Can two different phone numbers be used to receive voice and text on one iPhone? Can I have two different numbers asigned to the same iphone and receive text from both numbers on one device?

The short answer appears to be no - regarding an iOS 6 device. It certainly isn't possible without jailbreaking. Also iPhone's Phone.app and Messages are clearly designed for a 1 phone number type setup.

However, there may be some "hacks" that may work well for you. If I were you, I would look into Google Voice. It certainly isn't ideal, but may be the best you can get. What you can do is have things forwarded to your regular phone number.

Check out http://www.google.com/voice/.

I believe you could work it so that you port one number into Google Voice, and then have your main/regular number on your iPhone in a standard way. When you get a call from your alternate phone number I believe it will forward it to your normal number and allow you to take the call normally. You can get the Google Voice app to text and call from your alternate phone number. The catch with that is that you will need data service - not just voice signal.


What's ls option in OS X does what ls -w 1 in Linux does, showing output in one column? In Linux ls -w 1 shows list of files in 1 column instead of multi-column. What flag or other command will produce the same result in OS X?

Current output under OS X:

ls: 1: No such file or directory

The equivalent of the ls -w 1 command from Linux in OS X is: ls -1

From the man page for ls:

  -1 (The numeric digit “one”.) Force output to be one entry per line. This is  the default when output is not to a terminal.


Mavericks Calendar sync with Google seems entirely broken? In a long drawn out story that started with trying to implement CardDAV (I'd like to store my contacts on google if possible), I removed my google account from Internet Accounts, which had existed there from Mountain Lion, and was working perfectly fine for Calendar.app and Messages.app.

Upon trying to re-add the Google account and have it sync my calendars, It's telling me that it cant do it anymore. I'm using two-factor google authentication, and I provide the setup with a generated, app specific password. Contacts and Messages click instantly, but Calendars sits spinning. It eventually informs me that:

  A secure connection couldn't be established

  Click "Continue" to continue creating the account.
  You can edit the account later in Calendar
  preferences if necessary

  Cancel Continue

Console informs me that:

28/10/2013 2:26:38.652 am com.apple.internetaccounts[13796]: [com.apple.calendar.iaplugin.log.CalInternetAccountsPlugin] [Autodiscovery error: [Error Domain=NSURLErrorDomain Code=-1001 "The request timed out." UserInfo=0x7fbbc50f0550 {NSUnderlyingError=0x7fbbc5629870 "The request timed out.", NSErrorFailingURLStringKey=https://user%40gmail.com@google.com:8443/principals/, NSErrorFailingURLKey=https://user%40gmail.com@google.com:8443/principals/, NSLocalizedDescription=The request timed out.}].]

Continue will just repeat this loop indefinitely.

I've done some digging and found these resources, although evidently they did not work for me:

http://productforums.google.com/d/msg/calendar/7XZkRZzo10I/5oo7RReNhrAJ
https://developers.google.com/google-apps/calendar/caldav/v2/guide#new_endpoint

It seems that the endpoint is no longer valid? Multiple attempts to create a CalDav account in Advanced mode attempting all flavours and variations bore no fruit.

How can I get this working again?

Here's what worked for me:

Open Calendar.app
Open Preferences (⌘+,)
Click Accounts tab
Click plus button (+) to add an account
Select "Add CalDAV Account..."
Click Continue
Select "Account Type" Manual
Username is your full email address "yourname@gmail.com"
Password is your password (or application specific password if you use 2 factor auth)
Server Address is "https://www.google.com"

Notes:

Don't forget the "@gmail.com" on your gmail address! You can also use your own domain name if a Google Apps user
The "https://" on the Server Address field is critical. Without this you will get an error about not being able to establish a secure connection (https uses SSL where http doesn't).


My country ( i.e. Bangladesh) is not listed on the billing information? My country is not listed in the billing system. I traveled from Saudi Arab to Bangladesh and i wanted to add the billing information with my Bangladeshi Number.  It seems that the Payment method doesn’t have my country listed.How do i add my country ( i.e. Bangladesh)?

image

Apple lists the countries where services are available when you choose your location.

https://www.apple.com/choose-country-region/
https://www.apple.com/ios/feature-availability/
https://www.apple.com/macos/feature-availability/
https://www.apple.com/watchos/feature-availability/
etc...

As of January 2019, the only Apple Features offered in Bangladesh is Maps and Satellite Maps. Also, keep in mind that the features are enabled in almost all cases based on the region where you purchase the device, so if your phone was purchased in Saudi Arabia and then used in the US - you might retain all the Saudi restrictions despite your attempt to change. App Store and other services for billing purposes typically are more flexible and you can take advantage of them when you move about.

My speculation and research why Bangladesh isn’t listed is due to Apple not obtaining some rights from the government or is in the process of obtaining them.

In order to run an iTunes store in any given country, Apple has to secure licensing rights for the content, legal rights from the local government, payment processes, and numerous other legal hurdles. Either Apple hasn't applied for those rights yet, or they're in progress, but the size of the user base as well as the ease (or otherwise) of doing business in any given country are the driving factors here.
You can add your voice via Apple's feedback page here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html but at the end of the day you can be the most ardent, vocal fan in the world, but if the Bangladesh government don't give the licenses to operate, it all means nothing.

(Source)


Unable to Install Apps Despite Plenty of Free Space According to Settings, I (should) have around 32 GB of free space and yet I get "Your device does not have enough available storage to install this app" error.

I have no clue as why this is happening in the first place.

Thanks!

iPhone 8 Plus (MQ8L2TU/A)
iOS 12.1.4 (16D57)

That is odd, to say the least. I am guessing here that somehow storage is fragmented and there is not enough contiguous free space.

I would do a "backup, wipe and restore."

In other words, plug your phone into your computer and back it up locally (set a backup password so the backup retains your saved passwords). Once that is done go into settings > general > reset > erase all content and settings, and wipe the phone. Once that is done restore it from the backup you just created.

I have found that this frees up space on an iPhone, presumably removing temporary files and the like and, I am thinking, that it will solve your not enough space error.


Restoring an iPhone that cannot be detected I have iPhone 4 and my iOS is 4.10.01. I jailbroke it and installed a lot of applications. Being lazy to reinstall everything again every time after an upgrade, I decided to just leave it at iOS 4.10.01. It worked fine for a while but as new iOS versions came up, many of the applications I installed stopped working. I didn't care much for this as long as Cydia and my packages were working all right. However, at some moment the Cydia icon just disappeared, and I don't remember deleting it, though the installed packages continued working fine.

Yesterday, I wanted to update one of the packages as it wasn't functioning correctly. Searching the web for a method to restore Cydia without affecting applications suggested a method, which I tried. However, this failed and all the packages I installed were gone. Trying to reinstall them resulted in multiple errors being returned by Cydia.

I decided that it might be better to update iOS for the last time and start over, but that doesn't seem to be an option. The "update" option in Settings isn't there, and iTunes fails to be recognise the iPhone. Reinstalling iTunes multiple times does not seem to rectify the issue. I've also tried all my USB ports, along with iFunBox. As of now, I can browse media from my computer, but that's as much as I'll get.

What is causing me to not be able to restore my iPhone?

To restore your iPhone, boot it into recovery mode and wipe it from there.

To boot your iPhone into recovery mode and restore it to the latest version of iOS supported by your iPhone:

Shut down your iPhone by holding the lock button.
Connect the USB end of your connection cable (presumably 30-pin by your software) to your computer but not to your phone.
After the iPhone is off, hold the home button as you plug in the 30-pin connector.
Your phone should start and iTunes should detect "an iPhone in recovery mode that must be restored before it can be used with iTunes".
Restore to the latest version of iOS that is supported by your iPhone (by iOS 4, I would assume an iPhone 3G, which supports versions of iOS < 4.2.1)


Applescript and Shell: how do I insert a variable? I'm using the following code to set a Philips Hue bulb with specific hue, saturation and brightness using Applescript.  It works perfectly.

   set TurnOnBulbA to the quoted form of "{\"on\": true,\"hue\": 65535, \"sat\": 240,\"bri\": 90}"

I'd like to add a random color option.  This seems like it should insert a random number for the hue setting, but instead, it inserts the name of the variable:

set RandomNumA to (random number from 0 to 65535)

set TurnOnBulbA to the quoted form of "{\"on\": true,\"hue\": RandomNumA, \"sat\": 240,\"bri\": 90}"

How do I insert the generated number of the variable instead of the name of the variablel?

The following probably isn't needed, but I'll include it in case it's helpful to anybody.  It's the code that completes the above for turning on a bulb:

do shell script "curl --request PUT --data " & TurnOnBulbA & " http://myIPaddress/api/myhueID/lights/1/state/"

You're embedding RandomNumA inside a literal (double-quoted) string, so it's treated as part of the literal rather than as a variable reference. To get it interpreted as a variable, you have to do the same thing you do in the do shell script command at the end -- use & to append a quoted literal, a variable reference, and another quoted literal. Actually, it's slightly more complicated because you have to use parentheses to make sure the whole thing gets quoted form of applied to it:

set RandomNumA to (random number from 0 to 65535)

set TurnOnBulbA to the quoted form of ("{\"on\": true,\"hue\": " & RandomNumA & ", \"sat\": 240,\"bri\": 90}")


Why does Network Restore on my MacBook Air 2012 give me Mountain Lion, not Mavericks I recently upgraded the SSD of my MacBook Air 2012

Very happy with the Network Restore.  Hold CMD+R on start-up, use disk utility to format, and then network restore OSX.

But why does it only offer Mountain Lion?

I then have to upgrade to Mavericks using the App Store.

Which isn't painful, but why couldn't I just restore to Mavericks in the first place?

Internet Recovery will only download the original version of OS X that came with the computer. This is not configurable.

Back when Internet Recovery was released, OS X updates weren't free, so Internet Recovery didn't know if you paid for the upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion. Therefore it was easiest to just install the original OS X, and then make the user update afterwards.


File from email on phone to computer I have a large .mdb file attached to an email which I can only access on my phone, as it's being blocked by webmail on my home computer. I need to get it to my computer but when I try to forward the email the attachment is removed. I can't download it to my phone because it's too large. I've tried uploading it to Google Drive via my phone but it takes too long and times out.

Any ideas?

