iOS device battery life when developing I have an iPhone and an iPad that are constantly connected through USB to my MacBook Pro 8 hours a day.

The battery of both device is always at 100%. Will this hurt my devices battery life?

I've researched into alternatives to build and debug from XCode via WIFI or Bluetooth but I find out that those features were dropped by Apple due to stability issues.

Are there other alternatives?

I don't think it will hurt your iPhone. The charger is smart enough to stop charging when necessary. It is the number of charge/use cycles that degrade battery life and if you are attached most of the time its doing neither.

I have had mine attached to a cable most of the time for over a year and not seen any degradation.


Use SDK 10.5 in Xcode 4.1 on Lion I just upgraded my machine to Lion to see if the project works on the new OS, but I else need to support users using the program on machines running OS X 10.5, but Xcode 4.1 doesn't come with the 10.5 SDK, where can I get the SDK & how do I install it on my system?

That SDK isn't "supported" by Apple on that version of Xcode. You can still try Xcode 3.2.6 on Lion http://www.cocoabuilder.com/archive/xcode/305884-xcode-3-2-6-on-lion.html to avoid keeping around Snow Leopard for the "supported" version.


iOS Update causes iCloud Photo Library issues I just updated my iPhone 7 to iOS 11.4 and this seems to cause some issues to my Photos.app library. I'm using iCloud Photo library and right now when I checked the amount of Photos in the "Albums" view of Photos.app on iOS the amount of pictures is way lower.

Also some old pictures are suddenly showing up mixed in with the last photos I took a few hours ago.

When I check "Photos" it tells me "Uploading 7.xxx Items" at the bottom.

Does anyone have a clue what's going on there and how to fix it?

So I talked to the Apple Support and their solution was to...wait. So I waited until everything was uploaded again. This took around 12h. Then it started downloading files again, then it switched to "Updating" and then everything was fine again.

The person on the hotline said that it has to "upload" (It actually just checks if it's already on the server, not actually uploads the file) the file. Then it downloads what's missing and fills up the missing ones.


Cloudd wants to use the "Local items" keychain I opened my MBP and certainly the system gives the following warning "Cloudd wants to use the "Local items" keychain" and asks me for my keychain-password. After cancelling this warning, it kept coming back, over and over again. After a forced quit and a system reboot the warning was gone.

I never had any idea why my system whould ask for my password at that time, was someone uninvited trying to access my computer? Who or what is Cloudd (double-d)?

It's a private framework made by Apple to interface with iCloud documents and files.

It's safe to allow and there's a possibility of keychain corruption if it won't stick (and since you wouldn't normally get that warning unless the automated process to save your iCloud password has hit a bump like having keychain items deleted or expiring)

From https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6684809

  Back up all data before proceeding.

  Launch the Keychain Access application in any of the following ways:
  ☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
  ☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
  ☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Keychain Access in the icon grid.

  Select the login keychain from the list on the left side of the Keychain Access window. If your default keychain has a different name, select that.

  If the lock icon in the top left corner of the window shows that the keychain is locked, click to unlock it. You'll be prompted for the keychain password, which is the same as your login password, unless you've changed it.

  Right-click or control-click the login entry in the list. From the menu that pops up, select
  Change Settings for Keychain "login"

  In the sheet that opens, uncheck both boxes, if not already unchecked.
  From the menu bar, select
  Keychain Access ▹ Preferences ▹ First Aid

  If the box marked
  Keep login keychain unlocked
  is not checked, check it.
  Select
            Keychain Access ▹ Keychain First Aid
  from the menu bar and repair the keychain.

  Quit Keychain Access.


Keyboard shortcuts (spacebar) no longer works in Photos on Mojave Until recently, pressing spacebar toggled expanding my photos in Photos, and single keys provided a way to edit photos (e.g. C for crop). None of these features now work for me.

How do I restore keyboard shortcuts in Photos?

Since MacOS Mojave, Photos have changed shortcuts. I used Space key very extensively, so made work again (link):

Go to preferences > keyboard > shortcuts > app shortcuts > Photos > and add a shortcut.
For Menu Title enter "Open Viewer" and for the keyboard shortcut press the spacebar whilst holding the Fn key.
Add another one for "Close Viewer"
Add another one for "Open/Close Viewer"
Now open Photos, go to Library/Photos, select single photo and click on menu "Image" - check if Open Viewer shows "Space"
Press Spacebar and enjoy :)

Also few useful shortcuts:

cmd+Enter - edit mode
cmd+1 - in edit mode Adjust
cmd+3 - in edit mode Crop
. - make photo favorite

Also check cmd+1-4 and ctrl+1-6 in photos view mode :)

And desert: All Photos keyboard shortcuts for Mojave


iCloud and AppleID 'married' to Macintosh When purchasing a used Macintosh, what does one need to know (i.e. what will adverse outcome) regarding the Hardware (serial #?) being tie to an ID?

Apple Products: Due to Apple removing the old website they had to check for iCloud or Apple ID accounts tied to devices we cannot be certain whether or not a device was tied to an account in the past. There is a possibility that a device may bring down a lock from a previous owner after we have already processed it. If a device does bring down a lock past our standard 30 day return policy it will not be accepted for return.

What can be done and what resources are available to mitigate this risk before buying the used hardware?

The tie of an AppleID to a device is associated with the "Find My" capability. On an iPad or iPhone, this tie to the given AppleID makes it so that new users of the device cannot wipe it or change the AppleID without providing the previous user's AppleID login credentials.

The good news is that the tie to an account is not as "strong" on an iMac.  For that device, you can merely reformat the drive and install the desired version of MacOS.


How can I take selfie by running a console command on Mac? I know I can take a selfie with the built-in camera via the Photo Booth app. However, is there a way capture an image via command line, in sort of lolcommits style?

The easiest way to do this is a program called "ImageSnap".  You can take iSight photo's by typing the command imagesnap into terminal.

All commands:

 USAGE: imagesnap [options] [filename]
Version: 0.2.5
Captures an image from a video device and saves it in a file.
If no device is specified, the system default will be used.
If no filename is specfied, snapshot.jpg will be used.
Supported image types: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, BMP
  -h          This help message
  -v          Verbose mode
  -l          List available video devices
  -t x.xx     Take a picture every x.xx seconds
  -q          Quiet mode. Do not output any text
  -w x.xx     Warmup. Delay snapshot x.xx seconds after turning on camera
  -d device   Use named video device

Just incorporate imagesnap commands into a cron job or workflow of your command.  ImageSnap is also available thru homebrew:

brew install imagesnap


Mac mini FusionDrive - “No CoreStorage Logical Volume Groups Found” I can't figure out how to correct this at this point. I’m hoping someone here can point me in the correct direction.
I have posted my terminal outputs below for diskUtil list and diskUtil cs list.
@MacMini ~ % diskUtil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:             TYPE NAME           SIZE     IDENTIFIER
   0:    GUID_partition_scheme             *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:             EFI EFI            209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_APFS Container disk2      121.1 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:             TYPE NAME           SIZE     IDENTIFIER
   0:    GUID_partition_scheme             *1.0 TB    disk1
   1:             EFI EFI            209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:          Apple_APFS Container disk2      1000.0 GB  disk1s2

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:             TYPE NAME           SIZE     IDENTIFIER
   0:    APFS Container Scheme -            +1.1 TB    disk2
                  Physical Stores disk0s2, disk1s2
   1:         APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data    58.4 GB   disk2s1
   2:         APFS Volume Preboot          83.2 MB   disk2s2
   3:         APFS Volume Recovery         528.8 MB   disk2s3
   4:         APFS Volume VM            3.2 GB    disk2s4
   5:         APFS Volume Macintosh HD       11.0 GB   disk2s5

/dev/disk3 (external, physical):
   #:             TYPE NAME           SIZE     IDENTIFIER
   0:    GUID_partition_scheme             *8.0 TB    disk3
   1:             EFI EFI            209.7 MB   disk3s1
   2:          Apple_HFS Adult Entertainment    2.0 TB    disk3s2
   3:          Apple_HFS Room4Activities      6.0 TB    disk3s3

@MacMini ~ % diskUtil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found
@MacMini ~ %

Once you're converted to APFS, CoreStorage is managed differently.
Your result for diskutil list correctly shows both internal physical drives & the synthesised drive the OS constructs from that.
Note that both parts of what used to be called only from diskutil cs list both reference the same Apple_APFS Container disk2, which is correct, & the construction is re-stated in the synthesized drive as Physical Stores disk0s2, disk1s2.
That it shows as Container disk2 rather than 1 means you have at some point re-formatted or reassigned, but that is of no import. Mine is up to Container disk7 on one drive these days.
diskutil cs list is now redundant.
There is a considerably more detailed explanation at The Eclectic Light Company - Fusion Drives in APFS


AppleScript: Clicking a button in a dmg file I am trying to figure out what code will send 2 clicks to open a file in an opened .dmg file using AppleScript in Script Editor.
I did create the .dmg file
I've been searching for ways to create a working code that will switch to the opened .dmg file and click on a file in the .dmg twice to open it wherever the .dmg has been placed on the screen/screens. Here's the harder part, I would like anyone to be able to use it. The (possible) good thing is that the code's script file that I want to execute will be in the .dmg (I don't officially know if that's a good thing or not).
Please be advised that I know little to none about code and this is my first time working with it.
The closest code I have found that "might" work is shown below:

The link for ^this^ code is shown below. It is on this website:
Using AppleScript to click radio buttons
If you need more detail or anything else, please ask me in the comments below! Help and advice are really appreciated! Thank you!

