Creating different quotas for specific machines with Time Machine? I've got Ubuntu server 18 running AFP (Netatalk 3.1.12) and avahi dæmon. This takes the role of a time machine server I use with currently one mac. I would like to use this with several other macs, however I want to be able to set quotas-or volume size limits as they are also referred to as-on a per-machine basis.

So basically machine 1 (UUID based identification) is allowed to use 1.75 tB of my time machine disk for time machine backups, machine 2 is allowed 1.25 tB of space, machine 3 is 2 tB, etc etc etc.

I do see vol size limit as a parameter in afp.conf however I believe this is a global quota that everyone is forced to obey and is not machine-specific. I am looking for a solution that is machine-specific quotas, whether it's a program i have to run on the mac or a setting on the server.

Please inform me of options and if details are not clear and please note my English is not very good-I actually have a friend write this for me so may be better than my english :P

Current mac backing up-High Sierra

Other macs wanted to back up-Sierra, Mojave, Mountain Lion, Lion, El capitan, Yosemite, would like to really backup from Leopard onward however at current point in time I do not have Leopard available.

AFAIK there is no option to limit backup size on the client (macOS) side of things. For server-side limits two options come to mind:

create individual partitions for each Mac to be backed up and size accordingly (on Macs you could also use sparseimages but I don‘t know whether these are available in your setup)
create individual users on the server for each Mac to backup, and assign disk quotas with whatever Linux tools available

PS: I know that the options listed lack the specific commands. But AD is focused on Apple products so solving Linux side problems is out of scope. If you need help in implementing one of the options it might be better to ask a specific question on {askubuntu,unix}.stackexchange.com.


Download Cydia on iOS 10.3.3 I've been trying to download Cydia jailbroken. I only found a Cydia demo. I really need to download Cydia on my iPhone 5 with iOS 10.3.3. Can anyone help me with that?

A reputable jailbreak was released for iOS 10.3.3: Meridian. However, Cydia and Cydia Substrate are not available or functional. Developers have teased functional prototypes of Cydia on iOS 10.3.3 but no public release has been made.


open new tab in iTerm and execute command there I have found way to open new tab in iTerm:

newtabi()
{
    osascript -e 'tell application "iTerm" to activate' -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell process "iTerm" to keystroke "t" using command down'
}

And I want to execute some commands in new tab. Let it be simple command pwd. How to do it?

If I run ...

newtabi && pwd

The new tab is opened as expected, but pwd command is executed not in new tab but in old one, where I typed newtabi && pwd

I use zsh. My os is OS X 10.8.5

Use tell session -1 of current terminal to write text "pwd":

activate application "iTerm"
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "t" using command down
tell application "iTerm" to tell session -1 of current terminal to write text "pwd"


Safari can't connect to localhost I'm trying to use Focus, an app that redirects blocked websites through localhost. However, while this works properly with Chrome and Firefox, Safari gives me an error message as in the attached image.

If in the web address I replace localhost with 127.0.0.1 everything works fine. How can I fix this?

The content of my /private/etc/hosts file is the default one, i.e.

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting. Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1   localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost

EDIT: Here is a screenshot of my proxies.

Edit: this didn't help, ignore it.

This might be related to HSTS. Different browsers deal with it in different ways. Do you have any non-Apache local web server installed? I'm assuming there's something to do with Focus that's running on port 8919 from your screenshot.

Try this: Quit Safari, make a backup of ~/Library/Cookies/HSTS.plist somewhere safe, delete ~/Library/Cookies/HSTS.plist, start Safari, and try that URL again. Does that help?


Where is this "other calendar" coming from on my iPhone I am using Google's exchange service on my iPhone, and I have successfully selected which calendars I want to sync by going to m.google.com or whatever the Sync address is. However, in the native iPhone app, I have this weird calendar called "Birthdays" in the "Other Calendars" section. I have no idea where this calendar is coming from - its not in Outlook (and I don't sync with Outlook anyway), and its not my Google Birthday calendar (the dates are wrong). How do I remove it? I'm using an iPhone 3GS with iOS 4.1.

I believe this comes from the address book. If you add a vcard with birthday information, it gets synced to iCal in this calendar. And then it might be getting synced to your phone.


Why is Apple telling me to change my password after receiving a password reset email? I received an email telling me that someone requested a password reset for my Apple ID.

  Dear ___,

  You recently made a request to reset your password or unlock your Apple ID. Please click the link below to continue.

  Reset Password or Unlock Apple ID >

  If you did not make this change or you believe an unauthorised person has accessed your account, go to iforgot.apple.com to reset your password without delay. Following this, sign into your Apple ID account page at https://appleid.apple.com/gb to review and update your security settings.

  Sincerely,

  Apple Support

The part highlighted in bold seems to be saying that I should reset my password. Why?

Here is my general understanding of password reset procedures:

Someone requests a password reset (any person can do this for any account)
An email containing next steps is sent to the account holder's email
The email from step 2 is required to actually perform the password reset

Therefore, unless my email is compromised (which I have no reason to believe), there is no reason to think my Apple ID is at risk, based on the information provided so far. Right?

I also asked @AppleSupport about it on Twitter:

And so they said:

  If you did not request this change, for security reasons, update your password.

Given that anyone on the internet can request a password reset for any account, and given that to do so is futile without access to the account holder's email, what security reasons could Apple possibly talking about?

An example of why I think this could be a silly suggestion, let us suppose somebody wanted to annoy somebody else: all he would need to do is send repeated password reset requests. Should the recipient then feel obligated to change his password each time, "for security reasons"?

So, why is Apple saying that I should change my password? And if the answer is "security reasons", what are some examples?

I'm not sure this question is actually on-topic here because you're effectively asking why Apple does something? That said, I offer this answer in the event it is kept open, and because I have worked in the IT Security field.

At the outset, I'm assuming that the email you received was a genuine email from Apple and not a phishing attempt.

The reality is that if someone other than you has requested a password reset, then you should assume they are up to no good. And, if that is the case, how many of your other online services are they also trying to access/reset?

Unfortunately, many online users use the same password for many accounts. And this vulnerability is the number one way that hackers (etc) breach accounts. For example, you would have heard of the iCloud leaks of celebrity photos (known as The Fappening) that occurred in August 2014. While at first it appeared that the fault was somehow related to Apple's iCloud services, after an investigation Apple stated:

  The leaked images were the result of compromised accounts, using "a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet". None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple’s systems including iCloud® or Find my iPhone.

Source: Apple Media Advisory

This highlights why Apple would want you to change your password. Say you were being targeted by someone, by obtaining your password from one site they know there's a good chance you've used the same password on another. And if someone has deliberately tried to reset your Apple ID password, then from a risk management perspective you have to assume they've also tried accessing some of your other online services.

So, by Apple telling you reset your password on their service, they are trying to help you manage that risk.

Unfortunately, it's often not just the same password people use on their accounts, but the same security questions, the same recovery emails, etc. So, resetting your password is an excellent precautionary measure to take.

Finally, by Apple stating in their email to reset your password without delay, they are exercising their duty of care and this would be very important in the event of a breach and/or subsequent legal action.


Can't view contents of a certain existing folder I have a flash drive formatted to ExFat with multiple folders, one of which contains various mp4 files. Likely because of some stupid decisions which include "Forcing the computer to shut down in the middle of a process because it appeared to be at a standstill," the folder with the mp4 files no longer display its contents when I click on it. Instead it shows me an empty folder for a few seconds before shutting finder down on its own.

All of the other folders are fine, and spotlight searching the flash drive shows the files, so they're still there somewhere. I can play them as normal through spotlight search, but attempting to click "Get info" results in Finder shutting down again. I can't move the files out of the folder through spotlight search either.

I've tried copying the folder from the flash drive to the desktop, and it gives that window that says "Copying x amount of files," but after ejecting the flashdrive, the files no longer show up in the spotlight search, as if none of the files actually transferred. Opening the desktop folder also results in Finder quitting.

Just before all this occurred, I had a problem with the Spotlight Comments section where none of the words would display, but they still popped up in Spotlight searches. Likely due to similar stupid decisions. (I don't learn, apparently)

I've considered plugging the flash drive into another computer to see what it does, but I'm afraid it might somehow make things worse, and the folder on the flash drive may be the only copy of it left, depending on if the one I copied to the desktop actually contains the files or not.

I've tried moving the folder from the desktop onto another flash drive just for the hell of it, but that appears empty too, and also quits Finder when opened. I tried re-indexing the desktop folder, though its reason for not working may be because the files aren't there. I tried running mkdir ${TMPDIR}/com.apple.IconServices in Terminal too, from another suggestion, but the flash drive wasn't plugged in when I did. I'm just afraid to do anything to the folder on the flash drive itself because it may be the only copy I have left, and I don't want to make things worse.

I don't know if any of this is important, but the computer I'm using is a Mac OS X Lion, made in early 2008 with a Windows 7 partition (I've been using the Mac side though.) It's pretty ancient, and I'm pretty stupid, so I'm not surprised I'm having problems.

If you still can access the content of the drive via Terminal:

Use rsync, ditto, or cp to copy the content of the whole flash drive onto another drive
Reformat the flash drive
Copy your data back

I'm not sure whether it's wise to trust a drive which doesn't seem to fully work anymore. Maybe replacing it with a new one is the safer approach.


When plugging in iPhone, iTunes and iPhoto open on my Mac So, I've seen this question and tried to follow it... but it happens regardless. And to top it all off, iTunes gives me a grave warning now everytime I plugin my phone "if you do not authorize this computer, 22 apps, including “AccuWeather”, and their data will be deleted from this iPhone."

My Mac is using a different apple ID than my phone because my Mac is my work machine, but my phone is personal. I think this has something to do with it. I need to plugin my iPhone to my Mac to use for development (ie, testing apps and such) but I don't need to manage anything else through it.

