.  To get the address and owner info of that IP, you'll need to subpoena the ISP or carrier.

Apple will tell you where your phone is, but they will not tell you give you the details of who who owns those things without sufficient a sufficient legal basis to do so.

However....

You can get your IP from different services, like gmail, dropbox, etc. When these services periodically check in, they can tell you from what IP address it checked in with.

For instance, I use Outlook.com and using their Activity feature, I can get the IP of my last sign in:

It will not, however, tell you the actual address, to get that, you'll need to subpoena the ISP.  The location data that they give you is not the actual location of your phone, it's the location of NOC that handed out that IP.

Bottom Line

All of this information is obtainable.  Police departments can (quite easily) obtain IP, GPS coordinates, cell tower identification, etc.  However, the costs of doing so often outstrip the value of the device. Other peoples identifying information is protected (even if they did steal your phone) and you (or the police) need to go through the legal process to obtain this info (lawyers cost money even if they work for the city).

I'm not saying all is lost, if you can help them with location info and enough probable cause for the police to search (assuming you're in the US) and you can actively ping the device that points them to location (i.e. you sharing Find My Phone data with them real time), they can execute a search.  The "Make a Sound" feature can help them "proof positively" identify your device for further action.

It's far better to use the Find My... geo location data than an IP because you don't need to process any legal paperwork to (accurately) find out where you or your device is or has been.

Get this data and file a police report.


Share / view files betweek Mac OS X and Linux (Ubuntu) using sshfs and GUI I just want to access file from Mac OS X (Big Sur / 11.2.1) on my Linux (Ubuntu 20.04.2 machine) and vice versa.
I did not like the idea using SMB - or should I really do it??
What I did

OS X : Enabled System Preferences -> Sharing -> Remote Login
OS X: I am able to type sshfs (not sure why it knows the command I did some other experiments the other days (e.g. installed meld via brew)
Linux enabled ssh (server)

What works good

Access OS X Filesystem from Ubuntu via sshfs user@192.168.0.1
Access OS X Filesystem from Ubuntu via the files application by typing sftp://192.168.0.1

What works not-so-good
Access the Linux / Ubuntu filesystem from Mac OS X :
sshfs user@192.168.0.2:/ localMountDir works as well BUT:

strange user and group : user: root, group weel
going deeper into the path (which is internally another SSD the permission changes from 755 to 750 (or rwxr-xr-x to rwxr-x---)

How to fix the issue ??

I would guess it has to do with this trange user/group root/weel
If so how to fix this ?? I looked a little bit about users and groups in OS X but on the GUI -> System Preferences -> Users and Groups -> I do not see any groups

Looking at your command to mount your Linux drive on Mac,
sshfs user@192.168.0.2:/ localMountDir

it looks like you are specifying that you want to mount the root of the Linux filesystem (that’s the :/ part). In general, most operating systems assign ownership of root-level directories to a privileged user (i.e., not you). In the case of Linux, root is the name of the superuser and wheel is the name of the group to which root belongs. So what you are seeing is, in fact, 100% correct. And it’s also no surprise that permissions become more restrictive as you descend into certain directories (e.g., if you are trying to cd into your own home directory then it’s expected that it is not world-readable [750], whereas the root of the filesystem should be world-readable [755].)
What I suspect you’re wanting to do is to sshfs directly into your own home directory on the Linux box. So you’d want to specify that on your command line:
sshfs user@192.168.0.2:/home/YOURUSERNAME localMountDir


Can a hobbyist or individual apply for Apple's MFi program? I found that Apple has the MFi program to help develop a hardware for iPad/iPhone/iPod, but it looks like that only a company can apply for this program.

Can a hobbyist or an individual apply for this program to develop home brew iPad/iPhone/iPod connected devices?

Yes, smaller groups can apply to be in the MFi program, if they are serious about making a product for the iOS devices.  However, you will need to get approval from Apple for your basic device concept in order to get in the program, then the device will need to pass third-party certifications to verify that it won't interfere with the iOS device, etc.  Finally, Apple will need to approve your final product design before you can start selling it.

They've opened up this process significantly over the last year or so, but given the hurdles you have to jump to get a functional device out there this is still not intended for one-off hobby projects.  A small company can make a product to sell in lower volumes, but you'll need at least $20,000 in development funds to get through the process to your final design.

Recouping that level of investment doesn't require selling millions of devices, but you do have to have some moderate volume of device sales to make it worth your initial development time and money.

We're in the process of building an MFi accessory, and we're a very small company.  Our target sales volumes are not large, but they're enough to make this worthwhile.  If the product takes off, so much the better.


Deleted email re-appears in inbox after it has been deleted in Mail app After upgrading to Catalina on my MacBook Pro, I noticed that deleted emails re-appear in my in box after a few minutes after the deletion. The only way I can really delete them is by using my iPad or my phone to delete them. At least they don't re-appear if I use any of those devices.

Is this an introduced bug in the Catalina version of Mac mail? Is anyone else experiencing the same issue?

I removed [the google account] and added it again and the issue went away.

System Preferences → Internet Accounts, remove the troubling IMAP account and add it back. For a less drastic measure, uncheck the Mail checkbox and tick it again.


Can I add 16 gigs to the 13 inch non-Retina MacBook Pro? The latest updates to MBPs non-retina say they can support upto 8 gigs of RAM. I had a mid-2011 13 inch MBP which I upgraded to 16 gigs.

The 13 inch MBP has 2 RAM slots. Has anyone successfully added 16 gigs to this version MBP? Is it possible?

Thanks in Advance

This article from the MacObserver says yes.


Did Mountain Lion fix Launchpad's re-arranging curse? Anyone that has used Launchpad aggressively knows that (at least on Lion) it would re-arrange the icons upon reboot.  There was no way to save or lock the order and location of the icons.  Is this fixed now in Mountain Lion?  Or did they just add a search bar and call it good?

Yes, it is fixed.  I have been rearranging program icons for hours every day, over two days, rebooting repeatedly, on a Fall 2010 MacBook Air, and the order and orientation has stuck (stayed) every time.

As far as I can tell, this is finally fixed.


How uncompress tar.lz file I was trying to uncompress a tar.lz file.

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/218230/why-i-cant-unpack-tar-bz2-or-tar-xz-files/218232#218232

Joses-MacBook-Air:~ joseluisbz$ ls -al /usr/local/Sources/ddrescue-1.22.tar.lz
-rw-r--r--@ 1 joseluisbz  wheel  80050 Oct  4 14:43 /usr/local/Sources/ddrescue-1.22.tar.lz
Joses-MacBook-Air:~ joseluisbz$ tar zxvf /usr/local/Sources/ddrescue-1.22.tar.lz -C /usr/local/Sources/
tar: Unrecognized archive format
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors.
Joses-MacBook-Air:~ joseluisbz$ xz
xz: Compressed data cannot be written to a terminal
xz: Try `xz --help' for more information.
Joses-MacBook-Air:~ joseluisbz$ xz -dv /usr/local/Sources/ddrescue-1.22.tar.lz
/usr/local/Sources/ddrescue-1.22.tar.lz (1/1)
xz: /usr/local/Sources/ddrescue-1.22.tar.lz: File format not recognized
Joses-MacBook-Air:~ joseluisbz$ tar xjf /usr/local/Sources/ddrescue-1.22.tar.lz -C /usr/local/Sources/
tar: Unrecognized archive format
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors.
Joses-MacBook-Air:~ joseluisbz$ tar -xjf /usr/local/Sources/ddrescue-1.22.tar.lz -C /usr/local/Sources/
tar: Unrecognized archive format
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors.
Joses-MacBook-Air:~ joseluisbz$ tar -xjf /usr/local/Sources/ddrescue-1.22.tar.lz
tar: Unrecognized archive format
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors.
Joses-MacBook-Air:~ joseluisbz$

What can I do?

I use lzip, which I compiled from source code, however it can also be installed with Homebrew:

brew install lzip

See also: Lzip

You also need to have Command Line Tools for Xcode installed in either case. Have a look at: How to Install Command Line Tools in OS X Mavericks & Yosemite (Without Xcode)

$ lzip --help
Lzip - LZMA lossless data compressor.

Usage: lzip [options] [files]

Options:
  -h, --help                     display this help and exit
  -V, --version                  output version information and exit
  -a, --trailing-error           exit with error status if trailing data
  -b, --member-size=<bytes>      set member size limit in bytes
  -c, --stdout                   write to standard output, keep input files
  -d, --decompress               decompress
  -f, --force                    overwrite existing output files
  -F, --recompress               force re-compression of compressed files
  -k, --keep                     keep (don't delete) input files
  -l, --list                     print (un)compressed file sizes
  -m, --match-length=<bytes>     set match length limit in bytes [36]
  -o, --output=<file>            if reading standard input, write to <file>
  -q, --quiet                    suppress all messages
  -s, --dictionary-size=<bytes>  set dictionary size limit in bytes [8 MiB]
  -S, --volume-size=<bytes>      set volume size limit in bytes
  -t, --test                     test compressed file integrity
  -v, --verbose                  be verbose (a 2nd -v gives more)
  -0 .. -9                       set compression level [default 6]
      --fast                     alias for -0
      --best                     alias for -9
If no file names are given, or if a file is '-', lzip compresses or
decompresses from standard input to standard output.
Numbers may be followed by a multiplier: k = kB = 10^3 = 1000,
Ki = KiB = 2^10 = 1024, M = 10^6, Mi = 2^20, G = 10^9, Gi = 2^30, etc...
Dictionary sizes 12 to 29 are interpreted as powers of two, meaning 2^12
to 2^29 bytes.

