How can i disable the "mouse scroll wheel click" to view all windows feature in El Capitan Ive got a mac mini running El Capitan, i use a piece of CAD software which requires me to use the "mouse scroll wheel click" to move around the software.

This works fine on other machines that i have the software installed on which are running Yosemite, but on this machine running El Capitan the "mouse scroll wheel click" shows all windows, the same as pressing F3.

Is there a way to disable this feature in El Capitan ?

For reference im using a logitech LS1 Laser mouse which is a simple mouse which works plug and play, its not a fancy gaming mouse, and it driver software is quite limited (see attached screenshot of options). But because of the way the issue is only showing up in El Capitan im thinking its an issue / setting in the OS rather than on the mouse.

I suspect El Capitan is interpreting this action on your Logitech LS1 Laser mouse as a double-tap with two fingers.

Assuming this is the case, you can try this:

Go to Apple > System Preferences
Click on the Mouse preference pane
Select the More Gestures tab
Uncheck the Mission Control box


VirtualBox Ubuntu shared folder is empty I have a Ubuntu virtual machine (Virtual Box) hosted on my MBP w/ Mountain Lion.  OSX 10.8.6, VirtualBox 4.2.16, Ubuntu 12.4 LTS (32 bit)
PROBLEM
The shared folder(s) as seen in Ubuntu is/are empty.

Diary of searching for an answer on interwebs (No joy so far)
Share folder in VirtualBox Host=Mac OS, Guest=Debian  - No joy. The answer is for manual mounting. Auto mounting explicitly puts/mounts the shared folder in /media directory. Besides I tried it and got "no such file or directory" - but then I may not be understanding exactly where I'm creating this; no terminal guru, I.
Next ...
Set the shared folder via VirtualBox | Devices | shared folders menu. The dialog box indicates "full" access and "auto-mount". Then launched the VM. The shared folder is created, but empty. BTW, the folders are created in /media directory per the VB documentation.
After launching the VM, in Ubuntu, using VB | Devices menu, created a new shared folder. Restart Ubuntu, folder is created but empty.
Next ...
Tried the above, creating "machine folder" and/or "transient folder" - same result as above.
Next ...
Tried the above referencing folders on both drives on my MBP. Same result.
Next ...
Tried adding my logged-in user to the vboxsf group in Ubuntu. useradd -g vboxsf someUser Ubuntu responded:  useradd: user 'someUser' already exists

Found my answer

Assumption: "VirtualShare" is the shared folder name set up via Devices | shared folders ... menu

sudo mkdir /mnt/MyShare
sudo mount -t vboxsf VirtualShare /mnt/MyShare

AH! Now I can see the files in /mnt/MyShare/VirtualShare/

the mounting :( does not survive a restart/reboot

This answer is bewildering because the VirtualBox documentation explicitly states that auto mounting is done in /media directory. And indeed, the shared folder is created - but its empty.

Further, I did/do not understand the significance of /mnt directory. That looked arbitrary to me, but apparently not. ../MyShare piece of it is; use any name you wish.

Now if I could only delete all those folders I created during experimentation. And to think I used to be an absolute wiz on the CP/M command line! (that sure dates me!!)


Can I connect Apple Airpods to a Toshiba Portege laptop running Windows 8.1? Apple's Airpods promise seamless connectivity to iPhones and Macs through intelligent sensors.

At work I use my existing Apple Earpods for Skype business conference calls - as they provide a mic and earphones that are simpler and more compatible than other USB based headgear. (They integrate with the earphone/mic combo jack port.)

Now I want to replace my Earpods (which are fantastic) with AirPods. Is this feasible?

My question is: Can I connect Apple Airpods to a Toshiba Portege laptop running Windows 8.1?

I connect mine with various Windows devices.  On my desktop (Win 7 Pro) I put the airpods in discovery mode (push the button on the back until the white light flashes) and then go to Devices.  Select add a device and wait until the list populates.  Your airpods will be there.  Click on it and let the drivers load.


Can I run a program with ≥ 512mb of VRAM required? I have a MacBook pro 13-inch, mid 2010. I recently installed 8GB of RAM. I understand that the NVIDIA that is installed (NVIDIA GeForce 320M 256 MB) uses shared graphics memory. Does this means that the memory that is shared with the graphics card increases the total amount of VRAM? Could I run a program with a VRAM requirement of 512MB or maybe even 1GB?

The NVIDIA GeForce 320M 256 MB doesn't contain any dedicated VRAM. Instead a maximum of 256 MB of your 8 GB RAM are used as VRAM (shared memory).

I doubt that you can run apps which require 512 MB or more VRAM. You may try to lower the VRAM requirements of the application though - depending on whether this possible at all. Anyway, it will run incredibly slow then.


com.apple.PhotoIngestService crash crashes on Sierra Every 5 or 10 minutes (or so) I see this window on my mac:

I cannot play games. Cannot write a song. It's highly distracting thing.

I searched for solution on the internet and found nothing.

macOS 10.12 Sierra Public Beta (16A313a)

Try restarting your Mac. I hope that will work.


Amending PATH so that /usr/local/bin is ahead of /usr/bin I'm trying to install brew but get the following warning:

Warning: /usr/bin occurs before /usr/local/bin
This means that system-provided programs will be used instead of those
provided by Homebrew. The following tools exist at both paths:

2to3
2to3-2.7
idle
idle2.7
pydoc
pydoc2.7
python
python-config
python2.7
python2.7-config
pythonw
pythonw2.7
smtpd.py
smtpd2.7.py

Consider amending your PATH so that /usr/local/bin
is ahead of /usr/bin in your PATH.

I have no idea how to amend the path.  I've explored several files from this stack overflow post (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8886114/using-brew-with-ruby-1-9-2), but can't find a relevan path to edit.  The only file that I do have that exists is my /etc/profile file which currently looks like:

# Setting PATH for Python 2.7
# The orginal version is saved in .bash_profile.pysave
    PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/local/bin:${PATH}"
export PATH

I wanted to just uninstall python then reinstall it through homebrew, but am a little nervous about breaking too many things at once.

Is there an easy way to amend the path?  Should I create a .bash_profile file?  Thank you for any help in advance.

Yes, create a .bash_profile file in your home directory containing

PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"

and then do one of the following to make the change active

execute . ~/.bash_profile
execute PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH" in the current shell
restart Terminal


IPhone File Server & Client to Create Proxy Alternative to Personal Hotspot Tethering Assumptions:

I have the latest iPhone with unlimited fast Internet through my cellular network provider.
I have a new Mac.
My iPhone prevents me from using my wireless data using my Mac when I set up a personal hotspot.
I have no other Internet connection.

Technique that needs improvement:

First I set up an ad-hoc network using my Mac and connect to it using my iPhone. Then I use the GoodReader app to run a server (this is a GoodReader feature) on my iPhone to which I can connect over my ad-hoc network by doing Go > Connect to Server... in Finder on my Mac. Once mounted, I can manipulate files in the GoodReader app storage just like a local folder on my Mac. From the Good Reader app I can then upload my files to Dropbox which syncs with my online storage and have access to the files online.

What I Want:

I want to find an app for my iPhone that will run a file server of some sort to which I can connect with my Mac. I want that app to then transfer files to an online file server (preferably using SFTP), automatically (or with minimal manual help). In essence this would have the effect of me being able to upload files over SFTP to a remote location using a Mac that is offline with an iPhone that is online. I'm basically looking for an alternative to tethering. The Mac -> GoodReader -> Dropbox -> Internet example proves this is possible but it has too many manual steps. I want something more streamlined.

Do you know of any apps or techniques that can work for me?

I have found a few apps in the App Store that claim to be both an FTP client and server. That means you can run a server on an iPhone, connect to it from a Mac, transfer files to my phone, and then to a remote server (or vice versa). This would greatly simplify the process.

The apps are:

FTP On The Go Pro
Easy FTP Pro
FilesConnect
FTPManager
iStorage 2

I believe there are others but these clearly explained that they include a server and client.


Is it possible to spell a word to Siri? Is it possible to spell a word to Siri? For instance, if I ask for the stock price of a certain company, she doesn't always understand the company name.

Try saying: "no caps on, no space on", then spell the word, then say "no caps off, no space off".


Finder view options "use as defaults" does nothing I am using Mac OS X Sierra. I'm trying to disable thumbnail loading in Finder for all folders, since every time I open a folder of PDFs it takes about 2 seconds to load, which I find slow. This seems to happen every time even when I open the same folder, so it appears the Thumbnails are not getting cached.

I went into view options, disabled the thumbnail loading, and clicked "use as defaults". However, it didn't actually apply to all folders. When I go into a different folder, I have to make the setting changes I just made again. If I'm not mistaken, this seems to defeat the entire purpose of a "use as defaults" feature, because I'm assuming that's supposed to apply to all folders, so you don't have to painstakingly go to each individual folder and change the settings.

I have the same problem as in this thread by someone else from 2014. The solution in that thread was to make the settings in the top-level folders on the finder sidebar (Documents, Download, etc.) and then clicking "use as defaults", after which the subfolders are supposed to automatically be set. I did this, and the subfolders were not set.

Anyone have a solution?

You should not do this with a folder in the sidebar: that is only an alias.
Do the same with a folder in the Homefolder and it works:
check the most above views: always open in icon view and browse in icon view


How to sort by date and time in Finder? When I'm in Photoshop or when I try to upload a file to Google Chrome, I want my files to be organized by Date Modified. I have selected that but it group it into Date (Today, Yesterday, Previous 7 Days). How can I then organize them by time (newest at the top, oldest at the bottom)?

Use the Arrange toolbar button/menu.

here is the tooltip:

option+click on it to change the sort order:


How do I "uneject" an iPad from iTunes? I have an iPad and I want to sync it via wifi. That works fine. Sometimes I mistakenly eject the iPad from iTunes and then it does not synchronize anymore ("searching for my MacBook"). Can I instruct iTunes to search for my iPad again? To undo the eject? I use the newest OS on my MacBook and iPad.

I just tested with my iPhone, and I can get it to reappear in the Devices list simply by quitting iTunes and reopening it (waking up your iPad may help iTunes find it faster). If that doesn't work, simply plug it in via USB and it should stay in.