How can I get the constant barrage of apps and now warnings/potential of lose of data from popping up each time I plug my iPhone into my Mac?

My Mac is using Yosemite and my iPhone iOS 8.3.. Everything is up to date

You can also write a little script that prevents iPhoto from lunching automatically.

Just to make sure I got your question: you want to disable auto lunch for iTunes and Photos app + Disable auto sync in iTunes. Am I right?


GitSupport.sh permanently running, apparently hangs I have a niggling process that sometimes runs persistently, somewhat randomly, and sometimes cannot be cancelled. In the screenshot, there are three processes of the same running simultaneously. I'm wondering if anyone has seen this before. I'm not able to locate the process in the command line. I have Git installed for local web development, so it obviously relates to that, but I'm wondering what it's searching for, and why it hangs, and what I can do to make the process work and quit, instead of sometimes running perpetually.

I had the same problem, in my case it was caused by the Right Click Booster app.

com.HobbyistSoftware.RightClick.RCPlugin/GitSupport.sh


Can I verify if data protection was enabled from a backup? I recently lost my phone but have a very recent backup. I've enabled the remote wipe feature using iCloud but the device has not been online since being lost. It was low on battery power so likely died.

I'd like to verify that the device was set up to erase the data after X failed passcode attempts. However, I'm having a really hard time finding where in the backup that information would be stored. My suspicion/fear is that it might not be stored at all and thus I have no way to really ensure that it's relatively safe.

I've already enabled remote erase if it comes online, changed passwords for critical systems and banned the device from multiple services. And while I'm 99% sure I set it up to erase, I'd really like the peace of mind that the last 1% offers.

Much appreciated for any responses.

You'll not likely be able to establish security after the fact directly. The protection is a combination of the hardware in the iOS device and the setting of a passcode lock and not a preference stored on a filesystem - it's baked into the OS. The backed up data is not encrypted at rest in the same manner as iOS's security. The act of restoring the backup also overrides whatever passcode lock and settings you had, so that's not a good way to proceed.

What you can do is research the exact model of the phone and the version of iOS. Grab this pdf from Apple: http://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf

Starting on Page 9 it describes the conditions needed for data to be encrypted at rest. It also has valuable information about what types of data is readable if someone guesses your passcode.

What you can do is restore your backup to the same class of hardware and observe that with a passcode set, the data protection is enabled. Hopefully you have an A7 or later processor since the PIN entry is governed by hardware rate limiters to reduce the chance your PIN can be brute forced.


How to add notes to iCloud via sending an email I use a lot of notes apps on my iPad IOS 7, and I like the option of adding a note via sending the note to a custom email address instead of opening the app and adding the note manually (Like evernote for example).

Still, I couldn't find such functionality regarding iCloud Notes ! I have iCloud Notes syncing my notes from two sources

(1) from my iDevices and (2) from my gmail notes folder
In Gmail, I tried sending an email to myself; forwarding; and auto labeling them, that did move the emails to notes folder but they did not sync to iCloud.

I have searched pages and pages of google and noooo clue. Does anyone have any idea or a workaround to apply this on iCloud notes ?

Although I, personally, do not use the Notes.app (preferring Simplenote) my Wife uses the Notes.app in conjunction with her gmail account.

So if you have a gmail account it has a notes label that will add emails with that label to your notes.

It should be easy enough to create a rule to route any emails to that address with a specific phrase in the subject line to mark it as read and with the notes label.

This is not exactly what you were looking for. It requires a gmail account which may be a no-starter for some people, and I don't think that Apple has a way to create a note from an email other than copy/paste. But it might be worth looking into.


Reinstalling OS X Lion vs restoring from Time Machine backup If the system doesn't boot up (it was due to this issue), is it better to reinstall OS X Lion, or restore from a Time Machine backup?

I do see a Time Machine backup from 3 AM last night, so if that is used to restore the machine, will it read all 600 GB from the external backup drive and copy it to the iMac's hard drive, or will it just do the selective restore, kind of like Windows 7's setting a restore point, and any rollback should be partial - i.e., it only needs to restore a few files to make the system work fine again, but is it the same as on OS X Lion's Time Machine restore?

Is restoring a better approach than reinstalling OS X?

A Time Machine restore will restore to the last point in time in the backup. A fresh install of Lion will bring your machine to new status.

However, if you do a fresh install and tell it to use the Time Machine backup to restore your data, it will also bring it back to the same point in time.

Some people [citation needed] prefer to use this opportunity to do a fresh install and then selectively drag the data they want from Time Machine back again.

However, keep in mind that if you set up a new backup, it could overwrite the old one.


Multiple menubars with external monitors How can the menubar (with the Apple icon, active program name, and options. like File, Edit, View, History) be displayed on each monitor at the same time?

Update:
In the same desktop Space.

You can only do it by separating the two monitors into separate Spaces - System Prefs > Mission Control.

Personally, I wouldn't, the change to your working method is too great. I'd live with one menu bar, but it's your call.


How can I kill Finder if it's not responding? I have some Finder windows that I just cannot close. They are completely unresponsive, and have the rainbow wheel whenever I select any of them.

Force Quit / Relaunch doesn't help, because the windows just get reopened again and they continue to be unresponsive. They also don't respond to e.g. Command + Option + W.

Other applications are fine, it's just Finder that's stuck.

Is there a way I can force quit Finder without reopening all the windows?

Answer found here.

Open a terminal, and move the saved settings from Finder into a backup folder just in case:

mv ~/L*/S*/*finder.savedState Desktop

Then, you can Force Quit Finder as usual using Command + Option + Esc, or use this handy terminal command:

killall Finder

Then, assuming everything looks good, you can delete the finder.savedState folder which has appeared on your desktop.


brew search generates mail notification "You recently used a password to access an endpoint through the GitHub API using Homebrew/2.2.2" I got a mail from GitHub:

  You recently used a password to access an endpoint through the GitHub
  API using Homebrew/2.2.2 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15.2)
  curl/7.64.1. We will deprecate basic authentication using password to
  this endpoint soon:

  https://api.github.com/search/code?q=user%3AHomebrew+path%3AFormula+path%3ACasks+path%3A.+filename%3Abusybox+extension%3Arb&per_page=100

  We recommend using a personal access token (PAT) with the appropriate
  scope to access this endpoint instead. Visit
  https://github.com/settings/tokens for more information.

  Thanks, The GitHub Team

The mail came after I searched for formula:

~ brew search test
Warning: Cask 'sqleo' is unreadable: undefined method `method_missing_message' for Utils:Module
Warning: Cask 'squirrelsql' is unreadable: undefined method `method_missing_message' for Utils:Module
Warning: Cask 'yiddish-klal' is unreadable: undefined method `method_missing_message' for Utils:Module
==> Formulae
cpptest                      cxxtest                      memtester                    phoronix-test-suite          slowhttptest                 testdisk                     unittest                     vttest
cpputest                     git-test                     minetest                     shelltestrunner              speedtest-cli                testssl                      unittest-cpp

==> Casks
aja-system-test                                colortester                                    emacs-pretest                                  nsregextester                                  sqlitestudio
clementine-latest                              eclipse-testing                                latest                                         socket-io-tester                               synology-note-station-client

Always a prompt like this pops up:

It look like I have some kind of misconfiguration? I don't like that brew uses my GitHub credentials.

I don't like that brew uses my GitHub credentials.

Brew is not using your GitHub credentials, you are.

Brew is just an exceptionally advanced scripting engine that allows you to download and build from source software that’s found on GitHub, Sourceforge, et al.  It’s important to note that you’re not downloading from Brew, but a Brew is automating your download of the software.

What steps did you take to save git keys in your shell environment?

You would reverse that to have brew not be granted access to your keys when it calls git or makes web / API calls.

https://help.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/connecting-to-github-with-ssh


Automator Newbie question I'm running my Mac under 10.9.2 and have about 75 scanned Tiff files which need to be processed through the OCR app, TesseractGUI 0.3. It works very well for me but balks at .tiff extensions and Alpha enabled files. In small batches I've been using Preview to Export, deleting the second "f" and unchecking the Alpha. This manual file adjustment works well.

Time to put Automator to use. I've gone through Apple's "Basic Tutorial" but there's not enough detail to find my way. I've been having a devil of a time getting inexplicable running errors.

I've conceived of a routine where whatever is put in a "Process" folder on the desktop will automatically delete the second "f" in the extension and uncheck the Alpha. Then move the revised file to a "Processed" folder also on the desktop. That way I'd still have my unchanged originals as well as files TesseractGUI will accept.

Appreciate some guidance.

You can run a Terminal command to batch edit the extensions and move the files to the processed folder:

  cd /path/to/folder

where /path/to/folder is the folder containing the originals.

  for file in *.tiff; do cp "$file" "${file%tiff}tif"; mv *.tif ~/Desktop/Processed; done

This command will leave the originals in the original folder, and move the "processed (tif)" files to the "Processed" folder. The script is a bit sloppy regarding syntax, but would easily get the job done. I don't know how to automate unchecking "Alpha."

Note that you can incorporate Shell commands into an Automator routine as well, under Library > Utilities > Run Shell Script.


In the app store how do you determine if an app is iCloud compatible before purchase? A few months ago on the Arqade site I asked if the iOS version of Chrono Trigger put save games in the cloud. DCol provided a great answer detailing how to check if iOS apps you own backup to the cloud:

  To check for other games/apps (if you own them) look under Settings >
  iCloud > Storage & Backup > Manage Storage.

  The apps listed under 'Documents & Data' sync between devices.

  The apps listed under your device's name are backed up, but not synced
  via iCloud unless they are also in the previously mentioned list.

  Some games/apps sync using cloud servers other than iCloud (Eg:
  Dropbox). In this case, they would appear in the back-up list, but not
  the Documents & Data list, but would still be syncing.

