Storing my iTunes library on an external flash drive in a MacBook Air I have approximately 90 GB of music and it is taking up too much of my Macbook Air's 256GB internal SSD space. I see I can buy a 128 GB flash card which can be left in the MacBook Air's flash card slot. Can I just move my library on to the flash card? Has anybody done this? Any advice? Would it be backed up with Time Machine correctly?

Has anybody done this?

Not with a flash drive, but with an external drive. I've kept my iTunes library on a USB-attached drive for years now. Semantically, the situation is identical to storing it on the flash drive. The OS see's a remote disk in both cases.

  Any advice?

Format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Most flash media come pre-formatted as FAT32 these days. You don't want that.

For moving your iTunes library the correct way see: What is the safest way to move the iTunes Library from one hard drive to another?

  Would it be backed up with Time Machine correctly?

As long as it's not listed in the Exclusions list in Time Machine, yes: it will be backed up. To check the exclusions list: System Preferences -> Time Machine. Click on the Options... button and make sure your flash drive volume isn't listed in that list. If it it, select it, and click the - (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove it.


Creating a URL that always opens in Chrome If I want to ensure a URL, if clicked, will always open in Chrome (instead of the default browser) can I do that by modifying the header?

For example, I can get URLs that always open in Evernote, they start with evernote:///

Is this possible, for example to have something like chrome:///www.url.com

Google has official documentation on the Chrome iOS app’s URI scheme on its developer website.

Simply replace http with googlechrome and https with googlechromes. This means:

http://www.google.com/ becomes googlechrome://www.google.com/
https://apple.stackexchange.com/ becomes googlechromes://apple.stackexchange.com/

Previously, it supported an x-callback-url of googlechrome-x-callback://. This allowed the calling app to indicate its name and URI scheme to Chrome, which would show a back button in the address bar that closes the tab and invokes the specified URI. This feature was removed a few years ago when iOS 9 added the “Back to …” button in the status bar (but the URI scheme still works).


iPad Air 2 Won't Take Screenshots Screenshot no longer works on my iPad Air 2. Tried turning on/off, resetting, resetting settings, rebooting. Both the home button and power button work individually and my iPad used to take screenshots. How can get my iPad to take screenshots again.

The screenshot happens when both of the buttons are released at the same time, so if you can slow down your movements and hold down the buttons for a short "two count" or long "one count" - basically a second and a half, then release both precisely.

If that doesn't work, you either have full storage or a problem with the system being able to process the button release events in a timely manner.

To troubleshoot that:

Put the device in AirPlane mode and power it off.
Power on the device and don't connect to any networks.
Open Storage and make sure you have 1 GB free or more.
Delete apps, connect to iTunes and make a backup if you have nothing you can afford to delete long term.
Once you have enough space free - try taking a screen shot in AirPlane mode.
If that still fails - erase all content and settings on the device (or restore it over USB from iTunes or similar tool.
If the screen shot still doesn't work after deleting all your content or restoring - seek service - there's something wrong with the hardware.

Depending on how much you deleted - restore your backup to the repaired / replaced / restored iPad.


Terminal command to delete everything I've ever created I have so much junk installed on my work laptop I want to start with a fresh machine. However, I must keep the account I have as I do not have system permissions to create another account. How can I use terminal to delete everything I (including use of git, brew, port, svn, etc) ever made?

You don't have to neccesarily delete everything. Deleting everything would give you a hard time getting the computer to start or installing the OS. With Terminal, I suppose that sudo rm -rf / would delete everything.

If you want to start fresh, you can boot into Recovery ⌘ Cmd+R. Use only the ⌥ Opt key if you don't have FileVault installed because it has a root console.

And then reinstall OS. Also, if you don't have permissions, I mentioned the root console. I am not exactly sure if Internet Recovery also has the console.


displays - drive displays from USB-C hub Is it possible to drive a monitor from a hub? If the hub was Thunderbolt 3 compatible and I used a USB-C to HDMI adapter, from the hub to the monitor, would this work? The monitor in question is a Full HD (1080p@60Hz) monitor - nothing crazy.

I ask this question as I'm currently looking at a USB-C to 3 HDMI adapter however the price is pretty high - and I'm looking for a workaround. It seems that individual USB-C to HDMI cables are a lot cheaper.

This is can work, however, it depends on your personal equipment.  Both my motherboard's onboard video and my Geforce RTX 2080 Ti have the ability to do what you are asking.

For example, the "Anker USB C Hub" has the HDMI port built in, as well as USB and an Ethernet port.


Centering audio in Final Cut Pro X I'm currently working in Final cut pro on a little project. I have a stereo audio file that has two mics and when one person speaks it plays in one cup of my headphones and when the other speaks it plays in the other cup. Is there a way to "center" this audio so it plays out of both cups rather than just the one?

First, make sure you have a stereo project (timeline), unless you are dealing with 5.1 (surround) files:

Select the clip, and at the property inspector set it to dual mono:

Now both tracks will play at both channels.
By doing that you will also enable breaking apart clip itens (command+shift+G):

Tracks are now independent from the video.

You can manually map each one for whatever speaker you want.

Just remember you can't break apart all the channels before setting them to mono. If they are grouped you will just detach it from the video.
Also, expanding the audio tracks (option+control+s) won't do pretty much anything regarding channels, it is just a tool for visual aid and some editing purposes.


Is it possible to use screen sharing without the remote screen being visible? Let's say I have 2 MacPros:

MacPro at work
MacPro at home

I wonder if there is any way I could access my MacPro at work from home using the screen sharing method, without anything being visible on the monitors of MacPro at work.

I am currently able to do the standard screen sharing using my work MacPro from home, and can also normally access its folders etc. My question relates to ensuring privacy of the work content in case someone walks by while I'm using that remote computer. Unplugging the work computer's monitors would not be a fully working solution, as it would only partially resolve this issue.

There are three solutions that I know of that allow you to "black out" the remote screen so that uses cannot see what you are doing:

Apple Remote Desktop (ARD).  Cost:  $79
TightVNC.  Cost:  Free for personal use.
TeamViewer.  Cost:  Free for personal use ($810 for Business License)

As for ARD and VNC, they will do they job, but as far as performance, they are quite frankly, horrible.  ARD is definitely better than VNC, but if you are comparing it to Microsoft Remote Desktop, then ARD looks and feels prehistoric.  The VNC protocol is quite "heavy" and the lag on a LAN is unbearable at times.  But, for the price...

I wholeheartedly recommend TeamViewer

TeamViewer, is one of the best remote access / remote control utilities out there.  It's free for personal use but to buy a license it's expensive.  If you have many clients to manage, TeamViewer is the one.  There is zero setup involved. unlike VNC which you have to open ports on your router.

TeamViewer does have the capability to black out your screen and you get this feature with the free version - you don't need the paid version.  I tested this today and it works.  To do this, you have to first disable remote input, then click on show black screen.

Below are the screen captures of my TeamViewer session from my iMac to a Dell Laptop running Win10 with the black out option enabled:

If you notice the black screen on the laptop below.  All you can see is the pointer arrow and that moves with the TeamViewer session and not the remote mouse/keyboard.


Find my friends several iphones i have 2 iphones, the new for my business. I share my location on Find your friends with my family. When I‘m working, I often forgot my private iphone at home. So I would like to share my location with my firm iphone. I know, that I have to choose the iphone I want to share.

When I change on the app to my business iphone, will it send a message to my private iphone? And does it requiers an authorisation? Because when the private iphone is at home, I can‘t klick on the authorisation or the message. Thank you very much for your answers!

No, there's no authorisation required (besides being logged in on iCloud for Find your Friends on the other phone, which you already indicated is the case). There's no message sent to the phone that was previously the source of the location info.


Why does Time Machine's backup size not equal the size of my hard drive? I'm using Time Machine to back up my data on my Mac to an external HD, so I can restore my data on a fresh OS installation, but Time Machine's resulting backup is only 43 GB.

My laptop's HD is 113 GB in size. Why is Time Machine only backing up 43 GB, not the entire amount?

Does Time Machine exclude a lot of files? Are only my apps and personal files saved? 43 GB seems pretty small.

Not all files are backed up by Time Machine, but most files are backed up by Time Machine. There's a user-level exclusion list and a built-in exclusion list. The built-in exclusion list excludes things that are non-essential for restoring a system like log files and what not.

Apps can also exclude their own data from Time Machine by marking files with meta-data tags to exclude them from backups. For example: a web browser may chose to mark its cache directories as excluded from the Time Machine backups because cached surfing data isn't essential to a restore.

There's already a great Q&A on Ask Different that deals with how you see the exclusions list in Time Machine to see what's in the back and what isn't. It was asked and written for Lion, but it applies to anything Lion and post-Lion so far, including Mavericks. That includes details on how to see the built-in list as well as which apps have excluded data from the backups.

In short: don't panic if your first backup isn't the same size as all used space on your hard drive. It wasn't meant to be.


How to switch or close the new split Terminal pane? I stumbled across the CMD-D hot key which splits the Terminal into 2 panes.  But I can't find documentation anywhere on how to close the new pane or even switch the focus to it so I can use it. What are the other commands?

The idea behind splitting is that it allows you to keep a certain part of the shell buffer displayed while continuing to enter new commands. So only the lowest split does allow keyboard input. To position the view on the shell buffer use the scroll bar.

You can un-split by pressing Shift-Cmd-D.


Should I use 32 or 64bit Mac OS X apps? I have a 64bit Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro. A lot of times, software that I want to use is offered in both 32 and 64 bit.

What version should I prefer?

I know that even some Apple's apps are not yet 64bit - I guess this means something. I also have read that there is no big difference except for maybe driver software. What do you think?

