New MBA vs MBP 13" for iOS Developmet I am going to buy a MacBook for iOS development as its main use, though I will also use Photoshop some for image processing.

I am choosing between the new mid-2011 Macbook Air and the early-2011 Macbook Pro.

Both 13" for portability, when at home/office the idea is to use it with an external monitor.

These are the configurations:

-------------------
13-inch MacBook Pro
-------------------
2.7GHz Dual-core Intel Core i7
8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
128GB Solid State Drive
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
$1,899.00
-------------------
2.3GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5
8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
128GB Solid State Drive
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
$1,649.00
-------------------
-------------------
MacBook Air, 13-inch
-------------------
1.8GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
256GB flash storage
$1,699.00
--------------------
1.7GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
256GB flash storage
$1,599.00

Last thing, based on Apple's product cycles, buying MBP now could be something I may regret because we are half passed its cycle. So buying MBA will assure I wont buy a new laptop which in a few months could become "old". And I need it by the end of August.

That said, any advice would be great.

UPDATE

Battery life is the same in both, MBA wights: 2.96 pounds (1.35 kg) and MBP: 4.5 pounds (2.04 kg)

The things that are easy to quantify are screen real estate. If you want more pixels - get a screen with more pixels. The Air fits 15" of normal screen pixels in the 13" package. The 15" MacBook Pro can have a high resolution screen option like the pixel density of the  base model 17" MBP. The 13" MacBook Pro you list has the almost the same pixels as an 11" Air.

Another tradeoff is the Air will have a much faster IO system due to the SSD drive being faster than a spinning HDD. For light crunching of video and still photos, the CPU in the Air performs close enough to the other CPU in the full Pro line as to not be a big drawback for most.

The SSD speedup is huge for most developers - so that alone seems to trump most people that run Xcode - they really want to optimize for low latency IO and work iteratively. The downside is a smaller drive.

Compromises abound!

It takes great discipline to optimize code when your development workstation is running with tremendous horsepower. It almost makes sense in a way to choose as underpowered a machine as you can stand to run your code in simulation. You are forced to preview a bit of what the execution of that code will be on lesser powered mobile devices and entry level consumer macs if they are the end users of your development efforts.

I hope these help you compare the tradeoffs and make a great choice. I envy you for having either of these - people have developed code on far less capable machines than even a 4 year old MacBook - so you really have no bad choice and can let he potential payoff of your development efforts guide how much capital you want to invest before you are selling your efforts.


Automatically unmount external drives when shutting down OSX? I'm running OSX 10.10 Yosemite. When I try to shut it down, if I have an external drive connected the shutdown stalls on a black screen with the mouse pointer visible, and movable.

This happens even if no applications are running when I shut down, so it doesn't appear to be the case that OSX can't unmount the external drive.

One solution that came to mind would be to write a bash script that would unmount all external drives, and to run that script on shutdown. Is this a sensible solution? How do you run a script on shutdown?

There are few apps that can eject the external drive as described here:

Automatically eject external disks on sleep and reconnect after on OS X

Jettison app $4.99

autoEJECT app $4.99

just to name 2.


Is it possible to use `tmutil delete` or another command to delete one file from all backup intervals? I'm having problems clearing our a backup drive. I want to get rid of a couple large files so I can preserve the other incremental backups.

I can't use the tmutil delete command on entire backups since I'd lose all files from that interval and not just the offending file I want to purge. Additionally, having a script would mean I could recover space from a whole lab's worth of computers by scripting this from the command line. I also expect that script would let me discover which file in the package the GUI is refusing to prune since I can debug a script easier than I can Finder and the Time Machine interface.

In case this is a simple permissions issue - the library package file/folder:

Mac:~ bmike$ ls -laeO  /Volumes/Backups/Backups.backupdb/Mac/2015-04-09-072338/Macintosh\ HD/Users/bmike/Pictures/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary
total 0
drwxr-xr-x@ 10 bmike staff  - 340 Apr  8 20:05 .
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
drwx------@ 28 bmike staff  - 952 Apr  9 09:38 ..
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
 1: group:everyone deny delete
drwxr-xr-x+  2 bmike staff  -  68 Apr  8 09:07 Attachments
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
drwxr-xr-x+  2 bmike staff  -  68 Apr  8 09:07 Masks
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown

When I use the Time Machine interface, it errors out and I don't know which file or instance has errors:

I'm looking for a way to delete these protected files from all backup intervals in a similar manner to the Finder Gear icon action of Delete All Backups of "Photos Library"

Is this selective pruning of a file/folder possible across all time intervals with Apple's built in tools, a custom script and/or other tool?

Here is a way to exclude folders from timemachine.

Hold the command key and type the space bar to bring up Spotlight.

Type Time Machine and open the system preference (not the application).

Click the Options... button in the lower right corner of the Time Machine system preference panel.

Click the plus button then navigate to the folder you want to exclude.

Click on the Exclude button.

Click on Save.

https://www.imore.com/how-exclude-files-time-machine-backups


Accidentally deleted /etc/paths I had recently messed up my $PATH variable so I thought if fixing it by removing the /etc/paths but I found out online solutions to fix the $PATH variable  by just editing the ~/.bash_profile so I moved the /etc/paths to the trash but then I accidentally emptied the trash so now its gone so now should I worry about some critical system apps to stop working if yes how should I fix this?

The /etc/paths file is used as an initial value for the PATH variable. It should contain:

/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin

Its protection, owner and group should be:

-rw-r--r-- root wheel


Interpreting fsck_hfs result While trying to understand why my Mac stopped performing so well on Spotlight.. I tried a suggestion that had me check my HD's status on Disk Utility. I can't press the Unmount button even after using First-Aid, weird. So this led me to searching this link - an old one but informative - and tried the commands there.

For the two other commands I got the expected result. Using sudo fsck_hfs -f /dev/disk0s2 or -fy, however.. (-y for Always attempt to repair any damage that is found ) while this is expected:

I got the following result. Same when typed -f in place of -fy.

This seemed troublesome. But shame I don't have a clue what is the issue nor how to deal with it. Could anyone share some insight please?

You are trying to check the file system on disk0s2 with the wrong tool. fsck_hfs targets HFS file systems. Your main drive is formatted to APFS though.

The output of sudo fsck_hfs -fy /dev/disk0s2 in your screenshot shows the first block of the/an APFS container. This is indicated by the NXSB magic string in the third line.

The proper tool to check APFS containers or volumes is fsck_apfs!

Check man fsck_apfs for further details.

Since diskutil verifyDisk|verifyVolume|repairDisk|repairVolume [device] also calls fsck_apfs or another appropriate fsck_* tool with the proper flags I'd prefer this command instead:

diskutil list # to get the device identifiers
diskutil verifyDisk disk0
diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2
diskutil verifyVolume disk1s1

If required, repair the container/volume with:

diskutil repairDisk disk0s
diskutil repairVolume disk0s2
diskutil repairVolume disk1s1


Cannot remove bootcamp partition My mac (running El Capitan) has recently run out of storage space so I have been trying to remove my bootcamp partition to restore the full capacity of the OS X partition.

When I try to remove it through the bootcamp assistant I receive a message saying

  An error occurred while verifying the file system. Please reboot into
  recovery, repair the disk with Disk Utility, then try the operation
  again.

I have tried to boot into recovery and repair the disk, however, it says everything has been repaired and the bootcamp assistant still fails.

After this I went into terminal and ran diskutil list with the output:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            174.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                75.6 GB    disk0s4
/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +174.0 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 01CA9FDB-EE71-4B65-9216-2A7EB5CBA511
                                 Unlocked Encrypted

Next, I tried to erase the disk with diskutil eraseVolume fat32 BOOTCAMP disk0s4 which worked, however, I am still unable to merge the partition in Bootcamp assistant and I am given the same error message.

Any ideas on how to merge the partitions and remove the Bootcamp partition?

This answer has been posted many times before. Why not once more. The commands are given below.

diskutil  eraseVolume  free  n  disk0s4
diskutil  cs  resizeStack  01CA9FDB-EE71-4B65-9216-2A7EB5CBA511  0

If any of the above commands fail, you can try to repair macOS volume by entering the following command.

sudo diskutil repairVolume disk0s2

If the repair command does not resolve issues, then you have the following options:

Erase the disk and reload from a time machine backup.
Backup your files, reformat the partition, reinstall the macOS, the reload your files.


How to restore default Apple Version of Git after renaming it in Mac OS Mojave and linking git to homebrew version? I wanted Mac OS to use my homebrew version of git after brew install git. So I mistakenly renamed my Apple Default git by doing:

$mv /usr/bin/git /usr/bin/git~apple
$ git --version
git version 2.25.0

I am attempting to uninstall the homebrew version of git, and revert back to the Apple version of git.

$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/MacGPG2/bin

$ which git
/usr/local/bin/git

$ brew uninstall git
Uninstalling /usr/local/Cellar/git/2.25.0... (1,523 files, 45.6MB)
$cp /usr/bin/git~apple /usr/bin/git

$mv /usr/bin/git~apple /usr/bin/git

$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/MacGPG2/bin

$ which git
/usr/bin/git

$ git --version
-bash: /usr/local/bin/git: No such file or directory

It seems like after uninstalling homebrew and moving the original git file back to its location, which git finds the correct $PATH for git, but git --version cannot find git. How do I properly restore the original Apple version of git?

Shells remember the paths to commands you've executed during a session. You can use the hash command to manage the remembered paths (from man bash):

hash [-lr] [-p filename] [-dt] [name]
For each name, the full file name of the command is determined by searching the directories
in $PATH and remembered. If the -p option is supplied, no path search is performed, and filename
is used as the full file name of the command. The -r option causes the shell to forget all
remembered locations. The -d option causes the shell to forget the remembered location of each
name. If the -t option is supplied, the full pathname to which each name corresponds is printed.
If multiple name arguments are supplied with -t, the name is printed before the hashed full pathname.
The -l option causes output to be displayed in a format that may be reused as input. If no arguments
are given, or if only -l is supplied, information about remembered commands is printed. The
return status is true unless a name is not found or an invalid option is supplied.