I agree with patrix, use open in dropbox from the mail.

Or, to file handling app like FileBrowser and then rename the extension to .txt and mail it to your web email.

Dropbox seems far easier.


SATA-cable recognizes HDD but not SSD I have recently upgraded to SSD (Samsung Evo 850) from HDD on my MacBook Pro Mid-2012.

However, the installation of SSD has been very painful. I tried to use Disk Utility in recover mode many times but it would fail either to erase or mount the SSD, even though it recognized that the SSD was plugged in. I thought it was the faulty SSD.

Then I hooked up the SSD using USB and proceeded to install OS X on it (using my HDD). The SSD functioned very well using the USB, so I put it in, and hooked up using the flex cable that was previously used for my HDD. However, it doesn't function, the OS sees that there is a drive hooked up, sees the name, size and etc, but won't load, gives me the question mark folder sign, when I try to verify or repair the disk, it fails to do so.

So I think it is something with the SATA cable. But the cable functions perfectly when used with the HDD. So I was wondering if the HDD cable that comes with MacBook Pro Mid-2012 is compatible with SSD. I have watched several videos of people upgrade from HDD to SSD, but they all seem to be using the same cable. Any ideas what might be the issue or if I need a different kind of cable?

EDIT: The issue has been solved. As people have suggested here, it was just a faulty cable, or just the original cables don't work with SSD. I bought the same cable, 821-1480-A from a vendor on Amazon and it works quite well with SSD for now. Thanks everyone for your help.

I have read where the logic board is capable of working with SATA III drives which allows for the installation of either a HDD or SSD. When a Mac is sold with a HDD, usually this is a SATA II drive. Therefore, the cable used is designed for this type of drive. The cable can not be used with SATA III drives. When sold with a SSD, this is a SATA III drive. In this case, the cable used is designed for a either a SATA II or SATA III drive.

  The end result is that if you started with a HDD, then a upgrading to a SSD may require a different cable.


Mac Mojave : Permission denied error on creating Image using Disk Utility I am getting permission denied error on creating image of Mac 10.14. The order of steps are:
Use Mac 10.14

Go to disk utility
File --> Image from Folder --> Select the Macintosh HD(ie Selcting the Volume)
Save the image to Desktop by Keeping Encryption: None and Image Format: compressed.

Now, the disk utility will give 'Permission denied error'

I suspect that Disk Utility does not allow you to save an image inside the source of that image itself. How can it make an image that includes itself?

If you still get the error saving to another volume, then there may be some other issue.


OpenSSL 0.9.8zg used by PHP does not support TLSv1.2 or TLSv1.1 As part of the installation a PHP 5.4 cartridge from openshift.com on my Mac with OS X 10.10.5 in the Terminal I noticed a message about it loading OpenSSL 0.9.8 for compatibilty with PHP.

Later, trying to install getcomposer.org it is giving me a warning:

  Some settings on your machine may cause stability issues with Composer.
  If you encounter issues, try to change the following:

  The OpenSSL library (0.9.8zc) used by PHP does not support TLSv1.2 or TLSv1.1.  If possible you should upgrade OpenSSL to version 1.0.1 or above.

openssl version command in terminal reported OpenSSL 0.9.8zg 14 July 2015

Should I update to OpenSSL version 1.0.1?

OpenSSL 0.9.8zc or 0.9.8zg does not support TLSv1.1/1.2 which can cause vulnerabilities while downloading using HTTPS links.

You should update OpenSSL to latest version from official site.


How to disable swipe navigation on Edge for Mac Like Chrome, Edge for Mac supports browser navigation by dragging horizontally left or right with two fingers on the trackpad. I know how to turn this off in Chrome, but is it possible to turn this off in Edge? Bonus gratitude for a command-line solution.
I've tried, without success...

to access edge://flags/#overscroll-history-navigation, which appears to have been removed
to deduce an equivalent of defaults write com.google.Chrome AppleEnableSwipeNavigateWithScrolls -bool FALSE
to find an equivalent of Windows 10's HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI\Allow Edge Swipe

I found a solution in the trackpad settings. In System Preferences go to Trackpad > More Gestures. Then disable "Swipe between pages".


What is postgres and why is it running on my system? Upon every login to my computer, I notice in Activity Monitor I have several instances of a process called "postgres" running, under the user "postgres".

What is this, and why does it launch every time I log in?

From what I gathered, it is an SQL server that is built into Unix systems. But that is as far as I got.

Any insight would be much appreciated.

Edit: AHA! It appeared after I installed Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve. When it installs the CUDA package, it also installs the PostgreSQL server. Interesting.

PostgreSQL is a relational database engine. You might have  heard of MySQL? It does a similar sort of job.

Apple, for reasons unscrutable and strange, decided that they wanted to bundle PostgreSQL in some Mac OS X versions as a pre-installed application. Consequently it comes with some versions of Mac OS X.

Additionally, some 3rd party software will bundle PostgreSQL because it uses it to store and manage its data. It won't always be obvious what the program is.

PostgreSQL generally uses little CPU, RAM or disk I/O unless it's actually being used for serious work, so it's fairly safe to ignore it. If you're really determined to get rid of it (say, you think it might be stopping your non-SSD-based mac from spinning down its hard drive) then stop it and leave it installed but not running. If nothing breaks, disable it in launchd, but do not uninstall it. That way it has no effect  but is easily restored if you discover there was a problem after all.

(Note that PostgreSQL databases aren't compatible across versions. If you delete an installed copy of 8.2 then decide you wanted that data after all, you would have to install a compatible build of 8.2 to read the data; installing the latest 9.3 release, or even 8.4, would not work).


Messed up hard disk Macbook Some days ago, I installed Ubuntu on my MacBookPro, I created a new partition shrinking the one I was using for MacOS.

Later I decided to remove it, so I deleted the partition containing Ubuntu, but I didn't manage to resize the MacOS partition back to the start, so I booted in Recovery Mode to do that. Then I realized that my battery was going low and I closed the MacBook lid to do that in another moment.

The day after I opened my lid, I heard the Mac sound and the missing boot icon appeared.

Now if I go to Recovery Mode, I can see the hard drive but the partition with MacOS is greyed out, and I don't know how to fix this.

Here is the output of diskutil list:

 /dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_UFS                         180.8 GB   disk0s2
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *1.3 GB     disk1
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         30.7 KB    disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS OS X Base System        1.3 GB     disk1s2
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *5.2 MB     disk2
/dev/disk3
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk3
/dev/disk4
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk4
/dev/disk5
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk5
/dev/disk6
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk6
/dev/disk7
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk7
/dev/disk8
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *6.3 MB     disk8
/dev/disk9
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *2.1 MB     disk9
/dev/disk10
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *1.0 MB     disk10
/dev/disk11
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk11
/dev/disk12
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *524.3 KB   disk12
/dev/disk13
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *1.0 MB     disk13
/dev/disk14
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            untitled               *6.3 MB     disk14

and gpt -r show disk0:

    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  353106320      2  GPT part - 55465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  353515960  136718759
  490234719         32         Sec GPT table
  490234751          1         Sec GPT header

The second partition of your internal disk got the wrong partition type, your data probably won't be lost.

A bootable OS X partition (except the Recovery HD) either has the GUID 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC for a standard OS X partition or the GUID 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC for a CoreStorage partition. The 55465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC designates an Apple UFS partition.

It's unclear what happened to the Recovery HD partition.

The first block of a standard OS X partition doesn't contain non-zeros, the first block of a CoreStorage partition contains some non-zeros. To get the first 3 blocks of a partition enter sudo dd if=/dev/diskXsY count=3 | hexdump.

The GUID can be modified with gpt. Modifying the GUID partition table with gpt requires to unmount the whole disk which can't be done if you boot to its Recovery HD or another boot volume on the same disk.

Boot to an independent OS X/macOS system providing hexdump. You may have to install a full bootable OS X to a thumb drive (>16 GB) - an OS X installer thumb drive isn't sufficient!
Open Terminal in the menubar Go To > Utilities > Terminal
Get an overview with diskutil list
Get an overview of your internal disk with the disk identifier found in the previous command. Below I assume the disk identifier of your internal disk is disk0 (replace it with the one you have found in your environment)

sudo gpt -r show disk0

Unmount disk0 with diskutil umountDisk disk0 if booted to an external disk/thumb drive with a full OS X/macOS
Quick check if the 1269536 blocks following disk0s2 are a Recovery HD:

sudo gpt add -i 3 -b 353515960 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0
diskutil verifyVolume disk0s3

If the volume verification doesn't reveal an error you probably recovered a deleted Recovery HD. If you get an error just remove the third partition again:

diskutil umountDisk disk0
sudo gpt remove -i 3 disk0
diskutil umountDisk disk0

hexdump the first 3 blocks of the Apple UFS partition:

sudo dd if=/dev/disk0s2 count=3 | hexdump

The following result identifies it as a normal OS X partition:

0000000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000400 48 2b 00 04 80 00 21 00 48 46 53 4a 00 00 01 ff
0000410 d3 8c 77 d3 d4 33 3c b0 00 00 00 00 d3 8c 5b b3
0000420 00 00 02 a8 00 00 00 25 00 00 10 00 00 fe b7 f6
0000430 00 fe 1e fa 00 ed 80 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00
0000440 00 00 10 f2 00 00 5a 9d 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01
0000450 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000460 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 7d 9d b0 3a 02 31 62 f0
0000470 00 00 00 00 00 1f e0 00 00 1f e0 00 00 00 01 fe
0000480 00 00 00 01 00 00 01 fe 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000490 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
00004c0 00 00 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 00 06 00
00004d0 00 00 0a 00 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00004e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000510 00 00 00 00 03 10 00 00 03 10 00 00 00 00 31 00
0000520 00 03 ac 00 00 00 31 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000530 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000560 00 00 00 00 05 40 00 00 05 40 00 00 00 00 54 00
0000570 00 00 10 00 00 00 54 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000580 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000600

The first number is the byte count in hex: 0000000: 0; 0000600: 1536. The * denotes identical lines. This means: the first two blocks (0x000-0x3ff) are all zeros.

