How do you create a bootable drive on an external disk? I have a MacPro that i want to keep on Mountain Lion, but I'd like to be able to startup off of the latest MacOS.  Is there a way to create a bootable drive that uses High Sierra?

You can simply connect an external drive, open the macOS installer, and install on the external instead of the internal.

Or in the case of a MacPro, just put additional internal drives in there and install on one of them. It's very easy to do. You can have as many different disks and OS versions as you want. My own Mac Pro has 10.7 on one drive and 10.13 on another.


Quicktime recording: help, I did 1/2 of an interview with my headphones on, interviewee can barely be heard :( I did a horrible newbie mistake.
Recorded about half of a really cool interview with my headphones on, without realising it. I can hear my voice, coffee shop noise, and very very light sounds from the interviewee. Is there a way I could clean the noise to only get the interviewee? So sad.

In short, no.

Assuming the levels were set for your own voice, in close proximity to your mouth, that would make the other voice 1 or 2 meters away & also likely speaking to the back of the mic, which would usually be in its rejection zone. That is going to be impossibly low to successfully recover with any clarity.

The best you could hope for would be to edit out each time the other person speaks to a separate audio track; boost the volume, then see if you can manage to de-noise it... that's the fun part.
Decent de-noiser plugins start at expensive & go up to really, really expensive.
Even so, they cannot work miracles.

Izotope RX is about the best there is.
They do a 'home' bundle for a mere $129- RX Elements
the 'RX Standard' package for an eye-watering $399
or the full-blown 'RX Advanced' package for a "please sit down first & take a deep breath" $1199

No affiliation, merely a satisfied user


Can't create/adjust/delete a partition So I wanted to create a new partition to test the new El Capitan operating system. But I'm unable to create a new partition, the '+' sign is greyed out.

This is what I have currently configured for my drive:

Now I've googled this problem and found similar cases but they all mentioned that it's because the 'Revertible' setting was configured 'No'.

Now in my case this is configured 'Yes (no decryption required)' as shown below:

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 9EDF35D5-3B14-4F68-8A1A-98151AB82671
    =========================================================
    Name:         Mac
    Status:       Online
    Size:         179371204608 B (179.4 GB)
    Free Space:   18882560 B (18.9 MB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 3DB04CA6-AF59-4FF4-9D01-E5D9C5418933
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     179371204608 B (179.4 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family 721050CD-09E2-4002-A065-8C724204B12C
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Encryption Type:         None
        Conversion Status:       NoConversion
        Conversion Direction:    -none-
        Has Encrypted Extents:   No
        Fully Secure:            No
        Passphrase Required:     No
        |
        +-> Logical Volume C51A83AC-321D-4B5F-A5D7-7713F8B36874
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk1
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          179000000512 B (179.0 GB)
            Conversion Progress:   -none-
            Revertible:            Yes (no decryption required)
            LV Name:               Mac
            Volume Name:           Mac
            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

I was able to fix it by getting the UUID for my disk and then run the following command:

corestorage revert UUID

You can get the UUID for your corestorage disk by passing corestorage list and then you will get something like this Logical Volume C51A83AC-321D-4B5F-A5D7-7713F8B36874. The part behind 'Logical Volume' is your UUID.


Is there an alternative iOS to macOS music and photo sync tool? With macOS Catalina iOS sync has moved to Finder and became very unreliable, very slow, and even adding a single song starts a very long loop of syncing:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/df2o4g/ios_sync_is_completely_broken_in_catalina/

Also when you have 20-40 GB photos and videos, you are looking for something better than iCloud Photo library or Photo stream. Like a better UX of deciding what is uploaded to icloud, what is on the mac (where space is possibly limited) and what is on the iPhone, and where it's clear, that "delete" button deletes from which of the three in the end of the day.

But slowness and not showing a progress status is also a huge issue with both Music/Finder sync and Photos app.

Is there a 3rd party project out there, who got these sync tools right between iOS, macOS and icloud? I'd be happy to support them.

It is hard to answer your question, as it has multiple elements to it. You're both asking about syncing between an iOS device and a Mac (over USB or WiFi), and you're asking about syncing between a Mac and iCloud Photos. In addition, the conditions for the answer is really subjective - even though I might think that somebody got sync tools  "just right", you might think that they're not "right" for you.

For syncing between the iOS device and the Mac, I can recommend this third party project:

http://www.libimobiledevice.org

It works perfectly well for syncing. I think it's "just right" for my purposes, where the built-in syncing in macOS isn't enough.

For syncing between the Mac and iCloud Photos, there doesn't exist any 3rd party program that allows you to decide exactly what is uploaded to the Photo Library, and what stays on the Mac (outside of the ordinary controls provided to you by Apple Photos).


I have deleted all photos from my iPhone 4s but phone usage and iTunes still show 16gb of photos I had 25GB of photos on my 4s. I have deleted all of them, some via the photos app, and some via windows explorer.

Unfortunately, phone usage and iTunes is still showing 16GB of photos. I backed up the image and imported it to a new 5s and it is also showing 16GB (458 photos) on the new phone.

iCloud and all the sync settings are off.

When I open the photos app, all the albums are completely empty. I have done countless soft and hard resets but I can't get rid of this phantom 16gb of used photo storage. I've also tried countless suggested fixes from web searches but nothing is working.

What can I do?

The best way to attack this is to make a good backup (perhaps two - one to iTunes and another iCloud) and then restore the device.

When you activate the phone, don't sign in to iCloud at all (or the app store) - just set it up as a new device. From there you can look at storage and then slowly add your Apple Accounts.

When you sign in to iCloud - look at the storage and see if it's downloading photos from the iCloud Drive, the Messages archives, the photo stream, etc...

My suspicion is you have iCloud and the "photos" are from the data that comes down from the server - even without having any photos in the photo app / camera roll.

Once you have a good feel for what item is causing the "photos" to arrive, you can then erase the phone and set it up from your backup if desired. You can also just reinstall the things you want on the device that was "set up as new" if that's easier than restoring a backup and deleting things you don't want.


MacOS High Sierra 10.13 supplemental update not installing Since installing macOS 10.13.1 on a MacBook Pro (2.9GHz Intel Core i5) Adobe InDesign (CS3) has stopped working.  It only half opens. At the point when the software is loading and the running commentary flashes up "starting up panels" the process stops.  Some, but not all of the InDesign software is in place.  But there is no cursor and some of the panels are blank.  Fortunately the menu bar allows me to Quit.

I have tried installing the macOS High Sierra 10.13 supplemental update (supposing to address these problems, but half way through the installation an error page appears saying that the update "... can't be installed on this disc. This volume does not meet the requirements for this update."

Received wisdom seems to be that you need to reinstall the legacy Java v6... which until very recently had become unsupported in macOS.

In October, Apple finally made a version which would install on High Sierra - Download Java for OS X 2017-001

You will possibly need to repeat this process after every System update.

There is an in-depth article on the subject, covering all versions back to CS3 far too long to even start to précis - MacStrategy: Adobe Creative Suite CS and Java RE v6: Information about running Adobe Creative Suite CS on macOS with Adobe's Java Runtime Edition (RE) v6 requirements.

BTW, the supplemental update was to address issues with Adobe CC.
CS has been abandoned for years.


Disabling lots and lots of NFS mounts based on location I have a number of NFS automounts in my Local directory node on 10.7. I am using a laptop and when I work at home I don't have access to the servers. As a result I often get beachballing Navigation Services dialogs for example, and logs are flooded with NFS error messages on this and that server not being reachable.

Is there some simple app (preferably a GUI one but scripting will do as well) which will disable the mounts when I am on WiFi or just not at work?

Try ControlPlane. It can perform all sorts of different actions, including mounting/unmounting network drives based on various triggers, including which WiFi network you're connected to.


Mount USB Drive under One User Let's say we have a Mac configured with three user accounts:

alice
bob
chuck

When Alice logs into her account, she connects a USB drive that contains files she needs to work with. Bob logs in at the same time and realizes he can access her USB drive through Finder. He has full permission to view and edit her files.

How can Alice mount her USB drive in a way that only she has access to it?

Environment

Mac OS X 10.10.5
USB drive (FAT32)

Thanks

If you format the drive as HFS+ (essentially Mac formatted) you can set permissions on it (which any admin user can change of course). If it is anything else (PC formats: FAT, exFAT, etc.) you can't set permissions

Probably the best thing would be to put an encrypted DMG on the thumb drive. Anyone could get to the DMG but only the person with the correct credentials could open it.


No startup / boot chime; how to bring it back? I'm one of the lucky (?) guys who managed to get a new MacBook Pro 2016 (the version that introduced the Touch Bar).

This MBP model does not have a boot chime by default.

There are documented ways to enable it, specifically going to Terminal.app and typing in:

sudo nvram BootAudio=%01

Unfortunately for me, this fix does not work on my own machine. Other people have noticed this as well.  My guess is that it's a firmware fix or enhancement that got rid of BootAudio as an option.

Does anyone know a different option to re-enable the startup chime?

Consider trying this out:

Launch Terminal.app and type the following command:

sudo nvram StartupMute=%00
If prompted enter the admin password.
Quit the Terminal app..
Make sure the volume is up before you restart your Mac.
Restart your Mac.

You should hear a F-sharp chord sound when your Mac boots up.

If you wish to disable it, follow the same steps as above and type the following command instead:

sudo nvram StartupMute=%01

Tested on a 16" 2019 MacBook Pro running macOS Catalina 10.15.3


MacBook-iPhone Sync via USB does not work: "AMPLibraryAgent PrepareToLoadDatabases() failed!" Since I updated my iPhone 7 to iOS 13.4.1 the Sync with my MacBook (Mid2012, macOS 10.15.4) does not work anymore.
When connecting the iPhone and selecting it in the Finder, it first says "Loading", but then it says "There was an error communicating with an utility programm" (German: Die Kommunikation mit einem Hilfsprogramm ist fehlgeschlagen) and below is the loading wheel and it stays that way forever.