Run hash -r to clear any command paths your shell has cached (or hash -d git to just remove the entry for git). Opening a new Terminal tab/window has the same effect.


How to add a guest public ssh key for remote access? I need to add a developers public ssh key to my user account so that he can access my console and help debug a node.JS issue. Any suggestions on where to start

Have them give you their public key, e. g. id_rsa.pub.  Add that to the end of your ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file (e.g. by running cat id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys in Terminal).


Why Does A New Mac Pro Only Support a Single Internal Drive? Every graphic-heavy application I have used has recommended storing files it uses on a separate disk from the boot disk (preferably an SSD), however with the new MP this isn't an option. The only way to utilise a second drive is as an external drive.

I'm assuming this isn't a problem in terms of performance, and from what I've read MPs are very performant, but why is this? Why can a Mac Pro get away with a single drive when most apps recommend using separate drives for boot and resources?

Thunderbolt 2 supports data rates of up to 20 Gb/sec. The newest SATA spec, V3.2, only does 16 Gb/sec. There should thus be no difference in performance between an internal SSD (connected via SATA) and an external SSD (connected via Thunderbolt).


Outlook 2011, Where are the mails stored? Just as the mails in Outlook under windows are stored in a PST file , where are the mails in Outlook under Mac stored ?

I understand they are stored as OLM files . But can anyone tell me the exact location of these files so i can perform a backup ?

Thanks.

According to Microsoft's support site:

  Outlook stores only the indices in the Database (with a capital “D”) file and stores the data records as a series of files nested within folders. The Database file and its folders are located here:

~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 Identities/Main Identity/Database
~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 Identities/Main Identity/Data Records


Adding metadata for films/TV shows in iTunes When I purchase videos from iTunes, I get a lot of metadata information on the movie. For example, like this:

But when I add a DVD I own, I only get this:

I understand that on OSX you can use Subler to add iTunes metadata for videos, but how can I do this in Windows?

Any program that can tag MP4s should work fine. MetaX seems to be a popular one for Windows that can pull data from various online databases.


MacOS Contacts App — How can I tell to which address book an entry belongs? I have two entries that appear identical to each other. One is in the iCloud address book. The other is On My Mac.

I have opened up both entries, but I can't tell which is which.

Is there a way to discern this?

Note

I have been opening both entries and editing one to see which is which. I'm hoping for a better solution than this.

Show Groups

The Show Groups option displays a list of groups on the left. This isn't what I am looking for. Ideally, if opening up a contacts card will show you a list of groups to which that card belongs.

I'm not sure if this is obvious, but in the Contacts App, Click on View->Show Groups.  Then you can select the contact in either group?


Getting slow internet response for browsers other than Safari (MacOS Mojave) I got a strange error message that might pertain to the issue: The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error -9806.)
Recently, I did do a little bit of file deletions by name (a measure to manually uninstall an app after using the app's own uninstallation tool, since it did an incomplete job) across all user libraries. Parental Controls are also active (which I can bypass, but prefer not to disable altogether), and webfilterproxyd has been using obscene amounts of RAM ever since (up to 3.5GB; averages at 1.3GB).
Other issues that subsequently arose include internet response in web browsers other than Safari is extremely slowed, and certain functions do not respond, namely…
• Opera (and its 'VPN' proxy service; it does not offer multiple proxy options anymore; download speeds are between bytes and kilobytes for the first 5 minutes or so, previously ranging between 500KBps and 5MBps.)
• Opera GX (default browser with same errors as Opera, except that when I open a link from Apple's Mail application, it does not load the webpage but rather merely launches the application. Beforehand, it would default to opening in whichever application window was closest to the top (in the application switcher), no matter the browser or privacy mode. Now, it forcefully launches Opera GX and doesn't even process the link that prompted it to launch.)
• Discord (desktop app; usually had instantaneous response, now takes two minutes to launch and 30 seconds to load pages, even if I had just visited them less than a minute earlier.)
• Dictionary (Wikipedia search, specifically. This is where I got the error message. After the error message displays, it takes 30 seconds to load any page– it used to be instantaneous.)
• Mail (Apple's email application; runs normally, except that if there is web content on an email, it takes an extra 10 seconds to load.)
Meanwhile, Safari is running faster than ever.
When dragging a Finder window's icon to a file-upload browser, it drags the window instead (unless I click and hold for 3 seconds on the icon only, before dragging).
Lastly, I'm constantly prompted to re-authenticate my Google account. I select 'continue.' It opens System Preferences and prompts me to open in Safari to authenticate. I select 'Open in Safari' and then wait a minute. Safari never opens, and even if it's already open it doesn't launch the login prompt. Instead, I get this:

I reset my PRAM 5 times this morning. So far, I can't tell the difference.
What can be done to restore the former connectivity to these apps?
I'm an intermediate-advanced user, so I can follow advanced steps.

In the event that you threw out something you shouldn't have, first thing to do would be to boot into Recovery and overlay the OS.
The reinstall from Recovery (as opposed to a full wipe & install from Internet Recovery) will ensure all essential OS components are in place without changing any user data.
btw, resetting the NVRAM will do nothing at all for this type of issue.
A quick Google tells me OSStatus error -9806 is errSSLClosedAbort which sounds like an internet security component is not working properly.


Attribute appropriate amount of resource to run Mac OS + Windows + Ubuntu simultaneously I have a MacBook Pro where VMWare Fusion is installed to enable Windows 7 and Ubuntu. One year ago, my system was well configured so that I could run Mac OS, Windows and Ubuntu at the same time. Later, I made some changes, probably around the attribution of cores and memories, now running the 3 systems simultaneously is very slow, although only running Mac OS + Windows or Mac OS+Ubuntu is fast enough. But I do need the 3 systems open for my work.

The resource for the 3 systems are listed as follows. Does anyone know how to arrange the ressource to re-enable the running of 3 systems simultaneously? Or does anyone have a good idea to make it possible?

Here is the resource of my Mac:

Here is the resource attributed to Ubuntu:

Here is the resource attributed to Windows:

I use Parallels for virtualization but I also run three OS simultaneously (OSX, Windows 7 and Windows 8).

My settings are:
2 cores and 2 GB of RAM for each VM and more important VT-x support enabled, in your screenshot the first checkbox under Advanced Options.


Upgrade GPU in 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 I have a 2010 Mac Pro 5,1. It has an ATI Radeon HD 5770.
I bought a Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 560 to upgrade.

How can I use RX 560 on OS X El Capitan and Mojave?

According to various reports around the internet, to get to Mojave there are a couple of precautions to take so you don't lock yourself out of the machine.

I would always be certain to have not only an up to date Time Machine backup, but I would also have a full clone of the working system before starting out... you never know when something might go wrong.

I'm assuming the card you have is not specifically Mac-flashed.
My card is flashed, so some of these precautions are learned from others' experience, not my own.

First of all, to be safe - it you have File Vault enabled, disable it & wait for it to finish decrypting before moving on.

Another thing to check is whether your new card is 6-pin or 8-pin. If it's 8-pin you'll need to get adaptors. From memory, the HD5770 takes a single 6-pin, but there should be a second cable already in situ. The new card will need both.

You could then test by just swapping in the card & booting up.  If you can see the boot screen, it's flashed. If you see nothing until you get to login, it's not.
If it's not flashed you cannot use File Vault once it's installed.[1]
Other than that, on El Capitan it should 'just work', no drivers or firmware update is required.

Assuming all went well so far, then you will need to update to High Sierra 10.13.6 before you can go to Mojave. I don't know why this is, & I was already at 10.13.6 anyway before Mojave, but general consensus is that this is a necessary step.
I vaguely remember having to do a firmware update to get to High Sierra, though I don't remember the details. I think it was a simple 'Click OK & wait' type of structure.

The firmware update to load Mojave is different.
It will tell you to hold the power button until the light flashes or you hear a beep. Having done this many times now (all the way through the beta phase you had to do it every time, so once a week for 2 months ;) I can say with certainty that you need to wait until you hear the beep before letting go of the button. The Mac will immediately reboot at that point.

Once that's done, it's just a case of waiting until the install is complete & you can use your new card on Mojave.

[1] Not being able to see the boot screen will limit anything you ever need to do before login; change boot drive, dis/enable SIP, use Recovery etc - so it's best to always keep your old card for just in case.
However, as Mojave may not even boot with the old card in [I haven't tested this] you ought to hang onto the clone you made at the start. Belt & braces. Better safe than sorry.


What is the hardware that has this serial number? I have what appears to be an ear piece of some sort. Not sure. Serial number is 12731HOSXAP Model No A1221. What is it?

Looks like Apple iPhone Bluetooth headset.
Link to Apple site


How can I type the Multiply symbol (“×“) on iPhone? I was using speech recognition to send a message in WhatsApp, and when I said “multiplied by” this sign appeared:

I can’t remember seeing this symbol on the default iOS keyboards, so I wonder if there are other ways to input this character (and maybe other characters?) into the phone without using speech recognition.

There is a paid app, called unichar that allows for searching (and input) all of the Unicode characters

If you just need to search (and copy) some Unicode chars, you can use their web app at:
https://unichar.app/web/


How to get access to an iPod Touch 3rd gen wich currently is in recovery mode? I have an old iPod stuck in recovery mode. I know it's old, but I can't afford anything new. Is there any way to get it out of recovery mode without losing my music?

PS: I don't have the original computer I used to use. Some of the music is in the cloud, but half of them are not.