While his answer is still the best one given the question I asked I was about to ask a similar question concerning another game. Obviously this won't scale. Is there a way in the app store to determine if an app (game) is iCloud (or other sync service) compatible before purchase?

Honestly the best option is to just read the description in the App Store, the developer's website, and any reviews you can find. There's nothing in the App Store metadata that will tell you whether it uses iCloud or not.


OSX Applications folder window has become 'unsortable' OSX 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion)

My Applications folder has recently become unsortable when it's open in Finder. That is, all the various headers of each column in the Applications window are flat white and clicking on any of them has no effect. I'm not sure what's caused it; whatever caused it, it's not something I've done deliberately.

Normally, at least one column header is in the computer's highlight colour, to signify that's the one that's controlling how the window's files are sorted. In this case, none of the headers are in colour, and clicking on any of them has no effect on the sort within the window. Only the Applications window is affected, all the other Finder windows work normally.

Thinks I've checked:
• The folder that encloses the Applications folder sorts normally, and folders inside the Applications window sort normally when opened.
• A new folder created in the Applications folder, when opened, works normally.
• All the applications inside the applications folder launch normally.

In Get Info, the Applications folder is not being shared and nor is it locked (the Locked option is greyed out, however). The Sharing & Permissions table shows that the System and Admin (which is me) can each Read & Write to the folder, while Everyone is read only. There's nothing obviously out of its proper setting in Get Info (although I don't know if the grey'd Locked setting is normal for the apps folder; it is live in other folders.

Opening the Applications folder in a new, virgin account on the same computer shows the same problem.

At the moment, the files in the folder are sorted in reverse order (z to a), which is annoying but I can limp along with it like that.

Do you have any suggestions for how I might fix the folder so that it sorts properly?

Things I've tried:

• In the Get Info window, changing Everyone to Read & Write temporarily has no effect on the issue.

• Changing Admin to Read Only temporarily, and then back to Read & Write, has no effect on the issue at either stage.

Finder has had separate arrange by and sort by modes since 10.7. That usually happens when arrange by is set to something other than none.

The pop-up button on the toolbar always changes the arrange by mode, but View > Arrange By turns to Sort By when you hold option, and for example ⌃⌥⌘6 sorts by size.


Why does my mac drop connection to my network regularly I have had my macbook air for almost a year with no problems however over the last couple of weeks it keeps dropping its connection to my network on a regular basis. The only way to fix it is for me to turn Wi-Fi off then on again, then it works again fine - for a while - then the same thing happens all over again. It is very frustrating.

If I ping my router's IP address I get a valid response while it's working but while it wont connect to the network I get "Request timeout for icmp_seq".

No other computers / phones that connect to the Wi-Fi are affected by this problem, it is only my mac.

This is driving me crazy, I've tried stuff on other forums where people have had similar problems but have had no luck. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Have you changed your network settings at any point? If so you may need to set the network to automatic and renew DHCP. Please see the instructions here: http://www.technobezz.com/mac-wont-connect-to-wifi/


Portable apps for Mac? Windows users have the luxury of being able to load a flash drive with specially-modified "portable" applications, which run and keep all data contained on the flash drive so that moving them from computer to computer doesn't change the experience or modify the host computer at all. In the past I have gotten various apps from portableapps.com for this purpose.

Now that I'm a Mac owner, I wonder, is there an equivalent for Mac? At first thought I figured applications could just be copied from the Applications folder onto a drive, since they are self-contained; but I do know a little bit about how they actually store preferences in other directories and some even store things in the Library folder and stuff like that. So applications aren't truly natively portable, even if they require no installation.

Are there any portable Mac apps out there? Are there some recommended websites for these apps?

Big list of Portable Mac Apps here

http://www.freesmug.org/portableapps
http://osxportableapps.sourceforge.net/

And if you use Google, you'd find those, and many many other sites...


Locate tool won’t work, how do I fix I was trying to update the locate database, but when input sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb, I got a bunch of errors. When I try to use locate again it would not work. I can’t remember what I did, but I ended up finding out that the locate.updatedb file had been corrupted. I got locate to work again by using Time Machine to recover the locate.database file. But I want to be able to update locate without corrupting the file. How do I fix this?

The command to update the database is

sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb

It should get run automatically every week from /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.locate.plist but you can run it manually if required.


How to receive iMessages ONLY on the device you are currently using? Is it possible to receive iMessages on the device you are currently using, and only that device.  If so, how?

Background:  I don't want to receive iMessages on my iMac and Macbook Air when I'm not there.  I'd like to restrict iMessages being sent to my phone unless I'm currently using my iMac or Macbook Air.

No - this isn't possible.

You would have to sign out of iMessage entirely on the devices that you wish to not receive notifications.


globstar: invalid shell option name on macOS even with bash 4.X The new globstar option requires bash 4. So.. Which bash are we on?

 $bash --version
GNU bash, version 4.4.12(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin16.3.0)
Copyright (C) 2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>

Let us try out globstar :

13:39:28/forecast-fresh $shopt -s globstar
-bash: shopt: globstar: invalid shell option name
13:39:32/forecast-fresh $

Is there any way to get support for this on macOS?

Entering shopt will get you a list with all bash options which doesn't include globstar for Apple's bash. Probably bash is compiled without support for this option.

To get a bash executable with globstar install brew and brew's bash:

$ brew install bash
$ chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash
$ sudo bash -c 'echo /usr/local/bin/bash >> /etc/shells'
$ ln -s /usr/local/bin/bash /usr/local/bin/bash-terminal-app

Then change the default shell opened in Terminal to /usr/local/bin/bash-terminal-app and to suppress the 'Do you want to close this tab?' prompt when closing windows and tabs, add 'bash' to the list of exclusions.

The new option list is then:

$ shopt
autocd          off
cdable_vars     off
cdspell         off
checkhash       off
checkjobs       off
checkwinsize    on
cmdhist         on
compat31        off
compat32        off
compat40        off
compat41        off
compat42        off
compat43        off
complete_fullquote  on
direxpand       off
dirspell        off
dotglob         off
execfail        off
expand_aliases  on
extdebug        off
extglob         off
extquote        on
failglob        off
force_fignore   on
globasciiranges off
globstar        off
gnu_errfmt      off
histappend      off
histreedit      off
histverify      off
hostcomplete    on
huponexit       off
inherit_errexit off
interactive_comments    on
lastpipe        off
lithist         off
login_shell     on
mailwarn        off
no_empty_cmd_completion off
nocaseglob      off
nocasematch     off
nullglob        off
progcomp        on
promptvars      on
restricted_shell    off
shift_verbose   off
sourcepath      on
xpg_echo        off

Under certain circumstances /usr/local/share/ and its subfolders are owned by root (e.g after installing smartmontools, nmap, node etc. with their custom installers) and some of the steps fail. In my opinion it's save to chown -R the folders to the admin user who installed brew/bash. In my almost vanilla install of macOS and brew, /usr/local/share and /usr/local/share/locale are owned by this admin user.


How do I pause a download in the Launchpad in OS X Lion? I started downloading XCode on my 10 mbit/s but it is 4 GB and I want to pause it for a while.

Open Mission Control and just click on the Downloading Xcode icon. This will pause it. Clicking again will resume.


macbook pro not detecting projector I have a MBP that suddenly stopped detecting an external projector. I have used the same laptop with the same projector before. Right now when I boot the same laptop to the Windows partition it works fine with the projector, so I don't think it is a hardware problem. Any suggestions as to what to try? I have tried the "detect displays" trick and that doesn't seem to work.

I would say it's your adaptor. I had the exact same behaviour. Changed the cables over and it started working again.

I've had it happen on HDMI cable and mini display port/thunderbolt adaptor.


Can anyone recommend a hw/sw combination to allow me to preview a Component input with audio on a Mac? Trying to find a way to take component video and audio output from a device, and preview it on-screen in a window.  We don't need recording or encoding capabilities, but we would like as low latency as possible.  This would allow us to hook up things like a TiVo or game console and play it in a window of our PC without having to dedicate an entire monitor.

I would highly recommend the Elgato line of capture hardware as they are reasonably priced, well supported, come with the software you need and have been in the business for quite some time.

Even for some prosumer applications, Elgato hardware is good enough for the job as some input sources are not going to be improved by spending $2000 on hardware that can do impressive amounts of A/D conversion and fancy time sync olympics.

You could go cheaper on the hardware (especially if you only need composite instead of component input), but my experience is if you know exactly what you're doing - you already can judge what cheap thing you can press into service and what is a waste of your time. I'd buy from a retailer that has a nice return policy or can make sure you buy the appropriate package.

http://www.adorama.com/EG1040.html


Where are the User and Group definitions stored in High Sierra? I would like to inspect UID and GID numerical values on my High Sierra (10.13.4) server, so that I can coordinate and de-conflict these for use with NFS. Since NFS authenticates at the server level, UIDs and GIDs need to match across the set of machines using the NFS served files, to properly preserve and enforce file and folder permissions.

Traditionally, Unix machines hold these values in /etc/passwd and /etc/group. These files do not contain the Users and Groups I have added to my system.

I can inspect individual user's and group's IDs in the System Preferences dialog, but this becomes tedious with many users. I really need to list all the UIDs and GIDs I have previously configured.

The man page for chmod(1) does not mention any files. The man page for passwd(1) mentions the non-traditional file /etc/master.passwd but this file similarly lacks my Users and Groups.

Is there a .plist file somewhere containing these added User and Group definitions?

The user and group information on a Mac are stored in Directory Services. That service can bind to external sources and alternate "local" sources like NFS, LDAP, ActiveDirectory (LDAP) but by default, unless you opt in to a directory - the user and group database is locally managed.

You can find the default local files in /private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/groups and users. They are stored in binary plist format so you need to use /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy or similar to read them.

Alternately, you can use the easier method of the dscl utlity which allows you to read and change Directory Services entries. Using dscl has the added bonus of reading any of the optional sources in their preference to retrieve this information the same a program would.