When looking into the console, it seems like the program is the following part:

fehler    19:05:32.710148+0200    AMPLibraryAgent    **ERROR**: PrepareToLoadDatabases() failed! status:7011
fehler    19:05:32.710781+0200    AMPDevicesAgent    **ERROR**: getDomainInfo: failed! error:Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=7011
standard    19:05:32.710892+0200    AMPDevicesAgent    amplc> get library domain info complete. status:7011
fehler    19:05:32.710932+0200    AMPDevicesAgent    Assertion failure: err == (7011)
fehler    19:05:32.710963+0200    AMPDevicesAgent    Assertion failure: err == (7011)
fehler    19:05:32.710990+0200    AMPDevicesAgent    Assertion failure: err == (7011)
fehler    19:05:32.711137+0200    AMPDevicesAgent    Assert failure: ("false")
fehler    19:05:32.711313+0200    AMPDevicesAgent    Failed to initialize full service: 7011
standard    19:05:32.712003+0200    AMPDevicesAgent    SCNetworkReachabilityCreateWithName callback: Flags = 2 (net is UP)

When logging into another user on the same computer, the iPhone is recognized and I could hypotheically sync it, but of course, the other user doesnt have my Photos, Music etc... and even if I copy everything I assume the error might persist because there seems like there is one library/database in my user folder which cannot be loaded and causes the error.

It looks like some Database cannot be loaded by the AMPLibraryAgent, but it does not say which one. Does anyone know how to find out which database/library it is in particular?

I found the problem:
I havent had opened the App TV yet and therefore that database was missing and thus AMPLibraryAgent would get this error...


Apple store Rejected app submit - Guideline 4.2.2 - Design - Minimum Functionality Look at : https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/76742
 also others link have same problem no concrete answer.

What is a minimum native functionality ?

Many app's already have very similar view and functionality with own web app.

I prepare to implement push notification , something around camera (new feature) and different UI style .

If this is not enough  i don't know what to do.

If you are new to the App Store, I’d review the summary guidelines. If you’re using a third party tool (react or phone gap or similar) the native requirement likely weeds out thousands of sample project submissions. The 4.2.2 rejections is in the top 10 list for the past week so your app may look too much like a web app and not a native app.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/rejections/

It’s hard to know since the only people that know your specific app are you and the review team. I would pick one native only feature you can get done in two weeks and submit that new build - pointing out the native feature top billing in the app description.  You didn’t mention, but next time I would also submit only for test flight beta and not for final review when you have a new build of your app.


"Whiteboard" and screen recording apps I work as a teacher (I teach math) and in this situation where schools are closed and are offering distance learning I need to record lectures and share them with my students. Since I need to show how to solve exercises I need some app to use as a whiteboard and an app to record the screen.

I have a MacBook Air (2019) and a Wacom by One tablet, and at the moment I'm using Microsoft OneNote for Mac as a whiteboard and Screenshot (QuickTime) for screen capture.
The problem is that this combo is unbearably slow and laggy: it happens that I have to interrupt the recording every couple of minutes because of that, and sometimes the I lose control of the tablet (it start connecting any point I touch with a straight line).

I find the two apps I'm using excellent: OneNote has all I need, and with Screenshot/Quicktime handling the videos is immediate and straightforward, but working in this way is a real pain.

Do you know how can I fix these issues? Or do you have any suggestions for alternative apps?

Update: I also tried ApowerREC for Mac as an alternative to QuickTime, but perhaps it's even worse.

Here's a gif to show just how sluggish it gets after less than 1 min of recording:

Thanks

Keynote on your mac is maybe a good way to make a lesson. You can make slides of your lecture and record your voice lectures with it. You can then record the whole slide show as you go through it. It has a great LaTex equation maker with all the symbols you'll need.

I hope this is what you are looking for.


Using simple copy and paste to get the song list out of the new itunes 11 Before iTunes 11, I was able to simply select my view options for the playlist, highlight my songs, hit copy, and paste them into a blog post.

Now, with iTunes 11, it seems I am unable to do something so simple. I found a workaround for now, printing the playlist as a pdf and copying the contents into a blog post. This is irritating to me, as I need something much quicker and more efficient.

Does anyone know how to get back the simple copy and paste functionality? Or is there a simple way similar to this? I don't want to export to an excel file or export the whole library, I just want the view options I have selected, artist, track, and album, not the entirety of each song's information.

Hmm, don't have this problem.
Is the Edit/Copy entry enabled for you?
Because if I hit copy, and then paste into a text file, for given screenshot I obtain :

  2 of 12   Aquele plano para me esquecer       Adriana Calcanhotto     O micróbio do samba Brasileira  6   60  3:01
  6 Suavemente      Elvis Crespo    5* /
  Top40     Latin   2   100 4:24
  12    La Camisa Negra     Juanes  5*/Top40        Pop     100 3:35
  1 I Need A Dollar     Aloe Blacc  5* /
  Top40     Soul    4   100 4:04

is it what you're trying to achieve?


Any video tutorials for iWork 2013? I don't know if it is correct to call them iWork 2013...but is there any video tutorials for them? I can only find tutorials for iWork 09 on Lynda.com

iWorks is a suite of products

To learn individual product there is collection of them on you-tube.


Fresh install of Eclipse on 10.9.2 cannot access com.apple.eawt package contents I just got a Mac so I am a total newbie (I picked one up because I was unable to successfully do Mac development on my Windows Machine).  The machine I have is at OS 10.9.2 and I installed Eclipse fine.  But when I try to use the Java extensions it says I cannot access the package in the JDK.

This is related to a programming question I have over on stack overflow:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23810403/how-do-i-make-use-of-the-apple-extensions-for-java-using-eclipse/23814735?noredirect=1#comment36639985_23814735

But what I need to know now is how to get the Mac / Java / Eclipse to cooperate.  I have answers for the programming side of it but the answerer is using 10.8 and I am using 10.9 and it looks like we have things setup the same - from what we have compared.

What am I missing?  Is there some other configuration change that needs to be made?  Will this work with 10.9 and Java 1.6?  Like I said I am a total newbie and I know that Apple has made changes regarding their support of Java I just don't know if that is a factor here or not.

This turns out to be an Eclipse configuration issue not an Mac configuration issue.

Under the build path the jvm has access rules that forbid the use of the com.apple package and sub packages. I added an access rule "com/apple/eawt/**" and now Eclipse is happy to compile the code.

Open the project properties and select the access rules for the JRE used for the Java Build Path

Then add an access rule to allow access to the com.apple.eawt package.


Web Inspector (Safari & Chrome): A/B testing changes? Is there any technique for A/B testing CSS changes made to an element in Web Inspector?

That is, evaluating before & after states (loaded vs changed) for a given element.

You can do a sort of this if all your changes live in the same external stylesheet. Once you are done with the CSS tweaking, switch to the Resources panel and find the affected stylesheet resource. It should have a subtree of revisions beneath. The topmost revision is the current one, the deepest one, called "(original)", is the original resource version. Right-click any revision and choose "Revert to this revision" in the popup menu (the original version in your case). The stylesheet will get reverted and the revision with the changes will become the second-topmost one. You can revert to this revision once again to re-apply your CSS changes.


Three finger tap lookup no longer show Wikipedia pages since upgrading to Sierra First, it showed nothing but I had to go to the dictionary and download it but now I can't lookup things that aren't in the dictionary, that would previously result in it showing me a Wikipedia page.

Any way to fix this?

Apple uses Spotlight Suggestions for this functionality since El Capitan: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21573

  If you’re using OS X v10.10.3 or later and Spotlight Suggestions are enabled in Spotlight preferences, you may also see information about related music, movies, or map locations.

But Spotlight Suggestions are disabled for some reason in most countries: http://www.apple.com/macos/feature-availability/#spotlight-suggestions

Check if your country is in the Supported list. If not, you're out of luck at the moment, just as me. I couldn't find any normal workaround, that doesn't involve constant VPN connection. If you're OK with VPN inconvenience, cost and additional latency, you may check this solution: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/3cln0j/how_can_you_enable_spotlight_suggestions_in_mac/

Supported countries at the time of writing:

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
France
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Spain
Switzerland
UK
USA


"Continue" button greyed out when installing .pkg Update: There is no solution.  After I got the .qtz file into /Library/Compositions, it didn't work, and then I found out that third-party visualizers have been disabled as of iTunes 12.6.  It may still work on previous iTunes versions, but I do not know.

On 10.12.6, I am trying to install an iTunes visualizer, but there's no way to progress past this screen.

It is supposed to be installed to /Library/Compositions, so I tried

sudo installer -pkg ~/Downloads/wowlab_oneday_1.0.1/wowlab_oneday_1.0.1.pkg -target /Library/Compositions

The result was:

installer: Error trying to locate volume at /Library/Compositions

The same error occurred regardless of the destination specified.

These are the files Installer wants to install:

When I expand wowlab_oneday_1.0.1.pkg with Unarchiver, it contains a Resources folder, Distribution file, and wowlaboneday.pkg.  This second .pkg can't be extracted with Unarchiver.  When I click Show Package Contents, it contains Bom, PackageInfo, and Payload.

How can I get the .qtz file out and into /Library/Compositions, presuming that's what needs to be done?

From man installer:

SYNOPSIS
 installer ... -package <pathToPackage> -target device

[...]

A device parameter for the target is any one of the following:

 1) Any of the values returned by -dominfo
 2) The device node entry.  Any entry of the form of /dev/disk*.  ex: /dev/disk2
 3) The disk identifier.  Any entry of the form of disk*.  ex: disk1s9
 4) The volume mount point.  Any entry of the form of /Volumes/Mountpoint.  ex: /Volumes/Untitled
 5) The volume UUID.  ex: 376C4046-083E-334F-AF08-62FAFBC4E352

So try sudo installer ... -target / instead.

If this fails there is also the option of using Pacifist to extract the content of the package and install it manually (or do whatever you like to do with it).


Is there a way to create a notification in the Notification Center with a clickable link? I can create a notification in Applescript via

display notification "Notification Text" with title "Title goes here" subtitle "subtitle goes here

However is there a way when I click on the notification it will take me to a url?  I tried setting the notification text to something like "https://apple.stackexchange.com/" however that didn't work.