The code snippet you borrowed doesn't relate to what you're trying to achieve, so you can safely throw that away.
Try to avoid looking for solutions that involve simulating clicks or keypresses, as these sorts of scripts are really case-specific, liable to break easily and frequently, and prohibit any additional interaction between the user and the computer whilst it is running.
A .dmg file (or disk image) is an item on the filesystem, which means it can be manipulated using AppleScript.  You don't even have to have the .dmg window open.  It sounds like you already know the name of the file you wish to be opened.
Let's say that when you double-click your .dmg file to mount (open) it, the name of the disk that appears on your desktop (or in the sidebar of a Finder window) is "my dmg" (this may be different from the name of the .dmg file itself, but it may be the same).  Let's then say that there's a file called "some file.txt" contained within the disk image that you wish to open.  The path to this file will be located at: /Volumes/my dmg/some file.txt
Therefore, your entire AppleScript that will open the file (as if the user had double-clicked on it) will be:
tell application id "com.apple.finder" to open the ¬
        POSIX file "/Volumes/my dmg/some file.txt"

or alternatively:
tell application id "com.apple.finder" to open ¬
         file "some file.txt" of disk "my dmg"

Both of these scripts are essentially identical.
However...
A limitation of both the method I've outlined above, and of your original notion involving simulated clicks, is that you won't be able to dictate that the file being opened should appear on a different desktop/screen that isn't the one that is currently active.
Clicking on the file necessarily means that the active desktop/screen switches to the one on which the window containing the file is open.  You can perform a similar switch to in AppleScript, so that the desktop/screen on which the .dmg file is open becomes the active one:
tell application id "com.apple.finder"
    open disk "my dmg"
end tell

This would be incorporated into the previous code to produce a combined script that looks like this:
tell application id "com.apple.finder"
    tell disk "my dmg"
        open it
        tell its container window
            open file "some file.txt"
        end tell
    end tell
end tell


Trying to DBAN 2009 Mac Mini I'm trying to DBAN -- or otherwise wipe -- my old 2009 Mac OS X 10.6 Mac mini.  The CD drive on the Mac is broken, so I have been trying to do it with a bootable USB.  No matter what I try, I cannot get the USB drive to show in Startup Manager.

This is what I've got so far:

DBAN 2.3 iso downloaded
UNetbootin to make the bootable image
The Cruzer pen-drive is formatted HFS+ with GUID Partition map -- DiskUtil reports the non-EFI, DBAN partition as bootable.
I've tried various key combinations to reset NVRAM,
I've follow apple.com advice on how to set legacy insecure behavior on NVRAM

... but still I can only see the Macintosh HD as boot drive. I have tried Command, Shift, Option and Period but nothing happens.

I started with the USB drive formatted FAT32, MBR Partition table and moved on from there.

Edit: I originally thought this was a 2011 Mac Mini, I was looking in the wrong place for the year. It turns out that it being from 2009 was vitally important,

If you have a hard disk drive (HDD), the use of a third party tool is unnecessary. You can boot to macOS Recovery over the internet and use the Disk Utility application to accomplish this task.

The possible security options available are as follows:

US Department of Defense (DOD) 5220-22 M standard for securely erasing magnetic media. It erases the information used to access your files and writes over the data 7 times.
DOE-compliant 3-pass secure erase. It writes two passes fo random data followed by a single pass of known data over the entire disk. It erases the information used to access your files and writes over the data 3 times.
Write a pass of random data and then a single pass of zeros over the entire disk. It erases the information used to access your files and writes over the data 2 times.

Note: The security options available can very from type of download chosen and the model/year of your Mac.

USB Flash Drive Method.

See the website How to create a bootable installer for macOS for instructions.

You will need to download OS X El Capitan from the Apple website: How to download OS X El Capitan. The upgrade can be used with your Snow Leopard OS X 10.6. Although, you might need to make sure you have first upgraded to OS X 10.6.8. If this case, try downloading the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

Boot from the USB Flash drive and use the Disk Utility application.


How to fix Dictionary look up text color in Dark mode? In macOS Mojave dark mode, the Dictionary app became unusable because of coloring issues: in application itself some of the text is white on white, and in definition popup that appears if you right click a word and select Look Up (or use force touch or three-finger press) the text is black on a dark grey background:

How can it be fixed?

After searching the Internet and experimenting I was able to produce a solution. You have to create a DefaultStyle.css file and put it in Contents subdirectory for each dictionary you want to fix. The dictionaries are located at ~/Library/Dictionaries or at /System/Library/Assets/com_apple_MobileAsset_DictionaryServices_dictionaryOSX/ folders. You can easily open them in Finder by pressing Cmd+Shift+G and pasting the folder path. Here's the DefaultStyle.css contents:

@charset "UTF-8";
@namespace d url(http://www.apple.com/DTDs/DictionaryService-1.0.rng);

@media (prefers-dark-interface)
{

    html {
        -apple-color-filter: apple-invert-lightness();
    }

    a {
        -apple-color-filter: none;
        color: -webkit-link;
    }

    img {
        filter: invert(100%);
    }

    html.apple_client-panel body div {
        color: text;
    }

    html.apple_client-panel body div.L1 {
        color: -apple-system-label;
    }

}

It uses @media (prefers-dark-interface) selector to apply this CSS only in dark mode. The html.apple_client-panel is the selector for a popup window that appears when you use the Define/Look Up feature. After applying the fix the Dictionary looks good and is readable again:


Folder copy without losing any existing files Possible Duplicate:
  Why does “Copy” replace stuff instead of merging it?

In Windows, if I overwrite a folder abc/doc to def/doc, (1) files existing in abc/doc but not in def/doc are simply added to def/doc; (2) files existing in def/doc but not in abc/doc do not change; and (3) files existing in both folders are replaced. But in Mac, all files in def/doc are deleted and files in abc/doc are copied. I am not talking about which should be the more correct behavior, but was wondering if Mac can be tuned to how Windows behave, because I am more comfortable with such behavior.

I found that Lion now behaves just like Windows, but in Snow Leopard or older version, how can I make Mac OS behave like what I described?

The short answer is that you cannot accomplish this using the Finder. A third-party solution like Path Finder could be what you're looking for. Path Finder can merge on paste.


How to use Nike Running with iOS 8's Health app? I installed iOS 8 on my iPhone 5S today and the got the Health app as a result.

It shows on the Health app that it can get data when the app "sends" data over to the Health app.  So I assume Nike Running (an app from Nike) probably has that built in?  If so, how can the running / walking data be sent over to iOS 8's Health app?

P.S. ok, I saw news headline such as: Apple seemingly removing HealthKit compatible iOS 8 apps from App Store due to issues, and Apple's health monitoring app is DOA: Firm forced to stop apps from using feature as it admits to iOS 8 bug

Nike (and all the others providing similar things) needs to update their application to make use of HealthKit and send data to the Health app.

Apple has announced that these updates also will not be available until later in September 2014:

http://www.loopinsight.com/2014/09/18/apple-pulls-healthkit-apps-after-discovering-last-minute-bug/


Automate PDF actions To improve my paperless workflow, I'm looking to achieve the following, potentially using automator / applescript. I need to be able to run it using Hazel, or as a folder action (not run manually):

1) Split a multi-page scanned & OCR'ed PDF into it's constituent pages, each in an individual file. Each file must contain the image and associated text.

2) Append a single PDF page to an existing multi-page PDF.

I've got a kind of working solution to the first item - create an automator workflow using the action that splits a PDF into odd and even pages, repeated several times. In my case I repeated it 6 times which produces 64 pages in the end, although most of them are blank and can be trashed based on their size. This takes a while to run though, so I'd like to know if there is a more streamlined way of accomplishing this.

The second one I've got nothing approaching a solution so far.

The answer to your second question might lead you directly to a solution to the first.

You'll want a tool that edits PDF files to append docments (or conversely, split them up). I use PDFPen for the job, but there are others that do less but might meet your needs.

Here is an article on using Hazel to script PDFPen as well as documentation on how PDFPen is scriptable in general. There is a Pro version of the app for a higher cost, so you might see if you need the extra features, but the normal version seems to meet your needs well enough.

Many helpful PDFPen example scripts can be found after you install the software in your user library:

~/Library/Application Support/PDFpen/Scripts

Opening them in the AppleScript Editor is a great way to learn more.


How can I copy RAW photos with metadata from Mac Photos app to an external hard drive? When I travel I want to be able to back up my RAW photos with metadata to an external hard drive, and then later import them on to my iMac. (For whatever reason, photos on my MacBook don't always upload to iCloud, despite being on the same account as the iCloud.). If I export originals, the metadata must go in an XMP sidecar. Mac Photos does not want to import that sidecar.  When I tested it, once the metadata didn't go with it, but once it did.  I may have done something wrong the first time.  When I imported into Lightroom CC, the metadata seemed to go along.  I am not sure it's all going with the photo. Can I rely on being able to access the metadata with the RAW photo?  Thank you.

Use the Disk Utility application to create a sparse bundle on you external drive. You can then mount this as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume for storage of your RAW photos. The metadata will then stay with your RAW photos. If needed, you can even use the Disk Utility application to increase or decrease the size of the sparse bundle image.

Instructions to create the sparse bundle are as follows.

Open the Disk Utility application.
From the menu bar, select File->New Image->Blank Image....
Input your requirements in the window. Below is an example. The size is the maximum size that the sparse bundle can grow to be. Initially, this example sparse bundle only takes 247.1 MB of space on the external MS-DOS (FAT) formatted volume named MYFAT.
Select the Save button.

  Note: A sparse bundle is a folder containing many small files.

Instructions to resize the sparse bundle are as follows.

  Note: You will need to eject the sparse bundle before resizing.

Open the Disk Utility application.
From the menu bar, select Images->Resize...
Select the sparse bundle folder. I my case this would be named My RAW Pics.sparsebundle.
Enter a new size. In my case, I chose to double the maximum size to 200 GB, as shown below.
Select the Resize button.

A final note regarding the use of other image files.

You can also create a image as a dmg file. The difference here is that volume size is limited by the maximum file size of the format used by your external drive. Also, dmg file occupies space on your external drive equal to the size of the stored Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. A sparse bundle grows to occupy space on the external drive as needed.

You can also create a sparse image file. Like a dmg file, a sparse image file volume size is limited by the maximum file size of the format used by your external drive. Like a sparse bundle, a sparse image grows to occupy space on the external drive as needed. Again, a sparse file image is a single file, where as a sparse bundle image is a folder containing many small files.


What is this button on my MacBook Pro Touch Bar? I've highlighted it in red in the screenshot.  It seems to show up almost all the time on my Mac, regardless of what applications I have open.  Pressing it does nothing apparent.  If I "Customize Control Strip..." in System Preferences, it disappears.  It does not appear on Apple's list of touch bar icons.