What files should be copied to manually migrate a user account? The user account I normally use has something wrong with its native OS "Internet Accounts" configuration. It's corrupted or something. This causes login failures within native OS X apps such as "Messages", "Notes", "Contacts", "Calendar". I've tried deleting all temporary files, such as preferences files. Nothing has worked.

I want to create a fresh, new user account and copy over my preexisting user files for non-native applications so that my software licenses and software configurations are restored faithfully within this fresh account.

What folders/files will I need to copy?
Is there anything else I'll need to do, such as set permissions on those files?

Remove accounts.plist file from /Users/username/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/ as well as /Users/username/Library/Preferences/com.apple.internetaccounts.plist
Log out, then log back in.
Try it again.


How to boost microphone input volume above 100%? My internal microphone broke, and I have an external microphone on my webcam on an external monitor that is extremely quiet even when the volume is set to 100%.
I tried using Boom, Loopback, and SoundSource, all of them can amplify output (speaker) volumes to above 100% but not microphone volumes.

Is there a way to boost the microphone's input volume above 100%?

Edit:
I'm using it for Zoom meetings, so I need a software that modifies the volume in real-time.

To increase the sound, import the sound file into an iMovie project. Once it is in, select the audio recording and drag the volume slider to anything beyond 100% (you can also click the sound button in the app and increase it from there).
Once you're done modifying the volume, share the iMovie project as an audio file.


Can I use my iPhone 4s (jailbroken to unlock) in Australia? I have an Irish iPhone 4s already jailbroken for Italian Vodafone. I must use the iPhone 5 SIM with an adapter and the phone works only with my Italian SIM.

Now I am in Australia and I would like to unlock and use it with my Australian SIM! Is it possible? Do I need a new jailbreak?

if your iPhone is already unlocked (e.g. jailbroken and ultrasn0w installed from Cydia) then you don't need to do anything. Just put in the SIM you want and it should work.


Cannot trash old shared PC There is an old shared connection that I had setup to a PC to transfer files from the PC to the Mac and I cannot get rid of it.

Here is a shot of the message when I drag to the trash; control click give no trash option.

Try disabling / re-enabling Bonjour:

Uncheck Bonjour computers, wait a few seconds, and re-check it. That should clear out the shared computer.


iTunes help switching songs from one user to another I'm sharing a computer with my sister and she has her iTunes completely disorganized. I created my own user account on the computer, and am wondering how I can move the music from the iTunes to my user account. I go to file, library, export library and save the file but that's not working.

Go to Home > Music and copy the "iTunes" folder to an external drive.

If you don't have an external drive big enough, you can move it to Macintosh HD > Users > (Your User Name) > Public > Dropbox. (You can copy it directly to your music file from another user, as those folders are only editable when you are in your account).

Login to your user, and move the "iTunes" folder from wherever it is to Home > Music. Open iTunes: your sister's library should be loaded.

PSS: I by no means am advocating the copy of copyrighted content with this post. I imply your music is legally downloaded, and you are moving the library with the intent of organizing it and not duplicating it in any way. Don't do illegal stuff!


How to tie "Primary" and "Secondary" monitor spaces? I want to have 9 set of spaces, each one spanning 2 monitors. In other words, when I switch to space 1, both of my monitors update their current space, as in the following diagram

I saw "Displays use different spaces" setting, but this doesn't quite do what I want

Is there some setting or a utility I can use for this?

I have intentionally blurred the window contents; no need to clean your glasses ;)

Disable "Displays have different spaces", that will make them move as coherent pairs. Additionally disabling 'auto rearrange based on recent' will make the numbering stick.

So - this is 2 monitors, 7 spaces. Each 'Space' covers the pair of screens & their contents. Changing Space changes both monitors simultaneously.
The 'reappearing window' top right is Activity Monitor, which is set to be on all Spaces. Everything else lives on its own Space & only appears when I switch to that Space.
The gif is a 'live' movie of me using the keyboard to call each Space in sequence, then back to the first [then the gif cycles & you see the movie title again]


Can I install OS X from external hard drive to internal hard drive? My hard drive is failing so I put a brand new 500gb hard drive in my MacBook 2008 white 13".

I have a retail disc of Snow Leopard but the install keeps failing over and over again.  It hangs at 29 minutes remaining, 28 minutes remaining and fails at 14 minutes remaining with loads of errors in the install log.

My idea was to connect the old hard drive (which has Lion installed) using a USB docking station, boot from that and using the installer on the old hard drive desktop, install Lion straight onto my new internal hard drive.

Would this work and if not how can I get either Lion or Snow Leopard installed on my new internal hard drive?

Yes - Mac do not care if the boot drive is connected internally or externally.

I usually recommend installing the OS on the new drive with it connected externally since you don't do the swap until after you know the drive boots externally, but the opposite order is fine.

Now, if you have problems, it's going to be because of hardware issue (cable, or drive failure) or possibly the software isn't complete / correct.


Bootcamp - Stuck on "Partitioning Disk..." When attempting to add a Windows 10 (April 2018, build 1803) partition to my 2019 iMac, I get stuck on "Partitioning disk..." perpetually.

When I look at Disk Utility, the OSXRESERVED and BOOTCAMP partitions appear:

My iMac is running the latest stable release of macOS, 10.14.5 (18F132). Is there a known bug/solution to this problem?

Apple released a patch for my issue here: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2007


Multiple empty Chrome/Google setup volumes in root Finder folder Unknown Reason for Excessive repetitive removable volumes with either no files inside or inaccessible directories. I have been getting these artifacts as seen in the image since installing OS X Yosemite. Very mysterious. Anyone with similar errors or with an explaination, or even better - a solution, I would be most grateful to hear from you.

Thanks.

I'm having a similar problem, though I haven't seen the Chrome Canary folders. I've tried two things now (one in the last few minutes, so let's see if it works this time).

First, open Applications > Utilities > Terminal and copy/paste the following:

cd /tmp
sudo rm -rf 2014*

At this point you will be prompted for a password. Enter the password you use to login to your Mac.

Then copy/paste this line:

open .

You should have a Finder window popup. On the sidebar, click on your computer's name and make sure that you don't see any of the Google/Chrome folders.

Second, uninstall the Google Voice and Video plugin. It can be reinstalled if needed in the future, but the uninstall/reinstall process seems to prevent these volumes from showing up again for some people.

Again in Terminal, copy/paste the following:

/Library/Application\ Support/Google/GoogleVoiceAndVideoUninstaller.app/Contents/MacOS/GoogleVoiceAndVideoUninstaller

Press Enter and a dock icon should appear, along with a small window requesting credentials. Enter your Mac login password again and after a minute, it should tell you that Google Voice and Video was uninstalled.

You may have luck with uninstalling and reinstalling Chrome Canary if this didn't fix those folders.


Is there any way to transfer data from old phone's sim card to iPhone 4? I recently got the new iPhone 4 but it doesn't have my contacts and old text messages etc. I previously had the iPhone 3gs. When I upgraded my iphone 3gs to iphone 4 they gave me a new sim card but it was basically a replica of my old sim card (eg.same number).

The iPhone can't actually read messages from the SIM card, you need to back it up to your machine and set the iPhone 4 up with the 3GS backup


How to specify group id for a user-defined group When I set up my accounts in Snow Leopard Server, I was able to give an explicit group id to my user-defined groups using the old Workgroup Manager. Now that I've updated to Mountain Lion Server, I miss that precise control.

Here is my problem: I created the following groups and group ids in
OS X 10.6 Server

 1025 - myteam
 1026 - workgroup
 1027 - theAteam
 9000 - zombiesquad
 9001 - hoboes

When I migrated to OS X 10.8 with the new Server app, my groups and group ids have all been scrambled:

 1025 - workgroup
 1026 - myteam
 1027 - theAteam
 1028 - zombiesquad
 1029 - hoboes

How do I go about setting the groups and group ids back to their prior assignment?

You can still use Workgroup Manager on Mountain Lion.  You just have to download it and install it.
You can also do it using command line tools, but since you're used to Workgroup Manager, just use that.
Added May 2018:
In later versions of OS X, you can edit the group IDs directly from the System Preferences → Users & Groups control panel. Ctrl-click the group name and select "Advanced Options..." from the popup menu. That will display a form that lets you change the group ID (as well as the group name and the group UUID). Be careful though, as this just lets you change the mapping of number to name. Any resource associated with group ID 1025, for example, will still belong to group 1025, even if you change the group name associated with that ID. Which resources are associated with a group by ID, which by name, and which by UUID, I do not know.


Opening a new tab in Chrome makes all bluetooth devices disconnected I have an issue using the following versions

Chrome 65.0.3325.181 (Official Build) (64-bit)

MacOS Sierra 10.12.6

When I open a new tab, sometimes all my bluetooth devices (headphones, mouse, keyboard) become disconnected. They come back in ~5 minutes, resetting devices or the bluetooth module doesn't help

The issue was in the voice search ("OK Google")

When a user opens a new tab, Chrome sometimes tries to access microphone to use voice search which breaks bluetooth connectivity.

Resolution:

Go to chrome://flags/ and disable option "Enable Voice Search on the local NTP"


How can I choose a specific location for Logic's 40GB of additional content? I have an SSD onto which I've installed the operating system OS X 10.10.1, as well as my applications. I also have a much larger and much slower internal HDD for storage and other rarely-accessed files.

I use Logic X for audio editing, and I have historically enjoyed having access to the 40GB of instruments and sounds referred to as "additional content" optionally available for download from the program menu.

When attempting to download the additional content, Logic informs me that there is not enough free disk space to download all 40GB, which is just as well, because even if I had the space I would prefer that these 40GB of additional content files remain on the HDD rather than the SSD.

How can I specify an alternate location in which to keep Logic's 40GB of additional content files?