What you ask isn't possible with bare AppleScript.

There are 2 possibilites I'm aware off :

Using Terminal Notifier : A CLI binary which will allow you to create notifications
Using Notification scripting : A .app which can be called with AppleScript to create notifications.


How to securely delete versions in mac os lion I know, that there is a possibility to delete selected versions in Mac OS Lion.
Is there a way to securely delete versions?

Although I already deleted the versions by now, that I wanted to delete, but what way can I make sure, that any remains of those version is removed? (Technically: not just the inode is removed, but also it's content.)

I can't think of a targeted way to do this, but this should do the trick. Delete the versions that you want to delete using the method outlined in the question you linked to. Then use Disk Utility's "Erase Free Space" option (or diskutil secureErase freespace [level] [device]) to write over the data.


How to extract MS Office for Mac keys from my Mac OS X 10.6.8? I have an old Mac Air 1,1 that has Office for Mac 2011 installed on it. I paid for the software and it installed the version on my machine. I don't have access to my live.microsoft.com account anymore and there's no way for me to get MicroSoft people/support to give me the keys again.

I need a way to extract the keys from my current installation of Office on my mac. For instance, in Windows, the keys used to be loaded in the registry at a certain place, under a certain key. Some programs could fetch them for you. Is there any such way I can do it for a Mac?

I dont know if this one works for all applications, mainly because there is no set standard to store product keys, but Mac Product Key Finder should work for you. Its how I got Photoshop and others off my school mac onto my personal.


How to configure webproxy settings to bypass hosts and networks in the shell? Can I manage this setting in the Terminal?

To configure proxy settings in the shell use the command networksetup.

To get help enter networksetup -help.

To bypass networks, hosts and domains use the command:

sudo networksetup -setproxybypassdomains <networkservice> <domain1> [domain2] [...]

The default items in the list are *.local and 169.254/16.

So if you want to add a domain (abc.com) and a host (17.12.3.5) but keep current items in the list use (example network service: en1 - to get a list of network services enter: networksetup -listallnetworkservices):

sudo networksetup -setproxybypassdomains en1 *.local 169.254/16 abc.com 17.12.3.5

To clear the list use:

sudo networksetup -setproxybypassdomains en1 Empty


If I have an iPod touch (1st gen) can I install apps? I found what I think is a first gen iPod touch (see here).

I had to restore it and it says it cannot update beyond iOS 2.2.1, build version 5H11.

When I browse the App Store, all apps seem to require a minimum of iOS 4.3.

Can I upgrade iOS beyond 2.2.1?
Can I install apps?
Where can I browse for compatible apps?

You can update an ipod touch 1G up to ios 3.1.3.  Finding available apps that work on ios 3.1.3 or earlier can be painstakingly hard using the Apple app store.  An app store app called "VintApps" makes this super easy.

https://www.facebook.com/VintApps313


Is it worth it to upgrade a mid-2007 MacBook (MB061LL/A) to use an SSD? I would sincerely love a new MacBook, but I can't justify spending the prices that are being touted by Apple what with life to pay for and everything.  I upgraded my memory to 2GB a while ago, but am thinking of now upgrading the HD to a SSD seeing as the MacBook is still performing OK, just a bit lagging behind the times.

For the record, my MacBook is the 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (13-inch White) MB061LL/A version.  I have upgraded the HDD 2 or 3 times since this purchase in 2008.  The current RPM is 5400, but I have just found out I was missold as I have never knowingly bought a HDD other than 7200rpm (!).

Crucial recommends their 256GB Crucial M4 2.5-inch SATA 6GB/s SSD. But I know that the SATA controller in my model is only 1.5Gb/s. So is this actually worth the upgrade?

To give some idea on usage, I mainly surf the internet for long periods so no real heavy usage apart from spinning or streaming a film now and again. But I will now be looking to use this as my main music recording computer due to my dedicated PC dying.

Thanks in advance

Yes,
... because there are other advantages besides the faster access times.

SSDs work inaudible
SSDs are shock-resitant
SSDs use less energy but the total impact is very little...
SSDs max out the SATA 1 throughput, which your old HDD will probably not.

Also, you might get a SSD and then use it in your newer Mac which you will buy in a few years. Make sure to get a SSD with a SATA 3 interface - which is backward compatible to SATA 1.
What about TRIM? The current SSDs have very efficient garbage collection which make the need for TRIM dispensable. But as such performances largely differ depending on the hardware manufacturer, make sure to study performance reviews of the SSD which you'll consider.
I've written some more in this post.


Music App forgets what it was doing When resuming music playback after a break (10 minutes, few days, another app playing content) it ignores whatever playlist, album, artist or other refinement was placed on the music list and simply plays at random from the entire library.

Is there a way to set it so that resuming playback will resume in the playlist it was last playing?  If the music app is opened directly, it remembers where it was, so why not when using the play button on the lock screen, or when attaching a Bluetooth device, or plugging it into a speaker?

For example, I was playing Christmas music on a speaker system at home.  I unplugged the iPod 5, went out to my car, automatically paired to the Apple compatible in dash Bluetooth and resumed playback.  It picked up where it left off in the same song it was playing, but showed the number of songs in the entire library (not the playlist) and shuffled to another song in the library after the current song, not in the previously loaded playlist.  I had to unlock the iPod, open the music app, return to the main screen, select playlists, select the desired playlist, select a song and then play.  That's a lot of steps to resume playing a music playlist on a music playing device (especially while driving).

For another example, I was listening to a playlist using the built in speaker of my iPod 5.  I took a phone call, so I swiped up and pressed pause.  While on the phone, I used another app, then set the iPod down.  After the phone call, I pressed the home button and simply pressed play on the lock screen.  Same as above, it resumed the song it was on, but then randomly went off to another song not in the playlist.  Upon unlocking and loading the music app, it wasn't in playlist anymore, but simply shuffling the entire library.

It looks like this is somewhat of a missing feature from all the various music players I can find.  It has been discussed in several other threads over the years (and through many versions of iOS) and no one seems to have a solution:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/23287490#23287490
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4385600?start=0&tstart=0

:(


iTunes 11 Mini Player disappeared off screen I accidentally dragged the iTunes 11 Mini Player off screen (near the OS X menu bar) and it disappeared. Showing all windows on the screen didn't help, the player window is nowhere to be seen. Switching to the main iTunes Window works, but as soon as I switch to the Mini Player again, it's off screen again. How can I get it back?

After a couple of minutes of trying, I got the window back. Since I couldn't find this solution on Google, I'm answering it here for other people if they run into the same issue.

To get the Mini Player window back if it's off screen, use the iTunes View > Show Up Next menu entry. In my case, it moved the Mini Player window to a location right beneath the OS X menu bar and displayed the Up Next list, allowing me to move the Mini Player to a location of my choice.


Is it possible to change the way Terminal displays files' permission? As you can see, they are -rw-r--r-- and so on. I would like to change it to 644 or 755. How could I do to change it? (Please, this is not a question about sudo chown.)

To change the display of file permission to the octal system, you need to modify the ls command. There is a nice tutorial here: http://agileadam.com/2011/02/755-style-permissions-with-ls/

in short: edit the profile for your shell, f.e.

nano ~/.profile

and enter

alias lso="ls -alG | awk '{k=0;for(i=0;i<=8;i++)k+=((substr(\$1,i+2,1)~/[rwx]/)*2^(8-i));if(k)printf(\" %0o \",k);print}'"

reload the config file with

source ~/.profile

and you have the new display type with the command lso


Make lower case for pattern in TextEdit If I select text using a pattern in TextEdit how do I transform that selected text?  I can't get anything in the Transform menu to work when text is selected like this.

I am using a pattern to find and highlight text.

You can't, as the 'selected text' is your search parameter, not your document contents.

You'd need to use Replace & set your desired capitalisation change in there - for which you could copy paste into replace & use the very function you're trying to use in the main text.


AirPlay with just iPhone and Apple TV Can I stream things from an iPhone to an Apple TV with no additional equipment (i.e. no wireless router)? Will they be able to talk to each-other just like that (like Lion Mac Books apparently can for Air Drop), or do I need to also set up a WiFi network?

Assuming latest versions of all devices and software.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3737223?start=0&tstart=0

So basically you don't need an internet connection, but both your iPhone and Apple TV will have to be in the same network.

So to answer you're question, yes, you'll have to setup a WiFi (LAN) network. (or ethernet)


Do I need two partitions on an external drive when backing up using Super Duper! and Crashplan? I have a 1TB external drive which I want to use as a bootable backup of my Mac. I want to use this same disk as a backup destination for Crashplan backups too.
Is it possible to do this without creating two partitions on the external drive?

I would also like to encrypt this disk using disk utility, would this affect the backups?

Crashplan does not create bootable backups.  I'm not aware of the internal folder structure of the Crashplan backup, but the safest way to go is indeed to create an additional partition and perform a Mac OS install to it.  That way you're guaranteed that no folders will be overwritten etc.

If you use the FileVault encryption method (which Disk Utility uses), the disk will have all the same functionality that you would expect from an unencrypted disk once you have authenticated.  Just be sure to do so before your Crashplan backup starts or it won't see the disk.


keyboard preferences ignores modifier key settings I'm using a Windows-type Logitech keyboard with my OS X 10.6.8 iMac. I've always just used the "Modifier Keys" setting in the Keyboard pane of System Preferences to reverse the Option and Command keys in order to get the usual Mac key behavior. Recently, however, it seems that these preferences are being ignored. I created a second account for my wife, and even though I swapped the modifier keys in the prefs dialog, the setting is ignored and Windows-style behavior continues. The same setting worked on my account but were ignored on hers (though they stayed as set, as if they were being honored).

More mysteriously, I undid those settings on my account while mucking around with a different peripheral, and now when I try to go back to swapped command and option keys, the setting is ignored on my account too! It seems that "inherited" pre-10.6.8 settings are honored, but that one can't swap those keys using 10.6.8 and have the system pay any attention.

