Apps downloaded from app store not working on MacBook - damaged and cannot be opened I get the error message:

  Xcode Can't be opened. "Xcode" is damaged and can't be opened. Delete "Xcode" and download it again from the App Store.

I get this message for every app I have from the app store on my computer. I had TextWrangler installed from the appstore and it was doing this, so I downloaded a different version of it online somewhere - and it works fine. Apps such as iMovie, GarageBand etc. all give this message.

I have tried rebooting. Many times.

I have deleted and re-downloaded these apps many times as well.

I've tried running terminal commands such as:

xattr -rc /Applications/Xcode.app

and

killall -KILL storeaccountd

I've tried opening these apps from a different user on this Mac, and I've tried signing out from the appstore and signing back in.

I've also tried running these apps while booted in safe mode, and still get this error every time.

Any help would be appreciated.

Last year a lot of users had the same problem. It was caused by an expired security certificate, there system did not receive a new one yet.

I know you already tried a lot. But the right order is important:

Delete the apps from your Mac.
Log out of the Mac App Store (from the menu bar, choose Store > Sign Out).
Reboot your Mac.
Log back in to the App Store (Store > Sign In).
Download apps again

If this doesn’t help, I have also heard reports that this issue can be solved by temporarily creating a new administrator user account on your Mac.


How to connect to modem setup as bridge through Airport Extreme? I've recently been assigned a static IP by my ISP provider (Sonic.net). My previous setting was with the modem configured to connect using static IP and the Airport Extreme as a bridge. NAT and DHCP were done at the modem, but I couldn't get WOL (Wake On LAN) to work (an Apple technote specifies that this setup won't).

Now I've set up my modem as a bridge and configured the Airport Extreme to handle everything. I've set it up as a static IP and activated DHCP and NAT. I can connect to the Internet perfectly and everything else (connection-wise) works. Yet to try remote access and WOL.

The only problem is that I can't access the modem's admin panel. This should be at 192.168.1.1, but I can't get to it. I think the Airport Extreme is assuming .1 as its internal address.

Is there any way to access the modem in that setup unless directly linked to it (by Ethernet cable)? Will giving the modem another IP (say .201, out of Airport's DHCP range) work? Can I change the Airport's internal address somehow?

EDIT: I've managed to assign the modem an IP of 192.168.0.1, so it should be in another subnet, but this traceroute shows it hopping out after hitting local router.

The problem isn't just that you have two devices using the same 192.168.1.1 IP address, but also that two network segments are using the same subnet (the first 3 parts of the IP, 192.168.1.x). If you're on the AirPort's LAN at 192.168.1.123 and you try to talk to the modem at 192.168.1.1, the network sees "192.168.1" and recognizes it as local traffic, meaning that it never goes out the WAN port where the modem is.

It's sort of like if I try to mail a letter to "123 Fake St, London". I mean the one in England, but there's a city called London right here in Ontario, so that's where the post office is going to send it.

Anyway, when you made your own subnetwork with NAT, you should have picked a new IP subnet to go with it. The AirPort utility calls this part of the IPv4 DHCP range, even though it affects more than DHCP. It's probably currently set to "192.168.1.100 to 200". Just change the third part to something else, like "192.168.0.100 to 200". This will move your entire LAN to the 192.168.0.x subnet, and the AirPort will take 192.168.0.1 for itself.


Apple Universal Dock & Bluetooth Just acquired an azatom Tune-Stream Bluetooth dongle which turns 30-pin iPod docking stations into Bluetooth devices. However, it doesn't work when I insert it in an Apple Universal Dock (connected to a TEAC micro hi-fi system via a small jack). My iPod Touch works in the Dock, and it pairs with the Tune-Stream remotely when that is in place, but no sound. Azatom instructions say doesn't work with speakers with "digital signal interface", but why would Universal Dock have a different interface from usual iPod docking station?

iOS devices can output either digital or analog audio through their dock connectors. Your hi-fi is only compatible with digital audio. But your Bluetooth dongle outputs analog audio to the hi-fi, which it can’t play.


iMac 2011 with MacBook Air 2010 I have iMac 2011 with ThunderBolt and MacBook Air 2011 with Mini DisplayPort. Can I connect them with a ThunderBolt cable? It is for work in Photoshop on two displays. Thanks!

To use Target Display mode with a Thunderbolt equipped iMac you need another Thunderbolt equipped Mac and a Thunderbolt cable [emphasis is mine]:

  iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) and iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) support Target Display Mode via Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt cable (2 m) when the source is another Thunderbolt-equipped computer.

Source: iMac (Mid 2011): Target Display Mode does not work with Mini DisplayPort cable

If your MacBook Air has Mini DisplayPort then it will not work. More here about what options will work.


Where's the US-International keyboard on OS X 10.9 (Mavericks)? On my old MacBook Pro, I mostly used the US-International keyboard, which used the Opt key to switch to a  large set of markings.  On my new MacBook Pro with OS X 10.9 (Mavericks), I can't find it.  The only "English" keyboard has just a few such "dead keys", but none of the marks used by eastern-European languages are present.  I've found a number of references to US-International keyboards on Mavericks in various forums, but no clues for how to enable it.  Does anyone here know?

I think the keyboard layout you are looking for is "ABC Extended" on Mac OS X El Capitan (10.11). If you are on an older version of Mac OS X this keyboard layout is called "US Extended", the rest of this answer uses the most recent name but everything else is the same between versions.

Here is how to enable either "ABC Extended" or "US International-PC".

In the Keyboard preference pane, click on the "plus" button in the lower left to add a new keyboard layout. Then select "English" in the next dialog box, scroll down to the bottom, select "ABC Extended" or whatever else you choose, and click "Add".

Here are the diacritical "dead keys" available in the standard US layout.

And here are the many more diacritical "dead keys" available in the ABC Extended layout, which provide for Eastern European and Slavic languages that use the Latin alphabet, along with other languages as well.

This screen shot shows the "option" keys in ABC Extended.

This screen shot shows the "shift-option" keys in ABC Extended.

Update

Here are other settings you need to be aware of.

Enable the pull-down menu on the menu bar. I would also un-check the box for "Automatically switch to a document's input source" because I find it too confusing in practice. But at least now you know where that setting is located.

It is also helpful to go to this pane and click the box to enable the Keyboard Viewer, so that you can see an on-screen floating window that shows you all the available diacritical dead keys in the layout that you have selected.

This is what the menu looks like (with whatever multiple layouts you wish to choose)

Here is where you can enable or disable the custom keyboard shortcuts to rotate among the list of different keyboard layouts which you have selected. I decided to disable these keyboard shortcuts because I found that it was too easy to accidentally rotate among multiple keyboard layouts and I was confusing myself as to which layout I was using at any given time. I would rather use the pull-down menu on the menu bar. It takes more time, but at least I am 100% sure of which keyboard layout I am using at any given moment.


How to navigate lock screen using keyboard? On the lock screen, I need to use mouse to select the user to login. I would like to navigate using the keyboard.

I tried Tab key, and combination with Ctrl and Option key, but can't find a way to navigate using keyboard.

Any ideas?

Use the left or right arrow key to highlight your chosen user, then press Enter to select.


How can I remove a portion of from the middle of a movie? Quicktime Player help:

  With QuickTime Player you can quickly remove a portion of the
  beginning or end of a movie or a movie clip to make it shorter or
  remove unwanted content.

I want to remove the portion starting at 03:08 and ending at 03:49 of the movie, preferably through an applescript like the following:

tell application "QuickTime Player"
    activate
    trim document 1 from 0 to (4 * 60 + 41.75)
end tell

Am pretty sure QT PRO can do it.

You can use Quicktime 10.x to split the movie into multiple clips, and then trim the individual clips. When you're done editing the individual clips and you save/export the movie, you get exactly what you want: one single, continuous movie, sans the parts you trimmed.

Split a movie into clips

In QuickTime Player, drag the playhead (the small diamond) in the timeline to the location where you want to split your movie.

Choose Edit > Split Clip.
Your movie splits into two clips.

To split one of the clips in two, select the clip, drag the playhead (now represented by a red vertical line) to the location where you want to split the clip, and then choose Edit > Split Clip.
Your movie is now split into three clips.

To continue splitting clips, repeat step three.

When you’re done splitting clips, you can rearrange your clips or click Done.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH5884
I haven't investigated it, but there may be an analogous AppleScript API for working with clips.


Overcast Podcast - how to automatically play next podcast in a playlist? The Overcast podcast app (from Marco Arment) used to play all podcasts in a playlist sequentially. Now, the player stops after each podcast. How can I go back to previous behavior?

Edit: This is on an iPhone6

In case anyone else is having this issue, you might have 'Play Next by Priority' turned on.

I was finding that after an episode ended, the next episode that started playing was the one at the top of the playlist.

Toggling this to 'off' will ensure that the next episode on the list will be played, and not the topmost episode.


How to keep process running when I lock my Macbook I'm on macOS 10.13.6.

I often need to set a long process running from the terminal, and then lock my Macbook for a while, and I want the process to be still running when the screen is locked. However, the process just hangs as long as the screen is locked. I can confirm that the Macbook is not asleep, and I've checked the box that says "prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off" in "Energy Saver". How do I keep the process running (not hang) when the computer is locked (but not asleep)?

In System Preferences > Energy Saver, check the box for "Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off" (on laptops, this is under the Power Adapter tab)
In System Preferences > Security & Privacy, check the box for "Require password after sleep or screen saver begins" and set the delay in the dropdown menu to "immediately"

Now, you can hit command-option-power to turn off the display without sleeping the computer, and doing anything that turns on the display (like hitting a key or clicking a mouse button) will prompt you for your account password.

Credits: This answer


Is there a Macbook (or pro) with TB3 USB C ports without butterfly keys I wanted to get an older, pre-butterfly keyboard but I also really wanted TB3 support so I can connect my monitor, peripherals, etc. into a dock and then only have to connect a single USB C cable when I'm using the system at my desk.

The 2019 MacBook Pro 16-inch computer does not have butterfly keys and includes Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports. There is currently no other model, older or recent, that meets these criteria.


How to launch Trello on Login as menubar item? Is there a way to launch Trello app on Login or startup, in menubar only state.

Menubar only state :
There's a window style dropdown option in Trello settings. When you choose Dock & Menubar extra, a Trello icon appears in the menubar which can be used to toggle the visibility of the app window (show/hide) by clicking on it. While in the hidden state, only the menubar icon and the dock indicator is visible.