The bidimensional parameter space of LZMA can't be mapped to a linear
scale optimal for all files. If your files are large, very repetitive,
etc, you may need to use the --dictionary-size and --match-length
options directly to achieve optimal performance.

Exit status: 0 for a normal exit, 1 for environmental problems (file
not found, invalid flags, I/O errors, etc), 2 to indicate a corrupt or
invalid input file, 3 for an internal consistency error (eg, bug) which
caused lzip to panic.

Report bugs to lzip-bug@nongnu.org
Lzip home page: http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/lzip.html
$


Mountain Lion does not show up under Purchased for ML pre-installed machine I recently purchased a new Macbook Air (2012) and it came with Mountain Lion pre-installed. I've noticed that Mountain Lion does not show up as 'Purchased' in the App Store and indeed when I search for the app, the store offers to sell it to me. Is this a bug or by design?

If Mountain Lion is pre-installed on your Mac, you won't normally get a redemption code to purchase the "upgrade" but that serial number will be checked if you have to do a bare install, and the installer will download because the Mac deserves to get Mountain Lion internet recovery install on a bare drive.

Basically, the license is tied with the hardware, not the Apple ID. However, some Macs purchased during the window surrounding the release can often take advantage of the Up To Date program which according to the web page is intended for Machines that shipped with Lion and not Mountain Lion.

The upgrade lets you install the software on all of your personal Macs whereas the machine license generally lets you just install it on the Mac that shipped with the OS.


How to switch tabs using keyboard on bigsur? I have enabled Prefer tabs feature on macos bigsur

Now I wonder how to switch those tabs using keyboard shortcut. Any idea?

For a lot of applications (e.g. Finder, Safari, Terminal) it's ControlTab/ControlShiftTab.


How to avoid iTunes' "Do you want the application iTunes.app to accept incoming network connections?"? The last few releases of iTunes 12.5.x.y ask, every time iTunes is launched:

Do you want the application "iTunes.app" to accept incoming network connections?

Is there a way to select either answer as a default and avoid getting constantly asked that question?

El Capitan

Uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes is the only way I could solve this issue.

As this (battery-draining, maldesigned) page warns you, you can't just drag iTunes to the Trash. El Capitan will warn you that it's part of the OS. Get Info, clicking on the padlock, and giving everyone read+write permission will get over that.

The next step is to download it. Surprise: iTunes is not available on the App Store. But you can download a dmg just fine here.

After 5 minutes of use I can confirm the message no longer appears.

I can also confirm that the music collection appears unharmed.

Pre El Capitan

Thanks to owlswipe's hint, the solution follows.

In System Preferences, under Security & Privacy

Click "Firewall Options"

and allow incoming connections for iTunes.

It's not clear why "incoming connections" is an option for iTunes.


get name of file from file path using AppleScript I am trying to get the name of file using AppleScript with the following code:

tell application "Finder"
    set filename to name of "/Users/mainuser/Desktop/Test/shot.png" // should return  shot.png
    display dialog filename
end tell

I am getting an error saying:

error "Can’t get name of \"/Users/mainuser/Desktop/Test/shot.png\"." number -1728 from name of "/Users/mainuser/Desktop/Test/shot.png"

What I am doing wrong?

Using the file pathname from your question, here is the AppleScript code that should work.

tell application "Finder"
    set fileName to name of (POSIX file "/Users/mainuser/Desktop/Test/shot.png" as alias)
    display dialog fileName
end tell

A more direct way of the above scenario is:

Syntax:

set fileName to name of (info for "/path/to/file")
display dialog fileName

Example (using the pathname in your question):

set fileName to name of (info for "/Users/mainuser/Desktop/Test/shot.png")
display dialog fileName

The shortest way to display the name of a file from its pathname in a dialog box is:

Syntax:

display dialog name of (info for "/path/to/file")

Example (using the pathname in your question):

display dialog name of (info for "/Users/mainuser/Desktop/Test/shot.png")


Moving terminal version of python to homebrew version python -V shows that I am on 2.7.7 but brew upgrade python shows I have 2.7.8 so clearly my terminal isn't looking at the Homebrew version. How do I fix this?

Check if /usr/local/bin is in your PATH and that it's before /usr/bin. In the terminal:

echo $PATH

I believe brew doctor will warn you about this if it's not. Basically, if it's not, the system will look in /usr/bin first instead of /usr/local/bin, which is where homebrew links everything.

For bash, you just need to add:

export PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH

to your ~/.bash_profile file.


iPhone Contact List - Custom Labels recognized as a Mobile Number When a number is labeled as "mobile" in your contact list, you can click the little "cloud" shortcut to send a text message to that number.

If the number is labeled as "Home" or anything else, that text message short cut goes away (because the system thinks it is not a mobile number)

My question is, can you use a custom label and somehow tell the system that the number is a mobile number so you can send text messages to it?

I have a lot of contacts that have more than 1 cell phone and it would be nice to be able to label them as something other than "mobile" so that I know which cell phone i'm texting.

Having all the numbers labeled "mobile" does nothing to let me know which number is which.

If you set it first set it to Mobile or iPhone, then select Add Custom Label, it should treat the device as a mobile device (since that was the last "non-custom" label selected).


Disk usage in Mac terminal not working with --max-depth I want to see my disk usage for a specific folder with a pre-set maximum depth. On Linux, the command is

$ du -h --max-depth 1

On macOS Mojave (10.14.5) with bash version 3.2.57(1)-release, this is not working. I also tried

$ du -hd1

as described here, also not working. The terminal output is:

usage: du [-H | -L | -P] [-a | -s | -d depth] [-c] [-h | -k | -m | -g] [-x] [-I mask] [file ...]

What is the best solution?


Macbook Pro (Mid 2009) will not turn on without power cord [new battery installed] I have recently purchased and installed a new battery for my Mid 2009 13 inch Macbook Pro but have not been able to turn on the laptop without the power supply since the new battery has been installed. The system report shows that the battery is installed but that it is not charging even though the battery is not at full capacity (83%).

Has anyone experienced a similar issue before? Does anyone know any fixes?

I cannot locate the disks that came with my MBP at the moment so I was also wondering if there was another way to access Apple Hardware Test (AHT)?

There could be a couple of things going on.

The first, and easiest, solution is to reset the SMC. Apple has a KB article on that:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Failing that I would then look at the battery as the cause. Remove it and replace the old one. If it then boots (assuming the old one has ANY charge on it) call the seller and get another battery.

Am I missing anything here?


How can I back up a complete IMAP account? I have a huge IMAP email account that contains a lot of subfolders and a lot of messages (dating back to 2005). Is there a simple way to back up these folders and messages so I can delete them from the server?

I would like to retain the ability to browse and manage these archived messages, reply, or add addresses from these messages to my contacts - all preferably within Apple Mail.

If Apple Mail can't do it, what other options do I have?

You can do it with offlineimap. I'm using it for my GMail and Fastmail accounts.

Install Homebrew (you must also install Xcode). With Homebrew, brew install offline-imap.

Create ~/.offlineimaprc config file:

[general]
ui = ttyui
accounts = fastmail
maxsyncaccounts = 4
socktimeout = 60

[Account fastmail]
localrepository = fastmail-local
remoterepository = fastmail-remote

[Repository fastmail-local]
type = Maildir
localfolders = ~/Mail/Fastmail

[Repository fastmail-remote]
type = IMAP
remotehost = mail.messagingengine.com
remoteuser = username
remotepass = password

expunge = no
folderfilter = lambda foldername: foldername not in ['INBOX.Trash']

A big advantage of offlineimap is that it creates the folders you have on your IMAP server.

I'm reading my backup with mutt.


Parental Controls with FaceTime app does not work properly on iPad Air We have a problem about the FaceTime app and Parental Controls on our iPad Air.

Even after we disabled the FaceTime app by Parental Controls, our iPad Air(Wi-Fi model) tries to connect to the FaceTime server (init.ess.apple.com).

We see a lot of the same kind of packets going out to the Internet and our firewall drops them although we use our iPad Air only for internal services in our LAN.

Apple technical support said that iPad Air should not try to connect to the FaceTime server with the FaceTime app disabled by Parent Control.

Could you please let us know if you have any idea about this issue or have the same problem?

Thank you,

This domain(*.ess.apple.com ) is not only work for FaceTime, but also service many service of Apple, such as iMessage, the authentication, administration, key and contract request runs over https.


Mac Pro + 50” 4K Ultra HD LED TV as monitor -- Best graphics card? I have a 2009 Mac Pro 4.1, with the following specifications:

2 2.93 GHz Quad-core Intel Xenon processors
32 GB   RAM
2   1 TB HD
1   MacPro Raid Card
1   Nvidia GeForce GT 120 512 MB

The work I do benefits from lots of screen real estate. Prior to switching to the Mac Pro, I used a pair of 27" iMacs extending my desktop across the two displays.

I have started thinking about whether I could/should get a 50” 4K Ultra HD LED TV and use it as monitor. The size would work well in my office and it would give me more square inches of display than the pair of iMacs.

I know little about graphics cards and displays, but I understand that a want both a display and a graphics card to support 60Hz to deal with things like cursor/mouse movement delays.

My work is mostly text and some screen drawing, but no extensive graphics. Recreationally, some video's.

So, some questions.

Does a 50” 4K Ultra HD LED TV as monitor make sense?
Positives vs Negatives?
Other recommendations?

What graphics card(s) will work in the Mac Pro for what I want to cobble together?

Any suggestions on the best value given my use?

TL;DR: Don't get a TV, get (almost) whatever graphics card you want

Using a TV as a monitor

Let's start with this issue. There's nothing inherently wrong with using a TV as a monitor, but it's probably not a good purchasing decision.

