How to view all login history in MacOS High Sierra How can I log all login history until now? By "all" I mean all users: admin, guests, and every other user.

I am using MacOS HighSierra.

In Terminal, use the last command.

Also, read the manual page for last, in Terminal: man last


What happened to the Finder window 'jellybean' in OS X Lion? Before I updated to Lion, whenever I would mount a disk image (.dmg) the Finder window that would pop-up would always have a little 'jellybean' in the top right corner that would expand this window into a 'full' Finder window with the left-side panel, thus allowing quick and easy access to be able to eject the disk image.

I do not know if this feature has been completely removed from the OS or if its just disabled. Is there a way to get this back? I miss the jellybean!

The jellybean was removed completely in Lion. However, keystroke Opt-Cmd-T or menu option View - Show Toolbar will achieve the same thing.

I miss the jellybean too!


Transparency of LC-AAC at 500kb/s bitrate (stereo file) I'm recently exploring audio formats, and I found that when encoding to aac at 500kb/s, it's much smaller than lossless formats like flac or alac (which is expected), but audiochecker said that it's CDDA with probability of 94%.

I'm using FFmpeg version N-94001-g1e7a8b92ee with only internal aac support on macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 and using audiochecker 2.0 beta in crossover.

Does this mean that aac is extremely near lossless at 500kb/s?

There's a lot of talk about 'lossless audio'. There's also a lot of opinion surrounding it, much of which doesn't come from sound engineers but from people who are chasing the wrong part of the rainbow ;)

To really simplify,

Lossless audio is that which can be uncompressed to produce exactly the same data that was originally encoded.
You need this if you are going to be further processing the audio.
Lossy audio can be uncompressed to sound almost exactly as it was originally encoded.
You need this if you just want to listen to the audio.

I'm not going to dig into any math in this, just skim lightly over the basics.

The difference in the two has become a matter of public perception, rather than hard fact & analytical data.
Very few people on an A/B test can tell the difference, so they use tools which they don't understand to give them data that makes no real sense…
[bear with me, I'm not being insulting, but some of the interweb wisdom on this is way off the mark].

You will often see pictures of spectrograms like this

Telling you the one on the right is obviously lossy because it has a lower frequency cut-off. Well, yes, it does imply that, but it doesn't actually prove it, it is a false premise based on a misunderstanding. What it does prove is that it used a lower sampling frequency, causing a lower Nyquist limit & therefore a lower high frequency shelving limit in the resulting audio.
If you re-compressed the file on the right into a lossless format it would not magically regain the lost data & yet the file itself would now be completely lossless - but only insomuch as no further data would be lost. I think this is probably what the 'checker' apps are trying to test, but in quite a misleading way.

Good lossy compression doesn't look 'truncated' like that on a spectrogram. It doesn't look any different to a lossless file - because the differences are far, far too small to show up on such a blunt tool as a spectrogram.
The whole point of lossy encoding is that it quite cleverly throws away the bits you can't hear anyway. That's its trick. The higher the bitrate, the less it has to throw out, which is why there is a noticeable difference between a 256kbps [or 320kbps] & a 128kbps file, if your speakers & ears are good enough. If you're going to be listening on earbuds from your phone, or in your car, then 9/10 people can't tell the difference between 128kbps & anything higher - the background noise will effectively bury the difference.

You can use a tool that will run the math on an uncompressed lossy file, but how it can decide if any data is missing from the end result without an original to compare to is completely beyond me. Maybe it looks at only the high frequencies, maybe the actual cut off…

I'm going to pick on one of these received wisdom audio checker sites & pick some holes in it… the poor guy probably doesn't deserve being singled out, but he covers the same tired, misinformed ground that many of them do…

From: Audio Checker – Check the True Quality of Your Audio Files

In reference to the above spectrograph…

  kHz, a measurement of frequency that greatly affects sound quality, will be displayed on the left. In theory, bitrates work with frequency and higher bitrates preserve higher frequencies, which result in better sound quality.

✔correct, though things get less confusing if you use the term 'sampling frequency' rather than bit-rate. Bit-rate is really a transmission 'speed' not an accurate gauge of the actual sampling frequency. Only lossy compression formats really have anything to do with bitrates. Completely lossless, uncompress PCM such as WAV of AIF have only a sampling frequency [& bit-depth].
See Presonus: Digital Audio Basics: Sample Rate and Bit Depth  for some further info.

  Lossless FLAC files don’t lose any of their higher frequencies as the left chart shows, yet lossy audio files don’t have higher frequencies

❌ false premise. Lossy files can have just as much high frequency information as lossless - it's based on sampling frequency & Nyquist, as explained above.

  detects upscaling, upsampling and transcoding.

✔ Ahh… so that's how it does it. It checks to see if someone has cheated by taking a low-grade file & changed the transcoding parameters to make it seem better. All those methods will produce data areas with either 'gaps' or doubled data, which certainly prove the file has been messed with at some point, probably in an attempt to deceive.

❌ What it completely & utterly fails to do is test that a file can be uncompressed to give exactly the same data as when it left the 'factory'. It has nothing to compare to.

OK, let's move away from there & back to your results…

  CDDA with probability of 94%.

Well, that's fine if you consider CDDA [16-bit 44.1kHz PCM] to be the pinnacle of audio storage. It hasn't been in probably a decade or so. [Also bear in mind your checker came to that conclusion with absolutely no reference to the original file at all, it's just a guess].

Back in the days everybody had CD players, from the mid-80s onwards, then CDDA was the pinnacle of consumer audio storage - once we'd got over the argument about vinyl, which I'm going to ignore entirely for this exercise.

Since Apple moved to DRM-free AAC in the mid 2000's & introduced iTunes Plus, record companies started to upload their original audio masters to iTunes at 24-bit rather than 16-bit. This coincides with computers getting fast enough that recording studios could start to use higher frequencies in the original recordings - these days going up as far as 24 or even 32-bit 192kHz before downsampling to deliver to the consumer. In a pure numbers game, that's more numbers & it's 'real' because it hasn't been through any process since it left the recording studio/mastering suite. That's the most accurate source available to anyone outside the studio.

By the time this has been encoded to AAC at 256 or even 320kbps, the result is actually better than CDDA…
…& that's where the argument for lossless finally falls down.

Unless the record companies release lossless data at those sample/bit rates, [which did happen with the recent Beatles remasters, only available on USB stick] the 'best' source to the consumer is the AAC.. which was already lossy, but pretty much invisibly lossy.


How to remove Your carrier may charge for SMS Messages used to activate FaceTime This message keeps coming back:
"Your carrier may charge for SMS Messages used to activate FaceTime"

I managed to get rid of it before but when I change the SIM card it pops up again.

It's similar to "Your carrier may charge for SMS messages used to activate iMessage", which I got rid of this time but I don't remember how.

How to quickly ensure both these messages don't pop up:

Your carrier may charge for SMS messages used to activate iMessage
Your carrier may charge for SMS Messages used to activate FaceTime

Ideally forever, but I'm ok with a quick solution that I can quickly find back here on Ask Different.

Oh and I want to keep Facetime enabled. Not sure about iMessage.

Source

You didn't mention the iOS version you're using so I'm assuming you're on the 11.1.2.  Here's a few things to try (not in any particular order):

Make sure that your date, time, and time zone are set correctly. Turn Messages off and on in Settings > Messages. Open Message, under the Message settings, a popup message will appear saying your carrier may charge for SMS messages and select “Cancel”. Message activates itself after you have clicked Cancel.
Make sure that your iPhone has the latest version of iOS. In not, backup your iPhone and then simply update.
Remove and reinsert the Sim card. Apple explains how you can do that.
Tap Settings > Your Name (and iCloud ID). Then tap Name, Phone numbers, Email. Under Reachable At tap Edit and add your phone number.
Reset network settings. Go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings.  As the action states, this will reset your network settings (e.g. your Wi-Fi passwords will be removed etc).

If you are still having this problem, contact your cell carrier (AT&T, T-Mobile etc.). You may also contact Apple support.


White screen when installing OSX My daughter's MBP recently had a hard drive failure. I replaced the hard drive and purchased the Snow Leopard install disc from Apple.

During the install start up, at a certain point the screen goes white and after a bit the fans go to a high speed. It then sits there running hot until it is powered down.

Things I have tried:

With a Crucial MX300 SSD (525GB, SATA III) installed:

Install using the Snow Leopard disc Install using Yosemite on USB thumb drive (from App Store)
Install using High Sierra on USB thumb drive (from App Store)
Install using Internet Recovery (Command—Option—R)

With a HGST Travelstar 7K1000 (1TB, SATA III) installed:

Install using Yosemite on USB thumb drive (from App Store)
Install using Internet Recovery (Command—Option—R)

Original System Details

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)
2.0 GHz Intel Core i7 (Sandy Bridge) 2635QM
8GB RAM
500 GB, 5400 RPM Hitachi HD
10.6.6 Snow Leopard

Other notes

Booting in verbose mode (Command-V) shows various messages before the white screen depending on which install version is used.

The extended version of the hardware test over internet (Option—D) reports no issues.

The MBP was working fine before the hard drive failure.

I am pretty much out of ideas.

I would take the new drive to another Mac and run the installer there.

You'll know soon what the weak link is with perhaps an inexpensive USB to SATA adapter.

Assuming you have the resources for that, I'd probably have that Machine download Sierra and make a bootable USB installer and just use Sierra to wipe and reinstall the OS on your daughter's Mac (or her hard drive connected to the other Mac).

https://support.apple.com/kb/SP742
macOS Sierra doesn't appear in my Purchased list within the Mac App Store
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314
How do I make a bootable USB flash drive a Mac?