In short : How to launch Trello on startup in hidden visibility state?

macos v10.15.3
Trello v2.11.4

Yes you can. Go to the Trello App and click on Preferences. Clicking preferences brings up a pane as shown below.

Under the phrase Window Style click on the pull-down menu arrow showing the pane below.

Click o menu only to have Trello show as a menu icon only.

Now you need to get it to start on login or restart. To do this go to system preferences under the Apple menu item. Click on the "User & Groups" preference pane. When that panel appears, be sure to click on the tab "Login Items". This displays a listing of items started on Login. Be sure to unlock the panel and click on the + button at bottom of the list. This allows you to add an app to start at login. After clicking the + button locate Trello and select it. This tells Trello to start at login. See image below.


Low Battery problems I have and iPod touch 4th Gen. I got it when it was first out and it is 8GB. However whenever I use it, the Battery goes down to less than 20% in the First hour. This makes me very annoyed. How do I fix it?

The 4th generation iPod touch was produced in 2010. Dependent on usage it's possible that the battery has lost its capacity. This is more or less normal battery behaviour.

You can get the battery replaced, or if you have premium quality DIY skills you can replace it yourself.


Why does a "SAMSUNG_Android" network service keep appearing? I recently noticed a strange service in the Network preferences called "SAMSUNG_Android", which seems to be configured as a modem:

I don't have an Android or Samsung device and I've never plugged one into my computer. The only things I've recently plugged in are an iPhone, iPad, and Sony camera.

I noticed this yesterday, and deleted the service. Today, it's back!

Where could this be coming from, and how can I make it go away for good?

This looks like someone near you has a Samsung Android device with the ability to create a personal WiFi hotspot.

Your computer WiFi is able to detect this so will add it to your list of available networks. You might try disabling the prompt to join new networks if you don't want your Mac polling for open and closed hotspots and cluttering up your network connection profile if you cannot isolate or control for the source of this hotspot.


How to actually forget all past Wifi networks on iOS? Based on the advice given on my last question on iOS and Wifi, I want to make my iPad forget all the wifi networks it has ever connected to. My problem is, how to actually do it?

I've gone to General, Reset then Reset Network Settings, then done a reset. That prompts for an unlock code, then spends a bit of time with the Apple  logo showing, then restarts the ipad.

After this network, the iPad has:

Forgotten the passwords to all protected Wifi networks
Forgotten which Wifi networks I have told it "Don't auto-connect" and "Dont auto-login"

What the iPad has failed to do is:

Forget all Wifi networks it has ever connected to

After the restart, the iPad immediately starts trying to connect to a paid-for wifi hotspot that's in range that I had previously set to "Don't auto-connect", and promptly pops up a capture login page for that network!

So, how do I make my iPad actually forget all networks ever, so that after a reset it doesn't know any networks, and won't try to connect to anything it has ever used before?

You might have iCloud keychain turned on. Keychain saves Wifi passwords.
Try looking for it in Keychain access or just turn off keychain to prevent automatically accessing it.


Boot Camp problem on MacBook Pro (2015) I installed Windows 10 with Boot Camp Assistant, but when I press the option key on boot, it shows only the Macintosh HD partition. Why is that happening? Is the BOOTCAMP partition not bootable?

Note: I also had a big problem on the past that I solved. I partitioned the SSD 6 times and I lost my OS X partition and Windows partition. Someone helped me and I made the disk single-partition again and found all my files.

BOOTCAMP partition looks like this:

You have not actually installed Windows. Your image shows the BOOTCAMP partition is MS-DOS (FAT) formatted. If Windows installed, the partition would be NTFS formatted.

At some point during the installation, did you tell Windows to format the BOOTCAMP partition? See step 4 here and "Format the Windows partition" step here. If you skip this step, you will get the following message:

The Boot Camp Assistant creates the partition to install Windows. The format is MS-DOS (FAT) and the label is BOOTCAMP. In the Windows installer, you must reformat this partition. When you do this, the format will be NTFS and the BOOTCAMP label will be removed. If you watch carefully, you will see this happen. After Windows installs, the Boot Camp Support Software is executed. This will rename the Windows partition back to BOOTCAMP. In the above image, you need to click on the "Format" button.


Can Anyone Identify This Icon I noticed this icon next to my clock a couple days ago:

I thought it might be related to Microsoft SkyDrive, but that is a different icon.

Any ideas what program that came from? (I'm thinking it might be bloat ware)

It look like the old iSync App icon - the iSync App was AFAIK removed in OS X Lion.


How do I change the position of the Dock? I want to keep the Dock on the left/right/top side instead of the bottom side of my screen.

Is there a setting in System Preferences or a Terminal command that allows me to change this?

You can change the position of the Dock by following these steps.

Locate your Dock. It is usually on the bottom prior to changing the position. You might have to hold it there for a second so it unhides.
Locate the separator between your apps and the trash can and other folders. In older versions of macOS, this is a dotted line. In the example screenshot, this is between Google Chrome and the Downloads folder.
Right-click that seperator to open a context menu.
Open the submenu named Position on Screen.
Pick your new Dock position. The default is Bottom, but you can change it to Left or Right.
The Dock will now appear on that side of the screen.


How to create a .app folder from an executable .jar? Just this. I have an executable jar that I'd like to create a .app folder for. Mainly just because I'd like it to be pinnable to the dock.

Is there any easy way to do this?

Edit: Really what I'm looking for, is a mac shortcut. But apparently on the .app folders can be pinned to a dock.

If you want an easy way without need of third-party apps:

Launch AppleScript editor
Write the following:

--do shell script "java -jar /Contents/execute.jar"

I commented that line out because we have yet to put the jar there. Save as application. Now Right click on produces .app file -> Show Package Contents, go to Contents and drag the .jar file there. Now go to Resources -> Scripts -> main.scpt and open that. Now remove the double dash (--), compile and save.

If it doesn't launch, try executing in terminal chmod 777 <path to jar file> simply drag the jar into Terminal.


How can I repair a scratched MacBook Air screen? (A1369) I have a mid-2011 MacBook Air (model A1369), whose screen has attracted some unsightly but superficial scratches. They look like smudges, but I suspect a layer of coating (or similar) has come off.

Most likely, the scratches stem from frequent transport with the screen pressed to the keyboard.

The screen is not protected by a glass layer – I hope it has a removable user-facing plastics film.

Is there a way to replace the scratched layer of the screen assembly to get rid of the scratches? I feel confident to do repairs myself and have done similar things in the past.

Here is a sketch of the scratch areas:

This picture is based on a photo. The scratch shapes are correct, but color and intensity are exaggerated for readability.

The protective plastic cover on the screen is bonded to the complete LCD display and not really removeable as a single element. A video on Youtube ("A1369 13.3" Macbook Air LCD Screen Repair step by step howto guide") explains the removal and disassembly of the display and is one hour long. It involves a heat gun and very careful use of special tools:

Conclusion: there is no way to remove the single element (scratched screen protector) in a simple procedure. It would be probably easier to replace the complete lid assembly, but this items costs 500 USD / 440 EUR (Summer 2015). This seems excessive for a screen which has "only" a few very unattractive scratches.

Mental note for next Mac: always place a protective cloth between keyboard and screen.


Safari - Reload Page from Origin, does what exactly? If you hold cmd and click View -> Reload Page From Origin what does that do exactly and how does it differ from a standard reload?

I'm guessing it reloads the current page without using cache? But i'm not sure. I hope some one can confirm this.

This loads the page and any same-domain resources requested by the page without using the cache. Resources located on other domains may still use the cache. You can completely bypass the cache using the Network tab of the Web Inspector as just ⌥⌘R is insufficient.


How do I take a screenshot of an active phone call without hanging up? I'm trying to take a screenshot of the "hard-pause" dialing feature. If you put a semicolon after a phone number you can provide, for example, a conference line pass-code as part of a phone number.

1-800-123-4567;987654#

The call screen then shows a little clickable label in the bottom left-hand side of the call screen to appear

Dial "9876..."

I try to screenshot that, but pressing the home button causes the call to end and I get a screenshot of the hanging up call screen.

Use Assistive Touch, available from Settings → Accessibility → Assistive Touch.

Enable the feature using the switch, then take a screenshot by pressing the Assistive Touch button, then Device → More → Screenshot.


Does Bootcamp support 64 bit version of Windows 7? I have just purchased a Macbook Pro which will run OS X Lion. Which version of Windows can I run in Bootcamp? 64 or 32 bit? Both?

Version 4.0 of Bootcamp for Lion, released July 20, 2011, drops support for all versions of Windows XP and Vista.

It supports 32-bit or 64-bit Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate.

Boot Camp 4.0 FAQ from Apple Support.


Why does macOS replace .img with .ndif extension? I'm trying to download a custom android recovery image on my Mac but the extension is changed from .img to .ndif automatically. Is this normal? Will it have any impact on the installation on actual image?

From this site explaining what the ndif extension is:

NDIF is an acronym for New Disk Image Format. The .ndif file extension is commonly used for files that contain disk images for computers that are running on the Mac operating system.
An NDIF file contains an image of a disk or a drive that was copied to the file from the user's hard drive. This information can then be used to restore data that has been lost or corrupted.

I can't tell you if that specific file is 'normal' or is safe to open (you can use various unzipping/unraring applications to open it), that's up to you depending on where you got the file.


MacBook Air / Parallels USB Storage Drive Association Issues I am working with a 13" MacBook Air and G-Drive w/Thunderbolt. I have to utilize Parallels/Windows to run ESRI ArcView. The G-Drive and another Lacie Storage Drive are tied in to my 27" Thunderbolt Display.

When I unplug the MacBook Air, sometimes when I plug back in, the drive association, in my case T:,  changes to U:, which means my software can't find any of my 700GB of stored files.

Is there any way to change the Drive association in Windows or Mac or Parallels so that when I unplug my laptop and plug back in Parallels/Windows knows that that drive is the T: Drive, and not to change it to some other Letter?

The behavior belong to Windows, you can try following this method to assign a permanent letter:

https://superuser.com/questions/108186/how-to-assign-permanent-drive-letters-to-removable-usb-hard-drives


Set default input/output sound I have a mac that is hooked into a sound board, I have external sound card that interfaces between the computer and the soundboard, this works great.