A CoreStorage partition shows some non-zeros in the first block (0x000-0x1ff):

0000000 0c 73 a1 a9 ff ff ff ff 01 00 10 00 07 14 d7 01
0000010 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000020 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000030 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000040 00 20 c1 cc 0f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000050 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 43 53 01 00 00 00 04 00
0000060 00 10 00 00 00 00 40 00 11 bc fc 00 00 00 00 00
0000070 11 c0 fc 00 00 00 00 00 11 c4 fc 00 00 00 00 00
0000080 11 c8 fc 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000090 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00000a0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 02 00 00 00
00000b0 62 02 98 59 ee a9 ab 51 9b 49 23 90 2e f8 8b 43
00000c0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000130 e4 6e f8 f2 63 99 45 c1 b2 13 86 28 a5 18 46 6d
0000140 c4 51 c0 f6 32 f9 43 ab 8e 59 42 d2 1a ef f6 50
0000150 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000400 48 2b 00 04 80 00 21 00 48 46 53 4a 00 00 01 ff
0000410 d1 98 a4 93 d4 33 8b d5 00 00 00 00 d1 98 88 73
0000420 00 06 07 53 00 01 82 39 00 00 10 00 00 fb 6a 00
0000430 00 c5 1c 55 00 25 73 c7 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00
0000440 00 0d e2 65 00 3e a2 fb 00 00 00 00 02 20 00 fb
0000450 00 00 00 31 00 06 b9 ef 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000460 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 31 fb 48 1e a0 6c 47 a2 9f
0000470 00 00 00 00 00 1f e0 00 00 1f e0 00 00 00 01 fe
0000480 00 00 00 01 00 00 01 fe 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000490 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
00004c0 00 00 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 00 06 00
00004d0 00 00 0a 00 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00004e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000510 00 00 00 00 0e 40 00 00 01 30 00 00 00 00 e4 00
0000520 00 00 10 00 00 00 e4 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000530 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000560 00 00 00 00 11 d0 00 00 01 30 00 00 00 01 1d 00
0000570 00 02 80 00 00 00 72 00 00 13 30 97 00 00 13 00
0000580 00 15 c5 aa 00 00 13 00 00 18 2d 23 00 00 13 00
0000590 00 19 d8 fb 00 00 13 00 00 1b 76 cb 00 00 13 00
00005a0 00 1c 34 70 00 00 13 00 00 1d 0e 4d 00 00 13 00
00005b0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000600

The line starting with byte 0x130 shows the UUID of the Physical Volume, the line starting with byte 0x140 shows the UUID of the Logical Volume Group.

The string 48 46 53 4a (= "HFSJ") in the first 16 bytes of the third blocks identifies a Journaled HFS+ volume.
Remove the second partition:

diskutil umountDisk disk0
sudo gpt remove -i 2 disk0
diskutil umountDisk disk0

re-add the partition with the proper type
either a normal OS X partition

sudo gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 353106320 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

or (if you have found a CoreStorage partition)

sudo gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 353106320 -t 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

Finally verify the disk with diskutil verifyDisk disk0 and/or diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2. If a partition/file system error is reported, add a comment here, but don't actually repair, initialize or copy anything.


Create Automator Service With a Python Script? I'm trying to create an Automator Service that will act on selected text, converting dashes to spaces, and also making word caps for all the text.

A friend gave me this python script (I know nothing about python or shell scripting):

#! /usr/bin/python

cliptext = "%clipboard"
print cliptext.replace('-', ' ').replace('%', ' ').replace('&', ' and ').replace('#', ' ').title()

It works great as a TextExpander snippet, but I'd like to have it available in the Services menu as well. I don't need it to use any specific scripting language, it just needs to run within Automator. My coding buddy had no experience with Automator so he couldn't help out. His script requires copying the text to the clipboard, and then runs the formatting and pastes the result. I'd like to be able to just run this on the selected text and not have to deal with the Clipboard (at least manually).

The particular use for this is to rename photo uploads on Flickr, since Flickr uses the filename to generate the photo name. When exporting artwork via Photoshop or Illustrator using Save For Web, the lowercase and dashes are my default settings. I want to be able to highlight the Flickr title, and then run the Service to reformat the file name to a properly formatted title.

This isn't too difficult to do, you just need to know the right magic. I'll walk you through it.

Open Automator, and when prompted to choose a type for your document, select Service. If you're not prompted, just hit ⌘N to make a new automator file.
At the top of the rightmost panel, make sure that Output replaces selected text is checked, and the first drop-down is set to text:

You can change the any application part to a specific application if you only want it to work in that program.

In the Actions Library in the left panel, find Run Shell Script and double click it to add it to the workflow.
Change the Shell drop down to /usr/bin/python, and make sure that Pass input is set to stdin.
Delete the existing text in the script box, and replace it with the code below.
Save it with a descriptive name. Automator will save it in the ~/Library/Services/ folder.
Optional: Go to Keyboard Preferences, and find your service in the Services section of the Keyboard Shortcuts tab. You can assign a system-wide shortcut for it there.

Script Code

import sys

for f in sys.stdin:
    print f.replace('-', ' ').replace('%', ' ').replace('&', ' and ').replace('#', ' ').title(),


How to capture audio with Quicktime Screen Recording I need to create a bunch of screencasts for my work.  I was going to use Quicktime to do this but when I choose "New Screen Recording" to do this, the audio is never captured.

How can Quicktime be made more useful for screencasts?

Update:  Here are some suggested methods that have been proposed in various forums that simply are not viable:

Using a male to male audio cable and connecting the speaker jack to the microphone jack.  This might work on Windows, but Macs only have a single audio jack, ruling this method out.

You could use Audio Hijack (per Tetsujin) to capture the audio as needed or you could use a USB audio adapter to do it for significantly less.

I use the Behringer UCA202 Audio Interface with my iMac.

When I needed to record a screencast with the audio from the application, I just used an RCA audio cable I had laying in a drawer similar to the image below.  You don't need anything fancy or expensive, just a standard RCA audio cable.

In quicktime, I just selected the USB device as my input:

Now, when I say significantly less, Audio Hijack is about $50 if buying the new license.  The USB Audio device is $30 and if you have to buy an RCA audio cable, you're looking at another $5.  So, for $35,  you get an audio interface that has many more uses than the software can provide (for example, I can hook my Bose Wave Radio to my iMac now) whereas the software doesn't allow you to do that.

Make no mistake, Audio Hijack is good software.  This is just another, albeit less expensive, avenue to solve your problem.


Downloading HTML Entities guide on TextWrangler for Mac TextWrangler for Mac does not have an HTML Entities palette built in to easily put  special characters and symbols into your code. Is there a way to download one and integrate it into the program?

TextWrangler is a sunsetted product. Bare Bones software no longer updates it or supports it.

You might want to look into BBEdit, the grandfather of Mac code editors. BBEdit has a free mode where certain features are not available. I've been using it since the "Classic Mac OS" days so I am not sure what the pulled features are in the free version. But BBEdit does have exactly what you are looking for, it's a fabulous bit of Mac code. What other app can get away with the tag line "it doesn't suck?!"

(Note, I have no financial -or otherwise- interest in Bare Bones Software, just a happy customer.)


Why are Chinese characters showing up as one of the text field menu buttons in iOS Youtube comments? In the iOS YouTube app of my phone and iPad both on iOS 9.3, I see this as a menu choice when typing in the comments field. I don't have Chinese languages enabled on my phone or iPad that I know of. What is this button for, and why am I seeing it in YouTube only?

That button is to convert Simplified Chinese to Complicated Chinese.

So you select some Simplified Chinese text like:

我喜欢吃面包 (I like to eat bread)

Tap that Chinese pop up option and it converts it to:

我喜歡吃麵包 (I like to eat bread)

Which is the Complicated Chinese version of that sentence, but still retains the same meaning.

You can do this vice versa.

If you don't use Chinese at all, you can just simply ignore it.

Some additional information.
Complicated Chinese is the traditional Chinese used for thousands of years. China and Taiwan used to have it has their main language but now only Taiwan has it.

China uses Simplified Chinese to make writing simpler.

It's not very complicated to convert from one to another as there is hardly any grammatical changes. Just only the way some characters are written have been changed.


How to prevent safari from opening links in third party apps on macOS Some services like Zoom or BlueJeans have capabilities of working both in app or in the browser. However when an appropriate app is installed links are automatically opened in the app by safari (macOS) without even a prompt in case of BlueJeans.
So my question is: is it possible to prevent safari from launching app when I click a link that can be opened in that app?
Ideally I want the link to open in safari like a regular website without even a prompt to open it in the app. However, a prompt, like one you can see in the image below for Brave Browser would also be ok, because currently Safari opens the BlueJeans app without even asking a permission.
Just to be clear, I do not want to uninstall apps, because sometimes I do need them.

I am still a fresh new contributor so I can't comment on every post yet. I found something interesting concerning your issue.
I hope your problem only affects this particular app BlueJeans being automatically opened by Safari and if not, I would be sorry that my answer could not help you.
Here is the link : https://support.bluejeans.com/s/article/BlueJeans-Detector-Service.

As you can see, the user is required to click on an additional popup
to allow the meeting to launch. The user may accidentally cancel this
dialog and then be confused as to why nothing happened. Alternately,
some users may not even notice the dialog and simply sit at this
screen, confused.
On top of that, an additional click may seem not so bad, but if the
user is frequently joining meetings, this adds significant friction to
the launch experience. In Chrome, as shown, the user can elect to
“Always Allow” but this option is not available in every browser (for
example in Safari).

As you can see, the article says that the Launcher Service prevents your browser from asking if you want to Open in BlueJeans.app.
The most brutal way to get the alert box back would be to stop this Launcher Service process.


What are Apple's Update and End-Of-Life policies in 2015? I have a couple of Macs that are required to be held back from upgrade. The requirements are due to (1) use of earlier iPhone/iPad devices, (2) operational requirements, like a particular piece of non-Apple software needs a particular version of OS X, (3) personal preference, like I don't like the color scheme and "cartoon-ish" look of the themes on later OS X versions.

This week, Apple released a number of security updates. Confer, the APPLE-SA-2015-10-21-XXX security bulletins. However, it appears Apple has partially abandoned my operating system (which is less than a few years old). The OS has known outstanding security issues that have not been fixed.