How do I access a mobile mailserver on a mac as opposed to a web mailserver? I have an iPad on which I can access my email through a mobile mail server. It all works fine. But when trying to access my mail through my mac there is a security problem of some sort that won't allow me to access my email. So I was thinking, since I can avoid this security problem on my iPad, is there a way for me to access the same server as I do on my iPad? Maybe not in Mail.app but perhaps Sparrow or equivalent?

Cheers for the help!

Via The Browser
You'd have to send a mobile user agent to the mobile.company.com (there's a redirect on desktop devices). Safari will get you there via User Agent in the developer tools. First turn on Developer Tools.

Then change the user agent.

Now you should be able to access mobile mail server as a mobile user: mobile.company.com. I'm not sure if your ISP provides a webmail interface for mobile users. If not, you won't see much there.
Potential Solution: Spoof User Agent in Desktop Email Client
I can't quickly find an email client which directly spoofs user agent. If I had to guess which ones might be capable of offering an alternative user agent, you could try either MailMate (powerful high configurable shareware) or Thunderbird (geeky open source with an option for everything).
Contact info to MailMate creator Benny Kjær Nielsen is here.
Alternative Solution: Clean Up Your Mac's Certification Authorities
You may find it easier to reset your security certificates. Make sure Keychain Access is set up this way.

You should also delete expired or invalid certificates from under the System sidebar menu. Once you've done both of these things, you should run Software Update as Apple should replace some of the now missing certificates. Certificates and Signing Authorities can be imported by hand but that's beyond the scope of this answer.
I've just done this myself and it's allowed Chromium to load Github again. It may work with your email security issues as well. This is the lasting and flexible solution but perhaps the hardest to pin down.


Keyboard or touchpad shortcut to move windows between screens? Anyone knows a way of having a keyboard or touchpad shortcut to move a window from an external screen to the built-in one and vice versa?

There's nothing built in, but there are third-party programs that provide this functionality. I use the free open source Rectangle which provides shortcuts ctrl-opt-cmd-→ to move to the next display to the right and ctrl-opt-cmd-← to move to the next display to the left. It also provides shortcuts for other positioning of windows (e.g., left/right third/half/two-thirds, top, bottom, etc.).


Migrate time machine data stored on external server (DROBO) onto new iMac 3.2Ghz I was hoping this was going to be easy :)
I have tried using the migration assistant but it can't seem to locate my server (DROBO fs) which has my time machine back up from my old mac book pro, i'd like to migrate my movies and photos onto my new iMac 3.2Ghz. My server is connecting to the iMac but the migration assistant can't see it.

Thanks in advance

You might need to force Time Machine to browse for backups on unsupported volumes (ie Drobo)

Open Terminal
type the following command

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

In case you cannot access the terminal during the first startup, create a dummy user (you don't want to duplicate the username in you backup), then open terminal, do the magic trick and start Migration Assistant from Applications/Utilities/


my magic mouse is sluggish and hangs sometime when I try to move it I have 2 Magic Mice, Mouses.whatever.. One runs on 2 AA batteries and the other one is rechargeable. I use the 2-AA one when I'm recharging the other.
Recently the rechargeable mouse has started functioning strangely. The movement is jumpy and it seems to stick at times. It's hard to do fine movements. I cleaned the visible sensor used for tracking but it had no effect. If I switch to my old 2 battery mouse it works fine. What can cause one Bluetooth mouse to work and another one not? They both worked fine about a week ago when I had to charge one.

Do the System Preferences settings apply for any mouse being used or are they mouse-specific.

There is a known problem with Bluetooth being interfered with by WiFi and especially by USB3 devices. This seems to be a particular problem with the 2018 Mac Minis. See this discussion.

What Mac model?


How to use an AirPort Express as an AirPlay device with a TP-Link router? I recently upgraded my router (TP-Link TL-WR1043N) so now my wireless network is broadcasting in 11b/g/n mixed mode, and my 1st generation AirPort Express is having trouble joining the network.

I have done a factory reset several times, and each time everything seems to work fine but then when the APE tries to reset, AirPort Utility bombs with the message

  AirPort Utility was unable to find your AirPort wireless device after restarting.

I'd love to keep this working just as an AirPlay device.

UPDATE: I tried resetting the wireless network to use 11bg mode, but got the same result. So I'm guessing the thing has just crapped out coincidentally at the same time I made the change to my network. Oh well!

I had the exact same thing. I have three AirPort Expresses and it seems to me that my oldest one is not compatible with the new technology. The other two work fine. I can't update the firmware, so I guess I'm left with buying a new one. It took my whole system down.


Optimal Memory Layout for Late 2015 iMac I purchased an additional 2 8GB ram sticks for my iMac.  My intent was to upgrade the original 8GB (from Apple) to a total of 24GB.

When I opened the back, I noticed Apple had installed a 4GB slot in the 1st & 3rd slot.  I thought that odd and would have expected it in the 1st & 2nd.  I googled around to see where I should add my additional 8GB cards, but didn't come up with anything.  So, I installed in the 2nd & 4th slot.

Here's the current configuration:

Just to confirm, this is a poor setup?

I should have the 4s in the same bank together & the 8s in the same bank together?  I.e., 4GB in B0/D0, 4GB in B1/D1, 8GB in B1/D0, and 8GB in B1/D1?

I recently bought RAM from a thirdparty vendor and faced the same issue/question. Well, initially not (for a day or so) but after I wanted to play some games in Windoes 10 on bootcamp (Battlefield1 and Dragon Age Inquisition, both using the Frostbite Engine) I faced some issues. Both games crashed to the desktop after 5-20 minutes of gameplay. This did not happen before I added the two new RAM modules and I changed nothing else.

I had 2x8GB original RAM installed in slot 1&3 and I placed the new modules into the slots 2&4. After I noticed the crashes I searched the internet and also found the apple instructions mentioned (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201191). But the guide doesn't mention anything about the correct slot usage.

Contacted the vendor and they told me that it would be best to use slot 2&4 for the larger RAM modules and 1&3 for lower modules. But of course all my modules were 8 GB - so equal size.

Searching the internet I found some sites suggesting that memory modules of the same type should be in the same bank.

I thought to give it a try and placed the original modules in slots 1&2 (bank 0) and the new modules in slots 3&4 (bank 1). After that change the issues with the game crashes were gone.

I know, its not a scientific answer with hard facts but I would still suggest this layout. Cannot tell if this is a good layout for dual channel mode though.


Can I avoid iCloud Family sharing if I upgrade to iOS 8? Right now, my family and I share an iCloud account for iTunes and App Store.
It works well, but the new iCloud Family sharing would put a limit to six members.
That would not work for us. I really want to try the iOS 8. But will I be able to set up  my personal iCloud and my shared iCloud account for iTunes and the App Store?

Has anybody tried this? How did you work it out to still be able to used the shared iCloud account?

I have upgraded and do not need the option.
The option is not forced upon me.

Under the iCloud settings there is a choice to turn it on.


Assign ß on MacBook or external Magic Keyboard to long pressing S On Mac OS 10.15.4, when long-pressing keys such as E, O etc., we can chose from a small menu displaying several options for that letter.

I am searching for a possibility to write the letter ß in the same way. I know I can type "option + S", but this is not what I want

Question:

Is there a way to assign ß to an option menu that appears when long pressing the letter S (similar to ling pressing letters such as E, O, U etc.)?

Thanks a lot!

Edit after comments:

I have a MacBook Pro with a Dutch keyboard layout.
Language & Region settings: Preferred languages = English (US); Region = United States

The easiest fix is to just switch to the US or ABC input source.  These have the same mapping as Dutch, but with more press/hold options.

If you want to customize the Dutch input source, see this:


What causes the popup alternate characters from showing? I have the latest version of Mountain Lion 10.8.4 but can't use the new hold key to show variations option. So, when I press the n key and hold it down, it would be nice to see the two alternate ñ and ń characters.

I press but nothing happens. Does anyone have ideas on how to fix this?

Are there any background applications or kernel extensions that could disable the popovers? For example KeyRemap4MacBook disables them.

What input method do you use? The popovers don't work with all input methods, or custom keyboard layouts that are not saved in the bundle format.

You could also try to run defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true and reopen applications. Or delete ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.HIToolbox.*.plist and restart.

Does it work on other accounts, or did it work in earlier versions of OS X? Is there a process named PressAndHold?

Related questions:

Character Picker stopped working in OS X Lion


using OSX server in conjunction with Windows server We have a mixed shop, about 60% windows and 40% mac.  The Mac users use the Windows server for sharing files with all users and for access to the internet.  I would like to have a mac server for running backups of the Macs and storing Mac software.  Is it possible to configure things so that the Macs are connected to both servers and using each one for the above-mentioned purposes, using the same cables?  Hang one server off the other, maybe?

Yes - servers work well together and you could configure things in just about any manner you wish.

As long as you can map out on paper how you want things to connect, you can configure the server and clients to connect to either or both servers at the same time. You'll have different shares on each server for many cases, but you could have one directory run for both servers so people's names and passwords were centrally managed and not different on each server.


Why does pmset -g return sleep 1 When running pmset -g, the sleep value (putting the system to sleep) is set to 1 (sleep prevented by coreaudiod)

I have set my screen saver to show after 10 minutes of inactivity.
I then set my display to shutoff after 20 minutes.
I then modified the disksleep value to 20 minutes as well.

At this point, I noticed that I get this "warning":

  Warning: Idle sleep timings for "AC Power" may not behave as expected.
  - Display sleep should have a lower timeout than system sleep.

This is because my displaysleep is 20 and my sleep is 1. Can this be explained, why is system sleep set to 1, what does this really mean?