Here are the issues I'll go over:

Physical space
Usability
Resolution and PPI
Color
Response time
Price

Let's start from the top and work our way down.

Assuming you have the physical space to fit a 50" beast, you're fine. With that said, you'll probably be tilting you head up a lot, as you'll have more vertical space then you'll probably want. You'd be better off with a wider aspect ratio or a combo of narrower monitors placed side by side to minimize strain.

You'll obviously be losing out on some nice features of a monitor if you use a TV: certain inputs, USB hubs, onboard audio, better out-of-the-box color calibration, nicer stand/buttons/bezel, support for easy brightness changes, etc. These are the sorts of things you can probably work around, but might be annoying.

Even at 4k (3840x2160), with a 50" TV, you'll be at a mere 88.12 DPI. That's not awful (72 DIP is generally considered the minimum), but it's not good (the 1440p iMac was at 108.79), and you'll probably notice. You'd probably be happier spending that same money on a smaller display with higher PPI, even at the expense of total resolution or screen space.

Color on modern TVs is generally quite good–especially if you go the OLED route–but out-of-the-box calibration may vary (although this happens with monitors as well.) However, it sounds like you don't really care, so this isn't something too important.

One place where you're very likely to suffer is with response time. TVs usually have awful response times, some above 100 MS. That's getting to the point where it may be legitimately annoying even for some work. Given that you're not gaming, you'll be fine with a higher response time, but still, make sure you know what you're getting.

Price. This can go either way. You can easily spend more either way depending what you get. But the chances are, you won't save by getting a TV.

With that said, all this will change based on exactly what TV you get. But this is a pretty fair generalization.

One final word of advice though: you said you had two 27" iMacs. Why not use those using Target Display Mode? You won't be spending any more money and you'll have two beautiful iMacs with a lot of real estate. Throwing that out is throwing out good money. You can get a few more monitors on top of that, but you don't need to replace them.

TL;DR: Use yo iMacs, and if you really need more real estate, buy a proper monitor.

Graphics Card

Graphics cards + Mac Pro = fun.

There are two kinds of graphics cards we'll be looking at here: flashed and unflashed cards.

Flashing is the process of putting a different piece of firmware on a graphics card. Why would you need to do that? Well, if you've ever looked at a Mac graphics card, they're very expensive compared to their PC counterparts. Generally, the only difference is what firmware is on there. Most PC cards can be reflashed with the Mac firmware. I'll drop this here as further reading that does a much better job explaining what I'm trying to get at.

Sound too complicated? Don't worry, you probably don't need to flash your card at all. Most modern cards (usually AMD Tahiti and newer, Nvidia is a bit weird) will work without being flashed once you get to the OS X desktop. This does mean though that certain things won't work (your screen will be black until you finish booting for example.)

If you want a Mac card that's flashed without the hassle, you can pay MacVidCards to do it for you. They charge a decent amount, but they have solid firmwares that work.

Outside of making sure it works with your Mac, just get whatever is appropriate for your workload. It doesn't sound like you need a lot of power but like pushing a lot of pixels, so a mid-tier graphics card should work.

TL;DR: Get the appropriate card, it'll probably work.

Final Words

Feel free to add comments and I'll respond to them. There's a lot of subjective content here, so what's best for you != what's best for the average person.


How to update Late 2011 Macbook Pro past 10.7.5 I have a late 2011 Macbook pro, 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5, with 4 GB of 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM. It is currently running version 10.7.5. According to EveryMac "... this model is capable of running macOS High Sierra (10.13), and it supports HEVC (High-Efficiency Video Coding), but it does not support hardware accelerated HEVC."

When I open the apple menu and click 'Software Update' it says 'Checking for new software' and then 'Your system is up to date. Software Update doesn’t have any new software for your computer at this time.'
I tried a manual update by executing a command line in terminal:
sudo sh -c “softwareupdate -ia && reboot.
This should update it, but it only reboots the computer.
I tried downloading the update from apple:
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1760?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
The download button is missing from the page in both Safari and Firefox, it's only an empty square with the text 'download icon' in it.

How can I upgrade to High Sierra?

In order to upgrade to macOS High Sierra, you should be running at least OS X Mountain Lion. I suggest you upgrade to macOS Sierra first, which you can get here: Get macOS Sierra.
You can check here for more information on upgrading to macOS Sierra: How to download macOS Sierra

You may need to reset your Mac's software update URL. You can follow the guide at Robin's Blog to learn more about this. This excerpt from the post explains how to reset the update URL;

  Open the /Library/Preferences folder on the main hard drive.
  Find the com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist file and move this to the desktop (the easiest way is just to drag and drop the file to the Desktop). If you find a similar file with a .apple at the end (com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist.apple) then move that too. Moving them to the desktop means that you can restore them if this goes wrong.


Changing terminal colors for normal files when ls -G or within .bash_profile So I followed this thread (Changing terminal color) and got all of the colors working for directories and such, except however, for normal files such as a Gemfile or .txt files or .java files or .rb files etc... I was wondering how I can get normal files to show up in color, even better if I can get different extensions of the file to show up in different colors as well. Let me know if you guys have any resources for this.

I don't think colorizing the file names of regular files is possible with ls alone (i.e. without postprocessing the output with another script):

The manual page for ls (shown when you type man ls) does not mention this possibility.
I would expect that the ls coming with Mac OS X is very similar to the BSD version of ls, since there seems to be little motivation for Apple to make changes in this area.  The source code for BSD's ls is available online, e.g. the FreeBSD version is on GitHub.  The function which selects the color for a file name is colortype() in the source file bin/ls/print.c.  And checking the source code it is clear that at least the BSD version of ls does not have the ability to change color when printing the names of a regular file.


Time Machine: Can I back up different clients to different disks? I've got a Mac Pro that I use as, among other things, a Time Machine server.  This is currently backing up three machines, including itself. Can I install two disks into the server and have Time Machine back up some clients onto Disk A and some clients onto Disk B?  I'm not looking for redundancy (which I know I can now get with multiple Time Machine disks in 10.8); I'm just trying to spread the single backups across multiple disks.  Any advice out there?

Yes - assuming you have OS X server running on the Mac Pro, you could share each drive under a different name and enable both for Time Machine backups.

You could then configure some portion of the machines to hit share A and the rest to hit share B. Since each computer stores backup contents in a sparse disk bundle, you could even shift a backup or two to the other drive and then reconfigure things if your initial allocation wasn't working after some time passes.


Unable to send text messages after restoring iPhone I restored my new iPhone using a third party app iSkysoft. It uses iTunes backup and restored my phone. I used it as needed to selectively restore my phone due to storage problem. Now, after restoring I am facing this problem that for all the Messages conversations that I restored, I am unable to send them message. I checked the phone number, which appears to be fine, but message cannot be cannot send.

How do I resolve this issue?

Try disabling iMessage and then enabling it again (from Settings => Messages => iMessage).


How do I copy music from iphone 4 to iphone 5s and windows computer? I have three devices:

1) iPhone 4 synced with old computer whose hard drive failed

2) iPhone 5s not synced with any computer

3) New windows computer

All of the music (most of it not purchased on itunes) is on the iphone 4.  I want to copy it to the windows computer and the iphone 5s.  I am signed into the same itunes account on all three devices.  When I plug my iphone 4 in, it doesn't let me sync because it is still tied to another computer.  Sadly that other computer is dead and I lost all of the music and it only exists now on the iphone 4.  I tried backing up the iphone 4 and then restoring it to the iphone 5s, but the backup does not contain music.

Any ideas on how to transfer the music off the iphone 4?

Thanks

iFunBox should allow you to copy the music from any iOS device (jailbroken or not) onto a Windows or Mac computer.

See this support article for more relevant information.


How do I stop my iPhone from muting itself when plugged into a Toyota RAV4? My parents own a 2013 Toyota RAV4 with a single USB port under the front dashboard.

Any time I charge my iPhone or iPad using the car's USB port, my phone's audio immediately stops working. Apparently the iPhone thinks it's been docked and is trying to play sound through the car's speakers. There is no option to select any audio source other than the Dock Connector.

I've seen this problem reported on forms once or twice before, but the only solutions seemed to be workarounds like "use the cigarette lighter for charging" or "pair to the car's speakers using Bluetooth".

What can I do to prevent my iPhone from muting itself when plugged into a 2013 Toyota RAV4?

Your phone isn't muting itself, it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do - trying to play music through the USB port. That's because the USB port on the RAV4 (along with many vehicles in recent years) is designed to be used for both audio playback and charging.

I can't comment on the RAV4 specifically, but in most vehicles the input source will change as soon as you plug the phone into the USB port. So, preventing this behaviour involves only changing the car's input source back to whatever it was prior to connecting the USB cable.

If that's not happening in your case (some car audio systems don't seem to let go of the input, even though the source has changed), perhaps you can change the audio source on the iPhone. To do this, tap on the down arrow on the right of the Dock Connector label to see what other options you can pick (if any). Plugging in some headphones (assuming you're not using an iPhone 7) will provide that as an option to select.

Otherwise, the assumption is that playing audio through the iPhone's built-in speakers is not required when it's plugged into a dock/external speaker (which is what the builtin USB port is on the RAV4). Your only option to play audio through the builtin speaker is to plug the iPhone into a secondary USB charger (e.g. using the accessory socket of your vehicle).

Your next best option is to just plug in some headphones (although if you have an iPhone 7 you may need a special adapter so you can both charge and use the headphones simultaneously), or connect to Bluetooth headphones.