However, whenever the computer restarts it sets the input & output to the 'internal microphone' and the 'built in output'.

I'd like to default to the other soundcard. How can I do this?

I'm running OS 10.6.3

I use SoundSource (Freeware) to set my output/inputs and they persist (I have a Firewire Audio Interface and a M-Audio Pro USB).

What sound board do you have?

Why are you running 10.6.3 and not .4?


Installing Adobe Reader without granting full administrative privileges I agree with the OP of the question How can I open a .pkg file manually? that it is not so nice to grant administrative privileges to software that you do not trust "completely". The following citation from /wiki/superuser gives further support for this.

  Given that a superuser account has substantially more privileges than ordinary user accounts and can therefore make unrestricted, potentially adverse system-wide changes, the Principle of least privilege recommends that applications use an ordinary account to perform its work so as to improve system security and stability.

I have just downloaded Adobe Reader 11.0.10. After double clicking the .dmg and opening the disk image, only a file called Install Adobe Acrobat Reader DC.app is visible. When I start this, it prompts me with the "wants to make changes dialogue". So if I type my password here (being an administrator), the application can do absolutely anything.

With a .pkg file I do not mind entering the password of an administrator, because I can see exactly what operations require the privileges. Unfortunately an approach like the one in this answer does not work, because the .app file does not contain a .pkg file.

Question: Is there any way to get Adobe Reader without granting it administrator privileges?

The 'Install Adobe Acrobat Reader DC.app' you downloaded is an online installer.

This means that the installer downloads Adobe Reader when you run the installer, such that the installer always installs the latest version, even if you run an older installer. This is why the installer is only ~2 MB, which is nowhere near enough to store Adobe Reader within, even compressed. Thus, there's no Adobe Reader inside that you can extract.

What you actually want is the offline installer, available to download from the Enterprise site:

https://get.adobe.com/reader/enterprise/

Select the version of OS X and your language, and you will be able to download the full installer of over 100 MB. Inside is your standard pkg that you can extract.


How do I create an apple script that toggles between opening and closing an application? I would like to create an executable file that opens an application if it is not currently open, and quits the application if it is already open.

I would also like the window of the application to be hidden after it opens.

I already figured out that the terminal command osascript -e 'tell application "Finder"' -e 'set visible of process "KeyboardCleanTool" to false' -e 'end tell'

will hide an application after it is open, so this command would also need to be integrated into the executable file.

The application is called KeyboardCleanTool and is stored at /Applications/KeyboardCleanTool.app

(macOS Catalina)

You would be best advised to either create the application from within Script Editor as an actual AppleScript app written in AppleScript; or to create an executable shell script program that is written in shell script without calling out to osascript.  There's nothing wrong per se about mixing it up, and indeed there's lots of situations where it's needed or useful, but this isn't one as both scripting languages have their own dedicated mechanisms for doing what you need.  I'll show you both example scripts:
AppleScript
First, I'd recommend running a quick line of AppleScript to obtain the bundle identifier of KeyboardCleanTool, which is one way to allow AppleScript to reference an application without having that application launch as a result without an explicit request for it to do so (some applications do this because their AppleScript dictionary only avails itself to be read by AppleScript if the application is running).
So, run this line, then you can dispose of it after taking a note of the result:
return the id of the application named "KeyboardCleanTool"

It'll probably be something like "com.hegenberg.KeyboardCleanTool".  That's what I'll use in the script below, which you can replace with the correct bundle identifier:
property id : "com.hegenberg.KeyboardCleanTool"
property A : a reference to application id id

if A is running then return quit A
run A

There are three ways to open applications using AppleScript, each with different results:

activate opens the application, brings it to the foreground, and gives it focus;
launch opens the application and reveals the windows but doesn't bring them into the foreground, nor gives it focus.  The windows will be obscured behind whatever application currently has focus, and possibly others (I don't recall fully, but the newly launched app might sit at the back of the application z-ordering);
run opens the application but neither shows its windows nor gives it focus.  For applications that have neither a dock nor menu bar icon, you won't be given any signal that it has been opened.  This is the command it sounds like you want.

Using tell application "Finder" to set visible of process "KeyboardCleanTool" to false is not a great method.  Firstly, you shouldn't use Finder for controlling the GUI, which is what this is doing; use System Events, which was created specifically to take the job away from Finder because Finder can't even do its own job properly without having a melt down, let alone trying to prioritise calls to manipulate the UI.
It also requires additional permissions that I'm sure you've already granted, but is worth mentioning for other users who don't wish to do this.
Lastly, if you don't need call in outside help to do something, it's much more advantageous (quicker, more efficient, less demanding on resources) to use a means already availed to you by the core scripting commands.
To create an Application using the above script: Save the script in Script Editor, selecting the type from the drop down list in the Save dialog that is called something like "Application bundle" or "AppleScript Applet".  You'll know it when you see the four options.  It can be saved anywhere you like, but a sub-directory in your user applications folder would be a sensible choice, i.e. ~/Applications, or the root applications folder, /Applications if you prefer.
Shell Script, e.g. bash
Let me know if you use a shell other than bash, and I'm aware Catalina is packaged with zsh and I, myself, preferentially use Fish and recommend you check it out.
The bash script for the task at hand can be this:
pkill -i 'KeyboardCleanTool' || lsappinfo launch nofront=true async=true /Applications/KeyboardCleanTool.app

This can be saved as anything you like, and ideally in a directory that is listed in your $PATH environment variable, such as _/usr/local/bin.  It will also need to be made executable.  Taking the above script, here's the entire bash code that will do all this:
echo '#!/usr/bin/env bash

A="${1-KeyboardCleanTool}" # Default app name if none given
[[ -e "${fp="/Applications/$A.app"}" ]] || fp="$( locate -l 1 -i "*/$A.app" )"
pkill -i "$A" || lsappinfo launch nofront=true async=true "$fp"' > /usr/local/bin/rd; chmod +x /usr/local/bin/rd

Once that's done, you can invoke the program like this:
rd textedit           # Will run or quit TextEdit
rd keyboardcleantool  # Will run or quit KeyboardCleanTool
rd                    # (Default) Will run or quit KeyboardCleanTool

And, of course, you don't need to save the program in /usr/local/bin.  Saving it in your main /Applications folder is perfectly fine.  It will have an icon representing a Terminal shell, but you can treat it like any other application: double-click to run from within Finder and it will exit when it's done.


How to remove Macintosh HD from desktop? I don't even know how, but this Macintosh HD logo is stuck on my desktop, and it wasn't like that a couple of days ago.
Don't see anyway to remove it or eject it from Desktop.

Thanks (;

Go to Finder's preferences and on its General tab under "Show these items on the desktop:", uncheck: Hard disks


Can I free up space on my iPhone 3GS taken by application data? I click general> usage> under storage I see apps with memory usage, how do I delete these to free up space to increase available memory?

On your iPhone's home screen, tap and hold on the app you would like to delete. An "x" will appear and the icons will begin to wiggle. Tap the "x", and accept the prompt to delete the app.


"The operation couldn’t be completed. (BKAgentServiceErrorDomain error 8.)" I recently updated to High Sierra, and am now unable to open books (ePubs/PDFs alike) via iBooks. These books are there, I can drag them out to my Desktop or sync them to my iPad, but they do not open in iBooks.

Instead, an alert is displayed with the following text:

The operation couldn’t be completed. (BKAgentServiceErrorDomain error 8.)

A black-HUD-ed spinner appears on the book's icon, spinning indefinitely.

How do I resolve this issue?

This is crazy, but it worked (after everything else failed). I opened:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Updates

And clicked on the ePub/PDF files there. iBooks opened them. In my case, I had 1 ePub file, and 1 PDF file. I don't know how or why, but I can confirm that it is an issue related to the Updates folder, because simply deleting that folder caused the problem to resurface.

To all those out there - good luck dealing with this infuriating app.


Extremely poor video quality on Samsung monitor with HDMI I have connected my MacBook Pro to a Samsung P2770HD monitor using a Kanex brand Mini Displayport to HDMI cable

However, the output on the Samsung monitor is absolutely garbage. It is pixellated to the point that I don't even want to look at it.

The resolution is 1600x900 (but I have tried all other resolutions as well - all with similar output)

When I connect my Windows laptop to the same monitor using DVI cables, I get 1920 x 1080 resolution and the display is crystal clear.

How do troubleshoot this?

To fix, use the monitor's menu and change Size&Position/Image Size to Screen Fit.

(I connected a MacBook Pro 2013 via HDMI to the same monitor and the quality was horrible.)


Why does Safari add a weird extension to YouTube links? When I click on a YouTube video the browser always adds this extension to the link: "&frags=pl%2Cwn".

Example links:

Normal link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Example123
Link in Safari: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Example123&frags=pl%2Cwn

This problem only occurs when I use my MacBook Pro in Safari (version 12.0.2).

Both links work, I've tried it on multiple computers / different web browsers and as far as I see there's absolutely no difference.

When I click on a video in YouTube the link gets added automatically, but I can remove it manually and the page just loads again without the extension (like a refresh of the page).

My questions are:

Why does this happen?
Has anybody else encountered this problem (Maybe it's a user-specific problem)?

The Youtube webapp is adding that to the link (or URL, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL).
The characters after the question mark in the link is the query string (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_string). It's one of the ways data can be passed to the server. The "v" parameter specifies which video to show. The ampersand ("&") separates parameters.
I can't find any reference as to what the "frags" parameter does. "%2C" is a comma (",") that's been percent-encoded (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding), so that part is setting the "frags" parameter to "pl,wn".
It's definitely not a problem. Everything is fine.


Can't transfer 4gbyte file from USB flash drive to Snow Leopard I've been unable to transfer XCode 3.2.6, a 4gbyte .dmg file, from a USB flash drive to 2 snow leopard MacBooks.  It stops at 2.2gbytes with an error.  The flash drive is formatted with NTFS from a win7 machine.

How do I get XCode on Snow Leopard?  Should I do something special with the flash drive?

I understand 3.2.6 is the last XCode version to work on Snow Leopard?