Per the pmset man page:

  sleep - system sleep timer (value in minutes, or 0 to disable)

So, your computer (Mac Pro, I'm assuming by the question tag) is set to sleep the system after one minute, but other sleep functions that depend on the system (putting the display to sleep, putting the disk to sleep, etc.) are set to run after the system is supposed to sleep.  How can the screensaver start after 10 minutes if the entire system is already sleeping after 1 minute??? :D

To change this, you can run sudo pmset sleep <number of minutes>.  So, to set the system sleep value to zero minutes (turning off sleep) on my own system, I run sudo pmset sleep 0.  If you want to do it through the GUI, you go to System Preferences > Energy Saver, and toggle the "Computer Sleep" value.


Updating iPod Touch from iOS 3 to 4 - have lost all apps and music A kid down the road asked me to update his iPod Touch from IOS v3.1.3 to v4.2.1.

I was doing this on my Windows 7 with itunes. This was a fresh install of itunes. I connected the device and the first thing i did was right click & back up. It took a while because he had filled all 7Gb of the device. Sure enough, I could tell that the music was now listed in my itunes library.

Then i started the update (which decided to do its own back up again, which seemed identical to the previous because of how long it took). The new IOS downloaded and installed and lastly it said it was restoring the apps and music. That restore process was quite quick and to my horror, ended up with almost 7Gb free. So the music and apps were gone! I look in the itunes library and the music is all gone too.

These apps and music were not purchased content (AFAIK). In particular i think the apps were free ones (little games), but all these apps will need to be re-downloaded. Plus save game files may be gone.

I do not know if the device was jail broken or anything. I am not an Apple Pro.

What went wrong?

Additional

I also tried to do a restore and there was a drop down list. In that list was:

<Name's> backup 20/Nov/2011 5:20pm <-- correct time of my backup
<Name's> backup

I did the restore using the 1st backup. However, the data did not restore and version of iOS remained at 4.2.1

An iOS device's backup typically contains just applications' settings & data. So, if you have just made a backup without saving app or music, you've lost everything.
Sorry :'(


How to add a wildcard host entry to Mac OS X Server's DNS I have set up a Mavericks Mac OS X Server machine for my lab, and I am using the DNS service for my own domain. Without getting into too many complicated details, I need to populate this local DNS service with a wildcard host entry, and the Server admin GUI doesn't let you do that.

I've read through a couple of threads on Apple's own support forums, but they just conclude with "edit the bind configuration files manually." And worse, there was no follow-up on how that worked out for the original poster. Was it an easy fix? Or did the GUI fight back against having files edited underneath it?

You can add the wild card domain much easier than that!

create the primary zone  "test.dev"
create machine record "test.dev"
add ip

http://www.howdididothat.info/2012/11/15/wildcard-dns-on-mac-osx-server-10-8/


Is it possible to set the unlock passcode with configurator profiles? I'm managing a half dozen devices with Configurator. I'd like to set the unlock passcode on all of the devices to friend. Is this possible using profiles or some other method in Configurator? If so, how?

I can't seem to figure out how, and my Google-Fu isn't giving me answers (too many wifi answers).

Not to my knowledge; You can mandate a passcode has to be in use, but you cannot dictate what that passcode is.


How can I manually switch to the next Desktop wallpaper in Mojave? I have attempted to use this AppleScript to to cause the Desktop wallpaper to change to the next image in the folder of images that has been selected in System Preferences. It does not work for me in Mojave, the current Desktop wallpaper remains unchanged.

Since I am unfamiliar with AppleScript, it might be that I am doing something wrong. I have copy/pasted the script into the Script Editor and clicked the Run button. I have also saved the script as an application and double clicked it from the Desktop.

Here is the version of the script that I am using:

tell application "System Events"
    tell current desktop
        set currentInterval to get change interval
        set change interval to currentInterval
    end tell
end tell

Any thoughts?

If you are simply looking to change your desktop wallpaper quickly, this following AppleScript code should do the trick. As it is now, the code is set to only choose the pictures from your desktop pictures folder.  To be able to use a different folder for your desktop pictures, you can certainly play around with the code

This works for me using the latest version of macOS Mojave

tell application "System Events"
    set fileRef to a reference to files of desktop pictures folder
    set picPath to path of fileRef
    tell current desktop
        set currentPic to get picture as POSIX file as text
        set theIndex to my indexOfItemInList(currentPic, picPath)
        try
            set picture to item (theIndex + 1) of picPath
        on error errMsg number errNum
            set theIndex to 0
            set picture to item (theIndex + 1) of picPath
        end try
    end tell
end tell

(* THIS HANDLER DETERMINES THE INDEX OF THE CURRENT DESKTOP PICTURE
IN THE LIST OF AVAILABLE DESKTOP PICTURES, TO BE ABLE TO QUICKLY SET
THE NEW DESKTOP PICTURE TO THE NEXT ONE IN THE LIST*)

on indexOfItemInList(theItem, theList)
    script fasterList
        property fastList : theList
    end script
    repeat with i from 1 to length of fasterList's fastList
        try
            if item i of fasterList's fastList = theItem then return i
        on error "Item not found." number -1728 from theItem
            tell application "System Events"
                tell current desktop
                    set picture to item 10 of picPath
                end tell
            end tell
        end try
    end repeat
end indexOfItemInList

You mentioned “The Change Picture Every XXX option needs to be checked in Desktop Preferences. “, in your comment.  I'm not quite sure why because the above AppleScript code works on my system without that being checked.  However if having that option to be enabled is necessary, this following AppleScript code will do that for you

if application "System Preferences" is running then do shell script "killall 'System Preferences'"
repeat until application "System Preferences" is not running
    delay 0.1
end repeat
tell application "System Preferences"
    reveal anchor "DesktopPref" of pane id "com.apple.preference.desktopscreeneffect"
    activate
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell application process "System Preferences"
    repeat while not (exists of static text 1 of row 2 of outline 1 of scroll area 1 of tab group 1 of window "Desktop & Screen Saver")
        delay 0.1
    end repeat
    set focused of static text "Desktop Pictures" of row 2 of outline 1 of scroll area 1 of tab group 1 of window "Desktop & Screen Saver" to true
    if (get value of checkbox 1 of tab group 1 of window 1) is 0 then
        click checkbox 1 of tab group 1 of window 1
    end if
end tell
if application "System Preferences" is running then do shell script "killall 'System Preferences'"


Can I transfer iTunes credit between accounts? How would I go about transferring iTunes credit between accounts?

The question pretty well speaks for itself. I have two accounts, one for my iPod, one for my iPhone, I have passwords to both accounts, I can handle talking to Apple Support if that's what needs be, but I was curious if I can transfer the funds without going through customer service. Should I just "gift" myself purchases?

This totally will not work. iTunes explicitly says gift certificate balances can not be used to purchase other gift certificates. I will call apple tomorrow to find another work around.


How to make screen zoom little bit less terrible? You know how you zoom-in whole screen with your magic-trackpad + ctrl + 2fingers in snow leopard?

The result is not-so-nice-looking screen. You can see pixels and basically the resolution is crapy... how do I fix that?

There is no way of fixing that.  It is magnifying the screen, not a true resolution independent zoom, so as things magnify they will appear blocky.


How can I copy the path of a file in Finder? How can I copy the path to a folder or a file? The Info Dialog doesn't allow me to copy the information that stands there ...

Is there an easy way to do this?

Right click on the file, hold down Alt/Option, and an item to copy file path will appear as Copy "<FILENAME>" as Pathname.

This is the easiest option for day to day usage, without involving Automator.

This seems to be a relatively new feature that was added in OS X El Capitan. (It also works on macOS Sierra).


How to find and unmount unresponsive NFS mounts? I turned off a machine exporting one folder which was mounted on my Mac using NFS.

How can I find and unmount the mount point ?

df does not return; it is probably stuck on this mount point, and I can't find a way to enumerate NFS mount points.

The mount command on the command line should give a list of all mounts, along with the mount point and the used file system, so nfs mounts can be identified as such.


Google Mail doesn't download label as folder I use GMail for push mail on my iPhone. I need that feature to sync my contact, calendar and email with Google. Setup is done using Microsoft Exchange following official tutorial from google at http://support.google.com/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&topic=14252&answer=138740

The problem is, it seems the push mail downloads all of my labels on GMail, which is 200 labels, and it annoys me. (Screenshot below)

Is there any solution to remove that Label/Folder?

You can disable these from your Gmail Preferences.

Go to Settings > Labels, and uncheck all the labels you don't wish to appear on your iPhone.  Once done, the iPhone should update accordingly.  If not, just delete the account and add it again.

For example, here are my settings:


Name for iPhone 5C home button ribbon with spring contacts, on the loud speaker? I need to replace the ribbon with the 2 contact points for the home button, I can't find it, all that comes up is the home button its self, any help appreciated.

Update:
iFixit calls it a home button spring contact cable.

Original answer: Sounds like you're talking about a Home Button Ribbon Cable.


Migrate 1 TB of iMovie '11 to iMovie 10.x if migration requires twice the disk space? I have about 1 TB of movies in iMovie '11 (version 9.x) format, and I need to migrate this library to iMovie 10.x now.

This process is described here:
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT202853

However, the page above says that "copies of the original iMovie Projects and iMovie Events folders are left in place". My library is stored on an external drive which is pretty much full.

When I press Update in the iMovie dialog box (Do you want to update your projects and events?), it looks like iMovie is going to copy my old libraries, and therefore require double the space I have on the disk. My little MacBook Air's disk doesn't help.

What do I need to do to migrate this library?

Convert to the internal drive, and as movies are converted, delete from external, and move there.

If your drives are getting this full, it's time to consider an update. 3TB externals are sub $100.


Use app made by me in iOS without distributing it in appstore Is it possible to use app made by me in my iphone without distributing it in appstore?

If so, how?

Thanks

Yes.  It's a little convoluted process but it's not difficult and it can be done without a Apple Developer account.

There are quite a few steps but it simply involves creating your app in Xcode, connecting your iPhone to the Mac, and deploying your app to your iPhone.  The complete info on how to do this are on this Apple site.