Is there some duplicate preference file somewhere I should trash? Any other thoughts?

Okay I fixed it. New keyboard (still Windows-style, needing modifier key remapping), uninstalled USB overdrive, moved keyboard from external self-powered USB hub to port in back of second monitor, then back to hub. Modifier key remapping started being obeyed once I'd switched the keyboard to the monitor's USB port, and kept working when I switched back. Go figure!


Time Machine Backups I am doing a clean install of Mojave on my MacBook - it has simply not been possible to upgrade from High Sierra to Mojave automatically.
I understand that it will overwrite all of the HDD contents
I know I can simply copy document files etc and then copy them back into the new system
But, will a Time Machine backup from the original High Sierra be able to reinstall all of my programs?

Thanks for the help. The problem turned out to be both more complicated and simpler than I originally thought.

I had installed a Tar Disk in 2015 and more research showed that quite a few users were having the same problems and error messages as I was.

I followed the instructions here - https://www.tardisk.com/pages/uninstall-sierra - to uninstall the Tar Disk - NOT removing it because I was coming from High Sierra, as the instructions said. It DID NOT solve the problem.

I then went through the whole rigamarole again; shut down my MacBook and physically removed the Tar Disk. I then reopened the Disk Utility and reformatted the internal Mac SSD - installed Mojave from a USB and it seems to have worked.

To answer my PRECISE question - now that Mojave is installed - Time Machine has been able to recover/reinstall all of my files and programs

Thanks again to those of you who responded


What is the wheel user group for? The output of groups after sudo bash lists the following groups:

wheel daemon kmem sys tty operator procview procmod everyone staff certusers localaccounts admin com.apple.sharepoint.group.2 _appstore _lpadmin _lpoperator _developer com.apple.access_screensharing com.apple.access_ssh com.apple.sharepoint.group.1

What is the wheel user group for and why is it called wheel?

Quoting from this superuser answer by Rich Homolka:

  Mac OS X has roots in BSD UNIX, a.k.a. the UNIX that came out of UC
  Berkeley.  They had a group of trusted people
  that could become superuser by using the su command.  So they coded
  their UNIX to only allow people in this specific group to become
  superuser using su.  They chose the groupname 'wheel', supposedly
  reference to other systems that had WHEEL, possibly a reference to
  being a 'big
  wheel'

  It's less important now that you have the GUI authorization popups and
  sudo.  You can use sudo without being in wheel group I believe.


iMac (mid-2010) RAM upgrade issue I recently upgraded an iMac to 16 GB of RAM using 1600 MHz clock speed sticks. It worked fine, but I came to find I was supposed to install 1333 MHz sticks instead. So I tried switching the current modules with the appropriate 1333 MHz memory modules and the computer won't boot up; the iMac would just beep until I unplugged the power.

I've tried various combinations with the 1333 MHz RAM and no luck getting it to boot. Is there a system preference that I have to reset in order for the computer to accept the RAM?

I managed to get the slower RAM to work by resetting the PRAM/NVRAM:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

Works like a charm now.


Strange keyboard shortcuts and menu items I have just noticed that some items in the click-right menu and in the keyboard shortcuts settings are displayed in a different language now (Portuguese). The system default language is English and the OS is 10.6.8.

Why is this happening and how do I fix it?

This kind of localization glitch can often be fixed by going to system preferences/language & text/language and using the Edit button to uncheck the box for the offending language and then restarting.

Reports of this issue are not uncommon in the Apple forums.


iMac Internal Hard Drive Not Visible, Won't Mount; Currently running off External Drive My iMac (27-inch, mid-2010) crashed and refused to reboot. I was able to reboot it from an external drive and attempted to erase and resurrect the internal drive; after several attempts, the drive ceased to be visible to Disk Utility and am afraid it may be physically defective. Is there a way of mounting the disk and confirming its status?

It does sound like your hard drive has failed.

Have you tried booting up and using Apple Hardware Test? To do this hold the D key down while booting up.

If AHT doesn't load, you can also trying running it from the internet by holding down the Option D keys while booting up.

Give this a try and let us know how you go.


iOS 7 update not shown in Software Update When I try to update my iOS 6.1.6 it says it's up to date and it's been like that for five months. However, every App that I want requires a minimum of iOS 7.0.

I have an iPhone 3G.

If it's running iOS 6 it's a 3Gs, not 3G, as the iPhone 3G is not supported by iOS 6. Either way, neither device is supported by iOS 7, so you can't update to iOS 7.


Confusion on Metadata | Named Forks | Extended Attributes | Resource Fork -- HFS+ I think there is some general confusion on the relation between all four of these items scattered throughout the web. I wanted to get this straightened out.

Are named forks the same as extended attributes? If not, what are extended attributes?
Is the resource fork still implemented as a fork or as an extended attribute? If it is implemented some other way, then how?
The metadata stored with a file (creator, date modified...) is there any relation or overlap in terminology between the other three mentioned. An example would be, are extended attributes just extra metadata pairs (key + value) stored on a file.

Any answers that can clarify how all four of these are interrelated, especially regarding the three question would be greatly appreciated, and contribute to settling disputes I see occurring across different resources.

Confusion arises from the fact that the relationship between these concepts is complex and has changed over time. In current systems the difference between a named fork and an extended attribute is largely academic.

For an extended attribute, the actual data is stored in the attribute data record.

For a fork, what's stored is the list of disk allocation blocks that contain the data. A resource fork is still a fork.

Basic file system metadata is stored in dedicated elements of the file system record itself, independent of the attributes and named fork references.


Cannot access Recovery Mode on Mac OS X I am using a model A1278 Mac and I need to reinstall the OS on it, or reset it. I am attempting to open the recovery mode by using the Cmd + R method but that did not work, I then attempted to use the Option method. That too did not work.

I am out of options and very, very inexperienced in the Mac OS, thus any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Unsure on the OS X version I am using.

Thanks

The original A1278 MacBook Pro unibody was shipped with Mac OS X 10.5.5 (Leopard).

From MacTracker

  OVERVIEW

  Introduced    October 2008 Discontinued   June 2009 Model
  Identifier    MacBook5,1 Model Number A1278 EMC   2254 Order
  Number    MB466LL/A (2.0 GHz), MB467LL/A (2.4 GHz) Initial Price  $1,299
  (2.0 GHz) $1,599 (2.4 GHz) Support Status Vintage Case    Precision
  aluminum unibody Weight and Dimensions    4.5 lbs., 0.95" H x 12.78" W x
  8.94" D PROCESSOR

  Processor Intel Core 2 Duo (P7350, P8600) ("Penryn") Processor
  Speed 2.0 or 2.4 GHz Architecture 64-bit Number of Cores  2 Cache 3 MB
  on chip shared L2 cache System Bus    1066 MHz STORAGE AND MEDIA

  Storage   160, 250, or 320 GB (5400-rpm SATA) or 128 or 256 GB (SSD)
  Media Slot-loading 8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) KEYBOARD AND
  TRACKPAD

  Trackpad  Multi-Touch trackpad Keyboard   Full size (78 (U.S.) or 79
  (ISO) keys incl. 12 function, 4 arrow). Illuminated keyboard on 2.4
  GHz

You may find some useful information in this thread.  The MacBook you have was shipped with a DVD that contained the installation and recovery files.  Whether or not you have access to this DVD, you will have to purchase OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard from Apple in order to upgrade to the latest supported OS which is 10.10 Yosemite.

Apple Support:

  Upgrading from OS X Leopard If you’re running Leopard and would like
  to upgrade to OS X Yosemite, first you’ll need to upgrade to OS X Snow
  Leopard. You can purchase OS X Snow Leopard here.

While Yosemite is a free upgrade Snow Leopard still carries a $19.99 USD price tag.  See Apple's Upgrade Support page for details.

Depending on your investment, the price may be worth considering.

See also this answer:

  Can I download Mac OS X for a used MacBook Pro?


My friend installed Bittorrent and got viruses on her mac So my friend wanted to watch "50 shades of grey" (I know) and so I showed her how to install Bittorrent and download a torrent file. 2 days later (today) she messaged me saying that her browser settings have changed, the mackeeper icon is in her dock and that she couldn't even open google drive. I am mostly concerned about the mackeeper icon since I have heard very bad things about it. What is going on?? This didn't happen to me (also on a mac). How do I fix this without any kind of damage?

So the torrent file had extras, and your friend installed them.

Videos are, in general, just data files and thus safe to open. If the download included an installer package, program (perhaps disguised as a video) or script, and you run it, it can do many things.

Ask your friend if she was asked for her password at any point in the process. Videos will never, ever ask for your password. If she said yes, and typed it in, she just allowed the download to install anything it wants. This is a trojan, not a virus, and like the horse the Greeks gave to the Trojans it bypasses almost all of the system security.

Your friend needs to stop using her computer. Right now. From a different computer, she needs to change all of her passwords. Email, online banking, Apple ID, Google Drive, dropbox - anywhere she has ever accessed from that machine. That needs to happen immediately after turning the computer off.

Next, you get to reformat the computer's drive and reinstall everything from the original media. Do NOT use the migration assistant or restore from a backup - it's very easy to install something in the user's library that will persist through a restore process. And copy files one by one, only if you recognize them. Copying folders will also copy hidden files, and we don't want any of those.

Will this take a long time? Yes, it will. It will take less time than dealing with your various online services if someone steals your information a second time because you didn't clear it out correctly.

Never type in your password unless you are expecting to need to.


Does putting an iOS device into single app mode prevent iOS upgrades? If I set an iOS device into single app mode via MDM, will the iOS update dialog still pop up? Is there a chance that the update can be launched while in single app mode?

We block iOS updates via different ways on our iDevices:

Via our Firewall, you can block these URLs on your WiFi network : mesu.apple.com, appldnld.apple.com.
Or you can block WiFi network on your devices via restrictions in a profile pushed by your MDM. So devices will be not able to download iOS updates, but you need to use only 3G/4G.