You should go for the 64bit version. Apple is more and more leaning towards 64 bit adoption.

In the end, unless it's some heavy processing application, you won't even feel the difference with the 32bit version. But at least you'll be ready for the future :)


new iMac setup taking unusually long I just unboxed a brand new iMac and after selecting language, keyboard, iCloud stuff it's now been on the "Setting Up Your Mac" screen for an hour and a half.

It's connected to my home wifi network which is online and reasonably fast. I have an iCloud account but don't do anything with it.

Is it downloading some huge update?

Do I let it run? Turn off / on again?

That's odd. Since you've put nothing on it, you should just hold the power key and start it up again.

If it hangs, you can boot to recovery and repair the hard drive catalog structure. Nothing should download until you log in to the first account and set automatic updates, etc..

You can isolate it from all network and iCloud settings and just set up a test account. It's easy to clean a user out and start over with the "out of box" assistant once you're in to the first user account without any network setup.


How can I get Mac Mail to allow repeat of delete key or backspace key (Snow Leopard) I'm trying to find a way to have Mac Mail allow me to press and hold
either the "delete" key or the "backspace" key.  I'm on Snow Leopard
with a non-Apple keyboard.

Goal: delete a lot of emails, easily.  (Yes, I could highlight them
all and then press delete, but that takes LONGER than pressing/holding
the delete key would.)

I'd swear it used to work, but it hasn't for the past few months. I press delete (or backspace) and the current email message is deleted. I continue holding the key down, and … nothing.

Yes, the these two keys repeat in other apps (e.g., Safari URL entry line, or Terminal, or TextEdit), so it's clearly Mail being too clever for its own good.

I've checked the Mail Preferences, and don't see anything pertinent.

You might be able to find a high end keyboard that has hardware key repeat, but it'd probably be a high end mechanical switch keyboard and set you back a lot of money.

Instead you should just learn to hold down shift-arrow key and then press the delete key at the end.


What is the difference between Interval and ThrottleInterval in launchd.plist I found Interval key in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.periodic-daily.plist from my MacOS  10.13.6. But I fail to find what Interval is by googling. Even man launchd.plist does not have this key. Thanks.

The difference between StartInterval and ThrottleInterval is that StartInterval means that the program should be started after x seconds (more or less precisely), whereas ThrottleInterval means that the program should NOT be started again less than x seconds after it was last started.

So StartInterval is used to schedule something to run every X seconds, where ThrottleInterval is used when you schedule something to run based on other criteria, but don't want it to run too often.

"Interval" does not seem to be a valid key - it is not in the man page, as you describe, but nor is it in the source code released by Apple. Either it is a mistype for "StartInterval", or it seems Apple has included "Interval" as an alias for "StartInterval" in their own builds.


Macbook Air A1466 - WiFi channel 13 We are 5 tenants in a big house in the Netherlands and apparently channel 13 is the only one not too crowded to offer us a decent connection. Setting the router on any other channel makes the internet almost unusable for everybody. Problem is that the  cannot detect the WiFi connection whenever it is set on channel 13.

Is there anyway to get a Macbook Air to detect channel 13 on our Wifi router?

Thank you.

First open you About this Mac - more Info - System Information

then look under the

WiFi

Here is what it looks in my place in Spain.

The Ch 1..13 are on 2.4 GHz and the 36...140 are on 5GHz, if your router supports it switch to 5 GHz and you will be lonely there (almost)

If not possible to use 5GHz - (router limitation)

Take Note of

Locale and Country Code (those need to changed to see the Ch 13)

Next check your router settings for Location/Country Code.

The country code of your router is whichever one it was legally purchased for use in. See if it can be changed.


Disk usage: How to only show max depth folders? I want to use the du command so I can find the folders on my system that are bigger than a certain size.

The problem with du are the results I get.

For example, I get all theses folders as results:

~/Downloads/MyFiles/MyPictures/Folder1/
~/Downloads/MyFiles/MyPictures/
~/Downloads/MyFiles/
~/Downloads/

When I only want to have :

~/Downloads/MyFiles/MyPictures/Folder1/

How can I do that with du or any other command?

du alone won't help here, but you can combine du with find to accomplish this:

find . -type d -exec sh -c '(ls -p "{}" | grep -q /) || du "{}"' \;

What this does is the following:

find . -type d -exec ... \; finds all directories and executes the part in ... for each of them (with {} getting replaced by the path of the directory)
sh -c '...' executes the ... part in a subshell (because -exec only can execute a binary and doesn't itself know about shell syntax)
(ls -p "{}" | grep -q /) lists all entries within the directory with a / appended if an entry itself is a directory, and then greps silently for lines containing /. We are only interested in the return code of grep here so if you want to manually check what it does run (ls -p "DIR" | grep -q /); echo $? with various DIRs to see the difference between directories containing sub-directories and directories which don't
|| du "{}" gets executed only if the previous part ((...)) did not find any matches (meaning we are in a directory without further directories)

PS: Tip of the hat to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4269798/use-gnu-find-to-show-only-the-leaf-directories for the essential details.


What does the "Stationery Pad" option do? Under the General section of a file's File Info, there is a checkbox for Stationery Pad and Locked. The Locked option is pretty straightforward, but what does Stationery Pad do?

Basically, it tells an app opening the file to open a copy.

You do this on files that you want to use like templates. Since the app is given a copy, you'll never accidentally change the original.
Basically, it automatically copies the file into its original location (as 'name copy') and lets you work on the copy.


Environment variable for Apple Shake 4.1 Where is Shake's environment variable located in macOS allowing to launch Shake.app via Terminal session in High Sierra?

There's no Shake's variables in ~/.bash_profile, /etc/profile and /etc/bashrc.

Bash command which shake gives me the following result:

/usr/bin/shake

And the content of the shake file in /usr/bin/ contains a script like this:

# set env var, NR_SHAKE_LOCATION if not set

if ${?NR_SHAKE_LOCATION} == 0 then
    pushd `dirname $0` >& /dev/null
    setenv NR_SHAKE_LOCATION /Applications/Shake
    popd >& /dev/null
endif

# launch shake

exec ${NR_SHAKE_LOCATION}/shake.app/Contents/MacOS/shake $argv:q


Mac OS X Finder: show just file details The Finder in column view shows a preview of the file, then information listed below it. The preview (which has no value to me) takes up most of the available space and the file information I want to see is hidden.

All I want to see is the size, creation and modification dates. I would also like to get rid of the "more" section, which is useless and just takes up space.

In the image below, the preview takes up most of the space, the "more" section takes up nearly 1/4 of the space and of the 3 things I want to see most, only the size is available. The name and filetype is already displayed on the column to the left, it's pointless to repeat it under the preview.

I know I could switch to the list view, but I've used the column view forever (since 1990) and it was extremely useful, now it's just a daily annoyance. I also don't want to have to navigate to directory using one view, then switch views to select a file, then go back to column view to navigate, etc.

I'm not a fan of Windows, but I find I can configure Windows Explorer to suit me much better than the Mac OS Finder as I can get rid of the preview and show just the information I want.

Is there any way to do that in the Finder?

In Finder, select View → Preview options. This displays a dialog.

Turning off all options except the couple that I want means I now have the view I want.


Move existing USB Time Machine backup to OS X Server Time Machine How can I move an exiting OS X (10.10.1) USB Time Machine backup history to an OS X (10.10.1) Server (version 4) Time Machine service?

You will need to enable and configure the Time Machine service on the Server as per this set of instructions. Pay attention to any size limits you may want to enforce for the Time Machine backups when creating the destination location.

Turn off Time Machine in System Preferences. Copy your existing Time Machine backup structure to the new location. Open Terminal and use tmutil to re-associate your backups on the new location. Use the instructions here for doing this with tmutil. Restart the Time Machine service and you should be set to go.


Color picker as app in Yosemite As of upgrading to yosemite the apple script choose color no longer works. The color picker app launches but the eyedropper doesn't function. Does anyone know a work-around for this?

It's probably a bug, but there's a strange workaround. After highlighting the Eyedropper icon, click and drag on the color next to it on the left.


Mac Numbers - How do I add up cells containing data (text) per column In my Mac Numbers Spreadsheet, I have got a column containing a product title. I would like to add up the cells containing a title at the bottom on my spreadsheet. What formula do I use for that?
Please note: Some of the cells are empty.

This is a job for COUNTIF(). The syntax is not complicated, but it is briefly described here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5954557?tstart=0 There are also a number of questions showing how to use it in this SE if you search 'COUNTIF'.


Can we transfer live App Store app from individual to company account? I have an iOS app which is live on App Store and is published under my individual developer account.

If I want to register a new company and obtain an Apple developer account with the company name (may be using my own Apple ID) and then re-publish the same app or just transfer it under the new company account to have the company name as seller.

Is it possible?

Yes you can. Go to iTunes Connect → My Apps, select the app you wish to transfer, then choose Transfer App at the bottom of the page.

You will need the Team ID of the destination account to transfer apps, and the app you wish to transfer must meet the criteria set out on the page, such as disabling TestFlight before transferring.


How do I cycle through windows without bringing each to the fore? I'm from a Linux background trying to get used to the differences with Mac OS X.  I've gotten resigned to the fact that to switch from one window to another I first need to switch Apps via CMD+Tab and then windows via CMD+`.  This isn't too much of a problem as the majority of my windows are under X11 anyway.

However, there's a big annoyance with the window-switching (which, as far as I can tell, doesn't happen with the app-switching).  When cycling through the open windows, each one is brought to the fore as I cycle past it.  So if I have a dozen or so windows open in X11 and want to continually switch between two of them, it's next to impossible due to the fact that every window gets raised as I cycle between the two that I want (moreover, there's no intelligent ordering: the cycling goes on what appears to be launch-time rather than last-access-time which would be more sensible).