I'm running macOS 10.12.6 on a 13" MBP.

That looks like it is from BetterTouchTool. You can configure it in the settings for BTT:

https://github.com/fifafu/BetterTouchTool/issues/1033

  fifafu: You can disable it in the Touch Bar settings in BTT (go to the Touch Bar tab, then click the "General Touch Bar settings" button.
  This may require a restart of BTT to become effective.


Replace Hard Drive in iMac with Fusion We have a Late 2012 iMac in the shop that needs the 3TB hard drive replaced. Turns out this model has a Fusion drive with an SSD that is on the backside of the logic board.

The drive has been swapped (new WD Blue 3TB), but we are having issues getting the Fusion setup, and getting OS Sierra loaded. I have tried researching the Fusion drive and what needs to be done, but all I can find is people trying to replace the HDD with an SSD, and other "projects".

When we go to Disk Utility from a Sierra flash drive, it does not give me any options to rebuild the Fusion drive or anything like that. If I plug up the original HDD to another Mac, it does tell me it needs to rebuild it, so that confirms it is a Fusion drive.

How do we properly replace the HDD, and either get the system booting as-is (is the OS on the SSD?), or reload OS Sierra on it? We are currently working on doing a TimeMachine backup on the system, but it is about 2.2TB of data...

A Fusion Drive is a composite of two physical drives: a fast but small SSD and a slower but larger HDD. Each of the physical drives contains three partitions: an EFI partition, a so-called physical volume and a special volume. The special volume on the HDD usually is the Recovery HD.

The two physical volumes are part of a Logical Volume Group. Creating a default Fusion Drive means building one Logical Volume in the LVG spanning both physical volumes. The Logical Volume is the one mounted to root (and if enabled - the volume visible on the desktop).

A file stored on the Logical Volume may reside on the SSD as well as on the HDD. System files may also reside on both drives. Usually an algorithm ensures that system files are stored on the faster SSD but there is no guarantee.

Removing one of the physical drives means removing one of the physical volumes and therefore tearing the LVG as well as the LV apart. After destroying the LVG/LV the file system as well as system files or other files are corrupted and the remnants won't be bootable.

To replace either of the drives, backup your exisiting volume(s) first with Time Machine. Then check whether you can boot to Internet Recovery Mode or create a bootable thumb drive and also try to boot to it.

Shutdown your Mac and replace one (or both) of the old drives. Then boot to Internet Recovery Mode or the bootable thumb drive.

Open Disk Utility and completely erase both disks (each to one volume/GPT/Journaled HFS and assign names e.g. "fusion1" and "fusion2" but not "Macintosh HD"). Don't erase your thumb drive or a drive visible called Boot OS X
Open Terminal in the menubar Utilities > Terminal and get the device identifiers of the two hard drives by entering diskutil list. Booted to Internet Recovery Mode you will get a list of 14-16 drives - only two of them are your hard drives. Simply check the sizes. The drives related to Internet Recovery Mode have a size of 1.2 GB or smaller!
Create a new LVG and LV (here I assume the 120 GB SSD has the disk identifier disk0 and the 3 TB HDD disk1 - they might be different though!):

diskutil cs create Fusion disk0 disk1
diskutil cs createVolume lvgUUID jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100% #replace lvgUUID with the UUID shown in the output of the previous command

verify the Fusion Drive with:

diskutil verifyDisk disk0 # use one of the disk identifiers found previously

Enter exit to quit Terminal.app
attach the Time Machine backup drive and in the Utilities windows choose Restore from Time Machine Backup > Select backup source > ...choose the drive and restore it to your Macintosh HD volume.
After the restore task has finished successfully, boot your Mac normally. Check if a RecoveryHD is present by opening Terminal and entering diskutil list.
When the RecoveryHD is missing, simply reinstall Sierra with the latest Sierra installer downloaded from the App Store  - which shouldn't affect your data but creates an additional RecoveryHD - or use the Recovery Partition Creator 4.


Delete photos from Desktop I exported a large number of photos by mistake from the photos application to my desktop.  How do I delete these photos?

There are a lot of possibilities.

Firstly, you can try to press the undo keys: cmd + z (this probably will not work).

Otherwise you can try to use the Terminal, in the particular case you don't want to delete photos one by one. From the Terminal if you can run the following command: rm ~/Desktop/*.extension where extension stands for the extension of your pics. So for example if all the photos are JPEG you can run: rm ~/Desktop/*.jpg.

Please note that the use of this command will delete all the files in the desktop with the .jpg extension. So if you have even only one photo that you want to save from the desktop, you can't sue this tool.


How to show a Keynote presentation on other platforms? I will make a presentation about my project in my college, and I will use Keynote to make the presentation file because I found it better than Powerpoint.

I have a Macbook Pro and I can't connect it to the projector directly.

Is there any way to use the Keynote file on Windows with all the features?

From your Keynote document select:

File > Export > PPT...

or better (to avoid most problems with PowerPoint format):

File > Export > PDF...

This last format will work perfectly on any Unix and any Windows.

Warning: test these formats on the target system before a serious presentation.

With both formats, video, animation, transitions and presenter notes will be lost.

If your projector is of the VGA era (see https://www.google.fr/search?q=vga&source=lnms&tbm=isch) then I would advise you to:

Stay with Keynote (this software is still many years ahead of many others and mostly of PowerPoint).
Buy a Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter.


Trim the middle of a file name I have a lot of files in a directory that have [!] in the file name. Is there a way to trim that out with a command in the terminal? Here's an example filename. file001[!].ext

I would just use the 'sed' command.  You can run a for each loop over all the files and parse out the "[!]".

sed 's/\[!]//'

for loop version:

for f in /path/to/files/*; do
rename=`echo "$f" | sed 's/\[!]//'`
mv "$f" "$rename"
done

Otherwise I would suggest installing "rename" from homebrew if you have that installed.  I also have a Automator right click service that does batch rename's if you would like a graphical way.


How to make icons appear at top of MacVim again I just upgraded to a new version of MacVim.

There used to be a row of icons at the top of every MacVim window with buttons for opening/saving files, cut/paste/delete, etc. Now that row of buttons is gone.

What is that row of buttons called and how do I get it to appear again?

in the editor--

:set guioptions+=T

you can embed this command in $USER/.gvimrc to make sure it happens every time you start up.


Finder Cover Flow Icon Preview not working I'm not sure what happened but I noticed recently that the Cover Flow icon previews were missing from my files in Finder.  I'm using OSX 10.6.7.  See the screenshot below - I'm expecting a preview of the file to be shown rather than the black document icon.

How can I get the preview back?  The View Options have "Show Icon Preview" ticked.

Quicklook still works on individual files, just not in Finder.

Edit

Error message reported in Console:

/System/Library/Frameworks/QuickLook.framework/Resources/quicklookd.app/Contents/MacOS/quicklookd: /System/Library/Frameworks/QuickLook.framework/Resources/quicklookd.app/Contents/MacOS/quicklookd: cannot execute binary file

(com.apple.quicklook[5107]): Exited with exit code: 126

Edit 2
Output of command suggested by @jm666

lipo -detailed_info /System/Library/Frameworks/QuickLook.framework/Resources/quicklookd.app/Contents/MacOS/quicklookd

lipo: can't figure out the architecture type of: /System/Library/Frameworks/QuickLook.framework/Resources/quicklookd.app/Contents/MacOS/quicklookd

After seeing the error message, I restored the previous version of quicklookd from my Time Machine backup and the problem was resolved.  I'm going to do a clean install of Snow Leopard just to make sure there are no other issues with my system.

hm. Removing my answer, because not helped.

So - you got a message into Console.log. So, come step-by-step. :)

What return this command?

lipo -detailed_info /System/Library/Frameworks/QuickLook.framework/Resources/quicklookd.app/Contents/MacOS/quicklookd

Should this:

Fat header in: /System/Library/Frameworks/QuickLook.framework/Resources/quicklookd.app/Contents/MacOS/quicklookd
fat_magic 0xcafebabe
nfat_arch 2
architecture x86_64
    cputype CPU_TYPE_X86_64
    cpusubtype CPU_SUBTYPE_X86_64_ALL
    offset 4096
    size 504912
    align 2^12 (4096)
architecture i386
    cputype CPU_TYPE_I386
    cpusubtype CPU_SUBTYPE_I386_ALL
    offset 512000
    size 399280
    align 2^12 (4096)


How can I delete Time Machine backups, moved into trash? I was going to delete the Time Machine backups. I made a mistake and instead of deleting them using Time Machine, I just moved the Backups.backupdb folder to the trash. Now, if I try to empty the trash, Finder attempts to count the number of files that will be deleted, and this process is incredibly time-consuming, because the Finder tries to count each file in each backup. The same thing happens if I try to move the Backups.backupdb folder from the trash back on my hard drive where it was before.

What can I do in this situation? How can I delete the backups?

To remove or move the Backups.backupdb folder open Terminal.app.

Enter cd /Volumes/<Name_of_BackupDrive>/.Trashes to change the working directory. <Name_of_BackupDrive> has to be the volume name of your TM backup volume.
Enter sudo ls -laO to show all folders. Usually you should see only one folder with  the name 501 now:

d-wx-wx-wt@ 3 root      wheel  hidden 102 Jun 25 20:52 .
drwxrwxr-x  9 root      admin  -      374 Jun 26 01:21 ..
drwx------@ 2 user      staff  hidden  68 Jun 26 01:21 501

Enter sudo su to get super user rights.
Enter cd 501 (Replace 501 with whatever the name of the directory is) to change the working directory and list the content of the folder 501 with ls -laO. Now you should see the folder Backups.backupdb:

drwx------@ 3 user      staff  hidden 102 Jun 26 01:21 .
d-wx-wx-wt@ 3 root      wheel  hidden 102 Jun 25 20:52 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 user      admin  -       68 Jun 26 01:19 Backups.backupdb

Now you may either move the folder back to the root of the backup drive with:

mv Backups.backupdb /Volumes/<Name_of_BackupDrive>/

or remove the folder with

rm -dR Backups.backupdb

If you are asked to override something (e.g. override rw-r--r--  root/wheel uchg for Backups.backupdb/.RecoverySets/0/com.apple.recovery.boot/boot.efi?) enter yes and hit the return button. You may also add the -f option to skip confirmations.

