How can I replace a hard drive running BootCamp? I have actually looked online a bit and found this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2069302?start=0&tstart=0

I have a user that sent me their Macbook Air running OSX 10.6.4 and bootcamp.  They only use Windows 7 on it, never booting to OSX, and now their bootcamp partition is full.

I have bought her a new drive from here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/SSDAPMB240/

However, here's my issue (besides not knowing macs):

I don't have the original OSX DVD, and neither does she.  I've decided to order one from Amazon Prime (10.6.3) which is close enough I'd presume to get this done and will work on the mac without causing licensing issues.

My question now is: am I going down the right path to get this user a new hdd?  Are there other means/methods that are more commonly used to do this in the mac community?

It turns out I was going down the right path...or at least it "works".

Here's the steps I took (following the link I posted in the OP):

Format external hard drive as extended (journaled) inside OSX
Export Boot Camp image using Winclone 2.2 (free online still) to an external HDD in a folder on the external HDD.
Turn on Time Machine and use external HDD as backup volume. Wait for Time Machine to copy all the files from the internal HDD to external HDD.
Eject Time Machine volume and unplug external hard drive.
Swap internal HDD with new HDD. (this part will be based on which drive you bought.  I got mine from OWC/MacSales and they have videos to help with the install.
Boot from Snow Leopard install disc (hold down options key and choose the DVD). (I originally didn't have one so I ordered one from Amazon with Prime overnight.
Select "Disk Utility" in Utilities after boot and format the new hard drive as Mac Extended (journaled).
Select "Restore System from Backup" in Utilities to copy the system and user files from external HDD to new internal HDD.
Reboot with OS installed on HDD rather than install disc.
Launch Boot Camp Assistant to create a new Boot Camp partition on new hard drive.  Here I chose a very large one (bigger than the original backup) since I needed more space...the whole point of the HDD upgrade.
Import Boot Camp image from external HDD to new Boot Camp partition on new internal HDD using Winclone.


Display error when running NEdit I have a Mac Pro running macOS Mojave. I installed NEdit (using Homebrew). When I type nedit in the Terminal, I just get the message:

NEdit: Can't open display.

I am running bash. I check my display and I have indeed display :0

echo $DISPLAY

:0

I have no idea what's going wrong.

You'll need a display server running to run NEdit. Make sure that NEdit is installed and configured correctly. Here's a step by step guide that you can follow to do so. This should work on any recent release of macOS. I have followed the steps on a Mac running macOS Mojave 10.14.5.

Install XQuartz (display server) which NEdit requires to run. Run the following command to install XQuartz via Homebrew:

brew cask install xquartz

Skip if you already have it installed.
Install NEdit along with all of it's dependencies by running the following command:

brew install nedit
After successfully installing the two, run XQuartz.app. You can find it under Other folder in Launchpad, in /Applications/Utilities folder in Finder, or simply via Spotlight search. Here's how to identify it:

In the XQuartz Menu bar, click on Applications → Customize...

You will be presented with X11 Application Menu window as shown:

Click on Add Item button and create an entry for NEdit as shown:

Now close the X11 Application Menu window. Go the XQuartz menu, click on Applications item and you'll see an entry named NEdit (the one you just created).

Click on the entry to run NEdit :)


Why iphone 6s frequently restarts? I have an iphone 6s with 76% battery health.
the problem started, when it got frozen and touch screen didn’t work.so I held the power button to restart my phone.
when it got restarted, while booting, a horizontal white line appeared in my black screen then it turned on.
Now I am having a problem with it.
It randomly restarts with the same white horizontal line.
what can I do about it?
Thanks a lot

Take it to Apple. It's a 5-year-old phone with hardware problems. Apple will agree to replace the battery when the health is below 80%. The charge for a battery replacement is quite small.
If there are other problems, then you may want to save your money and think about an upgrade.


Is there a way to disable/hide the new Photos App in Yosemite? I prefer iPhoto over the new Photos app in Yosemite. It also annoys me, because every time I connect a new device to my Mac, I have to disable "Open Photos App when connected to this device" for that device. It also uses a spot from in my Launchpad.

Is there any way to disable/hide the new Photos App in Yosemite from the launchpad and disable it from starting up if any new device connects?
I don't want to delete it.

You can try running this command from Terminal:
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ImageCapture disableHotPlug -bool YES

To re-enable it again, type:
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ImageCapture disableHotPlug -bool NO

Just a warning that I don't have access to a Yosemite machine to verify this.


App Store asking for other Apple ID when updating apps My friend's mate reset his phone to prove him wrong about a situation and ever since then when he tries to update his apps it asks for his mom's iCloud password yet it says at the bottom of the App Store, iTunes and iCloud that it's signed into his account.

We have tried backing it up into his computer but that didn't help. What can be done?

If it's asking for a different Apple ID to update an app or apps, then they have been purchased on the other Apple account.

You can't change the Apple ID that an app has been purchased with. Instead, delete the app from the device and purchase it again with the Apple ID that you want the app registered to.


Why is shared volume 'Music' always missing from the DEVICES part of the sidebar in Finder? I have a mid 2010 17" MacBook Pro (MBP).  I also have a Windows Home Server (WHS) that I connect to regularly from my MBP.  Normally when I connect to a share on the WHS, that mount point is listed in the sidebar of Finder under DEVICES.

Problem

Under DEVICES, one share never shows:

  Music

All other WHS shares (Photos, Movies, Documents etc.) always show in that part of the sidebar when mounted.

The WHS (named Bundywhs) appears as expected under SHARED, I can take that route to connect to the Music volume.

I can eject the Music volume and reconnect, but it still doesn't show under DEVICES.

I upgraded from OS X 10.7.2 to 10.8, the problem persists.

It's not stopping me from doing anything, just more of a hassle not to have the quick shortcut.

Questions

Is there a reason why Music will not show under DEVICES?

Is there anything I can do to make it show?

Notes

Results of a command in Terminal:

defaults read com.apple.sidebarlists | grep Music
                Name = Music;
                Name = Music;
                Name = Music;
                Name = Music;
                Name = Music;

Results of second command request

 };
            EntryType = 8;
            Icon = <496d6752 00000132 00000000 4642494c 00000126 00000002 00000000 00000000 01160003 00000000 c8c3bb37 0000482b 00000000 019faeb6 019fdd00 0000ca29 d33c0000 00000920 fffe0000 00000000 0000ffff ffff0001 0018019f aeb6019f acc8019f acc7019f a415019f a408019f a407000e 0036001a 00470065 006e0065 00720069 00630046 0069006c 00650053 00650072 00760065 00720049 0063006f 006e002e 00690063 006e0073 000f001a 000c004d 00610063 0069006e 0074006f 00730068 00200048 00440012 005a5379 7374656d 2f4c6962 72617279 2f436f72 65536572 76696365 732f436f 72655479 7065732e 62756e64 6c652f43 6f6e7465 6e74732f 5265736f 75726365 732f4765 6e657269 6346696c 65536572 76657249 636f6e2e 69636e73 00130001 2f00ffff 0000>;
            Name = Music;
        },

{
Alias = <00000000 009e0003 00010000 00000000 00004244 63750001 ffffffff ffffffff     00000000 00000000 00001201 fffe0000 00000000 0000ffff ffff000e 000c0005 004d0075 00730069     0063000f 000c0005 004d0075 00730069 00630012 00000013 000e2f56 6f6c756d 65732f4d 75736963     00090026 00266369 66730000 01000000 736d623a 2f2f5269 636b4062 756e6479 7768732f 4d757369 6300ffff 0000>;
EntryType = 8;
Name = Music;
}
{

"com.apple.LSSharedFileList.TemplateSystemSelector" = 1935822195;
};
Icon = <496d6752 0000001c 00000000 5359534c 00000010 00000000 744d7573>;
Name = Music;
},
{

                    {
            Alias = <00000000 009e0003 00010000 00000000 00004244 63750001 ffffffff ffffffff 00000000 00000000 00001201 fffe0000 00000000 0000ffff ffff000e 000c0005 004d0075 00730069 0063000f 000c0005 004d0075 00730069 00630012 00000013 000e2f56 6f6c756d 65732f4d 75736963 00090026 00266369 66730000 01000000 736d623a 2f2f5269 636b4062 756e6479 7768732f 4d757369 6300ffff 0000>;
            EntryType = 8;
            Name = Music;
            Visibility = AlwaysVisible;
            },
{
            Alias = <00000000 009e0003 00010000 00000000 00004244 63750001 ffffffff ffffffff 00000000 00000000 00001201 fffe0000 00000000 0000ffff ffff000e 000c0005 004d0075 00730069 0063000f 000c0005 004d0075 00730069 00630012 00000013 000e2f56 6f6c756d 65732f4d 75736963 00090026 00266369 66730000 01000000 736d623a 2f2f5269 636b4062 756e6479 7768732f 4d757369 6300ffff 0000>;
            EntryType = 8;
            Name = Music;
        },
                    {

When browsing the shared drive, you should be able to drag the shared folder to the side bar under favourites header.

In reply to your comment. It could have just been accidentally trashed at some point without realising.


How to upgrade to Big Sur? I have difficulty figuring out how to upgrade a MacBook Air to Big Sur.
macOS Catalina - Version 10.15.6 - MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2012) - Processor 17. GHz ... - Memory 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 - ...

downloaded some beta-enabling package from developer.apple.com
the "Software Update" program shows that the computer is enrolleD in the "Apple Developer Seed Program."
I tried for several days in a row now, but it does not ask me for an upgrade to Big Sur
Instead, updating to 10.15.6 is advertised.

I want 11 and new to Apple, I've never used a Mac before (well, OK, once or twice in 1995...)
It's not at all obvious how to upgrade this to 11. What steps might I be missing?

While Big Sur has been relased as a public beta, it's not ready for general consumption.  It's going to have issues and users are expected to know how to get around issues and at least research.  Let's face it... you're jumping into the deep end of the pool - do you know how to swim or at least did you bring your floaties?
From the Beta FAQ

Please note that since the public beta software has not yet been commercially released by Apple, it may contain errors or inaccuracies and may not function as well as commercially released software. Be sure to back up your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and your Mac using Time Machine before installing beta software. Since Apple TV purchases and data are stored in the cloud, there’s no need to back up your Apple TV. Install the beta software only on non-production devices that are not business critical. We strongly recommend installing on a secondary system or device, or on a secondary partition on your Mac.