[Edit]

I was reminded via the comments that you can actually buy cables that are charging only cables. My brother-in-law accidentally bought one of those cables and he could never use it for anything other than charging. So, presumably, such a cable could solve your problem.

In my brother-in-law's case, he purchased his cable from a servo (i.e. a gas station). I mention this only because I'm not sure if that's where you're more likely to come across them.


Forgotten iPhone 5S password, but the password is stored in notes I cannot remember the password for my iPhone 5S. The password is written in the Notes app on my phone.

Touch ID is not an option because it's not working (I haven't set it up).

Is there any way I can retrieve the password?

You can access Notes on icloud.com and on any 10.9 Mac that was synced to your iCloud account.


Uninstall VMWare Fusion and VMWare Tools on boot camp partition I was using VMWare Fusion on a boot camp partition and installed VMWare Tools on the Windows volume.

How can I completely uninstall everything related to VMWare Fusion?

Uninstall the VMWare Tools in the VM using the uninstaller in Add/Remove Programs
Use the Fusion uninstaller on the installation DMG to remove VMWare Fusion
Follow this VMware KB article to clean up Fusion completely.

Sidenote: I can't find an official KB article for removing the tools, and those I do find all only mention Add/Remove. I am assuming it does a complete removal.


Move file from HDD to SSD I've recently added an SSD drive to my Macbook, and I'm using my HDD to store my files.

Sometimes I want to move a file from my HDD to my SSD though. Whenever I try to drag it, Finder only allows me to copy rather than move.

I've set the permission of both the sending and the receiving folders to Read and Write for my user, but that did not help. When I try to mv using the Terminal it does work without superuser powers.

If the source and the destination of the file is on two different volumes, OS X's default is to copy the file rather than move it. In reality, what you want to do to the file is to copy it to the new location and then delete it from the old, whereas if you move a file to the same volume it's originally on, it will just change the recorded location of the file.

You can achieve "move" (copy-and-delete) functionality in Finder by holding Command when you drag the file.


shimo l2tp vpn not connecting to racoon daemon I am unable to get shimo to connect to l2tp sites as it keeps saying 'unable to launch ipsec backend racoon'

system.log is showing the below

May 17 21:28:48 SiMacBookPro Shimo[735]: Requesting Authentication for Modes: 2048
May 17 21:28:48 SiMacBookPro Shimo[735]: Modes after account check: 2048
May 17 21:28:48 SiMacBookPro Shimo[735]: Modes after Keychain check: 0
May 17 21:28:48 SiMacBookPro Shimo[735]: Modes after message-only check: 0
May 17 21:28:48 SiMacBookPro Shimo[735]: Modes after ignore-missing-values check: 0
May 17 21:28:48 SiMacBookPro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.system): Caller not allowed to perform action: launchctl.817, action = service bootout, code = 150: Operation not permitted while System Integrity Protection is engaged, uid = 0, euid = 0, gid = 0, egid = 0, asid = 100000
May 17 21:28:48 SiMacBookPro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.racoon[762]): Service exited due to signal: Killed: 9 sent by pkill[818]
May 17 21:28:50 SiMacBookPro Shimo[735]: ERROR: Shimo was unable to launch the IPSec backend service 'racoon'. Could not start racoon daemon.
May 17 21:28:51 SiMacBookPro Shimo[735]: Reloaded racoon.conf due to changes to files in /private/var/run/Shimo/configs.

i can disable System Integrity Protection but i would rather not,

any ideas people?

try

  sudo killall racoon

in Terminal and then run Shimo again


are there editing commands for voice to text? My iPhone, iPad, and Mac each has the same, excellent voice to text input.  But I have never discovered if there are any voice editing commands, such as:  delete last word, or replace 3rd from last word, etc.

On Mac go to System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Scroll the list on the left all the way down to Dictation and setup your Dictation commands including those for editing text.


Time machine drive used for time machine before..can it back up a new drive without erasing? My MacBook Pro drive died a few months ago. Thankfully it was fully backed up to an external with Time Machine. I seem to grab something from the backup every week from various libraries, but I now need to back up my new drive. I am cheap and do not want to buy yet another external especially as the older backup is a TB and nowhere near full. Does anyone know if I can use the old external with the old HD back-up as a back-up for the new drive without having to erase and reformat (i.e., keep the old HD back-up in tact)?
Thanks in advance for a response.

Yes, you should have no problem doing that.  Simply tell Time Machine to backup to that drive, and Time Machine with create a new folder in the backups.db folder on your external drive.  As far as Time Machine is concerned, your new backup will be as if it is from a different computer, even if you're using the same MacBook Pro with a new hard drive.  Time Machine can handle backups from multiple computers to the same drive.


Fusion installing Mavericks this item is temporary unavailable I am new to Mac. I have a MacBook Air running 10.9.4.

I installed Fusion VMWare and I am trying to install a VM for 10.9.4 using the "Install OS X from the recovery partition. When I get to the installation step that asks for my Apple Id, I log in and get this message: "This item is temporarily unavailable - Try again later".

Why???

Couple things to note: This Mac was passed down to me, I do not have a Mavericks installer and never purchased one.

The only 'official' way to get 10.9.x [which would actually be 10.9.5] is to have previously 'bought' it - it would then be in your previous purchases list on the App Store & could be re-downloaded.

Alternatively, if that was the OS that was on the machine when new you can get it via Internet Recovery.

Otherwise, the only OS available to download will be Yosemite.


Why isn't the mute key working for an external output device? I have an external sound card (Line6 Studio GX) connected through USB. I have selected this device as the output device in sound settings:

Now, when I press Mute (F10), the mute overlay is shown:

However, the sound continuous to play. The 'mute' checkbox is also not checked in Sound settings. When I check 'mute' through the settings, the sound is muted. Mute key does work for internal speakers. How can I restore the mute key for this external device?

My guess is that the driver for your sound device may or may not implement all the expected sound controls on the keyboard. That is to say that they are implemented correctly by the system drivers (speakers, headphone socket) but these are not in the core sound processes - hence you need your driver to support them.

I have a Fiio USB headphone amplifier that I run from my MBP, and neither the mute nor the volume controls work on the keyboard. I suspect volume is applied by analogue circuits, not digital ones - so this would make sense. But I'm a touch surprised my mute doesn't work; maybe that is expected to be implemented by the same thing that controls the volume. (Edit: my device didn't come with a driver, but was recognised as a USB sound device automatically).

Long story short - I would guess that if there is a specific driver for your device, that installing that - or finding the control panel - might help. If you don't have a driver file, try googling for one (and obviously, only download from sources you trust).


Can I get the ipsw file off my iPhone 3gs and install it on my iPhone 4s? I still have my old iPhone 3gs (AT&T) with iOS 6. I have a back up of it as well. I also have a iPhone 4s (Sprint) with iOS 7.

Can I grab the ipsw file off my iPhone 3gs and install it on my iPhone 4s?

I will not install any ipsw from the net. It is not worth the risk of getting an infected or spyware file.

No, even if you obtained the IPSW, it would not install since there are different IPSWs for different devices.

You can check the authenticity of an IPSW per this question:

Can an .ipsw firmware restore image's origin be verified?


USB-C charger not working (MBP 2017) My 61W charger doesn't charge my MBP 2017. But when I charge with my friend's apple charger it works. How do I fix this?

This is just a guess as you've not mentioned the cables you're using, but:

Could it be that you're using a non e-Marked USB C cable? If so, the cable may be the problem. Try your charger with your friend's cable to check this.


Maximum number of Full HD 1920x1080 displays supported on Macbook Pro 15" 2016 and later? Is there a limit to how many Full HD 1920x1080 displays are supported on the 15" Macbook Pro 2016 and later? If a single USB-C port can currently give you up to 2 video outputs either through a TB3 hub or through a USB-C to dual displayport adapter (daisy-chaining currently not supported) would it be possible to connect 8 Full HD 1920x1080 displays? Or is there a limit to 4 displays in general? The Macbook Pro runs with an AMD Radeon processors most of which have the Eyefinite Technology which gives you up to 6 displays. Does that also work with Macbook Pro 15" 2016 and later?

The technical specifications page on Apple's website provides this information.  For the 2016 MacBook Pro:

Video Support

  Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display
  at millions of colors and:

  Up to two displays with 5120-by-2880 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colors
  Up to four displays with 4096-by-2304 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colors

  The Macbook Pro runs with an AMD Radeon processors most of which have
  the Eyefinite Technology which gives you up to 6 displays.

Just because a chip is capable of doing something, doesn't mean it was enabled by Apple.  Case in point - daisy chaining.  The DisplayPort spec 1.2 calls for daisy chaining monitors, but as you have found out, it isn't supported.

As for later Macs, you would need to check the specifications for each one individually


Why can't I add events to my calendar? After upgrading to iOS 7, the + (plus) sign on my calendar is grayed out.  I cannot add new appointments. I even tried using Siri to add an appointment and the response is "Sorry, I'm afraid I can't do that."

I had to turn on calendars and set the password in iCloud (settings/icloud/turn on calendars).  Make sure to reset your phone by holding down the power button and the select button at the same time until your phone turns off and the apple icon appears, then release.  Give it a second and it will reset.  It should work after that :)


How to correctly uninstall an App Store application Recently I installed Pages which I purchased with version of iWork '09.
Unfortunately this operation downloaded and installed version Pages 5.5.3 which is not exactly an upgrade of Pages '09.
Hopefully, the old version is still there (/Applications/iWork '09/Pages.app), but I suspect that the 2 of them are using the same sets of application dependant files for templates, styles...