Is there any way to fix this so that window-cycling only raises the one that I want and not all the ones I have to step over on the way?

I don't mind if the fix is only for X11 (I'm using XQuartz, in case that's relevant, and am still on Lion).

To continually switch between two windows use Command` and, to go back to the previous window, ShiftCommand`. I tested it with XQuartz and worked as expected.

Otherwise: Can't you select the window you wish to bring to the front from XQuartz's Window menu?

Other possibility is to use Hot Corners (introduced in OS X 10.3 "Panther") to show all application windows, then choose the one you need. There are plenty of guides out there, for instance http://heresthethingblog.com/2012/02/06/mac-tip-control-desktop-hot-corners/.

Basically (in 10.7 "Lion" and later), you have to open System Preferences, select Mission Control and press the button Hot Corners... in the bottom. Then you can select a corner for action Application Windows.


Why does my home network not show up sometimes in my network listings? I'm using a MacBOok Pro, Mac 10.9.5.  It happens frequently that when I wake my Mac from hibernation or simply reboot, my home network is not automatically selected in the "Network" section in my System Preferences.  When I open the "Network Name:" drop down menu, I don't see it in there either.  However, if I click the "Turn Wi-Fi Off" and "Turn Wi-Fi On" one or multiple times, it does eventually appear and eitehr it gets automatically selected or I can select it myself.

My question is, how I can always get it to appear in my network list (assuming I am at home and my router is turned on)?  Note I am always within 15 feet of my router (LinkSys E900).

Your 10.9.5 and your Router are having problem of identity.

Your 10.9.5 can not find the correct name, or your router is not broadcasting it correctly.

So try changing the name of your Network, and make sure it is moved to the Top of the Network list and choose different Chanel.

Also you could tell the router that your MAC address belongs to trusted ones.

I would not panic but on they web site they skipped 10.9.5 (Mavericks) and call it Yosemite ?

Probably just a stupid typo :)

  Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Mac OS X 10.9 Yosemite


App to empty trash on a single drive The "Empty Trash" is a bit non-specific for me, as it empties the trash on all connected volumes.  In order to empty trash from a single drive (for instance, on a USB stick), I've been going to the terminal and using:

sudo rm -R /Volumes/<volume_name>/.Trashes

What I'd really like is some App/Finder Extension/Menulet/etc that would let me empty the trash without having to run to the terminal (and without having to supply a password).

I could wrap the bash command in an Applescript/Automator script, but supplying the volume name is troublesome.

Any ideas?  Bonus points if I can choose to "Securely Empty Trash."

I haven't tried it myself, but had this conversation with someone else who used SmartTrash. Give it a go.


Need location of image for preference pane "PREF" icon I have a stack in my Dock with aliases to my most-used preference panes. In the past, the icons that appear in the grid when I click on the stack have been the large descriptive icons shown in Finder. Since upgrading to Lion, instead, I'm getting new icons. The descriptive icon is small, surrounded by a gear, and the word PREF is under it. At a glance, it's no longer possible to tell which preference pane is which.

Finder doesn't show these large "gear/PREF" icons; the stack and QuickLook do.

Where might I find the image for this icon so I can start figuring out how to replace it? It's nowhere inside the packages for the individual preference panes, System Preferences.app, or Dock.app.

You lift the the icon of any prefpane by the "get info trick"
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2493

Also I'm seeing icons in the prefpane bundles in Contents/Resource/xxxx.icns


My OS closes down after 5 seconds of inactivity (with the alert pop-up) Since yesterday, when i'm running my computer, it shutDowns after 5 seconds of running. In order to make it work, i need to press continuously the escape key so the popUp alert  who close the computer can dismiss.

When the os is launched, if i let the computer sit without any input, the alert panel appears, and if i don't do anything, my computer shuts down after the alert panel has been shown for 2 seconds. So this is very annoying.

Strangest thing is, that it appeared the same way last year (between october and november), and it disappeared same way it appeared. I have tried to change calendar date and time, but it was unsuccessful.

My question is: What could cause this alert firing ? Can i get a way to catch the *$**%* process who send this? Of course i can re-install the OS, but that's out of the question.

I have googled it and it seems that nobody has encountered this. I'm on Lion 10.7.4 and running it on a macBookPro, but last year on snow leopard the same thing occurred. I don't think it's a virus since it should appear on lots of computers, but it seems to appear only on mine.

That window appears if you hit the power button, maybe your power button is faulty and thinks you are hitting it. This also would explain why this problem "auto-solved" itself without you doing anything (i.e. there was some dirt "triggering" the click, and it went away).


iMac will not boot with anything connected via USB I have a 24" iMac running 10.6.6 that will not boot if anything is connected to the usb ports on the back. If they are removed, it boots fine. It has been to the Genius bar once but they did not find anything wrong hardware-wise.

Try holding down the Opt key (aka Alt) when you are booting. This should give the option of choosing a boot device. If you see anything in addition to the hard disk then it is probably because one of the USB devices has a mass-storage mode. This might make the Mac try and boot off that instead of the hard disk.

You can also go to Startup Disk in System Preferences to see if anything invalid has been selected by mistake.


Multiple devices getting same text messages I am part of a company where a lot of people use iPhones/iPads.  I don't personally and never have, so I'm at a loss here and am hoping someone here can tell me.

We have a company iTunes account set up, it makes it easier when setting up iPhones and iPads to have one account set up so we don't have to buy apps multiple times and I don't have to make up an iTunes account for every single employee and remember all the information for each one.  2 people in my company I know have the same iTunes accounts on their phones, and they're both getting messages meant for the other one.  Is this because of the iTunes account being the same?  Is the iTunes account somehow tied to the text messaging capability of iPhones?

From my understanding, they will probably be getting the same iMessages due to the same iTunes account being used and being the default for iCloud.

What you could do is go to Settings > iCloud and change or create a personal iCloud account for the person.  In Settings > App and iTunes Stores, the original email you used for apps should stay there.

Or just turn off iMessage so the phones default to SMS. This can be done in Settings > Messages.


How to get postfix send mail (with Gmail smtp) under macOS Catalina? I have tried everything (I guess), such as writing my sasl_passwd and editing main.cf in the /etc/postfix folder (as described in 1).  I also copied my LaunchDaemon plist with a different name to my /Library/LaunchDaemons folder (as described in 2).

While those people managed to get postfix to send smtp Gmail messages from their terminal under Mojave and El Capitan, respectively. I haven't managed to get their solutions to work under Catalina.

Any suggestions?

Take a look at https://gist.github.com/loziju/66d3f024e102704ff5222e54a4bfd50e
Some people stated it works for them.


Default exchange calendar on iPhone (Google Sync) I am using Google Sync to connected various calendars between my Google account and my iPhone. Some of these calendars are subscribed to calendars (national holidays/sporting events etc). When I go to create a new calendar entry on my iPhone it always selects the national holidays calendar, rather than my own, is there a way of setting my own calendar to be the default?

In the calendar settings inside the settings app (Mai, Contacts, Calendars) at the bottom of that menu there is an option to set the Default Calendar. I'm thinking it's set to National Holidays at the moment so you can just change it there so all new entries should reside in the default calendar.

Hope that helps!


Add minor OS X update to existing El Capitan bootable Install USB I am aware of how to make a bootable USB from the downloaded Install.app of El Capitan.

Apple have now released an update to El Capitan: OS X 10.11.1.

Is it possible to apply this minor update to the same bootable drive so I do not have to install the update after clean installing El Capitan from the drive?

If I need to do a clean install of several Macs, I'd rather not  manually install the 10.11.1 update each time as well.

I obtained the update DMG file from Apple: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1845

When you open the DMG file, it mounts the volume which simply contains a PKG file to install the minor update.

The probably easiest solution is to simply download the latest OS X El Capitan installer after a minor update was released. Usually the newest installer available in the App Store already includes the update.

To get the build version of the OS installed by the OS X installer.app enter in Terminal.app:

cat /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Info.plist | grep -A 1 BuildMachineOSBuild

The output

15A... usually indicates a 10.11.0 build
15B... usually indicates a 10.11.1 build
15C... usually indicates a 10.11.2 build

and so on. The build version here is not identical with the build version of the later installed operating system. To get that one you have to mount the InstallESD.dmg in "/Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/SharedSupport/". Then cd to "/Volumes/OS X Install ESD" and enter "open BaseSystem.dmg".

To get the Build or System version then enter:

cat /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist | grep -A 1 ProductBuildVersion

or

cat /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist | grep -A 1 ProductVersion

With the new OS X installer you can create a new bootable USB.

Depending on your internet connection that's probably faster and less hassle/error-prone than merging an update in an older full installer.


My iphone X with latest iOS says 'Location Shared by another device' but I have no other device My iphone X with latest iOS says 'Location Shared by another device' when I open Find my Friends, but I have no other device.
I also have 2FA enabled so I'm not too worried about someone logging in as me, just curious how to go about solving it.

Once upon time, not long ago....

You shared your location with Family or with a Friend.

How to remove old friends from sharing location ?

Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.

Tap on Privacy.

Tap on Location Services.

Tap on Share My Location.