I'm not saying this to discourage you, in fact, I encourage all users to try out new things because it expands their skill set.  However, I do fear for users who want to upgrade to the bleeding edge on their only computer to beta software (regardless if it's Windows, macOS, or even a *nix) without having some sort of way to escape if something goes sideways.  Ask any long time user here how many questions we each have answered where having a Time Machine backup would solve pretty much all problems...
All that said...  You can do an in place upgrade and a wipe and install . I prefer the wipe and install (via USB Installer preferably).  After you've downloaded the installer....
In-Place upgrade:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --agreetolicense --forcequitapps --nointeraction

Wipe & Install:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --eraseinstall --newvolumename "Macintosh HD" --agreetolicense –forcequitapps --nointeraction

To create a USB installer:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/DRIVENAME --nointeraction --downloadassets


Is there a keyboard shortcut to cycle between windows in the current space? When I have two applications open side-by-side in the same space, I'd like to be able to swap between them quickly with the keyboard.

I can use Command+Tab, but often I land on an application in a different space, and it moves me to that space.

Is there a similar shortcut which limits the list of applications to the current space?

(I'm using OSX Snow Leopard.)

Move focus to active or next window (⌃F4). It cycles through visible windows (not applications) on the current space.

I've assigned it to ⌥⇥ myself, and assigned ⌥T to what ⌥⇥ would do normally: d=~/Library/KeyBindings; mkdir -p $d; echo $'{\n\t"~t" = insertTabIgnoringFieldEditor:;\n}' > $d/DefaultKeyBinding.dict.


Does fixing a Fusion Drive using 'diskutil resetFusion' destroy the BOOTCAMP partition I have a 2015 iMac 27" retina whose Fusion Drive split into separate drives whilst attempting to fix a partition table issue prior to upgrading to macOS Big Sur.
I have a fully functioning BOOTCAMP partition with Windows 10 on the HDD drive.
If I run diskutil resetFusion to rejoin the Fusion Drive's SSD and HDD, will it destroy my BOOTCAMP partition?

Yes, all partitions on the SSD and HDD are destroyed by running diskutil resetFusion.
This is explained clearly after running the command; when it asks for confirmation.


Trouble changing default search engine in Safari I'm trying to change my default engine in Safari (running Yosemite) from Google to DuckDuckGo and I'm not successful. I changed the default engine in "Safari→Preferences→Search". When I type into the address bar I see "DuckDuckGo search" in the suggestions, but then the search goes straight to google.

I checked the output of "defaults" and didn't see anything system-wide either. Did anyone encounter this problem?

PEBKAC, sorry.

My problem was caused by the SafariKeyboardSearch extension. Disabling it helped.


"Automatically install new apps" not working I've got "Automatically install new apps" checked on all my iDevices, but it hardly ever does what it says.  For example, I just downloaded three new apps to my computer and then did a Sync operation on two iPads and an iPhone -- none of the new apps showed up.  On the App List, they each showed the button as Install.  When I pressed the Install button on the App List for each of the affected apps, they then installed on the next Sync.

Just to keep me guessing, new apps WILL occasionally install correctly, but I've never figured out what magic circumstance triggered the proper behavior.

Ideas?

Apple is not doing very good programming lately, they have shifted their resources to making iOS look pretty. They are not enterprise ready yet and this is just one example, I have ran into this issue about 20 times and its such a time consuming task to manually click update or install on each iPad, because you can hold the command key and clicking one app will automatically highlight all, but yes the automatically install new apps checkmark should do all this for you, applause for Apple's software team on their historic buggy software releases.
I am not 100% on this but make sure your restrictions allow apps to be deleted and install apps is allowed, and delete all caches in the users library, reboot, try again.. sorry if that doesnt help..


Mirror number of unread mails in title bar Is there a way to show the exact number of unread mails from the Mail.app icon also in the title bar? Note that this is not the same as showing the number of unread mails in inbox, since I can change the folder to something else like a smart mailbox.

(A script which outputs this number would also be okay; I could write a menu bar item around this myself.)

Update: Alternatively, a script which outputs the number of unread mails for a user-definable smart mailbox is also okay. All example code I’ve seen so far only works for non-smart mailboxes.

You can obtain the number of unread items with the following AppleScript:

tell application "Mail" to get the count of messages of mailbox "INBOX" of account "Me"

As you mentioned you could write a menu bar item, you could use this AppleScript for it.

Alternatively, you can do this with Mail Unread Menu.
However, I'm not sure if it works with Mavericks.


Mess with multiples Emacs distros (Homebrew)? I have recently got a new copy of Emacs on a brand new macOS setup as follows, using the Homebrew package manager:

brew cask install emacs

I also wanted to try Emacs Mac Port, so I fired up my terminal and typed

brew tap railwaycat/emacsmacport
brew install emacs-mac

but lot of symlinking error appeared.

I thought it was a bad idea to let Homebrew manage so similar packages, and removed emacs and emacs-mac with brew cask uninstall emacs and brew uninstall emacs-mac.

Have I done a mess? Should I have done something else other than brew cleanup and brew doctor, before installing again the standard Emacs distro with brew cask install emacs?

If you don't want to use Homebrew, you don't have to. This is really a matter of taste. You can use Homebrew or not. You can build the application from source or you can download from GNU here or Emacs For Mac OS X here - both yield the latest versions.

If you want to use Homebrew, I recommend that you use:

brew install emacs

then link the binary if you want to run from terminal, this can be performed via:

ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/26.2/Emacs.app /Applications

If you don't want to use Homebrew, use one of the binaries listed above. Keep in mind you can always link them later if you want to run the latest version from the command line.


Why is my touch bar so buggy? My touch bar often shows the wrong keys, is unresponsive, or (as is the current situation) only shows one or some of the keys. Right now I'm listening to Spotify and only the pause button is showing whereas it usually has my normal configuration. I have hard-set it to a custom configuration which is almost identical to the keys before the touch bar came out.

Note - I just started pressing all over the touch bar and the correct buttons came on in each area that I pressed.

This thing offers little value and causes lots of problems. I haven't played around with it much or done anything with my computer (i.e. fun/sketchy software) that is atypical. Are there common reasons for the new touch bar to break all the time?

I'd imagine the Touch Bar can become buggy for the same reasons that any computer becomes buggy, so what you could do is use Touch Bar Simulator to see what your Touch Bar thinks it's displaying, thereby narrowing it down to if the issue is software or hardware. If it's software, try the usual stuff like disk repair and reinstalling macOS. If it's hardware, it may be time to visit an Apple Store...


Mapping app to plot several points I am looking for an iOS app that can plot several points (a.k.a. drop several pins) on the map at once. I would like to import the locations from a csv file or kml file and see all the locations at once.

Best: The app interprets the csv or kml and forwards me to the iOS native maps app with all the pins placed. This way I can use flyover mode and have a completely native map solution.

Next best: The app plots the points inside the app, but using Apple's API. (Flyover would be great, but I'm not sure that is possible.)

Acceptable, if I have to: Uses some kind of custom maps. I have found Galileo and arcGIS.

There's quite a few applications for iOS that support GPX track information, which you could probably use to sort of meet your needs. I won't list them all, as there's quite a few (free and paid), with various focuses on walking/riding/hiking or photography (for geotagging images).

I've used GeoTagr (formerly GeoLogTag) for quite a while for generating GPX files for geotagging photos. I believe you can copy GPX files in/out of it also, via iTunes (actually various methods to get the files out), but there are quite likely apps that make that process easier (try the ones designed for walking trails if you want easier import).

Again, there's many more, with many different features, so just do a search for GPX on the iTunes App Store and see what suits your needs (and let us know if any in particular suited your needs!).

Something like Trails Lite GPS Tracker or EasyTrails GPS Lite might be more appropriate as they're designed to import GPX track files also, to let you follow the trail. I see no iOS6 Apple Maps flyover screenshots, but that's pretty new so I'm not sure if it'll just come natively since they use the native iOS Maps API, or if they'd need to be modified to support such things.

Maps+ is another interesting one, which supports trails and bookmarking points (you'd probably need the paid version though). This one specifically uses the Google Maps data, apparently even with iOS 6. This includes elevation maps, which may be useful for tracks.

The caveat is most of these types of apps require you to use GPX files, which may or may not be a downside for you, depending on the current format of your data points. It's a reasonably common format though, and I'm pretty sure things like Google Earth can produce GPX files.

There's really quite a lot to choose from though, many with free "light" versions to test out...


How to use Accessibility Shortcuts for enabling Display Color Filters? As part of my evening routine, I have enabled Dark Mode and Night Shift to turn on in the evening. In addition, I like to turn on the grayscale/greyscale color filter option in System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Color Filters > Enable Color Filters as shown in the screenshot below (1).

Now, instead of drilling down into the appropriate submenu to turn the color filter on | off, is there a way to add this option to the Accessibility Shortcuts list from the drop-down menu bar button as shown in the screenshot (2)?
--
Just to be thorough in my question, I want to show that the existing shortcuts do not include Color Filters as shown below. I do not see an option to add additional/new shortcuts.

A workaround is to use an AppleScript saved as an application. Double-clicking it (saved on the desktop, for example) allows for making the changes quite easily.
See https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/413540/248480.
Still, this doesn't answer the original question so I would look forward to other responses.


Transferring Skitch history to new Mac I bought a new MacBook and am wanting to transfer my Skitch history. I've copied all of the .skitch files from ~/Pictures/Skitch on my old MacBook, but Skitch isn't showing them in the history list on my new MacBook Pro.

Any ideas?

Looks like Skitch employee, Keith, answered this question on GetSatisfaction.

The short answer is that you need to copy the following preferences files:

~/Library/Preferences/com.skitch.skitch.history
~/Library/Preferences/com.skitch.skitch.plist

This is in addition to copying the actual .skitch files located in:

~/Pictures/Skitch


Insecure connection and stored passwords disappear I am troubleshooting my dad's computer and I am confused about what's going on, sorry if the symptoms are a little bit all over the place.