Latest version of Xcode that works for Snow Leopard is Xcode 4.2 and iOS 5 for Snow Leopard. It's only 1.64 GB. To access it, log in to http://developer.apple.com/ios, look for "Other Xcode" button, click it and you should see the following


Strange Camera Shutter sound from Macbook Pro My Macbook Pro (Mid-2010, Running OS 10.9) has been making a strange camera shutter sound every couple minutes for the last two weeks. I initially thought it was an ad from one of my Chrome tabs, but it has happened when I've had different pages opened and haven't been able to pinpoint an ad that could be doing this. From what I've noticed so far, it only happens when I have Google Chrome open. Does anyone know what this could be and how I could stop it?

Also, is there an audio log file that I can access on my computer that would allow me to find out what program is creating this sound?

purely speculation, but is it the screen grab sound (try hitting CMD+shift+3)?

then it could be malware that takes automated screenshots.


Looking for a program that jumps a mouse cursor from the middle of one monitor to another I'm looking for a program that will let you make the mouse pointer jump from one monitor to the center of the other monitor with a keyboard shortcut or a gesture. Does this exist? Moving the pointer across the monitors sometimes feels like more trouble than it should be.

XTool (OSAX) looks like a promising set of scripts:

From the readme:

hide mouse v : hide the mouse
    hide mouse

show mouse v : show the mouse
    show mouse

move mouse v : move the mouse to given coordinates
    move mouse [point] : where you want to move the mouse

scroll mouse v
    scroll mouse integer : the amount of scrolling
    [scroll direction vertical | horizontal] : which mouse button

click mouse v
    click mouse [point] : where to do the mouse click
    [times integer] : how many times you want to clik the mouse
    [delay integer] : delay between two mouse clicks
    [using primary button | secondary button | middle button] : which mouse button

position of the mouse v : get the location of the mouse
    position of the mouse
    → point

Sources: Apple Discussion List, Direct Download (with readme Docs)


Can't install homebrew formula, says "Error: File exists - build" I am trying to install wine, by running brew install wine, but it fails. This is the output:

==> Installing dependencies for wine: jasper, gmp
==> Installing wine dependency: jasper
==> Using the sandbox
==> Downloading https://github.com/mdadams/jasper/archive/version-2.0.9.tar.gz
Already downloaded: /Users/gustaf/Library/Caches/Homebrew/jasper-2.0.9.tar.gz
Error: File exists - build

Both dependencies are already installed.

I ran into this same problem when I was trying to upgrade jasper

The issue appears to be that the formula wants you to build in a subdirectory called build but there is already a directory called build in the repository.

My fix was to modify line 21 of the formula.

You can edit the formula with

brew edit jasper

and change line 21 to read

mkdir "build2" do

or similar.


Simcard not recognized iPhone 3GS iOS 6.1.6 I've updated my jailbroken iPhone 3GS via iTunes restore to iOS 6.1.6, but after the update I am not able to activate my iPhone and its showing no service.

It says no sim card is installed in the device which you are activating, although it is inserted.

My iPhone is stuck on the activation page and I cannot use the iPhone because activation is required.

Remove the Simcard and place it back, get a paperclip to do this for an iPhone 3GS.

Try it (several times if it does not recognize it after one try) and it should recognize the simcard.


Ethernet Cable vs Wireless adaptor What are the advantages / disadvantages of the "Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adaptor" over something like the "Apple AirPort Express"?

As a frequent traveller (with a retina-macbook-pro) I am simply looking for a lightweight and reliable way to connect to a wired network.

Thunderbolt Adapter

Pros

Cheaper
No software configuration
Faster (although depending on the speed of the internet connection, this may be less of a factor)
More reliable (no interference, etc.)

Cons

Only usable with Macs with Thunderbolt
Mac is physically tethered to the cable
Sharing connection with other devices requires leaving the Mac on all the time

Airport Express

Pros

Works with any device that has Wi-Fi
Multiple devices can be connected at once, without additional setup
Allows your device to be free of wires

Cons

More expensive
Requires some configuration
Requires an additional power outlet
More gear to keep track of
Subject to interference from other Wi-Fi networks

If all you need to do is connect to a wired network, the Thunderbolt Adapter is probably the way to go. It's really no different than plugging into a dedicated ethernet port on older machines.

You should really only consider the Airport if you definitely need wireless capability or other devices need access when the Mac may not be available. Your Mac can create its own hotspot to share the ethernet connection with other devices, (like an iPhone).


Name of sender of SMS or iMessages missing, only number shown On iPhone 4, there is no name of the sender of SMS nor iMessage, only his/her number, and naturally, I want the name to be displayed too. How to do this? I tried some things like:

Resetting the phone using sleep button
Resetting the phone using sleep+home at the same time
Toggling on/off iMessages in Settings -> iMessages,
Setting short name/last/first name,
Toggling contacts in Settings -> iCloud,
Toggling iCloud itself even (delete iCloud account on the iPhone and re-add it),
Resetting Network settings
I also tried setting the default account from iCloud to Gmail, and deleting the contact, and adding it again, this time to Gmail account (being the default one, this is what happens).

Still doesn't work, only the number is displayed, and appears it is not synced to contacts at all. How can I have the name of the sender (from contacts) displayed in the SMS so I know from whom the SMS or iMessage is from?

To be more specific, this is not the problem with short names, but the names are not displayed at all, only the person's number. Obviously, I don't remember people's phone numbers, so I really need this to work.

I just had this issue happen on iOS 10.0.2. It started after I signed out of iCloud and back in (all of my contacts are stored on iCloud). I tried some of the same things you tried, all to no avail.

In my case, I noticed that all of the old message threads showed "+1 (nnn) nnn-nnnn", but all of my contacts use the "(nnn) nnn-nnnn", i.e. no country prefix. On a whim, I edited just one of the contacts that was having the issue and added the +1 prefix to their mobile number. I switched back to Messages, and right away, not only was that message thread fixed, they all were! Then I went back to that contact, removed the +1, and everything was still fixed. An easy fix, but very odd!

Of course, if you're outside the US you may need to use a different country prefix.


Where do I get a product key and ISO for Windows 8 Boot Camp? (Please note that this is a hypothetical question as I do not yet own the computer mentioned in this post, but will be getting it next year for school)

Next year, I am going to buy a MacBook Pro Retina for school. The IST course I will be taking requires Windows for Android development. Where would I download the ISO for installing Windows 8, and where would I buy a product key? I'd like the Pro version too because I want to use remote desktop from my iPad when necessary (I already know how to do this)

Microsoft has a Student store that sells Windows 8, downloadable, with key for $69. Presumably from your post, you would qualify for academic pricing.


Use the Downloads folder as shared folder between two Macs with Dropbox I would like to have the Downloads folder of my Mac shared between two Macs using Dropbox. The idea is to have the same archives in both Download folders.

How can I accomplish this?

I would probably be simpler in the long run - if a little tedious depending on how many apps might use that Downloads folder - to set your Dropbox folder to be your download destination, rather than trying to persuade Dropbox to use another folder.

For Safari, set it in Prefs > General. Click download location, select other & navigate to your Dropbox folder.

You would have to do the same for any other apps that would use your standard downloads folder - but I'm certain it would be easier than trying to persuade Dropbox to use your original Downloads folder as its shared location.

I'm sure the alternative would be to make a symlink from Dropbox to Downloads, but I'm just not convinced it would be simpler to maintain.


Home wi-fi network will periodically crash when MBP is connected to wi-fi; everything is fine on ethernet I have a 2018 MBP that's connected to an Ethernet cable 99% of the time. This is my work machine, and I'm on it all the time. However, whenever I disconnect my MBP from Ethernet, and allow it to connect to WiFi, my entire home WiFi network will periodically disconnect.

Approximately every 15 minutes (it's actually almost exactly on the 15 minute mark), my home WiFi will lose its Internet connection. Looking at my WiFi diagnostics, it complains about DNS connectivity being an issue. I can restore the WiFi router's Internet connectivity by changing the DNS server in the router, but then 15 minutes later, it's down again.

Is there some kind of DNS server that could be running on my MBP interfering with my local network DNS? How would I even go about checking for that? Could there be some other kind of phenomenon going on?!

Edit: I'm using an AmpliFi Router HD mesh WiFi router with 1 base and 2 extenders. Firmware version 3.3.0.

I resolve this every 15 minutes by cycling back and forth between 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8 as the DNS servers on my router.

Here's a screenshot of the error that I'm seeing from the router:

Also, here's my arp -a output, in case it helps

? (169.254.80.182) at f0:9f:c2:36:50:b6 on en0 [Ethernet]
? (169.254.85.113) at f0:9f:c2:36:55:71 on en0 [Ethernet]
amplifi.lan (192.168.134.1) at f2:9f:c2:36:1e:49 on en0 ifscope [ethernet]
philips-hue.lan (192.168.134.2) at 0:17:88:4f:4f:43 on en0 ifscope [ethernet]
home-mac.lan (192.168.134.5) at 78:7b:8a:c0:19:40 on en0 ifscope [ethernet]
wills-iphone.lan (192.168.134.218) at 40:4d:7f:95:e7:cf on en0 ifscope [ethernet]
? (224.0.0.251) at 1:0:5e:0:0:fb on en0 ifscope permanent [ethernet]
? (230.230.230.230) at 1:0:5e:66:e6:e6 on en0 ifscope permanent [ethernet]
? (239.255.255.250) at 1:0:5e:7f:ff:fa on en0 ifscope permanent [ethernet]

I've never used the AmpliFi system personally, however it does seem to be unreliable especially when compared to the UniFi product range. There seem to be a lot of people who've tried AmpliFi, had problems, then switched to UniFi and been very happy.

Also personally having used UniFi at four separate installations over several years I have never encountered any problems of any kind at all. UniFi just works perfectly and forever.

It does take a bit more effort to setup, but not that much. Certainly easier than troubleshooting the issue you're experiencing now, and it should then operate for the next decade without being touched.

UniFi uses a wired backhaul instead of a wireless one which frees up radio spectrum and reduces latency. It's also cheaper. Yay.

Without knowing the size or layout of your house, it's difficult to recommend which UniFi products you should go for. Generally though the short range ones are better if you're going with a "mesh" setup. In fact it's often recommended to configure them to operate at the lowest possible power level to prevent devices connecting to the wrong hotspot.

For about half of the installations I've done though, a single access point has been more than enough, so I'd start with just one.

UniFi lacks advanced features such as firewalls/etc. If you need that, get an EdgeRouter X. If you don't need it, you should be able to just plug the UniFi AP's into your cable modem.