Pages '09 and Pages 5.5.3 are different products, and the last one would have been more appropriately named Pages Light or Little Pages.
Every time I open a Pages file (with Pages 5.3.3) I get warnings about incompatibilities and unsupported functions and I am threaten to save my work with these missing pieces (ex.: bookmarks) without any chance to check the real difference on a large document. For me this is a file corruption.

Hence I would like to uninstall cleanly Pages 5.5.3 to avoid any internal misbehaviour and file corruption.

(Pages 5.5.3 is an example which is an annoying one, disturbing my work. But I have the same problem with applications I installed to check their real functions. Then I discovered these to not correctly answer my needs. I would like to be able to cleanly and safely uninstall these useless applications.)

After scanning all menu entries (with the ⌥ key pressed too) and the internal help, I discovered that I can't find an easy way to uninstall an application installed within App Store.

Clearly this function isn't within App Store.

What is the correct and safe method to uninstall an App Store application, with a resonable control this won't damage any related application?

You can see exactly what was installed by the appstore with this command:

lsbom /private/var/db/receipts/com.apple.pkg.Pages5.bom

lsbom /private/var/db/receipts/com.apple.pkg.Pages5.bom | grep -v '/Applications/Pages.app' will show you all the files which are not in the /Applications/Pages.app folder (which is actually nothing).

Beware that each new update via the appstore will overwrite this bom file, and not create a version-specific one.  The bom should reflect the current installed files.

Assuming you installed iWork09 from the DVD, then the files in /Applications/iWork '09/ as well as the support files in /Library should not have been affected.


Why does my Terminal command line screw up like this? (bash's fault?) When I use the command line history ( CtrlR , CtrlP )

The command line screws up like this:

The cursor is supposedly located at the end of the line ( just pressed CtrlE )

If I press enter, just source ~/.bash_profile is executed, the rest is just rubbish on the screen.
Although it works as it should, I'd like the terminal to not  be visually broken.

edit:
This is my PS1:
PS1="\033[0;31m[mac] \033[0;37m\w\033[1;36m> \033[1;0m"

It's most likely an issue with what you've set your PS1 to in your .bashrc or .bash_profile.  Specifically, I'd expect it's related to incorrect escape sequences.

Here is a link with more information.  It's hard to tell exactly without seeing what your PS1 is set to.


Can I suggest features to Apple? Is there a place on the Apple website where I can suggest features for OSX/iOS to Apple?

For example, I want to suggest that you can drag Launchpad folders to your Dock.

Apple maintains a Product Feedback area on their website for reporting feature requests and bugs from the general public. Here is the OS X feedback page.


Cannot enroll in Apple Developer program I have been meaning to finish my developer account and sign up for the iOS program, and since WWDC2015 just happened, I thought no better time than now.

Unfortunately, when I go to enroll, I am told

  "Sorry, you can’t enroll at this time."

I figured this might have to do with me being under 18, however, I have set up a corporation so I can bypass this roadblock. Furthermore, when I started to sign up previously, I had no issues up until this point.

Is this a side-effect of WWDC? What can I do?

I imagine that during WWDC the demand for dev accounts is higher than usual, and also that most of the people at Apple who would normally look into any problems with the developer program are likely to be at WWDC themselves.

Try again next week?


iPhone 5s. If you are connected to wifi at home and the wifi temporarily loses signal does the iPhone automatically switch back to cellular network? I want to know if you are connected to your home wifi, and that wifi temporarily loses signal for a few hours, does the iPhone automatically start using your cellular network?

I had an issue with my Find Friends App not showing my location for a while, even though I never shut it off.  I am just wondering if this could be the cause.

This has changed since iOS 9 with Wi-Fi Assist

  With Wi-Fi Assist, you can stay connected to the Internet even if you have a poor Wi-Fi connection. For example, if you're using Safari with a poor Wi-Fi connection and a webpage doesn't load, Wi-Fi Assist will activate and automatically switch to cellular so that the webpage continues to load. You can use Wi-Fi Assist with most apps like Safari, Apple Music, Mail, Maps, and more.

Prior to iOS 9…
No, unfortunately not.

If the WiFi signal itself is still 'live' the iPhone doesn't check to see if it's actually connected to the outside world, unfortunately. It will just spin its wheels waiting for data that never arrives.

You need to switch it over manually.


Can I use OS X Notes app from 10.9+ on 10.8 I recently read a question which explained that the ability to search Notes was introduced in OSX 10.9 and above.  Earlier versions will show you which note a search query exists in but will not search the note itself.

My question is:

Can I use a newer version of notes from 10.9 or 10.10 on OS X 10.8?  I'd like this extended functionality but do not want to upgrade my entire OS just for this one feature.

No, it is not possible to use versions of applications designed for (or included with) a later version of OS X on a prior version.


Mac OS X: I accidentally clicked on the cross in the Installed tab in the app store application. Now my Pages doesn't work anymore I did this with pages because I thought that it would uninstalled it (I'm brand new to mac os). It didn't uninstalled it, but it did remove it from the list of installed applications.

Now when I visit the Pages page in the app store, it shows that I must purchase it again. What did I do? How can I get Pages back? I bought it already and all I want to do is fix the installation. It doesn't work at all at the moment.

So the cross in the list of installed applications actually just hides the app but does not uninstall it. When you open the app store go to Account -> Hidden purchases. It will be there.


iPhone dropped from the top on my Desktop I have a desktop that I put on the floor. I put my iPhone on top of the desktop, and accidentally I stumbled on the desktop and the phone dropped to the floor.

When I picked it up the screen was OK, the phone was still functioning as normal. And it appeared as if it never dropped. But what I worried is that it may suffer internal damage that I can't see from the surface.

Is my fear warranted?

The inside of an iPhone is all solid state and can tolerate being dropped. That said, you should thoroughly test the hardware on your phone to see if anything broke. This includes the screen, case, the touchscreen (make sure that touch and multitouch still works everywhere), the headphone jack, all the buttons, the camera and flash, and the dock connector. A bump could have misaligned or disconnected any of the above hardware.


64 bit support with a 32 bit kernel in OS X Snow Leopard I know that many apple laptops such as my Macbook 6,1 run a 32 bit kernel in OS X Snow Leopard. The kernel according to Apple can also run or "support" 64 bit applications. My question is how does the system do that?

A 64 bit OS can run 32 bit apps by default because the OS has emulators that catch all 32 bit calls and translate them into native 64 bit calls.

But how does the 32 bit kernel in OS X do that with 64 bit?

Hardware architecture virtualization? (if so, wouldnt this be slow as the conversion from 32 bit calls and memory addresses to 64 bit is a lot more intensive?)
Hybrid architecture design (i.e the kernel is designed with some 64 bit elements mixed in with the mostly 32 bit design?)

Apple docs and support doesnt seem to have anything specific on this. I am just curious!

Note, some of the info in this answer was cribbed from here:

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was the last OS to support 32 bit CPU architectures, like the Core Solo, and Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo) processors.  Note that it's entirely possible to have a 64bit processors like the Core 2 Duo, and still have a 32bit EFI firmware, so the CPU alone isn't the sole indicator of your systems capabilities in this respect.

This is how you end up the situation of having a 32 bit kernel, that is held back by the EFI, running on a 64 bit CPU, which is capable of running a 64bit application stack so long as it is not dynamically loading any kernel modules etc.  The application isn't wholly tied to the kernel, and is capable is independent running in a different state to the kernel if required.  Same way an app can run 32bit on a 64bit kernel...

To be honest, the number of people with a Core 2 Duo or above but with a 32bit EFI are relatively limited, and you are unlucky if you are one of those people that has, say a Macbook from 2007/8 when this was common.  The 64bit EFI was introduced in a staggered way across the range so it's not simple to pinpoint what date it was common across all formats.

You can check your machine’s EFI  by entering the following command in Terminal:

ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

It will return either “EFI32″ or “EFI64.”

In addition, some perfectly capable machines still only boot into 32bit mode kernels, even when they are capable, although you can force a 64bit kernel by holding down the 6 and 4 keys on boot.

OS News notes that only Macs with a 64-bit EFI are able to boot the 64-bit Snow Leopard kernel and kexts; an artificial limitation imposed by Apple, even though a 32-bit EFI can boot a 64-bit kernel “just fine.”

What’s worse is that even if your MacBook (non-Pro) has a 64-bit EFI, it will only be able to boot the 32-bit version of Snow Leopard because of a limitation that Apple imposes on MacBooks. The biggest roadkill on Route 64 is the original Mac Pro (which was discontinued January 8, 2008) it won’t be able to boot the 64-bit kernel and drivers either.enter link description here


How do I use piano pedals in Garageband? I created a new piano project in Garageband. When I click the on-screen keyboard, it plays notes. On a normal piano, one of the pedals causes notes to continue playing even after they are released (I believe they eventually begin to slowly fade away). How can I get this same effect in Garageband?

The ⇥ Tab key functions as the sustain pedal in the on-screen keyboard, if you switch to the Musical Typing mode:

If you must use the Keyboard mode, you can insert pedaling after the fact in the Score editor:


Is there an application for Windows7 (in bootcamp) to adjust the level of brightness of screen of iMac? I want to darken the screen of my iMac because it is too bright for me. I use an application called shades, but it doesn't work in bootcamp.

I found the software for Windows Vista called VistaShades (link). Is there a similar application for Windows7?

You do not need any software to do this. The Boot Camp drivers from Apple supports changing the brightness of the screen (using the keyboard modifier keys).

The drivers are already included in your Mac OS X DVD for installing Boot Camp Utilities. Otherwise, you can download the installation files using Boot Camp Assistant at /Applications/Utilities.

See here for more details.


iPhone 4 Battery Problem I am having a problem with the battery in my Mom's old iPhone 4.