I am connecting the computer with a wifi that all other computers seem to have no problem with.

On his computer I have the following trouble and the following symptoms:

Webbrowser: trying to open "https://google.de" claims to be an insecure connection.
Dropbox also cannot connect because it is supposed to be an insecure connection
Mail asks for passwords that it previously remembered. They also still seem to be stored in keychain.
Every now and then the computer seems to also forget the wifi password and I have to manually enter it.
A weird dialog pops up rapidly and then quickly closes by itself. I had to try a few times by taking a screenshot to capture what it says. It is saying (roughly translated from German): "Do you want 'nmblookup' to accept incoming connections"

The Mac is running OS Version 10.6.8

Ok, so it seem like that by going into "Disk Utility" and doing the sequence "Verify Disk Permissions"->"Repair Disk Permission" did the trick.


After deleting Bootcamp .. I failed to merge free disk space using Disk Utility After deleting Bootcamp partition I cannot merge it back to Macintosh HD partition nor even using it to install windows again.

Using Disk Utility this is what happens:

I tried to login to MacOS recovery mode and do the same thing.. but still getting the same error..

Output from diskutil list:

Output from sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0

*I'm Running MacOS 10.13.6 on Retina MacBook Pro Late 2013

Thanks

Thanks to David Anderson in the comment section.

I used that terminal command:

sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

and it worked!

Thanks again!


Apple external Keyboard A1243 does not work properly My Apple external German wired keyboard A1243 does not work properly.

When I press the space or m, it becomes m (space + m).  When I press u it becomes u and sometimes ü.

Does anyone know how to solve this issue?

At minimum, your keyboard needs to be cleaned.  More than likely, it needs to be replaced.

Just doing a quick search for your symptoms brings up tons of relevant results in which a majority of the keyboards needed to be replaced.  Some were fixed by a cleaning, but that requires taking the keyboard apart.

But to be certain it is your keyboard and not you computer, just plug the keyboard into another computer; if the problem persists then it's time for a new one.


USB Device (Camera) Was Connected, but I choose to "Do Not Do Anything", Cannot Get It To Show Now I connected my cannon Vixia HF R70 Camera to my mac.  I am running Mac OS 10.15.7 (Catalina on a Mac Book Air)
It is a standard USB A connector cable.  I was prompted with a window on what I want to do, and one of the options was "Do not ever ask what to do/do nothing".  By mistake I clicked that, and now whenever I connect my camera it does not show.
Things I have done to try fixing:
Have tried different USB ports, rebooting.
Ensuring my finder is configured to display all external drives and devices
I have gone into About My Mac -> System Report -> USB Devices Inside of this I DO see my Cannon camera.
Thus, whenever I connect the computer recognizes it but does not show it.
Can somebody help advise please? Thank you.

Open the Image Capture app and select the camera. You can manually import images or change the settings. This app manages the cameras and bulk image import from storage media for macOS Catalina and lower.


Can I use a 3.5mm mic in an ipod touch? I have a microphone with a 3.5 mm jack. Can I use this for recording in garage band in my ipod touch. Thanks for the help.

Not directly - you need, at minimum, a plug adaptor to take the 2-way connector on the mic to the Apple standard 4-way connector.

There are a lot more advanced methods too, involving actual 'live' interfaces designed to do just that - it really depends on what kind of mic it is as to what interface would be best, though if its default connector is a 2-way mini-jack, then my guess would be it's a non-powered electret condenser, which are not always the best for music recording.

I'd consider having a look at some of the IK Multimedia iRig devices or alternatively, just start from this Google search for simpler connectors


How do I know if someone has installed screen sharing on my Mac? I think someone might have installed screen sharing on another account on my computer, but I would like to know if my screen is being shared. How would I know?

A bare minium you could do is would be if you just look up if the Screen Sharing is enabled in System Preference > Sharing

Unfortunately there are other ways to do screen sharing without using above.


App is stuck installing on my iPhone, how do I fix it? I started updating my Twitter app, but then I lost the internet connection and when I went home I couldn't get it to resume the installation. It stops just past the half way mark with the lines on the icon. It has been like this for months.

How can I unstick the stuck application install?

You mentioned this device was upgraded from iOS 9. In my experience an iPhone that has been upgraded from previous OS that has not had a full restore on it in years is prone to reliability issues like this.

I typically do a restore at least one time per year (I experiment a lot and "cruft up" my phone).

Its a pain however its probably time for a full restore...  The phone will run like new afterwords.

Note: Back up all data before you preform this action, otherwise all data will be lost.


Can I use a ZFS ZEVO-managed USB hard disk for Time Machine backups and does it offer de-deduplication? ZEVO support for Time Machine

Can I use a ZEVO-managed USB hard disk for Time Machine backups?

ZFS dedup

Will ZEVO and Time Machine give me de-duplication (which is sorely missing from Time Machine on HFS+, especially if you backup multiple machines to the same disk)?

In the Time Machine pane of System Preferences, add any ZFS dataset.

For the first backup to that dataset, the operating system will:

create a sparse bundle disk image (….sparsebundle) at the root of that dataset
attach the image, after which you'll see a volume named Time Machine Backups.

For each subsequent backup to that dataset, the OS will:

attach the image, after which you'll see the Time Machine Backups volume.

Time Machine routines with ZFS are similar or identical to the routines that apply when backing up to a device – such as an Apple Time Capsule – that uses AFP.

How can one recover from TM after new/reinstallation? New OS installation knows nothing about ZFS to TM image is unreachable.


command + tab not switching focus Normally, when I have apps on two separate monitors, I can switch focus to an open app (on either screen) using Command+tab. I can then switch spaces on that specific screen using Control-arrow keys. However, I am unable to do that: Despite the fact that the screen will focus on a specific monitor, I can only switch spaces on the screen where my mouse resides.

Switching spaces using the keyboard shortcuts is dependent on your focus, rather than the app that's in the foreground. macOS determines your focus by looking at your mouse's position.

If it used the foreground app to determine your focus, and you had a space with no apps open in it, you would never be able to use a keyboard shortcut to change the space on that monitor.


time capsule router history log Does the time capsule router log web history? How?

No it does not.  You will need to incorporate a 3rd party device or software for that.  Expand your question to include your needs and someone may be able to help you further.


Click on a button (that is not a button ?) with Applescript or Javascript Okay, relative newbie here, but I have searched all the answers and tried most of the suggestions and cannot find a way to automate using Applescript or Javascript within Applescript to click a button on a specific website. I can't provide the website because it is part of a protected medical record software, but as far as I can tell the button is encoded as follows:

Add new documents for this patient

            Add Files
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I have tried most of the Javascript (and Applescript) solutions. I have even tried the Fake app which seems to work for every other button except this one. I have searched in vain for a button id and the above code seems to be all that refers to the button. The function of the button is to bring up a Chooser window import image files.

Using tab to get to the button doesn't work because the number of tabs varies with individual patients (dynamic website ?).

I apologize in advance if this is trivial, but it is literally the last step in a long series of steps that would save me a lot of time. I figured out everything else mainly with the help on this board.

Thanks to all of you.

I found my own answer by digging a little deeper into this.

tell application "Safari"

do JavaScript "document.getElementsByName('files[]')[0].click();" in document 1

end tell

Using getElementsByName and the name attribute 'files[]' was all it took (and by the way was the ONLY way out many, many that worked in this case).


Using Shazam to pick up audio over internal soundcard / headphones I recently discovered Shazam has an app for mac, it seems it works by listening on the built in mic (or any mic presumably).

I wondered if there was a way I could get it to listen to the soundcard instead? I typically listen to radio streams over VLC, through headphones and thought it would be awesome to be able to use Shazam for those unknown tunes.

I found out about the Audio MIDI Setup.app which you can create aggregate devices, I thought maybe I could somehow forward the output into the mic- but I don't really understand it exactly truth be told.

Is there a way I could get this to work?

You can do this like so:

Install Soundflower (from https://rogueamoeba.com/freebies/soundflower/)
Option-click the volume icon and change both the input and the output device to "Soundflower (2ch)"
Start the Soundflowerbed application that comes with Soundflower, then click its icon in the top right (of a flower) and choose "Built-in Output" from the list under "Soundflower (2ch)"

Now your system audio output (e.g. VLC) is going out on the Soundflower virtual audio cable and your system input (e.g. Shazam) is coming from the Soundflower virtual audio cable, so Shazam can listen to whatever you play on the Mac, but Soundflowerbed lets you also route that virtual audio cable out through the system audio output so you can hear it all the time!

This could have a slightly negative effect on CPU usage and latency, so you might not want to use this set up all the time if you aren't using Shazam - in this case, you just Option-click the volume icon and set the output (and input if required) back to "Built-in". It's really cool to have Shazam IDing tracks as you listen to a DJ mix/radio station, and it's (sometimes) impressively accurate!


Why won't my new MBP actually shutdown when I click "Shutdown..." in the "apple" menu This is related to this other question Prevent MacBook Pro from turning on by touching trackpad.

My new MacBook Pro (MBP) seems to fails to actually shutdown when clicking "Shutdown..." in the "apple" menu.

When I click on "Shutdown..." in the "apple" menu, the laptop behaves as if it was going to sleep rather than fully shut down. It looks as if it does actually turn off (turns black). But then a simple touch on the trackpad or a hit on any of the keys "wakes it up", as if it had been turned off and was powering on again (it goes through the black background screen with the white apple in the middle and the progress bar).

In contrast, if I force shut it down using the touch id button, then the MBP behaved as expected, i.e., it would only turn back on using the touch id button again, and would not turn back on by a simple touch on the trackpad or by pressing a key on the keyboard.

EDIT: after a couple more tries, it appears I was mistaken, in the sense that even force shutting down the latpop does not actually solve the problem (see the discussion in the comments to Monomeeth's answer below)

This unfortunately has nothing to do with how long I wait between clicking "Shutdown..." and pressing a key or the trackpad: This has happened many time after waiting the whole night between clicking "Shutdown..." and pressing on the trackpad. In fact, I have clicked "Shutdown..." many times in the last month without ever having to press the touch id to power my laptop on: I always simply pressed on the trackpad, which made me believe this was the new normal with MBP and triggered my asking of the other related question.