I can't undo a partition on my macbook I want to "delete" disk0s4, but it isn't appearing in the Disk Utility app.  This is from a failed attempt to install Ubuntu, how can I delete this partition?

Here is the diskutil list output:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *250.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            189.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:                        EFI                         60.0 GB    disk0s4

For anyone saying not to delete it because it's the EFI partition, it's not. "EFI EFI"(disk0s1) is the real EFI partition. The new EFI partition is just one that was improperly created during OP's failed installation of Ubuntu.

This will erase the partition and make it show up in Disk Utility(change PartitionName to whatever you want):

sudo diskutil eraseVolume JHFS+ PartitionName disk0s4

Now you can remove the partition like normal in Disk Utility(source):

  Open Disk Utility.
  Click the partition that you wish to delete under the logical
  volume.
  Click the Erase tab and make sure Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) is selected.
  Click the Erase button.
  Click the logical volume.
  Click the Partition tab.
  Highlight the partition that you erased in step 4.
  Click the ‘-‘ sign and click Remove.
  Use the drag handle to reallocate the space back relinquished
  by the deleted partition.
  Click Apply → Partition.


How to add space between each last body paragraph and heading in Pages '09? The only way I found is to manually add line breaks, which can lead to inconsistency. Is there a way to automate this ?

Based on your question and comments to @nathang answer, you will need to create two paragraph styles. One will be the standard paragraph, and the second is a duplicate of the standard but with a value set in "After Paragraph" in the Inspector to use for paragraphs that come right before a header.

Using two paragraph styles is kludgy, but writing a script to automate this would be just as kludgy and unreliable.


Zoom capability gone I used to be able to hit Ctrl and use mouse wheel to zoom in on pictures, web pages, or whatever.  With OS 10.8 the mouse wheel just scrolls up and down pages. Any thoughts on getting the zoom feature back?

Apple changed this default behavior in 10.8 Mountain Lion.

To re-enable the behavior you're accustomed to:

Open System Preferences
Click on Accessibility
Click on Zoom
Check the box next to "Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom"
optional - You can change the modifier key (control by default) that is used in the dropdown box below

From a support perspective I can understand why Apple disabled this.  I've personally helped probably upwards of 20 people who have inadvertently zoomed in and have not known what they did or how to undo it.  I can only imagine that AppleCare phone support gets many calls about this, which I'm sure is difficult to figure out based on the descriptions people give.

Changing the default behavior would kill off the majority of those calls for new 10.8 users who have no idea what the feature is for while leaving the option there for those of us that use it from time to time.

Hope that helps!


macOS: Identify tool and keyboard shortcut While working on a project in Xcode, when attempting to take a screenshot, I mistakenly invoked a random keyboard shortcut for some graphic/UI tool, instead of Command + Shift + 4 which I actually wanted to invoke.

It showed the following screen with three tabs (Screenshot, Screen recording and a 3rd item that I can't recall) on top. It also shows a smaller view where a square was shown split into four with some coordinates and colour code at the bottom:

I have tried, but I couldn't reproduce the keyboard shortcut again. What is the tool and what is the exact shortcut? I am using a Late 2013 15" MacBook Pro with US International keyboard, running macOS Mojave 10.14.2.

Note: Kindly notice the two controls highlighted in the screenshot. The top is a tab like interface with three buttons (third one is selected with white background). If you'll notice carefully, the button background is a shade of dark grey which closely matches with Xcode dark interface. Just below that is some kind of UI tool with a box with 4 squares, coordinates and RGB colour codes.

It's the new feature in Mojave. You can show Screenshot/Screen Capture menu with ⌘ cmd+⇧ shift+5.


Owner and Group owner of files in my home In my Linux installations (Ubuntu and Debian), under the home of my user I only have files whose owner is my user and group owner is my primary group.

In my OSX 10.8.5, under the home of my user (username enzotib, primary group staff), I also have files whose owner or group owner (or both) is different. This is the situation:

Number of files   Owner   Group owner
      280        enzotib     admin
       29        root        wheel
       10        root        staff

Is that normal?
Can I (or should I) change something with chmod?

This is normal, to some extent. It really depends on what you have in your home directory. My home directory contains root user files from applications that require system-wide privileges for updating, such as Adobe Air and Parallels Desktop. Under normal circumstances there's no need to change groups or owners of these files.

If you're worried about the groups and users of OSX's own files in your home dir, run Disk Utility and repair permissions. This will fix the groups/users of OSX's own files, including the ones in your home dir.


Videos have audio on right channel only, how can I make it sound through both channels? I've downloaded m4v videos (legally if you should ask*) and played them with Quicktime, VLC and MplayerX.

They have the audio only in the right channel, is there a way I can equalize the output so I hear it through both channels?

I've tried equalizing from Audio Preferences but it obviously just decreases the volume of one channel and increases the other, but doesn't move the output from one channel to the other.

* http://www.atheist-experience.com/videocast.php

You can use the Universal Access preferences to play the same audio in both channels:


How can I determine the invoking user in an Apple installer postinstall script I want to build an apple installer .pkg where I run a postinstall script after the files have been copied by the installer. The script is run and everything works perfect except that all the commands in the script are run as root.

The question is, how can I determine the id of the user who actually invoked the installer.

who -m

returns the invoking user when I run the script on the command line with sudo. But it returns root when I run it in the installer.

Is there any way to get the "actual user"?

Thanks for your help!

After some testing, I believe I have found that one of the best options for this is

INSTALLER_USER=$(stat -f '%Su' $HOME)

I have found that the $HOME environmental variable of the user installing the package is passed through, even after elevating for Installer.app or using the installer command.

The previous answers are assuming some things about the environment that may not always be true.

For example CONSOLE_USER=$(ps aux | grep console | grep -v grep | cut -d' ' -f1) does not work in there are multiple users logged in, as may be the case in a computer lab environment.

As for ps aux | grep "CoreServices/Installer" | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1;}'; this only works if the user is actually running  Installer.app and would not apply to someone running it with the installer command in a shell.


OS X - Make all screens combined Is there any way to make all screens connected to Mac function as one, so full screen apps (like iTunes Visualizer) can extend over all monitors? Thanks!

I'm not the most qualified to speak on multiple displays but the way I know to do it is:

System Preferences
Mission Control
Uncheck Displays have separate spaces
Log out & back in


How do you remove the Automator gear icon in the menu bar? I have Automator workflow applications that I run from keyboard shortcuts. It is great, however, a small gear icon always appears.

I would like to remove it.

How do you do this?
I usually remove all the pixels from the image of menu bar icons of applications, so they are invisible in the menu bar. I could easily do this with Automator (or the Automator application launcher), but can't find where the menu bar icons are stored. Where would they be stored?

If you are starting a long-running process with "Run Shell Script", redirecting its output should be enough. For example:

long-running-process &>/dev/null &

The gear icon appears then goes away shortly after, I think it is better than nothing...


Can ransomware infect iCloud Drive? I have all Apple products in my household, and am very security conscious. But the recent articles about ransomware infecting all sorts of computers got me thinking.
Even if I was foolish enough to find a Mac ransomware program, download it, disable Sophos, disable SIP, and give said ransomware program my admin credentials, could it infect my iCloud Drive? I have regular hourly backups to my Time Machine so I am not worried about my data stored locally, but iCloud Drive items are stored on Apple's Servers as well as on my computer. So if ransomware encrypted all of my content in my iCloud Drive folder on my computer, would it update the files on the server, making recovery not possible?

For clarification, my questions are these:

Does the iCloud Drive folder get backed up to my Time Machine?
Does Apple make regular accessible backups of their user's content?
Would the encrypted data be uploaded to iCloud replacing the old files on the server?

In short, yes, it is quite possible for ransomware to encrypt the contents of your iCloud Drive. It is possible for the ransomware to encrypt the data of your iCloud Drive, and then your computer would sync the changes to Apple's cloud, requiring decryption to access the data again.

To answer your questions:

Probably. The iCloud Drive folder is stored locally on your computer in /YourUserName/Library/Mobile Documents. It would be getting backed up unless you have specifically told Time Machine to not back up this directory.
No. Apple does not make backups of a user's iCloud Drive accessible. It is unclear if Apple even keeps copies of user's iCloud Drive, but they are most certainly not accessible to the users.
Yes. If ransomware encrypts the files in the directory /YourUserName/Library/Mobile Documents then the changes would be applied to your iCloud Drive, rendering the information useless without decrypting the data.


Smart Folder: how to create listing of all files in a folder? I want to create a Smart Folder which just lists all files of my ~/Music directory - i.e. just a flattened version of that folder.

How can I do this?

(I tried to type * in the search field, but that doesn't list all files.)

By default, the Spotlight GUI in the Finder will not let you use wildcards or other advanced syntax. However, by using the Raw Query search criterion, you can use all the syntax available to the command-line mdfind utility:

Navigate to your ~/Music folder
Hit ⌘ F
Double-check the Scope Bar of the search to make sure Spotlight is just searching your Music folder
Hit the "+" button to add a search criterion
From the criteria drop-down menu, check if the Raw Query criterion is visible (it isn't by default). If not, click Other... and a criteria list will appear. Search for the Raw Query criterion, check the box to include it in the menu, and click "OK".
Select the newly-visible Raw Query criterion and enter the following:

(kMDItemFSName == '*.mp3') || (kMDItemFSName == '*.ogg') || (kMDItemFSName == '*.flac')

The above query will search for files that have .mp3, .ogg, or .flac in their filename (as opposed to the contents of the file). This Macworld article helped me construct this particular query, but this Apple Developer page has a more comprehensive listing of the types of metadata available for raw queries.