Tap the friend you would like to remove

Tap Stop Sharing Location


Disabling Thunderbolt-related kernel extensions in the SSV on Big Sur (Random Crashes 2015 Retina MacBook Pro) EDIT: Do not do this. This created a startup error that has now forced me to reinstall my OS from Internet Recovery.
I'm one of a number of MacBook Pro users unfortunately plagued by a longstanding issue apparently related to faulty power chips on the motherboard of my 2015 Retina MacBook Pro (most notably documented here as well as on a number of Macrumors threads and AD questions). It's my understanding that this issue affects the the 820-3662 and 820-3787 logic boards. For clarity's sake, I have methodically assessed and eliminated most other potential causes for the crashes, and when I initially diagnosed the problem, I went through all the typical steps including several fresh installs, EtreCheck, and an Apple hardware and software diagnostic (all unremarkable).
This problem has been reliably solved in the past by disabling several Thunderbolt-related kernel extensions on the SSV (and reportedly as well by this app, though I haven't tried it myself), which I've been doing every time I update the OS.
Probably against my better judgment, I updated to Big Sur, and after a bit of forum trawling (I am not a developer and much of this is over my head), my understanding is that Big Sur has, in the process of becoming more secure, made it much more difficult to write the SSV.
On advice from several threads and blog posts, including the following:

https://eclecticlight.co/2020/06/25/big-surs-signed-system-volume-added-security-protection/
http://disq.us/p/2ak4vda
Mount root as writable in Big Sur

I've done the following:

Boot into the Terminal in Recovery Mode (reboot holding Command-R and open Terminal under Utilities in the menu bar).
mount -uw /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD (on my Mac, I understand nomenclature can vary).
Navigate to the relevant folder with cd /Systems/Library/Extensions/
Rename the relevant kernel extensions from the suffix .kext to .kext.BAK (disabling them) with mv AppleThunderboltNHI.kext AppleThunderboltNHI.kext.BAK, for example
Repeating the above with each of the relevant kernel extensions - many users have been able to get by with just disabling the above, others have had to disable nearly all thunderbolt-related kernel extensions. Fortunately I don't actually use these functions on my MacBook. The list that I used this time comes from here and includes:

AppleThunderboltDPAdapters.kext
AppleThunderboltIP.kext
AppleThunderboltPCIAdapters.kext
AppleThunderboltEDMService.kext
AppleThunderboltUTDM.kext
and finally, the above-mentioned AppleThunderboltNHI.kext

Disabled protections with csrutil authenticated-root disable
"Blessed" the changes I've made in the snapshot I've been working with with sudo bless --folder /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot
Rebooted into normal mode.

Thus far, seems like it's working (I've had no crashes) but I'll need to use the laptop for a week or so to tell - the crashes are fairly unpredictable.
I've posted this for two purposes:

I hope that if this works, it's a useful resource for others that are less savvy, like myself.
As mentioned, this is well above my head and I'm hoping someone can check my work and make sure I haven't done anything completely egregious. For example, do I need to re-enable the systems protections that I've disabled, or does that happen automatically when I reboot into normal mode?

Thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate this community.

Kudos to naguzmans on the macrumors forums with the answer.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/help-updated-to-macos-10-12-4-mbp-randomly-shuts-off.2039446/post-29236887


Why has my iMac gotten slower for the past few months? My iMac has gotten slow lately. The (wireless) keyboard lags if I type while a program or dialog box is opening. A couple of Chrome tabs crash every day. A few days ago, Preview and TextEdit started crashing on open. Finder sometimes takes over seconds to come up when I click it in the dock. TextEdit sometimes takes ten seconds to launch, sometimes takes two.

Info dump:

I have an iMac from 2007, upgraded a year ago by a third-party vendor, currently with these specs:

Processor: 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
RAM: 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB
HD: 1 TB ATA Disk (466.76 GB free)
Backup drive (nightly 4:30 AM backups with SuperDuper): External 1 TB USB Disk (479.21 GB free)
OS: Lion

I usually concurrently use:

Adium
Google Chrome (often six to twelve tabs open)
iTunes

On top of that, I often open one to three of these apps:

Pixelmator
Photoshop
TextEdit
The Hit List
Word
The official Twitter app
Transmission

My menu items include:

Textexpander
Last.fm scrobbler
Dropbox
Flux
iStat Menus

My active Chrome extensions are:

Adblock Plus
Add Facebook Events to Google Calendar
Better Gmail
Clickable Links
Clip to Evernote
Google Calendar Checker
Google Mail Checker
Google Reader RSS Subscriber
History Calendar
Hover Zoom
Instachrome
Logitech Device Detection
Missing e
Page One
Read WSJ Extension
Reddit - display user link titles
Reddit Companion
Reddit Enhancement Suite
Search by Image (Google)
Speeddial 2
StumbleUpon
Turntable Scrobble

I have about a dozen disabled extensions.

Here's a screenshot of Activity Monitor with Chrome (three tabs), iTunes, Adium, Hit List, Activity Monitor and Word open.

The top of the computer is uncomfortably hot to the touch. I tried tracking the system temperature with iStat Menus, and it reported 50° C and lower.

What's making my computer so slow? Too many Chrome extensions? Not enough RAM? Dusty insides?

My MacBook Pro, on which I do the same work, run the same apps (though usually not iTunes) and the same Chrome extensions, behaves much faster. It has 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM and a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

Here's a few things I would try:

Do basic system maintenance (repair permissions, clean caches, run daily-weekly-monthly maintenance scripts). I like ONYX (http://bit.ly/eCzYfj) for doing this, but there are plenty of other options that do the same thing.
Make sure you have at least 20% free disk space. If not, try clean up and free some space.
If things are still slow, try creating a new user account and logging in with that. If that account runs much better you still have some cleanup to do.
Check your login items (in system preferences, User & Groups). If there are login items you don't recognize/need try disabling them.

I would also look into investing in at least a 2MB memory upgrade. Not too expensive and it looks like you could use it.

Good luck...


Сheck for duplicate photos on Apple devices Here's the thing, I have iPhone, iPad and Mac. On each device there is a bunch of photo copies. Is it possible to find and delete photos from my iOS devices that are on my Mac?

Try interPhotos app. It may work for you. But you have to download both versions for Mac and iOS


Can the Apple menu be moved to the right a substantial amount (screen failure)? My macbook pro fell and the left side of the screen is now black. So about 20% of it is not visible due to breakage. I am working around this using an external display when I can locate one, but on the go I'd like to limp along until I can afford the repair. Is there a software solution for MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014) Running macOS Sierra version 10.12 to adjust the screen resolution or placement to squeeze it without messing up proportions to the left so that it covers only the part that's not broken.

Is there a way to manually adjust resolution through underscan/overscan (which is not visible to me for my own display) or through other means?

I'm trying to push everything to the side so that it's visible (including the apple logo menu on the top left)

I tried downloading DisableMonitor but it only sticks with proportions and doesn't allow me to push the content to the right. All the resolution switches assume the whole screen is working - I need to shift the content over and not otherwise change the scale of the remaining screen.

Basically, can the window manager itself run in split screen mode with nothing critical shown in the left side split?

Try to use RDM to set whatever you like, and its free/oss, so id recommend that. Also you can take a look at QuickRes which can (probably) do the same but it's not free. There is also SwitchResX you can try if it has anything you might need.

Update: I found also this one here called resolutionator and there is a brew util I totally forgot about in cask cscreen, you can try to install it with brew brew cask install cscreen and then, for example:

cscreen -d 32 -x 1420 -y 1080 -s b42e7f0 -r 59 -f

You can also try this gist: https://gist.github.com/ejdyksen/8302862
After thinking about your issue seems to be in EDID. Also, what's your GPU in the MBP and what happens if you toggle the overscan option in pref's?

I forgot that to apply this patch you need to disable Apple's System Integrity Protection with csrutil disable from Rescue mode and then into macOS again and (re)apply the script from gist by running it with ruby: cd ~/Downloads; sudo ruby patch-edid.rb (assuming Downloads is the folder where you saved it), then reboot again.

To reenable System Integrity Protection you need to csrutil enable from terminal in Rescue mode and reboot, then check csrutil status if it's working again.

Soo.. the way I would try to solve your issue would be:

check the custom resolutions options in one of the apps above,
set a custom resolution which does not include your damaged part of the screen
enforce that custom resolution.
if the enforcement is not doable through custom system prefs:
inject custom EDID through clover during boot.
making sure that this solution is persistent after reboot

Update 07/01/2017

After some basic digging, there are native settings in macOS defaults .plist files that describe screen properties. I haven't tested it yet, but there are some interesting settings describing screens, snippet:

UnmirroredOriginX = 1920;
UnmirroredOriginY = 0;
UnmirroredResolution = 1;
UnmirroredWidth = 1920;
Width = 1920;

By editing those you can set new system defaults without too much system hacking and (maybe) macOS should apply those on logout/reboot

Remember, you have to disable SIP (see above), otherwise macOS wont' let you write changes even when using sudo

Get the Window Server defaults plist (property list)

sudo defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist
After this, defaults will list see something like this:

{
    DisplayAnyUserSets =     (
                (
                        {
                Active = 1;
                Depth = 4;
                DisplayID = XXX;
                DisplayProductID = XXX;
                DisplaySerialNumber = XXX;
                DisplayVendorID = XXX;
                ForceDeepMode = 0;
                Height = 1080;
                IOFlags = 34603015;
                LimitsHeight = 1080;
                LimitsOriginX = 0;
                LimitsOriginY = 0;
                LimitsWidth = 1920;
                MirrorID = 0;
                Mirrored = 0;
                Mode =                 {
                    BitsPerPixel = 32;
                    BitsPerSample = 8;
                    DepthFormat = 4;
                    Height = 1080;
                    IODisplayModeID = "-2147459072";
                    IOFlags = 34603015;
                    Mode = 0;
                    PixelEncoding = "--------RRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGBBBBBBBB";
                    RefreshRate = 60;
                    SamplesPerPixel = 3;
                    UsableForDesktopGUI = 1;
                    .....