How can I determine where mouse input is coming from? Is there a way to log click events? No other mice are connected I am experiencing the strangest behavior. My computer is clearly receiving mouse clicks that I'm not doing, as though they're coming from another mouse, but the cursor never moves on it's own, which I'd expect if another mouse were connected to my computer. I have a MacBook Pro with a Bluetooth Trackpad. For awhile, I thought the trackpad was just uber sensitive, because the clicks would often happen while my finger was resting on it (lightly). But, it's clearly happening when my hands are completely away from the trackpad, keyboard, etc. Maybe my trackpad is just going crazy?

And it's not just single clicks. At times, text on my screen will highlight like a double click. I've also had right-click menus come up while I'm not touching my mouse.

Steps taken:

I've triple checked that no other devices are connected through Bluetooth.
I removed my mouse and keyboard (and re-paired), hoping it would clear the problem.
Per this similar problem with Macs connecting, I turned off bluetooth sharing, and internet sharing was already disabled. No dice.

Ideas/questions:

Is there a way to log click events so I can see if it's coming from my trackpad, or another source? I've found several mouse "recorders", but I don't see any that provide a log of where the clicks are coming from.
Is it even possible to receive click events from another mouse without receiving movement events?

I'm baffled. I'm on 10.11.1.

This might be a case of defective trackpad. I had a very similar problem where the trackpad registered constant mouse click. You can quickly test that by connecting an external mouse, then go System Preferences > Accessibility > Mouse & Trackpad > Checkmark "Ignore built-in trackpad...".

If the problem is with the built-in trackpad, the odd behaviour will stop at this point as long as external mouse is connected.


"bash" command runs scripts in version 3.2, not 4.4 Currently, in terminal, my default interactive shell is bash version 4.4. The OS ships with 3.2.
If I want to run a script (e.g., my_script.sh) using bash version 4.4, I can source it (source my_script.sh) or type it into my terminal directly. Though, in each case the script runs in my current shell.  I can also give a script execute permissions and run it as a command, allowing the shebang to control which version of bash to use.
However, the command bash continues to use version 3.2. For example, if I run bash my_script.sh, the script will be executed in a new shell (which I want), but the older version of bash will be used (3.2). Similarly, if I just run bash with no argument, a new shell opens up using version 3.2 (recall, if I open a new window or tab in terminal, it uses my default shell, bash v. 4.4. The problem here is what happens when I use the command bash).
I've added the path to bash 4.4 on my machine (/usr/local/bin/bash) to my PATH variable in .bash_profile, and it's not being overwritten somewhere else (echo $PATH gives the expected result: the very first path is usr/local/bin/bash). I expected this to change the behavior of the command bash
I can use a workaround, by setting an alias (alias bash4='/usr/local/bin/bash'), but I don't have to use an alias for bash 3.2, or for upgraded versions of, e.g., python or R.
Is there something I'm missing? Is the alias solution the only option here?
EDITS
in response to comments:
SHELL is /usr/local/bin/bash, which is unsurprising, since that's my default login shell.
type -a bash is interesting...
bash is /bin/bash
bash is /usr/local/bin/bash
bash is /bin/bash
bash is /usr/local/bin/bash
bash is /bin/bash
bash is /usr/local/bin/bash
bash is /bin/bash
bash is /usr/local/bin/bash

My entire PATH is a mess, which may be the source of this problem.
/usr/local/bin/bash:/Users/coltrane/Programming/Unix_Workbench/Code/Commands:/usr/local/bin/bash:/Users/coltrane/Programming/Unix_Workbench/Code/Commands:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/Applications/anaconda/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin:/Users/coltrane/Programming/Unix_Workbench/Code/Commands:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/Applications/anaconda/bin:/Users/coltrane/Programming/Android_Development/sdk/platform-tools:/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/Applications/anaconda/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin:/Users/coltrane/Programming/Unix_Workbench/Code/Commands:/usr/local/bin/bash:/Users/coltrane/Programming/Unix_Workbench/Code/Commands:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/Applications/anaconda/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin:/Users/coltrane/Programming/Unix_Workbench/Code/Commands:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/Applications/anaconda/bin:/Users/coltrane/Programming/Android_Development/sdk/platform-tools:/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/Applications/anaconda/bin:/Users/coltrane/Programming/Android_Development/sdk/platform-tools:/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin

unrelated problem with my path, i had inadvertently repeated $PATH in one line of my .bash_profile, (PATH=$PATH::$PATH) causing unwanted duplication

The error here is that the first path in PATH was to the bash executable, instead of to the directory that contains the bash executable. For readers with similar problems: double check to make sure any path you're adding to your PATH variable resolves to a directory, not to a file.
Problem:
I had added the following to my .bash_profile:
PATH=/usr/local/bin/bash:$PATH
/usr/local/bin/bash is not a directory. It's a file (well, a symbolic link to a file). So, regardless of placing it at the very beginning of PATH, the command bash will not find an executable file named bash inside any directory in PATH until it gets to /bin.
Solution:
In .bash_profile, setting
PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

Solves the problem. Now the command bash finds the executable inside /usr/local/bin before it gets to /bin.


How to modify view of sub-directories inside a directory? Trying to modify the view of a directroy, I prefer this view:

But I hate the right part where we see the info on each app.
Is it possible to modify it to be on default like this (without the information part on the right):

The answer is Go to Finder > View > Hide Preview ;)

(Still new to Mac OS)


How can I find the IP of my router? We have Bell (Canada) as an ISP. Their service works fine, I can also easily see what devices are connected to the home network via their home network settings.

Additionally, I have my own modem, a Zhone 6518-A1-NA. I want to use it as a bridge, so it connects to the home network, and afterwards I can connect my network drive to it.

The issue is that I cannot find the IP of that Zhone modem, which is connected via ethernet cable to my computer directly (not the ISP's modem). I reset it, but I can't find the information as of what its IP would be and I can't connect to it to change its firmware or whatever I wish to do.

Is there a way from the Terminal or the network settings to find out what its IP is? Keep in mind I tried calling the ISP and they said that because I am on a Mac and also because it's not their own product, they will offer no support.

Thanks in advance.

System Preferences -> Network -> Pick your Adapter -> Advanced -> TCP/IP Tab :)

See screenshot here:

Your computer's IP is marked "IPv4 Address" (192.168.1.74) and your router's IP is marked "Router" (i.e. 192.168.1.1 in my case).


Problem sending emails from specific gmail account I have read several of the questions and answers posted about this problem, attempted the solutions, but still have no resolution to the problem.  I have two separate gmail accounts...one I use for work related emails and one I use for personal emails.  Using Apple Mail, I select the account I want an email response to be sent from (even if someone sends me a work email to my personal email address, for example) and the email continues to default by sending my response using the email address that the sender sent the email to.  So, I have set my preference settings to default new emails to be sent from my work email address only...no change.  Nothing I have attempted to change in the settings category has helped.  Even when I choose a different email address as I'm composing an email, it defaults to the email address that the sender sent it to.  Am I missing something?
Thanks for your help!
Kristy

There are two places in Mail preferences you should look at.

One is the Composing Tab

In the make sure you do NOT have selected send from Account of Selected Mailbox, but have the Account of your choice selected.

The second one is in the Accounts Tab.

Again check your settings here, and once you have selected the right account then check the use only this account.

This you have to repeat for each account.


Boot Camp Assistant can't install Windows after partition made and booted to USB installer? How do I install a bootable copy of windows on my older macBook Air with Boot Camp Assistant?

Per Apple's list of supported devices, "Use Windows 10 on your Mac with Boot Camp" I have an 11" mid-2012 2GHz i7 macBook Air with a 500GB SSD (running macOS Sierra 10.12.5) which I would like to install a bootable Windows partition on and make use of Windows 10.
Per Windows recommendation I downloaded the "Windows 10 Anniversary Update ISO" selecting the "Windows 10" edition (not "N" or "Single Language"). Note to self: other options for Windows .iso files
Per "How to install Windows using Boot Camp" & "Install Windows on your Mac using a USB hard drive or flash drive" I mounted a USB 2.0 drive (SanDisk Cruzer) and started the Boot Camp Assistant process. (Note: I do also have a Time Machine backup).
After setting up the USB installer, partitioning the Boot Camp disk and once rebooted into Windows 10, I see the "BOOTCAMP" partition but there is a warning message saying the driver's are unavailable. Rescanning the available volumes for the driver's does nothing. I am unable to proceed.

I was able to ⌘+r restart into recovery mode and remove the Boot Camp partition. This resulted in the startup process ending at the No bootable device, insert boot disk and press any key screen. I then used option+restart to get back into my macOS 10.12.5 partition, where I reset the startup disk in System Preferences.

Per this 2016 9TO5Mac article and video, "How to install Windows 10 on your Mac using Boot Camp Assistant" I was under the impression that I could install Windows 10 and use the "Windows 10 Insider" option without a registration key. See also the article, "You Don’t Need a Product Key to Install and Use Windows 10" for some notes on the limitations of the free "Insider" install.

Do I need to purchase windows 7 first, then install that and then upgrade with the Anniversary Edition installer (and then upgrade to Windows 10 Creators)?
Is there a more appropriate .iso file I should be using?

Thank you.

my bad, I just needed to take the extra step of formatting the Boot Camp drive to NTFS:

(per: https://www.howtogeek.com/186907/how-to-install-windows-on-a-mac-with-boot-camp/)


Can spyware affect the iPad? I tried to login to my gmail, hotmail, and facebook accounts today. I could not login to those three because they said that my password is incorrect. So I tried to think what I did yesterday. I only used those three websites on my iPad.

One thing I noticed with iPad's safari is that it does not warn me for suspicious websites like Chrome or Firefox do.

I concluded that either someone hacked my facebook account and found primary email accounts from facebook and hacked my emails (since they all use same passwords) or my iPad has been hacked. Is it possible that my iPad was hacked?

Don't be so quick to jump to conclusions, there are other possible attack vectors. iOS Safari is one of the most secure browsers because of the sandbox design of iOS.

First and foremost, do you use the same password for all three? Password reuse is a dangerous problem, because if one account is compromised an attacker can try that same password on other websites to see if you have the same password there.

Secondly, how complex is your password? If it's a word (or combination of words) from the dictionary, attackers can run automated login attempts to guess short passwords. If your password is short and only contains words then it's much easily guessed using this method.

Thirdly, there's no guarantee that the passwords were compromised in the last 24 hours, it could have happened in the past week.