There are many tools that might help. However, the following tool was recommended by my colleague, so I thought to share it. I haven't tested or owned any rights for this tool.

You need one third party tool and a reference computer to resolve this issue.

1) Link to Download Recboot > RecBoot for Mac and RecBoot for Windows

2) Run Recboot, then connect your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to your computer.

3) Once your iOS device is recognized, you’ll find two buttons on the Recboot window.

4) The Button on the left is to “Enter Recovery Mode” and the right one is to “Exit Recovery Mode”.

5) After you make sure your device is connected properly, click the desired button to enter a command to your iPhone from your computer.

Note: I don't own or advertising this tool. You can use it at your own risk.


Mavericks not able to use external display at full resolution I have been several months using my mid-2010 15" MBP connected to a Dell U2711 through a miniDisplayPort-DisplayPort adapter, without any trouble cranking the resolution up in Mountain Lion to it's full 2560x1440.

I have just updated my laptop to Mavericks, and I'm not able to use the full resolution of my monitor anymore. I have done several tests, either with the lid open and closed, or trying to force the discrete GPU through gfxCardStatus

Is anyone experiencing this same behaviour? Anything I could try? Possible workarounds?

Finally I found this. Looks like the default EDID configuration for Dell displays is not quite right.

On that post there's also a ruby script that suposedly generates the right file for your display, but it ended up screwing even more my resolution.

I downloaded the file from the first post, and after copying it to /System/Library/Displays/Overrides and rebooting, my display was showing again its awesome full resolution.
The files are suposedly to correct issues with U2713H and U2713HM, but it worked with my U2711 also.

Hope this helps someone as it helped me.


How to restore backups manually from Time Machine? I bought a new Mac a few days ago. I did a clean install, so I can start blank. Now I want to restore some files back from Time Machine to the new Mac. Is there a way to get the Time Machine interface so I can travel through my old backups using TM on my new Mac?

To restore the latest backup, connect the drive used for Time Machine to the new Mac and run /Applications/Utilities/Migration Assistant.app. There is also a support document from Apple covering this (but it reads some reading between the lines because it covers several use cases as once).

To access the backup as a whole, see this answer.


Is there a way of swiping between single spaces on a multi-monitor setup? In Lion, being able to swipe between desktops with the trackpad is great. However since adding another monitor to my setup, what I really want to be able to do is swipe desktops across monitors. E.g. if I have the following setup:

Desktop 1 | Desktop 2 | XCode | Chrome

Instead of swiping left from Desktop 1 replacing the contents of both screens, Desktop 1 is displayed on the left hand monitor and Desktop 2 on the right. Swiping left moves Desktop 2 to the left hand monitor, and full screen Xcode to the right hand monitor. This would be especially useful as XCode/Chrome etc. just blank out the second monitor when in fullscreen mode, which is really annoying!

Is there an app or setting that can achieve this?

This is not possible, the multi monitor support on Lion is ridiculously lacking, especially given Apple jumping up and down about how amazing Thunderbolts (and the displays) are.

If you want to use more than one screen, you are pretty much unable to use FullScreen. (without making the secondary screen useless)


Mac Pro early 2009 FireWire problems I have an early 2009 Mac Pro and a FireWire audio interface that I haven't used in a couple of years. I just plugged it in to the Mac and nothing happens. The device doesn't get power, and even if I connect external power to the device the system still doesn't see it. I found an article online that said to try resetting the NVRAM. I did that but the problem still exists. This is the only FireWire device I have and I only have one cable, so I don't have a way of seeing if the problem is the device or the cable. Does anyone have any ideas about how to track down the problem? Is there some way I can see if the FireWire ports are functioning without a device? (I did try all 4 ports.)

You can lookup connected FireWire devices in the Apple system profiler under Hardware > FireWire

Open the System Information or System Profiler app from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. Or just hold down the Option key while choosing System Information or System Profiler from the Apple menu.

Most FireWire devices will show up out of the box. FireWire audio devices usually require additional third party driver software.


Enable "On My Mac" Contacts I am currently running OS X 10.9.1 and would like to create contacts that are stored locally on my MacBook Pro. My Contacts app does not have "On My Mac" as an option in the sidebar; only the contacts I have synced with my work's Exchange. Additionally, there is no discernible way to make the "On My Mac" account the default. I attempted to go to "Contacts > Preferences > General" but there is no option to choose the default account. However, if I add my GMail account then I can set the default but "On My Mac" is not an option.

All I want to do is create a contact that is stored only on my local machine and not synced with any cloud based service.

How do I enable the "On My Mac" contact group on OS X Mavericks?

bmike's work around did not quite do it for me as, as soon as I re-enabled iCloud everything was merged back into one bunch of iCloud contacts again.

What did work for me is very similar though:

Select one or more of your contacts from the iCLouds group and drag them to your desktop creating one vCard.
In Preference > Accounts > iCloud uncheck the "Enable this Account". "On My Mac" appears immediately in the Group pane.
Drag the vCard from your desktop over the empty contact space, your contacts will be imported in "On My Mac".
In Preference > Accounts > iCloud check the "Enable this Account". iCloud will reappear as Group.

You now have two sets of contacts, one "On My Mac" and one "All iCloud". If you started out by dragging all contacts in the iCloud group to your desktop the two sets will be completely identical. Does it make sense to do that? Well, you'll always have your contacts available also in the event that your network is down. Furthermore it is a way of making a back-up of your iCloud contacts alternative to what is proposed on:

Archive or make copies of your iCloud data:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4910?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Edit August 25

In addition to my answer fo August 20 I stumbled over perhaps an even better way of making an exact copy of your contacts from iCloud to your Mac. Once you have re-enabled iCloud you can select all contacts in "All iCloud" and just drag them in your "All on my Mac" group, so without using the back up you made earlier to your desktop. The nice thing is that your contacts birthdays won't show up twice in your Mac Calendar as they do when copied via Desktop first. Any contacts you add or delete via iCloud won't show up on or disappear from your On My Mac version. Editing of the content in iCloud appears to affect the On my Mac content as well when it is done in the Mac Contact app, not if it is done in iCloud on any other device. Anyway, the Contact App on your Mac distinguishes nicely the differences between the two. Just try it out by typing something in the Note field in either Group in Mac Contact or in your web based iCloud.


Will Macbook Air 2017 benefit from Catalina upgrade? I'm running Mojave on my Macbook Air (2017) and was wondering if anyone can recommend (or not) upgrading to Catalina now that 10.15.7 seems to be stable release.
I'm not using any 32bit apps, so no problems there.
However, is it worth actually upgrading? I know I can't use certain features (such as the battery health or sidecar), but should I do it for security, etc?
What are the experiences of other MBA 2017 owners after upgrade? Has anyone experienced slowdowns? Is anything actually better? Or should I just stick with Good Ol' Mojave?
Thanks.

However, is it worth actually upgrading?

A newer macOS release always includes the latest security patches for any discovered hardware of software vulnerabilities. So generally speaking, it's a good idea to upgrade if your device supports running it, given you have no reason to refrain from upgrading.

I know I can't use certain features (such as the battery health or sidecar), but should I do it for security, etc?

Yes.

What are the experiences of other MBA 2017 owners after upgrade? Has anyone experienced slowdowns? Is anything actually better? Or should I just stick with Good Ol' Mojave?

This experience could be pretty subjective depending on the apps being used, but generally speaking, a newer release of macOS also often includes under the hood performance improvements which are also claimed about by Apple.


Can you use the command line on a Mac to get to a networked Mac? I have a networked mac desktop and a wireless laptop.   I would like to use the desktop mac to test web pages from the laptop.   The mac desktop has a php/mysql/apache server outside the router for testing.

How do I get to my network using the command line from the laptop?
I do cd ~ and I get my laptop hard drive
I do cd / and I get one level higher
I do cd Network and get no directory

Is this only possible with a Mac Server? It seems like the CLI should see the other mac on the network since I have logged onto it from the network and have the other mac hard drive visible on the desktop.
thanks,

Use the mount command to show the various mounted shares. You'll see something like this:

$ mount

//GUEST:@betafat/tmp on /Volumes/tmp (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, ...
afp_0h2ueA0008BK0000oM0000VU-2.2e000005 on /Volumes/admin (afpfs, nodev, nosuid, ...

The first line is a Windows SMB share from an XP computer, the second line is an AFP share from another Mac.

Note the mount points after the word 'on' above.
You can access the mounted shares using mount point just like you would any other directory, i.e. ls /Volumes/admin


How to clear or delete my recent TextEdit.app documents list? How to clear or delete my recent TextEdit.app documents list? I run Mojave 10.14.4

Open TextEdit and click on File/Open Recents. At the bottom of the Open Recents menu item is an option to clear menu. Click on this and all prior menu items will be removed.


MacBook Pro MagSafe Charger - Kinks/Rings So for a while now, my MagSafe on my Mac has some sort of kinks/rings around the cable. This is only seen ABOVE the plastic thing used to tie in the cable when wrapping it, so around a 1-2 inch space below the MagSafe connector.

These kinks and rings have been there for a while now, and the charger still works, but I'm posting this now since it's starting to get worse. Should I be worried about taking it to Apple, or continue using it, and getting it checked out when something crazy happens (explosions lol))?

I have attached pictures below to show the wire of the MagSafe charger. It's ~ 2 years old.

This happened to my previous chargers, but not quite this bad.

The reason is wrapping the wire too tight around the charger and moving the little hook back and forth.

It can't really be fixed and the cable will break and tear. You can try going to the Apple store for a replacement, but without extended warranty I failed.

Until it break/cracks there's no real danger, after it breaks there's a mild chance of shock. I've fixed mine with Sugru, any silicone putty would work. I've seen quite some people use gaffer tape and the like. There's also specialised shrink sleeve products to fix it.