Reading is possible without sudo although i'm not sure how (and if) user/admin NS differs, but the list starts with DisplayAnyUserSets.
For consistency use sudo for read/write operations.

To modify a single node:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist dot.path.PropertyName -int XXXX

-int is the type, can be float, bool, int or ... [see docs].
XXXX is a number (integer in this case).

Its basically a XML doc describing properties, before changing though - make sure to backup it, those are not User defaults but System wide defaults. Read documentation for details- man defaults.

Edit a single node, logout, see if something changes, if not- reboot.
Still nothing? Edit 3 nodes, logout/reboot again and hopefully see a change. Try editing the Orgin/Width/Height notes accordingly to skip the damaged area.

Also, add an extra Admin account in case stuff goes wrong so you can login with different default set of defaults (nice wording heh, o.O)


iMessage stopped working on Mac Recently, iMessage won't sign in on my MacBook Air (10.8.4). I opened up Messages a couple of days ago, and my iMessage account was signed out. Upon trying to sign back in, I get a message reading:

  The registering device does not have the appropriate credentials.

And login fails. Anyone else have this issue?

Follow the steps listed on this page - http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4476

If that doesn't fix your problem, try checking your Date & Time settings (Settings > Date & Time). Make sure "Set date and time automatically:" is ticked, and that your time zone is correct.


Installing from a .pkg or .mpkg file on Mac OS X Lion I have a strange problem since upgrading to Lion: Some .pkg and .mpkg files won't open the installer but instead will open the terminal, and no installation takes place.
The most recent example is the Microsoft Office 2011 Update 14.1.2.

Does anyone know of that problem?

The update did not work for me, as I had already run it. It broke after the update. I still had the problem. In Finder, I could see that the file extension icon was not the gold/tan box icon that goes with Installer. There are two ways to do this. 1) In Finder, right-click, or get to the property window, and "Open With" and navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices/Installer.app. There is a checkbox to always open with this app. -or- 2) Open Installer itself and drag the mpkg file into it. Run the installer.

Both of these should run, and also change the mpkg icon in your Finder.


How does Spotify or Deezer download and store music for offline use on iOS? Which component or method do they use to store it? Is there any easier way to store music offline?
How can I store those sounds locally so I can use it for offline use?
How can I take a song from youtube and store it on phone locally so it can be used for offline use? I just need a method or steps to do it not the whole code...Thank you cheers

Afaik in terms of storage, apps only have access to their sandboxed container. Spotify stores offline music in in an encrypted format that isn't usable by other programs.


Is it possible to reinstall MacBook firmware? iOS devices have DFU mode, which enable one to completely reinstall the firmware and operating system.

Do MacBook devices have something similar? Is the firmware automatically reinstalled upon an OS reinstallation?

Do MacBook devices have something [firmware] similar?

Yes.  It's call the EFI or Extensible Firmware Interface

  Is it possible to reinstall MacBook firmware?

Yes.  See this post:  Where is the EFI stored on the macbook and is it possible to restore a previous EFI firmware version?

  Is the firmware automatically reinstalled upon an OS reinstallation?

Not necessarily.  The EFI is upgraded only if it needs to be upgraded.  This can happen as part of a normal update process or it can happen as part of a macOS installation.

From Apple Support:

  Most firmware updates are automatically installed when you update or
  upgrade OS X. Some firmware updates are also available as downloads
  you can install manually. If your Mac needs a firmware update and it
  isn't installed automatically, check to see if a manual updater is
  listed below.

For the record - upgrade is defined as going from one version of macOS/OS X to the next one up.

It also goes on to state (which they highlight) the following:

  If you don't see a firmware version listed in this article, it means
  that either a firmware update is only available as an automatic
  update, or no firmware update is needed.


What is the best way to deal with a large iPhoto library? I just migrated from Wndows and imported all my pictures from my external hard drive into iPhoto. I have around 100GB of photos. I wanted to see if this is going to scale or if there is a way I should organize this (multiple libraries) to deal with the large amount of pics and videos? I basically have a few questions:

How well does iPhoto scale with large libraries?
What is the recommended action to take when an iPhoto library is getting very large: split the library, upgrade to a different app, etc.?

The weight of data (in gigs) doesn't really matter with iPhoto. That's just file storage. If you have a large HD with plenty of free space (30%+ and never less than 10%), it really doesn't matter.

iPhoto used to be rated for 250,000 items in the library, but in the most recent update it has the same format as Aperture, and that is effectively unlimited.

As to how well iPhoto scales: pretty well. I have a 40k plus library that opens in a couple of seconds. I've worked on Libraries in excess of 100k items and while longer to launch (one was almost a minute) it worked fine once open.

You can easily have multiple libraries:

Hold down Option while launching iPhoto, and from the resulting menu select Create Library. Bear in mind that only one can be opened/ searched/ accessed at a time. Again, unless you're getting very large indeed, I would avoid them.

Upgrading to Aperture is simple. Install it. Open the Library. Done.


How to stop OS X 10.11.6 (El Capitan) from using keychain I really despise the keychain "feature" in OS X. I do not want my computer or my browser to know my passwords.

How do I stop keychain from being active completely?

Everything I've looked at discusses how to change your password or make it more accessible, but I want to disable this altogether.

You can remove all passwords stored in Keychain via menu File -> Delete Keychain "login". This will create a 'fresh' keychain; you only have to remember not to store any new passwords in it when the system asks for it.

For Safari, open its Preferences and go to the Passwords tab. Uncheck the 'AutoFill user names and passwords' option:


Python on High Sierra "No Java runtime present, requesting install" I have python code that works just fine in multiple other places and "used" to work on my mac, but now when I try to run my code as:

python <pythonfile>.py

I get an error which says:
No Java runtime present, requesting install.

I have tried all of the fixes on SO and installed the latest Java JDK.  The only thing I haven't done is reboot as I'm right in the middle of a lot of things.

Any ideas?

Java JDK

java version "11.0.2" 2018-10-16 LTS
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 18.9 (build 11.0.2+7-LTS)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 18.9 (build 11.0.2+7-LTS, mixed mode)

Python

mbp-1056:site-packages$ python --version
Python 2.7.10
mbp-1056:site-packages$ type -p python
/usr/bin/python

Code

import time
import json

from confluent_kafka import Producer
from hl7_to_dict import hl7_str_to_dict

#Set up my producer
p = Producer({'streams.producer.default.stream': '/demos/hl7demo/hl7stream'})

str_msg=''
with open("hl7_records_random.txt") as f:
    for line in f:
        if line!='\n':
            str_msg=str_msg+line
        else:
            #print(str_msg)
            d = hl7_str_to_dict(str_msg)
            print json.dumps(d)
            print ("\n\n")
            json_hl7 = json.dumps(d)

            p.produce('allMessages', json_hl7)
            p.produce('adt_topic', json_hl7)
            # Or - just do a json.dumps(your_json) instead of str_msg
            p.flush()
            str_msg=''
            time.sleep(5)

After much pain and anquish, here is what you have to do:

You can either following the instructions here:
Stack Overflow Answer

Or you can follow the instructions here: Oliver Dowling Shoutout

In short, you have to
edit /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_45.jdk/Contents/Info.plist (or your equivalent jdk path, only the version will be different) and change:

<key>JVMCapabilities</key>
<array>
    <string>CommandLine</string>
</array>

To:

<key>JVMCapabilities</key>
<array>
    <string>CommandLine</string>
    <string>JNI</string>
    <string>BundledApp</string>
</array>

Then you have to add this symbolic link:

sudo mkdir -p /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home/bundle/Libraries

sudo ln -s /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/server/libjvm.dylib /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home/bundle/Libraries/libserver.dylib

Post comment if you have an issues!


External hard drives do not spin down and overheat I have three Newertech Ministack external HDD enclosures attached to my Mac mini Server. The drives inside are continuously overheating, since they do not spin down properly when inactive, while the Ministack's turns off.

Setting is as follows:

Mac Mini - USB2 - Ministack V3 + 2TB HGST Ultrastar
Mac Mini - USB3 - Ministack 2012 + 4TB Seagate Enterprise Capacity
Mac Mini - USB3 - Ministack 2012 + 3TB Seagate Enterprise Capacity

Both Seagate HDDs do not spin down properly.

The strange thing is that they appear to spin down, while the Ministack V3 is still working. But when the Ministack V3 goes into standby, both Seagate Drives start spinning, while the Ministack 2012's fan remains off.

I found out, that when in standby, when SMART is queried, only the drives turn on and later do not spin down.

I had 2 disks dying this summer and try to figure out how to improve the setting.

This is why I have the following programs installed:

iStat
DiskWarrior
Drive Genius
DriveDX + SAT SMART Driver v0.8

In order to eliminate SMART from the equation I turned off HDD monitoring in iStat, eliminated external HDD monitoring in Drive Genius and set DriveDx to 8 hours testing.

Can someone help?

After studying my problem further, I identified the Newertech Ministack 2012 as the cause of my problem. I had to deactivate Drive Genius' DrivePulse, since this program apparently keeps external drives from going into standby. After doing this and switching Newertech USB3 cables for generic USB2 cables, the drives go into standby, but after resuming from standby the fans remain off. This happens in multiple enclosures. It might be a production problem.


How can I get an alphabetized list of Albums in Apple Music on iOS? In Apple Music on iOS I'm trying to sort the albums in My Music alphabetically. It seems really intent on sorting by Artist and either making the Album name or the Artist's name more prominent on the list.

I chose sort by album, expecting it to be an alphabetized list of albums, but it's still alphabetized by artist and now the title of the album is prominent.
Now I'm sorting by artist, so artist is prominent, and the albums are less so.