I can only say "appears" because I don't believe Apple announced the OS is no longer being supported or is at End of Life. In fact, trying to search for the information on Apple's site results in mostly useless fodder and other's similar questions: end of life policy site:apple.com. Broadening the search to the web produces more fodder. And I can only say "partially" because because Apple patches some of the OS's applications, like iTunes. Below is an image of iTunes being updated to 12.3.1 in October, 2015.

What are Apple's current Update and End-Of-Life policies? And why is iTunes being updated, when its a non-essential app?

I'm specifically interested in policy related to security updates, and policy related to non-security related software updates.

Thanks in advance.

Generally speaking, Apple release security updates for the current version of OS X and the two previous ones. Since new versions are released annually, that means that any particular version has three years from first release to end of life.


How can I backup an Application in the applications folder? I was wondering what will happen if I copy the content of an application in the applications folder, compress it and move it to another hard drive. Will it work if I put it in the Application's folder again, uncompressed? Will it work in other macs?

EDIT: Ok. Now I understand there are at least two kind of applications; One kind uses an installer and the other simply a copy mechanism.

The second kind can be backed up my copy the Application.App. But, for the former one, how can I get a backup for Photoshop and stuff like that?

Generally, yes, since most applications are installed through copying the application from a DMG file into your Applications folder. However, this is not always the case, since applications can also be installed through the use of OS X Installer or a 3rd party installer.

As a rule of thumb, if an application was installed through an installer, copying the .app from the Applications folder won't be enough.

If you wish to backup an application that came from an installer, you will usually require that installer. If you have a valid license for the software (e.g. Photoshop) you can redownload the installer from Adobe's website and use that to install it.

When you entered your key into the application, it will have created a hardware-linked key that ensures the software cannot be copied to a new computer without re-entering the software key. The easiest way is just to use the installer itself to reinstall the software.

In addition, don't forget about the additional files that may be created when you run the application. For example, files in the Application Support folder. You can use an complete app remover such as AppCleaner to list the files that may be related to the app.

In this case, there was a .plist preference file in ~/Library/Preferences that holds DaisyDisk's user preferences. Copying this file to a different computer in the same place should keep the preferences.

On the other hand, cache files such as those in ~/Caches are not usually necessary to be backed-up/copied.


Use applications as video sources for apps like Skype? Is there a solution out there that can screen record 1 application and "stream" it through a fake virtual camera, so the video can be sent live through apps like Skype?

Just wondering if it's possible to, for example, stream a video playing in VLC/QuickTime through Skype, and be able to keep that video going through Skype even when I am doing other things on the computer.

Take a look at webcamoid, manycam, and Magic Camera and the corresponding VLC plugin.

Be aware the Magic Camera download seems to be bundled with malware and the VLC plugin is very outdated.

softwarerecs.stackexchange.com is also a good place to ask.


iMac; OS X Yosemite; App switcher continues to come up without pressing - I am having an issue with an older iMac.  The app switcher will come up and then rapidly switch between either two or all icons without pressing -.  It seems as if moving the mouse is causing the switching behavior.  I swapped the mouse and keyboard from another mac that is not having any issues.  The mouse and keyboard from this mac work on the other without issue.  I've disconnected all USB devices and switch off the WiFi.  None of this resolved the issue.

So, it turns out that it was some sort of hardware issue.  A simple reboot or shutdown, power on did not clear it up, but powering off the Mac and unplugging it for ten minutes then powering it back up.


Prevent Keychain from copying an internet password to my login keychain I find that my passwords are being copied from my "bank" keychain into the login keychain every time I allow Safari to autofill the fields. How can I prevent that?

I have created a separate keychain called "bank" to store my sensitive financial account passwords. I use a different keychain password and set it to lock automatically after 5 minutes.

This was a security bug and a fix was released today by Apple.

About the security content of Safari 10.1:

Safari Login AutoFill

  Available for:  OS X Yosemite v10.10.5, OS X El Capitan v10.11.6,
  and macOS Sierra 10.12.4

  Impact: A local user may be able to access locked keychain items

  Description: A keychain handling issue was addressed through improved keychain item management.

  CVE-2017-2385: Simon Woodside of MedStack


Changes to SD card do not persist after unmounting I have a couple of 128GB Samsung EVO+ micro SD cards.  I have two different means of connecting these to my mid-2012 MacBook Pro running MacOS 10.13 High Sierra: a micro-to-fullsize SD adaptor, which I insert into the MBP's card reader slot, and a Lexar microSD-to-USB adaptor, which I insert into a USB slot.

I can read from both cards without issue (save that the OS only seems to notice a card in the card reader slot about a quarter of the time).  The exfat volumes on the cards mount and files on them can be accessed.  Disk Utility shows "Writable: Yes" in the Info window for the mounted volume.  mount shows that the volume is mounted properly, with no read-only flag indicated.

Yet, if I make changes to the volume, for example by entering

cd /Volumes/S7;
mkdir tmp;
echo 'testing' >> tmp/test;

these changes appear to have been made successfully, but upon remounting the volume, neither the file nor the directory it was created in are anywhere to be found.

I have similar problems when using fdisk to change the partition type (my actual goal right now) so I can use the SD card (and its contents) in my Android phone: changes to the MBR partition table appear to be written successfully, but then are not apparent when the partition table is displayed immediately afterwards.

Other USB volumes (for example, an external hard drive) work correctly.  I haven't tried using any other SD cards yet.

These problems occur with both SD cards, whether connected via the fullsize adaptor or the USB adaptor.

I upgraded from 10.10 relatively recently and suspect that these problems have started since the upgrade.  Are there any similar known issues with using SD cards under High Sierra or other MacOS versions?

This crops up a lot.
Super User has a boiler-plate QA on it - What can I do if my USB flash drive is write-protected or read-only? - but you are likely seeing the result of the firmware going into write-protect mode.

The added confusion that it appears to accept data is a known side-effect. As they're readable, first get all your data off, then test with the Fight Flash Fraud app F3X & also check formatting in another computer; but be prepared to have to trash them.

If the firmware lock has triggered, they're done for.


macos Sierra Fn key acts like a long press with delay I have recently updated to macos Sierra and have a very strange thing happening with my Fn key. I have looked everywhere but cannot find anyone with the same issue.

Whenever I press the Fn key, it looks like the first key I press immediately after holding it is not recorded, instead, it acts like a long press of that key, and only the second press acts as normal.

For example: I do Fn+Delete to forward-delete, then it deletes as normal delete, and then starts deleting everything after a second, exactly like if I was just long pressing the delete key. If I press the delete key a second time (while holding the Fn), then it does act as expected. The funny thing is that once I release the Fn key, whatever I press after having released it still acts like if I was still pressing Fn, and then the rest of the key presses are normal again.

I first saw this issue with Fn+Delete but it happens with all keys, Fn+RightArrow will make my cursor go through all the text, etc. I have tried a SMC reset and a PRAM reset, I logged out and logged in to a newly created account to see if it was some issue in my user account, but nothing seems to solve it. I also tried turning sticky keys on and off.

Please help, I can't think of anything else.

Are you using USB Overdrive?  I went into the USB Overdrive settings, selected "Any keyboard, any application" and deselected the Enabled checkbox, and the problem seems to have disappeared


How to prevent from changing volume when using 2 to 1 RCA connector I prepared scheme:

(Amplifier I use is Pioneer A-307R  http://www.pioneer.eu/eur/products/archive/A-307R/page.html

TV Samsung UE40D6750 http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/tv-audio-video/television/led-tv/UE40D6750WKXXU)

I connected to Apple TV both HDMI and TOSLINK to be able stream only Music (without need to have TV turn on).

The key point here is the "2RCA to 1RCA" connector, which makes the volume up when one of the device (TV or AppleTV) is turn off. (Or makes the volume down when one of the device turn on alongside other).

For Example:

While you watching TV on TV alone, when you turn on the Apple TV the volume goes down, when you turn off the Apple TV it again goes up to the original level.

Could you explain me why it happens ? And how can I make it work without the volume going up and down?

I thought of ARC system where I will get rid of the TOSLINK cable, and plug the the HDMI directly to the Amplifier, although my Amplifier doesn't support ARC , and I doubt that there are connectors that make it possible to be compatible with ARC and have RCA output.

Thank you very much for your time and help.

It is dropping in level because the end of an audio connection usually has a termination point. and/or the signal is being routed to electronics that are adding slight resistances to the signal.  (in simple terms there is a cap on the end :-)

The least solution, would be to use an isolation transformer to one of the connection point, then one of the Yed signals could be isolated from the other device.

The most solution would be to use an audio distribution amp. Or to  route through a device that would passthrough the audio (unterminated) Like some amps or pre-amps. or to use other devices (like a equaliser) that would have 2 seperated outputs.


How can I view invalid characters in a file? How can I view invalid characters in a (text) file?

At the left is Notepad++ on a Windows machine. At the right is TextWrangler on a Mac machine. Notepad++ shows me what those invalid characters are, but TextWrangler just displays inverted question marks. How can I view those invalid characters (more meaningfully) on Mac?

OS: macOS High Sierra 10.13.3
Hardware: MacBook Pro Mid-2015

Sublime Text can display the invalid characters.


How to save contacts on iPhone with broken screen? I dropped my iPhone and broke the screen (is just black). So I bought a new iPhone but I want to sync all my contacts and of course the screen is locked and moved to the side. It looks something like the image below.

On the lock screen I can only see numbers given below.

12
45
78
0

Now I can't unlock my phone to sync to iCloud. How can I save my contacts ?

If you're not already syncing your contacts via iCloud, then you can sync them to your computer in iTunes in the Info screen. Then you can sync the computer's contacts to iCloud and so get them onto your new phone that way.

Alternatively, you could try backing up your current phone (Summary screen) and then restoring the backup to your new phone.

Good luck.


Opening and cleaning a MacBook Pro (retina 2012) I have had my MacBook Pro retina for more than 2 years, without cleaning the insides yet

I have used it extensively, many hours every day, and heavy tobacco smoking for a year or so (the fan outlet grills are yellowish)

Should I just order a screwdriver set (pentalobe?), open it and clean the fans etc.?

I assume warranty is already expired (no apple care here).. But will opening and cleaning it be complicated or risky business? I'm good with electronics, but Apple uses tiny delicate screws/parts etc.

