Change user ID for iCloud on iPhone I am needing to change my apple ID on my iPhone for my iCloud account as it has restored with the incorrect user ID BUT i don't know the password for this user id so it just keeps telling me it's incorrect. What do i do??

You can go to iForgot to reset your Apple ID password by either email verification or by answering the security questions you set when you created the account.


Switching wifi networks from an iphone I wonder if there's an App which helps me to easily switch to another wifi network without going through the "settings" screens of my iPhone. Nowadays more and more cars provide their own wifi network which you have to login to to give commands to the car. So an easy temporary switch to the car's network would be great.

Without a jailbreak this is not possible because Apple doesn't allow this kind of feature on the App Store.


How can I replicate Windows End/Home key? How can I replicate Windows Home/End keys to use to jump to the end of a line or use Shift to highlight to the end or start of a line

I used the following a lot.

⌘CMD+ꜛ: Home

⌘CMD+↓: End

⌘CMD+←: Beginning of Line

⌘CMD+→: End of Line

These I learned the other day from here - very handy for coding and writing, these are emacs bindings which work on Macs.

CTRL+A: beginning of line.

CTRL+E: end of line.

CTRL+U: delete from cursor to beginning of line.

CTRL+K: delete from cursor to end of line.

CTRL+W: erase word to the left.

CTRL+T: transpose characters around cursor.


Copy Mac Time Machine Backup Directories from One External Drive to Another I decided to stick to the safest approach to make copies of my backups. In other words, my Mac backs up everything to one external drive and then I copy that entire backup directory to the second external drive.

I researched and found this command to be good for any files to be moved and synchronized from source to destination directories:

rsync -av --delete /Volume/Drive1/MyPictures/ /Volume/Drive1/MyPictures

That worked pretty well for any directory I store on the external hard drive except for Mac's backup directories. Running this causes an error:

rsync -av --delete /Volume/Drive1/Backups.backupdb/ /Volume/Drive1/Backups.backupdb

failed: Operation not permitted (1)
rsync error: some files could not be transferred (code 23)

Any suggestions how to address this? I tried rsync -rtb and got the same error. Copying manually using Finder also alerts with The operation can’t be completed because backup items can’t be modified.

Funnily enough, starting with macOS 10.12 the Finder has been granted special powers to perform an 'exact copy' on Time Machine archives. Use the Finder and only the Finder to give your .backups new homes, because Finder will maintain not only all permissions and metadata but either maintain or translate inode references for each item in the backup.


Erased /usr/local/bin directory by mistake I am a somewhat newbie to Unix.  I recently started a bash tutorial where I created a hello world bash script like this:

#!/bin/bash
echo 'Hello World!'

then, I moved it into /usr/local/bin using this command:

sudo mv hello.sh /usr/local/bin

now /bin under /usr/local is no longer a directory, but a file, and when using ls -l on it, I get this output:

MacBook-Pro-de-Omar:local omarnavarro$ ls
bin
MacBook-Pro-de-Omar:local omarnavarro$ ls -l
total 8
-rwxr-xr-x  1 omarnavarro  staff  32 Apr 11 19:27 bin
MacBook-Pro-de-Omar:local omarnavarro$ cat bin
#!/bin/bash
echo 'Hello world!'

I understand that /usr/local/bin is part of the $PATH, and so I believe there must have been lots of commands in there.  Will this affect me much?  how can I restore the commands that previously lived in /usr/local/bin when it was a directory.  I can't believe I screwed up so badly!

The canonical answer, of course, is to restore /usr/local/bin from your latest backup...

The good news is that if that mv command succeeded and created a file called bin, then /usr/local/bin didn't already exist as a directory on your system, and you've lost nothing. Otherwise, hello.sh would have been moved into the /usr/local/bin directory (which was presumably the intention of the tutorial), it wouldn't have replaced it.

This is not unexpected, as /usr/local/bin doesn't generally exist on Macs until you or a 3rd party app creates it. But now you have learned the awesome power of the command line, you know why it's important to keep good backups ;)

Had you mangled /usr/bin you'd need to reinstall the system:

Deleted /usr/local/bin and /usr/bin on OS X

The good news is system integrity protection (SIP) is making it harder to mangle system files with sudo

PS: An easy way to prevent the issue from happening is to always add a trailing / if moving files to another directory (or rely on tab completion wich does the same thing): sudo mv hello.sh /usr/local/bin/. This way you'll get an error message if the target directory doesn't exist.


MacBook Pro with shot battery, possible to prevent CPU throttling? I have a late-2013 MacBook Pro 15" which still has the original battery. It's at 1,144 charging cycles, and a few days ago the battery health was at about 50%, though since then it plunged to 4%.

The output of pmset -g batt:

Now drawing from 'AC Power'
 -InternalBattery-0 (id=xxxxxxx)    100%; charged; 0:00 remaining (Poor/Good)
    failure: "Permanent Battery Failure" present: true

(Just yesterday, the output was the same except for failure: "Fuse Blown".)

The output from System Information:

Battery Information:

  Model Information:
  Serial Number:    [redacted]
  Manufacturer: SMP
  Device Name:  bq20z451
  Pack Lot Code:    0
  PCB Lot Code: 0
  Firmware Version: 702
  Hardware Revision:    1
  Cell Revision:    1206
  Charge Information:
  Charge Remaining (mAh):   308
  Fully Charged:    Yes
  Charging: No
  Full Charge Capacity (mAh):   319
  Health Information:
  Cycle Count:  1144
  Condition:    Replace Now
  Battery Installed:    Yes
  Amperage (mA):    0
  Voltage (mV): 11090

The battery/power icon on the menu bar also indicates Condition: Replace Now.

According to a series of other posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), when the battery is detected as dead or removed, the CPU is throttled to its slowest possible speed. This is what happened to me two days ago: after a restart (due to taking out the power adapter a few seconds before closing the lid), the computer was running very very slowly and iStat Menus was always showing a CPU clock speed of 800 MHz.

Now, I understand the battery is shot and needs replacing, and I have ordered a new one, but it won't arrive overnight. I need to keep using the laptop in the meanwhile as it is the only computer I have. It's really painful to work with the CPU permanently throttled to 800 MHz, and I'm looking for a temporary fix.

As I understood from other answers, this might be impossible, but funnily enough, I was fiddling around with this yesterday, and at some point, the computer suddenly felt snappy again (this happened at about the same time I was using pmset to change hibernatemode from 3 to 25, but it's probably not related). Checking iStat Menus, the CPU was no longer being throttled. This is exactly what I needed to hold out for the period until the battery arrives.

Unfortunately, this morning the laptop rebooted again. This is despite the fact that I closed the lid on the computer, waited until the fans stopped, and only then took out the power adapter, but still, when I connected the power adapter again and opened the lid, it had rebooted. Now the CPU is stuck at 800 MHz again and the computer is again unusable.

My question is: since it came out of throttling once (although I'm not sure what happened, or what I did, that was responsible), is there anything I can do to make it come out of throttling again?

Please note that this can damage your device.. you've been warned. Continue at your own risk

In short, IOPlatformPlugin is power management, CPU scaling, idle frequency (and others). How much the following helps is arguable.

Disable SIP in recovery (CMD+R on boot), open terminal (CMD+3 i
think),
csrutil disable
Reboot into MacOS, move
/System/Library/Extensions/IOPlatformPlugin.kext to / or somewhere
else
sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/IOPlatformPlugin.kext /
(terminal)
Rebuild cache sudo kextcache -i /, reboot
Re-enable SIP in recovery csrutil enable


How to set the Display aspect ratio to 16:9 explicitly when using a VGA adaptor Background

I was presenting at a venue where the projector supports 1280x720px resolution (16:9) via VGA cable (I've previously used the same room and equipment on an older 2011 MacBook Pro running Mavericks).

Yesterday I used a newer 2014 MacBook Pro Retina running Yosemite, and was unable to set this resolution - the closest I could choose was 1280x1024px.

When the MacBook is mirroring to a projector via VGA cable, the > System Preferences  > Displays panel looks something like this:

In my case the only options were 1280x1024px and 800x600px (this image is from the web - I didn't get a screenshot at the time).

My question

Is there anywhere, other than the > System Preferences > Displays dialog, where you can explicitly set/force the output resolution?

My only options were 1280x1024 or 800x600, yet I'm positive the projector supported 16:9 since I've used it before.

In the monitor/display settings just press the Option key when selecting the "scaled" option. Then additional resolution options will show up.


Stop cron daemon "symmetrical.xm" error messages in Terminal mail After upgrading to High Sierra (I think) I've started receiving the following message almost every time I start up Terminal:

You have new mail in /var/mail/MyUsername

I had some problems upgrading to High Sierra so I strongly suspect this started after the upgrade, but cannot be absolutely certain.

When I enter the $ mail command and read the messages (which can amount to hundreds at one go) this is what is written:

Message 1:
From MyUsername@Users-MacBook-Pro.local  Tue Nov 28 21:37:04 2017
X-Original-To: MyUsername
Delivered-To: MyUsername@Users-MacBook-Pro.local
From: MyUsername@Users-MacBook-Pro.local (Cron Daemon)
To: MyUsername@Users-MacBook-Pro.local
Subject: Cron <MyUsername@Users-MacBook-Pro> /Users/MyUsername/Library/symmetrical.xm/symmetrical.xm cr
X-Cron-Env: <SHELL=/bin/sh>
X-Cron-Env: <PATH=/usr/bin:/bin>
X-Cron-Env: <LOGNAME=MyUsername>
X-Cron-Env: <USER=MyUsername>
X-Cron-Env: <HOME=/Users/MyUsername>
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2017 21:37:01 +0800 (+08)

/bin/sh: /Users/MyUsername/Library/symmetrical.xm/symmetrical.xm: No such file or directory

Also, when I run $ crontab -e, this is what is returned:

37 * * * * /Users/MyUsername/Library/symmetrical.xm/symmetrical.xm cr
~
~
"/tmp/crontab.SsevmMDt1o" 1L, 72C

I am trying to figure out why the Cron Daemon is sending me these error messages. To clarify, I would not like to suppress mail from cron altogether; so, I don't want to

Delete the MyUsername file at /var/mail/, OR
Change the MAILTO variable in /etc/crontab to MAILTO="" (as suggested in this link)

Instead, I'd be really grateful it if someone could help me understand

How/why this started happening
What I can do to stop it from happening again (or if I should stop it from happening at all)
Which app/script requires the missing file/directory called symmetrical.xm and why

Any other additional information to add to the points listed above would also be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

macOS High Sierra v10.13.1 (17B48)

open Terminal
run ls -l /Users/MyUsername/Library/symmetrical.xm/symmetrical.xm
If you get an error of any kind (directory or file not found) run crontab -r to remove your crontab.


iOS 11 on iPhone 5s: Should I expect a decrease in performance? I see that Apple Supports iOS 11 on an iPhone 5s, but will I experience degraded performance if I upgrade?