She recently had to replace her phone because it was showing this screen:

That isn't her phone, but that is what it was showing. When we unplugged it, the phone completely died so we left it to charge for a while.

It then showed the connect to iTunes screen:

(Also not her phone)

I went to unplug it and plug it into my computer, but it instantly turned off. I plugged it into the computer and when it started, it showed the same screen. iTunes found it and said that I needed to update or restore the phone. I tried, but I got error 21 (some online researched said that this meant the OS couldn't boot because it had a bad battery). I ordered a new battery online and attempted to replace the battery myself. I had no problem and when I was done and plugged it in to the computer, it showed the same screen. I should also mention that there was never (from the start!) a screen that indicated that the battery was dead.

At this point I was pretty upset because my mom had years and years of photos that were never backed up.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

EDIT: My questions are A) Why would the iPhone allegedly not detect the battery B) are there any fixes that would not require me to take the device in (not on warranty anymore) and C) If it isn't the battery (because I have replaced it), what could be causing this?

That's not a battery problem unless it powers off while you are trying to connect it to a computer / powered USB hub to try and pack up the photos.

Taking it to Apple for service won't get the data back as they erase the device if it gets swapped. If the battery indicator is not showing, it could be a bad battery (even some new parts are DOA), the connectors failing or the control circuitry on the main board is faulty.

Worst case, get a quote from a data recovery service and understand if they charge if they cannot get back what you want. Be careful - some say if any data is recovered - be sure to specify you only want photos if that's what you're considering paying for.

If you have a Mac - check out PhoneView to restore the photos. There are lots of other apps, you can search them here for specifics but you might have passed the window where you can get the photos back.


Two different USB 3 HDD docks - disk partitioned on one not usable on the other I have two different 3TB SATA hard disks:

a Toshiba DT01ACA300
a Seagate ST3000DM001.

I also have access to two different USB 3 HDD docks:

a Connectland DOCK-CNL-YJK3519-V3+ES
a Focus SATA + IDE dock (exact model name unknown)

It turns out that if I partition a disk on the Connectland dock as GPT with one HFS+ volume, the disk would become unusable when I plug it onto the Focus dock; OS X Yosemite would complain that the disk cannot be read and suggest that I initialize it.

Same thing the other way around: if I partition a disk on the Focus dock, the disk would be unusable on the Connectland dock, and OS X Yosemite would complain that the disk cannot be read and suggest that I initialize it.

This happens to both Seagate and Toshiba disks.

In both cases, the disk would be recognized as a 3TB disk. I can also use the full capacity of the disk, provided that I put the disk on the dock where it was partitioned and formatted - i.e. if I partitioned and formatted a disk on the Connectland dock, I would have to keep using it on the Connectland dock.

What's going on? How is this even possible? How am I even supposed to shop for a new dock reliably if my dock dies?

The problem will lie with the dock disk-controllers and the method they use when translating the hard disk layout. I recently serviced an HP NX7400 laptop and the BIOS has two different modes for dealing hard disk translation - LBA Assist and Bit-shift.

Both work, but if a drive is formatted using one method it will not be recognised if the other option is then selected after partitioning and formatting.

The acid test would be to format both disks, one on each dock, and then hook the drives up directly to a Mac. I suspect one of the drives will be recognised and accessible but the other will pop a "Disk Unreadable" message and prompt to be initialized.


Mail on macOS Catalina: Disable "Load remote content in messages" In previous versions of Mail on macOS, there was an entry in Settings that read "Load remote content in messages".

I'd like to disable loading remote content. Is that possible to do in Catalina, either via the GUI or via the command line?

From https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mail/cpmlprefview/13.0/mac/10.15

  Load remote content in messages
  When remote content is retrieved from a server, information about your Mac can be revealed. You can deselect the option for increased security, but some messages may not display correctly.

  Remote content isn’t displayed in messages that Mail marks as junk.

This is found in

  ... the Mail app  on your Mac, choose Mail > Preferences, then click Viewing.


Easy solution to resize, crop and print a passport photo of 35x45mm? What is a simple solution, and preferably free, for cropping and printing a photo to 35x45?

Somethink that would ease the generation of a photo that does match:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/@motor/documents/digitalasset/dg_078280.pdf

Here's a web tool that does it - it's for US passports, but presumably the size guidelines are similar or the same for the UK

http://travel.state.gov/_res/flash/cropper/FIG_cropper.html#


iMessage entries appearing in wrong order When using iMessage my entries are not being shown in the order in which they are sent and received.  For example, instead of getting the following:

Sent 1
    Received 1
Sent 2
    Received 2
Sent 3
    Received 3

I get the following:

Sent 1
Sent 2
Sent 3
    Received 1
    Received 2
    Received 3

How can I make the messages appear in proper "chat" order?

The entries should be displayed in time stamp order.  That fact that your are not just occasionally wrong but seemingly always wrong suggests that you or the receiving end has a problem with their date and time settings.

If one of your phones is out by just a few minutes, I would expect this problem only to crop up if you are replying to each other quite quickly.  If many messages can go by before switching from sender to receiver, then there could be a wider gap.

Check out Settings > General > Date & Time and check if you or the other phone have manually set a date or time that could be different from each other.  If you both use Set Automatically it should prevent these problems. Check your timezone also.


Clicked EFI volume kali installation, mac stuck So, i was following this link -> http://docs.kali.org/installation/kali-linux-dual-boot-on-mac-hardware

And i selected EFI volume instead of kali or macos. It went to a black screen!

I force restarted it, holding the power button for a while, it got turned off. (I knew that because the trackpad stopped responding to touch)

I started it again, nothing happens. No light on the screen, no color, just black.

Tried this 7-8 times, nothing!!

Refind was installed on my Macbook pro, 15 inch, 2016 model

Any ideas?

The first thing you’ll want to do resolve nearly every power related issue on a Mac is to reset the SMC, or System Management Controller. This will dump and reset settings for anything power management related, and is long known to resolve problems with things like fans, heat, sleeping problems, and of course, display issues.

On any modern MacBook Pro or MacBook Air with a built-in battery, which is just a bout all of them nowadays, this is how you do that:

Shut down the Mac and connect it to your MagSafe adapter and a wall outlet as usual

Hold down the Shift+Control+Option+Power button at the same time for a few seconds

Release all keys at the same time, then boot the Mac as usual


How to remove autocomplete items from the TO: field in Mail? PROBLEM:

I have bogus entries in the autocomplete cache for the TO: field in the iPad e-mail application.

QUESTION:

How do I get rid of these entries that do not correspond to real e-mail recipient addresses?

i have the same problem and unfortunately i believe the only current solution is doing a restore of the phone.  once the phone reconnects to itunes, select set up as new phone and resync your apps and other content over.  you will also have to reconfigure all your settings including mail.


Is it possible to search for text in iBooks or the Kindle app? Is it possible to search for text in iBooks or the Kindle app?  I'm deciding whether to buy electronic copies of some of my reference books, but I would only be purchasing them for the ability to search through the books for specific terms and words.

Yes, in both the iBooks and Kindle apps, you can search the full text (excluding text in images) of the book you are currently reading.  Here's how to do that in each app:

iBooks app

While reading a book, tap the screen.  A magnifying glass icon becomes visible in the top right, along with other controls.  Clicking the magnifying glass icon brings up a search box.  After entering your search term in the box, iBooks presents a list of results from the current book, underneath the search box.

Kindle app

Similarly, while reading a book, tap the screen. At the bottom a magnifying glass icon will become visible.  It works much like the iBooks search feature.

What about searching across all books?

If you wanted to know whether you can enter a search term at the top-level of these apps and have them search across all books stored in the app:  No, currently neither iBooks nor the Kindle app have such a feature.

However, I have seen this capability on the Kindle device itself – I own a Kindle keyboard model and there is a "search my items" option available that will search all books on the device for a given term.


Operations: how to filter text messages on iPhone Question for operations people. I work at a place that believes in configuring Nagios to send SMS alerts on all priorities of issues - even non-urgent ones that I don't need to wake me up in the middle of the night.

Is there a way on my iPhone to filter these texts based on words in the body or subject? I've got an iPhone 3GS, I think it's running iOS 4.x something but I can upgrade to iOS 5 if needed.

You could send the SMSes through an online service like Google Voice that might be able to do content filtering (or at least would forward certain ones to email to filter).


Apple Macbook Mid 2010 Ram Upgrade & Equipment & Windows Compatibility Now I have 2 gb (1gb x2) as standard I want to upgrade it. "Hi-Level 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 Notebook Ram (HLV-SOPC8500D3/4G)" is it okay to be upgraded? and after I replaced that one with one of my standard ram should I dislocate the other one? I mean can I use 5 gb ram (4+1) ?

And my second question is about removing process. Which equipments I'll need? If it is not obligatory I don't want to buy as a kit. Could anybody name these equipments I need?

Finally, will 16 gb or 8 gb RAM work for windows (dual-boot) properly? (LAST QUESTION DID NOT ANSWERED YET)

Your Macbook 2010 will be fine if you buy 2x8gb of 1066mHz DDR3. You will dual boot without issues. Correct ram speed is important, see my answer to a similar question here about possible issues with faster ram.

You will need Philips #00 screw to upgrade your memory. There is also a great guide at iFixit.


How to buy an iPhone 6s and use it in China? I'd like to buy a new model iPhone 6s 16 GB ("Rose Gold" color) and use it in China.

when purchasing it in Apple Store, what options should I choose so the phone will bear no service contract which is useless for me?
How to make sure it is "unlocked" so it can be used with a local service company in China?  What sort of SIM card does this iPhone require for it to be compatible?
Could the interface language be set to Chinese language?