Alternatively, you can construct the desired query visually:

Navigate to your ~/Music folder
Hit ⌘ F
Double-check the Scope Bar of the search to make sure Spotlight is just searching your Music folder
Hit the "+" button to add a search criterion
Choose the Kind criterion and set it to Any
Hold down the Option/Alt key to create a conditional (thanks to Adam Franco for pointing this out) and set it to Any
From the criteria drop-down menu, check if the File extension criterion is visible. If not, click Other... and a criteria list will appear. Search for the File extension criterion, check the box to include it in the menu, and click "OK".
Add as many File extension criteria as you wish.

If you want the search to display all files below a given folder (regardless of file type), you can use the File visibility criterion:

Navigate to your ~/Music folder
Hit ⌘ F
Double-check the Scope Bar of the search to make sure Spotlight is just searching your Music folder
Hit the "+" button to add a search criterion
From the criteria drop-down menu, check if the File visibility criterion is visible (it isn't by default). If not, click Other... and a criteria list will appear. Search for the File invisible criterion, check the box to include it in the menu, and click "OK".
The File visibility option should now be in the search criterion drop-down menu. So long as this criterion is set to "Visible or Invisible", all files below the present folder will be shown (you can optionally change this to "Visible Items" you don't want dot-files in the results)


Using an iPhone as a Remote Video Recorder from a Mac Does there exist any app for iPhone/Mac that allows me:

to see on the Macbook what my iPhone camera "sees" via WiFi?
to remotely, from the Mac, start/stop recording on the iPhone?

I'm currently trying iKeyboardRemote but it allows me only start and stop recording via Bluetooth (and without any feedback). I would like to see when to start recording and when to stop.

I have found several apps in the App Store that allow remote video between two iPhones or iPhone/iPad, but found none for iPhone to Mac OS X.  (I don't have two iPhones, nor an iPad).

Unfortunately, I have upgraded to 6.1.3 on 4S, so I can't jailbreak it for installing a VNC server, which would be the easiest and best solution.

I'm hoping I missed some apps — can anybody suggest a solution?

There seem to be a handful of apps available that allow your iPhone to act as a webcam for your Mac over Wi-Fi, which would allow you to view and record video from them. A few of the ones I found:

PocketCam
Mobiola WebCamera
iWebcamera

For recording purposes, you may need to use the built-in recording functionality of QuickTime Player, although some of the apps seem to have free companion OS X software that will accomplish the same goal.


Did Sierra's latest security update brick my device? I have an mbp mid-2012 running the latest Sierra. I installed the latest update which attempted to restart the machine. The usual progress bar was showing and then it shut off. Curiously, it didn't restart.
Now, when i press the power button, the sleep led flickers and then dies along with the machine. The screen never turns on.

Things I've tried

resetting SMC

Are these symptoms familiar to anyone?

The number of times the sleep light flashed was an indicator of the problem. Three flashes means the Mac can't find any RAM.

Practically, this means the RAM you have installed is bad, or has a bad connection. Step one is re-seat like you did. Meaning remove and reinstall the RAM. If you still have problems, swap it out with some other compatible RAM and see what happens.


For a Western Digital Duo, what's the difference between creating a RAID using WD Drive Utilities vs. OS X (diskutil)? For a Western Digital Duo drive, is there a major difference between the two? OS X Disk Utility doesn't have the RAID feature now, but OS X can still create RAIDs via the command line and diskutil. WD Drive Utilities can modify RAID configuration, erase drives, etc. If formatting a RAID, is there any reason to choose one method over the other? (Namely, performance and stability.)

There is in fact, a major difference between the two.

The WD Duo has hardware RAID built into the device whereas OS X RAID utility is software based RAID meaning you use CPU cycles to manage the RAID processing overhead.

The WD "offloads" the RAID processing overhead onto itself and presents just a drive to OS X.  OS X doesn't have to do anything more than it already is doing to access it.  The WD Drive Utilities is just a management tool for the RAID array, not the RAID software itself.


OSX color picker history - save file data I'm not exactly sure if I am using the right terminology, but when using the OSX color picker, you have the ability to store colors in your own personal archive. (see picture)

I recently did a clean install of my operating system and lost my palettes. Does anyone know where this data is stored?

Thanks!

In my investigation it seems the preferences are saved here:

~/Library/Colors/NSColorPanelSwatches.plist

It is my guess that this file would be overwritten on a clean install.  However, if you want keep it, from here on out you may be able to copy it to a safe location.  If you have a Time Machine backup, you may be able to dig through it and recover your previous version of this file.

If you named your custom palette, then in that folder would be a file similar to mycustompalette.clr


How can I use variable in AppleScript for name of browser? I'm trying to streamline an AppleScript which monitors whether tabs in web browsers are currently open to specific sites.

I can repeat the same block of code multiple times, clunky but it works:

tell application "Safari"
    repeat with site in sitelist
        repeat with w from 1 to number of windows
            set tabList to (every tab of window w whose URL contains site)
        end repeat
    end repeat
end tell
tell application "Chrome"
    repeat with site in sitelist
        repeat with w from 1 to number of windows
            set tabList to (every tab of window w whose URL contains site)
        end repeat
    end repeat
end tell

I'd like this code to work for more browsers than just these two. I've tried using a variable to represent the browser name:

set browserlist to {"Safari", "Chrome"}

repeat with browser in browserlist
    tell application browser
        repeat with site in sitelist
            repeat with w from 1 to number of windows
                set tabList to (every tab of window w whose URL contains site)
            end repeat
        end repeat
    end tell
end repeat

But AppleScript gives me a syntax error, "Expected class name but found property."
Apparently when I change tell application "Safari" to tell application browser, it has a problem with tab in this line:

set tabList to (every tab of window w whose URL contains site)

Can I get tab to work with the variable browser?

Thanks!

That won’t work because the target for an application tell statement is needed at compile time to load its scripting dictionary.  An application’s terminology is defined however the developer wants it, so anything similar between applications is more of an accident than any kind of convention.

The closest you are going to get would be to programmatically build a script as a text string and use it with a run script statement, since the script in the string is compiled when it is used:

set theApp to "Safari"
set theScript to "tell application \"" & theApp & "\" to get tabs of window 1"
run script theScript


How to sync passwords between Chrome and iCloud Keychain I'd like to use Chrome (currently Version 57.0.2987.133 (64-bit)) and on my iPad I'd like to use Safari (obviously). Since 10.10 the sync between Chrome and MacOS Keychain stopped working for me.

Is there any trick to make this work again?

1Password or other 3rd party password managers are currently no option for me, as I don't trust their security. (see here or here)

I found this:

  You can no longer share Google Chrome passwords with iCloud Keychain.
  Google Chrome 45 was the last one that could do it. Since then its
  been removed as an option.

  Perhaps reaching out to Google Support and giving them something to
  pass on to the devs for Chrome for Mac could inspire something.

  Until they replace it, I recommend using a 3rd Party option since they
  work with nearly every platform and device type. Such as LastPass,
  Dashlane, Roboform, Keepass, 1Password, Privacy, GNOME keyring, etc.

  They may work with Keychain and gather passwords saved in Chrome.
  Thats the only auto-sync solution that is available.


iOS 10 icloud calendars not showing up (gone after upgrade) After upgrading my iPhone 5 from iOS 9 directly to iOS 10.0.1, all my icloud calendars are gone.

They don't show up in the calendars list in the Calendar app, and dragging said list down to force syncing of the calendars doesn't even show the usual spinning loading bar indicator – the whole iCloud section is just missing from the list. Rebooting didn't fix the issue.

The following finally fixed the issue for me:

Sign out of iCloud (Settings -> iCloud -> Sign Out)
choosing "delete all iCloud data from iPhone"
sign in again
wait a couple of minutes


Losing internet over & over again and still connected to wifi I have a strange issue with my WiFi. I am losing internet (it seems connected, but seems not responding) over & over again after a while. And if I try to change the location in network settings, it restores the internet.

The WiFi is working fine because when I lose internet on Mac, it still works on my phone.

I'd suspect that you have a problem with your home router.  Connect to its administrative console and have a look at its logs.

There could also be a problem with your internet service provider.

You see, your home router is your actual "route" to the Internet.  Any traffic that you want to send out over the Internet first goes to your home router which, through the magic of (mumble, mumble) actually sends the traffic out and returns the response back to you.

What your Mac is saying, then, is that it is able to detect that the router doesn't seem to be doing that consistently.  Even though you remain connected to your WiFi network (which eliminates any problems with your Mac ...), traffic destined for the Internet isn't consistently being delivered for some "upstream" reason.

  If you happen to be curious about how it all works, console commands like traceroute can actually show you exactly how a packet "bounces" from one server to another to another within the Internet as it magically gets to where it needs to go ... sometimes taking a different path each time.


Has anybody had problems with Application Loader 2.5.1 update? The problem is that Software Update suggests me to install Application Loader 2.5.1, but each time I'm trying to install it, 71.4 disturb is downloaded and then installer throws an error "The update "Application Loader" can't be installed. An error occurred".

Anything else is installed without any problems.
Where should I start with resolving this problem?

Did you check the Console.app for any logs? Any logs related to this error?

The newest version of Application Loader is 2.5.2 (if I'm correct), I installed it with the newest Xcode via the Mac App Store. Didn't had any problems when updating Xcode or Application Loader.


Is Mavericks still available for download (from Apple or anywhere)? I've got a MBP (mid-2012) that is currently running Mountain Lion and I would like to upgrade it to Mavericks.  Now that Yosemite is available, it seems that Mavericks is no longer available for download.  Is that correct?  Is there any way to download a Mavericks installer?

Mavericks does not currently appear in the Apple App Store. If you had "purchased" it before, it will appear in your Purchases view for download.

Registered Mac developers can also redeem a code to add Mavericks to their purchase view.

I don't think there are any other options from Apple.