The effort to get iOS 11 onto my semi-antiquated phone will require a few hours to transfer pictures/music/etc. off prior to the upgrade and then bring it all back after the process is completed.  This is not a big deal if I'm not going to see any performance hits, so I'm hoping some other, more adventurous sole has taken the dive and can let me know if it's worth the jump or not.

I own an iPhone 5S but I have not yet upgraded to iOS11. That is mainly because I like to let all the bugs get worked out first. Once it hits 11.1, I'll upgrade. However, to answer your question, take a look at this article that goes through a detailed evaluation of performance on the iPhone 5S. Overall, it doesn't seem to affect it to negatively.

Conclusion from the article:

Should you update?

I could understand wanting to hang around on iOS 10 if you have an iPhone 5S. Apple's oldest supported iPhone indisputably loses some of its pep in the move to iOS 11, and while it gets a lot of the same things as other newer devices, it does miss out on things like ARKit, the improved Siri voice, and some contextual Intelligence features.

But as I do every year, for most people I would come down in favor of updating. The iPhone 5S is slower with iOS 11, sure, but it's not as slow as the iPhone 4S was with iOS 8 or 9, or even as slow as the iPhone 5 is with iOS 10 most of the time. And as we mentioned, you still get a bunch of new iOS 11 features, and you're bound to find something worth upgrading for in that list.

Even more importantly, though, you need to be on iOS 11 to get new security updates at this point. Apple only very, very rarely issues any kind of patch for older iOS versions after the newest one is out, so the first disclosed vulnerabilities that come to light after today are only going to get patched in iOS 11. Really, practically, you can probably afford to wait around until iOS 11.1 barring any major catastrophes—those updates usually come out toward the end of October—but in the long run it's not safe or responsible to use old unpatched operating systems indefinitely.

So, update. If not today, then soon. The iPhone 5S gets a little slower, but that's how it goes when the oldest hardware that runs an operating system is only 20 or 25 percent as fast as the most recent hardware. It'll never be as fast as it was, but it's fast enough for a budget or hand-me-down phone, and it keeps doing new things; that's an acceptable trade-off.


Quickly Focusing on Dialog Buttons Other Than Those in Focus In macOS dialog menus, two buttons are usually already in focus: one will probably be encircled in blue and is invoked by hitting Space, the other will be filled in blue and can be invoked by pressing ↵.

Sometimes, there's only one button in focus (like in the following image) or there are simply more buttons than the two already in (either kind of) focus.

In either of those cases, is there any way to quickly set focus on the unfocused buttons?

P. S. - I was considering settings this:

To All controls, but that's too much of compromise in dialogs where I actually need quickly to move between boxes and modify their contents.

Thanks!

There is a set of default keyboard shortcuts that should serve the need of interacting with the default file save sheets:

Press Enter key to Save.
Press esc to Cancel.
Press Command + Backspace key combination to Delete or Delete Copy, Don't Save, etc.


Questions from trouble getting the UniFi Controller to work on macOS High Sierra + Server (port 8080 in use) After upgrading from Sierra+Server to High Sierra+Server I am running into the problem that port 8080 is occupied by default. This blocks the UniFi controller from launching.

After the upgrade, I lost all my WebDAV shares, for which the simple solution to get them back was setting Wiki Server on.

But now, httpd is listening on port 8080. nmap tells me:

8080/tcp  open  http-proxy

I wonder, why is this called http-proxy? And lsof:

sudo lsof -i :8080
Password:
COMMAND  PID USER   FD   TYPE             DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
httpd   2229 root    4u  IPv6 0xd734a34402fd0c9b      0t0  TCP *:http-alt (LISTEN)
httpd   2238 _www    4u  IPv6 0xd734a34402fd0c9b      0t0  TCP *:http-alt (LISTEN)
httpd   2290 _www    4u  IPv6 0xd734a34402fd0c9b      0t0  TCP *:http-alt (LISTEN)
httpd   2291 _www    4u  IPv6 0xd734a34402fd0c9b      0t0  TCP *:http-alt (LISTEN)
httpd   2291 _www   25u  IPv6 0xd734a343f0761a9b      0t0  TCP foo.rna.nl:http-alt->unifi-foo.rna.nl:40018 (ESTABLISHED)
httpd   2292 _www    4u  IPv6 0xd734a34402fd0c9b      0t0  TCP *:http-alt (LISTEN)
httpd   2293 _www    4u  IPv6 0xd734a34402fd0c9b      0t0  TCP *:http-alt (LISTEN)
httpd   2293 _www   25u  IPv6 0xd734a343f0760f1b      0t0  TCP foo.rna.nl:http-alt->unifi-bar.rna.nl:60849 (ESTABLISHED)

The Apache server creates these httpd daemons:

sysbh$ ps laxww|grep 2229
    0  2229     1   0  20  0  4280200   6592 -      Ss     ??    0:00.35 /usr/sbin/httpd -D SERVER_APP_HAS_DEFAULT_PORTS -D FOREGROUND
    0  2236  2229   0  20  0  4289980  15012 -      S      ??    0:00.65 /usr/bin/ruby /usr/libexec/wfs/webdavsharing_mapper
   70  2238  2229   0  20  0  4284820   3520 -      S      ??    0:00.13 /usr/sbin/httpd -D SERVER_APP_HAS_DEFAULT_PORTS -D FOREGROUND
   70  2290  2229   0  20  0  4280200   2444 -      S      ??    0:00.10 /usr/sbin/httpd -D SERVER_APP_HAS_DEFAULT_PORTS -D FOREGROUND
   70  2291  2229   0  20  0  4280200   2508 -      S      ??    0:00.12 /usr/sbin/httpd -D SERVER_APP_HAS_DEFAULT_PORTS -D FOREGROUND
   70  2292  2229   0  20  0  4284820   3496 -      S      ??    0:00.13 /usr/sbin/httpd -D SERVER_APP_HAS_DEFAULT_PORTS -D FOREGROUND
   70  2293  2229   0  20  0  4280200   2472 -      S      ??    0:00.11 /usr/sbin/httpd -D SERVER_APP_HAS_DEFAULT_PORTS -D FOREGROUND
  501  3418   711   0  31  0  4258468     24 -      R+   s001    0:00.00 grep 2229

And apparently, they listen on port 8080 because /etc/apache2/httpd.conf has:

<IfDefine SERVER_APP_HAS_DEFAULT_PORTS>
    Listen 8080
</IfDefine>
<IfDefine !SERVER_APP_HAS_DEFAULT_PORTS>
    Listen 80
</IfDefine>

I wonder if mainly it is safe to change 8080 into 8081 there so the web server doesn't clash with the UniFi controller anymore.

It also seems it httpd getting the "-D SERVER_APP_HAS_DEFAULT_PORTS" from /etc/apache2/env.plist via the httpd-wrapper ruby script (which is actually started by the LaunchDaemon)and I was wondering how env.plist gets there.

And I was wondering where the simple page comes from that just has a h1 tag with the text "It works!" when I go to http://localhost:8080/

Note: I have an nginx running (installed with homebrew) but I have turned 8080 off on that install and httpd is running on 8080 even if nginx is not running. However, it is in Homebrew that I find references to "It works!" so far.

Yes, you can safely change the port in

/etc/apache2/httpd.conf

and the default page with "It works!" comes from

/Library/WebServer/Documents


Share music between Macbook and iPhone I'm trying to figure out how to get some music on my iPhone SE from my Macbook.

I have the music on my Macbook drive and I can listen to it in iTunes. How can I sync it with my iPhone and make it available on iPhone even when connected to internet or to my mac?

you connect your iPhone to iTunes and Sync :)
Start iTunes, connect iPhone via USB cable to USB on your computer, when your phone (after few confirmations on phone) appears in iTunes click on it. Then on the right side select Music, check Sync music and choose what you want to sync.


Log in window (El Capitan) How can I update changes to the Login window (Mac OS X 10.11.3).
When I change settings in the Preferences and then restart computer, there is absolutely no difference.

Is there a XML file with these settings or cache?

Try running this command in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal:

chmod -RN ~/Library/preferences

and then restart.


How can I convert 100 photos into a pdf thats less than 6 MB? I need to convert 100 photos into a pdf file thats less than 6 mb. I use iPhoto to store my photos in. HELP!

You can use ImageMagick (free, open source, cross-platform, CLI) with the jpeg:extent=value parameter to compress each image to a target size, e.g. mogrify -define jpeg:extent=60KB *.jpeg

Restrict the maximum JPEG file size, for example -define jpeg:extent=400KB. The JPEG encoder will search for the highest compression quality level that results in an output file that does not exceed the value. The -quality option is ignored if it is also present.

Then see How can I convert JPG into PDF easily?


MacOS Photos App: Resizing a Photo I am trying to get used to the Photos App on MacOS, but there’s one thing I can’t find, either in the Help or in all of my web searches.

How can I resize an image? By that I mean scale it down. I can find how to crop the image, but that’s not what I want.

For example, I have a large image, say 1280px x 960px. I would like to scale it to a smaller size, say 640px x 480px. This is the sort of thing you need to do to adjust an image for use on a web page.

I know how to resize using Preview app, and I have other applications which will do the job, but I would like to do it within the Photos App itself.

I will happily install an extension if required.

This may not be the main reason for your question, but if you wanted to resize an image for use elsewhere (e.g. for use on a web page), you can choose to resize it upon export.

More specifically:

Within Photos, select your image(s)
Press the shiftcommandE keys (or navigate to File > Export > Export Photos...)
In the pop-up window that appears, click on the down arrow to the right of the Photo Kind option (see below)

This reveals the Quality, Color Profile and Size options
Click on the Size drop-down menu and select one of the preset options or choose the Custom option
OPTIONAL: - If you selected the Custom option at Step 5 you can now specify dimensions for width or height to resize the image
Click on the blue Export button
Select the location you want the photos exported to
Click on the Export button

Now your photo(s) have been exported with the size you chose to the location you chose and these are available to other applications (and within the Finder).

Using 3rd party apps as helpers within Photos

Depending on the version of macOS (and Photos) you have installed, you can also use 3rd party apps as helper apps to edit photos. You can launch these from within Photos, make your edits, and then upon saving the changes appear automatically within the Photos app. This includes scaling changes.