Issues with Google's apps on iOS over Cellular I recently got an iPhone 6 (iOS 8.3, Verizon), and I've been having recurring issues with Google's apps not being able to access the network when on LTE or 3G (Gmail, Google, Inbox, Play Music, etc).  The problem does not occur over Wifi, but my LTE/3G connection is perfectly reliable for non-Google apps (streaming video with Netflix works great).

I tried the following to troubleshoot this issue:

Uninstalled every Google app from my phone
Cleared the iCloud backups for all of them
Installed Gmail app.  It prompted me to sign into my account (not sure how it prepopulated my account after being uninstalled), but could not connect to the network.  I removed the account from the Gmail app, uninstalled, reinstalled, and still no network.
Turned on wifi to verify that the app was able to connect.  It was, instantly.  Turned off wifi and reloaded the app - no connection.  Verified good LTE connection in other apps.

Restarting the phone fixes the issue and the Google apps work over LTE/3G again, but the problem recurs every couple days, and the only solution is to turn the phone off and on.

Any ideas?  The fact that the problem persists across uninstallations and is only solved by a reboot of the phone seems to indicate a problem with the iPhone rather than Google apps, but the fact that the problem is isolated to Google apps would indicate otherwise.  I'd take it to the Apple store, but I have a feeling they'd just tell me to contact Google.

Update

When the issue is occurring, I can access google.com via Safari and via Ping Analyzer.

Tetsujin's answer helped me, although my problem wasn't exactly the same as his. Google and Google maps weren't yielding results, and I blamed my service provider for crappy coverage, although other apps were working. I went into Settings -> Cellular as per Tetsujin's instructions, and found that Google and Google maps were turned off under "Use cellular data for"... Turned them back on, and they now work. When setting up my phone, I had set up Google apps conservatively to keep the MoFos from snooping on me. Turns out that totally invalidates them when not on wifi....


Foolproof way of extracting .pkg files I know there are some paid GUI tools that let you do this, but I'm not interested in those.

Currently, I'm doing this:

gzcat Contents/Archive.pax.gz | pax -r

However, there are some pkg files that are now xar archives and I need pkgutil to extract them. And there's probably other permutations of pkg spec that I'm not aware of.

Bottom line is that I can always find some way to manually get the stuff out of the pkg, but I'd like a one-shot solution that would do this automatically without worrying about the specific pkg implementation, say:

unpkg CrappyPackage.pkg

Does such a thing exist?

Perhaps the most foolproof way is to use the system installer itself but that seems to always need a full system drive as its target. Would be really useful if you could do something along the lines of:

installer -pkg CrappyPackage.pkg -target SomeEmptySandbox.dmg

I know there is this question: How can I open a .pkg file manually?
However, all the offered solutions there are pretty manual and I'm doing those right now anyways.

It's easy enough to create a shell script which checks for a few conditions and then takes the appropriate action.

I've put mine at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18414/bin/unpkg.sh but will copy the initial version below:

#!/bin/zsh
#
#   Author:     Timothy J. Luoma
#   Email:      luomat at gmail dot com
#   Date:       2011-12-29
#
#   Purpose:    extract .pkg files, either xar archives or directory
#
#   URL:       http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18414/bin/unpkg.sh
#
#   See also:  http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/34957/foolproof-way-of-extracting-pkg-files

NAME="$0:t"

    # Brief explanation of how program works
USAGE="$NAME is meant to extract package files. (Filenames must end in .pkg). Can handle both .pkg directories or xar archives.

Usage: $NAME /path/to/foo.pkg
"

    # in case of emergency, report error and exit
die ()
{
    echo "$NAME: $@"
    exit 1
}

    # if not given any input, explain how to use it
if [ "$#" = "0" ]
then
        die "$USAGE"
fi

    # put whatever we get as an argument into a variable
INPUT="$@"

    # does the input actual refer to an existing file?
    # if not, exit
[[ -e "$INPUT" ]]       || die "$INPUT does not exist"

    # get the extension of the input. i.e. if we are
    # given "foo.pkg" this will just be "pkg"
EXT="$INPUT:e"

    # check to make sure that the extension is 'pkg'
    # because that's what we're looking for
[[ "$EXT" = "pkg" ]]    || die "$INPUT is not a pkg"

TYPE=`file -b "$INPUT"`

case "$TYPE" in
    directory)
                gzcat "$INPUT/Contents/Archive.pax.gz" | pax -r

    ;;

    "xar archive - version 1")
                # Put whatever commands you want here
                :
    ;;

    *)
            die "$USAGE"
    ;;

esac

exit 0
#EOF

zsh has been included in Mac OS X for several releases now. I prefer it over /bin/sh because… well, let's not get into a "my shell is better than your shell" war, because my shell would win :-)

In any event, zsh makes things a little easier and a little nicer, and it's included, so there's no reason not to use it, IMO. Especially for a OS X-specific script like this.

This was tested on 10.7.


Transferring photos from "Documents by Readdle" app to Camera Roll without uploading it to cloud or connecting to a PC? I have found that that the photos that I have added to the Documents by Readdle app are not visible to any other app on my iPad.

I recently installed a GIF maker app which is not able to find any photos that are not inside camera roll.

How do I make it see the photos in Documents by Readdle app without having to upload it to cloud or connecting iPad to my computer?

Documents by Readdle has a feature using which you can export images to Camera roll on your iPad. You can either export images individually, or select more than one images and export them all in one go.

To export a single image to your Camera roll, do the following:

Open the Documents app, locate the image you wish to export and tap on the options button (three blue dots) towards the bottom right of the image icon.

Tapping on the options button will reveal the app's share context menu. Tap on the Share button.

You'll be presented with iOS's share sheet. Tap on the Save Image button to export the image to the Camera roll.

A copy of the image will be saved in the Camera roll and can be viewed in the Photos app. This image will be available to any app which is permitted to access Photos.

To export multiple images to your Camera roll in one go, do the following:

Tap on the Select button in the toolbar at the top right and select the desired images.

In the sidebar on the left, tap on the Share button to reveal the iOS's share sheet. Tap on Save x images to export them to the Camera roll in one go.


Preview 10 in Mojave: selected text does not get highlighted Ever since I upgraded my macOS to Mojave, I've been stuck with Preview 10 (an old trick to downgrade Preview to 9 is no longer working). I wouldn't mind, except text selection has now become invisible:

In the screenshot above, the word mechanisms is selected, and I can copy the text and paste it elsewhere, but it doesn't look selected. This is really annoying when I'm trying to select a large amount of text to copy and paste elsewhere.
Changing the text selection colour from Graphite (my current setting) to something else fixes the issue. Changing the accent colour in the Mojave dark mode to something other than grey automatically changes the text selection colour to the corresponding one, which again fixes the issue, but going back to Graphite (without changing the accent colour back to grey) reinstates the issue. If possible, I'd like to keep Graphite, as I like the way it looks.

Edit: Switching to light mode doesn't make a difference (Graphite is still invisible on Preview):

Is there a fix for this short of reinstalling the OS or switching to a different PDF-viewing app (I know Preview is abysmal, but it's convenient for several reasons)? Also, does anyone know why it happens?
Edit: I just tested it in Catalina (10.15.6, only tested dark mode), and Graphite works. The selection is rather light, but that's okay; at least it's visible. Seems to be a Mojave-only issue.

I had a similar issue on macOS Catalina 10.15.1.

Upgrading to 10.15.2 resolved the issue. Multiple Reddit users experiencing a similar issue confirmed the same as well.


ntpd not updating time I had updated my old iMac to Mavericks just fine. I then bought a new (certified refurbished, actually) iMac and migrated everything over from a Time Machine backup.

The new iMac's clock loses several seconds a day. When I unlock the Date & Time system preference, the time then synchronizes to the correct time immediately. But then it just loses time again.

I read this answer and now have a total of 3 time-servers, but it doesn't seem to solve my problem.

In the system.log file, there are these relevant messages:

Dec  3 22:31:34 iMac.local ntpd[66350]: SYNC state ignoring +0.155735 s
Dec  3 22:31:35 iMac.local ntpd[66350]: ntpd: time set +0.308737 s
Dec  3 22:31:35 iMac.local com.apple.time[158]: Interval maximum value is 946100000 seconds (specified value: 9223372036854775807).

The Interval maximum value one doesn't look good.

Anybody know how to fix this so that the time stays sync'd?

Update

It took a little while, but the addition of multiple time servers did make it better (not perfect, but better). Now it gains time, but seemingly at a much slower rate.

If the addition of multiple servers (3 in total) had anything to do with making it better, perhaps (?) the addition of yet more servers will make it better still. I now have a total of 5 servers in ntp.conf.  I'll watch it over the next couple of days and see what happens. (Even if this fixes it, this still doesn't answer why all of this is necessary to fix it in the first place. An answer to that would be nice, but I'll settle for it just being fixed at this point.)

BTW: you can set multiple via the System Preferences GUI: just type server names into the field with commas to separate them. This keeps the GUI and the file in sync.

BTW #2: here's the site I got the list of publicly accessible NTP servers from.

Well, some of these questions (your bullet list including "why 5 servers") are a little difficult to answer, time synchronization is quite the rabbit hole. The old parable about the man with one clock knowing what time it is but the man with two never being sure...

One server is an obvious "truechimer" always because there's nothing to invalidate it. Two servers is the "worst possible configuration" according to the NTP authors since it will never know which one is "more" correct. Once you get to three servers NTP can begin to mark clocks as "falsetickers" based on some internal metrics - those will show up with a status of 'x' when you run ntpq -p on the system. More information about what the columns and status indicators are for that command is available on ntp.org.

To get back to the issue at hand, a few notes:

placing the line pool us.pool.ntp.org iburst in your /etc/ntp.conf file will automatically add four stratum 2 ntp servers from the ntp pool to your time server list. These use DNS round-robin rotation to spread out load. If you are not in the US, there are other pools you can use.
you can't do the pool configuration line from the System Preferences GUI; you could, however, put the following in which would have the same effect: 0.us.pool.ntp.org, 1.us.pool.ntp.org, 2.us.pool.ntp.org, 3.us.pool.ntp.org.
in selecting time servers yourself, you should always ensure you select "stratum 2" or higher servers (best practice online is to only go to stratum 1 servers if you are serving time to dozens of machines locally). you'll also want to check policies in the public time server list before altering the default minpoll/maxpoll with public servers, some administrators do not want you to change from the defaults (this can place a higher load on their public servers). The best approach is to just use the NTP pool servers.
I am also seeing a substantial change in time quality since upgrading to Mavericks. I have just added more servers as you did to see if that solves the issue, but something definitely changed. I have a stratum 1 server on my local network and the clock on my iMac drifts all over the place whereas prior to the Mavericks upgrade it didn't.