In any case, change those passwords soon and promptly, make sure they all have different passwords, and try to use numbers, symbols, or uppercase letters to prevent a dictionary attack. Also don't use common tricks like "password1" or "abc123" or "blink182" because attackers keep common passwords like that on file for dictionary attacks.


How do you perform a clean install of macOS High Sierra with APFS? I have macOS High Sierra installed on my MacBook Pro already with the APFS format.

However, I would like to know the steps involved to perform a clean installation of macOS High Sierra with the APFS format?

This can be done by downloading the High Sierra installer from the App store and use it to create an installation USB media.

Locate and install macOS High Sierra in the Mac App Store.
Plug an empty USB flash drive into your Mac with at least 12 GB of space.
Run the following command in the terminal:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

Where MyVolume is the name of your USB flash drive.
Leave the USB drive plugged in and reboot your Mac while holding the option key (ALT) down.
Choose the installer from the boot menu.
From the installation environment, choose to install High Sierra on your internal disc. The installation should default to APFS.

A more detailed explanation can be found on the Apple support page: How to create a bootable installer for macOS


Can you get a line-in port on a MBA via an external device? I have a macbook air and I really want to plug in my guitar to garage band, but unfortunately the air doesn't have a line-in port. My question is, is there an external device that can provide you a line-in port? Just like the way you can plug in headphones and use the headset's mic, instead of the built in one.

The Griffin iMic is a great device for sound input and output via USB.


Unread message in Messages not being set as "read" So, I have run into a bug where iMessage syncs my normal SMS-messages with Messages on OS X.

The problem is that the message doesn't want to get read. I click on the sender (automatic SMS from a computer notifying me of an email), the (1) disappears for a second and then returns.

The message does NOT show up unread on my iPhone or iPad,

I've tried the following:
- Restarted Messages
- Closed the conversation
- Deleted the conversation

But no luck.

I'm going to restart my computer now, but in the meantime I hope you can come with a solution. Maybe something like "Mark all as read"?

This problem is fixed in a new release of 10.10.2

I'm currently running 10.10.3 and am having this issue again, so not fixed in 10.10.2 unfortunately. Have experienced in the past, major pain.

The following works for me every time

  In the Finder > Go Menu > Go to Folder type (Copy and Paste) ~/Library/Preferences into the Dialogue box.In the Preferences find the com.apple.imessages.bag.plist and drag it to the Trash.

(found on https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4486753?start=0&tstart=0)

Then reboot the machine.  The post says to reboot messages but I always have to reboot the entire computer for this to work properly.


Systems not seeing netrestore image Turning to here after many futile attempts to resolve.

I have an OSX server (10.10.5) which has been hosting a Netrestore image over HTTP without issue for some time now. We replaced our firewall in our network with one from another vendor, which has the exact same network configuration (sans VLANs, though that is a moot point. Read below) and yet since the swap, the Macbooks in our organization cannot see the hosted images. Here is what I am facing:

Systems on same VLAN as the servers (normally not, but doesn't work either way.)
Firewall not enabled on OSX server
All required ports (both UDP and TCP) are reachable on the server
Images are NOT limited to model, and existing machines with known working configurations against the images cannot see them either
Netinstall service has been restarted, images have not changed, services show online
Tried delivering images both over HTTP and NFS
Server is pingable by all machines
TCP dump for bootpd does not show anything hitting the server
Server switched from manual IP config to DHCP but retains same IP, Sub and Gateway

The systems which are trying to reach the server exhibit behavior as if the server is not delivering the image. I'm not sure where to go for the next step at this point, or where to look next. Any thoughts?

It sounds like something in the network is blocking nonstandard DHCP traffic, including the requests a NetBoot client uses to find the server(s). When you start a Mac with the Option or N keys held down, it'll first do a normal DHCP transaction to get an IP address, then send a special "BSDP" (Boot Service Discovery Protocol) request, which is really a DHCP Inform request with some special options set. Here's what it looks like with sudo tcpdump -nv -s0 port bootps:

16:19:35.656369 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 10411, offset 0, flags [DF], proto UDP (17), length 328)
    10.0.0.215.68 > 255.255.255.255.67: BOOTP/DHCP, Request from 68:5b:35:xx:xx:xx, length 300, Flags [none]
      Client-IP 10.0.0.215
      Client-Ethernet-Address 68:5b:35:xx:xx:xx
      Vendor-rfc1048 Extensions
        Magic Cookie 0x63825363
        Vendor-Option Option 43, length 7: 1.1.1.2.2.1.1
        DHCP-Message Option 53, length 1: Inform
        Parameter-Request Option 55, length 2:
          Vendor-Option, Vendor-Class
        MSZ Option 57, length 2: 1500
        Vendor-Class Option 60, length 28: "AAPLBSDPC/i386/MacBookPro9,2"
        Client-ID Option 61, length 7: ether 68:5b:35:xx:xx:xx

Note that the source address is a unicast address, not 0.0.0.0 like a normal DHCP request would have; your firewall may think that's hinky and block it. Or it might be blocking it for some other reason. Anyway, if the NetBoot server receives this, it should reply with something like this:

16:19:35.656756 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 59742, offset 0, flags [none], proto UDP (17), length 369, bad cksum 0 (->7b45)!)
    10.0.0.2.67 > 10.0.0.215.68: BOOTP/DHCP, Reply, length 341, Flags [none]
      Client-IP 10.0.0.215
      Client-Ethernet-Address 68:5b:35:xx:xx:xx
      Vendor-rfc1048 Extensions
        Magic Cookie 0x63825363
        DHCP-Message Option 53, length 1: ACK
        Server-ID Option 54, length 4: 10.0.0.2
        Vendor-Class Option 60, length 9: "AAPLBSDPC"
        Vendor-Option Option 43, length 78: 1.1.1.4.2.127.255. [trimmed...]
16:19:35.657252 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 33486, offset 0, flags [none], proto UDP (17), length 328, bad cksum 0 (->e1fe)!)
    10.0.0.2.67 > 10.0.0.215.68: BOOTP/DHCP, Reply, length 300, Flags [none]
      Client-IP 10.0.0.215
      Server-IP 10.0.0.2
      Client-Ethernet-Address 68:5b:35:xx:xx:xx
      sname "mainserver.pretendco.com"
      Vendor-rfc1048 Extensions
        Magic Cookie 0x63825363
        DHCP-Message Option 53, length 1: ACK
        Server-ID Option 54, length 4: 10.0.0.2

...and if the client receives that, it'd use the information in it to fetch the booter and kernel over TFTP, and then mount the image over either HTTP or NFS and actually boot from it.

BTW, this tends to be a pain to troubleshoot because you have to boot the client over & over to get it to send the requests. But there's a trick: boot a client normally, then open System Preferences -> Startup Disk, and it'll scan for NetBoot images using the same BSDP/DHCP queries. Much easier, plus you can run packet captures on the client as you do it. Only tricky thing is that to make it rescan, you have to fully quit System Preferences, not just leave & reenter the Startup Disk pane.


"This copy of the Install OSX Mavericks..." error message via USB boot I have an old Leopard MBP and a 2013 Mavericks iMac.

I want to install Mavericks on the Leopard MBP, but had no success since.

Here's what I did.

I downloaded Mavericks from the MAS on the iMac
I formatted an 8GB USB drive (naming it Untitled) through Disk Utility
I ran this in the terminal: sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/ --nointeraction
The creation of the bootable USB was successful, so I booted the MBP using the newly created USB drive
I formatted the MBP internal HDD via the Disk Utility on the Mavericks drive
I ran the Mavericks drive installer

Near the end of the Mavericks installation, I ran into the "This copy of the Install OS X Mavericks application can't be verified. It may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading." error.

I re-downloaded Mavericks from the MAS and tried again; same error.

What should I do now?

Check that the date is correct.  This is an error that can be received if your date is set utterly incorrectly, typically due to a flat battery prior to install and not being able to connect to an NTP server to correct.


How do I use separate dock for each monitor? I have three monitors. I'd like to use a dock on each monitor that displays the apps / windows open on that monitor. Is this possible?

Thanks!

Unfortunately, OS X does not support multiple docks running on multiple monitors simultaneously.
According to Apple's support article:

When the Dock is configured to appear at the bottom of your screen, it's available on whichever screen you’re working on. Just move your pointer to the bottom of either display. When the Dock is configured for the left or right position, it appears on the leftmost or rightmost display edge.
Tip: If you don't see your dock because it's set to hidden or there's a full screen app on the display, move your pointer to the location of the Dock. If the Dock still doesn't appear, swipe your pointer towards the Dock again to unhide it.


Optimizing Document Scanning in OSX I'm looking to optimize scanning with OSX's native scanner.  Ideally I would like it to be able to produce a multi-page black & white pdf that is under 1MB in size, however, I can't figure out a way to make this happen.

Often I'll have people send me the same document that is under 500KB, but when I print it out, sign it, and then scan it back in, it ends up being a very large document.  Also, if I set it to under 200dpi, it seems my quality suffers noticeably, and even at 72dpi (which is pretty much blurry), I end up with documents over 1MB.

My settings are the following:

Kind: Black & White
Resolution: 200dpi
Size: US Letter
Format: PDF (combine into single document)
All other options: None

Is this something OSX's native scanning program is just not up to?  Are there better programs out there I should be using?

Rather than using the native OS X scanner, I would recommend that you download the free trial of the commercial product Hamrick VueScan. I do a lot of scanning and I rely on it. It does very well in compressing text documents to small file size.

Aside from that, you should investigate what you can do with taking scans from the OS X native scanner and then running them (as TIFF, JPG or PDF) through Automator's image manipulation utilities for further compressing the images with Apple's Quartz Filters to make them smaller.


MacBook Pro won't find network boot disk My optical drive doesn't work on my MacBook Pro, and my Internet connection is too slow to use the recovery partition to download Lion. I have a disk and a Windows PC I can use on the same network.

I installed the disk sharing software from Apple on the PC, and used the remote install program that comes on the disc.

I hold down Option ⌥ when booting up my MacBook. It is plugged in via Ethernet to the same network, but the network disk never appears. If I press N then the network icon appears, pulsing, but it never finds the Windows shared disk.

What am I doing wrong? Will this work better if plug the Ethernet cable directly from the PC to the Mac, skipping over the network?

You need a network boot server to be running somewhere on the network as Macs can't just see another CD without more help. Internet recovery is Apple's way of solving this on the newer hardware.