Changing my name shown atop iTunes 12 (eg from 'Thomas' to 'Tom') iTunes 12 (of the garish red icon) shows your name in its top bar. For me this says 'Thomas', but I'd like to switch it to 'Tom'. How can I do so? It's not in iTunes preferences, and I've just changed my Apple ID first name from 'Thomas' to 'Tom' and that hasn't changed it.

I wanted to do this too (I changed my first name), and stumbled on a solution somewhat accidentally:

First, I changed my Apple ID first name at http://appleid.apple.com/ (as you already have).

Next (wondering whether or not the name change had taken effect anywhere), I went to look at my account information. It should ask you to log in. For me, that is when iTunes figured out my name had changed; it updated immediately.

Based on this, my guess is iTunes just doesn't bother to check whether or not any details surrounding your Apple ID have changed except for at log in, so when you do that, it should just update.


Why can't I install iOS 9.3? I saw an update for my iOS 9.2.1 device to iOS 9.3.

However, it said that the update cannot be verified, although it was downloaded.

I even deleted all data and applications from the device, but I still cannot update the device to 9.3; it just says "Your software is up to date" on iOS 9.2.1.

Can you force an update to 9.3?

Apple yanked iOS 9.3 (13E233) for almost all devices on 03/24/16 which means you can't install it. And no, you cannot force an update to iOS 9.3 since Apple is no longer signing it.

Update: iOS 9.3 (13E237) has been released on 03/28/16 for most devices, so you should be able to download the new firmware and install now. If you still can't install, you likely have one of the few devices that still don't have an updated version of iOS 9.3. You can check your device's signing status here.


Syncing .apps via dropbox/resilio sync Is it a good idea to sync .apps so that I can have the same app on multiple Mac's? How often do .apps change, afaik, the app's data is stored the Library folder, so, except for updates, the .app should't change, or should it?

Firstly, DropBox, Resilio sync and other such systems do have limitations about the types of files that they can sync. They may not sync certain file types, metadata, files with particular character sequences, and so on. You should read up on these, as this may affect syncing apps.

Some apps can have components in /Library, and/or the User's Library. These components may get updated by an installer package.
If an app gets updated through syncing, but all these other components are not updated (which would have happened in an updater), then you might run into trouble if a newly synced app tries to read support files from an older version. (It's also unwise to sync severl areas in the Library folders, as these can be machine specific.)

My gut reaction is that it might cause unforeseen problems, and given that most apps either update themselves or use the Mac App Store to do so, (and are otherwise static) there's not really any compelling need to sync them.


Can`t log in to MacBook Pro after starting encryption for home drive. What can I do now? here we have another beautiful case of "Don't expect your Mac to be reliable by itself" What happened is as follows:

I decided to encrypt all my data. Since I have a second hard drive in my MacBook I have my home drive on it, and hence not on the same drive as the OS. Encrypting the drive with the OS was easily solved via FileVault. Once that was done I checked online to see if I can encrypt the home drive as well, and found the solution to just right click and press "Encrypt."

At this point I assumed Mac OS will have some sort of system recognizing the fact that my home folder is on that drive and will handle the encryiption accordingly. I was WRONG. And now I can`t log in ... From what I can tell this is due to the fact that the home drive is not loaded prior to logging in (and on the other hand is necessary to log in).

Has anyone got an idea how I can handle this situation?

Thanks!
Tired greetings,
Alex

Unfortunately, that's just how it works currently. The easiest solution is just move the home back to the encrypted startup disk.

Otherwise you'll have to do something goofy like create another user so you can log in, unlock the disk and then log out/back in as you.


Permanent way to keep youtube playing in iOS5 Is there a permanent way to keep youtube playing when I tap the home button or close the lid of my iPad? I know that if I double click on the home button, slide to the bottom list of apps to the right and press play, it keeps youtube playing. But I do not want to mess with it everytime. So, do you know a way to keep youtube playing without doing this everytime?

You could use a different app for playing Youtube videos, which don't stop playing when you press the home button. YStream/Ystream2 is an example of such an application (amongst others).

As far as I know there is no way to prevent the built in Youtube app from stopping playback when the app is "minimized". These are the ways I know of for resuming playback:

Double tap the Home button, slide the bottom row, and press play. (As you mentioned)
Lock the screen, Double tap Home button, Press Play. (I usually find this slightly faster)
Use a Bluetooth keybord with a "Play" button.
Activating VoiceOver and double tapping the screen with two fingers.
Using the Play button on your headphones.


Cannot access mounted .dmg over the network in Mountain Lion I noticed this with TrueCrypt volumes. Before 10.8, whenever I mounted a .dmg on my iMac, I could access it automatically from my mbp over the network with afp sharing. But after upgrading to Mountain Lion, apparently this is not working anymore.

Furthermore, I if explicitly share the mounted .dmg, I have no error on the iMac , but on the mbp the share is not visible. It's only me or this is a new "feature", may be related to security ?

I've got the same problem.

I used a .dmg mounted on my imac to store time machine backups for my macbook pro over the network.

Since upgrading to mountain lion I'm unable to access the network share from other macs. This seems to be the case for all .dmg files that I've tried to share over afp.


How do you text people from your number and not from your Apple ID email? I've recently went to an Apple store and the guy reset all my settings. Lately, whenever I text people with iPhones, they tell me that I don't text from my number anymore, but from my Apple ID email. I tried going into Settings and changing some things, and texting some of my friends to see if it's changed but they keep saying I'm still texting from my email. How do I reverse this or text from my regular number?

Under your Message settings in iOS, there is an option to select which address or phone number new conversations will originate from.

Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > Start new conversations from:


How to map the 'Mission Control' key to F3 via Karabiner? I am using an external mechanical keyboard. I find that whenever I hit the F3 key, it is mapped to mission_control.

Is it possible to remap mission_control to something else? In the karabiner Element I cannot find any option of mission_control

Although the proposed solution works, there are better alternatives IMO. To remap mission_control to right_command for example, you can also:

Add a rule to Karabiner-Elements such as:

{
  "type": "basic",
  "from": {
    "key_code": "mission_control",
    "modifiers": {
      "optional": [
        "any"
      ]
    }
  },
  "to": [
    {
      "key_code": "right_command"
    }
  ]
}

or

Go to System preferences -> Mission Control -> Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts -> Mission Control and select Right Command


Automatically move old music tracks on iTunes to external HDD My media are taking most of my internal hard disk drive. I wanted to know if there is a way to automatically transfer music that I do not listen to regularly on my iTunes folder to an external hard disk.

Steps to perform this:

Navigate to the location you want to copy the files to and leave the
window open in the Finder.
Create a smart playlist in iTunes by Option-Clicking the new
playlist button in the bottom left of the main window.
Configure the playlist with the appropriate criteria, such as:
{Last Played} {is before} {1/1/2008} or whatever you consider
"Old."  Click Ok
Select Edit, Select All and drag the items to the folder you opened in step 1.  Wait for the copy to finish and you'll have all your old music in that folder.
To automate the process, use Automator and configure a new workflow similar to the following image:
Rig up the workflow you just created to run.  Put it in the dock, use Crontab or run it at login.


Freezes on MacBook w/ Lion with Intel 330 SSD I installed an Intel 330 SSD (120GB) in my MacBook (4,1) a few weeks ago. I reinstalled a fresh Mac OS X Lion (10.7.4) to make sure there are no issues with the new drive.

However, since then I encounter random and pretty frequent freezes (~10, daily).
The entire OS freezes for 10-30 seconds, the cursor (the infamous beach ball) still moves but no application responds to input.

I don't know whether the drive is malfunctioning or the problem is with the OS. I see other people having this issue and I'm wondering if anyone has any clues as to where to start investigating. If I am to return the drive, I need some proof that it's malfunctioning. Or, if the OS has incompatibility issues with Intel drives/SandForce controllers, I might buy a second different drive.

At the moment I'm trying to use fs_usage (as I'm writing this message), hoping to find a clue about what's causing the freezes.

As suggested by various blogs/tips, I disabled the power-saving feature for disk drives. I even tried the Trim Enabled utility, but it only seemed to make the freezes happen more often, so at the moment it's disabled.

Any input on this issue would be appreciated.

Turning off the FileVault seems to be fixing the problem with me. I also have TRIM enabled with Trim Enabler and "Put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" in the Energy Saver setting unchecked.


Can you tell if updates came from OS X caching server? If I run software update on a Mavericks Mac it will find a caching server automagically if there are any running locally rather than using the CDN Apple hosts on the internet. I'm not so much concerned about security as just knowing when and if the server is running correctly without having any sort of log in to the server itself.

Is there a log file on the client end or another way to determine this conclusively?

The caching server will print to log when a client requests an update. This log is located at:

/Library/Server/Caching/Logs/Debug.log

The following is the anatomy of a request which was served by the caching server's cache:

Client requests update package

Got request for host = http://swcdn.apple.com/{{REQUEST}}

Find cached package in server data

Initializing asset handler for http://swcdn.apple.com/{{REQUEST}} (path = /Library/Server/Caching/Data/{{UDID}})

Check/load asset in cache

Cached asset length = {{LENGTH}} MD5={{CHECKSUM}} last modified {{DATE/TIME}}
Extents loaded from disk: {{DATA}}
Data already cached for asset http://swcdn.apple.com/{{REQUEST}}, issuing If-Modified-Since request
Info loaded: file length = {{DATA}}, reader = {{DATA}}

Serve asset to client from cache

{{BYTES}} bytes served, {{SERVED_BYTES}} from cache, 0 downloaded

This 0 downloaded is what shows the update was entirely served by the caching server.
Finish

Outgoing connection finished


Concatenate & VLOOKUP In Numbers, I'm trying to enhance a Concatenated formula of multiple VLOOKUP results. I'm currently producing a result of three concatenated answers (each a specific VLOOKUP formula). I would like to double that to six VLOOKUP formulas...Though duplicating the existing formulas, I keep getting errors.