If there is no such setting, would it be possible and/or advisable to create some kind of file system pointer for the additional content's folder, à la unix-style symbolic link, across different physical media? (or at least to another partition on the same physical disk?)

Answer stolen borrowed here:

Download this for free: symbolic linker
Copy original 'Logic' Folder located in /Volumes/"SSDVolumeName"/Library/Application Support/ on the desired external drive and location.This is the location where all your additional content is beeing installed to.
You can delete the original folder or rename it and use it as a backup.
Use the symbolic link tool to create a symbolic link from the 'Logic' file which has been copied to your external drive.
Place the link (which looks like an alias) to its previous destination (/Volumes/"SSDVolumeName"/Library/Application Support/) and rename it to 'Logic'.
After this you will be able to download additional content.
Be aware if you want to download 30 GB of content and your SSD has just 20GB free space, it will show you the same error message because it stores the download file still on your SSD until installation is done. The solution for this is to download everything part by part."

or:

Using the Finders 'Go to Folder' menu option, enter:

/private/var/folders/

A look in the various folders there will reveal a folder called "com.apple.MusicApps/audiocontentdownload.apple.com/".
Copy the folder "lp10_ms3_content_2013" to your external drive, delete the original and symlink this folder on your external drive back to /private/var/folders/../com.apple.MusicApps/audiocontentdownload.apple.com/
If the folder "lp10_ms3_content_2013" is missing in the original just create it on your external drive and link it back.
(not tested)


Vine VNC server at login I've been trying to run Vine system server on 10.7.x and 10.8.x so that I can login while no one is using the remote computer. As a connection is made I do get the login screen and the mouse works (I'm able to click restart, shutdown, etc). Unfortunately when I start typing the password in the text field to login in, the image freezes. Funny though that the mouse is still usable.

After looking at the logs I, these are the errors that pop out to me:

OSXvnc-server[104]: 3891612: (connectAndCheck) Untrusted apps are not allowed to connect to or launch Window Server before login.
OSXvnc-server[104]: Window Server is not available

I searched the vine forums and looks like this issue was supposed to be solved with the 4.01 release which I'm using. And unfortunately the forums are proving to be a dead end.

I've googled this with no luck. Even started playing with Vines keyboard and hardware settings. Any help or a nudge in a certain direction would be great.

Mac OS X 10.7 and 10.8 include a built-in VNC server. This server will likely work better than the VINE edition while viewing the Login Window.

You can enable the built-in VNC server through the System Preferences > Sharing settings.


iPhone X UI support for existing app on Appstore I have application on store which last updated 2 years back and compliant with 64 bit requirement but now there is no active development going on this   application but we don't want to disappoint existing customers who are using this application.

But when we tested app on new iPhone X and other devices with top notch display it show black bar at top and bottom. So is there any guideline to update existing app to make it compliant with iPhone X display otherwise apple will remove from store ?

Once relevant developer news worth checking is this:

Submit Your Apps to the App Store

  Starting March 2019, all new apps and app updates for iPhone, including universal apps, will need to be built with the iOS 12 SDK and support iPhone XS Max.

So yes, you'll be required to add support for iPhone X/XS/XS Max when releasing an update for your app.

However, there is no word on if Apple will remove all the non updated apps lacking support for notch.

Based on the pattern followed so far, if your app becomes a candidate for removal from the App Store (for whatever reason), Apple will typically inform you in advance and request you to push an update to the app and give you a deadline to do so.


How can I open an application URL? How can I open application URLs in Terminal or Alfred?

My Problem:
I use Airmail2 as default mail client as well as OmniFocus 2 to organize my work. Airmail2 allows to copy application URLs via EDIT→Copy Message Link, which yields a link like airmail://message?mail=myAccount&messageid=etPan.55ba060a....

When I paste this link in the notes section of a task in OmniFocus, it gets automatically converted into a clickable link that works as expected. Other programs, such as Evernote, will not recognize it as URL. It would be really handy to access these links even outside of OmniFocus.

How can I open these application URLs besides pasting it into an OmniFocus task note section and click it? I would prefer a Terminal command or a script, which I can include in Alfred. The open command of the Terminal does not work unfortunately.

Maybe I don't get the question right but:

You may open such an application URL in almost any available application with text fields or text boxes: highlight the URL (sometimes even only parts of it - at least the scheme and the first character after the :// (e.g. airmail://m - are sufficient to open the application), right-click and choose "Open URL". And yes, it's of course also working in the Chrome/Safari Omnibar: Just enter the URL and hit the "Enter" key.

In Evernote you have even two ways to open it:

You may paste the URL(s) in a note and by choosing the whole URL or parts of it the context menu offers "Open URL"
If you have only one application URL in your note, you may add the URL to the "Note info" (red circle) and then you'll get a clickable link with the "scheme specific part" of the URL or only parts of the "scheme specific part" - here "message" (blue circle).

In the Terminal you have several ways to open the URL:

highlight the whole URL or parts of it and the context menu offers "Open URL"
highlight the whole URL and command & double click it
enter open URL
(e.g. open airmail://message?mail=myAccount&messageid=etPan.55ba060a....)
(OK, the interaction between Terminal and Airmail2 uncovers a glitch, because Airmail2 opens if closed, gets to the front and the message is chosen, but the GUI is not visible.)


Unable to set up lan in macbook pro ( with retina display) In macbook pro there is no lan port, for that I bought lan to usb connector.

But I am unable to setup net-connection.

In System preference > networks there is no ethernet option.

I tried this link https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4835488?start=0&tstart=0

There's a add button at the bottom right portion of that screenshot. Click it.

It will present you with options to add a new interface, and if wired Ethernet is available on your Mac, it will appear there.


Need help with update to latest Git using Terminal I was trying to update to the latest Git version in my Terminal. I've no clue what I did and all I remember was that I removed the previous installed Git I think because when i run the following commands:

which git => /usr/local/bin/git
git --version => -bash: /usr/bin/git: No such file or directory
brew install git => Warning: git-2.2.1 already installed
brew doctor => Your system is ready to brew.
brew link git => Warning: Already linked: /usr/local/Cellar/git/2.2.1
$PATH => "/usr/local:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin"

My question is what should i do next so that I can use Git ?

I suspect that git's location is still cached in /usr/bin (the default location). To check this, type:

type git

The result will likely be:

git is hashed (/usr/bin/git)

To fix this, you can simply log out & back in, or clear the hash for git with the following:

hash -d git

Now, running git should work properly.


What stickers are available to hide the glowing Apple logo on the back of my MBP? I would like to hide the glowing Apple logo on the backside of my MacBook Pro.

I'm looking for a simple silver colored sticker. And I don't want to add any message or other brand or art on my laptop.

Is there any unobtrusive sticker available?

Any sticker will be obtrusive it's is aim is to just mask the Apple logo.  Without you get something to cover the whole rear panel your sticker be as obvious as the logo it's trying to replace, and will probably look a lot worse as there will be some light bleeding through the vinyl unless it's a serious thick sticker, which will then catch on things and have edge-peel issues etc.

Search on Amazon for Macbook and Gelaskins for an idea for covering the whole rear, this is an example:

If you want something smaller, you can use something to take the edge off it by highlighting it in a way that marginally masks it:


How to increase font size in Mac App Store? How do you increase the font size in the Mac App Store? I have just gotten a new Apple Cinema Display and I'm getting used to the higher resolution. I like it and don't wish to lower it. I have just been increasing the font size etc. wherever I can. The only place where I've found it to be a real issue is in the Mac App Store.

Having just checked all prefs that I thought might have an effect on this, the only option I found was in the "Seeing" tab in Universal in System Preferences.  There, you have a Keyboard shortcut available to turn on/off Zoom.

Sorry, but that is the best answer I can give you.  Perhaps others will chime in with something better.


External Monitor Periodically Flashes Blue with 2016 MBP on High Sierra I'm running into an issue with my 2016 MBP with touchbar, after updating to High Sierra, where my LG 27UD69 external monitor will periodically have the whole screen turn blue for a split second before going back to normal. The monitor is connected to my MBP using the provided HDMI cable which then goes through an Anker thunderbolt-3 to HDMI adapter. I'm outputting 4K at 60hz.

Everything was working fine prior to the high sierra update and continues to work perfectly when running windows 10 under bootcamp. I would really appreciate help with solving this issue.

Edit (more detail)

I'm running macOS version 10.13.12. Also, my Macbook is connected to power at all times while using the monitor.

I have had this issue when restarting my MacBook Pro while being connected to a 4K TV. I found that in addition to the blue flash, it sometimes decides to turn black for a fraction of a second during normal operation (with an external monitor attached).

The way I was able to fix this is by connecting the Mac to power from the wall. Having researched this extensively a couple of months ago, I found out that the video initialization (and apparently frame rate conversion) to the 4K monitor or TV causes the blue flashing as it undergoes the process of colour matching, scaling etc. I am not too sure why it is blue, but that's a topic for later.

I'll spare you the links and instead have summarized it here. This issue annoyed me at the beginning but since having my mac plugged into the wall outlet, I have not come across it again. I hope my interpretation of your issue was correct, please let me know whether having the Mac plugged in makes a difference in your case, I'd be interested in following up with you on this.

Addition
If you have access to another High Speed HDMI cable, perhaps you can borrow one, I suggest you try replacing it with the current. My guess would be that perhaps the adaptor is somehow degrading the signal. I personally have had issues with non-Apple adaptors in the past - especially when 4K quality or high frame rate is key. I'm certainly no expert on accessories but maybe it is really worth testing another adaptor.


Why does my name not show up in messages My contact name does not show up when I send a message, but my email address does. My contacts can't tell who messaging is from.  How do I fix this?

Let's check your settings and see what you have under Settings -> Messages -> Send & Receive. Make sure your "Start New Conversations From" setting is your phone number instead of an email address.

The existing threads with people will still use your email, but when you start a new thread, it will use your phone number properly.