How to move files to pendrive (NTFS/FAT)? I'm using Macbook (Yosemite) as my main computer right now, I'm downloading a lot of movies and whatnot from the internet on my Mac and I want to move them to my pendrive so I will be able to watch them on my Windows PC / TV.

The problem is I don't know how to move files from OS X so they will be recognized by other systems. I've been testing exFAT but it's not supported by most (all?) TVs. I've been looking for stuff like FREENTFS, but this doesn't work (even breaks) Yosemite.

FAT32 is generally a good choice as just about everything supports it. You may run into a problem with FAT32 though. It's maximum file size is 4GB, which might be an issue with some movie files, and the maximum volume size is 32GB.

If those limitations are acceptable that would be my recommendation.


Is it possible to take simultaneous screenshots of two windows? I want to be able to take a screenshot of two windows at the same time without capturing what's in the background. For instance, instead of taking a picture like this:

I want a picture like this:

Obviously it was quickly Photoshopped, but you get the point.
So is this possible?

You could use Layers - it screenshots the entire screen but saves each object in a separate layer. You then export to PSD or a set of .png (or .tiff) images


Is adding a GPS cradle to the iPod touch worthwhile? I am looking for a GPS that will guide me on hikes and travel from point A to point B without loss of signal in remote areas.  I have found this accessory for the iPod touch that enables GPS location services.  I am looking for other users EXPERIENCE (not opinions) of this accessory and their personal thoughts on using it or other solutions that I can use my iPod as a location/directional device.

My iPod touch is a 3rd gen, however I feel that this is something that would be desired for all gen's (at least for the 4th as well)

No info to report on the cradle you linked to, but several Bluetooth models work fairly well. Apple apps work the best but some third party mapping apps don't use the GPS as well as the onboard one for the iPhone. Others resist installing as the developers require iPhone or iPad with GPS to install.

It would be best to contact the developer of your mapping app of choice and see what they recommend.

http://www.gns-gmbh.com/ - tested that for a day so it worked but I can't recommend it for the field without more time with it.

XGPS 150 - this worked well but I ultimately sold it since I don't want a short days GPS but a whole weekend to a week so I'm back using my garmin that is all in one and takes AA batteries.


How can I average numbers using Soulver? I have a license for the excellent app, Soulver. I'd like to use it to find the average of some integers. I'd like to do something like:

avg(199, 262, 219, 268, 285, 293)

However, that doesn't work:

Any suggestions on how to do this with Soulver?

Soulver doesn't let you do this with an operation, but there are a few ways to do it. First of all, there's the old fashioned way:

Add your numbers up (in parentheses) and then divide by the number of numbers.

There's also a more automated but less convenient way. Soulver can calculate the average of the results (blue column) that are currently in your document:

But, if you want to use that average later, you'll have to do a bit more.

Select Average, then click on Copy Selected Statistic.

Add a new line to your Soulver document: avg = and then paste in the average. You now have an average that you can rever to via avg:


How To Get Rid Of "Upgrade to OS X El Capitan" Notification? The upgrade notification gets more and more intrusive day by day. Now there is no option to be "Reminded Tomorrow" or "Skip This" anymore.

Now one could just turn on "Do Not Disturb" feature from System Preferences between 00:01 and 23:59 (or something similar more suitable for the sleep pattern of the dear reader). However, there are still some notifications I'd love to see.

So, the question is: How to get rid of this particular notification (for good, preferably) ie. how to just use whatever I've got installed and not upgrade for the time being?

According to this link which specifies how to disable the Yosemite update,  go to the App Store, click the Updates tab, then Right-click on the El Capitan update banner at the top and select Hide Update.


Can I use an iMac 2014 as a display for a Mac mini I would like to use my iMac 2014 as a display for a Mac mini that I intend to buy.

Will this work?

First of all, your 2014 iMac has to be a mid year model. The late models do not have target display mode.

You do realize you will need two keyboards for this to work. One for the Mac mini and one to put the iMac in target display mode.

I assume the Mac mini is a 2018 year model. This model does not have any Thunderbolt 1 or 2 ports. There are USB-C ports where Thunderbolt 3 devices can be attached.

So, if this is going to work, you will need an adaptor. Apple sells a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter for 49 USD. Next, you will need a thunderbolt 2 cable. Apple sells an Apple Thunderbolt Cable (0.5 m) - White for 29 USD. This is rather short, so you might want the Apple Thunderbolt Cable (2.0 m) - White for 39 USD.

So, 49 USD + 29 USD = 78 USD. You can buy a new 21.5" 1920 x 1080 monitor for 70 USD. Granted, this monitor does not come with a  HDMI cable, so you might need to buy one.

  The point is, you can buy a new monitor with the same size and resolution for about the same cost as the adaptor plus cable needed to use your old iMac as a display.

Note: the 2018 mac mini does have a internal speaker.


How can I run a shell command at login time without showing a Dock entry? Possible Duplicate:
  How to run something automatically when the system boots or a use logs on?

I need to automatically run a command when I log in but I don't want to add an item to the Dock. How can I do this?

If that's really a command, not app, then you do this by deploying launchd, Apple's standard daemon/agent manager.
Creating plist files by hand is error-prone, I suggest you to use Lingon.app
It used to be free, now it isn't anymore, but instead available on AppStore (if you're using the latest OS X 10.6.6).


Decipher diskutil error code Checking catalog hierarchy
The volume   could not be verified completely
Volume repair complete
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required
Error: -69845: File system verify or repair failed
Underlying error: 8: POSIX reports: Exec format error

Initial searches on the Apple discussion sites show both the 69845 error coming up, and the posix line too, but so far no joy in either understanding or fixing these two errors.

I've been doing computer support professionally for a number of years (Macs and PCs) and have found one thing to be true: It matters less what the error is than if you can fix it. Hence reinstalling OS, Apps and the like are often the solution rather than hunting down the subtle error.

With that in mind what Disk Utility is telling you is, "I can't fix that." And in situations like that it is time to turn to third party disk utilities. I've been using Disk Warrior since the OS9 days (possibly earlier...) and have found few issues it will not fix. That is how I would proceed. If you have other third party disk utilities (Drive Genius, TechTool pro, etc.) by all means use one of those. But if you have none I would start with DiskWarrior (I have no interest in the company just a happy customer).

Once you have fixed the issue you'll have plenty of time to research the cause of those specific error codes.


What are the folders in OS X that I should know about? I just got my first Mac (a MacBook Pro) last Sunday and I am LOVING everything about it so far! But, I am a little confused about the folders in OS X.

Please go through the folders I should know about, and the folders I shouldn't worry about (or should stay away from). I have a little Linux knowledge to go off of, but things are still different enough that I'm disoriented.

I'm running the latest, at this time of writing, version of OS X 10.6.5 Snow Leopard. But if any folders have changed over the past few versions, please note them! :)

I’m going to resume them by memory, so future edits will probably fix all the mess I might type now. :)

The file structure of OS X resembles a typical Unix/Linux operating system (which in fact is the root of it all), albeit with some “Apple” differences. Some of those differences have aliases to keep the “unix” heart happy, but some are simply modified to be used as such.

In short here are the major “folders” in your file system:

/Applications : This one is self explanatory, all your Mac’s apps should go there (unless you have an app that you want to be visible for only one user…). Normal users can read, “admins” can also drop things in there.
/Developer : if you install Xcode and the developer libraries, this folder will magically bring the unicorns for developing awesome Cocoa apps, iOS apps and dashboard widgets among other things. Otherwise the folder doesn’t even exist.
/Library : Shared libraries, and files necessary for OS X to actually function. Preferences, settings, app stuff, browser plug-ins (or more specifically, how to get rid of Adobe’s Flash) ;) You usually don’t tamper around here, but it’s normal if you want to clear some Apps settings, fix something, remove or install browser plugins, extensions, etc. Sometimes you will venture into /Library. Handle with care and always backup before breaking stuff here. It would be hard to destroy an OS X install by tampering /Library, but it’s possible…
/Network : All network libraries, servers, devices, etc. You shouldn’t be here unless you know what you’re doing and want to bypass GUI utilities. In almost 7 years of OS X, I’ve never touched this directory.
/System : Everything that OS X needs to properly function is here. I’d say that you shouldn’t touch anything or problems will arise.
/Users : This is the equivalent to Unix and Linux's /home directory. And here you will have sub directories for each of your users: /Users/John, /Users/Doe, etc. Inside your home folder you will have a “similar” structure. See later for more /Users’ love.
/Volumes: Mounted stuff/devices and volumes, real or virtual (think of CDs, DMGs, samba shares, etc), get their own “directory” here. So if you mount a smb share called MyShare, you can ‘cd /Volumes/MyShare’ to access it from the Command Line. The Finder will happily hide this from you (unless you set it to show invisible files I think).
/bin : What else can be said about bin that you don’t know already from your Linux knowledge. Same thing. If you install ‘git’ for example, it will go to /usr/local/git… so you get the idea. Obviously all the essential common binaries are here too. Think the command ‘ls’… it’s there, in all its glory.
/etc : Oh the great “etcetera”… Just like any other Unix, local system configs and… etcetera. It’s “similar” to any other unix, with some Apples. But the purpose is the same and some of the files (rc.local for example) exist. Go ahead and take a look, but if you break it, you have to pay for it. (OS X uses ‘launchd’ to launch stuff, so google for that if you want to -for example- start a subversion daemon at startup, forget all you knew about runlevels). Otherwise, get insurance between tweaking too much in there, because it’s not covered by Apple Stack’s Exchange damaging policy ;)
/dev : honoring it’s “unix” background, the device files representing peripherals are here. Who touches this anyway…
/usr : I googled for a good description of this and came up with a clever one:

  "Second major hierarchy, includes
  subdirectories that contain
  information, configuration files, and
  other essentials used by the operating
  system”

/sbin : Also coming from the Unix nature of OS X, the system binaries, and administration utilities. These are not the droids you’re looking for, move along, move along.
/tmp : The one and only temp directory! Batteries not included. Note that this is not the “trash”. This is the real Unix temp. Unless you like being around waste, you shouldn’t have to wander around there. Cron jobs will keep it clean (tho it doesn’t hurt to restart your OS X every now and then).
/var : Var is for variable data. Logs, and stuff that will “vary” during the operating system operation. You rarely walk through these rapidly changing places, but sometimes you have to hunt for logs or errors. Bring and umbrella there, it changes very often…

Ok and what’s with this /Users thing?