To do this:

Right-click (or control-click) on the photo you want to edit
Select the Edit With option
Select the 3rd party app (e.g. Photoshop etc)
The photo you clicked on at Step 1 opens in the 3rd party
Make any editing changes you require (including resizing/scaling the photo)
Save the changes within the app.

Now your edited photos appear with all changes intact within the Photos app.

NOTE: The app you select at Step 3 must already be installed on your Mac for it to be available.


How to know if Apple service staff copied my private data? Tomorrow I will collect my iMac 27 from the service, after they have replaced the screen (due to yellowish smudges).

To my surprise,  I was requested to give them my password. I did not expect they may need it, and did not erase my data at home. I have just made a backup to an external drive. Still, all my documents, photos etc are in my iMac (no porn luckily).

How to know if Apple service staff copied or looked into my private data?

The simple answer is, there is no way to be absolutely certain. Furthermore, you likely signed agreement to the standard AppleCare Repair Terms and Conditions so from a legal standpoint, you have agreed to the AppleCare Repair Service terms and conditions by signing your property and data over to Apple.

The more probable answer is that, as Apple employees, they have very likely signed some kind of non-disclosure agreement, prohibiting them from looking any further than to fix the issue, on pain of dismissal or legal proceedings.

Condensing some of the comments into this answer…

It is possible that the entire drive could be cloned, without your knowledge. Physical possession of the drive is one of the easiest ways to access the data on it.
If encrypted, that clone would be of little use without the encryption password - not necessarily the same as the login password.
This would not show on any kind of key-logging software, as it could be easily done by removing the drive from the machine.

However… The chances of this actually happening to a machine given to Apple for repair are virtually nil.
If it was ever documented as having happened, their stock would collapse, along with their credibility.
This is not the same kind of breach as a couple of celebrities being phished or socially-engineered for their details, this would be a whole new level of distrust.

It is unlikely to happen.
Any current or former Apple employees would be most welcome to add comment to this.


How to mount big .dmg in small HD? I have a 120 GB .dmg where I would like to study one directory. However, my Mac's HD is much smaller. I get a warning you cannot mount the directory.

I used the command to create the image

sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/ubuntu/ntfsDisc/sda.hfs.dmg bs=512 status=progress

How can you mount/read some content of a big .dmg image in small HD?

The command sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/ubuntu/ntfsDisc/sda.hfs.dmg doesn't create a mountable dmg file!

Your "sda" - which is the complete /dev/disk0 translated to OS X naming conventions - probably contains several partition tables (1st and 2nd GUIDpt/MBR), free space and several file systems on the different partitions (sda1-sda4?).

So sda.hfs.dmg neither contains a valid file system (parts of the file could be extracted to contain one though) nor does it behave like a typical dmg. Instead it's a raw (data) file.

Example: Whenever I have to backup a rescue thumb drive containing OS X (or save the content because I need the thumb drive for other purposes) I execute:

dd if=/dev/disk4 of=/Users/user/backup/OSXRescue.raw bs=1m

Besides the main partition this "raw" file also contains 3 partition tables (1st and 2nd GUIDpt/MBR), some "unallocated" space, an EFI and a Recovery HD partition. The file has the same size as the thumb drive and but is not mountable because it doesn't contain a real and consistent file system as expected by diskutil or hdiutil.

To restore this OSXRescue.raw to the same thumb drive I have to execute

dd if=/Users/user/backup/OSXRescue.raw of=/dev/disk4 bs=1m

This should restore an exact copy of the content of the rescue thumb drive (even the remnants of deleted files which don't occur in the file system(s) of the original thumb drive).

I may also use another drive (with at least the same size as the original thumb drive) to restore the full content of the rescue thumb drive to it. The result is fully bootable. The previous content of the external drive will be overwritten though!

To rescue your .tex file you have to dd the "raw" file to a real hard drive. This will restore the original partitions and you should be able to modify the wrong partition type of partition 2 (diskXs2), then mount the HFS+ partition and examine it with a data recovery tool.

You may be able to mount the HFS+ part of the raw file in OS X similar to this Linux how-to with on-board tools or after installing additional tools (probably with Homebrew). I didn't test this though.


How to send a notification to a device when it connects to a WiFi network without a specific app? I was staying in a hotel last week and when I connected to their WiFi network with my iPhone 4S, after agreeing on their terms and conditions (you must choose their network and it takes you automatically to the hotel's site where you agree some terms to complete the connection, many hotels charge you this way for their WiFi) a push notification trying to sell something came into my screen; this notification had "accept" and "later" buttons. Does anyone know how this happened, is it a notification launched by the website or sent directly though the WiFi network? I didn't have any apps related to the hotel which may have launched it.

This was not the kind of notifications you can look at in the notification center, it was more like a system alert.

You can stop that in the future by:

Changing: File Name

Captive network assistant

to

No More captive network assistant

in System/Library/CoreServices

So the file is still there.

If you want to change it back just change the name back to original


It's possible to use a Mac invited account with firmware password enabled? I have the firmware protection enabled on my Mac, but whit this property I can't use the guest account of the computer without ingress the firmware password. I'd like to avoid this password request for guests (and obviously, for the primary boot) and maintain the firmware password for boot on others partitions, such as the recuperation mode.

Firmware password prevents the startup of any disk other than the designated startup disk, so it should not prevent startup of guest or other accounts.As long as the account is using your startup disk, it should not ask for the firmware password.

However, if you have file vault enabled, guest accounts can only access Safari, and the network connection. File vault encrypts the hard drive (SSD), preventing the guest from accessing it. If file vault is off, guest accounts function like a normal account with limited permissions.


Is there a way to capture the current cursor image in OS X I'm trying to report a bug where the cursor shape matters. The two easy screen capture methods exclude the cursor:

Command-Shift-3
The Applications->Utilities->Grab program

With grab you can set a specific cursor, which misses the point.  Here I want to capture the cursor shape that occurs when the mouse is in a specific place in a specific application.

How can I capture the entire screen, just as I see it, including the cursor?

You can use the CLI:

screencapture -T 5 -C /path/to/file.png

-T <seconds> is the delay before taking the screenshot. -C captures the cursor in the screenshot.

Related: Taking a screenshot of a tooltip


iOS App stuck in 'Loading...' I tried downloading Tumblr yesterday but it never completed. At the moment I have an App icon stuck at 'Loading...'.

I have tried restarting the iPhone (holding down both home and side buttons at the same time) and I have also tried shutting down the iPhone (holding the side button and swiping).

I have also tried deleting it as usual (holding the icon down and choosing delete but it doesn't go away).

Any ideas on what I can do to get rid of this icon?

Go to Settings → General → Storage & iCloud Usage → Manage Storage, select the app from the list, then tap Delete App.


Cloud symbol next to apps What does the cloud symbol next to an apps name mean? I’m assuming when you tap it it uploads data to iCloud but I’m not sure and I’m also wondering if there is a way to make these apps do whatever it is that they need to automatically. Below is an image of the symbol and what happens when I tap the apps.

Source:

These are offloaded apps, new for iOS 11.  A cloud next to an icon means you enabled offloaded apps and this app was deleted, but the data was saved and you can re-download the app by tapping on it.  When you tap the app, it begins to redownload to your device, as you've seen.

To change this behaviour, go to Settings -> iTunes & App Store and change the switch for Offload unused apps.


How to disable vibration for timer? In iOS 12 clock app, you can control whether each alarm vibrates. In the timer section, you cannot control whether the timer vibrates.

This question has already been asked here:
How to disable vibration for Timer alerts?

However, iOS has changed so that the workaround of disabling vibrations on alarms no longer disables vibrations on timers... due to the fact that you can no longer disable vibration on all alarms but control each alarm individually.

I do not want to disable all vibrations with the mute button. Is there a way to control specifically how the timer behaves?

The only way to achieve this functionality is having no sound when the timer finishes.

Go to Clock -> Timer -> When Timer Ends -> Stop Playing


How can I remove a program from "Open With"? I recently installed VMWare Fusion and added Windows 7.  Now when I right-click on a text file and choose Open With, there's an option to open with Notepad in Windows 7.  This is not something I want enabled.  How can I remove this choice?

One solution is to install RCDefaultApp and change the file association for text files.

Another solution is to disable Windows application integration for that virtual machine. To do that open the virtual machine, go to the Virtual Machine menu and select Settings.... Change the settings for Default Applications. You likely want to uncheck Run Windows applications from you Mac's Applications folder


Does FaceTime work if I purchase my iPhone in Saudi Arabia then move countries? I purchased an iPhone 6 with FaceTime from Saudi Arabia. Can I use FaceTime while I am India because someone told me that if you purchase an iPhone in Saudi Arabia the FaceTime does not work anywhere.

This blog-post claims, selecting a different country in the settings while setting up your account already does the trick. But since the article is from 2010, it may not apply to iOS8:
http://www.macgasm.net/2010/10/23/facetime-saudi-arabia-workaround/

YouTube video about iOS 8 and Facetime, based on a jailbroken device using Cydia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6QSRN3NUec

It's a shame Apple bends down to those regimes and prunes down key functionality. Clearly shows that iMessage / Facetime encryption works (as long as you trust Apple).

You might want to look into Signal (encrypted audio calls, Instant messaging should be coming in first half of 2015):
https://itunes.apple.com/app/signal-private-messenger/id874139669?mt=8

Hope this helps!


LG UltraFine 5K Display dim each time I startup I have a MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2016) running 10.12.4.  At work I have an older Dell display and at home I have a new LG UltraFine 5K Display (I picked it up from Apple mid January 2017).  When I travel I turn the power to my laptop off (I don't travel with it hibernated)

If I go to work in the morning and hook it into my work monitor (USB-C to thunderbolt2 plugged into a Belkin Thunderbolt dock connected to the Dell monitor via HDMI) everything works fine.

When I come home and connect my laptop to my LG monitor using the single USB-C cable that came with the monitor.  Every time I start the laptop up in this configuration the LG monitor's brightness is set to the lowest possible setting. (I can barely see anything on the display) .

I set the brightness to where I want it to be for the external monitor but the next time I either restart or power on the laptop it reverts back to the lowest brightness setting.

I've tried turning Night Shift off but I get the same results.  This seems to have started when the macOS release with Night Shift was distributed.  Before the Night Shift release this was not an issue.

Is there anything I can do to keep the brightness setting on the LG monitor set?

  I also posted this on the Apple support site at
  https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7935674

In regards to @dwightk's comment about the WiFi Router...

Other than the laptop, the monitor is near a desk lamp and a bluetooth speaker (and a UPS that's under the desk about 4 feet away) but none of that has changed since I go the laptop and monitor setup and initially things worked normally.  My WiFi Router is downstairs...I know there are known issues with these monitors and shielding but I don't have the sense that is the cause (but I could be mistaken)

Since you travel to and from home/work with your MBP fully powered off, I don't think resetting the SMC will make a difference. However, it may be worth resetting your NVRAM.