How to configure Terminal to be "Putty-like" when it comes to copy-paste with mouse? As a long time Putty user, I love how upon selecting a text it gets copied  into the buffer and upon right clicking it gets pasted back in.

Is there a way to configure Terminal to behave the same way?

Terminal is limited in its configurability but iTerm2 is a Terminal replacement that does what you ask and more. Including bookmarks for ssh sessions not unlike puTTY.


LaunchBar/Quicksilver as a replacement of Spotlight? I asked about the usefulness of spotlight here, as I don't like the drag that spotlight causes all the time.

What I found useful in Spotlight is those two.

word lookup : spotlight opens 'Dictionary' App automatically when it can look the word up.
search for PDF

And one of the answer that I got is from 'Dan Ray' saying "Personally, I disable it in favor of Quicksilver.".

I don't use Quicksilver, but LaunchBar, but it seems to me that LaunchBar doesn't look up the pdf. And, furthermore, it has an option to search in Spotlight.

and My questions are

Can LaunchBar can do the two things? Look into Dictionary, and pdf search?
Can QuickSilver can do the two things?

If one of the tools can do that, I guess I just disable Spotlight, and enjoy the speedup.

QuickSliver has Spotlight plugin and Dictionary (which can fetch definition from dict.org plugin.

The spotlight plugin allows you to search for a string in either Finder, Window or a command window.


What's the best way to wind a MagSafe 2 around the clip and power brick to make it easier to transport? I'm totally blind, and have a MacBook with MagSafe 2 connected to the extension cable. Would somebody be able to explain how the cable can be wound around the clip on the MagSafe 2 and the pop-out wings on the power brick end to make it easier to transport in a bag? Lots of references that I've found on how this can be done are either videos or images which makes it harder to understand how this is done.

Thanks.

I realize your post states you're completely blind, but I had to add pictures to make it absolutely clear to a sighted helper what I'm attempting to describe to you. My answer may also help others have a healthier relationship with their MagSafe charger cables.

The MagSafe cable, where it connects to the power brick, tends to get too severely bent with 'normal usage', even though there is additional strain- and bend-relief built into the cable, and the cable integrity can be compromised. When winding the MagSafe cable for transport, I tend to position the bend-relief section of the cable so it sticks straight out from the power brick, then proceed to wind the MagSafe cable firmly around the wings. When wound correctly, and the last 2 inches of the cable is free, I loop the the MagSafe cable around the winding, and the connector neatly sits protected, inside the windings, at the top of the power brick between a wing and the bend-relief:

The power cable is wound neatly and fastened using a single Velcro-brand "One Wrap Thin Tie". The power cable has a natural tendency to coil in a particular radius which is optimal for keeping the wrap neat. Follow that coil, place the tie-wrap in the right spot, and all is neat.

I've been throwing this power supply in and out of my bag weekly for the past few years. I'm a little OCD, and I treat my equipment with care, so YMMV.


To give priority to .tex files in Spotlight search? I would like to search first my notes (.tex).

How can you set priority to tex -files in Spotlight search?

It seems that you can't do that in Spotlight preferences.

What you could do is reorder categories by drag and drop in the 'Search Results' tab inside Spotlight's preferences. You could also disable (uncheck) categories you don't want to like 'Applications','Suggestions'…

An alternative solution is :

from the Finder create a custom search that looks (criteria) for files with ending name : .tex
Save this search, it will now be available form the sidebar of the Finder like a classic folder.
Select your saved search in the sidebar of the finder, then enter in the search bar the name of the file you want. The search will now occur only on the file inside the saved search.

From the finder you could also do more quickly a search with two criteria :

Files with name ending by .tex
Files with name containing 'what you search'

Here's an article about custom search in finder.


Any way to use a VLOOKUP formula in Numbers to insert an image instead of text value? The intent is to create a sheet that references orders from customers with an image of each item ordered from my catalog of inventory.

I need to create a spreadsheet that references item SKUs to display an image of a unique item. For example: 004 entered in cell A:1 should lookup 004 on sheet "images" and return the value in column 2 that matches 004. I have successfully created this formula using the VLOOKUP function.

However, I want Numbers to populate the image in the resulting cell. The way my formula currently works it will only return the text in the cell. How do I get it to return the image value? If I delete the text out of the cell corresponding to 004 the result returned is 0 even though there is an image pasted into the cell.

Current formula:

VLOOKUP($A2,images::Table 1::A$1:B$10,2,FALSE)

I had dragged images from the Finder into cells but it appears as though they only show up as background images in the cells or something like that.

The images aren't the actual content of the cell, they're just cell formatting (background image), and formula cannot interact with formatting, only with cell contents.
Conditional formatting can only apply a restricted set of formatting options and unfortunately images are not one of these.
AppleScript does not provide the ability to set cell background images, only cell background colours (even though shapes and text items do have the ability for background images).

Therefore currently this is not possible.


Dialog size in messages I own a 16gb iPhone and currently running out of space. After inspecting the storage manager I found out that the most storage has been consumed by messages. I tried to look for ways to see or order my dialogs biggest to smallest size by didn't find a way to do so. Is there a way I can do it on my phone or laptop or is the only option is blunt deleting all dialogs?
Please don't suggest deleting other apps

It is not possible to order messages by size on your phone. On your computer, it may be doable with a little Finder footwork.

However, since it appears that you are running iOS 8, I suggest that you select to only keep messages for 30 days. If you open the Settings.app, navigate to Messages, then "Keep Messages" there are three options there with the shortest being 30 days. You may find this allows a good enough balance of your space.

Also, the messages are automatically sorted by date, so you could manually delete the oldest threads which are automatically taking up space while not being used much. In addition, if there are any threads that you know (some use texts in a similar style to social media or iCloud photos) have many pictures, those should be the first to go.


Automator: How to replace a particular string with the filename? Within Automator, how can I replace a particular string in many different files with the filename of each file?

// UPDATE

Using a "Run Shell Script" process I am able to get the body of a test file (an html file), with the string correctly replaced, but the modified file isn't being saved. I just see the file's contents as text in the "results" pane of "Run Shell Script". How do I:

a) Get the file name instead of the entire filepath?
b) Save the modified file? Do I need another step when using sed?

You can use a Run Shell Script action, with a script like this:

basename=${1##*/}
tmp=`mktemp -t $$`
sed -e "s/STRING_TO_BE_REPLACED/$basename/g" "$1" > $tmp && mv $tmp "$1"

with Pass input: set to as arguments:


Nested VPNs on iPhone iOS 11 I am developing a custom VPN client plugin for iPhone, working on iOS 11 devices. I am hoping to set up nested VPNs so that the traffic is double encrypted.

I am working with Per-App VPN, as well as both Always-On and On-Demand style systemwide VPN clients. As an example, what I would like to do is access a IPSec VPN Endpoint for Per-App connections, where the endpoint exists on a network only accessible through an SSL VPN endpoint that is connected through an Systemwide VPN.

Please refer the following diagram for further example of what I mean:

Note that the Systemwide VPN doesn't need to be SSL, as I understand Always-On VPN may be restricted to using the iOS built-in VPN client with IKEv2.

For the systemwide VPN, I have a strong preference for Always-On as it doesn't allow the user to disable it. In my testing however, it seems that when an Always-On VPN is loaded onto the iPhone, all of the other VPNs disappear from Settings and cannot be enabled. I have been able to configure a systemwide On-Demand VPN and a Per-App VPN to operate concurrently, but not yet with one passing through the other.

The part I am uncertain about, and so far haven't been able to replicate, has been marked with the dotted line. Can the Per-App VPN connect and route through the Systemwide VPN?

I have received a response from Apple Support:

  I talked to VPN Engineering about your goals and, alas, what you’re
  trying to do is just not possible. We specifically prevent traffic
  from a VPN provider from going through some other VPN interface, so
  your per-app VPN provider — be it a packet tunnel provider or an app
  proxy provider — won’t be able to route traffic over the IKEv2 VPN
  interface.

As of iOS11, this is not currently possible.


Hide all files of the same extension in Finder I need to hide all files with .pek extension on Finder (macOS Sierra) automatically.

OK I've changed the Peter Hosey's fs-notifier, so that it will set the newly created .pak files hidden. You will need Xcode for the compilation.

Please change those lines in his code:

In Notifier.m change 25th line to:

 stream = FSEventStreamCreate(kCFAllocatorDefault, newCallback, &context, (CFArrayRef)paths, kFSEventStreamEventIdSinceNow, /*latency*/ 1.0, kFSEventStreamCreateFlagUseCFTypes | kFSEventStreamCreateFlagFileEvents);`

In fs-notifier.m file change the whole body of the gotEvent fuction (lines 34+) to:

NSArray *eventPaths = eventPathsVoidPointer;
if (*eventFlags | kFSEventStreamCreateFlagFileEvents) {
    NSURL *fileUrl = [[NSURL alloc] initWithString:[@"file://" stringByAppendingString:[eventPaths objectAtIndex:0UL]]];
    if ([fileUrl.pathExtension isEqualToString:@"pak"]) {
        [fileUrl setResourceValue:@YES forKey:NSURLIsHiddenKey error:nil];
    }
}

Note: In order to compile the sources you might need to set the 64bit architecture.

After the compilaton you'll launch the program with the path to the directory you want to monitor.

I've tested it and it works, however I don't know what's the impact on the system.

Edit: To hide .pak files already created, run this command:

find -x /path/to/folder -name \*.pak -exec chflags hidden {} +

Answer from superuser.


How can I change the command key to be the ctrl key for tmux. It's already mapped for other apps) tmux wants me to press Command+A (or Command+B by default, changed it by having set -g prefix C-a in my .tmux_conf file).

I have already switched Control and Command, so, in general, Control+C will now do Command+C, etc.

So how can I make tmux also use Control instead of Command ?