Something like DeployStudio would be my first recommendation for a modern, free, and all in one setup. This tool will handle the network request from the Mac and provide it with software to run so that you can then start an installation. I don't know of a boot image that is capable of doing a remote disk installation so you might do some learning with net boot, but ultimately just go get a USB drive or get help from someone with the setup ready to do a restore. Many Apple Stores are set up to image a machine while you wait through the genius bar.


Can I proxy traffic / domains through my phone by tethering to carrier data? Would it be possible for me to proxy example.com to http://google.com/example.com/, through my jailbroken iPhone? I would tether my connection to my laptop, so to my laptop it connects to Google's IP address, but my phone then rewrites it to the actual destination.

On my computer (connected to my iPhone's connection), I type http://google.com/yahoo.com/

My iPhone connects to yahoo.com, gets the contents, and sends it back to my computer.

To my computer, it appears I've being connecting to google.com, but I'm actually connected to yahoo.

One way I think it might work is to run a web server with mod_rewrite on my iPhone and a simple php include script, but I'll have to be able to make my web server respond to google.com. Another tack might be to run a custom DNS service on the iPhone. Has anyone taken what seems plausible in theory and accomplished it in practice?

Why not just edit the hosts file on the laptop?  Unless you don't own the laptop...

Another option here is to have your iPhone connect via a proxy. Here's an example of how to do it with Fiddler.

In that case any dns lookups your iPhone does will use the hosts file of the machine Fiddler is running on.


iTerm2 : Prevent lines from vim from going into scroll back I was wondering how I can prevent iTerm2 from saving the output from a vim sessions into the scroll back history?  This isn't a feature when you are editing confidential files.

Evidently I have the option Preferences-> Profile-> "Save lines to scrollback in alternate screen mode" checked.  Unchecking this feature seems to have stopped this behavior.


Encrypt TimeMachine backups or rely on hardware encryption? I'm thinking of purchasing a portable disk drive that supports hardware encryption (most of them seem to do these days). However, if I'm using such a drive can should I still encrypt my TimeMachine backups? I'm assuming that TimeMachine uses software to encrypt the backup data which would be slower than the hardware encryption supported by the drives. Is my assumption wrong?

It is neither wrong, nor correct :) The drive uses a chip inside to do the encryption and everything depends on how powerful the chip is. Most likely Mac CPU will be more powerful.

Also if you connect over network or through USB2, encryption speed will not matter much because the transfer will be much slower than the encryption.

I would not bother with hardware-encrypted drives and just use Mac encryption. Why pay more for hardware encryption if you can do it with nearly the same speed on a Mac and you have other speed limiting factors?


Does OSX support (importing) OpenVPN profiles? Is there some way to import the settings of an OpenVPN client into the built-in VPN client in Mountain Lion? Or am I comparing apples to oranges?

No.
As of Sept 2012 (and Mountain Lion), macOS does not support OpenVPN in the built-in "Network Manager".
Out-of-the-box macOS only supports:

L2TP over IPSec
PPTP (not recommended)
Cisco IPSec

However, you can use the following third-party OpenVPN clients in macOS:

Shimo
Viscosity
Tunnelblick (open source, free)
pritunl client (open source, free)

I can confirm that both Shimo and Viscosity support the import of .ovpnprofiles.


How to Empty the IMAP trash folder I have an iPhone 5s with iOS 8. There are about 80,000 emails in an IMAP trash folder. How do I get rid of these emails?

Perhaps my phone was set up incorrectly but I have no reason to want to keep these.

The setting that you are looking for is buried in advanced mail settings.

Open Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calenders > (Choose the IMAP account in question) > (choose it again) > Advanced

This screen will have a section titled "Deleted Messages", Set "Remove" to an option other than "never".

For what it's worth, it's the mail client, not the mail server, that is responsible for cleaning up the trash folder.  The client is the program or app that you use to read email, in this case your iPhone.  Many people have problems with this setting when using multiple clients, such as an iPhone, iPad, and Mac or PC at the same time.  In that case if the clients don't all have the same thing for this setting, whichever has the shortest time period is the device that will prevail.

Note: changing the setting should fix your issue, although it might not be an instant fix. I'm not positive how it will behave with 80,000 trash emails to cleanup.

Alternate: A more immediate method appears to be, open mail which will open your inbox, back up one screen by clicking whatever is the the top left (likely the account name, it will vary depending on how your phones is setup), then in the Accounts section choose your "Account" (not your Inbox for that account), from there select the trash folder, click "Edit" on the top right, and then "delete all" in the bottom right,  and "delete all" again to confirm.  Also be sure to adjust the advanced setting above so that in the future your trash folder will be maintained automatically for you.


Automator throws an error when trying to quit Mail.app I've created a calendar event in Automator that creates and sends an email message then quits Mail. It creates and sends the message fine but then gives an error when attempting to quit Mail. I've had it running for months under Lion and recently upgraded that machine to Mountain Lion 10.8.2. The error happened under both versions. The error is -1700 which is errAECoercionFail. Mail isn't putting up any alerts that might keep it from quitting. Any ideas as to what would cause this?

I had the same problem.  Checking the 'ask to save changes' seems to resolve the issue.


Encrypt External Hard Drive for Mac and Linux I have an external hard drive that I backup with Time Machine. I'm trying to determine the best way (or if it's even possible) to encrypt it so that Time Machine can still back it up and it can be mounted and read by my Ubuntu server. I'm not hoping for write access but that'd be even better.

I've looked into way to read File Vault 2 volumes on Ubuntu but haven't found anything too promising. So I'm assuming I need to go with something like TrueCrypt but am not sure how Time Machine will handle that.

The driver is currently formatted with OS X extended but I can format if needed.

The easiest way to handle this situation is to buy a drive that uses OS-agnostic hardware encryption, then format it with a format which is readable by both OS X and Linux. Since both Time Machine and Ubuntu are referenced, you may want to install hfsprogs in order to enable Ubuntu to read OS X's HFS+, then format the drive itself as HFS+:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/otherosfs/hfsprogs


How can I partition my disk? I have a macOS Mojave (10.14.2) and I would like create a 20 GB MS-DOS (FAT) partition on my 128 GB APFS disk.

But Disk Utility constantly gives me an error:

My Time Machine is turned off:

My FileVault is turned off:

I also tried the followings:

tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 9999999999999999 command to delete snapshots.
First Aid in Disk Utility, then restarted with Command + S and typed /sbin/fsck -fy in terminal. In both cases it said that my disk appears to be OK.
Tried to boot in Safe mode (Command + Shift) then start partitioning.
Tried to restart with Command + R then partition from Disk Utility.

The problem is the same with Boot Camp Assistant, if I try to install Windows 10.

Why on Earth Apple prevents their users to use another operating system next to macOS? Is this a nefarious business tactics? Because it seems not to have solution at all while having an APFS disk!

Okay I solved the problem. First I created a backup, because everything got erased!

I restarted my MacBook in Recovery mode (Command + R)
Went to the Disk Utility
Clicked on my SSD that was in APFS
Clicked on Erase, and chose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with GUID Partition Map
After it was done, went back to the previous menu in Recovery mode and clicked to Reinstall Mac OS
I chose the new disk to install macOS (it took me around 30-60 minutes)

After installing macOS you can set your previous Time Machine backups. Finally I'm done, and now it enables me to partition my disk.

The problem was the APFS didn't enabled me to partition, only HFS+.

But be careful: since APFS is now the standard filesystem on Apple devices and if it has some important advantages which is not supported by HFS+ you will be messed up.

Take a look at APFS advantages before you choose.

Although you can reset your disk back to APFS anytime you want, but you might miss the ability of partitioning.

I think if you want to keep your drive as APFS you can purchase an external hard drive (it doesn't cost so much, but indeed needs extra care if you are working with a laptop).

Edit: After I erased my SSD with HFS+, I tried to erased it with APFS once again. (the whole SSD) And this time, it enabled me to partition in APFS. :)


Connect 23” Apple Cinema HD Display to MacBook Pro USB-C I’ve gotten my hands on an older 23” Apple Cinema HD Display and would like to use it with my late 2016 MacBook Pro with only USB-C ports. I’ve researched this issue, and I can only find answers from people using the 30” monitor. The gist is that you need to use Apple’s Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter, and then an adapter from Mini DisplayPort to USB-C.

From what I can gather, the 30” monitor was the only model that used a dual-link DVI port, while the 20” and 23” used regular DVI. Reference. Is this correct?

If it is, it would mean I could avoid the very costly Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter, and hopefully instead purchase an Apple HDMI to DVI Adapter and an HDMI to USB-C adapter. From Apple’s description of the HDMI to DVI Adapter:

  Use the HDMI to DVI Adapter to connect a single-link DVI digital monitor, such as the 20-inch or 23-inch Apple Cinema Display, that includes a DVI connector.

Side note: I obviously need the monitor to run at full resolution at 60hz.

To answer my own question: The Apple HDMI to DVI Adapter + a Belkin USB-C to HDMI Adapter does indeed work for the 23”. No need for the expensive Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter. Yay!


Wifi: no hardware installed, then flashing question mark when restarting I bought my laptop ( MacBook Pro mid 2012 or 2011) I have 10.11.2 OS X elcaptain.
This entire thing started few days ago. I was watching a movie late at night on my laptop and I think I probably slept and forgot to close my laptop. I woke up closed it. Few hours later, I opened it to access the internet I get the option of wifi: no hardware installed. I've never seen something like this before. So, I restarted. It didn't work. Today, my friend told me to shut it down then press command and r when I open it and restoring my laptop that might make it work. Now, I did this and the computer asks for Internet recovery, but it can't connect in the first place. I shut it down. I opened again and there's a question mark in a folder flashing. Then I shut it down pressed command and r and it gives me option to choose a network and the option is x literally. I can't ask for Apple support's help as I am out of the country for vacation and I can only wait until I'm back by the 8th of January, and I really need my laptop to work. Any suggestions? Please?

Assuming no major external force (drops) or liquid damage to the computer.

IT sounds like your hard drive is not "happy" and at the very least you might your hard drive directory repair beyond what Apple's built in tools disk utility / FSCK can perform.

Disk warrior is an excellent option for hard drive directory repair when the built in tools are not sufficient.

To be quite honest it sounds like your hard drive is failing. One unlikely scenario (still possible) is your hard drive SATA cable, optical drive etc.. one another part is bad making look like a hard drive issue.