Resetting the NVRAM on Late-2016 MacBook Pro models

Your Mac uses Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). To reset the NVRAM on all Late-2016 MacBook Pro models (with and without Touch Bar) follow these steps:

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

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


Search as you type in Finder I was on Windows few years back, and in that I could search any file or folder by typing out it's name inside Windows explorer. But I don't find a similar functionality in Finder on Mac. What I mean is that once I am inside a folder which has lots of files, I want to search for a specific file by typing its name. For e.g. if I want to search for a file named hello.png, I will type h, and then Finder will highlight the first file starting with h. But if I immediately type e after that, Finder then highlights the first file starting with e, and not he. So is it possible to search this way in Finder?
I know that I can simply type the file name in Spotlight and I will find it, but this does not work when selecting a file from browser. For e.g. when you want to upload some file, a Finder dialogue opens wherein you have to select one file. Here, a 'search as you type' feature will be very handy.
EDIT: Updating my OS to 11.1 somehow fixed this issue. But thanks to all those who helped to review this!

You're not typing fast enough.
It only waits maybe half a second, maximum, before discarding your 'h' request then starting over with your 'e'.
Here's a gif to demonstrate. If you watch the keyboard you can see what's being typed & what it selects.


Identify why macOS prompts me for an admin password I get this annoying dialog when I login on my mac as a standard user, and I don't know why it keeps asking for an admin password.

My question is if there is a way to find out which command/process or whatever is causing this dialog. Thanks in advance

Credit to superuser answer for this.
There are certainly other ways to achieve this, but if you are clever with Python, here is a handy script that will show you pertinent details for currently displayed windows. After running, move the window in question, and the script will give you the specifics (e.g. PID) for that window. From there, you can poke around and see who is bugging you for su.
#!/usr/bin/env python

import Quartz
import time
from Foundation import NSSet, NSMutableSet
def transformWindowData(data):
    list1 = []
    for v in data:
        if not v.valueForKey_('kCGWindowIsOnscreen'):
            continue

        row = (  \
            str(v.valueForKey_('kCGWindowOwnerPID') or '?').rjust(7) + \
            ' ' + str(v.valueForKey_('kCGWindowNumber') or '?').rjust(5) + \
            '  {' + ('}' if v.valueForKey_('kCGWindowBounds') is None else \
                ( \
                    str(int(v.valueForKey_('kCGWindowBounds').valueForKey_('X')))     + ',' + \
                    str(int(v.valueForKey_('kCGWindowBounds').valueForKey_('Y')))     + ',' + \
                    str(int(v.valueForKey_('kCGWindowBounds').valueForKey_('Width'))) + ',' + \
                    str(int(v.valueForKey_('kCGWindowBounds').valueForKey_('Height'))) \
                ) + '}'  \
                ).ljust(21) + \
            '\t[' + ((v.valueForKey_('kCGWindowOwnerName') or '') + ']:') + \
            ('' if v.valueForKey_('kCGWindowName') is None else (" " + v.valueForKey_('kCGWindowName') )) \
        )
        list1.append(row)

    return list1;

def printBeautifully(dataSet):
    print ('PID'.rjust(7) + ' ' + 'WinID'.rjust(5) + '  ' + 'x,y,w,h'.ljust(21) + ' ' + '\t[Title]:SubTitle')
    print ('-'.rjust(7,'-') + ' ' + '-'.rjust(5,'-') + '  ' + '-'.ljust(21,'-') + ' ' + '\t-------------------------------------------')

    # print textList1
    for v in dataSet:
        print (v);

#grab initial set
wl = Quartz.CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo( Quartz.kCGWindowListOptionAll, Quartz.kCGNullWindowID)
wl = sorted(wl, key=lambda k: k.valueForKey_('kCGWindowOwnerPID'))

#convert into readable format
textList1 = transformWindowData(wl);

#print everything we have on the screen
print ('all windows:')
printBeautifully(textList1)

print ('Move target window')
time.sleep(5)

#grab window data the second time
wl2 = Quartz.CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo(Quartz.kCGWindowListOptionAll, Quartz.kCGNullWindowID)
textList2 = transformWindowData(wl2)

#check the difference
w = NSMutableSet.setWithArray_(textList1)
w.minusSet_(NSSet.setWithArray_(textList2))

#print the difference
printBeautifully(w)

Note: This script is for Python 3.x. I fought with the original script for quite some time (I'm not a Python programmer). I couldn't get it to work (with 2.x) due to a Quartz dependency requiring 3.x.
A couple of prerequisites are:
pip install pyobjc-framework-Quartz
pip install quartz


Print to pdf with Adobe Reader I'm filling out a PDF form that doesn't work with Preview so I have to use Adobe Reader (ugh).  After I fill out the form, I want to print it to PDF so that it is finalized.

Unfortunately, Adobe disables the Mac print to PDF and tells me I have to save as PDF instead, but if I save as PDF then other people can still edit it.  My current annoying solution is to print it to paper and then scan it.

Anyone know a way to circumvent Adobe's disabling of the Mac print to PDF feature?

I had the same problem and this is what I did after reading this question and answer

I installed a network printer localhost, I chose HP Laserjet Series PCL 4/5 as the driver
Print a document from adobe reader
Open Terminal.app and type the following:

sudo -s
cd /private/var/spool/cups
ls -lh
Total 1048
-rw------- 1 root _lp 1.6K Jan 18 16:24 c00001
-rw------- 1 root _lp 1.7K Jan 18 16:40 c00002
Drwxrwx--- 10 root _lp 340B Jan 18 16:40 cache
-rw-r----- 1 root _lp 259K Jan 18 16:23 d00001-001
-rw-r----- 1 root _lp 254K Jan 18 16:39 d00002-001
Drwxrwx--T 3 root _lp 102B Jan 18 16:39 tmp

Looking at the timestamp and size, easy to see that d00001-001 and d00002-001 are the postscript files I just printed from Adobe Reader.

pstopdf d00002-001

And you have a d00002-001.pdf file,
Change the owner of this file then move this file out to desktop
(replace username with your actual username)

chgrp username d00002-001.pdf
mv d00002-001.pdf ~username/Desktop

And there you have it, without having to install any thirdparty pkg or drivers. You can remove the documents from the print queue manually.

just tested on osx 10.11.1 el capitan


Global shortcut for New Mail in Thunderbird I would like to have a global shortcut key to send a new message using Thunderbird in Mac OS. How can I do this?

You can assign a keyboard shortcut to a script like this:

tell application "Thunderbird"
    reopen
    activate
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Thunderbird"
    repeat 10 times
        try
            click menu item "Message" of menu 1 of menu item "New" of menu "File" of menu bar 1
            return
        on error
            delay 0.1
        end try
    end repeat
end tell

If Thunderbird was not open before the script was run, there is a short delay before the menu bar is populated.

Edit: this does not reopen the main window or switch desktops if the main window is already open on a different desktop:

launch application "Thunderbird"
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Thunderbird"
    repeat 10 times
        try
            click menu item "Message" of menu 1 of menu item "New" of menu "File" of menu bar 1
            exit repeat
        on error
            delay 0.1
        end try
    end repeat
    set frontmost to true
end tell

Edit 2: The second script also sometimes switches desktops, but I couldn't figure out how to prevent it.


ImageMagick. Multiple SVG files are only allowed for PDF and PS output I'm running script /tools/generatepngall.sh from https://github.com/twain47/Open-SVG-Map-Icons to generate PNG icons from SVG-files.

However, there are errors:

Multiple SVG files are only allowed for PDF and PS output.
Multiple SVG files are only allowed for PDF and PS output.
convert: unable to open image `/Volumes/Data/Downloads/SJJB-SVG-Icons-20111021/pngall/accommodation_alpinehut.p.0092DA.32.png': No such file or directory @ error/blob.c/OpenBlob/2643.
convert: unable to open file `/Volumes/Data/Downloads/SJJB-SVG-Icons-20111021/pngall/accommodation_alpinehut.p.0092DA.32.png' @ error/png.c/ReadPNGImage/3995.
convert: image sequence is required `+clone' @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/946.
Multiple SVG files are only allowed for PDF and PS output.
Multiple SVG files are only allowed for PDF and PS output.

I can't understand what's wrong.

P.S.: I googled an answer, that it might be due to rsvg should have an -o before output filename, and I changed it in recolourtopng.sh, but the result is the same.

/dev/stdin was superfluous.

When I removed it, it works perfectly:

${BASEFOLDER}/tools/recolour.sh $1 $2 $3 $4 | rsvg -f png -w ${5} -h ${5} -o ${6}.png


Search inside Notes app in OSX 10.8 As far as I can tell, the search function in Notes only shows you which notes have that string. Is there a way to find the occurrence of the term inside the note itself (without copying to a text editor)?

EDIT:
⌘F Does not show me any in-note searches.

It appears this solution only works on 10.9 Mavericks…

Select a note, then press ⌘ cmd + F and type your search.

This will not work for 'pinned' notes that have been opened outside of the Notes app.


Flickering in Safari after switching back to integrated graphics I have a MacBook Pro which switches dynamically between discrete and integrated graphics.  I get a notification about the switching using gfxCardStatus.

If Safari is running while the system switches first from integrated to discrete, then back from discrete to integrated, some web page elements will sometimes flicker in Safari.   When typing in text boxes, sometimes the cursor will appear to jump around for a split second and some of the text will also disappear for a short while, then re-appear.  It is not bad enough to make it impossible to use Safari, but it is definitely annoying. Functionally, there's no difference when using text boxes, it's just an annoying and confusing visual glitch.

After restarting Safari, the problem is gone until the graphics are switched again.

Questions:

Has anyone else seen this behaviour?
Is there a way to avoid/fix this problem?
Is there any chance this problem was caused by installing CUDA?  Can installing the CUDA package mess up graphics drivers on a Mac?  I'm new to Macs and one of the first things I installed on this machine was CUDA, so I can't really tell if the problem was present before that (but since that's graphics card related too, I though it'd be good to mention it).

There is a program I use regularly a new version (released a couple of days ago) triggers a switch to the NVIDIA card, so I see this problem constantly.

1.) This is a known Apple issue. It's insane that it existed in the first place, and it's worse that it still exists, and effects every dual-GPU Mac I have seen (in the office, at home, friends' laptops, etc). So yes, LOTS of people have this problem.