Settings---> Music----> Library---->Sort Album----> By Title


What is the best way to backup epub and pdf books in iBooks? If you are going to format your computer, and you are running OSX 10.10 or newer, what is the best way to backup epubs and pdfs that weren't purchased from the iTunes store?

I have a lot of books, exporting them one by one could take a long time.
I'd ideally like to preserve highlighting and bookmarks.

Google unfortunately returns surprisingly little information on how to backup ibooks.

Your books and book metadata are stored in…

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books

Backup this entire directory to backup all your books.


How do I reset my iCloud credentials after entering an incorrect email address? While setting my new iPhone up I put in the incorrect e-mail by missing one letter. Now I can't get in to do anything! It won't let me reset as the email is wrong and it doesn't recognize my password.

You seem to be in quite a pickle. Since the email address is either invalid or does not belong to you, you probably want to call Apple to sort this out. If you have not used the account for anything. you could just set up as usual, but I'm guessing you already started using that account.

Go to Apple ID Support for more info.


Word 2011 for Mac: keyboard shortcut for turning balloons on/off in review mode Does anybody know if I can create a keyboard shortcut to toggle "Use balloons to display changes"?

Also, is there a webpage where one can vote for features for the next Word release? I want to have the option to show only comments in balloons and not deleted text that existed in previous versions back.

Thanks

There is not one. But you're in luck, because you can assign one using Tools -> Customize Keyboard. See the example below.


Can not select Airplay Device in OSX When I click on my Airplay speaker in Sound settings, it jumps back.
I have to restart my Mac in order to fix this problem.

How can I fix this issue without restarting my Mac?

There is command line solution that I've found in Mac Rumors

sudo kill `ps -ax | grep 'coreaudiod' | grep 'sbin' |awk '{print $1}'`

Which can assigned to an alias:

alias fixairplay="sudo kill `ps -ax | grep 'coreaudiod' | grep 'sbin' |awk '{print $1}'`"

Then this command fixes the issue:

fixairplay


Temporarily show location of mouse pointer (without having to move the mouse)? I have to work with both Windows 10 and MacOS (Big Sur) daily. I have the "Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key" option enabled in Windows. This option is extremely helpful when locating the mouse cursor since it doesn't necessitate having to move the mouse; simply tapping the CTRL key causes radiating circles to briefly appear around the cursor.
I've been unsuccessful in finding a similar feature for MacOS. Mouse Pointer Locator and
Is there a way to temporarily enlarge the mouse pointer like Apple's "Shake to find" does? represent similar requests; the recommended solutions, however, don't seem to provide the feature I describe.
MacOS's built-in 'Shake mouse pointer to locate' (and the Magic Trackpad equivalent) is too disruptive. And many of the suggested apps require toggling into a mode to make the mouse cursor look differently and then toggling out of that mode to return the cursor to the original appearance; again, that's too disruptive. I simply want to press a hotkey to temporarily show the location of the mouse pointer (without having to move the mouse).
Hoping someone can relate ... and can offer a solution. Thanks!

Unfortunately I'm unaware of any free options aside from wiggling the mouse, but check out https://apps.apple.com/us/app/simple-mouse-locator/id946676425?mt=12 - it seems to be exactly what you're looking for.


Xcode update for 10.6.8 I would like to use a newer version of Xcode (current version on my system is 3.2.4) and the command line tools (gcc & make).

I have tried to install Xcode through the Mac App Store, however I am prompted that my OS X version is too old. I then tried to download the respective tools and Xcode from developer.apple.com but all the provided packages are not suited for my system.

So my question basically boils down to

Is there a way to update Xcode so that I might use gcc & make?
If not, is there a free way to upgrade my OS so that I could use the Xcode that is provided on app store?

Confirming couple of points

You are running OSX 10.6.8
Current Xcode version in your machine is 3.2.4

Xcode 4.2 should work fine on your machine.
I have a snowleopard machine at office running Xcode 4.2, i updated it via the Mac App store only. Ok. If this is not working via Mac App store, then go to your developer account (free or paid) and then download the Xcode version for Snow Leopard and install it manually. Just make sure you are downloading the Snow Leopard edition not the Lion edition. Please don't hesitate to ask for assistance :-)

Edit : Here i am attaching a snapshot of where to find the link . You need to scroll down and check in the Downloads section.


I have an encrypted disk. How do I customize the Guest shell that is offered when I boot? I have an encrypted disk and when I boot I'm offered the ability to log in as a guest and get a Safari only shell.  This appears to be different from the guest account that is offered in the login screen on most non encrypted macs

I'd like to add additional things to that account that will assist me in recovering the laptop in case it is lost or stolen.

How can I customize this safari only guest account?

You can't in a reasonable way. The OS X native guest account is wiped after each use. You may be better off using a separate user account and limiting that using parental-controls.
Keep in mind that this will require that user to be able to decrypt the hard drive with their password. So this can only be of benefit if your laptop is stolen while in sleep mode (where the decryption password is already in RAM).

Your best bet is enabling “Find my Mac” which will activate if the guest connects to the Internet (source).


Unable to format Mac internal drive (disk0) I have an macbook air late 2008 running osx El capitan and I wanted to erase my driver and reinstall the macos. So first i booted into recovery mode and tried formating my hard dive in disk utility but then I got an error
"MediaKit reports not enough space on device for requested operation" then again I tried the same thing for 3 times and it still showed me the same error. Then I tried formating the drive in terminal but I still get the same error. I tried searching the net and found solutions only for external drive and found no solution for a internal one. So pls tell me a solution to erase and reinstall the os in my mac.

Note: I am trying to reinstall the OS on the primary internal disk that is disk0.

You need to boot from another disk and run disk utility and install from that drive.

You cannot boot from a disk that you want to erase or partition or re-install the system on.


How do I find the Activity App on my iPhone? I have just got an Apple Watch, and have adjusted my calorie and stand up goal and received some achievements from my Watch.

When the Activity app is open from my watch, I can open the Activity app via Handoff, but when I search the app from Spotlight, I can't find it. I went through all of my apps in my home screens, I can't find it anywhere.

How do I open the Activity app on my phone without Handoff?

This morning, I updated to iOS 8.3 and the Activity app now appears on the last page of the home screen.

So I would try to either update to iOS 8.3 or restart the phone if you're having this problem.


Early 2011 MacBook Pro Memory Upgrade - What are the SO-DIMM memory specs? What are the exact specs when shopping for early 2011 MacBook Pro SO-DIMM memory? I'll be uprading to the maximum of 8GB.

According to Apple Support:

  Double Data Rate Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Module (DDR3) format
  67.6mm x 30mm (1.18 inch)
  2 GB or 4 GB
  204-pin
  PC3-10600 DDR3 1333 MHz type RAM

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1270


Running iOS apps on Apple Silicon leads to permission error I am about to travel and wanted to try to fetch the Netflix app from my phone, following this tutorial. When I try to launch an app, I get the error "You do not have permission to open the application ___. Contact your computer or network administrator for assistance":

I tried several existing workarounds for the same message (eg. sudo chmod -R 755 on the executable), to no avail. Has someone managed to work around this before?

Turns out this is a limitation of Apple Configurator 2. When exporting apps using iMazing, apps launch without an issue.


I want to change the sound of outgoing mail on my Macbook but I seem not have permissions and have yet to find a work around, any ideas? 2015 macbook Pro on Catalina 10.15.7
I was hoping the simple fix here was all I needed to do: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3239319
But it doesn't work. It seems I am unable to edit anything into the Systems folder on my Macbook's HD. I have attempted several ways of granted myself permissions but none have worked.
I Googled what to do to add permission to perform this action:
https://support.apple.com/guide/directory-utility/change-privileges-diru49b04765/mac
With this method, when I add my own username to the list and save it, then go back to check if it's still there, it's gone. It seems like it requires a domain input and not my username, so maybe that's not the right route...
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/permission-files-a-mac-disk-mchlp1204/mac
Here, 'the “Ignore ownership on this volume” checkbox' does not appear for me. Maybe there is another place I can find it?
After both of these routes ended in dead ends for me I'm not sure what to try next. Anyone have an idea? I'm assuming someone has done this before, shouldn't be that hard, right?...
Edit1:
This is the message I get when I try to give myself permissions to add sound files to the HD:

The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have the necessary permission.

I used the terminal command "csrutil disable" from this YouTube video but it did not help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8L6l068q-s
Edit2:
I'm trying to add my username to the list of permissions in the "Sharing and Permissions" section of the "Get Info" window but it also gives me the message above^. First Aid on the the disks also did not work....

Catalina and later have a read-only System volume filesystem layout. Mail.app resides on that volume (at /System/Applications/Mail.app). You will need to remount the System volume as read-write in order to modify Mail's bundle.
EDIT:
To elaborate, here are the steps:

Reboot into the Recovery OS (hold CommandR during boot).
In the Recovery OS, open Terminal (Utilities -> Terminal).
In Terminal, run: csrutil disable
Reboot into Single User Mode (hold CommandS during boot).
Remount the root directory as read-write: /sbin/mount -o rw /
Make your modification to Mail.app (e.g., cd /System/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/Resources && mv "Mail Sent.aiff" "Mail Sent-ORIGINAL.aiff" && cp /path/to/YOUR_NEW_SOUND.aiff "Mail Sent.aiff" && chown root:wheel "Mail Sent.aiff" && chmod 644 "Mail Sent.aiff")
Reboot: reboot

Replace /path/to/YOUR_NEW_SOUND.aiff with the actual path to your desired AIFF file.


Fusion drive only shows the SSD partition Ok, I am at my wit's end.  Last week after 10.13.3 failed to install twice, my late 2014 5K Retina iMac became painfully slow.  Eventually it just bricked.  I tried to restore from Time Capsule over ethernet but it would get to around 28% and slow to a crawl.  Like 200 hours crawl.