After the plastic breaks and no fixes are applied, the inner cable might start to fray and eventually also fail.


Can I reset firmware password via Find My Mac? I would like to find out if I can set a new firmware password via Find My Mac? I already have my MacBook added but the firmware lock is active and I have no idea what it is, I've tried all combinations but they haven't worked.

If I choose to lock it using Find My Mac, will I be asked to create a new key or does that activate and expect me to enter the one it believes is already there?

No. A device technician is needed to unlock firmware. Start with online AppleCare and they can go over your options. Find My Mac just handles user account passwords.


Spelling correction on iPod Touch How do I keep iOS from replacing my typing with something else when a correction is proposed? If I do nothing (i.e., don't choose the proposed word) and continue typing, it replaces the word I typed!

Is this possible to have the opposite behaviour—that is, to have to do something to have what I typed modified?

Take a look at Apple's iPod touch iOS4 User Guide. In particular, page 31 has two helpful tips:

To reject the suggested word, finish typing the word as you want it, then tap the “x” to dismiss the suggestion before typing anything else. Each time you reject a suggestion for the same word, iPod touch becomes more likely to accept your word.

Turn auto-correction and spell checking on or off: Choose General > Keyboard, then turn Auto-Correction on or off. Auto-Correction is on by default.


finder is slow, disk access is slow, 1.5 million files on disk Folders take seconds to respond; Activity monitor shows nothing; there are 1.5 million files on the computer. Is the Finder overloaded?

How much space is left on your harddrive?
Alway try te keep 15% free space. If for example you have 500GB, and you already use 470GB, this will usually seriously slow down your mac, there should at least be 75GB of free space.

More info: http://macs.about.com/od/faq1/f/How-Much-Free-Drive-Space-Do-I-Need.htm


(Update Needed?) after PRAM reset, File Vault seems bricked After many system instabilities and freezes I was suggested to do a PRAM reset. When I boot now and the File Vault asks for the password to decrypt the SSD the Guest user is gone and my user lost his thumbnail and the name says [Update Needed?].

The solution here isn't working: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/80122/70851

When I clicking on the question mark in the password box nothing happens. But the worst thing, my password won't get recognized anymore. And I did type it right and I did check the keyboard setting.

Entering my User-Password or the FileVault-Password didn't help. Recovery disk wouldn't work either.
After a lot of fiddling around I managed to access my internal TimeMachine drive. It's encrypted as well but here my backup key for the FileVault worked and I have another restore partition on this drive.

Once in restore mode I did still not manage to unlock my boot drive, and I finally had some textbox to check my typing. No idea what went wrong :( When I set up FileVault I checked all my backup codes and they worked all.

Currently I'm reinstalling 10.9 from my TM Recovery Drive, so in the end not a lot of harm done but still very frustrating.

Solution (sort of): Do backups and put Recovery Drives on those backup disks.


Exclude Music from Matching by Apple Music or iTunes Match The matching algorithm Apple uses is very aggressive and will many times mismatch music from my library no matter how well tagged it is. This is a nuisance for many and the information on how to remedy this is poor. How can you force music in your iTunes library from not getting matched in the cloud?

After much testing the best solution I've found is to mislabel the track and album name. This is by no means optimal but at least it leaves the artist name intact so that the sorting stays neat without duplicate artists. Doing this manually for each problematic album would be a PITA but fortunately it can be automated to a high degree using MusicBrainz Picard.

In order for a track to bypass the matching algorithm it needs the title and album tag to be mislabeled with a character/number and a symbol before and after the name (and without any spaces). A track named Autumn Fog Lifts would for example become 0.Autumn Fog Lifts.0 if using my own personal syntax where I insert 0. before and .0 after.

Using Picard, one can set a script to do it like this:

$set(title,$replace(%title%,%title%, 0.%title%.0))
$set(album,$replace(%album%,%album%, 0.%album%.0))

This will add 0. before and .0 after. the title and album tag whenever music is added to Picard.

This is my recommended workflow of how to replace the mismatched music in the cloud:

Right click and show file on the problematic music in iTunes
Copy the music files to a new location, make a backup so to speak
Remove the music from within iTunes (make sure to select Move to Trash)
Add the music from your backup to Picard, it will retag everything
Inspect the results and save, add the music back to iTunes

For more information on how Picard works see How to Tag Files.


How do I un-hide a photo in the iPhone iPhoto app? I mistakenly hit the 'x' button while editing a photo from the Camera Roll, and now I can't find the flagged menu to un-hide it as illustrated in the help.

Fortunately the photo is still in my Camera Roll, so how do I get it back into the iPhoto app?

Turn your iPhone sideways and in the upper left hand corner hit the down arrow. Then select "Hidden Photos". This will show you a list of the photos you've hidden. Tap one, hit edit, and tap the "X" again to unhide it.


Moving home folder or large folders to HDD Okay so I know this subject has been touched on but.. my specific question is this.

I recently bought an SSD and made it my boot drive, I bought a caddy for my super drive spot and put my old HDD in its place. I then backed up and erased the HDD. I want to move my home folder on to the HDD but im worried about performance. I primarily use Logic Pro X and Ableton. and I have some VERY big logic and ableton projects. Should I move the rest of my home folder to HDD and keep my logic files on SSD or should I just move my entire home folder to HDD?

You could just use a Fusion Drive. Note that this will erase all data on both drives, so you'll need another drive to store your data on.

http://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/how-to-make-your-own-fusion-drive.html


iPhone 5s calendar not saving events My iPhone 5s calendar will not save events. I enter the event on the date needed, set the time and press done.  Nothing appears on the calendar.

I had this problem. I drove 75 miles to nearest Apple store with an assigned appointment time just to have the "tech" flip a setting button from "Show" to "Hide".

In other words if you press "Hide" it hides the calendar, but in pressing "Hide" it changes the button to "Show". So when I was looking at the button which says "show", I assumed it was in show mode. Silly me. You have to press show to make it actually show, but then the button will display as "Hide", as if you're in hide mode, but you're not. It's an action button. Press for Show or Press for Hide. Whatever is displayed, your phone is doing opposite to that.

The button can be found by pressing Calendars to bring up a list of your calendars, then pressing the relevant Show button for the calendar. Alternatively, you can press the Show All Calendars button to unhide all the calendars at once.


Way to maintain same screen ratio on data projector as on Mac laptop In giving presentations from my MacBook Pro on an Epson Data Projector (VGA connection), there is I have invariably found a decrease in the display dimensions. Initially only part of the previous screen area shows, but can be reset to fill the smaller screen.

Normally — for example with a PowerPoint presentation — this smaller size is OK, but today I was accessing one of my websites directly from the laptop to illustrate its features in my seminar. The problem was that I had written the HTML/CSS so that the site was ‘responsive’, and one aspect of this responsiveness was that certain features were not shown at the viewport size of mobile devices. The viewport matched the dimensions I had set in the stylesheet for the iPad and I ended up not being able to demonstrate some of the features.

Failing all else I could record and show a movie or temporarily change the stylesheet, but my question is whether there is any way of changing the resolution of the data projector display from my Mac.

Your projector probably has a maximum native resolution of XGA or 1024x768 (standard iPads have a resolution of 1024x768 points). Some projectors will allow you to send a higher resolution signal and scale it down for you. Most projectors I have seen don't do a great job, but it at least functions. To see if your projector will do that:

Connect your Mac to the projector
Ppen the Displays panel in System Preferences
Option-click the "Scaled" option for the resolution of the projector.
Select a 4:3 resolution higher than 1024-768 (e.g. 1280x1024)

If the projector goes black, wait and your Mac will timeout back to 1024x768.

The other option is to purchase a VGA scaler (For example, the Kramer VP-426 takes VGA input and then outputs VGA). You need hardware that will take  one of the various formats your Mac can output and output at XGA (1024x768). What the hardware will do is let your Mac output a higher resolution, forcing the web page to render the "desktop" size, but output it to the smaller resolution projector. But honestly, purchasing a scaler for this purpose is overkill.


Why won't my website favicon show up in Safari favorites bar automatically? My website was not displaying the Favicon in the menu bar as in this question. See the copied image below but in this case we would be Google and trying to get that icon to populate without user intervention.

I am aware that locally, these favicon files re stored in ~/Library/Safari/Touch Icons Cache/Images/ however I was trying to figure out where Safari pulls the .png file from to cache initially.
As noted in one of the answers to the referenced question, it is not practical to ask a site to fix this, therefore I wanted to know how to fix the issue as the website publisher.

The solution to my question is to upload a Favicon.png file to the root directory of my website as such. This is where Safari pulls the favicon to show in the favorites bar.


host ftp server on Mojave I had been doing this

sudo -s launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist

but it doesn't work in Mojave

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist: No such file or directory

How can I start an ftp server on my MacBook?

Removed by Apple

Apple removed the included File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server from recent versions of macOS. FTP is not secure by default and better avoided.

FTP is not secure because the connection is not encrypted. Modern network protocols are encrypted by default – even on local networks.

Replacements and Alternatives

If you need to regularly transfer files, consider Syncthing. Otherwise, installing and running your own ftp server is still possible through projects like brew.

See quick to install and set up FTP server on homebrew for macOS
 for various ftp server choices.


Thunderbird needs to login google every time (CalDAV) Befor: I use Thunderbird/Lightning for my mails and for my calendar. This issue is about the calendar. I'm a google-user.

A short while ago I started to change from "Provider for Google's calendar" to the CalDAV way because I couldn't import invitations to my calendar. So far so good.

But now, every time I start Thunderbird or the calendar would like to synchronize it pops up the following window (for every calendar. I have 5!):

I could not find any preferences where I can say that Lightning can use it every time.

So, am I blind or how can I fix this?