2.) Use gfxCardStatus to keep it locked in discrete mode, keep restarting Safari, or switch to Chrome. The Webkit nightly build isn't fixed, so I'm not sure when a 'real' solution will come about.

3.) That's very unlikely. As I said in (1), this problem effects all sorts of Macs, most of which do not have CUDA installed at all. It also looks like a problem with the Intel GPUs, not the nVidia ones.

Sorry for the bad news!


When can they use ESC to close windows? So, I coincidentally noticed the following behavior:

Some windows can be closed by pressing the esc key, like the Preference window in any app or the 'Safari help' window or the 'Fonts' window in TextExit for example.

Other windows can not be closed by pressing the esc key, like the Safari browser window or the 'Special Characters' window.

The default cmd w always seems to work.

What is the rule for keystrokes on closing windows? When are we allowed to use esc ?

What you're seeing, namely, the behavior where the Escape key closes the window, is automatically built in to the NSPanel class, which is a subclass of NSWindow.

From Window Programming Guide > How Panels Work:

  A panel is a special kind of window, typically serving an auxiliary
  function in an application. The NSPanel subclass of NSWindow adds
  a few special behaviors to windows in support of the role panels play:

  ...

  • If a panel is the key window and has a close button, it closes itself
  when the user presses the Escape key.

The preferences window (or panel) in many applications is implemented as an NSPanel: for example, Safari, Preview, Terminal, Console. The Fonts panel in Cocoa apps is implemented as an NSPanel. When you choose Safari > Safari Help, it actually launches an invisible background application, HelpViewer.app (/System/Library/CoreServices/HelpViewer.app), whose main window is implemented as a floating NSPanel. For these reasons, those panels will respond to the Escape key by closing the window. Standard general windows, which are instances of NSWindow, don't automatically get this behavior, as only panels are meant to behave that way.


Automator Service that opens URL from rich text I would like to make an Automator Service that will open any link in a different browser (i.e. Firefox) than default (Safari).

Precisely: I want to right click on any link in Mac OS and select a service that will open that link in a Firefox.

You can use the Automator action Extract URLs from Text.


Create a mono only print queue for a colour printer I would like to set up our colour printer (HP Laserjet 4650) such that by default it will only print mono.  It needs to be such that a conscious choice has to be made to print in colour for every job - if this is not the case, our young daughter will inevitably print something in colour one time and then forget to set it back to black and white afterwards and cost us lots of CMY toner!

One possibility is to create a queue for the printer which does not allow colour printing.  I can then set this as the default printer for all users... but I can't seem to find a way to do this either through the normal interface or the CUPS interface.

Or is there a way to make a Preset set of settings always the default that is reverted to for every job?

Or anything else anyone can recommend?

What I've done is:

Use the CUPS interface (http://localhost:631/ - specifically http://localhost:631/admin/#HPColorOptionsPanel) to change the default for Print colors as grey to on.
From a Print dialog, on the Presets menu choose Show presets...
Tick Reset Presets menu to "Default Settings" after printing.

When I want a colour print, I go to the 'Colour/Quality' section of the Print Settings dialog and set up the colour options as I want them.  I've saved them in a preset, so I can just select a colour printing preset when I want it, but after each job it reverts to black and white.


How to view all iTunes backups and respective devices? There are a bunch of backups in the folder:

C:\Users\Me\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

However, they're all named gibberish and difficult to identify. This folder takes up 30% of the space on my 500 GB hard drive.

How do I find out what device they're for, along with their date, so I can decide which to delete?

Preferences > Devices will show all backups, from which you can delete specific versions.
On Windows, hit  Alt  to show the menu bar at the top.

This pic from Mac, but should be very similar...


Can you change an MOV to an MP4 without transcoding? How can change video container from .mov to .mp4 without touching the video itself? Preferably a GUI app.

I have a bunch of videos in .mov and since .mp4 is more widespread I want to use that, but I don't want to lose any quality.

You could do that with ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i video.mov -vcodec copy -acodec copy video.mp4

This will just change containers, but obviously will only work with a codec that ffmpeg supports.

Edit: if you absolutely need a GUI, you could use Automator to create a Drag & Drop target, like this:


Full Screen Mail.app with other windows in other Desktops - Lion I use Mail.app in full screen mode quite frequently.  However, I often like to open up and individual message for a task I'm working on and move it to a different Desktop.  Opening up a message in full screen mode does nothing more than bring up a overlay showing the message but doesn't open another window that I can move elsewhere.

Is there a way to get individual messages in different windows to move to other Desktops when using Mail.app in full screen?

When I need to open a message in other desktop I quit full screen mode, open the message(s) and then fullscreen again: just the main Mail window goes to fullscreen, leaving the messages windows open in the desktop where they were open.


Reset Admin password for macOS Mojave This is a MacBook Pro running macOS Mojave 10.14.6 with FileVault enabled.

In my case the problem is that at the login page, when the computer starts, the admin user account doesn't appear but after logging in as standard user I see that there is an admin. My brother who created the admin forgot the password.

I was thinking to press command + S when the Mac starts , in order to create a new admin, but with FileVault enabled single user mode does not work.

Is there still a possibility to recover the admin password?

My question is slightly different than those for which it was marked as duplicate because in those answers are explained:

Single User Mode(Command+S). As I have explained in my question, with
FileVault enabled single user mode does not work.
Recovery Mode(Command+R) . When in the terminal, in recovery mode, I type
resetpassword I have not the possibility to choose the admin account but it's
choosen standard account and i think that if I reset the password in this way
I will reset the standard user password and not the admin one.

You can't reset the admin's password but you can create a new admin.

Essentially it's the same procedure as in this answer:

How can I get admin access to a Mac without knowing the current password?

Boot to Recovery Mode holding ⌘+R on startup
Open Disk Utility and unlock the encrypted volume. The encrypted volume is an sub-item of the internal drive and greyed out. Select it and hit mount/activate. Use the password of the standard user to unlock it.
Open Terminal from the Utilities menu and enter (to execute a typed command you have to hit the ⏎ Enter/Return key):

rm /Volumes/<main_volume_name>/private/var/db/.AppleSetupDone

Replace <main_volume_name> with the name of your main volume (usually Macintosh HD). Example:

rm /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/private/var/db/.AppleSetupDone

Enter reboot to reboot your Mac
Login with your standard user (to unlock the disc), then follow the instructions to create a new admin user (similar to configuring a new Mac)
The new admin can't unlock the disk - the account has to be added by another admin user, because the new admin can't promote himself to a FileVault unlocker. Check this by entering in Terminal: sudo fdesetup list.
With the new admin promote the standard user to admin and reboot
Login as old standard/now admin user, open Terminal and enter

sudo fdesetup add -user exstandarduser -usertoadd newadmin

Example:

sudo fdesetup add -user lorenzoalfieri -usertoadd adminlorenzo

Then you will  be asked for passwords: first enter the password of exstandarduser to authenticate him and second the password (set in step 5) of newadmin.

Check that the new admin is added to the FV users: sudo fdesetup list
Reboot and login as new newadmin
Downgrade the exstandarduser admin to a standard user.
Clean up the old admin.
Finally create new recovery key(s): sudo fdesetup changerecovery -personal and make a (physical) note of it|them and store it at a safe place.

Resetting the admin password with resetpassword after unlocking the disk is not possible.
Changing the password of the admin with dscl after unlocking the disk is apparently not possible - the old password is still required.

Example:

dscl -f /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default localonly -passwd /Local/Target/users/<user_name> some_password


brew update fails wtih fatal: could not read Username $ brew update
fatal: could not read Username for 'https://github.com': terminal prompts disabled
fatal: could not read Username for 'https://github.com': terminal prompts disabled
Error: homebrew/homebrew-dupes does not exist! Run `brew untap homebrew/homebrew-dupes` to remove it.
homebrew/homebrew-versions does not exist! Run `brew untap homebrew/homebrew-versions` to remove it.

After trying to fix the gitconfig in my local I found out that actually brew was the issue.

For me homebrew-dupes and homebrew-versions caused the problem. But the fix is similar to taps.

Just do

brew tap

which gives you

...
homebrew/dupes
homebrew/versions
...

a simple untap

brew untap homebrew/dupes
brew untap homebrew/versions

after which everything is ok

brew update
Already up-to-date.


Charge my macbook pro late 2012 60W (A1425) with a 24W usb-magsafe charger - is this safe? I have a campervan, and was wondering if I can charge my macbook pro late 2012 60W (A1425) with a homemade 24W usb-magsafe charger.  I am asking this question, because I am planning to build a charger that can charge using the cigarette lighter.

Is it better to have a higher current / wattage capacity - 75W charger for safe operations of MacBook Pro?

The rating is a maximum power value, and your MBP will draw only what it needs. Your MBP needs up to 60W in order to work at full power AND recharge the battery. Using a 24W charger will only charge the battery if the MBP is using less than 24W to run.

However, because 24 is much less than 60, it's likely that this power source will be insufficient to power the MBP and recharge the battery. If the MBP is sleeping, you might charge the battery very slowly overnight. If in use, you might charge the battery very slowly, or even just make the battery discharge more slowly than normal. I've used 45W power supplies with 60W Macs and they have charged slowly while in use; but when the Mac works hard, the battery level falls, though slower than without the supply.

I'm prepared to say that using a lower-wattage supply will not harm your battery. Whether the actual device you make is safe will depend on you.


Sandbox browser for safely viewing malicious websites I'm looking for a quick and safe way to browse potentially malicious / infected websites. So far all of the products I've found are PC only. I can run a Virtual PC environment but it's a pain and I'm looking for something simpler.

I'm on Yosemite.

I recommend a VM with the OS and the browsers of your choice. Using the snapshot/clone features you may always revert to the original vanilla state.

Three of the advantages:

Use an arbitrary OS/browser combination (a lot of malicious websites often attack special combinations e.g. Windows XP/7/IE or OS/Flash)
You may detect any impact on the file system safely by comparing the mounted vanilla and infected volume (in read only mode).
You may run fseventer or dtrace (Mac OS X) or other tools (Win/Linux) without interference of your real OS.

Another possibility is outlined here in an article from 2010. Don't know if it still works:

OS X has a built-in sandbox feature for applications, which can restrict their access to certain parts of the system. There isn't a lot of documentation available on the sandboxing system, but I've successfully been able to sandbox Firefox. It has some limitations, but my plug-ins and add-ons work though yours may not.