Should I use a swab, compressed air container, or will a vacuum cleaner do? (metal/plastic head; static electricity)

Assuming the warranty is expired, you'll be fine. If you want to just remove the dust from the inside, you're on the right track. Get a can of air, a vacuum, and a pentalobe driver set.

Don't actually vacuum the inside though - turn it on and hold the nozzle up to the outlet of the area you're blowing the dust from. Static won't be a problem as long as you don't touch the computer with the nozzle.


What third party devices are air play compatible? At the moment I can play my iTunes library in 2 rooms of my house, from the iMac in the office and through the Apple TV in the lounge. I would like to purchase at least one Airplay compatible device so that music can be streamed into other rooms.

All I have been able to find is the B&W Zepplin Air, which is a bit big and expensive for what I want. Does anyone have any other recomendations?

I am aware that I could do this with the Airport Express, but I would rather have a 1 box solution.

iHome should be releasing their iW1 soon, which they debuted at CES

 iW1 AirPlay wireless speaker system with rechargeable battery.


Why can a command in Safari's Javascript (JS) console not call a previously defined function? I have the latest MacOS and Safari on a 2012 Macbook Pro.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50513038/how-to-automate-download-of-generated-pdfs/50515826#50515826
provides me with a function and a loop to call multiple times.

If I paste the function definition into the JS console, then the loop command, nothing happens.

If I change the function call to "console.log" and put that in, it prints the correct parameters.

If I redefine the function to call console.log and type in the call again, that works.  If I then paste the original loop, nothing happens.

Conclusion: Safari JS console doesn't allow injected JS to call a user-defined function.

Is that a bug, or is there a security setting that I need to change?

I can't reproduce the problem you're having. I've tried with the following JavaScript executed in the console.

I split the screenshots for each step from your question but the actual commands were executed in the console on one page without reloading.

  If I paste the function definition into the JS console, then the loop command, nothing happens.

  If I change the function call to "console.log" and put that in, it prints the correct parameters.

  If I redefine the function to call console.log and type in the call again, that works. If I then paste the original loop, nothing happens.

All seems to work correctly as it should! Perhaps the question could do with some screenshots of what you're trying.


Restore Photos/Videos Back to iPhone Camera Roll If you connect the iPhone to Windows, it comes up in the Computer as a digital camera and lets you Copy/Move photos/videos easily from there, you don’t need to use Photos on the Mac.

If, after connecting like above, you move (not copy) all the photos and videos to a folder on the PC, they will obviously disappear from the Camera Roll in iPhone.

Is it possible to restore the photos and videos back to the Camera Roll?

I have accidentally moved (instead of copying) lots of photos and videos from my iPhone to a folder Windows 7. It slipped my mind that there were a few slow-mo videos which will not play without iPhone/iMovie.

Also, when photos are viewed on iPhone, it displays the location name in the title, which I cannot have once I have moved photos to the computer. In the JPG metadata I only see the Latitude and Longitude saved there.

Thus I prefer to undo this mistake and take photos/videos back to iPhone, is there a way?

I finally resolved this by using iTunes Sync to add photos to an album in iPhone. It is only slightly different as my photos went back to a separate album, not Camera Roll but that’s okay. I noticed that the location name was restored and since it syncs Videos too, I’m sure slow-mo videos would work the way they should.

Also, latest Quicktime player on Mac plays slow-mo videos just like the iPhone.


Changing my Apple ID's email: address is not available When I try to change my Apple ID's email address (a Hotmail address), I get the message This email address is not available. Choose a different address.

The email address I intended to change (a Gmail address) is mine and I had another Apple ID opened with that earlier. I was not able to delete that account, as Apple doesn't allow that. Hence, I put a Yahoo email in the account so I could remove the Gmail from the account. So, currently, there is no Apple ID registered with the Gmail address.

Why can't I switch my current Apple ID to the Gmail address?
Should I transfer all my info to the Gmail as a newly Apple ID and use that if the change is not possible?

Had exact same problem. Called Apple Support. Explained problem to them. Changing emails on Apple ID's is a little tricky so my call had to be bumped up to the next level of support, but the problem was quickly ironed out. And I had THREE email addresses going! LOL!


Run script as root whenever any user logs in What's the best way to run a script with root privileges whenever any user logs in? It should run in the background without prompting the user for a password.

Use a LoginHook.

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /path/to/script

See here for more detail.


Enter a filename in the File Open dialog Can I enter a path to a file and its name instead of selecting a file in Mac OS X file dialog?

I tried just typing into an open dialog but it will just try to "Go to a folder", it won't accept a full path.

I'm on Mac OS X Lion

Yes. When the Finder dialog box is active type ⇧⌘G to bring up the Go to the folder direct entry dialog. You can enter the path to the file in the dialog using the Unix-type path expressions you'd expect: ~ for your home directory, / for a directory separator, etc.


How to cd to a directory with a name starting with a "-" (minus)? We have some folders where the names are starting with a "-". If I try to enter them with terminal, cd interprets the "-" as an option. How could I manage this?

This should just work:

cd /path/to/-folderthatstartswithdash

EDIT:

According to this question, this works if you only want to input the name:

cd -- -folderthatstartswithdash


What parts can you upgrade on a MacBook Pro? If I buy a MacBook Pro, what parts can I upgrade later?

Is it possible to upgrade to more memory? Is it possible to upgrade to another harddrive? e.g. to a newer SSD-drive? Anything else that is possible to upgrade?

In addition to Am1rr3za's answers (other than the CPU, which is soldered to the logic board), you can also convert the optical drive bay to a caddy which houses a second hard drive or solid state drive.  This is a huge upgrade if you can stand being without an internal disc drive...


Vim like navigation keys for Finder So I use vim all the time, and I've grown use to the navigation keys h, j, k, l, (especially when navigating with NERDTree).

Does anyone know if it's possible to implement this motion in macOS Finder.app?

I thought of remapping the keys using something like Karabiner or BetterTouchTool, but in either case, I would not be able to use those keys when renaming a file.

Vim can get addictive once we get the hang of it. To vim-ify the Finder is a lovely idea.

However, what features are you thinking about? For example, browsing files using the navigation keys h, j, k, l, then pressing i to enter edit mode and rename files or folders?

Vim’s power lies in text mode, whereas macOS interface is designed to be used with a mouse/trackpad. It may be better to stick with vim to process textual information, and to use mouse/trackpad in a graphical environment.

By the way, I cannot see a simple and effective way to hack the Finder (as you said Karabiner is fantastic, but it just won't do it). It would probably require to program a specific macOS Finder utility using Swift.

Alternatively:

Some code editors can be controlled the vim way, like Sublime Text with enabling the Vintage Mode.
Web browsers can be controlled the vim way: Chrome with Vimium or cVim, Firefox with Vimium-FF or Vim Vixen (thanks to @Ruslan and @wchargin for mentioning it)
The bash shell running in Terminal.app can be used in vi mode using set -o vi or set editing-mode vi.
There are great textual file managers ready to install via Homebrew that worth a try, like:

nnn. To install run brew install nnn.
lf. To install run brew install lf.
vifm. To install run brew lf.
ranger. To install run brew install ranger.
midnight-commander. To install run brew install midnight-commander. Run by typing mc.
fdclone. To install run brew install fdclone. Run by typing fd.


Disk partition interrupted So I was partitioning my macbook's hard disk so as to install addition operating system.

But as disk utility was in the process of partitioning, I closed the disk partition (for a reason) thinking it wont save the changes and I will start again.

Big mistake.

All the free space (a lot) I had before is now showing as "other" and the disk isn't partitioned. How do I fix this? Thanks!

If the formerly-free space is showing up as 'other', the implication is that your current system partition is perfectly OK?

I would recommend to start with, booting from the Recovery partition, and doing a 'Verify Disk' and/or 'Repair Disk' on the system partition.

Is the 'other' space actually a partition, or is it free unpartitioned space on the drive?

If it's a partition, you can use Disk Utility to select that partition and use 'Erase' it in the format you wanted - give it the name you want at the same time.

If not, you can just create the new partition in that space.


Run command from terminal by shortcut I am trying to run copyq menu which is opening the menu context. This supposed to worked, but I got copyq command not found and struck at this step.
I had tried putting the /Users/myname/.bash_profile but it does not work.
I also had tried do shell script "copyq menu" command not found either

The ultimate goal I wants is I am be able to use shortcut to call copyq menu

OSX: 10.13.4
CopyQ Clipboard Manager v3.4.0 (hluk@email.cz)
Built with: Qt 5.10.1

Question
How to get copyq menu runs by shortcut?

I have to set up the Show the tray menu Since in my fresh install from brew is blank https://github.com/hluk/CopyQ/issues/938

Set the short cut main window here

main window with a few items

Set the short cut tray menu

tray menu


Are there any iOS devices that run iOS 7 but won't be upgradable to iOS 8? I'd like to know if I need to keep a iOS7 device laying around for a test case or if ultimately every iOS 7 device will be upgraded to iOS 8.

I have several iOS 6 devices that cannot be upgraded to iOS 7.

As far as I know, the iPhone 4 is the only device capable of running iOS 7 that can't be updated to iOS 8.

Ref: Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_iOS#iOS_8 - & others


Charging my Macbook with power inverter I bought a MotoMaster Eliminator Mobile Power Outlet Digital Power Inverter rated for 400 W.

It has thoses specs:

  AC output voltage: 115 V
  Max Continuous AC power: 320 W
  AC Output frequency: 60 ±1 Hz
  AC Output waveform wave: Modified Sine Wave

I can plug my little iPhone adapter in the inverter AC outlet and it charges.

When I plug my MacBook's adapter, I hear little ticks from the adapter, and nothing happens. I unplug it from the inverter, plug it in the wall outlet, and nothing happens. I have to unplug it from the wall, wait a minute or two, re-plug it to the wall and my MacBook is charging again.

What's happening? I bought this specially to charge my laptop when doing camping. Is there something I can do?

The problem lies in one little word: Modified sine wave. Which typically has a rather tenuous connection with an actual sine wave. Rather, its voltage is a periodic step function with rather few steps (though I can't say for sure about the specific model you mention). You need an inverter that provides the latter. They exist, but tend to be more expensive. I use one made by Mascot, and it charges my macbooks just fine. My previous inverter, with its modified sine wave, did not.