To delete a 30 GB backup in a virtual machine it took about 3 minutes. So depending on the size of Backups.backupdb some patience is needed.


How can I restore all files i deleted in the Applications floder? Actually, i just want to delete one file in the Application folder,but when i moved it to Trash, CleanMyMac notices me to use it to delete it clearly.

However after i clicked yes, it deletes all items in the Application folder,including Office,i works and Adobe etc.

I have re-installed the apps. But it seems the problem cannot be solved only by re-downloading the apps.

Facetime cannot find the camera right now and there is no responses when i click the right bottom.

Is there anyone can help me with this?

Without being at the helm of your computer, I would advise a fresh installation. Reboot into recovery mode and reinstall OS X. This should restore all system files, and your personal files should not be effected.

You can boot into recovery mode a number of ways. One would be to hold alt at boot, then select your Recovery HD. In some instances, an OS X user may not have this drive. Instead, you may want to try Command+Option+R for Internet recovery.

A program like PhotoRec, which comes bundled with TestDisk. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

It runs in Terminal, but you would be able to select your drive and recover all files. Note that any files that have been overwritten since they were deleted (which is very likely) will not be recoverable.


See when a macOS application accesses the clipboard? On iOS, it now shows you when an app accesses the clipboard. I discovered my weather app is snooping on my clipboard, which is very interesting, especially since I never pasted, and there's no logical reason why it would have needed to view the clipboard:

I very much appreciate this feature on iOS because it creates the right incentives for apps to view only what they have to.
Is there any way to enable this feature on macOS, where a small popup could appear if an application views what's on your clipboard?

There is no way to enable notification of clipboard access with macOS.  This is a system feature introduced for iOS 14. See this UIPasteboard documentation which includes a note about iOS 14 as well as the developer level API for using the clipboard.
If you would like this feature extended to macOS, give Apple some Feedback. I could imagine that Apple might be reluctant to add this feature to macOS because so many apps could be accessing the pasteboard that the number of notifications might be overwhelming.
I can't even see a way of using system logging (via for example the Console App) to detect clipboard reads.  If someone can point the way please add a comment.
Beyond that read @bmike's reply to this question How to secure macOS's clipboard?  Apart from the implementation of the iOS feature the only significant change in the intervening 4 years is the Universal Clipboard which shares the clipboard across your devices.


How to enter different whitespaces in Pages? How can I use whitespace of different size in Pages? I only know simple space by hitting the space bar and the fixed space (no word wrap) using alt-space.

Is it possible to get a n-, t- or numeric space (unicode 2000 to 200A) using the keyboard? The only possibility I found so far is to use the character viewer, search for "space" and click through the results.

Unicode Hex Input

You can use Unicode Hex Input to enter the characters that you want. Go to System Preferences → Keyboard → Input Sources and enable Unicode Hex Input. Then you can enter the characters by holding ⌥ and typing the Unicode code.

Multi-stroke Key Bindings

You can edit ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict and create a multi-stroke key binding for each of the characters that you want to enter. More information is available on this blog post:

http://blog.macromates.com/2006/multi-stroke-key-bindings/

Press and Hold

Navigate to System/Library/Input Methods/PressAndHold.app/Contents/Resources/.
Backup the Keyboard-en.plist file.
Append the following to the Keyboard-en.plist file (before the closing </dict></plist>).

<key>Roman-Accent-t</key>
<dict>
    <key>Direction</key>
    <string>right</string>
    <key>Keycaps</key>
    <string>t                        　 </string>
    <key>Strings</key>
    <string>t                        　 </string>
</dict>

There are a number of different spaces included in the strings above.

Feel free to change the Roman-Accent-t to any character you wish, providing it does not already have Press & Hold keys assigned.

Text Shortcuts

Go to System Preferences → Keyboard → Text and enter some shortcuts.


How to install Windows 8 with BootCamp 5 Assistant via USB? I was able to put Windows 8 setup files on my usb from the installer. Now I just upgraded my machine to Mountain Lion. I have gone through the BC Assistant and it only asks for my Windows CD to be put into my drive. There is no longer an option to install via other media.

Anyone know of a workaround to install with USB stick?

This doesn't exactly answer your question but may help solve your problem: create a bootable Windows DVD from the Windows 8 setup files, as explained  here.

I did it myself some months ago when upgrading Windows XP to Windows 8, and it worked without a hitch.

You will need:

Access to a Windows computer.
oscdimg.exe, a command-line tool for creating bootable Windows ISO files. This file is part of a larger download:

For Windows XP SP2 with KB926044/2003 SP1 with KB926044/2003 SP2 you'll need the Automated Installation Kit at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=10333
For Windows 8/7/2012/2008 R2/Vista/2008 you'll need the Assessment and Deployment Kit at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30652

Windows 8 setup files.

The steps are:

Download and install oscdimg.exe.
Put the Windows 8 setup files in a folder. While any name will do I found C:\WIN8AIO to be a popular choice, so I'll use it.
Open a command prompt as administrator and create the ISO image C:\WIN8DVD.ISO like this:

\path\to\oscdimg.exe -lWIN8DVD -t10/26/2012:00:00 -m -u2 -bC:\WIN8AIO\boot\etfsboot.com C:\WIN8AIO C:\WIN8DVD.ISO

For more information on oscdimg.exe and its command line options see this article at Microsoft.
Burn C:\WIN8DVD.ISO and use it with Boot Camp Assistant on your Mac.


Having trouble restoring backup of my iPhone I'd been having a few issues with my iPhone 4 (one of the main being that apps wouldn't open and turning it off and on again to remedy this resulted in me losing all of my contacts in my address book). When attempting to restore my iPhone, it sometimes causes my computer screen to become distorted and freeze my computer.

I'd been on iOS 5.1 (?) for a while (having put of updating it due to lack of space) and my brother suggested updating to the most recent iOS. I did this, but afterwards, my phone said it had to reset back to factory settings. I reset it, but when I went to restore my backup, I got the message “iTunes could not restore the iPod 'NAME' because the backup could not be saved on the computer.” Having looked around, people seemed to suggest that I needed to clear some disk space on my laptop. I've done this, and I have 217 GB free, so I can't see why this should be an issue now, but I'm still having the same problem.

Can anyone suggest a solution?

The simplest thing to do is to take your iPhone to a new computer and see if you can determine if the problem is the iPhone / OS on that device or the problem lies with your computer.

Also - you might check iTunes to be sure you have the old backup stored safely (perhaps backing up the computer itself)

iTunes places the backup files in the following places:

Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
Windows XP: \Documents and Settings(username)\Application Data\Apple  Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
Windows Vista and Windows 7: \Users(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\

Once you know which of the two parties is not working correctly, you should be able to take your troubleshooting to the next step and consult the site here or Apple's support articles for how to proceed:

http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/assistant/restore/
http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/assistant/itunes/


how to add button to Finder toolbar to call python script with current folder as argument? Recently I added context menu under services to execute python script but I think it would be convenient if  I add a button on the Finder toolbar, like next to New Folder Button in below image.

Is this possible at add button on Finder Toolbar that triggers a python script and passes the current folder as argument  ?

See if this works.

Download the Get first Finder Window Path BETA 10.9 automator action from from my blog : my_very_first_automator_action

The action returns the path of the front most finder window. It does not take any input from above actions. The post explains it all :-)

Create a new Application document in Automator and add the Get first Finder Window Path to it. Then just add you Run shell script after it.

Save as Application. And then do the drag and drop.

I would test it with your code but I do not have the python slideshow...

Note from Apple documentation in regard to Third party Actions.

  Installing Actions When your action has been thoroughly debugged and
  tested, build a deployment version of the bundle (using the proper
  optimizations). Then create an installation package for the action (or
  add the action to your application’s installation package). The
  installer should copy the action to /Library/Automator or
  ~/Library/Automator, depending on whether access to the action should
  be system wide or restricted to the installing user.

  Instead of installing your action separately, you can put it inside
  the bundle of your application, especially if the action uses the
  features of that application. When Automator searches for actions to
  display, it looks inside registered applications as well in the
  standard Automator directories. The advantage of packaging your
  actions inside an application is that you don’t need to create a
  separate installation package to install the actions. To install the
  actions, users need only drag the application to a standard location.

  Action bundles should be stored inside the application wrapper at
  Contents/Library/Automator. Thus, if your action is MyAction.action
  and your application is MyApp.app, the path inside the application
  would be:

MyApp.app/Contents/Library/Automator/MyAction.action

  You can either manually copy an action into this location (after
  creating the necessary subdirectories) or you have Xcode copy it using
  a Copy Files build phase. If you copy an action into an application
  bundle but the application is already installed on a system, you must
  get Launch Services to recognize that the application has new content
  to register (that is, the new action) by changing the application’s
  modification date. You can do this by entering the touch command in
  the Terminal application.

sudo touch /Applications/MyApp.app

  Or you can rename the application in Finder to something else, change
  it back to the original name, and then launch the application once.


Not Getting Twitter Highlights/Recommendations on iOS I have two Twitter accounts. Account #2 "recommends" tweets via in-app/push notifications and sends "highlights" push notifications but my Primary account only sends recommendation notifications (no highlights) but they don't show up in-app. All other notifications work well for both accounts on both iPhone and iPad.

I have both features turned on in "Push Notifications" settings on both iPhone and iPad. I've had this issue for months, it hasn't resolved itself. I've read the articles about both features on Twitter's website but they don't offer much trouble-shooting. No response from Twitter support.

Do I need to erase my login info from both devices, delete both apps, and start over again or is there a better solution?

Twitter is A/B Testing this feature between accounts. It's possible only one of your accounts is part of the active test group for this experiment. There's nothing you can do to change this currently.


How to report App Store rule violations? Is there a link or somewhere to report App Store rule violations? Specifically, when an app is using push notifications to send you advertisements/promotions, despite this being explicitly against Apple's rules.

The closest thing I've found is a form to report intellectual property violations, and I can't find anything else that's close.