If you have issues, you'll have to search for the directories where your plug-ins are housed, and give read or read/write access permissions in the firefox-sandbox file. There is only write permission to the ~/Downloads directory, so if you want to save files in a different location, you will have to change the firefox-sandbox file or move them after the download has finished. First, create the following file and save it somewhere as firefox-sandbox:

;; http://codereview.chromium.org/379019/diff/1/2
(version 1)
(deny default)

(allow file-write* file-read-data file-read-metadata
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Downloads")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Library/Application Support/Mozilla")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Library/Application Support/Firefox")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Library/Preferences")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Library/PreferencePanes")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Library/Caches/Firefox")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems")
  (regex "^/Applications/Firefox.app")
  (regex "^(/private)?/tmp/"))

(allow file-read-data file-read-metadata
  (regex "^/dev/autofs.*")
  (regex "^/Library/Preferences")
  (regex "^/Library/Internet Plug-Ins")
  (regex "^/Library/PreferencePanes")
  (regex "^/usr/share/icu")
  (regex "^/usr/share/locale")
  (regex "^/System/Library")
  (regex "^/Applications/Firefox.app")
  (regex "^/usr/lib")
  (regex "^/var")
  (regex #"Frameworks/SDL.framework")
; Our Module Directory Services cache
  (regex "^/private/var/tmp/mds/")
  (regex "^/private/var/tmp/mds/[0-9]+(/|$)")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name"))

(allow mach* sysctl-read)

(import "/usr/share/sandbox/bsd.sb")
(deny file-write-data
   (regex #"^(/private)?/etc/localtime$"
     #"^/usr/share/nls/"
     #"^/usr/share/zoneinfo/"))

(allow process-exec
  (regex "^/Applications/Firefox.app"))

(allow network*)

Replace the /Applications/Firefox.app.... parts with the path to Firefox on your system. Also replace user_name with your username. Next, open up a Terminal and execute this command:

sandbox-exec -f firefox-sandbox /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin

Make sure the firefox-sandbox file is in the directory where you run the above command, and Firefox should launch in a protected sandbox.


Mac Pro 2008 will not boot and no video out I have a friend with a mac pro 2008 model - which is failing to boot.  Windows 7 was the predominantly used OS on it, and she hardly ever booted into OSX Snow Leopard.  She did change the graphics card at one point, but I dont think she booted into osx once after installing the replacement gfx card (xfx 6870).

She tried to boot into OSX by holding the option key - but just received a blank screen and no video output.  When booting into windows, and selecting the 'boot into osx on reboot' option - now there is no video output at all - and no option to select boot OS - so we're really stuck now.  There are two chimes on boot.

I really have no experience with Macs - and have no idea where to start troubleshooting this problem.  Any help would be appreciated!

Edit:  I have done some reading and possibly the reason there is no video is because the xfx 6870 model has not been flashed, and doesnt support the efi-bootcamp menu.

Edit: Are there any keyboard shortcuts to select the OS on the bootcamp os select menu?

Edit: Finally got windows 7 booting again after digging out the broken 8800GT.  Now just need an idiot-proof guide on flashing the 6870 so it works in osx!

Edit: After doing some reading - it appears that the last version of snow leopard should have support for the 6870 - so I will probably try booting to OSX with the old card, then running the system update - and hope that the old gfx card does not fail completely during this time.  Then - if we can boot into OSX with the 6870, we will try using this zeus tool http://www.groths.org/?tag=zeus - which appears the easiest way to flash the card.

You could try setting the PRAM. I think that was still effective on those models. But you are probably right about the graphics card. You can still pick up "cheap" cards from places like Powermax or powerbookmedic or owc


Muting Messages Audio Alerts I'm looking for a non-tedious way to make the Messages application in Mountain Lion silent without killing the audio output of other applications. Any ideas? Is this a job for AppleScript or defaults?

You can change this setting in the Messages app preferences.

Go to Messages-> Preferences -> Alerts. Select 'Message Received' in the Event menu and uncheck the 'Play a sound' box.

You may also have to do this for the 'Message Received in Active Chat' and 'Message Received in Chat Room' events, as well as any others that are triggering unwanted sounds.


Can older iPhones receive Animojis created and sent from iPhone X? iPhone 7+ (iOS 11.1) owner here. If a friend buys an iPhone X and creates/sends me an Animoji, how will it appear on my phone (if at all)?

Short answer:  Yes.

According to Apple:

  You can create your own Animoji and share it with anyone using an iOS
  device, Mac, or smartphone.

The iPhone X can create the Animoji which can then share the animation to anyone running iOS, macOS, or a smartphone - ANY smartphone.  See this article for more details

The Animoji is saved as a .mov file which is sent via MMS and can be viewed by virtually any smartphone (not just iPhones).


How do I make OS X say something when it finds the word "burning" in Console? How do I make OS X monitor the Console and say something when it finds the word "burning" in there?

Use the following command:

syslog -w|while read l;do [[ $l = *'burning'* ]]&&say the bush is on fire but was not consumed by the flames;done

syslog -w is a shorter alternative to tail -f /var/log/system.log. If you need another log use tail -f /path/to/logfile instead.


Not every "tick" of scroll wheel is registering on physical mouse I have one of these and use it on my MBP running macOS Sierra 10.12.1. When I scroll with the scroll wheel, the wheel gives little "ticks" as I scroll. Sometimes I want to only move the page a little bit, so I only scroll the wheel enough to feel one "tick". The problem is if I only scroll enough for one "tick", or scroll multiple "ticks" in succession but too slowly, the scroll doesn't register. If I scroll enough for multiple "ticks" but faster, I will almost always overshoot.

Is this a problem with my mouse? macOS? One of my settings?

How can I fix this?

I was having this issue also on sierra 10.12.1 with a wired Kensington mouse.  I just updated to 10.12.2 and even though there was no mention of anything changing related to mice mine seems to work as before, acknowledging each "tick".


Label view on Apple Mail for OSX I'm using Apple Mail on OSX (Mavericks).
Since I'm accustomed to use Gmail webmail, which shows labels behind each email, I'm looking for a way to show labels (see for instance picture below) in a similar way on Apple Mail.

Is it possible (I assume some plugin may exist)?
If not, are there other mail clients supporting this labels functionality (i.e. Mail for OSX Yosemite)?

Take a look at MailTags from http://indev.ca/MailTags.html - it'll show Gmail Labels in a separate column.


no such process error with launchctl start. Mac OSX 10.9 The goal is to set machine's network name with the ipaddress of this machine.
I have created a plist file and put it into /Library/Launchagents/. For debugging reason I used the command "launctl start".
Here is my plist file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>com.myfile.hostname</string>

  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/usr/sbin/ipconfig</string>
    <string>getifaddr</string>
    <string>en0</string>
    <string>|</string>
    <string>/usr/bin/tr</string>
    <string>-d</string>
    <string>'.'</string>
    <string>|</string>
    <string>sudo</string>
    <string>/usr/sbin/scutil</string>
    <string>--set</string>
    <string>LocalHostName</string>
  </array>

  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>

  <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
  <string>/tmp/AlTest1.err</string>

  <key>StandardOutPath</key>
  <string>/tmp/AlTest1.out</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Then I use:

launchctl start /Library/LaunchAgents/com.myfile.hostname.plist

and get the error:

launchctl start error: No such process

As the error is not explaining what exactly is wrong with that file Im struggling to find the reason. The command itself on the command work fine. If this is the wrong section for this question please advice.

Thanks in advance

Try using the launchctl command:

launchctl load /Library/LaunchAgents/com.myfile.hostname.plist

This will load the job ticket rather than start a named job.

I am not sure pipes are permitted within a launchd job ticket list of arguments. Using them requires the argument to be passed to a shell for interpretation and this may not happen. Consider passing the command directly to /bin/sh as a single argument.


Keyboard backlit light control from command line Is there any command to control the intensity of keyboard light of a MacBook Pro?

I haven't found a great solution yet. Here is some information that can help:

Apparently there is a solution for Ubuntu on MacBooks.
Lab Tick runs on OS X but unfortunately not command-line (nor open source).
brightness is free software to control the display brightness.

This turns off automatic backlight in low light:

defaults write com.apple.BezelServices kDim -bool false

This turns off keyboard illumination when computer is not used for 1 second:

defaults write com.apple.BezelServices kDimTime -int 1

But ideally I would just turn off the illumination under all circumstances. And I haven't found a CLI solution for that - yet.


How can I change the OS X Lion Glossy Dock Notifications/Badges? Is there a way to change the little glossy dock notification icons that have been changed from their pleasant form pre Lion to a glossy style badge like iOS?

An example would be the incremented indicator that notifies you of how many unread emails you have in the Mail application. It displays in the dock.

I'm not sure if I understand the problem without seeing a screenshot, but you can change the dock appearance to use the classic flat Dock style instead of the 3D glass style.

Paste this into a Terminal window and press return:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean true && killall Dock

I much prefer the flat look myself. The glass shelf is so tacky.


Is it possible to update a jailbroken iOS 7 to a version Apple has stopped signing? My iPad is running 7.0.2 and is jailbroken. It looks like Apple is not signing the 7.1.2 any longer.

Is there a way to upgrade iOS to 7.1.2 without letting iTunes contact its home (i.e. Apple's servers)?

Nope. It's impossible to upgrade iOS firmware without connecting to the Apple servers.

Currently, there is a jailbreak for iOS 8.1 using Pangu which is being signed at the moment. iOS 8.1.1 update which is due in a few weeks will patch the jailbreak. It could be the right moment to upgrade your iOS version and re-jailbreak it.  @saurik confirmed that the current iOS 8 jailbreak is stable.


OSX keeps switching to the first space I use spaces with 10.9. I run a few applications in full screen mode. While focused on an application in full screen mode every minute or so I switched back to the first space. This happens with no input on my behalf.

I suspected it was an application in the background taking focus. I shut down all applications that do this and have also disabled space switching on application focus. After a reset the issue persists.

I noticed that the tool bar glitches out after the switch happens. It feels like a bug because when the application is not in full screen mode the icons on my desktop will disappear for a split second and then reappear. This seems to be happening with the same frequency as the space switching issue. Has anyone en-counted this? Is there a fix? It's driving me nuts!

This seems to be Google Drive-related. The behavior has stopped after quitting Google Drive app (in the taskbar).

If you have the same issue, please also report to the Google Support Forums so Google will know the extent of the issue: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/drive/report-a-problem/sv-ZC0ws3Mw

This is now fixed -
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/drive/report-a-problem/kqdqmoMWtk8


Dragon Dictation mouse clicks I use a speak recognition program Called Dragon Dictation. When I work I use the program for mouse clicks but I have to say "mouse click" which doesn't seem like a big deal but when you're saying it 100 times a day it would be so much easier to just say "click". Most of the commands I can see in AppleScript code and I can copy and paste it to make my own commands. However, the mouse clicks are not shown for some reason.