The Users folder contains your ‘home’. You have easy to identify folders (i.e.: if you can’t identify what Music, Documents, Movies, Downloads, Desktop and Pictures are for, then the problem might lie elsewhere), but at the same time, there are notable “duplicates”. What? Yes. You have a Library and an Applications folder here too!

I believe you’re already guessing what is all this about. Yes, all application settings that are for the user only will go in here (to ~/Library). That means that, although OS X will first look at /Library, if you install a (for example) browser plug-in in your ~/Library (instead of /Library), it will be found, but only by you. My ~/Applications folder is barely empty, it contains some Steam (games) in there, apparently they go there and not /Applications. (I just checked, i didn’t know that, so go figure how often I use my home’s App folder).

update: Apparently this Application folder in your home directory doesn’t exist by default, but you can always create it and drop applications you want to keep for yourself. If you have no permissions to install stuff in /Applications, you can always use a private copy of an app in your ~/Applications folder.

Things not mentioned above that you might have

/opt : (tional). As its name implies, it’s sometimes used by daemons as a place to store suff (but it’s usually optional, so you can put those things elsewhere). I remember that when running Subversion daemons, I had that directory and the repos would go to /opt/svn/repositories, but that was just me… never trust me.
/private : The best way to understand why we have this strange directory here, is to simply go ahead and read it from an expert (or read it directly from the question in Apple SE.):

…and I quote:

  "AIUI it's a holdover from NextStep
  (which OS X is based on), and NextStep
  did it to support NetBooting. The idea
  was that you could boot from a
  network-hosted volume (probably
  read-only, and certainly shared with
  other computers), and early in the
  boot process mount a local (writable)
  volume on /private; as g mentioned,
  this allowed runtime-modification of
  /var and /tmp, as well as per-computer
  settings in /etc.

  This isn't needed anymore, as Apple's
  current NetBoot system uses a shadow
  disk image to store changes anywhere
  on the boot volume. But some
  programs/docs/etc now assume the files
  live under /private, so it'd be too
  much trouble to switch them back…”

So there it is, this is more or less the OS X’s file hierarchy. Don’t drink and drive around it, it’s more fragile than what it looks.


"this computer has been scheduled to go to sleep" when none is set Simple question- My mac regularly & seemingly randomly tells me it has been scheduled to go to sleep automatically- usually (I think) right after I wake it up. I have no schedule for automatic sleep set up in preferences.

When this happens I just shrug and cancel the countdown box but it is annoying. Is there any way to see what is triggering this message and fix it?

I had this issue as well. I found two potential answers:

This one suggests resetting PRAM and the SMC:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7702633

However, the second one mentions iDrive (as did a previous answer here). I did, in fact, switch to iDrive about a month ago, and believe the dialog box began appearing after installing it:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8304128?page=2

The above thread refers to a response from iDrive support which suggests un-checking the "wake from sleep" setting (it is apparently checked by default; mine was). For me, the issue was completely resolved by making this change; it has been 4 months since I changed the setting with zero recurrence. Make sure you don't miss the "do you want to save changes" dialog after changing it; iDrive has a way of making macOS feel like Windows.


Error 1601 in iTunes when trying to restore a custom firmware What is the solution if you get Error 1601 in iTunes when trying to restore a custom firmware (shift+restore) and device in DFU mode.

In case it matters, Windows x64, iTunes 10.1, firmware created using sn0wbreeze 2.2.1

This is what your looking for:

http://www.iphone4jailbreak.org/itunes-restore-error-1601-1604-1600-fix.html

There's also some other possible solutions for the error 1601:

http://www.simonblog.com/2008/09/25/winpwn-error-6-1600-1601-1604/
http://modmyi.com/forums/pwnage/281841-error-1601-help-please.html


Ipad wont download apps from Safari To be specific, when I try to download an app from Safari, it'll start the download, but then stop and show a message that says, "(App name) cannot be downloaded at this time", then "Done" and "Retry". The Ipad runs on IOS 9.

To help keep things Mac-loke, apps for ios can only be downloaded from the App Store. Safari or any other site is not allowed to download apps.


Move defunct gmail ActiveSync calendar entries (iOS) to gmail cal My father-in-law set up gmail ActiveSync on an old iPhone a long time ago and continues to add calendar dates to it even though it is defunct. He's upgraded iPhones to a 6s but still has that old account as his default.

Question: How do I get those calendar entries off of a non-syncing account and move them to a regular google calendar account?

The best method I found was to purchase and use iExplorer. I backed up the phone and then exported as vCards and calendar files to the attached computer. Then I imported them into google calendar and contacts for them (they were moving to Android).


Screws for macbook pro early 2011 fan when I was cleaning my mac book's fans I destroyed one screw head shown in picture (right fan)  picture from ifixit

How can I replace it?
Drill that screw up, or other method?
And where can I buy a new one?

The fan screws are most likely 7.2 mm or 5.3 mm T6 Torx screws (the appropriate iFixit teardown will help you)

If the body of the screw is still screwed in, it could be very difficult to remove and require more specialist repair.


How to change the multitasking view in iOS 9? So I just made the jump from iOS 7 to 9 (I know, big jump) and I'm already thrown off by the switched multitasking view. I don't mind the overlapping idea, but the big difference is that the apps extend to the left now instead of to the right. Is there any way at all (without jailbreaking) to change the multitasking view in iOS 9 so that the open apps extend to the right instead of to the left? Thanks!

No, not without jailbreaking.

If you're willing to jailbreak your phone, there is a tweak called SwitcherTweak (no idea how they came up with the name) which lets you select which direction the app switcher goes in.

(Note: if you have updated to iOS 9.1, there's no jailbreak utility currently available for it and there is no way to downgrade.)


Blue and white rectangle I just restarted my MacBook Pro and I am now getting a blue and white rectangle near the top right corner of my screen. Does anyone know what this is or what is causing it?

MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch, Late 2013, Version 10.11.3.

After restarting my laptop again, the box was not there immediately, but showed up before everything was fully loaded in a slightly different location.

I am unable to click on the box, and trying to drag it just creates the regular selection box as if nothing is there.

Update: I ran Apple's diagnostics and it claimed there is nothing wrong with the machine itself.

Update 2: I attempted to restart my machine into safe mode a couple times but it did not seem to work. It looked like a normal load sequence, just hanging before asking for my login credentials. However, after a regular login, I no longer seem to have this issue. Hopefully it stays this way.

Here's a list of steps to possibly resolve your problem:

Reset Finder: This is a basic step, just open up Force Quit Applications by calling ⌘-⌥-esc and then press finder and reset it.
Open Terminal and enter the command killall Finder. If it goes away then it's a problem with finder.
Open Activity Monitor: If there is anything irregular open in activity monitor just close it. However, be very careful with Activity Monitor. It's easy to close something that will crash your machine.


SSH no longer works after update to 10.12.4 I've been successfully using the following script to initiate port forwarding for the last year or so:

ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/id_rsa
ssh -f admin@ssh.mydomain.com -L 50003:inst3:3389 -N -p 33233
ssh -f admin@ssh.mydomain.com -L 50005:inst5:3389 -N -p 33233
ssh -f admin@ssh.mydomain.com -L 50006:inst6:3389 -N -p 33233

Immediately after running today's OS update to 10.12.4, running this same script generates the following error:

Unable to negotiate with [my routable IP] port 33233: no matching host key type found. Their offer: ssh-dss

Some articles indicated that the problem could be resolved by editing ssh_config and uncommenting a particular line. This approach hasn't worked. I'm still locked out of SSH. For reference, here's a copy of my ssh_config file:

# Host *
#   ForwardAgent no
#   ForwardX11 no
#   RhostsRSAAuthentication no
#   RSAAuthentication yes
#   PasswordAuthentication yes
#   HostbasedAuthentication no
#   GSSAPIAuthentication no
#   GSSAPIDelegateCredentials no
#   BatchMode no
#   CheckHostIP yes
#   AddressFamily any
#   ConnectTimeout 0
#   StrictHostKeyChecking ask
#   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/identity
#   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
#   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_dsa
#   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa
#   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
#   Port 22
#   Protocol 2
#   Cipher 3des
#   Ciphers aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,arcfour256,arcfour128,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc
MACs hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,umac-64@openssh.com,hmac-ripemd160
#   EscapeChar ~
#   Tunnel no
#   TunnelDevice any:any
#   PermitLocalCommand no
#   VisualHostKey no
#   ProxyCommand ssh -q -W %h:%p gateway.example.com
#   RekeyLimit 1G 1h

I tried uncommenting the line beginning with "MACs hmac-..." but this made no difference. What shall I try next?

no matching host key type found. Their offer: ssh-dss

This error says that the remote server is offering only DSA host key. This is considered weak these days with fixed length of 1024 bits. You should update the server and set up different keys (RSA).

As a workaround, you can use HostKeyAlgorithms +ssh-dss in ~/.ssh/config, which will allow you to connect to this server, exactly as described in the official documentation for legacy algorithms in OpenSSH.


How to Prevent macbook from sleeping when the lid is closed? When I close the lid, it goes to sleep mode. But sometimes I need my MacBook awake even when the lid is closed while downloading a very large file from the internet or listening to iTunes playlists.

Is there any way to keep my MacBook awake and keep downloading at the same time??

Nope, closing the lid will automatically sleep your Mac. If you want your Mac's screen to be off but for it to continue downloading, download the Caffeine app from the Mac App Store and turn it on (Caffiene stops your Mac from sleeping temporarily) then dim your brightness all the way. The task will continue and the screen will stay off.


How do I turn off new mail notifications in Mountain Lion? After upgrading to Mountain Lion, I'm receiving new email notifications.  I previously turned these off in the Mail application.  How do I turn them off now?