How did you switch control and command ? Did you use the "Modifier keys" tab from System Preferences > Keyboard ? By doing so, your keys will be switched on all the apps. I'm not sure this is exactly what you're looking for, if no please let me know.


iPhone 4s replaced battery, still drains quickly I replaced the battery in my mom's old iPhone 4s. Battery is direct from iFixit. I've replaced iPhone batteries before and everything seemed to go right. Problem: I charge it fully before bed, and when I wake up it has like 30% power. My iPhone 6 will have battery percentage above 90% in the morning. I understand the 4s battery is 1430 mAh vs the 1810 mAh in the 6. But the drain difference seems too big. I did a DFU restore of OS 9.3.5 (the highest a 4s supports). Didn't help. Ran battery to zero once to condition it. Auto-lock is set at 1 minute. Mail accounts are set to fetch, most notifications turned off, etc. Seems like the iPhone just doesn't fully go to sleep to save battery. Any ideas on how to slow the battery drain? Is that just how it's supposed to work? Should I give up and get her a newer iPhone?

The only thing I could recommend for an older Apple device is to call Apple Support and have them run diagnostics on the device (or you can visit a store).

Worst case scenario, the only thing that may be the culprit is the logic board. Apple no longer has those so you may need to contact an Apple Authorized Service Provider and see if they can order the parts or find someone that could be selling the parts.


Above what volume is sound distorted? I note that on the loudest volume, the sound from my iPhone to 3.5mm stereo jack is distorted. Above what volume is sound distorted/compressed?

This question might be hard to answer without some rigorous definition of distortion and qualification of what amount of harmonic distortion is permissible - let alone some clue as to what signal is being played.

In general, the headphone jack is desired to distort sound. Whether its muted or amplified, the output isn't what the recorded sound actually is.

Have a look at these threads fr background:

Why do I get "no volume available" when using an iPhone 4s in a dock?
Stop high frequency noise from iPhone dock's line out in car adapter

So - you could get an adapter that generates a line-out level signal and control things from another amplifier or you could experiment with signals you choose and find a setting that doesn't sound distorted to your ears. My guess is most people would set the volume a 60% for most commercial pop music and perhaps a little higher for softer music that isn't compressed so aggressively as pop music.


Toggle iCloud services in System Preferences via command line / Bash Is there a way to toggle the check boxes (enable or disable the services) in the System Preferences > iCloud preference pane via command line or Bash?

Since I couldn't find any defaults write-like command line solution, I'd suggest using Applescript and UI scripting.

In the following example, you activate "System preferences">"iCloud" and then define that the "Back To My Mac" feature is the checkbox in row 11 (where "iCloud Drive" would be row 1). Then you can simply tell the checkbox to turn on/off, or (as shown below) always turn on if it's currently off (value of checkbox is a boolean, thus can be directly used in an if statement).
You can simply save this script and execute it on the command line via osascript /my/path/to/the/script.scpt".

It is important to note that I did not try every checkbox and further UI scripting may be necessary, e.g. where further options can be toggled or passwords are requested.

tell application "System Preferences" to set current pane to pane "iCloud"
tell application "System Events"
    tell window "iCloud" of process "System Preferences"
        set btmmBox to checkbox 1 of UI element 1 of row 11 of table 1 of scroll area 1 of group 1
        tell btmmBox
            if not (its value as boolean) then click btmmBox
        end tell
        --get value of btmmBox
    end tell
end tell


Windows boot camp option missing in Startup Disk selection I have a Mac Pro (early 2009) running Yosemite 10.10.2, all up to date. Yosemite is installed on my primary SSD (I have 2 additional magnetic drives). I use Boot Camp, and have Windows 8.1 installed on the same SSD alongside Yosemite.

If I hold down the option key on boot, I see both Mac OS and Windows as options in the boot disk selection screen, plus some recovery options. This works fine, and I can successfully boot into either from there:

My problem is that I want to make the default boot Windows (it is currently defaulting to Mac OS - so every time I restart from Windows I have to remember to hold option and select Windows), but I can't do this from Mac OS -> System Prefs -> Startup Disk, because I only see Mac OS as an option, there is no option for Windows:

I'm guessing something is borked here but I have no idea why or how to solve this, any ideas? As far as I can tell my disk is partitioned fine, everything is healthy. This is the Windows partition in disk utility, I've thought about hitting 'Repair Disk' in disk utility but I have no idea what that will do and I don't want to screw up Windows:

In Windows I have the boot camp icon in my system tray with an option for Control Panel, but this only shows me keyboard options - which seems weird, are there supposed to be more options there?

Also, clicking on boot camp from Windows Control Panel does nothing:

Thanks

You can set the default boot partition from the option-boot screen.  Press the Control key while clicking the arrow beneath the drive, and that should do the trick.


Adjusting the scale in GarageBand track visualization? I've recorded some audio from an external mic and an acoustic guitar with a mic. I can hear it just fine when I play it back, but in the visualization it is almost invisible. There are just some really small bumps on the otherwise straight line.

Is it possible to adjust the scale of the visualization?

If you double click the track it will open the track editor which is a larger view that can be adjusted. Other than that I don't think GarageBand has that ability (unlike Logic).


Can I set Mail to only send from one email address whatever the account? I use 2 different email addresses, and I have recently forwarded one to the other.

Eventually, I'm going to root out the first address and only use the second. But right now, in the second email box, when I'm replying to an email that was sent to the first email address (the address i'm going to root out), Mail defaults to sending mail from that email address rather than from the second email address.

Is this normal behavior, or is there a way to always reply from the second email address?

In the Mail.app preferences you can select the outgoing Mail server.
Changing it to your preferred account should be enough.

However, in case this is not enough you could delete the unwanted outgoing servers by editing the SMTP server list:


broken partition table after formatting drive with apple file system (apfs) I wanted to try out apfs, therefore I formatted my external HDD with it. Now the partition table seems broken. How can I reinitialize the drive?

My goal is two create two HFS+ partitions, each 1TB on the drive. I decided to wait with migration to APFS as it is not supported by all my devices.

See attached screenshots the 2TB HDD shows up as a 4TB drive?

The drive is a Seagate FireCuda Compute 2TB, SATA 6Gb/s (ST2000LX001)

I've done this, on an SSD at least.

Probably on your drive right now there's some kind of corruption going on; I'd bet that Untitled and CRE are sharing the same UUID... I've had that happen with some interesting results.

If you want two partitions, with one as APFS:

Reformat the whole disk, creating two partitions - the one you want to be APFS should be formatted as HFS+.
Once that's done, format the HFS+ volume as APFS. That will create a container, and then the final volume will be inside that.

In the pictures, you can see I have three partitions. In the first image, it's apparent that there are four volumes, and the two under "Container disk1" are APFS.

If you want two APFS volumes:

Reformat the whole disk - that the disk level, as in disky, not disky1 - with one HFS+ partition. You could go straight to APFS but I think this will prevent potential issues...
Format the whole disk as APFS. You should then have a three level tree - disk, container, and volume.
Now you can create your second APFS volume. Select the "Container" disk, click on the "Edit" menu in the menu bar, and click "Add APFS volume." That will create what behaves as a second partition, but it will share available disk space with the first APFS volume.

You can set minimum and maximum sizes for the volumes too if you like.


Can I set up each space to be a different file location? I have five spaces that I use regularly. I was wondering if there was any way to link each space to a different location; for example, Space 1 would be Users/Me/Desktop, and the others would be locations of my choice, i.e. folders that I have created. Is this possible?

It's not possible to achieve multiple desktop locations.

Spaces are not a replacement for desktops. On Stock Mac OS there is only one desktop per user and multiple spaces "above" the desktop.

Additionally it seems there are no tools to achieve this either with Spaces or independently.


Results of find cannot be encapsulated in quotes On Linux, handling spaces when I am using the results find only requires wrapping the variable in quotes. This doesn't work on OS X. This code, for example, doesn't work:

for file in $(find . -name "*.txt")
do
    ls -l "${file}"
done

Even wrapped in quotes, parts of file names separated by spaces are treated as their own result. How do I fix this?

From Bash Pitfalls (which also explains in detail why for file in (find ...); do doesn't work):

When using find use it properly eg. use -exec
find . -type f -exec some command {} \;

Instead of ls consider,
for i in *.mp3; do    # Better! and...
    some command "$i" # ...always double-quote expansions!
done

POSIX shells such as Bash have the globbing feature specifically for this purpose -- to allow the shell to expand patterns into a list of matching filenames. There is no need to interpret the results of an external utility. Because globbing is the very last expansion step, each match of the *.mp3 pattern correctly expands to a separate word, and isn't subject to the effects of an unquoted expansion. (If you need to process files recursively, see UsingFind.)
Question: What happens if there are no *.mp3-files in the current directory? Then the for loop is executed once, with i="*.mp3", which is not the expected behavior! The workaround is to test whether there is a matching file:
# POSIX
for i in *.mp3; do
    [ -e "$i" ] || continue
    some command "$i"
done

Note the quotes around $i in the loop body above.


How can I downgrade the OS on a Mac to the original one it came with? If I buy a mac with OS X 10.6.5, and then I upgrade it to OS X 10.6.6, how can I downgrade it back to OS X 10.6.5? I don't mind having to reinstall the entire operating system if necessary.

Could this same method also be used if I upgrade to OS X Lion (OS X 10.7)?

The reason I'm asking is because I heard that OS X 10.6.6 removed support for installing boot camp using a Vista CD, and that's all I have. Thus, if I ever want to wipe my computer and reinstall everything, I want to be able to still use a Vista CD to install boot camp.

You can reinstall the OS back to the same version that it shipped with by using the restore discs that came with your Mac to wipe your disk and reinstall Mac OS X.

However, just because Apple has officially dropped support for XP and Vista with Boot Camp doesn't mean it will stop working - the most likely situation will be that new computers will have hardware that Apple will only provide Windows 7 drivers for. Existing hardware should be unaffected.