Update:
Dragon dictation is no longer supported on Mac computers. Here is an alternative for mouse clicks: https://github.com/bobbymay/Dictation-for-macOS

You can just install a command-line utility for clicking and then call it via a Dragon dictate command. the utility can be found here:

https://github.com/BlueM/cliclick

then just make a Dragon shell command like this:

name: "click"
Shell script: /usr/local/bin/cliclick c:+0,+0

you can do the same for double-click, but for right-click, and option-click you need to use some AppleScript. Also, check out this project I'm working on: http://voicecode.io which solves all of these problems plus tons more


AirPrint in photos app I just tried printing a photo and it cuts off the sides. It's a piece of yet so it's quite important to not cut off the sides. Is there a way to set which part of the photo prints? I ended up taking a screenshot ofthe photo when the UI hid which reduced the quality severely and printed a huge black border around wasting a lot of ink. So is there any way to access printer settings as is traditional on the PC/mac?  (Eg choose orientation or greyscale/color)

I heard this is 10 times better than the default AirPrint functionality that comes with iOS. It also has tons more useful features. You might want to try the free trial, and see if it works for you!

http://www.ecamm.com/mac/printopia/


How to get back the missing monitor option in High Sierra's menubar? When plugging in an external monitor on my MacBook-pro Sierra I could set the monitor options to show up on the menu bar. That works like a charm.

Since the upgrade to High Sierra, I am not able to get this option again.

I connect an HDMI monitor via Apple Adapter to USB-C and I am unable to find a way to enable this option.

Other colleagues don't have this issue with exactly the same setup.

Open System Preferences → Displays and enable ‘Show mirroring options in the menu bar when available’.

This should add a menu item  for the AirPlay menu even without an external display connected, and when an external display is connected you can use this to switch between mirror and extend.


Credit card numbers stolen. How to check if my MacBook has a keylogger installed? My credit card numbers have been stolen recently. I suspect that was because of my MacBook. I'm thinking that because I had never had the issue before, until recently, after I started using a MacBook Pro (and let Safari stored my card information).

List of Safari extensions that I installed:

AdGuard Adblocker
Translate

List of applications that I installed:

MacTeX
TeXstudio
Visual Studio Code
Google Chrome (just to check for passwords that I forgot so that I can use them again in Safari)
Some fonts (Cambria Math, STIX Two, TeX Gyre)

I installed Malwarebytes and scanned my Mac but dit not find anything.

How can I check if my MacBook is keylogged?

Thank you very much in advance for your help!

The short answer is you already have!

Malwarebytes, like most (if not all) antivirus software for Macs, also guards against other nefarious activities, including keyloggers.

The free trial of Malwarebytes (which I assume is what you used to scan your Mac), would have identified any threats and cleaned your Mac of any infections. The free trial also comes with 30 days access to their premium service, so you could also take advantage of that as well.

Assuming you're a personal/home user, then many of the free options will most likely meet your needs, so don't feel obligated to keep using Malwarebytes if your preference is otherwise.

There are many other options out there you can choose from. As a starting point you can refer to the AV Comparatives list of antivirus vendors for Mac.

You may also want to read the most recent (as of now) AV Comparatives Mac Security Test and Review report (conducted in 2017).


Auto-hiding dock completely disappears on menu bar screen Once I use the auto-hiding dock on the right screen, I am no longer able to use the dock on center screen.  To resurrect the dock on the center screen I first have to use the dock on the laptop. Once I do that, the dock on the center screen magically comes back to life. This cycle is repeatable, without fail.
Here is my monitor arrangement. It has the top of the laptop just slightly under the bottom left corner of center monitor. This depicts the actual physical configuration.

While documenting this problem, I stumbled upon the solution -- after two years of fiddling with this. Note the new placement of the laptop in the arrangement below when compared to that in the original post. I had tried swapping monitors, cables, ports on my MBP dock, the menubar location. Nothing helped. And while I was writing up the original post I thought, I wonder if the laptop being at all under the center monitor makes the OS treat the two as one, vertical viewport when it comes to deciding to raise dock.  Now, I don't know if that's accurate or not, but it got me to try moving the arrangement to have the laptop just around the corner on the side, and voila!  No more strange dock behavior. Now I can freely use the dock on any monitor and it does not get stuck. Now, I just have to undo all the strange muscle memory my mouse arm learned while this was still a problem...
If anyone can speak to my supposition about the "one, vertical viewport", I'd be interested and grateful to know the details.


macOS Messages app: how can I undo the deletion of a conversation? I deleted a conversation by mistake. Restoring ~/Library/Messages from Time Machine doesn’t undo the deletion. Something else must have to be restored. What?

I'm on macOS 10.15.5

In the Messages app Preferences, sign out.
Quit Messages.
From Time Machine

restore ~/Library/Messages/
restore ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Messages/

Log out.

This worked. I summarized here from received wisdom.


Why does iPhone 4 lose its VPN connection on sleep or screen lock? I've setup a VPN connection using AnchorFree.com on my iPhone 4 which works great, the issue I have is when my iPhone goes to sleep or screen locks the VPN connection appears to auto disconnect and doesn't reconnect unless I manually make it. I saw a thread here on apples forums confirming others are seeing this issue but no real solution.

I don't know if it will really help you, but the only way I see to walk-around this problem is to set the System Preferences "Auto Lock" to "Never". This will keep you connection alive.

I would do this before every remote work session. Then, reset it to 1 minutes, you're done with it.


Internet is connected but connection alert keeps popping up I previously surfed the internet and went into a site that has a collection of tv series so you can watch it online, but then my mac started beeping and telling me to download mackeeper due to a virus. This happened once before, so i didn't bother downloading it again since i had it, and nothing happened after. Now my mac keeps putting pop ups that says:
"Connection alert We are having troubles. Download Hotspot Shield t..."
I can't get the pop up to show more. If i click the pop up, hotspot shield .exe is downloaded and does not open when finished.
My internet works fine, but the pop up keeps appearing a few minutes and covers a side of my screen. What can I do?

I use macos sierra version 10.12.6 and google chrome
Oh and google chrome and kakaotalk(korean messenger app) works fine, but i can't seem to open some apps such as skype and parallels desktop due to no internet connection

You said you had once installed MacKeeper on your mac so this resulted in installing a ton of Malware's on your Mac but don't worry you can easily get rid of all those Malware's

Download this Malware Cleaning Software https://www.malwarebytes.com it is a very popular malware cleaning software for effectively cleaning malware and it is even recommend by Apple (an Apple senior advisor over Apple chat support suggested this software to me! )

Until and unless you clean the malware from your mac those messages will keep popping no matter which website you visit cause it is installed on your mac not on the web in your case


Tighten hinge on 27" Cinema Display? I just purchased a new 27" Cinema Display from Apple and I'm wondering if there is any way to tighten the hinge that attaches to the stand for adjusting the angle. I'm a DJ and noticed when I'm performing, the display keeps tilting forward on it's own (likely from some slight bass vibrations). I have two 24" Cinema Displays and the hinge has much more friction than the 27" - I realize the size and weight is greater, although are they normally so loosey goosey?

There are 2 methods to do that.

1- Mechanical

2-Chemical

for mechanical take the screw out and bring it to your hardware store, they will give you tongued washers or claw washers that prevents the screw from loosening.

The pro for this method is you can loosen the screw.

for Chemical method go to your hardware store and get the glue (for the screw).

The negative, it will be extremely hard to remove the screw.


Partition for iTunes I have a Mac with bootcamp and unfortunately i see myself using bootcamp far too often because I'm a developer and VS2013+SqlServer is way too demanding for my 8gb ram... but i use iTunes a lot... so i was thinking, if i create a Fat32 partition and put my iTunes folder there so i can point both my OSX iTunes and my windows iTunes and be able to not only read but write (app updates, new songs, etc...) will it work?!? or maybe the folder structure is different or something like that?!?

You can use the same folder for Mac and Windows versions of iTunes. I would recommend use the exactly same version though. Here is more info on how use it through the network: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070424081346722. It's the same logic, but you will be using the same local folder instead a network shared one.


“SQLDeveloper.app” fails to open after upgrading to Big Sur I recently upgraded macOS to Big Sur and now I can't open SQLDeveloper.app. I am getting this message:

SQLDeveloper.app can’t be opened because the identity of the developer
cannot be confirmed

With macOS Catalina it was working perfectly.
A similar question was discussed here “SQLDeveloper.app” can’t be opened because the identity of the developer cannot be confirmed. I already followed the approach mentioned there, but that did not solve my problem.
Any pointer towards the solution would be highly appreciated.

Launch terminal app

Run the following command to list your Java Versions:
/usr/libexec/java_home -V

From the output, the one that is causing the issue is:

"Oracle Corporation" - "Java" /Library/Internet
Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home"

You'll need to remove this by typing in the following command:
 sudo rm -rf "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/"

Verify the currently set java_home path and update it as per sqldeveloper version you have installed
sudo vi $HOME/.sqldeveloper/20.4.0/product.conf

Add following entry if its not already added (you may need to change as per version)
SetJavaHome /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_221.jdk/Contents/Home

Working fine for me with sql developer 20.4 on Mac OS Big Sur


Will an US purchased Mac receive Warranty coverage while in Brazil? I bought  a macbook pro and I'll have to work on a project in Brazil for over 7 months and I would like to know what is going to happen if any problems happens to my mac...

I've checked and brazil has no apple stores...

If anything happens, how am I suposed to proceed? Is my warranty valid outside of the US? I won't have to ship it back will i? (that would be a major setback...)

TL;DR - Yes, the warranty is international, but you may have to pay shipping and wait longer for service if Apple USA can't find a local provider and/or you can't find a local provider for service while in Brasil.

What holds true is an owner always can contact AppleCare for the country in which the Mac was first sold. In this case, a web query or phone call to the US offices of AppleCare are your best options from Brasil unless you can find a local service provider that will honor Apple's US warranty.

Most of the time, Apple providers get paid enough and are happy to get reimbursed directly from Apple and can rapidly determine warranty coverage from your serial number, but that's really up to each local service provider to decide if and when they will do the work to accept a cross-border repair.
I can't make a blanket statement that all will say no or yes since it'll be somewhere in the middle most of the time.

Check here for worldwide options - https://locate.apple.com/country and here for options within Brasil - https://locate.apple.com/br/pt/


How do I ensure SMB based volume paths are available? My machine is mymac and the remote machine is remotemac(both are running El Capitan 10.11.6) - I reference a share on remotemac, located at //remotemac/path/to/remoteshare, as /Volumes/remoteshare.