After numerous attempts at this I bailed and tried reinstalling the OS.  No dice there, it would just stall at the startup screen.

Next I installed macOS to an external drive and then using SuperDuper tried cloning it back to the iMac.  This worked and I ran Migration Assistant which looked promising but again, stalled around 1/3 through.

Canceled that and now when I go into Disk Utility I see this for the internal drive:

APPLE SSD SD0128F Media (Solid State) 121GB
Macintosh HD (CoreStorage Logical Volume) 120GB

The Fusion drive is supposed to be 3.11TB, I seem to have lost almost all my storage space.

I suspect this is why all my efforts to restore have failed, it gets to the new available capacity of 120GB or 240GB and doesn't know what to do.

I have not been able to find a solution to reclaiming the 3.11TB and recreating the Fusion drive, am I out of luck here and just need to bite the bullet and go to an Apple Store?

Much appreciated.

I had the very same issue encountered with a iMac that has 1Tb Fusion drive.  22Gb was reported as SSD and then the rest of 1Tb of the drive.  After digging deeper into this problem, I noticed that the iMac Fusion drive was improperly configured and that I had to reformat it and create a Logical Volume, then configure the Fusion Drive to Apple Spec.

I found this article that helped me a bit, but I had to do a little improvising to get this procedure to work.

https://www.lifewire.com/setting-up-fusion-drive-mac-2260165


What is the difference between "all unplayed" and "all new" podcasts? When configuring the syncing of podcasts between iTunes and a device, it's possible to automatically sync "all unplayed" and "all new" podcasts.

It's not clear to me what the difference is between unplayed and new podcasts. An Apple Support Communities post explains it as follows:

  Unplayed podcasts, are those that have previously been synced to your iPod, but have yet to be played while new podcasts are those that have been synced to your iPod for the first time.

If this is the case, what's the difference in sync behavior between the "all unplayed" and "all new" settings?

If you have three podcasts as follows:

A - downloaded, synced and played
B - downloaded, synced and not played
C - newly downloaded, never synced, and not played

When choosing "all unplayed", podcasts B & C will by synced. A will be removed from the iDevice

When choosing "all new", only C will be synced.  A & B will be removed from the iDevice


Dual monitor for 2.2GHz MacBook Pro (MD318LL/A) Late 2011 MBP I was wondering is it possible to have 2 external 1080P monitors attached to my MBP?

My machine have a Thunderbolt port.

The monitors have HDMI, VGA, and DVI. (No thunderbolt display port sadly.)

Is it possible to connect 2 external monitors to the MBP without using an USB video card? I am okay with using the MBP in clamshell mode. On this stackexchange there are methods that involves Thunderbolt -> 2 DVI/HDMI adapter, would this allow me to have 2 separate desktops?

Thanks

Never tried with Thunderbolt splitting, but regularly run with multiple monitors. Using other methods.

Assume you meant to ad this link to question?

How to connect two non-Thunderbolt displays to the Macbook Pro 2011 via Thunderbolt?

From Documentation looks like your Mac only has one Thunderbolt port that also doubles as the display out.   Officially it supports 2 Displays per Thunderbolt port

Nothing that I can see in Apple Store but Found something that should work.   Note I do not have personal experience with this product.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zotac-ZT-MDP2HD-Mini-Dual-Cable/dp/B005FSHHHG/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1349690750&sr=1-1


Does Power Nap allow an Apple TV to access media on a sleeping Mac? Do I have to wake up a Power Nap enabled Mac to stream media off of it or can I leave it sleeping?

This seems to work on my AppleTV 2 and MacBook Air.

Last night I turned on the AppleTV to browse my main library on a Mac Mini and the MacBook Air library showed up as well, even though the lid was closed and the computer was asleep.

I have not experimented enough to know if this works with the power adapter unplugged.

This was a very pleasant, but apparently undocumented, feature to discover. Perhaps it arrived in the most recent AppleTV update.


How can I mark a contact as unable to receive text messages? A few of my contacts have mobile phones that do not send or receive text messages.  I'd like to prevent my iPhone (4S) from including those numbers as options for messaging.  How can I do that?

Change their type of phone to something that is not "mobile" or "iPhone". You can create a new type of phone if you want and name it something like "nosms".


Mojave 10.14 Mouse Hover Suddenly Not Working Today the mouse hovering functionality on my Mac simply stopped working. Moving my mouse to the dock causes one icon to enlarge, but then sliding left and right does not cause the others to enlarge.

In menus I can click on a menu, but then the menu items don't light up as I pull down.  I can click on a submenu to see it but I don't see it on hover.

This behavior happens with both my Logitech mouse and my Apple Trackpad.

This behavior came out of nowhere, I restarted my Mac but it did not help.

Hover is something that comes out of the gesture recognition engine on macOS so it's more complicated than simply the cursor is now over a link. It matters if more than one finger (multitouch) is detected and it also needs a stable input.

One rare cause of this is flakey USB that causes a (possibly invisible) shake to the input - this is filtered out, so you might not see it.

The leading cause of this is when there are more than one device connected. For Macs with a trackpad, if there is motion detected on the build in trackpad, the external device may be demoted to "secondary device"

I learned this when the same issue plagued me for a few days. The cause and solution was similar as well - little did I know, the USB-C dock I had my Mac plugged into at work also had a USB mouse plugged into it, hidden behind the monitors. As soon as I unplugged that mouse, the issue immediately went away.
If anyone is having this issue, try seeing if there is a mouse or wireless mouse dongle plugged in that you might have forgotten about. Also, the act of disconnecting a USB device or Bluetooth device and re-connecting it (which is a different / quicker step than unpairing and pairing) that also seems to cure when a hover motion doesn't get detected.


disable iPhone full screen video I'm trying to watch a web presentation (passworded, can't provide a live link) arranged like this:

When I view the site on an iPhone, Safari "helpfully" zooms the video to full screen, covering the rest of the page (which I want to see).

I tried the pinch gesture, but whenever I do that, the page interprets the touch as a pause click. Then when I hit play again, the video zooms back to full screen. Repeat ad nauseam.

Is there a way to disable the video zoom feature entirely? Alternately, is there a 3rd party browser that doesn't have the video zoom feature?

I have not found a way to disable video zoom.

Puffin browser does not have video zoom and can be used as an alternative.

Link to app.

Example:

Notice how the video is not in full screen.


Installing cURL from Macports fails I'm trying to install libusb-devel using Macports on a friend's Mac (we need it in order to install Osceleton). On my computer, the installation went perfectly well, but I'm stuck while installing it on his.

One of the dependencies of libusb-devel is curl. However, installing curl seems to fail. During the configuration of curl, an error message is shown and the installation quits. I'm referred to the log, where this is the relevant part for the error:

:info:configure configure: found both libz and libz.h header
:info:configure checking for "/dev/urandom"... configure: error: cannot check for file existence when cross compiling
:info:configure shell command " cd "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_net_curl/work/curl-7.21.4-ppc" && ./configure --prefix=/opt/local --disable-dependency-tracking --disable-dependency-tracking --enable-ipv6 --without-gnutls --without-gssapi --without-librtmp --without-libssh2 --without-nss --without-polarssl --without-spnego --with-ssl --disable-ares --disable-ldap --disable-ldaps --with-libidn --with-zlib=/opt/local --disable-dependency-tracking --with-ca-bundle=/opt/local/share/curl/curl-ca-bundle.crt --host=powerpc-apple-darwin10.7.0 " returned error 1
:error:configure Target org.macports.configure returned: configure failure: shell command failed (see log for details)
:debug:configure Backtrace: configure failure: shell command failed (see log for details)
    while executing
"$procedure $targetname"
:info:configure Warning: the following items did not execute (for curl): org.macports.destroot org.macports.configure org.macports.build
:notice:configure Log for curl is at: /opt/local/var/macports/logs/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_net_curl/main.log

If I run the configure-script myself, using the command given in the log, all goes well and curl is perfectly installed. However, Macports is not happy with this, because I get errors telling me that certain files already exist etc. Also, installing curl directly using Macports seems to give trouble.

Because of this, I can't continue the installation of libusb-devel, and we need it quite soon for a school project. Can anyone help?

TIA

EDIT: the entire logfile can be found here: http://pastebin.com/2XAMHv5M . He's running Mac OS X 10.6.6.

The issue is that you are trying to compile for the ppc architecture thus the error in cross-compiling.

Did you upgrade to Snow Leopard leaving macports on - the only way to upgrade macports across operating systems is to reinstall.

Otherwise did you choose the correct dmg to install from - it is OS dependant.

Otherwise you need to look at /opt/local/etc/macports/macports.conf and see what build_arch is set to. The default (or not set) on a new Snow Leopard macports install is 32 or 64 bit Intel code depending on the CPU you have.


Identifying an iPad/iPhone by Model Number The model number of an iPad/iPhone can be determined by going to:

Settings app → General → About → Model Number

How to use this value (the one in ML2I2KN/A format) to determine the device type? It is an official model identifier from Apple, but how can one use it to identify their device? I didn't find any service of the kind at Apple's website.

If you tap on Model Number it will show another value - in format like A1652, and this value can help to find a general model at Identify your iPad model page (or similar for iPhone), but unlike ML2I2KN/A it cannot be used to determine color and storage capacity of the device.

There is 3-rd party service Everyi, but quite often it doesn't find anything. For example, searching for ML2I2KN/A gives nothing (I know it's iPad Pro 12.9 from 2015, but that's not the point).

Simply googling this value will highly likely result in some store's website with the correct item specification, and there is also this wiki page with quite an impressive table of models.

But is there any  Apple official resource for this purpose?