Custom 24-hour single-hand watch face for Apple Watch Is there a way to make the Apple Watch display a 24-hour single-hand watch face? Preferably with midnight on the bottom, and noon at the top?

Something like this:

When it comes to Apple Watch faces, one is limited to customizations as per what Apple allows.

App Store Review Guidelines restrict app developers from creating custom watch faces.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#minimum-functionality

  4.2.4 Apple Watch apps that appear to be a watch face are confusing, because people will expect them to work with device features such as swipes, notifications, and third party complications. Creative ways of expressing time as an app interface is great (say, a tide clock for surfers), but if your app comes too close to resembling a watch face, we will reject it.


Image editor which can handle layer groups What free image editors exist for the Mac, which can handle *.psd files and treats layer groups correctly (for example, GIMP just ignores layer grouping)?

There are two "great" image programs for the Mac at this time, so if Gimp doesn't do it your only valid alternatives are Pixelmator and Acorn.

I have an old version of Pixelmator that doesn't do Layer Groups (1.x), from what I can see, 2.x doesn't do it either. I have Acorn and although it mentions PSD compatibility (and Layers) I don't have a .PSD file (because I don't have Adobe Photoshop).

So you can download a trial version (of Acorn at least) and give it a try.


AirPort Express or Extreme? So I'm no expert when it comes to advanced internet knowledge and I need to update my Wi-Fi router. We have 14 megabits (I think, no pro at this) or something and I have my room in the floor right underneath it and with our current router it's very slow and I called my internet service and they said I should upgrade my router since it's 5 years old.

I figured I wanted to check out Apple's AirPort's but they have two versions but I don't know enough about internet and connection speed and so on to know which one I need. Some people say the Express is good to extend the connection strength. While others says it works great as a main router.

Should I go for the Extreme or Express? There are 2 people connected on the internet every day. Me and my brother.

It's an issue of what device you'll be using, how many of them will be connected simultaneously, if you need to stream music, etc. But based on what you said, here are a few suggestions:

In general, if you have a new Mac (mid-2013 or later, for most models), it probably takes advantage of 802.11ac, a spec which only the Extreme supports. However, if you want to stream music via AirPlay to speakers connected to your router (especially if your router is in a room you use a lot), and you're willing to give up some power, the Express might be a better choice. Another thing to note is that the Extreme allows for  both the connection of printers and external hard drives, should you wish to perform wireless file transfer/backup, while the Express only supports printers. If you plan on attaching Ethernet cables to your router, you may want the Extreme as it features four Gigabit Ethernet ports, whereas the Express has only two older-spec 10/100BASE-T ports. If you have a bigger house that needs better coverage, perhaps consider the Extreme.

For further reference, and a very useful comparison table, see Apple's "Compare WiFi Models" Page.


How do I use chmod on a Mac to make new files inherit parent directory permissions? I'm on Mac. I want to make it so that any new files/folders that get created within a specific folder have the same permissions (not group, that's already taken care of) as those of the parent directory. On Linux, I would normally use setfacl, but it looks like chmod on Mac might be able to do what I'm looking for. I've read through the man page for chmod but I still can't figure out how to properly format the command to get what I want.

First, a bit of background to explain what's going on: Files in OS X can have two quite different kinds of permission settings applied to them: POSIX and ACLs.

Files always (well, almost always) have POSIX permissions applied, consisting of an owner, group, and others (with some combination of read, write, and execute for each of those).  There is no way to control inheritance of POSIX permissions: new items are always owned by whatever user created them, the group assignment is inherited from the folder they're in, and the access is determined by the umask (which is pretty much always: owner gets full access, group and others read only + execute for folders).  So POSIX permissions won't work for what you're trying to do.

Files can also have an access control list (ACL) applied.  This is a list of access control entries (ACEs), each of which applies to a user or group, specifies types of access (in great detail), whether they're being allowed or denied, and whether the ACE should also be copied to items created inside the folder.  That last bit is the part that makes this useful for you; you need to create an ACE on the folder that specifies the group you want, the types of access you want, and full inheritance.

chmod on OS X can manipulate ACEs with the +a, -a, etc permissions options.  If I understand what you want, you'd use this (with your group name and folder path substituted) to create the ACE:

chmod +a "group:examplegroup allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit" /path/to/folder

Note that the inheritance is not "live", i.e. it doesn't apply to items created before you assigned the ACE, and it doesn't apply to items created somewhere else and then moved into the folder.  You can apply it to existing contents by using -R (chmod -R +a ...).  I don't know of a way (except Apple's server admin tools) to force inheritance to items moved into the folder.


Diagnostic Software for iPad fingerprint button? I am using an iPad Pro. I have been regularly updating my OS software - beta 13. This week my touch button for fingerprint recognition stopped working. I deleted my old fingerprint file and tried to enter it new. The button would still not pick up the fingerprint. I took it to a repair shop for a quote on a new button, and they said the button is keyed to the processor - they could not just put in a new button. Is there any diagnostics program to check if it is a hardware or software problem?

Beta software is not considered stable. The first troubleshooting step should have been removing the beta software. If this did not resolve, completely wiping the device using iTunes > Set up as new (not restored from a backup). If the button does not work after a full wipe and set up as new, it could be indicative of a mechanical failure. Apple can run a diagnotic over the phone or in store to see if the Touch ID module can be detected. More likely the beta software.


Repeating a formula for every row in Pages I'm working on a simple formula in Pages where I have a table with 4 cells per row.

Product Name, Purchase Price, Quantity and Total.

I've created a simple formula that multiples Purchase Price with Quantity and displays the result in the Total row.

My problem is that I am at this time unaware of how many rows I will be requiring. So my questions is, is it possible to every new row I create inherit these properties / this formula when added?

If I'm not mistaken, tables have a small yellow dot on the highlight box at the bottom once selected.

Clicking and dragging this dot downwards will duplicate the rows (and hence their enclosed formulae).


How to remount external drive in OS X El Capitan without rebooting? I have a MacBook Pro 15 Mid 2014 with OS X El Capitan.
When I accidentally disconnect the external USB disk (without clicking eject), I can't reconnect the disk. If I remove and plug the disk back in it doesn't appear in the Disk Utility.

The solution is to reboot the system.

Is there some command to reconnect the disk without rebooting the system?

You can, in Terminal, try:

sudo diskutil list

Check the output for any drive matching the external drive you have connected. /dev/disk0 is your internal drive. If you have no other drives connected, then your external disk should show up as /dev/disk1.

If you can see the drive, run, from Terminal (assuming your drive is /dev/disk1):

diskutil mountDisk /dev/disk1

This should properly mount your external drive.


How can I install Office from disc on iMac without SuperDrive? I bought a new iMac, however it has no SuperDrive. I was given a gift of Microsoft Office 2011 (3 uses) in disc, but I don't have the money for external drive right now.

How can I install this program on my new computer?

If you can put your iMac on the same local network as another Mac with a CD-DVD drive, it should be possible to configure the two of them so that your iMac can share the CD-DVD drive on the other Mac.

Other than that, you would need to purchase or borrow an external USB CD-DVD drive and plug it into your iMac.


iOS Notes and foreign WIFI hotspot security If I connect with my iPhone to a foreign wifi hotspot are my Notes in danger? Does it automatically transfer Notes on new connection? If I didn't open the Notes app, or even if I did open it, can a Wifi hotspot read it?

No, iPhone does not broadcast your entire phone contents in the clear.
Any iCloud data sent over the network is protected by HTTPS.
Not that it matters because of the previous statement, but if an iCloud sync happened to transfer some data at the time, this transfer would only be a delta updates; content which one party does not have, not the entire contents of iPhone notes.


Weird chrome icon on my macbook pro? I am using MacBook pro. I have this weird chrome icon:

I dont know if its the official chrome icon, but it looks damaged or spoiled to me. If you are also using chrome on your macbook, does your icon looks like mine too?

I would suggest reinstalling Google Chrome rather than going to the trouble of manually replacing the icon. Download it here.

Oh, and to restore all your bookmarks, history, etc., go to Prefs>Personal Stuff>Sync. Login with your Google Account and ta da! All your bookmarks and data are synced. Then, when you reinstall Chrome, login again, and all your data will be restored.


Is APFS an appropriate format for flash drives ("thumb drives")? When using Disk Utility to format a cheap slow thumb-drive (USB flash drive), is Apple File System (APFS) now the appropriate Format to choose over the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) that previously was commonly used?

This drive is for use on Macs running Mojave and Catalina.

The tech note from Apple, How to erase a disk for Mac, is not clear on this issue.

Sure, there’s no HDD type mechanism so you have no reason to not use APFS other than interoperability concerns.

Apple at WWDC prepared has some great videos / PDF version of the slide deck and since you're on Flash, you'd need a good/specific reason not to choose APFS in my eyes.

  The Apple File System (APFS) is a modern file system, optimized for responsiveness on Flash/SSD storage, and designed for extensibility, security, and data integrity. APFS is now the default filesystem on iOS, tvOS, and watchOS.

The SSD optimizations won’t hurt on flash controllers and might help for any Mac centric work pattern.

The only down side would be file recovery software, but being able to snapshot the disk might help there.


How do I set a localized name for a folder? I want to give a folder a localized name.  In one of Apple's articles, I found out that the ".localized" file (e.g., in ~/Downloads) is responsible for indicating this, but all of the .localized files are empty (length 0).  I can't find any documentation for the content of this file, or even if it can have any at all.

How can I make a folder whose name is "One", but whose Spanish name is "Uno"?

I think this page explains what you have to do:

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/FileSystemAdvancedPT/LocalizingtheNameofaDirectory/LocalizingtheNameofaDirectory.html


Connecting 3 monitors to macbook pro 2018 via thunderbolt 3 I looked for 20 minutes for a post similar to mines, and couldn't find one. Which is interesting to me, because I don't understand why people want to use the display to HDMI instead of using thunderbolt USB-c port natively instead. Before I get to this...I shall ask my question.