Sometimes, especially when I have recently connected to that remote machine or  share from Finder, the /Volumes/remoteshare path is available. But after some time, that /Volumes/remoteshare path is not available.

$ ls /Volumes
Macintosh HD
$ # connect to remoteshare from Finder
$ ls /Volumes
$ Macintosh HD    remoteshare
# After some time (a few hours)...
$ ls /Volumes
Macintosh HD
$ # note that /Volumes/remoteshare is now missing

What can I do in my bash script to ensure that the remoteshare volume is present, or created before it is referenced?

In a script you can use the following basic construct:

#!bin/bash

if mount | grep -q "remoteshare"; then # check if remoteshare is available
    exit
else
    echo not found
fi

grep -q ... suppresses normal output. If successful the script exits. In the other case it will echo "not found".

Instead of echo not found you can ssh into the remote server, run serveradmin and enable or restart the smb service – man serveradmin will show you how to do this. Then quit the ssh session and try to remount the SMB share.

To ssh passwordless into the server enable key based authentication - passing a password in a script is insecure and error prone. To use serveradmin on the remote server without sudoing, modify /etc/sudoers on the remote server and change the part:

## User privilege specification
##
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
%admin  ALL=(ALL) ALL

to

## User privilege specification
##
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
%admin  ALL=(ALL) ALL
your_remote_username ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/serveradmin

Instead of the line echo not found use something like this then:

ssh username@remotemac
serveradmin stop smb
sleep 10
serveradmin start smb
sleep 2
exit
echo "SMB service was restarted"
mount_smbfs //your_remote_username:password@remotemac/folder /some/mntpoint

The inaccessibility of an SMB share may have many causes. It's probably impossible to cover all cases in one script.


How to search for multiple file types? My goal is to search for all files with any of the 3 file extensions I specify. I tried various things but to no avail:

Via the advanced search. Problem: no OR option.

Search field. Problem: It's not giving the dropdown for the next kind keyword.

As a workaround, I tried using 2 different windows to combine the kind options together. Problem: OR doesn't work.

Metadata. I wanted to use the MetaData for extension, but there seems to be none available.

Thanks in advance!

A vanilla solution is to hold option and click the plus icon (now transformed into ...) for adding a new rule. This will give a list of options, among which is the Any rule.
(You may need to delete the initial rule; the option click method only works on subsequent rules)

Screenshot:


Mac shuts down during startup I'll be short and sweet.

My hardware:

Mid-2010 13" MacBook Pro
P8800 2.66GHz Core2duo
8GB aftermarket RAM
750GB aftermarket Seagate Momentus HDD @ 7200RPM

My software:

macOS Sierra Public Beta (latest version).

The computer was feeling very sluggish last night, having trouble loading simple webpages (it spent 5mn on google.com) - so I force shut it down using the power button in order to start it back up (it sometimes goes a bit slow after a few days of uptime).

When I booted it up again, it got stuck at 95% of the grey startup progress bar, and hung there. I restarted it again, and it started shutting down completely midway through the progress bar.

What I've attempted so far in order to solve the issue:

Command + Option + P + R to reset NVRAM - this never seems to have worked, as i was unable to make it restart the machine
Command + R to boot into recovery mode, which worked - First Aid failed with code 8, and the reinstall option was a no-go, because it stated my hard-drive was "locked".
Command + S to boot into single-user command line - tried to run /sbin/fsck -fy, which failed returning disks02: I/O error

I get the feeling I've pretty much exhausted my options at this point. What I want to try again once I'm back home tonight:

Command + Option + R to boot into internet recovery - I don't know how successful this will be given my "hard drive locked" issue
Try to get my hands on a USB boot drive/installer for macOS, and try booting and running Disk Utility once I'm booted from that.

My own opinion is that it looks like my hard drive is shot. Do you guys agree? Did I miss anything in my troubleshooting process?

Also, since this lappy is my only macOS device, I am currently stumped as to how to get a bootable installer for Sierra. I only have access to Windows machines. Any advice on this front?

Also, if it turns out my drive is indeed fried, what are my options for recovering that which is still recoverable?

Thanks a lot in advance!

-Karim

First Aid failing and a locked HD means your HD is failing.

You should boot into internet recovery, and install OS X on an external HD. (Since you don't have another Mac). Then, boot from the external HD and backup any important files from your internal HD. I'd recommend getting a new HD or SSD and installing it into your machine.


Installing an OS on My Intel Mac Mini I have an old (2006) Intel Mac Mini Core Duo, 1.67 Ghz, model A1176. I wanted to single-boot Linux, so I made a bootable USB Gentoo install, which I booted with the help of rEFIT (installed on my OS X) and used gdisk to wipe my hard drive and write a new partition table. Yes, I realize that removing OS X was risky and stubborn.
But I accidentally shut down my computer without configuring the bootloader.

Now I can't boot my computer because there's no bootloader. I put Ubuntu on a USB flash drive (MBR format, FAT filesystem), but the computer doesn't recognize it as bootable.

I can't use the CD/DVD drive either, because a blank CD is already in there. The drive can't eject the disk because there's no operating system to control it.

Note: I don't have the Mac OS X install discs.

I have two questions:

How can I most painlessly install an operating system (probably Linux) on this computer?

2a. Assuming the answer to #1 is "put distro xyz on a DVD and boot from that", how can I eject the current disc?

2b. Assuming the answer is "install rEFIT on one partition of a USB flash drive and a distro on another partition", what's my best bet to get this to work?

I really appreciate any help you can provide

According to Apple support, pressing the Eject or F12 key or holding the mouse or trackpad button at boot time will eject any removable media, such as an optical disc.


"Read only" iPhoto library archive I have a very large iPhoto library and a part of it is old and doesn't have to be modified. To distinguish this part from my whole iPhoto library I will name it "2000_archive".
The version of iPhoto I'm using today is iPhoto ’11.

I would like to access and protect this 2000_archive.
I want to avoid any modification I could made and wouldn't detect immediatly so as to undo it.
This is the kind of event which happens regularly on huge documents which don't provide a clear modification status. iPhoto doesn't provide such a clear modification status.

My iPhoto library is already backed up by Time Machine and
some folders of it are already exported on DVD.

The key function I'm looking after is a library I can select occasionally and open but on which any modification will be blocked. I want a read only separated iPhoto library. Hence the term of archive here.

How may I make a separate iPhoto library of this 2000_archive (I'm here talking of a few hundreds folders)?
How may I make a read only archive of this separate iPhoto library 2000_archive?

Unfortunately iPhoto refuses to open library files you have no write-access to. As soon as you put the file in a write-protected image/device or lock the file, iPhoto will display an error that it can't open the library.

Therefor it seems your only option is to keep one writeable, and if you're paranoid of accidental changes put a none-writeable copy somewhere else (be it any physical media or a locked file).


Restore Terminal Tabs with Session History I had a Terminal window with 7 or 8 tabs with a lot of history and long scrollback, with resume set to 10000 rows, that was always persisting between sessions. I have accidentally closed the window instead of quitting the Terminal app and I have lost this setup. I have a time machine backup from the day before. Is there a way to restore my tabs with their histories?

I have found these two possibly related Q&A, but I can’t figure out how to use that info to restore my tabs:

Restore specific Terminal history from .bash_sessions?
How do OS X terminal sessions persist through reboots?

The saved state of Terminal is stored in this folder.

~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.Terminal.savedState/

Quit Terminal, copy the contents of this folder from your backup, then open Terminal.


Purchases and updates after changing AppleID & Primary Email Address I want to switch my AppleID from using my ISP email addrress to my gmail address.
If I change both my AppleID and Primary Email Address as directed, (I understand I'll need to log out and log back in to the app store on each device,) will my existing purchases (apps & music) still be available for use and updates?

Worked as expected/hoped.

The main stumbling block that I hit was that my new AppleID address was already in use as my emergency email address (I deleted this to allow me to make it my primary email address).

The actual change went smoothly and without issue, afterwards all I needed to do was to log back into iTunes and my phone using my new AppleID.


Is there an app/extension to have UTC appear in the Sierra Finder (10.12.2) menu? Is there an app/extension to have UTC appear in the Sierra Finder (10.12.2) menu ?

I bought "UTC Bar" version 1.31 from the Apple Store, but clicking on "Open" doesn't appear anywhere in the "Date & Time" preferences nor in the Finder Menu - No indication it was installed anywhere.

I prefer toggling UTC to be displayed in the menu rather than bring up the Dashboard each time.

thanks

Simply install BitBar and an additional plugin related to time (probably WorldClock direct download) which displays current UTC time in the menu bar, with various timezones in the drop-down menu:

All apps/plugins are free.


Unable to use auto layout (ctrl + drag) on xcode after some time of using I am having a problem with Xcode. It works correctly but sometimes after a period of using it, when I ctrl + drag an element on Interface Builder autoLayout popup shows and disappears immediately. Also, when I want to set constraints manually, I can't do that, because every single click is recognized as a double click as shown in the gifs below.

I tried to find the cause of this, but I can't. To solve it I have to restart /logout every time which is annoying. I observed that in most cases this starts when I connect external monitor to my MBP and use Xcode on that screen.

Another person, had this same problem where performance plummeted on an external display.

What I ended up discovering was that the external monitor issue was indicating that there was a UIView that interface builder couldn't quite figure out properly for auto-layout.

In his case it was a UIToolbarBarItem that contained a UIView that contained a UILabel. Once I removed the offending UIToolbarBarItem the performance issue resolved itself. It went from being completely unusable to smooth scrolling.

You should check if you have a UIView inside something that might cause auto-layout to perform poorly.


Process assistantd keep writing login keychain This is a Sierra box, the system memory was suddenly out of usage. I have checked the system to find out that the keychain process was busy and used nearly all the memory.
I had to reboot the system, then i opened keychain to see the login items list is flashing, one unknown item in login keychain was keeping being deleted and inserted.
Want to know why, I opened activity monitor, then got to know assistantd was busy doing that. I killed the process, the keychain came to be in peace.
I think the process is used by Siri, as assistantd process came out again after I clicked the siri icon.

Even I do not use siri, I want to know why this could happen, and what is the real solution.

The problem is solved. I have searched in ~/Library for all the directories and files within  has siri or assistant in their names, and removed them all.
Then reboot, all are fine then!


View info about PNG files I have a bunch of PNG files and I want to be able to:

tell their pixel size
preview them
their file size

very quickly. Literally, right click and bang!

Any ideas?

What would also be handy would a way to tell their colors. So if I opened an image, it was easy to see that part of it was #4545AA for example.
Thanks

The file command in the Terminal also gives you some information:

% file foo.png
foo.png: PNG image data, 612 x 792, 8-bit/color RGB, non-interlaced