I would have a tech take a look at your computer before you tinker with it too much, sounds like waiting until you return is your best option.


Copying Xcode installation from one Mac to another I have installed 3 different versions of Xcode on my Mac.

Can I just copy the /Applications/Xcode*.app app bundles from my Mac and put it on other 10 Macs I have? I don't want to go through the hassle of downloading and installing it again.

Has anyone done this successfully?

NOTE: I saw another question on copying to an external drive. I am NOT doing that. Just copying from one machine to another and keeping the installations in /Applications folder.

I Wanted to close the loop on this. Yes, it works just fine. We create a .xip file of the installation and slap it on other boxes.


Can I install OSX Safari 5.1 for one user and Safari 5.05 for another user - same CPU? I'm running OSX 10.6.8 with Safari 5.01 with my main user account, which is an admin account.
I would like to do some testing with Safari 5.1 before I fully commit to it.

Can I install Safari 5.1 in another user account (non-admin) and keep the Safari 5.05 functional in my admin account?
Can I just install it in the ~/Applications directory of the non-admin user?

The person behind Multi-Safari has documented the procedure to create a Safari application with a self-contained WebKit framework here.

Basically it involves duplicating the Safari application, opening the contents and creating a Frameworks folder inside, copying the Framework from /System/Library/Frameworks and then performing some jiggery-pokery to get the application to prefer to use the self-contained framework over the one in the Library folder.

(I decided not to copy his instructions word for word, as his website didn't use Creative Commons.)


How smoothly does Xcode 10.1 run on 2017 MacBook Pro base model (8 GB RAM/128 GB SSD)? I am planning to buy a 2017 MacBook Pro base model (8 GB RAM/128 GB SSD) for iOS app development and I am on a budget.

I would appreciate if I get answer to the following questions before I decide to purchase:

Does current version of Xcode (10.1) and iOS Simulator run smoothly without lag on this Mac? or do I need more RAM and SSD and more powerful CPU?
How fast the 128 GB SSD fills with Xcode project files if I use the machine only for app development purpose?
Can I move old Xcode project files to an external disk in order to free up space on internal drive (and copy old Xcode project files back to internal drive as needed)?
Can I directly save and run Xcode project files from external disk without using the internal drive?

2017 MacBook Pro is a fairly recent model and supports running the current iOS development tooling (recent version of macOS, current version of Xcode + iOS SDK + iOS Simulator) pretty decently.

However, how smoothly does Xcode run is a subjective question. As mentioned, the MacBook is pretty recent and can handle the iOS development environment fairly well. The actual performance is dependent not on the hardware alone, but also on the optimization level of the software (macOS + Xcode), which are fairly well optiized in general.

While the machine configuration (Memory, CPU, disk space) required for optimal performance is highly dependent on the actual workflow i.e., the kind of project you'll be working on, it's generally a good idea to go with as much RAM as you can budget for as it's not upgradable at a later stage.

  Does current version of Xcode (10.1) and iOS Simulator run smoothly without lag on this Mac? or do I need more RAM and SSD and more powerful CPU?

This is subjective and dependant on the complexity of the project. In general Xcode will run decently on this configuration.

  How fast the 128 GB SSD fills with Xcode project files if I use the machine only for app development purpose?

This is again subjective as it's dependent on the size of project.

  Can I move old Xcode project files to an external disk in order to free up space on internal drive (and copy old Xcode project files back to internal drive as needed)?

Yes. Xcode project is a entirely contained in a single directory. As long as you keep all the project referenced files in the same location (generally inside the project directory), you can freely move around the directory between internal and external drive.

  Can I directly save and run Xcode project files from external disk without using the internal drive?

Yes, you can save/run Xcode project from an external drive. However, the drive needs to remain connected for the duration of work.


Cannot connect to my SMB server on MacOS When I connect to my SMB Linux server by running:

smb://ubuntu

it shows me 2 shared folders and that's normal. I made the first folder working without a password and that's working fine. The second folder is secured and macOS doesn't ask for a password when I choose to connect to that folder and it shows an error message instead:

Check the server name or IP address, and then try again. If you continue to have problems, contact your system administrator.

How do I establish a connection successfully by getting a prompt to provide credentials (as required)?

I would use WireShark to capture the SMB2 packets and see what's happening.

Install home-brew if needed - https://brew.sh
Install wireshark brew cask install wireshark
Get a capture to the IP address of the server going and then filter for SMB2 traffic. You can tip open any responses and see exactly what's happening.

This is much better than just trying another server or another client or trying to look at the Mac console in my experience. If this is overkill, you could open console.app from /Applications/Utilities and see if there are relevant messages / errors at the time when the error is posted to your screen.


How to mark multiple contacts to send same text as bcc - feature that exists on Android How to mark multiple contacts on iPhone 6 (ios8)for messaging severally the same text as bcc.  This feature exists on Android phones wherein you write text and tick as many contacts you wish and the message goes to each one of them individually.

This is currently not possible on iOS. You can provide feedback to Apple here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html


Wiping a stolen iPhone that wasn't connected to iCloud Recently, my iPhone 5 was stolen, and while I have a new iPhone 6, I received a message from a number of someone claiming to be in possession of the device, with a new number.

All images, contacts, Outlook mail, you name it, are still on the device.  While I realize it's my fault for not having it connected to iCloud to wipe manually, is there anything I can do to have this sensitive information wiped from the device?

If you didn't have Find My iPhone enabled on the phone there isn't anything you can do to wipe the phone now that it's no longer in your possession.

Your best bet is to get in contact with your wireless carrier, let them know the phone was stolen, and at least get them to put the IMEI number of the phone on the blacklist. Canadian carriers participate in a blacklist program so stolen phones cannot be used on their networks. See: http://www.protectyourdata.ca/ for more details on the Canadian IMEI blacklist program. Not all carriers participate in the program.

Your data on the phone, I'm afraid, is now available to the thief. Change your passwords on all your accounts like Twitter and Facebook. If the service allows it, do a "global log out" from the service to at least force apps like Dropbox and so on to log out from your account on the stolen phone.


Dock-less monitor solutions I would like to construct a desktop-like solution for someone who is not terribly computer-savvy by allowing her 2011 MBAir to connect to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I've looked at various docking stations, but none of them appear to power the computer itself (at least I haven't found one), which means it would separately have to be connected to external power (note: this is a Thunderbolt 2 computer). So I've been thinking about just doing this without a docking station, since it isn't obvious that a docking station would make for less work.

The idea would be to just buy a monitor, bluetooth keyboard and bluetooth mouse. Is it the case that once all of these are configured, my wife could just walk up to the desk, plug in the monitor (and computer power if desired), and start to use the external devices for input? If so, can the laptop be closed during that time?

It's called clamshell mode and it's supported by the macOS.
Here's the Apple website about it

  Make sure that your Mac notebook is plugged in to an outlet using the AC power adapter.
  Connect a USB keyboard and mouse to your Mac.
  With your Mac turned on and the display open, connect the Mac to the appropriate port on the external display or projector and turn the display or projector on. Use an appropriate Apple video adapter if necessary.
  After your Mac notebook's Desktop appears on the external display, close the computer's lid.
  When you close the lid:

  In OS X Lion 10.7 and later, the external display changes to a blue screen, then shows your Desktop.
  In OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard and earlier, you can wake your Mac by clicking the mouse button or pressing a key on the external keyboard.

  You can now use your Mac notebook as you normally would with a USB keyboard and mouse.


What does error "the Classic Environment is no longer supported" mean? I created a .app file that is 303KB on disk. When I right click it and press Compress... I end up getting a 8.4MB .zip archive.

I tried sending the .app via email to myself and compressing it on Windows, and was able to get a .rar file of 177 bytes. However, attempting to open the .app on OSX results in the message:

  You cannot open the application...the Classic Environment is no longer supported`

What does this error mean?

The Classic Environment is Apple's software that supports running Mac OS 9 apps on Mac OS X. ("Mac OS Classic" refers to Mac OS versions before Mac OS X.) Both Mac OS 9 and Classic are really old: Mac OS 9 was discontinued in 2001, and the last version of OS X to support Classic is 10.4 (Tiger), which was released in 2005.

What's the difference between Classic and OS X apps? Their code is completely different, as different as the difference between Windows and Mac apps. This is because Classic and OS X are very different architecturally.

Why did Mac OS X think your app was a Classic app? Most likely:

On UNIX systems, which includes Linux and Mac OS, launchable program files (executables) must have a executable property set to true.
Windows and Mac OS Classic are not UNIX and their filesystems don't have the concept of a executable property.
Most Mac OS apps are folders that appear as files in Mac OS. You know this if you've looked at the app in Windows. The executable part of the app is one of the files in TheApp.app/Contents/MacOS.
When you moved the file to Windows, the executable file property was lost, so when you moved it back to your Mac, the executable property became set to false.*
When you opened the app, Mac OS tried to launch the app, noticed that the app wasn't marked as executable, and figured it must be a Classic app.

* Usually files that come from non-UNIX systems will have the executable property set to true by default, e.g., if you move files using a flash drive or if you use zip instead of rar. The program you use to unrar files on your Mac would be the one to blame.

Why was your rar 177 bytes? Perhaps because there were entire files that were unsupported and so didn't get rar'd.


Screen Sensitivity of the retina display iPad (3rd generation). Is it better than before? Does the new iPad support higher resolution tapping, or just more pixels for display. Stylii and the existing iPad feel like writing with a big marker on a big index card. Will the new iPad feel more like pen-and-paper when using a stylus?

I practice, I can't tell any difference at all between the two models for most finger gestures on non-drawing apps.

Two things make this measurement hard - we don't get to see the raw pressure points and the unsmoothed and smoothed multitouch input. The end result of touch is highly processed which could easily hide changes in the detection grid / chip that does the processing / algorithms or tuning to make one iPad feel like the others.

The other is that our fingers cover the area we are selecting and for fine adjustments, you don't have to actually move your finger - just roll it to change the contact area of your deformed finger pad area that is either in direct contact or close proximity to the glass surface.

Once I learned to pivot and wiggle my fingers in place rather than try to slide it for fine adjustments - my precision (and feel of being able to control the precision) jumped immensely.