How to tell Finder where to find private key when "Connect to Server" using SSH? In Finder, using the Connect to Server option, I am able to specify the server I wish to connect to using ssh://user@server form (hostname or IP).  However, the server I'm connecting to requires public key authentication, thus Finder,when I press the connect button, responds in a new window:

Permission denied (publickey)
[Process completed]

How do I configure Finder to be able to locate my private key in ~/.ssh?

macOS Sierra 10.12.3

Finder in macOS Sierra appears to only add the id_rsa key by default.
If you want to add other keys you either have to add them manually or alter the configuration.

on my machine a simple ssh-add ~/.ssh/test.key worked.

According to this guide you can also store the keys in your keychain:

In ~/.ssh create config file with the following content:

Host * (asterisk for all hosts or add specific host)
  AddKeysToAgent yes
  UseKeychain yes
  IdentityFile <key> (e.g. ~/.ssh/userKey)

You can read more about this on the Apple Developer Site


Does MAMP installation create conflicts with standalone MySql? I have just installed MAMP. And I have just now realized that I already have a MySQL server and a database that runs under it. Do I now have two MySQL servers? Will they interfere with each other (and if yes, what would I need to do to have the existing database to work with the MAMP version)?

I wouldn't anticipate any problems.  I've seen those configurations work just fine.  The only concern I see is that the built in versions of the software get updated automatically by Apple, and the versions you installed will not.  However, Apples updates include the latest fixes more slowly, so if you are diligent in installing them, yours will be up to date a little sooner.  If you are not, the Apple versions are easier to keep updated as the updates are almost completely automatic.


Broken keyboard: Apple store policy? One of the keys on my keyboard is non-responsive after cleaning it. I want to get the keyboard repaired rather than buy a new one. What is the Apple store policy for keyboard repairs? My iMac is out of warranty due to being 4+ years old.

In a general sense, policy is how the employees handle your specific situation, but here is the legal description of what the hardware warranty policy is:

http://www.apple.com/legal/

As regards to any company, they may go above the policy when it's the commonplace or expected thing to do so it never hurts to ask nicely if some accommodation could be made in a specific case.

This line of thinking has helped me in the past. Think of a warranty as a guideline for who pays for a repair. Within a warranty (or AppleCare), it is Apple's responsibility to pay for most repairs except for intentional misuse or accident.

After the warranty period has passed, it's the consumer's responsibility to pay for most repairs except for the most unlikely event that there was a clear error on the manufacturer's part in making the product.

I have found Apple to be very understanding of honest mistakes when attempting a normal consumer activity (changing RAM, cleaning, etc..) and covering things that might be considered consumer damage.

In this case, you could ask Apple to cover your keyboard, but it seems you should instead ask for a repair quote and expect to pay for a repaired keyboard. I believe a USB keyboard replacement (entire new keyboard) is in the $29 dollar range but you could reach out to Apple and get a quote for your specific location and part number before deciding what to do.


App to toggle 2G and 3G I just purchased iPhone 5s and as a surprise I see no 2G/3G toggle switch. Am from India and I stay in a place where I have poor 3G connectivity. D we have any app in the App Store that can facilitate this option?

Nope and I quite sure that something like this cannot be changed by an app, even if there was a toggle in the Settings.

Maybe there are solution provided the iPhone is jailbroken.

For the record, let me mention that the existence of such a toggle seems to depend on the carrier one use.

Reason for saying that is because I used to have the 3G toggle, but it disappeared after I applied a "carrier update" that showed up. Maybe in order to have the 4G toggle appearing? I don't know.

To avoid confusion, carrier updates have nothing to do with iOS updates


Bootcamp/Win 7: No device drivers were found Man, installing bootcamp on my late 2013 15" Retina MBP is a challenge!

I was struggling for a very long time with the issue of not having any control og mouse/keyboard when entering the windows installer. On the apple forums there were all kinds of advices, from redownloading the drivers to using specific USB ports, but what I eventually found to be helping me was this tip which I think mounts the drive in "legacy mode" or something like that:

http://twocanoes.com/winclone/support#faq123

Now I can control mouse and keyboard, but soon after the installer tells me that "No device drivers were found. Make sure that the installation media contains the correct drivers and then click OK".

I am using a USB hd which I have formattet to be an install disk with drivers and everything from the bootcamp installer. Additionally I tried downloading these drivers:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1721

...and putting them on a USB pen-driver, but nevertheless, the windows installer can't see them and I can't get past this step. When I try to browse for the drivers I see two drives:

BOOTCAMP (C:)
BOOT (X:)

Program Files
sources
Users
Windows

(C:) is my bootcamp partition and I am assuming that (X:) is my install drive, but the file structure looks nothing like what it looks like from Mac OS X?? And there seems to be no drivers in any of these folders. Additionally, my USB pen-drive does not even show up.

I'm trying to install Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, btw. Tried the 32-bit version with same results.

How can I get the windows installer to recognize my device drivers?

I would recommend you trying to follow this kb (TS4599) by Apple and update the results in your question using an Edit: at the start of the edit.

I've posted the steps in the image below just to be certain you're reading the same as I've seen:


I heard about the new ZombieLoad vulnerability. How do I protect my Mac? I don't want my data to be vulnerable to the new MDS issues discovered on Intel processors. What can I do? Is my credit card information safe?

For the official word, and how to mitigate the Intel issues on your Mac, see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210108

Realistically, if you've updated to macOS 10.14.5, use Safari as your web browser and only run applications downloaded from the App Store, you have nothing to worry about. Otherwise, you may want to review this link: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210119

Apple has moved EXTREMELY quickly to handle this situation. Kudos to them!

I suspect Chrome, Firefox and other browsers will be updated soon. If you're extremely paranoid, you will need to disable hyperthreading (at a 40% performance hit).


What format are Animoji messages once copied out of Messages.app? I assume they are a video file but does someone have a sample?

They are indeed a video file, of resolution 640×480, at 60 fps.

https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/908342119269625856


Why does it take so long to boot and shut down my MacBook Air? It takes about 90 seconds to boot and shut down my MacBook Air. I have got it this year.  I have checked numerous things on the Internet but they don't help at all. What do I do?

I agree with JWB's comment, more info on your computer and system would be helpful.

The "standard" Apple fix (when you call AppleCare) usually involves making a new user which is a useful thing to know how to do. Doing this will help you sort out where the problem is, at the system level or at the user level.

Go to the Apple menu and choose "System Preferences."

Click on "Users and Groups.

Unlock the screen to make changes (you'll need to type in your user password)

Before doing the next step click on your user name (current user) and then click the Login items tab to the right. Are there things loading on login that you don't recognize or you think might be causing the problem? If yes make note of what they are. For example, on my computer I have only two things that load on login: Fantastical and Alfred.

Hit the + (plus) under the list of users to make a new user.

Create a new standard user (make the user name and password easy). You can choose login options and set Automatic login to the new user if you want to test complete boot up speed but this isn't really necessary.

Close System Preferences.

Log out of your current user.

Log into the new user.

Shut down the computer.

Was it faster? How about on restart into the new user. Faster?

If starting up from the new user sped things up there's something loading or running at the level of your user account that's causing the problem.


Keyboard shortcut to navigate/cycle between visible windows on screen I have two windows(e.g a document and a browser). I have maximized them such that the document completely occupies the left half and the browser completely occupies the right half of the screen ( I do this easily with the keyboard shortcuts of Spectacle)

What is the keyboard shortcut to navigate quickly between these two visible windows?

Cmd + Tab is not ideal because if I use multiple virtual desktops(like workspaces in Linux) and I go to a third application there in another desktop, when I come back to the virtual desktop which contains my browser and document, Cmd + Tab brings in the third application to the mix.

Cmd+Space and then typing the application name(e.g the browser application or the document application) is the closest I could get to what I originally wanted.

Is there a software or configuration that I can use to get this functionality?

Those would be

Control+F4 - Move focus to the active (or next) window

Shift+Control+F4 - Move focus to the previously active window

If you have the "F keys as standard function keys" option disabled in System Preferences > Keyboard, enable it.

Or use Fn in addition to the above shortcuts.


How do I look up the Unicode # for a given character on Lion? How do you find the Unicode number representation for a given character in Lion?
On Mac OS X 10.6 when hovering the mouse cursor over for example the ⌘ symbol in the "Character Viewer" a tool tip would be displayed containing something like:

Unicode: 2318
UTF8: E2 8c 98

That behavior appears to no longer work on Lion's "Character Viewer"

The code points should be shown in the right sidebar if you've enabled the Unicode category from the Customize List… sheet.


Suddenly the "diagnosticd" daemon rise up to over 200% CPU usage Suddenly the diagnosticd daemon rise up to over 200% CPU usage, even with Xcode is not running, on OS X Mojave 10.14.1

I can't figure out it. The fans become very noisy.

I had the same issue and realized that some process (in my case osascript) was flooding the system log with error messages (AEGetDescData of non-desc type 'reco' not a good idea). This apparently led to lots of CPU intensive processing in the Console app (I see that's pretty high up on your process list as well) and the diagnosticd process .

Quitting the Console app solved the issue.


Programmatically Change Screen Saver "Start after" time I would like to change the time before my screen saver starts based on WiFi network. I am running Yosemite (10.10.1). I will use Keyboard Maestro to trigger the action.

I need to find the correct setting or possibly Applescript Library / Dictionary and I can take it from there.This is related to, but not quite the same as askForPasswordDelay. That setting determines how long, after the screen saver starts, before a password is required to entered. I want to change the delay before the screen saver comes on.

I've done a lot of searching and found nothing yet, any help would be greatly appreciated.

I was able to find the following:

$defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver idleTime n

Where n is number of seconds before screensaver starts (0 = never)

This is exactly what I was looking for.
reference: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20080207030932483