You can check this site, some products can be found here. Hover mouse over the model, capacity and color will be displayed like this. It seems that Apple only wants to distribute this information within the company, there is no more public information.
 http://salesdownload.apple.com/public/sites/asw/common/compliance/Other_iPad.htm


What SIP voip client for OS X I could use? I'm looking for a, preferably free, SIP client for OS X, one that will allow multiple SIP accounts and preferably supporting g729 audio codec.

I prefer Telephone App over most the other VOIP clients I have come accross.


MacBook discharging while plugged in under load I have the latest Retina MacBook Pro MacBookPro11,2

I quite often have the CPU at about 400%-500% usage (e.g. 4-5 cores at 100%) and also do GPU intensive tasks. While this is happening, the battery can actually discharge even though it is plugged in. This has happened since I first got the MacBook and is not something which has developed over time.

I have the model without a dedicated GPU (Intel Iris Pro only), and I have an 85 watt power supply which came with the MacBook

This is very irritating for me, is this a fault or normal behaviour?

It is a known problem: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3069428
Someone has calculated the max wattage draw of a MBPr, but I can't find that a.t.m.


How can I "Quick Look" (result of pressing Space Bar in Finder) a filename printed by "ls" in iTerm2? Simple question: is it possible to get the "Quick Look" of images and text files by clicking the results of ls in an iTerm2 window?

Can't find any relevant documentation anywhere, and this does not seem to work Terminal, but this is possible.

On my machine (macOS Sierra), I can triple-click a filename or folder after calling ls in iTerm2, and the Quick Look window pops up. Very neat!


Proper shebang line for running perl script with an AppleScript on a perlbrew install? I have the following simple AppleScript which calls a perl script I wrote to clean the desktop:

do shell script "/Users/stevied/bin/clean_desktop.pl"

The script works fine when run from the command line, but when executing the script from my AppleScript, the modules I use aren't found and I get this error:

  Can't locate Modern/Perl.pm in @INC (you may need to install the
  Modern::Perl module) (@INC contains:
  /Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.18
  /Network/Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level
  /Network/Library/Perl/5.18 /Library/Perl/Updates/5.18.2
  /System/Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level
  /System/Library/Perl/5.18
  /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level
  /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.18 .) at
  /Users/stevied/bin/clean_desktop.pl line 3. BEGIN failed--compilation
  aborted at /Users/stevied/bin/clean_desktop.pl line 3.

I have perlbrew installed. The current shebang line for the perl script is:

#! /usr/bin/env perl

See first comment here for answer: http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=1191380


Is it possible that some hacker is logged in to my computer? When I type w at the terminal I see myself logged in two times.

What are console and s000? Is it possible that one of these neos is actually somebody else?

Nope. Both of those are you.

console is where you've logged in (likely on startup), and the GUI started up.

s000 is the first shell you opened, the Terminal window itself. If you look at the WHAT column, it shows the last command run in that shell (w), which you just did.

So it's the same user (you), logged into two sessions, one for the OS X GUI, and once in that shell in the Terminal window.


Get disk temperature in terminal Is there a command I can use just to get the hard disk temperature in the terminal?

Is this possible without a third party app?

Without add on software there is no command to get the disk temperature, after:

$ brew install smartmontools

One can run the command:

$ smartctl -a disk0 | grep Temperature

To retrieve de disk temperature, like:

194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   044   044   000    Old_age   Always       -       56 (Min/Max 17/70)


iTerm new window starts minimized? For some reason, whenever I start iTerm or press CMD+N, it starts small in the top left corner, but instantly minimizes to my dock

Is there a config that could be causing this?

Where should I look for commands that execute on iTerm start? Thinking maybe one of my coworkers pranked me??

Thanks

Try this:

In Preferences under Profiles, select the default profile.
In the Window tab in the "Settings for New Window" section, uncheck "Hide after opening."


Mavericks Server Open Directory behind AirPort Extreme I had a PPPoE dial up connection that returns the same IP, and a domain name that is registered to that IP.

Now I had an AirPort extreme at that IP address, and I've setup DMZ to my Mavericks server so that all incoming traffic should go to that server.

When I setup Open Directory, it responds that none of that known name can be resolved to my server.

I can't provide any logs for the process, if anyone can point me to a directory, it will be very helpful.

Open Directory insists that the host name it lives on resolves to that host for both "forward" (e.g. normal) DNS lookups and "reverse" (e.g. PTR record) lookups. If this is not the case, it will insist that the "problem" be fixed or that the host name be changed to one that meets both these criteria.

In many cases, the simplest way to make that happen is to also turn on the DNS service and populate it with the appropriate zones and host entries for your LAN. Of course, you also have to configure your server and your client machines to point to your new name server, and the DNS service to forward requests to your ISP's name servers, etc.

This sounds tricky and error-prone, but so long as you make all the client changes in a new Location in System Preferences > Network it's really not bad.

An alternative approach would be to set the Open Directory server's host name to whatever.local… (At least, I think that is allowed.) I don't really recommend this route, though, unless you only want machines to be able to bind to the directory when they're on your LAN.


Delayed Voicemail Notification Country: USA
Carrier: AT&T
iPhone: Xs
iOS Version: 12.4

I’m wondering if this is more carrier-related than phone-related, but on occasion I won’t have a Voicemail notification show up until hours after I miss a call.  This seems to be random as it doesn’t happen for every missed call and doesn’t seem to be exclusive to calls I send to Voicemail or actually miss.

Is there a way to “refresh” my available Voicemail list (as the normal pull down to refresh motion doesn’t seem to work) manually?  Has anyone else run into this behavior (and more importantly, fixed it)?

You would want to update to iOS 12.4.1. It is likely the carrier has a "carrier update" that needs to be applied. You can also try Reset Network Settings to completely rule out the device. After trying these, I would say refer to the carrier.


Installing Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on Mountain Lion I'm working on a MacBook late 2008 Unibody Aluminium with Mountain Lion on.
I'm trying to mount Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64 bit on a USB stick in Mountain Lion but it seems impossible.

I've read all the documentation on how to install it on the Ubuntu
site with all the command lines etc., but it's not working. I get errors like "No mountable file detected" when trying to open the .iso file.

I'm specifically looking to have an OS that doesn't make high frequency noises. Has anyone been able to install 12.04 LTS Ubuntu on their Mac (with Mountain Lion)?

This can be achieved using Linux USB Creator For Mac.

Instructions:

First just select the linux distribution you want to use. You can either select from the list or browse for a Local ISO file to use.
After choosing Ubuntu you can browse for your USB device.
The program will then download the ISO, Format the disk, Copy the ISO and Install the Bootloader.
Your USB Drive is now ready to use. Simply boot up your mac while holding the “alt” key and select the drive.

A YouTube video is also included & can be viewed from the above link to complement.

Please note: This program hasn't been updated since the introduction of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.


Budget eGPUs for Mac Mini? I thought it sounded quite cool that you can connect an eGPU to a Mac Mini to boost it's performance, but had no idea just how expensive those things are!
Here is one I found recommended on a YouTube video, almost £800:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/EVGA-08G-P4-2182-KR-GDDR6-GeForce-Graphics/dp/B07GQTRH9W
I've tried looking for alternatives but struggle to find any... are there just not that many eGPUs out there or something?
It would be good if I could find one for around £200–£300 — I would mainly be using it for the likes of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and After Effects... maybe some 3D software too. I'm not after anything too hardcore, just something to improve on what I already have.
Are those really unrealistic expectations price-wise?

You already have a 'budget' GPU inside the Mini. I would expect the Intel integrated unit to be more than capable of your workload.
There is a danger that you spend a lot of money on a GPU and not notice any performance benefit.
You can always check Activity Monitor to see if your GPU is being 'overloaded' by your work, using the GPU History panel. It's worth checking to see whether any lack of performance is caused by the GPU, or whether it's just shonky Adobe code.


App for playing multiple tracks from different sources simultaneously I have a 6 generation iPod touch and am looking for a specific app.

I want to be able to play some track in the background, let's say song A, and then not only that it'll keep playing when I minimize the app - I also need it to keep playing while I play different tracks on the Music app, for example.

Song A (from the app I'm looking for) and Song B (from my iPod's music) should be playing simultaneously.

Is that even possible on iOS?

Audio playback is handled as a background task in iOS. Only one app is allowed to playback background audio in iOS at a time.

Music playing apps usually programmed to continue playback even when in background (i.e. while you are using some other app, such as Safari). As you are looking to play music via two different apps, it will not be possible if both of them are programmed to support background audio playback mode.

However, when one of the apps plays back music while not supporting background mode (such as a game app), it will be possible to playback music simultaneously from two apps, i.e. one supporting playback in background while the other is frontmost.


How do I get a bottom to top build in animation with Keynote? I am writing a slide with Maslow's Hierarchy on it, and I want to build in from bottom to top.  How do I change the animation order or otherwise make it build in from the bottom of the pyramid, on the bottom of the page, to the top of the pyramid, on the top of the page.

I know how to do it in PowerPoint or use LibreOffice but the inspector won't let me break apart the build in ordering.

If each section of the pyramid is a separate object then this shouldn't be too difficult to do via the inspector. All you need to do is select each object one at a time and add an entrance effect to it. Then in the animation tab of the inspector you can click on "More Options" (in the same place that the "Close Drawer" button is in the screenshot below)  and a drawer will slide out that allows you to change the sequence of animations (by dragging and dropping). Here's a screenshot of a simple sequence involving three objects.

It is also possible to control the animation of text boxes in a similar fashion (since they can be selected as individual objects). Additionally one can also set bulleted text to come in one bullet at a time with the following settings:

So instead of setting the "Delivery" occur "All at Once," change it to "By Paragraph."