  5.6 Apps cannot use Push Notifications to send advertising,
  promotions, or direct marketing of any kind.

Recently, AppGratis was removed from the store for this (and other) violations.

I'm stick and tired of one app in particular, Real Racing 3, sending me ads to 'buy' in-game cars. You need notifications turned on in the app because of other game-related mechanics, such as when a friend challenges you to a race or your car is repaired. There is no option I can find to opt-out of the advertising messages.

Contacting the developer (EA, FireMonkey) will do no good because they don't care, so I'm hoping if this gets the attention of Apple then they will enforce their own rule.

Of course I just could remove the app and no longer use it, but it bugs me that small developers can't get away with it and big ones get a free pass.

Apple has implemented many changes in 2017 and 2018 time frame as the size of the store has grown. How you get support depends upon your relationship with Apple.

As a consumer, you would report and ask for support based on purchases you make. As a developer, you have a dedicated channel to report rights violations, fraud, and general concerns.
The App Store is now much better where you can voice critical reviews and get feedback from the developer for all to see. If a major app is doing things that are surprising people, that shows very clearly in the reviews.

But really, unless there's something serious, why wouldn't you just disable notifications for that app, then open a support ticket with the vendor and maybe leave a bad review and delete the app?

I would expect Apple support to show you how to delete the app and how to disable notifications and then hand you off to the developer if they aren't making you happy.

If you purchased the app recently (which should cover the vast majority of things that are blatantly wrong)

http://reportaproblem.apple.com

Apple's report page directs you to the web page listed for support. Even this page is very carefully shaped to get Apple items like billing and subscriptions handled, but venting / reporting / tattling / complaining about an app isn't something Apple has a web page to receive feedback that's easy to find from the App Store apps or the general support pages.

If you are a developer, sign in and contact support:

https://developer.apple.com/contact/#!/topic/select

In 2013 - the state of reporting issues was less formalized. The support was more case by case and reviews were one way (Developers couldn't respond to complaints at all, let alone publicly).

You should send a message to the developer (since you are about to poo over their product on the App Store) - give them a chance to make things right since they might have a fix or be able to assist you directly.
Go into the App Store and rate the app. If you give them one star and a brief review - kill them with kindness: "If only I could ignore the constant upselling of paid upgrades, I might have liked this game"
Look hard at the description in the App Store. If they materially mis-represented the state of the app (say the screenshots are marketing illustrations and not actually screen shots) - report a problem with that purchase from within iTunes. Find that purchase and click the report a problem link. That fires a flag at that item in the store. You won't get a response, but I am confident that in bulk these are reviewed with the most reported problems getting the most scrutiny. That link may pop up a form to add details - if not, it will take you to the website below.
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ - Find the section on contacting support and click it.
It takes you to another page - and you will want to submit your detailed feedback to Apple listing the app, the time/date of the violation and the section of the rules you feel are being violated.

At the end of this process, you may also want to take Apple's support survey and ask that they streamline the problem reporting process to make it more clear how / when users should be sending feedback to Apple. You can bet that once enough people start using the tools given and enough complain (politely and with detailed evidence) that it takes too long to report obvious problems with the review tools - it can be fixed.

I do know that if/when your report gets to the desk of a developer support person, they will know how many steps you needed to take to get them the problem report and it's more likely they will dig into it if your complaint has merit.

Most importantly, if you paid money for the app, consider asking for a refund. Detail why the app isn't as described or isn't following the norms you have seen Apple publish and how you feel bad for supporting both Apple and the developer financially when they don't follow the rules set down.

A financial ramification, well reasoned complaints/criticism and using the tools Apple has given for consumers to rate apps together will send a clear signal that the business didn't do a good enough job selling a specific app to you. Once patterns of failures accumulate, they can't go un-noticed.


Customizing iTerm. Creating a display profile with Pastel color I was trying to follow the instructions given on the page http://kpumuk.info/mac-os-x/customizing-iterm-creating-a-display-profile-with-pastel-colors/

After running the final command when I reopen the iTerm i find that only the background has changed to black and the text to cream color, it doesn't apply variable colors like blue to folders, some red colors for other file types. Please tell me how can I do so. Is there any other thing I can do to have a beautiful programmer's terminal.

I recommend Solarized if you're looking for a fully-realized lower contrast pastel(-ish) colour scheme. Setting files for iTerm are included in the package.


How to use an iPod touch with big fingers? I've had an iPod touch for over 6 months now, and while I've gotten better at hitting buttons and icons with practice, some things remain virtually impossible to tap.

For example, the tiny circles (one above the line, one below the line) for selecting text are pretty much impossible to hit.  Auto-complete options (like the "I" if I type "i") are similarly difficult.

I don't think I have poor motor skills: I'm a musician!  And while my hands are big, I don't think my fingers are especially fat.

Is there anything I can do to make it possible to use these features?  For example, is there some interaction I don't know about (the iPod touch manual is basically non-existent), or is there a setting to make the tiniest controls appear larger for me?

One option is to use the Zoom function from the Accessibility options. From the Settings app, choose General > Accessibility > Zoom and turn Zoom on.

Zoom provides several features:

Once Zoom is turned on, you can double tap with three fingers (assuming you can fit three of your fingers on the screen at once!) to zoom in or out.
With three fingers you can drag your fingers around to change the area of the screen that is zoomed in.
Tap with three fingers then tap again and drag your fingers up and down to  zoom in and out more.

These should make the targets a bit easier to hit although it will probably slow you down a little.

This function was discovered by a friend who accidentally turned it on after a few drinks and couldn't work out hour to turn it off. An iPod touch is really hard to use when zoomed in if you don't know why it is zoomed in.


What is the command I say to make the curser 'Return' while in Notes using dictation? What is the command I can say when I am using dictation in Notes that is the same as pressing the Return key? For example if I want to make a list or just create a new line for a new sentence?


iMessage with iCloud mail aliases? Is it possible to use an iCloud email alias as the Caller ID for iMessage?

When I try to enter an alias on "Receive At > Add Another Email..." I always get an error popup titled "iMessage Activation" - "An error occurred while verifying your email".
I've also tried to go to appleid.apple.com and enter one alias. When I press save, the page shows some loading activity but stays the same and never saves the alias. I've tested it both on Safari and Firefox. With other email addresses it works fine.

In trying what I think you are wanting to do.
I had to enter my real email address and password to activate the service.

(Remember your real apple ID youname@mac.com/*yourname@me.com* is your user name and an alias email address is NOT)

Once I did this. My apple id is used for the first email address.
I can then add another email address below it.

the second one was one of my alias emails to my apple email.

Logging out of this service will remove both addresses.


How to proceed with iOS set up without Wi-Fi network? I have just restored my iPhone 4 to iOS 5 factory settings but it requires a Wi-Fi network although I do not have a wireless access point in or around my house.

Can I not use the iOS 5 without a Wi-Fi connection?

Yes, you can, set it as a new iPhone or restore your contents from iTunes backup in your computer by tethering your iPhone with iTunes.


How to make bluetooth headphones and keyboard play nicely? I have a Jabra Move bluetooth headset and a bluetooth Apple Magic Keyboard circa 2010/2011.

I can pair them both with my 2015 Mac Book Pro (running OS X Sierra) with ease. However, as soon as I start playing audio through my Mac to the headphones one or both of two things happens:

1) The music drops in and out

and/or, worse

2) The keyboard disconnects and reconnects frequently.

It's so frustrating that I mainly disconnect my headphones from my mac and stream music through from my phone.

I used to have the same setup with a ~2013 Mac Mini and had exactly the same problem.

I am in a busy office full of computers, phones and bluetooth and wireless devices.

What if you go away from Wi-Fi noise? The 39 bluetooth channels are splattered by the same spectrum as Wi-Fi - particularly the >=300Mbit/s 802.11n stuff and later will trip you up. It is definitely not bluetooth noise, however, as it runs the gamut from 1mW to 20mW, with most devices using 5-10mW.

Resetting PRAM will not help you.

I have used several discreet bluetooth dongles to each handle bluetooth connections. With my macbook pro, bluetooth was weak, despite not being behind alu-casing (IIRC its antenna is at the top of the screen), so I used a few in USB ports. Problem went away forever.


How to test my thunderbolt port without device? I can´t connect my MacBookPro 8.1 (Early 2011) to my projector using a "Thunderbolt to VGA Adaptor". This my second adaptor in the last 12 months and am now not sure whether the problem lies with the adaptor or my MacBook Pro. My Apple hardware report shows nothing out of the ordinary.

Is there any other reliable way to test my Thunderbolt port without plugging in any hardware or do I have do dig out more money for an adaptor that may or may not work?

Just so you know the Thunderbolt ports on your computer have dual purpose, they are also Mini DisplayPort (ports). The cable you are using is actually a Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter.

I've used these a fair bit at home and work, and at least the Apple ones aren't very durable in my experience, it's likely the cable has failed again. Unless you are finding other devices aren't working either, it's likely the cable.

You could book a Genius Bar appointment at an Apple Store and see if they can test the port for you with their own known good cables, that way you wouldn't have to buy another cable.

In future you could have a look at 3rd party products, StarTech adapters are pretty reliable in my experience but any brand would be worth trying.


Delete all bookmarks from Google Chrome macOS app in one go How can I delete all the bookmarks in Google Chrome macOS app with one delete command?

Most solutions on the Web say to delete them one at a time. I have hundreds I want to clear. I imagine there is a file somewhere that contains them. Where can I find and delete it?

You can easily delete all the bookmarks in Google Chrome in one go.

Open Bookmark manager by going to Bookmarks → Bookmark Manager or by using keyboard short Option + Command + B.
Use the keyboard shortcut Command + A to select all bookmarks and folders.

Press the Delete key to delete all the bookmarks in one go.

Do note that Google Chrome doesn't ask for confirmation before deleting the bookmarks. They are gone as soon as you press the Delete key. However, you can undo the delete operation by clicking on the Undo button shown in the bottom left for a few seconds, immediately after the operation is performed.


How can I implement AirPrint using any mac-served printer using this "DNS-SD" configuration? AirPrint is a function on iOS that allows you to print from your iPad (or whatever) to certain wireless printers.  Sadly, there are only a dozen or so compatible printers.