Note also that I never get an error message of the type: "Application X prevented your laptop from shutting down" after clicking "Shutdown...".

I am obviously not fond of having a "Shutdown..." button that does not workperly pro and having to force shut down my laptop every time I want it to actually turn off.

My questions are:

Is that a normal behavior for a new MBP? Anyone ever faced something similar? Are there any known instances of a new MBP not actually shutting down when clicking "Shutdown..." in the "apple" menu?
What might be causing it? Could it have anything to do with peculiar "Energy saving" settings? Or could it have something to do with an app that would be preventing the laptop from actually turning off without triggering an error message?

EDIT: I have checked on my wife's new MBP, and it behaves in exactly the same way. Is that really a new feature of the latest generation of MBP?

I'd start with resetting both the NVRAM and SMC (in that order). Before following the steps below, ensure you have no external hardware connected and that you're using the built-in keyboard.

Reset the NVRAM

Reset the NVRAM on your MBP as follows:

Fully shut down your MBP.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionPR keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down for about 20 seconds or until you see the Apple logo
Let go of the keys and let your MBP 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).

Reset the SMC

Fully shut down your MBP.
Press and hold the power button for at least 10 seconds
Let go of the power button and wait 5 seconds
Power up your MBP again

Once you've reset the NVRAM and SMC use your MBP as usual and see how it behaves when you shut down etc. If it's still misbehaving, reset the SMC again but with the following steps instead:

Fully shut down your MBP.
Press and hold the right shift key and the left option and control keys for 7 seconds before then also pressing and holding the power button down for another 7 seconds (i.e. the keys will end up being held down for 14 seconds, the power button for 7 seconds)
Let go of all three keys and the power button
Wait 5 seconds
Power up your MBP again

If all of the above doesn't work, it may be worth testing your MBP in Safe Mode to see if it behaves differently to how it does normally.

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your Mac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your MBP.
Restart your MBP
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. does your display wake up normally, etc)
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your MBP as normal
Test again when booted normally

If the problem doesn't occur while booted into Safe Mode, let me know and we'll go from there.


How to install windows 10 using bootcamp?(Hard disk problems) Here's what I did while installing windows 10 using bootcamp.Firstly,i modified the Info.plist file of bootcamp in order to create a live usb(since I have a MBP with an optical drive).It worked.While installing,Windows needed me to have a gpt partition.So,I converted the hybrid MBR/GPT to GPT partition style using the gdisk tool.(before this,I formatted the partition to NTFS format)Again,I booted back to the usb drive and this time,installation started but while finishing up,it gave me an error saying "cannot access boot manager.Installation failed"-(something like that).Any solution?Also,state a way to go back to the original partition style.(In case i decide not to install windows.Also,I am not able to merge the partition since osx is not able to read the partition style).

If Apple officially supports Windows 10 on you Mac, then you should follow the instructions given by Apple. See the Apple web site "Use Windows 10 on your Mac with Boot Camp" for details.

If apple does not official support your model Mac, you may still be able to install Windows 10. Here are some thoughts.

While editing the Info.plist file may allow you to create the USB Windows 10 installer, usually the same computer can not boot the installer from the USB drive. If you can, then your computer is one of the few exceptions.

If you have a working optical drive, then this would make the best choice to install from. I would recommend burning the iso file to a RW DVD. This takes longer to burn, but the DVD is reusable.

When possible, you should use the Boot Camp Assistant to download the "Boot Camp Support Software" to a flash drive. If you can not, then download and use the "Boot Camp Support Software" for Windows 7. The correct version for your Mac can be found at the Apple web site "Install Windows 7 and earlier on your Mac using Boot Camp".

If you use an older version of the "Boot Camp Support Software" to install, you made need the set the Compatibility Mode. Right click on Setup.exe to set the appropriate mode.

Most likely you will not be able to install using a EFI boot method. Even if you succeed in installing, usually some of the hardware will not function correctly. (For example, sound will not work.)

The best chance at success will be to install using the legacy BIOS boot method. This requires you to partition the installation drive using a hybrid GPT/MBR partition scheme. This usually is accomplished by using the Boot Camp Assistant or using the Disk Utility to format (via Erase) the 4th partition as MS-DOS (FAT). (This is the partition assigned the identifier disk0s4.) After booting to the Windows 10 installer, you will need to NTFS format this partition in order to complete the installation of Windows.

If you use the Startup Manager to boot the Windows 10 installer, then you should choose the icon with the label "Windows". This selects the BIOS boot method. The icon labeled "EFI boot" selects a EFI boot method. Again, I recommend you avoid EFI boot method installations. You invoke the Startup Manager by holding down the option key when you turn on or restart your Mac.

Some users have reported problems getting the wireless keyboard to work during the installation process. The Windows installer does offer a "on screen" keyboard which can be temporarily substituted for the physical keyboard. You can pair the wireless keyboard after Windows 10 installs.

It is possible that your computer will boot back to OS X, before the installation of Windows completes. If this happens, then open the "Startup Disk" pane of the "System Preferences" application, select the icon labeled "Windows" and click on the "Restart" button. The installation of Windows will continue.


External disk - Unrecognized file system (-69846) I have an external storage with 2TB that was working nicely. But since last week, when I unplugged the USB before eject it, the disk is not readable anymore.

When I insert USB, I can actually see this message box:

I also tried to repair it on Terminal:

diskutil unmountDisk force /dev/disk2
diskutil repairVolume /dev/disk2

That results on this error:

Error starting file system repair for disk2: Unrecognized file system (-69846)

Can anybody help me please?

EDIT

Terminal comand sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk returns:

  gpt show: unable to open device '/dev/disk3': Resource busy

(even after umountDisk)

Terminal comand sudo fdisk /dev/disk returns:

Disk: /dev/disk3    geometry: 1003/16/63 [1011242 sectors]
Sector size: 4096 bytes
Signature: 0x0
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

Try this in the exact order:

#FOR THE WHOLE DISK
diskutil eject /dev/disk2               #Eject the disk
diskutil mountDisk /dev/disk2           #Re-mount the disk

#FOR THE VOLUME(S) OF THE DISK
diskutil list                           #list volume identifiers.
diskutil mount /dev/disk2sXXX           #Mount the Volume. Dont enter a disk ID
diskutil repairVolume /dev/disk2sXXX    #Repair the Volume. Dont enter a disk ID

Basically you are trying to correct previous mounting/ejection related errors by making sure the disk is safely ejected before you do anything else.

Once that is out of the way, have the disk re-mounted. Next, have the volume re-mounted. Finally, repair the newly mounted volume.

Additionally, double check for any human error. Did you want to repair the volume or the disk because you specified a disk identifier to repair a volume. You typed:

diskutil repairVolume /dev/disk2

it should be

diskutil repairVolume /dev/disk2sXXX

Or use repairDisk if you wanted to repair a disk.


MacBook Pro with Touch Bar; switch between F keys, app controls and control strip? My previous MacBook Pro 15" had physical function keys, which could be switched to media control keys by holding down the Fn key (or the other way around if you liked). I found this very handy, and would use both flavors of keys all the time.

I've just switched to the newest MacBook Pro 15", which lost the function/media keys, replacing them with this super-sexy Touch Bar. But, the Touch Bar is only an improvement if it can be used with the app-specific controls; otherwise it's just a screen pretending to be the missing keys. So, now I want access to all three Touch Bar modes:

Media control keys:

Function keys:

App-specific control panel, e.g. from Google Chrome:

These are mutually exclusive; you can't show two at once. Problem: there seems to be no way to easily switch between the three modes. I can pick any two (switching between them using the Fn key), but access to the third is always out of reach.

For the moment I've settled on switching between function keys and app controls, with no media key access. But, whenever I start playing a video full-screen and find it too loud or too soft, I have to mouse to the top, wait for the menubar to appear, click the tiny speaker icon and then finally adjust the volume. It's a pain in the rear, and a definite downgrade.

Is there any way to have quick and easy access to all three Touch Bar modes? (I'm using both Keyboard Maestro and BetterTouchTool, but neither seems to be able to switch Touch Bar modes.)

It turns out that I wasn't clear on the four default modes for the Touch Bar:

"App Controls with Control Strip"
"Expanded Control Strip"
"App Controls"
"F1, F2, etc. Keys"

I wasn't clear (actually I think Apple wasn't clear) what the difference was between "app controls" and "control strip". Turns out, if I choose option 1, then I get a (somewhat narrowed) application-specific control bar, plus a (compacted) set of media control keys. So, that gives me access to my first and third desired modes. Then, set "Press Fn key to" to  "Show F1, F2, etc. Keys" and I'm golden.


Keynote, hiding objects during printing My Keynote templates have a master slide that helps me lay out the pages. I add a number of lines, dotted and light, that help me when I lay out a complicated page. They are regular lines which I place and use visually as a guide..I would like to make it so that those don't print. Is there a way?

Guides are the only non-printing elements in Keynote.

You can either use a duplicated set of masters (e.g. one master which includes your guide elements and one which doesn't). Then either manually switch masters before printing or delete the guide-elements master and replace with the non-guide-elements master.

Or you can insert "regular" guides (drag out from the rulers) on your master slides, then enable "View Master Guides" (Keynote View menu > Guides > View Master Guides) to show the guides from the Master slides on the "regular" slides.


How do I stop my iPhone from asking to upgrade to iOS 10? It's super annoying. My iPhone 5 was dog slow after iOS 9. I don't want to waste my time with iOS 10.

I know you won't like this answer, but you can't. Apple wants you to update to the latest version.


How to change the language used on Mac App Store? I used my old Mac which showed me English when I browsed through Mac App Store. However, after I purchased my new Mac and ported all the data using Time Machine, the Mac App Store suddenly shows me Japanese for some reasons.

I use English in OS Settings and everything works fine except the Mac App Store. I live in Japan, which is likely the possible reason it shows me Japanese.