In Mountain Lion, this is done in the Notifications under System Preferences.  Open System Preferences, select Notifications, choose Mail in the left pane, and then select "None".


Yosemite and character viewer I just upgraded to Yosemite, I find that I cannot minimise the Character Viewer into the dock as I used to... is this normal?
It saved me a lot of trouble to have it pop-up every time I started the computer.
Or maybe there's a way to have it a login item?

Maybe this is related but I find this complex...

I think the issue you're facing is that the Character Viewer is no longer global, but is now per-app, so if you open it in, for instance, Safari, then switch to Finder, it will vanish.
Open it again in Finder & its stored size, position & last viewed will be different.

The advantage is you can keep it open in 2 different apps at the same time [with the one attached to any backgrounded app hidden] & be working on 2 different things.
The downside would be if that's not what you want to do ;-)

Simplest way to activate it is  Cmd ⌘   Ctrl ⌃   Space  but there's no 'close' command other than clicking the red dot, or temporarily, by switching to another app.


How to recover WhatsApp media after getting a new phone? I bought an iPhone 8 to replace my iPhone 6. I was able to migrate absolutely everything via the "Quick Start" functionality.

However, when I opened WhatsApp on my new phone, all the media sent via WhatsApp was gone. For example, I had a collection of "starred" GIFs that now is only displayed as a bunch of items without an image, and when I try to select one of them I get a "This item could not be selected. please choose a different item" error message.

How can I recover the WhatsApp media (including the GIFs) from my previous phone? I still have the iPhone 6 with all its data.

Thank you.

Backup your Whatsapp data in your old iPhone 6 to iCloud. Once it's successful, restore the backup data on your new iPhone 8.

Hope this helps.

I don't think there is any other way to restore it.


Apple San Francisco font usage for websites as a system font I lately see many websites that uses Apple SF font as a system font and I very doubt that they have license for it. Is there a trick to do, so it can be used in a site legally?

Encouraged Behaviour

In Apple's case, Myles Maxfield of WebKit explained how to use the system fonts:

  Web content is sometimes designed to fit in with the overall aesthetic of the underlying platform which it is being rendered on. One of the ways to achieve this is by using the platform’s system font, which is possible on iOS and OS X by using the -apple-system CSS value for the “font-family” CSS property. On iOS 9 and OS X 10.11, doing this allows you to use Apple’s new system font, San Francisco. Using -apple-system also correctly interacts with the font-weight CSS property to choose the correct font on Apple’s latest operating systems.

WebKit is an Apple funded and directed project.

More generally, HTML/CSS can specify either local or remote fonts be used. If a specified font is available locally, it is presumed legal, and used by the browser.

If the site is distributing a font, then the site must have a licence for the font's distribution and use.


iOS app that scans Contacts for birthdays and anniversaries and provide notifications for same I am looking for an App that reminds me of Birthdays and Anniversaries. If app can remind me of other dates, it would be "icing on cake" (added advantage).

I know notifications can be handled by native/default Calendar app available on any iOS device.

But catch is, App has to scan contacts and show/notify Birthdays and Anniversaries.

Default Calendar app does good job when it comes to scanning and notifying about Birthdays. But I want app to notify me both - Birthdays and Anniversaries.

I found two app from App store

Yearly (Paid - link): I saw app screenshots, but didn't find any instance of anniversaries.
Anniversary Reminder (Free, Ads-Supported - link): Bad UI, also ads :(

If anyone is using Yearly, I would like to know how it handles anniversaries.

If you know any other app that does what I need, let me know via your response/reply.

I got Yearly - link. It's working quite well.


Free app to detect & delete duplicate files from my Mac I am just wondering is there any way to find duplicate files on my Mac?

For example: when I download something from bittorrent, some unnecessary files also download along with the main file with .dat extension. I want to delete all of these .dat files at one time. Currently I have a lot of these files on my computer & they are stored in many different directories. It would be a lot of work to delete them one by one.

Thus, are there any free apps to do that sort of job or some way I can find & delete them?

Beware : once you change the content of a torrent, you're not able to seed it anymore.

Open a finder window, search for all files named .dat then just press cmd+a (select all) then cmd+backspace (delete) then cmd+backspace+maj (empty the bin)

You can also use gemini to find duplicates then delete them with Finder, or if you're familiar with bash :

find -not -empty -type f -printf "%s\n" |
    sort -rn |
    uniq -d |
    xargs -I{} -n1 find -type f -size {}c -print0 |
        xargs -0 md5sum |
        sort |
        uniq -w32 --all-repeated=separate


iMac 27" late 2012 SSD upgrade I'm the proud owner of an 27-inch iMac 2012 with high-end configuration, but the 1TB fusion drive keeps being the bottleneck. As my warranty has expired now, I want to upgrade the 128GB SSD to a larger one (preferably as large as possible), but I want to keep the traditional HDD for storage reasons, and upgrade it later.

Here are my questions:

What type is the slot the iMac has for it's SSD? In the iFixit repair manual it kind of looks like an M.2 SSD, but I'm not sure.
What is the maximum size (length) for SSDs to fit into that slot? I know that there are different sizes of M.2 SSDs (if it's M.2 at all).

I've heard of adapters that translate that whatever slot the iMac has to a regular SATA connector, so one can use regular SSDs in an iMac.
This is interesting because regular SATA SSDs are the cheapest, after all, and offer larger storage options.

Does anyone know if these are usable (maybe recommend one)?
Would it be possible to place an 2,5" regular SSD (e.g. Samsung 850 Evo) somewhere in the case of the iMac and hook it up to that adapter?

I'd be glad if there's anonye out there to answer some of these questions. Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Allan said in his answer that an mSATA SSD is used in the iMac late 2012. Anyone who can confirm this?

I have an iMac 27 Late 2012 and I upgraded my SSD.

The fusion drive is a misnomer - it's actually two drives.  There is an PCIe SSD, probably about 128GB that attached to the logic board, then there's a 3.5" 1TB HDD.  Technically, you could upgrade the PCIe blade SSD drive, but after some research, I found it wasn't really economical.

All you need is a standard SSD to replace that HDD. You then create a fusion drive using CoreStorage and you will end up with an SSD with 1.13 TB of total storage.

As per Everymac.com....

The basic steps for this upgrade are:

Back up data
Remove the screen
Replace the SSD (you will need a 3.5" to 2.5" HDD adapter
Replace the screen
Reinstall / Restore from Backup.

I've actually answered this question on another thread:  27 imac Late 2012 HDD Failure

While you are doing all these upgrades, I would upgrade the memory as well.  I used Crucial Memory and your iMac can get up to 32GB of RAM


macbook pro encounters prohibited sign while booting with USB My macbookpro is completely empty and the only option that I have is just internet recovery. I downloaded el capitan and with help of the terminal in the internet recovery build a bootable OSX el capitan. So when I hit c in startup, apple logo appears. Meanwhile progress bar goes half way and suddenly apple logo changes to prohibited sign. I also made a mavericks bootable usb. same results.

In verbose mode, you will find that OSX gets stuck at:

  Still waiting for root device

This error usually happens when your media used to boot OSX is not detected properly and can't be mounted. You can therefore try these methods to get it to work:

Changing the port you insert your USB into
Remaking the bootable media
Getting a new USB

If all fails your device may need special drivers of some sort. You can also check it out with an Apple Genius.


iMovie video conversion I imported all of my videos from a Sony HDR-CX550V camcorder into iMovie '11.  I imported the video at the original resolution 1920x1080.  I was planning on converting the video into some other codec so I can view it on both a Mac and Windows machine.

Unfortunately, I learned that this video is an ICOD (Apple Intermediate Codec) format wrapped in an MOV and I cannot use Handbrake to convert the video.

So I created a project in iMovie, added one of the videos to it, and exported it to HD 1080p...and the quality was absolutely horrible!  For instance, the shadows in the converted video had a red tint!  It reminded me of a .GIF animation.

Unfortunately, I no longer have the videos on the camcorder, so I'm stuck with these ICOD files...what are my options?  I want to convert them into something Handbrake can handle.

Thanks!

From iMovie, go to Share-> Export Using QuickTime. Set the Export: menu is set to Movie to MPEG-4. Click the Options... button next to that menu.

Set the File Format to MP4
Set the Video Format to H.264
Set the Data Rate to something like 2048
Set the Image Size to 1080
Click OK
Click Save

That should give you a much better-quality video.

Hope this helps!


Boot off of an external hard drive I made 2 partitions on my external hard drive. One is 240ish GB and one is 10GB. I put the OS X Lion install image on the 10GB partition (using restore) and when that finished I tried to boot from that hard drive but it doesn't show up, just my regular hard drive that is in my computer.

I am on a mid-2012 MacBook Pro running macOS Sierra

It's probably the lion image. try a different image. Try to google : "index of" Install OS X Lion

then click on some of the links and once the dmg download is complete get the installesd.dmg from the image and burn it using disk utility


Open a URL with parameterized query arguments (URL-encode) I need to invoke a custom URL for a macOS GUI app from a terminal (shell) command.
I also need to be able to pass arguments to the URL's query section.
It might look like this:
path=/Volumes/MyDisk
what="some text"
open fafapp://find?loc=$path&inp=$what

The problem is that I need to URL-encode path and what first. How can I accomplish this with built-in commands? It should not be necessary to install extra tools for this and should work on macOS 10.11 and later.
I'd also like it consise. It's for instructions to other (non-Terminal-savvy) users for invoking the app via a short shell script, e.g. from automation tools.
Thus, lengthy bash scripts that convert the strings "by hand" are not really a good result for me. Ideally, the open command would be a one-liner.

You have lots of requirements, which makes for a slightly convoluted solution:
open fafapp://find?loc=$(python -c "import urllib, sys; print urllib.quote(sys.argv[1])" "$path")&inp=$(python -c "import urllib, sys; print urllib.quote(sys.argv[1])" "$what")

This uses python, which is pre-installed on macOS 10.11 and later (including Big Sur). It is also a one-liner (although a long one).