Bash completions broken I am using following bash completions installed via brew:

bash-completion
bash-completion@2

My .bashrc looks like:

if [ -f /usr/local/share/bash-completion/bash_completion ]; then
. /usr/local/share/bash-completion/bash_completion
fi

if [ -f /usr/local/Cellar/bash-completion/1.3_2/etc/bash_completion ]; then
  BASH_COMPLETION=/usr/local/Cellar/bash-completion/1.3_2/etc/bash_completion
  . /usr/local/Cellar/bash-completion/1.3_2/etc/bash_completion
fi

The problem is when I press TAB on an empty prompt on keyboard I get the error:

-bash: words: bad array subscript

After removing /usr/local/share/bash-completion/bash_completion from .bashrc error doesn’t happen but I miss out on many completions.

What is the problem here? How can I fix it?

The solution is that I should call bash completion from 1.3.2 before bash-completion@2. Following is how my .bashrc looks, and this solves the problem:

if [ -f /usr/local/Cellar/bash-completion/1.3_2/etc/bash_completion ]; then
  BASH_COMPLETION=/usr/local/Cellar/bash-completion/1.3_2/etc/bash_completion
  . /usr/local/Cellar/bash-completion/1.3_2/etc/bash_completion
fi

if [ -f /usr/local/share/bash-completion/bash_completion ]; then
    . /usr/local/share/bash-completion/bash_completion
fi


Touch Bar no longer controls iTunes I installed the Google Play Music app on my Macbook (Sierra 10.12.4) then uninstalled it. Now my Touch Bar music controls no longer work with iTunes. How can I reset it?

The first thing I would do is reset your NVRAM.

Resetting the NVRAM on Late-2016 MacBook Pro models

Older Macs had what's called Parameter RAM (PRAM), newer Macs use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). To reset the NVRAM on all Late-2016 MacBook Pro models (with and without Touch Bar) follow these steps:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then immediately press the commandoptionpr keys.
Keep these keys pressed down for at least 20 seconds!
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

If resetting the NVRAM doesn't resolve it, try resetting your SMC as well.

Resetting the SMC

Shut down your Mac
Unplug the power cable from your Mac
For 10 seconds, press and hold at the same time the shiftcontroloption keys (on the left side of the built-in keyboard) and the power button
After 10 seconds let go of all keys and the power button
Plug in the power cable
Turn your Mac back on with the power button.

Let me know how you go, as there are other things you can try. However, I've found that resetting the NVRAM and also the SMC will usually resolve unusual or random issues pertaining to the Touch Bar.

--[EDIT]--

This edit adds further things to try in order to resolve this issue. However, since macOS 10.12.5 has just been released, I would update the OS prior to trying the following solutions.

Use Terminal to kill the Control Strip

This is a straightforward way to manually reset the Control Strip. To do this:

Launch the Terminal app (by default located within the Utilities folder)
Enter the following command killall ControlStrip (or you can just copy and paste it in)
Press return

There is no need to restart the Mac after doing this.

Change what the Touch Bar shows

In System Preferences you can change what the Touch Bar shows. I would change this, exit System Preferences, and then change it again (if necessary).

To do this:

Got to Apple > System Preferences
Click on the Keyboard preference pane
Ensure the Keyboard tab is selected
Around the centre of the screen you'll see a Touch Bar shows drop-down list
Change the selection to Expanded Control Strip (if this is already selected, change it to App Controls with Control Strip)
Exit System Preferences
Test your Touch Bar music controls
If it doesn't work, repeat steps 1 to 5 and change the Touch Bar shows drop-down list selection back to the original selection and test again

Troubleshooting steps

If all else fails, you can try these troubleshooting steps:

Function keys - Press the fn key and try using the F7, F8, and F9 keys respectively as your media control keys and see what happens.
Use another user account - Try using another user account temporarily to determine if the problem persists. If you don't have another user account, you can add one in System Preferences > Users & Groups. Once you've added it, log into it and see how your media controls work.
Safe Mode - Boot your MBP up in Safe Mode and try using the media controls keys. To do this, hold the shift key down as you boot up. This will take a little longer to boot as your Mac cleans caches, runs some diagnostics, etc. Once you've tested, exit Safe Mode by restarting your MBP and then test your media control keys again.

Once you've tried these troubleshooting steps, report back on what you found.


Turn on/off WiFi via Mute switch I have jailbroken my iPad for firewall, XBMC and some development things only.

I didn't know before that on the right-hand side near the volume buttons is a switch. In settings I have two options for it: lock screen rotation or mute. I don't need either of them, but I've got an idea on my mind - how about to turn on/off WiFi with this switch? (To save some battery.)

Is there a mod or something that lets me do so?

Activator

You could try a custom action using Activator, set up to toggle WiFi when the Silent switch is double-toggled.

I am currently not jailbroken myself (running iOS 7) and haven't used Activator for a while, but I remember that there is an option to activate an action by double-toggling the mute switch, as can be seen in the screenshot below.

There may be a way to activate it using a single toggle, but I am not able to find this out myself right now. Despite this, a double-toggle returns the toggle to its original point, meaning that you could use the toggle for WiFi and orientation/mute at the same time (a single toggle doesn't activate the double-toggle action).


Highlight and immediately speak selected text in one click - Text To Speech on Mac I am a very heavy text to speech user on the Mac.
Every time I use text to speech I have to triple click the paragraph to select it, and then hit option escape to activate text to speech. I wish that instead I could just option click a paragraph and it would immediately start speaking. I imagine this could be achieved using Automator or a similar tool combined with shortcuts? Does anybody know how to make this happen?

Action I wish existed for text to speech:
Option + click = highlight the entire paragraph and immediately begin reading =  triple click + (option + Escape)

Here is an item that you can put in your Karabiner private.xml file to make Option-Escape highlight the current paragraph (under your mouse cursor) and being reading it.

I also implemented the command for stopping it as you requested (Command-Shift-S) though I don't believe there's a way to go back two seconds and start reading again.

<item>
    <identifier>private.tripleclick</identifier>
    <name>Option-Escape to Triple-Click and Text-to-Speech</name>
    <autogen>
        __KeyToKey__
        KeyCode::ESCAPE, ModifierFlag::OPTION_L,

        @begin
        PointingButton::LEFT, PointingButton::LEFT, PointingButton::LEFT,
        KeyCode::ESCAPE, ModifierFlag::OPTION_L
        @end
    </autogen>
</item>
<item>
    <identifier>private.stoptts</identifier>
    <name>Command-Shift-S stops Text-to-Speech</name>
    <autogen>
        __KeyToKey__
        KeyCode::S, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L,
        KeyCode::ESCAPE, ModifierFlag::OPTION_L
    </autogen>
</item>


iCloud Drive on Mac is taking up space on HD I am trying to clear space on my hard drive. I scan a lot of negatives that come in as super high res tiff files that take up a ton of space. I'm trying to move all of the negative scans to my iCloud Drive to clear space on my HD. But it's not clearing any space on my HD and seems to be taking even more space away from my HD. I've read that by optimizing iCloud it will keep recently opened files on my HD, and all of my negative scans have been opened within the last few months. Is it not possible to clear space on my HD by transferring the files to my iCloud? Is iCloud useless for making room on my HD? Here is a screen shot to show what's happening.
Thanks!

You need to enable Optimize Mac Storage in iCloud Drive settings. After enabling this, you may have to speed it up by right clicking on large folders or files and clicking Remove Download.

Open System Preferences > iCloud and check the box labeled Optimize Mac Storage.
To speed the process, find a folder you wish to remove from your local storage and right click it. Choose "Remove Download."


Stop any syncing with other apple devices with same Apple ID and MacBook How to stop at all any syncing on new MacBook with another devices with same Apple ID? I want to use Apple ID on MacBook only for App Store.

Syncing happens in the system settings, iCloud. If you sign out there, you stop syncing.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208242

You can stay signed in to the App Store and not sign in to iCloud as well, just skip the full setup when you set up your account - choose set up later if you are asked if you want to sync iCloud.


Completely disable a keyboard shortcut for one application When using Microsoft Remote Desktop, I frequently find myself accidentally trying to close browser tabs with ⌘W (which is mapped to "Close Connection" by default).  I was at least able to stop it from closing the connection every time by mapping it to one of the help menu options, but it's still annoying to have a window pop up every time I do it.

What I really want is for it to do nothing, but all I can find is how to assign a different key combination to the command (which doesn't work in this case for some reason, it just adds it as a second shortcut in addition to ⌘W) or how to assign the key combination to a different command. Is there any way to disable the shortcut entirely instead?

Update: this seems to specifically be a problem with Microsoft Remote Desktop version 8.

This works on MS RDC v10 but not the old v8.

Replacing Close  Cmd ⌘   W  with a 'garbage' command effectively removes the hot key from the interface - though it doesn't make it work as Close Tab in Windows, it seems to just ignore it.
 Ctrl ⌃   W  does close tabs [as expected].


Add 2 mobile numbers to iphone I checked all the answers to my question (how to add two mobile numbers to one contact in iPhone) but I didn't see a clear answer.

A lot of my contacts have more than one mobile number, and while my android phone syncs beautifully with gmail contacts (multiple mobile numbers), my iPhone 4 only allowing me one mobile number. After that when I click on add, I get a list of home,work,fax,etc. But no second mobile number.

My 5 years old Nokia phone let me add custom labels to any phone number, like I can add a number and name it "boat phone" , gmail contacts also can do it.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

A custom label will have to suffice here. I have many contacts with their cell phones listed as 'mobile', and then a custom 'Google Voice' labeled number.

[edit]
An alternative to this is to make the change via Address Book.app on your computer, then sync the contacts to your phone.

Custom labels are available in all contact adding/modification screens.

First, browse to a contact, and tap the label name (to the left of a phone number, e-mail address, etc.). You will see the list of labels.

Second, swipe all the way to the bottom, and tap on "Add Custom Label".

Type in a new Custom Label;

And then it will be displayed next to the number.

It will now appear in a list of custom labels on later access.


Replacing hard disk with SSD or increasing RAM in MacBook Pro I am using MacBook Pro for the last 1.5 years. Here is my configuration.