Why do Apple use the different language only on the Mac App Store? And how can I resolve the issue?

After I fought with the issue for a few hours, I found the solution.

Open Mac App Store and log out of the account.
Restart your Mac.
Log in to the account again.

You might have to log out of the account first before restarting, for your information.

UPDATE

However, while the solution here worked in my OS X, it's not the case in iOS. In my iPhone, which is set to Italian, the iOS App Store displays English, while my iPad that uses Spanish displays Japanese. This is so frustrating bug in Apple; I don't get to how this can be resolved...


Format disk in mac with a lot of reading and writing What I want to do is Format my SSD disk of my Mac Book Pro (2019), but I want to do it in a VERY safe way. So that there is no trace of the deleted files and nobody can access them anymore.
That's why I think the best option is to look for a software that formats the disk doing a lot of reading and writing.
I can't find good and reliable software that does that on a Mac. Is there one?

Writing multiple zeros on an SSD does nothing to improve the secure elimination of the data, and significantly reduces the life of the drive.
If you want to make sure that your files are safe: encrypt the drive.


Need to regularly check windows for changes I'm looking for a fast and reliable method to monitor changes in some windows belonging to a application.

After I hit a hotkey I'd like a method to monitor those windows for a change in specific pixels, and if it detect any changes it should trigger an action (more specifically move that window to other coordinates).

I've got a copy of Keyboard Maestro, which could be certainly a help.
Also GrabFS may help.

What's the best way to achieve my goals?

PixelPeeper is the only OS X app i've found that comes close to achieving this goal. Unfortunately it only watches a single pixel and has no adjustments for sensitivity.

I too wish to find an app to monitor multiple specific regions of the screen and activate a script when significant changes occur.


Copy macOS installation to second partition I am running macOS Sierra 10.12.5 on the 4th partition of my HDD. The partitions in order:

  Partition 1, 280 MB: EFI
  Partition 2, 22 GB: Storage 1
  Partition 3, 186 GB: Storage 2
  Partition 4, 110 GB: Macintosh HD
  Partition 5, 600 MB: Recovery HD

Storage 2 has 102 GB available, and Macintosh HD only has 66 GB used, so space is not a problem. I need to copy my macOS installation from Macintosh HD to Storage 2, so that I can delete Macintosh HD, and expand Storage 2 to include the now free 110 GB. The catch is that I need to preserve all the data on both partitions while copying the installation. User data, system preferences, my command line package managers, everything. Plus in doing so I need Storage 2 to become a bootable volume. Neither reinstalling macOS, wiping Storage 2 for a restore from Macintosh HD, or wiping and repartitioning the whole disk are options here (I don't have a spare drive large enough to store all that data on.).

I have tried a simple sudo cp -R / /Volumes/Storage\ 2/ (from in-OS that is), but some files have read/copy permissions denied even to the root user, and that's with SIP off. So... anyone have any ideas? I'm not partial to either the GUI or command line, so long as it gets the job done. Thanks in advance!

Well, I managed to achieve what I needed using the following procedure:

  1.) sudo -i
  Enter root shell

  2.) mkdir /Volumes/Storage\ 2/Data/ && mv /Volumes/Storage\ 2/* /Volumes/Storage\ 2/Data/ && mv /Volumes/Storage\ 2/.* /Volumes/Storage\ 2/Data/
  This relocated all my data on the target volume to a separate folder

  3.) ditto -X -V --nocache / /Volumes/Storage\ 2/
  This copied all files and symlinks from my boot volume to the volume "Storage 2", and made "Storage 2" bootable in the process.

  4.) reboot > Storage 2
  Booted into Storage 2

  5.) diskutil eraseVolume "Free Space" Macintosh\ HD disk0s4
  Deleting the old boot volume, and leaving free space in its place

  6.) diskutil resizeVolume disk0s3 296G
  Expand the new boot volume to include the free space I just made

  7.) diskutil rename disk0s3 Macintosh\ HD
  Renamed new boot volume to match old one

  8.) diskutil eraseVolume "Free Space" Recovery\ HD disk0s5
  Delete faulty recovery partition

  9.) diskutil resizeVolume disk0s3 296.6G
  Expand new boot volume to include rest of free space

Since performing this half of my two-part project the partition scheme now looks like this:

  Partition 1, 210 MB: EFI
  Partition 2, 22 GB: Storage 1
  Partition 3, 297 GB: Macintosh HD

Hopefully this will be helpful for anyone else who needs to move their macOS installation to another partition without losing any data, or anyone who needs to make a bootable backup of their system before performing a potentially dangerous operation.

Now that this part is done, I just need to figure out how to turn "Storage 1" into a bootable installer partition.


Badge disappears for an app after an hour of no usage? I have a todo app that shows a badge indicating how many tasks are due today. For some reason, recently the badge will disappear one hour after I last opened the app. The app has not been updated in months, and I talked with the developers and they can't figure out what the problem might be.

Could this be somehow a problem with iOS, perhaps? And if so, is there a fix I can perform for it?

My understanding of iOS is that apps in the background will be “killed” if the OS runs into memory pressure.  Could it be that after that hour (is it exactly an hour or is the time random), the app gets killed, and the badge goes away?

You can test this by ending the app yourself.  With your phone unlocked, double click the home button.  You’ll see the last used apps at the very bottom of your phone.  Hold it for a minute and it’ll start wiggling.  Press the (-) sign and if your badge goes away, you may have found your problem.

Hope that helps.


How to enable curse words voice recognition in Google Keep app? I can't find the definition to enable curse words voice recognition on my Google Keep app for iPad , iOS 10 .

It's not possible to change this ?
I tested on multiple languages and it's using ***** for curse in multiple languages...

Can you help?
Thank you!!!

Short of getting Google to allow you to transcribe words (check if you are in a school or work google account setting) you will need to use Apple's dictation if Google's doesn't let you curse.


How can Apple Mail be configured to mimic Gmail's "Archiving" behaviour for a generic IMAP account? It is straightforward to configure a Gmail account being accessed through Apple Mail to Archive messages when you "delete" them from the mail client. With generic IMAP accounts, however, the only options for deleting messages are:

Move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox (which, when unchecked, leaves them in the Inbox)
Store deleted messages on the server (which, when unchecked, stores them in the local mailbox only, I suppose)
Permanently erase deleted messages when <time interval>...

Is there a way, through a combination of server configuration and, perhaps, Apple Mail rules, to move messages to an IMAP "archive" folder when I Trash them?

(I note that there seems to exist no condition in Apple Mail's rules to take action when a message is deleted...)

Mail does have an action called "Archive" in the Message menu that moves the current message in to  a directory called "Archive."  I use it all day every day on my work IMAP account just like in Gmail.  I stash everything in there and just rely on search to find what I need.  It works great.

I don't think there's a way to remap the Delete key to perform an Archive action instead, but Archive does have a keyboard shortcut: control-command-A.  If you find that as clunky as I do, you can remap it in System Preferences' Keyboard pane.

You can also add Archive to your toolbar if that's more your thing.


Mac - Output different audio streams to two separate devices On MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6, I want to output two separate Chrome browser tab applications to two separate devices from my single macbook pro.

1) Chrome tab 1: browser game --> outputs to headphones

2) Chrome tab 2: youtube video --> outputs to HDMI-connected TV audio

I'm struggling to set this up in AudioMIDI setup.

To set up the input, which is the logitech headset microhpone, I set the aggregate device as input:

And the display port (TV via HDMI) and Headset as output in the Multi-output Device:

The problem is, the same audio streams are aggregated from all sources (youtube video, and browser game) to output to both the TV and headset.

What I need is two separate audio streams going to two separate devices.

I wrote all this before realising you want two routings from one app - that's not going to be possible. I'll leave this here for future searchers.

There are only two apps I know can do this, both by the same company, Rogue Amoeba.

The cheaper & simpler one is SoundSource - $35. There is a more complex/expensive one which can also record any sound source to disk as well, called Audio Hijack - $70.

SoundSource can do all you asked & more.

There is a late third - Boom2 & the newer Boom3D - but it's a notorious crasher & speaker destroyer unless you switch off everything except the routing [judging by the many questions we've seen in here about it. I've never tried it personally].


Email notification for specific emails containing "n words" if n > 500 I have an iPhone 5 and, like many of you, I receive emails on it. I do a little bit of translation on the side and receive emails on projects, where the email for example contains the sentence "800 Words".

My question is, is there any way I can adjust my settings such that I only get notifications on emails containing the string "n Words", where n is greater than, say, 500?

Thank you for your time!

If using Gmail or Google Apps (Google for Work or G Suite), filters may be of help.
You can make specific email go to a specific folder on arrival, bypassing the inbox.

There is a discussion here on Gmail filters and wildcards that may point you in the right direction for creating the filter. Questions about Gmail will have better (and non-off-topic) answers there.

The problem with this solution is that you won't get notified.

I can think of two ways to get actual notifications from those specific search terms: filter everything that does not match the criteria out of the inbox, so you'll only get notifications from incoming mail that matches, or adding an IFTTT recipe that notifies you when the criteria is fulfilled —this looks promising:

I'd go with "New email in inbox from search" trigger and then enter your search terms. Here is a guide from Google on search operators that allow you to construct a custom search, OR probably, but you'll have to experiment the search syntax that gives you the desired result.


Shift+volume control menu bar item On Mac OS X 10.8.2, shift-clicking the volume control menu extra causes a slider to come up. This slider's value is persistent, but different from the usual volume control's value.

What does this other slider control?

The shift click slider controls the volume for Alerts. You can check for yourself in the Sound preference pane.


Why is DashboardClient taking so much memory on MBP? In recent days, the DashboardClient process is taking more memory on my MBP. It's a real memory of 144 MB as seen in Activity Monitor.

I have never seen this process occupying memory like this before, as if like Safari. It's started few back before.

I haven't changed my Dashboard for a couple of months...

I am running OS X 10.6.5

Probably the widgets you are using are leaking memory. Try removing them and check which of the widget is taking too much memory.