However, on the article on AirPrint on Wikipedia, the article states that it is possible to make the feature work with ANY printer that is connected to your mac. Specifically, the text says:

"For other printers, AirPrint support can be added to an existing CUPS Server with DNS based Service Discovery, by manually adding DNS-SD printer service discovery records to a name server.[7]"

The footnote takes a person to a very techie article about DNS stuff:  http://www.dns-sd.org/ServerStaticSetup.html ... but it is not written in a way an average power user could understand.

My question: What is an only-moderately-techie set of instructions that will tell me how to configure this, using this method, so that I can have my iPad print wirelessly to an HP P1102w printer that is connected (via wifi, in fact) to my mac?

I know this isn't directly what you asked for, but if you are looking for a non-techie approach to sharing printers via Airprint, you could do far worse than to use Printopia.  It's not free, but it isn't expensive and it works very well indeed.


Inserting Equations in Pages - Keyboard Shortcut? I use the "Insert > Equation..." feature in Pages quite frequently. Is there a keyboard shortcut to open this box faster than clicking through first "Insert" and then "Equation..."?

The defined shortcut is shown as Option & Command & E to enter the equation editor.


iMac with bootcamp windows 10 reboots 3 seconds after shutdown (no fastboot, no wol) Hello I recently purchased iMac so I tried to set up things so that I can remove my old windows desktop away and still be able to use both Mac OS and Windows

If I shutdown from Windows, it boots up by itself in 2~3 seconds. This doesn't happen in Mac

Here's brief intro on my setup

iMac 2017 5k with Mojave 14.01
bootcamp windows 10 education 1803
bluetooth keyboard and logitech bluetooth mouse with unifying receiver
LG 27uk850 (external monitor which works just fine on both Mac and Windows)
Both Mac OS and Windows are installed from clean state. and have nothing much installed yet and is fully up to date

the symptom is whenever I do shutdown in Windows 10, it will shutdown but it will turn back on after 2~3 seconds

I've found bunch of solutions on the web so tried all that I could find which are:

disable fast boot
turn off hibernate
turn off WOL on ethernet and wifi (also tried with my router off)
check some registry settings about hibernating

All of those didn't have any effect.

I did find out though that if i unplug the usb c cable which is connected to the monitor, problem is solved.
And interestingly if I plug the usb c hub which has hdmi, pd in, usb 3.0 port problem persists even though nothing is connected to the hub

I think this problem is narrowed down to something to do with USB PD. because the hub supports usb PD and even the monitor supports usb PD
another reason is that if i leave the usb c cable (to monitor) plugged to iMac and unplug it from monitor this doesn't happen

Now that I have all this in my hand, I don't know which action to take next. I just couldn't find anything specific to my problems so now I am kind of lost here.

My question is would there be a way for me to use iMac with external monitor plugged in at all times and still be able to use both Windows and Mac OS without any issue?

ps. if I boot into windows, default boot drive defaults to Mac OS. only way to change this is to boot on to Mac and set Mac OS drive the default booting drive. is this correct behavior?

edit. to users with egpu, do you have the same problem with enclosure attached?

You should be able to use both OSs with the external monitor plugged in at all times, is try restarting from the bootcamp app in the bottom/windows menu bar (the same place that discord, steam, and wifi icons are). If that doesn't work, try rebooting into target mode, and then shutting down and rebooting while pushing the option key


Change main keyboard layout in OS X I have two active keyboard layouts - US english and russian. I have russian as my primary system language and the option "allow different input language for different documents" is active. But when I open any app keyboard automatically switches to russian, while I want it to be english by default. Is there any way to change the default keyboard layout without changing system language?

When I tried enabling the setting (Input source options: Allow a different one for each document), new windows seemed to just use the current input source.

Anyway, you could try running sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/Setup\ Assistant.app/Contents/MacOS/Setup\ Assistant and selecting US as the default input method. (You have to go through the steps of creating a new account, but you can delete it later.) It modifies at least /var/root/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.HIToolbox.*.plist.

If that doesn't work, try running sudo languagesetup and selecting English, or sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist AppleLocale en_US and restarting.


How can I find the metadata of a file in Scanner app? I am a teacher, and I am trying to verify the date and time when a student took a particular photo. The student has an iPhone (unknown model and OS version) and used the Scanner app by Luni to take the photo. The student says they can't find the date and time on their own, and I am not able to gain direct access to the student's phone due to covid-19 restrictions (the teaching is being done remotely).
I don't have (and have never used) an iPhone, but I assume that if the photo still exists on the phone there is a way to recover the metadata. Could someone point me towards a step-by-step tutorial for how to find a file's metadata either in this particular app or in whatever file manager iOS has built in?
To be clear the student is entirely cooperative, but seems to not be very technically knowledgeable (or even comfortable with technology), and my total inexperience with iPhones renders me unable to provide detailed, specific instructions. I have tried finding an iPhone emulator I can run on Windows, but I can't seem to find one which is free (or freemium) where I can easily see how to get to the app store.
Edit: If I get instructions for how to find metadata in a file manager, I will also need instructions for how to determine through the app what the location of the file is.

In the App they can go to their scans, go to the export button at the top right, and click on iCloud. Then you can run this shortcut on their phone. If they haven't already they will need to enable untrusted shortcuts (i.e. third party shortcuts).
Instead of using the shortcut, you could open the Files app, and go to iCloud Drive > ScanPlus. Hold down with your finger on the document to open the context menu, and select "Info". Under the heading "Information" you should see the creation date.


How can I export .mobileconfig file from IOS10 to Mac? I want to find the .mobileconfig file in the IOS10 that contains all basic setting information of IOS10 like (Restrictions, Passcode, Wi-Fi, Mail, etc.) and export it to Mac. How can I do it?

You can get your .mobileconfig files from you iPhone/iPad backup (if you have an access to target device) as follows:

First, you need to create (or update) an unencrypted backup from iTunes.

Then you need to get a path to your backup. You can do this in iTunes preferences, in "Devices" tab:

Now you can search in backup directory for all .plist files, that contains PayloadType key and copy them to a directory on your Desktop:

BACKUP_DIR="PATH_TO_YOUR_BACKUP"
mkdir ~/Desktop/mobileconfigs

find "$BACKUP_DIR" -type f -name '*' -exec sh -c '
  for file do
    /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "print :PayloadType" "$file" &>/dev/null
    if [ $? == 0 ]; then
        cp "$file" "/Users/toma/Desktop/mobileconfigs"
    fi
  done
' sh {} +


OS X El Capitan different behaviours at start I have two MacBook Pro mid 2013, same hardware inside.
In the first one I had the following sequence of OSs.
Mountain Lion (factory) > Mavericks > Yosemite > El Capitan > El Capitan (Clean Install)

And whenever I start the Mac I have this flow
Apple Logo > User login (my user + guest user) > Loading (progress bar) > OS loaded

In the second MacBook I had
Mountain Lion (factory) > El Capitan

And this flow at start
Apple Logo > Loading (progress bar) > User login (my user + guest user) > OS "lazy" loaded ("lazy" = Status bar is loaded a few seconds after the screen with dock is presented)

Since there is a clearly difference in the behaviour of the two OSs, my question is: why does this happen? Is there a problem with one of the OSs? Which is the correct flow?

It might be that in the first case the boot partition is encrypted with FileVault. You then need to login to be able to read the boot partition.


How long does it generally take Apple to propagate subject category changes in my submitted eBooks I have several books on sale in the ibooks store. A couple of weeks ago I did a minor change to the subject category of all my books. About a week after that I started to notice a drop on sales. I am trying to figure out whether this drop might be due to normal seasonal cycles or it might be that my change got propagated and classified the books in the wrong pile.

I've not seen this change take longer than 48 hours unless there were a long holiday weekend or some shutdown like is typical and emailed/posted months in advance (like December 25 shutdown the last few years past).

If you have a concern, you could always log into iTunes Connect and contact support to check that things are not stuck in your case.


What does “Cache location entry for Photos.app in cache file” error signify in Automator app? I have written a very basic script to count the number of files in a folder, then if it reaches 16 files, to run an automator workflow, as below:

    #!/bin/bash
    cd /Users/barbooths/Projects/Originals
    count=$(ls | wc -l)
    if [ $count = 16 ]
    then
        /usr/bin/automator /Users/barbooths/Projects/BatchRename.workflow
    else
        echo $count
  fi

However when I run the shell script in terminal, it seems to run the workflow with no problem, but it throws up a load of errors:

Bars-MacBook-Pro:Projects barbooths$ ./Foldercount.sh

2019-01-15 23:35:53.636 automator[4301:378917] Cache location entry for /Applications/Photos.app in cache file at /Users/barbooths/Library/Caches/com.apple.automator.actionCache-bundleLocations.plist is not valid: (null)
2019-01-15 23:35:53.636 automator[4301:378917] Cache location entry for /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/System Image Utility.app in cache file at /Users/barbooths/Library/Caches/com.apple.automator.actionCache-bundleLocations.plist is not valid: Location /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/System Image Utility.app has been modified.

I don't know a huge amount about scripting, so was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction?

I'm not sure what causes the modification/corruption, but my solution has been to delete the specified files, in your case:

/Users/barbooths/Library/Caches/com.apple.automator.actionCache-bundleLocations.plist

Doing this eliminates the warnings for me (I was getting automator, photos, system image utility and a few others.

My automator scripts still run correctly from the terminal, they just do without the extra warning output.


Backing up Bento for iPhone I've been looking at using Bento for iPhone / iPad on a few projects where data will be logged in the field and then synced with a main database held on a Mac. My worry with this system though is that if there is a problem when the Bento database syncs with the Mac and the databse gets corrupted, there may be a complete loss of data. Ideally I'd like to, for instance, email the data from the iPhone / iPad before the data is synced so that even if the databse is lost, at least we have the data and can manually enter the data onto the main databse on the Mac. I have not yet however found out any way of getting the Bento data off the iPhone apart from syncing with a Mac. Does anyone know of any other fix for this?