Changed user names and now those accounts have been reset I have 3 accounts set up on my mac. I went into the user folder on the main admin account, the names for the other two accounts in here were different to the ones on the login screen (they were the old names of the accounts before I changed them in System Preferences). I then changed the names to match, now when I log into the other user accounts they have been reset as though they have not been used before.

As far as I can see the files from those accounts are still in the user folder, they just aren't linking up to the correct account.

How can I fix this?

Go to System Preferences / Users & Groups and create a new user with the Account name or Short Name that you used for the New users. This will correct the ownership of all files in the Home folder, and avoid permissions issues with the contents.

Extracted from Apple's indications for changing user's account name. Steps 5 and 6.


How to restore time machine backup to a new machine running a different version of the Mac OS? The hard disk in my wife's iMac, which was running Leopard, just died. She has an up to date Time Machine backup. I want to restore the backup to her new MacBook Pro, which is running Lion.

I understand the conventional way to restore a TM backup to a new machine is to boot from the installer CD but the MBP won't boot from either a Leopard or Snow Leopard install disk. For obvious reasons I don't have a Lion CD.

What is the recommended restore path?

In the Applications directory, there is a subdirectory called Utilities. In Utilities you'll find Migration Assistant. Or just use spotlight to launch it.

Migration Assistant has the option to restore from another machine, a Time Machine Backup, or another disk.

Make sure the TM disk is plugged in to your wife's new machine, and you should be able to select it from a list of volumes.


How to list previously approved apps from "Filter Network Content" pop-ups? It appears that when an application needs to filter or monitor network content MacOS asks the user for approval.
How can I check (either GUI or command-line) which applications have been approved before?
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement/webcontentfilter

systemextensionsctl list

This lists all system extensions. The usage mentions a category can be given to filter the list but the manual doesn't document what categories can be provided.


Employing a second medium of sound volume resistance? I have a Macbook Pro 2012 and a pair of headphones (without their own sound volume adjuster). These headphones are awfully loud and even with quarter bar sound level, I have to turn the audio volume slider in apps all the way down to get a decent volume level. My ears aren't super sensitive or anything, I think it's just these headphones.
Is there a software that I can download which will act as a virtual cable type thing where the app will feed audio data to the virtual cable (VC), the VC will then allow me to edit the sound (in my case I want to alter volume levels) and then output to my headphones.

This isn't something that you can do in the default Mac OS (I don't think so anyhow). I'm asking if anyone has heard of something like that.

There is actually a somewhat hidden step between 1/4 bars and muted. To select it, first set the volume to zero by holding the volume down key and then press the mute key.

Another way is to run osascript -e 'set volume output volume 0.5'. set volume output volume 0.1 and set volume output volume 0.9 are equivalent to set volume output volume 0.5.

You can decrease the volume level by using Soundflower together with AU Lab:

Download Soundflower from http://cycling74.com/soundflower-landing-page/ and download AU Lab from https://developer.apple.com/downloads/.
Select Soundflower (2ch) from System Preferences > Sound > Output.
Open AU Lab, set the input device to Soundflower (2ch), set the output device to Built-in Output, and press Create Document. You can then control the volume level from AU Lab and by changing the volume level of the built-in output from System Preferences.


Print jobs cancelled if waiting too long? I tend to send things to print, even when not connected to my printer (via usb). This allows it to print the minute I connect the printer, which is nice when I am on my laptop. It used to work, even if I didn't connect my printer for a day or two, but now it doesn't. The print jobs seem to die after 3 hours. Any help?

Printing in OS X is handled by CUPS, the Common Unix Printing System. Older versions of OS X had older versions of CUPS. A new It's not a bug, It's a "feature" was added in CUPS 1.6, which corresponds to Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, in order to prevent stuck jobs.

The MaxJobTime option, which defaults to 10800 seconds (3 Hours), will cancel the active print job on a printer that has timed out. The next job in the queue will start, either printing or eventually timing out.

From the cups.conf man page:

  MaxJobTime seconds
  Specifies  the  maximum time a job may take to print before it is canceled. The default is 10800 seconds (3 hours). Set to 0 to disable cancellation of "stuck" jobs.

Editing /etc/cups/cupsd.conf to include MaxJobTime 0 to disable this "Feature".

In my specific case, I used to be on 10.6.8 Snow Leopard until finally updating to 10.10 Mavericks, and wasn't aware of the change.


Move the note icons around in Preview? I have added an note to a PDF file in Preview, and the yellow icon is covering up some text, but I can't move it away by dragging:

Any ideas?

You can move the note icon by clicking on the Text Selection tool or the Rectangular Selection tool (it looks like a square with dotted corners) and then clicking and dragging the icon to the area of your liking.

Make sure that you aren't in highlighting mode (click off the highlight tool at the top of the page) - you can't move the note around when you're highlighting.


Reinstalling Mac OSX Lion on Locked Disk I have a 2011 vintage MacBook Pro which is not booting at all. It gets to the gray screen with Apple logo and does not move ahead from there. I pressed Command-R at bootup to enter the disk utility screen.

I ran the disk check utility on the HDD and it returned OK for all checks.
The verify/repair disk option for the boot drive was greyed out.

When I try to re-install MacOSX Lion by using the internet, it gets to a screen where both the disks to install MacOSX on are greyed out and there is an error message that says "This disk is locked". I went through this question that suggests re-formatting the hard drive to create a new partition and re-trying.
My questions:

Are there any other options I can try without needing to reformat the hard drive?
Is there a way to back up the hard drive before I try the above?
In the Disk Utility section, the boot drive was greyed out disallowing any repair. Any reasons why?

If you have enabled FileVault once, the disk will be locked. Try open disk utility and mount it. It should ask for a disk password. Enter your disk encryption passwords which you entered when you setup FileVault. And, you're good to go.
If you forget disk passwords, you should try resetting with iCloud. Else, you'll need to format it.


Lion always explicitly moves files to and from external drives In Lion, whenever I drag and drop a file to or from an external drive to the local drive it always moves the file. If I'm not mistaken the default behavior is to copy the file right? Does anyone know why it might be doing this or know of a preference anywhere that I can set it to explicitly copy the files?

To copy files instead of move them, you can use menu items in the Edit menu, or their associated keyboard shortcuts. I am running Lion, and I have an external usb drive. If I select a file on this external drive and open the Finder's "Edit" menu, there's a "Copy" menu item with the shortcut Cmd-C.

Choosing that menu item, then selecting a folder on my internal hard drive, gives a menu item of "Paste" (again in the "Edit" menu) with the shortcut Cmd-V.

Also, dragging and dropping with the option key held down will copy a file rather than move it.


Is iBooks Author suitable for producing poetry? in terse terms:

poets
       craft
              lines.

eBook readers wrap
    witlessly

Will Author for iBooks let us read

"Achilles' baneful wrath resound, O Goddess, that impos'd
Infinite sorrows on the Greeks, and many brave souls loos'd
From breasts heroic, sent them far to that invisible cave
That no light comforts, and their limbs to dogs and vultures gave;
To all which Jove's will gave effect, from whom first strife begun
Betwixt Atrides, king of men, and Thetis' godlike son."

instead of

"Achilles' baneful wrath resound, O Goddess, that impos'd
Infinite sorrows on the Greeks, and many brave souls loos'd
From breasts heroic, sent them far to that invisible cave
That no light comforts, and their limbs to dogs and vultures gave;
To all which Jove's will gave effect, from whom first strife begun
Betwixt Atrides, king of men, and Thetis' godlike son."

Yes. Actually, what iBooks Author excels at is letting you format your text precisely, with elaborate styles and style sheets, and preventing the user from changing the font, point size, or theme. You get tremendously precise formatting and layout, and the user can't change anything at all in landscape orientation, while they can scale font size a bit in portrait orientation.

Here's the main drawback that I have just discovered myself: iBooks Author will only output books that can be read on an iPad with iOS 5 running the new iBooks 2.0. The book you create with iBooks Author cannot be read on an iPhone or iPod Touch or anything running iOS 4.2.1 or iBooks 1.0.

Secondly, the file size of a book that is all text (no illustrations) is HUGE. I'm talking 20 times as large as it should be. I've tested it. A book that was 900K in size created with other tools becomes 20MB in size when created in iBooks Author.


What is the purpose of padlock when Bluetooth Preferences is opened from the debug menu? When Bluetooth Preferences is opened while holding Shift+Option (bluetooth debug menu) a Padlock appears to the right of the "Turn Bluetooth Off/On" button.

Anyone know what this is for?

That prevents turning off the bluetooth card.

It locks the "Turn Off" button with your password [admin users only]. So the bluetooth card cannot be disabled, unless you click the lock again and input your user password (considering you are an admin user) or any other username/password with admin privileges.


What's this statistics-looking icon on my TouchBar? I've just discovered this icon on my MacBook Pro's TouchBar:

Looks like some sort of statistics, or so? It only appears occasionally. Tapping on it I get this slider:

This doesn't do anything though. When sliding I get a "0:00" count next to it and nothing happens. What is this supposed to do?

Looks like I'm also unable to take TouchBar screenshots via ⌘+⇧+6 for some reason.

Are you watching a video in Safari? That slider is telling you that you're watching a video in the app displayed in the icon, scrubbing on that slider scrub the video you're playing. Or if you're not watching a video, it might just be a bug. Try refreshing the Control Strip by going into activity monitor and find the process "Control Strip" and quit that process(it won't do any harm, your touch bar will blink once).

P.S. As for taking screenshot of the touch bar you need 10.12.2 beta.


How to automatically turn off external hard-drive connected to Time Capsule when idle? I have a 5th generation AirPort Time Capsule (3TB) with an additional G-DRIVE GEN4 (3TB) external hard-drive attached to it. The external hard-drive has an on/off switch.

Is it possible- and how can I make it so that the external hard-drive turns off or hibernates after a period of being idle, without turning off the power switch? I don't want it to be always active.

The external hard-drive is not used as a Time Machine backup drive; I'm only using it as a network share/network-attached storage, so that we can share files more easily within the household.

Not possible. The Time Capsule does not supported that feature.