I use Calendar, 2 Clocks, 1 Weather and 2 Webclips and the Dashboard client is taking up 83Mb. Normally I just force quit if I see it is taking too much memory, and start it again if I need to them back.


Shocking? - MacBook stubby earthed charger UK I have no idea why. But apple have not earthed the stubbly plug for the macbook pro transformer. So on the short lead the only way the charger is earthed is when I touch it or the macs unibody which gives you a sort of vibrating feeling on your palms.

When I went to the genius bar to complain about it they said that it was completely 'normal'. Where their definition of normal is that every MacBook does it. I have had 4 MacBooks and all have done it.

The genius did say that he though he has seen a few earthed 3pin plugs. So my question is where can I pick one up? or how could we force apple to earth the stubby plugs and recall them?

This is so commonly misunderstood that I shall attempt to provide a short précis, then link to a good explanation which is not overly-technical.
Common misconception - earthing/grounding
Most small household appliances are not, in fact, earthed at all - even if there is a valid earth pin on the mains plug.
They are what is known as 'double insulated' & carry this logo

The 'transformers' on this type of equipment are not the same as in high-power equipment & don't use a step-down coil transformer, linear supply. Instead they use a switch-mode supply.
All PSUs, whether linear or switch-mode leak a small amount of current due to capacitance. In double-insulated devices there is no true ground/earth so the design is optimised to try to prevent this leakage.
Unfortunately, switch-mode supplies run at very high frequencies, so the smaller capacitance in the smaller transformer ends up leaking just as much as the larger capacitance in a larger transformer running at 50 or at 60Hz for example.
The leakage current is usually less than 1mA and is often as low as 10uA, but even at such low current, it can still be present and still can cause problems.
So - the tingle or buzz that you feel is in fact you becoming the temporary ground/earth for this circuit.
It is usually safe, & any reputable manufacturer will ensure their PSUs are well within tolerance.
Cheap copies are cheap because they don't bother with most of the safety circuitry… you know, the stuff that makes the expensive one expensive in the first place ;-)
Have look at http://www.unitechelectronics.com/sparks.htm for a much more detailed explanation. Though it is aimed at hi-fi users & deals in 240v mains, the basic principles are identical.


What causes OS X to mark a folder as Quarantined? I had a folder under ~/Sites, let's call it Foo, from which I was sharing a Wordpress site-in-development via Apache. This was working fine, I'd mapped foo.local to 127.0.0.1 in my hosts file and was accessing the site from there on my laptop.

Then, I tried to access the site from my iPhone. I was able to see the root index of ~/Sites from the phone by surfing to my-computers-hostname.local, but couldn't access the Wordpress site, as it had been set up to believe its address was foo.local, and therefore had hardcoded references to that URL in its database. When I attempted to change its URL setting to my-computers-hostname.local, something very strange happened: I received an authorization error when attempting to save the change. From that point forward, the entire folder containing the Wordpress site disappeared from the index page at foo.local / my-computers-hostname.local, and any attempts to access it by URL were met with a 403 - Authorization Refused error from the webserver.

Listing the folder in question in the Terminal showed me that the com.apple.quarantine extended attribute had been applied to it and to all files contained within. What would cause the operating system to quarantine the folder? Was it the attempted access from another machine, or something to do with Wordpress's configuration?

The com.apple.quarantine extended attributes probably have nothing to do with the issues you are having with Apache. They are part of the file quarantine feature that was added in 10.5:

File Quarantine is a new feature in Leopard designed to protect users from trojan horse attacks. It allows applications which download file content from the Internet to place files in “quarantine” to indicate that the file could be from an untrustworthy source. An application quarantines a file simply by assigning values to one or more quarantine properties which preserve information about when and where the file come from.
When the Launch Services API is used to open a quarantined file and the file appears to be an application, script, or other executable file type, Launch Services will display an alert to confirm the user understands the file is some kind of application.

The com.apple.quarantine extended attributes can be added when:

You download a file with a quarantine-aware application, like Safari, Chrome, or Transmission. For a few applications like Firefox, quarantine is forced to be enabled in /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/Exceptions.plist.
You extract an archive with an application like Archive Utility or OS X's tar or zip.
You create a file with an application that has LSFileQuarantineEnabled set to true in the Info.plist.

The extended attributes have fields for quarantine status, a timestamp, the agent that originated the quarantine event, and sometimes a UUID:
$ xattr -p com.apple.quarantine Worksheet_v10.4.pdf
0042;51ea420b;Safari.app;5E2F48EA-1356-4D57-BFEA-571EE8ADC08C
$ date -r 0x51ea420b
Sat Jul 20 10:53:47 EEST 2013
$ sqlite3 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.QuarantineEventsV2 .dump|grep 5E2F48EA-1356-4D57-BFEA-571EE8ADC08C
INSERT INTO "LSQuarantineEvent" VALUES('5E2F48EA-1356-4D57-BFEA-571EE8ADC08C',395999627.472166,'com.apple.Safari','Safari','http://images.apple.com/server/docs/Worksheet_v10.4.pdf',NULL,NULL,0,NULL,'http://images.apple.com/',NULL);

The first field is a hexadecimal bitfield, where for example the seventh bit (2^6 or 0x40) usually gets set after you open a file for the first time.
You can delete the extended attributes with xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine ~/Sites, but it won't probably have any effect on Apache. It will however disable the "is a file downloaded from the Internet" dialogs.


MacBook Pro - can't boot into Windows, how to fix the MBR? Following the post FFFFFFFF problem with hybrid partitioned drive, not able to fix with the guide in other topics, I was able to fix the FFFFFFFF partition problem and managed to boot into macOS, and now how can I recover bootcamp Windows?

Since your drive was hybrid partitioned, I will assume Windows was setup to legacy BIOS boot. You can confirm this by enter the following command in a Terminal application window.

ls /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Boot/BCD

If Windows was set to BIOS boot, then you will get the following response.

/Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Boot/BCD

Otherwise, you will get the response shown below.

ls: /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Boot/BCD: No such file or directory

If the /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Boot/BCD file does not exist, then post a comment.

  Note: The Boot folder is marked as hidden, so the BCD file will not normally appear in the Finder application.

One problem preventing Windows from booting would be there is no long an partition marked active in the MBR partition table. You can correct this error by running the fdisk command, while booted from an external macOS installation disk. The commands to enter are given below.

fdisk -e /dev/disk0
flag 3
quit
y

An example is given below.

$ fdisk -e /dev/disk0
fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory
Enter 'help' for information
fdisk: 1> flag 3
Partition 3 marked active.
fdisk:*1> quit
Writing current MBR to disk.
Device could not be accessed exclusively.
A reboot will be needed for changes to take effect. OK? [n] y

If Window still fails to boot, then post a comment.


Default browser utility to forward links to their respective apps? On a machine I used at my old job, I had a little taskbar app (which I'd configured to be the default browser) installed that allowed me to configure e.g. Slack links to open directly in Slack, and the same for other apps, and all other links to open in Firefox as usual. It helped prevent loads of tabs piling up (e.g. click a link in Slack, it opens a tab in the browser which then opens up some other app, ugh). It essentially acted as a little configurable router for any link clicked in apps.
It worked great, but now I'm trying to find it again and I can't remember what it was called or how I found it. Does anyone else know what I'm talking about?

Of course, 5 minutes after posting this I found it, it's called Finicky:
https://github.com/johnste/finicky
brew install --cask finicky


How to make an expanding compressed encrypted disk image? I'd like the following setup:

A DMG file sits on my HD, taking up only the space of the contents, or perhaps only the space of the contents compressed.
If I double-click on it, I need to give a password for it to open
Once opened, I can drag files in and out, as long as I don't fill it up. The theoretical maximum should be the 4.6 or 8.3 GB DVD option from Disk Utility
Once I've added (or removed) files from it, I can eject / unmount it
When unmounted, it returns to the size of the contents and is again password protected.

Is this possible with disk images (DMGs)? What is the best way to set this up?

This is exactly what a dmg does.

To create one use Disk Utility and hit the New Image icon. Then choose the size, encryption and choose the image format as one of the sparse images. Even if you choose a large size it will only take up space according to what you save in it.


Name a phone number without adding to Contacts? On my iPhone I have a well-curated Contacts list of all of my friends and family.

I also often want to name the phone numbers of more temporary "contacts": one-time business deals, recruiters, friends-of-friends for a single weekend, etc.

I don't really want to add these people to my Contacts forever, but I do want to read their name on Caller ID when/if they call.

Does iOS have any concept of "second-tier" contacts that are saved but not listed as "Contacts" in my address book?

How can I save and name phone numbers but keep them separate from my true Contacts?

You can use "groups" in contacts. I don't know how to create them on the iPhone, but macOS' contacts app allows this. You should check if iCloud allows this.

https://www.idownloadblog.com/2014/03/01/how-to-create-contact-groups-iphone/

This blog also features an app "Contact Groups".

 I am not associated with either the linked website or the said app.


Need more pseudo terminals I'm running tmux and creating many sessions to various servers. After opening 128, I can no longer open new ones, or open new tabs in Terminal. The error messages is:

forkpty: Device not configured
Could not create a new process and open a pseudo-tty.

Is there any way I can increase the number of ptys?

(Tested on OS X 10.8.2; other releases may be slightly different.)

You can change the system’s limit on ptys with the sysctl command.

sudo sysctl -w kern.tty.ptmx_max=255

This should immediately let you open more ptys.

To set this automatically after each reboot, put the following line in the /etc/sysctl.conf file:

kern.tty.ptmx_max=255

(Note: I did not try this, but, from a look at the source code, it looks like launchd does process this file.)

This file may not exist; if you have to create it, you should probably be sure it has restricted ownership and permissions:

sudo chown root:wheel /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo chmod 644 /etc/sysctl.conf

Eventually, you may run into some other per-process or per-user resource limits (e.g. total number of processes per user, and total number of open file descriptors per process).


Can there be different passwords for the same account that prompts a certain reaction from Applescript? Can I set two passwords for the same user account so if one password is entered the computer opens up normally, and if another password is entered, Applescript locks certain applications from opening? I have a macbook that is often used by other people, and I would like to be able to give them access to only certain parts of my laptop,  not all of it

You could use the Guest account and Parental Controls.  Otherwise create a separate account for each user if thats manageable and setup custom parental controls that block what you want for the separate users.