I plan on buying a MacBook Pro-2018 15 inch for my home-based business. I need to connect 3 monitors to this laptop. I understand the 15 inch MacBook Pro comes with 4 thunderbolts 3 ports. I plan to buy 3 24-27 inch monitors that are 4k display. Also, I understand that the charger for this laptop uses a Thunderbolt 3 port, which leaves me with 3 left. Will connecting 3 monitors that have Thunderbolt 3 ports leave me with performance issues? Will the refresh rate lower?

Finally, why do I see a lot of post with people using old 2.0 display port to HDMI; why they can use Thunderbolt 3 port natively?

For anyone trying to do this using a dock that has multiple display outputs, the MacBook Pro 2018 only has two thunderbolt busses, but 4 ports (2 ports per bus), as a result, if you try to connect three external monitors, you will need to use different sides of the device.

If you try to connect all three monitors into two ports on one side, it won't work.


What does this Wifi trend by iStumbler mean? Can anyone interpret what this graph is telling me ? It was created using iStumbler. My wifi connection is really bad and it keeps dropping (still connected to wifi but no connection to the internet). Resetting my wifi solves the problem for a few seconds until it starts dropping again. Any help is appreciated.

From the graph displayed either your router or your MacBook (?) is having problems maintaining a connection. I assume this happens even when the computer is in the same room as the router? This is important as wifi signals are often attenuated by some kinds of building materials (wiring, metal studs, brick/stone walls, longer distances) so being near the router while testing is a good first step.

the fact that thing are OK for a minute or so after resetting your WiFi (power cycling the  router?) may indicate a problem with the router. the trick is what the problem really is.

The second thing I would do is make sure you have the latest firmware on the router. Often times firmware updates will fix connection issues and stability issues with the routers. If it an Apple Airport then the Apple Airport Utility has a button to check for updates.

If it is a non-Apple WiFi router log onto the admin page and record the firmware version. The go to the manufacturers website and see if there is an update and apply it. Even if there is not an update re-applying the current firmware might help. Also you could try resetting to factory defaults.

Failing that you could try a 3rd party firmware like DD-WRT, Tomato or the like, and if those do not work then it may be time to get a new router. A decent router is not expensive, but depending on the construction and layout of your home you might just need more than a base model unit. Just remember that more $$ means generally faster access and better coverage.


Alternate between tabs on Safari I'd like to have the same effect of command + tilde - that is, alternate between windows of the same application - but with tabs, in Safari. If possible, I'd like to use the same shortcut.

Is there a way to achieve this?

EDIT
By "alternate" I mean alternate stacked tabs, just the same behaviour of command + tild to alternate between applications, that is, I go back to the last tab instead of going to the next. I don't want to cycle through tabs, I always have a million tabs opened, so it's kind of useless to me.

Ctrl-Tab is the default key combo to switch the tab in Safari


Motion Detection with iSight/FaceTime Camera I'd like to use my iSight camera to detect motion, and if any motion is detected, record a short movie (until the motion stops) for security purposes
(ok, I want to spy on my cat).

Is there software available to do this? Free/open is preferable.

I've used iAlertU before: takes a screenshot, not a movie, but it is free.

There is also SecuritySpy which does record movies but isn't free.


Open resource from inside the bundle using c++ / qt I have a Qt app set as a bundle, and it requires a resources database. If I place it inside the bundle, how do I open it ?

The app was created in Windows, and in Windows and Linux, I can use the path for the database:

fopen(path, r);

I can do the same thing in Os X with a path like "/Users/Me/Company/Product/resources.db" or "/Library/Application Support/Compay/Product/resources.db"

1) What path would I use for the resources.db if I want to place the database in Contents/Resources ?

2) Would I be able to do anything to access the location using an Open File Dialog ?

Being that the app structure in OSX is flat it should not matter where you put anything, other than for your own organization purposes.


What does the Delete key do on the English QWERTY keyboard? I have a French AZERTY keyboard with a Backspace key (that can be modified with Fn into Delete) and to my surprise I saw on the Apple Store that the English QWERTY keyboard had a Delete key in its place, so I'm wondering if it's really a Delete key (erase right) that can be modified with Fn into Backspace, or not.
Edit: If I try on the virtual keyboard with American layout, the key does erase left.

On the English QWERTY keyboards, the Delete key functions as a Backspace key, and can be turned into an erase right key with the fn modified key.


iOS Shortcuts restrict "Get Contents of URL" I have restrictions set on an iPhone to restrict web access to a whitelist. However, Using Shortcuts you can somewhat circumvent this and view any website content by using Get Contents of URL in conjunction with Quick Look. This means I need to block Shortcuts as well even though I would like to allow it. Is there any way to restrict Get Contents of URL? Either to only work with whitelisted sites, or block entirely?
Really any solution that would block Shortcuts from being able to circumvent the web restrictions would be good.

I've sent a feedback to Apple about this, but haven't heard anything from them.


Java uninstalled but still cannot install java 6 macOS I'm trying to install Java SE 6 because I need it to use Scilab, I follow this and this tutorials for uninstall java, but still cannot install Java SE 6.

When I'm trying to install appears this message You cannot install Java for macOS 2017-001 on this disk. A newer version of this package is already installed.

The command java -version in terminal shows No Java runtime present, requesting install.

First, try to download listed Java and if that didn't go straightway, use the following script to install it.

Here is a simpler way, an AppleScript that removes the installation limits from Java for macOS 2017-001.

set theDMG to choose file with prompt "Please select javaforosx.dmg:" of type {"dmg"}
do shell script "hdiutil mount " & quoted form of POSIX path of theDMG
do shell script "pkgutil --expand /Volumes/Java\\ for\\ macOS\\ 2017-001/JavaForOSX.pkg ~/tmp"
do shell script "hdiutil unmount /Volumes/Java\\ for\\ macOS\\ 2017-001/"
do shell script "sed -i '' 's/return false/return true/g' ~/tmp/Distribution"
do shell script "pkgutil --flatten ~/tmp ~/Desktop/Java.pkg"
do shell script "rm -rf ~/tmp"
display dialog "Modified Java.pkg saved on desktop" buttons {"Ok"}

The script asks you to select the dmg file, opens the file, unpacks JavaForOSX.pkg, modifies the Distribution file and saves a new pkg file on Desktop, Java.pkg, that can be installed on Catalina.

For those who prefer doing this directly in Terminal:

t=${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/java
hdiutil mount /path/to/javaforosx.dmg
pkgutil --expand /Volumes/Java\ for\ macOS\ 2017-001/JavaForOSX.pkg "$t"
hdiutil unmount /Volumes/Java\ for\ macOS\ 2017-001
sed -i '' 's/return false/return true/g' "$t"/Distribution
pkgutil --flatten "$t" ~/Desktop/Java.pkg
rm -rf "$t"
open ~/Desktop/Java.pkg


Why I do I see these lines in Terminal and how can I remove them? Last login: Fri Mar 26 00:39:29 on console
export HOMEBREW_PREFIX="/opt/homebrew";
export HOMEBREW_CELLAR="/opt/homebrew/Cellar";
export HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY="/opt/homebrew";
export PATH="/opt/homebrew/bin:/opt/homebrew/sbin${PATH+:$PATH}";
export MANPATH="/opt/homebrew/share/man${MANPATH+:$MANPATH}:";
export INFOPATH="/opt/homebrew/share/info:${INFOPATH:-}";

This started to appear at the start of the terminal when i  installed homebrew and don't know how to remove it. Any tip.
PS: I don't know what I'm doing, so I will really appreciate a detailed response

Each shell (the program that runs inside the terminal application) has two startup files.
If you look at the steps you performed when you set up homebrew, it asked you to modify those startup files. There is a syntax error or unintended side effect of the directions you followed to customize the files to prepare the homebrew environment.

Take some time and change each line looks like it matches those strings - or systematically delete lines you think you understand what they do from your startup file and then test. Make one change, save the file, test. This is the path of learning your way out of this mess. This also could break your shell - so all manner of breakage can happen with an error in your startup scripts (or worse a loop).
Throw away the startup files - go slower or with someone as you edit the shell startup files using brew doctor as guidance. This is safer if you don’t really know what you’re doing editing the files.

This “situation” happens to about 95% of the people learning how to set up a shell, so you might choose to pair up with someone that can work with you and show you the ropes or find a guided intro that explains how to debug your shell startup files. Eventually everyone breaks their environment with copypasta - even if the instructions were not malicious.
To clear the deck, just move the files to /tmp (kind of a junk drawer for shell files) and the log out (Apple Menu - log out of your entire graphical session) log in and try setting up your “dot files” again, slowly and making one line change at a time.
mv ~/.bashrc ~/.bash_profile ~/.zprofile ~/.zshrc  /tmp

Files in /tmp clear at boot so it’s not a good place to back any file up or long term storage. It is very temporary.
What that command does is move both bash and zsh startup files out of the way. I chose those two since they are the default shells covering recent macOS releases. If you chose a different shell or had setup already done, this will undo those settings or just not work.
Good luck in this “choose your own adventure” situation - there’s no wrong choice, and welcome to the team that wraps their brain around the wonderful world of shell programming using the unix idiom of computing.


iMac extremely slow suddenly Mum's Mid 2007 iMac suddenly became extremely slow a few days ago. It takes over an hour to boot, and once booted it beachballs almost constantly in every app. Clicking an icon on the desktop takes a minute or so to respond.

It didn't gradually get slow, she must turned it on one day and it was like that.

I have replaced the hard drive with one that has no data yet. I booted off a firewire 800 drive with an OS X installation that boots up perfectly and is fast with another mac, but on this mac it is just as slow as the drive I assumed was failing and removed.

Booting from a mountain lion recovery partition is similarly slow (I never actually waited for it to boot, but it was taking way too long at the grey apple logo when I gave up).

What could cause this?

Check the RAM.

Ordinarily bad or improperly seated Ram will prevent booting BUT it is worth checking.

However, this sounds like a hardware problem as you have done so much troubleshooting.

My suggestion is to bite the bullet and take the old Mac into a brick and mortar Apple Store.


Caps lock key response delay on Apple Wireless Keyboard I've noticed a semi-handy feature on Apple Wireless Keyboard: quick pressing the caps lock key won't enable the caps lock, it needs a determined push. Benefits are obvious, it prevents accidental all-caps text when you actuALLY INTENDED TO PRESS 'A'.

Is there a way to hack this around? Adjust it or remove it completely? I like the idea, but for me it is more of a speed bump than a seat belt.