Bento has no capabilities to sync over the network, no printing (you can print documents attached/embedded in a record but not the actual record itself). It was designed to be totally simple. That makes it the wrong tool for protect data to the extent of allowing backups or export/import like you ask.

The API are there to use MobileMe syncing on both the mac and the iOS - but the engineering wasn't done to make that work in the Bento universe. There are many solutions that will work at greater (but still affordable) cost, though.

In your case Filemaker Go connecting to a database that is served with FileMaker Pro will ensure your field data is always syncing to and from a central server as long as the network allows connectivity.

Here is a nice summary of how Bento and Filemaker Go compare. Bento has been very reliable for me and I haven't heard of anyone losing data, but user error or a lost phone before you return to sync will clearly cause lost data.

There are many note taking apps that sync off device to a server (Simplenote is the one I use) and even more GTD / Task Management type apps (like Things or Todolicious or the big kahuna OmniFocus) that you might be able to leverage to avoid losing data via sync services.

In the end - FileMaker Go + Pro is orders of magnitude cheaper than custom app developmen,t not to mention ridiculously faster to implement. If the cost of losing one set of data exceeds easily calculated FileMaker deployment costs, then your decision is trivial to make. Don't forget to estimate the cost of going back to recreate the data.


Fix bad image quality in dark images in iMovie I have an iMovie project (stop motion animation). Everything is fine, except for a dark scene. The photos get pixelated and blocked, and really ruined. The original image is very sharp and clear, yet the one in iMovie and the exported video files is ruined.

The original media is not video. Rather, it is a large set of JPEG images (stop motion animation film). The images are 773 x 515 pixels, and very high quality. If it matters, it's being overlaid with M4A audio.

Other video editors (PiTiVi, Kdenlive) don't ruin it, so it's not a general issue.

Before iMovie:

In the final video:

Any ideas?

You need to set Data Rate in Export with Quicktime to Manual and increase Data Rate value for improving quality. You can also try compression quality after you have set a high data rate.


Can I turn off the screen with a keyboard shortcut? One of the first customizations I make in Windows is to install WinBubble, an awesome piece of software that lets me add an option the the right-click menu of the desktop: 'Turn Off Monitor.' It's really quite awesome.

Now that I'm using Macs more and more, I want to know how to do this on a Mac. But instead of using the mouse (yes, I'm a keyboard guy), I want to use the keyboard.

Is it possible for me to turn off the screen with a keyboard shortcut? I'm thinking AppleScript - but something simpler is definitely better.

Control+Shift+Power For current Mac keyboard layouts. Control+Shift+Eject works for older keyboard layouts that still include the Eject key.

This page explains some alternate solutions as well.

Also, if you have "Require password after sleep or screen saver begins" set to immediately in System Preferences -> Security & Privacy, it will ask you for your password after doing this.


Project folder not visible in Sublime Text 2 after relaunching app When I add a new project folder to Sublime Text 2…

It works normally. But when I quit and relaunch the application I can't see my project folder on the sidebar?

What should I do?

Adding folders to projects or otherwise changing projects will be retained for as long as the instance of the app is open. Your changes will be lost when the app is quit unless you save the project.


Data backup needed before Apple Store screen repair? My 2016 Macbook Pro screen has vertical stripes of bad pixels and I just scheduled to take it in for repair. Do they usually just fix the screen or do they replace the entire computer? I'm curious because I really want to know the following -

Although it's advised, do I actually need to back up my data before taking the computer in for a monitor issue?

You need to backup your data.
Period.

There is a new adage for the digital world we live in...

  "Any data which is not stored in at least three distinct locations ought to be considered temporary"

This translates to one on-site backup, e.g. Time Machine -  & one off-site backup, iCloud, BackBlaze, CrashPlan etc.

The first is to cover for if you break your machine irreparably.
The second is for if the house burns down too.

Without both your data can be lost at the 'whim of the gods'... forever.

Please have a read of my somewhat tongue-in-cheek question I posted on the Ask Different Meta a while ago

Restore from backup?


How can I close an ssh tunnel? I have opened an ssh tunnel with lucas-MacBook-Pro:~ donbeo$ ssh -D 8080 -f -C -q -N donbeo@149.157.140.64

How can I close it now?

You can kill the ssh process like others with

kill -9 $PID

You can find ssh session process ID with

pgrep ssh


iTunes is splitting one podcast into multiple podcasts. How do I fix it? I did not have this problem, until today. A new episode of Cult of Mac came out (#39). It was put into a different podcast folder, even though the episodes before it, have the same metadata. I tried many things; Editing the sorting fields, deleting and re-adding, downloading the #39 again, but none of the methods worked.
How do I non-destructively combine the three folders into one?
(On the disk, the podcasts are in the same folder)
If it matters, I use the Podcasts app on my iPod touch.

Maybe the podcast moved to a different URL. A program like MP3Tag can show and edit extended properties (looks something like PodcastURL). Check the splinter episode and check its URL. Check an older episode. If it has changed, select all older episodes and edit the field. Click OK. Go to iTunes and Get Info for all of those episodes. When it reads the new URL, it should stick them all back together.

Redownloading the older episodes, if available, will accomplish the same thing. (They'll be downloaded from the new URL. But the tag edit is quicker and easier.


Shutdown multiple Windows XP machines with a Mac I have a room full of Windows XP machines and I want to shutdown all the machines remotely with my Mac (10.8.2).

Can this be done and if so, how?

Follow this tutorial to configure the windows machines: http://www.howtogeek.com/109655/how-to-remotely-shut-down-or-restart-windows-pcs/

Then install samba: http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=38629

Then use the net command to execute the shutdown command just like from linux:
http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/2330/shutdown-a-windows-machine-from-linux

If that works you can make a sh file with the command repeated for all the ip addresses of all the computers.


Spotify output to AirPlay speakers on iPad I don't see the AirPlay speaker selection gadget on the Spotify IOS client.

Is AirPlay support something the App developer must provide explicitly?
Is there a way to force the default audio output from an IOS device to an AirPlay speaker at the system level?

D'oh! The AirPlay icon is available in the Spotify client. It is on the Info page rather than the top page.  That's where volume control is, too.


Upgraded to Yosemite, mkdir now says "permission denied" I upgraded from OS 10.7.3 to 10.10.3. Now I get "permission denied" when I run mkdir on folders that I own and have full permission.

For example :
  I own a folder called "/library/webserver/documents". I try to make a subfolder and I get permission denied. I verified that I am logged in as the user that owns the folder. The permissions on it are 755.

A few days ago, when I was still on 10.7.3, I did not have this problem.

What is the solution? I don't want to simply type "sudo [command]" every time I want to make a folder. I just want to use the terminal like it worked before.

I mentioned I owned the directory. I just found out that I actually owned the symbolic link to the directory. The user 'root' owned the directory. I chowned the directory and it works ok now.

My guess is either the upgrade changed the owner of the directory or else it changed the permissions logic regarding symbolic links.


Should I delete an old Photo library having created a new one? Have just created a new Photos folder as the old one was failing to download recent photos from the cloud.

With the new library working fine, should I delete the old (I think there are two or three) one to avoid further conflict?

It's unlikely that there will be any conflict as Photos will pick the new one by default. Nevertheless you will gain some disk space back if you remove the unused library.
To be on the safe side

Verify that all the photos are in the new library in full quality
Create a backup of the old library on an external device
Rename the old library, reboot and keep using the system for 1-2 weeks
If everything works as expected, delete the old library (but keep the backup around for a while)


Xcode 5 upgraded , stuck at Xcode 4.6.3 I upgraded my Xcode 4.6.3 to Xcode 5 on app store but when the upgraded is finish and open my Xcode it is still Xcode 4.6.3, it should be Xcode 5? What is the problem here.

Found at /Developer, I found a way to uninstall Xcode via

$ sudo /Developer/Library/uninstall-devtools --mode=all

I just ran the installer for Xcode 4, and it detected old version of Xcode, offering me to move it to /Developer-old.


Can you still ’undo’ on the iPhone in iOS 11? I found this question and answer iOS undo text field clear (x) via a Google search. Thing is, when I shake my iPhone nothing happens.

Can you still undo on an iPhone using iOS 11? How do I use it?

I didn’t see anything about Undo in settings!

Yes!

On your iPhone do as follows:

Open Settings
Tap on General > Accessibility
Swipe up until you see the Shake to Undo option
Tap on this and enable it
Exit Settings


How can I get multiple computers to use my iTunes library on an external hard drive? I have two Macs -- on usually at home and one carry around. I'd like to keep my music, movies, iPhone apps, etc. on an external drive so that I can always use the same library regardless of which machine I'm at.

I bought a 1 TB external drive for the purpose.

On my first Mac (the one that stays at home one) I went to settings > advanced and set the iTunes library to the external drive. A long filesystem operation ensued. Afterwards, iTunes on that machine seemed to be playing TV shows from the external drive as intended because I could see the drive activity light flashing when I played something. Also, when I try to play something and the drive isn't connected iTunes complains that it can't find the original file. So I think that part is all good.

However, when I plug the external drive into my other computer, launch iTunes, and go to Preferences > Advanced and set the iTunes media folder location to the external drive, none of my media is visible in iTunes.

How can I get iTunes to "see" the media folder on the external drive and play stuff from it and acknowledge the apps that are stored on it?

Mac OS 10.7.2

iTunes 10.5.2

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

You're missing the "Library". The media folder contains the actual audio files, but you need a library pointing to it. The 1st approach is, move everything and make all the iTunes open the same library.

Won't work because when Machine 1 opens the Library.xml, it locks it. Bummer. But turns out that there's a way to do it, if you're willing to involve Dropbox and some patience, check the link but for reference, the idea is:

Move your entire iTunes folder to your home network drive.
Copy the iTunes library (database file, XML files) to your Dropbox folder
Create an alias of the network drive’s iTunes Music folder and place it in your Dropbox folder. Be sure to rename it to iTunes Music (remove the word “alias”). Create an alias of the Album Artwork folder, too. If you skip this step, whenever you import music to your library, it will be copied to your Dropbox folder instead of your network drive. The aliases ensure iTunes places all new library items on the network drive.
On each Mac, configure iTunes to use the library file located in the Dropbox folder. Do this by holding option on your keyboard when clicking the iTunes icon in your dock. You will be prompted to choose an existing library or create a new one. Click “Choose Library” then navigate to your iTunes database file in your Dropbox folder.