Set up parental controls


Install Sierra without a recovery partition? How can I install macOS Sierra without a recovery partition?

I am installing into a virtual machine, and will make manual backups of the VM. I do no need or want the extra 5 gigs of the recovery partition and its copy of the Sierra installer app.

If you install Sierra and a Recovery partition is created, I suppose you could just delete the Recovery partition and expand the Sierra partition to include the freed space. The easiest way to delete a partition is with then third party command gdisk. The freed space can be recovered by using the diskutil command.


dd command finished very quickly but does not transfer data I'm trying to restore a Windows installer image to an external hard drive. To do this, I decided to use the command line because Disk Utility never bloody works.

To identify the disk, I used diskutil list which generated the following output:

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            499.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            Macintosh HD           +499.0 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 604D1BA8-46A5-41AD-8D62-7898021A4D16
                                 Unencrypted

/dev/disk3 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk3
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk3s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS 500G Storage            489.8 GB   disk3s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data WINDOWS                 9.9 GB     disk3s3

I identified the disk I want to use as disk3s3, a 10GB MS-FAT partition on the external hard drive. I then unmounted it with sudo diskutil unmount /dev/disk3s3. Now, to restore an ISO image to this partition, I use the following command:

$ sudo dd if=~/Desktop/Windows.iso of=~/dev/disk3s3 bs=1m

I don't get any errors upon running the command initially but after only a few seconds it finishes with this output:

3165+1 records in
3165+1 records out
3319764992 bytes transferred in 10.191605 secs (325735246 bytes/sec)

However much I wished this output was correct, it is not. No data whatsoever was transferred to the drive. How is this possible?

Thanks in advance

Everything is OK except that you shouldn't use ~ in dd commands (it's not forbidden but error-prone) and of=~/dev/disk3s3 is a file in your /Users/yourusername/dev folder (which probably wasn't intended but explains the 326 MB/s) instead of the real destination /dev/disk3s3.

So better enter:

sudo dd if=~/Desktop/Windows.iso of=/dev/disk3s3 bs=1m

or much better

sudo dd if=/Users/yourusername/Desktop/Windows.iso of=/dev/disk3s3 bs=1m


How to find watt hours of MacBook? I see the latests Macbook Pro 16" has a 100 watthour battery - how do I find the equivalent stat for my current Macbook given the info under About -> System Report -> Hardware -> Battery Information?

My guess is take the full charge capacity (3582). Also divide the mV (milli volts?) by 1000 to get volts, then use a calculator or conversion table. But I'm not exactly sure what to do next?

I think you are correct. Watt=ampere*Voltage, Wh=Ah*V, so 3582/1000*12553/1000=44.96 Wh.


Mac El Capitan Spotlight XPC Connection Invalidated I first started using El Capitan when the public beta was released. I continued to enjoy the snapping operating system until one day my laptop's SATA cable decided to give up on me. I got the cable replaced and then ended up having to reformat everything and restart over. That's when I made the decision of moving from the public beta to the official release, because I had been facing minor bluetooth connectivity issues. Ever since then, my computer has been horrible slow, freezing every 4 - 5 minutes for 20 - 30 second durations. I believe this is also called "beach-balling". Anyhow, I started to notice that every time my computer freezes, there is a "Spotlight: XPC Connection Invalidated" error in my console. Every single time. That can't be any coincidence. I've also managed to do some google searches and many people seem to face this problem. However, no one has been able to fix the problem.

These are my final days of IB, meaning I need to be submitting my final documents soon and I really need this computer to be working. I hope somebody out here can help me, I'd be more than willing to conduct any debugging tests and providing any information that can help.

Edit:

DriveDX Log:

Advanced SMART Status                : FAILING
Overall Health Rating                : AVERAGE 53.3%
Overall Performance Rating           : AVERAGE 53.3%
Issues found                         : 3
=== PROBLEMS SUMMARY ===
Failed Indicators (life-span / pre-fail)  : 0 (0 / 0)
Failing Indicators (life-span / pre-fail) : 1 (0 / 1)
Warnings (life-span / pre-fail)           : 2 (2 / 0)
Recently failed Self-tests (Short / Full) : 0 (0 / 0)
I/O Errors Count                          : 0 (0 / 0)
Time in Under temperature                 : 0 minutes
Time in Over temperature                  : 0 minutes

Based on your question and the subsequent conversation where you provided the SMART Status of your internal drive, your hard drive is failing and causing the issue you are experiencing.

You need to replace your hard drive.  The good news is that it is not very expensive.

Your Macbook which identified by DriveDX as a MacBookPro9,2 (Mid 2012) uses a standard SATA drive and you can upgrade to an SSD and increase your performance dramatically pretty inexpensively (at the time of this, they are trending about $150 USD).  I have used Samsung drives with great success.  Changing it out only requires removing 10 phillips screws.

I have more info on how to do this on this post:  My Mac is getting really slow, what should I do?

IMO, I would keep this running for a few more year because Apple has now made it impossible to upgrade your RAM or HDD meaning you must configure it with what you hope you are going to need in the future.


Need to recover information from a reformatted external drive I just purchased my first Mac, a MacPro.

I have been using the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex external drive, but with my new MacPro I cannot add any new folders. I checked the Sharing Permission and it states that "You can only read".  In order to change my permissions, I reformatted the drive.

I did not realize it would wipe my drive clean.  Can I recover the information in the drive.

PhotoRec is a free program that I've used that may help you recover files. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

However, some information may not be recoverable no matter what you use, such as folder structures. Whatever you do, don't save any new files to the drive, and probably leave it off unless you are recovering. If you are uncomfortable, there are lots of places that will do data recovery for you.

You probably already know that you were unable to write to your external drive if it was formatted with NTFS.


Executing program through Terminal I have Sage (math program) and I want to execute it through terminal.

I know I can go to the directory and execute it with -

open Sage.app

But would I really want to do is simply type sage in terminal and have it run. I believe this is a fairly simple task, but I just don't have any idea! Thanks.

You need an alias. Typing alias sage='open /PATH/TO/Sage.app' will create an alias which will do exactly what you want, run the program just by typing sage. The problem is that this will only last until you close that terminal window (bash). So, you need to create that alias each time you run a new bash. To do so, just:

Create or modify a text file called .bash_profile in your home directory.
Add alias sage='open /PATH/TO/Sage.app' on it
Save the file
Load the file once by typing . ~/.bash_profile

Remember that it will be case sensitive, so if you type Sage (instead of sage) it won't work.


iPhone can still connect to my WiFi, even though the password was changed Yesterday I restored factory settings on my home router (TP-Link WR1043ND, nothing fancy) and set a new SSID and a new password (WPA2-PSK). Then I entered the new password on my laptop and my phone as well as my wife's tablet.

She has just called to tell me that her iPhone is connected to the new network and sent me a screenshot - the new SSIS is there, IP address looks reasonable, she can access the Internet. However, we did not set the new password on her phone yet.

Is that possible?
Since all the hardware, the MAC addresses are the same, can the phone authenticate using some kind of authorization token other than the password? Some session ID?

I'm shooting in the dark here, because it shouldn't work. But it does.

Someone in the neighborhood could be running WiFi Pineapple or something similar, but: (1) I never noticed any hacker-like activity, (2) the phone connected to a network with a completely new SSID, not a known one.

If you put that password into a different Apple device then that password will be accessible to the phone over its cellular data connection, assuming that they are both using the same Apple account.
The FAQ for iCloud Keychain states

What is iCloud Keychain?
iCloud Keychain keeps your Safari website usernames and passwords, credit card information, and Wi-Fi network information up to date across all of your approved devices that are using iOS 7.0.3 or later or OS X Mavericks 10.9 or later.


blank green screen in Preview If I open a large .JPG file in Preview I will see a big blank green screen...

I tried to delete the user's cache, some files from the preferences, but nothing helped me...

Go to Preview > Preferences > Images and select Size on screen equals size on printout.

Found this information at this link @ the Apple Discussions site. It seems to have helped other users with the same problem. I've never experienced it myself. Now I know what to do if it does happen!


Change background of terminal based on host Is there a way I can have my terminal dynamically change covers based on the host I am on? For example, the default background (as determined by terminal profile) is black. Maybe there is another terminal profile that is the exact same except that it has a blue background. Now, if I SSH from black_host which is the default into blue_host, my terminal profile switches (or the background changes from black to blue).

Is this possible? I often have anywhere from 5-10 terminals open at a time on 3-4 different machines and it would be nice to just look and see from a birds eye view which terminal belongs to which host.

I believe this is exactly what you want:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/157959/how-do-i-make-the-apple-terminal-window-auto-change-colour-scheme-when-i-ssh-to

All credit goes to Yurii Soldak:

Put following script in ~/bin/ssh (ensure ~/bin/ looked before /usr/bin/ in your PATH):

#!/bin/sh

HOSTNAME=`echo $@ | sed s/.*@//`

set_bg () {
  osascript -e "tell application \"Terminal\" to set background color of window 1 to $1"
}

on_exit () {
  set_bg "{0, 0, 0, 50000}"
}
trap on_exit EXIT

case $HOSTNAME in
  production1|production2|production3) set_bg "{45000, 0, 0, 50000}" ;;
  *) set_bg "{0, 45000, 0, 50000}" ;;
esac

/usr/bin/ssh "$@"

The script above extracts host name from line "username@host" (it assumes you login to remote hosts with "ssh user@host").

Then depending on host name it either sets red background (for production servers) or green background (for all other). As a result all your ssh windows will be with colored background.

I assume here your default background is black, so script reverts the background color back to black when you logout from remote server (see "trap on_exit").

Please, note however this script does not track chain of ssh logins from one host to another. As a result the background will be green in case you login to testing server first, then login to production from it.

In the same post, Chris Page writes:

A lesser-known feature of Terminal is that you can set the name of a settings profile to a command name and it will select that profile when you create a new terminal via either Shell > New Command… or Shell > New Remote Connection….