I also had this problem, and just fixed it. For me, the problem was that I recently changed my Google password, and I think Lightning was still using the old one. In the pop-up window that ask you to click Accept, in the top right, you can see the name of the Google account, click there and there is an option to log out. Then try again.

I have also read on a different thread that the problem can also be caused if you try to login with the Google account - again, use the link in the top right corner to check that Lightning is using the correct Google account.

Hope this helps


Missing photos from iPhoto Some of my photos disappeared from iPhoto recently. I did not delete them or format the hard drive. I have been a mac user since 2003 and am fully aware of the mac os and how it stores files. However this issue is new to me I have searched all system folders and packaged contents of iPhotos but the folders are missing? and they are not in the trash can either. Its like there is no record of the photos ever being uploaded except for a blank event in iPhoto events where the photos were originally uploaded and I could view them. Not all photos are missing only the most recent upload. I do not have time machine backups, so can't use this method to recover files, as I have just purchased a new macbook pro and haven't got round to setting up time machine yet (I should have known better). I tried using a 3rd party data scan software package and the software can locate the missing photos! however it will charge me to recover these photos. I don't feel I should pay for a 3rd party solution, because if a 3rd party data recovery package can identify the missing photos, why can't my mac os? has anyone experienced this problem? and are there any data recovery options I have overlooked to restore the photos without using a 3rd party software package?

The 3rd party software may scan the raw data for photo files and identify them by whatever signature it may find (JPEG or other). Mac OS X doesn't come with that feature since it naturally assumes the file system will work correctly and it does everything thru the file system. Data recovery software just isn't a standard feature of an operating system.

PhotoRec is a well-known multi-platform software that would probably be able to help in your case and is free/open source if you want to try that. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
"PhotoRec ignores the file system and goes after the underlying data, so it will still work even if your media's file system has been severely damaged or reformatted."

Be aware, the more you write data to your hard drive, the more chance the underlying data that might be recoverable will be destroyed by overwriting. The best way to do it would be by removing the hard drive and using it as a secondary drive to another computer that's running PhotoRec to completely minimize the chance of overwrite damage.


iTunes library sync between two computers I have two computers (iMac and a Macbook Air). Whenever I try to sync my iPhone to the Air it will remove all my data.

Is there any possibility to have a common sync mechanism in between my two computers (or especially iTunes libraries) so that I can sync my iPhone without any problem.

The only way to do this, according to Apple, is to set the devices to manually manage content. If you have auto-syncing enabled, it can only be connected to one computer.

  You can manage your iPhone, iPad, or iPod with multiple computers1,2 as long as you have set the device to "Manually manage music."

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1202


Apple Watch is taking heart rate readings while being held in the air, not pressed against skin. How is this possible? While holding the watch in the air, the heart rate glance provides a heart rate that jumps around.

How is this possible?  The sensor on the back is pressed up against nothing.

The heart rate sensor on the Apple Watch works by processing signal from two photodiodes. It is designed to have two green LED reflect from the wrist, but readings are likely due to picking up light reflected off another surface.

From Apple:

  The heart rate sensor in Apple Watch uses what is known as
  photoplethysmography. This technology, while difficult to pronounce,
  is based on a very simple fact: Blood is red because it reflects red
  light and absorbs green light. Apple Watch uses green LED lights
  paired with light‑sensitive photodiodes to detect the amount of blood
  flowing through your wrist at any given moment. When your heart beats,
  the blood flow in your wrist — and the green light absorption — is
  greater. Between beats, it’s less. By flashing its LED lights hundreds
  of times per second, Apple Watch can calculate the number of times the
  heart beats each minute — your heart rate. In addition, the heart rate
  sensor is designed to compensate for low signal levels by increasing
  both LED brightness and sampling rate.


Can I use Linux in a 2011 Macbook Pro with a defective discrete GPU? I have an early 15" 2011 Macbook Pro that is affected by the defective discrete GPU.

I know there are workarounds in OSX to force the use of the integrated Intel GPU, or disable the drivers for the discrete GPU. However these workarounds either make the computer too slow to use or are not reliable: although initially disabled discrete GPU may be activated when using some software and then the computer would stop working.

I have found these instructions for Arch Linux that look promising, because they mention a way to enable only the Intel GPU:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBookPro8,1/8,2/8,3_(2011)

This is a similar question, that would achieve the same goal, but it is unanswered and does not mention running Linux:
Macbook Pro: How to disable discrete GPU permanently from EFI?

Yes, you can user Linux on a 2011 Macbook Pro that has a defective discrete GPU.

I just installed Ubuntu 14.04 on mine and it's working correctly. I followed these instructions:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2157775

Update:

In this MacRumours thread you can find a procedure to disable the discrete GPU by modifying the EFI variables:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/force-2011-macbook-pro-8-2-with-failed-amd-gpu-to-always-use-intel-integrated-gpu-efi-variable-fix.2037591/


Can I handout versions of multiple PowerPoint decks converted to PDF files? Using PowerPoint 16.15 on Mac OS X High Sierra 10.13.15...
I have a folder of PPT files.  I would like to save them as PDF files, the layout being Handouts (6 per page) and the output being black and white.
Is there some way (e.g., using Automator, scripting or automation) to do this for every file in the folder?

It took me a few hours to come up with a solution that works in my environment.
Please note that some elements need internationalization like "Vorschau" or "Sichern". This is a german solution working with PowerPoint for Mac 16.16.27 on macOS HighSierra 10.13.6.
I had to heavily debug things with ScriptDebug ($99 well spent ..) to get things working. Please note how Preview is used for the actual PDF saving. I tried doing this from Powerpoint but it was unreliable.
https://latenightsw.com/
see https://github.com/WolfgangFahl/ppt2pdf for a maintained version of this.
Example call
ppt2pdf *.pptx

Please note that the files are expected in the current directory. The applescript ppt2pdf.scpt expects the path to the files as the first parameter and all others as just filenames. This behavior could easily be changed.
ppt2pdf
#!/bin/bash
# WF 2020-11-15
# use current path as base path
osascript $HOME/source/applescript/ppt2pdf.scpt $(pwd) $@

ppt2pdf.scpt
-- 2018-01-31
-- https://github.com/irmowan/Convert-ppt-to-pdf/blob/master/Convert-ppt-to-pdf.applescript
-- modified by WF 2020-11-15
--
-- ppt2Pdf({"/Users/wf/Projekte/2020/Infrastruktur2020/ppt2pdf", "TestMe.pptx"})

--http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20050523140439734
-- passing command line arguments to applescript
on run (argv)
    log (count (argv))
    if ((count of argv) < 2) then
        log "usage: ppt2pdf basepath [filenames]"
    else
        my ppt2Pdf(argv)
    end if
end run

--
-- convert powerpoint to pdf on the given list of files
--
on ppt2Pdf(fileNames)
    log "launching Powerpoint ..."
    set pp to "Microsoft PowerPoint"
    tell application pp -- work on version 15.15 or newer
        launch
        set isfirst to true
        repeat with fileName in fileNames
            if isfirst then
                set basepath to fileName
                log "base path is " & basepath
                set isfirst to false
            else
                if fileName ends with ".ppt" or fileName ends with ".pptx" or fileName ends with ".pptm" then
                    set filePath to basepath & "/" & fileName
                    -- set filePath to POSIX path of fileAlias
                    set pdfPath to my makeNewPath(filePath)
                    log "trying to convert powerpoint file " & filePath & " to " & pdfPath
                    open filePath

                    -- save active presentation in pdfPath as save as PDF
                    -- save in same folder
                    -- https://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=26342
                    --tell application "System Events"
                    --  set listOfProcesses to (name of every process where background only is false)
                    --  tell me to set selectedProcesses to choose from list listOfProcesses with multiple selections allowed
                    --end tell
                    --repeat with processName in selectedProcesses
                    --  log processName
                    --end repeat

                    if not my chooseMenuItem(pp, "Datei", "Drucken...") then
                        error number -128
                    end if

                    --my showUiElements(pp, "menu button")
                    -- my waitFor(button whose description is "PDF", 5, 0.5)
                    my choosePopUp(pp, "Layout für den Druck", "Notizen")
                    my choosePopUp(pp, "Farbausgabeformat", "Farbe")
                    --my chooseMenuButtonItem(pp, "PDF", "Als PDF sichern")
                    local myTitle
                    tell application "System Events"
                        -- the magic of Applescript
                        -- if you really want the title and not a reference to it you need to use an operator
                        -- http://books.gigatux.nl/mirror/applescriptdefinitiveguide/applescpttdg2-CHP-12-SECT-5.html
                        set myTitle to title of window 1 of process pp & ""
                    end tell
                    my chooseMenuButtonItem(pp, "PDF", "In Vorschau öffnen")
                    delay 5
                    tell application "System Events"
                        log "waiting for Vorschau to display " & myTitle
                        set timeLeft to my waitForAppearWindow(myTitle, process "Vorschau", 30, 0.5)
                        if timeLeft < 0 then
                            log "Vorschau " & myTitle & " window didn't show up after 30 secs"
                            error number -128
                        else
                            log "Vorschau appeared with " & timeLeft & "secs left"
                            tell process "Vorschau"
                                delay 0.2
                                click menu item "Als PDF exportieren …" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Ablage" of menu bar 1
                                delay 0.5
                                -- CMD-SHIFT-G to set the export director
                                -- https://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/keycodes.php
                                keystroke "g" using {command down, shift down}
                                delay 0.2

                                tell sheet 1 of window (myTitle)
                                    tell sheet 1
                                        -- dereference basePath
                                        local basePathStr
                                        set basePathStr to basepath & ""
                                        set value of first combo box to basePathStr
                                        delay 0.2
                                        click button "Öffnen"
                                        delay 0.2
                                    end tell
                                    click button "Sichern"
                                    set timeLeft to my waitForAppear(sheet 1, 3, 0.2)
                                    tell sheet 1
                                        if timeLeft > 0 then
                                            click button "Ersetzen"
                                        end if
                                    end tell
                                    delay 5
                                    keystroke "q" using {command down}
                                end tell