13" MacBook Pro, min-2010
2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo
4 GB RAM
OS X Lion 10.7.4

Would you recommend upgrading to SSD for fast processing or would upgrading RAM will be better?

I am also worried about my pocketbook. 320 GB of hard disk can be used as external hard disk after upgrading, but in case of RAM previous RAM will be useless, as the Macbook Pro only has two slots. (Currently both are used, 2GB RAM slots each.)

PS: I am a Ruby on Rails and iOS developer and using my MacBook Pro more than 15 hours a day for coding purpose. I have the 2 year extended warranty.

It depends on how much RAM you're using. Use something like iStat Menus or MenuMeters to keep an eye on your RAM usage.

If you're constantly near or over 4 GB RAM used (wired+active), more RAM will be the better option. (You can also tell this by seeing how much swap space you use; if it's over some nominal value like 64-128 MB get more RAM.)

If, on the other hand, you never even get close to 4 GB of RAM usage, get the SSD. Or, get more RAM anyway and use the excess as a ramdisk, which will be way, way faster than an SSD.


How do I sync Google Tasks to an iPhone? I can sync my mail and calendar to Google from my iPhone via the GMail Exchange interface, but my GMail task list is not synced. How can I sync my tasks so that they show up in the built-in Reminders app?

There doesn't currently appear to be a way.  If you're willing to use an alternative to the built-in iOS Reminders, there's gTasks.

There is more information in the answers to this duplicate question: Sync Google Tasks with iOS Reminders?


Dingit.tv process running in Safari, using 1GB memory and 15% cpu There's a process running in Safari (9.0.3) which is killing performance on my MBA. It's called dingit.tv and it's using between 1-2 GB RAM. As far as I know I've never been to this site. If I kill the process it just reappears immediately.

It seems like a virus to me. Anyone else seen this or know how to get rid of it?

You can try running Dingit's uninstaller here:

http://kb.dingit.tv/article/114-how-do-i-uninstall-the-dingit-infinitehd-plugin

On OSX 10.10.5 when I browsed to the site the following appeared in the Activity Monitor:

http://www.dingit.tv

and it's actually just a window that's open in Safari and Safari will keep reopening it each time you kill it. The easy way to bring it onto the screen is to use the Merge All Windows option in Safari's Window menu and then close it.


Where do we find our reviews in iTunes App Store? Is there a place where we can find our own comments in the iTunes App Store so we see how many consider our comments as good ones for example?

Your reviews are available from Store->View My Account, then check the "Manage >" link after the "Reviews and Ratings" text in the "Settings" section of the page.


MacBook Pro going to sleep by itself because of watchdog daemon For a couple of weeks, my Mac has been going to sleep by itself. This seems to happen more often when I'm running more stuff on my Mac (Chrome + Spotify + etc…)

In my console, the message is the following:

1/4/15 7:24:04.793 PM coreaudiod[293]: 2015-01-04 07:24:04.792840 PM [AirPlay] Power: SystemWillSleep

Followed by:

1/4/15 7:24:04.794 PM coreaudiod[293]: 2015-01-04 07:24:04.794130 PM [AirPlay] BTLE client stopping to browse for AirPlay Solo Target Presence.
1/4/15 7:24:04.795 PM coreaudiod[293]: 2015-01-04 07:24:04.795289 PM [AirPlay] BTLE discovery removing all devices

This seems to have some sort of correlation with watchdog, a daemon process on my mac (In this case it's happening after, but it's usually before).

1/4/15 7:24:04.800 PM watchdogd[7673]: [watchdog_daemon] @(         pm_callback) - ref=0x0 msg_type=0xe0000280 msg=0x570033
1/4/15 7:24:04.800 PM watchdogd[7673]: [watchdog_daemon] @(    wd_daemon_thread) - events buffer: 6329r81941 6779s81941
1/4/15 7:24:04.838 PM watchdogd[7673]: [watchdog_daemon] @(         pm_callback) - ref=0x0 msg_type=0xe0000320 msg=0x0
1/4/15 7:24:04.838 PM watchdogd[7673]: [watchdog_daemon] @(         pm_callback) - ref=0x0 msg_type=0xe0000300 msg=0x0

Here are some more logs:

The SystemWillSleep messages:

Watchdog Processes:

Full Log for 7:12 PM:

Some system information: MacBook Pro (Retina, 13 inch, Late 2013) running Yosemite.

Here is the readout from your logs.

Your BTLE (Bluetooth low energy) is shutting down (normal ?)

The watchdogd is shutting down the corresponding processes, but is is not meant to shut down your system.

The SystemWillSleep is for the coreaudiod, due to the airplay shutting down, it does not mean the OS X shutting down.

All of the above is happening because the OS X received the sleep command (they happen after the command was issued).

The OS X will sleep if you have something like kernel[0]: sleep

and more info can be found

kernel[0]: Previous Sleep Cause: 5

New logs show:

Your system did enter the sleep mode.

It was woken up by the RTC Alarm. Check your Energy Saver settings-

It was woken up by the WOMP since it is enabled (Wake On Magic Packet) a network.

To see all wake up reasons use syslog |grep -i "Wake reason" in your Terminal.

So far your system is not acting strange, just doing what you asked it to do. The "restarts" you are referring to are the wakes ups from sleep mode. There is no log entry showing that the system has restarted.

If it did the restart then you would see for example:

shutdown[15811]: SHUTDOWN_TIME: 1424885403 656386

bootlog[0]: BOOT_TIME 1424885410 0


Can same application be opened in 2 different desktops in MAC I am confused about what multiple desktops mean? I created another desktop using mission control plus icon at the top

But I am unable to open same application twice in different desktops. Is this not possible?

So, multiple desktops do not really behave like desktops but are actually just multiple screens that have a fancy name?

Desktops in MacOS are not like running a different machine. So yes, you are right, you can think of them as multiple screens.

That said, you can have the same application on multiple screens. This requires the application to be able to have multiple parent windows. E.g. this works fine with a browser: Open a second window on desktop 1, enter mission control, and drag the second window to desktop 2. Now you can change desktops and have the same program running on both with different content. Clicking the dock icon will cycle through all open windows of the app, also if they are on different desktops.

This does not work for applications that can have only one parent window, like most email programs or professional editing tools.


How to stop Siri from playing undownloaded purchased songs Here is an interesting one:

I have 264 purchased songs downloaded on my iPhone
If I go "Songs > Shuffle" it goes 1 of 264
If I go "Siri > Play songs shuffled" it goes 1 of 456

So basically, if I use Siri, it keeps shuffling through every song I have purchased rather than just the ones that have been downloaded onto my iPhone.

I have already tried:

Settings > Music > Show All Music Off
Settings > iTunes & App Store > Show all music off + Automatic downloads music off
Settings > Usage > Music delete + iTune sync to put back only the songs I wanted

How do I stop this?

I do not know about a better solution than logging out of the Apple Store. It will prevent Siri from accessing your purchased songs library from there.


Can I reverse the scroll direction of my mouse? I upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion from Snow Leopard and all of a sudden my scrolls in the browser window (chrome, Firefox etc) have reversed.

I need to scroll up to go down and vice-versa. Is there a way to change the direction ?

The system preference for scroll direction is all-or-nothing and applies to every input device uniformly.  With some things, this just doesn't make sense.  If you want fine-grained control of which input devices scroll in which way (for example, if you want touchpads to use the "natural" scrolling while having the scroll wheel use traditional scrolling), try ScrollReverser.


Removing the default author for PDFs This is a real nit that I I'm picking :-).

I save a lot of stuff from the web as PDF files. Is there any way to not have the "Save as PDF" use my name as the author of the PDF by default, other than removing myself from my address book? I'll fill it in for those few times that I really am the author.

On OS X 10.6.4.

You are nit picking there! :)

It’s a complicated one, but I believe that it might be possible to experiment with:

Automator (have an action that takes a PDF and modifies it’s metadata)

PDF Services (have a service that is “Save As My AuthorLess PDF”) ;)

AppleScript (Both/All of the above)

I suggest you google around those concepts. This is a good starting point. All in all, the idea of your script is to use the Automator’s action called: “Set PDF Metadata” (you could then put blank data on purpose):

If you create a PDF Service capable of replacing the default one, but that also sets the metadata to Blank, you’ve won.


How can I set a keyboard shortcut to paste text? I want to be able to make a keyboard shortcut system wide on a Mac that will paste some text into whatever I am selecting. For example, I am typing in notes and I press cmd + alt + k, then text that says "Hello World!" will paste into the text box. I was looking for other answers to this but couldn't find any.

You could create this using AppleScript and run it using Automator.

Create a script:

tell application "System Events" to keystroke "Hello World."

Replace "Hello World." with your desired text, but make sure to keep the quotation marks around whatever text you input as that is what is making the data type a string.

Next, use Automator to trigger the above AppleScript:

Open Automator.
Create a new services workflow.
Set Service Recieves to no input.
Set in to any application.
Under "Actions" in the left pane, search for "Run AppleScript."
Once you find that, drag "Run AppleScript" over to the right pane, which enters it into your workflow.
Save the workflow.

Finally, use System Preferences to assign this workflow to a global hotkey.

Open System Preferences.
Click Keyboard.
Click Keyboard Shortcuts.
Scroll down to and select Services in the left pane.
In the right pane, search for the name of the Automator workflow that you just saved and click on the checkbox to the left of the file name.
Hold down your desired keyboard shortcut and it will automatically assign this workflow to your selected hotkeys.

This is probably the easiest way of accomplishing your desired task while writing the least amount of code as possible.

There is also a tool called Alfred that is outstanding; I use it many times on a daily basis. At this point I would probably be lost without it. It can completely take over spotlight for you (in fact I deleted the hotkey to bring up spotlight search (cmd + space) and assigned that hotkey to open Alfred instead. Within Alfred you can do things such as copy text from one place, then copy more text from somewhere else and append them together, do anything that you can do in Spotlight search, plus much, much more. The reason that I bring up Alfred is because you can create this same exact workflow within Alfred and assign it to a system wide hotkey all within the same application without writing and code at all (if you consider the example that I just gave to actually be writing code). In fact, the types of workflows you can create in Alfred is essentially limitless and there are even already built recipes online, for different applications that you can download.