I'd like to buy a new model iPhone 6s 16 GB ("Rose Gold" color) and use it in China.

First off, the iPhone 6S is a great choice. It's the gold-standard of all phones, but whatever you do, DON'T buy the 16 GB model. This isn't an iPhone 3GS or a cheap Android phone, it's a brand new iPhone 6S and it shoots 4K videos. Formatted, with iOS on it, you should have less than 12 GB to work with. Put 2 HD movies on it, and your just about out of storage. Get at least the 64 GB model, it's way worth the $100, IMO, plus when you go to sell it for an upgrade in a few years, you'll get back most of that $100, anyway. Me? I've already bought a 128 GB iPhone 6S on Verizon.

  When purchasing it in Apple Store, what options should I choose so the phone will bear no service contract which is useless for me?

Not a lot, other than get the iPhone on T-Mobile, which should be available to buy outright ($750 for 64 GB model) and will come SIM-free and without a contact, just make sure that it will work on whatever carrier you wish to put it on in China.

  How to make sure it is "unlocked" so it can be used with a local service company in China? What sort of SIM card does this iPhone require for it to be compatible?

Apple doesn't sell unlocked iPhone 6Ss, yet. I asked an Apple rep about this and they said maybe in a few months, but there is the very small chance that your carrier doesn't require the iPhone to be unlocked, like Straight Talk, but probably not in China.

  Could the interface language be set to Chinese language?

Yes. China and the US are Apple's biggest customers.


How to find the iTunes Store link of an installed App? I have one of the numerous flashlight apps that I wanted to recommend to a friend.

What is the easiest way to retrieve the iTunes Store link from my already installed iOS App ?

The info window was helpful as I could find the App by searching for the name of the developer.

And apparently the ID can also be found in the iTunesMetadata.plist inside the .ipa file.

For this App its: http://itunes.apple.com/app/id384021568

Is there an easier, more straight-forward way to retrieve the iTunes Store link ?

Google your app by name. The iTunes preview page should be pretty close to the top of the list. You can send that link to your friend.


Will turning off Photo Stream make my Camera Roll not back up to iCloud? If I turn my Photo Stream off does my Camera Roll still get backed up in iCloud? Me and my boyfriend share iTunes accounts. His friends send pictures back and forth and they show in Photo Stream. I want to turn it off but I want to ensure my Camera Roll is still backed up to iCloud.

Turning off Photo Stream has no impact on iCloud Backup. The contents of your Camera Roll will remain in iCloud and will continue to be backed up providing you do not disable either Camera Roll backup or iCloud Backup.


How I do permanently authorize an app on my mac? I use Clean My Mac to periodically clean out old log files and caches. Right before the clean, it asks me permission and I have to enter my password to authenticate. Is there any way I can authorize the app once and skip this step every time?

No, it's asking for authentication not because the app needs it but because it's altering system files and OS X will always need authentication for this.


Keyboard Layout after startup reverts to "ABC - Extended" when using FileVault I am an ordinary QWERTZ keyboard user. Now, when I setup my mac, I neglected the Keyboard Layout setting (I thought it would default to the usual). But, the layout was set to ABC - Extended.

I can change it back to QWERTZ, but every time I restart my mac it reverts back to the ABC setting.

My keyboard does not look like this (But part of me does wish it did).

How can I permanently change the setting of the keyboard layout at the login screen?

After updating to macOS Mojave I still have this problem, so the setting must have slipped back in through my TimeMachine backup.

The screen in macOS Mojave. There are some weird UI issues with Dvorak - QUERTY ⌘.

This are my Language and Region settings:

And my user settings:

The problem persisted after I have updated to macOS Catalina.

These are my keyboard settings:

Update:

I could shed some light onto this issue. The ctrl.blog, which was mentioned in the comments mentions that FileVault might plays a role in this. So these are the steps I did follow:

Reboot
"ABC - Extended" is chosen as the language at the login dialog
Choose German and sign in
Reboot
"ABC - Extended" is chosen as the language at the login dialog
Change the language and sign in
Disable FileVault and wait for it's completion
Reboot
The Loginscreen looks a bit different now, I'm able to scroll with the mouse wheel and I'm able to choose "Remove current from list" in the language menu.
Sign in and Reboot
FINALLY: The language is now still set to German.
Enable FileVault again (hoping that the currently set language will be used as the new Default).
Wait until FileVault is activated (another few hours)
Reboot
There we go again: ABC is again set as the default

I did submit this Feedback to Apple as of November 13 2019.

I wrote an article called How to fix macOS startup keyboard layout not persisting about this very problem.

I never figured out exactly what the problem was, but the ABC Extended keyboard layout is the default fallback when no other keyboard layout is configured. The pre-boot environment stores its settings separately from the rest of the system.

Sometimes these settings go out of sync, or the system fails to save settings to the pre-boot environment. You’re more likely to run into this when using FileVault disk-encryption because of the increased complexity in this setup.

I lay out 11 steps in the above article that gets macOS to regenerate the settings file in the pre-boot environment. With the help of my readers, I’ve identified at least three different problems that these steps can resolve. It’s easier to just diligently follow all the steps exactly than to first try to identify the exact issue and then try to fix it.


restore from time machine without a mac I want to restore a couple files from a time machine chronicle of backups, but I don't have the mac to restore them to.

How do I search for files within just using the folder structure

You will need an OS that can read the HFS+ filesystem. If you are running Windows, give MacDrive a try. You will have a trial period which will be plenty of time to allow you to at least pull the contents of the drive.

Once you access the Time Machine partition, look for the following directory: Backups.backupdb. In there, you will see a folder named after the machine you used to create the backups (e.g., cqm's Mac). Navigating into it will show a list of all the backups, each folder having a unique time stamp. Going into those folders will provide you with the general structure of your Mac (folders like Applications, Library, etc.). You'll want to go into Users and then your username. From there, just browse the contents and pull the files you are in need of.

Time Machine works by hard linking the files (saves space), but the general structure is identical to that of OS X. So finding things shouldn't be an issue.

Hard linking is a neat feature often overlooked. Unlike symlinks, which create a pointer at the OS level to the original file, hard linking actually creates a pointer at the file system level, so for all intents and purposes, they are treated as one file. Let me explain.

When a file is written to the disk, a pointer to that information is also made. When you, for example, delete something, typically the system just removes the pointer. But the data still remains on the disk. This is how recovery software works. It scans for the data and restores that pointer.

Hard linking, creates another pointer to the original data. If you remove one hard link, the other will function without problems (unlike symlinks, which are destroyed when the original file pointer is removed, resulting in a broken link). Finder won't differentiate between a real file and it's respective hard link, but you can see what files are hard linked using the ls command:

-rw-r--r--  2 cksum  staff  24806 Dec 27 12:02 icon.png
-rw-r--r--  2 cksum  staff  24806 Dec 27 12:02 icon2.png

As you can see from the above example, the "2" before the username (cksum) denotes that they are hard linked. If you created another hard link (e.g., icon3.png), that number would change to 3. Run an ls on any folder and you'll see that all the files will typically have a 1 before them. This means they are not hard linked.

As I said above, Time Machine uses hard links to cut down on the space it requires. And you can do the same. Rather than copying files or working with symlinks, it's possible to hard link content all over, and have your computer treat them as unique content. The beauty of this method is it will not inflate the data stored on your hard drive, since no new data is being written, just a new pointer.


What is AppleMobileDevice - System user - in Task manager? In Windows Task Manager - what is AppleMobileDevice, system user? It is running 55% or more and makes the cpu usage at 55-100%

AppleMobileDevice is a service that gets installed along with iTunes on Windows.  You need this if you're going to use any Apple devices with your iTunes software.  One example is managing your iPhone, iPad, or iPod.  It also allows for the use of tethering internet from your iPhone/iPad to your PC if your device/provider allows it and the personal hotspot feature has been turned on.

As for why it's taking up so much CPU, that sounds like it could be a problem, for which the answer provided by bneely may have a solution.  If you don't have any Apple devices connected, you could just kill that process and it won't affect anything else.  In order to use your Apple devices normally later on, you would need to re-launch that service somehow, or restart the PC.


iOS iCalendar (ICS) Integration I am using an ICS-based solution for Mozilla Lightning, using FTP to access and modify an ICS file.

How can this be integrated into the iPad?

My URLs are of the form: ftp://username:password@domain.com/calendar.ics

I am open to alternative solutions such as automatic conversion to webCal or something similar. Please note that I need the calendars to be continuously synchronized.

A .ics file is effectively a read-only solution. An iOS device can import a calendar that way ("Subscribing" in Apple's terminology) if it's hosted via HTTP, but it's a static file from the device's point of view. It only gets updated if the file at that URL gets updated, and the iPad can't add/edit/delete items. It's the digital equivalent of the flyer with your garbage collection schedule on it - you can read it, but you can't change it.

To get what you seem to want - a central calendar that one or more clients can access and update, you'll need some sort of calendar server software to keep everything in sync. CalDAV is an open standard that's well supported by the built in iOS calendar and most apps on other platforms.

I don't know what server software is good, but there are several options to choose from. One alternative to running your own server is signing up for iCloud on your iPad and accessing the CalDAV server behind it from your other calendar clients (Lighting, etc.). It looks like this can be done without too much trouble, but I haven't tested it - I found a blog post with instructions here.


How could macOS be POSIX compliant without vi? As macOS is POSIX compliant and Unix certified, why does vi redirects to vim?
As I understand, vim is not POSIX compliant.
So how did Apple obtained a Unix certification without having vi installed on their OS?

It's actually optional.