I have checked the keyboard preferences and the usability preferences as well. Keyboard delay is off and repeat delay is at minimum. There are no delay on other keys (well, except the eject key, but it requires even more determined press), and there is no delay when turning the caps lock off.

I'm on a Snow Leopard Lion and the wireless keyboard came with the mid-2010 iMac.

EDIT: It seems like the functionality is in the driver rather than in the keyboard itself. When using the keyboard in Windows 7 the caps lock key works in a regular manner. The drivers that Windows uses are standard HID Keyboard drivers provided by Microsoft.

Sadly, ends up the delay is built into the keyboard hardware, so it’s still there even if you remap the Caps Lock key to some other function, such as Control.


Why does Pages force me to waste the last line in the page? In the short video below, I'm trying to place the "CIS 256" in a new line below the paragraph ending with "MLQRT". But Pages refuses, insisting that the last line in the page, just below "MLQRT", should be unused. Why ?

This occurs because of a pagination option called "Prevent widow & orphan lines". By default, Pages prevents the first or last line of a paragraph from appearing on the bottom or top of a page and separating it from the rest of the paragraph. These lines are called widows and orphans.

To disable this, select the text. Then, under the Format sidebar on the right side of the window, click the More tab and uncheck "Prevent widow & orphan lines."


Using TextMate, is there a hotkey to move the cursor out of the quotations? Using TextMate, I noticed when you open a new set of quotations, the ending quotation is automatically created and wraps what you are going to type. Let's say I am finished typing my string literal, and now my cursor in the position right before the ending quotation. I still need to write other things after the ending quotation. For example, I may be writing a parameter for a function, and the function has a few more parameters. I know CMD + ENTER goes to the next line, and I know CMD + SHIFT + ENTER ends the current line with a semi-colon and then moves the cursor to the next line. Is there a similar natured hotkey that moves the cursor to the position after the ending quotation? I understand that I can just press ' and then SPACE, and that I can use the arrow keys, but I want to know if there is a hotkey with similar a similar nature. Also, for future reference, I feel like I can never find all these hotkeys that I maybe look for. Where am I supposed to look?

Currently using:
TextMate version 2.0-alpha.9547

Was trying to define it myself when I found out it is already defined as:

Ctrl + f


Is there a way to have a scheduled task that will run later if MacOSX is asleep / off at the expected runtime? I want a backup task to run once a week.

The computer I want to do this is a laptop, that is often off / sleeping. I would like the task to run when the computer wakes, if the computer was asleep when it was supposed to run.

Otherwise the chance of anything actually getting backed up is pretty slim.

Is there an application or MacOSX feature that does this?

My understanding of cron jobs is that if the computer is not on when it's supposed to run they will not get run on awakening, so that doesn't look like what I want.

There are various mechanisms in Mac OS X to do scheduled tasks. They take a little bit of effort to configure, but this page (formerly elsewhere) explains it and has links to more info. The at service, which was a bit easier to use, is deprecated as it wastes battery, and is no longer enabled by default.

The main recommendation now is to create a launchd plist, although cron is still supported.


Chrome: full screen shortcut does not work Suddenly after using chrome for around six months on macOS, (first Mojave and then Catalina), the (very useful) Full-Screen shortcut (Ctrl+Cmd+F) has stopped working.

Both, clicking the green button and selecting full screen from the view options work just fine, but chrome rejects to respond to the keyboard shortcut. The other shortcuts that I use on Chrome like forward and back work fine too. The full-screen shortcut also works on all other apps I use.

Chrome version and macOS version:

Google Chrome   79.0.3945.88 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Revision    c2a58a36b9411c80829b4b154bfcab97e581f1f3-refs/branch-heads/3945@{#954}
OS  macOS Version 10.15.2 (Build 19C57)

Is this a known issue on Chrome or macOS Catalina? Is there anything I can do to fix it?

Rebooting the computer does not fix this and it is consistently reproducible on my machine. (MacBook Pro 2018)

Open the Chrome Settings (in the menu) and click "Show advanced settings." Remove the take a look at next to "Use hardware acceleration" and then attempt again.

If that does not work, press F11 to make Chrome itself fullscreen. Once you've watched the video, press F11 once more to exit the fullscreen mode


Kernel Panic and continuous beeping when restarting I have a MBP (mid 2010, 13") and this is the usual kernel panic that I see each time that it restarts (sometimes it doesn't restart and it makes a continuous beeping).

Kernel Panic log here:
https://jpst.it/Rvu7

What's the problem?

The first step would be to check out About Mac computer startup tones and identify which one of these startup tones is the one you're experiencing with your Mid-2010 MBP.

Please do not guess. If your startup tone does not match exactly one of the ones listed, please comment back and say so and describe which one it is closest to and what the difference is. Unfortunately, not all of the possible startup tones are listed on that page.


Add iPhone shutter count and serial number to EXIF data At present neither shutter count nor the iPhone serial number are embedded in iPhone picture metadata.

Is there an app for that?

Reason:  Pictures come into a database from multiple sources.  Using the date/time stamp already gives collisions due to camera burst mode, and multiple photographers.  I would like to assign each incoming asset an asset number composed of model+serial number+shutter count.  This generally works for mainstream cameras, but it doesn't work for iPhone.  Is there an app that would add this in automatically?

No, Currently there are no apps which would be assigning shutter count / serial number etc. Apps like that would have to keep on working on background and then edit Metadata of photos. On iOS, editing photo would need user's permission and would trigger an alert view saying "Do you want app to allow modify the photo" etc.
So, creating such app is technically impossible on iOS without Jailbreaking.

Also note:
There are apps like "EXIF Viewer by Fluntro", which allows you to view shutter count of photos you took on Nikon Camera etc. It also allows you to edit exif tags like Camera model, software etc.

Disclaimer: I have developed the EXIF Viewer by Fluntro App :)


Launching Terminal app starts XQuartz Whenever I start the Terminal app in OS X Lion, XQuartz starts automatically. Is this intentional?

I recently turned off much of the resume functionality because too many things were starting without being called. Now, this is the only unexpected one.

Ouch!

It was indeed something in my .bashrc -- a call to xfontpath.  It got put in there when fink was installed, a mod to call all scripts in /sw/etc/profile.d  There, hidden in there, was the call.

Thanks for pushing me to find it.


pam_tid.so asks for password instead of requesting for fingerprint when docked I used to use auth sufficient pam_tid.so in the /private/etc/pam.d/sudo file to allow fingerprint authentification when using sudo command.
Recently upgraded my NBP for a new M1 under MacOs BigSur (11.1), and the change still works.
However, suddenly, this stopped working. Intead of asking for fingerprint, it asks me for password in the GUI (not in the terminal).
After digging around, I did a MacOS recovery install and it resolved the problem.
Today, the problem appears again but the recovery install didn't fix it.
Has anybody an idea on what's going wrong ?
EDIT:

I just discovered that this only happens when my MBP is docked to my docking station with 4 external screens and hard drive. I need to understand what is causing this issue, I guess this may be related to the display link USB video driver.

EDIT2:

I confirm that the problem is related to Display Link drivers. I opened a support request here: https://support.displaylink.com/forums/287786-displaylink-feature-suggestions/suggestions/42614770-bug-sudo-with-touchid-disabled-when-using-a-docke

Thanks

Answer received from DisplayLink Support:

Unfortunately we are aware of this problem but this is one of our driver limitations. At the moment we are unable to change it as it happens due to the way MacOS is treating our application/driver.
In order to change that we would need Apple to change some options in their OS. I believe that in the future we will be able to resolve such issues but for now there is nothing that I can propose.


Keep sessions between private tabs I am used to of the old private browsing mode in Safari, where you can keep a login session between tabs. But since this new Safari came with Yosemite, the tabs maintain their own sessions.

Is there any way I can keep the login session between safari private tabs till the private window closes, just like how Google Chrome does?

No, this is currently not possible. Safari Private Browsing tabs and windows do not share any session data and are completely independent.

From the Apple Support KB "Safari for Mac: Use Private Browsing windows in Safari":

Each tab in the window is isolated from the others, so websites you view in one tab can’t track your browsing in other tabs.


Does Mail support multiple email accounts? Does Mail support multiple email accounts? If yes, how can I set them up?

Yes, it does. From within Mail, open up preferences, select the Accounts tab, and click on the small "+" button in the lower left-hand corner of the window. This will run the "Add Account" wizard to guide you through the rest of the steps.


Does Spotlight index content that resides only on iCloud Drive after local storage is purged? I want to use iCloud Drive to sync the Documents folder. When I run out of disk space macOS will free up space by removing old content on my SDD.

My question is, will that also remove Spotlight's knowledge (that is the meta data) of these files?

Yes Spotlight is indexing iCloud Drive. It could take a while before your iCloud Drive is indexed.

Spotlight even shows if the file you are looking for is located in iCloud Drive.

To test if the metadata is still working after the file is purged I did:

Added test333 in the file comments
Moved it to iCloud Drive
Occupied a lot of space with an empty disk image
The system purged the file
Searched for the comment


How do I download Xcode 4.4 without using the App Store? Following an upgrade to Mountain Lion, Xcode 4.3 no longer functions. I need 4.4.

Download link

I've not been able to get a link for Xcode 4.4, has anyone else found it?

Reasons for not using the App Store in this case

I don't own a Mac, so I can't copy from one to another.

The Mac where Xcode 4.4 is required is corporate. The upgrade to the OS was volume licensed, performed without the App Store – IT provided the installer to me.

I don't have a corporate credit card (or PayPal) to use with this Mac.  I'll not enter my personal credit card information in an account on a corporate Mac.

I read about "None" being a payment option for free apps, however it's not available on my machine.

Now

Xcode 4.4.1 amongst Downloads for Apple Developers

4.4 was made available 2012-07-26.

4.4.1 was made available 2012-08-07:

xcode_4.4.1_6938145.dmg

Freely available to members of the Safari Developer Program, and to others.

Don't rush to also download the disk image for command line tools. You may find these tools amongst the installation and update options that are integral to Xcode.

Looking ahead

Apple's software update catalogue

index-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog sometimes refers to downloads that are not advertised at Apple - Support - Downloads.

Nothing for Xcode in the index dated 2012-08-09T03:35:35Z … maybe later.

Munki approaches to Xcode

Nothing there yet for 4.4 or greater but we might find something in due course.