Keyboard shortcuts for Terminal I am trying to add a shortcut to the menu bar actions in the Terminal app, (specifically to create a new window with my own theme.) Here is a screenshot:

However when I try to add the shortcut via the System Preferences Keyboard Shortcuts page,

the Terminal app does not show up as one of the options for apps that could have more shortcuts. I looked in the "Other..." section of apps for Terminal, but Terminal was grayed out and unelectable:

Is this even possible, to add a shortcut to the menu bar in the Terminal app, and if so, how would it be done?

You can simply add Presentation to you keyboard shortcuts list in System Preferences and that should work.


Need to create a common workspace between two macs connected wirelessly in a network I need to create a common development workspace between two macs connected in a wi-fi network. Sort of like a shared folder. But the problem using a shared folder is that there are a lot of ownership issues and stuff. The ownership can be for both or an individual mac. Any ideas ?

It might be worth your time to learn how to handle the "ownership issues and stuff".

I do not have a definitive answer, but it is possible to attach an external hard drive to a Mac and to instruct the OS of that Mac to ignore all file permissions/privileges on that external hard drive. If those files and folders on that external hard drive are then shared over the network, (I do not know for certain) it may be possible that another user on another Mac across the network might also access those files without regard to the permissions assigned to them by default.

Try this:

In the Finder, mount the external drive and choose File: Get Info. In the Info window, at the bottom, click on the Lock button, authenticate, and check the box next to "Ignore ownership on this volume".

While we are examining this, here is how to give your coworker full privileges to access a shared folder or volume that is on your Mac or attached to it.

Under System Preferences: Sharing, enable File Sharing and add that specific volume to the Shared Folders list using the plus button under Shared Folders: For good measure, manually add your co-worker's name and password under Users: and give them Read & Write privileges.

Finally, there is a freeware graphical utility that you can use to change all file permissions on a file or folder without needing to use the command line or the Finder's Get Info windows. It is called BatChmod. However, using it can have unintended consequences if you do not have a good understanding of how Mac permissions work. Use this utility carefully and avoid using it on the contents of entire folders if you are uncertain as to what you are doing.


Internet stopped working on OS X 10.8.2 I have a MacBook Air with OS X 10.8.2 on it. Suddenly the browsers (Safari, Firefox and Chrome) all stopped working although the MacBook is still connected to the internet via WLAN.

Funnily enough Google still works (i.e. I can search for something, I just can't take a look at the results), Facebook as well (I'm even able to receive chat messages). Other webpages don't work...

ping      - works
nslookup  - works
traceroot - works
curl      - doesn't work

I've tried to use Google's DNS servers, to type in the IP of an website instead of its URL, restarting mDNSResponder and I've rebooted the Macbook more often than I can count.

I'm running out of ideas...
Any guesses what the problem might be?

Update: Output: netstat -i

Metalhamsters-MacBook-Air:~ Metalhamster$ netstat -i
Name  Mtu     Network            Address            Ipkts  Ierrs  Opkts  Oerrs  Coll
lo0   16384   <Link#1>                              53920  0      53920  0      0
lo0   16384   localhost          fe80:1::1          53920  -      53920  -      -
lo0   16384   127                localhost          53920  -      53920  -      -
lo0   16384   localhost          ::1                53920  -      53920  -      -
gif0* 1280    <Link#2>                              0      0      0      0      0
stf0* 1280    <Link#3>                              0      0      0      0      0
en0   1500    <Link#4>           94:94:26:04:98:dc  351    0      468    0      0
en0   1500    metalhamsters-mac  fe80:4::9694:26ff  351    -      468    -      -
en0   1500    192.168.1          192.168.1.130      351    -      468    -      -
p2p0  2304    <Link#5>           06:94:26:04:98:dc  0      0      0      0      0

Update2: I think I need to clarify what I mean with "other webpages don't work":

When I try to load a website I get a blank tab with 'Connecting...' and after a few minutes the browser shows 'Error: server not found'.
curl returns '(52) Empty reply from server' after a few minutes.

Cheers,
metalhamster

It appears you might have installed some software that would block access to those web sites.

If not keep reading:

In some cases there is a possible modification to your HOST file.

In the assumption that you have no software installed that would explicitly block those sites here is how to block and unblock web sites.

A Mac’s hosts file is a simple text file that dictates what the system should do when specific domains or IP addresses are accessed.

You can trigger a “page cannot be displayed” error or even redirect them to other domains/IPs of your choice.

For the sake of this tutorial, all blocked websites will be pointed to 127.0.0.1, which is the localhost or system itself.

  To get started, Copy and paste the following code in Terminal:

sudo /bin/cp /etc/hosts /etc/hosts-original

Terminal will ask for your password.

Now we can start editing the hosts file. Copy and paste this code in Terminal (all one line)

sudo /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit /etc/hosts

The hosts file will open in TextEdit.

Notice the following lines and do not delete them under any circumstances:

  127.0.0.1           localhost

  255.255.255.255     broadcasthost

  ::1                 localhost

  fe80::1%lo0         localhost

You should not have any further data here.

Create a new line directly under the last one shown above. Type the following, replacing the sample domain with the domain or IP
address you want to block:

    127.0.0.1 sample.com www.sample.com

Continue adding lines following the format in step 6 for each website you want to block. When you’re done, quit TextEdit and save the hosts file when prompted.

Back in Terminal, run the following command to flush the computer’s DNS and put the new hosts file into effect. Or you can restart your Mac instead, if you prefer.

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

That’s all there is to it! Websites added to the hosts file will no longer be accessible from any user account on that Mac.

In your case look for the blocked IP's

re-enable access to blocked websites, just repeat this process and
remove the lines you added in the hosts file. Just remember not to
delete the original 4 lines!

In some cases the sshuttle (an VPN over ssh) cloud changed my /etc/hosts file.


Using Yosemite for web development I am eager to try out the new Yosemite beta, but the confidentiality agreement somewhat startles me.

I know I cannot disclose any confidential information about the OS or post screenshots of it anywhere, but what else does that imply? I am a web developer and I use my Macbook for surfing the web, listening to music, programming and web development in general. Can I still do all these things (and the rest of everyday stuff) if I update to the Yosemite beta? What are the legal limitations of using Yosemite?

What I'm asking is can I still produce websites, web software and etc. at work using Yosemite Beta as a development environment?

From my personal experience, Yosemite isn't really too bad in terms of bugginess. It's quite unlikely that you will suffer data loss, but take backups as always. I have had no more problems running on Yosemite than Mavericks (aside from some cosmetic issues related to Dark Mode and reducing transparency).

That said, it really depends on what you use for web development. TextMate, iTerm, and Xcode work really well, but if you've got another IDE running you might want to  wait until you know it works well with Yosemite. I'm also a big fan of Alfred and Karabiner, both of which have official support for it.

Also, what reason do you have to run Yosemite? Even if it is low risk, it isn't worth the trouble to just be able to use the flashy new GUI.

The legal limitations are pretty severe, however:

  […] don’t blog, post screen shots, tweet or publicly post information about the pre-release Apple software, and don't discuss the pre-release Apple software with or demonstrate it to others who are not in the OS X Beta Program.

In a work environment it's going to be difficult to avoid discussing or demonstrating it to people not in the program.

So in this instance, it's probably a good idea to wait until 10.10 is publicly released, as Apple also warns against using it on production machines or business-critical ones.


Access tabs directly in Safari with ⌘+1..9 keyboard shortcuts? Can you access tabs directly in Safari using the ⌘+1..9 shortcuts like Chrome?

This is now the default behavior of Safari 9.


Moving tabs on chrome jumps to the primary display There is a new strange behavior with chrome. When I move a tab out of a window on my secondary monitor the tab jumps to my primary monitor then I have to go grab the window and drag it back up to the screen that I was working on. It sounds weird but it's quite frustrating and it never used to be like this.
Anyone know how to revert this behavior or whether this was a Mac update or a Chrome update and what exactly was updated?
Thanks.

I figured it out. You have to right click on Chrome in the dock -> click options -> None.


What happens to downloaded iOS apps after updating to iTunes 12.7? I have several tens of gigabytes of iPhone and iPad apps inside my ~/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications directory.  What happens to the .ipa files in this directory after updating to iTunes 12.7?  Are the contents of this directory still updated after a Sync is performed with an iOS device that has new or updated apps installed?  Or does this directory just become wasted storage that should be cleaned up?

Those no longer sync with iTunes so you can indeed delete them...

however

If there is a 64bit orphaned or abandoned app that you still use or need that is no longer in the app store. Don't toss it as iTunes manual install (still supported) is the only way you'll ever be able to re-install it if you wipe your phone or move to a new one.


macOS Sierra 10.12.6 can't connect to VPN using IKEv2. How to troubleshoot? I am trying to setup a VPN connection using IKEv2. I fill in the server address, the remote ID and the user/password. When I click connect it tries to do it but immediately disconnects.

How can I find out what's going on? Where is the log file?
I have configured one as indicated here: Troubleshooting IKEv2 on 10.11 El Capitan but the log file is created but empty.

I had the exact same issue - turns out the VPN Server's certificate has expired.

Too bad there is not even a word in macOS about that, just an instant disconnect.

here's my thread: OS 10.13.3 IKEv2 VPN automatically disconnects


How do I get Samba volume to mount automatically at bootup? I have a windows share that I can mount via Connect to Server (⌘K in the finder)

smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@SERVER/SHARENAME

It there a way to have this volume mount automatically at bootup?

You could also add the alias as a Login item: go to System Preferences > Users & Groups, and click on Login Items. You can then drag a mounted network drive, or a drive alias, into the Login Items list.


Send a message from an iPhone to a Mac Is there a way to send messages from an iPhone (iOS 7.0.3) to a Mac (OS X Mavericks) to show on the screen?

For example, imagine I’m in the kitchen and I want to send a message that will show on the iMac’s screen to my son, who is upstairs in his room. Is there a way to do that?

you can use imessage. and with OS X Mavericks  you can take it as notifications too.

  If you’re a texter, you’ll love Messages on iPhone, iPad, and iPod
  touch. Now they all come with iMessage, a service that’s an even
  better kind of texting. Because it’s free for you and anyone texting
  over Wi-Fi using an iOS device or Mac with iMessage. And it’s
  unlimited.* So say as much as you want.

i hope it helps you..