On the other hand - drawing with a stylus or deft and rapid strokes with a finger in a good drawing program makes the end feel on a retina iPad much better than before. I don't know if this is mental or real, but getting a finer line out of the same repeated gestures is incredible and makes the new hardware feel much more like pen or pencil and paper to me. I can't tell if it's the CPU/GPU or hardware or illusion, but the feel is quite real after a short adjustment period.


Slow WIFI on iPhone 3GS after update to iOS6 After updating my iPhone 3GS to iOS6, when I'm on WIFI the network connection appears terribly slow. Loading a webpage in Safari takes ages and opening the update tab in the App store seems to keep loading forever. When I turn off WIFI and try the same on a 3G network, it all is responding a lot faster.

I've checked the WIFI connection itself, and from my laptop that appears all fine. Before the update to iOS6, my iPhone was working fine on that same WIFI connection. What can I do?

Reset your network settings, to clear all remembered WIFI networks. This will force it to create a new ones. You will have manually connect to the WIFI network again, and if required enter its password again afterwards.

You can reset the network settings by selecting:

Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset Network Settings

Also what can help is trying to clear the history of your Safari browser, you can do that by going to the Bookmarks -> History and then press the Clear button on the lower left hand corner of the screen.


Why do I get my own text message sent back to me in a group message on iphone 5S? I just got an iphone 5s.  I was sent a group text message from a friend.  When I responded, it showed my response in the group message, but then chimed and showed a new text from myself which was the exact thing I just sent to the group.  So I send a response, but instead of sending it just to the other people in the group, it also send it to me?  Then when I read through the group messages, I duplicates and it gets confusing.

Several things can cause this.  I would need more information to give you an accurate answer. If you are using iMessage it could be that a number or email in the group is somehow associated with your contact information.  Go to Settings>Msessages and make sure that only one phone number and AppleID is linked to your account. Check the group and make sure you only see your email or your phone number in the list, not both.

If it's SMS contact your carrier as that is controlled by the carrier programing.


Enabling BitLocker without TPM on MacBook Pro with Bootcamp I have been wanting to enable BitLocker without a compatible TPM (my MacBook Pro) on a Bootcamp partition that has read / write access to the EFI. Is there a way to do this?

I wanted to document this because the information that I've found is spread out and highly complicated. I've found a set of steps that are much simpler to enable BitLocker on a Bootcamp install of Windows. I've combined the information from these two sources for this guide:

How do I mount the EFI partition on Windows 8.1 so that it is readable and writeable?
Bitlocker in Windows 8.1 inside Bootcamp on the MacBook Pro (mid 2009)

The first step is to boot into your Windows partition, then log in, and open up an administrative command prompt.

Mount the UEFI partition to a drive letter:
    mountvol b: /s

Copy the Microsoft EFI binaries to the UEFI partition:
    bcdboot c:\windows /s b: /f UEFI

Unmount the UEFI partition:
    mountvol b: /d

Configure BitLocker to work without a TPM:

Start => run => gpedit.msc
Open the Local Computer Policy node
Navigate to Computer Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Windows
Components \ Bit Locker Drive Encryption \ Operating System Drives
Double click on Require additional authentication at startup
Enable the feature and check the box next to Allow BitLocker without
a compatible TPM, click Apply and Ok, and close out of Local Group
Policy Editor.

Reboot your machine back to Windows.

You can now enable BitLocker on the device using just a passphrase.


Upgrading my iMac 21" mid 2011? I want to upgrade my iMac and could use some advice.

Can I put faster RAM in my iMac 21" mid 2011? normally it's 1333 MHz, but the ones you can buy today is around 2100 MHz, but is it possible?
I'm thinking about changing the CDROM drive to a SSD-drive and make a Fusion-drive. Is there any good advice for doing that on an iMac. And is there anything you would recommend to upgrade in a iMac 21" mid 2011?

Upgrades
I'll address your upgrades in the order you presented....

The iMacs from 2011 use the Intel Core i5 or i7 Sandy Bridge processors which support a maximum speed of 1333 Mhz.  (iMacs don't use the Core i7 Extreme which support 1600 MHz).    However, your particular iMac will support up to 32GB of RAM1.  My suggestion is to max out your memory.  I have used this exact 16GB kit from Crucial to upgrade my personal iMac (you will need two 16GB kits total).

Swapping out the SuperDrive for a optical bay drive caddy and making a fusion drive2 is an excellent idea.  I have done this exact thing in MacBook Pros with excellent results.  However, in the iMac, you will find a 3.5" hard drive which I would swap out for an SSD and then install a laptop hard drive instead of the SSD in the optical bay caddy.

If you haven't changed out that hard drive, keep in mind, it's going on 6 years old now which means it near the end of it's useful life.  You are taking the time and effort to do this upgrade, now is an excellent time to address the drive before it fails on you.  What you can do is get a USB drive enclosure and turn it into a Time Machine back up drive.
If you need step-by-step directions on how to do this, ifixit.com has an excellent guide.
Make a Time Machine Backup
Before doing any of this, do a Time Machine backup so that you have something to fall back on (and migrate your data from).
Do a clean macOS install.
Do a fresh install, don't restore from Time Machine.  Instead, use the Migration Assistant.  Doing a clean install will ensure that orphaned files and apps you no longer need is no longer "floating" around your system.
Before beginning your upgrade, it's a good idea to take inventory of the Apps you have and want and any custom settings.  Doing a clean install is like getting a new Mac and an excellent opportunity to evaluate your workflows and preferences.

1 EveryMac.com:  Official Max 16GB, 3rd parties have verified that it will support 32GB of RAM
2 Macworld:  How to make your own Fusion Drive


Why does my hard disk (in MBP optical caddy) keep unmounting when writing? I replaced the optical drive in a 15" Macbook Pro (late 2011) with a new 2TB Samsung HDD in a caddy tray. It formatted fine and Disk Utility says it's OK.

The problem occurs when I try to copy a large set of files to the drive. It starts out alright, copies a few GB. Then it spontaneously unmounts in the middle of the copy and throws a Disk not ejected properly error.

If I open Disk Utility afterwards, it doesn't even see the drive. Restarting the computer doesn't bring it back. But if I shut down and then start up, it comes back on just fine.

Normally I would assume it's just a faulty drive, but the exotic nature of the optical drive caddy makes me suspicious.

Has anyone encountered this sort of problem? What is the likely cause? Any suggestions for troubleshooting prior to returning the drive? Thanks!

I found out that this particular model (late 2011 Macbook Pro) has an issue with the optical drive SATA: It can only operate reliably in 3Gb/s mode, but reports that it supports 6Gb.

The drive I was using supported both speeds, and is supposed to automatically switch to 3Gb when necessary. But because the bus reports that it's compatible with 6Gb, it stays in 6Gb mode. This works fine most of the time as the actual transfer speed doesn't exceed 3Gb. But when it does, the bus misbehaves and all sorts of problems occur.

After much frustration (and several different drives) I settled on putting a 3Gb (not 6/3) drive in that bay instead. Works great now. Incidentally, the other SATA drive bay supports 6Gb just fine.


Unable to fix permissions I have a Mac Mini 2006 and I accidentally set one of the permissions to No Access and so now the OS X will not boot up. ⌘ Cmd+R and ⌘ Cmd+S will not work. All I can do is hold the Opt and choose what to boot to.

I also do not have a Recovery partition. I made a Snow Leopard USB and when I try to repair permissions and verify permissions it straight up fails, but if I repair the HD that works.

How can I repair my computer?

If you have access to other Mac, you can boot yours in target mode. Attach it to the other system. It should show up as an external drive on the other system. From there, you can either fix the permission, or reload your operating system.

If you don't have access to another computer, you may want to ask around for a USB drive that has a system installed. (Friends, family, Apple store, Ebay, etc).


Why do I get no text alert for one contact only? I have an iPhone 5s and when my mom texts it doesn't make a noise. It does when everyone else does.

There is a small gray moon next to her name, but I have checked and her phone is NOT on "Do not disturb". Any suggestions?

Your phone may not be on "Do Not Disturb," but that conversation is - it's a separate setting from your phone's "Do Not Disturb" setting.

Just go into that conversation -> Details -> toggle the Do Not Disturb switch and you should have your notifications back.


How to cope with MagSafe "withdrawal"? I've relied upon my MagSafe connection to keep my laptop safe for almost a decade. I got a new MacBook Air and felt funny putting in the USB power cord, but didn't realize just why I felt funny until I tried to remove it by lifting it up instead of pulling it out.

OMG the MagSafe is gone!

I will have to work on trying to remember this every waking moment of every day; routing cords more carefully and keeping an eye on them so they don't get pulled by others or myself, etc.

Is there any published advice on safe behavioral changes that MagSafe addicts like myself can learn? Are there any special aftermarket connectors, magnetic or otherwise, that I can put in the power connection that will disconnect safely when pulled? If so, are there any special features or problems I should look for before choosing one?

How to cope with MagSafe “withdrawal”?

One should take pause when consider doing anything that Apple doesn't. @Allen's comment points out that the (relatively small) stub of an aftermarket magnetic connector sticking out is an opportunity to put stress on the internal connector when the laptop is stored or bouncing around in a backpack.
For users like me though, I have to weigh that against the benefits of having a safe disconnection if the cable is tripped on or otherwise pulled.
A medium ground might be to consider using an aftermarket magnetic connector but taking care to either remove it and stow it somewhere or just slide the laptop into the backpack with the USB side facing up.
But that also means taking care if putting the laptop into a case or sleeve.
The other option is to (try to remember to) take it out every tine. Some adapters have little plastic tools to pull it straight out and a case to stow it, and some vendors sell two tips for every one cable, allowing you to stow one at home and the other elsewhere, or to lose one forever.
It seems that there is no perfect workaround to avoid experiencing MagSafe “withdrawal”.


Will my iPhone ring once Lost Mode is deactivated? Lost my phone, activated Lost Mode not long after. Wondering if I'm able to take my phone off Lost Mode from iCloud, call it and hopefully it rings? I think I lost it down an embankment.

Normally if a device is in Lost Mode, you can just play a sound using Find My iPhone directly. Choose the Play Sound option which will play a sound on the device for 2 minutes at full volume overriding silent.

If you still wish to call the device, you can disable Lost Mode and make the phone call normally.


Deleting Iphone from iCloud My phone is backed up daily, so all my pictures...are in my iCloud account. My phones screen completely shattered and part of the body is warped and I am waiting for my replacement phone to get here.