Here is my formula currently:

=CONCATENATE (VLOOKUP($A$3,Hm_Roster :: $A$2:$L$201,4, FALSE),(" '"),(" "),(VLOOKUP($A$3,Hm_Roster :: $A$2:$L$201,5,FALSE)), (""), (", "),(VLOOKUP($A$3,Hm_Roster :: $A$2:$L$201,6,FALSE)))

You likely deducted, "Hm_Roster" is another page inside the document from which the data is being concatenated. Also, likely obvious: in the document I see "exact match" but when I paste the formulas it reads "FALSE"

Here is what I got using six VLOOKUP

=CONCATENATE(VLOOKUP(2,Hm_Roster::A3:E8,3,FALSE),(" "),VLOOKUP(2,Table 1::A3:E8,2,close-match),(" "),VLOOKUP(6,Hm_Roster::A3:E8,2,FALSE),(" "),VLOOKUP(1,Hm_Roster::A3:E8,4,FALSE),(" "),VLOOKUP(5,Table 1::A3:E8,2,close-match),(" "),VLOOKUP(2,Hm_Roster::A3:E8,4,FALSE))

The search is being done across two sheets. And I am using thefirst columns in each table to match against. The first columns contain numbers so that is what I am looking for. Than asking for the return-column to be either 3,2,4 to the right of matched column

And returns :

  Jone Fuller Silver Sales Person Buchanan Chairman

If you edit your formula you will see that some of the arguments have a drop down selector. These allow you to select the option for that argument.

In the case of Exact-Match. You will see that it is equal to FALSE. so don't worry about it changing.

Make sure you are not using extra brackets where they are not needed. Also I noticed that if I change a cell detail. I had to re-affirmed the formula so that it would pick the change up. I am not sure if thats a bug or not.

(Also note this is the first time I have looked at VLOOKUP )


Completely clear all output from a Terminal window I would like to clear all output from a Terminal window (including all historical output) to get it back to a clean state as if you had just opened a new Terminal window, or a new Terminal tab.

I can use the clear command to clear just the current screenful, but then you can still scroll up to see all the historical output. I'm using the Terminal to trace program output and at the end I would just like to do ⌘ + A to select all the text so I can grab the output from the just last run, without having to scroll up and see where it started. I could also just open a new tab, I was just wondering if this can be done in the same window?

Have you tried the clear all combination ⌘+K?

There is also ⌥+⌘+K, which just clears the scroll-back.


I can't find any Quick Look cache data in macOS Mojave beta I'm using macOS Mojave beta and I'm trying to find out where Quick Look cache data is stored.

As of High Sierra, I found the Terminal command to open the path of Quick Look cache data:

open $TMPDIR/../C/com.apple.QuickLook.thumbnailcache/

This is what it looks like:

But when running Mojave beta, my Mac doesn't have any files in that path (I haven't cleared the cache at all and checked with qlmanage -r enable), I frequently used Quick Look though.

Quick Look works fine but I'd like to know why my Mac doesn't store cache data.

UPDATE

This is the output of command:

sudo lsof -c quicklookd

But I don't see anything in the directory via Finder.

/private/var/folders/ff/3m1y9syj5cd_vhjpgy0yy5c00000gn/C/com.apple.QuickLook.thumbnailcache/

If I tried it through Terminal. It says the issue in terms of permission. I have completely no idea what this permission comes from:

~ (166) $cd /private/var/folders/ff/3m1y9syj5cd_vhjpgy0yy5c00000gn/C/com.apple.QuickLook.thumbnailcache
cd: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: Operation not permitted

/private/var/folders/ff/3m1y9syj5cd_vhjpgy0yy5c00000gn/C (171) $ls -l | grep quicklook
ls: com.apple.QuickLook.thumbnailcache: Operation not permitted

In Mojave, quicklookd stores the information in the same private folder hierarchy:

/private/var/folders/<id>/<random>/com.apple.QuickLook.thumbnailcache

as in High Sierra.

To list the exact folder name used in Mojave (this procedure also works in High Sierra), open a Finder window, select a document or application, press space to fire up Quick Look, launch Terminal and run:

sudo lsof -c quicklookd

lsof -c displays which files and folders are in use by a specific process.
The result will look similar to this (the red circle highlights the private folder):

The folder can't be accessed, neither by a standard user (even with sudo) nor by an administrator:

As you posted in your comment, the reason why you can't see its contents is because it is protected by System Integrity Protection. That's new in Mojave.


How to retrieve unsaved password How can I Retrieve unsaved passwords from history on safari or hard drive of a macbook pro

password not saved on keychain.

You can't, user input is not cached in Safari. But hopefully the web site you want to log in to allows you to reset/resend your password


How to add startup program using Terminal? Honestly, I'm finding Apple's launchctl and plist (XML?) usage to be somewhat confusing and overkill. Using Terminal, I just wanna say hey, macOS, start program.app at boot! or hey, macOS, start my /path/to/shell.sh at boot!

How can I add a boot item --remotely via Terminal/SSH/Netcat/command line/shell?

sh-3.2# system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType
Software:

    System Software Overview:

      System Version: macOS 10.13.4 (17E199)
      Kernel Version: Darwin 17.5.0
      Boot Volume: lily
      Boot Mode: Normal
      Computer Name: lily’s MacBook Air
      User Name: System Administrator (root)
      Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled
      System Integrity Protection: Enabled
      Time since boot: 2:03

LaunchDaemons – Run at Boot

LaunchAgents – Run at Login

So... you need a daemon

suggest you to cat /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.pfctl.plist or any other in the same dir and use it as reference.

Just remove unnecessary. It will be something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Disabled</key>
    <false/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>shell.sh</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/path/to/shell.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

save the file in the same dir, but named shell.sh.plist and run

sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/shell.sh.plist

to remove script from the load list:

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/shell.sh.plist

this is not linux so things are done Mac way.

man launchd & man launchd.plist will provide all needed info

OR

you can use an approach described here

Creating .plist just once and pointing it to your startup script which in turn will start anything you add there without need to write new .plist every time you want to start something new.


Late 2011 MacBook Pro Cannot Install OS X I have a late 2011 MacBook Pro (MD322LL/A) given to me by a friend. The hard drive was removed, so I put in a new one and have been trying to install OS X Yosemite. However, whenever I boot the install media, be it a flash drive, hard drive, or DVD, the installation gets about 1/3 of the way through and then goes to a blank white or grey screen. When this happens, whatever install media it was reading from, it stops accessing, as if the system had halted. If I boot in verbose mode and look at the output, these are the last lines before the screen turns blank:

fGPUIdleIntervalMS = 0
[AGPM Controller] build GPUDict by Vendor1882Device6741
DSMOS has arrived

This leads me to believe the issue lies with the GPU, but I am not sure how I could confirm this. I was able to install Windows 8.1 on this Mac, however I can't install the AMD nor Intel graphics drivers so I am unable to confirm if they are working that way. Is there anything else I can try? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Edit:

I was able to confirm that the GPU was at fault by installing OS X to a hard drive on another Mac, putting that hard drive in the MacBook Pro, and then booting to single user mode and entering the following:

cd /System/Library
mkdir ExtensionsDisabled
mv Extensions/AMD* ExtensionsDisabled/

This prevented any kernel extension related to the AMD GPU from being loaded and forced the Mac to boot using the Intel GPU, which works as a temporary fix. The real fix is, as answered below, a new logic board, which Apple will replace for you.

Some 2011 MBPs have a well-known GPU problem. So well-known, in fact, that Apple will replace your GPU for free! That link leads to Apple's page for their GPU replacement program.


Bootcamp Failing with Error: "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition." I have a 21.5" Mid-2010 iMac i3 in which I am trying to install Windows 8 on. When I went into bootcamp, I received the ever so common error of:

When I went to the newly designed disk utility, it told me I had one partition. Of course, I knew this couldn't be true, so i went into terminal and typed diskutil list and got:

OLD COMMAND OUTPUT, SEE EDIT 2 BELOW

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            498.6 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s6
   4:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s5

Now, I did install an extra Yosemite partition, then deleted it using standard disk utility erase. I'm guessing thats why I have two recovery partitions. Now, I'm pretty sure this is the cause of the Bootcamp issue, but I want to know:

Which partition to delete
How to delete it in a (preferably  safe) way that would make my hard disk "clean" of everything but my main Macintosh HD partition

Thanks

EDIT:
I want to delete the extra recovery partition from my second installation of Yosemite.

Running sudo gpt-r show /dev/disk0 gave me:

OLD COMMAND OUTPUT, SEE EDIT 2 BELOW

          start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  973824416      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  974234056    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  975503592    1269536      4  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  976773128          7
  976773135         32         Sec GPT table
  976773167          1         Sec GPT header

EDIT 2:
Reran the two commands:

    iMac-i3:~ me$ diskutil list /dev/disk0
    /dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
       0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
       1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
       2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            498.6 GB   disk0s2
       3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
       4:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s4

    iMac-i3:~ me$ sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0
    Password:
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  973824416      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  974234056    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  975503592    1269536      4  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  976773128          7
  976773135         32         Sec GPT table
  976773167          1         Sec GPT header

Which partition to delete?

Restart your computer and hold down the alt/option key.
Select the recovery partition you wish to keep. For example, with El
Captain OS X 10.11 installed, the recovery partition should be
labeled "Recovery-10.11".
Once booted to this partition, select the Terminal application for
the menu bar.
In the opened Terminal application window, enter the mount
command. The partition you selected will show up in the list. The
other recovery partition will be absent.

The absent partition is the one to delete.

How to delete it in a (preferably safe) way that would make my hard disk "clean" of everything but my main Macintosh HD partition?