                            end tell
                        end if
                    end tell

                    --tell application "System Events"
                    --  set timeLeft to my waitForAppear("button", button "Sichern" of sheet 1 of sheet 1 of window 1 of process pp, 5, 0.5)
                    --  if timeLeft < 0 then
                    --      log "Sichern button didn't show up after 5 secs"
                    --      error number -128
                    --  end if
                    --  click button "Sichern" of sheet 1 of sheet 1 of window 1 of process pp
                    --end tell

                    --tell application "System Events"
                    --  delay 0.5
                    --  try
                    --      set timeLeft to my waitForAppear("button", button "Ersetzen" of sheet 1 of sheet 1 of sheet 1 of window 1 of process pp, 5, 0.5)
                    --      if timeLeft < 0 then
                    --          log "Ersetzen button didn't show up after 5 secs"
                    --          error number -128
                    --      end if
                    --      click button "Ersetzen" of sheet 1 of sheet 1 of sheet 1 of window 1 of process pp
                    --  end try
                    --end tell
                    log "done ..."
                    -- close filePath
                end if
            end if
        end repeat
        -- still in tell powerpoint context
        --tell application "System Events"
        --  delay 0.5
        --  try
        --      set timeLeft to my waitForVanish("window", window "Sichern" of process pp, 60, 1)
        --      if timeLeft < 0 then
        --          log "print dialog didn't vanish after 60 secs"
        --          error number -128
        --      end if
        --  end try
        --end tell
        quit
    end tell
end ppt2Pdf

on showElement(uiElem)
    local className
    set className to class of uiElem as string
    log (((«class pDSC» of uiElem as string) & "=" & value of uiElem as string) & "(" & className) & ")"
end showElement

--
-- show all UI elements
--
on showUiElements(appName, filterClassName)
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process appName
            tell (1st window whose value of attribute "AXMain" is true)
                repeat with uiElem in entire contents of it as list
                    try
                        local className
                        set className to class of uiElem as string
                        if filterClassName is missing value or className is filterClasssname then
                            log (((description of uiElem as string) & "=" & value of uiElem as string) & "(" & className) & ")"
                        end if
                    end try
                end repeat
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end showUiElements

--
-- wait for the given element to appear
--
on waitForAppearWindow(elementName, parentElement, time, slice)
    set timeLeft to time
    set appeared to false
    repeat until (appeared) or timeLeft ≤ 0
        try
            set appeared to window elementName of parentElement exists
        end try
        delay slice
        log "."
        set timeLeft to timeLeft - slice
    end repeat
    log timeLeft
    return timeLeft
end waitForAppearWindow

--
-- wait for the given element to appear
--
on waitForAppear(element, time, slice)
    set timeLeft to time
    set appeared to false
    repeat until (appeared) or timeLeft ≤ 0
        try
            set appeared to element exists
        end try
        delay slice
        log "."
        set timeLeft to timeLeft - slice
    end repeat
    log timeLeft
    return timeLeft
end waitForAppear

---
--- wait for the given element to vanish
---
on waitForVanish(element, time, slice)
    set timeLeft to time
    try
        repeat while (exists element) and timeLeft > 0
            delay slice
            log "."
            set timeLeft to timeLeft - slice
        end repeat
    end try
    log timeLeft
    return timeLeft
end waitForVanish

on chooseMenuButtonItem(appName, buttonName, itemName)
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process appName
            tell window 1
                local win1
                set win1 to it
                tell sheet 1
                    log "choosing " & itemName & " of menu button " & buttonName
                    tell menu button buttonName
                        click
                        delay 0.1
                        tell menu 1
                            click menu item itemName
                        end tell
                    end tell
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end chooseMenuButtonItem
--
-- choose a popup
--
on choosePopUp(appName, buttonName, itemName)
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process appName
            tell window 1
                tell sheet 1
                    log "choosing " & itemName & " of pop up menu " & buttonName
                    --repeat with pbutton in pop up buttons
                    --  local pbutton1
                    --  set pbutton1 to pbutton
                    --  log description of pbutton & "=" & value of pbutton
                    --end repeat
                    tell (1st pop up button whose description is buttonName)
                        click it
                        delay 0.5
                        pick menu item itemName of menu 1
                    end tell
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end choosePopUp

--
-- https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/
-- LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/MacAutomationScriptingGuide
-- AutomatetheUserInterface.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40016239-CH69-SW17
--
on chooseMenuItem(theAppName, theMenuName, theMenuItemName)
    try
        -- Bring the target app to the front
        tell application theAppName
            activate
        end tell

        -- Target the app
        tell application "System Events"
            tell process theAppName

                -- Target the menu bar
                tell menu bar 1

                    -- Target the menu by name
                    tell menu bar item theMenuName
                        tell menu theMenuName

                            -- Click the menu item
                            log "clicking " & theMenuItemName
                            click menu item theMenuItemName
                        end tell
                    end tell
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
        return true
    on error
        return false
    end try
end chooseMenuItem

on makeNewPath(f)
    set t to f as string
    if t ends with ".pptx" or t ends with ".pptm" then
        return (text 1 thru -5 of t) & "pdf"
    else
        return (text 1 thru -4 of t) & "pdf"
    end if
end makeNewPath


Apple Mail on Yosemite not syncing with Exchange Strange issue that neither my email provider not Apple could help with! so I come to you and hope you can solve the problem they could not!

I added the Exchange account in question a week or so ago. It functioned fine until there was an issue with syncing. I chcked forums and ppl suggested using the 'Rebuild' option. I did with resluts I cannot explain.

Apple Mail now refuses to recognise the inbox. It brings in messages from 2015 and nothing newer. This is clearly bizarre. I have removed the account and re-added and no matter what - I seem to get the same result.

As a workaorund I added the account as an IMAP but I'd really like to get my exchange account working properly. Does anyone have any suggestions?

My only theory is that there is some file - some cached set of settings that is ruining my efforts to add a new account.

Anyone have any ideas? I'd be most grateful!

There looks to be changes made on exchange accounts that seem to affect mac osx 10. Yosemite.  Those who has this have a older version of apple mail client installed and the solution is to upgrade your mac to the highest version of mac os your device will take and the version of apple mail installed will work again with exchange accounts


Hide "disk password" login option at EFI (Filevault) login screen I encrypted my volume before installation and have added my user as FileVault user afterwards.

Now I can login with either the disk password or my user login password at the EFI (Filevault) login screen. (The former option sends me to the regular OS X login screen where I can again login as my user.)

How do I hide the disk password login option at the EFI login screen without enabling the input menu (com.apple.loginwindow showInputMenu -bool TRUE)?

In other words: How do I go from disk password-based encryption to login password-based encryption, at least cosmetically?

Is there maybe some option for com.apple.loginwindow that one can use?
Can *.efires files be edited?
Can Core Storage metadata for the volume somehow be edited?

I have the same problem when booting from an external drive, but not my internal drive!

When I boot normally, I only see a one FileVault option: me. However, when booting from my USB drive, I see two: me, and "Disk Password".

Investigating with fdesetep (sudo fdesetup list —extended) shows that the internal drive has:

ESCROW  UUID                                                                     TYPE USER
        BCF2ABC6-40F8-4F31-A508-7284BC85E65A                   Personal Recovery User
        2EE7445C-13C0-497D-AD54-DA1B8D22A0F7                                  OS User ben

However, the external drive has:

ESCROW  UUID                                                                     TYPE USER
        EB313C9F-E27C-41D5-9EE3-192490C792BE                     Disk Passphrase User
        92ACE5CE-7187-44DB-92CE-56344C18568D                                  OS User ben

Note that the external drive doesn't have a recovery key set (confirmed with fdesetup haspersonalrecoverykey returning false).

It looks like it should be possible to remove the Disk Passphrase using fdesetup, by doing fdesetup remove --uuid <the UUID of Disk Passphrase>. I would strongly recommend adding a recovery key, if you do this.


How can I delete purchased songs from my iPhone4? How do you remove purchased songs from an iPhone when it is connected to iTunes?

There is no need to use iTunes for this purpose as of iOS 5. It is now ridiculously easy to delete songs. Simply swipe horizontally on any track title and you are presented with an option to delete the song.


screen lock using a script Is it possible to lock the screen in OS Yosemite using code? And then put in a scheduler to run every two minutes?

If so what script language are we talking, task scheduler program etc

Here is the way I would try completing this task:

Create a script file that will be executed every time the system starts:

sudo nano ~/sleep.sh

Input the following text in the file:

#!/bin/bash
sleep 120
pmset sleepnow
#osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to sleep'

Note: The last line with the # at the front is a substitute of the one above (pmset sleepnow)

Open the CronJob editor in order to start the script frequently:

  env EDITOR=nano crontab -e

Input rule for the script to be started automatically

  * * * * * sh ~/sleep.sh

Re/start the current CronJobs:

  sudo touch /private/etc/crontab

P.S. I haven't tested it, but I will gladly help if anything additional is needed.


Modifying behaviour of "Stationery Pad" function in Finder I recently found out about the "Stationery Pad" feature of the Finder in OS X. For those who are not familiar with it, it allows you to select a file (usually a document of some sort) and in the Get Info window tick the Stationery Pad button. This allows you to use the file as a template for future files which will be based on this one.

In essence when you have a file that is marked in this way, when you double click the file instead of opening it it will create a copy of the file, called your-original-filename copy and then immediately save it in the same folder as the template file you double clicked on.