Per the The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 edition
 in the  Shells & Utilities Volume, the vi command states:

  This utility shall be provided on systems that both support the User Portability Utilities option and define the POSIX2_CHAR_TERM symbol. On other systems it is optional.

That particular specification is a component of the Unix 03 product standard which is what macOS Catalina is certified for.


Transfer calls, two iPhone 4, both phones ringing I have two iPhone 4 and I'd like to transfer calls from one to the other. Moveover I'd like to ring on both phones. Is this possible? I know how to transfer calls, but only one phone rings.

Thank you for your help.

The First point is,your carier is providing you the facility  your asking,
if yes then you will get it in the call diversion option.


Macbook restarts repeatedly while sleeping Last night, my macbook (10.13.4) was sleeping while low on power. I got on it this morning and the battery was dead. After charging, I noticed that if I close the lid to put the computer to sleep, it will restart over and over again. The same thing happens while I tell the computer to sleep via the menu or terminal with pmset. The restart cycle continues -- the computer will reboot to the login screen, eventually go to sleep, and then reboot about 30 seconds after starting to sleep. There are no visible error messages, but chrome will complain of an improper shutdown if it was open during the last session before sleep.

disk utility says nothing is wrong, I've seen similar issues that suggested removing the sleep image and reseting the pram and smc. The issue persists in safe boot.

If i look at the logs (log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"' --last 24h), when the restart cycle continues I will see entries like:

2018-07-06 11:08:41.767136-0400 0xb1       Default     0x0                  0      0    kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128

Cause -128 looks to be a possible memory or hardware issue from what I can tell. But the apple hardware test does not show any issues. And these are my pmset settings:

~ % pmset -g
System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
 standbydelay         10800
 standby              0
 halfdim              1
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 powernap             0
 gpuswitch            2
 disksleep            10
 sleep                1 (sleep prevented by AddressBookSourceSync)
 autopoweroffdelay    28800
 hibernatemode        0
 autopoweroff         0
 ttyskeepawake        1
 displaysleep         2
 acwake               0
 lidwake              1

if the issue persist in safe mode,  it means that is either an issue in the whole software or even a problem in the logic board.

to isolate the issue try the next steps:

Create a new user and set the computer to sleep, if issue is not reproduced you can migrate the data from one user to another.

if issue is reproduced and you have a time machine backup to date where everything is fine restore the backup to isolate the problem, if you do not have the backup , try removing the next file :  macintoshHD/library/preferences/powermanagement.plist and perform a PRAM

if you still have the problem, backup your files and erase and install

if you still have the problem, you will have to take it to service. if it is hardware it is normally the logic board the problem.

good luck


Unable to account for 23.6 GB of disk space I have a 13-inch MacBook Air, and have been using it for about a year now. There are 23.6 GB of memory that appear to be missing from my hard drive. About This Mac -> Storage shows 91GB of files, of which 61GB are "Other":

The command df -h agrees, showing 91GB used (command output shown below):

    Homes-MacBook-Air:~ BrandonWork$ df -h
Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity  iused   ifree %iused      Mounted on
/dev/disk1     112Gi   91Gi   21Gi    82% 23864730 5456996   81%   /
devfs          188Ki  188Ki    0Bi   100%      651       0  100%   /dev
map -hosts       0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%        0       0  100%   /net
map auto_home    0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%        0       0  100%   /home
/dev/disk0s3   620Mi  548Mi   72Mi    89%   140256   18434   88%       /Volumes/Recovery HD
/dev/disk3s2    16Mi  9.8Mi  6.2Mi    62%     2503    1581   61%       /Volumes/Disk Inventory X

However, here the problem arises, as when I examine the disk, only 67.4GB are actually used:

I have six user accounts on this laptop due to my family borrowing it repeatedly, and have run Disk Inventory X on all of them, as I was told that other users' files could account for it, as they are not visible to non-admins. None of them had more than 2GB of files. I have also used OmniDisk Sweeper, with similar results. I have seen all of the following possible problems and solutions, to no avail:

Swap files (they are seen by Disk Inventory X)
Temporary caches (restart your computer; didn't help)
False volumes in /volumes (checked; don't have anything weird there)
Viruses (multiple scans with different programs turn up nothing)

On a previous computer, I had a similar problem with eaten memory; turned out to be WinRAR generating huge .txt files, and these could be found with Disk Inventory X.

Both About this Mac and df seem to agree that you have 91GiB used, 21GiB free on /, which adds up to the volume of your 112GiB (120GB) hard drive.

The problem must be with the list of files Disk Inventory X scans.

Run du -s as a superuser starting from / and then going deeper into the filesystem to get a more accurate picture of your disk space usage.

Keep in mind:
About this Mac and Finder display space in GB (base 10, 1GB = 1000MB)
df -h and du -h show results in GiB (base 2, 1GiB = 1024MiB)
df -H and du -H show results in GB
Many GUI tools display file size in GiB while labeling it as GB


Downloading old macOS from a newer Mac to install on an external hard drive I have an older MacBook Pro that had some HDD issues.  Now the Mac doesn't have a working OS and I need to install MacOS.  The newest version that it can use is Mac OS Mountain Lion.  So I borrowed a friends new MacBook, logged into the Mac App Store with my Apple ID, and the bought it.

But now I can't download it because when I click download, it says this version of MacOS is not compatiable with the newer MacBook.

Which is fine, but I'm not trying to install it on the new Mac, I just want to copy the install over to an external hard drive so that I can then use it to install macOS on the older mac.

Any ideas?

What model (and year) is the older mac?

Hold down cmd-opt-r on restart on your new Mac. This will boot into MacOS Internet Recovery where you will be able to install the OS that shipped on the new Mac (if its compatible - thats why I need the model and year). From there you may be able to install or upgrade your MacOS version.


How to lock the keyboard in Mac OS X, but not the screen? I want to prevent users from typing anything on the keyboard, but still show the screen (so usual locking will not help). Unplugging the keyboard is not the answer I'm looking for, what other options do I have?

KeyboardCleanTool is a tool which 'locks' the keyboard. It can be enabled or disabled with the mouse.


Delay in keyboard responsiveness after wake with Mountain Lion? After upgrading to Mountain Lion, now when I open the lid to my 2010 13" MacBook Air, there is a 3-5 second delay between when the screen powers on and when the keyboard will respond to key presses in the login dialog box.

This did not happen for me under Lion.

Is this a known bug?

While I believe Macbooks Air did this before Mountain Lion, you seem to be experiencing a resume from standby. All Mac laptops, by default, write the contents of memory to disk when they sleep, but leave the power to the RAM on for a quick resume. Writing the contents of memory to the disk occurs so that you won't lose data if the system loses power.

However, on Macbooks Air and Retina Macbooks Pro, which have built-in Flash memory (which Apple distinguishes from 2.5" SSDs on Macbooks Pro), in order to advertise a 30-day standby time, after an hour the system removes power from the RAM. So, if you leave it asleep for more than an hour, you'll actually be resuming from the disk. It's a lot faster than on a device without an SSD, but it's still a noticeable delay. Apple calls this "standby", and while it's resuming you basically see a still image of the login screen that you can't interact with.

You can disable standby with this unsupported command: sudo pmset -a standby 0. This will cause your battery to drain much more when you leave the system asleep, but it'll make it resume much more quickly.

Apple's documentation on standby mode is here.


How can I shuffle my songs in IOS 8.4? Just now, I upgraded to IOS level 8.4. Not sure if I'm missing something, but I can't seem to figure out how you shuffle songs. I don't see an icon that says shuffle?

Any ideas? Thanks

Select Songs from the list you want to shuffle.

Select any song in that list to start playback.

Enable shuffle mode, disable repeat. (click the mini player at the bottom of the screen and you will see the option to shuffle)


Disable iCloud Photo Library on Mac I have been using iCloud Photo Library on my Mac for several months but I'm wanting to quit using it now.  If I go in and try to turn it off, I get a message that all my photos will be deleted from my Mac but the full resolution originals will still be available in iCloud for 30 days.  I have already downloaded my photos from iCloud into a download folder on my Mac so that I can import them into Photos.

My main concern with disabling is: First off, will all my photos be deleted from my Mac right away?  If all my photos are removed, will that also remove all my albums in Photos?  Or will my photos be removed but when I import the downloaded photos from iCloud, will the Albums reappear?  I do not want to have to go back and recreate all new albums with the pictures I've chosen to put into those albums.

I found the following article about safely disabling the iCloud library, but it doesn't address the warning that I get when I want to turn it off.

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/how-to-disable-icloud-photo-library-reclaim-storage

When you disable iCloud Photo Library, it will not delete any full resolution photos that are already on your computer. The issue is that your entire photo library has not yet been downloaded. You need to disable Optimization to force iCloud Photo Library to download the rest of the library.

What it will delete are thumbnails that have no corresponding image yet. For example, if it hasn't downloaded an image, it will discard the thumbnail (because there is no corresponding image). If you are receiving the message than that means that something hasn't yet had a chance to download. If your library is small enough, the simplest thing to do is simply look at each photo at full resolution, with Optimization of Storage off. This will force each one to download.


Are there any GameBoy Advance emulators for OS X Lion? As a prior Windows user, on the Mac I miss some popular video game console emulators like VisualBoyAdvance or ZSNES. Especially the lack of a good Game Boy Advance emulator is bugging me.

So my question is: Is there a good GBA emulator out for OS X Lion? No PPC apps please.

Here are some references. I don't have any personal experience with them.

Attack of the Mac Emulators: Retro Games on OS X, April 22, 2010

Richard Bannister's BSNES for Mac OS X. A note there indicates that it is not yet compiled for Lion.

Links to Emulators at Pure-Mac.com