By "clean", I assume you mean you want to remove the extra Recovery HD partition.

If you want to remove disk0s3 then you should first copy the contents of disk0s4 to disk0s3. This can be down using the command given below.

sudo dd if=/dev/disk0s4 of=/dev/disk0s3 bs=16384

You will need to remove the 4th partition. Follow the steps below.

Start your computer from Internet Recovery. Press and hold the
Command-Option+R keys immediately after you turn on your Mac and
hear the startup sound. Your model is capable of using Internet
Recovery, but your firmware may need to be updated. See Computers
that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery.

Note: An alternative would be to startup using the Snow Leopard (OS
X 10.6) or earlier DVD.
From the menu bar, open the Terminal application.
Enter the following commands in the Terminal application window.

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 4 /dev/disk0


OS X 10.8.6 installed on USB Flash Drive using most of drive space I have created an installation of OS X on a small drive. Everything has worked fine apart from the fact that it has used up most of my space. According the file size on each of the folders in the root directory do not amount to the space shown in the disk utility.

I have only done an install of OS X and DeployStudio so it surely should not be using up an entire 32 GB drive.

I have tried verifying and repairing the disk as well as a couple of reboots.

As Zigg has mentioned this isnt a great idea for a long term solution. However if you do want to do this for any sort of drive it can be done using Daisy Disk app to remove any sleep image files. However these will be recreated when your machine goes into sleep mode again.


Add text to a line in OmniGraffle If I have a line or arrow connecting two objects, how do I get a piece of descriptive text attached to that line? If I move the line, the text should follow.

Option + Double-click

Hold Option/ALT while double-clicking on the line to add a label to it.

If this maneuver instead creates a point to adjust the line from, double-click without Option/ALT. You can swap between Option/ALT-double-click (a) creating a point and (b) creating a label via a setting in Preferences → Drawing Tools → Line Editing.

Also, the documentation mentions clicking on the line while using the Text tool.


Is it possible to connect a MacBook Pro 2011 to the LG UltraFine 5K display using a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter? I'm currently using the MacBook Pro (13'', early 2011) which contains a Thunderbolt port. Unfortunately, the LG UltraFine 5K display uses a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) port.
That's why I'm currently thinking about connecting them via a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter.

I'm aware that there were quite a few questions concerning this topic on the Apple homepage. But the answers there weren't really confidable and accurate.

No, your 2011 MacBook Pro supports a maximum resolution of 2560 x 1600 on an external display. So even if you get the cable situation sorted you will not be able to use the display on full 5K resolution.

Source:
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011) - Technical Specifications


15 inch Macbook Pro with Retina Display-dual Gateway monitors I am currently running dual monitors from a Gateway desktop. I would love to upgrade to a MacBook Pro, but would like to keep my two monitors. Is there an (easy) way to dual monitor non-Apple monitors from a MacBook Pro?

Certainly. The Retina MacBook Pro has one HDMI output and two Thunderbolt ports, so you can run the internal display and three external monitors as long as you can accept HDMI on your third monitor (with or without an adapter/converter).

Any mini-DisplayPort adapter from Apple will work from Thunderbolt in addition to adapters labeled as Thunderbolt.


Mac pro 2,1 boots up but won't restart? I am very confused with this problem. So I just recently purchased a 8 core 3.0ghz Mac Pro 2,1 and I upgraded the memory with 16gbs of hynix ram, and everything worked great the computer was reading all 16gbs of memory and I thought all was well but when I tried to restart the computer it just shuts off and the screen goes black and there are no start up chimes or anything. So I have to hold the power button and shut it off all the way and then reboot it and everything works fine again until I try to restart it again? Any help would be appreciated. I am running OSX Lion! P.S there are no led lights that are illuminated on the memory boards!

-What happens if you take the memory out and replace it with the original RAM?  Does it work?

-Have you tried re-seating the RAM? (e.g. take it out and put it in again, making sure it's fitting in the slots properly, and also making sure there's no dust on the RAM or in the slots...)

-Is the RAM PC5300 DDR2 ECC?

-Have you tried resetting the SMU?  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Give those things a go and see what happens.


How can I get my browser to remember a password it doesn't offer to remember? In my university internet authentication is required. When i use Macbook to connect to internet the password popup window will be appear. On this window I cannot set it to remember my ID/Password. Every times I want to use internet I have to login it manually.

I've tried to setup my Chrome, Safari to remember my authentication ID/Password but I don't know exactly where the popup window comes from.

How can I store my password so I don't have to enter it every time?

Depending on HOW they ask for the password some browsers dont recognize the request. However it is also possible that this website has a little bit of code in it to tell the browser to NOT remember the password. Banks often do this and I gather it is pretty trivial to turn off "remember passwords" on a web page.

I use a little javascript that will (sometimes) bypass this:

Create a bookmark of ANY page (it doesnt matter which page as we will be replacing the URL and name)
Go into Show All Bookmarks and select the bookmark you just made.
In the Address field (where the URL is) click and remove ALL of the url and replace it with this:

javascript:(function(){var%20ca,cea,cs,df,dfe,i,j,x,y;function%20n(i,what){return%20i+%22%20%22+what+((i==1)?%22%22:%22s%22)}ca=cea=cs=0;df=document.forms;for(i=0;i%3Cdf.length;++i){x=df[i];dfe=x.elements;if(x.onsubmit){x.onsubmit=%22%22;++cs;}if(x.attributes[%22autocomplete%22]){x.attributes[%22autocomplete%22].value=%22on%22;++ca;}for(j=0;j%3Cdfe.length;++j){y=dfe[j];if(y.attributes[%22autocomplete%22]){y.attributes[%22autocomplete%22].value=%22on%22;++cea;}}}alert(%22Removed%20autocomplete=off%20from%20%22+n(ca,%22form%22)+%22%20and%20from%20%22+n(cea,%22form%20element%22)+%22,%20and%20removed%20onsubmit%20from%20%22+n(cs,%22form%22)+%22.%20After%20you%20type%20your%20password%20and%20submit%20the%20form,%20the%20browser%20will%20offer%20to%20remember%20your%20password.%22)})();

Now edit the NAME of the password and change it to something like "Remember Password."

I put this bookmark in the bookmark bar, so you can drag it there if you like.

Now when yo go to a page that won't remember your password, click that bookmark and then enter your username and password. If Safari then asks if you want to remember the password: SUCCESS!

If not then I don't have a solution for you. However I use 1Password to fill in most password, but that ain't free...


Why can't I control volume of DisplayPort device? I have a monitor with speakers attached to my rMBP via DisplayPort (via a Thunderbolt dock), and I cannot control the volume with the volume keys.

Is there any way to "fix" this?

Pressing the volume keys shows the "no control" icon:

Note: I know about the workaround of using something like SoundFlower to create a virtual device, but that has caused issues and I'm looking for a "native" solution.

Generally speaking, audio output devices with their own volume control can't have their volume regulated by OS X.

Example:
In some schools, teachers connect their Macs to projectors. On some models, the projector has its own volume control and you can't modify the volume using the volume keys on your Mac. If you try to do so, an icon similar to what you have posted appears. You have to use the volume control on the projector's remote.

The same is happening here. Your speakers have their own volume control. Therefore, OS X can't control it.

In some other cases, OS X will allow you to "change" the volume, but this change is only apparent on your Mac. For example, in some TVs with HDMI ports, you can change the volume using the volume keys when using it as an external display, but the sound output will be of the same loudness. You have to use the TV remote to change the volume.

You can confirm this by going to  > System Preferences > Sound. The output tab will say "this device has no output controls" and you can't modify the volume.


Mac ssh terminal set echo on after connection I have a custom ssh server implemented. Where I have not handled echo, ie once a user connects and logins successfully using client lets say Putty he will not be able to see the characters he is typing in putty window.

In order to see the characters user has to go to change settings Terminal >> turn the local echo force on. Once user does this, he will be able to see what ever he is typing. In putty we can do this at any point after connection.

Now once I connect through Mac ssh client (Terminal) is it possible to change the settings like we have in putty after connecting to server?

Its possible when I try to connect, at the very beginning I just have to give a echo command, but can we do it in between like we do in putty?

Am a first time Mac user, generally work on Windows systems. Might be a very easy way, but have searched and dint find a way.

The easiest transition is probably to just install Putty for Mac. This way you'll be using the program you're already used to with the local echo functionality you want.

You can install Putty for Mac from Homebrew. First install HomeBrew, then run:

brew install putty

to install putty.


Can I change some but not all Apple keyboard function keys (dim vs F1, bright vs F2)? I want to override F1 and F2 behavior, since I have external display and Mac can't control display's brightness. The rest of the keys should retain their non Fx

I know about "Use all F1-F12 keys as standard function keys.", but I don't want to change all of the keys to be F when pressed, just some of them. (For me single press music and volume control is necessary.)

Is there a way to pick some of the function keys to default to numbered function instead of the "Apple" definitions system wide?

You can use FunctionFlip to change individual "special" keys back to their function key value.


Full wifi signal but horrible download speeds I'm connecting my MacBook to the internet via a current generation Apple Airport Extreme (late 2013). When I'm standing next to the Airport, my Mac's wifi indicator shows full signal strength (duh!) and I get excellent download speeds (30-50mbps). When I'm on the other side of the house, my MacBook still shows full signal strength but I can barely load anything (.25mbps... if I'm lucky)!

What gives? Why would the signal be strong but I can't download anything?

WiFi signal strength only tells just that, the strength of the signal.

It is a prerequisite to have a good connection.

How ever that does not tell you about the Quality.

If you have high interference (from devices or Neighboring networks) then your RSSI will be high. It should be <70 or better (the lower the better).

Then there is the Transmit Rate value that will tell you the actual data transmit rate.

To look up all those values hold the option (alt) key while clicking on the WiFi Icon.