This is incredibly useful, but has a couple of annoying features:

It puts the copy file in the same location
It immediately saves the file with a name that you are guaranteed to want to change

Is there any known way to make it open a copy of the file, that does not immediately save it? This will allow me to a) choose my own name without having to subsequently remove the "copy" version, and b) have it in the location of my choice from the start. In effect, I'd like to open it as if it was a brand new file that has no name and has never been saved.

Frankly, at the moment it's quicker to copy and paste a file somewhere else then edit it than use this feature, at the expense of the original file not being 'protected' against edits (which is the best part of it, as the amount of times I create letterheads, etc. for people who then save their first letter over the top of the template file…).

If, instead of marking the file as a stationary pad, you just lock it, most software will open it read-only, and you can just do a save-as, accomplishing exactly what you want (An open file that is a duplicate of the locked file and hasn't yet been saved.) The file will be write-protected.

Unfortunately, the stationary pad feature is designed the way it is and (as far as I know) there isn't a workaround to change that. Most word processing and other software already has a built-in template feature, so that's worth looking into, as well.


How to turn on an iPhone with a broken power button? I have an iphone 4. It has been off for 2 years. I don't know which iOS is on it and my power button is broken.
How can I turn it on without it ? It just shows the battery logo not the apple one.

Plug in your phone to charge it.
It will turn on.
Go to Settings -> General -> Shutdown to turn it off.


Export all stickies at once on OS X 10.8? I am using Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8). I have a lot of stickies, but have been unable to find a simple way to export all the stickies at once as either text or HTML.

Have I overlooked something obvious? What is the right way to export all stickies in bulk into a more open file format?

Export stickies created by Stickies.app

Install Notational Velocity (NV) and start the application
In Finder open your Library folder and locate StickiesDatabase
Drag StickiesDatabase into the 'Filtered Note List' in the NV main window (see here for reference)
In NV select any number of notes and choose Export from the menu

If you prefer to write your own code, have a look at Learning Cocoa with Objective-C which explains how to reverse-engineer the StickiesDatabase format.
Export Dashboard stickies
Run this in Terminal.app
plutil -convert json -r -o - ~/Library/Preferences/widget-com.apple.widget.stickies.plist |
    awk '$1 ~ /-data/ { start=index($0, ":")+3
                        end=length($0)-2
                        sticky=substr($0, start, end-start+1)
                        gsub(/<.?.?div>/, "", sticky)
                        gsub(/<br>/, "\n", sticky)
                        print sticky
                        print "---" }' > ~/all-my-stickies.txt


With FileVault enabled, do I need to overwrite my hard drive with 0's before getting rid of it? When I give up my laptop I like to securely delete the hard drive. I would assume that since it's full disk encrypted using file vault that I should be able to just delete the real key for boot partition and be done. No need to write 0s over the filesystem.

Is this true, or do I need to do something extra to make sure that I can safely part with my hard drive?

No - the point of FileVault 2 is to make it extremely difficult for a motivated person to decipher what was stored on that volume.

I would pay more attention to destroying that key that was used encrypt the data than the drive.

Of course, you could zero the drive, but why not go one better and pick a new encryption key that was never used, and never will be used and let your machine re-do the encryption of the drive once you have erased all the data one pass.

Since there have been no scholarly articles on how easy it is to decrypt a FileVault drive nor reports of exploits - you have to weigh the potential damage that leak of information could be. FileVault makes it much easier to not worry if you lose a drive, so the old saw to be sure to overwrite things many times is far less applicable for drives where encryption exists at rest.


Scanner sharing service stops after logout. How do I make it always share? I'm sharing a scanner from a Mid 2007 iMac (10.6.8, USB scanner over wired ethernet). I've enabled sharing on the local admin account and it all works well on the other Macs that are using the scanner.

However, after logging out, the scanner stops being shared and immediately drops out of the list of "Shared devices" available on the other Macs (in Image Capture).

Logging back in to the account that set up scanner sharing reenables scanner sharing and it all works again. If I log into another account that hasn't previously set up scanner sharing, it's not enabled.

How can I get the scanner sharing service to run all the time for all users, even when no one is logged into the iMac?

You might have to set up a default user that logs in automatically and shares the scanner after a reboot. You could have it password protected, non administrator, with a short timer on the screen saver to lock the screen after a power failure if you care about that sort of thing.

Snow Leopard just doesn't mount external drives or start the sharing software when a user is not logged in.

I have long kept around an old mac mini to serve up iTunes and a scanner for my network rather than mess with a "fake account" as I proposed.


Does MacOS periodically purge older files in /Users//Library/Caches/...? In the past, I put temp files in /tmp/  folder, and the OS automatically purges them as time goes by.
I'm now considering using the alternative folder /Users/username/Library/Caches/myFolder/   but before I do, I want to make sure that it won't fill-up the user's disk.  Will the OS automatically delete older files in that folder?

In my mind, Caches should not be cleaned by an OS.
In general, the process that generates the cache is responsible for always working - if the cache is missing it should recreate it, it should run periodically and clean the cache or expire old data. Each cache should exist for specific reasons, triggers and expirations so a routine clean up imposed by any OS uniformly on all caches would be a bad design depiction and constrain the usefulness of caches in general.
In specific don’t see macOS ever cleaning ~/Library or /Library cache folders either. I can’t be sure it’s not cleaning at a time I don’t see or just leaving my stuff there alone. There could be low disk space triggers that do clean there and I just don’t run my machines to trigger that occasional cleanup or emergency cleanup if the OS is about to run out of all space.
There are triggers where the OS will just kill running processes when there is no memory, so only Apple could tell you if they have any circumstances where this would be cleaned.


Formatting OSX partition I have a Macbook Pro with 3 partitions:

HFS (OSX)
FAT (Ubuntu)
NTFS (Windows 7)

and I want to format only the OSX partition and do a clean install without touching the other operating system partitions.
In order to do this I also have to format the MBR partition or erase it? I have rEFIt, and I know it has a utility that checks/repair the MBR or so I think so, should I use it after I do the clean install?

You should be able to repair the MBR after reinstalling OS X.
I would attempt to do a backup of all of your drives first in any way you prefer, so that if something /does/ go wrong (shouldn't), you have a backup.
I believe you can also repair the MBR from the Windows recovery partition.


Hosting a NTFS drive share from Mavericks to Windows 8 I have a media server that runs on Mac, and because of this, my drive (which is NTFS) is hosted on the Mac. However, all of my media management is done on my Windows 8 PC that connects to the NTFS drive via an SMB share.

The problem is, when I upgraded from 10.7 to 10.8, Apple seemed to have buggered up the SMB plugins, forcing me to use SMBUP (which works, OK ...)

My question is, if I upgrade my Mac to 10.9, are there any known issues with hosting an SMB share for Windows 8? Ideally, I'd like to remove SMBUP from the picture.

(Almost all the information I've found online, is about how to connect to an SMB share, not how to host one.)

I've been using TuxeraNTFS for a number of years now to give my Apple computers the ability to read NTFS drives, namely, my bootcamp partition.  Tuxera recently updated their software to support Mavericks and it has been running fine on my iMac and on my Macbook Pro.  However, I've never had to connect to an SMB share using this software so I can't say for certain that it will work in that fashion, but it may be worth investigating if it resolves your issue.

The software isn't free unfortunately, but it is cheap, currently only $31.

http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/


osascript display dialog hangs when screen is off; detect unavailable GUI/display from bash or applescript? NOTE: If you have this problem, the answer from @abc helps mitigate it--but there are still unknown conditions under which this solution won't keep the osascript from executing and hanging.

background

I've been working on a backup script that runs occasionally via launchd. When it runs, it prompts me with something like:

osascript -e "display dialog \"Is now a good time to back up?\""

This works great when the system is open/online, but it seems to hang if the lid is closed or screen is locked/off. A tolerable way to test this is to SSH into the system as the same user with the desktop active, run a command like the one above, and observe that the dialog pops up.

If I run the same command with the system locked, it just hangs. If I unlock/open the system, the command doesn't finish, and the dialog doesn't appear.

When running on battery power, I can simulate the same condition by running:

pmset displaysleepnow; osascript -e "display dialog \"never never land\""

question

Is anyone aware of a way to detect this condition (at launchd, bash, or applescript level) so that I can do any of:

keep the job from running at all until the system is active
sleep the script until I can display a dialog without it hanging
abort the script run before it hangs

I'm not keen on it, but the best I've been able to figure out so far involves putting a long timeout on the first dialog in the script and bailing out if it never gets answered, i.e.:

osascript -e "display dialog \"Is now a good time to back up?\" giving up after 600"

This should keep waiting until the screen is on:

set screenOff to true
repeat until screenOff is false
    set screenOff to (do shell script "ioreg -c AppleBacklightDisplay | grep dsyp") contains "\"dsyp\"={\"min\"=0,\"max\"=2,\"value\"=0}"
end repeat

display dialog "Is now a good time to back up?"


How to disable Mail Drop in iOS 9.2? Prior to iOS 9.2, large videos would be resized when sending as an e-mail attachment. After 9.2 introduced Mail Drop however, this resizing functionality seems to be disabled even if I opt not to use Mail Drop.

The recipients I'm sending the video to have very limited bandwidth (3G cellular) and I do not wish to send them the full sized video - even if they could figure out how to open files from Mail Drop (which they can't)

Is there a way to completely disable Mail Drop on iOS like there is in OS X to get this resizing behavior back?

You can still compress a video and bypass Mail Drop when you compose a new email and manually attach the video (by long clicking email body).


Cannot make a disk image with disk utility Status 27 I'm trying to take a disk image of a MacBook Pro 2012 with an SSD and OS X El Capitan installed.
I went into Recovery Mode and selected my partition and the target is an external HDD.

First I got error status 2, but then I remembered to unlock the drive.
Now I get error status 27, I searched a lot to find about this error, but couldn't find the meaning of the error.