You can now access your iTunes library on each Mac without using Home Sharing. iTunes will behave identically on each Mac; you can add music, edit playlists, and sync your iDevices without Apple’s usual restrictions.

There are a couple of Caveats and Gotchas, so check the link for more information.

Or you could just do what I did… get iTunes Match and enjoy a simple easy to use environment. I am really happy the way it works, the caveat is, of course, you will be using bandwidth (or needing it) to stream/download a song. So if you have no connectivity, you can't listen (you can always have one or more machines with a copy of the songs, I have my "master" machine with the 90GBs of music locally, but the Macbook Air and iPhone 'stream' on demand).
The other caveat is that if you "save" local tracks (you can), then you're effectively duplicating your copy. But hey, you can remove/download as you please, as long as it's in the "cloud".

Finally, iTunes Match is for music, so for videos and such, you will have to use Home Sharing (with the annoyance that it's "read only" for the connecting computers), but for music, you can buy/add from any authorized device… and you need to be in a country that supports it (and willing to pay 25 dollars/year). :p


Can't use a defined vhost on xampp I'm having some trouble configuring my localhost with xampp.

I installed de xampp, removed the # to include httpd-vhosts and then, I set a vhost, like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/teste.pp”
    ServerName teste.pp
</VirtualHost>

Also, on my /etc/hosts I set 127.0.0.1 teste.pp

When I access to teste.pp, it does nothing, but if I try to access on localhost/teste.pp it show my test page.

I restarted apache after changing the vhosts.

I'm using sierra.

ok, found the problem.
It was doublequotes ..


MacBook Pro (mid-2012) Microphone Input Here, it says how to use the audio jack as in input. On my MacBook Pro 13" (mid 2012), It doesn't seem to have the option in settings. Is it not possible with these computers?

All PowerBook and MacBook models support analog audio in via the headphone jack.
In your specific case, it is possible to use external microphone on MacBook pro and Air 2012 Models.
It looks like Apple has redesigned it to be a multifunction plug, without telling us in plain English. What they do say is you can use the Apple iPhone headset with microphone! Now that is a Hint !

Since there are multiple options to connect a microphone lets take a look.
1 - For stand alone microphone with cable you could use a USB connector type or Audio to USB converter.
2- You could use a BlueTooth type microphone/Headset.
3 - And last not least, you could actually use your Headphone (as marked) the 1/8 inch plug, but NOT with standard audio plug.
Here is the how: The plug is like the headphone port on iOS devices, this jack supports audio input as well as output—with as described in Apple specification.
Looking under the hood of Apple "About this Mac" you get the answer (it says it does support it).

The microphone or headset in question must be of the three-ring variety, just like Apple’s headsets. The fourth pin (ring) is for the microphone !

OK, what now? Lets assume you insist on using your microphone!!!
Get the 3.5mm 4 Position to 2x 3 Position 3.5mm Headset Splitter Adapter - M/F

... this headset splitter adapter breaks the audio port out into two distinct ports - one that can be used for a microphone input connection, and the other for connecting external (output) speakers.
I found stores in Europe (for about €10), but sure you can find it where you are.


How to increase swap memory in OS X? I think my swap memory is hitting its fullest and would like to know how to increase it.

I very often hit my 8GB RAM limits and my memory pressure (as seen in Active Monitor) goes red quite often. When that happens "Memory Used" and "Swap Used" are both almost 8GB, so I guess I would like the swap to be 16GB.

It's so easy to find this info for ubuntu but with OS X I only find links for "how to disable swap" which is not what I want at all.

P.S. Not rich enough to buy a macbook with 16GB RAM.

Swap is issued only when needed. There is no limit so if you have a memory leak, that will crash a program or allocate swap to grow as needed.
Usually the kernel detects and protects you, but worst case, reboot and swap is cleaned each restart.
How are you measuring things to conclude “swap memory is fullest”? It starts empty and grows as you use the system and then cleans each reboot. What value is swap now?


Google Chrome doesn't import Keychain credidentials after update I had installed the new Google Chrome update and after I restarted the browser, it stopped using my Keychain credentials. Is  it possible to solve this problem somehow ?

Actually, after restarting Chrome two times the issue resolved itself.


How to activate a used iPhone bound to another account (already removed from iCloud)? I want to pass my iPhone on to a friend. I backed up his old phone and restored it to the new one. After restarting it I see this:

This is the case, because I had "Find my iPhone" activated and did not deactivate it before restoring my friends backup.

I followed the instructions of Find My iPhone Activation Lock: Removing a device from a previous owner’s account and removed the phone from my account, by opening icloud.com/#find and removing it.

The problem is, I can still not activate it. Neither with my Apple ID nor with the Apple ID of my friend. I hoped that the deletion and removal from my account would just might take some minutes or even hours, but 12 hours later, the problem still exists.

Anything else I can try?

You mention that you removed the phone from your Find my iPhone in iCloud, but then it can't be activated with anyone's Apple ID. Only the Apple ID that is shown on the page is the one that can be used to activate it. Once it is activated, you can use any Apple ID to register the iPhone and log in to iCloud.

In the screenshot above, only the Apple ID matching e•••••@gmail.com can be used to 'unlock' the phone. Make sure that this is the Apple ID that the device was removed from in Find my iPhone.

Once you have removed the phone from the relevant Find my iPhone account, try rebooting the phone. This should force the device to re-check Apple's servers for the Find my iPhone status of the device. If this fails, simply use the Apple ID that you removed the device from to activate it, then you can set it up normally.


Is any user data stored on Apple AirPort Express I want to sell an AirPort express that I no longer use. Is any user data stored on the unit and if so how do I remove it?

Your AirPort Express does store some unique data including your wireless passphrase, routing table, ARP table, etc.

Beyond that, there should not be any personal data on the device. It does not cache files.

Nonetheless, you should open AirPort Utility on your Mac, select the symbol of the device, and select Base Station -> Restore Default Settings… from the menu bar. That way, the next user will start with a fresh configuration.


SMB connections throws authentication error after upgrading Mac OS X to 10.13 After upgrading Mac OS X to high sierra, SMB connections started returning authentication error. If I use it on other computer (using el capitan), it smb connection works fine with my username and password. Was wondering if anyone else has faced similar issue.

My experience is 10.13.4 broke things.

I have 2 macs, the iMac is running 10.13.3 and logs into the freenas server just fine. The mini was running 10.13.3 and then upgraded to 10.13.4 and it will not login to the freenas server on my normal share.

Needless to say I have switched off all OS upgrades on the machine running 10.13.3. I can login to the Freenas from the mini if I use the guest account but I'd rather not use that.


How can I make autocomplete in the shell work with case-folding? How can I make the autocompletion for files and folders in the bash shell work case-insensitively?

Ideally, cd ~/doc + tab autocompletes to cd ~/Documents (correcting the case as it autocompletes), but if that's not possible autocompleting to cd ~/documents is acceptable too.

You can do that by typing the following command in the terminal:

echo 'set completion-ignore-case On' >> ~/.inputrc

if you want to go back to the original behavior you have the open that file and remove the line.

The file ~/.inputrc file deals with mapping the keyboard for specific situations. This file is the start-up file used by Readline, the input-related library used by Bash, perl and most other open source programs.

  The configuration options in .inputrc are particularly useful for
  customising the way Tab-completion works, e.g. with the ls command

  When a program which uses the Readline library starts up, the init
  file is read, and the key bindings are set.

You can find more information about the file syntax in "Bash startup files".


How do I downgrade my Safari from version 6.1 down to version 6.0.2 on my Mac? I need to downgrade my Safari version from 6.1 back down to 6.0.2.
What are the steps?

Download link for Safari 6.0.2 is here:

http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/53/02/041-8081/jex01nudh37t8cusghkiy1eki5crm76f4b/Safari6.0.2Mountain.pkg


How to crop a photo in inches on iPad? You can crop photos in the Photo app, like "square", "3:2" etc. but are those in inches? Or just ratio? How do I crop a photo in x-inch by y-inch on iPad?

The options presented in the crop dialog in the Photos app are ratios, and can be scaled to any size.

Since digital photographs are simply made of pixels, it is impossible to assign physical measurements to the somewhat abstract representation of an image. The physical size would depend entirely on what scale it is displayed or printed at. An image can have a pixel density of any number of pixels per square inch. For instance, even if you restrict the parameters to iPads with Retina displays, one square inch can hold 264 or 326 pixels.

If you're cropping an image so it will fit on a certain type of photo paper, you can use the ratio of width to height to determine what ratio to crop your image with.


Disk is almost full after restoring to factory defaults After restoring my Macbook pro 2016 (MacOS Catalina 10.15.2) to factory setting, it told me that my disk is almost full, but that is highly unlikely, as I have just restored it !

Here is diskutil list:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         250.7 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +250.7 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data     200.7 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 104.0 MB   disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                528.5 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      5.4 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data     30.5 GB    disk1s5
   6:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            10.9 GB    disk1s6

How should I solve this crisis?

The install didn’t do well. If you have a good backup, I would perform another erase install (or the first erase install if you just reinstalled the OS. Apple doesn’t define a factory reset, so we have no clue what that means unless you reference a written process you performed).

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

What makes an erase install is step 2 - format the disk. Your disk wasn’t formatted correctly. Specifically which of your disk1s1 and disk1s5 contains your user data is in question. You should only have one Macintosh HD - Data per Catalina system volume and not two.


TouchID option not displayed / stops working Over the last couple months, I often run into issues were the TouchID dialog will not display when unlocking the touch Macbook Pro. It will also not display as an option when installing software other options. You are forced to enter your password. I was only able to get it working again by rebooting.

Today I finally figured out how to fix this without rebooting.

Go into System Preferences -> Touch ID
Check or uncheck the boxes under "Use Touch ID for".
When you check or uncheck either "Apple Pay or iTunes & App Store", you will be prompted for your password. Enter your password.
Finally, reset the checkboxes to how they were before.

This will (I assume) restart the Touch ID service and it should start working again.