My first question is, how do I erase my device as I cannot use the screen at all and Itunes wont let me access it without the "phones" approval or can I just delete it from iCloud settings?

Second question, if I erase my phone/delete the device from iCloud will all my stuff be erased in my iCloud account as well?

You can erase your iPhone from the iCloud website or from any other device that you've setup with Find My iPhone.  Here are instructions for doing the erase.

When you erase your iPhone, your data in iCloud is safe and won't be erased.  When you get your new iPhone, you can restore the backup to the new device, if you want.


SSD always mounts as read-only on Mac OS Mojave Every SSD is mounted as read-only on my 15" Macbook pro (with touchbar). For this reason, time machine doesn't backup anymore. IIRC, this all started happening after upgrading from 10.14.x to 10.14.x+1 - I don't remember exactly which version but it was several months back. The same issues used to happen on upgrading to catalina. That's why I had gotten a new laptop with mojave last year.
In the past, I have tried to repair the drive, filesystem and try the mount command on the commandline to get it to mount in rw mode. It would be great if the drive mounted rw the first time.
$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         500.0 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +500.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Preboot                 47.2 MB    disk1s2
   2:                APFS Volume Recovery                510.8 MB   disk1s3
   3:                APFS Volume VM                      5.4 GB     disk1s4
   4:                APFS Volume MacOSMojave500GB        480.6 GB   disk1s5

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS SANDISK1TB              999.9 GB   disk2s2

On doing
$ sudo mount -v -u -w /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/SANDISK1TB

the disk is mounted in rw mode. However, only root can write to it.
Thanks for your time.

I wrote a bash script that I execute every time after inserting the drive
function mountTimeMachineDriveRWSANDISK1TBSSD() {
    diskutil mount /dev/disk2s2 # disk2s2 is from the output of diskutil list
    sudo mount -v -u -w /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/SANDISK1TB # disk2s2 is from the output of diskutil list
    sudo chown myuser /Volumes/SANDISK1TB
    sudo chgrp mygroup /Volumes/SANDISK1TB
}

Now the disk is writable by the current user. Time machine can backup to this disk too.


iPhone plays call ringtone over connected bluetooth speakers while on silent more When I have my iPhone X on silent and I'm playing music through my Bluetooth speaker, if someone calls me I hear the ring over the speaker.

How do I stop this?

How To Stop Ringing Through the Bluetooth Speaker when the Music is On

  After connecting your phone to the Bluetooth device, go to your phone’s Settings then Bluetooth Settings. Under the section Bluetooth Paired Devices you will see two settings for the paired devices: phone audio and media audio. Uncheck the phone audio option. This will stop your phone from ringing while connected to the Bluetooth device (speaker) but the music will stop when a call rings.


Recover Files and Folders deleted from iOS Files App I accidentally deleted files and folders from the new 'Files' app on my iPhone and that action ended up deleting those files and folders from my Macbook (it's like syncing to the Desktop).

My iCloud account is full and now I can't find any way to recover these files.
I have no external backup for these items either.

Could there be a way to get these files back onto my Macbook?

The ‘files’ app have a recently deleted like ‘photos ‘ you can recover accidentally deleted files there.

Files -> Browse -> Location -> Recently deleted

I try it on my iPhone 6s,iOS 11.2.2.


installed amarok through macports - no playback I installed amarok through macport. It doesn't playback the mp3's (actually it doesn't playback anything).

I looked at the console and it says among other things

.... [0x0-0x2b02b].org.kde.amarok[35766]   com.apple.console   WARNING: bool Phonon::FactoryPrivate::createBackend() phonon backend plugin could not be loaded

Any idea?

I know this is not a satisfactory answer, but at the moment, phonon seems to be non-functional when installed from MacPorts.  See https://trac.macports.org/ticket/36818 and http://mac-os-forge.2317878.n4.nabble.com/qt4-mac-and-phonon-td159474.html


Is there a way to automatically update a folder in external hard drive without deleting missing files? I have a 250GB macbook air. I do a lot of photography, so my SSD gets filled up with photos really quickly. I've been using a 2TB external hard drive to archive the older photos that I no longer need to store in my SSD, moving the folders with the photos manually to the external hard drive, and then deleting them in my SSD. I was wondering if there is a way to do this automatically? The process should backup all the sub-folders in my Pictures folder to the hard drive, but without deleting the sub-folders that I have already deleted in my SSD.

If you are not afraid of using Terminal, you can run

rsync -a --progress /PATH/TO/Pictures /Volumes/EXTERNAL/Pictures/


Macbook Pro audio stops working too often When I'm working on my 2017 Macbook Pro with 10.14.6, the audio often stops working. I can hear only beep of Siri, nothing else, no Youtube sound, no Skype call sound, no zoom sound, etc.

In Sound output tab everything is correct, the issue is fixed only when I restart my laptop.

Any idea what's happening? This issue is driving me insane.

Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac

If your Mac has issues related to settings stored in NVRAM or PRAM, resetting it might help. Sound also comes under this section, so I strongly suggest you to try this as after reboot your MacBook is getting normal.

How to reset NVRAM

Shut down your Mac, then turn it on and immediately press and hold these four keys together: Option, Command, P, and R. You can release the keys after about 20 seconds, during which your Mac might appear to restart.

On Mac computers that play a startup sound, you can release the keys after the second startup sound.
On Mac computers that have the Apple T2 Security Chip, you can release the keys after the Apple logo appears and disappears for the second time

When your Mac finishes starting up, you might want to open System Preferences and adjust any settings that were reset, such as sound volume, display resolution, startup disk selection, or time zone.


Export Folders as MBOX Files Using a Script You can manually drag your folders to desktop to create an MBOX file,
but need to create using  AppleScript.
please help me.

thanks

Archive Message Folders by Jolly Roger

  This script archives each folder in your Entourage folder list to a folder on your desktop named "Entourage Archives".
      The script preserves the hierarchy of the folders, as they exist in the Entourage folders list, by creating sub-folders in the "Entourage Archives" folder that correspond to the sub-folders in Entourage.
      The exported MBOX files have the same name as the folders in Entourage, with the exception that forward slash characters (/) are replaced with dash characters (-) to avoid problems with the Mac OS X file system.

or

  Export Folders by Barry Wainwright

  You must create the archive folder yourself before running the script.
      All folders and subfolders are dumped into one folder. This requires you to have unique names so you can maintain the folder order.

Source


Is there an app that helps you move files without drag-and-drop? I know that I can move files at the command line, but I'm looking for an elegant desktop solution besides the traditional drag-and-drop of the Finder.

Basically, I want to right-click on a file and have a menu option that says "Move..." with a bunch of recently moved locations, or with a dialog box letting me choose the location.

One option is to use the built-in "Copy" and "Move Item Here" options:

Right-click on the source:

Hold ⌥ Option while right-clicking at the destination:

(Of course, these can also be done using keyboard shortcuts!)


Drop window as maximized to a new desktop instead of fullscreen The default behavior when you drag a window to a new desktop is to make it fullscreen. Is there any way to have it maximized instead of going full screen.

Referring to the following:

^+Up
Drag a window to the mission control bar and make the new desktop show up
Drop it at the new desktop. (it becomes fullscreen here, but I want it to be maximized, not fullscreen, which is the default action.)

Dragging a window to the Spaces bar as you describe will always create a full-screen space for that app, but there's another method to add a space, drag a window to the Add Space + icon on the right side of the Spaces bar:

This method, described in this support article, will create a new space with the window you dragged.

The window will retain its size and won't be maximized, though. However, you can maximize it yourself before or after dragging:

either by using Window>Zoom (doesn't always work as you'd expect)
or as follows: while pressing Option, drag a corner of the window to the nearest corner of your screen. It will expand the window in all directions, until the window takes up the full screen.


Finder doesn't show files tagged on network drive I have a Western Digital NAS and I've noticed that if I tag any files/folders stored on it, the Finder never shows them when I select a tag in the sidebar.

For example, if I add a tag called Work to a folder on the NAS, that folder won't appear when I select the Work tag in the Finder's sidebar, although other files and folders with the tag (that are located on the internal storage) will.

And I can browse to the folder on the NAS and see that the tag is applied, so it isn't that the tag isn't being saved or something.

Is there any way I can get the sidebar tags to include files/folders from the NAS?

Having the same problem. Finder is not showing all the tags I made on various documents after I transferred everything to my new AirPort.

So, a kind of a workaround (although far from ideal) is to create your own tags: create a Smart Folder in Finder to search (also) in your external drive (via 'shared') and let one of the search criteria be 'filename' 'contains' ... .

Then you fill in a self-made 'tag', like 'to do' or 'review' or 'finished', etc. Then name this this Smart Folder for instance 'To do' and place it in your Favorites-section on the left side of the Finder-menu.

Finally, change the file names of the files you want to find and enter anywhere in the file name itself the same words, like: 'to do' or 'review' or 'finished', etc.

Now, if you click on the Smart Search folder, you will see all files with for instance 'to do' in the file name, in your external drive.


2008 Mac Pro: Any chance of upgrading hardware to current technology? Possible Duplicate:
  Can I upgrade my 2008 Mac Pro completely?

I have a 2nd Gen 2008 Mac Pro 2.8ghz Quad Core with an 8800GT. I'm sure I can get away with the processing power and more RAM for now.

Is there any way possible I can put a modern day GPU inside this machine?

What does it entail to do such customizations?

Could I gut this machine and upgrade it fully to current technology?

Thanks.

You should be good to upgrade to a modern GPU (PCI-X). Keep in mind that you will need to purchase an 'Apple' version of any graphics card you upgrade to.


Does a free alternative to Proxifier or ProxyCap exist? Currently, I'm not at home so I must use the hotel's hotspot. Unfortunately, the majority of ports are closed, except 80, 443 and 22, and I would like to connect to my FTP, or connect Steam to play my games, etc.

I tested ProxyCap and Proxifier which redirected all my traffic to my sock server at home, but trials versions has expired, and I don't want to pay for something that I use a few weeks in a year.
I know I can set the proxies settings in my Mac settings, but all the applications don't use it (like Steam).

Does a free alternative of ProxyCap and Proxifier exist on MacOSX?

Try proximac.
https://github.com/csujedihy/proximac
Proximac is an command-line open-source alternative to Proxifier. With Proximac, it can force App to use SOCKS5 proxy. In the other words, it can forward any App's traffic to a specified SOCKS5 proxy. Moreover, Proximac now can forward all network traffic in your system to a proxy which means you may not need a VPN to do this job. I hope more developers can join this project.