I want to take a full backup, reinstall a fresh OS X and then later I will format it again and restore my old system from the image.

Edit:
I now tried to take an image only of the user folder and got operation failed with status 107.

Any help would be appreciated.

The Format of the partition must be Journaled to be able to make an image


What is the use of the Bluetooth on iPad? I would like to understand what other ways I can use Bluetooth on my iPad apart from connecting a physical keyboard.

You can do peer-to-peer networking on bluetooth with some games and other applications.

I haven't checked out the details but my understanding is that the Bluetooth profile is much better in the iPhone 4 and iPad than in the early iPhones. I expect you could also hook up to BT headphones and speakers to stream music.


Can I use Time Capsule as shared disk Can I use Time Capsule as shared disk (without any extra hardware)? I want to store my media there (e.g. photo)

Just to add to the first answer, yes you can use it as a shared drive (I do) It will also work with PC's not just Macs, so for example if someone came round your house with a Dell laptop you could give them access to it.

This is a great way to share photos with friends, and also a good way to back up a PC as you will not be able to use Time Machine.

To answer the hardware issue, you will not need any additional hardware providing your computers have WiFi cards if not then you will need a WiFi adapter, or you could connect via ETHERNET.


Where should I place local executables on macOS? I often write system-wide scripts and I wonder where to place my executables on macOS.
On many Linux system, /usr/local/bin (also /usr/local/sbin) is usually empty and I place my executables in there.
But on macOS, /usr/local/bin has already contained a lot of executables provided by such as Homebrew.
I understand /usr/local/bin is the most proper directory to place executables locally installed and similar questions also are answered /usr/local/bin, but I feel hesitant to contaminate by mixing my executables.
Is it good manner to place my executables in /usr/local/bin in spite of many other executables existing?
In other way, I am wondering where is the second best directory to place my executables.
I think /opt/bin is the second best at the moment because /opt/bin seems to proper directory to place my executables by its purpose and /opt/bin does not exist by default on macOS (empty assured).
Is there any idea or advice about my wondering?
similar questions (answered /usr/local/bin is best):

Where do you keep your own scripts on OSX?
Where should I cp oc binary to on MacOS?

Homebrew doesn't directly install packages to the normal locations in /usr/local/, it installs to its own directory (/usr/local/Cellar by default) and then symlinks the files to /usr/local/bin (or lib, opt, and so on).
You could follow this pattern and create your own directory in usr/local/ to store your executables, and then symlink them to /usr/local/bin. This would let you keep all your own files organized in one place without needing to add a new directory to your $PATH.


How do I batch set the files "date modified" to the "date created"? I have a folder with a bunch of photos taken by two different cameras, with one camera having been set to the wrong date. I managed to correct the EXIF date using Picasa (see photo.stackexchange), but apparently, it only adjusts the "Date Created" of the file, and not the "Date modified".

How can I make the "Date modified" (shown by default in the Finder) equal to the "Date Created" for a bunch of files?

I've looked in the touch terminal command, but couldn't find an answer there for my specific issue.

Assuming JPG files:

for f in *.jpg; do
   olddate=$(stat -f %SB -t %Y%m%d%H%M "$f")
   touch -m -t $olddate "$f"
done

For other suffixes just adjust the pattern in the for statement accordingly.


How to sync iPhone photo albums to iPhoto I'm using iPhone4 and the latest iOS. I've created albums and categorized my photos into the albums.

Question is, how can I then sync the photos WITH the albums into iPhoto?

That is a good question! The answer, as far as I can tell, is: You can't!

The whole system of syncing the Photos app and iPhoto among your devices, and between each other, seems to be a work in progress. I could go on about all the issues, but the short answer is, you can't do it right now.


What are the differences between Dreamweaver_14_LS20.dmg and Dreamweaver_13_LS20.dmg? I find that there are two versions of Dreamweaver CC for Mac OSX, one is Dreamweaver_14_LS20 and another is Dreamweaver_13_LS20. Can anyone tell me what is the exactly differences between these two versions.

By the way, where can I download the full installer of Adobe Software on the official web site? I only find the CreativeCloudInstall which will download the others later.

Dreamweaver CC came in two major versions: the initial CC release (v13) and the CC 2014 release (v14). From the file names, you can infer which is which.

As for a "full installer", there is no such animal now. You install CC apps individually through the Creative Cloud Manager which downloads and installs the selected app(s).


PayPal emails go to Spam folder on Mail Mac I use Mac Mail as my email program and I would like to know why PayPal emails go always to the spam folder. I have tried to make rules, mark PayPal email as VIP contact but nothing works.

I would like them to be sent to my primary inbox.

Thanks in advance

E-mails that have been placed into the spam folder by Apple Mail will have this header:
If you see an e-mail in your spam folder that lacks this header, than the e-mail has been automatically been placed into the spam folder by your mail provider. You should mark it as "not spam" from within your mail service's web client.


'09 mac mini hardware upgrade advice Hello all I have an early '09 Mac mini 3,1 (Intel Core 2 duo 2GHz, 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD) which I need to upgrade soon as it is slowly dying (i.e., runnning an IDE like netbeans while having chrome open is becoming overkill for the poor thing).

I am looking at maxing out the RAM to 8GB (from my research I believe this is feasible) and replacing the HDD with a 60GB SSD as I do not really store much (if any) media. Monetarily, I have worked the cost to be around £100 which is not too bad?

I would appreciate your feedback on the following especially if you have done this or similar

ease of replacing the RAM
ease of replacing the HDD
whether 8gb does indeed work (well)
whether SSDs do work as well as benchmarks and hype suggest (in this context)
any problems that can be incurred by doing this (I'm not to concerned re. void waranties more breaking hardware)
anything I need to take in to consideration that I possibly am not

The hardware I am looking at getting is Corsair CMSA8GX3M2A1066C7 and Crucial CT064M4 though I may go for the slightly cheaper Vertex 2, any comments on these choices would be much appreciated also.

If anyone from the UK has had experience with getting a second HDD 'dock' to replace the optical drive with a second HDD/SSD then any infromation surrounding this (both obtaining and installing - though the latter I guess is regionally unspecific) would also be very helpful.

The 2009 and earlier model Mac Mini all lack the black small round access port, so are much easier to get at the hard drive than the newer thin "unibody" Mac Mini computers.

I really like RamJet for checking which machines can run more ram than Apple places in their "what we support at the time the hardware is released" manuals. They only sell to Macs, so really have to work hard to mix up your models or get the wrong ram. Where you buy is certainly up for debate, but the RamJet tools are the nicest I've seen.

As to your hard drive exchange - the SSD will replace the HDD easily. Putting a second drive will be less easy as I'm not aware of a mounting kit for the optical drive attachment in that class of Mac Mini. Do your homework well or get a good return policy if you find out your drive doesn't work when connected to the optical drive SATA connection.


Getting a file from my non-syncing Mac to my iPad? My professor posted a reading assignment via PDF, and my iPad isn't rendering the website he set up so I can't download the PDF to iBooks.

I have my MacBook with me, but it's not the main computer to which I sync all my devices (which is my mini at home). I can email the file to myself, but that would only work for files below 20mb, which if I need to read a whole book, would be too much to email.

Is there another way to get the file to my iPad for reading without having to go all the way home to sync my iPad to my mini?

Sounds like Dropbox might be your best bet with the large files. There is an app available for iPad so you can view the files on there.


Still possible to override iSight webcam LED for iMac's and Macbook Pro's 2019 & 2020 & on? Although years later from the discovered exploitable vulnerability with iSight's LED, I am wondering if the issue has been fixed on 2019 and 2020 iMacs and Macbook Pros.  Can the iSight LED still be overridden through software, or is it actually hardwired this time so that the webcam cannot turn on unless the green LED turns on too?

From a practical stance, macOS now blocks all apps from the camera in software so you can easily know all apps that could even request access to the microphone or camera.

In 2009 the firmware of the hardwired cameras was secured with encryption. I haven’t seen a credible report that this is broken, but depending on your threat model, you might close the lid if you can’t trust Apple to secure things.

Does a newer MacBook's camera light need to be activated when the camera turns on?

Whether you trust the LED auto-functions and cannot fail as an intrinsic part of the operation would need to trust someone who can forensically examine the hardware (likely destroying it to be certain how it works) and assuming all are made the same.

I think you the camera is the least revealing or worrisome part, but it’s fine to question and learn even if it’s a small risk or no risk or you have easy mitigation options.

Also, all Mac cameras are hardwired. Just the security is far better hardware wire since 2009 and software side many steps better but with SIP and Catalina it’s really a hardened target for the software to get compromised.


Display Mic volume in the menu bar In MacOS Mojave, I want to get the Mic volume icon to the menubar, just like the speaker volume icon. How can I do that?

Like this.

This app works for me: MuteMyMic. Available in the App Store at that link.

Appears to be free, as well.

It puts an icon in the menubar with a mic input level slider:

Disclaimer: no financial or other ties to the developer of this amazing app which I just found using Google.


Wifi connection slow on Mac only My iMac (Ver 10.9.5 for reasons, iMac is from 2012) has an observed download speed of ~100KBps. On speedtest.net, it tells me the speed is ~800Kbps, so it matches up. However, on other devices, the download speed is way higher, about 35Mbps.

The modem is an Asus, RT-N66U. The router is an ARRIS surfboard SB6141.

The connection is wireless.

The RSSI is -47, MCS index is 23, Noise is -88, speed is 217Mbps, Phy mode is 802.11n. The country code is US.

Could anyone help fix the slow connection on this Mac?

This was extremely fast, but I was fiddling with the wifi settings, and I noticed the ASUS traffic manager was enabled. Upon disabling it, I had the same download speed as other devices. It had limited my own device for whatever reason.