For example, duplicate your default profile, name it “ssh” and set its background color to red. Then use New Command… to run ssh host.example.com.

It also matches on arguments, so you can have it choose different settings for different remote hosts, for example.


iMessage on Mac but not iPhone I recently swapped my iphone for a samsung galaxy but still have imessages on my macbook. I was hoping to still be able to use imessages on my macbook, however, I am unable to sign into imessages with my apple account, i get the following error:

Could not sign into iMessage. An error occred during activation. Try again.

This has been happening for a week. Can I use imessages on my mac, or must I also have an iPhone?

I realise this is an old thread but I just resolved this by contacting apple as it transpired that my nephew's apple id had been suspended. Got the above message when trying to log in to iMessage on iPad and Mac so suspected it was the account rather than device.


Hover doesn't follow mouse until click The best way to explain it is... You know how when you're at the dock and you put your mouse over something and it magnifies it? It doesn't do that for me, I have magnification turned on yet that feature doesn't work unless if I click on an app then it will magnify until I stop clicking it. It's happened to me in games too. I can't move the camera/mouse unless if I click first.

How do I fix this?

iMac, OS X Yosemite 10.10.3

OP here. (made an account). I already found a solution to my question thanks to the editor who used the title "Hover doesn't follow mouse until click" It turned out to be an issue with my RAT 7 drivers. Apparently, Yosemite messed up a few things. An update fixed it, thankfully!
http://madcatz.com/downloads/


iPhone will not connect to iTunes after being disabled I have a iPhone and it got disabled and told me to connect it to ITunes and when I did it would not connect. How to i fix my phone when it's not working.

Check the cable and the connector. Perhaps even try with a different computer.

Your iPhone might be damaged, so that it can't work. You didn't say exactly how it got "disabled"?


Opening up your MacBook and how to avoid static electricity Static electricity can exert incredibly high voltages (upward of a thousand volts) which can zap sensitive equipment. Hence, all videos that explain opening up your Mac feature some form of exhortation to first touch the heater or something. But how do you actually keep statics to a minimum?

Do you have to touch the heather/an earthed part every two minutes, every three?

Also, I have seen here http://hardforum.com/archive/index.php/t-1256310.html that it may be a good idea for UK folks to switch off the wall jack but leave the cord plugged in to take advantage of the earthing. Would that avoid all static electricity?

Also, how about a wooden desk? Is that an appropriate surface to conduct MacBook surgery?

Thanks so much!

If you run around naked there is no static build up.

But that is not always a option.

So it is the clothes that charge up.

Some clothing materials are worse than others.

Siting on a chair with wheels is not good, but then you can have a static discharge mat under it.

Dry air amplifies the problem of static charge

The key is your shoes, or no shoes. That is one place where you can get discharged, leather soles on a concrete (tiles) ground, and no rubber soles on wooden floor

In a professional environment the people where a arm bracelet that is connected to a ground. That is not always applicable for home and walking around.

You can get one of this products http://www.amazon.com/b?node=1069150


Export emails but keep them searchable I've got a couple of mailboxes for old businesses on my MacMail. I keep them there because there are loads of emails, and I may need them in the future. The reason I haven't just exported them and archived them is that I still want them to show up in search results when I search through my emails.
The problems I have are:

I keep getting notifications that I have to put the passwords in for these mailboxes. That's very frustrating.
For some reason, something keeps blocking my IP address from one of the business' domain name. Any time I log onto a different wifi, it blocks that IP address too. I suspect it's something to do with invalid details on one of these mailboxes (but if it could be anything else, please let me know).

My ideal solution would be to have these mailboxes sat there, but completely inactive, not connected to the internet in anyway, just a repository for a bunch of emails. But I may have to face facts that I may need to delete them altogether, exporting the emails first. But then they won't be included in the search. Is there any way I can have my cake and eat it?

You can move the emails to a 'mailbox' which is only on your Mac.   The instructions here assume you have the latest version of macOS and Apple Mail, but older versions are much the same.

In Mail's sidebar on the left you should see "On My Mac". With the
mouse, hover, click on the disclosure triangle to show the mailboxes
(folders) inside "On My Mac".

Create a new mailbox (folder) by clicking on the + symbol.  You may
want to create multiple mailboxes to keep your emails organised. You
can even create a tree structure if you want.

Then just drag and drop (with the Command key pressed) your old
business emails from the external mailboxes into your new mailboxes
within "On My Mac". The command key ensures that you do a copy (not a
move) as you probably don't yet want to delete them from the external
service.

Alternatively use 'Copy to' from the Message menu.

You can now disconnect from the old mail services.

The emails will be indexed (it will take a little) and be available to Mail's search.
Because the emails are now stored just on your Mac, you become responsible for ensuring your backups are sound.


Can I move Windows 7 to a larger partition with 'dd' instead of WinClone? I have a Modbook Pro with both Win 7 and OS X installed during build; no media provided.  I got fed up with all the irritations of the modbook and bought a regular Macbook Pro with a larger drive and OS X only.

If I create a bootcamp partition that is larger than the previous Windows, and copy the old partition via 'dd,' I will have a partition the same size as before with the remainder 'free space.'  Can I then stretch that partition with Disk Utility to get back the size I want?

While you could technically use dd to image a smaller partition onto a larger partition and it still show using the space of the smaller partition you'll not be able to resize the NTFS partition using Disk Utility.  Also the GPT and PMBR will not be synced and that will need to be resolved. Windows 7 will also need to be reactivated.

That said, using Winclone (at least Standard version) would be a much better option as it will handle what's necessary that Disk Utility can't, except for reactivating Windows, which is totally a Microsoft issue in resolution.


Looking for a Billings Pro alternative Like the title says, i'm looking for a program (preferably free!) that has similar features to Billings Pro. I'm a part-time web developer and it was unnecessary to have to pay for Billings Pro just to have a program to create 2-3 invoices per month.

What i'm looking for is a program that will let me:

Create Invoices
Create recurring Invoices
Create Clients

Does anyone know a (free) program can do the above things?

If you can find an old copy of Billings (pre Pro), that still works without the subscription, I would grab that. I've been using my copy for the last 5 years with no need to switch to the subscription model. A quick google and I found this: http://billings.en.softonic.com/mac but I don't personally know this site.


What is the RDUSB00E6Setupd process running by launchd What is the RDUSB00E6Setupd process running by launchd in a Macbook Pro with  Mavericks? I can't find any information about this and my computer is running quite slow, trying to figure out what is causing it.

I found this on Google:

  Uninstaller (jp.co.roland.rdusb00e6.uninstaller) is a Mac OS X
  software application that has been discovered and submitted by users
  of iBoostUp. The latest version that our iBoostUp users have reported
  seeing on their systems is Uninstaller 1.0.0.

It sounds like you are trying to install the Uninstaller!

If you are not to be blamed :) go to Activity Monitor and kill the process.

Open terminal and search for the file

  mdfind -name rdusb00e6


Feasibility of swapping two MacBook Pros (both hard drive and RAM)? I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro, and my sister has a mid-2012. I've already seen the suggested duplicate possibilities that say that just swapping the hard drives shouldn't be problematic, but I've got another layer: I've got 10GB of RAM, an eBay-bought 8GB module and one of the OEM 2GB modules, that I'd very much like to keep.

Wikipedia says the two generations have different RAM specs - the early 2011 has "1333 MHz PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM, Voltage 1.5V" and the mid-2012 has "1600 MHz PC3-12800 DDR3 SDRAM, Voltage 1.35V." I'm going to take an educated guess that mixing frequencies/voltages won't end well, but what if I swapped the pairs of RAM modules? As in, what would happen if I were to put 10GB of RAM designed for early 2011 into mid-2012 and 4GB of RAM designed for mid-2012 into early 2011?

The RAM speed won't be a problem, the system will detect the speed of the RAM and run it at the maximum compatible speed. Hard drives also won't be a problem. (you will want to do a "fresh" install of the operating system)

As for the RAM voltage, I think that would be a problem. I'm not completely sure though. Whatever you do, make sure you run the Apple Hardware Test and babysit the machine while its running. Chances are if it passes all the tests, you're good.


My iPhone 3G won't receive data (using WiFi) I have an older iPhone 3G and the cell phone carrier is no longer available.  It can connect to my WiFi, but the IP Address is showing as 192.254.xxx.xxx and subnet mask as 255.255.0.0, and no data can be sent or received.

If I compare the numbers with my iPhone 4S that can send or receive data, the IP Address is showing as 192.168.1.xx (a local IP) and subnet mask showing as 255.255.255.0.  Is there a way to make the iPhone 3G work like that and send and receive data?

This means that the device was unable to get an IP address via DHCP. The router may need to be rebooted itself, or it may not be set up to hand out IP information via DHCP and your iPhone will have to be set up statically. Check with the administrator of that wifi network for exact details. If it's your own, double check DHCP is enabled for your router, and if so, perform a hard reboot of the device.

Additionally, it never hurts to reboot your iPhone as well.

Should the problems persist, there may be a problem with the phone software or hardware. Restore the operating system on the phone, and try again. Should it still fail, my suggestion would be to take it to some Apple authorized repair depot for diagnostics.


How to Sum text values like numbers in Numbers? How can I translate text values into numbers and sum the result?

I found some solution now.

SOLUTION 1

Use "COUNTIF" function to find the number of cells that match the given text values and then multiply with the reference numbers.

SOLUTION 2

Use Cell "Data Format"

Select some Cell
At the Format Panel > Cell > Data Format
Create a Custom Format.
Select type as "Number"
Add some Rule that you want to format number as text.
Done! You can sum text values like a number now.

You can also see this if you want to use a pop-up menu


How to delete synced photos and folder from iPhone? How to delete synced photos and folder from iPhone, my OS is Windows 7 and I don't want to erase all content from setting.

I have iTunes installed on my PC.

I want to delete images and folder in my iPhone except "Camera Roll"

Connect your device to iTunes, select it in the left navigation bar.
In the main screen, select the Photos tab.
Check "Sync Photos" and select only the albums you want to sync. It will remove any pics on your iPhone that are not in the folder(s) selected on your PC