How to solve a catch 22 situation trying to upgrade an old 2009 mac mini to El Capitan with an AppleID created in 2019? I had the chance to have in my hands an old mac mini from 2009. I turned it on, it works perfectly. Currently it runs Mac OS X 10.6.8.

Now, I would like to try to upgrade it to a slightly newer version, like El Capitan.

So, I created a brand new AppleID on https://appleid.apple.com with all my data, including a valid credit card. I checked and Apple did registered and then deleted a transaction with a small amount, to check the credit card. I also confirmed my email using the code Apple sent me during the AppleID registration phase.

After that I opened the "App Store" app on this old Mac, I navigated to the page where I can download El Capitan from, and a pop up asks me to input my AppleID credentials.

I've done it and a pop up tells me that my AppleID have not yet been used in the app store and that I have to verify it.

I click on "verify" and a second pop up tells me I have to update the software and the OS to be able to verify my AppleID.

So I'm now stuck in this catch 22 situation.

Can someone explain me if there's a way to solve it?

Cheers.

here's how I fixed that situation.

I downloaded Apple Music on my Android phone.
I start the procedure to subscribe to the service with my existing AppleID.
As it happened in my old Mac Mini, Apple Music on Android opened a popup saying my AppleID had not yet been verified.
On Android, however, in contrast with the Mac Mini, the verification link worked.
I had to retype the details of my credit card that I had already provided when I created the AppleID for the first time.
The verification process completed successfully, Apple debited my credit card for the second time, cancelling the payment after a while.
After that, I accessed the Apple Store from the old Mini Mac with the AppleID I had just verified on Android and...
It worked flawlessly. I downloaded OS X El Capitan and completed the upgrade successfully.

I write this procedure in case someone else will get stuck in the same, even highly unlikely, situation.


How to see which CPU is on the current machine? I'm looking on the 'safe' Cflags on the Gentoo Wiki, and I want to figure out how to see which CPU is on a specific machine.

On Gentoo I see you can get this with

cat /proc/cpuinfo

but on Mac I get

  No such file or directory

What is the equivalent for OS X?

From terminal, you'll want to start with system_profiler

 system_profiler SPHardwareDataType

Also, much more data is available from ioreg but you'll need to parse the output (which can arrive as XML if you prefer) to get things like actual bus and clock frequency of each core.


How to access a folder which name is composed of more than 1 word via shell? I have tried with a simple command:

cd Name of the Folder

but it's not working, of course.

I have also been searching on the web, but the methods I found are not actually working.

How can I accomplish this?

The answers in the linked article are correct (but maybe hard to find among all the other information there). Key problem is that bash (and any other shell) use whitespace to separate between words, so any space characters within names (and any situations where such characters might occur) need to be protected/escaped.

cd "folder with whitespace in name"
cd folder\ with\ whitespace\ in\ name

and (if you have the name of the folder in a variable)

FOLDER_NAME="folder with whitespace in name"
cd "$FOLDER_NAME"


My iphone 4 needs a software update but none show up? My Iphone 4 needs a software update when I try to download an app but when I go to settings it says there are none. How do I fix this?

The last version of iOS that the iPhone 4 supports is iOS 7.1.2. You will not find any more software updates for the iPhone 4 beyond this and you are unable to install any apps that require a more recent version of iOS.


iPhone 5 power button rattles on vibrate My iPhone 5 has a slightly "loose" power button. Not like its going to fall off or anything, but it visibly wiggles a little bit, and if I stand the phone up and then quickly turn it upside down, or bump it, I can hear and see it move.

As this is my first iPhone, is this normal?

Just to clarify, it's not mushy, it just seems like the plastic "outer button" wiggles around on top of the actual button sensor inside. It certainly has a nice firm click when pressed.

Edit: certain vibrate patterns also make it rattle very fast, making a buzzing sound. If I put my finger lightly on it, it stops.

Edit 2: macrumors is full of people with similar beefs. I'm guessing this isn't just me.

It sounds normal, if a bit looser than my 4S. If it concerns you, you might be able to get a replacement unit from an Apple Store, though there are no guarantees that it will have better buttons (when I replaced my iPhone 4 two years back for a different issue, the replacement I received had noticeably mushier buttons).


How to install and virtualize Windows 10 from USB stick? I have a bootable Windows 10 USB that I bought at Best Buy. Is there any way to install and virtualize it on my Mac?

Using Parallels Desktop you can import bootable disks as virtual disks. Choose File → New, select existing disk, then choose USB Drive and follow the instructions.


Mac Pro loses network connection after wake from sleep since Yosemite upgrade I have a really strange issue since i updated to Yosemite.
When i wake up my 2012 Mac Pro, the network connection is totally lost.

Output from dmesg (sorry, couldn't copy/paste at this time):

- Nic en0 - no link detected
- Nic en0 - link detected
- some other things (approx. 2 sec)
- Nic en0 - no link detected

Disabling/removing and adding/re-enabling in System Preferences didn't solve the issue. Only rebooting the whole machine will help. Interesting: If i remove the cable from en0 and put it in en1 (Mac Pro has two NICs), everything is fine - until next sleep/wakeup. After the next wakeup en1 is also not working. Only thing which helps is rebooting.

Tried also resetting the SMC - didn't solve it.

It appears to be a common issue until ~ OS X 10.10.3. I'd say your only option is to upgrade when it comes out or do a clean install of 10.10.2 and see if that works out for you. I can understand that you'd rather not do a clean install but it does actually solve a lot most of the time.


So once I FaceTimed one of my friends, but this random dude answered So once I tried to face time my friend, but when it connected it was a random dude that I have never met. This has happend to me three times now. Each time it is a different guy. Help, I don't know if it is my account or hers.

The only reason some random person would get your call is if you called the wrong number.

Try verifying your friend's number. Make sure that's the only entry in her contact info. Also try getting the email she has for FaceTime.

I've had it happen to me and the reason was I had a different number listed in my friend's contact info.

Also, is there a chance your friend is just messing with you?


How to list bluetooth devices from command line I have to list all available bluetooth devices from command line. I tried to google it, but got only results like "how to turn on bluetooth from terminal".

Simply: bluetooth scan

Thanks for help in  advance.

Simply typing in:
blued

bluetoothd (Mojave or newer)

Will return a list of paired devices according to to the link key. I don't know how to have it exit cleanly, so to return to the prompt you will need to press Control+c


Mounting a single partition dd image in macOS? Using testdisk, I have made what is apparently a dd image of a single HFS+ partition (what was originially /dev/disk1s2, I think).

Now I try to mount this image file, but seemingly I cannot - even if file recognizes it as a HFS partition:

me@my-iMac:~$ hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage -nomount /Volumes/Test/image.dd
/dev/disk2

me@my-iMac:~$ hdiutil mount /dev/disk2
hdiutil: mount failed - no mountable file systems

me@my-iMac:~$ hdiutil imageinfo /Volumes/Test/image.dd
hdiutil: imageinfo failed - image not recognized

me@my-iMac:~$ file /Volumes/Test/image.dd
/Volumes/Test/image.dd: Macintosh HFS Extended version 4 data (mounted) last mounted by: 'HFSJ', created: Wed Jul  4 14:32:40 2018, last modified: Thu Jul 19 09:07:22 2018, last checked: Wed Jul  4 10:32:40 2018, block size: 8192, number of blocks: 366241334, free blocks: 365063585

Is it possible to somehow mount this partition image in macOS/OSX as read/write?

This doesn't answer the exact question, but the following has worked for me to mount a dd msdos image as read-only (-o ro).
$ hdiutil attach -nomount /Users/sunknudsen/Desktop/boot-clean.img
/dev/disk2

$ mkdir -p ~/Desktop/boot-clean
$ mount -o ro -t msdos /dev/disk2 ~/Desktop/boot-clean


IOS 12.1.1 won't sync contacts to google I am trying to push all of my iPhone contacts into my Google contacts in preparation for dumping my iPhone. IOS 12.1.1 is different than all previous versions in this respect.

Here's my current settings:

Settings->Accounts->Gmail : Contacts is turned on. Shows my google account.
Settings->Accounts->Fetch New Data: Gmail show Fetch, Every 15 minutes.
Settings->Accounts->Passwords: Shows correct password for my google account.
Account->Advanced: Use SSL turned on. Server Port 993.
Verified that I can log into my google account from Safari.

My iPhone contacts shows 220 contacts. My google contacts shows 144 contacts. Google is missing everything manually entered into my iPhone this year.

I also tried iTunes, syncing to Windows Contacts. It picked up only 76 of the 220 contacts. Also tried iCloud. That picked up the same 76. If I put together what Google shows with the iCloud/Windows Contacts, I think all 220 contacts shown on the iPhone are there.

Exasperated.

TIA.

Did you check in the settings of the Contacts app that the default account is set to your Gmail account? I suspect that the presumably missing contacts ended up in iCloud instead of Gmail. If you set the Default Account to Gmail new contacts created on your iPhone will automatically sync with Goolge Contacts.

Regarding your existing Contacts in iCloud:

The easiest way to move your contacts from iCloud to your Gmail Account is to use the Contacts app on your Mac. Add the same Gmail Account to your Mac and drag’n’drop the contacts from iCloud to your Gmail Account. I don’t think a way exists to do the same directly on an iPhone.


Does the iPhone compress emailed videos? When you open a video in the Photos app and choose to send it via email, does the video get compressed, or is it sent using the same resolution it was shot in?

I'm mainly wondering about the iPhone 4.

You are correct. The video will be compressed to a smaller size before sending out.

EDIT: If you want to try to send uncompressed video, you can try the trick from this guy, http://www.quora.com/How-can-I-share-an-uncompressed-video-from-my-iPhone

In the Camera Roll or Photos app, press and hold on the photo. A menu should pop up with Copy as an option. If you want multiple photos, you can hit the Share button the toolbar and select all the photos you want and then hit Copy. Either way, you'll end up with the full-quality photo in your clipboard, which you can then paste into an email.


What should I do with preferences etc. after deleting an application? When I delete an application, preference files in ~/Library and other places usually don't deleted as well. How should I handle these files, should/can I delete them without impacting the system?

Just delete the files from the old apps. Never had a problem. Note: if you reinstall the apps, they will not retain any data from the old install.